iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- An American missionary was shot and killed in Cameroon Tuesday, his brother confirmed to ABC News, and his family says they believe he was targeted amid growing violence in the West African country. Charles Wesco, his wife Stephanie, and their eight children had moved to Bamenda, a major city in Cameroon's northwest province, less than two weeks ago. After years of missions to Africa, the Wesco family had decided to permanently move to the country from Indiana after a visit there in 2015. "Their objective was to share the love of Christ with people in a very poor and strife-ridden country," his brother Timothy Wesco told ABC News. "That was their passion, and that was their life -- to share Jesus Christ." But Tuesday morning, while driving into town to go shopping, Charles was shot. He was taken to one of the local hospitals where he was treated by Doctors Without Borders, Timothy said, but was declared dead shortly after arriving. "It appears that he was targeted," Timothy said, adding later it was "quite probable he was targeted because he was a white, English-speaking American." Cameroon has seen violence flare in recent months as English-speaking separatists have attacked schools in a revolt against the French-speaking government's education system and perceived oppression of English speakers. A former French colony, Cameroon is largely French-speaking, except for the two provinces Northwest and Southwest where English is the major language. The separatist movement has been met with a severe crackdown by government forces, with the violence bringing the country to the brink of "an emerging civil war," according to Richard Moncrieff, the Central Africa project director at the International Crisis Group. At least 400 civilians have been killed in the last year since separatists declared independence in October 2017, reported ICG. Local Cameroonian media reported that Wesco was shot by government forces, but his brother could not confirm that. The State Department told ABC News that a U.S. citizen died in Bamenda and that it is providing full consular services to the family, but declined to provide any other details. Chief among the family's needs right now is safety. "We're very concerned about the safety of the family," Timothy Wesco said. While Stephanie and the eight children are still in the country right now, the family hopes to get them out soon, he added. The family was aware of the risks in Cameroon, with Charles and Stephanie writing in a September-October newsletter about a curfew where "English section civilians are not allowed to safely leave their homes or operate their businesses without risking loss or death." "Keep praying earnestly for a return of peace to the English and French sections of Cameroon!" they added, noting their humility and excitement for their religious mission. If Cameroonian security forces are found to be responsible for Charles's killing, it would not be the first time they have been accused of crimes. In July, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said the U.S. was "gravely concerned" about a video that appeared to show military forces executing two women and two children. Cameroon's Ministry of Information dismissed the video as "fake news." The U.S. has taken little action to punish the government of President Paul Biya for its human rights abuses, including allegations of killing protesters, torturing detainees, and arresting journalists. Earlier this month, Biya was reelected to another seven-year term after nearly 36 years in office in elections that opposition figures denounced. The State Department said there were "a number of irregularities" that "may not have affected the outcome but created an impression that the election was not credible or genuinely free and fair." But it called on the parties to peacefully resolve any disputes, instead of pushing for any recount. Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. 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(AP) The government rested its case Friday in the trial of fallen Silicon Valley star Elizabeth Holmes after spending more than two months trying to prove she bamboozled investors and patients into believing that her startup, Theranos, would reshape health care. Holmes and her team of lawyers now have the opportunity to counter evidence introduced by prosecutors that cast her as a greedy, fame-obsessed swindler. Read Article Cops, PM renew tizzy over rap song BANGKOK: Deputy national police chief Gen Srivara Ransibrahmanakul has lodged a police complaint against the administrators of four Facebook pages, which he said defamed him in relation to an investigation into the controversial rap song Prathet Ku Mee (What My Countrys Got). politicsmilitary By Bangkok Post Wednesday 31 October 2018, 09:32AM Pol Gen Srivara Ransibrahmanakul says he has barely begun his campaign against Rap Against Dictatorship, saying that a close study of the lyrics of the controversial song and video Prathet Ku Mee indicates some lines are not entirely true. Photo: Bangkok Post / file In Chiang Rai, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said the song was a slander against the country and inappropriate. Gen Srivara said yesterday (Oct 30) that he authorised police officers to lodge the defamation lawsuit on his behalf on Monday. He did not elaborate on how the Facebook pages defamed him. He did, however, concede there is no evidence so far that those connected to the song have broken the law. According to Gen Srivara, there is no need at this point in time to summons anyone for questioning. He also denied rumours that leading government figures ordered him to take legal action against the rappers. Meanwhile, Gen Srivara distributed a brief containing 10 counter-arguments to various lyrics of the song to the media. The brief, he said, was written by Seri Wongmonta, a media personality and academic. Among the points raised is that the lyrics are not entirely true, he said, adding that some of the videos content deliberately tarnishes the reputation of the military. Also yesterday, Prime Minister Prayut renewed his criticism, warning the rappers to be careful. I do not care if they attack me. But if they do so against the country, I do not think it is appropriate, said Gen Prayut. They should have a conscience. Do not slander your country. According to the premier, there are laws against acts of showing hostility toward the country. Anyone that shows appreciation towards the song must accept responsibility for what happens to the country in the future, said PM Prayut, stressing that he has not ordered anyone to go after the rappers. Pol Maj Gen Surachate Hakparn, Commissioner of the Immigration Bureau, said police have not initiated any legal procedures against the rappers yet as the song is deemed to be only an expression of opinion. Voicing ones views can still be done as usual, he said. Asked whether people can still share the song online, Gen Surachate said that may be within a persons rights although people need to be careful about breaking the law with their comments. The song, written by Rap Against Dictatorship, a rap group, has clocked up more than 23 million views as of Wednesday morning. The five-minute music video was released on YouTube last Thursday (Oct 22). The song was first released on the iTunes Store on Oct 14, apparently to mark the 45th anniversary of the 1973 popular uprising against a coup-installed prime minister in which 77 people died. The rappers' verses critique the countrys political and social problems divisive and violent politics, chronic corruption, inequality and injustice. The lyrics also pertain to allegations about events under the military government. The video spiked in popularity after the police and government criticised it, according to observers. Pol Col Siriwat Deepo, Chief of the Royal Thai Police Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD) Sub-division 3, initially said the song might violate the Computer Crimes Act, undermine investor confidence and bring about economic instability. Read original story here. Road to gold leads to the 2018 PropertyGuru Asia Property Awards Grand Final in Bangkok BANGKOK: The finalists of the 2018 PropertyGuru Asia Property Awards, presented by Kohler, have been selected by an independent jury to be awarded at the forthcoming grand final ceremony that takes place on Friday, Nov 9 at the Athenee Hotel, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Bangkok in Thailand. property By Sponsored Wednesday 31 October 2018, 12:11PM Finalists in the regions most respected real estate competition will assemble in Bangkok on Nov 9 to celebrate industry excellence. Photo: Supplied Delegates from 15 key property markets in Asia Pacific will receive regional honours at the Grand Final, the culminating event of the prestigious series that journeys throughout the year across the region. HE Dr Aladdin D. Rillo, Deputy Secretary-General for the Asean Economic Community, will deliver the opening keynote address. Participating markets at the exclusive gala dinner include Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore, all of which hosted their respective local gala events and awarding ceremonies between March and October. During the course of 2018, the Awards have hosted more than 3,300 guests at nine gala dinners leading up to Novembers finale. More than 280 awards have been given away this year so far, and a further 34 country and 22 regional awards will be presented in Bangkok on Nov 9. More than 40 shortlisted developers from Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau are heading to the finals to vie for country awards. An elite selection of developers from Japan and Australia are also joining for the first time ever to be recognised for their achievement in the building sector, along with Mongolia, which first entered the awards programme last year. The main winners from all 15 markets will proceed to compete in the regional categories at the same ceremony to be named the Best in Asia. Accolades will be presented to the most outstanding condominium, housing, retail, hotel, mixed-use, and township projects, as well for the best developers in Hong Kong/Macau, Mainland China, Australia, and all of Asia. For Japan, there will be special awards for customer care, sales, and design and construction. In addition, the much-awaited ceremony will also introduce the new PropertyGuru Icon Award as one of the highest regional honours to be presented at the programme. The first-ever recipient is Dr Andrew L. Tan, Chairman and CEO of Megaworld Corporation, who won the Philippines Real Estate Personality of the Year award in 2014. Since then, Tan has led his company to win three consecutive Best Developer (Philippines) titles and has remained one of Asias most active real estate billionaires. Terry Blackburn, founder and managing director of the PropertyGuru Asia Property Awards, said, Welcome to our 2018 finalists who are making a difference to the lives of millions across the Asia-Pacific region. They have truly set the benchmark of quality real estate and were proud to assemble all of them at this iconic event. The 2018 PropertyGuru Asia Property Awards Grand Final is boosted by the support of platinum sponsor Kohler; official airline THAI Airways; co-sponsors Suumo, AA Corporation, Chec Port City Colombo, and Hitachi Elevator; official portal partner PropertyGuru; associate partner Anjuke.com; media partners Southeast Asia Globe, Top 10 of Asia, and PropertyGuru Property Report; supporting associations The Business Council of Mongolia and British Chamber of Commerce Thailand; and official supervisor BDO, one of the worlds largest auditing and accountancy firms. The Grand Final Jury is led by Vietnams Thien Duong, Managing Director of Transform Architecture, and comprises the head judges in each market: Cambodias Sorn Seap, Founder/Director, Key Real Estate Co Ltd; Malaysias Prem Kumar, Executive Director, Jones Lang Wootton; the Philippines Dr Jaime A. Cura, PhD, Vice-Chairman, The RGV Group of Companies; Sri Lankas Dr Nirmal De Silva, Director/CEO, Paramount Realty; Myanmars Richard Emerson, Managing Director, Emerson Real Estate (ERE Myanmar Ltd); Thailands Suphin Mechuchep, Managing Director, Jones Lang LaSalle (Thailand) Limited; Indonesias Doddy A. Tjahjadi, Managing Director, PTI Architects; Singapores Lim Wenhui, Partner, SPARK Architects; Mongolias Batjav Batkhuyag, President, Rotary Club of Khuree; Hong Kong and Macaus Paul Tse, President, Board of Directors, of Macao Association of Building Contractors and Developers; and Mainland Chinas Dr Yuan Yue (Victor), Chairman, Dataway. The overall supervisor is Paul Ashburn, managing partner of BDO. For more information, email awards@propertyguru.com or visit the official website: AsiaPropertyAwards.com Watertown couple faces charges after meth found in home, police say During the search, methamphetamine was located in the residence. Evidence of methamphetamine distribution was also discovered. CLEVELANDAs Donald Trump resumes the role of barnstormer-in-chief before Tuesdays critical midterm elections, Americas ongoing tariff feud with friends and foes alike seems all but forgotten at least for now. Gone are the heady, dog days of summer, when curious Americans and visiting Canadians would linger on a Washington sidewalk alongside TV cameras, hoping to glimpse Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland during her epic NAFTA battles with U.S. trade czar Robert Lighthizer. Despite the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the U.S. presidents controversial Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum exports have persisted to say nothing of his burgeoning trade war with powerhouse China. But neither has yet captured the attention of voters, experts say. As much as I thought that this is extremely important to everybody else, not everyone is aware of the impact that these trade issues are going to have on their own personal lifestyles, said John Senese, president and CEO of the Cleveland-based Northeast Ohio Trade and Economic Consortium. Some of these things have not quite made their way directly into the consumers hands, or the people who actually see these things every day. A number of companies ramped up imports to mitigate the impact of the duties or spent the summer working through existing stock of raw materials, which means they havent yet been forced to adjust to the impact, he noted. Read more: Some context for Canadians who love or hate the new NAFTA Mexican minister says to remove U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs before signing USMCA U.S. and Canadian ambassadors to make first appearance since trade talks I dont see enough awareness in the public to say, I really think this is a consideration that will sway my vote one way or another. Not yet. I see it in 2020, but I dont see it today. Industry, on the other hand, is all too aware of the impact. U.S. dairy farmers, stung particularly by retaliatory tariffs imposed by China and Mexico, have asked the Trump administration to increase aid to the sector in order to offset more than $1 billion in losses incurred since the levies were first imposed in May. Those farmers do stand to benefit from increased access to Canadas dairy market under the newly forged NAFTA successor, the USMCA, but a congressional vote on that deal is still a long way off a formal signing in late November, with a congressional vote sometime next spring. The National Milk Producers Federation estimates that the impact of retaliatory tariffs in particular from Mexico and China, key export markets for U.S. dairy products will have cost the industry $1.5 billion by the time the year is out. In Ohio, soybean and corn producers are facing a loss of more than half their annual net income under a 25 per cent export duty imposed by China which is the states single largest export market for the commodity but which is now importing soybeans from Brazil, said Ian Sheldon, an economist at Ohio State University. This is exactly what a trade economist would predict, Sheldon said. A tariff that discriminates against the U.S. but not Brazil would lead to Chinese imports being switched from the U.S. to Brazil, and that would drive down the price that U.S. farmers get. The White House imposed tariffs of 10 per cent on some $200-billion worth of Chinese products last month, a levy thats set to increase to 25 per cent by the end of the year if the two sides cant break the impasse. Thats on top of tariffs on $50-billion worth of Chinese goods already in place. China has, of course, responded in kind. And while the automotive industry, which has been cowering at the prospect of Trumps threatened 25 per cent duty on vehicles built outside the U.S., has largely weathered the storm so far, the tariffs have been making it difficult to accomplish the presidents ultimate goal the re-shoring of jobs on American soil. One of the challenges we have right now is while we have tax refunds that clearly give us a benefit, the tariffs are eating away at that, Ramzi Hermiz, the head of Ohio-based parts supplier Shiloh Industries, told a panel discussion in Washington last week. Its holding us back from making some changes, and that lack of clarity that lack of certainty over whats next is making people not move forward, so youre not moving some jobs on shore. Retooling operations to use more homemade steel may sound simple, but in an elaborate manufacturing industry like auto parts, its a complicated process that incorporates time-consuming issues like quality control, safety standards, testing and validation, Hermiz said. We have to redefine our supply chain, and yet were not given time to redefine our supply chain, and we as the manufacturers are bearing that burden, he said. Weve demonstrated time and time again that the automotive industry, from the base supplier all the way to the original equipment manufacturer, knows how to handle disruption. We can manage change if we have clarity and certainty. Read more about: Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili. The global Licorice Extracts market report accessible on DecisionDatabases.com offer all-inclusive market knowledge and insight of the market. The information is obtained and analyzed from the past and current year to forecast the market covering in the next seven years. The Licorice Extracts industry experts were interviewed across the globe to gather the data which is then validated based on the secondary data. Download Free Sample Report @ https://www.decisiondatabases.com/contact/download-sample-31682 This report focuses on the top manufacturers Licorice Extracts capacity, production, value, price and market share of Licorice Extracts in global market. The following manufacturers are covered in this report: Norevo GmbH F&C Licorice Mafco Worldwide Zagros Licorice VPL Chemicals SepidanOsareh Maruzen Pharmaceuticals Zelang Group, Ransom Naturals Licorice Extracts Breakdown Data by Type Powder Semi fluid/Paste Block Licorice Extracts Breakdown Data by Application Pharmaceutical Grade Food Grade Feed Grade Licorice Extracts Production Breakdown Data by Region United States Europe China Japan Other Regions Access the Report and Full TOC @ https://www.decisiondatabases.com/ip/31682-licorice-extracts-industry-market-report Table of Contents-Snapshot 1 Study Coverage 2 Executive Summary 3 Market Size by Manufacturers 4 Double Winding Transformers Production by Regions 5 Double Winding Transformers Consumption by Regions 6 Market Size by Type 7 Market Size by Application 8 Manufacturers Profiles 9 Production Forecasts 10 Consumption Forecast 11 Value Chain and Sales Channels Analysis 12 Market Opportunities & Challenges, Risks and Influences Factors Analysis 13 Key Findings in the Global Double Winding Transformers Study 14 Appendix About Us: DecisionDatabases.com is a Global Business Research Reports Providers, enriching decision makers and strategists with qualitative statistics.DecisionDatabases.com is proficient in providing syndicated research Reports, customized research reports, company profiles and industry databases across multiple domains. Our expert research analysts have been trained to map client's research requirements to the correct research resource leading to a distinctive edge over its competitors. We provide intellectual, precise and meaningful data at a lightning speed. For More Details: DecisionDatabases.com E-Mail: sales@decisiondatabases.com Phone: +91 9028057900 Web: https://www.decisiondatabases.com/ CALGARYA last-minute funding deal reached between the provincial and federal governments may have pulled Calgarys troubled Olympic 2026 bid back from the brink. The Calgary Olympic Bid Corporation, known as BidCo, released a funding proposal signed by federal and provincial representatives late Tuesday. BidCos letter confirming the possible agreement says the proposal was discussed late on the evening of Oct. 29 with the city, province and feds. Its signed by federal sport minister Kirsty Duncan and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, but Mayor Naheed Nenshis name is absent. Notably, the total public cost estimate in the new funding proposal is $2.875 billion more than $100 million less than what BidCo previously said would be needed to host the Games. Previously, they reported the total cost estimate of the Games at $5.2 billion, with $3 billion coming from public funds. BidCo spokesperson James Millar said the budget reduction came from efficiencies they found in security costs. When we came out with the draft hosting plan Sept. 11 there was a very generous figure in there for security, he said. Read more: Calgary city council to decide whether to kill Olympic bid Wednesday People are frustrated: Calgary Olympic bid on thin ice amid government cost-sharing turmoil City to unveil public consultation plan for Olympic bid The BidCo previously allocated $610 million for security costs. The RCMP came back last week and said theyve been finding efficiencies in security. ... Some of those efficiencies also had to do with accommodation. If we werent bringing as many personnel for security we wouldnt need to do as much of a build. According to the document sent to media, the proposal would see the Calgary contribute $370 million in cash plus $150 million in preauthorized Victoria Park and Stampede access improvements. The city would also contribute an insurance redemption amount of $200 million that covers a defined contingency. The province would contribute $700 million keeping with their previously stated commitment and the federal government would match event costs incurred by the local hosts to the tune of $1.423 billion. All amounts are in 2018 dollars. City council is still set to discuss the future of the Olympic bid on Wednesday. Ward 8 Councillor and Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games assessment committee chair Evan Woolley proposed several recommendations Tuesday that will end work on the bid if city councillors vote in favour Wednesday. The first of Woolleys eight recommendations requires a reconsideration of the councils September decision to go to a plebiscite, which means at least 10 council members rather than a simple majority of eight out of 15 must vote to reconsider. Ward 13 Councillor Diane Colley-Urquhart said that she plans to vote against the reconsideration. Ward 5 Councillor George Chahal, Ward 10 Councillor Ray Jones and Ward 12 Councillor Shane Keating also expressed support on Twitter for moving ahead to the plebiscite. If we have an agreed upon deal I believe Calgarians should be able to decide through the plebiscite, Chahal said in a text message before BidCo announced the funding proposal. Ward 9 Councillor Gian-Carlo Carra said late Tuesday he doesnt think the reconsideration will get the 10 votes it needs to go ahead, and hes pleased Calgarians will have a deal to consider in the vote. Im hoping for a simple majority to take us to the plebiscite now. The lack of a confirmed funding agreement between the orders of government was the main sticking point for moving to kill the Olympic bid. Woolley said that Calgarians cant be expected to make an informed decision in a vote less than two weeks away without more information about costs. If the citys bid continues, Calgarians will vote on whether they're in favour of hosting the 2026 Games in a Nov. 13 plebiscite. This is a proposal that makes sense and is a good deal for Calgarians. Im confident we and our government partners can agree to move forward and reach an agreement in principle, BidCo Board Chair Scott Hutcheson said in a statement. I know City Council understands how important this is to Calgary, that they know whats at stake here, and that they will show their strong leadership and allow Calgarians to decide the outcome of the Olympic and Paralympic bid at a plebiscite November 13. These will be Canadas Games, Calgarys choice. BidCo is also hosting a rally for Olympic supporters on the steps of city hall Wednesday morning. Read more about: EDMONTONRocky Mountain House RCMP have laid a slew of charges against a man after a Mountie was assaulted and bear-sprayed during an arrest. They are still seeking a second suspect in the incident. RCMP said they received a report of a man stealing several bottles of liquor from the Great Canadian Liquor Store in Rocky Mountain House last Wednesday. Police say the man fled in a stolen Chevrolet Colorado pickup. Mounties said they spotted the vehicle during a traffic stop in the Creekside neighbourhood on Saturday and identified two men as being associated with the vehicle. Officers tried to arrest the men, who resisted. An RCMP member was reportedly bear-sprayed during the altercation. Both suspects then fled one on foot and one in the truck. On Monday, Rocky Mountain House RCMP yet again spotted the vehicle on Sunchild First Nation. They saw a man exiting the vehicle and arrested him at a residence after a foot pursuit. RCMP said the man assaulted a Mountie during the arrest, and also provided a false name. Police are still investigating and looking to track down the second man who fled on foot from the initial traffic stop. Christopher Wickins-Pearse, 22, of no fixed address, faces a long list of charges, including assaulting a peace officer, administering noxious thing, possession of a controlled substance, break and enter with intent, and several firearm-related charges. Read more about: VANCOUVERThe former chair of the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia is suing a woman, claiming she falsely accused him of sexual and physical assaults. Steven Galloways lawsuit also accuses two dozen other people of repeating the accusations on social media. The lawsuit filed by the novelist in the B.C. Supreme Court claims he was defamed and suffered damage to his reputation. It asks for damages and an injunction preventing the defendants from repeating the allegations, as well as having them removed from the internet. The defamation began with false statements by (the woman) to several other defendants, who recklessly repeated and asserted the truth of the accusations both within UBC and publicly on the internet, including on Twitter, the statement of claim says. Galloway was suspended from the university in November 2015 while an investigation was completed into what the school said were serious allegations of misconduct. In December of that year, the university asked a former B.C. Supreme Court judge to investigate complaints against Galloway. Mary Ellen Boyds report, submitted in April 2016, has never been made public. Read more: Author Steve Galloway apologizes in first statement since being fired by UBC Fired author Steven Galloway awarded $167,000 in damages from UBC Woman who accused writer Steven Galloway of sexual assault issues statement Galloway was fired that June. A labour arbitration decision later ordered the university to pay Galloway $167,000 in damages for statements the school made during the process that violated his privacy rights and harmed his reputation. However, the faculty association withdrew its claim to have Galloway reinstated to his post without giving details. The issue of whether the university had cause to dismiss the professor was no longer contested. Galloways statement of claim, filed on Friday, says he had a consensual romantic affair that lasted two years with one of the defendants. The Canadian Press does not identify those who allege they have been sexually assaulted without their consent. The statement says both were married, and their affair was adulterous. It asserts that the woman made the false allegations to deflect blame and create a false narrative to portray herself as innocent in the affair. None of the allegations made in the statement of claim have been proven in court and no statements of defence have been filed. The woman could not be reached for comment, but a lawyer who represented her previously, including during Boyds investigation, says no client of hers has been served with a claim. It appears the plaintiff took the story directly to the press, Joanna Birenbaum said in an emailed statement. Birenbaum directed The Canadian Press to an open letter posted online that she wrote to university president Santo Ono, asking him to release Boyds full report to her client. UBCs refusal to disclose an unredacted copy of the Boyd Report to (the woman) is preventing her from responding to defamatory attacks on her character and causing harm and damage to her reputation, says the letter, dated Aug. 29, 2018. Attached to the letter were excerpts of redacted sections of the Boyd report that she received. The document says Boyd accepted the womans allegations that Galloway made increasingly inappropriate sexual comments and advances towards her over a number of months in late 2010 and 2011. I find that (the woman) found herself in a situation where the stakes were high since she believed that unless she tolerate this conduct, her acceptance into the MFA (master of fine arts) program and other special treatment she had been promised ... might be in jeopardy, the letter says. Galloways lawyer, Daniel Burnett, said Tuesday he would ask his client if he wanted to respond to the letter. My only observation is that the lawsuit is about far more severe accusations, Burnett said in an email. Galloway said in a statement issued in November 2016, shortly after the Boyd report was released to him, that on the balance of probabilities the retired judge found he had not committed sexual assault. In an article written for the National Post that was published in July, Galloway wrote that he did not assault his accuser, referred to as the Main Complainant or MC. A highly respected former B.C. Supreme Court judge, Justice Mary Ellen Boyd, after conducting an exhaustive, five-month investigation, determined that she was unable to find that any of MCs allegations happened, and that not a single one of the ancillary complaints constituted any form of misconduct, he said. The lawsuit names 24 other people for allegedly repeating the allegations of sexual and physical assault. The Canadian Press attempted to reach many of those named, although some use a pseudonym and others are only identified as John or Jane Doe. Glynnis Kirchmeier is accused of defamation in a tweet from February of this year. That piece said Galloway had an affair, which we now know is what he calls raping, the statement of claim says of a comment on social media. Kirchmeier said in an interview she hasnt been served the statement of claim and shes not concerned about the allegation. I dont know how much of an economic strait hes in, but if he thinks that one tweet justifies any sort of damages to him, I just dont see it. Mandi Gray says she also hasnt been served the document and doesnt know what she is alleged to have done. I tweet a lot, so Id have to see the actual tweets themselves, she said, adding she has been outspoken about the way the university handled the case. I think its really concerning if we arent able to talk about these cases, especially when we have people in his corner speaking so loudly about due process. Others named in the lawsuit declined comment, while many couldnt immediately be reached. Galloway is the author of three novels, including The Confabulist and The Cellist of Sarajevo. He was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Burnett said if his client were to sue over every unfair statement that is in the public domain the lawsuit would involve many more people. He has focused this lawsuit on the most serious allegations, the allegations that are effectively criminal in nature, people who are calling him a rapist, a sexual assaulter, he said. Burnett said several of those named in the lawsuit have been served the statement of claim. Read more about: Patricia Marcoccia set out to make what she thought would be an interesting, but relatively low key documentary about a professor and his friendship with an artist. In between, she got sidetracked and ended up making perhaps the most insightful film yet on controversial University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson. Shut Him Down: The Rise of Jordan Peterson airs on CBC Friday at 9 p.m. It chronicles the rise of an academic superstar who has been a contentious figure on university campuses over the issues of freedom of speech and gender rights. The original idea was to make a documentary about his interactions with an Indigenous carver on the West Coast and then it turned into something completely different, said the 34-year-old Toronto filmmaker in an interview. Read more: I was Jordan Petersons strongest supporter. Now I think hes dangerous Peterson is trying to make sense of the world including his own strange journey Petersons ideas and their antithesis converge on stage in Theory The original concept was a film about renowned carver Charles Joseph adopting Peterson into his family. She first learned about Peterson as a psychology student more than a decade ago and became interested in his work. Joseph was to be given equal weight in the film, which Marcoccia says she still wants to do. But in the fall of 2016, after the documentarian had already spent more than a year on the project, Peterson published his seminal video Professor against Political Correctness, thrusting him into the national conversation. Have your say Petersons target was Bill C-16. He argued that it enforced the use of alternate gender pronouns for persons who dont identity as male or female. His views were described as offensive and dangerous by some, and a positive stand against political correctness by others. A few weeks into the controversy I had to make the hard decision. I didnt have a choice. I had to follow where the story was taking me, said Marcoccia. The silver lining in her abrupt U-turn is that the filmmaker was on the ground floor before anyone else. She taped 110 hours of footage, now distilled into a tight 44-minute film for the CBC. The doc will also be available in a lengthier theatrical version. In the film, Marcoccia has unique access to Petersons family and rare footage of the professor on tour. And she is with him as his fame seems to spread exponentially. That now includes more than 1.5 million YouTube subscribers and sales of 2.5 million copies of his latest book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. The question of balance is a tricky one, says Marcoccia. Some people view it as positive. Others think thats a negative, that youre creating a false balance. But what I tried to do was dive into the world of opposing viewpoints and deeply try to understand where theyre coming from and whats at stake. In this divisive age, if its possible to make a fair, even-handed documentary about Peterson that isnt a raging polemic, this is it. Marcoccia gives plenty of air time to critics of Peterson, including U of T physics professor A.W. Peet, who identifies as non-binary and says they watched Petersons YouTube video and wanted to vomit into my keyboard. Peet argues that Bill-C-16 is not about cisgender people, its about protections for transgendered people. The documentary is also a handy shortcut to the controversy surrounding the man, for those not up to speed on Canadas most polarizing professor, who comes across as angry, obstinate, tough-minded and thoughtful in varying degrees. I dont recognize another persons right to determine what pronouns I use to address them, says Peterson. Im not doing it. As with most things Peterson, even his tweet remarking that the show is airing on Canadas public broadcaster has elicited division. Marcoccia feels that the messages are relatively evenly split with negative and positive comments. People expect a point of view: is it going to be for or against Peterson? There is a lot of skepticism. The show has already passed one test. Recently, Marcoccia aired it for Peterson as well as some of his critics featured in the show. It was a nerve-wracking process, she said. After so many years I had to hold myself accountable. I cant speak for them, but I think in general they thought it was fair and accurate. Which is all you can ask for. OTTAWAThe federal government is facing calls to provide funding for armed police protection for synagogues and other religious sites in the wake of the deadly shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Conservative MP Peter Kent, who represents Thornhill, said hes been approached by concerned congregation members and officials worried about their safety and seeking federal help to beef up security. Synagogues in my community are concerned, Kent told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday. On Wednesday evening, members of the Chabad Flamingo synagogue on Bathurst St. gathered to discuss the horrific events in Pittsburgh and ways to better protect their own place of worship. Toronto lawyer Arnold Recht, a congregation member who also has a role in organizing security, said the mood is anxious. Very, very anxious. Ive spoken to some other congregations in the City of Toronto and the same type of palpable sense of anxiety exists within their community as well, Recht said in an interview as he was headed to the meeting. Read more: Suspect in Pittsburgh synagogue shooting is charged in 44-count hate-crime indictment Canadians hold vigils in solidarity with Pittsburgh synagogue shooting victims Prime Minister condemns anti-Semitism, offers sympathy following mass shooting at Pittsburgh synagogue Here people are going to worship at their individual houses of worship and you have to worry about your own safety and security. Its insane, he said. A heavily armed gunman yelled anti-Semitic slurs as he opened fire inside the Pittsburgh synagogue Saturday morning, killing 11 congregation members and wounding four police officers and two others. Recht said that even before Saturdays tragedy, his own synagogue had taken steps to boost security. On Saturdays, when services are held, all doors in the building are locked except for one where a paid-duty police officer sits with a congregation member to identify those who enter. But Recht wonders whether that would even be enough to stop a determined attacker. Recht said wrote this week to Ralph Goodale, the federal minister of public safety, to appeal for Ottawas help to pay for security for places of worship. He said hes still waiting for a response. The call for federal help comes at a time when anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise in Canada and the United States. Without the promise of support, Recht is worried that some congregation members may take matters into their own hands to ensure their safety. Where you have a government that is not reacting to the circumstances at hand, I think anything is possible, he said. The federal government already has a program that provides funding to offset the costs of installing security for communities with a demonstrated history of being victimized by hate-motivated crime. It provides up to 50 per cent of the project costs to a total of $100,000. In the wake of Saturdays mass shooting, police forces in the Greater Toronto Area said they would step up patrols of places of worship. But Kent said most police forces are stretched far too thin to provide more than occasional presence. As a result, Kent said that some synagogues already arrange to pay police officers to be on-site for special events, like Saturday services, and even during the week when day schools and other community activities occur. But the costs are very significant and not all congregations can afford to pay for police protection, Kent said. Smaller congregations with fewer resources struggle to provide even those sorts of things, he said. Kent said the security concerns go beyond synagogues to include other places of worship, notably mosques after a Muslim place of worship in Quebec City was the scene of a deadly attack in 2017 that left six dead. In a statement, a spokesperson for Goodale said the government has increased the pool of funding to pay for security upgrades for communities at risk of hate-motivated crimes and broadened access to the program. But Scott Bardsley said the department was open to ways to enhance the program after Saturdays shooting, which he condemned as a heinous act of anti-Semitic violence. All Canadians should be free to practice their faith and culture without fear, Bardsley said in an email. Our government . . . will continue to listen closely to safety concerns of the Jewish community and other groups at risk of hate-motivated crimes, he said. Toronto police detectives probing the murders of billionaires Barry and Honey Sherman have obtained nine more search warrants in the last month. The warrants police will not reveal what they were seeking or where the warrants were served were authorized in the four weeks prior to a Sherman family press conference last week that criticized Toronto police for a shoddy investigation and announced a $10 million reward. The new warrants suggest police may be ramping up their investigation into the pairs killing. According to court records obtained by the Star and statements made by Toronto police, detectives have obtained a total of 37 warrants and production orders since the probe began. Warrants allow police to search locations such as a house or business, production orders are for records maintained by banks and cellphone companies. At least one warrant was served outside of Canada, but police and courts will not release details of where. The Shermans owned property in Florida. Barry Sherman was the founder of Apotex, Canadas largest generic drug firm. He and his wife Honey were major donors to Jewish and other charities in Canada. The couple was last seen alive on the evening of Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017. Their bodies were discovered the following Friday morning by Sherman family real estate agent Elise Stern, who was showing prospective buyers and their agent the home on Old Colony Rd. The Shermans were found near a lower-level pool. They had been strangled and pulled into a seated position, each with a mans leather belt looped around their neck and fastened to the metre-high railing that surrounds the rarely used lap pool. Police pursued a theory of murder-suicide for six weeks, before ruling it a targeted double homicide on Jan. 26. That came after police reviewed the results of a second autopsy conducted by David Chiasson, Ontarios former chief forensic pathologist, who had been hired as part of a private investigation launched by the Shermans four children. That investigation was meant to provide a second lens to look at the case, said family lawyer Brian Greenspan, who is leading a team of private detectives and forensic experts. Toronto police were invited to attend that autopsy, but declined and only interviewed Chiasson after a Star story revealed his findings. Last Friday, Greenspan and his private team, most of them former homicide cops, slammed Toronto police for what they say were failures in the investigation locks at the home not checked for tampering, fingerprints and palmprint evidence not taken from the scene, and carpets not vacuumed to obtain minute evidentiary traces. The team also announced a $10-million reward and a tip line directing callers not to police but to the familys experts. Greenspan has told Toronto media that calls have been coming in, though he would not say how many. While the police will not speak about what they have done on the case, the Star has learned some information about a series of search warrants and production orders authorized by Justice Leslie Pringle, the judge who has reviewed more than 220 pages police have submitted for warrant approval. Read more: Family of Barry and Honey Sherman offers $10-million reward for information on murder of billionaire couple How the investigation into the deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman turned from murder-suicide to double homicide Opinion | Rosie DiManno: A two-tier policing system is unveiled in the Sherman case At the beginning of the investigation, police filed warrants for such things as the Sherman couples health records. Sources close to the investigation have told the Star police were seeking information that one or the other was depressed. Friends interviewed by the Star say the Shermans were both in good spirits the day they died and both were making plans for family events and winter trips together. Police also sought information on two airline loyalty programs, cellphone records and details of bank accounts at three financial institutions, although Pringle has sealed the identities of the account holders in each of these warrants. Apotex was also served with a warrant, and in the early days of the investigation police complained they were having difficulty getting information out of the often secretive company. Pringle has sealed much of the information in the more recent warrants and production orders, saying she is concerned that revealing these details would jeopardize the investigation. One law enforcement official connected to the case said these most recent warrants are too specific to be made public an indication that detectives may be pursuing a theory on the identity of the killer or killers. The Star is arguing in court to unseal this information. Immediately following the Greenspan press conference, Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders said he has had to be careful with what he said about the case because he knows for a fact that the Shermans killers are watching his televised remarks, adding he was perturbed that Greenspan released some information related to the case. Saunders said he was particularly bothered with some of the specific comments Greenspan made at the press conference about the crime scene. At the press conference, Greenspan described to reporters how Barry Sherman was found seated with one leg crossed over the other in a passive manner, with his eyeglasses undisturbed and his jacket pulled slightly back a position the lawyer said refuted the theory of a murder-suicide. These details have already been published in accounts by the Star and other media, say people close to Greenspans team. Chaissons post-mortem made it clear the Shermans were were both murdered and that the Toronto Police Service should not have drawn any conclusion which suggested self-inflicted injuries, Greenspan said at the news conference. In his response, Saunders said Greenspan was incorrect. Toronto police service never reached a premature conclusion. This investigation has been done to a very high level of professionalism and high level of expertise, he said, adding that he believes the case will be solved. Its not over yet. We are continuing to work very hard to reach the conclusion we think we can reach with the help of the public. A timeline of known search warrants and production orders in the Sherman murder case There have been 37 search warrants and production orders obtained by Toronto Police in the Sherman case, according to court records, Chief Saunders and police spokesperson Meaghan Gray. Below are the date and location of the majority of them, according to court records obtained by the Star through a legal challenge. Justice Pringle has sealed almost all of the documents, with the exception of a few general search locations she has, for example, allowed the identity of the bank to be known, but not the account holder. Dec. 15, 2017: The Shermans bodies are discovered in their home Dec. 20: Two production orders for Rogers Communications cellphone records and one warrant for a Toronto police storage locker on Jane St., where evidence from the crime scene was briefly kept Dec. 20: A search warrant, address sealed Jan. 10, 2018: Four search warrants, one for a police storage locker, the other locations sealed Jan. 1: Production order served on Ontario Ministry of Health for Barry and Honey Shermans billing records and records of visits to hospital and clinics between December 2010 and Dec. 16, 2017 the day after they were known to be dead Jan. 15: Production order to retrieve materials in locker #51 at 33 Division, likely containing evidence officers seized from the Sherman house Jan. 15: Production order served on Apotex, no details released on what police were seeking Feb. 15: Production order served on LoyaltyOne Co., which operates the AirMiles loyalty rewards program, no details released on the account holder Feb. 15: Production order served on Aimia, owner of the Aeroplan loyalty rewards program, no details released on the account holder Feb. 15: Production order served on Office of the Chief Coroner to retrieve some medical records of the Shermans earlier obtained by the coroner under a Coroners Warrant Feb. 15: Three Production orders served on BMO Financial Group, CIBC and TD Bank, no details released on the account numbers or holders April 16: Four judicial authorizations granted, police will not say if warrants or production orders June 27: Two judicial authorizations granted, police will not say if warrants or production orders Sept. 23: One judicial authorization, police will not say if warrants or production orders Between Sept. 23 and Oct. 26: Nine judicial authorizations, either warrants or production orders Read more about: VANCOUVERTucked away in an industrial park in Langley, B.C., BlissCo Cannabis Corp.s production facility bears almost no outward sign of what goes on within. Only a discreet decal depicting the companys logo marks the door. But stepping through into the companys tiny landing room, a distinct smell immediately greets visitors. Its an unintended consequence of the buildings quirky airflow, a manager explains, possibly caused by a shortcut during construction. BlissCo has yet to begin sales of the cannabis grown in its facility, explains Charlene Kettlewell, BlissCos director of brand marketing, ahead of a tour of the place. BlissCo expects its medical sales licence to come through in the next few weeks, Kettlewell explained. In the meantime, she said, the company has an agreement to reserve a fixed cannabis supply with Canadian licensed producer (LP) Supreme, to the tune of 3,000 kilograms, which a licence amendment will permit BlissCo to sell. Currently, 132 LPs hold cannabis cultivation licences under federal regulations, according to Health Canada, though not all are licensed for sales. Kettlewell acknowledged the BlissCo facility roughly 12,000 square feet in total, with only a portion of that dedicated to growing is on the smaller side of producers, some of which maintain growing operations hundreds of thousands of square feet in size. But BlissCo has a specific vision for the quality and type of products it will supply, she said, explaining her hope that the company will distinguish itself in a crowded industry. The medical marijuana sector in particular whose customers may be getting lost as many LPs rush to supply the recreational market is where BlissCo wants to make its mark, she said. Our move forward is that we are a wellness cannabis company and that we are providing premium cannabis, she said. Now, that is an overused term in this industry. However, we have a standard ... and we take that seriously. Kettlewell brought in Shawn McDougall, BlissCos production manager, to elaborate. McDougall, energetic and engaged, described his work in terms that betrayed deep reverence for the growing process itself. (Cannabis) is a beautiful, easy plant to grow, he said. Anyone can grow it on their patio. Were just trying to steer it. Visitors were asked to put on clean, white lab coats, hair nets and plastic, elasticized boot covers before treading through a shallow bath of peracetic acid and hydrogen peroxide and stepping into the facility proper. Orange light flowed through a pair of nursery windows, the first of which revealed several hundred cannabis plants in their vegetative state. These plants, McDougall explained, receive 18 hours of light per day to spur their growth. Of the 875 plants in the room, he said, 603 will be transferred to the harvest room once theyve grown to roughly 18 inches tall, while the rest will be held over to be used as mother plants specimens large enough to sustain the stress of having cuttings taken from it in order to grow new plants. No pesticides are used under BlissCos roof, he said. Pests are controlled using nematodes and other living creatures attracted to the cannabis plant due to its aroma and composition. McDougall rattled off a laundry list of environmental statistics, demonstrating the minute degree to which he and his colleagues are involved in controlling their crop. When were growing indoors, effectively were playing god, he said. The plants in the harvest room were thick with green buds and due for harvest Wednesday, according to McDougall. These plants were given 12 hours of light per day, which triggered flowering, he said. Some of the fan leaves had begun to yellow a sign, McDougall said, that they were pulling nutrients from their own leaves, since none had been introduced by BlissCo in recent days. Making use of this survival trick of the plant, he said, is a time-honoured preharvest technique of cannabis growers. Triggering a plant to flower, he reminded the crowd, is to trigger death. To expedite BlissCos ability to get its product to market, all of the plants in the facility were grown from cultivars purchased from Supreme. Growing from seed would have taken too much time, he said. BlissCo received its cultivation licence in March of this year and was able to have its first crop come down in August. There was no way we could keep within that time schedule if we started from seed, he said. Opening the door, a pungent aroma of fruit, earth and, well, dank bloomed from the harvest room. These plants, he said, yielded roughly 50 or 60 grams per square foot. Across the throughway from the grow rooms stood an enormous vault made of inch-thick steel walls surrounded by eight-inch-deep reinforced concrete, with a door weighing 9,000 pounds originally built for an HSBC cash transfer station in Vancouver, according to BlissCo CEO Damian Kettlewell. The entire setup was surrounded by a blue, expanded-steel cage. Spotless plastic tubs and totes held sealed and labelled cannabis buds, ready for sale once BlissCos licence is finally approved. Whereas many companies have turned their focus to strains rich with the psychoactive cannabinoid tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), McDougall believes the real opportunity lies in offering products that feature higher levels of cannabidiol (CBD) a less-psychoactive cannabinoid being studied as a potential treatment for conditions such as pain, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and Parkinsons disease. The facilitys cannabis oil extraction lab, McDougall said as he swiped his key-card and hurried the group through another security door, is where the real future of the company lies. A carbon dioxide extraction system about the size of a portable draft beer fridge was the apple of McDougalls eye. Worth roughly a quarter-million dollars, the machine can produce an estimated 420 kilograms (no kidding) of cannabis oil annually. Smoking cannabis, McDougall predicted, will eventually become the least attractive way to consume cannabinoids for medical purposes. Sublingual sprays that is, sprays administered underneath the tongue and capsules are set to be a far more effective delivery method for patients. BlissCos system, he added, extracts full spectrum oil, allowing for terpenes the aromatic essential oils thought to enhance the cannabis high and hold potential medical benefits to be set aside for reintroduction to oil products further down the line. Terpenes currently have no value to Health Canada, he said, but they have enormous value to cannabis producers, and research around their effects on humans has only just begun. The next step for BlissCo, however, may be its most challenging. Scaling up from a zero-revenue company to one that will hopefully be worth many millions of dollars will be an enormous challenge, said CEO Damian Kettlewell. And clearly legalization is still working out a number of kinks. But Kettlewell advised patience. By undertaking legalization on a federal level, Canada had played its cards right, he said, and missteps like the shortages now facing many provinces were likely inevitable given the scale of change. I think we have a lot to celebrate for those whove been cannabis consumers for some time, he said. It is legal here in Canada, were making headway, were in our second week of legalization. Its taken a lot of political courage to do that from our current federal government, and I think those are the things to celebrate. Supply is going to come. BlissCo expects its medical cannabis sales launch to take place on Nov. 26. Read more about: Molson Coors Brewing Co. expects to secure a meaningful share of the cannabis-infused beverage market when edibles are legalized in Canada, the companys CEO said. We will be in a ready-to-go position and, you know, one of the first on the playing field as the market opens up, said Mark R. Hunter in a conference call with analysts after the company released its third-quarter earnings report Wednesday. Recreational cannabis products such as dried flower and pre-rolled joints became available for legal purchase in Canada on Oct. 17, but edibles wont be legalized until next year. Estimates suggest the cannabis market could be valued somewhere between $7 billion and $10 billion, he said, with about 20 to 30 per cent of that coming from cannabis-infused, non-alcoholic beverages. Read more: Coca-Cola to take it slow on marijuana Toronto-based Province Brands brewing beer directly from cannabis AB InBev halves dividend as beer remains out of favour Even if one assumes the low end of both those projections, the beverages segment could be worth about $1.5 billion, he said. Molson and Hexo Corp. launched Truss, a joint venture, earlier this month. Truss will develop the beverages for the Canadian market following legalization. The company is already researching what beverages it plans to offer, said Hunter, and will be able to share more details early next year. We decided as a business that we did not want to be a spectator as this new market opened up and we clearly wanted to be a participant, he said. The company is also preparing for potential further international expansion, he said. Molson Coors Canada shares rose $5.01 or 6.3 per cent to $84.50 in afternoon trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The shares of its holding company, Molson Coors Brewing, rose $4.72 (U.S.) or 8.11 per cent to $63.93 on the New York Stock Exchange. The company topped expectations as it reported its third-quarter profit increased compared with a year ago, helped by higher sales. The brewer, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, earned $338.3 million (U.S.) or $1.56 per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30. That compared with a profit of $287.0 million or $1.33 per diluted share a year ago. Net sales totalled $2.93 billion, up from $2.88 billion in the same quarter last year. The company said its underlying profit for the quarter amounted to $1.84 per diluted share, up from $1.37 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2017. Analysts on average had expected a profit of $1.59 per share, according to Thomson Reuters Eikon. The investigators working the case of missing boy Jermaine Mann had amassed little bits of evidence over the years, through upwards of 400 interviews. They knew that Jermaine and his father were somewhere in the northeastern United States. They knew the missing boy had grown up, graduated college, even had a loose idea of where hed gone to school. But Ted Davis the retired police officer whose unrelenting resolve was credited in Jermaines stunning reunion with his mother this week after 31 years apart said that, until recently, that just hadnt been enough. We had no names, Davis said in an interview from his home in Calgary on Tuesday. We were looking for a needle in a hay stack, and this was a really, really big hay stack. Jermaines case file with the Missing Childrens Society of Canada (MCSC) was opened in 1987, two days after the 21-month-old toddler went missing during a court-ordered visit with his father in Toronto. Over the years, it was probed by police and the missing childrens organization, and Davis and a team of three fellow MCSC investigators took carriage starting in 2003. Retired from the Calgary Police Service, Davis has been working with MCSC for the past 28 years. As revealed by law enforcement agencies over the weekend, police at last zeroed in on Allan Mann Jr., now 66, in a small community outside Hartford, Conn., last week. Police allege Mann abducted Jermaine, fled illegally to the U.S., then both assumed aliases, which included obtaining a false Texas birth certificate for Jermaine. Police say Jermaine had been told his mother was dead. Read more: Your son is alive, weve found him: Brampton mom reunites with son 31 years after father allegedly stole him, took him to the U.S. Mann Jr. is being held in U.S. custody on charges including making false statements, and he will be extradited to Canada and charged with abduction, and faces up to 10 years in jail if convicted. As Mann Jr. was held in jail, Lyneth Mann-Lewis flew down to reunite with her son, now 33. Ted encouraged me to be always, always believing, Mann-Lewis told reporters at a news conference Monday, where she credited Davis unrelenting resolve with finding her son. I will forever be grateful for him for everything he has done. Quick to give credit to other agencies, including the Toronto police fugitive squad and the United States Marshals Service, Davis said the arrest came through collaboration and a few substantial recent developments. The absolute clincher, he said, was the recent discovery of Mann Jr.s assumed name. While Toronto police have revealed little about the investigation, U.S. court documents show that in August, police identified and interviewed associates of Mann Jr., one of whom provided Mann Jr.s fake name: Hailee Randolph DeSouza. That day, Davis knew an arrest was in sight. I knew that we had enough at that time, he said. We had a direction to work toward. In the ensuing months, as police were closing in locating Mann Jr. in Connecticut, forensically analyzing photographs and more Davis didnt say a word to Mann-Lewis. That risked producing false hope, he said, which would turn to devastation if the investigation hit a snag. It wasnt until mid-week last week, as Mann Jr. was being taken into custody, that Davis boarded a plane from Calgary to tell Mann-Lewis in person alongside Amanda Pick, CEO of the missing childrens organization that her son had been found. You cant tell someone, after waiting 31 years, over the telephone or FaceTime, Hey listen, I found your son, Davis said. You gotta be there. Davis was there, too, when Mann-Lewis laid eyes on her son for the first time in more than three decades, travelling with her and Pick to meet Jermaine less than 48 hours after she was told he had been found. Declaring himself as not a really emotional-type guy I have my feelings and stuff, but I dont display them as much as other people maybe do Davis nonetheless said the reunion was remarkable. As they pulled up to the address, he spotted Jermaine sitting on the porch and observed his face, which mirrored the look hed seen on his mothers face for two days. There was no doubt they were related. Their eyes are so close, and your eyes tell you a lot about a person, Davis said. Estimating hes played a hand in more that 100 reunions between parents and missing children, Davis says helping solve Jermaines disappearance holds special significance. Thats in part, he says, because Lyneth was special. Like all parents hes met through his work, she was engaged and dedicated. What distinguishes her is that her energy never faded after all the years her son was missing. Whenever you talked to her you could tell that she was still persistent and passionate about getting her son back, he said. Wendy Gillis is a Toronto-based reporter covering crime and policing. Reach her by email at wgillis@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @wendygillis Read more about: Two male victims are suffering serious injuries following a shooting near Jamestown Cres. and John Garland Blvd., Toronto police say. Toronto paramedics responded to a call at 7:00 p.m, and found two male victims suffering from gun shot wounds. They arrived on scene to find one victim suffering from lower-body injuries while the second victim suffered from upper-body injuries. Both victims were transported to a local trauma centre. According to police, between six to 10 shots were heard. No information is available on suspects at this time. Paramedics say both victims are believed to be in their 40s and described their injuries as serious, but non-life threatening. Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili. The global Portable Tools market report accessible on DecisionDatabases.com offer all-inclusive market knowledge and insight of the market. The information is obtained and analyzed from the past and current year to forecast the market covering in the next seven years. The Portable Tools industry experts were interviewed across the globe to gather the data which is then validated based on the secondary data. et Free Sample Report https://www.decisiondatabases.com/contact/download-sample-31629 The key players covered in this study Akar Tools, Apex Tools, Atlas Copco, Channellock, Danaher, Emerson Electric, Fiskars, General Tools & Instruments, Makita, JK Files, Kennametal, Klein Tools, Robert Bosch, Q.E.P., Snap-On, Stanley Black & Decker, Techtronic Industries, Wera Tools. Market segment by Type, the product can be split into Hand Tools, Power Tools, Garage Tools, Lighting Tools, Personal Protective Equipment. Market segment by Application, split into Industrial, Commercial, Household. Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers United States, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India, Central & South America. Access Full Report https://www.decisiondatabases.com/ip/31629-portable-tools-industry-market-report Table of Contents-Snapshot 1 Report Overview 2 Global Growth Trends 3 Market Share by Key Players 4 Breakdown Data by Type and Application 5 United States 6 Europe 7 China 8 Japan 9 Southeast Asia 10 India 11 Central & South America 12 International Players Profiles 13 Market Forecast 2018-2025 14 Analyst's Viewpoints/Conclusions 15 Appendix WASHINGTONThe Justice Department on Tuesday unsealed charges against 10 Chinese spies, hackers and others accused of conspiring to steal sensitive commercial airline and other secrets from U.S. and European companies. The indictment marks the third time since September that the United States has brought charges against Chinese intelligence officers and their recruits for stealing American intellectual property. It comes, too, amid an ongoing trade war and general worsening of relations between Washington and Beijing. This is just the beginning, Assistant Attorney General John Demers said. Together with our federal partners, we will redouble our efforts to safeguard Americas ingenuity and investment. The alleged conspiracy ran for at least five years beginning in 2010, and focused on the theft of technology underlying a turbofan engine used in U.S. and European commercial jets, officials said. The engine was being developed through a partnership between a French company with an office in Suzhou, China, and a U.S. firm. Neither company was identified in the indictment, and none of the alleged conspirators is in U.S. custody. The superseding indictment was issued Oct. 25 in the Southern District of California. Read more: 12 Russian intelligence officers indicted in Mueller investigation in hacking tied to Clinton campaign Pentagon chief cancels China visit amid trade war The U.S. may be in a trade war with China for years to come The defendants hacked the French firm, as well as companies in Arizona, Massachusetts and Oregon that made parts for the jet engine, officials alleged. At the time of the intrusions, a Chinese state-owned aerospace company was developing a comparable commercial jet engine, they said. The alleged hacking of commercial secrets to benefit a Chinese company took place before Beijing made a pledge to Washington in September 2015 not to conduct such espionage. Experts have said that since then, Chinas cyber-enabled commercial spying has resumed, in particular by the Ministry of State Security (MSS), which conducts nonmilitary foreign espionage and handles domestic counterintelligence. Two of the defendants, Zha Rong and Chai Meng, are officers with the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security (JSSD), a provincial arm of the MSS. Zha Rong is accused of directing the intrusion into the French firm. Chai Meng, who is also known as Cobain, coordinated the hackers and the activity of two Chinese employees of the French company, who also were charged for their role in facilitating the technology theft, U.S. officials said. Those employees, Gu Gen and Tian Xi, worked in the companys Suzhou office. According to the indictment, in January 2014, Tian received malware from his MSS handler and installed it on a company computer. One month later, Gu, who oversaw information security in the French companys Suzhou office, warned his colleagues when foreign law enforcement notified the company about the malware, U.S. prosecutors said. As a result, two other defendants erased evidence linking the malware to an account controlled by the Chinese government operatives, prosecutors said. The first alleged hack took place in January 2010, when the defendants compromised Capstone Turbine, a Los Angeles-based gas turbine manufacturer, to steal data and use its website to spread malware. Other hacking attempts followed, including against an unidentified San Diego computer technology company whose network was repeatedly compromised, causing thousands of dollars of damage, prosecutors said. In that conspiracy, prosecutors said, Zhang Zhang-Gui, a hacker operating at the direction of the provincial MSS, gave his friend Li Xiao malware that had been developed by the operatives who hacked Capstone Turbine. With that malware, Li was able to hack the San Diego company, prosecutors alleged. This month, the Justice Department announced that an MSS intelligence officer was extradited to the Southern District of Ohio on charges that he attempted to steal trade secrets related to jet aircraft engines. Last month, a grand jury indicted a U.S. Army recruit accused of working as an agent of a Chinese spy. YAOUNDE, CAMEROONAn American missionary died Tuesday after being shot in the head amid fighting between armed separatists and soldiers in northwestern Cameroon, the director of the regional hospital said. Charles Trumann Wesco, a missionary from the U.S. state of Indiana who had been in the region for two weeks, was rushed to the hospital in Bamenda after he was gravely wounded while in his car, hospital director Kingue Thomson Njie said. He died in our hospital after all attempts to save his life, Njie told the Associated Press. Wescos wife, Stephanie, and eight children were still in Bamenda, he said. Dave Halyman, assistant pastor at Believers Baptist Church in Warsaw, Ind., where Stephanie Wescos father, Don Williams, is the senior pastor, said that Williams had spoken by phone with his daughter after the shooting. Reporting Williams account, Halyman said the shooting happened as Charles and Stephanie Wesco were in a car being driven by another missionary to the town of Bamnui from the Bamenda suburb of Bambili, where the family has been living. He said Charles Wesco was in the front seat, and two shots hit the windshield and struck him in the head. No one else was hurt, Halyman said. The family had been in Cameroon for just 12 days before the shooting, Halyman said. He said they had raised financial support for two years and had been to Cameroon two years ago on a survey trip. Were shocked and grieving at whats occurred. Were trying to get over the shock of losing someone as wonderful as Charles was, Halyman said. While we dont like this, we understand that God has a great purpose. The missionarys brother is Indiana state Rep. Tim Wesco, who confirmed that his older brother had been killed. He loved the Lord. He loved people. The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord, he said. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb issued a statement saying that he and his wife, Janet, are thinking of Rep. Tim Wesco and his family as they grieve the death of his brother Charles. We ask that all Hoosiers join us in offering prayers and condolences to the Wesco family. Bamenda is in Cameroons Northwest Region, the restive English-speaking area where armed separatists have been fighting with the military while attempting to create an independent state. Regional Gov. Deben Tchoffo said armed groups staged attacks to stop the reopening of the University of Bamenda, and the military fought back Tuesday. He said Wesco might have been caught in crossfire. A military spokesman, Col. Didier Badjeck, told the Associated Press that the military killed at least four suspects in Wescos death and arrested many others. He did not specify if the people detained were military personnel or separatists. Cameroons military said last week after launching attacks on suspected separatist training grounds that many have been killed. The attacks happened the day after Cameroon President Paul Biya was declared the winner of a seventh term. The increased violence began after the government clamped down on demonstrations by English-speaking teachers and lawyers protesting what they called their marginalization by Cameroons French-speaking majority. Armed factions emerged after the government crackdown and have been using violence to push for an independent state they call Ambazonia. Protests against the 85-year-old Biyas Oct. 7 re-election have been ongoing. WASHINGTONU.S. President Donald Trump is mobilizing the vast powers of the military and other parts of the federal government to help bolster Republican election efforts, using the office of the presidency in an attempt to dictate the campaigns closing themes and stoke the fears and anxieties of his supporters ahead of Tuesdays midterm elections. Trump in recent days has made aggressive moves aimed at pushing policies that could boost Republicans next week deploying thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in the largest such operation since the Mexican Revolution, floating the idea ending birthright citizenship and warning he intends to halt the caravan of Central American migrants. The president has also moved to lower Medicare drug prices and suggested the idea of a 10 per cent tax cut for the middle class, sending administration and congressional officials scrambling to assemble a new tax policy. The cumulative acts reflect the extent to which Trump has transformed parts of the federal bureaucracy into a factory of threats, directives and actions an outgrowth of a campaign strategy which the president and his political advisers settled on as their best chance to hold the Republican congressional majorities. This is the most focused and concerted effort to use all of the powers of the presidency to shape a midterm election that I have ever seen, said William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institutions Governance Studies Program and a former domestic policy adviser in the Clinton White House. President Trump is pushing every button on the console and he is mobilizing all of the power, including the communications power, of the federal government on behalf of his partys campaign in this midterm, Galston added. Read more: Pittsburgh funerals continue after Trump visit and protests Migrant caravan demands transport as second group enters Mexico Trump wants to end birthright citizenship for children of non-citizens born on U.S. soil. A judge he appointed says he cant The president and his political advisers have decided that a base turnout strategy is the best way to preserve the GOPs Senate and House majorities, with Trump wielding the polarizing issue of immigration as a cudgel in an attempt to motivate his 2016 supporters to vote. Trump suggested in an interview with Axios released Tuesday that he intends to end the constitutional right to U.S. citizenship for children born in the United States to non-citizens. Many legal experts as well as House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the president does not have such unilateral authority. Still, Trumps move seemed designed to revive the anchor baby debate that he helped lead en route to his victory in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. For days, Trump has been warning of an invasion of Central American migrants, even though they are travelling by foot in caravans, their population is dwindling and they are not expected to reach the border for several weeks. The administration announced Monday it was sending 5,200 troops, military helicopters and giant spools of razor wire to the southern border. And Trump has dispatched top administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, on a media tour to echo his hard-line position and draw attention to the caravan. In addition, Trump has been preparing a major immigration policy rollout initially scheduled for Tuesday but postponed in the wake of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre that is expected to include the call to temporarily shut the border to the migrants and deny them the opportunity to seek asylum. Within in the White House and Trumps broader orbit, the presidents advisers and confidants are sensitive to the suggestion that he is leveraging the government to advance his political aims. Instead, they argue, Trumps long-held beliefs and policy prescriptions on immigration align with current events while also politically benefiting the Republican Party. This is not a case where Trump is just politically calculating policies to fit what he wants done politically, said one former White House official, who like some others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Its a case where what helps him politically also matches up perfectly with where he is policy-wise. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that the troop deployment was not a political ploy but rather an appropriate and necessary response to the crisis on our southern border. I can tell you, being out among the American people, theres great concern, great alarm among many Americans to see this vast throng of people coming up for the express purpose of coming into our country illegally, Pence said at a Politico Playbook event. The president is simply determined to make sure that weve got the manpower on the border. Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign adviser, said the presidents recent moves on immigration are politically savvy. The optics of the president sending troops to the border along with having Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen announce that none of the illegal immigrants are getting through once again makes this a top issue which will increase base turnout this last crucial week, Nunberg said. Trump has sought to make the midterm elections a referendum on himself, believing his supporters will only turn out to support Republican lawmakers if they think his presidency is at stake. Im not on the ticket, but I am on the ticket, Trump said at a rally this month in Southhaven, Mississippi. I want you to vote. Pretend Im on the ballot. In recent weeks, Trump has sought to take action in other areas as well to show progress and motivate voters. He teased a 10 per cent tax cut for middle-income families and said Congress would take action on it before the elections, even though there is no official proposal and lawmakers are not scheduled to be in session until after the mid-terms. But Trump has focused mostly on hammering the issue of immigration, the most animating theme of his 2016 campaign. By doing so, he is effectively putting his name and agenda on the ballot, in spirit if not in letter. As a second former White House official put it, immigration gives some of that 2016 flair to the mid-terms. With Trump heading to the campaign trail on Wednesday for 11 Make America Great Again rallies in the final six days before the elections, immigration has become a core theme of his stump speeches. We cant let people break in and assault our country, Trump said Saturday in Murphysboro, Illinois. You saw the caravan. I mean, you look at it. Sometimes it is massive. How the hell can we take everyone in? And some of these people are people that we dont want. Polling consistently shows that immigration is an especially trenchant issue for Republican voters. Three-quarters of registered Republicans ranked immigration as one of the single most important issues or a very important issue driving their midterm votes, just behind the economy and taxes, according to an early October Washington Post-ABC News poll. Immigration is obviously an important issue. Theres no question about that, GOP pollster David Winston said. Trump clearly believes this was a key part of how he succeeded in the Republican primary. As a result, its an issue he is particularly comfortable with introducing when he feels its needed. Having said that, whats central to where Republicans are at the moment is how the economys doing. Immigration is a powerful motivating issue for Republican voters in many of the Senate battlegrounds red states including Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Tennessee and West Virginia, where Trump is popular. But Trumps focus on the topic presents complications for vulnerable House Republicans struggling to fend off Democratic challenges in suburban districts in states such as California, Florida and Pennsylvania. But unlike in 2016, when the GOP was more divided over how closely to hew to Trumps immigration rhetoric and policies, the party largely has fallen in line behind the president. A slew of Republican Senate and gubernatorial candidates are parroting Trumps talking points on immigration in their advertising. Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who is running for Senate in Tennessee, is airing an ad about the caravan in which a narrator says the caravan includes gang members, known criminals, people from the Middle East, possibly even terrorists. Trump last week drew widespread criticism for tweeting without evidence that criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in, later admitting he had no proof for the latter. Jennifer Duffy, senior editor at the Cook Political Report, said she has been struck by how pervasive Trumps language on immigration has been in the campaigns final stretch. Fear is a pretty powerful emotion and thus a pretty powerful motivator, Duffy said. Is there a downside? Policy-wise, yes. Politically, no. Read more about: Like many young entrepreneurs drawn to Californias technological gold rush, Andrew Torba brought a familiar mix of smarts, ambition and big ideas when he arrived nearly four years ago. What few saw was that Torba an advocate of traditional, Christian values amid secular Silicon Valley was frustrated and increasingly alienated. Those emotions, he would later say, helped inspire his creation of Gab.ai, the freewheeling social-media platform that has become an online hub for racists, anti-Semites and white nationalists. Among them would be a troubled, middle-aged trucker, Robert Bowers, whose hateful rants against Jews appeared on the site in the months before he allegedly killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue Saturday. Messages on a Gab account bearing Bowers name and image have turned a harsh spotlight on the site, which went offline Sunday as some long-standing partner companies such as GoDaddy and PayPal backed away from Torbas creation. Torba said he and his site are blameless for the alleged actions of Bowers. Torba said the shooting is a horrific tragedy and that hes working with law enforcement to see to it that justice is served. He also has grown increasingly testy with journalists exploring extremism on Gab, writing in an email to the Washington Post on Monday, To attempt and place blame on me or Gab is absurd and you know it. Gab has become the most visible of a collection of services catering to people whom mainstream companies such as Twitter and Facebook have rejected as too hateful, extreme or threatening in their posts as part of a crackdown on extremism. The Pittsburgh tragedy has made Torba a key voice in growing debates over free expression and hate speech and whether technology companies are making the right decisions over whose voices get heard and whose get muted. Read more: Pittsburgh funerals continue after Trump visit and protests Calls to cancel Steve Bannons Toronto debate intensify after Pittsburgh massacre Late night hosts blast Trumps reaction to Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooting Gabs Twitter feed which Torba has acknowledged often writing himself Tuesday morning linked to an anonymously written blog post calling mainstream journalists the Satanic mafia. Torba is chief executive of Gab, which has only a handful of employees, and controls 90 per cent of its shares, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. His dark turn is now an indelible part of the history of online radicalism in the U.S. In a series of emails with the Washington Post on Monday, Torba described his disenchantment with Silicon Valley. It was a place he moved to in 2015 to develop an advertising technology startup he had co-founded in his native Pennsylvania. But just a year later, Torba came to believe the tech mecca was hostile to him and his political ideas amid the tumultuous rise of his preferred candidate for U.S. president, Donald Trump, whose combative rhetorical style Torba sometimes echoed. I became incredibly disillusioned after only one year living and working with some of the top names and companies, said Torba, 27. (He has since moved back to Pennsylvania.) These are not good people, he added. Many of them hate America and freedom. They are authoritarian cultural marxists. Some, many of whom I am still friends with, are great people who I love, but the overwhelming majority are egomaniacs lusting for power and wealth. Gab said in financial filings this spring that its target market was the more than 50 million conservative, libertarian, nationalists and populist internet users around the world, and that its competitors included far-right sites such as Breitbart and Infowars. As mainstream social networks continue to crack down on objectionable content and censor conservative views, the company said in an SEC filing, we believe the need for alternative platforms will only continue to rise. In little more than two years, Torba and his site have won acclaim among conservative circles, clashed with tech industry insiders and ridden a wave of growth by cultivating customers that others have shunned. Theyve also been kicked out of Googles app store and parted ways with Microsoft, its data hosting service, after the tech giant in August lashed out at anti-Semitic comments from Gab users. Like much of its user content, Gabs own messages sometimes raise questions about whether they cross the line into impropriety. A post from Gabs Twitter account in June replied to a tweet suggesting that there should be no national borders by writing, Let a bunch of Somalians migrate to your neighbourhood and see if you change your mind, according to an archived version of the tweet. Another post, from September, showed the images of two men, one with the traditional sidelocks worn by many observant Jews. These two guys show up at your front door. Who do you let in and who do you call the cops on? tweeted the Gab account. It soon after replied in a second tweet, I mean Im calling the cops on both and getting my shotgun ready, just saying. When asked about these postings, Torba initially questioned their authenticity and suggested they might be doctored images. Later, he said they were clearly satire/comedy ... to get people discussing the importance of free expression for satire, comedy, political discourse, and legitimate criticism. Later, Gabs Twitter account described them as a few edgy tweets posted by interns. Gabs most infamous user now is Bowers, who faces more than two dozen federal charges. He wrote on his Gab site that Jews are the children of Satan. His last post before the shooting Saturday said, I cant sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, Im going in. Torba has said hes working with law enforcement on the case and has staunchly defended Gab against growing criticism that it aids and abets radicalization. Gab did nothing wrong and has nothing to apologize for, Torba said. We proactively and immediately worked with both the FBI and DOJ. I am on three hours sleep because my number one priority, even ahead of getting Gab back online, is helping law enforcement see to it that justice is served for this horrific tragedy. The site prohibits content that is illegal, such as child pornography, or features specific threats of violence, but does not prohibit bullying and hate speech, as most mainstream platforms do. One post showed an infant wearing a Jewish yarmulke with a knife poised over its head. The caption read, 7 places you can stab a Jew baby without killing it. Torba needed to essentially build a movement to attract users and media attention, said Joan Donovan, a researcher for the think tank Data & Society, who has studied Gab. He was always building a platform for people who feared they could not say what they wanted to say on Facebook or Twitter. Its a puzzling turn of events for those who remember Torba from his pre-Gab days. I dont know what in Gods name happened to the young man. I really do not know what happened to him, said Richard Yarmey, who taught Torba in an entrepreneurship class at the University of Scranton in 2011. Based upon things hes quoted as saying ... I just scratch my head and say what happened to this bright young man that I used to think highly of? Torba grew up in the faded coal country of northeastern Pennsylvania, where his father worked as a FedEx courier, according to his LinkedIn page, and said he dreamed of being an entrepreneur since eighth grade. (FedEx declined to comment, and Torbas father, reached via Twitter, said, Your vision should be laser focused on the madman shooter, not my son.) As a philosophy student at the University of Scranton, he wrote for the college paper, criticized fromer U.S. president Barack Obama and, according to one former professor, showed a strong affinity for Ralph Waldo Emersons ideas of self-reliance and independence becoming particularly taken with a quote of Emersons about the importance of speaking frankly, ideals that course through tech culture. He yearned for a more traditional life, said Utsav Sanduja, an executive at Gab until earlier this year, who described Torba as a Bible-quoting Christian who is very deeply spiritual. But Silicon Valley called to Torba. With a friend, he started a technology company called Kuhcoon that helped customers run ad campaigns on Facebook. And when the founders won a competition to join the prestigious Y Combinator boot camp for startups, Torba was ecstatic at the prospect of gaining access to more than $100,000 in capital and an elite network of entrepreneurs and investors. Scranton will always be our home, Torba wrote on Medium on New Years Eve 2014, announcing his move to Northern California for the three-month program, but Silicon Valley has always been our destiny. Things didnt go as Torba had imagined. Colleagues from that period at Y Combinator remember Torba and his co-founder, a friend from eighth grade, as mild-mannered and largely unremarkable. The ad-tech company they founded wasnt in the top of that years batch of startups, but they won respect for their hard work, said two people who worked with him at the time, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. But impressions changed rapidly when, as Trump was emerging as the leading Republican presidential contender in the spring of 2016, Torba started publicly supporting him and making comments that other Y Combinator members say they found offensive. Torba also took his frustrations to Twitter, calling out Y Combinator founder Paul Graham, who was no longer very involved with the organization, and its liberal president Sam Altman. On a shoestring budget, Torba and a very small team launched Gab that August, said Sanduja, Gabs chief operating officer from October 2016 to June 2018. Gab arrived amid a wave of social-media bans for prominent white nationalist and far-right users such as Milo Yiannopoulos, who was booted from Twitter after encouraging a series of racist verbal abuse and became one of Gabs first big names. Gab built its audience by marketing itself as a censorship-free refuge for users who believed they had been victimized by what it called the cancer of political correctness. The apps logo was a frog that resembled the far-right meme Pepe, and the app made a croak sound every time a user received a new notification. Our mission was very noble from the very beginning: We genuinely believe in free speech. Its not our fault that ... neo-Nazis joined our site, Sanduja said. Gab happened to have these people, they happened to congregate, happened to engage in tomfoolery and the rest is history, he said. But in the emotionally raw days after Trumps election in November, Torba clashed with fellow Y Combinator entrepreneurs in the organizations close-knit alumni network. Torba posted a screenshot on Twitter of comments made by a Latino Y Combinator member on Facebook, expressing fear for the safety of women and minorities, and added, Build the Wall. The post sparked a heated discussion within the Y Combinator community on Facebook. Torba jumped in and reiterated his call to Build the wall before calling fellow members of the Y Combinator community cucks a pejorative description common in far-right circles. Take your morally superior, elitist, virtue-signalling . . .. and shove it, Torba wrote in a profanity-laced post on Facebook. I call it like I see it, and I helped meme a President into office, cucks. Shortly after, Torba received a call from Y Combinators general counsel notifying him of the decision to kick him out of the alumni network for harassing other members. Torba said he was kicked out because of his support of Trump and his tweet to build the wall and said his comments were not threatening. Y Combinator supports the feelings of their international, non-US founders (which they have a vested equity interest in) over the national security of the United States of America. Thats very telling, Torba emailed to the Post. Y Combinator declined to comment. Gabs clashes with Silicon Valley did not hurt his business. Rather Torba positioned the platform as an alternative for those feeling oppressed by what he called Big Tech. When Google fired conservative engineer James Damore in August 2017 for making degrading comments about women, Gab called for a Free Speech Tech Alliance, a movement among engineers to build an alternative online infrastructure free of the liberal values of Silicon Valley. In the days following the Unite the Right rally Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017, as technology companies cracked down on white supremacist accounts, Gab reiterated its call to create a parallel internet for people who have been banned from other services. Andrew Anglin, creator of the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer, began posting frequently on Gab, according to reports at the time. The site exploded with new, pseudonymous users posting viral misinformation, hate speech and memes that echoed white-supremacist or anti-Semitic tropes what Donovan called an echo chamber of the most disgusting content offered online. Google then banned the service from its app store, saying that social networking apps need to demonstrate a sufficient level of moderation, including for content that encourages violence and advocates hate against groups of people. In response, Gab sued the search giant. But the bans and crackdowns havent curbed Gabs growth. There are now about 800,000 users, said Sanduja, compared with 10,000 two years ago. The companys few employees are all under 30 and number less than half a dozen, including Torba and his wife, Sanduja said. But there are signs that the companys fractious public image has taken a toll on its leadership. Ekrem Buyukkaya, a Turkey-based developer who co-founded Gab with Torba, said on Sunday he would step down as the companys chief technology officer because of attacks from the American press. The company had previously said in an SEC filing that Buyukkayas work was crucial to its future success. Buyukkaya did not respond to requests for comment. The growth of Gabs fan base, however, has helped fund an aggressive expansion designed to bring new users into the fold. In a SEC filing in March, Gab said it had more than $600,000 in cash, up from $16,000 in 2016, and had made $100,000 in revenue, primarily from subscriptions. One week before the shooting in Pittsburgh, the company said it had raised more than $1 million (U.S.) from users over the previous month. On Tuesday, the University of Scranton appeared to distance itself from its graduate. As a Catholic and Jesuit university, we condemn hate and violence, president Scott R. Pilarz wrote. University of Scranton theology professor Maria Johnson recalled Torba as bright, enthusiastic and kind. He contacted her when she had cancer several years ago, and she attended his wedding earlier this year. My impression I guess is that his dedication to free speech has led him to hang with some really bad company, Johnson said. But I find it hard to imagine that Andrew was malicious in any way. Read more about: The families of the victims of last years horrific Quebec mosque attack recently learned they would have to endure another difficult period of delay as the judge postponed the sentencing of the shooter. Tragically, more families are facing the unspeakable pain of losing loved ones to bigoted violence in the wake of Saturdays attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, which claimed the lives of Jewish worshippers on a serene Sabbath morning. Like the mosque shooter, the synagogue attacker was motivated by malicious hate in this case, virulent anti-Semitism prompted by his disdain for immigration. In the minutes before he launched his cowardly attack, the gunman wrote these ominous words online: Screw your optics, Im going in. Once more, we are forced to contend with a macabre display of hate-driven violence directed against minority targets. As Shakespearean tragedy tells us, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. But there is nothing fictitious about whats happening. Something sinister is erupting in our body politic both in the United States and Canada. While many Americans remain disturbed by the ugly rhetoric emanating from their highest office, Canadians seem to want to wish away the creeping rise of far-right extremists who mimic white supremacism. We need not look further than the Toronto mayoralty candidacy of neo-Nazi linked Faith Goldy or rabid Islamophobe Kevin Johnstons campaign in Mississauga. Both received thousands of votes when arguably 10 years ago they would have been confined to insignificant levels of support. Yet we still ask ourselves: how did it come to this? Our liberal democracy can act wayward at times, but what is striking about this political moment is that democracy is being undermined by elements who do not agree everyone is equal under the law. These forces want to divide us along ethnic and religious lines so as to weaken the very foundations of our societys fundamental democratic bargain. Some of these forces have actively armed themselves, such as militialike groups in Alberta. Lets not delude ourselves. With far-right extremists emboldened by the dog-whistle politics played by elected leaders both south of the border and here at home, should we be surprised that some of their angry coterie are targeting Muslims and Jews with hateful violence? As a Canadian collective, we should recognize that this is a multi-faceted problem with no quick fixes. Unless we give it the seriousness it deserves, we only increase the risk of seeing more of our fellow citizens gunned down in sacred places. Attention must be given to grassroots, community-driven strategies to combat the growth of bigoted politics and incendiary rhetoric. Government can help set the stage, but it is us citizens who need to forge the path. Larger-scale engagement among communities can help, as it has before, build mutual goodwill and tear down walls of misinformation. The Canadian-Muslim Vote, a non-partisan organization, aims to do just that by annually inviting Canadians to visit their neighbourhood mosques. The notion that a spirit of community and knowing one another are among the strongest bulwarks in the fight against intolerance is also supported by a 2016 Environics study. In parallel to this, concerted efforts are required to shatter any credence given to ideas that enable xenophobia and which lay the groundwork for menacing hate to take root no matter how carefully stated. This means informing our communities about actors who traffic hate-laden conspiracy theories and use the veneer of public debate to give their intolerant policy views legitimacy. Last year, not enough of us challenged the hateful lies repeatedly spewed by pseudo-journalists suggesting the mosque attack was an inside job done by Muslims. And where the rhetoric crosses the line into hate incitement or violence, our existing laws must be enforced consistently and without hesitation. Community safety demands no less. In troubling times talk often turns to holding the politicians accountable. We can change who is at the helm, but we must harness our individual and collective power to challenge this dangerous hatred and take steps to protect our shared values of human dignity and mutual respect. This past weekend, the Jewish people were once again reminded of the ancient hatred that finds its expression in the murder of innocents. Jewish communities around the world are now living through a time of tragedy and sorrow, following the attack at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, where 11 people were killed simply because they were Jewish. Tragically, they were struck down by an anti-Semitic hate that has targeted our people in so many places and at so many times throughout history. It has reached our doorsteps here in North America in its most heinous and unforgiving form. Read more: Pittsburgh funerals continue after Trump visit and protests Torontonians gather to honour victims of Pittsburgh synagogue shooting Opinion | Combat hate by building goodwill and tearing down walls Despite the grief, and anger, now is a time for healing. For standing together with those experiencing inconsolable pain. For saluting the bravery of law enforcement officials, and for remembering individuals whose lives so mirrored our own. Now is a time when we must all come together and anchor ourselves in the Jewish and universal Canadian values that we all hold dear. We are not alone in the fight against anti-Semitism. I am moved and motivated by the outpouring of support from so many organizations and leaders across the community who immediately reached out in solidarity. On Monday evening, UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs brought the community together, including many organizations both in the Jewish community and among other faith groups, in an emotional and inspiring vigil in memory of the victims. More than 5,000 Torontonians packed Mel Lastman Square along with thousands more who watched on television and on our live stream and stood shoulder to shoulder with leaders from numerous faiths, representatives of all levels of government and civic and labour leaders to condemn anti-Semitism and hate. Despite the sense of overwhelming sadness, the vigil was a truly inspiring community event and I am deeply grateful for the overwhelming support of the Toronto community. Now comes the hard work of determining how to move forward. How can we keep our community safe from anti-Semitism, from racism and bigotry, and from the violence which it breeds? Perhaps it is timely that less than a week after the deadliest attack against the Jewish community in North American history, we prepare to kickoff the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Centre for Holocaust Studies 38th annual Holocaust Education Week, which educates people about the dangers of anti-Semitism and hate in all its forms. At this important moment, I believe Holocaust education, which draws a direct line between the promotion of racism and its violent effects, is the most important tool we possess to counter growing hatred. It is in fact due in large part to the impactful work of Holocaust Education Week, cited by scholars as one of the most comprehensive vehicles for Holocaust education and remembrance in the world, that bigotry and anti-Semitism are widely understood and condemned by civil society. The robust education provided by Holocaust Education Week, and the programs offered to students year-round at the Neuberger Centre, have taught generations of men and women in politics, law enforcement, education and other fields how the promotion of prejudice and hatred can lead to violence. The understanding, empathy and expressions of heartfelt compassion following the Pittsburgh shooting, coupled with extensive condemnations of hate, is the positive result of this critical educational process. I encourage all Torontonians to participate in Holocaust Education Week this year, which runs from Nov. 1 to 8 in venues across the GTA. Attend a panel discussion, listen to the testimony of a survivor, visit one of the many interfaith programs or watch one of the several compelling film screenings. Educate yourself and share your knowledge with others. Education is the single most effective way to ensure that those who promote prejudice and violence against any group of people remain relegated to the margins of society. An old hatred is on the rise, Editorial, Oct. 30 At FAST (Fighting Antisemitism Together) we were devastated by the unspeakable attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and stand with the Jewish community in denouncing this hate crime. We mourn the tragic loss of life and support the Jewish community here in Canada, as well as in the United States. The Jewish population is once again the most targeted religious minority for hate crimes, and white supremacist groups are on the rise. FAST was founded in response to a wave of antisemitic incidents in 2004. Established by a coalition of non-Jewish business and community leaders, FAST is dedicated to combating all intolerance, with antisemitism as a specific manifestation of it. We believe that antisemitism is a battle for non-Jews to solve and that education is the best means to achieve the goal of eradicating this oldest hatred in history. Together we can end hate. Tony Comper, FAST Founder, Former President and CEO BMO Financial Group and Nicole Miller, FAST Executive Director, Toronto Fasih Malik, Calgary One of the more despicable themes of Donald Trumps disgraceful presidency is the constant attack the former reality TV host launches against the mainstream media. Day after day Trump goes after journalists, accusing them of spreading fake news, of being the enemy of the people and crooked media. He has praised a Montana politician who body-slammed a reporter, made fun of a disabled journalist and cheered on supporters who at one rally chanted Kill them, kill them. Its a deliberate strategy to fire up his hard-core supporters, who thrive on hatred, mistrust and bigotry. Its a tactic that appears to be working, given the resiliency of his base, which hates the mainstream media except for Fox News with a passion. Read more: Ford says voters should get rid of Justin Trudeau next year Scheer says media essential in holding politicians to account Doug Fords budget adviser praised carbon pricing in 2016 Its the same strategy Trump uses with his dog-whistle appeals to the far-right and lunatic fringes of America, who hate immigrants, minorities, liberals and Democrats too often with deadly results. That fury against the media has manifested itself to extremes when a suspected pipe bomb was sent to CNNs offices in New York City and with the physical and verbal assaults on journalists covering Trumps rallies. Sadly, the two most powerful Conservative leaders in Canada have decided to mimic the U.S. president by bashing the media, bringing the worst of Trump to this country. Both Ontario Premier Doug Ford and federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer are suddenly best buddies in their hatred of Justin Trudeau, Liberals and journalists. Clearly its a strategy that plays to their core voters and helps with fundraising, but it ultimately works to undermine our democracy and creates an opening for hatred that too often can spill out into the open, as we have seen happen tragically in recent weeks in the U.S. Ford has long despised most journalists, except for fawning columnists and editorial writers at the Toronto Sun and National Post. Throughout his political career he has attacked journalists, suggesting many of them are liars, downtown elitists or Liberal hacks. Now Scheer has joined the anti-media gang, telling party loyalists at a recent rally in Ottawa that he will stand up to the media and claimed falsely that the Tories dont get same treatment from mainstream media as do the Liberals and Trudeau. At the same time, Tory politicians have been branding some journalists as Liberal reporters. Its nothing new for politicians of all stripes to complain about their press coverage. What is new is the ferocity of todays attacks and how they feed into the populist rage that has emerged in Canada as well as the U.S. As we see in the U.S., that rage is aimed at discrediting the media and other institutions that have long been key elements in our democracy. In a new book released earlier this week, veteran journalist and former Macleans editor Bob Lewis argues that in the age of the tweet and social media, political reporting is more important today than ever. Lewis says in his book, Power, Prime Ministers and the Press: The Battle for Truth on Parliament Hill, that our democracy depends on the mainstream media presenting context, background and the truth. Despite Trumps chants of fake news and growing criticism here about biased and dishonest journalism, Lewis maintains that the news and media are more honest today than ever before because of the intense scrutiny on everything that is written or broadcast. As Scheer and Ford ratchet up their hate-filled rhetoric against the media, they would be well advised to listen to the words of Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of the Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 people were killed in last weekends anti-Semitic shooting spree. Myers urged all politicians to speak responsibly and to end hate-filled speech. Americans get their instructions from you, he said on CNN. When you speak words of hate, you say to them, This is OK, you can do it as well. Myers warned of a vicious circle. Hate promulgating more hate promulgating more hate, he said. We need to be better than this, we can be better than this. Scheer and Ford can indeed be better than this. Hopefully they will be. Read more about: OTTAWAThe chief budget adviser to Ontarios anti-carbon tax premier once told Canadian senators that putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions is the single most important thing that any government can do to transition to a low-carbon economy. Benjamin Dachis, now Premier Doug Fords director of policy, budget and fiscal planning, was supportive of a carbon price when he testified at a Senate committee on Parliament Hill in November 2016. At the time, Dachis was associate director of research at the C.D. Howe Institute, a Toronto-based think tank. The reason Im advocating a carbon price is that we, as a society, have made it a clear priority to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Dachis told the standing committee on energy, the environment and natural resources. Once your goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, by far the most efficient way to do so is through a price on carbon, he said. Ontarios Progressive Conservative Party was also in favour of carbon pricing before Patrick Brown resigned as leader and Ford led the party to victory in Junes provincial election. Ford campaigned to cut the cost of gasoline by axing the cap-and-trade system introduced by the previous Liberal government in 2016, a promise he kept when he moved to scrap the system in early July. But unlike Brown, Ford also vowed to fight the federal governments carbon price plan, which includes a tax on fuel and a credit-trading system for large industrial emitters. Intent on ensuring each province and territory has a carbon price system in place by 2019, Ottawa announced last week that it will impose its own pricing plan in Ontario over Fords resistance. Starting in April, the $20-per-tonne levy will also apply in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick. It will go up $10 each year until it hits $50 per tonne in 2022, when it is expected to increase gasoline costs by 11 cents per litre. Read more: Ford says voters should get rid of Justin Trudeau next year Ford doubles down on falsehoods about federal carbon tax Opinion | Martin Regg Cohn: How Doug Ford became Captain Canada our carbon-tax-fighter-in-chief The Trudeau Liberals say carbon pricing is central to their plan to cut emissions that cause climate change, and that all revenue will be returned directly to residents of the provinces where it is being imposed. More than 70 per cent will get more money back than they pay in extra tax, the government says. Dachis, who now serves as Fords budget policy director, did not respond to an interview request Tuesday. Fords spokesperson, Simon Jefferies, said Dachis who does not advise Ford on environmental issues and is among more than more than three dozen staffers in the premiers office was representing the views of the C.D. Howe Institute when he spoke to senators in Ottawa. He no longer works for or represents the C.D. Howe Institute, Jefferies said. Alongside federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and like-minded Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, Ford is now championing the resistance to Ottawas carbon tax. Ford and Scheer have cast doubt on the governments projection that most peoples rebates will outweigh the cost of the tax, while Ontario and Saskatchewan have gone to court to challenge the federal governments authority to impose the tax. Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus carbon tax will punish hard-working Ontario families who depend on cars to drive to- and-from work, seniors who depend on affordable natural gas to heat their homes in cold winters, and small businesses who create jobs up and down Main Street Ontario, said Jefferies. If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is insistent on ramming a carbon tax down the throats of Ontario families and job-creators, then Premier Doug Ford and the Ontario Government for the People will use every tool at our disposal to fight this carbon tax in court. Back in 2016, Dachis told the Senate committee that he believed a carbon price would encourage companies to adopt technologies to lower emissions. He also said a price to discourage emissions would lead to economic benefits of innovation more readily than policies that rely mostly on subsidies to develop new technology, and that such a carbon price wouldnt destroy the countrys oil and gas industry. The bottom line is that Canada can have emissions reductions and jobs in the oil and gas sector, thanks to pipelines and LNG export facilities, as long as we are going to have in place some form of carbon price, Dachis said. Hes not the only member of Fords team to have previously supported carbon pricing. Attorney General Caroline Mulroney started her failed bid for the PC leadership last winter by supporting Browns centrist Peoples Guarantee platform. That plan, announced in November 2017, would have accepted the federal governments carbon price and given the province control over its projected revenue in the province, which Ottawa has pegged at about $1.7 billion next year from the fuel charge alone. Browns plan would have used that revenue to cut taxes. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report on Thanksgiving weekend that called for rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, if the world is to avoid the worst extremes of global warming. The report said global emissions will need to drop by 45 per cent below 2010 levels in 2030, and then hit net zero by 2050. Canadas current target, which government projections say the country is on track to miss, is to cut emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Ottawas carbon price plan is expected to cut annual emissions by 50 to 60 megatonnes in 2022, according to federal officials. Canada emitted 704 megatonnes in 2016. Read more about: MONTREALIt is not necessary to doubt the independence of former governor-general David Johnston to find that the optics of his nomination as Canadas first debates commissioner were less than optimal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not consult the opposition parties on the choice of a debates referee nominee. The Liberal government set the criteria that will govern admission to the leaders podium of next falls commission-supervised election debates. Under the plan, the format and the journalistic parameters of the debates would for the first time be in the hands of a government appointee. What could possibly go wrong? Lets start with the manner chosen by the Trudeau Liberals to create this new body. It comes across as the opposite of an arms-length process. And yet if there is one policy area where it matters that the government does not look like it is judge and party, it is the framing of Canadas electoral rules. In opposition, the Trudeau Liberals spent a lot of time rightly reminding Stephen Harpers Conservatives that no one party should on the strength of a governing majority set the rules of electoral engagement. The debates are not marginal campaign events. They are central ones that have in the past made or broken the election prospects of party leaders. There is a reason why much behind-the-scenes haggling between the parties and the debates media sponsors has always attended their organization. All the participants have a lot riding on the exercise. That includes the governing party. The debates commission would be tasked to oversee only two debates one in each official language. Other organizations would remain free to offer some or all leaders other opportunities to cross swords. Macleans and the Munk Centre each sponsored a debate in 2015. But it is easy to see why a prime minister could be content with participating only in the commission-sponsored national debates. As a rule, a decent night for a prime minister seeking re-election is one that sees him or her walking away from the set with non-lethal wounds. It is first and foremost a defensive exercise. For that reason, it can be in an incumbents best interest to limit his or her appearances. To have the right for its leader to participate, a party would have to satisfy two of three conditions: to have had at least one MP elected under its banner; to be running candidates in at least 90 per cent of the countrys 338 ridings; to have won at least 4 per cent of the vote in a previous election, or short of that, to satisfy the commission that it has a fighting chance of winning seats. (If that sounds like it is open to interpretation it is because it is.) At the time of its 1993 maiden campaign the Bloc Quebecois would not have qualified for a debate spot. Would a federal debates commission have bent the rules to make room on the podium for a sovereigntist champion like Lucien Bouchard? And would the other parties have accepted that decision? Under the current formula, there would be no less than five leaders on the commission-sponsored podiums next fall and possibly six if Maxime Berniers Peoples Party makes the cut. There is undoubtedly value in staging debates that provide voters with an opportunity to check out the full range of leaders on offer. But at the same time a crowded podium tends to offer fewer opportunities to see how the main opposition contenders stack up to the prime minister. The last federal election featured five debates of uneven reach. After Harper declined their invitation, Canadas major English-television networks did not organize a debate nor did they broadcast one. But while part of the purported rationale of the Liberal plan is to ensure that at least one debate in each language is readily available to all voters, there would be no obligation for the major networks including the CBC and Radio-Canada to carry the commission-sponsored events. At least one journalism umbrella group, the Federation professionnelle des journalistes du Quebec, feels media organizations should think long and hard before relinquishing their leading role in campaign debates to a government-appointed commission. Finally, by not consulting the other parties on his nominee, the prime minister has essentially signalled that the government believes it has the discretion to appoint whoever suits its fancy to oversee the main events of the next federal campaign. Thats a precedent future prime ministers could be happy to replicate. One can only imagine what the reaction of the Liberals back in their recent opposition days would have been if Harper had unilaterally imposed a referee to supervise the 2015 election debates. Chantal Hebert is a columnist based in Ottawa covering politics. Follow her on Twitter: @ChantalHbert Read more about: Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili. The global Mouth Ulcer Treatment Drug market report accessible on DecisionDatabases.com offer all-inclusive market knowledge and insight of the market. The information is obtained and analyzed from the past and current year to forecast the market covering in the next seven years. The Mouth Ulcer Treatment Drug industry experts were interviewed across the globe to gather the data which is then validated based on the secondary data. Download Free Sample Report @ https://www.decisiondatabases.com/contact/download-sample-32915 The various contributors involved in the value chain of Mouth Ulcer Treatment Drug include manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, intermediaries, and customers. The key manufacturers in the Mouth Ulcer Treatment Drug include Colgate-Palmolive Pfizer GlaxoSmithKline 3M Healthcare Sannova Reckitt Benckiser Church & Dwight Sunstar Dr.Reddys Blairex Laboratories Sanjin Pharmaceutical Prestige Joincare Pharmaceutical Sinclair Pharma Blistex Market Size Split by Type Gel Spray Patch Mouthwash Lozenge Market Size Split by Application Hospitals Clinics Drugstores Access the Report and Full TOC @ https://www.decisiondatabases.com/ip/32915-mouth-ulcer-treatment-drug-industry-market-report Table of Contents-Snapshot 1 Report Overview 2 Global Growth Trends 3 Market Share by Key Players 4 Breakdown Data by Type and Application 5 United States 6 Europe 7 China 8 Japan 9 Southeast Asia 10 India 11 Central & South America 12 International Players Profiles 13 Market Forecast 2018-2025 14 Analysts Viewpoints/Conclusions 15 Appendix About Us: DecisionDatabases.com is a Global business research reports provider, enriching decision makers and strategists with qualitative statistics. DecisionDatabases.com is proficient in providing syndicated research Report, customized research reports, company profiles and industry databases across multiple domains. Our expert research analysts have been trained to map clients research requirements to the correct research resource leading to a distinctive edge over its competitors. We provide intellectual, precise and meaningful data at a lightning speed. For More Details: DecisionDatabases.com E-Mail: sales@decisiondatabases.com Phone: +91-90-28-057900 Web: https://www.decisiondatabases.com/ OTTAWAStatistics Canada has asked the federal privacy watchdog to review a new research project that would analyze the private banking information of 500,000 Canadians. Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therriens office said Wednesday that Statistics Canada asked them to perform a deep dive on the project, first revealed by Global News. Therriens office said it had received multiple complaints about the project after media reports began to surface. The commissioners office will be seeking details regarding the information requests the agency has made to various industry sectors, a statement posted by the privacy watchdog read. The commissioners office has a legal obligation to investigate complaints fairly and impartially under the law Therefore, no additional details can be provided at this time. StatsCan was seeking individual-level financial transaction data of 500,000 Canadians from banks for a pilot research project. The agency told Global News that the data would be anonymized once obtained from banks meaning StatsCan staffers couldnt look up where individual Canadians spend their money. Its not clear how the Canadians would be chosen. Canadas chief statistician, Anil Arora, said the agency needs the data to measure Canadas economy and Canadians financial habits. Traditional research methods, the agency argued, arent keeping up with societal change. The agencys explanations havent flown in the House of Commons, where the opposition Conservatives have been demanding answers on why StatsCan needs the personal banking information of thousands of Canadians. (This) is about the fundamental right for Canadians to have their personal financial information protected, said Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer during question period Wednesday. Its about whether or not this government thinks it has a right to peer into individuals bank accounts to access line-by-line transactions. Will (Prime Minister Justin Trudeau) do the right thing, and tell his government department to stop accessing Canadians private information? For a second day, Trudeau defended the StatsCan project, saying theyre ensuring Canadians privacy rights will be respected. Statistics Canada will use anonymized data for statistical purposes only, Trudeau told the Commons. No personal information will be made public. Statistics Canada is engaged with the privacy commissioners office on this project, and is working with them to ensure Canadians banking information remains protected and private. With a file from the Canadian Press. VANCOUVERAn expert panel of scientists is urging the B.C. government to ensure swift action on forthcoming species-at-risk legislation to help struggling wildlife populations recover not a years-long process typical of similar legislation at the national level. British Columbia has the greatest biodiversity of any province or territory in Canada, according to the expert report, written by scientists with the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative and several universities. But B.C. also has the most species at risk. The report says the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada has done an assessment and determined that 278 species are at risk of extinction in B.C. So far, 214 of those are listed under the federal Species At Risk Act. There could be more added to the list. The B.C. Conservation Data Centre says there are 1,807 species at risk, including those with small or declining populations and limited ranges, the report says. We have to act, and we have to act quickly, said Alana Westwood, the reports lead author and a science and policy analyst with the Yellowstone to Yukon not-for-profit organization. Every moment we delay, it gets more expensive and more difficult to recover species, she said. The panels recommendations came the same week a World Wildlife Fund report was released that found wildlife populations around the world have declined by a dramatic 60 per cent between 1970 and 2014. The province currently relies on what the expert report calls a patchwork of legislation that wasnt intended to protect species at risk, including the wildlife act and legislation covering B.C.s resource industries. Very little land in B.C. is Crown land owned by Ottawa, so most of it doesnt automatically fall under the federal legislation either, said Sally Otto, a University of British Columbia biologist and Westwoods co-author. B.C.s NDP government committed in 2017 to develop the provinces own endangered species legislation and this year began consulting with experts, Indigenous communities and industry on what it might look like. The province recognizes the importance of conserving B.C.s plants, animals and ecosystems so that we have an environment that supports healthy communities and prosperous and sustainable livelihoods, Ministry of Environment spokesperson David Karn said in a statement. The move is a real opportunity, Otto said. Its a chance to look around and see whats working and not working in other provinces and regions and to really beef this up in British Columbia. At the federal level, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada is important, Otto said, but the committee is only involved with listing species. In B.C., she and her co-authors are calling for an expert committee thats involved in the whole process from listing species at risk, to developing a recovery plan and enacting that plan. Acting quickly is critical, Otto said, explaining that in many cases, action is delayed by the process of developing a recovery plan, which can take years. Instead, the expert panel recommends immediate action based on expertise thats already available. Finally, it wants to see greater government accountability to ensure the legislation is living up to its purpose of recovering species essentially, that its not an empty law, Westwood said. That means having every report, every piece of data available to the public for independent scrutiny, she said. Read more about: VANCOUVERMedical professionals are expressing outrage after students taking last weekends Medical Council of Canada licensing examination had to declare menstrual products they brought into the daylong exams. The social-media storm over the policy now being referred to as #tampongate began the night before the second part of the Medical Council of Canadas Qualifying Examinations (MCCQE) on Oct. 27. Would-be doctors must pass the examinations in order to obtain a medical licence. Though the council would later say it has no clear policy on students bringing menstrual products into the exam room, doctors and members of the medical community criticized the MCC for what they said was effectively a ban of such items in the exam room. Canadian Women in Medicine, a non-profit organization for female physicians, launched a petition to end the scrutiny of feminine hygiene products, saying it appreciated the need to prevent cheating but arguing that the requirement is discriminatory. The MCCs universal ban on exam writers bringing menstrual hygiene products into exam facilities is wrong and needs to end immediately, wrote Michelle Cohen, advocacy chair of Canadian Women in Medicine, in the online petition. Subjecting people who require menstrual hygiene products to additional scrutiny under suspicion of cheating is discriminatory against those who menstruate, she wrote. In a phone interview with StarMetro, Cohen reported that her petition had reached almost 500 signatures by Tuesday evening. Alana Fleet, a second-year resident at UBC and board chair of the Resident Doctors of Canada, said that for the past two years her organization has been fighting the MCCs policies, which initially categorized menstrual products under accommodations that had to be preregistered in advance. According to the MCC website, upon registration, exam staff will collect your personal belongings, such as keys, papers, pens and pencils, books, wallets, cellphones, coats, etc. These belongings will be provided back to you after the examination. Anything outside of those products would be deemed an accommodation. Previously the policy was that you had to preregister up to six weeks in advance for anyone that had an accommodation, Fleet said, noting that the policy included menstrual items. But after demands for a fairer system, she said, that policy was changed earlier this year so that students did not have to preregister, but you had to inform an examiner when you show up. Members of the medical community took issue with that new policy, calling out the MCC directly. Sarah Tulk, a family doctor based in Ontario, tweeted that women were worried about how to manage their period during the hours-long exam. You cant bring pads/tampons to the LMCC. 2-3 hr exam +/- 4-6 hr quarantine. They dont provide products. Some women wear diapers or stuff product in their bras. Night before the exam, men can focus on the exam ... women are brainstorming how to avoid bleeding through their clothes. The MCC issued a statement Oct. 27, promising to review its policy again and provide menstrual products in womens bathrooms. Then on Oct. 31, the MCC published a statement online in response to the complaints. The council said it currently does not have a specific policy with regards to menstrual products but does have practices to preserve the security and integrity of the exam, in which personal items like purses, bags and backpacks are not allowed in the exam area. Have your say These are stored securely by the onsite staff and can be accessed on request. Test-takers can request to use the washroom facilities and to have access to personal items that they may need. In these instances, they are accompanied by a member of the exam staff to access their personal items, the statement said. A group is being established to review current practices, and we look forward to collaborating with learners to identify opportunities for improvements in these practices moving forward. But Cohen said that while the commitment to provide menstrual products is a step in the right direction, it was still problematic that test takers would have to rely on the organization to provide personal items. Those who have specific needs for specific products will still be unaccommodated and ultimately discriminated against by this policy, she argued in the petition. Fleet, who wrote the exam this past weekend, said that on Sunday she saw menstrual products in the womens washroom, as promised. However, she still found the policies confusing and could not find anything specifically written on the MCC website with regards to menstrual products. She said most of the messaging was communicated on Twitter. This was not clearly communicated to residents. I was on a leadership body so I was aware ... but this was not specifically explained to residents, she said. While Fleet said providing products is a good start, she hopes that the MCC can address the root of the problem. I think that whatever policy they come to they should look to recognize the rights of exam takers. Read more about: The global Wear Plate market report accessible on DecisionDatabases.com offer all-inclusive market knowledge and insight of the market. The information is obtained and analyzed from the past and current year to forecast the market covering in the next seven years. The Wear Plate industry experts were interviewed across the globe to gather the data which is then validated based on the secondary data. Download Free Sample Report @ https://www.decisiondatabases.com/contact/download-sample-32916 This report focuses on the top manufacturers' Wear Plate capacity, production, value, price and market share of Wear Plate in global market. The following manufacturers are covered in this report: SSAB JFE ThyssenKrupp Dillinger ArcelorMittal Essar Steel Algoma NSSMC Wuyang Steel Xinyu Iron & Steel NLMK Clabecq Baosteel Group Baohua Resistant Steel Bisalloy ANSTEEL TISCO Bisalloy Jigang Wear Plate Breakdown Data by Type Under HBW 400 HBW 400-500 Above HBW 500 Wear Plate Breakdown Data by Application Mining Construction Others Wear Plate Production Breakdown Data by Region United States Europe China Japan Other Regions Access the Report and Full TOC @ https://www.decisiondatabases.com/ip/32916-wear-plate-industry-market-report Table of Contents-Snapshot 1 Study Coverage 2 Executive Summary 3 Market Size by Manufacturers 4 Double Winding Transformers Production by Regions 5 Double Winding Transformers Consumption by Regions 6 Market Size by Type 7 Market Size by Application 8 Manufacturers Profiles 9 Production Forecasts 10 Consumption Forecast 11 Value Chain and Sales Channels Analysis 12 Market Opportunities & Challenges, Risks and Influences Factors Analysis 13 Key Findings in the Global Double Winding Transformers Study 14 Appendix About Us: DecisionDatabases.com is a Global Business Research Reports Providers, enriching decision makers and strategists with qualitative statistics.DecisionDatabases.com is proficient in providing syndicated research Reports, customized research reports, company profiles and industry databases across multiple domains. Our expert research analysts have been trained to map client's research requirements to the correct research resource leading to a distinctive edge over its competitors. We provide intellectual, precise and meaningful data at a lightning speed. For More Details: DecisionDatabases.com E-Mail: sales@decisiondatabases.com Phone: +91 9028057900 Web: https://www.decisiondatabases.com/ The ominous prognosis for much of the retail sector does not extend to the top drugstore chains. While the ongoing march of e-commerce has driven the downfall of retail icons such as Sears and Toys R Us and contributed to huge scale-backs by others such as Macys, CVS Health leads a group of resilient health-focused retailers. The opening last month of another CVS store in Stamford underscores the continued growth of a company that secured U.S. Justice Department approval last month of its $69 billion acquisition of Hartford-based health-insurance giant Aetna. Just as filling up for gas brings people to gas stations stores, pharmacies drive people into the drug store, which are stocked with convenience items that they probably would not comparison-shop for, said Vince Maniscalco, an executive director of commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefields Connecticut valuation and advisory practice. Theres an inherent draw with their pharmacy department. A department store doesnt have that type of draw. Strong brick-and-mortar foundation On Oct. 14, CVS opened its latest store in Stamford, at 1938 W. Main St., on the citys West Side. In April, a Home Depot store opened on the other side of the road. The approximately 10,270-square-foot CVS outlet, which includes a drive-through pharmacy, was built on a previously vacant lot. It stands a few blocks from the citys border with Greenwich, joining eight other CVS stores in the city. Stamford has been an excellent market for CVS Pharmacy, and the addition of the location on West Main Street further enhances our presence there, said CVS spokeswoman Amy Lanctot. We look forward to serving the pharmacy needs of the Stamford area from our new store on West Main Street. In Connecticut, CVS operates 174 stores, many of which are open 24 hours. It runs about 9,800 outlets nationwide. CVS has been smart in how theyve expanded their offerings over the past few years, said Jessica Curtis, a Stamford-based senior vice president at commercial real estate firm CBRE. Theyve worked to differentiate themselves from other pharmacy chains. Theyre one of the few retailers that have really evolved over the last five years. CVS accounts for about one in four pharmacies in southwestern Connecticut, according to a regulatory database maintained by the state. Walgreens has about the same number, including Rite Aid locations it acquired earlier this year. Among the other pharmacies in the region, another quarter are independently operated, with remaining counters operated largely by supermarkets and health clinics. In Greenwich, a CVS retail pharmacy at 99 Greenwich Ave. has been put up for sale, but the store appears to be staying put. In February, CVS took a 20-year renewal at the downtown address. The Greenwich Avenue store comprises one of two CVS locations in Greenwich, with the town having seven pharmacies in all. As the Woonsocket, R.I.-based company grows, it has pared back in certain areas. A CVS store at Danbury Fair mall closed recently, with the space now being readied for a Kidz Klub indoor play park. In the past quarter, revenue from CVS retail-pharmacy business hit $20.7 billion, up 5.7 percent from a year ago. Same-store prescription volume growth of 9.5 percent underpinned the increase. People may use online services for medicine thats regularly taken daily or weekly, Maniscalco said. But theyre not going to do that for an illness or injury, when they want their prescribed drugs as soon as possible. Aiming for more growth Joining with Aetna would further bolster CVS growth prospects. It would combine one of the countrys largest drugstore chains and pharmacy managers in CVS and one of the longest-running health insurers in Aetna, whose coverage spans employer health insurance and public-sector plans. I dont see any letup in pharmacy spending. Its generally driven by consumer need, not want, Curtis said. And theres an older part of the population that would have a great deal of difficulty if they did not have the option to go to a pharmacy and speak with a pharmacist. The Justice Departments approval represented one of the final regulatory hurdles. CVS plans to close on the Aetna acquisition in the first quarter of 2019. Amid CVS ongoing growth, a number of locally owned pharmacies said they continue to hold their own. I have a niche business that I dont think CVS can touch because of my community connections, said John Ciuffo, owner of Cornerstone Pharmacy, at 134 Stillwater Ave., a few blocks from the new Stamford CVS store. I dont run a mini-mart, with a pharmacy in it; I have a traditional pharmacy. People appreciate the more professional atmosphere in my establishment versus walking through a mini-mart to get their prescription. Jordan Grice and Alexander Soule contributed reporting to this article. pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; twitter: @paulschott "Viper Club" has all the right ingredients: a topical premise, ripped from the headlines; a likable lead character; and the highly relatable theme of frustration with bureaucracy. But good intentions only go so far, especially when they mask tawdry melodrama. Even the best movies push emotional buttons, but they work because viewers become wrapped up in the story. This one is so manipulative you can hear the gears grinding - until they lock up. Susan Sarandon plays Helen, an emergency room nurse with a double life. At work, her colleagues rely on her because she's always happy to cover an extra shift. But in private, Helen is desperate because Syrian terrorists have captured her journalist son Andrew (Julian Morris). Functionaries at the departments of Justice and State have instructed Helen that she cannot tell anyone about what has happened, explaining that any attempt to pay a ransom herself would be illegal. Soon, however, Helen makes contact with an informal collective of journalists and their families - known as the Viper Club - who make ransom money available through shadowy back channels. As the government stalls and Helen's frustrations grow, this club seems like the more attractive option - even if it comes with considerable risk. Director Maryam Keshavarz, who wrote the film with Jonathan Mastro, uses a parallel scene structure to covey Helen's divided mental state: in the E.R., she's cool and collected; at home, she's barely keeping it together. As if her family's troubles aren't enough, there's also a subplot in which Helen rescues a little girl who has been shot, offering comfort to her worried mother (Lola Kirke). "Viper Club" is storytelling at its most heavy-handed. Helen, for instance, engages in imaginary conversations with her missing son. While the Oscar-winning actress elevates the material - delivering a nervy, understated performance - there is not much she can do to save the film from its own tonal incongruity, as when Helen takes a break from worrying by engaging in a snowball fight. Theatrically distributed by Roadside Attractions in partnership with YouTube, which plans to show the film on its YouTube Premium streaming platform, "Viper Club" prominently features YouTube videos as a plot point. Helen uses the service, for instance, to watch Andrew's reporting from Syria, and those clips make for a disturbing glimpse of life in a war zone. Coupled with another scene in which Helen records a video for Andrew's captors, the films suggests that online video is a vital, if potentially risky, communication tool. This seeming plug for YouTube as the go-to platform for social change is echoed by the portrayal of the film's bureaucrats as inept cartoons who treat Helen with a mix of frustration and disdain. There's a deep cynicism here. Few, if any, of the film's characters - even the journalists - seem capable of making a difference. Sarandon attracted a lot of attention during the 2016 presidential election when she suggested that Donald Trump could be good for America - assuming he creates enough domestic chaos to jump-start a political revolution. How perfect, then, that the actress has chosen to make such an overtly political film, one in which Helen and Andrew are portrayed as collateral damage in exactly the sort of chaotic situation that she predicted. Her comments hang in the air, creating a polemical subtext that prevents the film from feeling like anything genuine is at stake. By the time "Viper" arrives at its predictable conclusion, its hackneyed foreshadowing ensures a halfhearted ending that has all the impact of a shrug. If the movie doesn't care about the real Helens and Andrews of the world, how can we be expected to? --- One and one-half stars. Rated R. Contains strong language and some disturbing images. 109 minutes. Ratings Guide: Four stars masterpiece, three stars very good, two stars OK, one star poor, no stars waste of time. EDWARDSVILLE A convicted murderer who was repeatedly warned of the risks of representing himself is now asking for a lawyer. Vincent Gordon, 35, of Alton, has written from the Madison County Jail to Judge Richard Tognarelli asking for a much needed lawyer for my post-conviction proceedings. Gordon was convicted Oct. 23 of killing Derrick Vaughn, 28, and Elijah Ingram, 30, both of Alton, May 21 in the 3100 block of Lawn Street, in the Alton Acres public housing complex. He faces a mandatory life sentence because he murdered two people. Throughout the trial, Gordon was reminded by the judge that he must obey the rules of evidence, even though he represented himself. He will not be allowed to asked for a new trial based on ineffective counsel. During his closing argument, prosecutors repeatedly objected to statements Gordon made, which were not brought into evidence during testimony. He said he could prove his innocence, if allowed to bring in the evidence. The judge admonished him that he was warned of the risks of representing himself. If I would have known the rules of the courtroom and all its proceeding in which establishes truth or evidence or innocence (clear and convincing evidence) I would not be here, Gordon wrote to the judge. He is in the Madison County Jail awaiting sentencing. I feel as if there was a lot of errors in my trial, and I do not no how to go about moving on with my post-conviction proceedings (and Im asking for hep today 10/24/18). I need a lawyers help? Gordon wrote. A jury found Gordon guilty of two counts of first-degree murder, a count of unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon and escape. He was in a card game with three other people in the 3100 block of Lawn Street. Prosecutors said the two victims were killed over a silly little argument. Gordon was on parole when the shooting occurred but cut a Department of Corrections ankle bracelet off. Gordon was out on parole as a result of a July 17, 2015, shooting at The C&M Lounge in Venice. He and his younger brother Vontarious Gordon were charged with aggravated battery with a firearm. Vincent Gordon pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six years in the Illinois Department of Corrections in the Venice shooting. His brother pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Gordon also has convictions for robbery, probation violation and reckless homicide. Reach reporter Sanford Schmidt at 618-208-6449. EDWARDSVILLE Metro East Humane Society (MEHS) plans to launch its holiday fundraising campaign Yappy Pawlidays tomorrow. The multifaceted fundraising event gives Metro East residents and business leaders the opportunity to get involved in MEHSs mission in various ways throughout the giving season. Giving is easy and fun with Yappy Pawlidays from MEHS staff and volunteers managing their own fundraising campaigns to area businesses collecting cash and supply donations on our behalf or donating a percentage of their sales, anyone can participate at any level, said Stephanie Pfaff, development manager of MEHS. The following local businesses will support the Yappy Pawlidays campaign in a variety of ways: Club Whisker Bones in Glen Carbon will have a giving tree inside their facility where customers can take an ornament off of the tree and make a donation to support an animal at MEHS. Four Muddy Paws in Edwardsville is hosting its annual Pictures with Santa Benefit on Sunday, Nov. 4 from 11 a.m. 3 p.m. and 100 percent of the proceeds will be donated to MEHS. There are limited sessions available. To schedule a photo session for your pet, call Four Muddy Paws at 618-692-4729. There will also be a MEHS giving tree inside their store, as well as a donation box. Sacred Grounds located in downtown Edwardsville will have a MEHS donation box inside their cafe. Also, on Saturday, Nov. 24, 20 percent of their sales will be donated to MEHS. Cleveland Heath located in downtown Edwardsville will be donating 10 percent of their sales to MEHS on Sunday, Nov. 25 from 5 8 p.m. Mamas Rehab in Highland will be donating 10 percent of their December sales to MEHS. LaBest Pet Resort in Edwardsville will have a cash donation box, supplies donation box and giving tree inside their facility to benefit MEHS. Unleashed in Troy, Ill. will have a donation box to benefit MEHS. King Air Conditioning & Heating in Godfrey, Ill. will be hosting a donation drive for MEHS, and anyone who donates will be entered into a drawing to win free St. Louis Blues tickets. Yappy Pawlidays will also consist of a 25 Days of Christmas where each day through Dec. 1 -Dec. 25 will have a specific donation request for MEHS, including products from their Amazon wish list, office supplies, fleece blankets, etc. The25 Days of Christmas items will be posted on the MEHS Facebook page:(https://www.facebook.com/metroeasthumanesociety/), as well as on their website (www.mehs.org). If you are a local business owner that wishes to get involved with Yappy Pawlidays, contact Stephanie Pfaff at 314-363-4971. GODFREY The Swarovski Waterschool USA: Mississippi River is inviting the community to an upcoming premiere of a compelling new documentary, WATERSCHOOL, which brings to life the importance of empowering youth around the globe to become water ambassadors. Local efforts and issues are featured through the eyes of Swarovski Waterschool USA participant MyKeyla Hall, a former student of Lovejoy School in Brooklyn, Illinois, and through the experts at L&Cs National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, home of the only Swarovski Waterschool in North America. What an honor it has been for the students of Lovejoy School to work with the National Great River Research and Education Center in conjunction with the Swarvoski Water School Curriculum and Projects, said Vanae Chapman, fifth-/sixth-grade teacher of Lovejoy School. We are so excited to premiere this film at our school. Please come out to join us as we celebrate being a part of such a tremendous experience. The film will be premiered at the Lovejoy Elementary School Gym in Brooklyn, Illinois, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018, at 5:30 p.m. Popcorn will be served during the film, which will be followed by a Mostaccioli dinner and question/answer session. To RSVP for this free event, visit www.ngrrec.org/Swarovski_Waterschool. Other screenings will include: Friday, Nov. 9, at 3 p.m. at the East St. Louis Higher Education Campus in East St. Louis. Tuesday, Nov. 13, at 1 p.m. in Trimpe 141 on the Godfrey campus of Lewis and Clark Community College. Wednesday, Nov. 14, at 1 p.m. at the Mannie Jackson Center for the Humanities Foundation in Edwardsville. WATERSCHOOL is a documentary about six young women who attend Swarovski Waterschool in six different countries along six major rivers: USA (Mississippi), Brazil (Amazon), Austria (Danube), Uganda (Nile), India (Ganges), China (Yangtze). The film addresses different issues around water through the experiences of each young woman. I believe WATERSCHOOL focuses on a common resource that links us all together, Waterschool Educator Corrine OBrien said. The story of six inspiring young women, united by a vision of hope, can serve as a lesson for us all. The film was produced by graduate students at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theater, Film and Television. We are proud to be able to showcase the work of the Swarovski Waterschool over the past 18 years in India, China, Uganda, South and North America, as well as Austria, in this documentary, created by graduate students from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, said Nadja Swarovski, a member of Swarovski Executive Board. We hope that this beautiful work will provide insight into crucial topics relating to water, and inspiration to the audience to understand that each individual can play a big part in safeguarding the well-being of this planet. For those who cannot attend one of the screenings, WATERSCHOOL is now streaming on Netflix. Visit www.ngrrec.org/swarovski_waterschool to learn more. The Illinois Department of Transportation has convened its first Traffic Safety Summit: Partnering Toward Zero Deaths to bring together agencies, public officials and community members to seek solutions to distracted driving and develop new ways to increase safety and awareness on Illinois roads. The number of lives lost each year due to crashes is nothing short of an epidemic, Illinois Transportation Secretary Randy Blankenhorn said. No one group can tackle this alone, which is why it was is important to bring everyone together to discuss a multifaceted approach to this complex issue. This summit is just the beginning of what needs to be a statewide conversation on how to save lives. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc receives General Commander of the Cambodian Royal Armed Forces Vong Pisen (Photo: VNA) He made the statement on October 30th while receiving General Vong Pisen, General Commander of the Cambodian Royal Armed Forces, who is on an official visit to Vietnam from October 29th-31st. PM Phuc congratulated Vong Pisen on the latters new position as the head of the Cambodian armed forces, saying he believes that the General will continue his efforts to better the traditional friendship between the two armies in particular, and Vietnam-Cambodia ties in general. Speaking highly of the outcomes of the talks between Sen. Lieut. Gen. Phan Van Giang, Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam Peoples Army and Deputy Minister of Defence, and General Vong Pisen, he said that the talks will help implement the cooperation agreements between the two defence ministries in an effective manner. The Government leader went on to praise their sound collaboration in the fields of training, border security, the fight against smuggling and human trafficking, and search and rescue activities. He asked the Cambodian Ministry of National Defence to coordinate with the Vietnamese side in the search and repatriation of remains of Vietnamese volunteers and experts who were taken down in Cambodia during the war. As both sides are preparing for the 40th anniversary of the victory over the Khmer Rouge regime (January 7th, 1979-2019), PM Phuc suggested Vong Pisen urge competent authorities to join hands with Vietnam to organise the celebration activities to highlight the significance of this historic event. He asked the Cambodian Government to create favourable conditions for border guard forces and border localities to carry out cooperation programmes, while stepping up popularisation to ensure that local people strictly abide by border-related regulations for a shared border of peace, stability, and development. Vong Pisen, for his part, informed the Vietnamese Government leader of the cooperation results between the two armies. They have made significant contributions to the strong bonds between residents in border areas, and concerted efforts to protect border security. They also have had smooth collaborations in the joint patrols of the border localities and working on border demarcation and marker planting, he added. The General took the occasion to thank the Vietnamese Ministry of Defence for providing training for the Cambodian army. The Cambodian Government and people have always treasured and will continue to treasure the valuable support of Vietnam during its national liberation and socio-economic development, he said, underlining that Cambodia, in return, will carry on facilitating conditions and work closely with their Vietnamese peers in the search and repatriation of remains of Vietnamese soldiers in the country./. Most of this column by Telegraph producer Nathan Woodside was first published in 2016. The story about the jealous husband is a new addition. ALTON Can we see Deaf Bill? Wide-eyed children queried with wide grins, kicking at the dirt with their Chuck Taylor All-Star sneakers, hoping to balm a boring summer day not at the pool, not at the playground at the funeral home. Its still there today at 727 Langdon in Alton, but no longer under the name Burke just an unassuming building with no signs or oft characteristics now zoned as a multiple-family residence. No plaque or monument displayed noting the site of what likely thousands of Altonians will never forget as the legend of Deaf Bill. Ingrained into the DNA of Alton is the allure of the weird. The most haunted town in America they call it. Its no marketing ploy by a promotion-savvy Visitors and Conventions Bureau. Alton is legit weird, and it gets no more strange than the story that was finally buried 20 years ago this summer. William Deaf Bill Lee was laid to rest on June 24, 1996 and heres the kicker after his mummified corpse stood in a closet at Burke Funeral Home, clad in only a diaper, free to view to any man, woman or child, for 80 years. From the June 24, 1996 issue of The Telegraph: Lee, whose body stood in a small closet at Burke Funeral Home for more than 80 years, was decked out in a suit in the style of his day as organ music played, the smell of flowers filled the air and men stood by in suits. About 350 people streamed in and out of the newly refurbished Burke Funeral Home from noon to 6 p.m. Sunday to pay respects to Deaf Bill, who attracted perhaps thousands of curious youngsters when he was a resident of the closet. When you were a kid, you were just fascinated, Barbara Gearing, who attended the funeral, said at the time, recalling the feeling of reaching out with trembling hand to touch Deaf Bills hardened skin. Hes all dressed up now. He doesnt look quite as much like a mummy. The report, written by Sanford Schmidt, whos still a reporter at The Telegraph, notes that some makeup was applied to make the body look lighter and more alive than when it stood in the closet. So, how did this scenario, seemingly straight out of a collection of odd urban myths, come to be? Lee was a hard-of-hearing fisherman who lived on the island. Previous Telegraph articles about him report that he was a local character known to hit the bottle and launch into prolific preaching and swearing, loud enough to be heard on the other side of the river. An item in the Oct. 11, 1902 Telegraph says it all: William Lee, better known as Deaf Bill, the Poo-bah of MPike island, was married Saturday morning by Police Magistrate Few. The bride was Matie A.H. Ferguson, of Paxton, Ill., who came to town recently and whose charms enamored Deaf Bill. The bride was satisfied with her choice notwithstanding the fact that Bill can hardly hear. He made the front page July 2, 1914 Alton Evening Telegraph with a story of irony. He was serving time in the St. Charles County Jail for stealing tools from a mechanic when someone entered his house boat and stole nearly everything he owned including carpets, dishes, the stove, the bed and all of his furniture. Curiously, the only items the robbers didnt steal were two shotguns and a revolver that Deaf Bill kept hanging from the ceiling. He claimed to be haunted by a woman whose jealous husband killed her On Oct. 19, 1904, Mr. Lee reported to The Telegraph that he was the subject of a ghosting in his fishermens shack on McPike Island. He said that a few years before the apparent haunting, a fisherman named John Snow and his wife showed up at Bills residence asking for a place to stay until he could earn some money and continue their travels to Kentucky. Snows wife apparently took a liking to Lee and Snow became enraged with jealousy. Lee said Snow took off across the river with his wife in a skiff, never to be seen again, the skiff later found abandoned. He surmised that Snow whacked his wife in the head with an oar and the both tumbled overboard. From the report: Now fishermen and others who happen to be on McPikes island at night say a ghost with clanking chains and hollow eyes as becomes a ghost cavorts around the vicinity of the old Lee shack and moans and makes noises as if something ailed it, and John Kenney is of the opinion that the wraith is that of Snows wife, but he cannot understand what she is doing around Lees former abode instead of being where Snow is. Bill never did nawthin to her, says Kenney, only love her little, mebbe, and treat her a blamed sight better than her husband did, and besides there is no call for her to be making all these here unearthly noises from no point of view. Deaf Bills death and after-life Deaf Bill made headlines once again in the Oct. 23, 1915, issue of the Alton Evening Telegraph where a headline read, Deaf Bill Lee is taken to hospital. Fellow fishermen found him felled near his shanty on the Missouri side of the river. Doctors urged him to seek medical help in St. Charles County, but the hermit was stubborn. He said he spent all of his money on the Illinois side of the river, so he should be Madison Countys burden or hed go back to his shanty to die. He was admitted to the Madison County Poor House, where he soon passed. No family ever came forward to claim the body, so funeral home owner Bill Bauer had a bit of a conundrum on his hands. In 1996, the Telegraph published a letter to the editor from Merrill S. Rosenthal, a historian from Wood River, who said Bauer and his partner, John Hoehn, took the opportunity to perform an experiment in embalming to keep poor Deaf Bill from decay. They performed the normal embalming process, but skipped using any fluids. the atmosphere has dehydrated him, Rosenthal wrote. It has drawn the moisture out of his body and left tissue and bone structure. If he had not been exposed to air but put in an airtight casket with glass top, he would now look like he did the day he died. So, when Bauer and Hoehn Funeral Home moved to 727 Langdon in Alton, a special closet for Deaf Bill was built where he stood upright for decades. On Sept. 5, 1932, the Telegraph reported that Deaf Bill was slated to be displayed at the Chicago Worlds Fair. The report also stated that an Egyptian Hindu who had come to town with a curiosity show offered $2,500 for the body. We told him we could not sell a body, John Hoehn, Bauers partner, said. He told us he could make 10 times that much in exhibiting it. Well, after that we decided not to bury and so kept Deaf Bill to this day. On moving into our new funeral home we had a special closet built for him on the first floor. We have had people from coast to coast view him. When Tom and Dallas Burke bought the funeral home in 1948, Deaf Bill stayed with it. Funeral Director Brian Fine, currently with Staten-Fine Funeral Home, later became Dallas Burkes partner. In changing times, Deaf Bill became more of a morbid burden rather than a ghoulish gaff. A lot of old-timers know about him, and not a week goes by that we dont get a call from someone wanting to see him, Fine told The Telegraph in 1996. The funeral home attempted to give the curiously well-preserved body to the Alton Museum of History and Art, but the board of directors made the predictable decision to take a pass. The partners called on the services of Rev. Michael Sandweg, who found that Deaf Bill likely had family buried in St. Frances of Assisi Cemetery. And so, in late June of 1996, that became Mr. William Lees final resting place. Every person born into this world has a right to a proper and a decent burial, spoke the Reverend. So we bury him today and pray for his soul. Jason Plummer will make an excellent State Senator. A downstate product, Jason grew up in Madison County then attended the University of Illinois. Upon graduation he served as an intelligence officer in the USNR. A family man, he resides in Edwardsville with his wife Shannon and daughter Audrey. Active in the community, he attends Marysville First Baptist Church and serves on the Board of Carmi Baptist Childrens Home. Up and Coming, born and raised here, Jason is not a hand-picked Chicago clone. Currently vice president of RP Lumber, Jason helps manage 68 stores and over 1,000 employees. He understands business, reflected in his practical approach to government. Illinois ranks last in the Midwest economically. Plummers common sense solution includes: (1) balancing the budget, (2) prioritizing infrastructure improvements for roads, bridges, waterways, and, (3) developing Illinois abundant coal, oil, and natural gas reserves. Tired of high taxes? Plummer proposes a property tax cap and opposes the vehicle mileage fuel tax (VMT). Plummer will not vote for new taxes. From humble beginnings, Jason remembers where he comes from. People forget RP Lumber started with one old lumber yard in Staunton before growing to 68 locations. Plummer supports services protecting seniors from abuse and financial exploitation, the rights of the unborn, and veterans employment, housing, and education programs. Downstate strong, Jason values God and community. Jason isnt an upstate, hand-picked candidate. Hell work and report to you. Vote for change, vote for Jason Plummer. Philip W. Chapman Highland President Trump, who frequently campaigned against the horrible practice of giving automatic U.S. citizenship to children of illegal aliens, has again startled the media by proving that he really meant what he said. In an interview released this week, Trump said he would issue an executive order stopping birthright citizenship. Were the only country in the world where a person comes in, has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits, Trump said in an interview for Axios. Its ridiculous. Its ridiculous. And it has to end. Trumps blunt talk on the issue of illegal immigration was one of the main reasons Americans elected him in 2016. Yet his opponents pretend to be shocked and horrified that he plans to deliver what the voters expected when we elected him president. It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You dont, he said, adding that he has run it by legal counsel. You can definitely do it with an act of Congress. But now theyre saying I can do it just with an executive order, Trump said. The media insist that Trump is just riling up his base for the midterm election, quoting a tweet from the failed mayor of Chicago. Rahm Emanuel recently announced that he will not seek re-election in the city he has led from crisis to disaster. Another failed politician, outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan, pontificated to reporters, Well, you obviously cannot do that. Ryan went on to say, I think in this case the 14th Amendment is pretty clear, and that would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process. Actually, Ryan is half right: the 14th Amendment is pretty clear that birth alone is not enough to guarantee U.S. citizenship. To get automatic birthright citizenship, children must be born to parents who are subject to the jurisdiction of our country. The key phrase, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, means more than the duty to obey our laws, which applies to everyone, citizen and alien alike. It means that to become a citizen a person must owe allegiance to the United States, and not to any other nation or state. You are a citizen of the country or nation to which you owe your allegiance, and vice versa. Diplomats, visitors, foreign students, temporary workers, and illegal residents all these people are citizens of their home countries, the countries they came from, even while they are temporarily inside our borders. American history familiar to many high school students demonstrates how wrong birthright citizenship is. Indians living on reservations were not American citizens for most of our history, despite being born in our country. Native Americans were considered members only of their sovereign Indian tribes, until Congress extended blanket citizenship in 1924. Similarly, children born to foreign ambassadors while in the United States are not American citizens, but are citizens of their country of origin. In their crusade against President Trump, globalists trot out alleged experts claiming that Trumps proposal is impossible, unconstitutional, or morally wrong. But the hysterical overreaction by his critics proves how right Trump is. The president cannot erase the Constitution with an executive order, and the 14th Amendments citizenship guarantee is clear, said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLUs Immigrants Rights Project. This is a blatantly unconstitutional attempt to fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms. In fact, the last time the Supreme Court addressed the issue of birthright citizenship was 120 years ago, in the case of a child born to a lawful permanent resident who had what is now called a green card. The Supreme Court has never decided the citizenship of those born to persons unlawfully present in the United States, or lawfully present on temporary visas for tourism, education, or temporary employment. The ACLU was also bitterly opposed to Trumps policy of vetting travelers from countries that are hotbeds of terrorism. Globalists falsely characterized the policy as a Muslim ban, but it was upheld by the Supreme Court last June; Trumps new executive order should fare just as well when it gets there. Trumps announced intention to fulfill his campaign promise caps another week of setbacks for globalism. In Brazil, which is called the second-largest democracy in the Western Hemisphere, the conservative nationalist Jair Bolsonaro won its presidency by a landslide of 55-45 percent. That adds Brazil to the United States, Hungary, and the Philippines where conservative nationalists have triumphed on Election Day. Meanwhile, the adversary of President Trump who has led Germany down the wrong path of globalism, Angela Merkel, mercifully announced her plans not to seek reelection in a few years. John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016). 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. The Natural Resource Valuation Manager, willlead on the preparation of Expert reports for prosecutors and in engaging thejudiciary Uganda wildlife Authority and the Directorate of Public Prosecutionregarding wildlife conservation, trade and relevant laws. The Natural ResourceValuation Manager will develop a set of natural resource valuation tools, andlead on the preparation of Expert reports for prosecutors and in engaging thejudiciary Uganda wildlife Authority and the Directorate of Public Prosecutionregarding wildlife conservation, trade and relevant laws The Partnership Facilitator assists withinteracting with the local church to build capacity and resources of local churchpartners to minister to children and youth in their own context. Thisfacilitator is responsible for supporting relationships with church partners ina way that fosters mutual respect, trust, and service that builds up churchministry. At this level the incumbent may still be learning and assisting withmoderately complex issues or projects for his or her assigned location andgenerally works under the guidance of her or his supervisor or a moreexperienced facilitator or as a team member on larger projects. Wanakas ongoing support to the earthquake-stricken Everest region of Nepal will be celebrated on Tuesday, November 6. The Himalayan Trust, Mount Aspiring College (MAC) students and Adventure Consultants will set the stage with a speaker series to highlight the completed earthquake rebuild programme in Nepal and Sir Edmund Hillarys continued legacy in the region. The event starts at 7.30pm at St Johns Room and is open to the public. Event organisers said the evening is a way to say thank you the community and let them hear about the impact their support has had in helping to shape Nepals recovery. Guests will enjoy conversations from those with extensive involvement, including Himalayan Trust Nepal CEO Dr Mingma Norbu Sherpa, who will share the latest on the Trusts $1.5 million reconstruction programme. Himalayan Trust communication manager Charlotte Fowler said the programme finished building earthquake-strengthened classroom blocks to replace those damaged and destroyed in the 2015 Nepal earthquakes that killed nearly 9000 people and destroyed more than 600,000 homes, and it was the Trusts biggest infrastructure project ever undertaken. Bruce and Marg Jefferies will also speak on November 6. In the 1970s, the Jefferies spent 27 months in Nepal helping set up the Sagarmatha National park, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, after the Nepalese government enlisted New Zealands help. Bruce Jefferies worked as an New Zealand Park Service assistant supervising ranger when the family applied for the job. They had doubts because we were taking three children with us. They thought we were nuts, I think. But, we survived and we loved it, Marg Jefferies told the Wanaka Sun. Marg Jefferies will talk about her memoir, Under the Himalayan Sky, which details the time her family spent in Khumbu (Mount Everest). Bruce Jefferies will talk about Sir Hillarys vision for a national park in the region and New Zealands role in establishing it. New Zealand mountaineer Sir Hillary and Nepalese mountaineer Tenzing Norgay were the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest in 1953. Sir Hillary devoted most of his life to helping the people of Nepal through establishing the Himalayan Trust in the 1960s. The ongoing support the Himalayan Trust receives from the Wanaka community makes it possible to continue Sir Eds commitment to education, said Fowler. There will also be a presentation by MAC students about their upcoming trek to Sagarmatha National Park and their help with a community project in Nepal. Guests unable to attend yet interested in supporting the Himalayan Trust can do so by visiting its website, which includes details about the March 2019 Summit Challenge. Recent media reports revealed that digital home pregnancy tests being sold at leading pharmacies in South Africa and the UK were consistently giving false positive results. Both countries acted quickly. The home pregnancy kits, reportedly manufactured by a large international manufacturer were immediately recalled. The incident led to lots of questions being asked about home tests and what had gone wrong. These included whether the tests were well regulated and whether or not they were safe. Home pregnancy tests measure the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin in the urine of pregnant women as early as seven to 10 days after conception. A false positive is rare but it can happen. The reasons are usually because the user didnt follow the manufacturers instructions, the kits had expired or the user was on medication that affected the outcome. In this case its clear that the device itself was at fault. Home pregnancy kits are just one of a range of point-of-care medical diagnostic tests. These include tests used by health care professionals in a small clinic, hospital, or at a patients bedside as well as those sold over the counter and used at home by the patient themselves or a caregiver. Diagnostic tests performed in rural clinics or at the bedside have huge advantages, and can result in improved clinical decisions and treatment. Consequently, the market for point-of-care testing is expanding rapidly and is now worth billions of dollars. One of the main challenges has been the quality and accuracy of the final results. To fix this, organisations such as the World Health Organisation and the International Federation of Biomedical Scientists have published guidelines for the validation and use of a range of tests, particularly those used by health care facilities. But there are very few guidelines for over-the-counter diagnostic tests. And regulation is patchyin South Africa as well as in other countries. So its not surprising that false results happen. In the absence of proper regulation of over-the-counter medical tests, patients need to take extra care when using them. They need to follow the manufacturers instructions closely. But they also need to confirm the result at an accredited laboratory and consult with a health care practitioner. And governments need to take action to improve regulations so that faulty kits dont get sold. In South Africa this would require consultation with all role players and the expansion of the current regulations to include all home based tests being sold at retailers. The demand for over-the-counter diagnostic tests, performed by patients themselves, is increasing. These include tests for pregnancy, glucose and HIV. In 2017 the first home test kit for HIV became available in South Africa. The kits were welcomed because they increased the number of individuals who could simultaneously know their status and present for early treatment. This could ultimately result in a reduction in the spread of the virus. Guidelines for HIV home testing have been included in the South African National Strategic Plan for HIV, sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis. The guidelines emphasise that test kits should be approved by a regulatory body similar to the Food and Drug Administration in the US and meet international quality standards. In addition, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority has published regulations covering medical devices and in vitro diagnostic medical devices. These include issues such as their importation, transportation, registration and manufacture. But, with the exception of HIV, home test kits are not adequately monitored and managed. The era of individuals taking control of their own medical decisions is here to stay. Home based diagnostic tests should be accepted. Although guidelines for HIV home testing have been developed, there are huge gaps when it comes to other testing kits. This includes pregnancy tests. Authorities in South Africa and in other countries should up their game and provide guidelines and regulations on the quality, training and use of all point-of-care testing. Glenda Mary Davison, Associate professor, Cape Peninsula University of Technology This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Fifteen minutes before the last show of Climax was to kick off at the Mumbai Film Festival, the audi was packed and there was a queue of almost 200 people waiting outside. Amidst the madness to get in and grab the perfect seat, someone from the audience gave a shout-out to a guy called Pranav. He could not book a ticket online and had decided to come and wait in the stand-by queue at 11am, for a show that would begin at 9:30pm at PVR Juhu. Pranav Shukla, a screen-writing student at Whistling Woods, has been diligently watching most of the talked-about films at the festival. He had nothing else in his to-be-watched list on Tuesday, the fifth day of the seven-day film festival that was as important as Gasper Noes Climax. I came with a couple of books to read while I waited outside. It was really really important to watch this, he tells me amidst the sound of claps, and a standing ovation by the audience for him. Sitting in the row right ahead me, he became a mini-celebrity for that moment. Everyone around him, including me, had questions for him, for the dedication that he had shown. The film, an unlikely thriller and a shocking human drama, deserves its fans. And Pranavs enthusiasm seemed legit, too. But it was not that film in particular which was the reason for such a frenzy. It is the festival. During the 2016 edition of the festival, there was such strong word for a comedy-drama Barakah Meets Barakah that I, too, had waited for four hours after being unable to book a ticket online for it. I was the first one in the stand-by queue that would over the next few hours grow to almost 200. This year, on my way out of a screening on the fourth day, I eavesdropped on two guys talking about the next film they wanted to watch. We had come out of Adina Pintilies Touch Me Not. The next anticipated film, Benedikt Erlingssons Woman At War, was only a hour-and-a-half later. The Icelandic comedy-drama-thriller about a middle-aged woman and a vigilante of sorts, has made all the right noises at many international film festivals. The two guys were in a hurry to overtake everyone else, lest they miss the film. One talking about how he had set three alarms to wake up early enough (the booking begins at 8am a day in advance, and there is hardly enough window may be a minute). He couldnt book Woman At War, though. The other one consoles him with a similar story. The first one says: It is okay. Well go and wait in the stand-by queue. We managed to get into this screening, we will manage that too. But the hilarity of the situation was yet to unfold. What day is it today? the first one asks. Monday, the other answers. Between watching so many films, I have lost the count of time and date, says the first. I asked because I wanted to pray the days god, the other one replies, adding, Whos the somvaar bhagvaan? Shiva, answers the first guy. They pray in unison to get a seat. I had been unlucky at booking a seat for Woman At War at any of the earlier screenings, but that day I was fortunate. At the entrance of the theatre, I meet a middle-aged banker waiting for her son to come out of another screening so that they can make a trip to the other end of the city, to Regal Cinema in Colaba, to catch a show of Alfonso Cuarons Roma. She told me she is not too clued-in, but the hard-copy of her schedule is marked in red and blue ink, like an ardent film fan. She had watched five films the previous daya record of her own in the three years of attending the festival. It is her son, she said, recommending her the right movies to watch. He, deeply involved in theatre and with dreams of becoming a film writer, knows the movies that have been creating the right buzz. The word-of-mouth works at the festival in mysterious ways. On my way to one theatre from another in Andheri on the second day of the festival, I had stopped by at a roadside panipuri stall. A little later, a young guy came from one side, another girl from the other sideboth of them had a fill of their snacks before proceeding to the next film. With festival badges in all our hands, we would look at each other and smile before the guy asks, how many films have we done so far. We respond; the guy's number being the highest. The second day was yet to get over and he had watched seven films already. In the duration of those few minutes of a mini snacks break, we exchanged a couple of film recommendations. After all, there is nothing that connects people like cinema does. The Madras High Court Tuesday settled a case of plagiarism between Sun Pictures and writer Varun Rajendran over the story of Vijay-starrer Sarkar, scheduled for release on Diwali, after the two reached a compromise. Rajendran had filed a civil suit alleging that Sarkar director A. R. Murugadoss had copied his work Sengol. When it came up for hearing before Justice M Sundar, a memo of compromise was filed by the Sun Pictures and the writer. Both the parties acknowledged that their scripts, Sengol and Sarkar, revolved around the same theme of a reform of the electoral process to weed out bogus voting. Murugadoss said he had no objection to Rajendran producing any film based on his registered script Sengol and its updated versions, based on his imagination, in any language. He also agreed to display a 30-second long message acknowledging Rajendran's writing skills. The writer too gave an undertaking not to object to the screening of Sarkar now and in the future. The two sides resolved not to pursue the matter further in any court of law. They acknowledged the efforts of Film Writers Association led by its president K. Bagyaraj for having mediated and enabled the settlement The teaser of Rocketry The Nambi Effect was released on October 31. Based on the life of scientist Nambi Narayanan, the film will see actor R. Madhavan essaying the veteran ISRO scientist. The actor is also directing the film along with Anant Mahadevan. The teaser begins with shots of a rocket launch and Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing the successful launch of the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) by ISRO. Figures showing Russia's and NASA's failed attempts are also being quickly shown, in contrast to India tasting success in its first attempt, that too at a far lesser cost. The scene pans to Madhavan watching the rocket launch as he remains imprisoned in a dimly-lit cell. In September, Nambi Narayanan was compensated Rs 50 lakh by the Supreme Court for 'unnecessary arrest, harassment and mental cruelty' the infamous 1994 espionage case. Narayanan was falsely accused of selling vital secrets associated with Indian space technology to Pakistan. Though he was later acquitted by a CBI court and the Supreme Court in 1998, he spent a total of 50 days in jail. In the teaser, a voice says: My name is Nambi Narayanan. I spent 35 years in rocketry and 50 days in prison. My nation paid the price of those 50 days and this story is about that. Its not about me. The multilingual film is expected to release in Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. The adage that failures can teach many lessons seems quite... In a landmark verdict, Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Christian woman facing execution for blasphemy. Asia Bibi was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. She always maintained her innocence, but has spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement. Her case has been deeply divisive in Pakistan where there is strong support for the blasphemy laws. The apex court, in a three-member bench led by chief justice Saqib Nisar, issued the verdict on Wednesday morning, three weeks after they had reached a decision. The delay followed threats by blasphemy campaigners to hold protests. "Her conviction is set aside and she is to be relieved forthwith if not required in other charges," said Nisar, reading out the judgment. There was tight security in the capital, Islamabad, amid fears of violence. Bibi was accused of committing blasphemy in 2009. She was convicted in 2010 by the trial court and her death sentence was maintained by the Lahore High Court in 2014. She appealed against the conviction to the Supreme Court, which for the first time heard the case in July 2015. Bibi's case gained prominence when when former governor of Pakistan's Punjab province Salman Taseer was killed in 2011 for supporting her and criticising the blasphemy laws. The blasphemy laws were promulgated by former military dictator Ziaul Haq in 1980s. A person convicted under these laws is given death sentence. Critics say strict blasphemy laws have often been used to get revenge after personal disputes, and that convictions are based on thin evidence. Dozens of people have been charged under the laws. Though, Bibi is being released, there are fears that she might be at risk of being attacked by militants. Search and rescue workers looking for the Indonesian flight Lion Air that crashed with 189 people on board, believe they might have found the fuselage of the plane. The team is trying to confirm the origin of an underwater "ping" signal, officials said on Wednesday. Hadi Tjahjanto said authorities were confident sonar technology had pinpointed the location of the Boeing 737-MAX plane that plunged into the sea on Monday. "We strongly believe we've determined the coordinates of the JT 610 fuselage," he told reporters in Jakarta. "However, it has not yet been confirmed that it is part of the fuselage." Authorities have been searching for the downed jet's location in water some 30-40 meters (100-130 feet) deep in the hope of also finding flight data recorders crucial to crash investigations. Dozens of divers were taking part in the recovery effort along with helicopters and ships, but authorities have all but ruled out finding any survivors. Boeing officials are expected to meet with Lion Air on Wednesday, after Indonesia ordered an inspection of the US plane maker's 737-MAX jets. Ground staff lost touch with flight JT610 of Indonesian budget airline Lion Air 13 minutes after the Boeing 737 MAX 8 took off early on Monday from Jakarta, on its way to the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang. The flight had gone into service just a few months ago. The accident is the first to be reported involving the widely sold Boeing 737 MAX, an updated, more fuel-efficient version of the manufacturers single-aisle jet. The planes blackboxes, as the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder are known, should help explain why the almost-new jet went down minutes after take-off. But Lion's admission that the plane had an unspecified technical issue on a previous flightas well as the plane's abrupt nosedive just 12 minutes after takeoffhave raised questions about whether it had any faults specific to the newly released model. "The bigger picture here is that you've got a lot of American carriers flying the same aircraft," Stephen Wright, aviation expert at the University of Leeds, said. "Is there (a problem) that could affect other aircraft?" The accident has also resurrected concerns about Indonesia's patchy air safety record which led to a now-lifted ban on its planes entering US and European airspace. Meanwhile. Indonesia's transport minister removed on Wednesday the technical director of the Lion Air airline and several of its technicians after the crash, the Antara news agency reported on Wednesday. "Today we dismiss (the director) from his position and his duty," Budi Karya Sumadi said, citing the accident on Monday as the reason. He said technicians were also dismissed. It was not clear whether the removal was permanent or temporary. Seoul, Oct 31 (PTI) In a special gesture, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has gifted some meticulously tailored "Modi jackets" to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who expressed his liking for them during his first state visit to the country in July. "Modi jackets" are basically a vest-like sleeveless jacket the leader (Modi) usually dons, state-run Yonhap news agency reported. President Moon expressed thanks to Prime Minister Modi on Wednesday for sending him the jackets. Moon also uploaded photos of him wearing the jackets in a Twitter posting, saying they "fit great." "Prime Minister @narendramodi of India sent me some gorgeous garments. These are modernised versions of traditional Indian costume, known as the 'Modi Vest', that can also be worn easily in Korea. They fit perfectly," Moon tweeted. "During my visit to India, I had told the Prime Minister @narendramodi that he looked great in those vests, and he duly sent them over, all meticulously tailored to my size. I would like to thank him for this kind gesture," he tweeted. In a second photograph posted on Moon's Twitter account, four Modi jackets of different shades were displayed. In July, Moon made his first state visit to India during which he held talks with Modi on key issues such as the situation on the Korean peninsula, and ways to boost bilateral trade and defence cooperation. Moon also congratulated Modi on his selection as winner of this year's Seoul Peace Prize in recognition of his contribution to world peace through his economic vision. "I have read Prime Minister Modi's tweets upon winning the Seoul Peace Prize. They were written in Korean, and I was moved by his thoughtfulness. I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to Prime Minister Modi," Moon tweeted. Last week, Modi was conferred with the Seoul Peace Prize for 2018 for his contribution to international cooperation and fostering global economic growth. PTI AMS AKJ AMS AMS London, Oct 31 (PTI) NRI industrialist Lord Swraj Paul has been honoured by a non-profit NGO for his outstanding efforts to highlight the profile of Non-Resident Indians and their contributions to India. A spokesman of the NRI Institute said Wednesday that it honoured Paul, Chairman of the Caparo group of industries, here on Monday at an event held to celebrate its 30 years. Receiving the plaque, Paul, 87, said "Mahatma Gandhi Honour - to be associated with Mahatma Gandhi's name makes me very proud being Indian and British. I am pleased to make Indians realise what service NRI has done for India". Paul was Knighted by the British Queen in 1978 and became the Lord Paul of Marylebone and a member of the House of Lords. PTI HSR MRJ AKJ MRJ MRJ Pittsburgh, Oct 31 (AFP) Donald Trump on Tuesday visited the Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 people were gunned down at the weekend in an anti-Semitic attack, as more than 1,000 protesters gathered nearby to make it clear the US president was unwelcome. Carrying signs that read "President Hate, Leave Our State!" and "Trump, Renounce White Nationalism Now," the protesters gathered near the Tree of Life synagogue where the carnage unfolded Saturday. Trump -- accompanied by his wife Melania, as well as his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, who are Jewish -- was to light a candle for each of the 11 victims, killed during Shabbat services. The controversial visit came after mourners crowded into nearby synagogues and joined street processions at the first funerals for some of the victims of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in modern US history. The service for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, both in their 50s, was the first in honour of those killed in what was an apparent hate crime. Services for 66-year-old doctor Jerry Rabinowitz and 71-year-old Daniel Stein followed in Pittsburgh, where scores of residents protested Trump's visit. The president's trip to Pennsylvania came amid a mounting row over whether his fierce rhetoric at campaign rallies and on Twitter has helped stoke extremism ahead of next week's midterm elections. "It's just enraging that this type of hate crime could occur here and that the leadership of our country does not denounce anti-Semitism and does not denounce white nationalism and does not denounce neo-Nazism. And that is the problem," mourner Joanna Izenson told AFP. Suspect Robert Bowers is facing more than two dozen charges related to the bloodshed at the Tree of Life, which is located in the city's traditionally Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood. The 46-six-year-old reportedly told police after his capture, "I just want to kill Jews," having claimed on social media that Jews were helping transport caravans of refugees from Central America into the United States, calling the migrants "invaders." The caravans are a favourite target of the president, and he has called a group of several thousand impoverished mainly Honduran migrants currently attempting to walk north to the United States "an invasion." Friends and strangers alike packed the Rodef Shalom temple, a 25-minute walk from the Tree of Life, for the Rosenthals' funeral, which took place under tight security. After the service, mourners spilled out onto the street, some of them sobbing and clasping each other. The brothers' caskets were placed in two hearses and driven away, with a sheriff's car leading the procession. "It was tragic, it was sad -- it was a beautiful tribute to two wonderful, loving, innocent men," said Paul Taylor, a Catholic priest who attended the service, which he said was "standing room only." Another mourner, a retired teacher who only gave her first name Nancy, said: "I was finally able to cry." Later in the day, dozens of mourners walked behind the hearse carrying the remains of Rabinowitz in Squirrel Hill, according to footage posted on social media. Meanwhile, protesters gathered near the Tree of Life synagogue to vent their anger. "Saturday's violence was a direct culmination of your influence," said one organizer, reading from an open letter sent to Trump. "President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully renounce white nationalism." Jeffrey Myers, a rabbi who was present when the attack started, told CNN, said: "The president of the United States is always welcome." But protesters disagreed. "I think it's more divisive than uniting," 57-year-old librarian Nonie Heystek said of Trump's visit. The Pittsburgh shooting spree came in the same week that authorities arrested an ardent Trump supporter from Florida on suspicion of mailing more than a dozen homemade bombs to opponents and critics of the president. The incidents have led to accusations that Trump has fanned violence through almost daily tweets and speeches lambasting illegal immigrants, political opponents and journalists in divisive language. Trump has struck back in typically robust fashion, arguing that critical journalists were in fact the ones feeding extremism across the country. "There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news," Trump tweeted. Trump's Pittsburgh visit is not the only element of the administration's response to the massacre that has been a source of controversy. On Monday, Vice President Mike Pence attended a campaign rally in Michigan at which a so-called "Christian rabbi" was invited to speak on behalf of the area's Jewish community. Instead of opening with prayers for the 11 victims of the Tree of Life shooting, Loren Jacobs praised Jesus Christ and then offered prayers for four Republican candidates. Jacobs later offered words for the dead in the form of a prayer to Jesus Christ, without naming any of them. Jews expressed outrage over social media, describing Jacobs' appearance as an "insulting political stunt" and blasting Pence as a "Christian supremacist." (AFP) SMJ SMJ Kabul, Oct 31 (AP) An Afghan army helicopter crashed Wednesday in bad weather in the western Farah province, killing all 25 people on board, including the deputy corps commander of the western zone, a provincial spokesman said. Mohammad Naser Mehri, spokesman for the Farah governor, said the helicopter crashed around 9:10 a.m. (0440 GMT), shortly after taking off from the mountainous Anar Dara district heading toward the nearby Herat province. On board were the corps commander, Gen. Naimudullah Khalil, and two members of the Farah provincial council, its chairman, Farid Bakhtawar, and Jamila Amini, one of only two women on the nine-member council. Wednesday's was the second army helicopter crash in as many months in Farah. In September, five crew members died when their helicopter crashed. Investigators blamed the crash on a technical failure, without elaborating. Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a suicide bomber struck outside the country's largest prison on the edge of the capital, Kabul, killing seven people, including prison workers and security personnel, said Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish. The attacker targeted a bus carrying prison workers, he said. The sprawling Pul-e-Charkhi prison houses hundreds of inmates, including scores of Taliban insurgents. Abadullah Karimi, a prison official, said the attack occurred near the prison gate where visitors were waiting to pass a rigorous security check before entering. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.(AP) AMS AMS Moscow, Oct 31 (AFP) One person was killed and three injured when an explosive device went off Wednesday inside a building housing the FSB security service in Arkhangelsk in northern Russia, an official said. "An explosive device went off," a spokesman for the regional governor told AFP. "One person was killed and three others were hospitalised." (AFP) AMS AMS Paris, Oct 31 (AFP) France's foreign minister cast doubt on Saudi Arabia's investigation into the death of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi on Wednesday, saying "not enough" was being done to find those responsible for his murder. The comments appear to signal France upping the pressure on Saudi authorities, having so far declined to openly criticise the Riyadh regime over a death that has badly strained relations between the Middle East kingdom and the West. "This crime has to be punished and the perpetrators identified. The truth needs to come out. And today, even though Saudi authorities have admitted that there was a murder, it's not enough. The truth has not been revealed," Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told RTL. "The investigations need to continue. We will continue to be demanding." He added that "depending on the results that will be announced (of the Turkish and Saudi investigations), we will implement the necessary sanctions against those guilty". "We don't rule out anything on the sanctions, in coordination with our European partners," he said. Saudi Arabia's chief public prosecutor is in Istanbul - where Khashoggi was killed on October 2 after entering the Saudi consulate - to meet with Turkish authorities as part of his country's investigation. The case has brought near unprecedented international scrutiny of Saudi Arabia and its powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom Khashoggi had criticised. But Turkish officials have told local media that the Saudi prosecutor has refused to share information and appears "primarily interested in finding out what evidence the Turkish authorities had against the perpetrators". France, like fellow European nation Britain, has so far condemned the death of Khashoggi but has trod carefully, wary of upsetting an ally in the Middle East that is an important economic and security partner. (AFP) MRJ MRJ New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) Following are the top foreign stories at 1700 hours: FGN21 LANKA-POLITICS-UN UN envoy meets Lankan prez, discusses political crisis Colombo: Amidst the political turmoil in Sri Lanka, a top UN envoy here met President Maithripala Sirisena Wednesday and discussed the prevailing political crisis, days after he sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replaced him with former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa. FGN19 US-CITIZENSHIP-LD REAX Trump criticised for his decision to end birthright citizenship to non-US citizens Washington: President Donald Trump's decision to end birthright citizenship -- the process by which babies born in the country automatically become citizens - to non-US citizens has triggered widespread criticism, even from his own party, ahead of the crucial mid-term elections next Tuesday. By Lalit K Jha FGN18 PAK-BLASPHEMY-2NDLD VERDICT Pakistan court acquits Christian woman on death row for blasphemy; protests sparked Islamabad: Pakistan's Supreme Court in a landmark verdict Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Christian woman facing execution for blasphemy, sparking protests in the Islamic nation. By Sajjad Hussain FGN20 SWARAJ-KUWAIT-MEETINGS Sushma Swaraj holds talks with Amir, PM of Kuwait, raises Indian community's concerns Kuwait City: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj Wednesday called on Kuwait's top leadership, including Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, and discussed a range of issues to strengthen the bilateral ties, besides raising the Indian community's concerns. FGN7 US-SHOOTING-TRUMP-LD VISIT Trump visits Pittsburgh synagogue, meets widow of one of the shooting victims Washington: US President Donald Trump has visited the Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 people were killed in an anti-Semitic attack and met the widow of one of the victims and three law enforcement personnel who were injured in the mass shooting that shook the nation. By Lalit K Jha PTI AMS AMS Ankara, Oct 31 (AP) A Turkish prosecutor says Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and his body was dismembered and disposed of. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said Wednesday that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth. The statement is the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered after he entered the Saudi Consulate on October 2 to collect paperwork needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. (AP) MRJ MRJ Hit by poor monsoon, farmer commits suicide in Gujarat Ahmedabad, Oct 31 (PTI) In the fifth such incident in Gujarat in the last one and a half months, a farmer allegedly ended his life in Surendranagar district of the state as he was staring at losses due to scanty rains, police said. Pitambar Zala (36) allegedly committed suicide by drinking pesticide at Sadla village in Muli tehsil, around 150 km from here, late Tuesday night, police said. His relative Mukesh Zala told police that Pitambar was worried due to the less-than-expected crop of cotton this season due to a weak monsoon. "Pitambar had sown cotton in partnership with another farmer. But the crop yield was less than expected due to the scanty rainfall. He was worried thinking he will not be able to pay his debts," said police sub-inspector A A Jadeja. This is the fifth suicide by a farmer in Gujarat since September 24. On October 25, Rana Gaagia (41), a farmer from Vavdi in Jamnagar district, allegedly committed suicide over a crop failure and cash crunch. On October 12, Viram Odedara (54), a farmer from Porbandar district, allegedly committed suicide due to a crop failure and mounting debts. On October 7, 40-year-old Kalu Chauhan from Botad district allegedly committed suicide, worried that he would lose his crop due to the weak monsoon. On September 24, Anak Jebalia (35), resident of Dhari taluka of Amreli district, allegedly committed suicide for the same reason. The state government has said that Gujarat could be facing water scarcity in coming months as it received only 76.72 per cent of the average rainfall this monsoon. PTI PJT PD KRK KRK Kevadia (Guj), Oct 31 (PTI) Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's family members on Wednesday hailed the 'Statue of Unity' as a "befitting tribute" to the 'Iron Man of India', saying it would help the younger generation know about his life and it should have been done much earlier by the previous governments. "Congress didn't do anything like this for Sardar Patel. The statue is a befitting tribute to his contribution to the nation," said Dhirubhai Patel, grandson of Sardar's elder brother Somabhai Patel. Dhirubhai, 91, was a special invitee to the ceremony where Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled Sardar Patel's 182-metre statue, the world's tallest, in Narmada district this morning on the occasion of the leader's 143rd birth anniversary. Besides Dhirubhai, who lives in Vadodara with his family, the event was attended by 35 other members of Vallabhbhai Patel's extended family. Sardar Patel, the first Home Minister of Independent India, is credited with merging 550 princely states into the Union of India. He had used force to annex princely states of Junagadh ruled by Nawab and Hyderabad ruled by Nizam, both of whom had wished not to merge their respective states with Union of India. 80-year-old Bhupendra Patel, another senior member of the family, said the statue would remind the younger generation about contributions made by Sardar. "They will draw inspiration from Sardar Patel," said Bhupendra, who lives in Vallabh Vidyanagar in Anand district. He refused to comment when asked whether the previous governments did little for Sardar as being claimed by leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Dhirubhai's son-in-law Shailesh Patel, a Mumbai-based businessman, was more forthcoming. "This (statue) was long overdue. They should have done it much earlier. The statue will spread the message of the strength of unity and of the role played by Sardar to unite the nation," he said. Sardar Patel Memorial Trust's founder-secretary Hasmukh Patel, who was also among the special invitees at the event, said it was a "good decision" to build the Sardar statue. "The younger generation needs to learn from Sardar's life and this statue will be a unique way to do so," he said, adding that the prime minister has "recaptured Sardar's memory in a unique way". The giant monument is twice the height of the Statue of Liberty in the US and taller than the 153-metre Spring Temple Buddha in China. PTI KA PD NSK BJ BJ Ahmedabad, Oct 31 (PTI) Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha on Wednesday said people should not "forgive" Prime Minister Narendra Modi and "uproot" his government in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He was addressing a farmers' gathering at Vanthali in Gujarat's Junagadh district, around 300 km from here. "This government has failed on all fronts. Everyone is suffering, be it farmers, youth, women or Dalits. Only new slogans are being given. The only solution is to uproot this government in the next (Lok Sabha) polls," Sinha said. "I want to apologise because I was also part of the BJP when promises were made ahead of 2014 (general) elections. But I do not want you to forgive him (Modi) in the next polls," he said. The former finance minister has been a vocal critic of the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government and resigned from the party in April this year. Sinha was invited by Patidar leader Hardik Patel to address the farmers. Commenting on the unveiling of a 182-metre statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Narmada district earlier on Wednesday, Sinha said Modi should have announced a pro-farmer scheme on the occasion. "He did not announce any scheme for farmers because he has forgotten them," he said. Disgruntled BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha was also present at the gathering. The actor-turned-politician said he will not complain if the BJP sacked him. "I did not come into politics for any personal gain. I will not complain if my party sacks me tomorrow. I love the people of this country more than my party," he said. PTI PJT PD KRK DIV DIV Aizawl, Oct 31 (PTI) The campaigning for the November 28 Mizoram Assembly elections is on in full swing, though the notification for polling to the 40-member House is yet to be issued. The stakes are high this time as Mizoram is the only north-eastern state which has a Congress government and the BJP, which is upbeat after ousting the CPI(M) from Tripura, is keen on making inroads in the Christian-dominated state. Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla, his cabinet colleagues and top Mizoram Pradesh Congress Committee leaders have already hit the campaign trail, and so has former CM Zoramthanga of the main opposition, the MNF - part of the BJP-headed NEDA (North East Democratic Alliance). With major political parties announcing the names of almost all candidates, party leaders, star campaigners and workers are carrying out door-to-door canvassing under the watchful eyes of the Mizoram People's Forum (MPF), which has been formed by different churches and NGOs for electoral reformation. The MPF, which had prohibited door-to-door campaigning in the earlier elections, has allowed it this time but with a rider -- the campaigners have to be accompanied by local leaders of the outfit to ensure that no money changes hands --sources in the organisation said. Political parties have agreed to curtail a number of poll campaign strategies, and the guidelines laid down are deemed to be more stringent than the model code of conduct of the Election Commission, the sources said. Joint platforms have been organised in the towns and villages of the north-eastern state, and these are being chaired by local MPF leaders, while individual candidates are holding public meetings to woo voters. The ruling Congress has announced the candidates for all the 40 seats. The MNF also declared names for all the seats, except for Tuichawng, which falls within the Chakma Autonomous District Council (CADC). This was due to the diktat of the powerful NGO Coordination Committee, a conglomerate of major civil societies and student bodies, asking political parties not to field any candidate belonging to the Chakma community, MNF sources said. The civil societies are of the opinion that CADC was created unconstitutionally to harbour illegal immigrants from erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, and have been demanding scrapping of CADC, sources in the committee said. While the Zoram People's Movement, an alliance of two small political parties and five other groups have announced the names of 35 candidates, the BJP has declared only 13 names so far. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has said it would contest at least five seats, but is yet to announce the names. The National People's Party (NPP), too, is yet to state the number of seats it would contest. The gazette notification for Mizoram Assembly poll is scheduled on November 2 and the last date for filing nominations is November 9. The date for scrutiny of nominations is scheduled for November 12 and the last date for withdrawal of candidatures is November 14, the Election Commission said. The counting of votes in Mizoram will take place on December 11 along with Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana, the poll body added. PTI HCV KK RBT SRY Guwahati, Oct 31 (PTI) The influential All Assam Students' Union Wednesday announced it will launch a series of agitational programmes from November 8 with 28 other fellow organisations to oppose the controversial Citizenship Bill and accused the state government of inflicting "mental torture" on the people by remaining silent on the issue. A joint meeting of All Assam Students' Union (AASU) and the ethnic communities students' organisations questioned why the Assam government cannot take a decision when a BJP-supported government in Meghalaya took a cabinet decision against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. "After this (BJP) government came to power (in 2016) in Assam, it is imposing mental torture on the people of the state. There is fear among the people whether Assam will remain a state of indigenous people or of Bangladeshis because of the bill granting them Indian citizenship," AASU chief advisor Samujjal Bhattacharya told reporters. "Eighty-five per cent of the people of Assam voted for the BJP alliance hoping they would protect the interest of the local people. "We want to know clearly whether Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal is for or against the bill. He says he will protect the interest of the indigenous people but is silent on the bill," the AASU leader said. "The BJP-supported government in neighbouring Meghalaya took a cabinet decision against the bill. Why can't the Assam government take a similar decision," he asked. A 12-hour bandh organised on October 23 across Assam against the Citizenship Bill had evoked widespread response. AASU president Dipanka Kumar Nath said the agitational programmes include a protest day on November 8 for dropping of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. The student leaders feared the proposed legislation would make illegal Bangladeshis in Assam Indian citizens. Solution of the burning foreigners' problem in the state was among the clauses of the historic Assam Accord, 1985. On November 9, members of AASU and the 28 ethnic organisations will visit the homes of ministers, MLAs and MPs of all political parties to urge them to oppose the bill in the interest of the people of Assam, Nath said. A march would be taken out in all the districts across the state on November 10 followed by torch light march and a people's meeting on November 16 to take their advice on how to take forward the movement against the bill, said AASU general secretary Lurinjyoti Gogoi. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 was introduced in the Lok Sabha to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 to grant Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians who fled religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan and entered India before December 31, 2014. PTI ESB SNS ZMN ZMN Kolkata, Oct 31 (PTI) Following are PTI's top stories from the eastern region at 9 pm. STORIES ON THE WIRE: CAL 4 OD-CM-AYUSHMAN Patnaik brushes aside Pradhan's criticism, says Odisha's health scheme better than Ayushman Bharat Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Wednesday claimed that the state's health insurance scheme named after legendary leader Biju Patnaik was much better than the Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat programme, brushing aside criticism from Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan. CAL 5 MZ-POLL-CONG BJP may hurt people's religious freedom, Cong says in Christian-majority Mizoram Aizawl: The ruling Congress in Mizoram Wednesday urged people of the Christian-dominated state to support the party in the assembly election next month, alleging that the entry of BJP might hurt their religious freedom. CAL 6 WB-MAMATA-BJP Modi govt dividing people, instead of working for their unity: Mamata Jalpaiguri: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Wednesday used the occasion of the unveiling of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's statue in Gujarat to hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the nationalist leader never wanted to divide people, but always worked for their unity. CES 6 AS-PATEL Sonowal pays homage to Sardar Patel on birth anniversary Dispur: Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal led the state in paying tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his 143rd birth anniversary by taking part in a Run for Unity in Guwahati Wednesday. CES 7 AR-PATEL-RUN Sardar Patel's birth anniversary observed in Arunachal Itanagar: Arunachal Pradesh on Wednesday observed the 'Rashtriya Ekta Diwas' commemorating the 143rd birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. CES 8 BH-COP-MOLESTATION Bihar Military Police official accused of molestation, suspended Patna: An official of the Bihar Military Police was on Wednesday placed under suspension and orders were issued for his arrest after he was accused of molestation by a trainee female constable, a senior BMP official said. CCM 4 BIZ-MINE-BENGAL Bengal bets on Deocha Pachami, may seek commercial mining right Kolkata: The West Bengal government is hoping to make the most of Deocha Pachami coal block that the Centre alloted to it in June this year, state Finance Minister Amit Mitra said Wednesday. PTI RG RG New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) Preseident Ram Nath Kovind, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and a host of dignitaries Wednesday offered floral tributes to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his birthday anniversary. At a special function held at the capital's Patel Chowk, the President and others paid floral tributes at the statue of India's first Home Minister on his 143rd birthday anniversary, which is observed as 'Rashtriya Ekta Divas'. Those who were present on the occasion include Union urban development minister Hardeep Puri, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal besides others. PTI ACB SMJ SMJ New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) First Lady of South Korea Kim Jung-sook will visit India from November 4-7 during which she will participate in festivities in the religious city of Ayodhya. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said she will be the chief guest at the 'Deepotsav' event being organised by the Uttar Pradesh government on November 6. The Korean First Lady, to be accompanied by a high-level delegation, will also attend the ground-breaking ceremony of the Queen Suriratna (Heo Hwang-ok) memorial in Ayodhya. "The First Lady's participation in the festivities in Ayodhya will showcase our close civilisational links as well as the ongoing deepening engagement between our two countries," an MEA statement said. According to Korean legends, Princess Suriratna from Ayodhya had travelled to Korea and married King Kim Suro and became Queen Heo Hwang-ok some 2000 years ago. "India and Republic of Korea share a special strategic partnership. Moon Jae-in, President of Republic of Korea had visited India in July 2018. His visit had imparted new strength to our evolving partnership," the MEA said. An MoU regarding the Queen Suriratna Memorial Project was signed to facilitate upgrade and expansion of the existing monument commemorating Princess Suriratna (Queen Hur Hwang-ok). The legendary Princess of Ayodhya went to Korea in 48 AD and married King Kim-Suro. A large number of Koreans trace their ancestry to this legendary princess. Preeti Saran, Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs, said there are also plans to build a monument commemorating the princess. "Since last year, the Uttar Pradesh government started organising Deepotsav. The UP government also invited the Korean government to participate as a partner country. President Moon said that he will send a high-level cultural delegation to participate in the Deepotsav," Saran said. In July, the two countries signed an agreement for expansion of the Suriratna memorial project. PTI MPB ZMN New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) This year's annual conference of directors general and inspectors general of police will be held at the site of the 182-metre statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat, officials said Wednesday. The 'Statue of Unity' of Patel, the tallest in the world, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the state's Narmada district. Taller than the Statue of Liberty in the US, it has been built on islet Sadhu Bet near the Sardar Sarovar Dam. The officials said though the final dates for the three-day conference of directors general and inspectors general of police from all state and central forces has not been decided, the Union Home Ministry has given an 'in-principle' approval for the event to be held at this venue. The conference is expected to be organised in the second half of December after the results of the five poll-bound states -- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram-- are declared on the 11th of that month. The Sardar Patel 'Statute of Unity' has been chosen as the venue as the alma mater of the top police leadership of the country, the Indian Police Service (IPS), has a close association with the leader as their training academy in Hyderabad is named after him, they said. The IPS academy is named Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel National Police Academy. Patel was country's first home minister and the Home Ministry is the cadre controlling authority of the IPS. Officials said the directors general and inspectors general will be hosted in the 'tent village' that has been set up near the statue in Kevadiya village. The conference is an annual affair where senior police officials of the states and the Centre meet and discuss issues related to internal security, crimes and related challenges. The Modi government has been organising this meeting outside the national capital since it came to power in 2014. The last four such conferences have been held in Guwahati, Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, Hyderabad and Tekanpur in Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior district. "The agenda and various issues for discussion during the conference are under preparation," a senior official said. The 'Statue of Unity' was first conceptualised by Modi during his tenure as Gujarat Chief Minister and he had laid the foundation stone for it in 2013. Wednesday's ceremony coincided with the 143rd birth anniversary of Patel, also known as the 'Iron man of India'. Patel, India's first deputy prime minister, is also credited with merging of over 500 princely states into the Union of India. PTI NES NES ANB ANB New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) The CVC might summon CBI Director Alok Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana to record their statements as part of an inquiry being conducted on the Supreme Court's direction, according to the graft watchdog's chief K V Chowdary. The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) initiated the probe following a complaint of corruption against Verma. The commission has got most of the files related to the cases, in whose probe, the charges of alleged interference by Verma came up, Chowdary told reporters Wednesday on the sidelines of an event here. "We have got most of the files. We are in process of getting some files from the CBI. Nothing much can be said now as the matter is sub judice," he said. When asked by PTI, whether the CVC plans to call Verma and Asthana to record their statements, Chowdary said that "as of now we are examining the documents and if the need arises, then all concerned would be called in". He said no summons have been issued either to Verma or Asthana to appear before it in connection with the probe. The CVC had Tuesday examined some CBI officials probing crucial cases which figured in Asthana's complaint of corruption against the CBI chief Alok Verma, officials said. They said officials from the rank of inspector up to superintendent of police of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) were called and their versions were recorded before a senior CVC official. The officials, who recorded their statements Tuesday included those who had handled the Moin Qureshi bribery case, the IRCTC scam, involving former railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, the cattle smuggling case in which a senior BSF officer was caught with wands of cash in Kerala, they said. These officials were called from the CBI headquarters here and some from zonal offices, including Kochi, the officials said requesting anonymity. The Supreme Court had on Friday asked the CVC, that exercises superintendence over the CBI in corruption matters, to complete within two weeks its inquiry into allegations against Verma levelled by Asthana. The two feuding officers, who have alleged each other of impropriety, have been sent on leave by the Centre. The Supreme Court had directed that the CVC's inquiry into the allegations against Verma, who has challenged the government's decision divesting him of his duties and sending him on leave, would be conducted under the supervision of retired apex court judge Justice A K Patnaik and this was a "one-time exception". The feud between Verma and Asthana escalated recently leading to registration of an FIR against Asthana and others including Deputy Superintendent of Police Devender Kumar, who is in the CBI custody in an alleged bribery case. The CBI had on October 15 registered an FIR against Asthana for allegedly receiving a bribe of Rs 2 crore from Hyderabad-based businessman Sana Sathish Babu which was given through two middlemen Manoj Prasad and Somesh Prasad to sabotage the probe against meat exporter Moin Qureshi. On August 24, Rakesh Asthana, in his complaint to the Cabinet Secretary, had levelled allegations against Verma that he got a bribe of Rs two crore from Sana to help him get some relief from questioning in the matter. PTI AKV AKV ANB ANB New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) These are the top stories from the northern region at 9.30 pm NEWDELHI DEL79 LDALL HASHIMPURA New Delhi: Over three decades after the Hashimpura massacre in Uttar Pradesh in which 38 Muslims were shot dead in cold blood, the Delhi High Court Wednesday sentenced 16 former policemen to life imprisonment, holding it was a "targeted killing" of "unarmed, innocent and defenceless" persons. MEERUT DEL84 UP-HASHIMPURA-FAMILIES Meerut: The families of the 1987 Hashimpura massacre victims could not hold back tears on Wednesday after the Delhi High Court sentenced 16 ex-policemen to life imprisonment for killing 38 people from the Muslim community. LUCKNOW DEL29 UP-STATUE-MAYAWATI Lucknow, Oct 31 (PTI) Hours after the inauguration of a Rs 3,000-crore statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat, BSP president Mayawati demanded an apology from those who had flayed her over the statues of Dalit leaders her government had installed in Uttar Pradesh. NEWDELHI DEL47 DL-POLLUTION-EPCA-VEHICLES New Delhi: The Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority has urged Delhiites to use public transport for the first 10 days of November when the air quality of the national capital is likely to further deteriorate. JAMMU DEL32 JK-POLICE Jammu: Dilbag Singh was appointed Wednesday as the full-time director general of the Jammu and Kashmir Police as per the guidelines of the Supreme Court, officials said here. DEHRADUN NRG6 UKD-BJP-CIVIC POLLS Dehradun: Seeking people's mandate for the first time after coming to power in Uttarakhand with a massive win in the assembly elections, the BJP faces a tough challenge of matching its own performance at the urban local bodies polls on November 18. CHANDIGARH NRG21 HR-ROADWAYS-STRIKE Chandigarh: The Haryana Roadways employees who are on a strike were lathicharged Wednesday by police as they tried to block the route from where a motorcade of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar was passing, officials said. DHARMSHALA NRG7 HP-DIWALI-TOURIST Dharamshala (HP): Hoteliers in this popular hill station of Himachal Pradesh are trying to attract tourist by reducing tariffs and offering special discounts during Diwali in order to revive their business that has suffered hugely after the high court shut around 80 illegally built hotels here. NEWDELHI DES4 DL-METRO-OPENING New Delhi: The 17.8-km Shiv Vihar-Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake section of the Pink Line was opened to public Wednesday, putting Delhi among a select group of cities such as London and Shanghai that have an operational metro network of over 300 km. DEHRADUN DES8 UKD-PM-KEDARNATH Dehradun: A meditation cave 400-metre above the Kedarnath temple and a wide road from the confluence of Mandakini and Saraswati rivers are in readiness for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's proposed visit to the Himalayan shrine, officials said Tuesday. NEWDELHI NRG24 DL-BJP-WORKERS-CLASH New Delhi: Two groups of BJP workers clashed at a 'Run for Unity' event in South Delhi on Wednesday with a group alleging "misbehaviour and assault" by supporters of the party's local MP Ramesh Bidhuri, a charge denied by him as a "political conspiracy". PTI ASH ASH New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) BJP president Amit Shah Wednesday described India's jump in the World Bank's ease of doing business ranking as a matter of pride for every Indian, and also took a dig at the Congress saying under its "economist" prime minister Manmohan Singh, the country had slipped to 142nd rank. In a series of tweets, Shah congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his "reformist zeal" that has led to this jump. "It is a matter of pride for every Indian that India has made yet another phenomenal jump in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business rankings! We are now placed 77th compared to 100th last year," Shah said. He attributed the "phenomenal jump" in the ranking to a series of policy reforms undertaken by the Modi government that had contributed towards the creation of an environment that encourages industry, innovation and entrepreneurship. Shah further said when doing business becomes easier, many more youngsters get the opportunity and support to showcase their entrepreneurial skills. "Glad that this has been happening in India over the last four years. More power to our budding young and self-made entrepreneurs," he said. Comparing ease of doing business ranking during the current NDA government with that during the previous Congress-led UPA government, Shah said it is worth noting that under "an economist" Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, India's ease of doing business ranking plummeted from 132 to 142 between 2011 and 2014. "Corruption, cronyism and policy paralysis of the UPA adversely impacted the nation," Shah said. The Narendra Modi government has simplified processes, quickened clearances and decision making, come down heavily on corruption and middlemen. All of this augurs well for the growth trajectory of the nation, he said. PTI JTR KR SMN New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) Journalist bodies Wednesday urged the government to probe the killing of a scribe in a Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district and take adequate measures to prevent such incidents in the future. One mediaperson and two policemen were killed in the attack which took place in Dantewada's Aranpur area Tuesday. Two other security personnel were also injured in the attack. The mediaperson who died was Achyutananda Sahu, a cameraman with state-run broadcaster Doordarshan. Condemning the attack, the Indian Women's Press Corps and the Press Association in a joint statement said it was deplorable that journalists and innocent persons continued to be collateral victims in conflict areas and situations. "Not long back, the media fraternity lost another of its colleagues, Shujaat Bukhari, who was shot dead in Srinagar. We demand that the Union and the state government concerned investigate the killing and take adequate measures to prevent such incidents that have devastating consequences," the statement said. "We hope that the Union and state government will provide financial compensation and employment to the bereaved family of Sahu that has suffered not only a great emotional loss but also lost an earning member of the family," it added. PTI UZM IJT New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) India Wednesday said it has lodged strong protests with China and Pakistan over a proposed bus service between the two countries through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said on Wednesday the bus service will be a violation of India's sovereignty and territorial integrity. According to reports, the new bus service will be launched between Lahore in Pakistan and Kashgar in China via Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on November 13. Kumar said it has been India's consistent and well-known position that the "so-called China-Pakistan 'Boundary Agreement' of 1963 is illegal and invalid, and has never been recognised by the Government of India." "Therefore, any such bus service through Pakistan Occupied Jammu & Kashmir will be a violation of India's sovereignty and territorial integrity," he added. The MEA spokesperson was responding to media queries regarding the proposed bus service. The USD 50-billion CPEC, launched in 2015, is a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking China's resource-rich Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with Pakistan's strategic Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea. PTI MPB SMN SMN Shimla, Oct 31 (PTI) An octogenarian British woman was found dead in a hotel here, police said Wednesday. Alford Elizabeth, 80, was found dead in a room of the Cecil Oberoi hotel on Tuesday evening, Superintendent of Police, Shimla, Omapati Jamwal said. She had checked into the hotel on October 27 along with her companion Nancy Hall, but they were staying in different rooms, he said. Jamwal said Elizabeth's her body has been kept in the mortuary of the Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital (IGMC). The autopsy would be conducted Thursday, he added. Ruling out possibility of any foul play prima facie, the SP said Elizabeth was suffering from arthritis. The British High Commission in Delhi has been informed about her death, he said. PTI DJI AQS AQS New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) Dyal Singh College Principal I S Bakshi, who is being probed for alleged financial and administrative irregularities, on Wednesday alleged he was not allowed to enter the campus to take classes. The governing body of the Delhi University college had initiated a probe against the principal last month and directed him to proceed on an indefinite leave. Bakshi said he takes botany classes at the college on Monday and Wednesday. He said he took classes in the designated room on Monday after his office was sealed last week. "But on Wednesday, when I went to the college the guards stopped me and showed me a notice that read I am not allowed to enter the college. I told them I can discharge my duties as a teacher but they did not allow," he alleged. He called his students outside the college gate and conducted his class in a lawn outside the campus, Bakshi said. He said he will move court to resolve the issue and will go to the college next week for taking his classes. Governing Body chairman Amitabh Sinha alleged Bakshi tried to disrupt an event that was going on in the college. "I S Bakshi was denied entry to the college on Wednesday but he created a fuss and called students outside. There was an event happening in the college and he attempted to disrupt it," he said. He said Bakshi should wait for a "free and fair investigation". PTI SLB DIV DIV 'TMCP will not allow outsiders to meddle in college affairs' Kolkata, Oct 31 (PTI) The Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad (TMCP), the student wing of the party, will not allow outsiders to meddle into the affairs of any colleges, its president of West Bengal unit Trinankur Bhattacharya said Wednesday. "No outsider will enter the college and only students are kept in the union," Bhattacharya told a press meet after announcing 17 district committees and the state committee of TMCP here. To a question about media reports of some leaders and members of TMCP accepting money during college admission earlier this year, Bhattacharya said, "We have launched an internal probe and we haven't received any proof of anyone receiving graft". He added that strong action would be taken if such cases were proved. He said the Cooch Behar TMCP committee has been disbanded following infighting that dogged the unit since the panchayat polls leading to clashes and even deaths. "We are examining the situation there and I will personally visit the district as part of my tour to North Bengal colleges and talk to everyone," he said. On the 17 new district committees and new state committee announced Wednesday, Bhattacharya said 80 per cent members of all the committees were students. The tenure of the committees will continue till August 30. PTI SUS JM JM (Eds: Adds more details from proceedings, judgement) New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) The Delhi High Court Wednesday allowed BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's plea to make public the report of Uttar Pradesh police's CB-CID in the 1987 massacre of Muslims at Hashimpura locality in Meerut, in which it sentenced 16 former police personnel to life imprisonment. A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel, however, declined Swamy's plea for further probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the massacre. The high court in its judgment noted that in the over three decades since the massacre, no significant developments are stated to have taken place nor any leads have been unearthed that warrant the direction for further SIT probe. "However, this will not preclude the concerned investigating agency from further pursuing the matter in accordance with law. It will be open for the petitioner (Swamy) too, if he has any further material, to share it with such agency to facilitate the exercise," the court asked. The plea for further SIT probe was sought by Swamy in his appeal challenging the dismissal of his earlier petition in the trial court for probe in the case. In his high court plea, Swamy had also challenged the acquittal of the 16 former PAC personnel by the trial court. He had contended in his plea, filed through advocate Ramni Taneja, that further investigation was required as the CB-CID report had indicted 66 personnel of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC), but charge sheet was filed against only 19 of them. He had also urged the court to make public the Crime Branch - Central Investigation Department's (CB-CID) report submitted in 1994 after being handed the probe in 1988. In his petition, he had said he was moving the high court to seek "further investigation into the alleged role of other involved persons who due to their social position and political clout have remained untouched". During the proceedings in the high court, Swamy had termed the killings as genocide and he wanted the crime to be prosecuted as such by holding a re-trial. Apart from that, Swamy in his arguments had also urged the high court to order an investigation into whether the then Union Minister of State for Home Affairs (P Chidambaram) held a closed door meeting in Meerut with PAC officers just prior to the Hashimpura massacre. He had also wanted it to be investigated whether at the meeting, the then Union Minister of State for Home Affairs and then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Veer Bahadur Singh, had allegedly sanctioned or directed the PAC to carry out the killings. The high court in its two-page judgement disposing of Swamy's plea has not referred to these arguments by him. PTI HMP SKV RKS SA New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) The Supreme Court Wednesday directed the Amrapali Group to disclose the names of all the companies with which it had any kind of transactions after forensic auditors pointed out that there may be a web of more than 200-250 such firms where home buyers money was transferred. The two forensic auditors, appointed by the court to look into the affairs of Amrapali Group said besides 47 sister companies, they stumbled upon 31 companies whose names were never disclosed by the embattled real estate firm. The court was also told that there may be a case of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), as large amount of money was transferred to a multinational company based in Mauritius. It questioned Amarapali Group CFO Chander Wadhwa as to how a group company paid his Income Tax amounting to Rs 2 crore, when he was earning only Rs 50,000 per month. A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and U U Lalit said money of innocent buyers could not be misused like this and asked the Mauritius-based JP Morgan company to file its account statement with regard to the transaction with the Amrapali Group. The counsel for J P Morgan said they had invested more than Rs 100 crore in the real estate business of Amrapali Group and they had a claim of Rs 168 crore from the reality firm. At the outset, forensic auditors Pawan Kumar Agarwal and Ravi Bhatia said besides the 47 sister companies declared by the Amrapali Group, they have initially found 23 companies and now another eight companies with which the reality firm had transactions. "We have no iota of doubt that not only promoters, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and the internal auditors of the Amrapali Group were part of the syndicate. Prima facie, we have found the relatives of promoters, CFO and internal auditors were directors in these companies, where the money was transferred," Agarwal said. "Initially, we found 23 companies where transaction had taken place and now we have found eight more companies. We anticipate that there are more than 200-250 such companies, where the money was transferred, but their names have not been disclosed by the Amrapali Group till now," he said. The court-appointed forensic auditor pointed out that in compliance with the earlier order of the court, the Amrapali Group had handed over 117 computers used by it, but 36 of them were not working and many were password-protected, which were not given to them. The bench directed the group to disclose the passwords of these computers given to the forensic auditors within three days and mark which computer belonged to which company. "We understand everything what is happening. We are not saying anything at present but waiting for the proofs and disclosure of details. They may hide the information for say seven days but on the eighth day we will have the information, no matter what," the bench said. The bench also asked the Amrapali Group to disclose the details of luxury cars owned by the company and their registration numbers after the forensic auditors flagged that a luxury car was given to the CFO. "It appears that they were not only in construction business, but into something else also," the bench said and questioned the CFO about the benefits he took from the Amrapali Group. It also asked the CFO to disclose by Thursday the details of the companies he had incorporated, the home buyers money which was transferred to these companies, on whose authorisation the funds were transferred and the benefits he took from the Amrapali Group. The court warned that any wrong information found at a later stage would lead to consequences and he may be sent behind bars. The bench then questioned internal auditor Anil Mittal, who told the court that the company had transferred around Rs 50 to Rs 60 crore to the companies he had incorporated on the direction of Wadhwa. The court asked Mittal to file a affidavit by Thursday, giving each and every detail of such companies and their transactions. "You all were chartered accounts and were supposed to be a watchdog. You were to render services to the society. People rely on you. Being in the know-how of things you incorporated these companies which acted as conduit for transferring the money which Amrapali legally cannot do. This is nothing but an effervescence. There is a tall building but with no foundation," the bench said. The apex court also refused to allow CMD Anil Kumar Sharma and two directors, Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar, currently residing under police surveillance at a hotel in Noida to visit home on the occasion of Diwali. On October 26, the apex court had grilled the CFO and internal auditors of Amrapali Group over diversion of home buyers money and ordered that the company's CMD as also its two other directors would remain under police surveillance at a hotel in Noida. It had also initiated contempt proceedings against the group's Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) Anil Kumar Sharma and its directors for prima facie violating court's order and thwarting the course of justice. The court is seized of a batch of petitions filed by home buyers who are seeking possession of around 42,000 flats booked in projects of the Amrapali Group. PTI MNL ABA SJK RKS SRY Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 31 (PTI) Kerala Wednesday sought the cooperation of the southern states to implement the Supreme Court verdict on women's entry into the Sabarimala shrine, even as ministers from these states kept away from a meeting to discuss the arrangements for the annual pilgrimage season starting next month. According to the official schedule, the meeting was supposed to be inaugurated by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. However, as Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Puducherry sent their senior officials, instead of devaswom ministers, to attend the meeting, Vijayan kept off. Addressing the meeting, Kerala Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran said the state government had the constitutional obligation to implement the apex court verdict and sought the cooperation of all the southern states. The state had suffered massive devastation in the floods in August and Sabarimala, especially Pamba, had been badly affected, he said, adding that the "Nadappanthal" (resting place) at Pamba, the health centre and the toilet facilities had all been very badly damaged. The restoration works at Pamba and the construction of additional facilities for pilgrims at the Nilakkal base camp had been entrusted with the Tata Project Limited at an estimated cost of Rs 25 crore, the minister said. Almost all the works, including the facilities for accommodating 10,000 pilgrims, parking of 20,000 vehicles, besides those related to drinking water and the toilet blocks at Pamba and Nilakkal were nearing completion and were expected to be ready by November 11, he added. The repair works of the roads damaged in the deluge were also nearing completion, Surendran told the meeting. He thanked all the states that had contributed to the Chief Minister's Disaster Relief Fund. Elaborating on the arrangements for the three-month pilgrimage season beginning November 17, Surendran said the Ayyappa devotees would be regulated from Nilakkal and the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) would provide chain services from Nilakkal to Pamba and back. Private vehicles would not be allowed beyond Nilakkal, which would be the base camp for the Sabarimala pilgrimage, as the floods had devastated the facilities at Pamba, he said. The booking of KSRTC buses could be done online in advance as well as offline, Surendran added. Plastic in any form was banned even inside the "Irumudikettu" (the offerings for Lord Ayyappa carried by the devotees), he said. Wide publicity had to be given in vernacular languages by the print and electronic media across the south Indian states to build awareness among the "Guru Swamis" as well as the Ayyappa devotees, asking them to desist from carrying any plastic item even in the "Irumudikettu", the minister said. He added that there was a widespread campaign in Kerala and other states against donating cash at Sabarimala and other temples of the Devaswom Board. The state government was not taking a single penny from the revenue of these temples, Surendran said, adding that instead, it was granting huge funds for their adminstration every year. Kerala had witnessed widespread protests by devotees after the state government made it clear that it was bound to implement the top court's verdict on entry of women of all ages into the hill shrine. Opposition Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have extended support to the agitation of the devotees, who want to preserve the centuries-old traditions of the temple. PTI UD JRK ROH RC Salem (TN), Oct 31 (PTI) A 13-year-old Dalit girl was beheaded at a hamlet in this district of Tamil Nadu allegedly by her neighbour after she reportedly spurned his advances. A senior police official said Wednesday the accused Dinesh Kumar has been arrested and lodged in Salem jail and a probe was on. The incident happened at a small village near Attur in Salem district recently. In a complaint filed by the victim's relatives, they have levelled allegations of sexual misconduct against the accused, a caste Hindu, the official said. The police dismissed media reports that the accused was mentally disturbed. According to reports, the deceased teenager had rejected the accused's advances and also informed her mother. Police said Kumar beheaded her using a sickle. The victim was studying at a nearby government school and was the last of three siblings. Her parents are said to be labourers. PTI SA BN SRY Jammu, Oct 31 (PTI) Hundreds of people, including senior police officers and politicians, Wednesday took part in the 'Run for Unity' to commemorate the 143rd birth anniversary of country's first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel across this region, officials said. Inspector General of Police, Jammu, S D Singh Jamwal led the enthusiastic youth from Gulshan ground here, while senior superintendents of police were at the forefront at respective district headquarters, they said. "Apart from promoting unity of the nation, the run for peace was also being organised with a motive to engage the youth in positive activities and keep them away from drugs," Jamwal said. State unit of the BJP also organised the 'Run for Unity' in the city and paid rich tributes to the late leader. BJP state president Ravinder Raina led the run from Satwari Chowk to Prem Nath Dogra Chowk, which was attended by former deputy chief minister Kavinder Gupta and other senior leaders of the party. Addressing the party workers, Raina attacked the Congress for promoting a "single Nehru-Gandhi family at the cost of all other national heroes". "Today Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tried to give due recognition to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel by unveiling his 182 meter-long statue," he said. PTI TAS AB AQS AQS New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union said Wednesday they have met Delhi Jal Board officials to find a solution to the water crisis in the varsity. The JNUSU alleged that there is "complete mismanagement of water supply in the university by the JNU administration". "There is a requirement for new tanks, but they are not being sanctioned or are being delayed by the JNU administration. "Mehrauli MLA Naresh Yadav has assured us to provide funds for construction of tanks. However, he too has expressed his inability to get an NOC from the administration," it said. There is a clear and complete breakdown of the JNU administration, the JNUSU alleged. Neither are they constructing new storage tanks nor are they allowing the local representative to build them, the students' union said. "Delhi Jal Board (DJB) officials promised to provide permission for tube wells where there is a necessity, especially in the JNU's school areas. "However, even this proposal has to come from the JNU administration, which they have not sent," it said. The JNUSU told the DJB that they will carry out a survey and send a detailed letter for permission of tube wells in the school areas and for storage tanks. "DJB officials assured us that they will educate JNU administration to properly distribute and manage water supplied to JNU," they said. DJB officials did not respond to repeated calls and messages. An official from the varsity said they are making efforts to resolve the issue. "For the last four-five months, the varsity has not been receiving adequate water supply. The engineering department is working with the DJB to resolve the issue. "Several letters have been sent to the DJB about the issue and we are trying to find a solution," he said. PTI SLB UZM SLB ANB ANB Students council elections process to be completed by Sept 30 Mumbai, Oct 31 (PTI) Maharashtra Education Minister Vinod Tawde said Wednesday that the process of students council elections will be completed by September 30 in the next academic session. The elections to students councils in colleges and universities will be held as per the recommendations of the Lyngdoh Committee, Tawde told reporters here. The election program will be declared before July 31 and by September 30 the university students councils would be constituted, he said. "Elections will be held on the principle of straight majority. The election to university council and college councils under that university will be held on the same day," Tawde said. There will be no political interference in the elections, he said. "Those desirous of contesting elections should enrol for a full-time academic course in any recognised university or college in the academic year," the minister said. College elections were banned in the early 1990s. PTI MM KRK KRK William Hill has seen its share price rise by nearly 10 per cent after splashing out 241million to buy Swedish-based online betting firm Mr Green & Co. Keen to shift its focus from the tightly regulated UK market and expand internationally, the FTSE 250 listed group said the deal will help it reach, among others, markets in Denmark, Italy and Latvia. Looking to close the deal in January next year William Hill said it had not yet taken any decisions on what will happen to the employees at Mr Green. William Hill said: 'Following completion of the Offer a careful review of the capabilities and needs of the new combined operations will be undertaken in order to determine the optimal management and employee structure for future success of the Group.' Acquisition: William Hill has seen its share price rise by nearly 10 per cent after splashing out 241million to buy Swedish-based online betting firm Mr Green & Co William Hill will offer 69 Swedish krona, or 5.90, in cash per share for the Stockholm-listed company, marking a 48.5 per cent premium on its closing price on 30 October. Shares in William Hill are up 9.95 per cent or 20.40p to 225.40p. William Hill said the takeover of Mr Green would boost its share of revenue and profits from online as well as from outside the UK, and reduce exposure to the UK market. The combination of William Hill and Mr Green will create a 'strongly positioned combined business' with a pan-European footprint in online betting and gaming markets, the firms said. Philip Bowcock, William Hill's chief executive, said: 'This proposed acquisition accelerates the diversification of William Hill - immediately making us a more digital and more international business. 'MRG will provide William Hill with an international hub in Malta with market entry expertise and strong growth momentum in a number of European countries. 'William Hill will move from a single brand to a suite of brands that can maximise growth opportunities moving forward in new and existing markets.' Expanding markets: William Hill recently agreed a tie-up with US casino giant Eldorado The deal is subject to acceptance from Mr Green's shareholders and competition regulators. Holders of 40 per cent of the shares in Mr Green have already agreed to back the takeover. On top of today's deal, William Hill recently agreed a tie-up with US casino giant Eldorado in a bold move to tap into the recently liberalised American market. British gambling groups have been increasingly turning to overseas expansion as a way to offset the recent blow from a UK Government crackdown on fixed-odds betting terminals. Ladbrokes owner GVC recently announced a similar joint venture with Las Vegas-based casino group MGM. Britain's biggest carmaker Jaguar Land Rover slumped to a 90million loss in the three months to 30 September, against a 385million profit a year earlier. Total revenues slipped 10.9 per cent year-on-year to 5.6billion, while retail sales fell 13.2 per cent to 129,887 cars. The car firm, which is owned by Indian group Tata Motors, saw year-on-year retail sales in China plummet over 43 per cent over the period, with the group blaming escalating trade tensions with the US. Hefty loss: Britain's biggest carmaker Jaguar Land Rover slumped to a 90million loss in the three months to 30 September Dwindling demand for diesel cars, 'uncertainty' surrounding Brexit and new emissions testing certification requirements also took their toll on the group's UK operations, the company said. In a presentation to investors, Jaguar Land Rover said: 'Demand likely to remain muted due to geopolitical, economic, financial and regulatory factors.' Earlier this year, the British car builder said it would temporarily reduce production at its plant in Halewood, Merseyside, due to the reduced demand for new cars caused by Brexit, VED increases and diesel surcharges. In April, the company revealed it planned to cut production at its Castle Bromwich and Solihull plants and axe 1,000 temporary workers due to 'continuing headwinds impacting the car industry'. The firm said it was making 'temporary adjustments', with staff at Solihull placed on a three-day week until Christmas. This month, the group said it was also planning a two-week shutdown of its Solihull plant at the end of October, again due to subdued demand. Jaguar Land Rover said employees at the West Midlands plant would be paid for the duration of the shutdown and no jobs would be lost. Temporary closure: This month, the group said it was planning a two-week shutdown of its Solihull plant at the end of October Looking ahead: In a bid to revive its fortunes, Jaguar Land Rover used its results to unveil a 2.5billion turnaround plan Jaguar Land Rover's boss, Ralf Speth, said: 'In the latest quarterly period, we continued to see more challenging market conditions. 'Our results were undermined by slowing demand in China, along with continued uncertainty in Europe over diesel, Brexit and the WLTP changeover.' In a bid to revive its fortunes, Jaguar Land Rover used its results to unveil a 2.5billion turnaround plan that includes heavy cost cutting over the next 18 months. The company is cutting planned spending by around 500million to 4billion per year this financial year and next. Commenting on the turnaround plans, Mr Speth said: 'Given these challenges, Jaguar Land Rover has launched far-reaching programmes to deliver cost and cashflow improvements. 'Together with our ongoing product offensive and calibrated investment plans, these efforts will lay the foundations for long-term sustainable, profitable growth.' Professor David Bailey, an expert in the UK's car manufacturing sector at Aston Business School, told This is Money: 'It's something of a prefect storm for JLR. 'Brexit uncertainty, a huge shift away from diesels and now a sharp drop in Chinese sales have together dented JLR's performance. 'It's only the second quarterly loss for JLR in nearly a decade. 'The firm is looking to cut costs by 2.5bn. Given the scale of that it's inevitable, I fear, that there will be further job losses st JLR.' Jaguar Land Rover currently employs around 40,000 staff across the UK. It was the country's biggest car maker in 2017, producing 532,107 vehicles in total. That accounts for almost 32 per cent of all vehicles made in the UK last year. Facing the music: Boss Luke Johnson Patisserie Valerie boss Luke Johnson will today face angry shareholders in the wake of an accounting scandal that has rocked the cafe chain. Johnson and the firm's directors will be questioned by investors who will want to know how a 40m black hole appeared in the company's accounts. They will demand answers about two secret overdrafts that were discovered as the scandal deepened. Bosses will also be quizzed about extra bonus payments to executives without the approval of shareholders. The meeting has been called by parent company Patisserie Holdings to seek shareholder approval for a 15.7m rescue deal. Investors are expected to vote in favour but want answers. Shareholder advisory group Glass Lewis has already called on executive chairman Johnson, 56, to step down as head of the audit committee, saying he has a conflict of interest. Johnson is chairman of the group's remuneration and audit committees and its largest shareholder, with a 37 per cent stake. He is also listed as having more than 40 director roles at other companies. As chairman of the audit committee he is overseeing an investigation being carried out into suspected fraud. Glass Lewis said: 'Should Johnson continue to serve on the audit committee, we will continue to recommend against his re-election on that basis.' Campaign group Share Action urged shareholders to ask tough questions. Spokesman Beau O'Sullivan said: 'They should absolutely be asking how nearly 40m goes missing from a balance sheet in a matter of months, who is responsible, and why no one picked up on such a gross oversight. Was the oversight to do with the fact that Johnson was too close to the issue? 'Shareholders should quiz him on the flagrant conflict of interest of being a 37 per cent shareholder at the same time as serving on the audit committee.' But Tim Ward, chief executive of the Quoted Companies Alliance, said investors should have raised questions regarding Johnson's governance long before the alleged fraud came to light. Ward said: 'Codes can give guidance and point people in the right direction but it's the investors that should be testing whether the board can justify the way they're going about things. 'It's for the board to answer the question 'Why did you constitute your audit committee in that way?' But it's equally a question as to why the investors weren't asking these things beforehand.' The company earlier this month revealed it had discovered 'significant, and potentially fraudulent, accounting irregularities'. The former finance director, Chris Marsh, was arrested on suspicion of fraud and released on bail after the black hole was discovered. He has since resigned. Stock market filings also revealed Marsh and chief executive Paul May received twice as many share options as expected, allowing them to cash in a combined 4.6m. Yesterday, restaurateur David Scott denied reports he was looking to make a swoop for the troubled firm. The 68-year-old used to run Druckers Vienna Patisserie before it was bought by Patisserie Valerie 11 years ago. Scott said: 'I have not appointed nor do I intend to appoint a company to liaise with shareholders on my behalf and I have no interest in making an offer for or acquiring shares in Patisserie Valerie or any related companies.' High Street relief: Around 500,000 shops, pubs, restaurants and cafes are expected to see their rates bills cut by up to a third Struggling High Street shops have missed out on millions of pounds of vital emergency funding following a series of shambolic blunders. On Monday, Chancellor Philip Hammond announced a 1.6 billion lifeline for Britain's High Streets, which included a 900 million relief package to help shops battling sky-high business rates. It means that around 500,000 shops, pubs, restaurants and cafes are expected to see their rates bills cut by up to a third over the next two years. The Treasury will also set aside 675 million to help councils rejuvenate their town centres. But it is the Government's second attempt at helping the High Street, after a 435 million business rates relief package was announced in 2017. This was supposed to help businesses struggling to pay their business rates. However, Money Mail can today reveal that millions of pounds from the first fund failed to reach the businesses it was intended to help, and was instead returned to Treasury coffers. As many as three-quarters of councils failed to hand out their allocated cash to ailing local firms. In some cases, councils spent only an eighth of their budgets, while others helped as few as five shops. One local authority failed to spend almost 800,000 of its extra funding. Eighteen months ago, more than 500,000 shops, pubs and restaurants were hit by business rates hikes a tax on bricks and mortar businesses. Following a Money Mail campaign, ministers pledged to introduce a 300 million fund for councils to distribute to those worst affected over four years, as part of a wider 435 million business rates relief package. Some 175 million of this had to be spent in the first 12 months by the end of September or be returned to the Government. But many councils misunderstood the rules, while others failed to promote the scheme or made it too complicated for small businesses to apply. Some councils claim the Government did not give them enough time to distribute the money before it was lost. Embarrassingly, the council in former Communities Secretary Sajid Javid's own constituency, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, handed out only a third of the cash it had been given to help its High Street. Mr Javid, now Home Secretary, was previously in charge of ensuring the fund was distributed by councils and had promised 'absolutely no delay' in doing so. Yet figures collated by Retail Express and chartered surveyors Bankier Sloan reveal just 46,300 of the council's 134,500 pot was given out in time helping only 37 businesses. Nearby Redditch Borough Council helped only 21 shops and spent just 15,800 out of 124,000, an eighth of its budget. Stevenage Borough Council, Hertfordshire, gave cash to just five businesses in the town and awarded 18,800 out of a possible 100,000. While Swindon Borough Council, Wiltshire, spent only 58,000 out of 314,300, helping 41 businesses with more than a quarter of a million pounds leftover. Fenland District Council, in Cambridgeshire, spent 21,277 out of almost 160,000, barely a seventh of its budget. And Broxbourne Borough Council, in Hertfordshire, spent a fifth of its pot, distributing 38,000 out of 213,500 and helping only 31 shops. Camden Council, North London, allocated 100 per cent of its fund, but said shop closures meant that, in the end, it was only able to hand out 86 per cent of it. It meant that, despite distributing 4.84 million to businesses, it had 790,000 leftover. By contrast, around 30 councils spent all of their funding. Barnsley Council, for example, spent every penny of its 276,000 and helped an incredible 2,135 businesses. Jerry Schurder, head of business rates at consultancy Gerald Eve, branded the distribution of the grant 'shambolic'. He says: 'It was a poorly designed fund by the Government and a knee-jerk response to the backlash against the rates revaluation. 'It was then badly implemented by some councils which did not pay sufficient attention to the criteria.' The fund was supposed to help the smallest businesses facing the greatest rises. The Government decided how much money to allocate to each council by calculating the total increase in bills for firms facing a minimum 12.5 per cent rate rise and with a rateable value of less than 200,000 the rental value on which business rates are based. But many councils used this same rigid criteria when deciding which firms should receive cash awarding it only to those hit by rate rises of more than 12.5 per cent. Millions of pounds from the first fund failed to reach the businesses it was intended to help, and was instead returned to Treasury coffers In fact, councils had total freedom to spend the cash however they wished, as long as it went towards reducing business rates bills. Some councils excluded businesses they felt did not need the cash as desperately, such as schools, banks and estate agents. Meanwhile, multinational firms and Government bodies were typically excluded because they had exceeded state aid limits via other grants. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government refused to say how much cash had not been spent. But research by Retail Express suggests it was as much as 17.5 million 10 per cent of the budget. A series of Freedom of Information requests showed that 159 out of the 195 councils that replied had failed to spend all of their grant by the end of April. The deadline to hand out the cash was actually September 30, but many councils stopped distributing the 2017/18 grant at the end of the financial year. News editor of Retail Express, Jack Courtez, who led the research, says: 'I think it is incredible that councils claim they are being squeezed by a lack of central Government funding, but when they do receive money they fail to distribute it. 'Many councils have let down local businesses which depended on this funding.' Chartered surveyor Ian Sloan, of Bankier Sloan, who contacted councils to warn them they faced a massive under-spend, says: 'The distribution of this fund has been a mess. Local businesses have lost out on money they really needed and now the money is gone.' Councillor Matt Dormer, leader of Redditch Borough Council, says that as the funding is drawn from general taxation, the council has 'a duty to spend it in an appropriate manner, and not to simply seek to spend as much of it as possible.' Bromsgrove Council says it had to bear in mind that 'any relief given to people facing an increase in their rates gives them a competitive advantage.' Broxbourne Borough Council said that '100 per cent of businesses who completed and returned application forms were granted the relief.' Swindon Council says it had to award cash automatically when few firms applied. Stevenage Borough Council said it has already granted 32,392 of the 36,000 it has been allocated for the coming year. And Fenland Council says it would give higher amounts to successful firms this year as a result of the low take-up of the relief in 2017/18. Camden's Councillor Richard Olszewski says the council awarded all of its funds but 'due to businesses moving in and out of the borough and a substantial number of successful rating appeals' it was then unable to distribute it all before the deadline. This year it has over-allocated funds to allow for business turnover. A total of 175 million was supposed to have been handed out in 2017/18, followed by 85 million this year, then 35 million in 2019/20 and 5 million in 2020/2021. A Government spokesman says: 'To help local businesses thrive, we have introduced over 10 billion worth of business rates support so nearly a third of all business pay no rates at all.' l.eccles@dailymail.co.uk American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved. 326 E 8th St #105, Sioux Falls, SD 57103 | U.S. Based Support Team at [email protected] | (844) 978-6257 MarketBeat does not provide personalized financial advice and does not issue recommendations or offers to buy stock or sell any security. Our Accessibility Statement | Terms of Service | Do Not Sell My Information 2021 Market data provided is at least 10-minutes delayed and hosted by Barchart Solutions. Information is provided 'as-is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and is delayed. To see all exchange delays and terms of use please see disclaimer. Fundamental company data provided by Zacks Investment Research. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc receives Vice Chairman of Samsung Group Lee Jae-yong in Hanoi on October 30th (Photo: VNA) The host leader highly valued Samsungs investment accomplishments in the country, stressing that the Vietnamese Government, ministries, and localities will continue to create the best possible conditions for the firm to do business successfully here. He noted that the Government has kept a close watch on and listened to opinions of foreign investors, including Samsung, to support their investments and business in Vietnam. Aside from the call for investment expansion, PM Phuc also asked the group to step up the development of the semiconductor sector, infrastructure, finance, and information technology, while continuing to assist Vietnam in expanding its supporting industry and create conditions for local businesses to join Samsungs supply chain. He also asked Samsung to assist the country in building its e-government and soon implement some of its large thermal power projects, affirming that the Vietnamese Government will remain a companion to the firm on the path to further victory. As the National Assembly of Vietnam is soon to finish ratifying the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), Samsung will gain access to a variety of favourable conditions to increase investment in Vietnam since the deal will open up major chances for exporting products to other countries. For his part, Lee appreciated the Vietnamese Governments support for Samsung, noting that the group is already making considerable efforts to help with human resource development in the country. Expanding investment and raising the proportion of locally-made components in its products are the wishes of Samsung, he said, adding that it is also enhancing research and development activities in Vietnam. Samsung is working hard to further cooperate with Vietnamese businesses in spare parts and human resources. It is also experienced in Industry 4.0 technology and e-governments, so the group is willing to assist the country in these fields, the executive noted./. Its not always a task force or tough police work that leads to the capture of a serial killer. Sometimes its luck, sometimes its a tip ... and sometimes its a really suspicious coffee run. Such was the case of Dorothea Puente, Sacramentos notorious homicidal landlady. The elderly landlady began renting out a large boarding house, plus a bedroom in her home, both on F Street. Death soon followed. Police made multiple visits to the home in the 1980s as residents kept disappearing. But suspicion was never cast on Puente, who seemed like an ordinary older woman, renting out rooms in her boarding house to down-on-their-luck tenants. Puente, however, had started a nearly decade-long murder spree. Targeting elderly and mentally disabled tenants, she killed for cash, continuing to pull their Social Security checks after killing them. Police estimated she was making $5,000 a month from her murderous income. ALSO: Northern California cold cases that got major breaks thanks to DNA evidence Puente stayed under the radar even when a body was found on the property. In Nov. 1988, police came by to inquire about a missing person, last seen living at Puentes boarding house. They noticed some disturbed soil in the yard. A bit of digging yielded a body. And then six more. Still, police didnt suspect the elderly woman. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. While crime scene technicians combed the property, Puente asked if she could leave for a cup of coffee. Police let her go. She made it all the way to Los Angeles, where she tried her old act: making friends with an elderly man. But the man recognized her from news reports, calling in the tip that led to her arrest. ALSO: 'Murder capital of the world': The terrifying years when multiple serial killers stalked Santa Cruz Puente was sentenced to life in prison, where she wrote recipes, made earrings and denied killing those nice tenants until the day she died. To read more about how infamous California serial killers were eventually caught, check out the gallery above. Walmart just announced their plans for the holiday shopping season while simultaneously launching their pre-Black Friday Early Access Pass. The deals in the early access event are scheduled to go live Nov. 1, but (surprise) you can shop the deals now. Walmart is pledging to give customers a faster checkout experience, digital Store Maps on the Walmart app to help customers find everything they need quickly, and a redesigned Walmart.com to make it easier than ever to shop Walmart. Saratoga Springs New tracks and stations are in place. But Amtrak train service beyond its busy corridor between Manhattan and Rensselaer station hasn't increased. While Rensselaer sees 13 southbound weekday departures for New York's Penn station, Schenectady sees just seven, and Saratoga Springs, two. Local officials and passenger rail advocates would like to see at least one or two more trains that now originate or terminate in Rensselaer extended to Saratoga Springs. "All of the roadblocks that have been mentioned before ... are now all done," said Bruce Becker, vice president of operations for the Rail Passengers Association. The state Department of Transportation, which supports the intrastate Amtrak service, would have to financially commit to the extension. Gary Prophet, who succeeded Becker as president of the Empire State Passengers Association, says an early-morning weekday trip from Saratoga that would get people to Manhattan around 9 a.m. would be ideal, with a return train in late afternoon. But more service that would make it convenient for downstate residents to get to Saratoga Springs would also be a big plus, said Todd Shimkus, president of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce. Shimkus has been a long-time proponent of accommodating passengers' bicycles on trains, saying it would open "a whole new tourism market" for the resort city and its surroundings. But he also said it would benefit Saratoga commuters who might use the train to get to and from Albany. Many he said, travel alone to work and spend "so much time" in their cars. "We need to find other ways to get people in and out" of the state's capital, he said. "Any additional service is always helpful," when it comes to economic development issues, said Marty Vanags, president of the Saratoga County Prosperity Partnership. Vanags, who previously lived in Bloomington, Ill., recalls the improvements to Amtrak service on the Chicago-St. Louis corridor through the Bloomington/Normal area that shortened travel time from the station in Normal to Chicago to two hours from three and a half hours previously. Ridership on the Lincoln Service route, as it's called, was up 7.6 percent in the most recent fiscal year. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. New York state has invested in new track capacity and new stations at Rensselaer, Saratoga Springs and, most recently, Schenectady. It also restored a second track between Albany and Schenectady, where trains can travel at up to 110 mph, as well as adding additional track capacity between Saratoga Springs and Schenectady. New residential developments are in the works around the Saratoga Springs train station, while downtown Schenectady has undergone redevelopment, with new housing, restaurants, and businesses. The Mohawk Harbor development and Rivers Casino complex are a mile north of the Schenectady station. State DOT officials at the recent Schenectady station ribbon-cutting were mum on any service increases the state might be considering. And it's unclear how many residents of Saratoga and Washington counties now drive to Rensselaer, where service is far more frequent, instead of to close-by Saratoga. Many, having driven that far, may decide to keep going by car instead of train. "The option of people getting on a morning train in Saratoga Springs or Schenectady also relieves traffic on Interstates 87, 90 and 787," said Prophet. "Those are very busy roads during the morning rush hour." Anat Cohen's life in music has been somewhat of a whirlwind since her emergence as a bona fide jazz star in recent years. She leads different groups, covering an array of musical territories, and collaborates with outstanding musicians on a myriad of projects as the spirit moves her. It's safe to say her musical life is her life. She admits that if she's in her New York City home for too long and not making music with others, she doesn't feel right. "This is the profession we've chosen," said Cohen. "It's fun. It's busy. I want to be making music with other people. Every time I don't do it, I start wondering what am I doing with my life? ... It gives a whole meaning to that day to life. You sit and play and you realize, 'Wow. We're alive. We're here.' We're doing something we love to do and we're communicating and having fun. It's incredible how I like the encounters with other musicians. It gives meaning to my life. Some people do better on their own. I like the social gathering around the music." Cohen has become one of the most critically acclaimed clarinetists in recent years, She plays powerful tenor sax and is wonderfully adroit on soprano and alto sax as well. The straight black clarinet, however, has become her bread and butter and her name can be found atop all the major critic "year's best" polls for that instrument. A jazz musician, she can be found playing all styles, particularly music from South America, which she loves. In 2017, she released three well-received recordingstwo on the same day. And early this year, another acclaimed recording came out. The first two "Outra Coisa" and "Rosa Dos Ventos" (Anzic), were nominated for Grammys, for Best Latin Jazz Album and Best World Music Album, respectively. "Outra Coisa" finds her exploring the music of the Brazilian genius Moacir Santos, with guitarist Marcello Goncalves. "Rosa Dos Ventos" consists of various styles of music by Cohen and Trio Brasileiro. Later in the year, "Happy Song" (Anzic) came out by the Anat Cohen Tentet. touching on many more genres. That band, a particular source of pride for Cohen, played Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival in June. The disc issued this year was a duet album with the esteemed pianist Fred Hersch, "Live in Healdsburg." She's back in the area Friday, performing in the finale of the annual concert series produced by A Place For Jazz in the Whisperdome room at the Unitarian Church in Schenectady. There, she will perform as just the Anat Cohen Quartet. Mainstream jazz will be part of that night's menu. She has several dates planned in early 2019 for the quartet. "There's a way to look at it from business and marketing and your planning. And then there's the creative life, the musical life. It's what I do," said Cohen. Putting those albums out so close together didn't come from a marketing think tank. "We decided to just go for it. That's the advantage of owning my own record label [Anzic Records] with Oded Lev-Ari. He has good thoughts about how to do things and I'm very pleased with the way they came out. Even though there are a lot of albums at the same time. It worked out. Otherwise, if you wait and have just one recording a year, it takes four years to get them out. Maybe they aren't even valid by that time. I'll be doing something else. I'd rather have it be, 'This is what I'm doing now.' Next year I may be doing something else." Since arriving on the New York City scene in 1999, via her native Tel Aviv and then the Berklee College of Music, Cohen's career has been on a steady rise. The first woodwind instrument for Cohen was the clarinet. She left it for a few years when she was starting out, because at the time it was not in fashion, more linked to early, traditional jazz. But it changed over time and is now her main axe. No matter what instrument, and what musicians she finds herself on stage with, the bottom line is creativity, exploring possibilities and enjoying musical conversations. The pure joy of performing is palpable on stage. She can't hide her smile as she sways or dances with the music when she isn't soloing. The emotion and joy can be felt and heard from the sounds emanating from the bell of whatever horn she holds in her hands. "I like the combination of unknown and known at the same time. I like when there's a common language," she said. "It's like you start talking about a subject and someone starts elaborating and making some serious detoursit all comes back at the end of the story so everyone can say, 'Oh yeah. We're with you. You are with us.' There's got to be some common understanding of what's happening. But I also love the different personalities of people. Of how comfortable people are with not knowing everything they're going to play. I'm OK with falling flat on my face. For the sake of excitement, of exploration. I'm OK with it. I understand it. I'm sacrificing perfection, but my goal is not perfection. It's not about perfection. It's about getting the emotion." R.J. DeLuke is a frequent contributor to the Times Union. ALBANY - It's deja vu in the 102nd Assembly District. Republican Chris Tague is squaring off on Tuesday against Democrat Aidan O'Connor in a head-to-head rematch of the April special election that Tague won by 159 votes. The seat, which includes Greene and Schoharie counties and parts of Albany, Ulster, Delaware and Otsego counties, was previously represented by Peter Lopez, who resigned last year after being appointed regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Even before the absentee ballots were counted in the spring, O'Connor, a Greene County legislator, had made up his mind about November. "We pledged to run, win or lose, after the April election," he said. His campaign is also continuing to make health care their central issue, with O'Connor appearing in his paramedic regalia in front of an ambulance for his latest social-media advertisement. He talks with an easy familiarity about the challenges facing the district, including only two small community hospitals for the entire region. One of his plans to expand access to medical care involves changing the state's Public Health Law to allow EMTs and paramedics to make house visits between emergency calls. Both candidates want to change state law to make emergency medical services an essential service, while also ensuring municipalities aren't stuck with new costs. Tague's top priority is an ethics reform package championed by Assembly Republicans, which includes transparency and accountability measures for the state's economic development programs. He also wants term limits for elected officials. Since taking office in May, Tague says he has repeatedly voted against any proposals in the Assembly that could increase taxes or fees. He cites his endorsement from the National Federation of Independent Business as evidence of his support for pro-growth policies A major focus of O'Connor's pitch to voters is that he represents a chance for the district to play a role in the decision making process in Albany, where those in power run the Capitol with little input from state legislators in the minority. As a Democrat, he would join the Assembly's majority conference, giving him a larger voice in the budget and legislative processes. He pointed to the SAFE Act as the type of issue, which was largely crafted by downstate legislators, that would have benefited from his upstate perspective. "We're finally going to have someone in the room," O'Connor said. "You can vote against legislation all you want, but it's going to pass." Tague rejects the idea that whether a candidate will be in the Assembly majority or minority should enter a voter's calculus on Election Day. "It's who best represents the district," he said. Much of the contention in the race has revolved around the candidates' history with the state's property tax cap. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. The Republican Assembly Campaign Committee, with Tague's blessing, has argued in advertisements that O'Connor is disingenuous about his support for the cap because in 2016 he voted to allow the Greene County Legislature to override the tax cap. He ultimately voted against the budget with the tax increase, but Tague maintains that "if he was completely against the tax increase, then he should have voted against the override." Tague has his own history of busting the tax cap, approving a county budget that exceeded the statutory ceiling after Hurricane Irene hit the region. O'Connor has knocked Tague for introducing legislation delaying the implementation of certain vehicle emissions' standards, which would benefit the construction-services company that used to employ Tague and similar firms that have contributed to his campaign. "Are you kidding me," Tague said in response to the criticism. "It's beneficial to companies all across New York state. ... Let's knock off the campaign rhetoric." He noted that the bill has been introduced for years in the state Legislature, and added that O'Connor "knows nothing about business." O'Connor countered that if Tague's focus is simply on making New York more affordable there are "a hundred other costs" that could be addressed. "We haven't seen that legislation being drafted," O'Connor said. David.Lombardo@timesunion.com - 518.454.5427 - @poozer87 ALBANY - Republican gubernatorial candidate Marc Molinaro would support with caveats legislation that would codify abortion rights in New York, a position that puts him at odds with his backers in the state Conservative Party. In an interview with the Times Union editorial board on Wednesday, Molinaro said he doubts the U.S. Supreme Court now more conservative with the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh would actually move to overturn the 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade, which deemed abortion a fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution. Molinaro's campaign emphasized that he has maintained his position supporting New York's codification of abortion rights from the beginning of his run for governor. Many on the political left fear the court's shift rightward will nullify the landmark ruling, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has made abortion rights a major line of attack against Molinaro. For years, abortion-rights advocates in New York have pushed the Reproductive Health Act, which would update New York law on the subject that was written three years before Roe. Advocates say state law currently falls short of the protections provided by Roe and subsequent court decisions. They note that that under current New York law, abortion is a criminal act unless it's performed before the 24th week of pregnancy, or is necessary to preserve a woman's life. The Reproductive Health Act would repeal that section of the penal law and create a new, non-criminal section of the Public Health Law. "I understand the need, should the Supreme Court suggest that [abortion is] not a constitutional right and it is," Molinaro said on Wednesday. "Should the Supreme Court suggest it's not a constitutional right, the state would need to act, to at least codify, so that it's not treated as a criminal or penal violation." As part of the state health law, the Reproductive Health Act would allow a licensed practitioner to perform an abortion within 24 weeks of the beginning of a pregnancy, or if "there is an absence of fetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient's life or health." The bill has been held up by the Republican-controlled state Senate, but Democrats are optimistic about finally regaining control of the chamber in next week's election. Molinaro, however, said he would not support the Reproductive Health Act in its current form. "I recognize the need to ensure that it's not enforced through penal or criminal law, but there is not general consensus on late-term abortion, and only poor people end up getting and accessing abortions without physicians," Molinaro said. "And so I would say segmented, [it's] possible, and address late-term, non-physician assisted abortions separate and apart, if the Legislature's willing to do that. But I will say, again, only poor people end up getting abortions without doctors. That, to me, is discriminatory." Molinaro's position puts him somewhat at odds with the state Conservative Party, a small but significant player on New York's political right, which refuses to back candidates that support partial-birth abortions. "There doesn't need to be a codification in New York in New York state, abortion would still be legal, sadly," party chairman Mike Long told the Times Union. "They could appoint nine Kavanaughs and abortion would still be legal in the state of New York." Long was critical of the Times Union editorial board for even asking Molinaro about the issue, and said it is one ginned up by Cuomo for political gain. "It's b.s. from Cuomo to distract from the fact that he has failed the state for the last eight years," Long said. Long said there were much more important issues, such as the state's crumbling infrastructure and New York's declining upstate population although the Conservative Party itself has itself made abortion a litmus test for candidates seeking its important ballot line. "They disagree with me on lots of things, and they're still putting out ads [for me]," Molinaro said Wednesday. "I do believe it is a settled constitutional right. I don't have to agree with it. But I do agree it is a settled constitutional right, and therefore I would defend it as governor." At every turn, Cuomo's campaign has also sought to tie Molinaro, the politically moderate executive of the 300,000-resident Dutchess County, to another, far more controversial Republican President Donald J. Trump. In that sense, the Conservative Party's support for Molinaro has not been helpful: The party has been running radio advertisements for Molinaro stating that voting for him on the party's ballot line sends a "message that you stand with President Trump, because there's more to do to make America great again." In response to the ads, Cuomo's campaign called Molinaro a "Trump mini-me whose extreme conservative views fly in the face of New York values." Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Molinaro's campaign, meanwhile, declined to directly address the Conservative Party ads, according to the New York Daily News, stating only that under Molinaro, New Yorkers would "again enjoy freedom of expression and be tolerant of all views." In the editorial board interview Wednesday, Molinaro said he would insist on putting a strong package of ethics reforms in the state budget, which would give him considerable leverage. His proposals include creating a truly independent state ethics agency, more transparency in state government contracting, empowering the state comptroller to fight corruption, and a ban on pay-to-play campaign fundraising. He would also empower the executive director of the Committee on Open Government, Robert Freeman, to make determinations on the application of the Freedom of Information Law, which would be a significant change from the public records' access by Cuomo's administration. Molinaro also wants to reconstitute a Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption, which Cuomo formed and then shuttered in 2014, after it began looking into his political allies. Molinaro said the commission would "scare the hell out of legislators to make the policy changes necessary and act as a sheriff, to patrol the halls of Albany until the reforms are made." In 2014, Cuomo himself cast his shuttering of the Moreland Commission as a deal with the Legislature for important ethics reforms, such as independent election law enforcement although the reform measures fell far short of those long sought by good-government groups. Molinaro has said that he would ask two high-profile reformers in New York, former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and law professor Zephyr Teachout, to both serve on the Moreland Commission though he has not yet personally asked Bharara if he's interested. "I don't want to say that I have," Molinaro said. "But I am aware that would not be a foreign concept should he wish to not make money in the private sector. ... In both Preet Bharara's case and Zephyr Teachout both of whom I suggest I would like to appoint neither has said they're upset that I've mentioned it." Molinaro trails Cuomo significantly in the polls, and in a deep-blue state, faces headwinds both from Trump's presidency and, in particular, the governor's massive advantage in campaign fundraising. In the interview, Molinaro also suggested that both voters and the media were culpable in Cuomo's accumulation of such sweeping power over New York's government. "I'm sorry, the man has too much power," Molinaro said. "He's been given it by a weak Legislature, he's been given it by an electorate that's too busy, and he's been given it by a media that's hollowed out, and unable to hold him accountable." "If you think for a moment that the next four years is going to produce anything better than what we've seen over the last eight years, we're fooling ourselves," Molinaro added. "Some of the fundamental changes that need to happen will never happen, incrementally or otherwise, Democratic Senate, Republican Senate it doesn't matter. The governor is not going to allow the sweeping reforms necessary, because it will limit his ability to govern." ALBANY The police chief of the the Village of Galway in Saratoga County, two top village officers and a Schenectady County-based officer have all pleaded guilty to criminal solicitation charges related to bogus police training documents. Chief Leslie R. Klein, 72, of Galway; Sgt. Mark E. LaViolette, 50, of Schenectady; Sgt. David Goodwin, 53, of Amsterdam; and former Glenville Officer Mark Kirker, 50, of Schenectady pleaded guilty to the charge, a violation, before City Court Judge Gary Stiglmeier. Klein, LaViolette and Goodwin, who pleaded guilty Tuesday, agreed to resign and to the invalidation of their police officer certifications. Kirker, who pleaded guilty Wednesday, also agreed to relinquish his certification to be a police training instructor, authorities said. The pleas followed more than two years of investigation by the state attorney general's office. The guilty pleas leave hanging other allegations that had been raised about widespread misconduct and illegal activity on the small force. Those accusations, made by two former Galway police officers, included allegations that Galway police officers had destroyed evidence, that one officer unlawfully possessed fully-automatic weapons, and that others illegally voided traffic tickets that carried potential fines worth tens of thousands of dollars, and accessed a state criminal database for unlawful reasons. Another accusation was that a police officer systematically used a mobile-data terminal to get information about drivers from their license plates such as outstanding warrants or suspended licenses before finding a reason to pull them over and make an arrest. The former officers who made the allegations are Fred Scheidt, who was a State Police sergeant before he joined the Galway force, and Richard Schoonmaker Sr., who retired as a sergeant from the Troy Police Department in 2009 before joining the small department. Under state law, a police officer's certification expires four years after their last police job. In May, attorney general investigators said Klein approved the filing of official forms with the state Division of Criminal Justice Services that falsely claimed officers had completed mandatory training courses. The investigators obtained time and attendance records for the police chief and LaViolette from their other jobs, and compared the records with certification forms that said they had conducted training of Galway police officers. The defendants had been charged with first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, a felony. They pleaded guilty to fifth-degree criminal solicitation the equivalent of a traffic ticket and paid various fines. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. On Tuesday, Klein, LaViolette and Goodwin admitted to wrongdoing in connection with their completion and filing of bogus paperwork with DCJS. Each defendant told Stiglmeier that while acting as field training officers for probationary officers, they did not actually see the probationary officers during the times listed on daily observation reports. The defendants admitted they allowed the "probies" to sign documents filed with DCJS that falsely showed they had successfully completed field training, authorities said. On Wednesday, Kirker admitted he did not teach all of the required components of a police field training instructor course. The investigation began after two former Galway police officers who joined the department after retiring from other police agencies complained about the misconduct. The Galway department at its peak employed 10 part-time officers in a village of about 200 residents that's less than a square half-mile in size. The department is headquartered is a rented office on the second floor of a small law firm. ALBANY In his uphill bid to become the first Republican elected to statewide office in New York since 2002, Dutchess County executive Marc Molinaro is willing to talk about pretty much anything except President Donald J. Trump. Molinaro has instead focused on making the race a referendum on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, the incumbent Democrat running for a third term. Yet, as their only debate showed last week, Cuomo's not letting that happen. Like many other Democrats across the nation, Cuomo has routinely attempted to connect Molinaro to Trump on matters ranging from immigration and tax reform to social issues. While Molinaro has hammered Cuomo on his record during two terms as governor the flailing New York City subway system, a struggling upstate economy and rampant corruption in state government Cuomo has cast Molinaro as a "Trump mini-me" he claims would not protect New Yorkers from either Trump or a conservative U.S. Supreme Court. At the debate, Cuomo asked Molinaro repeatedly if he supported Trump, pressing his challenger to simply say the words for posterity. "Just say, 'I support Donald Trump,'" Cuomo said. Molinaro who wrote in moderate Republican U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson for president in 2016 repeatedly declined the provocation. "You won't say you support the president amazing," Cuomo said. Immediately after the hour-long debate, a television ad for the Cuomo-founded Women's Equality Party ran, featuring actress Alyssa Milano charging explosively that Molinaro "supports putting a female inmate in shackles during childbirth." The ad referred to Molinaro's 2009 vote in the state Assembly against a bill that would prohibit shackling female inmates in labor. He has since said he wouldn't support the bill today, and did so at the time citing law enforcement concerns about women in custody harming themselves or their newborns. Still, the ad has likely been viewed by many more voters than the number who watched the debate, and they also being blanketed with ads promoting Cuomo's record and casting Molinaro as an ultra-conservative. The $101 million Cuomo has amassed from affluent donors over eight years, who have billions in business before his administration, has allowed Cuomo to largely drown out Molinaro, who during this campaign has raised about $1.9 million. On Monday, in the wake of the massacre at a synagogue in Pittsburgh that followed last week's arrest of a Florida man who sent pipe bombs to perceived enemies of Trump, Molinaro called on Cuomo to pledge to stop the attack ads and run a clean campaign in the final week before the election. Molinaro's campaign tactics had also been incisive: He has hammered Cuomo in press releases and, in a limited run of television ads, highlighted the federal criminal investigation into a major Cuomo donor, Crystal Run Healthcare. Cuomo has countered by blanketing the airwaves with his own allegations of pay-to-play involving Molinaro in the Mid-Hudson valley county where he has been a fixture in local government for years. Molinaro has also rolled out some substantive policy. He got kudos from transit advocates for a detailed plan to fix the New York City subway system. He has pledged to cut property taxes by 30 percent over five years. On reform issues, Molinaro has vowed to revive the Moreland Commission, which was empaneled to investigate public corruption before Cuomo abruptly shut it down in 2014 as it began looking into the governor's allies. Molinaro said he would invite prominent Democrats, including former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, to serve on the commission. He has pledged to curb state contractors' political donations and cast himself as a solution-oriented moderate. Molinaro, 43, regularly wears an "Underdog" pin on his suit jacket, and his reform-minded promises are typical of a candidate seeking to wrest power. Yet back in Dutchess County population 300,00 where Molinaro has been executive since 2012, he has opposed efforts by local Democrats to curb alleged pay-to-play practices involving county government. Roughly a quarter of Molinaro's $1.4 million in fundraising for his county executive campaigns has come from people or entities that have business dealings with the county. "I understand why people try to connect the dots, but there are rules and I don't seek to bend rules I follow them," Molinaro said in a June interview with the Times Union. "I do think that's different than the transactional dynamic that exists on the state level." As a county executive, Molinaro has touted his efforts to reduce the size of local government and noted he has helped slash property taxes the past four years. Cuomo has charged that during seven years as a member of the Dutchess County Legislature, Molinaro voted to substantially increase property taxes. "You call yourself a fiscal conservative," Cuomo said at the debate. "You're a fiscal fraud," Molinaro's personal biography has been a major part of his campaign. Molinaro is the child of a single mother who was raised on food stamps and expresses empathy for the poor. At 19, he gained minor celebrity by becoming the country's youngest mayor, and, as the father of a daughter with autism, has highlighted the rights of the disabled during his campaign. Cuomo's campaign has sought to focus attention on Molinaro's record in the state Assembly, where he served as a Republican member in the minority 2007 through 2011. As an assemblyman, Molinaro voted five times against GENDA, which would make "gender identity and expression" a protected class in the state's human rights and hate crimes laws. He also voted repeatedly against marriage equality legislation. Molinaro, who has served in elected office for more than two decades, has differentiated his upbringing with Cuomo's, the scion of a political dynasty, and sought to portray the governor as having been born on "third base." Cuomo has offered only limited detail on his plans for a third term, instead focusing on past accomplishments such as same-sex marriage legislation that passed during his first term and, more recently, his efforts behind the first-in-the-nation $15 minimum wage. During an editorial board meeting with the Times Union in early September, he claimed no other state had matched New York's ambitious agenda, including a paid-family leave program, aggressive renewable energy standards and a more progressive income tax structure. "We're passing more laws that are actually of national significance, not just traffic-light laws," Cuomo said. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Cuomo has touted seven straight on-time state budgets although the budget was late last year and his efforts to rein property taxes, while acknowledging unfinished work in the areas of transparency, campaign finance and curbing outside income for elected state officials. During the recent debate, Cuomo called for the first time for "completely independent" appointees to the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, the state's ethics watchdog. The commission is currently appointed by the governor and Legislature, and has been criticized for having a lack of independence from Cuomo, in particular. During his eight-year tenure, Cuomo has weathered several major controversies, including the untimely demise of the Moreland Commission in 2014, at a time when it was building criminal cases against leading state government figures. A federal investigation, which examined the Cuomo administration's alleged meddling with and shuttering of the commission, did not result in any criminal charges. This year, Cuomo weathered the conviction of his longtime close friend and former top aide, Joseph Percoco, in a high-profile federal criminal trial that exposed Percoco's receipt of bribes from companies with direct ties to state government and the governor's campaign funding. That trial unfolded as another sprawling corruption case led to the convictions of former close associates of Cuomo's in a bid-rigging case that tainted the State University of New York and Cuomo's signature "Buffalo Billion" initiative. "Governor, you have led the most corruption administration in America," Molinaro charged at the debate. "Eight individuals closely associated with your administration are now going to jail, or have gone to jail, for federal corruption charges. At what point after eight years of being in office do you take responsibility?" Molinaro repeatedly has brought up the controversy over Crystal Run, which landed $25 million in state grants in 2016 for two projects it was already building. The company's officials have given Cuomo's campaign $400,000, including 10 donations of $25,000 over a two-day period in 2013. The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office and FBI have been investigating whether the company's method of giving the donations was legal. Molinaro's campaign has repeatedly suggested, without clear evidence, that Cuomo is on the verge of being indicted. "In no other state in America could another governor possibly be running for reelection," Molinaro has said, referring to the corruption cases that exploded around the governor. "At the end of the day, corruption steals from real people." Cuomo has mostly been dismissive of the inquiry, and wrongly told the Times Union in September that Crystal Run officials had never approached his campaign about problems with the donations. He backtracked three weeks later and acknowledged the company had raised concerns with his campaign. Still, his office and campaign both say federal investigators have not approached them. In mid-August, as the campaign was intensifying, Cuomo gained national attention over his statement that "America was never that great," as he took another jab at Trump, whose campaign for president included the slogan "Make America Great Again." Cuomo's handlers quickly clarified his words, saying he "believes America is great and that her full greatness will be fully realized when every man, woman, and child has full equality. Meanwhile, his initial refusal to debate Molinaro landed the governor wearing a chicken suit on the cover of the New York Post for several days, before Cuomo finally assented to a single debate in New York City. Now, with a huge lead in the polls and little to gain from giving his opponents a platform, the governor has not agreed to any upstate-centered debate. An array of third-party candidates are also in the mix again in the race, including some with substantial resumes. Stephanie Miner, the popular former Democratic mayor of Syracuse and one-time Cuomo ally, passed on challenging Cuomo in the Democratic primary. She instead is running a quixotic independent bid on the line of a new, non-partisan political party, the Serve America Movement, and has used her platform to critique Cuomo's economic development policies as favoring his big donors. The Green Party candidate, Howie Hawkins, received a respectable five percent of the statewide vote in 2014 and is running again to Cuomo's left. The Libertarian Party candidate, business consultant Larry Sharpe, has been relentlessly campaigning and has generated something of a fervent online following. The party is seeking 50,000 votes for Sharpe and official ballot status for the first time. That may be one of the few remaining suspenses about election night: According to public polling, Nov. 6 is in most ways likely to be highly anti-climatic. The most recent head-to-head poll between the Democrat and Republican, from Quinnipiac in mid-October, gave Cuomo a 23-percentage point lead, with Molinaro winning just 35 percent of the vote. State Police, with help from volunteers, are conducting the 42nd annual Pumpkin Patrol to prevent Halloween pranks that could harm drivers along the state Thruway. Troop T officers along with community volunteers will monitor overpasses on Halloween, police said. A day after Dalila Yeend, a Troy mother of two detained by immigration officials this summer following her arrest for a traffic violation, petitioned for help to raise funds to fight her deportation, a stranger donated the full amount needed. The donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, gave Yeend $1,225 - the cost of filing her green card and work authorization applications. If she couldn't pay and file, it was more likely that an immigration judge would order her deported at her next date in immigration court on Nov. 19. Yeend's tears of fear yesterday turned to relief today. Yeend, who previously worked at Dunkin' Donuts in Troy, hasn't had steady income since she was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after rolling through a stop sign in May. On Monday, Yeend received a notification from the government that she didn't demonstrate an "inability to pay" because her household income isn't under the federal poverty line and/or she hasn't qualified for public benefits in the last six months. While Yeend's green card application is pending, she isn't eligible for public assistance and while her work authorization isn't approved, she can't work. "This is just a really stressful time for us," Yeend told the Times Union on Tuesday. "My children are going through this with me." In August, Yeend's mother set up a GoFundMe for the family that has raised nearly $4,400. Now, community members and advocacy groups are pushing the fundraiser again to raise the $1,225 needed for filing the applications before Nov. 19. Yeend is also trying to raise an extra $250 so that she can renew her 11-year-old daughter's passport and get one for her 9-year-old son so that they can travel if she is deported. In addition to not being able to work, Yeend can't drive and has been depending on rides from the community. "The community in Troy has been very understanding and very generous. I have some complete strangers who reached out to help," she said. "The community itself has stepped up big time." Yeend came with her mother to the U.S. 18 years ago on a New Zealand passport. As a 17 year old, she was a dependent on her mother's permanent resident application. Yeend's mother said a shady immigration lawyer misled the family and stole thousands of dollars from them. After she turned 18, Yeend had to make her own application to stay in the country. She settled in Troy, where she got married and had kids, of whom she has full custody after a domestic violence incident. Yeend herself was arrested twice prior to the traffic stop, once for criminal mischief and once as part of a large Rensselaer County investigation into welfare fraud, according to public records. Yeend fought the charges, which were dropped. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. According to her current attorney, she made a green card application, working with an attorney doing pro bono work out of Buffalo. In the middle of the process, that attorney decided to stop practicing in that court and Yeend was once again left adrift. In 2015, ICE began Yeend's deportation proceedings and required her to check in regularly with them. After she rolled through a stop sign in Troy in May, she was arrested for driving without a license, because undocumented immigrants in New York can't get licenses, and turned over to ICE. She was detained in Batavia Federal Detention Facility near Buffalo for two and a half months then released suddenly in August. Yeend is still fighting her deportation in Buffalo immigration court. Now, if she can't afford to file applications for immigration relief, that threat looms larger. "I still live every day in fear because of what's going to happen," Yeend said. If you would like to donate, visit this GoFundMe. Steve Hughes contributed to this report. A man who allegedly sexually abused a child, an alleged shoplifter and several drunken drivers are among the people State Police says they are hunting for as part of their Warrant Wednesday initiative to find fugitives. Brock L. Bardeen, 32, is wanted by State Police in Geneseo on a child endangerment charge tied to allegations he subjected a child to sexual contact in late 2015. State Police said Bardeen is wanted for failing to appear in court. Rashan T. Yates, 18, is wanted by State Police in Clifton Park on charges of child endangerment and assault for an alleged confrontation with another man. Jenna L. Broadzinski, 35, is wanted by State Police in Batavia on misdemeanor drug and theft charges that allege she was caught with packs of heroin when caught shoplifting at a local Target three years ago. Unique Stanley, 22, is wanted by State Police in Haverstraw on a felony drug possession charge that alleges she was caught with cocaine when police stopped a car on the Thruway in May. Troopers say Stanley has not returned to court since her arrest. Sean M. Perkins, 19, is wanted by State Police in Plattsburgh on a burglary charge that stems from his alleged failure to pay a fine tied to an Aug. 30, 2017 arrest for a break-in at a building in the town of Ausable Town Court. Omar S. Terry, 24, is wanted by State Police in Endwell on a charge of criminal trespass and mischief tied to allegations he damaged another person's car after being ordered to leave property in the town of Union. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Travis M. Skowron, 33, is wanted by State Police in Sylvan Beach on a criminal mischief and petty larceny charges that accuse him of stealing g$522 worth of merchandise and vandalizing a Walmart in the city of Rome. Shamieka L. Dicks, 31, is wanted by State Police in Somers on an allegation he possessed a forged document. She was arrested in 2017. Jason E. Kissner, 44, is wanted by State Police in Syracuse on a drunken driving charge that stems from an Aug. 7, 2010 traffic stop on the Thruway. Ece Olcay, 34, is wanted by State Police in Nassau Couinty on a drunken driving charge from Oct. 2, 2009. Fianna Fail TD for Tipperary Jackie Cahill has said that many of the challenges facing the Irish health services could be dealt with by fixing the primary care sector and by reversing over time the FEMPI cuts affecting GPs. Deputy Cahill was commenting after new figures show the number of people, and in particular older people, lying on trolleys at University Hospital Limerick or South Tipperary General Hospital continues to increase. The trolley figures in Limerick this Wednesday were 48, with 28 on trolleys and 20 waiting in wards. The numbers waiting in South Tipperary General Hospital stood at 19, with 12 on trolleys and seven in wards. Budget 2018 saw the biggest health budget in history, and the budget for next year will grow to 17bn, yet we still have waiting lists for basic procedures and we still have hundreds of citizens every night lying on hospital trolleys waiting for admission to a ward bed," he said. Deputy Cahill said that the root of many of these crises can be found in the continual underfunding of primary care and GP services. Cuts imposed during the recession had yet to be reversed, causing many would-be GPs to either move to a different country or move away from primary care. We see it all too often here in Tipperary. When GPs retire or move away, it is getting increasingly difficult to find replacements. Many cant see their lives in rural Ireland, and with the lack of funding from the State for primary care, they dont see working as a GP as a viable option for them," said the TD. He said that the Government must begin the process of unwinding the FEMPI cuts and giving breathing space to GPs to allow them improve their level of care. GPs are so swamped now that they are often forced to refer their patients, and in particular elderly patients, to Emergency Departments. It is often the quickest way of getting a diagnostic procedure. Something is clearly wrong when GPs are being forced to send a person to an Emergency Department rather than put them on a waiting list," said Deputy Cahill. Additionally, the space capacity in former district hospitals must be used to address chronic overcrowding in UHL and STGH. Our Ladys Hospital in Cashel can, and must, be used to remove the pressure on the acute hospitals by providing facilities for people who might need care but who dont need an acute hospital bed, he said. Deputy Cahill said that we needed to empower GPs and that must happen by setting out a pathway to reversing the FEMPI cuts over time, he said. Glowing tributes have been paid to the late Tipperary County Councillor, father, husband, Irish language enthusiast, and dedicated community worker John Fahey, who was laid to rest today in his native Killenaule. A special meeting of Tipperary County Council was convened in Johns beloved Scoil Ruain, Killenaule, of which he served as a Board Member, followed by Funeral Mass in St Mary's Church, Killenaule, and Burial afterwards in Crosscannon Cemetery. Cllr Fahey died in the loving care of his family and the staff of St. Brigid's Hospital, Carrick on Suir on October 28th. Well over 1,000 people from all over Tipperary and beyond attended the Funeral and Removal, and the Irish Government and Taoiseach were represented by Commandant Caroline Bourke. Chief Celebrant was Killenaule Parish Priest Fr. Jimmy ODonnell, while Johns brother, William Fahey, spoke of his late brothers many contributions to local life, his love of Irish and poetry, and his legacy. John Fahey was everyones friend, said William. Cllr Fahey was first elected to Tipperary Co. Council in 1999, and was re-elected on each occasion since. He served on numerous committees, bodies, and associations, including the Tipperary Education and Training Board (ETB), the South Tipperary Arts Centre, and the Committee for the Promotion of Irish. Cathaoirleach of Tipperary Co. Council, Cllr Mattie Ryan, led tributes to his late colleague, followed by representatives of each political party, and colleagues on Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District. Cllr Louise McLoughlin recalled Cllr Fahey's lifelong contribution to public life. On behalf of the Fine Gael group I would like to express my deepest sympathies to the Fahey family, said Cllr McLoughlin. To his wife Anna, sons Jack, Daniel, and Harry, and to all his extended family. We were shocked and greatly saddened to hear of Johnnys passing on Sunday after such a short illness. We have lost a great friend and colleague - a very proud Killenaule man - he was softly spoken but very effective in the work he did for the betterment of the people in the Carrick on Suir District. He was highly respected and very popular among his FG colleagues, fellow Councillors, and the staff at Tipperary County Council. While he is a huge loss to us he is a bigger loss to the people he represented in Killenaule and surrounding areas. He was a very driven Councillor when it came to things like economic development, roads, infrastructure, and Heritage and Tourism in the areas near his home in Killenaule. He was very vocal at meetings on the topics he was passionate about and was determined to deliver for the District that he was so proud of representing. He was heavily involved in the development of the Tholsel building in Fethard that is now famously known as the Horse Experience Museum. This was a huge undertaking by Johnny who worked tirelessly with the committee to make sure nothing stood in the way of getting this building transformed to what we see today. The Horse Experience Museum is known worldwide and Johnny was so proud of his involvement and how the project materialised. As Chair of the Carrick on Suir District and as a fellow Councillor in the Carrick on Suir District, I will truly miss Johnny. He was a great support to me when I first joined the Counicl and he has been a very reliable friend and colleague since. He was always someone I could depend on for advice no matter what the issue. It was a great honour to serve with Cllr Johnny Fahey and he will be truly missed by all who knew him, concluded Cllr McLoughlin. Full story and more, in this weeks Tipperary Star. Cashel Lions Club is currently inviting nominations for the Cashel Lions Club Young Person of the Year competition. This is an annual event which recognises and acknowledges the voluntary community involvement of young people in their local community. Local schools, clubs, organisations and indeed individuals are encouraged to nominate young people who are making a contribution to the overall quality of life in their local community. Candidates must be at least fifteen and not more than eighteen years of age on June 30th 2019. Application forms are available from Paul Monks or Eddie Morrissey or by emailing cashelyouthaward@gmail.com. Completed application forms must be returned on or before Wednesday November 14th. All applicants will be interviewed by a panel of judges with experience in community involvement, education and business. In recent years the winners of the Cashel Lions Club Youth Award have enjoyed considerable success at regional and national level. In 2016 Chelsea Gibson came through the local and regional rounds and won the national final in Dublin. The 2017 winner, Brian Morrissey, also qualified for the national final and was a gallant runner up in a keenly contested final. Cashel Lions Club views the young person of the year competition as a way of nurturing a spirit of volunteerism in our young people. In keeping with the old Irish saying mol an oige agus tiocfaidh siad the future of the volunteer in local communities depends on the current diminishing numbers of volunteers promoting and encouraging voluntary community involvement in our young people. Cashel Lions Club is therefore appealing to community groups and indeed individuals not just in Cashel and Rosegreen but also in the neighbouring communities in Golden, Knockavilla, Clonoulty, Boherlahan, Dualla, and New Inn to nominate a young person who is displaying leadership qualities for the title of Cashel Lions Club Young Person of the Year. So look to the future and get your thinking caps on and enhance the future of your local community by ensuring that your community, club, organisation or school has a nominee in the Cashel Lions Club Young Person of the Year 2018. October 31, 2018 An oil field is basically an area of land used to extract oil. It helps us to extract essentials like oil; a type of fossil fuel, supposed my many to be made out of dead plants, harnessed under the surface of the earth, over many years. This fuel helps create petroleum, which is a staple for much of our transportation today. The necessity of having access to correct equipment When it comes to digging for oil, the right equipment is absolutely imperative. Varner, for instance, is known to offer steel pipes with the capability to withstand extreme conditions. With the right equipment, we are able to dig deeper into the earth in a far more cost effective manner. Such will indeed advocate further delving. Top challenges with using oil rigs In order to excavate oil, an oil rig is needed. An oil rig is nothing, but an extremely large machine which (you guessed it) has the job of extracting oil. It does so by going deep below the surface of the Earth. The number of oil fields in the World is immense, around 65,000 to be precise. Most of these are located in the Middle East. The Middle East could therefore, be easily referred to as the Oil Wonder of the World. The areas wherein these rigs are located have admitted concerns about their notorious ability to cause harm to the surrounding environment and ecology. They affect the seabed, causing harm to several underwater species. Not only does the substance itself cause a disturbance, but severe noise pollution, and air emissions, affect the environment as well. Although the usage of petroleum is immense, its exploration, finding, producing, transportation is oftentimes a detriment, and not a blessing. So, how is this oil actually dug from beneath the Earth and used in several day to day activities, you ask? The answer is Exploration and Production(E&P). The E&P sector is the oil & gas industry primarily focused on the exploring, finding, producing and sale of non-renewable sources of energy. It is essentially in charge of all initial stages of the oil & gas industry. There are typically four stages involved in the process of oil & gas exploration and production, which are as follows: 1. Exploration At this stage, exploration for hydrocarbons, beneath the Earth, are carried out in order to explore viable sources of oil and gas. One of the most common techniques by engineers is referred to as Seismology. Under this, Seismic waves are sent across the Earths deepest layers. This helps the engineers to identify possible sources of oil & gas. 2. Development of Wells Once the engineers have identified potential fields, the next step is deciding upon the number of wells and oil rigs to be built. It is based on the demands and requirements needed to be met. 3. Oil & Natural Gas Production After the wells have been built, the next thing to do is produce the oil and natural gas. Although Natural Gas is produced on the site of production itself, the oil needs to be refined and cleaned before it is used for other purposes. These purposes are many and varied. 4. Replenishing finished areas As soon as the refining companies are sure they have removed every last bit of oil from an area, and have no need of it any longer, the spots are sealed off and restored to their original state. As these resources are stored in rock form, it is often found in very small nooks and crannies, and spread over large areas. Therefore, several advanced techniques and methodologies are now being used in order to find it all. Top Advanced Methods in use Today 1. Radiographic surveying This is the usage of radio waves to find the availability of oil and natural gas. It is similar to the use of seismic waves. 2. Offshore platforms Several offshore platforms are built to help the easy identification of possible areas for fields and wells. These are primarily formed in the middle of large bodies of water. 3. Abrasive drilling Abrasive drilling is a technique used to dig roughly through the Earths surface. 4. Directional drilling Directional drilling is digging in a particular direction or on a curved path, as the spot deepens. Most of these techniques are carried out using a computer. Computer work helps to decrease manual labour. All this activity may prove to be hazardous for the workers as well. Those who take part will need to take extra precaution to prevent oil spills and leakage. Contractors in this business should take heed and stay as safe as possible. [October 30, 2018] Clarivate Analytics to enhance AI-driven trademark research solutions with TrademarkVision acquisition Strategic acquisition of cutting-edge, Australian company to deliver the next generation of trademark research PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 30, 2018 /CNW/ -- Clarivate Analytics, the global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation, today announced the acquisition of Australian AI-technology company TrademarkVision. It joins Boston-based company CompuMark, the trademark clearance and protection partner for 9 out of 10 of the world's most valuable brands. Forty percent of trademarks filed contain images. However, trademark professionals rely on building complex queries with keywords and image codes to research image-based trademarks on their own. TrademarkVision revolutionized the trademark research space when it released the world's first visual search for trademarks in 2013. TrademarkVision's AI-powered image recognition software applies the principles of facial recognition software to visually search artwork, images and even 3D design patents, to determine whether a proposed trademark logo is acceptable or if it infringes on an existing trademark. CompuMark currently applies TrademarkVision technology within TM go365, a tool designed to enable trademark professionals to instantly research trademarks and more effectively manage day-to-day portfolios. Jeff Roy, President, CompuMark, said: "CompuMark is making significant investments in its product portfolio and the business as a whole by investing in best-of-breed image recognition technology and expertise in artificial intelligence. TrademarkVision's award-winning AI innovation and deep relationships with Patent and Trademark Offices (PTO) and government agencies around the world, combined with CompuMark's premier data, industry-leading expertise and global reach will open opportunities for new products and solutions both within and outside the trademark research industry that will underpin the business's next generation of solutions." TrademarkVision's CEO and founder Sandra Mau will remain with the company, along with COO Cameron Mitchell and their team of 30+ professionals based in Brisbane, Australia, and Pittsburgh, USA. She explained, "As part of CompuMark, TrademarkVision will be able to leverage CompuMark' expertise in the trademark industry and vast global distribution channels to ensure our next generation of solutions reach trademark professionals around the world." The addition of TrademarkVision technology to CompuMark follows the announcement earlier this year that CompuMark entered a strategic partnership with Chinese trademark solution provider, White Rabbit / Bai Tu. Clarivate Analytics continues to invest in new technologies and solutions that support innovation and improved products for its global customers. This is Clarivate's third acquisition in 18 months, following the acquisition of technology start-ups Kopernio and Publons. TrademarkVision was advised in the transaction by Innovation Advisors, a technology-focused, global investment bank. 1. Voted Best AI Startup -AIBusiness at the largest AI summit in the world. Fast Company listed in Top 10 most innovative Machine Learning companies in the world About CompuMark CompuMark is the industry leader in trademark research and protection solutions. We enable trademark and brand professionals worldwide to launch, expand and protect strong brands through the highest quality global content; expert analysis; superior trademark screening, search, and watch tools; and best-in-class service. Key products include: SAEGIS Trademark Screening Tools; TM go365 DIY Clearance Solution; Trademark Full Search; Trademark Watching; Copyright Searches; and Custom Solutions. For more information, please visit www.compumark.com. About TrademarkVision TrademarkVision protects the world's brands with image recognition and machine learning. Based out of Australia and the USA, it works closely with government IP offices and many leading law firms and corporations around the world. For more information, please visit www.trademark.vision About Clarivate Analytics Clarivate Analytics is the global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation. Building on a heritage going back more than a century and a half, we have built some of the most trusted brands across the innovation lifecycle, including CompuMark, Web of Science, Cortellis, Derwent, MarkMonitor and Techstreet. Today, Clarivate Analytics is a new and independent company on a bold entrepreneurial mission to help our clients radically reduce the time from new ideas to life-changing innovations. For more information, please visit www.clarivate.com. MEDIA CONTACTS Sofia Nogues External Communications Manager +44 7500102982 Email: [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/clarivate-analytics-to-enhance-ai-driven-trademark-research-solutions-with-trademarkvision-acquisition-300740793.html SOURCE Clarivate Analytics [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 30, 2018] Cryptocurrency market to grow at CAGR of 6.18% LONDON, Oct. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Cryptocurrency market to grow at CAGR of 6.18% from 2019 to 2024 The cryptocurrency market is projected to reach USD 1.40 billion by 2024 from USD 1.03 billion by 2019, at a CAGR of 6.18% during the forecast period. Growth in this market can largely be attributed to factors such as transparency of distributed ledger technology, high remittances in developing countries, high cost of cross-border remittance, fluctuations in monetary regulations, and growth in venture capital investments. However, uncertain regulatory status, lack of awareness and technical understanding regarding cryptocurrency are expected to restrict the growth of the said market to a certain extent. Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5147401 Market for ASICs in cryptocurrency to register highest growth during forecast period The cryptocurrency market for ASIC is expected to hold the largest CAGR.ASICs are gradually being preferred by miners. These ASIC machines mine at an extraordinary speed while consuming much less power than FPGA or GPU mining rigs.Several reputed companies, such as Bitmain, Avalon, and Innosilicon Technologies, offer highly efficient ASIC products. Also, ASICs are cryptocurrency mining hardware created solely to solve cryptocurrency blocks.They have only minimal requirements for other computer applications. Such various advantages help ASICs grow at the highest rate in the cryptocurrency market. Market for payment application for cryptocurrency register highest growth during forecast period The market for payment through cryptocurrency is likely to register the highest growth during the forecast period.The payment through crypocurrency has several advantages such as enhanced transactional security, protection from fraud, decentralized system, low fees, protection from consumer chargebacks, and quick international transfers. Moreover, a large number of players are investing in developing payment gateways and platform for the payment process of their currencies, thereby increasing adoption of cryptocurrency for the payment. APAC to hold largest share during forecast period APAC is notable for its high adoption of cryptocurrency.This is attributed to the low cost of electricity in China and early adoption of cryptocurrency in Japan . China is the largest market among all APAC countries. Owing to the low cost of electricity, ideal weather conditions, presence of big mining companies, such Bitmain, Canaan Creative CO., LTD, and Ebang Communication, and availability of venture capital funding, the market in APAC is expected to be the largest for cryptocurrency. Breakdown of primary participants' profile: By Company Type: Tier 1 = 30%, Tier 2 = 30%, and Tier 3 = 40% By Designation: C-Level Executives = 45%, Directors = 30%, and Others = 25% By Region: North America = 30%, Europe = 40%, APAC = 25%, and RoW = 5% Key players in the cryptocurrency market include Bitmain ( China ), NVIDIA (US), Xilinx (US), Intel (US), Advanced Micro Devices (US), Ripple Labs (US), Ethereum Foundation ( Switzerland ), Bitfury Group ( Netherlands ), Coinbase (US), BitGo (US), and Binance Holdings ( China ). Research Coverage: Various market segments have been covered in this report.These include application and geography. It also gives a detailed view of the market across 4 main regions: North America , Europe , APAC, and RoW. Reasons to Buy the Report: This report includes statistics pertaining to the cryptocurrency market in terms of offering, process, type, application, and region, along with their respective market sizes. Major drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges for the cryptocurrency market have been provided in detail in this report. The report includes illustrative segmentation, analysis, and forecast for the cryptocurrency market based on its segments and subsegments. Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5147401 About Reportbuyer Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers For more information: Sarah Smith Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com Email: [email protected] Tel: +1 (718) 213 4904 Website: www.reportbuyer.com View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cryptocurrency-market-to-grow-at-cagr-of-6-18-300740603.html SOURCE ReportBuyer [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 30, 2018] UNITE HERE: Report Calls on Chinese Authorities to Investigate Fantasia Holdings UNITE HERE, the North American hotel workers' union, has released a report calling on Chinese authorities to investigate real estate company Fantasia Holdings. (Read the report in English and Chinese.) The call comes in the context of an ongoing corruption investigation of Lai Xiaomin, former Chairman of China Huarong Asset Management. The report describes the interlocking relationship between Fantasia Holdings and HKBridge (formerly Topsearch International), and the latter's multiple connections with Huarong and troubled metals company Ningxia Tianyuan Manganese Industry Group,which was reportedly integral to the conduct being investigated by the Chinese government. "The more we investigated, the more it became clear to us that Fantasia Holdings and Lai Xiaomin's Huarong had partners in common," said UNITE HERE Deputy Director Jeff Nelson. "Because of the sensitivity of the government's investigation, we believed it was necessary to compile what we know and send it to the anticorruption investigators." The report urges the Chinese government to thoroughly investigate the connections between Huarong and Fantasia, even though Fantasia has powerful political connections. Zeng Jie, controlling shareholder of Fantasia, is the niece of former Vice President of China Zeng Qinghong. UNITE HERE's findings are a result of ongoing due diligence of Marriott International. Both Huarong and Fantasia are controlling stakeholders in Marriott hotels, and Fantasia and Marriott predecessor company Starwood are signatories to a strategic alliance memorandum which announced a long-term partnership in hotel development, construction, and management. "Western businesses like Marriott have a responsibility to partner with companies that exhibit the highest ethical standards. We hope an extension of the current investigation to include the Zeng Qinghong-connected Fantasia will establish whether corruption has occurred," Nelson said. The report is hosted for the public on a union website, Marriott China Observer (www.marriottchinaobserver.org), in English and Chinese. The report was sent to the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the National Supervisory Commission, and the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States. About UNITE HERE UNITE HERE represents 270,000 members working in the hotel, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textile, distribution, laundry, transportation, and airport industries in the U.S. and Canada including 17,000 employed by Marriott International. MarriottChinaObserver.org is maintained by the UNITE HERE Research Department. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181030005108/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 30, 2018] Singapore FinTechs GoBear and CredoLab partner to bridge divide between banks and more than 110M underbanked in key emerging SEA markets The partnership will enable financial institutions to reach previously untapped customer segments in four of the largest underbanked markets in Southeast Asia Seamless integration between the GoBear website and CredoLab-powered Easy Apply app promises faster and higher approval rates on direct applications for credit cards, loans and other forms of unsecured credit SINGAPORE, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Personal finance comparison website GoBear and smartphone-based alternative credit scoring provider CredoLab announced today the launch of Easy Apply, a smartphone app that enables banks, financial institutions and lenders to extend credit to a larger pool of customers while keeping risks in check. The partnership signifies an important headway in making financial services accessible to more than 110M[1] underbanked people in emerging Southeast Asian (SEA) markets. The Easy Apply app will be launched across four of the largest underbanked markets in SEA -- Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam -- where around 65 to 75 per cent of the population[2], of whom many are creditworthy consumers, are without access to credit. The app will utilise CredoLab's AI based proprietary algorithms that extract and analyse over tens of thousands of data points from applicants' smartphones, turning these completely anonymised 'digital footprints' into predictive credit scorecards to be used in their credit card, loan or insurance applications. The use of non-traditional smartphone data for credit scoring provides applicants from all demographics -- including the underbanked who have little to no traditional credit history -- greater access to financial services such as credit cards, personal loans, and other forms of unsecured credit. Adrian Chng, CEO, GoBear, said, "There is a massive market opportunity here in Southeast Asia to continue improving financial inclusion by constantly innovating solutions. Our partnership with CredoLab will bridge the divide between the underbanked and financial institutions by giving both parties access to the right technology at the right moment to create better outcomes." Peter Barcak, co-founder & CEO, CredoLab, said, "We are excited to be partnering with GoBear to help banks profitably serve their customers including the underbanked. Since our launch in 2016, through our use of non-traditional alternative data points, we have seen a significant drop in cost of risk, helped reduced the time-to-yes to a few seconds, and achieved almost 45% increase in approval rates. I am optimistic that we can achieve similar results through this partnership." With the average credit card penetration in SEA (with the exception of Singapore and Malaysia) at just 5 per cent[3], financial institutions which actively engage in financial inclusion activities, stand to earn an estimated USD88 billion[4] in revenue by 2020, according to a report released by Ernst & Young earlier this year. Shabab Muhaddes, Head of Product, Indonesia and the Philippines, Visa, said, "It's exciting to see fintech start-ups coming together to solve problems. It's a good sign of the growing maturity of the fintech ecosystem in Singapore. At Visa, we have been working on a financial inclusion roadmap to connect fintech solution providers with banks in the region. The GoBear and CredoLab partnership will be the first of many." The Easy Apply app will be an integrated part of GoBear's user journey. It begins with GoBear's Easy Choices feature, which helps applicants understand which set of products better suit their profile, before downloading and installing the Easy Apply app onto their smartphones to generate their predictive digital scorecards. Easy Apply will kick-off with the credit cards segment and extend to personal loans, insurance products and other lines of credit in the near future. [1] World Bank Global Findex Database 2018 [2] https://www.euromoney.com/article/b14tf5yv7977sc/southeast-asia39s-fintechs-target-the-underbanked [3] https://ecommerceiq.asia/pinduodo-china-ecommerce/bank-account-and-credit-card-penetration-2/ [4] https://www.ey.com/sg/en/newsroom/news-releases/news-2018-ey-improved-financial-inclusion-could-boost-bank-revenues-by-usd88b-across-asia-pacific About GoBear About CredoLab GoBear is Asia's first and only metasearch engine in insurance and banking. We exist because we thought someone should make it easy to choose financial products like insurance, credit cards and loans. We don't sell anything. Our comparison results aren't influenced by service providers' commissions or advertising. We just offer a simple, free and transparent way for people to compare financial products, empowering people to make better-informed decisions efficiently, saving both time and money. CredoLab is the pay-per-use smartphone-based credit scoring solution provider that helps financial institutions make faster, better, more informed and profitable business decisions. Through a simple app, CredoLab's AI-based proprietary algorithm analyses tens of thousands of data points from a smartphone to generate highly predictive scorecards. Headquartered in Singapore, CredoLab is helping over 40 lenders in 12 markets across Southeast Asia, China, Africa, and Latin America issue millions of scores. Established in 2016, CredoLab is venture built by FORUM and backed by Fintonia Group, and Walden International. Headquartered in Singapore since early 2015, we're one of the fastest growing Fintech startups in Asia. We're now in 7 countries/regions including Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Vietnam & Indonesia, and will continue to expand across Asia. To date we have served over 35 million users comparing almost 2,000 personal finance products. For media queries and interview opportunities: Ana Jumari Keshia De Vries GoBear Communications Manager FORUM PR Manager +65-9003-7917 +65-9479-2366 [email protected] [email protected] SOURCE CredoLab [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 30, 2018] IMPORTANT INVESTOR REMINDER: The Schall Law Firm Announces the Filing of a Class Action Lawsuit Against Jianpu Technology Inc. and Encourages Investors with Losses in Excess of $100,000 to Contact the Firm The Schall Law Firm, a national shareholder rights litigation firm, announces the filing of a class action lawsuit against Jianpu Technology Inc. ("Jianpu" or "the Company") (NYSE: JT) for violations of 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Investors who purchased the Company's shares pursuant to and/or traceable to the Registration Statement and Prospectus issued in connection with Jianpu's initial public offering on or about November 16, 2017, are encouraged to contact the firm before December 24, 2018. If you are a shareholder who suffered a loss, click here to participate. We also encourage you to contact Brian Schall, or Sherin Mahdavian, of the Schall Law Firm, 1880 Century Park East, Suite 404, Los Angeles, CA (News - Alert) 90067, at 424-303-1964, to discuss your rights free of charge. You can also reach us through the firm's website at www.schallfirm.com, or by email at [email protected]. The class, in this case, has not yet been certified, and until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. If you choose to take no action, you can remain an absent class member. According to the Complaint, the Company made false and misleading statements to the market. Prior to Jianpu's IPO in 2017, the China Banking Regulatory Commission and other regulators issued rules in 2016 requiring peer-to-peer (P2P) lending companies to appoint institutional banking custodians and disclose usage of deposits. The country also set out to create the Financial Stability and Development Committee to oversee reform and industry policy. These government changes combined to result in a large reduction in the number of current and potential peer-to-peer lending providers, the main source of Jianpu's revenue. Based on these facts, Jianpu's public comments and the Company's IPO Registration Statement was false and materially misleading throughout the IPO period. When the market learned the truth about Jianpu, investors suffered damages. Join the case to recover your losses. The Schall Law Firm represents investors around the world and specializes in securities class action lawsuits and shareholder rights litigation. This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and rules of ethics. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181030006208/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 30, 2018] Anaqua to Lead Discussion on Patent Landscaping at Major Tokyo IP Event Anaqua, Inc., a leading provider of Intellectual Property (IP) management software and services, will be leading a discussion on the strategic business value of patent landscaping at one of Japan's most important annual IP events. The company will also be exhibiting at the event and demonstrating its global IP management solution, which is attracting an increasing number of Japan's most innovative companies. The Patent Information Fair & Conference (PIFC) will take place at the Science Museum in Tokyo's Kitanomaru Park from November 7-9. Anaqua's CTO, Erik Reeves, will discuss a practical, time-saving approach to developing progressively more intelligent, accurate, and "living" patent landscapes that help inform IP and business decisions. In addition, Reeves will highlight ways that these landscapes can be augmented with additional data, visualizations, and economic analysis in order to enrich the context and provide greater business and market insights to senior management. Anaqua will also be demonstrating its latest software offerings, including the ANAQUA IP Management System and the AcclaimIP analytics solution. "Anaqua has seen significant growth in the APAC region, particularly in Japan, and we are delighted to be taking a lead role at such an important regional IP event," said Anaqua CEO Bob Romeo. "Our IP management solution is being used by an increasing number of Japan's most innovative companies. The Tokyo event gives us an opportunity to meet with current clients, including Sony Corporation, Panasonic (News - Alert) Corporation, Honda Motor Co., Ltd., TEL, IHI Corporation, and Johnson Controls Hitachi, plus we look forward to learning about the IP management needs of other organizations with significant IP portfolios who are attending the conference. As the leading global supplier of IPM solutions, Anaqua is uniquely positioned to help these companies." More information on the Patent Information Fair and Conference can be found here: www.pifc.jp. Anaqua will be exhibiting at booth 23. ABOUT ANAQUA Anaqua is a premium provider of integrated, end-to-end innovation and intellectual property (IP) management solutions, serving 50% of the top 25 U.S. patent filers, 50% of the top 25 global brands, and a growing number of the most prestigious, forward-looking law firms. The company's global operations are headquartered in Boston, with offices across Europe and Asia. Anaqua's IP platform is used by nearly one million IP executives, attorneys, paralegals, administrators, and innovators globally. Its solution suite merges best practice workflows with big data analytics and tech-enabled services to create one intelligent environment designed to inform IP strategy, enable IP decision-making, and streamline IP operations. Anaqua was founded in 2004 to commercialize software developed by corporate IP practitioners from Ford (News - Alert) and British American Tobacco, addressing a market need for IP enterprise software. The Company later acquired SGA2 (founded in 1994) to complement its core IP management software with patent annuity and trademark renewal payment services. Since late 2015, Anaqua has accelerated execution of its global growth strategy to acquire and integrate talent, expertise, technology, and data via five acquisitions, including ideaPoint, AcclaimIP, and Lecorpio. For additional information, please visit www.anaqua.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181030006217/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 30, 2018] 3 'coincidences' in Abe's China visit BEIJING, Oct. 29, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report by China.org.cn on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's China visit: From Oct. 25 to 27, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited China. It is the first official visit by a Japanese prime minister in seven years. During the visit, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with him. Abe also went to the prestigious Peking University to exchange views with its students, which has become almost a regular activity for foreign heads of state visiting China. Abe's China visit featured three "coincidences." First, this year marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship. Second, it is also the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up. Third, the visit took place at the very moment when trade tensions between China and the United States were escalating, bringing about new changes to the world landscape. Forty years ago, thanks to the extraordinary wisdom and profound vision of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Kakuei Tanaka and other members of the old generation of state leaders of the two countries, the confrontation and outright hostility between China and Japan came to an end, and bilateral ties returned to the normal track of peace and cooperation. The signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship not only ensured the maintenance of peace in Asia and the world, but also created a favorable external environment for China's reform and opening up. Over the past four decades, the bilateral trade volume increased from some span >US$4 billion in 1978 to over US$300 billion today. Meanwhile, two-way visits have risen from merely tens of thousands to more than 10 million in 2017. However, disturbed by historical and maritime territorial issues, the development of China-Japan relations has not always been a matter of plain sailing in the past decades. Instability has existed, especially since 2012. It is encouraging to note that bilateral ties have taken a turn for the better since the beginning of this year. This not only meets the shared desire of the two peoples for good-neighborliness and friendship, but also involves a correct adjustment and choice made by both nations facing a new international situation. Since the Trump administration came to power, the United States has been pursuing unilateralism and trade protectionism, with tremendous impact on the existing international economic order. To deepen reform and open its door wider to the outside world, China firmly opposes trade protectionism and unilateralism. For Japan, its economic structure, dominated by imports of raw materials, manufacturing and exports of high-tech products, has made trade protectionism and unilateralism totally unacceptable. Abe's visit to China can be regarded as "a key" to apply fresh heat to the thawing of relations between the two countries. Both sides should seize this rare opportunity to steer bilateral ties onto a path of sound cooperative development, and work together to make greater contributions to the development of Asia and the whole world. China Mosaic http://www.china.org.cn/video/node_7230027.htm 3 'coincidences' in Abe's China visit http://www.china.org.cn/video/2018-10/29/content_68874077.htm About China.org.cn Founded in 2000, China Internet Information Center (China.org.cn/China.com.cn) is a key state news website under the auspices of the State Council Information Office, and is managed by China International Publishing Group. We provide round-the-clock news service in ten languages. With users from more than 200 countries and regions, we have become China's leading multi-lingual news outlet introducing the country to the outside world. We are one of the country's authoritative outlets for government press releases and are authorized to cover various major events. "Live Webcast" is our online webcasting service to present State Council Information Office press conferences in both Chinese and English languages. We are reputed for timely and accurate delivery of news and information, and wide interactions with audiences. In addition, we are authorized to publish and live broadcast major events and press conferences of ministries, local government agencies and institutions as well as enterprises. In the era of mobile internet, we endeavor to create an array of products for mobile devices headed by the multilingual WAP platform and the mobile APP. We also use Chinese and international social media to publish information for different user groups. In the future, CIIC will continue to offer authoritative information about China, tell China's stories, voice China's opinions, and introduce a vivid, panoramic and multicultural China to the world through multi-language, multi-media and multi-platforms. SOURCE China.org.cn [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] The World's First Cross-border Parcel Delivery Platform Supporting Autonomous Collaborative Services SINGAPORE, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The world's first blockchain-powered parcel network, ParcelX, registered trademark and brand under Global Parcel Network Ltd., will officially launch its service platform in beta version today. It is the world's first and also the only cross-border functional parcel delivery platform to date that offers e-commerce and delivery service providers several autonomous collaborative services such as real-time sign-in and online interactivity. According to data from McKinsey & Company, the Asia-Pacific region is the largest buyer of cross-border goods. Its market value is expected to grow from USD 71 billion in 2014 to USD 476 billion in 2020. China alone takes 34% of the global parcel volume. Its rising middle class, seeking high-quality and international products, is driving an explosion of e-retailers, logistics providers, and delivery brokers with accompanying services. From 2016 to 2018, the market value for China's cross-border e-commerce is expected to increase from RMB 1.01 trillion to RMB 8.8 trillion. The cross-border parcel deliveries are also expected to soar from 557 million to 928 million with a growth rate of 60%. China's government has also introduced numerous policies to encourage growth of this industry, with the Ministry of Commerce tallying over 5,000 cross-border e-retail platforms and over 200,000 enterprises conducting this business. One Belt One Road and its associated investments, policies and strategic mandates are also driving this industry's growth. Despite the various exciting figures, the e-commerce retailers are still complaining while the delivery service providers are sometimes rendered helpless. In fact, the data has revealed that the domestic cross-border e-commerce consumer complaints was 12.98% of the total number of complaints in 2017, increasing 1.37% year-on-year. Among them, logistics shortcoming is one of the more important consumer issues. The parcel delivery problem takes up as high as 21%. The long-standing problems should come to an end soon. As an innovative third-generation logistics service provider, the cross-border parcel delivery network of ParcelX is based on the blockchain technology which can establish a decentralised, highly effective cross-border parcel delivery ecosystem to resolve these fundamental issues. The ParcelX team developed a user-friendly serviceinterface for traditional logistics service providers. From the perspective of the logistics services providers, the collaboration with ParcelX is akin to working with a traditional logistics service, but without additional technical thresholds and complex processes. It is now simpler to fully access the open ParcelX cross-border parcel collaborative distribution network based on blockchain trust at zero cost, as well as enjoy more efficient service integration, settlement support and fairer service value realisation. Mr Guo Shunri, Co-Founder and CEO of ParcelX, explained: "This system has three main features. One is a simple interface -- concise code docking and a one-click local deployment (optional) are more than sufficient to participate in the cross-border, parcel delivery joint distribution and network of ParcelX. Second is machine trust. Through the use of smart contracts, core terms of the collaboration such as service details, quality and price are agreed upon securely and digitally -- trust need not solely be placed on the traditional, easily-tampered corporate contracts. Third is the settlement in local currencies. Participating logistics service providers will just need to focus on improving their services and collecting their payments locally. They do not have to worry about cross-border supervision and forex risks pertaining to cross-border services." On this service platform, the sellers (e-commerce retailers) can choose the best service provider, as well as the fastest, most economical delivery route. While lowering their delivery costs, it also guarantees the timeliness and high quality of the delivery services. In view of the difficulties in tracking the parcels and obtaining timely information during the whole process, ParcelX's cross-border parcel delivery network will connect shippers, logistics service providers, logistics integrators and consumers in a well-balanced ecosystem, based on trust guaranteed by blockchain and seamless interactions which ensure optimal security, transparency and traceability of delivery package information. "Therefore, the vision of ParcelX is to build an open, transparent, beneficial and healthy ecosystem. The system can incentivise excellent service providers with more parcel orders and corresponding settlement rewards. On the contrary, service providers who do not meet the required service levels will be subject to corresponding penalties. Progressively, ParcelX will naturally eliminate those uncompetitive service providers. So, the good ones remain -- service providers who can scale and are cost-effective," said ParcelX's Co-Founder and President, Mr Yang Mingyi. "If this new model can really resolve one or two pain points, it is definitely worth a try. We can even consider to include it as a feature of our services for e-commerce," said Mr Cragie Zhou, Product Leader of HangZhou Winner King Technology Ltd. Co. which provides comprehensive service chains for cross-border e-commerce. Mr Guo added: "At the end of October, our team completed the first phase of the beta version of the ParcelX platform. At the same time, we will make updates based on user feedback bi-monthly or monthly. I believe that the second phase will have more powerful features." ParcelX has also successfully completed on schedule its ICO on 31 October according to Mr Guo. Next up, it will launch a series of activities to build and improve the ecosystem which includes promotions for the popular token sale. From 1 November, 2018, traditional logistics service providers can log on to ParcelX platform to perform simple coding on the interface in advance. This platform currently supports four different languages namely Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean. About ParcelX ParcelX is a logistics network with an established market base in China, South Korea and Japan. It possesses years of experience connecting cross-border e-commerce delivery providers, including 30 global air carriers and 20 national postal system platforms. ParcelX has exclusive ownership of ports in China, with overseas warehouses in Japan and South Korea. Currently, ParcelX uses blockchain technology to harness unutilised capacity from domestic delivery providers, removing inefficiency, data opacity, and high costs from geographically distant nodes. ParcelX aims to create a cross-border parcel delivery ecosystem where anyone or service provider can trust and participate through revolutionary blockchain technology. ParcelX is the "Airbnb" of cross-border parcel delivery. For more information, please visit https://parcelx.io. You can experience more functions first-hand via the following link: https://parcelx.io/demo/#/ SOURCE Global Parcel Network Ltd. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Wirecard and Spendit Digitize Benefit Card Solutions for Employees Across Europe ASCHHEIM, Germany, October 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Wirecard to issue the SpenditCard, Germany ' s first regulated credit card program for employee benefits Expanded cooperation capitalizes on the sustained global trend in the area of employer offers Wirecard, the global innovation leader for digital financial technology, along with Spendit AG, a multi-award-winning HR and FinTech company, are expanding their long-term cooperation and are set to develop digital solutions in the area of employee benefits for the whole of Europe. With immediate effect, the SpenditCard, a digital voucher for tax-free benefits in kind, offered by Spendit since 2014 as Mastercard's preferred partner, will be issued by Wirecard. It is the first regulated credit card program based in Germany and already has over 4,000 corporate customers. There are plans for it to be further developed to include new functions and cover new countries in the near future. Wirecard is applying its global expertise in the area of employee benefit solutions. This can be seen in the USA, for example, where Wirecard has already been providing large businesses with benefit products for many years: Millions of consumers make use of the solution's advantages on a regular basis, with the number of cards issued rising by a compounded average of 75% per year. At the same time, expenditure using employee benefit cards is rising by around 45% on average. Catharina Tiede, Head of Partner Management at Wirecard, says: "With the SpenditCard, we are setting new standards in the digitization of benefit programs. This partnership is an exciting opportunity to promote the use of consumer cards as a corporate incentive. We are delighted that, together with Spendit, we will soon be digitizing employee programs across Europe." lorian Gottschaller, founder and CEO of Spendit, explains: "We are proud to have exceeded expectations and grown our customer base to over 4,000. With a strong partner in the form of Wirecard, we can look forward to further increasing our customer numbers and to tapping into additional European markets." He adds: "As the market leader, Wirecard is the ideal strategic partner for Spendit because it shares our vision of developing innovative products for global employers and continuing to drive forward the digitization of benefit products." The SpenditCard is like a universal voucher that can be used worldwide. Businesses can use the card to give their employees a wide range of tax-free fringe benefits as a modern alternative to petrol and gift vouchers on a prepaid card, which can be used by employees without restriction in the Mastercard network across the world. The SpenditCard, which can be branded in line with a company's corporate design including the logo, is a reflection of employer appreciation that benefits employees' everyday lives. It has been well-received as an employer branding element. The card enables employers to optimize wage costs and to significantly reduce administration overhead. The modular system of the SpenditCard enables businesses to design individual, industry-specific benefit programs. Each employee is entitled to a total of EUR 708 tax-free (net) and up to EUR 11,000 that is subject to a flat rate of taxation. About Wirecard: Wirecard (GER: WDI) is one of the world's fastest growing digital platforms in the area of financial commerce. We provide both corporate clients and consumers with a constantly expanding ecosystem of real-time value-added services built around innovative digital payments by using an integrated B2B2C approach. This ecosystem concentrates on solutions in the areas payment and risk, retail and transaction banking, loyalty and coupon programs in addition to data analytics and conversion rate enhancement across all sales channels (online, mobile, ePOS). Wirecard operates regulated financial institutions in several key markets, in addition to holding issuing and acquiring licenses from all major payment and card networks. Wirecard AG is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (DAX and TecDAX, ISIN DE0007472060). Visit us on http://www.wirecard.com , follow us on Twitter @wirecard and on Facebook @wirecardgroup. About Spendit AG: In 2014, the visionaries Dr. Ralph Meyer and Florian Gottschaller founded Spendit AG in Munich and dedicated themselves to the digital revolution of employee benefits. An international team supports them in their mission: Developing customer-specific benefit solutions for employers who are serious about digitization and who want to keep the best talent in their business. Today, more than 4,000 businesses in Germany and Austria use Spendit AG's smart products: the SpenditCard, the digital voucher for income tax-free benefits in kind, and the Lunchit App, the digital meal voucher. For more information, please visit http://www.spendit.de Wirecard media contact: Wirecard AG Jana Tilz Tel.: +49-(0)-89-4424-1363 Email: [email protected] Spendit AG media contact: Spendit AG Daria Kossogova Tel.: +49-(0)-89-2003-1881-80 Email: [email protected] [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] 12CM to enter European market through joint venture SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- 12CM.Inc (One-two-cee-em), a company that develops foundational technology for smart stamps, is gearing up to enter the European market in earnest. On October 15, 12CM, a member company of the K-ICT Born2Global Centre, signed an MOU with Lucrion GmbH, a German marketing company, and Heptagon Square, a Netherlands-based IT firm, at GMV 2018 (Global Mobile Vision 2018) regarding the establishment of a joint venture. Multiple American and other foreign corporations are experiencing significant difficulties doing business in the European market, mainly because of the amendment that was made to the personal information protection law this year. 12CM's "echoss" smart stamp technology is currently provided through prtnerships with 53 companies worldwide. The greatest advantage of this technology is its ability to localize diverse services in accordance with the regulations of the relevant region or policies of the given service provider through cloud-based software and smart stamp hardware. The recently signed MOU is expected to produce meaningful and tangible business outcomes, especially with the investment made by the European venture capital firm Arena Amnis B.V., which is currently in the process of making follow-up investments in 12CM. CEO Brend J. Kouwenhoven, the head of investment at Heptagon Square, said, "The European market, which has thus far been quite conservative, is changing rapidly in terms of the financial environment for venture capital firms and the stance of governments, making it easier to foster so-called 'unicorn' companies such as Google and Uber. If the 'echoss' smart stamp, a revolutionary technology that has already achieved success in the Asian and U.S. markets, can be adequately adapted to the needs of the European market, we are very hopeful that the business will expand." 12CM is engaged in business in the global market based on its echoss smart stamp, an independently developed foundational technology. Starting in 2019, it will be conducting a new project in the U.S., European, and Asian markets. For more detailed information on 12CM, visit http://www.12cm.co.kr/en/12cm/ Media Contact Jay Cha Director of 12CM.Inc [email protected] Jina Lee PR Manager of K-ICT Born2Global Centre [email protected] Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/776003/12cm_MOU_Lucrion_GmbH.jpg SOURCE K-ICT Born2Global Centre [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Gary Ginsberg Joins SoftBank as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Communications SoftBank Group Corp. ("SoftBank") today announced that Gary Ginsberg, formerly Executive Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Communications at Time Warner (News - Alert), will join SoftBank as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Communications, effective November 1, 2018. Mr. Ginsberg will be based in SoftBank's New York office and will report to Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank, and Marcelo Claure, Director, Executive Vice President COO of SoftBank and Chief Executive Officer of SoftBank Group International. In this role, Mr. Ginsberg will be responsible for leading SoftBank's corporate communications strategy and initiatives, overseeing all of the Company's external and internal global communications functions. Mr. Ginsberg will also work closely with SoftBank's global portfolio of companies in support of the Company's efforts to ensure alignment and create value across the SoftBank ecosystem. "Mr. Ginsberg brings extensive communications experience, serving as a strategist in both the public and private sectors for more than 25 years," said Mr. Claure. "He is a seasoned hand and one of the most experienced communications executives in the world who will be an asset to both SoftBank and our portfolio of global companies as we invest in the foundational technologies that will drive the information revolution." Mr. Ginsberg commented, "I hve admired SoftBank's evolution and growth for many years, and I'm thrilled to be joining them now at such a dynamic time when the Company's mission to invest in some of the world's most critical and defining new technologies has never been more important." In his role at Time Warner, Mr. Ginsberg was responsible for managing the Company's marketing and communications initiatives. Prior to his role at Time Warner, he spent 11 years at News Corporation, serving in several roles, including most recently as Executive Vice President of Global Marketing and Corporate Affairs and a member of the Office of the Chairman. Previously, Mr. Ginsberg served as a Senior Editor and Counsel of George, the monthly political magazine. Before joining George, Mr. Ginsberg served in the Clinton administration at both the White House Counsel's office and the U.S. Department of Justice. He began his career at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. Mr. Ginsberg is Chairman of the Board of Directors of New Visions for Public Schools; Director of The City, an online news service covering NYC; and Malaria NO More. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia Business School and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Ginsberg holds an A.B. from Brown University and a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law. About the SoftBank Group The SoftBank Group is a global technology player that aspires to drive the Information Revolution (News - Alert). The SoftBank Group is comprised of the holding company SoftBank Group Corp. (TOKYO: 9984) and its global portfolio of companies, which includes advanced telecommunications, internet services, AI, smart robotics, IoT and clean energy technology providers. In September 2016, Arm Limited, the world's leading semiconductor IP company, joined the SoftBank Group. In May 2017, the SoftBank Vision Fund, which invests globally in the businesses and technologies that will enable the next stage of the Information Revolution, had its first major close with over USD 93 billion in committed capital. To learn more, please visit www.softbank.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005298/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Sqrrl Advices Investors to Choose Mutual Funds the Right Way GURGAON, India, October 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- When one buy's direct mutual funds on the basis that there'll be earnings of an extra 0.5-1.5%, then it's time for a reality check. With the state of India's economy being volatile, investors all across are scrambling to either withdraw their current investments or look for opportunities that can offer long-term returns. (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/777537/SQRRL_Mutual_Funds_Infographic.jpg ) More and more investors, from all across the economy, are turning to mutual funds, for their investment needs. This is evident from the fact that the MF industry has grown at an average of 25% in the past one year. In comparison to stocks, Mutual Funds offer diversified portfolio and risk management which makes them an attractive proposition. These days, Direct Mutual Funds are getting a lot of traction in India. This is in contrast to the already established distributor model of mutual funds where the investor pays a fraction of commission, usually 0.5-1.5%, to the mutual fund distributor. Chasing Goals (and not Returns) With the advent of digital platforms like Sqrrl, PayTM Money, ET Money, etc., mutual fund adaption is on the rise among new investors. This is in part because of various factors like live tracking of investments, easy onboarding, hassle-free ways of fund selection, etc But the past few years have seen the industry's onus shift from helping the investors get their financial goals to a battle between direct & regular mutual funds. Most digital mutual fund platforms are turning to direct mutual funds broadcasting, facilitating the extra 0.5-1.5% that the investors can earn in the absence of the commission that is paid in case of regular funds. The Art of Picking Mutual Funds An important aspect of picking the right mutual funds for our goals is aligning the goals with the fund's portfolio and philosophy. The expertise and experience of the fund manager also comes into play here. On this, Sqrrl CEO & Co-founder, Samant Sikka, says, "It is true that direct plans offer slightly higher returns than regular plans. But the funds that the investor actually ends up investing in should not depend upon this marginal performance. Rather on how well does the ideology of the fund manager and fund's portfolio aligns with the investor's own goals. This is a space where the goals of the investors matter more than the percentage of returns." Incidentally, Sqrrl makes use of a personalised recommendation engine to suggest direct mutual funds to its users based on their goals. The goals can be both long-term and short-term and based on the time-period for which users wants to invest and the amount they want to invest, they can select the best option, while evaluating the expected returns. A reduction in TER or lower commission rates will benefit investors surely, but it does not impact the performance of a mutual fund. A mutual fund scheme's performance would depend upon the fund manager's ability and the market performance. And investors should definitely give more value to the fund's performance than its expense ratio or whether it is regular or direct. About Sqrrl: Sqrrl is a personal finance brand aimed at helping users realise their dreams and goals, by investing in top performing mutual funds. It uses advanced technologies like cognitive computing to recommend customised investment plans based on a user's investment needs, risk horizons and goals. Further, it has a unique feature that helps users to micro save, by rounding up their left over amount during their spending, to the next 100 or 500, making it extremely convenient for young generation to save while they spend. The app is available on both Android and Apple. Sqrrl was among 23 hottest Indian startups to get selected at the Reliance GenNext Hub - an accelerator program run by Reliance Industries & Microsoft ventures, picked from an initial list of 1200 applicants. They recently also got featured in the #Hot100 Startups in India: Race to Grace 2017. The company now has customers across 700+ cities in India and is aspiring to touch the 3 million mark in its overall customer base. Media Contact: Ayushi Gulyani [email protected] +91-8587935155 PR Consultant Media Corridors [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Healthcare Data Security Company, Comport Offers Solutions to Optimize Location-Based Applications in Healthcare RAMSEY, N.J., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- In order to help medical facilities continue to prioritize optimal patient care, Comport, an expert among cloud computing service providers , offers solutions to optimize location-based applications in healthcare. There's an inherent human element to patient care, and a large part of what makes a hospital successful is a well-trained and compassionate staff. However, without cutting-edge technology, there is a limit to the abilities of doctors, nurses, and all other members of the healthcare team. Listed below are just a few of the benefits that location-based applications can have when it comes to providing the best possible care. Happier Patients and Higher HCAHPS Scores. Location-based applications are all about streamlining the patient care experience by providing a more organized work environment. When technology is working flawlessly and in a way that optimizes staff speed, precision, and attention to patient needs, the medical facility will end up with happier patients as a result. While having happy patients is incentive enough, in and of itself, it also ties into HCAHPS scores which can have a direct impact on the degree of reimbursement that a hospital receives for services. Some time and money spent in implementing this technology keeps operations running smoothly into the future, which makes for happy patients, happy staff, and a happy hospital. Easily Resolve Patient Issues. Most medical facilities have a bunch of moving pieces that all need to work together to povide the optimal experience for each and every patient. In reality, there are inefficiencies in most hospital environments that can lead to unhappy patients and a lower quality of care overall. Location-based services can help with some of these situations, such as easily delivering food and drink to patient rooms, finding needed equipment, or allowing patients to find a new doctor's office quickly and efficiently. Streamline Workflow And Identify Improvement Opportunities. One of the benefits of location services platforms, such as one like Aruba Meridian, is the ability to make for a more efficient experience as a whole, as well as locating and addressing areas where the hospital falls short. Being able to easily locate inventory and devices with optimal speeds could literally save a life, and these location-based services provide a framework that a hospital can build out to their specific needs. With the technology in place, each medical facility can use the power of cloud computing to give staff the tools they need to do their job efficiently and improve patient outcomes. Optimize Patient Flow. One aspect of these systems that often goes unspoken is the sheer amount of data that they are able to collect. By tracking patterns of patient flow over the course of days, weeks, months, or even years, it's possible to identify periods where the hospital will likely be under a significant strain. Tracking treatment speeds and the number of patients moving through the facility is an excellent way to better distribute the workforce and identify other avenues for improvement. ABOUT COMPORT An award-winning trusted IT partner in business since 1982, Comport helps our customers achieve efficiencies needed to succeed in today's digital world. Our customers include leading enterprises in Hospitals and Healthcare, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Media, Retail, Law Firms and Universities. Comport has established our cloud brand, ComportSecure to help customers deal with new and emerging trends. ComportSecure, Cloud Managed Solutions provider, specializes in solutions in Cloud and Managed Services, Advanced IT Datacenters, Mobility Security and Networking. Media Contact: Deanna Thorman, fishbat Media, 631-633-4705, [email protected] View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/healthcare-data-security-company-comport-offers-solutions-to-optimize-location-based-applications-in-healthcare-300735015.html SOURCE Comport [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Early Career Network Handshake Raises $40 Million in Series C Funding Led By EQT Ventures To Increase Access to Opportunity to College Students SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Handshake, the leading career network for U.S. college students, announced today that it has closed a $40 million Series C funding round led by the EQT Ventures fund ("EQT Ventures"), a European multi-stage VC fund. This funding round also includes participation from leading social impact investors including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative ("CZI"), Omidyar Network , and Reach Capital , among others. In conjunction with the funding, Alastair Mitchell of EQT Ventures is joining Handshake's Board of Directors. Representatives from CZI, Omidyar Network, Reach Capital and others will be joining a newly formed Impact Advisory Board to advise the company on better measuring and growing its social impact. The Series C brings Handshake's total funding to $74 million, which also includes participation from previous investors such as Kleiner Perkins, Spark Capital, True Ventures, and Lightspeed Ventures. Founded in 2013 by three Michigan Tech students with the goal of democratizing opportunity, Handshake's partnership with colleges and universities is dramatically increasing the access to jobs and internships for students and young alumni nationwide. The Handshake network launched with five initial partner schools and, today, Handshake is proud to announce that the community now includes 700 colleges and universities, 14 million students and young alumni and 300,000 employers - including 100% of the Fortune 500. The Handshake community proudly supports more than 100+ minority-serving institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic Serving Institutions across the country. "Our Handshake community is tackling the so-called 'pipeline problem' head on. Skilled students are on every campus in every corner of the country and we're proud to help employers discover, recruit and hire up-and-coming talent from all backgrounds," said Garrett Lord, Handshake Co-Founder and CEO. "Students around the world experience the same inequality in the recruiting process, so we're excited to partner with Alastair Mitchell and EQT Ventures to expand our impact beyond the United States." "Handshake is the leading, fastest-growing early-career recruitment platform in the US for students and employers," said Alastair Mitchell, Partner at EQT Ventures. "We're delightedto join forces with Garrett and the Handshake team on their journey, helping them to expand their footprint across North America and into new markets internationally with both financial and operational support." In this next phase of growth, Handshake plans to advance its product roadmap to continue to broaden the capabilities for each of the three-sided marketplace for students, universities, and employers. Today, Handshake offers a suite of Premium employer features in the newly-launched Talent Engagement Suite , empowering employers to source, engage, and hire the right students for their team, from every background, in every corner of the country. Over the next year, Team Handshake plans to double, from 100 to 200 employees, with a focus on product, engineering and design efforts, with an emphasis on data and recommendations expertise. As part of today's announcement, Handshake is pleased to welcome Christine Y. Cruzvergara , who currently serves as Associate Provost and Executive Director for Career Education at Wellesley College, to the leadership team as Vice President of Higher Education and Student Success. In this role, she will lead Handshake's partnerships efforts with the higher education community to ensure greater and more equitable student career success. "CZI is thrilled to support Handshake as it connects talented students to career opportunities that enable them to reach their full potential," said Vivian Wu, Managing Partner of Ventures at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. "Handshake's approach - expanding access, building student community and support, and showcasing accomplishments beyond college and degree - produces real results, especially for young people from communities that haven't had access to high quality job and life opportunities." According to a 2018 Strada-Burning Glass Study , more than 43% of graduates are underemployed in their first job out of college, putting them economically behind their peers. Of those who graduate underemployed, 50% remain underemployed 10 years after graduation. Through the expansion of a rich, engaging community of students, alumni, employers and universities, including the launch of Reviews and Q&A , Handshake is working to ensure that all students - regardless of background, major, or connections - have access to the tools and information they need to launch a strong career from the very beginning. To learn more about how Handshake is democratizing opportunities for students and connecting employers to up-and-coming talent, visit joinhandshake.com . About Handshake Handshake is the leading career network for college students in America. Today, the Handshake community includes 14 million students and young alumni at more than 700 universities - including 100+ Minority Serving Institutions. We connect up-and-coming talent across all 50 states with the 300,000+ employers recruiting on Handshake - from every Fortune 500 company to thousands of local mom and pop shops, nonprofits, startups, and more. Handshake is democratizing opportunity and ensuring college students have the support they need to kick-off a great career - regardless of where they go to school, what they're majoring in, or who they know. Handshake has raised a total of $74 million dollars with support from EQT Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Spark Capital, True Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. In addition, Handshake has received support from social impact investors, including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Omidyar Network, Reach Capital, among others. About EQT Ventures EQT Ventures is a European VC fund with commitments of just over 566 million. The fund is based in Luxembourg and has investment advisors stationed in Stockholm, Amsterdam, London, San Francisco and Berlin. Fuelled by some of Europe's most experienced company builders and scalers, EQT Ventures helps the next generation of entrepreneurs with capital and hands on support. EQT Ventures is part of EQT, a leading investment firm with approximately 50 billion in raised capital across 27 funds. EQT funds have portfolio companies in Europe, Asia and the US with total sales of more than EUR 19 billion and approximately 110,000 employees. Media Contact: Kelsey Donohue [email protected] (516) 551-2783 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/early-career-network-handshake-raises-40-million-in-series-c-funding-led-by-eqt-ventures-to-increase-access-to-opportunity-to-college-students-300741038.html SOURCE Handshake [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] H.I.G. Bayside Capital Announces the Sale of DiscoverReady H.I.G. Bayside Capital ("H.I.G. Bayside"), the special situations affiliate of H.I.G. Capital, a leading global private equity investment firm with $28 billion of equity capital under management, announced today the sale of its portfolio company, DiscoverReady ("DiscoverReady" or the "Company"), to Consilio, a global leader in eDiscovery, document review, risk management, and legal consulting services. Based in Charlotte, NC, DiscoverReady is a leading provider of end-to-end eDiscovery services including best-in-class offerings in managed review, processing, hosting and information governance. The Company supports corporations and multinational law firms on complex investigation, litigation and compliance matters. H.I.G. Bayside recapitalized the Company in 2014, and over the last four years has supported the Company's significant investments in new service offerings, technology, and marketing. These investments positioned DiscoverReady to capitalize on the growing demand for eDiscovery services, which has resulted in rapid growth at the Company. Sean Britain, H.I.G. Bayside Managing Director, said, "We are proud to have supported CEO James Schellhase and the talented DiscoverReady team during an exciting period of growth for both the Company and the industry. Our investments, coupled with management's execution, have resulted in a successful outcome for management, H.I.G., and its investors. We look forward to the Company's continued success." Schellhase, CEO of DiscoverReady, said, "H.I.G. has been a great partner to the Company over the years. Their guidance and support enabled DiscoverReady to become a market leader in our industry and has laid the groundwork for continued growth for years to come." About DiscoverReay DiscoverReady is a leading Information Intelligence solution provider specializing in legal, compliance and governance. DiscoverReady's innovative solutions allow global corporations and law firms to derive business value from information assets, secure and protect data, and effectively respond to legal and compliance demands. About Bayside Capital Bayside Capital is the special situations affiliate of H.I.G. Capital. Focused on middle market companies, Bayside invests across several segments of the primary and secondary debt capital markets with an emphasis on long term returns. With eight offices throughout the U.S. and Europe and over 350 investment professionals to draw upon, Bayside has the experience, resources, and flexibility required to provide capital solutions quickly, and the strategic and operational expertise to help support its investments. For more information, please refer to the Bayside website at www.bayside.com About H.I.G. Capital H.I.G. is a leading global private equity and alternative assets investment firm with $28 billion of equity capital under management.* Based in Miami, and with offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Atlanta in the U.S., as well as international affiliate offices in London, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Bogota and Mexico City, H.I.G. specializes in providing both debt and equity capital to small and mid-sized companies, utilizing a flexible and operationally focused/value-added approach: 1. H.I.G.'s equity funds invest in management buyouts, recapitalizations and corporate carve-outs of both profitable as well as underperforming manufacturing and service businesses. 2. H.I.G.'s debt funds invest in senior, unitranche and junior debt financing to companies across the size spectrum, both on a primary (direct origination) basis, as well as in the secondary markets. H.I.G. is also a leading CLO manager, through its WhiteHorse family of vehicles, and manages a publicly traded BDC, WhiteHorse Finance. 3. H.I.G.'s real estate funds invest in value-added properties, which can benefit from improved asset management practices. Since its founding in 1993, H.I.G. has invested in and managed more than 300 companies worldwide. The firm's current portfolio includes more than 100 companies with combined sales in excess of $30 billion. For more information, please refer to the H.I.G. website at www.higcapital.com. * Based on total capital commitments managed by H.I.G. Capital and affiliates. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005061/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Lynn A. Wentworth Named Chairman of Cincinnati Bell Inc. Cincinnati Bell (News - Alert) Inc. (NYSE: CBB) announced today that Lynn A. Wentworth has been elected Chairman of the Board and will assume that role at the Company's 2019 Annual Meeting. Ms. Wentworth will succeed Phillip R. Cox (News - Alert), who has served as the Company's Chairman since 2003, and who joined the board in 1993. As previously announced, Mr. Cox will step down from his role as Chairman prior to the 2019 Annual Meeting. "Leading Cincinnati Bell has been one of the great experiences of my life. I am pleased and happy to turn it over to the capable leadership of Lynn Wentworth, who will help propel us to the next level," said Mr. Cox. "I've worked closely with Lynn as a board member for 10 years, and her extensive knowledge of the telecommunications industry has been invaluable. She understands where Cincinnati Bell has been, and where we are going." Ms. Wentworth joined Cincinnati Bell's board in 2008 and is the Chair of the Audit and Finance Committee, and a member of the Compensation and Executive Committees. Ms. entworth is the former Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of BlueLinx Holdings Inc. ("BlueLinx"), a building products distributor, from 2007 to 2008. Prior to joining BlueLinx, she was, most recently, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for BellSouth (News - Alert) Corporation's Communications Group ("BellSouth") and held various other positions at BellSouth from 1985 to 2007. Ms. Wentworth is a director, chair of the Audit Committee and member of the Nominating & Governance Committee of Graphic Packaging Holding Company. She is also a director, chair of the Audit & Finance Committee, and a member of the Compensation and Transaction Committees of CyrusOne (News - Alert) Inc. About Cincinnati Bell Inc. With headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati Bell Inc. (NYSE: CBB) delivers integrated communications solutions to residential and business customers over its fiber-optic and copper networks including high-speed internet, video, voice and data. Cincinnati Bell provides service in areas of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Hawaii. In addition, enterprise customers across the United States and Canada rely on CBTS and OnX, wholly-owned subsidiaries, for efficient, scalable office communications systems and end-to-end IT solutions. For more information, please visit www.cincinnatibell.com. The information on the Company's website is not incorporated by reference in this press release. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005368/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Honor Brings Festive Offers on Smartphones at Flipkart's Big Diwali Sale NEW DELHI, October 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Honor 9N (4+64GB) at an all new price of INR 11,999 and Honor 9N (3+ 32 GB) variant at INR 9999 on Flipkart Honor 7A and Honor 7S both will be available for sale at a price drop of INR 1000 Honor 9i will be available at a discount of INR 2000 and the flagship Honor 10 will be available at slashed price of INR 24,999 Taking the partnership ahead around Big Diwali Sale, Honor, a leading smartphone e-brand under the Huawei Group today announced latest offering on its range of smartphones on Flipkart. Honor is offering price drop on its best-selling phones and other offers that will be available from the 1st of November to 5th November 2018 on Flipkart. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/682098/Honor_Logo.jpg ) Speaking on the announcement, Mr. P Sanjeev, Vice President, Sales, Huawei Consumer Business Group said, "Diwali is one of the most auspicious occasions in India for gifting and a time when most of the users look at upgrading to better smartphones. Through our strategic partnership with Flipkart for the Big Diwali Sale, we are bringing alive offers on Honor smartphones which will guarantee cheer to everyone with wide range of products across price-points. At Honor, it is our constant endeavor to enhance our consumers' life with more meaningful and smarter devices and we want to welcome more customers to the Honor family. This is our way of expressing gratitude to our consumers and hope to add more cheer to their celebrations this Diwali." Celebrating and enhncing celebration of Diwali, Honor is offering price drop in its wide range of best- selling smartphones at Flipkart. Honor with Flipkart is offering benefits to the customers with the Honor 9N (4GB + 64GB) at a price of INR 11,999 and the Honor 9N (3+32GB) variant at INR 9,999. The affordable and budget smartphones by Honor- Honor 7A and Honor 7S will be available for sale at a price drop of INR 1000. Honor 9i can too be availed at a discounted price of INR 2000. The Honor 9 Lite (3+32GB) variant will be available with a bumper sale price of INR 9999 and Honor 9 Lite (4+ 64 GB) variant will be available at INR 14,999. Honor's flagship phone the Honor 10 will be available at a discounted price of INR 24999. The customers will be able to avail the offers on the Flipkart Diwali Sale 2018. Customers can also avail bank offers of 10% instant discounts on SBI Credit Cards. No cost EMI option is also available on Flipkart. Flipkart Current Model Offer Price Flipkart Diwali Price Start Honor 9N (4GB+64GB) 2K PD 13999 11999 1st Nov Honor 9N (3GB+32GB) 2K PD 11999 9999 1st Nov Honor 9 Lite (3GB+32GB) 1K PD 10999 9999 1st Nov Honor 9 Lite (4+ 64 GB) 3K BP 17999 14999 1st Nov Honor 7A 1K PD 8999 7999 1st Nov Honor 7S 1K PD 6999 5999 1st Nov Honor 9i 2K PD 14999 12999 1st Nov Honor 10 8K PD 32999 24999 1st Nov About Honor: Honor is a leading smartphone e-brand under the Huawei Group. In line with its slogan, 'For the Brave', the brand was created to meet the needs of digital natives through internet-optimized products that offer superior user experiences, inspire action, foster creativity and empower the young to achieve their dreams. In doing this, Honor has set itself apart by showcasing its own bravery to do things differently and to take the steps needed to usher in the latest technologies and innovations for its customers. Honor has emerged as one of the fastest growing smartphone brands in India as per the IDC Q2 2018 report. Honor with its India-first-approach registered an unprecedented growth of 281% in 2018 H1 compared to 2017 H2. Being a young and fearless brand, Honor has secured the second position with an all-time high of 8% share in the online segment in Q2, 2018. For more information, please visit: www.hihonor.com/in Honor website: https://www.hihonor.com/in Honor official email: [email protected] Media Contact Karan Rao [email protected] Agency Contact Genesis Burson Marsteller Geetika Rani [email protected] +91-9958537248 Yukti Gaur [email protected] +91-7503532697 Siddharth Bagchi [email protected] +91-9821407433 Associate Genesis Burson Marsteller [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Kenna Security Named to 2018 Red Herring Top 100 Global SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kenna Security , a leader in predictive cyber risk, today announced that it has been named to the Red Herring Top 100 Global, which celebrates the technology and innovation of startups in Europe, North America, and Asia. Being named to the Top 100 Global list is an incredible honor, and it reflects the increasing need for data-driven cybersecurity strategies, said Karim Toubba, CEO of Kenna Security. Enterprises and their security teams face a deluge of data sources that lack context, making it nearly impossible to effectively manage cyber risk. Kenna is helping companies transition to a risk-based approach to cybersecurity, so they can focus on the biggest threats to their organization intelligently. Red Herrings Top 100 Global list is well known for its history of identifying promising companies and entrepreneurs in the early stages. Red Herring editors were among the first to recognize that companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Salesforce.com, YouTube, and eBay would change the way we live and work. Choosing the companies with the strongest potential was by no mens a small feat, said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. After rigorous contemplation and discussion, we narrowed our list down from hundreds of candidates from across the globe to the Top 100 Winners. We believe Kenna Security embodies the vision, drive and innovation that define a successful entrepreneurial venture. Kenna Security should be proud of its accomplishment. Companies named to the Top 100 Global list were selected from the winners of regional Top 100 contests in Europe, North America, and Asia. Red Herrings editorial staff evaluated them on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, strategy, and market penetration. This assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the track records and standing of startups relative to their peers, allowing Red Herring to see past the buzz and make the list a valuable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the most promising new business models from around the world. The Kenna Security Platform leverages Kennas Cyber Risk Context Technology to track and predict real-world IT exploits and empowers security teams with the data they need to focus on the threats that matter most. Kenna obtains its findings by collecting data in the wild, investigating hacker forums, exploit-kit directories, and real-time exploitations, and compiles that information in a solution with an unmatched user experience. Kennas Exploit Prediction capabilities deliver instant visibility into the effect of future exploits on a business systems, and offers a clear, cross-functional path to the remediation the riskiest vulnerabilities. About Kenna Security Kenna Security is a leader in predictive cyber risk. The Kenna Security Platform enables organizations to work cross-functionally to determine and remediate cyber risks. Kenna leverages Cyber Risk Context Technology to track and predict real-world exploitations, focusing security teams on what matters most. Headquartered in San Francisco, Kenna counts among its customers many Fortune 100 companies, and serves nearly every major vertical. Contact details: Gregory FCA for Kenna Security Matt McLoughlin [email protected] 610-228-2123 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] CFOs Identify Three Key Areas Where Treasurers Need to Be More Strategic Kyriba, the #1 provider of cloud treasury and financial management solutions, today announced the results of a new survey with CFO Publishing that shows exactly where CFOs think treasurers need to elevate their performance to help them navigate an increasingly complex global business environment. As it stands now, most CFOs see room for improvement in the treasury function, according to the survey and report, entitled "3 Key Areas Where CFOs Say Treasurers Need to be More Strategic." While 40 percent of respondents currently consider their treasury operations better than average, a majority (45 percent) ranked them as average. Only 8.1 percent consider them "best in class," the report states. "The results are surprising because treasurers typically set very high standards for themselves and the treasury function," said Christopher Schmidt, director of research at CFO Publishing, an Argyle company. "To me, this is a sign that many treasury functions face organizational and technological impediments that are preventing them from delivering the highest value." To assist them with accelerating growth and protecting against loss in a new interconnected global landscape, CFOs say treasurers should focus on optimizing 1) risk management, 2) cash management and 3) working capital, according to the survey, which queried more than 150 senior financial executives across multiple industries in North America. Other key findings include: The top three treasury issues that keep CFOs up at night are unreliable cash visibility and forecasts, inability to optimize working capital, and potential of payments fraud CFOs acknowledge key challenges working against effective treasury management, including complexity of financial structure, inadequate technology for effective analysis, and lack of a standardized approach to working capital management CFOs would like to see treasurers imprve their technology solutions to match industry best practices in the areas of 1) cash management, 2) data visualization and reporting, and 3) payments management "One challenge for treasurers is that a large part of their activities and focus are transaction oriented, and so the CFO may not feel like they are getting a lot of strategic insight from treasury," said Eric Ball, the general partner of Impact Venture Capital and a former CFO who served as Senior Vice President and Treasurer at Oracle (News - Alert) for 10 years. "Better data visualization and reporting of key treasury metrics is one initiative that can help the CFO better understand the value of treasury in a time-efficient manner, and also enable that CFO to make faster global business decisions." To download a free copy of the report, visit www.kyriba.com. Kyriba will also be distributing a limited number of free printed copies of the report at the AFP 2018 Conference, scheduled for Nov. 4-6 in Chicago. Kyriba will be in booth #1132. About Kyriba Corp. Kyriba empowers financial leaders and their teams with award-winning solutions for cash and risk management, payments and supply chain finance. Kyriba delivers a highly secure, 100 percent SaaS (News - Alert) enterprise platform, superior bank connectivity and a seamlessly integrated solution set for tackling today's most complex financial challenges. Thousands of companies, including many of the world's largest organizations, rely on Kyriba to streamline key processes, protect against loss from fraud and cybercrime, and accelerate growth opportunities through improved decision support. Technology analyst firm IDC recognized Kyriba as a global leader in its MarketScape for SaaS and cloud-enabled treasury and risk management applications for 2017-2018. Kyriba is headquartered in New York, with offices in San Diego, Paris, London, Tokyo, Dubai and other major locations. For more information, visit www.kyriba.com. About CFO Research CFO Research, an Argyle company, has been a trusted source of insight into the business issues that matter most to finance professionals since its founding in 2000. CFO Research is the sister firm of CFO Magazine, and relies on senior finance executives to share their experiences, insights, and observations on critical business issues. To learn more about Kyriba PartnerSURGE, email Kyriba at [email protected]. Engage with Kyriba Like Kyriba on Facebook (News - Alert) at www.facebook.com/kyribacorp Follow Kyriba on LinkedIn (News - Alert) at www.linkedin.com/company/kyriba-corporation Follow Kyriba on Twitter (News - Alert) at www.twitter.com/kyribacorp Read Kyriba's blog at www.kyriba.com/blog View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005160/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Sustainable investing assets reach $12 trillion as reported by the US SIF Foundation's biennial Report on US Sustainable, Responsible and Impact Investing Trends The US SIF Foundation's 2018 biennial Report on US Sustainable, Responsible and Impact Investing Trends, released today, found that sustainable, responsible and impact investing (SRI (News - Alert)) assets now account for $12.0 trillion-or one in four dollars-of the $46.6 trillion in total assets under professional management in the United States. This represents a 38 percent increase over 2016. The Trends Report-first compiled in 1995-is the most comprehensive study of sustainable and impact investing in the United States. From the first report when assets totaled just $639 billion to today, the sustainable and responsible investing industry has grown 18-fold and has matured and expanded across numerous asset classes. The 2018 report identified $11.6 trillion in ESG incorporation assets under management at the outset of 2018 held by 496 institutional investors, 365 money managers and 1,145 community investing financial institutions. The largest percentage of money managers cited client demand as their top motivation for pursuing ESG incorporation, while the largest number of institutional investors cited fulfilling mission and pursuing social benefit as their top motivations. In addition, 165 institutional investors and 54 investment managers collectively controlling nearly $1.8 trillion in assets filed or co-filed shareholder resolutions on ESG issues between 2016 and the first half of 2018. Eliminating double counting for assets involved in both ESG incorporation and filing shareholder resolutions produces the net total of $12.0 trillion in SRI strategies at the start of 2018. "Money managers and institutions are utilizing ESG criteria and shareholder engagement to address a plethora of issues including climate change, diversity, human rights, weapons and political spending," said Lisa Woll, US SIF Foundation CEO. Additionally, retail and high net worth individuals are increasingly utilizing this investment approach with $3 trillion in sustainable assets. Ellen Dorsey, Executive Director of the Wallace Global Fund, a leading foundation endowment that has embraced sustainable investing and supported the Trends Report since 2010, noted, "We support this research as a critical tool to track crucial trends in the industry and benchmark our own goal of 100% mission alignment, as we promote an informed and engaged citizenry, help fight injustice and protect the diversity of nature." "What the US SIF Trends Report shows incontrovertibly, is that investors are truly beginning to understand the value of ESG considerations as an effective means of managing risk and improving investment performance," said Amy O'Brien, Global Head of Responsible Investing at Nuveen, the investment management division of TIAA. "With an intensified focus on important issues such as climate change and corporate board gender diversity, we hope to see creative solutions that will help address these challenges, and in turn, drive shareholder value in the years ahead." Top ESG Criteria The relative prominence of specific ESG criteria differed between money managers (firms that manage assets on behalf of others) and institutional asset owners (entities like pension funds, foundations and educational enowments that own and invest assets, often via money managers). The report breaks out the top ESG issues by types of investment vehicles, including registered investment companies, such as mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs), private equity and venture capital funds, community investing institutions and others. The report also provides detail on the top ESG criteria by each of nine types of institutions: public funds, insurance companies, educational institutions, philanthropic foundations, labor funds, hospitals and healthcare plans, faith-based institutions, other nonprofits and family offices. Asset managers: Climate change was the most important specific ESG issue considered by money managers in asset-weighted terms; the assets to which this criterion applies more than doubled from 2016 to 2018 to $3.0 trillion. Other top ESG categories included tobacco, conflict risk, human rights, and transparency/anti-corruption. Concern among money managers and their clients about civilian firearms was also on the rise. Asset owners: For institutional asset owners, conflict risk was the top specific ESG criteria, up 8 percent from 2016 to $3.0 trillion followed by tobacco, carbon/climate change, board issues, and executive pay. Investor Advocacy From 2016 through the first half of 2018, 165 institutional investors and 54 investment managers collectively controlling nearly $1.8 trillion in assets at the start of 2018 filed or co-filed shareholder resolutions on ESG issues. "Proxy access" was the leading issue raised in shareholder proposals, followed by disclosure and management of corporate political spending and lobbying. The proportion of shareholder proposals on social and environmental issues that receive high levels of support has been trending upward. During the proxy seasons of 2012-2015, only three shareholder proposals on environmental and social issues that were opposed by management received majority support, while 18 such proposals received majority support in 2016 through 2018. In addition, the number of survey respondents that reported engaging in dialogue with companies on ESG issues increased notably since 2016. Other Findings Both the number and assets under management of registered investment companies incorporating ESG continued to grow at a strong pace. Assets in mutual funds reached $2.6 trillion, up 34 percent over 2016, and the number of ETFs more than doubled from 25 to 69. ESG assets under management in 780 alternative investment vehicles, including private equity and venture capital funds, hedge funds, and real estate investment trusts (REITs) or other property funds, totaled $588 billion at the start of 2018. This is nearly triple the assets identified in 2016, and an 89 percent increase in the number of funds. With assets of $185.4 billion, the community investing sector, which includes community development banks, credit unions, loan and venture funds, has experienced rapid growth over the last decade, nearly doubling in assets between 2014 and 2016, and growing more than 50 percent from 2016 to 2018. For additional Trends Report findings and information please visit www.ussif.org/trends. To schedule an interview with Lisa Woll, US SIF's CEO, or Meg Voorhes, US SIF Foundation's Research Director, or to be added to the US SIF news release distribution list, please email [email protected]. Media Teleconference A media briefing is scheduled for today, Oct. 31, from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm ET, including a discussion of key Trends Report findings by a panel of experts. Please call: +1 (877) 236-6813, conference code 5590015. 2018 Trends Donors and Sponsors Donor Wallace Global Fund Visionary Sponsor Nuveen, a TIAA company Benefactors Calvert Investments, Candriam Investors Group Lead Sponsors Bank of America, Bloomberg (News - Alert), MacArthur Foundation, MFS Investment Management, Neuberger Berman General Sponsors BlackRock, CBIS, Community Capital Management, Domini Impact Investments, Green Century Capital Management, Parnassus Investments, Trillium Asset Management About US SIF and the US SIF Foundation US SIF: The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment is the leading voice advancing sustainable, responsible and impact investing across all asset classes. Its mission is to rapidly shift investment practices toward sustainability, focusing on long-term investment and the generation of positive social and environmental impacts. US SIF members include investment management and advisory firms, mutual fund companies, asset owners, research firms, financial planners and advisors, broker-dealers, community investing organizations and nonprofit organizations. US SIF is supported in its work by the US SIF Foundation, a 501(C)(3) organization that undertakes educational, research and programmatic activities to advance the mission of US SIF, including offering training on the Fundamentals of Sustainable and Impact Investment (with trainings to be held in November in Colorado Springs, San Francisco and Los Angeles). The 9th Annual US SIF Conference will be held in Minneapolis June 10-12, 2019. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005229/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] NSS Labs Announces Results of 2018 Data Center Security Gateway Group Test Three Products Receive Recommended Rating; One Product Receives Caution Rating AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NSS Labs, Inc., a global leader and trusted source for independent, fact-based cybersecurity guidance, today announced the results of its 2018 Data Center Security Gateway (DCSG) Group Test. Four products from two market-leading security vendors were evaluated for security effectiveness, resistance to evasion, stability and reliability, total cost of ownership (TCO), and performance. The DCSG group test is one of two data center network security (DCNS) tests conducted by NSS Labs. This years DCSG Group Test includes expanded performance testing covering transactional, multimedia, and corporate real-world data center traffic profiles. Earlier this week, NSS Labs released the second edition of its 2018 Data Center Intrusion Prevention Systems (DCIPS) Group Test . DCSG devices are considered layer three (OSI model) devices that route traffic, provide protection against threats, anti-evasion capabilities, and full resilience against attacks. They must be capable of performing access control and deep packet inspection in order to protect server applications from remote attacks. Unlike the next generation firewall that protects users from the Internet, a DCSGs firewall component protects data center servers and the applications that run on them from the Internet. Similar to a DCIPS product, a DCSGs intrusion prevention security component should be capable of correctly blocking malicious traffic through comparison of packet/session contents against signatures, filters, protocol decoders. In a 2018 NSS Labs Security Insight Study, 73% of the US enterprises surveyed reported deploying a DCFW to protect their data center, and 56% reported deploying a DCIPS to protect their data center. Additionally, 3.5% reported plans to acquire a DCFW in the next 12 months and 10.6% reported plans to acquire a DCIPS in the same time frame.1 Key Takeaways Attackers continue to use different vectors to gain unauthorized access and exfiltrate sensitive data and deliver malware. DCSG devices are required to remain operational and stable under different traffic loads. The DCSG Group Test determined the behavior of the state engine under load. All devices must balance the risk between denying legitimate traffic or allowing malicious traffic once they run low on resources. A DCSG device will drop new connections when resources (such as state table memory) are low, or when traffic loads exceed its capacity. Furthermore, DCSG inspection engines must be capable of performing optimally under stress and at maximum real-world traffic capacity. Providing results for a products protection against exploits without fully factoring in evasions can be highly misleading in terms of understanding a DCSG products security efficacy. The NSS Labs Security Effectiveness score includes evasion techniques. The more classes of evasion that are missed (such as IP packet fragmentation,RPC fragmentation, URL obfuscation, FTP/Telnet evasion, resiliency, and attacks on nonstandard ports), the lower a products security efficacy. Products were tested against 99 evasions to evaluate how well they were able to detect and block the evasions. NSS research has determined that the majority of enterprises tune their DCSG products. Although attacks against desktop client applications are mainstream in typical enterprise perimeter deployments, servers will always be the primary targets in data center deployments, so tuning is critical. All products in this test were optimally tuned similar to a typical customer deployment, keeping in mind security effectiveness and performance. The 2018 NSS Labs DCSG Group Test included: More than 2,300 attacks, which included 99 unique evasion samples No products scored well during resiliency testing; the average block rate here was only 79.96% More than 600 Tbps of throughput was utilized during testing. Throughput of tested products ranged from 10.27 Gbps to 91.3 Gbps depending on the data center profile assessed Data centers host high-value information such as customer data, intellectual property, and mission-critical applications, said Jason Brvenik, Chief Technology Officer at NSS Labs. When organizations bolster their data center security, threat actors respond by building attacks that are more sophisticated and more targeted and that are capable of bypassing traditional endpoint and network security products. The 2018 DCSG Group Test provides valuable insights to help enterprises make informed decisions regarding which devices are the best fit for their environment. The following products were tested: Fortinet FortiGate 3200D v5.4.10 GA Build 7811 Fortinet FortiGate 6300F v5.4.10 GA Build 4283 Palo Alto Networks PA-5250 PAN-OS 8.1.2 Juniper Networks SRX4200 v15.1X49-D140.2 Unverified Products: Check Point Cisco Huawei As with all NSS Labs group tests , there is no fee for participation, and the test methodology is available in the public domain to provide transparency and to help enterprises understand the factors behind test results. Click here for more information about our group test policies. Additional Resources: 1 NSS Labs 2018 Security Insight Study, August 14, 2018 About NSS Labs, Inc. NSS Labs, Inc. is recognized globally as the most trusted source for independent, fact-based cybersecurity guidance. Our mission is to advance transparency and accountability within the cybersecurity industry. Our unmatched foundation in security testing, along with our extensive research and global threat analysis capabilities, provide the basis for NSS Labs Cloud Platform for Continuous Security Validation. This cloud platform empowers enterprises with objective, empirical data and allows them to gain continuous visibility, gather actionable insights, and rationalize investments in their cyber programs. The cloud platform lets enterprises know where they stand by continuously validating the effectiveness of their security products and assessing the impact of unmitigated risks to the enterprise stack. This gives business leaders the relevant information they need to substantiate their security investments. CISOs, Chief Security Architects, SOC and Threat Analysts, and information security professionals from many of the world's largest and most demanding enterprises rely on trusted information from NSS Labs. For more information, visit www.nsslabs.com . Contact: Jessica Johannes Phone: +1 512-498-7076 [email protected] [October 31, 2018] BioUtah's 2018 Utah Life Sciences Summit Presented by ATL Technology Opens November 1, in Salt Lake City BioUtah, Utah's only trade association dedicated solely to the life sciences community, kicks-offs its 9th annual Utah Life Sciences Summit November 1, presented by ATL Technology. The Summit will be held at the Salt Lake Marriott Downtown at City Creek, in Salt Lake City, Utah. For registration, agenda and a complete list of sponsors and exhibitors, visit Utah Life Sciences Summit. Members of the press are welcome to attend. The Summit is the largest of its kind in the state, where top life sciences business leaders, experts and professionals convene to provide companies with strategies and best practices to promote innovation, capitalize on opportunities, address challenges and grow the industry. "This is our ninth year providing the life sciences industry with a knowledge-packed, high-value forum to help companies, large and small, be successful," said Kelvyn Cullimore, president and CEO of BioUtah. "We look forward to convening our life sciences industry and hosting the best Summit ever." The Summit will include a special announcement from the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS) about the establishment of a RAPS Utah Chapter that will put Utah on the map in terms of its expertise in quality and compliance. An impressive lineup of speakers is scheduled throughout the day, including Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health; Lt. Governor Spencer J. Cox (News - Alert); Dr. Marc Harrison, president and CEO of Intermountain Healthcare; Pat Jones, CEO of the Women's Leadership Institute; Juliette Tennert, director of economic and public policy research at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute; State Senator Wayne Niederhauser, President of the Utah State Senate; and State Representative Robert Spendlove, member of the Utah State House of Representatives and chief economist at Zions' Bank. "This meeting reflects the diversity and important trends in our industry," said Rob Etherington, CEO of Clene Nanomedicine, and chair of the BioUtah Board of Directors. "For your business and professional development, the Summit is the place to be." A new addition to the program is the "Talk to the Experts" session, especially designed to give startups the opportunity to engage one-on-one with investors and seasoned industry experts. Session topics include: FDA as Innovator Influencing Lives More Effectively The Urgency of Women's Leadership Improving Utah's Life Sciences Talent Pipeline Convergence (News - Alert) of Advanced Data Analysis and Healthcare Regulatory Track: Combination Devices; IVDs; Cyber Security/Data Privacy; Navigating EU Regulations Entrepreneur Track: IP Pitfalls; Attracting Capital; Investor Pitches About BioUtah BioUtah is an independent 501(c)(6) trade association serving Utah's life sciences industry. Its member companies reflect a broad spectrum of the industry with strengths in medical device manufacturing and services, research and testing, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, advanced diagnostics and healthcare IT, amongst others; and are a key driver of Utah's economy. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005282/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Sonosky Chambers, Lieff Cabraser, and Zwerling Schachter File RICO Lawsuit on Behalf of Alaska Native Tribal Health Care Providers Against Drug Manufacturers and Distributors for False and Deceptive Marketing of Dangerous Prescription Opioid Drugs On behalf of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, Chugachmiut, the Copper River Native Association, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation, and Southcentral Foundation, today the law firms of Sonosky Chambers Sachse Miller & Monkman, LLP, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, and Zwerling, Schachter & Zwerling, LLP filed a RICO racketeering lawsuit in federal district court in Anchorage against Purdue Pharma, Endo Pharmaceuticals, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson, Teva, Allergan, Watson Pharmaceuticals, Actavis, Insys, Mallinckrodt, McKesson, Health Mart Systems, AmerisourceBergen, Walgreen Co., the Kroger Co., Albertson's, CVS and related entities responsible for the explosive opioid epidemic across the United States and in the impacted Alaska Native communities. "We attend funerals for our people while these companies tally unprecedented profits," said Victor Joseph, Chief and President of the Tanana Chiefs Conference. "These companies must be held to account for the devastation they have brought to our Alaska Native communities through their deceptive and unethical practices." The first tribal lawsuit over the opioid crisis was filed in April 2017 by the Cherokee Nation. Today, over 60 Native American tribal governments have filed suit, and the tribal cases have joined another 1,100 cases that are now pending in Ohio federal court against the opioid industry. In addition, some 30 States have filed suit, including the State of Alaska. The complaint in this newest case alleges these companies engaged in a vast scheme of false and deceptive marketing relating to prescription opioid drugs - a campaign to drastically expand the market for such drugs and their own market share - by convincing patients, hospitals, and physicians that opioids were safe for long-term use despite significant contrary evidence showing the drugs are both highly addictive and ineffective in treating chronic pain. The complaint further alleges these companies engaged in a widespread supply chain scheme that reaped enormous financial rewards by refusing to monitor and restrict the improper distribution of these lethal and addictive drugs. The opioid epidemic has taken a heavy toll in Alaska, so much so that Alaska Governor Walker recently declared a public health crisis and issued a Declaration of Disaster Emergency. As Governor Bill Walker noted in the Declaration, in 2012 Alaska's prescription opioid overdose death rate was more than double the national death rate. The plaintiffs are five intertribal organizations which together serve over 120 federally recognized tribal governments situated across a largely roadless area of Alaska that is more than one and one half ties the size of Texas. Native Americans, including Plaintiffs' members and patients, have been significantly impacted by this epidemic. American Indians and Alaska Natives experience the highest per capita opioid death rate in America and a drug overdose death rate nearly twice the rate of the general U.S. population. According to the U.S. Indian Health Service's Chief Medical Officer, "American Indians and Alaska Natives had the highest drug overdose death rates in 2015 and the largest percentage increase in the number of deaths over time from 1999-2015 compared to other racial and ethnic groups." Over this same time frame, the drug-related death rate among American Indians and Alaska Natives increased more than 500 percent. The complaint alleges that the myriad defendants worked to conceal facts and disseminate a vast range of falsehoods relating to opioid drugs through multiple channels, including direct marketing, paying key opinion leaders to deceptively promote opioid use, through continuing medical education programs, through "branded" advertising to doctors and consumers and "unbranded" advertising to promote opioid use for chronic pain without FDA review, and by funding, editing, and distributing publications that supported these and other misrepresentations. In doing so, the complaint alleges the defendants deliberately disregarded their duties to maintain effective controls and to identify, report, and take steps to halt suspicious orders. The complaint asserts that their conspiracy to engage in this wrongful conduct enabled them to benefit both independently and jointly in their schemes relating to the promotion, sale, and distribution of opioid drugs. The complaint asserts claims under the Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), as well as claims for fraud, public nuisance, unjust enrichment, negligence, unfair competition under the Alaska Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act, product liability, and civil conspiracy. It seeks damages that include the tribal organizations' healthcare and medical care costs, additional therapeutic costs, drug purchase costs, costs of training, preparing, and providing first responders, mental health services, as well as losses caused by the diversion of limited health care funds to address the opioid epidemic. The complaint also seeks treble damages, equitable relief and injunctive relief, including an order enjoining any further violations of RICO, enjoining the future improper marketing of opioids, enjoining other wrongful conduct, and forfeiting the defendants' ill-gotten profits. Read a copy of the Alaskan tribal entities opioids complaint. About Sonosky Chambers Sachse Miller & Monkman, LLP Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse, Endreson & Perry, LLP represents Native American tribes and tribal organizations across the United States in trial and appellate litigation. The firm's attorneys have handled some of the most important Indian law cases to come before the Supreme Court, including recent victories which led to the recovery of nearly $2 billion against the United States on behalf of tribal governments and governmental health and social service providers. The firm represents two dozen Tribes and intertribal organizations in connection with the National Opioid Litigation, including the Navajo Nation and the bellwether tribal plaintiff the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, and it also brought the first tribal opioid case against the pharmaceutical industry (McKesson v Hembree). The firm's partners sit on the six-member Plaintiff's Tribal Committee in the Opioid Litigation. About Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP is an 87-attorney law firm with offices in San Francisco, New York, Nashville, and Seattle. Lieff Cabraser has filed opioid-related cases on behalf of counties and cities within California, Florida, Tennessee, and Washington, and also serves on the Court-appointed Plaintiffs' Executive and Settlement Committees and the Tribal Committee in the federal Opioids multidistrict litigation. Lieff Cabraser represents tribes, cities and counties, union plans, and others who have suffered devastating economic losses in battling an Opioid crisis of the defendants' making. The firm has recovered substantial economic losses for government entities, businesses and individuals in cases including the Tobacco litigation, the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill litigations, and the Neurontin RICO litigation. About Zwerling, Schachter & Zwerling, LLP Zwerling, Schachter & Zwerling, LLP was formed on January 1, 1985. Courts have selected Zwerling, Schachter many times as lead counsel in antitrust, RICO, securities, and consumer class actions in state and federal courts. The firm also represents tribes and governmental entities in actions seeking to redress corporate misconduct. The firm is counsel for a number of Tribes and Native Villages on the West Coast and Alaska in the National Opioid Litigation, including the Native Villages of Port Heiden, Akiak, and Afognak, the Asa'carsarmiut Tribe of Mountain Village, the Yurok and Hoopa Valley Tribes in Northern California, and the Swinomish Tribe in Washington. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005277/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Unum finds significant number of Millennials value vision insurance Employee benefits provider Unum (NYSE: UNM) finds the elimination of vision benefits could motivate more than a third (34 percent) of U.S. workers ages 25 to 34 to look for a new job. These results and other key findings were part of an online poll among 1,227 working U.S. adults conducted by Unum in July. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005013/en/ Unum finds Millennials likely to job hop for vision insurance (Graphic: Business Wire) While the likelihood of job-hopping was higher among this primarily Millennial age group, other age ranges also reported they would consider leaving their current employer if vision benefits were eliminated: 29 percent of those 18 to 24 24 percent of those 35 to 49 21 percent of those 50 to 64 18 percent of those 65 and older Vision insurance covers the cost of comprehensive eye exams and can significantly decrease the cost of eyeglasses and contact lenses - items usually not covered by private medical plans. These plans have typically appealed to older workers with aging eyes. However, younger workers today are facing more vision problems compared to young adults 40 years ago, according to a study in JAMA Ophthalmology magazine. "Vision plans help fill a gap in coverage to maintain eye health, appealing to a multigenerational workforce," said Amy Marko, senior vice president of dental and vision products at Unum. "These benefits can help an employer decrease the cost of health care, increase productivity and minimize the current workforce trend of job-hopping." As competition for talent increases, some employers are increasing their benefits offerings to recruit and retain employees. According to the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM) annual employee benefits report, the number of employers offering vision benefits has increased 7 percentage points within the last four years. However, many employers still do not include vision benefits in their employee packages. In the Unum survey, only 50 percent of workers indicated their current employers offer vision insurance. As millions of American workers enroll in employee benefits this fall, Marko encourages employers to reconsider the importance of vison care. "Employers need to offer benefits that employees need and want - like vision coverage," she said. Learn more information about group vision insurance and Unum's vision plans. About Unum Unum Group (www.unum.com) is a leading provider of financial protection benefits in the United States and the United Kingdom. Its primary businesses are Unum US, Colonial Life and Unum UK. Unum's portfolio includes disability, life, dental, vision, accident and critical illness coverage, which help protect millions of working people and their families. Unum also provides stop-loss coverage to help self-insured employers protect against unanticipated medical costs. The company reported revenues of $11.3 billion in 2017 and provided nearly $7 billion in benefits. For more information, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005013/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Artprice: Imminent Nomination of a Chief Executive in China PARIS, October 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Considering the depth of Artprice's strategic, capitalistic and economic involvement with Artron, thierry Ehrmann plans to propose to Artprice's board of directors the nomination of a Chief Executive responsible for its Chinese and Greater Asia operations. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/644091/Artprice_Logo.jpg ) The selected candidate (not a member of the Ehrmann family) has all the confidence of thierry Ehrmann, who remains CEO and Chairman of the Group. The objective of this strategy is to accelerate the numerous initiatives recently engendered by Artprice's and Artron's contractual and promissory agreements. This informed decision has been carefully deliberated and enjoys the unanimous support with the Group. About Artron: Artron Art Group (Artron) is a general cultural industry group rooted in the art field and aims to "serve the people with art" by "serving the people's art", inherit, enhance, spread and realize values of art, and inherit excellent art and culture and enhance their values in professional art markets; spread values of art and culture and convey the beauty of art to people's daily lives in public art markets. As China's largest comprehensive art service platform, Artron.net delivers four solutions including Smart Archive, Smart Show, Smart Deal and Smart Reading. In addition, upon resources and professional studies of Artron's art market monitor agency (AMMA) and almost 20 years' of experience in the field of art, it has established long-term strategic cooperation with governmental bodies such as the Ministry of Culture, cultural institutions such as the Palace Museum, global art universities, internet companies such as Baidu and overseas research institutes. Artron's Web: http://www.artron.com.cn; http://www.artron.net. About Artprice: Founded by thierry Ehrmann (see Who's who certified Biography ) (c) https://imgpublic.artprice.com/img/wp/sites/11/2018/10/bio-2019-whos-who-thierry-ehrmann.pdf ). Artprice is listed on the Eurolist by Euronext Paris, SRD long only and Euroclear: 7478 - Bloomberg: PRC - Reuters: ARTF. Dicover Artprice in video: https://www.artprice.com/video Artprice is the global leader in art price and art index databanks. It has over 30 million indices and auction results covering more than 700,000 artists. Artprice Images(R) gives unlimited access to the largest Art Market resource in the world: a library of 126 million images or prints of artworks from the year 1700 to the present day, along with comments by Artprice's art historians. 12 Oct. 2018: Artprice and Artron have just created an "Art Media Mogul": Video: https://vimeo.com/296010836 Artprice permanently enriches its databanks with information from 6,300 auctioneers and it publishes a constant flow of art market trends for the world's principal news agencies and approximately 7,200 international press publications. For its 4,500,000 members, Artprice gives access to the world's leading Standardised Marketplace for buying and selling art. Artprice is preparing its blockchain for the Art Market. It is BPI-labelled (scientific national French label)Artprice's Global Art Market Annual Report for 2017 published last March 2018: https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-art-market-in-2017 Artprice's Contemporary Art Market Annual Report for 2017 - free access at: https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-contemporary-art-market-report-2017 Artprice's press releases: http://serveur.serveur.com/Press_Release/pressreleaseen.htm https://twitter.com/artpricedotcom Artmarket News: https://twitter.com/artpricedotcom & https://twitter.com/artmarketdotcom https://www.facebook.com/artpricedotcom & https://plus.google.com/+artpricedotcom/posts http://artmarketinsight.wordpress.com/ Discover the Alchemy and the universe of Artprice http://web.artprice.com/video, which headquarters are the famous Museum of Contemporary Art, the Abode of Chaos: http://goo.gl/zJssd https://vimeo.com/124643720 The Contemporary Art Museum The Abode of Chaos on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/la.demeure.du.chaos.theabodeofchaos999 Contact: [email protected] SOURCE Artprice.com [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Fosun to announce Protechting winners at Web Summit 2018 in Lisbon LISBON, Portugal, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Fosun will announce the winners of the Protechting competition at Web Summit 2018, one of the largest technology conferences in the world. This is the third edition of Protechting, a startup acceleration program developed by Fosun and its portfolio companies Fidelidade (one of the largest Portuguese insurance companies), Luz Saude (one of the largest private health care groups) and the German private bank Hauck & Aufhauser. The final pitch of the competition dedicated to Healthtech, Fintech and Insurtech will be held on November 8th, at 10:30, in Pavilion 3 of the Web Summit venue, in Lisbon. During the largest and most international event for technology, entrepreneurship and innovation, the six Protechting finalists will make their final pitch before the judges composed of high-level representatives from Fosun and its portfolio companies. Vincent Li, Vice-President of Fosun and Chairman of Fosun Insurance Group will provide a key-note speech alongside Rogerio Campos Henriques, Vice-President of Fidelidade. The three winning startups will be announced by Vincent Li and Jorge Magalhaes Correia, President of Fidelidade Group. Sandra Freimuth, Board Member of Hauck & Aufhauser and Isabel Vaz, CEO of Luz Saude, will also attend the ceremony as partners of Protechting. The six finalists, that will have the opportunity to pitch at Web Summit's stage, will be selected in a first round that will take place on November 7th, among the 12 startups that were developing a pilot project inside Fosun's portfolio companies since June. The Protechting program, in association wth Fidelidade and already on its third edition, reflects the Group's commitment to the development of a global startup ecosystem, by giving entrepreneurs a chance to make their dreams come true, and allowing them to collaborate with some of the most significant national and international players, such as incubators, venture capital funds and other entities. The three winning projects to be announced during the Web Summit will be awarded a roadshow in China, with access to some of the world's biggest investors, as well as the opportunity to integrate and develop their businesses with Fosun, Fidelidade, Luz Saude or Hauck & Aufhauser. The winner that is distinguished with the best business model will also receive a 10-thousand-euro monetary prize. During the Web Summit, which will take place from November 6th to 8th at Fil and Altice Arena in Lisbon, Fosun and Fidelidade will also host parallel events promoting networking opportunities between startups, partners and investors present at this conference dedicated to innovation and entrepreneurship. About Fosun Fosun was founded in 1992. Fosun International Limited is a family-focused multinational company that has been listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (00656.:HK) since 2007, with total assets over RMB560 billion (c.US$85 billion) as of June 30th, 2018. With its roots in China, and through technology and innovation, Fosun's mission is to create Customer-to-Maker (C2M) ecosystems in health, happiness and wealth, providing high-quality products and services for families around the world. About Fidelidade Fidelidade is the market leading insurance in Portugal, both life insurance and non-life area, currently recording a market share of 27.7%. The company is present in various business segments of the insurance activity and benefits from a largest network in Portugal, with a presence in several countries, as Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Spain, France and China (Macau). About Luz Saude Luz Saude was established in 2000 and is one of the largest health care groups in terms of income operating in the Portuguese market. The group provides its services through 20 units (including eight private hospitals, a hospital of the national health service operated under the Public-Private Partnership program, seven private outpatient clinics and two senior residences), located in the North, Central and Central-South regions of Portugal. About Hauck & Aufhauser With its 222 years of tradition, Hauck & Aufhauser Privatbankiers is one of few independent private banks in Germany. From its locations in Frankfurt am Main, Munich, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Cologne and Luxembourg, the bank focuses on providing comprehensive advisory services and administering the assets of its private, corporate and institutional clients. This includes asset management for institutional investors, close cooperation with independent asset managers and both the concept and management of private label funds. The focus lies in providing comprehensive and personalized advisory services, which form the basis for developing customized solutions. SOURCE Fosun [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Promoboxx Announces Winner of the 2018 Local Business of the Year Award Independent Craft Brewer Untold Brewing Recognized for Community Partnership BOSTON, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Promoboxx, the only retail marketing platform powered by brands, announced Untold Brewing as the winner of the 2018 Local Business of the Year Award, which recognizes a small business for its outstanding connection with, love for, and dedication to its community and people. This years winner was announced at the fifth annual Aligned Conference, the only conference that brings together brand marketers, sales representatives, and local retailers across industries to develop digital strategies that power independent retail. The Local Business of the Year Award, now in its third year, gives local businesses the opportunity to tell their stories and rewards them for their outstanding work and commitment to their communities. Promoboxx received submissions from across North America representing a diverse array of over 10 industries. In each submission, local business employees shared a short story highlighting how their businesses are original in their own way and their community impact and connection. A panel of Promoboxx retail support experts selected three finalists for this award: Gearhead Outfitters, Marks Floors, and Untold Brewing. This years winner, Untold Brewing, received the most votes through online voting open to the public, including attendees at the Aligned Conference. Untold Brewing is located in Scituate, Massachusetts, and their motto Every Beer Has A Story was born from the local history of the town. Their flagship brown ale and blonde ale are named after two historic sisters, Rebecca and Abigail Bates, who used their wits and a bit of trickery during the War of 1812 to save the Town of Scituate from impending British invasion. Untold Brewing has positioned themselves as a meeting place for their community and they facilitate this by hosting events, including their local beach cleanup, that not only give back but also educate the community and lead the way for sustainability. The brewery owners personally make deliveries to local retailers to forge relationships that are much more than just a financial transaction. "We are incredibly honored to be recognized with this award for Local Business of the Year. Since the day we opened for business, our goal has been to connect with our community and customers in a unique way, said Matthew Elder, Founder and Brewer at Untold Brewing. Through the use of social media, various digital marketing channels, and in person in our taproom, we've been able to share our story with our customers. Thank you Promoboxx for this incredible award and we hope we can continue to live up to this honor." Untold Brewery is a unique and irreplaceable part of their local community. Their efforts to support and give back to the businesses and people around them really inspired our team, said Johanna Fiedler, Director of Vertical Marketing and Consumer Engagement, Promoboxx. We are proud to recognize them with the Local Business of the Year Award. To learn more about the 2018 Local Business of the Year winner and finalists, visit our blog, or to learn more about the Aligned Conference, visit www.alignedcon.com. About Aligned The Aligned Conference, presented by Promoboxx, is the only national conference that brings together brand marketers, sales representatives, and local retailers across industries to develop marketing strategies that increase local foot traffic, sales, and measurable business impact. Now in its fifth year, Aligned celebrates connection and alignment between national brands, their sales representatives, and their local retailers as together they create digital strategies that power independent retail. For more information, visit https://alignedcon.com. About Promoboxx Promoboxx is the only retail marketing platform powered by brands. With Promoboxx, national manufacturing brands connect, manage, and market through their entire retail channel to engage consumers, extend brand reach, and increase local sales. Promoboxx empowers brands to activate independent, specialty retailers with localized, multi-channel content and campaigns. Retailers customize that content for their local markets and automatically promote it to their earned and paid audiences across social, mobile, email, web, and digital advertising channels -- all with just a few clicks. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Boston, Promoboxx partners with over 75 leading brands, including Chevrolet, GE Appliances, New Balance, and The North Face. And with over 3 million retailer campaigns launched, Promoboxx creates thousands of local consumer touchpoints with every campaign. For more information, visit www.promoboxx.com or call +1 (800) 380-7502 x3. Media Contact Isolde Decker-Lucke Promoboxx [email protected] [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] UnitedHealthcare's New and Enhanced Digital Health Resources Help Empower People to More Effectively Use Their Benefits and Curb Health Care Costs UnitedHealthcare, a UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) company, launched new and enhanced digital health resources to help employers access and understand health care data, save on premiums and encourage employees to more effectively use their health benefits. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005142/en/ Technology continues to reshape health care, as people turn to telemedicine, wearables and other digital health resources that help encourage well-being and enable people to make more informed health care choices (Source (News - Alert): UnitedHealthcare). The enhancements are in time for this year's open-enrollment period for employers and employees, which for most companies occurs during the fall for plans starting Jan. 1, 2019. The new and enhanced resources include: Health Plan Manager: This interactive tool enables employers to analyze and understand health data, providing an analytics-driven roadmap to help improve health outcomes, mitigate expenses, and empower employees to take charge of their health. The online resource - now available to employers with self-funded health plans with as few as 100 enrolled employees - helps employers implement clinical management and employee-engagement programs based on comprehensive analytics applied to various data sources, including aggregate medical and prescription claims, demographics, and clinical and well-being information. For instance, the platform enabled a self-funded national retailer to analyze its out-of-network claims for back surgeries, isolating the area and factors contributing most to these costs, and then launching an educational campaign that achieved estimated savings of nearly $1 million*. Digital Onboarding: Available to employers with 101 to 3,000 employees at no additional cost, Digital Onboarding is an online process that makes plan enrollment more personalized, and enables people to select relevant clinical, wellness or financial programs such as behavioral health, weight loss, pregnancy support and others. Recent and upcoming enhancements include year-round enrollment (for new hires or for qualifying life events), expanded support for third-party specialty products, and information about prescription drug coverage. Available to employers with 101 to 3,000 employees at no additional cost, Digital Onboarding is an online process that makes plan enrollment more personalized, and enables people to select relevant clinical, wellness or financial programs such as behavioral health, weight loss, pregnancy support and others. Recent and upcoming enhancements include year-round enrollment (for new hires or for qualifying life events), expanded support for third-party specialty products, and information about prescription drug coverage. PreCheck MyScript: This technology enables doctors and patients to view precise medication costs in real time and obtain prior authorization before leaving the exam room due to its direct integration into a physician's existing Electronic Medical Record platform. This may help encourage the selection of lower-cost drug alternatives, such as generics, or by changing the pharmacy selected to fill the prescription. Since its launch in 2017, PreCheck MyScript has provided doctors with preauthorization capabilities and formulary information more than 8 million times, resulting in a change to a lower-cost drug more than 20 percent of the time when a lower-priced clinically equivalent alternative is offered. PreCheck MyScript will be available to nearly 20,000 more care providers this fall. Nearly 115,000 prescribing physicians have already used PreCheck MyScript through various electronic medical record (EMR) platforms. By the end of 2019, the app is expected to reach 80 percent of UnitedHealthcare network physicians who prescribe electronically. Personalized Claims Videos: Nationwide, people who are enrolled in UnitedHealthcare individual and employer-sponsored plans can view personalized claims videos to help them better understand their benefits and what they owe following a covered medical service. The brief, personalized claims videos provide a step-by-step breakdown that shows exactly how each claim was processed, what their plan covered and how much is owed. Since launching earlier this year, the program has generated strong user-satisfaction ratings and has reduced the need for follow-up calls by 30 percent. These types of online resources are important for employers and employees. According to a recent UnitedHealthcare survey, 20 percent of Americans with health benefits say they are unprepared for health care open enrollment; and low health literacy costs the U.S. health care system upwards of $238 billion per year1. "Employers and employees want a more simplified and personalized health care experience, starting from plan enrollment and continuing throughout the person's journey toward better health," said Rebecca Madsen, UnitedHealthcare chief consumer officer. "UnitedHealthcare invests more than $3 billion annually in data, technology and innovation to help our customers and plan participants better understand and make the most of their health benefits, improve their health and well-being, and reduce their health care costs." About UnitedHealthcare UnitedHealthcare is dedicated to helping people live healthier lives and making the health system work better for everyone by simplifying the health care experience, meeting consumer health and wellness needs, and sustaining trusted relationships with care providers. In the United States, UnitedHealthcare offers the full spectrum of health benefit programs for individuals, employers, and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, and contracts directly with more than 1.2 million physicians and care professionals, and 6,500 hospitals and other care facilities nationwide. The company also provides health benefits and delivers care to people through owned and operated health care facilities in South America. UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified health care company. For more information, visit UnitedHealthcare at www.uhc.com or follow @UHC on Twitter (News - Alert). *Cost-savings results are averaged for illustrative purposes, and health outcomes are not guaranteed. 1U.S. Department of Education National Assessment of Adult Literacy Click here to subscribe to Mobile Alerts for UnitedHealth Group. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005142/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Many Current Retirees Enjoying More Treats Than Tricks A study by the Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) released today shows that many recent retirees are enjoying a financially secure retirement thanks to guaranteed monthly income from pensions and Social Security. But future retirees will not be as fortunate unless they accumulate significant personal savings. Only about 17 percent of private sector workers continue to have access to a traditional pension plan. IRI's report, "Retirement, Income and Risk," found that more than eight of 10 current retirees report income of at least 75 percent of what they earned before retirement. The study is based on a survey of recent retirees (American workers retired for five to 15 years) with at least $100,000 in savings. Further, only about 1 in 6 of retirees rely on Social Security for more than half of their retirement income, and two-thirds rely on an employer pension for at least 25 percent of their income. Most retirees with personal retirement savings are only tapping those accounts due to the legal requirement to take minimum annual distributions. "Our study shows that today's retirees are largely financially secure thanks to employer-providd pensions and Social Security benefits, allowing most of them to avoid accessing personal savings for monthly income," said Cathy Weatherford, IRI president and CEO. "But over the next several years, we'll see an influx of retirees who are not covered by a defined benefit pension, have not sufficiently saved for an increasingly longer retirement and who will rely on Social Security as their only source of guaranteed lifetime income." An IRI study earlier this year showed that 42 percent of Baby Boomers have no retirement savings, while 38 percent have less than $100,000 saved for a retirement that may last 30 years or more. The average retirement age in the U.S. is 63. Most workplace retirement plans today are based on defined contribution, such as 401(k) plans, in which employees contribute pre-tax dollars, sometimes including a matching contribution from an employer, as opposed to a pension with guaranteed lifetime income payments. Individuals may also choose to open Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) to accumulate retirement savings. To spur more retirement savings, IRI is advocating for federal legislation to make it easier for small businesses to offer workplace retirement programs through multi-employer plans. IRI also wants Congress to ease regulations that make it difficult for employers to offer guaranteed lifetime income options within retirement plans. Congress may act on retirement security legislation later this year. Weatherford said Congress needs to act quickly to address the looming retirement crisis that Americans will face without sufficient retirement savings. "Social Security was meant to supplement retirement income, not be the sole source of it," Weatherford said. "We must do more to encourage workers to save for retirement." Weatherford added, "Guaranteed income products provided by the private sector are the only solutions that can provide monthly income guaranteed for life. These products can be purchased with a portion of retirement savings to give retirees financial security while maintaining a portion of savings for unexpected expenses." About the Insured Retirement Institute: The Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) is the leading association for the retirement income industry and represents the entire supply chain of insured retirement strategies. Learn more at www.irionline.org. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005104/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] DoubleHorn Announces Reselling Agreement with Alibaba Cloud AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- DoubleHorn, a cloud solutions provider and cloud services brokerage, is proud to announce its agreement with Alibaba as an authorized reseller of Alibaba Cloud technology. The Significance Of Alibaba Cloud Agreement As a cloud brokerage firm, DoubleHorn offers a variety of options for customers looking to migrate their business to the cloud. DoubleHorns agreement with Alibaba Cloud now brings its total number of cloud provider agreements to six . Having Alibaba Cloud as part of our portfolio offers even more choice at a competitive price point for customers exploring multi-cloud in alternative regions, said Uttam Reddy, DoubleHorns Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales. Partnering with Alibaba Cloud helps DoubleHorn go forward with future business opportunities. Alibabas Rapid Growth In Cloud Technology Alibaba Cloud is the fourth largest cloud provider in the world behind AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud as shown on the LIFTR Index and is growing at an astronomical rate of 113% year-over-year in revenue. Not only has Alibaba Cloud expanded rapidly into the Asia-Pacific region but the cloud company has now extended its reach into Europe and North America. With DoubleHorn, Alibaba Cloud has a US-based multi-cloud broker to leverage and grow its US market share, especially for US companies with a large compute storage or data presence in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Rim. For DoubleHorn, this agreement establishes an early presence as a US company partner with Alibaba Cloud. DoubleHorns Alibaba Cloud Report For more information on Alibaba Cloud, read Liftrs comprehensive report highlighting opportunities, services, market share, revenue growth and more on the growing cloud giant. We are excited to be an early partner with Alibaba Cloud in North America. As addressed in our recent report on Alibaba Cloud, they are showing rapid growth in a market full of opportunity, said Drew Bixby, Director of Technical Services at DoubleHorn. As a leading cloud brokerage firm, DoubleHorn prides itself on offering choices for businesses looking to compare different providers. Companies looking to migrate to the cloud can visit DoubleHorn.com. DoubleHorn is proud to now add Alibaba Cloud to the list of cloud providers and services it offers. About DoubleHorn: Austin, Texas-based DoubleHorn is a leading Cloud solutions provider and services broker founded in 2005. DoubleHorn is dedicated to helping companies navigate technology transformations using their Cloud brokerage and management platform. Learn more about DoubleHorns services . There can be a vast difference between theory and practice. Just because you have a PhD in musicology doesn't mean you can play "Wonderwall" on the guitar, and just because you've seen a dozen tutorials on YouTube doesn't mean you'll juggle chainsaws and be able to live to give thumbs up about it. We can now add conspiracy plotting to that list of contrasts, because one right-wing operative finally decided to put in some practice hours and failed immediately and spectacularly. Former FBI director Robert Mueller's investigation into the Russia-Trump allegations has been like watching a train crash happen in glacial slow motion. While little has been revealed or resolved, the whole affair has been hinting at such a grand scope of corruption and incompetence inside President Trump's cabal that John Oliver has dubbed it "Stupid Watergate." But perhaps the dumbest (so far) twist to the tale happened this past Tuesday, when a small contingent of knuckleheads tried to shock the world with proof that Mueller has sexually assaulted women. Except that it was a load of nonsense, and journalists took to Twitter to unravel the conspiracy so fast that it'd make Richard Nixon's head spin in its Futurama jar. For the past week, conservative lobbyist Jack Burkman was posting that he was in contact with several women who had been sexually assaulted by the special counsel. But before the fake bombshell about Mueller could even be dropped, The Atlantic published a story on how several journalists have been in contact with two women claiming to have been offered tens of thousands of dollars by a company called Surefire Intelligence to accuse Mueller of sexually assaulting them. Mueller was made aware of this, and had already asked the FBI to launch their own investigation into this plot. [October 31, 2018] AppRiver Bolsters Executive Management Team with Chief Marketing Officer Gulf Breeze, Florida, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AppRiver, the leading provider of cloud-based cybersecurity and productivity services, today announced Cleve Bellar as Chief Marketing Officer. Bellar brings more than 20 years of transformative marketing success and leadership experience, with a proven track record of driving compelling digital brand experiences and disrupting industries for next-gen growth. In this newly created role, Bellar will lead AppRivers next chapter of channel-first, innovation-driven market growth. Bellar most recently served as CMO of ValueInsured, a change leader in the highly competitive, trillion-dollar housing FinTech space. Bellar played a pivotal role in growing its national partner network and securing the companys late-stage funding by propelling the growth company to a top-of-mind, frequently-cited industry thought-leader within two years. Prior to ValueInsured, Bellar held vice-president and senior marketing leadership roles at Sage Software, LexisNexis and CA. Cleve brings to us a rare combination of robust global-brand strategic chops, and nimble creative intuition you cant teach, said Michael Murdoch, chief executive officer and president of AppRiver. We conducted an exhaustive nationwide search for the best talent to help us elevate AppRiver as a next-gen cybersecurity leader for channel partners serving SMBs. In Cleve, we ound an impressive new voice who gets who we are, and how much more we will be. About AppRiver AppRiver is a channel-first provider of cloud-based cybersecurity and productivity services, with a 4,500-strong reseller community that serves 60,000 companies worldwide. Launched in 2002, with spam and virus filtering as its flagship service, AppRiver has since added web protection, email encryption, secure archiving, and email continuity solutions to its suite of cloud-based security services. The company has also established itself among the worlds top providers of Office 365 and Secure Hosted Exchange solutions. All services are offered on a pay-as-you-go basis and backed by award-winning 24/7 white-glove Phenomenal Care customer service. AppRiver is headquartered in Gulf Breeze, Florida and maintains offices in Georgia, Texas, Canada, Switzerland and Spain. For more information, please visit www.appriver.com. Cleve Bellar, AppRiver Chief Marketing Officer. Attachment CleveBellar Jim McClellan AppRiver 850-932-5338 [email protected] [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Rhapsody Announces Completion of Acquisition by Hg, Launches as Independent Company Under New Leadership Rhapsody, a global leader in healthcare interoperability and data liquidity solutions, today announced that the company has completed its separation from Orion Health Group in accordance with its acquisition by Hg, a specialist technology investor with deep global healthcare expertise. Erkan Akyuz will serve as President and CEO of Rhapsody. The company also announced that its global headquarters will be located in Boston, Massachusetts. The acquisition by Hg allows Rhapsody's new management to focus investment in the company's product and service capabilities. In addition, over the next 18 months, the company plans to increase its workforce by 40%, with a third of all hiring happening in product development roles. Philippe Houssiau, Hg Operating Partner and part of the Hg investment team on the transaction, acted as Interim CEO between signing and closing and will now join the company's board of directors as Chairman. Houssiau was formerly CEO of Agfa Healthcare, CEO of Alliance Medical, and a senior partner at PwC. Rhapsody will benefit from the deep healthcare expertise of Houssiau and Akyuz - both bring decades of experience leading healthcare IT businesses to Rhapsody. Prior to joining Rhapsody, Akyuz led the medical ventures arm of Evident, where he continues to serve in an advisory capacity and also hed senior leadership positions at Change Healthcare and McKesson. David Issott, Partner at Hg said, "We are delighted to be partnering with Philippe, Erkan and the entire executive team at Rhapsody. Rhapsody is our third investment in healthcare technology this year, a sector where we see tremendous opportunity for growth. We are excited to be able to back a world class product such as Rhapsody and enable further investment in its product, people and capabilities." "Rhapsody is by far the most proven, stable and reliable integration engine in healthcare. As a new entity, backed by a knowledgeable and experienced investor, we will have even more resources to devote to building out functionality to meet changing market needs and reinforce our position as the undisputed leader in data liquidity solutions," said Akyuz. "As part of our calculated growth plan, Rhapsody will collaborate closely with its customers and strategic partners to meet the changing needs of healthcare organizations across the entire ecosystem." "Data liquidity is the fundamental challenge for healthcare today," said Houssiau. "Once we can access and share normalized data from all of the endpoints in healthcare, we can truly unleash the power of innovation and disruption to transform quality of care and bend the cost curve. Rhapsody is already embedded across the healthcare continuum, and we are uniquely positioned to play a vital role in taking data interoperability to a whole new level of accessibility, security and utility." About Rhapsody With more than 500 customers globally, including over 350 in the US, Rhapsody sets the standard for healthcare interoperability and data liquidity. Purpose-built for healthcare, Rhapsody has been one of the most recognized and trusted interoperability platforms for healthcare organizations for almost 20 years. To learn more about Rhapsody, visit https://rhapsody.health/. About Hg Hg is a sector expert investor, committed to helping build ambitious businesses across the technology, services and industrial technology space, primarily in Europe. Deeply resourced sector teams focus on specific sub-sectors and investment themes to identify companies occupying an established position within a niche, and which have the potential to grow faster than their market, create employment and become the leader in their industry. Hg's dedicated operations innovation team provides practical support to management teams to help them realize their growth ambitions. Based in London and Munich, Hg has funds under management of c. 10 billion serving some of the world's leading institutional and private investors. For further details, please see www.hgcapital.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005536/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Clearwater Says New National Survey Findings A 'Wake-up Call' for Health System Cybersecurity In the wake of a record-breaking $16 million data breach settlement earlier this month that put insurers and provides alike on notice that ignoring cybersecurity risks could come with a hefty price tag (News - Alert), a new national survey of U.S. health systems finds that only 29 percent report having a comprehensive cybersecurity program in place. "Due to a growing number of internal and external security threats, it has become increasingly more difficult for healthcare organizations to protect their sensitive information, including patients' personal health information," according to CHIME HealthCare's Most Wired: National Trends 2018 report issued today during the annual CHIME Fall CIO Forum in San Diego. Clearwater, a CHIME member and top-ranked healthcare cyber risk management solutions company, was a sponsor of the research for a second year. Clearwater Chief Trust & Security Officer Richard Staynings said the findings from this year's Most Wired research should be a wake-up call for health system leadership especially as healthcare becomes increasingly digital (the overall Internet of Medical Things, or IoMT, market is expected to grow from $41 billion in 2017 to $158 billion by 2022, Deloitte, July 2018). "The question every board of directors and executive leadership team should be asking themselves is, have we done a sufficient risk analysis, and if not, why not?" said Staynings. "In our own analysis of the past 57 OCR settlements involving a breach of electronic protected health information, in 88 percent of the cases, the healthcare organization failed to do a sufficient risk analysis. That's pretty mind boggling." The Anthem data breach, affecting nearly 79 million people, is the largest ever reported, and statistics show healthcare breaches are on the rise, with 277 breaches through the first nine months of 2018, compared with 271 during the same period the year before. Most breaches stemmed from hacking or "IT incidents," according to the HHS Office of Civil Rights (OCR), which enforces Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy and security rules. Breaches currently under investigation canbe found here. Regulators also noted that Anthem failed to take several basic security steps, including conducting an enterprise-wide security risk assessment on all assets involved with PHI, including assets thought to be "out of scope." While Most Wired found most respondents have taken at least one step toward an incident-response plan (97 percent said they have a documented EHR-outage prodecure, for example), only 29 percent reported having a comprehensive cybersecurity program in place, just 26 percent surveyed said they had adopted all 10 critical components of an incident response plan, while 43 percent had adopted 7-9 components, and 31 percent reported adoption of fewer than seven. "Before provider organizations can achieve outcomes with their strategies for population health management, value-based care, patient engagement, and telehealth, they must first ensure that foundational pieces such as integration, interoperability, security, and disaster recovery are in place," the CHIME report concluded. The annual Most Wired survey is designed to identify and recognize healthcare organizations that exemplify best practices through their adoption, implementation and use of information technology. This is CHIME's first year to oversee the Most Wired program since acquiring it from the American Hospital Association. Participation is open to all CIOs and qualified health organizations. This year's research added a new emphasis on measuring key areas to help identify gaps in healthcare organizations' technology adoption and strategies and to highlight areas in which the industry has opportunities to make progress. The key areas that emerged from this year's research were: Foundational Technologies: Integration and Interoperability Security and Disaster Recovery Transformational Technologies: Population Health Management and Value-Based Care Patient Engagement and Telehealth Clearwater has long been a leader in cyber risk management solutions, and its founder and executive chairman, Bob Chaput, is known as an industry trailblazer. He recently authored a chapter titled "Compliance Risk Management and Cyber Risk Management" in the Wolters Kluwer 2019 Health Law and Compliance Update, now in its 16th year. The publication features national experts who address key developments in healthcare delivery, payment, and compliance. Chaput's chapter includes practical advice and analytical tools for use in organizational compliance and cyber risk management programs in addition to a timely and thorough analysis. The chapter includes topics such as: What constitutes an OCR-quality risk analysis Jump-starting an effective cyber risk management program The consequences of an inadequate risk analysis Critical building blocks for a comprehensive, enterprise-wide information risk management program Three pillars of HIPAA compliance Governance Most common risk analysis mistakes A case study: St. Joseph Health The chapter addresses the misconception that compliance risk management and cyber risk management are synonymous. Chaput explains the differences between the two, and gives healthcare organizations the information they need to evaluate where gaps may exist in their compliance and cyber risk management programs. The chapter focuses on what is involved in a comprehensive risk analysis, and offers actionable steps an organization can take to move toward a comprehensive information risk management program. "Compliance risk management is a critical component of any healthcare organization's overall risk management program," said Chaput. "Yet, compliance is only one part of a much bigger information risk management picture. Cyber risk management takes a more complete look at an organization's information assets, threats and vulnerabilities than compliance risk management does." The 2019 Edition of the book can be purchased from Wolters Kluwer: https://lrus.wolterskluwer.com/ About Clearwater Clearwater provides the most complete and trusted, enterprise-class cyber risk management solution available. Designed for healthcare providers and their partners, Clearwater's IRM|Pro platform and experienced professional services team provide insights and actions to address compliance, cyber and patient safety risks. Clearwater is a 2017 Inc. 5000 fastest-growing company, the 2018 Best in KLAS winner in Cybersecurity Advisory Services, the 2017 and 2018 Black Book Marketing Research winner in Compliance and Risk Management Solutions, and exclusively endorsed by the American Hospital Association as well as numerous state hospital associations. Clearwater solutions have been deployed within hundreds of hospitals and health systems, Fortune 100 organizations, and federal government institutions. More information about Clearwater is at clearwatercompliance.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005243/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Andes RISC-V CON Debuts at Hyatt Regency Santa Clara November 13; Linley Group, MediaTek, Andes, Faraday, GOWIN, Imperas Software, Hex Five, and XtremeEDA to Detail RISC-V Technology Advance San Jose, California, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Andes Technology Corporation, a leading supplier of small gate count, low-power and high performance 32/64-bit embedded CPU cores today announced the debut of RISC-V CON on Tuesday November 13, at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara. A highlight of the event will be the giveaway of over 100 RISC-V software development kits (SDKs). The SDKs consists of a GOWIN Semiconductor processor board with GOWINs Arora GW2A-18 FPGA containing Andes RISC-V core. The SDKs also contain the comprehensive and industrial-strength AndeSight integrated development environment (IDE), which is specialized for this SDK and will be available for download from the GOWIN website for programming and debug. Over 100 RISC-V software development kits (SDKs) to be given to lucky attendees. The SDKs consists of a GOWIN Semiconductor processor board with GOWINs Arora GW2A-18 FPGA containing Andes RISC-V core. The SDKs also contain the comprehensive and industrial-strength AndeSight integrated development environment (IDE), which is specialized for this SDK and will be available for download from the GOWIN website for programming and debug. The conference will begin with the keynote presentation from Liley Gwennap, Founder of The Linley Group, Inc. Roadmap Directions for the RISC-V Architecture. At 11:00 Linley will also moderate the panel Is RISC-V Ready for Your Design? Shichin Ouyang, MediaTek Director of Technology will describe RISC-V from MediaTeks Perspective. Andes CTO & Senior VP Dr. Charlie Su will detail Comprehensive RISC-V Solutions for Diversified SoCs and Andes President Frankwell Lin will present Unleashing Chip Design Barrier with RISC-V. GOWIN Semiconductor concludes the morning program by detailing the RISC-V Microprocessor Implementation for FPGA Solutions. After lunch, the conference gets down to the business of RISC-V application development. Andes Technology begins with Ecosystem and Solutions for AIoT. XtremeEDA next provides Thoughts on Hierarchical SoC Verification, and Faraday describes Designing RISC-V SoC based on Faraday Solution. Hex Five Security, Inc. will demonstrate Trusted Execution Environments on RISC-V. Imperas Software follows presenting Building a RISC-V Virtual Platform for Rapid Embedded Software Development. And Andes Technology will conclude with Andes Software Solutions for RISC-V, detailing the AndeSight IDE available for the GOWIN board. About RISC-V CON RISC-V CON is the first RISC-V conference aimed at SoC developers designing on open-source ISA and software. It will be held on November 13th at the Santa Clara Hyatt Regency Hotel beginning at 9:00 AM. Andes Technology and GOWIN Semiconductor will be providing attendees RISC-V SDKs. Each SDK comprises a GOWIN board with GW2A-18 FPGA containing Andes RISC-V core and Andes AICE-MINI+ linking USB to JTAG for software debug. Registration still available at this link . Complete conference information available at this link . About Andes Technology Corporation Andes Technology Corporation was founded in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan in 2005 to develop innovative high-performance/low-power 32/64-bit processor cores and associated development environment to serve worldwide rapidly growing embedded system applications. The company delivers the best super low power CPU cores, including the rising star RISC-V series with integrated development environment and associated software and hardware solutions for efficient SoC design. Up to the end of 2017, the cumulative amount of SoCs containing Andes CPU IP reaches 2.5 billion. To meet the demanding requirements of today's electronic devices, Andes Technology delivers configurable software/hardware IP and scalable platforms to respond to customers' needs for quality products and faster time-to-market. Andes Technology's comprehensive CPU line includes entry-level, mid-range, high-end, extensible and security families to address the full range of embedded electronics products, especially for connected, smart and green applications. From 2017, Andes expanded its product line and provides a total solution of RISC-V, the RISC-V series as V5 families processors cores include 32/64-bit N25/NX25 for general purpose, N25F/NX25F for floating-point intensive applications and A25/AX25 for Linux-based applications. For more information about Andes Technology, please visit the company home page . Attachment Gowin Board Jonah McLeod Andes Technology Corporation 510 449 8634 [email protected] [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] VSORA Appoints Dr. Albert Camilleri to the Newly Created Position of Vice President of Business Development for North America Responsibilities Include Identifying North American Strategic Business Opportunities and Growing VSORAs IP Licensing Business PARIS, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VSORA , an entrepreneurial startup delivering multicore digital signal processing (DSP) intellectual property (IP) for 5G wireless networks, today appointed Dr. Albert Camilleri as vice president of business development for North America. Dr. Camilleri, who most recently served as director of engineering at Qualcomm, joins VSORA with more than 25 years of engineering leadership in wireless telecommunications and computer design, reports to Khaled Maalej, its chief executive officer. He will be responsible for identifying North American strategic business opportunities and growing VSORAs IP licensing business. We are delighted Dr. Albert Camilleri agreed to join VSORA, remarks Maalej. He brings a solid technical background to his business development role, having worked in a number of disciplines in computer architecture, deign and verification. We will look to his expertise and uncommon experience to help us move into the next phase of our business. Prior to Qualcomm, Dr. Camilleri led business ventures and customer partnerships for Silicon Valley startups and Fortune 500 companies in the United States and Europe, including Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge in the U.K. and Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Computer Science from the University of Kent in Canterbury, also in the U.K. VSORA (Vectorized SOftware RAdio) designs and markets a new DSP development flow for digital communications systems to allow signal processing engineers and software engineers to share the same environment and source code. The development flow reduces the silicon footprint by boosting DSP compute power while optimizing power consumption and system performance. VSORA has an exceptionally bright future, says Dr. Camilleri. The 5G wave is coming and VSORA has all the right elements to ride it. Its an exciting time to be part of what is destined to be an influential startup. About VSORA VSORA offers innovative DSP IP solutions to accelerate the design of complex integrated circuits, prevalent in the mobile, networking and consumer product markets. It was founded in 2015 by DSP engineers from the former DiBcom, now part of Parrot, and has offices in Meudon La Foret, France. For more information, visit: www.vsora.com For more information, contact: Nanette Collins Public Relations for VSORA (617) 437-1822 [email protected] [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Unifi Recognized as a Leader in Data Preparation Solutions by Independent Research Firm SAN MATEO, Calif., Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Unifi Software, a leader in providing a seamlessly integrated suite of self-service data tools, today announced it was recognized as a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Data Preparation Solutions, Q4 2018 report1 by Forrester Research, Inc. Top-ranked in the Current Offering category, Unifi received the highest scores possible in the Machine Learning, Metadata Management and Cataloging, Team Collaboration features, and Security and Governance criteria. The Forrester Wave report recognizes what we believe to be critical capabilities for companies implementing governed self-service data accessmachine learning automation and team collaboration. Unifi executes these brilliantly across our data platform, said Rob Carlson, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder for Unifi Software. Business users must be able to find and use data to compete in todays rapidly evolving marketplace. We are the only vendor to be named a Leader with the same product evaluated in both The Forrester Wave: Machine Learning Data Catalogs and Data Preparation Solutions by Forrester this year and were extremely proud of that achievement. In its report1, Forrester states that Data Preparation solutions are the rocket fuel for data activation and that companies must, Put trusted data where the money is, with machine learning doing work for end users. Effective data management isnt a goal, or even an end in itself. As complex as it is, its just a contributor to the true goal: using insights based on data to take actions. Enterprises need to put data for generating insights where the money gets generated: directly into the hands of more people in the firm whose organizational and individual goals depend on improving business outcomes. Data Prep solutions achieve this with ML optimization for hands-on use by business end users and analysts, along with governance capabilities for data stewards, data engineers, and data ops users. The Forrester Report states that Unifi Software democratizes data prep along with strongcataloging and governance, and that Unifi combines data prep, integrated cataloging, and ML capabilities to feed analytics. The firm added that the company supports self-service by differentiating the governance of sensitive data across the platform. This manifests itself uniquely in the Unifi Data Platform where derived attributes are automatically scanned for PII and masked if the function either intentionally or inadvertently creates PII data, a major cause of non-compliance. As part of the evaluation criteria, customer references (data professionals in this case), praise the accessibility of the solution for nontechnical users and its greater simplicity and flexibility versus more traditional methods, as well as its data governance, which one reference said, helped us become GDPR compliant in a breeze, according to Forrester. Data Preparation continues to move out of IT: In 2017, 70% of global data and analytics decision makers reported that IT (including a chief data officer in IT) had significant ownership of data preparation; that fell to 66% in 2018, with 15% of the responsibility for data prep now in lines of business2. The Forrester report notes thats a good thing. Professionals across firms need to activate data, wherever they are on the org chart: in customer insights, customer experience, digital, and marketing; in operational areas such as service and supply chain; and in corporate areas such as competitive intelligence, finance, and human resources. Data prep solutions make it possible for data to be where it needs to be. About Unifi Software Unifi Software delivers a suite of self-service data tools that help users find and the use the data that is most important to them. The Unifi Data Catalog with Natural Language Queries offers users an intuitive experience to easily discover and collaborate around data. At the heart of the Unifi Data Catalog is the Unifi OneMind AI technology powering every aspect of functionality from recommendations to the discovery of similar datasets to Natural Language Query support that helps users directly get answers to data questions. Integrated governance and security help maintain compliance for self-service access to data. The Unifi Data Platform incorporates the Unifi Data Catalog and seamlessly delivers advanced, OneMind-powered self-service data preparation. The Unifi Data Platform also incorporates workflow automation functions to help users and organizational teams create repeatable reporting and analysis. Both the Unifi Data Catalog and Unifi Data Platform can be deployed on-premises, in private or public cloud environments. Unifi was founded by data and enterprise infrastructure experts from Greenplum (now part of Dell Technologies), Oracle, Microsoft, and Platfora (now part of Workday). The company is headquartered in San Mateo, CA and operates regional offices across the U.S. and a development center in Bangalore, India. Source: 1 Forrester Research, The Forrester Wave: Data Preparation Solutions, Q4 2018. 31 October 2018. Source: 2 Forrester Analytics Global Business Technographics Data And Analytics Survey, 2018 and 2017. ### Company: www.UnifiSoftware.com Unifi Software on Twitter: @UnifiSoftware Unifi Software on LinkedIn: Unifi Software Press Contact: Deborah Mullan Director, Corporate Communications Unifi Software (925) 383-7765 [email protected] [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Gurucul Customer Allina Health Recognized with 2019 CSO50 Award for Patient Data Privacy Project During Super Bowl LII Gurucul, a leader in behavior based security and fraud analytics technology for on-premises and the cloud, today announced its customer Allina Health has been named an honoree in the prestigious 2019 CSO50 Awards from IDG's CSO. Allina was recognized for a project that implemented User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) to protect player and VIP medical records from "snooping" and theft during Super Bowl LII. This is the third consecutive year that a Gurucul customer has received a CSO50 Award. The annual CSO50 awards recognize a select group of organizations for security projects that have demonstrated outstanding business value and thought leadership. Allina Health will be honored at a special awards dinner on April 10 during the CSO50 Conference + Awards at the Talking Stick Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. A full list of the CSO50 Award honorees is posted online at: https://bit.ly/2za5PCv. In addition, the project is highlighted in a short video at https://vimeo.com/265702796. "Healthcare data belonging to athletes and VIPs associated with the Super Bowl was extremely coveted on the black market by bettors, celebrity gossip outlets and others, and as such required even higher levels of privacy controls," said William (Bill) Scandrett, Chief Information Security Officer of Allina Health. "Working with Gurucul we were quickly able to implement an analytics-based behavior monitoring system that could detect unauthorized access across a network used by thousands of employees, that contains millions of records." Allina Health is a non-profit healthcare system based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with more than 90 clinics, 12 hospitals and 15 retail pharmacies. The company partnered with Gurucul to deploy a patient data privacy protection solution that could monitor 50 million transactions per day. Using Gurucul's UEBA technology, Allina is able to analyze user and entity (device) behavor at machine speed and identify anomalies associated with suspicious, malicious or unauthorized activity. Since the Super Bowl, Allina has extended the project's scope to its complete network of hospitals, clinics and pharmacies. The Gurucul system is monitoring thousands of users, millions of patient records and more than 50 thousand entities including medical equipment, security cameras and mobile devices that connect to the Wi-Fi network. "The Allina Health project was significant in its scope, scale and deployment time frame, since we had less than one week to roll it out before the Super Bowl," said Saryu Nayyar, CEO of Gurucul. "It was such a success that Allina has extended Gurucul across its entire ecosystem. We are very pleased that the CSO50 Awards have recognized Allina for the many innovations, including entity behavior monitoring, they have put in place to protect patient data privacy." "This year's class of CSO50 award winners raise the bar on security innovation," said Amy Bennett, executive editor, CSO. "While delivering business value and demonstrating thought leadership are the metrics on which they are measured, the greater value is in the peer-to-peer sharing of ideas across a range of industries, across company sizes, for-profit and not-for-profit, public and private. The magic really happens on the stage at the CSO50 conference when these projects are brought to life in presentations and panel discussions. It is an honor to give them the recognition they deserve." About the CSO50 Awards The CSO50 Awards recognizes 50 organizations for security projects and initiatives that demonstrate outstanding business value and thought leadership. The CSO50 Awards are scored according to a uniform set of criteria by a panel of judges that includes security leaders and industry experts. The 2019 awards will be presented at the CSO50 Conference + Awards, April 8- 10, 2019, at the Talking Stick Resort, Scottsdale, Arizona. About CSO CSO is the premier content and community resource for security decision-makers leading "business risk management" efforts within their organization. For more than a decade, CSO's award-winning web site (CSOonline.com), executive conferences, strategic marketing services and research have equipped security decision-makers to mitigate both IT and corporate/physical risk for their organizations and provided opportunities for security vendors looking to reach this audience. To assist CSOs in educating their organizations' employees on corporate and personal security practices, CSO also produces the quarterly newsletter Security Smart. CSO is published by IDG Communications, Inc. Company information is available at www.idg.com. About Gurucul Gurucul is a global cyber security and fraud analytics company that is changing the way organizations protect their most valuable assets, data and information from insider and external threats both on-premises and in the cloud. Gurucul's real-time security analytics and fraud analytics technology combines machine learning behavior profiling with predictive risk-scoring algorithms to predict, prevent and detect breaches and fraud. Gurucul technology is used by Global Fortune 1000 companies and government agencies to fight cyber fraud, IP theft, insider threats and account compromise. The company is based in Los Angeles. To learn more, visit https://gurucul.com/ and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005559/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Som Seif announced as a featured speaker at the GMP Securities' Blockchain Conference TORONTO, Oct. 31, 2018 /CNW/ - GMP Securities L.P. (GMP Securities), a wholly-owned subsidiary of GMP Capital Inc. (TSX: GMP), today announced that Som Seif, Founder and CEO of Purpose Investments, as a featured speaker as part of an exciting line-up of digital visionaries at the GMP Securities Blockchain Conference to be held on November 13, 2018 at The Ritz-Carlton, Toronto. Mr. Seif is a North-American ETF industry pioneer and long-time fintech industry advocate. In addition to his role at Purpose Investments, Mr. Seif is also Co-Chief Investment Officer and Executive Chairman of Ether Capital, a firm he helped finance along with Ontario pension giant OMERS. Ether Capital has rapidly become the central business and investment hub for the Ethereum ecosystem and aims to invest in Ethereum's native utility token "Ether" as a strategic asset, and selectively invest in, or acquire, Ethereum-based businesses. In 2011, Som was recognized forhis vision and leadership with the Top 40 Under 40 award. The GMP Securities Blockchain Conference will include a series of featured speakers and panel discussions and critical debate. The event represents a unique opportunity to hear directly from recognized blockchain experts on topics such as: institutional investing in blockchain, regulation, crypto mining, tokenization and security token offerings and the future of fintech. This year's event promises to be an unmissable opportunity given the exciting line-up of icons of the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry. Please contact your GMP representative to register for the conference. ABOUT GMP CAPITAL INC. GMP is a leading independent diversified financial services firm headquartered in Toronto, Canada, providing a wide range of financial products and services to a global client base that includes corporate clients, institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals in two integrated reporting segments. The Capital Markets segment provides investment banking, including advisory and underwriting services, institutional sales and trading and research through offices in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Bahamas. Wealth Management consists of GMP's non-controlling ownership interest in Richardson GMP Limited. Richardson GMP Limited, Canada's largest independent wealth management firm, is focused on providing exclusive and comprehensive wealth management and investment services delivered by an experienced team of investment professionals. GMP is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "GMP". For further information, please visit our corporate website at gmpcapital.com. SOURCE GMP Capital Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] CleanFund's $2.5 Million in Commercial PACE Financing Enables $39 Million Hotel Indigo in Rochester MN to 'Go Green' ROCHESTER, Minn. and SAUSALITO, Calif., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- CleanFund, the leading nationwide provider of Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) financing, announced today closing $2.5 million in C-PACE funding for a 178-room Hotel Indigo at 220 S. Broadway in downtown Rochester, MN. The hotel is undertaking a $20 million rehab-redesign of a former Holiday Inn to create a fully modernized, amenity-laden Hotel Indigo. The attractive financing package delivered by CleanFund included a 20-year term and a rate significantly lower than alternative capital. With CleanFund's financing enabling a lower cost of capital, the redevelopment project was able to include the 'green' attributes that today's hospitality guests demand, such as energy-efficient HVAC, upgraded windows for efficiency and sound proofing, and LED lighting along with low-flow water fixtures. "Once CleanFund educated us on C-PACE, it was just a matter of selecting our first project. We view C-PACE as a valuable financing tool that complements our other sources of capital," said Jason Bass, Director of Finance at EKN Development Group, the lead member of the project joint venture. Newport Beach, CA-based EKN has over 1,500 hotel rooms currently under development including properties in Minnesota, San Francisco, Monterey and Italy. "CleanFund's C-PACE financing lowered our weighted average cot of capital for the overall project, and allowed us avoid any value-engineering that can sometimes pressure a project to cut back on green attributes. No doubt, it's a better building with C-PACE." "More and more hospitality and mixed-use projects are integrating C-PACE financing as part of their overall capital strategy as companies like EKN see the benefits to their bottom line and for their properties' guests and tenants," said Chris Robbins, Managing Director of Sausalito, CA-based CleanFund. Another innovative aspect of this transaction is that the C-PACE funding was able to be utilized for a multi-use property operating under a Home Owner Association (HOA) structure. The C-PACE improvements will provide primary benefits to the Hotel Indigo but also to separately-owned condominium-office spaces on the ground floor and upper-floor residential condominium homes. With an opening date planned in mid-2019, the new Hotel Indigo will accommodate business, leisure and family travelers. Other improvements related to the redevelopment project include a completely redesigned and renovated main lobby, pool, common areas, and all the hotel rooms. C-PACE financing, first introduced in 2008, is a form of voluntary parcel tax assessment financing to fund qualifying improvements that reduce energy and water usage, and that provide seismic and other resiliency benefits to the built environment. About CleanFund Sausalito, CA-based CleanFund is the leading nationwide direct provider of Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) financing for major capital expenditures on electrical, mechanical, water and structural systems in commercial and multifamily buildings to enhance their energy performance, water efficiency, and resiliency. Since its founding in 2009, CleanFund has built significant expertise in commercial real estate, renewable energy, capital markets, and public policy to create lasting value for property owners seeking long-term, fixed-rate capital for building retrofits and new construction. Visit www.CleanFund.com. About EKN Development Group EKN Development Group is a real estate development firm specializing in hospitality, mixed-use and high-density residential development. EKN aims to deliver above market risk-adjusted returns to its investors through the broad offerings of its diversified and premier project portfolio. Visit EKN at http://www.ekndevgroup.com. Contact: For CleanFund, Ron Heckmann (510) 652-5800 [email protected] Alice Reeve, [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cleanfunds-2-5-million-in-commercial-pace-financing-enables-39-million-hotel-indigo-in-rochester-mn-to-go-green-300741398.html SOURCE CleanFund [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] New Event Series for the Strategic IR Officer Begins with Focus on Activism and Investor Engagement The New York Chapter of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI NY) will launch "The Strategic IRO" event series on November 19 with a panel discussion on shareholder activism and the changing dynamics of shareholder outreach. In contrast to the headline trend of active to passive, a rising tide of progressive investment philosophies is expanding the role of activism. In 2018 YTD, activists initiated 145 campaigns, deploying an all-time high $40 billion of capital. Both active and passive investors underpin this trend. There are 112 full-time activist funds globally, but 662 investors made public demands in 2017; only 54 of these investors use activism as their main strategy. With the amplification of active portfolio management across the spectrum of active and passive funds, the need for proactive, strategic shareholder engagement is paramount. The Strategic IRO will develop a framework to address strategy, governance, social, environmental and other advancing agendas throughout the investment community. Key discussion topics: How should companies assess vulnerabilities from an investment perspective? What are the new trends in evaluating current shareholder profile, such as index concentration, stock lending and part-time activism? How should IROs tailor engagement tactics - materials, timing, participants - for different types of investors, such as index, active and quantitative managers? How do IROs strike the right balance between "self-directed" outreach and sell-side roadshows? Why should IROs integrate ESG issues into shareholder engagement? How should IROs incorporate governance outreach and consider direct engagement between the Board of Directors and shareholders? How should companies think about transitioning traditionalIR discussions to more meaningful conversations about long-term strategic growth and corporate vision? Visit the NIRI NY website to find out more and register: http://www.niriny.org/events/event-calendar/event-details/2018/The-Strategic-IRO-Changing-Dynamics-of-Shareholder-Outreach-Inside-the-Mind-of-the-Buy-Side/default.aspx About NIRI New York (http://www.niriny.org) NIRI New York is the largest chapter in the NIRI network. Our unique position at the crossroads of the world's largest financial center and a broad base of Fortune 500 and other leading companies, enables us to attract a dynamic membership base, deliver cutting edge programs featuring our industry's most respected leaders, unparalleled peer-to-peer networking opportunities and access to thought leadership across multiple channels. Visit http://www.niriny.org/join/join/default.aspx to join NIRI NY today. LinkedIn (News - Alert): NIRI NY Group Twitter (News - Alert): @niri_ny YouTube (News - Alert): NIRI NY Chapter View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005624/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Florida State Department of Health to Award HealthSpace a State-Wide Contract VANCOUVER, Oct. 31, 2018 /CNW/ - HealthSpace Data Systems Ltd. (the "Company" or "HealthSpace") (CSE:HS) (Frankfurt:38H) (OTC:HDSLF) announces that the Florida Department of Health ("DOH") has posted on MyForidaMarketPlace Vendor Bid System its intent to award a five year contract to HealthSpace USA Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company subject to successful contract negotiations. HealthSpace President, Joseph Willmott stated "This is the largest single contract bid ever issued by an environmental health regulatory body." The contract will be for the installation and maintenance of the HealthSpace CS Pro Enterprise Cloud application for the entire State of Florida with over 1,100 concurrent users. DOH provides environmental health services to detect and prevent disease caused by atural and manmade factors in the environment. Further details regarding this contract will be announced once a final contract is signed by both parties. About HealthSpace HealthSpace is an industry leading technology company currently providing inspection, information, communication and data management systems for federal, state, county and municipal governments. Over the last decade, HealthSpace has successfully developed both enterprise and mobile internet-based applications currently serving over 300 state and local government organizations across North America. HealthSpace currently offers the only integrated inspection, administration and analytics product suite across all platforms in North America. Further, HealthSpace now delivers inspection and auditing systems to private businesses enabling them to gain visibility and predictability into their operations to improve performance and safety. As HealthSpace continues to deliver focused service and innovative solutions to government and business organizations, it is developing advanced blockchain technology to revolutionize service delivery to its core market while expanding into other commercial enterprise verticals. Forward-Looking Statements This release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although HealthSpace believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements. HealthSpace 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. SOURCE HealthSpace Data [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Mene Completes Separation from Goldmoney Inc. and Prepares to List on the TSX Venture Exchange on November 6, 2018 Mene Inc. (TSX-V: MENE) ("Mene" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce it has completed its separation from Goldmoney Inc. (TSX: XAU) and will become an independent public company. It is anticipated that the subordinate voting class B common shares (the "Class B Shares") of the Company will commence trading on the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSX-V") on or about November 6, 2018, under the trading symbol, "MENE." Roy Sebag, CEO and Chairman of the Company commented: "Mene has become one of the most successful jewelry brands to launch in recent years, having changed the way consumers around the world think about jewelry - shifting attitudes towards the purchase of jewelry from a discretionary item to a precious metal investment that retains most of its original purchase value. We have built a brand that has rapidly become well known in the most important fashion and luxury circles, with the New York Times publishing a full feature and Vogue predicting we will revolutionize the jewelry industry. I am proud to have stewarded this venture from zero to one, having actualized in less than two years an idea into a fully operational direct-to-consumer e-commerce business which encompasses manufacturing, a proprietary vaulted pick pack facility, and in-house design, engineering, and marketing teams. Providing initial funding to Mene was carefully considered by Goldmoney Inc. and I am appreciative of the support the board of directors have shown in enabling a core group of employees within Goldmoney to develop this business. I am also extremely thankful to our investors who invested in our company in December of 2017." Since launching www.mene.com in January 2018, Mene has sold over 11,000 unique pieces of jewelry, worth $7 million, to customers in 53 countries. These sales were achieved direct-to-consumer, building long-term global customer relationships with a superior business model that does not require a physical storefront. The Company has consistently sold out of its top designs, has a waitlist that presently exceeds $1 million, and suspended 99% of its paid marketing activities after it achieved record sales exceeding $1 million in August 2018. Mr. Sebag continued: "We have now de-risked the most pressing initial challenges, with a vibrant brand that has touched the lives of thousands of people and is now growing entirely through organic channels such as word of mouth, something I did not initially predict. I am confident that while many challenges remain, Mene, like Goldmoney, has now cemented itself as both a brand and business that will grow shareholder value and prosper. Like BitGold, which I founded and took public on the TSX-V in 2015 with less capital than Mene presently has, I believe Mene has a bright future ahead as we seek to capitalize on the available opportunity. As an independent company, we will have further flexibility to make long-term capital expenditure decisions with our own balance sheet and attract the right type of investors who understand the risks and rewards inherent in our business model. I would like to thank my co-founder, Diana W. Picasso, and the entire Mene team for their hard work and dedication over these past two years. With this milestone behind us, our journey to disrupt the global jewelry industry truly begins." To view Mene Inc.'s latest investor presentation visit: https://mene.com/corporate/investor-relations. The Spin-Off, Amalgamation, and Independent Listing of Mene Under the terms of the previously announced spin-off from Goldmoney Inc., Mene has completed a business combination (the "Business Combination") with Amador Gold Corp. ("Amador") by way of a three-cornered amalgamation with a wholly owned subsidiary of Amador (the "Amalgamation"). Subsequent to the Amalgamation, Amador and the corporation continuing from the Amalgamation completed a vertical amalgamation and continued as the corporation named, "Mene Inc.". Amador shareholders approved the Business Combination and matters related thereto on October 24, 2018. The Amalgamation was approved by shareholders of Mene on October 30, 2018. On October 30, 2018, the Amalgamation became effective. p> Pursuant to the Amalgamation, securities of Mene Inc., a private corporation, and a predecessor corporation to the Company prior to the Amalgamation ("Old Mene") were exchanged for comparable securities of the Company at a 1:1 ratio, and securities of Amador were exchanged for comparable securities of the Company at a 1:1 ratio, resulting in the issuance of 94,587,598 Mene superior voting shares entitling the holders thereof to twenty (20) votes per share on matters to be voted upon by shareholders of the Company ("Class A Shares"), 122,781,923 Class B Shares entitling the holders thereof to one (1) vote per share on matters to be voted upon by shareholders of the Company (together, the Class A Shares and Class B Shares the "Mene Shares"), 17,820,000 superior voting common share purchase warrants exercisable for Class A Shares, 27,164,701 subordinate voting common share purchase warrants exercisable for Class B Shares and 962,500 options exercisable into Class B Shares (collectively, the "Mene Securities"). The information circular of Amador describing the Business Combination has been filed under the Company's profile on www.sedar.com. The closing of the Business Combination and listing of the Company's Class B Shares remains subject to regulatory approvals, including final TSX-V approval. Management and Board of Directors After completion of the Business Combination, Mene's board of directors is comprised of Roy Sebag, Joshua Crumb, Shireen Jiwan, Steve Fray, Tommaso Chiabra, Michele Ashby and Thomas Kennedy. Mene's officers are Roy Sebag (President & Chief Executive Officer), Diana Widmaier-Picasso (Chief Artistic Officer), Steve Fray (Chief Financial Officer & Secretary), Jacquelyn Humphrey (Chief Operating Officer) and Sunjoo Moon (Chief Creative Officer). Escrow Agreements Pursuant to the terms of a tier 2 surplus security escrow agreement dated October 30, 2018 among the Company, Computershare Trust Company of Canada, as escrow agent, and certain Principals of the Company, an aggregate of 199,942,600 Mene Securities have been placed in escrow in accordance with the policies of the TSX-V. In addition, a total of 1,500,000 Class B Shares subject to seed share resale restrictions have been placed in escrow pursuant to a tier 2 value security escrow agreement dated October 30, 2018 among the Company, Computershare Trust Company of Canada, as escrow agent, and a third party to the Company. Early Warning Reports On completion of the Business Combination, Roy Sebag and Goldmoney Inc., previously the largest shareholders of Old Mene, became the largest shareholders of the Company and insiders as a result of each owning more than 10% of the issued and outstanding shares Mene Shares on a partially diluted basis. Prior to completion of the Business Combination, Roy Sebag owned 79,137,599 Old Mene class A shares, 16,974,000 common share purchase warrants for Old Mene class A shares and 5,487,001 Old Mene class B shares, representing 44.49% of Old Mene shares on a partially diluted basis. After completion of the Business Combination, Mr. Sebag owns 79,137,599 Class A Shares, 16,974,000 common share purchase warrants for Class A Shares and 5,487,001 Class B Shares, representing 43.35% of Mene Shares on a partially diluted basis. Prior to completion of the Business Combination, Goldmoney Inc. owned 79,800,000 Old Mene class B shares, representing 37.75% of Old Mene shares on a partially diluted basis. After completion of the Business Combination, Goldmoney Inc. owns 79,800,000 Class A Shares, representing 36.71% of Mene Shares on a partially diluted basis. The Mene Securities acquired by Mr. Sebag and Goldmoney Inc. pursuant to the Business Combination will be held for investment purposes, and depending on market and other conditions, Mr. Sebag and Goldmoney Inc. may from time to time in the future increase or decrease their respective ownership, control or direction over securities of the Company through market transactions, private agreements, or otherwise. As the number of Mene Shares owned or controlled, directly or indirectly by Mr. Sebag and Goldmoney Inc. after the Business Combination will exceed 10% of the then issued and outstanding Mene Shares on a partially diluted basis, in satisfaction of the requirements of the National Instrument 62-104 - Take-Over Bids And Issuer Bids and National Instrument 62-103 - The Early Warning System and Related Take-Over Bid and Insider Reporting Issues, separate Early Warning Reports for Mr. Sebag and Goldmoney Inc. will be filed under Mene's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. U.S. Disclaimer The securities described herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and accordingly may not be offered or sold within the United States or to "U.S. persons", as such term is defined in Regulation S promulgated under the U.S. Securities Act ("U.S. Persons"), except in compliance with the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities requirements or pursuant to exemptions therefrom. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of Mene's securities to, or for the account or benefit of, persons in the United States or U.S. Persons. About Mene Inc. Mene crafts pure 24 karat gold and platinum jewelry that is transparently sold by gram weight. Through Mene.com customers may buy jewelry, monitor the value of their collection over time, and sell or exchange their pieces by gram weight at prevailing market prices. Mene was founded by Roy Sebag and Diana Widmaier-Picasso with a mission to restore the relationship between jewelry and savings. Mene empowers consumers by marrying innovative technology, timeless design, and pure precious metals to create pieces which endure as a store of value. For more information about Mene, visit mene.com. Cautionary Statement No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. Neither the TSX-V nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX-V) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of this release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws that are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. The information in this release about the receipt of TSX-V final approval with respect to the listing of the Class B Shares, the Company's anticipated use of available funds, and the future plans and objectives of the Company are forward-looking information. Any statements that involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking information and are intended to identify forward-looking information. This forward-looking information is based on reasonable assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time it was made, and involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others, the requirement for final approval of the TSX-V for the listing of the Class B Shares; global economic climate; dilution; the Company's limited operating history; future capital needs and uncertainty of additional financing; the competitive nature of the industry; currency exchange risks; the need for the Company to manage its planned growth and expansion; the effects of product development and need for continued technology and manufacturing change; protection of proprietary rights; the effect of government regulation and compliance on the Company and the industry; network security risks; the ability of the Company to maintain properly working systems; theft and risk of physical harm to personnel; reliance on key personnel; global economic and financial market deterioration impeding access to capital or increasing the cost of capital; and volatile securities markets impacting security pricing unrelated to operating performance. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking information other than as required by law. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005620/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] GE Appliances Launches Innovative Program to Bring on Board Next Generation of Manufacturers Today GE Appliances (GEA), a Haier company, and Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) announced two new programs that will be a national model for helping build the next generation of American manufacturers and strengthen the local partnership between one of Kentucky's largest employers and the commonwealth's largest school district. The first program of the GEA initiative will offer virtual classroom experiences for students in its Academies of Louisville manufacturing program at Doss High School. The second program, called GEA2DAY, will offer opportunities for high school seniors to join a new, weekly two-day workforce that provides a $14 an hour wage, real-world work experience and up to $6,000 per year in college tuition. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005623/en/ A GE Appliances' plant in Louisville, KY. GE Appliances launches GEA2DAY, creating 150 new jobs and offering participants up to $6,000 in tuition assistance. (Photo: GE Appliances, a Haier company) GEA Chief Operating Officer Melanie Cook and JCPS Superintendent Dr. Marty Pollio made the announcement today at a press conference at Appliance Park as the company wraps up four weeks of activities celebrating National Manufacturing Month. "GE Appliances has been one of Louisville's leading manufacturers for more than 65 years," said Cook. "This is a tremendous opportunity for us to showcase the careers available here at GE Appliances while helping to develop our pipeline and recruit and train the American manufacturers of tomorrow." GEA2DAY The new GE Appliances GEA2DAY program will create an employee workforce that will only work two days a week-Mondays and Fridys. As most full-time employees use their vacation and discretionary days to extend the weekend, GEA created this new program to not only fill a staffing need, but to improve flexibility for those seeking part-time work in a manufacturing environment, with a focus on students who can gain on-the-job experience while earning $14 an hour and up to $6,000 annually for college. "Anyone in the community can apply to work as part of GEA2DAY, but we are really excited about the space this creates for JCPS seniors and recent high school graduates," said Cook. "These students or recent graduates can work part-time at GE Appliances, earn spending money and receive up to $6,000 every year for college tuition. As manufacturing companies in Kentucky and across the country struggle to find workers with the skills needed to succeed in today's high-tech manufacturing world, GE Appliances will continue to lead in developing innovative initiatives like GEA2DAY to help address this important local and national issue." "This is a life-changing opportunity for students who need the flexibility to go to college and the money to pay for it," said Dr. Pollio. "I'm very proud that one of my former students from Doss is already part of the GEA2DAY workforce." The new GEA2DAY program will create an additional 150 part-time jobs for Appliance Park. For more information about the GEA2DAY workforce, visit www.ibuiltthis.com. Virtual Classroom Experience Students in the Doss High School manufacturing program will be able to take a virtual tour of GE Appliances in March of 2019 and have a live web chat with employees who currently work at GEA. Students will be able to ask employees about career opportunities, job responsibilities and the education and experience students need to apply for these jobs in the future. As part of the virtual classroom initiative, GEA is also aligning the program with the JCPS Backpack of Success Skills initiative. Students will be given a real-world manufacturing problem to solve for GE Appliances. "I am thrilled that one of our city's largest employers is embracing this initiative and providing this challenge for our students," said Dr. Pollio. "Our students at Doss will be able to upload the project to their digital backpacks as evidence and use it as part of their senior defenses to show that they are college and career ready. This is just the type of experience I imagined for our students when we created this initiative." The top students will present their projects to a panel of GEA executives. GEA leaders are challenging all Academies of Louisville partners to create similar projects with their partner schools. Cook, who is also on the board of the National Association of Manufacturers, is also encouraging all American manufacturers to partner with their local school districts to launch similar programs in their communities. About GE Appliances GE Appliances, a Haier company, creates "good things, for life" through our passion for great appliances and the happiness they can bring to every household. With the Hotpoint, GE, Haier, Cafe, GE Profile and Monogram brands, owners have more choices for making their kitchens and homes amazing each day. Our products include refrigerators, freezers, cooking products, dishwashers, washers, dryers, air conditioners and water filtration systems. For more information, visit www.geappliances.com/our-company. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005623/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Astronaut Michael Fincke to Visit Pittsburgh with NASA's Destination Station HOUSTON, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Astronaut and Pittsburgh native Michael Fincke will visit Pittsburgh as part of NASA's Destination Station during the week of Nov. 5. Many of the activities and speaking events featuring Fincke and officials from the International Space Station Program will be open to the public. Destination Station is an effort by NASA to share, educate and inspire the public about the International Space Station, and its role as an official U.S. National Laboratory conducting vital research. In addition to Fincke and other speakers, the Driven to Explore mobile, multi-media exhibit will offer visitors an opportunity to immerse themselves in NASA's story. The mobile exhibit also features a moon rock returned to Earth during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Fincke was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 1996. The Pennsylvania native is the veteran of two space station flights, Expedition 9 in 2004, Expedition 18 in 2009, and space shuttle mission STS-134 in 2011, the penultimate flight of the shuttle program to the station. For Expedition 9, Fincke served as science officer and flight engineer during his six-month stays onboard the station. He completed four space walks during his missions. During the week, the public and media are invited to experience the excitement of space exploration during the following events (all times Eastern): Monday, Nov. 5 9 a.m.-1 p.m. : NASA mobile exhibit opens in the Hill District Neighborhood at Weil Elementary. 2250 Centre Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15219) Tuesday, Nov. 6 9 a.m.-5 p.m. : NASA mobile exhibit located at the University of Pittsburgh . (123 University Place Pittsburgh, PA 15213) Wednesday, Nov. 7 10 a.m.-5 p.m. : NASA mobile exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center. (1 Allegheny Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15212) : NASA mobile exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center. (1 Allegheny Ave. 15212) 3-3:30 p.m. : Destination Station presentation on the International Space Station as a U.S. National Laboratory at the Carnegie Science Center. : Destination Station presentation on the International Space Station as a U.S. National Laboratory at the Carnegie Science Center. 3:30-4:30 p.m. : Presentation from astronaut Michael Fincke at the Carnegie Science Center, followed question and answer session. Thursday, Nov. 8 11 a.m.-4 p.m. : NASA mobile exhibit at Carnegie Science Center. : NASA mobile exhibit at Carnegie Science Center. 2:15-2:45 p.m. : Destination Station partners with the International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory for a presentation at the Carnegie Science Center. : Destination Station partners with the International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory for a presentation at the Carnegie Science Center. 2:45-3:45 p.m. : Presentation from astronaut Michael Fincke at the Carnegie Science Center, followed question and answer session. : Presentation from astronaut at the Carnegie Science Center, followed question and answer session. 6:30-8 p.m. : Media availability with astronaut Michael Fincke and representatives from the NASA International Space Station Program Science Office. : Media availability with astronaut and representatives from the NASA International Space Station Program Science Office. NASA mobile exhibit at Carnegie Science Center. Friday, Nov. 9 10 a.m.-1 p.m. : NASA mobile exhibit open at Carnegie Science Center. Learn more about Destination Station at: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/destination_station/ Read NASA astronaut Michael Fincke's biography at: https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/fincke.pdf Find out more on NASA programs at: http://www.nasa.gov NASA Johnson Space Center news releases and other information are available automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message to [email protected] In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type "subscribe hsfnews" (no quotes). This will add the email address that sent the subscribe message to the news release distribution list. The system will reply with a confirmation via E-mail of each subscription. Once you have subscribed you will receive future news releases via e-mail. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/astronaut-michael-fincke-to-visit-pittsburgh-with-nasas-destination-station-300741479.html SOURCE NASA [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Dr. Michelle Myers Appointed Provost at Park University Following a nationwide search, Park University has announced that Michelle (Shellie) Myers, Ed.D., has been appointed provost of the University, effective immediately. Myers, who has served as the University's interim provost since May 2017, joined Park in July 2010 to serve as dean of the School for Education. At the start of the 2016-17 academic year, Myers became dean of the newly created College of Education and Health Professions, a role she held until becoming interim provost. "I am excited to have Dr. Myers as our new provost as her focus on student success and innovation, and her demonstrated commitment to the University will empower her to lead from day one in this critical role," said Greg Gunderson, Park University president. As provost, Myers serves as the University's chief academic offier and is responsible for faculty development, student assessment and support, and curriculum and compliance. In addition, Myers will provide creative and strategic leadership with a focus on maintaining academic excellence and fostering academic innovation across Park's 42 campuses across the country and online, while ensuring that quality academic programs are delivered consistently. Prior to joining Park, Myers served administrative stints as associate dean, assistant dean and acting assistant dean in the Division of Education at Queens College, the City University of New York, as well as interim associate dean of the College of Education and Human Services at the University of Central Missouri. In addition, she served as an assistant professor, then associate professor at UCM, and as assistant professor at Southeast Missouri State University. During her time at QC-CUNY, Myers served as coordinator of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education. Myers earned a Doctor of Education degree in curriculum and pedagogy, and a Master of Education degree in teaching physical education, both from the University of Arkansas. She received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Western Kentucky University. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005757/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Voya Honors Baltimore Principal with Second-Place Unsung Heroes Program Award Voya Financial, Inc. (NYSE: VOYA), a leading provider of retirement plans for educators, announced today that Deidre Rabuck, an assistant principal at the Kennedy Krieger School: Fairmount Campus in Baltimore, won the second-place grant award in the company's annual Voya Unsung Heroes program. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005703/en/ Voya's Doug Peters and advisor Alicia Kong stand alongside Mark Jackowitz and Sarala Katta of Voya Financial with Deidre Rabuck, Voya's 2018 Unsung Heroes program second-place $12,000 grant award winner. (Photo: Business Wire) Through this effort, Voya awards $2,000 grants to 100 K-12 educators across the country each year to support their innovative and creative teaching ideas. Voya also selects three top winners to receive additional funds. In its 20-plus years, the program has awarded over $5 million in grants to roughly 2,000 educators across the U.S. As the second-place winner, Rabuck will receive $10,000 in addition to the $2,000 grant - bringing her total financial award to $12,000. This money will be used to help bring "Fairmount News Station" to life at the Kennedy Krieger School: Fairmount Campus. "At Voya, we are focused on making a difference as we serve our clients and customers, and we're thrilled to recognize our nation's teachers who go above and beyond to inspire today's students," said Heather Lavallee, president of Tax-Exempt Markets at Voya Financial. "For more than 20 years, our Unsung Heroes program has empowered educators like Deide to bring their innovative ideas to life, and we are honored to recognize her as our 2018 second-place winner." Rabuck's innovative teaching idea, "Fairmount News Station," focuses on giving the students the Kennedy Krieger School: Fairmount Campus who have learning, behavioral and physical disabilities the opportunity to write, produce and star in the school's morning announcement "news series." With a goal of mirroring an authentic, local news broadcast, students will create content, prepare written scripts, design background scenes, record the broadcast and deliver the finished newscasts to the school's classrooms. "The Kennedy Krieger School Fairmount Campus is thankful for Voya's support and recognition of Deidre Rabuck's vision for a student run broadcast studio," said Sandi Jenkins, principal of the Kennedy Krieger School: Fairmount Campus. "The studio will allow our students to work on writing, public speaking, executive functioning and many other important skills. With Voya's support and Deidre's drive, energy and expertise, our students will have the opportunity to actively participate in broadcasts throughout the school year." With the Voya grant, Rabuck plans to purchase the necessary equipment to accommodate the various disabilities and diverse learning styles of the students as each broadcast will involve varying complexities. This will provide students with opportunities to move outside of their comfort zones, work cooperatively and master a variety of new skills - all proficiencies that are especially important among students with disabilities to gain confidence and life experience. To learn more about this year's winning projects, as well as those from previous years, visit the Unsung Heroes website at Voya.com/UnsungHeroes. Applications for the 2019 Voya Unsung Heroes awards are currently being accepted through the website until April 30, 2019. Unsung Heroes is part of Voya's broader efforts to empower teachers to become leaders by promoting their careers, recognizing high-achieving accomplishments, providing training opportunities and offering financial support to achieve their goals. About Voya Financial Voya Financial, Inc. (NYSE: VOYA), helps Americans plan, invest and protect their savings - to get ready to retire better. Serving the financial needs of approximately 14.3 million individual and institutional customers in the United States, Voya is a Fortune 500 company that had $8.6 billion in revenue in 2017. The company had $543 billion in total assets under management and administration as of September 30, 2018. With a clear mission to make a secure financial future possible - one person, one family, one institution at a time - Voya's vision is to be America's Retirement Company. Certified as a "Great Place to Work" by the Great Place to Work Institute, Voya is equally committed to conducting business in a way that is socially, environmentally, economically and ethically responsible. Voya has been recognized as one of the 2018 World's Most Ethical Companies by the Ethisphere Institute; one of the 2018 World's Most Admired Companies by Fortune magazine; as a member of the Bloomberg (News - Alert) Gender Equality Index; and as a "Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion" on the Disability Equality Index by Disability:IN. For more information, visit voya.com. Follow Voya Financial on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (News - Alert) @Voya. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005703/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] 3iQ Announces OSC Filing of a Non-Offering Preliminary Prospectus of "The Bitcoin Fund" /NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION OVER US NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES/ Today marks the 10th anniversary of Satoshi Nakamoto's original bitcoin white paper TORONTO, Oct. 31, 2018 /CNW/ - 3iQ Corp. announced today that it publicly filed a non-offering preliminary prospectus for "The Bitcoin Fund", to create the first regulated vaulted bitcoin fund in the world. The company emphasized the importance of establishing a regulated fund that is available to all Canadian investors. 3iQ Corp. believes it has addressed all regulatory concerns relating to custody, valuation, Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Client (KYC) compliance as well as banking and trading operations. If approved by the securities regulator, this non-offering prospectus is expected to lead to a syndicated closed end fund prospectus offering. "We have worked very hard to achieve an investment product that provides a simple and secure way for Canadians to make an investment in this innovative technology and asset class," said 3iQ Corp. President and CEO Fred Pye. "The Bitcoin Fund allows 3iQ, as manager, to acquire and store bitcoin in the safest and most compliant way possible." "Canadians are currently investing in bitcoin through many facilities, none of which are as regulated and secure as our fund will be," said Howard Atkinson, Chairman of 3iQ. "We believe that our regulators should be ready to accept a regulated fund. As many Canadians invest directly in cryptoassets already, it is in the public interest to invest in these assets through a regulated fund." "Bitcoin is approaching its 10th anniversary. After being intensely scrutinized by institutional investors, we are seeing a growing interest by them in bitcoin. The Bitcoin Fund seeks to give retail investors an institutional quality, regulated investment product available through multiple distribution channels," said Shaun Cumby, Chief Investment Officer (CIO), who is responsible for investment relationships, trading and risk management. "The Bitcoin Fund has the most rigorous compliance controls possible across trading and custody and is an initiative that Canada should have to stay at the forefront of blockchain innovation." Details of the fund are available on SEDAR. More information is also available on the 3iQ website at www.3iQ.ca. About 3iQ Corp. 3iQ is a Canadian Investment Fund Manager focused on providing innovative investments of institutional quality in disruptive technologies and the cryptoasset space. Founded in 2012, 3iQ is committed to a disciplined approach to investment selection aided by the most innovative due diligence process and quantitative techniques. Please visit www.3iq.ca to learn more. SOURCE 3iQ Corp. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Retro-Fit Glove Ports from Central Research Laboratories Improve Safety and Versatility in Glovebox Applications RED WING, Minn., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Central Research Laboratories (CRL), part of Destaco and Dover (NYSE: DOV), and a global leader in the remote-handling industry, has developed Retro-Fit Glove Ports that allow users to transform their non-Push-Through Glove Ports into Push-Through Glove Ports capable of utilizing all of CRL's Push-Through technologies. "Our customers want safer and more efficient solutions, and the new CRL Retro-Fit Glove Ports provide just that," explained Tom Gahr, General Manager of CRL. "By utilizing our proven CRL enclosure ring technology we are able to maintain containment and provide faster and safer glove changes, without risking the spread of contamination. There is also greater flexibility with this system. Installation of other accessories such as plugs, bags, windows, and safety covers can quickly expand glovebox functionality, providing even more value for our customers." To install, the Retro-Fit Glove Port is simply placed over the existing port and securely mounted to the glovebox. Using CRL's Ejection Tool, the glove assembly is then securely installed into the port and ready for use. Glove and accessory changes can be quickly and safely performed at any point without losing containment. The Retro-Fit Glove Ports are currently available for mounting onto 8-inch round glove port rings. Different configurations can also be accommodated to convert any existing port to utilize push-through technology. Contact CRL for more information on customization options. For more information on CR and its extensive family of remote-handling solutions, please visit crlsolutions.com. About CRL & Destaco: Headquartered in Red Wing, MN, USA, Central Research Laboratories (CRL) became a Destaco company in 2007. It possesses more than 70 years of innovation experience in the development of remote-handling systems, including Telemanipulators, Transfer Systems, Glove Ports and Waste Drum Transfer Systems. CRL solutions promote operator safety and efficiency when performing various tasks in nuclear and life science applications around the world. Destaco, a Dover company, is a global leader in the design and manufacture of high-performance automation, workholding and remote-handling solutions. The company serves customers in a variety of end-markets, including the automotive, life science, consumer packaged goods, aerospace, industrial and nuclear sectors. Built on a legacy of more than 100 years, Destaco offers a comprehensive portfolio of products designed to engineer precise movement, placement and control solutions that drive productivity and uptime for manufacturers around the world. The Destaco family of products consists of industry-leading brands such as Destaco Manual Clamps, Power Clamps, and End Effectors; CAMCO and Ferguson Indexers; Robohand Grippers; and CRL Manipulators and Transfer Ports. Destaco is based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, U.S.A. The company has more than 800 employees with 13 locations, in 9 countries, across the Americas, Europe and Asia. More information is available at destaco.com. About Dover: Dover is a diversified global manufacturer with annual revenue of approximately $7 billion. We deliver innovative equipment and components, specialty systems, consumable supplies, software and digital solutions, and support services through three operating segments: Engineered Systems, Fluids and Refrigeration & Food Equipment. Dover combines global scale with operational agility to lead the markets we serve. Recognized for our entrepreneurial approach for over 60 years, our team of over 24,000 employees takes an ownership mindset, collaborating with customers to redefine what's possible. Headquartered in Downers Grove, Illinois, Dover trades on the New York Stock Exchange under "DOV." Additional information is available at dovercorporation.com. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/retro-fit-glove-ports-from-central-research-laboratories-improve-safety-and-versatility-in-glovebox-applications-300741623.html SOURCE Dover [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Carl Data Solutions Announces Closing of Debt Settlement and Issuance of Bonus Shares CSE: CRL FSE: 7C5 OTC:CDTAF /NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES/ VANCOUVER, Oct. 31, 2018 /CNW/ - Carl Data Solutions Inc. (CSE:CRL, FSE:7C5, OTC:CDTAF) ("Carl" or the "Company"), a developer of Big-Data-as-a-Service ("BDaaS")-based solutions for data integration, business intelligence, and Industrial Internet-of-Things applications, is pleased to announce that the Company issued to McKenzie LK Management & Consulting Ltd. ("McKenzie"), a company owned by Craig Tennock, a director of the Company, 330,000 common shares in the capital of the Company (each, a "Share") at a deemed price of $0.10 per Share, as full and final payment and satisfaction of debt of $33,000 (the "McKenzie Settlement"), which debt was for unpaid remuneration for services performed by McKenzie. In addition, the Company issued 214,285 Shares, at a deemed price of $0.14 per Share, to Scharfe Holdings Inc. as a signing bonus in connection with a loan agreement previously provided by Scharfe Holdings Ltd. (the "Bonus Issuance"). The McKenzie Settlement was a "related party transaction" within the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). The McKenzie Settlement was exempt from the valuation requirement of MI 61-101 by virtue of the exemptions containedin section 5.5(b) of MI 61-101 as the Company's Shares are not listed on a specified market and from the minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 by virtue of the exemption contained in section 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101 in that the fair market value of the McKenzie Settlement did not exceed 25% of the Company's market capitalization. As the material change report disclosing the McKenzie Settlement is being filed less than 21 days before the transaction, there is a requirement under MI 61-101 to explain why the shorter period was reasonable or necessary in the circumstances. In the view of the Company it was necessary to immediately close the McKenzie Settlement and therefore, such shorter period was reasonable and necessary in the circumstances to improve the Company's financial position. All of the securities issued in connection with the McKenzie Settlement and the Bonus Issuance are subject to a statutory hold period of four months and one day. None of the securities sold in connection with the McKenzie Settlement and the Bonus Issuance will be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and no such securities may be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. About Carl Data Solutions Inc. Carl Data Solutions Inc. an Industrial IoT (IIoT) company focused on providing next generation information collection, storage and analytics solutions for data-centric companies. Building on its recent acquisitions, Carl helps its clients analyze and understand all forms of environmental data through a powerful platform of data collection, monitoring, reporting, and predictive analysis tools. Carl Data continues to develop applications to work with new cloud-based mass storage services and analytics tools (Big-Data-as-a-Service (BDaaS) to provide scalability for municipalities, utilities and other industrial verticals. These data collection and storage methods allow the company to build smart Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based applications that can collect data from many diverse sources and provide deep insight for decision-making purposes. More information can be found at www.CarlSolutions.com. On behalf of the Board of Directors: Greg Johnston President, Chief Executive Officer, Director Carl Data Solutions Inc. The Canadian Securities Exchange (operated by CNSX Markets Inc.) has neither approved nor disapproved of the contents of this press release. SOURCE Carl Data Solutions Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Leidos Pledges Support to America's Workers RESTON, Va., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Leidos (NYSE: LDOS), a FORTUNE 500 science and technology leader today announced its commitment to support the White House Pledge to America's Workers. Company representatives attended a pledge signing today alongside other companies and associations. Leidos pledges to invest in the advancement of its current and future workforce by providing individuals with opportunities to develop skills that will help them succeed, not just in their current role, but throughout their careers. Leidos is investing in both students and workers by providing opportunities for education and training that will help more Americans thrive in the modern workplace. Specifically, over the next five years, the company will work to create enhanced career opportunities for 2,125 individuals, including through increased apprenticeships and work-based learning programs, continuing education, on-the-job training and re-skilling. "We live in an uncertain and evolving world that is becoming more digital and more connected at ever-increasing speeds, and we need a skilled workforce equipped to tackle the corresponding challenges," said Roger Krone, Leidos Chairman & Chief Executive Officer. "A strong national strategy for workforce development gives Leidos, and ultimately our country, the best chance to lead in the global, digital economy." Leidos is a leader in supporting employee learning and workforce development. The company is committed to the development of employees with some of the focus comprised of the following: certified program managers, scrum masters and product owners (for Agile development), system engineers, and developing a pipeline of interns to be hired as full-time employees upon graduation from college. Leidos was recently included in Forbes World's Best Employers, Forbes America's Best Employers, Forbes Best Employer for Diversity, Forbes inaugural list for Best Employer for Women, and the Military Times Best For Vets Employer. For current Leidos opportunities, visit: https://careers.leidos.com/. About Leidos Leidos is a Fortune 500 information technology, engineering, and science solutions and services leader working to solve the world's toughest challenges in the defense, intelligence, homeland security, civil, and health markets. The company's 32,000 employees support vital missions for government and commercial customers. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $10.17 billion for the fiscal year ended December 29, 2017. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com. Statements in this announcement, other than historical data and information, constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause our actual results, performance, achievements, or industry results to be very different from the results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Some of these factors include, but are not limited to, the risk factors set forth in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 29, 2017, and other such filings that Leidos makes with the SEC from time to time. Due to such uncertainties and risks, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Contact: Melissa Koskovich (571) 526-6850 [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/leidos-pledges-support-to-americas-workers-300741655.html SOURCE Leidos [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Air Lease Corporation Announces Lease Placement of Airbus A320neo Aircraft with Air Seychelles Air Lease Corporation (NYSE: AL; "ALC") announced today the lease placement of one new Airbus A320neo aircraft on long-term lease to Air Seychelles (Republic of Seychelles) from ALC's order book with Airbus. The new aircraft will feature CFM LEAP 1A-26 engines and is confirmed to deliver to the airline in the first quarter of 2020. "ALC is pleased to announce this significant long-term lease placement with Air Seychelles," said Steven Udvar-Hazy, Executive Chairman of Air Lease Corporation. "This A320neo will be a key addition to the airline's fleet as Air Seychelles continues to grow its network and maximize their competitive advantage in the region." "We are very pleased to announce that the lease agreement with Air Lease Corporation has been completed for the order of the second A320neo," said Remco Althuis, Chief Executive Officer of Air Seychelles. "The new aircraft will not only position Air Seychelles as the 'airline of choice within the Indian Ocean,' but it will also enable Air Seychelles to operate in a more efficient manner. This is definitely a significant milestone for the national airline and we thank Air Lease Corporation for their support throughout this process." This new A320neo is the second of two Airbus aircraft on lease to Ai Seychelles from Air Lease Corporation and joins an A320-200 aircraft currently on long-term lease to the airline. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including expected delivery dates. Such statements are based on current expectations and projections about our future results, prospects and opportunities and are not guarantees of future performance. Such statements will not be updated unless required by law. Actual results and performance may differ materially from those expressed or forecasted in forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including those discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. About Air Lease Corporation (NYSE: AL) ALC is a leading aircraft leasing company based in Los Angeles, California that has airline customers throughout the world. ALC and its team of dedicated and experienced professionals are principally engaged in purchasing commercial aircraft and leasing them to its airline customers worldwide through customized aircraft leasing and financing solutions. For more information, visit ALC's website at www.airleasecorp.com. About Air Seychelles Air Seychelles was established in 1978 and began long-haul service in 1983. The airline currently offers international flights to Abu Dhabi, Johannesburg, Mauritius and Mumbai. Air Seychelles also offers more than 350 domestic scheduled flights a week throughout the archipelago, including domestic charter services. As the national airline of the Republic of Seychelles, Air Seychelles is a pillar of tourism, the island nation's strongest and growing economic sector. The airline maintains a strategic partnership with Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates and 40 per cent stakeholder. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005853/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Apple Watch leads customer preferences in the USA BOSTON and NEW YORK and SAN DIEGO, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Counterpoint Research has just released its latest Consumer Lens study focusing on USA smartwatch consumers. This analysis uncovers the factors influencing smartwatch purchasing decisions with a key understanding of consumer interest in Apple Watch features. Included exploration includes demographic breakouts including age, income, and occupation to better understand potential smartwatch customers. Boston based research analyst, Maurice Klaehne highlighted, "Apple was the top smartwatch brand last year. With the Apple Watch Series 4 the company further strengthens its position as a preferred smartwatch brand for a consumer's next purchase. 75% of potential Apple Watch buyers said they will choose a Series 4 watch in the next six months." Commenting on Apple Watch Series 4 features, Pavel Naiya, senior analyst said, "The Apple Watch Series 4 is a significant improvement from the previous generation with innovative features like ECG, fall monitor, haptic feedback. LTE connectivity captured the highest consumer interest followed by the faster S4 chipset and improved heart rate sensor. 50% of potential Apple Watch buyers are interested in buying an LTE version." Mr. Naiya further added, "According to the findings, Apple has successfully established itself as a fashion brand. Six out of ten respondents cited design as a key reason for choosing an Apple Watch; however, consumers are not vey decisive on the color preference so far." "The Apple Store is the top preferred channel for Apple Watch purchases followed by Amazon and Best Buy. This is likely driven by iPhone power users opting for the familiar Apple Store," says San Diego based research director, Jeff Fieldhack. He goes on to state that "However, we believe actual purchases will likely vary due to many factors including existing offers, availability of variants, and customer convenience." Other Takeaways: The top three brands (Apple, Samsung, Fitbit) captured 80% of the potential consumer interest as the preferred brands for a consumer's next purchase. LG, Garmin, and Fossil had single digit percentage share. The high price point and the requirement to own an iPhone are the two biggest barriers that limit purchase decisions for the new Apple Watch. Health and fitness tracking and quick access to notification are the two main use cases for smartwatches as of now. However, use cases like listening to music and the ability to leave your phone behind are pushing smartwatches towards creating a standalone device category. Further Information: The complete report and analysis can be found within the Insights Portal. The comprehensive and in-depth analysis is available for clients subscribing to the Consumer Lens Program. Discussion about methodology, purchase interests and general inquiries can be submitted to [email protected] or members in the Counterpoint team listed below. The full press release can be found here on the Counterpoint Research News page. For more information, visit our Twitter. Analyst Contacts: Jeff Fieldhack +1 858 603 2703 [email protected] Maurice Klaehne +1 617 336 8383 [email protected] Pavel Naiya +91 9818507702 [email protected] Steve Bossert +1 617 336 8381 [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/apple-watch-leads-customer-preferences-in-the-usa-300741659.html SOURCE Counterpoint Research [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] HealthSpace Data Systems Ltd. - Florida State Department of Health Announcement Clarification VANCOUVER, Oct. 31, 2018 /CNW/ - HealthSpace Data Systems Ltd. (the "Company" or "HealthSpace") (CSE:HS) (Frankfurt:38H) (OTC:HDSLF), at the request of Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC), is providing clarification to its announcement regarding the Florida Department of Health ("DOH") posting on MyForidaMarketPlace Vendor Bid System and its intent to award a five year contract to HealthSpace USA Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, subject to successful contract negotiations. The Company wishes to clarify the statement made by its President, Joseph Willmott, that the award is the "largest single contract bid ever issued by an environmental health regulatory body" by stating that this contract, when finalized, will be the largest contract ever signed by the Company in terms of gross dollar amount and the number of users. Part of HealthSpace's core business is reviewing and responding to all environmental health related proposals issued by regulatory agencies across North America. As a result of its experience in responding to regulatory agency tenders over the past 21 years, this award represents the largest environmental heath regulatory agency contract by dollar amount and number of users. As a point of reference, HealthSpace announced in March 2018 that it signed the largest contract in its history with the Virginia Department of Health valued at $3.061 million USD over five years with up to 1,000 users. About HealthSpace HealthSpace is an industry leading technology company currently providing inspection, information, communication and data management systems for federal, state, county and municipal governments. Over the last decade, HealthSpace has successfully developed both enterprise and mobile internet-based applications currently serving over 300 state and local government organizations across North America. HealthSpace currently offers the only integrated inspection, administration and analytics product suite across all platforms in North America. Further, HealthSpace now delivers inspection and auditing systems to private businesses enabling them to gain visibility and predictability into their operations to improve performance and safety. As HealthSpace continues to deliver focused service and innovative solutions to government and business organizations, it is developing advanced blockchain technology to revolutionize service delivery to its core market while expanding into other commercial enterprise verticals. Forward-Looking Statements This release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although HealthSpace believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements. HealthSpace 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. SOURCE HealthSpace Data [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [October 31, 2018] Akoya Biosciences Acquires Phenoptics Portfolio from PerkinElmer Akoya Biosciences (Akoya), a Telegraph Hill Partners (THP) company, has acquired PerkinElmer, Inc.'s Phenoptics portfolio. Akoya was founded in 2015 to commercialize the CODEX multiparameter tissue analysis technology developed in the lab of Dr. Garry Nolan at Stanford University. PerkinElmer has grown its Phenoptics business, to be an industry leader in multiplex immunofluorescence. This acquisition establishes Akoya as a leading provider of quantitative tissue biomarker evaluation, from discovery through translational and clinical research. High-parameter analysis of biological tissue samples provides critical spatial context in studies of autoimmune disease, immune-oncology and many other research areas. The Phenoptics portfolio, with its Mantra, Vectra and Vectra Polaris systems, provides the throughput and standardization required to support large-scale translational studies. Its multispectral imaging instruments, reagents, software and research services have been adopted by hundreds of labs globally. CODEX enables biomarker discovery with detection of up to 50 markers on a single tissue section with reagents and instrumentation that integrate with our customer's existing microscopes. CODEX includes optimized assay reagents combined with validated antibodies labeled with proprietary CODEX Barcodes to enable a simple, automated workflow. Concurrent with the acquisition, PerkinElmer's Phenoptics team's management, R&D, sales and support staff have joined Akoya. Akoya will continue to operate this team out of the greater Boston area and maintain headquarters in Menlo Park, CA (News - Alert). Brian McKelligon will remain as Chief Executive Officer of Akoya and Terry Lo, General Manager of the Phenoptics team at PerkinElmer, will join Akoya as President. "With both the Phenoptics portfolio and CODEX, Akoya will provide our customers with a full suite of end-to-end solutions for high parameter tissue analysis," said Brian McKelligon, CEO of Akoya. "We now have the team and technologies to develop and deliver transformational solutions in the rapidly advancing field of tissue imaging." "The PerkinElmer Phenoptics team created a powerful solution already deployed at leading academic and biopharmaceutical companies with a focus on immuno-oncology," said Terry Lo, President of Akoya. "We are excited to now join Akoya and catalyze further development of the Phenoptics platform as a leading technology for tissue analysis." Telegraph Hill Partners has provided Akoya with additional funding to support further growth of the organization and continue technology and product development. "By having one company with the capabilities of Phenoptics and CODEX, both PerkinElmer and THP saw the opportunity to establish the most advanced and complete solution for multiplexed tissue analysis," said Robert Shepler, Managing Director of THP. "PerkinElmer was excellent throughout the process, and we look forward to further collaborations with them." Akoya will be showcasing the latest developments from CODEX (booth #208) and the Phenoptics solutions (booth #523) at the SITC annual meeting in Washington, DC. on November 7-11. Akoya will be hosting an evening symposium featuring Dr. David Rimm, Yale University and Dr. Julia Kennedy-Darling, Akoya Biosciences. Akoya Dinner Symposium: Innovations in high parameter spatial analysis to study the tumor microenvironment Date: Thursday, November 8th, 7:00 to 8:30 pm Agenda: Measuring and Multiplexing for in situ Diagnostic Tests Dr. David Rimm, MD, Ph.D. Professor of Pathology Yale University School of Medicine CODEX: Highly Multiplexed Tissue Profiling for Single Cell Spatial Analysis Dr. Julia Kennedy-Darling, Ph.D. Director of R&D Akoya Biosciences To register for the event, visit us at: akoyabio.com/sitc2018 About Akoya Biosciences Akoya Biosciences develops innovative technologies for life science researchers to enable spatially-resolved, quantitative tissue phenotyping at the cellular and subcellular level. The combined technologies of Phenoptics and CODEX are fueling advances in next generation tissue analysis by providing comprehensive solutions including instrumentation, reagents and software. Akoya Biosciences is headquartered in Menlo Park, CA. For more information, please visit https://www.akoyabio.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005857/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] 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). You know you want the best TV, but finding the right model for your home and budget isn't always easy. Checking all the right boxes is tough, especially as features like 8K resolution, OLED and QLED displays, mini-LED, HDR, smart home connectivity, voice control and more make it increasingly complex to find the TV you want. It's not as simple as buying the most expensive model you can afford. You want the whole package: great picture quality, rich sound, and all of the smart features available today, and it would be nice to save a buck or two while you're at it. Weve tested and reviewed the latest TVs from all the best TV brands including LG, Sony, and Samsung to help you choose the right TV for your home. Every TV goes through hours of testing and eyes-on viewing, so that we can find the best TV for your budget and needs. People like to throw around a lot of acronyms and numbers when theyre talking about the best TVs, but weve made it our mission to offer you real-world advice that cuts through all the jargon and explains exactly what these TVs can do for you. Well let you know about the specs, of course, but well also explain what this will mean for your viewing experience, whether thats the improved picture quality that 4K resolution brings, or the vibrant colors that HDR TVs offer. Toms Guide has your back when it comes to finding the best TVs. Black Friday and Cyber Monday TV deals Black Friday deals are here, bringing the best TV prices of the year. With major discounts from retailers like Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart, you can score many of the best TVs on this list for a cheaper price. For example, we've seen a 50-inch 4K TV for just $199 at Walmart. Be sure to check out our Black Friday TV deals page, which we're frequently updating with all the latest sales. And bookmark our Cyber Monday deals page to keep on saving. What are the best TVs? For our standout favorite, the Samsung QN90A Neo QLED is the best TV we've reviewed, delivering superb picture quality with its combination of QLED color and mini-LED backlight (the ingredients that make up Neo QLED). Pair that performance with fantastic sound, rich smart features and a stylish design, and you've got the best TV we've reviewed this year. Just be aware that this premium 4K smart TV doesn't come cheap. The TCL 6-Series Roku TV (R635) is the ultimate in affordable TVs, giving you the best 4K smart TV we've seen for less than $1,000. In fact, ignoring the budget-friendly price, it's still one of the best TVs on the market, thanks to a quantum-dot enhanced LCD and mini-LED-backed display and feature-rich Roku TV interface. Combine this with superior gaming features and a refined design, and it's got plenty to love. (And if you're looking to get similar quality on a more expensive 8K TV, the new TCL 6-Series 8K Roku TV R648 does it at a surprisingly reasonable price.) The best TVs you can buy in November 2021 (Image credit: Samsung) 1. Best TV overall: Samsung QN90A Neo QLED TV The ultimate QLED TV Specifications Available Screen Sizes: 55, 65, 75, 85 inches Screen Type: QLED Refresh Rate: 120 Hz HDMI ports: 4 HDMI (1 HDMI 2.1) Size: 56.9 x 32.6 x 1 inches Weight: 53.8 pounds TODAY'S BEST DEALS View at Samsung View at Walmart View at Best Buy 757 Walmart customer reviews Reasons to buy + Beautiful, thin design + Neo QLED delivers incredible brightness + Impressive anti-glare abilities + New solar-chargeable remote Reasons to avoid - Visible blooming at times - Just one HDMI 2.1 port - No Dolby Vision support The Samsung QN90A Neo QLED TV combines Samsung's highly refined quantum dot technology with the tight control of mini-LED backlighting, resulting in one of the best TV displays you'll ever see. Brilliant color and unmatched brightness make for superb performance, and Samsung pairs that with a bounty of smart TV functions and genuinely intelligent features, like a solar-powered remote control that eliminates the need to swap out batteries delivering eco-friendly design and unbeaten convenience at the same time. The whole thing is packed into a gorgeous 1-inch-thick design that contains a huge array of smart features, potent Dolby Atmos sound and some of the best performance we've ever seen. HDMI 2.1 connectivity comes standard, along with gamer-friendly features and impressive 12.6-millisecond lag time for an unparalleled gaming experience. It's the best TV we've seen this year, and the winner of the 2021 Tom's Guide Award for Best TV, and a second award as the best gaming TV of the year. Read our full Samsung QN90A Neo QLED TV review. (Image credit: TCL) 2. Best TV value: TCL 6-Series Roku TV (R635) The best TV value Specifications Available Screen Sizes: 55, 65, 75 inches Screen Type: QLED Refresh Rate: 120 Hz HDMI ports: 4 HDMI, 1 USB Size: 48.3 x 28.1 x 2.8 inches Weight: 41.9 pounds TODAY'S BEST DEALS View at Amazon View at Walmart View at Best Buy Reasons to buy + Excellent QLED and mini-LED display + Great gaming performance + Roku TV offers a huge app selection and easy interface + Improved Roku remote Reasons to avoid - Sound is a little weak - Roku is missing some of the latest apps The TCL 6-Series Roku TV (R635) offers enormous value for it's affordable price, offering premium picture quality and a great smart TV experience for much less than the competition. As TCL's best mainstream smart TV the R635 ups the ante with mini-LED backlighting in addition to QLED. The result is impressive color and brightness, with some of the best HDR performance we've seen on anything this side of an OLED display. It's enough to win a 2021 Tom's Guide Award for best innovation in TVs. But TCL keeps delivering more, like THX Certified Game Mode, which makes the 6-Series one of the best gaming TVs available, even for yet-to-be-released consoles like the PS5 and the Xbox Series X. From the design's smart touches, like cable management in the stand, to the always-solid Roku TV platform, the TCL 6-Series R635 is the best TV value, and it's not even close. Read our full TCL 6-Series Roku TV (R635) review . (Image credit: LG) 3. Best home theater OLED: LG G1 OLED TV A premium OLED with stunning design Specifications Available Screen Sizes: 55, 65, 77 inches Screen Type: OLED Refresh Rate: 120 Hz HDMI ports: 4 HDMI 2.1 Size: 56.9 x 32.7 x 0.9 inches Weight: 63.9 pounds TODAY'S BEST DEALS View at Amazon View at Best Buy View at BHPhoto 80 Walmart customer reviews Reasons to buy + Exclusive OLED evo panel delivers brighter picture + More affordable than last years Gallery Series + Same stunningly-thin design + New remote is a major improvement Reasons to avoid - OLED evo offers minimal improvement - WebOS 6.0 is disappointing The LG G1 OLED TV is the updated version of LG's superb Gallery OLED, boasting a premium 20 millimeter-thick design and sleek flush-to-the-wall mounting setup. The design is impeccable enough to win best TV design in the 2021 Tom's Guide Awards. It's still the best 4K OLED TV made by LG, but as the first TV with LG's second-gen OLED evo technology, it falls short of some claimed performance improvements we were pretty excited for. That said, the LG G1 OLED is still an impressive OLED set, and LG has even knocked the price down a bit, while updating almost everything else about the set. The slim OLED features more comfortable remote control, enhanced gaming features, and the latest version of webOS, all while delivering the same excellent picture quality and impeccable sound that we expect from LG's best OLED models. The LG G1 OLED TV stands as a reminder of just how far modern TV technology has come we just hope it hasnt plateaued. Read our full LG G1 OLED TV review. (Image credit: TCL) 4. TCL 5-Series Google TV (S546) A killer QLED value with Google TV Specifications Available Screen Sizes: 5, 55, 65, 75 inches Screen Type: QLED Refresh Rate: 60 Hz HDMI ports: 3 HDMI (1 eARC) Size: 57 x 32.7 x 3 inches Weight: 70.1 pounds TODAY'S BEST DEALS View at Best Buy View at Best Buy View at Best Buy Reasons to buy + QLED display with local dimming for excellent HDR performance + Great color quality and smooth motion + Google TV is a serious upgrade from Roku + Affordably priced Reasons to avoid - Limited viewing angles - Audio is good, but not great The TCL 5-Series Google TV (S546) wowed us with its combination of smart TV features, solid performance and great value for your dollar. Building on the foundation of the already-good 5-Series, the move to Google TV gives the affordable 4K smart TV a more premium smart TV platform, one that offers personalized and customizable suggestions, a huge assortment of smart features, and deep Google Assistant integration that makes it a viable center for the entire home of connected gadgets. But it also offers a step up in other aspects of the TV. From color quality to lag times, the 5-Series Google TV is a more polished version of the 5-Series TV, delivering an excellent QLED 4K display, a slick remote control, and a surprisingly wide array of gaming features for a 60Hz TV. For a smart TV that sells for under $1,000 for most size options, it's easily one of the best TVs on the market. Read our full TCL 5-Series Google TV (S546) review . (Image credit: LG) 5. Our favorite OLED: LG CX OLED Last year's hottest TV Specifications Available Screen Sizes: 48, 55, 65, 77 inches Screen Type: OLED Refresh Rate: 120 Hz HDMI ports: 4 HDMI 2.1, 2 USB Size: 57.0 x 32.7 x 1.8 inches Weight: 52.9 pounds TODAY'S BEST DEALS Prime Low Stock View at Amazon View at Best Buy Prime View at Amazon Reasons to buy + Stunning picture + Excellent smart TV features + Top notch sound capabilities + Ultra thin design Reasons to avoid - Relatively high price The LG CX OLED is the best 4K smart TV, and the best TV overall, with an amazing display, built-in Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa support, and a ton of other smart features. From LG's webOS 5.0 to the addition of smart home control and an intuitive motion-control remote, it's one of the smartest TVs we've ever seen. LG has improved on its superb OLED with a more powerful processor, the addition of Dolby Vision IQ (which adjusts HDR performance based on the ambient lighting) and beefs up the sound with AI-powered audio tuning. And while the LG CX OLED's premium price might put off some shoppers, it packs in more premium value than more expensive OLED competitors, while still delivering an unparalleled picture. It's the TV to beat. Read our full LG CX OLED review . (Image credit: Vizio) 6. Best OLED TV value: Vizio OLED TV Incredible OLED quality at an affordable price Specifications Available Screen Sizes: 55, 65 inches Screen Type: OLED Refresh Rate: 120 Hz HDMI ports: 4 HDMI, 1 USB Size: 48.3 x 30.6 x 2.2 inches Weight: 44.9 pounds Vizio OLED TV View at Best Buy View at Best Buy View at Best Buy Reasons to buy + Ultra-low price for an OLED + Generally strong picture and audio quality + SmartCast provides plenty of smart features and free video content Reasons to avoid - Gaming performance could be better - Cumbersome stand The Vizio OLED TV is the most affordable OLED TV on the market, and the first to offer a less-premium alternative to offerings from LG and Sony to shoppers in the United States. Selling for hundreds of dollars less than the competition, the Vizio OLED packs plenty of smart features alongside the 4K OLED display, and delivers the sort of premium picture quality that normally costs much more. Vizio's SmartCast smart TV platform has also expanded its app selection significantly, and all of the major apps you might want from Netflix to Disney+ are available right on the TV. The few that aren't offered on the home screen (HBO Max is the most glaring omission) can still be enjoyed through the TV's built-in Google Cast and AirPlay 2 support. Combine all of this with an improved remote control design and great sound with better-than-average bass, and you've got an easy pick for affordable OLED TVs, and the winner of the 2021 Tom's Guide Award for best value TV. Read our full Vizio OLED TV review . (Image credit: Sony) 7. Best Sony OLED: Sony Bravia XR A80J An excellent OLED with next-gen tech Specifications Available Screen Sizes: 55, 65, 77 inches Screen Type: OLED Refresh Rate: 120 Hz HDMI ports: 4 Size: 57.1 x 33 x 2.1 inches [65in model, w/o stand] Weight: 49.2 pounds [65in model, w/o stand] TODAY'S BEST DEALS View at Walmart Prime View at Amazon View at Best Buy Reasons to buy + Outstanding picture, audio quality + Lots of dynamic and smart features that really work + Powerful Google TV interface Reasons to avoid - Dynamic adjustments needed for best picture - Not all HDMI ports support HDMI 2.1 - Bravia Core streaming service doesnt dazzle The Sony Bravia XR A80J is absolutely packed with futuristic technologies: this 4K OLED TV has HDR, a 120 Hz refresh rate, ATSC 3.0 tuner, Google TV streaming and Sony's own Bravia Core service, Acoustic Surface Audio+ technology the list goes on. Sure, not everyone will need everything here, but it's nice to have the option. Just as importantly, it also excels at the basics contrast is superb, colors are rich and varied, viewing angles are impressive and it handles upscaling well. Sound is also excellent and Google TV is a big upgrade on the older Android TV. Against that, the XR A80J requires a little more tweaking in order to look its best; it's fine out of the box, but to really reach its full potential, you'll want to play around with various modes. It's not the cheapest and other sets beat it purely based on picture quality, but as an all-round package the A80J is a great choice. Read our full Sony Bravia XR A80J review. (Image credit: Hisense) 8. Best Hisense TV: Hisense U8G Android TV A great Android TV Specifications Available Screen Sizes: 55, 65 inches Screen Type: LCD with Quantum dot Refresh Rate: 120 Hz HDMI ports: 4 (2 HDMI 2.1, 2 HDMI 2.0) Size: 57.1 x 33.1 x 4.1 inches Weight: 53.4 pounds TODAY'S BEST DEALS Prime View at Amazon Low Stock View at Walmart View at Best Buy Reasons to buy + Very bright + Excellent sharpness, color and contrast + Low lag time Reasons to avoid - Overactive motion smoothing - Mediocre viewing angles The Hisense U8G Android TV is our favorite Hisense model, and one of the best Android TVs around. With a quantum dot color and integrated Chromecast and Google Assistant, it's a full-featured smart TV that offers great quality for a reasonable price. With support for both Dolby Vision and HDR10+, it also offers the best HDR format support you can find, along with Dolby Atmos sound. It has built-in voice control with room-listening microphones, effectively letting you use the TV as a smart speaker, and offering the sort of smart home integration and control that would normally cost much more. In our review, we were especially impressed by the U8G's brightness, which exceeds 700 nits of peak brightness and combines with the better-than-average HDR support for great performance that brings out highlights and shadows. With few complaints and lots of great perks, the Hisense U8G ANdroid TV is easily our new favorite Hisense model. Read our full Hisense U8G Android TV (65U8G) review. (Image credit: TCL) 9. Best budget QLED: TCL 5-Series Roku TV (S535) Quantum dot enhancement for less Specifications Available Screen Sizes: 50, 55, 65, 75 inches Screen Type: LCD with Quantum dot Refresh Rate: 60 Hz HDMI ports: 4 HDMI 2.1 Size: 48.4 x 28.1 x 3.0 inches Weight: 32.6 pounds TODAY'S BEST DEALS View at Walmart Prime View at Amazon View at BHPhoto Reasons to buy + Faithful colors + Built-in Roku smarts + Excellent price Reasons to avoid - Mediocre sound - Modest brightness The TCL 5 Series Roku TV does what TCL does best, delivering a surprisingly great mix of features and performance at an excellent affordable price. With even the largest model selling for less than $1000, you get the superb color and brightness of QLED, as well as Roku's user-friendly smart TV interface, which puts thousands of apps right at your fingertips. In addition to the excellent color accuracy and full color gamut offered by the QLED display, it offers top-of-the-line HDR support, with Dolby Vision in addition to basic HDR10 and HLG formats. With input lag clocking in at 13.1 milliseconds, it's also one of the best affordable gaming TVs you can buy. And it's roughly half the price of Samsung's equivalent QLED TV, making it one of the best values in smart TVs. Read our full TCL 5-Series Roku TV (S535) review . (Image credit: Hisense) 10. Hisense U7G Android TV (65U7G) A killer gaming TV Specifications Available Screen Sizes: 55, 65, 75 inches Screen type: QLED Refresh rate: 120Hz HDMI ports: 4 (1 ARC, 1 HDMI 2.1) Size: 57.0 x 33.1 x 3.5 inches Weight: 43 pounds TODAY'S BEST DEALS View at Walmart Prime View at Amazon View at Best Buy Reasons to buy + Bright + Good color and sharpness + Low lag time Reasons to avoid - Lack of detail in dark scenes - Overactive motion smoothing The Hisense U7G Android TV is being marketed as a TV built for gaming, and the specs make it easy to see why: The Quantum Dot display boasts good color and sharp images, the panel's 120Hz refresh rate will handle the most demanding game console output, and a pair of HDMI 2.1 ports offer the best connectivity you can get for high-frame rate gaming. And any TV that's good for gamers will usually do pretty well at everything else. Handling both Dolby Vision and HDR10 Plus formats, it's got some of the best HDR support available, and Dolby Atmos sound means it has the audio to match. It impressed us in our testing, and it's more affordable than you'd expect given the feature set. Gamer or not, the Hisense U7G Android TV is a solid 4K smart TV. Read our full Hisense U7G Android TV review. (Image credit: Toshiba) 11. Toshiba C350 Fire TV (2021 model) The best Amazon Fire TV Specifications Available Screen Sizes: 43, 50, 55 inches Screen Type: LCD Refresh Rate: 60 Hz HDR support: Dolby Vision, HDR10 HDMI ports: 4 HDMI (1 ARC) Size: 37.9 x 22.0 x 2.9 inches Weight: 15.0 pounds TODAY'S BEST DEALS View at Amazon View at Best Buy View at Amazon Reasons to buy + Responsive Fire TV + Good color in standard mode + Low lag time Reasons to avoid - Flat HDR - Inconsistent backlighting The Toshiba C350 Fire TV is the 2021 addition to the small family of Amazon-powered smart TVs, offering good features and decent performance for its extremely affordable price. It's a decent example of the Fire TV template, combining good-enough 4K picture quality, impressively short lag times, and Amazon's great Fire TV smart features, like built-in Alexa voice control, a pretty big app store and (of course) an interface that puts Amazon's Prime Video service front and center. With even the largest 55-inch model selling for less than $500 (and likely much less during sales events), it's one of the smartest affordable TVs you can get. The C350 doesnt come with the latest bells and whistles, such as HDMI 2.1 or Dolby Atmos support, but it does Dolby Vision and HDR10 though not very well. But with excellent color accuracy, low lag time and a good looking design, it's still a solid TV for the price, and better than many Fire TV models we've seen in the past. Read our full Toshiba C350 Fire TV review. (Image credit: SunBriteTV) 12. SunBriteTV Pro 2 Outdoor TV Made for sunshine and shade Specifications Available Screen Sizes: 49, 55, 65 inches Screen Type: LCD Refresh Rate: 60 Hz HDMI ports: 2 Size: 45.1 x 26.9 x 4.8 inches Weight: 84 pounds TODAY'S BEST DEALS Check Amazon Reasons to buy + Solid 4K picture with basic HDR + Rugged outdoor design with internal climate control Reasons to avoid - Expensive - No built in audio or smart functions The average TV isn't made to handle rain, snow, dust or heat. But the SunBriteTV Pro 2 outdoor TV is built for those conditions, with a rugged design that can withstand the elements. Whether it's in a cold garage or out on an open porch, the weather-sealed chassis fends off precipitation, dirt and bugs, and even has a sealed compartment for HDMI hookups. The screen is made to be viewed in full sunlight conditions where even other outdoor sets would falter. Be sure to check out our guide on how to buy the best outdoor TV for more tips on how these sets differ from others. With basic HDR capability and strong overall performance, the SunBrite is a great TV for any outdoor setting. And with optional weatherproof soundbar or speakers you can enjoy sound that's just as tough. If you want a great set for your yard, this is the best TV to get for outdoor viewing. Read our full SunBriteTV Pro 2 outdoor TV review. (Image credit: TCL) 13. Best 8K TV: TCL Roku TV 6-Series 8K (R648) A stunning 8K TV for less Specifications Available Screen Sizes: 65, 75 inches Screen Type: QLED + Mini-LED Refresh Rate: 120 Hz HDMI ports: 4 (2 HDMI 2.1) Size: 57 x 32.7 x 3 inches Weight: 70.1 pounds TODAY'S BEST DEALS Prime View at Amazon View at Walmart View at Best Buy Reasons to buy + Technical picture quality is good + Well-conceived remote redesign + Fine gaming performance on consoles and PCs Reasons to avoid - 65-inch model struggles to prove worth of 8K resolution - Very little 8K content available in the wild - Poor off-angle viewing - Mediocre sound When it comes to 8K TVs, there are plenty of ultra-premium sets you can choose from, but TCL has stepped things up by bringing the price down. The TCL 6-Series 8K Roku TV (R648) is the most affordable 8K TV on the market, and it's even more affordable than some of the 4K sets we recommend. Plus, it's got everything we love about Roku TVs, along with excellent performance and short lag times for gaming. By offering next-gen resolution at current-gen prices, it's the 8K TV we recommend or, that we would recommend, if we thought people should be buying 8K TVs (which we don't). Our only issues with the TV's performance were the 8K panel's limited viewing angles and the mediocrity of the audio, which can be solved with a simple soundbar. But the bigger issue is one facing any 8K TV out there there's next to nothing you can watch in 8K, and that may not change anytime soon. Read our full TCL 6-Series 8K Roku TV (R648) review. How to choose the best TV for you If you're trying to find the right TV for you, there are several factors to consider, from the basics of screen size and resolution, to the specific smart features and ports offered on a given model. We recommend most homes opt for a 55- or 65-inch TV with 4K resolution. We're also big fans of smart TVs, which let you stream all of your favorite shows and use dozens of apps without a second device. We have extensive shopping advice, like our TV buying guide and figuring out what size TV you should buy. And if you still have questions about smart TV features and capabilities, check out Smart TVs: Everything you need to know. Performance: Our TV reviews also look at how well each TV performs in key areas, like picture quality and sound, so don't forget to look up the model you're interested in to see our TV reviews. Ports: We generally recommend opting for more ports, so that you never have to manually unplug and re-plug HDMI cables to switch from your Bl-ray player to your game console or other device. Three ports is common, but nicer TVs usually have 4 HDMI ports. You'll also want make sure at least one is HDMI 2.1; our guide to the best HDMI 2.1 TVs can help here. (Still confused? Check out TV ports explained: What all those HDMI, USB and other connections are for?) Extra USB ports are also handy for powering antenna amplifiers or streaming sticks, as well as viewing media from USB storage. HDR: Most TVs offer high dynamic range (HDR) support, with Dolby Vision being the top format and HDR10 the most basic. But more important is the backlight, with OLED TVs and LED sets with local dimming offering the best HDR capabilities. Smart software: Some of the TVs are among the best Alexa compatible devices and best Google Home compatible devices you can own, so pay attention to which smart home platform the sets offer before choosing. Price: You can find smaller 4K TVs that sell for less than $500, which will spare you some cash for some of the best soundbars or best streaming devices to go with your set. However, you'll want to pay more for features like HDR support and a decent number of HDMI ports. Generally speaking, you'll pay around $500 for a lower-price, 55-inch, 4K TV and at least $900 for a 65-inch model. Premium 4K TVs can sell for thousands of dollars, but we find that the sweet spot for superior performance and value is right around the $2,000 mark. 8K TVs, on the other hand, run from pricey to mortgage-your-house levels of expense, with new smaller models selling for as little as $3,000, but running up to the tens of thousands. Get a broader view of everything the best TV brands have to offer by checking out the full roster of 4K and 8K TVs from every major manufacturer. If you've narrowed down your TV shopping by brand, price range or screen size, check out our picks for the best TVs in each. Best TVs | Best 4K TVs | Best smart TVs for streaming | Best TVs for gaming The best TVs under $1000 | The best TVs under $500 Best TV brands | Best Samsung TVs | Best TCL TVs | Best LG TVs | Best Roku TVs | Best Google TVs | Best OLED TVs | Best QLED TVs | Best 8K TVs | Best HDMI 2.1 TV | Best TVs with ATSC 3.0 | Best TVs with Chromecast The smallest smart TVs | Best 43-inch TVs | Best 50-inch TVs | Best 55-inch TVs | Best 65-inch TVs | Best 70-inch TVs | Best 75-inch TVs | Best 85-inch TVs And don't forget to watch out for the latest TV reviews. How we test TVs Evaluating TVs is about more than just kicking back to watch a movie. We lab test every TV, measuring color gamut, color accuracy and brightness to objectively see which sets are the best for these key indicators. We also test for lag time a key detail for gaming measuring to the millisecond how long it takes for content to travel from the original source to the screen. We use these results to make numbers-based comparisons about color and display quality. We also spend time with each set for real-world evaluation and see how our lab results translate into more subjective performance. We also compare sets side by side and view samples from the latest movies, specialized test patterns that highlight strengths and weaknesses of each display, and a range of content across several sources. With that information, we can tell you which TVs look best, sound best and offer the best viewing experience. Finally, we evaluate the smart TV functions and apps for each TV, looking at everything from the remote control design to the voice interaction Image 1 of 4 Image 2 of 4 Image 3 of 4 Image 4 of 4 Gigabyte has revealed the new X299-WU8 server motherboard for use with Intel's 7th and 9th generation processors. Unlike the company's gaming motherboards, which often feature elaborate designs and increasing numbers of RGB LEDs, the X299-WU8 features a standard design suitable for professional environments. And, of course, it has some of the featuresincluding two PLX8747 chipsfor a solid foundation. The use of two PLX8747 chips allows the X299-WU8 to increase the number of available PCIe lanes. Two configurations are available. The first uses four x16 slots, while the second uses one x16 slot and six x8 slots. Gigabyte also highlighted the board's ability to set up four-way CrossFire and SLI configurations with compatible graphics cards. The X299-WU8 also boasts eight DDR4 DIMM sockets that support up to 128GB of DDR4-2667/2400/2133 memory modules. It boasts just one M.2 connector, along with eight SATA 6Gb/s connectors that support RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10 to handle the storage side of things. And, this being an X299 motherboard from Gigabyte, the new X299-WU8 also supports Intel Optane products to help speed things along. Gigabyte equipped the X299-WU8 with one USB Type-C, one USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A, 10 USB 3.1 Gen 1 and two USB 2.0 ports. The board also offers dual Intel GbE LAN connections. And just in case the lack of RGB LEDs got you excited, know that the X299-WU8 is still more than capable of bringing some color with its two RGBW headers supporting the typical string of multicolored lights, as well as RGBW and UV LED light strips. The usual hardware protections (temperature detection, fan speed control, etc.) are available with the X299-WU8. Also included are Gigabyte mainstays like RGB Fusion and Game Boost. Interestingly, the board comes with a 12-month license for XSplit Gamecaster + Broadcaster, which is used to stream games. Combine that with the support for multi-GPU configurations and RGB lighting, and maybe gamers will be intrigued after all. Gigabyte didn't reveal pricing information for the X299-WU8. However, the board leaked a day early via the company's page on a Chinese marketplace called JingDong, where it was priced at 4999 CNY (roughly $719/ 632). The company has not confirmed if the board will be made available in the U.S, though, its presence on the English website implies as much. We'll update this article if the company offers more details. Image 1 of 2 Image 2 of 2 Imitation's the sincerest form of flattery. It's also likely to confuse potential customers and create legal problems between companies and other issues when it's applied to VR headsets. It seems like Sony is willing to take the high road, however, when it comes to the Lenovo Mirage Solo headset by officially letting Lenovo license the PlayStation VR (PS VR) headset's design. Sony released the PS VR in October 2016. It was the first VR headset for consoles to reach the marketunless you count the headache-inducing Virtual Boyand quickly gained popularity among PlayStation 4 owners (you can learn more about the system in our review). The company sold 2 million PS VR units in 2017, and by August 2018 it had shipped a total of 3 million. Suffice to say there's no way the PS VR went under the radar. Yet when Lenovo released the Mirage Solo in May 2018, it looked quite similar to Sony's headset. The headsets don't really compete with each otherthe Mirage Solo is a standalone device, the PS VR requires a consolebut the flattery, so to speak, was all too fragrant. Today, the companies announced that they signed a two-year patent license agreement that allows Lenovo to use the PS VR's industrial design for the Mirage Solo. Neither company beats around the bush either, with Sony stating that the "industrial design for PS VR has been widely acclaimed" as "the result of years of hard work by PlayStation engineers" and that licensing to Lenovo would be good for VR. Lenovo also acknowledged the reasoning behind the agreement: "Lenovo is pleased to partner with Sony," said Yao Li, vice president of Lenovo Consumer Tablets and Smart Devices Product and Business Management. "The preeminence of the PS VR design is obvious. This agreement will allow us to work together to greatly enhance the design sophistication and appeal of the rapidly expanding VR field and is an outstanding example of how great consumer brands in the VR industry can work together to benefit the consumer VR market." Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung pays working visit to Rostekh Group. (Photo: VGP) Deputy PM Dung had a meeting with leaders of Russias Rostec Group and the Russia Railways (RZD) on October 30th as part of his ongoing visit to Russia to attend the 21st session of the Vietnam-Russia Inter-Governmental Committee for Economic-Commercial and Scientific-Technological Cooperation. At a meeting with Rostec Group CEO Sergey Chemezov, the Vietnamese Deputy PM appreciated Russias science and technology, saying that the two sides hold high potential for cooperation in the 4th industrial revolution, especially in high tech application in telecommunications, healthcare, and transportation. He also applauded the presence of Rostec Groups subsidiaries in Vietnam, including Russian Helicopters or Kamaz which are familiar in his country, suggesting that the group should expand investment in Vietnam. Meeting the President of the Russia Railways, Oleg Belozyrov, the visiting official confirmed that the two Governments welcome and support cooperation among Vietnamese businesses and the RZD Group in modernising and developing the railway system in Vietnam. For his part, RZD President Oleg Belozyrov showed the groups interest in cooperating with Vietnam, adding that with his groups ability and experience, RZD is fully capable of supporting Vietnam in modernising and developing the railway system. He also introduced to the Vietnamese delegation the modern control centre of the group. Earlier, Mr Trinh Dinh Dung and the Vietnamese delegation laid flowers at President Ho Chi Minhs statue in Moscow, and visited the Vietnamese Embassy and the Vietnamese community and businesses in Russia./. Your monitors gamma tells you its pixels luminance at every brightness level, from 0-100%. Lower gamma makes shadows looks brighter and can result in a flatter, washed out image, where it's harder to see brighter highlights. Higher gamma can make it harder to see details in shadows. Some monitors offer different gamma modes, allowing you to tweak image quality to your preference. The standard for the sRGB color space, however, is a value of 2.2. Gamma is important because it affects the appearance of dark areas, like blacks and shadows and midtones, as well as highlights. Monitors with poor gamma can either crush detail at various points or wash it out, making the entire picture appear flat and dull. Proper gamma leads to more depth and realism and a more three-dimensional image. The image gallery below (courtesy of BenQ) shows an image with the 2.2 gamma standard compared to that same image with low gamma and with high gamma. Image 1 of 3 Gamma 2.2/the standard (Image credit: BenQ) Image 2 of 3 Gamma 1.0/low gamma (Image credit: BenQ) Image 3 of 3 Gamma 2.6/high gamma (Image credit: BenQ) Testing Gamma Typically, if you are running on the Windows operating system, the most accurate color is achieved with a gamma value of 2.2 (for Mac OS, the ideal gamma value is 1.8). So when testing monitors, we strive for a gamma value of 2.2. A monitors range of gamma values indicates how far the lowest and highest values differ from the 2.2 standard (the smaller the difference, the better). In our monitor reviews, well show you gamma charts like the one above, with the x axis representing different brightness levels. The yellow line represents 2.2 gamma value. The closer the gray line conforms to the yellow line, the better. This article is part of the Tom's Hardware Glossary. Further reading: Politically Speaking: Webber on Missouri Democrats' climb back from electoral oblivion Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Stephen Webber joins St. Louis Public Radio's Jason Rosenbaum and Jo Mannies to talk about how Democrats are stacking up A bit of newspaper prediction and what MIGHT be a return to bellwether status. Read more: Kansas City Gunfire Aftermath Jackson County sheriff's deputy shoots suspect after pursuit in Independence Authorities are investigating an officer-involved shooting Tuesday morning. Sleazy Plan For Box Store Future Designs On Sleaze Scummit Walmart plans 'reimagined' space in Lee's Summit The future of the Lees Summit Walmart at 1000 NE Sam Walton Lane will look much different than Walmart sites in the past. Fear Local Halloween Traffic Halloween can be deadly for pedestrians, traffic study says Research published Tuesday found a 43 percent higher risk of pedestrian deaths on Halloween night than on other nights near that date. Jeezy Creezy Charges Revealed Shawnee Christian school founder facing 6 more counts of child sex abuse SHAWNEE, Kan. -- The founder of a Christian school in Shawnee is now facing even more child sex abuse charges. Dennis Creason was charged Tuesday with six more counts of aggravated indecent liberties. He was previously charged with three other counts in late August. Local Clean Missouri Talk Amendment One, a citizen led petition, seeks reforms in Jefferson City Originally published September 26, 2018 Paul Thompson Northeast News The "Clean Missouri" initiative petition, dubbed Amendment One, aims to dull [...] Kansas Waterslide Honcho Deluge Schlitterbahn co-owner faces new charges for drugs, solicitation A Schlitterbahn co-owner is facing new charges over drugs and sex. Old School Toy Train Redux River Market's vintage streetcar to become retail shop, cafe | The Kansas City Star Made in Kansas City plans to open in a vintage streetcar - at 426 Delaware St. in the River Market - in spring 2019. It feature will products by local designers, artists and makers. Here Comes Da Judges . . . Judicial selection; a primer Bryan Stalder Northeast News Be prepared for a lengthy ballot and potentially long lines at the polls on November [...] Items that are still worth a look but maybe not a post or a feature on this Halloween morning.Developing . . . A man in a skeleton mask and carrying a sawed-off shotgun was arrested by Kansas City police while walking in traffic near Missouri 152 and North Indiana Avenue. He is facing a federal gun charge. The Great Kansas City Media Blackout of the KCDTR The Kansas City Demonstration for Transgender Rights was held from 2:00-3:30 last Saturday, October 27, at the J.C. Nichols fountain in Kansas City, Missouri. It was advertised widely on social med... "Many leaders in the local LGBTQIA community have spoken with us, most of them privately, and all expressed significant concern at the silence over the rally. While few were ready to level charges of transphobia or a rise of hard right-wing influence or chilling effect upon the local media, all were baffled and disturbed by the media silence. I think all of us in the local LGBTQIA community should be reaching out to the mainstream media outlets, sending comments and e-mails, and asking why they didnt show up to cover the event." AS THE KANSAS CITY TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY QUESTIONS AN MSM BLACKOUT, IT'S IMPORTANT TO CONSIDER OTHER GROUPS DOWNPLAYED BY INFORMATION GATEKEEPERS!!! Leaders of the Transgender Community in Kansas City feel betrayed by mainstream media and the dearth of coverage granted to one of the biggest, local LGBTQIA gatherings in years.Here's a remarkable write-up regarding the complaint and perspective.Money line:Now it should be noted that. . . Maybe #4 . . . We did a lead-up,and then talked about an. . . We note as much not only because it's another example that our blog community actually offers a much more balanced and comprehensive look at KCMO than any other resource but also that political concerns often cut out allied groups when it comes to election season . . . Translation: Too much Transgender coverage by MSM puts some local outlets at risk of seeming leftist to their right wing viewers.Here at TKC we couldn't care less what you d-bags think and post based on community impact and whim . . . What we come up with is usually a better look at life at the street level than any other news organization.And so . . .From abortion opponents to LGBT denizens who actually support Prez Trump . . . The Internets is home to a great many interests who are often slighted by political bias, profit focused social media algorithms or the status quo . . . Whatever the case . . .The important lesson from all of this is clear: Responsibility for messaging rests with communities who can no longer depend on MSM to do their work and must reach out on a variety of platforms, across all media and face to face in order to have their voices heard.You decide . . . Hyundai showed off a very promising Santa Cruz compact pickup concept at the 2015 North American International Auto Show, but it never materialized into a production vehicle. Well, that could be about to change according to a recent report that says the concept could shift into production after all. Wonhee Lee, the CEO of Hyundai, announced that the company was working on two projects right now, one of which is a battery-powered SUV, while the other is a compact pickup inspired by the aforementioned Santa Cruz study. He did, however, note that neither of these two projects has been given the full go-ahead for production, so we too are a bit skeptical that either project will materialize. The pickup, which the Hyundai boss called a semi-pickup, is apparently still quite early in its research and development stage, and it would take another 32 months to see it reach production. If it is going to become a series model, it is very likely it will share its underpinnings with next-gen Tucson crossover, a model set arrive on the local South Korean market in 2020. One year later, the pickup would arrive too, but the company isnt experienced in making pickups, and its unsure where exactly it would fit in the pickup segment, particularly in the U.S. Wonhee Lee said "Its a new segment, so we dont have any data to give us a kind of confidence. But we believe we can create a new segment for pickup trucks in the U.S. market. If it were to see production and be aimed at North American buyers, it would have to also be built somewhere in the U.S., probably at the groups facility in Montgomery, Alabama. However, the plant would need massive investment in retooling in order to accommodate another model and boost its annual output of 390,000 vehicles (currently Elantras, Sonatas, and Santa Fes). It wouldnt arrive any earlier than 2021. The advantages of making a pickup out of car-like crossover underpinnings would be keeping the weight down, ensuring excellent on-road handling, as well as good efficiency. And since it would be related to the compact Tucson, it really wouldnt have many similar size rivals. Even smaller pickups, like the Ford Ranger, would be quite a bit larger than it, so it would essentially have the market segment to itself. Were really hoping that if it does reach production, its design wont differ too much from that of the Santa Cruz concept which raised a few eyebrows at its unveiling. The 2015 study has an aggressive front end, wide, muscular haunches, and it looks like a car was turned into a pickup and not the other way around. Hyundais design language has evolved since then, and it will evolve further until the proposed 2021 release date, but it could still keep a lot of the concepts design ideas. Further reading Read our full review on the 2015 Hyundai Santa Cruz Crossover Truck Concept. Source: Automotive News Weve heard just about anything that couldve been heard about the upcoming Mustang-styled crossover. But during that same meeting with the dealers that Ford organized, the company threw in the mix some hints towards a potential Mustang sedan that could be outfitted with a turbocharged V-8 engine. Yes, the Mustang will remain the only car the Blue Oval will offer on U.S. soil, but the legendary pony car might spawn a number of models, including a four-door coupe-style sedan that aims to match Audis A7 or Mercedes-Benzs CLS Class. A Mustang Sedan looking to match a Mercedes, Audi or a Porsche. What?! Mustang fans were enraged at the news that the legendary Mach 1 moniker might be rejuvenated and placed on the trunk and hood of a future crossover SUV that will feature Mustang-esque design cues. While that information proved to be false, the rumor mill has now produced further food for insanity: a four-door Mustang model to challenge German luxury sedans from Audi, Mercedes-Benz and even Porsche! Does it all sound a little bit too much for you? Well, take all of this with a hefty amount of salt as it may just be vaporware. The folks over at Mustang 6G, who first reported this, state that "this tidbit makes it possible that the 4-door Mustang will be distinct from and a separate vehicle than the formerly-Mach1 SUV, which Ford announced would be a full-electric SUV taking cues from the Mustang." The same source claims that the upcoming sedan which will, most likely, be based at least visually on the upcoming Mustang generation, will be fitted with a turbocharged V-8 engine. It might even have two turbochargers, one for each cylinder bank. This setup should, if the information is to be believed, produce enough power to contend with the finest German sporty sedans like the Mercedes CLS or Audis A7, meaning that the Mustang sedan will also have a coupe-style roofline. Mustang 6G actually goes as far as to state that Ford wants to challenge Porsches Panamera with their upcoming product. We believe thats nigh on impossible and well leave it at that. Whats clear is that one meeting with the dealers can be the catalyst of so much news. First there was the confirmation that the new electric crossover SUV wont be named Mach 1 but will still feature Mustang elements on the outside: "Ford wants to mix a Mustang-inspired design for the front end with EV performance and high levels of practicality. This should be achieved using a brand new modular platform for electric cars, one of a total of five architectures Ford will use in the future, and an efficient electric powertrain with a range of 300 miles between charges." We were also treated with a sneak peek of the new Ford Mustang GT500 which will most likely be powered by a supercharged variant of the 5.2-liter V-8 engine from the GT350 capable of 720-horsepower at 7,500 rpm. Lets wait and see what translates into genuine press releases from Ford and what will remain a soon-to-be-forgotten "what if?" moment. Further reading Ford Mustang GT - $35,095 Read our full review on the 2018 Ford Mustang. Read our full speculative review on the 2020 Ford Mustang Mach 1. Read our full review on the 2007 Ford Interceptor concept. ford mustang sedan We kind off anticipated the four-door Ford Mustang back in 2006. Source: Mustang6G The Brevard High School Band has been invited to perform at the 2019 New York Invitational Music Festival next spring. This festival offers young musicians the opportunity to play in one of the world's greatest music venues, the Isaac Stern Auditorium/Ronald O. Perelman Main Stage in the famed Carnegie Hall. The band will also participate in master classes delivered by nationally renowned clinicians and interact with other talented musicians from all over the world. Most of the students in the band have never been to New York City, and many have dreamed of performing at Carnegie Hall sin... STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA TRANSYLVANIA COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT File No. 16-E-424 NOTICE TO CREDITORS I have qualified as Executor of the Estate of Preston Harold Rahn, Deceased, of Transylvania County, North Carolina. All persons, firms, and corporations having claims against the Estate must present them to me on or before January 11, 2019 or this Notice will be pleaded in bar of recovery. Those indebted to the Estate should make immediate payment to the Executor. Dated: October 11, 2018 James Allen Rahn, Executor 347 Eastview Drive Brevard, NC 28712 Donald E. Jordan 4 West Ma... Pictured above are two new Transylvania Habitat for Humanity board members. Nancy Robinson and Roy Hill are welcomed by Habitat President Don Campbell (center). Recently, Transylvania Habitat for Humanity held its annual meeting, which was open to the public in the Habitat ReStore board room. Board president Don Campbell called the meeting to order and introduced board members and staff to those present. Various points of business were discussed, along with a financial report given by finance chair Dan White and an office report given by Terena Flatt, Habitat office manager. ReStore manager Kerri Ward gave a summary of ReStore activity throughout the past fiscal year. Board member and chair of Family Nurture, Mary Meseck, recapped Habitat fa... Monday night saw the end of the old Mary C. Jenkins Community Center in Brevard. A new center is planned. (Times photo by Park Baker) From the smoldering ashes of the well-celebrated past, a new Mary C. Jenkins Community Center in Brevard is in the works to rise in its place. In November 2017, Brevard City Council unanimously approved the building of a new center, retaining Harris Architects for the design and construction. Since then , the Mary C. Jenkins Board of Directors have been working with the city to clear a path for the new center, and Monday night, the controlled burn of the building was a step closer in the creation of a new era for the Rosenwald community. The Mary C. Jenkins Community Center opened in 195... Last week will be remembered as one of the darkest in our nations history. Domestic terrorism, rooted in extreme rightwing politics, raised its ugly head. In Florida, a fanatical Trump supporter mailed pipe bombs to leading Democrats and to CNN. A white racist ambushed two black shoppers in a Kentucky parking lot. And in a heinous act of violence, an anti-Semite gunned down 11 elderly Jewish worshippers in Pittsburgh. Make no mistake about it. These violent acts did not spring up out of nowhere. They are the direct consequence of Donald Trumps inflammatory language and fear mongerin... Treehugger and our third-party partners use cookies and process personal data like unique identifiers based on your consent to store and/or access information on a device, display personalized ads and for content measurement, audience insight, and product development. To change or withdraw your consent choices for Treehugger.com, including your right to object where legitimate interest is used, click below. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page. These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. List of Partners (vendors) Three years ago I wrote "Happy 10th Birthday, Bitcoin. Now Go Away Before You Fry Us All," saying "let's hope it doesn't make it to its bar mitzvah." Well here we are, Bitcoin is 13 years old, that happy bar mitzvah age. And my how it's grown, as has the energy consumption that the cryptocurrency requires; according to Digiconomist, to an estimated 77.78 terawatt-hours per year (about the same as the entire nation of Chile) and pumping out 36.5 megatonnes of CO2 (about as much as New Zealand). The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption index says consumption is even higher, at 106.92 terawatt-hours (TWh), but doesn't calculate the carbon footprint, which is a function of how the power is generated. The electrical use is a feature, not a bug, as explained by Alex Hern in the Guardian: "The reason for the mining requirement, which is essentially asking a computer to continue rolling dice until it rolls a few thousand sixes in a row, is that it ensures that no single person can dictate what happens on the network. ...Because the problem is so processor-intensive and so randomly rewarded, its prohibitively expensive in electricity and computing power to attempt to fake it. But its also a vast use of electricity, worldwide." Emissions gap. CC 4.0 UNEP The problem is that in much of the world, electricity generation is carbon-intensive and as we keep saying, we have to reduce our carbon emissions by 29 gigatonnes by 2030 to stay below 1.5 degrees of warming. That means emissions of less than half of what we are pushing out now, and looking carefully at everything that emits CO2, and questioning whether it is worth it. That's why we keep bothering about Bitcoin; its emissions have to go away too. The Bitcoin fans suggest that this isn't a problem, claiming that Bitcoin miners use renewable or wasted energy, and all point to a recent article by Haley Zaremba with the title "This Russian Energy Giant Is Mining Bitcoin With Virtually Free Energy". But what they are doing is using natural gas that would have otherwise been flared off. So it is using a wasted asset, but it does nothing to reduce CO2 emissions. If anything, it provides a perverse incentive to increase them because they don't have to worry about the emissions anymore, which were previously a problem. "The CO2 that gets freed during the oil drilling is normally a liability for oil companies as they have to burn it into the atmosphere, which results in fines," Yahoo! Finance reports, according to Zaremba, who adds: "The location of the new Russian Bitcoin farm also means that the costs of the operation will be relatively low. Instead of paying a premium to use energy from the grid, locating the cryptocurrency mining on-site at an oil field means that a steady supply of natural gas is virtually free." In fact, according to Marketwatch, the rising value of the Bitcoin "has made it more profitable to use less-efficient equipment." And 2/3 of that Bitcoin mining is taking place in China, where half of the electricity is generated using coal. Many Bitcoin fans will say that they are mining with the renewable half, but as Digiconomist points out: "It is important to realize that, while renewables are an intermittent source of energy, Bitcoin miners have a constant energy requirement. A Bitcoin miner will, once turned on, not be switched off until it either breaks down or becomes unable to mine Bitcoin at a profit. Because of this, Bitcoin miners increase the baseload demand on a grid. They dont just consume energy when there is an excess of renewables, but still require power during production shortages. In the latter case, Bitcoin miners have historically ended up using fossil fuel-based power (which is generally a more steady source of energy)." Right now, Bitcoin is on a roll, and many believe it is going to roll a lot higher. Our favorite green company JPMorgan Chase predicts that "Bitcoin has the potential to reach $146,000 in the long term as it competes with gold as an asset class." Even though I have been reading and writing about Bitcoin for years, I must confess that I still don't really understand what it is for and what good it does. I reached out to Caleb Silver, the Editor in Chief of Investopedia for comment and explanation and he responded: "While Bitcoin mining and storage both require a lot of electricity and a constant source of energy, that energy can come from renewable or less carbon-reliant sources like hydroelectricity or solar. That doesn't mean most miners aren't using old-fashioned electricity to run their machines most are. There is no comparison, however, to the amount of energy or carbon production required to produce one ounce of gold versus one Bitcoin, although Bitcoin miner energy usage is growing at a much faster rate than gold production given the demand for the cryptocurrency. That demand is only going to grow as multi-trillion dollar financial institutions are embracing some forms of cryptocurrency and allowing their customers the ability to include it in their portfolios, and central banks around the world are experimenting with digital currencies and blockchain technology. Like a lot of new technology advancements, the growing adoption of cryptocurrencies will be inefficient and wasteful especially wasteful in energy consumption, until someone smart comes up with a better mouse-trap, or energy source, in this case." I still do not really get it but then I do not understand why we need gold as an asset class either. Another Bitcoin fan says they imagine that "clean-energy climate campaigners will soon have BTC in their sights. BTC has saved a lot of coal miners in China from hitting the wall in 2020. One should have to buy carbon credits when buying BTC." I think that is a fine idea; let the clean-energy climate campaigners pile on now. Make Bitcoin carbon neutral with renewables or credits, or ban them. There is a lot of history here, and a great future. Way back in the early days of Treehugger, our first writer, Meaghan O'Neill, wrote about the Wee House, with a wee photo and a wee paragraph. Around that time I was in the prefab biz and met Steve Glenn, who was just starting Living Homes; we covered it when the photos were just a bit bigger. He and Geoffrey Warner, founder of Alchemy Achitects and entrepreneur behind the weeHouse, are both true pioneers in modern prefab and tiny living, and are still at it. Alchemy Architects / LH1 Exterior Now they are working together and have introduced a line of wee accessory dwelling units (ACUs) ranging from 310 to 600 square feet, inspired by the weeHouse. Plant Prefab founder Steve Glenn says in the press release: Since Alchemy has long been an expert in designing for prefabricated building methods and a pioneer in sustainable design, and weve already completed two projects together, it was easy for us to partner together to offer a set of unique, ultra-efficient, standard LivingHomes for the market. Geoffrey Warner ripostes: Having worked together to build two prior homes in California, were confident that Plant Prefab is the right partner to bring our ADU designs to this market. The lightHouse is intended to be a beacon for sustainable living; Plant Prefab has built up its reputation around sustainable building practice. The specs sound appealing, with "thoughtful details, such as window nooks that double as seating and guest sleeping areas, laundry, and flexible storage spaces, provide utility where it matters most. Carefully-chosen finish options ensure that the units can blend in with their surroundings and adapt to different climates, a key consideration for building on the West Coast." Plant Prefab/ Alchemy Architects But as is so often the case, it is the planning that makes these things a success or failure, and this is where Geoffrey Warner has been refining his designs for the last fifteen years. Here are 380 square feet of really usable space with a generous bathroom. I am also intrigued by this (2) bench + sleeping concept. It's shown as the same depth as the kitchen counter, which is camp cot width, but it's a lot less work than unfolding a sofa bed. Alchemy Architects I wouldn't mind living in this 480 square foot unit, especially if it comes with that view. But it also has a very interesting plan: Alchemy Architects My first thought was, why is the kitchen out in the living space when there looks to be enough room in (7) laundry/mechanical/storage to fit a galley kitchen? On reflection, I conclude that ADUs should be designed for universal accessibility, which that bathroom is big enough for, as is the open kitchen. A galley might be too tight. You can also never have enough storage. Alchemy Architects There are lots of options in size and layout: "Thirteen floor plan variations allow customers to achieve their ideal space, siting, and view, regardless of lot limitations. Configurations range from a compact studio to a one-bedroom unit atop a two-car garage, accommodating just about any end use." Plant Prefab has figured how to do it affordably, with entry-level units starting at $170,000: Construction of all LivingHomes is made significantly more efficient with use of the Plant Building System (PBS), Plant Prefabs patented, hybrid system for building prefabricated homes. PBS uses a combination of Plant Modules and Plant Panels, a new panelized construction system developed by Plant Prefab, which include plumbing, electrical, and finish materials. By integrating both modules and panels, PBS provides architects with greater design flexibility and reduces the complexity and cost of transportation and installation. Fifteen years ago when I was working in prefab, Steve Glenn, Geoffrey Warner, and I were all trying to make "great architecture more accessible, affordable, and sustainable." I didn't have the talent or the discipline, but Steve and Geoffrey stuck it out, survived the Great Recession (a lot of others didn't), and are launching lightHouse LivingHomes at a very difficult and precarious time. On the other hand, the timing might be excellent; there may be a big demand for retirement downsizing, home offices, or rental units. As for me, it is such a pleasure to see two people that I have known and admired for 15 years working together. They will do great things. editorial@tribune.com Balwant Garg Tribune News Service Faridkot, October 30 Arresting four persons for the offence of adulteration and cheating in the making of desi ghee, the Faridkot police claimed to have made recovery of about 15,000 kgs of spurious desi ghee, 50,000 kg of vegetable oil and about 4,000 lt of fatty chemical acid from a factory, established in about 10,000 square yards area in Kotkapura. Faridkot SSP Raj Bachan Singh Sandhu said the police had arrested Vishal Goyal, a Ludhiana-based industrialist and owner of the factory, Sukhdev Singh, the manager, Vijay Kumar and Kulwant Rai, residents of Lehragaga, suppliers of spurious ghee. The police and Health Department teams are conducting a joint search operation in Lduhiana, Delhi, Jakhal, Lehragaga, Rampura and other towns of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan to recover consignments of spurious ghee, the SSP said. As the demand for desi ghee is high in the festival season for its use in rituals and cooking sweets and other eatables, it is believed that huge quantity of spurious ghee was already dumped in the market. There is a huge margin in the sale of spurious desi ghee. While the manufacturing cost of this ghee is about Rs 100 per kg, after packing it in the name of many reputed brands, this duplicate product is supplied in the retail market from Rs 150 to Rs 200 per kg. The retailer further sells this spurious ghee to the consumer at Rs 350 to Rs 400 per kg. For pure desi ghee, cow and buffalo milk is used for its preparation. But in adulterated and spurious ghee, three body fats (buffalo, goat and pig) and three vegetable oils (soybean, palm and rice bran) are largely used. Vegetable oils and animal body fats are different from each other in terms of their physico-chemical make-up. Vegetable oils contain more of long chain unsaturated fatty acids mainly linoleic acid while body fats contain long chain fatty acids, which are comparatively less unsaturated than vegetable oils and more saturated than milk fat, said sources in the Health Department. Several tests have been developed for detecting adulteration of milk fat with foreign fats, but the use of fatty chemical acid to make the emulsion of vegetable oils and body fats in desi ghee makes it difficult to assess the purity without any laboratory examination. Reichert Meissl (RM value) is a significant physico-chemical constant to check purity as these short chain fatty acids are found only in milk fat and not in animal body fats and vegetable oils. While the RM value for pure cow ghee ranges from 28.52 to 30.93, for pure buffalo ghee it ranges from 30.87 to 33.73. However, the average RM value for buffalo body fat, goat body fat and pig body fat is from 0.25 to 0.30. The value for palm oil, rice bran oil and soybean oil is from 0.15 to 0.35. uttara@tribuneindia.com Washington/New Delhi, October 31 India has jumped 23 places to the 77th position in the World Bank's 'ease of doing business' ranking released Wednesday, a development that could help the country attract more foreign investments. India was ranked 100th in World Bank's Doing Business Report last year. The ranking comes as a shot in the arm for Prime Minister Narendra Modis government, which faces strong dissenting voices from opposition parties ahead of the general elections next year. In its annual report 'Doing Business' 2019 report, World Bank said India improved on six of the 10 parameters relating to starting and doing business in a country. These parameters include ease of starting a business, construction permits, getting electricity, getting credit, paying taxes, trade across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. India was ranked at the 142nd position among 190 nations when the Modi government came to power in 2014. It rose to 100th spot in the last ranking from the 131st rank in the previous year. New Zealand topped the list of 190 countries in ease of doing business, followed by Singapore, Denmark, and Hong Kong. The United States is placed eight and China has been ranked 46th. Neighbour Pakistan is placed at 136. World Bank put India among the top 10 economies to make the most improvements. 'Brought down red tape' Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said at a press conference held soon after the reported released that India could crack into top 50 if it improved on time taken for registering real estate, starting business and enforcement of contracts. The BJP-led government, since coming to the power, has reduced red-tape and corruption, and its reforms have ensured India jumps ranks from 142 to 77, he said. Improvements have already done on enforcement of contracts, taxation and insolvency laws and would be reflected in future rankings. PTI ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Vijay C Roy Tribune News Service Chandigarh, October 31 Luxury automobile manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW have introduced high-end premium bicycles in Punjab and Chandigarh markets. Chandigarh-based Mercedes-Benz dealer Joshi Autozone says the company sells one bicycle per month. These are premium bikes and only Mercedes-Benz customers buy it as they have deep association with the brand, says Deepak Joshi, MD, Joshi Autozone. These bikes are sold through their outlets in Chandigarh, Jalandhar and Ludhiana. The trekking cycle costs around Rs 1.64 lakh whereas the other one is priced at Rs 1.48 lakh. The frame of these bikes is made of aluminum, he said. BMW has sold around five bikes through its appointed dealers in Chandigarh and Ludhiana since August this year. We have sold these bikes from our two dealerships, says an executive of BMW Krishna Automobiles, Chandigarh. The companys aluminum-framed trekking bike costs around 91,000. Besides businessmen, top corporate executives, doctors and professionals are the customers. According to experts, the two-wheeled cycle has come a long way. It is increasingly becoming preferred mode of transport for health conscious and environment-loving people. This trend is catching up in Chandigarh and Ludhiana, where premium bicycles are also in demand, they added. The branded luxury bicycles are mountain bikes, urban cruisers and high-end road bikes. Such expensive bikes are not in the reach of common people. The trend is, however, changing. Customers living in small cities such as Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur are preferring high-priced premium imported bicycles. People are buying these premium bicycles for amateur events, which are priced between Rs 50,000 and Rs 7 lakh, says The Bike Store-Hoshiarpur Cyclewalle proprietor Saran Preeti. Among the other highly priced bikes in India, which are imported in the region are Italian-brand Carrera Podium which starts from Rs 2 lakh. The companys carbon-framed MTB starts from Rs 4.5 lakh. Premium brands Price Mercedes-Benz Rs 1.48-1.64 lakh BMW Rs 91,000 Carrera Podium Rs 2-7 lakh Scott Rs 1.25 lakh onwards Marin Rs 1.5 lakh onwards Trek Rs 1.5 lakh onwards . Blast on rail tracks in Jharkhand derails diesel locomotive; Railways says it was a bomb blast by miscreants Sources indicate that this was a Naxal-related incident vermaajay1968@gmail.com Tribune News Service Panchkula, October 30 There are ample opportunities for intelligent students who either want to go to European country Finland for higher studies or do business in unconventional fields. This was stated by Nina Vaskunlahti, Finnish Ambassador to India. Vaskunlahti was in Barwala to inaugurate Lindstrom India, a subsidiary of the Finnish Lindstrom Oy. She said Finnish academic institutes have signed MoUs with 17 Indian universities which were offering postgraduate courses in engineering, informaiton technology and mathematics. She said companies in Finland have expertise in manufacturing building machines, electronics, trains and mining equipment. She said though these companies had not yet shown any interest in investing in India, but they hope that with the emerging concept of smart cities in India cities, Finlands companies would invest in the country in near future. She said 20 Finnish companies would be participating in Bengaluru Tech Summit to be held from November 29 and added that the trade growth of Finnish companies in India was pegged at 2 per cent, which was a good sign. Earlier Juha Laurio, president and CEO, Lindstrom Group, said the company with a total turnover of 358 Euros has expanded its operations in Barwala. gspannu7@gmail.com Chandigarh, October 31 Nearly six years after Justice Nirmaljit Kaur of the Punjab and Haryana High Court was transferred to Rajasthan High Court, the Supreme Court Collegium has resolved to recommend her repatriation. It also recommended the transfer of Justice PB Bajanthri back to his parent High Court of Karnataka from the Punjab and Haryana HC. Recommendations in both transfers have been made in the interest of better administration. The Collegium comprising CJI Ranjan Gogoi, Justice MB Lokur, Justice Kurian Joseph, Justice AK Sikri and Justice SA Bobde asserted that Justice Nirmaljit Kaur hailed from the Punjab and Haryana HC and was on transfer to the Rajasthan HC. She had been serving since July 2, 2012. Known for her integrity, calibre and administrative experience, Justice Nirmaljit Kaur was posted at Jodhpur and was heading a Division Bench hearing appeals filed in criminal matters. Justice Nirmaljit Kaur had hit the headlines in 2008 after a bagful of money was erroneously delivered at her house. Investigations in the cash-at-door scam later revealed that the money was allegedly meant for delivery at the residence of Judge Nirmal Yadav. TNS G Parthasarathy G Parthasarathy former diplomat THE resilience and courage of the people of Afghanistan was evident in parliamentary elections held on October 21. While there are varying estimates about the number of eligible voters in the country, about 4 million voters, comprising around 33% of the electorate turned out to vote, braving Taliban threats, bomb explosions, suicide bombers and mortar shells. Over 170 voters were killed, or wounded. What was noteworthy was the significant turnout of women voters over 30% of those registered. Nothing shames the Taliban and their medieval practices regarding women more than the large turnout of women voters. Interestingly, while the Afghan government controlled 229 districts with 56.3% of population, 59 districts with 14.5% population were under Taliban control, with control of 119 districts, comprising 29.2% population, being contested. Barely three days before the elections, the southern Afghan city of Kandahar witnessed a murderous Taliban attack, demonstrating the uncertainty in the loyalties of individual members of the armed forces and the police because of the infiltration of Taliban cadres into their ranks. The attack occurred at a meeting between US Commander-General Austin Miller and Provincial Governor Zalmai Wesa. Two Afghan bodyguards opened fire, killing the Governor, his police chief, Gen Abdul Raziq, who had conducted anti-Taliban actions ruthlessly and successfully for over a decade, and the provincial intelligence chief. Brigadier-General Jeffrey Smiley, who was accompanying the US Commander, was seriously wounded. The attack has immense symbolic significance, given Kandahars historical and spiritual importance to the Taliban. The main mosque in Kandahar, described as the Shrine of the Cloak, houses what is believed to be the Prophets cloak. Ahmed Shah Durrani, regarded as the founder of Afghanistan and its hero, brought the cloak from Bukhara in Uzbekistan in 1768. This was done just a few years after Ahmed Shahs victory in the Third Battle of Panipat (1761), which extended Pashtun control over the whole of what is today Pakistans Punjabi heartland, north of the Sutlej. When Mullah Omar reached Kandahar with Pakistani backing in 1996, he sought to emphasise his legitimacy by blasphemously appearing in public, donning the cloak. Control, or appearance of control, over the mosque is symbolically more important to the Taliban, than even the control of Kabul! Hence, the relentless Taliban attacks on Kandahar, where we now have an Indian Consulate. Few in India, unfortunately, recognise or appreciate the dangers our diplomats and staff in diplomatic and consular missions, and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police face daily in Afghanistan. With presidential elections scheduled for the first half of 2019 in Afghanistan, India must realise that the greatest diplomatic and strategic challenges it will face in coming months are going to arise in Afghanistan. With Imran Khan, popularly known as Taliban Khan, now heading the civilian government in Afghanistan, it is clear that more than ever before, Pakistan armys hard-core Islamists are going to call the shots in Afghanistan. Establishing a Taliban-dominated setup will remain their highest priority. They are going to be emboldened by the fact that virtually every external power that matters the US, the EU, Russia, China and Iran are reconciled, one way or another, to accommodate the Taliban. This is their thinking at a time, when the Taliban impetuously seizes control over urban centres like Ghazni and shows little interest in negotiating with the Afghan government. The role of external powers in the Afghan cauldron is also getting more complex. President Trump was dissuaded from his desire to pack up and leave from Afghanistan, when he was warned that he would be judged by many as a weak President who lost Afghanistan. He has since, on the advice of Defence Secretary Mattis, augmented the US air power, especially in the use of attack helicopter gunships, which can play a crucial role in dealing with Taliban attacks. He has, more or less, frozen US troop levels, but kept options open for a face-saving withdrawal. The shrewd Zalmay Khalilzad, an American of Afghan origin who played a leading role in Afghanistan during the Bush Administration, has been made Special Envoy for talks with the Taliban, which he initiated recently in Qatar. In the meantime, Pakistan has released a founding member of the Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar a leader it had distrusted and incarcerated since 2010. The Taliban has welcomed Baradars release. He could play an important role in talks with the Taliban, which can pick up steam only after the 2019 elections. Both Russia and China have played duplicitous roles. Russia has made friends with the Taliban and even reportedly supplied it with weapons. Pakistan has midwifed secret Chinese contacts with the Taliban, for over a decade now. Russia, China and Pakistan are playing a dubious game of diverting attention away from Taliban depredations. They are trying to make the world believe that the real terrorist challenge in Afghanistan comes not from the Taliban, but from the Daesh (IS), which has regrouped in Afghanistan. Americans wanting to leave Afghanistan have conveniently bought this argument. China also has other worries, based on its fears that its Muslim Uighurs, whom it is treating brutally, could cross the border, seek shelter in Afghanistan and threaten Beijings internal security. With the growing poll fervour in India, New Delhi should not ignore these developments. A Pakistan-backed takeover of large tracts of Afghan territory has to be thwarted. Afghan leaders should put aside personal rivalries and face the challenges posed by Pakistan and the Taliban. President Ghani would be well advised to see, even as the Afghan armed forces are strengthened and their morale restored, that powerful regional satraps like the Provincial Governor of Balkh, Atta Mohammad Noor, are fully associated in what should be a united effort to meet the challenges. Prem Chowdhry Prem Chowdhry Author and Former Academic, Delhi University On November 1, 1966, the state of Haryana was formed by partitioning Punjab on the linguistic basis. What emerged was one of the smallest states in India, covering 44,056 square kilometres and approximately 10 million people and being economically extremely backward. With low priority being given to any improvement in agriculture by the British, it was afflicted with low productivity and frequent famines. Suffering from a very low level of urbanisation, education and industry, it could hardly boast of a strong middle class. Having remained generally outside the nationalist endeavours and central to the then ruling unionist politics, which had collaborated with the British, it lacked a strong ideological binding. Politics of defections Ideologically bereft, the elected members came to exhibit certain extremely regressive trends in politics. This period brought in the politics of defections in a major way. In the first Assembly elections, the Congress did emerge with a clear mandate, but within 12 days of the formation of its government, a large number of Congress dissidents brought it down. Under the leadership of Rao Birendra Singh, a United Front government was made entirely of defectors. Within eight months, fresh dissidence arose, leading to a 'see-saw game of defections and counter-defections'. Of the 81 members elected to the Assembly, as many as 44 defected: one defected five times, two four times, three thrice and four twice and 34 once. Haryana contributed a new term to the political lexicon of the country: 'Aya Ram, Gaya Ram' to signify the phenomenon of defections. Aya Ram, a Haryanvi legislator, defected thrice within a fortnight, out of which he defected twice within nine hours, thereby setting a record of sorts. Ironically, these defections were described by Mohan Lal Thakur, deputy minister of food, who had defected four times from and to the Congress, as having been effected on "matters of ideology and principles". In Haryana, in view of this instability, the Assembly was dissolved. Mid-term elections took place after five months of President's rule in May, 1968. This was the second election for the infant state. The Congress came back with a strength of 48 in the House of 81 members. Bansi Lal, a little-known MLA from Hisar, become the Chief Minister. This was the start of the phase of Bansi Lal. Bansi Lal, builder of modern Haryana In this 1968-77 period, Bansi Lal was able to tame the defections through ample awards/punishments, along with his own dictatorial abuse of power. Almost the entire political opposition members were either purchased or ruthlessly crushed and humiliated. Within three years, the strength of the Congress in the Assembly rose from 48 to 54. Clearly, the elements of emergency had been evolved in Haryana before Indira Gandhi officially proclaimed it in June, 1975. This phase of Bansi Lal also coincided with the financially prosperous stage of the Green Revolution in Haryana. The first 20 post-Independent years saw its beginnings, and formed the basis of a successful Green Revolution in the mid-sixties after which high rates of agricultural growth could be sustained. Bansi Lal's tenure coincided with this period of high growth. This region emerged as a major contributor of foodgrains to the central pool and became the second-most prosperous state in India. Ironically, therefore, Bansi Lal came to be associated with autocratic rule as also with enormous productivity and development, emerging as the 'builder of modern Haryana'. In the 1972 elections, the Congress under him won seven out of nine parliamentary seats and 60 out of 81 Assembly seats. The improved performance of the Congress occurred in the wake of Indira Gandhi's hugely successful Bangladesh war of 1971. Bansi Lal remained the Chief Minister till December 1975, when he was brought into the central cabinet by Indira Gandhi. His protege Banarsi Das Gupta took over. This fairly long period of stability, was politically highly dubious but has proved prophetic. The political culture of defections and authoritarianism initiated in these 10 years can be seen operating in many regions of India. Pritam Singh Pritam Singh Professor, Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, University of Oxford November 1 marks the day when a Punjabi-speaking state, the first such state in the history of the Punjabi language, was created in 1966 even if this state had limited sovereignty in the Indian federal framework. Along with this historic day of momentous cultural significance, the two other turning points in Punjab's contemporary history are: the launch of the Green Revolution in the mid-1960s shaping Punjab's development pattern and Operation Bluestar in 1984 determining the political upheavals in the state. These three turning points are interlinked with each other through Punjab's placing in Indian federalism. The quality of academic discourse on the three turning points has been uneven. The creation of a Punjabi-speaking state The dominant narrative concedes that delaying the creation of a Punjabi-speaking state for so long that it turned out to be the last state created under the accepted principle of linguistic reorganisation of states is symbolic of a weakness in the Nehruvian federal perspective. It is only after Nehru's death in 1964 that the new Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, recognised the unjustness of the demand for creation of the Punjabi-speaking state not having been accepted until then. He, therefore, created the institutional framework for the creation of the Punjabi-speaking state by appointing a committee of the parliament under Sardar Hukam Singh. When, after Shastri's death, Indira Gandhi took over, she wanted to reverse the process but could not do as the work of the committee had advanced too far. She had to grudgingly accept the demand but created various hurdles in the reorganisation of the state, including on the capital of the state. As a result of this, the birth of the Punjabi-speaking state has remained a bitter-sweet outcome from the angle of federal governance of Punjab. Operation Bluestar Most discerning academic and journalistic observers do recognise the severe fault-lines in the federal governance of Punjab as far as Operation Bluestar is concerned. It is generally acknowledged that it is the lack of flexibility and accommodation in federal governance that the tragedy of Operation Bluestar happened. Green Revolution It is in the discourse of Punjab's economic development relating to the Green Revolution that a different and celebratory tone emerges regarding Punjab's place in Indian federalism. The usual narrative has been one of highlighting the Green Revolution development initiative launched by India's central government in Punjab and, on that basis, suggesting that Punjab had prospered in the Indian federal framework. An implicit argument in this narrative has been the celebration of the success of Indian federalism. This two-pronged celebratory narrative on Punjab's development and Indian federal success needs to be interrogated. In the scholarly literature on Punjab's development, especially by scholars without organic links with Punjab, there has been an almost near-consensus that given the relatively higher per capita income of Punjab in comparison with most other states and, for some years, in comparison with all states in India, it was unquestionable to conclude that Punjab was one of the most developed states in post-colonial India. Many commentators go even further than this and claim that Punjab, in fact, is the most developed state of India. Punjab and Indian federalism On the robustness of Indian federalism, there have been some dissident voices, most notably that of the late Ashok Mitra who was the finance minister in one Left front government led by the late Jyoti Basu. Such dissident voices express concern over the growing centralisation of economic and political power, and the implications of such centralisation for self-governance of the states. However, even these dissident voices do not question the constitutional framework of Indian federalism but merely what can be called the implementation of the federal provisions. In criticising both these lines of scholarly argument on Punjab's development success and India's federal success, I have found it very fruitful to frame the argument around the formulation 'Punjab as rich but not developed'. Using the criterion of per capita income, Punjab could certainly be characterised as a rich state in comparison with other Indian states. However, considering the structure of Punjab's economy with an overdependence on the agricultural sector and the backwardness of its industrial sector, Punjab certainly was not a developed state. One startling result that emerged from my research was that by 1990-91, ie about 25 years of the Green Revolution strategy, Punjab had, in comparison with all the major states in India, the lowest share of the secondary (industrial) sector in its State Domestic Product. The Centre's economic and political interventions in Punjab over this period have, overall, hindered the process of industrialisation of Punjab. On federalism, I have examined very minutely the constitutional provisions in three areas - agriculture, industry and state finances. This examination shows that although for agriculture and industry, the Indian constitution had put them in the State List, many other provisions of the Constitution gave overriding powers to the Centre. My argument, therefore, is that it was not merely the implementation of the constitutional provisions that had led to centralisation of economic powers, it was also the structure itself of the Constitution which was behind these centralising tendencies in the sphere of agriculture and industry. In examining the state finances, it emerges very clearly that although the institution of the financial commission was supposed to take care of balancing the interests of the Centre and the states, the actual movement of Centre-state finances has been towards disproportionately higher powers of the Centre. These increased powers of the Centre have been facilitated by the structure of the Constitution itself. The recent developments during the present regime on issues such as GST further strengthen these centralisation tendencies. The overall conclusion that emerges very clearly is that Punjab's uneven sectoral development was not an aberration but a logical outcome of the structure of India's constitutional structure and development path. Therefore, both Punjab's pattern of development as well as Indian federalism suffer from structural flaws. The subjects of the rising importance of regional parties, federal political alliances and the federal mode of economic governance again acquiring salience recently are manifestations of the contested nature of Indian federalism and its constitutional provisions. Today, on Punjab day, it is in the fitness of things to remind Punjab's political leadership that it is their historical duty not to fritter away their political energies on narrow-ranged political contestations within the state but to take a leading role in shaping the political discourse in India that will eventually have far-reaching implications for Punjab's cultural, political and economic future. pardeepdhull@gmail.com New York, October 31 An Indian-origin man has been ordered to pay USD 8.6 million in restitution and serve six months of home incarceration for launching a series of cyber attacks on the computer network of a leading US university. Paras Jha, 22, of New Jersey had previously pleaded guilty before US District Judge Michael Shipp to violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He also took part in creating click fraud botnets, infecting hundreds of thousands of devices with malicious software. Shipp, who imposed the sentence last week in Trenton federal court, also sentenced Jha to five years of supervised release and ordered him to perform 2,500 hours of community service. According to documents filed in this and other cases and statements made in court, between November 2014 and September 2016, Jha executed a series of distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks on the networks of the New Jersey-based Rutgers University - during which multiple computers acting in unison flood the Internet connection of a targeted computer or computers. Jhas attacks effectively shut down the varsitys central authentication server, which maintained, among other things, the gateway portal through which staff, faculty, and students delivered assignments and assessments. At times, he succeeded in taking the portal offline for multiple consecutive periods, causing damage to the university, its faculty, and its students. In December last year, Jha along with Josiah White, 21, of Pennsylvania and Dalton Norman, 22, of Louisiana had pleaded guilty to criminal information in the District of Alaska charging them each with conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act in operating the Mirai Botnet. In the summer and fall of 2016, White, Jha, and Norman created a powerful botnet a collection of computers infected with malicious software and controlled as a group without the knowledge or permission of the owners of the computers. The Mirai Botnet, targeted Internet of Things devices such as wireless cameras, routers, and digital video recorders. The defendants attempted to discover both known and previously undisclosed vulnerabilities that allowed them to surreptitiously attain administrative or high-level access to victim devices for the purpose of forcing the devices to participate in the Mirai Botnet. At its peak, Mirai consisted of hundreds of thousands of compromised devices. The defendants used the botnet to conduct a number of other cyber attacks. Further, from December 2016 to February 2017, the defendants successfully infected more than 100,000 primarily US-based Internet-connected computing devices, such as home Internet routers, with malicious software. Last month, all three defendants were separately sentenced in federal court in Alaska to serve a five-year period of probation, 2,500 hours of community service, ordered to pay restitution in the amount of USD1,27,000, and have voluntarily abandoned significant amounts of cryptocurrency seized during the course of the investigation. PTI editorial@tribune.com Pratibha Chauhan Tribune News Service Shimla, October 31 It may sound rather unbelievable but it is true that the Himachal Government is eyeing an investment of whopping Rs 80,000 crore by wooing investors, including from overseas in the industry, healthcare and wellness, tourism, power, fruit processing and health sectors. The Jai Ram Thakur government will be holding a mega investors summit at Dharamsala in February with participation from foreign investors. However, it remains to be seen whether the response this time around will translate into actual investment or will be a damp sqib as was during the tenure of the previous Congress. Chief Secretary BK Agarwal today chaired a meeting with the Additional Chief Secretaries and Principal Secretaries of the main departments to plan the investors summit. The Ambassadors or High Commissioners of Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore and the UAE will be contacted for exploring investment opportunities from these countries. In India, investors meet will be held at Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana and Hyderabad. Two committees one high level headed by the CM and the other Monitoring Committee headed by the Chief Secretary will be constituted and the date of the summit will be decided by the Cabinet at its meeting on November 5. It is for the first time that Himachal will try to attract foreign investment by holding investors meet overseas, including countries like Singapore and Mauritius. Besides, inviting investors at the meet in Dharamsala, a high-level team led by the Chief Minister or Industries Minister could travel to these places, both in India and abroad. As per the proposal prepared by the Industries department, a target of attracting Rs 20,000 crore each in the power and infrastructure and logistics sector, Rs 15,000 crore in the manufacturing sector, Rs 10,000 crore in the tourism and hospitality sector and Rs 5,000 crore each in health care and fitness, agri-business sector and information technology, electronics and skill development has been planned. The previous Virbhadra regime had also held investors meet at various places but finally there was very little investment In fact, the Congress regime had even initiated the process for the setting up of a State Investment Promotion Board to ensure proper monitoring and flow of funds in various sectors like power, industry, tourism and IT. The motto was Industry by Invitation and Invest Himachal while promising assured cheap and reliable power and all clearances within 90 days time. Teams to travel abroad, woo investors ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM New Delhi, October 30 Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu, who began his quest to bring together leaders of political parties opposed to the BJP, on Tuesday got a call from Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav. Last week, the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, who snapped his partys ties with the BJP over denial of special status to the residual state, was in the Capital meeting leaders of various national and regional outfits. TDP sources said in his telephonic conversation with Naidu, the SP leader stressed the need for unity of all Opposition parties along with the Congress on a single platform. The former UP CM is said to have mentioned that it was the responsibility of all to protect democracy in the country. The BSP is not part of any alliance with the Congress either in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh or Chhattisgarh, while the SP has joined hands with the BSP in MP. During his conversation with various leaders, the TDP chief said he was exploring the possibility of how best all parties could work together. TNS uttara@tribuneindia.com Neeraj Bagga Tribune News Service Amritsar, October 31 An official conducting inquiry into Dussehra tragedy in Amritsar that killed over 60 people has summoned Punjab Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu and his wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu. Jalandhar Divisional Commissioner B Purushartha, whos conducting a one-man inquiry into the October 19 incident, has asked the couple to appear before him on Friday. Wednesdays inquiry saw officials from the railways, Government Railway Police (GRP), Municipal Corporation, and Punjab Police record their statements. Purusharta said the commission would investigate the train driver, the gateman as well as the Railway Police Force personnel who were manning the railway tracks. The driver and the gateman would be summoned if required, the official said. Over 61 people were killed when a train ran over Dussehra revellers at Amritsars Jora Phatak on the evening of October 19. Navjot Kaur Sidhu was chief guest at the event. ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM Suhail A Shah Anantnag, October 30 Two militants, one of them believed to be the nephew of Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar, have been killed in a gunfight with security forces in Tral area of South Kashmirs Pulwama. A sniper rifle has also been recovered from the spot in Chankitaar village. The bodies are charred beyond recognition. It will take some time to ascertain their identity, a senior police official said. A video and a banner circulated over social media, however, identified one of the militants as Usman Haider, nephew of the JeM chief. The video and the banner, believed to have been circulated by the JeM, vowed to avenge the killing soon. The militants are affiliated to the sniper squad of the JeM, which has been carrying out attacks across south Kashmir, the most recent being in Mandoora Tral, less than a kilometre from the site of todays gunfight, yesterday. An official said the militants, hiding in a house, opened fire after they sensed they were trapped. Intense clashes meanwhile erupted in the area as hundreds of locals tried to march towards the site of the gunfight. In Shopian, a journalist, Aijaz Ahmad Dar, was injured after security forces fired pellets during a search operation in Meemandar area. rchopra@tribunemail.com Jitendra K Shrivastava Tribune News Service Patna, October 31 The Bihar government on Wednesday suspended a police inspector for sexually harassing a woman police constable at the office of Bihar Military Police-5 (BMP-5) here. Women constables later made a hue and cry saying they were not satisfied with the action taken against him. Vikram Sharan Rathor is posted as subedar (a police inspector-rank officer) at the office of BMP-5. He allegedly sexually harassed a woman trainee police constable on Wednesday after closing the door of his office. The victim escaped from there. A large number of trainee women constables reached the office of Commandant Ranjit Mishra of BMP-5 and demanded that the accused be handed over to them so that they could teach him a lesson. Later, Rathor was suspended and the Commandant asked to probe the matter. Mishra said, After getting the complaint, a senior officer was apprised of the incident so that further action could be taken. The matter is yet to be probed. uttara@tribuneindia.com Lucknow, October 30 Amid the festering family feud, Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav on Tuesday visited offices of both his party, now headed by his son Akhilesh Yadav and the newly-floated rebel outfit of his brother Shivpal Yadav, leaving his party workers wondering where his sympathies lie. Coming barely a month after his second son Prateek Yadav's wife Aparna Yadav openly expressed her support to uncle Shivpal Yadav, the SP patriarch's visit to both outfits during the day compounded the confusion of party workers in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. "We have been left wondering with whom Netaji's (Mulayam) sympathies lie and which party to work for," said a veteran party worker, requesting anonymity. Mulayam Singh Yadav first reached the office of his brother's fledgling party, Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) at 6, Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg, where he exchanged pleasantries with him and was even requested to don the mantle of the new outfit's president. Then he drove down to the nearby headquarters of his party, now headed by his son, and briefly addressed the party workers, giving them his 'mantra' on how to win the next Lok Sabha elections. "I have offered the party president's post to 'Netaji' (Mulayam Singh Yadav) and a ticket to contest the LS election from the Mainpuri seat. Our party will carry forward the Lohia ideologies," said Shivpal Yadav. "We have formed the party with the blessings of 'Netaji'," he said as enthusiastic party workers garlanded Mulayam Singh Yadav, who, however, remained non-committal to Shivpal's public offer of the new party's presidentship. At the PSPL office, Mulayam was also offered the new party's flag by Shivpal Yadav and both of them posed before shutterbugs. Shivpal Yadav was recently allotted by the Adityanath government the sprawling bungalow at Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg, vacated by BSP supremo Mayawati on Supreme Court orders. The SP workers' confusion began last month when Prateek Yadav's wife participated in a function organised by Shivpal Yadav and expressed her support for him. She was reported as promising to work towards strengthening the PSPL. Aparna Yadav, who shared the stage with Shivpal Yadav, had said, "I have always respected chachaji and Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav) and we will work towards making the Secular Morcha (of Shivpal Yadav) stronger". Aparna Yadav had also said Shivpal Yadav would decide a suitable time for her to join and contest from the Secular Morcha. Previously too, Mulayam Singh Yadav had made an appearance at a function alongside his brother Shivpal Yadav after he launched his new outfit. The event was organised to mark the death anniversary of the party ideologue Ram Manohar Lohia. Though on that occasion Mulayam Singh Yadav had refrained from taking questions from the media, Shivpal Yadav had expressed happiness over the presence of his elder brother. "Today Netaji has graced the occasion with his presence and has given us his blessings. I am sure he will continue to give us his blessings in the future also," he had said. In August, Shivpal Yadav had launched 'Samajwadi Secular Morcha' after expressing his disappointment with the Samajwadi Party leadership. PTI rchopra@tribunemail.com Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, October 31 The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to submit in a sealed cover in 10 days strategic, confidential and pricing details of 36 Rafale fighter jets being purchased from France, even as Attorney General KK Venugopal opposed it. A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, however, said details considered strategic and confidential be placed before the court (only) and might not be shared with the petitioners advocates. The court would also like to be apprised of the details with regard to the pricing/cost, particularly the advantage thereof, if any, which again will be submitted in a sealed cover, it said. Details that could legitimately come in the public domain with regard to induction of the Indian offset partner, if any, be also furnished to the petitioners, it said. The Bench which also included Justices UU Lalit and KM Joseph said details, including the steps in the decision-making process for the procurement of jets, which could legitimately be brought into public domain be made available to the petitioners. The SCs latest direction is a departure from its earlier order on October 10 when it had asked the Centre to present before it only the details of steps taken in the decision-making process leading to the award of the order for purchase of Rafale jet from France. It had then said the details sought would not cover the issue of pricing or the question of technical suitability of the equipment for purposes of the requirement of the IAF. India signed a pact with France for the purchase of 36 Rafale aircraft in a fly-away condition as part of the upgrading process of the IAF. Rafale is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft made by Dassault Aviation. The directions came on pleas by advocate Vineet Dandha, advocate ML Sharma and the third one by advocate Prashant Bhushan and former Union ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha, who have sought a court-monitored CBI probe into the deal. The SC noted in none of the PILs, the suitability of jets and its utility to the IAF had been questioned. amansharma@tribunemail.com Satya Prakash Tribune News Service New Delhi, October 31 Amrapali Group CMD Anil Sharma and two other directors will have to celebrate Diwali under police custody as the Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed their plea to release them from a Noida hotel - where they have been kept under police surveillance on the court's orders. "There is no question of Holi and Diwali," said a Bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice UU Lalit after their counsel requested the court to release them to be with their family on the festival of lights. They have been ordered to be lodged in a hotel in Sector 62 of Noida and help the forensic auditors prepare catalogues of documents relating to 46 companies of the group between 8 am and 6 pm. The Bench - which is seized of petitions filed by Amrapali homebuyers - made it clear to them that until and unless all the documents are submitted to the forensic auditors and tallied with the computers seized, there was no question of allowing them to go home. The Bench also directed the banks to submit statement of accounts of all the 46 companies of the Amrapali Group and their 92 directors to the forensic auditors by November 12 and posted the matter for further hearing on November 13 at 2 pm. The Bench directed the Amrapali Group to disclose the names of all the companies with which it had any kind of transactions after forensic auditors pointed out that there may be a web of more than 200-250 such firms where homebuyers' money was transferred. The two forensic auditors, appointed by the court to look into the affairs of Amrapali Group said besides 47 sister companies, they stumbled upon 31 companies whose names were never disclosed by the embattled real estate firm. There may be a case of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), as large amount of money was transferred to a multinational company based in Mauritius, it was told. The Bench questioned Amrapali Group CFO Chander Wadhwa as to how a group company paid his Income Tax amounting to Rs 2 crore, when he was earning only Rs 50,000 per month. It said money of innocent buyers could not be misused like this and asked the Mauritius-based JP Morgan company to file its account statement with regard to the transaction with the Amrapali Group. The counsel for J P Morgan said they had invested more than Rs 100 crore in the real estate business of Amrapali Group and they had a claim of Rs 168 crore from the reality firm. The top court had on Friday grilled the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and internal auditors of Amrapali Group over alleged diversion of money collected from home buyers' and ordered that Sharma and two other directors would not be freed. It also grilled Amrapli over diversion of funds to Singapore and Mauritius. The Bench was told that 34 hearing had taken place so far but nothing concrete had come out. Earlier the top court zeroed in on 23 "dummy companies", which the real estate Group claimed to be created as special purpose vehicles (SPVs), and sought their details of incorporation and bank statements. It had asked Amrapali Group to handover all the laptops, computers and hard-drives used by the company since 2008 to the forensic auditors appointed by the court to audit the affairs of the embattled real estate company. pardeepdhull@gmail.com New Delhi, October 31 Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday embarked on a three-nation visit to Botswana, Zimbabwe and Malawi, during which he will hold talks with the top leaders of these African countries, meet business groups and interact with the Indian diaspora. Naidu is being accompanied by a high-level delegation for the six-day visit, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Tuesday. The delegation includes Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Krishan Pal Gurjar, two MPs and senior officers of the Union government, it said. Naidus official engagements includes meeting presidents of the countries; holding bilateral meetings with his counterparts and delegation level talks; and interacting with business groups and Indian communities, the ministry said in a release. In Botswana, the vice president will inaugurate the Global Expo Botswana 2018 together with his counterpart in that country. The expo will see participation of 25 big Indian companies and business houses covering a range of sectors, it said. In Zimbabwe, Naidu will meet the nations foreign minister and lay the foundation stone of the Chancery project. He will witness signing of MoUs on mining, information and communication technology, and culture, the ministry said. The vice president, in Malawi, is expected to inaugurate the Business Incubation Centre and India-Africa Institute of Agriculture and Rural Development and unveil a bust of Mahatma Gandhi, it said. Several MoUs and agreements, including an extradition treaty, and pacts on agriculture and training will be signed during the visit, the External Affairs Ministry said. From India, there have been 26 outgoing visits to Africa at the level of president, vice president and prime minister in the last four years, it said. PTI editorial@tribune.com Tribune News Service Amritsar, October 30 Akal Takhts newly appointed acting Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh took charge of the highest temporal seat here today. The customary coronation ceremony was held at the Akal Takht, which was attended by members of organisations associated with the SGPC and SAD. It will be a daunting task ahead for Giani Harpreet Singh (45), who is also the Jathedar of Takht Damdama Sahib in the wake of controversial and politically motivated decisions taken by the Akal Takht in the recent past. Intending to take the whole community on one platform, he did not reveal the course he has planned. Refraining to comment on Parallel Jathedars or Bargari Morcha, Giani Harpreet Singh said he would take other Takht heads and Sikh intellectuals and sects into confidence before taking a step ahead. He announced to form a dedicated panel of Sikh intellectuals who could be consulted before taking any decision from the podium of the Akal Takht. My endeavour will be to take steps that will help restore the deteriorating Panthic unity while maintaining the sanctity and supremacy of the Akal Takht, he said. amansharma@tribunemail.com Rome, October 31 Italy's populist government plans to reward parents who have a third child by awarding them a piece of land, in a bid to reverse the country's plummeting birth rate, media reported on Wednesday. The plan, cooked up by the far-right League and included in the draft budget for next year, would see the state concede parcels of agricultural land for 20 years to parents who have a third child between 2019 and 2021. "They say that Italians have few children and that something is needed to turn the trend around," said Agriculture Minister Gian Marco Centinaio. "That's why the ministry wants to contribute, favouring rural areas in particular, where people still have children," he told the media. Italy has the lowest birthrate in Europe. Last year some 464,000 births were registered, a record low, leaving Italy with a significantly older population and a demographic time bomb. The land-for-children idea is supported by Italy's ultra-Catholic families minister Lorenzo Fontana, who said however that it will be limited to married couples, rather than those in civil unions. Political commentators said it would not be easy, as the law provides civil unions with most of the same rights as marriage. Foreigners interested in the offer would need to have been resident in Italy for at least 10 years. According to Coldiretti, the association of Italian agricultural companies, the state owns half a million hectares (1.2 million acres) of farmland worth nearly 10 billion euros (USD 11.3 billion). "Why give them away rather than sell them, particularly at a moment when all that money could go towards the government's many (and costly) pledges?" asked the Corriere della Sera daily. Because "for the most part, the lands are what is left at the bottom of the barrel," it said, adding that in some cases local councils were currently having to shell out for their upkeep. - AFP sanjiv@tribunemail.com Male, October 30 The Maldives Supreme Court on Tuesday suspended a 13-year jail sentence given to the countrys exiled former President until it reviews his conviction as requested by the prosecutor general. The court ordered that the government, police and prison authorities adhere to the suspension of the sentence for the former leader, Mohamed Nasheed. The order came two days before Nasheed is to return to the Maldives after living in exile for more than two years, and appears to be a move by the incoming government to prevent his arrest on arrival. The prosecutor generals office on Sunday sought a Supreme Court review of Nasheeds conviction under the countrys tough terrorism law for ordering the military to detain a top judge when he was President in 2012. His trial was criticised internationally for lack of due process, along with the trials of many other political opponents jailed by outgoing President Yameen Abdul Gayooms administration. He was offered asylum in Britain when he went there for medical treatment on leave from prison. He later based himself in neighbouring Sri Lanka for political work. Nasheeds party candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, defeated Yameen in a September 28 presidential election. Since his victory, some of the jailed officials have been discharged, released on bail, or have returned home from exile. Nasheed, a pro-democracy activist, became the archipelago states first President elected in a multi-party election in 2008, following decades of autocratic rule. He became popular as an environment crusader, holding an underwater Cabinet meeting to highlight the perils of global warming and rising sea levels. He resigned in 2012 amid public protests over his decision to detain the judge and lost the 2013 presidential election to Yameen, who has rolled back much of the countrys democratic gains. AP sanjiv@tribunemail.com Colombo, October 30 Angry protests rocked Sri Lankas capital as thousands of demonstrators gathered on Tuesday for a mass rally organised by ousted prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghes party against what it said was a coup by President Maithripala Sirisena, even as the opposing sides were engaged in efforts to secure their numbers in Parliament to end the countrys political crisis. Sirisena has broken his promise and taken executive powers into his hands. He has sidelined parliamentary power, UNP leader Wickremesinghe said, addressing the crowd. Wickremesinghes United National Party (UNP) demanded that Parliament be convened immediately and democracy restored. The ousted premier alleged that President Maithripala Sirisena had assumed he would get his way. However, he said the UNP and its partners in the United National Front will not give up and will continue to push for Parliament to convene immediately. The UNP claimed about 100,000 people thronged the rally, though police sources estimated the number at 25,000. Sri Lanka, a Buddhist-majority nation in the Indian Ocean, was plunged into chaos on Friday when Sirisena sacked Wickremesinghe as prime minister in a surprise move. He also suspended Parliament in an apparent bid to shore up support for newly-appointed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. Sirisena is under increasing political and diplomatic pressure to reconvene Parliament and resolve the Constitutional crisis. Speaker Karu Jayasuriya urged the president to let Wickremesinghe prove his majority support on the Parliament floor. PTI Why there is a political crisis According to the 19th Amendment enacted in 2015, the president no longer enjoys the power to remove the prime minister at his discretion. The PM can only be dismissed if the Cabinet is dismissed or the PM resigns or the PM ceases to be a member of Parliament. The President can remove a minister only on the advice of the PM Parliaments Speaker Karu Jayasuriya has refused to endorse Wickremesinghes sacking as the PM. In a letter, he questioned the Presidents decision to suspend Parliament till November 16 Key players rchopra@tribunemail.com Beijing, October 31 Louis Cha, a Hong Kong newsman and celebrated Chinese martial arts novelist, has died aged 94, sparking tributes and an outpouring of grief across the Chinese-speaking world. Ming Pao, the Hong Kong newspaper co-founded by Cha, said he died on Tuesday at a Hong Kong hospital after a long illness. Best known by his pen name Jin Yong, Cha was widely considered one of the worlds most influential Chinese writers. He transfixed generations with his martial arts epics, such as The Legend of the Condor Heroes, selling hundreds of millions of copies and inspiring numerous film and television adaptations. While his novels often vividly depicted ancient Chinese swordsmen and their heroic quests, Cha was equally lauded by his fans and literary experts for his ability to encapsulate human nature, Chinese culture and political allegories in his writing. Chas death was the top trending item on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo on Tuesday evening, with the topic amassing more than 1.3 billion views by Wednesday morning. Fans in Xiangyang, a city in northwestern Hubei province that featured prominently in Chas work, gathered to hold a candlelight vigil on its ancient city walls, local media reported. Cha was born in 1924 in the southern province of Zhejiang, before moving to Hong Kong in 1948. He penned his first novel, The Book and the Sword, in 1955 and went on to write 14 more. In 1959, he co-founded the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao, which said in a condolence letter on Tuesday that his death was a great loss to Ming Pao, Hong Kongs news industry and Chinese literature. Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam issued a statement expressing deep sorrow over the death of the learned man and an acclaimed writer. Reuters pardeepdhull@gmail.com Islamabad, October 31 Pakistans Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Christian woman facing execution for blasphemy, a landmark verdict that sparked protests in the Islamic nation. Asia Bibi was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. She always maintained her innocence, but has spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement. Her case has been deeply divisive in Pakistan where there is strong support for the controversial blasphemy laws. The blasphemy laws were promulgated by former military dictator Ziaul Haq in the 1980s. A person convicted under these laws is given death sentence. The apex court, in a three-member Bench led by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, issued the verdict on Wednesday morning, three weeks after they had reached a decision. The delay followed threats by blasphemy campaigners to hold protests. Her conviction is set aside and she is to be relieved forthwith if not required in other charges, said Nisar, reading out the judgment. There was tight security in the capital, Islamabad. Protests broke in different cities of Pakistan following the verdict. Protestors blocked a highway linking the capital, Islamabad with garrison city of Rawalpindi and the old airport, according an announcement by Islamabad police. Punjab, the countrys most populous province, was on high alert and its Home Department banned all kinds of public gatherings until November 10, according to police. The Tahreek-i-Labaik Pakistan, an Islamic political party, was leading the protest in Lahore where a large number of its activists gathered on the Mall Road. Security officials said protests were also being held in Karachi and other cities by groups linked with religious parties. Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal chief Fazlur Rehman denounced the verdict and alleged that it was influenced by unnamed foreign powers. There were reports that mosques at different places asked the people to take to the streets against Bibis acquittal. Despite protests by extremists, the verdict was hailed on social media. Bibis lawyer Saiful Mulook also told media that it was the happiest day of his life. Bibi was accused of committing blasphemy in 2009. She was convicted in 2010 by the trial court and her death sentence was maintained by the Lahore High Court in 2014. She appealed against the conviction to the Supreme Court, which for the first time heard the case in July 2015. Bibis case gained prominence when former governor of Pakistans Punjab province Salman Taseer was killed in 2011 for supporting her and criticising the blasphemy laws. Critics say strict blasphemy laws have often been used to get revenge after personal disputes, and that convictions are based on thin evidence. Dozens of people have been charged under the laws. Though, Bibi is being released but there are fears that she might be at risk of being attacked by militants. PTI pardeepdhull@gmail.com Colombo, October 31 Sri Lankas Attorney-General Jayantha Jayasuriya Wednesday refused to give an opinion to parliamentary Speaker Karu Jayasuriya on the current political impasse over the sacking of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, saying it would be deemed inappropriate. The Speaker, seeking the AGs opinion, asked five questions, including the one on the validity of President Maithripala Sirisena dismissing Wickremesinghe as the Premier. The Attorney-General (AG) wrote to the Speaker: Having regard to the role of the Attorney-General under the Constitution, I am of the view that expressing an opinion on the said questions would be deemed inappropriate. President Sirisena replaced Wickremesinghe with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa in a dramatic turn of events last Friday. Sirisena also suspended Parliament until November 16, which experts said was meant to buy time to engineer crossovers from Wickremesinghes side to Rajapaksa in the 225-member Parliament to reach the 113 working majority mark. Rajapaksa has so far managed to rope in five more lawmakers to bolster his strength to 101. More leaders may to join Rajapaksas side, Udaya Gammanpila, a Rajapaksa loyalist, said, adding that we are keeping ministerial positions vacant for them. So far only 12 of the Cabinet positions out of 30 have been filled. On Tuesday, angry protests rocked Sri Lankas Capital as thousands of demonstrators gathered for a rally organised by deposed Prime Minister Wickremesinghes party against what it said was a coup by President Sirisena, even as the opposing sides were engaged in efforts to secure their numbers in Parliament to end the countrys political crisis. Wickremesinghes position was bolstered by a statement in the British House of Parliament where Hugo Swire, a former Deputy Foreign Minister in charge of South Asia, said they continue to treat him as the legitimate Prime Minister. New Prime Minister Rajapaksa assumed duties Wednesday as the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs. When I left office in 2015, our growth was six per cent plus, but during the last three years and 10 months, the growth rate has reduced to three per cent. We have to protect our local industries and stop foreign influence on the economy, Rajapaksa said as he called for simplifying taxes, echoing the criticism of high taxes during the Wickremesinghe government. The countrys main Tamil party Tamil National Alliance (TNA), after a meeting with Rajapaksa, said they were not treating Rajapaksa as the lawfully-elected Prime Minister. We met him on his request as a fellow member of Parliament and his title of (former) President, senior TNA leader M A Sumanthiran said. Sirisena is under increasing political and diplomatic pressure to reconvene Parliament and resolve the Constitutional crisis. Wickramasinghe, who is refusing to accept his dismissal, argues that he cannot legally be dismissed until he loses the support of Parliament. PTI uttara@tribuneindia.com Copenhagen, October 31 Sweden's foreign minister says her country could host talks between Yemen's warring parties after efforts by the UN special envoy failed to bring the sides together. Margot Wallstrom says the United Nations has asked Sweden "if we could be a place for the UN envoy to gather the parties in this conflict"the internationally recognised government, supported by a Saudi-led coalition, and Yemen's Iran-backed Shiite rebels known as Houthis. Wallstrom told Sweden's news agency TT on Wednesday that Sweden would be "happy about it" but that nothing's definite. The conflict in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, by the Houthis who toppled the internationally recognised government. A Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. AP pardeepdhull@gmail.com Pittsburgh, October 31 US President Donald Trump on Tuesday visited the Pittsburgh synagogue attacked by an anti-Semitic gunman and lit candles for each of the 11 slain worshipers, while thousands protested his presence in the city and victims families began burying their dead. The presidential trip, which sources said congressional leaders of both parties declined to join, came as Trump drew widespread disapproval for inflammatory rhetoric that critics said may have helped provoke the deadliest attack ever on American Jewry. Shrugging off public assertions from Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto that Trumps visit was ill-timed, the president entered the Tree of Life temple where Saturdays shooting rampage occurred, accompanied by first lady Melania Trump. They were greeted by Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who led them inside the temple to light ritual yahrzeit candles in memory of the victims. Emerging about 18 minutes later, the couple walked to a memorial outside the building, where the first lady placed a flower and the president placed a small stone on a marker for each of the dead. Trump, who according to press secretary Sarah Sanders, described his visit as very humbling and sad, left in his motorcade after about 30 minutes at the synagogue. He made no public remarks. He wanted today to be about showing respect for the families and the friends of the victims as well as for Jewish Americans, Sanders said. Several thousand protesters, an ethnically mixed crowd of all ages including members of Pittsburghs tight-knit Jewish community, held an anti-Trump rally about a block away from the synagogue just as his visit began, singing Old Testament psalms and carrying signs with slogans such as We build bridges not walls. Many of their signs carried slogans and imagery invoking one of Squirrel Hills most famous residents, the late Fred Rogers, whose long-running childrens television show Mr. Rogers Neighborhood featured lessons on friendship and kindness. Their march started on the street where he grew up and ended at the church where he belonged. Week before elections Trump also went to a city hospital and visited three police officers, wounded in a gunfight with the shooting suspect, and their families. Sanders said Trump also spent time with the wife of one of the slain congregants, Richard Gottfried, 65. She said she wanted to meet the president to let him know that they wanted him there. Trumps visit to Pennsylvanias second-largest city came just seven days before national elections that will determine whether his Republican Party will maintain control of both houses of Congress or whether the Democrats will seize a majority in one chamber or both. The president and his wife were joined by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, his daughter and son-in-law, who are Jewish and serve as White House advisers, and by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is also Jewish. The first funerals for the victims of the attack were held earlier on Tuesday. More than 1,800 people, some from across the United States, came to pay respects to relatives of David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59, at Rodef Shalom, another synagogue in the Squirrel Hill district that forms the heart of the citys Jewish community. Police officers were posted outside the temple. The two brothers, who lived at a home for people with disabilities, were among the 11 mostly elderly congregants killed when a gunman stormed into the Tree of Life synagogue and opened fire on worshipers, yelling: All Jews must die. The accused gunman, Robert Bowers, 46, was charged on Monday with 29 federal felony counts, including hate crimes, and could face the death penalty if convicted. The attack has heightened a national debate over Trumps rhetoric, which critics say has contributed to a surge in white nationalist and neo-Nazi activity. The Trump administration has rejected the notion he has encouraged far-right extremists who have embraced him. Words have meaning But protest organizers said Trumps frequent tweets about the caravans of Central American migrants traveling through Mexico en route to the United States may have been a factor in provoking Saturdays bloodshed. They noted that Trump had characterized the caravans as an invasion while falsely stating they harbored terrorists and were financed in part by Democrats and the Jewish philanthropist George Soros. In a social media post on Saturday, Bowers referred to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a Jewish refugee aid organization, as helping to bring invaders in that kill our people, declaring: I cant sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, Im going in. Protest organizers in a statement announcing their rally, said the gunman believed anti-Semitic lies that Jews were funding the caravan. The announcement echoed an open letter from a group of local Jewish leaders who told Trump: You are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully denounce white nationalism. More than 78,000 people have signed the letter, organized and posted online by the Pittsburgh chapter of Bend the Arc, a Jewish organisation opposed to what it calls the immoral agenda of the Trump administration and the Republican Party. Reuters THE murder toll continues to rise following the shooting deaths of three men in separate incidents between Thursday evening and yesterday morning. The killings took place in Laventille, San Juan and Freeport. Two of the victims have been identified as Aaron Thomas and Nathaniel Phillip, while the victim in the Freeport incident remained unidentified up to yesterday evening. The pre-election splurge by the PNM-led Tobago House of Assembly (THA) draws attention to constitutional loopholes that should be addressed. Here is an administration which went in with a comfortable majority for the election which was held in January this year and came out in a dead heat with the challenger party. @neet321 - I use a Travel Money Card all the time and you don't really need to load other currencies on. For example if you have Aus dollars on the card, you go to an ATM in Thailand and it just converts at the current bank rate and spits out Thai baht. The only time I pre load other currencies is if I'm going to the US or Europe and I want to lock in the rate the day I load the foreign currency on. Locking in at least lets you know how much $US or Euros you have but if the Aus $ improves against those currencies before you use the card then it's bad luck.US For trips where I'm going to many countries, such as an Asian cruise, I just leave Aust dollars on the card and cop what the conversion rate is on the day. Of course if there is an expectation that the Aus $ is about to crash, I may have a different approach. Edited: 3 years ago Im also confused. Is there a condition in the WHV scheme that says you cant visit India for 3 months before entering Australia? If so Ive nevr seen it on their website. You should answe every question in your application truthfully. So if it specifically asks about visits to India or longer stays in other countries, you should mention this. I e had a quick scoot through the visa explanation but cant think what your concern is. Can you link or quote the text that is making you ask this question please. Hello, We have a 13 and 10 year old girls and looking to visit Australia for the first time. I know 2 weeks isn't long enough, but we are fitting in New Zealand for a week on the backside too as part of a 3 week trip. We have 14 nights, flying into Sydney on Dec 16th and as long as we end up in a town where we can fly to Auckland without backtracking that would be great. We enjoy adventures, are not constrained by a budget and love great food and accommodations and unique places and I'm looking forward to making this a very memorable trip for my family. We are considering the following itinerary and I'd love any insights and advice on some of the details. Sydney 3 to 4 nights. Cairns or Port Douglas for 3 nights. Any advice on which town to stay? We'd love to hire a private boat and snorkel and dive the reef and enjoy anything noteworthy in the surrounding areas. We also plan to go to Uluru area for 2 or 3 nights. My debate is whether to add Melbourne for 2 or 3 nights (as I've always wanted to go there) or add more nights onto Sydney or Cairns area. I know there will be lots of travel / flights involved, but we are the type of family that likes to see as much as we can on a vacation. Additional advice I'd love to get are any particular excursions or places where our kids could see koalas, kangaroos etc near where we are traveling. Any other cool places or adventures that would be unique and memorable for the family, I would appreciate hearing about. Also, as this will be my kids first Christmas away from home, any ideas on a great place to be for the 25th? Thank you! Brandon Hi guys, I'm studying abroad in Brisbane, Australia for the upcoming spring semester. Before I start school at the end of February, I'm going to travel around New Zealand and Australia with family for about 24 days. None of us have ever been to this area of the world, so we're going to be basing everything off what we read and/or hear from friends. I've been doing lots of research on the two countries and understand that it would be best to spend longer amounts of time in less places. While understanding that, my parents want to go to New Zealand, Australia, the Great Barrier Reef, and eventually drop me off in Brisbane before heading back to Boston, MA. I've made a broad itinerary for the trip, taking into account cheaper flights and such. Keep in mind, this is just something I've put together myself with our desires in mind. Btw, we're flying in and out of Sydney. Boston --> Sydney --> Auckland Arrive: February 26 Auckland, NZ - 6 days, 7 nights Queenstown, NZ - 5 days, 6 nights Sydney, AUS - 3 days, 4 nights Cairns, AUS (to Port Douglas) - 5 days, 5 nights Brisbane, AUS (parents want to drop me off) - 1 day, 2 nights Depart: January 18th Brisbane --> Sydney--> Boston Places we hope to visit - NZ North Island: Auckland outskirts/beaches, Waiheke Island, Rotorua, Cathedral Cove NZ South Island: Queenstown area, Milford Sound, Wanaka/Roys Peak, Tekapo at night, possibly Mt Cook Sydney, AUS: Bondi to Coogi Walk, Opera House, Blue Mountains, possibly other touristy stuff Cairns/Port Douglas, AUS: Great Barrier Reef, Rainforest Brisbane: Just dropping me off, family isn't staying long. What do you guys think? Is this going to be too much flying and not enough vacationing? We're definitely willing to cut things down, change things around, change cities (Melbourne, Hobart, more time in Brisbane for my family..), etc (very flexible). This is just the itinerary I've put together that seems pretty solid and I was also considering price of flights between each city. Btw, we don't really want to waste time going to the outback or western Australia. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks so much! I arrived at my Port Fairy hotel after a day of hiking and seeing every some great stops along the GOR and I fell in love with the motel on the spot. I asked if I could stay a second night...figured they would say no since I had a discounted rate...but for an extra $10 a night they gave me my own cabin with working fireplace in a restored historic building. Im over the moon! And its chilly tonight so I will be fire making. I LOVE THIS TOWN! Ive done the historic walking tour, will do Tower and the island tomorrow. I went ahead and reserved the 4th - 6th in a good hotel near St. Kilda because I was warned about the Melbourne Cup creating a room shortage. They have free parking on site so I might drive a bit, and I think if I get on the road early I wont have trouble. Its $200 to return the car to a different location according to the docs but I will call them to see if they can make an exception. I can actually return the car on the 5th but I dont think I could get two airport trips for the cost of a days rental. Plus I like it that Im not waiting on a pickup or wrestling luggage on the bus/train. I can cancel the hotel for free until the 3rd. So there are only two free nights. I will look at Grampions photos tonight...they do sound iconic, everyone recommends them...and who knows if I would ever get back here. Its really difficult to turn my back to the GOR - I used to live in Northern California and drove Hwy 1 many, many times. Its the only road that remotely compares with the GOR. But Ive had a good chance to enjoy it and Im curious about these Grampions everybody is so keen on. I cant believe my good luck - weather good, all accommodations stellar, all the people warm and friendly. This is the best road trip of my life. -:- Message from Tripadvisor staff -:- This topic has been closed to new posts due to inactivity. We hope you'll join the conversation by posting to an open topic or starting a new one. To review the Tripadvisor Forums Posting Guidelines, please follow this link: http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/forums_posting_guidelines.html We remove posts that do not follow our posting guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason. The 25th and then on..is hard to move in Costa Rica...a lot of us move to the beaches...and mountains...of course will be possible to move but hard...just relax...Monteverde is nice and during that time of the year...nice cold nights. If you going to Santa Cruz in Guanacaste...is a great location to visit ome of the best beaches in that part of the country.. You will see a lot of people all over and of course a lot of them moving by public buses At each locationyou just need to shop around... roadadvisor We are a group of 8 travelling to Vietnam & Cambodia in February for just over two weeks can anyone give advice on which area to start in & the easiest routes . We were in Hanoi in January so we dont need to go back ..but there are places on the list we would like to deffo vist Including Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park- the Mekong river an the tunnels ..Hoi an ..before heading to siem Reip .. then hopefully ending up in koh rong sanloem for the final few days ... Which way round should we do Cambodia first ? Or Vietnam? Which parts of the journey through Vietnam can we do by train & which parts should we fly ..we dont have very long dont want to rush but really want to make the most of it ..is there any where we should deffo see that I might have missed ..I have read many forum posts an know for sure someone out there will be able to suggest things ..I will research as much as possible myself but could really do with some little short cut advice I am needing some assistance. I have been working on a plan to visit Japan from 23/5 to 5/6/19. I don't have a lot of movement in dates earlier than 23/5 due to sons wedding in April and work constraints on leave. My husband says this is the rainy season and from what i have read it is but it doesnt look like the weather generally would be that bad - maybe a few days rain?? Any advice please. Otherwise would have to leave the trip until late Sept /Oct - the typhoon season! Secondly, I was looking at a small group tour but because of their date constraints and itineraries, I think I would rather do an independant trip - thinking of splitting time between Tokyo and Kyoto with day trips from each. Any suggestions on day trips I need to ensure not to omit from my planning? Thanks in advance. This will be my second trip to japan and this time i have the pleasure of bringing a friend. However there is a lot we would like to see and i think our itinerary might be on the verge of to much. Im considering spending more time in one or two regions instead of making the attempt to try and "see it all". Our stay is February 8 - 22 with our arrival and departure from Tokyo's HND airport. With a mid afternoon arrival we are going to try and make it as far as we can to Sapporo to enjoy the winter festival. The farthest i see us traveling on the first day is to Aomori. (I do not know if we will make it that far after the 18 hour travel time from Texas) The only real plan we have so far is our first destination to Sapporo and our last stop in Tokyo. So far the list consist of: Sapporo Fukushima prefecture Kyoto Osaka Hiroshima Tokyo (maybe in that order?) Our main transportation would be train with a JR pass I would like to know if we are trying to see to much, if our stops are to spread out, other itinerary suggestions, personal experiences, and any tips of any kind. Thanks for taking the time to read this! Online typing jobs in Kenya have been embraced by both students and professionals as full time or part time jobs, and nowadays, freelancing is the easiest way to become financially independent. Online jobs in Kenya that pay through Mpesa are very friendly to work with and you dont even need Curriculum Vitae or an interview to get most of these jobs. This article shares a list of online typing jobs in Kenya. It is worth noting that most online typing jobs in Nairobi Kenya pay via PayPal and Skrill, but the good news is that you can easily withdraw your money from Skrill to Mpesa and from PayPal to Mpesa through Equity Bank. Internet coverage in Kenya is increasing every day and this has created more platforms so that you can work from the comfort of your home. Online typing jobs in Kenya 2018 are quite a number the main ones being transcription and article writing. The basic rule of applying for free online typing jobs in Kenya is creating an online profile, a good profile photo, a working email address and, in some instances, a soft copy of your identity card. The beauty of typing jobs online in Kenya is that you decide the time and place you will work, something that many Kenyans do not enjoy. However, the application of online jobs in Kenya has been quite stiff, making it harder to get jobs especially for newbies who have no or little experience. The most impressive thing is that even if you are a newbie, its possible for you to earn enough to pay your bills as you rise up the ladder as you gain more experience. Online jobs that pay through Mpesa There are several jobs that can get you cash through your phone. They include: 1. Research writing Research writing basically entails a person hired to do a research and put it down in writing and upon completion, you are paid. If you are wondering where these jobs are offered, then social media platforms should be your first choice. For instance on Facebook, you may come across people who are looking for freelancers who do research writing. This is where you can go ahead and try your luck. 2. Web and graphic design This job entails the different skills in production and maintenance of websites. The field has a high demand now that most people do their work online. Web and Graphic Design specialists who have their own sites can showcase their work to potential employers. 3. Content re-writing This is a very interesting and easy job to earn you money in Kenya. All you need to do is rewrite what others have already written, but you have to maintain high levels of originality to observe plagiarism. Many websites in Kenya are offering this job to freelance writers and you just need to do a research, come up with websites in Kenya and basically brand yourself with what you do best and send your application. Best sites for online transcription jobs that pay via Mpesa Online transcribing jobs in Kenya are one of the many ways of working from home. A transcriber should be able to transcribe an audio file into text and review the audio for accuracy. You should make sure that the transcript matches the audio and identify contextual mistakes. Additionally, you need to correctly identify the speaker in the transcript and label them accordingly. Always correct any spelling, punctuation and grammatical mistakes before submitting your transcript. 1. Transcribe Me At TranscribeMe you will have a chance to portray your typing skills and earn money at the same time. Their rate is $15-$22 per audio hour with workflow guaranteed throughout the year. Their payment is done on a weekly basis through PayPal. Users can transfer and channel this money to their Mpesa accounts without difficulties. This is a great site to gain your financial freedom from the comfort of your home. The company hires transcribers from all over the world automatically giving Kenyans a chance to work with them and create lasting connections with professionals in any part of the world. The requirements for this job are a computer or laptop, headphones, a reliable internet connection and the ability to transcribe an audio or video in the languages they support. Transcribe Me offers an informative training and take you through their style guide and after that, you can take the exam to prove your accuracy of the audio transcription and following their style guidelines. It is important to note that you will need Google Chrome to work on their platform. People who transcribe can take jobs at their liberty since you are not restricted to a minimum or a maximum number of jobs in a day. The minimum age to register is 18 years old. You can email them on training@transcribeme.com for any queries. 2. Gotranscript.com GoTranscript is an online transcription and translation company hiring transcribers from all over the world. For you to join the company as a transcriber you are required to do a short test consisting of an audio as well. After submitting your test, it can take up to 30 days or less for your test to be rated by their editors and if you pass you are able to access their jobs and pick any at your convenient time. One impressive thing about working with this site is that you have the opportunity to progress from a transcriber to an editor and earn more. GoTranscript pays through PayPal and you can request your money after your work has been edited and rated. This money can also be transferred directly from Paypal to Mpesa. 3. Scribie.com Scribie.com is a home-based freelance transcription site and it hires from all over the world. For you to acquire an account with them, you are required to have a verified PayPal account which can then be linked to your Mpesa account. You must also do a test that will determine whether or not you'll begin working. A 6-minute audio file may be allocated 2 hours of transcription time, which you can achieve even as a newbie. What's more, you can also request for another extra hour to finish your job to submit quality work. Their transcribers are required to have good communication skills, fluent spoken and written English and excellent comprehension of American, British, Australian and Indian accents. You just need to sign up on their web-page and pass the initial exam. 4. Rev.com Rev.com consists of a global team of freelancers working from home. This site gives you an opportunity to work as a transcriber, captioner, subtitler or a translator. You have the freedom to choose your own working schedule since there are no job limitations, you can take few or more jobs as you desire. They also provide regular feedback and give you a platform to learn more from other team members. Rev.com payment is done through PayPal on a weekly basis for all your completed work. It's possible for you to earn an average of $245 per month depending on the number of jobs you finish per day. Well paying article writing jobs that pay via Mpesa in Kenya Online writing jobs in Kenya have been welcomed by many Kenyans since there is freedom of working from the destination of their choice at your own convenient time. Since jobs in Kenya have become more and more scarce, then you dont have to stay idle in the house waiting to be called for an interview. You can apply for these jobs and achieve your financial freedom. 1. E-book writing More and more people are migrating from reading the old books to reading digital devices and e-books, and this is a good example of online jobs in Kenya that pay through Mpesa. Amazon Kindle is the main retailer of e-books. You can write e-books and publish with Amazon or hire writers to do the writing and this is a good way of increasing your earnings. 2. iWriter iWriter online jobs include website contents, eBooks and article re-writes. As a beginner you join the site as a standard type of writer but when you land more jobs and complete them your ranking goes from Premium to Elite to Elite Plus type of writer. iWriter gives writers an opportunity to earn and build their clients base on the go. You are at liberty to write as much or as little as you want every day and choose topics that best suits your background. It's also quite easy to join this site. You are required to enter your name, email address and a password to sign up and thereafter you can log into your account and start taking grammar tests. 3. Upwork Upwork is one of the fastest growing sources of online jobs in Kenya. Considering this is one of the most profitable sites, it's not easy to join. You need a more detailed profile and a clear photo clearly showing your face. You will also wait for some days for your account to be reviewed and if you are successful you will receive an email letting you know that you can start bidding for jobs of your choice in with Upwork. The site has a range of top talents consisting of programmers, designers, customer support representatives, content writers among others. For applications to join Upwork go to their web page. The employer and the freelancer are able to communicate via text, chat or video within the site. You will also be able to send and receive files in a safe and secure environment. If you are not in a position to access your computer you can use many features in their mobile app allowing freelancers serve their clients properly. 4. Guru Its easy to start working with Guru since you can create a free freelance account in minutes. You just need to open an account here and create a profile. Afterwards, you can submit quotes on the open jobs. The employer will see various quotes review them and choose the freelancer they desire to work with and hire them. The employer and the freelancer work together and create an agreement about how the job will be done and the mode of payment. Guru has 4 different types of agreements you can choose from and they consist pay by milestones, pay by task, pay by hour and pay using recurring payments. 5. Truelancer If you are seeking a job in Truelancer, you simply need to join the site, submit your applications for available projects and if hired, complete the work and get paid. The site has developers, content writers, SEO experts among other fields. Truelancer holds the funds paid for a project in safe deposit and will only release it after the job is completed and approved by the employer. This ensures that both the employer and the freelancer are safe and the job will be completed as agreed. The above list of online typing jobs in Kenya shares only legitimate sites and will guide you to make an informative decision while looking for online jobs in Kenya. It is worth noting that not every job posted on the internet is legitimate and before you begin working on any site, do a thorough research and confirm it's not a scam. READ ALSO: Top 10 Jobs That Allow Working from Home in Kenya Part time jobs in Kenya Nairobi Part Time Jobs in Nairobi for University Students: Where to Get That Cash Source: Tuko Police in Maara, Tharaka Nithi county have launched a manhunt for a man who allegedly stabbed a female candidate sitting her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education exams. According to the candidate, she was on her way to school on Tuesday, October 30, ahead of the first paper of KCPE day one when a man she has known as her lover waylaid her. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Kipusa aliyedaiwa kuivunja ndoa ya Ababu Namwamba ajivinjari naye nchini Italy Candidates undergoing routine checks at Kanunda primary school ahead of third paper KCPE kick off. Photo: Knec/Facebook. Source: Facebook READ ALSO: KCPE candidate gives birth hours from sitting first paper Maara OCPD Johnstone Kabusia confirmed the attacker while armed with a knife, pounced on the victim inflicting several stab wounds on her head before dashing away. Upon receiving first aid services, the candidate was allowed to write Mathematics paper after which she was rushed to the hospital for further medication. Kabusia said police were yet to establish the motive behind the assault even as they combed through the region to have the assailant arrested. READ ALSO: Kisii MCA sends condolence card to KCPE candidates Earlier on the day, officials led by Education Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed and Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang visited several primary schools across the country to monitor the exam progress. Despite continued assurance from Amina that the exam would be safe from any malpractice, a number of incidences have, however, been recorded in some institutions. Prior reports by TUKO.co.ke indicated a student who is in Form Three at Eden Valley Secondary in Uasin Gishu was arrested after he sneaked to Mukuyu Girls High School on Monday, October 29. READ ALSO: Education CS narrates how her son begged for money to buy leaked KCSE exams In Kajiado County, a watchman was also arrested for trying to sneak fake papers in an examination centre on Monday night. At least 1,060,792 candidates registered for the 2018 KCPE which kicked off on Tuesday, October 30, with the Mathematics paper and ends on November 1. Social Studies and Religious Education will wrap up the three-day exercise. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. The Sad Life of Dedan Kimathi's Forgotten Family - on Tuko TV. Source: Tuko.co.ke Search and rescue efforts in the recent fatal airplane crash of low-cost carrier Lion Air are underway (Photo: Xinhua/VNA) General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam and President Nguyen Phu Trong, and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc cabled a message of sympathy to Indonesian President Joko Widodo, while Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan sent her sympathies to Speaker of the Peoples Consultative Assembly Zulkifli Hasan. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh also offered condolences to Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. The Boeing 737 Max 8 run by low-cost carrier Lion Air, which was carrying 189 people onboard, crashed into the sea on October 29th. It lost contact with air traffic control just 13 minutes after takeoff. The jet was en route from Jakarta to Pangkalpinang in Bangka Belitung province, off Sumatra island. Indonesias search and rescue agency said on October 29th that there would be no survivors from the Lion Air plane. Indonesian search and rescue official Bambang Suryo Aji told the press that he was not expecting anyone to have survived, adding that some bodies had already been recovered. In an official statement, the rescue agency said the reason for the crash was still uncertain. Recovery efforts are underway. Lion Air, which was founded in 1999, is the biggest private airline in Indonesia, dominating more than 40 percent of the market./. - According to President Uhuru, the loans have been used in key infrastructure projects - He said Kenyans would realise the benefits of the projects in the long run - The country owes China KSh 980 billion accounting for a large chuck of the country's external debt - Kenya's total national debt stands at atleast KSh 4.9 trillion, with the figure estimated to have recently surpassed KSh 5 trillion Despite increased concern from Kenyans over the country's huge and ever increasing public debt, President Uhuru Kenyatta has said he is not a worried man as the loans will help Kenyans in the long run. According to the Head of State, there is nothing to worry about as the money is being channeled into projects and programs aimed at improving the economy. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Kipusa aliyedaiwa kuivunja ndoa ya Ababu Namwamba ajivinjari naye nchini Italy President Uhuru Kenyatta says there is nothing to worry about Kenya's ballooning debts as they are used in projects that will benefit Kenyans in the long run. Photo: UGC Source: Facebook READ ALSO: Kisii MCA sends condolence card to KCPE candidates Speaking during an interview with CNN, the president said majority of the loans the government had taken are used mainly in the construction of roads, the Standard Gauge Railway, the port of Mombasa and connection of electricity which he considered as key pillars to economic prosperity. "I would be worried if the debts we have taken from China are used in recurrent expenditure. We have utilised our debts to close the infrastructure gap which will help improve businesses and increase job opportunities for our young men and women," said Uhuru. The president dismissed reports that focused on Kenya's debts to China alone saying the country had debts with other countries and financial institutions across the world. READ ALSO: Kitui police officer hangs himself using job tag straps, leaves suicide showing he feared arrest "We are ready to work with anybody who is willing to partner with us in achieving our objective. We are not limiting our debts to China alone as we have debts to other financial institutions and countries cross the globe. Why are people not talking about those other debts?," he posed. In the recent past, Kenyans have expressed concern over the country's huge and ever increasing debts to China. In March 2018, National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich revealed Kenya's national debt stood at at-least KSh 4.9 trillion and the figure might have recently surpassed KSh 5 trillion. The president said the loans have been used in infrastructure projects such as the SGR, roads, Mombasa port and in electricity connections. Photo: UGC Source: UGC READ ALSO: 10 factors that determine rate of survival during a plane crash Recent reports indicate the country owes China KSh 980 billion accounting for a huge chuck of the country's external debt. France is the second largest bilateral financier at KSh 64.8 billion while Japan follows with KSh 51 billion lend to Kenya. Germany is the forth biggest lender to the country with KSh 26.1 billion and Belgium follows with KSh 10.8 billion while the USA is owned KSh 3 billion by Kenya. Other bilateral lenders are Finland at KSh 1.7 billion, Denmark at KSh 1.3 billion and Netherlands at KSh 1.1 billion. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news Kenya News Today: This Is Why Jacque Maribe Was Granted Bail | Tuko TV Source: Tuko Breaking News A Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) candidate in Kericho county will complete her exams from the maternity ward after she gave birth hours before kick off. The new mother who is a student at St Patricks Primary school went into labour on the night of Monday, October 29, and was rushed to Kericho Nursing Home where she safely delivered. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Kipusa aliyedaiwa kuivunja ndoa ya Ababu Namwamba ajivinjari naye nchini Italy Education CS Amina Mohammed witnesses the opening of an exam container in Kiambu on Tuesday, October 30. Photo: Knec/Facebook. Source: Facebook READ ALSO: Boyfriend stabs KCPE candidate hours before exam kick off The 15-year-old named her newborn after Education Cabinet Secretary Education Amina Mohamed even though she said she expected her due date to be in November 2018. Kericho Sub-county Education Officer Moses Okeya said his office had put up measures to allow the new mother complete her examination at the hospital. The three-day national examination kicked off countrywide on Tuesday, October 30, with at least 1,060,792 candidates across all education centers in the country expected to write it. Amina expressed confidence the 2018 exams would go on smoothly as all government organs were working around the clock to curb any eventuality. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. The Sad Life of Dedan Kimathi's Forgotten Family - on Tuko TV. Source: Tuko.co.ke Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms were on Tuesday, October 30, 'set on fire' by thousands of Kenyans who came out to react to Judge James Wakiaga's description of Joseph Irungu alias Jowie as a ''woman eater'' during his bail hearing. As reported by TUKO.co.ke earlier, the High Court judge left people giggling in low tones after describing the murder suspect as a "male slay queen" who who is also a "woman eater". Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Kipusa aliyedaiwa kuivunja ndoa ya Ababu Namwamba ajivinjari naye nchini Italy The judge claimed Jowie is a woman eater and male socialite. Photo: UGC Source: Instagram READ ALSO: The controversial lifestyle of TV girl Jackie Maribes lover and how women finance him With a stone face and a stern voice, the judge painted Irungu in bad light as he granted his co-accused Jacque Maribe bail, denying him the same over claims the suspect had no known residence, hence a flight risk. Maribe was released on a KSh 2 million bail while his lover will remain in remand ahead of the trial scheduled for 18, 19th, 20th, 25th, 26th and 27th of June 2019. The first accused is a male version of a slay queen. I would describe him as a woman eater. He has no known physical address other than Maribes house, Wakiaga said. The judge denied Jowie bail claiming he was a flight risk since he has no place of his own. Photo: UGC Source: Twitter READ ALSO: Hot Nairobi MCA and former BBA contestant Millicent Mugadi welcomes twins While his description of Irungu pleased some people who want him to rot in jail, it also rubbed others the wrong way and off they took to social media to share their feelings. Oddly, even women who were supposed to back the judge's statement turned against him with a merciless troll. READ ALSO: Vera Sidika reveals she was turned off by Otile Brown for borrowing her money As Irungu and Maribe trended on Twitter because of their bail hearing, so did judge Wakiaga, thanks to a bigger portion of Kenyans who found his statement distasteful. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. Shosh Cecilia: Ladies Stop Dating Sponsors | Tuko TV Source: Tuko - The political commentator questioned the choice of words and language Jutice James Wakiaga used to refer to Joseph Irungu alias Jowie - Wakiaga had referred to Jowie as a male version of "slay queen" and "woman eater" who depended on girlfriends' provision to survive - Ngunyi insinuated the judge had portrayed bias and failed to adhere to ethical Judiciary standards - Former Kiambu Governor William Kabogo said the judge had showed bias and needed to recuse himself from the case Controversial political commentator Mutahi Ngnyi has questioned High Court Judge James Wakiaga's adherence to Judiciary standard following his remarks on key suspect in businesswoman Monica Kimani's murder, Joseph Irungu alias Jowie. Before delivering his ruling on a bail application by TV news anchor Jacque Maribe and Irungu on Tuesday, October 30, the judge referred to the latter as a "male version of slay queen" and a "woman eater" due to his way of life, noting he even lacked a permanent abode. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Kipusa aliyedaiwa kuivunja ndoa ya Ababu Namwamba ajivinjari naye nchini Italy Mutahi Ngunyi questioned the language and choice of words Justice James Wakiaga used to refer to Joseph Irungu alais Jowie ahead of denying him a bail. Photo: Mutahi Ngunyi/Twitter. Source: UGC READ ALSO: Nakuru teenager commits suicide over TV remote control In a tweet seen by TUKO.co.ke, few hours after the verdict which saw Maribe released on KSh 2 million bond with KSh 1 million cash bail alternative and her lover denied bail, Ngunyi called on former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga to shed light on the principle Wakiaga used. In the carefully worded tweet, Ngunyi questioned the language and choice of words by the judge an wondered if Kenya's Judiciary had a standard system of justice, insinuating the judge was out of order to refer to the accused using unofficial and derogatory language. "Question for my friend Chief Justice Willy Mutunga. Is there a unified theory of justice in our Judiciary? Does a woman eater (whatever that means) have the same Constitutional right to bail as a slay queen, a pedestrian term used by tabloids," read part of the tweet by the political analyst. Former Kiambu Governor William Kabogo fully backed Ngunyi's sentiments saying Wakiaga's sentiments were an epitome of a sad day for Kenya's judiciary and called on the judge to consider recusing himself from the trial. READ ALSO: Senior police officer arrested in Bungoma over KSh 30k bribe Ngunyi's tweet ignited a hot discussion on Twitter as Kenyans poured out their hearts concerning the court's verdict and the judge's jibes against Irungu. READ ALSO: KCPE candidate in Kericho names newborn after education CS Amina Mohamed Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. Kenya News Today: This Is Why Jacque Maribe Was Granted Bail | Tuko TV Source: Tuko - Mutua was accused by Wiper party of irregular purchase of 15 vehicles for his Cabinet - He argued he saved the county money by purchasing the vehicles at KSh 35 million instead of KSh 140 million - Mutua had moved to the Court of Appeal to challenge a High Court decision that dismissed his petition to stop his prosecution The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji has cleared Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua of any wrong doing in the purchase of Subaru vehicles in 2013 for the county government. In a consent entered at the Court of Appeal before Justice Roselyne Nambuye, Justice Milton Makhandia and Justice Otieno Odek, the DPP stopped any move to investigate and prosecute Mutua. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Kipusa aliyedaiwa kuivunja ndoa ya Ababu Namwamba ajivinjari naye nchini Italy Governor Alfred Mutua had argued that he saved the county money by purchasing 15 vehicles worth KSh 35 million instead of the allocated KSh 140 million. Photo: UGC Source: UGC READ ALSO: Mutahi Ngunyi, William Kabogo angry with judge for calling Jowie slay queen, denying him bail The governor had argued he had saved the county government money by using only 35 million instead of the allocated KSh 140 million and that he was being pursued for saving the public money. The case had been sent to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) by former Machakos Senator Johnstonne Muthama on behalf of Wiper party, in what Mutua viewed as political witch hunt. The party had accused the county boss of irregular purchase of 15 vehicles for his Cabinet when he became governor. READ ALSO: Migori Governor Okoth Obado makes changes at county government hours after resuming office Mutua had moved to the Court of Appeal to challenge a High Court decision that dismissed his petition to stop his prosecution for fraud. The Machakos magistrates court had earlier acquitted the governor's tender committee of the same matter on Case No. 11 of 2015, and a ruling delivered on November 17, 2017. Story By Trizah Mwikali Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news Kenya News Today: This Is Why Jacque Maribe Was Granted Bail | Tuko TV Source: Tuko Breaking News A section of MPs drawn from Mount Kenya region are on the receiving end of a blistering social media backlash after claiming the region accounts for 60% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Despite the region contributing what they termed as the lion's share, the MPs claimed the area had tailed in development. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens. READ ALSO: Afisa wa trafiki acheza densi barabarani, asahau habari ya hongo (video) Nominated MP Cecily Mabrire blamed this on President Uhuru Kenyatta's Executive, which according to the legislators had diverted most resources to the Rift valley. Photo: UGC Source: UGC READ ALSO: Telecommunication giant Safaricom fined over KSh 200 million for poor services in 2017 The lawmakers blamed this on President Uhuru Kenyatta's Executive, which according to the legislators, had diverted most resources to the Rift Valley. "The president has been sensitive to issues of voters from Rift Valley due to pressure and lobbying by cabinet secretaries and other leaders from the region. Their counterparts from this region are nowhere to be seen," said nominated MP Cecily Mbarire. We contribute 60% to Kenya's GDP and only 20% comes back to our people as revenue. We call on Commission for Revenue Allocation (CRA), Parliament and other agencies to ensure we get a fair share of resources. The president must honour his pledge of developing this region before 2022," she added. READ ALSO: City lawyer Donald Kipkorir blast judge who denied Jacque Maribes lover bail The sentiments evoked mixed reactions across different social media platforms. Various users accused the MPs of misleading the public with unproven figures which they (social media users) claimed could stir ethnic animosity. The MPs drawn from Mount Kenya region are on the receiving end of a blistering social media backlash after claiming the region accounts for 60% of country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Photo: UGC Source: Twitter Mohamed Wehliye disputed the figures from the caucus and demanded to know which research they derived the data from. "Central Kenya MPs say 60% of the country's GDP is from the region. Any link to that research? I want to know what is produced in that 14km square that contributes KSh 4.59 trillion annually to Kenya's KSh 7.66 trillion GDP. May be they valued Mount Kenya?" he posed. At end of 2017, TUKO.co.ke, however, understands the country's GDP stood at about KSh 7.65 trillion. If the MPs assertions are anything to go by, then it means the region contributed a whopping KSh 4.59 trillion to the gross GDP. Lord Abraham Mutai who was also roughly rubbed by the sentiments, stated the allegations brought to the fore how greedy minded the leaders were. "What Central Kenya MPs said that 60% of our GDP is from their region has brought to the surface what we have always been saying. Culture of entitlement by some people from the central region and the feeling like they deserve to inherit and colonise Kenya. Dangerous. Must be checked," Mutai responded. READ ALSO: Migori Governor Okoth Obado makes changes at county government hours after resuming office Economist David Ndii whose raw nerve was touched by the assertions dismissed the claims and mockingly said the 60% figure was reached at following a research by elders. "That research was done by the Gikuyu Council of Elders. It is available in the Mukurwe wa Nyagathanga library. However, it is only accessible after three fingernails of snuff," tweeted Ndii in jest. Ohta Ryota opined the legislators seemed not to even understand meaning of the term GDP. He added the caucus was not even privy to the formula they used to arrive at the 60% GDP share. " Central Kenya leaders have even no idea what GDP is and how it relates to households...they are just throwing around figures which they have no evidence of supporting...they even don't know the formula they used to arrive at 60%," shared Ryota Just like Ndii, Mutahi and Wahliye, Abdirizakmaalim99 also sought to be educated on the source and authenticity of knowledge the MPs seemed to have acquired. "If Central Kenya which produces only potatoes claim to produce 60% of our country GDP, what percentage will Rift Valley and Western Kenya claim when they are known to produce wheat, maize, tea and sugar that is consumed in every household in Kenya?"wrote Abdirizakmaalim99. According latest statistics by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), 34.6% of 2017 GDP was accrued from agriculture, forestry and fishing activities. This translated to about KSh 2.65 trillion of the total GDP. Bearing in mind that parts of western Kenya for instanced Uasin Gishu are responsible for high food production, then the MPs assertions qualify to be treated with doubt. TUKO.co.ke, however, understands Mount Kenya region is also a subsistence and cash crop farming region. READ ALSO: Aliyekuwa msaidizi wa gavana Sonko adai maisha yake yamo hatarini According to the latest statistics by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), 34.6% of 2017 GDP was accrued from Agriculture, forestry and fishing activities. Photo: UGC Source: UGC Here are other interesting comments from social media users who reacted to comments by the MPs: Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. Rejected for naming son Uhuru Kenyatta | Untold stories Tuko TV. Source: Tuko.co.ke Kenyan women have gone wild after deciding to parade seductive photos of their juicy racks on social media. This is how it all started: a man by the name Zack Opondo asked his female followers to show off what their mama gave them in exchange of KSh 20,000. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Afisa wa trafiki acheza densi barabarani, asahau habari ya hongo (video) READ ALSO: 17 hilarious questions most Kenyans wish they could pose to Jacque Maribe In a Facebook post seen by TUKO.co.ke, Kenyan ladies heeded to the call and decided to take off their tops, and flash their assorted collection of bras. The only rule to this game was no push up bras allowed and there was no restriction to how the goodies were to be delivered. Clothed or not clothed, all were welcome. READ ALSO: Judge describes Jacque Maribes lover as 'male slay queen' The post, majorly written in Luo language, asked the women who thought they had what it takes to prove their worth. The poll that is set to end at 5pm on Wednesday, October 31, requires the best boobies to be ranked using the majority number of likes. The catch is more than 1125 people are required to find your twins attractive and worth hitting the like button. Scrolling through the comment section, one cannot help but take note of the men slowly sampling their next meal. It was an elimination game and the judges were men each working hard to determine who deserved the crown and who needed to just take a hike. According to Zack, the brain behind the bizarre competition, part of the proceeds would be channeled towards purchasing mastectomy bras for breast cancer survivors. Well, may the best chest win! Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. The Sad Life of Dedan Kimathi's Forgotten Family - on Tuko TV. Source: Tuko.co.ke - A church elder was arrested for stealing women underwear in Muranga - The woman is said to have hired a teenager to break into peoples homes to steal the undergarments - The man revealed he was paid KSh 2,000 by his employer for delivering the clothes Drama unfolded in Kiharu, Muranga County after women flocked a home in Wahuko Village, Mbiri Ward to identify their stolen panties discovered at womans house. The matter came to light on Tuesday, October 30, after 18-year-old Wilson Muturi Macharia was cornered by irate villagers who linked him to the disappearance of their undergarments. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Afisa wa trafiki acheza densi barabarani, asahau habari ya hongo (video) A woman inspects one of the stolen underwear at the suspect's home. Photo: Mark Wachira Source: Original His father, Gibson Macharia Mwangi, who feared he would be killed together with his employer where the clothes were found tipped off TUKO.co.ke about the incident. Muturi who disclosed that he was contracted by Esther Gachoki Mwangi to steal the panties, said he got exposed after he was spotted leaving one of the victims house with the undergarments he had stolen. It also emerged panties in their hundreds had vanished from the village and some women were shy to state in public that they were victims. Muturi explained that Gachoki approached him with a request that he steals the inner wear although she did not disclose where she was to take them after that. READ ALSO: We've grown, grow with us too Mama Songa requested me whether I wanted to run an errand for her of stealing women panties with a promise that she will pay me dearly if I agreed. I first declined but on Thursday, October 25, she reminded me the same and directed me that I go to Mama Kahingos home and steal her panties. She also told me to raid Mama Njokis home and steal her panties too and that of her grand-daughter. After stealing, she met me at a secret location and I gave her the panties and she gave me KSh 2,000 in return, he narrated to the shocked villagers. The suspect said that to get the items, he would break into the houses of those targeted. This, after women in the village stopped airing their under garments outside following the mysterious disappearance. Jane Muthoni who is one of the victims narrated how she had found her house broken into and her six panties and several others belonging to her grand-daughter stolen on October 25. READ ALSO: 47 passengers cheat death as bus catches fire at Kibwezi on Nairobi-Mombasa Highway R The suspect said that to get the items he breaks into the houses of those targeted. Photo: Mark Wachira. Source: Original I zeroed in on Muturi after a neighbour told me he had spotted him on the material day hiding behind my house and he appeared not at ease. When we asked him, he disclosed that she stole them as directed by the woman of this home, Muthoni said. TUKO.co.ke understands the locals are living in fear as they suspect the stolen underwear might be used in witchcraft or in brewing of illicit brews to increase their potency and make sure that consumers get hooked to the brews as some panties are stolen after they are worn and before they are washed by their owners. We suspect they are taken to witches and wizards to cast spells on the victims to bring diseases, disintegration in families and disunity among couples, a resident said. Another victim, Magdalene Waithera, who is a daughter-in-law to Gachoki said her panties were also recovered at the home. I first noted one of my panties was missing and gathered courage to ask my children if they had seen it or whether I had removed it from the clothing line alongside their clothes but they said they had not seen it. It was after the news leaked that I stormed my mother-in-laws house and and found four of my panties," she said. Gachoki, however, denied she had hired Muturi to steal the underwear even as she failed to explain how the garments found their way to her house. Some of the stolen underwear displayed outside the suspect's house. Photo: Mark Wachira Source: Original READ ALSO: Trauma and depression: Silent grim reaper sweeping through police officers families I suspect the inner garments were stolen by my grandson who has an unbecoming behavior as during the time, he had stolen KSh 3,000. As far as I am concerned, I have no role to play in this but I admit the items were recovered from my house. I am sure he is the one who stole them and hid them in my house, she said in defence. The suspect is also an elder at a local church and a member of Nyumba Kumi. Githuuri Sub-location assistant chief Justus Mwangi Mukera accompanied by administration police officers rushed to the home fearing the crowd might take law into their hands and attack the duo. The women who had lost their panties later went to record statements at Kabuta police patrol base located a few kilometres away with the suspects in tow. Story by Mark Wachira, Correspondent Muranga County. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news Kenya News Today: This Is Why Jacque Maribe Was Granted Bail | Tuko TV Source: Tuko - The exam papers are suspected to have dropped along the way after thy were picked - They were to be delivered to eight different centers within the county - They included Insha, Kiswahili and Science papers Police officers in Narok county are investigating an incident where KCPE examination papers went missing on the morning on Wednesday, October 31, while being ferried to eight different examination centers. The papers had been earlier on dispatched from Olokurto centre to the various examination centers at 4am before they went missing. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Afisa wa trafiki acheza densi barabarani, asahau habari ya hongo (video) KCPE exam papers go missing in Narok en route to exam center Source: UGC READ ALSO: Kenyan man tired of applying for vacancies at Safaricom threatens to forcibly join the firms workforce According to Narok County Police Commander Thomas Ngeiywa, the Kiswahili, Insha and Science papers went missing while being transported to the school. According one of the headteachers, Ann Kirui, who had picked the papers, they are suspected to have fallen off while on the way to the centers. She was under escort of two officers in GKB 198T, Toyota Land-cruiser, which was ferrying for eight examination centers, read a police report. READ ALSO: 10 factors that determine rate of survival during a plane crash KCPE exam papers go missing in Narok en route to exam center Source: UGC The teacher is said to have been under the escort of two police officers in a landcruiser which was ferrying the papers. Eleven people have since been arrested following the incident including the headteacher of Oloonamuka Primary School, three of his colleagues and three security officers. Narok County Commissioner George Natembeya and a team of security agents swung into action following the report. READ ALSO: Kenyans descend on Central Kenya MPs for claiming region accounts for 60% of Kenyas GDP A lady collected the exams in a container at the Olokurto division education office and put them in a handbag. How they slipped out of the vehicle is a matter of investigations, said Natembeya. The commissioner said education officials were forced to find a quick alternative for the pupils. Meanwhile, 31 pupils of different schools in Narok East did not take the tests as they dropped out due to pregnancy. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. The Sad Life of Dedan Kimathi's Forgotten Family - on Tuko TV. Source: Tuko.co.ke - The Chinese government threatened to impose economic and trade sanctions on Kenya over alleged hostility - China has currently not committed to the construction of second phase of Standard Gauge Railway from Naivasha to Kisumu - President Uhuru Kenyatta is struggling to strike a balance between the foreign lender and local businessmen - Department of Fisheries cancelled applications for imports of Chinese fish and banned the same commencing January 2019 - China referred the move by Kenya as waging trade war and threatened to retaliate with cutting funding The chances of funding the next phase of the Standard Gauge Railway line from Nairobi to Naivasha have drastically reduced after China, the main financier of project, threatened to impose trade sanctions on Kenya. China is angry with Kenya's move to cancel all applications for importation of fish from its market, terming the move as a trade war which the Asian giant said it would retaliate by cutting economic ties. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Afisa wa trafiki acheza densi barabarani, asahau habari ya hongo (video) Kenyan leaders and traders had raised concern over the influx of Chinese fish in the local market. They said the imports were killing local sector. Photo: UGC Source: UGC READ ALSO: Jacque Maribe could spend another night in remand despite court granting her bail Speaking to a section of Kenyan politicians on Tuesday, October 30, China's Acting Ambassador Li Xuhang confirmed Kenya's department of fisheries had served their consulate with a letter imposing the ban of importation of fish from its market. "We have received a letter from the department of fisheries canceling all fish importation applications from China. The move is shocking and we could respond to it the way we did with the US after it imposed tariffs on goods from our markets," Xuhang said. The department of fisheries was prompted to make the notice by President Uhuru Kenyatta's proposal to government officials to devise creative means to ensure Chinese fish which had flooded local market does not get into the country. China has been adamant to commit to the funding and building of the second phase of the SGR line from Nairobi to Naivasha. The 120kms line requires about KSh 150 billion. Photo: Kenya Railways Source: UGC READ ALSO: Kenyan women parade their cleavages on Facebook after man offers 20k to the best China has delayed the funding of the SGR line from Naivasha to Kisumu already in what seems to be a silent protest against Kenya's treatment. Uhuru did not manage to secure the funding when he traveled to Beijing on Friday, August 31, to attend the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation. TUKO.co.ke understands Susan Imende, director general of fisheries department issued a notice to traders stating applications for importation of Oreochromis niloticus Tilapia, majorly produced by China, would not be allowed in Kenya beginning January 2019. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. Kenya News Today: This Is Why Jacque Maribe Was Granted Bail | Tuko TV Source: Tuko Kenya - Jesse took over the Friday Briefing news segment following Betty Kyallo's exit - The young lad has been killing ladies softly with his voice and looks - Before joining KTN, Jesse was working for KU TV When ravishing KTN news anchor Betty Kyallo announced her exit from the station, her fans were disappointed and even thought of switching channels. However, their disappointment was cleared days later after KTN brought in her replacement who has kept fans, especially ladies, glued to their screens ever since. Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens READ ALSO: Afisa wa trafiki acheza densi barabarani, asahau habari ya hongo (video) READ ALSO: Betty Kyallo promises to say hi to ex-lover Hassan Joho on first show in Mombasa Jesse Rodgers, a young lad who is actually still a student at the Kenyatta University, replaced Betty Kyallo as the host of Friday Briefing, a show the latter hosted for quite some time. Jesse, who looks like a tiny high school kid has been driving Kenyan ladies wild every time he hits the screens to broadcast. READ ALSO: Joho and Betty Kyalo pictured partying at the same club Countless ladies have confessed through social media the lad has not only been moving them with his voice but also his looks, which seem to be his stronghold. READ ALSO: KTN's Betty Kyallo reveals the never-said details of their short-lived marriage to TV reporter Dennis Okari TUKO.co.ke learnt Jesse loves being sharp and always steps out in official wears and suits, be it on air or off air. Before joining KTN, Jesse was 'working at his school's station, KU TV where he was a news anchor. Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news. The Sad Life of Dedan Kimathi's Forgotten Family - on Tuko TV Source: Tuko Australia today joined with many other countries which called for Sri Lanka to resolve political issues through parliament and said that issues should be addressed expeditiously through parliament. In a statement, Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Ann Payne said as a long standing friend, Australia is concerned by political developments in Sri Lanka. It is important that issues be addressed expeditiously through parliament and those democratic principles and freedoms are upheld. We urge all parties to respect the democratic will of Sri Lankans, as exercised through their elected representatives. We encourage all parties to continue to resolve differences peacefully and refrain from confrontation and violence, she said. Meanwhile, Australia updated it travel advisory for its citizens in Sri Lanka and said there is an increased likelihood of large protests and demonstrations in Sri Lanka due to political instability following the President's dismissal of the Prime Minister and subsequent suspension of Parliament. Avoid all demonstrations and large public gatherings, as they may turn violent. Monitor local media for updates, the advisory said. (Lahiru Pothmulla) 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. The dry season for 2022 is shaping up to be drier and warner than usual. Commander of the Joint Forces of Ukraine Serhiy Nayev and Chief of the General Staff of the National Army of the Republic of Moldova Igor Cutie visited the city of Mariupol and discussed security issues in the European region, the Ukrainian Defense Ministrys press service reports. "Commander of the Joint Forces, Lieutenant-General Serhiy Nayev held a working meeting with the Moldovan delegation headed by the Chief of the National Army of the Republic of Moldova, Brigadier General Igor Cutie as part of the visit of the delegation to the district of conducting Joint Forces Operation (Mariupol). During the meeting, the parties discussed security issues in the European region and around Ukraine," reads the report. According to the Defense Ministry, Serhiy Nayev acquainted the guests with the situation in the JFO area and the Sea of Azov. He noted that Russia continues to maintain controlled instability in eastern Ukraine and enhance combat potential of troops deployed along the borders of Ukraine. Also, the Joint Forces Commander reported on the facts of the use of weapons of purely Russian production. iy In January-August 2018, Ukraine exported goods and services to the tune of $31 billion. "We have started to export more. The export of Ukrainian goods has been growing for 20 consecutive months. For the first eight months of this year, Ukrainian businessmen exported goods and services to the tune of $31 billion," First Vice Prime Minister - Economic Development and Trade Minister of Ukraine Stepan Kubiv said at the Governments meeting, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. As reported, Ukraines exports increased by 12.4% in January-August 2018 compared to January-August 2017. The top exports from Ukraine are the agricultural and food products (36.8%), metallurgical complex products (26.4%), machinery products (11.7%), and mineral products (9.2%). In January-August 2018, Ukraine increased its exports to the countries of America (by 30.4%), Europe (18.6%), Asia (10.0%), the CIS (4.4%), Africa (2.9%). The EU remains the largest trading partner of Ukraine. For the first eight months of current year, the share of the EU countries in exports of goods from Ukraine totaled 42.1%. ol Ukraine will sign an agreement on free trade area (FTA) with Israel by the end of 2018. First Vice Prime Minister - Economic Development and Trade Minister of Ukraine Stepan Kubiv said this at the Governments meeting on Wednesday, an Ukrinform correspondent reported. We have reached the final stage of signing a free trade agreement with Israel. The agreement will be signed by the end of the year. Israel will become the 46th country with which Ukraine will have a free trade area, Kubiv said. As of today, Ukrainian goods are supplied free of duty to the countries where a total of 850 million people live, the minister said. As reported, Ukraine has FTA agreements with 45 countries; it has completed negotiations on FTA with Israel and is conducting talks on FTA with Turkey and Serbia. ish As of October 19, the small-scale privatization carried out through auctions ensured the receipt of almost UAH 300 million. First Vice Prime Minister - Economic Development and Trade Minister of Ukraine Stepan Kubiv said this at the Governments meeting on Wednesday, an Ukrinform correspondent reported. As of October 19, 2018, 200 electronic auctions for the small-scale privatization targets were successfully held. They brought about UAH 300 million, Kubiv noted. As reported, according to the law of Ukraine on privatization of state and municipal property, which entered into force in March, the small-scale privatization is held through the ProZorro.Sales electronic system. This refers to the assets of state and municipal property worth up to UAH 250 million. The State Property Fund of Ukraine, as well as local authorities, put objects for sale under the small-scale privatization. ish The International Community, mainly the Western Countries, was worried that their agenda in Sri Lanka was no longer operative and therefore, kept interfering in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka, Ven. Elle Gunawansa Thera said today. Addressing a news briefing of the Yuthukama Organisation, the Thera said the International Community shed more tears than the people of Sri Lanka over the change of premiership. The interference of Western Countries is so vast that we wonder whether the President, the Prime Minister and the Speaker of Sri Lanka were elected by us or them, he said. The US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and the European Union have expressed their concerns. They are simply worried that their Sri Lankan agenda has come to an end today, he said. The Thera said the Government headed by Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe continued to act on a foreign-agenda rather than on a national one. The Government put forward many Acts and Bills, which are detrimental to the country. It also attempted to dilute the capacity of the armed forces. It is a blessing that the term of the previous Government has ended, he said. He also said foreign countries should learn to respect Sri Lankas sovereignty and Sri Lankan leaders should not rope in foreign countries into domestic affairs. (Lahiru Pothmulla) Pix by Kihtsiri De Mel The lack of access for international humanitarian organizations in non-government controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions significantly complicates the lives of local residents. Ambassador Karen Pierce, UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations stated this at a UN meeting, an Ukrinform correspondent reported. The lack of access for humanitarian organizations in non-government controlled areas is making a very large contribution to this crisis. We strongly urge the Russian-backed separatists to grant safe and unhindered access so essential humanitarian assistance can be delivered to the 1.8 million people in need within non-government controlled areas, she stated. The Ambassador also addressed donors to respond to the annual UN Humanitarian Response Plan for Ukraine, which remains woefully under-funded. The humanitarian impact of this conflict continues to have a devastating effect for those that live on both sides of the line of contact, she stated. According Karen Pierce, the full observance of the Minsk agreements will contribute to a peaceful resolution of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. We urge all sides, and particularly the Russian-backed separatists, to commit to full implementation of the Minsk Agreements, beginning with a comprehensive ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy weaponry. This is the best way to achieve stability for Ukraine and end suffering of the Ukrainian people, she stated. As reported, an open meeting of the UN Security Council on Ukraine was held in New York on Tuesday. iy The UN Security Council has reaffirmed the continuing international isolation of Moscow and the UN's powerful support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, President Petro Poroshenko has said on his Facebook page. "Extremely significant and expressive results of the meeting of the UN Security Council on Ukraine are a powerful support for territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. [...] I am sincerely grateful to our international partners and the leadership of the UN Secretariat for firm solidarity with Ukraine and the call for greater humanitarian assistance to mitigate the after-effects of Russian destructive aggression," the head of state wrote. The Kremlin has to stop its brutal aggression in Donbas, to refuse from supplying Russian arms and military assets to the occupied territory and to stop obstructing the Minsk arrangements, Poroshenko said. According to him, Crimea has to be de-occupied, and Russia's aggressive policy in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait is not acceptable. "Moscow has to refuse from conducting fake local elections in the occupied Donbas in November, which are illegal and represent yet another example of Russian subversive activity," Poroshenko added. A briefing of the UN Security Council on the situation in the occupied territories in eastern Ukraine was held in New York on Tuesday. op The United Kingdom does not and will not recognize Russias illegal annexation of Crimea, Ambassador Karen Pierce, UK Permanent Representative to the United Nations, has stated. The United Kingdom is committed to Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity. We do not and will not recognize Russias illegal annexation of Crimea. The illegal seizure of Crimea by Russia in March 2014 is in direct contravention of the UN Charter. The action threatens international peace and security and it has global consequences, she stated at a meeting of the UN Security Council, an Ukrinform correspondent reported. She stressed that it was Russian aggression in 2014 that gave rise to this conflict with complete disregard for international law. Russia could demonstrate her commitment to the rules-based international system by using her considerable influence on the separatists to ensure that these so-called elections do not take place, the Ambassador said. As reported, an open meeting of the UN Security Council on Ukraine was held in New York on Tuesday. iy Kuwait fully supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine within internationally recognized borders. Permanent Representative of Kuwait Mansour Al-Otaibi stated this during a meeting of the UN Security Council held in New York on Tuesday, an Ukrinform correspondent reported. We express our support for Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity within internationally recognized borders, hoping that the parties will reach a balanced, peaceful solution to the conflict through dialogue, he said. He also criticized the intention to hold so-called elections in the temporarily occupied territories of Donbas. The announcement of so-called early elections in Donetsk and Luhansk regions contradicts the letter and spirit of the Minsk agreements, which prohibit their convening except under certain conditions, the permanent representative of Kuwait noted. He urged to refrain from any steps that could hinder the implementation of the Minsk agreements. ish Sweden strongly opposes to holding of so-called local elections in the occupied territories of Donbas, as they would violate the Minsk agreements. Deputy Permanent Representative of Sweden to the UN Carl Skau said this during a meeting of the UN Security Council held in New York on Tuesday, an Ukrinform correspondent reported. "The so-called "elections" in Donbas scheduled for November are a blatant violation of the Minsk agreements. We urge Russia to assume its responsibility and use its influence to stop them from being held," the Swedish diplomat said. He also called for the full implementation of the Minks agreements, starting with an immediate and lasting ceasefire. As reported, an open meeting of the UN Security Council regarding the situation in eastern Ukraine was held in New York on Tuesday. ish Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin and Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, the Secretary of State to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France, coordinated further steps for cooperation within the framework of Frances G7 Presidency in 2019. This was discussed during the talks of the officials in Kyiv, the press service of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine reports. "The parties agreed on further steps for cooperation within the framework of Frances G7 Presidency in 2019," reads the statement upon the meeting. Klimkin also expressed gratitude to France for its strong support for Ukraine in protecting sovereignty and territorial integrity and noted the close cooperation of the countries in the Normandy format and within the framework of the international organizations. At the same time, the Ukrainian minister stressed the importance of subsequent pressure on Russia with a view to release Ukrainian citizens who are illegally imprisoned in Russia and the occupied Crimea. As noted, Pavlo Klimkin and Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne praised the current bilateral political relations and underscored the significant potential of trade and economic cooperation, which has recently shown a tendency for growth. ol Ukraine and Qatar will sign an agreement on combating cybercrime and drug trafficking. "At a meeting with Prime Minister of Qatar Abdullah Al-Thani, we agreed to sign an agreement regarding the fight against cybercrime and drug trafficking," Ukrainian Internal Minister Arsen Avakov wrote on Twitter. The parties also agreed that Ukraine would help Qatar train law enforcement officers and share experience in training police special forces. At a meeting with Prime Minister of Qatar Abdullah Al-Thani in Doha, we have noted the completion of all formalities a visa-free regime between Ukraine and Qatar will be launched on November 2. Our friendship is growing stronger, Avakov added. ish Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Liudmyla Denisova has confirmed that seven Ukrainian sailors illegally detained in Russian-annexed Crimea have returned to mainland Ukraine. "Seven citizens who were illegally detained in Crimea have returned to [mainland] Ukraine! Now they are already going home. The issue concerns three crewmembers of the YaMK-0041 vessel, Serhiy Kalynychenko, Oleh Blok and Ruslan Skrypnyk, and four crewmembers of the YaOd 21-05 ship, Oleksandr Lyseniuk, Hennadiy Onhurov, Oleh Ivashchenko and Viacheslav Ivasenko," she wrote on her Facebook page on Tuesday, October 30. According to her, since May, the Ukrainian side has been working relentlessly on the return of the sailors. "They took away their passports, which made it impossible for Ukrainians to return home. In mid-October, I again substantiated the legal requirements to return illegally held fishermen to Ukraine and appealed to the Federal Security Service," she said. Denisova also said that this was not the exchange of Russian sailors for Ukrainian citizens, as reported by the Russian media: "The sailors of the Nord vessel, who today also returned to Crimea, freely moved through the territory of Ukraine. Nobody held them, unlike Ukrainians in Crimea." Earlier, an aide to the head of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, Oleh Slobodian, told Ukrinform that Russia had created an illusion of sailors' exchange because nobody in Ukraine detained crewmembers from the Crimean vessel Nord and they could travel to Russian-occupied Crimea at any time. On Tuesday, Russian media, referring to the press service of Russian human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova, said that seven Ukrainian sailors from the YaMK-0041 had been swapped for seven sailors from the Crimean ship Nord. On March 25, a Ukrainian sea guard ship detained the Nord seiner in the Sea of Azov. On March 30, the court arrested the vessel. The captain of the Nord, Volodymyr Horbenko, was served with a notice of suspicion of committing a criminal offense on counts of the violation of the order of entry into and exit from the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine. Later, he was suspected of illegal fishing activities. The Ukrainian ship YaMK-0041 was detained by Russian border guards in the Black Sea near Cape Tarkhankut on May 4. Fishermen had their fishing nets and fish seized. The ship and the crew were taken to the territory of the annexed Crimea. op The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved signing of an agreement on cooperation in the field of culture and art with the Government of Kuwait. "At the meeting on October 31, the Government of Ukraine approved signing of an agreement on cooperation in the field of culture and art between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Government of Kuwait. The draft order was developed by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine pursuant to the action plan for implementation of the agreements reached during the visit of President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko to the State of Kuwait on March 18-19, 2018," the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine reports. The officials expect the agreement to promote further development and strengthening of friendly relations between Ukraine and Kuwait, deepen Ukrainian-Kuwaiti cultural cooperation, intensify cultural dialogue between the countries, promote the culture of both countries and lay the foundation for the exchange of experience in the field of culture and art between two countries. The agreement is to be signed at the fourth meeting of the Intergovernmental Ukraine-Kuwait Commission for Economic, Technical and Trade Cooperation, which will be held in Kuwait City on November 6-8, 2018. ol On October 31, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the Military Medical Doctrine of Ukraine. "The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the Military Medical Doctrine of Ukraine on October 31 by its decree... The decision of the Government will allow uniting the military and civilian health care efforts on the basis of a single medical space in order to improve the medical support for the servicepersons, who today defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state," the Government portal reports. Pursuant to the doctrine, the state shall ensure the production and supply of the necessary domestic medical equipment, medicines and prophylactic remedies, the creation and maintenance of the strategic reserve in accordance with the approved nomenclature for the needs of medical services and civilian health care. In addition, the document will allow introducing the international standards, principles and policies for the medical support in NATO troops, taking into account their requirements in the national legislation on the health care of military personnel. ol There is a top team member known to be vying for the leadership of his political party. All in the party concede that he is a hard-working politico. By the way, despite having his roots in the city, this top team member has chosen to represent a remote area in the country. The Politico recently attended a series of public functions in Rajarata and later in response to an invitation to lunch accepted earlier, arrived at the residence of a party activist in the area along with all guests from Colombo. The party activist, who considered it a great privilege to host to lunch a distinguished VIP- possibly a head of state- in- waiting, had prepared a sumptuous meal of over forty delicious dishes a feast good enough for a king. So, it was a glorious moment for him and his family members when the political stalwart sat down to partake at the meal. However, what happened next gave them a shock. When others began eating, the most distinguished guest made a signal to one of his security guards, who soon produced a plastic box and a bottle of water in front of him. The political stalwart opened the plastic box, took out a sandwich and started eating. The lunch over, the politico said goodbye to the sad-looking host and his family members, profusely thanking them for their hospitality, they say. The United States will continue to impose sanctions against Russia over aggression in Ukraine. Russia demonstrates readiness to undermine regional stability in the Sea of Azov. "Beyond eastern Ukraine, Russias occupation of the Crimean peninsula and its aggressive actions in the Sea of Azov, where Russia is harassing and obstructing international shipping bound for Ukraine's ports, further demonstrate Moscow's blatant violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity and readiness to undermine regional stability," U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Ambassador Jonathan Cohen said in remarks at a UN Security Council briefing in New York City on October 30, 2018, on the situation in Ukraine. Read alsoU.S. envoy at UNSC: Russia seeks to bolster fake republics' positions via sham elections in Donbas He reiterated the U.S. condemns such destabilization activity of Russia in Ukraine. "The United States reiterates our strong condemnation of Russia's destabilizing actions in Ukraine. We will continue to impose sanctions against Russia for its action in the Donbas and Crimea until it fully implements the Minsk agreements and returns the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine," he said. As was reported, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on October 12 enacted a National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) decree on urgent measures to protect national interests in the south and the east of Ukraine, in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, and the Kerch Strait. The NSDC decree emphasizes that, having considered threats to national security in the south and the east of Ukraine, in the waters of the Black and Azov Seas and the Kerch Strait, caused by aggressive actions of the Russian Federation, the Council revealed conditions that could critically destabilize the economic, social and political situation, and result in a naval blockade of the Ukraine coast. The Cabinet was instructed to create an interdepartmental coordinating body that should generalize the legal position of the state on drafting an official, consolidated claim against Russia, demanding its international legal responsibility for armed aggression against Ukraine. The diplomat stated that by preparing sham elections in Donbas, Russia is choosing the path of further escalation. Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko, told a UN Security Council briefing on the situation in Ukraine on October 30, 2018. "None of us here has a crystal ball into the future but there are indications that these so-called 'elections' may serve as a stepping-stone towards a new cycle of the Russian armed aggression," Yelchenko said. He added that the so-called early elections in reality would amount to putting armed gangs leaders in seats in illegitimate representative bodies. "This is nothing else but a provocation, an outrage against the Minsk agreements and Ukraines sovereignty," Yelchenko stressed. Read alsoRussian disinformation on Facebook targeted Ukraine well before 2016 U.S. election - WP "It is very unfortunate that the Kremlin chose the path of further escalation of the situation instead of full implementation of the Minsk Agreements," said the diplomat. As Yelchenko noted, such actions by Russia will only undermine Minsk agreements and inflict serious harm to international efforts to resolve the situation that arose as a result of the Russian military aggression and occupation of parts of Ukraines territory. As UNIAN reported earlier, delegations of eight EU member states at the UN have called on Russia to stop preparations to the sham elections in the occupied parts of Donbas. "If held, these illegitimate 'elections' would contravene commitments made under the Minsk agreements and violate Ukrainian law," the statement said. U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Ambassador Jonathan Cohen, speaking at the UNSC briefing on the situation on Ukraine, said that Russia is using the so-called elections "to bolster the positions of the so-called 'Donetsk People's Republic' and the 'Luhansk People's Republic'." Russia has not given up on the idea of grabbing more Ukrainian territory to have a land corridor to Crimea, according to the Ukrainian diplomat. Russia continues preparing its military infrastructure in the occupied Crimea for deploying nuclear weapons in the area, Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Volodymyr Yelchenko, told a UN Security Council briefing on the situation in Ukraine held in New York October 30. "In the occupied Crimea active militarization proceeds at full speed. Russia has more than doubled the strength of its military on the peninsula and continues the preparation of Crimean military infrastructure for deployment of nuclear weapons including refurbishment of Soviet-era nuclear warheads storage facilities," Yelchenko said. Read alsoRussia demonstrates readiness to undermine regional stability in Sea of Azov U.S. envoy He added that Russia had been using the Sea of Azov as an additional channel to supply its forces in Donbas with weapons from the occupied territory of Crimea. "According to our information, Russia has not given up on the idea of having a land corridor to Crimea. Furthermore, the threat of a maritime assault from the Azov direction in case of a large-scale military confrontation remains a source of security destabilization in the Donetsk region," the Ambassador said. As UNIAN reported earlier, Russia has resettled to Crimea some 108,000 Russian nationals to change the demographic across the peninsula. According to the judge, Ukraine claims the Russian Federation controlled Crimea back in February 2014. Ganna Yudkivska, the judge of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) from Ukraine, has said the court considering the intergovernmental case on Ukraine's complaint against the Russian Federation should determine the date when Russia established control over Crimea and took responsibility for all human rights violations on the peninsula. The judge noted the complaint "includes very serious accusations against Russia," she told European Pravda. "These are Article 2 of the Convention on the right to life, Article 3 on the prohibition of torture, and Article 5 on unlawful deprivation of liberty. There were abductions of activists, there were violations of freedom of speech where journalists were arrested and their equipment and materials were seized, and many other things," she explained. Ukraine also accuses Russia of persecuting ethnic minorities, including through the closure of the Mejlis. Read alsoUkraine vs Russia case on Crimea ready for consideration ECHR Despite the fact that the Council of Europe considers Crimea to be Ukrainian territory, the state that controls it is recognized to be guilty of violating human rights on the peninsula, therefore the ECHR should establish when exactly Russia took responsibility for systemic human rights violations in Crimea. According to the judge, Ukraine claims the Russian Federation had controlled Crimea starting February 2014. "This complaint also includes episodes that, in fact, led to the annexation itself," Yudkivska said. "The key question is whether Russia controlled Crimea even before the annexation, that is, until March 27, 2014," she explained. According to Tymchuk, Ukraine should actively monitor the European information space and immediately respond to any Russian provocations. Dmytro Tymchuk, coordinator of Ukraine-based Information Resistance (IR) OSINT community, on the eve of the UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Donbas said that the Kremlin once again tried to legalize its puppets in the occupied territories of Donbas, using their "tools" in Europe. "In particular, the Polish online resource Onet.pl published an interview with the so-called 'DPR head' Denis Pushilin. The author of the interview is Polish 'activist' and 'journalist' Tomasz Maciejczuk, an infamous provocateur and Moscow minion," Tymchuk wrote on Facebook. After the reaction came from Ukraine, in particular, the outrage expressed by the Ministry of Information Policies, the interview was removed from the website. "But questions remained," Tymchuk notes. Read alsoU.S. State Department condemns announced "elections" in Donbas "This is not the first such case there was a scandal after the publication of Pushilin's interview with the influential Polish edition Rzeczpospolita, organized and inspired by Vladislav Surkov's assistant Denis Denisov, who has been traveling quietly across the EU. In the same case, Russian journalist Dmitry Yermolaev associated with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service got into a spotlight. It is quite obvious that we are dealing with operations carried out by the Russian special services," the expert said. "And here's what's interesting. Look how brazenly Russian special services started operating in Poland a country that today vigorously speaks of the Russian threat and dreams of expanding the U.S. military presence on its territory. Just a couple of days ago, Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said: 'The U.S. presence in Poland is already significant. But due to the fact that Russia constantly poses a threat, we support the expansion of its presence and its permanent character.' And at the same time, this very Russia's special services are conducting another special operation in Poland against Ukraine," Tymchuk wrote. Read alsoRussia plants agent in Poland under "Russophobe" cover to tar Ukraine-Poland ties According to Tymchuk, in this situation, Ukraine should actively monitor the European information space and immediately respond to any Russian provocations. "We cannot afford the luxury of indifferently watching Moscow spitting on our heads from the territory of other countries, also actively seeking to set up a fight between us and these countries along the way this can be seen in the example of, to say the least, uneasy Ukrainian-Polish relations we're seeing today," he said. Vladimir Putin seeks to "freeze" all conflicts he has created, according to an ex-president of France. Former French President Francois Hollande has said Russian President Vladimir Putin primarily seeks to turn the war in Ukraine into a "frozen conflict" to further control the territory. "Vladimir Putin seeks to "freeze" all conflicts he has created: in Georgia, Moldova, and now Ukraine. His goal is to prevent the Ukrainian government from regaining control over its own territory, all the way to the borders with Russia, including Crimea," Hollande told a conference held at the University of Mons in Belgium, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reported. He also expressed confidence that Kyiv is also "partially guilty" of a "long-dragging fight against corruption" as well as "non-implementation of Minsk agreements." Read alsoHollande on Putins behavior at Minsk talks: Since morning, he has been testing our patience Answering the question on whether the Normandy format fits the situation, he replied affirmatively. "I spent many hours speaking over the telephone with Merkel, Putin and Poroshenko. I don't know exactly what these consultations gave us, but I think they ensured at least one thing: there was dialogue. And when a conversation is ongoing, mutual killings stop," Hollande said. He explained that when the Russian-backed forces in Donbas continued their offensive, "there was an urgent need to achieve a ceasefire, and then withdraw heavy and light weapons." In Minsk, Vladimir Putin "wanted the ceasefire to be imposed as late as possible, while Poroshenko wanted it ASAP. As a result, the active phase of the war was stopped, but this does not mean the military stopped dying after Minsk," Hollande said. Firing tests of anti-aircraft rockets are scheduled for the four days. Ukraine is to introduce a no-fly zone over the Black Sea for November 1-4 for the period of firing tests of guided rockets. "Testing of guided anti-aircraft rockets will start in Kherson region tomorrow," speaker of the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Dmytro Strutynsky said on October 31, the Ukrainian media outlet LB.ua reported. Read alsoUkraine to develop new ground-launched cruise missile - media Ukraine has actively been modernizing its weapon systems. As UNIAN reported earlier, the Ukrainian army will receive the next generation of multiple rocket launchers, dubbed Vilkha (Alder), in the middle of 2019. Their large-scale production will start soon. The system was successfully tested in April 2018 and December 2017. According to the judge, two hearings are to be held. Ganna Yudkivska, the judge of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) from Ukraine, has announced the date of consideration of the first intergovernmental case on Ukraine's complaint against the Russian Federation. The Ukraine vs Russia case into the massive violations of human rights in Crimea during the annexation period is ready for consideration, the judge told European Pravda. According to Judge Yudkivska, two hearings are to be held. Only one of them will be an open hearing; its date has already been determined. "The hearing will take place on February 27, 2019," the judge said. "The procedure is as follows: the ECHR communicates with the governments of both states, after that the case is reviewed these are initial hearings. Later, the Grand Chamber forms a preliminary conclusion whether there has been a violation or not. Then goes the process of drafting a ruling and the Grand Chamber convenes for the second hearing, where they consider the draft ruling and finally vote," Judge Yudkivska said. Read alsoECHR accepts Sentsov's application in case against Russia According to the ECHR practice, nearly a year passes between the first hearing and the handing down of a ruling. The judge believes this case will not be an exception. "We can expect a court decision in this case will be handed down in a year, at least on admissibility and merits. But the issue of compensation is likely to be postponed," she said. The Crimea case concerns the events that preceded the annexation, as well as happened immediately after it, namely alleged violations of human rights in Crimea. Ukraine accuses Russia of violating key rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights the right to life, the rules prohibiting torture, unlawful imprisonment, abduction, violations of freedom of speech, etc. The combat vehicle is equipped with an automated deployment and fire control system. The Ukrainian Army has tested a new Ukrainian-made 120 mm mobile mortar complex "Bars-8MMK" during the military exercises at a proving ground, which was attended by Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov. "Manufacturers have solved several problems during the development of this mobile mortar complex. In particular, they have reached the maximum deployment and stowage speed, the ability to move off-road, the ability to hit the target with high accuracy, and, most importantly, the safety of its use," the NSDC press service quoted Turchynov as saying on October 31. According to the official, the mobile mortar complex was created by Ukrainian manufacturers on the basis of the "Bars-8" armored vehicle. The combat vehicle is equipped with an automated deployment and fire control system. Read alsoUkrainian Army gets first BTR-4 APCs made of new Ukrainian armored steel (Photo) "The complex can move quickly to the required firing point. Its computer system allows ground positioning, while the preparation for shooting from the original position takes only a minute," he said, adding that the mobile complex needs around 20 more seconds to leave the firing point to avoid enemy backfire. He added that the combat ammunition load of the vehicle is 60 mines while the crew consists of only three people. The NSDC Secretary is sure that after the state tests are completed, the mobile mortar complex will become an important weapon for the Land Forces, Air Assault Forces, and Special Operations Forces. As was earlier reported, the Ukrainian army will soon receive a new generation Vilkha (Alder) multiple launch rocket system. Its mass production will be launched soon. Three enemy troops were killed and another two were wounded, intelligence reports say. Russia's hybrid military forces mounted 21 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas in the past 24 hours, with two Ukrainian soldiers reported as wounded in action (WIA). "Two Ukrainian soldiers were wounded in the past day. According to intelligence reports, three occupiers were killed and another two were wounded," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation said in an update published on Facebook as of 07:00 Kyiv time on October 31, 2018. Russian occupation forces opened aimed fire from cannons of infantry fighting vehicles, grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms to attack the defenders of the towns of Avdiyivka, Maryinka, and Krasnohorivka. The villages of Luhanske, Verkhniotoretske, Pisky, Opytne, Pavlopil, Hnutove, Lomakyne, Vodiane, and Lebedynske were also under attack. Read alsoU.S. on recent jamming of OSCE drone: Russia must provide monitors unfettered access to Donbas The enemy also resorted to 82mm mortars to shell the Ukrainian positions near Avdiyivka, Pisky, Lomakyne and Luhanske, while the Ukrainian fortified positions near Luhanske were also attacked with the use of 120mm mortars. "Since Wednesday midnight, Russian-led forces have mounted two attacks on the Ukrainian positions near Lebedynske, using heavy machine guns and small arms. No casualties among Ukrainian troops have been reported from day-start," reads the report. By According to Article 3 of our Constitution, sovereignty is in the people. In terms of Article 30(2) of the 19th Amendment, the president is elected by the people of the entire country. The president is the Head of the state, head of the government, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and even the head of the Cabinet of Ministers (vide Article 42(3). On the other hand, The Parliament members are only agents of the people. These are the exact words of Justice Raja Wanasundera, when he delivered the judgement of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1987. In terms of Article 42(4), the elected president has the discretion to appoint the prime minister even after the 19th Amendment. The real issue to be examined here is whether the president has the authority to remove the incumbent prime minister after the 19 Amendment. Arguments from both sides exhibit flawed patterns of reasoning The eminent people and legal experts have quoted Article 48 of the Constitution in order to justify President Maithripala Sirisenas decision in removing former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. They have claimed that once the Cabinet ceases to exist, the office of the prime minister is also non-existent. The meaning of Article 48 is: on the prime minister ceasing to hold office, the Cabinet stands dissolved and not the other way around. For example, condition A will lead to condition B but doesnt necessarily mean that condition B will lead to condition A. The situation where the Cabinet ceases to exist doesnt necessarily mean that the office of the prime minister ceases. In view of the above anomaly, the proponents of Wickremesinghe say that the prime minister cannot be removed as per the said article; that position, which in my view, is correct. However, it is true that Article 48, as per the Sinhala version of the Constitution, was referring to a situation arising from the removal of the prime minister. Therefore, one cannot say that there is no provision to remove the incumbent prime minister after the 19th Amendment. Further, Wickremesinghe cannot hang on to the office of prime minister on the basis that he commands the majority in Parliament. It is not Parliament that appoints the prime minister. It is the presidents discretion. In my view, the arguments from both sides exhibit flawed patterns of reasoning. The rationally minded and right-thinking people and even the foreign ambassadors and dignitaries are obviously confused and may tend to think that this move is unethical and may be unconstitutional, thus creating unwarranted social unrest, leading to some kind of a constitutional crisis. Presidents power has reduced under 19A; Article 42(4) is still in force Parliament does not have a role (as the initial step) in deciding who the prime minister is. It is the presidents opinion what matters here as the initial step. If the president feels that Wickremesinghe is most likely to command the confidence in Parliament, he can appoint Wickremesinghe as the prime minister. Dont forget that Wickremesinghe became his prime minister three and a half years back. If the feelings changed to such an extent that he is unable to have Wickremesinghe as his prime minister three and a half years later, then he should be able to look elsewhere for a new prime minister. Thats how he removed Wickremesinghe under Article 42(4) and appointed Mahinda Rajapaksa as his new prime minister. It is true that in order to establish that Rajapaksa commands the majority in Parliament, the new prime minister may have to face a vote of no-confidence in the future but thats a subsequent event or a secondary matter. This is the letter and spirit of Article 42(4): who, in the presidents opinion, is most likely to command the confidence in Parliament not the majority in Parliament. The president is the appointing authority as well as the person who is authorised to remove the prime minister, so appointed as per the interpretation ordinance. Therefore, there is no need to specifically mention in the said article about the removal. The proponents of Wickremesinghe argue that in terms of Article 46, which deals with the tenure of the office of the prime minister, he cannot be removed and the prime minister will continue unless he himself resigns or ceases to be a Member of Parliament. Then what would happen to him after defeating at a no- confidence motion for the prime minister in Parliament? Does it mean that he cannot be removed just because Article 46 specifically gives only two situations for prime minister losing his position? The prime minister was removed in terms of the powers vested under 42(4). Role of Parliament in appointing PM Wickremesinghe says that he has a majority in Parliament. Does it mean that the president is compelled to appoint him the prime minister? No, because, it is then Parliament, which appoints the prime minister. Parliament does not have a role in deciding who the prime minister is. In fact, Sirisenas two letters dated October 26 dealing with the appointment and removal have also mentioned Article 42(4) only. Another important point is that Parliament does not recommend a person to the president to be appointed as the prime minister. It is not Parliament but the presidents opinion that matters. Has national government ceased? It is true that the president, as the leader of the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA), has withdrawn the support of the UPFA as one of the constituent parties to the national government formed on September 2, 2015. However, the president has opted not to reconstitute the Cabinet, which was above 30. It goes without saying that a functioning of a Cabinet exceeding 30 is unconstitutional. Instead, he has opted to remove Wickremesinghe in terms of the powers vested under 42(4) and stemming from the above, the Cabinet of Ministers has ceased to exist (Article 48(1)). The president has acted according to Article 48 to dissolve the Cabinet after removing the prime minister and not as claimed by the opponents of Wickremesinghe. In my view, the president should have the courtesy to request the incumbent prime minister Wickremasinghe to form a new Cabinet and allow him to present the budget of the United National Front (UNF) government, which has already been prepared, thus enabling him to continue the national unity government formed on September 2, 2015. The proponents of the UPFA/SLPP have argued that the national government formed under Article 46(4) has ceased to exist soon after Sirisenas UPFA has withdrawn its support to Wickremesinghes UNF. Unfortunately, in terms of the ruling given by the Speaker on September 2, 2015, on the formation of the national government, the proponents of Wickremesinghe could still argue that this position is not correct and the national government has not collapsed even without one of the constituent parties. What about the Muslim Members of Parliament contested separately? Is there a provision available to form another national government? Solution lies in holding a parliamentary election In the circumstances, the appointment of Rajapaksa as the prime minister by the president under Article 42(4) cannot be construed as unconstitutional. Further, Wickremasinghe cannot hang on to the premiership on the basis that he has the majority in Parliament. Parliament does not have a role in deciding who the prime minister is. Nevertheless, the president, in my view, should have the courtesy to request Wickremasinghe to form a government first and allow him to present the budget, which the UNF government has already prepared. Now that the prime minister is appointed and the Cabinet is being formed, the new government of Sirisena together with his prime minister, who happened to be the former President Rajapaksa, have to walk the talk and meet the expectations of the people of this country, thus upholding the traditions of the parliamentary democracy. My own view is to have some sort of consensus among the members of parliament and call for an early general election in order to form a new government. Notwithstanding Article 70(1) prohibiting the president to dissolve Parliament, the president has the power to call for a parliamentary election to enable the sovereign people to exercise their franchise. As mentioned at the outset, Article 3, 4 are good enough to justify holding an election; if not, the president may exercise power under Article 86 and ask the people by referendum. Sovereignty is in the people and the president is elected by the people of the entire country. Sovereignty includes the legislative power and the franchise. (Jayampathy Molligoda is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka. He has obtained his MBA from the Postgraduate Institute of Management and has also successfully completed an Executive Strategy Programme at Victoria University Melbourne, Australia. He counts over 37 years of executive experience in the fields of financial management, strategic planning and human resource development. At present, he serves as Executive Deputy Chairman of a leading public quoted company. He can be reached at jayampathy@bpl.lk) Areas near the village of Vodiane close to the Sea of Azov and the town of Zolote in Luhansk region were hot spots. Two Ukrainian soldiers were wounded in action in Donbas, eastern Ukraine, on October 31. "Two members of the Joint Forces have been wounded in hostilities," the Joint Forces Operation's press service said on Facebook in its update as of 18:00 Kyiv time on October 31. During the day, Russian-led forces mounted 13 attacks on Ukrainian positions, they resorted to proscribed weapons one time. Read alsoTwo Ukrainian soldiers wounded in action in Donbas on Oct 30 In most cases, the enemy used grenade launchers of various systems, large-caliber machine guns and small arms. Areas near the village of Vodiane close to the Sea of Azov and the town of Zolote in Luhansk region were hot spots. In addition, Zolote came under 82mm mortar fire. The enemy also mounted two attacks on Ukrainian troops' defensive positions near the village of Novoselivka Druha, using anti-tank grenade launchers. What is more, Ukrainian army units stationed near the town of Avdiyivka and the villages of Pisky, Novomykhailivka, Starohnativka, Pavlopil, and Lebedynske were under fire. Commanders of the units took drastic measures to suppress enemy fire, the press service said. The crime scene investigation team arrived at the site. People have been evacuated from the building. One person has been killed in an explosion that rocked the entrance to the FSB Security Service HQ in the Russian town of Arkhangelsk. According to preliminary data, the explosive device detonated between the first and second doors, by the metal detector, Mash Telegram channel reported. The crime scene investigation team arrived at the scene. People have been evacuated from the building. As UNIAN reported earlier, incosnistencies were revealed in the official version of the investigation into the mass shooting in the occupied Crimea's Kerch College which claims that the attacker, a local student Vladislav Roslyakov, acted alone. Ukraine's Information Resistance OSINT group suggests it was Russian security services who masterminded the attack. Three FSB operatives were also injured in the explosion. A 17-year-old teenager has committed a suicide bombing at the FSB Security Service HQ in the Russian town of Arkhangelsk. "This morning a blast occurred in the vestibule of the FSB office in Arkhangelsk. According to preliminary information, a 17-year-old local resident who carried an improvised explosive device into the building has died as a result of the incident," the press service of the Russian Investigative Committee told UNIAN correspondent. Three FSB operatives were injured in the explosion. The investigating authorities in Arkhangelsk region and the Nenets Autonomous District have initiated criminal proceedings under Article 205 of the Criminal Code (terrorist act) and Part 1 Article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (illegal carrying of ammunition). The alleged attacker has been identified but his name was not revealed. Investigative actions aimed at establishing all the circumstances of the crime are underway. Witnesses are being questioned, as well as all necessary examinations have been appointed. As UNIAN reported earlier, incosnistencies were revealed in the official version of the investigation into the mass shooting in the occupied Crimea's Kerch College which claims that the attacker, a local student Vladislav Roslyakov, acted alone. Ukraine's Information Resistance OSINT group suggests it was Russian security services who masterminded the attack. The country will not send an envoy to the signing ceremony in Morocco and will abstain from a UN vote on the pact next year. Austria will follow the United States and Hungary in backing out of a United Nations pact on migration over concerns that it will blur the line between legal and illegal migration, the right-wing government told media on Wednesday. The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration was approved in July by all 193 UN member nations except the United States, which backed out last year, according to Reuters. Hungarys right-wing government, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a hard-liner on immigration, has said it will not sign the final document at a ceremony in Morocco in December. Poland, which has also clashed with Brussels by resisting national quotas for asylum seekers, is considering the same step. Read also"Stop Soros": Hungary passes laws banning aid to undocumented immigrants We have decided that we will not join the pact, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, a conservative and an immigration hard-liner who governs in coalition with the far-right Freedom Party, told ORF radio. Austria will not send an envoy to the signing ceremony in Morocco and will abstain from a UN vote on the pact next year, ORF and news agency APA said, citing Kurz and far-right Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, adding that the cabinet would formally approve the move on Wednesday. We will therefore abstain in the vote at the U.N. General Assembly in the year 2019, Kurz told ORF. He and Strache expressed concerns about the pact this month, saying it could restrict sovereignty. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka yesterday assured the investors that Sri Lanka would meet the maturing international sovereign bond (ISB) obligations worth of US $ 1.5 in January and April next year, despite the current political crisis. The ISBs issued in January and April 2014 in United States dollar (USD) 1,000 million and 500 million, respectively are due to mature in January and April 2019. The government has already made pre-funding arrangements for meeting the maturing ISB obligations in 2019 through proceeds of divestment of non-strategic assets and funding through syndicate arrangements, the Central Bank said in a brief statement. Sri Lankas foreign exchange reserves stood at US $ 6.4 billion as of September 2018, covering about 3.4 months of imports, down from their peak of US $ 9.0 billion in April 2018. The international rating agency, Moodys warned this week that Sri Lanka faces greater refinancing risks in an environment of rising political tensions and tightening financing conditions globally, as Sri Lanka has smaller buffers to manage repayments. Fitch Ratings also issued similar warning stating that a prolonged power struggle could heighten Sri Lankas debt refinancing risks. The Central Bank stressed that Sri Lanka has maintained an unblemished record on servicing of its debt obligations timely, including the ISBs, since the countrys independence. The Central Bank said with the help of the government, it has initiated the necessary actions to further diversify international market-based foreign funding sources to jurisdictions outside conventional Eurodollar ISB issuances. October 31 2018 Glasgow City Council has marked the start of construction on what is being billed as Europes first smart canal scheme via the introduction of digital drainage technology to mitigate flood risk and thus enable wider regeneration. The 17m initiative is expected unlock 110 hectares of development land to the north of the city, capable of playing host to as many as 3,000 new homes. The Metropolitan Glasgow Strategic Drainage Scheme is being delivered in concert with Scottish Canals and Scottish Water and will bring an array of sensors and improved weather forecasts to give advance warning of potential flooding. At such times excess rainfall may be redirected towards stretches of canal with lower water levels as well as urban drainage ponds and granite channels, increasing its capacity to cope with floodwaters. Councilor Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council, said: This is a fantastic day for Glasgows Canal, as we mark the introduction of cutting-edge technology that will both allow surface water in this part of the city to be managed, and allow the building of new homes and businesses on land that historically have been unfit for development. As part of this work the canal will be connected to five new sites in Sighthill, Hamiltonhill, Ruchill Hospital, Cowlairs and Dundashill over the next 15 years. ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :Secretary Planning, Development and Reform Zafar Hasan Wednesday said the government was focusing on export-oriented policies to boost up the country's exports and put economy on growth trajectory. He said this while talking to a German business delegation which headed by Deputy Ambassador to Pakistan Jens Jokisch called on him here. Members Planning Commission and senior officials of the ministry were also present in the meeting. The secretary said the present government was cognizant of issues plaguing the national economy and endeavoring to overcome challenges through effective economic policy making. He said measures were being taken to enhance tax to GDP ratio. He apprised that security situation in the country had improved significantly over the past couple of years and Pakistan was fast emerging as an attractive destination for foreign investment. He underlined that there were several potential areas where German companies could invest to mutual benefit of two countries. He emphasized that the government was committed to enhance trade. 'We are looking for trade and not aid', the secretary said. He called for launching joint ventures in collaboration with local companies and transfer of technology especially related to hydropower generation. He said the base of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was being expanded and it was open to third party participation under bilateral arrangement. He said Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and Export Promotion Zones (EPZs) under CPEC do not restrict participation by any other country on competitive bidding. 'We would like German companies to invest in SEZ's and EPZ's under CPEC', the secretary said. The visiting delegation expressed interest in exploring avenues for potential economic cooperation in future between the two countries. Minister for Planning, Development & Reform Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar has said that energy sector of Pakistan offers huge investment potential especially petrochemicals and hydel energy generation and UAE can benefit from investing in these areas which will further expand the existing bilateral relations ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :Minister for Planning, Development & Reform Makhdum Khusro Bakhtyar has said that energy sector of Pakistan offers huge investment potential especially petrochemicals and hydel energy generation and UAE can benefit from investing in these areas which will further expand the existing bilateral relations. The Minister was talking to Ambassador of UAE, Hamad Obaid Alzaabi, who called on him here. Secretary Planning Zafar Hasan was also present in the meeting, according to a statement issued on Wednesday. The Minister said that Pakistan and UAE enjoy cordial bilateral relations and emphasized the need to further broaden the scope of partnership. He stated that there were many areas in which both countries could work together for gaining mutual benefit. He added that Pakistan offers investment friendly policies and the Government is committed to attract foreign investment to put the national economy on growth trajectory for achieving its socio-economic targets. The Minister appreciated UAE's investment in PARCO and hoped that more avenues will be explored to further bilateral economic cooperation. The Minister said that Pakistan will fully participate in EXPO 2020 being organized by UAE adding that this will provide an opportunity to two countries to identify areas for future cooperation in diverse sectors. The Minister called for exchange of high level visits between the two countries to further cement bilateral collaboration. He noted that a large Pakistani diaspora in UAE was contributing in the development of the country as well as acting as a bridge between the two countries. He expressed optimism that UAE will also consider initiating humanitarian projects in South Punjab. The ambassador of UAE said that both countries enjoy unique relationship and expressed confidence that bilateral relations will be taken to new heights in future. He also invited the Federal Minister to participate in a government summit which will be held in coming February. MEXICO CITY (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that he had discussed with a Russian delegation, led by Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Storchak, the ways to increase Venezuela's economic independence. Maduro met with the Russian delegation in Caracas on Tuesday. "An extraordinary working meeting with the Russian deputy finance minister and a work team of economic experts. We discussed the ideas which will help us to improve the new economic model in order to definitively strengthen our economic independence," Maduro said on Twitter. The president added that it was about getting out of the rent-seeking economic system. The representatives of Russia's Central Bank, Treasury and a number of other government departments participated in the meeting. Venezuela has been suffering from a deep economic crisis caused by the fall of global oil prices. DUBAI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 31st Oct, 2018) While visiting the headquarters of the Dar Al Ber Society, Mohammed Sharif Allo, Consul-General of Niger in Dubai, who was accompanied by Salah Majdi, Consul-Deputy, was briefed about the societys international humanitarian activities and projects in Africa and around the world. During his visit, Allo met with Hisham Al Hashemi, Deputy Executive Director of the Society, Abdulazeem Mohammed, Head of the Technical Office, and other officials. Allo praised the societys international charity and humanitarian activities, as well as its role in easing the suffering of the poor and needy in many cities in Niger. Al Hashemi said that Allo is monitoring the UAEs projects in Niger, especially those of the society, which are related to education, health and water. He added that the society is a leading international Emirati charity organisation while noting that it has implemented various projects to help people around the world, especially in Niger. The Emirates News Agency, WAM, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Chinese People's Daily newspaper "People's Daily" to enhance media cooperation, especially regarding the exchange of news and reports, and other media items, in line with the growing relations between the UAE and China. BOAO, China, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 31st Oct, 2018) The Emirates News Agency, WAM, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Chinese People's Daily newspaper "People's Daily" to enhance media cooperation, especially regarding the exchange of news and reports, and other media items, in line with the growing relations between the UAE and China. The MoU was signed on the sidelines of the Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road, which opened on Tuesday in Boao, southern China's Hainan Province, by Mohammed Jalal Alrayssi, Executive Director of the Emirates News Agency, and Li Baoshan, Editor-in-Chief of People's Daily. The agreement aims to strengthen cooperation between the UAE and China, particularly between WAM and the Chinese newspaper via the exchange of various media items, aligning with the growing relations between the two friendly countries which are promoted under the Belt and Road Initiative - China's gateway to the middle East and the Gulf region and a global financial centre and incubator for a large number of international companies and leading projects in all fields. Commenting on the signing, Mr. Alrayssi said that the memorandum will see both organisations exchange reports and opinion pieces, in addition to cooperate in organising press conferences and reports on the Belt and Road initiative, in both countries. He added that under the MoU, the two sides will work on supporting the exchange of visits among their media personnel and facilitate the work of correspondents. Mr. Alrayssi further highlighted that this move is an opportunity to introduce the UAE and its role in supporting the Belt and Road at the cultural and media levels by ensuring the publishing of related news items especially since WAM launched its Chinese-language service. The 2018 Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road has attracted 256 guests, representing 205 media and institutions, from 90 countries and international organisations. Under the theme, "Contributions by All and Benefits to All," the three-day event will focus on discussions on three topics "Belt and Road Regional Cooperation", "Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Media" and "Silk Road Culture Development". The People's Daily is the biggest newspaper group in China and the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, published worldwide with a circulation of three million. (@ChaudhryMAli88) Etihad Airways is celebrating fifteen years since its first flight and its subsequent rise as one of the worlds leading airlines. The major milestone is being marked with a series of events and initiatives in Abu Dhabi and around the world, ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 31st Oct, 2018) Etihad Airways is celebrating fifteen years since its first flight and its subsequent rise as one of the worlds leading airlines. The major milestone is being marked with a series of events and initiatives in Abu Dhabi and around the world, beginning with the unveiling of an exclusive collaboration with iconic New York fashion designer, Diane von Furstenberg. Etihad Airways commenced flying on 5th November 2003, with a single Airbus A330-200 aircraft, which performed a symbolic flight to the Emirate of Abu Dhabis historic city of Al Ain. Regular commercial flights were launched on 12 November of the same year from Abu Dhabi to the Lebanese capital, Beirut. The UAE national airline now operates a next-generation fleet of over 110 modern Boeing and Airbus aircraft, flying to 84 passenger and cargo destinations. Over the span of 15 years, Etihad Airways has operated over 840,000 passenger flights and has carried 139 million guests globally, served by a dedicated workforce of over 22,000 talented individuals hailing from over 150 countries. Tony Douglas, Group Chief Executive Officer, Etihad Aviation Group, said, "We are tremendously proud of Etihads achievements in just fifteen years. In this short time, we have emerged as one of the worlds most respected and recognised airline brands, known for leading the way through innovation, and upholding the best aspects of Arabian hospitality, delivered to millions of customers with a style and flair synonymous with the national airline of the United Arab Emirates. We can look to the future with renewed vigour and vitality, as the airline of choices, showcasing Abu Dhabi everywhere we fly. "We express sincere thanks to our customers, our corporate and travel trade partners here in Abu Dhabi and around the world, and our people for their invaluable loyalty and support." To mark the occasion, Diane von Furstenberg has worked with Etihad Airways to design limited edition cabin crew scarves and ties, which were introduced at a star-studded event at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. The new accessories will be worn by the airlines cabin crew throughout the month of November to celebrate its 15-year anniversary and its 10-year partnership with the Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. There are three distinguished patterns for the various cabin crew positions on board, chosen to match the airlines colour pallet: bold yellow for cabin managers, purple for cabin crew and white for food and Beverage Managers. Diane Von Furstenberg, the designer, said: "Formula 1 is such an elegant event and I was thrilled to collaborate with Etihad Airways on this exciting project. The geometric pattern was inspired by the Yas Marina Circuit and there are so many layers of meaning to the colours. Purple is the colour of royalty and the orange is inspired by the beautiful hues of the desert sand at sunset. I hope the cabin crew feels very proud to wear the scarves and ties. They reflect everything Etihad is about elegance and style." The event at Louvre Abu Dhabi was jointly hosted by Etihad Airways, IMG supermodel Joan Smalls, who unveiled the new scarves via a model diary video, and actress Liv Tyler, and attended by some of the UAEs most influential figures including global fashion and lifestyle media. While young children of her age are playing and freely enjoying beauty and the glamour of the nature in the village, an eight-year old little girl, Dinara Sandakalani in the same village in Lunugamvehera devotes her entire time after school to do the household chores of her family and attend to the needs of her disabled mother and her 4-year old younger sister. While young children of her age are playing and freely enjoying beauty and the glamour of the nature in the village, an eight-year old little girl, Dinara Sandakalani in the same village in Lunugamvehera devotes her entire time after school to do the household chores of her family and attend to the needs of her disabled mother and her 4-year old younger sister. Mother of this family J.M. Ramani (35) having three children is suffering from conditions developed with injuries on her leg when she was bitten by a serpent in 2014. She is still under medication after an operation done for the snakebite. She says they have to spend about Rs.2,000 for medicine at a time and it is very difficult for the family to spend such an amount for treatment amidst the other needs of the children. While living among all these difficulties Ramani also has begun to experience a gradually growing weakness of eyesight. The parents have dedicated their eldest child to the temple for ordination, the other two children aged eight and four are living with the mother. After returning from school, little Dinara, a grade 5 student at Kudagammana Vidyalaya, in Lunugamwehera,becomes busy preparing meals, feeding her mother and looking after her younger sibling. Occasionally this little girl stays away from school whenever her partially visually impaired mother needs special attention or to bathe her. Ramanis husband does odd jobs to survive the family and spends most of his earnings. In search of more money to treat his ailing wife, he moved to Colombo to find better employment. This family has no proper abode. Ramani said former Housing Development Minister Sajith Premadasa granted them a plot of land and loan to build a house. However, they were told by the Housing Development Authority that they would face legal action for not settling the loan arrears of Rs.29,000. Meanwhile, Ramani had also been advised to undergo a surgery to cure her fading eyesight, for which they have to spend Rs 1.5 million. Therefore, the family looks for philanthropists to assist them to come out of this pathetic situation. The family resides at No.52/1, Kuda Gammana Paha, Lunugamvehera, and for more information they can be reached on 0713892655 (@FahadShabbir) ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 31st Oct, 2018) A European Parliament delegation praised the humanitarian and development initiatives of the UAE in Yemen while stressing that the Emirates Red Crescent, ERC, is one of the most effective and influential organisations in the region. The remarks were made when Dr. Mohammed Ateeq Al Falahi, Secretary-General of the ERC, received Michele Alliot-Marie, Chairperson of the Arab Peninsula Committee of the European Parliament, and her delegation, at the headquarters of the ERC. Dr. Al Falahi highlighted the effectiveness of the ERCs rescue programmes and development projects in Yemen. Alliot-Marie expressed the appreciation of the European Parliament for the UAEs efforts to ease the suffering and improve the lives of those affected by the events taking place in many Yemeni governorates while adding that she is keenly monitoring the ERCs activities in Yemen and how it is handling the humanitarian situation with responsibility and efficiency. She also expressed the desire of the European Parliament to cooperate with the ERC in delivering aid from its partner organisations, as the ERC has significant experience in operating in Yemen while noting the coordination between both parties and their efforts to strengthen their partnership, to tackle the challenges faced by the Yemeni people. Both sides agreed on the importance of strengthening their cooperation and exchanged ideas and information, to serve their aspirations to deliver aid to those affected, coordinate their distribution of supplies and food aid, and enlarge the scope of their work to include more Yemeni governorates. The meeting also discussed the field cooperation between the two sides in other regions, especially those hosting many Syrian refugees, such as Jordan, Lebanon and Greece. Alliot-Marie said that the direct repercussions of events in Yemen on the lives of civilians require greater efforts and more programmes, to meet the growing needs of those affected while further adding that the ERC is among the parliaments key humanitarian partners in the region, and her delegations visit aims to conduct further consultations on the current humanitarian situation in Yemen. Dr. Al Falahi welcomed the delegations visit while pointing out that the outcomes of their meeting will have a direct impact on their rescue operations in Yemen. He added that H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Ruler's Representative in Al Dhafra Region and Chairman of the ERC, has prioritised the ERCs cooperation and coordination with international humanitarian organisations and is urging everyone to double their efforts to achieve the interests of humanity. Al Falahi also explained the ERCs previous role in Yemen and the programmes it has implemented in various areas while affirming that the coming period will witness a significant expansion in its work in Yemen. He also presented the ERCs projects and programmes in other countries, such as Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Greece. (@rukhshanmir) SHARJAH, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 31st Oct, 2018) H.H. Sheikha Jawaher bint Mohammed Al Qasimi, Wife of His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah and Chairperson of the Supreme Council for Family Affairs, thanked H.H. Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, for honouring Her Highness with the 'Sharjah Coronet' at the 37th edition of the Sharjah International Book Fair. Her Highness said, "I would like to thank H.H. Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohamed Al Qasimi, for bestowing this honour on me amidst an esteemed Arab and international cultural gathering. Our collective work to create a better society stems from a deep-seated responsibility towards our local community and humanity as a whole." "The fruits that we reap today is due to the collective efforts and hard work we put in whenever we embark on a new humanitarian project. Our message would not have travelled around the world if we did not have a unified vision and mission that keeps us focused on our humanitarian efforts," Sheikha Jawaher added. She went on to say, "I consider this honour that was bestowed on me dedicated to our teams on the ground, who work diligently and further our mission with the full confidence and belief that our work is aimed at providing better conditions for humankind. Our humble efforts reflect the values of Sharjah and the UAE. We carry the bright image of Sharjah around the world by supporting and assisting people worldwide." Sheikha Jawaher concluded, "These types of honours encourage us to strive even harder, as it lays greater responsibility on our shoulders to stay on task and committedly serve those who need help locally, regionally and globally." (@FahadShabbir) SHARJAH, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 31st Oct, 2018) H.H. Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, motivated thousands present at the opening ceremony of the 37th Sharjah International Book Fair, SIBF 2018, with an emotional message of heartfelt appreciation and gratitude in recognition of the towering contributions of his wife, H.H. Sheikha Jawaher bint Mohammed Al Qasimi, Chairperson of the Supreme Council of Family Affairs, SCFA. In a specially written poem entitled Sharjah Coronet, His Highness, the Ruler of Sharjah, expressed his deep reverence for Sheikha Jawaher's tireless efforts and dedication to serve members of the community both locally and abroad. Following the poem recital, His Highness went on to welcome SIBF 2018 attendees, saying that the book fair is "an event that gathers us every year to celebrate the true word." "I extend a special welcome to Japan, our guest of honour. In 1979, I launched an appeal to stop building concrete structures and build knowledge and culture. In 2019, itll be 40 years since the appeal. When we look back, we can see that we have built a 40-year legacy of giving and exceptional cultural achievements. I can never take the sole credit for this; I say we have achieved everything together, and I would like to once again thank you all for your contribution to the fairs 40-year journey and success in enlightening the human mind. "We have utilised all our resources and efforts to develop our emirate, our culture and our people the building blocks of our society. Cherishing humanity is the way we develop ourselves here in Sharjah," His Highness noted. The Ruler of Sharjah concluded with an impactful remark about mindful reading, saying, "People do not always seek the truth, but side with what they like to believe in, which may not be the truth always. This way, the truth is often neglected. I say to such people look carefully and the truth is right there. The books I write are always a quest for the truth. We have taught our sons and daughters to always love reading and search for the truth." The opening ceremony was attended by top Emirati officials, Arab and international literati, intellectuals, writers and professionals in the field of knowledge, culture and creative industries. In his speech, Ahmed Al Ameri, Chairman of the Sharjah Book Authority, SBA, highlighted the international acclaim the Sharjah International Book Fair has earned since its establishment. He emphasised that SIBF would have not earned global respect without the vision and wisdom of His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah. "SIBF has become an intellectual and cultural extravaganza that draws international interest. It is a celebration of the Emirati and Arab cultures and a message from Sharjah and the UAE to the world about the beauty of the language of the mind, intellectual thought, art and beauty, and how it brings us all together on one stage. "SIBF is sending a message whose letters are made of gold. A message written in different languages by people of diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds who share the love of words that can unite humanity in one place where there is no room except for the good. This message illustrates that knowledge is not a coincidence a product of constant accumulation of efforts throughout human history and a result of peoples wisdom and farsightedness." Al Ameri concluded his remarks with a glowing tribute to His Highness The Ruler of Sharjah, the UAEs greatest patron of thought and culture. He said: "His Highness Sheikh Dr Sultan Al Qasimi has always regarded knowledge as a foundation of development and sustainability, and a nations strength and prestige. He is a leader of the strongest intellect and great compassion who views the book as a window to our past, present and future." His Highness Sheikh Dr Sultan Al Qasimi also honoured Azzeldine Mihoubi, Algerias Minister of Culture, as the Cultural Personality of the Year in recognition of his outstanding efforts and achievements in the development of cultural fields in Algeria. Mihoubi thanked His Highness and the organisers for selecting him as the Cultural Personality of the Year. "I will never forget this defining moment. On behalf of all Algerian cultural entities, I would like to express my appreciation for this great honour recognizing Algerian culture, which prospered under the leadership of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of Algeria." Addressing the Ruler of Sharjah, he added, "You have always supported culture, art and creativity across the Arab world. Apart from serving the cultural world and launching an array of regional and international cultural events, you have written many books, which have finally rectified many historical inaccuracy and helped people around the world see our culture and history more accurately." The Board of Trustees of the UAE Water Aid Foundation (Suqia), under the umbrella of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, held its second meeting for this year, chaired by Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board of Trustees. DUBAI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 31st Oct, 2018) The Board of Trustees of the UAE Water Aid Foundation (Suqia), under the umbrella of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, held its second meeting for this year, chaired by Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board of Trustees. The meeting reviewed Suqias humanitarian efforts during the second and third quarters in the Year of Zayed as part of its efforts to provide drinking water to the needy around the world, as well as Suqias projects and initiatives implemented in cooperation with the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Humanitarian and Charity Establishment, the UAE Red Crescent Authority, and Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, DEWA. "Suqias humanitarian projects and initiatives are especially important during the Year of Zayed as we remember the efforts of our Founding Father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who laid the foundations of humanitarian and voluntary work in the UAE. Sheikh Zayed consolidated the principles of humanitarian work and volunteerism in the hearts of Emiratis and extended a helping hand to the needy all over the world. In all our work, we are guided by the vision of our wise leadership who follow the late Sheikh Zayeds path of giving and support the needy anywhere around the world," Al Tayer said. Al Tayer noted that the board discussed Suqias project in the past months and approved the second set of projects that will be implemented during the Year of Zayed, in cooperation with the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Humanitarian and Charity Establishment. These projects are part of the "100 Water Projects" initiative for 120,000 people in 12 countries, and "Suqia Zayed" which benefitted around 390,000 people during the Holy Month of Ramadan in 13 countries. Suqia also provided 14 local charities with 8.1 million water cups for those fasting during the Holy Month. Last June, Suqia organised a voluntary campaign to implement developmental and operational projects in Uganda in cooperation with the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Humanitarian and Charity Establishment and another journey to Upper Egypt in September under the theme of "Ayadi Zayed" with the participation of volunteers from DEWA. Mohammed Abdulkareem Al Shamsi noted that Suqia received messages from the public directed to the late Sheikh Zayed, as part of the "100 Letters to Zayed" initiative, during its participation at the Water, Energy, Technology, and Environment Exhibition, WETEX 2018, which was organised by DEWA. Visitors shared their messages about the impact the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan left in their lives. Suqia will compile these messages and publish them on social media platforms and in a book titled "Letters to Zayed" by the end of the year. Al Shamsi said that 70 volunteers participated in Suqias trips and activities so far this year as part of the 100 volunteers initiative, which aims to consolidate the values of volunteerism and humanitarian work among the youth. Majed Sultan Al Mesmar, Deputy Director-General for the Telecommunications Sector at the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, TRA, has been elected Chairman of the International Telecommunication Union, ITU, Plenipotentiary Conference, which is being held in Dubai. Dubai, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 31st Oct, 2018) Majed Sultan Al Mesmar, Deputy Director-General for the Telecommunications Sector at the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, TRA, has been elected Chairman of the International Telecommunication Union, ITU, Plenipotentiary Conference, which is being held in Dubai. Assuming the position, Al Mesmar called for a more cooperative and consensus among the members of the ITU, in order to take collective decisions that can benefit the people across the world. Al Mesmar welcomed the participants and acknowledged and thanked the secretary-general and all other ITU members for entrusting him with the responsibility to chair the conference, which will tackle issues of great importance. He also thanked the UAE government, represented by the TRA for nominating him to the post. He said, "I hope this event (PP-18) will be very successful and we will work in a spirit of consensus, with mutual understanding and a common approach. Rest assured, I will work with the vice chairmen and heads of committees to achieve success. We will work as one team to conduct in-depth discussions on various proposals taking into account the benefits of all parties." He added, "I will spare no effort to help overcome any obstacle. My doors will always be open just as my mind is open to new ideas. " With the appointment of Al Mesmar, the UAE becomes the only country in the world to have chaired or vice-chaired all the conferences of the ITU, reflecting the country's position on the global ICT map. On the second day of PP-18, Al Mesmar held meetings with a number of delegates and dignitaries including Chin Chow Ching, head of the delegation from the People's Republic of China, Marta Novakova, Czech Republics Minister of Industry and Trade and Eshmambet Amatov, Deputy Chairman of the State Committee of Information Technologies and Communications of the Kyrgyz Republic, among others. The conference will also hold elections for the secretary-general, deputy secretary-general, directors of the bureau of the radiocommunication sector, the telecommunication standardisation sector, and the telecommunication development sector and the members of the Radio Regulations board. The Plenipotentiary Conference, the key ITU event held every four years, will this year, convene representatives of member states to set out a plan for 2020-2023 in terms of the latest developments in ICT. (@FahadShabbir) CONAKRY, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 31st Oct, 2018) Ahmed Nasser Abdul Rahim Al-Khaja, UAE Ambassador to Guinea, has met with Mohamed Hadi Bari, Secretary-General of the Guinean Foreign Ministry, at his office in Conakry, Guinea. During the meeting, they explored paths of promoting ties and ways of developing them for the benefit of both countries. The Secretary-General lauded the relations between the two countries, meanwhile, Al-Khaja re-affirmed his readiness to cooperate with the Ministry to develop coordination in all fields. ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 31st Oct, 2018) Saleh Atiya, Ambassador of Algeria to the UAE, stated that the UAE has attained a prestigious stature among nations, and its voice is now being heard at international events, due to its open diplomacy. He added that the UAE is appreciated around the world in the areas of politics, economy, society and human rights, and has established its role among leading countries in spreading tolerance, love and coexistence. In a special interview with the Emirates news Agency, WAM, Atiya said that the Embassy of Algeria in the UAE is today celebrating the 64th anniversary of the "1st November Revolution," which coincides with the UAEs celebration of the Year of Zayed, making their celebration more special while praising the overall advancement and development in the relations between the two countries. He further added that these relations are a model of Arab relations, solidarity and mutual support while praising their bilateral ties, in light of the wise leadership of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of Algeria, which began in the era of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Atiya expressed his pride at representing his country in the UAE while pointing out that the relations between their two countries will witness further cooperation and future prosperity, and adding that Ahmed Ouyahia, Prime Minister of Algeria, is expected to visit the UAE at the start of 2019, to strengthen these relations. He also noted that Azzedine Mihoubi, Algerian Minister of Culture, will participate in 37th Sharjah International Book Fair, which began today at the Sharjah Expo Centre, as well as his own participation in the Algerian Embassys celebration of the Algerian revolution. He further noted that Dr. Amal Abdullah Al Qubaisi, Speaker of the Federal National Council, FNC, received an official invitation to visit Algeria during her meeting with Abdul Qadir bin Saleh, Speaker of the Algerian Council of the Nation, on the sidelines of the 39th session of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, IPU, General Assembly, which was held in Geneva last month. Abdul Qadir bin Masood, Minister of Tourism of Algeria, also received an official invitation from Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Economy, to visit the UAE, to strengthen the tourism cooperation between their countries and promote investment, he further added while stressing that the visit of Abdul Qader Masahel, Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the UAE next month is due to an invitation from H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. The value of Emirati investments in Algeria rose during the current year to US$10 billion in the oil, industrial, touristic and agricultural sectors, Atiya explained while highlighting the fact that Algerias location, natural and human resources, infrastructure and considerable regional presence have made it an industrial base for exporting to markets in the region and Africa, as well as further to Europe. Algeria will participate in Expo 2020 Dubai, through a pavilion with an area of 1,500 square metres, and the UAEs hosting of this international event is an honour for all Arabs, he said in conclusion. ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 31st Oct, 2018) The UAEs first National Nuclear Science for Development Student Competition concluded today with the winning of three teams after a thorough screening and presentation process. The winners presented their projects to explore the role of nuclear energy to improve human health, generate clean energy and to protect the environment and water resources. The winners were handpicked by a team of high-level jury comprising Ambassador Hamad Al Kaabi, Permanent Representative of the UAE to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA; Christer Viktorsson, Director-General of the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation, FANR, as well as representatives of the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, ENEC, the Ministry of education and the Vienna-based IAEA. Representatives from Dubai Health Authority, DHA, Environmental Agency Abu Dhabi, EAD, and Khalifa University were also on the jury panel. Targeting high-school students aged between 14 and 18, the competition aims to encourage them to explore the role of peaceful use of nuclear applications to serve the community and sustainable development. The high-school students were encouraged to submit a proposal covering one of three categories and focusing on the role of nuclear science and technology to improve human health; protect the environment and water resources; and generate clean energy. The Jamila Bu Haired school won in the nuclear science and technology for improving human health category for their project, 'Future Owners - Electromedical Slide'. For protecting the environment and water resources category, the Universal American School of Dubai took home the prize for their project 'Back to the Future - GreenTech', while the Umm Alarab School won in the generating clean energy category with their project, 'Radiation Geeks - Nuclear Transportation Engine'. "Youth is a vital element for progress in the UAE and in any society. Through this competition we are pioneering once again the UAE principles and values of the Founding Father. The Year of Zayed focuses on Sustainability and Human Development. We have combined that vision with valuable input from the youth, and gave them a platform to express how they envision a future where science contributes to development. The students response was heartwarming and showcased the big potential of our young men and women alike. We are proud to launch this dynamic initiative which already has a valuable impact nationwide, and will continue empowering the young generations of the UAE and advancing sustainable development," said Ambassador Hamad Al Kaabi. Since its launch in July, over 100 teams registered their proposals to compete in this national competition, first of its kind. A team of technical experts from the UAE and IAEA selected nine finalist teams who took part in the final round showcasing their projects to the high-level jury. The competition was introduced by the Permanent Mission of the United Arab Emirates to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna in cooperation with the UAE Ministry of Education, the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation, FANR, and Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, ENEC, and with support from IAEA. The three categories of the competition correspond with the UN Sustainable Development Goals which the UAE adopted in 2015. The winners will travel to attend the Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Science and Technology: Addressing Current and Emerging Development Challenges, which will be held at IAEAs headquarters in Vienna, Austria from 28th-30th November 2018. They will carry out a number of field visits including to the IAEA laboratories in Seibersdorf; learn about nuclear science and applications in other countries, listen to policy-makers, and connect with scientists and youth from across the globe. (@FahadShabbir) PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Finance Taimur Saleem Jhagra Wednesday said that as many as 10,000 new jobs would be created by provision of gas to Industrial Estate Hayatabad. This, he said while presiding over a meeting regarding provision of gas to Industrial Estate Hayatabad here. The meeting was attended by Secretary Finance Shakeel Qadir, General Manager Sui Northern Gas Pipe Lines (SNGPL) Saqib Arbab, President Industrial Estate Association (IEA) Peshawar Zarak Khattak and other concerned officials. Finance minister said that process of laying gas pipeline for industrial estate was Rs.180 million project that would be completed by end of January 2019. To facilitate private sector for creating employment opportunities, he said, Chief Minister Mahmood Khan had already approved the project as part of PTI's 100 Days Agenda. On the occasion, President of the industrial estate thanked Minister Finance for fulfilling his promise to cater the needs of industries for increased employment opportunities and supporting economic development in the province. He apprised the minister that there were 22 Industries which can provide employment opportunities to over 10,000 skilled labourers. He said the association would also contribute to the society by facilitating Rescue 1122 and would also plant sapling worth Rs.2 million outside Industrial Estate and saplings worth Rs.1 million inside the industrial area. HYDERABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :The members of the Supreme Court Bar Association cast their votes here Wednesday to elect the office bearers of the SCBA. According to the presiding officer advocate Ishrat Lohar, some 40 lawyers were registered to cast their votes. However, only 34 votes were cast during the polling which started at 8.30 am and concluded at 5.30 pm. As many as 19 votes were polled to advocate Amanullah Kanrani led panel and 15 to advocate Ali Ahmed Kurd led panel, according to the unofficial results. The polling was held in the office of Sindh High Court Bar Association Hyderabad in the premises of Sindh High Court Hyderabad Circuit Bench. The constitutions drafted by the so-called Peoples representatives do not express the real aspirations of the people. Who is a Prime Minister? An ancient British Monarch with German origins, and who did not speak English needed an interpreter to translate his addresses to the board of Ministers. He chose one among them who knew both the languages for the purpose and named him PRIME MINISTER. It was in April 1721 that Sir Robert Walpole assumed as First Lord of the treasury and de facto first Prime Minister. Writing to Daily Mirror of September 26, 2016 under, How effective is Parliament?former, Secretary to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Serious Acts of Fraud and Corruption (PRECIFAC) and senior public servant with 30 years of experience at Parliament, Mr Lacile de Silva says, Parliaments in the past few decades have been weak, ineffective and neglected. Modernisation and reforms in Parliament therefore are long overdue. In order to achieve a tangible progress, may I say, good governance should be built by developing quality institutions. The Parliament, which was simply an appendage of the executive, became a rubber stamp. A political analyst has said that It is accountability which is fundamental to a democratic system. Any acts of the Government are in the final analysis, acts of citizens themselves through their representatives. The President has prorogued Parliament until November 16. He announced the decision while dethroned Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was addressing a news conference where he asserted that he could show his majority in the House, adding to a mounting political crisis. The act is expected to give Mahinda Rajapaksa (MR) time to gather sufficient support to endure a no-confidence vote. Anxiety and rift between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe have been building for some time. Sirisena did not approve of some of the economic restructuring which was introduced by Wickremesinghe. Sirisena also had serious concerns over the investigations into military officers accused of Human Rights (HR) violations during Sri Lankas civil war. The excitement of a bloodless revolution in the voters on the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe Government that assumed power in January 2015, soon began to evaporate. Despite a few key democratic reforms, the Unity Government failed miserably in all other areas including the task of punishing alleged criminals in the previous regime, one of the key promises on which it came to power. Instead corruption within its own ranks marred at highest levels, starting with the Central Banks Billion Rupee scam by Ranils friend and Singapore citizen Arjuna Mahendran, which followed a series of corrupt deals involving millions, if not Billions of the poor mans money. Unlike the former Presidents, Sirisena cannot dissolve Parliament at his whim and fancy like CBK did in 2004 when she sent home Ranil Wickremasinghe prematurely. The Presidents hands are tied by 19A . Are some Politicians who have been talking of creating two States now attempting to make a bid to create Two Prime Ministers? The fear of being condemned by nationalist elements should also not make legislators ignore progressive steps that will go beyond the provisions in the existing Constitution. Taking into account the eventful past six days in Sri Lanka we need to look back and consider the gains that have been achieved during the past years as it attempts to go ahead with a badly tinkered Constitution and a difficult Constitution building process that could decide whether the country would continue as a peaceful nation. Four years ago President Rajapaksa appeared unbeatable. Cracks appeared in his popularity at the latter stages, but nobody thought they would be broad enough to make the Common Candidate win. They were proven wrong when Sirisena, who defected unceremoniously and won with a majority of more than 400,000 votes. The voters of Sri Lanka made a decision to lift the country from the brink of unprecedented corruption and intolerance. It was an historic occasion where people displayed electoral intelligence. The 1978 Constitution The 1978 Constitution is ill-defined and vaguewith several inconsistencies in English and Sinhala versions too. Big Western nations like Great Britain [based on traditions with no written document], USA, Australia and Canada and havent changed their respective constitutions since the introduction of their legislatures. They hardly had any problems in the process of the smooth implementation of their political systems. UNPs Dilemma What will happen if Parliament meets and passes a No-confidence Motion on the new Government, with the Government itself supporting? They will go for early elections while the UNP as usual will again face a crisis regarding leadership. The Deputy Leader and his supporters have already made some interesting comments concerning the future of the party. Nobody knows how to shatter the vicious circle or catch 22 situation of Gedara Giyoth Ambu Nasee- Maga Hitiyoth umba Nasee [either you will die if you stop on the way or your wife will die if you go home]. The Manifesto of the United Front of the SLFP, LSSP and the CP under Sirimavo in 1970 stated, We seek your mandate to permit the members of Parliament you elect to function simultaneously as a Constituent Assembly to draft, adopt and operate a new Constitution. This Constitution will declare Ceylon to be a free, sovereign and independent Republic pledged to realise the objectives of a socialist democracy; and it will also secure fundamental rights and freedoms to all citizens. The 1972 Constitution lasted only a six-year-term. The second republican Constitution of 1978, drafted by H W Jayewardene QC, the brother of President J R Jayewardene, made some key changes to it it created a powerful executive presidency, with centralised political power, a constitutionalised a free economy and set up Provincial Councils via the Thirteenth Amendment. But certain fundamental features of the 1972 constitution that define the republic, such as the unitary state, the foremost place for Buddhism remained intact. Good Governance through Constitution? It is a matter for Sri Lankan citizens to decide on if the tinkering with the Constitution in the past has brought any good governance in relation to improving ethnic relations. It is also doubtful if future tinkering with the Constitution would pull off anything better. We are trying to amend or introduce a new Constitution for the umpteenth time with the hope that this time around it will offer us with good governance. Do constitutions help achieve good governance? I do not believe so; good governance is something deeper than a written document passed by Parliament. The fundamentals of good governance are based on the goodwill of man towards his fellow beings. Without this goodwill among different communities, constitutional tinkering will only aggravate inter communal tensions and will not deliver good governance. The constitutions drafted by the so-called Peoples representatives do not express the real aspirations of the people. The drafting of a new constitution should be monitored by society at large; lets call it Peoples Committee on the Constitution. This committee should comprise men of national reputation and of the uppermost rank in the intellectuals. When men of this quality unite upon such a responsibility the powers of political authority could be minimised. Parliament can sit as a Constitutional Assembly only to formulate the basic proposals. Nepal has also tinkered with the Constitution making a mockery of it, even sacrificing economic opportunities in an exercise that produced a deep political crisis. Sri Lankas attempt at Constitution drafting has to be communicated clearly to the members of civil society and the people. Lets resolve to start building up a new political culture free of corruption and violence against humanity, which needs more and more civil societys involvement in the process. Only through a collective effort, we can ward off all kind of accusations against our great nation. Once we set a model good for governance the hostilities, both domestic and external will also end. Let the Constitutional interpretations take ther proper course; we are no legal experts on article 42 [a] 42 [b]; 48.3 and rest of them. The top legal luminary is already divided in their opinion on what the constitution means by in the Presidents opinion, is most likely to command the confidence of Parliament though some laymen attempt to add their two cents worth. Some progressive clauses in the existing Constitution against corruption, hate speech and other types of extremism are habitually ignored by parliamentarians, state authorities, law enforcement officials and in the judicial process too. The proposals put forward by Citizens Movement For Good Governance [CIMOGG] headed by Dr A C Visvalingam would be an ideal foundation for a draft that could build a genuinely peaceful Sri Lanka. The writer can be contacted at kksperera1@gmail.com (@rukhshanmir) ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :The Accountability Court-II (AC) of Islamabad on Wednesday decided to record the statement of former prime minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills case on Thursday (November 1). AC Judge Arshad Malik, however, made it conditional to the presence of Nawaz's counsel Khawaja Haris in the court on the latter's request. The reference has been filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against Nawaz Sharif, who appeared before the court and later left with the court's permission. During the course of proceedings, Khawaja Haris objected to recording of Nawaz's statement under section 342, saying that as to the prosecution side was showing haste in that regard. He, however, requested the court to record the statement of the accused in his presence, which was accepted. The defence counsel also prayed the court to give the questionnaire to his client before his appearance for recording of the statement, but it was opposed by the NAB prosecutor. Deputy Prosecutor General (DPG) Sardar Muzafar Abbasi said the hearing in the three references against the accused had been proceeded in same pace. Meanwhile, Haris continued his cross-examination of joint investigation team head Wajid Zia in the Flagship Investment case for eighth day. Zia informed the court that all the witnesses had agreed on the facts that the Gulf Steel Mills was established during 1973-74, it was named as Ahli Steel Mills after sale of 75% shares in 1978 and its remaining 25% shares were sold in 1980. The court later adjourned the case till Thursday. A man and his son were killed when roof of a under construction house collapsed in Shakar Darra area near Matta tehsil here on Wednesday. SWAT, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :A man and his son were killed when roof of a under construction house collapsed in Shakar Darra area near Matta tehsil here on Wednesday. Rescue sources said that shuttering of the under construction house roof collapsed during morning hours in Shakar Darra, burying the father and son under the debris. Both the son and father died on the spot while another sonsustained critical injuries and was shifted to CilvilHospital Matta. (@ChaudhryMAli88) PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :Speaker Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani has welcomed the opening of Consulate of Czech Republic in the province and stressed the need for close bilateral and trade relations between both the countries. Addressing the inaugural ceremony, he said the two countries enjoy 70-year friendly relations, adding that exchange of parliamentary, cultural, tourists and educational delegations, the ties between two nations and states could further be bolstered, said a press release issued here Wednesday. He emphasized upon various measures at diplomatic level to bring the people of two countries closer besides strengthening contacts between the two governments. The Speaker said the northern areas of Pakistan had great potential for tourism and several European tourists come Pakistan every year for hiking and Pakistan government provides them maximum facilities. He urged the Czech Republic diplomat to provide visas and other travel facilities to Pakistani students and skilled workers. Earlier, he felicitated the Ambassador of Czech Republic, Jan Fury over inauguration of Honourary Consulate in Peshawar and Asad Saifullah Khan over his nomination as Honourary Consul General of the Czech Republic in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Besides, Mrs. Jaroslava, First Secretary at the embassy of Czech Republic and Mr. Brikcius, accomplished cellist and Speaker Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani, Senators, members of National and provincial assemblies and members of diplomatic corps were also present on the occasion. Addressing the opening ceremony, the ambassador of Czech Republic, Jan Furry said that the consulate would not only issue visas, but also would help in resolving other problems. He said that the consulate would prove a milestone in the promotion of friendly relations between the Czech Republic and the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :Various Oil and Gas companies (lease holders) have invested over Rs 3.5 billion in erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) in last one year, said an official of FATA Development Authority (FDA). Talking to APP, he said 2,800 local tribesmen were attached with these Oil & Gas Companies in their respective areas for on job services. Oil and Gas Development Corporation Limited (OGDCL), Al-Haj Enterprises Pvt Ltd, BGP (Pakistan), Xian Senshe, Geofysika Krakow and MOL (Pakistan) have established base camps in different agencies in erstwhile FATA. He said 15 blocks have been allotted to various national and multinational exploration and production companies in erstwhile FATA. While OGDCL has completed 2D seismic data acquisition in Latamber and Kohat Block. Likewise Al-Hajj Enterprises (Private) Limited has completed 2D Seismic data acquisition in Baska North block and will commence drilling by the end of 2018.MOL has completed surface geological mapping & gravity survey in Tal Block (NWA, FR Bannu) and now planning for 2D Seismic Survey. BGP (Pakistan) International, contractor of OGDCL has completed 2D Seismic survey in Wali block.Two mega Geological structures were identified in the area, further interpretation/investigation of collected Seismic Data Acquisition is in process. He said two new blocks including Wana Block(SWA) and Mir Ali Block(NWA) have been identified for further attraction of Investment and creation of job opportunities for locals in erstwhile FATA. (@ChaudhryMAli88) Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain Tuesday said that Pakistan has a great stature in the comity of nations due to honest and upright leadership and its mediatory role was being sought by the Middle East countries to settle their disputes. ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 30th Oct, 2018 ) : Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain Tuesday said that Pakistan has a great stature in the comity of nations due to honest and upright leadership and its mediatory role was being sought by the middle East countries to settle their disputes. Speaking in National Assembly after the walkout of the Opposition, the minister said that Prime Minister visited Saudi Arabia to muster assistance for Pakistani children and regretted that the former rulers had been visiting just to seek alms for their own children. The minister said the Prime Minister received unprecedented welcome from Saudi Arabia in his recent state visit and the entire delegation with him was accorded full respect and reverence. Pakistan, he said, was now being asked to play a leadership's role for resolving the complicated conflicts in the Middle East. The minister said Beijing had also declared that the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Imran Khan to China will open a new chapter of friendly relations between the two countries. "The Prime Minister would give good news to agriculturists after his visit because this sector and skilled labor would be of utmost importance in future," he added. He said the opposition had no leadership and ideology and there was no political future of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He said the opposition was only making hue and cry to get the NRO. The minister said the incumbent government was heading in the right direction. "We may commit mistakes as a human being but our leader Imran Khan will not compromise on the country's interests," he added. Fawad said Imran Khan was a man of character and every member of PTI was witness to his honesty but no one was ready to give testimony of former rulers' honesty. He said that billions of rupees had been recovered from the fake bank accounts and Opposition was looking for an NRO which would never be given. He appreciated the Minister of Power Omer Ayub, who rationally worked out in determining the prices of electricity and no burden was put on 75 percent populace. He said that prices of electricity were very high due to expensive projects introduced by the previous government. Due to those projects, he said, the country was facing a substantive loss of Rs 1.80 billion per day in summer and of Rs 1.20 billion in winter. However, he expressed the hope that the era of darkness was over and country would see dawn of prosperity. "Pakistan will emerge as a country in near future which would not borrow but give loans to others," he added. Regarding the walkout of the Opposition lawmakers from the House, the Minister for Information said that the opposition did not have the courage to discuss economic situation of the country. Regretting the attitude of the Opposition, he said, they were responsible for the economic mess, since previous governments destroyed the institutions including PIA, Pakistan Steel Mills, PTV, Radio Pakistan and the Associated Press of Pakistan by recruiting their cronies. The minister said that PIA was facing Rs. 200 billion loss per month and also owed Rs. 406 billion. As many as 10,000 people were recruited in PTV, while ptv News had three billion rupees expenditures annually while total revenue was Rs 250 million per annum, he added. The minister said that Radio Pakistan was being given Rs 5.65 billion per annum while its total revenue was Rs 200 million, while Associated Press of Pakistan was being given Rs 840 million per annum. He said that I63,000 persons were recruited in various departments by Khursheed Shah Committee, while the sacked employees of 1996 were reinstated and were given privileges with back benefits. About the 70 days performance of the PTI led government, he said that Stock Exchange had gained 5,500 points, while businessmen and investors were reposing great confidence in the prudent policies of the government. The minister said that sincere leadership and true ideology was essential to do politics, but the Opposition parties lacked both the elements. He also lamented the attitude of JUI-F leadership and said that they had personal agenda because they propagated about an Israeli plane on the Black Day, when people were expressing solidarity with the Kashmiris against Indian occupation. ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :Pakistan Wednesday welcomed the UK Parliamentary Group's Report on Jammu and Kashmir terming it "a damning indictment for India and an encouraging step forward after the UN OHCHR Report. A statement from the Foreign Office said the Report of the UK Parliament's All Party Parliamentary Group on Kashmir (APPKG), on human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir has detailed severe human rights atrocities in the Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IoK). "It echoes many of the findings of the UN OHCHR Report on Jammu and Kashmir already published and is critical of the human rights atrocities being committed with impunity by Indian occupation forces in IoK, especially the use of pellet guns, draconian laws including the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and the Public Safety Act (PSA)." The foreign office said a lasting solution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute was essential for peace, security and stability of South Asia and beyond. It pointed that the report also mentions presence of unmarked graves in IoK and enforced disappearances, which confirm the humanitarian emergency in IoK. The Foreign Office said the report follows the visit of a nine-member delegation of the APPKG to Islamabad and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The group's report, following the visit, was a damning indictment for India and an encouraging step forward after the UN OHCHR Report. Both these reports underscore the contrast between the human right situation in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan welcomes the APPKG's Report on Jammu and Kashmir as well as its recommendations. Pakistan believes that the lasting solution of the Jammu & Kashmir dispute is essential for peace, security and stability of South Asia and beyond. India's denials of this reality, its unwillingness to engage in dialogue and suppression of Kashmiri aspirations for freedom continue to endanger regional as well as international peace and security (@rukhshanmir) SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry here on Wednesday expressed the hope that the maiden visit of Prime Minister Imran Khan to china will yield positive, durable impact towards strengthening of trade relations between the both countries and help cement further bilateral relations on sound footing ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry here on Wednesday expressed the hope that the maiden visit of Prime Minister Imran Khan to china will yield positive, durable impact towards strengthening of trade relations between the both countries and help cement further bilateral relations on sound footing. In a statement Senior Vice President SAARC CCI Iftikhar Ali Malik said that Prime Minister has taken personal interest to revive the national economy and his decisions taken in regard of austerity measures, commitment to end corruption and repatriate public funds are highly appreciated by the Chinese and other countries. He said he is much optimistic that Imran Khan would be succeeded to revive economy and his efforts to steer the country out of the crisis through seeking financial aid from friendly countries rather than totally relying on IMF are getting fruits as Saudi Arabia had already assured the government to give the much needed money to Pakistan at this crucial stage. He said the focus of the visit will be expanding economic and trade ties besides strengthening partnership and finalizing a trade corridor between the two countries. Iftikhar Malik said that Pakistan was offering conducive friendly environment for foreign direct and indirect investment. There was vast scope for Chinese private and public sector investment especially in the fields of energy, agriculture, livestock and IT, he added. He said that people of Pakistan always attached great importance to Chinese people as China was time tested friend of Pakistan. He said that China should also help explore the rich natural resources of Pakistan which will better the national economy and provide ample job opportunities. He said that it was need of the hour that China being time tested friend of Pakistan should also transfer the modern technology for exploiting the indigenous resources. He said frequent exchange of visits of private sector delegation in either country will deepen mutual understanding and co-operation in all sectors. China has huge foreign reserves and is massively investing in infrastructure in different parts of the world. The cash-strapped SAARC is in dire need of foreign investments to tap into its natural resources. China's entry will undoubtedly bring dramatic economic changes to the region and the lives of its people," he added. (@ChaudhryMAli88) ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :Pakistan Science Foundation (PSF) has chalked out a number of activities to mark the upcoming World Science Day on November 10 (Saturday) under this year's theme "Science a Human Right" to acknowledge the contribution of science and scientists toward development of society. PSF will arrange thematic lectures, scientist convention, number of competitions for science students and an award ceremony to mark the day, said an official of PSF while talking to APP on Wednesday. PSF will also award the winners of the poster and essay competition which are being held these days. The winners of Poster competition arranged through 27 educational boards from across the country have been selected. According to the results of poster competition, Haleema Sadia from LIMS school , Hayatabad, Peshawar took first position and Khadija Naveed from Green Dots Girls Higher Secondary School, Faisalabad clinched second position. While Mahrukh Tariq from Convent School Nowshera and Muhammad Sajid from Government High School, Bile Gunj shared third position. The winners of the competition securing first, second and third positions will be given gold, silver and bronze medals along with cash prizes worth Rs. 20,000, Rs. 15,000 and Rs. 10,000 respectively in a ceremony to be held on World Science Day, the official informed. The winners of the essay competition will also be finalized by the jury members soon, the official added. Young Science Achievers will also be invited to attend the World Science Day and awarded by PSF for their contributions in the field of science. The official told that nine Sub-centers of PSF across the country will be actively engaged for arranging quiz competition, science exhibitions and debate competition for the students. The students selected to participate in the International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO), scheduled to be held in Botswana from Dec 2-11, will also be given award letters on the day, the official added. On November 10, the whole world will celebrate World Science Day focusing on the importance of science in and for society. UNESCO urges all scientists, educators, students and media to celebrate science for peace and development. The World Science Day highlights the relation between science and society. It aims to create societal awareness of how science contributes to sustainable societies, international solidarity, international collaboration in science for the benefit of society, and raising support to battle challenges that science faces today. LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :The Punjab Home department has imposed Section 144 across the province, citing "threats to the law and order situation, sectarian harmony and public peace". Official sources said, the notification was issued following the Supreme Court's verdict on Asia Bibi's appeal. The Section 144 will remain in place from October 31 to November 10. The Home department has banned assemblies of more than five people at a public place, protests, carrying weapons (except those by LEAs), use of loudspeakers (except for Azaan) and delivering provocative speeches, under Section 144, that gives authorities the power to issue orders in face of "apprehended danger," the sources added. (@ChaudhryMAli88) ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :Researchers of a recent study have found that the side effects of drugs in lungs are more widespread than thought. Research by The University of Manchester published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine said, the drugs treating a range of conditions including arthritis, cancer and the heart are successful for most patients, need to be more aware of the potential risks to their respiratory systems. Drug-Induced Interstitial Lung Disease (DIILD) can cause difficulty in breathing, inflammation and fibrosis, the risk sometimes only becomes apparent after the drugs have been in use for some years. The team said clinicians are hindered because most of the papers they reviewed were of low or very low quality. Steroids were the most common drug used to treat DIILD, but no studies examined their effect on the outcome. Dr Nazia Chaudhuri of The University of Manchester, said, "Doctors need to be aware and vigilant to the possible lung toxicities and harm that can be caused by some drugs. With newer drugs coming on the market this is an increasing yet under recognized problem and we need better ways of detecting these side effects before they cause harm." The Ceylon Scooter Club is planning a charity programme called CSC Manusathkara Charika 2018 to aid the inhabitants of Galamuduna, a remote village in the Badulla district. During a visit last September, the CSC team was informed by villagers that they would appreciate a metal tent (for funerals and other occasions), a small electric generator and dry rations. CSC has collected a tent and generator from donors, and would welcome contributions of the following dry ration items to make 70 gift packs. Packets of Anchor milk power 400g, sugar 1 kg, Watawala tea 1 kg, wheat flour one kg, Lanka soy soya (chicken) 90g, salt (with iodine) 800g, Samaposha 200g, red dhal 1 kg, dettol soap, Pears baby soap, Vim dish wash bar 200g, Signal tooth brush (adult), Signal tooth brush (small), Signal tooth paste (big), chilli powder 250g, curry powder 250g, turmeric powder 100g, panadol 144 tablets box. The total cost for all items would be Rs. 2370 according to current market prices. All items can be delivered to the following donation centres and CSC members before Nov. 04, 2018. Colombo: Kuruppu Motors, Panchikawatta 0777046786. Piliyandala: Suranga, LRS Hospital 0777821604 Ratnapura Danuka 0711227023 Galle Kumara 0773061346 Kandy Kasun -- 0711977774 Alternatively, if donors wish to offer money, it can be deposited to the CSCs official bank account (AC No. 8001903597, Commercial Bank, City Office Branch, Col. 7). Donation centres Colombo: Kuruppu Motors, Panchikawatta 0777046786. Piliyandala: Suranga, LRS Hospital 0777821604 Ratnapura Danuka 0711227023 Galle Kumara 0773061346 Kandy Kasun -- 0711977774 Foreign Minister of Uzbekistan Abdulaziz Kamilov will pay an official visit to Pakistan on November 1, along with a five-member delegation aimed at increasing mutual cooperation on the bilateral and regional fronts, the Foreign Office announced Wednesday ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :Foreign Minister of Uzbekistan Abdulaziz Kamilov will pay an official visit to Pakistan on November 1, along with a five-member delegation aimed at increasing mutual cooperation on the bilateral and regional fronts, the Foreign Office announced Wednesday. The Uzbek Foreign Minister will have an exclusive meeting with the Foreign Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs followed by delegation level talks. He will also call on the Prime Minister of Pakistan. This will be the Uzbek Foreign Minister's second visit to Pakistan this year. Pakistan and Uzbekistan enjoy a close and cordial relationship founded in mutual trust and understanding and augmented by strong cultural and religious affinities. Bilateral collaboration in different sectors has been growing steadily. The visit of the Uzbek Foreign Minister will contribute to increased mutual cooperation on the bilateral and regional fronts. It would also reinforce Pakistan's endeavours to deepen its engagement with Uzbekistan and build a strategic partnership with the country. (@ChaudhryMAli88) MINSK, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :Belarus intends to finish negotiations on joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) by the end of 2019, Belarusian Economy Minister Dmitry Krutoi said on Wednesday. The Minister said once negotiations with all countries end, Belarus would become a WTO member. In order to join the WTO, Belarus has yet to conclude negotiations with the European Union andthe USA, Norway, and Switzerland. The Minister said it was important for Belarus to agree import and export terms bearing in mind national interests. (@rukhshanmir) MINSK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko offered on Wednesday to send observers to Ukraine's eastern border with Russia and to polling places during next year's elections. "We can take responsibility for peace in eastern Ukraine and on its border with Russia, and monitor elections in Donbas, which is considered an integral part of Ukraine," he said at the Munich Security Conference Core Group meeting in Minsk. Ukrainians will go to the polls next spring to elect a new president, with the parliamentary elections expected no later than in fall 2019. The eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, known collectively as Donbas, did not vote in 2014 after their attempt to break off triggered a sweeping military operation by the central government in Kiev. HAVANA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) Russian rolling stock manufacturer RM Rail will deliver 900 railway carriages to Cuba, with their cost amounting to 48 million Euros ($54.32 million), Andrei Aleksandrov, deputy director general of economy and marketing strategy at RM Rail, told reporters on Wednesday. "Nine hundred RM Rail railway carriages, with different manufacture types. We have already developed seven new types of railway carriages for the Cubans, and will conduct deliveries in the next two or three years," Aleksandrov told reporters. He added that the contract value was at 48 million euros, specifying that Russia would loan this sum of money to Cuba. "Our Cuban colleagues have specific requirements, and we had to develop new types of railway carriers literally from scratch, namely, a carriage or sugar cane transportation, a cement carriage for their climatic conditions, there are no such carriages in Russia," Aleksandrov said. Earlier on Wednesday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov said that the total value of contracts signed during his visit to Cuba on Monday and Tuesday exceeded $260 million. MEXICO CITY (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) The government of Ecuador has extended the state of emergency in several provinces due to a high volume of Venezuelan refugees, local media reported citing an Ecuadorian minister. The undersecretary of the Ecuadorian migrant community, Jorge Icaza, said the state of emergency had been prolonged in Carchi, El Oro and Pichincha provinces, according to the Nacional news portal. The state of emergency has been in place in these three provinces since August. Venezuela has been struggling with the economic crisis due to a global slump in oil prices. Lenin Moreno, the president of Ecuador, has said earlier that his country takes in about 6,000 Venezuelan migrants per day. (@rukhshanmir) The Foreign Ministry of Ecuador on Tuesday demanded that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange refrain from making remarks that may hurt the reputation of the country after he accused the South American nation of trying to end his asylum. QUITO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) The Foreign Ministry of Ecuador on Tuesday demanded that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange refrain from making remarks that may hurt the reputation of the country after he accused the South American nation of trying to end his asylum. "Ecuador demands from those granted asylum respect of the country's sovereignty and good name and will not allow unwarranted and untruthful claims or insinuations about the government's actions related to diplomatic asylum," the ministry said in a statement. An Ecuadorian judge on Monday threw out a lawsuit over conditions of his asylum at Ecuador's embassy in London, Assange argued that a set of rules given to him by the diplomatic mission violated his rights. He was ordered to pay most of his expenses, including internet and laundry bills, clean up after his cat, and was reminded not to make public comments that could be seen as meddling in affairs of other countries. A failure to respect them will result in his eviction. Assange, in turn, accused the Ecuadorian foreign minister of looking to end his asylum, after six years at the embassy, and ultimately hand him over to the United States, where he is wanted for leaking sensitive diplomatic cables. (@ChaudhryMAli88) WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) Political turmoil has pushed Nicaragua's economy into a recession characterized by rising unemployment, declining investment and a long-term reduction in tourism and construction," the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded during a recent visit by staff economists, according to a press release on Wednesday. "The political instability since April has affected consumer and investor confidence," the release stated. "While some sectors were only temporarily affected by the disruptions, such as transportation, retail and the service sector, other activities including tourism, and construction see lasting impacts from a reduction in demand." As a result, "the mission forecasts a decline of 4 percent in real GDP in 2018," the release added. Without commenting on the nation's political crisis, the IMF recommended that the Nicaraguan government adopt policies to restore private sector confidence and to prevent the creation of "negative feedback loops" resulting from lower investment activity and employment. The Inter-American Commission of Human Rights estimates that at least 325 people died in clashes since mid-April, when protesters began demanding the resignation of President Daniel Ortega since April. Most of the deaths have been blamed on government security forces and pro-government militias, according to published reports. VILNIUS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 01st November, 2018) The Lithuanian government approved on Wednesday the renewed plan on population protection in case of an emergency at the Belarusian nuclear power plant (NPP) that is currently under construction in Belarus close to the Lithuanian border and will be situated just 50 kilometers (31 miles) away from the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, the press service of the Lithuanian government said in a statement. The plan was designed by the country's Interior Ministry. "The government has approved the renewed state plan on the protection of citizens from nuclear or radiation emergency," the statement read. According to the Lithuanian Interior Ministry, the renewed plan envisages two protection zones. While the active protection zone will be located within a radius of 30 kilometers from the NPP, the preventive zone will be located within a 100-kilometer radius. Under the plan, a special emphasis will be made on radiation surveillance and citizens' notification. The Belarusian NPP is being built near the town of Astravyets in Grodno Region. The NPP will consist of two power units with a total capacity of up to 2,400 MW. It is designed to comply with the most modern, so-called "post-Fukusima" safety standards. The launch of the NPP's first power unit is scheduled for 2019, while the second unit is planned to be launched in 2020. Lithuania has long been opposing the creation of the NPP over national security concerns. In April, a law that will limit electric energy imports from Belarus was enacted. (@ChaudhryMAli88) MEXICO CITY (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) The Mexican authorities have detained two Honduran nationals, who were moving toward the US-Mexico border in a migrant caravan, and sent them back to their home country citing murder and drug trafficking charges, the Mexican Interior Ministry said. "The Mexican Federal Police and the National Institute for Migration identified two Honduran citizens, against whom valid arrest warrants had been issued for crimes related to murder and drug trafficking, they were returned to their [home] country," the ministry said in a statement. Thousands of migrants from Central American countries, including El Salvador and Honduras, are heading north toward the US-Mexico border seeking new life and better opportunities. US Northern Commander Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy said on Monday that the US Department of Defense was deploying more than 5,200 active-duty soldiers to the southwestern border with Mexico to protect against a migrant caravan. (@ChaudhryMAli88) MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) North Korea has started preparing its Punggye-ri nuclear test site for international inspections, local media reported on Wednesday, citing South Korea's Democratic Party secretary. The party's secretary was siting South Korea's intelligence service, according to the Yonhap news agency. "While North Korea has closed its Punggye-ri test site and dismantled some of the facilities at the Tongchang-ri missile test site as part of denuclearization initiative, intelligence activities and preparations for the visit of a foreign inspection group have been noticed," the secretary said as quoted by the agency. Ambassador Vu Quang Minh speaking at the meeting (Photo: VNA) Minh said that the Vietnamese Government and the Vietnamese-Cambodian community support the Cambodian Governments plan to resettle over 10,000 people living on Tonle Sap lake for environmental reasons and help them settle down. He noted that at a meeting with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on October 11th in Indonesia, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen agreed with the previous proposals and then directed Kampong Chhangs authorities to build a suitable roadmap for the resettlement of the targeted people to areas with necessary infrastructure facilities and ensure their livelihoods. The proposals were reiterated by Ms. Truong Thi Mai, Politburo member, member of Secretariat, Head of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committees Commission for Mass Mobilization during her visit to Cambodia from October 25th-28th. Right after hearing the plan, the Vietnamese Embassy sent a dispatch to relevant agencies of Cambodia, reflecting the aspiration of the affected community and suggesting the local administration to implement the directions of PM Hun Sen to make sure that the removed people would enjoy necessary facilities, environmental sanitation and stable livelihoods. At meetings, Vietnamese Cambodians in Boribo district and Kampong Chhnang city affirmed that they will observe the Cambodian Governments plan and thanked the Cambodian PM for his directions. However, they pointed to poor conditions in the settlement area and asked the local administration for permission to move to a new temporary settlement area with basic living conditions or return to their former homes. The ambassador pledged that the embassy and the Khmer-Vietnam Association in Cambodia will continue submitting the communitys opinions to Cambodian authorities./. The art of energy healing made its entry into Battaramulla as Dimensions celebrated the opening of its first showroom. Located at No. 555/2/B/1 Kaduwela Road, Thalangama North, Battaramulla, the showroom is the brain child of Ms. Harshanie Hewamadduma Ritigahapola. The new showroom embodies Dimensions combination of ancient and modern style, methodology and technology. From singing bowls, crystal jewelry, mandala pendants, palm stones and crystal tumble stones to sage smudging kits, agate coasters, palosanto and shungite phone chips, the Dimensions showroom boasts a wide array of products that are all proven to have a positive effect upon the mind and body. The BiopulsarReflexograph System, which is a recent innovation by Auramed, a German company that specializes in medical technology can also be found at the new Dimensions showroom. The machine is capable of reading the energy levels of all the organs of the human body and is the first and only one of its kind in Sri Lanka. The staff at Dimensions is highly skilled, dedicated to the art and qualified to provide customers with necessary advice in relation to removing various blockages and the most suitable methods by which to promote positivity and wellness in life. Dimensions utilizes techniques such as Reiki, Aura Reading, Chakra Balancing and Crystal Therapy to help customers achieve a stress-free sense of complete well-being. The core belief of Dimensions is that energy is the key to achieving a sound mind and healthy body. It is our goal to ensure that all our customers achieve this. The opening of our very first showroom is a great achievement for us and the first step towards promoting the benefits of energy healing in Sri Lanka, said Ms. Harshanie Hewamadduma Ritigahapola. (@FahadShabbir) Northern Ireland police said Tuesday they were investigating as a hate crime reports that a group of nine people dressed in Ku Klux Klan costumes posed outside an Islamic centre. Belfast, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 30th Oct, 2018 ) :Northern Ireland police said Tuesday they were investigating as a hate crime reports that a group of nine people dressed in Ku Klux Klan costumes posed outside an Islamic centre. A picture published on social media showed the group, also carrying crucifixes, close to the Bangladesh Islamic Centre in Newtownards on Saturday and there were reports of them visiting bars in the town. A pig's head was left outside the centre in August last year, British media reported. "We are treating this as a hate crime," Inspector Richard Murray from the Police Service of Northern Ireland said in a statement. The group also posed for pictures at a pub in the town with Sharon Mellor, the girlfriend of Tony Martin, leader of the fringe far-right group National Front, the Belfast Telegraph reported. The newspaper published a picture showing Mellor with someone dressed in a KKK costume spattered with blood holding a beer. She told the paper the people were "random strangers". "A few blokes were dressed up for Halloween, no idea who they were," she said. The paper said Mellor "joked" three years ago about having tried to set fire to the Islamic centre in the town. One of the pubs the group entered on Saturday night was The Spirit Merchant owned by JD Wetherspoon. Wetherspoon spokesman Eddie Gershon said: "We can confirm that a group dressed in KKK clothing came to our pub. "They were refused entry by door staff, but pushed past them into the pub. They were told by bar staff that they would not be served. They remained in the pub for five minutes, unserved, and then left."The Ku Klux Klan is a white supremacist group founded in the 19th century after the abolition of slavery in the United States. (@ChaudhryMAli88) More than 450 Syrian refugees have returned to their home country from Lebanon and Jordan over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for the Reception, Allocation and Accommodation of Refugees said in a bulletin on Wednesday MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) More than 450 Syrian refugees have returned to their home country from Lebanon and Jordan over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for the Reception, Allocation and Accommodation of Refugees said in a bulletin on Wednesday. "Over the past 24 hours, 455 Syrian nationals returned to the Syrian Arab Republic from foreign countries, including 102 refugees (30 women and 52 children) returning from Lebanon via the Jeydet-Yabus and Talkalakh checkpoints, and 353 people (106 women and 180 children) coming from Jordan via the Nasib checkpoint," the bulletin read. Moreover, 231 internally displaced Syrians returned to their homes over the past 24 hours. The Russian Center for Syrian reconciliation has carried out two humanitarian actions over the past 24 hours, delivering 3.24 tonnes of food to the settlement of Tel Istabl (1.95 tonnes) located in the Aleppo province and to the settlement of Aqraba (1. 29 tonnes) located in the province of Daraa. The center added that Russia's Chechen Republic's Akhmad Kadyrov foundation had distributed 150 school supply kits in Aqraba and 15 more food sets among the families of fallen Syrian servicemen in Aleppo. At least 53 Syrians, including 32 children, have received medical assistance over the past 24 hours. According to the bulletin, as the Syrian government forces continue their mine clearance operations, they destroyed 38 explosive objects, including 12 improvised explosive devices. As the Syrian government has regained control over most of the country's territories that were seized by terrorists, it is now focused on creating favorable conditions for repatriating refugees. Moscow is assisting Damascus in this process, along with providing humanitarian aid to civilians and being a guarantor of the ceasefire, together with Turkey and Iran. (@ChaudhryMAli88) GENEVA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) Reduced imports and difficulty of movement in Yemen are aggravating the humanitarian situation in the country, which is already catastrophic, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a press release on Wednesday, emphasizing the necessity of political effort to end hostilities. "Robust political efforts are needed to bring an end to warfare that has caused intense suffering for families in Yemen," the ICRC said. According to the ICRC, lack of clean water and medication has already resulted in infectious diseases upsurge in Yemen. The depreciation of the national Currency has triggered a dramatic increase in the cost of living, with prices for flour, sugar, rice and milk going up by 30 percent since September. Scores of displaced Yemenis own nothing but the clothes that they are wearing, and suffer from poor living conditions. The ICRC has provided food aid to around 500,000 Yemeni citizens in the first half of 2018, also helping over two million people access clean water and sanitation facilities, and providing support to over 14,000 injured Yemenis receiving medical assistance in 15 hospitals across the country. For several years, Yemen has been in a state of a civil war, with the government forces fighting the rebel Houthi movement. The Saudi-led coalition of mostly Persian Gulf nations has been carrying out airstrikes targeting Houthis at the government's request since 2015. The situation in the country, which is also torn by an acute economic crisis, deteriorated even further in June, when the Saudi-led coalition launched an offensive to seize Al Hudaydah, a key port city for humanitarian aid, from the Houthis. (@ChaudhryMAli88) MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) Russia attaches great importance to the development of relations with Moldova, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday at a meeting with his Moldovan counterpart Igor Dodon. "At the beginning of our conversation, I would like to note that Russia attaches great importance to the development of Russian-Moldovan relations, we consider Moldova to be one of our priority partners in the CIS area," Putin said. The Russian leader noted that in recent years, including thanks to Dodon's personal efforts, the situation in bilateral trade and economic relations has changed as a lot of Moldovan wine making, fruit and vegetable and agricultural enterprises have started to sell on the Russian market. Putin added that Russia-Moldova trade continues to grow and relations in this area are developing progressively. HAVANA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov said on Wednesday that the total value of contracts signed during his visit to Cuba exceeded $260 million. "Upgrade of three power units is about $100 million, the second stage of the metallurgical plant revamping is about $60 million, supply of railroad cars is over $100 million. These are serious contracts," Borisov told journalists. Borisov, who is in charge of defense and nuclear industries, electronics and machine building, paid a visit to Cuba on Monday and Tuesday to attend the 2018 Havana International Fair (FIHAV), where he opened the Russian exposition and also co-chaired a joint scientific and technical panel with his Cuban counterpart Ricardo Cabrisas. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 01st November, 2018) A pair of Tu-160 strategic bombers stayed airborne for over 10 hours during a scheduled flight over two marginal Arctic seas, the Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday. "The Russian planes were shadowed by Norwegian F-16s during some stages of their flight. The Russian Aerospace Forces' planes then flew back to their base," the statement read. The military stressed that the flight over neutral waters of the Barents and Norwegian Seas was conducted in strict compliance with international rules and without any trespasses. Russian military aircraft routinely carry out long-haul flights over international waters of the Arctic, northern Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans, as well as over the Black and Caspian Seas. HARARE (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) The Zimbabwean Ministry of Mines and Mining Development offered Russian fertilizer producer Uralchem to consider mining projects in the African country, Dmitry Mazepin, the head of the Russia-Zimbabwe business council and one of the owners of Uralchem, said on Wednesday after talks with minister Winston Chitando. "Uralchem is a mining company, and in addition to participating in agribusiness, the minister of mining invited us to look at various mining projects in this country. We will be happy to explore all the possibilities that exist, and I think that there will be some concrete things known by the visit of Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa to Moscow," Mazepin said. He stressed that Zimbabwe was rich in mineral resources. "It is clear that we probably will not do projects that could compete with the Russian mining sector. But we are prepared to consider unique ones ... But, of course, they want to have partners among manufacturers who have expertise, finances, and developing some personal relationships between the company and management," Mazepin added. He noted that Russian businesses felt steep competition with China in Africa. "The Chinese are very much present. Moreover, they even have a slight advantage over us because they started working in Africa much earlier than Russian companies," Mazepin stressed. Mnangagwa is expected to arrive in Moscow on January 15. Zimbabwean Ambassador to Russia Mike Nicholas Sango told Sputnik that Zimbabwe was planning to organize a business forum in Russia, with the president expected to address its participants during his visit. South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar returned to the capital Juba for the first time in more than two years on Wednesday to take part in a peace ceremony, an AFP reporter said Juba, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar returned to the capital Juba for the first time in more than two years on Wednesday to take part in a peace ceremony, an AFP reporter said. Machar, who under the terms of the peace deal is to be reinstated as vice president, had not set foot in the city since he fled in July 2016 under a hail of gunfire when an earlier peace accord collapsed. The rebel chief arrived at Juba airport at 9:30am (0630 GMT) and was welcomed by President Salva Kiir, Machar's former ally turned bitter enemy. The two are to join regional leaders at the ceremony later Wednesday to publicly welcome the most recent peace agreement, signed in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa in September. It was not immediately clear if Machar would remain in Juba after the ceremony, as his aides have expressed concerns over his safety in the city. South Sudan's civil war began in December 2013 when Kiir accused Machar -- then his deputy -- of plotting a coup. The conflict split the country along ethnic lines and seen mass rape, the forced recruitment of child soldiers and attacks on civilians. It has caused one of the world's deepest humanitarian crises. Several ceasefires and peace agreements have so far failed to end the fighting that has killed an estimated 380,000 people, uprooted a third of the population, forced nearly two-and-a-half million into exile as refugees and triggered bouts of deadly famine. (@rukhshanmir) A top United Arab Emirates official will visit Seoul on Thursday to discuss setting up a trip to South Korea by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and other bilateral issues, the presidential spokesman said Wednesday. SEOUL, Oct. 31 (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2018 ) :A top United Arab Emirates official will visit Seoul on Thursday to discuss setting up a trip to South Korea by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and other bilateral issues, the presidential spokesman said Wednesday. Khaldoon Al Mubarak, chairman of the Executive Affairs Authority of Abu Dhabi, is scheduled to meet with presidential chief of staff Im Jong-seok to discuss these issues, presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said. The UAE official is expected to visit Cheong Wa Dae to meet with Im, but he has no plans to meet with President Moon Jae-in, Kim said. The two-day visit will be Al Mubarak's second trip to South Korea this year. He visited Seoul in January amid reports that the UAE had raised complaints about a memorandum of understanding that commits the South to providing military support for the middle Eastern nation in the case of contingencies. During the January trip, Al Mubarak reaffirmed that relations between the two countries are strong and agreed to further upgrade ties. The two countries also agreed to launch a two plus two dialogue involving their top foreign affairs and defense officials. President Moon visited the UAE in March and held talks with the crown prince. WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) The United Nations is awaiting an answer from Yemen's Houthi rebels and government supporters, as well as the Saudi-led coalition acting militarily in the country, on whether to attend proposed negotiations in Sweden within the next 30 days to end Yemen's civil war, UN spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters on Wednesday. "I think it's still early to say whether we have a definitive yes," Haq stated. "[UN Envoy Martin] Griffiths is hoping to be able to announce a round of talks as soon as he can, but we're not at that stage just yet." On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis called for an immediate cease fire in Yemen's 3-year-old civil war and for peace talks to begin in Sweden within a month. UN-mediated talks scheduled for early September in Geneva collapsed when Houthi representatives refused to attending, claiming that the Saudi-led coalition refused to guarantee their safety. The coalition claims the Houthis were given a green light to leave, but failed to use the opportunity. The Saudi-led coalition has been carrying out military operations in Yemen in support of the country's government, which lost control of the capital of Sanaa and much of Western Yemen to Houthi rebels in 2015. Both sides have been accused of war crimes and a recent UN report cited Saudi-led air strikes as the Primary cause of more than 16,000 civilian deaths in three years of fighting. Ending his exile from the Maldives, the countrys Supreme Court Tuesday suspended a 13-year jail sentence handed to former President Mohamed Nasheed who now plans to return to Male as early as Thursday. Maldives President-elect Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, who defeated President Abdulla Yameen in the recent elections, is expected to accompany Nasheed from Colombo to Male. Speaking to The Indian Express from Colombo, Nasheed said it was very satisfying to hear the news of the suspension of his jail term. I am going back to my country after three years to see a democracy that is showing signs of strength. Of course, this is a transition stage, it is a long process. But I would say that Maldives democracy is getting strengthened now, he said. Nasheed said Solih is expected to reach Colombo Wednesday. Yes I might travel with him. It is so happy to meet everyone after a long time, our leaders, party men. Moreover, mine is a typical South Asian family, a large extended family with a lot of relatives, so many uncles, cousins. I am happy I will meet all of them after a long time, he said. In the absence of Nasheed and top Opposition leaders, who were either jailed or forced to flee the island nation after President Yameen came to power, it was Solih who coordinated and led the Opposition. In the Presidential poll held last month, Yameen conceded defeat to Solih after attempts to remain in power. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered the government, police and prison authorities to implement the suspension of Nasheeds 13-year jail term. The order followed a move Sunday by the Maldives prosecutor generals office which asked the Supreme Court to review the conviction order against Nasheed. The order, based on an anti-terrorism law, had been passed against Nasheed for allegedly ordering the army to detain a top judge when he was President in 2012. (Indian Express) (@ChaudhryMAli88) MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) Russia attaches great importance to the development of relations with Moldova, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday at a meeting with his Moldovan counterpart Igor Dodon. "At the beginning of our conversation, I would like to note that Russia attaches great importance to the development of Russian-Moldovan relations, we consider Moldova to be one of our priority partners in the CIS area," Putin said. The Russian leader noted that in recent years, including thanks to Dodon's personal efforts, the situation in bilateral trade and economic relations had changed as a lot of Moldovan wine-making, fruit and vegetable and agricultural enterprises started to sell on the Russian market. Putin added that Russia-Moldova trade continues to grow and relations in this area are developing progressively. Dodon, on his part, said that no country would be able to interrupt the development of the Russia-Moldova relations. "Our countries have traditionally maintained friendly, fraternal and strategic relations. It has been, it is and it will be so. I am confident no one will ruin this," Dodon said. The Moldovan leader added that Russia and Moldova shared common interests in the field of spiritual values and that he discussed these issues with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. Dodon noted that the two countries had maintained close economic ties, adding that there are over 500,000 Moldovan citizens working in Russia and transferring over $1 billion annually to their families in Moldova. The president reiterated that the leadership of Moldova and the majority of citizens of the republic were seeking to continue deepening partnership with Russia. Moldova has long been experiencing a stand-off between the president and the government over the country's foreign policy. Dodon, who took office as president of Moldova on December 23, 2016, insists on rapprochement with Russia, while the parliamentary majority and the government stick to a pro-Western course in foreign policy. (@FahadShabbir) The catastrophic humanitarian situation emerged in the Rukban refugee camp in Syria after the United States occupied the area in the south of the Homs province, the Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st October, 2018) The catastrophic humanitarian situation emerged in the Rukban refugee camp in Syria after the United States occupied the area in the south of the Homs province, the Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday. "As a result of the irresponsible actions of the United States, which illegally occupied a large area of Syria, a catastrophic humanitarian situation has developed in the Rukban refugee camp. Moreover, the US military is conducting intensive training of armed units from among local population already without hiding it," the ministry's spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said. The Rukban refugee camp, which hosts about 50,000-60,000 people, is located in Syria's At Tanf district in Homs near the Jordanian border, next to a US military base where Syrian opposition forces are being trained. Moscow and Damascus, on one side, and Washington, on the other, accuse each other of hindering the delivery of UN humanitarian assistance to the area. To describe the first clinical experience with the novel purpose-built single-port robotic platform after FDA approval. Two male patients diagnosed with prostate cancer amenable of radical prostatectomy underwent single-port robot-assisted radical prostatectomy with bilateral pelvic lymph-nodes dissection performed by using the da Vinci SP Surgical System (Intuitive Surgical, Sunnyvale, CA, USA). The surgeries were completed through a 2.5-cm periumbilical incision through which a GelPOINT Mini advanced access platform (Applied Medical, Rancho Santa Margarita, CA, USA) and the dedicated 25-mm multichannel port accommodating a 12 10-mm oval articulating robotic camera, three 6-mm double-jointed articulating robotic instruments and a 6-mm accessory laparoscopic instrument were placed. One port for the assistant was placed at the level of the para-rectal line, at the planned final site for the drainage. The primary aim was to report, for the first time in the US after FDA approval of the system, the technical feasibility in the living human. The secondary aim was to report the perioperative outcomes. The surgeries were successfully completed without conversion. In both cases, the total operative time was 140 minutes. Blood loss were negligible. No complications were recorded. Patients were discharged within 24 hours post-operation. Herein, we documented the first clinical application of the SP surgical platform for single-port trans-umbilical robot-assisted radical prostatectomy in the USA. This approach will be further investigated regarding the surgical morbidity and the outcomes. Urology. 2018 Oct 24 [Epub ahead of print] Jihad Kaouk, Riccardo Bertolo, Mohamed Eltemamy, Juan Garisto Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA. Electronic address: ., Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA. PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30367924 Assuming duties as the Finance and Economic Affairs Minister yesterday, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa hinted towards his plans to return Sri Lanka to the inward-looking economy that he had built during his presidency from 2005 to 2014. While acknowledging the important role foreign direct investment could play in Sri Lankas economic advancement, Rajapaksa said domestic production and the agriculture sector activities would be actively encouraged for import substitution. This policy stance stands in contrast to the policies followed by the Ranil Wickremesinghe administration and its Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera. The Wickremesinghe administration was actively propagating a more outward-looking economic policy through expansion of foreign trade and maintaining an open-door policy for foreign investments and immigration. During the almost four-year administration of Wickremesinghe, Sri Lanka actively pursued trade deals with regional nations and a number of laws were repealed or amended to facilitate the outward-looking economic policies. Sri Lanka entered into a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) with the city state Singapore and was actively pursuing an extension to the existing FTA with India. Negotiations were also underway for a free trade deal with China. These trade deals however were evidently making a lot of Sri Lankan industrialists uneasy. Rajapaksa addressing the Finance Ministry staff yesterday said local production should be encouraged by supporting local industrialists and stressed the taxes imposed on them should be reasonable. You should impose taxes on businesses. But that should be according to their capacities to pay taxes, he said. During Rajapaksas presidency, a number of local industries were protected by slapping high taxes on imports. Meanwhile, Rajapaksa urged the need for a stable economic environment and exchange rate. He said the revising of fuel prices every month doesnt help creating a stable and predictable economic environment. Rajapaksa said under his management, Sri Lankas budget deficit was brought down from over 10 percent to 5.2 percent in 2014 and the debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio to 71 percent, from 91 percent. He further said the rulers should always be mindful of the cost of living of the people, despite the global developments such as high crude oil prices. Meanwhile, touching on Sri Lankas hefty external debt repayment obligations, Rajapaksa said Sri Lanka has an unblemished track record in paying loans, has never defaulted and would not default in the future. Sri Lankas external debt stock is equivalent to around 60 percent of GDP and almost 30 percent of this (US $ 15 billion) is due to mature between 2019 and 2022. Seven of the nineteen martyrs rose to international fame following the film Of Gods and Men. But on December 8th, all of the 19 men and women martyred by Islamic terrorists in Algeria between 1994 and 1996 will be beatified in Oran, Algeria. By Joachim Teigen The cause for their beatification opened in 2007, thus titling Pierre Claverie and Companions as Servants of God. Earlier this year Pope Francis confirmed their beatification. On December 8th the ceremony of beatification will take place in the cathedral of the Diocese of Oran, of which the martyred Pierre Claverie was bishop. Cardinal Angelo Becciu, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, will preside the beatification Mass as well as represent the Holy Father on the occasion. Algerias dark decade Between 1991 and 2002, Algeria was thrust into a civil war between the Algerian government and Islamic rebel groups. During the years in which the brutality of the rebels reached new heights, 19 men and women had to pay the ultimate price for their Christian faith and unwillingness to leave their land. Among these was bishop Pierre Claverie of Oran, who was the last of the martyrs to be killed in a bombing outside the bishopric in 1996, alongside his Muslim friend and driver. The martyrdom of the monks of Tibhirine in 1996 inspired the award-winning film Of Gods and Men. The French Trappist monks lived a quiet life of coexistence and friendship with their Muslim neighbours. Refusing to leave their country and the people of Algeria, they were kidnapped and subsequently decapitated. Their message was love In their press release of October 2018, the bishops of Algeria make it clear that the purpose of the beatification is not to make of these men and women heroes. Rather it is to show that through these ordinary men and women we see how even in the darkest of times there are glimpses of hope. And their unconditional love of God, their country and their people shows us how only love can end the alienating spiral of evil. The bishops quoted Dr. Issam Toualbi, a Muslim and the Director of the UNESCO Chair Emir Abdelkader for Human Rights and Culture of Peace, who said to them: May this beatification be a precursor to the building of a better future between the two banks of the Mediterranean; a future built on respect, understanding and sharing. In a historic ruling on October 31, Pakistan's Supreme Court acquitted Asia Bibi, the Catholic woman on death row since 2010, under accusation of blaspheming against Prophet Muhammad, an allegation she has always denied. By Robin Gomes Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar announced the verdict on Wednesday to a packed courtroom and ordered Asia Bibi released, declaring Asia Bibi innocent. The decision followed the hearing of Asia Bibis final appeal by a Supreme Court judicial panel on Oct. 8. The landmark ruling sparked protests by hard-line Islamists and raised fears of violence. In perhaps Pakistans most famous blasphemy case, Asia Bibi was arrested and imprisoned in June 2009 on allegation of insulting the Prophet Muhammad, following an argument with Muslim women over her use of a drinking vessel meant for Muslims. The following year she was sentenced to death. According to the blasphemy laws in Pakistans Penal Code, insulting the Prophet Muhammad is a crime punishable by death, while offending the Koran, Islam holy book, incurs life imprisonment. Fr. Emmanuel Yousaf, is the national director of the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) of the Pakistan Catholic Bishops Conference (PCBC). Speaking to Vatican News, he described the Supreme Courts October 31 verdict as a victory for the whole nation and a victory for justice. Listen to Fr. Emmanuel Yousaf Asia Bibi verdict beneficial for Pakistan Noting that many Muslims are also victims of the blasphemy laws, Fr. Yousaf said that the verdict is beneficial for all the citizens of Pakistan, irrespective of whether they are Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Sikh or of other faiths. According to the priest, most Pakistanis will be happy with the verdict in favour of this poor lady who, despite being innocent had to spend about 10 years in prison in solitary confinement. God listened to prayers According to the NCJP national director, God has listened to her prayers and the prayers of all of us, including those of the good-hearted Muslim brothers and sisters who believe in justice. The priest invoked blessings on the judges for delivering justice. He also invoked blessings on the nation saying Muslims, Christians and other, all are citizens of Pakistan and love their country. He said they need to continue praying for their nation. Fr. Yousaf appealed to the entire world to pray for the Church in Pakistan that is suffering but which is strong in faith. He also urged for prayers for the country that it may prosper. Controversial blasphemy laws The blasphemy laws remain an extremely sensitive issue in the predominantly Muslim nation and they have drawn intense criticism even within the country. Influential Punjab governor Salman Taseer and the Minister for Minorities Affairs, Shahbaz Bhatti, a Catholic, were both assassinated in 2011 after they defended Asia Bibi and spoke out against her death sentence and the misuse of the blasphemy laws. Sri Lanka was thrown into a political turmoil after Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe last week and swore in ex-president Mahinda Rajapaksa to replace him. The Catholic bishops of Sri Lanka are calling on the nations government, political parties and the people to resolve the political and constitutional crisis peacefully, keeping in mind the good of the people. The political turmoil engulfed Sri Lanka after Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday and swore in ex-president Mahinda Rajapaksa to replace him. Wickremesinghe said his sacking was illegal and he maintained that he was still prime minister, leading to a standoff between his party and labour unions loyal to Sirisena. The following day, Sirisena suspended Parliament until November 6, in an apparent move to give Rajapaksa time to muster enough support to survive any no-confidence vote. People suffer most in crisis "Everyone should keep in mind that, if there is instability in the country, it is the people who suffer, said a statement signed by Bishop Winston S. Fernando of Badulla, the President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Sri Lanka (CBCSL). We sincerely appeal to all political parties to put aside their interests and respect the Constitution of the Republic of Sri Lanka to resolve the ongoing conflict," Bishop Fernando wrote in the statement which he forwarded to the Vaticans Fides news agency. Sri Lankas Bishops said they were "deeply interested in the situation in the country", and were intervening at a time of a deep crisis. Sirisena said he sacked Wickremesinghe mainly because of the alleged involvement of a Cabinet minister in a plot to assassinate Sirisena. He did not reveal details of the alleged plot. The crisis deepened further when Sirisena on Monday swore in a new Cabinet on Monday despite a warning by Parliament's speaker of a possible bloodbath if lawmakers are not summoned immediately to resolve the crisis. Respect for rule of law, democracy, constitution Sri Lankas bishops reminded those concerned that the nation "has already suffered" because of the long civil war and that "enough blood has been spilt", so they ask all political exponents "to act with caution". "The rule of law and democracy should prevail through decisions taken faithfully following the Constitution, in this moment of crisis", the bishops said. The bishops pointed out that what is important is not to remain in power or to obtain power", but "to put ourselves at the service of people and the common good, for the development of the country, exploiting all the resources and realizing the great potential that is found in people and natural resources in our beloved land". The bishops urged for prayers that wisdom and balance prevail". (Source: Fides) Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation of Nevada held its spookiest celebration of the year, the 20th annual Halloween Bash at Ellis Island Hotel in Las Vegas on Thursday, Oct. 25. VIDEO: Candlelighters Halloween Bash at Ellis Island Hotel httpvh://youtu.be/E1RDsim9zg4 More than 600 guests attended and $111,750 was raised at this years event, held for Candlelighters families whose diagnosed child is aged 12 and under, providing an opportunity to enjoy a fall festival with carnival games, bounce houses, a petting zoo, prizes, dinner and trick-or-treating in a safe, fun environment. Ellis Island Hotel has hosted the event since its inception two decades ago, providing rooms, event space, tents and food and beverage. In addition to serving as a quality of life event for Candlelighters families, the Halloween Bash serves as a fundraiser for the foundation. Local companies, individuals and organizations sponsor nearly 100 different rooms at Ellis Island Hotel, which they decorate and hand out candy to Candlelighters children. UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said that there was no evidence to believe that a foreign country was behind the crisis situation in Sri Lanka. He said this to journalists attached to the Foreign News Agencies at the Temple Trees last morning. The allegation that some foreign country is behind the crisis in Sri Lanka is only a piece of information published in some social media, he said. Meanwhile, Mr Wickremesinghe, who divulged details on negotiations that took place with regard to the fielding of a common candidate for the last Presidential Election, said that incumbent President Maithripala Sirisena was chosen as the candidate, despite some parties and civil groups proposed the name of former President Chandrika Kumaratunga. He told the journalists that he got UNP to pass a resolution backing Mr Sirisena as per the agreement reached by the parties. (Yohan Perera) To help audiences celebrate the holiday season, The Smith Center for the Performing Arts will present the energizing DRUMLine Live Holiday Spectacular at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturday, December 29. Created by the acclaimed musical team behind the popular Drumline films, this festive production features elite vocalists, musicians and choreography all based on the marching band tradition of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). Showcasing beautiful holiday costumes and lighting, this production will feature beloved holiday melodies from across numerous eras and styles, including gospel, jazz, soul, Motown, The Nutcracker Suite and contemporary hits by artists such as Mariah Carey, Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber. All of these will be performed with the driving force of an HBCU marching band, including a show-stopping rendition of The Little Drummer Boy as reimagined by the drumline. The production will also include high-energy dancing performances spanning ballet, hip-hop and more. DRUMLine Live is directed by Don P. Roberts, who served as executive band consultant for the hit 20th Century Fox film, Drumline, as well as its VH1 sequel, Drumline: A New Beat. He also worked as associate producer and executive band director for the ESPNU television series The Battle, featuring Americas best HBCU marching bands. He further served as executive band consultant for the Missy Elliot hit song Bad Man. Under Roberts direction, DRUMLine Live has toured across the U.S. and the world. In addition, Roberts has worked with some of the premier theatrical and film directors and producers in America, including collaborating with Emmy winner Kenny Ortega in preparation for the Centennial Olympic Games. Tourists walk under arches next to the flooded St Mark's Square during a high-water (Acqua Alta) alert in Venice, Italy. (Miguel MEDINA/AFP) Road were blocked and thousands of people were left without power in southern and central Europe, as rains and violent winds sparked flooding and tore trees from their roots. Thick snow has also cloaked French and Italian mountain regions, trapping hundreds of drivers in their cars and tourists in hotels. In Italy, where Venice was inundated by near-record flooding and ferocious storms drove high winds reaching up to 180 kilometres an hour in some areas, civil protection authorities announced a further five deaths, after confirming five people died on Monday. "We are facing one of the most complex meteorological situations of the past 50 to 60 years," said Angelo Borrelli, head of the national civil protection agency. Luxury yachts lay smashed in the harbour of Rapallo near Genoa after a dam broke under pressure. "It was like a tsunami," one stunned port worker was quoted as saying by Italian media. COASTAL SURGE "We thought the danger would come from the mountains, we thought the problem would be landslides," said Liguria head Giovanni Toti. "Instead, we get a coastal storm surge the likes of which we've never seen," he said. Authorities on Tuesday reported a woman died when her home was engulfed by a mudslide in the northern region of Trentino, a man was killed in the northeastern region of Veneto by a falling tree, and a firefighter died during relief operations in South Tyrol. Elsewhere, a man was killed while kitesurfing on Monday near the town of Cattolica on the Adriatic coast, while the body of another man was recovered Tuesday in Lake Levico in the north. A man was also missing at sea off Calabria in the southwest, while the body of another was found in a stream in northern Italy. Italian media reported that around 170 people, tourists and hotel staff, were stranded by heavy snowfall at the Stelvio Pass on the Swiss border. Meanwhile in Friuli Venezia Giulia, local authorities said some 23,000 people were without power. HUNDREDS STRANDED In France, more than 1,000 drivers were trapped in their cars for the night in the mountains of the Massif Central region as the roads were engulfed in snowstorms. Another 400 had to spend the night in train carriages at the main station in the eastern city of Lyon after heavy snow blocked the tracks. About 60,000 homes still remained without power on Tuesday evening across France - mostly in the east and centre. Another 21,000 homes were also cut off on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, which was placed on red alert Monday for powerful winds, shutting its airports and ports. Croatia's Adriatic coast has also been battered by gale-force winds and heavy rains that have flooded streets, cut off power and ensnared road and maritime traffic. Meanwhile, a Slovenian surfer who went missing on Monday in the sea off Croatia's northern Istria peninsula was rescued on Tuesday after being swept south to the Italian bay of Trieste. In Spain, over 100 soldiers were helping electrical repair crews to reach isolated areas of the northern region of Asturias, blanketed by heavy snowfall at the weekend. VENICE SWAMPED Italy's canal-ringed city of Venice was swamped by flooding as heavy rainfall pushed the water levels to near record levels on Monday. Tourists were barred from St Mark's Square as local authorities said the "acqua alta" (high water) peaked at 156 centimetres. The waters have only topped 150 centimetres five times before in recorded history. Art experts were racing to evaluate the damage to thousand-year old mosaics in St Mark's Basilica after the Bapistry and Zen Chapel flooded. Two paintings by Spanish artist Joan Miro were damaged at the Palazzo Zaguri, where they had been waiting to be hung. Meteorologists expect the harsh weather to gradually ease in Italy. Storms have also swept into Switzerland, buffeting the Ticino region near the Italian border overnight, according to public broadcaster RTS. Roads were blocked by fallen trees and flooding, while strong winds ripped roof sections off buildings, including in Giubiasco where police said part of a firm's roof had smashed into a moving train and a house, without causing injury. In southern Austria, authorities have deployed hundreds of mobile anti-flooding dams as rivers burst their banks, while in the city of Salzburg a roof section from the mediaeval ramparts flew off in high winds. An 80-year-old driver and his passenger, 76, were killed on Tuesday in an accident caused by a landslide on a road near Maribor in Slovenia. Giving wings to Vietnamese businesswomen is a focus of the Australian government, as well as a personal mission of consul general Karen Lanyon Empowering women to do business Women in leadership are a very important issue for me. In the three years I have been in Ho Chi Minh City, I have seen amazing female entrepreneurs here who are thriving and are at the top of their game, said Karen Lanyon. The Australian consul general recalled being impressed with various female CEOs such as Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao of budget airline Vietjet, Mai Kieu Lien of dairy firm Vinamilk, and Ha Thu Thanh of auditing giant Deloitte Vietnam. Lanyon then made it her personal mission during her tenure in Vietnam to inspire young Vietnamese women to follow in the footsteps of these entrepreneurs. Lanyon and her team organised the first Women in Vietnam conference two weeks ago in Ho Chi Minh City, and plans to turn this into an annual event. The event, which featured female CEOs, managers, and social activists, was geared towards female Vietnamese students at their final year of university and recent graduates. The event also featured an idea pitching contest for startups led by females, in which winners received VND50 million ($2,170) of seed funding. Participants also had the opportunity to join internship programmes and a language scholarship placement in Australia. Female CEOs and managers shared their experience at the Women in Vietnam conference According to Karen Lanyon, empowering female entrepreneurs is not only good for gender equality it is crucial for Vietnams economic prosperity. Women make up half of the workforce, and if they receive sufficient support and inspiration to do business, the Vietnamese economy will move faster forward. We want to focus on young women who are just starting out, because that is where the change is going to happen. We need to tell girls at a young age that they can do anything, including leading a business, and give them the inspiration and support to do so, said Lanyon. Revision of the Labour Code Karen Lanyon said that Australia is committed to helping Vietnamese female entrepreneurs via a range of support programmes. This includes suggestions to change Vietnam's legislation regarding women, including the recognition of small- and medium-sized businesses led by females. Most recently, Invest in Women, an initiative by the Australian government, has organised a workshop with the Vietnamese Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs and the United Nations to address equal opportunities and treatment in the Labour Code. The programme highlighted that gender inequality should no longer be seen as a social issue, but as an economic one that presents a key challenge to Vietnams inclusive and sustainable growth. The workshop on Labour Code revision, including better opportunities for female entrepreneurs Four areas have been revised, including narrowing down the retirement age gap between male and female employees, preventing sexual harassment in the workplace, improving daycare services, and promoting equality in performing reproductive and child-care functions. Input from this workshop is expected to be brought before the National Assembly for comments in May 2019. We cannot change everything in the blink of an eye, but we are starting the conversation and get everyone to talk about equal opportunity for women, including female entrepreneurs, said Lanyon. Micro finance transforms the lives of poor Vietnamese women Access to micro finance programmes has helped thousands of women in Vietnam escape poverty and furthered the gender equality agenda. The women breaking business barriers In the development of the Vietnamese economy, there are many women leading and inspiring the countrys business community, symbolising the strength and beauty of Vietnam ... CMC Telecom deputy CEO Dang Tung Son Starting two years ago, following the strategic investment from Malaysia-backed TIME dotCom Berhad (TIME) in 2015, CMC Telecom, one of the four leading telecommunications service providers in Vietnam, has begun its quest to overhaul its brand identity and set the new mission to showcase its brand to the world. The company does so with confidence after achieving international and regional recognitions and awards. CMC Telecom wants to turn our dream of digitalisation into reality, said Dang Tung Son, deputy CEO of CMC Telecom at a recent interview with VIR. In as little as two years, the telecommunications firm has made itself one of the Asia-Pacifics 25 Most Promising Telecom Solution Providers in 2016 by providing one-stop-shop ICT solutions for enterprises and the Asia-Pacifics 25 Managed Service Providers in 2018 with its comprehensive range of converged solutions in ICT technology, including networking, security, and cloud solutions, both by APAC CIO Outlook. In addition, CMC Telecom came closer to its dream when it was honoured with various accolades, including the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) 3.0 Certification in July this year, becoming one of the first three service providers in the world to be certified for their ability to deliver standards-based local, national, and global Ethernet services. Ultimately, we strive for this level of certification so that our global and domestic customers can have peace of mind on compatibility and ease of integration. By becoming the first MEF 3.0-certified service provider in the world, we can proudly say that we are able to deliver scalable, reliable next-generation Ethernet services to enterprise and carrier customers across the diverse connectivity in metro network we serve, said Son upon receiving the certificate. CMC Telecom's international crusade started with attention to detail, Son shared, when the company cinched an agreement to proved all the connected network infrastructure of Samsung in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Hong Kong. We support the network ecosystem for some 200 Samsung agencies. When Samsung representatives arrived at our office, they were rather surprised to see a clip of Samsung on our displays. They asked us why? We said we wanted them to feel at home. It is as simple as that. This has been one of our keys to success: we may be young, but we go the extra miles to dig deep to find value for our customers, he stressed. In the domestic market, Son noted that CMC Telecom has positioned itself as a converged telecom solutions provider for large-scale enterprises, and in the next three years it will move beyond the borders of Vietnam and the ASEAN to reach the world beyond. We are currently expanding our co-operation with many major partners in the US and the EU and we are also working with partners in very tough markets, such as the Middle East and Africa. With our outreach in terms of network infrastructure and access to customers, we have been trusted by lots of global multinational corporations to provide ICT services to their global supply chain, said Son. Success built upon a shared vision Selecting a partner for life is never easy, which is doubly true when it comes to choosing a strategic foreign partner. Vietnam-based telecommunication service provider ... Vietnams first certified PCI DSS Data Centre In January 2018, Crossbow Labs has issued the PCI DSS v3.2 certificate to CMC Telecom, Vietnams first and unique Data Centre, for meeting the latest ... German former nurse Niels Hoegel (L) is accused of killing more than 100 patients in his care AFP/CARMEN JASPERSEN Hoegel, 41, has already spent nearly a decade in prison on a life term for other patient deaths, and is accused of intentionally administering medical overdoses to victims so he could bring them back to life at the last moment. As the proceedings opened in the northern city of Oldenburg, presiding judge Sebastian Buehrmann asked whether the charges against him were accurate. Hoegel replied "yes". "What I have admitted took place," he told the courtroom crowded with dozens of grieving relatives. As the proceedings began Buehrmann said the main aim of the trial was to establish the full scope of the murder spree that was allowed to go unchecked for years at two German hospitals. "We will do our utmost to learn the truth," he said. "It is like a house with dark rooms - we want to bring light into the darkness." After a minute of silence for the victims, the bearded, heavyset Hoegel listened impassively, his head lowered, as public prosecutor Daniela Schiereck-Bohlmann read out the name of each dead patient and the charges against the defendant. "LOOKING FOR JUSTICE" Prosecutors say at least 36 patients were killed at a hospital in Oldenburg where he worked, and about 64 more at a clinic in nearby Delmenhorst, between 2000 and 2005. More than 130 bodies of patients who died on Hoegel's watch have been exhumed, in a case investigators have called "unprecedented in Germany to our knowledge". One of the more than 100 co-plaintiffs in the trial, Christian Marbach, said it was a scandal that Hoegel had been allowed to kill with impunity for such an extended period of time without hospital authorities or law enforcement intervening. "They had everything they needed (to stop him) - you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes," Marbach, the grandson of one of the patients, told AFP. He later expressed surprise about Hoegel's quick confession. "I didn't expect it to happen today," he said. "We now have a chance to make some real progress." 200 VICTIMS? Caught in 2005 while injecting an unprescribed medication into a patient in Delmenhorst, Hoegel was sentenced in 2008 to seven years in prison for attempted murder. A second trial followed in 2014-15 under pressure from alleged victims' families, who accused prosecutors of dragging their feet. He was found guilty of murder and attempted murder of five other victims and given the maximum sentence of 15 years. It was then that Hoegel confessed to his psychiatrist at least 30 more murders committed in Delmenhorst. That prompted investigators to take a closer look at suspicious deaths in Oldenburg. Investigators say the final toll could top 200 but fear they might never know for sure because the bodies of many potential victims were cremated. Hoegel appears to have followed a similar procedure each time, first injecting a medication that triggered cardiac arrest, followed by an often futile attempt at resuscitation. Prosecutors say he was motivated by vanity, to show off his skills at saving human lives, and by simple "boredom". The choice of victim appears to have been entirely random, with their ages ranging from 34 to 96. Killing in itself was never his aim, according to one psychologist who evaluated him. When he managed to revive a patient, he was sated, but only for a few days, the expert said, adding: "For him, it was like a drug." The Government has urged the Ministry of Information and Communications to build a code of ethics on social networks for internet service providers and users to create a healthy networking atmosphere in the country.- Photo zing.vn Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh made the request at a conference on the implementation of National Assembly resolutions on cyber security surveillance yesterday. Binh said the Government had asked the ministry to develop a code of ethics on social networks operating in Vietnam such as Facebook and YouTube. It had also asked professional agencies to co-operate with Facebook and Google to remove false and misleading information that runs counter to the Party and States viewpoints, policies and political platform. The Government had asked network operators to deploy new technical solutions to effectively prevent the spread of false information on websites and social networks with international domain names and hosting servers located in other countries. According to the report, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc directed the ministry to create a national cyber security monitoring centre. The centre, which was part of the project on supervising the cyber security of IT systems to respond to cyber attacks, would automatically review, discover and evaluate information on the Internet. There are some 55 million internet users in the country, accounting for 57 per cent of the population. Of these, 50 million access the internet via mobile phones. Each user spends between 2.5 and seven hours each day on the internet, with Facebook and YouTube being the most popular websites. Also in the field of information and communications, the Government has instructed the ministry to study and implement comprehensive measures on management. Mobile telecommunications enterprises such as VNPT, Viettel, MobiFone, Gmobile and Vietnamobile have been required to guide customers to update and register their information for better management. They were also encouraged to have economic measures to boost mobile subscribers. The government has determined that the digital content industry was an important factor in sustaining the growth of the telecoms industry, contributing to establishing the countrys digital economy. In order to develop the countrys digital content ecosystem, the Government has directed an overview of current status, development potentials, barriers and legal deficiencies to solve difficulties and promote digital content creation. Fast-fasion brand UNIQLO acquired 35 per cent stake in Elise The deal has been completed, with Elise getting tens of millions of dollars in the deal. While the exact figure has not been disclosed, it is believed to be much higher than Elises entire charter capital. The acquisition comes after UNIQLO announced to launch in Vietnam on August 30, with plans to open its first store in Ho Chi Minh City during the fall of 2019. UNIQLO will begin recruiting local talent as it prepares to open its store in one of the regions most exciting, high-growth economies. "Our entry into Vietnam is an exciting milestone for everyone at UNIQLO. Southeast Asia has been an important driver of growth for us, and we are pleased and optimistic about this opportunity to be part of such an exciting economy and retail market, said Tadashi Yanai, chairman, president, and CEO of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd., the parent company of UNIQLO. Regarding the plan to expand its operation in Southeast Asia and Oceania, the company plans to open 400 stores in the region by 2022. It is also expected to triple its existing revenue to $2.71 billion by August 2022. At present, the companys store network reaches 20 markets on four continents with a total of 2,000 stores. This acquisition came right after the deal between Stripe International and NEM, whereby the former took over the NEM womens fashion brand. In October 2017, Stripe International set up Hanoi-based subsidiary Stripe Vietnam JCS, as part of its plan to take over NEM Groups apparel business assets. Stripe Vietnam has a registered capital of VND175 billion ($7.6 million). The value of the deal was not disclosed. Established in 2002, NEM Group operates 44 retail outlets, with nearly half of them in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. It focuses on fashion for office-working women aged between 20 and 40 years old. Stripe International wanted to take over the fashion business of NEM since it owns the NEM womens fashion brand, which has huge potential with 44 stores across the country and its target customers being women aged 20-40. At the same time, Moodys has upgraded and affirmed the long-term Counterparty Risk Ratings (CRRs) and Counterparty Risk Assessments (CRAs) for some 16 local banks. The credit rating agency has also upgraded and affirmed the baseline credit assessments (BCAs) and Adjusted BCAs for the same number of banks. The outlook on Sacombanks ratings was changed to stable from negative, to reflect its stabilised solvency profile and progress in the recovery of problem assets. The ratings outlooks on the other 15 rated Vietnamese banks remain stable. The rating action reflects Moodys expectation that the strong economic growth evident in Vietnam will support the asset quality and profitability of the banks. To capture these developments, Moodys increased Vietnams Macro Profile to Weak+ from Weak. The upgrade of the BCAs of 12 Vietnamese banks, according to Moodys, is driven by the higher Macro Profile, and also by these banks progress in writing off legacy problem assets. Upgrade of BIDV, Vietcombank, and VietinBanks BCAs The upgrade in the banks BCAs largely reflects improvements in asset quality. Funding and liquidity for these banks are stable, a result of their relatively lower reliance on market funds. At the same time, capital remains a weakness for all three. Upgrade of ABB, ACB, MBBank, OCB, TPBank, VIB, and Techcombanks BCAs The upgrade in these banks BCAs reflects improvements in their standalone credit strength, particularly progress in writing off legacy problem assets, and in the case of OCB, TPBank, and Techcombank, a strengthening of their capitalisation. Moodys expects profitability for these seven banks to improve over the next 12-18 months as the burden of credit costs reduces. Upgrade of VPBanks BCA The upgrade of VPBanks BCA takes into account its high profitability and strong capitalisation, which offset the high credit risks from its consumer finance portfolio. Upgrade of HDBanks BCA The upgrade in HDBanks BCA reflects improvements in the bank's capitalisation and profitability. At the same time, this rating action also takes into account the impending merger between HDBank and Petrolimex Group Commercial Joint Stock Bank (PGBank, unrated), a small private sector bank in Vietnam. Based on the two banks financials for 2017, the key credit metrics of the merged entity, with the exception of asset quality, will be broadly similar to that of HDBank. Moodys calculates the pro forma problem loan ratio of the merged entity including loans under categories 2-5 of Vietnamese accounting standards, and gross bonds issued by Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC) to be at around 6.8 per cent, while that of HDBank is 4.9 per cent. Moodys expects the merged entity's return on tangible assets to decline because of higher credit and operating costs. Moodys expects funding and liquidity for the bank to remain stable. Affirmation of Maritime Bank, Sacombank, SHB, and LienVietPostBanks BCAs The affirmation of MSB, SHB, and LienVietPostBanks BCAs reflects Moodys expectation that the banks credit profiles will broadly remain stable over the next 12-18 months. The solvency of these banks is modest compared to that of other rated Vietnamese banks, but somewhat balanced by their funding and liquidity. The BCA of Sacombank was affirmed because the bank still faces a significant risk from its problem assets, which exceeded 20 per cent of total assets as of June 30, 2018. The adjusted BCAs of all rated Vietnamese banks are at the same level as their BCAs as Moodys did not factor in any affiliate support for these banks. Moodys: Vietnams banks show diverging capital profiles The profitability of Vietnamese banks is strengthening as robust economic growth fuels credit demand and supports an improvement in asset quality, but challenges are also ... A section of Da Nang-Quang Ngai Expressway.-VNA/VNS Photo Tran Tinh Related to the defects on the expressway a key highway in the central region VEC has also taken disciplinary action against individuals and groups under its authority. VEC issued warnings against four units under its authority: the Executive Boards for Packages No.4 and No.6, the Da Nang-Quang Ngai Project Management Board, and the Executive, Management and Operation Board for Da Nang-Quang Ngai Expressway (VECS). It also gave warnings to five individuals, including two directors of executive boards, two staff in charge of construction for packages No.4 and No.6 and one deputy director and head of the operation and maintenance unit under VECS. The 139km highway in the central region crossing through Quang Ngai and Quang Nam provinces and Da Nang City was built in four years with total investment of VN34.5 trillion (US$1.5 billion), sourced from official development aid from the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) and the World Bank (WB). The project is an important part of the north-south expressway. It is intended to alleviate traffic on the National Road No 1 and boost economic competitiveness for the central region. A 65km Tam Ky-Quang Ngai section was opened to traffic in August last year. The entire road was put into operation on September 2, but just weeks later, several potholes appeared. The Ministry of Transport on October 11 suspended toll collection on the expressway to force its investor, VEC, to repair the road. On October 17, the ministry allowed the resumption of toll collection and the repairs of defects on a key highway in the central region were finished. Tran Van Tam, general director of VEC, said the suspension of toll collection caused the loss of VND600 million per day. According to Tam, because the work is still under warranty, the contractor is fully responsible for repair costs and willing to cooperate with all inspection and examination agencies. Oman Air, the National Carrier of the Sultanate of Omanhas commenced its new daily direct service between Russia and Oman, with its first flightdeparting Muscat International Airport to Moscow Domodedovo Airport on 30th October. The inaugural flight, WY 181 departed Muscat International Airport at 14:55 after a cake cutting ceremony. The flight arrived in Moscow at 19:55. With a flight time of 5 hours and 35 minutes, WY182 departs Moscow Domodedovo Airport at 00.20, arriving into the award-winning new passenger terminal at Muscat International Airportat 06.55. Oman Airs official delegation to Moscow includedits Chief Executive Officer Eng. Abdulaziz Al Raisi and Chief Commercial Officer Paul Starrs, and a number of its senior management team. His Excellency Dmitry Dogadkin,the Ambassador of Russia in Oman also accompanied the delegation to Moscow. Upon arrival to Moscow Domodedovo Airport,Oman Air delegation was received by top ranking officials. Eng. Abdulaziz Al Raisi, Oman Air Chief Executive Officer, said: I am pleased to announce the addition of a new long-awaited route to our network. Russia is an increasingly important destination from Oman, and since we announced this route earlier in the year, we have seen strong interest, both from Oman travellers and from customers transitting through our Muscat hub from cities around the world. Connecting Muscat with Moscow, we expect this daily service to further stimulate economic, trade and business relations between the two friendly countries. Trade between Oman and Russia continues to rise and we are happy to be able to facilitate this further with the start of this service. Oman is turning into a very important regional logistics hub with world-class infrastructure and we are sure this is recognised by the business enterprises in Russia. Apart from strengthening and opening up new business opportunities between Russia and Oman, our flights will also open the gates for Russian tourists to come and enjoy our beautiful country. This new route will be serviced by Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, designed to offer exceptional performance, flexibility and efficiency. Configured with 162 seats in a two-class configuration: 12 in business and 150 in economy with significant enhancements across both cabins the MAX aircraft is an example of Oman Airs commitment to continually upgrading its products and services to deliver guest satisfaction. Oman Airs extensive flight network provides travellers from Russia a wide variety of options including 11 Indian destinations (Goa, Mumbai, Chennai, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad, Delhi, Lucknow, Bangalore, Kozhikode, and Jaipur) in addition toIndian Subcontinent destinations such as Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, all of which are less than a four hour flight from Muscat. Oman Air flies with double and triple daily frequencies to some of these cities providing guests with more choices and easy connections. Paul Starrs, Chief Commercial Officer at Oman Air said: Our new service will provide more choice and greater convenience as more travellers look to Russia for a holiday getaway. We have done a great deal of preparation before commencing this route through several niche events and agent meet-ups and I am confident that this new addition will be another successful destination for Oman Air. We are sure thatthere will be demand for both business and leisure traffic, allowing us to showcase our own beautiful country to Russian visitors. Our Russian guests will also be able to take advantage of our fantastic new passenger terminal in Muscat Airport which houses Oman Airs bespoke premium lounges, 6,000 square metres of Duty Free shopping, 96 check-in counters and a modern 90-room airside hotel. The new service between Moscow and Muscat is the airlines third route launched this year after Istanbul and Casablanca and is part of Oman Airs exciting fleet and network expansion programme, which will see the airline operate up to 70 aircraft to around 60 destinations by 2022. PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc receives Vice Chairman of Samsung Group Lee Jae-yong in Ha Noi on October 30, 2018 - Photo: VGP/Quang Hieu At the meeting, the PM highly spoke of Samsungs total capital investment of more than US$17 billion in Viet Nam with the export value exceeding US$54 billion, creating more than 160,000 jobs. Viet Nams ministries, agencies and localities will facilitate Samsung's launch of successful operation, he asserted, adding that the success of Samsung is the symbol in Viet Nam-the Republic of Korea (RoK) relationship. He suggested the corporation expand investment in other areas such as research and development, infrastructure and energy. The PM proposed Samsung launch the Samsung research and development center project as committed with the Vietnamese Government, making contributions to promoting research and development in Viet Nam as well as continue practical support in training and technology transfer for enterprises operating in auxiliary industry in Viet Nam. Photo: VGP/Quang Hieu Mr. Lee Jae Yong affirmed to continue long-term investment and expanding operation in Viet Nam, expressing thanks to the Vietnamese Government and the PMs support for the corporation in Viet Nam. The corporation is making efforts in contributing to the development of human resources in Viet Nam, he said. Vinaseed Group has launched a new brand name and identity Established in 1968, the seeds Vinaseed had sown have grown into "stately trees," contributing to the continuous improvement of Vietnamese farmers living standards, technical skills, and actual incomes. Having set the goal to provide high-quality seeds with high productivity and wide adaptation, Vinaseed has been focusing on researching, applying, and transferring technology as well as industrialising the seed industry. Since equitisation (Stock code: NSC), Vinaseed has considered science and technology as an important tool for enterprise development and competitive advantage enhancement, while investing more than VND300 billion ($13 million) into R&D, opening up brighter and more energetic prospects. Vinaseed became the rising star in the Vietnamese seed sector as the first company in the country to be recognised as a scientific and technological company. Tran Kim Lien, Vinaseed chairman and general director, announced the new era of Vinaseed as a member of The PAN Group Starting from a company trading common rice seeds, Vinaseed annually produces and trades 80,000 tonnes of seeds, 80 per cent of which are copyrighted products, equivalent to 2 million hectares of cultivation, holding 20 per cent of the national market. The company has researched, selected, and successfully transferred 45 types of seeds, and they have four varieties among the most common rice seeds in Vietnam. After 15 years of equitisation, and especially three years after officially becoming a member of The PAN Group, Vinaseed has been advancing by leaps and bounds through several achievements to becoming the largest company of the Vietnamese seed industry as of December 31, 2017. Specifically, its revenue reached VND1.512 trillion($65.7 million), including VND1.2 trillion ($52.17 million) from scientific and technological products. Vinaseeds after-tax profit hit VND235 billion ($10.22 million), owners equity was VND1.06 trillion ($46.09 million), while the average pace of growth in 2011-2017 was 40 per cent per year. Vinaseed has a nationwide network of 29 members, 1,200 first agencies, and 1,000 employees, 80 per cent of whom have postgraduate qualifications. These figures are a testament to Vinaseeds growth prospects even after 50 years. Vinaseed has not only brought science and technology to production and business while transferring new advances to farmers across the nation, but has also contributed to the society and improved farmers lives. Through technology transfer and co-operative production all across Vietnam, Vinaseed helped raise "technological villages," improving the lives of thousands of farming households. Chairman of the Dong-Thap People's Committee handing over the decision approving the investment policy and investment registration certificate for Vinaseed's Industrial Centre Vinaseeds Industrial Centre project processing seeds and agricultural products at Thap Muoi village, Dong Thap province is expected to be the largest in scale and the most modern centre for seeds and agricultural products preservation in Vietnam. It will take up 5.2 hectares and process 30,000 tonnes of seeds and 100,000 tonnes of rice per year, with the total investment capital of VND216-230 billion ($9.39-10 million). New name, new identity At its 50-year anniversary ceremony, chairwoman and general director of Vinaseed Tran Kim Lien officially announced changing the companys name to Vietnam National Seed Group (or Vinaseed Group) and launched its new Corporate Identity Programme (CIP). Through this, the company embarked on a new journey to become the leading Vietnamese corporation providing sustainable agricultural development solutions to the international market. Vinaseed officially changed its name to Vietnam Seed Corporation and launched a new corporate identity The logo of Vinaseeds new CIP enlarges the old logo of three rice seeds to nine (as the age-old Vietnamese saying goes, Rice is gold from the heaven), implying that the new identity will build and expand on the old one, carrying on old traditions on a grander scale and with more momentum. The nine seeds are arranged to present the gene chain model, symbolising technology and biodiversity as the core foundations of the groups development. The new nine seeds arranged in a square represent Mother Earth (a distinctly Vietnamese symbology based on folklore and local fairy tales) and brings to mind Vietnams traditional banh chung" cake. The green colour implies maturity, solidity, and reliance. Vinaseed introduces new high-grade VJ Pearl Rice produced with Japanese technology With its strategy and actions closely aligned with the closed Farm Food Family value chain of The PAN Group, Vinaseed aims to dominate the Vietnamese plant seed sector and to sustain an average pace of growth at 20-25 per cent per year until 2021. Though there will be a lot of challenges in our upcoming journey, we believe that intelligence and scientific-technological competence, strength from solidarity, and the aspiration to only give the best seed products will keep improving living standards in Vietnam, forecast Vinaseeds chairman. Cambodian land rights activists have accused Chinese investors of fueling land disputes through unscrupulous land acquisition and development. The advocates made the comments during a two-day meeting in Phnom Penh earlier this month. Yu Veasna, a land rights activist from Sihanoukville, said Chinese investors in the area had encroached on the Prek Toub lake in the town, which was the main water source for the local community. Large-scale Chinese investment in Preah Sihanouk province in recent years has led to a backlash, with locals blaming Chinese investors for soaring property prices and worsening living conditions for Cambodians in the province. This is a big problem, Veasna said. Even if there are official land titles held for more than 20 years in an area the Chinese want, they will just create a new land title for it, he added. According to local NGO Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community (CCFC), some 20,000 families have suffered as a result of land disputes related to Chinese investment since 2003. Sam Sophy, a representative of families in Koh Kong provinces Ta Noun commune, said villagers there involved in a dispute with Chinas Union Development Group (UDG) had not been informed of the companys development plans, which had led to scores of complaints on its 40,000-hectare concession. They did not discuss with the local residents. They did not invite any community representatives to talk. They only tell us to register our land lots with the company, measure it and accuse us of living on their lands, he said. UDG was granted a land lease in 2008 to develop a $3.8 billion multi-use tourism city in Botum Sakor and Kiri Sakor districts. Theng Savoeun, CCFC director, said Chinese investment was the main challenge faced by vulnerable Cambodian landholders. "This is the problem. Farmers will face a new problem while Chinese need to invest on the farming land. For example, land in Sihanoukville that belongs to Cambodians was claimed by Chinese and sold to Chinese," he said. Meas Ny, a social analyst, told VOA Khmer that without judicial reform it would be difficult to make gains against land grabbing companies. I think its difficult if the justice system is still not independent. Citizens will suffer, he said. Sok Eysan, a ruling Cambodian Peoples Party spokesman, said last week that the government was working to solve the tens of thousands of outstanding land disputes. The disputes were caused by a broker who grabs the land. So it is not easy to solve it. We are working so hard to solve it. The Thai government has confirmed that a Cambodian national was among two immigrants found dead in a detention center in Bangkok last week. The Cambodian man, identified only as Sakhi, 55, was found dead with another Vietnamese detainee, known as Robat, 77, according to Thailand Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Busadee Santipitak. The pair had been held in police custody at the Immigration Bureau's detention center in Bangkok's Thung Mahamek district amid nationwide raids by officials on undocumented migrant workers, Busadee Santipitak told VOA. They passed away in their sleep without any sign of injury, she said. The cause of their deaths are being investigated. Their bodies have been sent to Chulalongkorn Hospital for a detailed autopsy. Thailand has renewed an extensive crackdown on undocumented or overstaying foreigners after the appointment of senior cop Surachet Hakphan as the country's new immigration czar earlier this month. While the chance for detainees busted in the campaign, including refugees and children, to pay roughly $1,500 bail has been revoked, the immigration sweep is adding pressure to the already-overpopulated detention center, better known as Suan Phlu IDC, said Phil Robertson, deputy chief of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch. The Suan Phlu IDC is an old facility that is incredibly overcrowded and highly unhygienic, with major deficiencies in provision of nutritious food and adequate health care, Robertson told VOA in an email. Given how bad the conditions are and the sudden surge of people detained there because of these immigration sweeps, its reasonable to expect there will be more people falling seriously ill at this facility. The Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok and foreign and labor spokespeople could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. The immigration crackdown took place as Thailand is expected to hold a general election the first since the 2014 coup d'etat that toppled the democratically-elected Pheu Thai Party government. After the May 2014 military takeover, the junta oversaw a sudden immigration exodus, with some 220,000 undocumented Cambodian workers being deported. Approximately 1.5 million Cambodians are either legally or illegally working in Thailand. Previous media reports cited Cambodian Labor Minister Ith Samheng as saying back in May that a push by Cambodian government to coordinate the legalization of its citizens working in Thailand had seen only about 80,000 workers registered by the middle of this year. Sri Lanka is warned of reduced investor interest and increased capital outflows, leading to more pressure on rupee and raising financing costs amid the current fractious political environment. A higher likelihood that the countrys fiscal and current account deficits will widen again could reduce investor appetite for Sri Lankan debt and spur capital outflows, weigh on the currency and raise financing costs, international rating agency, Moodys Investor Services stated yesterday. Moodys expressed concerns over uncertainty in continuation of fiscal consolidation programme with the change of Prime Minister and Cabinet, which would adversely impact the health of State-owned enterprises, and as a result the countrys fiscal position. An aide to new Prime Minister Rajapaksa, MP Dullas Alahapperuma yesterday said that IMF-backed fuel pricing formula is likely to be scrapped from next month, subject to the Cabinet approval. In particular, fiscal consolidation beyond the conclusion of the International Monetary Fund programme in mid-2019 and especially ahead of elections due in 2020 is at risk of delays. Some planned measures, such as electricity price reform, which is already politically contentious, will be even more difficult to implement. If it falls through, this will hurt the financial health of some State-owned enterprises and, as a result, the countrys fiscal position, Moodys stated. The rating agency projected that Sri Lankas debt will remain above 70 percent of GDP by 2020 and that interest payments will continue to absorb about 40 percent of revenue in the next couple of years along with sizeable external and foreign currency borrowing needs, lower capital inflows and higher financing costs would hurt Sri Lankas fiscal strength and credit profile. Sri Lankas foreign exchange reserves fell to US $6.4 billion in September 2018, covering about 3.4 months of imports, down from their peak of US $9.0 billion in April 2018. Moodys highlighted that Sri Lanka faces greater refinancing risks in an environment of rising political tensions and tightening financing conditions globally, as Sri Lanka has smaller buffers to manage repayments. According to Moodys External Vulnerability Indicator, the ratio of external debt due over the next year to foreign exchange reserves is projected to stand at 160 percent at the end of 2019. Moreover, Moodys stated that simmering civil unrest as reflected in recent protests linked to underlying religious and social tensions poses a threat to economic stability, as GDP growth was already low at 3.7 percent in the second quarter of 2018, compared to an average of 5.6 percent in the ten years to 2017. Moodys noted that Sri Lankas top trading partners including the US (Aaa stable) and European Union (Aaa stable) have voiced concern over the prevailing political crisis, calling on the government to follow the constitutional process for leadership changes. As the basis for the dismissal, the President cited Article 42, which states that the President appoints as Prime Minister the Member of Parliament who, in the Presidents opinion, has the confidence of parliament. According to Articles 46 and 48, the Prime Ministers office can end in case of death, resignation, if he or she is no longer a Member of Parliament, or if the government loses the confidence of parliament, Moodys stated. An Afghan military helicopter carrying senior officers crashed in the western province of Farah early Wednesday, killing at least 25 people on board. A provincial government spokesman told VOA the aircraft went down shortly after taking off from the mountainous Anar Dara district for neighboring Herat province next to the Iranian border. Nasir Mehri confirmed the deputy corps commander for western Afghanistan and the head of Farahs provincial council were among those killed. He blamed bad weather for causing the crash. The Taliban said its fighters shot down the Afghan National Army (ANA) helicopter, though it was not possible to independently verify the insurgent claims. Separately, Afghan authorities confirmed a early morning suicide blast at the entrance of the countrys largest prison in Kabul killed at least six people and wounded many more. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombing. The bomber targeted a bus for female staff of the Pul-e-Charkhi jail, located in an eastern part of the national capital, said Kabul police spokesman Basir Mujahid. He said police personnel and civilians were among the victims. Anonymous threats. Police harassment. Hostile officials. The constant, hovering cloud of self-censorship, social exclusion and forced exile. And to top it all off: low pay. Welcome to the life of a typical African investigative journalist. In recent years, intrepid African reporters have played a key role in uncovering corruption, human rights abuses, gang violence, drug and wildlife crimes, and other unsavory dealings; but, says South African journalism professor Anton Harber, that's come at a cost. "There's a tale of repression, assassination, harassment, jailing," he told VOA. "It's pretty rough out there." Each year since 2004, the professor has hosted a conference that brings hundreds of African investigative journalists to Johannesburg to talk about the business and make connections. Even among the hardcore crowd, Muno Gedi stands out. She's an investigative journalist in what is possibly the world's toughest dateline: Mogadishu, Somalia's unstable capital. Gedi writes about topics like the traditional practice of female genital mutilation, the sale of international food aid in refugee camps, and the ongoing, relentless conflict between Somali clans and militant groups. Gedi says she often receives threats, many of them anonymous. "I think the investigative journalism in the world is always risky, especially Somalia; it is a risky area," she said. "So when you work for the investigative journalism in Somalia, it's not easy." Reporters without Borders says Somalia is the deadliest country for reporters in sub-Saharan Africa, with two journalists killed this year in connection with their work. In Tanzania, the Committee to Protect Journalists says the government has in the last three years implemented harsh legislation and harassed journalists and bloggers. Newspaper journalist Kelvin Matandiko says he feels that every day. "It's a shock to different journalists who were experienced in working in free areas like Tanzania," he told VOA. "But the current political regime has come with new changes and I don't know what is the reason behind this, but we believe that this is to kill our media industry." It all comes down to integrity, says Premium Times publisher Dapo Olorunyomi. And in his notoriously corrupt country of Nigeria, Olorunyomi says that sometimes means shining a light on the threats that come from within journalism itself. He pointed to the recent terminations or proposed dismissals of 15 VOA Hausa service employees after an investigation found they had accepted improper payments from a top Nigerian official. He says that's what makes investigative journalism so hard: The truth trumps all, even when the truth hurts. "Nigerians are really very upset about that, I must let you know," he told VOA. "Especially for those who are doing their jobs daily, trying to hold public officials accountable in Nigeria. That's a difficult job in itself, not to add this kind of embarrassing situation to it. So we are generally upset about it, but I think VOA management has also done what it must do. It was the right thing to do." Journalism professor Harber said one of the most worrying threats to journalism lies far beyond Africa's borders. Just this week, U.S. President Donald Trump described what he called the "fake news media" as the "true enemy of the people." American and international media houses have widely refuted and condemned these statements. Harber says these words resonate globally. "There's no question that dictators or potential dictators here cite things being said in places like Washington to support the view that things need to be done about the media and the way they behave." Gedi, Matandiko and Olorunyomi laughed when VOA asked why they like such difficult, thankless work. But then they all paused, and gave some version of the same answer: Because, they said, people deserve the truth. The crash of a Lion Air jet carrying 189 people in Indonesia is again raising discussions about the countrys air safety, which once had a poor reputation but has improved markedly in recent years. Just 13 minutes after taking off from the Indonesian capital of Jakarta to the city Pangkal Pinang in the Bangka-Belitung province, the Boeing 737 Max 8 operating since August with an 800-hour airtime went missing from the radar after the pilot requested to return to base. The plane crashed into the Java Sea Monday near Karawang, West Java. Search and rescue team has been deployed in the waters, having found debris, belongings and 48 body bags containing body parts. The search for the black box, deemed to be the key element in looking for the reason why the plane crashed, is still underway, with ships and sonar system already deployed. Data shown by the flight tracking service FlightRadar24 showed that the airplane had shown irregularities, noting an increase of speed, a decrease in altitude and a high rate of descent. The government wouldnt directly comment for this story, but at a press conference Tuesday the Transport ministry said it has conducted an inspection on Lion Airs eight other Boeing 737 Max 8 planes. This is a form of a sanction, were inspecting the planes for clarification purposes to determine whether theyre good or faulty, said Budi Karya, Indonesias transportation minister, in a press conference Tuesday. According to Daniel Putut, Lions Air Managing Director, the investigation will perhaps take a week to complete and Lion Air is ready to receive any sanction thats given, he said Tuesday in a press conference. The crash is the worst since 1997 when a Garuda Indonesia airplane crashed into the mountains and killed 234 in total, leaving no survivors behind. An AirAsia flight went down in 2014, killing 162. The latest tragedy has again brought to the fore questions on Indonesias aviation security. Most of the problems, according to Geoffrey Thomas, the administrator of the website Airline Ratings, boil down to infrastructures. In 2004, a Lion Air airplane skidded off and overran the runway, killing 25, according to the Aviation Safety Network. The safety of the infrastructure itself needs to be improved, he said. But aviation observer Alvin Lie says Indonesia has already had several improvements that qualify its air space for international standardization. It wasnt always like this. In 2007, the European Union barred most Indonesias airlines from entering their soil, a ban that was partially lifted in 2009 and only fully lifted last June. In 2016, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted its 2007 ban and bumped Indonesia into category 1, allowing its airlines to enter the U.S.. Lie said Indonesia has reached international standards, including the quality of human resources, navigation infrastructures, quality of airports and search and rescue management. In the last four years, we have improved our air security, he said. The recent accident could be treated as a mar on an otherwise better track record, said observer Dudi Sudibyo. Sudibyo also referred to the International Civil Aviation Organizations 2017 recognition of Indonesias achievements in resolving safety oversight deficiencies and improving the effective implementation of ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs). But more improvements are still necessary according to Lie. Indonesias domestic traffic has ballooned from 30 million in 2005 to almost 97 million last year according to the consultancy group CAPA-Center for Aviation. Though noting that Indonesia is the worlds fifth largest domestic aviation market, it is still plagued by an unfavorabl[e] regulatory environment and overcapacity. Right now, airspace in Indonesia is overloaded, especially in Java, Lie said. We have to improve the capacity of our air navigation service. One more problem we have is on our technology. In spite of all this, Lie also noted that compliance [from airlines] is another matter. Lie said what is needed is a Commitment from the governmentmany of the regulations have to be up to international par. Indonesias The National Transportation Safety Commission (KNKT) noted that the average of number of plane accidents every year in Indonesia is 28. According to its findings from 2007-2017, 572 fatalities were recorded. In 2016, the commission said that more than two-thirds of the accidents were caused by human error. The other causes included runway excursion, ground collision and more. More than 100,000 people who were dismissed from their jobs in the wake of the failed coup in Turkey are still awaiting justice, according to Amnesty International. The human rights group said in most cases, the government has failed to present any evidence justifying the mass purge of public workers. Meanwhile, critics say Turkey is exhibiting double standards in its demands for justice over the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Hundreds of journalists have been jailed in Turkey in recent years. In the wake of the failed coup in July 2016, Turkey imposed a state of emergency, and the government drew up decrees that led to the dismissal of almost 130,000 public workers, including doctors, police officers, teachers and civil servants. The state of emergency ended this summer. But Amnesty Internationals Milena Buyum said two years on, many of those dismissed are facing destitution. They are almost blacklisted. They find it really difficult to find work elsewhere. In the public sector its impossible, but even in the private sector they find it very difficult to be recruited for a position. So, these people have been destitute, Buyum told VOA. The government accused the dismissed workers of being members of proscribed groups allegedly behind the coup plot, led by the Turkish cleric Fetullah Gulen, who lives in exile in the United States. He denies any involvement. Under international pressure, Turkey set up an Appeals Commission. It has received 125,000 applications from dismissed workers, but has processed less than one-third of which fewer than one in 10 has been successful. As evidence, they included references to money deposited to a now-closed bank, for example, or a subscription to a particular newspaper, or membership of a particular trade union. All activities that are innocuous, and at the time they were undertaken, were not illegal, said Buyum. Campaigners say more than 200 journalists and dozens of human rights workers also have been arrested since the coup attempt. Khashoggi The killing of Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul has focused global attention on the targeting of media workers. Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has strongly condemned the killing and has demanded justice. Activists accuse Ankara of double standards. "We want the Turkish government, which unfortunately has an abysmal record with the treatment of journalists on its own, as does Saudi Arabia, to step forward, to use this as an opportunity to move forward into the future, out of the past, and to do something to help bring transparency and put an end to this kind of brutal treatment of journalists, Louis Charbonneau, the United Nations director at Human Rights Watch, told reporters at a recent press conference following Khashoggis killing. Buyum welcomed Turkeys tough response. We would like to see the same rigor in demanding justice for everyone in Turkey, she said. Many of those arrested during the state of emergency are still on trial, including dozens of journalists and several Amnesty International activists. The first thing musician Fadhel al-Badri did when Mosul was liberated from Islamic State last year was breathe a sigh of relief. The militants who seized the city in 2014 had targeted artists like himself so when neighbours said they were hunting for him, he left home, called his wife to say he was likely to die and took to sleeping in a different place each night. The next thing he did was recover his beloved violin and his oud, similar to a lute, from where he had hidden them in the frame of his bed. He said he hugged and kissed them "like they were my own children," and played amid the ruins "a song ... for Mosul." On Saturday, Badri and other musicians and activists attended the first orchestral concert in the northern Iraqi city since the militants were defeated more than a year ago by Iraqi and Kurdish forces and a coalition led by the United States. Thousands died in that battle or fled the city, large parts of which was reduced to rubble. The musicians played in a park where the militants once trained child soldiers and the music, a mixture of Western and Iraqi classical, wafted along the banks of the Tigris River. "Music is my life. It's amazing to hear it in Mosul again," he said. The concert was conceived by Karim Wasfi, former director of the Baghdad Orchestra, whose visiting Peace Through Arts Farabi Orchestra played alongside local musicians. Mosul was long celebrated as a center of Iraqi culture but that life was suppressed even before Islamic State declared its caliphate in 2014. Al Qaeda targeted musicians in the wake of a U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and no one could remember when they last heard live music in Mosul. Islamic State continued that crackdown, blowing up statues and monuments, said Ali al-Baroodi, a Mosul University professor and photographer. "We continued to consume culture in secret: we would listen to music, trade books, films, music. That never stopped even though it was dangerous," he said. Baroodi and Badri belong to a community of artists and activists who have defied fears of fresh attacks to hold weekly book markets and photography exhibitions. In a bold move, that community has also painted murals around the city in a bid to reclaim public spaces. Rich history Last year, he helped launch an international book drive to replenish the million books that Islamic State torched at the university library, one of the most important in the region. "Mosul lost its identity, lost its features, lost thousands of its people with many more still under the rubble," he said. "These efforts aren't going to fix everything overnight but it gives us hope." One new cultural centre is the vibrant Qantara cultural cafe. It opened in east Mosul in March, welcomes men and women, boasts a well-stocked bookshop and hosts readings and workshops. In addition, musicians including Badri have performed there. Its walls show paintings and photographs of Mosul's rich history and its recent devastation. One wall depicts the crimes of IS, displaying a yellow jumpsuit worn by detainees as well as handcuffs. Not every cultural institution in Mosul is seeing rebirth. The central public library, a research centre that housed rare manuscripts including government records dating back to the Ottoman era, was the only one to survive Islamic State intact, even though it was used as a base. Librarians hid the most precious texts but 20,000 books were dumped in the basement. After East Mosul was liberated, librarians salvaged what they could and stacked books on makeshift shelves. But with no windows and holes in its ceiling, the library remains closed. Its halls, once filled with student researchers, are now caked in dust. Library head Jamal Ahmed said funds had been set aside to repair the library, but government repair efforts had stalled. "This library is an important cultural home," said a library employee. "We can't just rebuild bridges and roads, we have to rebuild minds." Pakistans Supreme Court Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Christian woman on a charge of committing blasphemy, a crime punishable by death under Pakistani law. The landmark ruling sparked protests by hard-line Islamists and raised fears of violence. [T]he prosecution has categorically failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, read the verdict in the case of Asia Bibi. "I can't believe what I am hearing, will I go out now? Will they let me out, really?" Bibi, who has been in jail since she was first arrested in 2009, told AFP by phone from prison after the ruling. Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan warned what he called a handful of protesters across the country to "not take the state on" over the landmark Supreme Court verdict. "I appeal to the people to not let these miscreants incite you at any cost. They are not serving Islam, they are hurting the country. They are using language that enemies use... only for their self serving politics," he said. Several Islamist parties rejected the verdict. One of them, The Defense of Pakistan Council, announced it will now take matters in its own hands. Whoever gets a chance wherever should kill blasphemer Asia Bibi, said their statement emailed to the media. Security was tight in capital Islamabad where paramilitary forces were deployed to protect the Supreme Court and others sensitive areas. Security was beefed up for the judges following the announcement. Flash mobs blocked traffic and had altercations with the police. In Islamabad and Lahore, protesters attacked media and police, smashing cameras and cars. In Pakistans commercial hub Karachi, protesters burned tires and blocked roads in various parts of the city. In Lahore, Khadim Rizvi, the firebrand leader of Islamist group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasoolullah (TLY), led a large group of protesters outside the provincial assembly building to protest the ruling. Addressing the crowd, another leader of the group, Pir Mohammad Afzal Qadri, issued an edict that all three Supreme Court judges who passed the verdict should be killed. The group also demanded the ouster of the newly elected government of Imran Khan. Passengers traveling by bus between Lahore and Islamabad were stuck on the highway as various parts of it were blocked by groups of protesters. Police in various cities issues travel advisories, telling people which areas to avoid. Bibi, a day laborer, was arrested after a dispute with women with whom she was picking berries. According to her statement in court, she had a heated argument with the women after they refused to drink water she had fetched for them because she was a Christian. Several days later, a man, Qari Muhammad Salaam, lodged a complaint with the police, claiming Bibi had used derogatory language for the prophet of Islam in front of the other women. In 2010, a trial court convicted and sentenced her to death. She has been in jail as her case went through various phases of appeal. "The verdict has shown that the poor, the minorities and the lowest segments of society can get justice in this country despite its shortcomings," Bibi's lawyer Saif-ul-Mulook told AFP. Blasphemy is a sensitive issue in Pakistan where people have been killed by individuals or lynched by mobs over a mere accusation. Two years after Bibis arrest, a security guard killed the powerful and politically influential governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, who was trying to get amnesty for Bibi. A few months later, Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister for minorities, was killed for lobbying for a change in the countrys blasphemy laws, which are widely believed to be often misused to settle disputes. In early 2017, an angry mob killed a student Mashaal Khan of a university in Mardan over accusations of blasphemy and dragged his body around campus. The mainstream television channels in Pakistan avoided covering the protests and moved on to other news after announcing the courts verdict. Human rights activists hailed the verdict and demanded state protection for Asia Bibi, her family, and supporters. Justice had prevailed, said Tahira Abdullah, an Islamabad based human rights activist. Austria said Wednesday it will join the United States and Hungary in not signing a global agreement meant to minimize the factors that push migrants to leave their home country, while boosting safety, access to services and inclusion for those who are compelled to go. Nations are due to gather in early December in Morocco to adopt the non-binding Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which was negotiated through a U.N.-led process during the past two years. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said his government fears the agreement would pose a threat to its national sovereignty and that it would blur the lines between legal and illegal migration. Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache said there is not and should not be a human right to migration. Hungary also cited concerns about the agreement going against national interests when it announced in July it would not be part of the pact. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told reporters that contrary to his government's policies, the agreement would promote migration as "good and inevitable," and "it could inspire millions" of migrants. The United States was the first to step away from the negotiations, deciding in December of last year that the proposed agreement was "inconsistent with U.S. immigration and refugee policies." Then-U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States supports international cooperation on migration issues, "but it is the primary responsibility of sovereign states to help ensure that migration is safe, orderly, and legal." The Global Compact features 23 objectives, including boosting access to basic services, strengthening anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking efforts, eliminating discrimination, safeguarding conditions that ensure decent work, and facilitating safe and dignified return for those who are sent back home. The United Nations estimates there are about 258 million migrants in the world or just over three percent of the worlds population. The world body considers a migrant to be anyone who changes their country, regardless of the reason. It expects the number of migrants to increase due to factors such as population growth, trade, rising inequality and climate change. Brazilian president-elect Jair Bolsonaro has revisited his most contentious campaign promises, calling for looser gun laws, urging a high-profile anti-corruption judge to join his government and promising to cut government advertising for media that "lie." In interviews with TV stations and on social media, Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old former Army captain, who won 55 percent of Sunday's vote and will be sworn in on Jan. 1, made clear he would not waste time in pushing through his conservative agenda. Bolsonaro, who ran on a law-and-order platform, said he wants Sergio Moro, the judge who has overseen the sprawling "Car Wash" corruption trials and convicted former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of graft, to join his government as justice minister. Barring that, he said he would nominate him to the Supreme Court. The next vacancy on the court is expected in 2020. Moro did not respond to requests for comment. But Ascanio Seleme, editor in chief for the O Globo newspaper, wrote in a Tuesday blog post on the publication's website that Moro should not accept the offer to become justice minister. He has too much work to do on pending corruption trials, Seleme wrote. Seleme added it would also bolster accusations from the Workers Party (PT), whose candidate Fernando Haddad lost to Bolsonaro in Sunday's vote, that Moro has a vendetta against the PT and worked to keep it from power. The PT accuses Moro of finding da Silva, its founder, guilty of graft to block him from making a presidential run. The guilty verdict was upheld on appeal and Brazil's Supreme Court has rejected numerous requests to free the former president, universally known as Lula. The Globo newspaper, in a separate article citing unnamed sources close to the judge, reported on Tuesday that Moro was weighing Bolsonaro's offer, feeling that he could reassure citizens concerned the president-elect will not govern democratically. Media Showdown Late on Monday, Bolsonaro said in an interview with Globo TV that he would cut government advertising funds that flow to any "lying" media outlets. During his campaign, the right-winger imitated U.S. President Donald Trump's strategy of aggressively confronting the media. In particular, he took aim at Globo TV and especially Brazil's biggest newspaper, the Folha de S.Paulo. "I am totally in favor of freedom of the press," Bolsonaro told Globo TV. "But if it's up to me, press that shamelessly lies will not have any government support." Bolsonaro was referring to the hundreds of millions of reais the Brazilian government spends in advertising each year in local media outlets, mainly for promotions of state-run firms. The UOL news portal, owned by the Grupo Folha, which also controls the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, used Brazil's freedom of information act as the basis for a 2015 article that showed Globo received 565 million reais in federal government spending in 2014. Folha got 14.6 million reais that year. The federal government's secretariat for communication, which tracks the figures, did not immediately reply for a request on how much money the government has spent on media advertising since 2014. Neither Grupo Globo nor Grupo Folha replied to requests for comment. Cameroon's defense minister called on all foreign nationals in the country's restive regions to be cautious after an American missionary died after being shot in the head amid fighting between armed separatists and soldiers in the northwest. "If you must be there, immediately inform the military so we can assure your safety," Joseph Beti Assomo said Wednesday, adding that Cameroon's English-speaking northwest and southwest regions, where separatists are fighting for an independent state, are dangerous for foreigners. Charles Trumann Wesco, a missionary from the U.S. state of Indiana, had been in the region with his wife, Stephanie, and eight children for nearly two weeks before Tuesday's shooting. Dave Halyman, assistant pastor at Believers Baptist Church in Warsaw, Indiana, where Stephanie Wesco's father, Don Williams, is the senior pastor, said that Williams had spoken by phone with his daughter after the shooting. Reporting Williams' account, Halyman said the shooting happened as Charles and Stephanie Wesco were in a car being driven by another missionary to the town of Bamnui from the Bamenda suburb of Bambili, where the family has been living. He said Charles Wesco was in the front seat, and two shots hit the windshield and struck him in the head. No one else was hurt, Halyman said The family had raised financial support to work in Cameroon for two years and had visited the country two years ago on a survey trip. The United States embassy has not reacted to the shooting, but it has for some time warned U.S. citizens against travel to the country's restive regions. Most foreign and local enterprises have left Cameroon's north and south west regions, where violence has escalated and hundreds have been killed in fighting between separatists and the military in the past year. This is not the first time a foreign national has been killed in these areas. A Ghanaian pastor was found dead with bullet wounds in July near Buea, in Cameroon's southwest region. A Tunisian and his co-worker were killed in an operation in March Cameroon's southwest Manyu Division that also freed four other Tunisian engineers. Foreign road construction engineers were kidnapped in April by armed gangs in Mamfe in the southwest region for neglecting demands to stop building roads. The military staged an operation to free them, during which a Nigerian and a Gabonese died and three were saved. Authorities in April also said they had freed 18 people, including 12 European tourists, who were seized in their vehicle by armed separatists in Manyu in the southwest while they were visiting a lake in the region. Regional Governor Deben Tchoffo said armed groups staged attacks to stop the reopening of the University of Bamenda, and the military fought back Tuesday. He said Wesco might have been caught in crossfire. The military has killed at least four suspects in Wesco's death and arrested many others, military spokesman Col. Didier Badjeck told The Associated Press. He did not specify if the people detained were military personnel or separatists. The increased violence began after the government clamped down on demonstrations by English-speaking teachers and lawyers protesting what they called their marginalization by Cameroon's French-speaking majority. Armed factions emerged after the government crackdown and have been using violence to push for an independent state they call "Ambazonia." Protests against the 85-year-old Biya's Oct. 7 re-election have been ongoing. Throughout nearly six years of civil war, the Central African Republics military has struggled to restore peace. Fighting with rebels and militias has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, while accusations of human rights abuses and ethnic bias have left some civilians in fear of their protectors. The CAR minister of defense, Marie-Noelle Koyara, hopes to change course. Shes leading efforts to rebuild the militarys reputation and restore the countrys security. We want a professional army that will truly be of service to the people, Koyara told VOAs French to Africa service in a recent interview. Koyara said the country is working on various reforms: background checks on soldiers, training and troop deployments across the country. Military leaders also plan to establish four garrisons in key areas of the CAR. For there to be a return to security, it is necessary for our security forces, of which the Central African Armed Forces are part, to be reconstructed, because we have experienced the highs and the lows with this army, Koyara said. International players Much of the rebuilding of the Central African Armed Forces, or FACA, has been supervised by the U.N. Mission in the CAR (MINUSCA) and the European Union. The United Nations has helped vet soldiers, create a biometric database and rebuild a military camp in Kassai, near the capital, Bangui. The European Union has trained more than 3,000 security forces in the CAR since 2016 and has recently moved to increase funding for training in the country, the Wall Street Journal reported this month. The United States says it is focusing on improving food security for the CARs displaced people and providing employment opportunities that make young people less vulnerable to recruitment by militias or extremist groups. We need to create a partnership where peace is more profitable than conflict for the people of the Central African Republic, said Elizabeth Fitzsimmons, the U.S. State Departments deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs. Thats our goal, and well work on a variety of fronts to see how we can accomplish that. Russian presence One country has played a more active role in CARs conflict. Russia has donated weapons and sent about 500 military trainers to the country. As of September, they have trained more than 1,000 soldiers. Russia is also flexing its diplomatic muscles by working with Sudan to mediate a peace deal among CAR rebel groups. But Russias involvement in the CAR has drawn criticism from the international community, which has accused Moscow of destabilizing the CAR and seeking access to its abundant natural resources. I think any country that wants to play a constructive role, a law-abiding role, is understandably welcome, Fitzsimmons said. Where I see concern is if we have countries that want to come in and exploit the natural resources, that want to try to run a parallel peace process to the oneunder the auspices of the African Union, she added. If those partners are not going to be constructive, they arent going to be true partners. Potentially theyre going to exploit the resources and continue divisions. Russian mercenaries in the CAR have also grabbed headlines in recent months. In July, three documentary filmmakers were ambushed and killed in the CAR while investigating the activities of the Russian military firm Wagner. Koyara said she was saddened by the loss of life and is anxious to see the results of an inquiry into their deaths. She called on the international community to help the CAR track and remove mercenaries from the country. If you look among the armed groups who come to our country, there are mercenaries there also among these armed groups, she said. We need to have the means to follow and identify who are the people who come to destroy or destabilize our country. We are a country that has endured a grave crisis, and we are returning with great difficulty because we dont have the means to control everything that happens in our territory. This story originated in VOAs French to Africa service. Idrissa Fall sat down for a studio interview with Central African Republic Minister of Defense Marie-Noelle Koyara and Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs Elizabeth Fitzsimmons in Washington at VOA headquarters. Salem Solomon wrote the story based on the interviews. We must not return to the age of great power rivalries. Asia in rivalry will hold us back; Asia in cooperation will shape the century, said Deputy National Security Adviser of India Pankaj Saran, at The Indian Ocean: Defining our Future Conference in Colombo (2018). As the sponsor of the 1971 United Nations resolution 2832 for an Indian Ocean Zone for Peace, introduced by the visionary Sri Lankan Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Sri Lanka watches, with cautious optimism, the hope of reliving the reality of a Zone of Peace. While Saran has advised the region to keep away from great power rivalries, a realist perspective would suggest that in the present geopolitical environment, rivalry is inevitable. The 2017 National Security Strategy released by the United States describes a new era of great power competition as foreign nations have begun to reassert their influence regionally and globallycontesting [Americas] geopolitical advantages and trying to change the international order in their favour. Realists like the University of Chicagos John J. Mearsheimer and numerous geopolitical thinkers argue that Chinas rise lies with its geographical advantage. To keep the dragon at bay, the United States will use a defensive strategy of containment in three ways, they argue. First, the United States will seek to bar China from turning toward its military forces to conquer territory and expand its influence in Asia. Second, Washington will build an alliance structure along the lines of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which proved highly effective to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Third, the United States will look to dominate world oceans, making it difficult for China to project power in distant regions of strategic significance, such as the Persian Gulf and Western hemisphere. As explained by Mearsheimer, today, all three strategies are at play. There is no reason the United States cannot have substantial economic intercourse with China at the same time as it implements a containment strategy. Historically, this would be much like Britain, France and Russia, trading extensively with Wilhelmine Germany two decades before World War I, while creating the Triple Entente for the very purpose of containing Germany. China is becoming militarily stronger today. A month ago, the United States imposed sanctions on Beijing for its purchase of the S-400 surface-to-air missile defence system. The S-400 is a cutting-edge security tool that will protect against any missile attack by enemies. It is manufactured and designed by Russia. This month, another S-400 deal was sealed in New Delhi during the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to India; for now, it appears that the same United States sanctions will not apply to India and may perhaps be fully waived. Such sanctions are required under the Countering Americas Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which codifies sanctions against Russian arms manufacturers in national security interests. However, the United States 2019 National Defence Authorization Act gives the United States president the power to waive these sanctions. A free pass given by the United States to Beijings fearful neighbours may describe Washingtons strategy of lingering in the background, letting the surrounding Asian nations bear the brunt of containing Beijing. This was observed a few weeks ago by the Japanese scholar Atsuko Kanehara, who visited the Colombo University in Sri Lanka and spoke of the importance of the Shinzo Abe governments strategy of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP). A FOIP is a construct by the Japanese to assist their ally, the United States, to maintain order in the two oceans surrounding Asia, the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Chinas aggression, in the meantime, was on display when a Chinese naval vessel came within 45 yards of the USS Decatur as it conducted a freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea. An aggressive manoeuvre by a Chinese destroyer coerced the United States ship to quickly move to avoid a collision. United States Vice President Mike Pence at his speech on China at the Hudson Institute in early October stated, Despite such reckless harassment we will not be intimidated; we will not stand down. China now spends as much on its military as the rest of Asia combined and Beijing has prioritized capabilities to erode Americas military advantages on land, at sea, in the air and in space. China wants nothing less than to push the United States of America from the Western Pacific and attempt to prevent us from coming to the aid of our allies. Managing tensions between established and rising powers The established power in Asia, the United States, will most likely engage in two strategies to counter Chinas aggressiveness. First, it will use its economic power to slowdown the Chinese economy. This has already started through the implementation of the United States President Donald J. Trumps trade wars with China. The second will be to use a rollback strategy to peaceful encourage regime changes in Chinese-allied nations. Mearsheimer highlights this manoeuvre in his book, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. He compares regime changes and the operations carried out by the United States during the Cold War against nations within the Soviet sphere of influence. The same strategy could be adopted today against nations with governments that are willing to sit within the Chinese sphere of influence. This was seen in Sri Lankas previous regime change, with the ouster of President Mahinda Rajapaksas pro-Chinese regime. Some opine that the Rajapaksa regime was toppled by India, which acted as an agent for the United States to install a pro-Western government. For the United States, slowing down the Chinese economy is certainly more attractive than a direct confrontation or war. Slowing down China will also hurt the United States interests as many nations might be eager to fill the void created by the United States and willing to trade with China. While the United States takes on a broadly isolationist position, China works with a globalist approach. Trump was clear at the United Nations General Assembly this year that the United States has chosen patriotism and not globalism; this approach assumes an inward-looking position. Meanwhile, Pence, in his speech, explained Chinas debt trap diplomacy directly referencing the island nation of Sri Lanka, which is situated in an Indian Ocean geopolitical hotspot and is a participant in Chinas Maritime Silk Road. Pence used Sri Lanka as an example of a country which took on massive debt to let Chinese state companies build a port with questionable commercial value. He continued, Two years ago, that country could no longer afford its payments so Beijing pressured Sri Lanka to deliver the new port directly into Chinese hands. It may soon become a forward military base for Chinas growing blue-water navy. Pence is not alone in this view, as is widely shown in references to Sri Lanka in this context in the media and academia. China is offering hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure financing to governments where the terms of these loans are opaque and the benefits flow overwhelmingly to Beijing and not to the borrower. Despite being accepted as predatory loans, all of these nations continue to borrow from China as there is no good alternative. This is the case for Sri Lanka, even as its economy has weakened to a historical ebb, with the highest-ever recorded depreciation of the Sri Lankan currency. With this, the United States projection of taking Chinese loans by other Asian, African and Latin American nations cautioning they are predatory debt traps will not work either. Many South Asian nations are going through similar Chinese debt issues due to heavy borrowing, Pakistan being another such example. It is often argued that nations in Asia should not follow Sri Lankas fate of the debt equity swap model used to lease out the strategic port of Hambantota in the south of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has of late become the host of many Indian Ocean conferences to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific agenda, with particular attention given to the importance of a rules-based order in the region. It is worth considering the inner dynamics of such agendas, which are sponsored to instil strategic influence to the island nations foreign and security policy. It is worth to keep in mind too that the internal characteristics of states do not determine their behaviour but rather the anarchic structure of the international system and how nations interplay in the present geopolitical tapestry. Scholars at a recent Indian Ocean Conference held in Colombo spoke of the importance of peace. This included the Indian deputy national security adviser, who said that based on the principles that India has highlighted most recently in the Shangri-La dialogue, you will see in the years ahead that India will be more engaged as a maritime nation with the Indian ocean community in a manner that enhance collective prosperity, peace and security and in this endeavour we regard Sri Lanka as a specially valued an important friend and partner. In this light, the recent S-400 weapons system purchased by India from Russia violates the demilitarization agenda pledged by regional nations. Finally, in an unexpected move to the South Asian political landscape, Sri Lankas internal political coalition was reset by President Maithripala Sirisena on Friday, October 26, 2018. The former President Mahinda Rajapaksa was appointed directly by Sirisena to take the seat of the prime minister. Both Sirisena and Rajapaksa are political figures groomed by the late former Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaikes political party. If both leaders choose to continue her centre-left political positions and visionary foreign policy, including an Indian Ocean Zone for peace, Sri Lanka may be a leader in charting turbulent waters to leading discussions toward stable security measures and diplomatic cordiality in the Indian Ocean region. (Asanga Abeyagoonasekera is Director General of the National Security Think Tank of Sri Lanka (INSSSL) under the Sri Lanka Defence Ministry. The article was initially published by The Diplomat https://thediplomat.com/2018/10/sri-lanka-the-indian-ocean-and-the-new-era-of-great-power-competition/.The views expressed here are his own) China is exploring ways to build new infrastructure in a second-tier Philippine port city as a link in its Belt-and-Road Initiative for expanding Chinese trade in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited the Philippine port of Davao City Monday to talk for an hour with the host countrys President Rodrigo Duterte, according to the Philippine presidential office website. Wang said Sino-Philippine economic cooperation can expand to new areas, including projects of the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinas official Xinhua News Agency reported. Filipinos have expected China to act on its October 2016 pledge of $24 billion in aid and investment. They worry especially because the Philippines had struggled to get along with Beijing due to a maritime sovereignty dispute. A rehab of Davaos deep-water but otherwise small, ramshackle port would increase business for the 1.6 million-person city that anchors a resource-rich but largely impoverished southern island. Chinese shippers could use Davao as an import-export base and call there along the way to countries further south. At the end of the day theyre saying that its beneficial for China to have improving trade with many of these countries and if you have better infrastructure, it will help trade both ways, said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist with the research firm IHS Markit. Belt, road and sea China kicked off its Belt-and-Road initiative in 2013 to open trade foreign routes by investing in the infrastructure development of 100 other countries. The scope is expanding from initial recipient countries in continental Eurasia to regions including the South Pacific, Xinhua noted. Davao City, which is on a gulf near the Philippines Pacific coast, would make sense as a place for Chinese to use for shipping minerals, said Christian de Guzman, vice president and senior credit officer with Moodys in Singapore. Mindanao itself I think has been a recipient of I wouldnt say significant but a number of Chinese investments over the years related to the extraction of mineral resources, mining basically, de Guzman said. China is increasingly active globally in trying to secure some of these mineral resources, he said. Davao port development, he added, could be tied to the fact that Mindanao has been a recipient of these investments in the past. Adding to China's southbound focus, Indonesia received $23.3 billion in Belt-and-Road contracts in April this year. The Belt-and-Road is also opening a vast market for South Pacific nations, Xinhua said this month after Samoa signed an agreement to join Chinas initiative. If they have plans for extending the maritime silk road towards Indonesia and the South Pacific islands, then Davao would be a good place, said Jay Batongbacal, University of the Philippines international maritime affairs professor. He suggested that imports as exports could be sent through Davao. Although its a major port compared to Manila, its less busy, he said. Tough but receptive political climate Duterte, also former mayor of Davao City, opened channels for Chinese investment pledges by setting aside the maritime dispute that hampered relations from 2012 until he took office in 2016. Davao happens to be the home city of Duterte, Batongbacal said. In China, he added, they know they can do more in that city, faster, with him. While Filipinos welcome investment in a $169 billion, five-year infrastructure renewal effort hatched under Duterte, their country and China still dispute sovereignty over tracts of the South China Sea. China leads in military infrastructure buildup in the seas contested Spratly Islands. The southern port development plan in Davao is interesting because its part of the Philippine plans to encourage more Chinese investment, but it comes at a time when the Philippines is quite uncomfortable with the military activities and buildup in the Spratly Islands immediately off [the coast], said Stuart Orr, business and law professor at Deakin University in Australia. Some skeptics of Sino-Philippine relations are impatient for China to actualize the pledges made to date. In August, Wang and the Philippine finance secretary agreed to fast-track two railway projects. But analysts caution the Philippines against owing China a hard-to-pay debt as Belt-and-Road recipients Pakistan and Sri Lanka do. Unpaid debt has prompted China and other partner countries to consider localizing more projects and making bids more transparent. Due to debt trap fears, Batongbacal said, the [Philippine] government is much more keenly aware of what to avoid. Three more funerals were held Wednesday in Pittsburgh as the city continued to mourn the deaths of 11 Jewish worshippers gunned down in last weekend's mass shooting at a synagogue. Hundreds of friends gathered to pay tribute to Melvin Wax, 88, who was leading Sabbath services on Saturday when the suspected gunman, Robert Bowers, burst into the Tree of Life synagogue shouting, "All Jews must die!" and opened fire. Funerals also were held for retired real estate agent Irving Younger, 69, and retired university researcher Joyce Fienberg, 75. The funerals followed three on Tuesday for other victims and ahead of the remaining five set for later in the week. Meanwhile, a grand jury indicted Bowers, a 46-year-old truck driver alleged to have posted vitriolic anti-Semitic rants online, on 44 charges. The indictment accused him of a string of gun and hate crimes, including obstructing the victims' right to the free exercise of their religious beliefs. He is awaiting arraignment on the charges, likely at a hearing Thursday. In announcing the indictment, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the alleged crimes "are incomprehensibly evil and utterly repugnant to the values of this nation. Therefore, this case is not only important to the victims and their loved ones, but to the city of Pittsburgh and the entire nation." The funerals and the indictment of Bowers came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump visited the synagogue, placing a stone at each of the 11 Stars of David set up outside the synagogue. Placing stones at a grave or remembrance site is an ancient Jewish tradition. Trump also met with police officers wounded by gunfire in a shootout as they apprehended Bowers and spent an hour talking with Peg Durachko, whose husband, Dr. Richard Gottfried, was among the 11 killed. "Melania and I were treated very nicely yesterday in Pittsburgh," Trump said on Twitter. "The Office of the President was shown great respect on a very sad & solemn day. We were treated so warmly." Several thousand protesters demonstrated in the streets during Trump's visit, contending that his rhetoric helped fuel the gunman's anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant views against a Jewish group that aids refugees arriving in the U.S. from overseas. Trump complained about news coverage of the several hours he spent in Pittsburgh. "Small protest was not seen by us, staged far away," he said. "The Fake News stories were just the opposite-Disgraceful!" Trump shook hands with the synagogue's rabbi, Jeffrey Myers, and the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer. Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner wearing a Jewish yarmulke and daughter Ivanka Trump, who converted to Judaism when she married Kushner, accompanied the first couple to offer their condolences. "The president was very moved by the visit and his time with the rabbi and called it very humbling and sad," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters. The Anti-Defamation League, which has tracked hatred and violence against Jews since the 1970s, said the Pittsburgh mayhem was the worst attack against the Jewish community in U.S. history. Dozens of Haitian migrants were found adrift in an overloaded boat near the Turks and Caicos Islands. A U.S. Coast Guard crew found 84 people crowded into a 42-foot boat on Sunday about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southwest of the British territory. Cmdr. Randall Chong said in a statement Tuesday that the boat was "dead in the water" and lacked life jackets or other safety equipment. The migrants were given food, water and medical care aboard a Coast Guard vessel before they were returned Tuesday to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Coast Guard says 2,488 Haitian migrants attempted to reach U.S. shores by sea in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. Since Oct. 1, the Coast Guard says it has intercepted 132 Haitians in the Florida Straits, the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Clues to America's past can be found in its ghost towns, once bustling communities that have been abandoned. The deserted communities show us how the Industrial Revolution and two World Wars shaped the history of the United States, according to Geotab, a telematics company (think global positioning and vehicle tracking), which developed an interactive map showcasing more than 3,000 abandoned towns across America. Ghost towns are often associated with the Wild West and Texas does have the most ghost towns with 511 abandoned communities. California follows with 346, and Kansas with 308. Most of the Texas towns were established during the frontier era, from the early to mid-1800s. Mining towns sprang up around rich mineral deposits while the Mexican government's favorable terms a promised 4,000 acres per family for a small fee attracted settlers. "In the end, some Texas towns were destroyed by natural disasters and droughts, while others failed once the railroad and highway system reshaped transportation routes," Geotab's Kelly Hall told us via email. Towns founded around particular mineral resources were abandoned when demand dried up. "Once the need declined or resources were scarce, it caused the population or entire town to vanish," said Hall. "Others were economically overpowered by neighboring towns, the Great Depression or frontier settlements that simply died down." Sixty structures still survive in Bannack, Montana, which was founded in 1862. The town flourished when thousands descended on the area with hopes of making their fortune in gold. By 1860, the gold was harder to reach and, despite a brief resurgence in the 1890s, the town was abandoned by the 1940s. Natural disasters could also wipe out a town. That's what happened to Fort Jefferson in Monroe County, Florida. In the open space in front of a home-turned-school, hundreds of students line up to sing the national anthem before heading to their classrooms. Once occupied by Yemeni teacher Adel al-Shurihi and his family, the classrooms now accommodate nearly 700 students. Adel al-Shurihi, an English teacher who lives in Taez in southwestern Yemen, founded the school in 2015 with a vision to protect the town's children from the continued perils of the ongoing war. He turned his three-story house into what he named al-Nahda, or renaissance school, with 13 classrooms and separate bathrooms for boys and girls. Al-Shurihi told VOA from his hometown that the children's safety and the need to give them a sense of normalcy in the midst of war was what motivated him to open the school. Falling bombs and planted land mines made it harder for children to reach their schools," al-Shurihi told VOA. "Because of the war, my children, and the children of everyone I know, were unable to get their education. So, I decided to turn my own house into a school so that students could get their education safely. Al-Shurihi added, Our area is close to the clashes between Houthi rebels and government forces, and I wanted the children and their families to live a normal life away from engaging in the war in any way. Preaching coexistence Al-Shurihi said Yemens education crisis is larger than just opening a single school and requires concerted efforts by the international community to intervene. But he said he feels he is at least doing something positive for his community. In addition to regular subjects such as math and Arabic literature being taught, the school through informal lectures also emphasizes the importance of coexistence, tolerance and intercommunal understanding in an effort to instill a renewed sense of hope for a better future, and spread the spirit of inclusivity to the next generation of Yemeni children. Al-Shurihi added that because of the growing student population, his school needs more teachers. It is a constant challenge to find volunteer teachers. He also said a scarcity of books, blackboards, stationery and other supplies is also an ongoing struggle. There are no chairs and tables. Students sit on a rug on the ground. Strikes Tens of thousands of Yemeni teachers went on strike in recent months in government-controlled areas, demanding better salaries. Tens of thousands more in rebel-controlled areas have not been paid in two years, according to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF). UNICEF's deputy representative in Yemen Sherin Varkey, says this is a risk for "Millions of children." Varkey added that there have been 270 attacks on schools since the conflict began. About 12 percent of all schools in the country have been damaged. Female students are paying a bigger price for the conflict. Earlier this month, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that 31 percent of girls are out of school in Yemen due to the ongoing conflict. Compared to boys, girls are at a higher risk of losing access to primary and secondary education, the U.N. said. War in Yemen The war in Yemen began in 2015 when a Saudi-led coalition started a ground and air campaign in support of the government of exiled President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi after Houthi rebels took over the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. Since then, there has been fierce fighting in different parts of the country, which has turned into a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, with Iran supporting the Houthi rebels. Local and international aid agencies warn that the conflict in Yemen has created one of the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century, seriously undermining the local economy and leading to poverty and severe famine that threatens millions of people, including children. Exploitation Some aid organizations are warning that neglecting childrens education amidst the ongoing conflict could have negative long-term consequences for the war-torn country. What is also important is that we know that the children who lose out on education are more at risk of falling into negative coping mechanisms like child labor, then the higher probability of being vulnerable to recruitment by armed groups and the very worrying social norms of child marriage, Varkey said. The population of Italy's Renaissance canal city of Venice has been on a steady decline for years. At the same time, the number of tourists keeps rising and many Venetians complain their city should not be turned into what some critics describe as a "Disneyland on water." Their biggest complaint is about the arrival of gigantic cruise ships that dock right at Saint Mark's Square. Big ships present a dilemma for the city and its economy. The Venetians have long called them monsters because, many say, the massive cruise ships in their lagoon are not only eyesores that block the view, but also displace water due to their size and have been hurting the foundations of the city's gorgeous Renaissance-era buildings. Nearly 99-percent of the 18,000 Venetians who voted in an unofficial referendum organized by the No Big Ships campaign group in June last year said they wanted the vessels to stay out of the lagoon. Fewer than six months later and under intense public pressure, the Italian government announced ships weighing more than 96,000 tons will be banned from entering St. Marks basin and have to dock elsewhere. Now, questions are emerging mainly by the cruise industry on what the restrictions mean for the economy of Venice, and Italy in general. Cruise lines say they have an interest in protecting the sites they seek to showcase, and are defending their presence by pointing to the economic benefits their ships bring to port cities. Cruise Lines International Association President Roberto Martinoli spoke to reporters in Rome. He said the cruise industry represents nearly three percent of Venices GDP and this, he said, cannot be ignored. Martinoli contends the ships should not be blamed for Venice's problems and notes they represent less than 10 percent of traffic in the lagoon. He said cruise ships are not the giants of evil that some say are responsible for the citys overcrowding. Cruise passengers represent, he added, only five percent of Venices tourist numbers and have diminished by a quarter from their peak five years ago. He also said the cruise industry has spent billions on environmental research and innovation projects. It will not be easy to convince Venice residents who say the damage done by cruise ships especially to the environment outweighs any economic benefit from tourists who patronize the city's cheap souvenir shops, restaurants, and museums. At a demonstration earlier this year, Stefano Micheletti of the No Big Ships committee expressed sentiments common to many Venetians. Micheletti said large ships must stay out of the lagoon because it is not only about the visual impact next to St. Marks Square or the possibility of an accident, but about the lagoons eco-system. Big ships must stay out, he added, because they are a cause for pollution that critics say is ruining the historic city. Search and rescue crews may have located the wreckage of an Indonesian jetliner that crashed into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta early Monday morning. Military chief Hadi Tjahjanto said Wednesday that authorities strongly believe they have pinpointed the resting place of Lion Air Flight JT610, which disappeared from radar screens after taking off on a flight to nearby Bangka-Belitung island. Navy officer Haris Djoko Nugroho told an Indonesian television station that a 22-meter-long object was discovered late Tuesday night at a depth of more than 30 meters. Nugroho said divers will be sent to inspect the object after they conduct a side-scan sonar to get more detailed images. Locating the wreckage will put search crews one step closer to recovering the planes cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorders, known as the black boxes, which will provide crucial information on why the pilots asked to return to the airport shortly after takeoff. All 189 passengers and crew were killed in the crash. Divers taking part in the search and recovery efforts have recovered enough human remains from the crash site to fill as many as 48 body bags. The crash is the first one involving the Boeing 737 MAX 8, a new fuel-efficient version of the legendary passenger jet. Representatives with the U.S.-based aviation company are flying to Indonesia to meet with officials with budget airline Lion Air, which has ordered 50 of the new 737 MAX 8 planes at a cost of $6.2 billion. Lion Air chief Edward Sirait told reporters Monday that the aircraft, which had only been in service for two months, suffered a technical problem during a flight from the resort island of Bali to Jakarta the night before, but was resolved according to procedure. Indonesias transport ministry has ordered an inspection of all the new 737 MAX 8 jets. It has also suspended Lion Airs technical director and several technicians who cleared the plane to fly. Mondays crash is another black mark on Indonesias fast-growing aviation sector, which has acquired a reputation for poor safety oversight. The countrys airlines have previously been banned from operating in the United States and European Union. The United States is calling for a cease-fire in Yemen in order to support United Nations efforts to find a lasting, peaceful solution to more than three years of fighting. "(W)e want to see everybody around a peace table, based on a cease-fire, based on a pullback from the border, and then based on a ceasing of dropping of bombs that will permit the special envoy...to get them together in Sweden and end this war," U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said. "We need to be doing this in the next 30 days. We have mired in this problem long enough." Mattis spoke at an event Tuesday night in Washington, saying a cease-fire would allow the parties involved to step back from war and meet with U.N. special envoy Martin Griffiths. "That is the only way we're going to really solve this," Mattis said. A short time later, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo followed with a statement expressing support for Griffiths and a cease-fire leading to peace talks. "Substantive consultations under the U.N. special envoy must commence this November in a third country to implement confidence-building measures to address the underlying issues of the conflict, the demilitarization of borders, and the concentration of all large weapons under international observation." The conflict is a mix of regional and international influences that began with Iran-backed Houthi rebels seizing control of parts of Yemen, including the country's capital, from the internationally recognized government. In March 2015, a coalition led by Saudi Arabia began airstrikes against the Houthis in support of Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, and has followed with other military support including deploying thousands of troops The United States has provided refueling and targeting support to the coalition. Rights groups have criticized the air campaign for what they say is indiscriminate bombing that has killed and injured many civilians. Houthi rebels have also been blamed for rights abuses and sending missile and drone attacks against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Pompeo called for both those Houthi attacks and coalition airstrikes on populated areas to stop. "It is time to end this conflict, replace conflict with compromise, and allow the Yemeni people to heal through peace and reconstruction," Pompeo said. Griffiths last tried to get the two sides together for peace talks in September in Geneva, but the Houthi delegation did not make the trip, with officials expressing concerns about safety guarantees not being met. The U.N. envoy said in early October that such safety guarantees are important for getting the two sides to talk, and that while anyone would want a cease-fire for any conflict, he does not believe that should be a precondition for peace talks. An estimated 10,000 people have been killed since the conflict in Yemen began. The country was already the poorest in the region, and the fighting has pushed it to the brink of famine with the United Nations saying 22 million people are in need of aid. The International Rescue Committee welcomed the U.S. call for a cease-fire, calling it the "most significant breakthrough" in the war. "It is a very welcome recognition that current policy is failing and needs urgently to be changed to focus on a diplomatic solution," IRC President and CEO David Miliband said in a statement. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis provided a rare look into the ground situation for Afghans fighting the Taliban, revealing late Tuesday that Afghan forces had suffered more than 1,000 casualties in August and September of this year. The Afghan lads are doing the fighting, just look at the casualtiesover 1,000 dead and wounded in August and September, and they stayed in the field fighting, Mattis said during a discussion at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Despite the high casualty numbers, Mattis praised the Afghan forces for preventing the Taliban from taking and holding district and provincial centers and stopping them from disrupting the recent Afghan election. U.S. defense officials stopped providing the public with the number of Afghan security force casualties in late 2017. General Joseph Dunford, the top U.S. general, told military reporters at a conference outside Washington on Friday that this change was because Afghan President Ashraf Ghani did not want those details publicly available. Im not blaming him. Thats where it came from, Dunford said. They (Afghan officials) were incredibly sensitive about those numbers. We dont own the numbers anymore. Last month, the governor of Baghlan province, north of Kabul, told the New York Times the Taliban was inflicting heavy casualties on Afghan security forces. The Taliban dont want peace, because they think they can win the war, Governor Abdul Hai Nimati said. If it goes on like this, they are going to win. Dunford and Mattis both asserted that the regional strategy for political reconciliation with the Taliban is making progress. it is working from our perspective, but what is heartbreakingly difficult to accept is that progress and violence can be going on at the same time, Mattis said. According to Dunford, while the number of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan has dropped from 140,000 to 15,000 since 2013, the security situation has not become markedly worse. This is about making incremental progress over time, the general said. An impoverished Mexican town nearly flattened by a 2017 earthquake welcomed thousands of tired and hungry Central Americans in a U.S.-bound caravan this week in quiet defiance of U.S. President Donald Trump's condemnation of the group. On Monday, the same day that Trump ordered 5,200 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to block the migrants, residents of the southern town of Niltepec, who still live among piles of rubble that once were their homes, prepared for the caravan with homemade soup, medical tents, and diapers for children. "We wish we had a space dignified enough to offer our visitors," said Zelfareli Cruz Medina, Niltepec's mayor. As she spoke, caravan members were stringing up garbage bags to use as tents in Niltepec's main square. Surrounding buildings were scarred with cracks and gaping holes caused by the 8.2 magnitude earthquake that struck the region on Sept. 7, 2017. Of 1,720 homes in Niltepec, 1,602 were damaged in the quake, according to town officials, while 530 collapsed entirely. At least 100 families are still without homes, they said. A tower atop Niltepec's main church was stripped down to its fragile wood skeleton by the quake and Cruz said the town needed help to rebuild its library and the mayor's offices, which were serving as a shelter for the caravan's women and children. But a willingness to help the needy comes as almost second-nature to residents of the hardscrabble town in Oaxaca, one of Mexico's poorest states, Cruz said. "We know now what it means to suffer," she said. Near the church, three local families gathered at lunchtime in the shared backyard of rebuilt homes to cook an offering of chicken soup for the migrants, many of whom have said they are fleeing violence and grinding poverty in their homeland. Later Monday evening, Mariela Escobar, 52, a part-time cleaner, pored over a vat of fuming tamales - "hundreds of them," she said - to hand out free for dinner. "People helped us greatly," said her neighbor, Angela Moreno Galves, 81. "So now, of course, we want to help too." Setting out from Honduras on Oct. 13, the caravan quickly swelled to number several thousand people. The latest estimates put its size at 3,500 to more than double that - matching or exceeding Niltepec's population of 3,800. The warmth of the welcome in Niltepec stood in deliberate, stark contrast to Trump's hostility, said Jorge Luis Fuentes, a senior town official. "It's a form of struggle," he said. "It's a way to demonstrate that rights are universal." Most people would give anything to be present when history is being made - but it is only the wise and the astute, who perceive plum opportunities and can foresee the potential of savvy investing opportunities straight off the bat. The launch of the iconic Sapphire Residences in Colombo is one such historic moment as this spectacular new development, ideally located at the ceremonial heart of Galle Face, promises to be a beacon of excellence in Sri Lanka, recently named at the Worlds Top Destination to Travel to in 2019 by Lonely Planet. On Wednesday 14th November 2018, WelcomHotels Lanka (Pvt.) Ltd. and Sri Lanka Sothebys International Realty will unveil Sapphire Residences by Yoo Inspired by Starck to an international audience of guests and dignitaries at The Dorchester in Londons Park Lane. Guests include members of the Sri Lankan Diaspora, the investment and real estate communities and international press, who will attend a VIP reception in the presence of Her Excellency Manisha Gunasekera, the Sri Lankan High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. Sapphire Residences is a collection of 132 magnificent apartments, penthouses and world-class leisure amenities with interiors designed by London designers YOO working with design legend Phillipe Starck. Offering incomparable high-rise accommodation for contemporary family living, most apartments measure over 5,000 sq ft and residents have privileged access to the neighbouring 5-star ITC One hotel and all its services. Two distinctive illuminated residential and hotel towers, rising 220 metres and 135 respectively, connect at the 19th and 21st floors by a spectacular sky bridge complete with infinity pools and sundeck on top and a jazz lounge below. This distinctive Skybridge will be a unique experience in South Asia. US architects Gensler designed each tower using an innovative triangular plan, to maximise the uninterrupted views from each apartment across the Indian Ocean and the city. Engineered with no external supporting walls, uninterrupted light flows into every residence, accentuated by 3.5 metre floor to ceiling heights (c.4 metres in the penthouses). Following the high profile launch in Sri Lanka on 18th October, attended by Philippe Starck and his team at YOO, serious interest has already come from buyers in the UK, India, Singapore, Australia, USA, Canada, China, Belgium and even Estonia. Destined to become a globally recognised landmark for the city, the iconic design of Sapphire Residences was the vision of an international team of world-class designers, engineers and architects. The exceptional architecture, interiors, landscapes, amenities, services, materials and finishes all combine to make everyday life an extraordinary experience for residents; indeed The Splendour of Gracious Living is the theme that underpins Sapphire Residences. The bold ambition of this project, backed by leading global names in every aspect of its design, makes Sapphire Residences an excellent investment opportunity. Currently under construction with completion expected in 2021, Sapphire Residences apartments and penthouses are available from US$1.4 million through Sothebys International Realty. For further information contact +94 11 787 7777 or visit www.sapphireresidences.lk. If you will be in London on November 14th you are invited to apply to attend this exciting VIP launch at The Dorchester (or if you have a friend or relative who may be interested in finding out about investing in Sri Lankas newest landmark). Admission is by pre-registration only, so please apply for an invitation at https://sapphireresidences.lk/london-launch, quoting reference code 132. Nine former police officers in Mexico's Gulf coast state of Veracruz were sentenced Tuesday to 60 years in prison for forced disappearance, including a high-ranking official formerly with the state's Public Security Department. Many people have gone missing over the years in Veracruz. The case involves the illegal detention and disappearance of a man in June 2014 in the town of Chinameca. Prosecutors say he was "presumably tortured." The man was taken to a police base, then a police academy, then handed over to a special police unit known as "The Faithful." The unit is alleged to have carried out illegal detentions and disappearances of people during the administration of then Gov. Javier Duarte. Duarte is currently in prison facing organized crime and corruption charges. In southwestern Guerrero state, police in Acapulco said they killed five suspects in a running shootout around dawn. The state police said officers came under fire from suspects traveling in a small stolen car. They gave chase, and caught up to the car in an area far from Acapulco's beach front. Bullets hit two police patrol vehicles but no police were injured, authorities said. In the final days of the U.S. congressional midterm campaign, here are some key questions and races to keep in mind: Battle for the House Can Democrats gain the 23 seats they need to reclaim a majority in the House of Representatives? According to RealClear Politics, the average Democratic advantage on the generic ballot is 49 to 42 percent, though other polls show a wider gap in favor of Democrats. Another key indicator is the president's approval rating. RealClear shows President Donald Trump's average at 44 percent approve, 52 percent disapprove. When presidents have an approval rating below 50 percent, history shows they lose on average 30 or more House seats. Also in recent days, the Democrats are pouring more fundraising into House races that previously were thought to be more securely in the Republican column. In other words, Democrats are expanding the battlefield in the final days of the campaign, a sign taken by some analysts that the number of winnable House seats for Democrats is on the rise. The politics-tracking website FiveThirtyEight says Democrats have an 85 percent chance of winning back the House majority. Battle for the Senate The battle for the Senate looks different. Can the Republicans not only hold their narrow Senate majority but expand it? At the moment, Republicans seem cautiously optimistic because most of the hotly contested Senate races involve incumbent Democrats trying to fend off Republican challengers in states that went strongly for Trump in 2016. Democrats look to have a good chance of winning an open Senate seat in Arizona brought about by the retirement of Republican Jeff Flake, a frequent Trump critic. But Democrats are desperately trying to hold off Republican challengers in Missouri and Indiana and are still hopeful about what may be a long-shot challenge to incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas. FiveThirtyEight says Republicans have an 85 percent likelihood of holding on to their Senate majority. Watch the Sunshine State If you watch one state on election night, Nov. 6, you might consider Florida. The governor's race between Democrat Andrew Gillum and Republican Ron DeSantis is getting a lot of attention, including from Trump. There is also a high-stakes Senate race in Florida between incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson and the state's current Republican governor, Rick Scott. What happens in Florida will have a lot to say about where the voters are at in 2018, and it could have important implications looking ahead to the next presidential election in 2020. Trump narrowly carried Florida in 2016 and will likely need a repeat performance if he expects to win re-election two years from now. The movement of a jailed Nigerian Shi'ite cleric whose followers have repeatedly been targeted by the authorities said on Wednesday security forces had killed 42 of its members during two days of violent crackdowns on protests in the capital Abuja. Security forces opened fire with live ammunition on members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) who had marched in their hundreds to demand the release of their leader Ibrahim Zakzaky, jailed since 2015 when the army killed hundreds of his followers at his compound and a nearby mosque and burial ground. The IMN raised its death toll on Wednesday from the two previous days' violence to 42 from an earlier figure of 25. The toll included seven people who died of injuries received on Tuesday and 35 killed the previous day, said Ibrahim Musa, an IMN spokesman. On Monday, the army opened fire on the marchers on the outskirts of Abuja. On Tuesday, the police shot at the protesters in the city center, issuing a statement later that day saying 400 IMN members were detained. The statement did not mention any deaths. Police and army spokesmen did not respond to phone calls seeking comment on the updated death toll. The army has said that three IMN members were killed on Monday. Zakzaky was charged in April this year with murder over the 2015 violence, after being held for more than two years. Authorities ignored a court ruling during the period before he was charged that he be released, sparking protests from his followers. IMN protests have frequently been met with force. In April, police fired bullets and tear gas during days of protests by IMN, wounding at least four protesters. President Muhammadu has in the past accused the Shi'ites of creating "a state within a state", though he said at the time that civilian deaths could not be justified. Since then, however, the government has remained largely silent on accusations it has used excessive force against the group. Around half of Nigeria's 190 million people are Muslims. Although virtually all of them are Sunnis, Zakzaky has attracted an estimated 3 million followers as a preacher of Shi'ite Islam since being drawn to that sect by the 1979 revolution in Iran. The repression of IMN and detention of its leader have drawn criticism from international human rights watchdogs and raised concern that the group could become radicalized, just as the Sunni Muslim militant group Boko Haram turned into a violent insurgency in 2009 after police killed its leader. This is part of "Ocean Shock," a Reuters series exploring climate change's impact on sea creatures and the people who depend on them. A lobster tattoo covers Drew Eaton's left forearm, its pincers snapping at dock lines connecting it to the American flag on his upper arm. The tattoo is about three-quarters done, but the 27-year-old is too busy with his new boat to finish it. Eaton knows what people here in Stonington have been saying about how much the boat cost him. I've heard rumors all over town. Small town, everyone talks," he says. "I've heard a million, two million." By the time he was in the third grade, Eaton was already lobstering here on Deer Isle in Downeast Maine. By the time he was in the eighth grade, he'd bought his first boat, a 20-footer, from a family friend. The latest one, a 46-footer built over the winter at a nearby boatyard, is his fourth. Standing on the seawall after hauling lobster traps for about 12 hours on a foggy day this August, he says he's making plenty of money to cover the boat loan. He's unloaded 17 crates, each carrying 90 pounds of lobster, for a total haul of nearly $5,500. It's a pretty typical day for him. Eaton belongs to a new generation of Maine lobstermen that's riding high, for now, on a sweet spot of climate change. Two generations ago, the entire New England coast had a thriving lobster industry. Today, lobster catches have collapsed in southern New England, and the only state with a significant harvest is north in Maine, where the seafood practically synonymous with the state has exploded. The thriving crustaceans have created a kind of nautical gold rush, with some young lobstermen making well into six figures a year. But it's a boom with a bust already written in its wake, and the lobstermen of the younger generation may well pay the highest price. Not only have they heavily mortgaged themselves with pricey custom boats in the rush for quick profits, they'll also bear the brunt of climate change not to mention the possible collapse of the lobstering industry in Maine as the creatures flourish ever northward. Shifts by 85 percent of species In the U.S. North Atlantic, fisheries data show that at least 85 percent of the nearly 70 federally tracked species have shifted north or deeper, or both, in recent years when compared with the norm over the past half-century. And the most dramatic of species shifts have occurred in the last 10 or 15 years. Just in the last decade, for example, black sea bass have migrated up the East Coast into southern New England and are caught in the same traps that once caught lobsters. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, only 50 percent of lobster caught in the United States came from Maine. That started to shift in the 2000s, and this decade, nearly 85 percent of all lobster landings are in Maine. Pushed out of their traditional habitats by dramatically rising ocean temperatures and other fallout from climate change, the lobsters are part of a global dislocation of marine species that threatens livelihoods and cultures in the lands where they once thrived. On this island where two-lane roads twist around cedar-shingled houses and the rocky shore, lobstermen set the rhythm, often rising hours before dawn and resting not long after sunset. Although young guns like Eaton are flush with cash now, old-timers know that lobsters no longer thrive in warming waters to the south, and they've heard the talk about how fast the Gulf of Maine is warming. They fret that lobsters will start failing here, too, and Stonington will lose its mantle as lobster capital of the world to somewhere in Canada. And these days, there's not much to fall back on if it does. They remember back when fishermen could catch plenty of cod, pollock and halibut if lobsters weren't filling their traps. Until recently, shrimp was a reasonably reliable catch for local fishermen. But in 2014, regulators closed the shrimp fishery entirely. "Here you've got these coastal fishing communities that are totally based on what comes out of the water," says Ted Ames, a commercial fisherman who became a scientist and co-founded the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries. He sits in the research center's main conference room overlooking Stonington harbor, where hundreds of lobster boats bob on their mooring balls and the docks bustle with fishermen and their traps. In coastal Maine, he says, there's little to sustain a community other than lobster and tourism. "You eliminate lobsters, and you have an instant Appalachia, right here." Lobstering over time Unlike kids in most fishing communities around the world, youngsters here in Stonington clamor to get on the water. The gold-rush fever has gotten so bad, the local high school even has a program that encourages students to graduate before heading off to make a living from fishing. The skippers program, as it is known, offers the allotment of traps as a reward for staying in school. And when the students graduate, it streamlines the process of getting a full Maine skipper license, gradually increasing the number of traps to the maximum of 800. Deer Isle-Stonington High life sciences teacher Seth Laplant sympathizes with the students who chafe at being in school. "We have students that, you know, run their own business during the summer and do very well, and then they come back here and they have to ask to go to the bathroom," he says. "It's like a completely different world for them, and some of them do struggle with that. They're used to being their own boss, and they're respected in the community and in their families as adults." But like many teens, they still play the one-upmanship game. Only with these students, it revolves around the size of their boats or the number of traps they own. Colby Schneider tells the class he's the part-owner of a 30-foot fishing boat. Alex Boyce can't believe it. "Are you serious, you have a 30-foot Novi?" "Yes," Colby shoots back. "Me, my brother and my mom went thirds on it." Alex rolls his eyes. He's still accumulating traps and owns about a third of the 150 traps that students in the program are permitted to use. And his boat is only 19 feet long. Later in the day, Alex gathers with his father and grandfather in his grandparents' kitchen. "Every year he asks: 'Do I have to go back to school? Can I go fishing?'" says his father, offshore lobsterman Theodore Boyce II. "He went one weekend and made $700 in two days. That's a tough thing to say no to as a parent. But if he doesn't finish school, he doesn't go fishing." Alex interrupts his father: "I was going to say, you seem to have a pretty easy job saying no." Theodore's eyes dart toward his son, and Alex backs down. Alex's grandfather, Theodore "Ted" Boyce, is a fisherman and retired teacher. The 69-year-old, who still fishes part time, hopes his grandson can make a decent living on the water, but he isn't sure. Invasive creature In the summer of 2017, chatter on the Stonington docks was that lobstering wasn't going to be as lucrative as it had been in recent years. Lobstermen were pulling fewer lobsters, and the traps often came up coated with layers of slimy sea squirts an invasive jellyfish-type creature. The arrival of the squirts may or may not be related to climate change or the size of the catch, but it seemed to be a harbinger. As autumn moved toward winter, many of the traps piled high near the docks were encrusted with squirt carcasses. And when the Maine fisheries released their 2017 landings numbers, the chatter on the docks turned out to be true: Maine lobstermen landed 15 percent less than the record haul in 2016, the lowest catch since the beginning of the decade. Lobster rush The waters between the islands of Deer Isle, Isle au Haut and Vinalhaven tell the story of the lobster rush. Thousands upon thousands of colorfully painted buoys decorate the surface, marking the point where traps are strung below. Each fisherman has a color pattern: reds and whites, blacks and pinks, and yellows, oranges and greens. Most are striped horizontally, making them easier to identify when floating on their sides. Despite Maine's reputation as a largely undeveloped state, it's a thoroughly urban world under the water here. At the height of the summer, there are probably traps every 10 to 20 feet in the near-shore waters. To describe a lobster pot as a trap, though, is a bit insulting to most other traps. As a practical matter, this is free-range aquaculture. The traps are designed to allow smaller, younger lobsters to come and go as they please, feasting on rotten fish. Even larger lobsters come and go, although with a little more effort. The unlucky ones are snacking when the trap's owner decides to check it. Lobster buoys like the ones off Stonington once punctuated waters along the entire New England coast. Between 1960 and 2000, Connecticut and Rhode Island in southern New England accounted for about 15 percent of the lobster harvest. Since 2010, however, lobster catches have collapsed in both states, with a combined haul of less than 2 percent. Dramatic drop Even Massachusetts Bay, which sits on the southwestern edge of the Gulf of Maine, has seen the catch dip dramatically. In the 1980s and 1990s, when lobster's popularity with U.S. diners exploded, Massachusetts boats accounted for 20 to 30 percent of the harvest. Today, their share hovers around 10 percent. Southern New England lobsters once were protected from the warm water temperatures in Long Island Sound by upwelling from the Labrador current that tucked in along the coast of eastern Connecticut, Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts. As the waters in the sound became warmer and warmer during the summer months, the cooling current couldn't keep up, and cold-water species such as lobsters no longer thrived in southern New England. And what remained of the lobster stock was vulnerable to an unsightly shell disease that made them worthless at the market. But even as the lobster business boomed in Maine, the waters here were warming faster than almost any other body of water in the world. Since 1980, the waters in the Gulf of Maine have steadily heated up, but that warming accelerated in the last decade. In fact, the average sea-surface temperature has been between 1 and 4 degrees Fahrenheit above the norm for most of the 2010s. The warming is driven by direct and indirect effects of climate change, says Andrew Pershing, chief science officer of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. He says oceans the world over are absorbing heat from the warming atmosphere. The gulf's warming, however, is compounded by its position in the North Atlantic, which is close to the weakening Labrador current flowing from the north and a strengthening warm Gulf Stream current flowing from the south. "You know," says Ames, the lobsterman turned scientist, "lobster is the best example of global warming we have." Go-getters Perley Frazier has been working these waters for more than 50 years. And at 70 he still hauls the maximum permitted 800 traps. His buoys, black on top, white in the middle and red on the bottom, are usually found a mile or so from town, near islands that once were quarried for granite by Italian immigrants. The stone was used in the construction of the George Washington Bridge in New York and the John F. Kennedy memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. No one works in the quarries anymore, he says as he slows his boat, Jericho's Way. The rising sun winks off the peaks of swells and the thousands of buoys ahead of him. Without checking his chart plotter, he picks out a string of his buoys from about 100 yards away. Behind Frazier, his daughter, Lindsay Frazier Copeland, and son-in-law, Brad Copeland, prepare to hook a buoy and haul up traps. After a haul of three keepers, Lindsay and Brad shove the traps back into the water. Frazier throttles up and spins the boat a few feet to the next buoy. It's a well-practiced routine, and not much said is among the crew, called sternmen. It's hard work, this," Frazier says during one of their smoke breaks. "It's hard to find a good sternman who wants to work this hard." Since this trip, in fact, Brad and Lindsay have moved to Florida, and Frazier has put his boat up for sale. On the way to the docks to unload his harvest, Frazier points to a trawler heading into port. It's one of the few non-lobster boats in the town a herring trawler that goes offshore to catch the small fish, which are used almost exclusively for bait. And they can't land enough herring to satisfy the local need for lobster bait; it's trucked in from New Jersey, among other places. There are even stories of frozen fish heads from Asia finding their way into Maine lobster traps. These days, Frazier is using cowhide and discarded fish carcasses as bait. Others are using menhaden, or pogies, which migrated north into these waters even as the herring population has dropped off. Not much else to catch The truth is, apart from lobster, there's not much to catch here. And certainly not in the numbers that fishermen could make a living on. Until this century, only about 50 percent of all fishing revenue in Maine came from lobstering, according to U.S. fisheries data. In the 2000s, that started to steadily rise until, in 2016, it topped 82 percent. Later, Frazier sits in his armchair at home, after saving the largest five lobsters he caught for dinner. He sips a Canadian whiskey and recalls the days when there were other ways to make a living on the water besides lobster. Take shrimp, for instance. "They always said shrimp needs cold water. Well, we haven't had any cold water," Frazier says. "That's the biggest thing my biggest worry is about global warming. I mean, I've seen different fish that's supposed to be down south that's up here already, right now. "We got like triggerfish and we're gettin' butterfish, and fella told me the other day that he had a seahorse." He looks at all the new boats being added to the local fishing fleet and isn't sure lobster can sustain them. "These guys, they got three-quarters of a million just in the boat," he says. "And the gear, another quarter-million dollars. They are a million." Maine's fishing fleet is the newest in the nation among states with more than 200 U.S. Coast Guard-documented commercial fishing vessels. And it's not close. Maine's boats are an average 24 years old. The average age of the next two states, Massachusetts and Louisiana, is 31. Alaskan boats' average age is 37, Oregon, 45. Still, Frazier doesn't begrudge the money that younger skippers on newer boats are making. "I mean, these guys work hard and they go hard and put a lot of time in," Frazier says. "Young guys, go-getters. And they did it right at the exact right time." Six-figure income Back when Drew Eaton was in grade school, it took him two years to buy that first boat, which a family friend's daughter no longer used. "I could buy half the boat and the motor the same year," he says. He worked for the lobsterman the next summer to pay off the balance. Eaton left Stonington after graduating from high school and went to Pennsylvania for a year to study automotive collision repair. He didn't stay in that field for long. "I worked in a body shop for a year, and I was getting $12 an hour," he says. So he returned to what he knew. The young lobsterman's boat now easily produces a six-figure income before expenses. He doesn't linger on doubts about the future of lobstering in Maine. He leaves that for others. When he bought his last boat, he says, his parents were skeptical. "They thought I was going too quick." Eaton was 22 and it was the same type of boat his father had just bought. "And then I started catching more than Dad. And then I wasn't moving so quick." And besides, he says, "I am young enough that if I fail, I can start over again in something totally different." For many Jewish journalists in the U.S., persistent online anti-Semitic harassment has become part of the job. The phenomenon became pervasive during the 2016 presidential campaign, and there's been a resurgence in recent months ahead of next week's midterm elections, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Targeted journalists have found different ways of responding. CNN commentator Sally Kohn reaches out kindly to some of her online harassers. Michael Duke, an editor at the Houston-based Jewish Herald-Voice, has reduced his use of social media. Yair Rosenberg, a writer with Tablet Magazine, developed a method of tracking down and disrupting anti-Semitic accounts on Twitter. Rosenberg has written in detail about the vitriol directed at him, including a doctored photo showing him a gas chamber. When the ADL reported that he received the second-largest amount of abuse among all Jewish journalists on Twitter during the 2016 campaign, Rosenberg wrote, "My parents didn't raise me to be No. 2; fortunately, there's always 2020." Twitter, over the past two years, has become more effective at removing certain types of virulent anti-Semitism from its feeds, according to Rosenberg. But he said the company is less effective at blocking the spread of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories in tweets that avoid certain phrases and hashtags that would catch the eye of Twitter monitors. Rosenberg said he has grown hardened to the constant flow of anti-Semitic material. Perspective "I don't feel like a victim," he said by telephone from Pittsburgh, where and he and his Tablet colleagues are covering the aftermath of the synagogue shooting Saturday that killed 11 Jews. "What some people deal with in real life is worse than what I deal with online," he said. "There's life-and-death stuff, and there's me getting mean tweets." A few spots below Rosenberg on the ADL's 2016 "Top 10" list was Kohn, a liberal political commentator who appears regularly on CNN. For a book she published earlier this year, The Opposite of Hate, she reached out to several of her own Twitter trolls, conversing with them about the reasons for their vitriol and in some cases receiving apologies. In an interview Tuesday, Kohn said she is now less tempted to engage with her harassers. "It's all just so negative," she said. "I've stopped paying as much attention to my trolls." Also on the 2016 Top 10 list was Jonah Goldberg, a senior editor of the conservative National Review. He began receiving a torrent of online anti-Semitic invective in the second half of 2015, after Donald Trump declared his presidential candidacy and Goldberg was among the conservative commentators who expressed misgivings. "You had endless photoshopped images Trump in an SS outfit putting me in a gas chamber," he said. "You don't see that stuff very much anymore." However, he said there was a new surge of anti-Semitic material much of it generated by bots after the Pittsburgh massacre. "They flood the zone in the wake of these kinds of controversies ... sowing discord and distrust," he said. Like Rosenberg and Kohn, Goldberg tries to take the harassment in stride, though he took notice when photos of his dog became vehicles for further anti-Semitic abuse. 'Sheer inhumanity' One specific episode still stands out: Goldberg said that at one point he made public reference to the death of his brother and was "pelted with jokes asking if he'd been turned into soap or a lampshade." "I have a pretty thick skin," he said. "The sheer inhumanity of it that's stuck with me." At The Forward, a New York-based Jewish magazine, editor-in-chief Jane Eisner said anti-Semitic harassment directed at her staff surged in 2016, prompting new procedures for reporting particularly menacing threats to the police. "There's no doubt we've gotten used to this, which in some ways is a tragedy, but we have to do our job," Eisner said. "Just because you accept it and move on doesn't mean it doesn't affect you." At the ADL, one of the experts tracking anti-Semitic harassment is Daniel Kelley, associate director of the ADL's Center for Technology and Society. Even if some prominent Jewish journalists are able persevere in the face of such harassment, he worries that some Jews might be deterred from pursing a journalism career for fear of becoming a target. In Houston, Duke, a Jewish Herald-Voice associate editor, was targeted with anti-Semitic abuse after the paper reported on a 2016 visit by white nationalist leader Richard Spencer to Texas A&M University. Duke was called a "Zionist Nazi" and was emailed a photo of Auschwitz with the tag, "We're on the march." But there's been an upside to Duke's subsequent decision to reduce his engagement on social media. "It's made me a little better as a journalist," he said. "With social media, you can be a little lazy. This puts me back in touch with people we write about." The suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday, four days after 11 people were killed and six wounded in the deadliest attack on Jews in American history. The indictment, which was expected, charges 46-year-old truck driver Robert Bowers with 44 counts, including hate crimes. Federal prosecutors have previously indicated they plan to seek the death penalty. The charges were announced on the second day of funerals for the victims. "Today begins the process of seeking justice for the victims of these hateful acts, and healing for the victims' families, the Jewish community, and our city," U.S. Attorney Scott Brady said in a statement. "Our office will spare no resource, and will work with professionalism, integrity and diligence, in a way that honors the memories of the victims." Bowers remained jailed without bail ahead of a preliminary hearing scheduled for Thursday. Members of Pittsburgh's grief-stricken Jewish community, meanwhile, endured another round of funerals for the congregants who were gunned down in Saturday's rampage. Melvin Wax, 87, Irving Younger, 69, and Joyce Fienberg, 75, were being laid to rest as part of a weeklong series of services. "It can't be fixed," Robert Libman said at the funeral of Fienberg, his sister. "My sister is dead. My sister was murdered. There was no one I know like her. Pure goodness. ... She was the most tolerant and gentle person that I've ever known." Her sons, Anthony, of Paris, and Howard, of Vienna, Virginia, said she spent five years caring for their father as he battled cancer, then after his death a few years ago, devoted more of her time and energy to Tree of Life. "My mom would be very angry that her funeral wasn't able to be at Tree of Life, and that her friends lost Saturday couldn't be here," Howard Fienberg said. The funerals for Wax and Younger were to be held later Wednesday. Six people were wounded in the attack, including four police officers, two of whom remained hospitalized with gunshot wounds. Two congregants were still in the hospital, one in critical condition. In a bit of good news, hospital officials said the two most seriously injured shooting victims are improving. A police officer and a congregant remain in intensive care but "are doing much better now," Dr. Donald Yealy, chairman of emergency medicine at UPMC, said Wednesday. "I think overall the prognoses are good now. But each of them, in a varying way, will have a different trajectory and likely will require a series of ongoing care." Tuesday funerals The first three funerals were held on Tuesday, with thousands of mourners jamming a synagogue, a Jewish community center and a third, undisclosed site for the funerals of a beloved family doctor, a pillar of the congregation, and two intellectually disabled brothers in their 50s who were known as "the boys." Cecil and David Rosenthal were "beautiful souls" who had "not an ounce of hate in them something we're terribly missing today," Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, a survivor of the massacre, said at their funeral at Rodef Shalom, one of the city's oldest and largest synagogues. The brothers were both active at Tree of Life, with Cecil the more gregarious of the two, a man with a booming voice who was known as the "mayor" of the city's Squirrel Hill neighborhood and the "town crier" for the gossip he managed to gather. "They were innocent like boys, not hardened like men," the Rosenthals' sister, Diane Hirt, told mourners. Among the mourners was Dr. Abe Friedman, who typically sat in the back row of Tree of Life with the two men but was late to synagogue on Saturday and was not there when the gunman opened fire. As he stood in line at the funeral, Friedman wondered why he had been spared. "Why did things fall into place for me?" he asked. "I usually sit in the back row. In the last row, everyone got killed." A service with more than 1,000 people was held for Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. The 66-year-old Rabinowitz was a go-to doctor for HIV patients in the epidemic's early and desperate days, a physician who always hugged his patients as they left his office. "A lot of people are feeling really angry about this. A lot of rage built up inside about this, because of it being a hate crime. Don't get me wrong; I do. But I'm so overwhelmed with sadness right now that I can't even be angry right now," said Robin Faulkner, whose family had seen Rabinowitz for 30 years and counted him as a dear friend. "It's just such a loss. Just tragic." A private funeral was conducted Tuesday for Daniel Stein, the 71-year-old men's club president at Tree of Life. Trump visit On Tuesday afternoon, after the day's funerals were over, Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrived in Pittsburgh to shouting, chanting protesters with signs such as "It's your fault" and "Words matter," a reference to allegations that Trump's combative language has emboldened bigots. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, both Democrats, declined to join him during the visit. "He didn't pull the trigger, but his verbiage and actions don't help," said Squirrel Hill resident Paul Carberry, 55, wearing anti-Trump patches on his hat and jacket. Another Squirrel Hill resident, Shayna Marcus, a Jewish 34-year-old nurse and Trump supporter who hoped to catch sight of the presidential motorcade, said: "I don't think focusing on Trump is the answer, or on politics." One person was arrested during the protests. During their visit, Trump and the first lady lit candles at Tree of Life for the victims and laid white roses as well as stones for each of the dead, a Jewish burial tradition. They later went to a hospital to visit with survivors. They were joined by Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, as well as Myers, the Tree of Life rabbi, and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer. Two months ago, Marisol Hernandez's husband was gunned down by gangsters for refusing to work for them. For the pregnant 23-year-old, that was the last straw. She left her two children with her grandmother and decided to set off among thousands of other Honduran migrants in a bid to reach the United States. In her case, because she wants her next child to "be American." She is far from alone. Dozens of pregnant women are among the migrants, now in Mexico, fleeing poverty and violence in their homeland in search of the American dream. But the hope that her unborn child will be American and "graduate in something, study, speak English, know about computers and things like that," is being threatened by President Donald Trump's apparent determination to abolish birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants and non-citizens. "It's ridiculous. And it has to end," said Trump of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment that grants U.S. citizenship to those born on U.S. soil. For now, Hernandez is hoping that in six months' time, her newborn baby will become a citizen of the United States. Her story is a harrowing, but typical of those amongst the estimated 7,000-strong caravan heading through Mexico toward California. She used to work in a clothing shop but two months ago "mareros," gang members, killed her husband with "a bullet between the eyes" on his doorstep as he returned from work. "He refused to work as an extortionist," said Hernandez. The next day, she started receiving threats. She left her two children behind "because I can barely feed them" and set off in search of a better future. Wracked by doubt For the last two weeks, she's been sleeping in the street without a roof over her head and walking for 10 hours a day, when not hitch-hiking on trucks giving rides to migrants. The road is long and Hernandez is beset by doubts. "At times I want to go back because I feel like neither I nor the child will manage" the rest of the journey, she said in a moment of rest from lugging her heavy suitcase. The route became longer last Friday when the majority of undocumented migrants voted in favor of diverting from the Pacific highway running up to California and headed inland to Mexico City to ask for legal documents that would allow them to travel freely around the country. Hernandez is gradually regaining her strength to continue the slog so that her child can grow up far away from "the parasites" in her home country who use threats to recruit children into their gangs. She has no intention of taking up Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's offer to stay in the country because it's on condition of claiming asylum and living in the largely impoverished and indigenous-populated states of Oaxaca and Chiapas. "It would be the same as living in Honduras," complained Hernandez. She says she's heard medical volunteers accompanying the caravan claim there are 42 pregnant women in the group. 'No trust' "We've seen a lot of pregnant women but they don't come to us. It seems like they don't trust us," said Julio Mendoza, a medic in the town of Huixtla. Julia Martinez, a nurse who's been handing out vitamins to women, says she's seen some that up to "30 weeks pregnant." It's not just Hondurans on the long march to the U.S. Salvadoran Delmer Roxana Martinez, 29, is three months pregnant and traveling with her three-year-old son, husband and cousin but she left behind a nine-year-old daughter in San Salvador. "God knows that it's not out of ambition [but] it would be beneficial to the family" if her child were born in the U.S., she says. Stephanie Guadalupe Sanchez is only 15 but seven months pregnant and walks with difficulty. "I want a good job and future for my child. It would have a better life if we live there in the United States," she said, before heading off to her bed for the night, in a small space in the central square in the town of Pijijiapan. After months of absence in London, senior Saudi royal Prince Ahmad bin Abdulaziz arrived Tuesday in Riyadh, prompting conjecture among Saudi expatriates that older members of the Gulf kingdoms ruling family are ready to assert themselves in the wake of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Some London-based Saudi expatriates with ties to the royal family say the septuagenarian Ahmad, who was the Gulf kingdoms heir apparent until his brother, King Salman, altered the line of succession, may press for convening a family council to discuss how to control the fallout from Khashoggis murder. They say Ahmad is likely to lead an effort to curtail the power of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, widely referred to as MBS, and argue for the appointment of a senior royal to act as a "guardian" for the crown prince. The fact that Prince Ahmad has returned now says a lot; other princes are keeping away from turbulent developments, a Saudi expatriate who knows the prince told VOA. He added, Draw your own conclusions. Self-exiled dissident journalist Khashoggi was killed four weeks ago in Saudi Arabias consulate in Istanbul, where he had gone to collect documents allowing him to remarry. His murder by Saudi agents, some who have served as bodyguards for the crown prince, was belatedly acknowledged by the Saudi government after leaks to the media by Turkish officials who gave details of the murder. Riyadh first claimed Khashoggi left the consulate alive, but was later forced to admit the dissident commentator had been killed. Riyadh maintained the killing was a rogue operation by renegade security and intelligence officials and not a mission endorsed by MBS. That explanation has been met by widespread international skepticism, including from U.S. President Donald Trump. The London-based news site Middle East Eye reported Tuesday that Ahmad had held discussions already with other members of the Saudi royal family living outside the oil-rich kingdom. VOA reported last week about a series of Khashoggi-related discussions involving princes sidelined by MBS and who bear the crown prince a grudge. Last year, when MBS started to consolidate his hold on power in the kingdom, he launched a sweeping purge of rival royals, detaining 11 of them, but none of the sons of King Abdulaziz, the founder of the modern Saudi state, was touched. Two weeks ago, Saudi Prince Khalid bin Farhan al-Saud, a senior prince who lives in self-imposed exile in Germany, called publicly for King Salman bin Abdulaziz to abdicate in favor of Ahmad, the 31st son of the founder of Saudi Arabia.The monarch needed to abdicate to save what remained of his dignity, he told Germanys DW TV. Even before Khashoggis murder, there had been talk in Saudi expatriate circles that Ahmad was ready to become outspoken in criticism of MBSs policies, especially over the war in Yemen and his eschewing of traditional rule-by-family-consensus. Analysts are divided on whether King Salman will curtail his son, reduce his powers or even replace him. To do so would indicate dangerous weakness, reflect badly on his judgment to make MBS the next in line, and invite further demands from other disgruntled senior members of the royal family, say some skeptical analysts and diplomats. Others say that if the crisis cannot be brought to a conclusion quickly, then there will be serious political repercussions within the kingdom, including possibly a challenge to MBSs day-to-day rule. There are movements and there are signs that a dialogue is taking place within the royal family, says Khalil Jahshan, a friend of the slain journalist and director of the Arab Center, a research group in Washington. In the Saudi diaspora there are rumors, innuendo and hearsay with talk about this prince saying something, another saying something else, etc, he adds. But Jahshan says there are clearly discussions under way about how to limit the damage and protect the crown prince; but whether he can be protected will depend on what role he played based on the evidence. Pressure in the coming days is likely to mount on the Saudis over the murder and on Western countries to insist on the full truth coming out. On Monday, Khashoggi's Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, said she was disappointed by the Western response so far to his murder and demanded the Saudi authorities reveal where the journalists body had been dumped. Speaking at a packed memorial event in London, Cengiz said she held the Saudi government responsible for her fiancees killing and called on the evil criminals and their cowardly political masters to face justice. NATO and Russia envoys on Wednesday discussed their respective large-scale military exercises and a Cold War-era missile treaty that Washington vows to quit over accusations of Russian non-compliance, the Western alliance said. The talks, the first between the former Cold War foes since May, came against a backdrop of renewed tensions between the West and Russia, most notably over Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea and involvement in eastern Ukraine. A NATO statement said the sides had an "open exchange" of views on Ukraine, Russia's Vostok military exercises and NATO's ongoing Trident Juncture drills, as well as on Afghanistan and hybrid security threats. NATO this month launched its largest exercises since the Cold War in Norway, whose non-NATO Nordic neighbors Sweden and Finland have drawn closer to the alliance since being spooked by Russia's role in the turmoil in Ukraine. NATO troops are manoeuvring close to the borders of Russia, which held its huge annual Vostok military drill in September. The two are regularly irked by each other's exercises, where a show of force and deterrence play a major role. The drills have steadily grown in size in recent years as an atmosphere of stand-off between Russia and the West has grown. Russia's 2018 edition of Vostok mobilized 300,000 troops and included joint exercises with the Chinese army the biggest such drills since the Soviet Union broke up in 1991. NATO head Jens Stoltenberg also called on Russia to make quick changes to comply in full with the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. Russia denies violating it. "We all agree that the INF Treaty has been crucial to Euro-Atlantic security ... Allies have repeatedly expressed serious concerns about the new Russian missile system, known as the 9M729 or SSC-8," Stoltenberg said in the statement. He said development of the SSC-8 land-based, intermediate-range Cruise missile posed "a serious risk to strategic stability. "NATO has urged Russia repeatedly to address these concerns in a substantial and transparent way, and to actively engage in a constructive dialogue with the United States ... We regret that Russia has not heeded our calls," Stoltenberg added. At the same time, NATO hopes Washington whose other rivals China or Iran are not constrained by the treaty that rid Europe of land-based nuclear missiles will not pull out in the end. European leaders worry any collapse of the INF treaty could lead to a new, destabilizing arms race. Kimberly Williams acknowledges that she may not be what many people think of when they hear the phrase evangelical Christian. In fact, Williams herself isnt sure she embraces the label these days, even though she leads worship at the District Church in Washington, D.C., which by any definition is evangelical in belief. Im still wrestling with it, she says, worried the phrase has become too politicized and misunderstood. As a woman and as a person of color, its just hard, says Williams, an African-American. Thats a growing sentiment within church-going evangelical circles in the U.S., especially among the expanding number of evangelicals who are nonwhite. Almost 1-in-3 American evangelicals are not white, according to a 2017 study by the Public Religion Research Institute. And though many evangelicals of color embrace a conservative theology, their political beliefs are more varied than is commonly portrayed in the media. As the 2018 midterm elections approach, the schisms suggest evangelical Christians, who make up a quarter of the population, may not be as solidly supportive of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party as many suspect. A real racial gap To hear Trump talk, he makes it sound as if he has the support of nearly every single evangelical in America. I love the evangelicals, Trump told Pat Robertson, the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, in an interview last July. They came out in massive numbers. And on top of that, I got 83 percent. A year later, Trump claimed that 84 percent of evangelicals had voted for him in 2016. What Trump appears to be referencing are exit polls that suggested more than 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for him for president. But that figure only includes white evangelicals, not evangelicals as a whole. America is this bubble where we still act like evangelicals are just white evangelicals, and theyre not, says Jim Wallis, who heads Sojourners, a Washington, D.C.-based evangelical group focused on social justice issues. Evangelicals of color voted overwhelmingly against Donald Trump, while white evangelicals voted in a vast majority for him, says Wallis. Theres a real racial gap. The political divide is so drastic that many polling organizations, including Pew Research Center, dont even attempt to measure generic evangelical political opinion without considering race. White and nonwhite evangelicals are at opposite ends of the political spectrum, says Anna Schiller of Pew. Analyses that explore the link between religions and partisanship without taking race into account would obscure far more than they would illuminate. When asked about their partisan leanings, Pew found two-thirds of white evangelical Protestants lean toward or identify with the Republican Party. For nonwhite evangelicals that figure was reversed, with 63 percent preferring the Democratic Party. No clear definition Another complication: there is no commonly agreed upon definition for the word evangelical. The concept is so nebulous that historian George Marsden famously concluded that an evangelical is anyone who likes Billy Graham, the late evangelist. Of course, evangelicals share certain features. They are almost all protestant. They usually believe in a personal conversion experience, think of the Bible as Gods literal words, and have some propensity to share their faith. But most polls dont ask about beliefs; instead, they go by whether someone self-identifies as evangelical -- a tactic that some say produces misleading results. If polls asked how often someone attends church, for instance, the data would totally change, posits Aaron Graham, lead pastor at the District Church in Washington. Graham, whose church avoids either a conservative or liberal label, makes a distinction between the political and religious meaning of the word evangelical. In a political sense, the word is often used to describe anyone who is "from the South, conservative, and white," he says. The District Church, which represents 60 different nationalities, shows the complexity of the issue. I would venture to say that most people in our congregation would embrace being evangelical theologically but not politically in the way its understood today, he says. In other words: polls are likely skewed because some people who aren't practicing evangelicals will tell pollsters they are, while many devout evangelicals won't even publicly embrace the label. Trump supporters energized To be sure, a vast number of evangelicals do love Trump and are excited to vote in a midterm election they see as a referendum on his administration. Trump has been championed by some of the most prominent leaders in the church, including evangelist Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, and Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. Many evangelicals are energized over what they considered unfair attacks on conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual misconduct in high school. He rejected the accusations as a political smear. Weve seen an uptick in excitement from our base, says Lance Lemmonds of the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition. Lemmonds, whose organization has knocked on over a million doors in a get-out-the-vote campaign, says conservatives are encouraged by Trumps stance on abortion. This has been the most pro-life administration weve ever seen, Lemmonds says. And so evangelical approval of this administration is through the roof to this day. For this group of evangelical voters, issues like abortion, the Supreme Court and Israel have outweighed what they see as the personality flaws of Trump, a thrice-married, foul-talking, former casino mogul. We did not go to the polls to elect our local pastor to our church, Lemmonds says. Those are two completely separate issues. In many ways, its been compartmentalized. Political impact Despite the growing diversity in American evangelicalism, white evangelicals continue to dominate the political space, says Janelle Wong, professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland. White evangelicals turn out at higher rates than Asian-Americans and Latino evangelicals, many of whom arent registered yet or arent citizens, says Wong, author of "Immigrants, Evangelicals and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change." Another factor: white evangelicals are concentrated in politically important swing states, while minority groups tend to live in liberal states like California. However, minority voters have shown they can make the difference in local or state elections. Most notably, African-American voters in Alabama were thought to have helped swing the recent U.S. Senate election toward Doug Jones, a Democrat, who defeated Roy Moore, a former Republican jurist who had been accused of having sexual relations with under-aged girls years ago. But for many minority evangelical voters, who are conservative on issues such as abortion but liberal on things like immigration or the environment, there is no clear partisan home. All of which suggests that when it comes to evangelical politics in the U.S., the truth is more complicated than it seems. The Sri Lanka Association for Software and Services Companies (SLASSCOM) is pleased to announce the first-ever SLASSCOM AI Asia Summit to be hosted at The Kingsbury, on Wednesday 7th November from 8:30 AM 5:30 PM. This is Sri Lankas first conference dedicated to the topics of Data Science and Machine Learning with many acclaimed international and local speakers addressing the latest developments in Artificial Intelligence(AI)across application, research and adoption. Key international speakers include Timothy Kooi - Head of Data Analytics at DHL Asia Pacific, Dr. Yasantha Rajakarunanayake - Senior Director Technology at Media Tek, Dr. Adam Easton - Chief Executive Officer at Sim Centric Technologies, Dr. James Shanahan - Founder and Principal of Boutique Data Consultancy, Dr. Rukshan Batuwita - Applied Machine Learning Scientist, Dr. Chrisantha Fernando - Senior Research Scientist at Google DeepMind among others. Jeevan Gnanam, Chairman SLASSCOMin his vision for an AI Nation, identified Sri Lanka as the island nation that punches above its weight in many categories and the need to add Data Science and AI to that list. He further stated, Sri Lanka for the last two decades has relied on two main pillars for its IT/BPM export; that is Software Development and Finance & Accounting. This strategy has served us well as we grew 23% CAGR year on year for the last decade. However, times are changing. As a middle-income country we need to shift gears and look at increasing the diversity of our export-based basket of goods while climbing up the value chain. Its time to introduce a new pillar, one that offers exponential gains, the third pillar of Data Science and AI as this provides Sri Lanka with the opportunity in the next few years to lay the solid foundations of being an important thought leader in the South Asian context. Jeevan Gnanam added that Sri Lanka should strive to replicate these solutions as exports to other similarly placed developing countries. This provides Sri Lanka with the opportunity once againto move beyond providing labor arbitrage solutions to becoming a true, value-added knowledge provider for clients and stakeholders. The AI Asia summit will be a catalyst for this vision and raise awareness across industry, government, universities and private institutions of the opportunity ahead and what must be done now, in order to make this a reality. This event will culminate with the release of a Proposed AI Policy which will outline Sri Lankas vision for the next five years. Im elated to find so many Sri Lankans who are leading the research and development efforts ofcorporates and technology companies in the Data Science, Analytics and Machine Learning space Jeevan commented. SLASSCOM is also pleased to host Dr. Yasantha Rajakarunanayake at AI Asia 2018 to deliver a keynote on Inspirational Applications of AI for Sri Lanka.He was recently recognized by Jeff Bezos, Founder/CEO of Amazon,for his memorable accomplishments while at Princeton University. Since then, Yasantha has 94 patents filed in the US, a great testament of the nations talent and potential. His work and research interests include developing Machine Learning/AI algorithms and Computer Vision systems for energy constrained embedded devices and innovative applications and AI algorithms for human presence, motion and gesture detection. Join the SLASSCOM AI Asia Summit2018 and be part of this national agenda. Please visit bit.ly/SLASSCOM-AIAsia2018 for more details. South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar has returned to the capital of his war-torn land for the first time in two years. Machar arrived Wednesday morning at Juba's airport from South Africa to attend a ceremony hosted by his longtime rival, President Salva Kiir. The two men signed a revitalized peace deal back in September aimed at ending South Sudan's nearly five-year old civil war. Machar served as Kiir's vice president after South Sudan won independence from Sudan in 2011, but a power struggle between the two triggered fighting between forces loyal to both men. Kiir and Machar have reached several accords since then, but each deal has failed, including the last one in 2016 that forced Machar to escape a new round of fighting in the capital. The continued fighting has left nearly 400,000 South Sudanese dead and forced millions more to flee their homes. Under the new pact, Machar will serve as the first of five vice presidents under a transitional government of national unity. The director of a viral rap video that has racked up tens of millions of views on YouTube with lyrics flaying Thailand's military junta says the artists behind it have no intention of hiding from police. Since the junta, led by Prayut Chan-o-cha, seized power in a coup four years ago and banned political gatherings, it has harshly punished any form of dissent, jailing scores of critics and opponents. That's why it was something of a surprise when director Teerawat Rujintham and the collective Rap Against Dictatorship launched a broadside against the military by releasing a profanity laced video called My Country Has It on Oct. 22. Teerawat told VOA the public response to the video, which has been viewed more than 23 million times on YouTube, had vastly surpassed the groups expectations. Waiting for reaction "The project served its purpose, and for now each of the members of the group and I are just waiting for the reaction from those in power and the government to contact us," he said in an interview conducted partially through a translator. He said he and the group were not going to hide from the police. We're going to confront them, because I don't feel that [we] did anything wrong." Teerawat said the video had tapped into brooding resentment that many Thais felt toward the junta "under the surface" but could not express. "The country that points a gun at your throat. Claims to have freedom but no right to choose. You can't say [stuff] even though your mouth is full of it. Whatever you do the leader will see you," one artist raps in the video. Police initially threatened to arrest group members after the song's release, but as online views of the video quickly shot up, they backed down. Local media reported Deputy National Police Chief Srivara Ransibrahmanakul had filed a defamation suit against the group and stressed that its members remained under investigation. Police have not answered VOA requests for comment. Prayut reportedly weighed in Tuesday, warning anyone who "shows appreciation for the song must accept responsibility for what happens to the country in future," according to the Bangkok Post. "I do not care if they attack me. But if they do so against the country, I do not think it is appropriate," he reportedly said. Undeterred, anti-junta punk rockers plan to hold a concert Saturday in Bangkok at the site of a notorious 1976 massacre of student protesters opposing military rule. The massacre is regarded as a highly sensitive topic for the junta and is graphically depicted in Teerawat's video when the camera pans to an effigy of a corpse hanging from a tree, representing the lynchings that took place. Teerawat said he chose to use the cover-up of the massacre as a metaphor for the present. Thitinan Pongsudhirak, an associate professor of international political economy at Chulalongkorn University, said the artists are helping vent pent-up public frustration as long-delayed elections, expected now by mid-2019, draw closer. More expected "It strikes a chord because they feel that they themselves are fed up and frustrated with no way out, no voices to be heard. So these guys are speaking up for them, and I think we will see more of it going forward," he said. Political figures ranging from former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, the young billionaire leader of the progressive new Future Forward party, have come out in support of the rappers' right to speak out. Their support and the huge popularity of the artists means silencing them outright has become a precarious proposition, Thitinan said. "The military government will be in a dilemma now because on the one hand they want to suppress it, there's no doubt. But if they do suppress it they have less chance of winning the election, because these groups are popular," he said. "On the other hand, if they allow it to go on, to take place, then they would invite other groups, other movements to come to the fore against the military government," he said. Meanwhile, street graffiti artist Headache Stencil has gained notice for skewering senior regime leaders, including Prayut, in his satirical works. Paul Chambers, an expert on Thai politics and lecturer at Naresuan University, said Rap Against Dictatorship's video has gained strong popularity among urban voters, many of whom had originally supported the military coup. "Thus the writing is on the wall: More and more former junta supporters want the military to return to the barracks," he wrote in an email. "The surprise is that more and more urban Thais, who tended to remain supportive or apathetic to the junta, have now jumped on the bandwagon of demanding a return to democracy now." Prayut repeatedly has delayed promised elections since staging the 2014 coup, Thailand's 12th since 1932. He also passed a new constitution that grants him extraordinary power and the military virtually total control of parliament. Some steps have been taken to loosen the bans on political activities he implemented after seizing power, though many remain. Rangsiya Ratanachai contributed to this report. President Donald Trump says as many as 15,000 U.S. troops could go to the Mexican border to stop caravans of Central American migrants, many of whom are seeking asylum, from crossing into the United States. Its a dangerous group of people, the president said of the migrants after earlier calling them very bad thugs and gang members. But one woman who is from El Salvador and is part of the latest group headed north said she wants Trump to know that she and the others are not delinquents. Looking for work We are not going over there to steal or cause harm to anyone. We want to work by using our humble hands, with sweat and earn a little bit of money. We pray to God that we make it there and find jobs, she said. Trumps figure of 15,000 is far more than the roughly 5,200 active duty soldiers the Pentagon is sending to the border, along with the 2,100 National Guardsmen already there. U.S. Defense Department officials have told VOA that about 2,000 additional active duty troops will be placed on standby to help the active duty troops already assigned to the border. This would make the total number of troops deployed to the U.S. southern border more than the number of Americans fighting terror groups in Iraq and Syria. About 14,000 U.S. troops are deployed in Afghanistan. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, denied the deployment of active duty troops to the border is a political stunt to help Republicans in next weeks midterm elections. We dont do stunts in this department, Mattis said. The support that we provide to the secretary for Homeland Security is practical support based on the request from the commissioner of customs and border police. The president also denied that his tough talk on immigration is nothing but a fear-mongering ploy as Republicans face the possibility of losing control of Congress to Democrats. The U.S. troops assigned to help with border security are legally prohibited from engaging in domestic law enforcement, such as arresting migrants crossing the border. Defense officials tell VOA that military personnel will be moving border patrol agents around, setting up razor wire fencing and building temporary housing facilities for border agents when needed. A Pentagon official said some of the troops may be armed based on where they are sent along the border and what their jobs will be. The main caravan of impoverished Central Americans is still in Mexico and more than 1,600 kilometers (995 miles) from the United States. It will be several weeks before they reach the U.S.-Mexico border. Earlier Wednesday, Trump claimed in a tweet that the caravan included very tough fighters who fought back hard and viciously against Mexican police. Trump was referring to reports Sunday that a group of migrants broke through a gate at the Guatemalan-Mexican border and fought with police. Several officers were hurt and one migrant was killed, but it is unclear how. Trump has also criticized Mexico, saying Mexican soldiers were unable, or unwilling to stop the migrants. But White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told Fox News that Mexico has stepped up in an unprecedented way by stopping vehicles, forcing the migrants to walk and slowing their progress. There are currently four separate caravans heading to the U.S. border, the original group that left from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, more than two weeks ago; the second caravan that pushed its way into Mexico from Guatemala earlier this week; and two new caravans that just started out from El Salvador. We are hard-working people and if we migrate there (the U.S.) we want to be treated like human beings, one member of the El Salvador group said Wednesday. Altogether, more than 7,000 migrants are moving toward the U.S. border, hoping to escape violence and find opportunities that do not exist for them at home. But President Trump calls U.S. borders sacred and repeated his appeal Wednesday that anyone who wants to immigrate to the United States do so legally. U.S. President Donald Trump is embarking on an eight-state campaign swing over the next six days, staging 11 political rallies in a last-minute effort to boost Republican chances in next Tuesday's national congressional elections. The first stop for Trump is a rally in Estero, Florida, supporting the candidacies of Florida Governor Rick Scott in his Senate race against incumbent Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, and Congressman Ron DeSantis in his contest against Democrat Andrew Gillum, now the Tallahassee mayor, to succeed Scott as governor of the country's third biggest state. Independent political analysts are describing both contests as toss-ups, although the most recent statewide pre-election surveys show both Democrats with narrow edges. With the rally Wednesday and another one Saturday in Florida, the president is hoping to swing both elections in the state where he maintains his palatial Mar-a-Lago estate along the Atlantic Ocean, often his weekend retreat in winter months. As in Florida, several of Trump's campaign stops in the coming days are aimed at ousting incumbent Democratic senators, in an effort to increase the Republicans' narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate. Trump is not on any ballots in Tuesday's elections, but he told a rally earlier in October, "I'm not on the ticket, but I am on the ticket because this is also a referendum about me. I want you to vote. Pretend I'm on the ballot." As he heads to Election Day, Trump has ramped up his anti-immigration rhetoric in an effort to rally his most fervent supporters, the Republican base of voters. It was a winning issue for him in the 2016 presidential election, although he has failed to win congressional funding for the wall he wants to build along the U.S.-Mexican border to thwart further illegal immigration. But Trump is dispatching more than 5,000 U.S. troops to the border to block what he says is a dangerous caravan of several thousand Central American migrants heading north through Mexico toward the U.S. border. At the moment, the advance group of migrants is still 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) from a U.S. entry point in McAllen, Texas, but Trump assailed Mexico on Wednesday for not blocking their march northward. In addition, Trump said he would soon sign an executive order in an attempt to overturn a constitutional mandate that babies born in the United States, including to those of undocumented immigrants, are automatically U.S. citizens, a controversial move sure to draw a legal challenge. Independent political analysts in the United States are predicting Republicans will retain their Senate majority, perhaps increasing it by a seat or two, while Democrats will pick up at least the 23 seats they need to take control of the House of Representatives. A Democratic takeover of the House would end Republican control of the White House and both branches of Congress. It also would complicate Trump's next two years in the lead-up to his 2020 re-election campaign, with Democratic lawmakers already vowing to launch numerous investigations of Trump and his administration and possibly start impeachment hearings against him. Other Trump rallies Trump is headed back to the western state of Montana for a weekend rally for Republican challenger Matt Rosendale, who is trying to oust two-term Democratic Senator Jon Tester, who drew Trump's ire for helping to derail his one-time choice as chief of the Veterans Affairs agency, White House doctor Ronny Jackson. In addition to two stops in Florida, Trump is also headed twice before the election to the Midwestern state of Indiana to campaign for Republican businessman Mike Braun in his close contest against the first-term incumbent senator, Democrat Joe Donnelly. The U.S. leader is also making a pair of campaign stops in the Midwestern state of Missouri, where polls show the Republican challenger, Josh Hawley, the state's attorney general, with a narrow edge over incumbent Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill. In addition, Trump is visiting West Virginia, where polls show incumbent Democratic Senator Joe Manchin with a substantial lead over Republican Patrick Morrisey, the state attorney general. Trump is also holding rallies in Ohio, Tennessee and Georgia, all three with competitive contests for governor or the Senate. All of Trump's last-week visits before the election are in states he carried in the 2016 presidential election and would be crucial to his re-election chances in 2020. A Turkish prosecutor says Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was killed by strangulation immediately after entering Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul, before his body was "cut into pieces." The statement by chief Istanbul prosecutor Ifran Fidan comes as Turkey pressures Saudi Arabia to extradite the 18 people it detained in connection with Khashoggi's killing. Fidan also said that talks with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb produced "no concrete result" despite sincere efforts to disclose the truth. Fidan's statement was the first public confirmation by a Turkish official the journalist was mutilated after entering the consulate, the result of a premeditated plan. "In accordance with plans made in advance, the victim ... was strangled to death immediately after entering the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia," the statement said. "The victim's body was dismembered and destroyed following his death by suffocation - again, in line with advance plans." A spokesman for Turkey's ruling AK party said Wednesday Khashoggi's murder could not have happened without orders from at least one "high-level" Saudi authority. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has requested Saudi officials identify an alleged local collaborator suspected of disposing of Khashoggi's body. Erdogan and other Turkish officials have repeatedly complained that Saudi Arabia has obstructed the investigation by refusing to reveal key pieces of evidence like the location of Khashoggi's body. His October 2 disappearance at the consulate has created an international firestorm that threatens the already complicated relations between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States. On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, said he doesn't feel "betrayed" by Saudi Arabia but "maybe they've betrayed themselves." Trump, whose first presidential trip included a stop in Saudi Arabia, added, "I just hope it all works out." Turkey has steadily ramped up pressure on Saudi Arabia to provide answers amid its shifting official explanations on Khashoggi's fate. Weeks after the fact, Riyadh admitted the writer had been killed in the consulate by a team of 15 Saudi agents. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, often criticized by Khashoggi in his Washington Post columns, had hailed the "unique" cooperation between the two countries only days before. U.S. President Donald Trump has called Khashoggi's disappearance and death "one of the worst cover-ups in the history of cover-ups," but has also said the U.S. should not be too critical of the regime because of a pending multi-billion dollar arms deal with Riyadh. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has revoked the visas of Saudi officials believed to have taken part in the killing. Khashoggi had gone into the Saudi consulate in the Turkish capital on October 2 to obtain paperwork he needed for his planned marriage to Turkish national Hatice Cengiz, who waited for him outside the consulate. He was never seen again. The U.N.'s political chief cautioned Tuesday that planned local elections in two separatist areas of eastern Ukraine next month could contradict international agreements. "The U.N. urges all parties to avoid any unilateral steps that could deepen the divide or depart from the spirit and letter of the Minsk agreements," Rosemary DiCarlo told a Security Council meeting on the issue. In 2015, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine and pro-Russia separatists signed the Minsk agreement in the Belarus capital. It seeks to halt the fighting through a cease-fire and the withdrawal of foreign troops and heavy weapons, and open the way to a permanent, legal and political solution to the conflict in Ukraine, which began in 2014. De facto authorities in the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have announced that they plan to hold elections on Nov. 11. "As we understand, two separate ballots in both Donetsk and Luhansk are reportedly being planned: one for the "head of Republic" and one for the "People's Councils," DiCarlo said. She said the posts will reportedly be for five-year terms. She noted that election-related matters are covered in the Minsk agreements. "I therefore caution that any such measures taken outside Ukraine's constitutional and legal framework would be incompatible with the Minsk agreements," she said. Western council members echoed her concerns and condemned the planned ballot. "These sham elections staged by Russia run directly counter to efforts to implement the Minsk peace agreements," said U.S. deputy U.N. Ambassador Jonathan Cohen. "The elections also obstruct and undermine efforts to end the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine." "We do see these so-called elections as illegitimate," said British Ambassador Karen Pierce. "They are the latest example in the Russian campaign to destabilize Ukraine. They are a clear breach of the Minsk agreements, and they are illegal under Ukrainian law." Even China, a close ally of Moscow, expressed concerns. "China respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, including Ukraine, and opposes the interference in Ukraine's internal affairs by any external forces," Beijing's deputy envoy told the council. Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissed the criticism. "Today, we are witnesses of the latest round of hypocrisy the total and inexcusable sabotage by Kyiv of the Minsk agreements, over the long term, factually from Day One, has been completely ignored," Nebenzia said. "Instead of recognizing this fact, in the discussion in the Security Council we are discussing the forthcoming elections in November, which are a necessary measure in conditions of sabotage by Kyiv of its political commitments." He said European and American sanctions imposed on Moscow because of the Ukrainian situation is an invitation to Kyiv to continue undermining its Minsk obligations because Russia will be the one to pay for it. Ukraine's ambassador, Volodymyr Yelchenko, said holding these "so-called early elections' would amount to putting armed gangs' leaders in seats in illegitimate representative bodies." He said the move is a "provocation" and a "further escalation" of the situation by Russia. While he acknowledged to reporters later that there is little Kyiv authorities can do to stop the voting from going forward, he said the results would be null and void and not be recognized by Ukraine or the international community. After a brief calm over the summer months, the U.N. said during the past six weeks, cease-fire violations have spiked, and casualty levels have risen. It also reports increased tensions in the Sea of Azov, warning there is a "need to avoid any risk of escalation, provocation or miscalculation." The Kyiv government has been clashing with Russian-backed separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine since 2014. The United Nations says more than 3,000 civilians have been killed, and up to 9,000 injured since the start of the conflict. The U.N. refugee agency opposes a recent agreement between Myanmar and Bangladesh to begin repatriating thousands of Rohingya refugees in the coming weeks. The UNHCR says conditions are not conducive for the safe, dignified return of the refugees to a country they fled more than a year ago to escape persecution and violence. The decision to begin the repatriation operation in mid-November comes about a week after U.N. investigators warned of an ongoing genocide in Myanmar. Bangladesh reportedly handed over to Myanmar the names of more than 5,000 Rohingya refugees who had been processed for return. U.N. refugee spokesman Andrej Mahecic tells VOA that Myanmar reportedly agreed to the list, but the Bangladeshi authorities must consult the refugees on whether they would like to return to Myanmar. "UNHCR was not involved in preparation, transmission or receipt of this list nor in the verification and clearing that was reportedly carried out by the Government of Myanmar," Mahecic said. "Because we consider that conditions in Rakhine state are not yet conducive for voluntary return in the conditions of safety, dignity and sustainability, UNHCR will not, at this stage, facilitate any refugee returns to Rakhine state." More than 700,000 Rohingya fled to Cox's Bazar at the end of August 2017, in the wake of a brutal crackdown by the Myanmar military, including killings, rapes and arson attacks. The United Nations reports Rohingya continue to flee Myanmar, with more than 14,000 refugees arriving in Bangladesh this year. The Rohingya have lived as a stateless people in Myanmar for more than six generations. Mahecic says it is up to the Myanmar authorities to create the conditions for refugee returns, which include granting the Rohingya citizenship, freedom of movement, access to education and other basic services and rights available to the rest of the population. With less than one week to go before a crucial U.S. midterm congressional election, Americans are on edge in the aftermath of a massacre at a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh and the arrest of a man who allegedly sent pipe bombs to prominent Democrats and critics of President Donald Trump. Voters will elect a new Congress on November 6th, and the results could shift the balance of power in Washington and have a profound impact on the next two years of the Trump presidency. The mass shooting in Pittsburgh and the arrest of Cesar Sayoc for allegedly sending pipe bombs to several prominent Democrats and critics of President Trump have heightened the tension and uncertainty in the campaign run up to Election Day, November 6. Well, the country is in pain, Brookings Institution scholar John Hudak told VOA. This is a set of circumstances that unfortunately happens in America all too regularly, that is, acts of violence and acts of aggression toward fellow Americans by Americans. Trump was quick to condemn the attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and the historic evil of anti-Semitism. He also appealed for unity. We come together as one American people, Trump told a farmers group meeting in Indiana. Political tone But the violence in Pittsburgh and the discovery of the pipe bombs targeting Democrats have sparked calls across the political spectrum for candidates to tone down their rhetoric even as the midterm campaign heats up. Among those urging calm was former Vice President Joe Biden, on the campaign trail for Democrats in Ohio. I know sometimes the anger, the hatred, the viciousness seem like they are going to overwhelm us, Biden told a rally in Youngstown, Ohio. And it is on our leaders to set the tone, to dial down the temperature and to restore some dignity to our national dialogue. Some Democrats say the presidents partisan, sometimes personal attacks have contributed to the politically charged atmosphere. That brought an impassioned denial from the White House. The very first thing that the media did was blame the president and make him responsible for these ridiculous acts, charged Press Secretary Sarah Sanders. That is outrageous that that would be the very first reaction. Many news organizations took issue with Sanders contention. Trump's Immigration focus Trump has vowed to campaign aggressively right up to Election Day on issues important to his supporters, especially immigration. The president has highlighted the slow progress of a caravan of Central American migrants north through Mexico and ordered more U.S. troops to the southern border. The Democrat Party is openly encouraging millions of illegal aliens to break our laws, violate our borders and bankrupt our country, Trump claimed at a recent rally in Charlotte, North Carolina. Democratic Party officials have rejected Trumps claim. Democrats push health care For their part, Democrats have focused on health care for much of the campaign, but there is no denying that Trump also looms large. Democrats want to make this about health care and the tax bill and about Donald Trump. And lets face it, this is going to be about Donald Trump, said Jim Kessler of the center-left policy group Third Way. A recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll found that more than two in three registered voters said their impression of President Trump will factor into their decision on Election Day. Democrats expect to make gains in the House of Representatives on November 6th, and they need to gain 23 seats to reclaim the majority. But in the closing days of the campaign, the Republicans are favored to hold their narrow 51 to 49 majority in the Senate, according to John Fortier of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. Some of what has happened in recent days with the (Supreme Court Justice Brett) Kavanaugh hearing and Republicans kind of coming home as a party are helping in that area. So it will be mostly a win for Democrats with probably a bright spot in the Senate for Republicans. Both Fortier and Kessler were recent guests on VOAs Encounter program. Unkind history Presidents historically suffer party losses in congressional midterm elections, with House losses often ranging from 25 to 35 seats. The losses can go higher if the presidents approval rating is below 50 percent. Trumps average approval rating, according to the non-partisan site RealClear Politics, is about 44 percent approve, 53 percent disapprove. Gallup pollster Frank Newport said the key unknown for Democratic success in the election is their ability to spur a large voter turnout. Under the expectation that Republican voters typically are more likely to turn out (in midterm elections), can Democrats energize people who identify with the Democratic Party to turn out and vote for their candidates? The stakes are enormous. A Democratic House could block the Trump agenda and launch numerous investigations of the Trump White House, complicating the presidents re-election hopes in 2020. The top U.S. general overseeing a deployment of more than 5,200 troops to the border with Mexico said on Tuesday that troop levels would rise further but declined to say how high or estimate what the operation will cost. Many basic questions remain unanswered a day after the Pentagon announced an open-ended deployment of over 5,200 active-duty troops to the border, including the cost and scope of the mission as well as the Pentagon's assessment of any threat posed by arriving migrants. U.S. President Donald Trump has hardened his stance on immigration ahead of Nov. 6 congressional elections. He has drawn attention to a caravan of migrants that is trekking through Mexico toward the United States as he seeks to fire up support for his Republican party. Republican lawmakers and other Trump supporters have applauded the deployment. But critics say Trump is politicizing the military, deploying them as a stunt to drive Republican voters to the polls without any real national security threat. General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, the head of U.S. Northern Command, defended the operation at a briefing Tuesday. He echoed Trump administration concerns about the caravan and compared the border support mission to other domestic military missions, like hurricane relief. "I firmly believe that border security is national security," O'Shaughnessy said. The U.S. military still had no firm idea of what the operation would cost, he added. Pentagon officials have said the Defense Department will need to find a way to pay for the operation, suggesting money may need to be taken from other national security programs. O'Shaughnessy said just over 1,000 troops had already deployed to Texas as of Tuesday, where they will carry out tasks like building barriers, erecting tents, and flying government personnel by helicopter to and from different locations along the border. He said the more than 5,200 troops now slated to go to Texas, Arizona and California were only the start of a larger deployment and that eventually troops would go to New Mexico as well. "What I can confirm is there will be additional force over and above the 5,239. The magnitude of that difference, I don't have the answer for now," he said. The projected U.S. deployment is already roughly the same size as the U.S. military contingent in Iraq. Trump railed against illegal immigration to win the 2016 presidential election and has seized on the caravan of Central American migrants at campaign rallies in the run-up to next week's vote. Trump has characterized the migrants as an "invasion" and falsely stated they harbor terrorists and are financed in part by Democrats. O'Shaughnessy declined to comment on intelligence about the caravan when asked whether there were terrorists among the migrants. He said the caravans was "different" than those seen by the United States in the past, adding that they were better organized. "We've seen violence coming out of the caravan," O'Shaughnessy said. Kevin McAleenan, the U.S. commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, estimated Monday that the caravan was comprised of about 3,500 migrants. Washington is criticizing Pakistan for ending a ban on two Islamic charity organizations the United States has designated as terrorist groups. The expiration of the ban on Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF) runs counter to Pakistan's commitment to work with global terror watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a U.S. official told VOA. "The United States is deeply concerned that this development will jeopardize Pakistan's ability to meet its commitments under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1267 to freeze and prevent the raising and moving of funds belonging to or associated with U.N.-designated terrorist groups," according to a U.S. State Department spokesman. Washington is urging Pakistan to pass legislation that formally proscribes JuD and FIF. Last week, Pakistan admitted that JuD and FIF, headed by Islamist cleric Hafiz Saeed, are no longer banned after the expiration of a presidential ordinance that blacklisted them under a U.N. resolution. Raja Khalid Mehmood Khan, Pakistan's deputy attorney general, said Thursday during a court hearing in Islamabad that the presidential ordinance that blacklisted JuD and FIF has not been renewed by the government or ratified into law. According to Pakistan's constitution, any presidential amendment needs to be turned into law or renewed by the parliament within four months of its issuance. In February 2018, Pakistan's President Mamnoon Hussain signed an amendment to the country's antiterrorism law that allowed the state to ban charities linked to Saeed. Before the amendment, organizations sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council were not automatically listed as terrorist entities in Pakistan. Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed 160 people, including six Americans, filed a petition and called the amendment to the country's antiterrorism law unconstitutional. He lives freely in Pakistan's capital, Lahore, despite having a $10 million U.S. bounty on him since 2012. Front organizations Last month, Pakistan's National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) issued a list of 66 banned organizations that did not include JuD or FIF, even though Pakistani officials say that both JuD and FIF are "under watch by the Ministry of Interior." Saeed's original Lashar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, which was formed in the 1980s to liberate Indian-administered Kashmir and merge it with Pakistan, was designated a terrorist outfit by the U.S., the United Nations, Britain, Russia and the European Union. Saeed has evaded a ban in Pakistan on LeT by creating multiple other organizations, including JuD and FIF, that critics say are merely fronts. JuD and FIF allegedly manage a large charity network with the help of thousands of volunteers. The groups manage more than 300 religious seminaries, schools, hospitals and ambulance networks. Over the years, they have managed to gain influence throughout the country. Pakistan's 'Name Game' Gives Terror Groups a Pass Some analysts in Pakistan voiced concerns over the government's recent decision to let the ban on JuD and FIF lapse and exclude them from the list of outlawed terror groups. Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general and security analyst, says this undermines Pakistan's claims to be targeting terror groups operating in the country. "The lapse of the presidential amendment means more international pressure as to why Pakistan is not able to crack down and ban organizations placed on the U.N.'s terror watch list," Masood told VOA. "The FATF team was here last week and expressed dissatisfaction over Pakistan's insufficient measures against terror financing and urged the country to address inadequacies in the supervision of nonprofit and charitable organizations." Gray list In June, the FATF placed Pakistan on its gray list for the country's inadequate measures to curb terror financing and money laundering. Regional experts from India and Afghanistan believe the development will further undermine Pakistan's claim to be tough on militants. Chitrapu Uday Bhaskar, an Indian security affairs analyst, told VOA that the news did not surprise experts in India, despite renewed hopes that the new Pakistani government would bring tougher enforcement. "It's not a surprise that Pakistan has not been able to take a firm decision about Hafiz Saeed, but there was a hope that Mr. Imran Khan might be able to handle this differently," Bhaskar said. "But my sense as an analyst is that while this is not surprising, there will be a lot of disappointment that definitely could impact the bilateral relationship," he added. Abdul Qadir Zazai, an Afghan parliamentarian, echoed Bhaskar's concerns and added that Pakistan's government needs to take a firm stance against all terror groups. "We strongly condemn this measure, and hope and call on Pakistan's civilian government to prevent and stop those who call for jihad in Afghanistan and who train and send terrorists to Afghanistan," he told VOA. Hindustan Times, Oct 30, 2018- A Doordarshan cameraman who was in Chhattisgarhs Bastar region to cover development project in the Maoist heartland and two security personnel were killed in an attack on Tuesday morning. The Doordarshan cameraman was identified by the police as Achutanand Sahu. The two policemen are Sub inspector Rudra Pratap and assistant sub inspector Manglu. The attack took place in Dantewada at about 11.45 pm. Chhattisgarhs special director general of police (naxal operations) DM Awasthi confirmed the deaths. He said that a team of Doordarshan journalists had come from Delhi to cover some development projects in Dantewada. Further details are awaited. Venezuela has named a new chief of its state intelligence agency, according to the Official Gazette circulating on Wednesday, following the death of a politician in custody that was officially ruled a suicide but critics called a murder. Army General Manuel Cristopher takes over the agency, known as Sebin, just weeks after the government announced that municipal legislator Fernando Alban had committed suicide by jumping from the 10th floor of the agency's headquarters in Caracas. Opposition leaders said the government provided inconsistent accounts of the incident, and alleged Alban had been tortured and later killed by security forces. The incident drew global condemnation, and the White House accused President Nicolas Maduro's government of involvement in Alban's death. Chief Prosecutor Tarek Saab described opposition critics as "sorcerers of necrophilia" who were taking advantage of Alban's death to criticize Maduro. Alban was jailed on Oct. 5 for alleged involvement in the explosion of two drones in August during a military parade that the government later described as an attempt to assassinate Maduro. Cristopher replaces outgoing Sebin chief Gustavo Gonzalez. It was not immediately evident whether Gonzalez resigned or would be given a new post. The Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Funeral Announcements A daily list of current funeral annoucements as heard on KXRA 1490 AM/100.3 FM News Updates The daily news, sports, and events delivered daily from Voice of Alexandria. Sports Update This current sports headlines delivered daily from Voice of Alexandria. Upcoming Events This email is the events of the area delivered daily from Voice of Alexandria. Breaking News The big news. Sent only as it happens. Democrat Claire McCaskill's campaign RV rolls deep into rural, conservative Missouri. She knows full well that it's an uphill battle for her, or any Democrat, to do well in Republican Jasper County, but she is on the hunt for every possible vote she can find to send her back to the Senate. "I mean, we're realists about this. It's not that anybody believes I'm gonna be able to win Jasper County, but you know what we can do? We can win a few more votes," she acknowledges to a room of supporters. "I've got news for you. It's close," she adds. It's closer than this two-term Senate Democrat would like, but in many ways it's a political miracle that she represents this red state at all. President Donald Trump won Missouri by nearly 20 points in 2016, and Missourians have voted Republican in the last five presidential elections. McCaskill is one of only two statewide elected Democrats in the Show Me State. CNN rates the race a toss-up, the most competitive designation. Trump looms large in the contest. McCaskill's opponent, Josh Hawley, has closely aligned himself with the President and has made it his mission to paint McCaskill as a "liberal elite" working with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California. Hawley even has giant pictures of the three of them together on the side of his campaign bus. McCaskill's "no" vote on Trump's Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh has further fueled those attacks. McCaskill is hoping to overcome that by emphasizing her ability to work across the aisle to get things done as a moderate. "The middle is what the Founding Fathers wanted us to focus on. Compromise. That's how you actually get things done, and that's what we need more of, not less of, in Washington. They're gonna get more partisanship if they send Josh Hawley. They're gonna get less if they send me," she said. It's a delicate balance for McCaskill -- touting herself as a moderate while trying not to turn off the Democratic base in Missouri. She took that even further in a recent radio ad, which says she is "not one of those crazy Democrats." What did she mean by that? "Well, the crazy Democrats are the people who are getting in the face of elected officials in restaurants and screaming at them. The crazy Democrats is whoever put a swastika on one of Josh Hawley's signs in rural Missouri. That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about, the extreme stuff," McCaskill told CNN in an interview. McCaskill first won her seat in 2006, when she benefited from a national Democratic wave that helped her party win back the majority in both the House and the Senate. She defied the odds again in 2012, beating GOP opponent Todd Akin after comments about women who were victims of "legitimate rape" not needing abortions derailed his campaign. Hawley was elected Missouri attorney general just two years ago. McCaskill, known for her blunt style, regularly launches one-liners aimed at the Ivy league-educated Hawley, who is 27 years her junior. "I feel like Ronald Reagan, I don't want to hold his youth and inexperience against him," she tells the crowd here. "He may be a Yale-educated lawyer, but I'm a Mizzou-educated lawyer and I can keep up," she adds with a laugh. The Kavanaugh vote Hawley is seizing on McCaskill's votes against both of Trump's Supreme Court nominees -- Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. In fact, Hawley told us he thinks McCaskill's "no" vote on Kavanaugh earlier this month could determine her fate, calling it "a very big deal" that he thinks will make all the difference for him on Election Day. "I think voters are so appalled, just appalled, by the smear campaign," Hawley said. McCaskill says she voted no because Kavanaugh has supported unlimited campaign cash. "I have to live with myself. And I would be a big hypocrite if I voted for Kavanaugh, because of dark money," she said. "I made my decision on Kavanaugh before the allegations even had really surfaced, way before the ugly confirmation process," she added. Missouri voter Steve Seaton agrees with Hawley. He attended one of McCaskill's campaign events in Springfield, but he does not see himself supporting her on Election Day and says her Gorsuch and Kavanaugh "no" votes are a big reason why. "I do not like the fact that she voted against those. The Supreme Court is supposed to be nonpolitical and you're supposed to find the person who is qualified for the job. Brett Kavanaugh is a brilliant man. She voted against him for political reasons and voted right on party lines," Seaton said. Like many Democrats in tough races, McCaskill is trying to keep the campaign focused on health care and preserving Obamacare's protections for pre-existing conditions. "It may say Josh Hawley and Claire McCaskill on the ballot, but it's really health care," McCaskill tells voters. Her opponent says he supports protections for pre-existing conditions too -- but he's also part of a lawsuit that could strike them down. "He signed on to a lawsuit to get rid of every consumer protection in the law that you have against health insurance companies, including the most important one, the notion that you can still get insurance if you'd been sick before," McCaskill said. Hawley says Obamacare is not necessary to preserve coverage for pre-existing conditions, but McCaskill is hoping that voters in the state won't see another option on the table from Republicans, and they'll want to preserve the Affordable Care Act. "They promised repeal and replace, and they did not have a replace that even Republicans would vote for, because every plan they had for replace was going to hurt you," she notes. The Trump factor The President is turning up the heat on the issue of immigration, lashing out at Democrats about the group of migrants heading toward the US-Mexico border, and judging by McCaskill's response, it could be working in states like Missouri. In a news conference with reporters, she mentioned it, unprompted. "The impression he's giving Missourians that somehow, the Democrats are in favor of our border being overrun. I am not. I support the President 100% doing what he needs to do to secure the border," she said. McCaskill knows she has to align with the President on some issues and make an effort to connect with Trump voters she needs to win, and immigration is key. Hawley will have not one but two visits from Trump in the next week. He argues that "the people of Missouri support his agenda." But McCaskill warns he will be a mere shill for the President. "Will somebody who has said, 'I disagree with nothing the President does,' is that the person who is going to be in the middle? Trying to pull people in from the ends, trying to turn down the temperature and actually get work done? I don't think so. I don't think so. So I hope that you will spread that message," she tells voters. Hawley says he will always support what's best for Missouri, not for the President. When pressed to name any area where he disagrees with Trump, he searched for an answer and landed on runaway government spending. "I don't think he likes it, I don't like it either and I would just encourage him to hold the line on that," Hawley told us. Although he was pushed to run by GOP leaders in Washington, Hawley takes a page from Trump 2016 and runs against the DC establishment. "We don't like the Washington establishment. We think that there needs to be a shake-up in both parties, and voters were very adamant about that, and this campaign is really about that," Hawley said. When Hawley ran for Missouri attorney general two years ago, he promised to fill out his term, a promise he broke by running for Senate this year. Some voters told us that give them pause about him. McCaskill is using it to paint him as an overly ambitious ladder climber. "Yeah, yeah, it certainly wasn't my plan, but I tell you what, I think the future of the country is at stake and the two words that sum that up for me are 'Supreme Court,' " Hawley told us in an interview. McCaskill first won elected office in Missouri in 1982 with a seat in the state Legislature. She was later elected Jackson County prosecutor and then state auditor. Her big loss, a 2004 run for governor, taught her a key lesson. She focused on Democratic strongholds, and not enough in rural areas. That's why now she travels so aggressively in conservative areas like Joplin and Springfield, where we followed her around. Rallying supporters gathered to help her get out the vote, the Democrat reminds them she's beaten Missouri's odds before. "It's going to be very, very close, but on that first Tuesday night in November, you're going to have the TV on. You're going to be in your pajamas. You may have had an adult beverage or two. But wherever you are, as you're watching the results, at about 11:00 or 11:30 they're going to say, 'We've got a call to make. Let's go to Missouri. That Claire McCaskill, she's done it again,' " she says with a smile. US President Donald Trump vowed Tuesday to end birthright citizenship -- the process by which babies born in the country automatically become citizens -- by executive order, while claiming the US was the only nation around the world to grant such rights. Though Trump says his legal counsel has assured him his plan is possible, lawmakers on both the left and right immediately pushed back against Trump's comments, made in an interview with news outlet Axios on HBO (CNN and HBO share a parent company, WarnerMedia). Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said simply "you cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order." Citizenship and naturalization Donald Trump Immigration, citizenship and displacement International relations and national security Political Figures - US Government and public administration Government bodies and offices US federal government White House Continents and regions Europe Northern Europe United Kingdom North America The Americas United States But while much of the focus was on the debate over the constitutionality of such a move, the President's other claim -- one that was demonstrably false -- went somewhat overlooked. According to the CIA World Factbook, some three dozen countries around the world currently recognize jus soli, the Latin term for "right of the soil," commonly known in the US as birthright citizenship. The majority of these nations are, like the US, part of the Americas and have a history of colonization and mass emigration from Europe, including Canada, Venezuela, Chile, Peru, Mexico, and Uruguay. Several countries grant near unconditional jus soli, such as Brazil, which grants birthright citizenship to anyone born in the country, "even if of foreign parents, provided that they are not at the service of their country." While most jus soli nations are in the Americas, both Pakistan and Lesotho also recognize birthright citizenship, though the former, like Brazil, also restricts the children of foreign diplomats. Pakistan's neighbor India originally recognized jus soli as well, but began restricting it in the late 80s before finally abolishing it altogether in 2004. Birthright restrictions While birthright citizenship is nowhere near as rare as Trump claimed, most countries do restrict the right somewhat. In Australia for example, a baby born in the country can claim citizenship if one of their parents is a citizen or permanent resident, or if they are born in the country to foreign parents but live the first ten years of their life in Australia. In the UK, due to Britain's long imperial history and attempts to deny rights to former colonial subjects, the process is such a convoluted one that the UK Home Office has an online tool that helps users check if they qualify for British citizenship. Brexit -- the UK's ongoing attempt to leave the European Union -- could make this even more complicated. Currently all EU citizens have the right to reside and work in any country within the Union, meaning that many do not apply for naturalization as they would in a different foreign country (in order to gain voting or welfare rights say). However, EU citizens in the UK must now apply for settled or pre-settled status in order to remain in the country, a process similar to naturalization but one that could cause issues for some who may not have the records required to prove continuous residence (something that was not required before Brexit). Right of blood Jus soli derives from common law, the system used in most English-speaking countries and former British colonies. In civil law systems, such as most European nations, the dominant principle is jus sanguinis, the "right of blood." Many countries also adopt a mix of jus soli and jus sanguinis, granting citizenship to children born within the country and to those born to citizens living overseas. Sometimes extra tests are put in place to ensure a connection with the country a person is claiming citizenship of. For example, while Poland allows people to claim citizenship on the grounds of jus soli and jus sanguinis, applicants must demonstrate a command of the Polish language in order to become citizens. In the US, citizenship is governed by the 14th amendment to the constitution, which states "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Despite Trump's claim that he can revoke this right by executive order, it is almost certainly impossible without a constitutional amendment, the laborious process by which the US Congress and state governments can vote to change the constitution. "The 14th Amendment's citizenship guarantee is clear," according to Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. "This is a transparent and blatantly unconstitutional attempt to sow division and fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms." A letter has been sent out from Randolph School, a private K-12 school in Huntsville, in regards to allegations from former students of being sexually abused by a faculty member while they were attending the school. The faculty member's employment with the school ended in the early 1990s. According to a school spokesperson, the letter was sent to current students' parents, parents of alumni, current and former employees, alumni and school board members. The Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees and school administration are conducting an investigation into the allegations. The school asks in the letter that anyone who may have experienced sexual abuse by a Randolph employee, as well as anyone with information related to abuse allegations, come forward. The investigation is being led by Suzanne Bogdan who can be contacted at 954-847-4711 or suzanneb@fisherphillips.com. Individuals may also contact Head of School, Jay Rainey, at 256-799-6102 or jrainey@randolphschool.net. Delegates attend the event (Photo: VNA) This was a practical activity to mark the 45th anniversary of Vietnam-Argentina diplomatic relations (October 25th, 1973 October 25th, 2018). At the event, the representative from the Vietnamese Embassy introduced the history, diversified culture and thousand-year tradition of Vietnam, as well as achievements in the innovation cause of the country. The embassy said that over the past year Vietnam has become an attractive destination for Argentinean visitors, drawing about 10,000 visitors from the country. During the Vietnam Cultural and Tourism Week, representatives of travel agents of the two countries met, exchanged and sought partners. In addition, a photo exhibition about Vietnam was also organized, attracting a large number of visitors./. WASHINGTON (AP), 30 October 2018- Grappling with a wave of election-season violence, President Donald Trump escalated his rhetoric against the news media on Monday even as he made plans for a somber visit to Pennsylvania to mourn a synagogue massacre that left 11 dead. Days after the shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue and a mail-bomb scare targeting prominent Democrats and CNN, Trump argued that fraudulent reporting was contributing to anger in the country and declared that the press was the true Enemy of the People. He complained Monday night that his comments had been misconstrued and that he had only been referring to the Fake News (Media). Trump has labeled a long list of media outlets fake news and often applies the moniker to stories he doesnt like. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders continued in the same vein at a press briefing, saying: The very first action that the president did was condemn these heinous acts. The very first thing that the media did was condemn the president, go after him, try to place blame. While Trump has condemned the Pennsylvania shootings as an anti-Semitic act and has decried political violence, he also has continued his political schedule over the past week and largely kept up his criticism against Democrats and the media. The White House has rejected any suggestion that the presidents harsh rhetoric contributed to the toxic moment. Ranil Wickremesinghe and UNF MPs acknowledge supporters at the rally Basking in the warmth of cheers coming from thousands of UNP supporters wearing green caps outside Temple Tress on Tuesday (October 30), deposed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe reiterated that his party would continue with the struggle to safeguard the sovereignty of Parliament and democracy. The protesters found many different ways to reject President Maithiripala Sirisenas decisions the removal of Ranil Wickremesinghe and the hurried appointment of Mahinda Rajapaksa as Premier-without consulting Parliament. I am not here for Ranil, I am here for democracy and good governance, Respect the mandate, reconvene the Parliament, Dear MPs, countrys future in on your hands, Dear MPs, think before you jump. With a pithy mix of humour, Tuesdays protest was joined by thousands of people from Colombo and rural areas. Among the above mentioned slogans, I am not here for Ranil, I am here for democracy and good governance, was the signage that went viral long after the crowds dispersed. It gained a wide circulation on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Even Wickremesinghe replied to the signage posted on Twitter saying And thats okay. That is what democracy is about! One of the protesters told the Daily Mirror, Im not a UNPer, neither am I an SLFPer. I am not a follower of any political party in Sri Lanka. I just took leave from work today and came here because I want to see a democratic Government during my lifetime. I think there are many people who feel the same way. I mean theyre just not standing out here because they want some political party to come into power and its not worth the time. We are here for democracy and good governance. The general public still remains stunned due to the dramatic turn of political events unfolding in the country at the moment including the sudden ousting of Wickremesinghe and the surprising return of Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Prime Minister. Adding to the drama were the hurried appointments of politicians and selected individuals to several Government institutions; which gave rise to alarming incidents of violations of law and order. A signage of protesters who had gathered at Liberty roundabout Kollupitiya There were several familiar faces within the UNP, who had lost their ministerial portfolios, setting foot on a truck that served as a makeshift mobile stage. The Leader of the UNP Wickremesinghe, who arrived at the demonstration along with her wife Prof. Maithree Wickremesinghe, vowed to continue with administrating the present Government as soon as the Constitutional crisis is solved. He said that everyone should join in the fight against arbitrary decisions taken by the President who had disregarded the peoples mandate and betrayed those who had worked hard for his victory at the elections. Going against the mandate This crowd is not all UNPers. There are many citizens who took time to attend this demonstration and do what is right as Sri Lankans regardless of their political opinion, race, religion or class, Wickremesinghe told the crowd. He said that the UNP supported Maithripala Sirisena in 2015 for the Presidenby and that the unity Government was given a mandate in 2015 and that included establishing democracy. He said they did not expect President Sirisena to go against the mandate given to him. He underscored that although the President is attempting to retain his executive powers the UNP will oppose it. Sajith Premadasa, Deputy Leader of the UNP, addressing the crowd said that the mandate of the people has been plundered by the countrys President. Premadasa said that he would never think twice if he has to risk his life to protect the peoples mandate and the trust of the UNP voters akin to his father Former President Ranasinghe Premadasa. Meanwhile, Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka, speaking in a high pitched tone said that if he could once fight against a notorious leader like Mahinda Rajapaksa, taking on Maithripala Sirisena is peanuts. Expressing his gratitude towards the UNPers who attended the demonstration despite the short notice given, Fonseka said they would never let President Sirisena go back on the promises he had made to the people and commence a new political journey following a personal agenda. Army deserter He also touched on the assassination plot associated with the President and Former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. They have found a random army deserter to fabricate a story about an assassination plot. It seems like this army deserter is now working as the Head of Intelligence Service of Maithripala Sirisena, said Fonseka. Wickramabahu Karunarathne was a prominent politician who took to the UNP stage, demanding justice. The entire civil society supports us and demands democracy, he said issuing a warning and took the opportunity to convey to the President that they would be compelled to seize the Presidents House unless Parliament is reconvened without further delay. Ven. Dambara Amila Thera who supported the good governance campaign, said that the country is trapped internationally due to mounting pressure coming from the international community. The Thera warned that the country would have to face economic sanctions if law and order continues to be violated. Ravi Karunanayake spoke about the injustices he has faced within his grand old party. However he said that he had decided to put the issues aside and support the party during this difficult time. Now is the time to unite. Now is the time to show our support to the party, Karunanayake said. Former Minister Rajitha Senaratne said, The international community has warned that Sri Lanka would become a pariah state, if this fake Government continues. During a meeting between Prime Minister and the diplomatic community, a warning had been given to the President that economic sanctions and the cancellation of GSP facilities might have to be expected if the turmoil in the country remains unsolved. Meanwhile, politician Harin Fernando for the second time apologised to UNP supporters for making Maithripala Sirisena the President. He told the gathering, It was we who brought you into power, and it will be we who will also send you home. In a shocking revelation, actor turned politician MP Ranjan Ramanayake said that several UNP MPs had sold themselves in favour of millions of rupees infamously given by China to strengthen the hands of Mahinda Rajapaksa. UNP Parliamentarian Ajith. P. Perera, who made the final speech at the rally, said that the President would be given an ultimatum till Friday (November 2) to convene Parliament; if not the UNP would resort to further actions. Pix by Nimalasiri Edirisinghe Skulls and bones of the Capuchin friars on Via Veneto in Rome. The vaults and walls of the crypt in the Capuchin church on Rome's Via Veneto host the bones and skulls of some 3,700 monks who died between 1600 and 1800. A touch of the macabre but worth a visit. Anthem hiked its 2018 forecast again as the Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurer added more Medicare customers and continued to clamp down on benefit payouts in the third quarter. The nation's second-largest health insurer now expects full-year adjusted earnings to exceed $15.60 per share after hiking that forecast to more than $15.40 in July. Enrollment in Anthem's employer-sponsored coverage for firms with fewer than 5,000 workers grew slightly to 15.7 million people; membership in Anthem's Medicare business jumped nearly 18 percent from last year's quarter, to almost 1.8 million people. That helped counter a nearly 60 percent drop that pushed individual enrollment below 1 million people as Anthem pulled back from the Affordable Care Act's insurance marketplaces. U.S. home price gains slowed for the fifth straight month in August as higher mortgage rates have lowered home sales. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price Index increased 5.5 percent in August compared with a year earlier, down from a 5.9 percent gain in the previous month. The deceleration reflects a broader weakening in the nations housing market. Sales of existing homes have dropped for six straight months and sales of new homes have fallen for the past four. Home price increases ran ahead of wage gains for five years and appear to have left many would-be buyers on the sidelines. One of these masterpieces was young Campbells 1938 novella, Who Goes There?, which Nevala-Lees calls the greatest science fiction suspense story of all time. In it a murderous shape-shifting alien devastates an Antarctic expedition. (Campbells classic has been filmed multiple times, first as a 1951 B movie about Cold War paranoia, The Thing from Another World.) Though an exceptional writer, Campbell set aside his own work when he was asked to take over and reinvigorate Astounding. From then on, like other groundbreaking editors, he focused all his creative energy on the magazine, tirelessly passing along plot ideas to his contributors. For instance, Campbell suggested to a young Asimov that there might be a story in Ralph Waldo Emersons speculation about how humanity would react if the stars appeared only once in a thousand years. The result? The haunting classic Nightfall. Campbell largely formulated the Three Laws of Robotics, which energize many of Asimovs early stories, and even helped fashion what became the Foundation Trilogy, long judged the best sf series of all time. Some trimming here and there might nudge a few ideas from the realm of the strange to the sublime. A risotto of long-simmered wheat berries paved with a foragers dream of sauteed mushrooms would be a better dish without the green tufts of tarragon moss that have the texture of angel food cake. And ruddy venison on a ragout of beluga lentils is a hearty fall entree garnished with leaves of dehydrated shiso, sweet potato and other things, as well as an unfortunate merlot veil that smacks of fruit leather for the 21-and-older set. The quote marks are more Mirabelles than mine. Think of them as yield signs. The lobster roll, offered at lunch, is cheffy but also luscious: puff pastry filled with chopped seafood and rich herbed cream. Now Harris is running for House of Delegates in Marylands 40th, where the Green Party volunteers I followed on a recent Sunday were talking to voters. The 40th is a diverse district that includes impoverished neighborhoods in West Baltimore, as well as some of the most quickly gentrifying parts of the city. Every four years, voters choose three people to represent the district, and Harris is competing this cycle against three Democrats. He needs to beat only one of them, as the canvassers kept reminding potential voters: Harris doesnt have to be your favorite. Farrells TV comments also caused a ripple of controversy at George Mason. A university spokesman, Michael Sandler, said the school had received about a dozen complaints about it, about equally split between people who work at the university and those outside of it. The general thrust was that they read into the comments that they were anti-Semitic, he said. Anne Arundel Police Chief Timothy J. Altomare said the products from that drug ring had probably been showing up in overdose and drug-sale cases from Pasadena, Md., to Annapolis, Md., in the county. He said detectives found that the operation probably sold drugs that were linked to seven recent overdose deaths. The few millennial voters I interviewed said they voted for Jealous. Some liked his liberal stance on marijuana legalization. And in the majority African American community of my polling place, some praised his promise to make sure black people have an opportunity to profit from distributing the legalized product because so many had been disproportionately punished as consumers when it was illegal. At Atlantas Alfred & Adele Davis Academy, during a discussion Monday with middle- schoolers, Rabbi Micah Lapidus recalled asking what they could do today in response to Pittsburgh. He said the faculty was hoping for responses such as being kind to one another, doing good deeds and counting their blessings. But after a moment of silence, he said, an eighth-grade boy raised his hand and said, Exactly what were doing right now. Todays Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. Email address By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy The project is in its fourth year and had led to several scientific publications but, according to HIMB colleagues, it was just getting off the ground. In addition to the selection and breeding of resilient corals, members of the project are continuing to study how resilience is passed from generation to generation and investigating the possibility of inoculating corals with more heat-tolerant strains of algae and other symbiotic organisms (a sort of coral probiotics). The projects are now in the hands of her students and colleagues. By all accounts, nearly every submission was accepted by Dr. Murtagh, so long as a state provided evidence that a place was somehow, to some degree, significant, no matter how provincial it might seem to outsiders. The criteria for historic significance was broad enough to encompass the cable cars of San Francisco, the first U.S. street to be paved with concrete (in Bellefontaine, Ohio), one of the first brooder houses for broiler chickens (in Georgetown, Del.) and a prairie-style Frank Lloyd Wright home in Chicago. Stevenson Ct., 12200 block, Oct. 17. A 26-year-old Woodbridge man was arrested for a sexual assault on July 25 and an unrelated shooting on Hoffman Drive on May 16. He was charged with (in connection to the rape investigation): rape, abduction with intent to defile, forcible sodomy, three counts of use of a firearm in commission of a felony, and two counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Charged with (in connection to the shooting investigation): two counts of attempted aggravated malicious wounding, two counts of use of a firearm in commission of a felony, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. According to D.C. Superior Court documents in a civil suit Amins family filed last year against Elligan, she admitted her vehicle struck Amin but denied being legally intoxicated. The case was settled earlier this year, with Elligan agreeing to pay more than $72,000 to Amins family immediately, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to his 13-year-old daughter through 2039. The release of the referral delivered in 1974 as impeachment proceedings were being weighed came after a former member of Nixons defense team and three prominent legal analysts filed separate lawsuits seeking its unsealing after more than four decades under grand jury secrecy rules. The legal analysts argued the report could offer a precedent and guide for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as his office addresses its present-day challenge on whether, and if so, how to make public findings from its investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 election, including any that directly involve President Trump. Testimonies from survivors in three focus groups held by the coalition indicated mixed levels of support at Virginia Williams, according to the report. While some said the center was essential in helping connect them with safe houses or other housing resources, several others said staff lacked sensitivity in discussing domestic violence and that staff even suggested that they return to their abusive homes. Many said it depended on the day and the person an inconsistency that the coalition argued could be addressed with a clear-cut policy. These were among reports received by the Calvert County Sheriffs Office and the Maryland State Police. Anyone with information about these crimes is asked to call the Criminal Investigation Division at 410-535-2800 or 301-855-1194, the Crime Solvers line at 410-535-2880 or the state police Prince Frederick Barrack at 410-535-1400. Dirty tricks like these are the worst part of politics, and this is exactly what Abigail is running to change, Spanbergers campaign manager, Dana Bye, said in an email. We are proud of the campaign we have run, and wonder if Congressman Brat and his allies can say the same. While others may scrape the bottom of the barrel out of desperation, Abigail and our campaign will remain focused on talking to our neighbors on their doorsteps about the issues that matter to our community thats the campaign voters deserve and its the campaign that we believe will carry us to victory. But this week, Bhutanese refugees such as Phuyel and the aid agencies that brought him here were disturbingly reminded that there are those who do not welcome them in Pittsburgh. Robert Bowers, who grew up not far from where Phuyel lives, is accused of a mass shooting at a synagogue and of targeting the Tree of Life congregation to vent his hatred of Jews and immigrants. He is alleged to have specifically mentioned a prominent resettlement agency as a target of his ire in online posts. Court suspends jail term for Maldives's ex-president: The Maldives Supreme Court suspended a 13-year jail sentence given to the country's exiled former president until it reviews his conviction, as requested by the prosecutor general. The order came two days before Mohamed Nasheed was to return home after living in exile for more than two years. He was convicted in 2015 under a terrorism law for ordering the military to detain a top judge when he was president in 2012. If youre sick and tired, too, here is what you can do. Vote for Democrats on Tuesday. For every office. Regardless of who they are. And I say that as a former Republican. Some Republicans in suburban districts may claim they arent for Trump. Dont believe them. Whatever their private qualms, no Republicans have consistently held Trump to account. They are too scared that doing so will hurt their chances of reelection. If youre as sick and tired as I am of being sick and tired about whats going on, vote against all Republicans. Every single one. Thats the only message they will understand. Voters should feel confident, yet they continue to hear that states arent ready, that the midterms might be compromised and that votes might not count due to hacking. To be sure, there is no finish line in election security, and we have more to do to strengthen our election system as threats to its integrity get more sophisticated. Indeed, foreign agents are intent on leveraging social media and other platforms to spread disinformation and further divide us, and much more will need to be done to counter those efforts. But claims that our votes dont matter and may already be hacked are not only false, theyre dangerous, too. Though she had been minority leader of the state Senate, Whitmer was virtually unknown outside her home area of Lansing. The party was still reeling from Donald Trumps victory in Michigan during the 2016 presidential election, and political veterans worried she would be unlikely to inspire a badly needed revival of turnout in places such as Detroit. The citys Democratic mayor, Mike Duggan, made no secret of his early efforts to recruit better-known alternatives, but all of them took a pass. His supporters might respond that he is justified: that the media has a liberal bias and that the skew has become more monolithic, and less restrained in its expression, since Trumps election. Most media outlets do indeed list to the left, and theyre certainly not overfond of Trump. But Id ask my conservative friends whether dubbing them enemies of the people is really the best way to go about correcting that problem. Or even the best way to name it. That dispute played out most publicly in the disagreement over whether Trump should come to the city and play the traditional consoling role expected of presidents in moments of tragedy. On Monday, before Trump and the first lady announced that they would come here on Tuesday, Mayor Bill Peduto (D) said the White House should consider the will of the families of those who died. He asked that a presidential visit not happen while we are burying the dead. the corpse of The little 10-year-old was found in a cemetery that, in principle, welcomed the skeletal remains of babies and children up to 3 years of age. The mysterious sarcophagus of granite of Alexandria kept the mummies of two men and a woman A team of archaeologists from the University of Arizona and Stanford University, with the help of Italian archaeologists, have found the remains of a child with a stone in the mouth in an Italian cemetery of the century V. The explanation that they give to this event is that the corpse was the object of a funeral ritual, known as "burial of a vampire". According to their beliefs, the child could get up like a zombie and be able to spread the malaria that caused the death. For that reason, buried in this way. The discovery of this unusual 'burial of vampires' was conducted during the summer in the commune of Lugnano in Teverina, in the Umbria region in italy, where the archaeologist of the University of Arizona, David Soren, he has overseen the archaeological excavations since 1987. "I had never seen anything like it. It is extremely strange," said Soren, a professor in the School of Anthropology at the UA and in the Department of Religious Studies and Classics. "At the local level, call it the 'Vampire of Lugnano". The Necropoli dei Bambini or a cemetery for babies is the place where you made such finding, located in the mid-fifth century when an outbreak of malaria deadly struck the area, killing a multitude of babies and small children vulnerable. The bodies of the young victims were buried at the site of a roman villa abandoned, which was originally built at the end of the first century bc. Until now, archaeologists believed that the cemetery was designed specifically for babies, young children, and fetuses in utero; in advanced excavation of more than 50 burials, a girl of 3 years old was the oldest that was found. The discovery of the child of 10 years, whose age was determined in function of dental development but whose sex is unknown, suggests that the cemetery could also have been used for older children, explains the bioarqueologo Jordan Wilson, a phd student in anthropology at the UA, which examined the skeletal remains in Italy. "There are still sections of the cemetery that we have not yet excavated, so we do not know if we will find other older children," Wilson said. The director of the excavation, David Pickel, indicates that the discovery can inform researchers a lot more about the devastating malaria epidemic that struck the Umbria region for almost 1,500 years, as well as the response of the community. The remains of a 10-year old boy in a cemetery of the fifth Century, Lugnano in Teverina (Italy) David Pickel "Given the age of this child and its deposition only, with the stone placed inside your mouth, it represents, at this moment, an anomaly within a cemetery that is already abnormal," said Pickel. "This only highlights what is unique is the cemetery children of Lugnano". In excavations prior in the Cemetery of the Infants, the archaeologists found bones of infants and young children, along with items such as claws of crows, the bones of toads, cauldrons of bronze filled with ashes and the remains of cubs that appear to have been killed, all objects commonly associated with witchcraft and magic. in Addition, the body of the girl of 3 years had stones that weighed the hands and feet, a practice used by different cultures throughout history to keep the dead in their graves. "we Know that the romans were very concerned about this and even they would arrive at the end of using witchcraft to prevent the evil, whatever pollutes the body, get out," said Soren. The "bad", in the case of infants and small children discovered in Lugnano, was the malaria, thought Soren. Tests AND several of the bones excavated, supported his theory. Although the remains of the creature of 10 years have not yet been submitted to a test of AND, had a tooth abscess (a side effect of malaria), which suggests that it might also have been a victim of the disease, according to Wilson. The child was one of the five burials new discovered in the cemetery during the summer. The body was found lying on his left side in a makeshift grave created by two large tiles propped up against a wall, a burial-style 'alla cappuccina' typical of Italy in the roman. Updated Date: 31 October 2018, 07:00 What the moment demands is our countrys leaders, from all sectors of society, to make it crystal clear that anti-Semitism and hate have no place in the United States, he said in the letter. As the Speaker of the House, one of the most powerful elected officials in our nation, we believe you have an obligation to act and an opportunity to make a difference. Roberts specifically was talking about the fact that some of the groups that received part of the settlement had previously received donations from Google. But in the past he has voiced general reservations about what are called cy pres awards in class-action settlements, in which lawyers get paid, organizations and charities get whats left over and the folks supposedly harmed by the challenged wrongdoing get nothing at all. Trump uses a lot of talk thats not of a technical or legal manner, said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. He could declare a national emergency to free up a number of statutory authorities, but its not clear what kind of authorities he wants to use here. More likely, its a rhetorical play to show how furious he is about this group of vulnerable migrants. For days, Trump has been warning of an invasion of Central American migrants, even though they are traveling by foot in caravans, their population is dwindling and they are not expected to reach the border for several weeks. The administration announced Monday that it was sending 5,200 troops, military helicopters and giant spools of razor wire to the southern border. Trump has dispatched top administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, on a media tour to echo his hard-line position and draw attention to the caravan. Chapelle-Nadal criticized McCaskill on Twitter this week, using an expletive and writing: Instead of knowing why people of color are angered by this administration, she chooses to put us & our families in harms way. If my family is harmed, blame it on Claire McCaskill. She deserves to lose. She is not a Democrat. Some legal scholars argue that the phrase and subject to the jurisdiction thereof seems to give the government some leeway to restrict the right, just as other constitutional principles can be limited. But the mainstream opinion from both right and left is that it is more likely that a constitutional amendment, rather than federal legislation or an executive order, would be needed to change the birthright conferred on people born here. The National Republican Congressional Committee even while distancing itself from King has been running an ad in a Minnesota congressional district showing George Soros, the Jewish philanthropist and Democratic donor who was the target of one of the pipe bombs sent by mail last week, behind stacks of cash. In Connecticut, a Republican state Senate candidate mailed campaign literature that depicts his Democratic opponent, Matthew Lesser, holding a fistful of cash near his mouth. Lesser is Jewish, and the ad has triggered complaints of anti-Semitism. Congressional dissatisfaction with the U.S.-Saudi relationship was on a slow ascent before the prominent journalists disappearance in early October. But his apparent slaying which most lawmakers believe occurred at the behest of Saudi leaders, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has precipitated unprecedented calls for consequences, including sanctions and an end to arms sales and military support for the Saudi kingdom in its controversial regional engagements, particularly in Yemens civil war. I think our politics stokes anger, and I think all of us to some level have to examine the way we behave, Rubio told reporters Monday night at a campaign appearance for a House incumbent in Illinois. I think its a moment of reflection for all of us, and the president included, but myself. And by the way so, too, those who cover the president. Among the dead were the head of the provincial council and the deputy commander of the army in the western region, according to Shah Mahmoud Nayemi, deputy head of Farahs provincial council. He said the helicopter hit a mountainside. Its airlines were banned from flying to the United States in 2007 because they were deficient in one or more areas, such as technical expertise, trained personnel, record-keeping, or inspection procedures, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The FAA lifted the ban in 2016 after the countrys airlines showed signs of improvement. The European Union similarly barred Indonesian carriers from flying into European airspace from 2007 until June. The Bibi case has been at the heart of that clash, because it led to the assassination of a provincial governor who had questioned the fairness of her treatment under Pakistans stringent blasphemy laws. The killer was the governors 26-year-old bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri, who claimed he was acting in defense of Islam. Qadri was executed for murder in 2016 but later lionized as a martyr by some Pakistani Muslims, and his death spawned a crusade that has since gained millions of adherents. Two caravans, each with more than 3,000 travelers, are trailed by at least two other groups of several hundred migrants. Many are fleeing poverty and violence in Honduras and intending to seek asylum in the United States. At the speed they are moving, they are weeks away from the border. The Marine Corps will deploy a special-purpose task force headquarters as part of the U.S. militarys mission, while the Armys 82nd Airborne Division will deploy helicopters, according to the documents. The Army also will deploy several military police units. Troops will deploy with a mixture of lethal and nonlethal weapons and are authorized to use deadly force in defense of all persons, foreign or domestic, who are faced with imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm, and where lesser means have failed or cannot be reasonably employed. Emphasizing the seriousness of the allegations against the Aventura, Fla., man, prosecutors alleged for the first time that he was responsible for 15 packages containing possible bombs, two of which were still making their way through the mail after he was in custody. Sayoc has been formally charged in connection with 13 of the devices, though officials have said more charges are likely. On Wednesday, a Saudi official said the kingdom had not officially concluded that Khashoggis death was premeditated. The public prosecutor has acknowledged seeing that information from the Turkish side. We have not said if that is true or not true. We are waiting for the results of the investigation, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak to the media. Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan (L) meets with Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oct. 29, 2018. Invited by the UAE government, Wang paid a visit to the UAE from Oct. 28 to 30. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei) ABU DHABI, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan agreed with leaders of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to further boost cooperation between the two countries during a three-day visit that concluded on Tuesday. Wang, who had been invited by the UAE government, met with Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, and UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Dubai Ruler Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum in Dubai, respectively. The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi received Wang with a welcome ceremony at the presidential palace. In the meeting with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Wang said that the decision by Chinese President Xi Jinping and the UAE leaders to promote the bilateral relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership has laid the foundation and will serve as a blueprint for the relations. Wang said the UAE has followed a unique path of development by pursuing economic diversity, social openness and cultural inclusiveness and integrating the traditional and the modern. China appreciates the UAE's pursuit of friendly ties with China and is willing to work with the UAE to constantly expand the pragmatic cooperation and cultural and people-to-people exchanges, Wang said. China is willing to work ly with the UAE side on its planned introduction of Chinese courses in 200 schools so that the aim can be achieved as soon as possible, the Chinese vice president said. The Chinese side is willing to strengthen coordination with the UAE side so that the free trade talks between China and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) may soon resume and produce an agreement, Wang said. The UAE has China's steadfast support in its pursuit of stability in the country and a constructive role in regional affairs, Wang said. China strongly believes that, with joint efforts, the exchanges and cooperation between China and the UAE will expand and the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership will further grow, Wang said. The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi said the recent state visit by President Xi has raised bilateral cooperation to a new level and sent a positive signal. He said that China has had admirable achievements in development and the UAE believes in and looks forward to an increasingly important role for China in international and Middle East affairs. The UAE regards its relations with China as a key part of its international policies and would like to work together with the Chinese side to explore the potential and further boost the cooperation and exchanges, he said. During his meeting with the UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Dubai Ruler Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Wang said that the UAE has a strong leadership, a prosperous economy and a harmonious and stable society. The achievements of the UAE in development have been remarkable, he said. In particular, Dubai has been pursuing sustainable development and has been successful in its transformation, and the young and vibrant city is now a new icon of the UAE, Wang said. Wang said his visit is aimed at maintaining the momentum in the high-level visits and exchanges and promote bilateral cooperation. Specifically, it is aimed at promoting concrete cooperation in various fields in line with the key consensus achieved by the leaders of the two countries and at consolidating the comprehensive strategic partnership. He said China is willing to support the UAE in hosting the Expo 2020 Dubai and share its experience in organizing such an event. China and the UAE have had great achievements in cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative and the two sides should further promote their cooperation in finance, innovation and artificial intelligence, Wang said. The two sides should also work together to speed up the seawater rice project to benefit the two peoples and even the world, Wang said. The UAE leader and Dubai ruler said the UAE attaches great importance to its relations with China and cherishes the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership. The UAE thanks China for its long-term support, he said. China is now the top trading partner of the UAE and the achievements in cooperation between the two sides have been remarkable, he said. He said the UAE side is willing to work together with the Chinese side to further promote cooperation in line with the leaders' consensus. The UAE government leader thanked China for the support it has given to the UAE for the Expo 2020 Dubai. China is warmly welcome to participate in the Expo and use the opportunity to further boost bilateral friendship and cooperation, he said. Wang was on a visit to the Middle East from Oct. 22 to 30, which took him to Israel, Palestine, Egypt and the UAE. 4 1 [ Editor: Zhang Zhou ] ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott predicts the pace of home loan growth will slow by roughly half to an all-time low, as an "extraordinary" boom in mortgage debt over the past three decades comes to an end. Mr Elliott also underlined the tighter credit conditions facing customers, saying the maximum amount banks would lend an average household for a mortgage had fallen by about $110,000 or 20 per cent in the last three years. After the bank posted a 5 per cent slide in profits on Wednesday, Mr Elliott said the combination of falling house prices, already indebted borrowers, and the fact that interest rates can't get much lower would all work to put the brakes on growth in the $1.6 trillion mortgage market. ANZ boss Shayne Elliott says it's a 'tough' revenue environment for banks at the moment. Credit:Vince Caligiuri Although Mr Elliott played down the chances of a sharp fall in house prices, he said his "personal" view was that the rate of housing credit growth would "trend towards" 2 to 3 per cent, compared with 5 to 6 per cent more recently. What a good thing elections are. Were it not for the looming federal election not forgetting those in Victoria and NSW we city slickers might by now have forgotten the drought that continues to damage much of eastern Australia. Collections taken, donations given, end of. Not so our tireless Prime Minister. Scott Morrisons put the drought at the top of his to-do list of problems to be sorted before the election. And having fixed high electricity prices earlier in the week, on Friday he held a national drought summit, announcing a $5 billion Drought Future Fund. From July 2020, the fund will provide grants worth up to $100 million a year for community services and research, and to assist the adoption of technology to support long-term sustainability in periods of drought. Details yet to be decided. What it amounts to is anybodys guess. It could be something that really would improve our farmers resilience to future droughts, or it could be just another slush fund for spending in National Party electorates. On Saturday, hours after a gunman burst into Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed 11 in the deadliest attack on Jews in US history, President Donald Trump was scheduled to appear at a rally in Indiana to address a group of student farmers. While they waited for Trump to take the stage, the crowd danced to a playlist of upbeat music, including Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper, and Happy by Pharrell Williams. Now Williams, a popular recording artist, is threatening to take legal action for Trump's unauthorised use of his song. A better face than last years. Thats what I always try to do. I grew up in California in an agricultural town. Halloween was huge. In my family, every year, starting in childhood, we each carved a pumpkin of our own. And always tried to out-do last years. Its holiday tradition. And part of the ceremony of the season was the trip to The Pumpkin Patch where we walked the rows of dirt, acre upon acre, year after year, in hunt of the perfect pumpkin. That was 10 years ago when I, new to Australia, drove to distant lands and far-out suburbs to find a proper pumpkin. For carving, of course. The big, round, orange kind. The ones you find in Coles and Woolworths without much hunting at all now. If theyre not sold out, youll find them piled up at the entrance. Begging you to take them home and give them a face. Its always been my favourite holiday, but when I moved to Melbourne it became my hidden love. Halloween. American rubbish, I heard a lot. Whats it celebrate, anyway? There seemed to be a general resentment for the day, maybe an after-effect of the consensus that Australia was in danger of becoming too Americanised. The one that needed a home. And a face. An identity, really. An expression. Isnt that what we find in our customs and traditions: expression of self who we are, who we were? After all, doesnt our behaviour define us? You are what you eat and the company you keep and the pumpkin you carve at Halloween. And the tea service you use at Ramadan. And Grandmas tree-topper you unpack every Christmas. And the holiday pavlova bowl thats been passed down on your mothers side. And the menorah that has a history too long to tell on a page. And all the things that we do, that are learned, that are inherited, that become the ritualistic cycle of our customs they regularly rotate through our lives, continually reminding us of our heritage and past, of family and cultural values. And added all up, graphed out on paper like a dot-to-dot, dont they make up who we are? The constellation of self. I know were supposed to assimilate, we immigrants, to our new land and new way of life. Adopt the customs and expressions of our new country. And most of us want to. We want to participate and feel included. US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump hold hands after arriving for a Halloween trick-or-treat event at the White House. Credit:AP But we want to be accepted for who we are as well, who we were before we were immigrants. It might seem trivial to a native, but to an immigrant, being mocked for upholding our cultural customs isnt just a form of bullying, its an attempt at ethnocentric homogenisation. On the eve of her Feminist Writers' Festival visit to Australia, Blair, who lives in Oakland, California, said it was partly watching men commenting on discussions around unwanted pregnancy on community chats in her blog that inspired her to wade into the debate. Gabrielle Blair is not your woman most likely to become a viral social media sensation, but the Mormon mother of six and design blogger became an instant phenomenon in September with a carefully-crafted Twitter thread laying blame for unwanted pregnancies entirely on men . "There were two things that put me on the path to writing the Twitter thread. The first thing is that at one point, when I was looking at yearly abortion numbers, they were higher than I expected, and I started thinking about why that might be. How someone gets pregnant is not a mystery, and I interact with thousands of women every month I know how careful women are with their bodies," says Blair. "The second thing is that on my blog and social media channels, I often host conversations about difficult topics. The topic of abortion has come up many times, and I noticed that whenever men would participate in abortion conversations that it would really put me on edge. At some point I realised I was on edge because they approached the topic as a women's issue, as if they didn't understand that men were involved in causing pregnancies as well." Blair's blog has built a solid following for its interesting discussion of "the intersection of design and motherhood". Her epic Twitter project took on a life of its own, though, by forcing hundreds of thousands of people (possibly millions, given not everyone who sees a thread likes/retweets or comments) to re-examine their ideas about responsibility for contraception. "I had been forming the arguments for about a year before I published the Twitter thread. I would sometimes try out a portion of my argument with strangers on Facebook to gauge reaction and work out any weak spots. First-time home buyers are benefiting from the new credit score system, as well as the falling property market in Sydney and Melbourne. Previously the credit record only contained negative information, such as missed payments of more than 60 days or bankruptcies. Now Australia is moving towards full implementation of comprehensive credit reporting, which means good repayment histories are included in the scores for the first time. That gives those with tarnished records an opportunity to quickly improve their scores. Since younger people were more likely to have black marks against their name, they have the most to gain from the new system. Credit cards can be a blessing rather than a curse under the new comprehensive credit reporting regime. Credit:Louise Kennedy Falling behind on credit card repayments can be a warning sign of cash-flow problems, though some people are just forgetful. A man was hospitalised and students evacuated at the University of Canberra following an incident at a student residence on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, police and hazmat crews were still investigating whether there were "contaminants in a fourth-floor room in Cooper Lodge, and sections of the building remained cordoned off. Police cars and ambulances outside Cooper Lodge at the University of Canberra on Wednesday, Credit:Lawrence Atkin An ACT Ambulance Service spokeswoman confirmed a male patient had been taken to Canberra Hospital late on Tuesday, but did not provide details on his condition. About 7.30pm, students were evacuated following an incident in the student hall. It is unclear how many people were involved. New mothers at Liverpool Hospital were left unimpressed by the hand washing regimen of staff who touched them or their newborns, a new report has found. Asked whether they saw staff wash their hands before touching them or their baby, only 55 per cent of Liverpool patients were able to answer "yes, always" - a worrying 11 per cent decline on the 2015 figure. Liverpool Hospital was among the poorest performing hospitals in the state. Credit:David Porter The concern over hygiene was only the start of their problems with the new mothers ranking Liverpool Hospital the worst in the public health system. Up to 4800 women who gave birth in NSW public hospitals last year were asked by the Bureau of Health Information (BHI) about their experience across areas such as hygiene, advice on feeding their baby and waiting times. Ms Jenkins pleaded with students to stop leaving the reviews. "I'm shaking from head to foot," she said. "We are a small business and these reviews mean a lot." She said the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority should have done more research before referencing a cafe with a similar name in the exam, which was sat by more than 43,000 students. While the Calmer Cafe in Aberfeldie serves avocado on toast, Ms Jenkins wouldnt describe it as hipster. We are more vintage, retro, she says. And unlike the fictional cafe in the VCE exam, there are no employees with man buns. Ms Jenkins says Year 12 students should visit her cafe before posting negative reviews. Attempting to capitalise on its VCE fame, the cafe is now offering a free coffee to every Year 12 student who presents their student ID and mentions "that exam question". Come in and see how nice our coffee is and our staff instead of going online and slamming us. "I'm just grateful that I know our loyal customers know the reviews are not true," she said. A VCAA spokesman apologised for the inadvertent similarities in the business names that led to the prank negative reviews. "The VCAA has been in contact with Calmer Cafe management and understands the posts have caused the business considerable effort and inconvenience," he said. He said the authority had checked and confirmed there was no registered business name Calmer Coffee prior to the exam. It has also offered to help the cafe remove the online posts. A question from this year's VCE English exam. Loading English is the most popular VCE exam and considered one of the most nerve-racking, because it is the only compulsory subject and a prerequisite for many university courses. It kicks off the VCE exam period for many students and is divided into three sections an analytical interpretation of a text, a comparative analysis of two texts and an analysis of how argument and language are used in an unseen text. Victorian Association for the Teaching of English president Emily Frawley said Section C did not offer students scope for much more than a tokenistic engagement with the world around them. While it was accessible to all students, it offered little depth for sophisticated, high level responses, she said. Stronger students may have picked up on the attack on consumerism and the hipster dig about the tablet-wielding employee with a man bun, as well as the cranes in the background of the cartoon signalling the authors fear about development, she said. They might have also picked up the fountain pen that the old-fashioned author used, the dates above the heritage buildings in the shopping strip and the frowning elderly woman using the walker who perhaps symbolised a generation alienated by the flash new cafe. A big plate of brownies, baked by English teacher Katrina Ketsakidis, greeted Auburn High School students as they filed out of the exam room after the gruelling test. Year 12 student Jack Nolch said he would have preferred to analyse an issue that had more substance. I found it a little weird, he said. I wrote about how the cafe represented a progressive culture in a traditional town. Year 12 students at Auburn High finish their VCE English exam on Wednesday. Credit:Joe Armao Ms Ketsakidis, who woke up at 4am to bake the chocolate slice for her hard-working students, said the exam was fair and accessible. There is a lot of love, care and time that goes into this, she said. Loading If the questions looks hard, work it, you youll always find a way in. But she said unlike previous years, there was only one print text presented in Section C. In previous years, students have been given two texts to compare. This may throw a few people, she said. Her student Stidworthy Dube said he was relieved that the exam was over. It was quite daunting at first, he said. He wrote about Euripides Medea, Clint Eastwoods Invictus and David Maloufs Ransom in Section A and B of the test and said he found the prompts relatively straightforward. His classmates Krystina and Keziah said they did 10 practice exams in preparation for the test, but still found it overwhelming. "We were prepared but the whole thing was unexpected," Keziah said. At Oakleigh Grammar, Tomas Smith was feeling relieved. The 17-year-old had tried to prepare for every type of question by studying old exam papers and using flash cards and memory games. "The questions were not too tough; they were pretty fair, he said. He wrote about Hannah Kent's Burial Rites, and chose a challenging question in the hope it would give him an edge over other students. Christina Gougoussis, 18, said she felt in shock that the exam was over. You cant do much more now and youre just anticipating the results. I was pretty calm and collected. I felt like I studied pretty hard for English. I felt, if I study a lot, then surely Ill get through any prompt I get. East Perth will host one of the biggest and most technologically advanced buildings in the country if a development application is approved by the City of Perth local development assessment panel on Thursday. The panel is considering an application for a $192 million nine-level data tower and 10-level office block on the corner of Newcastle and Lord streets from ASX-200 technology company NextDC. An artist's impression of NextDC's East Perth data centre. NextDC is one of Australia's biggest data centre operators and they lease their centres to other businesses for all manner of IT uses. The company already has a centre in Malaga and several across Australia and counts companies like BDO and Sunrice among its customers. The man accused of the Claremont serial killings will face court on Thursday for a judge to determine whether he will be trialled by a jury or judge alone. Bradley Robert Edwards, in July, pleaded not guilty to the murders of Sarah Spiers, Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon in 1996 and 1997. A hearing to decide if Bradley Edwards will face trial by a jury or judge alone is expected to take place on Wednesday . The 49-year-old has also denied abducting and raping a 17-year-old girl in Karrakatta Cemetery in 1995. State prosecutors have submitted an application for Mr Edwards' trial to be heard by judge alone. Business Council of Australia president Jennifer Westacott has slammed the ACTU's push for industry-wide bargaining as "unworkable" and dismissed claims about casualisation as union "spin". In a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, Ms Westacott warned that the union peak body's proposal to allow workers to strike across industries would hurt low-skilled workers. "It will also hurt small business owners trying to get their enterprises to adjust to change, and keep pace with global competition," she said. Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott says industry-wide bargaining will harm workers and business owners alike. Credit:Mick Tsikas "An industry-wide agreement that imposes the same standards on all companies, irrespective of their needs, is unworkable ... Somewhere in Australia irrespective of your town, your circumstances, and your conditions, your agreement will be negotiated by a big union, potentially in another state." The Australian Labor Party's peak council is being challenged to reveal its finances and decisions in a campaign against secrecy and conflicts of interest, setting up a test within weeks for the "faceless men" who control the party. The new push seeks to expose the party's national executive to greater scrutiny and tougher governance rules, assuring voters the safeguards will be in place before the next election. Labor's Left faction began the campaign last Saturday by airing four key principles to change the way the "board of directors" runs the organisation, something that is done almost entirely in secret under current rules. Outgoing Labor president Mark Butler and parliamentary leader Bill Shorten. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen In a proposal that drew cheers from delegates to the Melbourne meeting, the faction has agreed to seek a new approach to conflicts of interest and will campaign for the change to the party rules at Labor's national conference in Adelaide in December. The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross has called for a "humanitarian Belt and Road" as he urges China to match its extraordinary economic growth with more generous aid donorship. Former Swiss diplomat Peter Maurer said traditional donor countries such as Australia, the United States and European nations were under fiscal pressure but newly wealthy countries were not yet filling the void. That meant "we are struggling with both of them", he told Fairfax Media during a recent visit to Australia. As president of the world's oldest aid organisation, Mr Maurer has sent a special envoy to Beijing. Referring to China's trillion-dollar Belt and Road global infrastructure-building project, he said Beijing needed a humanitarian equivalent. "We wanted ... to have an internal voice promoting this thinking of humanitarian sensitivity in Chinese foreign policy. I think we are certainly not there yet that China is a big donor, but we have, I think, productive and interesting discussions with China," he said. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size On November 6, Americans will head to the polls for the much-anticipated midterm elections. While Donald Trump is not up for re-election until 2020, the midterms will be closely watched to see how voters are responding to an unconventional, polarising president. For most Americans, this will be their first chance to express their happiness or displeasure with Trump's performance. The President is not on the ballot but midterm elections play out as referendums on the president, says former US ambassador to Australia John Berry. It's a chance for voters to send a message to the White House. Heading into the midterms, polls show that while Trump is broadly unpopular, his approval ratings are consistent with several of his predecessors at the same point in their presidency. Voting is not compulsory in the US and turnout is usually significantly lower in midterm elections than in presidential election years. Advertisement But there are signs that Americans of both political persuasions are unusually engaged with this year's elections, suggesting turnout could be higher than usual. What's at stake? Republicans currently hold the presidency, the House of Representatives and the Senate, which means one-party control in Washington a rarity in US history. If Democrats retake either the House or the Senate the United States' lawmaking chambers they will be able to block policies they disagree with. For example, the massive Republican overhaul of the US tax system that passed late last year would not have been possible. Neither would any rollback of Obamacare, the law introduced under former president Barack Obama in a bid to make healthcare more affordable for more Americans. Democrats would also be able to legislate their own policies. President Trump must sign off on bills for them to become law, meaning he could veto any Democratic policies he disagrees with. But there is a chance the Democrats and Trump could work together on some issues, such as a big investment in infrastructure. Advertisement Here's where the stakes become higher still: winning control of the House or the Senate would also give Democrats the power to launch investigations into the President and to subpoena documents and witnesses. Democrats have already flagged using a House majority to force Trump to release his tax returns and to probe Russia's role in the 2016 election. Turning up the heat One of the thousands of women who railed against Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court. Credit:Bloomberg Events in recent weeks have further inflamed divisions among Americans and injected even more volatility into the elections: The nomination of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, accused by several women of sexual assault while a high school and college student. The process sparked a new national conversation on sexual assault and deepened the political divide between men and women. The appearance of a caravan of 7000 migrants, mostly from Guatemala, travelling through Mexico towards the US. The development was leapt upon by Trump, who has branded the Democrats the party of open borders. The arrest of a Trump supporter from Florida for sending homemade explosive devices in the mail to a dozen prominent critics of the President. The shooting killings of 11 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, an event that further heightened the prominence of gun safety as an election issue. The revelation that 53,000 voter registration applications most of them African-Americans' had been put on hold because of irregularities in Georgia, where Democrat Stacey Abrams is hoping to become the first black governor in the state's history. How likely are the Democrats to win the House or Senate? Advertisement As John Berry points out, the historical norm is that the president's party tends to go backwards at midterm elections. A Republican president tends to mobilise Democrats to head to the polls, and vice versa. Meanwhile, complacency often creeps in among supporters of the president's party. It's unlikely that control of the Senate will shift, which is why the focus this time around is on the Democrats' chances of gaining the House. All 435 seats are up for grabs in the House of Representatives, where elections for the full house are held every two years. Republicans hold the majority, with 235 seats compared with the Democrats' 193. To take control of the House, the Democrats will need to win an extra 23 seats. About 60 seats are considered to be competitive, meaning there is a chance they could be won by either party. The seats are called districts and the 60 battleground districts are spread throughout the country: from progressive California and New York to more rural states, such as Iowa and Pennsylvania, that swung strongly behind Donald Trump. There are even seats in play in solidly conservative states such as Kansas and Kentucky. A common feature of many competitive districts this year is that they are suburban with voters who are more educated than the national average. Trump is deeply unpopular with college-educated voters, especially women, which helps explain why the Democrats are favoured to reclaim a House majority. Advertisement One-third of US senators 33 of 100 are up for re-election, and there are special elections in Minnesota and Mississippi to fill vacancies there, bringing the total number of seats up for grabs to 35. Republicans hold a slim Senate majority of 51 seats to 49, which means that the Democrats have to pick up only two extra seats to flip control of the upper house. Although this sounds relatively easy, the prospect of the Democrats winning a Senate majority is actually slimmer than the prospect of them retaking the House. This is because 24 Democrats are up for re-election in this voting cycle compared with nine Republicans. That's 24 seats to have to defend as well as the two new ones to win. The high number of Democrat seats on the line compared with Republican seats is just bad luck for the Democrats. Senate elections are staggered every two years, a different batch of US states elect their senators for six-year terms. Senators represent a state in its entirety and there are two senators per state. Many of the Democrats up for re-election represent more conservative states such as Indiana and North Dakota, which Donald Trump easily carried in 2016. So the Democrats have only a few opportunities to take seats from the Republicans. This has forced Senate Democrats to act defensively and deploy significant funds and resources just to hold their current seats. Democrat Stacey Abrams will be the first female African-American governor if she wins. Credit:Alamy But wait, there's more Advertisement Pittsburgh: One of Pittsburgh's most solemn days began with hundreds coming together in anguish and grief in synagogues and at grave sides, to start the services for those killed as they prayed on the Sabbath. In the afternoon, they came together again, in shivas to honour the dead and comfort the living, and, later by the thousands, in solemn marches of protest around the Squirrel Hill neighbourhood where the attack took place on Saturday. This is the Pittsburgh that met US President Donald Trump, who arrived with members of his family on Tuesday, US time. The presidential visit, welcomed by some in Pittsburgh, unwanted or vigorously opposed by many others, began with a motorcade into the city and a visit to the Tree of Life synagogue. Trump, who did not speak publicly during his brief trip, lit memorial candles in a vestibule near where the shooting unfolded, and placed stones and white roses from the White House outside, in commemoration of those killed in the attack by a gunman full of anti-Semitic rage shouting that Jews must die. Almost a third said that they are not confident in achieving their financial life goals. This was most apparent in the Prairies (36%) and less so in Ontario (24%). One-in-four (25%) Canadians take advantage of an employer RRSP savings matching program but 64% do not have access to such a program. A third of respondents rarely have or never set aside savings at the end of the month and 62% rarely or never maximize their RRSP contribution each month based on eligible amounts. Why they arent getting professional help Despite these findings 65% said they have not consulted with a financial planning professional. More than a fifth said thats because they dont know who to trust, and similar shares said they found it overwhelming, or were embarrassed by their financial situation. WSU Hosts World Radiology Day Conference October 31, 2018 OGDEN, Utah Weber State University is hosting a "World Radiology Day" conference Nov. 8 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. to showcase the important contributions radiographers, technologists, and radiation therapists make to improving global health. This event is for students and alumni to appreciate and celebrate the importance of international competency and global health concerns, said Robert Walker, Radiological Sciences chair. Ultimately, the hope is to learn and provide skills that makes us all better citizens of the world. The day will include presentations from radiological leaders around the country. 9:30-10:20 a.m. Casey Neville, WSU radiologic sciences assistant professor 10:30-11:20 a.m. Chris Steelman, American Society of Radiologic Technologists chair 11:30 a.m.-12:20 p.m. Donna Thaler Long, International Society of Radiographers and Radiological Technologists council member 1:30-2:30 p.m. Rebecca Schwartz, WSU Study Abroad director 2:30-3 p.m. Chandler McDonald, WSU student The event is free, including a light breakfast and lunch. Technologists and therapists who attend will receive continuing education credit needed to maintain their certification. For more information, call 801-626-6057 Visit https://weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University. GREENWICH Before Greenwich kids go out trick or treating, the police department has issued several safety tips to insure a fun night outside. Weather forecasts for the town are predicting a pleasant evening with temperatures in the 50s and no rain so trick or treaters are expected to be out in force throughout Greenwich neighborhoods. So drivers are urged to be on the lookout for people in costume walking around residential streets in the evening and into the night. That means entering and exiting driveways with extra caution, being aware that there might be children in dark costumes outside after the sun has set and to be careful of children walking on roadways, medians and curbs. New and inexperienced drivers are also being discouraged from driving on Halloween night. In addition, parents are being urged by the Greenwich Police Department to make sure that a responsible adult accompanies young children when they are out trick or treating. If parents are letting their older children go alone, they should first plan and review a route thats acceptable to them and agree on a specific time they should be home. Additionally, parents should make sure their children know never to enter a strangers home or car and to only travel to familiar, well-lit areas of town. Children should also stick together in groups with their friends and not wander off alone. While walking around, children should make sure to put their electronic devices down, keep their heads down and walk, not run, across the street. The warning about electronic devices extends to parents as well because they need to make sure they keep an eye on the kids they are supervising. Parents are also being instructed to tell their kids not to eat any of the treats they have collected until they have returned home. Parents need to be able to inspect the treats and sort through them because while tampering is rare, parents need to be cautious and throw away anything that has an unusual appearance or discoloration, tiny pinholes or tears in the wrappers or anything that is spoiled or unwrapped. Homemade items or other baked goods should also be discarded unless the parents personally know who gave them out. The police are advising that parents should adhere to a strict, "when in doubt, throw it out" strategy and tell their children not to accept and definitely not eat anything that isnt commercially wrapped. Parents also need to be extra cautious with young children and remove potential choking hazards like gum, peanuts, hard candies and small toys. In addition parents should also be careful about their kids eating too much candy and make sure that the kids enjoy the treats for several days following Halloween and not all at once. kborsuk@greenwichtime.com NEW YORK Family and friends of a deceased Stamford man walked out of a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday morning moments before grisly photographs were shown of his badly beaten, disfigured and burned body. A New Jersey medical examiner testified on Tuesday about the myriad injuries sustained by Joey Comunale, a 26-year-old Westhill High School graduate, who police say was murdered in the Manhattan apartment of James Rackover on Nov. 13, 2016. Alex Zhang, from the Middlesex County Medical Examiners office in New Jersey, showed jury members the 14 stab wounds that Comunale suffered on his chest, as well as various contusions and abrasions to his face and body. Zhang testified that Comunale died as a result of a homicide, and that the stab wounds delivered to his chest resulted in his death. During Zhangs testimony, Rackover repeatedly held a tissue to his eyes, shielding his view from the gory photos of Comunales face and torso. Rackover is one of two men on trial for Comunales death. Larry Dilione, who was also charged with murder, will go on trial next. A third man, Max Gemma, was also in the apartment at the time of Comunales death, according to police. Gemma was charged with hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence. He is expected to go to trial last. Dilione and Rackover are accused of beating, dismembering and burning Comunales body, which was found dumped in a shallow New Jersey grave. Police have said Dilione knocked Comunale unconscious and Rackover, an ex con from Florida, killed the Stamford resident because he feared going back to prison. The fight stemmed from a drug-fueled argument over cigarettes after a long night of partying, heavy drinking and cocaine use, according to authorities. Comunale reportedly had just met Dilione outside a New York nightclub and accompanied him and five others to Rackovers apartment. Among the autopsy photos shown on Tuesday was a picture of a five-inch-wide, gaping wound on Comunales upper right arm, which reached as deep as his bone. Zhang said the absence of blood around the gash was indicative of a postmortem wound, and that the lines created along the bone were signs of someone using a sharp object to saw the tissue. He later testified that a seven-inch knife found in Rackovers home could have been the tool used in an attempt to saw Comunales arm off. Among the injuries Comunale sustained was a broken nose, Zhang said. The nine stab wounds near a greenish, decomposed part of Comunales chest indicated the stabbings took place before he died, Zhang said. The examiner noted blunt force injuries to Comunales face, neck, buttocks, forearm and fingers. A photo of red marks around the right side of Comunales neck were consistent with strangulation or choking, said Zhang, who also pointed out injuries to Comunales face, including on his forehead and around his nose and eyelids, where hemorrhages had caused blood to build up behind his eyes. Comunale also suffered two cuts to his left ear, and a stab wound to his left upper arm. The interior autopsy of Comunales body revealed several broken ribs and severe fractures to his skull, consistent with a large fall, said Zhang. Rackover and Dilione are accused of throwing Comunales deceased body out of a 30-foot-high window at Rackovers 59th Street apartment, before driving 60 miles to Oceanport, New Jersey to dump the body. Earlier on Tuesday, the prosecutions star witness completed his testimony, saying that Rackovers right hand was heavily bandaged on Nov. 14, when he met him at Equinox Gym, one day after Comunale reportedly was murdered. According to Louis Ruggiero, Rackover had large cuts on his thumb and middle finger. Ruggiero said Rackover told him that Dilione got into a fight with Comunale and knocked him unconscious. He said Rackover then confessed to slitting Comunales throat and stabbing him. Autopsy photos presented Tuesday, however, did not show that Comunales throat had been cut open. Both the prosecution and defense rested their arguments on Tuesday. With no hearing set for Wednesday, closing arguments are expected to kick off on Thursday, followed by jury deliberation. ignacio.laguarda@stamfordadvocate.com WILTON The divisive nature of contemporary politics in America has been a key talking point for candidates on both sides of the aisle, but for Democrat Stephanie Thomas, it was the overlooked commonalities between Connecticut constituents of different political views that compelled her to run for the 143rd House district. I think we know this intrinsically, but were a lot more alike when we talk to each other one on one than the headlines would have us believe, said the 49-year-old first-time candidate. Bearing this in mind, Thomas said she made a conscious point of making her campaign less about issues than about her approach. Instead, she hoped to eschew partisan politics and focus on meeting the needs of what she called the exhausted majority. These are the people stuck in between the extremes of each party, and when I talk to people, that sentiment is what I hear expressed the most, she said. For me, its about moving away from partisanship and moving toward solutions by challenging ourselves to step outside of these contexts that we find ourselves in and really work with each other, work across the aisle, for the betterment of our community. For Thomas, who petitioned her way on to the ballot days before the state deadline, this means standing up for strong gun laws, including new legislation restricting access to untraceable receivers or so-called ghost guns; making college more affordable for local students through state rebates and loan forgiveness programs; and focusing on fixing the states aging roads and failing rail lines. All of which she believes her opponent, incumbent Republican Gail Lavielle, is not in a position to accomplish. Thomas said established policies in Connecticut, like gun laws, womens reproductive rights and universal health access, have been under assault from the federal level something she believes Republican leadership has been complicit in. Connecticut has already voted in favor of a way of life that people here enjoy health benefits, strong gun laws, womens reproductive health and the list goes on and those are all things that are now being threatened by not only the federal government but the Republican leadership in this state, Thomas said. Im the type of person that stands up for people, and it doesnt matter if its against my own party or for my own party. I will work with anybody and I will also stand up to anybody if its the right thing to do, and I just dont feel that Gail is able to stand up to her party for things her constituents want. Thomas said she stands in stark opposition to Lavielle in terms of voting rights in the state. The first-time candidate said she would support no-excuse absentee voting and early voting in Connecticut. While Lavielle voiced support for no-excuse absentee voting in recent forums, Thomas pointed out that the four-term incumbent had voted against a 2018 bill that would have allowed early voting and a 2012 bill that would have allowed no-excuse absentee voting. Voting rights is a huge issue for me, especially at this time when more and more people are threatened to be disenfranchised and apathy is winning more elections, she said. Making sure that people have the right to vote, have access to voting and feel like its a fair system, is hugely importantly. Gail has voted against all voting rights legislation from the time she joined the legislature to now, and that, to me, feels wrong. Thomas is the founder and owner of the New York-based Stetwin Consulting, a firm that provides fundraising and events expertise to nonprofits. Though she has never held an elected position before, she has served as an active member of the Norwalk Democratic Town Committee since moving to the city a few years ago. WESTPORT Megan Robertson is a second-generation builder a second-generation female builder. Early architectural influences came from her mother, who chose a career in construction at a time when few women were going into the field, and few were welcomed there. I grew up around construction, said Robertson, of MLR Properties in Monroe, whose inspiration may also have come from her grandfather, who was a mason. Construction is still a male-dominated profession but that does not intimidate Robertson, who has been successful designing and building houses on speculation in Fairfield County including several in Westport, and beyond. She also renovates existing houses, including restoration of historic homes, and has won the Home Builders & Remodelers Association of Connecticut HOBI Award for outstanding remodel of a home in the Northeast (in the town of Essex). Robertson said she brings a unique perspective to her work. I design the way I like to live, said Robertson, the mother of three. She places emphasis on the mudroom, storage areas, and the kitchen or great room, the latter being where most people spend their time. We tend not to use living rooms, she said, adding its a sign of our changing time and lifestyle. Kitchens are key, and she always creates a phenomenal pantry, said co-listing agent Kelly Loucas. Examples of Robertsons work are found in two of her newly constructed houses in Westport, which are currently on the market; one at 19 Hillspoint Road and the other at 8 Keller Lane. Both houses come with a two-year builder warranty. The standard for most new construction is a one-year warranty, according to the listing agents. The white colonial on Hillspoint Road is a transitional house in the Greens Farms neighborhood. It was built in 2017 and features 15 rooms within 7,118 square feet of living space. It contains state-of-the-art gourmet kitchen, three fireplaces, an attached three-car garage, and a level yard with evergreen trees and an 8-foot fence for added privacy. The location of this house puts it within easy commuting distance to I-95, Post Road (Route 1), Compo Beach, and Longshore Club Park. The white colonial at on Keller Lane is smaller than the one on Hillspoint. It was built this year on a half an acre level parcel on a cul-de-sac in the Long Lots neighborhood. It includes 12 rooms within 5,196 square feet of living space. Among its features are two fireplaces, a gourmet kitchen, and a long covered front porch. Both houses have a free-flowing floor plan and homework stations. All Robertsons houses come with generators and she tries to stick with American and Canadian-made products. She makes sure all have ample storage including mudrooms. Mudrooms are a must no matter what you do, she said. While her houses may share some features, All of the houses are one-of-a-kind. I wont build the same house twice. All my houses have personality, Robertson said. Robertsons houses are not completed until she adds the lighting. Loucas said Robertson has a real eye for selecting just the right lighting fixtures for each home. Thats the jewelry of a home, Robertson said. There will be an Open House at both of these houses on Sunday, Nov. 4, 1 to 3 pm, at which refreshments will be served. For more information or to set up an appointment to see the house, contact Jim Lanzaro and Kelly Loucas of Westport Realty Partners/Higgins Group Real Estate; Lanzaro at 203-981-1966 or jimlanzaro@yahoo.com, and Loucas at 203-814-6100 or kloucas36@gmail.com. ABOUT THIS HOUSE TYPE: Colonial, New Construction ADDRESS: 19 Hillspoint Road PRICE: $2,569,000 NUMBER OF ROOMS: 15 FEATURES: 1.05-acre level property, easy commute I-95 and Post Road (Route 1), only minutes to Compo Beach and Longshore Club Park, generator, two-year builder warranty, second floor homework area, three fireplaces, Thermopane windows, walk-up attic, ridge vent, exterior lighting, underground sprinkler, partially finished basement, attached three-car garage, zoned central air conditioning and natural gas heating, stone wall, room for a pool, six bedrooms, seven full and one half baths SCHOOLS: Greens Farms Elementary, Bedford Middle, Staples High ASSESSMENT: $1,560,800 TAX RATE: 16.86 mills TAXES: $26,315 ABOUT THIS HOUSE STYLE: Colonial, New Construction ADDRESS: 8 Keller Lane PRICE: $1,689,000 ROOMS: 12 FEATURES: 0.49-acre level property, located on a cul-de-sac, two fireplaces, homework station, two-year builder warranty, covered front porch, exterior lighting, patio, underground sprinkler, zoned central air conditioning and natural gas heating, partially finished walk-up attic, partially finished basement, attached two-car garage, room for a pool, four bedrooms, four full and one half baths SCHOOLS: Long Lots Elementary, Bedford Middle, Staples High School ASSESSMENT: $1,211,400 MILL RATE: 16.86 mills TAXES: $20,424 See More Collapse This year is a century since the First World War ended, with 11 November being the Armistice Centenary. To mark the occasion, a variety of shows across the country are presenting work commemorating, analysing and reacting to the war and its lasting impact on the world. We select some worth getting a ticket to. Brass Benjamin Till's new musical has its world premiere at the Union Theatre in London, set between the front line and Leeds, it follows an amateur brass band who enlist to fight together. Originally commissioned by the National Youth Music Theatre, the show looks like it'll be a great chance to see a new musical about an important topic. Union Theatre, 31 October to 24 November Billy Bishop Goes to War Billy Bishop Charles Aitken Charles Aitken and Oliver Beamish star in this revival at Jermyn Street Theatre, produced by Proud Haddock. The show tells the story of young Bishop, aged 20, who becomes a Candian hero and fighter pilot. The piece hasn't been seen in London in almost 35 years so well worth trying to catch it while it's here! Jermyn Street Theatre, 31 October to 24 November Speak Your Peace Something a bit different here. Key playwrights including Roy Williams, Suzi Ruffell and April de Angelis have written monologues exploring civil resistance and protest since 1918 in response to the Armistice. Rather than being performed live, the monologues can be watched online here. Bury the Dead Bury the Dead Scott Rylander Finborough Theatre hosts the first professional UK production in over 80 years of Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead, an expressionistic protest play about six dead soldiers who stand up in their graves and refuse to be buried. Brilliant concept, we can't wait to see the results. Finborough Theatre, until 24 November Women of Aktion The Women of Aktion Karol Wyszynski Bent Architect puts the women of War front and centre in their new show based on accounts of the Kiel Mutiny and the beginning of the German Revolution. With a neat framing device (the show imagines what might have happened had Joan Littlewood and the anarchist German playwright Ernst Toller been the ones exploring the mutiny), this looks like a fascinating exploration of a forgotten legacy. Tour to Canterbury, Manchester, Halifax, Wolverhampton, Manchester and Sheffield Crossings Crossings Kirsten McTernan New Perspectives and Pentabus bring to life an unexpected story of male soldiers turning to cross-dressing to cope with the war experience, juxtaposing accounts with life in Sarajevo in 2019. The piece has a national tour until 24 November with more dates to be announced. UK tour, visiting countries including Herefordshire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland until 24 November The Unreturning The Unreturning Tristram Kenton Anna Jordan teams up with Frantic Assembly to present The Unreturning, about the impact of war over the last 100 years. The piece is out on a UK tour and will have a few days at Birmingham Old Rep before returning in 2019. The Old Rep, Birmingham Return of The Unknown Return of The Unknown ( Caleb Simmons) The Marlowe Canterbury is spearheading an epic event from 8 November at Dover Marine Station the location where the Unknown Warrior (an anonymous unidentified British soldier killed on a European battlefield during the First World War, symbolic of the thousands that died) touched back down on British soil in 1920 to be interred at Westminster Abbey. More than 640 performers, aged from eight to 80. Over 1 million wounded British soldiers used the port to return home from the war, meaning the performance has a poignant edge. Dover Marine Station, 8 to 11 November Not About Heroes Not About Heroes ( Catherine Ashmore) Stephen Macdonald's 1982 tale of poetry, war and kinship between two war poets, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, is revived in a new touring production produced by James Seabright Productions. The piece has a quick and well-timed spell at Wilton's Music Hall to conclude its two-year tour. Wilton's Music Hall, 31 October to 11 November Remembrance Arinze Kene Dan Wooller for WhatsOnStage The Old Vic has presented a variety of one-off evenings entitled One Voice over the last year, and on 4 November Misty's Arinze Kene will curate an evening of monologues reflecting on the post-war legacy. Writers include Rachel De-Lahay, Monica Dolan and David Ireland, with performers including Ines de Clercq and Jade Anouka. Old Vic, 4 November The Trench The Trench Rah Petherbridge Les Enfants Terribles revive its hit show The Trench, about an ominous odyssey into a monster-filled subterranean No Man's Land in time for the Armistice at Southwark Playhouse. Blending the company's top-notch puppetry and design with a knack for quirky storytelling, this is a show reflecting on the war in a slightly left-field manner. Southwark Playhouse, until 17 November Soldier On Soldier On Jonathan Lewis writes and directs this new musical at The Other Palace, arriving in London after a sold-out national tour. Workshopped with British servicemen and women and their families over a five year period, the piece is performed by a cast composed of ex-service personnel as well as professional actors. The other Palace, until 24 November Private Peaceful Private Peaceful Jonathan Keenan Michael Morpurgo's wartime novel is celebrating its 15th birthday this year, and there has been a stage adaptation around for almost as long, but the piece feels all the more pertinent given the timing. The show follows a young boy, Tommo, whose best friend Charlie is unjustly charged with cowardice. UK tour, to Waterside Aylesbury, Bolton Little Theatre and Theatre Royal Winchester Forgotten Forgotten The Armistice is a vital time for reviving plays about unheard stories during the war, and Yellow Earth and Moongate have done exactly that with Forgotten , directed by Kim Pearce. Following 140,000 Chinese labour corps who trekked to the Western Front during the First World War (working behind the front lines), you can read writer Daniel York Loh's blog on the piece here. Arcola Theatre, until 17 November The Wipers Times The Wipers Times Kirsten McTernan Nick Newman and Ian Hislop's First World War-set love letter to the medium of print (the play being about a satirical newspaper created on the Western Front) originally ran a couple of years ago but now returns for a second run at the Arts Theatre in central London. Our critic described the show's original run as "elegantly structured, wonderfully theatrical and perfectly paced" in a five-star review, and we're sure it hasn't diminished with time! Arts Theatre, until 1 December War Horse War Horse Brinkhoff/Mogenberg The iconic production of War Horse, originally created by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris from Michael Morpurgo's best-selling novel is back at the National for a couple of months as part of a major UK tour. If you haven't had the chance to see the brilliant show yet, then now's the chance, with extra pertinence! National Theatre, until 5 January Alterna Bank, in partnership with Central 1 Credit Union (Central 1), announced a limited release and general rollout of a new mobile banking app in the coming months. The advanced digital platform is named Forge, which was created in a three-way partnership with Central 1 and software company Backbase. Alterna is the first digital bank in the country to offer digital mortgages, and with Forge it is expected to continue evolve it's digital footprint and customer experiences. "We're excited about Forge and that it allows Alterna to continue to lead in Canada's digital banking space. This platform makes Alterna Bank even more competitive by giving us greater control over our digital roadmap," said Alterna President and Chief Executive Officer Rob Paterson. "Through Forge, we'll be able to deliver even more advanced banking technologies and techniques to our customers' sooner than the big banks can. We're thrilled to be, once again, breaking new ground." It was also noted that Forge will pave the way for personalized user experience with streamlined front-end features, performance and speed for mobile. The app is set to be implemented across all Alterna Bank channels by 2019. While there was little change to the average residential tax rate this year, Toronto and Vancouver, two of Canada's most expensive markets, continued to see lower residential tax rates. Advisory services and data provider Altus Group, in its 2018 Canadian Property Tax Rate Benchmark Report, showed that the average estimated residential property taxes per $1,000 of assessment among the cities surveyed was $8.82. This marks a hike of 0.79% year-over-year. Examining the city-specific data, it was found that larger assessment bases paved the way for Toronto to record a drop in residential tax rates for the tenth consecutive year. Vancouver, meanwhile, followed a similar trend, seeing a decline for the fifteenth consecutive year. Calgarys residential rates also sank by 2.21%. According to the 2018 City of Calgary Property Assessment Market Report, this was partly of because an overall year-over-year increase of 4% in residential property values. Notably, Quebec City registered the largest drop in residential rates of 7.47%, thanks to a significant slide in the regions school tax rate. Regina, Saskatoon, and Edmonton tracked the opposite direction after they posted the largest residential tax rate increases of 2.55%, 2.13% and 2.09%, respectively. Finally, it was highlighted in the report that Winnipeg, Halifax and Ottawa had the highest 2018 residential rates per $1,000 of assessment. Accordingly, the manufacturing and processing industry saw a high growth of 12.7%, contributing 9.8 percentage points to the overall IIP growth. In addition, the power production and distribution sector surged by 9.6%, contributing 0.9 percentage points, while the water supply and waste and wastewater treatment industry edged up 6.6% with contribution of 0.1 percentage points. Meanwhile, the mining industry decreased by 2.6%, reducing the overall IIP by 0.4 percentage points. The central province of Ha Tinh recorded the highest growth of industrial production at 105.6%, thanks to the contribution of Formosas steel factory, followed by the north central province of Thanh Hoa with 30.3%. The southern coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau witnessed the lowest growth with 1.3% due to the decrease of crude oil exploration. The countrys IIP for October only was estimated to see a year-on-year increase of 7.7%. The Luzerne County Schools & Homes in Education (SHINE) program at Wilkes University celebrated the nationwide Lights on Afterschool project by offering a virtual Lights On! STEM lesson to its students and their families. Supplies were distributed beforehand to the students and included everything needed to make a flashlight with an LED bulb. The Zoom lesson, sponsored by UGI, explained where electricity comes, how it can light a bulb, and the history of electricity. (This article was published at www.ImmigrationReform.com. Published here with permission.) A group of congressional Democrats is complaining about Texas Operation Lone ... (This article was previously published at www.ImmigrationReform.com. Published here with permission.) If the Biden administration carries out threats to fire... THE University of Winnipeg honoured its chancellor, Bob Silver, with the 2018 Duff Roblin Award at the Fort Garry Hotels grand ballroom Tuesday night. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 30/10/2018 (1116 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. THE University of Winnipeg honoured its chancellor, Bob Silver, with the 2018 Duff Roblin Award at the Fort Garry Hotels grand ballroom Tuesday night. The award recognizes the businessman, volunteer and philanthropists contributions to improving the lives of many now and in the future, said UWinnipeg president and vice-chancellor Annette Trimbee. You look at all the past recipients and you feel honoured to be included in that group Bob Silver Roblin a former Manitoba premier, the force behind getting the Red River Floodway built, and an advocate for education was the first recipient of the award in 2007. He died in 2010. "He was a patron of education and a great community member," Trimbee said before Tuesdays award ceremony. So is Silver, she said. "You look at many of his causes, and theyre related to education and helping youth be all they can be," said Trimbee. "Hes heavily involved in We Day, supporting young students and, at convocation, he and I make contact and congratulate thousands of graduates every year." Established by the university and its foundation 12 years ago, the Duff Roblin Award recognizes outstanding Manitobans who have made lasting and meaningful contributions to their community, and especially to the advancement of education. Past honourees include Tom Jackson, Gail Asper and Justice Murray Sinclair. "You look at all the past recipients and you feel honoured to be included in that group," Silver said outside the grand ballroom at the Fort Garry Hotel. Earlier in the day, he attended We Day Manitoba an event for which he is co-chairman with thousands of young people at Bell MTS Place in downtown Winnipeg. "To hear 16,000 children cheering for good is a great thing," said Silver. Silvers commitment to UWinnipeg extends beyond his roles as chancellor and foundation board member. He and his wife, Kim, are dedicated donors, with particular interest in building pathways to education and supporting under-represented and non-traditional students on campus, Trimbee said. Silver has contributed at the local, national and international levels to business and the community. He is the president and co-owner of Western Glove Works Ltd., co-owner of Urban Barn, Auld Phillips, and Comark retail chains. Hes also co-owner of the Brandon Sun, Winnipeg Free Press, Canstar Community News, and Derksen Printers in Steinbach. Hes served on numerous boards and volunteered with a multitude of causes, including spearheading the campaign to build the new Millennium Library and the Grow Winnipeg initiative of the Jewish Federation. Carol Sanders The Manitoba Metis Federation (MMF) plans to take the provincial government to court a second time this year for cancelling a landmark agreement over consultations on Manitoba Hydro development. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/10/2018 (1115 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The Manitoba Metis Federation (MMF) plans to take the provincial government to court a second time this year for cancelling a landmark agreement over consultations on Manitoba Hydro development. In a letter sent to the MMF Tuesday, the province said it is terminating the Turning the Page Agreement within 30 days. The $20-million deal, signed by Hydro, the MMF and the province in 2014, ends effective Nov. 29. Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press MMF President David Chartrand said the group will take the province to court to get the rest of the money. MMF President David Chartrand said the federation will take the province to court to get the $15 million it's still owed from the agreement. The province's decision to pull out of the deal took the MMF by surprise and Chartrand believes Hydro also wasn't aware of the pending decision, since no one from the Crown corporation co-signed the government's letter. "It just shows that Hydro, obviously, is not either in favour of this or does not support this or is just being told what theyre going to do. So really, I dont know why we have a (Hydro) board. I dont know why we have a president of the Hydro board. (Premier Brian) Pallister should just run it under his office," Chartrand said. "Thats what Manitobans better start to understand, because hes overruling higher agreements and putting Hydro in a very litigious position." Pallister said the government is rescinding the agreement because it wants to offer better opportunities for consultation with Indigenous and Metis people. What's the Turning the Page Agreement? The Manitoba government, Manitoba Hydro and the Manitoba Metis Federation signed the Turning the Page Agreement in November 2014. It was intended to "to build a forward-looking, productive and non-adversarial working relationship" among the three parties, as laid out in its terms of reference. The MMF was to be paid $1 million per year until 2034 to compensate for past and current Hydro development on Metis lands, for a total of $20 million. The group has received $5 million to date. The money has gone toward funding various projects, such as undertaking church and arena repairs, throwing cultural celebrations and erecting veterans' monuments, the MMF said. click to read more The Manitoba government, Manitoba Hydro and the Manitoba Metis Federation signed the Turning the Page Agreement in November 2014. It was intended to "to build a forward-looking, productive and non-adversarial working relationship" among the three parties, as laid out in its terms of reference. The MMF was to be paid $1 million per year until 2034 to compensate for past and current Hydro development on Metis lands, for a total of $20 million. The group has received $5 million to date. The money has gone toward funding various projects, such as undertaking church and arena repairs, throwing cultural celebrations and erecting veterans' monuments, the MMF said. Turning the Page assured the MMF would be compensated for the impacts on Metis people from the Keeyask and Bipole III Hydro megaprojects. It didn't prevent the group from participating in regulatory proceedings or reviews related to existing or future Hydro developments, nor from making submissions to commissions, agencies, boards or government related to environmental or regulatory issues. Any of the three signatories could pull out of the TPA if they gave 30 days notice to the other parties in writing. The government is not asking the MMF to repay the funding it has received from the agreement so far because it doesn't believe there was a fundamental breach of the contract. MMF president David Chartrand said his group plans to take the province to court over the outstanding amount owed from the agreement. Chartrand has already asked for a separate judicial review of a planned $67.5-million payment that was scrapped by the provincial government in March. The money was to be paid out over 50 years, as compensation to the MMF, which would not object to a planned Manitoba-Minnesota transmission line, among other projects. Premier Brian Pallister nixed the idea, calling it "hush money" paid out to a "special interest group." Pallister said his decision to pull the plug is the reason nine of 10 Hydro board members quit in the spring, though the former board chair Sanford Riley has refuted that claim. Riley said the premier refused to meet with the board to discuss various issues with Hydro, which led to the mass exodus. Jessica Botelho-Urbanski Close During question period, the premier decried the former NDP government's approach to Indigenous relations, saying "it was paternalistic, it was colonialistic (and) it was designed to tell Indigenous people to go away and be quiet (by) cutting a cheque." "We want a more respectful process and we think that its important not to rely on the old practices of paying people not to consult. That was the origins of the original agreement and thats not how were going to go about things going forward," Pallister told reporters afterward. "We have too much respect for the Metis people to want to have them do anything but participate in all the hearings, all the public consultations." Chartrand has had no loss for words when it comes to speaking on the Hydro file. He already asked for a judicial review of a planned $67.5-million payment that the provincial government yanked in March. The matter is still before the courts. Chartrand rebuked the premier for appointing a Metis minister for Crown Services, Colleen Mayer, in August, then having her dismantle a deal with the federation. "I think thats sinister, I think thats cruel, I think thats evil. And I dont know how Colleen Mayer is going to look in the mirror in the morning, look every day knowing that shes affected thousands and thousands of people by her actions in cancelling these programs," he said. Mayer told reporters she was elected to represent all Manitobans, including the Metis, and she stands by the government's decision. In its letter to the MMF, the province said it was cancelling the agreement to rework its policies on consultation. "As stated previously, the Manitoba government is committed to advancing reconciliation with the Manitoba Metis. However, from our perspective, the TPA has failed to do so. A re-evaluation of how Manitoba government policies and priorities, including reconciliation with Indigenous communities, can be accomplished is required," wrote Grant Doak, acting deputy minister of Crown Services. "The province is hopeful that Manitoba, Hydro and the Metis can work together, constructively and in good faith, to find means of fostering mutually beneficial relationships." After talking with Chartrand and former Hydro board chair Sandy Riley about the quashed agreement, NDP Leader Wab Kinew criticized the government's decision. "The thing that comes out loud and clear with the conversations that Im having with people is that nobody can work with the premier. Even people in his own base, even people who share his own ideology cannot work with this person," Kinew said. "And now, for him to come out in a very craven way and try to divide people and practise the politics of division, to me, it just shows how morally bankrupt this premier's politics are. So again, Manitoba Hydros not going bankrupt the premier is going morally bankrupt." jessica.botelho@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @_jessbu THE province has announced plans to withdraw from a landmark deal with the Manitoba Metis Federation, the Free Press has learned. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/10/2018 (1115 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. THE province has announced plans to withdraw from a landmark deal with the Manitoba Metis Federation, the Free Press has learned. A Manitoba Hydro spokesman confirmed late Tuesday the Manitoba government has announced intentions to step away from the Turning the Page Agreement, signed by the province, Hydro and the MMF in 2014. "That is permitted under the agreement," Hydro spokesman Bruce Owen said by email. The Turning the Page agreement was designed "to build a forward-looking, productive and non-adversarial working relationship" between the three parties, as laid out in its terms of reference. The relationship has been strained in recent months, as MMF president David Chartrand alleged the province scrapped a $67.5-million deal that would have resulted in the Metis people being compensated over 50 years for past and future Hydro projects. The matter is now before the courts. Chartrand has previously said the governments refusal to broach the topic in meetings doesnt bode well for reconciliation in the province. The province could not provide comment late Tuesday, but committed to give an update on the situation today. Jessica Botelho-Urbanski Winnipeggers no matter whether Jewish or gentile gathered together in solidarity, in remembrance, and, in the end, in hope at a vigil for the 11 members of the Jewish faith who were gunned down in their place of worship in Pittsburgh on the weekend. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/10/2018 (1115 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Winnipeggers no matter whether Jewish or gentile gathered together in solidarity, in remembrance, and, in the end, in hope at a vigil for the 11 members of the Jewish faith who were gunned down in their place of worship in Pittsburgh on the weekend. "Its terrifying what happened," Rochelle Zimberg said as she sat among hundreds of people inside the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue at a vigil organized by the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg on Tuesday night. "They were gathered together at the same time as it happens around the world. Everyone prays and then goes to eat. "I am here to be in solidarity with Pittsburgh." Liberal MP Jim Carr was one of the 11 people chosen from the community to light a candle for each of the victims. "Im here to mourn with the community and to send my prayers to the victims and the families," he said as he arrived at the vigil. Outside the synagogue, so many people came that vehicles were forced to park several blocks away into the residential areas nearby. While several police officers stood outside the synagogue at Academy Road and Wellington Crescent, there was none at the doors themselves, not even security. The only people there were armed only with smiles, an outreached hand, and badges that said "greeter." But it was a sobering moment when Matthew Leibl, one of the synagogues rabbis, began his words from the podium by not only greeting everyone, but also ensuring that people who had never been there before look around to see where the closest exit was. "Jews are not unfamiliar with tragedy," Leibl said. "Yet this is something new to us. We have never seen this type of attack before in North America... we are all still fairly shaken, lost and broken. Can it happen again? Can it happen even here?" But Leibl said seeing the crowd in front of him gave his congregation and the Jewish people here and beyond hope when they see so many people who are non-Jewish join them. "It is something new and refreshing and it gives us hope it reminds us we are not alone." TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Eleven candles were lit during a vigil at the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue in Winnipeg Tuesday night. The candles were in memory of the 11 people gunned down at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Laurel Malkin, the federations president, also thanked all of the politicians who came to bring support, as well as Winnipeg police chief Danny Smyth. Besides Carr, numerous other politicians came to show solidarity including Deputy Premier Heather Stefanson, Mayor Brian Bowman and Coun. John Orlikow, NDP leader Wab Kinew, Liberal leader Dougald Lamont, along with 16 Manitoba MLAs of all political stripes. "By extension, this was an attack on all of us," Malkin said. "It is a day that will live in history as the deadliest act of anti-Semitism in North America. For many of us, it is beyond comprehension." The massed participants sang O Canada. They prayed together. They watched as memorial candles were lit for all 11 victims. They linked arms together. They sang the Israeli national anthem. Elaine Goldstine, the federations chief executive officer, said it was seeing all this and the packed synagogue that gave her comfort after the weekend tragedy. "Its heartwarming. Its overwhelming," Goldstine said. "Were such an amazing community and they came out tonight. Everybody was together. It doesnt matter what your faith is, this is what Winnipeg is all about." Parmjeet Gill, secretary of the Sikh Society of Manitoba, said "we feel really sad what happened. "All over the world we should be together. Its nice to come together and stand with them shoulder to shoulder." Sandy Popham uses a motorized wheelchair and had to use Handi-Transit to get to the vigil, but she wanted to be there. "I was definitely moved to come and show my solidarity," Popham said. "I sent out emails and phone calls to my Jewish friends, but I also felt I wanted to be present. And it helped me. You have to make yourself definitely show your opposition to this type of hate and anti-Semitism. "You cant be silent." kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca Throughout the ages, Greece has created a significant footprint and an inspiring legacy in the arts and culture. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/10/2018 (1115 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion Throughout the ages, Greece has created a significant footprint and an inspiring legacy in the arts and culture. Hardly a day goes by when we dont recognize the foundational endowments to the modern arts and culture made by ancient Greece. Renowned Greek philosophers, architects, sculptors, poets and playwrights have left their mark for future generations. Familiar names include Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Herodotus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus and many, many more. All of them made remarkable contributions over the centuries to the arts and culture and left an indelible imprint through the ages. As a visiting professor at the International Writers and Translators Centre of Rhodes in the summer of 2018, I had a unique opportunity to witness firsthand the Greek passion for incubating, nurturing and promoting arts and culture. The Rhodes centre is a beacon for implementing local cultural policy. Its under municipal jurisdiction and is administered by a handful of dedicated professionals. A short list of their annual cultural and artistic events includes the writers workshops, music recitals, school outreach programs, book launches and translation workshops. Rhodes is one of the larger Greek islands, nestled in the Aegean Sea. The capital city, also called Rhodes, is home to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) world heritage site of the only European medieval city in continuous habitation. Rhodes is a city where natural beauty, a rich history, a vibrant society and a flourishing cultural scene merge to create a powerful synergy of cultural and artistic expression. Theres no denying Rhodes has become a role model when it comes to promoting a visionary cultural policy and supporting a vibrant arts and culture community. At the centre, I interacted daily with a talented and creative international group that is shaping the modern face of arts and culture. This centre is incubating a new wave of significant contributions to arts and culture worldwide. At the core of the Greek approach to culture is the word "philoxenia," which has roots in ancient phraseology. It has no equivalent in Western languages. The literal translation of philoxenia is welcoming of foreigners. But it has a deeper and broader cultural connotation. It embraces an ethos, a concept and a mindset. It denotes a global outreach, a comfort level with diversity and a cultural ethos of embracing universality. Philoxenia projects a comfort level with engaging the rest of the world, seeking a global context instead of limiting society to its local environment. Its goodwill towards an international cultural outreach and an incubator for a diversity of perspectives and ideas. Since the golden age in Greek antiquity, Greece has contributed to a panorama of human endeavours in the arts and culture. Despite wars, natural disasters and economic crises, Greece has never faltered in its mission to support, nurture and promote arts and culture. Even during the heights of the 2010-13 economic crisis, the country paid instructors to teach modern Greek studies at some Canadian universities, including my own, the University of New Brunswick. All of this is founded in an unwavering cultural ethos. Its based on a principle that supporting the arts and culture is not a luxury, but an investment in human progress. Its the necessary scaffolding for building and maintaining civil society. Its the cornerstone for human progress and development. Its an investment in the esthetic development and the progress of civilization and humanity. Its a compelling lesson for Canadian municipalities, which should be supporting, nurturing and promoting the arts and culture. These municipalities are key to turning civil societys cultural aspirations into reality. But Canadian municipal cultural policies lack the spirit of philoxenia. Implementing a form of philoxenia will acknowledge that a municipalitys cultural budget is not a frivolous expense, but an investment that will deliver cultural dividends in the future. Canadian municipalities are duty bound to fulfil contemporary societys hopes and aspirations, support our cultural communities to add a dash of vision and experimentation and embrace an international and multicultural context. All of this will allow the arts and culture to flourish, serving as a tribute to the enduring value of civil societys esthetic elegance and as a monument to the everlasting glory of contemporary civilization. Constantine Passaris is a professor of economics at the University of New Brunswick. He was a visiting professor at the International Writers and Translators Centre of Rhodes during the summer of 2018. Troy Media The federal and provincial governments have recognized the role that natural solutions can play in addressing the challenges of a changing world. Now, municipal leaders have the chance to play their part and do it in a way that benefits local government and its ratepayers. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/10/2018 (1115 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion The federal and provincial governments have recognized the role that natural solutions can play in addressing the challenges of a changing world. Now, municipal leaders have the chance to play their part and do it in a way that benefits local government and its ratepayers. Manitoba reeves, mayors and councillors who have taken their seats in chambers following last Wednesdays municipal elections will have the opportunity to make a real difference on a pressing issue in a way that previous councils could not. Yes, weve talked about wetlands before, but recent developments have provided a new pragmatic argument for retaining and restoring even small ponds and marshes as a way to protect against flooding. Instead of "wetland," "pond," "marsh," "slough," or even "nuisance," it may help to view these natural wonders, which reduce flooding by slowing runoff, as "green infrastructure" that provide municipalities with an affordable way to protect property and existing engineered infrastructure. Dont take just our word for it. A recently-released Insurance Bureau of Canada report describes natural infrastructure, including wetlands, as a cost-effective flood-protection alternative to "grey infrastructure" such as dams, water treatment plants and reservoirs. The reports subtitle, "Natural infrastructure is an underutilized option," easily applies to rural Manitoba municipalities. The floods of 2011 and 2014 cost Manitobans an estimated $1 billion each mostly in the form of lost or unseeded crops, but councillors will also recall blown-out culverts and washed-out roads. In the wake of the 2014 flood, some municipal officials expressed frustration at the time it was taking to repair their roads and receive disaster financial assistance. It would only make sense for them to take matters into their own hands and find ways to prevent flood damage for themselves. They wouldnt have to look far. The answer has been there all along in those ponds, sloughs, marshes, and drained wetland basins that could be repaired. Wetlands maintain water on the landscape by storing runoff from snowmelt and rainfall, and release it slowly; draining them increases the rate of runoff and boosts peak flows downstream which lead to consequent damage. Its been shown that wetland drainage significantly increases the severity of flooding, and its estimated weve lost up to 70 per cent of historic wetlands in southwest Manitoba to drainage and development, with that loss continuing at an alarming rate. Whats new and heres the opportunity for municipalities is a potential game-changer in the form of federal and provincial funding released for green infrastructure and disaster protection. The federal government, for example, has released a total of $451 million for green infrastructure. RMs that initiate a project may be able to access those funds to cover up to 73 per cent of the eligible costs, with provincial government top-up. Further, they have a chance to partner with conservation groups such as Ducks Unlimited Canada that bring their own funding to the table. Municipalities will be able to affordably retain and restore wetlands as natural green infrastructure that complements or replaces traditional concrete and steel projects, thereby protecting roads, culverts and bridges while shielding ratepayers property from flood damage. Other wetland benefits sweeten the deal. Take, for example, their ability to filter nutrients from runoff and prevent them from flowing downstream to create algae blooms like the ones that plague Lake Winnipeg and its recreation, tourism and fishing industries. In addition at the risk of starting to sound like a wetland infomercial in contrast to human-engineered grey infrastructure projects, wetland conservation is quick and easy. Wetlands are restored using small earthen plugs to block the ditches that were dug to drain them. Wetland conservation is even simpler keep them in place. How effective are wetlands at flood prevention? A landmark 2014 report from the University of Saskatchewan, based on an intensive study of a creek basin in that province, indicated that retaining wetlands in that area could have reduced the peak flow of the 2011 flood by 32 per cent. Southwest Manitoba and Saskatchewan have a similar wetland landscape in that theyre part of the Prairie Pothole Region, named after the small wetlands spread across the prairie. As a new or returning councillor, if you told ratepayers there was a relatively cheap, fast and easy way to help protect public and private property from a natural disaster that can cost millions of dollars, people would assume you were already campaigning for re-election. Natural "green infrastructure" will give councils a new way to tackle the threat of flooding for themselves. All they have to do is seize the opportunity. Rick Andrews is the manager of provincial operations, Manitoba, for Ducks Unlimited Canada. While Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) frantically tries to scrub Jamal Khashoggis blood off his hands like a Middle Eastern Lady Macbeth Heres the smell of blood still. Not all the sweet perfumes of Arabia will sweeten this hand. could we have a word about his war in Yemen, too? Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/10/2018 (1115 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Opinion While Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) frantically tries to scrub Jamal Khashoggis blood off his hands like a Middle Eastern Lady Macbeth "Heres the smell of blood still. Not all the sweet perfumes of Arabia will sweeten this hand." could we have a word about his war in Yemen, too? In the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul three weeks ago, the Crown Princes henchmen murdered one high-profile critic of his rule. In Yemen, on Saudi Arabias southern border, his air force and those of his allies have been killing around 100 men, women and children a week for more than three years now. To little avail, it must be said, but the futility of MbSs bombing campaign does not excuse it. Amr Nabil / The Associated Press Files Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has faced intense scrutiny for his alleged involvement in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but the ongoing violence in Yemen gets very little attention. When the war in Yemen is discussed in the Western media, two phrases recur constantly. One is "internationally recognized president," a phrase meant to suggest that the man in question, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, is somehow the legitimate and even the democratically elected leader of the country. Hadi has been living in exile in Saudi Arabia for the past three years, with only occasional visits to the sliver of territory in southern Yemen still controlled by his supporters. He is currently in the U.S. for medical treatment. The other misleading phrase is "Iranian-backed Houthi rebels," a formulation meant to suggest that the Houthis, who have controlled most of Yemen for the past three years, are mere pawns of the evil Iranians. "Iranian-backed" is also meant to suggest the Houthi rebels are being supplied with weapons by Iran, an allegation used by Arab countries beholden to Saudi Arabia and by MbSs American and European arms suppliers to justify their support for his war on Yemen. Both phrases are deliberately misleading. Hadi came to power in Yemen in 2012, when the "Arab Spring" revolt that overthrew long-ruling dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh was threatening to topple into civil war. Saleh had always resisted Saudi Arabias attempts to control its far poorer Yemeni neighbour, and the Saudis exploited his fall to put their own man, Hadi, into power. Hadi was "elected" president in 2012, in a vote where nobody else ran, to serve a two-year transitional term while the country sorted out a new constitution. He was effectively overthrown by Houthi tribal militia in 2014, partly because he was a Saudi puppet but mainly because he supported a Saudi scheme to create a federal system that would impoverish the Houthis. The northern highlands where the Houthis live are the poorest of all Yemens regions, but the proposed federal system would have reserved the countrys dwindling oil revenues for the sparsely populated southwestern provinces where the oil actually is. Were the Saudis deliberately trying to hurt the Houthis, who are Shia and therefore not trusted by Riyadh? Thats certainly how the Houthis saw it, so they rebelled. It had nothing to do with the Iranians. Saudi Arabias war in Yemen is really about putting Hadi back into power. He is "internationally recognized" (although his mandate ran out four years ago), but thats no great accomplishment. Even Saddam Hussein was "internationally recognized." Iran certainly approves of the Houthi revolt, partly because the Houthis are fellow Shias but mainly because they overthrew a Saudi puppet president. But there is no reason to believe Iran actively encouraged the revolt the Houthis understand their own interests quite well and absolutely no evidence it has supplied the Houthis with weapons. Its just not necessary: Yemen is flooded with weapons, and always has been. Besides, there is no way for Iran to get weapons and supplies in to the Houthis. Yemen is 1,000 kilometres from Iran, with Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies in between. Saudi Arabia and its allies control the seas around Yemen and the airspace over it. The whole idea is nonsense. The Saudis make a great fuss about the missiles the Houthis occasionally launch at Saudi Arabian targets, in a pathetic retaliation for the intense Saudi air attacks they live under every day. Riyadh claims the missiles must be Iranian, because the Yemenis are too primitive to handle that technology. This is more nonsense. The missiles are just upgraded Scuds, a 1950s Soviet design that was sold to half the countries in the Third World. The Yemeni armed forces had them, the Houthis captured them and Yemeni technicians are perfectly capable of extending their range to reach Riyadh and other Saudi cities. But they have not managed to make them accurate at those ranges: they rarely hit anything. The Houthis are not an admirable lot, but they are just fighting their corner. There are no Iranians in sight, but Saudi stories about them win American support for MbSs war. And the Western media almost never question these much bigger lies, although they are having a collective meltdown over the murder of Khashoggi. Gwynne Dyers new book is Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work). By Timothy Gardner and Grant Smith; editing by Richard Valdmanis and Steve Orlofsky 29 October 2018 WASHINGTON (Reuters) The top U.S. coal miners union has put a larger share of its campaign donations behind Democrats ahead of the 6 November 2018 elections than in 2016, as dimming hopes for a coal industry revival led by President Donald Trump reinforce fears about the safety of worker pensions.The United Mine Workers of America has donated nearly 84 percent of its money to Democratic candidates and committees in national races, according to a Reuters analysis of campaign finance data. That is a roughly 20-point jump from 2016, when Trump courted coal miners with promises of an industry comeback. The UMWA, pumping more money into races this year, has spent $910,000 of its more than $1 million in total on donations to Democrats and advertising supporting them through mid-October, compared with $250,000 of $395,000 to Democrats through mid-October 2016. The shift marks a setback for efforts by Trump and the Republican party to maintain control of Congress. He had won over many U.S. coal miners during the last election with promises to scrap Obama-era environmental regulations blamed for the industrys demise. While the Trump administration has rolled back some environmental protections in its first two years, the promise of a coal comeback has yet to be fulfilled. A Reuters survey of utilities found that the administrations replacement of Obama-era carbon regulations will not save U.S. coal-fired power plants from shutdown.Ongoing closings of coal-fired plants have meanwhile pushed U.S. coal consumption by utilities this year to the lowest since 1983, according to the Energy Information Administration. The UMWA said it is not intentionally favoring Democrats but rather donating to lawmakers who support miners pension funds, which have been undermined by coal company bankruptcies and which the Republican-led Congress has failed to backstop. We have one primary criteria for making contributions to any candidate of either party: Do they support our fight to preserve our retirees pensions? If the answer is yes, then we support that candidate, said Phil Smith, the UMWAs spokesman. [more] Justice Department Routinely Fails to Prioritize Far-Right Violence Why Restoring Voting Rights Matters for Floridas Latinos Tests Reveal More Weed Killer Than Some Vitamins in Kids Cereals California Baby Creates New Plant-Based Preservative Wrong Priorities on Fighting Terrorism As Bolsonaro Threatens to Criminalize Protests, a New Resistance Movement Is Emerging in Brazil Birthright Citizenship Expert: This is Not a Diversion, Trump Has Pushed Radical Plan For Years How African Americans Fought For & Won Birthright Citizenship 150 Years Before Trump Tried to End It Headlines for October 31, 2018 There is not enough analysis data for MedEquities Realty Trust. 4.3 Community Rank Outperform Votes MedEquities Realty Trust has received 224 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes MedEquities Realty Trust has received 126 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment MedEquities Realty Trust has received 64.00% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about MedEquities Realty Trust and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe MRT will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe MRT will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next By Tony Bizjak 25 October 2018 (The Sacramento Bee) Brent Larson awoke at 4 a.m. to the shake and rumble of what felt like a freight train rolling down the hill toward his Santa Barbara County home. He leaped from his bed and woke his two sons. In seconds, a wall of water, mud and rock slammed into his house, smashing through one window, then the next, then a third, pouring in as the trio sprinted to the safety of the chimney at the homes far corner. It was like out of Indiana Jones, he said, nine months later, still shaken. He was lucky. Twenty-one of his Montecito neighbors were killed that Jan. 9 night, and 400 homes damaged or destroyed. Two other people are missing, believed to be entombed somewhere in the now hardened mud that still covers parts of Montecito, an upscale village next to Santa Barbara. Worse, that night was not a freak incident, state emergency officials say.California is entering what experts call the fire-flood era: a formidable one-two punch prompted by warmer temperatures, bigger wildland fires, and more intense winter rain dumps, even in drought years.Fall fire season sets the table by denuding millions of acres of hillsides and baking the soil surface so that it becomes non-absorbent, or, in scientific terms, hydrophobic. When heavy winter rains hit, the water cannot penetrate the burned soil, and instead rolls downhill in the form of a mud and ash soup, similar to a flash flood, carrying boulders and trees with it.We know where things are headed, climate scientist Daniel Swain of UCLA said. We are just entering this era, and it is only going to get more interesting from here. iStar, Inc. is a real estate investment trust company, which engages in financing, investing, and development of real estate and related projects. It operates through the following business segments: Real Estate Finance, Net Lease, Operating Properties, Land and Development, and Corporate and Other. The Real Estate Finance segment includes all of the activities of the company related to senior and mezzanine real estate loans and real estate related securities. The Net Lease segment comprises activities of the company and operations related to the ownership of properties generally leased to single corporate tenants. The Operating Properties segment focuses in the activities and operations related to its commercial and residential properties. The Land and Development segment refers to the developable land portfolio of the company. The Corporate and Other segment represents all the corporate level and unallocated items, joint venture, and strategic investments, which are not included in the other reportable segments. The company was founded by Jay Sugarman in 1993 and is headquartered in New York, NY. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Molina Healthcare: Aetna & Humana - Medicare Advantage, Affinity Health Plan, AmericanWork Inc., Better Health Network, Camelot Care Centers Inc, Children's Behavioral Health Inc., Choices Group Inc., College Community Services, Dockside Services Inc, Family Preservation Services Inc., Family Preservation Services of Florida Inc., Family Preservation Services of North Carolina Inc., Family Preservation Services of Washington D.C. Inc., Family Preservation Services of West Virginia Inc., Florida NetPASS LLC, Hclb Inc., Magellan Complete Care, Maple Star Nevada Inc., Maple Star Oregon Inc., Mercy CarePlus, Molina Clinical Services LLC, Molina Healthcare Data Center Inc., Molina Healthcare of Arizona Inc., Molina Healthcare of California, Molina Healthcare of Florida Inc., Molina Healthcare of Georgia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Illinois Inc., Molina Healthcare of Iowa Inc., Molina Healthcare of Louisiana Inc., Molina Healthcare of Maryland Inc., Molina Healthcare of Michigan Inc., Molina Healthcare of Mississippi Inc., Molina Healthcare of Nevada Inc., Molina Healthcare of New Mexico Inc., Molina Healthcare of New York Inc., Molina Healthcare of North Carolina Inc., Molina Healthcare of Ohio Inc., Molina Healthcare of Oklahoma Inc., Molina Healthcare of Pennsylvania Inc., Molina Healthcare of Puerto Rico Inc., Molina Healthcare of South Carolina LLC, Molina Healthcare of Texas Inc., Molina Healthcare of Texas Insurance Company, Molina Healthcare of Utah Inc., Molina Healthcare of Virginia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Washington Inc., Molina Healthcare of Wisconsin Inc., Molina Holdings Corporation, Molina Hospital Management LLC, Molina Information Systems LLC dba Molina Medicaid Solutions, Molina Medical Management Inc., Molina Pathways LLC, Molina Pathways of Texas Inc., Molina Youth Academy, NextLevel Health Illinois, Pathways Community Corrections Inc., Pathways Community Services LLC, Pathways Community Support of Texas Inc., Pathways Health and Community Support LLC, Pathways Human Services LLC., Pathways of Arizona Inc., Pathways of Delaware Inc., Pathways of Idaho LLC, Pathways of Maine Inc., Pathways of Massachusetts LLC, Pathways of Oklahoma Inc., Pathways of Washington Inc., Providence Community Services, Providence Human Services, Raystown Developmental Services Inc., The Game of Work LLC, The RedCo Group Inc., Total Care Medicaid plan, Transitional Family Services Inc., Unisys -Health Information Management, and YourCare Health Plan. The following companies are subsidiares of Exxon Mobil: AKG Marketing Company Limited, Aera Energy LLC, Al-Jubail Petrochemical Company, Ampolex (Cepu) Pte Ltd, Ancon Insurance Company Inc., Barnett Gathering LLC, Barzan Gas Company Limited, Caspian Pipeline Consortium, Celtic Exploration Ltd., Coral FLNG S.A., Cross Timbers Energy LLC, Ellora Energy Inc., Esmeroon Oil Transporta Imperial Oil Limited, Esso (Thailand) Public Company Limited, Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd, Esso Deutschland GmbH, Esso Erdgas Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 15) Limited, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 17) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Angola (Overseas) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Chad Inc., Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Deepwater) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Offshore East) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited, Esso Exploration and Production UK Limited, Esso Global Investments Ltd., Esso Italiana S.r.l., Esso Nederland B.V., Esso Norge AS, Esso Petroleum Company Limited, Esso Raffinage, Esso Societe Anonyme Francaise, Exxo Holdings Inc., Exxon Azerbaijan Limited, Exxon Chemical Arabia Inc., Exxon International Finance Company, Exxon Luxembourg Holdings LLC, Exxon Mobile Bay Limited Partnership, Exxon Neftegas Limited, Exxon Overseas Corporation, Exxon Overseas Investment Corporation, ExxonMobil (China) Investment Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil (Taicang) Petroleum Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil Abu Dhabi Offshore Petroleum Company Limited, ExxonMobil Alaska Production Inc., ExxonMobil Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., ExxonMobil Australia Pty Ltd, ExxonMobil B Resources Company, ExxonMobil Capital Finance Company, ExxonMobil Capital Netherlands B.V., ExxonMobil Central Europe Holding GmbH, ExxonMobil Cepu Limited, ExxonMobil Chemical France, ExxonMobil Chemical Gulf Coast Investments LLC, ExxonMobil Chemical Holland B.V., ExxonMobil Chemical Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil China Petroleum & Petrochemical Company Limited, ExxonMobil Development Africa B.V., ExxonMobil Development Company, ExxonMobil Egypt (S.A.E.), ExxonMobil Exploracao Brasil Ltda., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Malaysia Inc., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Norway AS, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Romania Limited, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Tanzania Limited, ExxonMobil Finance Company Limited, ExxonMobil Financial Investment Company Limited, ExxonMobil France Holding SAS, ExxonMobil Gas Marketing Europe Limited, ExxonMobil General Finance Company, ExxonMobil Global Services Company, ExxonMobil Golden Pass Surety LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Company Holland LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Norway AS, ExxonMobil Hong Kong Limited, ExxonMobil International Services SARL, ExxonMobil Iraq Limited, ExxonMobil Italiana Gas S.r.l., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Inc., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Ventures Inc., ExxonMobil LNG Services B.V., ExxonMobil Lubricants Trading Company, ExxonMobil Oil Corporation, ExxonMobil PNG Limited, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical BVBA, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical Holdings Inc., ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, ExxonMobil Production Deutschland GmbH, ExxonMobil Production Norway Inc., ExxonMobil Qatargas (II) Limited, ExxonMobil Qatargas Inc., ExxonMobil Ras Laffan (III) Limited, ExxonMobil Rasgas Inc., ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, ExxonMobil Russia Kara Sea Holdings B.V., ExxonMobil Sales and Supply LLC, ExxonMobil Technology Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Funding Ltd., Fujian Refining & Petrochemical Co. Ltd., Golden Pass LNG Terminal Investments LLC, Golden Pass LNG Terminal LLC, Gulf Coast Growth Ventures LLC, Imperial Oil Limited, Imperial Oil Resources Limited, Imperial Oil Resources N.W.T. Limited, Imperial Oil/Petroliere Imperiale, Infineum Italia s.r.I., Infineum Singapore Pte. Ltd., InterOil Corporation, Jurong Aromatics Corporation Pte Ltd, MPM Lubricants, Marine Well Containment Company LLC, Mobil Australia Resources Company Pty Limited, Mobil California Exploration & Producing Asset Company, Mobil Caspian Pipeline Company, Mobil Chemical Products International Inc., Mobil Corporation, Mobil Equatorial Guinea Inc., Mobil Erdgas Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Mobil Exploration & Producing Australia Pty Ltd, Mobil International Petroleum Corporation, Mobil Oil Australia Pty Ltd, Mobil Oil Exploration & Producing Southeast Inc., Mobil Oil New Zealand Limited, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, Mobil Producing Texas & New Mexico Inc., Mobil SerLimited, Mobil Venezolana De Petroleos Inc., Mobil Yanbu Petrochemical Company Inc., Mobil Yanbu Refining Company Inc., Mountain Gathering LLC, Mozambique Rovuma Venture S.p.A., Palmetto Transoceanic LLC, Papua New Guinea Liquefied Natural Gas Global Company LDC, Permian Express Partners LLC, Phillips Exploration LLC, Qatar Liquefied Gas Company Limited, Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited, Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited (II), SPI Limited, Saudi Aramco Mobil Refinery Company Ltd., Saudi Yanbu Petrochemical Co., SeaRiver Maritime Inc., South Hook LNG Terminal Company Limited, Tengizchevroil LLP, Terminale GNL Adriatico S.r.l, Trend Gathering & Treating LLC, Wolverine Pipe Line Company, XH LLC, XTO Delaware Basin LLC, XTO ENERGY, XTO Energy Canada, and XTO Holdings LLC. The following companies are subsidiares of American International Group: AGC Life Insurance Company, AIG APAC HOLDINGS PTE. LTD., AIG Advisors S.r.l., AIG Aerospace Insurance Services Inc., AIG Asia Pacific Insurance Pte. Ltd., AIG Asset Management (Europe) Limited, AIG Asset Management (U.S.) LLC, AIG Assurance Company, AIG Australia Limited, AIG Brazil Holding I LLC, AIG CIS Investments LLC, AIG Canada Holdings Inc., AIG Capital Corporation, AIG Capital Services Inc., AIG Claims Inc., AIG Egypt Insurance Company S.A.E., AIG Employee Services Inc., AIG Europe (Services) Limited, AIG Europe Holdings S.a.rl., AIG Europe S.A., AIG Federal Savings Bank, AIG Financial Products Corp., AIG General Insurance Co. Ltd., AIG Global Asset Management Holdings Corp., AIG Global Real Estate Investment Corp., AIG Global Reinsurance Operations, AIG Holdings Europe Limited, AIG Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited, AIG Insurance Company China Limited, AIG Insurance Company JSC, AIG Insurance Company of Canada, AIG Insurance Company-Puerto Rico, AIG Insurance Hong Kong Limited, AIG Insurance Limited, AIG Insurance Management Services Inc., AIG Insurance New Zealand Limited, AIG International Holdings GmbH, AIG Investments UK Limited, AIG Israel Insurance Company Ltd, AIG Japan Holdings Kabushiki Kaisha, AIG Kenya Insurance Company Limited, AIG Korea Inc., AIG Latin America I.I., AIG Latin America Investments S.L., AIG Lebanon SAL, AIG Life Holdings Inc., AIG Life Insurance Company (Switzerland) Ltd, AIG Life Limited, AIG Life South Africa Limited, AIG Life of Bermuda Ltd., AIG MEA Holdings Limited, AIG MEA Limited, AIG Malaysia Insurance Berhad, AIG Markets Inc., AIG Matched Funding Corp., AIG PC Global Services Inc., AIG Philippines Insurance Inc., AIG Property Casualty Company, AIG Property Casualty Inc., AIG Property Casualty International LLC, AIG Property Casualty U.S. Inc., AIG Re-Takaful (L) Berhad, AIG Resseguros Brasil S.A., AIG Seguros Brasil S.A., AIG Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., AIG Shared Services Corporation, AIG South Africa Limited, AIG Specialty Insurance Company, AIG Technologies Inc., AIG Travel Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., AIG Travel Assist Inc., AIG Travel Assist Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., AIG Travel EMEA Limited, AIG Travel Inc., AIG Uganda Limited, AIG Vietnam Insurance Company Limited, AIG WarrantyGuard Inc., AIG-FP Pinestead Holdings Corp., AIG-Metropolitana Cia. de Seguros y Reaseguros S.A., AIGGRE EOLA LLC, AIGGRE Europe Real Estate Fund I GP S.a r.l., AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund I GP LLC, AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund I LP, AIGGRE U.S. Real Estate Fund II GP LLC, AIU Insurance Company, AM Holdings LLC, Ageas Protect, AlphaCat Managers Ltd., American General Corporation, American General Life Insurance Company, American Home Assurance Co. Ltd., American Home Assurance Company, American Home Assurance Company Escritorio de Representacao no Brasil Ltda., American International Group Inc., American International Group UK Limited, American International Overseas Association, American International Overseas Limited, American International Realty Corp., American International Reinsurance Company Ltd., American International Underwriters del Ecuador-Holding S.A., American Security Life Insurance Company Limited, Arthur J. Glatfelter Agency Inc., Avondhu Limited, Blackboard Customer Care Insurance Services LLC, Blackboard Insurance Company, Blackboard Services LLC, Blackboard Specialty Insurance Company, Blackboard U.S. Holdings Inc., Chartis Takaful Enaya B.S.C. (c), Commerce and Industry Insurance Company, Crop Risk Services Inc., Eaglestone Reinsurance Company, Ellipse, Fortitude Group Holdings LLC, Fortitude Life & Annuity Solutions Inc., Fortitude Reinsurance Company Ltd., Franklin Life Insurance Company, Fuji Fire and Marine, Glatfelter Insurance Group, Globe and Rutgers Insurance Group, Grand Isle SAC Limited, Granite State Insurance Company, Group Risk Services Limited, Group Risk Technologies Limited, Illinois National Insurance Co., Jefferson Eola Venture LLC, Johannesburg Insurance Holdings (Proprietary) Limited, Laya Healthcare Limited, Lexington Insurance Company, MG Reinsurance Limited, Mt. Mansfield Company Inc., National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh Pa., National Union Fire Insurance Company of Vermont, New Hampshire Insurance Company, PT AIG Insurance Indonesia, Pine Street Real Estate Holdings Corp., Private Joint-Stock Company AIG Ukraine Insurance Company, Risk Specialists Companies Insurance Agency Inc., SA Affordable Housing LLC, SAFG Retirement Services Inc., Service Net Warranty LLC, Stratford Insurance Company, SunAmerica Affordable Housing Partners Inc., SunAmerica Asset Management LLC, Talbot Holdings Ltd., Talbot Underwriting Holdings Ltd., Talbot Underwriting Ltd., Thai CIT Holding Company Limited, The Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania, The United States Life Insurance Company in the City of New York, The Variable Annuity Life Insurance Company, Travel Guard, Travel Guard Group Canada Inc./Groupe Garde Voyage du Canada Inc., Travel Guard Group Inc., Tudor Insurance Company, VALIC Financial Advisors Inc., Valic Retirement Services Company, Validus Holdings, Validus Holdings (UK) Ltd., Validus Holdings Ltd., Validus Reinsurance (Switzerland) Ltd, Validus Reinsurance Ltd., Validus Ventures Ltd., Volunteer Firemen's Insurance Services Inc., Western World Insurance Company, and Western World Insurance Group Inc.. Xcel Energy, Inc. operates as a holding company, which engages in the generation, purchase, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity. It operates through the following three segments: Regulated Electric Utility, Regulated Natural Gas Utility and All Others. The Regulated Electric Utility segment generates, transmits and distributes electricity primarily in portions of generates, transmits and distributes electricity in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Texas and New Mexico. In addition, this segment includes sales for resale and provides wholesale transmission service to various entities in the United States. It also includes commodity trading operations. The Regulated Natural Gas Utility segment transports, stores, and distributes natural gas primarily in portions of Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Michigan and Colorado. The All Others segment engages in steam, appliance repair services, nonutility real estate activities, processing solid waste into refuse-derived fuel and investments in rental housing projects that qualify for low-income housing tax credits. The company was founded in 1909 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN. Read More Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA engages in the traditional banking businesses of retail banking, asset management, private banking, and wholesale banking. It operates through the following segments: Spain, the United States, Mexico, Turkey, South America, and Rest of Eurasia. The Spain segment includes mainly the banking and insurance business that the group carries out in Spain. The United States segment consists of the financial business activity of BBVA USA in the country and the activity of the branch of BBVA SA in New York. The Mexico segment refers to banking and insurance businesses in this country as well as the activity of its branch in Houston. The Turkey segment reports the activity of Garanti BBVA group that is mainly carried out in this country and, to a lesser extent, in Romania and the Netherlands. The South America segment comprises of operations in n Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The Rest of Eurasia segment includes the banking business activity carried out by the group in Europe and Asia, excluding Spain. The company was founded in 1857 and is headquartered in Madrid, Spain. Read More Subscriber content preview For many manufacturers, the higher tariffs which are taxes on imports have largely nullified any benefit from the tax cuts. By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Economics Writer PHILADELPHIA Sitting in his office beside photos of grandchildren decked in Philadelphia Flyers jerseys, Christopher Scott shakes his head. Another email has come in from another supplier that wants to raise prices to cover the cost of President Donald Trump's tariffs. For weeks, emails and letters have been arriving in a steady stream at Howard McCray, the small Philadelphia factory Scott runs with about 85 workers. It's mostly bad news. . . . The Boeing Co. is an aerospace company, which engages in the manufacture of commercial jetliners and defense, space and security systems. It operates through the following segments: Commercial Airplanes; Defense, Space and Security; Global Services; and Boeing Capital. The Commercial Airplanes segment includes the development, production, and market of commercial jet aircraft and provides fleet support services, principally to the commercial airline industry worldwide. The Defense, Space and Security segment refers to the research, development, production and modification of manned and unmanned military aircraft and weapons systems for global strike, including fighter and combat rotorcraft aircraft and missile systems; global mobility, including tanker, rotorcraft and tilt-rotor aircraft; and airborne surveillance and reconnaissance, including command and control, battle management and airborne anti-submarine aircraft. The Global Services segment provides services to commercial and defense customers. The Boeing Capital segment seeks to ensure that Boeing customers have the financing they need to buy and take delivery of their Boeing product and manages overall financing exposure. T Read More The following companies are subsidiares of BP: 200 PS Overseas Holdings Inc., 563916 Alberta Ltd., ACP (Malaysia) Inc., AE Cedar Creek Holdings LLC, AE Goshen II Holdings LLC, AE Goshen II Wind Farm LLC, AE Power Services LLC, AE Wind PartsCo LLC, AM/PM International Inc., ARCO, ARCO British International, ARCO British Limited, ARCO Coal Australia Inc., ARCO El-Djazair Holdings Inc., ARCO Environmental Remediation L.L.C., ARCO Exploration Inc., ARCO Gaviota Company, ARCO International Investments Inc., ARCO International Services Inc., ARCO Midcon LLC, ARCO Oil Company Nigeria Unlimited, ARCO Oman Inc, ARCO Resources Limited, ARCO Trinidad Exploration and Production Company Limited, ARCO Unimar Holdings LLC, Actomat B.V., Advance Petroleum Holdings Pty Ltd, Advance Petroleum Pty Ltd, Air BP Albania SHA, Air BP Brasil Ltda., Air BP Canada LLC, Air BP Croatia d.o.o., Air BP Finland Oy, Air BP Iceland, Air BP Limited, Air BP Norway AS, Air BP Sales Romania S.R.L., Air BP Sweden AB, Air Refuel Pty Ltd, Allgreen Pty Ltd, AmProp Finance Company, American Oil Company, Amoco (Fiddich) Limited, Amoco (U.K.) Exploration Company LLC., Amoco Bolivia Petroleum Company, Amoco Bolivia Services Company Inc., Amoco Canada International Holdings B.V., Amoco Capline Pipeline Company, Amoco Chemical (Europe) S.A., Amoco Chemicals (FSC) B.V., Amoco Cypress Pipeline Company, Amoco Destin Pipeline Company, Amoco Environmental Services Company, Amoco Exploration Holdings B.V., Amoco Guatemala Petroleum Company, Amoco International Finance Corporation, Amoco International Petroleum Company, Amoco Leasing Corporation, Amoco Louisiana Fractionator Company, Amoco MB Fractionation Company, Amoco MBF Company, Amoco Main Pass Gathering Company, Amoco Marketing Environmental Services Company, Amoco Netherlands Petroleum Company, Amoco Nigeria Exploration Company Limited, Amoco Nigeria Oil Company Limited, Amoco Nigeria Petroleum Company, Amoco Nigeria Petroleum Company Limited, Amoco Norway Oil Company, Amoco Oil Holding Company, Amoco Olefins Corporation, Amoco Overseas Exploration Company, Amoco Pipeline Asset Company, Amoco Pipeline Holding Company, Amoco Properties Incorporated, Amoco Remediation Management Services Corporation, Amoco Research Operating Company, Amoco Rio Grande Pipeline Company, Amoco Somalia Petroleum Company, Amoco Sulfur Recovery Company, Amoco Tri-States NGL Pipeline Company, Amoco Trinidad Gas B.V., Amoco U.K. Petroleum Limited, Amprop Illinois I Limited, Amprop Inc., Anaconda Arizona Inc., Arabian Production And Marketing Lubricants, Aral Aktiengesellschaft, Aral Luxembourg S.A., Aral Services Luxembourg Sarl, Aral Tankstellen Services Sarl, Arco Mediterraneo Inversiones S.L., Areas Noriega S.L., Areas Singulares Reyes S.L., Aspac Lubricants (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Atlantic 2/3 UK Holdings Limited, Atlantic Richfield Company, Atlantic Richfield Companyd, Autino Holdings Limited, Autino Limited, Auwahi Wind Energy Holdings LLC, B2Mobility GmbH, BASS Management Pty Ltd, BP (Abu Dhabi) Limited, BP (Barbados) Holding SRL, BP (Barbican) Limited, BP (China) Holdings Limited, BP (China) Industrial Lubricants Limited, BP (GTA Mauritania) Finance Limited, BP (GTA Senegal) Finance Limited, BP (Gibraltar) Limited, BP (Guangzhou) Advanced Mobility Limited, BP (Hunan) Petroleum Company Limited, BP (Indian Agencies) Limited, BP (Shandong) Petroleum Co. Ltd, BP (Shanghai) Trading Limited, BP - Castrol (Thailand) Limited, BP AMI Leasing Inc., BP Absheron Limited, BP Advanced Mobility Limited, BP Africa Limited, BP Africa Oil Limited, BP Akaryakit Ortakligi, BP Alaska LNG LLC, BP Alternative Energy Holdings Limited, BP Alternative Energy Investments Limited, BP Alternative Energy North America Inc., BP Alternative Energy Trinidad and Tobago Limited, BP America Chembel Holding LLC, BP America Chemicals Company, BP America Foreign Investments Inc., BP America Inc, BP America Inc., BP America Limited, BP America Production Company, BP Amoco Chemical Company, BP Amoco Chemical Holding Company, BP Amoco Chemical Indonesia Limited, BP Amoco Chemical Malaysia Holding Company, BP Amoco Exploration (Faroes) Limited, BP Amoco Exploration (In Amenas) Limited, BP Andaman II Ltd, BP Angola (Block 18) B.V., BP Argentina Exploration Company, BP Argentina Holdings LLC, BP Aromatics Holdings Limited, BP Aromatics Limited, BP Asia Limited, BP Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., BP Asia Pacific Holdings Limited, BP Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, BP Australia Capital Markets Limited, BP Australia Employee Share Plan Proprietary Limited, BP Australia Group Pty Ltde, BP Australia Investments Pty Ltd, BP Australia Nominees Proprietary Limited, BP Australia Pty Ltd, BP Australia Shipping Pty Ltd, BP Australia Swaps Management Limited, BP Aviation A/S, BP Benevolent Fund Trustees Limited, BP Berau Ltd., BP Biocombustiveis S.A., BP Bioenergia Campina Verde Ltda., BP Bioenergia Ituiutaba Ltda., BP Bioenergia Itumbiara S.A., BP Bioenergia Tropical S.A., BP Biofuels Advanced Technology Inc., BP Biofuels Brazil Investments Limited, BP Biofuels Louisiana LLC, BP Biofuels North America LLC, BP Biofuels Trading Comercio Exportacao Ltda., BP Bomberai Ltd., BP Brasil Ltda., BP Brazil Tracking L.L.C., BP Bulwer Island Pty Ltd, BP Business Service Centre Asia Sdn Bhd, BP Business Service Centre KFT, BP CIV Pty Ltd, BP Canada Energy Development Company, BP Canada Energy Group ULC, BP Canada Energy Marketing Corp., BP Canada International Holdings B.V., BP Canada Investments Inc., BP Capellen Sarl, BP Capital Markets, BP Capital Markets America, BP Capital Markets America Inc., BP Capital Markets p.l.c., BP Car Fleet Limited, BP Caribbean Company, BP Castrol KK, BP Castrol Lubricants (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., BP Central Pipelines LLC, BP Chembel, BP Chemicals (Korea) Limited, BP Chemicals East China Investments Limited, BP Chemicals Investments Limited, BP Chemicals Limited, BP China Exploration and Production Company, BP Comercializadora de Energia Ltda., BP Commodities Trading Limited, BP Commodity Supply B.V., BP Company North America, BP Company North America Inc., BP Containment Response Limited, BP Containment Response System Holdings LLC, BP Continental Holdings Limited, BP Corporate Holdings, BP Corporate Holdings Limited, BP Corporation North America, BP Corporation North America Inc., BP D-B Pipeline Company LLC, BP D230 Limited, BP Danmark A/S, BP Developments Australia Pty. Ltd., BP Dogal Gaz Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, BP East Kalimantan CBM Limited, BP Eastern Mediterranean Limited, BP Egypt Company, BP Egypt East Delta Marine Corporation, BP Egypt East Tanka B.V., BP Egypt Production B.V., BP Egypt Ras El Barr B.V., BP Egypt West Mediterranean (Block B) B.V., BP Energy Asia Pte. Limited, BP Energy Colombia Limited, BP Energy Company, BP Energy Europe Limited, BP Energy Solutions B.V., BP Energy do Brasil Ltda., BP Energia Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., BP Espana S.A. Unipersonal, BP Estaciones y Servicios Energeticos Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, BP Europa SE, BP Exploracion de Venezuela S.A., BP Exploration & Production Inc., BP Exploration (Absheron) Limited, BP Exploration (Alaska), BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., BP Exploration (Algeria) Limited, BP Exploration (Alpha), BP Exploration (Alpha) Limited, BP Exploration (Angola), BP Exploration (Angola) Limited, BP Exploration (Azerbaijan), BP Exploration (Azerbaijan) Limited, BP Exploration (Canada) Limited, BP Exploration (Caspian Sea), BP Exploration (Caspian Sea) Limited, BP Exploration (D230) Limited, BP Exploration (Delta), BP Exploration (Delta) Limited, BP Exploration (El Djazair) Limited, BP Exploration (Epsilon) Limited, BP Exploration (Gambia) Limited, BP Exploration (Greenland) Limited, BP Exploration (Madagascar) Limited, BP Exploration (Morocco) Limited, BP Exploration (Namibia) Limited, BP Exploration (Nigeria Finance) Limited, BP Exploration (Nigeria) Limited, BP Exploration (Psi) Limited, BP Exploration (STP) Limited, BP Exploration (Shafag-Asiman) Limited, BP Exploration (Shah Deniz) Limited, BP Exploration (South Atlantic) Limited, BP Exploration (Xazar) Pte. Ltd., BP Exploration Angola (Kwanza Benguela) Limited, BP Exploration Argentina Limited, BP Exploration Australia Pty Ltd Level 15, BP Exploration Beta Limited, BP Exploration China Limited, BP Exploration Company (Middle East) Limited, BP Exploration Company Limited, BP Exploration Indonesia Limited, BP Exploration Libya Limited, BP Exploration Mexico Limited, BP Exploration Mexico S.A. De C.V., BP Exploration North Africa Limited, BP Exploration Operating Company, BP Exploration Operating Company Limited, BP Exploration Orinoco Limited, BP Exploration Personnel Company Limited, BP Exploration Peru Limited, BP Express Shopping Limited, BP Finance Australia Pty Ltd, BP Finance p.l.c., BP Foundation Incorporated, BP France, BP Fuels & Lubricants AS, BP Fuels Deutschland GmbH, BP GOM Logistics LLC, BP Gas & Power Investments Limited, BP Gas Europe S.A.U., BP Gas Marketing Limited, BP Gas Supply (Angola) LLC, BP Ghana Limited, BP Global Investments, BP Global Investments Limited, BP Global Investments Salalah & Co LLC, BP Global West Africa Limited, BP Greece Limited, BP Guangdong Limited, BP High Density Polyethylene - France, BP Holdings (Thailand) Limited, BP Holdings B.V., BP Holdings Canada, BP Holdings Canada Limited, BP Holdings International B.V., BP Holdings North America, BP Holdings North America Limited, BP Hong Kong Limited, BP India Private Limited, BP Indonesia Investment Limited, BP International, BP International Limited, BP International Services Company, BP Investment Management Limited, BP Investments Asia Limited, BP Iran Limited, BP Iraq N.V., BP Italia SpA, BP Japan K.K., BP Korea Limited, BP Kuwait Limited, BP LNG Shipping Limited, BP Latin America LLC, BP Latin America Upstream Services Inc., BP Lubricants KK, BP Lubricants USA Inc., BP Luxembourg S.A., BP Malaysia Holdings Sdn. Bhd., BP Management International B.V., BP Management Netherlands B.V., BP Marine Limited, BP Mariner Holding Company LLC, BP Maritime Services (Singapore) Pte. Limited, BP Marketing Egypt LLC, BP Mauritania Investments Limited, BP Mauritius Limited (in liquidation), BP Middle East Enterprises Corporation, BP Middle East LLC, BP Middle East Limited, BP Midstream Partners GP LLC, BP Midstream Partners Holdings LLC, BP Midstream Partners LP, BP Midwest Product Pipelines Holdings LLC, BP Mocambique Limitada, BP Mocambique Limited, BP Muturi Holdings B.V., BP Nederland Holdings BV, BP Netherlands Upstream B.V., BP New Ventures Middle East Limited, BP New Zealand Holdings Limited, BP New Zealand Share Scheme Limited, BP Nutrition Inc., BP Offshore Gathering Systems Inc., BP Offshore Pipelines Company LLC, BP Offshore Response Company LLC, BP Oil (Thailand) Limited, BP Oil Australia Pty Ltd, BP Oil Espana S.A., BP Oil Hellenic S.A., BP Oil International, BP Oil International Limited, BP Oil Kent Refinery Limited (in liquidation), BP Oil Llandarcy Refinery Limited, BP Oil Logistics UK Limited, BP Oil New Zealand Limited, BP Oil Pipeline Company, BP Oil Senegal S.A., BP Oil Shipping Company, BP Oil UK Limited, BP Oil Venezuela Limited, BP Oil Vietnam Limited, BP Oil Yemen Limited, BP Olex Fanal Mineralol GmbH, BP One Pipeline Company LLC, BP Pacific Investments Ltd, BP Pakistan (Badin) Inc., BP Pakistan Exploration and Production Inc., BP Pension Escrow Limited, BP Pension Trustees Limited, BP Pensions (Overseas) Limited, BP Pensions Limited, BP Petrochemicals India Investments Limited, BP Petroleo y Gas S.A., BP Petrolleri Anonim Sirketi, BP Pipelines (Alaska) Inc., BP Pipelines (BTC) Limited, BP Pipelines (North America) Inc., BP Pipelines (SCP) Limited, BP Pipelines (TANAP) Limited, BP Pipelines TAP Limited, BP Polska Services Sp. z o.o. Ul., BP Portugal -Comercio de Combustiveis e Lubrificantes SA, BP Poseidon Limited, BP Products North America, BP Products North America Inc., BP Properties Limited, BP Raffinaderij Rotterdam B.V., BP Refinery (Kwinana) Proprietary Limited, BP Regional Australasia Holdings Pty Ltd, BP River Rouge Pipeline Company LLC, BP Russian Investments Limited, BP Russian Ventures Limited, BP SC Holdings LLC, BP Scale Up Factory Limited, BP Senegal Investments Limited, BP Services International Limited, BP Servicios de Combustibles S.A. de C.V., BP Servicios territoriales S.A., BP Shafag-Asiman Limited, BP Shipping Limited, BP Singapore Pte. Limited, BP Solar Energy North America LLC, BP Solar Espana S.A., BP Solar International Inc., BP Solar Pty Ltd, BP South America Holdings Ltd, BP Southern Africa Proprietary Limited, BP Southern Cone Company, BP Subsea Well Response (Brazil) Limited, BP Subsea Well Response Limited, BP Taiwan Marketing Limited, BP Technology Ventures Inc., BP Technology Ventures Limited, BP Train 2/3 Holding SRL, BP Transportation (Alaska) Inc., BP Trinidad Processing Limited, BP Trinidad and Tobago, BP Trinidad and Tobago LLC, BP Turkey Refining Limited, BP Two Pipeline Company LLC, BP UK Retained Holdings Limited, BP Venezuela Investments B.V., BP West Aru I Limited, BP West Aru II Limited, BP West Papua I Limited, BP West Papua III Limited, BP Wind Energy North America Inc., BP Wiriagar Ltd., BP World-Wide Technical Services Limited, BP Zhuhai Chemical Company Limited, BP+Amoco International Limited, BP-AIOC Exploration (TISA) LLC, BPA Investment Holding Company, BPNE International B.V., BPRY Caribbean Ventures LLC, BPX (Eagle Ford) Gathering LLC, BPX (KCS Resources) LLC, BPX (Karnes) Gathering LLC, BPX (Permian) Gathering LLC, BPX (WSF Operating) Inc., BPX Energy Inc., BPX Midstream LLC, BPX Operating Company, BPX Production Company, BPX Properties (GP) LLC, BPX Properties (LP) LLC, BPX Properties (NA) LP, BTC Pipeline Holding Company Limited, BXL Plastics Limitedv, Bahia de Bizkaia Electridad S.L., Baltimore Ennis Land Company Inc., Black Lake Pipe Line Company, Brian Jasper Nominees Pty Ltd, Britannic Energy Trading Limited, Britannic Investments Iraq Limited, Britannic Marketing Limited, Britannic Strategies Limited, Britannic Trading Limited, Britoil Limited, Burmah Castrol, Burmah Castrol Australia Pty Ltd, Burmah Castrol Holdings Inc., Burmah Castrol PLC, Burmah Castrol South Africa (Pty) Limited, Burmah Chile SpA, Butamax Advanced Biofuels, CASTROL Austria GmbHb, CH-Twenty Inc., CNAA, Cadman DBP Limited, Casitas Pipeline Company, Castrol (China) Limited, Castrol (Ireland) Limited, Castrol (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Castrol (Shenzhen) Company Limited, Castrol (Tianjin) Lubricants Co. Ltd., Castrol (U.K.) Limited, Castrol Australia Pty. Limited, Castrol B.V., Castrol BP Petco Limited Liability Company, Castrol Brasil Ltda., Castrol Caribbean & Central America Inc., Castrol Colombia Ltda., Castrol Del Peru S.A., Castrol Egypt Lubricants S.A.E., Castrol India Limited, Castrol Industrie und Service GmbH, Castrol KK, Castrol Limited, Castrol Lubricants RO S.R.L, Castrol Mexico S.A., Castrol Namibia (Pty) Limited, Castrol Offshore Limited, Castrol Pakistan (Private) Limited, Castrol Philippines Inc., Castrol Servicos Ltda., Castrol Ukraine LLC, Castrol Zimbabwe (Private) Limited, Centrel Pty Ltd, Charge Your Car Limitedc, Chargemaster, Chargemaster (Europe) GmbH, Chargemaster Limited, Charging Solutions Limited, Clarisse Holdings Pty Ltd, Coastwise Trading Company Inc., Consolidada de Energia y Lubricantes (CENERLUB) C.A., Conti Cross Keys Inn Inc., Coro Trading NZ Limited, Cuyama Pipeline Company, DHC Solvent Chemie GmbH, Dermody Developments Pty Ltd, Dermody Holdings Pty Ltd, Dermody Investments Pty Ltd, Dermody Petroleum Pty. Ltd., Dome Beaufort Petroleum Limited, Dome Wallis (1980) Limited Partnership, ECM Markets SA (Pty) Ltd, Elektromotive Limited, Elite Customer Solutions Pty Ltd, Elm Holdings Inc., Energy Global Investments (USA) Inc., Enstar LLC, Estacion de Servicio Alto Campoo S.L., Estacion de Servicio Ganzo 10 S.L., Estacion de Servicio Reocin 9 S.L., Estacion de Servicio Santillana II S.L., Estacion de Servicio Sardinero S.L., Estonian Aviation Fuelling Services, Europa Oil NZ Limited, Exomet Inc., Expandite Contract Services Limited, Exploration (Luderitz Basin) Limited, Exploration Service Company Limited, FWK (2017) Limited, FWK Holdings (2017) LTD, Finite Carbon, Flat Ridge 2 Holdings LLC, Flat Ridge Wind Energy LLC, Foseco Holding Inc., Foseco Holding International B.V., Foseco Inc., Fosroc Expandite Limited, Fotech Solutions Ltd, Fowler Ridge Holdings LLC, Fowler Ridge I Land Investments LLC, Fowler Ridge II Holdings LLC, Fowler Ridge III Wind Farm LLC, FreeBees B.V., Fuel & Retail Aviat ion Sweden AB, Fuelplane- Sociedade Abastecedora De Aeronaves Unipessoal Lda, GOAM 1 C.I S. A .S, Gardena Holdings Inc., Gelsenkirchen Raffinerie Netz GmbH, Grampian Aviation Fuelling Services Limited, Guangdong Investments Limited, Highlands Ethanol LLC, Hosteleria Noriega S.L., IGI Resources Inc., Insight Analytics Solutions Holdings Limited, Insight Analytics Solutions Limited, Insight Analytics Solutions USA Inc., International Bunker Supplies Pty Ltd, Iraq Petroleum Company Limited, Jupiter Insurance Limited, Ken-Chas Reserve Company, Kenilworth Oil Company Limited, Kingbook Inversiones Socimi S.A., Latin Energy Argentina S.A., Lebanese Aviation Technical Services S.A.L., Limited Liability Company BP Toplivnaya Kompania, Limited liability company Setra Lubricants, Lubricants UK Limited, Lytt Limited, Manormaker (Nominee No. 1) Limited, Manormaker (Nominee No. 2) Limited, Manormaker GP Limited (99.90%) 11 Black Horse Lane, Mardi Gras Transportation System Company LLC, Markoil S.A., Masana Petroleum Solutions (Pty) Ltd, Mayaro Initiative for Private Enterprise Development, Mehoopany Holdings LLC, Mes Tecnologia En Servicios Y Energia S.A., Minza Pty. Ltd., Mountain City Remediation LLC, No. 1 Riverside Quay Proprietary Limited, Nordic Lubricants A/S, Nordic Lubricants AB, North America Funding Company, OMD87 Inc., OOO BP STL, Omega Oil Company, OnSight Analytics Solutions India Private Ltd., Orion Delaware Mountain Wind Farm LP, Orion Energy Holdings LLC, Orion Energy L.L.C.b, Orion Post Land Investments LLC, Oyambre 1 S.L., PRODUITS METALLURGIE DOITTAU, PT BP Petrochemicals, PT Castrol Indonesia, PT Castrol Manufacturing Indonesia, PT Jasatama Petroindo, Pacroy (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Peaks America Inc., Pearl River Delta Investments Limited, Petrocorner Retail S.L.U., Phoenix Petroleum Services Limited, Pozuelo 4 S.L., Prospect International C.A. (In liquidation), Puente Arce 4 S.L., Remediation Management Services Company, Richfield Oil Corporation, Rio Corvo 2 S.L., Rolling Thunder I Power Partners LLC, Romax Insight Korea Ltd., Ropemaker Deansgate Limited, Ropemaker Properties Limited, Ruhr Oel GmbH, Rusdene GSS Limited, SOFAST Limited, SRHP, Saturn Insurance Inc., Sherbino I Holdings LLC, Sherbino Mesa I Land Investments LLC, Sociedade de Promocao Imobiliaria Quinta do Loureiro SA, Societe de Gestion de Depots d'Hydrocarbures - GDH, South Texas Shale LLC, Southeast Texas Biofuels LLC, Southern Ridge Pipeline Holding Company, Southern Ridge Pipeline LP LLC, Sp/f Decision3 (GreenSteam) Company, Standard Oil Company, Standard Oil Company Inc., Standard Oil of Ohio, Stryde Limited, Sunrise Oil Sands Partnership, TISA Education Complex LLC, TJKK, Taradadis Pty. Ltd., Telcom General Corporation, Terre de Grace Partnership, The Anaconda Company, The BP Share Plans Trustees Limited, The Burmah Oil Company (Pakistan Trading) Limited, The Standard Oil Company, Toledo Refinery Holding Company LLC, Torrelavega 7 S.L., Union Texas International Corporation, Vastar Pipeline LLC, Veba Oel AG Veba Oel, Verenium, Viceroy Investments Limited, Villacarriedo 8 S.L., Warrenville Development Limited, Water Way Trading and Petroleum Services LLC, Welchem Inc., West Kimberley Fuels Pty Ltd, Westlake Houston Development LLC, Whiting Clean Energy Inc., Windpark Energy Nederland B.V., and Winwell Resources L.L.C. BT Group plc provides communications services worldwide. Its Consumer segment sells telephones, baby monitors, and Wi-Fi extenders through high street retailers, online BT Shop, and Website BT.com; and offers home phone, copper and fiber broadband, TV, and mobile services in various packages. The company's EE segment offers 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile network services; broadband, fixed-voice, and TV services; and postpaid and prepaid plans, and emergency services network. This segment also sells 4G mobile phones, tablets, connected devices, and mobile broadband devices from various manufacturers. Its Business and Public Sector segment provides fixed voice, mobility, fiber and connectivity, and networked IT services to retailers, utilities, public sector, healthcare, sports, construction, finance, and educational sectors. The company's Global Services segment offers business communications and ICT services comprising BT Connect, BT Security, BT One, BT Contact, BT Compute, BT Advise, and BT for financial markets. This segment serves approximately 5,500 customers in 180 countries. Its Wholesale and Ventures segment enables communications providers and other organizations to provide fixed or mobile phone services. Its ventures provide mass-market services, such as directory enquiries and payphones; and enterprise services comprising BT Fleet and BT Redcare. This segment also provides broadband and Ethernet, voice, hosted communication, mobile virtual network operator, managed solutions, machine-to-machine, roaming, and media services. The company's Openreach segment engages in the provision of services over the local access network; and installation and maintenance of fiber and copper communications networks that connect homes and businesses. The company was formerly known as Newgate Telecommunications Limited and changed its name to BT Group plc in September 2001. BT Group plc was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom. Read More Invesco Variable Rate Preferred ETF's stock was trading at $23.01 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, VRP shares have increased by 13.0% and is now trading at $26.01. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. As part of the activities to mark the founding anniversary of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (November 18, 1930) and Vietnam Cultural Heritage Day (November 23), the event has attracted the participation of nearly 200 people from 15 ethnic groups across the country. The highlights of this years event, Great National Unity Festival at the Vietnam National Village for Ethnic Culture and Tourism, during the opening ceremony, will be the programme "Colour of cultural heritage" introducing the national intangible cultural heritage of Soong Co singing of the San Diu ethnic group in Thai Nguyen province. The programme aims to preserve and uphold the traditional cultural value of Vietnamese ethnic communities and enhance the great national unity bloc, while advertising the Vietnam National Village for Ethnic Culture and Tourism as an attractive tourist destination for visitors from both home and abroad. Subscriber content preview FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) A coal mining company is planning to sell land to residents who have subleased lots in a neighborhood southwest of Fairbanks. Usibelli Coal Mine announced Friday that it had purchased the 464-acre Tri-Valley subdivision in Healy and plans to begin offering residents the option to buy the land, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported Monday. . . . Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, a diversified financial institution, provides various financial products and services to personal, business, public sector, and institutional clients in Canada, the United States, and internationally. The company operates through four strategic business units: Canadian Personal and Business Banking; Canadian Commercial Banking and Wealth Management; U.S. Commercial Banking and Wealth Management; and Capital Markets. The company offers chequing, savings, and business accounts; mortgages; loans, lines of credit, student lines of credit, and business and agriculture loans; investment and insurance services; and credit cards, as well as overdraft protection services. It also provides day-to-day banking, borrowing and credit, investing and wealth, specialty, and international services; correspondent banking and online foreign exchange services; and cash management services. The company serves its customers through its banking centers, as well as direct, mobile, and remote channels. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce was founded in 1867 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Read More China Mobile Limited provides mobile telecommunications and related services in Mainland China and Hong Kong. The company offers local calls; domestic and international long distance calls and roaming services; and value-added services, such as caller identity display, call waiting, conference calls, and others. It also provides wireless Internet service, as well as digital applications comprising music, video, reading, gaming, and animation; wireline broadband services; and wireline voice services. In addition, it offers dedicated line and IDC services to corporate customers in a range of industry sectors; and basic corporate communication products comprising corporate VPMN and SMS, and tailor made solutions. Further, the company provides international telecommunications services, which includes IDD, roaming, Internet, MNC, and value added business services. Additionally, it offers telecommunications network planning, design, and consulting services; roaming clearance, IT system operation, and technology support services; value-added platform development and maintenance services; mobile data, and system integration and development services; network construction and maintenance, network planning and optimizing, and training services; electronic communication products design and sale of related products; and non-banking financial services. It also provides mobile cloud research and development services; call center services; e-payment, e-commerce, and Internet finance services; and mobile Internet digital content services, as well as operates a network and business coordination center. The company serves 950 million mobile customers and 187 million wireline broadband customers. The company was formerly known as China Mobile (Hong Kong) Limited and changed its name to China Mobile Limited in May 2006. The company was incorporated in 1997 and is based in Central, Hong Kong. China Mobile Limited is a subsidiary of China Mobile Hong Kong (BVI) Limited. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of NOV: AG Holding UK, APL France SAS, APL Management Pte Ltd, APL Norway AS, APL do Brasil Ltda., ASEP Group Holding B.V., ASEP Otomotiv Sanayi Ticaret Ltd., Ackerman Holdings C.V., Ackerman Holdings GP LLC, Ackerman International Holland B.V., Advanced Production and Loading, Advanced Wirecloth, Aggregate Plant Products Co., American Pipe and Construction International, Ameron B.V., Ameron Holdings Pte. Ltd., Ameron International, Ameron International Corporation, Ameron Pole Products LLC, Ameron Polyplaster Industria E Comercio de Tubos Ltda., Ameron Singapore Holding, Ameron Singapore Poly Holdings Pte. Ltd., Ameron Trading Holdings Pte. Ltd., Andergauge Limited, Andergauge Redback, Andergauge USA, Arabian Rig Manufacturing Company, Axiom Process Limited, Belco Manufacturing Company, Big Red Tubulars Limited, Bondstrand Ltd., Bowen Downhole Inc., Bowen Downhole LLC, Brandt Interests, Brandt Oilfield Services (M) Sdn. Bhd., C.M.A. Canavera S.R.L., CJSC Fidmash, CJSC Novmash, CSI Inspection, Camco Drilling Group Limited, Chemineer, Coil Services Middle East LLC, Containment Solutions, Containment Solutions Services, Couoperatie Intelliserv Holding U.A., Couoperatie NOV NL U.A., Danco AS, Denali Incorporated, Denali Management, Devin International, Dreco Canada L.P., Dreco DHT, Dreco Eastern Europe ULC, Dreco Energy Services ULC, Dreco International Holdings ULC, Dreco LLC, E.C. Motors, Elmar Far East Pty Ltd, Enerflow Industries, Enerpro de Mexico, Environmental Procedures LLC, Ershigs, Fabricated Plastics Acquisitions Limited, Fabricated Plastics Limited, Fiber Glass Systems, Fiber Glass Systems (Qingdao) Composite Piping Co., Fiber Glass Systems Holdings, Fiber Glass Systems Oman L.L.C., Fiber Glass Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Fiberspar, Fiberspar Australia Pty. Ltd., Fiberspar Corporation, Fiberspar Linepipe Canada Ltd., Fibra Ingenieria y Construccion S.A., FidService, Fjords Processing (Shanghai) Co., Fjords Processing 1 AS, Fjords Processing AS, Fjords Processing Australia Pty Ltd, Fjords Processing France SAS, Fjords Processing Korea Co. Ltd., Fjords Processing Limited, Fjords Processing UK Ltd., Fryma S.a.r.l., GOT German Oil Tools GmbH, GP USA Holding LLC, GPEX, German Oil Tools (Middle East) FZE, Grant Prideco (Jiangsu) Drilling Products Co., Grant Prideco (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Grant Prideco AB TCA Holding LLC, Grant Prideco European Holding, Grant Prideco Holding, Grant Prideco III C. V., Grant Prideco Inc., Grant Prideco Jersey Limited, Grant Prideco L.P., Grant Prideco Mauritius Limited, Grant Prideco Netherlands B.V., Grant Prideco PC Composites Holdings, Grant Prideco S. de R.L. de C.V., Grant Prideco USA, Grant Prideco de Venezuela, Greystone Technologies Pty. Ltd., GustoMSC B.V., GustoMSC U.S., Hebei Huayouyiji Tuboscope Coating Co., Hitec AS, Hydralift AmClyde, Hydralift France SAS, Hydralift Holdings UK Limited, Inspecciones y Pruebas No Destructivas, IntelliServ Norway AS, Intelliserv, Intelliserv GP Holdings LLC, Intelliserv International Holding, Intelliserv LLC, Interval LLC, JiangYin Tuboscope Tubular Development Co., Merpro Group Limited, Merpro Products Limited, Merpro Tortek Limited, Midsund Bruk AS, Mono Group Pension Trustees Limited, Mono Pumps New Zealand Company, Monoflo NOV S.A.I.C., Moyno Inc., Moyno de Mexico S.A. de C.V., NKT Flexibles I/S, NOV (Asia), NOV (Barbados) Holding SRL, NOV (Barbados) SRL, NOV (Caymans), NOV (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., NOV - Oil Services Angola LDA., NOV APL Limited, NOV ASEP Elmar Mexico, NOV Africa Pty Ltd, NOV Australia Pty Ltd, NOV Azerbaijan LLC, NOV Brandt Europe France, NOV Brandt Oilfield Services Middle East LLC, NOV CV1 GP LLC, NOV CV2 GP LLC, NOV Completion Tools AS, NOV Completion Tools LLC, NOV Completion and Production Solutions Korea Ltd., NOV DH de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., NOV DHT Canada Holding ULC, NOV Denmark Cooperatief U.A., NOV Downhole Argentina, NOV Downhole Bolivia S.R.L., NOV Downhole Colombia, NOV Downhole Comercializacao de Equipamentos para Petroleo Ltda., NOV Downhole Congo, NOV Downhole Eurasia Limited, NOV Downhole Europe B.V., NOV Downhole Germany GmbH, NOV Downhole Italia S.R.L., NOV Downhole Kazakhstan, NOV Downhole Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., NOV Downhole Pty Ltd, NOV Downhole Thailand, NOV Dreco GP LLC, NOV EU Acquisition SNC, NOV Elmar (Middle East) Limited, NOV Elmar NL B.V., NOV Elmar Pte. Ltd., NOV Enerflow ULC, NOV Eurasia Holding LLC, NOV European Holding LLC, NOV Expatriate Services, NOV FGS Malaysia Sdn Bhd, NOV FGS Singapore (Pte.) Ltd, NOV Fiber Glass Systems Fabricacao De Tubos E Conexoes Ltda, NOV Flexibles Equipamentos E Servicos Ltda., NOV Flexibles Holding ApS, NOV Floating Production AS, NOV Fluid Control B.V., NOV GEO GP LLC, NOV GEO LP1 C.V., NOV GEO LP2 C.V., NOV GP Holding L.P., NOV GP1 Holding LLC, NOV Gabon SARL, NOV Germany Holding GmbH, NOV Ghana Limited, NOV Grant Prideco Drilling Equipment Manufacturing LLC, NOV Grant Prideco Drilling Products Middle East FZE, NOV Grant Prideco L.L.C., NOV Holding Danmark ApS, NOV Holding Germany GmbH & Co KG, NOV Holding Germany Management GmbH, NOV Holdings B.V., NOV Hydra Rig Pte. Ltd, NOV India Private Limited, NOV Intelliserv UK Limited, NOV International Holdings C.V., NOV International Holdings GP LLC, NOV Intervention & Stimulation Equipment US LLC, NOV Intervention and Stimulation Equipment Aftermarket Comercio de Equipamentos e Servicos Ltda., NOV Kenya Limited, NOV Kostroma LLC, NOV Kuwait Light & Heavy Equipment Repairing & Maintenance Co., NOV LP (Trading), NOV MSI Pipe Protection Technologies Inc., NOV MSI Pipe Protection Technologies Mexico, NOV Mexico Holding LLC, NOV Middle East FZCO, NOV Mission Products UK Limited, NOV Mozambique Limitada, NOV NL Mexico Holding B.V., NOV Netherlands Finance Holding C.V., NOV Netherlands Finance Holding LLC, NOV North America I/P, NOV Oil & Gas Services Egypt (S.A.E), NOV Oil & Gas Services Uganda Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services Ghana Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services Namibia (Proprietary) Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services Nigeria Limited, NOV Oil and Gas Services South Africa (Pty) Limited, NOV Oilfield Services Tanzania Limited, NOV Oilfield Services Vostok LLC, NOV Oilfield Solutions Ltd., NOV Park II B.V., NOV Process & Flow Technologies AS, NOV Process & Flow Technologies Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., NOV Process & Flow Technologies Pte. Ltd., NOV Process & Flow Technologies UK Limited, NOV Process & Flow Technologies US, NOV Rig Solutions Pte. Ltd., NOV Romania, NOV Saudi Arabia Co. Ltd., NOV Saudi Arabia Trading Co., NOV Services Ltd., NOV Servicios de Personal Mexico, NOV Subsea Products AS, NOV TV2 LLC, NOV TVI LLC, NOV Tanajib Kuwait for Services and Maintenance of Oil Rigs Refineries and Petrochemicals, NOV Tuboscope Italia S.R.L., NOV Tuboscope Middle East LLC, NOV Tuboscope NL B.V., NOV Tubulars and Connectors Ltd., NOV UK (Angola Acquisitions) Limited, NOV UK Finance Limited, NOV UK Holdings Limited, NOV UK Korea LP, NOV Wellbore Technologies Norway LLC, NOV Wellbore Technologies do Brasil Equipamentos E Servicos Ltda., NOV Wellsite Services Germany GmbH, NOV Worldwide C.V., NOV-BLM SAS, NOVM Holding LLC, NOW Downhole Tools, NOW International LLC, NOW Nova Scotia Holdings LLC, NOW Oilfield Services, NQL Holland B.V., National Oilwell (U.K.) Limited, National Oilwell Algerie, National Oilwell DHT, National Oilwell Middle East Company, National Oilwell Services de Mexico, National Oilwell Varco (Beijing) Investment Management Co. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco (Thailand) Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Algeria, National Oilwell Varco Almansoori Services, National Oilwell Varco Bahrain WLL, National Oilwell Varco Belgium SA, National Oilwell Varco Denmark I/S, National Oilwell Varco Egypt LLC, National Oilwell Varco Eurasia, National Oilwell Varco Guatemala, National Oilwell Varco Guyana Inc., National Oilwell Varco Hungary Limited Liability Company, National Oilwell Varco Korea Co., National Oilwell Varco MSW S.A., National Oilwell Varco Mexico, National Oilwell Varco Muscat L.L.C., National Oilwell Varco Norway AS, National Oilwell Varco Peru S.R.L., National Oilwell Varco Petroleum Equipment (Shanghai) Co., National Oilwell Varco Poland Sp.z.o.o., National Oilwell Varco Pte. Ltd., National Oilwell Varco Rig Equipment Trading (Shanghai) Co., National Oilwell Varco Romania S.R.L., National Oilwell Varco Solutions, National Oilwell Varco UK Limited, National Oilwell Varco Ukraine LLC, National Oilwell Varco de Bolivia S.R.L., National Oilwell Varco de Chile - Servicios Limitada, National Oilwell Varco do Brasil Ltda., National Oilwell de Venezuela, National-Oilwell Pte. Ltd., National-Oilwell Pty. Ltd., PT Fjords Processing Indonesia, PT H-Tech Oilfield Equipment, PT NOV Oilfield Services, PT National Oilwell Varco, PT PROFAB INDONESIA, Pesaka Inspection Services SDN.BHD., Pipex Limited, Pipex PX Limited, Pipex Structural Composites Limited, Pridecomex Holding S. de R.L. de C.V., Pridecomex TA Industries, Procon Engineering Ltd., Profab Engineering Pte. Ltd., Profab Services Pte Ltd, Quality Tubing FSC, R&M C.V., R&M Canada Cooperatief U.A., R&M Energy Systems Australia Pty Ltd., R&M Energy Systems de Argentina S.A., R&M Energy Systems de Venezuela, R&M Environmental Strategies, R&M Singapore Holding LLC, R&M UK Holding LLC, RE.MAC.UT. S.r.l., RHI Holding LLC, ReedHycalog, ReedHycalog International Holding, ReedHycalog LLC, ReedHycalog UK Limited, Robannic Overseas Finance A.V.V., Robbins & Myers, Robbins & Myers (Suzhou) Process Equipment Company Limited, Robbins & Myers B.V., Robbins & Myers Foundation, Robbins & Myers GP LLC, Robbins & Myers Holdings, Robbins & Myers Holdings UK Limited, Robbins & Myers Inc, Robbins & Myers Italia S.R.L., Robbins & Myers N.V., Rodic S.A. de C.V., Romaco S.a.r.l., STAR Sudamtex Tubulares S.A., STBH2O TUNISIE, STSA, Screen Manufacturing Company Unlimited, Seabox AS, Slip Clutch Systems Limited, Smart Drilling GmbH, Soil Recovery A/S, South Seas Inspection, Subseaflex Holding ApS, T-3 Energy Preferred Industries Mexico, T-3 Energy Services, T-3 Energy Services Cayman, T-3 Energy Services Cayman Holdings, T-3 Energy Services India Private Limited, T-3 Energy Services Mexico, T-3 Investment Corporation IV, T-3 Mexican Holdings, TVI Holdings, Telluride Insurance Limited, Tianjin Grant TPCO Drilling Tools Company Limited, Tube-Kote, Tubo-FGS, Tuboscope & Co. LLC, Tuboscope (Holding U.S.) LLC, Tuboscope Brandt de Venezuela, Tuboscope Machining Services AS, Tuboscope Norge AS, Tuboscope Pipeline Services Inc., Tuboscope Services, Tuboscope Vetco (Deutschland) GmbH, Tuboscope Vetco (France) SAS, Tuboscope Vetco (Oesterreich) GmbH, Tuboscope Vetco Canada ULC, Tuboscope Vetco Capital Limited, Tuboscope Vetco Moscow CJSC, Tuboscope Vetco de Argentina S.A., Tubular Coatings Solutions Ltd., Tucom Composites Polyester Sanayi Ticaret Ltd., Varco BJ B.V., Varco CIS, Varco Canada ULC, Varco I/P, Varco International de Venezuela, Varco L.P., Varco US Holdings LLC, Vetco Coating GmbH, Vetco Enterprise GmbH, Vetco Saudi Arabia Ltd., Visible Assets, Wilson International, Woolley, XL Systems, XL Systems Antilles, XL Systems Europe B.V., XL Systems International, voestalpine Middle East Free Zone Establishment, voestalpine Tubulars Corporation, voestalpine Tubulars GmbH, and voestalpine Tubulars GmbH & Co KG. 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 The following companies are subsidiares of Danaher: AB SCIEX, AB Sciex Germany GmbH, AB Sciex LLC, AB Sciex LP, AB Sciex Pte Ltd., Accu-Sort Systems, Acme Cleveland Corporation, Advanced Vision Technology, American Precision Industries, Applied Biosystems, Applitek NV, Aquatic Infomatics ULC, Aquatic Informatics, Armstrong Tools, BC Distribution BV, Beckman Coulter, Beckman Coulter Australia Pty Ltd, Beckman Coulter Biotechnology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Beckman Coulter Biyomedikal Urunler Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited [irketi], Beckman Coulter Canada LP, Beckman Coulter Commercial Enterprise (China) Co. Ltd., Beckman Coulter France S.A.S., Beckman Coulter G.m.b.H., Beckman Coulter Genomics Inc., Beckman Coulter Hong Kong Limited, Beckman Coulter Inc., Beckman Coulter India Private Limited, Beckman Coulter International SA, Beckman Coulter International Shanghai Trading Co., Beckman Coulter Ireland Inc., Beckman Coulter K.K., Beckman Coulter Korea Ltd., Beckman Coulter Laboratory Systems (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Beckman Coulter Limited Liability Company, Beckman Coulter Mishima KK, Beckman Coulter Nederland B.V., Beckman Coulter Nippon GK, Beckman Coulter S.L.U., Beckman Coulter Saudi Arabia Co.Ltd., Beckman Coulter Srl, Beckman Coulter Taiwan Inc., Beckman Coulter United Kingdom Limited, Beckman Coulter de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Beckman Coulter do Brasil Ltda., Beckman Finance ApS, Beckman Holdings Ltd., BioTector Analytical Systems Ltd, Biosafe S.A., Blue Software LLC, Cepheid, Cepheid AB, Cepheid Europe SAS, Cepheid GmbH, Cepheid HBDC SAS, Cepheid UK Ltd., ChemTreat, ChemTreat Inc., ChemTreat International Inc., Cispus Hong Kong Holding Limited, Cytiva, Cytiva BioProcess R&D AB, Cytiva Biotechnology (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd., Cytiva Biotechnology (Hang Zhou) Co. Ltd., Cytiva Europe GmbH, Cytiva Sweden AB, Cytiva Sweden Holding AB, DH Europe Finance II Sarl, DH Europe Finance Sarl, DH Holding Italia SRL, DH Japan Finance Sarl, DH Life Sciences LLC, DH Netherlands BV, DH Technologies Development Pte Ltd., DHKAB Company AB, DTIL Ireland Holdings Ltd., Danaher (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Danaher Hong Kong Limited, Danaher Medical ApS, Delta Consolidated Industries, Devicore Medical Products Inc., Easco Hand Tools, Esko, Esko BV, Esko Finance BV, Esko Graphics BV, Esko Software BV, FHAB Company AB, Fluke, G. Lufft Mess- und Regeltechnik GmbH, GE Biopharma, Gelman Sciences Inc., Gendex, Genetix Group, Gilbarco Veeder Root, Gilzoni Ltd., Global Life Sciences Solutions Austria GmbH & Co. KG, Global Life Sciences Solutions Germany GmbH, Global Life Sciences Solutions Korea Ltd., Global Life Sciences Solutions Manufacturing UK Ltd, Global Life Sciences Solutions New Zealand, Global Life Sciences Solutions Operations UK Ltd, Global Life Sciences Solutions Singapore Pte Ltd, Global Life Sciences Solutions USA LLC, Global Life Sciences Technologies (Shanghai) Co Ltd., Global Life Sciences Technologies Japan KK, Hach Company, Hach Lange Finance GmbH, Hach Lange GmbH, Hach Lange Sarl, Hach Sales & Services Canada LP, Hach Ultra Japan KK, Hach Water Quality Analytical Instru. (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., HemoCue AB, HyClone Laboratories LLC, Hybritech Incorporated, Hyclone Life Sciences Solutions India Private Limited, IDBS Group, IRIS International, Imaging Sciences International, Immunotech SAS, Immunotech Sro, Intabio LLC, Integrated DNA Technologies, Integrated DNA Technologies BVBA, Integrated DNA Technologies Inc., Integrated DNA Technologies Pte. Ltd., Iris International Inc., Joslyn Holding Company LLC, KVHG GmbH, KaVo, KaVo Kerr, Kaltenbach & Voigt, Keithley Instruments, Kipp & Zonen BV, Kollmorgen, Labcyte Inc., Laetus, Leica Biosystems Imaging Inc., Leica Biosystems Melbourne Pty Ltd, Leica Biosystems Newcastle Limited, Leica Biosystems Nussloch GmbH, Leica Biosystems Richmond Inc., Leica Instruments (Singapore) Pte Limited, Leica Microsystems, Leica Microsystems (UK) Limited, Leica Microsystems CMS GmbH, Leica Microsystems Cambridge Limited, Leica Microsystems IR GmbH, Leica Microsystems Inc., Leica Microsystems Limited, Leica Microsystems Ltd. Shanghai, Leica Mikrosysteme Vertrieb GmbH, Life Sciences Holdings France SAS*, Lifschultz Industries, Linx Printing Technologies, Linx Printing Technologies Limited, MDS Analytical Technologies, Marconi Data Systems, McCrometer Inc., Microtest, Molecular Devices, Molecular Devices (Austria) GmbH, Molecular Devices LLC, Navman Wireless, Navman Wireless OEM Solutions, Nihon Pall Ltd., Nihon Pall Manufacturing Limited, Nobel Biocare, OTT Hydromet Corp, Pall, Pall (Canada) ULC, Pall (China) Co. Ltd., Pall (Schweiz) GmbH, Pall Aeropower Corporation, Pall Artelis BVBA, Pall Asia Holdings Inc., Pall Australia Pty. Ltd., Pall Austria Filter Ges.m.b.h, Pall Corporation, Pall Europe Limited, Pall Filtersystems GmbH, Pall Filtration Pte. Ltd., Pall Filtration and Separations Group Inc., Pall France SAS, Pall GmbH, Pall India Pvt. Ltd., Pall International Sarl, Pall Italia Srl, Pall Korea Ltd., Pall Life Sciences Belgium BV, Pall Life Sciences Puerto Rico LLC, Pall Manufacturing UK Limited, Pall Medistad BV, Pall Netherlands BV Irish Branch, Pall Technology UK Limited, PaloDEX, Pantone LLC, Pelton & Crane, Phenomenex, Phenomenex Inc., Precision NanoSystems, QHC Ireland Finance Limited, Radiometer, Radiometer Basel AG, Radiometer K.K., Radiometer Medical ApS, Radiometer Medical Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Radiometer Turku Oy, Raytek, Reytek Corporation, SH Switzerland Finance Sarl, Sea-Bird Electronics Inc., SenDx Medical Inc., Shanghai AB Sciex Analytical Instrument Trading Co. Ltd., Sutron, Sybron Dental Specialties, TCIL Ireland Finance Ltd., Tektronix, Thomson Industries, Tianjin Bonna-Agela Technologies Co. Ltd., Trojan Technologies, Trojan Technologies Group ULC, VSS Monitoring, Videojet Do Brasil Comercio de Equipamentos Para Codificacao Industrial Ltda., Videojet Technologies (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Videojet Technologies Europe B.V., Videojet Technologies Inc., Viridor Waste Management Limited, Vision Systems Limited, Willett International, X-Ray Optical Systems Inc., X-Rite, X-Rite Europe GmbH, X-Rite Incorporated, X-Rite Switzerland GmbH, XOS, Yukon Hong Kong Holding Limited, and Zhuhai S.E.Z. Videojet Electronics Ltd.. Everest Re Group Ltd. is a holding company, which engages in the provision of reinsurance and insurance services. It operates through the following segments: U.S. Reinsurance, International, Bermuda, and Insurance. The U.S. Reinsurance segment writes property and casualty reinsurance and specialty lines of business, including marine, aviation, surety, and accident and health business, on both a treaty and facultative basis, through reinsurance brokers, as well as directly with ceding companies primarily within the U.S. The International segment offers foreign property and casualty reinsurance through Everest Re's branches in Canada and Singapore and through offices in Brazil, Miami, and New Jersey. The Bermuda segment comprises reinsurance and insurance to worldwide property and casualty markets through brokers and directly with ceding companies from its Bermuda office and reinsurance to the United Kingdom and European markets through its UK branch and Ireland Re. The Insurance segment writes property and casualty insurance directly and through brokers, surplus lines brokers, and general agents within the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartere Read More Continental Building Products Inc (NYSE:CBPX) issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November, 12th. The construction company reported $0.39 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.38 by $0.01. The construction company had revenue of $127.40 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $127.16 million. Continental Building Products had a trailing twelve-month return on equity of 18.84% and a net margin of 12.12%. The business's quarterly revenue was down 2.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.51 earnings per share. View Continental Building Products' earnings history. First BanCorp (Puerto Rico) is a holding company, which engages in the provision of personal, commercial, and corporate banking services through its subsidiaries. It operates through the following segments: Commercial and Corporate Banking, Consumer (Retail) Banking, Mortgage Banking, Treasury and Investments, United States Operations, and Virgin Islands Operations. The Commercial and Corporate Banking segment consists of the company's lending and other services for large customers represented by specialized and middle-market clients and the public sector. The Consumer (Retail) Banking segment includes consumer lending and deposit-taking activities conducted mainly through FirstBank's branch network in Puerto Rico. The Mortgage Banking segment focuses on the origination, sale, and servicing of a variety of residential mortgage loan products and related hedging activities. The Treasury and Investments segment deals with treasury and investment management functions. The United States Operations segment represents all banking activities conducted by FirstBank on the United States mainland. The Virgin Islands Operations segment includes all banking activities conducted by FirstBank in Read More Continental Building Products Inc (NYSE:CBPX) issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November, 12th. The construction company reported $0.39 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters' consensus estimate of $0.38 by $0.01. The construction company earned $127.40 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $127.16 million. Continental Building Products had a trailing twelve-month return on equity of 18.84% and a net margin of 12.12%. Continental Building Products's quarterly revenue was down 2.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.51 EPS. View Continental Building Products' earnings history. The following companies are subsidiares of Archer-Daniels-Midland: ADM (Shanghai) Management Co. LTD, ADM (Thailand) Ltd, ADM Ag Holdings Ltd, ADM Agri-Industries Company, ADM Agriculture Limited, ADM Agro Iberica S. L. U., ADM Agro Indust Latur and Vizag Pvt Ltd, ADM Agro Industries India Private Limited, ADM Agro Industries KOTA and AKOLA Pvt. Ltd., ADM Agro SRL, ADM Agroinvestimentos LTDA, ADM Alliance Nutrition of Puerto Rico LLC, ADM Americas S de RL, ADM Andina Peru SRL, ADM Antwerp NV, ADM Arkady Ireland Limited, ADM Asia-Pacific Trading Pte. Ltd., ADM Australia Holdings I PTY Limited, ADM Bio Science And Technology (Tianjin) Co Ltd, ADM Bioproductos SA DE CV, ADM CZERNIN SA, ADM Caribbean Inc, ADM Chile Comercial LTDA, ADM Clinton Bioprocessing Inc, ADM DO Brasil LTDA, ADM Direct Polska SP. ZO.O, ADM Dominican Holdings Inc., ADM Dominicana SA, ADM Edible Bean Specialties Inc, ADM Europe HoldCo SL, ADM European Holdings LLC, ADM European Management Holding GMBH, ADM Export Co, ADM Food Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd., ADM France, ADM Germany GmbH, ADM Grain River System Inc., ADM Hamburg Aktiengesesllschaft, ADM Holding (Thailand) LTD, ADM Holdings LLC, ADM Hungary Agro Trading LLC, ADM Industries Centers Ltd, ADM International Holdings Inc, ADM International SARL, ADM Interoceanic LTD, ADM Investments LTD, ADM Investor Services Inc, ADM Investor Services International LTD, ADM Ireland Receivables Company Limited, ADM Israel, ADM Japan Ltd, ADM MALBORK SA, ADM Mainz GMBH, ADM Medsofts Sarl, ADM Mexico Inc, ADM Mexico SA DE CV, ADM Milling Co, ADM Milling LTD, ADM New Zealand Limited, ADM Olomouc S.R.O., ADM Paraguay SRL, ADM Protexin Limited, ADM Pura Limited, ADM Receivables LLC, ADM Rice Inc, ADM Ringaskiddy Unlimited Company, ADM Romania Logistics SRL, ADM Romania Trading SRL, ADM Specialty Ingredients - Europe BV, ADM Spyck GMBH, ADM Szamotuly SP Z O.O, ADM Trading Australia Pty. Ltd., ADM Trading Co, ADM Transportation Company, ADM Trucking Inc, ADM Vietnam CO. LTD, ADM WILD Europe GmbH and Co. KG, ADM WILD Ingredients GmbH, ADM WILD Nauen GmbH, ADM WILD Valencia S.A., ADM Wild Netherlands BV, ADM Worldwide Holdings LP, ADMIS Holding Co Inc., ADMIS Hong Kong LTD, ADMIS Singapore Pte Limited, AOR, AT Holdings II Company, Agri Port Services Investments Ltd., Agri Port Services LLC, Agricolas Madagascar SARLU, Agrinational Insurance Co, Agriserve, Agrograin LTD, Alfrebro LLC, Alfred C Toepfer International Netherlands BV, Alimenta USA, American River Transportation Company LLC, Ameriseed, Amylum Bulgaria EAD, Amylum Nisasta Sanayi Ve Ticarek Anonim Sirketi, Archer Daniels Midland (UK) Limited, Archer Daniels Midland Asia Pacific Ltd., Archer Daniels Midland Erith LTD, Archer Daniels Midland Europe BV, Archer Daniels Midland Europoort BV, Archer Daniels Midland Nederland BV, Archer Daniels Midland Singapore PTE LTD, Arinos Unlimited, Aston Foods & Food Ingredients, Balanceados Nova SA Balnova, Barbados Mills Limited, Bela Vista Bio Etanol Participacoes LTDA, Bern Aqua, BioPolis SL, Biopolis, Campa Sued GmbH & Co KG, Cattleman's Choice Loomix LLC, Chamtor, Ci ADM Colombia Ltda., Controladora ADM Sa De Cv, Crosswind Petfoods Inc., Daavision BV, Eaststarch, Eatem Corporation, Eatem Foods, Elstar Oils, English River Pellets Inc., Epicore Bionetworks INC, Epicore Networks (USA) INC, Erich Ziegler GmbH, Evialis France, Fasco Mills Co., Filozoo SRL, Florida Chemical, Florida Chemical Company LLC, GP Blanching Inc., Global Cocoa Holdings LTD, Golden Peanut Company LLC, Golden Peanut and Tree Nut Seed SA (PTY) LTD, Golden Peanut and Tree Nuts SA, Group Lysac, Guyomarc'h - VCN Company Limited, Guyomarc'h Vietnam CO LTD, HFR Shipping Company Ltd, HRA Shipping Company Ltd, HTI Shipping Company Ltd, Harvest Innovations, Hilltop Grain and Feed, Holding P and A Asia Company Limited, Hubei Meiweiyuan Biotechnology, Ilitchevskiy Maslo Extractionniy Zavod (IMEZ), Invivo NSA Asia PTE LTD, Invivo NSA Philippines Inc, Jamaica Flour Mills Limited, Julius Meijer-Alpharma BV, LLC ADM Ukraine, Liquid Feed Commodities, Malta Industries SA de CV, Malta-Texo De Mexico SA de CV, Master Mix of Trinidad LTD, Medsofts Investment Co, Medsofts L.L.C., Medsofts Trading Co, Mepla Comercio e Navegacao Ltda, NRG Inc, Naviera Chaco SRL, Neovia, Neovia Latina SL, Neovia Nutricao E Saude Animal LTDA, North Star Shipping S.R.L., P and A Marketing SA, PJSC ADM Illichivsk, PT Wirifa Sakti, Pancosma (Shanghai) Feed Additives CO LTD, Pancosma France SAS, Pancosma SA, Premiere Agri Technologies of Mexico Inc, Pura Foods LTD, Rodelle Inc., Schokinag-Schokolade-Industrie Herrmann, Sermix, Setna Nutricion SA, Societe Industrielle Des Oleagineux, Southern Cellulose Products Inc, Soy Investors LLC, Specialty Commodities, Specialty Commodities LLC, Sul Mineira Alimentos LTDA, SzSzV Kft, Toepfer International, Toepfer International Trading (Shanghai) Co. LTD., Vantage Corn Processors LLC, WILD Amazon Flavors Ltda, WILD Flavors, Wild Flavors Inc., Wild Flavors International GmbH, Wild Flavors Singapore Pte. Ltd., Wild Intermare GmbH, Wild Russia LLC, and Wisium SA (PTY) LTD. Oasis Petroleum Inc., an independent exploration and production company, focuses on the acquisition and development of onshore unconventional oil and natural gas resources in the United States. It operates through Exploration and Production(E&P), and Midstream segments. The E&P segment engages in the acquisition and development of oil and gas properties. The Midstream segment offers midstream services, such as natural gas gathering, compression, processing and, gas lift supply; crude oil gathering, terminaling, and transportation; produced and flowback water gathering, and disposal; and water distribution. As of December 31, 2020, the company had 401,766 net leasehold acres in the Williston Basin; and 24,396 net leasehold acres in the Permian Basin, as well as approximately 152.2 million barrels of oil equivalent of estimated net proved reserves. The company sells its crude oil and natural gas to refiners, marketers, and other purchasers that have access to pipeline and rail facilities. Oasis Petroleum Inc. was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Read More iShares Russell 2000 Growth ETF's stock was trading at $170.68 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, IWO shares have increased by 83.2% and is now trading at $312.65. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. The following companies are subsidiares of Illinois Tool Works: A V Co 1 Limited, A V Co 2 Limited, A V Co 3 Limited, ACCU-LUBE Manufacturing GmbH - Schmiermittel und -gerate -, AIP/BI Holdings Inc., Accessories Marketing Holding Corp., Advanced Molding Company Inc., Allen Coding GmbH, Allen France SAS, Alpine Automation Limited, Alpine Engineered Products, Alpine Holdings Inc., Alpine Systems Corporation, Anaerobicos S.r.l., AppliChem GmbH, Arylux Hungary Elektromechanikus Alkatreszgyarto Kft, Avery Berkel France, Avery India Limited, Avery Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avery Weigh Tronix, Avery Weigh-Tronix (Suzhou) Weighing Technology Co. Ltd., Avery Weigh-Tronix Finance Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Holdings Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix International Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix LLC, Avery Weigh-Tronix Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Properties Limited, Azon Limited, B.C. Immo, Beijing Miller Electric Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Berkel (Ireland) Limited, Berrington UK, Brapenta Eletronica Ltda., Brooks Instrument (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Brooks Instrument B.V., Brooks Instrument GmbH, Brooks Instrument KFT, Brooks Instrument Korea Ltd., Brooks Instrument LLC, Buell Industries Inc., CAPMAX Logistica S.A. de C.V., CCI Realty Company, CFC Europe GmbH, CS (Australia) Pty Limited, CS (Finance) Europe S.a.r.l., CS Mexico Holding Company S DE RL DE CV, CSMTS LLC, Calvia Spolka z Ograniczona Odpowiedzialnosci, Capital Ventures (Australasia) S.a r.l, Capmax Logistica S.A. de C.V., Celeste Industries Corporation, Coeur, Coeur (Shanghai) Medical Appliance Trading Co. Ltd, Coeur Asia Limited, Coeur Holding Company, Coeur Inc., Compagnie Hobart, Compagnie de Materiel et d'Equipements Techniques-Comet, Constructions Isothermiques Bontami C.I.B., Crane Carrier Company, Despatch Industries, Diagraph Corporation Sdn. Bhd, Diagraph ITW Mexico S. de R.L. De C.V., Diagraph Mexico S.A. DE C.V., Dongguan Ark-Les Electric Components Co. Ltd., Dongguan CK Branding Co. Ltd., Dorbyl U.K. (Holdings) Limited, Duo Fast de Espana S.A.U., Duo-Fast Korea Co. Ltd., Duo-Fast LLC, E.C.S. d.o.o., ECS Cable Protection Sp. Zoo, ELRO (Holding) AG, ELRO Grosskuchen GmbH, ELRO-WERKE AG, Elga Skandinavian AS, Elro Group, Eltex-Elektrostatik-Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Envases Multipac S.A. de C.V., Eurotec Srl, FEG Investments L.L.C., Fasver, Filtertek, Filtertek De Mexico Holding Inc., Filtertek De Mexico S.A. de C.V., GC Financement SA, Gamko B.V., Gun Hwa Platech (Taicang) Co. Ltd., HOBART Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Hartness International, Hobart (Japan) K.K., Hobart Andina S.A.S., Hobart Brothers International Chile Limitada, Hobart Brothers LLC, Hobart Dayton Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Hobart Food Equipment Co. Ltd., Hobart Foster Belgium, Hobart International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Hobart Korea LLC, Hobart LLC, Hobart Nederland B.V., Hobart Sales & Service Inc., Hobart Scandinavia ApS, Hobart Techniek B.V., Horis, ILC Investments Holdings Inc., ITW (China) Investment Company Limited, ITW (Deutschland) GmbH, ITW (EU) Holdings Ltd., ITW (European) Finance Co. Ltd., ITW (European) Finance II Co. Ltd., ITW (European) Finance III Co. Ltd., ITW (Ningbo) Components & Fastenings Systems Co. Ltd., ITW AEP LLC, ITW AOC LLC, ITW Aircraft Investments Inc., ITW Alpha Sarl, ITW Ampang Industries Philippines Inc., ITW Appliance Components EOOD, ITW Appliance Components S.A. de C.V., ITW Appliance Components S.r.l.a, ITW Appliance Components d.o.o., ITW Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, ITW Australia Property Holdings Pty Ltd., ITW Australia Pty Ltd, ITW Automotive Components (Chongqing) Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Components (Langfang) Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Japan K.K., ITW Automotive Korea LLC, ITW Automotive Parts (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ITW Automotive Products GmbH, ITW Automotive Products Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Bailly Comte, ITW Befestigungssysteme GmbH, ITW Belgium, ITW Brazilian Nominee L.L.C., ITW Building Components Group Inc., ITW CER, ITW CP Distribution Center Holland BV, ITW CS (UK) Ltd., ITW Canada Inc., ITW Celeste Inc., ITW Chemical Products Ltda, ITW Chemical Products Scandinavia ApS, ITW Colombia S.A.S., ITW Construction Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Construction Products (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., ITW Construction Products AB, ITW Construction Products AS, ITW Construction Products ApS, ITW Construction Products CZ s.r.o., ITW Construction Products Italy Srl, ITW Construction Products OU, ITW Construction Products OY, ITW Contamination Control (Wujiang) Co. Ltd., ITW Contamination Control B.V., ITW Covid Security Group Inc., ITW DS Investments Inc., ITW DelFast do Brasil Ltda., ITW Delta Sarl, ITW Denmark ApS, ITW Dynatec, ITW Dynatec Adhesive Equipment (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Dynatec GmbH, ITW Dynatec Kabushiki Kaisha, ITW EAE B.V., ITW EAE Mexico S de RL de CV, ITW EF&C France SAS, ITW EF&C Selb GmbH, ITW Electronic Business Asia Co. Limited, ITW Electronic Components/Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Electronics (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Epsilon Sarl, ITW Espana S.A., ITW FEG Hong Kong Limited, ITW FEG do Brasil Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW Fastener Products GmbH, ITW Finance Designated Activity Company, ITW Finance Europe S.A., ITW Fluids and Hygiene Solutions Ltda., ITW Food Equipment Group LLC, ITW France Finance Alpha S.A.S., ITW GH LLC, ITW GSE ApS, ITW GSE Inc., ITW Gamma Sarl, ITW German Management LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings Y Compania Sociedad en Comandita por Acciones, ITW Global Investments II Inc., ITW Global Investments Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Europe GmbH, ITW Global Tire Repair Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Japan K.K., ITW Graphics (Thailand) Ltd., ITW Graphics Asia Limited, ITW Graphics Italy S.R.L. in liquidazione, ITW Great Britain Investment & Licensing Holding Company, ITW Group France (Luxembourg) S.ar.l., ITW HLP Thailand Co. Ltd., ITW Holding Quimica B.C. S.L. Sole Shareholder Company, ITW Holdings Australia L.P., ITW Holdings I Limited, ITW Holdings II Limited, ITW Holdings III Limited, ITW Holdings IV Limited, ITW Holdings IX Limited, ITW Holdings Inc., ITW Holdings UK, ITW Holdings V Limited, ITW Holdings VI Limited, ITW Holdings VII Limited, ITW Holdings VIII Limited, ITW Holdings X Limited, ITW Holdings XI Limited, ITW Hungary Finance Beta Kft, ITW ILC Holdings I Inc., ITW IPG Investments LLC, ITW Imaden Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW India Private Limited, ITW International Holdings LLC, ITW Invest Holding GmbH, ITW Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company, ITW Ireland Unlimited Company, ITW Italy Finance Srl, ITW Italy Holding Srl, ITW Japan Ltd., ITW Korea LLC, ITW LLC & Co. KG, ITW Limited, ITW Lombard Holdings Inc., ITW Lys Fusion S.r.l., ITW M FILMS II LLC, ITW MH LLC, ITW Meritex Sdn. Bhd., ITW Metal Fasteners S.L., ITW Mexico Holding Company S. De R.L. de C.V., ITW Mexico Holdings LLC, ITW Morlock GmbH, ITW Mortgage Investments II Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments III Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments IV Inc., ITW Netherlands Administration BV, ITW Netherlands Beta B.V., ITW Netherlands Finance Alpha BV, ITW New Universal LLC, ITW New Zealand, ITW Novadan Sp. Z.o.o., ITW PPF Brasil Adesivos Ltda., ITW Packaging Technology (China) Co. Ltd., ITW Participations S.a r.l., ITW Pension Funds Trustee Company, ITW Performance Plastic (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Japan Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Korea Limited, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids OOO, ITW Performance Polymers (Wujiang) Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers ApS, ITW Performance Polymers and Fluids Group FZE, ITW Peru S.A.C., ITW Philippines Holdings LLC, ITW Poly Mex S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Polymers Sealants North America Inc., ITW Pronovia s.r.o., ITW Pte. Ltd., ITW Qufu Automotive Cooling Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Real Estate Germany GmbH, ITW Residuals III L.L.C., ITW Residuals IV L.L.C., ITW Rivex, ITW SMPI, ITW SPG Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Simco-Ion (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., ITW Slovakia s.r.o., ITW Spain Holdings S.L., ITW Specialty Film LLC, ITW Specialty Films France, ITW Specialty Materials (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., ITW Spraytec, ITW Sverige AB, ITW Sweden Holding AB, ITW Test & Measurement Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, ITW Test & Measurement GmbH, ITW Test and Measurement Italia Srl, ITW Test and Measurement Services Industry and Trade Ltd., ITW Texwipe Philippines Inc., ITW Thermal Films (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ITW UK, ITW UK Finance Beta Limited, ITW UK Finance Delta Limited, ITW UK Finance Gamma Limited, ITW UK Finance Limited, ITW UK Finance Zeta Ltd., ITW UK II Limited, ITW Universal II LLC, ITW Welding, ITW Welding AB, ITW Welding GmbH, ITW Welding Products B.V., ITW Welding Products Group FZE, ITW Welding Products Group S. DE R.L. De C.V., ITW Welding Products Italy Srl, ITW Welding Products Limited Liability Company, ITW Welding Produtos Para Solgdagem Ltda., ITW Welding Servicios Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Welding Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW de France, ITW do Brasil Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Ideal Molding Technologies LLC, Illinois Tool Works (Chile) Limitada, Illinois Tool Works (ITW) Nederland B.V., Illinois Tool Works Norway AS, Impar Comercio E Representacoes Ltda., Industrie Plastic Elsasser GmbH, Inmobiliaria Cit. S.A. de C.F., Innova Temperlite Servicios S.A. de C.V., Innovacion y Transformacion Automotriz S.A. de C.V., Instron (Shanghai) Ltd., Instron (Thailand) Limited, Instron Brasil Equipamentos Cientificos Ltda., Instron Foreign Sales Corp. Limited, Instron France S.A.S., Instron GmbH, Instron Holdings Limited, Instron International Limited, Instron Japan Company Ltd., Instron Korea LLC, International Leasing Company LLC, International Truss Systems Proprietary Limited, Isolenge - ITW Sistemas de Isolamento Termico Ltda., KCPL Mauritius Holdings, Kester, Kester Components (M) Sdn. Bhd., Kleinmann GmbH, Krafft S.L., Loma Systems, Loma Systems (Canada) Inc., Loma Systems BV, Loma Systems sro, Lombard Pressings Limited, Lumex Inc., Lys Fusion Poland Sp. z.o.o., M&C Specialties (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., M&C Specialties Co., MAGNAFLUX GmbH, MEHB Holdings Limited, MGHG Property LLC, MOA Enterprises Inc, Manufacturing Avancee S.A., Meritex Technology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Meurer Verpackungssysteme GmbH, Miller Electric Mfg. LLC, Miller Insurance Ltd., NDT Holding LLC, NOVADAN APS, Norden Olje AB, North Star Imaging Europe, North Star Imaging Inc., Nova Chimica S.r.l., Orbitalum Tools GmbH, PENTA-91 OOO, PR. A. I. Srl, PT ITW Construction Products Indonesia, Pacific Concept Industries Limited (Enping), Panreac Quimica S.L., Paslode Fasteners (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Peerless Machinery Corp., Penta Dnepr LLC, Penta Sever OOO, Penta Volga OOO, Polyrey, Premark FEG L.L.C., Premark HII Holdings LLC, Premark International, Premark International LLC, Prolex Sociedad Anonima, QSA Global Inc., Quimica Industrial Mediterranea S.L., Ramset Fasteners (Hong Kong) Ltd., Rapid Cook LLC, Refrigeration France, S.E.E. Sistemas Industria E Comercio Ltda., ST Mexico Holdings LLC, Sealant Systems International Inc., Sentinel Asia Yuhan Hoesa, Shanghai ITW Plastic & Metal Co. Ltd, Simco (Nederland) B.V., Simco Japan Inc., Societe de Prospection et dInventions Techniques SPIT, Speedline Holdings I Inc., Speedline Holdings I LLC, Speedline Technologies GmbH, Speedline Technologies Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Speedline Technologies Mexico Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Stokvis Celix Portugal Unipessoal LDA, Stokvis Danmark ApS, Stokvis Holdings S.A.R.L., Stokvis Promi s.r.o, Stokvis Prostick Tapes Private Limited, Stokvis Tapes (Hong Kong) Co. Limited, Stokvis Tapes (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Taiwan) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes BVBA, Stokvis Tapes Benelux B.V., Stokvis Tapes Deutschland GmbH, Stokvis Tapes France, Stokvis Tapes Italia s.r.l., Stokvis Tapes Limited, Stokvis Tapes Limited Liability Company, Stokvis Tapes Norge AS, Stokvis Tapes Oy, Stokvis Tapes Polska Sp Z.O.O., Stokvis Tapes Sverige AB, Stolvis Holdings II S.A.R.L., Technopack Industria Comercio Consultoria e Representacoes Ltda., Teknek (China) Limited, Teknek (Japan) Limited, Teksaleco Ltd., The Miller Group Ltd, Thirode Grandes Cuisines Poligny, Tien Tai Electrode (Kunshan) Co. Ltd., Tien Tai Electrode Co. Ltd., Unichemicals Industria e Comercio Ltda., VR-Leasing Sarita GmbH & Co. Immobilien KG, VS European Holdco BV, Valeron Strength Films B.V.B.A., Veneta Decalcogomme S.r.l., Versachem Chile S.A., Vesta, Vesta (Guangzhou) Catering Equipment Co. Ltd, Vesta Global Limited, Viltronics Soltec, Vitronics Soltec B.V., Wachs Canada Ltd., Wachs Subsea LLC, Weigh-Tronix Canada ULC, Weigh-Tronix UK Limited, Wilsonart International Holdings LLC, Wynn Oil (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd., Wynn's Automotive France, Wynn's Belgium BVBA, Wynn's Italia Srl, Wynn's Mekuba India Pvt Ltd, ZF TRW (Engineered Fasteners and Components), and Zip-Pak International B.V.. AltaGas Ltd. operates as a diversified energy infrastructure company in North America. The company operates through two segments, Utilities and Midstream. The Utilities segment owns and operates regulated natural gas distribution utilities in Michigan, Alaska, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia; and two regulated natural gas storage utilities in the United States serving approximately 1.7 million customers. This segment also provides interstate natural gas transportation and storage services. It serves homes and businesses. The Midstream segment engages in the natural gas gathering and processing; natural gas liquids (NGL) extraction and fractionation, transmission, and storage; and natural gas and NGL marketing activities. This segment owns approximately 1.5 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas capacity. The company also holds interest in a regulated pipeline in the Marcellus/Utica gas formation in the northeastern United States; and engages in LPG exports and distribution, domestic terminals, wellsite fluids and fuels, and trucking and liquids handling businesses. It serves residential, commercial, and industrial customers primarily in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. Additionally, the company operates two natural gas-fired plants with 577 MW of generating capacity in California and Colorado; and energy storage assets in Alberta, Canada, as well as nine states and the district of Columbia in the United States. AltaGas Ltd. was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Read More National Grid plc transmits and distributes electricity and natural gas. It operates through UK Electricity Transmission, UK Gas Transmission, US Regulated, and National Grid Ventures (NGV) and Other segments. The UK Electricity Transmission segment owns and operates electricity transmission networks, which comprise approximately 7,236 kilometers of overhead lines. The UK Gas Transmission segment owns and operates gas transmission systems, as well as third-party independent systems and liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage facilities. The US Regulated segments owns and operates transmission facilities across upstate New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont; and electricity distribution networks in upstate New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Its assets comprise 14,439 kilometers of overhead lines; an electricity distribution network of approximately 117,498 circuit miles; and a network of approximately 57,551 kilometers of gas pipeline. The NGV and Other segment engages in the energy metering business; transporting renewable energy long distances through its electricity interconnectors; and storing LNG, as well as commercial property and insurance activities in the United Kingdom. The company was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom. Read More American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved. 326 E 8th St #105, Sioux Falls, SD 57103 | U.S. Based Support Team at [email protected]om | (844) 978-6257 MarketBeat does not provide personalized financial advice and does not issue recommendations or offers to buy stock or sell any security. Our Accessibility Statement | Terms of Service | Do Not Sell My Information 2021 Market data provided is at least 10-minutes delayed and hosted by Barchart Solutions. Information is provided 'as-is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and is delayed. To see all exchange delays and terms of use please see disclaimer. Fundamental company data provided by Zacks Investment Research. The following companies are subsidiares of Emerson Electric: A.P.M. Automation Solutions Ltd., AE Valves, AGI Mexicana S.A. de C.V., ALCO CONTROLS spol. s.r.o., APM Automation Solutions, ASC Investments Inc., ASCO (Japan) Company Limited, ASCO L.P., ASCO Numatics (India) Private Limited, ASCO Numatics Holding Inc., ASCO SAS, ASCO Valve (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ASCO/JOUCOMATIC s.r.o., ATX SAS, Advanced Protection Technologies, Aegir Norge Holding AS, Alliance Compressors LLC, American Governor, Aperture, Apple JV Holding Corp., Appleton Electric LLC, Appleton Electric S.A. de C.V., Appleton Group, Appleton Group Canada Ltd., Appleton Grp LLC, Appleton Holding Corp., Appleton Holding Sarl, Artesyn Embedded Technologies, Artesyn Hungary Elektronikai Kft., Artesyn Technologies, Asco AB, Asco Controls AG, Asco Controls B.V., Asco Joucomatic Ltd., Asco Joucomatic ZA B.V., Asco Magnesszelep Kft., Asco Numatics GmbH, Asco Numatics S.A., Asco Numatics Sirai S.R.L., Asco Numatics Sp. z o.o., Ascomatica S.A. de C.V., Ascomation (NZ) Ltd., Ascomation Pty. Ltd., Ascotech S.A. de C.V., Ascoval Industria e Commercio Ltda, Automatic Switch Company, Aventics, Aventics, Aventics AB, Aventics AG, Aventics AS, Aventics ApS, Aventics B.V., Aventics Corporation, Aventics Holding S.A.S., Aventics Holding S.a.r.l., Aventics Hungary Kft, Aventics Inc., Aventics India Private Limited, Aventics Limited, Aventics Ltd., Aventics Oy, Aventics Pneumatics Equipment (Changzhou) Co. Ltd., Aventics Pneumatics Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Aventics S.A.S., Aventics S.R.L., Aventics Services Germany GmbH, Aventics Singapore Pte. Ltd., Aventics Sp. z.o.o., Aventics Spain S.L., Aventics spol. s.r.o., Avtron LoadBank, Bannerscientific Limited, Beckman Industrial B.V., Beijing Rosemount Far East Instrument Co. Ltd., Bettis Canada Ltd., Bettis Holdings Limited, Bettis UK Limited, Biffi Italia S.r.l., Bioproduction Group, Branson Korea Co. Ltd., Branson Ultrasonic S.A., Branson Ultrasonics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Branson Ultrasonics B.V., Branson Ultrasonics Corporation, Branson Ultrasonics a.s., Branson Ultrasonidos S.A.E., Branson Ultrasons SAS, Branson Ultrasuoni S.R.L., Branson de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Bray Lectroheat Limited, Bristol Babcock Limited, Bristol Inc., Buehler Europe Limited, Buehler UK Limited, CR Compressors LLC, CSA Consulting Engineers Ltd., California Emerson LLC, Cascade Technologies, Cascade Technologies Holdings Limited, Cascade Technologies Limited, Chemat GmbH Armaturen fur Industrie - und Nuklearanlage, Chloride Koexa S.A., Componentes Avanzados de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Computational Systems, Computational Systems Incorporated, Conception et Representation de Technologies de Controle C.R.T. Controle SAS, Control Products Inc., Controles de Temperatura S.A. de C.V., Cooligy Inc., Cooper-Atkins, Cooper-Atkins Corporation, Cooper-Atkins Pte. Ltd., Copeland Access + Inc., Copeland Compresores Hermeticos S.A. de C.V., Copeland Corporation, Copeland Corporation LLC, Copeland Limited, Copeland Redevelopment Corporation, Copeland Scroll Compresores de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Copeland de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Copesub Inc., Crosby Valve LLC, Damcos A/S, Damcos Holding A/S, Daniel Automation Company, Daniel Europe Limited, Daniel Industrial Inc., Daniel Industries, Daniel Industries Canada Inc., Daniel Industries Inc., Daniel Industries Limited, Daniel International Limited, Daniel Measurement Solutions Private Limited, Daniel Measurement and Control Inc., Daniel Measurement and Control S. de R.L. de C.V., Danmasa S.A. de C.V., Dar Ibtikar Al Iraq for General Services and General Trade LLC, Decision Management International, Dieterich Standard Inc., Digital Appliance Controls (UK) Limited, Dixell North America Inc., Dixell S.R.L., Do+Able Products, E. Business Development E.B.D.Com Ltd., E.G.P. Corporation, EECO Inc., EGS Comercializadora Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., EGS Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., EGS Private Ltd., EMERSON CLIMATE TECHNOLOGIES s.r.o., EMR (Asia) Limited, EMR (Mauritius) Ltd., EMR Emerson Holdings (Switzerland) GmbH, EMR Europe Holdings Inc., EMR Foundation Inc., EMR Holdings (France) SAS, EMR Holdings Inc., EMR Worldwide B.V., EMR Worldwide Inc., EMRSN HLDG B.V., EMRSN Process Management Morocco Sarl, ENPDOR2012A Limited, ENPESNA Inc., EPM Tulsa Holdings Corp., EPMCO Holdings Inc., ETC International Holdings Ltd., Easy Heat Europe SAS, Easy Heat Inc., El-O-Matic B.V., El-O-Matic Valve Actuators (F.E.) Pte. Ltd., Electrische Apparatenfabriek Capax B.V., Emerald Advanced Technology Limited, Emerson (Philippines) Corporation, Emerson (Taiwan) Limited, Emerson (Thailand) Limited, Emerson Arabia Inc., Emerson Argentina S.A., Emerson Asia Pacific Private Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Actuation Technologies Holdings Inc., Emerson Automation Solutions Actuation Technologies Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control (Sichuan) Co. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control (Taiwan) Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control (Thailand) Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Africa (Pty) Ltd, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Australia Pty Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Czech Republic s.r.o., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Denmark A/S, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control France SARL, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Germany GmbH, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Hong Kong Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Hungary Kft, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Italia S.r.l., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control LLC, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Middle East FZE, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Netherlands B.V., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Polska Sp. Z.o.o., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Sales Australia Pty Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Sales Holding LLC, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control Singapore Pte. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control UK II Ltd, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control UK Ltd, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control US LP, Emerson Automation Solutions Final Control de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Emerson Automation Solutions GmbH, Emerson Automation Solutions Intelligent Platforms (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Intelligent Platforms Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Emerson Automation Solutions Intelligent Platforms Private Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Intelligent Platforms do Brasil Ltda, Emerson Automation Solutions Ireland Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions Isolation Valves Inc., Emerson Automation Solutions SSC UK Limited, Emerson Automation Solutions UK Limited, Emerson Beijing Instrument Co. Ltd., Emerson Climate Services LLC, Emerson Climate Technologies (India) Private Limited, Emerson Climate Technologies (Shenyang) Refrigeration Co. Ltd., Emerson Climate Technologies (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, Emerson Climate Technologies (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Emerson Climate Technologies (Suzhou) Trading Co. Ltd., Emerson Climate Technologies - Solutions (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Emerson Climate Technologies - Transportation Solutions ApS, Emerson Climate Technologies Arabia Limited Co., Emerson Climate Technologies Australia Pty. Ltd., Emerson Climate Technologies FZE, Emerson Climate Technologies GmbH, Emerson Climate Technologies Inc., Emerson Climate Technologies Limited, Emerson Climate Technologies Mexico S.A. de C.V., Emerson Climate Technologies Refrigeration S.A., Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions Europe S.R.L., Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions Inc., Emerson Climate Technologies Retail Solutions UK Limited, Emerson Climate Technologies S.A., Emerson Climate Technologies S.R.L., Emerson Climate Technologies Sarl, Emerson Commercial & Residential Tools LLC, Emerson Commerical & Residential Asia Limited, Emerson Comres de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Emerson DHC B.V., Emerson Dietzenbach GmbH, Emerson Dominicana Srl, Emerson Egypt LLC, Emerson Electric (Asia) Limited, Emerson Electric (China) Holdings Co. Ltd., Emerson Electric (M) Sdn Bhd, Emerson Electric (Mauritius) Ltd., Emerson Electric (South Asia) Pte. Ltd., Emerson Electric (Thailand) Limited, Emerson Electric (Tongling) Co. Ltd., Emerson Electric (U.S.) Holding Corporation, Emerson Electric (U.S.) Holding Corporation (Chile) Limitada, Emerson Electric (Zhuhai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Electric CR Limitada, Emerson Electric Canada Limited, Emerson Electric Company (India) Private Limited, Emerson Electric Company Lanka (Private) Limited, Emerson Electric Holdings (Switzerland) GmbH, Emerson Electric II C.A., Emerson Electric International Inc., Emerson Electric Ireland Limited, Emerson Electric Korea Ltd., Emerson Electric Nederland B.V., Emerson Electric Overseas Finance Corp., Emerson Electric Poland Sp. z o.o., Emerson Electric U.K. Limited, Emerson Electric de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Emerson Electric do Brasil Ltda, Emerson Energy Systems (UK) Limited, Emerson FZE, Emerson Final Control US Holding LLC, Emerson Finance LLC, Emerson Fusite Electric (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Emerson Gabon SARL, Emerson Hazardous Electrical Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Holding Company Limited, Emerson Holding Sweden AB, Emerson InSinkErator Appliance (Nanjing) Co. Ltd., Emerson Industrial Automation USA Inc., Emerson International Holding Company Limited, Emerson Japan Ltd., Emerson Junkang Enterprise (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Korea Limited, Emerson LLC, Emerson LLP, Emerson Machinery Equipment (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Emerson Mexico Finance S.A. de C.V. SOFOM ENR, Emerson Middle East Inc., Emerson Network Power DHC B.V., Emerson Paradigm Holding LLC, Emerson Process Management (India) Private Limited, Emerson Process Management (South Africa) (Proprietary) Ltd., Emerson Process Management (Tianjin) Valves Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management (Vietnam) Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management A/S (Denmark), Emerson Process Management AB, Emerson Process Management AG, Emerson Process Management AS, Emerson Process Management Angola Lda, Emerson Process Management Arabia Limited, Emerson Process Management Australia Pty Limited, Emerson Process Management B.V., Emerson Process Management Chennai Private Limited, Emerson Process Management Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management Distribution Limited, Emerson Process Management Europe GmbH, Emerson Process Management Flow B.V., Emerson Process Management Flow Technologies Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management GmbH & Co. OHG, Emerson Process Management Holding AG, Emerson Process Management Holding LLC, Emerson Process Management Kft., Emerson Process Management LLLP, Emerson Process Management Lda, Emerson Process Management Limited, Emerson Process Management Ltda, Emerson Process Management Magyarorszag Kft., Emerson Process Management Manufacturing (M) Sdn Bhd, Emerson Process Management Marine Solutions Korea Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management Marine Solutions Singapore Pte. Ltd., Emerson Process Management Marine Systems (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management NV, Emerson Process Management New Zealand Limited, Emerson Process Management Nigeria Limited, Emerson Process Management Oy, Emerson Process Management Power & Water Solutions (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management Power & Water Solutions Inc., Emerson Process Management Power & Water Solutions India Private Limited, Emerson Process Management Qatar W.L.L., Emerson Process Management Regulator Technologies Inc., Emerson Process Management Regulator Technologies Tulsa LLC, Emerson Process Management Romania S.R.L., Emerson Process Management S.A., Emerson Process Management S.A. de C.V., Emerson Process Management S.L., Emerson Process Management S.R.L., Emerson Process Management SAS, Emerson Process Management Shared Services Limited, Emerson Process Management Sp. z o.o., Emerson Process Management Ticaret Limited Sirket, Emerson Process Management UAB, Emerson Process Management Valve Automation (M) Sdn Bhd, Emerson Process Management Valve Automation (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Emerson Process Management Valve Automation Inc., Emerson Process Management Verwaltung GmbH, Emerson Process Management d.o.o., Emerson Process Management de Colombia SAS, Emerson Process Management del Peru S.A.C., Emerson Process Management s.r.o., Emerson Professional Tools (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson Puerto Rico Inc., Emerson Retail Services Europe GmbH, Emerson S.R.L., Emerson Sales UK Limited, Emerson Saudi Arabia LLC, Emerson Scroll Machining (Thailand) Limited, Emerson Sice S.R.L., Emerson Sweden AB, Emerson TOV, Emerson Technologies GmbH & Co. OHG, Emerson Technologies Verwaltungs GmbH, Emerson Tool Company de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Emerson Tool and Appliance Company S. de R.L. de C.V., Emerson Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Emerson UK Trustees Limited, Emerson USD Finance Company Limited, Emerson Valves & Controls Japan Co. Ltd., Emerson Ventures Inc., Emerson Vulcan Holding LLC, Emerson Xi'an Engineering Center, Emersub 1 LLC, Emersub 10 LLC, Emersub 11 LLC, Emersub 12 LLC, Emersub 14 LLC, Emersub 15 LLC, Emersub 16 LLC, Emersub 3 LLC, Emersub 4 LLC, Emersub 5 LLC, Emersub 7 LLC, Emersub 8 LLC, Emersub 9 LLC, Emersub CII Inc., Emersub CV Inc., Emersub Italia S.R.L., Emersub LXXXIV Inc., Emersub LXXXVI Inc., Emersub Mexico Inc., Emersub Treasury Ireland Unlimited Company, Emersub XLVI Inc., Emersub XXXVI Inc., Emirates Techno Casting FZE, Emirates Techno Casting Holding Limited, Emirates Techno Casting LLC, Enardo, Endura-Greenlee Tools, Energy Solutions International (India) Private Limited, Energy Solutions International GP LLC, Energy Solutions International Ltd., Energy Solutions International SAS, Energy Solutions International Sub LLC, F-R Tecnologias de Flujo S.A. de C.V., FC QSF LLC, FMC Technologies, Fiberconn Assemblies Morocco Sarl, Fincor Holding LLC, Fire & Safety Group.Com Ltd., Fisher Controles de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Fisher Controls International LLC, Fisher Jeon Gas Equipment (Chengdu) Co. Ltd., Fisher Regulators (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Fisher Sanmar Limited, Fisher-Rosemount Systems Inc., Flow Control Holding GmbH & Co. KG, Flow Control Holding Verwaltungs GmbH, Flow Control US Holding Corporation, Francel SAS, Fromex S.A. de C.V., Fusite B.V., Fusite Corporation, Fusite Land Company, GSEG LLC, General Equipment and Manufacturing Company Inc., Generale de Robinetterie Industrielle et de Sytemes de Surete, GeoFields, GeoFields Inc., Greenex Ltd., Greenfield (UK) Limited, Greenlee, Greenlee Communications, Greenlee Tools Inc., Gulf Valve FZE, Gustav Klauke GmbH, H.T.E. Engineering Limited, HD Electric Company, HTE Engineering Services Limited, Hindle Cockburns Limited, Hiross India Private Limited, Hiter Industria e Comercia de Controles Termo-Hidraulicos Ltda., Humboldt Hermetic Motor Corp., Hytork International Ltd., I Solutions Inc., ICC Intelligent Platforms GmbH, ISE-MagTech, Industrial Controls Canada ULC, Industrial Group Metran JSC, Instrument & Valve Services Company, Intelligent Platforms LLC, Intellution, International Gas Distribution SA, Intrinsic Safety Equipment of Texas Inc., JCF Fluid Flow India Private Limited, JSC Metran-Export, Joucomatic S.A., K Controls Limited, Keystone Germany Holdings Corp., Keystone Valve (Korea) LLC, Keystone Valve (U.K.) Limited, Klauke, Klauke (Jiangsu) Electrical Connection Technology Co Ltd., Klauke France SARL, Klauke Handelsgesellschaft mbH, Klauke Iberia S.L., Klauke Polska Sp. z.o.o., Klauke Slovakia s.r.o., Klauke UK Ltd., Knurr, Liebert, Liebert Swindon Limited, Locus Solutions LLC, Locus Traxx Worldwide, Locus Traxx Worldwide Europe BVBA, MDC Technology Limited, MDC Technology Trustees Limited, METCO Services Limited, MYNAH Technologies, Management Resources Group Inc., Mecafrance (Deutschland) GmbH, Metallurgical Services Laboratories Limited, Metaserv Limited, Metco Services Venezuela C.A., Micro Motion Inc., Mobrey Group Limited, Motores Hermeticos del Sur S.A. de C.V., NetworkPower Ecuador S.A., Nippon Fisher Co. Ltd., Novel Environmental Technologies Ltd., Novel Extinguishing Agent Technology Ltd., Numatics Incorporated, Nutsteel DHC B.V., Nutsteel Industria Metalurgica Ltda, O.M.T. Officina Meccanica Tartarini S.r.l., Open Systems International, P I Components Corp., PT Emerson Solutions Indonesia, PT. Emerson Indonesia, PT. Paradigm Geophysical Indonesia, Pactrol Controls Limited, PakSense, PakSense Inc., Paradigm, Paradigm (UK) Holding Limited, Paradigm B.V., Paradigm France S.A., Paradigm Geophysical (India) Private Limited, Paradigm Geophysical (KL) Sdn. Bhd., Paradigm Geophysical (Nigeria) Limited, Paradigm Geophysical (U.K.) Limited, Paradigm Geophysical B.V., Paradigm Geophysical Corp., Paradigm Geophysical Italy SRL, Paradigm Geophysical LLC, Paradigm Geophysical Limited, Paradigm Geophysical Pty Ltd, Paradigm Geophysical S.A., Paradigm Geophysical Sdn. Bhd., Paradigm Geophysical Spain S.L., Paradigm Geophysical de Venezuela C.A., Paradigm Geophysical do Brasil Ltda., Paradigm Geoservices Canada Ltd., Paradigm Geotechnology (Egypt) S.A.E., Paradigm Kazakhstan LLP, Paradigm Middle East FZ-LLC, Paradigm Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Parex Industries Limited, Pentair Valves & Controls, Pentair Valves and Controls India Private Limited, Permasense, Permasense Asia Pacific Sdn Bhd, Permasense Limited, ProSys, ProTeam Inc., Progea, RAC Technologies (Israel) Ltd., RIDGID Inc., RPP Europe GmbH, RPP LLC, Rey-Lam S. de R.L. de C.V., Ridge Tool (Australia) Pty. Ltd., Ridge Tool Company, Ridge Tool Europe NV, Ridge Tool GmbH, Ridge Tool GmbH & Co. OHG, Ridge Tool Manufacturing Company, Ridge Tool Pattern Company, Ridgid France SAS, Ridgid Italia S.R.L., Ridgid Online Inc., Ridgid Scandinavia A/S, Ridgid Werkzeuge AG, Rosemount China Inc., Rosemount Inc., Rosemount Measurement Limited, Rosemount Nuclear Instruments Inc., Rosemount Specialty Products LLC, Rosemount Tank Gauging India Pvt. Ltd., Rosemount Tank Gauging Middle East SPC, Rosemount Tank Gauging North America Inc., Rosemount Tank Radar AB, Rosemount Tank Radar Properties AB, Roxar, Roxar AS, Roxar Flow Measurement AS, Roxar Flow Measurement Sdn Bhd, Roxar Limited, Roxar Maximum Reservoir Performance W.L.L., Roxar Saudi Co., Roxar Services AS, Roxar Services OOO, Roxar Software Solutions AS, Roxar Technologies AS, Roxar Vietnam Company Ltd., Roxar de Venezuela C.A., Rutherfurd Acquisitions Limited, S.F.T. Group Ltd., SABO-Armaturen Service GmbH, Safety Systems UK Pte. Ltd., Sakhi-Raimondi Valve (India) Limited, Scroll Compressors LLC, Scroll Mexico LLC, Sempell GmbH, Shanghai Virgo Valves Technology Consulting Co. Ltd., Sherman + Reilly, Soluciones 0925 C.A., Spectra-Tek Holdings Limited, Spectra-Tek International Limited, Spectra-Tek UK Limited, Spectrex, Spectrex Inc., Spectronix Ltd., Spensall Engineering Limited, Steel Support Systems Limited, Stratos Lightwave, System Plast International B.V., System Plast Ltda, System Plast USA de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., TDM-avtomatizatsiya, TV&C GP Holding LLC, Taiwan Valve Co. Ltd., TechnipFMC, Termocontroles de Juarez S.A. de C.V., Tescom Corporation, Tescom Europe GmbH & Co. KG, Tescom Europe Management GmbH, The Automation Group Inc., The J.R. Clarkson Company LLC, Therm-O-Disc Europe B.V., Therm-O-Disc Incorporated, Thunderline Z Inc., TopWorx UK Limited, Tranmet Holdings B.V., Tranmet Holdings Limited, Verdant Environmental Technologies, Vilter Manufacturing LLC, Virgo Valves & Controls (ME) FZE, Virgo Valves and Controls Sdn Bhd, Von Arx AG, Vulsub 1 Limited, Vulsub Brasil Holding, Vulsub Brasil Ltda., Vulsub Chile SpA, Vulsub Gulf Holding Limited, Vulsub Holding III (Denmark) ApS, Vulsub Holding Ltd, Vulsub Holdings A LLC, Vulsub Holdings B LLC, Vulsub Holdings C LLC, Vulsub Holdings D LLC, Vulsub Italia S.r.l., Vulsub Middle East Holdings LLC, Vulsub Peru S.A.C., Vulsub Property Holding LLC, Vulsub Property Limited, Vulsub S.A., Vulsub South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Vulsub VZ C.A., Westinghouse Electric Pvt. Limited, Westlock Controls Limited, Westlock Equipamentos de Controle Ltda., Woodstock Land Company LLC, epro GmbH, iSolera Inc., iSolutions Private Limited, and intelliSAW. Invesco S&P MidCap 400 Pure Growth ETF's stock was trading at $121.31 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, RFG stock has increased by 100.0% and is now trading at $242.63. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF's stock was trading at $37.46 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, EEM shares have increased by 35.9% and is now trading at $50.92. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Red Hat, Inc. provides open source software solutions to develop and offer operating system, virtualization, management, middleware, cloud, mobile, and storage technologies to various enterprises worldwide. It offers infrastructure-related solutions, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, an operating system platform that runs on hardware for use in hybrid cloud environments; Red Hat Satellite, a system management offering that helps to deploy, scale, and manage in hybrid cloud environments; and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, a software solution that allows customers to utilize and manage a common hardware infrastructure to run multiple operating systems and applications. The company offers application development-related and other technology solutions, such as Red Hat JBoss Middleware, a solution for developing, deploying, and managing applications; integrating applications, data, and devices; and automating business processes in hybrid cloud environments; The company's application development-related and other technology solutions also includes Red Hat cloud offerings, a software solution that enables customers to build and manage various cloud computing environments; Red Hat Mobile, a software development platform that enables customers to develop, integrate, deploy, and manage mobile applications for enterprises; and Red Hat Storage, a software solution that enables customers to manage large, unstructured, or semi-structured data in hybrid cloud environments. It also provides consulting, support, and training services; and realtime operating system, distributed computing, directory services, and user authentication. Red Hat, Inc. has collaboration with Juniper Networks Expand to provide a unified solution for enterprises designed to manage and run applications and services. The company was formerly known as Red Hat Software, Inc. and changed its name to Red Hat, Inc. in June 1999. Red Hat, Inc. was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of General Motors: 2140879 Ontario Inc., ACAR Leasing, ACAR Leasing Ltd., ACF Investment, ACF Investment Corp., AFS SenSub, APGO Trust, Adam Opel, Adam Opel GmbH, Aftermarket (UK), AmeriCredit, AmeriCredit Consumer Loan, AmeriCredit Consumer Loan Company Inc., AmeriCredit Financial Services, AmeriCredit Financial Services Inc., AmeriCredit Funding, AmeriCredit Syndicated Warehouse Trust, Annunciata Corporation, Argonaut Holdings, Argonaut Holdings LLC, BOCO (Proprietary), BOCO (Proprietary) Limited, Banco GMAC, Banco GMAC S.A., Baylis (Gloucester), Boco Trust, Boden Brussels, CHEVYPLAN, CHEVYPLAN S.A. Sociedad Administradora de Planes de Autofinanciamiento Comercial, Cadillac, Cadillac Europe, Cadillac Europe GmbH, Carve-Out Ownership, Carve-Out Ownership Cooperative LLC, Chevrolet Deutschland GmbH, Chevrolet Sales (Thailand), Chevrolet Sales (Thailand) Limited, Chevrolet Sales India, Chevrolet Sales India Private Ltd., Chevrolet Sociedad Anonima de Ahorro para Fines Determinados, Controladora General Motors, Controladora General Motors S.A. de C.V., Cruise, DCJ1, DCJ1 LLC, DMAX, DMAX Ltd., Dealership Liquidations, Dealership Liquidations Inc., Delphi Energy and Engine Management Systems UK, Delphi Energy and Engine Management Systems UK Overseas Corporation, EDS (Electronic Data Systems), FAW-GM, Fundacion Chevrolet, G.M.A.C., GCAR Titling Ltd., GM (UK) Pension, GM (UK) Pension Trustees Limited, GM APO Holdings, GM Administradora de Bens, GM Administradora de Bens Ltda., GM Asia Pacific Regional Headquarters Ltd., GM Auslandsprojekte, GM Automotive, GM Automotive Services Belgium, GM CME, GM Canada Holdings, GM Canada Limited, GM Components Holdings, GM Components Holdings LLC, GM Cruise, GM Cruise Holdings LLC, GM Cruise LLC, GM Defense, GM Eurometals, GM Eurometals Inc., GM Europe Treasury, GM Finance, GM Finance Co. Holdings LLC, GM Financial, GM Financial AB, GM Financial Canada, GM Financial Canada Leasing, GM Financial Canada Leasing Ltd., GM Financial Colombia Holdings LLC, GM Financial Colombia S.A. Compania de Financiamiento, GM Financial Consumer, GM Financial Consumer Discount, GM Financial Consumer Discount Company, GM Financial Del Peru, GM Financial GmbH, GM Financial Holdings LLC, GM Financial Insurance Services, GM Financial Mexico Holdings, GM Financial Mexico Holdings LLC, GM Financial Real Estate, GM Financial de Mexico, GM Financial de Mexico S.A. de C.V. SOFOM E.R., GM Financial del Peru S.A.C, GM Global Business Services, GM Global Propulsion Systems -Torino S.r.l., GM Global Purchasing and Supply Chain, GM Global Technology Operations, GM Global Technology Operations LLC, GM Global Tooling, GM Global Tooling Company LLC, GM Global Treasury Centre Limited, GM Holden, GM Holden Pty Ltd., GM Holdings U.K. No.1 Limited, GM Inversiones Santiago Limitada, GM Investment Trustees Limited, GM Korea, GM Korea Company, GM LAAM Holdings, GM LAAM Holdings LLC, GM Mexico Holdings, GM Mobility Europe GmbH, GM PSA Purchasing Services, GM Personnel Services, GM Personnel Services Inc., GM Philippines Inc., GM Plats (Proprietary), GM Regional Holdings, GM Regional Holdings LLC, GM Retirees Pension Trustees, GM Retirees Pension Trustees Limited, GM Subsystems Manufacturing, GM Subsystems Manufacturing LLC, GM Technical Center Korea Ltd., GM Viet Nam Motor Company, GM-DI Leasing, GM-DI Leasing LLC, GMAC - Instituicao Financeira de Credito, GMAC Administradora de Consorcios, GMAC Administradora de Consorcios Ltda., GMAC Banque, GMAC Continental, GMAC Espana de Financiacion, GMAC Holdings (U.K.), GMAC Lease B.V. (aka Masterlease Europe), GMAC Nederland N.V., GMAC Prestadora de Servicios de Mao de Obra Ltda., GMAC Servicios, GMAC UK, GMAC de Venezuela, GMAC-Prestadora de Servios de Mo-de-Obra, GMACI Corretora de Seguros, GMACI Corretora de Seguros Ltda, GMAM Real Estate I, GMCH&SP Private Equity II, GMCH&SP Private Equity II L.P., GMF Australia Pty Ltd, GMF Europe, GMF Europe Holdco, GMF Europe LLP, GMF Floorplan Owner Revolving Trust, GMF Funding, GMF Germany Holdings, GMF Global Assignment, GMF Global Assignment LLC, GMF International, GMF International LLC, GMF Leasing LLC, GMF Leasing Warehousing Trust, GMF Wholesale Receivables, GMGP Holdings, General Motors (China) Investment Company, General Motors (China) Investment Company Limited, General Motors (Thailand), General Motors (Thailand) Limited, General Motors - Colmotores, General Motors - Colmotores S.A., General Motors Advisory Services LLC, General Motors Africa and Middle East, General Motors Africa and Middle East FZE, General Motors Asia, General Motors Asia LLC, General Motors Asia Pacific Holdings, General Motors Asia Pacific Holdings LLC, General Motors Asset Management, General Motors Asset Management Corporation, General Motors Australia, General Motors Australia Pty Ltd., General Motors Austria, General Motors Austria, General Motors Auto, General Motors Auto LLC, General Motors Automobiles Philippines, General Motors Automobiles Philippines Inc., General Motors Automotive Holdings, General Motors Automotive Holdings S.L., General Motors Belgique Automobile NV, General Motors Belgium, General Motors Chile, General Motors Chile Industria Automotriz Limitada, General Motors China LLC, General Motors Daewoo Auto and Technology, General Motors Daewoo Auto and Technology CIS LLC, General Motors East Africa, General Motors Egypt, General Motors Egypt S.A.E., General Motors Espana, General Motors Europe Holdings, General Motors Europe Limited, General Motors Financial Chile, General Motors Financial Chile Limitada, General Motors Financial Chile S.A., General Motors Financial Company, General Motors Financial Company Inc., General Motors Financial International, General Motors Financial Italia, General Motors Financial Suisse, General Motors Financial UK, General Motors Financial of Canada, General Motors Financial of Canada Ltd., General Motors Finland, General Motors France, General Motors GBS Hungary, General Motors Global Service Operations, General Motors Global Service Operations Inc., General Motors Hellas, General Motors Holden Australia, General Motors Holden Australia NSC, General Motors Holden Australia NSC Pty Ltd., General Motors Holden Australia Pty Ltd., General Motors Holdings LLC, General Motors IT Services (Ireland) Limited, General Motors India Private, General Motors India Private Limited, General Motors International Holdings, General Motors International Holdings LLC, General Motors International Operations, General Motors International Operations Pte. Ltd., General Motors International Services Company, General Motors International Services Company SAS, General Motors International Services LLC, General Motors Investment Limited, General Motors Investment Management, General Motors Investment Management Corporation, General Motors Investment Participacoes, General Motors Investment Participacoes Ltda., General Motors Investments, General Motors Investments Pty. Ltd., General Motors Ireland, General Motors Israel, General Motors Israel Ltd., General Motors Italia, General Motors Japan, General Motors Japan Limited, General Motors LLC, General Motors Limited, General Motors Manufacturing Poland, General Motors Nederland, General Motors New Zealand Pensions, General Motors New Zealand Pensions Limited, General Motors Overseas, General Motors Overseas Commercial Vehicle, General Motors Overseas Commercial Vehicle Corporation, General Motors Overseas Corporation, General Motors Overseas Distribution, General Motors Overseas Distribution LLC, General Motors Peru, General Motors Peru S.A., General Motors Poland Spolka, General Motors Portugal, General Motors Powertrain (Thailand), General Motors Powertrain (Thailand) Limited, General Motors Research Corporation, General Motors South Africa, General Motors South Africa (Pty) Limited, General Motors Suisse, General Motors Taiwan, General Motors Taiwan Ltd., General Motors Technical Centre India, General Motors Technical Centre India Private Limited, General Motors Treasury Center, General Motors Treasury Center LLC, General Motors Turkiye, General Motors UK, General Motors Uruguay, General Motors Uruguay S.A., General Motors Venezolana, General Motors Ventures, General Motors Ventures LLC, General Motors Warehousing and Trading (Shanghai), General Motors Warehousing and Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., General Motors de Argentina, General Motors de Argentina S.r.l., General Motors de Mexico, General Motors de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., General Motors del Ecuador, General Motors del Ecuador S.A., General Motors do Brasil, General Motors do Brasil Ltda., General Motors of Canada, General Motors of Canada Company, General Motors-Holden's Sales, General Motors-Holden's Sales Pty. Limited, GigaPower LLC, Global Services Detroit, Global Services Detroit LLC, Global Tooling Service Company Europe, Global Tooling Service Company Europe Limited, Go Motor Retailing, Go Trade Parts, Grand Pointe Holdings, Grand Pointe Holdings Inc., Grand Pointe Park Condominium, Grand Pointe Park Condominium Association, H.S.H., Haines & Strange, Holden New Zealand, Holden New Zealand Limited, IBC Pension Trustees, IBC Pension Trustees Limited, IBC Vehicles, Lease Ownership Cooperative, Lease Ownership Cooperative LLC, Lidlington Engineering Company, Lidlington Engineering Company Ltd., Limited Liability Company "General Motors CIS", Master Lease Germany, Maven Drive, Maven Drive LLC, Millbrook Pension Management, Millbrook Pension Management Limited, Monetization of Carve-Out, Monetization of Carve-Out LLC, Motor Repris Automocio, Motors Holding, Motors Holding LLC, Motors Properties, Motors Properties (Trading), Multi-Use Lease Entity Trust, North American New Cars, North American New Cars LLC, Omnibus BB Transportes, Omnibus BB Transportes S. A., OnStar Connected Services Srl, OnStar Egypt Limited LLC, OnStar Europe, OnStar Europe Ltd., OnStar Global Services, OnStar Global Services Corporation, OnStar LLC, OnStar de Mexico, OnStar de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Opel Bank, Opel Danmark, Opel Group, Opel Group Warehousing, Opel Leasing, Opel Norge, Opel Sonderdienste, Opel Southeast Europe, Opel Sverige, Opel Szentgotthard Automotive Manufacturing, Opel Wien, P.T. G M AutoWorld Indonesia, P.T. General Motors Indonesia, PIMS, PIMS Co., PT. General Motors Indonesia Manufacturing, Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center, Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center Company Ltd., Prestadora de Servicios GMF Colombia S.A.S., Rapid Motor Vehicle Company, Reliance Motor Car Company, Riverfront Holdings III Inc., Riverfront Holdings Inc., Riverfront Holdings Phase II Inc., SAIC GM (Shenyang) Norsom Motors Co. Ltd., SAIC GM Dong Yue Motors Company Limited, SAIC GM Dong Yue Powertrain Company Limited, SAIC GM Wuling Automobile Company Limited, SAIC General Motors Corporation Limited, SAIC General Motors Investment Limited, SAIC General Motors Sales Company Limited, SAIC-GMAC Automotive Finance Company Limited, SAIC-GMF Leasing Co. Ltd., Servicios GMAC S.A. de C.V., Shanghai Chengxin Used Car Operation and Management Company Limited, Shanghai OnStar Telematics Co. Ltd., Sherwoods (Darlington) Limited, Sidecar Technologies, Skurrays Limited, Stam-Terberg Autobedrijven B. V., Strobe Inc., VHC Sub-Holdings (UK), Vauxhall Defined Contribution Pension Plan Trustees Limited, Vehicle Asset Universal Leasing Trust, Vickers (Lakeside) Limited, Vision Motors Limited, WRE, WRE Inc., and Zona Franca Industrial Colmotores SAS. Waddell & Reed Financial, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides investment management and advisory, investment product underwriting and distribution, and shareholder services administration to mutual funds, and institutional and separately managed accounts in the United States. The company acts as an investment adviser for institutional and other private investors, and provides sub advisory services to other investment companies; and underwrites and distributes registered open-end mutual fund portfolios. It also offers fee-based asset allocation investment advisory products to advisors channel customers; distributes business partners' variable annuity products, and retirement and life insurance products to advisors channel customers; and sells life insurance and disability products underwritten by various carriers. The company distributes investment products through its wholesale channel comprising other broker/dealers, various retirement platforms, and registered investment advisors, as well as through independent financial advisors; and markets investment advisory services to institutional investors directly or through consultants. Waddell & Reed Financial, Inc. was founded in 1937 and is based in Overland Park, Kansas. Read More Toachi Mining Inc. engages in the mineral exploration activities. It holds an option to acquire 60% to 75% interest in the La Plata gold-rich copper-zinc-silver-lead volcanogenic massive sulphide project located to the southwest of Quito, Ecuador. The company was formerly known as Ferrum Americas Mining Inc. and changed its name to Toachi Mining Inc. in March 2016. Toachi Mining Inc. was founded in 2010 and is based in Toronto, Canada. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of Travelers Companies: 10762962 Canada Inc., 350 Market Street LLC, 8527512 Canada Inc., Aetna Life and Casualty Co, American Equity Insurance Company, American Equity Specialty Insurance Company, Aprilgrange Limited, Arch Street North LLC, Auto Hartford Investments LLC, Bayhill Restaurant II Associates, Camperdown Corporation, Constitution State Services LLC, Discover Property & Casualty Insurance Company, Discover Specialty Insurance Company, F&G UK Underwriters Limited, Farmington Casualty Company, Fidelity and Guaranty Insurance Company, Fidelity and Guaranty Insurance Underwriters Inc., First Floridian Auto and Home Insurance Company, Gulf Underwriters Insurance Company, IHP Capital Partners Fund VIII L.P., Northbrook Holdings Inc., Northfield Insurance Company, Northland Casualty Company, Northland Insurance Company, Phoenix UK Investments LLC, SPC Insurance Agency Inc., Select Insurance Company, Simply Business Holdings Inc., Simply Business Inc., St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, St. Paul Guardian Insurance Company, St. Paul Mercury Insurance Company, St. Paul Protective Insurance Company, St. Paul Surplus Lines Insurance Company, Standard Fire Properties LLC, Standard Fire UK Investments LLC, TCI Global Services Inc., TPC Investments Inc., TPC U.K. Investments LLC, The Automobile Insurance Company of Hartford Connecticut, The Charter Oak Fire Insurance Company, The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company, The Family Business Institute LLC, The Phoenix Insurance Company, The St. Paul Companies Inc., The Standard Fire Insurance Company, The Travelers Casualty Company, The Travelers Home and Marine Insurance Company, The Travelers Indemnity Company, The Travelers Indemnity Company of America, The Travelers Indemnity Company of Connecticut, The Travelers Lloyds Insurance Company, TravCo Insurance Company, Travelers (Bermuda) Limited, Travelers Brazil Acquisition LLC, Travelers Brazil Holding LLC, Travelers Casualty Company of Connecticut, Travelers Casualty Insurance Company of America, Travelers Casualty UK Investments LLC, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company of America, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company of Europe Limited, Travelers Commercial Casualty Company, Travelers Commercial Insurance Company, Travelers Constitution State Insurance Company, Travelers Distribution Alliance Inc., Travelers Excess and Surplus Lines Company, Travelers Global Inc., Travelers Indemnity U.K. Investments LLC, Travelers Insurance Company Limited, Travelers Insurance Company of Canada, Travelers Insurance Designated Activity Company, Travelers Insurance Group Holdings Inc., Travelers Lloyds of Texas Insurance Company, Travelers London Limited, Travelers MGA Inc., Travelers Management Limited, Travelers Marine LLC, Travelers Participacoes em Seguros Brasil S.A., Travelers Personal Insurance Company, Travelers Personal Security Insurance Company, Travelers Property Casualty Company of America, Travelers Property Casualty Corp., Travelers Property Casualty Insurance Company, Travelers Seguros Brasil S.A., Travelers Syndicate Management Limited, Travelers Texas MGA Inc., Travelers Underwriting Agency Limited, Ultramar Travel Management, United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company, Xbridge Limited, Zensurance Brokers Inc., and Zensurance Inc.. Weatherford International plc, an oilfield service company, provides equipment and services for the drilling, evaluation, completion, production, and intervention of oil and natural gas wells worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Western Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere. It offers artificial lift systems, including reciprocating rod, progressing cavity pumping, gas, hydraulic, plunger, and hybrid lift systems, as well as related automation and control systems; pressure pumping and reservoir stimulation services, such as acidizing, fracturing and fluid systems, cementing, and coiled-tubing intervention; and drill stem test tools, and surface well testing and multiphase flow measurement services. The company also provides safety, downhole reservoir monitoring, flow control, and multistage fracturing systems, as well as sand-control technologies, and production and isolation packers; liner hangers to suspend a casing string in high-temperature and high-pressure wells; cementing products, including plugs, float and stage equipment, and torque-and-drag reduction technology for zonal isolation; and pre-job planning and installation services. In addition, it offers directional drilling services, and logging and measurement services while drilling; services related to rotary-steerable systems, high-temperature and high-pressure sensors, drilling reamers, and circulation subs; managed pressure drilling, conventional mud-logging, drilling instrumentation, gas analysis, wellsite consultancy, and open hole and cased-hole logging services; reservoir solutions and software products; and intervention and remediation services. Further, the company provides equipment and drilling tools; tubular handling, management, and connection services; equipment rental services; and onshore contract drilling and related services through a fleet of land drilling and workover rigs. Weatherford International plc was incorporated in 1972 and is headquartered in Baar, Switzerland. Read More WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity Fund's stock was trading at $41.73 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 (Coronavirus) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, DXJ stock has increased by 51.8% and is now trading at $63.36. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. ONEONTA, NY Members of the Oneonta faith community gathered at Temple Beth El Tuesday to remember the victims of the deadly attack at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. 11 people lost their lives. There were calls for forgiveness and understanding as music and prayers filled the temple. Representatives from various religions spoke of peace and healing. Omar Siddiqi, from the Osmanli Dergahi Sufi Center in Sydney Center, was one of those who spoke. Today we are here to stand with and provide solace to our friends, our brothers, and to our sisters in the Jewish community. When we look for solace we look to the lives of the noble people who went before us. The prophets of God, the friends of God, and we see that they too suffered greatly. 11 memorial candles were lit and the names of the victims were read off. OPINION Among my many distinctions, the one Im least proud of is that I was one of nine people in the United States of America to actually pay to see INDIANAPOLIS (WLFI) -- Indianas U.S Senate candidates took every chance they could to deter Hoosier voters from their opponent Tuesday night in the final debate before Election Day. Within the first few seconds of opening statements at Newfields in Indianapolis, Republican Mike Braun and Incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly took jabs at each other. Many of them voters have been heard before on TV ads. Multiple times, Senator Donnelly made sure to point out Mike Braun supports a lawsuit that takes away pre-existing conditions, among others. "If you have asthma or if your child has asthma and your in Cass County and you're headed to Logansport Schools, Mike Braun supports the legislation that would have taken the health care pre-existing conditions away," said Donnelly. Challenger Mike Braun declined his post debate interview with the media. During the debate, he pointed out, once again that he believes Chuck Schumer was running Donnelly's campaign, and the Senator supports what he calls the Un-Affordable Care Act. Libertarian Lucy Brenton said she intends to spoil this election and the two party strangle-hold on the country. Polls show her getting 7 to 8 percent of the vote right now. I intend to spoil this election," said Brenton. "Something doesnt spoil unless its rotten. The two-party system that has had a strangle hold on our country is rotten. It's up to us as people, as voters ,to demand all of our freedoms all the time. Im the first loser. The second loser will miss the mark on what Hoosiers want. Sen. Donnelly accused Braun of opposing abortion even in cases of rape, incest or medical emergency. Braun did not dispute the charge, but he did strike back by accusing Donnelly of not having an anti-abortion voting record. Both candidates said they oppose abortion, though Donnelly said it's a decision the government should have no role in. "We need to see them speak for themselves, other than these horrible ads that keep running," said Donnelly supporter Cindy Hohman. Braun's wife Maureen has been by his side as they've traveled the state and says, he's the man that Washington needs. "I'm in full support of my husband Mike," said Maureen. "He would just be the best person for this job because he is a hard-working, intelligent man and he has a lot of experience with his business background." The candidates danced around many of the questions, but they were prepared for the final question, What is your number one priority if elected. Joe Donnelly said to end the opioid crisis. Braun said to lower cost of health care and Lucy Brenton said to reduce the size of the federal government. Top priority if elected:@JoeforIndiana End opioid scourge@braun4indiana Lower cost of heath care@lucy4senate Reducing size of federal govt.@WLFI #INSenDebate Trevor Peters (@TrevorPetersTV) October 31, 2018 You can weigh-in on who you think won tonights debate on the WLFI twitter page. You can also watch the full debate below: President Trump announced he will campaign for Braun in Indiana twice in the coming week. The first will be at Southport High School Friday. The second is scheduled in Ft Wayne Monday, just hours before voters take to the polls. When Sen. Donnelly was asked if any "big names" were coming to the Hoosier State for him, he said Id keep my ears open. Live tweets from the debate questions are below: On voting to end birth right citizenship:@JoeforIndiana That's the 14th amendment of constitution. "I'd review it first."@braun4indiana I know Hoosiers rank border security up there with healthcare. "I'll wait and see the discussion on it." Neither give 'yes' or 'no' @WLFI Trevor Peters (@TrevorPetersTV) October 30, 2018 On proposal of border wall and protection of dreamers:@braun4indiana Need to stress legal immigration. Until we build a wall, issues will keep coming up. "(Joe) never votes with the president, can't trust what he says." @JoeforIndiana I've stood with Trump/McCain. Trevor Peters (@TrevorPetersTV) October 30, 2018 Free contraceptive to reduce adoration rates@JoeforIndiana Contraceptive coverage is included in Affordable Care Act. I am pro-life, exceptions include rape/incest.@braun4indiana Senator is having it both ways. You cant say youre pro-life and have your voting record. #INSen Trevor Peters (@TrevorPetersTV) October 30, 2018 Saudi relations, Support Trump's stance?@lucy4senate "Why are we still playing footsie with regimes that murder?" I do not support president stance.@JoeforIndiana "Should have temporary armistice on Saudi Arabia"@braun4indiana Horiffic. Yes, support Trump's leadership. Trevor Peters (@TrevorPetersTV) October 30, 2018 What will you do to alleviate Hoosier hunger?@JoeforIndiana Supporter of Farm Bill. Good nutrition programs@braun4indiana A lot due to government. I'd trust what we do in Indiana. Not "career politicians" @lucy4senate Why buy soda pop with SNAP benefits? Need real nutrition Trevor Peters (@TrevorPetersTV) October 30, 2018 How will you fight to protect sexual assault survivors?@braun4indiana No place for it, period. Alleged issues should be vetted@lucy4senate Up to us to create a believable culture. Fix allocation of resources. Rape kits sit untested@JoeforIndiana (To Braun) Issue not dealt with Trevor Peters (@TrevorPetersTV) October 30, 2018 WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) -- A carjacking at Peppermill Village apartments in West Lafayette still has a witness in shock. Genie Lane said she saw her neighbor walking towards her car when three people ran up and drove off in it. Lane was walking her and her neighbors dog at the time and believes that's why she wasn't a target. After witnessing the carjacking she took the victim to her house where they called the police. Lane says she didn't believe it was real until the victim approached her crying for help. "I was like no Genie, no, they probably know her, they're probably messing with her... but then after they got in the car and they left, and then I just saw her face, I'm like, oh no she didn't know these people," said Lane. Lane said she wished she trusted her gut instinct when she saw the three suspiciously wandering around her neighborhood earlier. I was like fighting with myself the whole time, so I was like, maybe I should call the cops these guys look suspicious.. I'm like no Genie they're probably just teenagers, they're bored, and I saw her and I'm like oh she could be a target, then Im like no Genie, youre overreacting, said Lane. Lane said the victim told her she was on her way to the homeless shelter to volunteer when the incident took place. One thing that really shocked Lane was the carjackers deciding to steal in broad daylight. They had enough nerve to like come strolling in at daylight and just come take some womans car, said Lane. West Lafayette Police say that neighborhood is fairly quiet. They are looking for the stolen vehicle and ask that you call Detective Decker with WLPD at (765) 775-5200, if you have any information. Copyright & Permissions Unless otherwise noted all written material on this blog is copyrighted by the blog owner. All rights are reserved except as stated below. I generally have no problem with someone quoting Ad Orientem unless it's for commercial purposes or something that's copyrighted other than by me (in either which case kindly ask first). In all cases please be polite and include attribution and a link. Remember good netiquette. A conscientious effort is made to respect the rights of others when quoting or displaying their work on this blog. As a general rule only excerpts are posted with a link to the original source. Common sense exceptions may include instances where it is believed in good faith that the content falls within the public domain or where the quoted content is so brief that excerpting is not practical. During the stay, the Cuban leader will meet bilaterally with General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, and join other activities. One of the highlights in the agenda will be a new trade agreement between the two countries, which is expected to lift two-way trade, he said. Vietnam is now the second largest trade partner of Cuba in Asia and the Oceania. The EU reiterated on Wednesday its call for a credible and transparent investigation into the case of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. We have asked and expect that Saudi Arabia cooperates on a thorough, credible and transparent investigation and we insist on the need for clarity on the circumstances of his death and full accountability of all those responsible for it, the blocs Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said on behalf of the EU. In a statement marking the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, Mogherini said: We pay tribute to all those journalists around the world who lost their lives and suffered attacks in the exercise of their profession. We also pay tribute to all those brave journalists who are taking up the work of their colleagues who can no longer pursue their investigations. She went onto say that without a free, diverse and independent media democracy could not live. The assassinations of investigative journalists Daphne Caruana Galizia and Jan Kuciak in the EU, demonstrate that no region of the world is immune to this, she added. Galizia was killed in Malta in October 2017 and Kuciak in Slovakia in February 2018 as both of them were investigating high-level corruption cases in their countries. Guncelleme Tarihi: 31 Ekim 2018, 18:09 With a week to go before the November 6 midterm elections, Socialist Equality Party candidate for Michigans 12 congressional district Niles Niemuth and a campaign team spoke with workers at the recently-opened Amazon facility in Romulus, the western most city in Detroits Downriver suburbs. The facility lies just outside the boundaries of the congressional district but employs workers from throughout the area. Romulus, like the rest of Downriver, is home to a working-class population of nearly 24,000 people. The region has been devastated by deindustrialization over the past 30 years. The largest single employer is now the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, which offers largely low-wage service jobs, where many Amazon employees work as a second job. The Amazon facility in Romulus was opened in August and built with a $5 million grant provided by the Michigan state government. Amazon routinely selects areas that are hit by high unemployment and underemployment, where workers have no choice but to accept the brutal conditions and poverty level wages that it offers. For many workers in Romulus, Amazon is a relative improvement compared to fast-food jobs with no benefits. The recent announcement that the minimum wage will eventually be $15 an hourwhich is yet to kick in for many workers at the Amazon facilityhas also made the job more attractive, despite the fact that this wage would condemn workers to a lifetime of poverty and make many unable to collect any government assistance. Aaliyah and Katera, both 20 years old, have been working at Amazon for a month and a half while they study nursing. I have about $17,300 in student loans, Katera said, and Im making $12.75 an hour here. Aaliyah (center) and Katera (right) with Niles The employers know that there is nothing here for us, so they offer us low wages because nowhere else will give us so many hours, Katera said. If youre a young person around here, you can get a job at Wendys or other fast food. Really it is like a pyramid scheme, and were the worker ants at the bottom. Aaliyah and Katera had heard about the Trump administrations decision to deploy over 5,000 troops to the southern border against immigrant workers seeking to enter the US. Katera said, I hate the Trump administration. These attacks on the immigrants are being used to try to get people to follow him, people who dont understand that other workers are just trying to come here for a chance at living. Neither Katera nor Aaliyah believed that the Democrats were an opposition to the Trump administration. All the Democrats are really worried about is big business, Katera said. They want to make sure the people who are already making a lot of money are doing OK. My whole life theyve been doing something and messing with someone in the Middle East. Its really just about keeping our feet in other places. Katera noted the recent attacks on food stamp eligibility by the Trump administration. Now Trump is hitting the people with the least, she said. How do you expect a mother trying to work 40 hours when she has young kids and no car? Theyre not giving you a choice. Aaliyah added: And then when you get a job, its minimum wage. They were both angered by the fact that Amazons CEO Jeff Bezosthe worlds richest manhas a personal wealth of over $150 billion, the product of the brutal exploitation of more than 500,000 Amazon workers all around the world. My whole life, Ive never seen much money, Katera said. So, to think that someone has $150 billion, what can you do with that? What are you going to do? It could be spread out so much better to the worlds people. Were 20 and were working here, Katera said. But my back hurts at the end of the day. And there are people who are 40 and 50 years old working here trying to make ends meet. Its so wrong. Many of the workers who had worked at Amazon for longer than Katera and Aaliyah were actually negatively affected by Amazons announcement of a $15 minimum wage last month. For us, we appreciate it because its a bit of extra change. But some of these other workers lost their bonuses, their shares, so what they were given was taken away. Niles explained that his campaign for Congress was aimed at building a political movement of the working class, in opposition to both the Democrats and Republicans, for socialism. This would include the transformation of the giant corporations like Amazon into public utilities, democratically controlled by the working class as a whole, as part of the organization of the economy according to scientific planning, rather than private profit. I like what you guys are talking about, Katera responded. I need to Google this and find out more. Niles also spoke with Ed, a hi-lo forklift driver at a different logistics company, who was picking up his girlfriend at the end of her shift at Amazon. Either way, I agree the working class should control the profits in society today, he told me. All my life Ive been on the Democratic side because weve never been in the high tax bracket, but everything has been the same since Ive been younger. At some point the things we need like healthcare, someone is going to have to pay for it: either the upper class or the working class. Ares, another young Amazon worker, said he was outraged by the decision to send the military against immigrants at the border. The military tried to recruit me at college, he told us angrily. They offered me $1,600 and to pay my tuition. Thats how they get people to join. But I think about it, and how can you fight for an organization, for a country, that doesnt support you? The way I see all these wars we are in all over the world are: I want this, and I am going to take it from you, and I dont care how many people die so that we can get it. Ares and Niles Colin, a 25-year-old worker, was working just his fourth day at the Amazon plant. He was previously a cook for Sky Chefs at the nearby Detroit Metro Airport also in Romulus. I went to school to be a cook, he said. I have the same amount of debt as if Id bought a Porsche: $60,000. School is the biggest scam in the United States. The Democrats and Republicans say there is no money for universal free tuition but there is money, he said. They want to hold on to it for the rich, to use it so they stay rich and for us to stay poor. There is no middle class in America anymore, just rich and poor. Colin had his own analogy for describing the sham choice that workers are offered every election between the Democrats and Republicans. It is like choosing Android or iPhone, he said. Basically, they do the same thing with a different brand. I used to be for the Democrats. The Republicans will just cut everything and then the people are left with nothing. We need food stamps and many people cant work. I have friends on it and I used to be on it. But the Democrats do the same thing in a different way, by moving money around more quietly. You guys seem to be the wedge to just get rid of both parties, he said. I like it. Ninety percent of people work and were not represented. In a flagrant attack on the US Constitution and basic democratic rights, President Trump revealed in an interview made public Tuesday morning that he plans to issue an executive order to put an end to birthright citizenship. He gave no details of when he would issue the order or how it would be enforced, telling Axios on HBO only that White House lawyers have already given their approval. Such an order would apply immediately to the nearly 300,000 children born to undocumented immigrants in the United States each year. If applied retroactively, it would deprive millions of young people of citizenship rights. By one estimate, such a move would double the illegal immigrant population overnight, increasing to 24 million the number facing the terror raids, detention and mass deportation carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Trumps threat, whether or not he carries it out, is a significant step towards a presidential dictatorship in America. It is the first time that a president has claimed the right to rewrite the text of the Constitution to suit his political preferences. It flies in the face of the plain language of the Constitution itself, which reserves the right to amend the Constitution to Congress, by a two-thirds majority of each house, followed by ratification in two-thirds of the states. If a president can rewrite the Fourteenth Amendment, claiming that immigration poses a threat to US national security, why not the First Amendment, guaranteeing freedom of speech, assembly and the press, under conditions where the president has defined the press as the enemy of the people? Why not tear up the Fourth Amendment protection against illegal searches or the Fifth Amendment guarantee of due process and protection against self-incrimination, in the name of supporting our great police officers, as Trump would put it? Despite Trumps claim that his own lawyers in the White House Counsels office support his right to re-interpret the Fourteenth Amendment, there is no genuine legal dispute over whether the Fourteenth Amendment provides for birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court found that it did in the 1898 case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark. Every subsequent decision of the court has reinforced that precedent, while explicitly extending the language of due process and equal protection of the law, also found in the Fourteenth Amendment, to undocumented immigrants. The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which formally abolished slavery. The amendment was needed to suppress efforts by the former Confederate states to deny citizenship and other political and legal rights to the former slaves, and to reverse the legal precedent of the notorious Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), ruling that black people had no legal or citizenship rights, regardless of whether they were slaves or free. The first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment defines what is called birthright citizenship: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. The words subject to the jurisdiction thereof made an exception for the children of foreign envoys, who enjoyed diplomatic immunity and therefore were not subject to US laws. All other children born on American soil were citizens with full legal rights from the moment of their birth. The intention of Congress in enacting the amendment, to apply it to the children of immigrants as well as the children of former slaves, was made clear in the congressional debates, in which senators explicitly declared that the children of Chinese laborers in California would be covered. Birthright citizenship has come under attack in the last two decades from ultra-right and anti-immigrant groups, primarily but not exclusively in the orbit of the Republican Party. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, one of the most powerful Democrats in Washington, introduced the Immigration Stabilization Act in 1993 with the declaration that no sane country would permit birthright citizenship because it provided an incentive for pregnant alien women to enter the United States illegally for the purpose of acquiring citizenship for the child and accompanying federal financial benefits. In 2010, a number of Republican senators voiced their support for putting an end to birthright citizenship, or at least holding hearings on the subject, including then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, 2008 presidential candidate John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Jeff Sessions, now Trumps attorney general. In 2015, Trump made repeal of birthright citizenship a major part of his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, which he launched with a racist diatribe against Mexican immigrants, vilifying them as rapists and murderers. In the course of the campaign, many of his Republican rivals came over to that position, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Ben Carson, now Trumps housing secretary. But in both 2010 and 2015-2016, there was no suggestion that birthright citizenship could be abolished through executive order. It was generally accepted, both by supporters and opponents, that such a clear and dramatic change in the Fourteenth Amendment was possible only through passage of a further constitutional amendment. As is typically the case with Trump, he surrounded his claim of presidential authority to amend the Constitution with a series of lies, declaring, Were the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years, with all of those benefits. Actually, 29 out of the 34 nations in the Western Hemisphere, which emerged and developed through mass immigration, grant automatic citizenship to all those born within their borders. Besides the United States, the list includes Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Chile, Cuba and the Central American countries whose citizens are now fleeing to escape violence, repression and poverty, the results of US imperialist intervention and oppression. All of these countries independence followed in the historical wake of the American Revolution, which established a republic based not on race, religion, ethnicity or even geography, but on enlightenment ideals. This democratic heritage is what Trump is seeking to end with his calls for an American nationalism defined by bristling hostility to enemies foreign and domestic. This reeks of the blood and soil nationalism espoused above all by the Nazis and illuminates why Trumps nationalism is intrinsically bound up with authoritarianism. The media reaction to Trumps proposal for a massive, fundamental attack on the entire constitutional structure of the United Statesredefining the nature of citizenship and greatly expanding the powers of the chief executivehas been superficial and unserious. The New York Times, as usual, set the tone with a news analysis dismissing Trumps threat to issue an executive order, saying, The statement sounded more like a political stunt than a reasoned legal argument, and its timing, coming a week before the midterm elections, was suspect. Nor was it clear what the executive order would say, or how it could change the meaning of the Constitution. By Tuesday evening, television news broadcasts had relegated the presidents proposal to rewrite the US Constitution to just one among many news items, while ABC News prominently featured the rebuttal by House Speaker Paul Ryan, who told a talk-radio station, You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order. As a conservative, Im a believer in following the plain text of the Constitution, and I think in this case the 14th Amendment is pretty clear, and that would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process. Ryan, however, is retiring, in large measure because of his lack of influence in the Trump administration. Other congressional Republican leaders were either silent, like Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, or openly supportive. Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said that birthright citizenship applies to legal immigrants, but claimed, falsely, that there is a debate among legal scholars about whether that right extends to the children of illegal immigrants. Grassley most recently spearheaded the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who would be part of any high court review of legal challenges to a Trump executive order. There is no doubt an electoral component to the timing of Trumps announcement, which follows a series of highly publicized attacks on immigrants, including the dispatch on Monday of 5,200 heavily armed troops to the US-Mexico border, more than the Pentagon presently deploys in Iraq or Syria, to block the entry of the caravan of Central American refugees that is still weeks away from US soil. But there is far more to this announcement than a last-minute effort to arouse Trumps base of racists and chauvinists. Trump has spent the past two years laying the basis for a fascistic movmement. These efforts will only be intensified in the aftermath of the November 6 elections. German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Monday that she would step down as the head of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in December and would not seek re-election as Chancellor in 2021. The move follows massive losses for the CDU and its partner in the Grand Coalition government, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), in this weekends election in Hesse. The coalition parties lost more than 22 percentage points: the CDU 11.3 percent and the SPD 9.8 percent. But Merkel has made clear that despite mounting popular opposition to the governments right-wing policies, the grand coalition will only intensify its policies of military rearmament, police-state buildup, and ties to the extreme right. After three devastating election defeatson the federal level a year ago, in Bavaria two weeks ago and now in Hesseand after several major demonstrations against her right-wing policies, the Chancellor has made it clear that there will neither be new elections nor political concessions to mounting left-wing sentiment. Her resignation from the party presidency serves to reorganize and reposition the party leadership in order to push ahead with the policies of militarism, internal armament and social dismantling laid down in the coalition agreement, against the declared will and massive resistance of the working population. Although Merkel has announced her gradual withdrawal from all political offices, she wants to ensure that no concessions are made to voter pressure and mass protests. This policy is supported by the SPD, which also strictly rejects new elections. SPD leader Andrea Nahles said that she had great respect for Merkels decision and that she hoped that it would help to improve cooperation inside the government. Like a dictatorial regime, the grand coalition is responding to the growing opposition and its massive rejection by the electorate by disregarding the vote. The media are supporting it by denying the real reasons for the electoral defeatsgrowing social opposition to militarism, austerity and reactionand by spreading the narrative that voters turned their backs on the grand coalition because it was quarrelling instead of implementing the coalition agreement. But it is precisely the content of the coalition agreement that is provoking resistance against the governmentthe rapprochement with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), the brutal persecution of refugees, the drastic increase in military spending, the systematic build-up of the police, the continuous social austerity, the dramatic increase in rents, and the privatization of public services. The change at the top of the CDU is in keeping with the mobilisation of extremely right-wing elements. Immediately after Merkel announced her renunciation of the party chairmanship, CDU General Secretary Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn announced their candidacies. Kramp-Karrenbauer is one of Merkels closest followers. Earlier this year, Kramp-Karrenbauer renounced the office of Saarland Prime Minister in order to take over the leadership of the CDU apparatus at Merkels request. She has no power of her own in the party and would only be a temporary solution. It is different with 37-year-old Jens Spahn. Prior to his appointment as Minister of Health, he was State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and is considered the spokesman for the conservatives in the Union, for whom Merkels refugee policy is not right-wing enough. Spahn to a large extent adopts the AfD programme on this issue. Like the late far-right Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, Spahn combines attacks on Islam and the invocation of a dominant German culture with a progressive posture on lifestyle issues. He himself is gay, and married Daniel Funke, the head of the capital office of the gossip magazine Bunte, at the end of last year. In a typical right-wing populist manner, Spahn has repeatedly made headlines with provocations against refugees and Muslim immigrants. He demanded a ban on burqas, the abolition of the double passport, the introduction of an Islam law and cuts in benefits for refugees. In addition to Spahn, another candidate for the CDU presidency was sent into the race yesterday by the Bild newspaper, Handelsblatt and Die WeltFriedrich Merz. Merz was ousted from the chairmanship of the Union parliamentary faction 14 years ago by Angela Merkel when she, as party leader, claimed the parliamentary leadership as well. A short time later Merz left the political stage and made a career and a fortune as a businessman. However, he always remained in close contact with the right wing of the CDU and the partys business wing. Even as faction leader, Merz represented a firm right-wing course. He was the first to call for a German dominant culture to which immigrants would have to adapt. Representatives of immigrant organizations and Jewish associations sharply attacked Merz at the time and described him as a political arsonist who stirred up xenophobic sentiments. After the financial crisis in 2008, Merz was commissioned by the Soffin bank rescue fund to organise the sale of the public bank WestLB to a private investor. Later, it became known that he collected fees of 5,000 euros per day for the transactions. He subsequently leveraged his relationships with various banks and financial institutions to become CEO of BlackRock Germany. The US company BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world, managing more than 5.5 trillion euros in assets. BlackRock has a stake in all DAX companies and exerts enormous economic power. With Spahn or Merz as party leaders, the CDU would greatly accelerate its right-wing development and move towards government cooperation with the AfD. The business wing of the Union was not alone in its enthusiasm for Merkels withdrawal. AfD leader Alexander Gauland also praised Friedrich Merz. He called him a proven economic expert with great political experience. At a press conference, Gauland said that the AfD had always demanded that Merkel leave. The fact that she was now going halfway was above all a success for the AfD. The other half of her retreat must now also take place soon, and then many other developments could follow, which are in our interest, Gauland added. FDP leader Christian Lindner, who holds business-friendly and right-wing positions similar to those of Merz, also announced his willingness to form a coalition with the CDU if someone other than Merkel becomes chancellor. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Grand Coalition is paving the way for extremely right-wing forces that hold openly fascist positions. The SPD, the Left Party and the Greens do nothing to oppose this lurch to the right, but are part of this rapid right-wing development. Numerous SPD functionaries paid respect to Merkel, and the Greens praised the CDU leader effusively. Merkel was the first woman in this very male-dominated shop to take over the party leadership and hold this position for 18 years. This shows political strength and deserves respect, said Green Party leader Annalena Baerbock. In order to stop this right-wing development, the growing opposition to the government needs a socialist perspective and an international program. The Socialist Equality Party (SGP) renews its call for an end to the grand coalition and new elections. These elections must become the starting point for an independent mobilization of the working class for a socialist program. Jason Holman, a 42-year-old underground mineworker from Goshen, Utah, was killed on October 25 in a collapse at the Lee Smith gold mine, 50 miles north of Elko, Nevada. Few details have been released, but according to a preliminary report from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), Holman, a powderman, was loading explosives into the rock-face when a 150-ton portion of the mine ceiling fell and a portion of this cemented backfill, weighing approximately 5 tons, landed on top of the miner. He appears to have died instantly. The incident is still under investigation by MSHA. Holman leaves behind three childrenMcKade, Tyson and Jayceeand a loving family. The family could not be reached for additional comments, but his brother Shawn published a tribute on Facebook saying, one of his goals he was working for and saving toward was taking his daughter Jaycee to Disneyland for the very first time. According to the gofundme page set up by his family to pay for funeral arrangements, Jason was an avid outdoorsman who liked to hunt, fish and camp. At the time of this writing, the page has raised over $4,400, donated in small sums by other mineworkers and their families. By all accounts, Holman was well-liked and respected by his coworkers. He had worked as an underground miner for 13 years, including 28 weeks at the Lee Smith mine prior to his death. The Lee Smith mine is one of many underground gold mines in Jerritt Canyon, a mining complex in the isolated Independence Mountains mining district of Northern Nevada that has seen a boom in gold extraction since the 1980s. The Lee Smith Mine reaches depths of over 1000 feet below the surface. Small Mine Development, the contractor operating the mine, uses underhand mining with cemented backfill to extract the ore. This method was developed to facilitate hard rock mining in deep mines with poor ground conditions. Among two other mines, underhand cut and cemented backfill was developed and tested in the Lucky Friday silver mine in Mullen, Idaho. Lucky Friday is the deepest mine in the United States, at nearly two miles below the surface. Two hundred and thirty mineworkers there have been on strike since March 2017 and have repeatedly rebuffed attempts by the United Steelworkers union to force them to accept a concessions contract that would reduce health benefits and compromise safety in the interests of profits. The Lee Smith Mine was purchased out of bankruptcy in 2015, along with the entire Jerritt Canyon complex, by Jerrit Canyon Gold LLC, owned by Canadian billionaire Eric Sprott. Speaking to the Elko Daily Free Press after the buyout, Jerritt Canyon Golds CEO, Greg Gibson, promised an increase in gold production, saying that Sprott is of the belief that there are a lot more ounces to come out of Jerritt Canyon. Sprott is one of the largest gold equity holders in North America. He purchases mines around the world, speculating that as gold prices rise and the global economy spirals into crisis, he will profit. Speaking earlier this month at the Precious Metals Investment Symposium in Perth, Australia, Sprott said, If you were right on gold in 2000, on average you made 1700 per cent. Do it once, youre set for life, he said, touting his investment strategy as stealing value. The mineworkers who dig the precious metals face dangerous conditions as a rule. In 2014, MSHA issued Veris Gold, the previous owner, 60 citations for safety violations at the Jerritt Canyon Complex. In 2015, Jason Potter, a 26-year-old jumbo drill operator, was killed at the Jerritt Canyon complexs SSX Mine (also operated by Small Mine Development) when a 13-foot-long drill bit struck him. The MSHA report found management at fault for inadequate safety training. Just 10 days before Jason Holmans death, two workers were injured in a steam explosion at the Jerritt Canyon Mill. An underground miner who works in a mine adjacent to Lee Smith spoke anonymously to the WSWS about the conditions facing underground mineworkers. Personally, for me, each shift as I enter the mine, I think about my friends that had passed and make a commitment to myself to come out safe it is dangerous and there is no way to be 100 percent safe. If a miner isnt scared each time they enter the hole, they arent ready to mine. Jason Holmans death was the 14th metal and nonmetal mining fatality the US in 2018, and the 22nd including fatalities in the coal industry. Fatalities in the mining industry are a component of the rising rates of workplace injuries and deaths in the US as a whole, as both the Republicans and the Democrats roll back regulations and the corporations, with the assistance of the unions, cut wages and benefits and sacrifice safety for greater output and profit. Some of the deadly mining accidents in recent years occurred under the Obama administration, which appointed former United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) safety official Joe Main to head MSHA. Among these accidents was the disaster at Massey Energys Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, which killed 29 of the 31 coal miners at the mine. The Trump administration has frozen new and pending regulations and is reviewing existing regulations in order to roll them back. Trumps head of MSHA, former coal executive David Zatezalo, is overseeing a review of protections against the dust and emissions that contribute to skyrocketing rates of black lung disease among Appalachian coal miners. As corporations bring in record profits, workers have seen a decades worth of declining wages and are working longer hours for fewer benefits, in hazardous conditions. At least 150 workers die every day from hazardous conditions, and according to the most recent government data, 2016 saw a 7 percent increase in workers killed on the jobup to 5,190 from 4,836 in 2015. Other miners killed this month include: Roger W. Herndon, 33, an auger helper at the Princess Polly Anna & JCT Enterprises LLC Surface Mine #1, in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, who was fatally injured on October 17 when he was struck by a piece of auger drill steel. Brendan DeMaster, 40, of North Royalton, Ohio, a miner with 20 years experience, who was fatally injured October 2 at an underground zinc mine, which just opened in June in Gouverneur, New York. DeMaster was struck by a sudden burst of stemming sand, which had been ejected from a borehole that was being cleaned with high pressure air. An 18-year-old miner, Anthony David Montoya of Hollis, Oklahoma, was fatally mauled by a grizzly bear while working at a remote silver mine in Alaska on October 1. He was working at a drill site on the edge of the Hecla Greens Creek Mine, one of the worlds largest silver producers, located about 18 miles south of Juneau on Admiralty Island. October has been particularly deadly for miners throughout the world. Twenty-one coal miners were killed in eastern China after a tunnel where 22 miners were working was blocked at both ends by coal after pressure caused rocks to fracture and break on October 20. The Longyun Coal Mining Co. Ltd. is located in Yuncheng County in Shandong province. A 46-year-old miner in South Africa was also killed by head injuries suffered in an underground accident at Lonmins platinum mine. Lonmin, the worlds third largest platinum producer, is notorious for the Marikana massacre in August 2012. Seventeen striking miners were murdered and another 78 wounded when South African security forces opened fire on them during a series of violent assaults, which began when union officials from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) opened fire on rebellious miners. With a week until the November 6 election, the Democratic Party is promoting its slate of newcomer congressional candidates full-tilt. Among the most highly promoted is Richard Ojeda of West Virginias 3rd congressional district. A one-term state senator and former career Army officer, Ojeda has been elevated to national prominence as a fighter for the working class. He is no such thing. Often appearing in public in fatigues and combat boots, featuring in campaign videos shirtless, covered in military-themed tattoos and lifting weights, Ojeda has centered his fitness for office almost wholly on the basis of his military toughness. He is a right-winger who supported Donald Trump in the 2016 election, a fact he uses to bolster his reputation as a supposed maverick not tied to the Democratic Party line. In the past year, Ojeda has been the subject of fawning interviews with the likes of Michael Moore and Glenn Greenwald, and news outlets including the New York Times, Politico, Rolling Stone, the British Guardian, CNN, and many others. The senator often speaks in exaggerated colloquialisms, military metaphors, and platitudes; his platform consists of cliches about helping the poor and going after drug companies that flooded the region with opioids. Much like Trump, Ojeda justifies his positions on pragmatic, emotional and personal grounds. And like Trump, Ojeda speaks out of both sides of his mouth, based on what he thinks his audience at any given moment would like to hear. While tailoring his line for liberal or conservative news outlets, Ojeda has endorsed the Trump administrations policies on immigration, environmental deregulation, and corporate tax cuts, and applauded the stacking of the executive branch with military advisors. He is hardly an opposition figure. During an interview with CNNs Van Jones in July, for example, Ojeda lamented Trumps softness on Russia. Hes got two brilliant military minds in generals Kelly and Mattis. He needs to listen to them. But the senator went on to praise Trumps fictitious revitalization of the coal industry. From where I live, hes done pretty good for southern West Virginia, believe it or not. My people are working. Thats my family. I have to give him a thumbs up on that. He added, If Donald Trump has a good idea, I will support it wholeheartedly. If he doesnt, I wont. Of his specific proposals, one is the product of discussion with establishment Democrats: the development of military contracting jobs in the Appalachian coalfields. The check dont bounce and theyre never late, he declared to West Virginia MetroNews earlier this month. Theres no reason why we cant put all those [military installations] up all over the 3rd Congressional District. West Virginias 3rd congressional district encompasses the southern coalfields region of the state. The district was represented by Republican Evan Jenkins until September 30, when he resigned to take a governor-appointed position on the state Supreme Court. The seat is vacant until the election. The 3rd district is a mostly rural-area home to under 600,000 people, with a median income of $25,630. The electoral moods of the region are followed almost obsessively by polling agencies, think tanks, and the countrys political parties. The media and Democratic Party present the region, one of the poorest areas of the United States, as a microcosm of all that is backward and reactionary in the nations white blue collar votersnever mind the fact that Democrats controlled the state for most of the past century. Although Trump won the state handily over Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, the landslide win for self-styled socialist Bernie Sanders in the same area in the primary is indicative of the leftward-moving character and economic motivations behind the rejection of the Democratic establishment candidate Clinton. The counties encompassed by the 3rd district have seen a large drop in population as the coal industry has collapsed over the past few decades. Intense, long-term poverty has been joined by the worst opioid epidemic in the countrys history. As the World Socialist Web Site has explained, Ojeda is part of a raft of military and intelligence operatives being promoted in order to divert social opposition behind candidates that are aligned with the foreign and domestic policy prerogatives of the Democratic Party. Ojeda has substantial financial backing for his campaign, from unions, marijuana-legalization investment firms, and major corporate donors aligned with the American statesuch as Alphabet, the parent company of Google. Alphabet has been working closely with the Pentagon and intelligence agencies on surveillance of the American people, censorship of the Internet, and the militarys drone murder program. For the most recent reporting period ending September 30, the Federal Election Commission reports Ojeda has raised $1.9 million, with more than 88 percent coming from out of state. His opponent, Republican state Senator Carol Miller, has raised $1.16 million. Of the three districts in the state, the 3rd district has seen the most spending by PACs, with Democratic funding totaling $1.37 million and Republican groups spending nearly the same. One of the largest PAC infusions to support Ojedas campaign comes from VoteVets.org, a military organization, which has spent $489,929 against Miller so far. The promotion of outsiders like Richard Ojeda and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is part of a Democratic Party rebranding effort, to recapture this disillusionment vote. Fully backing this effort are a menagerie of sham progressive and left groups like the Democratic Socialists of America and the International Socialist Organization, along with the trade unions. The teachers unions in West Virginia all but appointed Ojeda as their mascot during the strikes and rallies last spring, putting the senator on the Capitol steps to spout pumped-up rhetoric on behalf of the Democrats. The unions, eager to tamp down teacher militancy and end the strikes, sought to direct anger into an electoral blue wave. Teachers were told to go back to work and remember in November. The United Mine Workers (UMW) union, a corporate shell of the organization it once was, has also endorsed Ojeda, along with Democrat Senator Joe Manchin. Manchin, a former governor of West Virginia, is widely regarded as the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, voting in favor of Trumps policy initiatives the majority of the time. The UMW bestows endorsementsand ladles out member duesto any candidate who sings the praises of coal and energy independence. Being pro-coal aligns naturally with the most nationalistic and militarist positions. To CNNs Van Jones, Ojeda said that coal mining was needed because we have a military might that is crumbling right now, you know, and if we want to fix those, we need steel. In August, when the Environmental Protection Agency released its so-called Affordable Clean Energy proposal to roll back emission standards on power plantsa plan that would kill up to 1,400 people each year from the increased pollutionOjeda released a statement praising the proposal. This will help West Virginia, he said. This will help coal mining families. While paying lip service to supporting teachers and miners, Ojedas main claim to populist fame is his extensive military participation in the illegal wars of the past two decades. Indeed, his campaign website centers exclusively on his 24-year career as an officer in the Army Airborne during the destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, followed by a stint as an Executive Officer of military recruiting in the town of Beckley, where he funneled working class youth into the Pentagons meat grinder. This is no noble record: These wars have left well over a million dead, millions more wounded, tens of millions made into homeless refugees. These wars of aggression have also shattered thousands of American families, depleted the US social infrastructure of billions of dollars in funds, and militarized society. That Ojeda touts his involvement in these crimes marks him as an enemy of the working class. Perhaps Ojedas strongest asset, ultimately, has been the near radio silence of his opponent, Republican Carol Miller. Miller comes from a wealthy family, owning the Dutch Miller Automotive Group and Dutch Miller Chevrolet car dealership chains. Her father, Samuel Devine, was a longtime Ohio congressman who made a name for himself as a rabid anticommunist. Miller has declined to participate in public debates or forums, limiting her appearances to vetted audiences at country clubs. At the Logan Country Club, campaign staff removed reporters from what had been billed as a public event, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported October 25. On her way out, Miller responded to a question about her platform to say only, Im pro-coal. Im pro-business, Im pro one-nation-under-God. Does that help you? When asked for more specifics, Miller said, Economic development, a lot of different things. The differences between the candidates lie in style more than in substance. The election last Sunday of Jair Bolsonaro, the fascistic and buffoonish former army captain and seven-term federal legislator from Rio de Janeiro, poses a serious threat to the working class in Brazil and throughout Latin America. Having won 55 percent of the votecompared to 44 percent for his opponent, Workers Party (Partido dos TrabalhadoresPT) candidate Fernando HaddadBolsonaro has already begun to assemble what will unquestionably be the most right-wing Brazilian government since the end of the two-decade-long military dictatorship that came to power in a US-backed coup in 1964. What is most striking about the incoming government is the predominant role being assumed within it by senior officers of Brazils military. His vice president will be the right-wing general, Hamilton Mourao, who retired only last year after publicly declaring his support for a military intervention to secure law and order. On the day of the election, it was announced that retired Gen. Augusto Heleno will be the incoming defense minister, an appointment that breaks with the post-dictatorship practice of putting civilians in that post. Heleno was part of the so-called Brasilia group, a cabal of senior military officers who served as a pillar of Bolsonaros campaign. The group has reportedly submitted 25 names for appointment to Bolsonaros transition team, which if accepted would form fully half of the body. Over the course of his political career including in a television interview on Tuesday, Bolsonaro has insisted that Brazils military regime, responsible for murdering, torturing and imprisoning tens of thousands of workers, peasants, students and left-wing activists, was not a dictatorship. In 1999, he told a television interviewer that Congress should be shut down and that the country would be changed only by civil war that completes the job that the military regime didnt do, killing 30,000 people. In the final days of his campaign, he indicated that his political opponents, whom he described as red bandits, would have to choose between jail and exile. An emblematic campaign gesture employed by the candidate Bolsonaro, and aped by his followers, was pointing his finger like a gun, meant to symbolize his support for summary executions of criminal suspects. He wants to unleash the police in a country where cops killed over 5,000 people last yearfive times the number in the United Statesnot to mention the many more killed by off-duty police death squads. The security forces and reactionary sections of the judiciary are clearly getting the message. On the eve of the election, military police acting on the orders of electoral court justices invaded 17 universities across the country, tearing down banners and posters expressing opposition to fascism and support for democracy, confiscating leaflets and interrupting a class on the history of fascism, all on the grounds that they constituted unlawful campaign activities against the candidate Bolsonaro. How is it possible that such a figure has been elected to the presidency of the largest country in Latin America, with a population of nearly 210 million, and the eighth-largest economy in the world? It is the outcome of the thorough-going degeneration, under the impact of economic crisis and boiling social tensions, of the bourgeois democratic order established 30 years ago this month with the adoption of the 1988 constitution. The process of transition from military dictatorship to civilian rule was touted by its stewards as slow, gradual and secure. It assured a blanket amnesty to the assassins and torturers of the Brazilian military and a defense of the property and profits of the capitalists who had supported the dictatorship. The pivotal role in this transition was played by the Workers Party, which served to divert the mass strikes and revolutionary militancy of the Brazilian working class that shook the dictatorship at the end of the 1970s back under the domination of the bourgeois state. Crucial to the formation of this party were the political activities of groups that had broken with the Trotskyist movement, the International Committee of the Fourth International, and rejected the revolutionary role of the working class. Some of them had previously promoted Castroism and petty-bourgeois guerrillaism as a substitute for the development of a mass revolutionary socialist workers movement, with disastrous consequences throughout Latin America. In the founding of the PT, they swung over to the conception that a bourgeois reformist party with ties to the unions could provide a unique Brazilian parliamentary road to socialism. As the PTs electoral fortunes rose, winning it control of municipal and state governments as well as increasing numbers of seats in parliament, its politics turned steadily to the right. By the time the former metalworkers union leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won the presidency in 2002, the party had become the preferred instrument of rule of the Brazilian bourgeoisie, seen as best equipped to contain the struggles of the working class, while fully committed to carrying out the IMF-dictated economic policies of its predecessors. Despite its diversion of a small share of the spoils of booming commodity prices and emerging market capital flows into minimal social assistance programs, the PT ruled over one of the most socially unequal countries in the world, with six individuals controlling more wealth than the poorest 100 million Brazilians. With the advent of the worst economic crisis in the countrys history, the PT government pursued policies that placed the full burden of this crisis onto the backs of the working class, while defending the obscene wealth of the financial elite. With average real wages falling 30 percent and 14 million people joining the official jobless rolls, Brazils billionaires fortunes only grew, with the wealth of the top 1 percent soaring by 12.3 percent. The PT, like all of the other bourgeois parties, was fully implicated in massive corruption that siphoned some $4 billion out of public coffers to pay out bribes and kickbacks. The votes for Bolsonaro largely represented an expression of popular hatred for all the established parties that presided over social catastrophe and rampant corruption, but most particularly for the PT, which tried to dress up its reactionary policies in fake left and even socialist colors. This same hatred found expression in the record numbersfully a third of the electoratewho refused to cast a ballot for either candidate. The growth of the right wing due to the anti-working class policies pursued by the nominal left is by no means a uniquely Brazilian phenomenon. In the US, the identification of the Democrats and Hillary Clinton with the interests of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus opened the doors of the White House to Trump. In Italy, the coming to power of the right-wing anti-immigrant government of Matteo Salvini was prepared by the pro-capitalist austerity policies pursued by a series of left governments, based on successor organizations to the Italian Communist Party. A similar growth of the right has been witnessed throughout Europe, while in Latin America the so-called Pink Tide has receded, giving rise to a series of right-wing governments. How can the working class confront the threat posed by a Bolsonaro administration and the encroaching grip of the military over political and social life in Brazil? It will not be through support for the Workers Party. PT candidate Haddad responded to the election of the fascistic former captain by wishing him success and luck in forming his government. Party leaders, including Lula, have appealed for calm, while stressing the legitimacy of Bolsonaros presidency. The PT has raised the slogan of a democratic front, by which it means another rotten parliamentary alliancelike the one it previously had with Bolsonaro himselfin an attempt to save the partys sinking fortunes. Various pseudo-left groups have tried to dress up this same policy as a united front against fascism, in an attempt to justify their backing of the PT. They have all pitched their appeal entirely on the basis of identity politics to the layer of the upper middle class that constitutes their social base. In the 1930s, with the rise of fascism in Germany, Leon Trotsky stated that the political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat. This assessment retains all its validity in todays Brazil and throughout the planet. With the debacle of the PT and its pseudo-left apologists, the decisive political task is that of turning to the working class and building within it a revolutionary leadership based upon the program of socialism and internationalism. This means building sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in Brazil and throughout Latin America. Bitter political infighting has erupted as competing factions of the Sri Lankan ruling elite grab for state power following the political coup of October 26 by President Maithripala Sirisena. One faction centred on the United National Party (UNP) is led by Ranil Wickremesinghe who was sacked as prime minister last Friday. The other is based on the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) headed by the president and former president Mahinda Rajapakse who was installed as prime minister by Sirisena. The Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka) calls on the working class to reject all of these capitalist parties and to mobilise independently to fight for its own class interests. No one should have any illusion that these venal representatives of the Sri Lankan bourgeoisie will defend democratic and social rights. Whichever party or parties finally emerge on top will deepen the assault on the living conditions of working peopleSinhala, Tamil and Muslim alikeand brutally suppress any resistance. The SEP calls on workers and youth to rally to its banner and fight for a workers and peasants government based on an international socialist program to defend the democratic and social rights of the working class, youth and the urban and rural poor. Sirisenas unconstitutional action in sacking Wickremesighe is the culmination of a protracted decay of parliamentary rule since Sri Lanka was given so-called independence in 1948. The political coup is an acute expression in Sri Lanka of the worsening global economic crisis, sharpening geo-political tensions, particularly between the US and China, and the resurgence of class struggles internationally. In his televised speech to the nation on Sunday, Sirisena tried to justify his anti-democratic move by declaring it was necessary to protect the noble expectation of good governance that was being destroyed by the sacked prime minister. Wickremesinghe responded in a speech on Monday by claiming that democracy had been blooming under his government. He warned that the UNP would not allow a flourishing dictatorship to emerge and would fight to the hilt to defend parliamentary democracy. What lies and hypocrisy! During the 2015 presidential election, Sirisena and Wickremesinghe shared a platform denouncing Rajapakses autocratic rule and promising good governance and better living conditions. These slogans were just a cover for a regime-change conspiracy orchestrated by the US to oust Rajapakse who was regarded as too close to China. Neither faction of the ruling class defends the basic democratic rights of working people. Parliament has always been a smokescreen behind which the bourgeoisie ruthlessly advances its class interests at the expense of workers and the poor. Now this facade is being dropped even as the rival parties declare their fealty to democracy. The Sri Lankan economy is mired in a profound crisis that stems from the 2008 global financial collapse. The Rajapakse government took out huge loans to fund massive expenditure on its intensified communal war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which devastated the lives of the Tamil masses in the north and east. At the same time, it imposed the burden on working people as a whole by implementing the IMFs demands for savage cuts to social services and price subsidies. Having ousted Rajapakse in 2015, the national unity government, with Sirisena as president and Wickremesinghe as prime minister, realigned Sri Lankas foreign policy towards Washington and continued to impose the IMFs austerity program. When working people organised strikes and protests, the government did not hesitate to use the police and military to suppress them. Amid this mounting popular opposition and deepening financial crisis, the unity government began to come apart as Sirisena and Wickremesinghe blamed each other for their huge losses in the February local elections. At the same time, they both accommodated themselves to the vicious Sinhala chauvinist campaign being whipped up by Rajapakse in his new bid for power. The resistance to the governments attacks on living conditions has been widespread among different sections of workers as well as farmers, fishermen and students who have begun to link up across ethnic lines. Significantly, two days before Sirisenas political coup, 5,000 young workersSinhala, Tamil and Muslimgathered in Colombo to support the wage struggle of hundreds of thousands of striking plantation workers. The protest sent shockwaves through the ruling elite with editorials expressing alarm that young workers were organising through social media for the first time. Whatever their factional differences, the entire ruling class fears a unified movement of the working class and rural masses. For all their posturing about democracy, whichever parties win out in the current bitter power struggle will use the full force of the police state apparatus built up in 30 years of brutal communal war to suppress the opposition of working people. Already there is a push in corporate circles for a strongman to impose their dictates. At a recent gathering of Sri Lankas International Chamber of Commerce, a top CEO Ashok Parthirage, with the agreement of others present, declared: We need a strong leadership; what we need is a little bit of a dictator. There are two parties who are governing today, but nobody is making decisions. Since formal independence in 1948, successive UNP and SLFP led governments have graphically demonstrated the incapacity of the bourgeoisie to address the democratic aspirations and pressing social needs of working people. The limited concessions made in the 1940s and 1950s to head off the opposition of workers and the poor have been gutted or completely destroyed. Moreover, the parties and trade unions that led these strugglesabove all, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP)are now firmly part of the political establishment. For decades, the stock-in-trade of Colombo politicians has been anti-Tamil chauvinism to buttress bourgeois rule by dividing the working class. This vile communal politics ultimately led to the 30-year war with devastating consequences for working people as a whole. The SEP warns that workers and youth cannot take a step forward without opposing all forms of nationalism and chauvinism, including the Tamil communalism of parties such as the Tamil National Alliance, and unifying to defend their common class interests. The SEP also makes a particular warning against the political demagogues and charlatans of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) which, in the midst of the current crisis, is seeking to exploit the widespread hostility towards both of the major bourgeois partiesthe UNP and SLFP. The JVPs declaration that it supports neither party is a sham. The JVP, as part of the Colombo political establishment, has shamelessly manoeuvred between the two parties, joining an SLFP government in 2005, and backing the national unity government in 2015. It is doing the same today, appealing for peoples power, not to fight for the rights of working people, let alone socialism, but to leverage a deal with one or other of the bourgeois parties. The current political crisis is also exposing the charade of formal independence. All of the bourgeois political parties in Sri Lanka, including the JVP, are pawns in the intensifying rivalries between major powers that are leading to a devastating war. The Chinese president has welcomed the return to power of Rajapakse, while the US and its allies are backing Wickremesinghes call for the reconvening of parliament, which he calculates will strengthen his claim to the prime ministership. The US has transformed the Indo-Pacific region into a diplomatic, economic and military battleground, coercing countries to line up against China in preparation for war. For its part, China has no progressive solution and is seeking to use its economic influence to counter the US, while engaging in its own arms build-up. In Sri Lanka and throughout the region, the ruling classes are placing their peoples on the front line of a war between two nuclear-armed powers that can only end in a catastrophe for humanity. The past seven decades of capitalist rule in Sri Lanka has thoroughly vindicated the principles of Leon Trotskys Theory of Permanent Revolution. Trotsky warned that the ruling class in countries of a belated capitalist development is incapable of addressing basic democratic issues, including independence from imperialism and of establishing equal rights for minorities and decent living conditions for all. Only the working class, in a political struggle against all factions of the bourgeoisie, can rally the rural poor and oppressed masses to carry out the tasks of the democratic revolution and implement socialist policies as part of the fight for socialism internationally. The SEP, the Sri Lankan section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, is the only party that fights for this political perspective and program. We urge the working class to take stock of the political situation and to chart its own independent course based on the Theory of Permanent Revolution. Workers must take the initiative in forming independent action committees in workplaces, neighbourhoods and estates, mobilising the support of the rural poor and youth to fight for their democratic rights and class interests. The struggle for democracy is bound up with the question of state power and the fight for a workers and peasants government to implement socialist policies. None of the problems facing working people, above all the danger of world war, can be resolved within Sri Lanka. What is required is the building of a unified movement of the working class internationally. The SEP calls for a Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and Eelam as an integral component of the struggle for a federation of South Asian socialist republics. We urge workers, youth and intellectuals to join and build the SEP as the revolutionary party of the working class necessary to fight for this perspective. Steve Bannon was interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller's team last Friday, a person familiar with the matter said. Friday's interview was at least the third time the estranged adviser to President Donald Trump has met with Mueller's team. The source said Bannon has never appeared before the Mueller grand jury. Continents and regions Donald Trump Donald Trump, Jr. Eastern Europe Europe Government and public administration Government bodies and offices Investigations Jason Sullivan Political Figures - US Politics Robert Mueller Roger Stone Russia Russia meddling investigation Steve Bannon US federal government White House 2016 Presidential election Elections (by type) Elections and campaigns Political candidates US Federal elections US Presidential elections The Washington Post first reported that Bannon had been interviewed Friday by the special counsel team. Its report, citing sources familiar with the session, said Bannon had been asked about comments that Roger Stone, a longtime associate of Trump, had made about WikiLeaks in 2016. Bannon, a former White House chief strategist, left his role in the administration last year after joining Trump's campaign in a leading role through its final months. But he and the President had a falling-out in January of this year after Bannon was quoted calling an infamous 2016 meeting of a Russian lawyer, Donald Trump Jr., then-campaign chief Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner "treasonous." Bannon also was quoted at the time saying the Mueller investigation was "all about money laundering." In the face of Trump's criticism, Bannon declined to hit back and expressed some regret. He appeared to clash with the special counsel investigation early this year before striking a deal to be interviewed by investigators rather than going before a grand jury. CNN reported in February that the special counsel team questioned Bannon for hours over the course of two days. As a key aide to Trump through the general election and the bulk of the President's first year in office, Bannon is one of the highest-profile members of Trump's circle known to have spoken with Mueller's team. Word of his Friday interview with the investigators came the same day the Wall Street Journal reported that Mueller's investigators had renewed their focus on another witness in the probe, Jason Sullivan, who worked as a social media adviser to Stone during the 2016 campaign. CNN has previously reported that Mueller subpoenaed Sullivan, who testified before the grand jury in June. According to the Journal, Sullivan also received a subpoena to turn over communications. Sullivan told the Journal that Mueller's team had recently followed up with his attorney to ask about comments Stone might have made about Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. CNN has previously reported on at least one of the conference calls where Stone discussed Assange. VIGO COUNTY, Ind. (WTHI) -Hundreds of pounds of drugs were found on a semi-truck Tuesday. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration along with Indiana and Illinois state police were doing a training at the weigh station Tuesday. That's when one state trooper found what they're saying is one of the biggest drug busts they've seen this year. "No, we're not talking a little bit of contraband," Matt Ames, Indiana State Police Master Trooper said. "The contraband was 220 pounds of cocaine and 65 pounds of meth." LINK | HUNDREDS OF POUNDS OF COCAINE AND METH FOUND AT VIGO COUNTY WEIGH STATION Ames says one of the troopers was doing a routine inspection when he noticed a few red flags. First, the driving log has been unplugged multiple times. That means it couldn't track where he was driving or how long he had been driving. Secondly, the trooper noticed the seal on the trailer was different than on the shipping papers. "He went through the trailer and at that time he located five bags that had illegal contraband in it," Ames said. It's a big win for state police and the community too. Lori Frey said she's glad the police work hard to keep things like this off the streets. "It's scary and I'm glad that they caught whoever it was to keep the drugs off our streets and our communities and our kid's hands," Frey said. She said it's something she does think about when she's driving. "It makes you wonder every time you pass a semi what's in it and where's it going and why is it there," she said. State police said the semi was coming from California and headed to Ohio. The driver, Ravninder Singh Kaler is in the Vigo County jail. INDIANAPOLIS (WLFI) -- Indianas U.S Senate candidates took every chance they could to deter Hoosier voters from their opponent Tuesday night in the final debate before Election Day. Within the first few seconds of opening statements at Newfields in Indianapolis, Republican Mike Braun and Incumbent Democrat Joe Donnelly took jabs at each other. Many of the voters have been heard before on TV ads. Multiple times, Senator Donnelly made sure to point out Mike Braun supports a lawsuit that takes away pre-existing conditions, among others. Challenger Mike Braun declined his post-debate interview with the media. During the debate, he pointed out once again that he believes Chuck Schumer was running Donnelly's campaign, and the Senator supports what he calls the Un-Affordable Care Act. Libertarian Lucy Brenton said she intends to spoil this election and the two-party stranglehold on the country. Polls show her getting 7 to 8 percent of the vote right now. I intend to spoil this election," said Brenton. "Something doesnt spoil unless its rotten. The two-party system that has had a stranglehold on our country is rotten. Im the first loser. The second loser will miss the mark on what Hoosiers want. The candidates danced around many of the questions, but they were prepared for the final question, What is your number one priority if elected. Joe Donnelly said to end the opioid crisis. Braun said to lower cost of health care and Lucy Brenton said to reduce the size of the federal government. President Trump announced he will campaign for Braun in Indiana twice in the coming week. The first will be at Southport High School Friday. The second is scheduled in Ft Wayne Monday, just hours before voters take to the polls. When Sen. Donnelly was asked if any "big names" were coming to the Hoosier State for him, he said, Id keep my ears open. The "climate kids" were back on the steps of a federal courthouse in Oregon on Monday. But their case against the United States government, alleging violations of their constitutional rights to a safe and livable atmosphere in the face of runaway global warming, has dragged on for so long without a trial that some of them aren't exactly kids anymore. When the case was filed on their behalf in August 2015, Levi Draheim, the youngest plaintiff, was 8. Now he's 11. He's had to grow up considerably in those three years. Air pollution Business and industry sectors Business, economy and trade Children Climate change Coal industry Continents and regions Demographic groups Donald Trump Emissions Energy and environment Energy and utilities Environment and natural resources Environmental regulation and policy Families and children Family members and relatives Government and public administration Government bodies and offices Greenhouse gases Law and legal system Law courts and tribunals Lawsuits and claims North America Oil and gas industry Political Figures - US Pollution Population and demographics Society The Americas Trial and procedure United States US federal government White House Constitutional law Northwestern United States Oregon Court trials "I am a kid, and so I'm very impatient -- and I'm impatient for a very good reason," Levi said at a courthouse rally on Monday, his shock of sun-bleached hair barely peeking above a wooden podium. He spoke from a jotted list of notes, not from a script. "I live on a barrier island, and I have seen the sea level rise maps. I have personally had to evacuate my home because of hurricanes. I have seen fish kills on my beach, and I have seen changing weather -- more and more hot days. That's why it's so important to move forward with this trial." The now slightly less young plaintiffs had expected to be inside the federal court on Monday -- not outside on the steps in the rain, holding black umbrellas and protest signs that said things like "Let the youth be heard" and "Give science its day in court." After years of hearings, a trial date had been set for October 29. But 10 days before trial, the US Supreme Court issued a stay that has temporarily halted proceedings. The court is considering the federal government's petition for writ of mandamus, which the Department of Justice describes as an "extraordinary remedy" that should be used in "exceptional circumstances of peculiar emergency or public importance." Federal attorneys are questioning whether the kids have a right to "a climate system capable of sustaining human life" under the Constitution or public trust doctrine. They say federal authorities will waste time and money by responding to what they call "baseless claims." And they argue in court filings it's a violation of the separation of powers to ask courts essentially to impose climate-change policy on federal officials, rather than waiting for Congress or other elected officials to do that. "In our view, the Oregon lawsuit is an unconstitutional attempt to use a single court to control the entire nation's energy and climate policy," Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey H. Wood said during an October 19 speech in San Diego. "It is a matter of separation of powers and preserving the opportunity in our system of government for those policies to be decided by the elected branches, not the courts. "... Beyond the legal defects," he added, "the fallacies of the plaintiffs' policy approaches are significant, as well. They are ignoring the clear fact that the United States is the global leader in environmental protection. Indeed, the United States leads the world in greenhouse gas reductions, and the United States is the global leader in the development of new energy technologies that are helping to reduce emissions." The United States has contributed more to global warming cumulatively than any other nation and is the second biggest annual carbon polluter, behind only China, according to the World Resources Institute and World Bank. A recent report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds that humans need to reduce carbon pollution to net zero by 2050 to meet climate goals. US courts already have denied similar legal maneuvers aimed at halting the proceeding of the climate kids' case, said Mary Wood, a law professor at the University of Oregon. It's unclear when the Supreme Court will rule or what the outcome could be, she said. The "barrage of petitions" aiming to stop the kids "clearly show the administration is worried about what will come out at trial," Wood said by phone. "And they're just taking desperate measures to avoid a trial. It's changed the story. What are they trying to hide?" The Department of Justice declined a CNN request for comment. The petitions are described by supporters as an attempt to "silence" these kids, who claim that younger people have more to lose in the climate crisis because they'll be living with it longer. "Our world is burning in front of our eyes, and what Juliana [v. United States] tells us is that our children know it," Garrett Epps, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Baltimore, wrote in The Atlantic, claiming the government is "trying to silence" the young plaintiffs. "The government fears these 21 children; it asks the Supreme Court to tell them they do not even deserve a chance to fail" in court. "Let this youth group be heard! Let the experts testify! Let the court's doors be opened!" Philip Gregory, one of the attorneys for the young people shouted to a crowd of supporters at the courthouse rally in Oregon. "This is not just the 'trial of the century,' this is the trial for the future of this century." More than 60 support rallies were planned across the country on Monday, according to organizers. The lawsuit is funded by the nonprofit Our Children's Trust, based in Eugene, Oregon, which also has filed climate change lawsuits in other jurisdictions. Supporters see the kids' suit as one of the most sweeping court challenges to US climate policy. The plaintiffs allege they are being discriminated against as young people, because they've done little to cause global warming but will suffer its effects disproportionally as they live into the climate-changed future. They claim federal agencies are violating their constitutional rights to "life, liberty and property" by pursuing actions that promote fossil fuel use. They also claim the federal government is violating public trust doctrine by allowing the pollution of the atmosphere, endangering young people and future generations. "This case is a shining example of what law can be," Rick Reibstein, a lecturer in environmental law at Boston University, wrote on the American Bar Association's website. "This case gives me hope that we will not continue to cooperate in our own destruction, and future generations will be able to rely on us to uphold the spirit of the law and purpose behind government." It's important the kids and their attorneys can make these arguments in court, Michael B. Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in New York, told CNN before the temporary stay was issued. "This will be a very rare opportunity for the public to see the science underlying climate change -- not merely asserted or disputed but closely examined in the crucible of cross-examination," he said by phone. "Courtrooms tend to be no-BS zones." Gerrard and the Sabin Center have been tracking climate change lawsuits in the United States and around the world. As governments fail to cut emissions fast enough to avoid dangerous climate change, attorneys increasingly are seeking action from governments and the fossil fuel companies themselves. The kids' climate suit asks the courts to force the federal government to make a plan that will result in a livable atmosphere for future generations. Other cases seek damages associated with the expense of dealing with a climate-changed world, including sea walls and other expensive infrastructure used to dampen the effects of warming. Some but certainly not all of the cases have been successful. An environmental group in The Netherlands, for example, sued the Dutch government on behalf of citizens. The court ordered the country to limit greenhouse gas emissions, saying current policy was insufficient, according to a report on climate change litigation by the United Nations Environment Program and the Sabin Center. "I don't think it's the only way but certainly in the face of a hostile White House and a hostile Congress, the courts are an essential component of the fight," Gerrard said. The Obama administration also opposed the lawsuit when it was filed in 2015. The three years of waiting have worn on some of the 21 youth plaintiffs in the suit. The oldest is now 22 years old, and seven are in college, a spokeswoman for Our Children's Trust said. They've watched the world change, too. For Levi, climate change is an existential threat to his home. He told CNN by phone that he recently saw a map posted at his swim team's pool that showed what the coastline would look like after decades of rising seas. His hometown, Satellite Beach, Florida, wasn't even on the map, he said. "I just kinda thought, 'Oh crap, this is actually happening,'" he said. Jayden Foytlin, a teenager from Louisiana, watched her home flood in 2016 in a storm that scientists linked to human-induced global warming. "I don't want to see another family go through what we are experiencing," she said after a court hearing in 2016, glasses slipping off the end of her nose. Several people died in the floods near Baton Rouge. "Nobody should have to bury their loved ones simply because the government wants to bury their heads from the truth or because oil companies want to bury themselves in money," she said. The kids have watched the science get scarier. A landmark Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report this fall said the world only has about a decade to avert catastrophic climate change. Already humans have contributed to warming the planet 1 degree Celsius, primarily by burning fossil fuels and clearing forests. And they've watched federal policy move away from addressing these existential challenges. In 2015, the United States supported the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which aims to avert disastrous warming. Now, President Donald Trump has pledged to pull the United States out of that international agreement, saying it "unfairly punishes the United States" and would result in "draconian financial and economic burdens" for the country. His administration, which has at times denied the scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming primarily by burning fossil fuels, also is trying to repeal Obama-era policies like the Clean Power Plan, which aim to limit pollution. "My generation hasn't even been on this planet for more than two decades but now we're expected to carry the burden" of problems inherited from older generations, said Nathan Baring, a teenager from Alaska, at the plaintiffs' rally in Oregon on Monday. Julia Olson, chief legal counsel for Our Children's Trust, told CNN there is no logical venue to refile a case like this if it is thrown out entirely. "This is the lawsuit. This is it. And it has to be heard," she said in a telephone interview. "But if the system denies these young people the right to be heard in the court of law then we will create another forum to do this -- whether it's outside on the courthouse steps, or another venue. We will do this. It's such an important story." Federal officials have known for decades that burning fossil fuels would contribute to a dangerous climatic system -- yet they continued to encourage their production, she said. "I think the government doesn't want that information to see the light of day," Olson said. Olson believes the case will move forward. So does Levi, the 11-year-old surfer from Florida. "I guess," he said at the microphone, "I'll just have to be patient a little bit longer." In states with early voting, many have already headed to the polls to choose the elected officials who will help determine the future of our nation. While elections often underscore what divides us, they also reflect the democratic principle that should unite us as Americans: that no matter who you are, all of us must have an equal voice in shaping our country. Ballots Democracy Discrimination Elections and campaigns Forms of government Government and public administration Politics Sex and gender issues Societal issues Society Voters and voting Voting rights Voting Rights Act The right to vote is the bedrock upon which this principle rests. It is the fundamental promise of our democracy. For more than 200 years, the story of our country has been a journey toward realizing a truer version of that promise. And yet, today in America, this principle and our progress are under steady assault through a concerted effort to strip away voting rights from marginalized Americans. Empowered by the 2013 US Supreme Court decision that gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, extremist politicians have relentlessly and shamelessly attacked access to the ballot box for millions of Americans. As the leaders of the nation's oldest civil rights organization and America's largest LGBTQ equal rights group, the communities we represent are uniquely impacted by these discriminatory policies. These politicians are closing polling places in precincts with high percentages of voters of color. They are drawing districts that disenfranchise and dilute the vote of communities more likely to vote for a particular party. They have created systems that, in some cases, take decades to restore voting rights for those who have paid their debt to society. They are passing unnecessary restrictions, like voter ID laws, built on the totally disproven myth of "voter fraud" -- disproportionately targeting black, youth, LGBTQ, Native American, disabled and elderly voters. Just weeks after taking office, the Trump administration even went so far as to set up a sham election commission under the leadership of Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to intentionally create suspicions of conspiracies about and among American voters. Ahead of this November's election, Vice President Pence is doubling down on this discrimination with what the Human Rights Campaign has dubbed the "voter suppression tour," stumping across the country for candidates like Kris Kobach and Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who have built their careers on undermining the right to vote. One federal court observed that redistricting efforts in North Carolina "target African Americans with almost surgical precision." In Georgia, a voter purge that targets mostly people of color may be the largest in US history. In North Dakota, Native American communities are becoming disenfranchised due to a new physical address requirement that disproportionately affects Natives living on reservations. A recent poll found that African-American and Latino voters were roughly three times as likely as white voters to report trouble finding their polling place. One-third of transgender people report having no identity documents that reflect their gender identity, meaning voter ID laws forcibly out transgender voters to poll workers, putting them at risk for discrimination and harassment, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA. One of the worst-kept secrets in America is that much of this is intentional. The forces who have aligned themselves against progress are doing this for their own narrow political advantage and hateful ideology. At a time when the integrity of our elections is under real threat from autocratic regimes abroad and authoritarian demagogues at home, nothing is more central to the defense of our democracy than protecting the right to vote for all Americans. This is why the NAACP and HRC are fighting to protect voting rights and to support voters across the country in navigating the intentional confusion and discriminatory barriers created by this organized, politically motivated effort. Recently, we've seen some critical victories, with courts striking down blatantly discriminatory laws in states like North Carolina, but too many have fought for too long to simply watch this fundamental right erode away in any state or corner of our country. As voters head to the polls to elect a new Congress and state legislatures, they will be deciding the future of voting rights in America. We will be voting for state legislators who will choose whether to restrict or expand access to the ballot box. We will be electing members of Congress who can pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would not only restore key provisions of the Voting Rights Act but also build on the progress of that legacy statute. Just 53 years ago, John Lewis and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led hundreds across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, to march for a national Voting Rights Act. Despite being bloodied and battered by police, they continued to march forward, bringing with them the hopes of millions more. Decades later, with their work and our progress under siege, this generation has been called to carry the torch forward. Our democracy is on the line, and, in this election, we must answer the call to defend it. The Justice Department is investigating Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke for possibly using his office for personal gain, following a referral from Interior's inspector general, two sources familiar with the investigation say. The full extent of the inquiry is unclear. Zinke has faced multiple ethics questions during his time at Interior, and the inspector general's office has multiple public inquiries into the secretary including the department's handling of a Connecticut casino project, whether the boundaries for Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument were redrawn to benefit a state lawmaker and conversations between Zinke and Halliburton Chairman David Lesar about a Montana land development project. Zinke said he has not been contacted by the Justice Department. "They haven't talked to me. It will be the same thing as all the other investigations. I follow all rules, procedures, regulations and most importantly the law. This is another politically driven investigation that has no merit," Zinke told CNN. The Justice Department declined to comment. Interior's inspector general's office said it would not comment on Justice-related issues. President Donald Trump's Cabinet secretaries have faced scrutiny over their use of government resources, including former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. CNN has also learned Justice Department investigators began probing Scott Pruitt's questionable ethical conduct before he left as Environmental Protection Agency administrator, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. The inquiry was opened up after a referral from the EPA IG regarding whether Pruitt took any action to benefit an energy lobbyist he rented a condo from for below market rate. The probe appears to have stalled since Pruitt left office over the summer, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. IG investigations into Zinke This summer, Interior's inspector general began investigating Zinke's relationship with Halliburton's chairman, including an August 2017 meeting Zinke held at Interior. The two discussed the land development project run by Lesar's son and located near land owned by Zinke's family's foundation. Politico, which uncovered the meeting, reported the development could include a brewery that the Zinkes could run, a potential financial benefit for the Zinkes. One source told CNN that the project has the potential to increase the value of Zinke's land holdings in the area, creating a personal gain for Zinke rather than a benefit for the community as a whole. As a major energy producer, some of Halliburton's business is regulated by the Interior Department. Zinke said in a Montana radio show appearance on June 27 that the meeting with Lesar was innocuous. "We meet in the office," Zinke said on the program. "We go out to dinner, we talk about the background of the park. What are the neighbors like, what was the vision of the park, where the boundaries are, where the water table is because the water table has changed over time. What the railroad is. So they have the background." The concept for Lesar's project was approved in December 2017 according to the city council's meeting records. The inspector general is also looking into whether the borders of Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument were re-drawn to benefit a local politician, according to a source familiar with the investigation. The Western Values Project, a group that has opposed several of Zinke's decisions, pointed out that the re-drawn boundaries wrap around a parcel of land owned by the local lawmaker, and questioned whether he is "using his positions of power to benefit himself" and the local water authority "at the expense of public lands." Also ongoing is a probe of whether Zinke improperly weighed in on a potential tribal casino project, the source said. News reports raised questions about Zinke's meeting with lobbyists opposed to the project, and Connecticut lawmakers who requested the probe noted proponents for the project were not granted meetings, and that the department may have misled the tribes behind the project. The inspector general concluded earlier this month that Zinke violated the department's travel policies by allowing his wife to ride in government vehicles, and ultimately brought the Zinkes into compliance with the policy by re-writing the policy. The report also says his aides looked into classifying her as a department volunteer, which also would have made her travel permissible. Earlier this month, Interior attracted more headlines after questions emerged about who would lead the IG's office at Interior. In an email Housing Secretary Ben Carson sent to staff at "a fond farewell" to HUD Assistant Secretary Suzanne Israel Tufts, announcing she had "decided to leave HUD to become the Acting Inspector General at the Department of Interior." While the inspector general post has been vacant since 2011, Mary Kendall has led the office since 2009 as the deputy inspector general. The appointment of a political official as the acting inspector general was seen within the government watchdog community as highly unusual. Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift later said that Kendall remains in her post in the IG's office. Update 11/01/18 4:53 p.m. Detective Dell Green with the Corinth Police Department says Sammie Turnage surrendered himself to the Marshall County Sheriff's Department Thursday afternoon. Update 11/01/18 11:14 a.m. Detective Dell Green with the Corinth Police Department says the victim is still in critical condition at a Memphis hospital. The shooting suspect has been identified as 26-year-old Sammie Turnage. Green says the suspect is still wanted. See the original post below. CORINTH, Miss. (WTVA) - A man was shot several times Wednesday morning in Corinth. Corinth Police Chief Ralph Dance says the shooting happened at the corner of Young Street and Wick Street sometime near 11:20 a.m. He says the victim was transported to a local hospital by an ambulance, then flown to a Memphis hospital. Police say there are no suspects at this time. This is a developing story. 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"I feel this is a counter effect of giving too much importance to reservation. In Rajasthan, the population of OBCs is well above 50 per cent and because there are more candidates, their cut-off is higher. This is not the first time such an incident has taken place. In 2013 and 2016 too, cut-offs for OBCs were higher than that for the general category, and at that time too they had to move the court. The court had provided interim relief but didn't provide a conclusion," says Dron Yadav, former National Office Bearer of the National Student Union of India and currently an advocate at the Rajasthan High Court. However, there might be another angle to this entire situation. "Competition has driven up the cut-off marks for the reserved seats meant for SC/ST and OBC candidates. Even though this is has affected one sector, it will eventually affect other competitive examinations as well," says Parveen Kumar, a PhD student at Rajasthan University's Political Science Department, who is close to the ABVP wing of the varsity. As per the law, candidates scoring more than the cut-off for the general category are not taken under reserved quota. According to a report in The Print, for some, this development is being considered as an evidence of the OBC communitys better performance in the preliminary exam conducted by Rajasthan Public Service Commission(RPSC). However, that is not what the OBC candidates think. They are alleging that this increase in the cut-off marks is a complete violation of the reservation policy and that the RPSC is trying to restrict the number of OBC selected candidates under the 26 per cent quota reserved for them. In 2017, a bill had been passed which increased reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBC) from 21 per cent to 26 per cent. The community includes Gujjars and four other castes. The reservation in Rajasthan currently stands at 54 per cent defying the set ceiling of 50 per cent by the Supreme Court. The OBC candidates allege that all the unreserved seats are being treated as reserved for the general category, they say and have moved the Rajasthan High Court against the RPSC decision. The Meghan Markle Effect is back and its bigger than ever before! While Meghan Markle has made many style statements during her and Prince Harrys 16-day tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga, its her go-to skinny black jeans (worn six times so far and counting!) that might have been the most impactful. Meghans much-loved jeans are from Australian brand, Outland Denim. Not only do they use organic cotton and natural vegetable dyes to make their luxury jeans, they also empower disadvantaged women to build a better life for themselves by training and employing formerly enslaved or exploited women in Cambodia. Employment with Outland means protection from poverty and all the vulnerabilities associated with that, including human trafficking, forced labour, sexual exploitation, forced marriage, and working in environments opposed to human flourishing, founder and CEO of Outland Denim, James Bartle tells PEOPLE, adding: Simply being unable to feed, house, clothe and educate your children is something we take for granted but means the world to these women. Since Meghan first stepped out in her skinny black Harriet jeans on the second day of the tour in Dubbo (teaming them with a plaid jacket designed by her friend Serena Williams), the design sold out within 48 hours and as a result of increased sales (640% to be exact), the company are in the process of adding 15-30 new seamstresses to their 50-plus workforce. It is incredible to be able to offer job opportunities to more young women in Cambodia for whom the prospects are not great, says Bartle at his head office in Tamborine Mountain, on the outskirts of Brisbane. Story continues After Meghan stepped out in the jeans, the companys website traffic increased 948% globally, while it increased a staggering 3000% within Australia. We are just so thankful that she loved the product and the story behind it enough to choose to wear them. It was a rare and unique opportunity that coincided perfectly with the royal tour in Australia. Perfect timing indeed and while Bartle remains discreet on exactly how Meghan came across the brand, he will say that a selection of jeans were sent to both Meghan and Harry, and although he hasnt publicly worn the jeans yet, Harry has clearly been taking style tips from his wife, wearing matching shirts from Los-Angeles-based brand Frank & Eileen to leave Fraser Island for Fiji. And its not the first time Meghan has used her style power to help a socially-conscious denim brand. In January, Meghan wore a pair of jeans by Welsh brand Hiut Denim Co. on an official royal visit to Cardiff. Sales of her Dina black skinny jeans rocketed so high, the small firm (whose aim is to make their small Welsh town of Cardigan famous for jean-making again) were able to employ several new machinists and even moved into a new bigger factory as a result. For those hoping to snap a pair of Outlands $195 Harriet jeans, patience might be the order of the day as deliveries are not guaranteed until April, 2019. The boost Meghan has given us is just out of this world and we couldnt have asked for a more perfect person to endorse the brand, for me, and the women employed by Outland, it makes the world of difference, says Bartle. Donald Trump took his tough stance on immigration even further on Monday night, when the president revealed that he wants to sign an executive order that would terminate birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. Its in the process. Itll happen with an executive order, Trump, 72, said of his plan during an interview with Axios on HBO. I didnt think anybody knew that but me. I thought I was the only one. It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You dont, Trump continued, adding that White House lawyers were working on it. You can definitely do it with an act of Congress but now theyre saying I can do it with just an executive order. But The New York Times reported that, in order to accomplish his plan, Trump would need to find a way around the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which gives right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born on American soil. The Times noted that the the majority of legal scholars agree that Trump cannot legally do away with birthright citizenship. It is unclear how serious Trump is about acting on his plan. His inflammatory comments come just days before the midterm congressional elections and along with other vows to crack down on immigration that many critics view as part of a fear-mongering strategy to drive his base to the polls. Kristen Clarke, the president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told the Times that Trumps latest idea is both illegal and offensive. Aside from being unconstitutional, such an executive order would exacerbate racial tensions, exploit fears and drive further polarization across the country at a moment that calls for the promotion of unity and inclusion, she said in a statement. Trump also falsely stated to Axios that the U.S. is the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits. Story continues Its ridiculous. Its ridiculous. And it has to end, he added. In fact, many countries, including Canada, Mexico and others in the Western Hemisphere grant birthright citizenship. Exclusive: Trump plans to sign an executive order terminating birthright citizenship, he said yesterday in an exclusive interview for "Axios on HBO." pic.twitter.com/D2RE4N4OrJ Axios (@axios) October 30, 2018 Immigration has been a major focus of controversy throughout Trumps presidential campaign and presidency from his promises to build a wall to his now-reversed zero-tolerance policy that separated migrant children from their families and held them at detainment centers at the U.S./Mexico border. The president has also been escalating his threats about a migrant caravan of 4,000 Central Americans walking through Central America fleeing violence and grim living conditions in their home countries and expected to seek asylum in the United States. On Monday, the Pentagon announced the deployment of 5,200 additionally troops to meet the caravan at the border. I called up the military, theyre wasting their time, he told Fox News Laura Ingraham in a pre-recorded interview that aired Monday, maintaining his unconfirmed claim that the group of immigrants coming included many gang members. RELATED VIDEO: PEOPLE Writer Natasha Stoynoff Breaks Silence, Accuses Donald Trump of Sexual Attack As for what would happen to those immigrants applying for asylum, Trump said he plans to build tent cities and hold them there before their pending court dates rather than release them into the U.S. If they applied for asylum, were going to hold them until such time as their trial takes place, Trump told Ingraham. Were going to put up, were going to build tent cities. Were going to put tents up all over the place. Were not going to build structures and spend all of this, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars were going to have tents. Theyre going to be very nice. PM Phucs attendance is made at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Two-way trade between Vietnam and China reached US$93.6 billion in 2017, up 30% year-on-year, and accounting for 22% of Vietnams total import-export turnover. Of the total, US$35.4 billion came from Vietnams exports. Vietnam posted a trade deficit of US$28 billion with China in 2016. The figure was down to US$22.7 billion last year, a positive sign in improving the bilateral trade balance. Bilateral trade is forecast to exceed US$100 billion in 2018. LONDON (Reuters) - From a copy of his PhD thesis to his wheelchair, items belonging to Stephen Hawking are headed for auction, offering fans of the late British physicist famed for his work exploring the origins of the universe a chance to buy some of his possessions. Known for his acclaimed research on black holes, the wheelchair-bound Hawking, who suffered from motor neurone disease and used an electronic voice synthesiser, died in March at the age of 76. "On the Shoulders of Giants", which also features documents penned by Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, will feature 22 lots from Hawking's estate, including one of five known copies of his PhD thesis, "Properties of expanding universes", estimated at 100,000-150,000 pounds ($127,480 - $191,220). "Stephen Hawking was a huge personality worldwide. He had this amazing ability to connect with people," Thomas Venning, head of the Books and Manuscripts department at auction house Christie's London, told Reuters. "The whole idea...was to provide something that was accessible to his admirers so that people could connect with him and remember his extraordinary story." Also up for sale are a copy of Hawking's best-selling book "A Brief History of Time" signed with his thumb print, estimated between 2,000 and 3,000 pounds, as well as awards and medals given to the scientist, priced at 10,000-15,000 pounds. Other documents, an invitation for a reception for "Time Travellers" as well as a motorised wheelchair Hawking used, are also being sold in the Oct. 31 - Nov. 8 online auction. It has already attracted interest from Asia, the Middle East, the United States and Australia, according to Venning. "(Hawking) travelled across the world and he has fans in the U.S., he has fans in Asia," he said. ($1 = 0.7844 pounds) (Reporting by Hanna Rantala; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Mark Heinrich) President Trump wants you to be terrified. Particularly of people of color, or anyone who might dare try to immigrate to the United States from anywhere outside of Scandinavia. Its why with a week until the midterms he is sending thousands of troops to the border to thwart a rapidly dwindling migrant caravan that isnt even going to make its way through Mexico for months. Its a transparent ploy, but its all Trump has left. Stoking fear over immigration is the bedrock of his presidency. It got him elected, and now hes hoping it will allow Republicans to retain control of Congress. It doesnt end with an imaginary invasion, either. On Tuesday morning, Axios reported that Trump is planning on signing an executive order that he thinks would revoke birthright citizenship, which is protected by the 14th Amendment and holds that anyone born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen. Axios broke the news through a clip from its new show, Axios on HBO. Host Jonathan Swan was positively giddy as the president sloppily detailed his plan to undercut one of Americas core principles. It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment, Trump said of revoking birthright citizenship. Guess what? You dont. You do, though, and if Trump were to bypass Congress and attempt to override a constitutional amendment with an executive order it would set off a firestorm of litigation. Trump doesnt seem to mind, though; they told him he could do it. Now theyre saying I can do it just with an executive order, he continued. Were the only country in the world where a person comes, has a baby and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years, with all of those benefits. Its ridiculous. It has to end. The bit about being the only country to allow birthright citizenship is a lie. Several countries practice unconditional jus soli, or right of the soil, including almost the entire Western Hemisphere. Several more, like Australia and the United Kingdom, practice it on a restricted basis. It doesnt matter, though. Trump thinks its ridiculous, and he confirmed to Axios that he has had real discussions about abolishing the practice and that his administration is in the process of putting together an executive order. It will happen, he said. Story continues One can debate the merits of unconditional Jus Soli, but US practice is in line with the rest of the hemisphere. The UK is also very close to unconditional Jus Soli, and France and Germany have moved closer to US practice in recent years. Trump is making stuff up. pic.twitter.com/2K8HgmBsHO Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 30, 2018 Unlike the Second Amendment, there isnt much ambiguity in the text of the amendment that guarantees citizenship for those born in the United States. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside, it reads. Some have tried to argue that the amendment was written to protect only the children of those legally residing the United States, but most legal scholars agree that the amendment is pretty damn ironclad in stating that anyone born in the United States is a citizen of the United States. As historian Angus Johnston laid out on Twitter, the 14th Amendment is the most crucial, explicit protection we have for our civil rights and liberties. Though slavery was abolished through the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, African-Americans were still not considered citizens due to a pre-war Supreme Court decision on a case brought by Dred Scott. Scott was born into slavery, but brought by his owner to the north, where slavery was illegal. He wanted his freedom, but the court denied him of it because it would have stripped his owner of his personal property. The court ruled additionally that African-Americans could not be citizens of the United States, depriving them of the ability to file any future lawsuits. The 14th Amendment overturned this decision. So. The Fourteenth Amendment granted EVERYONE birthright citizenship precisely because the people who wrote it knew that if they left any loopholes those loopholes would be exploited by those who wanted to deny former slaves and their descendants equal rights. Angus Johnston (@studentactivism) October 30, 2018 Trump is now one of those people looking for a way to exploit a loophole the authors of the 14th Amendment made sure not to include in its text. Im not usually a fan of calling things you dont like unamerican, Johnstons thread concluded. But attacking the Fourteenth Amendment? Thats unamerican. Its an explicit repudiation of whats best in us as a nation. Speaking of un-American, Chief Trump Sycophant Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) quickly expressed his support for Trumps move to abolish the practice, which is as good of an indication as any that its nothing more than a pre-election scare tactic. On Monday, Graham similarly fell in line with Trumps plan to stoke fear over the migrant caravan. I am offended by this caravan trying to overrun our country, Graham said on Fox News. To our friends in Mexico: If you dont help Trump stop this caravan, youre going to pay a price in Congress when it comes to this trade deal. Graham added that he plans to introduce legislation eliminating birthright citizenship should Trumps executive order not be able to hold water in court. In addition, I plan to introduce legislation along the same lines as the proposed executive order from President @realDonaldTrump. Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) October 30, 2018 Vice President Mike Pence soon joined the procession, which is sure to grow longer once Fox News can coordinate its programming and more lawmakers can prepare their statements. We all cherish the language of the 14th Amendment, but the Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled on whether or not the language of the 14th Amendment is subject to the jurisdiction thereof applies specifically to people who are in the country illegally, Pence told Politico Tuesday morning. So much for the Constitution. Donald Trump is president. Yahoo Life Videos Gloria Estefan and her husband Emilio Estefan are not holding back when it comes to discussing their sex life. The couple joined their daughter Emily Estefan and their niece Lili Estefan for a candid conversation about love and marriage on "Red Table Talk: The Estefans," which included a discussion of how they stay passionate after decades of marriage. The couple, who worked together before getting married in 1978, shared how they keep the spark alive. After the deadly shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue over the weekend, local communities have been banding together to show support and give comfort to the victims and their families. That includes Muslim-led interfaith fundraising and statements of solidarity. The White House, on the other hand, has had a less supportive and more chaotic response. Donald Trumpwho tacitly eggs on anti-Semitism with his talk of globalist conspiracies and the menace of George Sorosreportedly had to be convinced by his daughter and son-in-law to formally condemn violence against Jewish people. Kellyanne Conway tried to all-lives-matter the shooting by telling Fox & Friends it was inspired by "anti-religiousity" fueled by late-night comics. And Mike Pence, the man who's supposed to be the respectable white-washer for the Trump administration, also royally botched his pantomime of caring about religious diversity. Related Video: Pence Praises Police in Synagogue Attack On Monday, Pence appeared at a campaign rally for Lena Epstein, a GOP candidate for an open congressional seat in Michigan. At the rally, he invited to the stage Rabbi Loren Jacobs for a memorial for the 11 people killed in Pittsburgh. The problem: Jacobs is a "Messianic Jew," a sect that believes in the divinity of Jesus. In fact, Jacobs invoked Jesus in his opening prayer. As NBC News reports, Messianic Judaism "is not recognized as Jewish by any mainstream Jewish movement in the United States, or by the Chief Rabbinate, the supreme spiritual authority for Judaism in Israel." Per their own website, one of their goals is converting Jewish people to believe that Jesus is the messiah. While, for what it's worth, Pence didn't arrange for Jacobs to appear at the rally, but by all accounts he did invite him onto the stage. He's drawn fierce criticism for appearing with him so shortly after a mass shooting at a synagogue. It certainly doesn't help that, instead of saying the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead, Jacobs prayed for a series of Republican candidates off a list he was given. This is a good indication of what exactly Republicans are referring to when they call for "unity not division" after national tragedies: the steamrolling continuation of whatever their agenda already was and quiet acceptance from the people who were victimized. Its not any less awful for being so familiar. The last three high-profile attacks that have convulsed the nation, two in just the past week or so, have been carried out by fringe loners who fit the stereotype of the perpetrators of such crimes precisely they didnt fit in, they were off, they kept to themselves. The word that comes up again and again in accounts of their lives is alone, always alone. The life of Cesar Sayoc, who mailed crude pipe bombs to Democrats ranging from George Soros to Hillary Clinton to Robert De Niro, was a pitiable wreck. His father abandoned his family as a child, and after dropping out of college, Sayoc lived with his grandmother. Then he went from place to place, performing as a male stripper. He compiled a record of petty crime, lost his home, declared bankruptcy and carried around what money he had in a briefcase, because he didnt trust the banks. He was estranged from his family and resisted its pleas for him to get help. Sayoc lived out of his van, bizarrely festooned with pro-Trump stickers. Not much is known about Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, besides his vile social-media postings. A childhood friend called him pretty much a ghost. He may have dropped out of high school. As an adult, he lived alone in an apartment, and no one ever came to see him. One neighbor said she couldnt remember Bowers ever talking to anyone. I dont know, another said, if he had any friends, anywhere. The Parkland school shooter, Nikolas Cruz, was left with no parents after the death of his adoptive mother. He was expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where he was an outcast. He was reportedly depressed and had other behavioral problems. Police were called constantly to his home. A defense attorney called him a broken child. None of this, of course, is to excuse in the slightest the heinous crimes of these men, or to deny the existence of pure, unadulterated evil. Murderous haters and kooks have been with us forever, as has anti-Semitism. Yet the social pattern is clear. Story continues The phrase deaths of despair has entered the nations vocabulary the past few years to denote the rise of mortality among a subset of working-class whites from suicide, drugs, and alcohol. Its declining life expectancy is one of the most stunning trends in American life. The at-risk population tends to be unmarried, disconnected from civil society, marginally employed, and largely on their own. One way to look at recent mass killings (or attempted killings) is as the handiwork of a very small, violent fringe of the socially disconnected. Their destructiveness is directed outward, in cowardly acts of mindless malice, rather than inward. They marinate in hate and proudly share their lunatic obsessions online, in a twisted simulacrum of community. They seek their identity in political extremism, Jew-hatred, or the hellish idolatry of school shootings. Their crimes are, in their diseased view, feats of grandeur. They make up for the sting of failure and rejection. They give them a chance at perverse consequence and notoriety otherwise not available to them in their marginal lives and social isolation. Yes, Cesar Sayoc might have been eking out an existence as a homeless strip club DJ, but he might kill or maim, or at least frighten, a titan of international finance. Yes, Robert Bowers might be the man living in a shabby one-bedroom apartment whom no one knew or cared to know, but he would act to save his race from genocide. Yes, Nikolas Cruz might be a miserable kid obsessed with video games, but his name will now long live in infamy. Its evil and pathetic, infuriating and sad, and, by the looks of it, a persistent feature of 21st-century American life. What Emile Durkheim called anomie has been weaponized, and its horrifying to behold. 2018 by King Features Syndicate Mararaba (Nigeria) (AFP) - Human rights campaigners on Wednesday accused Nigeria's security forces of killing dozens by using "horrific" force during a crackdown on protesting supporters of an imprisoned Shiite cleric. Amnesty International said it had "strong evidence" that police and soldiers used automatic weapons against members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) at marches in and around Abuja. The group said upwards of 45 people were killed -- six on Saturday and at least 39 on Monday, when some 122 were also injured. The IMN itself said it had counted 49 dead. The military's official death toll is six. "We have seen a shocking and unconscionable use of deadly force by soldiers and police against IMN members," said Amnesty's Nigeria director, Osai Ojigho. "Video footage and eyewitness testimonies consistently show that the Nigerian military dispersed peaceful gatherings by firing live ammunition without warning," she added. "Those injured were shot in different parts of the body -- head, neck, back, chest, shoulder, legs, arms -- and some of them had multiple gunshot wounds." Ojigho said the "horrific use of excessive force" was not crowd control but aimed to kill, calling for an independent probe and the prosecution of those responsible. - 'Wronged and oppressed' - In Mararaba village, in Nasarawa state 30 kilometres (nearly 20 miles) from central Abuja, mourners gathered in preparation for the burial of 20 victims. AFP reporters counted the white-shrouded bodies, as IMN members and tearful family members of the deceased gathered to pay their final respects. "These are the victims the Nigerian Army attacked on Monday at Kugbo security check point on our way to Abuja," said IMN member Abdullahi Mohammad Musa. The group's spokesman, Ibrahim Musa, said separately that another burial for six people was held in the northern city of Zaria. Story continues "We are feeling bad, we are feeling wronged, we are oppressed," he added. Nigeria, Africa's largest economy, is almost evenly split between a mostly Muslim north -- which is predominantly Sunni -- and a largely Christian south. Experts have warned the government that a heavy-handed response to the group risks sparking conflict in a volatile region where poverty is widespread. The December 2015 clashes that led to Zakzaky's detention saw the army kill more than 300 of his supporters, who were buried in mass graves, according to human rights groups. Amnesty said it appeared a similar strategy appeared to have been employed against the IMN in the latest protests. The clashes and the military's use of deadly force against civilians have raised fears that the IMN could become radicalised in the same way as the Islamist group Boko Haram in northeast Nigeria, who were subject to a crackdown in 2009. The military offensive against the jihadist group is widely accepted as the catalyst for it to take up arms against the government. In the last nine years, more than 27,000 people have been killed and some two million displaced, while the fighting has triggered a humanitarian crisis in Nigeria's remote northeast. - Self-defence - Conflicting death tolls are not unusual in Nigeria and the authorities often play down casualty figures. Nigeria's army said troops fired on IMN in self-defence. "They met the soldiers in the call of their duty and the soldiers tried to defend themselves," said defence spokesman John Agim. On Saturday, the military fired at the IMN procession and accused them of attempting to steal weapons and ammunition, an account the IMN "categorically" denies. Two days later, IMN and troops clashed again on the outskirts of Abuja. On Tuesday, Nigerian police fired shots and tear gas at the supporters during another march and arrested 400 IMN members. Zakzaky is currently facing a culpable homicide charge in connection with the 2015 violence and is in jail despite a court order granting him bail. The Shiite leader, who is in his mid-sixties, has been at loggerheads with the authorities for years because of his call for an Iranian-style Islamic revolution in Nigeria. Dakar (AFP) - Amnesty International voiced concern Wednesday at the number of protesters killed in Guinea -- three in the last fortnight and 18 this year -- urging the government to "take all necessary measures to ensure the situation does not spiral out of control". "Over the past year, protests in Guinea have been marked by appalling violence from all sides, including excessive use of force by the security forces," said Francois Patuel, West Africa researcher with the human rights group. And he warned "the deployment of a military unit notorious for human rights violations risks further inflaming the situation." Amnesty International "has verified videos and images showing members of the 'Berets Rouges', an elite military unit linked to previous human rights violations including unlawful killings and sexual violence, carrying rifles alongside police at a 15 October demonstration," the organisation said. The political opposition in Guinea has been protesting against what it considers a violation by the authorities of an agreement reached in August over the appointment of local government officials elected in a hotly disputed vote on February 4. On Monday a "dead city" strike gripped Conakry over another issue that has plagued the West African country: the failure to resolve a pay dispute with teachers who began a walkout on October 3. "With Guineas opposition planning more demonstrations in the coming days, the authorities should take all necessary measures to ensure the situation does not spiral out of control. They must send a clear message to all security forces that unnecessary and excessive use of force will not be tolerated," Amnesty said. The rights group also called for "a thorough, impartial and effective investigation" into allegations that opposition head and former prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo has been targeted for criticising the government. Last week Diallo said a man was shot dead and police had fired at his own car during a banned rally over the disputed elections. The opposition estimates that 98 protesters have been killed by police gunfire at peaceful demonstrations since President Alpha Conde came to power in December 2010. Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt condemned Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) for promoting white nationalist views, and he urged House Speaker Paul Ryan to take punitive action against the congressman. In a letter sent Wednesday to Ryan, Greenblatt called on the House leader to formally censure and condemn Kings rhetoric and strip him of a House subcommittee chairmanship. By doing so, you will make clear that his actions were deeply offensive, wrong, and that the U.S. House of Representatives will not tolerate anti-Semitism or bigotry in any form, he wrote. The unusual message was delivered four days after a gunman opened fire at the Tree of Life synagogue in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Pittsburgh, killing 11 people and injuring six others. The ADL has logged an uptick in anti-Semitic incidents across the U.S in 2017. Greenblatt told Ryan that he drafted the letter last week but, after the events of this weekend, I knew that ADL could be silent no more. The group typically does not endorse or oppose individual political candidates, choosing to condemn King only after it became clear that the Pennsylvania attack stemmed from the same type of hateful sentiment he publicly supports. The mass shooting reminded us that silence in the face of anti-Semitism and hate is acquiescence, Greenblatt said. The ADLs letter also comes one day after Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) condemned Kings behavior in a tweet stating that we must stand up to white supremacy and hate in all forms. He said Kings recent comments, actions, and retweets were completely inappropriate. Stivers, who serves as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, is currently the highest-ranking member of his party to speak out against King. King, an eight-term congressman, has in recent months used his social media platform to promote statements from white nationalists. In mid-October, he endorsed a white supremacist political candidate running for office in Canada. Story continues In August he visited Austria, where he met with members of the far-right Freedom Party, which was founded by a former Nazi SS officer, and gave an interview to Unzensuriert, an outlet aligned with the party. King told the far-right website he believed white Europeans and Americans were being threatened by Muslim and Latino immigration and worried over declining birth rates in the West. By doing so, Greenblatt wrote, King has given anti-Semitic organizations and individuals the imprimatur of legitimacy that comes with meeting with a Member of Congress. It was particularly outrageous, he added, considering that the trip was funded by From the Depths, a nonprofit group dedicated to Holocaust education. In the final days before midterm elections, the sitting congressman has lost support from corporate donors including Intel, Land OLakes and Purina, which all issued statements declaring King to be out of line with their values. King now faces a heated battle for re-election against Democratic challenger J.D. Scholten. Related... White Supremacist Rep. Steve King Endorses White Supremacist Faith Goldy For Toronto Mayor Rep. Steve King Goes Full White Nationalist In Interview With Austrian Site Intel Withdraws Funding For White Supremacist GOP Congressman Steve King Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Demonstrators marched through Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday, October 30, protesting President Donald Trumps visit to the Tree of Life Synagogue where, three days earlier, a gunmen killed 11 worshippers. Marchers carried signs exhorting President Trump to denounce white nationalism and demanding he change policies that target immigrants and refugees. The march occurred as the President and First Lady visited the Tree of Life Synagogue and laid stones and flowers at the memorial to the victims of the weekend shooting, according to reporters traveling with the President. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto on Monday asked President Trump not to visit the city before consulting victims families, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Credit: @IfNotNowPGH via Storyful On The Late Late Show With James Corden, fans finally found out how Ariana Grande hurt her hand while filming Carpool Karaoke back in August. Grandes injury made headlines at the time, but the pop star played coy, tweeting but i LOVE my bandage it looks sick @JKCorden Ill be ok one day and leaving it at that. But after Tuesday night, there was no more guessing. but i LOVE my bandage it looks sick @JKCorden ill be ok one day pic.twitter.com/uBABjvksVP Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) August 7, 2018 While filming Carpool Karaoke, Grande and Corden began talking about escape rooms and haunted houses, and how much she likes them. They decided to go to a haunted escape room, and its a good thing Grande likes being scared, because she seemed plenty scared. At the end of their adventure, Grande and Corden found themselves in a small, dark room when a man crawled in through the same opening they just had come through. As they scrambled to get away from him, Grande tripped on his leg and hit the ground hard. Grande left with a bandage on her hand and an ice pack for her knee, but she found the silver lining. Honest to god, Im not gonna lie, Grande said. Dont I look kind of hard? Corden agreed. The Late Late Show With James Corden airs weeknights at 12:37 a.m. on CBS. Watch Ariana Grande and James Corden create an amazing mini Titanic musical: Read more from Yahoo Entertainment: Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Kylie Mar, on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. The Daily Beast Lucy Nicholson/ReutersThe vast majority of Times Ups remaining staffers were laid off Friday in what they described as a debacle that began with leaders revealing they gave the news to the Washington Post first and ended with board member Ashley Judd breaking down in tears.The embattled organization, limping since its CEO and entire board resigned this summer, announced Friday that it would lay off the vast majority of its remaining staff. Leadership informed staff of the decision in a virtual PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) Teenage girls in Oregon don't need their parents' consent to end an unwanted pregnancy, women in the country illegally have coverage for the procedure and private insurers will soon be required to cover the full cost of an abortion under a new law. Oregon has the least restrictive laws on abortion access in the U.S., making it a political standard-bearer for the abortion rights movement. But a dozen years after voters last rejected a measure to reduce women's ability to get an abortion, a question on the Nov. 6 ballot is asking a new generation to amend the Oregon Constitution to ban the use of state funding for abortion. If Measure 106 passes, low-income women insured by Oregon's Medicaid program would pay out of pocket for the procedure. Its language also would likely mean public employees such as teachers, government officials, firefighters and police would no longer receive abortion coverage through insurance. The emergence of the ballot measure amid an especially divisive U.S. political climate and on the heels of rightward shift of the U.S. Supreme Court has alarmed abortion rights advocates. Opponents have labeled the measure a backdoor ban on abortion and say it targets the state's poorest residents, who would have to pay $400 to $600 for the procedure without coverage from the Oregon Health Plan. "In many ways, Oregon is the North Star when it comes to reproductive rights and abortion access, and if we, in this election, were to lose, it would be incredibly emboldening to the anti-abortion movement," said Grayson Dempsey, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon. "It's really scary to me to know that we have one of the most serious threats to abortion in Oregon in my lifetime." Those supporting the measure say it's not an attack on abortion but an attempt to give Oregon residents a say in how their tax dollars are spent after years with no referendums on the issue. Story continues Voters rejected similar funding bans in 1978 and 1986. A measure requiring parental notification before a minor's abortion failed in 2006, when today's newest voters were in grade school. "I'm 24 and so I haven't actually ever been able to vote on something like this before. There is a huge, new crop of voters who haven't had a chance to vote on where their tax dollars are going," said Nichole Bentz, a spokeswoman for Measure 106. "We're not banning abortion at all. We're just talking about who's paying for abortions." The federal government bans Medicaid funding of abortions, and a majority of states follow that lead. But Oregon is one of 17 states that uses its own tax dollars to fund abortions for women who are eligible for Medicaid. It's also the only state where no additional restrictions on abortion access have been added by voters or state lawmakers since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized the procedure in 1973, Dempsey said. In the last year, about 3,600 women have had abortions paid for by state Medicaid at a cost of $2 million. In Oregon, where voting is done entirely by mail, voters have their ballots, and many have already turned them in. Despite the state's track record of rejecting limits to abortion access, the measure is being closely watched. "We are actually a purple state. We are not red; we are not blue," said Gerry O'Scannlain, a retired business executive. "And I'm very profoundly aware of that because I've lived here 49 years, and I've seen it ebb and flow." ___ Follow Gillian Flaccus on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/gflaccus President Donald Trump has hinted that he plans to eliminate birthright citizenship under which virtually all those born on U.S. soil are automatically granted U.S. citizenship, even if their parents are illegal immigrants via executive order. This raises serious questions for conservatives. Many of us think that in todays world, birthright citizenship is an insane policy that undermines our sovereignty. Why reward people who come here illegally with citizenship for their kids? But conservatives also insist that the government stay within its constitutionally designated boundaries, so we have to ask whether the Constitution mandates birthright citizenship. If it does, we are stuck with it until we can pass an amendment. In this rather long piece youve been warned Im going to round up the historical evidence bearing on this issue. (If you want thoughts on the separate question of whether an executive order or legislation would be needed to change the law, assuming the Constitution allows it, read Andy McCarthy.) I personally believe that birthright citizenship is required, and I wont hesitate to evaluate evidence instead of just reporting it. But I have done my best to include the key pieces of support for both views drawing on extensive writings by (among others) Lino A. Graglia, John C. Eastman, Peter H. Schuck and Rogers M. Smith, Garrett Epps, Gerard N. Magliocca, and James Ho. Ill begin with the evidence most directly connected to the amendment: the text itself and the congressional debates over it. Then Ill proceed to cover somewhat less on-point sources, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (which had much the same purpose as the 14th Amendment but used different language) and subsequent Supreme Court decisions (during a time when the Court notoriously butchered other aspects of the 14th Amendment). The Text and Its Plain Meaning The provision at issue here reads: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. Born or naturalized in the United States has an obvious enough meaning. The trouble comes from subject to the jurisdiction. Story continues To modern ears, the natural reading is that one is subject to the jurisdiction of a government if that government exercises authority over him. The Illinois government has no jurisdiction over me as I write in Virginia; foreign diplomats are not subject to our jurisdiction even while theyre on our soil and can rack up parking tickets with impunity. The U.S. government clearly does have jurisdiction, in this straightforward sense, over illegal immigrants; otherwise we would be powerless to deport them or or otherwise punish them for breaking our laws. This common sense of jurisdiction is also found in pre14th Amendment historical texts, including dictionaries and legal documents. If you search Google Books for uses of the phrase subject to the jurisdiction in the three decades leading up to the amendment, for instance, you find that your query mainly turns up a handful of court documents debating whether individuals were subject to the jurisdiction of the courts in question. Unfortunately, though, there are few uses of the term in reference to a whole country, the way the amendment uses it. So we must be open to the idea that subject to the jurisdiction is used in a deeper and more artful way here. Foreigners, Chinese and Otherwise The main purpose of this provision, by all accounts, was to give citizenship to former slaves and their descendants, but its language is much broader, announcing a general framework through which citizenship would be granted. (This is a floor, not a ceiling: Through its naturalization power Congress may grant citizenship to people its not required to.) Unfortunately, illegal immigration was not an issue at the time, as immigration was unrestricted unless you count slaves whod been smuggled into the U.S. after Congress banned slave importation as illegal immigrants so the drafters of the amendment never discussed it. But they did discuss whether various populations would be covered, and in so doing outlined a variety of principles that clearly they thought were inherent in the concept of being subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Here is an incredibly important comment on the provision by Senator Jacob Howard (emphasis mine): This amendment which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country. Unfortunately, the key sentence is cryptic. Is that a list of three different categories (foreigners, aliens, and people from the families of ambassadors and ministers), in which case all kids of foreigners and aliens would be excluded from birthright citizenship? Or is aliens used simply as a synonym for foreigners and meant to be read in apposition, in which case the exclusion is limited to the families of ambassadors and foreign ministers? (Foreignersthat is, alienswho belong to the families . . .) As an editor with twelve years of professional experience, I regret to inform you that we cant resolve this based on grammar alone, despite numerous efforts to do so. One side claims its a list and you have to make too many adjustments to the text to read it otherwise (killing both commas and adding an or: foreigners or aliens who . . .), but thats ignoring the possibility of reading aliens as an appositive, in which case you dont have to change the text at all. The other points out that if its a list, its not properly constructed: The first two items are nouns, the third a relative clause. This is true, but Ive seen lots of lists whose items dont line up properly in my day I fix them in my editing and angrily furrow my brow when I see them published elsewhere so its entirely possible Howard did mean to convey a list and just slightly misspoke or was mistranscribed. I think we can rule out this particularly broad reading, though, through other means. For one thing, if all foreigners and aliens were ineligible for birthright citizenship, it seems a little odd to then single out a tiny subcategory of them, those who belong to the families of ambassadors and ministers though maybe this was just for emphasis. More compelling is a subsequent discussion of Chinese immigrants in California (who were allowed to come but not allowed to naturalize) and Gypsies in Pennsylvania, a discussion set off by a racist diatribe by Senator Edgar Cowan, who asserted that states must be allowed to stop themselves from being overrun by dirty racial minorities and believed the 14th Amendment would strip them of this authority by granting citizenship to the children in those populations. Senator John Conness agreed that the amendment would make the kids of Chinese immigrants citizens, but argued this was no problem, and simply waved aside concerns about Gypsies: The proposition before us, I will say, Mr. President, relates simply in that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law; now it is proposed to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the nation. I am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States. . . . I have lived in the United States for now many a year, and really I have heard more about Gypsies within the last two or three months than I have heard before in my life. It cannot be because they have increased so much of late. It cannot be because they have been felt to be particularly oppressive in this or that locality. It must be that the Gypsy element is to be added to our political agitation, so that hereafter the Negro alone shall not claim our entire attention. This doesnt resolve the question of illegal immigration, but it certainly suggests that the amendments protections werent denied to all immigrants. The two senators agreed on this; they differed only on whether it was a good thing. No one stepped up to say they were arguing based on false premises. Native Americans and Invading Armies Native Americans were another key population and the 14th Amendments citizenship guarantee generally did not apply to them. The discussions regarding this point provide some of the key pieces of evidence for the anti-birthright-citizenship side of the debate, as some comments imply that to be subject to the jurisdiction of a country you must owe it allegiance. In response to a suggestion that the amendment exclude Indians not taxed by name, as the 1866 Civil Rights Act had, Howard responded that this was not necessary: Indians born within the limits of the United States, and who maintain their tribal relations, are not, in the sense of this amendment, born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. They are regarded, and always have been in our legislation and jurisprudence, as being quasi foreign nations. After further discussion on the point of whether the amendment, as written, would apply to various Native American populations, Senator Lyman Trumbull said the following: The provision is, that all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens. That means subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof. Now, does the Senator from Wisconsin pretend to say that the Navajoe Indians are subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States? What do we mean by subject to the jurisdiction of the United States? Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means. Can you sue a Navajoe Indian in court? Are they in any sense subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States? By no means. We make treaties with them, and therefore they are not subject to our jurisdiction. If they were, we would not make treaties with them. If we want to control the Navajoes, or any other Indians of which the Senator from Wisconsin has spoken, how do we do it? Do we pass a law to control them? Are they subject to our jurisdiction in that sense? Is it not understood that if we want to make arrangements with the Indians to whom he refers we do it by means of a treaty? The Senator himself has brought before us a great many treaties this session in order to get control of those people. On the one hand, one may legitimately ask whether an illegal immigrant owes allegiance to the U.S. or his home country, and the word complete is pretty emphatic. On the other, though, one might ask the very same allegiance question of legal immigrants who it seems clear are covered by the amendment and its worth noting that illegal immigrants pass every item on the checklist provided. (They can be sued; we dont make treaties with them; we can pass laws to control their behavior.) Meanwhile, invading armies were another category that was clearly excluded, and Magliocca a legal scholar who believes birthright citizenship is required posits that this may be the best analogy to illegal immigrants, because both are here without our permission. He then provides his own counterarguments, however; for instance, illegal immigrants are not beyond the governments control in anything like the same way a hostile foreign army is. So thats a bit of a stretch, too. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 This law came a little before the 14th Amendment, and it accomplished pretty much the same thing, though its language differed. Regarding citizenship, the Civil Rights Act declared that all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States. For the modern reader, its certainly clearer how an immigrant can be subject to a foreign power than it is how he might not be subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. while living here. But even if we assume that these provisions meant exactly the same thing a matter of some dispute there are serious problems to contend with before we conclude the provision excludes immigrants. For one thing, this argument proves too much; it would suggest that legal Chinese immigrants wouldnt be covered, as they remained subject to the government of China in a sense, when we know they were meant to be both in the 14th Amendment and in the Civil Rights Act. In his message vetoing the act (a veto that was overridden), President Andrew Johnson specifically noted that the provision comprehends the Chinese of the Pacific States. (See page 1,679 here.) Also, Senator Trumbull, who wrote the act, said in a letter to President Johnson that the Bill declares all persons born of parents domiciled in the United States, except untaxed Indians, to be citizens of the United States which implies that immigrants would be included, so long as they moved here permanently, establishing domicile, rather than just visiting. By a similar token, during the debates leading up to the act, Representative James F. Wilson said that children born on our territory to temporary sojourners might not be citizens. Drawing the line this way would allow us to eliminate birth tourism, and generally to refuse citizenship to the children of immigrants who are here only temporarily, but it would be a stretch to take it as a license to exclude illegal immigrants in general. (A clever workaround, though, may be to say that for ones kids to qualify for birthright citizenship, one must take concrete steps toward becoming a legal permanent resident, rather than just sneaking into the country and setting up a life here.) Legal Interpretations in the Aftermath of the Amendment To my mind, this is where the argument against birthright citizenship finds its greatest support. I give this less weight than the evidence in the foregoing sections, though, because some of these decisions (like some of the other arguments weve considered) contradict the clear statements of the amendments supporters by excluding all immigrants and because the courts got some very big questions about the 14th Amendment wrong at this point in its history, raising questions about whether we should trust their interpretations of smaller matters. In the 1873 Slaughter-House Cases, in dicta comments not directly relevant to the case at hand, and thus not binding precedent the Supreme Court wrote that the phrase, subject to its jurisdiction was intended to exclude from [birthright citizenship] children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States. Certainly thats a pretty clear statement from the highest court in the land. The same year, the attorney general released an opinion stating, in regard to the question of whether someone whod renounced his citizenship needed to be naturalized to get it back, that the word jurisdiction must be understood to mean absolute and complete jurisdiction, such as the United States had over its citizens before the adoption of this amendment. Aliens, among whom are persons born here and naturalized abroad, dwelling or being in this country, are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States only to a limited extent. Political and military rights and duties do not pertain to them. And more than a decade later, in Elk v. Wilkins, the Court addressed the question of whether someone born in a Native American tribe could sever his tribal relations and thereby gain an entitlement to U.S. citizenship. This issue is quite different from the one involving illegal immigrants, but in deciding the case, the Court made a point about consent that has become a major plank in the case against birthright citizenship: The Native American could not change his allegiance merely through his own will without the action or assent of the United States. Also: To be a citizen of the United States is a political privilege that no one, not born to, can assume without its consent in some form. (The notion of consent plays an especially large role in the analysis of Schuck and Smith, who argue at length that it was part of the age-old philosophical backing that undergirded the 14th Amendment.) Cutting in the opposite direction, though, is 1898s Wong Kim Ark written, oddly enough, by the same guy who wrote Elk. Critics of birthright citizenship say this decision (A) was wrong on the merits and (B) didnt address the question of illegal immigration, and the reasoning was certainly . . . curious. Rather than interpreting the 14th Amendments own text and history, the Court decided that the amendment was intended to implement the idea of citizenship we inherited from English common law, and then mainly focused on that instead. At any rate, it found that a man born to Chinese-immigrant parents in the U.S. was a citizen, as were all children here born of resident aliens (with the usual exceptions of Native Americans, foreign diplomats, etc.). The mans parents had come legally, though, so despite its broad language the case didnt directly address the question as applied to illegal immigrants. And a dissent once again laid out the consent-based argument against birthright citizenship emphasizing the notion that theres a difference between mere territorial jurisdiction and complete or political jurisdiction, and that the 14th Amendment refers to the latter. Conclusion The argument against birthright citizenship certainly has a long history, as can be seen in these legal opinions released within decades of the 14th Amendments enactment. But as I said at the outset, I dont quite find it convincing, given the more direct evidence from the text and more immediate historical context though it must be conceded that we have no idea what the framers of the 14th Amendment would have thought about illegal immigrants in particular, because illegal immigrants simply didnt exist back then. To defend an executive order before the Supreme Court, however, the Trump administration would need to convince all five originalist judges that subject to the jurisdiction must be read in a way thats somewhat quirky to modern ears, relies on a highly specific reading of the historical evidence, and overturns more than a centurys worth of standard practice. Thats a longshot. Birthright citizenship is a nutty policy. But if I had to bet, Id say its one were stuck with. Laurens Middle School was performing a dress-code inspection on Monday when a teacher took 11-year-old Ethan Orr to the principals office for what the school called an emerging hole in his jeans meaning a frayed spot that would soon become an actual hole, according to WCNC in South Carolina. There, his mother, Lisa Orr, was called and told that she needed to either bring her son a new pair of pants or bring him home. Thats when Orr became outraged. Money is tight, she told WCNC, and she cant afford to buy Ethan new clothes at the moment, so he has to stick with his lightly worn wardrobe. A lot of his clothes have holes in them, she said, and its even a source of bullying for the child, so being punished by the school was an added stressor. As a mother, that broke my heart, she said. I was like, Is this really a reason for him to have to be sent to the office? And she was like, Well, we realize its not a hole. Its what we call an emerging hole, Orr said in a Facebook video, noting that she was then forced to pick the boy up. He missed an entire day of education for that, she said while pointing to a worn spot on Ethans pant leg. Orr told reporters that she doesnt feel school officials need to nitpick like they do and should be more accommodating to low-income families. Fortunately, the powers that be at Laurens County School District 55 have listened. Yahoo Lifestyle spoke with Edward Murray, director of public relations, who said the districts superintendent, Stephen G. Peters, has ordered the section of the dress code that prohibits emerging holes to be amended. The rule about emerging holes deals with the fashion industry and clothes that come with preexisting holes, Murray said. When it comes to normal wear and tear, we certainly want to work with parents. He clarified to Yahoo Lifestyle that Ethan was not sent home from school, despite a widespread misunderstanding. We do not send children home for dress-code violations ever, he said, adding that Peters has been speaking with Ethans parents about the incident since day one. He said he regrets that the incident has made it to social media, and its created such a furor. Story continues In an official statement from the school district, Peters added, We consider parents to be our partners in the education of the whole child in Laurens County School District 55, and we are always happy to discuss any questions or concerns a parent may have. Orr confirmed to NBC4 that the school is working with her, and it has even provided new clothes for Ethan. But what she really wants is for the dress code to be rewritten. It looks like shes gotten her wish. Yahoo Lifestyle got in touch with Orr, who said she called district office to confirm the planned policy change for herself but got no answer. But if this is the case, she said, then I am so thankful on behalf of my family and others that this will impact in a positive way! Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. Yaounde (AFP) - Cameroon on Wednesday blamed separatists over the killing of a US missionary, but Washington said its citizen was caught in crossfire and urged dialogue to end the African country's conflict. Charles Wesco, 44, was travelling with his wife, son and a driver in the restive English-speaking northwest region when militants attacked security forces and a university campus, Defence Minister Joseph Beti Assomo said. In a statement read on army radio, Beti Assomo said the American came under fire in an ambush by "a group of armed terrorists" in the town of Bambui and died later in a hospital in the regional capital Bamenda, 14 kilometres (nine miles) away. The minister said that security forces then pursued the militants, killing four of them, with several others wounded including a soldier and a student. His comments came amid speculation by separatist supporters on social media in the English-speaking regions -- the site of an uprising by armed secessionists -- that the Cameroon army was behind the killing. But in Washington, State Department spokesman Robert Palladino did not blame either side and said Cameroon had promised the United States a "full investigation" into Wesco's death. "We've been in touch with senior Cameroonian government security officials and we believe the victim was caught in the crossfire," Palladino told reporters. Palladino urged the two sides to start "an immediate and broad-based dialogue without preconditions" to bring peace and resolve grievances. "Both separatist fighters and government security forces have used violence against innocent civilians," Palladino said. "We call on both sides to view the tragic death of this American citizen as an opportunity to put an immediate stop to violence and to allow unhindered access for humanitarian aid workers and health care providers in the northwest and southwest regions," he said. Story continues - Grievances by English speakers - English-speaking separatists argue that the French-language education system penalises anglophone students in the largely francophone central African nation. The unrest has claimed the lives of more than 400 civilians and an unknown number of separatists in the year to September, according to the International Crisis Group think-tank. On Thursday, gunmen killed a linguistics professor in the same area. University staff said the murder of the academic, who was also in charge of administration, bore the hallmarks of the "Amba boys," or separatists fighting for an independent English-speaking state called Ambazonia. The government has refused to engage in dialogue with anglophone separatists it brands "terrorists" and has sent forces into the area to restore order. More than 300,000 people have fled the violence, some to neighbouring Nigeria. The voter turnout during October's presidential election was very low in both anglophone regions, although Paul Biya won more than two-thirds of the votes cast, according to official results. Biya, 85, has been in power since 1982 and was re-elected for a seventh term with 71 percent of the votes nationwide. Ottawa (AFP) - Faced with an influx of asylum seekers from the United States, Canada is planning to substantially step up deportations of illegal migrants, Canada's public broadcaster reported Wednesday. A leaked email from a senior Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) official to staff, cited by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the goal is to deport some 10,000 persons a year, as much as a 35 percent increase over recent years. CBSA enforcement director Brad Wozny wrote that in recent weeks he has "been involved in several discussions both regionally and nationally concerning the government of Canada's decision to substantially increase removal efforts." "Initial discussions have the agency working towards a new national target of 10,000 removals/year," he adds. The CBC said 18,000 people, mostly failed refugee claimants, currently face deportation. So far this year 6,083 have been deported, compared to a total of 8,472 in 2017 and 18,987 in 2012. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government is "trying to improve the immigration system and be more expeditious in handling cases." Border Security Minister Bill Blair, meanwhile, confirmed that the government has "added additional resources to ensure that (the CBSA) has what they need to do the job." He noted that only asylum seekers who "have gone through all the legal processes of determining their eligibility for the protection of Canada" and been found "to have not been eligible are subject to removal." This hardening of the government's position comes as Trudeau's Liberals face increased political attacks ahead of next year's election from opposition Tories, who accuse the government of mismanaging a migrant "crisis." Donald Trump's election as US president triggered a spike in asylum seekers who have simply walked across the border into Canada, some braving biting cold and dangerous treks through the wilds. According to the latest government data, more than 30,000 have come from the United States in search of asylum. Most were originally from Nigeria, Haiti, Turkey, Eritrea or Colombia. Johannesburg (AFP) - The mayor of South Africa's second city of Cape Town resigned on Wednesday, amid a bitter dispute roiling the country's main opposition in the runup to 2019 elections. Patricia De Lille vowed she would vacate her office at 7 pm (1700 GMT), ending uncertainty about her future following several conflicting statements. The 67-year-old had first announced in August that she would step down at the end of October but appeared to backtrack in recent weeks. She also announced her resignation from opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), which had tried unsuccessfully in recent months to strip her of her membership. "I can no longer stay in this abusive relationship. When people abuse you, you must walk away," she told reporters. "It's my long walk to freedom... I'm free, free from oppression," she said, describing the DA as "rudderless" and "leaderless". De Lille signed her resignation letter in front of television cameras outside the High Court in Cape Town where she was lodging an application against what she called a "politically-manipulated" forensic report ordered by the municipality which has accused her of maladministration. The DA welcomed her resignation and said she will be replaced as interim mayor by provincial minister for community safety Dan Plato, 57. De Lille's seven-year tenure has been marred by allegations of corruption and financial mismanagement that have threatened to tarnish Cape Town's reputation. The coastal city, one of South Africa's prime tourist destinations, has been battling a drought and a high crime rate. Cape Town is the DA's flagship city as the first the opposition wrested from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in 2009 and is one of three major cities under its administration. The troubles pose a threat to the party's popularity nationwide just months ahead of the general election due in the first half of 2019, when the DA faces a revived ANC following the departure of scandal-tainted Jacob Zuma. The murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul has been described as incredibly shocking. Turkey has said journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. The office of the Istanbul chief prosecutor added that Mr Khashoggis body was dismembered and disposed of. It also said discussions with the Saudis have yielded no concrete results despite good-willed efforts by Turkey. The statement is the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Mr Khashoggi was murdered on the way to collect paperwork needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. Police in Manchester have arrested two teenage boys after a three-year-old child was left fighting for his life following a hit-and-run collision. Leo Durrington was hit by a stolen white Ford Transit Connect van which was being followed by officers. A 16-year-old and 15-year-old have been arrested. Being overweight or underweight can knock up to four years off your life expectancy, research has found. Scientists discovered that people whose BMI falls outside of the recommended level may be at greater risk of death than previously expected, with obesity knocking 4.2 years off life expectancy in men, and 3.5 in women. The analysis looked at 3.6 million people and how their life choices affected how long they lived. People in the North are more likely to give out sweets to trick-or-treaters than their southern counterparts, a new poll has found. 51% of northerners say they would give out treats, compared to 46% of people in the South. Londoners were found to be the stingiest when it comes to giving out sugary gifts, with just 35% saying they would give sweets to children who knock on the door. (Twitter/@Penguins) The Penguins took to their home ice Tuesday for the first time since a gunman walked into the Tree Of Life Synagogue in the Pittsburgh neighbourhood of Squirrel Hill and opened fire, killing 11 people. An outpouring of support has flooded the city since Saturdays tragic attack, and the Penguins used their first game at PPG Paints Arena in the aftermath to honour the victims with a special, lengthy ceremony. It started with three members from the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh joining the players on the ice, before an 11-second moment of silence was held in memory of the 11 who lost their lives. 11 seconds of silence for 11 lives lost. Joyce Fienberg Richard Gottfried Rose Mallinger Jerry Rabinowitz Cecil Rosenthal David Rosenthal Bernice Simon Sylvan Simon Daniel Stein Melvin Wax Irving Younger pic.twitter.com/H3BkI9CvBC Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) October 30, 2018 An emotional performance of the US National Anthem followed, with a good chunk of the crowd singing along as Jeff Jimerson belted out the Star-Spangled Banner. Then, a ceremonial puck drop featuring Pittsburgh police Chief Scott Schubert, along with two of the brave and heroic officers injured in the attack, Anthony Burke and Mike Smigda. But the events, unfortunately, werent without controversy. We're honored to have Officer Mike Smidga, Chief Scott Schuber, and Officer Anthony Burke join us for tonight's ceremonial puck drop. Thank you. pic.twitter.com/Rxlv8EBCxy Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) October 30, 2018 As some on social media quickly noted, Chief Shubert was proudly displaying a Blue Lives Matter flag during the face-off a symbol that is viewed by some as an insensitive countermovement to the Black Lives Matter campaign meant to shed a light on racial injustice. While many others point out that the flag has a long-standing history as a symbol to honour and remember law enforcement officers and first responders who have been permanently injured or killed on the job. Whichever way you see it, the conclusion to what had otherwise been a heartfelt tribute to the victims of a terrible tragedy and a moment that was meant to honour the city of Pittsburgh was clouded in more controversy than it should have been. Washington (AFP) - The steep, narrow flight of 75 stone steps in the US capital's Georgetown area are part of Hollywood legend -- in "The Exorcist," a priest falls to his death in one of the film's most memorable scenes. Now, Washington's so-called "Exorcist Steps" could soon achieve historic landmark status. Andrew Huff, a self-proclaimed "student of the horror genre," is a huge fan of "The Exorcist," which was released in 1973, two years after the best-seller of the same name by William Peter Blatty. In 2015, he organized a small ceremony attended by Blatty, a graduate of Georgetown University, and film director William Friedkin when a plaque noting the spooky staircase's role in movie history was mounted. Blatty wrote the screenplay for the film, which tells the tale of efforts to rid a young girl of the demons that possess her via an exorcism conducted by two priests. Now, 45 years after the film's release, Huff -- whose day job is in community relations at a local university -- is spearheading the effort to have the site classified as a landmark. "It's deserving," Huff told AFP. "When I have friends visiting, I prefer to bring them here rather than to the Capitol or the White House, especially at the moment. They have become a tourist attraction for the city." A community association has petitioned Washington's historic preservation review board to designate the steps as a landmark -- in part to keep the construction of a new condo building from encroaching on them. The steps were built in 1895, next to a brick trolley-car storage building known as the Car Barn. In the famous scene on the steps, Father Damien Karras hurls himself from a window and falls to his death down the stairs as he becomes possessed by the spirits haunting the young Regan. "The scene had to be shot three times," explains Huff, who says he has seen the film about 100 times. "Even if the steps were covered with half-an-inch of rubber, it was still a long way down for the stuntman." A decision from the DC historic preservation board is expected on November 15. A mother is suing a child care center after she claims her 4-year-old son was encouraged to fight another child in a fight club-style scenario. Nicole Merseal said her then 10-year-old son filmed video of his 4-year-old brother being repeatedly punched at Adventure Learning Centre in St Louis, Mo., in December 2016, FOX 2 reports. Merseal claims that the day care centre organized a fight club, according to court documents. Video shows one child with a Hulk fist, a large green glove, on his right hand, punching another boy as he lies on the ground. A circle has formed around them, as adults, along with other children, watch. A boy tries in vain to intervene as one boy punches another one on the floor. (Source: KTVI) Merseal told ABC News her 4-year-old was very afraid and had trouble understanding why his best friends were beating him up. He just doesnt understand why they punched him in the face, Merseal said. I dont know any parent that could watch their children go through this and not be upset. She added that the day that on which the event happened was her sons birthday. Nicole Merseal said her 10-year-old filmed the scene and showed her the video. (Source: KTVI) Day care cameras recorded more than 30 minutes of the kids fighting, WNEP 16 reported. Merseal told Fox Now 2 that her older son texted her saying that the day care was making them fight. The news station also quoted a police report stating that two teachers were fired over the incident. It said that the St. Louis Circuit Attorneys Office declined to prosecute. The two teachers were identified by ABC News as Mickala Guilford and Tena Dailey. Court documents state that Guilford told the day care centers director, Jennifer Scott, that the children were bored that day and she admitted to having the kids fight each other with the Hulk Hands to release stress. She claims it didnt last for more than about four minutes and that none of the kids were hurt. Merseal isnt satisfied and is suing the day care centre for more than $35,000. Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. PARIS (Reuters) - A deal on Britain's withdrawal from the European Union is possible by November 21, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said on Wednesday, but it will require British negotiators in particular to step up efforts. Asked whether he agreed with UK Brexit Minister Dominic Raab that a deal could be reached by that date, Coveney concurred, but said time was short and negotiators would have to signal the likelihood of a deal as early as next week. "It is up to the British side in particular to intensify negotiations towards a deal," Coveney told reporters in Paris, adding that he had every confidence in EU negotiator Michel Barnier. (Reporting by Richard Lough; Editing by Luke Baker) On a brisk Monday afternoon in Des Moines, a couple dozen volunteers gathered in Cindy Axnes small Des Moines campaign office to kick off an afternoon canvass. Theyre mostly older, mostly white, the type of people who have time to spare on a weekday in late October. Axne riled up the crowd by arguing that her opponent, Republican Congressman David Young, tries to pretend that the House GOP supports people with pre-existing conditions. Not true! the crowd shouted. Axne, a 53-year old small business owner who has worked for various state agencies, is the Democrat challenging Young in Iowas 3rd district. Shes one of a record number of first-time women candidates running for Congress to help Democrats take back the House in a year when issues surrounding gender and sexual violence have dominated national narratives. But like many female Democratic candidates in competitive or conservative-leaning districts, Axne is ignoring those hot-button debates and staying focused on the issues affecting the voters shes trying to reach. Here in suburban Des Moines, that means shes talking about health care coverage, affordable higher education, and rural jobs. This approach isnt just a stark contrast to the national conversation among Democratic activists. Its also a different approach than the one female Democratic candidates are taking in more liberal districts. Some of those women candidates have used their own #MeToo experiences to fuel their campaigns. Mary Barzee Flores, whos running for Congress in South Florida, ran an ad last year about dealing with harassment and handsy customers. Ayana Pressley, who knocked off a 10-term Democratic incumbent in a House primary for her Boston-area district, puts violence and trauma near the top of her platform on her campaign website, highlighting her own experience as a survivor of sexual violence. In Michigan, gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer has talked repeatedly about her experience as a survivor of sexual assault. Story continues Axne could do the same if she wanted. Roughly 30 years ago, shortly after she graduated from the University of Iowa, she says she fought off a would-be rapist as she walked home from a night out in Chicago. I noticed there was a guy behind me, and the next thing I knew I was shoved into an alley, and he was on top of me with a ski mask and a knife, she recalls in an interview. He said, Dont say anything or Im really going to hurt you.' Axne says she kicked and screamed and punched him with the keys she held between her fingers, and the assailant fled when people who lived in the apartment above the alley began to open their windows. Had I not been 6 feet tall, had I not been carrying my keys between my fingers, had I not had that help from so many people who woke up and made sure that I was safe, she says, it could have been a different outcome. Shell talk about the attack when asked about it, and shes done a few local TV interviews on the subject. But Axne hasnt made her experience into a campaign issue, even though shes running amid the #MeToo movement and less than a month after the controversy surrounding the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. She hasnt mentioned her assault in any of her advertisements or even alluded to it on Twitter. Instead, shes focused on kitchen-table issues: protecting pre-existing conditions, making education affordable, and tax relief for the middle class. That may be a sound strategic decision. In interviews with more than a dozen Iowa voters outside an early voting location in suburban Urbandale, not a single voter or volunteer mentioned #MeToo as a motivating factor in this election. Its yet another example of the chasm between national political narratives and the reality on the ground in key swing districts. I had completely forgotten about it until you just mentioned it, says Grant Woodard, a Des Moines lawyer and Democratic strategist, of Axnes assault. I think it just shows that all campaigns need to run on what they see as their local issues. He added that President Donald Trump is not as toxic in Iowa as he is in some other parts of the country, so Democrats need to tread carefully to avoid antagonizing voters who support him. Axne is neck-and-neck with Young in the polls. Strategists say her success hinges on whether she can collect enough votes in Polk County, which contains Des Moines, to make up for the conservative-leaning rural counties in the rest of the district. A Democrat needs to win Polk County with a margin of about 25,000 votes to make up for the Republican-leaning votes coming from the rural areas, says Woodard. The most recent challengers to Young, who was elected in 2014, won the county by only a few thousand votes. Its not clear whether drilling down on health care and jobs will be enough for Axne in a district that Young won in 2016 by roughly 14 points. Trump won Iowa by more than 10 points in 2016, and none of the voters interviewed outside an early voting location Oct. 29 who cast ballots for him then said they had since soured on the President. Still, Axne and Young are polling within the margin of error. The question everyone in the Democratic party is asking themselves is whether what happened in 2016 in Iowa was a fundamental switch or whether it was an anomaly, says Woodard. The question that this election is really gonna show for Iowa is whether were purple or whether were red. By Letitia Stein TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) - Democrats have pulled ahead in Florida's marquee races for the U.S. Senate and governor, a new Reuters opinion poll showed on Wednesday, as President Donald Trump was set to return to the battleground state in a closing bid to bail out Republicans. Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson is leading Rick Scott, Florida's Republican governor, by five percentage points among likely voters, according to the Reuters/Ipsos/UVA Center for Politics poll. A win by Nelson would be critical for Democrats' hopes of taking a majority in the Senate, which requires a net gain of two seats in the Nov. 6 elections. Most opinion polls and forecasters give Democrats a slim chance of winning control of the chamber, because they have to defend 10 seats in states that Trump won in 2016, including Florida. Democrat Andrew Gillum, the Tallahassee mayor, is holding onto momentum in his bid to become Florida's first black governor. He drew the support of 50 percent of likely voters, unchanged from the last Reuters polling a month ago, compared with the 44 percent supporting former U.S. Representative Ron DeSantis. Gillum's candidacy may be boosting a Democratic ticket that includes Nelson, who has opened up a significant lead in a Senate race that was tied last month in another Reuters/Ipsos poll. In the latest poll https://tmsnrt.rs/2piev5l, 49 percent of likely voters said they would return Nelson to Washington for a fourth term in the Senate, while 44 percent wanted to replace him with Scott. The Democratic strength at the top of the ballot could affect as many as a half dozen competitive contests across Florida for the U.S. House of Representatives. Democrats are seen as having a strong chance of winning at least the 23 seats needed to gain control of the House, and with it the power to derail Trump's agenda. In a final-stage campaign blitz, Trump aims to come to his party's rescue in Florida, the largest of the states that swing between parties in presidential elections. Trump has scheduled "Make America Great Again" rallies on Wednesday in Fort Myers on and on Saturday in Pensacola. It is the start of a six-day tour that will bring Trump to eight states, also including Missouri, Indiana and Tennessee, which are home to hard-fought Senate races. "This is a referendum on Donald Trump," said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, noting that Trump's reputation rides on a governor's race where his endorsement delivered the Republican nomination to DeSantis. "If DeSantis loses, that is a direct reflection on Donald Trump in Florida and the power and influence that Trump has over Florida voters currently." Although Trump narrowly won Florida in the 2016 election, 51 percent of likely voters in the state now disapprove of how he is handling the presidency, according to the new Reuters poll. Oprah Winfrey, who fans early this year briefly tried to lure into taking Trump on in a 2020 White House run, is due in Georgia on Thursday to campaign with Democrat Stacey Abrams, who is seeking to become the United States' first black woman governor. [nL2N1XB0NC] [nL2N1PK0U1] SENATE BATTLEFIELD The Republican slate looks stronger in Arizona, where two U.S. congresswomen are battling for the Senate seat being vacated by Jeff Flake, a Republican who has been a prominent Trump critic. Republican Martha McSally leads Democrat Kyrsten Sinema by two percentage points, according to the new Reuters poll. Sinema led a Reuters poll last month. However, a NBC News/Marist poll released this week showed Sinema with a six-point lead. The Reuters poll showed the state's Republican governor, Doug Ducey, on track to win his re-election fight, with a 20-percentage-point lead over Democrat David Garcia. Florida Democrats are trying this year to turn out more young and diverse voters, who lean Democratic but often sit out midterm elections. Leaders in the party hope Gillum's candidacy will see a repeat of the voting coalition that enabled former President Barack Obama to carry the state twice, before it swung for Trump. Obama will stump for Gillum and Nelson in Miami on Friday. The Reuters/Ipsos/UVA poll was conducted online, in English, from Oct. 17-26. It surveyed at least 799 likely voters in each state and had a confidence interval, a measure of accuracy, of three percentage points in Florida and four points in Arizona. The poll results measured how voters felt at the time of the survey. Those feelings may change: In 2016, one in eight Americans said they made their presidential pick in the week before Election Day, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. (Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Fla.; Additional reporting by Chris Kahn in New York; Editing by Scott Malone, Leslie Adler and Alistair Bell) Copenhagen also recalls ambassador to Tehran as it accuses Iran of plotting assassination on Danish soil Police close the resund bridge near Copenhagen on 28 September. Photograph: Ritzau Scanpix/Reuters Denmark has recalled its ambassador from Tehran and called for fresh EU sanctions against Iran after its security services accused Iranian intelligence service of plotting an assassination on Danish soil. The Danish intelligence chief, Finn Borch Andersen, said on Tuesday that the alleged murder plot had targeted the exiled leader of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA), a separatist group that has a history of carrying out attacks in Iran. We are dealing with an Iranian intelligence agency planning an attack on Danish soil. Obviously, we cant and wont accept that, Andersen said. A Norwegian national of Iranian background has been arrested in Sweden and since extradited to Denmark in connection with the foiled attack, according to officials. The announcement came as Tehran scrambled to muster European support before the US re-imposes stringent sanctions on the country early next month. The European Union, Iran, China and Russia have set out a plan to sidestep those unilateral US sanctions. Irans foreign ministry spokesman, Bahram Qassemi, dismissed the allegation and said that the timing of the accusations was suspicious. This is a continuation of enemies plots to damage Iranian relations with Europe at this critical time, he said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency. Andersen revealed on Tuesday that a massive police operation that cut off Copenhagen from the rest of Denmark for several hours last month was triggered when police noticed a stolen, Swedish-registered car near the home of an Iranian opposition activist. Fearing that an attack was imminent, Danish authorities closed the resund bridge linking Denmark and Sweden and the Great Belt bridge between the islands of Zealand and Funen. Hundreds of Danish police and soldiers used cars, sniffer dogs and helicopters to hunt for the rental car. Story continues The incident came shortly after Tehran summoned UK, Dutch and Danish envoys and urged Denmark and the Netherlands to extradite Iranian exiles who they said were responsible for a terrorist attack on September 23 in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, which killed at least 24 people, including children. The ASMLA initially took responsibility for the attack, but later withdrew its claim. The Danish foreign minister, Anders Samuelsen, said the foiled attack was completely unacceptable and that his government will respond to Iran and is speaking with European partners on further measures. France has also recently accused Iran of plotting attacks on European soil. In October, French diplomatic sources said that they had concluded that Irans ministry of intelligence was behind a foiled bombing attack that targeted a rally organised by an Iranian opposition group near Paris in June. An Iranian diplomat was among six people who were arrested for allegedly plotting the bombing of the event, which featured among its guests senior US politicians including Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trumps attorney. Tehran denied the allegations, which it called a conspiracy to sabotage Irans ancient and longstanding relations with France and other significant European countries. In May, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, claimed that Irans Revolutionary Guard was carrying out assassination operations in the heart of Europe, an allegation that at the time bewildered security experts, given that there had been no recent killings in Europe officially attributed to the Iranian state. Since then, France and now Denmark have directly blamed Tehran. The most recent killing of an Iranian dissident took place in The Hague in November last year, when a gunman shot Ahmad Mola Nissi, who was also a former leader of a group closely linked to the ASMLA, which had claimed responsibility for several attacks in Iran. Relations with Europe are vital to Irans bid to weather out US-imposed sanctions. Unlike the US, which has withdrawn from the 2015 nuclear deal, the EU has remained adamant that it wants to preserve the deal. Trumps first set of sanctions hitting the countrys access to dollars, gold and precious metals were reimposed in August. They are to be followed by a set of even more stringent measures by 4 November, including an embargo on the imports of Iranian oil and sanctions on its banking sector. Copenhagen (AFP) - Denmark said Wednesday it was consulting with its allies about possible sanctions against Iran after accusing Tehran of plotting an attack against Iranian dissidents living in the Scandinavian country. "We are going to reach out to our European allies in the coming days to try to find a united response," Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told reporters during a meeting of Northern European leaders in Oslo. British Prime Minister Theresa May expressed her support for Denmark at the meeting. Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen was to begin contacting his European counterparts on Wednesday to discuss possible sanctions against Iran -- most likely economic ones, a diplomatic source told AFP. "We want to preserve the nuclear agreement," Lokke Rasmussen said, referring to how possible sanctions would approach the 2015 international accord on Iran's nuclear programme. Denmark on Tuesday announced it was recalling its ambassador to Iran after the Danish intelligence service PET accused the Iranian intelligence service of "planning an attack in Denmark" against three Iranians suspected of belonging to the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz or ASMLA. ASMLA is a separatist group that advocates an Arab state in a southwestern Iranian province. Tehran calls it a terrorist organisation. A Norwegian of Iranian origin was arrested on October 21 for allegedly planning the attack and spying for Iran. Iran has denied the allegations, saying they were part of a European conspiracy against the Islamic Republic. - NATO allies - Tehran summoned the Danish ambassador on Wednesday, foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said. "In this meeting the (senior foreign ministry) official strongly denied the biased reports on a foiled attack plot on an Iranian dissident in Denmark and its attribution to the Islamic republic of Iran," Ghasemi said. In late September, Tehran accused Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain of "hosting several members of the terrorist group" that Iran holds responsible for an attack in the mainly ethnic Arab city of Ahvaz in southwestern Iran. Story continues The September 22 attack, during which five commandos opened fire on a military parade, left 24 people dead. The so-called Islamic State group and a separatist Arab group claimed responsibility, and Iran staged several operations in Iraq and Syria in response. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday that Washington stood behind Denmark, a NATO ally. In Oslo for a meeting of the Nordic Council, Northern European leaders were prudent. "We're working on a concrete response. We've said that we will react," Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg said. "We are following this very closely together with our Danish friends and when we know more we will make a decision about possible measures," Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said. President Donald Trump on Wednesday blasted House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) after the lawmaker rejected the presidents claim that he has the power to end birthright citizenship. Paul Ryan should be focusing on holding the Majority rather than giving his opinions on Birthright Citizenship, something he knows nothing about! Trump tweeted. Paul Ryan should be focusing on holding the Majority rather than giving his opinions on Birthright Citizenship, something he knows nothing about! Our new Republican Majority will work on this, Closing the Immigration Loopholes and Securing our Border! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2018 Despite an at-times rocky relationship, Trump has at least publicly appeared to be on good terms with Ryan in recent months. After the Republican House leader announced in April that he would not seek re-election, Trump praised Ryan as a truly good man with a legacy of achievement. But Ryans defiant comments on Tuesday stating Trump obviously cannot end birthright citizenship by signing an executive order clearly struck a chord with the president. You know, as a conservative, Im a believer in following the plain text of the Constitution, and I think in this case the 14th Amendment is pretty clear, and that would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process, Ryan told Kentuckys WVLK radio station on Tuesday. Under the 14th Amendment, citizenship is granted to all people born in the U.S., even if their parents arent citizens, a concept known as birthright citizenship. The mainstream legal consensus is that a constitutional amendment would be required to change that. Hours earlier on Wednesday, Trump reiterated his desire to end birthright citizenship, claiming many scholars agree the practice is not protected by the 14th Amendment. So-called Birthright Citizenship, which costs our Country billions of dollars and is very unfair to our citizens, will be ended one way or the other, he tweeted. This case will be settled by the United States Supreme Court! Story continues Although Ryan signaled his opposition to an executive order to end birthright citizenship, the speaker did not offer any possible repercussions for Trump if he proceeded with such an order. Ryans office did not immediately respond to HuffPosts request for comment. Related... Donald Trump Vows To End Birthright Citizenship Paul Ryan Rejects Trump's Claim He Can End Birthright Citizenship Jimmy Kimmel Turns Donald Trump Birthright Vow Into Savage Burn Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Sen. Elizabeth Warren released DNA test results that she says reveal she has Native American ancestry and told President Trump to pony up the $1 million charitable donation he promised months ago if she could prove her heritage. She took a bogus DNA test, Trump replied, according to Yahoo News .The Cherokee Nation responded that Warrens DNA test was inappropriate, The Guardian reports Fox Business said that the test is a farce, and Time. Bloomberg questioned whether her move marked the death of genetic privacy. The key players President Trump Sen. Warren (D-Mass.) Fact Check Trump denied making a $1 million promise: I didnt say that. You better read it again. But ... In July, Trump said on record: I will give you a million dollars to your favorite charity, paid for by Trump, if you take the test so that it shows youre an Indian. Trump clarified his million-dollar promise: I will only do it if I can test her personally. The background Warren faced criticism during her 2012 Senate race when she claimed to have Native American ancestry. Trump later cast doubt on her statements by mockingly referring to Warren publicly as Pocahontas. On July 5, Trump challenged Warren to take a DNA test, and he offered to donate $1 million to a charity of her choice, if you take the test and it shows youre an Indian. Warren released the results of a test that concluded there was strong evidence her DNA sample showed a Native American in her family tree six to 10 generations ago. When pressed about the challenge and donation, Trump said I will only do it if I can test her personally. Who said what By the way, @realDonaldTrump: Remember saying on 7/5 that youd give $1M to a charity of my choice if my DNA showed Native American ancestry? I remember and heres the verdict. Please send the check to the National Indigenous Womens Resource Center: https://t.co/I6YQ9hf7Tv pic.twitter.com/J4gBamaeeo Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) October 15, 2018 Pocahontas (the bad version), sometimes referred to as Elizabeth Warren, is getting slammed. She took a bogus DNA test and it showed that she may be 1/1024, far less than the average American. Now Cherokee Nation denies her, DNA test is useless. Even they dont want her. Phony! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2018 Why it matters Warren may be attempting to settle the controversy before discussions ramp up about potential Democratic challengers to President Trump in 2020. Read the full fact check source: Yahoo News The EU continued making plans for their nightmare scenario of a no-deal Brexit on Wednesday (Getty) Brexit talks are back from the dead after a two-week lull, but a progress report given by the EU on Halloween has not settled fears over a nightmare no-deal. EU deputy chief negotiator Sabine Weyand updated permanent representatives of the other 27 EU countries on the state of play in negotiations in Brussels on Wednesday. It came after the first face-to-face talks between negotiators since the European Council summit two weeks ago, where EU leaders said there was not enough progress to expect a deal by November. European Council president Donald Tusk said the failure to make progress at the summit had left a no-deal more likely than ever before. EU ambassadors attending Wednesdays briefing remained spooked by the possibility despite Brexit negotiations re-starting in earnest this week. Olly Robbins, Theresa Mays Brexit adviser, has spent at least two days in talks with Weyand in Brussels this week. But one diplomat attending the meeting told the Sun: We dont expect any substantial progress. There are now just five months to deal with the spectre of the Irish border and both sides are haunted by the prospect any deal could be rejected by MPs. EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier with his deputy, Sabine Weyand (Getty) With progress towards a deal still elusive, EU ambassadors held further discussions on plans to prepare for a no-deal scenario. Talks between Robbins and Weyand will continue over a compromise solution to the Irish border issue and a draft declaration over the future of trade. If a deal is achieved at this technical level, EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier and UK Brexit secretary Dominic Raab will be called in to try and seal a political agreement. In a sign that a breakthrough is still some way off, a commission spokesperson said: I am not currently in a position to confirm when the next meeting of the negotiators themselves will take place. But former MEP Andrew Duff strikes an upbeat tone about the chances of a deal being reached within the next six weeks in a new report for the Brussels-based European Policy Centre. Story continues Despite panic attacks at Westminster, the two negotiating teams of Michel Barnier and Olly Robbins continue to move closer to each other, he wrote. Irish backstop aside, the Withdrawal Agreement is ready to be signed. Logic impels one to assume there will soon be a deal. Nobody will find it a perfect deal, but it will succeed in extricating the UK from EU membership while minimising collateral damage to the rest of the EU. Once the current stalemate over the Irish backstop is overcome, things should be able to move rapidly to a conclusion. If a deal is agreed by Barnier and Raab, it will have to be signed-off by EU leaders probably at the next European Council on 13 December. The final step will be ratification by the UK and European parliaments. Aden (AFP) - Sinking into a padded leather chair on a government jet, Saudi ambassador Mohammed al-Jaber buckles up for what he calls a mammoth mission -- rebuilding Yemen as it teeters on the edge of catastrophe. After a ruinous three-year conflict, the Arab world's poorest country faces the double whammy of a looming famine and an economic crisis that has sent the Yemeni currency in free fall, as the United States urgently calls for a ceasefire. Saudi Arabia has faced virulent international criticism for leading an intervention in Yemen in 2015 against Iran-aligned Huthi rebels -- and the recent murder of critic Jamal Khashoggi has put its bombing campaign under fresh scrutiny. But Jaber, seen as the most influential Arab diplomat engaged on Yemen, sought to shift the narrative on another front: rebuilding the conflict-scarred country. "Development of Yemen cannot wait until the Huthis accept peace talks," said Jaber, who was appointed ambassador in 2014, just days before the rebels overran the capital. The United Nations said Wednesday it aimed to relaunch Yemen peace talks "within a month", after a previous attempt collapsed in September when the rebels refused to travel to Geneva, saying their conditions had not been met. Jaber, 48, spoke to AFP on an aircraft this week flying to the informal capital Aden to oversee the arrival of a Saudi oil tanker with the first instalment of petroleum products worth $60 million. The fuel is meant for power stations amid chronic electricity outages. As his aides served up pastries, dates and Arabic coffee, Jaber rattled off a list of what he called Saudi-funded "injection projects" related to electricity, education and healthcare. "Our goal in Yemen is not to control it," the Riyadh-based envoy said, asserting the Saudi intervention was unlike the US invasion of Iraq. "This is a war of necessity, not a war of choice." - Khashoggi murder - Story continues Saudi Arabia's image has taken a beating globally over its intervention in Yemen, amid rising civilian deaths reported by the UN, war crimes allegations and warnings of an impending famine triggered by the conflict. The kingdom has shrugged off many of the claims as highly exaggerated. But even the US, a close ally which supports Saudi-led forces by refuelling their jets and selling them weapons, finally called Tuesday for a ceasefire and peace talks in Yemen within the next 30 days. Aggravating the situation for the kingdom was Khashoggi's murder in the kingdom's Istanbul consulate on October 2. Saudi Arabia initially attributed his death to a fistfight before accepting what Turkish investigators said all along -- that he was killed in a premeditated murder. "The Khashoggi case has cast a new spotlight on Yemen because it raises doubts over the Saudi narrative," said Elisabeth Kendall, a research fellow at Oxford University. "If Saudi lied over the fate of Khashoggi, at least initially, then its credibility in explaining away the horrors of the Yemen war is also in doubt." But Jaber said extrapolating the Khashoggi affair to criticise Saudi efforts in Yemen was unfair. He said images splashed in global media of emaciated Yemeni children in famine-like conditions "break my heart", but added that Saudi Arabia alone was not responsible. The Huthis, he said, were an intractable foe, repeatedly spurning UN-backed efforts to jumpstart peace talks. A seasoned diplomat, Jaber has consistently sought to emphasise Saudi-funded development projects, "suggesting an aim to shift the shape of the discourse on Yemen", said Adam Baron, a Yemen expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations. - 'Saving from collapse' - In Aden, guards in camouflage fatigues with pistols strapped to the thigh whisked Jaber in an armoured car trailed by militiamen in pickup trucks that careened through streets riddled with tanks, Humvees and checkpoints. In a meeting at the prime minister's office, Yemeni bankers, businessmen and civil society representatives railed about corruption, unemployment as businesses were shutting down, and a dysfunctional government machinery. Jaber took copious notes as they spoke, assuring them of progress. "We are here to support Yemenis... until there is a functioning state," he said. He later sat down in the hilltop presidential palace, chewing qat -- a mild stimulant popular in Yemen -- with another group of government officials. The palace -- a cluster of colonial-era villas overlooking the azure expanse of the Arabian Sea -- bristled with armed militiamen but lacked a president as internationally backed leader Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi is believed to be based in Saudi Arabia. "Yemen has two parallel governments with one currency and one economy," said Yemen's central bank governor Mohamad Zemam, who was at the meeting. "We need peace efforts to unify the two." Showing AFP a bank statement on his phone of Saudi Arabia's recent deposit of $200 million in the bank to support the plummeting riyal, he said some businessmen had little faith the government was solvent until he showed them this proof. Such is the dire state of finances that until the Saudi fuel aid arrived even the presidential palace was crippled by several hours of daily power cuts, he said. "We are trying to survive... and save our (state) from collapse," said Zemam, who took his post in February. Jaber said Saudi support was not equal to a blank cheque. "Our money is not for corrupt people, it is for Yemeni people," he said. Washington (AFP) - Far-right US congressman Steve King came under growing political pressure Wednesday from his own Republican Party, after it took the rare step of publicly rebuking him over recent comments supporting white nationalism. The Iowa lawmaker's "recent comments, actions, and retweets are completely inappropriate," Steve Stivers, the chairman of the GOP's congressional campaign arm, said on Twitter. "We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn this behavior." It was an extraordinary castigation of an unabashed defender of white culture, and an ally of President Donald Trump, by party leadership days after 11 people were killed in an anti-Semitic attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue. Trump has been struggling to fend off accusations that his bitter anti-immigrant rhetoric helped create the conditions for the massacre, by emboldening the country's white nationalist fringe. The condemnation of King also came in the final stretch of campaigning for the November 6 midterm elections, with Republicans fighting a rising Democratic tide that seeks to reclaim the majority in the House of Representatives. Eight-term lawmaker King, 69, faces his toughest re-election in years, with a Democratic rival closing the poll gap and reportedly outraising him in campaign funding. Several statements and actions in recent months by King have drawn attention. Two weeks ago he endorsed a candidate for Toronto mayor, Faith Goldy, an apparent "white genocide" conspiracy theorist who has appeared on a neo-Nazi podcast. In August King traveled to Europe, where he told a publication aligned with Austria's far-right party FPO that Jewish philanthropist George Soros has had a dark influence on US elections. Soros, a frequent target of far-right criticism, was among a dozen Democratic figures and other Trump critics who were sent pipe bombs in the mail last week. King also said Soros, who escaped Nazi-occupied Hungary as a child, supports the supplanting of Europe's white Christian majority with minorities -- a theory that King and other xenophobes refer to as the "great replacement." Story continues "What does this diversity bring that we don't already have?" King told the publication Unzensuriert. King's caustic rhetoric is making some Republicans and donors uncomfortable. Prominent agribusinesses Land O'Lakes and Purina on Tuesday announced they would no longer support his campaign. "After years of embarrassing Iowans with his white nationalist rhetoric... King has apparently become a liability to national Republicans and some of the businesses that have backed him financially," the Des Moines Register, Iowa's main newspaper, said in a scathing editorial. King has never hidden his far-right views. In 2013 he caused an uproar when he said some immigrant children had "calves the size of cantaloupes" because they hauled loads of marijuana through the desert. On Tuesday the Anti-Defamation League wrote House Speaker Paul Ryan calling for formal disciplinary action against King. King pushed back against the criticism, saying on Twitter that the attacks were "orchestrated by nasty, desperate, and dishonest fake news." Stylized artwork shows NASAs Kepler space telescope among planetary systems. (NASA Illustration / Wendy Stenzel / Daniel Rutter) NASAs Kepler planet-hunting telescope now belongs to the ages, with its fuel completely spent and its instruments shut down but the planet quest continues, thanks to a treasure trove of downloaded data as well as a new generation of robotic planet-hunters. Space agency officials declared the end of spacecraft operations today, nine and a half years after the car-sized probe was launched. The hydrazine fuel ran out about two weeks ago, signaled by a sharp drop in pressure readings for the propulsion system. In the end, we didnt have a drop of fuel left over for anything else, Charlie Sobeck, project system engineer at NASAs Ames Research Center, said during a teleconference. For years, Kepler stared at a fixed area of the sky bridging the constellations Lyra and Cygnus to monitor about 150,000 stars for signs of planets. The probe detected distant worlds by watching for the telltale dimming of starlight as a planet passed over an alien suns disk. Bill Borucki, the missions retired principal investigator, compared the task to trying to detect a flea crawling across a car headlight when the car was 100 miles away. Keplers originally planned $640 million mission went far longer than anticipated, thanks in part to a spacecraft-saving fix that was made in 2013 when a crucial part of the probes fine-pointing system went out of commission. That was an amazing diving catch, said Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters. Mission planners reworked Keplers mode of operation to point at other parts of the sky, expanding its list of targets to 500,000 stars. Sobeck said the extra five years of operation cost roughly $10 million a year which is a bargain by space probe standards. As of today, Kepler has detected 2,681 confirmed planets, plus 2,899 other candidates yet to be confirmed, said Kepler project scientist Jessie Dotson. Story continues That database is large enough to allow for a statistical analysis of planetary systems. Those systems range from Kepler-233, whose parent star may be merely 5 million to 10 million years old, to Kepler-444, whose planets may be more than twice Earths 4.5 billion-year age. Were really seeing planets at a wide variety of stellar ages, Dotson said. One of the big conclusions is that there may be well more planets than stars in the Milky Way, thanks to the number of multiple-planet systems found by Kepler. Depending on assumptions, the mission identified somewhere around two to 12 potentially habitable rocky planets. When scientists factored those finds into statistical formulas that take Keplers limitations into account, they concluded that 20 to 50 percent of the Milky Ways stars may have rocky planets in habitable zones. Theres certain to be more to come: Much of the data downloaded from the spacecraft has yet to be fully analyzed. The Kepler spacecraft may now be retired, but the Kepler data will continue to yield scientific discoveries for years to come, Hertz said. And the Kepler mission has paved the way for future exoplanet-studying missions. NASAs Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, was launched in April and started sending back science data this summer. TESS is designed to survey about 200,000 stars across a wide stretch of sky in our celestial neighborhood, and identify prospects for further study. NASA is handing off the mantle of planet hunter from the Kepler space telescope to TESS, Hertz declared. Planetary exploration is going through a wider-ranging changing of the guard: For example, NASAs Dawn mission to the dwarf planet Ceres is ending, due to the same empty-tank issue that Kepler faced. And recent glitches with the 28-year-old Hubble Space Telescope and the 19-year-old Chandra X-Ray Observatory have signaled that those grand-scale telescopes are past their prime, mechanically if not scientifically. When it comes to the planet quest, the next big thing on the horizon is the James Webb Space Telescope, which is currently due for launch in 2021 and may be able to look for signs of life in the atmospheres of alien planets. Even more planet-hunting telescopes, such as LUVOIR and HabEx, are on the radar screen for the decade ahead. Meanwhile, Kepler is destined to have all its systems turned off within the next week or two, and will then drift into its own orbit around the sun. That orbit isnt expected to come any closer than a million miles to Earth, but future space travelers could well put it on their itinerary if for no other reason than to leave behind an epitaph. What should that epitaph say? Basically, Kepler opened the gate for mankinds exploration of the cosmos, Borucki said. Dotson gave Kepler a more personal tribute. Ive always felt like it was the little spacecraft that could, she said. It always did everything we asked of it, and sometimes more. Thats a great thing to have in a spacecraft. More from GeekWire: Washington (AFP) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing an alleged scheme to pay women to accuse Russia collusion probe chief Robert Mueller of sexual harassment in a bid to discredit him, his office said Tuesday. The scheme was uncovered after a woman who said she worked for Mueller decades ago told several journalists she had been offered $20,000 to accuse him of sexual misconduct. "When we learned last week of allegations that women were offered money to make false claims about the special counsel, we immediately referred the matter to the FBI for investigation," Mueller's spokesman Peter Carr said. Carr did not offer any additional details, but his rare public statement made clear that Mueller's office was taking the claims seriously. When a matter is referred to the FBI, the agency must investigate the merits of the complaint. Carr's statement came on the same day that a conservative radio and podcast host known for promoting conspiracy theories, Jack Burkman, announced plans to "unveil the first of the sex assault victims of Robert Mueller" on Thursday. Burkman denied offering payments as part of the alleged scheme, calling the claims "false." "The left is trying to defend Mueller against sex assault allegations so they attack me in desperation," he said on Twitter. "The establishment media knows that Mueller may go down over this -- they want to deflect attention." - Former FBI director targeted - Mueller is a former FBI director tasked last year with investigating allegations that members of President Donald Trump's campaign team colluded with Russia to sway the 2016 election in his favor. The probe has expanded to examine possible attempts by Trump himself to obstruct the investigation, which could -- if proven -- lead to the president's impeachment. The former marine has a spotless reputation as an attorney, federal prosecutor and FBI chief. So far, his probe has issued 35 indictments and obtained six guilty pleas and one trial conviction. Story continues But Trump and Republicans have labeled his investigation as biased and overextended, with Trump branding it the "illegal Mueller witch hunt." News of the alleged smear scheme came just one week before midterm congressional elections in which Mueller's investigation casts a cloud over Republicans. The Hill Reporter website said the scheme surfaced after they and several other news outlets were contacted by an anonymous woman saying she had been offered cash by a man to make allegations against Mueller. She told the reporters in an email sent on October 18 that a man offered her $20,000 and would pay off her large credit card debt to do so, according to the Hill Reporter. "I want you to make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller, and I want you to sign a sworn affidavit to that effect," she quoted the man as saying. The woman -- who has since been unreachable -- said that the person who contacted her claimed to work for Burkman, the Hill Reporter said. Burkman hosts a podcast on NewsmaxTV, part of the Newsmax Media group led by Chris Ruddy, a close Trump confidant. He first claimed to have evidence of Mueller misbehavior, including alcoholism and sexual assault, on October 20, two days after the mysterious woman emailed the reporters. Paris (AFP) - France has launched a nationwide probe into incidents of babies being born with either missing or malformed arms after abnormal rates of birth defects in several regions have sparked a public health scare. Francois Bourdillon, head of the Public Health France agency, confirmed for the first time that a national investigation was "underway" and the results would be known in about three months. "Nothing is being hidden from you," he assured listeners to RTL radio. Confidence in the state's handling of the issue took a blow Monday night when health authorities reported an additional 11 cases in the Ain area near the Swiss border between 2000 and 2014 which had not previously been made public. A relatively small number of cases have been detected so far in total -- about 25 over the past 15 years in the regions of Brittany, Loire-Atlantique and Ain -- but the defects have caused public alarm and have been widely reported by the French media. Officials had already called the number of cases in Brittany and the Loire-Atlantique areas, on France's west coast, statistically "excessive" and Health Minister Agnes Buzyn has vowed to investigate further. "We don't want to exclude anything," Buzyn told the BFM television channel on Tuesday. "It's maybe something environmental, it's maybe what they (pregnant mothers) ate, it's perhaps what they breathed in," she said. - No explanations found - But for mothers like Isabelle Taymans-Grassin, herself a doctor, there is a sense of suspicion over the way authorities handled information. "It was a shock, a sense of living in a nightmare," she told AFP recalling the birth of her daughter Charlotte in 2012 with a deformed left arm. A few months later, she said she began to discover other families in the same situation in Guidel, Morbihan in northwest France. But they were not convinced by health officials. Story continues "We had the impression they wanted to stifle this affair. All the families had that feeling," she said. So far, no explanation has been found for the deformations despite tests on the mothers to see if they were exposed to common substances. Some environmentalists have claimed pesticides or other chemicals could be to blame -- the cases are clustered in rural areas -- but there is no evidence at this point to back up the claims. The defects could also be genetic. In the 1950s and 1960s, thousands of babies around the world were born with missing or stunted limbs linked to the use of the drug thalidomide, which was used to treat nausea in pregnant women. It was banned in the 1960s. The incidents of babies born without arms was brought to public attention by a scientist at the Remera public health body, which was created after the thalidomide scandal and is responsible for tracking birth defects. The scientist, Emmanuelle Amar, has been hailed as a whistle blower by ecologists and campaigners, but has been attacked for scare-mongering by others, including fellow scientists. Libreville (AFP) - A private Cameroonian television station has been barred from broadcasting for six months in neighbouring Gabon after erroneously reporting the death of President Ali Bongo Ondimba, who is in hospital in Saudi Arabia suffering from exhaustion, Libreville authorities said. Vision 4, thought to be close to the Cameroonian government, reported on Saturday that the Gabonese president had died. Bongo, 59, fell ill last Wednesday during a visit to Riyadh to attend an economic forum in the Saudi capital, where he remains in hospital. His spokesman Ike Ngouoni said Sunday that doctors there had diagnosed him with "severe fatigue" and ordered bed rest. Ngouoni called for "vigilance" against "fake news" after Vision 4's report. Gabon's broadcasting authority HAC, which met Tuesday, said in a statement that the "incorrect and false" report had "undermined national unity, social cohesion and public order". Bongo took over as leader of the oil-rich equatorial African nation in 2009 on the death of his father Omar Bongo, who had ruled since 1967. Ali Bongo was re-elected in 2016 by just a few thousand votes in a controversial presidential election. Photo credit: Raymond Boyd/Getty Images - Car and Driver From Car and Driver General Motors, after a profitable third quarter that handily beat expectations, is offering buyouts to 18,000 employees across North America, the company said on Wednesday. The buyouts, which GM calls a voluntary severance program, are not early retirement packages but preemptive efforts to slash costs "while our company and economy are strong," according to a statement. "Even with the positive progress we've made, we are taking proactive steps to get ahead of the curve by accelerating our efforts to address overall business performance," the company said. Starting today, salaried employees across all divisions in the United States, Canada, and Mexico who have worked at GM for at least 12 years will receive the offers. Hourly workers are exempt. The employees have until the end of November to accept, and if so, must agree to leave GM by the end of the year. While GM does not expect the majority of those 18,000 eligible employees to leave, the automaker said it will consider layoffs in 2019 if there aren't enough volunteers. "We will evaluate the need to implement after we see the results of the voluntary program and other cost-reduction efforts," the company said. GM posted a blowout third quarter with net income of $2.5 billion-25 times greater than last years third quarter-and nearly $20 billion in cash. The automaker claimed average transaction prices in North America reached an all-time record at $36,069, even as total sales in China and Europe continued to lag year over year. Until now, GM had spared its home base from overhead cuts while tearing apart the company overseas during the past five years. In February, GM Korea offered employee buyouts before closing a plant in May. Last year, GM sold Opel and Vauxhall to Peugeot and Citroen, exited the South Africa and India markets, pulled out of East Africa, cut employees in Singapore, and dismantled Holden sales and manufacturing in Australia. In 2016, it removed Chevrolet from Europe. The automaker is also still on the hook for its deadly ignition switches and recorded a $440 million charge in the third quarter for the related ligitation. ('You Might Also Like',) George Osborne (right) believes mistakes made by the Tories led to Britain voting for Brexit (Getty) Former Chancellor George Osborne has blamed mistakes by the Government during his time in office for the outcome of the Brexit vote. Appearing on BBCs Newsnight on Tuesday, Mr Osborne admitted the Conservative Party did get things wrong in the lead-up to the referendum. The now editor of the London Evening Standard was a prominent figure in the Remain campaign. EU membership supporters explained the benefits of EU membership too late in the day, he said, and failed to communicate the value of immigration. The former Chancellor said that not enough had been made of the value of immigration during the referendum debate (Getty) He said: I think we were wrong to play into the debate that everything that Brussels did was a challenge and a battle and was wrong. On immigration we were promising targets that we couldnt deliver and that then led to a debate about how you might deliver those targets we definitely contributed to that argument. READ MORE FROM YAHOO NEWS UK: Two teenagers arrested over hit-and-run collision which left boy, 3, fighting for life Being overweight or underweight could knock four years off your life expectancy Once-in-a-lifetime video captures actual moment meteor explodes in the sky Dad who sent smiling Snapchat picture of son to mother before beating him to death jailed for life In pictures: The animal species in fastest decline around the world Mr Osborne said he had worked hard in the national interest during his time in office in the face of a hung parliament and faced with the gigantic financial crash. He said: Ultimately the country grew and jobs were created and we avoided the calamitous situation that a lot of European countries found themselves in this period. The former Chancellor was a key ally of David Cameron, but has previously admitted he was not in favour of an EU referendum and only supported it out of loyalty to Cameron. Remain supporters had been too late in the day in explaining the benefits of EU membership, according to Mr Osborne (Getty) Labour MP Barry Sheerman criticised Mr Osborne and former Prime Minister David Cameron for running away from their responsibilities when they lost the EU referendum. Speaking during the Commons Budget Resolutions debate, the MP for Huddersfield said: I know that what were moving towards is a disaster for their living standards, their health standards and everything else that touches their lives over these coming years. This is a year of crisis Story continues This is going to be the next crisis where we need people there at the Despatch Box who actually take on their role as leaders. Not people who were there as Prime Minister and Chancellor and when they lost the referendum ran away from their responsibilities, ran away from the leadership. Where are they now, in the Evening Standard I suppose, in their man cave writing their memoirs. The so-called U.S. gig economy is not the transformational 57-million worker trend that its been made out to be, according to a new study from non-profit business-research organization Conference Board. The term gig economy first emerged during the Great Recession. According to Bloomberg, the perceived rise of such freelance, independent work has spurred much discussion of whether labor laws and employee benefits needed to be restructured in order to reflect the new reality of gig work. Conference Board defines gig workers, or nontraditional occupations, as those which usually perform non-core functions, offer relatively low pay, are tied to seasonal or varying demand, call for recent or emerging skills or hard-to-find skill sets, dont require institutional knowledge, and involve specific well-defined tasks where output is easily measured and monitored. Main examples include independent contractors, temp workers, and contract workers. The study found that since 1995, the number of independent contractors, temp workers, and contract workers has actually remained relatively unchanged over the years. It has never risen above 10% of the total workforce. (Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance) The labor market is tightening In 1995, independent contractors made up 6.7% of the labor force, temp workers were 1%, and contract workers were 0.5%. In 2017, independent contractors were 6.9%, temp workers were 0.9%, and contract workers were 0.6%. The fact that the labor market is tightening, combined with fluctuations in the supply and demand for work, makes it difficult to recruit, Gad Levanon, chief economist for Conference Board North America, told Yahoo Finance. A Bureau of Labor Statistics survey released in June 2018 showed that the number of nontraditional workers decreased from 2005. As the labor market tightens, more and more nontraditional workers are likely to find a regular job. Levanon thinks that this limiting factor is something that will continue to impact the growth of the nontraditional sector. Story continues One exception The exception to this overhype notion is ridesharing and transportation delivery, although Levanon noted that it makes up a very small part of the economy. The transportation sector has seen a major increase in the percentage of self-employed workers over the last two decades. Since 1998, it has jumped by approximately 35% and has not shown signs of a slowdown. (Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance) Brian Schaitkin, a senior economist for Conference Board, believes that one of the reasons why the transportation delivery space has seen such success in labor market platforms is because jobs are easy to find. When someone pulls out their phone to hire an Uber driver, the task is to move from point A to point B, Schaitkin told Yahoo Finance. There are very few jobs where the requirement is so simple. He added: Transportation is remarkably well-suited to growing quickly relative to other types of jobs you put on labor market platforms. The power of Uber Conference Board also observed that the share of nontraditional workers may increase due to the emergence of online labor market platforms. Uber has seen success in the gig economy. (Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar) One such online labor market platform is Uber, which Levanon cites as the first big online labor platform. It created the expectations that we now spread to other types of industries and jobs, Levanon said. And, its what created this excitement about the topic. As for the direction the gig economy is heading, Levanon thinks things could change. Im not saying online labor market platforms will never become an important part of the labor market, he said. But at the moment, transportation platforms are the only place where its a big deal. The U.S. gig economy just isnt that big. In fact, many European countries have a much higher number of nontraditional workers than the U.S. (Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance) Conference Board theorizes that this could be due the difference in healthcare systems between the two continents. Employment status in the U.S. is intrinsically tied to health benefits, while in Europe, there are more generous government-provided health and social insurance programs. Workers in the US are competing for gigs with people from India Although the U.S. gig economy hasnt seen much growth, its wages have. In tight labor markets, average hourly earnings have spiked for nontraditional workers. And for the rest of the labor market, wages have remained relatively stagnant. Elizabeth Crofoot, a senior economist at Conference Board, said the global labor market is partially responsible for pushing down standard wage growth. Workers in the U.S. are competing for gigs with people from India and Southeast Asia, especially in tech, she said. (Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance) Adriana is an associate editor for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter. READ MORE: Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, LinkedIn, and reddit. Outrage the court ruling acquitting Christian woman Asia Bibi of blasphemy has prompted hard-line Islamists to call for the death of the judges behind the decision (Picture: AP) A hard-line Islamist party in Pakistan has called for the death of the judges who overturned the death sentence of a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy. Asia Bibi was sentenced to death in 2010 on blasphemy charges. She had gone to fetch water for herself and fellow farm workers on a hot day the previous year, but two Muslim women had refused to drink from the same container and she was accused by a mob of blasphemy. She was convicted and sentenced to death, but in a landmark ruling Pakistans top court has now acquitted Ms Bibi and order she be released. Asia Bibi has been released after Pakistans top court acquitted her in a landmark ruling (Picture: Reuters) The judgement has sparked a backlash from hardline Islamists who have called for the death of the chief justice of the Supreme Court and two other judges behind the ruling. The leader of the Tehreek-e-Labaik (TLP) party, which has launched street protests in reaction to the ruling, also called for Prime Minister Imran Khans government to be ousted over the case. MORE: Treasurer for 9/11 attackers returns to Morocco to heros welcome after release from prison MORE: Two teenagers arrested over hit-and-run collision which left boy, 3, fighting for life Party spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi said: The patron in chief of TLP, Muhammad Afzal Qadri, has issued the edict that says the chief justice and all those who ordered the release of Asia deserve death. Paramilitary troops have been deployed in Islamabad to prevent protesters from reaching the Supreme Court, where security has been stepped up up to protect the judges and authorities have also put security in place at churches around the country. Security has been beefed up outside the supreme court in Islamabad (Picture: AP Photo/Anjum Naveed) It is not the first time the case has sparked violence in the country. In 2011 Punjab province governor Salman Taseer was shot and killed by one of his guards for defending Ms Bibi and criticising the misuse of the blasphemy law. Mumtaz Qadri was hanged for the killing but has been hailed a martyr by hardliners. Ms Bibis family and her lawyer say she never insulted the prophet. Her husband Ashiq Masih said: I am very happy. My children are very happy. We are grateful to God. We are grateful to the judges for giving us justice. We knew that she is innocent. Ginni Rometty has been CEO of IBM (IBM) since Jan of 2012almost seven years. Since then, IBMs stock is down 38% while the market is up 110%. Thats a damning 148 percentage points of underperformance. Its not surprising really. The company isnt growing. Revenue and operating income in 2014: $92.8 billion and $20.1 billion respectively. In 2017: $79.1 and $11.9 billion. Analysts arent looking for much improvement in 2018. No wonder the stocks down. IBMs recent deal to buy Red Hat for $34 billion is perceived to be a richly priced scheme to acquire top line growth. The market was not pleased and the stock dropped from $125 to $115. The companys once core business of mainframes is not such a hot tamale anymore. It faces tough challenges from Amazon and Microsoft in cloud computing. Watson? Doesnt move the needle. IBM Chairman, President and CEO Ginni Rometty. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) So how safe is Ginni Romettys job, and why isnt there more outcry from IBM shareholders? A few reasons. First, she wasnt dealt such a great hand from her predecessor Sam Palmisano. And two, she certainly deserved some time to show her mettle. A year or two is too soon to judge whether or not a CEO is a success. How much is enough time? There are no hard and fast rules. Under Ginnis leadership, IBM has successfully undertaken a portfolio shift far larger in scope and scale than any before at this company or many other Fortune 500 companies, an IBM spokesperson said in an email to Yahoo Finance. IBM today is a much different company from 10 years ago, five years and even 3 years ago. IBMs return to growth in the fourth quarter of 2017 is due in significant part to our Strategic Imperatives reaching critical mass. During the first three quarters of 2018, IBM has grown revenue, operating profit, operating earnings per share and has delivered strong free cash flow realization. This is our best performance on these metrics in the last three years. Half of the IBM workforce today is new to the company within the last five years. Story continues To be sure, incrementalism also plays a part here. In other words, if you told the board their stock was going to be down massively point to point, of course they would kick the CEO out. But if theres more of a drip, drip, drip scenariowhich it often iswho knows when to pull the plug. IBM and Rometty also have all kinds of capital on their side. All of Big Blue and the CEOs relationships with the media, Wall Street and the boards shes onMemorial Sloan Kettering, Council on Foreign Relations, Northwestern Universityplus her being on the White House business advisory and co-chairing Davos, it all adds up and make it that much more to oust her. But IBMs board need look no further than another blue-chip company located close by. That being GE (GE). Its indisputable GEs board stuck with former CEO Jeff Immelt too long. Immelt was CEO for 15 years and 11 months. During that time, GE stock slowly but inexorably declined 35%, while the market was up 128% over the same time period. Thats 163 percentage points of underperformance. At least one investor has already given up on IBM, Warren Buffett. This past May when CNBCs Beck Quick asked if he had sold all his IBM shareshe reportedly owned 81 million shares at the end of 2016Buffett said, The answer is almost certain, yes. For IBMs board, that should have been a wake-up call. NOTE: This story has been updated to include a statement from IBM. Andy Serwer is editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @serwer Read more: By Fathin Ungku and Yuddy Cahya JAVA SEA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Indonesia deployed divers on Tuesday to search for an airliner that crashed with 189 people on board, as "pinger locators" tried to zero in on its cockpit recorders and find out why an almost-new plane went down in the sea minutes after take-off. Indonesia, one of the world's fastest-growing aviation markets, has a patchy safety record. With the now almost certain prospect of all on board having died, the crash is set to rank as its second-worst air disaster. (Graphic: Indonesian plane crash - https://tmsnrt.rs/2OZPYBz) Ground staff lost contact with flight JT610 of budget airline Lion Air 13 minutes after the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft took off early on Monday from the airport in Jakarta, the capital, on its way to the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang. Dozens of relatives of those on board gathered at a police hospital where body bags were brought for forensic doctors to try to identify victims, including by taking saliva swabs from family members for DNA tests. "I keep praying for a miracle although logically, the plane has sunk in the ocean," said Toni Priyono Adhi, whose daughter was on the flight. "But as a parent, I want a miracle." A Reuters witness on a boat at the crash site saw about 60 divers scattered in inflatable boats over the slightly choppy waters entering the sea, which is about 35 metres (115 feet) deep. Sonar vessels and an underwater drone have also been hunting for the wreckage of the fuselage, where many victims were feared trapped, officials said. The head of a national transport safety panel, Soerjanto Tjahjono, said that underwater "pinger locators", including equipment from Singapore, were being deployed to help find the aircraft's black boxes. The priority is finding the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder to help determine the cause of the disaster, safety experts said. "The visibility is not good as it's very overcast, a special forces officer said. Underwater footage released by the national search and rescue agency showed relatively poor visibility. In all, 35 vessels are helping to search. The focus was initially an area within 5 nautical miles of where the plane lost contact, but that was expanded to 10 nautical miles on Tuesday and will be expanded to 15 on Wednesday, a search and rescue agency officer said. But only debris, personal items, including 52 identification cards and passports, and body parts have been found off the shore of Karawang district, east of Jakarta. Police said human remains were collected in 37 body bags after sweeps of the site, roughly 15 km (nine miles) off the coast. Most of those on board were Indonesian but the airline has said an Italian passenger and Indian pilot were on the plane. EARLIER TECHNICAL PROBLEM? The pilot of flight JT610 had asked to return to base shortly after it took off, at about 6.20 a.m. on Monday. Investigators are trying to determine why the pilot issued the request, which was granted. The deputy of the national transportation safety committee told a news conference the plane had technical problems on its previous flight, from the city of Denpasar on Bali island on Sunday, including an issue over "unreliable airspeed". "We are also asking for information from the last pilot who flew from Denpasar to Jakarta, but we have not met the technician," Haryo Satmiko said, referring to the technician who handled the aircraft after it landed on Sunday. The committee also had a recording of the conversation between the pilot of JT610 before it crashed and the control tower at Jakarta, he said. Transport Minister Budi Karya Sumadi told reporters at Jakarta's dock that the investigation would result in sanctions being handed out, but he did not elaborate. Lion had operated 11 Boeing 737 MAX 8s and a transport ministry official said inspections would be made on all of those models operating in Indonesia though they would not be grounded. On Monday, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing Co said they were providing assistance for the investigation. The accident is the first to be reported involving the widely sold Boeing 737 MAX, an updated, more fuel-efficient version of the manufacturer's workhorse single-aisle jet. Two witnesses described the plane as swaying or rocking as it came down, adding that the nose hit the water first and there was a tall column of smoke afterwards. The aircraft did not make a noise when it came down, they said. "From a long way off, it was already leaning, said Gauk, a fisherman who uses one name. Privately owned Lion Air, founded in 1999, said the aircraft, which had been in operation since August, was airworthy, with its pilot and co-pilot together having amassed 11,000 hours of flying time. Indonesia's worst air disaster was in 1997, when a Garuda Indonesia A300 crashed in the city of Medan, killing 234 people. (Additional reporting by Cindy Silviana, Bernadette Christina Munthe, Agustinus Beo Da Costa, Fergus Jensen, Fransiska Nangoy, Gayatri Suroyo and Fanny Potkin in JAKARTA; Writing by John Chalmers and Ed Davies; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Robert Birsel) Indonesian investigators said they were homing in on the black box from a crashed jetliner after locating its "pings" on Wednesday, two days after the jet crashed shortly after take-off with 189 people on board. Retrieving the black box will be key to unlocking why the Boeing 737-MAX, one of the world's newest and most advanced commercial passenger jets, nosedived into the Java sea so soon after leaving Jakarta. Authorities said they believed they were closing in on the main wreckage and had picked up the box's signals some 30-40 meters (100-130 feet) below the surface of the water off Indonesia's north coast, where the plane crashed Monday. "We've detected the black box signal," Muhammad Syaugi, head of Indonesian search and rescue agency, told reporters in Jakarta. "We could see a lot of passengers' belongings -- lifejackets, pants, clothes -- underwater not just on the surface," he added, saying the debris suggested the main fuselage should be nearby. The black box contains flight data that shows the speed, altitude and direction of the plane, while the cockpit voice recorder keeps track of conversations and other sounds in the cockpit. Dozens of divers were taking part in the 1,000-strong personnel recovery effort along with helicopters and ships, but authorities have all but ruled out finding any survivors. The development comes as Boeing officials were due to meet with Lion Air on Wednesday, after Indonesia ordered an inspection of the US plane maker's 737-MAX jets. Indonesia's transport minister Budi Karya Sumadi took the unusual step of ordering the temporary removal of Lion Air's technical director and several other staff who cleared the flight, citing government authority over the aviation sector. He later stressed that the measure meant to free up the technical director to help with the crash probe. - 'Worst in the world' - Aviation experts say it is too early to determine what caused the accident. Story continues But Lion's admission that the plane had an unspecified technical issue on a previous flight -- as well as the plane's abrupt nosedive just 12 minutes after takeoff -- have raised questions about whether it had any faults specific to the newly released model, including a speed-and-altitude system malfunction. "The bigger picture here is that you've got a lot of American carriers flying the same aircraft," Stephen Wright, aviation expert at the University of Leeds, told AFP. "Is there (a problem) that could affect other aircraft?" The crash has also resurrected concerns about Indonesia's patchy air safety record which led to a now-lifted ban on its planes entering US and European airspace. Lion's co-founder Rusdi Kirana, now Indonesia's ambassador to Malaysia, said in a 2015 interview that "my airline is the worst in the world, but you don't have a choice". Founded in 1999, the budget carrier capitalised on a boom in Indonesia's aviation industry, but has been plagued by safety woes and complaints over unreliable scheduling and poor service. Lion was involved in a number of incidents including a fatal 2004 crash and a collision between two Lion Air planes at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta airport. Indonesia's biggest low-cost carrier announced this year it was buying 50 Boeing-737 MAX 10 jets for $6.24 billion. Boeing suspended release of the fuel-efficient 737 MAX just days before its first commercial delivery last year due to an engine issue. But the single-aisle jet was subsequently cleared for commercial delivery and has had thousands of orders from more than 100 customers worldwide. - 'Dad, I love you every day' - Distraught relatives sifted through clothes, wallets and other retrieved personal effects on a Jakarta dockside, as authorities sent body parts to hospital for DNA testing "He was the best husband in the world," 33-year-old Ningsi Ayorbaba said of her partner Ferdinand Paul Ayorbaba, who was on the flight. "We had planned to celebrate our 15th anniversary in April...Today, I'm bringing in DNA samples." Late Wednesday, forensic analysts said they had made their first confirmed identification -- a 24-year-old female chemical engineering graduate who described herself in an online blog as "energetic and highly motivated". Among the items plucked from the water was a smartphone case with the image of a couple walking hand-in-hand over a bridge. The story went viral online and the pair were later identified as Ine Yunita Savitri and her husband Wahjoe Noegrohantoro, who was on the downed jet. Savitri was not on the plane. On Tuesday, their daughter Samantha posted the image to her Instagram account with the words: "Dad, I love you every day". Indonesia has filed an official protest to Saudi Arabia after it executed an Indonesian maid without notifying its consular staff or her family. Tuti Tursilawati, a mother of one, had been convicted of murdering her employer, who workers rights group Migrant Care said was trying to rape her at the time. Joko Widodo, the Indonesian president, criticised Saudi Arabias action on Wednesday, saying that his government had demanded better protection of Indonesian workers in the country. "We have called Saudi Arabia's foreign minister and conveyed our protest," Mr Widodo was quoted as saying by the office of his cabinet secretary. Tuti Tursilawati, a mother of one, was convicted of murdering her employer Ms Tursilawati, who was convicted in 2011, was executed on Monday in the city of Thaif, marking the fourth such case of Saudi Arabia carrying out the death sentence on an Indonesian migrant worker without prior notice in the past three years. Eighteen more Indonesians remain on death row. The controversy over her death comes at a time when Saudi Arabia continues to face harsh questions over the brutal murder of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its consulate in Istanbul. Indonesias frustration has been heightened by the timing of the execution, which was carried out less than a week after Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, met with his counterpart in Jakarta to discuss migrant workers rights. Indonesia's President Joko Widodo has criticised a Saudi decision to execute an Indonesian maid Credit: Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP During the meeting, Retno Marsudi, the Indonesias foreign minister, stressed the need for mandatory consular notification before any capital punishment of Indonesian citizens. "[The execution] is evidence that Saudi Arabia does not fulfil the terms and conditions pertaining to the protection of domestic workers," Wahyu Susilo, executive director of Migrant Care told Australias ABC news channel. Saudi Arabia remains the worlds biggest destination for Indonesian maids after the government lifted an earlier ban on domestic workers going to the Middle East over reports of torture and abuse. Story continues #Indonesian#migrantworker#TutiTursilawati was executed in #SaudiArabia on Monday (29/10) after being sentenced to death in 2011 for murdering her employer. The Saudi government failed to give any prior notice of the execution, flouting the rules of international diplomacy. pic.twitter.com/4iPxOcLutm The Jakarta Globe (@thejakartaglobe) October 31, 2018 Many Indonesians took to social media to protest Ms Tursilawatis execution. Tuti Tursilawati case again demonstrates the weak protection of human rights in Saudi Arabia, said Fina, an Indonesian student on Twitter. Bring justice for our country, our people! said another protestor. The Saudi ambassador to Indonesia has been summoned by the authorities but the Saudi embassy has not commented publicly. "The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has ignored principles of human rights, including a right for everyone to live," said Abidin Fikri, a member of Indonesia's parliament, told Reuters. James Whitey Bulger, a notorious gangster whose life and crimes in Boston became the focus of several major films, has died in jail. The 89-year-old, who was the leader of South Bostons Winter Hill Gang, was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2013 of a litany of crimes, including participating in 11 murders. He was one of the FBIs most wanted fugitives for 16 years until his 2011 arrest in Santa Monica, California. At approximately 8.20am, inmate James Bulger was found unresponsive, read a brief statement from the Bureau of Prisons. Life-saving measures were initiated immediately by responding staff. Mr Bulger was subsequently pronounced dead by the Preston County medical examiner. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was notified and an investigation has been initiated. He had just been moved again to a prison in West Virginia, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. The Federal Bureau of Prisons online inmate log on Tuesday listed Bulger as an inmate at USP Hazelton, a high-security prison with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in Bruceton Mills. Renowned Boston mobster, Whitey Bulger (AP) Bulger had also recently been moved from a prison in Florida to a transfer facility in Oklahoma City. The Bureau of Prisons officials and his attorney declined last week to comment on why he was being moved. Bulger was an FBI informant who created a national embarrassment for the federal agency after several corrupted agents were reported to have accepted bribes and protected him during his stay in numerous prisons. In a statement through a spokesperson, the US attorney for the Northern District of West Virginia said: The FBI will be conducting an investigation into the death of James Bulger. No other information will be released at this time. Recent films focusing on Bulger included the 2015 movie Black Mass starring Johnny Depp and the Martin Scorseses The Departed in 2006. In October 2016, the US Supreme Court threw out an appeal of Bulgers life sentence and racketeering convictions. Story continues The details surrounding Bulgers death were not immediately clear as of Tuesday afternoon. Numerous reports indicated the gangster was killed in prison. Three sources speaking on the condition of anonymity told the Boston Globe his death may have involved a fellow inmate with Mafia ties, who is currently being investigated for the alleged slaying. Bulger led a largely Irish gang that ran loan-sharking, gambling and drug rackets. As an FBI informant he provided information on the New England Mafia, his gangs main rival, in an era when bringing down organised crime was a top national priority for the FBI. The gangster fled Boston in late 1994 after his FBI handler, John Connolly Jr, warned him he was about to be indicted. With a $2m reward on his head, Bulger became one of the FBIs Ten Most Wanted criminals, with a place just below Osama bin Laden. After more than 16 years on the run, Bulger was captured in Santa Monica, California, where he had been living in an apartment near the beach with his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig. In 2013, he was convicted of 11 murders, as well as extortion, and money-laundering after a sensational racketeering trial that included graphic testimony from three former Bulger cohorts: a hit man, a protege and a partner. Bulger, nicknamed Whitey for his bright platinum hair, grew up in a gritty South Boston housing project and became known as one of the most ruthless gangsters in Boston. His younger brother, William Bulger, became one of the most powerful politicians in Massachusetts, leading the state Senate for 17 years. Additional reporting by AP Scott Walker stood behind a fast-food counter recently, wearing two layers of latex gloves so as not to burn his fingers on the hot hamburger patties. The governor of Wisconsin picked them up, one by one, and set them on the waiting buns, reminiscing as he did so about the time in his youth when he worked the grill at McDonalds. The worst, he recalled, was when a busload of kids would show up 10 minutes before closing. You definitely learn how to respond under pressure, he said. These days, Walker is under pressure of a different sort as he seeks a third term in office. His opponent on the ballot is Democrat Tony Evers, the three-term state superintendent of education, a nonpartisan elected office. But Walker knows his real opponent is the political environmenta climate more hostile to Republicans than any hes faced before. Polls show a close race, with Evers holding a slim lead in polling averages. The wind was at our back in 2010 and 2014; now its in our face, a Walker adviser tells TIME. If you put Daffy Duck on the ballot, Democrats would have a lead going into the fall. Walker is determined not to be outworked. At the restaurant, a local chain called George Webb that was giving away burgers to celebrate the Milwaukee Brewers playoff success, Walker stayed on the burger line in his blue T-shirt for more than an hour. He popped outside to take a picture with a group of fifth graders, then dove back in, even though the local media had already gotten all the photos and B-roll they could possibly need. Walker won three hard-fought elections in five years, and even his opponents credit him with a finely tuned political radar. It started pinging long before many other Republicans recognized the danger they were in. Back in January, a Democrat won a shocking landslide in a special election for a Wisconsin state Senate district that President Trump had carried by 17 percentage points. Walker sounded the alarm: A wake up call for Republicans in Wisconsin, he proclaimed. The trend continued in April, when the Democrats favored candidate easily won a state Supreme Court election, and in June, when another Republican-held Senate seat flipped. At a time when other Republicans were complacent, Walker saw what was coming. We are at risk of a #BlueWave in Wisconsin, he warned. The question was whether he could do anything to stop it. Story continues Walker is one of many endangered Republican governors in this election cycle, and their fate stands to have an enormous impact on the direction of policies that affect peoples lives, from education to health care to roads. The GOP piled up huge state-level gains in recent wave elections and now controls 33 governorships. But of the 36 gubernatorial contests on the ballot this year, 26 are for Republican-held seats. Democrats are either favored or an even bet to flip half of those, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Reports projections. Congressional gridlock will only worsen if Democrats take the House or Senate, but states could see a huge and consequential change of direction as a result of the midterms, including control over redistricting after the 2020 Census. No victory for Democrats would be quite as sweet as defeating Walker. After taking office in 2011, he quickly pushed through a slate of collective-bargaining reforms that gutted public-sector unions power, prompting months of raucous protests and a union-backed special recall election. Walker won the recall and won his reelection in 2014, cementing his reputation as a canny politician, a national conservative celebrity and a favorite of big national donors. Buoyed by that success, Walker ran for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. Despite being an early favorite, he failed to catch fire, and his mild persona was no match for the Trump Show. (Walker eats a ham sandwich for lunch every day, buys his clothes at Kohls, and recently told a group of farmers, The only skeleton in my closet is that my moms a Cubs fan.) He dropped out months before the primaries began and limped back to a state that seemed none too impressed. His approval rating bottomed out in the 30s, and the Republican-led legislature increasingly defied him. Walkers numbers have ticked up since then, but hes struggled at times to come up with an argument for why he deserves a third term. Its a bit of a double bind: If he boasts about all hes accomplished, he looks out of touch with voters dissatisfactions; if he talks about problems he wants to solve, voters wonder why he didnt get around to them in the last eight years. Four former Walker cabinet secretaries have recently endorsed his opponent, who says the state has tired of the governors divisive style. Walkers challenge, he says, is to frame the arc, convincing the electorate that one more sequel will round out the narrative. In the third term, Im asking voters to give me the chance to finish the job, he said. His campaign has tacked toward the center, promising to expand health care and increase education funding. But after years of creating an unassailable brand as a fiscal conservativeslashing government spending, lowering taxes and blasting away at Obamacareits a tough pivot. Walker insists hell never allow insurance companies to reject customers with preexisting conditions. But he signed onto a multi-state lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Acts provision requiring that they do so, and rejected the laws optional expansion of Medicaid. Walker is really moderating: all of a sudden hes for things hes literally suing the federal government over, says Mike Wagner, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin. Its a smart campaign move given the way public opinion in Wisconsin has shifted. But its a tough argument for him to make. Walkers allies grumble that hes a victim of his own success. His aggressive economic policies, they argue, helped turn the state around, bringing unemployment down to just 3% after it spiked during the Great Recession. Now that jobs arent an issue, voters want more government services. Evers is proposing major expansions of health care and education, an agenda Walker warns will require raising taxes, but polls show voters prefer funding government to keeping taxes down. Evers also promises to tackle the states crumbling roads, whose cavernous ruts an independent group has dubbed Scott-Holes in billboards around the state. But Walkers biggest challenge is the local and national backlash to President Donald Trump, who pulled off a narrow surprise win in Wisconsin in 2016 but is now 5 points underwater in the state, with a majority of voters disapproving of his performance. Walker shared the stage with Trump when he campaigned in the rural central part of the state in late October, but he generally avoids talking about Trump, a former rival who once boasted that hed sent [Walker] packing like a little boy in the presidential primary. Its just history, Walker said when I asked him whether Trump was dragging him down. Anytime you have an incumbent President in their first term, any of the members of that Presidents party are going to have a challenge. Rather than criticize Trumps tariffs, which are unpopular in the state, Walker praised Trump for holding out for a provision the states struggling dairy industry sought in recent U.S.-Canada trade talks. Walker said he brought the issue to the Presidents attention, a benefit of their relationship. If we dont have President Trump in office, our dairy farmers would continue to get nailed, he said. Democrats in Wisconsin are energized, with canvassers combing African-American neighborhoods in Milwaukee and grassroots anti-Trump groups rallying suburbanites to the polls. But theyre also wary of the Walker machine, the top-flight GOP operation that helped him prevail in past contests despite high Democratic enthusiasm. The billionaire Koch brothers, early Walker fans, briefly cooled on him over a pricey 2015 stadium deal he backed, but their political organization, Americans for Prosperity, recently announced it would spend $1.8 million on ads for him in the final stretch. Still, there are signs Walkers support network isnt what it once was. After the governor finished serving hamburgers at the restaurant here, I noticed a sign for another tenant of the same strip mall: Americans for Prosperity, with its torch-shaped logo. But when I reached the storefront, it was empty. A For Lease sign hung in the window. The door was locked. ISLAMABAD (AP) Iran's top diplomat is in Pakistan for talks on key issues between the two neighbors, including how to strengthen security along their shared border from where 11 Iranian border guards were abducted earlier this month. Pakistan's foreign ministry says Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif held talks with his counterpart in Islamabad, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, on Wednesday. The statement says they also discussed the situation in Afghanistan and "ways to work together in the wake of the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions on Iran." Tehran has asked Islamabad for assistance in finding and rescuing Iranian guards who were seized from a town bordering Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province. Pakistan has said it will do whatever is possible to trace and rescue them. Iranian media have blamed the abduction on al-Qaida-linked Jaish al-Adl. Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel's army said Tuesday it has opened a military police investigation into the killing of a Palestinian medical volunteer along the Gaza border in June. Razan al-Najjar, 21, was fatally shot on June 1 near the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis during protests and clashes along the border. The Palestinian Medical Relief Society said at the time she was hit "as she was attempting to provide first aid to an injured protester", adding that three other first responders were also hit by live fire on the same day. Israel's army said in the days after her death that its troops did not deliberately shoot her, but the incident was further reviewed by the military advocate general. "A military police investigation has been opened regarding the death of the volunteer medic Razan al-Najjar," the army said in Tuesday's statement, noting the probe was ordered following the advocate general's review. At least 218 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the months of demonstrations and clashes. One Israeli soldier has been killed along the border since the protests began on March 30. Israel says its actions are necessary to defend the border and stop infiltrations and attacks, which it accuses Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip, of seeking to orchestrate. Palestinians and rights groups say protesters have been shot while posing little threat. Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008. South Korea's top court on Tuesday ordered a Japanese steel giant to pay compensation over forced wartime labour, triggering a new row between the two US allies and a denunciation by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. South Korea and Japan are both democracies faced with an increasingly assertive neighbour China and the long-running threat of nuclear-armed Pyongyang. But their own relationship is soured by bitter disputes over history and territory stemming from Japan's brutal 1910-45 colonial rule over the peninsula, with forced labour and wartime sexual slavery key examples. Tuesday's ruling marks the final South Korean chapter in a 21-year legal battle against Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal (NSSM). The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that the firm pay each of four plaintiffs - only one of whom is still alive - 100 million won ($88,000) for being forced to work at its steel mills between 1941 and 1943. The sole surviving claimant, Lee Chun-sik, now in his mid-90s, attended the hearing in a wheelchair and was visibly overcome after the ruling. "I'm just very sad that I am the only one remaining," Lee told reporters, teary-eyed and choking. Two South Koreans initially brought the case to a Japanese court in 1997 seeking damages and unpaid wages for forced labour at steel mills owned by a predecessor company of Nippon Steel. Japanese courts dismissed the case, saying their right to sue had been extinguished by the 1965 treaty which saw Seoul and Tokyo restore diplomatic relations and included a reparations package of about $800 million in grants and cheap loans. But the victims -- along with two others including Lee -- launched a separate action in South Korea in 2005, and in 2012 the Supreme Court in Seoul ruled that the company was liable. Tuesday's decision dismissed NSSM's final appeal over the amount of the award. No further appeal is possible in the South Korean courts. - International court - Story continues Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe criticised the South Korean ruling, saying it was "impossible" under international law and that the issue had been "completely and finally settled" by the 1965 treaty. "The Japanese government will deal firmly with this issue," Abe told lawmakers in Tokyo. Foreign Minister Taro Kono summoned the South Korean ambassador to protest the ruling and warned Tokyo will bring the case to an international court "if appropriate measures are not taken immediately". The ruling "could have a negative impact on the Japan-South Korea relationship", Kono said, adding he hoped Seoul would take action to avoid that. Nippon Steel & Sumimoto Metal called the court decision "deeply regrettable". It will "carefully review" the ruling, it added, "taking into account the Japanese government's responses on this matter and other factors". Authorities in Seoul, who need to tread a line between popular resentment of Japan's past action and diplomatic ties with Tokyo, issued a carefully-worded statement. The government "respected" the court ruling, the prime minister's office said, and was "saddened by the pain the forced labour victims had to endure". "The government hopes to improve South Korea-Japan bilateral relations in a future-oriented manner," it added. According to official Seoul data, around 780,000 Koreans were conscripted into forced labour by Japan during the 35-year occupation, not including the women forced to work in wartime brothels. By Aaron Sheldrick and Osamu Tsukimori TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's resurgent nuclear industry will miss a government target of providing at least a fifth of the country's electricity by 2030, a Reuters analysis shows. With eight reactors running and one more set to come online in November, nuclear has this year overtaken non-hydro renewables in power output for the first time since the 2011 catastrophe, when all of the country's nuclear plants were idled. Yet operators can expect as few as six units to restart in the next five years, and fewer than 20 by 2030, the analysis shows. That is far short of the 30 needed to meet the government target reiterated this year. Based on the analysis, the world's third-largest economy may get about 15 percent of its power from nuclear in 2030, compared with a government target of 20-22 percent. "It's impossible to meet the target, that's pretty much confirmed," said Takeo Kikkawa, an energy studies professor at Tokyo University of Science, who sat on an official panel that reviewed Japan's energy policy this year. He said he did not expect another round of restarts before 2020. One major trading house predicts nuclear will account for 14 percent of power production in 2030, according to a presentation given at a private seminar this year and shown to Reuters. Nuclear remains an unpopular energy option in Japan and the country will reboot only a fraction of the 54 reactors it had before the disaster. Six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi are being dismantled in a decades-long exercise that is fraught with technological challenges and radioactive waste. Operators have decided to decommission another 10 units across the country since Fukushima. The Nuclear Regulation Authority created new safety standards from scratch after the disaster highlighted failings in the industry and its overseers. All reactors must be relicensed before restarting. Yet Japan's nuclear industry, which before Fukushima operated the world's third-largest number of reactors and provided about 30 percent of the country's electricity, has staged a significant recovery. The turnaround has exceeded expectations of analysts and the utilities themselves. Kansai Electric Power and Kyushu Electric Power, for instance, have won approval to restart or are on course to win approval for all the reactors they applied to relicense. Those units are far from Tokyo and are pressurized water reactors (PWR), unlike the boiling water reactor (BWR) designs favored in eastern Japan, including those that melted down at Fukushima. Many court cases are pending for reactors in the east of the country. Local political support varies, and the regulator is locked in disputes with operators over earthquake risk assessment. The older BWR technology used in many of the reactors under review is also an issue because the stigma of Fukushima hangs over them. "When you come to the BWRs, the issue becomes very politicized," said Nobuo Tanaka, the chairman of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation who was the head of the International Energy Agency between 2007 and 2011 after a stint in Japan's industry ministry. The reputation of Tepco, which operates two nuclear plants that have been damaged in natural disasters, also looms large, Tanaka said. "Tepco does not have any support as a nuclear operator," he said. The utility has to be removed from the equation before progress on BWR reactors can be made, he said. Tepco has reached the first stage of approval, but faces strong opposition from local residents. But Japan's utility lobby group said progress was being made. "The safety reviews of PWR plants took time but they have been progressing steadily and there have been some developments in the BWR category as well," Satoru Katsuno, the chairman of Japan's federation of electric utilities and president of Chubu Electric, said of the outlook for restart approvals. Chubu Electric has been locked in a dispute for years with the regulator over disaster resilience measures at its Hamaoka plant, which uses BWR reactors. The analysis suggests that Japan will rely on fossil fuels, particularly liquefied natural gas and coal, as the pace of renewables expansion slows. That will make it harder to meet its emissions targets under international agreement. The government estimates costs for replacement fuel mostly liquefied natural gas - to compensate for idled reactors totaled 14.6 trillion yen ($130 billion) across the industry in the six years through March. The lack of realistic energy targets makes it harder for the industry to plan for investment, utility officials say. And the issue of disaster resilience is not going away: a big earthquake struck the northern island of Hokkaido in September and left a nuclear plant reliant on backup generators. (Reporting by Aaron Sheldrick and Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Gerry Doyle) Can you spot me? Told ya we wore bright clothes to stand out. Im in the hot pink. The adult. Not the child. (Getty Images) By Rachel Steinbauer Editors note: The team at Yahoo Canada met Kiwi royal fan Rachel via our all-royals podcast, Make It Reign. Earlier this week, she sent us this photo of the Duchess of Sussex via Twitter. We needed details! The following is her up-close-and-personal account of the Sussexes stop in Wellington, New Zealand. *** So, I have to set the scene here. Im like a normal, sane (OK, slightly cooler than average) 40-something-year old woman. I have a lovely husband, two kids, loads of friends and a good job. But I have a secret. I am a huge fan of all things royal. Like, massive. Well, not all things royal, mainly the fab four and the Queen and all the little kids, oh! And that really hot Swedish Prince, Carl Phillip. Google him (but thats a whole other story). When I heard from Kensington Palace via a tweet that Harry and Meghan were headed down under to tour Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand, planning went into overdrive. Days off work were arranged, and my sister, Melissa and friend, Jo, were ready and waiting to be my accomplices. We are all huge fans of the royals and have a message group set up especially to discuss the important matters what Kate wore, what Meghan wore, do they like each other and when will we next see Baby Louis?! (For goodness sake, a six month photo wouldnt go amiss!?) And we still love Princess Diana. We were living in London when she died, and last year of the 20th anniversary of her death, we had a high tea with all our ex London friends to remember her. We got out all our scrapbooks and books from when we were kids and drank a lot of champagne. This is the level of dedication, people. Princess Diana-themed cupcakes at our memorial tea. All photos courtesy Courtesy Rachel Steinbauer So to hear Harry and his freshly minted gorgeous wife was coming to town was beyond exciting. This is what its like to keep up with the Sussexes for a whirlwind 24 hours. Sunday, Oct. 28 12 p.m. Wardrobe planning: Now Wellington, New Zealand, is an amazing city to live in. Its known as the coolest little capital in the world and often voted one of the best cities to live. Its also well known for its indecisive weather it can be super windy and has very patchy weather, especially at this time of year, but you cant beat it on a good day (you can Google that too). It has the best coffee youll find anywhere, great craft beer, Lord of the Rings was made here and everyone wears black. Its like the city is full of people terrified to wear colour. So the first part of the planning was wearing the brightest colours we could find to stand out in the crowd. Tick. Story continues 2 p.m. Celebratory drink and important floral choices: Well we couldnt let Meg and Haz come to town and not celebrate with a glass of champagne, right? Just one thing to keep in mind: were not amateurs here you cant be in the middle of a stakeout with a full bladder. Nil liquid by mouth after 2.30 p.m.! Jo popped across the road to the market after a big discussion around what colour flowers we needed. Yellow was decided. Perfect for our bright theme yellow flowers, my hot pink and navy ensemble, Jos navy blue and emerald green and Mels teal top and plum jacket. Like little bright jewels in sea of black and washed out grey. ALSO SEE: Meghan Markle dresses down for rainy day in New Zealand 2:30 p.m. Finding the right walkabout spot: OK, this was a bit stressful. We got down to the square, Harry and Meghan were due to arrive at 4:45 p.m. The crowd was building and the front railing spaces all seemed taken. But we were not mucking around, we are professionals! We spotted a space big enough for one person so claimed it, and slowly but surely wedged all three of us in. Most people were still sitting and everyone was chatting and very excited. The lovely girls next to us had been there since midday and talked to security we were right where their car was due to pull up. Wed be able to see them get out and greet the dignitaries but there was a mixed opinion as to whether wed get to be in the walkabout. The security guard had said only if there is time. We did a quick survey of the other side where the walkabout was going to start, but it was already getting a few people deep, so we decided to take the chance. 3:30 p.m. Just over an hour til they arrive: The crowd continued to grow and the atmosphere was humming. People were starting to bank up behind us, and we could sense they wanted to wedge into our spot but sorry haters, no chance. We were still sitting but they were standing. Some dude in an orange jacket said excuse me, can I go there? pointing to the prime spot at the front of the railing where our feet and handbags were. We threw our heads back and laughed in a hysterical ARE YOU ACTUALLY SERIOUS?! kind of way, and he backed off. 4:15 p.m. Dignitaries and media arrive: The crowd started getting very excited when some fancy cars pulled up. Literally no one in Wellington has ever been excited to see the mayor before, but he got a big whoop when he turned up (but not from me, Im still mad hes made us pay for parking in the city on the weekends). The British high commissioner arrived looking A.MAZ.ING in a bright blue dress. We see she got our memo on colour. She got a loud whoop too. It was time to stand up and claim our front row position. Orange jacket guy was at least two layers back by now. The media buses turned up and the crowd knew things were close, because they had all been covering the government house welcoming and were now setting up position on the media stand. Now, because I take my royal fan duties seriously, I follow many of the British royal reporters on Twitter so knew lots of the faces. They were even more surprised when we started calling out their names and got a few of them to stop by. The crowd around us went quiet as they tried to earwig on the conversations we were having #SuddenlyTheCoolestPeopleInTheCrowd 4: 45 p.m. The arrival of the Sussexes: The crowds had been steadily growing over the last few hours and at this point it was well over a thousand people. We were 10 deep and everyone was excited. The weather had decided to play ball and the sun was out! The mood was super buzzy and we all had that butterfly feeling in our tummies where you know something amazing is going to happen and you want it to hurry up but you dont want it to end? That feeling. Then the royal convoy rounded the corner. The crowd started going hysterical! They pulled up and then a MASSIVE black van pulled up in front of us totally obstructing our view. Whaaaaaaat?! Oh boy, talk about 2,000 people being outraged all at once. We started chanting Move the van, move the van (not very original and totally ineffective as it turns out, these security people were not frightened of us). Meanwhile, Haz and Megs were greeting the officials and started moving up the stairs hooray! We could see them up the stairs! They were teeny tiny and far away but we could see them! And they were holding hands! Just the cutest. And Meghan was wearing a trench coat designed by a local designer, Karen Walker! We love Karen Walker! We wear Karen Walker! Meghans just like us! Phones were out on their strongest zooms and we were all taking grainy blurry photos of the two. There was a lot of oohing and ahhing. ALSO SEE: An etiquette expert says this habit of Meghan Markles is unprofessional 5:05 p.m. The walkabout: With the official wreath-laying complete, which looked all very lovely when we re-watched on Twitter later, the beautiful people took off on their walkabout. Roars were heard from across the square as they reached new areas. We were all so happy for them, because were very mature adults, but secretly we knew Harry and Meghan would like us so much more so we started yelling at security guards to get them to come around here, pleeeeassse. As the roars got closer we started getting our hopes up. A Kensington Palace official and New Zealand government official appeared and we started leaning over the barrier. Bring them over hereeeeee! we yelled. We waved our flowers. We have flowers!! (like, no one else had ever given them flowers, ever). When they singled out a lady with a dog and two little kids and got them across the barrier right in front of us, we knew we were in. A wild Harry spotted in the crowd. Classic Kiwi gift. Harry rounded the corner and it was all on. Utter hysteria! He stood chatting to a group and someone in the crowd tossed a knitted buzzy bee at him (New Zealand gave his mum and dad a wooden buzzy bee when they visited in 1983 with baby William, so now its like the iconic kiwi baby gift to give). He caught it and gave a thumbs up. Then she appeared. OMG. We were all yelling and those yellow flowers were getting thrust out and waggled around. Then it happened. Meghan was in front of me, shaking my hand. My best friend Meghan and our flowers. This woman is beyond gorgeous. Like, I didnt think she could take a bad picture but those pictures do not do her justice. She is luminous. Her eyes are brown with amber flecks and her skin is perfect with her cute little freckles showing through. Talk about star quality. Teeth? Beautiful. Smile? Full and genuine. And when she shakes your hand she looks you in the eye and you know you are forever best friends now. She had the most gorgeous citrine and diamond drop earrings on that were glinting in the sun and we got a close up, real life look at that stunning engagement ring. ALSO SEE: Meghan Markle just comforted a crying fan in New Zealand So beautiful. I was like I love your cookbook, Jo was saying ooooh, congratulations on your pregnancy! Meghan said, oh thank you, thank you very much. Melissa meanwhile, who has had a bad cold, shook her hand and said oh please sanitize your hands Meghan, Ive got a bad cold. Sigh. Theres always one. She took our flowers and looked at us like they were the best thing shed ever seen. But I guess we are besties now and thats how we look at each other. She was just so happy to see us. They stopped to chat with the lady and her dog and the two cute little girls for a few minutes and then they were off. It all happened so quickly, but no one really wanted to leave. The Markle fairy dust had been sprinkled on us and we just wanted to relive the moment. Monday, Oct. 29: 9 a.m. Maranui Cafe, Lyall Bay event 2: After a champagne debrief and a bad sleep (too excited to sleep properly) Jo and I headed to Lyall Bay for a last glimpse of Meghan and Harry. It was so strange to think they were going to a cafe that we had been in so often since our school days. I bet those floors had been washed, the windows sure had. There wasnt going to be a walkabout but there was still a decent crowd and a great excited buzz in the air. The media were in place and Jo had arrived early to get a good spot. 10 a.m. The second coming: The convoy arrived Meghan and Harry leapt out and the crowd went crazy. A quick hand-in-hand stroll along to the cafe, a few waves and then inside for a chat with the young kids working in mental health (awesome cause, fantastic to see their support of it). They reappeared and had a quick chat with some young kids from a local school who had lined up to talk to them. Meghan popped back to the cafe to ask for the treats they hadnt eaten to be given to them afterwards. So sweet! 10:45 a.m. The departure: And then they were off, back in the car and a few more waves to the crowds through the blackened windows. Jo and I headed off to a cafe down the road for some brunch and a debrief because keeping up with the Sussexes is hungry work. The cafe backs onto the airport, and lo and behold we spot my BFF running across the tarmac with her gorgeous ginger husband and onto a helicopter! Off to the next engagement. BYEEEEEEE MEGHAN, BYEEEEEEE HARRY!!! PLEASE COME BACK AGAIN SOON!!! Let us know what you think by commenting below and tweeting @YahooStyleCA! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Check out Yahoo Canadas podcast, Make It Reign our hot takes on all things royals in a non-stuffy way on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. NILTEPEC, Mexico (AP) The Latest on the caravan of migrants moving across southern Mexico (all times local): 11:05 a.m. More than 1,000 migrants in a second caravan that forced its way across the river from Guatemala have now begun arriving in the southern Mexico city of Tapachula. The first contingents began arriving to camp out in Tapachula's main plaza on Tuesday. Fifty-four-year-old Gerbert Hinestrosa of Santa Barbara in Honduras is traveling with his wife and teenage son. He says he realizes how hard it will be to make it to the U.S. border. He says that: "Right now I feel good." And he adds: "We have barely started, but I think it is going to be very difficult." The first, larger caravan also passed through Tapachula about 10 days ago, and now is about 250 miles (400 kilometers) ahead, in the Oaxaca state city of Juchitan. ___ 9:45 a.m. A caravan of thousands of migrants is continuing its slow advance, setting off through Mexico's narrow, windy isthmus for the Oaxaca state city of Juchitan, which was devastated by an earthquake in September last year. Migrants along the highway on Tuesday have been stuffing themselves into truck beds and sprinting alongside semi-trailer rigs, trying to grab hold and pull themselves up. Twenty-three-year-old Levin Guillen of Corinto in Honduras said he's been getting threats from the same people who killed his father 18 years ago, and he hopes to reach an aunt who lives in Los Angeles. The farmer says he wants a chance to work and live in peace. In his words, "We just want to a way to get to our final goal, which is the border." When told that U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered 5,200 troops to the border, he replied: "According to what they say, we are not going to be very welcome at the border, but we're going to try." PITTSBURGH (AP) The Latest on the funerals of the victims of the massacre at the synagogue in Pittsburgh (all times local): 2 p.m. The suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre has been indicted by a federal grand jury. The indictment, which was expected, was announced Wednesday. It charges Robert Bowers with 44 counts, including hate crimes. Federal prosecutors have previously indicated they plan to seek the death penalty. U.S. Attorney Scott Brady says "today begins the process of seeking justice for the victims of these hateful acts." Authorities say Bowers opened fire in the Tree of Life synagogue on Saturday, killing 11 and wounding six, including four police officers. Bowers is jailed without bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Thursday. The funerals for the victims began Tuesday and are continuing through the rest of the week. ___ 12:30 p.m. Leaders of a private Jewish academy in Squirrel Hill, near Saturday's massacre, are keeping close watch on their students as they try to process the anti-Semitic attack that left 11 people dead. The approximately 40 high schoolers at the Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh attended Wednesday's funeral for Joyce Fienberg, whose niece used to teach at their school. Many school families were gathered for a bar mitzvah Saturday at their synagogue, Shaare Torah, listening to sirens screaming by outside. The bar mitzvah went on, as Rabbi Daniel Wasserman gave updates as he learned them, according to Oren Levy, vice principal for lower grades. They locked in place as no one yet knew if the shooting was part of a broader, coordinated attack on Jews. "You could hear siren after siren," said school CEO Dan Kraut. ___ 11:30 a.m. Some encouraging news about the conditions of two of the wounded in Saturday's synagogue massacre: The chairman of emergency medicine at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center says a police officer and community member remain in intensive care but "are doing much better now." Story continues Dr. Donald Yealy says they no longer require breathing assistance or medications to support their blood pressure. Yealy didn't identify the two patients. But the officer in intensive care has been identified as Timothy Matson, who suffered multiple gunshot wounds. The hospital says the officer is in stable condition. Eleven people were killed and six were wounded in the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue. ___ 10:10 a.m. Several hundred people have gathered in the main sanctuary at Congregation Beth Shalom in Pittsburgh for the 10 a.m. services for Joyce Fienberg, the first of the second day of funerals from the synagogue massacre. Services for Mel Wax and Irving Younger are also scheduled for Wednesday. They are among the 11 people who were killed by a gunman at the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday in the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. ___ 10 a.m. President Donald Trump says he and his wife, Melania, "were treated very nicely" Tuesday in Pittsburgh, where they were paying their respects days after the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. Trump tweets: "The Office of the President was shown great respect on a very sad and solemn day. We were treaty so warmly." He adds: "Small protest was not seen by us, staged far away." A small group of protesters was within earshot of Trump as he visited a memorial outside of the Tree of Life synagogue where 11 people were killed Saturday, and hundreds more were kept blocks away by police. The demonstrators chanted "words matter" and "Trump, go home!" amid charges from some that the president has at times been slow to condemn extremists. Some community leaders had asked Trump not to make the trip. ___ 3 a.m. As thousands in Pittsburgh's Jewish community began burying their dead President Donald Trump encountered hundreds of protesters when he arrived to pay his respects. Funerals were held Tuesday for Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, Daniel Stein and Cecil and David Rosenthal who were among 11 people killed in the shooting rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday. Thousands of mourners jammed a synagogue, a Jewish community center and a third, undisclosed site for the first in a weeklong series of funerals for victims of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. Funerals for the other victims have been scheduled through Friday. Trump, meanwhile, arrived to shouting, chanting protesters with signs such as "It's your fault" and "Words matter," a reference to allegations his bellicose language has emboldened bigots. A man who was supposed to be on the Lion Air jet that crashed on Monday morning, reportedly killing all 189 people on board, didn't catch the ill-fated flight because of traffic in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital. Sony Setiawan, an employee at Indonesia's Ministry of Finance, told Agence France-Press (AFP) that he and his colleagues take Flight JT 610 from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang, Indonesia, every week for work. However, Setiawan said he ended up stuck in such severe traffic on Monday that he arrived at the airport as the Boeing-737 was taking off with 20 of his coworkers on board. "I usually take JT 610 my friends and I always take this plane," Setiawan told the outlet. "I dont know why the traffic at the toll road was so bad. I usually arrive in Jakarta at 3 a.m. but this morning I arrived at the airport at 6:20 and I missed the flight." Setiawan told AFP that he cried the first time he learned about the tragic accident, which wasn't until he landed in Pangkal Pinang on another flight. "I know my friends were on that flight," he told the outlet. "My family was in shock and my mother cried, but I told them I was safe, so I just have to be grateful." Photos from the scene: Flight JT 610 crashed into the Java Sea about 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee reported that there were 178 adult passengers, one child, two infants, two pilots and six cabin crew on board. No one is predicted to have survived the wreck "based on body parts found so far," according to search and rescue agency operational director Bambang Suryo Aji. Following the deadly crash, accounts began to emerge of serious issues that occurred during the doomed jet's previous flight, including rapid descents that terrified passengers. Passenger Alon Soetanto told TVOne that during his Lion Air flight from Bali, Indonesia, to Jakarta on Sunday, the plane suddenly dropped several times in the first few minutes of the flight. "We felt like in a roller coaster," he told the station. "Some passengers began to panic and vomit." Meghan Markle wears a limited colour palette. [Photo: Getty] There is no doubt Meghan Markle, 37, has mastered royal style, but youve likely noticed she sticks to a very select colour palette. The Duchess of Sussex wore more than 30 different outfits during her 16-day royal tour of Australia, New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji, which ended today. She opted for mostly forest greens, navy blues, tans, blacks, whites and creams. Meghans muted colour choices form a stark contrast with her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Cambridge, also known as Kate Middleton, who has been pictured in almost every colour during her time in the public eye, most recently favouring brighter colours like the bright pink Alexander McQueen dress she wore for Princess Eugenies wedding to Jack Brooksbank. Whats more, Meghans royal outfits are a world away from the colours she wore during her time in the Hollywood limelight as a star of US legal drama Suits: jewel-coloured outfits in magenta, orange and purple. Kate Middleton wearing a magenta dress at Princess Eugenies wedding. [Photo: Getty] Its possible Meghan might just grown particularly fond of certain colours over the past year but, knowing all the scrutiny royals are under in the public eye, its likely theres more to it; that the former actress colour choices are more strategic than shes given credit for. Were all familiar with the concept of dressing for the part, but what is it about khaki, navy and black that appeals to Meghan, who is still in the first year of her royal role? According to personal stylist Keren Beaumont, dressing in certain colours has become a hugely important tool for the Duchess over the past year. Meghan Markle at the GQ Awards in 2012 long before she was a royal. [Photo: Getty] Meghan has employed colour to support her transition from an American television celebrity to a royal, Beaumont tells Yahoo UK. Meghan wears demure and understated colours which are often associated with a corporate environment. These are colours worn by someone who wants to be taken seriously and to build a credible and respectable image. This is more of a challenge for Meghan compared to Kate, Beaumont explains, because Meghan had already built up a different public image elsewhere. Story continues Kate wasnt particularly known by the media before she became a royal, so she started with a blank slate. However, Meghan is under more pressure than most people coming into a royal family, because she had to metamorphosise her image in the public eye. Another likely reason for the difference between the two Duchess wardrobes is their very different colouring. Meghans skin tone is very warm with yellow undertones so the tans, beiges and warm navys that she so often wears look great on her, explains Beaumont. Her hair and eye colour is deep which allows her to carry off deeper shades in winter, like dark greens and burgundy. Meanwhile, Kate has a cool complexion with blue undertones, which suits the brighter pastel shades of lilac and baby blue the Duchess of Cambridge is often seen wearing. We cant even imagine the pressure of dressing for a royal engagement, and frankly, Meghan is doing a great job so if dressing for the part is something she finds helpful, then we applaud it. After all, we all have to fake it to make it once in a while and, apparently, Meghan is no different. Then again, certain moments during the royal tour which proved Meghan isnt afraid to break out of her shell once in a while, for instance, with the Figue pink pom pom dress she wore in Tonga, or that dreamy Oscar de la Renta gown in Sydney. Will we see more of this as she gains confidence in her royal role? We hope so! Click below to see every look Meghan Markle wore during her royal tour. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for non-stop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyleUK. Read more from Yahoo Style UK: Meghan Markle wears another bespoke Givenchy sweater worth 670 The internet falls in love with Meghan Markles tulle Oscar de la Renta gown The internet defends Meghan Markle after wardrobe malfunction I feel for her Berlin (AFP) - Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday pledged a billion euros to incite businesses to invest in Africa, as she urged the private sector to take a closer look at the continent's "huge" economic opportunities. The creation of the fund, announced during an investment forum in Berlin, is aimed at getting small and medium-sized companies to grow their presence in Africa. Germany has been seeking to help boost economic development in Africa, as it hopes that better work prospects and living standards on the continent would help curb illegal migration to Europe. For Merkel, economic development requires not just government support but also private investment. "This is modern development policy," she told the forum. The new fund would go towards offering loan and equity financing to European and German SMEs seeking to invest in Africa, equity financing for African SMEs as well as the establishment of a network offering advice to potential investors. Stressing Africa's "huge potential for growth", Merkel noted that "for many years we have been very focused on Asia. I think that in future we should turn our sights more on Africa." The gathering, attended by leaders from around a dozen African countries, is part of Merkel's so-called "Compact with Africa" initiative launched last year during Germany's stint as G20 president. The ambitious scheme aims to help African countries attract private investment along with technical and financial assistance, in return for reforms that improve the business climate, such as fighting corruption or improving the rule of law. "It is of great interest to Europeans that African states have good economic prospects," Merkel told the audience, which included Rwandan President Paul Kagame and South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa. - 'Not aimed at poorest' - Merkel has placed a strong emphasis on African diplomacy in recent months, backing efforts to boost prosperity on the continent in order to dissuade its people, especially the young, from setting off for Europe. Story continues The veteran chancellor has come under intense pressure at home to stem the flow of migrants after the arrival of more than a million asylum seekers since 2015 deeply polarised Germany. Most of the migrants came from conflict-torn Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq but many thousands also arrived from impoverished African countries -- even though their chances of winning political asylum are slim. Addressing the conference, Rwandan leader Kagame welcomed investments by the likes of Volkswagen and Siemens in his country, which he said had spurred interest from other foreign companies as well. Ghana, Tunisia and Ivory Coast have together already received 365 million euros ($414 million) in financial assistance under the "Compact with Africa" initiative, mainly in the form of low-interest loans. Critics however complain that the project is not aimed at helping Africa's poorest nations, focusing instead on countries whose living standards are already improving -- and are a more interesting destination for export champions like Germany. Der Spiegel weekly also slammed the conference for putting business above politics by inviting autocratic leaders such as Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi "who has thrown thousands of regime critics in jail and suppressed civil society". MEXICO CITY (AP) Mexico City residents bought garbage cans and plastic tanks to store water for a four-day cutoff of service that started Wednesday to allow maintenance on a pumping system that supplies about 30 percent of the capital's needs. The metropolis of 9 million has a centuries-long history of water crises; the city is sinking because of excessive ground-water extraction, and it is also prone to severe floods in storm season because the high mountain valley has no natural outlet for rain water. The cutoff affects millions of people not only in the capital itself but in the densely populated suburbs around it. Authorities on Wednesday shut off pumps to the Cutzamala system that brings in river water from surrounding states so they can hook up new pipes. The system may not be fully back on line until Monday or Tuesday. The city government recommended residents put off using washing machines and take sponge-baths instead of showers. Washing cars or watering plants with hoses is already prohibited. The city gets 70 percent of its water from local wells and other sources, but pressure is always low, pipes are leaky and water is short even on the best days. The city's downtown districts face a total shut off, and while many residents have underground water tanks, restaurants, bars and office buildings probably can only store a day or two's supply. The cutoff prompted officials to close most schools on Wednesday and Thursday, ahead of the usual Day of the Dead break on Friday. The city has hired 1,000 water tank trucks to make deliveries, and placed surface water tanks in some neighborhoods. The city has put off implementing two costly solutions to the long-term water shortage: repairing old, leaky water mains that lose as much as 40 percent of the supply, and capturing seasonally abundant rain water for use or to recharge aquifers. With one week left until the crucial midterm elections, millions of Americans have already cast their ballots during early voting as others prepare to flock to the polls on Election Day. November could see the highest turnout across the United States in recent midterm history, with battleground states seeing an unprecedented surge in voter registration and early voting. Democrats have sought to flip dozens of House and US Senate seats currently held by the Republican majority as a blue wave of first-time, minority and female candidates threaten the GOPs control of Congress. Check out what that battle looks like, along with some of the most important races and issues nationwide, with the help of The Independents midterms infographics below. Fight for the House The battle for the US House, 2018 (The Independent) Either party requires 218 congressional seats in order to possess control of the House, and at this point it could very well be anyones guess as to whether Democrats or Republicans come out as victors. The latest generic ballot polling reflected a surge in support for Democratic candidates, with 57 per cent of likely voters saying they will support Democrats while just 40 per cent of respondents said they favoured Republicans. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report shows at least 38 seats in the House under Republican incumbency as being in a state of toss-up, compared to just three Democratic seats. Fight for the Senate US Midterms Battle for Senate, 2018 (The Independent) In the US Senate, either party needs just 51 seats to hold a majority and, thus, power. It appears far more likely the Democratic Party could take back the House, while failing to garner the seats needed to take over the US Senate as well but its still a possibility. 14 seats in play are currently leaning solidly Democratic, according to the Cook Political Report, while another seven lean Democratic and five are considered Democratic toss ups. Republicans hold just three of the solid seats in the upcoming election, with three leaning Republican and another three considered Republican toss-ups. Story continues Will Texas stay red? The district breakdown for the Texas House race (The Independent) In order for Democrats to have a shot at gaining power in either the House or US Senate, theyll need to win in states that have seemingly become battleground regions in this election, like Texas. The Lone Star state has a slate of unique Democratic candidates vying for statewide office where a Democrat hasnt been elected in three decades. The latest polls show Democratic US Senate Candidate Beto ORourke within spitting distance of unseating Republican incumbent Ted Cruz, and the same goes for congressional candidate Gina Ortiz Jones, who would become the first out lesbian, Filipina and Iraq war veteran from Texas to serve in Congress if elected. The region is a vast Republican stronghold in recent decades, but that slate of candidates stands to double the Democratic Partys representation in Congress across the state. Is California becoming even more blue? The district breakdown for the California House races (The Independent) Meanwhile, Democrats in California are seeking to expand their control across the state. Progressive candidate Ammar Campa-Najar threatens to unseat Duncan Hurd, a Republican incumbent who, along with his wife, was indicted this summer for making illegal personal-use payments through a campaign account. The Democrats are projected to win 41 of the 53 total districts across the state, with Republicans expected to lose six of their seats and wind up with just eight. Meanwhile, four seats are considered toss-ups. Health care is driving voters to the polls A map of the USA showing the percentage of people without health insurance (The Independent) Texas and other regions may see a historic surge in the polls due to issues like health care, in which the Lone Star state is the uninsured capital of the United States. Whereas the nation averages just 8.7 per cent of people lacking coverage, Texas boasts 17.3 per cent of residents without insurance with as many as 25 per cent of residents lacking insurance in border towns, where communities are generally lower-income. Meanwhile, an analysis of uninsured rates across the country show the regions with the least insured residents have been Republican strongholds for decades. Oklahoma and Alaska follow Texas as the least uninsured states nationwide, with 14.2 and 13.7 per cent of resident lacking insurance according to the most recent data provided by the US Census Bureau. Early voting among young people in key US midterm battleground states has surged dramatically, the latest data shows, suggesting a potential jump in enthusiasm for Democratic candidates. With six days to go until election day, Texas and Georgia, two traditionally Republican-leaning states, have increased their early vote rate among 18-29 year-olds by nearly five times or more compared to 2014. Americas early voting system allows voters to cast their ballot early, either via postal voting or at designated polling stations, in a bid to increase participation and relieve congestion on election day. In Texas, young voter turnout is currently up 508 per cent, while African-American and Hispanic both traditionally Democratic constituencies vote rates have more than doubled. It comes amid a fierce senate contest between incumbent Republican Ted Cruz, a prominent Trump-supporter, and Beto ORourke, a Democratic candidate tipped by some as a future presidential candidate. Elliott Morris, an elections specialist at The Economist, noted turnout thus far in Texas 15 biggest counties had surpassed total early voting turnouts in 2014. Can't overstate how crazy this level of engagement is for a midterm, he said on Twitter. A national poll, released on Monday by the Institute of Politics at Harvards Kennedy School of Government, found 40 per cent of 18-29 year-olds plan to "definitely vote" double the 2014 figure while 66 per cent of young respondents said they would vote Democrat. Georgia, a state facing voter suppression claims, has similarly seen 19-28 voter turnout up 476 per cent, African-American early voting up 165 per cent, and Hispanic turnout up a massive 571 per cent, according to data provided by TargetSmart. The numbers also reveal early voting in Texas and Georgia among the over 65s and white people, two traditional Republican blocs, is significantly up, though not as dramatically as young people. Story continues While the numbers suggest a surge in early voting enthusiasm especially among young people and ethnic minorities the data does not reveal how these groups are voting, or even what the final vote count will be. It is possible a significant number of people who would always have voted are casting their ballot earlier than in previous years, rather than the rise being down to citizens who failed to vote in 2014. Nonetheless, the surge in young early voters will be seen as a boon to Democratic candidates battling their Republican counterparts and a president in Donald Trump who has attempted to cast the 6 November elections as a referendum on his performance. In Pennsylvania, Nevada, Florida and Arizona all traditional battleground states young voting so far has at least doubled, and in the case of Pennsylvania, is up four-fold. The four states have also all seen rises in the African-America vote, as well as Caucasian votes and the over 65s. Oldenburg (Germany) (AFP) - German nurse Niels Hoegel, already serving a prison sentence over the deaths of six patients in his care, went on trial from Tuesday for killing another 100 people. Here's what you need to know about this extraordinary criminal case. - The accused - Born December 30, 1976, in the North Sea coastal town of Wilhelmshaven, Hoegel became a nurse, like his father, at the age of 19. In 1999 he took a job at the main hospital in Oldenburg and transferred to a facility in neighbouring Delmenhorst in 2003. Former colleagues described him as diligent and likeable but began to take notice of a "troubling" number of deaths in the intensive care unit on his watch. Between 2000 and 2005, he allegedly administered medical overdoses to his victims, intentionally, so he could bring them back to life at the last moment. He was rarely successful and in 2005 was caught in the act. Psychiatrists who have evaluated Hoegel, the father of an adolescent daughter, say he has a severe narcissistic disorder. They believe he was motivated by vanity, wanting to show off his skills and that he also acted out of "boredom". Hoegel himself said he craved "the positive feedback" he got for saving a life and used painkillers to deal with "the stress" of the job. - The victims - Before taking the stand on Tuesday, Hoegel had only acknowledged around 30 murders, all of them committed in Delmenhorst. But he surprised the court on the first day of his trial by admitting to all 100 murders he is charged with, at the Delmenhorst and Oldenburg hospitals. Hoegel said he had kept quiet "out of shame" and because it had taken him a long time to realise the full scope of what he had done. Investigators believe the actual toll could top 200, though the true number may never be known because several presumed victims' bodies were cremated before they could be autopsied. "I cannot imagine that he remembers each of the people (he killed)," said Petra Klein, who runs the crime victims' support group Weisser Ring in Oldenburg. Story continues - Hospitals' culpability? - The hospital in Oldenburg encouraged Hoegel to resign in late 2002, even offering him a glowing professional recommendation to ensure his departure. Hoegel said his superior never explicitly said why they wanted him gone but that the request to leave made him feel as though he "had been caught". Despite suspicion about the mounting deaths on Hoegel's watch, the hospital did not open an investigation. "Without the mistakes of some people in Oldenburg... this series of murders by Niels Hoegel could have been stopped," said Christian Marbach, whose grandfather was one of the victims in Delmenhorst. Colleagues and superiors at the two clinics will be asked to testify in the current trial. - Damning figures - A police file based on statistics provided by the Delmenhorst hospital shows that between 2003 and 2004 the death rate was twice as high as in previous years. During the same period, the use of medication for cardiac ailments soared. And in most cases when a patient died, Hoegel was on duty. The figures paint a damning picture but prosecutors only took action in 2008, ordering the exhumation of eight bodies under pressure from relatives of alleged victims. The popular imagination of the Neanderthal is of a hunched, brutish creature - kolvenbach / Alamy The popular image of a Neanderthal is that of a hunched ape-like creature with its knuckles scraping through the dirt. New research, however, reveals they stood more upright than modern humans. The first scientific comparison between current day homosapiens and neanderthals shows mankinds ancient cousin had a straighter spine and stronger lungs. Based on the most complete skeleton unearthed to date, it conjures a radically different image to the stooped and barrel chested character of myth. The new research also adds to growing evidence the mysterious species was far more sophisticated than previously assumed and may finally reveal why it died off. Unlike humans, the ribs connected to the spine in an inward direction - forcing the chest out. This made them tilt slightly backwards, with little of the forward curvature of the lower or 'lumbar' vertebral column that is unique to humans. Anthropologist Dr Markus Bastir, of the National Museum of Natural History, Madrid, said: "The differences between a Neanderthal and modern human thorax are striking." The thorax includes the rib cage and upper spine which forms a cavity to house the heart and lungs. Lead author Dr Asier Gomez-Olivencia, a palaeontologist the University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, said: "The Neanderthal spine is located more inside the thorax, which provides more stability. Also, the thorax is wider in its lower part." This shape of the rib cage suggests a larger diaphragm and therefore greater lung capacity. The 'Kebara 2' skeleton, as it was found in in Northern Israel's Carmel mountain range Credit: Madrid Scientific Film/SWNS.COM Senior author Dr Ella Been, of Ono Academic College, Israel, said: "The wide lower thorax of Neanderthals and the horizontal orientation of the ribs suggest they relied more on their diaphragm for breathing. "Modern humans, on the other hand, rely both on the diaphragm and on the expansion of the rib cage for breathing. "Here we see how new technologies in the study of fossil remains is providing new information to understand extinct species." Story continues Using CT scans of fossils from the 60,000 year old male Neanderthal dubbed Kebara 2, the international team were able to create the 3D model of his chest. The international team say it redraws the 'hunched, brutish and ape-like caveman' as a straighter backed version of the modern human with more powerful lungs. Their findings published in Nature Communications shed fresh light on how the ancient human moved and breathed. Lead author Dr Asier Gomez-Olivencia, a palaeontologist the University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, said: "The shape of the thorax is key to understanding how Neanderthals moved in their environment because it informs us about their breathing and balance. "The Neanderthal spine is located more inside the thorax, which provides more stability. Also, the thorax is wider in its lower part." The reconstruction of our 'primitive' cousin's ribcage shows it had a straighter spine and stronger lungs Credit: A. Gomez-Olivencia et. al/SWNS This shape of the rib cage suggests a larger diaphragm and thus, greater lung capacity. This would have had a direct impact on their ability to survive on limited resources in the harsh environments they occupied, explained corresponding author Professor Patricia Kramer. "Neanderthals are closely related to us with complex cultural adaptations much like those of modern humans, but their physical form is different from us in important ways. "Understanding their adaptations allows us to understand our own evolutionary path better," said prof Kramer, an anthropologist at the University of Washington. The young adult, also known as 'Moshe', was found in Kebara Cave in Northern Israel's Carmel mountain range in 1983. Just the skull is missing. Debate has lingered over the structure of the thorax, the capacity of the lungs and what conditions Neanderthals could adapt to since their existence was discovered almost 200 years ago. Jerusalem (AFP) - Israelis voted in local elections Tuesday that saw an ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vie for Jerusalem mayor and controversial first-time polls in part of the occupied Golan Heights draw protests. Polling stations opened as scheduled at 7:00 am (0500 GMT) and closed at 10:00 pm in cities and towns, although small rural communities ended voting earlier. Main results were not expected until Wednesday. For the first time, voting day was declared a national holiday, in an effort to boost attendance. Average turnout nationwide posted at 10:30 pm was 54 percent, compared to a final figure of 50.9 percent in 2013 during the last round of local polls. In Jerusalem there was a 0.1 percent rise to 34 percent, the interior ministry website said. Elections for mayors and councils, held every five years, are seen as largely local affairs with few national implications, though they have served as a springboard for politicians harbouring national ambitions. One significant new element to Tuesday's vote saw minority Druze cast ballots in the Golan Heights for the first time since Israel seized the strategic region from Syria in 1967. The vote was controversial since many Druze who feel connected to Syria fear it will help Israel legitimise its control over the occupied plateau. Several hundred protesters in the village of Majdal Shams, some carrying Syrian flags, temporarily blocked a polling centre as police sought to maintain calm, an AFP correspondent reported. There had been calls to boycott the election during campaigning and a string of candidates pulled out. Polling was to occur in four Druze villages in the Golan, though it was called off in two because there were no candidates. The elections followed a court challenge by a group of Druze who pressed for the right to hold the vote. Israel has previously appointed local leaders in the villages. The international community has never recognised Israel's annexation of the Golan. Story continues In Yarka, a separate Druze village in northern Israel outside of the Golan, police said two polling stations were closed after a stun grenade was thrown at one of them, lightly wounding 10 people. - Possible run-off - There is similar controversy in east Jerusalem, which Israel also occupied in 1967 and later annexed, though there were no reports of incidents there. Unlike in national elections, Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem who have not taken Israeli citizenship are eligible to vote in local polls. But the vast majority stay away, refusing to recognise Israel's control over the sector of the city they see as the capital of their future state. Some 300,000 Palestinians live in east Jerusalem. Israel sees the entire city as its capital, a claim buoyed by US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December. Among the few Palestinians in the race is Ramadan Dabash, who heads a list of 12 Arab candidates running for seats on the city council. He has Israeli citizenship -- rare among Jerusalem Palestinians -- and is a former member of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party. Candidates running for municipal polls often do not have formal links to national parties, instead campaigning with locally formed alliances. "What matters most is to improve the daily lives of residents," said Emmanuel Attia, 45, who was voting in the Israeli settlement of Elazar near Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. The Jerusalem mayoral race features six candidates, increasing the likelihood of a second-round runoff on November 13 if no one receives at least 40 percent of the vote. They are vying to replace Mayor Nir Barkat, who is leaving after two terms to pursue national office as part of Netanyahu's Likud. Netanyahu is backing his minister for Jerusalem affairs, Ze'ev Elkin, though he faces a tough race. The premier cast his ballot in Jerusalem and called on residents to "go and vote!" Other Jerusalem mayoral candidates include Moshe Leon, backed by Jewish ultra-Orthodox factions, and secular candidate Ofer Berkovitch, both city council members. Ultra-Orthodox candidate Yossi Deitch is also in the race. The ultra-Orthodox, who make up some 10 percent of Israel's population, wield particular influence in Jerusalem and the city has previously had an ultra-Orthodox mayor. But any mayor must deal with the various factions represented on Jerusalem's 31-seat council. Around 16,000 police and volunteers were deployed for the vote, a police spokesman said. By Garba Muhammad and Abraham Achirga KADUNA/MARARABA, Nigeria (Reuters) - The movement of a jailed Nigerian Shi'ite cleric whose followers have repeatedly been targeted by the authorities said on Wednesday security forces had killed 42 of its members during two days of violent crackdowns on protests in the capital Abuja. Security forces opened fire with live ammunition on members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) who had marched in their hundreds to demand the release of their leader Ibrahim Zakzaky, jailed since 2015 when the army killed hundreds of his followers at his compound and a nearby mosque and burial ground. The IMN raised its death toll on Wednesday from the two previous days' violence to 42 from an earlier figure of 25. The toll included seven people who died of injuries received on Tuesday and 35 killed the previous day, said Ibrahim Musa, an IMN spokesman. On Wednesday evening, 20 bodies lay shrouded in white, awaiting burial in the town of Mararaba, some five miles (8 km) from Abuja, a Reuters reporter said. "I, as a Shi'ite today, I'm carrying my death certificate," said Muhammed Ibrahim Gamawa, an IMN youth leader, at the burial site. "Under Buhari's government any Shia in Nigeria is under threat and can be gunned down any day, any time, any minute," he said, referring to Nigerian President Mohammadu Buhari. "We are not safe, we are an endangered species in Nigeria." A few hours earlier, in a bustling commercial area of Abuja, dozens of IMN members staged a short march. Security forces were absent. "We are ready to die for our Zakzaky!" and "Free Sheikh Zakzaky!" the marchers chanted. "Death to Buhari! Death to America! Death to U.K!" they also cried. Buhari's administration has overseen the deadly crackdown on IMN over the past three years. PROTESTERS On Monday, the army opened fire on the marchers on the outskirts of Abuja. On Tuesday, the police shot at the protesters in the city center, issuing a statement later that day saying 400 IMN members were detained. The statement did not mention any deaths. Police and army spokesmen did not respond to phone calls seeking comment on the updated death toll. The army has said that three IMN members were killed on Monday. Zakzaky was charged in April this year with murder over the 2015 violence, after being held for more than two years. Authorities ignored a court ruling during the period before he was charged that he be released, sparking protests from his followers. IMN protests have frequently been met with force. In April, police fired bullets and tear gas during days of protests by IMN, wounding at least four protesters. After the December 2015 crackdown, Buhari accused the Shi'ites of creating "a state within a state", though he also said civilian deaths could not be justified. Since then, however, the government has remained largely silent on accusations it has used excessive force against the group. Around half of Nigeria's 190 million people are Muslims. Although virtually all of them are Sunnis, Zakzaky has attracted an estimated 3 million followers as a preacher of Shi'ite Islam since being drawn to that sect by the 1979 revolution in Iran. The repression of IMN and detention of its leader have drawn criticism from international human rights watchdogs and raised concern that the group could become radicalized, just as the Sunni Muslim militant group Boko Haram turned into a violent insurgency in 2009 after police killed its leader. (Reporting by Garba Muhammad in Kaduna and Abraham Achirga and Paul Carsten in Abuja; Editing by Peter Graff and Gareth Jones) Paul Romer, co-winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize for Economics, speaks at a news conference at the Stern School of Business of New York University, in New York, Monday, Oct. 8, 2018. Romer has studied the way innovation drives prosperity and has looked at ways to encourage it. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) The thought of potentially irreversible climate change often makes people fatalistic and resigned. The overwhelming nature of the problem provokes shrugs of its too late, too hard, too expensive, and too impossible for politicians to handle. But this years Nobel economics prize winner Paul Romer, who won along with William Nordhaus, says this is wrong and dangerous. We tend to get used to problems and think theres nothing we can do, he told Yahoo Finance over the phone, a few weeks after the call came from Stockholm. We get apathetic. There is no excuse for that. Much of Romers work has been about innovation and the conditions required to produce it. He has fought against the idea that big, paradigm-shifting things fall from the sky rather, he says, these types of events emerge from a set of conditions that made it possible. It doesnt take much to transpose this thinking to problem solving. Like innovations, solutions to seemingly impossible problems are not deus ex machinas, falling from the sky. Instead, they too can be engineered by a set of conditions. First, it helps to think of examples where things went well, Romer said. The global response to the threat of the ozone hole is an example, and a helpful one. There was a lot of alarmism that was about how costly it would be. Like, how would western society survive if I cant use chlorofluorocarbons on my underarms? This, Romer pointed out, turned out to be an overblown issue that was easily solved by not using Right Guard out of a can and using sticks. There have been times where we rose to the challenge and it wasnt that disruptive, he said. In a version of the maxim how do you eat an elephant (like anything else; one bite at a time), Romer addresses the question of fomenting mass change as a form of what ifs. These, he says, are much better than shoulds, which academics like him should steer clear of to retain credibility. What ifs also help get things done, because it helps position peoples understanding of the problem by putting the action first. (For example, what if we stopped using chlorofluorocarbons?) Story continues Much of this involves a heavy dose of realism, as Romer notes that people correctly understand that they, in their own personal actions, cant make much of a difference. But it also shines light on what actually would need to happen for change to occur through a political process. The market has been incredibly successful to extract more oil and gas at low cost, Romer said. But if the goal is to reduce total carbon in the atmosphere, making more oil and gas available at lower cost isnt helping. What would be good would be if we steered tech to improving photovoltaics, storage, but without committing that solar is the right solution. One way to do that, he said, would be for the government to gradually increase taxes on carbon-emitting fuels. Many countries have carbon taxes the U.S. is not one of them, though certain states, counties, and municipalities have them. In fact, actions by the Trump administration have pushed back on carbon reduction. What that would do is create incentives for people to come up with solutions, Romer said. In that case, he said, there could be lots more energy for far more people on earth, which would be a huge win for everybody. This is a type of nudging regulation, Romer said, thats probably most suited to innovation. On most things, it can work really well if you take this high-level approach to steer things but you dont try to micromanage the details, he said. Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, retail, personal finance, and more. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann. An infamous Boston gangster whose wild life story was turned into films starring Johnny Depp and Jack Nicholson has been found dead in his prison cell, at the age of 89. James "Whitey" Bulger was reported to have been murdered by an inmate with Mafia ties, according to The Boston Globe. Police sources told TMZ, the gossip news site, that Bulger, who was bound to a wheelchair, was approached by three other inmates who wheeled him into a corner that could not be seen by surveillance cameras. They then reportedly beat Bulger unconscious with a lock hidden in a sock as a weapon, and attempted unsuccessfully to gouge his eyes out a classic Mafia punishment for informants. Bulger had worked for the FBI for 15 years, in return for the police turning a blind eye to his activities. In December 1994, as police were preparing to arrest him, he went on the run with his girlfriend the pair of them having extensive plastic surgery to avoid detection. Emergency services were called to the Hazelton prison in West Virginia on Tuesday morning. Some reports suggested guards found a prisoner suffering from a suspected heart attack, and performed CPR, but a police source told TMZ that they now believe he was murdered. James "Whitey" Bulger Credit: AP The FBI has opened an investigation into Bulgers death. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was notified and an investigation has been initiated. No staff or other inmates were injured, and at no time was the public in danger, the statement read. Bulger had been transferred to the Hazelton prison only the day before, having previously been behind bars in Arizona, Oklahoma and, most recently, Florida. James "Whitey" Bulger, in a photo released by the FBI in April 2004 He was one of the nations most-wanted fugitives for 16 years, before he was captured in Santa Monica, California, in 2011. Bulgers murderous exploits were the stuff of Irish-American crime legend; he was said to have stabbed rivals in the heart with ice picks, strangled women who might betray him, and removed the teeth from victims buried in secret graveyards, to avoid their identification. Story continues The New York Times described him as one of Americas most notorious underworld figures, the heir to a nations fascinations with Dillinger, Capone and Gotti. Benedict Cumberbatch as William Bulger (left) and Johnny Depp as James "Whitey" Bulger, in the film Black Mass Furthermore, his brother William became president of the Massachusetts state Senate and president of the University of Massachusetts always denying knowledge of his brothers crimes, but insisting he loved him and could never give him up to the law. He was convicted of 11 murders in 2013, and sentenced to life for racketeering, extortion conspiracy, money laundering, possession of unregistered machine guns, transfer and possession of machine guns, possession of firearms with obliterated serial numbers and possession of machine guns in furtherance of a violent crime. His life as a crime overlord in 1970s Boston was turned into the 2015 film Black Mass, starring Depp. Martin Scorceses Oscar-winning 2006 film The Departed also featured a character, Frank Costello, based on Bulger, played by Nicholson. Washington (AFP) - Notorious Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger was found dead on Tuesday at a prison in West Virginia, one day after he was transferred to the high-security facility to serve the remainder of two life sentences for a string of brutal crimes, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said. According to The New York Times, the 89-year-old Bulger, who was an FBI informant in addition to being a crime boss, had been beaten "unrecognizable" by fellow inmates. There was no immediate confirmation from the authorities that Bulger had been murdered. The prisons bureau said the former head of south Boston's "Winter Hill Gang" was found "unresponsive" Tuesday morning at the Hazelton penitentiary in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. "Life-saving measures were initiated immediately by responding staff," the bureau said in a statement, but "Mr. Bulger was subsequently pronounced dead." "The Federal Bureau of Investigation was notified and an investigation has been initiated," it said. The prisons bureau said Bulger, who had previously been incarcerated in Oklahoma and Florida, had been in custody at the Hazelton facility since Monday. Bulger was serving two life sentences for 11 murders, racketeering, extortion, money laundering, possession of firearms and other crimes. Arrested in 2011 after 16 years on the run, Bulger's life of crime has been the subject of several books and movies including "Black Mass," a biopic featuring Johnny Depp as the Irish-American mobster. Bulger also provided the inspiration for Jack Nicholson's mob boss character in Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning 2006 gangster film "The Departed." - Ruled Boston underworld - The subject of a years-long manhunt, Bulger was finally arrested in Santa Monica, California, where he had been living quietly under an assumed name with his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig. She was sentenced separately to eight years in prison for aiding and abetting him. Story continues Police found some $800,000 in cash and an arsenal of weapons in the modest apartment where Bulger and Greig had lived for years as Charles and Carol Gasko. A $2 million reward for Bulger's capture was doled out to a former Icelandic beauty queen who tipped off the police to their whereabouts. A 12-person jury found Bulger guilty in Boston in 2013 of 31 separate charges. "The scope, the callousness, the depravity of your crimes, is almost unfathomable," Judge Denise Casper said at his sentencing. Bulger ruled the Boston underworld with an iron fist for nearly 30 years while also working as an informant for the FBI. His trial, which featured 72 witnesses and 840 exhibits, produced chilling testimony worthy of a pulp novel. It heard harrowing tales of teeth being pulled from the mouths of murder victims to foil identification and the strangulation of a mobster's girlfriend who "knew too much." Bulger refused to testify at his trial claiming he had been given immunity from prosecution by federal agents. He steadfastly denied being an FBI informant, but close links between some FBI agents in Boston and Bulger's Winter Hill Gang in the 1970s and 1980s have been well documented. Former FBI agent John Connolly was sentenced to prison after being convicted in 2002 of effectively becoming a member of the gang. An Australian woman has defended her eyebrow-raising business, explaining why she named her fish and chip shop The Battered Wife. Carolyn Kerr, from Innisfail, Queensland, told 7 News she is a former victim of domestic violence and wanted the name to help advocate for change in her community. She wanted the title to publicly make a noise about domestic violence and encourage others to stand up against it. Despite this, many keyboard warriors have accused the small business of making a mockery of the serious issue, leaving negative reviews of the shop online. The provocatively named fish and chip shop The Battered Wife is quickly dividing opinion. Source: The Battered Wife / Facebook Among the reviews, however, are some from those who understand the motivation behind the name and have defended Ms Kerrs decision. You get another five stars for the black eye you got for recently standing up for a sheila, one man wrote. One woman added: To those, take it for the play on words that it is, or a history/situation you know nothing about. Why so many have chosen to be so aggressive amazes me especially if you have ever been victims. Carolyn Kerr revealed she named her fish and chip business The Battered Wife as a way to publicly make a noise about domestic violence and encourage others to stand up against it. Source: 7 News Why owner settled on the controversial name By taking on the name, Ms Kerr told 7 News she wanted to locals to understand her fish is the only battering anyone need know. The phrase is also written on her shopfront window beside its The Battered Wife sign. The former cop said she had experienced numerous domestic situations first-hand from both sides of the fence, and found too many people sweep it under the carpet. Your heads saying what the hell are you doing? Get out of this. But the hearts going, Oh, I love him, she said of her own experience. READ MORE FROM YAHOO NEWS UK: Two teenagers arrested over hit-and-run collision which left boy, 3, fighting for life Being overweight or underweight could knock four years off your life expectancy Once-in-a-lifetime video captures actual moment meteor explodes in the sky Dad who sent smiling Snapchat picture of son to mother before beating him to death jailed for life In pictures: The animal species in fastest decline around the world Story continues She is standing by the controversial name, in the hopes it will help make people accountable and open the dialogue around domestic violence. With everything weve got wrong with our society at the moment, its my own little way to put my own personal stamp on what shouldnt be. And make people talk about it, make people think about it. I dont make fun of it, she said. The take-away shop owner wanted locals to understand her fish is the only battering anyone need know as a message to help stamp out domestic assault . Source: 7 News Name incites abuse from those condemning violence However the message is not sitting well with some who believe the name only glorifies domestic and sexual violence. On Tuesday The Battered Wife was forced to close its doors following threats to smash the store windows. Ms Kerr said the keyboard warriors were becoming the people they condemn by threatening violence on her and her shop. We need a lot more people to get involved and stand up [against domestic assault] and say no, she said. If Im making a difference, making a noise just with a little shop with a little name in a little country town in Far North Queensland, then so be it. The outrage comes as Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk pushes for more to be done to tackle the issue of violence against women, after 11 women were murdered across the country in October alone. The first flight from Istanbul Airport took place to Ankara The first flight from Istanbuls new airport 'Istanbul' took place on October 31 in the direction of Esenboga International Airport in Ankara. According to Turkey's Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, the first flight from Istanbuls new airport 'Istanbul' took place on October 31 in the direction of Esenboga International Airport in Ankara. The flight will last 45 minutes, according to the ministry. The flight was launched by the world's leading brand Turkish Airlines. FIRST INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT The first international flight from the new Istanbul Airport to Baku will take place on November 1 at 15:55. "The return flight from Baku to the new airport will take place on November 2 at 08:53 local time," the ministry noted.The return flight from Baku to the new airport will take place on November 2 at 08:53 (GMT +4), The first flight from Istanbul Airport took place to Ankara WATCH The opening ceremony of the new airport in Istanbul was held on October 29 and was attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Minister of Transport and Infrastructure of Turkey Mehmet Cahit Turhan. WORLD'S BIGGEST HUB Istanbul Airport is expected to host 90 million passengers per year in its first phase, and in 10 years handle 200 million travelers on six runways. Thats almost double the traffic at the worlds current busiest airport, Atlantas Hartsfield-Jackson. Beginning from 00:00 (GMT +3) on Dec. 31, all passenger and cargo flights will be operated from the third airport of Istanbul. Foreign aid groups are being forced out of Pakistan, where the need for their services remains immense, in a move analysts say is fuelled by suspicions of foreign spying. Eighteen international NGOs will leave Pakistan by December after being given notice earlier this month to liquidate their operations within 60 days, spreading uncertainty among humanitarian organisations. The expulsion follows years of mounting mistrust of aid groups by intelligence agencies, in a country where conspiracy theories are rife and spying accusations against foreigners common. "The intelligence agencies see western NGOs as proxies of foreign spy agencies because they are overly sensitive about the country's nuclear assets and defence installations," said military analyst and retired general Talat Masood. Open Society Foundations, World Vision and several other of the world's most prominent non-profits are among those given their marching orders, along with charities that have spent decades in Pakistan and invested millions of dollars. Few groups have dared to comment, even after receiving little or no detail on why they have been asked to shutter their operations and reapply for registration in six months time. Only ActionAid has denounced the decision, saying the move was "a worrying escalation of recent attacks on civil society, academics and journalists". The eviction has ratcheted up pressure on remaining aid groups who worry that speaking out may jeopardise their own operations in Pakistan. "There is a dimension of fear. Other NGOs are hoping that if they don't make too much fuss, they might be saved," said one NGO worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity. - Back to Bin Laden - The ouster is the culmination of a crackdown that began taking shape years ago. Relations between NGOs and officials began to spiral in the wake of the US commando raid on Pakistani soil that killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011. Following the operation Islamabad expelled all expatriate staff from Save the Children, accusing the group of fostering links with Shakeel Afridi -- a Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA hunt down the al-Qaeda supremo. Story continues Spying allegations have flourished ever since. "The problem in Pakistan is that the intelligence agencies here are not answerable to anyone," said Human Rights Commission of Pakistan spokesman I.A. Rehman. "Since Shakeel Afridi was associated with one NGO, our agencies decided to condemn and curb all the other NGOs." Visits by intelligence agencies to aid offices are now common, while staff movements are restricted and questions about their motives the norm. The interior ministry increased pressure in 2015, asking foreign NGOs to re-register to ensure the "transparency" of their finances and operations. Sixty-six groups had their applications accepted, according to the ministry, while the rest were left pending. "You can't challenge anything. You are really at their disposal. One day, you are acceptable, another one, you won't be. INGOs are on a really thin line," said another aid worker. The groups play a pivotal role in Pakistan, where funding for social programmes is minimal, more than 20 million children are out of school and the neo-natal mortality rate is the highest in the world. At least 11 million people will be affected by the expulsion, along with the "loss" of $130 million in aid, according to the Pakistan Humanitarian Forum. - 'Bad signal' - Pakistan's newly minted human rights minister Shireen Mazari defended the action, saying authorities are sceptical about the impact of international NGOs. "A lot of them have been spending money on themselves and... we are not clear about the agenda of a lot of these INGOs," the minister told AFP. "But if they were helping millions of people, Pakistan would be a very different, developed place." "If they fulfil the law, they are working. But if they don't meet the requirements, then they have to leave," Mazari added without offering details on how the listed groups might be breaking laws. Envoys from the US, European Union and several other western embassies have jointly lobbied the government to reconsider the eviction. A diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity slammed the "schizophrenia" of officials demanding more money from donors while simultaneously expelling NGOs. Since 2014, Pakistani companies have benefited from duty and quota exemptions on the European single market, which boosted their exports from 8 to 13 billion euros in 2018. But that status remains conditional on progress in terms of human rights and development. "This is exactly the kind of bad signal that they could have done without," said a senior European diplomat, adding Pakistan -- with its fragile finances -- was playing "with fire". Islamabad (AFP) - Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan hit out at religious hardliners and appealed for calm Wednesday after extremists called for the country's Supreme Court justices to be murdered for overturning the conviction of a Christian woman facing execution for blasphemy. Khan, who took to the nation's airwaves several hours after the court ordered the acquittal of Asia Bibi, delivered a forceful call for Pakistanis to respect the verdict which sparked protests across the country. "They are inciting you for their own political gain, you should not get trapped by them for the sake of the country, they are doing no service to Islam," Khan said in a televised broadcast. "We will protect people's properties and lives, we will not allow any sabotage, we will not allow any traffic to be stopped," he added. Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in deeply conservative Muslim Pakistan, where even unproven allegations of insulting Islam and its Prophet Mohammed can provoke death at the hands of vigilantes. Demonstrations broke out in major cities across Pakistan in the ruling's wake, with club-wielding protesters blocking Islamabad's main highway and barricading roads in Karachi and Lahore. One of the most vocal groups -- the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) -- called for "mutiny" against the army's top brass and the assassination of the top court's justices. "The Muslim generals of the army, it is their responsibility that they should launch a rebellion against these generals," Afzal Qadri -- a TLP leader -- told supporters in Lahore. For hours the acquittal was met with near silence on the country's airwaves as broadcasters appeared to steer clear of covering the controversial topic. Khan, who has previously caused concern with his full-throated defence of blasphemy laws during his recent election campaign, vowed on Wednesday to hit back against hardliners inciting violence, saying the inflammatory rhetoric would only benefit "Pakistan's enemies". Story continues - Protection detail? - Bibi was set to be released immediately according to the court, although there was no word if any security arrangements were being made for her protection. Her legal team celebrated amid beefed-up security in Islamabad. "The verdict has shown that the poor, the minorities and the lowest segments of society can get justice in this country despite its shortcomings," Bibi's lawyer Saif-ul-Mulook told AFP. "This is the biggest and happiest day of my life." Bibi appeared to be in a state of disbelief after hearing that Pakistan's Chief Justice Saqib Nisar had quashed her conviction nearly eight years after she was first sentenced to death. "I can't believe what I am hearing, will I go out now? Will they let me out, really?" Bibi told AFP by phone from prison after the ruling. "I just don't know what to say, I am very happy, I can't believe it." Her case drew the attention of international rights groups and swiftly became the most high-profile in the country. Pope Benedict XVI called for her release in 2010, while in 2015 her daughter met his successor and the current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis. Freedom for Bibi in Pakistan, where university students have been lynched and Christians burnt in ovens over blasphemy claims, means a life under threat by hardliners, who regularly hold demonstrations calling for her execution. The allegations against Bibi date back to 2009, when Muslim women she was labouring with in a field objected to sharing water with her because she was Christian. After an argument, the women went to a local cleric and accused Bibi of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed, a charge punishable by death under colonial-era legislation. - Long-criticised law - During the appeal hearing on October 8, a three-member panel of Supreme Court justices appeared to question the case against her, with Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, considered Pakistan's top expert in criminal law, listing flaws in the proceedings. "I don't see any derogatory remarks vis-a-vis the holy Koran as per the FIR," added Chief Justice Nisar, referring to the initial complaint filed in the case. Approximately 40 people are believed to be on death row or serving a life sentence in Pakistan for blasphemy, according to a 2018 report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Rights groups have long criticised the legislation, saying it is routinely abused to justify censorship, persecution, and even the murder of minorities. In recent years, it has also been used to smear dissenters and politicians. Mere calls to reform the law have provoked violence, most notably the assassination of Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, by his own bodyguard in broad daylight in Islamabad in 2011. His assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, was executed in 2016 and has been feted as a hero by hardliners, who built a shrine to him just outside the capital. Taseer had also called for Bibi's release and his son Shahbaz tweeted "Pakistan Zindabad" ("Long live Pakistan") following the ruling. Lima (AFP) - Peru's powerful opposition leader Keiko Fujimori was taken into custody on Wednesday after a court ordered she be held in preventive detention for three years pending the outcome of a corruption probe. The 43-year-old daughter of disgraced and jailed former president Alberto Fujimori is accused of accepting $1.2 million in illicit party funding from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht. In ordering her detention, judge Richard Concepcion Carhuancho said there was a "serious suspicion" that Fujimori was running a "de facto criminal organization that is entrenched within" her Popular Force political party and had laundered illicit money. Concepcion Carhuanco described Fujimori, who hugged her tearful husband in court before she was led away by police officers, as a "high flight risk" and said "the only necessary measure in her case is undoubtedly preventive detention." Public prosecutor Jose Domingo Perez had requested she be detained during the ongoing investigation into alleged illegal funding from Odebrecht towards Fujimori's 2011 presidential election campaign. Fujimori's lawyer, Giuliana Loza is expected to appeal the verdict and has three days to do so. The judge took eight hours to reach his verdict which almost certainly scuppers Fujimori's hopes of running for the presidency in 2021. Fujimori has twice before run for the presidency by lost out in a run-off both in 2011 and 2016, despite the Popular Force party she founded in 2001 winning the most votes in both those elections. She had been the Andean country's most popular politician and was trying to continue a family legacy begun by her father, the son of Japanese immigrants, who was president from 1990 to 2000. The 80-year-old, currently recovering in hospital from a chronic heart condition, is 12 years into a 25-year sentence for crimes against humanity and corruption. Peru's constitution allows for suspects to be held without trial for up to 36 months in complex cases such as the Odebrecht investigation, which involves tracing millions of dollars in illicit payments. It also ensures that suspects cannot interfere with evidence or witnesses in an ongoing investigation. Keiko Fujimori has accused the judge and prosecutor of conspiring against her, claiming "they are trying to get me out of politics, bury me." Rev. Susan Rothenberg wasnt the only Squirrel Hill resident protesting Donald Trumps visit to the Tree of Life synagogue on Tuesday, but she made sure her voice was heard. The Presbyterian minister, who lives half a block from where 11 people were massacred Saturday, shouted at the president as he and first lady Melania Trump paid their respects to the victims. Its not about you. Let the families grieve. This is our neighborhood, Rothenberg shouted from the front of her home. You are not welcome here! Trump visited Squirrel Hill to pay his "respects" at the Tree of Life Synagogue, the Rev. Susan Rothenberg, a Presbyterian minister who lives a few houses away, yelled that Trump was not welcome in the neighborhood. Rev. Susan Rothenberg is a SHERO pic.twitter.com/PP4OirjEp2 StanceGrounded (@_SJPeace_) October 31, 2018 Prior to Trumps visit, leaders of Bend the Arc, a progressive Jewish movement, said the president would not be welcome in the city until you fully denounce white nationalism. We dont want him here, we dont want him on our street. We have people that cant sit Shiva because youre blocking our streets! These people cant grieve. Youre causing them pain, Rothenberg said. You are not welcome on my street. These are my neighbors that were killed. You are not welcome in Squirrel Hill. Do you understand that? Related Coverage Holocaust Survivor Who Attended Pittsburgh Synagogue Escaped Death Twice Funerals For Synagogue Shooting Victims Begin As Trump Heads To Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting Highlights History Of Hate In Pittsburgh Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. WASHINGTON (AP) At an apparent turning point in one of its hardest foreign policy challenges, the Trump administration is demanding a cease-fire and the launch of U.N.-led political talks to end the Saudi-Iran proxy war in Yemen. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called for a halt to hostilities within 30 days. The renewed diplomatic drive reflects a convergence of political pressures: international outrage over the slaying of a U.S.-based Saudi journalist and a Yemeni humanitarian crisis fueled by the dual threats of war and hunger in the Arab world's poorest country. "The time is now for a cessation of hostilities," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a written statement late Tuesday. His plea came shortly after Mattis spoke in unusual detail about diplomacy to end a crisis that has put vast numbers of Yemenis on the brink of starvation. The administration's new push comes amid mounting fears of a fresh Arab coalition assault on the Red Sea port of Hodeida, the entry point for 70 percent of food imports and international aid to Yemen. "Yemen has more problems than any people deserve to carry," Mattis said. The conflict in Yemen began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, and the toppling of the government by the Houthis, a Shiite Muslim minority in the country. The Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. An estimated 10,000 people have been killed. The war has also left around two-thirds of Yemen's population of 27 million relying on aid, and more than 8 million at risk of starvation. The fact that the Pentagon chief offered detailed thoughts on the urgency of a need for diplomatic progress, even before Pompeo had weighed in, strongly suggests that the administration has reached a turning point in its approach to Yemen, which also confounded the Obama administration. At stake is not only the humanitarian crisis in Yemen but also the future of the American relationship with Saudi Arabia, long the linchpin of U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf. Story continues "It's about time," said one congressional critic, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. "After more than three years of war, thousands of dead, millions on the brink of starvation, and growing pressure from Congress, the Trump administration is finally calling for an end to the Saudi-led war in Yemen," Khanna said in a statement. The Oct. 2 killing of Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate in Turkey has prompted critics of the Saudi ruling family to urge an end to American arms sales to the kingdom and a reappraisal of U.S. military support for the Saudi-led Arab coalition that has been bombing Iranian-supported Houthi rebels, sometimes at the expense of killing civilians. A top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday that Khashoggi, who wrote columns critical of the Saudi government for The Washington Post, was killed and dismembered in a premeditated murder at the consulate. As details about the case have emerged, U.S. lawmakers stepped up demands for responses to the murder and to the crisis in Yemen. Pompeo urged a cease-fire, citing both missile and drone strikes into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates by Houthis and the airstrikes "in all populated areas" of Yemen by the U.S.-backed Arab coalition. He urged implementation of "confidence-building measures" to address the underlying issues of the conflict. Mattis was more specific than Pompeo in his call for urgent movement toward a political solution to the fighting under peace talks being urged by the U.N. special envoy, Martin Griffiths. Mattis said a cease-fire should take effect within 30 days. "We're calling on all the parties, specifically the Houthis and the Arab coalition, to meet in Sweden in November and to come to a solution," Mattis said. The U.S. proposal was greeted with skepticism in Houthi-controlled Sanaa. Sultan Al-Samaey, a member of the Houthi political council, said that while the war needed to be brought to an end, the group would only support "a peace which will preserve our independence." Ayoub Al-Tamimi, a Sanaa resident and political activist, said: "This is simply a solution that will only plant land mines in the future of this region. There is no solution that can come from Trump or the Democrats, only booby traps." Sweden on Wednesday said it had accepted Griffiths' request that it host such talks but that nothing was definite. Griffiths on Wednesday welcomed the U.S. calls for immediate resumption of the political process and said the United Nations remains committed "to bring the Yemeni parties to the negotiations table within a month." Mattis called for demilitarization of Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia "so that the Saudis and the Emirates do not have to worry about missiles coming into their homes and cities and airports." He also said measures should be taken to "ensure that all Iranian-supplied missiles to the Houthis" are put under "international watch." "This has got to end. We've got to replace combat with compromise," Mattis said. Mattis put the primary blame on Iran. He said its proxies and surrogate forces are fueling the conflict. "They need to knock it off," he said. Mattis said the political process should "set the conditions for a return to traditional areas inside Yemen and a government that allows for this amount of local autonomy that Houthis or that southerners want." A group of five Republican senators cited the situation in Yemen as well as the Khashoggi killing as reasons for calling on the administration to halt ongoing negotiations with Saudi Arabia on a civilian nuclear energy agreement. Among them, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has proposed legislation that would stop arms sales to the Saudis. The administration's diplomatic push highlights the severity of the crisis in the Yemeni port city of Hodeida. A protracted siege of Hodeida by the U.S.-supported Arab coalition could imperil the international lifeline to the port. The International Committee for the Red Cross said Wednesday that its team in Hodeida this week found dreadful living conditions for thousands of displaced families "who own only the clothes they wear and survive on a little rice or a thin mix of flour and water, if they find any food to eat at all." By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday the United States was engaged in a "multi-pronged effort ... to convince China to behave like a normal nation on commerce" and respect international law after Washington indicted 10 Chinese nationals for stealing aviation secrets. Speaking in a radio interview, Pompeo called China's behavior in stealing intellectual property "inappropriate" and "not consistent with being a superpower or a leader in the world." "Stealing another countrys intellectual property, something Chinas been engaged in to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, is just something China has to figure out a way to stop," he told the Brian Kilmeade Show. Pompeo also told the Laura Ingraham radio show that over the long term, China was probably the biggest national security challenge facing the United States and the Trump administration was pushing back "on all fronts." "Where the semiconductor piece fits in is its part of a mosaic of our strategic effort to push back against this continued Chinese effort," he said. "It is a multipronged effort on behalf of all of the United States Government, at the Presidents direction, to convince China to behave like a normal nation on commerce and with respect to the rules of international law," he said. A U.S. indictment unsealed on Tuesday said Chinese intelligence officers conspired with hackers and company insiders to break into computer systems of private firms to steal information on a turbo fan engine used in commercial jetliners. It was the third major corporate espionage-related case involving Chinese intelligence officers brought by the Justice Department since last month and comes at a time when Washington is embroiled in a major trade war with Beijing. The United States and China have slapped tit-for-tat tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of each other's goods over the past few months, sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump's demands for an end to alleged Chinese intellectual property theft, deep cuts to industrial subsidies, and action to correct a major U.S. trade deficit with China. Early this month, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence intensified Washington's pressure campaign against Beijing by accusing China of "malign" efforts to undermine Trump ahead of next Tuesday's congressional elections and reckless military actions in the disputed South China Sea, a major Asian trade route. China has rejected the charges. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by James Dalgleish) Lisbon (AFP) - Portugal has banned the use of wild animals in circuses by 2024 with a new law passed by parliament and applauded by animal rights groups. Lions, tigers, elephants, camels and zebras are among the more than 1,000 animals banned under the new law covering around 40 species. "Wild animals have no place in the circus. People should be able to enjoy themselves without animals suffering," Bianca Santos, vice president of the AZP local animal rights group told AFP. Approved with support of both left-wing and right-wing lawmakers on Tuesday night, the law brings Portugal in line with a dozen other countries including half of Europe which have banned wild animals in circus acts. "Parliament has finally realised that larger cages, stricter rules and more controls were not the solution for the problems of these animals, who were reduced to mere puppets, deprived of their dignity," said lawmaker Andre Silva from the PAN party. Until 2024, circus owners will have to list their wild animals on a register created by the government so they can eventually be placed in wildlife shelters in Portugal or overseas. Circus professionals who agree to hand over their animals before the end of the transition period could benefit from aid in changing their profession. An association representing around 20 Portugese circuses, which had opposed the new law, said in statement the development would "contribute to the disappearance of the business." JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) The search for the crashed Lion Air plane has found aircraft debris and passenger belongings on the seafloor but the object thought to be the fuselage is still eluding it, an Indonesian official said Wednesday, as chilling video of passengers boarding the fatal flight emerged. Search and Rescue Agency chief Muhammad Syaugi said the seafloor findings give the search team confidence they will find the body of the aircraft. The location of the airplane's "black box" flight data recorder has been identified, he said, but strong currents prevented it from being recovered. "We saw belongings such as life jackets, pants, clothes scattered on the seabed," Syaugi said. "We believe the fuselage will be around there, we hope that our target can be found." The 2-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet plunged into the Java Sea early Monday just minutes after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. The disaster has reignited concerns about safety in Indonesia's fast-growing aviation industry, which was recently removed from European Union and U.S. blacklists, and also raised doubts about the safety of Boeing's new generation 737 MAX 8 plane. Syaugi said one of the ships with high-tech equipment being used in the search dispatched a remote-operated vehicle that recorded parts of the aircraft on the seafloor but not the 22-meter (72-foot) -long object detected at a depth of 32 meters (105 feet) that is believed to be the fuselage. He said the area is about 400 meters (1,300 feet) from the coordinates where the airplane lost contact. Three other objects in separate locations were reached by divers but turned out to be two sunken boats and a fish trap. A remote-operated vehicle was sent to the black box location "but the currents on the seabed were very strong, the ROV was carried away," Syaugi said. Searchers have sent 57 body bags containing human remains to police identification experts who on Wednesday said they'd identified their first victim, a 24-year-old woman, from a ring and a right hand. Story continues Anguished family members have been providing samples for DNA tests and police say results are expected within 4-8 days. Musyafak, the head of Said Sukanto Police Hospital, said nearly 150 samples for DNA testing have been collected but more are still needed, especially from parents and children of victims. Boeing Co. experts were expected to arrive in Indonesia on Wednesday and Lion Air has said an "intense" internal investigation is underway in addition to the probe by safety regulators. Data from flight-tracking sites show the plane had erratic speed and altitude in the early minutes of a flight on Sunday and on its fatal flight Monday. Safety experts caution, however, that the data must be checked for accuracy against the plane's black boxes. Several passengers on the Sunday flight from Bali to Jakarta have recounted problems that included a long-delayed takeoff for an engine check and terrifying descents in the first 10 minutes in the air. Two interviewed on Indonesian TV recalled details such as a strange engine sound, a smell of burnt cables, and panicked passengers crying out for God to save them as the plane rapidly lost altitude. Later in the flight, a man who was either the captain or first officer walked through the plane and returned to the cockpit with what looked like a large manual. Lion Air has said maintenance was carried out on the aircraft after the Sunday flight and a problem, which it didn't specify, was fixed. Indonesian TV broadcast a smartphone video of passengers boarding Flight 610, its mundane details transformed into unsettling moments by knowledge of the tragedy that would transpire. It showed passengers' boarding passes being checked and people walking along a concourse and then down stairs with bright red and white Lion Air jets visible on the tarmac. At one point, the passenger who shot the video, Paul Ferdinand Ayorbaba, zoomed in on the flight number on his boarding pass. A part of the video shows passengers walking up the boarding stairs to a Lion jet. "My husband sent that video to me via WhatsApp. It was his last contact with me, his last message to me," said Inchy Ayorbaba, interviewed at the Jakarta police hospital where she had taken their three children for DNA tests. The messaging app's timestamp showed the video was sent about 35 minutes before the plane took off, said Ayorbaba, who first saw the message at 6:30 a.m., some 10 minutes after the plane departed, and then went back to sleep. Lion Air's technical director was removed from duty Wednesday at the order of the Transport Ministry. It also has ordered all Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes operated by Lion Air and national carrier Garuda to be inspected. Lion has ordered 50 of the jets, worth an estimated $6.2 billion, and currently operates nine. Daniel Putut, a Lion Air managing director, said Tuesday evening the airline has many questions for Boeing. "Of course there are lots of things we will ask them, we all have question marks here, 'Why? What's the matter with this new plane,'" Putut said. The crash is the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people died in the crash of a Garuda flight near Medan. In December 2014, an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea, killing all 162 on board. Indonesian airlines were barred in 2007 from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, though several were allowed to resume services in the following decade. The ban was completely lifted in June. The U.S. lifted a decadelong ban in 2016. Lion Air, a discount carrier, is one of Indonesia's youngest and biggest airlines, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations. It has been expanding aggressively in Southeast Asia, a fast-growing region of more than 600 million people. ___ Associated Press journalist Andi Jatmiko contributed to this report. Banjul (Gambia) (AFP) - Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla landed Wednesday in The Gambia for the first leg of a week-long African tour aimed at strengthening ties with Commonwealth nations. The Prince of Wales, heir to the throne, took over as head of the 53-member Commonwealth of Nations in April, succeeding his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. He and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, were received Wednesday by Gambian President Adama Barrow and his wife Fatou Bah-Barrow. The country, which is almost completely surrounded by Senegal along the West African coast, was readmitted to the Commonwealth in February, after abruptly leaving the organisation in 2013. On Thursday, Prince Charles is to visit the Medical Research Council, a faculty of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, during what is his first visit to the country. He and Camilla are then expected to visit Ghana before ending their trip in Nigeria on November 6 - 8, a statement said. As Britain prepares to leave the European Union in 2019, the prince aims to "celebrate the UK's dynamic, forward-looking partnerships" with Commonwealth nations, it said, adding that Charles has already visited 44 of them. Protesters took to the streets of Peshawar in Pakistan on October 31 following a supreme court ruling to acquit a woman facing the death penalty for blasphemy. Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman, was convicted in 2010 of insulting the Prophet Muhammad during a row with her neighbors. However, following an appeal to the Supreme Court, that verdict was overturned. This footage, recorded in the Pakistani city of Peshawar shows protesters block a busy road. Credit: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty via Storyful Would you welcome a cannabis farm as your next-door neighbor? A federal jury in Denver is being asked to decide, in a trial that kicked off Monday, whether it agrees with a Colorado couple who claim their home is being devalued by a cannabis firm that set up business operations 40 feet from their property line. Plaintiffs Hope and Michael Reilly say the existence of the cannabis businesses, and noxious odors it produces, are decreasing the value of their real estate and interfering with the use and enjoyment of their land. Marijuana businesses make bad neighbors, the plaintiffs allege in their complaint. They emit pungent, foul odors, attract undesirable visitors, increase criminal activity, increase traffic, and drive down property values. The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado is hearing the case against defendants Parker Walton, 6480 Pickney, LLC and Camp Feel Good, LLC, owners of a marijuana cultivation facility in Rye, Colorado, who say there are no odors emanating from its facility. And our expert agrees, the defendants attorney, Matthew Buck, told Yahoo Finance. A case of first impression Its a matter being litigated for the first time under a federal racketeering law that originated in 1970 to prevent the Mafia from profiting off of illegal business activities. Prosecutors have used this law to go after organized crime, but it also has a civil component that lets people sue over actions related to a criminal enterprise. The plaintiffs, represented by Washington, DC-based law firm Cooper & Kirk, filed the civil case in 2015 and pushed forward earlier this year, in the wake of a Tenth Circuit ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals that defined cultivation of marijuana intended for sale as racketeering activity. Regardless of marijuanas legalization under Colorado law, cultivation and use of a controlled substance (marijuana is categorized as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act) remains illegal under federal law, the court reasoned, and is therefore subject to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The Act defines racketeering as the felonious manufacture, importation, receiving, concealment, buying, selling, or otherwise dealing in a controlled substance. Story continues High-powered money Efforts to target state-licensed marijuana businesses using RICO have been criticized by those who support industry expansion and warn that plaintiffs and advocacy groups can turn unresolved discrepancies between state and federal law into a growers Achilles heel. In relation to this case is some high-powered money, Anna Hatch, senior counsel for Colorado marijuana dispensary LivWell Enlightened Health, told Yahoo Finance. She was referring to one of the cases original plaintiffs, Safe Streets Alliance, an advocacy group that promotes enforcement of federal drug laws. Hatch acknowledged property owners who find themselves in the Reillys position may have legitimate grievances. I think there is an argument there that a marijuana business next door would have a negative impact on property value, she said. Its also entirely possible that the land could be used for cultivation purposes and it could skyrocket. For his part, the defendants attorney, Buck, says of the Reillys property, The value has gone up every single year. However, he acknowledged that plaintiffs had made improvements over the course of their ownership. Nuisance or not? According to records from the Pueblo County recorders office, the Reillys purchased three lots in question between 2011 and 2014 in what is known as the Meadows at Legacy Ranch. Together, the properties total 105 acres, parts of which are immediately adjacent to a 40-acre parcel purchased later in 2014 by Walton. The defendants marijuana cultivation facility from where the odors allegedly emanate is an indoor facility located 82 feet from the Reillys property line. The space is 1,675 feet from plaintiffs home, Buck says. The Pueblo County assessor classifies both the Reilly properties and the Walton property as agricultural, with zoning designed to retain and promote the appropriate use of dry range and irrigated lands. The assessor says the classification is meant to encourage open use of the land in keeping with natural characteristics and agricultural functions. The Reillys say their property became less valuable and less suitable for weekend visits with their children, where they would ride horses, hike and visit with friends, after Walton began using his property to manufacture marijuana. As more states embrace legalized marijuana, chances are the Reillys case will not be an isolated one. Similar cases have been filed in California, Oregon and Massachusetts. In August, a federal district court in Oregon dismissed a RICO-based suit against a cannabis defendant yet left the door open for the plaintiffs to amend and refile their claim. Under RICO rules, plaintiffs who prevail are entitled to treble, or triple, damages, making the act a potentially more lucrative avenue than a traditional nuisance claim. Yahoo Finance contacted the attorney for plaintiffs, Brian Barns, who said he could comment only after conclusion of the trial. A website currently shows Parker Walton as co-owner of Cannacraft LLC, a recreational cannabis cultivation facility that advertises its recreational marijuana products under names like Kool Aid, Clementine, UK Cheese, Voodoo and Skunkberry. In an email, Pueblo Countys Public Relations Officer, Adam Uhernik, said because there is an ongoing court case it would be inappropriate for [its Commissioners] to comment on any part of it or county laws at this time. The case is expected to go to the jury as soon as Wednesday. Alexis Keenan is a New York-based reporter for Yahoo Finance. She previously produced live news for CNN and MSNBC and is a former litigation attorney. Read more: Why Philadelphia halted plans to unleash e-scooters across the city Heres how eBay alleges Amazon illegally lured its high-value sellers Winning the Mega Millions is sweeter in some states than others AFP The suspect in a mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh that killed 11 worshipers has been charged on a total of 44 counts, up from 29 counts previously, according to a new federal indictment. The charges against Robert Bowers, the suspect in what is believed to be the deadliest attack on Jews in the United States, include religious hate crimes, firearms charges and causing injury to police officers. Bowers is due to appear in a second hearing in federal court in Pittsburgh on Thursday. Donald Trump has called for capital punishment to be brought "back into vogue," asking for Mr Bowers to receive the death penalty. Several of the counts carry the possibility of a death sentence, which prosecutors said that they will seek, Reuters reports. An account in Mr Bowers' name on the website "Gab" had included antisemetic sentiments. According to an FBI affidavit, Mr Bowers told a SWAT officer that he wanted "all Jews to die." Authorities believe the alleged shooter acted alone. A grand jury has now indicted Bowers on all counts. The counts include 11 charges of obstruction of exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death, as well as 11 counts of using a firearm to commit murder. There are also two counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs involving an attempt to kill and use of a dangerous weapon and resulting in bodily injury; 11 counts of use and discharge of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, eight counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs involving an attempt to kill and use of a dangerous weapon, and resulting in bodily injury to a public safety officer; and one count of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs involving use of a dangerous weapon and resulting in bodily injury to a public safety officer. If found guilty of all counts, the suspect faces a chance of the death penalty, or a life sentence without parole followed by 535 years in prison. Story continues After the shooting, Mr Trump visited the Tree of Life synagogue where the massacre took place. Protests from the Jewish community erupted, and the mayor of Pittsburgh asked the president not to come. Critics argue that Trump is partially responsible for a divisive culture that inspires hate crimes from the American right. For example, he recently referred to himself as a "nationalist," a term that some say is tied to discrimination. However, he has also denounced the shootings and said that the does not support violence in America. Thousands of supporters came to funerals for the victims on Wednesday and Thursday. The last post on the Gab account with Mr Bowers' name read: I cant sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, Im going in. When police arrived on the scene, officers shot Bowers, who later surrendered. Emergency Medical Services treated victims and Bowers. Bowers appeared in court in a wheel chair. More follows The apparent plot to bring down Robert Mueller by bribing women to make false sexual misconduct claims against him appears to have fallen apart, after emails revealed startling details about the conspiracy. On Tuesday, Jennifer Taub, an associate professor at Vermont Law School, made public an email she received earlier this month in which the sender asked to speak to her regarding past encounters with Mr Mueller, who is investigating possible election collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. I would like to discuss those encounters with you, the email read. I believe a basic telephone call, for which I would compensate you at whatever rate you see fit (inside reason), would be a good place to start. My organization is conducting an examination of Robert Muellers past. The letter, which Ms Taub forwarded on to the special counsel, came from someone claiming to be an employee at a purported private intelligence firm called Surefire Intelligence. Ms Taub told MSNBC she had "no idea" why the "creepy" email was sent to her, but that she did not know and had never met Mr Mueller. Her disclosure of the message came after Mr Muellers office announced in a rare public statement that it had asked the FBI to probe allegations another woman was offered $20,000 to make false accusations against the investigator. Mr Muellers team were made aware of the allegations by several journalists, who received emails by someone who said she was called Lorraine Parsons. She claimed she used to work with Mr Mueller at law firm Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro in the 1970s. 13 days ago I received this tip alleging an attempt to pay off women to make up accusations of sexual misconduct against Special Counsel Bob Mueller. Other reporters received the same email. Now the Special Counsel's office is telling us they've referred the matter to the FBI pic.twitter.com/oqh4Fnel5u Yashar Ali (@yashar) October 30, 2018 In the email, which has been made public, the woman said she was offered $20,000 to make false sexual assault allegations by a man who said he worked for Surefire Intelligence. The man also offered to pay off her credit card debts, the email claimed. Story continues I asked him what in the hell he wanted me to do, the email read. He said that we could not talk about it on the phone, and he asked me to download an app on my phone called Signal, which he said was more secure. Reluctantly, I downloaded the app and he called me on that app a few minutes later. He said (and I will never forget exactly what it was) I want you to make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller, and I want you to sign a sworn affidavit to that effect'. He said that he could arrange an additional $10,000 bonus from his client, who he said was a man named Jack Burkman, if I could sign the documents immediately. Jack Burkman matches the name of a right-wing conspiracy theorist and prominent Trump supporter, who claims he is about the make public the testimony of a woman alleging Mr Mueller sexually assaulted her. Some sad news. On Thursday, November 1, at the Rosslyn Holiday Inn at noon, we will reveal the first of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's sex assault victims. I applaud the courage and dignity and grace and strength of my client. pic.twitter.com/wZVQeHD45r Jack Burkman (@Jack_Burkman) October 30, 2018 Some sad news. On Thursday, November 1, at the Rosslyn Holiday Inn at noon, we will reveal the first of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's sex assault victims, Mr Burkman wrote on Twitter. I applaud the courage and dignity and grace and strength of my client. In her email, Ms Parsons added that Mr Mueller was always very polite and was never inappropriate" during their alleged time together at the law firm, and that she would not be part of a Washington DC drama for any price. However, Ms Parsons identity could not be verified, and she refused to speak to reporters by phone. The law firm, Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro, also said it had no records of her having worked there. When the Hill Reporter rang a phone number the woman had provided, it reported it received a text message back that read, Youre in over your head. Drop this, alongside the home addresses of journalists working there. The news outlet also said it later received a phone call from another number claiming to be a Surefire employee called Mike Wilcox. He allegedly told journalists there to stop communicating with Ms Parsons. The identity of Ms Taub, however, is not in doubt and like Ms Parsons allegations, the email she received also purportedly came from a Surefire employee. Surefire Intelligence, which purports to specialise in counter-intelligence, asset tracing and in depth due diligence, claims to have offices in the US, UK, Switzerland and London. However, when The Independent attempted to contact the company's offices in London, Tel Aviv and Zurich, all failed to ring through. NBC News reported domain records for the company which was incorporated less than three weeks ago are associated with the email address of Jacob Wohl, a far-right Twitter conspiracy theorist best known for his rapid responses to Mr Trumps tweets and his penchant for visiting hipster coffee shops. I was in a hipster coffee shop (safe space) here in LA and the libs were whispering to each other how @realDonaldTrump is doing great for the economy, got them a raise at work and will definitely be re-elected in 2020 Jacob Wohl (@JacobAWohl) January 13, 2018 Mr Wohl, who has also touted a scandalous story about Mr Mueller in recent days, has repeatedly denied involvement with Surefire Intelligence, despite the fact his picture appears on the LinkedIn page of the firms alleged managing partner, Matthew Cohen. One of the companys phone numbers also redirected to the voicemail of Mr Wohls mother, while LinkedIn profiles of a number of alleged Surefire employees use images of a host of models and celebrity actors. Surefire Intelligence's "Head of Government Relations" also works as a model for stock photos. pic.twitter.com/2mQgQFTweT Aric Toler (@AricToler) October 30, 2018 On Tuesday, right-wing news outlet The Gateway Pundit, for whom Mr Wohl writes for, published allegations of sexual assault on or around 2 August 2010 by Mr Mueller, citing documents from a firm with the tagline International Private Intelligence the same tagline used by Surefire Intelligence. Gateway Pundit later deleted the story, issuing an update that they were investigating accusations regarding the veracity of the documents, and very serious allegations against Jacob Wohl. It is not clear exactly what those behind Surefire Intelligence are trying to achieve, but the bogus firm appears to be responsible for both the allegations against Mr Mueller, and at least one email attempting to muddy the waters. Despite the plot's apparent disintegration, both Mr Wohl and Mr Burkman insist a press conference on 1 November in which sexual misconduct allegations will be made against Mr Mueller is going ahead. Mr Wohl and Mr Burkman have been contacted for comment. SARDAR SAROVAR DAM (India) (AFP) - India inaugurated the world's tallest statue on Wednesday with fireworks, folk dances and floral tributes, deploying tight security amid an outcry by local groups over the soaring cost of the 182-metre (600-feet) sculpture of an independence hero. Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially opened the statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel describing the completion of his pet project as "a day that will be remembered in the history of India". Air force jets flew over the giant figure and clouds of rose petals were dropped from helicopters onto its head as Modi bent in front of the statue on the ground. Modi hailed Sardar Patel's "strategic thinking" in bringing together the disparate country after independence in 1947 and described the Statue of Unity as "a symbol of our engineering and technical prowess". More than 5,000 armed police guarded the huge site in a remote corner of Gujarat state, with Anand Mazgaonkar, a community group leader in Narmada district, accusing plain clothes officers of detaining 12 people late Tuesday. Police denied the claims. But the authorities took no chances in case community groups staged protests to condemn the decision to spend 29.9 billion rupees ($400 million) -- much of it public funds -- to build the statue over a nearly four-year period. Hundreds of Chinese have been among the 3,500 workers involved in its construction. Drones and helicopters kept watch on the area, according to police, after the chiefs of 22 villages signed a letter calling on Modi to stay away from the inauguration. Posters of Modi with Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani were torn down or had their faces blackened at the weekend. Police guarded new posters put in their place. - 'Iron Man' - Local legislator Chotu Vasava said: "Tribal groups have been exploited by different governments, the ruling BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) is repeating it again." Story continues "I am not against Sardar, but what is the use of the statue if the people on the land have to suffer and are moved from their homes?" The Gujarat government said the 185 families moved to make way for the statue had been compensated and given 1,200 acres (475 hectares) of land. More than 80 percent of the local population are from tribal groups with special protected status. In the largely tribal town of Dediapada, roughly 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the statue, villagers shuttered shops and closed the main market for the day in protest. "We are still facing problems of water, health infrastructure and employment," one resident, Vikram Vasava, told a local broadcaster. "How will the statue help us?" Sardar Patel was a deputy prime minister in India's first post-independence government. He became known as "the Iron Man" by convincing feuding states -- sometimes with a threat of force -- to join the new united country. His name had been largely overshadowed by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has dominated Indian politics since 1947. But Modi-inspired nationalists have sought to put him back in the forefront, with critics accusing them of appropriating his legacy. The statue is more than twice the size of New York's Statue of Liberty and also dwarfs the 128-metre (400-feet) high Spring Temple Buddha in China, the world's next-biggest statue. It is made up of nearly 100,000 tonnes of concrete and steel. Online booking to visit the Statue of Unity has opened with a 350 rupee ($4.75) admission fee for the 153-metre-high observation deck. Indian authorities hope the statue will attract 15,000 visitors a day. India is also working on a giant statue of 17th-century warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji, riding a horse and brandishing a sword, which should dominate the Mumbai shoreline from 2021. The current design would make it 212 metres high. By Mohammed Ghobari ADEN (Reuters) - The Saudi-led coalition has massed thousands of troops near Yemen's main port city of Hodeidah, local military sources said on Wednesday, in a move to pressure Iranian-aligned Houthi insurgents to return to U.N.-sponsored peace talks. The United States and Britain have called for an end to the 3-1/2-year war that has driven impoverished Yemen to the verge of famine, raising pressure on Saudi Arabia as it faces a global outcry over the murder of prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. The military alliance of Sunni Muslim states led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates has deployed forces around 30,000-strong south of Houthi-held Hodeidah and near its eastern entrance, pro-coalition Yemeni military sources told Reuters. "Thousands of Yemeni soldiers trained by the coalition have been sent to the outskirts of Hodeidah in addition to modern weaponry including armored vehicles and tanks... in preparation for a big operation in coming days," said one source. Residents told Reuters the Houthis had also deployed forces in the center of Hodeidah city, at the port and in southern neighborhoods in anticipation of an onslaught. Peter Salisbury, senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, said he did not doubt a build-up of coalition forces was taking place but he was skeptical about the numbers. I'm sure there has been a troop surge, but I find the 30,000 figure quite hard to believe," he said. The coalition and the Houthis have not commented on the military movements. The U.N. special envoy to Yemen is trying to salvage peace talks that collapsed in September, raising the risk of a renewed assault on the Red Sea city, the country's main port and a lifeline for millions of Yemenis reliant on humanitarian aid. Envoy Martin Griffiths welcomed a call by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday for a cessation of hostilities ahead of U.N.-led negotiations scheduled to begin next month. Britain also backed an end to the fighting, which has killed more than 10,000 people, according to available U.N. figures. Half the population of Yemen - some 14 million people - could soon be on the brink of famine, the U.N. says. "We remain committed to bring the Yemeni parties to the negotiations table within a month," Griffiths said in a statement issued on Wednesday. He urged the warring parties to resume consultations on a framework for political talks and confidence-building measures such as supporting the central bank and a prisoner swap. Griffiths is hoping to announce a round of talks "as soon as he can but we're not at that stage just yet," U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters in New York on Wednesday. DIRE SITUATION The Houthi official responsible for foreign affairs, Hisham Sharaf, welcomed Griffiths' continued efforts but urged Western governments to take concrete steps to enforce a ceasefire to create "conditions conducive to peace far away from any pressure or dictates", the Houthi-run Saba news agency said. The Western-backed Arab alliance intervened in Yemen's war, widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, in 2015 to restore the internationally recognized government. But after seizing the southern city of Aden, the alliance has made no major gains in its war to unseat the Houthis, who hold the most populous parts of Yemen including the capital Sanaa. Aid groups warned of deteriorating conditions. "The recent increase in military activity in... Hodeidah threatens the security of our life-saving operations," World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Herve Verhoosel said. The WFP has enough cereals to assist 6.4 million of the neediest Yemenis for 2-1/2 months, with the aim to reach 8 million, he added. Red Cross spokeswoman Sara Alzawqari said an estimated 3,200 families some 22,000-28,000 people - were in need of basic necessities including food, water and shelter in Hodeidah, many having fled fighting in rural areas. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have said that taking control of Hodeidah would force the Houthi movement to the negotiating table by cutting off its main supply line. But a previous offensive on the city in June failed to accomplish any gains and the coalition halted the fighting to give U.N. peace talks in Geneva a chance. The talks were abandoned when the Houthis failed to show up, accusing the coalition of blocking their team from traveling. The Yemeni government accused the group of trying to sabotage the negotiations. (Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Writing by Ghaida Ghantous; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Gareth Jones) Tuxtla Gutierrez (Mexico) (AFP) - Another migrant caravan like the one that has infuriated US President Donald Trump and fueled his anti-immigrant message ahead of next week's election is on the move in southern Mexico. This second, smaller US-bound group of around 2,000 poor people managed to cross the Suchiate River separating Mexico from Guatemala to the south on Monday. At one point they clashed with Mexican security forces on a bridge and one member of the caravan was reported killed. On Tuesday they covered about 25 kilometers (16 miles) and settled down for the night in the town of Tapachula in the state of Chiapas, an AFP reporter said. Like the larger caravan, this one is made up mostly of Hondurans and includes women and children. And like their colleagues moving further up north, these people have rejected an offer from Mexico of medical care, schooling for their kids and temporary work permits if they stop traveling and request asylum in Chiapas or Oaxaca. The first caravan, which has dwindled and now numbers some 4,000 people, according to an aide group called Pueblos sin Fronteras, arrived Tuesday in the town of Juchitan, in Oaxaca. They were spending Tuesday night in tents in an abandoned bus station. Trump has announced he is sending more than 5,000 soldiers to shore up the US-Mexico border as he talks up what he calls a migrant invasion to appeal to his right-wing base ahead of the congressional vote next Tuesday. A suicide bomber targeting a bus carrying employees of Afghanistan's biggest prison killed at least seven people on Wednesday, officials said, in the latest militant attack in the war-torn country. Another eight were wounded in the blast at the entrance to the facility in Kabul, which police spokesman Basir Mujahid said hit a vehicle ferrying Pul-e-Charkhi prison staff. Among the casualties were police officers guarding the main gate and prison staff. The attacker was on foot, interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said. He struck as the bus was entering the jail in the east of the Afghan capital. The Islamic State group (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack via its Amaq propaganda agency, SITE Intelligence Group said. IS has claimed most suicide attacks in Kabul in recent months. The attack comes days after a suicide bomber blew himself up near the entrance of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission in Kabul, killing at least one person and wounding six. A wave of election-related violence has killed or wounded hundreds across the country in recent months as the Taliban and IS step up attacks on Afghan security forces and government workers. Afghanistan's long-delayed parliamentary election, which was held over three days this month, was marred by chaos and deadly attacks. Two days before voting began on October 20, a Taliban-claimed shooting killed a powerful police chief in the southern province of Kandahar. General Abdul Raziq was among three people killed in the brazen insider attack on a high-level security meeting in the provincial capital that was attended by General Scott Miller, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan. Miller escaped unhurt, but US Brigadier General Jeffrey Smiley was among 13 people wounded in the shooting, which the Taliban said had targeted Miller and Raziq. US officials and NATO's Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan were adamant that Miller had not been a target. Story continues Several days later another Taliban-claimed assault killed a NATO soldier and and wounded two others -- all from the Czech Republic -- in the western province of Herat. The attacks came amid a flurry of US-led diplomatic activity to convince the Taliban, Afghanistan's largest militant group, to negotiate an end to the 17-year war. Earlier this month, newly appointed US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met with Taliban representatives in Qatar. Less than two weeks later a top Taliban commander held in Pakistani detention for more than eight years was freed. A senior Taliban leader told AFP the group had requested the release of Abdul Ghani Baradar and several others at the meeting with Khalilzad. The group confirmed Wednesday it had appointed five former Guantanamo Bay detainees to its political office in Doha who have authority to "talk about peace". Johannesburg (AFP) - South Africa's public standards watchdog said Tuesday that the home affairs minister had violated the constitution when he lied under oath in court, triggering immediate calls for him to resign. Malusi Gigaba, 47, was investigated by the public protector ombudswoman after testifying last year in a court case filed by a company controlled by the wealthy Oppenheimer family. Public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane in her report recommended that President Cyril Ramaphosa take disciplinary action against the minister for "telling an untruth under oath and before a court of law". The allegations were probed after a complaint from the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party. "The DA has repeatedly called for constitutional delinquent Gigaba to be sacked, yet inexplicably he has remained a fixture in the cabinets of both Jacob Zuma and Cyril Ramaphosa," the party said in a statement. The court case hinged on whether Gigaba had given the Oppenheimers' approval to have a private terminal at Johannesburg airport. Gigaba at the weekend has said he was the target of extortion attempts after a private sex video was stolen by hacking. He served as finance minister for a year under Jacob Zuma, who was ousted as president in February over mounting graft scandals. General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam and President Nguyen Phu Trong, and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc cabled a message of sympathy to Indonesian President Joko Widodo, while Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan sent her sympathies to Speaker of the Peoples Consultative Assembly. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh also offered condolences to Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. The Boeing 737 Max 8 run by low-cost carrier Lion Air, which was carrying 189 people onboard, crashed into the sea on October 29. By Denis Dumo JUBA (Reuters) - South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar returned to the capital Juba on Wednesday to celebrate a peace deal, more than two years after fierce fighting erupted in the city and forced him to flee the country. To further reinforce the peace deal, President Salva Kiir ordered the release of a jailed advisor to Machar, and a spokesman to his rebel group. Machar flew in with his wife and a small retinue but none of his troops - then met Kiir, his long-time rival, and a line-up of regional leaders who have spent years pressing the two men to end their civil war. "We need peace," Machar told thousands of people who gathered at a ceremony marking the accord that he, Kiir and other groups signed last month. "We really pray that this peace agreement holds this time," said 27-year old Juma Khamis in the crowd. Regional and Western powers alike have been exasperated by a string of failed ceasefires and deals. The world's youngest nation plunged into conflict in 2013 after Kiir sacked Machar as vice president. Troops loyal to both men clashed in the capital that December and ethnically charged fighting soon spread across the state, shutting down oil fields, forcing millions to flee and killing hundreds of thousands of people. [nL8N1WC3UB] Kiir said he had ordered the release of an advisor and a spokesman to rebel leader Machar on Thursday. Kiir said retired South African colonel William Endley, who was sentenced to death in February for trying to bring down the government, would be released. "I'll release him tomorrow and he will be deported to his country," he said, adding that rebel spokesman James Gatdet will also be released. Gatdet had also been sentenced to death in February on charges of treason and incitement against the government. There have been sporadic incidences of fighting since the latest agreement was signed, but violence has largely died down. Kiir hosted Wednesday's ceremony near the mausoleum of national hero John Garang - the same spot where the country celebrated its independence from Sudan in 2011 after decades of north-south war fueled by oil, ethnicity and religion. Leaders from Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt and Somalia looked on as traditional dancers entertained the crowds. Machar fled to neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo in 2016 after fighting broke out again in the capital, wrecking an earlier peace deal and killing hundreds. He later traveled to South Africa, where he was held under house arrest until earlier this year. Under pressure from governments in East Africa and from United Nations and Western donors, Machar's group, other rebel factions and the government last month signed a peace deal, under which he will again become vice president. (Reporting by Denis Dumo; Writing by Aaron Maasho; Editing by George Obulutsa, Richard Balmforth) Juba (AFP) - South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar returned to the capital Juba for the first time in more than two years Wednesday, saying he arrived with a message of peace. Machar, who under the terms of the September deal is to be reinstated as vice president, had not set foot in the city since he fled in July 2016 under a hail of gunfire when an earlier peace pact collapsed. "Our message is one: We are for peace.... This peace is in our hearts and we are going to implement this agreement," Machar said at a ceremony to welcome the latest peace accord for the war-ravaged country. The new deal aims to end a civil war that erupted in the world's youngest country in December 2013 and uprooted about four million people -- roughly a third of the population. The rebel chief was welcomed at Juba's airport by President Salva Kiir, Machar's former ally turned bitter enemy. The two rivals then joined regional leaders at the ceremony to publicly welcome the most recent agreement, signed under international pressure on September 12 in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. "I want to reiterate in front of you that the war in South Sudan has come to an end," Kiir said, according to UN radio Miraya, repeating words often heard but not followed through. In a goodwill gesture, the president announced the release Wednesday of former rebel spokesman James Gatdet Dak, to be followed Thursday by the freeing of William John Endley, a retired South African colonel and ex-adviser to Machar. Both men were sentenced to death by a Juba court in January. UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) chief David Shearer hailed the moment of cooperation and said in a statement that building trust would be crucial. "To see parties that have previously been divided by violence coming together here in Juba, in a public sign of unity, sends a strong message to the citizens of this country that you are genuinely committed to end the suffering and build durable peace," he said. Story continues - 'Chance to restore hope' - Several thousand people gathered for the ceremony at the John Garang Mausoleum, built in honour of the independence hero killed in a helicopter crash in 2005. Among regional leaders attending were Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Ethiopia's newly appointed President Sahle-Work Zewde, Somalia's head of state Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. South Sudan gained independence from its northern neighbour Sudan in 2011 after a 22-year civil war pitting rebel groups against Khartoum. "Sadly, the hopes and dreams of that moment were lost in the outbreak of the war that has plagued this country for five long years," Shearer said. "This ceremony is a chance for the leaders here today to restore that hope and to secure a peaceful and prosperous future for their people." The deal has encountered delays on several issues including the reactivation of a joint committee on borders and the number of regional states. Machar returned to Khartoum later Wednesday, Kiir's spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said. Machar's aides had earlier expressed concern for his safety in Juba. - Deep humanitarian crisis - South Sudan's civil war erupted when Kiir, a member of the Dinka tribe, accused his then deputy Machar, a Nuer, of plotting a coup. The conflict split the country along ethnic lines and has seen mass rape, the forced recruitment of child soldiers and attacks on civilians. It has caused one of the world's greatest humanitarian crises and wrecked the economy in a nation which relies on oil production for the bulk of its revenues. Machar fled Juba in July 2016 after fierce fighting erupted between government forces and his rebels, killing several hundred people. He headed on foot to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and went into exile in South Africa. Several ceasefire agreements and peace pacts have failed to end the fighting, which has killed an estimated 380,000 people, uprooted a third of the population, forced nearly two-and-a-half million into exile, and triggered bouts of deadly famine. Sudan this month appointed a peace envoy to South Sudan following the signing of the September accord in Addis. In the money: Monzo founder and CEO Tom Blomfield. Photo: Monzo Fast-growing UK startup bank Monzo is now worth 1bn ($1.2bn), just three years after launching, making it a unicorn. A unicorn is a term used in the venture capital industry to refer to any tech startup that reaches a $1bn market value, which is determined by private or public investment. The app-only bank announced on Wednesday that it has raised 85m ($108m) in a Series E fundraising its fifth injection of institutional money since its founding in 2015. The funding round values the company at 1bn. Monzo, known for its hot coral-coloured debit cards, raised the sum from US venture capital firms General Catalyst and Accel. Existing investors Passion Capital, Goodwater, Thrive Capital, Orange Digital Ventures, and Stripe also contributed money in the round. Theres a huge opportunity ahead CEO Tom Blomfield told Yahoo Finance UK that the cash will go towards UK growth and product development, particularly driven by hiring. The bank currently employs 450 people but plans to double that to 900 in next 12 months. I think theres a huge opportunity ahead of us and I think capturing as much of it as possible is key, Blomfield said. Monzo currently has just over 1m customers and Blomfield said the bank is signing up 100,000 new customers a month. 30% of new sign-ups are in London and 55% of new customers are aged 20-29, Blomfield said. Another quarter are 30-39. Adam Valkin, a managing director at General Catalyst, praised Monzo as one of the fastest growing consumer financial applications in history in a statement announcing the raise. Customers have spent more than 4bn on Monzos hot coral debit cards in the three years since its launch, the company said. Were really focused on getting into the top 5 or 6 banks [in the UK], Blomfield said, adding that he expected to reach that goal probably within the next two or three years. He added that Monzo will likely start to look at international expansion next year and said: I think the US makes a lot of sense but its not something were planning imminently. Story continues 20m crowdfunding At the same time as announcing the fresh capital injection, Monzo said it plans to hold a large crowdfunding round later this year. Blomfield said the bank aims to do the round before Christmas but it is subject to regulatory approval. CityAM previously reported Monzo will seek to raise 20m, which Blomfield said was ballpark right, adding he could not give the exact figure. The company has held three crowdfunding campaigns on the platform Crowdcube over the last 2 years. Monzo began life as a prepaid card linked to an app that helped you track your spending. It is now a fully-fledged bank and Blomfield said it would continue to build out its stack of services, with a high-interest savings account, cash deposit facilities, and more lending operations all on the agenda. The platform is coming to banking Blomfield said that Monzo has gone from losing 35 per new account at the start of the year to making 4 per new account today, but the company remains loss making overall due to staffing and fixed costs. I think theres a massive shift happening in retail banking at the moment and I think running the business for profitability in the short term, theres a danger that you dont capitalise on that shift enough, Blomfield said. The big high street banks have had this idea of full-service, cradle to grave banking. They sign people up and they try to offer every single product under one brand umbrella the Barclays mortgage or the HSBC credit card. I dont think its a good model because it ends up with customers getting a lousy set of options. Its much better if you go and shop around and go and get the best provider for each product you want. I think what were moving from is that universal full-service bank to a hub and spoke model, to an internet platform. Platforms have taken over a bunch of other industries, I think the platform is coming to banking, where you get a single interface but then you plug in all these different providers. Blomfield said Monzo will work to build out its internal marketplace using the new cash injection. I dont think banks can replicate the speed The big UK banks have taken notice of Monzos fast growth and some are trying to emulate its success. Sky News recently reported that Royal Bank of Scotland plans to build its own mobile bank, Bo, and seed it with 1m Natwest customers. Blomfield said he was not worried about big banks taking on Monzo at its own game. I just dont think these banks can really replicate the speed and particularly this hub and spoke model, I think it just undermines their business model, he said. Barclays isnt going to recommend an HSBC mortgage because it wants to sell a Barclays mortgage. Blomfield said Monzo has no immediate IPO plans, saying: At some point well look at it but all of our investors are pretty happy for the long run. Theres a lot of private capital at the moment and so we dont have a tonne of pressure to go public. I think were also looking at the other IPOs recently things like Farfetch, Adyen, Funding Circle some of them have been a little rocky, so, its certainly not a priority. How to stop trick or treaters [Photo: Getty] For many children, trick or treating is the holy grail of all Halloween festivities. Getting to dress up in a cute/creepy costume, knock on strangers doors and given their body weight in sweets and chocolate. Whats not to love? But in amongst the frivolity its easy to forget that trick or treating isnt fun for everyone. For the elderly and more vulnerable having a group of strangers, many of whom will be dressed in blood-curdling costumes, can be a frightening and intimidating experience. For others having to fork out a small fortune in spooky sweets to keep an endless trail of expectant children happy and having to forgo an episode on Corrie to be on door watch isnt their ideal way to spend a cold Wednesday evening. Mirror News recently launched a poll about the annual celebration and found that a whopping 70% of people are in fact Halloween haters, with many claiming they feel annoyed and worried about people coming to their door at night. So, if youre just not feeling the trick or treating this year, how do you stop the candy hunters a calling? For many, the unwritten rule of trick or treating is that you should steer clear of any houses that arent decorated or dont have a carved pumpkin in the window or doorway. So in theory just drawing your curtains should be enough to stop the trick or treaters knocking. But it doesnt always work. This year many police forces are upping the ante on trick or treat prevention by handing out posters to householders telling children not to trick or treat at their home during Halloween. Devon and Cornwall police say the posters can be used by those who find trick or treat a frightening experience. For some members of our community #Halloween can be a frightening experience, reads the message posted by police on Facebook and Twitter. Download and print our Sorry no trick or treat poster for your window or front door, and offer it to vulnerable relatives of neighbours. Not everyone is a fan of Halloween [Photo: Getty] The idea is that those who arent open to having people call on Halloween can display the poster in their window, which will hopefully deter the sweet seekers. Story continues In recent years weve seen an increase in the number of people participating in Halloween fun, Bob Bunney from the Devon and Cornwall Police Prevention Department told the Falmouth Packet newspaper. We say to anyone whos going trick-or-treating to think about other people, particularly the elderly and vulnerable, as they may get worried or even frightened if strangers are continually calling at their door during the evening. We dont want to discourage anyone or spoil anyones fun, but we ask people not to call at homes displaying the Sorry, no trick or treat poster and not to be persistent if your requests are declined. It isnt just unwelcome door-knockers that can cause upset and confusion on Halloween either. Parents out with tiny trick or treaters often have to deal with their disappointed faces after knocking at pumpkin laden doors to find they stay firmly shut (most likely out trick or treating themselves or just run out of goodies). To side-step the sad-faces, a Melbourne mother had a genius idea to write to her neighbours, asking them to display a balloon at their front gate if they had Halloween treats and wanted to participate in the fun. Helle Warming came up with the idea after taking her son Lucas trick or treating in 2016 and not being sure which houses were keen to take part. We live in an area where trick or treating isnt very popular, so we found it really hard to figure out which house to knock on, Ms Warming told News.com.au. It was also hard to tell if people were just decorating their homes for fun or if they had lollies for the kids. Ms Warming even included the balloon on the letter, so those really not keen to take part could simply put it on their gate. Its now the second year weve done it and its so nice to walk up the street and know the houses you can safely knock on with your child. Ms Warming said the note worked so well she decided to post it on her blog. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook for non-stop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyleUK. Read more from Yahoo Style UK: Halloween costume ideas for families Last-minute Halloween costume ideas for those tired of being a cat How scary is too scary for children at Halloween? A federal grand jury has indicted Robert Bowers, the gunman accused of massacring eleven congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue Saturday, on 44 separate counts, including a number of hate crimes, the Associated Press first reported. BREAKING: Federal grand jury indicts Robert Bowers on 44 counts, including hate crimes, in synagogue shooting. The Associated Press (@AP) October 31, 2018 The charges, ranging from the obstruction of religious practices to the use of a firearm in commission of a murder, will likely result in life without parole or the death penalty, which the Department of Justice said previously it believes is appropriate in this case. Attorney General Jeff Sessions will ultimately decide on which sentence prosecutors will seek. Bowers, 46, is also facing eleven counts of criminal homicide at the state level. Allegheny County district attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said Tuesday that federal authorities have prevented him from pursuing those charges despite his contention that area residents should sit in judgment of Bowers. Authorities claim Bowers, armed with two Glock .357 handguns and a Colt AR-15 rifle, drove to the Tree of Life Synagogue in the historic Jewish neighborhood of Squirrel Hill and opened fire on congregants attending Saturday morning services. Eleven people were killed and six, including two police officers, were wounded before Bowers surrendered. Hatred and violence on the basis of religion can have no place in our society, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in announcing the indictment handed down by a grand jury in Pennsylvania. These alleged crimes are incomprehensibly evil and utterly repugnant to the values of this nation. Therefore this case is not only important to the victims and their loved ones, but to the city of Pittsburgh and the entire nation. New York (AFP) - Accused Pittsburgh synagogue gunman Robert Bowers is now facing 44 charges including federal hate crimes in connection with a shooting spree that left 11 people dead, as prosecutors unveiled an expanded indictment Wednesday. Authorities say Bowers, 46, burst into the Tree of Life synagogue with an AR-15 assault rifle and three handguns, killing 11 worshippers at Shabbat services and wounding six others, including four police officers. "While inside the Tree of Life Synagogue, Bowers made statements indicating his desire to 'kill Jews,'" prosecutors said. The charges allege that he carried out the killings while violating the victims' constitutional right to the free exercise of religious beliefs -- which is considered a hate crime under US law. Under the expanded charges, he could face the death penalty, or life in prison without parole followed by a consecutive sentence of 535 years' imprisonment, the Justice Department said. "Hatred and violence on the basis of religion can have no place in our society," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. "Every American has the right to attend their house of worship in safety." Bowers espoused violent anti-Semitism and hate for immigrants online ahead of his rampage Saturday. He was taken into custody after being wounded in a shootout with police and transferred to a local hospital. The extent of his injuries was unclear. Bowers appeared in court Monday in a wheelchair, where he said nothing other than "Yes" and "Yes, sir" to a judge in response to procedural questions. TAIPEI/BEIJING (Reuters) - Taiwan offered "immediate" congratulations to Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, as a Chinese newspaper warned him not to cultivate ties with the island Beijing claims as its own. In the run-up to the election, Bolsonaro had portrayed China, its largest trading partner, as a predator looking to dominate key sectors of its economy. Bolsonaro's friendly leanings towards self-ruled, democratic Taiwan are likewise vexing to Beijing, which considers the island a breakaway province. Bolsonaro in February became the first Brazilian presidential candidate to visit Taiwan since Brazil recognized Beijing as the sole Chinese government under the "one China" policy in the 1970s. Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that its representative office in Brazil had offered the Taiwan government's "immediate" congratulations to Bolsonaro. It also noted his visit to Taiwan earlier this year, where it said he had gained "further understanding" about Taiwan's national situation and economic development, which would help with cooperation and exchanges going forward. Brazil, like most countries, only has formal diplomatic ties with China, not Taiwan, which China says has no right to state-to-state relations. Taiwan now has formal relations with only 17 countries worldwide, many of them small, less developed nations in Latin America and the Pacific. Widely read Chinese state-run tabloid the Global Times said on Tuesday that it would take Bolsonaro "some time to get familiar with foreign policy". "If he continues to disregard the basic principle over Taiwan after taking office, it will apparently cost Brazil a great deal," it said. "As many Latin American countries have walked away from Taiwan, the Chinese island won't bring any more benefits to Brazil, which Bolsonaro and his team must be aware of." China has been focusing its attention on taking away more of Taiwan's Latin American allies and has so far this year won over El Salvador and the Dominican Republic. China on Monday congratulated Bolsonaro after the far-right lawmaker won the election in a dramatic swing away from the left in the world's fourth-largest democracy. (Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie) Bangkok (AFP) - Thailand is rolling out plans to legalise medical marijuana, an official told AFP Wednesday, as the country hopes to cash in on a multi-billion dollar industry with a product its supporters hail as some of the world's best. Several nations have embraced the use of medicinal cannabis, including Canada, Australia, Israel, and more than half the states in the US. But Thailand would be the first country in Asia to do so, tapping into a market that US-based Grand View Research has estimated could reach US$55.8 billion by 2025. A draft bill to permit its limited use has been sent to the military junta's National Legislative Assembly (NLA). "We have submitted the bill to the speaker," Jet Sirathraanon, chairman of the NLA's standing committee of public health, told AFP, adding that it will have its first reading in the junta's rubber-stamp parliament in less than one month. The cannabis would be "for medication only, not for recreation," he added. Marijuana remains illegal in Thailand, with stiff penalties for drug trafficking even though the country remains a key regional transit hub and producer of narcotics. But the idea of medical marijuana has long been more acceptable to broad swathes of society in the Buddhist-majority country and junta officials have previously mooted the need to reform drug laws. Jet said Thailand has delayed making the change for far too long while other countries such as Canada and Australia have seized the moment, including legalising exports. He cited the revenue-generating possibilities that amending the laws would provide for Thailand as well as the beneficial effects it could have on patients in pain. He also praised the quality of the Southeast Asian country's plants, which thrive particularly well in the Golden Triangle borderlands of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. "I'm doing this because it's an opportunity for Thai people," he said. "Thailand has the best marijuana in the world." Story continues Experts agree and see similar potential. "Today, Thailand can produce awesome cannabis at a fraction of the cost of Western growers," said Jim Plamondon, VP of Marketing at the Thai Cannabis Corporation, described as the country's first legal marijuana firm. "Tomorrow, Thailand will reclaim its cultural legacy, by becoming the world's leading grower, processor, and manufacturer of cannabis products," he said. "Any company that is serious about cannabis should start moving its supply chain to Thailand." Fox News fearmongering coverage of the migrant caravan traveling through Mexico invoked the wrath of Trevor Noah on Tuesdays broadcast of The Daily Show. Noah attacked the conservative networks hosts and guests for repeatedly referring to the thousands of people from Central America who are currently more than 1,000 miles from the U.S. border as an invasion. Really, an invasion? Get the fuck out of here, man, Noah told a live audience in Miami, where hes recording this weeks show. What kind of invaders apply to come in and give the enemy three months warning? He then revealed why he continues to bother with Fox News. I assume that some of them are good people, he cracked. Because even though this network might seem like one giant caravan of dangerous extremists, I believe there are people in there who mean well. He then aired footage of Fox News anchor Shep Smith explaining how the rhetoric about the caravan was all about the upcoming midterm elections. Check out the clip here: Related Coverage Seth Meyers Names And Shames Conspiracy Theory-Peddling Fox Hosts Ronald Reagan's Daughter Has A Few Choice Words For Sarah Huckabee Sanders And Trump Kerry Washington Makes Passionate Plea To People 'Mad About Kavanaugh' Chris Evans Taunts Donald Trump With Rewrite Of His 'Fake News Media' Rant Also on HuffPost Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Bringing the finest in local culinary practices to the menu is one of the aims of the Taste of Place programme run by Failte Ireland. As part of the programme, the National Tourism Development Authority is hosting a series of nationwide workshops bringing together visitor centres, attractions and distilleries to highlight how providing visitors with locally sourced food can drive revenue growth. The first of the workshops took place last week in the Tannery Dungarvan cookery school, Waterford with the second workshop currently taking place in the Airfield Estate, Dundrum with Distilleries from all over the country attending followed by the final workshop at the Good Things Cafe Cookery School in Skibbereen from Tuesday, 6th November until Thursday, 8th November next. The programme includes an introduction to how food motivates the visitor with participants discovering the latest in tourist trends and culinary concepts together with best practice examples of where local authentic food offerings drive revenue growth in business and enhance value perception. They will also get a variety of cookery demonstrations from industry leaders and take part in working sessions to inspire change and deliver a renewed food and beverage offering. The programme aims to support catering teams to deliver an authentic and quality food and beverage experience that is rooted in place by: Introducing more menu options that reflect the culinary traditions of a local area. Sourcing ingredients from local Irish suppliers. Linking elements of the food offering to the wider destination brands. Sinead Hennessey, Food Tourism Officer at Failte Ireland said: Taste of Place is a certification programme that recognizes tourism attractions that are committed to sourcing local Irish food and drink. We can all accept that food is more important than ever as consumers continue to become more conscious around their choices and it is great to see so many visitor experiences capitalizing on this growing trend. Since its inception, Taste of Place has worked with over 70 visitor attractions all across Ireland to advance the local offering, making a significant impact on visitor satisfaction and revenue growth Paul Carty, Chairperson of the Association of Visitor Experiences and Attractions (AVEA) said: Globally food tourism is increasing and Ireland is well positioned to take advantage of our high quality food and drink production. The workshops and Programme gives businesses the opportunity to experience local produce as part of the stories our members deliver, greatly enhancing the overall experience as well as contributing to increased revenue growth. William Lavelle, Head of the Irish Whiskey Association added: With Irish whiskey now the fastest growing premium spirit in the world, its not surprising that more international tourists want to visit our distilleries and learn about the people and places that define Irish whiskey. Our members have noticed that international visitors are not just interested in Irish whiskey, they also want to experience quality food and drink while visiting Ireland. The Taste of Place programme offers a valuable opportunity for our members distilleries to promote local Irish food and drink from their region. Food and beverages are integral to the overall tourism experience in Ireland and Failte Ireland research shows that 80% of visitors believe it is an important part of their visit and has a significant impact on their overall satisfaction levels in a destination. Jump to top The US Defense Department announced on October 29 that it would send 5,200 troops to Americas southern border by the end of the week. The troops are expected to join 2,000 National Guard members already deployed there, assembling a force exceeding the US military footprint in Iraq and Syria, the Wall Street Journal reported. The move came as US President Donald Trump repeatedly called attention to a migrant caravan moving through Central America, using speeches and tweets to refer to it as an invasion. The caravan was hundreds of miles from the border in late October and was not expected to arrive there for two months. This footage shows crews and equipment preparing to leave Fort Knox, Kentucky, and equipment being unloaded in San Antonio, Texas, as part of the effort to support border security, in an operation dubbed Faithful Patriot. Credit: TSgt Laura Beckley via Storyful PITTSBURGH On Tuesday evening, Tracy Baton stood on the steps of the Sixth Presbyterian Church the same church where Mr. Rogers worshipped for many years and spoke to a crowd of thousands. When Mr. Rogers came to Pittsburgh in the 50s, he found a neighborhood full of values, full of Jewish values, and he took them forward and shared them with the world, she said as the sun set over Squirrel Hill, the place she was raised. Pittsburgh values matter everywhere now. Those who would insert themselves on a national stage, into a city in mourning, before the dead are buried, is unacceptable, she continued. Those that would limit our neighbors vote, that would foment hate against the Jewish community, Muslim community, people of color, LGBTQ people, as well as wage a war on womens bodies, are not welcome here! The crowd cheered on Baton, director of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Womens March on Washington. They all knew whom she was referring to: About an hour earlier and only a few blocks away, President Donald Trumps motorcade had left the synagogue where a white supremacist slaughtered 11 people Saturday. It was part of Trumps three-hour photo-op in a grieving city where most of the residents, it seemed, had never wanted him to come at all. Thousands of people march through Pittsburgh to protest President Donald Trump's visit just days after 11 people were killed in a shooting at Tree of Life synagogue. (Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI via Getty Images) Mayor Bill Peduto (D) implored the president not to come until after the victims funerals were complete, saying all attention [Tuesday] should be on the victims. But the president came here anyway, to a city reeling from white nationalist violence, and he did so just hours after it emerged that he is considering using an executive order to end birthright citizenship in the U.S., a white nationalist proposal. When he arrived at Tree of Life synagogue, he and first lady Melania Trump talked with one of the temples three rabbis, Jeffrey Myers, one of the few people who had agreed to meet the president. The Trumps laid flowers on 11 makeshift Star of David memorials erected outside the building, each honoring a different victim. Trump had, in essence, already blamed the synagogue for their deaths, arguing just a few hours after the shooting that worshippers would have been protected if the synagogue had armed security guards. Story continues President Trump and first lady Melania Trump lay flowers on 11 makeshift Star of David memorials erected outside the synagogue. (Photo: SAUL LOEB via Getty Images) We have people who cant sit shiva because youre blocking our streets! the Rev. Susan Rothenberg, a Presbyterian minister who lives a few doors down from the synagogue, screamed at the president when he arrived. These people cant grieve! Youre causing them pain! We welcome everybody here! she continued, presumably referring to the Squirrel Hill Jewish communitys acceptance of immigrants and refugees. You only care about you! You are not welcome on my street! These are my neighbors that were killed! You are not welcome in Squirrel Hill! Do you understand that? There were thousands of people mourning and marching through Squirrel Hill Tuesday who shared her sentiment. It all started at 3 p.m., with a protest and shiva a ritual mourning of the dead organized by the Jewish group IfNotNow. A hundred or so people formed a circle at Murray Avenue and Darlington Road. We are here to mourn the 11 Jewish people who were killed on Saturday, IfNotNow organizer and Pittsburgh resident Diana Clarke told the crowd. We are here to mourn the two black people who were shot by a white nationalist in Louisville, Kentucky, last week. Singing we will build this world with love! #Pittsburgh pic.twitter.com/8K4of9uPhX Christopher Mathias (@letsgomathias) October 30, 2018 They sang songs Olam Chesed Yibaneh and Ozi VZimrat Yah and held one another, often crying onto others shoulders. They recited the mourners kaddish. At the end, a man and a woman blew three times into shofars rams horn trumpets used in Jewish ceremonies which this time, they said, signified their promise to fight white supremacy. Part of that promise for Clarke on Tuesday was to tell the country, and the world, that the president of the United States was not welcome in Pittsburgh. I think that Donald Trump represents white nationalism and white supremacy, and that has no place in the mourning lives lost to exactly those systems that his administration upholds, Clarke told HuffPost. At Beechwood Boulevard and Forbes Avenue, meanwhile, thousands of other protesters started to gather. This was the protest organized by the Pittsburgh chapter of Bend The Arc, a Jewish social justice group. The gunman who tore apart our neighborhood believed your lies about the immigrant caravan in Mexico, the group wrote in a message to Trump on its website. He believed antisemitic lies that Jews were funding the caravan. These are all things you and your party have claimed, without evidence, things that drove this madman to take his anger out on peaceful, sabbath-observing Jews. For this reason and others, they organized Tuesdays protest against Trumps appearance in their city. Whole families arrived. One woman whod grown up going to Tree of Life synagogue traveled here from Chicago to participate. When it came time to march, there were thousands of people walking through Squirrel Hill. Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. A protest against Trump's visit to Pittsburgh on Tuesday drew thousands of people. (Photo: Christopher Mathias/HuffPost) They walked slowly and solemnly, carrying banners that read Refugees Are Not Invaders, Pittsburgh Builds Bridges Not Walls and Pittsburgh Welcomes All Who Dont Hate. They, too, sang Ozi VZimrat Yah and eventually merged with the IfNotNow group, which was singing the same song. They all marched toward Tree of Life. About a block from the synagogue, where the road was blocked by police, they performed the keriah a Jewish mourning ritual that involves the tearing of a piece of clothing. In this case, the protesters tore small pieces of black paper. They held the pieces of paper in the air. For a while, they stood in perfect silence, save for the few who couldnt help but weep. Then the singing started with Ozi VZimrat Yah again, the pace quicker this time and the volume growing louder, loud enough maybe for the president to hear. Protesters clapping and cheering and screaming thank you to #Pittsburgh fire department company 18 as they walk by. This is one of companies that first responded to the massacre at the synagogue. pic.twitter.com/QteswZW8jd Christopher Mathias (@letsgomathias) October 30, 2018 The march continued, past Pittsburgh Bureau of Fires Quint Company 18, which first responded to the massacre Saturday. The protesters cheered and clapped and some yelled thank you! at the firefighters and police officers standing outside. Then it was on to the Sixth Presbyterian Church, Mr. Rogers church, where they stood on the street outside as the sun set, listening to a series of speakers and occasionally breaking into chants of Vote! Vote! Vote! A short time later, Trump boarded his plane and left Pittsburgh. Related Coverage Doctor Notes Irony Of Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooter Being Treated By Jewish Staffers Synagogue Shooting Highlights History Of Hate In Pittsburgh Trump Visits Pittsburgh As Local Officials Decline To Join Him This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Tuesday morning in a suburban New Jersey town, an IT executive from the United Kingdom who has been legally living and working in the U.S. for 20 years, with three children born in America, looked at a news alert and began to panic. My skin crawled, all the hairs rose on my body, says the woman, who does not wish to use her name due to fears of retribution from the government since she is applying for U.S. citizenship. The reason for her fear was Donald Trumps vow during an interview with Axios on HBO to introduce an executive order that would end the right to U.S. citizenship for children born in the country to non-citizens and illegal immigrants. The first thing I thought of, I am a green card holder, my husband is a green card holder, says the woman, whose spouse is the business director of a multinational company and is also applying for citizenship. I have a 17-year-old, 15-year-old and a 12-year-old, and I felt, My goodness, does that mean we can be thrown out of the country by the whim of the government if this is allowed to happen? According to legal experts, it most likely cant happen. As the 14th Amendment states: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. RELATED VIDEO: PEOPLE Writer Natasha Stoynoff Breaks Silence, Accuses Donald Trump of Sexual Attack Peter Spiro, a professor of law at Temple University, tells The New York Times: The conventional understanding is absolutely clear that children born in the United States are citizens of the United States, with the insignificant exception of the children of diplomats. And constitutional scholars believe it would require a constitutional amendment to change that, according to FactCheck.org. Hes doing something thats going to upset a lot of people, but ultimately this will be decided by the courts, Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional expert and University of Virginia Law School professor, tells The BBC. This is not something he can decide on his own. Story continues It is unclear how serious Trump is about acting on his plan. Critics say that Trumps declaration is simply more of his divisive anti-immigrant and political rhetoric, just a week before the midterm elections, to try and bring out his base to vote. Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLUs Immigrants Rights Project, argues to The Washington Post that the president was involved in a transparent and blatantly unconstitutional attempt to sow division and fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms. The president cannot erase the Constitution with an executive order... This is a transparent and blatantly unconstitutional attempt to sow division and fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms. @OmarJadwat, ACLUs Immigrants Rights Project https://t.co/E4IUGUh7u6 Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) October 30, 2018 And Kristen Clarke, the president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, tells the Times that Trumps latest idea is both illegal and offensive. Aside from being unconstitutional, such an executive order would exacerbate racial tensions, exploit fears and drive further polarization across the country at a moment that calls for the promotion of unity and inclusion, she said in a statement. RELATED NEWS: Paul Ryan Breaks from Trump on Birthright Citizenship Plan: You Obviously Cannot Do That Even the Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, who usually supports Trump, has rejected the idea. You obviously cannot do that. You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order, he told WVLK radio on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post. Ryan added: I believe in interpreting the Constitution as its written, and that means you cant do something like this via executive order. The New Jersey woman, who says she feels a bit less panicked now that shes read about the slim chance of Trumps success, hasnt yet told her children the news. But she will. He is throwing this out there and I have to tell my children, she says. He has put out that statement which his base will stand behind You dont belong here and that is how I feel. Fort Myers (United States) (AFP) - President Donald Trump further hardened his pre-election anti-immigration rhetoric in a Florida campaign stop on Wednesday, after threatening to deploy as many as 15,000 soldiers on the Mexican border -- equal to the size of the US contingent in Afghanistan. "They got a lot of rough people in these caravans. They are not angels," he said in Fort Myers, referring to migrants from poor Central American countries moving towards the United States in hopes of a better life or to escape violence. "We're gettin' prepared for the caravan, folks," he said. Brushing aside accusations that his divisive rhetoric on immigration is stoking extremism, Trump made the troop announcement before flying to Florida for the last stage of campaigning ahead of next Tuesday's midterm elections. He will host 11 rallies across eight states in the next six days. Trump hopes to fire up core Republican voters and spur the party to retain dominance of both chambers of Congress. Democrats are threatening to light a fire under Trump's feet if they win even partial control, raising the specter of ever more brutal Washington politics. At the core of Trump's message to his raucous, adoring supporters is the now near daily warning that America is literally under attack from an "invasion" of illegal immigrants and that Democrats would throw open the borders. On Tuesday, Trump announced that more than 5,000 active duty soldiers were being sent. That was already highly unusual, but on Wednesday, he told reporters at the White House: "We'll do up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel." Trump frequently describes illegal immigrants -- a tiny minority of whom have formed groups to attempt walking hundreds of miles to the US border -- as "rapists" and "thugs." "It's a dangerous group of people," Trump said of the latest group of a few thousand migrants, who are still deep inside Mexico far from their goal. "They're not coming into our country." Story continues The situation, according to the Department of Homeland Security, is "an unprecedented crisis." However, the department's own figures show that the number of illegal immigrants intercepted in 2018 was only 400,000, a mere 25 percent of the 1.6 million figure in 2000. - Guns, bombs - The president has reveled in his anti-immigrant rhetoric for months. At his "Make America Great Again" rallies, like the one in Florida on Wednesday, Trump leads supporters in chanting "build the wall" -- a reference to his so-far unrealized dream of erecting a partition along the entire US-Mexican frontier. But the nationalist -- or what critics say is the racist-tinged -- policy was engulfed in deep controversy last week when an alleged anti-Semitic fanatic gunned down 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue. According to US news reports, the shooter had taken inspiration from Trump's speeches in his stated desire to fight for white people. Similarly, a Florida man arrested last week on charges of mailing homemade bombs to more than a dozen Trump opponents was an ardent supporter of the president. The alarming escalation of extremist politics threw Trump on the defensive, with opponents claiming that he had helped create an atmosphere in which the two attackers felt comfortable to carry out their plans. On Tuesday, Trump made a politically tricky visit to Pittsburgh, accompanied by his wife Melania, Orthodox Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka. Trump played the traditional presidential role of healer-in-chief at the Tree of Life synagogue, laying memorial stones and spending more than an hour at a nearby hospital with the widow of one of the slain. The experience was "very humbling and very sad," Trump said. Opponents and noisy groups of local protesters said, however, that he shouldn't even have come. Starkly illustrating the controversy, there wasn't anyone available, beyond the local air force base commander and his wife, to meet the president on arrival from Washington. Pittsburgh's mayor was among those who suggested that Trump stay away. - Brushing off, doubling down - White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders pointed out that Trump "was also asked to come by some" and insisted that he'd gone to "represent the country in this moment." Certainly Trump was back in fighting mood on Wednesday, tweeting that he and Melania "were treated very nicely yesterday in Pittsburgh." "Small protest was not seen by us, staged far away," he said. "The Fake News stories were just the opposite-Disgraceful!" He then explored his latest eye-catching plan for curtailing immigration: removal of a constitutionally protected right to citizenship for anyone born on US soil. The automatic right, which is also given in neighboring Canada and Mexico, has been criticized as outmoded, providing a loophole for the children of illegal immigrants. "The World is using our laws to our detriment. They laugh at the Stupidity they see!" he tweeted. However, the nature and timing of Trump's proposal -- first aired Tuesday -- has been controversial, particularly given his insistence that he can personally overrule something so far protected by the constitution. Donald Trump has said asylum seekers who illegally cross into the US from Mexico will be kept in very nice tents in a bid to put others off doing the same. Railing against a migrant caravan heading for Americas southern border, the US president told Fox News his administration is going to build tent cities in preparation for what he described as an invasion of the country. Those applying to stay in the US will be incarcerated until their asylum application is considered by a court, Mr Trump added a process that can currently take years. Mr Trumps comments on Monday evening came the same day it emerged he is preparing to send more than 5,000 troops to the Mexico border, a move critics say is an attempt to further politicise the issue. Im sending up the military, this is the military, and theyre standing there, and one thing that will happen, when theyre captured, we dont let them out, Mr Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham. What has been happening, and were not as of pretty recently, were not letting them out. What happens is they would catch and release, he added, in reference to a policy which allows people entering the US illegally to live there ahead of their court date. Were catching, were not releasing. So if they wanna come over, but were not even doing that. Were not letting them into this country. He continued: Were going to build tent cities, were going to put tents up all over the place. Were not going to build structures, and spend all of this, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. Were going to have tents, theyre going to be very nice, and theyre going to wait, and if they dont get asylum, they get out. And very few people, they dont actually, if you wanna wait they dont usually get asylum, you know that. The result, Mr Trump added, would be far fewer people attempting to cross into the US. Asked if sending troops to the border was an midterm election strategy to fire up his base, Mr Trump insisted the thousands attempting to reach the US was an invasion of our country, a phrase he had previously used on Twitter. Story continues Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border. Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process. This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2018 Later in the interview, Mr Trump railed against accusations he bears some responsibility for the attempted mail bombing of CNNs offices and a number of high-profile critics of the president. Despite his inflammatory rhetoric, including repeatedly branding fake news media the enemy of the people, Mr Trump insisted responsibility lay only with the insane suspect, who is an avowed supporter of the president. Complaining his name was in the headline of one news report about the arrest of the suspect, Cesar Sayoc, Mr Trump compared the coverage to news reports about the shooting of nine African-Americans by a white supremacist in 2015. They didnt do that with President Obama with the church, the horrible situation with the church, they didnt do that, he said. By Jessica Resnick-Ault PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump, shrugging off objections from some critics that he was unwelcome, on Tuesday offered condolences at the Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 Jewish worshipers were shot to death as thousands of mourners attended the first funerals for victims of the massacre. The president, who opponents say has stoked a toxic political climate conducive to acts of violence, paid a brief visit to the Tree of Life temple, the scene of Saturday's attack, accompanied by first lady Melania Trump. They were greeted by Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who led them inside the temple. Emerging about 18 minutes later, the president went to a memorial outside the building, where the first lady placed a flower and the president placed a small stone on a marker for each of the shooting victims. Trump also planned to visit hospitalized police officers and other people wounded in Saturday's gun violence. About 2,000 people, many of them members Pittsburgh's tight-knit Jewish community, held a protest march against Trump as his visit began, chanting, "Words have meaning," and carrying signs with such slogans as "We build bridges not walls." Also joining Trump on his trip to Pennsylvania's second-largest city were Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, his daughter and son-in-law who are Jewish and serve as White House advisers. Trump's visit came just seven days before elections that will determine whether his Republican Party will maintain its control in both houses of Congress or whether the Democrats will seize a majority in one chamber or both. The first funerals for the victims of the attack also were held on Tuesday. More than 1,800 people, some from across the United States, came to pay respects to relatives of David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59, at Rodef Shalom, another synagogue in the Squirrel Hill district that forms the heart of the city's Jewish community. Police officers were posted outside the temple. The two brothers, who lived at a home for people with disabilities, were among the 11 mostly elderly congregants killed when a gunman stormed into the Tree of Life synagogue and opened fire on worshipers, yelling, "All Jews must die." Services were also held for Jerry Rabinowitz, a 66-year-old family physician, and retiree Daniel Stein, 71. The crowd of about 2,000 at Rabinowitz's funeral included nurses dressed in their surgical scrubs. The accused gunman, Robert Bowers, 46, was arrested after he was wounded in a shootout with police. He has been charged with 29 federal felony counts, including hate crimes, and could face the death penalty if convicted. The attack - which the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has described as the deadliest targeting Jews in U.S. history - has heightened a national debate over Trump's rhetoric, which critics say has contributed to a surge in white nationalist and neo-Nazi activity. The Trump administration has rejected the notion that he has encouraged far-right extremists who have embraced him. (Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York and Susan Cornwell and Richard Cowan in Washington; Writing by Bill Tarrant; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) By Jessica Resnick-Ault PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump was due to visit Pittsburgh on Tuesday, as mourners prepared to hold the first funerals for victims of the synagogue massacre and Jewish leaders said he would not be welcome until he denounced white nationalism. Trump said he would visit hospitalized police officers and other people wounded in Saturday's mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue that killed 11 worshipers in the deadliest ever attack on America's Jewish community. "Im just going to pay my respects," Trump told Fox News on Monday night. "I would have done it even sooner, but I didnt want to disrupt anymore than they already had disruption. But I look forward to going to Pittsburgh." Robert Bowers, 46, is accused of storming into the synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill section yelling "All Jews must die" and opening fire on members of three congregations holding Sabbath prayer services there. The bloodshed has heightened a national debate over Trump's political rhetoric, which his critics say has contributed to a surge in right-wing extremism in the United States. "Yes, words matter," Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, a Democrat, said during a CNN interview on Monday. The Trump administration has rejected the notion he has encouraged white nationalists and neo-Nazis who have embraced him. Trump said during the interview on Fox News that he did not have to clarify his nationalism. "It means I love the country, it means Im fighting for the country," he said. "Im proud of this country and I call that nationalism. I call it being a nationalist and I dont see any other connotation than that." "YOU ARE NOT WELCOME" Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers told ABC on Monday that the President of the United States was always welcome to visit. But a group of local Jewish leaders told Trump in an open letter: "you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully denounce white nationalism." More than 43,000 people have signed the letter, organized and posted online by the Pittsburgh chapter of Bend the Arc, a Jewish organization opposed to what it calls "the immoral agenda of the Trump administration and the Republican Party." Pittsburgh's mayor Peduto said he was also against Trump's visit because it would coincide with the first funerals - David Rosenthal, 54, and his brother Cecil Rosenthal, 59, are due to be buried on Tuesday. Peduto said Trump should wait until all the funerals were held, and the visit and additional security measures entailed would distract attention from the "priority" of burying the dead. The trip comes just a week before the hotly contested Nov. 6 congressional elections that will determine whether Trump's Republican Party will retain a majority in Congress. On Monday, a U.S. magistrate judge ordered the suspect, Bowers, to be held without bond. The onetime truck driver, who frequently posted anti-Semitic material online and was described by neighbors as a loner, was charged with 29 federal felony counts and could face the death penalty if convicted. Prosecutors have said they are treating the mass shooting as a hate crime. In addition to the 11 mostly elderly worshipers who were killed, six people, including four police officers, were wounded before the suspect was shot by police and surrendered. Two of the surviving victims remained hospitalized in critical condition. (Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Andrew Heavens) By Jessica Resnick-Ault and Steve Holland PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday visited the Pittsburgh synagogue attacked by an anti-Semitic gunman and lit candles for each of the 11 slain worshipers, while thousands protested his presence in the city and victims' families began burying their dead. The presidential trip, which sources said congressional leaders of both parties declined to join, came as Trump drew widespread disapproval for inflammatory rhetoric that critics said may have helped provoke the deadliest attack ever on American Jewry. Shrugging off public assertions from Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto that Trump's visit was ill-timed, the president entered the Tree of Life temple where Saturday's shooting rampage occurred, accompanied by first lady Melania Trump. They were greeted by Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who led them inside the temple to light ritual yahrzeit candles in memory of the victims. Emerging about 18 minutes later, the couple walked to a memorial outside the building, where the first lady placed a flower and the president placed a small stone on a marker for each of the dead. Trump, who according to press secretary Sarah Sanders, described his visit as "very humbling and sad," left in his motorcade after about 30 minutes at the synagogue. He made no public remarks. "He wanted today to be about showing respect for the families and the friends of the victims as well as for Jewish Americans," Sanders said. Several thousand protesters, an ethnically mixed crowd of all ages including members of Pittsburgh's tight-knit Jewish community, held an anti-Trump rally about a block away from the synagogue just as his visit began, singing Old Testament psalms and carrying signs with slogans such as "We build bridges not walls." Many of their signs carried slogans and imagery invoking one of Squirrel Hill's most famous residents, the late Fred Rogers, whose long-running children's television show "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" featured lessons on friendship and kindness. Their march started on the street where he grew up and ended at the church where he belonged. Story continues WEEK BEFORE ELECTIONS Trump also went to a city hospital and visited three police officers, wounded in a gunfight with the shooting suspect, and their families. Sanders said Trump also spent time with the wife of one of the slain congregants, Richard Gottfried, 65. "She said she wanted to meet the president to let him know that they wanted him there." Trump's visit to Pennsylvania's second-largest city came just seven days before national elections that will determine whether his Republican Party will maintain control of both houses of Congress or whether the Democrats will seize a majority in one chamber or both. The president and his wife were joined by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, his daughter and son-in-law, who are Jewish and serve as White House advisers, and by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is also Jewish. The first funerals for the victims of the attack were held earlier on Tuesday. More than 1,800 people, some from across the United States, came to pay respects to relatives of David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59, at Rodef Shalom, another synagogue in the Squirrel Hill district that forms the heart of the city's Jewish community. Police officers were posted outside the temple. The two brothers, who lived at a home for people with disabilities, were among the 11 mostly elderly congregants killed when a gunman stormed into the Tree of Life synagogue and opened fire on worshipers, yelling: "All Jews must die." The accused gunman, Robert Bowers, 46, was charged on Monday with 29 federal felony counts, including hate crimes, and could face the death penalty if convicted. The attack has heightened a national debate over Trump's rhetoric, which critics say has contributed to a surge in white nationalist and neo-Nazi activity. The Trump administration has rejected the notion he has encouraged far-right extremists who have embraced him. 'WORDS HAVE MEANING' But protest organizers said Trump's frequent tweets about the caravans of Central American migrants traveling through Mexico en route to the United States may have been a factor in provoking Saturday's bloodshed. They noted that Trump had characterized the caravans as an "invasion" while falsely stating they harbored terrorists and were financed in part by Democrats and the Jewish philanthropist George Soros. In a social media post on Saturday, Bowers referred to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a Jewish refugee aid organization, as helping to "bring invaders in that kill our people," declaring: "I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I'm going in." Protest organizers in a statement announcing their rally, said the gunman "believed anti-Semitic lies that Jews were funding the caravan." The announcement echoed an open letter from a group of local Jewish leaders who told Trump: "You are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully denounce white nationalism." More than 78,000 people have signed the letter, organized and posted online by the Pittsburgh chapter of Bend the Arc, a Jewish organization opposed to what it calls "the immoral agenda of the Trump administration and the Republican Party." (Reporting by Jessica Resnick-Ault and Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York and Susan Cornwell and Richard Cowan in Washington; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Cynthia Osterman and Peter Cooney) President Donald Trump, accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, visited Pittsburgh on Tuesday, four days after an anti-Semitic gunman opened fire on a packed synagogue and killed 11 people. The Trumps paid their respects at the Tree of Life synagogue, where makeshift memorials have been erected for the victims of Saturdays attack. Trumps daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner accompanied the president, while protesters crowded nearby streets to grieve and signal to the president that he wasnt welcome. Trump, apologize for stoking the hatred or go home, one protesters sign read. Hate does not work in our neighborhoods, read another, according to CNN. Meanwhile, the first funerals for the victims of the attack were also being held in the city. Mayor Bill Peduto, a Democrat, urged Trump not to visit Pittsburgh while we are burying the dead, so the attention would remain on the victims and their funerals. Two Democrats and two Republicans had also declined the White Houses invitation to join the president on the trip, including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), The Washington Post reported. Also declining invitations was Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey (R), according to PIX 11. .@realDonaldTrump, accompanied by @FLOTUS, puts down a stone brought from the @WhiteHouse on a Star of David, representing one of the 11 Jewish congregants killed in Saturday's shooting in Pittsburgh, as they visit a memorial outside the Tree of Life Synagogue. (AP/Andrew Harnik) pic.twitter.com/vJVETbnTSf Andrew Harnik (@andyharnik) October 30, 2018 A rabbi identified as Jeffrey Myers led the president and first lady to each of the 11 makeshift memorials set up outside of the Tree of Life synagogue. Story continues The Trumps placed a white flower and small stone atop each Jewish star memorial, in line with Jewish tradition and as a show of respect for the deceased. Ivanka Trump and Kushner followed suit, a few paces behind. Inside the synagogue, the first couple also lit candles for the victims, but they did not enter the crime scene, the White House said. As the Trumps and Myers continued with their ceremony, cries from nearby protesters could be heard by journalists, according to the White House pool report. The protesters reportedly yelled, Words have meaning and No more hate. After the synagogue, the Trumps visited the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where the president met with four patients who were still recovering from the attack and their families. Protesters gathered as President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump visited the memorials of the Tree of Life shooting victims. (Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS) Pittsburgh Councilman Corey OConnor joined demonstrators during their protest of Trumps visit. Were sort of saying, Now is not the time. Today, we were grieving, were going to be grieving for the next few weeks, and today wasnt a time to draw more national attention to us, OConnor told CNNs Situation Room. We are a tough city. We are going to get through this, we are all going to battle together, and thats what Pittsburgh is all about. And we will get through this, but today was a difficult time for additional attention. Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today. The strength of this community, the diversity of this community has really shown in an outpouring of love from across the neighborhood and across the city" Pittsburgh Councilman Corey OConnor reflects on how his city is coping with the aftermath of the deadly synagogue shooting pic.twitter.com/4Nnq3QOWcv The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) October 30, 2018 Funeral services were held on Tuesday for three of the victims, including brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, and Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz. Mourners at the funerals were also conflicted about Trumps visit. Its always positive the president lets people know the administration in the United States is concerned, Chris Volz, who attended Rabinowitzs funeral, told The New York Times. But I think he needed to wait. People are still mourning. CORRECTION: A previous version of the story incorrectly stated that Sen. Bob Casey (D-Penn.) declined an invitation to join Trump. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Istanbul (AFP) - Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and his body was dismembered and destroyed as part of a premeditated plan, Turkey's chief prosecutor said Wednesday, making details of the murder public for the first time. The revelations came only an hour after Saudi Arabia's chief prosecutor left Istanbul, and his Turkish counterpart said he was "obliged" to release the information after their talks produced "no concrete results". Gruesome reports in the Turkish media had previously alleged that Khashoggi, a 59-year-old Washington Post contributor who had criticised the powerful Saudi crown prince, was killed and cut into pieces by a team sent from Riyadh to silence him. His body has not been found. "In accordance with plans made in advance, the victim, Jamal Khashoggi, was strangled to death immediately after entering the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 for marriage formalities," said a statement from the office of Istanbul chief prosecutor Irfan Fidan. "The victim's body was dismembered and destroyed following his death by suffocation - again, in line with advance plans," it added. Saudi Arabia sent the head of its investigation to Istanbul this week, seeking to draw a line under a crisis that has brought near unprecedented scrutiny on the oil-rich Gulf nation. Attorney General Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb arrived in Istanbul on Sunday, met with Fidan twice, visited the consulate and spoke with Turkey's MIT intelligence agency. He then flew out of Istanbul on Wednesday afternoon without making a public statement. "Despite our well-intentioned efforts to reveal the truth, no concrete results have come out of those meetings," the Turkish prosecutor's office said. It added that the Saudi prosector's office invited Fidan and his delegation to Riyadh "along with the evidence they have obtained". Story continues A senior Turkish official earlier said that Saudi officials seemed "primarily interested in finding out what evidence Turkey had against the perpetrators". "We did not get the impression that they were keen on genuinely cooperating with the investigation," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. - 'Who gave the command?' - After initially insisting Khashoggi left the consulate unharmed, then saying he died in a brawl during an interview gone wrong, the Saudi regime has admitted he was killed by a "rogue operation" and arrested 18 people. But a spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party, Omer Celik, said on Wednesday that the murder could not have been carried out without instructions from "high-level" officials in Riyadh. "Who gave the command?" Celik asked at a press conference, adding he believed it was "out of the question" that Saudi authorities had not learned where the body was. Erdogan has repeatedly requested the suspects be extradited to Turkey for trial -- which Riyadh has refused to do -- as well as reveal the location of Khashoggi's body and who ordered the hit. Abdulkadir Selvi, a well-connected pro-government columnist for Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper, on Wednesday accused the Saudi prosecutor of "working to save the crown prince by covering up the investigation rather than shed light on the murder". The affair has tarnished the image of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who has positioned himself as a Saudi reformer. He has denounced the murder as "repulsive" and strongly denied any involvement. - 'Violated international law' - The case has also sorely strained relations between the ultra-conservative kingdom and the West. France said Wednesday that "not enough" was being done to find those responsible for the murder of the Saudi journalist, who was an insider in royal circles before going into self-imposed exile in the United States last year. In an editorial published Tuesday, the Washington Post accused the administration of US President Donald Trump of "playing along" and "pretending to believe that the Saudis can conduct a credible probe -- even though a chief suspect is the kingdom's own autocratic ruler". The editorial also urged the US Congress to impose sanctions on those responsible. On Wednesday Switzerland said it would halt deliveries of spare weapons parts to Saudi Arabia over the murder. While Trump has called the case "one of the worst cover-ups in history", he warned against halting a Saudi arms deal, saying it would harm US jobs. However, relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia, long-time allies, have cooled. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday said the murder "violates the norms of international law. That much is very, very clear". And on Tuesday, Washington called for a ceasefire and peace talks in Yemen, where the US has faced fierce international criticism for supporting a Saudi-led coalition. Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said the US had been watching the conflict, in which nearly 10,000 people have been killed, "for long enough". Istanbul (AFP) - Saudi Arabian officials have appeared unwilling to "genuinely cooperate" with Turkey's investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a senior Turkish official said Wednesday. "The Saudi officials seemed primarily interested in finding out what evidence the Turkish authorities had against the perpetrators," the official told AFP on the condition of anonymity. "We did not get the impression that they were keen on genuinely cooperating with the investigation," the official said, referring to the latest contacts between Ankara and Riyadh. The comments come as Saudi Arabia's chief public prosecutor is in Istanbul to meet with Turkish authorities as part of the ongoing investigation. However Turkish media has reported that Saudi Attorney General Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb has refused to share information from Riyadh's own investigation since arriving on Sunday. Khashoggi, a 59-year-old Washington Post contributor, was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 to obtain paperwork ahead of his upcoming wedding. His body has not been found. The case has brought near unprecedented international scrutiny on Saudi Arabia and its powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom Khashoggi had criticised. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly called on Saudi authorities to reveal the location of Khashoggi's body and who ordered his murder. The Saudi prosecutor met with Istanbul chief prosecutor Irfan Fidan twice this week at Istanbul's main court and visited the consulate -- the scene of the murder -- on Tuesday. The private DHA news agency reported that Mojeb also held talks at the regional head offices of the Turkish Intelligence Organisation (MIT) overnight. But there was no immediate information on what was discussed. ANKARA/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Turkish forces shelled a Kurdish-controlled area of northern Syria, killing four Kurdish militants, Turkish state broadcaster TRT said on Wednesday, and Kurdish-led forces said they responded to Turkish attacks by hitting a Turkish army vehicle. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said the Turkish attacks had led to a temporary halt in the U.S.-backed campaign it is waging against Islamic State (IS) near the Iraqi border. Turkey has repeatedly warned it would launch a cross-border offensive against the Kurdish YPG militia east of the Euphrates River in Syria, if the U.S. military which supports the Kurdish fighters does not ensure their withdrawal. The SDF, including the YPG, is the main U.S. partner in the fight against IS in Syria and controls a swathe of the north and east - the biggest chunk of the country after the area held by the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad. U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said American officials had contacted Turkey and the Syrian Defense Forces to "emphasize the need to de-escalate the situation." "Unilateral military strikes into northwest Syria by any party, particularly as American personnel may be present or in the vicinity, are of great concern to us," he said, calling for coordination between Turkey and the United States and adding that Washington was fully committed to Turkey's border security. TRT said barrages of howitzer shells were launched at the Ayn al-Arab, or Kobani region, from Turkey's southeastern province of Sanliurfa, along the Syrian border. Four militants were killed and six wounded in the strikes on the region. The SDF, in a statement, said Turkish forces were attacking its positions along the length of the border. SDF forces had responded by destroying a Turkish military vehicle, it said, without giving the location. The SDF reserved the "right to respond to all kinds of attacks." The SDF general command said in a separate statement that the Turkish attacks had led to the temporary halt of the campaign it is waging against Islamic State in the Deir al-Zor region. "The continuation of these attacks will cause a long halt in our military campaign against (Islamic State)," it said. "We call on the international coalition to show a firm position to deter Turkey from these attacks," the SDF said. On Tuesday, President Tayyip Erdogan vowed to crush Syrian Kurdish fighters east of the Euphrates River in Syria - the area where Ayn al Arab, or Kobani, is located. Over the past two years, Turkish forces have already swept into Syria to push YPG fighters out of territory west of the Euphrates in two separate military campaigns. Past offensives halted at the banks of the river, in part to avoid direct confrontation with the United States, which has troops alongside the Kurdish fighters further east. But Erdogan said Turkey was now prepared to press on, issuing what he said was a "final warning" last week to those who would endanger Turkey's borders. He said Turkey would focus its attention east of the Euphrates, rather than the city of Manbij where Turkish and U.S. forces agreed in June to carry out joint patrols. Turkish forces had bombarded YPG positions on Sunday on the eastern shore of the Euphrates river, Anadolu said. (Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara, additional reporting by Ellen Francis and Tom Perry in Beirut and Lesley Wroughton in Washington; Editing by Dominic Evans, Angus MacSwan and Susan Thomas) By Sarah N. Lynch and David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chinese intelligence officers conspired with hackers and company insiders to break into private companies' computer systems and steal information on a turbo fan engine used in commercial jetliners, according to a U.S. indictment unsealed on Tuesday. The indictment said at the time of the hacks, a Chinese-state owned aerospace company was working to develop a comparable engine for use in aircraft manufactured in China and in other countries. Chinese-made jets, including the C919 and ARJ21, currently use foreign engines but the country has been trying to develop a competitive homegrown alternative. The 10 people charged conspired to steal sensitive data "that could be used by Chinese entities to build the same or similar engine without incurring substantial research and development expenses," the indictment released by the U.S. Department of Justice said. It said more than a dozen companies were targeted, but only Capstone Turbine Corp was identified by name. The Justice Department said those hacked included a French firm co-developing a turbofan jet engine with a U.S. company. France's only civil turbofan engine maker, Safran SA, co-develops engines with U.S.-based General Electric Co (GE) through their longstanding CFM International partnership, the world's biggest jet engine manufacturer by number of units sold. The venture's latest engine, known as LEAP, powers the largest category of Airbus SE and Boeing Co jets and includes a version for China's new passenger plane, the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) C919. A Safran spokesman in China declined to comment and the company's French head office could not be contacted outside normal business hours. GE declined to comment. The indictment charges Zha Rong and Chai Meng along with other co-conspirators who worked for the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security, a unit of the foreign intelligence arm of the Ministry of State Security. Story continues It says their efforts to steal sensitive commercial aviation and other data took place from January 2010 through May 2015. This marks the third major corporate espionage-related case involving Chinese intelligence officers brought by the Justice Department since last month. In late September, a Chinese national who had also enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve was arrested in Chicago for working for Chinese intelligence to recruit engineers and scientists, including some who worked for U.S. defense contractors. Then earlier in October, the Justice Department also announced it had arrested a spy for China's Ministry of State Security on charges of economic espionage and attempting to steal trade secrets from several U.S. aviation and aerospace companies. In that matter, the FBI said the extradition of Chinese operative Xu Yanjun from Belgium was unprecedented, and the case highlighted the Chinese government's direct control over economic espionage in the United States. John Demers, the head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, highlighted the pattern of the three cases in a public statement Tuesday. "This is just the beginning," he said. "Together with our federal partners, we will redouble our efforts to safeguard America's ingenuity and investment." (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and David Shepardson in Washington; additional reporting by Brenda Goh in Shanghai and Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by Grant McCool, Chris Reese and Darren Schuettler) United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN Security Council on Wednesday threw its weight behind planned talks on Western Sahara as it voted to extend for six months its decades-old mission in the disputed north African territory. The council adopted a US-drafted resolution that renewed the mission, known as MINURSO, until April 30, setting a deadline for progress in the push to relaunch political talks. The resolution was adopted by a vote of 12 in favor in the 15-member council. Russia, Ethiopia and Bolivia abstained. Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Polisario Front have accepted a UN invitation to hold talks in Geneva December 5-6 that could pave the way to formal negotiations on ending the conflict. These meetings will be the first held on Western Sahara since 2012. The United Nations has repeatedly failed to broker a settlement in Western Sahara, where Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario fought for control from 1975 to 1991. One of the UN's oldest missions, MINURSO was deployed in 1991 to monitor a ceasefire and organize a referendum on the status of the territory. That vote however never materialized. A settlement in Western Sahara would allow the United Nations to consider a pullout of MINURSO at a time when the United States, the UN's number one financial backer, is seeking to reduce the cost of peace operations. US Deputy Ambassador Jonathan Cohen told the council that the United States will not allow the Western Sahara conflict "to slip into the shadows" and warned that MINURSO may be on the chopping block. "Further renewals will not be automatic," said Cohen. France, which has friendly ties with Morocco, had pushed for a one-year renewal of the mission to allow the new diplomatic effort to take hold, but in the end bowed to US insistence for a shorter extension. "Shortening mandates seems to us to be a false good idea, without any real impact on the political process," French Ambassador Francois Delattre told the council. The resolution welcomed the decision of the four parties to attend "without preconditions and in good faith" the Geneva talks convened by UN envoy Horst Koehler, a former German president. Morocco however continues to maintain that negotiations on a settlement should focus on its proposal for autonomy for Western Sahara while the Polisario insists that the status of the territory -- a former Spanish colony -- should be decided in a referendum on independence. Beirut (AFP) - A Kurdish-led force backed by a US-led coalition said Wednesday it was suspending operations against the Islamic State group after Turkey shelled Kurdish militia posts in northern Syria. The Syrian Democratic Forces, joint Arab-Kurdish units led by the Kurds, announced a "temporary halt" to their operation, launched in eastern Syria on September 10, and condemned Turkey's "provocations". On Wednesday, Turkish shelling of Kurdish positions in the Kobane sector of northern Syria killed four fighters, according to Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency. The SDF condemned what it called the "coordination" of Turkey's attacks with a fightback by jihadists and warned of "a prolonged halt to our military operation" against IS if Ankara keeps up its strikes. Hundreds of Kurdish civilians, carrying party flags, demonstrated in the streets of the northeastern city of Qamishli to denounce the Turkish attacks. Backed by coalition air strikes, the SDF aims to expel IS from a holdout on the Iraqi border, but the jihadists staged a vicious fightback last week under the cover of a sand storm, forcing a retreat. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the IS counter-attack killed at least 72 fighters from the SDF, which is dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). The monitoring group said hundreds of Kurdish fighters, men and women, had since been deployed on the outskirts of the IS holdout of Hajin. On Tuesday, two days after another round of shelling of Kurdish posts in northern Syria, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country had completed preparations for a new operation to "destroy" the YPG militia, which Ankara has branded a terrorist group. The YPG has worked closely with the United States in the fight against IS jihadists in Syria, straining ties between Washington and Ankara. Washington (AFP) - The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution grants US citizenship to persons born on US soil. It was passed by Congress in 1866 after the bloody Civil War between the North and pro-slavery South and ratified by three-fourths of the US states two years later. The 14th Amendment overturned the infamous 1857 US Supreme Court ruling in the "Dred Scott v. Sandford" case which held that African-Americans could not be US citizens. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside," the amendment reads. President Donald Trump, in an interview released Tuesday, said he is considering using an executive order to abolish "birthright" citizenship for children of non-citizens and illegal immigrants. "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States," Trump said. "It's ridiculous. And it has to end." Constitutional scholars questioned whether the president can make such a move through an executive order but Trump said he believes he can. "It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment," he told Axios. "Guess what? You don't." "You can definitely do it with an Act of Congress," the president said. "But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order." The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) denounced Trump's statements as unconstitutional and a political maneuver ahead of November elections. "This is a blatantly unconstitutional attempt to fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms," the ACLU said in a tweet. "The 14th Amendment's citizenship guarantee is clear. You can't erase the Constitution with an executive order @realDonaldTrump." Story continues - Wong Kim Ark case - The issue of birthright citizenship has come before the Supreme Court previously, most notably in an 1898 case "United States v. Wong Kim Ark." Wong Kim Ark was born in California in 1873 to parents who had come to the United States from China. After a visit to China, Wong Kim Ark was denied reentry into the United States in 1895 under the Chinese Exclusion Acts. The Supreme Court ruled, however, that the acts did not apply to Wong Kim Ark and that he was a US citizen by virtue of being born in the United States. Historian Martha Jones, author of "Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America," said the White House may craft an argument to try to get around the ruling and the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment does not apply to persons who are not subject to US jurisdiction -- foreign diplomats, for example, and Native Americans. "(The Supreme Court) could distinguish from Wong Kim Ark on the facts," Jones said in a thread on Twitter. "Wong's parents were authorized or we might say legal immigrants. Their presence in the US was authorized," she said. "Wong Kim Ark did not directly address the status of children born to unauthorized immigrants. "The President proposes to interpret that part of the 14th Amendment which excludes persons not subject to US jurisdiction from Birthright Citizenship," Jones said. "His view as I take it is that children born to unauthorized immigrants are excluded from Birthright under this exception," she said. "Could (the Supreme Court) revisit its own precedent in Wong Kim Ark and rule that children of noncitizens are not Birthright citizens," Jones asked. "It would be a departure from precedent, but it is possible." Vice President Mike Pence appeared to make just this case during a forum with Politico on Tuesday. "We all cherish the language of the 14th Amendment, but the Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled on whether or not the language of the 14th Amendment 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' applies specifically to people who are in the country illegally," Pence said. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump ally, said he planned to introduce legislation in Congress "along the same lines as the proposed executive order." "Finally, a president willing to take on this absurd policy of birthright citizenship," Graham tweeted. "This policy is a magnet for illegal immigration, out of the mainstream of the developed world, and needs to come to an end," he said. About 30 countries around the world apply some form of birthright citizenship, according to various reports. According to a Pew Research Center study, about 275,000 babies were born to the parents of unauthorized immigrants in the United States in 2014 -- around seven percent of the four million births in the country that year. Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump said Wednesday that as many as 15,000 soldiers could be dispatched to the US-Mexican border to stop what he described as dangerous groups of immigrants. With more than 5,000 soldiers already being sent, Trump told reporters "we'll do up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel." "It's a dangerous group of people," Trump said of the latest caravan of mostly impoverished Central Americans trying to walk through Mexico to the US border. "They're not coming into our country." Security on the southern border has rarely involved active duty troops and 15,000 troops would mean a similar size deployment to the US war effort in Afghanistan. Trump has made clamping down on what he regularly describes as an "invasion" of illegal immigrants the centerpiece of his campaigning for Republican candidates in next Tuesday's midterm legislative elections. Opponents say the rhetoric is alarmist and even tinged with racism The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday described "an unprecedented crisis on our Southern Border." However, according to the department's own statistics, 400,000 illegal immigrants were intercepted in 2018, just 25 percent of the figure in 2000. The major change, the department points out, is that in 2000 nearly all the illegal immigrants were single adults and today around half are coming in families or as unaccompanied minors. United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Facing condemnation for its decades-old embargo on Cuba, the United States will on Thursday try to shift the focus at the United Nations to the communist government's human rights record. The General Assembly is set to vote on a draft resolution presented by Cuba calling for an end to the US embargo -- an annual exercise since 1992 that has won overwhelming support. In a shift, US Ambassador Nikki Haley this year has presented eight amendments that criticize Cuba's human rights record, hoping to counter calls for ending the embargo by drawing a spotlight on repression. "Every year Cuba puts forth a resolution that blames Cuba's poverty, repression, and lack of freedom on the United States," the US mission to the United Nations posted on Twitter Wednesday. "Tomorrow the UN will hear what we have to say about that and countries will have to vote between Cuba or the US. Who will vote with us?" The United States has been lobbying countries to support criticism of Havana's rights record in a bid to downplay its isolation at the United Nations over its Cuba policy. Last year, the resolution calling for an end to the embargo was adopted by a vote of 191 to 2. The United States and Israel were the only two countries that voted "no". That vote took place after Washington for the first time abstained in the vote in 2016 as former president Barack Obama pursued a thaw in relations with Havana. Ties between Cuba and the US have been in decline under President Donald Trump, who succeeded Obama, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in September. During several hours of debate on Wednesday, ambassadors took to the podium to declare their opposition to the US embargo, imposed in 1962. South African Ambassador Jerry Matthews Matjila told the assembly the US amendments were "clearly an attempt to obscure from the serious human rights violations that are being imposed under the embargo against the people of Cuba." Story continues North Korea's Ambassador Kim Song accused the United States of seeking regime change in Cuba while Iranian Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo called the embargo "the most unjust and longest-lasting unilateral sanctions imposed against a country in our modern world history." The vote on Thursday will mark the 27th year that the assembly has called for an end to the embargo by adopting the resolution, which is non-binding but carries political weight. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, who is due to address the assembly on Thursday, has accused the United States of seeking to toughen the embargo by using human rights violations as a pretext. Washington (AFP) - The surprise US call for a ceasefire in Yemen marks a growing sense that Saudi Arabia's campaign has proven disastrous, but experts say more action is needed to end the devastating war. On Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis urged a halt in the three-year Saudi-led assault to defeat Huthi rebels in Yemen, the impoverished country mired in what the UN has called the world's worst humanitarian catastrophe. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for an end to air strikes "in all populated areas" -- an implicit acknowledgement that the US-backed, Saudi-led coalition has hit civilians, despite Washington's past assertions that the war planners are doing their best. The shift comes as the US view rapidly dims of Saudi Arabia's powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, amid global outrage over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul. "There is no doubt that the Khashoggi case has turned American opinion against the Saudis," said Charles Schmitz, an expert on Yemen and chair of the geography department at Towson University. But he noted that the United States was still deeply involved in the war effort. The United States has been providing in-air fueling and other logistical support to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as they bombard and enforce a blockade on Yemen, with accounts of bombs striking hospitals, buses and other civilian targets. The US allies want to oust the rebels, who seized the capital Sanaa in 2014 and enjoy at least limited support from Iran. The United Nations has warned that 14 million Yemenis are at serious risk of famine, with at least 10,000 people already dead, and an epidemic of cholera. - Losing public opinion - Saudi Arabia has increasingly faced pressure in the US Congress -- in March, the Senate narrowly rejected a bid to end US support to the war. On Sunday, The New York Times published an unusually graphic front-page photo of an emaciated seven-year-old Yemeni girl, despite Saudi efforts to restrict media access. Story continues Waleed Alhariri, who heads the US operations of the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies, noted that there have been previous ceasefire attempts that quickly unraveled. The US statement "might be a sign of frustration by the US administration that things are getting out of hand. Or maybe it's a way of saying that they are trying to do something but cannot, and are blaming the warring parties that they cannot resolve the conflict," Alhariri said. "It's a good diplomatic statement but it has not been backed by concrete, genuine action or a full-scale diplomatic effort to solve the conflict," he said. But Schmitz, the professor at Towson University, said there could be a way forward by addressing the Huthi missile strikes into Saudi Arabia. The Saudis, backed by the United States, have voiced outrage over the projectiles and blamed Iran, but Schmitz believed the rebels saw the missiles as a bargaining chip, noting that they did not target Riyadh until the kingdom's intervention. "The Huthis very much want to stop the bombardment, the Saudis very much want to stop the Huthi missile threat, and if the United States could contribute to that, I think it would go a long way," he said. - Humanitarian chance - The United States called on the warring parties to meet in a third country in November for talks supervised by the UN special envoy, Martin Griffiths. Britain and France, two other veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council, backed the US support for a ceasefire. Jeremy Taylor, the regional advocacy advisor in charge of Yemen for the Norwegian Refugee Council humanitarian group, called the ceasefire call "long overdue." Saying that the United Nations "has been running out of adjectives to describe how bad things are," Taylor voiced hope that a ceasefire could offer humanitarian workers a chance at least to try to halt further deterioration. "We have been asking for years for this kind of statement. What we really want now is political pressure on the parties in the way that the US can," he said. Not every lucky Halloween-er will have the chance to hit the pavement this Wednesday in pursuit of candy collecting and spooky haunts. While some ghosts, ghouls and gals will have the night planned on land, some of us will be spending the time in-transit, 30,000 feet above all of the madness below. But thanks to JetBlue, you dont have to be grounded to trick-or-treat yo' self this Halloween. The airline will be handing over 100,000 pieces of full-size candy across over 900 JetBlue flights this Halloween. Onboard offerings will include Twizzlers and Starburst in order to accommodate the airlines peanut-free policy. JetBlue also has something sweet in store for those staying put near three of its major hubs called the JetBoo house. The JetBoo houses are no trick, all treat visitors can stop by for a free, full-size candy (Hersheys Milk Chocolate Bars, KitKat, Twirlers, Sour Patch Kids, Swedish Fish, Dots or Skittles) of their choosing. The houses will open in Boston (Boston Common, Corner of Beacon & Charles St), Brooklyn (Fort Greene Park, Corner of Dekalb & Washington Park) and Boca Raton (Lake Wyman Park, 1500 NE 5th Ave). The houses will be open from 3 pm to 8 pm tomorrow wile supplies last so get out and get jettin'! One week out from the midterm elections, voters around the country decried recent acts of politically tinged violence, but it does not appear likely to be a major factor in how they vote. In interviews with dozens of Democrats and Republicans in Texas and the Midwest, almost none brought up the shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue or mail bombs sent to Democratic figures as a top concern for their vote. Instead, they cited the staple issues of health care, immigration and the economy, regardless of party. When asked, they tended to retreat to partisan positions, with Democrats laying some blame for the violence at the increasingly heated rhetoric of President Donald Trump, while Republicans argued that he was being unfairly criticized and said that liberals were also to blame for ratcheting up political hostility. For George Shake, a 49-year-old lawyer in Texas, his vote was for Democratic House candidate Colin Allred was based on education, health care, criminal justice reform and womens rights, but it was also about adding a check on Trump. Its what he doesnt stand for, Shake says as he waited for Allred to arrive for a Sunday-afternoon campaign stop. Hes not going to empower an insane president. His vitriol keeps getting worse. The attacks keep coming. He shook his head in disgust. The more hate we express in public is bad for our country. Its bad for all of us. The president keeps ratcheting up the vitriol and hate in a way Ive never seen before. Its insane. Nearby, John and Kirsten Schorsch were waiting for Allred, too. I never thought wed be at this point, John said, leaning against the bar in the lobby. His wife, a 51-year-old educator, says of Trump: This extreme demagoguery, why is it being accepted? Hes pouring gasoline on everything. I worry whats going to happen at his rallies some times. John, a 58-year-old lawyer, said he worries about rebuilding. I dont know how we get back to normal. A couple hours later, at an early voting location north of there, Jason Alpers was casting his vote for the Republican ticket to have Trumps back. The 36-year-old military veteran says he would prefer Trump tone down his anti-media rhetoric, which he likens to a drumbeat. He calls the tweets hiccups. Story continues But he appreciates Trumps efforts to de-escalate tensions with Russia and his work on trade deals. Theres still a lot of love for him, he said. Hes not political. Theres a lot of questions about what a President should be, but Donald Trump doesnt care. Hes playing the long game, and thats not always shown in a positive light. Hes all about shock and awe, and most people dont get that. But Donald Trump understands how to shift the focus. At an early voting location in Urbandale, Iowa, a quiet neighborhood in the suburbs of Des Moines, the recent violence seemed as far away as a cable news show. Voters listed their top issues as health care, water and the strength of the Iowa economy, but their response to it fell along partisan lines. Sharon Marturello, a 72-year-old Democrat, blamed the president for creating a climate that enabled such violence. I lay it at the feet of president Trump, she said, And the way he conducted himself in the election. Evan Abbey, a 42-year-old program administrator, said the presidents rhetoric is contributing to turbulence and the view that violence is justifiable. Both said they voted for Democrat Cindy Axne for Congress, who is running to replace Republican Rep. David Young. But Lyle Pohlman, 87, a retired underground utility locator, said he continues to support the president and voted for Republicans in the midterms, insisting that any connection between the presidents rhetoric and the political violence is not viable. Cheryl Laird, a 71-year-old retired school kitchen nutrition manager, said that the political leanings of the man who sent pipe bombs to prominent Democrats and media organizations was irrelevant to the crime. This man has definitely got mental issues, she said. And just because he supported Trump, I dont think that has a lot to do with it, I think he had other problems. Both said they voted to re-elect Young. I think its the political rhetoric on both sides, Laird continued. The Republicans are to blame, so are the Democrats, everybody is just so upset about Trumps presidency and its just out of control, all this name-calling, to say that Trump is to blame for all these shootings. Ronna Wedners voice broke as she recalled Cecil Rosenthals daily visits to her flower shop in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Every day, it was, Good afternoon, ladies. He would tell you how beautiful you were. Everyone was beautiful to him, Wedner, whose family has owned the Squirrel Hill Flower Shop for about 70 years, tells TIME. He was the happiest guy I knew. Cecil Rosenthal, 59, and his brother David Rosenthal, 56, were among the 11 people killed when a gunman opened fire during a service at the Tree of Life synagogue on Saturday. Hundreds of mourners poured into the Rodef Shalom synagogue in Pittsburgh to pay their respects to the intellectually disabled men, who were adored in the community. Cecil, the more outgoing of the two brothers, was known for being a regular at the Tree of Life synagogue. Wedner says Cecil passed by her flower shop each day on his way to the temple. Id come to work in the morning and he would be there waving, and when I left at night he was standing there again, ready to go in for the evening service, she says, going quiet. Its just, its sad. Its sad how he was taken. Wedner and her daughter, Katy Levin and nephew, Andrew Exler, waited in a long line of people that snaked around the block of Rodef Shalom as hundreds from the Pittsburgh area, and around the country, waited to honor the brothers. Despite the heavy emotion apparent, people reflected on the brothers lighthearted nature. Levin, who also works in the flower shop, says she was accustomed to seeing Cecil and David every day. She and Cecil had a playful relationship, with him often jokingly asking her for money. They used to greet us. Cecil used to come in and ask me for a dollar, Levin says. Id be like, Cecil what are you doing?' Numerous attendees at the funeral dubbed Cecil the unofficial mayor of Squirrel Hill, unafraid to go after what he wanted. He became a part of a Best Buddies chapter in 2005 when the organization shared a space with the disability services group Achieva, which helped and housed the Rosenthal brothers. Story continues He said, Im going to be a part of this. He didnt really ask, says Bill Bailey, a volunteer DJ for Best Buddies who met Cecil more than a decade ago. I think he just decided he was going to be a part of it. He was older than everybody else there. A much quieter man than his brother, David Rosenthal was fanatical about keeping things clean, says Michael Hirt, Cecil and Davids brother-in-law, during the service. He was never one to leave a dish sitting unattended. Also a fan of law enforcement, David was particularly attached to his police scanner and very upset when it, at one point, broke. David loved anything relating to the police or fire department, Hirt says, noting that his brother-in-law started phone conversations by saying, Michael, the police are looking for you. Despite his more introverted nature, David was remembered for having a keen sense of humor and being inseparable from his brother. They were the yin and yang of each other, Bailey says. Inside the synagogue, people gathered around the aisles, chatting quietly and comforting each other through tears. As seats in the sanctuary filled up, people lined up against the side walls and stood together in the back as services began. Diane Rosenthal, one of Cecil and Davids two sisters, delivered a eulogy while surrounded by some family, speaking to the nature of innocence both possessed. Our brothers, Cecil and David were men. But as most people in the audience knows, we referred to them as the boys, she said through tears. Maybe this was because they were in a sense like boys, not hardened like men oftentimes become with age and experience. Friends and family bid goodbye to Cecil and David on Tuesday, as less than two miles down the road at the Jewish Community Center, a service for Jerry Rabinowitz, a doctor who also who died in the shooting, was underway. Funerals for other victims have been scheduled through the rest of the week. The start of the funerals for the victims in the synagogue shooting comes as President Donald Trump visits Pittsburgh, a trip that has caused controversy within the community. While Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers said on Monday that Trump is certainly welcome to visit, others have disagreed. By Tuesday afternoon, protestors mobilized near the synagogue in Squirrel Hill to speak out against Trumps appearance. Jewish leaders with the Pittsburgh affiliate of the progressive group Bend the Arc said in an open letter that Trump is not welcome in Pittsburgh and that his words and policies have emboldened a growing white nationalist movement. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, who asked that Trump postpone any visits until after the victims were buried so as not to use up security resources, will not be meeting with the president during his trip to the city. Allegheny County, where Squirrel Hill is located, supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, with 56% of voters. Houses throughout the area bear signs in support of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and others in the party running in the upcoming midterm elections. Bailey, who said he is quite politically active and previously served as the head of a local NAACP chapter, was not for Trump coming to town. Its about headlines, said Bailey, who lives in Squirrel Hill. This is not Trump country. When James Joseph Bulger Jr was born on September 3 1929, it would have been hard to predict that he would grow up to become a dangerous organised crime boss. Bulger, now more commonly known as Whitey Bulger, was born and raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts by his father and mother, an Irish immigrant. During an early life rife with poverty, the eldest Bulger child of six was drawn to a life on the wrong side of the tracks in Boston, Massachusetts. He was arrested for the first time at the age of 14 for larceny, at which point hed already joined a local gang. It was during his early days of petty crime that Bulger was given his nickname, by the local police for the colour of his hair. Despite a brief stint in the US Air Force in 1948, Bulger was committed to a life of criminal activity - evidenced by his continued issues within the military and his multiple stints in military prison. By 1952, Bulger had received an honourable discharge but found himself in federal prison four years later for charges related to armed robbery and hijacking. While serving what was meant to be a 25-year sentence, Bulger spent time in Atlanta, Alcatraz and Leavenworth. He was released after nine years and, by the late 1970s, had become a prominent figure in Bostons organised crime scene. Renowned Boston mobster, Whitey Bulger (AP) Following his time in prison, Bulger had returned to Massachusetts where he began a relationship with Lindsey Cyr and began to work as an enforcer for crime boss Donald Killleen. Bulger fathered a child with Cyr, Douglas Glenn Cyr, in 1967. Their son later died in 1973 from Reyes Syndrome and the couple eventually split up after a 12-year common-law marriage. After Killleen was killed in his line of work, Bulger joined his second gang - the Winter Hill Gang. In just a few short years, he rose through the ranks and assumed the position of boss of the gang by 1979. During his infamous years leading the Winter Hill Gang, Bulger assumed all gang-related responsibilities - including calling for multiple murders and controlling a significant portion of Bostons drug deals, illegal gambling and arms dealing. Story continues However, at the same time, Bulger also became a key FBI informant, in part responsible for taking down the Patriarcas, a rival New England crime family - which ultimately allowed him to grow his own gang further. To tip off the FBI, Bulger used his family ties - as his brother William was a member of the Massachusetts State Senate, and the corrupt police forces in South Boston at the time. After successfully evading police capture in 1995 for charges related to illegal gambling, Bugler was added to the list of the FBIs 10 most-wanted fugitives in 1999 and a $2m reward was offered for any information that led to his arrest. At the time, he was considered a mark of national embarrassment for the FBI as it was reported the agency had accepted bribes and offered protection to the gangster. However, Bulgers life story also made for a highly entertaining film narrative, first appearing in 2006 Martin Scorsese movie, The Departed, and later, in a 2015 movie Black Mass starring Johnny Depp. Bulger managed to stay on the run for 16 years before being captured in June 2011 in Santa Monica, California. At the time, he was 81 years old and living in a rent-controlled apartment with his long-term girlfriend, Catherine Greig. For her involvement in harbouring a fugitive, Greig was sentenced to eight years in prison. As for Bulger, his own life on the run ended with a trial beginning in June 2013. After a two-month trial, the notorious criminal was found guilty on 31 counts including federal racketeering, extortion, conspiracy, and participating in 11 murders. The court sentenced James "Whitey" Bulger to two life sentences plus five years in November 2013, which he served until October 30 2018 - when the former mob boss was found dead in jail at the age of 89. He had just been moved to a prison in West Virginia. Following his death, the US attorney for the Northern District of West Virginia said: The FBI will be conducting an investigation into the death of James Bulger. No other information will be released at this time. President Donald Trumps trade war with China has been going on for months and is likely to escalate. But how soon will it hit your wallet? Even though Trumps tariffs on part of Chinese goods have been in place for months, the impact on consumers during the holiday season will likely be manageable, mainly due to early orders and the devaluation of Chinas currency yuan. For big importers and exporters, they usually make holiday orders in the first half of the year and have them shipped in the summer. Big players already received products to stock their shelves for the holidays. The U.S. trade deficit with China rose to $38.6 billion for August, its highest level, as retailers rushed to import goods before tariffs hit. President Trump threatens more tariffs on China. (Photo Credit: South China Morning Post) Costco said its been accelerating shipments before tariffs went into effect. Alasdair James, president and CEO of Pier 1 Imports, said the Fort Worth, Texas-based retailer wont see a material impact from tariffs this year. And part of that reason was that our sourcing team did a good job of getting most of the products that are going to be affected by the 10% tariff into our business prior to the tariffs deadline occurring, James said on the earnings call in October. Big dip in value of Chinas currency Chinese yuan has devalued against the dollar this year. ($1= 6.97 yuan as of Wednesday) Since the beginning of this year, the yuan, Chinas currency, has dropped by approximately 9%, hitting the weakest level against the U.S. dollar in a decade on Tuesday. The decline is advantageous to American exporters because it gives them purchasing power when dealing with Chinese suppliers. When you take the currency adjustment into consideration, it gives us a lot more leverage to go back to the suppliers and say, were effectively paying you more for the same goods than we were back in April. So were able to actually ask some suppliers for potential discounts, Nick Mauro, senior manager of logistics at Ichor Systems, told Yahoo Finance. Additionally, the various parties involved in the purchasing of goods from China will also help to absorb increased costs. Even when the 25% tariffs go into effect, the impact consumers feel is not gonna be 25% for sure, John Zhang, professor of marketing at the Wharton School, told Yahoo Finance. Suppliers usually opt to pass only a fraction of incremental costs to consumers. Its in their interest to absorb part of the price increase. Because you dont want to lose too much volume. In the marketplace where the demand is elastic, youll see much less demand because of the price increase. Story continues While Zhang said the impact on this holiday season is very minimal, the escalation of Trumps trade war would require retailers to make long-term strategy shifts, including looking for alternative suppliers and moving supply chains, a process that takes a long time and comes with more uncertainties. Our DNA is we want to be the last to raise the price and we want to work with any supplier to figure out how to not do that. But ultimately, you cant eat all these, Richard Galanti, CFO of Costo, said on the companys earnings call in October. He acknowledged that demand can shift in response to price changes. Retailers across numerous sectors expect consumers to see the impact of U.S. tariffs on imports by early 2019, according to the Fed Beige Book published last week. Krystal Hu covers technology and trade for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter. Read more: Americans who say their finances havent improved mostly blame Trump Foxconn executive: Make products in the U.S. and sell them to China Amazon bought Whole Foods a year ago. Heres what has changed The worlds tallest statue was unveiled today in the western Indian state of Gujarat at a VIP ceremony officiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. At 597 feet, the sculpture is almost twice the height of the Statue of Liberty and dwarfs the Spring Temple Buddha in China, until today the worlds tallest statue, by 177 feet. Named the Statue of Unity, the giant new sculpture immortalizes Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, an Indian independence leader and the countrys first deputy prime minister; it was inaugurated on what would have been his 143rd birthday. As Patels bronze-clad likeness gazed over the horizon at Kevadiya Colony, about 260 miles from the Bollywood capital of Mumbai, military aircraft flew overhead, scattering flower petals on the ground and tracing the colors of the Indian flag in plumes across the sky. This statue is an answer to all those who question Indias power and might, Modi said in his address, before heading to take part in religious rites to mark the unveiling. It is my honor to be able to dedicate this statue to the nation. But not everyone in the nation is thrilled by the gargantuan effigy, which took 33 months to build, at a cost of $400 million, in a public-private venture that was partially crowdfunded. Just hours before the unveiling, close to the site, crowds of farmers and members of tribal communities chanted slogans and tore down posters of the statue in protest against what they see a colossal waste of money. They dont have a past to invoke In fact, the Statue of Unity hasnt generated much in the way of harmony since its conception was announced in October 2013 by Modi, who was then the chief minister of Gujarat and a prime ministerial candidate. Critics say that the sculpture is a crude attempt by Modis Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to rewrite political history. Its completion ahead of the highly anticipated 2019 general election is also likely to score big points with the right-wing Hindu voters who make up the BJPs power base. Story continues Patel is one of the legendary figures of Indian nationhood. When the sub-continents 584 princely states were given the choice of joining either Pakistan or India following the 1947 Partition, it was Patel who convinced more than 550 of them to join the latter. For that, he became known as the Iron Man of India. He came from humble beginnings in the state of Gujaratas does Modi, who rarely passes up on an opportunity to express admiration for his fellow Gujarati. The BJP-led coalition even declared Patels birthday to be National Unity Day just months after coming to power in 2014. Mahatma Gandhi with Sardar Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru. 1947. Gandhi was the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was an Indian statesman, a leader of the Indian National Congress and a founding father of the Republic of India. Universal History ArchiveUIG/Getty Images. | Universal History ArchiveUIG/Getty Images. But theres just one snag: Patel had nothing to do with the BJP. He was actually a member of the BJPs great political rival, the center-left Indian National Congress (commonly called the Congress or the Congress Party). Critics say that the BJP, which was founded in 1951, is trying to appropriate Patels legacy and aura because it cannot number any preeminent independence leaders among its past members. For a party that claims to do everything in the name of the nation, they dont have a past to invoke, Sucheta Mahajan, professor at the Center of Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, tells TIME. Even worse, the BJP does have a connection to the assassin of independence icon Mahatma Gandhi, who was slain in 1948. Gandhis killer, Nathuram Godse, had been a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the paramilitary Hindu organization regarded as the parent of the BJP. Repeated requests for comment made to several BJP spokespersons for this article went unanswered. However, Modi has argued in the past that Patel was politically sidelined by both Congress and Jawaharlal Nehru, Indias first prime minister (whose great-grandson Rahul Gandhi happens to be Modis opponent in the upcoming election). Congress refutes this. The BJP is trying to build a narrative that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru were always at loggerheads, Priyanka Chaturvedi, a spokesperson for Congress, tells TIME. In trying to politicize and usurp the legacies of our past leaders, the BJP is also making an attempt to demonize us. Its a matter of shame Besides its symbolism, questions have also been asked about the physical statue itself. Larsen and Toubro, the construction company that built the effigy, has admitted that its bronze cladding came from China. While the cladding represents only nine percent of the statue, it has the potential to embarrass Modi, who has staked much on a Make In India initiative to encourage companies to manufacture locally. Photos circulating online earlier this year, showing Chinese workers at the site of the statue, havent helped. Are they Chinese workers or Chinese tourists ? pic.twitter.com/5CmTYV58iI Ahmed Patel (@ahmedpatel) September 27, 2018 It is a matter of shame that Made in China would be engraved behind this statue, Rahul Gandhi, Congress president, said at a rally in September. Opposition parties, led by the Congress, are bound to taunt Modi with this during campaigning for the 2019 elections, especially given Indias burgeoning unemployment. This is bound to come up since the atmosphere is very divisive and latching on to anything which is divisive has unfortunately become the motto of political parties in this country, prominent political scientist Sudha Pai tells TIME. Even as the wrangling over the Statue of Unity continues, a taller and possibly even more divisive sculpture is in the works off the coast of Mumbai. Scheduled for completion in 2021, it is of Chhatrapati Shivaji, a Hindu warrior king, revered for battling Muslim rulers. It is an attempt to symbolize him as a Hindu resurgent leader against Islamic rule, more like a symbol of Hindu-Muslim conflict, Mohan Guruswamy, president of Center For Policy Alternatives, a public policy organization, tells TIME. Since taking office, the Modi-led government has taken steps to remove some reminders of the Muslim presence in Indias history. The Muslim names of many prominent cities and train stations have been swapped for Hindu alternatives, for instance. And the Taj Mahala Muslim mausoleum built by a 17th-century Mughal emperorhas been left out of a tourism brochure issued by the state government of Uttar Pradesh, where the world renowned monument is located. For Pai, symbolism and appropriation have already gone too far. Statues carry symbols and values with them and we should leave it out because it somehow divides the nation, she says For others, the symbolism of Indian mightand specifically Hindu mighthas only just started. Take note of the message we are sending out to the world with this statue, a BJP supporter at the unveiling tells TIME. Just the thought of it sends shivers down my spine. Paris (AFP) - Millions of dead and millions more wounded, widowed and orphaned: the dizzying casualty tolls from World War I are an indication of the scale and horror of the 1914-1918 conflict. A lack of reliable statistics from the 52-month war a century ago makes the figures difficult to pin down, accounting for the sometimes substantial variations between historians. AFP has compiled the most widely accepted figures from the Great War, providing estimates in cases where major discrepancies remain. - More than 70 nations - Even this figure is tricky, as many of the more than 70 current-day nations drawn into the conflict had not yet gained independence from the six empires and colonial powers at its heart: Austria-Hungary, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the Ottoman empire. A dozen independent nations went to war at its start in 1914, the rest entering later, such as Italy in 1915 and the United States in 1917. Together the warring nations accounted for more than 800 million people, which was more than half the world's population at the time. Only around 20 countries across the globe were to remain neutral throughout the conflict, most of them in Latin America or northern Europe. - 70 million troops - About 20 million men were mobilised by the warring parties at the outset, the number rising to around 70 million as the war dragged on and expanded. There were eight million soldiers from France, 13 million from Germany, nine million from Austria-Hungary and six million from Italy. Britain sent nine million men, including troops from around the British Empire, chiefly India. The United States deployed four million. - 10 million soldiers killed - Germany and Russia suffered the highest numbers of dead and wounded, with 10 million soldiers generally estimated to have been killed and more than double that number wounded overall. Here is a broad breakdown: Russia: two million dead, five million injured; Germany: two million dead, 4.2 million injured; Story continues France: 1.4 million dead, 4.2 million injured; Austria-Hungary: 1.4 million dead, 3.6 million injured; Britain and British empire: 960,000 dead, two million injured; Italy: 600,000 dead, one million injured; Ottoman empire: 800,000 dead; United States: 117,000 dead. Serbia suffered the worst losses proportional to the size of its army with 130,000 dead and 135,000 wounded, or three-quarters of its forces. The opening weeks of the war exacted the heaviest human toll. For example, 27,000 French soldiers were killed in a single day on August 22, 1914, the deadliest day in the history of the French army. Artillery fire caused 70 percent of the casualties in the fighting, after which between five and six million men were left mutilated for life. The conflict saw the first large-scale use of chemical weapons when German forces deployed chlorine gas at Ypres in Belgium in 1915. Toxic gas eventually claimed 20,000 lives over the war. - Millions of civilians dead - Between five and 10 million civilians are estimated to have been killed in the war and its consequences, which were many and make a precise figure difficult to establish. The toll generally includes those killed in the actual fighting as well as from the resulting forced displacements of populations, famine and the subsequent civil conflicts in Russia, eastern Europe and Turkey. Some historians include the disputed figure of 1.2-1.5 million Armenians massacred in the Ottoman empire. A Spanish influenza epidemic that broke out at the end of the war then spread across the world claimed tens of millions of lives in Europe. - Other figures - - There were six million prisoners of war. - By 1915 about 20 million civilians were living under the occupation of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. Most were in Belgium, France, Poland and Serbia. - The war left 10 million refugees across Europe. - And three million widows and six million orphans. - Around 1.3 billion shells were fired during the conflict. - About 10 billion letters and packages were exchanged between fighters on the front and their loved ones back home. - The war is estimated to have cost the main parties the equivalent of three or four times the combined GDP of its European players, who were left ruined by the conflict. Halloween has been around for quite some time, but it hasnt always been the candy and costume-filled holiday it is today. 2,000 years ago, Celts marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter by celebrating Samhain on Oct. 31, and even wore costumes. Because winter brought a lot of death, many believed ghosts returned to Earth on this day and the divide between worlds of the living and the dead was blurred. The second night of the festival was known as All Hallows Eve, which was later shortened to Halloween. When Europeans immigrated to America, they brought their spooky and mischievous traditions with them. One of the big things that stuck in the U.S. was pranks. Kids would plant rope for people to trip over in the dark, and even coated chapel seats with molasses in 1887. To stop the destructive pranks, after World War II, the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended the holidays name be changed from Halloween to Youth Honor Day. While the name didnt stick, the idea of giving kids treats to discourage pranks did but no one would get candy unless they asked politely. Thus the phrase trick or treat was born. A 1952 Donald Duck cartoon about Halloween reached millions of homes and perpetuated that idea. Food companies took notice of the growing market and quickly jumped into the candy business. By 1965, Halloween candy and costume profits had already hit $300 million. Today, a quarter of all candy sold annually in America is purchased for Halloween, and sales are projected to reach $9 billion. But if youd rather celebrate the holiday as it was originally created, Samhain festivals are still held today. Wherever and however you mark the day, Halloween is a historical holiday thats not leaving this earthly realm anytime soon. 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. World Bank Integrity Vice President Pascale Helene DuboisThe splendidly named International Corruption Hunters Alliance sponsored by the World Bank met for two days in Copenhagen last week. The roughly 200 participants included prosecutors and other anti-bribery professionals from over 100 countries. An increasingly sophisticated group of law enforcement personnel was joined by a much smaller number of academics, representatives of civil society and on my panel the private sector. While compliance professionals, including many avid followers of the FCPA Blog, are well-represented on the conference circuit, the ICHA is unique in this space. It seeks to build connections across borders in order to staunch illicit financial flows, address tax evasion, and facilitate asset tracing. I asked the inimitable Pascale Dubois, host of the event, what the Banks goal was in investing so heavily to bring the community together. She noted that every two years, the World Bank International Corruption Hunters Alliance brings together people who dedicate their careers to fighting corruption in their countries. [They] exchange techniques, build trust, and learn from each other. This energizes the community and forges alliances, so that when theres an opportunity to stop corruption together, [they] take it. We so often recognize the value of benchmarking to the corporate community, but sometimes fail to consider its importance for enforcement agencies. Prosecutors can face some of the same challenges as compliance professionals feeling isolated in their offices with too few resources and struggling to keep up with trends. Even more so in the most challenging jurisdictions, with ambivalent official support and a smaller and more fragmented community. Substantively, last weeks conference included a great deal of enthusiastic discussion about Unexplained Wealth Orders in the UK as a tool to curb kleptocracy. There was a comparable level of concern about cryptocurrency and its power to facilitate covert fund transfers. More generally, many speakers bemoaned the ability of criminals to move money more quickly than asset forfeiture experts can trace it. After moderating the plenary session, Nicola Bonucci of the OECD noted that criminals do not respect borders, but they are adept at making use of them in order to shield themselves from jurisdiction. He added that meetings like the ICHA are a great opportunity for informal cooperation, sharing of best practices and confronting common challenges among law enforcement officials. Perhaps most encouraging about the event was the energy being brought to bear on the intractable problem of corruption. While the corporate compliance community has long been accustomed to the collegial exchange of best practices, the World Bank has taken the important step of creating and fostering a forum in which prosecutors from diverse countries with different legal systems can discuss practical solutions. When an organization like the ICHA brings pressure to bear on international bad actors, it makes the work of corporate compliance professionals easier. ____ Alexandra Wrage is president and founder of TRACE. She is the author or editor of five books about anti-bribery compliance and the hidden costs of corruption, and the host of the financial crime podcast Bribe, Swindle or Steal. She will chair the upcoming Economic Crime Summit in Vancouver in June. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump paid homage Tuesday to each of the 11 people slain in the worst instance of anti-Semitic violence in American history. As the Trumps placed their tributes outside the Tree of Life synagogue, protesters nearby shouted that the president was not welcome Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The emotional, dissonant scene reflected the increasingly divided nation that Trump leads, one gripped by a week of political violence and hate and hurtling toward contentious midterm elections that could alter the path of a presidency. On their arrival in Pittsburgh, the Trumps entered the vestibule of the synagogue, where they lit candles for each victim before stepping outside. Shouts of Words matter! and Trump, go home! could be heard from demonstrators gathered not far from where a gunman had opened fire on Saturday. Near the synagogue, flowers, candles and chalk drawings filled the corner, including a small rock painted with the number 6,000,011, adding the victims this week to the estimated number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. Trump at scene of Pittsburgh attack (: ) X The Trumps later spent more than an hour at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where some of the victims are recovering. The couples motorcade passed several hundred protesters on the street and a sign that said Its your fault. Inside, Trump visited with wounded police officers and spent an hour with the widow of victim Dr. Richard Gottfried, according to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Trump stepped into the role of national consoler, a title he wears uncomfortably, with his visit to the Squirrel Hill neighborhood. More at home waging partisan warfare than assuaging Americas grief, Trump has shied away from public displays of unity in the wake of other tragedies. Sanders said Trump did not speak publicly Tuesday to denounce anti-Semitism because he has spoken about it before. He wanted today to be about showing respect for the families and the friends of the victims as well as for Jewish Americans, Sanders said. Questions have long swirled about the presidents credibility as a unifier. Since his 2016 Republican campaign for the White House, Trump has at times been slow to denounce white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other hate-filled individuals and groups that found common cause with his nationalistic political rhetoric. Trump traveled to the historic hub of the citys Jewish community as the first funerals were held for the victims, who range in age from 54 to 97. The dead include a set of brothers, a husband and wife, professors, dentists and a physician. Hundreds of protesters assembled to show their displeasure with Trumps presence, some carrying signs that said Hate has No Home in Squirrel Hill and Trump Loves Nazis. Squirrel Hill resident Paul Carberry said Trump should not have visited until the dead were buried. He didnt pull the trigger, but his verbiage and actions dont help, Carberry said. But Shayna Marcus, a nurse who rushed to the synagogue on Saturday to help with the wounded, said she felt that the president was taking an unfair portion of the blame. I dont think focusing on Trump is the answeror on politics, said Marcus, whose four yarmulke-wearing boys carried signs in support of the president. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, back in Washington, told reporters: If people are there to protest, thats their right. For the president, it was not a moment for politics. When Air Force One touched down at the airport outside Pittsburgh, the Trumps were not greeted by the usual phalanx of local officials that typically welcomes a visiting president, a reflection of controversy surrounding the visit. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, a Democrat, told reporters before the visit was announced that the White House ought to consult with the families of the victims about their preferences and asked that the president not come during a funeral. Neither he nor Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf appeared with Trump. Beth Melena, campaign spokeswoman for Wolf, said the governor based his decision to stay away on input from the victims families, who told him they did not want the president to be there on the day their loved ones were being buried. As Trumps motorcade wound through downtown Pittsburgh, some onlookers saluted the president with upraised middle fingers and others with downturned thumbs. The White House had invited the top four congressional leaders to join Trump in Pennsylvania, but none accompanied him. A spokesman for Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he already had events in his home state of Kentucky, pushing back on the suggestion that he declined. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryans office said he could not attend on short notice. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also opted not to participate. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering attending the inauguration of Brazils president-elect Jair Bolsonaro in January, following Bolsonaro's promise to move the countrys embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, diplomatic sources said Wednesday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Bolsonaro also said he would remove the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) mission offices from Brazil due to the fact that Palestine is not a state, and added that he plans to visit Israel as soon as he is in power. Netanyahu congratulated the new Brazilian leader for his win in a phone conversation on Tuesday. I am certain that your election will lead to a great friendship between our peoples and the tightening of links between Brazil and Israel. We await your visit to Israel," he said. Jair Bolsonaro (Photo: Getty Images, AFP) Due to the diplomatic policies of the previous administration, which aligned itself with Brazil's South American neighbors and other developing powers, the country has had pro-Palestinian tendencies for many years. The diplomatic sources said that from now on, they expect Brazil to vote blue and white on the international arena. Prime Minister Netanyahu (Photo: Amil Salman) Although the economic and cultural ties between the two countries have been stable, relations were never warm. In November 2009, President Shimon Peres visited Brazil, and a year later Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva paid a reciprocal visit to Israel. In 2015, the tensions between the two states reached an all-time high following Brazil's refusal to approve the appointment of Dani Dayan as Israel's ambassador to the South American country due to his affiliation with the Yesha Councilan umbrella organization of municipal councils of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. In the end, Brazil's then-president Dilma Rousseff, who led the opposition of Dayan's appointment, was dismissed on charges of corruption. Bolsonaro's supporters (Photo: AFP) The 63-year-old Bolsonaro ran as an outsider bent on smashing what he sees as a corrupt and hidebound political system that has forgotten ordinary citizens. His fiery rhetoric and slurs against gays, women and minorities have thrilled followers who view him as an authentic straight shooter. He has championed law and order, patriotism and religious values. And he has demonized his leftist detractors as enemies of the people. Bolsonaro appears to be an ardent admirer and shrewd imitator of his US counterpart Donald Trump. And that could usher in one of the warmest bilateral relationships in the Western Hemisphere. He has vowed to drain the swamp, slash regulations and get tough with China. He has also denounced the media as "fake news. Trump called to congratulate Bolsonaro on Sunday night, shortly after the far-right congressman scored a resounding victory at the polls, winning 55 percent of the vote following a mud-slinging campaign with a leftist rival. A former procurement officer at Venezuelas state-owned energy company pleaded guilty Tuesday for his role in an international kickback scheme. Ivan Alexis Guedez, 47, of Katy, Texas, pleaded guilty in federal court in Houston to one count of conspiracy to launder money. The scheme involved owners of U.S.-based companies paying bribes to Venezeulan government officials in exchange for business with Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA). They were also hoping for faster payments of invoices, the DOJ said. According to Guedezs plea, he agreed with other PDVSA officials and employees of a Miami-based PDVSA supplier to pay bribes for business to be funneled to the supplier. The co-conspirators who worked for the PDVSA supplier also received kickbacks. Guedez and his co-conspirators concealed the corrupt payments by using fake email addresses to communicate, creating false invoices, and directing bribe payments to a Swiss bank account belonging to a shell company. Funds from the Swiss account were then distributed to the co-conspirators, the DOJ said. Including Guedez, the DOJ has announced the guilty pleas of 15 individuals in connection with the investigation into PDVSA bribery. On Monday, a former executive at Swiss-bank Julius Baer was sentenced to ten years in prison for his role in a billion-dollar scheme to launder money embezzled from PDVSA. As part of Guedezs plea deal, he agreed to forfeit the proceeds of his criminal activity. His sentencing is scheduled for February 20, 2019 in Houston. ____ Harry Cassin is the managing editor of the FCPA Blog. The Judea Militart Court acquitted terrorist Mamdouh Amro of murder on Wednesday, convicting him instead of manslaughter for the death of off-duty IDF officer in reserves Eliav Gelman, who was hit by a stray bullet aimed at the terrorist. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter In February 2016, Mamdouh Amro, 26, from the Hebron-area village of Dura, arrived by foot at the Gush Etzion junction. After arousing the suspicion of troops stationed there, he started running toward the bus stop at the junction while brandishing a knife. Gelman was among the civilians at the bus stop. He drew his firearm and charged at the terrorist. While helping neutralize the terrorist, Gelman was hit by a stray bullet aimed at the terrorist and was killed. Terrorist Mamdouh Amro Gelman's family called on the judges to sentence the terrorist to death. "Even if the terrorist's hands and feet are cut off, and he's left to rot and die in agony, it won't change our situation, it won't comfort or despair, and it won't calm the pain," the family said. "We demand the death sentence. The issue of capital punishment to terrorists is of national and public important, it's for the benefit of the people of Israelso every damned man or woman trying to harm a Jew know that is the punishment." Eliav Gelman Attorney Haim Bleicher from the Honenu NGO, who has been providing the family with legal counsel, rejected the court's ruling, saying "the attempt to seek intention by a terrorist, when it's clear that terrorist is part of those seeking to exterminate Israelis, is incomprehensible and unacceptable. The terrorist's objective was to murder, and unfortunately he was able to achieve this goal. We call on the prosecution to appeal the ruling, so that the murderous terrorist is punished." Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman echoed these sentiments, writing on Twitter: "I believe, just like the military prosecution and the president of the Military Court, that a terrorist who runs brandishing a knife in an effort to murder soldiers and civilians should be convicted of murder. Clear and simple. And I'm sure in the end, this is what's going to happen." More than half of the Israelis (51 percent) oppose holding negotiations with Hamas towards a long-term ceasefire arrangement, according to the Israeli Foreign Policy Index (IFPI) report published Monday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Only 32% are in favor of holding talks with the terror group. Despite the opposition to an agreement with Gazas rulers, 43% percent of the Israelis wish the government would improve the living conditions in the strip, while 38% think increasing economic pressure on the area is the right policy. IAF strike in Gaza (Photo: Reuters) In addition, the report shows that 50% of Israels population want the government to go back to the negotiating table in order to achieve a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority, while 49% believe that peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not essential when it comes to establishing better relations with the Arab world. Nevertheless, 33% of citizens are convinced that a breakthrough in relations with the Arab states is dependent on normalization of relations with the Palestinian Authority. The sixth annual public opinion poll of the IFPI was conducted by the Mitvim institute in September 2018, and was centered mostly around the political-security issues. A large majority of the Israeli public (69%) believes that regional cooperation between Israel and the Middle East countries is possible. However, 41% do not want to visit any Arab country, even when relations between the two countries are normal. Twenty eight% of the respondents believe that Israel should not promote cooperation with the Arab countries. A vast majority of Israelis think that regional cooperation between Israel and Middle Eastern countries is possible, while 19% think it is not. Also, 41% would not visit an Arab country given the opportunity and 28% are not in favor of any kind of dialogue with any Arab country. Those who believe in the importance of developing relationship with the Arab world, think Egypt and Saudi Arabia are the two most important Muslim countries with which cooperation should be developed. Netanyahu and Putin (Photo: EPA) The other foreign policy related issues that arouse concern among the Israeli publicbesides the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and relations with the Arab worldare Israel's ties with Russia and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Israelis see Russia as the most important country besides the US, followed by Germany, UK, China, France and Egypt. Most of the Israeli public believes that the European Union today is more of a foe to Israel (55%) than a friend (18%). The public is also divided on whether Israel should work to improve its relations with Turkey, with 42% being in favor and 45% opposing it. When it comes to Israel-US relations, the respondents ranked them at 7.75 out of 10, with 63% describing the relations as good, compared to 41% last year. The lack of a full-time foreign minister is viewed by 58% by Israelis as an element that impacts Israels foreign relations negatively, with only 5% viewing it as a positive thing. Netanyahu and Trump (Photo: AFP) On the issue of barring foreign nationals from entry to the country, 46% of the Israelis are in favor of permitting anyone not posing a security threat to enter the country, and 41% think that the entry should be denied to those calling to boycott both Israel and the settlements. Only 4% believe that entry should be denied to those calling to boycott settlements only. Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman of the Russian Defense Ministry, said Wednesday that Russian advisors continue training Syrian military personnel on the use of the S-300 aerial defense system. Konashenkov, who was quoted in the Arabic version of Russian news agency Sputnik, added, "I suggest all hot-heads to step away from provocations and evaluate the situation in a logical manner." The Mossad provided Denmark and Sweden with the intelligence used to thwart a plot by the Iranian government intelligence service to assassinate an Iranian Arab opposition figure on Danish soil, an Israeli diplomatic official confirmed Wednesday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The official said that due to increased efforts to foil attacks on Jewish and Israeli institutions, the Israeli spy agency collects a lot of information, including intelligence about plots that don't necessarily target Israel or Jews. It is believed the Israeli-provided information allowed the Danes to stop the assassins, who had explosives in their possession, early on. (Photo: AFP , shutterstock) According to Danish intelligence chief Finn Borch Andersen, the attack was meant to target the leader of the Danish branch of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA)an opposition organization that Tehran blames for a September 22 shooting attack on a military parade in Khuzestan in which 25 Iranians were killed, many of them Revolutionary Guards troops. After the attack in Khuzestan, Iran summoned the envoys of the Netherlands, Denmark and Britain and accused the three countries of harboring Iranian opposition groups. On September 28, Danish police shut two major bridges to traffic and halted ferry services from Denmark to Sweden and Germany in a nationwide police operation to prevent a possible attack. A few days earlier, the Norwegian suspect had been observed photographing and watching the Danish home of the ASMLA leader, police said. On October 21, a Norwegian citizen of Iranian background was arrested in Sweden in connection with the plot and extradited to neighboring Denmark, Swedish security police said. The suspect has denied wrongdoing and is being held in pre-trial custody until November 8. The Iranian government also denied any connection with the alleged plot. On Wednesday, Iran expressed a "strong protest" to Danish ambassador to Tehran Danny Annan over what it described as the Danish officials' "hasty, political" and "uncalculated actions" in the case. This is the second time in the past few months that Iran has been accused of trying to harm exiled Iranian opposition activists on European soil. In June, France foiled an attempted Iranian attack on an Iranian opposition conference in Paris. That attempt was also thwarted with the help of the Israeli Mossad "The Mossad's efforts have led to thwarting Iranian terrorism in France, Belgium, Austria, Germany and now Sweden and Denmark," an Israeli official said. Jerusalem Magistrate's Court sentenced Wednesday Moshe Cohen, a YASAM squad (Israel Police Special Patrol Unit) policeman who assaulted two Arabs in Wadi al-Joz in east Jerusalem in 2017, to 380 hours of community service. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter Cohen was documented brutally attacking truck driver Mazen Shweiki and another complainant, and was convicted of aggravated assault. Moshe Cohen (L) and Mazen Shawiqi The YASAM policeman was ordered to pay Shweiki NIS 8,000 in compensation and NIS 3,000 to the second man he had attacked. The prosecutor of the Police Internal Investigations Department asked to delay the sentence in order to review the possibility of filing an appeal, saying "Following this incident, the public has lost its trust in the police." Cohen's attorney Avi Himi said that "The court's ruling indicates it has taken into account my client's vast contribution to society during his years as a policeman as well as the heavy price he had paid due to his actions, for which he expressed and still expressing profound remorse and sorrow." A video of the incident shows the police officer yelling at the man, a truck driver, with the argument later escalating to physical violence. The police officer is seen headbutting the driver, kicking him and swearing at him. The video shows the police officer also kicking another person who was on the scene. Video: Cohen assaulting Shawiqi X After the sentence was given, Shweiki said that not a day has gone by without him thinking about the assault. "I see a policeman and I'm afraid to come near him. Sometimes I'm afraid to leave the house, thinking I'll be beaten again. "I'm 50-years-old, a father and a grandfather and I feel embarrassed when people ask me, 'why didn't you respond when the police officer beat you?' I just want my old life back. Shweiki added that "I waited for Cohen to call me and apologize, but he didn't. I want to hear him say why he did it. I was humiliated." During the previous court hearing that took place three weeks ago, Cohen took the witness stand and apologized for his actions, adding he would like to ask for Shweiki's forgiveness. The YASAM police officer was fired from the police and went to trial as a citizen. "Since the incident I've been experiencing many hardships on the personal level, as a man and as a father of children," Cohen explained. Mazen Shawiqi "I consider myself as a moral person and it's hard for me to see someone else suffering, let alone when I caused this suffering," he lamented. Cohen, who served as an officer in the elite Duvdevan unit before joining the YASAM, explained that two months prior to the incident his friend was murdered by a terrorist and another friend was wounded. Several days before the assault Mazen had damaged the Cohens parked private vehicle and driven off. Cohen later tracked him down and initiated the confrontation. Several passersby tried to calm the police officer down, to no avail. "Get lost, all of you!" the officer is heard yelling at anyone who tried to interfere, swearing at them and threatening them as well. There has been a significant progress in reaching a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, brokered by Egypt and the UN over the past few days, Palestinian sources were cited as saying on Wednesday. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook STRONG> and Twitter The sources chose not to elaborate what was achieved so far. However, both Hamas and Israel have been making trust-building steps to lower the tensions between the sides. Egyptian intelligence delegation and Hamas leaders A Palestinian source told Ynet that Hamas is demonstrating willingness to reach understandings with Israel. Egyptian intelligence official Ahmed Abd al-Khaliq and UN envoy to the Middle East Nickolay Mladenov are leading the mediation efforts. The members of the Egyptian intelligence delegation entered Tuesday the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing and held a long meeting with Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar. Ahmed Abd al-Khaliq (L) and Ismail Haniyeh (Photo: Reuters) According to Hamas officials, the meeting mainly revolved around the transferring of Qatari money to pay former government workers in Gaza after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had taken series of measures against the strip, including slashing Gazan clerks' salaries. Egypt proposes that the salaries of government workerswho are not part of Hamas's military wingbe transferred from Qatar under the supervision of the UN. As part of these trust-building measures, Israel has allowed Qatari fuel to enter the strip, which enabled the activation of a third turbine in Gaza's power station, vastly improving the electricity supply in the coastal enclave. Households in Gaza (Photo: Reuters) Palestinian sources in Gaza said that most of the households in the strip currently receive eight hours of power supply per day, while only a month ago they received merely four hours of power supply per day. The sources added that for the first time in many years, some homes even have electricity for almost 24 hours a day. Defense minister Avigdor Lieberman said Wednesday afternoon that Gaza's fishing zone will be increased to six miles in the northern strip and to nine miles in the southern strip. Moreover, Israel has also given its consent to building infrastructures in Gaza under international supervision and funding. From the Palestinian end, Hamas is also showing a gradual (but not complete) decrease in the violence demonstrated during the "March of Return" skirmishes. On Monday, the weekly demonstrations took place in the northern strip near Kibbutz Zikim, and a flotilla embarked from there, a location known for its violent clashes. However, this was the first time since the "March of Return" campaign was launched that the terror organization did not inform the public about free transportation to the locations of the riots, as opposed to every other weekend over the past six months. In addition, the amount of people attending Monday's demonstration was smaller than in previous weeks, with only 3,000 Palestinians taking part in the protests. Furthermore, over the past two days, there has been a significant decrease in the number of incendiary balloons flown from Gaza into Israel. On Tuesday, only one fire sparked in the Gaza border communities amid incendiary balloons, and on Wednesday, merely two fires erupted. Meanwhile, the Egyptian intelligence delegation will arrive on Thursday in Gaza for the second time this week. The delegation has already scheduled a meeting with the rest of the Palestinian factions in the strip and with the organizing committee of the "March of Return" campaign to inform them about the efforts invested in order to achieve calm on the Gaza border fence. Nevertheless, the Hamas-led organizing committee of the "March of Return" cmpaign still calls on the Palestinian public to attend next Friday's protests along the security fence. Ihab Nufel, a resident of the Shuafat refugee camp in his 20s, was shot dead Wednesday by motorcyclists in the Palestinian town of Anata in the West bank. Nufel was evacuated to a local clinic where he was pronounced dead. The assailants fled the scene. The police launched an investigation into the incident. YELLOW POLICE tape blocks access to a woods road that leads to the site of a helicopter crash Tuesday near Birch Hill on the Bad River Indian Reservation. The National Transportation Safety Board was conducting an investigation of the fatal crash. Ashland Daily Press reporter Rick Olivo files a report at the scene. By RALPH ANSAMI [email protected] ODANAH, Wis. - The National Transportation Safety Board said the pilot of a helicopter was killed in a crash reported early Tuesday in the Birch Hill area of the Bad River Indian Reservation. The pilot was identified as Dean Bass, 64, of Ontario, Canada. Numerous agencies had been looking for the Enbridge Energy helicopter since it failed to arrive at the Duluth International Airport Monday evening for a brief stop before heading to its destination in Madison. Searches of local airports failed to turn up the missing aircraft. The helicopter had be... Expert Advice with Simon Pressley 01/11/2018 Doom and gloom? Last week, Domain published their quarterly report containing changes in property values. Once again, Sydney and Melbourne dominated the headlines with annual declines of 6.5 per cent and 3.2 per cent, respectively. According to Domain data, the Sydney median house price as at the end of September 2018 was $1,101,532. Thats a fall of $76,468 over the past 12 months (or $6,372 per month). Melbournes median house price now sits at $852,980. After price declines during the three previous calendar years, the market in Perth does seem to have stabilised, although Domain still report a 2.2 per cent decline over the most recent 12 months. And, the Darwin market continues to look problematic. While none of the above numbers are pretty, its incorrect to describe the Australian property market as doom and gloom. Yes, the APRA self-inflicted credit tightening measures (and associated negative press) has been a drag on property prices nationally, but its far from the truth to say that prices are falling everywhere. In fact, of the 110 Australian cities and towns with a population of 20,000 or more people, property prices increased in more than half of them over the past 12 months. From a capital city perspective, Hobart has now produced three very strong years, including 19.3 per cent growth over the year ending September. Hobarts median house price is still an affordable Hobart $478,491 and theres significant pressure pushing rents higher. Adelaide, Brisbane and Canberra are also in positive growth territory. As forecast by Propertyology a couple of years ago, the real success stories are found beyond our 8 capital cities. As with capital cities, in any given year, there will always be some regional locations performing well and some not so well. Right now though, lots are doing very well. Growth in jobs (refer here), local confidence and affordable housing are the common denominators. In New South Wales, coastal locations such as Ballina (10.9 per cent), Coffs Harbour (9.6 per cent) and Lismore (9.3 per cent) are very strong. Continued economic growth is also giving local buyers more confidence and driving property prices in Orange (11.1 per cent) and Muswellbrook (9.8 per cent). Forbes (15.9 per cent) is going gangbusters while other strong markets include Maitland and Griffith (one of Australias most productive agricultural precincts). In Queensland, Sunshine Coast (7 per cent price growth) is strengthened by recent infrastructure investment and tourism. Noosa (7.5 per cent) is currently the states strongest property market while Gympie (another agriculture winner) is also stronger than the states capital city. Agriculture and tourism are behind good growth in Port Lincoln (8 per cent), the Lower Eyre Peninsula and Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. The citrus growing precinct of Berri is also enjoying a good run with the median house price increasing 14 per cent to a still affordable $200,000. A concerted effort to promote its unique tourism experiences combined with arguably the worlds highest quality agricultural products following a change of government in March 2014 continues to drive economic growth and confidence in Tasmania. Data from Core Logic shows that Launcestons median house price increased by a whopping 17 per cent to the year ending July 2018. The port city of Burnie (7.6 per cent), Latrobe (8.8 per cent) and Davenport (4 per cent) are also strengthening property markets. Illustrating that Australias mining industry has well and truly bounced back over the last couple of years, the median house price in the port and LNG town of Karratha increased by 14.3 per cent over the last 12 month. Elsewhere in Western Australia, its once again the lifestyle and agriculture markets that are performing best with price growth in Albany (4 per cent), Busselton, Esperance and Margaret River. Victoria also has a long list of strong property markets outside of Melbourne. While Geelong (13.3 per cent) has continued its strong run, the states best-performed property market is 1.5 hours east of Melbourne where the municipality of Baw Baw has produced 20.3 per cent price growth and nearby Latrobe is also strong. Future rates of price growth will vary considerable from location to location. Throughout Australia, there are many other locations that havent been mentioned here yet their property outlook is such that one can expect solid growth in the next few years. Through combining our thought-leading research with our award-winning buyers agency services, Propertyology is currently investing in several locations across four different states. Like to know more? Contact us here. ...................................................................... Simon Pressley is Head of Property Market Research and Managing Director at Propertyology. Propertyology is a national property market researcher and buyers agency, helping everyday people to invest in strategically-chosen locations all over Australia. The multi-award-winning firms success includes being a finalist in the 2017 Telstra Business Awards and 2018 winner of Buyers Agency of the Year in REIQ Awards For Excellence. Disclaimer: while due care is taken, the viewpoints expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Your Investment Property. 31/10/2018 John and Lani Tucker started their respective relationships with property separately, in the mid 2000s. At 24 years of age, John bought his first property in Melbourne for $45,000, while Lani made her first investment in her native UK. These were our attempts back then to provide shelter and escape the nest, John explains. We then went on to sell those properties for differing reasons mine was to seek investment elsewhere and Lanis was to relocate to Canada. John did not think about growth or future potential when he purchased his first home, though he fortunately made a profit when it sold for $105,000 a number of years later. Instead, at the time, he elected to invest in shares via margin lending. He eventually moved into property investing, buying a townhouse in St Kilda in 2007 a property he ended up renting out to the original vendor for a few years. Lani also bought her own townhouse in Lymm, outside of Manchester in the UK. AT A GLANCE Years Investing: 11 Current number of properties: 6 Portfolio value: $5.5m In 2011, the couple began their shared investment journey by purchasing their first principal place of residence in Australia, with an aim to eventually convert it into an investment property. We then got married in 2013 and looked to formulate a plan for our retirement together and we saw property to be the vehicle for cash flow, John says. The following year, the couple began to take a serious look at how to build their portfolio. Their research led them to property investment advisory firm Empower Wealth. I found Empower Wealth videos online that outlined how a conservative plan and correct approach could allow us to invest in the right assets, in the right locations, to allow growth and passive income for our early retirement, John says. Their approach resonated with us, and our first meeting confirmed this. We engaged with their buyers advocacy approach, which was a shared way of suggesting properties that we then viewed, inspected and confirmed to purchase. Weve found the advice, guidance and benefit to be invaluable. Buy no more After purchasing three properties in Footscray, Ivanhoe and Ascot Vale in 2014, John and Lani quickly determined that they were not the kinds of investors to build massive portfolios. We have completed our property portfolio. Weve now rented out our principal place of residence as our final investment property in Australia and have begun renting in our preferred beach location whilst we continue to work in Melbourne, John says. The couples strategy rests on maintaining a small portfolio of positively geared properties, enabling them to earn a strong passive income. We have no additional plans, apart from continuing to keep our tenants happy in all of our properties by attending to any issues that arise, as well as being proactive in making improvements for the people and properties, John says. Their most successful investment in this regard has been their Footscray house, which was purchased for $810,000 and is presently valued at a little over $1.14m. The quality and type of house has seen long-term tenants and very little ongoing costs, John says. Another standout investment has been the townhouse the couple bought in St Kilda, which is the top-growing property in their portfolio. It has probably had the best overall growth, which is a reflection of time in the market. It also has a higher yield but more frequent tenant turnover. Lani has also held on to her townhouse in the UK, which has been maintained with the help of a property manager based there, and by filing a UK tax return annually. Communication is key, and we tend to perform an inspection ourselves when we pop back to the UK. The property manager keeps in touch as and when needed via email. We also travel back regularly, at least once every 18 months, to visit our many family and friends there, Lani says. The value [of the property] has increased the location is sought after and in good proximity to transport and to Manchester. Currently, their multimillion-dollar portfolio consists of five properties in Victoria and one home in the UK. Its a portfolio that John and Lani hope will carry them all the way to retirement. Portfolio timeline 1994 - John buys his first property, a home to live in, in Melbourne, paying just $45,000. He sells it a few years later for $105,000 2004 - Lani buys a townhouse in Lymm, in the UK 2007 - Ready to buy an investment property, John purchases a townhouse in St Kilda East in Victoria, renting it out to the original vendor 2011 - John and Lani buy their first PPOR together, in - John and Lani buy their first PPOR together, in Southbank , Melbourne, with plans to convert it to an investment property later 2014 - After marrying, John and Lani start their journey together as property investors. They purchase three properties in succession in the Victoria suburbs of Footscray, Ascot Vale and Ivanhoe 2016 - The couple return to the UK and check on their townhouse, which is now worth over half a million dollars 2017 - The St Kilda townhouse remains the pairs best-growing investment to date 10 years after buying it, its increased in value by almost $300,0002018 - John and Lani celebrate the end of their acquisition phase, happy with their portfolio of half a dozen properties, which form the foundation of their financial future Gearing towards a bright future Throughout the years, the couple has learnt the importance of knowing their life goals and the purpose of their investments, as well as how their familys plans and circumstances figure into this. Ultimately, we wish wed had advice and knowledge rather than just jumping in. Some of our earlier properties we may not have purchased given what we know today, John says. Now we have a biannual review of the plan. We also use Empower Wealths mortgage broking services, which allow for periodic check-ins on our mortgages and any rate adjustments. In the event our plans were to change, wed also consult further. Four years after John and Lani officially embarked on their property investment journey as a couple, their initial plan to fund their retirement via cash flow generated has been paying off. We embarked on this life plan that has focused on completing a property portfolio. Its our plan and goal to retire in our mid-50s with our current portfolio; that is, no further purchases, with cash flow enabling us to enjoy the lifestyle and freedom we seek, John says. While he is no longer involved in margin lending, and the couple has not bought shares in a decade, they continue to supplement their income by participating in dividend reinvestment. During retirement, we plan to give back by volunteering our time. We enjoy travelling, and the benefit of volunteering allows us to do so across countries. [We] wish to spend time with friends and family also, by extending our travel and following the sun, with maybe six months in Europe and six months down under, John says. Were on track and about 50% of the way towards our goal. We anticipate hitting our 100% target in about five years, based on our current trajectory. Our plans could change along the way as life continues to unfold if so, well adapt! News Washington, DC - The Department of State has awarded the construction contract for the new U.S. Consulate General project in Hermosillo, Mexico to B.L. Harbert International of Birmingham, Alabama. This complex will provide a safe, secure, and modern facility platform for the Consulate community and those it serves. Richard + Bauer of Phoenix, Arizona is the design architect for the project and Page of Washington, D.C. is the architect of record. Since 1999, as part of the Departments Capital Security Construction Program, the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) has completed 149 new diplomatic facilities and has an additional 53 projects in design or under construction. OBOs mission is to provide safe, secure, and functional facilities that represent the U.S. government to host nations and support our staff in achieving U.S. foreign policy objectives. These facilities represent U.S. values and the best in U.S. architecture, engineering, technology, sustainability, art, culture, construction execution, and resiliency. Health News Wellton, Arizona - In observance of National Diabetes Awareness Month, the Wellton Library will host presentations about diabetes on Thursday, November 8th and 15th, at 10:30 a.m. Hilda Juarez and Janet Lopez from the Sunset Community Health Center will discuss the disease, its consequences, and how it is impacted by physical activity and nutrition. There is no charge to attend. Thursday, November 8th @ 10:30 a.m. Diabetes & Its Complications Thursday, November 15th @ 10:30 a.m. Diabetes: Physical Activity & Nutrition The Wellton Library is located at 28790 San Jose Avenue in Wellton, AZ. For more information, call (928) 785-9575. Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business. Marriage is the legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners in a personal relationship (historically and in some jurisdictions specifically a union between a man and a woman). As for how our culture presents itself, that's the same way marriage and its actions differ from one culture to the next. In some tribes, traditional marriages might not be the custom to go through, but to others, it serves as an important practice which if not performed would mean that the parties in question are not married. There are certain procedures one must go through before getting married and in this article, you will read about the Ghanaian engagement list among the Ewes. In the ewe setting, the couple both have some obligations to perform and among these are procedures which come with the traditional engagement list presentation. The list differs depending on the particular tribe and family from which the lady comes. A list of items is usually given to the groom-to-be. Marrying from an ewe family, the man has to pay for the bride price and this usually comes with a list. This list is commonly made up of, but not limited to the following: READ ALSO: Peer to peer donation platforms in Ghana KNOCKING Schnapps 2 Bottles (Foreign One) Gin 1 Bottle Soft drinks 1 crate Cash GH 100 Ghana traditional Marriage List among ewes Engagement Ring and Holy Bible 6 Half pieces of Cloth (Real Wax) 6 pieces of Head Gear (Scarf) 2 Pair of Sandals and 2 Pair of Shoes (with Bag each) Ecolac bag (Big One) 2 sets of jewellery and wrist watches 12 underwear 6 night wears 6 Brassiere Lady waist beads and 1 traditional pant(Very Important) 1 Catholic hymnal GH 600 Drinks 2 Bottles of schnapps (Foreign One) 1 Bottle of Dry Gin 1 Bottle of Dubonette 1 Bottle of whisky 1 Bottle of Akpeteshie 1 Pot of Palm wine or GH 30 2 Cartons of Beer 2 Crates of Soft drinks 2 Crates of Malt IN-LAWS Father In-Law GH 250 Mother-In-Law GH250 Brother-In-Laws GH100 Half a piece of Cloth (Real Wax) for Mother-In-Law (with Head Gear and Sandals) 1 Full Piece of Cloth (Real Wax) for Father-In-Law (with 1 Sandals) Family GH100 Thank You GH 50 READ ALSO: Good day messages for friend Thanksgiving - This can be in the form of a sum of money or a crate of drinks given to the brides family members who are present at the ceremony. This is to thank them for coming to the ceremony and agreeing for their daughter to be given away. This list can vary from family to family, not all families request for all these items. Traditional marriage Traditional marriage under the law is a complete marriage ceremony, this is so because marriage goes through the legal process which is through the court also known as the customary marriage in Ghana. There three types of marriages in Ghana namely; the traditional marriage, the customary marriage, and church marriage. After the traditional marriage, the church marriage follows after which the customary marriage is done. This happens when the couple want all three forms of marriages. The traditional marriage of Ghanaians, isn't a promise but rather a complete action which is backed by law and traditions. Now, let's look at the procedures one goes through before getting engaged among the ewes. Among the eyes, the first process is the KNOCKING which is done to make formal, the relationship between the to-be groom and bride. This is known in the Ewe language as voo . Here, the family of the to-be groom go to the to-be brides parents to ask formally for her hand in marriage. Among the Ewes, when a man is ready to marry, he must present a pot of palm wine to the girls father and this must be done by the mans paternal and maternal aunts in order to inform the girls parents of their intentions to marry their daughter. After this, the messengers from the to-be groom are asked to come after a week or two for the answer. This period allows them time to consider the request and to make underground investigations about the man and his family. After the investigation is over and the girls parents are satisfied with the mans conduct and background, they allow them to perform the necessary marriage rites. For this, two bottles of locally brewed gin are offered to the bride's family by the to-be groom in appreciation which is known as vlenu or the knocking fee. As soon as the people of the groom- to-be people learn of the acceptance of their request, preparations fully start by gathering the marriage payments that is the Srnu and when it is ready, the grooms paternal and maternal aunts carry it to the brides parents for inspection. In a case of insufficiency, the gifts are rejected by the bride's family. After this process is done, the marriage is now concluded by giving the marriage payment and a performing of certain ceremonies which is also viewed to be important for the establishment of a legal union of which the bride is formally handed to the grooms parents. Another important thing is the consummation of the marriage, known as the ooabadzi. Now the final process that is the formal handing over of the bride to the groom which is a short ceremony where both parents give a short advice and encouragement to the couple is followed by the affirmation by both the bride and groom of their readiness to marry. This stage takes place in the brides father's house. Before the bride joins her husband, a short prayer is said to the ancestors asking for their blessings for the couple. After the prayer, the bride is taken away by the husbands aunts accompanied by her own aunts. On her arrival, she is warmly received by the bridegroom's father. Here, the couple is advised again to live peacefully. After this, the family head pours libation, asking for a successful marriage. On the day of the ceremony, the man is expected to bring along some peas locally called "Cantonese READ ALSO: Jenifa's diary cast full list Ghana engagement dresses As a matter of fact, the cloth has come a long way. From merely covering up the body, now clothes are worn to speak the mood of the occasion. In Ghana and all over the world, engagement wears have become a thing. Other than dressing for the occasion, different people have taken upon themselves to wear these clothes to test out their different creativity levels. When it comes to Ghana engagement dress styles, your options are basically endless. Below are some of the common and most trendy dress styles you should check out first in 2018! Ghana Engagement dress styles in Ghana African print When it comes to engagement dress styles in Ghana, the first item on your list should be the African print. The African print has become a major fashion wear in Ghana that it is almost next to impossible to find any Ghanaian fashion picture that lacks this cloth design. Two distinctive features that make the African print design stand out in Ghana and more so in the wedding industry the bold colours it comes with and the complex prints it has. When choosing the African print dress for your engagement event, it is always advisable that you go for a dress with a unique and seamless pattern which has colors that complement the clothing. Kaba dress Again, when it comes to Ghanaian engagement dresses, your list wont be complete if it does not contain the Kaba dress design in it. Classy is an understatement when it comes to describing this elegant dress design. Depending on your preferences, there are some many fun dress design options to try out with the Kaba design. The other big win with this design is that you are able to match this engagement dress and hairstyle to your different jewelleries thus, making you stand out as the most elegant lady in the room. Ankara dress One thing you need to know with Ankara designs is that they never disappoint! From simple casual wear designs to elegant and sophisticated designs such as those for engagements, you will never go wrong with Ankara designs. Ghanaian engagement ceremonies are always full of colour and glam. In order to match up to these standards, you need to ensure that you yourself have the best outfit for the occasion. Make your statement bold and clear with your outfit. In addition to this, you need also to choose one that communicates the mood of the occasion. The above list from African print to Ankara dresses will you communicate this effectively. Conclusion Marriage is a union between two people, which is backed by law and from the above, we can see how the Ewes in the Volta Region perform their marriage rites and what they request for before giving out their children in marriage. Leave your comments in the section below. Source: Yen Most privileged people from countries all over the world sometimes like to deliver their children in developed countries such as America so that they can become citizens and be afforded opportunities that come with it. Several Nigerian entertainers have also been known to give birth to their children abroad for this reason. Some celebrities such as Tiwa Savage, Linda Ikeji, Tonto Dikeh, Lilian Esoro, Lami Phillips, Bimbo Thomas, Amanda Ebeye, to name a few all gave birth to their kids in America. However, the numbers of people who go to America to give birth might soon reduce drastically owing to the fact that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has vowed to stop citizenship being granted to children of immigrants born in the country. READ ALSO: Moesha Boduong dazzles fans with new photos Birthright citizenship in America comes from the citizenship clause in the 14th amendment of the countrys constitution, and it states that: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Despite that, in an interview with Axios, Trump revealed that birthright citizenship would soon come to an end. READ ALSO: No more rumour; Fella Makafui and Medikal are now dating He said: "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in, has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end." He further explained that he would put an end to it with an executive order. "It's in the process. It'll happen with an executive order, Trump said. "It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't," "You can definitely do it with an Act of Congress. But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order." In other news, Legit.ng reported that Chief Edwin Clark, a former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)'s chieftain, has berated the President of the United States, Donald Trump, over his recent comment on his African counterpart, President Muhamadu Buhari. Recall that the Nigerian president was described 'lifeless' by president Trump. The south-south leader, reacting to the statement while speaking with Vanguard newspaper, scolded the US president. Atakorah Story: I Am the Headmaster With Only a J.S.S Certificate - Faces of Ghana | Yen.com.gh Your stories and photos are always welcome. Send us a message via YEN's official Facebook page. Source: Yen - The National Youth Organizer of the NDC, George Opare Addo, has hinted of the party's plans to form more vigilante groups - According to him, the move will be considered if the NPP continues to keep its vigilante groups - The NDC outdoored its vigilante group, the Hawks, in September 2018 The National Youth Organizer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), George Opare Addo, has disclosed that the party will soon form new vigilante groups. According to him, the aim will be to rival the various groups associated with the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). Speaking on Citi FM, Addo stated that if NPP are still keeping the vigilante groups they formed prior to the 2016 general elections, then the NDC too will do same. George Opare Addo Source: pulse.com.gh Source: UGC READ ALSO: Ghanaians boil with anger as GMA boss defends himself over a GHC10,000 lunch scandal "If the NPP does not disband the Invisible and Delta forces, then we have no other alternative. We will have to be ready to protect ourselves," he noted. Explaining his point, he added that it will become a reality if the party deems it necessary to form such groups. During the regional elections of the NDC in September 2018, the NDC outdoored a vigilante group called the "Hawks" in Kumasi. Touching on the recent disruption of a meeting organized by the Minister of Monitoring and Evaluation, Dr. Akoto Osei in Tafo-Pankrono, Opare Addo stated that If senior ministers of state with police protection are running for their dear lives how much more an ordinary man like me", he said. The NDC General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia has reportedly endorsed the emergence of pro-NDC vigilante groups as a natural response to the NPPs refusal to disband its own vigilante groups. READ ALSO: FIFA bans Kwesi Nyantakyi for life Yenkasa Kumasi: What is the Biggest Challenge Confronting the People of Kumasi? | Yen.com.gh Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish on YEN.com.gh? Please contact us on Facebook or Instagram now! Source: Yen.com.gh - Supporters of Former President John Mahama and Goosie Tanoh have clashed at Ashaiman over campaign posters - This occurred just before a planned visit by Mahama to the constituency The Ashaiman Constituency Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Tony Afenyo, on Monday, 29 October 2018, allegedly engaged the partys Constituency Operations Officer, Carlos Usman, in a fight over a misunderstanding. YEN.com.gh understands that the Afenyo is a staunch supporter of flagbearer hopeful, Goosie Tanoh, whiles Usman is an admirer of Former President Mahama. Information available shows that Afenyo led some youth to circulate Tanohs posters all over the constituency ahead of Mahamas visit. READ ALSO: 7 wild photos of Akufo-Addo having a good time in Germany This did not go down well with Usman, who engaged him in a confrontation, and led to fisticuffs between them. Tony has been doing certain things in Ashaiman that Ive been quiet [about] for a long [time] but I think its time for me to bring him to book. I dont care, he can support his Goosie Tanoh; its a game, but he being a chairman should, at least, remain neutral. John Mahama is coming to Ashaiman today, and as of 10 pm, we were at the premises to make sure we fix the lights and everything, and Tony ordered his boys to come to the premises with Goosie Tanohs posters, pasting it at the premises, he revealed. Usman added that Afenyo also instructed his boys to deface Mahamas posters with that of Goosie Tanoh. READ ALSO: FIFA fine: Nyantakyi receives financial support from a top UK official Atakorah Story: I Am the Headmaster With Only a J.S.S Certificate - Faces of Ghana | Yen.com.gh Use the comments section below to share your views on this story. Do you have a story to share or you have information for us? Get featured on YEN.com.gh. Message us on Facebook or Instagram Source: Yen.com.gh - Okomfo Kwadee's mother has explained that her son has been away for music due to several reasons - The musician was under rehabilitation in the Ashanti Region. Mother of Okomfo Kwadee, Cecilia Sakia, has explained in a video sighted by YEN.com.ghon GhPage.com that the mental issues with regards to her son are self inflicted. Born Jerry Anaba, Okomfo was long lost from the music industry as due to several reasons. According to his mother, for over 12 years now, her son had not been in his right state of mind due to certain actions and inaction he exhibited. READ ALSO: Mahama and Goosie Tanohs supporters clash over campaign posters at Ashaiman She was told that her sons mental issues would be resolved if he stopped smoking weed She however disagreed with claims that she had put her son under a spell. Cecilia revealed that she stepped in as every mother would do, to look for solutions to her sons mental problems. I have taken my son to renowned pastors as well as powerful traditional priests in Ghana for help She further revealed that he had been okay for the past five years, recuperating and picking up the pieces of his life at Willingway Foundation, a rehabilitation centre in the Ashanti Region, before some friends of his resurfaced to take him back to Accra. She expressed disappointment at his friends, for taking him to perform at the Adonko RTP Awards, knowing very well he was still not fine. Okonfo Kwadee's. Source: Myjoyonline,com Source: UGC READ ALSO:Jon Benjamin donates 12 cedis to Nyantakyis $479,000 FIFA fine Cecilia urged the so called friends of her son to ensure that the money he made came to her to help with his recuperation and help with the upkeep of his daughter. She noted several times Okomfo had left his rehabilitation centre to do things that pleased him. She therefore pleaded with his friends to bring him back home to continue with his rehabilitation process. She also debunked the claims by Okomfo that she was a distraction in his life and his music career. READ ALSO: 7 wild photos that prove Akufo-Addo is having a great time in Germany Atakorah Story: I Am the Headmaster With Only a J.S.S Certificate - Faces of Ghana | Yen.com.gh Do you have a story to share with us? Inbox us on our Facebook/Instagram page and we could feature your story. Source: Yen Newspaper - 79 candidates have been confirmed by Nigeria's electoral commission to contest for presidency - Incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari, has declared his interest in running for office again - The elections are scheduled to take place in February 2019 Information available to YEN.com.gh shows that 79 people have been given the green light to contest for presidency in Nigeria. The 79 candidates are associated with a total of 91 political parties. The election is scheduled to take place in February 2019, and the incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari, has indicated his interest in running again. READ ALSO: Photo of white lady driving a taxi goes viral on social media The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, said a total of 6,352 candidates have also been nominated for the country's bicameral legislature. Yakubu added that preparations for the elections are proceeding in earnest and are in line with the detailed timetable and schedule of activities earlier released by the electoral body. READ ALSO: FIFA's fine: Kwesi Nyantakyi receives support from a top UK diplomat Yenkasa Kumasi: What is the Biggest Challenge Confronting the People of Kumasi? | Yen.com.gh Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us via our Facebook page, WhatsApp: +233 557731677, Instagram/Twitter/Telegram: @yencomgh. To subscribe to our Telegram news channel, follow this link https://t.me/yencomgh Source: Yen Member of Parliament (MP) for Ningo Prampram, Sam George, has made donations of furniture to some basic schools in the constituency. The former presidential staffer made the donation to six schools in fulfilment of a promise he made to his constituents. One of Sam Georges major campaign messages during the 2016 Parliamentary elections was that he would help give education an uplift when voted into Parliament. READ ALSO: Lil Win showers belated birthday wishes on Yvonne Nelsons daughter True to his word, the young legislator has made some amount of investment into the education of his constituents since being voted as MP. Currently, he supports over 40 students, ranging from secondary schools to the Masters level, with scholarships. However, his latest gesture is aimed at improving education at the Kindergarten and basic school levels. Sam George donated the furniture to the Prampram Anglican '2' Basic School, Prampram D/A 'B' Basic School, Prampram S.D.A. Basic School, Lakpleku-Djinahor D/A Basic School, Ahwiam D/A Basic 'A' School and the Ahwiam D/A Basic 'B'. The MP was accompanied by the District Director of Education and the District Coordinating Director to make the donations. Sam George further pledged that extend such gesture to more schools in the Ningo Prampram constituency in the coming weeks. It is my utmost hope that within the next 5 weeks, I would be able to do the next phase which would cover another 12 more schools. I am grateful to my District Director of Education whose vision and constant pressure has made this intervention possible, he said in a statement. READ ALSO: Zanetor Rawlings advocates for funeral attendance to be made part of MPs duties It melted my heart seeing the joy on the faces of these little ones. Yet another promise fulfilled to the glory of GOD. I forge on in service to my people as best as I can, he added. Yenkasa Kumasi: What is the Biggest Challenge Confronting the People of Kumasi? | Yen.com.gh READ ALSO: Gifty was already married before marrying Asamoah Gyan - Radio panellist claims Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page. Source: Yen NDC Member of Parliament for North Tongu in the Volta Region of Ghana, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has opined that President Nana Akufo-Addo is only living and fulfilling his childhood dream. According to the MP, the Akufo-Addo administration has failed woefully in fulfilling their campaign promises. Clearly this President [Akufo-Addo] has fulfilled a childhood dream of becoming President; lets commend him. Lets thank God for him for becoming President, but I think one term is good enough, he said in an interview on Citi TV. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa. Source: Myjoyonline.com Source: UGC READ ALSO: I am shocked and sad Nyantakyi challenges FIFA on his life ban and fine The ranking member for foreign affairs in the minority further stated that President Nana Akufo-Addo and his appointees are living lavishly at the expense of Ghanaians. My constituents are still asking me; it is the second year, where is the one district, one factory? Where is the $2m per constituency? They are counting down; now the Minister says it has expired. There are also other promises of how they will manage the economy, stabilize the currency, manage the fuel prices, they are building the fundamentals forever, and we are choking, and we are under excruciating hardships as they build the fundamentals, meanwhile what we see from their end is that they are living lavishly. He also cited the AMERI deal, and the recent Maritime Authority lunch scandal as proof that President Nana Akufo-Addo is not in control as President of the nation. READ ALSO: Photo of white lady driving a taxi goes viral on social media Mr. Ablakwa says the current government is a huge disappointment. Yenkasa Kumasi: What is the Biggest Challenge Confronting the People of Kumasi? | Yen.com.gh READ ALSO: 5 things to know about Asamoah Gyans wife Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page. Source: Yen.com.gh He made the statement on October 30 while receiving General Vong Pisen, General Commander of the Cambodian Royal Armed Forces, who is on an official visit to Vietnam from October 29-31. PM Phuc congratulated Vong Pisen on the latters new position as the head of the Cambodian armed forces, saying he believes that the General will continue his efforts to better the traditional friendship between the two armies in particular, and Vietnam-Cambodia ties in general. Speaking highly of the outcomes of the talks between Sen. Lieut. Gen. Phan Van Giang, Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam Peoples Army and Deputy Minister of Defence, and General Vong Pisen, he said that the talks will help implement the cooperation agreements between the two defence ministries in an effective manner. The Government leader went on to praise their sound collaboration in the fields of training, border security, the fight against smuggling and human trafficking, and search and rescue activities. He asked the Cambodian Ministry of National Defence to coordinate with the Vietnamese side in the search and repatriation of remains of Vietnamese volunteers and experts who were taken down in Cambodia during the war. As both sides are preparing for the 40th anniversary of the victory over the Khmer Rouge regime (January 7, 1979-2019), PM Phuc suggested Vong Pisen urge competent authorities to join hands with Vietnam to organise the celebration activities to highlight the significance of this historic event. He asked the Cambodian Government to create favourable conditions for border guard forces and border localities to carry out cooperation programmes, while stepping up popularisation to ensure that local people strictly abide by border-related regulations for a shared border of peace, stability, and development. Vong Pisen, for his part, informed the Vietnamese Government leader of the cooperation results between the two armies. They have made significant contributions to the strong bonds between residents in border areas, and concerted efforts to protect border security. They also have had smooth collaborations in the joint patrols of the border localities and working on border demarcation and marker planting, he added. The General took the occasion to thank the Vietnamese Ministry of Defence for providing training for the Cambodian army. The Cambodian Government and people have always treasured and will continue to treasure the valuable support of Vietnam during its national liberation and socio-economic development, he said, underlining that Cambodia, in return, will carry on facilitating conditions and work closely with their Vietnamese peers in the search and repatriation of remains of Vietnamese soldiers in the country. Cloud Elements, a Denver, CO-based API integration platform for digital products, raised a new funding round of undisclosed amount. Backers included American Express Ventures, which joined existing investors Harbert Growth Partners, Rally Ventures, Access Ventures and Grotech Ventures. The company intends to use the funds to bring new integrated digital payment experiences to market. Led by Mark Geene, co-founder and CEO, Cloud Elements is an API integration platform, serving ISVs and digital enterprises. Elements feature rich app connectors integrate a given product to the ecosystem of applications that customers and partners use every day. The company serves customers worldwide. FinSMEs 30/10/2018 Handshake, a San Francisco, CA-based career network for US college students, closed $40m Series C funding round. The round, which brought total funding to $74m, was led by the EQT Ventures, with participation from The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Omidyar Network, and Reach Capital, among others. In conjunction with the funding, Alastair Mitchell of EQT Ventures is joining Handshakes Board of Directors. The company intends to use the funds to expand its presence into Europe and across North America and to advance its product roadmap to continue to broaden the capabilities for each of the three-sided marketplace for students, universities, and employers. Founded in 2013 by Garrett Lord, CEO, Handshake is a career network for college students in America. It connects up-and-coming talent across all 50 states with the 300,000+ employers recruiting on Handshake from every Fortune 500 company to thousands of local mom and pop shops, nonprofits, startups, and more. Today, the company offers a suite of Premium employer features in the newly-launched Talent Engagement Suite, empowering employers to source, engage, and hire the right students for their team, from every background, in every corner of the country. Over the next year, Team Handshake plans to double, from 100 to 200 employees, with a focus on product, engineering and design efforts, with an emphasis on data and recommendations expertise. The community currently includes 14 million students and young alumni at more than 700 universities including 100+ Minority Serving Institutions. Representatives from CZI, Omidyar, Reach and others will be joining a newly formed Impact Advisory Board. In addition, Christine Y. Cruzvergara, formerly Associate Provost and Executive Director for Career Education at Wellesley College, joined the leadership team as Vice President of Higher Education and Student Success, where she will lead work to deepen Handshakes partnerships with higher education. FinSMEs 31/10/2018 Industry Ventures, L.L.C., a San Francisco, CA-based venture capital investment firm, announced multiple promotions and hires. The promotions include: Lindsay Sharma, who has been promoted to Managing Director to manage the firms latest investment fund strategy. Prior to joining Industry Ventures as a Vice President in the secondary funds in 2014, Sharma was a Principal in corporate strategy and development at Intuit, leading mergers and acquisition activities. Before Intuit, she held private equity and investment banking industry roles at Great Hill Partners and Bear Stearns. Amir Malayery, who has been promoted from Vice President, a role he has had since joining the firm in 2016, to Principal in the firms secondary funds. Before joining Industry Ventures, Malayery was the founder and CEO of Dapper Shopping, a mobile commerce startup focused on mens retail as well as an investor at Summit Partners, a growth equity firm at which he focused on internet, media, and technology investments. New hires include Joe Coleman and Jason Mendel, who joined as Associates on its secondary team. Prior to joining Industry Ventures, Coleman worked at GrowthPoint Technology Partners and Cambridge Associates. He most recently worked in Deutsche Banks Technology Investment Banking group. David Chiang has been hired as an Analyst for Industry Ventures hybrid fund of funds team. He was previously at Delphix, a software company, where he was part of their Business Operations team, and he earned a BA from Dartmouth College. Led by Hans Swildens, CEO and founder, Industry Ventures is an investment firm that focuses on venture capital via three investment strategies: secondary investments, hybrid fund of funds investments, and direct investments. Founded in 2000, the firm is headquartered in San Francisco, with an office in Washington, D.C. and manages over $3.4 billion of institutional capital. FinSMEs 31/10/2018 Monzo, a London, UK-based mobile bank, raised a new round of funding of 85m. The round, which pre money valued the company at 1 billion, was led by General Catalyst, with participation from Accel and existing investors. The company intends to use the funds to bring the banking app to more people across the UK, continue to build new features (like Savings Pots), and improve the customer service. Led by Tom Blomfield, CEO, Monzo is a mobile bank which has more than one million customers using its debit cards to manage their money, and offering such features as joint accounts, accounts for 16 year olds, and bill splitting functionality. In 2016, the company raised 1m in 96 seconds through crowdfunding, and more recently raised 2.5m with more than 12m pledged. Later this year, Monzo will announce a much larger crowdfunding round with Crowdcube. The company currently has a team of more than 300. FinSMEs 31/10/2018 Palo Alto, Calif.-based venture capital firm True Ventures closed two funds, totalling $635m. This includes: its sixth early stage fund, True Ventures VI, LP, at $350m, and its third Select Fund, True Ventures Select III, at $285m. Fund VI will continue investing in dynamic, category-leading founders building companies across a range of industries. Investments will include enterprise software, hardware devices, consumer products, cryptocurrencies and innovation in digital biology. Select III will provide significant follow-on capital to existing portfolio companies that have achieved meaningful market traction. Zymergen, a molecular technology company leveraging biology and machine learning to engineer new materials, and fitness-media company Peloton have both received funding fro the Select Funds. Co-founded in 2005 by Jon Callaghan and Phil Black, True Ventures invests in early stage technology startups. With more than $2 billion under management, the firm provides seed and Series A funding to talented entrepreneurs. To date, it has invested in more than 250 companies. True also offers educational and community programs. This fall, the firm launched the True Spark Fellowship, a new career pathway program open to Black and Latinx college graduates and graduate-age professionals at the beginning of their technology careers. The first class will join True portfolio companies in September 2019. The True Spark Fellowship adds to the True Entrepreneur Corps Fellowship for college juniors and seniors looking to forge careers at high-impact technology companies and the Priya Haji Fellowship designed to provide those who identify as women, trans-women, genderqueer or non-binary with pathways to their first startup jobs. FinSMEs 30/10/2018 Zylotech, a Cambridge, MA-based AI-driven customer analytics platform for marketers, secured a $5.5M funding round. The round was led by Glasswing Ventures, with participation from Geekdom Fund, Revel Partners and Rubicon Ventures. In conjunction with the funding, Rudina Seseri, Founder and Managing Partner of Glasswing Ventures, joined Zylotechs Board of Directors. The company intends to use the funds to expand its sales, marketing and development efforts. Led by Abhi Yadav, Founder and CEO, Zylotech enables marketers to engage their customers on a deeper and more personal level. Since its MIT spinout and launch in 2017, dozens of enterprises have used the platform for customer lifecycle automation, B2B account-based intelligence, customer ad-targeting, personalization, cross-selling and up-selling. After providing data unification, cleansing and enrichment, Zylotech uses prediction and recommendation engines to develop customer profiles for micro-segmentation, with rich integrations across all information platforms, including Salesforce, Shopify, Adobe, Magento, Eloqua, Marketo, and others. FinSMEs 30/10/2018 The Vietnamese delegation was led by Tran Cam Tu, Secretary of the CPV Central Committee and head of its Inspection Commission, while the Lao delegation was headed by Bounthoong Chithmany, Politburo member, Secretary of the LPRP Central Committee, and head of its Inspection Commission. Chithmany, who is also Deputy Prime Minister of Laos, urged the two sides to continue implementing the memorandum of understanding on cooperation for 2016-2021, enhancing the exchange of delegations and experience sharing at all levels, especially those from border localities. He proposed Vietnam continue to help Laos train its officials in the fields of Party inspection, State inspection, and anti-corruption in 2019 and the following years. For his part, Tu affirmed that the CPV Central Committees Inspection Commission will work closely with its Lao counterpart to effectively implement high-level agreements between the two Parties, as well as a cooperation agreement between the two inspection agencies. These efforts will further promote the traditional friendship, special solidarity, and comprehensive cooperation between the two nations, he said. Tu congratulated Laos on the great achievements made by the Lao Party, State, and people during over the past 30 years of renewal as well as the important achievements in domestic and foreign affairs, highlighting their significance in contributing to Laos national protection and development. At the talks, the two sides shared experience and valuable lessons in the fight against corruption, stressing that monitoring, supervision, and corruption prevention is a very important task for both parties. They stressed the need to promote exchanges and experience sharing between the inspection, supervision, and anti-corruption agencies of the CPV and LPRP. The two sides also agreed to continue implementing the current cooperation mechanism under the cooperation plan between the two Parties for the 2016-2021 period. As planned, during their three-day working visit to Laos, the Vietnamese delegation will pay courtesy visits to LPRP General Secretary and President Bounnhang Vorachith and Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith, as well as working with leaders of Vientiane and Bolikhamsay province. Tu, who is also Secretary of the CPV Central Committee, was welcomed by LPRP General Secretary and President of Laos Bounnhang Vorachith and Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith. He has been on a working visit at the invitation of head of the LPRP Central Committees Inspection Commission Bounthong Chithmany, who is also Politburo member, Secretary of the LPRP Central Committee, Deputy Prime Minister, and Inspector General of the Lao Governments Inspectorate. At the meeting, the Vietnamese official conveyed his sympathy over heavy losses caused by the hydropower dam break in Attapeu province and by floods in some Lao provinces recently. He voiced his belief that under the LPRPs leadership, those affected will soon be able to overcome the consequences, resume economic activities, and restabilise their lives. Reporting on the outcomes of talks between the two inspection commissions earlier the same day, Tu said they reviewed bilateral cooperation outcomes and discussed cooperation directions for the coming time. Accordingly, they agreed to push ahead with the current collaboration mechanism under their Parties cooperation plan for 2016-2021. The commissions will increase the exchange of experience in examining and monitoring the adherence to Party rules, executing disciplinary measures, fighting corruption, and building a contingent of personnel, he added. Valuing the visits importance, the Lao leaders applauded the partnership between the two inspection agencies, asking them to enhance coordination and experience sharing so that bilateral ties become increasingly more effective in helping to perform tasks assigned by the Parties, States, and people of Laos and Vietnam. They also asked the Vietnamese side to continue assisting Laos in training party inspection personnel. LPRP General Secretary and President Bounnhang Vorachith and Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith also thanked the timely and enormous support of the Vietnamese Party, State, and people over the years, especially in aiding victims of the hydropower dam break in Attapeu province last July. Later on the same day, the Vietnamese delegation had a working session with Politburo member, Secretary, and Mayor of Vientiane capital city Sinlavong Khutphaythoun. . . , , ... While hosting a delegation from Hyogo prefecture led by its Governor Toshizo Ido in Hanoi on October 31, PM Phuc applauded the delegations visit as the Vietnam-Japan strategic partnership is thriving and the two nations are celebrating the 45th founding anniversary of diplomatic ties. In reply, Ido said that this is the third time he has visited Vietnam and he was happy to witness positive changes in the countrys infrastructure systems. He informed the PM that during its visit, the delegation will work with many Vietnamese localities, particularly Ho Chi Minh City and Ha Nam province, in order to promote trade and investment cooperative relations. Some 70 companies of Hyogo are investing in Vietnam, while many other small- and medium-sized enterprises from the prefecture are looking to do business in the country, he added. Ido expressed his belief that a large number of Vietnamese currently living in Hyogo prefecture would work as a bridge to foster its cooperative ties with Vietnamese provinces and cities. The governor said Hyogo also wants to enhance human resources cooperation with Vietnam, and voiced his hope that Vietnamese students will enrol in the upcoming international business courses in the prefecture. An overview of the meeting. (Photo: NDO/Tran Hai) PM Phuc lauded Idos proposals and expected that Hyogo prefecture will bolster collaboration with Vietnamese localities in the fields where it boasts strengths and Vietnam has demands. The Vietnamese Government will create optimal conditions for Japanese businesses to invest in the country, he promised. The PM suggested the prefecture join hands with Vietnam in personnel training and create favourable conditions for Vietnamese students to join the prefectures business courses. He also asked Hyogo to increase people-to-people exchanges with Vietnamese provinces and cities to enhance mutual understanding, along with opening direct air routes to boost tourism cooperation. Hyogo prefecture has cooperative ties with five Vietnamese localities, namely Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, Long An, Can Tho and Ha Nam provinces. It is home to the sixth largest number of Vietnamese people living, studying and working in Japan. The prefecture is known for its manufacturing industry, medical equipment and pharmaceuticals, as well as heavy industries such as shipbuilding, power and machinery production, marine shipping, foodstuff, garments-textiles and jewellery. Work with your past self, create paradoxes to use to your advantage, and defeat an evil wizard (easy, right?) You can bet online at TwinSpires.com from Arizona but must provide your social security number and pay taxes on winnings over $600. Internationally licensed online racebooks do not report tax information and often bill themselves as "tax free". They also tend to offer bigger bonuses such as the up to $2500 free money being offered at BetUS . International online racebooks also accept customers from Arizona without the need to provide a social security number. Arizona has four primary race tracks. Gambling, whether it's horse racing or slot machines, is regulated at the state level. Generally speaking, all legalized gambling within the state of Arizona is limited to the following areas: Tribal casinos. In 2014, then Arizona Governor Janice Brewer signed a piece of legislation in order to allow advance deposit wagering (ADW) at horse races across her state, meaning that residents could place bets from their homes, a huge expansion for the states parimutuel betting industry. - Mary Montgomery, Gambling911.com Ambassador Gerwel expressed his honour to assume this position, saying that his experience in Vietnam will help promote the two countries relations. Highlighting his special sentiment towards Vietnam, he said the Vietnamese community, including students, in Poland is a bridge helping to intensify bilateral connections. With regard to priorities during his term, Gerwel said he will prioritise enhancing cooperation in politics, economy, education-training and culture with Vietnam. He expressed his wish for closer coordination between the Polish Embassy and ministries, sectors and localities of Vietnam. Stressing economic ties, the diplomat said his country is strong in agriculture, food and pharmaceutical production, shipbuilding and mining, so it wants to step up partnerships in these spheres. Poland has established a trade office in Vietnam and this is one of the first overseas representative offices of the Polish Investment and Trade Agency, showing the importance his country attaches to economic links with the Southeast Asian nation, he noted. Ambassador Gerwel expressed his belief that the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) will take effect soon. He added LOT Polish Airlines, the national flag carrier of Poland, plans to open a direct air route to Vietnam, and this route will help shorten the two countries distance and facilitate tourism cooperation. At the meeting, PM Phuc pledged the best possible conditions for the ambassador to promote collaboration with Vietnamese ministries, sectors and localities. There remains much room for trade ties, he said, noting that bilateral trade is able to rise strongly from the current revenue of over US$1 billion. He asked Poland to promote the signing and ratification of the EVFTA. The two sides should also work closely to disburse the preferential credit package of EUR250 million that Poland pledged for Vietnam. The Government leader also applauded the planned opening of a direct air route, saying he believes that it will help bolster investment, tourism and cultural exchange between the two countries. Betting the Breeders Cup online from Florida will be available at AmericasBookie , which features a 15% weekly rebate program (losses back on horse races). Florida Horse Racing Florida welcomes horse racing and the betting the goes along with it. One of the largest race tracks in Florida is Gulfstream Park and you will be able to watch this weekend's Breeders Cup and place bets there, as well as on your mobile devices. Tampa Bay Downs is another big racetrack in the Sunshine State. You will also be able to bet here and watch the race on the big screens. Advantages and disadvantages of both appear below. AMERICASBOOKIE TWINSPIRES.COM 15 Percent Cash Back No Cash Back Up to $1000 Free Cash Signup Bonus $100 Signup Bonus Does Not Require Social Security # Must Provide Social Security # No State Tax Reported Reports Tax Info to Government Offers Betting on Hundreds More Events Limited to Horse Betting Betting on Over 50 Race Tracks Betting on Over 50 Race Tracks START BETTING AT AMERICAS BOOKIE HERE NOW - Ean Lamb, Gambling911.com Pinch of Salt: So much to be thankful for Bonn shines starts Friday : Bonn city center will be bathed in colorful lights Bonn This weekend, visitors will be able to see Bonn city center in a different kind of light. With Bonn shines starting this Friday, 19 buildings and public squares will be illuminated. Music and culinary specialties will also attract visitors. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken From Friday evening, the sights of the city will once again be blanketed in artistic light: The "Bonn leuchtet" (Bonn shines) initiative from City-Marketing Bonn will illuminate building facades and squares in the city center through Sunday. Preparations have been underway since Tuesday afternoon. As in previous years, Wolfgang Flammersfeld is the lighting artist responsible for the design. A total of 19 different buildings and public squares will be bathed in colored lights, including the Old Town Hall, the Sterntor and the Bonn Opera, as well as the glass windows of the Viktoriabad swimming pool. The main building of the University of Bonn will also be included again this year. Maike Reinhardt, managing director of City-Marketing, says it will be worthwhile to cast a glance upwards at higher windows and rooftops. One example she names is the bronze statue Der Gotterbote Hermes which towers over Remigiusplatz on the roof a building. Munsterplatz will once again be transformed into the Euromarche. The market will feature specialties from all over Europe and will be open until 9pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. The Street Food market will be expanded this year, with stands and food trucks at Munsterplatz, Marktplatz and Friedensplatz. Visitors can choose from burgers, Swabian spaetzle, Indian specialties and more. Wine, eggnog and Belgian beer will also be offered. On Saturday, a Bonn brass band will take to the streets between 5:30 and 8:30pm. On Sunday, the stores will be open in the city center for shopping from 1pm until 6pm. Light installations will be on display beginning at 5pm each evening on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The initiative is financed by City-Marketing Bonn and other sponsors. "My vision would be that it spreads all over Bonn," says Reinhardt. Good examples of this can already be found in Berlin and also in some Dutch cities. With "Bonn shines", the winter lighting for the inner-city streets will also be put into operation. For more information and a map of the lighting installations, please visit: www.bonn-leuchtet.de Cold temperatures : How you can help Bonns homeless BONN As the weather gets colder in these days, with freezing temperatures approaching at night, homeless people become especially vulnerable. Here are some resources available to support them and what you can do to help. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken Winter is not far away and temperatures are already dropping near the freezing point at night. The cold weather is particularly dangerous for the homeless. The city of Bonn has put out an appeal to citizens to be aware of those in need and to call for help in case of an emergency. Police can be reached around the clock by anyone who might have information about a homeless person in need help. As well, concerned citizens can call the hotline of the Ordnungsamt (Bureau for Public Order) Monday to Friday between 7 a.m. and 1 a.m., as well as on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays between 10 a.m. and 1 a.m.: (0228) 773333. Employees there can be contacted by e-mail at stadtordnungsdienst@bonn.de. Homeless shelters Homeless men in Bonn can find refuge around the clock in the emergency shelter at the Caritas Association's Pralat-Schleich-Haus on Thomastrae 36. They have the possibility to stay overnight and have meals there. Every day from 8 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., Caritas also offers the homeless a day stay in the City-Station in the building. On cold frosty nights, the offer is also available. Another possibility is the Verein fur Gefahrdetenhilfe (VFG- Association to Help the Vulnerable) which operates the emergency shelter 'Haus Sebastian' at Sebastianstrae 131 for the City of Bonn. Up to 80 women and men can be accommodated here if they have not yet been admitted or are no longer admitted to other facilities of the Bonner Wohnungslosenhilfe (Bonn Assistance for the Homeless). Admission there is only possible with a referral, however. This is issued by the Office for Social Affairs and Housing, Stadthaus, Berliner Platz 2, floor 3C, on Mondays and Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.. Outside of these hours, those in need can obtain a one-time referral from Bonn City Police and Ordnungsamt (GABI) at Maximilianstrae 32. The VFG also offers a contact cafe as a meeting place, where homeless and those with addictions, primarily drug addicts, can warm up and have a chat. As well, breakfast and a hot meal are offered. Material donations According to the VFG, donations of items such as sleeping mats or sleeping bags are needed time and again. For information about the current need, one can call 0228/7259126. The Caritas Association's Help for the Homeless is also happy to accept donations of sleeping mats and sleeping bags at the gate of the Pralat-Schleich-Haus. World War II discovery : Human bones and wreckage found in the Rhine Siebengebirge A Bonn archaeologist discovered wreckage from World War II and human remains while he was out walking at the Rhine in Unkel. After much research, he believes the findings may explain the fate of two young soldiers. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken The historically low level of the Rhine may well bring to light a human drama that occurred in the battle for the bridge at Remagen in March of 1945. Archaeologist Oliver Kessler, who works at the University of Bonn and lives in Unkel, discovered the wreck of a Junkers (Ju) 87 (a German dive bomber used during World War II) along with an old flask while he was walking along the river near Unkel. He also found some charred human bones, which he believes could have come from the two airmen who were in the plane. Nearby, there was also wreckage from two boats, likely to have been parts of the American pontoon bridge over the Rhine. Kessler, who is digging deeply into the events of early March 1945, suspects that he has found the remains of a German plane that was shot down on March 8, 1945 near Unkel. Both airmen were recorded as missing after that date. Kessler used both historical materials and the internet to do his research. Archaeologist certain that remains are human Since one of the airmen was a private, and one a corporal, they were likely both very young. Kessler wants to make his findings available to the historical preservation authorities in Koblenz. He has also contacted the German Red Cross to provide information about the possible fate of the two soldiers. He is certain that the bones are human remains, coated with melted aluminum from the burning plane. His past work as an archaeologist took him to lignite mines, where he was frequently confronted with human remains during excavations. "There, we always had to deal with findings from tank battles that took place during the Second World War," he says. He is also certain about the Junker aircraft, which is recognizable by the type of ventilation for the engine. He is very knowledgeable when it comes to old automobiles and airplane models. A pilot and his radio operator At the time, the German Luftwaffe (Air Force) deployed their single-engine dive bombers (Stukas) with a pilot and a radio operator, who was also responsible for precision bombing during tactical missions. The goal in this case was to destroy the bridge at Remagen, called the Ludendorff Bridge (to prevent American troops from crossing the Rhine). There had been an attempt to blow up the bridge on March 7, but it was not destroyed. American soldiers crossed the bridge shortly after that, even getting tanks over the bridge, and within a week, 25,000 soldiers. Just downstream, American troops at that time worked day and night to build a pontoon bridge across the Rhine. Kessler believes that some of the wreckage he found is from this pontoon bridge. It only became visible because of the low water level of the river. Eyewitness reported the shooting down of two fighter planes The archaeologist found an article in the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit" from December 26, 1957 with the headline Noch hutet der Rhein sein Geheimnis ("The Rhine is still keeping its secret"). It told the story of two ships which had passed through that area of the Rhine in 1953 and 1955, and had encountered obstacles at low water. The French ship Caillac looked as if a huge knife has slashed it. Remagen resident Albert Krahe reported being an eyewitness on the afternoon of March 8, 1945, seeing two aircraft crash into the Rhine, one a Ju 87 and the other a Ju 88. They were hit by American anti-aircraft fire coming from the Remagen side of the Rhine. Since a plane engine could have ripped open the belly of a ship, the French called for a search of the Rhine in that area but nothing was found. On the internet, there are reports that stukas, fighter-bombers and jet fighters constantly attacked the bridge at Remagen from March 8 to 17. Of the 367 attack aircraft, 106 were shot down. On March 17, the bridge collapsed, killing 32 American soldiers. Only ten bodies were recovered. American troops built a total of five pontoon bridges across the Rhine between Bad Honningen and Unkel. They were dismantled at the end of 1945. Only the bridge piers at Remagen were preserved and today, one houses a peace museum open to the public. Information about the museum can be found online (in English): http://www.bruecke-remagen.de/index_en.htm The project was carried out from 2014 to 2018 by the Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology, and Climate Change under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE) and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ). It was financed with EUR4.6 million (US$5.2 million) in non-refundable aid under the International Climate Initiative of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety. It aims to strengthen the MoNREs capacity in the coordination and development of NAMAs in Vietnam. At the workshop, MoNRE Deputy Minister Le Cong Thanh said Vietnam has set targets to appropriately contribute to the Paris Agreement on climate change. This project has greatly helped to assist the building of corresponding targets and policies and prepare for their implementation. Notably, it has worked as a driving force for the countrys contributions to global efforts in climate change response, as reflected in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). He noted after Vietnam successfully submitted its NDCs in 2015, the NAMA project has assisted the preparation for implementing the NDCs at the national level and for building a nationwide action plan. Nguyen Van Thang, Director of the Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology, and Climate Change, said that over the last four years, the project has obtained some considerable outcomes, including improving the measurement, reporting, and verification capacity; helping to improve the capacity of climate change negotiations; assisting in building the NDCs and implementing the Paris Agreement in Vietnam; and coordinating activities within the framework of the International Climate Initiative in the country. It has also successfully built a framework for monitoring climate policy outcomes of all relevant ministries and sectors, he said, adding that this tool has helped Vietnam systematically monitor national climate change targets and policies. Anna Schreyoegg, Chief Technical Advisor of the NAMA project, said the project has built two concrete climate actions aiming at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These NAMAs aim to develop climate-friendly bus systems in big cities and apply measures for efficient energy and the use of rooftop solar panels in the textile-garment industry. They also have the potential to promote job creation, energy security, effective natural resources use, and pollution reduction in Vietnam. In recent years, cooperation between the Vietnam Administration of Forestry and the Laos Department of Forest Inspection has contributed to limiting the number of forest fires and violations concerning illegal logging and wildlife trafficking along the 2,340-km border. Vietnam and Laos have also called for international organisations and programmes to continue providing resources for the two countries to carry out cooperative activities in the future. Deputy Director of the Vietnam Administration of Forestry, Pham Van Dien, stated that the two countries have agreed to step up patrols in order to protect forests and ecosystems, and manage forests sustainably as a measure to cope with climate change. For his part, Director of the Laos Department of Forest Inspection, Linthong Douangphachanh, said the meeting is a good opportunity for the two countries to share their experience in forest management. The meeting is scheduled to close on October 31 when the members of the two delegates will visit the Phong Nha - Ke Bang National Park in Quang Binh province. Senator Benjamin Uwajumogu who is an All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmaker said that the N13.5 million received by lawmakers in the upper legislative chamber is nothing compared to their job description. The Senator said this while reacting to a question on the newly proposed minimum wage for Nigerian workers by the organized labour in Abuja on Tuesday, October 30, 2018.Senator Benjamin Uwajumogu said, comparing civil servants and senators is like comparing apples to oranges. And urged the Federal Government to implement the new minimum wage. He said: Quote Comparing Senators and civil servants is like comparing apples and oranges. I can tell you that clearly, N13.5 million is nothing in the cause of running your office and position as a Senator of the Federal republic of Nigeria. I believe that the minimum wage is too small for a country like Nigeria. If you go to other countries, I just returned from Monrovia, and I am aware minimum wage in a country as poor as Liberia is about a $100 which is about N35,000. So there is every need to increase the minimum wage but you see people need to understand. They keep comparing Nigerian Senators with Senators in the US. What a Nigeria Senator takes as a matter of fact is seven hundred and something thousand naira as a salary. That senator in his office has five official staff that works for him in his constituency, depending on how many local governments. In my constituency for example, I have six local governments; I have not less than six people who work in not less than six of each local government and they are being enumerated and paid. So I have a wage bill from my constituency of well over N5 million every month to pay. That doesnt include the fact that when anybody has a baby in your village, it is your village and you have to pay. When there is a burial, you pay, when there is someone sick, it is your responsibility. There is so many responsibilities attached to the office. I dont think people need to worry about what Senators are being paid. Our receipt is just that amount I mentioned. We are completely being underpaid. Now, you go to the US, their salary may be a little lower than that N13.5 Million but there are other things that are provided for them such as transportation, what they need to do their work. The US governor spend nothing less than two point something million dollars every year on every senator because they have to hire consultants and all sorts of people who work for them. To draft a bill is not a very cheap program and there are training programs and trips Senators are supposed to attend. So please, I want to beg Nigerians that the debate has been very unfair to us. Nigerian lawmakers in the red chamber receive at least N13.5 million as running cost aside their monthly salary of N750,000. This revelation sparked outrage amongst Nigerians compared the monthly minimum wage of N18,000 paid to workers by the Federal Government. Wilmington, NC, Oct. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wilmington, NC To help families impacted by Hurricane Florence in North Carolina, Lice Clinics of America Wilmington will offer free head lice screenings at their clinic during the weekends of November 3-4 and November 10-11. The clinic will also partner with local county schools to provide free lice screenings to its students on these weekends. North Carolina is our home, and we want to do our part to help families get back to normal following the hurricane. We hope that by providing free head lice screenings, we can give peace of mind to our community who have been displaced by Hurricane Florence, said Dena Black, owner of Lice Clinics of America Wilmington. To further our commitment to our local community, we will be donating ten percent of our sales in November to Harrelson Centers Help Hub program, to aid their efforts in North Carolina who are assisting displaced families in securing a safe place to live. "We are so grateful that Lice Clinics of America recognizes the humanitarian services that the Harrelson center and nonprofit partners provide to our neighbors every day and particularly at this overwhelming time after hurricane Florence in the Cape Fear region, said Meade Van Pelt, Executive Director, Harrelson Center, Wilmington NC. We are committed to long-term recovery and building better lives. Lice Clinics of America Wilmington provides screening, diagnosis and treatment options for families dealing with head lice. Staffed by certified operators, Lice Clinics of America is the exclusive provider of head lice treatment using the AirAlle device, a revolutionary solution that uses heated air to dehydrate head lice and eggs. Lice Clinics of America Wilmington is located at 5725 Oleander Drive, Suite A-6 and is open seven days a week by appointment. About Lice Clinics of America With more than 350 clinics worldwide in 36 countries, Lice Clinics of America (www.LiceClinicsOfAmerica.com) is the largest network of professional head lice treatment centers in the world. Its patented heated-air device, AirAlle, has effectively performed more than 400,000 head lice treatments. Lice Clinics of America and AirAlle (www.airalle.com) are brands owned by Larada Sciences, Inc., which is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. Attachment Estonian English Main Events in the 3Q 2018 Mainor Ulemistes subsidiary concluded a loan agreement in amount of 10,7 million euros Mainor Ulemiste AS' subsidiary Opiku Majad OU concluded a loan agreement of 10.7 million euros with the Estonian branch of OP Corporate Bank Plc, which refinances the existing loan from Nordea Bank and finances the construction of Lurich houses. The 13-floor Lurich quarter's rental apartment house and the 8-floor office tower on Valukoja 10 will be built between the old limestone walls of Dvigatel building. The proposed completion date of the building is in the first half of 2020, after which the modern district becomes active 24/7. Simson at Ulemiste City: The terminal of Rail Baltic together with the airport has the potential of becoming a new gate to Estonia Kadri Simson, the Minister of Economic Affairs and Infrastructure, who visited Ulemiste City, supported the idea to transform the terminal of Rail Baltic together with Tallinn Airport into a comprehensive gate to Estonia. Simson and the developers of Ulemiste City agreed that it is important to reach the acceptance of zoning plans and begin with designing as 2026 is not that far away. According to the plan, Ulemiste will become a transport node situated by the presentable European Square. The parties also found, that the good connections around the Rail Baltic terminal are prerequisites for becoming the transport node. This includes the design of Rail Baltic intersections in Tallinn but also the connection of Rail Baltic terminal with the heart of the city. The International School in Ulemiste received the status of a candidate school for IB learning The International Baccalaureate Organisation gave the International School of Tallinn, which started operating in Tallinn at Ulemiste campus last year, the status of an IB candidate school for implementing the internationally recognised primary curricula. According to the director of the International School of Tallinn, Olavi Otepalu, the IB, i.e. International Baccalaureate, is a known and trustworthy study programme for foreigners in Estonia, which enables the children to smoothly continue their education while moving from one country to another, since the entire philosophy of IB is strongly concentrated on the internationalisation of learning. Decided: people's favourite project will be the new heart of Ulemiste City The council of Mainor Ulemiste confirmed that the architectural competition, which was held for the design of the business building and which took place between four high-profile firms, was won by the architectural firm Pluss, which also received the majority of votes on the public vote on the campus Facebook page. The four high-profile firms, which participated in the architectural competition, submitted their designs for the modernisation and expansion of the 1899 factory building made from limestone, residing on the premises of Sepapaja 10, in the middle of Ulemiste City. Technopolis Ulemiste plans the construction of the new office building, parking house and the city square The developer of Ulemiste City Technopolis Ulemiste AS invests in coming future 25 million euros in consturcion of the new 12-floor office building, 5-floor parking house and the construction of the town square on the address Sepapaja 1. The parking house will be completed by the end of 2019 and the office building by 2020. According to the estimation of the chairman of the management board of Technopolis Ulemiste AS Gert Jostov, the market situation favours the construction of new office buildings to the campus. "The occupancy rate of the rent spaces offered by Technopolis Ulemiste is much higher than the market average. The demand for new office spaces exists both from inside and outside of the campus, it since companies are constantly looking for expansion opportunities. This is a good prerequisite for the success of the project," said Jostov. The visual appearance of Ulemiste City will change significantly with the construction of Sepapaja 1 buildings. Those are so-called "gate buildings" of the campus, which are located in the immediate vicinity of the important gateways of Suur-Sojamae and Lootsa streets, becoming an important landmark for all who approach the campus from Lasnamae or the centre of the city. Ulemiste City Key Figures as of 30.09.2018 Rented space 176,771 square meters Occupancy Rate 97% Financial Performance 3Q 2018 Net profit EUR 1,668 thousand Net Sales and Net Profit Net sales amounted to EUR 2,127 th in the 3 rd quarter, increase of 11.7% compared to the 3 rd quarter of 2017 Net profit amounted to EUR 1,668 th, increase of 20.3% compared to 3rd quarter of 2017 Expenses Operating expenses increased from EUR 985 th (3 rd quarter 2017) to EUR 1,083 th in the 3 rd quarter of 2018 Interest expense on loans and issued bonds amounted to EUR 518 th, increase of 2.4% compared to the 3rd quarter in 2017 (EUR 506 th) Interest-bearing liabilities Mainor Ulemiste AS interest-bearing liabilities amounted to EUR 75,690 th. The Companys four largest creditors at the end of the period were Nordea Bank Abp, LHV Pank AS, OP Corporate Bank Plc and Luminor Bank AS At the end of the reporting period, Mainor Ulemiste had EUR 15,850 th in untapped credit facilities Statement of the Management Board The financial and other additional information published in the Interim Report July September 2018 is true and complete. Consolidated financial statements give a true and fair view of the actual financial position, results of operations and cash flows of the group. Consolidated financial statements in the report for the period July September 2018 are not audited. Margus Nolvak Member of the Management Board Tallinn, 31.10.2018 Consolidated Income Statement (according to IFRS) In thousands Euros Mainor Ulemiste AS 3Q 2017 4Q 2017 1Q 2017 2Q 2018 3Q 2018 Sales 1 904 2 035 2 194 2 067 2 127 Cost of Sales -520 -699 -732 -557 -649 Administrative expenses -465 -649 -481 -506 -434 Depreciation -16 -14 -12 -12 -11 Income from associate companies* 953 981 1 038 1 054 1 127 Other operating income 1 14 4 0 6 Other operating expenses -1 -4 -2 -1 -5 Operating profit 1 856 1 664 2 009 2 045 2 161 Other finance income 36 117 1 2 25 Interest paid and fees -506 -621 -509 -722 -518 Income tax 0 0 0 0 0 Net profit* 1 386 1 160 1 501 1 325 1 668 * Without change of valuation of Mainor Ulemiste AS's and associate companies' investments properties. Consolidated Balance Sheet (according to IFRS) In thousands Euros Mainor Ulemiste AS 30.09.2017 31.12.2017 31.03.2018 30.06.2018 30.09.2018 Tangible and intangible assets 93 83 72 66 101 Property 95 748 100 642 106 421 112 307 117 283 Other 9 679 9 511 9 320 9 332 9 352 Financial assets* 30 498 31 479 34 555 34 377 35 504 Receivables 1 673 1 602 1 533 2 389 1 621 Cash 8 234 9 400 8 693 9 049 10 798 Total assets 145 925 152 717 160 594 167 520 174 659 Owners' equity Share capital 19 200 19 200 19 200 19 200 19 200 Mandatory reserves 1 920 1 920 1 920 1 920 1 920 Retained earnings* 66 374 67 844 72 318 72 410 74 079 Total equity 87 494 88 964 93 438 93 530 95 199 Liabilities Debt 55 217 59 823 62 777 68 692 75 690 Other liabilities 531 604 645 704 789 Accounts payable 2 683 3 326 3 734 4 594 2 981 Total liabilities 58 431 63 753 67 156 73 990 79 460 TOTAL LIABILITIES & OWNERS' EQUITY 145 925 152 717 160 594 167 520 174 659 * Without change of valuation of Mainor Ulemiste AS's and associate companies' investments properties. Consolidated Cash Flow Statement In thousands Euros Republican state Rep. Andria Tupola's campaign for governor is playing out amid the noise and bitterness of the national midterm elections, which are all about the persona and policies of Republican President Donald Trump. Democratic Gov. David Ige will be happy to point that out to anyone who missed it.While Trump is seen as an asset to some mainland campaigns -- he has been stumping for his fellow Republicans in places such as Houston and Mesa, Ariz. -- political observers say it is a different story in Hawaii.Fewer than 30 percent of Hawaii voters cast their ballots for Trump in 2016, and Trump does not appear to have won over many Hawaii voters since then.At the same time, Tupola is in a difficult spot because the Hawaii Republican Party has shrunk to its "ideological core," and local Republicans won't support a candidate who does not support the president, said John Hart, chairman of the Department of Communications at Hawaii Pacific University."It's a difficult line for her to walk because on one hand her party clearly wants her to pledge allegiance to the president, and on the other hand there are going to be a lot of times when that line isn't going to do anything for her politically, which is why Ige ought to be doing what he's doing and connecting her with the president at every turn," Hart said.Ige used that tactic during the first televised debate between Tupola and Ige on Oct. 15, and likely will try that approach again when they square off in a televised debate tonight. That debate on KITV begins at 9 p.m.When Ige asked Tupola at the Oct. 15 debate whether she disagreed with any of Trump's policies, she replied, "We've had differences on various implementations of it," but didn't specifically describe those differences.Ige was ready with this retort: "The difference between myself and Andria is that I disagree with Trump's policies on immigration, on affordable health care, on women's reproductive rights, because I believe that they are contrary to the values that we share in our communities.""I've chosen to challenge the president in each of these areas because I believe that it is fundamentally important that we express our values that we share here in Hawaii," he said.Tupola said what Ige is doing is a common strategy across the country this year. "No one's really running against their opponents; everyone's running against the president," she said. "In the communities that I'm going to, people might bring it up here and there, but the only people who bring it up consistently are reporters."She said the feedback she has heard and read is that people "really just want to hear what the governor has done and what he plans to do. They would much rather focus on any results or programs or things we can look ahead to, but it seemed like it was all distraction tactics.""I definitely am focused on talking about the issues that are most important to the people," she said. "We're trying to help more local families stay here for generations to come, and I think that at this point with a few weeks left, definitely my opponent is grappling with any tactic possible."Former Gov. John Waihee, Ige's campaign chairman, said it's still unclear whether Tupola agrees with Trump on immigration or if she believes Trump did all he could to help Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Maria."Obviously, there are many people who are turned off by the president's personality, but that's not the real issue and that's not the real difference," Waihee said. "The difference is in his policy, and it's going to be interesting to see how she thinks those policies benefit Hawaii."Even without the Trump factor, it would be extremely difficult for Republicans to crack the Democratic Party's hold on the office of the governor. Former Gov. Linda Lingle is the only Republican to hold that office since 1962.Four years ago Ige defeated Republican James "Duke" Aiona by more than 12 percentage points, and Aiona was better known than Tupola because he served as Lingle's lieutenant governor for eight years. In 2010 Neil Abercrombie defeated Aiona by 17 percentage points.Tupola, 37, is leader of the five-member House minority caucus and was first elected in 2012. This is her first run for statewide office.If Tupola had hoped to focus on issues rather than national or party politics, her running mate, Marissa Kerns, hasn't been much help in that effort. Kerns, who won the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, last month complained publicly that Tupola is too liberal.Kerns also said Tupola should apologize for her voting record in the state House, where Tupola often voted for bills proposed or backed by the dominant Democrats. Tupola and Kerns later said they are working together, but Hart said Kerns' comments present a political problem."If that's going to be your position as a Republican, that you're not going to work with Democrats, and Democrats are in the majority, what are your chances of ... getting elected in this environment?" Hart asked.Tupola said that as she campaigns across the state, people are talking about community issues such as illegal vacation rentals, crime or the cost of living, and "it has nothing to do with the federal," she said."I'm just sticking to our message," Tupola said, "and sticking to listening to the people, because that's really what they want." Beth Walker, who was elected to the West Virginia Supreme Court two years ago and was impeached by the House of Delegates and censured by the state Senate earlier this year, will become chief justice of the court next year.Walker, 53, will be the court's third chief justice in one year. She will take the post Jan. 1, 2019, April Harless, deputy public information officer for the Supreme Court, said in a news release Monday."I am honored by the trust placed in me by my fellow justices, and I thank Chief Justice [Margaret] Workman for her leadership in recent months," Walker said in the news release. "My commitment to greater transparency and accountability in the judicial branch is unwavering, and I am ready to work with the Legislature toward better oversight of the court's budget."The chief justice is selected by a vote of the five justices. The court traditionally elects a new chief justice to preside from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 of each year.The court broke that tradition in 2017, when justices voted to allow Allen Loughry to serve a four-year chief justice term, which would have kept him in the position until 2020.Loughry was chief justice from Jan. 1, 2017, until February of this year, when justices voted to replace him with Workman after learning that he failed to notify them of a federal subpoena issued to the court in December 2017.In the news release Monday, Workman said Walker is "a hard worker.""I think she will do an excellent good job," Workman said in the news release.Loughry was convicted earlier this month of 11 federal charges and is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 16, 2019.Walker, Workman, Loughry and former justice Robin Davis were impeached by the state House of Delegates earlier this year. Justice Menis Ketchum announced his resignation July 12, the day before impeachment hearings began in the House, and he pleaded guilty to a federal wire fraud charge on Aug. 23.After a brief trial in the Senate this month, Walker was censured, but not removed from office. Senate trials for Workman, Loughry and Davis (who resigned after the House impeached her) have been put on hold after the Supreme Court, made up of temporary justices, ruled that there were problems with the impeachment process that violated due process.During her impeachment trial on Oct. 1, Walker testified that there initially was a 2-2 deadlock between her and Workman for the chief justice position when the justices voted to oust Loughry in February. A subsequent vote ended with three votes for Workman and one for Walker. Loughry voted for himself in both votes, Walker testified.Walker ran unsuccessfully for the Supreme Court as a Republican in 2008. She ran again in 2016 and claimed a seat on the bench, besting incumbent justice Brent Benjamin, former state attorney general Darrell McGraw and others. In that race, she was endorsed by Republican officeholders and described herself as a conservative judicial candidate.One of her first rulings as a justice was a highly unusual decision to reopen and vote to reverse a case that would have forced natural gas drillers to pay more in profits to residents. Loughry and Ketchum voted with her to reopen and reverse that case. At the time, Walker's husband owned stock in a variety of energy companies, including those taking part in the state's natural gas boom.Walker grew up in Huron, Ohio, on the banks of Lake Erie. She earned a bachelor's degree from Hillsdale College, in Hillsdale, Michigan, and a law degree from Ohio State University, according to her court biography.Walker practiced at the Charleston law firm Bowles Rice beginning in the early 1990s, and she moved to Morgantown in 2011, when she became associate general counsel for WVU Medicine. She worked in that capacity until West Virginia voters elected her to the court in 2016. 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 The two-day events bring together nearly 100 delegates from 23 member nations, representatives from the Colombo Plan Secretariat and many of Vietnams ministries and agencies, as well as observers. In his opening speech, Minister of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung highlighted the importance of the meeting, which occurs every two years, saying that the Colombo Plans top priority meet up aims to address shortcomings and set out orientations for cooperation among member countries over the next two years. Minister Dung appreciated the valuable cooperation that the Colombo Plan has given Vietnam, especially in helping the country train more than 500 staff in various fields such as drug prevention, public administration, environmental protection, private economic development, and gender equality. He stressed that Vietnam has selected the topic of gender equality for this meeting because it is an area of special concern that has been integrated into all socio-economic development programmes of the country. Vietnam has achieved remarkable results in terms of gender equality measures, and is one of the countries with the best gender equality index, ranking second in the ASEAN region, he said. The minister noted, however, that Vietnam still faces many challenges such as new requirements from the Fourth Industrial Revolution, domestic violence, violence against young girls, and women trafficking. He said it is important to strengthen close cooperation among member countries in sharing experiences, implementing gender equality programmes and courses, as well as continuing programmes in drug prevention and detoxification, especially synthetic drugs. He emphasised Vietnams increasingly active participation in managing Colombo Plan activities, such as its successful candidacy for the position of Director of the Drug Advisory Programme in 2009-2011, and the General Secretary of the Colombo Plan for the 2018-2022 term. Addressing the event as Chairman of the CCM46, Deputy Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung highlighted some of the positive effects from the training courses provided by the Colombo Plan to Vietnam during its national development. He said the meeting offers a good opportunity for member countries to re-evaluate objectives and proposals that have been implemented in the last two years, and map out appropriate directions for the Colombo Plan in the time to come, towards improving its role and influence. General Secretary of the Colombo Plan Phan Kieu Thu presented the target programme during her term, especially those goals for the next two years. Participants also heard the annual report on the operation of the Colombo Plans Secretariat, as well as those on training and capacity building programmes. They also discussed and agreed on orientations and activities of the Colombo Plan for the next two years, as well as commitments of each member country. Since it officially began its membership with the organisation in 2003, Vietnam has sent nearly 400 officials to attend training courses within the Colombo Plans cooperation programmes in the fields of drug prevention, public administration, reproductive health, and environmental protection. Description GIS 31 October, 2018: Elders, as key drivers of culture and tradition, positively contribute to the welfare of the family and the progress of Mauritius. Government is thus determined, with relentless efforts, to enhance the support extended to the elderly by offering them adequate healthcare facilities as well as modernising the country with state-of-the-art road infrastructures and combating the drug scourge for a better society. This was the gist of the message to the elderly by the Prime Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, External Communications and National Development Unit, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, today at the Social Welfare Centre in Saint Pierre. He was speaking d uring an event in the context of celebrations marking the International Day of Older Persons 2018. It was organised for senior citizens by the Social Welfare Division of the Ministry of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare . In his address, Prime Minister Jugnauth underlined that the elderly population with their life experiences, play an instrumental role in transferring values and knowledge to the family and the society. Elders, the Prime Minister stated, should serve as role models to guide the younger generation to tread on the right path and thus they will be protected from social ills such as the drug scourge. He reiterated Governments unflinching resolve to tackle the drug scourge and added that the high number of drug seizures is an evidence of the commitment of the authorities to fight this evil which is negatively impacting on the society. He also highlighted the first ranking of Mauritius in Africa for overall governance as per the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) 2018. Moreover, the Prime Minister emphasised that there are various Governmental measures which have been taken with a view to improving the quality of life of the elderly as well as the population at large. These are: increase in the old age pension from Rs 3,500 in 2014 to Rs 5,810 in 2018; and provision in Budget 2018-2019 for the setting up of two elderly day care centres at Bambous and Chemin Grenier to cater for the needs of senior citizens. Prime Minister Jugnauth also indicated that the construction works of the new Recreation Centre for the Elderly and Disabled at Riambel is expected to be completed soon. Upon its completion, it will provide an opportunity for senior citizens and persons with disabilities to enjoy pleasurable stays in a hotel-type environment with disabled-friendly facilities as well as a swimming pool, a playground for outdoor activities, five kiosks, a jogging track and a petanque court. The Prime Minister also encouraged the elderly to engage themselves in physical exercises for a healthier lifestyle. Description GIS - 31 October, 2018: Government supports all initiatives towards strengthening the rule of law and is equally determined to combat transnational organised crimes with the implementation of several measures including the setting up of the Commission of Inquiry on Drug Trafficking and ongoing works on the drafting of the Police and Criminal Justice Bill. This statement was made by the Attorney General, Minister of Justice, Human Rights and Institutional Reforms, Mr Maneesh Gobin, yesterday at the opening of the 13th Africa Prosecutors Association (APA) Conference and Annual General Meeting at the Le Meridien Hotel in Pointe aux Piments. The President of the APA, Mr Helder Fernando Pitta Groz, who is also the Attorney General of Angola and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Mr Satyajit Boolell, were present. Minister Gobin spoke of the Justice system in Mauritius where, he said, law officers are selected by an independent appointing authority namely the Judicial and Legal Service Commission adding that the appointment mechanism is independent and free from political interferences. With regard to the theme of the APA conference, he emphasised the importance for prosecutors to uphold the rule of law while ensuring fair, impartial and effective justice which protects both public and private interests of the person concerned. He appealed to the participants to propose a faster method for effectively processing requests seeking mutual legal assistance. The Minister also expressed gratitude to the African countries as well as the African Union for their invaluable assistance in the legal battle against the separation of the Chagos Archipelago from the Mauritian territory. This assistance testifies the existing friendly ties between Mauritius and Africa, he added. The President of the APA, Mr Groz, on his part, expressed his appreciation to the Mauritian Government for bringing a number of reforms to the justice system to achieve greater equity and social justice. As regards the APA conference, he pointed out that it will help address topical issues relating to justice with a particular emphasis on transnational organised crimes. He also advocated for the implementation of a common mechanism which is key to fostering cooperation and networking among prosecutors of Africa. The DPP, Mr Satyajit Boolell, for his part, highlighted the pivotal role of the prosecutor in ensuring justice for the people while upholding principles of honesty, ethics and professionalism. Independence and accountability are the pre-requisites for a public prosecutor to do his job effectively, he stated. The conference, said the DPP, is geared towards encouraging fruitful discussions in ensuring prosecutorial independence as well as bolstering the rule of law. It also presents an excellent opportunity for prosecuting agencies to meet and discuss daunting challenges faced by various jurisdictions in the fight against crime especially, in a fast changing global environment, he remarked. The APA Conference and Annual General Meeting Some 150 delegates of prosecuting agencies from Mauritius, Angola, Malawi, Kenya, Madagascar, France and United States of America, amongst others, are attending the Conference which focuses on the theme Prosecutorial Independence and Accountability: A prerequisite of the Rule of Law. It is organised by the APA and the Office of the DPP, and is being held from 30th October to 1st November 2018. Plenary sessions are addressing, amongst others, the following topics: Rule of law and prosecutorial independence and accountability; Recovering the proceeds of crime; Enhancing rule of law through mutual legal assistance; and Wildlife crime and corruption. It is to be noted that a Mutual Legal Assistance Handbook was also launched, on that occasion, to inform prosecutors on the potential challenges they may face when embarking on a request for mutual legal assistance. Description GIS 31 October, 2018: The Speaker of the Bihar Legislative Assembly and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) Bihar (India) Branch, Mr Vijay Kumar Choudhary, paid a courtesy call on the Speaker of the Mauritius National Assembly, Mrs Santi Bai Hanoomanjee, in her office on 29 October 2018 in Port-Louis. The historical links that unite Mauritius and the State of Bihar, India, as well as the features and methods of operation which are specific to the Parliamentary systems of both Mauritius and Bihar were discussed during the meeting. Mr Choudhary, accompanied by a high-level parliamentary delegation, is currently on a six-day visit to Mauritius. The delegation comprise: the acting President of the Legislative Council of Bihar; the vice-President of the executive committee of the CPA; three Ministers including the Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar in their capacity as members of the CPAs executive committee; and, five Members of Parliament from the Legislative Assembly of Bihar who are equally members of the CPAs executive committee. During the meeting, Mrs Hanoomanjee emphasised that she has always advocated for sustained collaboration between different Parliaments which in turn would allow respective Parliamentarians to grow professionally. She also spoke of the importance of ongoing training for Parliamentarians and highlighted that Mauritius has much to learn from India, a country which is recognised as the largest democracy. In addition, the members of the Bihar Legislative Assembly were apprised of the signature of a cooperation agreement in 2017 during the visit to Mauritius of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Shrimati Sumitra Mahajan. The agreement has as objective to enable members of the National Assembly of Mauritius to draw inspiration from the Indian Parliamentary practice, which is recognised to be very substantial. (TNS) - Apparent confusion over the planned use of the Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or D-SNAP, to address the southwest Georgia food shortage in the wake of Hurricane Michael reached the federal level Wednesday afternoon.Officials in Dougherty County issued a news release and social media posts Tuesday evening stating that assistance through D-SNAP had been awarded for the countys citizens impacted by Hurricane Michael.Officials with the Georgia Department of Human Services Division of Family and Children Services, commonly known as DFCS the agency expected to be the lead on public notices and press releases on the D-SNAP program said shortly afterward that the county had jumped the gun and that D-SNAP had not yet been approved for Dougherty County.Whenposted a story about the mix-up on its albanyherald.com website early Wednesday afternoon, Wayne Maloney, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Services, contacted the newspaper, saying that Georgia had not turned in its official application for usage of the emergency food stamp program by early Wednesday afternoon.When we receive it, we will review it and respond quickly, he said.Maloney calledback shortly before 1:30 p.m., stating that an application from Georgia had come through a few moments earlier.DFCS officials contactedafter they learned Dougherty County had issued a news release stating D-SNAP had been approved.I learned this afternoon that the Dougherty County EMA just issued a press release saying D-SNAP had been approved. That is not correct. We hope we will have word soon, but not yet, Walter Jones, director of legislative affairs and communications for DFCS, said in an email toTuesday evening.Whenasked the county about that message from DFCS, a spokeswoman for the county sent a letter dated Tuesday and signed by interim DFCS Director Tom Rawlings as a response to a verbal Open Records request. The letter outlines the process taken to date to increase access to food assistance for hurricane victims, the tour Rawlings took in southwest Georgia following Hurricane Michael and some of the options that have been discussed to further help those impacted by the storm.The letter does mention D-SNAP benefits:Georgia hasnt been subjected to a disaster of this magnitude in recent years, so we have drawn on the experience of USDA in other states, the letter says. USDA uses a range of ways to get food to people after a disaster, from early benefits and replacement food stamps, to diverting foodstuffs from school lunches to relief shelters and grocery boxes distributed to all comers at food banks, all of which have been employed in southwest Georgia following Hurricane Michael.We have concluded, however, that those measures are not enough, given the severity of the suffering and the input I have received from your colleagues in the affected region. Therefore, with Governor Deals strong support, we have requested permission from USDA to issue Disaster-SNAP, food stamps to people in need who do not ordinarily qualify for SNAP.We are awaiting the USDAs evaluation of the data about conditions on the ground in the path of Michaels winds. We anticipate the go-ahead to distribute the benefits Nov. 7-13 in the first 13 counties certified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for Individual Assistance. Distribution in the second set of counties should be Nov. 14-20.However, because of the potential for public confusion before all the arrangements are in place, I ask you allow our agency to be the lead on all public notices and press releases on this program. Let us make the announcement through our official means from Atlanta when we can give the public specific details about times and places they can go to apply for benefits.We will bring in extra staff from unaffected counties to help with the processing. An impressive number answered the call when a request for volunteers went out Monday. Indeed, the performance of the division employees everywhere has been admirable since the storm.Along with a copy of the letter addressing the planned DFCS food stamp distribution, the county sent a statement from Commission Chairman Chris Cohilas attempting to explain the reason for the confusion.The benefits are not immediately available and are expected to be turned on at a later date, the statement said. That may explain any communication gap. I learned this information directly from the state level late today, and absolutely didnt want to delay sharing this information with our residents. People are struggling, and this news comes as a relief to many.2018 The Albany Herald, Ga.Visit The Albany Herald, Ga. at www.albanyherald.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. (TNS) Muscatine County residents currently living in floodplain areas or near one should contact Planning and Zoning to see if required flood insurance is in their future, according to Administrator Eric Furnas.Its best for the homeowners, if theyre concerned, to look it up and find out, Furnas said.New floodplain maps were generated by FEMA. The information is available through websites including FEMA and Iowa Department of Natural Resources, but Furnas said the maps may be difficult to read if people are unfamiliar with the Geographic Information System.The Flood Insurance Study maps determine which properties are in the floodplain and also which property owners will have to purchase flood insurance as a result. He explained that the new floodplain maps have some properties either entering the floodplain or exiting it and to generate a list of affected homeowners would take thousands of hours. The best way for residents to find out if theyre affected is to contact county planning and zoning.Furnas said representatives from FEMA, Iowa DNR and Muscatine County Planning and Zoning held an open house last week to give details on the new flood maps and answer any questions residents had.He said only a few people showed up to the meeting, which isnt unusual, but the 90-day appeal period follows the meeting where people that feel that theyre adversely impacted by the flood map changes can gather and submit technical data " he said. Residents or property owners may hire a surveyor to prove to the federal agency that their properties are at a high enough elevation or in an area protected by a levee that they wont require insurance.Supervisor Jeff Sorensen said he pays $1,000 per year for flood insurance with a $50,000 deductible on a property valued at $160,000 in southern Muscatine so, its very expensive and not that much insurance; things most people need to be watching for because, as most people know, its not one of our higher income areas in the county.Furnas said one issue the department is looking into is the inclusion of eight properties that had previously been granted letter of map amendments or LOMAs. These letters prove that the properties had been identified as adequately elevated and recognized as out of the floodplain. However, the properties were included in the recent study when they were determined to be exempt because most of them are now protected by the levee that has been certified since the last study several years ago.Im particularly concerned with these LOMAs that people have already attained now are just being wiped away, Furnas said. You know, people spent money to prove that their house or property was high enough and theyre being superseded and they shouldn't have even been part of this study.Furnas said he's working with Iowa DNR to correct the issue.2018 Muscatine Journal, IowaVisit Muscatine Journal, Iowa at www.muscatinejournal.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. (TNS) As anticipated, the state has awarded Newport Beach, Calif., a $1.7 million grant needed to fund a water-wheel trash-collecting vessel for Upper Newport Bay one thats likely to come with a Twitter account.The California Ocean Protection Council adopted the grant award at its Thursday board meeting in Santa Cruz. The city will now work to obtain the necessary regulatory permits.The planned solar and hydraulically powered water wheel will be placed at the top of Upper Newport Bay by the Jamboree Road bridge. It is intended to capture garbage flowing down San Diego Creek from inland Orange County before it can hit Newport Harbor and the Pacific Ocean.From its stationary position, the wheel will funnel debris into an onboard holding bin that will be emptied periodically. The device should prevent up to 80% of the floatable debris that enters the bay from getting past the jetty and hitting the open ocean.The water wheels design lends itself to whimsy. The vessel would look like a snail with a paddlewheel, or a conch shell crossed with a steamboat. In Baltimore, the first city in the United States to use a water wheel, a googly-eyed trash wheel family Mr. Trash Wheel , Professor Trash Wheel and Capt. Trash Wheel gobbles rubbish from the waters around the port city. All three have Twitter accounts.Newport is expected to be the first West Coast city to use the trash-snaring device.With tentative approval from the state lined up, the Newport Beach City Council voted in September to budget the major funding for the water-wheel project and to accept a study that said the trash collector wouldnt have significant, if any, negative effects on the environment.The grant money comes from funding generated by Californias Water Quality, Supply and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014. (TNS) Texas' largest electricity generator is going big on battery power.Irving-based Luminant announced Tuesday that Texas environmental regulators awarded the company a $1 million grant to build the state's largest electricity storage facility of its kind. To be located adjacent to Luminant's 180-megawatt Upton 2 solar power plant in West Texas, this 10-megawatt battery would be the seventh largest in the U.S., according to Luminant.The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality grant that will help fund the battery's construction is part of the state's emissions reduction plan. This would be the first large battery installation in Texas for Luminant's parent company Vistra Energy, which has already proposed building the world's largest battery in California.Such battery installations would help make solar energy a more lucrative source of electricity in Texas, a sunny state which gets less than 1 percent of its commercially-generated electricity from solar panels.Meranda Cohn, a Vistra spokesman, said the battery would boost the facility's output when electricity is needed, before and after the solar midday peak. In many cases, the battery could be charged from the grid at night when prices are often the lowest."There is a big ramp up, and a big ramp down with solar power," she said. "And it does not follow the traditional demand that people are putting on the grid."The 1,900-acre Upton 2 solar facility near McCamey in Upton County started generating electricity in June. The battery is expected to be installed late this year.Company officials declined to disclose the cost of the battery project. But a Vistra presentation to analysts this year said the investment in the battery project was expected to generate returns in the mid to high teens.Over the summer, the Texas grid set multiple electricity demand records . Most of those peak usage were between 4 and 6 p.m.The Upton 2 plant is one of the largest solar facilities in Texas. At full capacity, it could generate enough electricity to power 56,700 average Texas homes or roughly half of that during hot summer days. Vistra, bought the plant in 2017 while it was still under construction.Texas has generally been slow to adopt battery storage in a major way, in part due to high cost and abundant availability of cheap electricity from wind and natural gas. Texas' electricity prices are in the bottom third among U.S. states, according to data from U.S. Energy Information Administration.From 2012 to 2016, ERCOT added barely any battery storage. The state's battery capacity has increased by nearly 250 percent since then.And Upton 2 suggests Texas' battery storage could be heading in a new direction. So far, storage has mostly been used as either backup power for a remote area with limited infrastructure or for regulating the frequency of the electric grid.Electricity arbitrage generating electricity while prices are low and then selling it when prices are high hasn't been a common practice here. Doing that by storing electricity is now a viable option because lithium-ion battery prices have dropped by 70 percent between 2012 and 2017, according to IHS Markit Luminant's largest-in-Texas claim is based on using the Upton 2 battery to send electricity back to the grid like a traditional generator, rather than for a specialty use. The battery will be capable of generating 42-megawatt hours of the electricity when fully charged.In their analyst presentation, Vistra officials also pointed to tax credits and "integration" with their retail arm as benefits of the new battery project. Vistra-owned TXU Energy offers several electricity plans, including "Free Nights & Solar Days", that promise solar power to its residential and business customers. City of Los Angeles: Using Google Cloud to inform and empower citizens e.Republic clearly identifies Sponsor Content on its sites through the use of special labels that link to our disclosures page Among its many responsibilities, the City of Los Angeles Information Technology Agency (ITA) is tasked with deploying technology to share critical information with the sprawling citys four million residents during emergencies. (TNS) Just days before a pivotal midterm congressional election, dozens of jurisdictions around the country go to polls without a paper backup for electronic voting systems. The shortfall comes despite nearly two years of warnings from cybersecurity experts that in the absence of a paper backup system, voters intentions cannot be verified in case of a cyberattack that alters election databases.Fourteen states will conduct the midterm elections where voters will register their choices in an electronic form but will not leave behind any paper trail that could be used to audit and verify the outcome.Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey and South Carolina have no paper backup systems anywhere in the state. Nine other states have several jurisdictions without a physical alternative to electronic records Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas.Experts have urged states to have backup systems after officials from U.S. intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security said that Russian entities scanned election systems in at least 21 states before the 2016 election in an attempt to breach. Seven states had their computer systems breached to various degrees, officials have said. Illinois has said its voter registration system was breached. But officials have said no votes were altered.Its fair to say that 2016 changed the threat environment we face, pitting state and local election officials against nation-state actors who scan for vulnerabilities and were successful in accessing one states voter rolls, U.S. Election Assistance Commission Chairman Thomas Hicks said at an Oct. 3 event on election security. These same actors made additional attempts to infiltrate states elections systems ahead of the 2018 midterms, and by all accounts, they will be back for 2020.Technology companies and U.S. law enforcement agencies have described various attempts by Russian entities to interfere in the midterms, but not all of them are related to the security of election machinery operated by states. Many of the attempts by adversaries are aimed at influencing American voters or targeting individual political campaigns through fake social media campaigns.In August, Microsoft said it had seized six Internet domains belonging to Russian hackers and linked to the countrys military intelligence agency. The domains mimicked Republican-leaning think tanks and were being used to send phishing emails to lawmakers offices.Two months earlier, the company disclosed it had found and disabled three spear-phishing campaigns mounted by the Russian military intelligence agency that targeted three 2018 candidates. Microsoft didnt name the candidates, but Rolling Stone magazine reported that Hans Kierstad, a Democrat, who participated in Californias open primary to challenge Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and lost, was targeted by Russian entities. Rohrabacher has expressed strong pro-Russia views and the FBI is said to have warned him that Moscow saw him as an intelligence source.In another case, the website of Knox County, Tenn., crashed on primary day in May, after being targeted by a denial of service attack an attempt to overload the website with multiple requests until it crashes. An investigation found that the attack was staged by computers located around the world, including in the United Kingdom, Ukraine, China, Russia and Canada, according to Knox News, a local newspaper. No country or entity was identified as being behind the attack and no votes were altered, the newspaper reported.The Justice Department on Oct. 19 said it was charging Elena Khusyaynova, a 44-year-old Russian woman, with conspiracy to defraud the United States.The woman from St. Petersburg, Russia, had served as the chief accountant of Project Lakhta, a foreign influence operation funded by Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin and two companies he controls, Concord Management and Consulting LLC and Concord Catering, the Justice Department said. Prigozhin is a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin.The woman had participated in an effort to conduct information warfare against the United States, the Justice Department said. This effort was not only designed to spread distrust toward candidates for U.S. political office and the U.S. political system in general, but also to defraud the United States by impeding the lawful functions of government agencies in administering relevant federal requirements.In response to the Russian efforts, the U.S. Cyber Command, overseen by the Pentagon, has begun targeting individual Russian operatives and warning them that their activities aimed at disrupting American elections are being monitored, The New York Times reported Oct. 23.Separately, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring signs of malicious activity on election-related computers in 42 states, Undersecretary Christopher Krebs told reporters Oct. 23. The department also is bracing for a sudden attack on election systems in the days before or on Nov. 6, Krebs said.We are continually thinking about what could happen between now and Nov. 6, for the last-minute sort of attacks or capabilities the adversary can deploy, Krebs said. We are getting really aggressive through red-teaming concept and threat modeling to figure out ways in which election systems and related computer networks could come under attack, he said. The red team refers to a concept used by the U.S. military in which officials assume an adversarial role to test defenses.While Congress in March approved a $380 million federal grant to states to boost the security of their election systems, state officials say it was long overdue and was money left over from a 2002 law and not new money in light of the vulnerabilities identified in state election systems during the 2016 election.Lawmakers proposed dozens of bills since January 2017 to address election security but failed to pass any legislation that would require states and local jurisdictions to have paper ballots as backup to digital voting systems.One bill that had the bipartisan backing of Sens. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, and Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, and was about to be taken up by the Senate Rules and Administration Committee in August was put on the back burner after Alabama GOP Sen. Richard C. Shelby and the White House raised objections. They said the bill threatened to insert the federal government into the election process, which is a responsibility the Constitution gives to the states.But states that have beefed up their election systems with the help of the federal grants say they have created backups, trained their staff in best cybersecurity practices and plan to audit the results.Some of the measures that we have taken to improve election security for November include expanding our post-election audit process, and training for our local election officials, Meagan Wolfe, the Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator, said at the Oct. 3 event. So in Wisconsin, we require audits of randomly selected voting equipment of every general election since 2016. For the 2018 primary, we piloted an additional program that was aimed at verifying ballot totals.In the state of Washington, election officials have upgraded security systems on existing election computers that were first installed in the early 2000s, said Kim Wyman, the secretary of state and its top election official.The beefed up systems will be used in the 2018 midterms, Wyman said at the October event. The state will unveil new computer systems in 2019 that will be used in the 2020 presidential and congressional races, she said.Michigan has spent about $40 million to improve security on its election systems, Joe Rozell, commissioner of Oakland County, the states second-most-populous county, said. Oakland County is home to Pontiac and other Detroit suburbs.The state is doing this comprehensive election security training, as well as post-election audits, Rozell said. The state has conducted post-election audits in the past and plans to continue those while trying a new, more rigorous form of auditing election results, he said.Weve begun that process, as well as a complete overhaul of our states voter registration system, Rozell said. The old voter roll system dated from the mid-1990s, and has now been completely upgraded, he said. Roughly two years after partnering with Deloitte to create a platform that would enable a more secure, and user-friendly digital experience, Ohio officials have rolled out internal single sign-on (SSO) to state employees and external business owners and will integrate key identity records this fall. The move represents an important step toward offering similar public-facing capabilities to residents.Ohio is well on its way to achieving the larger goal of not just forging a single digital identity across state systems for residents, businesses and employees, but implementing fully formed identity management, said Derek Bridges, program administrator of the Ohio Administrative Knowledge System in the Department of Administrative Services. Achieving that full identity life cycle, Bridges said, also means ensuring the security and privacy of user identities and maintaining National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) compliance.The process, initiated with a 2016 RFP, wont be complete for some time but the underlying platform and two essential websites are already live. In early June, the state debuted myOhio , its enterprise intranet for employees, and is integrating the states 1,600-plus related systems. In early July, the state launched Ohio Business Gateway , its portal for business owners to file and pay taxes and complete transactions including those related to sales and use tax, employer withholding and unemployment compensation. The state is working with businesses that use its services to map their journeys onto the new system. These efforts constitute the projects first phase.Later this year, Ohio will take several additional steps as it reaches the beginning of the projects second and likely final phase. It will integrate all Bureau of Motor Vehicle (BMV) records into the new system, creating a new digital back end. Thats a foundational step toward rolling out additional citizen-facing systems, as BMV maintains around 10 million resident identifications. The state will likely deploy a fraud analytics capability then, aimed at monitoring site users activity and ensuring those logging in are genuine users. Ultimately, Bridges said, the goal is for the state to meet residents expectations of service in a new era of online availability and security.Our customers expectations are for the state to offer a digital experience and digital interaction thats on par with what they experience commercially, and government has a lot of work to do to meet those expectations. I think that when you are deploying something like that, your customers theyre trusting us with considerable amounts of data and its imperative that we take every measure possible to safeguard it, Bridges said.The fraud analytics solution on the way should enable the state to use big data technology to screen users to differentiate between legitimate and fake log-ins, and deploy threat detection and response, Bridges said. It will give the state real-time threat response and additional forensic, analytic abilities, he said. But more broadly, it will mesh with Ohios ongoing data analytics program as part of the conversation around bringing big bringing big data to bear on cybersecurity.The state, Bridges said, has taken the cautious approach of doing an internal rollout first, to iron out any kinks before releasing public-facing SSO through Ohio.gov, the states primary website. But even debuting SSO for staffers and business owners has already yielded considerable efficiencies, in about five months or less. Since myOhio went live, its self-service architecture has reduced help desk calls by 60 percent without any hard measures, the program administrator said, to compel self-service.But that will be coming. And so, we would expect that 60 percent drop to eventually be a 90-plus percent reduction. If you think about it, you dont really want things like account management, password reset things like that, you dont really want them going through a help desk because theres a potential for social engineering, Bridges said. IT officials have moved with care during the internal deployment to minimize disruption, he noted.He praised enthusiastic state agencies for going beyond mere commitment to the project to financial involvement. Its first phase was funded by $16 million in state funds and more than $2 million in a U.S. Commerce grant from NIST. But state agencies have invested more than $10 million from their own budgets toward integration, a good sign that agencies take this very seriously and they see the value of it, Bridges added.Another $7 million in capital funding will become available later this year, which will help power the projects second phase. The exact timing of public-facing SSO is unclear ahead of the Nov. 6 election; current Gov. John Kasich is ineligible to run again after serving two four-year terms. Bridges said, however, he believes the projects second phase will probably be a priority regardless of who wins.With phase two, were going to make it cheaper, faster and easier to integrate. And at that point, its going to be up to the strategy of the administration to see how they want to deploy it from there, Bridges said. Indonesia, one of the world's fastest-growing aviation markets, has a patchy safety record. With the now almost certain prospect of all on board having died, the crash is set to rank as its second-worst air disaster. Ground staff lost contact with flight JT610 of budget airline Lion Air 13 minutes after the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft took off early on Monday (October 29) from the airport in Jakarta, the capital, on its way to the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang. "Hopefully this morning we can find the wreckage or fuselage," Soerjanto Tjahjono, the head of a national transport safety panel, told Reuters, adding that underwater "pinger locators", including equipment from Singapore, were being deployed to help find the aircraft's black boxes. The priority is finding the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder to help determine the cause of the disaster, safety experts said. Although divers stopped searching overnight, sonar vessels and an underwater drone kept up the hunt for the wreckage, where many victims were feared trapped, officials said. Only debris and body parts have been found off the shore of Karawang, east of Jakarta. A Reuters witness on a boat at the crash site, saw teams of divers in black rubber suits enter the slightly choppy water from six inflatable boats. "The visibility is not good as it's very overcast, a special forces officer said, noting the dive team had started just after dawn and been down to a depth of 35 metres. Underwater footage released by the national search and rescue agency showed relatively poor visibility. In all, 35 vessels are helping to search. DNA CHECKS Yusuf Latif, the spokesman of the search and rescue agency, had said on Monday finding survivors "would be a miracle", judging by the condition of the recovered debris and body parts. Lion Air said human remains were collected in 24 body bags after sweeps of the site, in waters about 30 to 35 metres (98 to 115 ft) deep roughly 15 km (nine miles) off the coast. Officers at Jakarta's port picked through personal belongings retrieved from the sea, including wallets, backpacks and papers, in a bid to help identify their owners. Dozens of relatives gathered at a police hospital where body bags were brought for forensic doctors to try to identify victims. Police were taking saliva swabs from family members of the missing for DNA tests and also seeking details on body markings like tatoos or birthmarks on the passengers. A tent has been set up next to the hospital building and a middle age woman and a teenager sat together, sobbing and comforting each other. BOEING PROVIDING ASSISTANCE The pilot of flight JT610 had asked to return to base shortly after take-off about 6.20 a.m. Investigators are trying to determine why the pilot issued the request, which was granted. No distress signal was received from the aircraft's emergency transmitter. The aircraft suffered a technical problem on a flight from the resort island of Bali to Jakarta on Sunday (October 28) but it was "resolved according to procedure", Edward Sirait, chief executive of Lion Air Group, told reporters. Sirait declined to specify the nature of the issue but said none of the airline's other aircraft of that model had the same problem. Lion had operated 11 Boeing 737 MAX 8s and it had no plan to ground the rest of them, he said. On Monday, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Boeing Co said they were providing assistance in the crash investigation. The accident is the first to be reported involving the widely sold Boeing 737 MAX, an updated, more fuel-efficient version of the manufacturer's workhorse single-aisle jet. Two witnesses described the plane as swaying or rocking as it came down, adding that the nose hit the water first and there was a tall column of smoke afterwards. The aircraft did not make a noise when it came down, they said. "From a long way off, it was already leaning, said Gauk, a fisherman who uses one name. Privately owned Lion Air, founded in 1999, said the aircraft, which had been in operation since August, was airworthy, with its pilot and co-pilot together having amassed 11,000 hours of flying time. Indonesia's worst air disaster was in 1997, when a Garuda Indonesia A300 crashed in the city of Medan, killing 234 people. Dr Helmut Marko says he is "very optimistic" about Red Bull's title chances for 2019. After years of complaining about its customer Renault power, the top F1 team is moving to works Honda engines for next year and beyond. And together with the aerodynamic rule change, Marko says he is confident. "We already have the numbers from the new wings and it makes us very optimistic," he told Auto Motor und Sport. Honda struggled when it collaborated with McLaren in 2015-2017, but this year the Japanese manufacturer has made progress with the junior Red Bull team Toro Rosso. Marko said: "We expect that Honda will be only 10 kilowatts behind Ferrari and Mercedes. We think we can compensate for this with a good chassis." Max Verstappen won in Mexico last weekend, as he did in 2017. Marko suggests that is because the circuit equalises the performances of the engines. "No one ever wants to believe it when we keep saying it," Marko insisted. "In Brazil it will be difficult for us again because of the long uphill straights. But let's see what we can do in Abu Dhabi. "Our car currently seems to be very fast." (GMM) Daniel Ricciardo will complete the final two races of his career at Red Bull. That is the news from team boss Christian Horner, after Australian Ricciardo furiously suggested he might sit out Brazil and Abu Dhabi. Mexico GP pole sitter Ricciardo was furious after suffering yet another technical failure in the race, declaring "I'll let Gasly drive it" in the last two races. But Spain's AS newspaper quotes Horner as saying: "Ricciardo is emotional but he suffered an immensely frustrating afternoon and I can understand that. "I hope the black clouds will rise for him in the last two races," he added. Ricciardo is moving to Renault for 2019, sparking conspiracy theories that Red Bull has shut him out already. "I do not participate in the conspiracy theories," Igor Yermilin, the Russian motor racing federation chief, told Sportbox. "Perhaps Red Bull treats him with some coolness, but that's unlikely for a professional team. It's more likely a coincidence. "I'm sure what Daniel said in Mexico was in the heat of the moment. But if Red Bull does put Gasly in, Daniil Kvyat could make his return to Toro Rosso a bit earlier. Then everyone will be happy," Yermilin added. (GMM) Opinion Biden-Xi meeting mirrors new reality The virtual meeting between United States President John Biden and Chinas Xi Jinping on Tuesday was one between leaders of two most powerful countries in terms of the size of the economies US is the largest and China the second largest and each BEIJING, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will hold a roundtable meeting with the leaders of six major international economic and financial institutions in Beijing on Nov. 6, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang announced Tuesday. They will discuss topics such as the current trend of the world economy, safeguarding the multilateral trade system, China's economy and reform and opening-up. The six leaders are World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde, World Trade Organization Director-General Roberto Azevedo, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Secretary-General Angel Gurria, Financial Stability Board Chairman Mark Carney and International Labor Organization Deputy Director-General Deborah Greenfield. It will be the third roundtable meeting for Li and leaders of the six institutions. The previous two meetings were held in 2016 and 2017 respectively. (HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it has obtained a court order halting an ongoing fraud perpetrated by a registered stock broker and several companies he controlled. The SECs complaint alleges that Sean Kelly used his companies, Lions Share Financial of East Cobb, Inc., Lions Share & Associates, Inc., and Lionsshare Tax Services, LLC, to raise at least $1 million from 12 investors, including elderly retirees, promising that he would invest their funds in a variety of investment products including private placements and real estate funds. Rather than investing the money, Kelly spent it on personal expenses including Super Bowl tickets, luxury vacations, and cash withdrawals. As alleged, Kelly continued to steal money from investors even after having received an SEC subpoena, and did not show up for his scheduled testimony after informing the SECs staff that he would show up and come clean. In a parallel action, on the same day, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Georgia filed criminal charges against Kelly and arrested him. The SECs complaint, filed on October 25, 2018 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, charges Kelly with violating the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, and Sections 206(1) and (2) of the Investment Advisers of 1940. The SECs complaint charges Kellys companies with violating certain of those same statutes, or aiding and abetting certain of Kellys (or his other companies) underlying violations. On October 26, 2018, the court granted the SECs request for an asset freeze, temporary restraining order, and an accounting. The SEC seeks preliminary and permanent injunctions, disgorgement of allegedly ill-gotten gains plus interest, and civil penalties against Kelly. The Commission appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Georgia and the Atlanta Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Finnish capital revealed that it expects its population to grow at an annual clip of 7,0008,000 residents until the 2030s, hitting the 650,000-mark by the end of 2018 and the 700,000-mark by the end of 2025. Although the growth rate is expected to slow down thereon due to an increase in deaths, the population is to creep up to 822,000 by 2050. Helsinki on Tuesday also announced its population has grown at an average rate of 7,860 residents a year over the past five years, signalling the fastest rate of population growth recorded in the city since the 1960s. The areas that are expected to witness the most notable population increases by 2030 include the northern neighbourhood of Pasila, the western neighbourhood of Jatkasaari, the eastern neighbourhoods of Laajasalo and Kruunuvuorenranta, and the north-eastern neighbourhoods of Kalasatama and Sompasaari. These areas are projected to account for over a half of the projected increase of 90,000 in the population of the city over the next 12 years, according to a press release from the City of Helsinki. The working-age population of the capital is projected to continue to grow at its current annual rate until the 2030s, driven primarily by immigration. The City of Helsinki stated that it also expects the increase in the number of early-childhood education-aged children to continue to grow until the early 2030s, although the low birth rate is to keep the growth rate below 500 in the 2020s. The number of school-aged children is projected to grow by up to 1,500 a year in the years to come and to continue growing until the late 2030s. The over 65-year-old population, meanwhile, is expected to grow at an annual rate of over 2,000 until the early 2030s. Aleksi Teivainen HT Source: Uusi Suomi Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng attend the opening of the 12th National Women's Congress (NWC) in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 30, 2018. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) BEIJING, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- The 12th National Women's Congress (NWC) opened in Beijing on Tuesday. President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attended the opening of the congress at the Great Hall of the People. The meeting was also attended by other leaders of the CPC and the state including Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning and Han Zheng, all of whom are members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Zhao Leji, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, delivered a speech on behalf of the CPC Central Committee. A total of 1,637 delegates from all walks of life and 79 specially-invited delegates from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) and the Macao SAR, attended the congress. Shen Yueyue, vice chairperson of the National People's Congress Standing Committee and executive chairperson of the presidium of the 12th NWC, announced the opening of the meeting. Women's federations at all levels have taken Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as a guide, and made new contributions to the development of the women's cause and consolidating public support for the Party's governance since the 11th NWC, Zhao said. Xi's discourses about women and the work of women have provided fundamental rules for the cause of women and the work of women's federations in the new era, he noted. Zhao called on Chinese women to have firm ideals and convictions, act under the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, contribute to the new era, advance the great cause, and continue their efforts to achieve the two centenary goals and the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation. When making a report on behalf of the 11th Executive Committee of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), Huang Xiaowei, executive chairperson of the presidium of the 12th NWC, called for holding high the great banner of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and contributing to securing a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and realizing the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation. A draft amendment to the ACWF constitution was submitted to the delegates for deliberation. Montessori schools are institutions that subscribe to the Montessori method of education, a progressive approach to childrens learning that has been in use for over a century. The method sees children as independent and intrinsically thirsty for knowledge, with its unconventional learning model being characterized by student autonomy, freedom of movement in the classroom, independent learning, and mixed-age classrooms. There are now several Montessori schools across Helsinki that accommodate students from as young as a few months to up to 16 years old. These growing schools are becoming an increasingly popular option for the children of ex-pats in Helsinki as well as locals, due both to the innovative teaching methods and the fact that the language of instruction is typically in English. Fees for Montessori schools in Finland range from a 300-1200 a month, depending on subsidies. We spoke to Eugenia Soland, founder and director of the Montessori Infant Community, one of the largest schools of its type in the city, to find out more. The school was founded back in 2012 as a Montessori playgroup for toddlers and has since ballooned to accommodate 8 members of staff and 42 full-time students, aged between one and six years old. Soland is, naturally, a lifelong proponent of the Montessori method, and is actively engaged in training other teachers to implement this style of learning. She claims that her school, which specializes in tailored learning environments designed to satisfy [the childs] natural curiosity and build a sense of confidence is completely unique in Finland, being the only one to offer Montessori education for toddlers in English. The classrooms focus on complex sensory and intellectual experiences with a jam-packed program featuring gymnastics, music lessons, vocal play, dance and the teaching of emotional skills. Students are encouraged to explore and are generally free to move around the classroom as they wish. The Montessori Infant Community currently is enjoying a wave of popularity, so much so that they are now considering opening a second childrens house to accommodate the growing numbers of students. Soland also says that the school has recently stopped all of their promotional and marketing activities and that most new enrolments come to them through word of mouth. The growing popularity of such schools will seem unsurprising to those who are already aware of the studies undertaken on Montessori pupils, which show that they consistently outrank their peers across all subjects, from math to music. Much of the popularity of the Infant Community has been fueled by ex-pat families, with Soland describing a strong international element in the classroom. However, they currently do not have any plans to expand further, as the value they place on personal connections with the families and an emphasis on making the school feel cozy and home-like requires small classrooms, run by a small number of teachers. On being asked about the philosophy and motivations of the Montessori Infant Community, Eugenia replied we firmly believe education should serve children socially, emotionally and intellectually. Education has a deep capacity to influence social change and the power to bring peace and prosperity to future generations. URL: http://www.infant-community.com Address: Selkamerenkatu 10, 00180 Helsinki Established: 2012 Applications accepted throughout the entire year. Adam Smith Helsinki Times Images: Eugenia Soland WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- A week ahead of the midterm elections, U.S. President Donald Trump is trying to bolster his anti-immigration platform by declaring a plan to remove the right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born in the United States. According to his interview with Axios, released in part on Tuesday, Trump revealed that he has run the idea of ending birthright citizenship by his counsel and plans to proceed with the move, which has already stirred controversy and would certainly spark a court fight. "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States... with all of those benefits," Trump said. "It's ridiculous. And it has to end." Birthright citizenship in the United States is enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the constitution, which allows for "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." It is also a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which reinforced the practice, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. A 2010 study from the Washington D.C.-based think tank, which supports immigration restrictions, showed that 30 countries offered birthright citizenship. To change the constitution requires a two thirds majority in Congress, but Trump insisted that he can do it with an executive order. "It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't," Trump said. "You can definitely do it with an Act of Congress. But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order." "It's in the process. It'll happen... with an executive order," he added. The president has long called for an end to birthright citizenship, as have many conservatives. The proposal has immediately won support within the GOP, while some lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, were questioning whether he could use executive order to do away with birthright citizenship. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a ally of the president, said he plans to introduce legislation "along the same lines" as the proposed executive order from Trump. Granting citizenship based on location of birth is "a magnet for illegal immigration" and "needs to come to an end," the South Carolina senator tweeted. Vice President Mike Pence said the Trump plan may not be unconstitutional, telling Politico in an interview that while "we all cherish" the 14th amendment, the nation's top court has not weighed in on the issue entirely. "The Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled on whether or not the language of the 14th amendment, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, applies specifically to people who are in the country illegally," Pence said. However, House Speaker Paul Ryan said the president can't end birthright citizenship on his own. The top Republican tells a local radio station in state of Kentucky, "Well you obviously cannot do that. You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order." Democratic Senator Mark Warner said Trump has the right to raise the debate, but "no serious legal scholar thinks that's real." Warner, of Virginia, told CNN that Trump was trying to "bring back fears around immigration" in the last week before the midterm elections, which was a key factor in his victory in the 2016 presidential election. "This is a blatantly unconstitutional attempt to fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms," the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said of the proposed executive order on Twitter. "The 14th Amendment's citizenship guarantee is clear," the ACLU tweeted. "You can't erase the Constitution with an executive order." White House lawyers reportedly expect to work with the Department of Justice Department to develop a legal justification for the action. Administration officials said there likely would be no decisions until after the midterms. Trump's comments were made public as the highly-contested midterm elections are drawing near, which could see Democrats seizing control of at least part of the Republican-held Congress. Trump has been seeking to place the issue of immigration front and center in the elections, repeatedly warning against a caravan of Central American migrants making its way to the U.S.-Mexico border. On Monday, the Pentagon announced to deploy 5,200 active duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of this week in a bid to deter members of the migrant caravan from illegally entering the country. "Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process," the president tweeted Monday. "This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!" He also told a rally in state of Illinois on Saturday that the midterms will be "the election of the caravans, the Kavanaughs, law and order, tax cuts," as well as "the election of common sense." This is a file photo of Jin Yong. Famous Chinese martial arts novelist Louis Cha Leung-yung, more widely known by his pen name Jin Yong, died at 94 at a hospital in Hong Kong on Tuesday. Cha created many widespread martial arts novels between 1955 and 1972. Cha, who also co-founded the Hong Kong daily newspaper Ming Pao, has been regarded as one of the greatest and most popular martial arts writers. (Xinhua) HONG KONG, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Famous Chinese martial arts novelist Louis Cha Leung-yung, more widely known by his pen name Jin Yong, died at 94 at a hospital in Hong Kong on Tuesday. Sources to Cha confirmed the death to Xinhua. Cha was born on March 10, 1924, in Haining in Zhejiang Province and moved to Hong Kong in the 1940s. In 1955, he published his first martial arts novel The Book and the Sword, in New Evening Post, under the pen name Jin Yong coincidentally. The novel was an instant success, and he went on to create 14 extremely popular martial arts novels, ending with The Deer and the Cauldron in 1972. His martial arts novels have inspired production of movies, TV series, radio dramas, stage dramas, video games and various cultural and creative products, deeply influencing the development of popular culture in China over the past decades. Cha's martial arts and chivalry stories have widespread followers in Chinese-speaking regions and communities, and have been translated into Korean, English, Japanese, French, Vietnamese, Indonesian and several other languages. A distinguished literary writer aside, Cha was also a prominent figure in the press, social politics and history study. He co-founded the Hong Kong daily newspaper Ming Pao in 1959. He then wrote editorials and did translation, essays and reviews on films and dramas for the newspaper in about two decades. In 2000, Cha received the Grand Bauhinia Medal, the highest award under the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) honors and awards system, to recognize his life-long and highly significant contribution to the well-being of Hong Kong. HKSAR Chief Executive Carrie Lam expressed deep sorrow over the passing of Cha. A learned man and an acclaimed writer of martial arts novels, Cha's works inherited the tradition of Chinese classics with the integration of history and culture, and are very popular among the Chinese in various parts of the world, she said. She was grieved to learn of Cha's death. "On behalf of the HKSAR government, I would like to extend my deepest condolences to his family," she said. Wang Zhimin, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR, sent a message of condolences to Cha's family. Hailing Cha as a famous writer and an outstanding newsman, Wang said Cha inherited the essence of classical martial arts novels and created a new genre of martial arts and chivalry novels. His works, with devotion to family and nation, have influenced the Chinese at home and abroad in a profound way, he said. Poon Yiu-Ming knew Cha for the first time in 1991 when he was handpicked by Cha as the chief editor of Ming Pao Monthly, a publication that covers academic and cultural topics. He holds great respect and gratitude towards Cha. The last time he saw Cha was three years ago when he visited him at home. He was glad to see that Cha was healthy, but had difficulties in fluent expression. Poon was impressed by Cha's diligence and his skillful mastery of languages including English and French. Cha often read and bought books at airports during business trips and his offices and home are full of books, he said. Cha was successful in press, writing and business, Poon said, with his achievements never been approached before and will never be approached in the future. An asteroid was named after Jin Yong in 2001. A permanent exhibition of Jin Yong Gallery in the Hong Kong Heritage Museum was set up last year to showcase the creation process behind his martial arts novels and the impact the novels have had on Hong Kong's popular culture. 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. China's Commerce Ministry late Tuesday expressed opposition to the U.S. imposition of unilateral sanctions against a Chinese firm, urging the country to immediately stop its wrong practice. The statement was made after the U.S. Department of Commerce on Monday decided to restrict exports to China's Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Company by adding it to the "Entity List." China opposes the U.S. acts of generalizing the concept of national security and abusing export control measures, and opposes the U.S. acts of imposing unilateral sanctions and interfering in enterprises' normal international trade and cooperation, a spokesperson of the ministry said. China urges the U.S. side to take measures and immediately stop the wrong practice, facilitate and promote normal international trade and cooperation between companies of the two countries and protect their legitimate rights and interests, the spokesperson said. 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. A worker transports goods in a warehouse of a Chinese e-commerce company in Moscow, Russia. (Photo/Xinhua) China's e-commerce transactions reached 29.2 trillion RMB in 2017 ($4.26 trillion), growing 11.7 percent year-on-year. As e-commerce offers more convenience for Chinese consumers, Chinese e-commerce enterprises are also gaining rich experience and expanding their businesses overseas. Statistics show that in 2017, Chinas cross-border e-commerce turnover rose 80.6 percent from the previous year to 90.2 billion RMB. Double Eleven, the world's biggest online shopping festival held by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, is the epitome of Chinese e-commerce going global. Li Yang is a Chinese student studying in Australia. She told Peoples Daily that the prices of some daily consumption goods were much higher than those in China when she arrived there three years ago. However, many of her Chinese friends, and even some local Australians have started using Taobao, an e-commerce platform of Alibaba. In Russia, Chinas e-commerce enterprises account for about half of the market share, and three of the top four e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia are funded by Chinese capital. Chinas favorable policies are one of the reasons for the rapid overseas expansion of Chinese e-commerce enterprises. In as early as 2015, Chinas Ministry of Commerce urged related local departments to support the foreign business of e-commerce companies based on their industrial characteristics and resource advantages. So far, China has established an e-commerce cooperation mechanism with seven countries. Moreover, the country is actively participating in e-commerce negotiations under multilateral trading systems and regional trading frameworks such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com officially launched a global sales project last year, declaring that overseas consumers could enjoy fast delivery services on the platform. It set up four warehouses in Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, and Pontianak, as well as a logistics company in Indonesia in which the company places high importance. By the end of last year, JD.com had also established a professional logistics team to deliver large commodities, significantly improving user experience. In 2013, Chinas Suning Group established a research center in Silicon Valley to develop technologies related to smart sales, such as artificial intelligence and big data. Its research results have been successfully applied to self-service supermarkets and customer service robots. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, the annual consumption of Africa is expected to surpass $1.4 trillion by 2020, and the internet will have a 50 percent penetration rate by 2025. As a result, online sales in Africa are likely to hit $75 billion. Alibaba has started a program in Africa to help local internet entrepreneurs, hoping to offer training courses on digital economy to 200 African entrepreneurs in the next five years. Global retail has entered a new round of technical upgrading, and global consumers have a growing demand for a more convenient and fashionable way to shop, said Daniel Zhang, CEO of Alibaba. In this regard, Chinese e-commerce enterprises enjoy broad prospects in overseas business, he added. With her core campaign team behind her, Harrington gave a stump speech to rally a room full of supporters at the Tavern at the A on Tuesday. Harrington Rallies Base to Start Final Week Of DA's Race Harrington's husband Timothy Walsh reflected on the campaign and thanked the crowd for the support of Harrington and their entire family. PITTSFIELD, Mass. It is the final week in the district attorney's race and those in Andrea Harrington's camp are as energetic as ever. The campaign held a rally Tuesday exactly one week before the general election for a final push to get out the vote. The event was part fundraiser -- goodwill donations were accepted -- and part organizing as campaigner staffers sorted out volunteers for sign holding on election day, and a part rally to energize those supporters. "I did not run this election to win this race. I ran to transform this community and that is exactly what we are going to do," Harrington told her supporters at the end of a short speech that elicited loud cheers. Harrington has already won one race and didn't expect to have to run another. She was the victor in the three-way primary for the Democratic nomination and, at the time, it was anticipated that since no other party was putting a candidate on the ballot she would win. But incumbent Paul Caccaviello, who finished second, opted to mount a write-in campaign. "We have worked tirelessly. People have skipped time with their families, they have taken time off from work ... and we have run two full-on, aggressive campaigns in the course of nine months," Harrington said. She has continued to promote herself as being the candidate of change. Caccaviello spent 30 years in the office and was the first assistant district attorney until March when former District Attorney David Capeless stepped down to allow for him to be appointed and run as an incumbent. "We know things are not working as they should. We know about the crime statistics and it is time for a district attorney that is accountable to this community. It is time for a district attorney who instead of pointing the finger at their fellow elected officials, jumps in, rolls up their sleeves, and says 'what can I do? 'How can I help?" Harrington said. Campaigning as a progressive reformer, Harrington promised to be tough on violent criminals while transforming the top prosecutor's division into a "modern office." She said she will be the district attorney who rolls up her sleeves to solve the public safety problems in the county. "When I am the district attorney were are going to prosecute people who hurt other people. We are going to prosecute people who commit sexual assault and we are going to prosecute child abusers. We are going to prosecute drug traffickers," Harrington said. "But, the other piece of my campaign is about problem-solving. Being the district attorney is not just about prosecuting people, getting people jail time, and sending people to prison. In a modern district attorney's office, the job is about public safety." Harrington said the district attorney's office has been "failing" and that everybody knows somebody struggling with the opioid crisis. She said she's met numerous people afraid to open their doors because they could be hurt. She said she's heard many stories of people with concerns about drug dealing in their neighborhoods. "We believe in this community. We have seen how people in this community have suffered. My vision for the district attorney's office comes from being a daughter of Berkshire County. It comes from raising my family here. It comes from fighting for my clients who are the most marginalized people you could imagine. It comes from all of those things. It does not come from sitting at a desk doing a job, the same thing, for 30 years," Harrington said. "It comes from the heart and it comes from the experience of seeing what is going on out there in the streets, in our cities, and in our towns." Caccaviello has cast her as being inexperienced with the legal system, but Harrington says her experience is not just 15 years as an attorney but also as someone living, working, and being active in the community. She said she has recognized the issues and has the ability to problem solve and inspire. "This campaign is not about me. It is not about us. This campaign is about the people of this community, the people living here now and it is about our children and the future of this community. This election marks a change in our community that will resonate for decades to come," Harrington said. "Four years, eight years, 12 years, people will look back at this race and they will know that is when the tide turned for Berkshire County." Christine Yon serves as the master of ceremonies. Harrington entered the campaign as an underdog and Christine Yon, a former city councilor, said even she was doubtful that Harrington could upset the "established powerhouse of the district attorney." "I didn't think she stood a chance. But, you know what, Andrea Harrington proved me wrong. It wasn't long into this campaign that I realized she might be small, but she is an unstoppable force. She has leadership ability and a work ethic that is second to none," Yon said. Yon said Harrington has shown true leadership throughout the campaign and she is fully supportive of the campaign. Leadership, integrity, and change were a common theme among comments from a little more than a half dozen on Harrington's campaign team. Harrington's husband, Timothy Walsh, recalled the first debate in the primary race. He remembers overhearing attorneys in the other camp saying Harrington didn't have a shot against Caccaviello. "What unfolded over the next hour was pure, poetic, karma at its best, Andrea Harrington at her best. I watched. I listened to the plan to take this office into the future. She presented a concrete plan for change," Walsh said. Walsh said the debate was in "hostile territory" and he remembered thinking that Harrington had just knocked a hornet's nest to the ground. "After that night a number of people joined us and then it was built into a small army. Very soon the disbelievers had a belief in this woman's clear vision, ambition, and courage and it was not going to be stopped. The world that was is going to be changed," he said. What unfolded over the next several months over summer was a tough campaign. The race led to a very high turnout for a primary and the race was close with Harrington beating Caccaviello by 3 points. Supporters celebrated the victory and Harrington set her eyes on organizing a transition team and setting the stage to take over as the first woman district attorney in the county's history. But then Caccaviello announced his write-in. The Harrington campaign had to ramp back up -- knocking on doors, advertising, and doing what it can to get out the vote. She reeled in endorsements from top Democrats. Meanwhile, Caccaviello has doubled down on his emphasis on experience and worked to promote a "bipartisan" campaign, saying the position isn't a political one and casting Harrington as a politician and not somebody invested in the community. He's gained the support of the third-place finisher in the Democratic primary, Judith Knight. Walsh said he hopes their children will be telling their children how Harrington "took on Goliath and a hornet's nest and transformed the community into a better place." But first, she'll have to win the general election on Tuesday. Ongoing Coverage The Selectmen, with Town Administrator Mark Webber, right, announce the finalists to replace him. Cheshire Holding Town Administrator Interviews This Week CHESHIRE, Mass. Three town administrator candidates will be interviewed by the Board of Selectmen on Thursday. After whittling down a list of nine applicants, the Selectmen announced the three final candidates Tuesday who will receive final interviews: attorney Edmund St. John IV, Marian Carr of Berkshire County Head Start and Thomas Spiro of Elms College. The applicant selected will replace retiring Town Administrator Mark Webber in the three-day-a-week post. St. John stepped down from the Board of Selectmen in September to allow the required 30 days to elapse before he could apply for the post. A former member of the Adams-Cheshire Regional School Committee, St. John studied political science in college and received a certificate in public administration. He also had interned with Webber in Town Hall and graduated from the Massachusetts School of Law. Carr has been operations director at Head Start of the Berkshires in Pittsfield since 2012 and was interim director over the summer. She joined Head Start in 2007 and has experience in bookkeeping and customer service. The Sandisfield resident studied business administration at Western New England University and is treasurer of the Massachusetts Head Start Association. Spiro has been program coordinator at Elms College's Greenfield campus since 2016 and has his master's in resource management and administration from Antioch University New England. He lives in Worthington. He was also town administrative aide in the town of Conway for more than seven years, acting in some ways in the role of a town administrator and as liaison between town boards. The interviews will take place at 5:30, 6:00, and 6:30 p.m. The Selectmen said they did not yet know if they would decide that night whether to offer the job to one of the candidates. "I don't know. It depends on how the interviews go," Selectwoman Carol Francesconi said. In other business, Francesconi said work on the fire station roof is continuing and should be partially complete by the end of the week. "It is progressing ... and they should be done with the structural repair at the end of the week," she said. Special town meeting approved a reserve fund transfer to make emergency repairs to a portion of the roof that collapsed this summer. Francesconi said she is not sure how much interior work will need to be done. "Once that is done we will have to hire someone I dont know how much repair they will have to do on the inside once the outside is done," she said. Hope in the Face of Unspeakable Evil The Fellowship | October 30, 2018 Dear Friend of Israel, Today I write from a deeply broken heart, grieving over the horrific massacre Saturday morning at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My prayers, and those of our entire Fellowship family, go out to our Jewish brothers and sisters who came to worship God, and to attend what should have been the joyous bris (circumcision) ceremony of an eight-day-old baby boy, as the Bible instructs us to do (Leviticus 12:3). But my message to you today is not only one of heartbreak, which I know you feel deeply as well. I also want to share with you what I believe is the lesson God is repeatedly trying to teach us, Jews and Christians alike, through tragedies like this. And what we, in The Fellowship, can and must do in response to this divine calling. One of the first questions God asked in the Bible after Cain murdered Abel is, Where is Abel your brother?, to which Cain replied, Am I my brothers keeper? In light of Pittsburgh and Gods similar question of us today, our response should be a resounding, Here I am. Send me. as the prophet Isaiah answered to Gods call. For the truth is that the attack in Pittsburgh was not an isolated incident. On the contrary, it is one more example of a disturbing pattern of hatred and prejudice that has been taking shape for years against Jews in America and around the world. In fact, it is the very existence of the Jewish people that has incited ghastly acts of anti-Semitism for thousands of years. And we, as Jews, have become accustomed to this sad reality. We know that this hatred, which has been called the longest and deepest hatred of human history, is alive and with us today even in America as the slaughter of innocent worshipers in Pittsburgh has so cruelly reminded us. In response, we must declare in a loud, unified voice that assaults like this against Jews whether they be in Pittsburgh, Jerusalem, or any other place in the world are attacks against us all. We cannot let such dastardly acts go unanswered. We must be prepared to fight to the death to protect our liberties and freedoms, to eradicate hatred and evil from our midst, and to pray and work toward building a more compassionate society. Tragically anti-Semitism is flourishing, not just in the Middle East, but throughout the world. Synagogues in Europe, the former Soviet Union, and as far away as Mumbai, India, have come under vicious and deadly anti-Jewish attack. And now, this unspeakable evil has come to the heart of America. Perhaps I should not have been surprised by this news. But I must admit, I did not expect that such horrific acts of anti-Semitism could happen in the United States, the nation founded on the principles of free speech and freedom of religion. Tragically, it has. This great nation of ours, that was birthed by Christians of faith fleeing religious persecution in Europe, and imbued with a profound belief in the biblical truth that all human beings bear the image of God and are of infinite worth, is crying in pain as it witnesses the prejudice and hatred that is so prevalent in our society. While there have always been those, driven by the satanic forces of evil, who have carried out murderous violence, the synagogue attack in Pittsburgh proved clearly that even today such evil is present in all its horror. It cannot be minimized or rationalized away. Anti-Semitism, and all forms of hatred, are an assault not only on us, but on God Himself! I mentioned above that the worshipers at Tree of Life were celebrating a Brit Milah ceremony, the rite of circumcision that is the sign of the eternal covenant God made with our father Abraham. One of the prayers recited during this ceremony is taken from Ezekiel 16:6. As the foreskin is cut, the prayer is recited, I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, Live! Sadly, being part of a biblical covenantal community often involves suffering and sacrifice. Already our father Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac, taught us this lesson. And while we do not always understand Gods way, the Bible and our history have taught us that, tragically, this too is the price of being covenanted with God from time immemorial to this very day. But the blessings given us through our covenant with Abraham were not given to the Jewish people alone. Indeed, this is the promise of Genesis 12:3, which is at the heart of The Fellowships ministry that God is a source of blessing for Christians who are also covenanted with God through our father Abraham. And while we often quote the opening statement of this verse: I will bless those who bless you, the Bible goes on to say, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. And still, despite this promise of blessing, Jews have had to endure the onslaughts of those who hate usfrom Haman, the descendant of Amalek who tried to annihilate the Jews 2,500 years ago, to this very day. Haman and Amalek represent the embodiment of anti-Jewish hatred, which is why God Himself made an oath and also called upon us to fight the battle against evil from generation to generation. In a few days, Jews around the world will commemorate Kristallnacht, the horrible night of November 9, 1938, when mobs destroyed over 260 synagogues throughout Germany, damaged thousands of Jewish homes and businesses, vandalized Jewish hospitals, orphanages, and cemeteries, and dragged thousands of Jewish men, women, and children into the streets where they were either beaten, sent to concentration camps, or killed. Kristallnacht also marked the beginning of the Nazi Holocaust and the murder of 6 million Jews. Today, exactly 80 years later, anti-Semitism still thrives in Europe and, in fact, is at the highest levels we have seen since that unimaginable, cataclysmic event. I have no doubt the Jewish people will survive this tragedy in Pittsburgh, as we have survived so many others in the past. But we should remember that the difference between the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue this weekend and the pogroms and mass murders of Jews in the past is that today, we Jews are not alone! Today, Christians are joining with Jews to offer the balm of Gilead to the suffering, and to pray and act for Jews safety and security around the world. One more thing we must take action against these satanic forces of evil not just for the Jewish peoples sake, but for that of Christians, as well. For if we do not respond to attacks against Jews today, we will have to battle those who persecute Christians tomorrow. In fact, such anti-Christian hatred and persecution is happening to Christians today! That is why my concern is not only for Jews who are suffering for their faith, but for Christians who, this very day, are suffering and being martyred for their faith. There is a genocide campaign against Christians going on in the Middle East today. While the entire Jewish communities of the Arab Middle East, from Iran, to Egypt, to Libya, where Jews lived for 3,000 years, have been destroyed, the same is happening to Christians now. Indeed, the only place in the Middle East where Christians are free and safe to practice their faith is in Israel. My friend, we have a vital even holy work to do in fighting the evil that seeks to sweep us all away. This is the key message I want to share with you today. God is giving us a mighty warning. He is saying over and over again, Learn from this! He is calling us to stand with one another. To come together. To build a better world, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. And He is calling us to declare that an attack against any of us Jew, Christian, African-American, Hispanic, or others is an attack on all of us. The battle we are fighting is of the Lord, against principalities and powers that are attacking our Jewish and Christian faith communitiesand even our very humanity. This battle is clear to see when a gunman crying All Jews must die opens fire on innocent worshipers in a synagogue. In response, the battle must be fought by all of us, whenever we encounter hatred. For all people are created in and bear the image of God. As important as expressions of mourning are for the families of the Jewish people who were murdered, we need to heed Gods call and take actions that stop the hatred that pervades the world today. It is for this reason and toward this end that The Fellowship has built thousands of bomb shelters all across Israel, and underground command centers for Israeli cities so the IDF can direct military and civilian operations during times of attack. It is for this reason that so many of our Fellowship Christian partners are providing security guards, cameras, and other protective equipment to synagogues and Jewish schools in 180 cities in Israel and throughout Europe, the Far East, and South America. Countless lives have been saved because of this project of ours. And it is you, our Fellowship partners, who have made it happen. It is you who have stood up time and again to declare, We are with you! And we will continue standing with Israel and the Jewish people in unbroken solidarity and brotherhood. I am so grateful to God for using me and The Fellowship to build bridges of healing and cooperation between Jews and Christians, so that we might continue to stand with one another in times of joy and sadness. This has been my vision and calling for over 35 years, and the reason I founded The Fellowship in 1983 to bear witness to the world, through our prayers and deeds, that God is calling us in a mighty way, Jews and Christians alike, to bring shalom to the world. We, Christians and Jews in The Fellowship, stand ready to fight for our faith and for the Judeo-Christian values we believe in and for which so many American servicemen and women have fought and died. In Gods power, we come together now and declare, This evil is not who we are as Americans. It is not who we are as people of God Almighty! This is our challenge. And meeting it needs to begin not today, but yesterday! I trust and pray that you will join with me and stand with The Fellowship as we seek to carry out this divine mission. Please keep the Jewish community in your prayers, and pray for the day when true peace will come to Jerusalem, Pittsburgh, and all of our troubled world. To learn about how you can help provide safety and security for vulnerable Jews around the world who are facing anti-Semitism and terrorism every day please click here. With prayers for shalom, peace, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein PS This message is being sent in loving memory of Mrs. Eula Bigham. Journalists groups, editors, media owners and press freedom campaigners will join forces on 2 November to demand urgent action by the United Nations to tackle impunity for crimes against journalists. With figures showing the number of killings of journalists rising in comparison to the same period last year and impunity in 9 out of 10 cases, the unprecedented coalition of professional journalists organisations is calling on UN member states to back media industry demands for a convention on the protection of journalists. Representatives of the International Federation of Journalists, the World Association of Newspapers (WAN-IFRA), the European Broadcasting Union and UNI-MEI, the organisation representing media professionals launched the initiative for a UN Convention at the United Nations in New York in October. The Convention aims to address gaps in international law and introduce binding norms establishing safeguards for journalists and media workers specifically, recognizing the increasingly hostile environment in which they operate across the world. IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said: This unprecedented coalition of owners, journalists, media workers, public broadcasters and press freedom campaigners is sending a clear message to the international community Enough! It is time to act to tackle impunity. Too many of our colleagues have been killed, jailed, attacked, abused and forced into exile. We can no longer just pass wishful resolutions, we need action and for international mechanisms that both protect journalists and media workers and, which by tackling the impunity which gives rise to growing self-censorship protects the right of citizens and societies to information and enhances democracy Download a copy of the draft Convention here Download a briefing paper on the draft Convention here Add your organisations name to support the campaign for a Convention here In less than 24 hours, two journalists have been killed in attacks in Chhattisgargh and Jharkhand, India. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate, the National Union of Journalists, India (NUJI) and the Indian Journalists Union (IJU) have condemned the murders and demand immediate action from the Indian government to end the culture of impunity and violence against media workers. On October 30, videojournalist Achyutananda Sahu was killed as he covering preparations for upcoming state elections in Chhattisgargh. Sahu was part of a media team from government-run Doordarshan, embedded with local police. He was killed from crossfire when the group came under attack from a Maoist militant group. The other two Doordarshan media workers with Sahu were uninjured in the attack. In a separate incident, Chandan Tiwari, a journalist with Aaj News was last seen on Monday, October 29 in the Chatra district of Jharkhand. Early on Tuesday, Tiwari was found unconscious in the jungle and rushed to hospital where he was declared deceased. According to investigations Tiwari had lodged two police complaints over threats he had received with police. NUJI said: We condemn this act of mindless violence. We demand from state governments to immediately provide support to the families of the journalists killed in the attacks. IJU president Amar Devulapalli demanded both the State Governments of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand to immediately compensate their families and provide protection to journalists in conflict areas. The IJU criticised Doordarshan for not providing any training or safety gear to Sahu. There are established guidelines to ensure safety of journalists covering conflict areas and all media organisations must adhere to these and lessen their risk, the statement said. The IFJ general secretary Anthony Bellanger said: As we prepare to mark International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists on Friday, the killing of Achyutananda Sahu and Chandan Tiwari is a stark reminder of why this day is important and why we need an international convention to protect journalists". The IFJ has recorded 75 journalist and media worker killings in 2018, including seven in India. The IFJ has prepared a UN Convention to protect journalists and end impunity. See more here: http://www.ifj.org/actions/ifj-campaigns/end-impunity-for-a-un-convention-to-protect-journalists.html To access our in-house intelligence please request a trial here. Read this article and more for a 30 day period. Are you already an IFLR subscriber? Login here (Photo/Weng Qiyu from Peoples Daily Online) The 2018 Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road kicked off in Boao, southern China's Hainan Province, on Oct. 30, with the theme of Co-construction and Sharing; Cooperation towards Win-win Results. The opening ceremony was attended by 256 guests from 90 countries and international organizations, as well as 205 media outlets. Ji Bingxuan, the vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of National Peoples Congress (NPC), speaks at the opening ceremony of the forum. (Photo/Weng Qiyu from Peoples Daily Online) The Belt and Road Initiative has provided a Chinese solution to global cooperation, improvement of global economic governance, common prosperity and the construction of a community with a shared destiny for mankind, Ji Bingxuan, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress (NPC), said in a speech delivered during the opening ceremony of the forum. Ji called on media present to spread the Silk Road spirit of peace, prosperity, openness, innovation, and civilization, and to draw a delicate picture of the Belt and Road. Jiang Jianguo, deputy head of the publicity department of the CPC Central Committee, delivers a speech at the opening ceremony of the 2018 Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road. (Photo/Weng Qiyu from Peoples Daily Online) The Belt and Road cooperation is a Chinese scheme as well as a global public product, said Jiang Jianguo, deputy head of the publicity department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee. He said media should give better play to its role in recording, participating in, and promoting Belt and Road construction. Li Baoshan, President of Peoples Daily, speaks at the opening ceremony of the 2018 Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road. (Photo/Weng Qiyu from Peoples Daily Online) Li Baoshan, President of Peoples Daily, said the co-construction of the Belt and Road had provided a platform and a necessary approach for global governance and economic globalization. The construction of the B&R focuses on economic development and doesnt seek political goals; it is based on opening up and cooperation and is above protectionism, Li said. B&R construction is dedicated to achieving mutually beneficial cooperation and win-win results, not zero-sum outcomes. Additionally, it upholds international rules and doesnt start a new model, Li added. Liu Cigui, Party chief of Hainan, delivers a speech to the opening ceremony of the 2018 Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road. (Photo/Weng Qiyu from Peoples Daily Online) Liu Cigui, Party chief of Hainan, sent a warm invitation to media representatives to join in the construction of the Hainan pilot free trade zone and the free trade port with Chinese characteristics. He also called on media representatives to jointly build a Belt and Road platform for media exchange and cooperation. Officials from Chinese ministries, various provinces, and heads of state-owned and private-owned companies also attended the opening ceremony of the forum. It may be the oldest player but it's mind is as young as you can imagine. With The JioGigaFiber launch, cable and DTH operators are moderating their offerings, distribution strategy as much as possible. Dish TV, the largest DTH player in India is about to offer OTT service and Hybrid box soon. continue reading... Trump Says He Will Void Birthright Citizenship Law Through Executive Order Bill Chappell October 30, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - President Trump is planning to use an executive order to strip birthright citizenship from America's laws, rather than trying to change the Constitution through an act of Congress. The potential move, which would likely trigger numerous legal challenges, would seek to end the conferring of citizenship to children of non-citizens who are born in the U.S. which is currently guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. "It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't," Trump said. He discussed the plan in an interview with Axios on HBO that is slated to air Sunday. Birthright citizenship is granted in the 14th Amendment's first sentence: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter The concept is based on jus soli "right of the soil" meaning that any child born in the U.S. has a claim to citizenship, even if their parents lack legal documentation to be in the country. Trump has mentioned the idea of voiding the amendment before, most notably in August of 2015, when the birthright issue became part of his hard-line policies on immigration as a presidential candidate. Now Trump is discussing the birthright citizenship law roughly one week before U.S. voters will head to the polls for the 2018 midterm election. The amendment became law in 1868, as a rebuke to the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, which held that freed slaves were not U.S. citizens. Since then, its meaning and reach have been debated in courtrooms and in American society, with many questions centering on the phrase "the jurisdiction thereof." "That means that they are subject to the laws of the United States, that they can, for example, be prosecuted for violating American law," constitutional law professor Suzanna Sherry told NPR in 2015. The law excludes the children of foreign diplomats and in the 1860s, it was intended to give peace of mind to immigrants. As Sherry, who teaches at Vanderbilt University, told NPR in 2015, "the United States had experienced quite a bit of immigration, and immigration was viewed as a very good thing. And so this was essentially putting out a welcome mat to immigrants by ensuring that their children born here would be citizens." To change the law, Sherry said, you would need to either amend the 14th Amendment through Congress or ask the Supreme Court to overturn their earlier interpretation of the law and limit its benefit to people who are in the U.S. legally. The president says he has the power to act on his own. "You can definitely do it with an act of Congress," Trump said in the Axios on HBO interview. "But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order." He added, "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in, has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years, with all of those benefits. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous, and it has to end." Birthright citizenship is the law of at least 30 countries, including many of the U.S.'s neighbors in North and South America. All of the countries in Europe grant citizenship by jus sanguinis by "right of blood." The president said he has spoken about the issue with the White House counsel. As for when it might happen, Trump said, "It's in the process. It'll happen with an executive order." Responding to the president's words, Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies, predicted, "This will set up the court fight." If Trump moves ahead with his plan, Krikorian said via Twitter, "the order will be enjoined, case will eventually reach SCOTUS, which then will finally have to rule on the meaning of "subject to the jurisdiction." Krikorian said the executive order is "long overdue" but Trump's idea to revoke birthright citizenship is "ill-timed" and misguided, says Kristen Clarke, the executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "Aside from being unconstitutional, such an executive order would exacerbate racial tensions, exploit fears and drive further polarization across the country at a moment that calls for the promotion of unity and inclusion," Clarke said. This article was originally published by " NPR " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here. ==See Also== Dershowitz Says Birthright Citizenship Cant Be Ended For Better Or For Worse Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy By Finian Cunningham October 30, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - The Trump administrations declared scrapping of a crucial arms control treaty is putting the world on notice of a nuclear war, sooner or later. Any such war is not winnable. It is mutually assured destruction. Yet the arrogant American rulers some of them at least seem to be deluded in thinking they can win such a war. What makes the American position even more execrable is that it is being pushed by people who have never fought a war. Indeed, by people like President Donald Trump and his hawkish national security advisor John Bolton who both dodged military service to their country during the Vietnam War. Hows that for macabre mockery? The world is being pushed to war by a bunch of effete cowards who are clueless about war. Trump announced last this week that the US was finally pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a move confirmed by Bolton on a follow-up trip to Moscow. That treaty was signed in 1987 by former President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was a landmark achievement of cooperation and trust between the nuclear superpowers. Both sides removed short and medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter With Trump intending to rip up the INF Treaty, as his predecessor GW Bush had done with the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002, Europe is now facing the disastrous prospect of American missiles being reinstalled across its territory as they were in the 1980s. However, a big distinction between then and now is that after years of expansion by NATO, European territory is at an even sharper interface with Russias heartland. When the INF Treaty was implemented three decades ago, the US and Russian nuclear arsenals were seriously dialed back to the strategic level of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) confined on respective landmasses separated by thousands of kilometers. As Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of Natsionalnaya Oborona, told Russias Vesti news channel, the ICBMs typically have a flight time of 30 minutes from launch. That time gap would give Russian defense systems time to respond effectively to an incoming strike from the US, and vice versa. But, as Korotchenko noted, the impending installation of intermediate-range missiles by the Americans in European states will reduce the flight time of a possible US nuclear strike on Russia to a couple of minutes, even seconds. That would seriously challenge Russian anti-missile defenses, as well as greatly increasing the margin of error in detecting a strike, possibly leading to mistaken escalation. In other words, the strategic balance has been thrown into disarray by the US over the INF, just as it was again thrown into disarray back in 2002 when Bush trashed the ABM. It also presents the Americans with the temptation to exercise their first-strike doctrine. In US military planning, it reserves the right to use a pre-emptive attack. By contrast, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated again last week that Russia will never use a first-strike option, that it would only use nuclear weapons as a defensive action. Recall that earlier this month, the US envoy to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, said that American forces would take out Russian missiles if they are deemed to be violating the INF. It was an appalling expression of the pre-emptive prerogative that Washington grants itself, even though the information upon which it would base its action is highly questionable. Putting the American logic together one can say that the US rulers have a death wish on the planet. With criminal recklessness, they are moving to loosen the international controls over deploying nuclear weapons and are creating a situation in Europe that puts nuclear war on a hair-trigger. Moscow vowed last week that it will respond militarily if Washington goes ahead with scrapping the INF Treaty. Russia can be expected to counter by deploying shorter-range missiles that will put NATO-allied Europe in the firing line. Surely, the European states must be asking themselves what kind of ally they supposedly have in the US. What kind of ally puts its supposed friends in the firing line, under the name of protecting them, while it remains at relatively safer distance? The European Union has reacted to Trumps announced withdrawal from the INF Treaty with horror. The EU is calling on the US to adhere to the treaty and to negotiate with Russia over purported complaints. French President Emmanuel Macron telephoned Trump, appealing that the treaty has been a vital element of Europes peace for the past 30 years. Washington has been claiming for the past four years, since the Obama administration, that Russia is violating the INF by allegedly developing medium-range, ground-launched cruise missiles. Moscow has repeatedly denied the claims, pointing out that the Americans have not presented evidence to back up their accusations. Washington says its information is classified, and so cant be publicly revealed. Thats hardly convincing given past American deceptions over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Iran and Syria. In any case, it is the Americans who are making a big deal about the alleged Russian violations of the INF. If the Europeans were really concerned, why havent they kicked up a fuss? The fact that the Europeans are pleading with Washington to adhere to the INF suggests that they are not convinced by allegations of Russia posing a missile threat. Moreover, if there are disputes and complaints from the American side, then let them iron these problems out through diplomacy and negotiation. It is telling that the US wants to instead escalate the tensions and the risks of war in such a reckless manner. That betrays its real agenda of seeking to militarize problems, rather than exploring political solutions. The difference it seems comes down to the US not actually having a valid political argument, so it must exercise its power through militarism as a way to conceal its lack of rational validity. The root problem of INF Treaty tensions and alleged violations stems from the US-led configuration of military forces encroaching ever-closer on Russian territory. If the US were genuinely interested in ensuring security and peace in Europe then it would listen to Russias concern over the provocative expansion of US-led NATO forces towards its Western border. When Reagan signed the INF with Gorbachev it was on the understanding and commitment from the US side not to advance its military towards Russia by one inch. In 30 years, US forces have pushed all the way from Germany to the Baltic and Black Seas on Russias doorstep. Washington is trying to enlist Ukraine and Georgia into the NATO alliance, indeed is carrying out war drills with these two former Soviet Union states which share borders with Russia. If the US now re-installs medium-range nuclear missiles with flight times to Moscow down to a matter of seconds then we can lament that the abandonment of the INF is a grave watershed move towards nuclear war. The way out of this heinous dilemma is not only maintaining the INF Treaty. Furthermore, there should a wholesale scaling back of NATO forces in Europe on Russias Western, Northern and Southern flanks. Just this month, NATO is holding its biggest-ever war maneuvers since the Cold War in the Arctic region on Russias border with 50,000 troops, accompanied by a flurry of surveillance flights over Russias coast. The insanity of Americas death wish for nuclear war has to stop. The American ruling class wont stop it because their death wish mentality is so suffused with blind arrogance and ignorance and it is so integral with the normal functioning of their capitalist military-industrial complex. Russia is holding the line with its undoubted military capability and its principled diplomatic prudence. But it is time for the Europeans to step up to the plate and to exert some sense on the Americans. For a start, the EU states should tell Trump that any plan to re-install medium-range nuclear weapons on their soil is impermissible. Secondly, the Europeans need to scale back the NATO expansion towards Russian territory. Thirdly, they need to tell Washington that Russia is a partner, not a pariah to be abused for the benefit of American militarism and hegemonic ambitions. Will the Europeans do that? Their leaders may not have the backbone, but the citizens of Europe will have to, if they want to prevent their American ally inciting a nuclear cataclysm. American arrogance is fomenting a European rebellion against its death-wish criminal leaders. Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Masters graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. This article was originally published by " Strategic Culture Foundation " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here. ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy ISIS Defeats U.S. Proxy Force - Again By Moon Of Alabama October 30, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - The U.S. backed proxy force in east Syria again lost positions to the Islamic State. The map shows the positions of ISIS (grey), the US. proxy force SDF (yellow) and the Syrian army (read) at the border with Iraq on October 19. Here are the positions as of today. The U.S. proxy force lost the towns Susah, Hawi al-Susah, Safafinah, Mozan, Shajlah and Baghuz Fawqani and ISIS is back at the Iraqi border. The Iraqi forces were alarmed and sealed the border on their side. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter The immediate cause of the loss was another sandstorm which ISIS used to counterattack. A similar counterattack during a sandstorm happened two weeks ago. That makes this U.S. spokesman's statement laughable: The sandstorm allowed an ISIS counterattack, which was surprising given the conditions, but now the air is clear and the Coalition will continue to increase air and fire support to assist our partners, Col. Ryan said ... Sandstorms disable air and artillery support. That is why ISIS, which lacks an airforce, has for years used each and every sandstorms to attack. That is not surprising at all, but one of its signature form of fighting. Sandstorms mean that one can expect an ISIS attack. That one has to double ones guard and be ready to defend ones position. The U.S. special forces who are supposed to lead their proxies seem to have neglected that. ISIS jihadis attacked during the sandstorm in their usual manner. A suicide bomber blew up the first position at the frontline and more than 100 fighters stormed through and rolled up their enemies lines. Since Friday some 60 to 80 SDF were killed, more were wounded and at least 20 were taken prisoners. Others simply fled in panic and ISIS could recaptures several villages without a fight. ISIS claims that all the captured fighters were Arabs, not Kurds. The Kurds decided long ago that the fight at the Euphrates is not their main problem. They prepare to fight against a Turkish invasion. The SDF ground force attacking ISIS is mostly Arab. Some were hired by the U.S., but many of them were pressed into service. They are not that interested in risking their life. They will only attack after the U.S. air force bombed their enemies to smithereens. After the high losses of the Arab SDF the Kurdish YPG was told to sends some 300 of its fighters to regain the lost positions and to continue the general attack on ISIS which for month yielded no gains. ISIS still holds some 700 prisoners and hostages. It had threatened to kill them if it does not receive food and medical supplies. There has been no news of their fate. On Friday the presidents of Russia, France and Turkey and the German chancellor Merkel met in Istanbul. The French and German sides have given up on regime change. They have a refugee problem and want the war to wind down. They still insist that Syria should change its constitution but Damascus has no reason to follow such calls. The former Indian ambassador to Turkey, MK Bhadrakumar, has a deeper analysis of the summit. The big question to him is how the Turkish-American relations evolve. There is little reason to think that these will get better. Erdogan wants the U.S. out of Syria nearly as much as Damascus itself. Erdogan threatened recently to invade the northeastern part of Syria that the U.S. controls. Yesterday Turkish artillery hit positions of the U.S. proxy force in Syria near the border with Turkey. The U.S. keeps insisting that 'Iran-backed militias' leave Syria before the U.S. leaves. But the 'Iran-backed militias' in Syria are nowadays Syrians. Iran supported groups with Afghan and Iraqi fighters and Iranian soldiers have left the country some time ago. There are at most some Iranian officers left who train local groups which Iran has put on its payroll. The demand makes no sense. It likely originates from Israel which wants the U.S. to stay in Syria as long as possible. The situation in Idelb governorate and elsewhere has not changed. The upcoming U.S.-Russia summit on November 11 will discuss the Syria issue. Until then everything is on hold. This article was originally published by " Moon Of Alabama " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here. ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy Top Palestinian Body Calls for Suspension of Israel Recognition PCC says recognition should be suspended until Israel recognises the Palestinian state in its 1967 borders. By Al Jazeera October 30, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - A top Palestinian body authorised the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to suspend recognition of Israel and stop security coordination with Tel Aviv. The Palestinian Central Council (PCC) - a body of the PLO - said the suspensions should be in place until Israel recognises the Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, Palestine's official Wafa news agency reported. Following a two-day meeting in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, the council said the PLO and Palestinian Authority will also end security coordination and suspend economic agreements as set out under the 1994 Paris Economic Protocol. It also decided to revoke the validity of the Oslo Accords. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter The council said the decision was made "in light of Israel's continued denial of the signed agreements". The decision must be approved by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO Executive Council. Speaking on Sunday, Abbas again vowed to block any "peace" plan led by US President Donald Trump. Abbas compared the expected Trump peace plan to the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which saw the British government commit to the creation of a state for Jews in historical Palestine. "If the Balfour Declaration is passed, this deal will not pass," he said. In December, Trump decided to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Breaking with decades of US policy that favoured a two-state solution, Trump's declaration dealt a blow to the Palestinian leadership, which for more than two decades has unsuccessfully attempted to establish a state on the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. By Paul Craig Roberts October 30, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - The refusal of the Democratic Party and the military/security complex to accept the results of the 2016 US presidential election and the misuse of their positions of power to prevent Donald Trump from exercising presidential powers is a revolutionary step, well described by Angelo Codevilla here: https://americanmind.org/essays/our-revolutions-logic/ Americans are now so polarized that they no longer share basic sympathies and trust, because they no longer regard each other as worthy of equal consideration. Codevilla blames the progressives and their attitude of moral superiority, but his explanation is independent of who is to blame. I blame both sides. The Constitution and our civil liberties took a major hit from the conservative Republican regime of George W. Bush. The consequence has been to weaponize government for use against the domestic adversary. In other words, unity has departed us. The absence of unity makes it easy for the ruling oligarchy to achieve its material interests at the expense of the welfare of the American people. Indeed, it is amazing to find progressives aligned with the military/security complex to block Trump from normalizing relations with Russia. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter The provocations of Russia, which have been ongoing since the Clinton regime, have reached unprecedented levels under the neoconservative regimes of Obama and Trump. The conflict that has been orchestrated is good for the $1,000 billion annual budget of the military/security complex at the cost of maximizing the chance of nuclear war. The demonizations of Russia, Putin, China, and Iran are so extreme as to have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war. For Russia, Trumps withdrawal from the intermediate range missile treaty (INF) confirms that an attack on Russia is being prepared. Intermediate range missiles cannot reach the US. The treaty gave safety to Russia and Europe, which is why Washingtons claim that Russia is violating the treaty is absurd. The only reason for Washington to withdraw from the treaty is to be able to place intermediate range nuclear missiles on Russias borders that would substantially increase the likelihood of success of a US first strike against Russia. This apparently is not clear to the American people, media, and Congress, but it is clear to the Russians. Mikhail Gorbachev, who negotiated the INF Treaty with President Reagan, stated the war threat succintly: It looks as if the world is preparing for war. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/27/mikhail-gorbachev-looks-world-preparing-war-nuclear-threat-re/ It is also very clear to the Russian government. A top official, Andrei Belousov, declared: Yes, Russia is preparing for war, I have confirmed it. We are preparing to defend our homeland, our territorial integrity, our principles, our values, our people we are preparing for such a war. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1037059/Russia-INF-treaty-world-war-3-Donald-Trump-Vladimir-Putin-Mikhail-Gorbachev-US-violence Putin himself finally found tough words. A country that attacks Russia will be obliterated, will die like dogs, and go to Hell. As demonization of Russia is part of the Democrats demonization of TrumpPutin stooge, Putin agent, or, in the words of former CIA Director John Brennan, traitorthe American people are too disunited to take a stand against conflict with Russia that serves the agendas of the military/security complex and the neoconservatives ideology of US world hegemony. As it is impossible for Russia to accept US intermediate range nuclear missiles on Russias border, war is close at hand. China also sees war on the horizon. Chinas president has ordered the military to prepare for war. https://www.rt.com/news/442625-china-prepares-war-us/ The recklessly irresponsible policy of the US government toward Russia and China is leading to nuclear war. Perhaps the European governments, Washingtons compliant stooges, will finally wake up and refuse to participate in Washingtons orchestrated conflict. If not, the Doomsday Clock will have to be moved to one second before doom. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West , How America Was Lost , and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order . ==See Also== By Caitlin Johnstone October 30, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - Aug 23, 2018 - The Guardian has just published an actual, non-fictional op-ed that is titled Is my Jewish three-year-old too young to learn about antisemitism?, about a concerned mother who is teaching her toddler about the Holocaust in case Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister. The Guardian. Not The Onion. The Guardian. Have we reached Peak Anti-Semitism in the Guardian yet? Hilary Freeman writes a column on teaching her three-year-old about anti-semitism - in case Corbyn ever gets elected https://t.co/x7ui8woGqr @Jonathan_K_Cook Perhaps theyre right and it is too soon even for this gentle introduction, muses Hilary Freeman. I certainly dont want to frighten or traumatise my daughter. And yet, in the current climate, with accusations of antisemitism in the Labour party making headline news virtually every day, and a rise in antisemitism all over Europe, this is an issue that is pertinent to her life and to her future, not just a story in a book. Many Jews in the UK are feeling very unsettled. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter I mean, wow. Just wow. Im seriously tempted to spend the rest of this article just typing wow. I wouldnt copy-paste it, either. Id type it all out with punctuation and with feeling. Surely this is as far as they can take this whole Corbyn is a secret Nazi narrative? Surely? How could they possibly take it any further into cartoonish lunacy than this? Terrified by Tory polling decline, I took my cocker spaniel on a tour of Auschwitz? I hate mocking the fear of antisemitism, which is a real thing that does happen and should be condemned unequivocally. Even more, though, I hate the British media for making it both extremely easy and one hundred percent necessary to mock them for it. They say that Corbyn is a secret Nazi who loves antisemitism over and over and over again like its a real thing despite the complete absence of anything remotely resembling facts or evidence, then publish op-eds by ostensibly terrified mothers citing accusations of antisemitism in the Labour party making headline news virtually every day as the basis for her fear of her three year-old daughter winding up like Anne Frank. And then when this unconscionable behavior sees Corbyn decrying the mass media and pushing for reforms, the British press responds with headlines like Corbyn is following the Donald Trump playbook on persecuting the media. MSM: Why are you a Nazi? Corbyn: I am not a Nazi. MSM: So you're saying that the Jews who say you're a Nazi shouldn't have a voice? That they should be loaded onto a train and burnt to ashes? Corbyn: No! You're being unethical. @caitoz They can make this link because across the pond the narrative is being spun that the President of the United States is treating the mass media propaganda machine unfairly. Last week hundreds of outlets released coordinated op-eds decrying Trumps war and assault on the free press because he occasionally says mean things about CNN, meanwhile completely ignoring this administrations horrifying attempts to silence WikiLeaks and persecute Julian Assange for practicing journalism. We are not the enemy of the people! these outlets proclaimed with one voice, chanting as one, repeating the same mantra over and over again like a hypnotist. We are not the enemy of the people! We are not the enemy of the people! We are not the enemy of the people! Oh, fuck you. Yes you fucking are. A free press is essential to our democracy, but much of our press isn't very free at all. I want media workers to be free to do their best work, not held back by billionaire owners, tech giants or the state. #ChangeTheMedia @jeremycorbyn The mass media absolutely are the enemy of the people. Without question they are. They are the enemy of our entire species. Neither the great political or financial powers of the world nor the population in general realize that the engineering-chemical-electronic revolution now makes it possible to produce many more technical devices with ever less material, the brilliant inventor and systems theorist Buckminster Fuller once said. We can now take care of everybody at a higher standard of living than anybody has ever known. It does not have to be you or me, so selfishness is unnecessary and war is obsolete. This has never been done before. Only twelve years ago technology reached the point where this could be done. Since then it has made it ever so much easier to do. Fuller said this in 1981. So why hasnt it happened yet? Why hasnt humanity turned its creativity and resourcefulness toward human thriving instead of warfare, exploitation, domination and ecocide? Stuffy intellectuals whove spent too much time indoors might scoff and say its because Fuller was wrong, that it is simply human nature that we should all be scrambling to get to the top of the heap by clawing at each others flesh and stepping upon each others heads until we kill our ecosystem and choke to death on dust and ashes. I say thats bullshit. The reason we have not turned our creative power toward health and harmony instead of death and destruction is because we are being manipulated by powerful people who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. And they are doing so using the mass media. Q: What's the difference between Jake Tapper and a prostitute? A: One gets paid handfuls of cash to do shameful and degrading things which tear apart the fabric of society, the other makes an honest living as a sex worker. https://t.co/ySsPU0SrAX @caitoz Humans dont want to suffer and toil in order to make a few billionaires even more rich and powerful than they already are. Literally nobody wants that for humanity besides those billionaires and their immediate underlings. The reason we havent yet used the power of our numbers to create a system wherein everyone gets their basic needs met and we all work in collaboration with ourselves and our environment instead of poisoning our air and water and spending medicine money on bombs is because there are screens in our lives convincing us all day in and day out that this is not in our best interest. Keep consenting to increasing degrees of corrupt crony capitalism. Keep voting for the same oligarch-owned two-headed one-party system day in and day out. Keep ignoring how the US military is the worst polluter on earth and how the cost of the Iraq war could have purchased the planetary conversion to renewable energy. Day after day after day the publics psyches are pummeled with these deceitful narratives which manufacture consent for war, exploitation and oppression instead of health and thriving. The only thing keeping us from rising like lions in unvanquishable number as in the Percy Bysshe Shelley poem and creating a healthy world is because we are imprisoned in a psychic cage made of propaganda narratives. The billionaire-controlled mass media are the enemy of the people in the same way a cage is the enemy of a bird. We have native parrots here in Australia. Sometimes I think about how cool it would be to have one for a pet, but then I look outside and see the galahs and cockatoos playing around in the trees and think, Nah. The billionaires who control the mass media lack that part of themselves. They are our enemy. But we are the many. And they are the few. And we are waking up. Caitlin's articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast, throwing some money into her hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying her book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. This article was originally published by " Medium " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here. ==See Also== Israel Opposition Chief Says Pittsburgh Shooting Should Teach Jews To Make Aliyah: Israeli opposition leader said that the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting should spur American Jews to move to Israel. Im devastated: Despite Bolsonaros victory, Brazilians have little faith in their next government: Concern over the countrys future remains strong even among Bolsonaro voters. Glenn Greenwald: The Lessons for Western Democracies From the Stunning Victory of Brazils Jair Bolsonaro Israel hails election of Brazils controversial Bolsonaro, who plans visit soon: Netanyahu says incoming president, who has disparaged women, gays and blacks, but also vowed to move his embassy to Jerusalem, will lead to great friendship between our nations Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy By Maj. Danny Sjursen October 30, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - We arent miracle workers. Were just soldiers after allkids barely out of their teens and officers in their mid-20s do most of the fighting. Still, policymakers in Washington, and citizens on Main Street both seem convinced that the mere presence of a few hundred or thousand American troops can alter societies, vanquish the wicked, and remake the world. A colleague of mine refers to this as the myth of the magic soldier: sprinkle US troops in some horrific mess of a country and voilaproblem solved! It sounds great, but this sort of delusional thinking has led the United States into one failed quagmire after another, killing some 7,000 US troops and close to one million locals. After 17 years of fruitless, indecisive war, its quite incredible that a bipartisan coalition of mainstream Republicans (neocons, mostly) and Democrats (neo-liberal relics) still cling to the idea that American soldiers wield magic powers. Its long past time to review the record of our over-adulated troopers and reframe the actuallimitedcapabilities of military force. The standard Washington-media-military narrative goes something like this: take any unstable Muslim country that has any presence of Islamists at all; drop in a few thousand US Army advisors, trainers, or combat troops; stay indefinitelyand loudly proclaim that if ever those soldiers should leave said Muslim country it will undoubtedly collapse and the US of A will be directly threatened. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Some version of that exact formula has been tried in, sequentially, Afghanistan (2001-present), Iraq (2003-present), and Syria (2011-present), along with numerous smaller regional locales: Libya, Niger, Somalia, Yemen, etc. Sometimes the troop levels topped out at nearly 150,000 (Iraq), other times the ground forces and special operator teams are smaller (Yemen, Somalia), but the basic blueprint is the sameUS airpower, plus commando raids, plus trainers and advisers can somehow stabilize the unstable, secure the insecure, andultimatelywe hope, craft a Little America in the Muslim world. Therere just a couple problems with this veritable religion of US militarism: 1) we rarely consult with the locals before beginning each crusade, and 2) It. Has. Yet. To. Work. Let us enter, then, the world of the absurdUS interventions since 9/11. In Afghanistan, the ultra hawks told (and tell) us, repeatedly, that more soldiers were needed to back up the government in Kabul. Without those magic troops, were warned, Al Qaeda will be back and the US Homeland in grave danger. Of course, the fact is there are relatively few such fighters in Afghanistan, and the Talibanour primary opponenthas neither the capacity or intent to threaten the US These folks want to conquer Kandahar not Kalamazoo Then there was the Iraq invasion, euphemistically titled Operation Iraqi Freedom, which began as a fantastical attempt to craft a liberal democracy between the Tigris and Euphrates all at the point of a bayonet. By 2006, that adventure had all but fallen apart as the country tumbled into outright civil war. Only then, according the popular, prevailing military and political myth, a new generalDavid Petraeusand some 30,000 more magic U.S. troopers, turned the tide. In hindsight that was never the case. The US military bought off former enemies with American blood on their hands and temporarily lessened violence. Washington never achieved a more vital political settlement in Baghdad and within three years of Americas departure, Iraq was back in chaos. And back to Mesopotamia flew our soldier miracle workers. This is when a second mainstreamand utterly bunkmyth developed: that if only Obama had left 10,000 magic soldiers in country that Iraq would have been just fine and ISIS would never have formed. Such an assertion denies agency to the Iraqis (who ultimately determine their own destiny), overestimates the capabilities of American troops, and ignores the fact that it was the Iraqi government that refused to sign a treaty to keep a US military presence on the ground. In the soldiers-as-miracles narrative, of course, all that is omitted or ignored. The same goes for the smaller US presence in Syria, Africa, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and on and on. Were assured that just a bit more airpower, a smidgen more commando raids, and a few more military advisors will turn the tide, stabilize the unstable, and ensure American security. The problem is this: in each case, no one seems able to articulate an exit strategy. Thats because there is none! And theres the rubso long as Americans are convinced of the preternatural capabilities of US troops, Washington will be forced to keep them forever deployed. Should they leave (any of these various locales) were told that chaos and transnational terror will explode in the region and in American cities. If thats not a formula for perpetual war, then I dont know what is! The various interventions of the War on Terror have, at best, a checkered record. Most were, and are, complete strategic failures. They demonstrate the inherent limits of US military power and the need for tough cost/benefit analyses before taking the fateful step of deploying American men and women in harms way. Yet on the wars churn, with no end in sight. And why not? Presidents (from both parties) wield force almost unilaterally; Congress is derelict in its duty to oversee the wars; the politicized Supreme Court demonstrates no intent to rule on the constitutionality of presidential war powers; and the citizenry, well, they could care less. With no conscription, innumerable technological distractions, and regularly fed information from a media focused more on minutiae than substance, how could we expect the American people to take much interest at all? The truth is the war for the Greater Middle East is over. America already lostit just hasnt accepted it yet. The tragedy and farceof it all is that some number of US troops and innumerable local civilians are sure to die before Washington comes out of denial and accepts strategic defeat. I cant say when that will be; but odds are my own young children will be of military age by thenand so will yours. Maj. Danny Sjursen is a U.S. Army officer and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan This article was originally published by " Anti War " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here. ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy Welcome to the Jungle A troubling new era has begun in Brazil with the election on Sunday of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro as president, writes Pepe Escobar. By Pepe Escobar October 30, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - Its darkness at the break of (tropical) high noon. Jean Baudrillard once defined Brazil as the chlorophyll of our planet. And yet a land vastly associated worldwide with the soft power of creative joie de vivre has elected a fascist for president. Brazil is a land torn apart. Former paratrooper Jair Bolsonaro was elected with 55.63 percent of votes. Yet a record 31 million votes were ruled absent or null and void. No less than 46 million Brazilians voted for the Workers Partys candidate, Fernando Haddad; a professor and former mayor of Sao Paulo, one of the crucial megalopolises of the Global South. The key startling fact is that over 76 million Brazilians did not vote for Bolsonaro. His first speech as president exuded the feeling of a trashy jihad by a fundamentalist sect laced with omnipresent vulgarity and the exhortation of a God-given dictatorship as the path towards a new Brazilian Golden Age. French-Brazilian sociologist Michael Lowy has described the Bolsonaro phenomenon as pathological politics on a large scale. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter His ascension was facilitated by an unprecedented conjunction of toxic factors such as the massive social impact of crime in Brazil, leading to a widespread belief in violent repression as the only solution; the concerted rejection of the Workers Party, catalyzed by financial capital, rentiers, agribusiness and oligarchic interests; an evangelical tsunami; a justice system historically favoring the upper classes and embedded in State Department-funded training of judges and prosecutors, including the notorious Sergio Moro, whose single-minded goal during the alleged anti-corruption Car Wash investigation was to send Lula to prison; and the absolute aversion to democracy by vast sectors of the Brazilian ruling classes. That is about to coalesce into a radically anti-popular, God-given, rolling neoliberal shock; paraphrasing Lenin, a case of fascism as the highest stage of neoliberalism. After all, when a fascist sells a free market agenda, all his sins are forgiven. The Reign of BBBB Its impossible to understand the rise of Bolsonarism without the background of the extremely sophisticated Hybrid War unleashed on Brazil by the usual suspects. NSA spying ranging from the Petrobras energy giant all the way to then President Dilma Rousseffs mobile phone was known since mid-2013 after Edward Snowden showed how Brazil was the most spied upon Latin American nation in the 2000s. The Pentagon-supplicant Superior War College in Rio has always been in favor of a gradual but surefire militarization of Brazilian politics aligned with U.S. national security interests. The curriculum of top U.S. military academies was uncritically adopted by the Superior War College. The managers of Brazils industrial-military-technological complex largely survived the 1964-1985 dictatorship. They learned everything about psyops from the French in Algeria and the Americans in Vietnam. Over the years they evolved their conception of the enemy within; not only the proverbial communists, but also the Left as a whole as well as the vast masses of dispossessed Brazilians. This led to the recent situation of generals threatening judges if they ever set Lula free. Bolsonaros running mate, the crude Generalito Hamilton Mourao, even threatened a military coup if the ticket did not win. Bolsonaro himself said he would never accept defeat. This evolving militarization of politics perfectly meshed with the cartoonish BBBB (Bullet, Beef, Bible, Bank) Brazilian Congress. Congress is virtually controlled by military, police and paramilitary forces; the powerful agribusiness and mining lobby, with their supreme goal of totally plundering the Amazon rainforest; evangelical factions; and banking/financial capital. Compare it with the fact that more than half of senators and one third of Congress are facing criminal investigations. The Bolsonaro campaign used every trick in the book to flee any possibility of a TV debate, faithful to the notion that political dialogue is for suckers, especially when theres nothing to debate. After all, Bolsonaros top economic advisor, Chicago Boy Paulo Guedes currently under investigation for securities fraud had already promised to cure Brazil by bearing the usual gifts: privatize everything; destroy social spending; get rid of all labor laws as well as the minimum wage; let the beef lobby plunder the Amazon; and increase the weaponizing of all citizens to uber-NRA levels. No wonder The Wall Street Journal normalized Bolsonaro as a conservative populist and the Brazilian swamp-drainer; this fact-free endorsement ignores that Bolsonaro is a lowly politico who has only passed two pieces of legislation in his 27 lackluster years in Congress. WhatsApp Me to the Promised Land Even as large misinformed masses progressively became aware of the massive Bolsonaro campaign manipulative scams on WhatsApp a tropical post-Cambridge Analytica saga; and even as Bolsonaro pledged, on the record, that opponents would have only two options after Sundays elections, jail or exile, that was still not enough to arrest Brazil from inexorably slouching towards a dystopian, militarized BET (Banana Evangelical Theocracy). In any mature democracy a bunch of businessmen via black accounting financing a multi-tentacle fake news campaign on WhatsApp against the Workers Party and Lulas candidate Haddad would qualify as a major scandal. WhatsApp is wildly popular in Brazil, much more than Facebook; so it had to be properly instrumentalized in this Brazilian remix of Cambridge Analytica-style Hybrid War. The tactics were absolutely illegal because they qualified as undeclared campaign donations as well as corporate donations (forbidden by the Brazilian Supreme Court since 2015). The Brazilian Federal Police started an investigation that now is bound to head the same way of the Saudis investigating themselves on the Pulp Fiction fiasco in Istanbul. The fake news tsunami was managed by the so-called Bolsominions. They are a hyper-loyal volunteer army, which purges anyone who dares to question the Myth (as the leader is referred to), while manipulating content 24/7 into memes, viral fake videos and assorted displays of Bolso-swarm ire. Consider Washingtons outrage at Russians that may have interfered in U.S. elections allegedly using the same tactics the U.S. and its comprador elites used in Brazil. Smashing the BRICS On foreign policy, as far as Washington is concerned, Reichskommissar Bolsonaro may be very useful on three fronts. The first one is geo-economic: to get the lions share of the vast pre-salt reserves for U.S. energy giants. That would be the requisite follow-up to the coup de grace against Dilma Rousseff in 2013, when she approved a law orienting 75 percent of oil wealth royalties towards education and 25 percent to health care; a significant U.S.$ 122 billion over 10 years. The other two fronts are geopolitical: blowing up the BRICS from the inside, and getting Brazil to do the dirty work in a Venezuela regime change ops, thus fulfilling the Beltway obsession on smashing the Venezuela-Cuba axis. Using the pretext of mass immigration from Venezuela to the Brazilian stretch of the Amazon, Colombia elevated to the status of key NATO partner, and egged on by Washington is bound to count on Brazilian military support for regime change. And then theres the crucial China story. China and Brazil are close BRICS partners. BRICS by now essentially means RC (Russia and China), much to the disgust of Moscow and Beijing, which counted on Haddad following in the footsteps of Lula, who was instrumental in enhancing BRICS geopolitical clout. That brings us to a key point of inflexion in the rolling Hybrid War coup, when the Brazilian military became convinced that Rousseffs cabinet was infiltrated by agents of Chinese intel. Still, China remains Brazils top trade partner ahead of the U.S., with bilateral trade reaching $75 billion last year. In parallel to being an avid consumer of Brazilian commodities, Beijing has already invested $124 billion in Brazilian companies and infrastructure projects since 2003. Chicago Boy Guedes has recently met with Chinese diplomats. Bolsonaro is bound to receive a top Chinese delegation right at the start of his mandate. On the campaign trail, he hammered that China is not buying in Brazil, China is buying Brazil. Bolsonaro might attempt to pull a mini-Trump sanction overdrive on China. Yet he must be aware that the powerful agribusiness lobby has been profiting immensely from the U.S.-China trade war. A mighty cliffhanger is guaranteed to come at the 2019 BRICS summit, which will take place in Brazil: picture tough guy Bolsonaro face to face with the real boss, Xi Jinping. So what is the Brazilian military really up to? Answer: the Brazilian Dependency Doctrine which is a true neocolonial mongrel. On one level, the Brazilian military leadership is developmentalist, geared towards territorial integration, well-patrolled borders and fully disciplined, internal, social and economic order. At the same time they believe this should all be carried out under the supervision of the indispensable nation. The military leaders reason that their own country is not knowledgeable enough to fight organized crime, cyber-security, bio-security, and, on the economy, to fully master a minimal state coupled with fiscal reform and austerity. For the bulk of the military elite, private foreign capital is always benign. An inevitable consequence is to see Latin American and African nations as untermenschen; a reaction against Lulas and Dilmas emphasis on the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and closer energy and logistical integration with Africa. Cant Rule Out Military Coup Despite this there is internal military dissent which could even open a possible way towards the removal of Bolsonaro, a mere puppet, to the benefit of the real thing: a general. When the Workers Party was in power, the Navy and the Air Force were quite pleased by strategic projects such as a nuclear submarine, a supersonic fighter jet and satellites launched by Made in Brazil rockets. Their reaction remains to be seen in the event Bolsonaro ditches these techno-breakthroughs for good. The key question may be whether there is a direct connection between the cream of the crop of Brazilian military academies; the dependency generals and their psyops techniques; different evangelical factions; and the post-Cambridge Analytica tactics deployed by the Bolsonaro campaign. Would it be a nebula congregating all these cells, or is it a loose network? Arguably the best answer is provided by war anthropologist Piero Leirner, who conducted deep research in the Brazilian Armed Forces and told me, theres no previous connection. Bolsonaro is a post-fact. The only possible connection is between certain campaign traits and psyops. Leirner stresses, Cambridge Analytica and Bannon represent the infrastructure, but the quality of information, to send contradictory signals and then an order resolution coming as a third way, this is military strategy from CIA psyop manuals. There are cracks though. Leirner sees the arch of disparate forces supporting Bolsonaro as a bricolage which sooner or later will disintegrate. What next? A sub-Pinochet General? Why Bolsonaro is not Trump In The Road to Somewhere; The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics, David Goodhart shows that the driving force behind populism is not the fascist love of an ultra-nation. Its anomie that feeling of a vague existential threat posed by modernity. That applies to all forms of Right populism in the West. Thus we have the opposition between Somewheres and Anywheres. We have Somewheres that want their nations democracy to be enjoyed only by the home ethnicity, with the national culture not contaminated by foreign influences. And we have Anywheres who inhabit the roootless postmodern vortex of multiculturalism and foreign travel for business. These are a demographic minority but a majority within political, economic, educational and professional elites. This leads Goodhart to make a crucial distinction between populism and fascism ideologically and psychologically. The standard legal distinction can be found in German constitutional law. Right populism is radical thus legal. Fascism is extreme, thus illegal. Trump being labeled a fascist is false. Bolsonaro in the West has been labeled The Tropical Trump. The fact is Trump is a Right populist who happens to deploy a few policies that could even be characterized as Old Left. The record reveals Bolsonaro as a racist, misogynist, homophobic, weaponizing thug, favoring a white, patriarchal, hierarchical, hetero-normative and homogenous Brazil; an absurdity in a deeply unequal society still ravaged by the effects of slavery and where the majority of the population is mixed race. Besides, historically, fascism is a radical bourgeois Final Solution about total annihilation of the working class. That makes Bolsonaro an outright fascist. Trump is even mode moderate than Bolsonaro. He does not incite supporters to literally exterminate his opponents. After all, Trump has to respect the framework of a republic with long-standing, even if flawed, democratic institutions. That was never the case in the young Brazilian democracy where a president may now behave as if human rights are a communist, and UN, plot. The Brazilian working classes, intellectual elites, social movements and all minorities have plenty of reasons to fear the New Order; in Bolsonaros own words, they will be banned from our motherland. The criminalization/dehumanization of any opposition means, literally, that tens of millions of Brazilians are worthless. Talk to Nietzsche The sophisticated Hybrid War rolling coup in Brazil that started in 2014, had a point of inflexion in 2016 and culminating in 2018 with impeaching a president; jailing another; smashing the Right and the Center-Right; and in a post-politics-on-steroids manner, opening the path to neo-fascism. Bolsonaro though is a mediocre black void cipher. He does not have the political structure, the knowledge, not to mention the intelligence to have come so far, our of the blue, without a hyper-complex, state of the art, cross-border intel support system. No wonder hes a Steve Bannon darling. In contrast, the Left as in Europe once again was stuck in analog mode. No way any progressive front, especially in this case as it was constituted at the eleventh hour, could possibly combat the toxic tsunami of cultural war, identity politics and micro-targeted fake news. They lost a major battle. At least they now know this is hardcore, all-out war. To destroy Lula the worlds foremost political prisoner the Brazilian elites had to destroy Brazil. Still, Nietzsche always prevails; whatever doesnt kill you makes you stronger. The vanguard of global resistance against neo-fascism as the higher stage of neoliberalism has now moved south of the Equator. No pasaran. Pepe Escobar, a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong Kong-based Asia Times. His latest book is 2030. Follow him on Facebook. This article was originally published by " Consortium News " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here. ==See Also== What's going on in Brazil? Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy Home Search ICH The Silk Road and Israel Beijing continues unceasingly to develop its Silk Road project. Chinas vice-President, Wang Qishan, has undertaken a tour of the Near East which took him to Israel for four days. According to the agreements which have already been signed, within two years China will control the major part of Israels agro-food industry, its high technology and its international exchanges. A free trade agreement should follow, and the geopolitics of the whole region will be turned upside down. By Thierry Meyssan The visit of Chinese vice-president Wang Qishan to Israel, Palestine, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates is aimed at developing the New Silk Road . In the autumn of 2013, China made public its project for the creation of maritime and especially terrestrial communication routes across the world. It unblocked colossal sums of money and began to realise its plan at a rapid rate. The main axes will cross either Asia or Russia towards Western Europe. But it is also planning routes across Africa and Latin America. The obstacles to the New Silk Road The project is going to meet two obstacles, one of them economic, the other strategic. From the Chinese point of view, this project is aimed at exporting its products according to the model of the ancient Silk Road which, from the 2nd to the 15th century, linked China to Europe via the Ferghana Valley, Iran and Syria. At the time, this concerned transporting products from town to town, so that at each stage they were exchanged for other goods according to the needs of the local merchants. However, today, on the contrary, China hopes to sell directly to Europe and the world. But their products are no longer exotic wares (silks, spices, etc.) but identical to those of the Europeans, and often of superior quality. The commercial route has been transformed into a super-highway. While Marco Polo was dazzled by the silks from the Far East without their equivalent in Italy, Angela Merkel is terrified at the idea of seeing her automobile industry destroyed by her Chinese competitors. The developed countries are therefore going to have to do business with Beijing, and at the same time, protect their industries from economic shock. By massively exporting its production, China will take over the commercial place that the United Kingdom - at first alone, then with the United States - has occupied since the industrial revolution. It was specifically to maintain this supremacy that Churchill and Roosevelt signed the Atlantic Charter and the United States engaged in the Second World War. It is therefore probable that the Anglo-Saxons will not hesitate to employ military force in order to hinder the Chinese project [1], just as they did in 1941 when faced with the German and Japanese projects. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Already in 2013, the Pentagon published the Wright plan, which programmed the creation of a new state straddling Iraq and Syria in order to cut the Silk Road between Baghdad and Damascus. This mission was carried out by Daesh - China therefore modified the layout of its route. Beijing finally decided to build the route through Egypt, and invested in the doubling of the Suez Canal and the creation of a vast industrial zone 120 kilometres from Cairo [2]. Similarly, the Pentagon organised a colour revolution in Ukraine in order to cut the European route, and stirred up trouble in Nicaragua in order to prevent the construction of a new canal linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Despite the unprecedented importance of Chinese investment in the New Silk Road, we have to remember that in the 15th century, China launched a formidable navy in order to secure its markets. Admiral Zheng He, the eunuch with three gems , fought the pirates of Sri Lanka,built pagodas in Ethiopia and made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Notwithstanding, on his return, for reasons of interior politics, the Emperor abandoned the Silk Road and burned his ships. China then withdrew into itself. So we should not imagine that, from the Chinese point of view, the current project is a pre-ordained success. In the recent past, China invested in the Middle East with the sole idea of ensuring its supply of oil. It built refineries in Iraq which were inconveniently destroyed either by Daesh or by the Western Forces who were pretending to combat the Islamists. Beijing also became the main buyer of Saudi Arabias black gold . It also constructed in the Kingdom the gigantic oil complex of Yasref-Yanbu for 10 billion dollars. The links between Israel and China date from the mandate of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose parents had fled the Nazis in order to settle in Shanghai. Benjamin Netanyahus predecessor had tried to establish strong relations with Beijing, but his efforts were nullified by his support for one of the Somali pirate groups tasked by Washington with disturbing Russian and Chinese maritime traffic at the exit of the Red Sea [ 3 ]. A scandal was avoided by inches. China was authorised to establish a naval base in Djibouti, and Ehud Olmert was excluded from political life. China has been negotiating a free-trade treaty with Israel since 2016. In this context, the Shanghai International Port Group has bought the concession for the exploitation of the ports of Haifa and Ashdod, so that by 2021,China will control 90 % of Israeli commercial exchanges. Bright Food has already acquired 56 % of the Tnuva kibbutzim cooperative, and could increase its participation, so that China would control most of the Israeli agricultural market. The founder of the on-line store Ali Baba , Jack Ma, who came to Tel-Aviv as part of the official Chinese delegation, did not hide his intention to buy up a number of Israeli start-ups in order to recuperate their high technology. Armament is the only important sector of the Israeli economy still preserved from the Chinese appetite. In September, with the aid of the US Hudson Institute, professor Shaul Horev organised a conference at Haifa university in order to alert the Pentagons general staff to the consequences of Chinese investment. In particular, the speakers emphasised that these contracts exposed the country to the risk of intensive spying, making it difficult to exploit the port for its nuclear missile-launching submarines, as well as its links with the US 6th Fleet. The ex-director of Mossad, Ephraim Halevy, known for his proximity to the United States, pointed out that the National Security Council had never deliberated on these investments, but that the decision had been made solely for reasons of commercial opportunity. This raises the question of whether or not Washington had authorised the rapprochement between Tel-Aviv and Beijing. We should make no mistake about the reasons which allowed China to implant a military base in Djibouti, and it seems unlikely that Beijing concluded a secret agreement with Washington for the layout of this new Silk Road. Certainly, the United States will not be too worried about an economic collapse of the European Union. However, in the long term, China and Russia are obliged to maintain good relations in order to protect themselves from the Western powers. History has shown that the latter have done, and continue to do everything possible to dismantle these major powers. Consequently, if a China-US alliance would be in favour of Beijing in the short and medium term, it would lead thereafter to the successive elimination of Russia and China itself. The Chinese-Israeli agreements suggest that, as Lenin said, the capitalists will sell us the rope we shall use to hang them . Political consultant, President-founder of the Reseau Voltaire (Voltaire Network). Latest work in French Sous nos Yeux. Du 11-Septembre a Donald Trump (Right Before our Eyes. From 9/11 to Donald Trump). Translation - Pete Kimberley This article was originally published by " Voltaire Network " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here. ==See Also== Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. Search Information Clearing House === Click Here To Support Information Clearing House Your support has kept ICH free on the Web since 2002. Click for Spanish , German , Dutch , Danish , French , translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load. Max Lu (Photo provided by Max Lu) Professor Max Lu joined the University of Surrey as President and Vice-Chancellor in 2016. As the first Chinese Vice-Chancellor in the UK, he told Xinhua that he is the beneficiary of Chinas reform and opening up and is willing to continue serving as the bridge and ambassador between the east and west for future exchanges. The Vice-Chancellor was born into a rural family in east Chinas Shandong province. He started helping the family with housework at a very early age. Recalling these early days, Lu said the hardship was an asset to him. In 1979, Lu attended the national college entrance examination and was accepted by an engineering college in northeast China (now the Northeastern University). He completed his Bachelor's and Master's degrees there and worked in the university after graduation. In the early 1980s, an increasing number of college students chose to study abroad as China gradually opened its door to the world. Lu was among the first batch of overseas Chinese students after the reform and opening up. He came to study nanotechnology in Australia with a scholarship from the University of Queensland, graduating with a Ph.D. Most of Lus fellows chose to work and live in Australia after graduation, but he had the opportunity to lecture in Singapores Nanyang Technological University. Lu said that the job in Singapore was challenging as it required teaching as well management practices. In 2015, the academic stood out from over 100 candidates for the Vice-Chancellor position at the University of Surrey, a leading university that excels at microsatellite technology, industrial cooperation, and knowledge innovation and application, said Lu. Its not the title that attracted him, Lu explained. He hoped to seize the chance to practice his ideas to help universities better serve society. For many years, Professor Lu has been forging cooperation between Surrey and Chinese universities and enterprises. He also encouraged overseas Chinese in the UK to contribute to the win-win cooperation between China and the UK with their experience, wisdom and academic knowledge. Western society was biased towards Chinese people three decades ago. With reform and opening up, China and other countries have indeed benefited from increased exchanges. It's all thanks to the reform and opening up, said Lu. Without the policy, its hard to imagine that there would be such opportunities for this generation to study abroad. The countrys economic and social development has reached a higher level, and overseas Chinese people enjoy greater respect than before. These facts cannot be separated from the reform and opening up. By Motherboard October 30, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - The United States government is accelerating efforts to monitor social media to preempt major anti-government protests in the US, according to scientific research, official government documents, and patent filings reviewed by Motherboard. The social media posts of American citizens who dont like President Donald Trump are the focus of the latest US military-funded research. The research, funded by the US Army and co-authored by a researcher based at the West Point Military Academy, is part of a wider effort by the Trump administration to consolidate the US militarys role and influence on domestic intelligence. The vast scale of this effort is reflected in a number of government social media surveillance patents granted this year, which relate to a spy program that the Trump administration outsourced to a private company last year. Experts interviewed by Motherboard say that the Pentagons new technology research may have played a role in amendments this April to the Joint Chiefs of Staff homeland defense doctrine, which widen the Pentagons role in providing intelligence for domestic emergencies, including an insurrection. US ARMY TURNS TO THE HOMELAND Its no secret that the Pentagon has funded Big Data research into how social media surveillance can help predict large-scale population behaviours, specifically the outbreak of conflict, terrorism, and civil unrest. Much of this research focuses on foreign theatres like the Middle East and North Africa where the 2011 Arab Spring kicked off an arc of protest that swept across the region and toppled governments. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Since then, the Pentagon has spent millions of dollars finding patterns in posts across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and beyond to enable the prediction of major events. But the Pentagon isnt just interested in anticipating surprises abroad. The research also appears to be intended for use in the US homeland. In August, a US Army-backed study on civil unrest within the US homeland was published in an obscure anthology of papers presented to a Big Data conference in Kiev, Ukraine, which took place in early June. The anthology was released as part of Springer-Natures Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing book series. The paper in question is a study of the link between social media and anti-Trump protests after the 2016 presidential elections, titled Social Network Structure as a Predictor of Social Behavior: The Case of Protest in the 2016 US Presidential Election. The study was funded by the US Army Research Laboratory (ARL), which is part of the US Armys Research Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM). Written by researchers at Americas oldest technological university, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in New York, the paper concludes that protests after the US elections could have been predicted by analysing the Twitter posts of millions of American citizens in the lead-up to the demonstrations. After Trumps election, there were immediate large-scale Not Our President protests across the US in direct response to his victory, a few of which became violent. This has been followed by numerous other protests such as the Womens March events in January, demonstrations against Trumps travel ban, among others. Civil unrest is associated with information cascades or activity bursts in social media, and these phenomena may be used to predict protests, or at least peaks of protest activity, the paper says. Failure to predict an unexpected protest may result in injuries or damage. Authors Molly Renaud, Rostyslav Korolov, David Mendonca, and William Wallace of RPIs Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering explain that their study tries to identify the structural properties of social networks in order to predict protest occurrence, by employing keyword-defined Twitter datasets associated with the 2016 US Presidential Election. REAL-TIME SOCIAL MEDIA TRACKING OF US CITIZENS Datasets for the research were collected using the Apollo Social Sensing Tool, a real-time event tracking software that collects and analyses millions of social media posts. The tool was originally developed under the Obama administration back in 2011 by the US Army Research Laboratory and US Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in partnership with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Illinois, IBM, and Caterva (a social marketing company that in 2013 was folded into a subsidiary of giant US government IT contractor, CSC). Past papers associated with the project show that the tool has been largely tested in foreign theatres like Haiti, Egypt, and Syria. But the use of the Apollo tool to focus on protests in the US homeland has occurred under the Trump administration. The election dataset compiled using Apollo for the 2018 US Army-funded study is comprised of 2.5 million tweets sent between October 26, 2016, and December 20, 2016, using the words Trump, Clinton, and election. Tweets were geolocated to focus on locations where protests occurred following the election based on user profiles. Locations were then triangulated against protest data from online news outlets across the country. The millions of tweets were used to make sense of the frequencies of the protests in 39 cities using 18 different ways of measuring the size, structure and geography of a network, along with two ways of measuring how that network leads a social group to become mobilized, or take action. The paper concludes that by examining the structure of social networks as related in tweets related to the 2016 US Presidential Election, a relationship is identified between network structure and protest occurrence. The model demonstrates that social media plays a catalyzing role in the mobilization of social groups before a protest, in a way which is observable in advance of protest occurrences. This may be of use in preparing for such an event, and help minimize injuries and property damage. In short, this means that the social network can be a predictor of mobilization, which in turn is a predictor of the protest. This pivotal finding means that extensive real-time monitoring of American citizens social media activity can be used to predict future protests. More work is needed to beef up the accuracy of the model, though. This model is still only 44 percent accurate five days before the protest, with accuracy increasing up to 82 percent closer to the incident. "If you look at the long term trajectory of Pentagon, and intelligence agency desires for this sort of profiling and surveillance, these social media monitoring projects fits a deep pattern of institutional surveillance desires" Acknowledgements at the end of the paper confirm that the research is sponsored by the Army Research Laboratory. The paper includes the caveat that the research does not necessarily represent the US governments official policies. And of course, the US military funds a vast amount of research pursued independently, much of which does not necessarily go anywhere. On the other hand, the paper also adds that, the US Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Government purposes, and according to the ARL itself, the Laboratory applies the extensive research and analysis tools developed in its direct mission program to support ongoing development and acquisition programs across the US Army and industry partners: ARL has consistently provided the enabling technologies in many of the Army's most important weapons systems. Whatever the case, the US military funding remains a clear indication of US government interest. The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is part of the ARL Network Science Collaborative Technology Alliance (NS CTA), a consortium of three industrial research labs and 14 universities which receives multi-million dollar support from the US Army Research Laboratory. The last round of multi-million dollar five-year funding was received by Rensselaer in 2015. Research priorities are closely and continuously developed within the CTA through collaboration between university scientists, industry and the US military. A lead author of the paper, Rostyslav Korolovidentified as the point of contact about the researchis a PhD candidate at RPI focusing on prediction of human behavior based on social media communications under the ARL Alliance, and liaised closely with the US military while working on the anti-Trump protest study. While working on this project Ive spent two months on an internship at the US Army Research Laboratory and a year as a visiting scholar at the Network Science Center, United States Military Academy, West Point, his RPI bio explains. Motherboard attempted to reach the authors of the paper through multiple requests, but did not receive any response to questions about the study and the reason for its focus on protests at home. However, Tom Moyer, a spokesman for the ARL provided us the following statement: The Army Research Laboratory, through its collaborative alliances, cooperative agreements and other instruments, funds scientific exploration across a large spectrum to broaden the scientific knowledge base that could lead to a more capable Army. That is not to say that the laboratory, or the US Army, agrees with every conclusion drawn from principal investigators who are trying to answer difficult research questions. Our collaborators often go deep into areas of research that are sometimes high risk, but often result in the transfer of knowledge that increases scientific understanding. Moyer explained that the US Army selected this particular research project under a broader program theme titled, Social/cognitive-theory-guided knowledge networks enrichment, predictive and prescriptive analysis. The programs goals, he said, include developing mathematical understanding of strength and mobility of self-forming networks. Asked what the ARL hoped to achieve by funding this research, Moyer told me that the researchers expertise in disaster research via computational science led to ARLs funding decision. Fundamental research into complex networks, including social networks, is extremely valuable and could provide insight into the prediction and evolution of major events. This insight can aid nations for planning and undertaking relief response to natural and manmade disasters." David Price, a professor of sociology and anthropology at St. Martins University told me the Pentagon throws a lot of money at a lot of projects, many of them downright silly. But if you look at the long term trajectory of Pentagon, and intelligence agency desires for this sort of profiling and surveillance, these social media monitoring projects fits a deep pattern of institutional surveillance desires, he added. Price is the worlds leading expert on the relationships between US anthropologists, social scientists, and US military intelligence agencies, the author of the book Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the National Security State, and has served on several American Anthropological Associations commissions and task forces dealing with the ethical issues of engaging with the US intelligence community. He describes the latest research as really an extension of the once frightening, now mundane expression of a national panopticon expressed by the Total Information Awareness program when first conceived in 2002, and quickly withdrawn. Total Information Awareness was a major Bush administration initiative aimed at monitoring the entire American population through electronic surveillance. Though defunded in 2003 after extensive media criticism, its core architecture was adopted by the National Security Agency (NSA) where it is now quietly thriving according to the New York Times. SOCIAL MEDIA SNOOPING: AN AMERICAN TRADITION The Trump election study is just the latest in a spate of research pursued by US government-funded scientists to predict civil unrest through social media surveillance. Much of that research has been funded by the US governments spy research organisation, IARPAthe Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agencyfor a longtime project known as Embers that examined trends in foreign theatres. But even this research appears to have potential domestic applications. Established in April 2012, the project (which stands for Early Model Based Event Recognition using Surrogates) generated seven-day advanced forecasts based on open-source indicatorssocial media, satellite imagery, and more than 200,000 blogs that are publicly available. An average of 80 to 90 percent of its forecasts were accurate, according to studies related to the program. Teams made up mainly from three external industry partners, HRL Laboratories, Raytheon BBM Technologies, and Virginia Tech, were involved in developing the technologies behind Embers, which was funded by a $22 million contract by IARPA. Like many other similar projects sponsored by IARPA, Embers was funded through the US governments Interior Business Center (previously known as the National Business Center) according to documents and publications related to the program. The IBC is the business management and IT service provider for the US Department of the Interior as well as other domestically-focused federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Securityindicating that IARPA-funded technologies can easily be transitioned for homeland applications. The current uses of the technology are not public knowledge and no longer under the reach of any form of public accountability. But the entity that is still running the technology is a major US government contractor. In 2017, IARPA announced that Embers had been moved into the commercial arm of Virginia Tech through its Applied Research Corporation (VTARC.) The move would now enable a range of US-based organizations to purchase the systems daily forecasts for a particular set of countries. IARPA spokesman Charles Carithers told me that Embers was now being offered as a subscription service to US clients. There is no official information available about who Virginia Techs Applied Research Corporation works with in relation to the social media surveillance tools it developed through IARPAs Embers program. But a job advert from early 2018 issued by the company for a research analyst specialising in ISRintelligence, surveillance and reconnaissancementions work to support US government customers (archived here): The ISR Research Analyst will perform thorough research and analyses on open source and customer-provided data to extract meaningful information in support of the customers mission goals. Primary responsibilities include collecting, processing, and analyzing technical data, searching and applying information from the primary scientific literature, developing clear visualizations of the data (graphs, tables, etc.), identifying emerging technologies, and composing clear and concise draft technical reports to support US government customers. The job description further stipulates the need for applicants to hold secretand ideally Top Secretsecurity clearance. In short, in 2017 the Trump administration moved IARPAs Embers social media surveillance program into the private sector under VTARC. Yet one of VTARCs customers using these surveillance tools is the Trump administration, and based on the job listing, it appears to deal with secret and top secret information. The move by VTARC illustrates that even with the best of intentions, independent scientists receiving US government funding for such research have no control or oversight over the uses of their work. According to Price, the impact of the research could still be insidious even if the social scientists involved did not hold any conflicts of interest as such. This sort of military funded social science research tends to occur in an ideological echo chamber, where groupthink predominates and dissent or concerns about the applications of this work is missing, he told me. Among the basic assumptions that social scientists outside this group would question are assumptions that civil unrest or protests are not core elements of democracy that need to be protected, [rather than] undermined by surveillanceand the oppression that follows such surveillance. VTARC did not respond to requests for details on who the corporations clients are for its social media surveillance tools originally developed under Embers. EVADING ACCOUNTABILITY The move to the private sector has helped circumvent prospects for public sector accountability, by keeping the most sensitive details of the program outside the scope of Freedom of Information Act requests. Earlier this year, the ACLU filed several FOIA requests to a range of US government agencies over concerns that domestic social media surveillance had spiked under the Trump administration. In early September, the ACLU released documents showing that state and federal law enforcement agencies were collaborating to ramp up Social Networking surveillance of domestic activists over concerns about protests against the Keystone XL pipelinethe measures were justified as anti-terrorism. Two weeks later, an image contained in a Massachusetts state police tweet accidentally revealed that a police computer monitor had bookmarked several Facebook groups for left-wing activist organizations with an anti-Trump slant. While the ACLU has been able to confirm that under Trump, government departments like the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security are accelerating domestic social media surveillance in relation to anticipated anti-Trump protest incidents, these FOIA requests have not revealed the technologies being deployed to do so. "This kind of technology-enabled surveillance of social media will likely suppress dissent and lead to biased targeting of racial and religious minorities" Though precise information on VTARCs social media surveillance capabilities is unavailable, a sense of the capability can be gleaned from two related patent applications, originally filed around 2013 and 2014 by HRL Laboratories LLC, which were successfully granted in 2018. HRL is jointly owned by General Motors and Boeing. The successful patents relate to a whole ecosystem of social media surveillance technologies, many of them still in application, developed over nearly a decade with funding from IARPA. One patent is titled Tracking and prediction of societal event trends using amplified signals extracted from social media, filed in 2013 and granted in February 2018. The invention, says the patent, relates to a system for tracking and prediction of social events using amplified signals extracted from social media. Another patent is titled Inferring the location of users in online social media platforms using social network analysis, filed in 2013 and partially granted in October 2017. The body of scientific literature related to these patents, reviewed by Motherboard, demonstrates a sophisticated technology suite capable of locating the home position of users to within 10 kilometers for millions of Twitter accounts, and predicting thousands of incidents of civil unrest from micro-blogging streams on Tumblr. A 2013 slide presentation prepared for HRL laboratories by patent inventor David A. Jurgens, although his research was based on Latin America, showcases examples of how the technology can locate people from within the United States. Both patents, which refer to a massive body of previous IARPA-Department of Interior funded patents, make clear that they were created with support from the US government which retains certain rights in the invention. The Pentagons upgraded homeland defense doctrine seems to be part of a wider effort by the Trump administration to prepare for domestic civil unrest in coming months and years. Although these technologies were developed under the Obama administration, it appears their use is being accelerated by the Trump administrationand by moving the Embers program to which these technologies relate into the private sector, this acceleration is occurring in a way that sits beyond public scrutiny or accountability. This kind of technology-enabled surveillance of social media will likely suppress dissent and lead to biased targeting of racial and religious minorities, Hugh Handeyside, a senior staff attorney at the ACLUs National Security Project, told me. We need to know much more about any proposed policies or programs and their effect on rights that the Constitution protects." MILITARIZING THE HOMELAND The intensification of US social media surveillance coincides with the Trump administrations augmentation this year of the Pentagons role in homeland security. In April 2018, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff issued an updated doctrine on homeland defense. The new doctrine underscores the extent to which the Trump administration wants to consolidate homeland defense and security under the ultimate purview of the Pentagon. The US militarys traditional function is to defend the US from foreign threats rather than interfere with domestic issues. After 9/11, homeland defense and security doctrines have been gradually pushed toward closer integration with the US military in a process first accelerated by the Bush administration. As with previous versions of the doctrine, the document states that Lead Federal Authority (LFA) for homeland security is the Department of Homeland Security, but simultaneously goes to pains to emphasize again and again how the Department of Defense (DOD) must be active at the epicentre of almost all homeland affairs. This is achieved by interlinking homeland security indelibly with homeland defensethe latter defined as a US military function. The doctrine further institutionalizes the necessity of seamless Pentagon support for homeland security operations on land and sea: DOD is a key part of the HS [homeland security] enterprise that protects the homeland through two distinct but interrelated missions, HD [homeland defense] and DSCA [defense support for civil authorities]. DOD is the federal agency with lead responsibility for HD, which may be executed by DOD alone or include support from other USG departments and agencies. While these missions are distinct, some department roles and responsibilities overlap and operations require extensive coordination between lead and supporting agencies. HD and DSCA operations may occur in parallel and require extensive integration and synchronization with HS operations. These stipulations are not entirely novel compared to previous iterations. Yet they are augmented by some subtle but unprecedented changes concerning the powers to respond to a domestic insurrection and the role of Pentagon intelligence in such a response. The whole concept of homeland defense as a military function may come as a surprise to those who supposed that this is the purpose of the Department of Homeland Security, Steven Aftergood, who directs the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy, told me about the updated doctrine. But in fact the Department of Defense does have a role not only in defense against foreign invasion but also in maintaining civil control. These roles are expanded and elaborated in the new Joint Publication. The intensifying militarization of the homeland is happening right now on the pretext of dealing with migrants. Defense Secretary James Mattis has not only supported DHSs requests for the US military to accommodate two temporary camps to detain migrants during the child separation crisis, but has also approved Trumps request to dispatch 4,000 National Guard troops to secure the US-Mexico border. US MILITARY TO SUPPORT DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE Crucially, Aftergood pointed out that some of the most notable changes in the doctrine concern ensuring that classification does not prevent homeland agencies from accessing Pentagon intelligence. The upgraded doctrine says that Pentagon resources can be mobilized for domestic surveillance or information support in the context of emergencies. Military information support forces and equipment may also be used to conduct civil authority information support activities during domestic emergencies within the boundaries of the US homeland, it reads. Accordingly, the doctrine calls for the Pentagon to engage in more proactive information sharing with civilian authorities at home, requiring a decreased reliance on classification. DODs over-reliance on the classified information system for both classified and unclassified information is a frequent impediment, the document says. In simpler terms, the doctrine insists that classification should not impede the Pentagon from sharing intelligence with domestic agencies, especially in the context of civil authority information support in homeland emergencies. According to Price, this has ominous implications given that the NSA is a DOD agency. The import is that under the new doctrine, there are greater opportunities to connect domestic intelligence gathered by the NSA with the social media data of American citizens. At least the data feeding these surveillance and predictive models comes from public social media data, Price told me. But given [Edward] Snowdens revelations of CIA and NSA widespread surveillance, and the historical abuses of military and civilian intelligence agencies it is a reasonable assumption that these tools sorting and profiling public social media will be used to select groups of Americans, engaging in lawful acts of political dissent, who will have email, SMS, and voice communications monitored by military or civilian intelligence agencies. DOMESTIC INSURRECTION: A PENTAGON PROBLEM The most pertinent section of the upgraded homeland defense doctrine for this story concerns the powers available to the President in the case of insurrection, a major rebellion which either state governors or the President himself deem to fundamentally threaten the rule of law. Once again, though not a new addition to the doctrine, vaguer language is introduced including a stipulation that the authority for a US Army response to an insurrection will constitute a HD [homeland defense]-related purpose. This is the first time that an insurrection has been described using the phrase homeland defense, implying that the response would come under Pentagon jurisdiction. Referring to the US Codes delineation of insurrection powers (Title 10, USC, Sections 251255), the doctrine affirms that: These statutory provisions allow the President, at the request of a state governor or legislature, or unilaterally in some circumstances, to employ the US Armed Forces to suppress insurrection against state authority, to enforce federal laws, or to suppress rebellion. When support is directed for such HD-related purposes in the US [emphasis added], the designated JFC [Joint Force Commander] should utilize this special application knowing the main purpose of such employment is to help restore law and order with minimal harm to the people and property and with due respect for all law-abiding citizens. This invocation of the Insurrection Act connects it directly with homeland defense powers under Pentagon commanda move which is in tension with the idea that DSCA, or Defence Support to Civil Authorities, should be led by the DHS, instead giving ultimate authority for such an operation to the DOD. I asked Aftergood whether he thought this amendment should raise alarm bells. On the one hand, he remarked that the US military traditionally had little intrinsic interest in homeland operations. I do think the changes in DOD doctrine are noteworthy. But it is also true that as a military organization, DOD is generally scrupulous about adhering to defined authority, including limitations to that authority, he said. The Department of Homeland Security is in some respects less disciplined, and more prone to improvise in troublesome ways. How far that caution applies in the context of a DOD led by a Trump appointee is an open question. But Aftergood also described the amendments as a potential danger to American democracy: The whole subject bears careful monitoring, since it potentially poses a challenge to civilian control of government and to the integrity of democratic institutions, he said. I also spoke to William C. Banks, distinguished professor and founding director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism at Syracuse Universitys College of Law, who largely agreed with Aftergoods assessment. There is cause for concern due to the ambiguities embedded in the law and the federal guidance supplied through civilian and military agencies on homeland defense, Banks warned. It is not unusual for doctrines like this to be quietly updated and they do this almost every year. But these changes are always worth monitoring due to the risk to democracy. I asked Banks, co-author of Soldiers on the Homefront: The Domestic Role of the American Military, about the doctrines description of an insurrection as a homeland defense issue. The US military role in the homeland is not new, but in this case theres a tension between DSCA [Defense Support for Civil Authorities] and homeland defense, because in one setting civilians are in charge, and in another setting the military are in charge, he said. The changes to doctrine are not dramatic, but they could make it more likely, maybe inevitable, that those jurisdictional issues might come together or clash in some way. The outcome of such a clash could end up putting Trumps Defense Secretary in charge of a response to a domestic emergency categorized by Trump as an insurrection. Taken in tandem with the US militarys sudden interest in predicting anti-Trump protests after the 2016 elections, the Pentagons upgraded homeland defense doctrine seems to be part of a wider effort by the Trump administration to prepare for domestic civil unrest in coming months and years. Indeed, according to Banks, the changes to the doctrine in April could well have occurred as an effort to adapt to the technological developments in social media surveillance under the Trump administration described earlier in this story. One reason that doctrines are updated is due to changes in technologymilitary intelligence capabilities will adapt to new technologies, the power of social media, new cybersecurity capabilities, he said. The more we learn about those, the more we can envisage new threats and new opportunities to address them. So this new research on social media surveillance is exactly the kind of thing that could prompt changes in doctrine. The Pentagons support for this kind of research is concerning and should be closely monitored. The Pentagon did not respond to Motherboards question about any possible connection between the upgraded homeland defense doctrine and the Pentagons new research on social media surveillance. The problem is that however seemingly minor, shifts in homeland defense doctrine increasingly create possibilities for military and civilian intelligence agencies to engage in political surveillance and harassment, said Price. With an unstable president who frequently is unable to differentiate between political and legal threats to him and threats to the nation, we must worry about what President Trump may consider an insurrection worth of massive military surveillance. This article was originally published by " Motherboard " - Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here. ==See Also== US intel budget soars under Trump: US spending on intelligence has soared under President Donald Trump, figures released on Tuesday showed Note To ICH Community We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. Thank you for your support. Peace and joy Nigerians have taken to social media to react to the latest video of Kano state governor, Abdullahi Ganduje receiving kickback from some contractors. Ganduje, first drew a hive of attention to himself after two video of him, receiving bribe from some contractors were published by Nigerian Daily editor, Jaafar Jaafar. In the recent video, Ganduje is seen discussing with someone about awarded contracts in the state. Transcription of the video revealed the value of the Deputy Governors office as N35million, a certain Dandinshe road valued at N200million (although the speaker said N220 million), and Rochas Road at N69 million. See reactions from Nigerians below Ganduje should resign Kano house of Assembly should impeach Ganduje if he refuse to resign APC should drop Ganduje as governorship candidate Surmary of my opinion Emmanuel Nwachukwu (@emma_dele) October 31, 2018 Festus Keyamo who loves to talk about INTEGRITY and CHARACTER is yet to see Ganduje's dollar video 1, 2 or 3. He paints one party as a party of saints and the other as a party of crooks. Paints one candidate as God and the other a Devil. Nigerians are not fools. Dr. Dipo Awojide (@OgbeniDipo) October 31, 2018 New Ganduje video out everywhere. Not on iTunes. The onus is on the Kano State Assembly to act on the matter while the EFCC get on with investigating the allegations pending the inevitable end of his immunity from prosecution. A further dent on the anti-corruption posturing. JJ. Omojuwa (@Omojuwa) October 31, 2018 It is already too late for @MBuhari to make a statement on Gov Ganduje. This is the worst and most high profile example of how compromised the anti corruption agenda has become. Irrespective of what was going on there, the mere perception is enough to lean on him Colin NOT Collins (@ColinUdoh) October 31, 2018 Buhari welcomed Ganduje to Aso Rock even after 2 videos. Shook hands with him smiling and never said a word about corruption. There's a 3rd video now but we haven't heard a word from him yet. If you didn't believe we were fighting corruption before, well there's your proof Dolapo Oni (@Dolarpo) October 31, 2018 We all know that If Buhari really wants Ganduje gone, he'd be gone. But let's act as if we are fighting corruption. Ayobami (@dondekojo) October 31, 2018 https://twitter.com/kalgoas/status/1057550560222687233?s=19 The very very very shameful video of #Ganduje again. I used to respect him and believed that he has a genuine desire for the people. Unfortunately, the evidence against him is so great that the only option left is taking the path of honor and respectfully resign. I feel betrayed. Adamu Garba II (@adamugarba) October 31, 2018 How is Ganduje still the Governor of Kano state after video after video keeps coming out of him collecting bribe. Nigeria needs collective therapy. the Morris Monye factor (@Morris_Monye) October 31, 2018 Senator Ademola Adeleke, who contested the Osun state governorship election in 2019 has been arraigned before the Federal High Court, Abuja for alleged involvement in examination malpractices. The senator representing Osun West along with four were arraigned before the Court by the name of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) in a four-count charge of impersonation, registering as students of Ojo-Aro Community Grammar School, Ojo-Aro Osun State to enable them sit for the National Examination Council (NECO) examination of June/July 2017. Other defendants, in the charge marked: FHC/ABJ/CR/156/2018, are: Sikiru Adeleke, Alhaji Aregbesola Mufutau (Principal of the school), Gbadamosi Thomas Ojo (school Registrar) and Dare Samuel Olutope (teacher). Adeleke and the four other defendants pleaded not guilty when the charge against them was read to them. His lawyers prayed the court to grant them bail pending trial. Justice Inyam Ekwo granted Adeleke bail on self recognition, while the other defendants were allowed on bail at N2million and a surety each, who must be responsible person, and owns a landed property within the courts jurisdiction. Former presidential aide, Reno Omokri has accused the Governor of Kaduna state, Nasir el-Rufai of being irresponsible. Omokri, who has never shied away from an opportunity to criticise the All Progressives Congress and its members, made took a swipe at el -Rufai for posting photos via his surrogate, even though nearly a hundred persons were kills in the state recently. In a tweet on Wednesday, Omokri blasted el-Rufai for not focussing on bringing lasting peace to the trouble state, buy busying himself with propaganda. He wrote: Close to a hundred people killed in Kaduna in recent days, and rather than focus on bringing peace to that troubled state, this irresponsible fellow called el Rufai, who is the Governor state Kaduna, is releasing propaganda photos via surrogates. I pity Kaduna and her people. See photo below Vanguard CALABAR LEADERSHIP of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, in Cross River State, yesterday, called on workers to embark on a protest across the state to demand the implementation of the N30,000 minimum wage for workers. The Nation THE Federal Government has filed charges against Senators Hope Uzodinma and Stella Oduah, accusing them of failing to declare their assets.The charges, of two counts each, were filed before the Federal High Court, Abuja by the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property (SPIP) in the name of the Federal Government.It was learnt yesterday that the one with Oduah as defendant has been assigned to Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu. ThisDay Trial begins Dec.17 By Alex Enumah in Abuja Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the recent Osun State governorship election, Senator Ademola Adeleke, was arraigned on Wednesday and granted bail on personal recognizance by the Abuja division of the Federal High Court. Senator Adeleke, his brother, Sikiru Adeleke, and three others were arraigned on a Guardian The Sun The United Nations has pledged to support the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct a free, fair and credible 2019 general elections. Special Representative of the UN Seccretary General, Mohammed Ibn Chambas, who led the delegation, reminded the commission that the rest of the world are looking forward towards a peaceful Daily Times Charges Uzondinma APC, Oduah PDP with non- declaration of assets The anti-graft war has landed in the Senate as the Federal Government has filed criminal Daily Trust A former governor of Kano State, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, said yesterday that President Muhammadu Buhari will win the majority votes in the North but will not garner as much votes as he did in 2015. Shekarau said his prediction was premised on the strength of the opposition PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar who also hails from Leadership President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday felicitated with the Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Babatunde Akiolu, on his 75th birthday, saying the government remains proud of his contributions to Nigerias development. According to a statement by his media aide, Garba Shehu, In a telephone conversation, President Buhari commended the royal fathers courage and unwavering commitment to the unity Tribune The governors of the 36 states of Nigeria have agreed to pay N22,500 as the new minimum wage to workers. The governors, under the auspices of Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF)came up with the decision in The Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) has expressed concern over escalating public restiveness under the President Muhammadu Buhari led administration. The opposition party said the situation has become worse over time because of the highhandedness of some officials of this administration and the fact that theres no respect for the rule of law. In a statement by the PDP on Tuesday, it said it was frightening that state apparatus were being unleashed on innocent citizens with maximum force. See full statement below We are concerned over the mounting tension, escalating public restiveness, violence and rising cases of extra-judicial killings in our country, under the President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) administration. This frightening situation in the country is precipitated by series of divisive and undemocratic actions by the Buhari administration coupled with its official high-handedness, blatant refusal to obey court orders and open disregard to constitutionally guaranteed rights of citizens. We reject in totality the resort to maximum unleashing of state apparatus of power against citizens at the slightest provocation, resulting in bloodletting and extra-judicial killings of compatriots, preponderance of which are never investigated despite the usual lip service. The second day of the virtual 21st annual Thomas L. Hill Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity, otherwise known as ISCORE, pro The town hall meeting was held in the Campanile Room in the Memorial Union Tuesday where students were able to talk to senior administrator before the meeting as well as ask them questions. The final quarter of 2021 is on its way and theres so much positivity about the rapid growth of the... Spacetys staff pose with their satellites (Photo/Chinanews.com) Chinese private satellite companies are expanding their market share by tapping potential in multiple areas, The Beijing News reported on Oct. 30. Spacety, a private satellite company, which positions itself as a satellite mini-lab that helps people conquer space, said it plans to launch more than 10 small satellites into space this year. The company successfully sent its four self-developed satellites into space using a Long March 2C rocket on Oct. 29, its second mission this year. Spacetys revenue is expected to reach 60 million yuan this year, growing three-fold since last year, said its CEO, Yang Feng, adding that his company will expand its business beyond remote sensing and communication as the next step. Commsat, a Beijing-based private satellite company, will launch its Ladybeetle satellites into space by the end of this year, with the aim of authenticating the Internet of Things system. The private companies said they could cultivate their advantages in multiple areas such as remote sensing, communication, and scientific research. Theyve also prepared differentiated marketing strategies to avoid competition with state-owned satellite companies. Microsatellites have become a new business area for private companies, driven by military-civilian integration, and the fact that nowadays it takes much less money to produce and launch a satellite. Yang said the company is cooperating with state-owned satellite companies to finish their orders, mainly in the manufacturing of scientific research satellites. The satellite companies are teaming up with online marketplaces on the latters consumer services. For instance, Alibaba and Suning will use satellites to communicate with their customers on the eve of the Double 11 shopping spree. (Photo/We Media account (ID: onelight01))) An artist and a musician from China have spent five years training deaf-mute children to sing and have finally succeeded, a We Media account (ID: onelight01) reported on Oct. 26, 2018.. On the evening of August 4, 2018, a choir made up of 14 deaf-mute Chinese children, ranging in age from 9 to 16, wowed their audience at the Beijing Concert Hall with a 12-minute performance. The performance comprised of three parts, each with a different theme - silence, fun and games, and hope. The children made beautiful sounds pitched to varying levels in harmony with the music, and some even rapped during the second section, which encouraged the audience to clap and nod their heads in time with the music. The audience were moved by the performance, applauding loudly and giving the performers a thumbs-up. Behind this heart-touching performance, there is also a heart-warming story. (Photo/We Media account (ID: onelight01))) Five years ago, co-founders of the group, Li Bo and Zhang Yong, happened to hear a noise while walking through Chinas capital Beijing. After tracking the noise down, the men were shocked to find that it came from a deaf-mute person. The two men then decided to search for such sounds in deaf-mute schools, put them to music, and bring it to people that had never heard it before. They arrived at a school specially designed for deaf-mute children in Lingyun county, Baise city of south Chinas Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and asked every student if they could make an ah sound. Everyone used sign language to say no. The two men were disheartened, but just as they were about to leave, a 4-year-old girl reignited their confidence by making the sound perfectly. They quickly built a group, with the little girl, Yang Weiwei, as their youngest member. As the first of its kind, the two men had to figure out a way to teach the children how to make the right sounds at the right pitch. After painstaking efforts and repeated practice, trying everything from using ice cream sticks to tonometers, they trained the children to make different sounds, understand pitch levels, and finally how to harmonize. Yang Weiwei, the youngest member (Photo/We Media account (ID: onelight01))) The performance in Beijing Concert Hall brought the choir into the limelight, but Li Bo and Zhang Yong have since refused invitations for commercial performances, as they felt the students should continue to spend time on their studies. The 14 children, on their return home from Beijing, got an entirely different reaction from those around them. The once special children have gradually become more confident and included. Li Bo, an artist in Beijing, became famous in his youth. His paintings were allegedly sold for a million RMB each. He was praised as the best foreign artist by French art center Espace Pierre Cardin. (Photo/We Media account (ID: onelight01))) Zhang Yong was a rock musician from Xiamen, east Chinas Fujian province, with his live show a favorite among young people. Whats most important is not the performance on stage, but that these children can live a better life and win more respect when they return home, said the two men. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form It was the year 1887 when Georges Eberhard opened his first workshop in La Chaux-de-Fonds, which was already, just as it is today, the heart of the Swiss watchmaking industry. It has been a long time since, but the generations of entrepreneurs who have taken up leadership of Eberhard & Co. have remained faithful to the example of Georges, allowing the name Eberhard to grow internationally, thanks to a series of milestones in watchmaking. Barbara Monti Eberhard & Co Barbara Monti, the companys current CEO, this year wanted to achieve one of the main goals that she had set herself when she took over the reins of Eberhard: to return the company to the historic premises built by its founder, the Maison de l'Aigle. 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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. If you visit the websites of some of the major watch brands as a customer, you might be surprised to find that warranty information is at best well hidden and at worst non-existent. Some of the biggest brands in the industry offer helpful advice on how to look after your watch, yet do not mention what their own guarantee periods are. Notable exceptions are Rolex, which clearly mentions the fact that is has offered a five-year guarantee on all watches sold after July 2015. Smaller brands like Ulysse Nardin and Montandon & Co also offer five-year warranties. The current record is held by Panerai, which offered a 50-year guarantee for the Luminor 1950 Carbotech model launched two years ago at the SIHH. The benchmark has just doubled, however, as Faberge has announced a new 10-year guarantee. This headline figure is impressive in itself, but the way that Faberge is implementing this guarantee is even more interesting. The brand is basically offering a five-year warranty for all its timepieces. But it also offers a free service after five years. Any watch owner who takes advantage of this free service automatically has their warranty extended for an additional five years. This solves one of the major headaches in customer service: both reminding the owners that they need to service their watch and at the same time giving them a double incentive to do so. As an owner of several watches, I know how easy it can be to just let them run as long as they are working, knowing all too well that this could lead to a much higher invoice for repairs further down the line. I know that I of all people should know better, but with so much paperwork, recurring invoices and maintenance related to more important things like my house and car, the poor watches can easily be forgotten. Having the carrot of a free service and an extra five years on the warranty dangled in front of me would probably be enough to get me to service my watch. Faberge Visionnaire DTZ Faberge Since I recently had the opportunity to try out the new Faberge Visionnaire DTZ in yellow gold for the weekend, I asked the brands watchmakers about this extended warranty when I dropped the watch back at their workshops in Meyrin, near Geneva. The people best placed to talk about servicing stressed the huge advances that have been made with synthetic lubricants, which they believe could easily last for the ten years. They caution, however, that these lubricants are coating parts that are moving hundreds of thousands of times a day on metal components that are in contact with each other. How often, and where, you wear your watch can also have an effect on the ageing of lubricants. The recommended service interval of five years therefore seems a good compromise. The watchmakers were also keen to stress the difference between servicing and repair. The guarantee covers servicing work required under normal wear and tear. If you drop your watch, break it or mistreat it in any other way, these experienced watchmakers can usually tell quite easily. In this case you will still be charged. Let me be clear from the outset: you wont find any skulls in this article. Its about Halloween, the contraction of Hallows Evening. Although it is a celebration that, in religious terms, is dedicated to remembering the dead, its origins date back earlier to the harvest festivals. Because some cultures encouraged abstinence from meat at this time of year, a fruit and a vegetable have come to be associated with the day. For the Anglo Saxons, toffee apples or candy apples have long been associated with Halloween, but it is the pumpkin that is by far the most readily associated with food around Halloween. We see them carved out and illuminated outside peoples houses, baked into pies and cakes and even incorporated into pasta by the Italians. By natural extension, therefore, my selection of Halloween watches has been chosen to match the bright orange colour of the pumpkin. I have been strict with my choice, avoiding watches that just have an orange strap in favour of those which give the colour orange a dominance on the dial or for the overall look of the watch. The resulting selection is surprising eclectic, covering everything from sporty smartwatches to exuberant luxury ladies watches. Alpina AlpinerX Alpina took the unusual step of launching its outdoor smartwatch on Kickstarter earlier this year. Whilst there is a plethora of watches launched on such crowdfunding platforms, Alpina was the first mainstream brand to use the platform to gauge interest in a product before launching it. More recently, this outdoor smartwatch, which includes features such as an altimeter, compass and UV index display in addition to the more usual smartwatch features, is perfect for the adventurer. It may still be too early to test it out on the ski slopes but the orange version is perfect for navigating your way around the trick or treat route. You can order it now from the Alpina website for 895 Swiss francs. AlpinerX Alpina Order it now? Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, the Royal Oak Offshore offers something for everyone, as this feminine watch proves. It combines a number of features that are unusual for a ladies watch, such as stainless steel, diamonds and a chronograph. Its orange tinted dial and orange rubber strap make this model the perfect choice for Halloween among the 26 new models that Audemars Piguet presented this year to celebrate the 25th anniversary. Price: 29,500 Swiss francs. The colourful Royal Oak Offshore models are also available as a divers watch, divers chronograph and even as a bright orange chronograph tourbillon. Royal Oak Offshore Selwinding Chronograph Audemars Piguet de Grisogono Tondo by Night SO2 You are spoilt for choice for colourful ladies watches with de Grisogono, with the Allegra and Cascata both available in orange. But the most logical choice for Halloween is the unique Tondo by Night. Its composite fiberglass case is actually photoluminescent, which means it glows in the dark and is sure to add an extra spooky touch to your Halloween costume. The inverse oscillating weight dial is visible on the dial side, as are orange hands with photoluminescent material. The matching galuchat strap in orange completes the Halloween look to perfection. Price: 11,600 Swiss francs. Tondo By Night de Grisogono Hublot Spirit of Big Bang Moonphase King Gold Hublot has succeeded in adding a variety of colours to its Big Bang collection and has even pioneered in the production of coloured ceramic and sapphire cases. For Halloween, however, I have chosen an 18-carat rose gold Spirit of Big Bang model, since the warm tones of the King Gold go so well with the orange quartz dial. A bezel set with 48 orange sapphires completes the Halloween effect for this complicated watch which offers moonphase indication and a big date. Price: 40,300 Swiss francs. Spirit of Big Bang Moonphase King Gold Hublot Patek Philippe Aquanaut Despite being a thoroughly traditional brand, Patek Philippe likes to surprise us now and again. This years unexpected watch was the Aquanaut chronograph with its discreet orange accents on the dial (the chronograph hands and seconds markings) and the not-so-discreet orange rubber strap. This is the statement watch for luxury Halloween parties and, once finished, you can switch back to a black rubber strap for the perfect everyday sporty timepiece. Price: 38,600 Swiss francs. Evaluation of photos with AI: the node size reflects the frequency of certain tags, the colors stand for different thematic clusters (see detailed caption at the end of the text). (Graphics: Heera Lee, KIT) Every day, users upload millions of photos on platforms, such as Flickr, Instagram or Facebook. A study of researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) now shows that these photos can be used to assess the social importance of certain landscapes. For this purpose, they developed a new image analysis method based on artificial intelligence. The results might be of particular importance for landscape management and presentation. The results are published in the journal Ecological Indicators (doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.08035) Functioning ecosystems are of crucial importance to humans: they supply major resources, such as food, water or fuel. But they also play a cultural role as resorts, holiday destinations or esthetic photo motifs. The many photos published by people on online platforms reveal that landscapes have an enormous cultural importance, says Dr. Heera Lee of KITs Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. In her opinion, this has to be considered in sustainable development and landscape planning. Consequently, Lee and her team have developed a method for landscape planners to quickly and reliably use photos in social media to draw conclusions with respect to the socio-cultural importance of landscapes. Her study Mapping cultural ecosystem services 2.0 Potential and shortcomings from unlabeled crowd-sourced images covers the region of the Mulde basin in Saxony as an example. Here, the Ore Mountains attract people, who want to go hiking, mountain biking or do winter sports, Lee says. The amount of photos posted by visitors on different platforms is accordingly high. For her study, Lee and her team collected photos that were posted on Flickr from January 01, 2005 to December 31, 2016. During this period, 725 different persons uploaded about 13,000 photos of the region on the online platform. The evaluation of the photos reflects in high detail how tourists and the local population use the area of the Mulde basin for leisure activities or for enjoying nature. Now, landscape planners can identify the hotspots and better understand the socio-cultural importance of certain areas. On this basis, they can limit access to endangered areas or create offers and facilities to support their activities. Image Evaluation with the Help of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence To obtain reliable and relevant statements with respect to the socio-cultural use of landscapes, Lee and her team developed a new method that also considers the contents of the photo: We did not only want to know where and when the photos were taken but mainly what was photographed. This was the only way to identify cultural hotspots in the region studied. The researchers obtained information on the photos from the tags given by the users at the time of publication. They show where a photo was taken and what can be seen on it. However, the researchers had to cope with two challenges: the quality of the tags given by the users and the duration of evaluation. Although Flickr suggests tags for photos and videos, they are not used by all users. As 2500 of these photos studied had no tags at all and 590 had only one single tag, the team of researchers decided to use automatic tags from an image recognition algorithm based on deep convolutional neural networks through a cloud computing platform, Clarifai. This algorithm allocated 20 tags to each photo. In total, 2317 different tags were applied to about 13,000 photos. We then assumed that similar photos contained similar tags. If the similar tags co-occurred on multiple photos, we considered this as an indicator of the photos belonging together, Lee says. With the help of social network analyses, the researchers divided the tags into nine thematic clusters and assigned the photos to one or several of these clusters. Close-up views of flowers or butterflies were assigned to the cluster Existence, as they showed objects existing in the areas studied. Lee and her team then checked the accuracy of the method by means of a manual evaluation: about 20% of tags had been assigned wrongly. The researchers, however, expect that reliability of assignment will be improved significantly by the further development of artificial intelligence. In addition, Lee and her team compared the results with empirical studies of the cultural use of agricultural areas with similar results. The method developed also accelerates evaluation. Allocation of the tags to the nearly 13,000 photos took about three hours. For comparison: manually, a person is able to tag about 140 photos per hour. With this method, we were able to reliably and quickly classify and allocate photos from social media, Lee says. The method can also be transferred to other regions of which photos have been published on the Internet. The European Union and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany funded Heera Lees research with two projects, namely OPERAs, and CONNECT of BiodivERsA 2011, respectively. Original Publication Heera Lee, Bumsuk Seo, Thomas Koellner, Sven Lautenbach: Mapping cultural ecosystem services 2.0 Potential and shortcomings from unlabeled crowd sourced images; in: Ecological Indicators Accessible at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.08.035 Detailed figure caption: with the help of artificial intelligence, climate researchers of KIT evaluated photos on the Flickr online platform and drew conclusions with respect to the cultural use of the area of the Mulde river system in Saxony. The tag network shows the tags allocated to the photos by an image recognition algorithm. The size of the node reflects the frequency of the tags, the colors represent different thematic clusters. (Graphics: Heera Lee, KIT) More about the KIT Climate and Environment Center: http://www.klima-umwelt.kit.edu/english Further materials: Publication in Ecological Indicators: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.08.035 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. Advertisement Leading Swedish iGaming software developer NetEnt has confirmed their entry into the regulated Canadian iGaming marketplace, officially launching its full portfolio of iGaming slots and table games to Canada-based players. Their full suite of iGaming titles have already gone live with the provincial lotto operator, British Columbian Lottery Corporation (BCLC), as part of the firm's plans to expand into the North American iGaming scene. Having cemented itself as a household name in the European iGaming market, this move is NetEnt's first foray into the regulated industry in Canada, which has experienced rising gaming revenues in recent years. According to Therese Hillman, Group CEO of NetEnt, the developer's plan to enter more regulated iGaming markets is "a vital part of [NetEnt's] strategy going forward, especially within the WLA (World Lottery Association) sector". 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The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation wish to use a private operator to control the province's online and offline casinos during the next two decades; a move which could cost the province up to $72 million in annual revenue, according to the New Democratic Party's primary finance critic, John Vanthof. There have been arguments elsewhere in the world that iGaming is pinching revenue from land-based operations, but Vanthof's argument is based more on the totalitarian approach of having a sole operator in complete control of Ontario's iGaming scene. Image: Pixabay.com It's certainly an exciting time for Canada-based iGamers, with NetEnt's brand-new state-of-the-art video slots such as Jumanji, Double Stacks and Gonzo's Quest playing more like console games than a traditional slot machine. NetEnt announced a double-whammy of launches into regulated iGaming markets, with the regulated Lithuanian market also benefitting from access to NetEnt's roster of titles. Lithuania's biggest land-based betting firm, TOPsport has secured a deal to become NetEnt's inaugural customer in the eastern European nation. With 31 high street stores across Lithuania and its own online platform, it's a great opportunity for NetEnt to spread its wings further into regulated EU markets. Since the announcement of NetEnt's move into Canada and Lithuania, shares in NetEnt AB (listed as STO:NET-B) were up by more than 1% on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. It is currently trading at around 38.50 SEK. There's no doubt that NetEnt is now firmly regarded as one of the iGaming industry's software pioneers. Having been established since 1996, before the explosion of the iGaming scene, the company's founders have always had one foot in the casino scene. Bill Lindwall co-founded Restaurang Rouletter in Sweden back in 1963 and it was Lindwall's son, Pontus, who launched NetEnt with the aim of underpinning the first iGaming platforms launched at the turn of the millennium. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi participated in the afternoon session of the Africa investment summit in Berlin in the presence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a number of African leaders. The session discussed turning African countries into attractive markets for investment and the guarantees needed to boost the confidence of investors in the African investment environment, a move that will contribute to establishing various development projects. Addressing the session, the German chancellor asserted her keenness on seeing stability in Africa and supporting its development march. Merkel said that she is keen to offer help to several African countries that suffer from poverty and water scarcity. The G20 Africa Partnership initiative aims to remove obstacles facing investors and take measures to overcome bureaucracy, Merkel said. The German chancellor expressed appreciation of the efforts exerted by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to co-finance the G20 Africa Partnership initiative. On that score, she voiced hope that Japan, which will chair the G20 in 2019, will continue giving attention to this initiative. Merkel also asserted her countrys keenness to provide all forms of support to African countries in the fields of education, training and modern development policy. She added that Berlin is also keen to cooperate with local civil society organisations, which she said have a role in achieving sustainable development. Germany also supports small and medium enterprises, she said. The German chancellor also commended the role played by China in cooperating with African states. Search Keywords: Short link: Actor Ma Dong-seok stars in the upcoming thriller "The Villagers." / Courtesy of Little Big Pictures By Park Jin-hai Ma Dong-seok, a Korean-American actor with bulging muscles best known for his appearance in "Train to Busan," returns to the big screen with thriller "The Villagers." The 47-year-old action star, who is often compared to Dwayne Johnson for their similarity in masculine appearance, will take the role of a physical education teacher named Yeok Gi-cheol who comes to a high school in the countryside. When a schoolgirl disappears, and no one in the small village takes issue with it, he tracks down all leads to find the truth behind her disappearance. Ma, a late bloomer who only recently shot to stardom since his 2005 debut, has known about the film's director Im Jin-sun and his scenario for the past five or so years. "Many of my recent films are what I've been involved in from the pre-planning. For The Villagers, I've developed many ideas with its director when I was an unknown actor," the actor said during a press conference at a local theater in Seoul, Monday. "Although it is a small budget film, I'm confident I've done my best under the given circumstances." Rising star Kim Sae-ron plays a schoolmate who questions her friend's sudden disappearance, while actor Lee Sang-yeob takes on the role of a popular yet mysterious art teacher. Im calls his film a "humanistic" thriller. "The plot looks like something predictable. But, in the format of a strong thriller, I have strived hard to make it a good drama, too," he said. "Looking at many cases and incidents that people give just blind eyes to instead of trying to communicate with each other, I thought no grown-up should behave like that. I wanted to tell the message through my characters and their stories naturally." Like Ma's recent films like "Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days" and "Champion," the actor in his new film will flex his muscles in powerful action scenes. Regarding concerns that Ma has been portraying the same action star image, he said he's heard such opinions for over a decade. "I've heard I'm just portraying the same muscular image since 10 years ago. But still I think if there is a director or producer who wants Ma Dong-seok-brand action characters, I should do my best to meet their needs," he said. "If you ask if I want to attempt a totally different character, my answer is yes. Currently, I'm preparing to take on a character that I've never done before." "The Villagers" will hit local theaters on Nov. 7. Svetlana Zakharova, left, and Denis Rodkin pose for a photo during a press conference for ballet "La Bayadere" at Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, Monday. Courtesy of Sejong Center for the Performing Arts By Kwon Mee-yoo Top Russian ballet dancer Svetlana Zakharova and Bolshoi Ballet principal dancer Denis Rodkin will dance the tragic love story of temple dancer Nikiya and Solor in "La Bayadere" with the Universal Ballet Company (UBC) in Seoul on Nov. 1 and 4. Korea's first-ever private ballet company, which celebrated its 34th anniversary this year, will stage Marius Petipa's "La Bayadere" at the Grand Theater of Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in central Seoul from Nov. 1 to 4. Julia Moon, president and director of UBC, said the company and Sejong Center have a long relationship with "La Bayadere" since UBC introduced the large-scale piece to Korea in 1999. "This year marks the 40th anniversary of Sejong Center as well as the 200th anniversary of Petipa's birth. We are excited to present one of the largest classical ballet repertoires here," Moon said at a press conference Monday. This is the second time for Zakharova to visit Korea, after Bolshoi Ballet's "Giselle." The dancer said she rehearsed with the UBC the day after arriving in Korea. "Though I am still jetlagged, the Korean ballet company was almost equivalent to European dance companies. I think ballet is the same across the globe with the same techniques and expressions and I am excited for this new adventure with the UBC," Zakharova said. Zakharova said she has to portray three different sides of Nikiya on stage. "In the first act, she is a temple dancer praying to the gods. Then I have to portray a woman betrayed by her lover. In the third act, I dance in classical ballet blanc style. It is interesting in terms of acting, but requires many different techniques, which could be difficult for a dancer," she said. Rodkin, 27, won the Benois de la Danse for his role of Solor in "La Bayadere" last year and expectations are high for his performance here. Zakharova and Rodkin have been dancing together for a few years after Zakharova invited young Rodkin as her partner for "Carmen Suite" in 2014. "He is a dancer of potential and learns quickly," Zakharova said of her partner. Along with Zakharova and Rodkin, UBC's principal dancers Kang Mi-sun, Hong Hyang-gee and newcomer Kim Yu-jin will dance Nikiya, while Konstantin Novoselov, Rhee Hyon-jun, Lee Dong-tak take on Solor. Lim Sun-u, Korea's first Billy Elliot, will perform the Golden Idol on Nov. 3. Korea Institute of Finance President Sohn Sang-ho speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at the institute's head office in Seoul, Oct. 18. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul KIF chief calls for gov't to speed up structural reform By Jhoo Dong-chan An intense debate is taking place in the financial industry over how to overcome Korea's saturated financial market and diversify financial firms' revenue sources amid the economic downturn. There are many issues to be addressed to ensure successful globalization of Korean financial firms but one of the top priorities should be deregulation, according to Korea Institute of Finance President Sohn Sang-ho. He believes the financial regulator should ease rules on overseas assets and operations in order to help Korean players which have started making inroads into Southeast Asian countries. Shinhan Bank, banking unit of Shinhan Financial Group, established its local corporate body in Vietnam in 2009, and acquired the retail sector of Australia-based banking firm ANZ Vietnam last April. Shinhan Vietnam Bank is now the largest foreign bank there with assets worth a combined total of $3.3 billion. It also has about 900,000 customers. Korea's largest lender KB Kookmin Bank also acquired a 22 percent stake in Indonesia's Bank Bukopin in July to strengthen its foothold in Southeast Asia. Specializing in retail banking, Bank Bukopin is Indonesia's 14th-largest commercial lender in terms of capital with 322 branches across the country. With the acquisition, KB Kookmin Bank became the Indonesian bank's second-largest shareholder with the shares valued at about $100 million. Not only the nation's commercial lenders but also other financial firms such as brokerages, asset management and card companies are also tapping into the region in a bid to diversify their revenue sources. "It is very encouraging that Korean companies have produced tangible results in Southeast Asia, but it didn't come cheap," Sohn said during an interview with The Korea Times on the occasion of the daily's 68th anniversary that falls on Nov. 1. "In order to see further achievements, the government and financial regulator need to help supporting their efforts." Claiming M&As are a viable option for commercial banks to land overseas markets, Sohn also expressed his high expectations for the government's New Southern Policy. "The Moon Jae-in administration should develop human networks through its New Southern Policy to support Korean lenders' efforts to acquire local banks in the region while easing its regulations on their overseas assets and businesses. It will create a great deal of synergy with the government's support," Sohn said. He added it would be better for commercial banks to choose and concentrate on one target market rather than entering too many countries. "Japanese and Chinese firms are already there. Korean lenders have limited resources," Sohn said. "Japanese and Chinese banks are larger than Korean banks in size. It's not recommendable splitting their resources in multiple countries." Monetary policy The Bank of Korea (BOK) kept its policy rate untouched for 11 straight months in October on the nation's ever-worsening economic indices. The Monetary Policy Board of the central bank has frozen the current key rate at 1.5 percent for the 11th straight month. The gap between the U.S. and Korea's policy rate has remained at 0.75 percentage points by the decision, and lawmakers of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea harshly criticized the BOK's tardy approach on the key rate, claiming the central bank's "wait-and-see" approach induced too much liquidity creating a housing bubble in the metropolitan area. However, Sohn rebutted the ruling party lawmakers' claims. "Korea can withstand up to a 1 percentage point gap in the key rate considering the swap spread still stands positive," he said. "The ongoing trade dispute between the U.S. and China is amplifying uncertainties in the global economy. Monetary crisis in emerging economies is another factor. I believe the volatility is too exaggerated now." Sohn was open to possibilities that the BOK could raise the rate before the gap between the two countries reaches 1 percentage point. "In order to minimize such volatility, the central bank could preemptively raise the rate before the gap reaches 1 percentage point," he said. Income-led growth strategy According to the Korea Employment Information Service, 635,004 people received unemployment benefits in the second quarter this year, up 60,505, or 10.5 percent, from 574,499 during the same period last year. The figure is the highest since the employment agency began compiling related data in 2010. Opposition lawmakers and conservative economists blame the Moon administration's economic policies for having made things worse in the labor market as tightened regulations on large business groups and minimum wage hikes have discouraged employers from hiring workers. However, Sohn attributed the current slump to the nation's structural problems rather than the government's policy direction. "The government introduced a number of economic policies to improve its structural problems. They are long-term plans. It takes time," Sohn said. "Of course, there are some unfavorable side effects, including a sluggish job market, in the government's efforts at the moment. It's always darkest before the dawn. What's necessary now is to improve the nation's structural problems." Of the nation's numerous structural problems, Sohn named the aging population and low birthrate as the top problems. "Aging and the low birthrate are discouraging related industries and then shrinking domestic demand. Firms naturally reduce their investments in facilities while downsizing workforces," he said. "The government should accommodate a policy to encourage births. They subsidize those who give birth to multiple children, but it isn't enough. In order for young people to get married and bear many children, society should first provide them a good environment _ equal employment, childcare support, quality public education and other safety measures." Sohn also stressed the necessity of transforming the nation's manufacture-centered structure into a value-added industry structure accommodating the upcoming Fourth Industrial Revolution. "China is already here. The country will replace most of Korea's manufacturing sectors," he said. "Korea has shown strength in hardware industries such as semiconductors and other manufacturing sectors. It is time to concentrate on software such as artificial intelligence and algorithms controlling self-driving cars. If it is not, the country will fall behind in competition against not only China but also other emerging economies in the future." By Jhoo Dong-chan The nation's pet insurance market is growing fast as a more insurers introduce new products to meet demand from an increasing number of pet owners. According to Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance, Wednesday, 1,600 Meritz Petpermint Puppy & Dog insurance policies were sold in 10 days after the insurer introduced the product Oct. 15. The policy is similar to actual insurance where a policyholder renews the contract every three years. "There have been other insurance products in the market before where a policyholder pays one year's worth of premiums at once. But not many people bought the product because of the cost and limited coverage," said a company official. "Like actual insurance, a Meritz Petpermint Puppy & Dog insurance policyholder pays a premium every month, and the contract is renewed every three years. It's the nation's first long-term pet insurance." The product is also open to unregistered dogs with about a 40,000 won ($35.12) monthly premium. The insurer said 77 percent of policyholders are owners of unregistered dogs. "Pets are required to be registered with the local government under the Animal Protection Law, but only 33.5 percent of pets were registered as of the end of 2017," the official said. "The Meritz Petpermint Puppy & Dog insurance accommodates such customers with unregistered dogs to help relieve their financial burden when their pet is sick." It generally costs up to 2 million won for knee surgery, 1.3 million won for molar teeth treatment and 800,000 won for an MRI. Prices also vary depending on the animal hospital. Following Meritz's lead, other insurers, including KB, DB and Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance are set to introduce similar insurance policies next month. Unlike the Meritz Petpermint Puppy & Dog insurance, however, they said they will accommodate registered dogs only. "There is a possibility that a policyholder buys the insurance for a dog and later bills for multiple dogs," a DB Insurance official was quoted as saying. They also pointed out allowing unregistered dogs to be insured runs counter to the government's stance to fine pet owners who do not register their dogs. "It's like selling an insurance policy to people without a resident registration number," Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance told Yonhap press agency. Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance rebutted their claims by saying the insurance management system will prevent such moral laxity. "Policyholders are required to submit a medical chart when they bill for their dogs' treatment," the official said. Shinhan Bank CEO Wi Sung-ho, left, shows a strategic partnership agreement for digital business in Indonesia with Akulaku Chairman William Li during a signing ceremony at the lender's headquarters in Seoul, Tuesday. The Korean lender seeks to enhance digital banking. Akulaku is Indonesia's largest mobile financial services provider. / Courtesy of Shinhan Bank Hana Financial Group CEO Kim Jung-tai, center, raises his fist with KEB Hana Bank CEO Ham Young-joo, sixth from left, and senior executives from the group and its affiliates, at a ceremony to declare "digital transformation" at the group's data center in Cheongna International City in Incheon, Tuesday. Courtesy of Hana Financial Group The Incheon International Single Media Festival (IISF) will be held on Saturday and Sunday at Songdo Convensia near the port city of Incheon. About 20,000 people, including social media influencers and YouTube creators, will participate in the event. Courtesy of Incheon Business Information Technopark. Local businesses to meet global social media influencers at IISF By Kang Aa-young Digital content creators from 30 countries and industry experts in beauty, food and beverages will gather in the Songdo Convensia exhibition hall near the port city of Incheon this weekend. From Saturday, the two-day Incheon International Single Media Festival (IISF) is expected to attract some 20,000 people amid the boom in so-called "one-person media," according to organizers. The Incheon Metropolitan City government, with the Incheon Business Information Technopark, came up with the idea of hosting the event to help local businesses find online marketing experts who can help them with business opportunities in online markets overseas. "We've got many phone calls from local businesses who asked us if we could help them meet social media influencers such as China's online star Wang Hong who exerts considerable influence on Chinese consumers," an official from the Incheon Metropolitan City government said. "We also met many businesses in the food and beverage industry and they were wondering if we could help them set up meetings with influential digital content creators in their fields." During the two-day event, business matching between the two sides will take place and digital content creators will advertise their programs. Several high-profile social media influencers, including Big Marvel and Wang Hong, will join the event. Big Marvel is an up-and-coming YouTube creator, specializing in creating music content. He has over 5.5 million subscribers on YouTube. Calary Girl, better known as "Officer Worker A" among Korean bloggers, is a YouTube creator in beauty and makeup and she offers makeup tips and skincare solutions with reviews of skincare products. Her reviews have encouraged many women to buy the products. Over 1.1 million subscribers have tuned in to her program. Comedian-turned-makeup artist Kim Ki-soo will also join the IISF. Kim began creating beauty videos on YouTube in 2012 and has some 111,764 subscribers. Founders of ACAU, a YouTube channel specializing in broadcasting gaming content that has 1.3 million subscribers, and China's internet celebrities, known as "Wang Hong," including BiBi, ZhuZhu, will also join the event. Food truck owners were also invited to the event and will collaborate with cooking show creators to showcase their dishes. The organizers said the IISF aims to create business opportunities for young people to revive the local economy. Media industry in transition The IISF comes as a seismic change is under way in the media industry. Old media, also known as legacy media, which had dominated the industry before the "Information Age" was unveiled, has been facing a formidable challenge following the rise of digital content creators. The latter's influence is growing as more consumers rely on digital-based information. Individuals with expertise in their areas of interest open their own channels by using digital platforms such as YouTube and Instagram and share their stories with other internet users. Compared to traditional media, digital-based, one-person media makes it easier for consumers to interact with the content providers. In the digital-based platform, sharing information is easier and information spreads faster. The boom in digital-based media is worldwide. On the internet, social media influencers who have millions of subscribers or followers, exert considerable influence, particularly on consumers. According to Jang Woo-sik, a research fellow at the Incheon Business Information Technopark, about 74 percent of American consumers make their decisions on what to purchase based on their social network and 40 percent purchase products recommended by social influencers. Digital ads have surged over the past two decades. In 2000, the total value of digital ads was 130 billion won and the figure rose 24 times higher in 2016. Last year, the value of digital ads surpassed that of TV commercials for the first time. The poster for IISF President El-Sisi is on a four-day official visit to Berlin that started Sunday where he met with Chancellor Merkel and a German officials to discuss strengthening relations and boosting cooperation Egyptian officials signed on Tuesday a number of Memorandum of Understandings (MoU) with German officials to boost cooperation between the two countries in the fields of economy and education, presidency spokesperson Bassam Rady said in a statement. The MoUs were signed during a meeting of the committee on bilateral cooperation between Egypt and Germany, the statement read. The signing ceremony was attended by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi who is on a four-day official visit to Berlin where he met with Chancellor Angela Merkel and a number of German officials to discuss strengthening relations and boosting cooperation, and also attended the Africa investment summit. The first MoU, which is an economic cooperation protocol worth 129 million, was signed by Egypt's Minister of Investment and International Cooperation Sahar Nasr. Egyptian and German officials officials have also signed a Declaration of Intent on a new Egyptian-German initiative aimed at bolstering technical and vocational education and training. The initiative aims at establishing an educational monitoring authority and a teacher training academy. A third MoU aims to boost cooperation in the fields of university education and scientific research, along with an agreement on setting up a German international university of applied sciences in Egypt's new administrative capital. The fifth MoU was co-signed by Minister of Trade and Investment Amr Nassar, Minister of Education Tarek Shawky, and German conglomerate Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser. The Siemens MoU aims at supporting industrialisation and vocational training as well as increasing the competitiveness of industrial zones and increasing their export capacity. The German conglomerate has been implementing electricity generation mega porjects in Egypt since 2015 with deals worth eight billion euros (approximately $9 billion). It has expressed that it is keen to expand its activities in Egypt. German investments in Egypt are estimated at 1.5 billion euros and provide around 22,000 jobs, according to statements by the German ambassador to Egypt in February 2017. Search Keywords: Short link: Hwang Rae-ha, 76, a farmer on Gyodong Island, Incheon, fled his hometown in Haeseong, Yeonbaek County (now Yonan County) in 1950 at age 8, in a wooden boat to escape North Korean soldiers during the Korean War. He says his only wish is to meet his mother again even if that is in his sleep. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk Separated families in long wait for reunion By Park Jin-hai Gyodong Island, Incheon With the two Koreas taking steps to disarm the Joint Security Area (JSA) and allow soldiers and civilians to cross the Military Demarcation Line there, following the three inter-Korean summits this year alone, hope for permanent peace on the peninsula runs higher than ever before. Gyodong, a small island 70 kilometers northwest of central Seoul, is home to around 20,000 people who were displaced during the 1950-53 Korean War. After the outbreak of the war, they fled their homes now in North Korea and settled on this small island near the inter-Korean maritime border. For the islanders, peace means their way back home to Yeonbaek County in Hwanghae Province, North Korea, some 65 years belatedly. From the island, people used to be able to even cross the Jo River (a Han River estuary) at low tide to reach Yeonbaek County. After the war the area has been designated as falling within the Civilian Control Zone (CCZ) in its entirety. After a less than two-hour drive from Seoul and arriving via Gyodong Bridge, the only bridge that connects the island and Ganghwa Island, visitors must stop at a military checkpoint to obtain an entrance permit by showing their ID cards. Over the 3.44-kilometer bridge to the island, people can see North Korean towns in Hwanghae Province on the right side and small Seokmo Island and other small islands that belong to South Korea's Ganghwa Island on the left. On the island, where two-thirds of its coastline, extending 37.5 kilometers, are fenced off with barbwire, North Korean refugees and their families, who take the lion's share of its residents, are counting on the day they can return home, just 2.6 kilometers away, as freely as birds flying over the maritime boundary Northern Limit Line (NLL). Hwang Rae-ha, 76, a farmer, heads a small group of North Korean-born residents in the village. The youngest boy of a family with seven siblings fled his hometown in Haeseong, Yeonbaek County (now Yonan County) in August 1950 at age 8, riding on a wooden boat to escape North Korean soldiers during the Korean War. He says not a single day has passed without thinking of his mother and two sisters in North Korea. "By now, my mother would be 120, my two sisters 87 and 74. For me, 'mother' is a heart-wrenching word," said Hwang, who remembers his childhood home's address so clearly. He recalls his mother as a strong woman who braved her life to save the whole family from war and poverty. His brothers made the dangerous 20-minute trip over the water to land on Gyodong first and his mother and sisters escaped the North and joined later. "As the war neared the end, my mother carried my two sisters back to our old house in Yeonbaek because she wanted to bring back the brass rice bowls she buried in the yard under the bombardment. Back then, the brassware was worth a fortune. I didn't know at that time, what I thought would be just a short goodbye would ultimately turn out to be our separation for this long," he said. On a clear day, visitors to Manghyangdae (translated as observatory for the homesick) can see farmhouses and fields in Yeonbaek County, Hwanghae Province, North Korea, just 2.6 kilometers away, across the Jo River that divides the two countries. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk Officials from the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) speak at the Korea Medical & Wellness Travel Mart in Dubai, in this 2017 photo. This year, the KTO will host the Korea Culture & Tourism Festival in Abu Dhabi. / Courtesy of Korea Tourism Organization By Jung Hae-myoung The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) will hold the Korea Culture & Tourism Festival in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), from Nov. 1 to 3, to attract more Middle Eastern visitors, the tourism body said Tuesday. The festival's theme is "Korea Happiness Festival" reflecting Middle Eastern culture which values family to target family tourists. Top Korean medical institutions and agencies, including the Asan Medical Center and the Jaseng Hospital of Korean Medicine, will take part to promote medical tourism to Korea. More than 40 companies and travel agencies, such as The Face Shop and Etude House, will join in to attract female consumers. In 2017, about 3,400 medical tourists from the UAE visited Korea. Their average expenditure per person was 10.7 million won ($9,332), which was 5.4 times the amount spent by medical tourists from other countries. "People in Middle Eastern countries are showing a growing interest in Korean culture, and the number of tourists from those countries to Korea is growing," said Kim Man-jin, head of the KTO's international tourism strategy team. "With the event, we'll strengthen promotion and marketing of Korean tourism." By Jung Da-min, Park Si-soo Men's magazine Maxim Korea recently came under fire for putting a sexual twist on its about the life-saving procedure of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Critics have lambasted the video, saying it "crossed the line." A Twitter message critical of the video has been retweeted over 17,000 times with the criticism spreading to other social networking websites. The 2 minutes 24 seconds clip shows two bikini-clad women demonstrating CPR with captions explaining the key steps to be taken in an emergency. The clip was posted on Aug. 1 in the lead-up to the summer vacation season. And it became an issue recently. Criticism dominates online comments, but not everyone has been critical of the video. "Maxim Korea, from the beginning, is a magazine aimed at meeting the needs of men," one twitter user said. "Whether one watches the video or not is up to that person." This May 23, 2018 satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe shows the nuclear test site in Punggye-ri, North Korea. Korea Times file North Korea is apparently preparing for a possible visit by outside inspectors to verify the shutdown of its nuclear test site in the northeast, Seoul's spy agency said Wednesday during a parliamentary audit. After his fourth visit to North Korea in October, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had promised to let foreign inspectors visit the Punggye-ri site as soon as logistics-related details are worked out. In May, the North demolished its nuclear test site before foreign journalists but without the presence of outside experts. The North has conducted all six of its nuclear tests there, including the latest in September 2017. At the closed-door audit session, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) briefed lawmakers that it is closely monitoring the North's movement. A satellite photo of the Punggye-Ri nuclear test site in North Korea May 14, 2018. Korea Times file By Jung Da-min North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un has visited the Samjiyon Potato Farina Production Factory for the second time this year, after a visit in July, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Tuesday. During his inspection of the factory, in Samjiyon County, Ryanggang Province, bordering China, Kim praised the county for "reaping a high yield in potato farming despite unusually unfavorable climatic conditions this year," KCNA reported. North Korea has been promoting the policy of "bringing about a revolution in potato farming" set by former leader Kim Jong-il in 1998. Commemorating the 20th anniversary of the policy, North Korea's party mouthpiece Rodong Sinmun on Oct. 1 highlighted Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un's focus on the drive "to settle the food issue of the people." Meanwhile, Kim also inspected construction sites for houses and other facilities in Samjiyon County, calling for early completion of the work by Oct. 2020, which marks the 75th anniversary of the Workers' Party of Korea. It was Kim's third inspection this year, following visits in July and August. Seoul should continue persuading Washington over Kim Jong-un's pledge for peace By Lee Min-hyung Charles Armstrong Robert Kelly Hazel Smith The second video report, produced by investigative journalist teams News Tapa and Sherlock, was put on Facebook Wednesday under the title "Yang Jin-ho's order: Kill the Chicken." A team of investigative journalists has revealed another video that contains the bad behavior of Hankook Mirae Technology Chairman Yang Jin-ho, who ignited public rage Tuesday when a video showing him brutally attacking a former employee was disclosed. In the video, made during a workshop, Yang sets a chicken free in a yard and forces his employees to hunt it down with a bow and arrow. A meter-long blade is also involved in the brutal slaughter of the bird, with Yang ordering his employees to strike the chicken while it is in the air. As the employees continuously miss the target, Yang hysterically snatches the weapon and kills the chicken. Employee forced into shooting a chicken with a bow and arrow. Captured from News Tapa Lee Chun-sik talks at a press conference held at the office of Lawyers for a Democratic Society, near the Supreme Court in southern Seoul, after winning his compensation suit against Nippon Steel for forced labor during Japan's colonial rule of Korea. / Yonhap By Lee Suh-yoon The Supreme Court's landmark decision made Tuesday, which recognized the right of wartime forced laborers to claim damages from a Japanese firm, is expected to open the floodgates for compensation suits by other victims. "Tuesday's ruling will help draw out new compensation lawsuits from other victims," Kim Se-eun, the lawyer who represented the four plaintiffs against Nippon Steel, told The Korea Times, Wednesday. "After the ruling, the court administration reached out to me to schedule court hearings for the other forced laborer cases I am representing, against Mitsubishi, Nachi-Fujikoshi, and Nippon Steel cases that have been pending in the lower courts for a while." The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling, ordering Nippon Steel to pay 100 million won ($87,000) to each victim. The four plaintiffs, only one of whom is still alive, went to Japan in 1943 after hearing they could train at a steel mill for two years and come back with a license that could give them a job with a Korean steel company. On arrival, they realized they would be treated as slaves, not workers. Unlike Japan's top court, which closed the case against the victims in 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1965 treaty normalizing diplomatic ties between Korea and Japan did not annul the individuals' rights to press charges for "the inhuman actions" done to them during the occupation. "A treaty that does not even recognize the illegality of the Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula cannot be used to nullify the right of victims to claim damages," the court said. Civic groups, including associations of wartime forced labor victims, welcomed the long-awaited ruling, saying their movement to seek justice for wartime forced laborers has "just started." There are currently 14 other compensation suits filed against Japanese firms by some 950 former Korean forced laborers. Twelve are pending in the lower courts while two, involving Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, are awaiting a final decision by the top court. Despite Tuesday's ruling, however, when and how the plaintiffs will get their compensation from Nippon Steel is still unclear. At a shareholders' meeting after a similar ruling in 2012 when the Supreme Court sent the case back down to a lower court, the company said it was willing "to follow Korean law." Now, however, the company seems to be waiting for further directions from the Japanese government, which expressed deep discontent at the ruling, threatening to take the case to the International Court of Justice. Around 220,000 wartime forced laborers have been reported to the Korean government, though historians estimate their actual number to be about five times higher. Out of the 220,000, only about 3,500 are alive. Japan still denies the use of Korean forced labor by Japanese firms during World War II despite evidence, such as the 1944 Japanese police record of tens of thousands of Korean forced laborers who escaped, or were caught and brought back to mines and factories in Fukuoka, anonymously submitted by a Japanese researcher in 2016. Yang Jin-ho, CEO of Hankook Mirae Technology, assaults an ex-employee in the face several times in this video released by News Tapa, Tuesday. The video was taken in April 2015 in the office of WeDisk, an online file-sharing site Yang owns in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province. / Screen capture from News Tapa By Jung Hae-myoung The police have launched an investigation into Yang Jin-ho, CEO of Hankook Mirae Technology, for physically and verbally assaulting a former employee of one of his companies, according to the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency. The abuse became known through a video clip disclosed on Tuesday by News Tapa, a news outlet run by the Korea Center for Investigative Journalism. In the video taken in April 2015, Yang slaps a former staffer's head several times and curses the man in front of other workers in the office of WeDisk, an online file-sharing site Yang owns. He orders the man to kneel down in apology, but hits him because he thought the apology was not sincere enough. Yang assaulted the man because the worker left comments critical of him on a bulletin board of the company's website after he left the firm. Delegations from around the world started arriving on Wednesday at Sharm El-Sheikh International Airport to participate in Egypt's second World Youth Forum (WYF). The WYF is set to be held from 3 to 6 November under the auspices of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi at the Red Sea resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh. Some 5,000 young people, journalists, public figures and officials from more than 50 countries across the world are set to participate in this year's edition of the forum. The forum, which will be attended by El-Sisi, will focus on the themes of peace, development and creativity, as well as various topics that reflect the visions and aspirations of the worlds youth, according to Al-Ahram Arabic news website. The forum will also give participants the chance to exchange their experiences in different fields, including development and innovation. Last year, the WYF, which was held for the first time in Sharm El-Sheikh, attracted thousands of participants from around the world, with official delegations and young people from several countries. The WYF was first announced during the countrys National Youth Conference in Alexandria in July 2017, which was also attended by El-Sisi. Search Keywords: Short link: By Kim Hyun-bin Korean Air is offering new ways to utilize SKYPASS mileage by introducing diverse travel packages and upgrades as unused mileage will expire starting next year. In July 2008, the country's largest flagship carrier changed the rules to have mileage earned on the carrier or SkyTeam member airlines expire 10 years from the date of travel and any unused mileage deleted annually starting Jan. 1, 2019. The airline has launched diverse travel goods and packages that can be exchanged for mileage including tour packages, hotel reservations and car rentals. Korean Air and KAL Tour have jointly launched KALPAK, which the airline claims is "the best way to use the mileage with no regrets." There are tours to Southeast Asia, Japan, Oceania, Europe as well as themed and personalized travel packages. Customers can choose their seats and will be able to take advantage of Korean Air lounges at Incheon International Airport. The KALPAK packages can be purchased online at the Korean Air website. Prestigious hotels can also be booked with mileage. A minimum of 15,000 to maximum 32,000 miles are needed to reserve rooms at well-known domestic and international hotels, including the Jeju KAL Hotel, Seogwipo KAL Hotel, Grand Hyatt Incheon, Waikiki Resort Hotel, and Intercontinental Los Angeles Downtown. Korean Air offers "mileage rental car" services, which allow travelers to book a vehicle on Jeju Island through Hanjin Rental Cars. The SKYPASS mileage can purchase Korean Air lounge services and pay extra baggage fees. People can also use their family members' mileage together without any additional fees. However, it cannot be given to a third party. Up to five family members' mileages can be added up including children, parents, grandparents and in-laws. Prior to using the family mileage, members need to send their registration forms and proof of family documents via the Korean Air homepage, fax or by visiting any nearby Korean Air branch. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, left, shakes hands with President Moon Jae-in in April this year. Kim has become the first North Korean leader to enter South Korea, stepping across the military line to shake hands with the South Korean leader, before the two walked briefly back across the border in a surprise move. Korea Times file Top adviser says human rights, cutting ICBM force top agenda By Kim Yoo-chul President Moon Jae-in has so far been successful in bringing North Korea onto the diplomatic stage, but he faces a more challenging task to break an impasse in the denuclearization talks by persuading the United States and United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to make concessions for North Korea's repeated commitment toward denuclearization. Their main concern is that easing economic sanctions could undermine the leverage Washington and Seoul's other allies have in the ongoing denuclearization talks. More precisely, the United States, the biggest stakeholder in the verification process, wants the North to announce further steps. Political analysts in Seoul said the President needs to develop his role as a "mediator and facilitator" between Pyongyang and Washington in the ongoing denuclearization talks as Moon has to convince Washington to ease the sanctions on the North. "The role of mediator usually doesn't have deep relations with nor complex interests in either party. Moon hasn't been a distant bystander in the matter from the very beginning. Now, he is asked to take a bigger role to move the talks, which appear to be deadlocked, forward. He has to tell top U.S. decision makers why flexibility matters to break an impasse," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has given his first timeline for denuclearization, aiming for the end of U.S. President Donald Trump's first term and said his regime will "get it done" together with Washington. But the United States is asking the North to unveil specific details, while Pyongyang is asking Washington to provide sanctions relief as a corresponding measure following its announcement that it will dismantle a nuclear facility and allow international inspectors to visit a demolished nuclear test-site. Seoul is pushing hard to get economic benefits to the North by resuming inter-Korean projects following the Moon-Kim summits in Panmunjeom and Pyongyang as it believes sanctions relief could encourage Pyongyang to announce more detailed plans toward denuclearization. But Trump later chilled down Moon's "sanctions-easing" agenda with a stinging rebuke: "They do nothing without our approval." Also, Moon apparently failed to win backing from France and the United Kingdom, which both hold permanent seats on the UNSC, with his updated suggestion. Moon Chung-in, a special presidential adviser for unification, diplomacy and national security affairs, said the situation is not looking good in terms of the creation of "fresh momentum" to push forward the negotiation process as things become more complex due to "differing thinking" over the process. "It's highly unlikely for North Korea to completely dismantle its nuclear program without sanctions relief from the UNSC and the United States. A declaration to end the Korean War is a kind of goodwill gesture, the effects of which will be short-lived. The U.S. is trapped in past dependency. Because top decision makers in Washington remain mired in the logic of verification fundamentalism, President Moon Jae-in faces a tough fight to break the dogmatic thinking," Moon told The Korea Times. Kim Yeol-soo, a policy adviser at the presidential office, said Seoul has to reconcile signs of friction between its key allies as the three key countries including North Korea and the United States clearly have different ideas on what to do next and how the denuclearization process can be achieved. According to Kim, the June Singapore summit is understood by Seoul as a starting point to initiate economic integration with the North in accordance with President Moon's focus on dialogue and greater engagement. However, Washington's thinking is that maintaining stiff sanctions on the Kim regime is the way to force Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear arsenal, given the North's gradual policy transition to prioritizing the economy. Another way to encourage the international community to ease economic sanctions on the North would be Pyongyang's direct action on human rights issues because the international community wants to see progress on the issue, which has long been put on the back burner. "The human rights situation at the moment has not changed on the ground in North Korea, despite this important progress on security, peace and prosperity," United Nations Special Rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana told reporters last week ahead of his briefing to the U.N. General Assembly committee that deals with human rights issues. The special presidential adviser also said if North Korean leader Kim Jong-un directly addresses the human rights issue including plans to dismantle political prison camps in North Korea and announces further steps, then that will be a "huge plus" for the North to gain more trust and appeal to the international community in reaffirming the North's commitment toward denuclearization and fulfill its desire to be treated as a "normal state." Moon Chung-in, a special presidential adviser for unification, diplomacy and national security affairs, speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at his office in Seoul last week. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang speaks during an interview with The Korea Times in his office at the National Assembly, Tuesday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul By Park Ji-won National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang hopes North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will make a speech at the National Assembly in response to President Moon Jae-in's Pyongyang speech in front of North Korean people. Speaker Moon said in an interview with The Korea Times, Tuesday, that Kim's speech in Seoul could have a symbolic meaning for inter-Korean relations. "As President Moon Jae-in also gave his speech in front of 150,000 Pyongyang citizens, I think Kim wouldn't have a problem making his remarks at the Assembly," Moon said. But regarding Kim's visit, which the North's leader promised to will happen within this year at the Pyongyang inter-Korean summit, the speaker said, "As there are uncertainties on the next North-U.S. summit, there is a possibility his trip can be held early next year." He urged parliamentary leaders including himself to take more responsibility in tackling this historic issue and realize what really matters to seek peace for the country. He said the South should keep close ties with its allies especially with the U.S. and Japan. As part of parliamentary efforts, the speaker emphasized the necessity of holding an inter-Korean parliamentary summit somewhere in Korea, either Seoul or Pyongyang, within this year and bringing progress in denuclearization. Also, he stressed the need for ratifying the Panmunjeom Declaration and getting consensus in the Assembly to provide possible leverage for the discussions between North Korea and the U.S. The parliamentary summit has never materialized, even though it has been discussed since the 1980s. The following is a summary of the interview with the Assembly speaker. Q: Please share your expectation for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un making a speech at Seoul's National Assembly. A: It is simple. As President Moon Jae-in also gave his speech in front of 150,000 Pyongyang citizens, I think Kim wouldn't have a problem making his remarks at the Assembly. In return, as a courtesy, we should let us the North to do the speech at the most symbolic place, the Assembly, as it is the place that represents the people in the South. And it might be difficult to hold the venue if North Korea thinks the South shows an inappropriate reaction after the (upcoming) North-U.S. summit. But the North understands the South's position well enough, and Kim might come to Seoul. Q: How big do you expect the parliamentary summit between Koreas in Seoul will be and when? A: The original plan is to hold the summit in Pyongyang, but if Seoul is preferred, I have no problems to do so. As there are uncertainties on the North-U.S. summit, there is a possibility the summit can be held early next year. But the chances for the summit have risen. When the third inter-Korean summit was held in Pyongyang, I sent a letter through the delegation to Supreme People's Assembly Speaker Choe Thae-bok to propose holding an inter-Korean parliamentary summit and received a positive answer. The details will be finalized through the working-level talks between the two Koreas. Also, at this inter-parliamentary union assembly, I met with Ri Jong-hyok, director of the North's National Reunification Institute, and exchanged opinions about holding the parliamentary summit while reaffirming (the two Koreas') willingness for peace. As South Korean President Moon Jae-in also told people right after his trip to the North that (the two Koreas) agreed to hold the inter-Korean parliamentary summit as soon as possible, I will grasp the situation and make it happen. Q: What if the opposition parties decline to go to North Korea for the Assembly summit? A: When we asked the opposition parties to come to Pyongyang for the third summit, they promised (to participate in the future summit), and we believe they will join us for the parliamentary summit. I don't think there should be political partisanism in front of this historical calling for the establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula. Q: What is the biggest challenge in pushing for the event? What do you want to achieve through it? A: Personally, I want to see some achievements by holding the Assembly summit this year. But, it is important to make the summit contribute to peace on the Korean Peninsula, development of inter-Korean relations and denuclearization, rather than simply holding it. In order to do so, I made a special post for unification at the Assembly to take a close look at the situation. You could say previous efforts to push for the parliamentary summit were to hold the meeting between the two Koreas, which had strained relations, and now it is more focused on fostering inter-Korean relations as the relationship between the leaders of the two Koreas is likely normalized. Q: To establish a peace regime on the peninsula, especially in terms of inter-Korean relations, what should the National Assembly do? A: Along with the historic wave, the Assembly should swiftly pass the ratification bill of the Panmunjeom Declaration and successfully hold the inter-Korean Assembly summit to support the achievements of the inter-Korean summit. Also, continuing support for parliamentary diplomacy will be another Assembly role to seek international cooperation for peace. Suddenly, there are no people who are resistant to peace on the peninsula. We need to make the most of this lifetime chance to take a leap for peace. The Assembly's role, especially party leaders, is extremely important. We need to avoid becoming a big frog in a small pond. No matter what happens, the wave of peace flows into the East It is the time for us to take a leap into the world and future. But (many politicians regardless of ruling and opposition parties especially those who make blunt remarks) don't know what the priority is and only focus on their party's interest. Including myself, leaders of this generation should take responsibility and resolve this situation. Q: But it seems the process of ratification is difficult due to lack of cooperation by opposition parties. Do you have any idea how to resolve the situation? A: I have already told (the Assembly) to think positively about the Panmunjeom Declaration. At least, the Assembly should submit the bill to the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee and start the discussion. Q: What are the chances of holding the summit soon? A: It is important to persuade the Assembly by meeting in person. To deepen the understanding of each other, the (two Koreas) need to meet here or there at the Assembly. If the South Korean (Assembly) agrees with the summit, it is a way for North Korea to persuade the U.S. There is no way but to persuade the opposition party. Q: What do you think about the U.S.' current (controlling) attitude on us? A: Fundamentally, the South-U.S. alliance is most important in inter-Korean exchanges. South Korea and the U.S. should go together. Also, Japan should work together. When Kim Dae-jung was in power, there was a two-track strategy. The two Koreas took part in inter-Korean (cultural) exchanges while the international society took part in the nuclear and missile issues. So the six-party talks were born with the U.S. leading. But suddenly, South Korea faced regime changes for the last 10 years and the situation reversed. The U.S. has its role while the South has our own. Under the two-track strategy, the U.S. and the South have their own roles. The problem is (when the North) is not coming to the table. Former President Obama took the strategy of patience meaning leaving the situation. It didn't solve any problems. Q: The Assembly is expanding its diplomacy with foreign countries. What can you tell us about its diplomatic achievements so far and its goals? A: As Assembly speaker, I realized our country's status and power have grown compared to the past through diplomacy. Through the process, I felt proud of the country and got to have responsibility for shaping its history. Not only the MIKTA meeting for Assembly speakers, or an informal cooperative body created by Mexico, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, Turkey and Australia, or Assembly meetings held in Turkey and Geneva, (Assembly leaders) paid attention to peace on the peninsula. I asked them for close cooperation and they showed interest and support for the establishment of permanent peace here. I officially visited Romania for the first time in nine years as the Assembly leader and met with their president, prime minister and Assembly leaders who promised to expand relations with South Korea as a sole strategic partner in Asia. The peninsula's peace is the core interest for South Korea which is deeply related to international (parliamentary) diplomacy. As international relations face fast-expanding diversification and multi-stratification, the role of parliamentary diplomacy will be increased to fill the gap of traditional government-centered diplomacy. Q: The main agenda for the Assembly is to change the country's election system. The parties find it difficult to narrow the differences as they have different positions on the reform. How can you accommodate the different views and lead to the desirable reform? A: In democracy, elections should develop in a way that reflects the people's minds. But the current election system continues to extort votes from people. It is the Assembly's job to correct it. If the ruling and opposition parties agree to reform the election system, this 20th Assembly will remain as the one that reformed politics the most extensively in our history. The principle of electoral reform is that political parties should win seats according to the votes they earned. I think there is a reasonable solution that people can agree with and will do my best to come up with an agreement (among parties). Q: Many Assembly speakers aimed to seek joint governance, or bipartisan politics, at the Assembly throughout history but had difficulty doing so possibly because of the systematic limitation of the structure of ruling and opposition parties. Do you think joint governance, one of your goals as the speaker, is currently well established? A: It is hard to say the level of joint governance is reached to the extent that people desire. But as speaker, I will continue to mediate opinions between parties and make places where they can seek joint governance and communicate with each other. In order to do so, I made a regular discussion table with floor leaders from negotiating blocs to discuss current agendas and with leaders of the five parties every Monday of the first week of every month to discuss long-term reform plans. What I call "joint governance" is to narrow down thoughts by frequently meeting and communicating with each other. Q: What is your ideal Assembly that people would remember by the end of your term? A: I will do my best as the Assembly speaker to incorporate the candlelit revolution into the system and a four-season legislative body where parliamentarianism flourishes. I will do my utmost to raise even a one percent possibility of people's trust (toward the Assembly.) By Lee Min-hyung The two Koreas will suspend military exercises near the land, sea and air boundaries as of Thursday when the inter-Korean "buffer zones" take effect to further relax military tension along the border areas. The step came as part of an inter-Korean military agreement, signed by leaders from Seoul and Pyongyang last month when both sides came to terms to stop military drills near the military demarcation line (MDL). The land buffer zone stretches around 10 kilometers along the border where they agreed to stop carrying out any artillery drills and regimental-level field training. The two Koreas also agreed to set an 80-kilometer maritime buffer zone in the East and West Sea. Seoul and Pyongyang also reached a consensus to set up what they call a "no-fly zone" about 40 kilometers west of the MDL and 80 kilometers east of the line. The establishment of the air buffer zone has particularly raised concerns that this may weaken the South's security readiness despite the peace signal from North Korea. The no-fly zone will stop surveillance aircrafts from monitoring Pyongyang's possible provocative gestures near the air border region. During this year's National Assembly audit, which ended on Monday, South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo was bombarded with questions over how the ministry will cope with the unpredictable and provocative nature of North Korea despite the ongoing peace momentum on the Korean Peninsula. "The inter-Korean military agreement will become invalid if the North stages any intentional provocations against the South," Jeong said Monday in the Assembly audit in Seoul. Starting this year, North Korea has not provoked the South, with the regime's young leader Kim Jong-un expressing his strong willingness to bring peace to the peninsula by scrapping his nuclear weapons. Kim has held three rounds of summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in this year. The fourth summit is expected to take place in Seoul by the end of this year, as Kim pledged to visit the South Korean capital city in response to Moon's three-day Pyongyang visit last month. Given that the two Koreas are on a rapid track for reconciliation by signing specific tension-easing agreements, all eyes are on what future tension-relaxing agreements will be reached during Kim's planned visit to Seoul. Following the Pyongyang summit, the two Koreas are speeding up their military tension-easing. The latest in a series of such steps came last week when Seoul and Pyongyang completed disarming the Joint Security Area (JSA) in the border area by withdrawing firearms there. The United Nations Command (UNC), which retains jurisdiction over the southern side of the JSA, has also recently finished verifying the JSA disarmament. Rep. Yun Jae-ok of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP), left, submits a motion demanding the ouster of Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, to the National Assembly in Seoul, Wednesday. On his right is Rep. Kim Seung-hee of the LKP. The party ramped up criticism of Cho for allegedly infringing on the Constitution while conducting inter-Korean projects. / Yonhap By Lee Min-hyung The main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) has submitted a motion demanding dismissal of Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon over his alleged infringement of the Constitution while carrying out inter-Korean reconciliatory projects, the party said Wednesday. The unification chief was among the most-talked-about ministers in recent weeks due to his involvement in political controversies that opposition parties said erupted due to Cho's "inept and dogmatic" decision-making. Two weeks ago, Cho was harshly criticized for excluding North Korean defector-turned-reporter Kim Myeong-sung from a group of South Korean pool reporters covering high-level inter-Korean talks. The abrupt decision, made only about an hour before their departure to the talks venue, raised eyebrows here, as the ministry did not elaborate on the reasons for it. "Cho infringed on freedom of speech and discriminated against the North Korean defector by excluding him from covering the talks on Oct. 15," the LKP said after submitting the proposal to the National Assembly. The ministry's low-key posture added to escalating the controversy, as the North did not ask the South to exclude Kim. The party also criticized Cho for pushing ahead with an inter-Korean railway and road reconnection project without making public the cost. In addition, the ministry's spending came under fire. Last month, it spent about 10 billion won ($8.77 million) renovating the inter-Korean liaison office in the North's border city of Gaeseong. The budget far exceeds that of the ministry's earlier estimate in July when it unveiled a plan to spend 86 million won on the project. "We have to believe that the ministry wasted 10 billion won of taxpayers' money by executing the budget in an unclear and arbitrary way," the LKP said. "The ministry kept the specific construction costs secret despite the huge gap from its earlier forecast." In a National Assembly audit Monday, Cho declined to submit detailed documents specifying how the budget was used for the renovation. "As the liaison office is an inter-Korean facility, there are limits for us to submit such documents," Cho said. He said the ministry cannot provide the information as there were "security facilities" in the office. By Kim Yoo-chul Foreign ministers from South Korea and Japan exchanged differing opinions Wednesday, on a court ruling the previous day ordering a Japanese firm to compensate South Koreans for wartime forced labor. Seoul's foreign ministry said Minister Kang Kyung-wha expressed the country's hopes to maintain the solid bilateral partnership to her Japanese counterpart Taro Kono despite Monday's ruling by the Supreme Court in South Korea. "The foreign ministry respects the court's decision. Based on rationale that had been reviewed by the court over the decision, the ministry plans to apply additional measures, if necessary, to take on Japan's claim about the issue," Kang told her Japanese counterpart in a phone conversation, according to a foreign ministry official. "Kang and Kono also discussed ways to step up efforts in advancing forward-looking bilateral relations," the official added. The Supreme Court ordered Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal to pay 400 billion won ($350,000) in compensation to each of the victims of forced labor during the 1910-45 Japanese occupation. Japan was upset by Monday's court decision. Tokyo said it will consider applying "every option," including bringing the issue to an international court depending on how Seoul reacts. The Japanese government has insisted that the right of the victims of wartime forced labor to seek compensation was terminated under a 1965 bilateral treaty signed between the two countries. The latest court order implies companies involved in similar lawsuits may face the same results. Among the other Japanese companies that have lost cases in lower courts in South Korea are Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Hitachi Zosen. Historical grievances continue to cast a pall over Seoul's efforts to improve its relations with Tokyo. Japan still has been reluctant to admit to elements of the creation and operation of "comfort women," who were forced to work in Japanese military brothels before and during World War II. South Korea's top court ruled on Tuesday (October 30) Japan's Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. should compensate four South Koreans for their forced labour during World War Two, a decision that could freeze ties between the uneasy neighbours. In a landmark ruling, South Korea's Supreme Court upheld a 2013 order for the company to pay 100 million won ($87,700) to each of the four steel workers who initiated the suit in 2005, seeking compensation and unpaid wages. Lee Choon-shik, the 94-year-old sole surviving plaintiff, welcomed the ruling. Japan and South Korea share a bitter history that includes Japan's 35-year occupation of the Korean peninsula until 1945 and the use of comfort women, Japan's euphemism for girls and women, many of them Korean, forced to work in its wartime brothels. (Reuters) Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Tuesday (October 30) that a South Korean court's order to a Japanese firm to compensate wartime forced laborers was "unthinkable," and the ruling overturned the legal basis for bilateral friendship since 1965. South Korea's top court ruled on Tuesday Japan's Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. must compensate four South Koreans for their forced labor during World War Two. Following the verdict, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono summoned South Korean ambassador Lee Su-hoon. Kono told Lee that he hopes South Korean government will immediately and resolutely respond to the controversial matter. Egypt welcomed on Wednesday delegations from a number of Arab countries for a major joint Arab military exercise set to take place from 3 to 16 November at the Mohamed Naguib Military Base in Egypt's northwestern governorate of Marsa Matrouh, according to a statement by Armed Forces spokesperson Tamer El-Refai. 'Arab Shield 1' will involve land, naval and air, special forces, and air-defence exercises. El-Refai said that eight Arab countries are participating in the drills including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, with Morocco and Lebanon as observers. "The exercise comes in the framework of strengthening joint military cooperation between Egypt and Arab countries to build the combat capabilities of the Armed Forces and achieve common objectives," the Armed Forces spokesperson said. "The drill comes as part of the joint training plan carried out by the Egyptian Armed Forces with many other countries to develop military relations, face common challenges and support efforts for security and stability in the region," the statement said. Search Keywords: Short link: By Yi Whan-woo North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Sin Hong-chol arrived in Moscow, Saturday, to meet Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov this week, according to the Russian foreign ministry, Sunday. Sin's trip comes after several Russian diplomats hinted at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's visit to Moscow in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin's invitation. And speculation is rampant that Sin, who handles Pyongyang-Moscow relations, may begin talks with Morgulov for the first summit between their leaders. Kim and Putin have not yet met. The Russian foreign ministry said Sin and Morgulov have met routinely to discuss bilateral issues. It did not give details on the agenda to be discussed this week. Sin also kept mum when asked whether he will prepare for Kim's Russia visit, after arriving at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, Saturday. "It's possible Sin and Morgulov will talk about Kim's travel to Russia in addition to other issues they have discussed routinely," a diplomatic source said. In May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Pyongyang and delivered Putin's invitation to Kim to visit Russia. The North Korean leader, however, has not confirmed whether to accept the invitation. Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the Federation Council of the Russian Federal Assembly, said Kim may travel to Moscow within this year, after meeting him in Pyongyang in September. Matviyenko was there as Putin's envoy for North Korea's celebration of the country's 70th founding anniversary. Some diplomatic sources also said Kim may go to Russia by the end of this year. They pointed out the United States is likely to delay its next summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump to early next year from December. Morgulov previously said Pyongyang and Moscow have been coordinating schedules for a possible Kim-Putin summit. Workers, technicians and officials celebrate the completion of a construction project at the Hwanghae Iron and Steel Complex on Sept. 30. KCNA-Yonhap By Jung Da-min Ri Ki-song in Pyongyang. AP A Pyongyang economist on Monday called for changes in the regime's economic policies to expand the autonomy of enterprises and ensure the responsibility of workers. North Korea's party mouthpiece Rodong Sinmun published the call in a column titled "An important demand to carry on the new strategic route of the party" by Ri Ki-song, a professor at North Korea's Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Economy, who has promoted the North Korean economy in interviews with foreign media. Ri emphasized the importance of the "socialist system of responsibility management of enterprises," saying that national economic policies should focus more on improving the achievements of enterprises and workers by giving them more autonomy and responsibility. "It is important to take strong and practical measures so that the socialist enterprises, the basic units of production and management, can demonstrate their responsibility, initiative and creativity, with the socialist system of responsibility management of enterprises having effects," Ri wrote. Josette Altmann Borbon, a former first lady of Costa Rica and the Secretary General of Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), speaks during a recent interview with The Korea Times at the Costa Rican Embassy in Seoul. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk Former first lady of Costa Rica underscores long-term strategy By Yi Whan-woo Latin American and Caribbean countries are less known in Korea than the United States, China, the European Union and other major trading partners. And this is where FLACSO, a Spanish acronym for Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, can help Korea better learn about the regions, according to FLACSO Secretary General Josette Altmann Borbon. Altmann, also a former first lady of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998, said understanding the regions academically is important to create a "win-win situation" for both sides in the long term. She referred to the risk stemming from a "short-sighted" relationship based on economic interests such as U.S. trade protectionism. FLACSO is an intergovernmental organization aimed at promoting academic research, fostering graduate courses and training specialists in social sciences among the universities of its 18 member countries Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam and Uruguay plus an observer Spain. It is also aimed at sharing its knowledge including research findings with governments, parliaments, nongovernmental organizations and civic societies. Its programs cover a wide range of fields including politics, sociology, economics and culture. "FLACSO is a bridge between the academics and the government," Altmann said during a recent interview with The Korea Times at the Costa Rican Embassy in Seoul. "Korea can learn more about the academic world of Latin American countries and their public diplomacy by getting familiar with FLACSO." She joined an economic forum where she delivered a speech on trade relations between Korea and Central America. Altmann underscored FLACSO as "a window of opportunity" for Korea, referring to its efforts to shift away from economic reliance on the U.S. and China and diversify its economic cooperation. "Opportunities and circumstances are pernicious for both (Korea and the Latin America) because Korea and most of the Latin American countries are aiming for more open-market economies while the U.S., which is the hegemonic power, is looking inward," she said. Altmann suggested Korea bolster its ties through economic and commercial bonds. But she warned their relations will "only last for a short term if you stay with that." "Instead, if you think of a more holistic cooperation, you can have long-term cooperation and that will be a win-win situation for both regions. You will not only have cooperation with FLACSO but also will have a bigger view of Latin America." Altmann is the first FLACSO secretary general to visit Korea since it was founded in 1957. She is the organization's first woman secretary general. Altmann earned her Ph.D in humanities from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. She also took a one-year study program at Harvard University from 1990 to 1991. Attendees of a mandatory seminar for foreign English teachers in Gyeonggi Province on Oct. 20 stand for the Korean national anthem. / Courtesy of Joe McPherson By Ko Dong-hwan and Jon Dunbar Foreign English teachers across Gyeonggi Province woke up extra early on Saturday, Oct. 20, many before sunrise, to attend a seminar they were told was mandatory. The seminar, held in the remote provincial town Icheon, started at 8:30 a.m., requiring many teachers from the far-flung corners of the province to find their own way there, as they had to leave before public transportation opened. Joe McPherson, a longtime resident of Korea on an F-5 permanent resident visa, was up at 6 a.m., leaving behind his Korean wife and children in Gimpo and driving his car to what he called the "Dirty Foreigner Seminar." "This isn't about career enrichment," said McPherson, a restaurateur and owner of a successful tourism company who teaches on the side to make ends meet. "It's because of the stereotype that we're all sexual deviants." Ji-young Kim, an F-4 visa holder based in Paju, was up at 5 a.m. "It's as though they simply didn't care about having to get us up at 5 a.m. and for most, find our own transportation. Luckily for my hagwon, the director rented us a bus." Attendees arriving at Icheon Art Hall signed in for the event to verify their attendance. The schedule started with a video inviting them to the Icheon Rice Festival afterwards happening nearby, then they stood for the Korean national anthem. Then, they sat through Korean-language speeches by various dignitaries including Icheon Mayor Um Tae-jun who even sang a song, cultural performances, and lectures on immigration law, Korean culture and teaching. Everything wrapped up by 11:45 a.m., which McPherson suspects was so they wouldn't have to provide food. Icheon Mayor Eam Tae-jun greets foreign teachers at a seminar in Icheon Art Hall on Oct. 20. / Courtesy of Joe McPherson "We don't have the budget for preparing snacks or meals," said the Gyeonggi Foreign Hagwon Association (GFHA) chairwoman, who has overseen these seminars since 2014. She withheld her name. "In a previous year, because our association is not rich, hagwon principals chipped in some money to prepare sandwiches for those who came to the seminar early. But we saw many of the teachers throwing out leftovers. We are not going to prepare foods for the teachers to their tastes." The cultural education included materials presented by the Korean Spirit and Culture Promotion Project (KSCPP) on Korean brass bowls said to kill E. coli, King Sejong's inventions which were juxtaposed with modern digital technology and drones, and Japan's claimed zero scientific achievements before 1500. There was also a percussion performance and a performance of the folk song "Arirang." "Some of my co-workers commented on how nice the performances were," Kim said. "In the end though, most of them said it was a complete waste of time. I've seen enough Nanta performances to do it myself, and I've been here for 12 years, so if I wanted to go to the Rice Festival I would have gone by now." Throughout the talks, attendees were reminded numerous times not to sexually harass students, although little instruction was given on what sexual harassment was and how to avoid it. "This reinforces the stereotype that foreigners are by nature potential sexual predators and drug fiends," McPherson said. "Do teachers really need to be told that molesting children is wrong?" "We sometimes teach things they already know by reminding them again and again. That's our job. If we don't inform them what they need to know, we commit crimes of false charge," the GFHA chairwoman said. "In Korea, sexual harassment is a grave crime, and we are responsible for teaching foreign instructors to abide by Korean law. Some foreign teachers, not aware of local sensitivity, had unintentionally caused some kids to feel sexually molested. We are responsible for informing the teachers about such incidents." One speaker giving a talk on "Learn how to be a good teacher" shared a story about his youth, being inspired to learn English because his teacher wore short skirts. "I didn't appreciate the last presenter starting his story off by saying how he and his friends went up to the board to write an answer just to look at their thin, pretty teacher's legs because she was wearing a short skirt," Kim said. "And that's how they were motivated to learn English." "I had 200 hagwon principals sitting next to me in the seminar and none of them had anything to say about that bit," the GFHA chairwoman said. "Should I buy an opinion of a person who happened to dislike that part of the story? A good educator knows how to deeply reflect on what others say and ponder about applying them to himnself. All the presenters in the seminar were certified. We even contacted foreign affairs bureau at police stations in the province to select the most eligible speakers for the foreign instructors." A seminar on Oct. 20 in Icheon Art Hall for foreign teachers in Gyeonggi Province offers "Tips to Successful Life in Korea." / Courtesy of Joe McPherson A representative from Suwon Immigration Office spoke reminding those present not to sexually harass students, and spoke about E-2 visa rules, irritating those in the audience with longer-term visas. The immigration officer also got a strong reaction when he said the teachers weren't mandated by law to be there. "My employer told me that by law we were required to attend, then the immigration officer said that it was not law, so everyone lost their cool," Kim said. "I trust my managers so either they were misinformed or the government lied." The KFHA head explained, "Whether the teachers attended the Saturday's seminar had no effect on their immigration status. Hearing this from the immigration officer, some teachers later complained to me. I explained that this is for their employers, the hagwon principals, to abide by the bylaw by having them attend this seminar." An invitation shared on social media cited "Article 15 Subsection 4 of the law governing academy foundation, management and extracurricular work." But this passage is irrelevant to the mandatory seminar. The letter probably meant to cite Article 13 Paragraph 3 of the Act on the Establishment and Operation of Private Teaching Institutes and Extracurricular Lessons, or "Hagwon Bill," which states: "In the case of foreign instructors training will be conducted more than once after entering the country to improve their skills as those responsible for social education and aid them in adapting to Korean culture." According to Matt VanVolkenburg, a Canadian researcher of Korean history, the seminars are the result of media bias against foreigners. The amendment to the relevant law was first suggested in 2009 and made legal in 2011, mandating the seminars as well as drug tests for foreign instructors. "As the number of foreign teachers rose, peaking in 2011, fears of foreign teachers committing crimes, especially sex crimes against children, were stoked by journalists and politicians," VanVolkenburg said. The seminar itself repeated some of these sensational stories, including the 2007 arrest of Canadian pedophile Christopher Paul Neil who had worked in Korea, as well as cases of drug smuggling . "In 2013, the story of a foreign teacher suspected of having sexually assaulted a minor who was extradited to the U.S. was covered by 80 news articles half of them TV news reports," VanVolkenburg said. "In contrast, the case of a Korean elementary school vice principal who was sentenced to six years in prison for molesting nine elementary school students appeared in only 14 news reports none of which were on TV." While the number of crimes committed by foreigners has been increasing, it has stayed in proportion with the increasing foreign population, VanVolkenburg claims, citing his research . What's more, he adds, the foreign crime rate is markedly lower than the Korean crime rate. According to the GFHA chairwoman, the Gyeonggi Province Office of Education (GPOE) established its own bylaw on Sept. 1, 2017, obligating principals of English academies to send their foreign teachers to the seminar. However, it is unclear how the employers are punished for their teachers' nonattendance. She said Gyeonggi Province has about 3,500 foreign instructors, and around 1,800 were required to attend the seminar. Icheon Art Hall was chosen simply for its availability and seating capacity of 1,200. She said foreign teachers who can prove they took the seminar since 2014 didn't have to attend, unless they left the country and returned with a new visa. "Regarding the Saturday seminar, I got calls from about 100 foreign teachers who claimed they had already attended a seminar and wondered whether they had to take this year's seminar as well," she said. "I tried to allow them all not to come, once I confirmed whether they attended any past seminar within the four years." The chairwoman took her position in 2014, back when the seminars were not mandatory. She said foreign teachers who don't attend won't face disadvantages such as with immigration, but their employers will face unspecified disadvantages. As a result, most employment contracts foreign instructors sign will stipulate attendance in the seminars. "No disrespect to the people who put this together. I'm sure it wasn't easy. But it was a waste of everyone's time," Kim said. "I do believe they were trying to make this useful while appeasing...whomever they are working for. They just did a very poor job making it useful." She and McPherson both admit the potential for these seminars to be useful. "Since most of the teachers don't have teaching degrees, true teacher training is crucial. It's a crime that nothing is being done to help them proper teaching techniques. Basic child psychology would be useful. Tips for how to positively control a class, how to make a class plan, even giving examples of silly songs and games would be useful," McPherson said. "A lot of problems with English teachers happen because they don't know that they can get in trouble for things like libel or working in locations that aren't on their visas. They also don't know what their legal rights are in Korean labor law and in human rights laws. I doubt the Hagwon Association would want them to know that anyway." A handout offering tips for foreign English teachers tells them "Nobody cares about your own loneliness. / Courtesy of Joe McPherson U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, right, welcomes South Korean National Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo during a full honor arrival at the Pentagon Oct. 31, 2018 in Arlington, Virginia. Defense Minister Jeong was at the Pentagon to attend the 50th annual ROK-U.S. Security Consultative Meeting. AFP-Yonhap By Lee Min-hyung The United States Forces Korea (USFK) will continue to be stationed here even after South Korea regains wartime operational control (OPCON) of its troops from the U.S. military. Defense chiefs from Seoul and Washington agreed on this at their Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) on Wednesday (local time) as well as the transfer of the leadership of the United Nations Command (UNC) to a South Korean general. The two sides also reached a broad roadmap over how to maintain the USFK after the OPCON transfer they said on the sidelines of the annual defense minister's talks. Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo and his Washington counterpart Jim Mattis came to terms on eight clauses outlining the post-OPCON transfer defense situation in South Korea. The clauses included the bilateral pledge that the USFK will remain here after the transfer. South Korean National Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo reviews troops during a full honor arrival at the Pentagon October 31, 2018 in Arlington, Virginia. AFP-Yonhap Ethnic communities serve as conduit for refugee migration By Kang Hyun-kyung SONGDO Over the past decade, the expat population in South Korea has grown fast, surpassing 2 million last year and making up 4 percent of the population. The demographic change has come amid South Korea wrestling with population decline woes, implying the ratio of the foreign-born population will go up further in the foreseeable future. In an era of creative economy, diversity has been praised as a source of new ideas and innovative thinking. Amid the positive outlook of diversity, however, some significant implications of the gradual demographic changes were understated diversity occasionally serves as a conduit for refugee migration. Like other racially diverse countries, Malaysian activist Brian Lariche says, his country has benefitted from the thriving ethnic minority communities as migrant workers are helping the Southeast Asian country's tourism sector relieve labor shortages. However, he said ethnic minorities also have become a source of the influx of asylum seekers. Brian Lariche, head of community development for the nonprofit group Make It Right Movement based in Malaysia's Selangor, talks with The Korea Times at G-Tower in Songdo International Business District near the port city of Incheon on Thursday. / Korea Times Lariche, head of community development of the non-profit group Make It Right Movement based in Malaysia's Selangor, says some ethnic minorities, particularly those from war-torn countries such as Yemen and Somalia, bring their friends and relatives in need to Malaysia and provide shelter for them. "There is sort of an underground system that helps the asylum seekers find jobs illegally or get support from their community," Lariche said in a Korea Times interview on Thursday at G-Tower in the Songdo International Business District near the port city of Incheon. "Ethnic minorities help their countrymen and women to come to and live in Malaysia. The Yemeni community, for example, helps other Yemenis come to Malaysia and find a place to live there as illegal immigrants." Asylum seekers fly to Malaysia with tourist visas and then seek asylum there. Malaysia is not a signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention or the 1967 protocol. Therefore, even though the UNHCR recognizes the asylum seekers there as genuine refugees, they cannot get jobs or stay there permanently. They have to leave Malaysia once their tourist visas expire. About 180,000 asylum seekers are currently in Malaysia. Noting this is an official figure, Lariche says the actual number of asylum seekers in his country is higher than that. Unlike other Southeast Asian countries that shelter mostly asylum seekers from other parts of Asia, asylum seekers in Malaysia are ethnically diverse. People from Myanmar take the lion's share with 140,000, which includes 77,000 Rohingyas, followed by Pakistanis (21,000). Some of them came from war-torn countries in the Middle East. Approximately 3,000 Yemenis and another 3,000 Somalis and Syrians are also seeking asylum in the Southeast Asian country. According to Lariche, his country's Muslim-dominating demographics appear to have played a part to attract Muslim asylum seekers from outside the country. "About 60 percent of our people are Muslims, so they welcome Muslims, although they are from other countries. Compared to other migrants, Muslims are well-received by Malaysians." The refugee migration in Malaysia has affected South Korea. Earlier this year, over 500 Yemeni asylum seekers arrived on the southern scenic island of Jeju directly from Kuala Lumpur. The influx of Yemenis _ albeit its scale is much smaller than Europe has experienced since 2014 _ has emerged as a policy challenge to the Korean immigration service as it has no prior experience of asylum seekers' arrivals en masse to its territory. After scrutinizing their applications, the immigration authorities allowed around 360 Yemenis to stay legally in Korea for one year, although they failed to obtain refugee status. During their stay, they can move to other cities and are allowed to have jobs. South Korea's experience of the Yemeni migration indicates asylum seekers are no longer just a Western issue. Previously, Europe and the United States were popular destinations for asylum seekers. But these countries tightened controls of their borders recently and those who seek asylum find it tougher to enter these regions. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her ruling coalition have been suffering the consequences of the open-door policy to shelter refugees following the influx of 1.8 million of asylum seekers to Europe since 2014. Merkel's decision to shelter over 1 million refugees has caused public uproar, particularly from the far right, and her ruling coalition was crushed in the recent Bavarian state election. Refugees turn eyes to Asia Amid tightened border control in Europe and the United States, asylum seekers have begun to turn their eyes to newer countries. Countries such as Malaysia and South Korea have emerged as attractive destinations for asylum seekers. Lariche said countries with high income and safe and livable conditions will become target destinations for asylum seekers. South Korea is a signatory of the refugee convention. The screening process is strict, but once asylum seekers obtain refugee status, they can stay in the country legally and even have jobs. Lariche said refugee migration is not something that can be stopped. So he said countries would be better off if they find "realistic" solutions, rather than making efforts to stop refugee migration. Facing an influx of asylum seekers, he said Malaysia is looking at signing the refugee convention and he believes his country could sign it as soon as next year. If Malaysia becomes a signatory of the convention, asylum seekers there will be able to obtain legal status to stay and have jobs in the country. "I think we should view asylum seekers as potential migrant workers," he said. If the proper regulatory and policy framework is in place, he said, the host country and refugees can reach a mutually beneficial solution. His remarks indicate refugees can help the host country relieve labor shortages in certain sectors. Artemy Izmestiev, first from left on the big screen, speaks as he moderates the United Nations symposium on vulnerable groups at Songdo's G-Tower on Thursday. From left are Izemestiev, Solomon Islands under secretary of development planning and aid coordination Lynn Rowena Sidi, Brian Lariche from Malaysia, National Planning Commission of Nepal infrastructure and production joint secretary Biju Kumar Shrestha, Korea NGO Council for Overseas Development Cooperation head Jo Dae-shik, International Longevity Center of Singapore director Susana Concordo Harding and Kang Ye-eun, winner of the 2018 UNPOG Speech Contest and a student at Korea's Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies. / Korea Times In the video report jointly produced by and its investigative team Sherlock, a former employee of Korean online file-sharing site follows Yang Jin-ho, the company's largest shareholder, to an office crowded with white-collar workers. There, Yang condemns the man in front the workers for leaving critical comments on a bulletin board on the company's website. The businessman then slaps the former IT developer twice and demands a "sincere apology." As the man, whose name was withheld, kneeled and apologized, Yang beats the back of his head, demanding more sincerity. Yang, the chairman of and the largest shareholder of another online file-sharing site Filenori, doesn't accept the man's apology. No one in the room tries to stop Yang from beating the man and all remained seated staring at computer screens. The video, made on Apr. 8, 2015 at the WeDisk office in Bundang-gu in Seongnam, was recorded by one of the firm's employees on Yang's orders to "leave it as a souvenir." News Tapa recently received an anonymous tip about the video. In February that year, after quitting the company, the victim left the comments at the company's open-to-all bulletin board with an ID parodying Yang's name. The comments said he will "raise salaries if anyone worked hard every time" and "it would have been better if he (Yang) showed leadership to his subordinates too." South Korea's suicide rate remains the highest among developed nations despite declines in recent years, comparative statistics from welfare authorities indicated Monday. An analysis of health data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), conducted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the National Health Insurance Service, showed that as of 2016, 25.8 out of 100,000 South Koreans committed suicide. The number is the highest among (OECD) member countries whose average suicide rate was 11.6. Latvia and Slovenia had the second-highest rate of 18.1. Japan had 16.6, Hungary 16.2 and Belgium 15.8. Turkey had the lowest rate of 2.1. Statistics show that the suicide rate for OECD countries has been falling since 1985. For South Korea, the number has generally been rising since 2000 but has started to drop since 2010. Specifically, the country's suicide rate was 29.5 in 2004, 29.9 in 2005, 26.2 in 2006, 28.7 in 2007, 29 in 2008 and 33.8 in 2009. It fell to 33.5 in 2010, 33.3 in 2011, 29.1 in 2012, 28.7 in 2013, 26.7 in 2014 and 25.8 in 2015. The government in January launched an inter-ministerial action plan to bring down the rate to 17 by 2022. (Yonhap) Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi discussed in separate meetings on Wednesday with Germany's interior and foreign federal ministers security cooperation as well as the latest developments in Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Syria. El-Sisi, who is in Germany on an official visit, discussed with German FM Heiko Maas the latest regional developments, stressing that addressing the challenges facing the region requires continued efforts by the international community. The president also stressed "the importance of pushing forward the peace process between the Palestinians and Israelis, pointing out the need to reach a comprehensive deal between the two sides to end the conflict and pave the way for the region to achieve economic and social development," according to a statement by the Egyptian presidency. In his meeting with German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, El-Sisi hailed the developments in relations between both countries, especially regarding security and combating terrorism and extremism. El-Sisi praised a security cooperation agreement signed between Cairo and Berlin in July 2016, as well as efforts by both sides to foster cooperation in this domain as well as in combating irregular migration. El-Sisi also praised a mutual cooperation agreement signed in August 2017 to address the economic and social roots of irregular migration, and stressed the importance of continuing coordination in combating terrorism and irregular migration. "The president stressed the need for the international community to intensify its efforts and adopt a comprehensive strategy that seeks to solve the root causes of these problems by supporting economic and social development efforts," the presidency's statement said. Both German ministers hailed Egypt's efforts and achievements in different areas, especially in implementing economic reforms. German FM Maas stressed during his meeting with El-Sisi his country's keenness to boost cooperation and investment. German investments in Egypt are estimated at 1.5 billion euros and provide around 22,000 jobs, according to statements by the German ambassador to Egypt in February 2017. Search Keywords: Short link: Bang Chan-young, president of KIMEP University / Courtesy of KIMEP University Fundamental understanding of NK regime necessary By Kim Bo-eun A step-by-step process for North Korea's denuclearization has been discussed for the past months since June when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed at their historic summit to work toward the goal of complete denuclearization. However, the process was stalled for months over what seemed to be differences over who would make the first move Pyongyang taking a denuclearization step or Washington providing an incentive first. Expectations abounded for progress after the third inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang last month, where North Korea stated it would permanently shut down its Tongchang-ri missile testing site in the presence of international experts and do the same for its key Yongbyon nuclear testing site if the U.S. took corresponding measures. Over a month has passed, however, and North Korea has yet to respond to U.S. invitations for working-level talks over the matter. The countries still appear at odds over what would be equivalent measures Pyongyang is believed to be seeking sanctions relief in addition to a declaration ending the 1950-53 Korean War, while Washington is calling for additional denuclearization steps. Amid these circumstances, a North Korea expert said a piecemeal approach to the North's denuclearization will not succeed. "North Korea has not only nuclear weapons but also a chemical arsenal and offensive weapons, such as intercontinental missile systems. Each and every piece of their offensive weapons should be first revealed by the North Korean government, then inspected and progressively dismantled, and then such dismantlement should be independently verified," said Bang Chan-young, president of the Kazakhstan-based KIMEP University. Bang is an economist who taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of San Francisco. Bang was invited to advise the Kazakhstan president on economic policy, and led reforms of the country's economic system. He has also provided economic policy advice for North Korea. "We have seen that many months have passed since the Punggye-ri demolition and we still don't have verification in place for this. At this pace, how long would it take to reach an extensive complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement (CVID) of all North Korean weapons?" he said. "Even if we achieved this, how would the sole disarmament solve the issue of the aggressive nature of North Korea? This is not a feasible approach." Understanding of NK regime necessary Approaches like the Sunshine Policy failed because they were based on appeasement, rather than a coherent vision and a solid understanding of what the North Korean system is and how it works, Bang said. "It is essential to understand that while nuclear weapons play an integral role in the North Korean regime's survival, they are not the end themselves but the means to an end," the scholar said. He said North Korea exchanging its nuclear weapons program for security guarantees and economic modernization would offer reassurance for the Kim regime, but added the trade-off should take into account the dual nature of Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal. This is that the weapons program serves not only as a deterrent against real or imagined threats from the U.S. but also as a source of legitimacy for the regime, without which Kim would lose his revered status as monolithic leader. "Any policy put forward by the U.S. must offer the regime an exit strategy which would provide a new source of legitimacy, both domestically and internationally," he said. "The U.S. has previously failed to introduce a coherent policy because they lacked understanding of the dual purpose of the nuclear weapons program. Therefore, their approach must be fundamentally altered in order to achieve denuclearization and permanent peace simultaneously." Inter-Korean economic cooperation North Korea has yet to make progress on denuclearization, but has been calling for sanctions to be lifted, and the South Korean government recently joined in on the calls. While the stance of the U.S. and EU is that sanctions cannot be lifted until denuclearization is complete, talks are ongoing between the Koreas on economic cooperation, including projects to connect railways between the South and North. However, Bang pointed out that economic cooperation in the true sense will not be viable under North Korea's current economic system. "Their traditional socialist economy has grown dysfunctional and has a distorted allocation of resources. Modernization is simply not possible under a system in which the grueling labor of the mass population is exploited to the benefit of the elite. As it stands today, and as it has remained for more than 70 years, the North Korean system is extractive, not productive," he said. "As long as their economy operates under such exploitative conditions, South Korean economic cooperation will always be one-sided, as a dysfunctional socialist system cannot coexist peacefully with a prosperous, democratic market economy." Bang said the North needs to introduce market-oriented reforms and open up, for mutually beneficial development projects to become a viable option. "Many point to the fact that North Korea has natural resources, but regardless of its abundance of raw materials and untapped potential, the government is ill-equipped to capitalize on them. The current state of deficient infrastructure within North Korea would make sustained and high economic growth impossible," he said. Working out the process "A step-by-step approach to denuclearization is not a tangible option for the U.S or North Korea, as both are running out of time and the idea of progress by gestures and reciprocation is time-consuming," Bang said. He said this approach is also ineffective because it doesn't address the needs of either party, who have very different interests the U.S. is negotiating with the sole objective of complete denuclearization whereas North Korea is negotiating for its survival, which must come without nuclear armament and needs to be guaranteed by economic assistance. "Any future meeting between the two parties needs be supported by substantial groundwork a solid background of concrete proposals that address the interests and necessities of all stakeholders. I think we are past the time for symbolic gestures and declarations of intentions," Bang said. South Korea exhumed the remains of two soldiers in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) during its demining operation this week, the South's defence ministry said on Thursday. South Korea has dug up the remains of two soldiers it believes were killed during the Korean war. The country's defense ministry says the exhumations happened in the 'Demilitarized Zone' - or DMZ - during a demining operation. Separating North and South Korea, the barrier is one of the world's most heavily fortified frontiers. The conflict between the two sides ran from 1950 - 1953. It's thought the bodies of more than 10,000 soldiers are still in the zone, including UN fighters. The team also unearthed a military identification tag typical of a South Korean soldier. The two Koreas have been removing mines in the DMZ to make it safe before a joint project to exhume war remains next year. It's part of a military agreement signed by both sides after the third inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang last month. Isolated North Korea and democratic South Korea are still technically at war. That's because the 1950s conflict ended in a truce - not a peace treaty. But South Korean President Moon Jae-in is now keen to formally end the war by the end of 2018. But Washington has linked this to progress on denuclearization. As part of the thaw in relations, the two Koreas are also working together to pull out some guard posts on their border, withdraw firearms and share information on surveillance. (Reuters) Saemangeum renewable energy plan draws backlash On Tuesday, President Moon Jae-in announced a plan to establish one of the world's largest renewable energy production complexes in Saemangeum, a reclaimed land project in North Jeolla Province. The plan is undoubtedly aimed at implementing his campaign promise to phase out nuclear power plants. But Moon has immediately drawn fire over the project from the opposition Party for Democracy and Peace, whose political power is based in North and South Jeolla provinces. Residents in the region are also against the renewable energy plan. They oppose it because they fear the reclaimed land might end up only as a power generation complex. In fact, President Moon promised to develop Saemangeum into a pan-Yellow Sea economic zone in his May 2017 presidential election campaign. This ambitious pledge was to turn the reclaimed land into a center for economic cooperation with China, one of Korea's largest trading partners, and create a Northeast Asian economic hub. Regrettably, however, Moon has yet to take any concrete action to put his commitment into practice. More exactly, he has no time to do so because he has been so preoccupied with inter-Korean detente. Nevertheless, the President has actively pressed ahead with the nuclear energy phase-out policy, despite objections from conservative opposition parties and their supporters. Now Moon seems to be trying to speed up the policy by creating a large-scale renewable energy production base in Saemangeum. If this project is completed without delay, it would give more momentum for the Moon administration to shut down more aged nuclear reactors down the road. Under the just-announced plan, the government will build a solar farm by 2022 to generate 3 gigawatts of electricity as well as a wind power complex to produce 1 gigawatt. The government seeks to increase the share of renewable energy over the total energy supply drastically from the current 8 percent. However, the project lacks public consensus, especially among the residents of the region. The plan has come up suddenly without any prior consultation. This means the presidential office is unilaterally pushing for the project. So critics are taking issue with procedural matters and slamming Moon and his policymakers for not reflecting diverse opinions about the renewable energy plan. Worse, the Moon government has not conducted any feasibility studies or environmental impact assessments for the Saemangeum plan. We can hardly understand why the administration, which values public consensus, has skipped such a step before announcing the project. The government has said it will inject 570 billion won ($500 million) of the state budget into the project and attract 10 trillion won in private investment to complete the renewable energy complex. Yet it has no concrete action plan on how to draw private capital. Taken overall, the Moon administration certainly appears to have put the Saemangeum plan together too hastily. It should conduct a rigorous feasibility study and other preparatory work before it is too late. It is also required to draw a much bigger picture to translate the reclaimed land, which is 14 times larger than Yeouido in Seoul, into a regional economic hub. Time to shed light on power abuse scandal The ruling party and three minor opposition parties are seeking to set up a special tribunal to handle a judicial power abuse scandal involving former Supreme Court Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae. But their efforts face a strong backlash not only from the main opposition Liberal Korea Party (LKP), but also from the highest court itself. The governing Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and the three minor parties claim the special (independent) apparatus is necessary to try the case of Yang and other senior justices who allegedly used trials as bargaining chips in the court's dealings with the presidential office under then President Park Geun-hye. They insist the current judiciary is unable to conduct a fair trial of the power abuse case because a considerable number of incumbent judges are implicated directly or indirectly in the scandal. On the other hand, the LKP and the court claim the creation of a special tribunal may deepen public distrust in the judiciary and infringe upon the independence of the court. They also point out the plan is not in line with the Constitution and may set a bad precedent. The rival parties have yet to negotiate on the issue. Now they have to check if the plan risks undermining the principle of the separation of the legislative, judicial and executive branches. What is more important than the establishment of such an extraordinary apparatus is if the court can make all-out efforts to turn the scandal into an occasion to eliminate the deep-rooted evils prevailing in the judiciary. Equally important is how to regain public trust. The court and judges have to admit the special tribunal plan has come as a natural consequence of their misdeeds. The beleaguered court should understand why an opinion poll showed 61.9 percent of respondents support the establishment of the special tribunal, while only 24.6 percent are against it. The court should take this as a strong demand by the people for genuine judicial reform, which is long overdue. By Hyon O'Brien Our book club recently read "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960). Published in 1937, this book met with criticism from black intellectuals as being insufficiently politically aware, and it faded into obscurity until rediscovered by Alice Walker in 1975. Since then it has become an acknowledged classic of American fiction. It was tough for me at first to follow the dialogue because the author chose to make all the characters speak in dialect as a device for making the story real. However, once I tuned in, I was deeply moved by what Hurston was trying to reckon with. The novel tells the story of Janie and her three husbands. Her grandmother Nanny, who raised her, strongly pushed Janie to find material security by marrying her off to a husband she couldn't relate to. She then ran off with the charismatic Jody, who after a deceptively loving start proved to be a controlling figure who didn't allow her growth as a person. Janie felt as if she were two persons her real self and the self she showed to the world. She finally found her true love in the memorably named Tea Cake, whom she married despite her community's disapproval because he was much younger than her. By this time, Janie had found the inner strength to assert herself and follow her intuition. The message in the book is Janie's struggle to find her own distinctive voice as a black woman. Only when Janie decided to pull away from the burden of behaving as everyone expected of her could she find her voice and become completely who she was meant to be. I discovered that the issue she faced was the same as my own life-long quest. Even though I am an Asian woman, what Janie was going through in the book was very familiar. I also had to find my own voice by dealing with and liberating myself from Korean society's expectations, family constraints, cultural traps, traditional thinking and limitations put on Korean women. For a long time, like Janie in the book, I portrayed two persons; my inside, interior thinking was quite different from the outside, exterior person I was presenting to maintain peace in the family: I didn't want to upset the people around me by sticking out as the proverbial nail that gets the hammer. I had to ignore the injustices practiced in our family: while my brothers were encouraged to pursue medical degrees, my father said he wasn't ready to pay three or four extra years of tuition for me. He told me he would pay only for the English Department at Ewha. If I failed, that's would have been the end of the story. When we had only a little meat, it was understood that the daughters would abstain for our parents, sons came first. I don't remember getting any extra clothing other than school uniforms until I went to college. I still remember vividly the day I was presented with a one-piece dress. My parents had no idea how bitterly I resented this treatment, as I just went along quietly. But in 1968, 50 years ago. I shocked and upset everyone I know, family members and close friends, by declaring that I was determined to marry my American boyfriend whom I discerned as my kindred spirit and best friend even though we were of different race, culture and nationality. My parents did ultimately get over the shock and had a wonderful relationship with my husband, but I'm sure they often shook their heads in wonderment. In her memoir "In Pieces" the actress Sally Field shares her life-long struggle to find her true voice. She couldn't fight her stepfather's power over her when he entered her life at age four, and she had to endure sexual abuse during her growing years. She couldn't share this trauma with her own mother till shortly before her death. She suffered the turmoil in silence. She describes her three years in a relationship with the actor Burt Reynolds; he seemed to dismiss some aspects of Sally Field's personality that he didn't like and validated only half of Sally Field's personhood. To be her whole self, she realized she had to break away from him and her deadly attraction to him. Sally Field is now touring many cities to share her stories, and I heard her speak in Miami. She said she had to write this memoir to heal herself. It took her seven long years. It was liberating for all the women sitting there listening to her being interviewed by a Miami Herald columnist. We felt it was "our story," We were happy to see her finally free and confident in the "self" she finally arrived at. I salute her long journey that brought her to the inner peace she has longed for all her life. I end this piece with Steve Jobs's words: "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other peoples thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition." Hyon O'Brien (hyonobrien@gmail.com) is a former reference librarian now living in the United States. By Massimo Introvigne Chinese authorities are undertaking an extensive fake news campaign in Korea to persuade local authorities to deport Chinese members of the Church of Almighty God who have come here to escape religious persecution. With the Ministry of Justice looking to revise the Refugee Act to prevent fake asylum seekers in the wake of the outcry over the arrival this year of around 500 Yemeni refugees, mostly men, China is doing what it can to portray Chinese asylum seekers here as bogus. The Chinese refugees in question are from the Church of Almighty God (CAG), a new Christian religious movement which the government has singled out for suppression, and are among several thousand who have escaped overseas and sought asylum in democratic countries. Several NGOs have submitted evidence to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations that thousands of CAG members have been arrested for the sole reason of belonging to the church. Many of them have been tortured and more than 30 died while in custody in suspicious circumstances. Scholars have also documented that accusations of crimes allegedly committed by the CAG are in fact fabricated by Chinese propaganda. These bullying tactics are stark explanation for the abysmal reputation China has internationally for its handling of political and religious dissidents. Confidential Chinese Communist Party (CCP) documents obtained and published by Bitter Winter, the online publication of my NGO, the Center for Studies on New Religions, show that the campaign of fake news also extends to South Korea. An internal CCP document dated July 3, 2015, which we published in Bitter Winter, explicitly required officials throughout China to investigate members of both the Falun Gong religion and the CAG who had left the country, obtain a comprehensive grasp of their basic situation (including the activities they are engaged in overseas, who their relatives in China are and what they do, and so on), conduct an analysis on a person-by-person basis, and formulate a special work plan for each person. At first, the attempts to force believers back home were quite thuggish. For example, back in May 2016, a woman arrived in Korea with CCP agents and tried to kidnap her husband, who had joined CAG. The husband was lured to a hotel where his passport and mobile phone were taken. He was held for a while against his will but managed to escape. After this failure, the strategy appeared to change. The woman returned twice to Korea and held public protests with the Korean representative of a local pro-CCP magazine. In 2017, the wife of another CAG member who had fled to South Korea was ordered by the political commissar of the Provincial Public Security Department in Heilongjiang, where she lived, to join the CAG community in South Korea and "follow his instructions." Unwilling to do this, she claimed to be suffering from a serious heart disease and fled her home together with her parents. On Nov. 8, last year, the magazine representative brought the relatives of five CAG members to South Korea and held demonstrations outside the court in Jeju, the Seoul Immigration Office, and at CAG's own premises. The family members were required to hold a banner reading "My relative is not a refugee," and request that the court dismiss the asylum bids. At this time, one of the Chinese family members brought to Korea realized that something was wrong and sought the cooperation of Korean authorities to meet with his relative. He discovered far from having been "kidnapped and abused" by the church as the CCP had claimed, his relative was finally enjoying the freedom of belief and was very happy to be allowed to remain in Korea. Now, in the wake of the protests against the refugees from Yemen, China has upped its game. We have learned that the Chinese Ministry of State Security recently pressured the relatives of many CAG members now in Korea to film videos and write joint letters "seeking missing family members." Nobody in China would believe such letters and videos to be spontaneous and genuine, but they are used in Korea to persuade the authorities to deport the CAG asylum seekers. But, ironically, in Korea, such gestures risk being taken at face value. Obviously, the Chinese plan is being implemented in Korea to take advantage of a new climate that is generally unfavorable to refugees. It is something that Koreans, despite the need to maintain good political, economic and cultural relations with China, for the simple reason that it violates their sovereign values as a modern democracy that respects freedom of religion and individual human rights. Massimo Introvigne is a sociologist and the founding director of the Center for Studies on New Religions. The views expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times. Koreans let down by incompetence, fixation with NK President Moon Jae-in's job approval rating is down to the 50 percent range amid a protracted economic slump. According to a Gallup poll released on Oct. 26, 58 percent gave a positive assessment of the President, a 4 percent drop from the previous week. Another survey by Realmeter showed that 59.3 percent approved of his performance. This is a noticeable decline from earlier this year when his job approval rating was well over 70 percent after the June local elections where his Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) enjoyed an overwhelming victory. The ratings reflect increasingly negative public sentiment toward the Moon administration mainly due to economic incompetence that is overshadowing some of the so-called diplomatic achievements. The President just returned from a lengthy European tour starting in France earlier this month. Cheong Wa Dae trumpeted the tour as highly useful for gaining Europe's support for peace on the Korean Peninsula. But it was scorned by much of the Korean public after European leaders flatly turned down Moon's plea to reduce sanctions on North Korea. Amid a damning job crisis, some critics thought the trip was ill-timed. It was unwise for the President to be absent for such an extended period while so many people were suffering from unemployment and financial difficulties. In September, Korea's jobless rate hit 3.6 percent, up 0.3 percentage points from 2017. This is the highest September jobless figure since 2005. The number of unemployed people reached 1.02 million last month, up 92,000 from 2017. Despite the grave situation, the government has done little to address the issue, only coming up with half-baked measures such as expanding temporary positions in the public sector. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon recently said 59,000 temporary jobs would be added by the end of the year and taxes on refined fuel products would be reduced by 15 percent for the next six months as part of measures to invigorate the economy. Much of the Korean public is not at all convinced these will make much difference. On top of the glaring economic incompetence, another problem with Moon is his fixation on North Korea. There are a lot of things Moon has done right regarding North Korea, but he is also being criticized for rushing to reduce sanctions on Pyongyang and obsessing over North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's visit to Seoul within the year. Many South Koreans would like to see a North Korean leader reciprocating our leader's visit. But most people still first want to see real changes from Pyongyang toward denuclearization. Moon's rush for improving inter-Korean ties is also out of step with the U.S., stoking fears of cracks in the Korea-U.S. alliance. Moon's recent ratification of inter-Korean agreements such as the Pyongyang joint Declaration, the outcome of the latest inter-Korean summit in September, and the inter-Korean military accord were also heavily criticized by opposition parties as premature. Moon's popularity will wane significantly if he keeps up his unilateral ways on diplomacy with North Korea. By Dong Sun-hwa Korean-American Google Korea CEO John Lee has been accused of using his inability to speak Korean fluently as a delaying tactic during a National Assembly inspection Monday. The National Assembly Science, ICT, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee called Lee as a witness in regard to Google's alleged tax evasion and YouTube's alleged fake videos. It was the second time the committee had called on Lee, following the first, Oct. 10, when he merely repeatedly answered, "I do not know," and "I cannot say that." Lee's latest responses were not so different from his previous appearance. As an interpreter was used for every question, the response time for Lee was curtailed. "The CEO is known to use Korean fluently at home but why here (is he not so fluent) How can he behave like this despite living with Koreans?" Noh Woong-rae from the ruling Democratic Party of Korea asked. "I heard that Lee has a lot of drinking parties with Koreans, and that he is good at swearing at people using Korean," said Kim Kyung-jin from the Party for Democracy and Peace. "But now he is spending so long waiting for interpretation, it is allowing us only one question." Rep. Kim also said there should be an adjustment to the audit procedure for witnesses from foreign-affiliated firms. "The national inspection is fruitless if only five minutes is given for a question, interpretation and answer," Kim said. Lee said he can have basic conversations in Korean but needed an interpreter this time because the content was complex. President Moon Jae-in talks with ministers and the North Jeolla Province governor at a solar energy plant in Gunsan in the province, Tuesday. From left are Moon, Governor Song Ha-jin, Trade, Industry and Energy Minister Sung Yun-mo and Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Kim Hyun-mee. / Yonhap By Nam Hyun-woo Economists and environmentalists are voicing concerns over President Moon Jae-in's "pet project" to create a massive solar and wind energy farm in Saemangeum, a reclaimed land project off the coast of Gunsan, North Jeolla Province. They say the project's feasibility is doubtful because the actual power expected to be produced at the farms would be far below the government's anticipation and end up resulting in an electricity price hike. Environmentalists also say covering the area with solar panels will pose a threat to the area's ecosystem. President Moon visited the area Tuesday and announced the project of establishing a 3 gigawatt solar power farm covering 38 square kilometers of land in the area, which he said will be the largest solar power farm in the world. On waters off the Saemangeum Seawall, a 1 gigawatt offshore wind farm will also be built. The government expects the 4 gigawatt capacity is equal to power generated by four nuclear plants. For the project, the government said it will attract 10 trillion won ($8.77 billion) of private capital by guaranteeing the state-run power distributor Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) buys electricity at nearly twice the electricity price consumers pay. Experts say however, the project lacks economic feasibility and will likely trigger an electricity price hike in the future. "Last year, KEPCO paid 209 won per kilowatt-hour to solar power generators and received 110 won from consumers in electricity fees," said Jeong Yong-hoon, a professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. "When we add other costs for transmission, distribution and subsidies to LNG power producers which will cover the off-time of solar power generators, the actual cost for KEPCO will likely surpass 300 won. In this structure, KEPCO will end up accumulating losses." Jeong said solar energy is and will remain as one of the most costly energy sources in Korea because of the country's lack of sufficient sunshine, stressing the government's belief that solar power will become cheaper in the future "does not make sense." "If you want to look into the feasibility of solar power generation in a country, you can find answer in the country's grape price, because it is heavily dependent on the amount of sunshine in the country," he said. "No matter how hard Korean farmers try, they can't compete against Chilean grape in terms of price, because it is a natural environment which cannot be changed by human efforts." He expects KEPCO will suffer losses up to 364.2 billion won from the Saemangeum project every year. Roh Dong-seok, a senior research fellow at the Korea Energy Economics Institute, also echoed Jeong's view that solar energy has its limits. "Though the project seems to be aimed at making solar energy profitable for those who want to participate in the project, its true meaning is it will add to electricity prices for consumers," Roh said. "The government keeps saying renewable energy is good and what we should do, but it does not talk about the consumer burden." According to Roh, Korea's solar energy utilization rate is averaged to 15 percent, meaning the 4 gigawatt facilities may end up generating less than 1 gigawatt. The utilization rate refers to a generator's amount of actual power generation compared to the amount it is capable of generating in a certain period time. "Solar energy's utilization rate and amount of electricity produced fluctuate depending on the time and the natural environment of the installed region. Compared to nuclear power, solar energy is less economical." Environmentalists also expressed their concern for the facilities' potential damage to the ecosystem in the area. "The concept of developing a preserved area to make massive wind and solar energy farms will strip endangered animals, such as spoonbills, of their ecosystem," an official at North Jeolla Chapter of Green Korea said. President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi arrived in Germany on 28 October for a four-day visit in which he participated in the mini-summit of African leaders as part of the G20 Africa Partnership initiative. During the visit Al-Sisi met with Chancellor Angela Merkel to probe ways of boosting cooperation over counter-terrorism and halting illegal immigration. The visit comes within the framework of efforts by Egypt to promote cooperation with other African countries and G20 states in light of Egypts presidency of the African Union [AU] in 2019, said Presidential Spokesman Bassam Radi. Germany launched the G20 Africa Partnership during its presidency of the G20, a grouping of the worlds largest economies. The initiative gives African states the opportunity to meet with potential investors with the aim of supporting growth, increasing productivity and creating new job opportunities. The African members of the initiative are: Egypt, Cote dIvoire, Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Morocco, Tunisia, Rwanda, Senegal and Togo. The timing of the visit, two months before Egypts chairmanship of the African Union and Germanys non-permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council, is important, says Hassan Abu Taleb, a political analyst at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. It allows for an exchange of views and coordination of stances over regional and international issues, focusing mainly on development in Africa. Egypt has had strong diplomatic relations with Germany for more than 150 years, points out Ambassador Gamal Bayoumi. Germany has been supportive of Egypt and understands our important regional role. Egypt and Germany see eye-to-eye on a number of regional conflicts, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Germany banned the import of products labelled as being Israeli but which are actually from the occupied territories and according to Bayoumi, the younger generation of Germans does not accept what they consider to be the unfair treatment of Palestinians by Israelis. Abu Taleb believes Germanys growing relations with Egypt are a result of several factors, not least Egypts success in combating illegal immigration across the Mediterranean. Egypt has intensified maritime inspections and monitoring. It has presented a developmental alternative to youth to help end illegal migration, establishing fisheries and national mega projects that have created jobs. There are also 1,048 German companies operating in the Egyptian market. Trade between the two countries reached 5.8 billion in 2017, up from 5.3 billion euros in the previous year, and investment reached 700 million, up 200 over the same period. Egyptian investments in Germany are valued at $46.1 million, concentrated in the pharmaceutical, furniture, medical equipment and tourist sectors. German exports to Egypt account for 70 per cent of bilateral trade, says Mahmoud Mohamed Ahmed, vice president of the Arab-African Economic Council and a member of the German Chamber of Commerce, and the bulk comprises machinery, construction equipment, electro mechanics, hospital equipment, vehicles, auto parts and accessories. Since 2015 Germany has also exported arms and security equipment. Egyptian exports to Germany include jewellery, building materials such as cement and ceramics and agricultural produce. German businesses have also contracted to build a number of factories in the Suez Canal industrial zone, including two producing cars for the European and African markets. Cooperation is also taking place in the energy sector. Siemens and its local partners are constructing three natural power gas-fired power plants worth more than 6 billion, in Beni Sweif, Borollos, and the New Administrative Capital. The plants will produce 14,400 megawatts, boosting Egypts power generation capacity by 40 per cent. Egypts presidency of the African Union in 2019 also offers opportunities to Germany, as does Egypts membership of transcontinental trading blocks. Egypt is well positioned to become Germanys gateway to African markets. German factories in Egypt will be exempted from customs under the COMESA agreement. The factories will also allow German manufacturers access to low-cost Egyptian labour. Germany itself suffers a shortage of labour, particularly in the engineering, electronics, computer, nursing and technical sectors, and would be an attractive destination for Egyptian workers. GIZ, the German aid agency, also invests heavily in Egypt, overseeing development projects worth 400 million. During his visit Al-Sisi met with German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Gerd Muller and stressed Cairos keenness to step up cooperation in the education sector. This is a priority issue for Egypt, given the successful experiences of German schools and universities in Egypt and the high quality education they offer, said Al-Sisi. *A version of this article appears in print in the 1 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Tapping mutual benefits with Germany Search Keywords: Short link: Hyundai Motor workers assemble trucks at a production line in the company's Jeonju factory in Wanju, North Jeolla Province, in this file photo. The automaker decided to cut back on truck production due to falling demand in the domestic market. / Korea Times file Foreign truck makers also struggle with falling demand By Park Jae-hyuk Hyundai Motor will cut commercial vehicle production and transfer workers to other production lines to cope with the slow domestic demand for medium and heavy trucks, the automaker said Wednesday. Management and labor recently agreed to reduce truck production at the Jeonju factory in Wanju, North Jeolla Province, to eight units an hour from 12.39. They also reached a compromise on the transfer of 300 employees. Among them, 210 will work at other production lines in the factory, while the remaining 90 will move to Hyundai's factories in Ulsan and Gwangju. The Jeonju factory makes buses, the Mighty light-duty vehicle and the Xcient heavy-duty truck. According to Hyundai, the measure will affect the lines of medium- and heavy-duty trucks, which are mainly used as tractor-trailers, cargo trucks and dump trucks. The Hyundai Porter, which can carry a ton of cargo, is not affected because the vehicle is produced at the Ulsan factory. "The recent decision is a countermeasure to the falling truck demand, which is caused by a decline in container port traffic and a slump in the domestic construction industry," a Hyundai Motor official said. Data compiled by the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association showed Hyundai sold 25,017 medium-duty trucks between January and September, down 15.4 percent from a year earlier. The company sold 4,424 heavy-duty trucks during the period, a 28.1 percent decline year-on-year. Amid worsening profitability, the automaker temporarily suspended operation of a production line for medium trucks from Mar. 26 to 30. In July, it unprecedentedly transferred 47 workers from the Jeonju factory to the Kia Motors Gwangju factory. According to industry officials, Hyundai is not the only truck maker suffering from falling demand. Tata Daewoo, a Korean commercial vehicle manufacturer owned by the India-based Tata Motors, scrapped its plan to release new medium and light trucks in 2019. In addition, 1,000 employees of Tata Daewoo working at the company's Gunsan factory in North Jeolla Province had to take leave for a couple of weeks during summer as the automaker could not afford to run the factory amid plunging sales. Foreign truck makers, such as Volvo, MAN, Scania and Daimler, are going all out to narrow the price gap between their trucks and those made in Korea. Some of them are offering discounts up to 30 percent to clear their inventories of medium and heavy trucks. By Nam Hyun-woo POSCO will operate three job training programs for the next five years, to provide field experience to 5,500 jobseekers and those who want to start their own business, the steel giant said Thursday. In addition, the company said those who finished the program with a good performance will be given jobs at POSCO and its affiliates. For 1,000 jobseekers, POSCO will expand its existing artificial intelligence and big data academy into a three-month program. At the academy, they will learn statistics and big data analysis and will be paid 1 million won per month. Also, the company will provide field experiences to 4,000 jobseekers by running a three-week program working with POSCO employees. POSCO said the program will be focused on providing "real working experience" which is hard to attain through educations at universities. For 500 of those seeking to start their own business, POSCO will operate an education program on business planning, finance, investment and other capacities required for entrepreneurs. For those who passed the feasibility study after the program, the company will provide an office and investment. "After Chairman Choi Jeong-woo took office, POSCO has been making efforts to grow with society, and the programs are in line with POSCO's new vision of 'With POSCO,'" a POSCO official said. Hyundai Department Store Duty Free President Hwang Hae-yeon, center, speaks during a press conference at the company's new duty free store in southeastern Seoul, Tuesday. / Courtesy of Hyundai Department Store Group By Park Jae-hyuk Hyundai Department Store Group failed to have Chanel, Hermes and Louis Vuitton shops at its first duty free store which will open Thursday near the World Trade Center Seoul, the retail giant said Wednesday. "The number of Chinese tourists has sharply declined due to the diplomatic dispute over the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system here. Against this backdrop, foreign luxury brands have been skeptical about opening their shops at new duty free stores," Hyundai Department Store Duty Free President Hwang Hae-yeon said during a press conference at the new store in southeastern Seoul. He did not provide a specific blueprint for attracting the top three luxury brands. "It is usual for new duty free stores to spend a couple of years attracting top luxury brands, such as Chanel and Hermes," the executive said. "Drawing support from Hyundai Department Store, we will do our best to have such brands open their shops at our duty free store as soon as possible." Hyundai Department Store's failure is in stark contrast to what the company said in November 2016. Back then, the department store chain claimed its agreement with the sales agent for Louis Vuitton guaranteed the luxury brand would open a shop at its then envisioned duty free store, if it obtained a government license in December. As sales agent Bluebell Korea said at that time it never promised to open a Louis Vuitton shop at the duty free store, the exaggeration has been regarded as the retailer's desperate bid to get an upper hand in the intensifying competition in the market. Earnings from the top three luxury brands, which are especially popular with Chinese tourists, account for more than 10 percent of Korean duty free stores' sales a year, according to industry officials. The brands are often regarded as the barometer of a duty free store's value. Lotte Duty Free's World Tower store, located in southeastern Seoul, has shops of the top three luxury brands, so it is apparent that Hyundai Department Store will face difficulty in competition with Lotte in the area. Shinsegae Duty Free's new store, which opened in July near the Express Bus Terminal in southeastern Seoul, is another beneficiary of Hyundai Department Store's failure, because the store also lacks the top three luxury brands. Shinsegae said it has continued talks with the brands. Analysts expect Hyundai Department Store will suffer a loss in its duty free business until 2020. "Hyundai Department Store Duty Free is expected to suffer a 15.8 billion won ($13.8 million) operating loss in 2018 and a 10.4 billion won operating loss in 2019," DB Financial Investment analyst Cha Jae-heon said. "It will need more time to surpass the break-even point due to China's tougher border controls." A model uses FXGear's virtual fitting room FXMirror to virtually try on a garment. / Courtesy of FXGear By Baek Byung-yeul Choi Kwang-jin, CEO of FXGear Choi Kwang-jin established computer graphics firm FXGear in 2004 and cultivated its cutting-edge technologies. The Seoul-based firm's technological superiority is already well-known to many computer graphics firms, as its "Qualoth" cloth simulator software has been used in a slew of 3D animated films including U.S.-based animation studio DreamWorks' 2007 film "Shrek the Third." To diversify its business portfolio, FXGear started paying attention to augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) both regarded as emerging technologies that can impact industries six years ago when not many companies were aware of them. "FXGear had to make a decision on whether we keep focusing on developing software programs for computer graphics used for creating scenes in films or find another sector so that we could apply our software programs there," Choi told The Korea Times at FXGear's headquarters in Seoul, Oct. 16. "We have been developing software programs and our Qualoth simulator proved to be a boon in creating computer graphic-based films. But in our estimation, the entire film market that needs our software programs was valued at tens of billions of won, which was not enough to guarantee the continued operations of the company," Choi said. At a crossroads, Choi focused on the possibility of AR and VR technologies in 2012. "We decided to focus on AR and VR technologies so we could apply them to mobile devices which would have a huge demand in the near future at the time," he said. The decision was right. Now, FXGear has been actively involved in businesses using AR and VR technologies, getting more than 90 percent of its sales from these sectors as of last year. The firm is especially producing fruitful results in AR thanks to its virtual fitting program FXMirror. When a person stands in front of the FXMirror, it measures the person's height and body shape and displays the person wearing a virtual garment. People can experience the FXMirror here as it is installed in Lotte Department Store. With its AR technology, FXGear is expanding into China. The firm established a joint corporation Chixing Network Technology last year and has been exporting its virtual fitting program to Chinese e-commerce giant JD.Com. With FXGear's mobile virtual fitting service "Fit'N SHOP," customers using the JD.Com mobile shopping app can quickly browse various styles of clothes on their customized avatars. FXGear also signed a contract with Chinese display maker Weiguan in May to supply it with 50,000 FXMirror software programs by 2020. With the contract, the firm said virtual fitting machines powered by FXMirror software will be installed at around 10,000 clothing stores in China. "Among the emerging technologies, we have especially put our focus on the AR business. In China, customers who purchase their garments online account more than 50 percent of all purchases. When purchasing clothes online, people want to know if it fits. I believe FXMirror's mobile version can help customers find this out," Choi said. Though there have been many companies that have developed AR-based changing rooms, those products took a lot of time to convert clothes to 3D. "The previous virtual fitting technologies developed by other companies needed three to five hours to create a 3D database for a garment and this cost about $100 on average. But FXMirror takes less than 10 minutes and about $3 to make virtual clothes," Choi said. "In the fashion industry, it is essential to roll out various kinds of garments per season. Many other companies in the virtual fitting room business have failed to meet the demands of fashion companies as their products take too much time and money. Using our AR technology, fashion firms can offer an enhanced customer experience," Choi said. Although the firm has produced profitable results mainly in China, Choi said he has received inquiries from companies in Japan and Europe seeking to use the Seoul-based firm's virtual fitting room. "We have made progress with a Japanese fashion brand for exporting our virtual fitting technology. I hope we can make an announcement about it in the near future," Choi said. Choi said industries are putting more focus on AR, which is easier to apply to various kinds of businesses compared to VR. "Users are required to wear bulky headsets to enjoy VR content. However, AR doesn't need a headset. That's the biggest benefit of AR," Choi said. "I think AR can play a role in shopping. Shopping is essential to us. People have to buy something for living. I believe AR can enhance the shopping process. For instance, businesses currently use AR to help customers visualize how products will look in their homes." In the VR business, FXGear has been selling its VR headset NOON since 2015. Choi said it has been been received well in North America. "We have been supplying our NOON VR headset to the U.S. and Canada. The device is available at electronics retail chain Best Buy and Amazon. We are the third company to supply a VR headset to Best Buy following Samsung Electronics' Gear and Google's Daydream," Choi said. "The NOON VR also received the Innovation Award in VR technology at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. These factors prove the NOON VR has been recognized well in the sector." Speaking of the future of VR and AR content, Choi said there would be new form of visual content using these emerging technologies. "Currently there are some movies using VR technology. But the technology used in the film is just to help audiences feel the visual content more vividly. It is not interactive," Choi said. "Even though VR and AR technologies are emerging at a rapid pace, I think film content won't disappear. Instead, I think a new form of visual content utilizing VR and AR will be created, and this will be more interactive so that audiences can decide what happens next," Choi said. Choi also emphasized the strength of FXGear comes from its technological prowess that can quickly be converted to emerging technologies. "The more technology advances, the more business chances we have. This is because we can develop high quality software programs for new and emerging technologies. If holographic technology becomes real in the near future, we could develop the right tool for it at the right time," Choi said. From left are SK Telecom CEO Park Jung-ho, KT Chairman Hwang Chang-gyu and LG Uplus CEO Ha Hyun-hwoi Worsening bottom line makes it harder firms to invest in 5G By Baek Byung-yeul SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus are going into a belt-tightening mode, while at the same time they are set to invest trillions of won in fifth-generation (5G) infrastructure, as they have faced worsening profitability due to the government's push to cut mobile charges. Despite the worsening bottom line, the companies are set to spend billions of dollars to purchase fifth-generation (5G) equipment and lay down the necessary communication infrastructure, which will further aggravate their financial soundness. According to data from the Ministry of Science and ICT, the three mobile carriers are planning to invest a total 7.47 trillion won ($6.56 billion) in 5G infrastructure from 2019 to 2023. Korea has set its goal to commercialize the super-fast network service by next March, but the telecom firms said their worsened profitability has made it hard for them to invest more in the 5G network. Given they invested about 20 trillion won in the fourth-generation (4G) LTE network service over eight years, the investment seems way smaller. An industry official familiar with the matter said the performance deterioration of mobile carriers has led them to passive investment. "To make the 5G network service possible by March next year, telecom firms are required to increase investment in capital expenditure by 1.5 to 2 times," the official said. In response to the government's pressure for mobile fee cuts, the telecom firms already increase the ceiling of discounts given to 25 percent, up 5 percent from the previous discount rate. They also implemented extra plans to cut mobile bills for low-income families and senior citizens. The belt-tightening efforts are likely to begin from reducing marketing expenditure. An LG Uplus official said the company is considering cutting its marketing expenses in financing the 5G network service. SK Telecom and KT are reportedly mulling over this as well. In 2017, the three telecom firms spent 7.95 trillion won, 2.28 times their operating profit of 3.49 trillion won, according to data from the Ministry of Science and ICT. By company, SK Telecom spent 3.12 trillion won, KT 2.68 trillion won, and LG Uplus 2.15 trillion won. Due to the reduced mobile fees, telecom firms are expected to report a sluggish performance in the third quarter, according to securities firms. In the July-September period, SK Telecom is expected to post sales of 4.1 trillion won and an operating profit of around 300 billion won, both down about 7 percent and 20 percent year-on-year. KT is expected to log 5.7 trillion won in sales and 330 billion won in operating profit, down 0.6 percent and 11 percent year-on-year. LG Uplus is likely to retain a similar performance compared with last year's third quarter with 3.03 trillion won in sales and 200 billion won, operating profit. An analyst attributed the worsened performance is mainly due to the government's policy to cut mobile fees. "The 25 percent discount affected the performance of mobile firms bigger than was estimated," said Choi Nam-gon, an analyst at Yuanta Securities. "Also, the discount program for low-income families led to the performance deterioration of the firms." Industry analysts pointed out the government needs to enhance its investment in 5G. KT Chairman Hwang Chang-gyu urged the government and telecom firms to work closely in preparation for the upcoming 5G during a National Assembly audit, Oct. 10. Speaking of choosing its partner firms for 5G network equipments, Hwang said KT would announce its picks within this week. "We will make the announcement soon and it will be possible within a week," Hwang told reporters in Boston on Oct. 25. Hwang visited the U.S. city to deliver a special speech at Harvard Business School. Asked whether it would use equipment from China's Huawei Technologies, which has been embroiled in controversy over security issues in the U.S. and Australia, Hwang said, "The final decision will be made based on the strict standards provided by the government." SK Telecom has already excluded Huawei from its proffered bidder list while LG Uplus said it would adopt equipment from the Chinese firm. Hwang added that KT would launch the 5G service in March as scheduled. By Jun Ji-hye Huawei Korea CEO Shawn Meng Bradley Buckwalter, president and general manager of Jonson Controls Korea, speaks during a press conference at the Four Seasons Hotel, Seoul, Tuesday. / Courtesy of Johnson Controls Korea By Baek Byung-yeul Johnson Controls, a U.S.-based building management company, is seeking to expand its presence in emerging smart building system business, said the chief of its Korean branch Tuesday. "Buildings are operated by very complicated and sensitive equipment so they are not easy to manage. Johnson Controls Korea has offered its customers smarter and energy efficient building management products and services," Bradely Buckwalter, president and general manager of Johnson Controls Korea, told reporters in fluent Korean during a press conference at the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul. Established in 1885, Johnson Controls is a building management giant, providing its systems to more than 150 countries in the world. The firm began operating businesses here in 1999. The Korean unit has been providing its building management products and services at various places here including Lotte World Tower and LG Science Park. "Our mission is to provide safe, comfortable and sustainable business management products and services," said Buckwalter. After the firm took over a fire safety company Tyco in 2016, Johnson Controls has a business portfolio of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), industrial refrigeration, building automation systems, fire protection and the security sector in building management. With the merger, the firm generated revenue of $30 billion in its 2017 fiscal year. With the advancement of technology, more building management firms are combining IT technologies to provide more integrated management products and services. In Korea, there has been increasing awareness of the smart building systems which refer to a highly efficient and eco-friendly buildings equipped with security systems based on ICT and automation. Clay Nesler, vice president of Global Sustainability and Industry Initiatives at Johnson Controls said Building Technologies, said the firm recognized growing needs of adopting smart building technology among Korean facility and management executives. "In our annual energy and facility indicator survey, 61 percent of Korean facility and management executives answered they would invest in energy efficiency, renewable energy and smart building technology," said Nesler. The firm conducted a survey of 1,901 executives of building management facilities in 20 countries. Companies are teaming up to develop their smart building systems to apply emerging technologies such as internet of things (IoT), big data and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to smart city development projects. Nesler said Johnson Controls has partnered with Microsoft to develop Microsoft's AI assistant Cortana-powered smart thermostat, which can control not only home or building temperatures but also monitor air quality. Samsung Electronics employees take part in volunteer activities at Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary in Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand, Oct. 4 and 5. / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics By Baek Byung-yeul Samsung Electronics employees spent two days outdoors in Thailand carrying out volunteering activities to clean up a wildlife sanctuary on Oct. 4 and 5. The employees of the tech giant's Thailand branch voted to support the Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary in Kanchanaburi Province to improve the residential environment of animals there and improve water resources in the national conservation site. Established in 1965, Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary is Thailand's oldest wildlife sanctuary. The Thailand government created the area to protect the rich forest, animals and the River Kwai. Though the sanctuary, which covers an area of about 860 square kilometers, is also home to over 150 elephants and hundreds of endangered species, the place has been diminished over the years due to overexploitation of humans. For the two-day volunteering activities, about 60 Samsung employees helped in the construction of a small dam in preparation for water shortage in the dry season and installed artificial salt licks so that wild animals can get essential mineral nutrients. Those licks are important in the ecosystems with poor general availability of nutrients. For employees working at the Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary, Samsung employees also presented various kinds of supplies including tents and shoes. A manager who is responsible for employees at the forest reserve said these volunteering activities can have a positive influence on Thai people regarding environmental protection. "We sincerely thank Samsung Electronics' employees who gave respect to nature and wildlife," the manager said. "I hope Samsung's effort to protect environment can change public attitudes regarding environmental protection." A Samsung employee said they were all satisfied with the volunteering work as they could contribute to the Thai community. "As an employee of Samsung Electronics volunteering was so meaningful as we could contribute to the local Thai community," the employee said. "We also felt proud of the company while taking part in volunteering activities with colleagues." Samsung Electronics' employees pose for a photo while taking part in volunteer activity Salakpra Wildlife Sanctuary in Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand, Oct. 4 and 5. / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics LG Chem's Naphtha Cracking Center in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province / Courtesy of LG Chem LG Chem is seeking to become one of the global top five chemical companies by the end of 2025 by advancing its business structure and enhancing research and development. A bride and her father enter a wedding hall at POSCO Center in Seoul, Sept. 29. / Courtesy of POSCO Steel giant POSCO is promoting downsized wedding ceremonies among its employees using the company's wedding halls, to spread the culture of seeking economical but more meaningful events to celebrate marriage. According to POSCO, 1,063 couples have tied the knot at wedding halls which the group has been operating for employees of POSCO and partner companies and their family members since October 2012, when POSCO first launched a campaign to promote small wedding. On average, 177 couples celebrate their marriage through POSCO's small wedding campaign every year. Small wedding refers to a concept of holding cheaper and more personal wedding ceremonies by reducing the number of guests and the size of the event. It is in contrast to typical Korean weddings which invite as many guests and acquaintances as possible to a fancy banquet. In the campaign, POSCO wedding halls have been suggesting a detailed guideline, which limits the number of guests below 200, allows up to six garlands, and places a 40,000 won per person cost cap for banquet meals. POSCO said executives using POSCO wedding halls are obliged to follow the guideline, while promoting other employees to join the campaign. Also, it has been renovating the wedding halls regularly, as well as offering various meal options, the company said. "I recommended a small wedding to my son and luckily all family members agreed to that," Han Ki-jeong at POSCO ICT said. "Many guests said it was nice to have a wedding hall offered at an affordable price for employees and they seemed to be more interested in small weddings." "My wife and I wanted to hold a small but meaningful and personal wedding," said Lim Woo-sung of iRacs, a partner company of POSCO. "There seems to be not enough awareness about small weddings, and I hope these kinds of employee benefits will be offered more." POSCO said it will continue raising public awareness of small weddings as part of its role as a corporate citizen. Under its new chairman Choi Jeong-woo, the group has set "With POSCO" as its corporate motto and has been stressing the group's contributions to the society. (Advertorial) The movement of a jailed Nigerian Shia cleric whose followers have repeatedly been targeted by the authorities said on Wednesday security forces had killed 42 of its members during two days of violent crackdowns on protests in the capital Abuja. Security forces opened fire with live ammunition on members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) who had marched in their hundreds to demand the release of their leader Ibrahim Zakzaky, jailed since 2015 when the army killed hundreds of his followers at his compound and a nearby mosque and burial ground. The IMN raised its death toll on Wednesday from the two previous days' violence to 42 from an earlier figure of 25. The toll included seven people who died of injuries received on Tuesday and 35 killed the previous day, said Ibrahim Musa, an IMN spokesman. On Monday, the army opened fire on the marchers on the outskirts of Abuja. On Tuesday, the police shot at the protesters in the city centre, issuing a statement later that day saying 400 IMN members were detained. The statement did not mention any deaths. Police and army spokesmen did not respond to phone calls seeking comment on the updated death toll. The army has said that three IMN members were killed on Monday. Zakzaky was charged in April this year with murder over the 2015 violence, after being held for more than two years. Authorities ignored a court ruling during the period before he was charged that he be released, sparking protests from his followers. IMN protests have frequently been met with force. In April, police fired bullets and tear gas during days of protests by IMN, wounding at least four protesters. President Muhammadu has in the past accused the Shia of creating "a state within a state", though he said at the time that civilian deaths could not be justified. Since then, however, the government has remained largely silent on accusations it has used excessive force against the group. Around half of Nigeria's 190 million people are Muslims. Although virtually all of them are Sunnis, Zakzaky has attracted an estimated 3 million followers as a preacher of Shia Islam since being drawn to that sect by the 1979 revolution in Iran. The repression of IMN and detention of its leader have drawn criticism from international human rights watchdogs and raised concern that the group could become radicalised, just as the Sunni Muslim militant group Boko Haram turned into a violent insurgency in 2009 after police killed its leader. Search Keywords: Short link: General Motors CEO Mary Barra removes her glasses as she testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 1, 2014. / AP-Yonhap By Nam Hyun-woo General Motors Chairman and CEO Mary Barra will visit Korea to talk with GM Korea union over their dispute on demerging the Korean unit of the U.S. carmaker into a separate research & development (R&D) body and a manufacturing unit. According to the union, Monday, Barra sent a reply to GM Korea union head Lim Han-taek's letter last Wednesday requesting a meeting. "We think the demerger is an important step to allow both the engineering services company and the manufacturing unit to stand on their own as profitable, viable businesses," Barra said in the letter. "I would like to visit our Korea operation at some point soon and look forward to visiting with you and other key stakeholders then." If she meets the union, it will be her first visit to Korea after she took the chairmanship in January 2016. Barra planned a visit to Korea in August 2016 but canceled it. She has been the CEO of GM since January 2014. Over the timeframe, the union said it hopes for the meeting to take place in November, while GM Korea said it is unlikely to happen within this year because it has to set the schedule with the government and Korea Development Bank (KDB), which holds a 17.02 percent stake in GM Korea. In the letter, Barra said GM has been reiterating its desire to create a "strong, viable and globally competitive GM Korea" and its moves including the agreement with KDB "makes it clear that our hope and intent is to stay for the long term." Over the demerger plan, GM Korea, its union and KDB are staging a trilateral dispute. GM Korea says setting the R&D body will be a technological hub in the region benefiting its ties to Korea, while the union says the move is a prelude to its withdrawal from Korea, by turning the company into an engineering team subcontracting the manufacturing unit. After establishing such a structure, the R&D body can withdraw from Korea more easily, the union claims. KDB, which provided aid to cash-strapped GM Korea and signed an MOU mandating GM's medium- and long-term commitment to Korea, is also taking the union's side. "The creation of a dedicated engineering services company will also further strengthen GM's long-term ties to Korea, and it benefit from focused management, increased transparency on costs, and improved operational efficiency that will make it more attractive for GM to allocate further engineering work to Korea," Barra said. "The GM Korea engineering team has been assigned strategically important global programs and GM will consider awarding GM Korea additional work in the future after the demerger is completed." Over Barra's letter, the union said "it is positive to receive a reply but the content of it is disappointing because it lacks details on the demerger." Cui Tiankai, China's ambassador to the United States. Wikipedia. By Owen Churchill China's ambassador to the US said on Tuesday that the "goodwill" and "wisdom" of the Chinese and American people would carry the countries through a tense period in their relations, and that "we have heard enough" of trade war threats and territorial sabre rattling. Speaking weeks before a highly anticipated face-to-face meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Argentina, Cui Tiankai said the US-China relationship, which will mark its 40th anniversary next January, "has made great strides, while also it has had its share of setbacks". "It looks as if rivalry and confrontation became the prevailing aspect of our path ahead," said Cui, speaking during a trade war in which both countries have slapped punitive tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of imports. "When our relations are at a low ebb, it is always our people who will firmly support the bonds and friendship, and turn the tide of the China-US relations," he said at an event held in Washington by the China General Chamber of Commerce-USA, a non-profit organisation that represents Chinese businesses in the US. In a speech that made no direct mention of Trump or his government, Cui expressed confidence in the capacity of people-to-people friendship, rather than political wrestling, to carry the US-China relationship forward. U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago state in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., April 6, 2017. Korea Times file "The ordinary and great people of China and the United States are there doing their part," he said, "showing their goodwill, wisdom and magnanimity, and paving the path forward for our relations." According to research by the Pew Research Centre, which monitors changing attitudes around the world, almost half of Americans held unfavourable views of China in 2017. Figures from the previous year, the most recent data available, showed 44 per cent of Chinese respondents held unfavourable views of the US. Over the past year, said Cui, "we have heard enough of trade war threats, assertions about strategic rivalry, sabre rattling in the South China Sea, and even unfounded accusations against Chinese students and scholars". The ambassador made no specific remarks about the current trade stand-off between the US and China. On Monday, Trump repeated his assertion that China was not "not ready" to strike a deal to bring an end to the costly dispute. As the president and his administration have increased rhetoric against China in recent weeks, including accusations of election interference and state-led forced technology transfer targeted at US businesses, Cui has assumed an unusually public role in defending his government's policies and launching his own direct critiques of the US' approach to the relationship. Cui, who has served as China's representative to the US since 2013, told NPR (National Public Radio) in the US earlier this month that resolution of the trade war was being thwarted by the ever-changing position of US negotiators. US President Donald J. Trump (C) raises a presidential memorandum targeting what the White House termed 'China's economic aggression' in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 22 March 2018. Korea Times file On Wednesday, the US accused China of hacking US and European aviation companies. Photos from the South China Morning Post By Robert Delaney The US Justice Department has charged a group of Chinese agents with trying to steal aviation technology from US companies, the third such indictment in less than two months in an escalating effort to halt cyber-espionage allegedly orchestrated from China. The US Justice Department has charged a group of Chinese agents with trying to steal aviation technology from US companies, the third such indictment in less than two months in an escalating effort to halt cyber-espionage allegedly orchestrated from China. A group of 10 people, led by agents of the Jiangsu provincial arm of China Ministry of State Security (MSS) tried to hack into the computer systems of a US company and a French company with an office in Suzhou, China, both manufacturers of a turbofan engine used in commercial airliners, the Justice Department (DoJ) alleged on Tuesday. Members of the group also targeted other US aerospace companies producing parts for the engine makers, it said. "The threat posed by Chinese government-sponsored hacking activity is real and relentless," John Brown, a special agent in charge of the FBI's San Diego Field Office, said in the DoJ notice, which alleges that the hacking conspiracy likely ran from January 2010 to May 2015. "Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with the assistance of our private sector, international and US government partners, is sending a strong message to the Chinese government and other foreign governments involved in hacking activities. The DoJ says that the primary intelligence officers were MSS agents Zha Rong and Chai Meng, while their co-conspirators included Zhang Zhang-Gui, Liu Chunliang, Gao Hong Kun, Zhuang Xiaowei and Ma Zhiqi. The indictment identified 12 targeted companies eight of them based in the US specialising in aerospace, technology or "critical infrastructure". Two of the aerospace companies are French and one is British. The list also includes one Australian domain registrar. The external casing for aircraft engines hang on the production line at the Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc factory in Derby, UK, in August 2015. Rolls-Royce has not been named as one of the affected parties. The only victim company identified by the indictment by name is Los Angeles-based Capstone Turbines. The DoJ announcement comes little more than two weeks after it publicised the "unprecedented" extradition of another Jiangsu division MSS intelligence official for allegedly attempting to steal trade secrets from GE Aviation and other US aerospace companies after luring the suspect to Belgium. Xu Yanjun, who also uses the names Qu Hui and Zhang Hui, was arrested in Belgium on April 1 and extradited to the US with help from Belgian authorities. He is accused of seeking "to steal trade secrets and other sensitive information from an American company that leads the way in aerospace", John Demers, an assistant attorney general for national security, said in a DoJ announcement on October 10. Beijing has made its aviation industry a key part of its "Made in China 2025" development plan to turn China into a world leader in technology, but as reported by the South China Morning Post on Monday it is struggling, with experts estimating that its jet engine technology is about 20-to-30 years behind its competitors. Xu Yanjun has been accused of being a spy for China, and was arrested in a sting in Belgium before being extradited to the US. This picture taken on September 29, 2018 shows a bull wrestler wrestling a bull during a show at an arena in Jiaxing, China's Zhejiang province. AFP When 21-year-old Chinese martial artist Li Zhen first stepped into the ring to wrestle an adult bull he was naturally intimidated. "I was pretty scared. It's a bull, after all," he said. He risked having a leg snapped under the animal's weight, being gored, or trampled. But Li's training got him over those fears and he is now one of a group of Wushu, or kung fu, athletes who train in bull wrestling at the Haihua Martial Arts Centre, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) southwest of Shanghai. A traditional sport of China's Muslim Hui ethnic minority, the practice has come under fire from critics in China who say it constitutes animal cruelty. The centre's master Han Haihua disagrees. "Our bull wrestling is not bloody or cruel," the burly 65-year-old said, comparing it favourably to Spanish bullfighting's ritualised killing of the animals. The docile creatures are led to the centre of a faux Roman amphitheatre where performances are put on for Chinese tourists. A muscular martial artist riles up the animal by pushing its head from side to side before handing it over to the challenger. "We use our deep knowledge of Wushu and its techniques to throw the bull down without hurting it," said Han. In matches, points are scored by forcing the bulls off-balance and pushing them to the ground. "The difficult thing about it is that people and bulls are not the same weight," said Li Bo, a hefty 23-year-old from China's eastern province of Anhui. "Once you get to know them they are actually quite gentle and well-behaved," he added. The years of hard martial arts training become clear as the young men grapple with the bulls by their horns, muscles popping as they strain against the powerful bovines' necks while deftly avoiding being stomped in a kind of drunken dance. The bulls appear at times disinterested, perplexed, or annoyed as they tumble over clumsily, shrug off their attackers or dash for the nearest exit. Han wants to spread bull wrestling further through annual competitions that he says already attract more than a hundred athletes from diverse combat disciplines like mixed martial arts, judo and taekwondo. His ultimate hope is for the sport to break into the Olympics. "Bull wrestling reflects a person's wisdom and technique, and of course promotes strength and tests courage. It would be great if it could be an Olympic sport," he said.(AFP) 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 Los Angeles has a new proposal for homeless housing that is literally in Angelenos' backyards. Earlier this week, Bloomberg Philanthropies donated $1 million to Los Angeles to help residents convert their garages into so-called Accessory Dwelling Units, or ADUs. The program, slated to begin next spring, will grant homeowners between $10,000 and $30,000 toward construction and permit costs LA's if they agree to let the units be used to keep people off the streets for three to five years. Homeowners would receive the money in the form of tax breaks or reduced permitting fees; their homeless tenants would be provided with rental assistance through the L.A. Homeless Services Authority. "People come up all the time and say, 'What can I do personally?'" L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti told KPCC's Take Two in an interview this week. "There's 500,000 single-family homes. We're hoping ten percent will build these. It will be 50,000 new units of housing." LA EXPLAINED: Why does L.A. have so many homeless people? ADUs were illegal in California until last year when Governor Jerry Brown approved them as a way to help solve the state's housing affordability crisis. Since they were legalized, Garcetti said the city has seen a ten-fold increase in ADU building in the last year and a half; 2,800 ADUs were built in L.A. in 2017, and he expects another 3,600 to be built by the end of 2018. The city program follows a similar pilot project approved by Los Angeles County in August. "We thought, what a great way to add to the many strategies that we have to try to end homelessness in L.A. to try to match folks who are building these units with folks who are coming off the streets," Garcetti said, adding that those who will live in the newly converted ADUS "are not the deepest, neediest to serve with mental health issues but families and others that maybe had a layoff or some bad economic times and are looking for housing." L.A. just won $1M from @BloombergDotOrgs #MayorsChallenge! This grant funds our pilot program, helping homeowners build accessory dwelling units on their property and pairing them with homeless Angelenos who are ready to move in and start a new chapter. https://t.co/WPylQvr089 MayorOfLA (@MayorOfLA) October 29, 2018 Part of the new program will include a matchmaking system to pair individuals who are building the new units with the people who would like to live in them. Garcetti said the new ADU program will be funded in part with the $1 million from Bloomberg Philanthropies, along with a portion of the $85 million the city received from the state last week to help end homelessness. The $1 million Bloomberg grant was part of its Mayor's Challenge to help cities combat their most pressing problems. And in L.A., one of those is homelessness. On any given night in the city, roughly 23,000 Angelenos go to sleep without a roof over their heads, according to the mayor's office. Editor's note: Listen to the radio version of this story here on KPCC's Take Two. 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 The holidays are right around the corner and an increasing number of Southern California's most vulnerable residents are without a home -- children. Specifically in Skid Row, LA Downtown News reports that the number of homeless kids has doubled since last year. There are more than 300 children there, according to the most recent count from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA). The number of "family units" experiencing homelessness in the neighborhood also rose dramatically, up 111 percent from 2017. That surge has shelters like Skid Row's Union Rescue Mission completely full and struggling to meet the needs. "The other night we had 112 moms, 10 dads, 271 kids," Andy Bales, the Mission's CEO, told KPCC's Take Two. "The most kids that we had during the Great Recession, when everybody was losing their homes, was 130." Families lined up inside the Union Rescue Mission in downtown L.A. to take advantage of its shelter for the homeless. (Courtesy Scott Streble/Union Rescue Mission) The shelter had to rapidly transform common spaces into rooms where families could sleep overnight. A fifth-floor wing was created to accommodate 100 family members, for example, and the gym now houses another 150 people. That's on top of the chapels and playrooms that have pulled double duty as sleeping spaces since last year. It's a massive effort to make sure families are able to find shelter off the sidewalks of Skid Row. "They don't feel safe on the streets," Bales said. "They see things that no one should ever see going on in the streets of Skid Row. It's a warzone." LAHSA's most recent data showed homelessness across L.A. County did dip slightly compared to last year, but one reason more families are ending up homeless can be traced to the increasing costs of living in Southern California. "Because of economic reasons, we saw in 2017 a number of families go into homelessness for the first time," said LAHSA spokesman Tom Waldman. "That comes down to two things: either loss of job or cut back of wages, or an increase in rent." The gym at Skid Row's Rescue Mission is lined with inflatable mattresses to accommodate a record number of homeless families seeking shelter. (Courtesy Union Rescue Mission) Struggling families might live with relatives for a while or inside their vehicle before they reach their breaking point. Some have gotten help because of local efforts like Measure H, which Angelenos passed it in 2016 to increase the sales tax, boosting funding for several homelessness service programs, including temporary cash assistance. "(Measure) H has provided money to tide that person over or that family over for a couple of months while that family gets back on its feet so they're able to stay in that apartment and not find themselves in homelessness," Waldman explained, adding that 935 families had specifically been helped by that program. Andy Bales, CEO of Union Rescue Mission in downtown L.A., is in front of the children's playground on the Mission's roof. (Dorian Merina/KPCC file photo) But the problem is growing so fast that it can be hard for service providers and supportive programs to keep up. "We need to do whatever it takes to make sure that we do not have a child on the streets," Bales said. "What breaks my heart is that we're allowing children to be devastated by homelessness." Editor's note: Listen to the radio version of this story here on KPCC's Take Two. 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. Your three-year-old has a cold. She gets over it. You know the drill. Except that this time, something different occurs something unimaginably horrifying. Within 24 hours, a facial droop begins and slowly worsens, accompanied by difficulty walking and then, possibly, with swallowing and holding the head upright. Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) myelitis meaning inflammation of the spinal cord is characterized by a quick onset of muscle weakness in one or more limbs, along with evidence of spinal-cord motor neuron damage. It resembles polio not only in these symptoms, but in the age of its victims (mostly pre-teenagers) and its rate of untreated full recovery (two-thirds). As in polio, the third who dont fully recover run the gamut of affliction from minor lifelong disabilities to, in one case so far, death. From August 2014 through August 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed a total of 362 AFM cases across the United States. Thats about five in every million children, which makes it still extremely rare. However, the CDC believes the incidence of AFM is increasing slightly. It reported a nationwide spike in AFM cases this year, to 127 children similar to spikes seen in 2014 and 2016. In a scramble to identify any known or new viruses responsible, the CDC has asked doctors across the country to send them samples of blood and spinal fluid from anyone exhibiting symptoms. So far, no viral culprit has emerged, although polio has been eliminated as a possibility. So are we dealing with a new polio? Dr. John Bradley of Rady Children's Hospital COURTESY Dr. John Bradley, director of infectious disease for Rady Childrens Hospital, doesnt think so. I wont say Im not worried, Bradley told the Light. Im just reassured. If it was going to be bad, I think we would know about it. From 2012 to date, there have been eight confirmed AFM cases in San Diego County 96 in California during the same period according to the California Department of Public Health. Each week that goes by without any more cases in San Diego, Im reassured that its not likely to be an epidemic that people need to worry about that its most likely a post-infectious condition, said Bradley, who did not consult on any the San Diego cases himself. Although its symptoms resembles polio, Bradleys hunch is that AFM is caused by the bodys overreaction to fighting a virus rather than by a virus itself. One in every 5,000 to 10,000 kids who contracts chicken pox begins to stumble and fall and display signs of ataxia, Bradley explained. There is no virus there, but the immune system looks for specific proteins that the virus has and finds similar proteins in the body and begins attacking them. The recovery rate from this syndrome is similar to AFMs, Bradley said: two-thirds, with the other third showing a gamut of permanent nerve damage. Doctors were aware of it, but the public generally wasnt, Bradley said, noting that the chicken pox vaccine has rendered this syndrome virtually nonexistent. According to Bradley, the spikes in the CDC reports may simply represent better AFM reporting. Most doctors over the past few decades would not have thought to report a case they had to the CDC, said, so the rate that is quoted has been one that is associated with passive reporting. Once the word gets out that the CDC wants everyone to report their cases, then the number of cases go up. Still, with so little known about the condition, Bradley advises parental vigilance. Seek medical care right away if you or your child develop sudden weakness or loss of muscle tone in the arms or legs, he said.Salks Two Cents John Salk, youngest son of Jonas, developer of the polio vaccine COREY LEVITAN If the CDC does find an infectious agent to blame for AFM, how soon could a vaccine to fight it come to market? Theres no better place in the world to seek this answer than right here in La Jolla. With something so new and so unclear, its difficult to say, said Jonathan Salk, the youngest son of Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine. To make a vaccine involves so much science and also administration and also politics. Theres an enormous amount that goes into it, and that takes time. When the San Diego City Council voted on Oct. 22 to rescind the ordinance it passed on July 16 that limited short-term vacation rentals (STVR), many were surprised to find only one Council member (District 2s Lorie Zapf) opposing the measure instead of two. Zapf and District 1 Council member Barbara Bry had originally drafted and campaigned tirelessly for a compromise bill of STVR regulations which limited STVRs to primary residences only, for short-term stays while the owner was absent for up to six months per year. (Property owners would have been required to apply for a permit and pay an annual fee of $949.) Bry and Zapf sought to stop the proliferation of investors snapping up houses just to rent them out short-term a trend that has turned huge swaths of Ocean Beach and Pacific Beach into de-facto hotel corridors. Opponents of their bill rallied by Airbnb, a vacation-rental company worth a reported $31 billion argued that property owners have the right to do whatever they want with their own property. The Light asked both Zapf and Bry why they seemed to vote in opposition to each other after working hand-in-hand on the issue for so long. Their answers suggest their different political styles. Zapf explained that representatives of Airbnb visited her office at the end of September to impart the message that they would spend whatever it took to defeat STVR regulations on a ballot measure. (A spokesperson for Airbnb said she couldnt comment on any alleged meeting.) Zapf said she refuses to ever be bullied into a position on an issue. If you dont stand up to the schoolyard bully, they just become emboldened, Zapf said. I wasnt afraid of anything. I was not ready to throw out years of work because a corporation came in and threatened me. Everything we had in that ordinance for getting permits and fines and fees all the regulatory stuff that would have helped pay for the regulations thats all gone now. Bry, on the other hand, said she sensed her cause was out-financed and opted to live to fight another day. Long-term, Bry told the Light. I want the best outcome for my City. If this were to go on the ballot, then Airbnb would spend millions of dollars in 2020. Rescinding the ordinance, Bry said, also returned San Diego to its existing municipal code immediately. (San Diego, like all other California coastal cities, employs a permissive zoning scheme, meaning that if a use is not listed, it is not permitted.) So Ive asked (Mayor Faulconer) to follow the lead of Santa Barbara, Carmel, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Huntington Beach, Long Beach and more then 40 other California cities and enforce the law, Bry said. (Mayor Faulconers office has refused to declare STVRs illegal, preferring instead for regulations to be enacted.) Furthermore, Bry explained, waiting until 2020 would mean we wouldnt be able to do anything for two years. Instead, Bry said talks have already been scheduled with the working groups to discuss what a new ordinance would look like. We are allowed to pass something that is considered to be legally substantially different right away, Bry said. A year after rescission, well be allowed to pass the same thing. Supporting Brys vote to rescind were most of the organizations who fought alongside her and Zapf to pass the regulations in July: the San Diego Community STVR Working Group, Save San Diego Neighborhoods, NeighborsforNeighborhoods, University City Community Associations, the Pacific Beach Planning Group and the Clairemont and Ocean Beach town councils. If we had to wait until a 2020 ballot initiative, said Ann Kerr Bache, president of the San Diego Community STVR Working Group, by that time, the out-of-town investors would have bought up our whole town. Airbnb issued a joint statement following the vote with fellow STVR companies Share San Diego and HomeAway. This rescission passed because voters want regulations that protect private property rights, encourage tourism, weed-out bad actors and create an enforceable regulatory structure, the statement read. We believe there is a better way to regulate short-term rentals in San Diego and look forward to working with the City and all stakeholders to find a solution that works. Zapf said another compromise may never be feasible, however. Even if we come up with something, whos to say they wont referend that as well? Zapf asked. At the end of the day, what Airbnb wants is no restrictions, the ability to rent as many homes as possible. Zapf said she doesnt view her strategic split with Bry as a significant one. Were each our person and do our own thing, Zapf said. Meanwhile, Mattis, the US defense secretary said 'Weve got to move toward a peace effort here. And we cant say were going to do it sometime in the future. We need to be doing this in the next 30 days' U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Tuesday for a cessation of hostilities in Yemen and said U.N.-led negotiations to end the civil war should begin next month. In a statement, Pompeo said missile and drone strikes by Iran-allied Houthi rebels against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates should stop, and the Saudi-led coalition must cease air strikes in all populated areas of Yemen. Yemen is one of the poorest Arab countries and faces the worlds worst humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by a nearly four-year-old war that pits the Houthi rebels against the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the West. The time is now for the cessation of hostilities, including missile and UAV strikes from Houthi-controlled areas into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Pompeo said, using an acronym for unmanned aerial vehicles. Subsequently, Coalition air strikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen, he added. The United States helps the coalition by refueling its jets and providing training in targeting. Pompeo said last month that he had certified to the U.S. Congress that Saudi Arabia and the UAE were working to reduce civilian casualties in Yemen. Three-quarters of Yemens population, or 22 million people, require aid and 8.4 million people are on the brink of starvation. U.N. special envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths said earlier this month that the United Nations hoped to resume consultations between the warring sides by November. Both Pompeo and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis voiced support for the U.N. effort. Mattis, addressing a forum in Washington on Tuesday, defended U.S. efforts to help reduce casualties by the Saudi-led coalition and said all sides needed to take meaningful steps toward a ceasefire and negotiations in the next 30 days. Mattis added that the Saudis and Emiratis appeared ready to embrace efforts by Griffiths to find a negotiated solution to the conflict. Weve got to move toward a peace effort here. And we cant say were going to do it sometime in the future. We need to be doing this in the next 30 days, Mattis said. Pompeo said the consultations planned by Griffiths should start in November to implement confidence-building measures to address the underlying issues of the conflict, the demilitarization of borders, and the concentration of all large weapons under international observation. A cessation of hostilities and resumption of a political track would help ease the humanitarian crisis, Pompeo said. *This report was edited by Ahram Online Search Keywords: Short link: Google Street View of the Saudi Arabian consulate on Sawtelle. I'm usually against the naming of streets, corners and freeways in Los Angeles after people, living or dead. There's way too much of it, for the flimsiest of reasons, by politicians who just want to win a few points with this or that group. Once in a while, it's actually legit. For me, this may be one of those times. Rob Eshman, the former editor and publisher of the Jewish Journal, has an idea to create Jamal Khashoggi Square and put the name on official signs at the intersection of Sawtelle Boulevard and Mississippi Street. Khashoggi is the Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist who was brutally murdered by a team of official assassins inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. What does Khashoggi have to do with a street corner in Sawtelle Japantown best known for the crowds that line up pretty much all day outside Tsujita LA Artisan Noodles? Nothing at all. But the building just to the north of Tsujita has plenty to do with the slain journalist. The plain, fortified structure at 2045 Sawtelle is the Royal Consulate of Saudi Arabia for Los Angeles. There is no big sign announcing the Saudi presence right on the Westside's most popular Japanese retail block. Most days, the only evidence that anything at all goes on inside is the plainclothes guard standing watch on the sidewalk. The Saudis have changed their official story on what happened to Khashoggi a half-dozen times since the first lie that he had left the consulate in Turkey unharmed just hours after entering. It's clear now that the journalist was butchered by a squad sent to Istanbul for that purpose, and that we know about it largely because journalists were able to find out and report what really happened (thanks in a big way to disclosures by the government of Turkey, and no thanks to President Trump.) Eshman has started a Change.org petition to get City Hall to dedicate Khashoggi Square on Sawtelle. The petition is directed to Mayor Eric Garcetti and Mike Bonin, the city councilman for the area. "The brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of the Saudi regime must never be forgotten," the page begins. "As Angelenos who hold dear the values of free speech, a free press, the rule of law and civil discourse, we call upon Mayor Eric Garcetti and civic representatives to designate the street corner beside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Los Angeles, 'Jamal Khashoggi Square.' "An official sign will mark the memory of the brave journalist who died in the cause of truth and freedom. This square will be a lesson to despots here and abroad that the voices of conscience can never be exterminated, or ignored." Eshman believes that the Saudi consulate on Sawtelle basically hides in plain sight, and I think he has a point that forever identifying the Los Angeles consulate with the murder of a regime critic may help in some way to keep this anti-press outrage, like so many others, from fading out of memory. Eshman is having a productive week. In an LA Times op-ed piece over the weekend, about the murders of Jewish worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, he made the point that the killer was apparently motivated by that oldest form of hate -- anti-Semitism -- and fed in his indefensible racism by the cynical lies being told by President Trump and his surrogates about the migrant caravan that is located deep in Mexico, far from any U.S. border. "Anti-Semitism, which is ancient, always appears dressed in the latest fashions," Eshman wrote. "During the Spanish Inquisition, Jew haters latched onto the idea that Jews and Muslims were subverting the true faith. During the Russian pogroms, the haters decreed that Jews were dangerous socialists. During Josef Stalins purges, Jews were targeted as unrepentant capitalists. After World War I, when Germans searched for the reason for their defeat, Adolf Hitler provided one: the Jews.... Although the problem the Jews are accused of causing changes with the times, the solution stays remarkably constant: kill them." In the case of the Pittsburgh terrorist, the early facts seem to point to his fear of Mexicans and Central Americans seeking refuge in the United States. Its not impossible to figure out what stoked that fear. President Trump and right-leaning news outlets have zeroed in on the march of asylum seekers from Honduras and El Salvador as if it were taking place on the Washington Mall rather than 1,000 miles away. Trump is sending armed troops to protect our borders from these 7,000 or so souls, who are approaching at the blitzkrieg pace of 2 mph. Youd think the destitute asylum-seekers were Santa Annas army, and America the Alamo. The Pittsburgh terrorist was a Jew hater in search of a reason. I, for one, am very proud of the reason some Jews gave him. If adding a street sign on Sawtelle helps remind people that repressive regimes and anti-Semitism are all around us, I'm for that. A seasoned Norwegian diplomat who helped oversee talks leading to the Oslo peace accords has been named as the next special envoy to Syria. In a letter seen Tuesday by AFP, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council that he wishes to give the job to Geir Pedersen. Pedersen is a veteran diplomat, who in 1993 was a member of the Norwegian team to the secret negotiations that led to the signing of the Oslo accords between Israel and the Palestinians. He has held several posts in the region, including as UN envoy to south Lebanon in 2005 and then as special coordinator for the whole of Lebanon from 2007 to 2008. Pedersen also spent several years as Norway's representative to the Palestinian Authority. He is currently Norway's ambassador to China and has previously served as its envoy to the UN. - No more 'cajoling' - The Syria conflict, which began with anti-government street protests in 2011, has claimed more than 360,000 lives and drawn in foreign powers and various rebel groups. "I am pleased to inform you of my intention to announce the appointment of Mr Geir O Pedersen as my Special Envoy for Syria. In taking this decision, I have consulted broadly, including with the government of the Syrian Arab Republic," Guterres said in the letter. "Mr Pedersen will support the Syrian parties by facilitating an inclusive and credible political solution that meets the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people." He also thanked Staffan de Mistura, the outgoing envoy, "for his more than four years of concerted efforts and contributions to search for peace in Syria." Yahya Aridi, the spokesman for Syria's main opposition negotiating body, said the change of envoys would have little impact on the fate of his country if no international will and consensus emerged about a political roadmap. "This man has experience, ranging from Iraq to Lebanon and the United Nations," he told AFP. "We hope he will be more decisive, and immediately call things by their names - more cajoling and soothing is not what the Syria file needs right now." "But regardless of the name of the envoy, there needs to be international will and determination to reach a political solution," said Aridi. The leaders of Turkey, Russia, France and Germany met in Istanbul at the weekend and called for a political solution to the war and a permanent truce in the last major rebel-held bastion of Idlib. Their joint statement called for a committee to be established to draft Syria's post-war constitution before the end of the year, "paving the way for free and fair elections" in the war-torn country. *This story was edited by Ahram Online Search Keywords: Short link: The Republican-dominated Federal Communications Commission has set new standards in delivering favors to the big businesses under its jurisdiction at the expense of consumer protection. But FCC Commissioner Michael ORielly may have established his own high-water mark a few days ago with an attack on municipal broadband systems. In a speech Oct. 24 to the Media Institute, a Washington think tank, ORielly labeled state-owned and -operated broadband networks a particularly ominous...threat to the 1st Amendment. He accused them of having engaged in significant 1st Amendment mischief. Interestingly, ORielly didnt point to any specific cases of such mischief, much less make the case that publicly owned broadband networks have infringed on the 1st Amendment. The reason for that may be that there are no such cases. Theres certainly no record of any local governments censoring in the way that he suggests they either are or could, says Christopher Mitchell, a public broadband expert at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Mitchell said that even though free enterprise that is, the removal of regulations that irk private internet service providers and other telecommunications companies seems to be a guiding force in FCC policymaking in the Trump era, ORielly seems to be operating somewhat out in front of his GOP colleagues on the panel, Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Brendan Carr. Advertisement Theres certainly no record of any local governments censoring in the way that he suggests they either are or could. Christopher Mitchell, broadband expert The Republican majority hasnt worked to place new constraints on municipal broadband expansion. The reason may be that the courts and conservative state governments can do the job for them. The majority Democratic FCC under President Obama, for example, tried to block state governments from interfering with municipal broadband projects in Tennessee and North Carolina, but a federal appeals court nullified the FCCs action as an impermissible interference in state-municipal relations. Public internet services have been growing strongly in recent years, filling a vacuum left by commercial ISPs such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T. Thats an improvement over the concepts earliest, halting steps, when it was hampered by poor technology and unfamiliarity. In the city of Anaheim, for instance, EarthLink abandoned a public-private partnership to install citywide wireless connectivity in 2008 after only two years of workits wireless technology was relatively slow, had difficulty penetrating exterior walls and couldnt reach around hills. Newer generation systems offer faster and more robust fiber and cable connections. Municipal networks have provided incredible opportunities for communities where theres been no service or really poor service, says Deb Socia, executive director of Next Century Cities, an advocacy group for municipal broadband systems. Publicly owned systems have been proliferating. More than 130 communities have a publicly owned service offering high-speed gigabit broadband, and 197 communities have at least some public fiber service, often to a business district or public buildings. But barriers to local investments in such infrastructure exist in 19 states. When municipal networks are up and running, they can be effective competition for the private companies, forcing them to reduce prices and upgrade speeds and customer service. What red-blooded American industry wants to face that? An industry group that included Comcast spent about $1 million last year to defeat a ballot initiative in Fort Collins, Colo., to set up a municipal system. Backers of the measure spent only about $15,000 and won. Public systems are proliferating, and often are highly popular. Chattanooga, Tenn.s, system, a pioneering network launched in 2010 and operated by the city-owned electric utility, has three times as many subscribers as its founders anticipated, turns a profit and garners some of the highest marks for customer service in the country. In Southern California, the cities of Culver City and Beverly Hills are building fiber broadband infrastructure to serve, initially, businesses and public buildings. ORiellys hand-wringing over these systems threat to free speech is so extreme as to border on the bizarre. His only concrete reference is to research by Enrique Armijo, a law professor at Elon University in North Carolina. Armijo has been on the warpath for years about terms of service set for subscribers by Chattanooga and other municipal ISPs that frown on hate speech, obscene, threatening, abusive or hateful material or content that offends the privacy, publicity or other personal rights of others. Armijos argument, set forth in a series of posts at the website of the libertarian Free Speech Foundation and elsewhere, is that municipal networks are government actors and therefore shouldnt be restricting speech in any way. That may or may not be so, but it hasnt been tested in court and its unlikely that the FCC would be the proper agency to set forth a constitutional judgment if some hate group gets banned from the Chattanooga system, perhaps it will sue and well find out. In the meantime, for ORielly to assert, as he did last week, that municipalities such as Chattanooga, Tenn., and Wilson, N.C., have been notorious for their use of speech codes is a ludicrous misstatement. In any event, such language parallels the terms of service buried in the subscriber agreement of almost every ISP. When I queried ORiellys office for a clarification, he backtracked a teensy bit. It wasnt exactly that the municipal networks were notorious in using speech codes or engaging in significant 1st Amendment mischief, he told me in an emailed statement, but that when a government-owned network preconditions use on adherence to vague speech codes, the potential for political or discriminatory censorship raises significant 1st Amendment concerns. (Emphasis mine.) The truth is that the real threat to free speech online is less likely to come from municipal networks than from privately owned ISPs, which have a commercial incentive to throttle some content because it comes from competitors or sources that wont pay them a vigorish. ISPs with their own content to sell already have established a record of downgrading rival material. Comcast owns NBC and AT&T owns Warner Bros., CNN, and Turner Broadcasting do you trust them to give first-rate transmission to content from other video services? Me neither. But if youre a city government, Socia says, you cant go against the 1st Amendment. Leaving aside the constitutional constraint, you wont get reelected. She says ORiellys 1st Amendment argument is one I havent heard before. The most curious element of ORiellys complaint is that he doesnt have a very firm grasp of free-speech principles himself, or at least of the role of the free press. In the same speech last week, he also hared off against pirate radio, specifically a rogue FM station that was broadcasting in or around Longmont, Colo., late last year. The Longmont Observer, an online news site, noticed the stations signal, acknowledged that it was probably powerful enough to violate FCC rules, and advised its readers to enjoy Longmonts pirate station while it lasts. This infuriated ORielly, who told the Observer by letter that once it learned of the station, its proper role was to alert the Federal Communications Commissions (FCC) Field Office in Denver to initiate an investigation and potentially enforcement proceedings, not suggest people listen while they can. ORielly repeated that position in his speech. The publication took great umbrage with my criticism, ORielly told his audience, even though he didnt suggest that the government had a right to stop any further publications or impose a penalty given that the FCC has no authority whatsoever over newspapers. (Lucky us.) I didnt even suggest that people stop reading the publication, withhold advertising, or cancel their financial support memberships. But heres an additional primer for Commissioner ORielly: The news media arent the FCCs police force or moral shock troops. You think the pirate station is violating the law, go to town on them. Leave us out of it. What ORielly probably doesnt wish to acknowledge is that the only reason we have so much interest in municipal broadband networks is that the private ISPs overseen by the FCC have done a horrible job bringing connectivity to the U.S. Vast swaths of the country remain unserved because theyre judged to be unprofitable; while some of the most affluent, tech-savvy regions nevertheless have lousy service at sky-high rates. American internet service is the laughingstock of the developed world. Maybe Commissioner ORielly should be worried about that, instead of whether Chattanooga is a threat to the Constitution. Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com. Return to Michael Hiltziks blog. TV personality and media mogul Oprah Winfrey is leaving her part-time role at the CBS News program 60 Minutes after announcing she will campaign for Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Winfrey joined 60 Minutes in early 2017 as a special contributor, appearing in several segments on the top-rated prime-time news program last season. But the network confirmed Wednesday that the news divisions policy requires her to step away due to her upcoming political activities. Oprah Winfrey and CBS News have agreed that she will step away from her contributor role at 60 Minutes during this campaign season, in keeping with CBS News standards, a network representative said in a statement. CBS News did not reveal a date when Winfrey could return in a formal role within the division. She does not have any pieces in production for the current 60 Minutes season. Advertisement Winfreys previous 60 Minutes stories included a report on the movement to reduce solitary confinement in prisons, the treatment of childhood trauma, and a round table discussion with Michigan voters about the countrys political divide. Abrams, a Democrat who is locked in a tough battle for the Georgia statehouse and stands a chance of becoming the countrys first African American woman governor, announced Wednesday she has received Winfreys endorsement. Winfrey is scheduled to visit Cobb County on Thursday to campaign with Abrams, whose Republican opponent is Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp. Winfrey has endorsed political candidates in the past, including former President Obama and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. The former talk show host has publicly disputed reports that she is interested in making a run for the White House. stephen.battaglio@latimes.com Twitter: @SteveBattaglio The third-floor studio at NBC headquarters in midtown Manhattan is nearly desolate as 11 p.m. approaches on a recent weeknight. Stagehands are using the quiet time to start construction of the set for MSNBCs coverage of the congressional midterm elections on Nov. 6, which has been building Super Bowl-like anticipation in the cable news business. But there is activity at the anchor desk in the darkened space filled with flat video screens and rolling camera jibs as NBC News veteran Brian Williams prepares for the next edition of his late-night program The 11th Hour. While a makeup artist applies a touch-up, he quips about having a new hairpiece (he actually doesnt wear one). He bemoans the sad state of his beloved New York Giants to technicians on the floor. His crisp baritone voice is just as relaxed at airtime when he debriefs the rotating cadre of White House reporters (our journalists, as he often calls them) who appear nightly to offer up their latest scoops or analysis on the Trump presidency. Advertisement The 11th Hour has given Williams a voice in the national conversation again, a scenario that seemed highly improbable 3 years ago, when the former NBC Nightly News anchor was at the center of a scandal that shook the network to its core. I think Im the recipient of something that is uniquely American, he said during a recent interview at his Rockefeller Center office. People like a comeback. Williams program has contributed to the NBCUniversal-owned cable channels record ratings and profits this year as the nonstop political news cycle continues to transfix viewers. Kagan, a media research group within S&P Global Market Intelligence, is estimating net revenue of $846 million for MSNBC in 2018, up from $798 million last year. The 11th Hour drew an average of 1.7 million viewers in the third quarter of 2017, topping Fox News and CNN in the time slot. Both CNN and Fox News have added live news and discussion programs to the 11 p.m. hour since Williams emerged. MSNBC and Williams resilience has been a major bright spot for NBC News, which has seen more than its share of turmoil in the last 12 months with the firing of its biggest star, Today co-anchor Matt Lauer, over sexual misconduct allegations. The division is currently embroiled in an ugly split with Megyn Kelly, who flamed out on Today after creating a stir with her on-air remarks defending the use of blackface. Williams was at the center of a network imbroglio in February 2015, when he falsely told viewers he was in a helicopter hit by enemy fire while covering the U.S. invasion of Iraq for NBC News in 2003. The lapse, which raised questions about the veracity of his other reporting, led to his removal from the prestigious anchor chair at NBC Nightly News after having signed a new contract that paid him more than $10 million annually. The public stumble made Williams the butt of jokes on late-night shows on his own network where he occasionally appeared as an entertaining guest a sign that some people thought he was done. After a six-month suspension, Williams was given a second chance by NBC News Chairman Andy Lack, who helped groom the anchors career in the 1990s. Lack had Williams return as an MSNBC breaking news anchor, charged with handling extended coverage of Pope Francis visit to the U.S., the terrorist attack in Nice, France, and the attempted military coup in Turkey. It was a demotion back to the role Williams held before he succeeded Tom Brokaw on NBC Nightly News in 2004. But while the traditional broadcast evening news programs still have the larger audiences, cable news increasingly has become the go-to source for real-time coverage of President Trumps made-for-TV activities, whether he is riling up supporters at rallies or delivering provocative tweets. Personalities on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC have seen their audiences and public profiles expand. Williams, who has always been at his best doing live broadcasts in a studio, has been among the major beneficiaries. This is just a happy coincidence, he said. Veteran network executives and producers believe the memory of Williams transgressions has faded with the help of The 11th Hour and the tsunami of political news the program covers. Brians got all of the requisite skills and theres a lot of news going on and hes capitalizing on it, said Joe Peyronnin, a journalism professor at New York University and a former network news executive. This is what he loves to do and it shows. Lack came up with the concept of The 11th Hour during the final weeks of the epic 2016 race for the White House as a way to deal with the daily surfeit of stories it generated. Williams was given a half-hour each night to summarize developments along the campaign trail at 11 p.m. Eastern a time period when cable news typically replayed its prime-time programs and viewers headed to their local newscasts, SportsCenter, Seinfeld episodes or their beds. The 11th Hour was supposed to last only through the 2016 campaign season. But the program is entering its third year this fall. The format of the program which expanded to an hour in April 2017 allows Williams to use a more conversational style than an evening news anchor is allowed in 22 story-packed minutes. Later, the president warns a foreign country not to let their people come here, or as we call it Tuesday, Williams said on one recent broadcast, an example of his casual tone. Williams doesnt do the reporting for The 11th Hour, leaving it to the top political journalists from NBC News, and more often, non-broadcast outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press. Those reporters stay up late to preview their stories breaking that evening on their websites and in the next days print editions, often after getting quirky, fawning introductions from Williams (Also with us tonight, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Jon Meacham its been weeks since his last book came out). Williams acknowledges the circumstances of his career did not give him the luxury of planning a show like The 11th Hour. He credits the audience for accepting him again after his fall from grace. He answers every e-mail and occasionally tracks down letter-writing viewers to thank them with phone calls. Williams body tenses up a bit when he is asked about the period in 2015 when his career appeared to be in jeopardy. He is reluctant to go into detail, but he expresses gratitude for the support of family members and friends and his bosses at NBC News and parent company Comcast, who believed he was remorseful over his actions. All I will say is you have to go deep to properly examine everything, he said. I would not diminish the fact that this company saw me in a new and different role. Im professionally happy and grateful in equal measure. Williams said he still turns on the NBC Nightly News in his office each night (usually after watching his sportscaster son Doug on regional cable network SNY). But he maintains he is happy to call MSNBC his home. I say Im home because I have no desire to leave this time slot, maybe ever, he said. Everything about it works. Trumps rhetorical flourishes and unpredictability have helped The 11th Hour thrive, much in the way ABCs Nightline turned into a late-night franchise after starting out as a recap of news about the American hostages held in Iran in 1979 and 1980. Williams even borrows the early introduction of that program (originally called America Held Hostage), noting how many days the Trump administration has been in power. We certainly are tied inextricably to this presidency, Williams said. Its on the air every night because there has never been a more unusual presidency. Williams (who describes himself as classically trained in the news business) does not deliver the harsh condemnations of Trump often heard from MSNBCs liberal prime-time hosts Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence ODonnell (although he and Maddow will co-anchor MSNBCs midterm election coverage). As his guests present their reporting or analysis, Williams will throw in a sly aside without taking a side. If you listen closely, you pick up on it but hes not attacking anybody, said his executive producer Colleen King. Hes fun. But its hard for Williams not to react when having to lead a discussion of how Trump called porn star Stormy Daniels Horseface. (Williams told viewers Trump kept up the attack on Daniels even with adults present during the AP interview in the Oval Office.) We are covering the falling of norms every night, Williams said. You have to call those out and say, Folks, just so you know, this is a first for an American president. stephen.battaglio@latimes.com Twitter: @SteveBattaglio With a week to go before voters decide the fate of a controversial living wage initiative and a majority of seats on the Anaheim City Council, Walt Disney Co. and labor unions are spending heavily in the final push before the Nov. 6 election. Next weeks election has drawn a combined total of more than $7 million in contributions, an increase of $2.7 million in the last month alone, according to campaign reports for donations made before Oct. 25. The Burbank multimedia giant and unions representing workers at the Disneyland Resort have donated a total of more than $1 million in the last month, with most spent on direct mail literature, postage and consultants. The unions, led by Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel workers in Anaheim, have contributed $1.9 million to candidates and to support Measure L, the initiative to require hospitality businesses to pay higher wages if they accept a city tax break. The unions led the petition drive to put Measure L on the ballot. Advertisement The Walt Disney Co., through Disney Worldwide Services, has donated $1.6 million to candidates and independent committees, including a committee opposed to Measure L, called No on the Anaheim Job Killer Initiative. Disneys donations to fight the measure were made before it qualified for the ballot in June. The measure would require hospitality businesses that get a city tax break to pay workers an hourly wage of at least $15 starting in January, increasing $1 an hour each year until 2022, when the wage would then be tied to the cost of living. Anaheim City Atty. Robert Fabela has said that two hotels under construction, two other hotels in the planning phase and a shopping district in the city are receiving a tax break and would be obligated to pay the higher wages if Measure L passes. Fabela said Measure L does not appear to apply to the Disneyland Resort. But the unions supporting the measure disagree, saying they believe the measure applies to the resort because the city agreed in 1996 to sell bonds that were used to build a $108-million parking structure for the resort. The bonds are being paid off with bed taxes from Disneyland Resort hotels as well as hotels outside the resort. The unions argue that the bond deal is a tax break. Opponents of the measure have adopted a campaign slogan, saying Measure L will help a few hurt a lot. The campaign says that only 150 workers who live in Anaheim would get a raise under the measure, but the measure would scare off new hotel projects because developers wouldnt want to be saddled with paying higher wages. Labor unions say that the measure would ensure that workers, including those at Disneyland Resort, would earn enough to pay for housing, groceries and other essentials. hugo.martin@latimes.com To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter. Fewer Chinese business executives, tourists and students are planning to visit the United States, a sign that the trade war between Washington and Beijing might spread in unpredictable and costly ways. The nascent decline visible in visa approvals and airline bookings isnt the result of official action by Beijing. But it highlights a potent weapon that China could use if the trade war persists: slashing the $60 billion that Chinese consumers spend each year on American services such as travel and tourism. Already, 102,000 fewer Chinese people received business, leisure and educational visas from May through September of this year compared with the same period last year, a 13% drop, according to State Department statistics. Chinese airline reservations to U.S. destinations dropped 42% for the first week of October, a national holiday that normally means increased outbound trips, according to Skyscanner, a search engine owned by Chinas largest travel company. Advertisement Travel officials say they havent seen any evidence yet of a downturn in Chinese visitors. But without question that is a source of a travel market that deserves the full attention of U.S. policymakers, said Jonathan Grella, executive vice president of public affairs at the U.S. Travel Assn. The industry group met last month with President Trump at the White House to share its concerns. We run a $28-billion travel trade surplus with China, so if one of the results of prolonged trade tensions is a drop-off in Chinese visitation, it would have the ironic effect of taking our trade balance in the wrong direction, Grella said. Indeed, unlike merchandise trade, for which Trump often complains about the large deficit with China, the United States enjoys a sizable services surplus making such commerce a large and potentially vulnerable target in a lengthy trade war. Since 2011, U.S. services trade with China has grown more than three times as fast as the shipments of goods that Trump usually focuses on. We have expected that they will try a whole range of things to encourage us to back down, said a senior administration official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Its not going to work. But we would hope China wouldnt do that. Chinas done it before. During a diplomatic dispute with South Korea last year, the Chinese government banned the sale of package tours to Seoul and Jeju Island. The boycott cost South Korean businesses nearly $7 billion in just a few months, as Chinese tourists obeyed their governments orders to head elsewhere. Launching a similar boycott against the United States would risk alienating millions of middle-class Chinese who put a premium on American education and thirst for American vacations. But a consumer embargo could deprive the U.S. travel industry of its most lucrative customers Chinese tourists spend an average of $6,900 on each trip and hurt American universities that have enjoyed a surge in enrollment by Chinese students. China last year sent more than 350,000 college students to the United States, almost twice as many as India, the No. 2 source. If China chooses to widen the trade war by curbing its citizens spending on travel, financial services or consulting contracts, the United States would feel the effect more quickly than if Beijing levied additional tariffs on American goods, according to Joy Dantong Ma, a research associate at the Paulson Institute in Chicago. Chinese manufacturers need time to rearrange complex supply chains, but Chinese consumers can easily change vacation plans to visit Tuscany rather than Napa Valley, she said. Before Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping began opening the economy to foreign influence in the late 1970s, Chinese citizens who wanted to travel were required to obtain the permission of their work units and local police authorities. Tourist departures were minuscule. But as China has grown more prosperous, the number of Chinese going abroad has soared. Nearly 3 million visitors arrived in the United States in 2016, the most recent annual data available, up from just 525,000 in 2009, according to the Commerce Department. Chinese leaders may hesitate to boycott the United States, however, for fear of angering middle-class citizens who covet American diplomas for their children or just want to see Hollywood or Manhattan. In July, when a young man from Inner Mongolia detonated a small bomb near the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, people were back in the outdoor visa line less than an hour later, even as the bombers blood pooled on the sidewalk. So far, the dispute between the worlds two largest economies has been confined to their $635 billion in annual goods trade. Trump has imposed tariffs on roughly half of what Americans buy from China every year, and China has retaliated with similar levies on most of its smaller volume of orders from the United States. Because China buys far less from the United States than it sells to Americans, it cant match Trumps tariffs dollar for dollar. Chinese officials for now dont appear eager to escalate the conflict, hoping that a negotiated outcome after the U.S. congressional elections remains possible. But that could change if negotiations stall and both sides appear to be digging in for a fight. In Los Angeles, Chinese tourists most-visited U.S. destination, tourism officials are cautious about potential trade-war fallout. The citys tourism board, which has offices in four Chinese cities, says the 1.2 million Chinese visitors expected this year are more than twice the number who came in 2013. Along with seeing traditional attractions such as Universal Studios or a Los Angeles Lakers game, many Chinese tourists also shop for gifts to bring home, said Kathy Smits, vice president of the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board. We are absolutely keeping a close eye on it because it is a market thats impacted by what destinations are looked upon favorably, Smits said. Just because were positive right now doesnt mean there couldnt be a change in the short term. Lynch writes for the Washington Post. Federal regulators on Wednesday proposed a revised approach to overseeing banks seen as unlikely to pose a threat to the financial system a step meant to limit the strictest rules only to the largest financial firms. The Federal Reserve voted 3 to 1 to begin a formal rulemaking procedure that would establish a system of regulatory tiers separating megabanks considered systemically important, such as JP Morgan Chase and Citibank, from smaller but still large regional lenders, including U.S. Bancorp, Capital One Financial Corp. and PNC Financial Services Group Inc. The proposals before us would prescribe materially less stringent requirements on firms with less risk, while maintaining the most stringent requirements for firms that pose the greatest risks to the financial system and our economy, Fed Chairman Jerome H. Powell said in a statement. The moves are part of the Trump administrations broader push to revisit bank rules it believes are overreaching. Critics of the changes say they dial back regulations intended to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis. Advertisement The proposals from the Fed portions of which will be issued jointly with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. follow a congressional vote this spring to soften rules put in place by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law for the smallest banks. Community banks were freed from mortgage rules if they make fewer than 500 mortgages a year. And banks with less than $10 billion in assets were exempted from complying with the Volcker Rule, which prohibits institutions from trading for their own profit and limits ownership of risky investments. And about two dozen banks with assets of as much as $250 billion were freed from Dodd-Franks mandatory stricter regulatory oversight. The legislation raised the threshold for that oversight, which includes rigorous annual stress tests, from $50 billion. The proposal from the Fed on Wednesday further fleshed out those regulations for banks with up to $250 billion in assets by creating a system of tiers that will have banks evaluated on not only total assets, but also their dependence on riskier short-term funding, the scale of off-balance sheet exposures and how much business they do outside the United States. For banks with between $100 billion and $250 billion in assets, including SunTrust Banks Inc., KeyCorp and Fifth Third Bancorp, the regulators plan to significantly reduce demands for how much easy-to-sell assets they keep on hand for a funding emergency. Theyd also be put on a two-year cycle for stress tests. Banks above $250 billion or smaller firms with higher risk factors would have some tougher demands tailored to how complex they are. But those that arent systemically important would have a much-reduced liquidity requirement. The asset threshold for the toughest level of regulation would be raised significantly. Current rules say the category includes lenders with at least $250 billion in assets or $10 billion in foreign exposure, but the proposal would raise those levels to $700 billion or $75 billion in international activity. The same eight banks known as globally systemically important financial institutions occupy the top of five new categories, retaining the same compliance expectations. Northern Trust Corp. would be the sole firm in a lower regulatory category that still includes stringent regulations. Foreign banks werent addressed in the proposals, and the regulators said they intend to follow up in the near future with a new system for those firms. Fed board member Lael Brainard, a Democrat who was appointed by former President Obama and was at the agency during the approval of many post-crisis bank regulations, voted against the proposals. She said the rules would go far beyond what Congress called for in the recent Dodd-Frank revisions and would weaken the buffers that are core to the resilience of our system. The financial regulators appointed by President Trump are gaining momentum in addressing some of the long-standing complaints bankers have had with the governments response to the 2008 financial crisis. On Tuesday, the agencies proposed new capital standards for financial derivatives meant to answer industry concerns that banks have been forced to maintain more capital than they needed against holdings of those complex financial instruments. Unlike Wednesdays effort, that one could have a significant benefit for large Wall Street firms. The agencies also have been working to reshape the Volcker Rules limits on banks investing with their own money, and the Fed has been working on overhauling its capital rules, leverage demands, stress-test expectations and requirements for so-called living wills that plan how each lender would go bankrupt without hurting the broader financial system. The latest proposal to relax rules for mid-sized banks will be open for public comment. The Fed also said it and the FDIC will soon propose a way to further tailor the submission of living wills. Los Angeles Times staff writer Jim Puzzanghera contributed to this report. Finding no takers for her Encino home, True Religion clothing line co-founder Kym Gold has trimmed the price of the East Coast-inspired Traditional to $9.495 million. Thats down half a million from its original listing price, records show. That still leaves plenty of room to profit for the clothing entrepreneur. She bought it newly built in 2015 for $6.3 million, the Los Angeles Times previously reported. Found in Royal Oaks, the home wears a stately exterior marked by a pitched roofline and navy-blue plantation shutters. Including the detached guesthouse, there are seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms spread across 8,500 square feet. 1 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 2 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 3 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 4 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 5 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 6 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 7 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 8 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 9 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 10 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 11 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 12 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 13 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 14 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 15 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 16 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 17 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 18 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 19 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 20 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 21 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 22 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 23 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 24 / 48 Kym Golds Encino estate | Hot Property (Daniel Dahler ) 25 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 26 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 27 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 28 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 29 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 30 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 31 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 32 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 33 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 34 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 35 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 36 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 37 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 38 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 39 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 40 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 41 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 42 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 43 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 44 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 45 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 46 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 47 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) 48 / 48 The lot, which spans roughly three-quarters of an acre, holds a six-bedroom Traditional-style home, a two-story guesthouse, a rose garden and a pool and spa. (Daniel Dahler ) Advertisement A winding staircase separates a chandelier-topped foyer from a formal living room with a fireplace. Other living spaces include formal and informal dining areas, a family room, gym and chefs kitchen with exposed-beam ceilings. On the second story, a master suite with a lounge opens to a covered terrace that overlooks a fountain-fed pool surrounded by hedges and a patio. Anthony Paradise of Sothebys International Realty holds the listing. Gold co-founded True Religion alongside her then-husband, Jeffrey Lubell, in 2002. The company declared bankruptcy last year alongside the closure of 27 stores. jack.flemming@latimes.com | Twitter: @jflem94 Britain welcomed a call by the United States to end the fighting in Yemen and said that there was a chance to create a humanitarian corridor and head off a "terrible situation". "This is an extremely welcome announcement because we have been working towards the cessation of hostilities in Yemen for a long time," Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the BBC. A Saudi-led coalition that intervened in Yemens war in 2015 has conducted frequent air strikes targeting the Iran-aligned Houthi group. Search Keywords: Short link: More than a dozen Cate Blanchetts have shown up for our interview today. One, in a crisp blazer and stick-straight hair, is all business; another, wearing a draped turban and dark plum lipstick, is downright demanding; yet another, in a soft floral blouse and glasses, is contemplative, pious-seeming; a dirty, unkempt version unfurls with rage. These vastly different Blanchetts are part of German video artist Julian Rosefeldts multi-channel film installation, Manifesto (2015), which opened at Hauser & Wirth on Saturday. Blanchett embodies 13 different characters, including a feral-looking homeless man, a Russian choreographer, a television news anchor, a lonely puppeteer and a beleaguered trash incineration plant worker. All of them recite snippets from the manifestoes of artists, activists, poets, performers, filmmakers and intellectuals throughout the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries in unrelated vignettes on separate screens in the gallery. Suddenly, a 14th Blanchett emerges and for a moment, she is speechless. The actress, in a hot pink blazer and jeans, steps gingerly into the pitch-black gallery, blinking as her eyes adjust to the darkness. Shes seeing this incarnation of the installation its West Coast debut for the first time and surveys the cavernous space with Rosefeldt as if bewildered at first, or possibly overwhelmed by the drama and potency of the artwork. Her disorientation is understandable: The glowing film screens hang from the ceiling in the darkness, as if floating midair, or are mounted to separate walls. The visuals are lush and textured; the blaring audio, as all the characters prattle on at once, is cacophonous, a disconcerting jumble of disparate declarations, diatribes and calls to action. Advertisement Wow, Blanchett says, finally. This is so intense. Sparks fly from a lighted fuse cord on one screen; her manifestation of a hunched homeless man hobbles across a foggy, gray field on another; her severe choreographer hollers instructions at showgirl dancers onstage on another screen, the schlop-schlop sound of their feet rising in volume with hers. As Blanchett moves among these splintered selves, her amazement simmers into satisfaction of a job well done. I found the process of doing this utterly freeing. It was like doing stand-up or something, she says. The experience I had of saying the words is that you cease to make sense of them. You get hit on a much more sort of [visceral] level, its more the energy of the manifesto. Then, Blanchett tosses her head back and laughs, nostalgically, pointing to a nearby screen. Remember that? We were losing the light, she says to Rosefeldt, of a graveside eulogy scene at dusk. They exchange knowing chuckles, as if college roommates sharing road trip secrets. Artist Julian Rosefeldt pauses with actress Cate Blanchett at the L.A. gallery Hauser & Wirth. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) Manifesto, is a joint labor of love for Blanchett and Rosefeldt. The two met in 2010 in an art gallery in Berlin and vowed to one day work together. Rosefeldt approached Blanchett about the project three years later. He had been reading Futurist manifestoes by poet and choreographer Valentine de Saint-Point, which hed quoted in his film Deep Gold. Sensing a resurgence in manifesto writing, Rosefeldt says, he began seeking out and reading other artists declarations going back in time. But the world was a very different place five years ago, when Rosefeldt first conceived of the work. It was different even in 2015, when the installation debuted at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, and when the linear movie version premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017. The individual manifestoes quoted in the work may be timeless in their urgent desire to make the world a better place through art, but the work as a whole has new relevance, set against our current sociopolitical landscape, Rosefeldt says. I believe that this specific time were living in almost calls for manifestoes again, he says, later adding that the art installation itself is not meant to be a manifesto even though its often perceived by audiences as such. They read it as a call for action or an antipopulist piece, he says. I guess its because they sense that energy and anger that a lot of these texts have. Which is the opposite of the anger of Trump or [Brazils President-elect Jair] Bolsonaro its an intelligent anger, its a creative anger, its a productive anger, its a wish to change something, but with inspirational thoughts. And we just have the exact opposite on the political map nowadays more and more. Our job is to be inconsistent and reactive and provocative and impolite and theres a lot of that energy in the manifestoes. Cate Blanchett Each of the 13 vignettes in the work is a text collage of sorts, in which Rosefeldt stitched together lines from the writings of individual artists such as Claes Oldenburg, Sol LeWitt, Yvonne Rainer and Jim Jarmusch and groups including Surrealists, Situationists, Futurists and Dadaists. The scenes playing out on-screen in which Blanchett delivers the manifesto lines to other characters or directly into the camera arent necessarily related to the words being spoken. But the disconnect, Rosefeldt says, may force the viewer to think harder, pay closer attention. In one scene representing filmmaking manifestoes, a schoolteacher strolls from desk to desk, handing out test booklets to 8- and 9-year-old children. Nothing is original, she instructs them, quoting Jarmusch. In another vignette representing conceptual art and Minimalism, Blanchetts staccato-sounding, perfectly erect news anchor says, deadpan into the camera, All current art is fake, a line from appropriation artist Elaine Sturtevant. Blanchetts mousey homemaker, in a vignette representing Pop Art and featuring Oldenburgs 1961 I Am for an Art manifesto, calmly sets the dining table before leading her family in prayer. I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, she begins, hands clasped and head down. Blanchetts tattooed, rocker chick reclines on a couch, post-party, in a vignette representing Stridentism and Creationism. Ideas often run off the rails, she says, quoting Manuel Maples Arce. Actress Cate Blanchett greets artist Julian Rosefeldt at Hauser & Wirth gallery. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) Artist Julian Rosefeldt chats with Cate Blanchett at Hauser & Wirth. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) Such a heady project, meant to be viewed in art galleries, could have been a risky endeavor for an Oscar-winning actress. But Blanchett scoffs at that idea. I dont see the point in doing something if youre not risking falling on your face, she says. So Blanchett and Rosefeldt dived right in. The two met for one long afternoon in New York to develop the material, whittling down a list of 50 or 60 characters and vignette possibilities. The work was shot in just 12 days in Berlin in 2014, with Blanchett there for 11. It was a frenzied, fast-paced, kamikaze-style shoot, as Rosefeldt describes it, in which they moved quickly from location to location, often shooting in one take, and there was little if no time for rehearsals. Each of these texts is like a theater monologue that youd normally rehearse for weeks. And Cate did it, like, snap, without really preparing, Rosefeldt says. Instead, every evening after shooting, Blanchett recorded the text for the next days vignette, and she listened to it in her trailer each morning while undergoing an hours-long process of physical transformation. As makeup artist Morag Ross, hair artist Massimo Gattabrusi and costume designer Bina Daigeler applied wigs, fake teeth and padded body parts, Blanchett fine-tuned her accents and physical gestures. It was a much more external process. I had to decide [in the trailer]: How about this character talks like that? she says in a deep, gravelly sounding voice. Or, What about the character talks like this? she coos in an elegant, lady-like manner. The chaotic pace of filmmaking worked, Rosefeldt says. Just jumping into the cold water, just doing it, was very good for this project, because it created a certain freshness to the text, he adds. Cate Blanchett in Julian Rosefeldts Manifesto (2015) ( Julian Rosefeldt and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018) Cate Blanchett in Julian Rosefeldts Manifesto (2015) ( Julian Rosefeldt and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018) If she had to choose a favorite character, it would be the dual roles of in-studio news anchor and reporter in the rain, Blanchett says. A manifesto line that resonated? Mierle Laderman Ukeles Fluxus sentiment: But after the revolution, whos going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning? Blanchett recites. I just find that such a provocative thought. Synchronizing the sound between the vignettes each 10 minutes long and playing on a loop was akin to conducting an orchestra, Rosefeldt says. Even where the screens themselves are placed inside the gallery is strategic, audio-wise one room is quieter, the other more thunderous. The work is composed so that you have moments of cacophony, where its hard to focus on each and every text. But you also have quieter moments, so theres also a musical dramaturgy, a natural rhythm. Cate Blanchett in Julian Rosefeldts Manifesto (2015) ( Julian Rosefeldt and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018) One factor that binds most of the manifestoes is that they were written when the authors were young. They share a youthful bluster and a rebellious spirit. This is especially evident at the end of each loop, when the sound is most synchronized. The characters all speak at once, in rapid monotone, as if the manifestoes are in dialogue with one another. The collective volume steadily rises until little is discernible. Its at once passionate, intriguing and disconcerting. Thats the point, Blanchett says. Ultimately, the work explores the universal role that artists play in our society. And its not a passive one. The role of the artist, its an ancient role where it has to be social propagation and social commentary, she says. Theres a sense, increasingly, that artists have to be consistent. Our job is to be inconsistent and reactive and provocative and impolite and theres a lot of that energy in the manifestoes. Julian Rosefeldt and Cate Blanchett at Los Angeles Hauser & Wirth on Oct. 27, the day Manifesto saw its West Coast debut. (Francine Orr/ Los Angeles Times) Julian Rosefeldt Manifesto Where: Hauser & Wirth, 901 E. 3rd St., Los Angeles When: 11 a.m.-6 p.m., closed Mondays. Through Jan. 6 Info: www.hauserwirth.com deborah.vankin@latimes.com Follow me on Twitter: @debvankin What happens after we die? Various religions tend to rely on a certain moral equation: If you are good in this world, the next world will be kind to you; but if you are bad in this world, you can expect torment for eternity. Things were not nearly so cut and dried in the 4th century B.C., when the Greeks were trying to understand the fate of humans after they shuffled off this mortal coil. There was no heaven or hell, only a place called the Underworld, ruled by Hades and his wife, Persephone. The very worst sinners suffered a tortured fate, while the rest of the dead just had to figure out how to get along in this rather dark and uninspiring realm. If you were really well-connected to a god, for example then you might be able to expect a truly extravagant afterlife. Its a tour de force of potting and painting. Getty curator David Saunders on a monumental funerary vessel dating to the fourth century B.C. Advertisement So goes the story in Underworld: Imagining the Afterlife, an exhibit on view at the Getty Villa in Malibu through March 18. Featuring more than 30 objects from the ancient world, the exhibit examines a pivotal point in Greek history when people were beginning to wonder about ways they could improve their lot in the next life. There are no hard-and-fast answers to that question, says exhibit curator David Saunders, who is also associate curator of antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum. I would love for a time machine to go back, Saunders says. Talking about the ancient world is always difficult, given how scarce our literary resources are. And the afterlife is so bound up with anxieties and fears, so we dont have concrete examples of how people felt. But we do have art. The exhibit is centered on a monumental funerary vessel or krater that dates to the middle of the 4th century B.C. and was found in fragments in 1847. The Getty just finished a two-year process of conservation that helped correct some of the restoration mistakes made in the 19th century. Volute krater (mixing vessel) with Dionysos Visiting Hades and Persephone, about 340-330 B.C. (Italian Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Tourism. National Archaeological Museum of Naples Conservation and Restoration Labora) The krater was found in Altamura in southeastern Italy, which was inhabited in ancient times by the Apulians, who buried their dead with a variety of pottery and earthly goods in addition to these elaborate vessels. This is one of the largest that Saunders knows of, and is almost 6 feet tall. It would have been made for an important member of society. The Apulians were deeply entwined with Greek culture, and their funerary vases were often decorated with scenes from Greek myth and drama. The krater from Altamura, says Saunders, is almost like a movie poster of whos who down in Hades. Grave relief fragment with Danaids, Persephone and Hades, Hermes and Herakles, late 4th century B.C. (Italian Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Tourism. National Archaeological Museum of Naples Conservation and Restoration Labora) It is decorated with more than 20 mythological figures, including Hades and Persephone, the musician Orpheus, the hero Herakles, the messenger god Hermes, and Sisyphus, who is famous for being made to roll a massive boulder up a steep hill for eternity. These images are telling for the way the characters are depicted, as well as for who exactly is shown. They provide a lens into the thinking about the Underworld during that period of history. Its a tour de force of potting and painting, Saunders says of the krater. A really high-end high status grave good. These burial offerings were intended to help the deceased navigate the afterlife. They symbolized how people were beginning to formulate elaborate plans for how to improve their chances of happiness in eternity. Of particular interest in this context are a series of rare gold tablets engraved with detailed descriptions about how to navigate the otherworldly realm. Lamella Orphica, second half of 4th century B.C. (Italian Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Tourism. National Archaeological Museum of Naples Conservation and Restoration Labora) These gold tablets are hugely interesting, Saunders says of the small, wafer-thin leaves of gold. They have written inscriptions guiding people where to go and what to do in the Underworld a sort of manual; in these descriptions, the deceased has to take the right path to the underworld and drink of this spring and not of this spring. These tablets also would have been buried with important and connected people who were traveling in esoteric circles of people actively contemplating the perils and possibilities of the next life. Orpheus emerges as a central figure in the imagery of the time so much so that an entire section of the exhibit is devoted to him. The Underworld was not considered to be a place you could ever leave, yet Orpheus did just that when he traveled there to retrieve his wife, Eurydice. The quest did not turn out well for Orpheus, but he returned from the Underworld, nonetheless, as a hero of the afterlife. He was the kind of person to provide that instruction as to where to go and what to do, Saunders says of the Greek fascination with Orpheus. In this show, I dont have all the answers, but theres a lot of really exciting research going on. This exhibition is a great opportunity to bring some of the key evidence together and talk about interesting details. Underworld: Imagining the Afterlife Where: The Getty Villa, 17985 Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades When: Through March 18 Price: Free; a timed-entry ticket is required; parking is $15 per car, $10 after 3 p.m. Info: (310) 440-7300 or getty.edu/visit/villa/ Weeping Siren, about 350 - 325 B.C. (By permission of the Italian Ministry of Heritage and Culture and Tourism. National Archaeological Museum of Naples Conservation and Restoration Labora) jessica.gelt@latimes.com @jessicagelt ALSO: Maria Irene Fornes, the groundbreaking Cuban-born playwright who was a pivotal figure in the off-off-Broadway movement, died Tuesday at 88 after a long battle with Alzheimers disease. Michelle Memran, the director of the 2018 documentary about Fornes, The Rest I Make Up, and part of the network of artists and friends who were staunchly by her side during her more than 12 years in care facilities, confirmed her death. Arguably the most influential American dramatist whose work hasnt become a staple of the mainstream repertoire, Fornes, a nine-time Obie winner, carved a special niche in the American theater. Although she was not as well-known as fellow theater maverick Sam Shepard, her playwriting exerted a similar magnetic pull on generations of theater artists inspired by her liberating example. Admired by academics, her profoundly original and deeply humane plays are regularly taught in seminars on political, feminist, queer and experimental theater. But Fornes cant be consigned to the university corner of specialized syllabi. Indeed, no survey of 20th century American drama would be complete without a sample of her work. Advertisement Fefu and Her Friends, her best-known play (first produced in 1977) and a landmark of feminist playwriting, is as interesting formally as it is politically and psychology. Mud and The Conduct of Life, her two masterpieces from the 1980s, scrubbed sociology to its theatrical essence. Her early works from the 1960s, such as The Successful Life of 3 and the musical Promenade, caper with absurdist energy. Later works grapple with AIDS (Enter the Night) and the culture she left behind that was always with her (Letters From Cuba). Born in Havana in 1930, Fornes immigrated to the U.S. with her mother and a sister in 1945 after the death of her father. They settled in New York. and she became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1951. Gifted in the visual arts and design and possessing only a piecemeal formal education, Fornes initially set her sights on becoming a painter. She studied with the abstract impressionist Hans Hofmann and traveled for a few years in Europe, where she saw Roger Blins original production of Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot in Paris, a watershed experience for her. As Fornes told the Village Voices Ross Wetzsteon, I didnt speak any French at all. But I understood the world in which it took place, I got the rhythm. And it turned my life upside down. Still figuring out her path when she returned to New York, Fornes fell into writing by trying to help her lover, Susan Sontag, then a philosophy instructor at Columbia, get started on a novel. I had all this creative energy that I had to use, Fornes recalled. I never really loved painting. Still, I might never have even thought of writing if I hadnt pretended I was going to show Susan how easy it was. Tango Palace, Fornes first play, premiered at the Actors Workshop in San Francisco in 1963 under the direction of Herbert Blau. With her roots firmly planted in New Yorks burgeoning off-off-Broadway scene, Fornes would go on to write more than 40 plays that would rewrite the rules of the American theater. In the preface to a collection of Fornes plays, Sontag describes her former partner as a writer of bicultural inspiration, one very American way of being a writer, and an autodidact whose principal influences were neither theatre nor literature but certain styles of painting and the movies. Fornes writing can be disarmingly direct. Her language is like that real thin crystal that, when you pour a drink, youre afraid the glass will crush from the weight of the liquor, playwright Harvey Fierstein told critic Don Shewey. The plays, often centered on female characters longing for the education and enlightenment they hope will lead to a less constricted existence, unfold as a series of tableaux whose simplicity belies their emotional power. Scenes are distilled, and spatial composition takes precedence over conventional plot. The playwrights social conscience is expressed not in prescriptive answers but in an abiding interest in characters historically relegated to the voiceless margins. Most critics and theatergoers, Fornes told New York magazine in 1985, are so used to seeing plays in only one way What is the dramatic conflict? What are the symbols? that they go through their entire lives looking for the same things. If they dont find what they expect, theyre disconcerted. But I cant plant things that way, like a treasure hunt where you need a map. To me a play is more like a path I just follow, never knowing where its going to end up, letting the material guide me step by step. There are many ways to bungle Fornes path-breaking plays in performance so, to realize her dramatic vision in three dimensions, she became an accomplished director. Exploratory in her directorial methods yet always firmly in control, she made full use of her visual arts background as she collaborated closely with designers on premieres of her own plays and on occasional productions of classics. Every element of the staging, including the acting, was arranged to strip the habits of conventional perception so that life, both theatrical and societal, could be seen anew. The trademark naivety of Fornes characters was matched by a production style that understood just how profound stillness, sparseness and playful humor could be. These qualities were freshly reinvented each time Fornes sat down to write a play. Her oeuvre is remarkably diverse. Her signature was her freedom from having a signature. Commercial success wasnt in the cards for Fornes as it was for her male off-off-Broadway peers Shepard and Lanford Wilson, both of whom revered her. Broadway, with its rigid rehearsal procedures and staid expectations, was antithetical to all she stood for. But even prominent nonprofit theaters across the country had trouble accommodating an artist who cared more about collective process than institutional hierarchies. The relative scarcity of her highly regarded work on our most visible stages is why it was so significant when New Yorks Signature Theatre Company devoted its 1999-2000 season to her plays. Off-off Broadway and fringe theaters throughout the land were Fornes natural home. If widespread fame was denied her, she was a totemic figure to many theater academics and artists. Tony Kushner was one of the many playwrights drawn to understand, as he put in a tribute essay, the Fornes magic the way politics, psychology, and formal experimentation cohabit in the house of Narrative Realism as if nothing were more natural. A celebrated playwriting teacher who served as director of INTARs Hispanic Playwrights in Residence Lab in New York and conducted workshops at theaters (including the Mark Taper Forum) and universities in the U.S. and abroad, Fornes helped countless writers find their voices. The playwrights legacy lives on as much in her plays as in her students, a group that includes Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz and MacArthur Genius Grant-winner Luis Alfaro. Her influence on Latinx theater passed down by former students such as Eduardo Machado, Caridad Svich and Migdalia Cruz, who have become master teachers themselves is incalculable. Fornes resisted categorizations, ideological as well as artistic. She expressed ambivalence about the way her work was co-opted by various academic agendas, not because she didnt want to be associated with feminism or the queer movement, but because her approach to theater-making was never about platforms or official positions. Her allegiance as a writer was first and foremost to what was vulnerably and universally human. Mud, which was created and performed in 1983 at the Padua Hills Festival, an important Southern California artistic base for Fornes, captures the way her politics were grounded in daily reality. Listen to the prayer-like words that stream from the barely literate Mae after she asks her visitor to say grace in the hovel she shares with her brutish male companion: I am a hungry soul. I am a longing soul. I am an empty soul. I cry with joy. It satisfies me to hear words that speak so lovingly to my soul. Dont be afraid to eat from our dishes, Henry. They are clean. Fornes, like her most famous character Fefu, was attracted to exciting ideas, even if others found them dangerous or repellent. You see, Fefu explains to an outraged friend, that which is exposed to the exterior is smooth and dry and clean. That which is not underneath, is slimy and filled with fungus and crawling with worms. It is another life that is parallel to the one we manifest. Its there. The way worms are underneath the stone. If you dont recognize it it eats you. The line ends in a whisper, but in her brave witnessing of brutality, poverty and oppression, Fornes left resounding theatrical testimony to what is most tender, nurturing, and fun-loving in the human spirit. SIGN UP for the free Essential Arts & Culture newsletter charles.mcnulty@latimes.com Follow me @charlesmcnulty The news that President Trump is in the process of preparing an executive order to end birthright citizenship has stirred up politicians, pundits and even some celebrities. In a clip of a television interview released Tuesday, Trump said he has been thinking about challenging the 14th Amendment right to citizenship granted to all children born in the U.S., incorrectly claiming that the U.S. is the only country to grant such citizenship at birth. He offered no specifics other than his plan to do so via executive order. Legal scholars were quick to point out that the Constitution, the Supreme Court and federal law all say children born in the U.S. are citizens, regardless of the status of their parents. While much of the conversation on social media was mostly around the legality of Trumps claim (from both sides of the political aisle), actress Mindy Kaling took to Twitter and personalized the issue. Advertisement Wait. I was born in the United States to two Indian professionals who later became proud citizens of this country, Kaling tweeted. So... now I would be a citizen of India? My contributions to this country would be as a foreigner with no rights? See more reactions to Trumps plan regarding birthright citizenship below. Wait. I was born in the United States to two Indian professionals who later became proud citizens of this country. So... now I would be a citizen of India? My contributions to this country would be as a foreigner with no rights? Mindy Kaling (@mindykaling) October 30, 2018 Racist. Un-American. Dumb. Oh, and absolutely unconstitutional. Trump eyes ending birthright citizenship with executive order - The Washington Post https://t.co/d8WnhnITdU Aisha Tyler (@aishatyler) October 30, 2018 The Constitution isn't a value menu. You can't just choose the amendments you like (free speech, right to bear arms) and eliminate the ones you don't (right to vote, birthright citizenship, anything establishing civil rights). roxane gay (@rgay) October 30, 2018 The 14th Amendments citizenship guarantee is clear. You cant erase the constitution with an executive order. https://t.co/xBL4BT7sz5 Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) October 30, 2018 Think about this headline: "Trump claims he can defy Constitution and end birthright citizenship" - VP Pence echoes, says Supreme Court may back Trump. Objective Analysis: this is moving from outrageously absurd to truly dangerous. A president says he can defy the constitution! Dan Rather (@DanRather) October 30, 2018 tracy.brown@latimes.com Twitter: @tracycbrown Executive produced by Mark and Jay Duplass, Unlovable is the type of independent comedy the brothers were known for early in their career, filled with quirky, often embarrassingly relatable characters. Here, director Suzi Yoonessi and co-writer/star Charlene deGuzman gift audiences with an oddball protagonist who is a real human being, and not the one-note manic pixie dream girl that plagues lesser indies. Despite her cheerful exterior, love and sex addict Joy (deGuzman) has finally reached her rock bottom. Dumped by her boyfriend (Paul James) and kicked out of their apartment, she joins a support group, and her sponsor, Maggie (Melissa Leo) offers Joy the guest house at her grandmothers home. There, Joy meets Maggies guarded brother, Jim (John Hawkes), and despite his initial reticence, they forge a connection making music. Written by deGuzman with Sarah Adina Smith and Mark Duplass, Unlovable is the rare indie film that gets just the right level of twee. DeGuzmans voice is specific and vital, while crafting a narrative about a believably flawed woman whom we root for in the midst of a self-destructive spiral. Joy craves connection, and we wish we could reach into the films world and provide it for her. Director Yoonessi and deGuzman perfectly balance the contrast between Joys cuteness and innocence and the darkness and sexuality of her experience. ------------- Advertisement Unlovable Not rated Running time: 1 hour, 22 minutes Playing: Starts Thursday, Arena Cinelounge, Hollywood; available on VOD Friday ------------ See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour Movie Trailers calendar@latimes.com @LATimesMovies Theres a bullet inside Emely Ramirez, but it only hurts when the 6-year-old bends down. On a rainy Friday night this month, she was strapped into her car seat at a South Los Angeles gas station her mother and 13-year-old sister were trading jokes outside the car. A nearby Pontiac was making Emelys mother, Brenda Ramirez, nervous. Then a BMW pulled up and people from both cars began shooting at one another. In the ensuing gunfight, the shooters didnt hit one another. But a bullet struck Emely in the back. Emelys mother was screaming to her two older daughters to get on the ground as she scrambled to get Emely out of the car seat. Brenda said the unstrapping took longer than usual as she felt bullets hitting metal, shattering glass. Finally she got Emely out and felt wet blood. Advertisement She said her daughter told her, Mommy Im tired, I want to go to sleep. The gas station where Emely Ramirez was wounded. (Los Angeles Times) Brenda tried to keep Emely awake asked what her teacher did in school that day, how her test had gone. Nearby, the 13-year-old was having her first seizure in two years. Her aunt, Nina Ramirez, would later say this was the only seizure she was glad to hear of, because her niece doesnt remember the shooting. It happened about 8 p.m. Oct. 12. After the shooters cars pulled out, only one person offered help, Brenda said. He told her to wrap a sweater around Emely and hold it tight to stanch the bleeding. Emely soon was taken to a hospital, where she would spend nine days. Within a day, Emely was watching cartoons and charming the police officers who visited, said Los Angeles Police Det. Ryan Bellows of the 77th Street Division. Now, 2 weeks later, Emely is mostly herself. Shes a bold kid with a huge smile and a laugh that seems to fill her whole face. She loves unicorns, the color pink and watching YouTube crafting videos. Though the bullet isnt impeding Emely, she has an appointment this week to check on it. On Monday, toting a pink backpack, she returned to school to her friends and to her favorite subject, math. After school, she spent time as usual at her familys party decoration shop. Emely Ramirez, 6, center, spends time with her mom Brenda Ramirez, 35, left, and sister Brenda Lopez, 17, right, at the familys party decoration shop in South L.A. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times) Her mother says she plans to get counseling for her through her elementary school. She says Emely is throwing more fits than usual, occasionally demanding to no avail that her mother buy her something. The 13-year-old and 17-year-old, both in high school, are resisting help, their mother said. They say, Im OK, but I know theyre not. The older one wants to stay in bed with her mom, and the 13-year-old has trouble sleeping. They dont want their mom to reclaim her car from police. The shooting in Vermont-Slauson neighborhood has forced Brenda to confront the reality of danger in the neighborhood where she lives and works. Police believe the suspects were rival gang members. I never feel fear. I always say, Well, everythings gonna be good, and were gonna fix it and everythings gonna be right, Brenda said. At that moment, I feel like nothing was good and nothing was right. And I dont know why it was happening to me. Its not fair that people who had a problem with each other disregarded her children and shot through them, she said. Its not fair that her daughter has a bullet lodged in her body. They saw there were kids ... and they didnt care, Brenda said of the shooters. They just care about their anger or whatever it was in their heads, the evil things. Brenda Ramirez, left, walking home from school with Emely, says she plans to get counseling for her daughter through her elementary school. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times) Authorities have arrested and charged the two men they say were in the Pontiac Corey Lee Ware, 30, and Larry Hawkins, 32 with 10 felony counts each, including premeditated attempted murder, assault with a semiautomatic firearm and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, authorities said. If convicted, they could face multiple sentences of 25 years to life in state prison, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorneys office said. Police are still searching for the suspects who were in the BMW, Bellows said. Anyone with information can contact him at (323) 786-5414, or call LAPDs tip line at (800) 222-8477. About two weeks before the shooting, Brenda said there were gunshots near the shop. Her brother told her to get on the ground. Otherwise, she said, she wouldnt have known what to do. Now she wants to see more preparation for children and adults in schools. If theres an earthquake I have my gallons of water here, in my car, she said. Wherever I go, I have alcohol, bandages. I always prepare for everything. I wasnt prepared for this. Nobody told me how to act. Reach Sonali Kohli at Sonali.Kohli@latimes.com or on Twitter @Sonali_Kohli. County leaders on Tuesday declared a shelter crisis, giving the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority more flexibility in how it may spend $81 million in newly available state money for the homeless and the ability to bypass some regulations in order to provide emergency housing. The declaration, both symbolic and practical, applies to unincorporated parts of the county and to county-owned facilities in cities that have adopted their own crisis declarations, including Los Angeles. It will be in place for a year. Under California law, municipalities may declare a shelter crisis when the health and safety of a significant number of residents are at risk. Doing so enables them to house homeless people in designated public facilities and to suspend housing, health and safety standards that might ordinarily get in the way of using those facilities for shelter. An annual count conducted in January, found there were 52,765 homeless people in L.A. County, three-quarters of whom were living on the street. Advertisement Given the complexity and magnitude of the homelessness crisis and the limited supply of affordable permanent housing in the county, there is a significant and immediate need for interim housing, Supervisor Sheila Kuehl wrote in the motion. The shelter declaration also gives local governments flexibility in how they spend funds from the states Homeless Emergency Aid Program. The program, approved by the Legislature this year, set aside $500 million to combat homelessness. The money must be spent by June 30, 2021. In November, the homeless authority will apply for the $81 million for which it is eligible. Under a plan approved last month, more than half of the money the authority receives about $45 million will go toward new short-term housing beds, upgrades to existing interim shelters and safe parking. The rest will fund prevention programs, rapid rehousing and improvements to the countys coordinated entry system. Having a shelter crisis declaration in place will allow the authority to spend some of the money specifically on building and upgrading shelters and on providing rental assistance in unincorporated parts of the county. The city of Los Angeles, which declared its own shelter crisis in April, has separately been awarded $85 million in funds from the state Homeless Emergency Aid pot, the vast majority of which will go to bridge housing and skid row services. According to the city, it has already directed more than $3.7 million toward two sites under the mayors A Bridge Home program, supporting 170 planned shelter beds in West L.A. and Hollywood. The county doesnt know yet how many, or where, its new shelter beds might be created under its plan. That will depend on community proposals to be submitted to the homeless authority later this year. The state funds will add to the $350 million being deployed annually under Measure H, a countywide quarter-cent sales tax approved in 2017. We still have an incredible social and humanitarian crisis, said Phil Ansell, director of the countys homeless initiative. We definitely need all levels of government to be in. The Board of Supervisors also voted Tuesday to renew a shelter crisis declaration in the Antelope Valley. That declaration, first put in place a year ago, will enable the Salvation Army to continue providing round-the-clock shelter to a homeless population that faces extreme weather and limited access to services, said Dana Vanderford, Supervisor Kathryn Bargers homelessness deputy. The shelter, run out of the High Desert Multi-Ambulatory Care Center, has 100 beds and were full every single night, Vanderford said. Separately, the county approved two additional measures on homelessness. One directs the countys attorneys and other departments to recommend changes to local laws and enforcement procedures in light of a recent court ruling that said governments cannot criminalize homeless people for sleeping on the street when no shelter is available. The other directs the chief executive office to work with county agencies and researchers to develop new data collection tools to measure and predict homelessness. The board unanimously approved all four of the homelessness-related items. nina.agrawal@latimes.com Twitter: @AgrawalNina A man wearing a Joker costume who threatened to jump from a pedestrian bridge overlooking the 170 Freeway near North Hollywood on Wednesday morning has been safely brought down from the precipice, police said. The man, who was not identified, was helped from the bridge near Whitsett Avenue around noon, according to a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department. Southbound lanes of the 170 Freeway have since been reopened. The man was not injured, but police could not say whether he had been formally arrested or simply taken in for a mental health evaluation. Officers were dispatched to the pedestrian bridge shortly after 9 a.m., authorities said. Advertisement #LAPD and #LAFD working to bring man down from 170 Fwy overpass at Sherman Way. He's dressed like the Joker. Have a safe Halloween everyone. @NBCLA @latrafficgal pic.twitter.com/4yT5hqQrXO Rosa Ordaz (@RosaNBCLA) October 31, 2018 The man was described as a possible jumper. Television images showed him dressed in a purple-and-green costume to resemble Batmans archnemesis the Joker. Officials with the California Highway Patrol and Los Angeles Fire Department also were on the scene, according to Lee, who said it was unclear whether the man was communicating with rescue officials. james.queally@latimes.com Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in California. UPDATES: 1:20 p.m.: This article was updated with information about the mans rescue. 11:15 a.m.: This article was updated with details on the section of freeway that has been shut down. This article was originally published at 10:15 a.m. Lime has pulled about 2,000 of its electric rental scooters from the streets of Los Angeles, San Diego and Lake Tahoe, saying a battery defect in one model could cause the zippy vehicles to burst into flames. Lime said in a statement that it found a manufacturing defect in an early version of the companys ubiquitous green-and-black scooters, produced by Segway, that could cause one of the onboard batteries to smolder or catch fire. Lime wrote a software program to detect the scooters with flaws, then deactivated them and removed all vulnerable scooters from the streets, the company said. A spokeswoman did not respond to questions about when the scooters were recalled or what the defect entailed. Lime said that the defect put no riders or members of the public at risk, and that more recent scooter models are more robust, with a sturdier frame and a redesigned battery. Advertisement In late August, a night employee at a Lime facility in Lake Tahoe heard a loud bang, walked into a scooter repair room and saw flames shooting out of a scooter as well as an adjacent chair, according to the local fire departments incident report quoted in the Washington Post. When firefighters arrived, the report said, the flames scooter had been sprayed with a fire extinguisher and moved outside to a parking lot, where it continued to periodically burst into flame and emit a chemical smell. Lime said it was investigating a similar, unconfirmed report that another Segway-made scooter model also may be vulnerable to battery failure. A Lime electric scooter rider passes a cyclist on the Venice Beach Boardwalk in Venice on July 25, 2018. (Gabriel S. Scarlett / Los Angeles Times) The company also said Tuesday that on another model, the baseboard, where riders place their feet, can sometimes break when subjected to repeated abuse. The company said the scooters, made by Okai, can crack or break if ridden off a curb at high speed. Limes recall has prompted questions about whether the independent contractors who collect, charge and redistribute the scooters were aware of the fire risks. Like its main competitor, Bird, Lime typically pays people about $5 per scooter to charge the vehicles at their homes overnight. The scooters in question will not be available to freelance chargers, whom the company calls Juicers, until we are satisfied that there are no remaining issues with these scooter models, the statement said. Instead, they will be charged at Lime facilities by workers specially trained for the safe handling of these particular batteries. In Los Angeles, landlords have voiced concerns about tenants charging too many scooters at a time, saying the wiring in old apartments and houses cant support a tangle of extension cords and the companies charging devices. In some cases, landlords complaints have resulted in their properties getting banned from the Lime and Bird apps. In September, the Los Angeles City Council approved a one-year pilot program for shared scooter companies that has yet to begin. Some cities across Southern California have temporarily banned the scooters, including West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, El Segundo, and on Monday Ventura. laura.nelson@latimes.com For more transportation news, follow @laura_nelson on Twitter. The United Nations said Wednesday it aims to re-launch Yemen peace talks "within a month", shortly after the United States called for the warring parties to come to the negotiating table. UN envoy Martin Griffiths welcomed calls for an immediate resumption of talks and a ceasefire in Yemen. "I urge all concerned parties to seize this opportunity to engage constructively with our current efforts to swiftly resume political consultations to agree on a framework for political negotiations," he said in a statement. "We remain committed to bring the Yemeni parties to the negotiations table within a month." Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are in a coalition fighting Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen, are ready for talks. "We have got to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it some time in the future," Mattis said at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. "We need to be doing this in the next 30 days," he added. Mattis said that the US is calling for the warring sides to meet with Griffiths in Sweden in November. The Norwegian Refugee Council also welcomed the US call on Wednesday. "This can be the political breakthrough that we have long requested from parties to this brutal war," Nigel Tricks, regional director for the NRC, said in a statement. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the conflict between embattled Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, whose government is recognised by the United Nations, and the Huthis in 2015. The coalition has been waging an aerial bombing campaign in Yemen aimed at pushing the Houthis back, but the rebels still hold the key port city of Hodeida and the capital Sanaa. After UN-backed talks collapsed in September, the coalition announced it was relaunching an assault on Hodeida, whose port serves as an entry point for more than 70 percent of imports to the impoverished country. Yemeni government officials said Tuesday that the coalition has deployed 10,000 new troops to the Red Sea coast, ahead of a new offensive on Hodeida "within days". Nearly 10,000 people have been killed since 2015 and the country now stands at the brink of famine, with more than 22 million Yemenis -- three quarters of the population -- in need of humanitarian assistance. Search Keywords: Short link: Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer on Wednesday announced his office is seeking injunctions against three California-based electronic cigarette companies, alleging that they sell vaping products without proper age verification and market tobacco products to underage youths. Investigators at the city attorneys office were able to purchase vaping devices and nicotine liquids from the companies online using the email accounts of fictitious minors and paying with gift cards, Feuer said. The e-cigarette companies did not ask the buyers to provide their date of birth, valid identification, or age attestation, according to court documents filed by the city attorneys office. The injunction requests come after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in September announced a crackdown on e-cigarette manufacturers nationwide, citing an epidemic of nicotine addiction among American youths. Advertisement Underage vaping is an emerging public health epidemic, and luring kids to use dangerous and addictive vaping products, as we allege here, has got to stop, Feuer said. In fact, kids shouldnt have access to these products at all. The lawsuits we filed today send a strong message that if you put children at risk for the sake of profit, youll face serious consequences. The companies named in the lawsuits are Los Angeles-based VapeCo Distribution, its parent company NEwhere Inc. and Santa Barbrara-based Kandypens Inc. The city accuses those firms of selling vaping products over the internet without the use of appropriate age-verification procedures, selling new tobacco products without FDA approval, failing to use child-resistant packaging, and targeting youth in their marketing activities. The city attorneys office is seeking an injunction to stop those activities. Requests for comment from the companies had yet to be returned Wednesday. VapeCo and NEwhere operate websites and social media accounts that critics say glamorize vaping by featuring young models, cartoon characters and videos of vaping tricks where smokers blow rings against psychedelic backdrops. Various screenshots of the posts were included in the filing. One of the companies retail websites www.madhatterjuice.com sells liquids for vaping devices that are flavored to mimic sweet candy products like lollipops and doughnuts and come in bright colors. The FDA recently sent a warning letter to the company for marketing a liquid product that resembled a popular brands apple juice box. That product is no longer available. The city attorneys office also alleges the companies various Instagram accounts do not use an age gate feature to block minors from accessing content. The city attorneys office also alleges that Kandypens uses product placement in music videos and in posts by social media influences to promote teen usage. The company has an artists section on its website that features videos of pop and rap stars using their devices, including one music video for rapper DJ Khaleds song No Brainer that has over 169 millions views on YouTube. In the video, the artist uses a Kandypen device. The court documents allege that Kandypens does not use an age gate for its social media content and does not feature the FDAs required health warning about the addictive properties of nicotine. Feuer charged that the tactics represent a very purposeful scheme to get underage youth to start to vape. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that e-cigarettes have become the tobacco product of choice among middle and high school students. In 2017, 11.7% of high schoolers who participated in the CDCs National Youth Tobacco Survey said they had vaped a tobacco product within the last month, up from 1.5% in 2011. In addition, 3.3% of middle school students called themselves current users of e-cigarettes, up from 0.6% in 2011. The city attorneys office alleges that the companies have violated Californias Unfair Competition Law as well as Californias Stop Tobacco Access to Kids Enforcement Act, which prohibits the sale of tobacco products to people under 21. UPDATES: 2:35 p.m.: This article was updated with additional comments from Feuer. This article was originally published at 12:45 p.m. Migrants arriving at the U.S. border to seek asylum are routinely subjected to tactics that immigration rights advocates say are designed to drive them away in violation of their rights under federal law. The tactics include forcing them to wait at the border indefinitely or sending them back into Mexico to join a backlogged list maintained by Mexican immigration officials. The Trump administration says such measures are necessary because it is not equipped to deal with a large increase in the number of asylum seekers, many of them from Central America. Last year, U.S. immigration courts handled 120,000 asylum requests, a fourfold increase since 2013. But immigrant advocates contend the government is violating the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, which says any foreigner who reaches the U.S. has the right to apply for asylum. Advertisement U.S. Customs and Border Protection is violating the law and turning away asylum seekers on Texas bridges, said Shaw Drake, an El Paso-based attorney with the Texas ACLUs Border Rights Center. He said forcing immigrants to join a long waiting list is tantamount to turning them away. To turn them away with some amorphous instructions is illegal, he said. Migrants keep moving north after melee at the Mexico-Guatemala border leaves one dead and dozens injured The issue is likely to come to a head when a caravan of several thousand Central Americans now heading north through Mexico arrives at the U.S. border. Many are expected to claim asylum, which they can do based on fear of persecution due to their race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion. Trump, who has vowed to close the border, said in an interview Monday with conservative TV and radio host Laura Ingraham that the U.S. would allow migrants to file asylum claims but that they would be forced to live in tent cities while they await court rulings, a process that can take years. Were not going to build structures and spend all of this, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, Trump said. Were going to have tents. Theyre going to be very nice and theyre going to wait and if they dont get asylum, they get out They dont usually get asylum. Edgar Hernandez Gonzalez, right, his daughter Sherly and girlfriend Sofia Alvarez Favela wait to request asylum on the Santa Fe International Bridge in Ciudad Juarez. Gonzalez said he and his family were being threatened and were fleeing crime in Juarez. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Last week, after 20 immigrants from Cuba, Honduras, Mexico and Russia arrived at the border bridge in El Paso, U.S. officers stationed in the middle of the bridge the limit line told them to wait. And so they did, some for days in the cold and rain. Others stayed at a nearby shelter. Well wait and see, night and day, because I dont have anywhere to go, said Alexander Narzilloev, 35, who was with his wife and sons, ages 3 and 6. Narzilloev ran a construction supply business in Moscow but fled after he was extorted by local mafia and received death threats, including one from a man who called and said he knew where Narzilloevs son attended kindergarten, he Narzilloev said. The family had originally gone to the crossing in Calexico, Calif., where officers told them they didnt have space. After waiting a week and spending what remained of their $8,000 savings on a hotel, Narzilloev and his family caught a bus to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in hopes of entering El Paso. I heard in the news Trump said close all the borders. Has it happened yet? he said. Thats supposed to be for illegals. We are legal. Last week, several House Democrats sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen requesting a briefing on why and how asylum seekers were being turned away. Sen. Tom Udall, a New Mexico Democrat, issued a statement calling for fair and orderly processing of asylum seekers. Any attempts to deny these families and individuals their right to seek asylum are wrong, he said. Is the U.S. really facing a border crisis? The Trump administration has tried a variety of approaches to deter people from trying to reach the United States most controversially a zero tolerance policy of criminally charging every adult migrant who crosses the border illegally, separating parents from their children. The policy resulted in 2,654 children being separated and widespread outrage before Trump canceled it in June. The administration still wants to detain families indefinitely and has been battling immigrant advocates in hopes of overturning a federal judges 1997 order that requires children be held for no longer than 20 days. Federal prosecutors have also fought to narrow the definition of political asylum. But the government has been flummoxed by what Kevin McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, calls the asylum gap: the inability to stop people from making false claims for asylum and living legally in the U.S. for years while their cases proceed. Immigrant advocates say the new tactics at the border are aimed at discouraging asylum claims. The ACLU of Texas noted Tuesday that Customs and Border Protection, the largest federal law enforcement agency, with a staff and budget doubled in the last 20 years, processed 1.1 million fewer people at the southern border last year than it did in 2000. Instead of expanding capacity to process asylum seekers at border crossings, officials have forced them to wait. The method varies from crossing to crossing. Cuban migrant Yunier Reyes, 35, waits with other migrants from Honduras and Mexico. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) In El Paso, customs officers have told immigrants to return in a few hours, or simply later. The San Ysidro crossing in San Diego has been using a process called metering, in which asylum seekers have had to make appointments through Mexican immigration officials. In a federal class-action lawsuit filed last year thats still pending, Los Angeles- and Tijuana-based Al Otro Lado and other advocacy groups argued on behalf of more than a dozen immigrants that the policy violates international law and the right to due process. The Office of Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently reported that the practice of metering may have increased illegal border crossings. During a visit to San Ysidro last week, McAleenan praised metering and said its likely to expand to other crossings if theres a significant increase in arrivals in coming weeks. He said the process didnt amount to turning away immigrants because they can stay in line if they want. If somebody arrives and they have a claim, we are providing access, he said, adding that some officers have been investigated, disciplined and retrained after turning away asylum seekers. Other allegations were unsubstantiated, he said. Edith Tapia, a policy research analyst with the Hope Border Institute, center, talks with a Mexican couple and their children who hope to request asylum in the U.S. at the foot of an international Bridge in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) Workers from the nonprofit Hope Border Institute visit El Paso bridges to document cases of asylum seekers being turned away. On Oct. 24, they found Pedro Morales, 21, and girlfriend Janet Macola, 19. The two said they fled Cuba after authorities halted their attempt to open a beauty salon and threatened to throw Morales in jail. Now they were seeking asylum. So was a family of four from the southern Mexican state of Guerrero. They said that their area had become a ghost town, controlled by a mayor in league with organized crime, and that they were too scared to be quoted by name. The Cuban couple and the Mexican family approached U.S. officers at the center of the bridge and were told the same thing: Its full right now. The asylum seekers lingered on the bridge. What can we do? the Mexican mother said. Out of money and options, they would wait. molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com @mollyhf President Trump has agreed to produce portions of his calendar from 2007 and 2008 as part of discovery in a defamation lawsuit brought by former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos, according to a proposed court order signed by attorneys for all parties. The agreement submitted late Tuesday to a New York trial court stated that the Trump Organization shall produce defendants calendars and/or journal entries from November 2007 to February 2008 and that the parties will meet with the company regarding the production of [Trumps] phone records. The period of time includes Trumps activities in December 2007, the month in which Zervos claims he forcibly kissed and groped her at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles. Trump has denied the allegations and called Zervos and other women who have accused him of sexual assault liars. Advertisement Zervos attorney Mariann Wang, Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz and Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten all of whom signed the proposed order did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Lawyers for Zervos are seeking evidence to bolster her case, which has survived multiple attempts by Trumps legal team to kill or stall it since she filed it last year. What do a porn star, a combative lawyer and a reality-TV contestant all have in common? Trump A judge has allowed Zervos to seek discovery including possibly deposing the president as the two sides wait for a panel of New York appellate judges to rule on Trumps latest move to block the lawsuit. Trumps attorneys have argued that he cannot be sued for unofficial acts in state court while he is president. That claim appeared to meet with skepticism from several members of the appellate panel during a hearing. In the proposed order they submitted Tuesday, lawyers for Trump and Zervos said they will also discuss which people and entities are within Trumps possession, custody, or control for the purpose of discovery, including addressing the status of the Trump Organization and the [Trump presidential] Campaign. They are scheduled to address any related disputes, as well as the status of outstanding subpoenas, in a telephone conference with the court next week. New York Supreme Court Justice Jennifer G. Schecter has set a deadline of Jan. 31 for the parties to give depositions, which means Trump may face questioning under oath in the coming months. Schecter on Friday partly granted Zervos motion to compel certain elements of discovery, ruling that Trump must give evidence related to his response to Zervos allegations but that he does not have to provide answers or documents related to other womens sexual misconduct allegations against him. Plaintiff has not shown that the information and documents sought that are factually, completely unrelated to her and her claim, and relate solely to other womens allegations, have any legitimate legal bearing on the controversy . . . [or] could result in discovery of evidence that would be relevant and potentially admissible at trial, she said Friday during a hearing. But Trump must respond to questions and requests for documents related to how [he] responded to public statements alleging that he engaged in inappropriate conduct, such as plaintiffs statements and whether he had a strategy in responding to such statements. The information potentially bears on whether in making the statements that he made about plaintiff, he may have done so with actual malice, Schecter said. Elise Viebeck writes for The Washington Post. Facing mounting congressional pressure to address the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, the Trump administration for the first time called for a cease-fire in the countrys bitter civil war, but stopped short of halting U.S. support for Saudi airstrikes blamed for thousands of civilian casualties. Defense Secretary James N. Mattis and Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo both called for a halt to the fighting within 30 days and for the warring parties to participate in U.N.-sponsored talks in Sweden next month. Neither appears likely. The time is now for the cessation of hostilities, Pompeo said Tuesday in a statement echoed by Mattis. He called on all parties to support efforts by the U.N. special envoy, Martin Griffiths, to find a peaceful solution to the bloody conflict. But congressional backers of a resolution to cut off U.S. refueling and targeting assistance to the Saudi-led bombing campaign say the cease-fire demand is unlikely to succeed in pressuring the Saudi government to seek a settlement. Advertisement After more than three years of war, thousands dead, millions on the brink of starvation and growing pressure from Congress, the Trump administration is finally calling for an end to the Saudi-led war in Yemen, said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont). However, just a call for cessation of hostilities does not go far enough. Khanna said the congressional resolution has 68 sponsors, and he is optimistic it could pass the House and Senate when Congress reconvenes after the Nov. 6 election for a lame-duck legislative session. A successful move to cut off U.S. military support would be a rare instance of Congress asserting its war-making powers. But some lawmakers say the Trump administration may prefer to have lawmakers act, allowing the administration to distance itself from Riyadh without being directly responsible. If passed, the resolution would give the Pentagon 30 days to wind down its refueling of Saudi warplanes and providing of intelligence on targets. Future assistance would be prohibited unless Congress voted to authorize U.S. involvement. A similar resolution was defeated in the Senate in March by a vote of 55 to 44. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadis embattled government after Houthi rebels ousted it and seized vast tracts of territory, including the capital, Sana. Bombing by the Saudi-led coalition, using U.S. targeting intelligence, has taken a devastating toll on civilians in Yemen, including recent attacks that killed scores of schoolchildren and medical personnel. Washingtons surprise call for a halt to hostilities in Yemen signaled renewed urgency by the Trump administration to reduce engagement with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is viewed as the chief architect of the war in Yemen. The crown prince is widely believed to have approved the Oct. 2 killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi journalist living in Virginia, in a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. The gruesome case has put U.S.-Saudi relations under a harsh spotlight. President Trump, who has courted the Saudi monarchy, has said he does not want the scandal to interfere with the sale of U.S. weapons to Riyadh, but has not publicly indicated if his administration will take other actions. Theres little sign that either Houthi rebels or the Saudi-backed coalition fighting against them in Yemen are ready to stop the war, which began in March 2015. Nor does the Trump administration seem eager to pressure Saudi Arabia to halt hostilities. Pompeo attached conditions that might doom the cease-fire plan, saying Houthi rebels must first end missile attacks on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, after which airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition would end. Mattis called for the Houthis, who have received military support from Iran, to demilitarize Yemens border with Saudi Arabia and to put their missiles under international control conditions the Houthis seem unlikely to accept. The Iranians are the ones who keep fueling this conflict and they need to knock it off, Mattis said at the U.S. Institute of Peace, a government-funded think tank in Washington. Mattis also pushed back at critics who said the Pentagon has turned a blind eye to civilian casualties from the Saudi bombing campaign. Some people have a very high expectation that the U.S. can prevent Saudi warplanes from bombing improper targets, he said. Intensive training of Saudi pilots had reduced the number of incidents, but even then, weve had mistakes, he conceded. State Department spokesman Robert Palladino expressed optimism, but he declined to provide details on the cease-fire demands or the timing. We believe the climate is right, he said. We have seen progress being made on the ground, progress in laying the groundwork for peace negotiations. The Saudi-led coalition recently sent more than 10,000 troops toward the rebel-held port city of Hodeidah ahead of a possible new assault, Yemeni government officials said. The adjacent port is the entry point for three-quarters of imports to the impoverished country, which is teetering on the edge of famine. Griffiths, the U.N. envoy, has proposed confidence-building talks to start in a third country in November to come to terms on underlying issues in the conflict, the demilitarization of borders and the concentration of weaponry under international monitoring. I urge all concerned parties to seize this opportunity to engage constructively with our current efforts to swiftly resume political consultations to agree on a framework for political negotiations and confidence-building measures, Griffiths said Wednesday in a statement. david.cloud@latimes.com Twitter: @davidcloudLAT Here in the Border Patrols busiest region, agents and military officials are preparing for the arrival in coming days and weeks of 800 U.S. troops and an immigrant caravan of thousands. An emergency operations center has been activated at U.S. Customs and Border Protection Rio Grande Valley headquarters in Edinburg for what commanders called a mass migration event. Military planners have arrived in the valley this week, and are expected to meet with Border Patrol, state troopers, game wardens and other law enforcement on Monday. Troops are gathering equipment and preparing to deploy to the valley from Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. President Trump announced earlier this week he is deploying a total of 5,200 troops to the border in Arizona, California and Texas to help stop the caravan of Central American immigrants heading north from Honduras through Mexico. He later said that the number of troops could go as high as 15,000 if he deems it necessary, a move critics call pre-election pandering to his supporters who fear an influx of asylum seekers and others seeking to cross the border illegally. Our military is being mobilized at the Southern Border, Trump tweeted Wednesday. Many more troops coming. We will NOT let these Caravans, which are also made up of some very bad thugs and gang members, into the U.S. Our Border is sacred, must come in legally. TURN AROUND! Advertisement On Wednesday, the Border Patrol referred questions about military preparations and tracking the caravan to Homeland Security headquarters and the Pentagon. But Rio Grande Valley Acting Sector Chief Raul Ortiz discussed his efforts during a ride-along. My plan is to have agents on the front line as much as possible, he said. Border Patrol agents in riot gear have been training at a border bridge in Brownsville. Commanders are prepared to shore up border crossing with concertina wire and call in another 800 agents, including a specially trained national response team, once the caravan of several thousand immigrants, now on foot in southern Mexico, approaches. The Border Patrol is already coping with a surge of illegal crossings, particularly by families, most of whom cross through the Rio Grande Valley. This month, agents have caught an average of 641 immigrants crossing illegally each day, including 373 family members and 73 unaccompanied minors, according to Ortiz. Last week, their busiest week this year, agents caught 5,600 people, he said. Ortiz expects total apprehensions in October to approach 20,000 compared to 9,722 last October. He compared the increase to 2014, when thousands of unaccompanied youths overwhelmed Border Patrol holding areas and forced federal officials to open massive temporary shelters at military bases. Federal officials opened a temporary tent city to house thousands of unaccompanied youth east of El Paso in Tornillo last summer, but no similar shelters have opened yet for families. Rio Grande Valley border agents are accustomed to such surges. In addition to the 2014 influx, they have seen waves of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, and in recent months, Bangladesh, Ortiz said. Last year, they saw immigrants arrive from 60 countries, including ones in the Middle East. On Wednesday morning, agents radio buzzed with reports of immigrant groups spotted at illegal crossings near Anzalduas Park in Mission, a popular spot for smuggling. Driving down a brush-lined dirt road toward an area known as Rincon Village, Ortiz came upon a group of 10 immigrants, including two children and a baby in a blue striped onesie. Ortiz stopped, and asked where they were from. Honduras, they said. As agents arrived and started processing the groups, recording names and other identification, they explained that they had left a month earlier about average travel time for immigrants caught here, Ortiz said. They said they had heard about the caravan and understood why so many people would flee. Its because of the situation in our country, said Jose Luis Padilla, 26, who made the journey with his 6-year-old daughter, Breana, who wore a red shirt that said Weve got spirit. They left their town after Padillas uncle was fatally shot at his home in the coastal region of Colon. Padilla left behind his wife and 1-year- old son, Joseph, hoping to join relatives in New York City, find work and send money home. Others in the group were headed to Florida and Nebraska. The agents processed the group and then ushered them aboard a Border Patrol van to be taken back to the station. In addition to the caravan, similar small groups are expected in coming weeks. The challenge will be processing them en masse. In the Rio Grande Valley, agents have space to temporarily house 3,400 immigrants at nine stations and a massive central processing center. On Tuesday night, they already held about 3,000, and were working with immigration officials to process people more quickly. Due to a lack of longer term detention space, which is run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, many families would be released with ankle monitor and notices to appear in immigration court, Ortiz said. Agents are also preparing for U.S.-based non-governmental militias to arrive ahead of the caravan. Shannon McGauley, president of the Texas Minutemen, said they had volunteers in the Rio Grande Valley this week and plan to send least a hundred people. We have the biggest border. We need to let the military know were there to support them, and the Border Patrol, he said of Texas, adding that their goal is not to confront the caravan. Were observe and report, he said. Most of us are sitting in lawn chairs with binoculars. But he conceded that militia members are also armed. Ortiz, the Border Patrol commander, said the arrival of militias could make his agencys job more difficult as they attempt to minimize confrontations on the Rio Grande in coming days. We certainly dont want any acts of violence out here. We dont want people crossing the river to be vulnerable or people in our communities to feel [Border Patrol] doesnt have a handle on it, he said. molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com @mollyhf Pipe bomb suspect Cesar Sayoc searched for addresses of his targets online and had photos of many of them on his cellphone, including one of Michelle Obamas drivers license, federal prosecutors said in a letter outlining more evidence against him. The letter sent by Justice Department prosecutors in New York to a Miami federal judge also says Sayoc began plotting the domestic terror attack in July while living in his van. The old white vehicle was plastered with photos praising Donald Trump and targeting his critics, depicting some of Sayocs alleged opponents with red crosshairs on their faces. The FBI says Sayoc ultimately mailed 15 improvised explosive devices to prominent Democrats, Trump critics and media outlets before he was arrested in the van last week. The 56-year-old Sayoc faces five federal charges in Manhattan carrying a combined maximum sentence of 48 years behind bars, prosecutors said. Advertisement Prosecutors said in the letter to U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres that Sayoc should remain jailed without bail. A detention hearing is set Friday in Miami, as well as a hearing on when Sayoc should be sent to New York to stand trial. Additional charges are likely, they said. Because of the powerful proof that the defendant perpetrated these acts, he poses a substantial danger to the community. In light of the consequences at issue and the likelihood of conviction, the defendant is also a substantial flight risk. Therefore, pretrial detention is appropriate, the letter says. Among Sayocs online searches for addresses, prosecutors said, were for former President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, billionaire George Soros, California Sen. Kamala Harris, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, former Atty. Gen. Eric Holder and for CNN. The FBI recovered explosive devices sent to all of them, among others. Sayocs cellphone contains photos of some of his alleged intended victims, the letter adds, including Soros, the homes of Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden, and the drivers license belonging to Michelle Obama. The laptop computer found in the van also has a file with the address in Sunrise, Fla., of the office of U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. That office was used as the return address on the packages containing the pipe bombs, according to the FBI. The computer file was labeled Debbie W.docx. In addition, prosecutors said the FBI so far has found DNA evidence linked to Sayoc from 10 of the improvised explosive devices and fingerprints on two of the mailing envelopes. Sayoc was arrested last Friday outside a South Florida auto parts store after the pipe bombs began surfacing around the country. None of them exploded and no one was injured, but investigators say they contained real explosive material. The defendant also placed shards of glass in several of the IEDs for the apparent purpose of maximizing harm to his intended victims through the detonation of the devices that he had mailed, prosecutors wrote. The social network Gab.com styled itself as a defender of right-leaning and provocative speech that mainstream social networks couldnt stomach. In that role, it blithely gave Robert Bowers, the man accused of shooting up a Pittsburgh synagogue during Saturday morning services, a place to complain openly about the overwhelming Jew problem and the threat it poses to white Americans. Bowers was hardly a fish out of water on Gab, although his posts may have been more virulently hate-filled than most offerings on the site. Yet as offensive as his screeds were, none of them violated Gabs permissive guidelines, which drew the line only against clearly illegal acts. And Gab could post Bowers words with relative impunity, thanks to the 1st Amendment and the protections that federal law offers to sites that publish users offerings without editing them. But now Gab finds itself cut off from the Internet, at least for the time being. The companies that hosted Gabs site, steered internet users to its domain and processed payments from subscribers and donors have told Gab that it violated their terms of service by publishing content they considered threatening. Its hard to be an outlet for uncensored speech when no one will let you set up shop. This page has vigorously defended free speech against efforts by the government or its agencies to stifle it. Gabs dilemma raises a different issue because its been bounced off the internet by private businesses, not government bureaucrats. Gab founder Andrew Torba casts this development in sinister terms, writing, We are the most censored, smeared, and no-platformed startup in history, which means we are a threat to the media and to the Silicon Valley Oligarchy. Advertisement Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion But companies doing business with Gab have a right to make their decisions individually about whom to do business with, just as the Los Angeles Times has the right to decide which advertisements to run and which op-eds to publish. Gab argues that Silicon Valley is doing too much to censor the internet, when in fact companies like Facebook and Twitter have the opposite problem they are unable to keep up with the hate, violence and deception spewed by some of their users. Gab will most likely find other suppliers of the bandwidth and services it needs, and even if it doesnt, its users will find other outlets to carry their views. Cyberspace has no real boundaries, after all. But no company should be forced to do business with Gab if the content that Gab embraces violates its terms of service and threatens its brand. If a business doesnt want to be associated anti-Semitic screeds, unabashed racism or other forms of hate speech, it has the right to steer clear. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook Latinos could destroy America during this election. Both Republicans and Democrats seem to think so. The GOP more or less implies that the caravan of Central Americans winding its way up through Mexico is going to arrive just in time to cast ballots Nov. 6, throw the election to the Dems, and open up the southern border forever. The Democrats, meanwhile, are in a panic about the Latinos already here. Theyre freaked out that if Americas largest minority doesnt show up to vote Tuesday, there goes their chance to take back the House of Representatives. The New York Times, Bloomberg, Politico, the Washington Post and other outlets have jumped on this theory. President Obama has been pleading with Latinos at public rallies to get out the vote like never before. So has America Ferrera. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has spent more than $25 million on Latino voter turnout. I have a message for Democrats that should put them even more on edge: Do not assume Latinos will show up, despite your hard work. And dont trust that theyll support you even if they do. Advertisement Recent polls show the promise and peril of counting on Latinos for a Democratic victory. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo survey found two-thirds of Latinos wanted the Democrats to take control of Congress but at the same time, 39% (!) say they approve of Trumps policies. The Pew Research Center says 29 million Latinos are eligible to vote an all-time high that will only grow as more anchor babies turn 18 yet only 6.8 million went to the polls in the 2014 midterms. That number might go up, but likely only to 7.8 million this year, according to an analysis by the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund. Hear that, Latinos? Time to ditch the siestas. And Dems, you need to build a better burro if you want us to ride with yall for the long haul. And then theres this: Two weeks before election day, nearly half of the Latinos NALEO surveyed said theyd had no contact from Democratic campaigns or candidates. To consolidate the political cliches, Latinos are the perpetual sleeping giant that needs to flex its muscle to ensure that the blue wave happens. And yet they dont vote like theyre supposed to. Latinos lack of partisan commitment drives Democrats loco. They think we should automatically side with them in the war against the nasty, nasty Republicans. Thats unfair. Latinos are as American as any group, if not more so. Why shouldnt we be as apathetic as gringos? Many things keep us from Democratic fold, starting with long memories. In California, the Republican Party signed away its future with Latinos gracias to its support of 1994s Proposition 187 which would have turned teachers, doctors and cops into immigration agents. Nationally, on the other hand, the Democrats havent done Latinos any favors. The North American Free Trade Agreement, courtesy of President Clinton, helped to destroy Mexicos economy and forced millions to migrate to el Norte. Obama couldnt get any immigration reform passed and cracked down on undocumented immigrants in such record-breaking numbers that activists labeled him the deporter-in-chief. Jimmy Carter? Who? Republican commanders-in-chief? Pre-Trump, they did surprisingly well by Latinos. Richard Nixon appointed more of us to staff positions than any presidente until Clinton. Ronald Reagan got millions of undocumented immigrants from my dads generation including many of my aunts, uncles and cousins citizenship through the 1986 amnesty. George W. Bush had a half-Mexican nephew and famously said that family values dont stop at the Rio Grande. He got 40% of the Latino vote a record for a Republican presidential candidate. McCain got 31%, and Romney 27% and Trump 28%. So even with the GOP aboard the Trump train, more than a few Latinos will vote Republican. Its the same pattern seen in working-class ethnic communities during the 20th century. Irish, Poles and Germans long part of Democratic urban machines gave the Republican Party a chance starting with Reagan. Many never looked back. Why not Latinos? Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute It bears repeating: Democrats need to articulate a position beyond Stop Trump. And to appeal to Latino voters specifically, they cant just double down on immigration. The NALEO results found that protecting immigrant rights was the most important issue for those polled, at 28% but that barely edged out improving wages and incomes (27%) and creating more jobs (24%). Single-issue politics work to an extent but as Latinos become an established electorate, Democrats have to do better. The promise and peril of the Latino vote is playing out right now in Californias 39th Congressional District, which touches Riverside and San Bernardino counties but is mostly in northeast Orange County. The district is a third Latino, but Latinos make up just a quarter of its total voters. And its one of the much-ballyhooed congressional races that could potentially flip the House. A New York Times poll shows Democratic candidate Gil Cisneros with a 1% lead over Republican Young Kim, with 7% of voters undecided this, even though Cisneros has done outreach in English and Spanish to regular and first-time voters alike. Cisneros understands the apathy, even toward Latino candidates like him. Many would-be voters feel that candidates make promises to them on the campaign trail and dont follow through when elected, he said. But Cisneros says 2018 is the year that Latinos could finally recognize their own power in our country and continue to show up at the ballot box. Hear that, Latinos? Time to ditch the siestas. And Dems, you need to build a better burro if you want us to ride with yall for the long haul. mexicanwithglasses@gmail.com Follow @GustavoArellano on Twitter. Two hikers died last week after falling from Yosemites Taft Point, located high above Yosemite Valley. What exactly happened is still unclear, but they almost certainly stepped off the trail, past the guardrail and passed warning signs before tumbling hundreds of feet over the cliffs. As a hiking expert, my favorite part of the job is encouraging people to trek up to places like Taft Point. But now my enthusiasm for the great outdoors is tempered by worry. Theres been an exponential increase in the number of lost hikers, injured hikers and, worst of all, hikers who die on the trail. In recent weeks, weve learned of a California woman who slipped and fell to her death while taking selfies on a trail high above Lake Superior in Michigan, and thrill-seekers suffering severe injuries while leaps off cliffs into shallow pools just to put the video on their Instagram feed. Why do otherwise smart people do such dumb things in the great outdoors? Bad hiking advice pollutes comments on hiking blogs, Facebook posts and Yelp reviews, so its tempting to blame social media. The fault, however, lies not in Instagram stars, but in ourselves. Its a disconnect from nature, a lack of even basic survival skills, and poor judgment that cause most troubles on the trail. Advertisement Im haunted by the lives turned upside-down, or ended, by hiking accidents that can be prevented. I recall a particularly horrible incident in the summer of 2011 when three college students stepped past the guardrail at the top of Yosemites 317-foot high Vernal Fall and into the Merced River. Other visitors pleaded with them to get out of the water, but one hiker slipped and started a chain reaction that ended with all three falling to their deaths. The next day ABC World News called me, as a hiking expert, to comment. My heart goes out to the families of the victims, as well as to the horrified onlookers who witnessed the tragedy, I said, while my head cannot comprehend the decision of the three hikers to step past the guardrail at the top of the falls and into the raging waters. Since then Ive had to deliver similar responses when asked about hikers killed and injured at 35-foot Eaton Falls above Pasadena and slender Tangerine Falls in the foothills above Santa Barbara, as well as hikers who died of heat stroke on tame trails in the Santa Monica Mountains and Hollywood Hills. Lately, though, Ive gotten more blunt. At a recent talk at the Adventure 16 store in West Los Angeles, my hiker safety talk de-evolved into a rant about tourons (tourists-morons) on the trail. Ive abandoned all subtlety in my guidebooks: Dont climb Eaton Falls; people have recently been injured and killed doing this. And Last place you want to be in an electric storm is atop Half Dome, forced to make a hurried descent over slippery rock while holding on to wet metal cables. Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion Im haunted by the lives turned upside-down, or ended, by hiking accidents that can be prevented. National Park Service studies of accidents that required the agency to launch a search and rescue operation determined that the vast majority of these accidents wouldnt have happened to people with rudimentary outdoors knowledge, better preparations and the proper gear. Its crucial that those of us with hiking wisdom to share greatly increase our efforts to teach others trail sense and tips about getting along in the natural world that were once routinely passed down from one generation to another. Good hikers know how to manage in cold weather and hot, choose hikes matching their abilities, and can identify poison oak. They wear proper footwear and apparel and carry the Ten Essentials (including sun protection, headlamp, first aid kit and plenty of water). And they have an understanding and respect for the natural forces of wind, water, sunlight and yes, gravity. The best way to learn trail safety is to go out with an experienced hiker. I was fortunate to learn from the Scout leaders who took Troop 441 on trails throughout Southern California. Ive also been fortunate to have opportunities to pass along best practices while hiking with my own children, youth groups and school kids of all ages. I encourage trailwise veterans to do likewise. We need to step up and help newbie hikers enjoy the wilderness but also stay out of harms way. Caution them: A national park is not a theme park. And theres more to smart hiking than carrying a smartphone and hoping you have cell service to dial 911. John McKinney is the author of 30 books about hiking, including Hiking on the Edge: Dreams, Schemes, and 1600 Miles on the California Coastal Trail. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook In Scotland, they used to pray that from ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night, good Lord, deliver us. But these days, do we really mean that? Halloween is turning into a worldwide holiday, celebrated in countries that never even had that tradition before which is to say before movies and comics and the commerce of All Hallows Eve. What is it about making ourselves a little bit scared that draws us all, again and again, to the creatures of our imagining? Leo Braudy is a USC professor of English who sorts out our fondness for a good fright in his book Haunted: On Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Zombies, and Other Monsters of the Natural and Supernatural Worlds. Heres why we like to go for the trick and the treat. Click here for the full archive of Patt Morrison Asks podcasts Why do we love doing this to ourselves, scaring ourselves? Advertisement I think its partially purgative, that is, when you see something in a movie or you read a book, that is, it has a shape to it -- it arouses these fears, these emotions. But then it allays them, it makes them into a story. So by the end we feel a little bit better about things. And so we can outsource our terror? We can outsource it into traditional monsters of one sort or another, whatever is bothering us in the current world, whatever is freaking us out, whatever is making us uncertain becomes part of the story, part of something that were sort of familiar with. We know about monsters. We know about vampires. We know about ghosts in some vague way, so we can assimilate that knowledge. What is the difference between terror and horror? In terms of the first people who talked about this, at the end of the 18th century, they were very interested in that difference between terror and horror. And in fact, they made this very specific distinction. Ann Radcliffe, who is one of the great bestselling authors of the time, said that the difference between terror and horror is that horror is a physical response; it actually comes from the Latin for your hair rising on end. Thats that wonderful word horripilation, when you have goose flesh. Exactly, gooseflesh -- anything physical thats like what my wife would call jumping-out movies. Things that just startle you in that way and you get a physical response. But terror is much more metaphysical. Its existential. Its about the shape of the universe. Its about God and Satan and all those kinds of things. And it can stay with you long after the goose flesh is gone. Absolutely. Its kind of embedded in your psyche somewhere. Before the 18th century, you had the Christian-era horror, which is mostly a horror of going to hell, of demons. The 18th century is when horror starts to become commercialized. It becomes part of public culture. It is popular culture, in fact. A part of what I think is behind your question, too, is this whole relationship between horror and religion, that horror and religion are both preoccupied by the line between life and death, and thats the sometimes-uncertain line between life and death, we might say -- the way ghosts come back, the way monsters arise in that way. So horror and religion go way back. Horror and religion are both preoccupied by the line between life and death. Leo Braudy, USC professor of English The late 18th century, you see that you have a burgeoning popular culture, and one of the prime elements in that popular culture, is the literature of sensibility, the literature of emotion, the literature of fear. That literature is not necessarily meant to make you think. Its also meant to make you feel. So you have in this period things like the beginnings of contemporary pornography, literature that is supposed to make you sexually aroused, satiric literature thats supposed to make you angry, the literature of sensibility, which is supposed to make you cry. And of course the Gothic literature, which is supposed to scare you. We are also marking this year the 200th anniversary of the publication of the book Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. This book really set us on the course where we find ourselves now, with how we use terror as morally instructive -- or just for the fun of scaring the crap out of ourselves. Frankenstein is the monster. Frankenstein is the doctor, or, as the title calls him, the Modern Prometheus, the man who brought fire to humans and was punished for it. The monster is never quite called a monster in the book. Hes generally called the Creature. Is he really monstrous in that way? Again, different kinds of interpretations. What is this book about? is it about a failed father-son relationship between Frankenstein and the Creature? Is it about the idea of the monstrous itself? Part of, lets say, the longevity of the Frankenstein story is that it is so malleable; Mary Shelley creates a new modern myth and the Modern Prometheus. But this is a modern myth of the scientist who wants to create something but then abandons his creation. So theres a kind of familial side to it. Theres a scientific side to it. Mary Shelley didnt know anything about cloning. Mary Shelley didnt know anything about body parts and how they could be made, how they could be manufactured on a 3-D printer, even. But in fact, the myth that she created is capacious enough that it can encompass so many changes that have happened over the last two centuries. We still use that as a term in culture that virtually everyone knows. You say Frankenstein. People know what you mean. And we have Frankenfood, you know, genetically modified food. It becomes a label. People say Sherlock Holmes whove never read a Sherlock Holmes novel or story, or people say Frankenstein whove never read Frankenstein. It has detached from its origins and it becomes a kind of a metonymy, just a piece of something that everybody in the culture knows, even though they may not know where it comes from. The Frankenstein creature is one of the four kinds of monsters you write about. Where does he fit in? It seems to me that every era has its own monsters, and were still in this kind of 200-year or so era in which four prime monsters and a couple of subordinate monsters have appeared. In my taxonomy, first of all, is the monster from nature, the thing that comes out of nature. I mean Sasquatch, the yeti. King Kong! King Kong, animal monsters, natural monsters of all sorts. Whats behind this monster? Well, its part of the modern world. The idea of the Enlightenment, the idea of progress pushes us forward. Its all about sunlight, its all about being better, its all about ideals. But the Gothic thing, the horror, is about what weve left behind. Look whats happening with climate change, arguments like that now. Thats the monster, in fact, on the horizon. So that has a perpetuity in it. The next kind of monster is the Frankenstein monster, which is the monster about the misuses of science. Thats one of the ways its become a metaphor for so many different things again, a part of the modern world. Were moving too fast. were doing things we shouldnt be doing, were messing with nature. The next one is the psychological monster, and thats the Jekyll and Hyde monster, the monster that doesnt come from nature, doesnt come from science, but comes from within. That is our own fears about ourselves, our output. You could connect that in a way to the natural monster, because its about that primordial, primitive self thats inside, thats violent and crazy and sexual and all those other things. And the final monster is the vampire. The vampire is the monster from the past. The vampire monster represents a pre-Christian world that weve forgotten and is going to take its revenge on us. And that monster is unlike King Kong, who is an innocent. Hell kill you, but hes not after your soul. The vampire, because he is ancient, because he can be seen as anti-Christian, anti-religious, is a bigger danger in some ways. A much bigger danger, because he also, in addition to being anti-Christian and pre-Christian in those ways, represents an alternative to Christianity. What is he promising? Immortality, essentially. And then there is that sexuality that some of these monsters begin to exude. You see the Gothic novels, and women were mocked for reading them. But at the same time, these novels are about a challenge to authority, a challenge to political authority, to religious authority, to male authority. No wonder women like to read them. In fact, some of the earliest caricatures of the readers of the Gothic were caricatures of women sitting around a table scaring themselves. There was one even more crazy one that I include in the book, which is an image of a woman sitting with her hand under her dress reading The Monk, this great bestseller of the 1790s, masturbating in a pretty obvious way. Wow, Georgian porn! And the image is called Luxury. Again, that is the erotic, the idea of the monster as a kind of antisocial being, or a being who has been rejected by society in one way or another. I should add this as a fifth category of monster, the zombie. Thats the kind of monster that we see most frequently these days. The zombie is a very intriguing sort of monster because unlike all the other monsters, the zombie is a member of a group, and its a faceless group. There is no king zombie. The zombie myth is really about the crowds. Its about the fear of crowds, its about the fear of whatever crowd you dont like -- a fear of Islamic fundamentalists, or immigrants coming over the border, or Republicans or Democrats or whoever you hate. Its about that crowd. Thats what reaches into our basic paranoia these days -- that fear of otherness as a group. The modern fictional detective is a creature who dispels some of the darkness, from Ann Radcliffe to Sherlock Holmes books. Science says, Wait a minute. I know whats going on here. Thats not a ghost, thats not a fill-in-the-blank. I thought it was really necessary to have something about the kind of counteraction, the effort to dispel the monstrous in popular culture, and that figure is really the detective. The detective somehow understands the monstrous body of the city and its variety; he can make his pathway and uses a combination of intuition and reason in order to solve the crimes there. The monster in a certain way is a response to the Enlightenment, to reason and rationality as being the order of the day. And the detective tries to bring back that reason. Do we resent the detective at the same time we love his skills and talents and admire his brain? Resent him for banishing these ghosts that we seem to enjoy so much? Well, he never manages to banish them entirely. Thats the thing. The detective always comes back. Crime is never vanquished entirely. You win the battle but you never win the war. So we can resent him maybe a little bit because he knows more than we do, but we want to be like him. The monster and the detective appeal to different aspects of our own sense of self. The monster is this sense of independence, the sense of being different from others and not being appreciated in the proper way. The detective is more on the side in which we actually try to deal with things, to understand things. Of course, the detective whos doing it a lot better than we ever do. So what would you make of my sixth-grade crush on both Dracula and Sherlock Holmes? I think thats perfectly appropriate, right? Two sides of the same coin. What about superheroes? Where do they fit in? With superheroes, you have different kinds: the mythological superheroes like Thor, coming out of the past, coming out of another mythology. And you have superheroes like the X-Men, who are different, and we feel somehow that were really different, and it should be valued in a positive way. All the various superheroes in the X-Men have a kind of problem that is also their virtue. That is also their power. So you turn your problem into your power thats the kind of interesting messages especially for the teenage audience, which is so strong on these shows. 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 A climate of distrust is hindering progress in the investigations into the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, writes Manal Lotfy in London Distrust and suspicion are the predominant sentiments in investigations into the killing of former Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. The current stand-off between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, where investigations inch forwards, has turned into a game in which everyone holds his cards close to his chest waiting for others to show their hand. Or it could be like a chess game in which each player is waiting for the others move to decide his next step accordingly. There is a lot at stake in the way these games continue, not least for the future power balance in the Middle East, and the Turkish investigators have refused to share with Saudi Arabias public prosecutor all the evidence they have collected regarding the killing of Khashoggi. Saudi Arabia has admitted that a premeditated plan was made to kill Khashoggi, but says it was set up by a group of rogue operators without the knowledge of the Saudi leadership. Turkeys state broadcaster said that Saudi officials had asked for the whole investigations dossier, including evidence, statements, and footage, to be given to them. However, the Saudi request has been denied. On Monday, Saudi attorney general Saud al-Mojeb held talks with his Turkish opposite number Irfan Fidan, but the lack of trust between the two countries was clear for all to see and it led to a relatively brief meeting of 75 minutes. Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called on Riyadh to conclude the investigations as soon as possible. The whole truth must be revealed, he said. We believe the visit is important for the truth to come out. Turkey wants confirmation on the whereabouts of Khashoggis remains, the identity of the local operator that the Saudis claim disposed of the body, and an update on the progress of a Saudi investigation into the 15 Saudi operatives who visited the Istanbul consulate at the time of the killing on 2 October. Saudi Arabia and Turkey continue to feud over whether 18 suspects in Khashoggis death will be handed over to Ankara. The Turkish prosecutors have prepared an extradition request for the 18 suspects, and the request has been relayed to Saudi Arabia via Turkeys justice ministry. However, Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir has said that those behind the killing will be prosecuted in the Kingdom and that this will take time. In an attempt to increase the pressure, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that the Turkish lawyer looking into the killing of Khashoggi had asked Saudi Arabia to disclose who ordered the operation and who sent the team involved in the killing. Our prosecutor asked who sent the group that came here and said that this needed to be looked at, Erdogan said. Saudi officials need to reveal the identity of the local operators. Let us know who these people are and we will find them. We cannot leave this issue unsolved. We need to solve it now, Erdogan said. Saudi Arabias shifting explanations, changing versions of what happened to Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate, and the slow progress of the investigations have called into question the Wests close relationship with Saudi Arabia. What this crisis has done so far is show the cracks in the relationship with Saudi Arabia, a British source told the Weekly. We will wait for the Saudi and Turkish investigations, but we are already preparing for a package of European responses based on the outcome of the investigations and their transparency and credibility, he added. There is British, French and German cooperation to press Riyadh not only on the Khashoggi case, but also on other issues, the most urgent being the war in Yemen. Germany, which has pledged to suspend arms exports to Saudi Arabia over the killing of Khashoggi and the war in Yemen, said it expects the European Union to adopt a common position on limiting weapons sales. We agreed that when we have more clarity... we will try to find a unified European solution or reaction from all member states of the European Union, German chancellor Angela Merkel said on the sale of arms to the Kingdom. She was speaking at a joint news conference with French president Emmanuel Macron, Russian president Vladimir Putin, and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the conclusion of a four-country summit on Syria. Macron said that any decisions, including on potential sanctions, would need to be made at the European level. Macron has said that he told Saudi crown-prince Mohamed Bin Sultan that France and its partners could take action against those responsible for the murder. France, along with the United States and Britain, is one of the main arms suppliers to Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies. On Monday, a memorial in London was organised in Westminster by the non-profit organisation Middle East Monitor. MP Crispin Blunt, who sits on the UK parliamentary group on Saudi Arabia, told those gathered at the memorial that Jamals death is a very profound moment. If the Saudi state does not deliver full accountability for his murder, the legacy will be one of terror. He emphasised that Saudi Arabia must do penance for this appalling crime, notably to ensure the substantial British interests engaged with Saudi Arabia are not toxified entirely by association with a slide into terror. Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggis fiancee, who was at the memorial, called upon US president Donald Trump not to the pave the way for a cover-up and urged him to help reveal the truth about the killing. I am deeply grateful for the solidarity of people all over the world. I am, however, disappointed in the actions of the leadership of many countries, particularly the US. President Trump should help reveal the truth and ensure that justice is served. He should not pave the way for a cover-up of my fiances murder. Lets not let money taint our conscience and compromise our values, she added. Cengiz said she believes the Saudi regime knows where her late fiances body is located. She said she wanted to know the role of the political leadership in this brutal killing [and for this] to be brought to light. Her remarks came days after she rejected an invitation to the White House in Washington. Trump has said little about Saudi Arabias role in the killing of Khashoggi, since being briefed last week by CIA director Gina Haspel. Asked on Monday what action the US has taken almost four weeks after Khashoggis disappearance, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that the administration is considering what action well take moving forward after Haspel had gathered more intelligence and briefed the president. The administration is weighing different options and well make an announcement about what the decision of that action is, Sanders said. Turkey has kept up the pressure on the Saudis, demanding a full explanation and releasing a steady flow of evidence which has undermined Riyadhs early denials. *A version of this article appears in print in the 1 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Khashoggi investigations inch forward Search Keywords: Short link: To the editor: As a pediatrician and medical geneticist, I want to share an egregious example of how physicians have misused their positions and the field of genetics to circumvent Californias laudable elimination of personal belief exemptions for childhood vaccines. I saw a child in my clinic whose physician submitted the childs DNA to a direct-to-consumer genetic testing company, an act in itself contrary to American Academy of Pediatrics policy from 2013, a policy that was reaffirmed this October. The physician then analyzed the results with software lacking any clinical validation and concluded that the childs genetic signature indicated that vaccines should not be given. This is pure quackery. California requires that all newborns are screened for rare genetic immunodeficiencies that might legitimately make vaccines dangerous. Beyond this, there is no genetic signature and certainly not from direct-to-consumer testing to inform vaccine safety for healthy children. Californias Medical Board can and should hold physicians responsible when medical exemptions are given based on bad science and bad medicine. Advertisement Dr. Bryce Mendelsohn, San Francisco .. To the editor: Health officials are up in arms that medical exemptions have increased from 0.2% to 0.7% of children attending public schools. And apparently, the majority of them feel that any medical exemption is a bogus exemption. A decision not to vaccinate or to delay vaccination should be a confidential matter made on a case-by-case basis between a doctor and his or her patient. SB 277, the California law banning personal-belief exemptions, provides that a written statement by a licensed physician suffices. A backlash against doctors who choose to provide exemptions will only result in more concerned parents being forced to withdraw their children from public schools. Sharon Martinez, Glendora Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook Election day is less than a week away, but more than 27 million Americans are apparently so psyched or angry or frightened or inspired or whatever drives people to the polls that they have already cast their ballots. Early voting has become an increasingly regular part of campaigns, a way for some to avoid last-minute hassles at their polling place or, perhaps, knowing they have hip surgery scheduled for election day, to ensure they make their voice heard by voting absentee. Turnout for the midterm vote, at the halfway point of a presidents four-year term, typically falls off drastically from a presidential election. But early turnout is running unusually high this fall, which shouldnt be a surprise given the heated sentiments on both sides. Eighteen states have already surpassed their early-vote totals from 2014, the last midterm election; a handful Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and Texas could surpass the total votes cast in 2014 even before Tuesday rolls around. Something special is going on right now, said Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political scientist and leading expert on early voting. The numbers were seeing are unprecedented. Advertisement If the trend continues, he said, turnout could be the highest since 49% of eligible voters cast ballots in the 1966 midterm vote, and may even top 50%, a level of midterm voter participation that hasnt been seen in more than a century, since the election of 1914. How does early voting work? That depends on where you live. In 37 states and the District of Columbia, any qualified voter can cast their ballot ahead of election day. In some states, its a mail-in ballot. Others set up early-voting sites so people can cast their ballots in person, in some cases weeks ahead of election day. Some states, like California, allow residents to sign up as permanent absentee voters and mail in their ballots every election. Other states are far more restrictive. In 20 of them, some sort of excuse or justification is needed to explain why a voter cant make it to his or her polling place on election day. Two states Oregon and Washington conduct their elections entirely by mail. Enough buildup! Is a wave coming on Nov. 6? Sorry, cant say. So what good are you? Thats debatable. What can early voting tell us? Its a good way to gauge interest in an election. As you would expect, the more engaged people are, the greater the turnout. Beyond that, certain inferences can be drawn. If, for instance, a large number of first-time voters cast early ballots, that would suggest candidates are successfully expanding the electorate by targeting less-frequent midterm voters, such as minorities and young people. In Georgia, for instance, where Stacey Abrams is bidding to become the nations first black woman governor, there has been a strong early turnout of African Americans, which would seem to bode well for her campaign. What else can be divined from the early vote? Certain information is available to campaigns and media as part of the public record. In California, for instance, its possible to know the name, party registration and age of everyone casting an early vote. From there we enhance and enhance and enhance, said Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data, a California voter data company. Overlaying basic information with further identifiers such as race and ethnicity, home ownership and other details makes it possible to build a fairly informative model of the early-voting electorate and whether, say, more Democrats or Republicans have cast their ballots. As of Wednesday nearly 3 million ballots have been returned in California, according to a tally kept by Political Data. Of those, 43% were cast by registered Democrats, 33% by registered Republicans and the remainder by voters classified as independent or members of other parties. In the states seven most competitive House races, more than 450,000 early votes have been cast, a greater number by registered Republicans than registered Democrats. Great! So whos winning? Sorry, cant say. The answer wont be clear until all the votes are cast and counted. Rats! Plenty of people will speculate, and some will even offer reasonable-sounding theories about what will happen on Tuesday. But really, its all little more than guesswork. Informed guesswork, in some instances, but guesswork nevertheless. Whys that? Because the one thing thats unknowable is the most important data point of all: How people actually voted. In this era of down-to-the-bone partisanship, its safe to assume that most Democrats will vote for the Democratic candidate and most Republicans will vote Republican. But thats certainly not true for all of them. And while most independents lean toward one major party or the other, the fact that they dont strongly identify with either makes it even trickier to know for whom they cast their ballot. Does the fact that more registered Republicans have voted early in some places signal a red wave? Not at all. Experience has shown that Republicans tend to vote earlier in the process than Democrats. Some of that may have to do with the fact that many Republicans are older and prefer to vote by mail, which is easier than showing up at a polling place to cast an early ballot. Historically, weve seen Democrats catch up as it gets closer to election day and younger people start casting their early votes. But I really, really want to know Tuesdays outcome. Is there anything I can do? Sure. Brew a pot of tea. Strain the liquid and swirl the leaves inside the cup. Read the results. Seriously. Seriously. Forget all the prognostications. If you havent already, just vote. mark.barabak@latimes.com @markzbarabak UPDATES: 6 p.m.: This article was updated with new California early-vote totals. 11:30 a.m.: This article was updated with revised early-voting totals. 6:10 a.m.: This article was updated with revised early-voting totals. This article was originally published at 3 a.m. Reactionary culture warrior is not an image that has typically been associated with Rep. John Faso, an understated Chamber of Commerce favorite who represents an expansive district in an economically struggling part of upstate New York. Hes the kind of Republican who met President Trumps recent enthusiastic endorsement tweet with ambivalence. I didnt know it was coming, he said. You know, it is what it is. In politics, though, desperate times call for desperate marketing. National Republican groups not only have gotten Faso a Trump endorsement, theyve surrounded him with a Trump-style campaign. Theyve poured millions of dollars into re-branding the endangered incumbent as part of a thin red line separating this mostly white, working-class region from the urban chaos they warn would be unleashed by his black opponent, who earlier in his life wrote wonky rap songs. (The ads dont mention Democrat Antonio Delgados Harvard Law School degree or Rhodes scholarship.) So far, the Republican side has spent about $10.4 million. It may not be enough. Advertisement In districts across the country, Republicans find themselves in an unusual position this year unable to match Democratic spending. The energy of the left has given many Democratic challengers a crushing fundraising advantage, putting Republicans on the defensive in an unexpectedly large share of the political map. With their resources stretched, conservative political groups in many races have turned up the temperature on their attacks, gambling that will give their ad dollars more impact. In New Yorks Hudson Valley, however, the ads have fanned racial tension without doing much provably good for Faso. The Democrat has strengthened his standing in this race, Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said Tuesday as he released a new poll showing Delgado 5 percentage points ahead. These attacks havent changed the overall trajectory of this race. The Republicans are not impoverished by any means. But this deep into the election cycle, they can typically boast financial superiority as corporations and big donors, including the Koch brothers network and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, fill campaign coffers. This year, however, especially in races for the House, Democrats have eclipsed the GOP in small donations and have also gone toe to toe with them in big cash infusions from dark-money donors and political action committees. Rep. John Faso (R-N.Y.). (Evan Halper / Los Angeles Times) Former New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, for example, recently poured $9.5 million into campaigns to support two Democratic candidates in Southern California, part of $43 million he gave Democratic super PACs this month. Hidden big money is not just the realm of the right anymore, said Sarah Bryner, research director at the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance watchdog. The jump in overall giving since the last midterm election is the biggest the nation has seen in 20 years, according to the center. Donors to Democratic candidates so far have contributed 44% more than they did in the last midterm cycle. Thats more than double the increase among donors to Republican candidates. Some groups of Democratic donors have accelerated their giving way beyond that. Women are giving to Democrats at more than triple the rate they did in the last midterm election, according to the center. Females have increased the amount they are giving this cycle dramatically, Bryner said. It is just staggering. Republicans have seen no comparable surge from female donors. The progressive online fundraising platform ActBlue, which allows small donors to click on a button to swiftly and seamlessly respond to candidate pitches for $20 here or $50 there, is swelling with cash. It already has reported raising nearly double what it did during the 2016 presidential cycle, when ActBlue propelled the astonishing fundraising success of Sen. Bernie Sanders. Nearly two-thirds of ActBlues 4.7 million donors this cycle had never before given to a campaign. On one single day, Sept. 30, 310,000 donations were made on the platform, the most ever. Thats all made campaigning exceedingly difficult for incumbent Republicans like Faso, as he tries to hang onto New Yorks 19th Congressional District, which stretches into 11 counties from the bohemian enclaves of New Paltz and Kingston through an expanse of more rural, conservative communities north toward Albany. Delgado, who only a year ago returned from the New York City area, where he worked at a large corporate law firm, to his childhood home upstate, has succeeded in wiping out the incumbents advantage by raising more than $6 million from individuals as Faso struggled to clear $2 million. Delgado logged 11,400 donations, five times as many as the incumbent. Hes on track to spend more than $13 million. Running during this time is very special, Delgado said. There is an outpouring of support. If you lean into it and do the work, you can get where we were able to. He had just stepped down from a stage he shared with former Vice President Joe Biden, who parachuted into Kingston to campaign for the Democrat. An endorsement from Barack Obama came earlier. Liberal outside groups like Rep. Nancy Pelosis House Majority PAC and End Citizens United, which advocates campaign finance reform, have poured millions into the race to bolster Delgado. But their spending doesnt dwarf that of the candidate. On the Republican side, Faso has less control of the message: His own campaign spending has been swamped, 3 to 1, by money controlled by outside Republican groups, chiefly House Speaker Paul D. Ryans Congressional Leadership Fund and the National Republican Congressional Committee. Delgado has used much the same playbook as most other swing-district Democrats this cycle. He pounds relentlessly on Fasos vote in the House to repeal Obamacare. Over and over, he contrasts Fasos vote to repeal Obamacare with a vow the incumbent made to a constituent with cancer that he would preserve coverage for preexisting conditions. His ads are saying I want to basically toss old ladies off the cliff and take away everyones healthcare, said Faso, arguing that his healthcare votes have been mischaracterized. Faso frames his opposition to Obamacare as common sense in a district with so many small employers. He talks of businesses laying off workers or not hiring new ones so they can keep their payroll below 50 employees, a cutoff for federal health coverage mandates. Fasos description of himself as a centrist is at least partially backed by the nonpartisan Lugar Center, a Washington think tank that ranks the congressman as the 18th most bipartisan House member in an index it publishes with the public policy school at Georgetown University. But the campaign being run on his behalf is not exactly moderate. Most of the messages voters see and hear are crafted by Washington operatives who cant legally coordinate with Faso. They are fixated on rap songs the 41-year-old Delgado wrote 10 years ago that are barely racy enough to merit a PG-13 rating. Nobody talks like that around here, its offensive, growls a middle-age white male in an ad released a few days ago by the National Republican Congressional Committee. Earlier ads branded the Democrat Big City Rapper Antonio Delgado. An album cover featuring Delgado in a hoodie has become a regular presence on televisions in this district. Faso defends the ads. Since he has no record here, I think it is fair to say do the provocative words that he authored on political topics reflect his views today? he said. Delgado focuses on their racial overtones. It is nasty, he said. It is ugly. It is divisive. And voters in this swing district, where support for Trump remains relatively strong, more often say they identify with Delgados values than Fasos, according to the Monmouth poll. Healthcare is the issue they say concerns them most. And now the rap ads have become one of the first things Delgado mentions at campaign appearances. It turns out they make a good icebreaker. Ive had a couple of little careers, the candidate told the crowd before Biden took the stage in Kingston. I know youve heard of one of them. The latest look at the Trump administration and the rest of Washington More stories from Evan Halper evan.halper@latimes.com | Twitter: @evanhalper Democrats path to seizing the House may very well run through small, suburban wine bars such as the one in downtown Wauconda, Ill., 50 miles outside of Chicago, where a group of mostly white, middle-aged women gathered last week to meet a millennial, African American woman running for Congress in a district that Donald Trump won two years ago. Between sips of artisanal reds and after the monthly open-mic storytelling night at Bliss Wine and Gifts, first-time Democratic candidate Lauren Underwood, 32, impressed and energized the room. Cecilia Carman, a 50-year-old nurse who lives in nearby Lake in the Hills, said she was drawn to Underwoods support for the Affordable Care Act and climate change policies. But President Trump wasnt far from her mind. She relished the idea of electing Underwood to a Democratic House majority that would stand up to the president. If someones going to impeach Trump, I want a black woman to do it, not a white man, Carman said. Having her run, it means the world to me. Advertisement In past years, Underwood or any Democrat, really wouldnt be a formidable challenge to Rep. Randy Hultgren, a four-term Republican incumbent who won his last race in this suburban-rural district by nearly 20 percentage points. But this election cycle, opposition to Trump is allowing Democrats to compete in places once far out of reach. Political forecasters and the few public polls in the race suggest the contest is a toss-up, with an edge in Hultgrens favor given that Republicans outnumber Democrats in the district. But there are reasons for Democrats to be hopeful: Underwood has raised about four times as much money as Hultgren. She has more ads on TV. And her supporters packed the only public meeting of the two candidates earlier this month. Both national political parties have put up radio and television ads in recent weeks, a sign they view it as competitive. Former Vice President Joe Biden is stopping by this week to hold a rally with Underwood. Trump appeared with Hultgren and two other endangered GOP House incumbents in southern Illinois last weekend. Underwood worked for the Obama administration on implementing the 2010 healthcare law and responding to crises such as Ebola. She moved home to Illinois after the administration ended and said she was spurred to run by Hultgrens 2017 vote to repeal Obamacare. When she was a child, she was diagnosed with a heart problem a preexisting condition that would have once made it expensive or impossible for her to obtain health insurance until Obamacare ended such practices. I decided: You know what? Its on. Im running, she told the wine bar crowd on historic South Main Street in this well-heeled community. You can imagine, being very upset and moved to action and [having made] this big decision running for Congress and its like, Oh God, how do I do this? she said to laughter in the room. Nationwide polls suggest Democrats have an opportunity to flip the 23 GOP-held seats they need to obtain control of the House, particularly in districts that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won in 2016, such as the neighboring suburban home of Republican Rep. Peter Roskam. But Democrats hope that the blue wave is even bigger than that, reaching once reliably GOP districts such as the one Underwood hopes to win. The blue wave was never going to be double-digit wins. It was going to be close races tipping the way of Democrats, said Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), vice chairwoman of recruitment for House Democrats. We always anticipated these would be tight races playing on a field where Democrats havent been successful in a long time. Theyre pinning their hopes on white, educated, independent or Republican-leaning women who have turned on Trump and could be encouraged to vote for a Democratic congressional candidate this year. The 14th Congressional District of Illinois which spans the well-kept lawns of high-income professionals in the far northern and western suburbs of Chicago as well as Illinoiss corn and soybean farms is exactly that kind of place. The median household income here is $92,000, and 48% of adults have college degrees far outpacing national averages. Underwood says she was one of those women spurred to action by opposition to Trump. She participated in the January 2017 Womens March in Washington. Women make up the campaigns core volunteers and donors. Underwood could also be buoyed by GOP voters who are frustrated or even angry with their own party. Chris Hennessey, a 34-year-old registered Republican, has voted for Hultgren four times since 2010 but plans to support Underwood. Hennessey said hes frustrated that his congressman has not spoken out more against Trump administration policies, particularly the separation of children and parents at the southern border. Hennessey said hes discouraged with what hes seeing from our current Congress, comparing the debates on Capitol Hill to the temper tantrums of his two small children. My hope is Lauren Underwood would go and be able to, as a freshman congressman, influence that conversation, he said. In a nod to the districts GOP leanings, Underwood is not tacking too far to the left. She said she doesnt support a Medicare-for-all plan until she sees how it would be paid for and said she hasnt determined whether she would vote for House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi as speaker. Hultgren, who is facing his most serious challenge since he was first elected in a GOP wave in 2010, predicts the Democrats blue wave will crest outside of his district. Weve sensed for a long time that the other side was going to be engaged. The question was whether both sides would be. And I think thats what were seeing both sides are going to vote. I feel good about that, he said in an interview. Hultgren defended getting outraised by Underwood and said he didnt overlook the potential for a Democratic wave, as some Republicans have done. He suggested national Republicans waited too long to provide help. I felt like it was a toss-up all along. I felt like it was a voter-turnout election. So when it was kind of getting ignored for a while, I didnt like that. Hultgren is running on the strong economy, low unemployment and national security the first points he mentioned in his joint appearance with Underwood earlier this month at a packed historic courthouse in Yorkville, Ill. Some of Hultgrens supporters say they wish he were more aggressive, like Trump. I wanted him to be a lot more combative, but thats not his way, said Elsie Campbell Morrissey, who lives in Sandwich, Ill. and is knocking on doors for Hultgren. He just cant call people liars even though they are. Hultgren has embraced Trumps policies in addition to the repeal of Obamacare, he voted for the tax bill and an anti-opioid bill but says he objects to some decisions, such as the family separations at the southern border. And he doesnt like the presidents tone. But Hultgren as well as fellow Illinois GOP Reps. Rodney Davis and Mike Bost happily accepted the presidents visit and endorsement during a rally Saturday in Bosts southern Illinois district. Davis and Bost, like Hultgren, are fending off Democratic candidates who in other years would have been unlikely to pose a significant threat. Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), a rising Democratic leader, traveled to Davis district this week to help the Democratic candidate there, Betsy Dirksen Londrigan, 47, another first-time candidate trying to oust a Republican who hasnt faced a serious challenge in recent years. Londrigan, like Underwood, has said she was motivated to run to stop GOP attacks on Obamacare protections, pointing to a life-threatening illness in 2009 that nearly killed her son. But in the final days of the campaign, attitudes about Trump remain at the forefront. Do you remember what you felt like when you woke up the day after the election in November 2016? Bustos asked students at an Illinois college campus this week. And then if you think about what then has happened over the last two years? You have the power to make sure we dont have that feeling again in November 2018. The latest from Washington jennifer.haberkorn@latimes.com Twitter: @jenhab John Paramo, Burbank Unifieds director of secondary education, said this week that 97% of the districts high school seniors graduated or earned a certificate of attendance during the 2017-18 school year, up by 1.5% from the previous school year. Of the districts 1,283 students eligible for graduation from Burbank, Burroughs and Monterey high schools, 1,246 received their diplomas or earned a certificate of attendance by summers end. We have made good progress, but 100% is still our goal, Burbank Unified Supt. Matt Hill said. I firmly believe that every student who enrolls in a [Burbank Unified] school should receive a diploma. It may take more than four years, but we need to work with all students to ensure they have the support they need to ultimately obtain their diplomas. Burbanks 97% rate is a little less than the rates for 2014-15 (98.8%) and 2015-16 (98%). Other than graduation, some students earned a certificate of attendance, which in California is given to those who complete the 12th grade but have not necessarily earned the credits to graduate. Sometimes our special education students who have specific disabilities cant meet the same requirements of a normal diploma, Paramo said. Theyre showing up to school every day for four years, and theyre working toward their [educational] goals and sometimes they just dont meet state standards. Students who did not graduate this spring or summer then fell into one of two categories. Twenty-four students are continuing as fifth-year students, while 13 are designated as non-graduates. Breaking those numbers down more shows that 584 Burbank High, 609 Burroughs High and 53 Monterey seniors graduated. Seventeen Monterey students are continuing on to a fifth year, while four Burbank and three Burroughs students have taken that option. Also, Burbank High had seven non-graduates, while Burroughs reported six. Paramo said the fifth-year option is offered to students showing up to school every day and successfully earning credits, but not having enough time to finish them all. If students dont graduate after a fifth year, they have an opportunity to continue at Burbank Adult School, where they can earn credits or prepare to take a General Education Diploma test. The district has been tracking its non-graduates the past four years and has 15 non-graduates from the 2014-15 school year, 26 from 2015-16 and six from 2016-17. The district also keeps records of a cohort rate, which is the number of freshmen from a specific class who end up graduating four years later. That rate was 93% in 2014-15, 95% in 2015-16 and 93.2% in 2016-17. andrew.campa@latimes.com Twitter @campadresports Burbank building officials are encouraging local homeowners to be more proactive when it comes to earthquake safety. Through Nov. 13, Burbank residents who own single-family homes can apply through the Earthquake Brace and Bolt grant program to receive up to $3,000 in state funding to help them pay for seismic retrofitting of their property. The grant is issued by the California Residential Mitigation Program, a joint-powers authority created by the California Earthquake Authority. It is the first time that Burbank has been selected to be included in the statewide grant program since its launch in 2013. State earthquake officials are offering 2,000 grants to qualifying homeowners, which is something Ron Takiguchi, the planning official for Burbank, said residents should take advantage of before a major earthquake hits. He said seismic-retrofitting projects can cost a homeowner between $3,000 and $7,000, which is much cheaper than making repairs to a house that has been damaged in a quake. It could potentially cost a homeowner hundreds of thousands of dollars if they have to repair their home in an event of an earthquake, Takiguchi said. So the retrofitting could prevent that initial damage and prevent any further costs. Its a good way of strengthening someones home. A house needs to meet several criteria before qualifying for a state grant. It has to have a wood frame, have been built before 1980 and have a 4-foot-tall or shorter cripple wall under the first floor. Cripple walls are short wood-stud walls that enclose a crawl space under a homes first floor. Additionally, the house has to be built on a level or low slope, as well as have a raised foundation, according to the grant requirements. The retrofitting, Takiguchi said, involves adding anchor bolts and sill plates to the concrete foundation, as well as reinforcing the cripple walls. Because the last major earthquake to hit the region was the 1994 Northridge quake, Takiguchi said most people are not as proactive as they should be about ensuring their property can withstand a similar or even worse event. For those looking to remodel their home, Takiguchi said it would be wise to consider a seismic retrofit if the project is extensive. If a homeowner isnt doing any construction or remodeling, he said its still a good idea to hire a state-approved contractor to inspect their home and see if any retrofitting should be done. This is one of the best things that a homeowner can do for their home, Takiguchi said. For more information, visit https://bit.ly/2yJlmtM. anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com Twitter: @acocarpio Burbank residents from various faiths gathered on the steps of Burbank City Hall Tuesday evening to remember those who were killed or injured during the most recent mass shooting in the country. Eleven people were killed on Saturday after alleged gunman Robert Bowers entered the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and opened fire on those in the temple. It is considered the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in United States history. The names of the 11 victims and the four officers injured during the shooting were read aloud during the candlelight vigil hosted by the Burbank Human Relations Council. Rabbi Richard Flom and his wife, Lynn Kronzec, both former members of the Tree of Life Synagogue, were at the vigil to read the names. Though neither of them knew any of those who were killed or wounded, Flom said it was not a fortunate circumstance. People tell us, Arent you glad that nobody you knew or were close to was killed there? and I say no. That [would] mean Im glad that somebody else died, he said. I think we have to remember when we thank God that we or our loved ones have survived something like this, we also need to acknowledge that somebody else died, he added. Flom said hes grateful for those who stepped in to stop the shooter from continuing to kill or injure others, and additionally grateful for those who will help the Pittsburgh community and communities across the country heal from the tragic event. State Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-La Canada Flintridge), who was in attendance, said he was reminded of a quote from Gandhi, who said humanity is a great ocean that a few dirty drops could not hurt. But did Gandhi anticipate how many dirty drops there would be in 2018 and was it even appropriate for me to think that? Portantino asked. He then heard a quote from one of the rabbis from Tree of Life, who said people shouldnt try to lessen the impact of the shooting or to rationalize it because it simply cannot be put into words. Instead, people should continue to confront hate and love one another. State Assemblywoman Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) was also at the vigil, saying the Pittsburgh shooting and the countless other shootings in the country have been rooted in hate. The antidote to this kind of carnage is to make sure we thoroughly reject voices that will divide us, voices that divide communities, that divide people, that create artificial barriers between people, that foster mistrust and intolerance, she said. We need to stand up and speak out when we see that happening, and we reject it and, instead, respond with empathy, with understanding and with love. That, I know, is going to be stronger than hatred, she added. anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com Twitter: @acocarpio Saturdays synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh unleashed a flood of compassion and concern in Newport Beach, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach and other local cities, where Jewish and interfaith leaders called for both remembrance of the 11 dead and continued vigilance at local houses of worship. Though conventional wisdom would suggest that a fear of violence would keep the faithful away, the mass shooting had the opposite effect in Orange County, faith leaders said. Worshippers come in larger numbers after a tragedy, said Rabbi David N. Young of Congregation Bnai Tzedek in Fountain Valley. They need synagogue more than ever. Jews turned to their temples to mourn, reflect and embrace their faith, as well as continue the weekly traditions of the Sabbath. They were shown support in candlelight vigils at the temple doors by interfaith supporters in Fountain Valley and in Newport Beach, as well as on the sand at a candlelight vigil in Laguna Beach. It is human nature to think of it as distant, and that it wont, cant happen to us, but when it happens to target the Jewish community, it hits us at home, Young said. We know we are just like Tree of Life in Pittsburgh and all the congregations in the Orange County area. Bnai Tzedek congregants gathered with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Muslims and people of other faiths for a Sunday vigil of songs and psalms. We are not looking for answers for why this happened when we gather, Young said. We are looking for comfort. We are all in this together, we are all grieving. Even though Temple Bat Yam in Newport Beach holds Shabbat services on Fridays, congregants gathered Saturday for Torah study and prayer. A bat mitzvah took place as planned. Our best response to this tragedy is to come together on Shabbat, Rabbi Gersh Zylberman said. The recent shooting occurred at a time when the Anti-Defamation League has reported a historic increase in both anti-Semitic incidents and anti-Semitic online harassment. Temple security, of course, was a concern well before the most recent tragedy. At Temple Bat Yam, there is an active debate among members of congregation on how best to deal with phenomenon of mass shootings, Zylberman said. I think the focus of our thoughts should be on what kind of a country America has become, that places of worship and schools need to seriously consider instituting armed security, and what would it take to shift the landscape in America so that people could feel safe again. Congregation Bnai Tzedek expressed good relationships with local law enforcement, crediting founding Rabbi emeritus Stephen Einstein, a current police chaplain and former school board member who helped found the Greater Huntington Beach Interfaith Council in response to a hate crime. Einstein expressed that even though California is largely seen as tolerant, Jews remain targets. Hate is with us, Einstein said. We have it here in this area. As a person who has spent decades working and participating in civic life, only recently has he begun to hear derogatory and anti-Semitic comments at council meetings and in public forums. I think, specifically, the last two years people who are filled with hate have been emboldened by what they are hearing from the White House, Einstein said. Stan Levy, executive director of Temple Bat Yam, reassured community members in a Facebook statement that the synagogue leadership was in contact with Newport Beach Police Department, Orange County Sheriffs Department and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Temple Bat Yam has taken security seriously for many years, Zylberman said, noting strong ties with the NBPD. However, after the 2012 Sandy Hook School shooting in Newtown, Conn., leadership kicked up the relationship to another level. Temple Bat Yam has been the recipient of two Homeland Security grants aimed at securing nonprofits against threats of terrorism. The money was used to secure the propertys perimeter. Its often been observed that a rise in anti-Semitism is like a canary in the coal mine, Zylberman said. We have to come together and ensure that which has happened in the past will never happen. julia.sclafani@latimes.com Wrapped in the stars and stripes, and emblazoned with the striking profile of a bald eagle, the new box in front of the Costa Mesa Sanitary District headquarters is hard to miss. This isnt just an aesthetic addition, though: Its a retirement home for American flags. The sanitary district which provides sewer and curbside trash collection services in Costa Mesa, parts of Newport Beach and some unincorporated sections of Orange County launched a new program Monday aimed at keeping flags out of the landfill so they can be disposed of properly and respectfully. Now, residents can at any time place their worn or faded flags in the box at district headquarters, 290 Paularino Ave. in Costa Mesa, where they will be kept secure until representatives from local Boy Scout Troop 316 come to collect them. District General Manager Scott Carroll said the idea was to give the public an easy and convenient way to [properly] dispose of U.S. flags. It helped that the district already had a suitable drop box on hand, according to Carroll. All it needed was the decorative wrap. Residents can place their worn or faded American flags into this box, which was installed in front of the Costa Mesa Sanitary District headquarters this week. (Courtesy of the Costa Mesa Sanitary District) The program got off the ground, thanks in part to Dan Worthington, a former sanitary district board member. Worthington had seen similar boxes installed elsewhere and wondered why the sanitary district didnt have one of its own. So he reached out to the Boy Scouts of America Orange County Council to see if a local troop would be interested in partnering on a flag-disposal program. Our nation desperately needs something to bring it together, and taking flags and bringing the respect to them that theyre due, in my mind, is extremely important, he said Monday. That respect was drilled into the 84-year-old Costa Mesa resident during his time in the military. Worthington joined the U.S. Navy in 1952, during the Korean War, and later served in the Army. Youre initiated in the importance of the American flag when youre an active-duty person, he said. It starts out every morning at reveille when you walk out and salute the flag being raised and it ends in the evening. It gets imbued into your whole psyche, This is the flag, this is what Im going to be fighting for and theres nothing like it. Typically, American flags are retired over a fire, with those in attendance sending them on their way with a respectful ceremony and final salute. The flag represents hundreds of years of this country fighting for its freedoms, and it represents a lot of families, said Rion Dalby, the scoutmaster of Costa Mesa-based Troop 316. Flags that are not properly disposed of can end up like this one, which was photographed at the CR&R Environmental Services transfer station in Stanton. (Courtesy of the Costa Mesa Sanitary District) Ensuring that flags are disposed of properly is a duty that the scouts proudly perform, Dalby said Monday, and members of the public regularly entrust local troops with overseeing their flags finales. A lot of them know, I dont think Im supposed to throw this away, he said. I think the purpose of this box was to catch the other half and make sure that they dont end up in the Orange County trash pile. Worthington said hed like to see other cities and agencies stand up to support that mission too. I want to see this concept spread throughout Orange County at least one per city, he said. We already know that when trash is collected off the curbside that there are flags that people are throwing away because they have no idea what to do with them. Weve got to stop that. luke.money@latimes.com Twitter @LukeMMoney The California Fair Political Practices Commission this week declined, for a second time, to pursue conflict of interest allegations against Newport Beach Mayor Marshall Duffy Duffield and City Council colleague Scott Peotter. The decision Tuesday closed the loop on a string of related unsuccessful complaints that local activist Susan Skinner made to the state political watchdog agency about the pairs business relationship. Skinner filed her initial complaint in September, followed by two amendments in October, asking for an investigation of a possible Duffield-Peotter employment arrangement. The partnership was confirmed between her first and second amendments when state and local documents showed that Duffield had tapped Peotter, an architectural and development consultant, to do the legwork on parceling 4.7 acres Duffield owns in the city of Adelanto in San Bernardino County. The property is the site of the factory for Duffields Duffy Electric Boat Co. The FPPC rejected Skinners initial complaint and first follow-up Oct. 17, citing insufficient evidence of a conflict of interest violation of the Political Reform Act. It rejected the second follow-up using almost identical language. Based on a review of the complaint and documentation provided, the Enforcement Division found insufficient evidence of a violation of the Political Reform Act and will not pursue an enforcement action in this matter, FPPC Enforcement Division Chief Galena West wrote in a letter to Skinner. Skinner held firm to her grievances after the decision. I am profoundly disappointed that neither the FPPC nor our City Attorney Aaron Harp will take any action against the many conflict of interest and campaign law violations that have occurred in the last four years, she said. The only recourse left for the residents is to use the power of their vote next Tuesday to restore ethics and integrity to our city government. Duffield and Peotter are both up for reelection next week. Duffield regularly recuses himself from City Council votes on Newport Harbor matters because of potential business conflicts related to Duffy Electric Boat Co., which has a harborfront office on West Coast Highway. Peotter does not recuse himself from those votes. Skinner has argued that if Duffield is a source of income for Peotter, Duffields conflicts of interest are also Peotters. She submitted a Daily Pilot article on the parceling work, along with supporting government documents, as evidence of the pairs business connection. Duffield said he split the Adelanto property, which is in the citys medicinal marijuana cultivation zone, into thirds and sought a state cannabis distribution permit to make the property more attractive to buyers so he can move his factory to Utah. Duffield said he doesnt want to grow or distribute marijuana himself but wants to take advantage of the increased property values. The FPPC this week also declined to pursue an unrelated complaint that Skinner filed in October saying Duffield had accepted campaign contributions over the $1,100-per-donor limit. Duffield amended his campaign finance filings showing refunds of excess amounts and produced copies of the refund checks. hillary.davis@latimes.com Twitter: @Daily_PilotHD Saudi Arabia has taken further steps to try to contain the fallout from the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul Official steps were taken last week to try to contain the fallout from the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in early October. Meetings took place after weeks of statements, leaks and various speeches that imply that a settlement may be on the horizon, with Saudi attorney-general Saud al-Mojeb travelling to Istanbul to meet his Turkish counterpart Irfan Fidan. Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a news conference in Ankara that the exchange of information with Saudi Arabia was beneficial and should continue. He said Saudi Arabia had suggested the visit to Turkey, and he urged Riyadh to conclude the investigations soon. However, al-Mojeb did not provide information about the whereabouts of Khashoggis body. He visited his countrys consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday, the day after meeting Fidan and a week after Saudi Arabia admitted that Khashoggis killing had been premeditated based on evidence presented by Turkey, according to the BBC. The Saudi authorities have arrested 18 Saudi nationals in connection with the killing, and Turkey has asked for their extradition since it took place in Istanbul. However, Riyadh has refused, saying the suspects will be tried in Saudi Arabia. A royal decree has also removed five senior Saudi officials from their posts, including deputy director of intelligence Ahmed Eseri and advisor to the royal court Saud al-Qahtani. Before al-Mojebs trip to Turkey, US secretary of defence Jim Mattis met with Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir on the margins of the Manama Dialogue meeting in Bahrain. Anti-Saudi media reported that the meeting focused on Khashoggis murder, while pro-Riyadh media said it focused on proposals for a new Arab Alliance, or what is known as an Arab NATO. Both issues were on the agenda, said Mohamed Saeed Idris, an expert on Gulf affairs and researcher at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. The former because it is a hot topic, and the latter because it is very important for Washington. Mattis indicated that he had discussed the Khashoggi case, along with the need for transparency and a full and comprehensive investigation, expressing his confidence that the Saudi investigation would take into account material provided by Turkey. Turkey with the evidence it has compiled will ensure that there is more than one review of what is going on, he said. I am certain the investigation will include the evidence that Turkey has put forward so far. Idris said that the US is being challenged by Russia in the Middle East today, and this cannot be ignored as the background to the investigation. Russias presence in the region is unnerving for the US. It has a powerful military in Syria and strong ties with Egypt, and it is marketing its weapons to countries in the region. Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have all agreed to buy the S-400 Russian missiles system. Moscow is a partner in constructing nuclear power stations in Egypt and is in negotiations to do the same thing in Turkey. Russia, one of the worlds top producers of oil, was also visited by several Gulf leaders recently not usually seen in the Kremlin. There is also close coordination in the oil market between Russia and Saudi Arabia. Iran has condemned what it calls a Russian-Saudi attempt to control the oil market, something which both sides deny. However, both countries would benefit from US oil sanctions against Iran which will begin on 5 November and will likely raise the price of oil. Under these circumstances, Washington will need Riyadh to stand by its side, Idris said. [US president Donald] Trump does not have the luxury of abandoning the arms deal with Saudi Arabia worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Saudi Arabia is the USs top customer for defence spending. Trump said that if he doesnt sell arms to Saudi Arabia, then it will go somewhere else, implying Russia, Idris added. Meanwhile, Riyadh needs a major international ally in the face of its rival Iran in return for participating in the Arab Alliance the US is calling for. According to Idris, the settlement will not only include Riyadh and Washington, but also Ankara, even if with a smaller share. Turkey wants a two-stage victory in Syria: first, an end of the support to the Syrian Kurds to ensure their influence does not reach inside Turkey; and second, a foothold in northern Syria such as at Manbij, he said. For many years, Turkey under the leadership of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan tried to overthrow Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, but al-Assad has now regained control over most of the territory that was under opposition control, and this has forced a rethink on the part of Ankara. Turkey also has a strong military presence in Manbij in northern Syria, which it wants to turn into a buffer zone. The Europeans are likely to lose the most in these circumstances, since they have been involved in the internal affairs of many countries under the pretext of fighting corruption and promoting human rights. Dozens of African countries have turned to China for more generous assistance, and China has contributed more to developing Africas infrastructure than decades of colonisation by the West. *A version of this article appears in print in the 1 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Containing the Khashoggi crisis Search Keywords: Short link: The U.S. Department of Education has awarded UC Irvine a $14.7-million grant to expand its literacy outreach program for middle and high school students. The five-year grant will fund the universitys Pathway to Academic Success Project, a multiyear professional development program for teachers. It has been implemented in 10 Southern California school districts in the past 20 years and will now be extended to Arizona, Illinois, Minnesota, Nevada, Texas and Wisconsin. The expansion will involve 240 teachers and 109,200 students in school districts affiliated with the National Writing Project. Only three programs in the nation were funded at this level, with Pathway being the highest-scoring, according to Richard Arum, dean of the School of Education at UCI. Its very exciting to see the federal government look to the UCI School of Education for scalable solutions to the nations problems, Arum said. The Pathway to Academic Success Project developed by Carol Booth Olson, a UCI professor of education and director of the UCI Writing Project has helped close achievement gaps in reading and writing among high-need students, including English-learners and students performing far below grade level, according to UCI officials. It was first launched in the Santa Ana Unified School District in 1996. The program uses an instructional approach called cognitive strategies, which Olson said reinforces the connections between reading and writing and can be implemented anywhere. It helps students develop their analytical and comprehension skills so theyre better prepared for post-secondary education, she said. This grant allows us to scale up and work with the National Writing Project, Olson said. We can leverage their reach and infrastructure to take what weve done successfully here in California and achieve similar results in other states and beyond. charity.lindsey@latimes.com Twitter @CharityNLindsey La Canadas public schools will be on the receiving end of more than $45,000 raised during an Oct. 28 event held at a private home, Marilyn Yang, executive director of the La Canada Flintridge Educational Foundation, announced Tuesday. The fourth annual Chinese Family Gathering drew over 40 guests to the home of hosts Vivian Li and Kevin Du for the Sunday afternoon fundraising soiree. During the last school year, the LCF Educational Foundation raised about $2.3 million for the La Canada Unified School District and, with this and other fundraisers undertaken so far, the organization has already made strides toward its $2.5 million goal for the 2018-19 school year. Lola Deitrich chaired the Chinese Family Gathering, along with help from LCUSD administrators Wendy Sinnette (superintendent of schools), Jim Cartnal and Kip Glazier. Foundation President Caroline Anderson thanked the volunteers and event supporters. A special thank you to Sylvan Learning Center, Glendale for their generous sponsorship of the event and to the exceptional team spirit, leadership and dedication of all who participated in making it happen, Yang said in the news statement. carol.cormaci@latimes.com Twitter: @CarolCormaci Some 35 miles north of Bakersfield, in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley, lies a family-owned business that grows, packs and ships grapes and other citrus fruit. Some 150 miles south of that, in Arcadia, is where the owners of the farm first discovered and nurtured a dream that eight years ago would have seemed impossible. Horse owners Kosta and Pete Hronis could be on the verge of winning their first Breeders Cup race. Theyve tried 12 times before, but this time they have two favorites. On Saturday, Catalina Cruiser, a 4-year-old who has only run four times, all wins, is the 8-5 favorite in the $1-million Dirt Mile. And Accelerate, voted the top horse currently running in this country, is the 5-2 favorite in the $6-million Classic. Their trainer, John Sadler, has a chance to break a zero-for-41 streak of non-winners in horse racings end-of-year Super Bowl. Advertisement I know [winning a Breeders Cup race] is really something hed like to have on his resume, Kosta Hronis said. For whatever reason it hasnt happened for him yet. The Hronis family would really be very honored to be part of that with John. Kosta, who plays Penn to his brothers Teller, has had this on his mind for a while. He said that in mid-August after Accelerate won the Pacific Classic at Del Mar. Previously, Accelerate won the Santa Anita Handicap and the Gold Cup and subsequently won the Awesome Again Stakes. It doesnt get any better than that in Southern California for older horses. Sadler shrugs off the streak. We have had a lot of success, Sadler said. We have been a lot of seconds and thirds in these races. So, we know whats going to happen at some point. The Hronis family grape and citrus business started in 1945. The Hronis brothers racing business started in 2010. What linked the two was Kosta and Petes grandparents, who settled in Pasadena. Thats where our mom was from,so wed go and visit grandma and grandpa they would take us to Santa Anita because grandma loved Santa Anita, Kosta said. So, we kind of grew up going to the track as little guys. We just fell in love with it. As years went on, we ended up with box seats, just on the weekends, and wed go and watch. Like most race track regulars, after a while they thought they knew a lot about the business. So, in February 2010, while sitting in their box seats, Kosta declared: I think we ought to claim a horse. We dont know how to do this, Pete shot back. Weve been around the track a long time and I think we understand it enough where we can probably get involved, Kosta responded. Well just get a horse and try it out and everything. Luckily for the Hronis brothers, a kindly Santa Anita usher interceded. Dont talk to anybody, lay low, keep your mouth shut, Kosta remembered the ushers instructions. When you come back next Saturday, Ill have an appointment for you. The next week, they were told that between races five and eight they would be introduced to Sadler. Im thinking John Sadler is not going to want to mess with a couple of Valley kids who want to claim a horse, Kosta said. Theres no chance. Hes got the [Jerry and Ann] Mosses, hes got Ike and Dawn Thrash. Hes got Jenny Craig. Theres no way were going to meet John Sadler. Yuvetsi owner Kosta Hronis, left, assistant trainer Juan Leyva, jockey Tyler Baze and trainer John Sadler celebrate after the horses victory in the Grade III, $100,000 Rancho Bernardo Handicap on Aug. 12. (Benoit Photo / Associated Press) But Sadler showed up, said he had a few open spots in his barn, and it was the start of a mutually beneficial relationship. Hes more than a trainer, Kosta said of Sadler. Hes trained the horses, but hes trained us in how to be owners. In 2010, we thought we knew stuff about the horse racing business. We knew nothing, we found out. Much like their farming business, the Hronis brothers have sought to both reinvest in and diversify their portfolio of horses. The horse that got them going was Lady Of Shamrock, bought in a private purchase out of a maiden race at Churchill Downs. She won seven of 18 races lifetime, and more than $600,000 in 2012. I guess if we got the fever, we got it through Lady Of Shamrock, Kosta said. The brothers have other success stories, such as Iotapa, whom they claimed for $50,000 and wound up in the Breeders Cup. Theyve also had Hard Aces and Stellar Wind. Theyve won almost $19 million in purses, not counting horses that they have a shared interest in. John makes all the decisions, Kosta said, Where were racing, what race were in, whos riding, where were going. We let John Sadler do his job. Hes the professional. We just listen to him. Were just kind of in the backseat of the car riding along with him. Also part of the team is bloodstock agent David Ingordo, who helps pick out the horses to buy. Obviously, its quite an honor to be playing at this level, Pete said. Were a couple of farm kids. We really came from nothing and fell in love with the horse racing business. So, weve been very fortunate to meet Mr. Sadler. But am I surprised about it? In a way, no. Pretty much what my brother and I decide to do, we do it. Sadler, as is his nature, takes little credit. The owners have been patient with me and Ive been patient with [the horses], Sadler said. Saturday, they are all hoping that patience will finally pay off in the Breeders Cup. Click here (or type in this url: lat.ms/2wVt90g) to sign up for our free horse racing newsletter. sports@latimes.com Forget stars homes. These tours visit pot growers and bong makers By Hugo Martin In Napa and Sonoma, tour bus operators ferry oenophiles between tasting rooms and vineyards. In Hollywood and environs, they shepherd the starstruck past the homes of the rich and famous. Now theyre giving customers a mind-expanding look at one of Los Angeles burgeoning industries: pot. Since recreational use of marijuana became legal a year ago, a pot tourism business has emerged, taking visitors behind the scenes of Californias estimated $7-billion cannabis industry. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Plans for a state-backed pot bank arent feasible, a study says By Sam Dean Hopes that California might create a public bank to serve the states legal marijuana industry are nothing but a pipe dream, the authors of a new feasibility study told state officials Thursday. In the end we were not able to find any approach to doing this that makes any sense whatsoever, said William Roetzheim, founder and chief executive of Level 4 Ventures, the consulting firm hired to carry out the study for the State Treasurers Cannabis Banking Working Group. California voters approved Proposition 64 in 2016 to legalize growing, possessing and selling marijuana for recreational use. But since cannabis remains illegal under federal law, most banks which are federally chartered and insured by the FDIC refuse to hold weed money. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Santa Cruz marijuana company fined $50,000 for explosion that badly burned employee By Hannah Fry A Santa Cruz-based marijuana manufacturing company is being fined more than $50,000 by state regulators for safety violations after an employee was severely burned in a propane explosion, officials have announced. An employee at Future2 Labs Health Services was working alone inside a 128-square-foot portable storage container in Watsonville on June 19, extracting oil from cannabis leaves with propane, when a spark ignited the tank and it exploded. The worker was hospitalized with severe burns, according to the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health. The process of using a highly flammable gas to extract oil from cannabis leaves is dangerous, Cal/OSHA Chief Juliann Sum said Thursday in a prepared statement. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print FDA casts shadow on hemp win, calling CBD products illegal By Associated Press The hemp industry still has work ahead to win legal status for hemp-derived cannabidiol, or CBD oil, as an ingredient in food or dietary supplements despite the big farm bill President Trump signed this week designating hemp as an agricultural crop. CBD oils have become increasingly popular in lotions, tinctures and foods, but their legal status has been murky and the Food and Drug Administration has sent warning letters to some companies making health claims for CBD. In a statement following Thursdays bill signing in Washington, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb restated his agencys stance that CBD is a drug ingredient and therefore illegal to add to food or health products without approval from his agency. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement One year of legal pot sales and California doesnt have the bustling industry it expected. Heres why By Patrick McGreevy When Californians voted in 2016 to allow the sale of recreational marijuana, advocates of the move envisioned thousands of pot shops and cannabis farms obtaining state licenses, making the drug easily available to all adults within a short drive. But as the first year of licensed sales comes to a close, Californias legal market hasnt performed as state officials and the cannabis industry had hoped. Retailers and growers say theyve been stunted by complex regulations, high taxes and decisions by most cities to ban cannabis shops. At the same time, many residents are going to city halls and courts to fight pot businesses they see as nuisances, and police chiefs are raising concerns about crime triggered by the marijuana trade. Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, who played a large role in the legalization of cannabis, will inherit the numerous challenges when he takes office in January as legislators hope to send him a raft of bills next year to provide banking for the pot industry, ease the tax burden on retailers and crack down on sales to minors. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Hemp is about to be legal under the 2018 farm bill. You cant get high from it but you can wear it By Kurtis Lee Hemp a close relative of marijuana that can be used to make textiles and other products has long been classified as a Schedule I drug by the federal government. Thats set to change. President Trump is soon expected to sign a farm bill that includes a section that legalizes the commercial cultivation of hemp nationwide. The bill, years in the making, comes as public support for cannabis legalization has increased over the years, offering a cover of sorts to politicians who see the potential for boosting state tax revenue. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Students sent home after Marysville middle schooler brings pot brownies for class to eat By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde Several students at a middle school in Marysville, Calif., were sent home this week after eating marijuana-laced brownies, officials said. Staff at Anna McKenney Intermediate School called police Wednesday morning after learning that a 13-year-old girl had passed out the brownies to her classmates, said Marysville Police Sgt. Jason Garringer. Nine students were sent home, Garringer said, but no one who ate the brownies showed obvious signs of being under the influence. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Mistletoke, luxe vape cases and other gift suggestions for the cannabis enthusiast on your nice list By Adam Tschorn Now that some form of cannabis use is legal in 33 U.S. states and the District of Columbia and Californias era of legal adult-use weed is almost a year old (though it remains illegal under federal law), its easier than ever to find a little something special for the cannabis consumer on your nice list. Below are a few items that with the exception of the first item which is available in L.A. only are legal, widely available and, if ordered soon, can still be under the tree in the U.S. by Christmas Day. For those who want to do good while feeling good and score a little holiday decor at the same time L.A.-based Zoma Cannabis is prepared to send some lucky L.A. residents a limited-edition floral-meets-cannabis Mistletoke arrangement that intertwines sprigs of mistletoe with three trimmed buds (roughly five grams total) of its Santa Cruz-grown True OG and/or Gelato strain cannabis flower all tied up in a big red Santa-worthy bow. No purchase is necessary, but recipients are highly encouraged to make a donation to the charity reforestation group One Tree Planted to aid in the recovery efforts from the 2017 and 2018 California fires. Zoma will match donations dollar for dollar. Each dollar donated means one tree gets planted, and that means the green you donate for its green means a greener Golden State moving forward. Zoma is set to deliver the decor right to your door if you live in L.A., are over the age of 21 and are one of the first 50 folks to fire off an email to info@zomacannabis.com with the word Mistletoke in the subject line. Supplies willing, orders placed as late as Dec. 20 will arrive in time to make your Christmas very merry indeed. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement 3 marijuana businesses win OK in Costa Mesa as another is put on hold By Bradley Zint The Costa Mesa Planning Commission this week approved three new marijuana facilities but postponed a decision on a fourth due to the absence of one commissioner, whose vote likely will decide the fate of the business. After two commissioners expressed support and two expressed opposition for Triiads proposal for a marijuana distribution facility, the panel voted 3-1 on Monday night, with Commissioner Jeffrey Harlan absent, to hold a special meeting Monday to reexamine the matter. Commissioner Carla Navarro Woods dissented. The proposed location at 3525 Hyland Ave., Suite 265, is in Hyland Plaza, north of South Coast Collection in an area identified under city law as permissible for marijuana uses. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Marlboro cigarette maker places a $2.4-billion bet on marijuana By Associated Press Altria Group Inc., one of the worlds biggest tobacco companies, is diving into the cannabis market with a $2.4 billion buy-in. The Marlboro cigarette maker is taking a 45% stake in Cronos Group Inc., the Canadian medical and recreational marijuana provider said Friday. Altria will pay an additional $1.4 billion for warrants that, if exercised, would give Altria a 55% ownership stake in the Toronto company. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Utah voters approved medical marijuana in November. State lawmakers just passed big changes to the ballot measure By Associated Press Lawmakers in Utah passed sweeping changes Monday to a voter-approved medical marijuana ballot measure under a planned compromise that secured the support of the influential Mormon Church but sparked a backlash from pot advocates. Supporters of the compromise cheered the vote, saying it would help suffering patients while creating safeguards against broader recreational use. I believe this agreement was a landmark day for our state, and we are helping people, said outgoing Republican House Speaker Greg Hughes, who sponsored the legislation and helped bring together the players for talks. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Los Angeles County sheriffs deputy, two others arrested on drug charges after heist at pot warehouse By Maya Lau The Los Angeles sheriffs deputy pulled up to the pot-filled warehouse just after three in the morning. He held up an official-looking document to a guard, who promptly unlocked a gate. The deputy and two other men, each of them armed and dressed in sheriffs jackets, got out. After locking the guard and two other employees in the back of the deputys SUV, the men went to work lugging bags of marijuana from the warehouse. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Cannary West dispensary to host Higher Standards pop-up shop Saturday through Feb. 28 By Adam Tschorn The Higher Standards X Cannary West pop-up is slated to run from Saturday through Feb. 28. (Higher Standards) Following its successful (and still running) pop-up space inside the Pottery dispensary in L.A.s Mid-City, purveyor of luxury-level cannabis accoutrements Higher Standards has announced plans to take up temporary residence inside the Cannary West dispensary in the Rancho Park neighborhood just in time for the holidays. On track to pop-up on Saturday (with a 20% opening day discount) and run through the end of February, itll serve up a similar curated mix of high-end smoking tools and accessories from brands like Marley Naturals, Grav Labs, Dr. Dabber and Puffco (makers of the futuristic-looking Peak dab rig) as well as home goods for the discerning head by Jonathan Adler, Malin+Goetz and Forestry Wool. Higher Standards X Cannary West Where: 2435 Military Ave., Los Angeles. Entry is restricted to those 21 and older. Hours: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays from Saturday through Feb. 28. Info: cannarywest.com, higherstandards.com Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print I fell off the way. A charismatic pastor-turned-marijuana smuggler heads to prison By Kristina Davis On Easter Sunday 2007, Pastor John Lee Bishop drew about 15,000 worshipers to a sports arena in Portland, Ore. With a flair for showmanship, Bishop a jeans-clad minister sporting a youthful, moppish haircut relished building buzz around his Living Hope Church, based in Vancouver, Wash., on the north bank of the Columbia River. One time, it was bringing a Bengal tiger onstage. Another, according to an account in the Columbian newspaper, it was advertising a sermon series with the word sex prominently facing a busy street. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print For all your weed needs, theres now a pot superstore in Las Vegas By David Montero The employee in the red shirt counseled the two men on what or what not to buy. Now, if you start thinking dolphins are talking to you, that might be too much, she explained. The two young men nodded slowly. One stroked his beard. Neither had ever talked to dolphins before. Or even yelled at them on Sundays when they play against the New England Patriots. Above them, the continuous light show on the ceiling was like an electric lava lamp orbs expanding and dividing in an endless trip. Then it was gone and replaced by flowers and a Saturn-like planet floating in the sky. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement 4 more marijuana permit applications await Costa Mesa Planning Commission review By Luke Money The recent parade of permit applications from marijuana manufacturing and distribution businesses looking to open in Costa Mesa will continue next week, when the city Planning Commission is scheduled to review four more. All the requests on Mondays agenda are for conditional use permits, which are among several approvals required to open a cannabis company in the city. Here is the latest lineup of applicants: Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print With Jeff Sessions out at the Justice Dept., the marijuana movement exhales By Kurtis Lee He described marijuana as a very real danger and has said its effects are only slightly less awful than those of heroin. Once, during a drug hearing when he was a Senator, he said he wanted to send a clear message: Good people dont smoke marijuana. So when Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions was ousted recently, a collective sigh of relief rose up from proponents of legalized pot activists, politicians, investors who felt targeted by the nations top law enforcement officer. Sessionss departure has translated into spiking stocks for cannabis companies and a reset of sorts for the legalization movement which, since 2012, has seen nearly a dozen states pass recreational pot measures. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print This is what a cannabis executives party pad looks like By Kavita Daswani Dont expect to find bongs, water pipes and empty packets of Funyuns at the Los Angeles-area home of Will Htun. When we asked to look inside the home of the CEO of cannabis brand Sherbinskis, we found a sleek and minimal space where he could host chef-catered, cannabis-paired dinners on the rooftop and take meetings in a high-ceilinged front room. Htun, 34, moved into the 2,700-square-foot townhouse in July 2016, after he and brand founder Mario Sherbinski, who is based in San Francisco, decided it would make an ideal live/work space. With its three en-suite bedrooms, Htun opens up the home to associates in town for business instead of housing them in a serviced apartment. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print First recreational pot shops in Eastern U.S. to open in Massachusetts By Associated Press Two marijuana stores in Massachusetts have been given the green light to begin selling to recreational customers, making them the first commercial pot shops in the eastern United States. Both stores, one located in Northampton and the other in Leicester, said they would open Tuesday morning after the Cannabis Control Commission, the states marijuana regulatory agency, on Friday authorized them to begin operations. The announcement ended a long wait for commercial sales to begin in Massachusetts. The states voters legalized the use of recreational marijuana by adults 21 and older in 2016, but its taken more than two years for state legislators and regulators to reach the point where the first stores can finally open. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Heres whats behind Mexicos radical move toward legalizing marijuana during its war on drugs By Kate Linthicum Mexico may soon legalize marijuana, a radical shift for a country whose prohibition on narcotics has been at the heart of its long and violent war against drug traffickers. Legislation submitted to Congress last week by the party of leftist President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador would regulate cannabis, allowing it to be grown, sold and consumed for recreational use. Proponents of legalization say it would reduce bloodshed in Mexico by weakening drug cartels and freeing up police officers and prosecutors to focus on more serious crimes. But the proposal has critics, including the Catholic Church, which holds significant sway in Mexican politics. A poll in Mexico last year showed a majority of respondents opposed legalizing marijuana. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Curious about all the CBD-infused products you see? By Kavita Daswani Some chew it, or place a few drops under the tongue or let it soak in through the skin. There are numerous ways to consume cannabidiol better known as CBD. Its touted for its therapeutic effects, but, unlike its better-known cousin THC, does not get you high. Hemp-derived CBD is increasingly in the limelight these days, at natural products stores and even fashion boutiques, catering to widening demand from consumers who find it helps them with pain, anxiety and insomnia. Despite Californias marijuana-friendly laws, however, the state announced earlier this year it is waiting for the federal government to rule on the use of CBD oils and products before giving the green light to sales. Critics, meanwhile, have been asking for clarity, to help consumers who want options. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print 6 cannabis cookbooks with recipes from basic to gourmet By Amy Scattergood As cannabis is legalized although it remains illegal under federal law and goes mainstream in California and other states, the cookbook industry has churned into high gear with books on what ways to use jazz cabbage beyond the bong. What to look for? A lot depends on your level of expertise not just in the kitchen but with cannabis itself. If youve been making batches of pot brownies and want to expand your repertoire to, say, French macarons, there are cookbooks to help you out. Many books have lengthy introductions that outline the specifics of cooking with cannabis, so find one that fits with what you know or dont know. Bong Appetit: Mastering the Art of Cooking With Weed by the editors of Munchies (Ten Speed Press, $30) This book, based on the Munchies and Viceland television series Bong Appetit, was published in October by Ten Speed Press. (This is in itself notable, as Ten Speed is one of the best cookbook publishers around, and continues the legitimate trajectory of the cannabis cooking genre.) The book has a comprehensive introduction that includes topics such as dosing, techniques, methods of decarboxylation and infusion, cannabis pairing tips, questions to ask your dispensary, tips on equipment and more. The recipes are sourced from the Munchies test kitchen and from many well-known chefs, whose recipes are recalibrated to add cannabis. Thus: Korean fried chicken from Deuki Hong of San Franciscos Sunday Bird; fried soft-shell crab with shishito pepper mole from Daniela Soto-Innes of Cosme and Atla; and (my favorite) Joan Nathans preserved lemons. The Munchies test kitchen also has some fun ones, including herb focaccia with, well, herb; and confit octopus, in which a whole octopus is poached in cannabis-infused olive oil. If that sounds too aspirational, there are instructions for making an apple bong a hollowed-out apple filled with weed-infused mezcal at the end of the drinks chapter. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Sativa or indica? CBD or THC? What to know before cooking with cannabis By Brette Warshaw Dont know the difference between MSG and THC? Heres a guide to the terminology youll encounter. Cannabis sativa and cannabis indica are two of the three species of cannabis. (The third species, cannabis ruderalis, is less attractive due to its smaller stature and low concentration of THC.) Sativa is a warm-weather species characterized by tall plants and thin leaves. The plant takes 10 to 15 weeks to mature and is known for a cerebral, energetic and invigorating high thats particularly suited for daytime use. Medically, it can be used to help people with depression and chronic pain. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement California pot tax revenue improves but is still short of projections (Mathew Sumner / Associated Press) The amount of money collected by the state from taxes on cannabis grown and sold legally in California continues to increase but is still falling short of budget estimates, according to figures released Wednesday. Tax revenue reported from the cannabis industry totaled $93.1 million for the three months ending Sept. 30, according to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. That is an increase from the $80.2 million collected during the second quarter of the year. If revenue continues to grow by the same 16% per quarter, pot taxes will bring in $471 million during the fiscal year that began July 1, while the budget approved by the governor and Legislature estimates the taxes would bring in $630 million during the fiscal year. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Eaze launches (nearly) nationwide delivery of hemp-derived CBD products By Adam Tschorn Eaze Wellness offers non-psychoactive CBD products derived from hemp. (Eaze) Eaze, the San Francisco-based technology platform thats been coordinating dispensary-to-consumer home deliveries of cannabis in Los Angeles since April, has expanded its reach for CBD-containing products, that is to most of the United States. (CBD, a.k.a cannabidiol, is a cannabis compound said to have anti-inflammatory and anti-anxiety properties but none of the high associated with THC. These claims have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.) Through the just-launched Eaze Wellness website, consumers over the age of 21 in 41 states and the District of Columbia can order a range of hemp-derived CBD tinctures, tablets, balms, bath bombs, patches, vape pens and pet products for delivery within four to six days. (Shipping is free for orders $50 and up; otherwise, itll cost you $5.) Much like its in-state marijuana-delivery service, which coordinates deliveries with local dispensaries, Eaze isnt doing the shipping itself, but rather working with a third-party partner to get goods from brands such as Plant People, Cannuka, BeTru Wellness and Vital Leaf from point A to point B. Although the laws surrounding the legality of CBD are murky at best (a loophole in federal law has been widely interpreted as making CBD derived from hemp grown for research purposes legal), one point B that Eaze Wellness wont be coordinating shipping to is its home state of California. (The company cites state regulations as the reason.) Yes, California, where cannabis even the kind that gets you high has been legal under state law since the beginning of the year. Additional information is available at www.eazewellness.com. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print What THC-infused edibles are most popular? Fruit-flavored gummies and chocolate-covered coffee beans for starters By Adam Tschorn Nearly a year in to the state-legal cannabis scene, theres no shortage of THC-infused items on the market for 21-and-older consumers, from sachets of herbal tea and cans of citrus-flavored soda to honey mustard pretzels, with analysts and dispensary owners seeing it as a growing side of the business. Since recreational use was legalized in January, edibles have seen a 20%-30% hike in sales, said Nick Danias, managing partner of the Pottery and Cannary West dispensaries in Los Angeles, who added that edibles have proved particularly popular with new cannabis users who might be reluctant to start experimenting by smoking cannabis flower. Edibles companies have been able to offer consumers micro dosing that allows for a controlled amount of THC to be ingested, he said. (State law requires that edibles be portioned or scored into servings that contain no more than 10 milligrams of THC per piece and no more than 100 milligrams of THC per package.) Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print 5 more marijuana permit applications await Costa Mesa Planning Commission By Luke Money The torrent of applications from marijuana manufacturing and distribution facilities looking to open in Costa Mesa continues Thursday, when city planning commissioners will review five more during a special meeting. Should the commission grant all the requested conditional use permits, it would bring the total number of marijuana facilities with such approvals to 22 including nine in the past month. The applications up for review this time are: Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Two shot and killed in Koreatown marijuana dispensary By James Queally Two people were shot and killed early Monday morning after gunfire erupted inside a Koreatown marijuana dispensary, authorities said. Officers responded to reports of a shooting in the 400 block of Western Avenue in Koreatown around 4:20 a.m. Monday, according to a statement issued by the Los Angeles Police Department. There, they found a locked and sealed marijuana dispensary, according to the statement. A female employee told police she and several customers were inside the dispensary when they heard gunshots in the waiting room. They fled through the back of the building, and when officers gained entry, they found two people who were pronounced dead at the scene. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Party of Mexicos president-elect wants to legalize marijuana By Associated Press The party of Mexicos president-elect submitted legislation Thursday that would legalize marijuana possession, public use, growing and sales. Sen. Olga Sanchez Cordero presented the measure, saying that everyone should have the right to carry up to 30 grams [1 ounce] of cannabis. People could carry more than an ounce if they obtained a permit to do so under the proposal. From the point of view of negative effects, there is no reason why marijuana should not be legal, if alcohol and tobacco are, according to the bill. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Want to grow your own marijuana? This class will show you how By Jeanette Marantos California law lets anyone over 21 grow up to six marijuana plants in their yard or home, as long as the plants are not accessible to the public. (Check your City Hall for any additional local rules.) Unsure how to start? Check out Fig Earth Supplys two-hour workshops, Cannabis Cultivation for the Home Grower, on Nov. 10 or Nov. 17, taught by professional cannabis growers. Attendees must be at least 21. No plants or seeds will be sold. Workshops cost $95 and start at 5 p.m. at 3577 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles. More info: figearthsupply.com Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Whats that smell? Survey asks Venice Beach denizens if theyre vexed by odor of marijuana By Joseph Serna They descended on free-wheeling Venice Beach with clipboards and questions in hand. Their goal: to gauge humanitys tolerance for the smell and sight of public pot smoking. Akbar Karriem considered them ridiculous. Everybody be smoking, Karriem said as he sat on the boardwalk and lit a marijuana pipe. Its part of the culture here. Its like a religion. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Las Vegas newest and biggest pot shop aims to entertain By Jay Jones Prepare to be entertained at Las Vegas newest and biggest cannabis store a mile west of the Strip. Planet 13 combines light shows and fog-making fountains to wow visitors at the shop, which sells recreational pot, cannabis extracts and cannabis-infused products. The idea is to meld a cannabis shop with an entertainment complex. Visitors, who must be at least 21, can change the colors of 13 giant LED-lighted lotus flowers blooming on the roof of the building. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print CBD-infused products are being sold everywhere in California but are they legal? By Laura Newberry Greg and Gary Avetisyan make no secret of it: They proudly sell all manner of products infused with CBD, from essential oils to bath bombs to fruity tea-like beverages that promise calming relief in a frantic world. CBD, short for cannabidiol, is a molecule derived from cannabis. But unlike its chemical cousin THC, it wont get you high. What it might do, according to some research, is alleviate anxiety, seizures, chronic pain and dozens of other ailments. The Avetisyan brothers belief in the alleged benefits of the extract is so steadfast that they opened Californias first CBD-only store, Topikal, in Tarzana last year and opened a second along the Venice Beach boardwalk in April. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Review: Documentary Weed the People looks at cannabis and pediatric cancer By Kimber Myers An urgent cry for help, Weed the People explores the effects of cannabis on pediatric cancer, as well as the establishments disinterest in researching its efficacy. With the lack of scientific studies available, Abby Epsteins moving documentary primarily devotes its time to five children and their families who are trying to survive using the alternative treatment. Weed the People doesnt ease into its multi-story narrative, wasting no time in sharing the stories of these kids with cancer. With parents desperate for their children to feel better, they turn to medical marijuana to ease the pain, as well as directly addressing the cancer cells. Without studies and lack of nationwide legalization, there is little regulation in the industry. Enter Mara Gordon, a former process engineer who brings precision and rigor to her medical cannabis company, offering the families hope for healing. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Denver verdict on pot odor and property values could discourage homeowners from filing RICO lawsuits By Associated Press A Colorado jury likely threw cold water on future legal challenges against cannabis companies by homeowners who consider filing racketeering lawsuits alleging that proximity to pot operations hurts their property values, analysts and industry lawyers said Thursday. A federal jury in Denver on Wednesday rejected claims involving the odor from a pot farm made in a case that was closely watched by the marijuana industry. It was the first such lawsuit to reach a jury. Three others are pending in California, Massachusetts and Oregon. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Santa Barbara County Sheriffs Office makes its largest seizure of illegal marijuana plants By Joseph Serna An estimated 400,000 marijuana plants were destroyed by Santa Barbara County sheriffs investigators this week in what authorities are calling the countys largest seizure of pot plants at one site. The plants were hidden among farmland in Santa Maria and discovered by sheriffs investigators on Monday, the sheriffs office said in a statement. The crop belonged to a resident who, authorities said, had applied for a temporary state cannabis license using false information and did not have a valid cannabis license. Investigators found the 400,000 plants in various levels of maturity and tapped state Department of Fish and Wildlife personnel to help in the case. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Is Rohrabacher trying to lose Republican voters by caving on marijuana policy? To the editor: I was disappointed to read in a column on voters trying to flip an Orange County congressional district that Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) wants to weaken federal laws against marijuana. Recently-approved state laws legalizing marijuana have not been beneficial. In Colorado, following the legalization of recreational marijuana, the number of traffic fatalities involving marijuana-impaired drivers more than doubled. Surveys have found a majority of marijuana users in Colorado do not believe driving high is dangerous, leading some to get behind the wheel impaired. As a retired law enforcement officer who has had the opportunity to work with people impacted by drug addiction, and as a lifelong Republican, I feel Rohrabacher is making a mistake. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Berners Melrose birthday bash celebrates a new dispensary and a collaboration with the G Pen Gio By Adam Tschorn The Cookies dispensary at 8360 Melrose Ave. celebrated its grand opening on Saturday. (Grenco Science) On Saturday morning, the lines were stretching around the corner and down the block outside the bright blue Beverly Grove storefront with the word Cookies above the door. The enthusiastic members of the crowd werent queued up for baked goods, though. They were waiting to get into a new cannabis dispensary and to help celebrate the birthday of its founding partner, Bay Area rapper and entrepreneur Berner (born Gilbert Millam Jr.). Minimalist, awash in natural light and appointed in the brands blue and white color scheme and emblazoned with the cookie-with-a-bite-missing logo, it marks the second Cookies dispensary in Los Angeles County; the first, Cookies Los Angeles, is located in Maywood. Like that one, its stocked with a wide variety of cannabis flower, oils, edibles and the like, with a particular emphasis on the proprietary strains from the Cookie Family collective (the growers who originated the strain formerly known as Girl Scout Cookies as well as other dessert-named strains such as Gelato and Sunset Sherbet). It also stocks three different Cookies-logoed colors (blue, white and black) of the new G Pen Gio ($29.95), a vaporizer pen that uses cannabis concentrate cartridges for a super-simple, draw-activated plug-and-puff experience. The Cookies G Pen Gio from Grenco Science x Berner collaboration officially launched at the Saturday Berner bash, and includes Gio cannabis-oil cartridges filled with Gelato, London Poundcake, Sunset Sherbet or Snowman strains ($60 for 500 mg, which Tim Patenaude, Grencos vice president of marketing, says marks the first time those Cookie strains have been commercially available as concentrates. (Gio pod cartridges are now available at 500 dispensaries across 12 states, according to Patenaude, including MedMen, BARC and the Pottery locally, as well as through the Eaze delivery service.) Shown are Berners blue-and-white birthday cake, left, and vape pens and cartridges from his Cookies G Pen Gio collaboration. (Grenco Science) Patenaude says the partnership with Berner has its roots in Grencos 2014 partnership with another rapper Wiz Khalifa (Wiz Khalifas weed guy was Berner, Patenaude said, and thats how we first met him.). He calls Berner the most important person in cannabis today, citing not only Berner and his partners wildly successful strains, but the rapper/entrepreneurs brand-building abilities outside of the cannabis space. His Cookies clothing label is sold in every Zumiez in every mall in America, Patenaude said. In a chat with the Los Angeles Times Rolling Paper, Berner said that the Cookies SF streetwear label he launched out of his garage less than a decade ago saw $12.8 million in revenue in 2017 and that hes aiming to open a store next door to the dispensary hopefully in time for the Black Friday shopping season. (Theres currently a single flagship store in San Francisco.) He also said the dispensary opening bash was a good way to usher in his 35th year on the planet. Man, I couldnt be happier, he said. Were turning [over] customers left and right, theres no holdup anywhere, everyone is super-juiced and there was a line down the block and wrapped around [the corner] at 6 a.m. You cant ask for anything else. Cookies Melrose, 8360 Melrose Ave. (at North Kings Road), Los Angeles. Additional information on the G Pen Gio (including local availability) is at gpen.com. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print 2 Chainz wants to put a THC tiger in your tank with his new cannabis brand Gas By Adam Tschorn Rapper 2 Chainz attends the launch party for Gas, his fuel-themed cannabis line now available in flower and pre-rolled joints. (Adam Tschorn / Los Angeles Times) Rolling into the Friday launch party for his new cannabis brand Gas, the first thing Grammy-winning rapper 2 Chainz did was brandish a joint in one hand and a smartphone in the other to record the rows of boldly packaged cannabis flower and pre-rolled joints in a video to share with his 5.7 million Instagram followers. The second thing he did was stand back and take in the moment. I cant believe it, thats why I was over here just trying to take it all in, 2 Chainz said about seeing all the green, yellow and black plastic pouches filled with marijuana, and a jerrycan converted into a display tray overflowing with green buds. Ive been told for over a year that we were doing this line, so now Im just trying to live in the moment. I dont do that a lot. The launch party took place at the Mid-Wilshire offices of Green Street Agency, a cannabis-focused branding and licensing company that is one of the rappers two Southern California partners in the venture. The other is L.A.-based Mazel Management Group (owners of the Westside Station dispensary in Van Nuys). Before joining the throng of well-wishers, industry friends and employees dressed in logo-emblazoned overalls, 2 Chainz (born Tauheed Epps), chatted with the Los Angeles Times Rolling Paper about his new project, how cannabis branding is like music and what took so long for the project to come to fruition. (Hint: There was lots of taste-testing). The Rolling Paper: Where does the name of your line Gas come from and what does it mean? 2 Chainz: Its Atlanta lingo that we use that basically signifies that this is a stronger type of flower a stronger cannabis. Ive been saying it since I came into the rap game and Ive used it in a few verses of a few songs. At first people were like: What do you mean by [the line] gas in the ashtray? After it caught on and basically went mainstream, I figured why veer off from what got me here? So we started a legal line of cannabis called Gas. TRP: Ive heard that you were pretty picky in the development process. 2C: It took months and months and about 30 different kinds of [cannabis] flower. I think I was looking for that first impression that first pull how it made me feel. Were there fireworks or no fireworks? What kind of memory did it create? Thats what I was looking for. TRP: The three different types of flower youre launching with dont have names but numbers 87, 89 and 93 are those supposed to be kind of like octane ratings but for marijuana? 2C: Thats a great way of describing it. The 87, for example [a Petrol OG hybrid, with a THC content of 14%] is for functioning throughout the day, [and for] people who are on the go [or] at work and cant get that whole indica sleepy feeling during the middle of the day. I think 87 will be sufficient. The 89 [a Sour Gas hybrid, 17% THC] is for when people go out for cocktails after work, when they want to get ready for the wind-down it signifies the medium [strength]. And the 93 [an indica called Gods Fuel No. 2 with a THC level of 20%] Id definitely say is the strongest. Thats for night-night. TRP: How did the fuel theme and octane ratings and all that evolve from the name? 2C: I approached this the way I do in my music which was come up with the concept and follow all the way through with it. So, when you have Gas, you have to have the gas cans and the imagery that actually represents the gas pumps and things that tie in to the brand itself. I think that gives it legs gives it a little more substance and sustainability. And I used these colors because I knew they would be very catching and appealing to the eye and I know that I will kind of have to muscle my way in as far as getting where I need to be on [dispensary] shelves these days. I figure I could be on the back of the shelf and you could still see this green, this yellow and this black packaging. Gas prices range from $12 to $14 (for 1-gram pre-rolled joints) and $36 to $48 for 3.5 gram packages of flower. Currently available at Westside Station, 7022 Valjean Ave., Van Nuys. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement A chemical found in liverwort has surprising similarities to the THC in marijuana By Noga Tarnopolsky Its an amazing plant that produces hypnotic effects, according to online testimonials. Some people who have ingested it or inhaled its smoke say it gave them a mild, marijuana-like high. Now scientists have weighed in. In experiments with more than 100 mice, they found that chemicals in the liverwort plant produced four of the same key effects as THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. An hour after being injected with the experimental chemicals, the mice entered a trance-like state, lost some of their ability to move, became less responsive to pain and experienced a drop in body temperature, according to a study published this week in the journal Science Advances. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Hours-long standoff at Tarzana weed dispensary ends after police learn building is empty By Hailey Branson-Potts The police standoff lasted more than six hours, shutting down a busy six-lane stretch of Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana for most of the evening. An armed robbery suspect, authorities said, had barricaded himself inside an illegal marijuana dispensary in a strip mall in the 18300 block of Ventura Boulevard. He was believed to be one of four suspects and was thought to have a female hostage. But when officers searched the building after 8:20 p.m., there was no one inside, said Officer Mike Lopez, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print State officials decline to drop plan to allow home deliveries of pot in California cities that ban marijuana stores Cities and law enforcement leaders say a state proposal to allow pot delivery to homes would increase crime. (Mathew Sumner / Associated Press) Despite objections from cities and police chiefs, state officials on Friday declined to drop a proposal allowing marijuana firms to deliver to homes everywhere in California, including in areas that have banned pot shops. The proposed rule, which was made public in July, was opposed by the League of California Cities, which represents the states 482 municipalities, and the California Police Chiefs Assn., which said it would jeopardize public safety. But the state Bureau of Cannabis Control announced Friday that it is moving forward with the proposed rule after a series of public hearings and after weighing hundreds of comments from residents and interested parties. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print San Diego plans to crack down on marijuana ads, especially billboards By David Garrick San Diego officials say they plan to crack down on marijuana advertising, particularly the billboard ads that have become increasingly common with recreational use of the drug now legal in California. Legislation proposed by City Councilman Chris Cate aims to keep marijuana billboard ads out of areas where young people congregate and to prevent illegal marijuana businesses from advertising anywhere. The proposal, which would go beyond relatively new state laws that govern marijuana advertising, will be included in a series of city code updates that Mayor Kevin Faulconers staff plans to present to the City Council next year. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Drinking before a flight is common. Now some fliers are turning to pot before takeoff By Hugo Martin Commercial flights can be so stressful cramped seats, delays, turbulence, loud seatmates that more than 60% of travelers in a recent survey said they down a drink or two before heading to the airport. But the survey by a drug treatment organization found that nearly as many fliers are now turning to marijuana to relax before getting on a plane. The online survey of 1,137 people who have flown in the past year was taken by Florida-based Delphi Behavioral Health Group. It found that nearly 30% of respondents said they had smoked marijuana and another 25% had consumed pot-infused snacks before arriving at an airport. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Marijuana issues dominate Costa Mesa Planning Commission agenda By Luke Money Cannabis-related companies will be front and center in Costa Mesa again Monday, when city planning commissioners will consider four applications for proposed marijuana manufacturing and distribution facilities. Should the Planning Commission OK all the requests, it would bring the number of marijuana businesses with city-approved conditional use permits to 17. First up will be Aureus LLC, which is looking to open in a 5,556-square-foot industrial space at 3505 Cadillac Ave., Building A. The company proposes to manufacture cannabis concentrates, particularly oils intended for use in vaporizer cartridges, according to city planning documents. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Canada is now the worlds largest legal marijuana marketplace By Associated Press 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. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Bloom Farms doubles its meal donations on Oct. 16 in observance of World Food Day By Adam Tschorn Bloom Farms Pineapple Single Origin vape cartridge is a World Food Day exclusive that will be available only in October. (Bloom Farms) In recognition of the United Nations designation of Oct. 16 as World Food Day 2018, Oakland-based cannabis company Bloom Farms is doubling its usual meal-donation-per-sale for purchase made through the Eaze delivery service (which is doing its part by offering a day-long 20% discount on all Bloom Farms products) as well as participating dispensaries statewide (including Buds & Roses, Urban Treez and Green Dot locally). The company says that since 2014 it has donated about 1.4 million meals to food banks statewide through its one-for-one program, with a goal of donating 5 million meals. World Harvest Food Bank in Los Angeles and the San Diego Food Bank are among the SoCal beneficiaries of the Bloom Farm donations. Although the double-down on meal donations lasts only one day, Bloom Farms has a couple of slightly less time-sensitive promotions to raise awareness and drive donations in furtherance of the U.N.s mission of a zero-hunger world by 2030. One is a partnership with vaporizer maker Pax which has pledged $10,000 to fund meal donations that includes a free Pax Era vape pen (custom-engraved on-site) with the purchase of two Bloom Farms Pax pods at special dispensary events throughout the month, the second is an exclusive, October-only Pineapple Single Origin vape cartridge that, after the purchase of any two Bloom Farms products can be purchased for just a penny. Additional information and a calendar of dispensary events and demonstrations can be found at getbloomfarms.com/events. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Screened at U.S. border, Canadians who are honest about using marijuana could be banned from the U.S. By Kurtis Lee Bill Powers flipped through the sworn statement he gave to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the printed pages taking him back to that August afternoon back to the border checkpoint into Washington state where agents asked if he had ever smoked marijuana. Yes, he answered, not initially thinking much of the question. The 57-year-old Canadian has a license for medical marijuana, and pot had been legal in Washington for six years. Like that, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents turned him away with an extreme decree: He had been banned from the United States. Its absolutely out of control. Here I am being honest with the United States and I get the boot, Powers said on a recent afternoon as he stood in his driveway in this farming town an hour east of Vancouver. I have a license yet theyre turning people away for pot? It makes not a single bit of sense. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Newport mayor says he wants to sell his boat factory site, not grow marijuana on it By Hillary Davis Despite having local and state approvals to cultivate or distribute medical marijuana on the site of his boat factory in San Bernardino County, Newport Beach Mayor Marshall Duffy Duffield says he isnt a pot farmer. Rather, he says, he sought the entitlements to make the property more attractive to buyers so he can move his factory to Utah. Duffield said in a statement emailed to the Daily Pilot on Sunday that he split his 4.7-acre property in Adelanto into thirds and sought a cannabis distribution permit from the California Bureau of Cannabis Control to take advantage of increased property values that followed Adelantos passage of a medicinal cultivation ordinance in 2015 and creation of a cultivation zone in 2016 that later expanded to include the factory site. As a property owner, I am trying to maximize the value to sell the land, not grow pot, Duffield said. I am actively manufacturing electric boats at the plant and there is no room to be growing pot. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print NHL: Legal pot in Canada wont affect league policy By Associated Press Now a handful of years into retirement from more than a decade of junior and pro hockey, former enforcer Riley Cote is a proponent of cannabis and its oils as an alternative to more addictive drugs commonly used by athletes to play through pain. Marijuana can be detected in a persons system for more than 30 days, is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency without a specific therapeutic use exemption and is illegal in much of the United States. Canada on Wednesday will become the largest country in the world to legalize recreational marijuana. That means it will be available under the law in seven more NHL cities (its been legal to adults in Denver since 2012). The move is a step forward for those who, like Cote, believe marijuana has been stigmatized and should be accepted as a form of treatment. It was so tainted for a long time, Ottawa Senators forward Matt Duchene said. And now people are starting to learn a little bit more about it and there is definitely some positive uses to different elements of it. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Costa Mesa council to review marijuana permit decision By Luke Money Costa Mesas review process for marijuana-related businesses will enter uncharted territory Tuesday when the City Council takes a second look at an earlier decision to award a required permit. So far, whats separated this particular application by Pivot Naturals LLC from the dozen other marijuana manufacturing and distribution facilities that previously sailed through City Hall isnt so much the question of whether the business should be allowed to open, but when. City planning commissioners decided last month to grant the business a conditional use permit to operate within a 5,283-square-foot industrial space in Suite 101 at 3595 Cadillac Ave. However, they added a new wrinkle by restricting hours to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Business linked to Newport mayor paid councilman to help create marijuana facility in Inland Empire, records show By Hillary Davis A business linked to Newport Beach Mayor Marshall Duffy Duffield paid his City Council colleague Scott Peotter to help convert part of Duffields boat manufacturing facility in San Bernardino County to a medical marijuana cultivation or distribution hub, records show. Peotter made at least $10,000 from DC Developments, a Duffield-associated company, according to Peotters state-required statement of economic interest forms. A string of corporations that financially tie the two together appears to answer a question has Peotter ever worked for Duffield? that has dogged them for weeks as they seek reelection in November. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Following California, pot legalization campaigns across the U.S. aim to throw out old convictions By Kurtis Lee Rob Jenkins tried for four years to find a job, scouring the internet for anything that seemed at all appealing a maintenance position at a Chevron refinery, a counselor for foster kids, a clerk at Hertz. Some employers seemed interested, until they found out about his 2008 misdemeanor conviction for growing marijuana. I was stuck, recalled the 37-year-old college graduate. No job opportunities were coming in. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Canada is about to legalize marijuana. How did that happen? Justin Trudeau, for starters By Kurtis Lee Politicians herald it as transformative. Residents offer resounding support in the polls. Investors see billions of dollars on the horizon. When Canada legalizes marijuana on Oct. 17, it will join Uruguay as the only countries to allow recreational cannabis nationwide. The South American country became the first in 2013. The effort, years in the making, is unlike the piecemeal approaches to marijuana legalization that have been passed in the United States and the Netherlands. For pot proponents around the world, Canadas implementation of legal marijuana is being closely watched. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Can you carry marijuana in LAX? Yes, but its more complicated than that By Chris Erskine LAX wants you to know this about the marijuana you may be taking with you on your trip: Whats legal on the street is also legal in the terminals. Up to a point. Travelers can carry the legal amount of marijuana in California up to 28.5 grams through the airport areas that are under city supervision, that is up to pre-security checkpoints. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Dont you dare light up at Las Vegas new cannabis museum By Jay Jones Inhale we mean through your nose in the new marijuana museum in Las Vegas. You wont smell a thing, even though recreational pot is legal in Nevada. Signs in the elevators at Neonopolis, the downtown entertainment, dining and retail center thats home to the immersive Cannabition museum, make it clear that consumption in public is still against the law. Just steps away, a colorful mural covering the museums exterior depicts the changing attitudes toward marijuana, from the scare tactics of the 1930s to strict law enforcement in the 80s to growing tolerance today. That history is depicted in greater detail once youre inside. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Costa Mesa Planning Commission awards permit to 13th marijuana business By Luke Money A 13th marijuana manufacturing and distribution facility took a step closer to opening in Costa Mesa after the city Planning Commission decided Monday to grant it a required permit. The 3-2 vote, with Chairman Stephan Andranian and Vice Chairman Byron de Arakal opposed, awards a conditional use permit to Pivot Naturals LLC to operate in an existing 5,283-square-foot industrial space in Suite 101 at 3595 Cadillac Ave. Pivot Naturals intends to process cannabis oils into a powder for use in a variety of products, including tablets, food and beverages. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Kindergartner can take cannabis drug to school, judge says By Associated Press A kindergartner can keep bringing a cannabis-based drug used for emergency treatment of a rare form of epilepsy to her public school, a judge ruled Friday. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported that a judge sided with the family of 5-year-old Brooke Adams. The Rincon Valley Union School District in Santa Rosa sought to ban the ointment from school grounds because it contains the active ingredient in marijuana. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Glendale police seize hundreds of marijuana plants after reportedly discovering elaborate grow operation By Andy Nguyen What started as a routine wellness check by Glendale police officers on Monday led to the alleged discovery of an illegal marijuana grow operation and the seizure of more than 600 plants. Officers with the Glendale Police Department were in the 100 block of Wonderview Drive at around 12:40 a.m. after receiving a call about a person yelling for help from one of the homes in the neighborhood. After speaking with the homes occupant, 38-year-old Rui Yun Guan, officers entered the residence and discovered it had been converted into an elaborate marijuana grow operation, according to Tahnee Lightfoot, a spokeswoman for the department. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Tilrays wild ride shows how hyped pot stocks are catching up to the crypto craze By Craig Giammona Tilray Inc. investors could probably use a bit of the companys products right now. The Canadian maker of medicinal cannabis extracts finished a whipsaw session Wednesday with its share price 38% higher. But Tilray was up as much as 94% earlier in the day, peaking at $300. Fifty-three minutes and four trading halts later, it was in negative territory. The closing flourish that added $63 to the share price it finished up $59.08 to $214.06 took just six minutes. It left a sea of bodies, both longs and shorts, behind in its wake, said Dave Lutz, managing director at JonesTrading. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Marijuana industry fights stoner, pot and other words that stigmatizes people By Gary Robbins Theres a badge on her uniform, possibly a gun on her hip, and her arms are spread a little, suggesting shes ready for anything. You might think that youre looking at a police officer walking a beat. But what youve seen on billboards and, more recently, the internet is an effort by MedMen Enterprises of Culver City to remind you that marijuana users come from all walks of life. They can be cops, nurses, teachers, scientists, construction foremen and grandmothers. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Police arrest eight people after searching illegal cannabis store in San Fernando Valley By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde Los Angeles police arrested eight people at an illegal cannabis store in the San Fernando Valley after serving a search warrant, officials said Wednesday. About 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Los Angeles Police Departments Mission Area Narcotics Unit searched a cannabis retail shop in the 15400 block of Devonshire Street and confiscated several items of evidence and contraband, police said in a news release. The store was operating without proper permits and was considered a nuisance location, authorities said. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print More than 2 million U.S. middle and high school students have vaped marijuana, study finds By Karen Kaplan Electronic cigarettes are the most popular tobacco product among U.S. teens, but tobacco isnt the only thing theyre vaping. A new report from researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that more than 2 million middle and high school students have used an e-cigarette to vape marijuana. That figure is based on survey results from the 2016 National Youth Tobacco Survey, which polls a representative sample of American students in grades 6 through 12. Among the questions the 20,675 participants were asked in 2016 was, Have you ever used an e-cigarette device with a substance besides nicotine? One of the possible answers was this: Yes, I have used an e-cigarette device with marijuana, THC or hash oil, or THC wax. (THC, short for tetrahydrocannabinol, is the mind-altering chemical that produces marijuanas high.) Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Police chiefs warn of increased crime if California allows pot deliveries statewide By Patrick McGreevy The prospect of vans loaded with pot delivering to homes in quiet Morgan Hill makes Police Chief David Swing uneasy. Like most cities in the state, the upscale San Jose suburb has banned pot shops. But now, as California considers a proposal to allow marijuana businesses to send home-delivery vans into communities where retail stores are prohibited, Swing and others in law enforcement say they are preparing for the worst. This will make it easier and more lucrative to rob a delivery person than a liquor store, said Swing, who is president of the California Police Chiefs Assn. He notes drivers would be allowed to carry up to $10,000 in cash. Robberies are the tip of the iceberg. They can lead to other crimes, including aggravated assaults and homicides. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Tesla erupts in chaos after senior executives leave and Elon Musk tokes up By Dana Hull The turmoil at Tesla Inc. reached a fever pitch Friday, as news emerged that two senior executives will leave Elon Musks electric-car maker a matter of hours after he smoked marijuana during an hours-long interview with a comedian. Chief Accounting Officer Dave Morton gave notice Tuesday that he was resigning less than a month into the job, according to a filing. Teslas stock plunged, then extended declines after Gabrielle Toledano, the head of human resources whos been on a leave of absence, told Bloomberg News that she wont rejoin the company. Morton, a former chief financial officer for computer-drive maker Seagate Technology Plc, joined Tesla the day before Chief Executive Musk tweeted that he was considering buying out some investors at $420 a share and taking the company private. Musk abandoned that take-private effort 17 days later, and in the process drew a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission and a series of lawsuits alleging market manipulation. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Elon Musk smokes a blunt live on YouTube with podcaster Joe Rogan By Russ Mitchell Elon Musk apparently smoked dope with comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan live on YouTube late Thursday night, then giggled about turning Mars into a big Jamaica. I mean, its legal, right? Musk said, accepting a lit blunt from Rogan in the Los Angeles studio, where The Joe Rogan Experience is webcast live. Rogan told Musk hed rolled marijuana in tobacco leaves. Musk took a single deep toke. If the pair were joking about what they were smoking, they didnt say so. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print L.A. launches crackdown on unlicensed marijuana businesses; more than 500 people are charged By Joseph Serna A police crackdown on local unlicensed marijuana businesses has ended with misdemeanor charges against more than 500 people in Los Angeles, the city attorneys office said. In 120 criminal cases filed since May, City Atty. Mike Feuer has charged 515 people in connection with 105 illegal marijuana businesses, grow sites, extraction labs and delivery companies located throughout the city, his office announced Friday. All of the defendants were charged with unlicensed commercial cannabis activity within the city, which carries a potential sentence of six months in jail and $1,000 in fines. Local judges have been hearing the cases since May with arraignments scheduled through the end of October, Feuers office said. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement 12th marijuana business wins permit approval in Costa Mesa By Luke Money Costa Mesa planning commissioners Monday evening gave their blessing to another local marijuana manufacturing and distribution facility, bringing the total number of approvals to 12. On a 4-0 vote with Chairman Stephan Andranian absent the commission awarded a conditional use permit to Pure Labs Inc., which is looking to open in a 2,025-square-foot space in Unit M-103 at 3505 Cadillac Ave. The decision is final unless appealed to the City Council within seven days. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Former L.A. mayor Villaraigosa joins board of local cannabis firm MedMen By James Rufus Koren Former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is joining the board of publicly traded cannabis company MedMen, marking his return to the business world following a resounding defeat in Junes Democratic gubernatorial primary. MedMen, a Culver City company that operates high-end cannabis shops in California, Nevada and New York and has aggressive expansion plans, announced Villaraigosas appointment Wednesday morning. Villaraigosa adds political and governmental experience to a board made up of branding, entertainment and accounting executives. Other recent additions to the companys board include Stacey Hallerman, a former executive at the conglomerate that owns luxury brands Montblanc and Cartier, and Jay Brown, the chief executive of of RocNation, the entertainment company co-founded by Shawn Jay Z Carter. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Newport man accused of operating illegal marijuana dispensary in Costa Mesa By Luke Money A Newport Beach man is accused of operating an illegal marijuana dispensary in Costa Mesa, according to authorities. Omid Delkash, 47, was charged Monday with four misdemeanor counts of unlawful transportation, sale and furnishing of marijuana. He pleaded not guilty and is in custody at Orange County Jail, records show. He is scheduled to appear in court Friday for a pretrial hearing. Costa Mesa law prohibits the retail sale of marijuana or marijuana products anywhere in the city. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement California lawmakers want the state to collect data on drivers under the influence of pot By Patrick McGreevy After she was injured in a car accident allegedly caused by a driver impaired by pot, state Controller Betty Yee is backing a bill approved Monday by the Legislature that aims to begin addressing the problem of drugged driving on California roads. The measure sent to Gov. Jerry Brown would require the California Highway Patrol to report on how many motorists stopped for impaired driving are allegedly under the influence of marijuana. Its what other states have done like Colorado and Washington to at least start collecting state-level data, Yee said. They just want to understand the extent of cannabis-impaired driving. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Marijuana use is rising among pregnant patients. Not so fast, doctors warn By Jenny Gold Marijuana may be losing its image as a dangerous drug, but mounting research suggests women should steer clear of it if they are pregnant or breastfeeding, according to new recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics. The advice comes as more than half of the states, including California, have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use. Growing acceptance of the drug has made it seem harmless, or even beneficial. As a result, doctors fret that more and more babies are being exposed to the drug. The march toward legalization has outpaced scientific research about marijuanas health effects. Because it is a Schedule 1 drug one with potential for abuse and no approved medical use studies have been limited by federal law. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Mormon Church ramps up opposition to medical marijuana effort in Utah, speaking out publicly By Kurtis Lee The Mormon Church has played a quiet role in the fight against an effort to legalize medical marijuana in Utah, releasing measured statements and helping to bankroll lawsuits. But on Thursday, leaders of the powerful Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came out from behind the scenes. We are deeply concerned by the history of other states that have allowed medical and recreational use of this drug and have experienced serious consequences to the health of its citizens, Elder Jack N. Gerard, flanked by politicians, medical professionals and other church leaders, said at a news conference at the state Capitol. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California lawmakers move to help expunge pot-related convictions California lawmakers voted Wednesday to ease the process for clearing the records of those convicted in the past of marijuana offenses. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) With recreational marijuana legalized by the states voters, Californians with past convictions for cannabis-related offenses would get state help in expunging their records under a bill sent by lawmakers to the governor on Wednesday. Proposition 64, which state voters approved in 2016, legalized the sale and use of marijuana for recreational use and permitted those with past convictions for the activity to petition the courts to clear their records. But state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) told his colleagues Wednesday that the process is complicated, and many with pot convictions do not know about the opportunity. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement By next year, you can buy medical marijuana in Hawaii, but youll still have to jump through some hoops By Jay Jones Out-of-state medical marijuana users next year will be able to buy cannabis products at dispensaries in Hawaii. The only hitches: Visitors will need to apply online and pay $45 (plus a $4.50 processing fee) for a temporary Hawaii medical marijuana card thats valid for 60 days. Weve been fielding a lot of calls daily about reciprocity, said George Bullock, director of the Cure Oahu marijuana dispensary in Waikiki. We really look forward to being able to serve them in the future. The Hawaii Department of Health plans to allow medical marijuana cardholders from other states to make purchases at dispensaries on Oahu, Maui and Kauai. But state officials are not using the word reciprocity because those out-of-state cards wont work. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Teen sold weed from her bedroom, with her parents as suppliers, Merced County officials say By Joseph Serna A teenage girl who sold marijuana out of her bedroom was using her gun-toting parents as her suppliers, the Merced County Sheriffs Office said. On Friday, deputies served a search warrant on the home of Jose Reyes Martinez, 44, and his wife in Delhi, Calif., where they found 80 pounds of packaged marijuana and a dozen large plants along with two firearms, officials said on Facebook. The packaged weed was found in the master bedroom closet alongside a loaded AK-47, deputies said. A makeshift greenhouse in the backyard held a dozen large plants, authorities said. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Newport Beach sues to halt what city calls a marijuana dispensary at Church of the Holy Grail By Hannah Fry Newport Beach officials are asking an Orange County Superior Court judge to block an operation that identifies itself as a church but the city says is a marijuana dispensary violating local law. Brick-and-mortar marijuana dispensaries are prohibited in Newport Beach under municipal code. Cultivation, processing, distribution and delivery of cannabis have been banned in the city since 2016. A civil lawsuit Newport filed June 25 seeks an injunction to forbid the organization known as Church of the Holy Grail from operating at 2072 Bristol St. It isnt clear how long it has been operating, though the lawsuit states the location has been running without a business license since at least Jan. 24. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Proposal to create state-chartered banks for California marijuana industry fails to advance Virgil Grant arranges containers of various strains of medical marijuana in a display case at a dispensary he runs in Los Angeles. (Frederic J. Brown / AFP/Getty Images) California lawmakers on Thursday shelved a proposal to allow the state to license private banks to handle the billions of dollars expected to be generated by the states legal marijuana industry amid questions about the plans feasibility. Voters approved Proposition 64 in 2016 to legalize growing, possessing and selling marijuana for recreational use, but newly licensed pot shops and farms say they cannot put their money in federally chartered banks because cannabis remains illegal under federal law. Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Los Angeles) proposed that the state could license special privately financed banks that would issue checks to the businesses to pay rent and state and local taxes and fees, and to compensate vendors for goods and services provided to their businesses. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Parent of Corona beer bets $3.8 billion on U.S. love of marijuana By Bloomberg Constellation Brands Inc., which for seven decades has made its money off beer, wine and whiskey, sees its future in a marijuana leaf. In the biggest (legal) marijuana deal, the Victor, N.Y., beverage company will spend about $3.8 billion to boost its stake in Canadian grower Canopy Growth Corp., betting legalization will gain traction around the world and especially in the United States. This is rocket fuel, Canopy Chief Executive Bruce Linton said on the companys earnings call Wednesday. Were going to be way more global. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Marijuana is not really legal in California if residents dont have a reasonable way to buy it By The Times Editorial Board California law allows adults to buy marijuana. It allows licensed businesses to deliver marijuana to customers, and it says specifically that cities and counties cannot prevent delivery services from traveling on public roads. Yet even though cities cant stop deliveries traveling through their jurisdiction, many cities currently ban deliveries to their jurisdiction. That means that unlike deliveries of virtually every other legal, adult-use product including alcohol and cigarettes, which can be ordered over the internet in California marijuana deliveries are barred. The practical effect is that residents in some places have little to no access to legal medical or recreational cannabis products because of local regulations which seems contrary to the intent of Proposition 64. Roughly half of Californians live in cities or counties that prohibit marijuana stores and delivery services form opening in their jurisdictions. An analysis by the Sacramento Bee earlier this year found residents in 40% of the state had to drive 60 miles or more to find a licensed dispensary to buy legal marijuana medical or recreational. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print California cities oppose plan to allow pot delivery in areas where sales are banned California cities are objecting to changes in the states rules on marijuana that they say undermine local control. (Mathew Sumner / Associated Press) California cities on Monday objected to a state proposal that would allow marijuana delivery to homes in areas where storefront pot sales have been banned locally. The changes, which are being considered by the state Bureau of Cannabis Control, will undermine a citys ability to effectively regulate cannabis at the local level, Charles Harvey, a legislative representative for the League of California Cities, said in a letter to the bureau. The cities group, which represents the states 482 municipalities, supports other changes to clarify the rules of Proposition 64, which was approved by voters in 2016 and allows the growing and sale of marijuana for recreational use. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Cypress Hills B-Real set to open a Sylmar dispensary, as Cannary West takes flight Saturday By Adam Tschorn B-Real, from left, Kenji Fujishima and Rojo Desantis in front of the soon-to-open Dr. Greenthumbs dispensary in Sylmar. (Dr. Greenthumbs) Rapper and marijuana entrepreneur Louis Freese, better known as Cypress Hill frontman B-Real, plans to celebrate the grand opening of his flagship dispensary in Sylmar with a day-long bash next Wednesday. Called Dr. Greenthumbs a name music fans will recognize as the title of a 1998 Cypress Hill song the Foothill Boulevard dispensary will be heavy on strains from B-Reals Insane brand of cannabis as well his Phuncky Feel Tips product line (glass tips designed to fit the business end of a hand-rolled joint). It will also serve as the home base for the rappers online BReal.TV network. According to todays announcement, the Wednesday event will be open to the public (though youll need to be at least 21 or 18 with a medical marijuana card) and feature a line-up of BRealTVs DJs as well as a slew of surprise guests [making] appearances throughout the day. A second Dr. Greenthumbs is expected to open in Cathedral City later this year. Dr. Greenthumbs grand-opening party, Aug. 15 from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., 12751 Foothill Blvd., Sylmar (just west of the 210 freeway between Arroyo and Vaughn streets). Cannary West In other dispensary-opening news, a rebooted and relocated Cannary West (this version by the folks behind the stylish, upscale Venice Blvd. dispensary the Pottery), officially opens its doors Saturday. Although parts of the space in the Rancho Park neighborhood are still under construction, its only because plans include adding sustainable on-site cultivation (a process also underway at the Pottery), it does already have one of Los Angeles real estates most enviable features a dedicated off-street parking lot for customers around back. To mark the grand opening, the first 200 customers who spend $30 or more after the dispensary opens for business at 10 a.m. will receive a little something special for their efforts. Cannary West, grand opening, Aug. 11 from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., 2435 Military Avenue, Los Angeles (just south of Pico and two blocks east of Sepulveda). Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement As budget remedies, Huntington Beach may explore marijuana-related revenue and boosting fines for illegal short-term rentals By Priscella Vega With general-fund revenue increases projected to taper off in coming years, the Huntington Beach Finance Commission this week recommended several potential budget-tightening and revenue-generating solutions. Among them are increasing fines for illegal short-term rentals, reducing city staff and exploring opportunities for marijuana-related revenue. Some recommendations will be unpopular with employees, but at the same time we hope they realize implementing some recommendations may make funding available for salary increases, Finance Commission Chairman Nouha Hreish told the City Council during a study session Monday. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print High Times rolls out new online video network By Adam Tschorn High Times, which launched as a print magazine in 1974, has added a streaming video service to its offerings. (High Times TV) Los Angeles-based cannabis media brand High Times, which launched as a print magazine in 1974, has added a streaming video service to its offerings. Announced Thursday, the ad-supported web channel High Times TV is both a showcase for the brands own content (behind-the-scenes videos from its Cannabis Cup events, for example, and how-to videos for ganja guacamole) as well as a platform for an assortment of independent cannabis-content creators like the Stoner Mom (a Colorado mother with a family of six who focuses on living a responsible cannabis lifestyle), StrainCentral (a strain review site founded by Joshua Young) and That High Couple (Hollywood-based couple Alice and Clark who chronicle their THC-infused life via social media). While High Times newest venture is hardly a unique move- there isnt a legacy media brand out there that isnt trying to capitalize on streaming video it could end up being a lifeline for the independents in the stoner space who have seen their traditional social media channels (particularly YouTube) threatened, restricted or suspended in a cannabis-content crackdown that began earlier this year. High Times TV is now available as an app on Android, Roku and Apple TV as well as online at tv.hightimes.com. Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Newport Beach lawsuit seeks to ban marijuana business that operated in residential neighborhoods By Hannah Fry Newport Beach officials are asking an Orange County Superior Court judge to block a marijuana business from operating in two homes in violation of city law. A civil lawsuit filed May 4 seeks an injunction to forbid the business known as OC Healing House, Bud Man OC and Bud Man Newport Beach from operating at a home on Drakes Bay Drive in Corona del Mar and a home on Promontory Drive in Newports Promontory Point community. The city attorneys office says the business was using the homes for marijuana delivery and distribution. The lawsuit calls the business a public nuisance. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Marijuana is a gift from God. A battle over pot pits the Mormon Church against an unlikely group: other Mormons By Kurtis Lee Brian Stoll faced a dilemma as his wedding day approached. For more than a year, he had been smoking marijuana to treat severe back pain, but to remain in good standing with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and get married in the temple, he had to stop using pot. Since marijuana was illegal under Utah law, church leaders told him, it was forbidden. Stoll turned to an opioid painkiller and has continued using it since his marriage three years ago, despite unpleasant side effects and its inability to match the soothing qualities of marijuana. This was devastating ... I had to choose between my health and my fiancee, Stoll said recently. It seemed asinine that if I lived in another state, I wouldnt have to make such a difficult decision. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Roommates were unaware of drug lab operation in Glendale home, police say By Andy Nguyen Authorities arrested a man on Friday suspected of operating an illegal butane honey-oil lab out of a Glendale home. John Kelly, 52, was taken into custody after the Glendale Police Department received a tip about the suspected manufacturing operation in the 1400 block of Randall Street. The information was derived from an ongoing narcotics investigation, according to Sgt. Dan Suttles, a spokesman for the department. Butane honey oil is a type of concentrated cannabis product made when marijuana is soaked in butane in order to extract the plants essential oils. The process can lead to explosions if the butane gas builds up in an enclosed area and ignites from a spark. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Rams guard Jamon Brown says marijuana is reason for suspension By Gary Klein Rams starting right guard Jamon Brown, suspended for the first two games of the season for violating the NFLs substance-abuse policy, said Thursday that the suspension stemmed from a 2017 incident in Kentucky that involved marijuana. Brown still worked with the first-team offense Thursday as the Rams held their first training camp practice at UC Irvine. Brown, a fourth-year pro from Louisville, said that before last season he was pulled over for speeding and that police found marijuana in the car. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Democrats still havent figured out that legal weed is a winning issue By Tom Angell Every Democratic U.S. senator rumored to be considering a 2020 presidential run supports marijuana legalization. So do 77% of Democratic voters. The partys 2016 national platform backs states rights on cannabis and calls for a reasoned pathway for future legalization. So why is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee the entity charged with winning back control of the U.S. House attacking a Republican congressman over his support for marijuana reform? And why is it citing a right-wing magazine to make the case? Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) has a cult-like fixation on marijuana, said a National Review article excerpt the Democratic committee highlighted in a tweet posted Monday. The party organ said the GOP congressmans cannabis advocacy is one reason why [Democratic nominee] @HarleyRouda needs your help flipping this seat...from #RedToBlue. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print They worked at Apple, Amazon and Lyft. Now theyre working to get you stoned By Tracey Lien For much of her career, Natasha Pecor followed a path well-worn by tech workers. She built her reputation with her first employer in the industry, earning the title head of platform at Yelp. Then she jumped to one of the giants, Amazon, where she worked as a product manager. Most recently she parlayed that experience into a leadership role at a smaller start-up a common move among techies willing to take a risk for a new challenge and perhaps a big payday. But this start-up wasnt exactly a tech company. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Fountain Valley man sentenced to life in prison in kidnapping and torture of marijuana dispensary owner By Hannah Fry A Fountain Valley man was sentenced Friday to spend the rest of his life behind bars for kidnapping a medical marijuana dispensary owner and his roommate in 2012 and torturing the dispensary owner as part of a plot to extort money. Orange County Superior Court Judge Gregg Prickett gave Kyle Shirakawa Handley, 39, the maximum sentence of life in state prison. A Superior Court jury in January swiftly found Handley guilty of of kidnapping, aggravated mayhem and torture, all felonies. Prosecutors contended that Handley, a marijuana grower who supplied the victims dispensary, and three other defendants kidnapped the man and his female roommate from their 25th Street home on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach on Oct. 2, 2012. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print More California kids are having pot-related health scares, poison control officials warn By Patrick McGreevy State and local officials say they are alarmed by a spike in calls they have received to report children and teenagers ingesting marijuana products since California legalized cannabis for recreational use by adults in 2016. The number of calls to poison control centers involving people 19 and younger who were exposed to marijuana has steadily risen from 347 three years ago to 588 last year. In the first six months of this year, there have been 386 calls to poison control centers involving marijuana exposure by underage people. If that trend continues, there could be more than double the reports in 2018 as there were 2015. Nearly half of the calls received last year 256 involved children 5 and younger, including 38 children under 12 months old, and 64 toddlers who were a year old, according to Stuart E. Heard, executive director of the California Poison Control System. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print With marijuana legal, California flooded with dubious health claims about the drug By Gary Robbins Spend a few minutes surfing Twitter and youre likely to encounter a startling claim that comes without proof: Cannabis cures cancer. The online world is awash with such posts, startling scientists and physicians who are urging weeds proselytizers to tap the brakes. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Advertisement Gov. Jerry Brown appoints members to new cannabis permit appeals panel Marijuana on display at the Harborside dispensary in Oakland. (Mathew Sumner / Associated Press) Six months after California began licensing growing and selling marijuana, Gov. Jerry Brown on July 3 appointed the first members of a new Cannabis Control Appeals Panel to consider objections from those denied permits or those facing penalties for violating regulations. The governor gets to name three of the five members of the panel and appointed county prosecutor Sabrina D. Ashjian of Fresno, college lecturer Diandra Bremond of Los Angeles, and a staff attorney for the governor, Adrian Carpenter of Plumas Lake. The other two appointments will be made by the Senate Rules Committee and the speaker of the Assembly. Read More Facebook Twitter Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link URL Copied! Print Federal law? State law? Which takes precedence when you want to travel with cannabis? By Catharine Hamm You cant take it with you. Actually, you can. But its not a good idea when youre traveling, especially for the risk-averse. We speak, of course, of cannabis; its use was approved by 57% of California voters in November 2016. Proposition 64, known as the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, allows the recreational use of marijuana in the Golden State; medical marijuana had been legal for about a decade before that. Legal, it should be noted, in California. Not legal according to federal law, although President Trump has signaled his willingness to support legislation that, according to an L.A. Times article, would end the federal ban on marijuana. Read More Facebook Twit Planning to travel to your Thanksgiving destination on Amtraks Pacific Surfliner? If your trip involves taking the train from Wednesday, Nov. 21 through Sunday, Nov. 25, make a reservation now. Tickets sell out quickly on the popular route between San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. Rides will be reservation-only during the holiday weekend. Those who upgrade to business class receive a guaranteed seat reservation and free snacks and drinks. Amtrak plans to add extra rail cars to handle the surge in travelers. Last year 80,000 passengers took the Pacific Surfliner during the Thanksgiving holiday. To check availability or book tickets, go to pacificsurfliner.com/holiday, visit an Amtrak ticket office, use your Amtrak app or call (800) 872-7245. Advertisement The San Joaquins route between Sacramento, Oakland, Stockton, Fresno and Bakersfield also is requiring ticket reservations between Nov. 18 and 26. Also, dont forget to bring a valid photo ID and arrive at least 45 minutes before your train leaves. Once on board, youll find free Wi-Fi and power outlets at your seat. Train travelers may bring two bags weighing up to 50 pounds each and two personal items weighing up to 25 pounds each. (Check the website for baggage allowance rules.) ALSO Lace up your snow boots for winter rail adventure in Alaska Think small for big rewards when hiking or traveling Travel may be the key to ending your unhealthy love affair with your electronic devices travel@latimes.com @latimestravel The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Wednesday acquitted a Christian woman who had been sentenced to death in 2010 for insulting the Prophet Muhammad, a ruling that was rejected by Islamists who raised the threat of violence. The courts chief justice, Mian Saqib Nisar, announced the ruling in a crowded courtroom and demanded authorities free the woman, Asia Bibi. Bibi was being kept in a high-security prison cell in the southern city of Multan and was likely to leave the country given the threats against her. Her family says she never insulted the prophet. Islamist protesters gathered in the streets of Islamabad and other major cities to denounce the verdict, egged on by extremist leaders who use perceived insults to Pakistans official religion as a rallying cry. Advertisement In the garrison city of Rawalpindi, Islamist demonstrators reportedly attacked police and a journalist. The case dates to 2009, when two Muslim women objected to Bibi, a farm worker, drinking water from the same well as them. A mob later accused her of blasphemy, leading to her arrest and trial, where she was convicted and sentenced to death. Blasphemy is a capital offense in Pakistan, where in the past mobs have targeted Pakistanis accused of the crime or lawyers who defended them. In 1997, a judge who acquitted a blasphemy defendant was killed. A three-judge panel of the Supreme Court upheld the blasphemy law itself but ruled that the prosecution categorically failed to prove its case that Bibi had insulted the prophet. An Islamist party, Tehreek-e-Labbaik, or TLP, has gained political mileage from the Bibi case, with its leader releasing a video message before the verdict saying that its followers were ready for all kinds of sacrifices if Bibi were set free. We are ready to give our lives for the respect of our holy prophet, said Malik Abid, a TLP leader from Rawalpindi. We will not allow them to release condemned blasphemer Asia Bibi even if I get my head butchered. Ghulam Mutafa, a lawyer representing Bibis accusers, termed the decision unacceptable and said he would file an appeal. Malik Adil, a 30-year-old TLP member in Rawalpindi, used an obscenity to refer to Bibi and called for her to be hanged. They can kill us but they cannot force us to accept the decision, he said. Christians make up less than 2% of Pakistans 182 million people but have often been the target of violence. In 2016, the Pakistani Taliban extremist group claimed responsibility for an Easter bombing of a park in Lahore that killed more than 70 people. The group said Christians were the target, although most of the victims were of other faiths. Peter Jacob, executive director of the Center for Social Justice, a Lahore-based activist group that works with marginalized and minority communities in Pakistan, said authorities needed to secure Christian neighborhoods and churches given increasing threats to the community. I do not think [Bibi] can live in Pakistan even if declared innocent by the top court of the country, Jacob said. Her family is also living under constant threat. Amir Rana, an Islamabad-based expert on religious extremism, said Pakistani authorities needed to deal firmly with groups that threatened or carried out violence in the anti-Christian demonstrations. In the past, Pakistans security establishment has frequently tolerated or supported Islamist groups in order to undermine secular opponents. TLP has the capacity to create havoc all over the country, Rana said. The appeasement policy will strengthen such forces. Its time to come up with once-and-for-all policy: Do not let anybody take the law into his or her hand. Sahi is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Shashank Bengali contributed to this report from Colombo, Sri Lanka. India on Wednesday unveiled the worlds tallest statue a 597-foot bronze likeness of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, an independence movement leader who later served as the countrys first deputy prime minister. In a ceremony on a riverbank in western India marked by air force flyovers and dance troupes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to Patel on what was the 143rd anniversary of his birth. Patel is a staple of Indian history books, though he isnt as well-known outside the country as such independence icons as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister. But the statue has nevertheless stirred controversy as Indias Hindu nationalist leaders tussle over Patels legacy. Heres a look at Indias newest monument and the issues it has engendered: Advertisement What is the statue? At nearly 600 feet, the monument known as the Statue of Unity is about twice the height of the Statue of Liberty and easily surpasses the 420-foot Spring Temple Buddha, previously the worlds tallest, in Henan, China. It stands on a remote coastal bank of the Narmada River in Gujarat, the home to both Patel and Modi. Cast from roughly 1,700 tons of bronze, the statue depicts Patel standing erect and staring into the heavens while garbed in a traditional shawl and vest over a thigh-length kurta. A government drive collected 135 tons of scrap iron from farmers to help build the interior. How much did it cost? India has spent $430 million over 42 months to build what it calls the worlds grandest statue. Two high-speed elevators reach a viewing gallery that can hold up to 200 people and includes (naturally) a selfie point. The area around it is being developed into a tourist zone with a museum, hotels, restaurants and a research center focused on agricultural development, one of Patels passions. The statue can reportedly withstand a magnitude-6.5 earthquake. What were Patels accomplishments? Born to a farming family in 1875, Patel, after working to help India gain independence from Britain in 1947, helped persuade the rulers of 565 semiautonomous princely states to join the new nation. He did so with a mix of diplomacy and threats of armed action. Commonly hailed as the Iron Man of India, he held two important positions in Indias first government deputy prime minister and minister of home affairs before his death in 1950. Why are Indias leaders fighting over his legacy? Patel, along with Nehru, was a leader of the Indian National Congress, which led the independence drive against British colonial rule and became a political party. The Congress party is the chief rival to Modis ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been going all-out to appropriate Patels legacy and weaken the Congress party ahead of national elections next year. Hindu nationalist Modi and his allies accuse the Congress party of ignoring Patels contribution to the nation while favoring the Nehru dynasty, which included two subsequent prime ministers, Nehrus daughter Indira Gandhi and grandson Rajiv Gandhi. Nehrus great-grandson, Rahul Gandhi, is the Congress partys current president. Critics say the memorial to Patel is the BJPs attempt to undermine the liberal, secular Nehru as well as claim a piece of the Congress-led freedom struggle. Taking a dig at Nehru, Modi said in a speech this year that had Patel been Indias first prime minister, India would not have lost control of part of the disputed state of Kashmir to archenemy Pakistan. What do opponents say? Modis rivals point out that Patel banned the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a hard-line Hindu organization that is the BJPs ideological parent, in 1948 after Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated. Gandhis killer was Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist and former member of the Hindu group who objected to Gandhis conciliatory approach toward Indias Muslim minority. The ban was later lifted, and the organization was never directly implicated in Gandhis killing. Patel isnt the only icon being claimed by the BJP. The partys state government in Maharashtra is planning an even taller statue of Shivaji, a 17th century Hindu king who fought Muslim Mughal rulers in western India, off the coast of Mumbai. How does the cost compare to other Indian programs? The Patel statue has been criticized as an extravagant waste of public money in a country that rates consistently low in healthcare and education indices. It cost 10 times as much as the Modi governments much-touted Save the Girl Child program to promote female education. The statue triggered further scrutiny when state-owned oil companies disclosed that they had contributed more than $16 million to the project in 2017 from public funds earmarked for social programs. How has the statue become a political issue? In recent weeks, protests marred the statues opening as members of indigenous tribal communities complained they were displaced from their villages without adequate compensation. Reports estimate that more 75,000 people from 72 villages were forced to move so that the statue could be built. While officials say they were compensated for the land, some villagers have protested, saying the amounts were insufficient. On the eve of the unveiling, activists said about 90 people were detained on suspicion of planning to protest at the site, then later released. The Congress party further criticized the government for importing some of the bronze from China and reportedly hiring a Chinese construction subcontractor. They said it flew in the face of one of Modis pet programs, dubbed Make in India, which aims to encourage entrepreneurship and manufacturing. The government has dismissed such concerns. In 2014, when it first allotted funds for the statue, a law minister said: We are proud of the legacy of Sardar Patel. Why should there only be statues of Nehru and Indira Gandhi? Masih is a special correspondent. Saturdays mass shooting at Pittsburghs Tree of Life Synagogue drew widespread expressions of outrage and sympathy from many countries struggling with a surge in anti-Semitic violence. But in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel has a role in the fight against anti-Semitism, no matter where it occurs, official denouncements of the crime quickly devolved into a political squabble that reveals the growing rift between American Jews and the Jewish state. For the record: An earlier version of this article referred to Charlottesville, Va., as Charlottesville, N.C. Pittsburghs Tree of Life congregation hosts communities representing three streams of progressive Judaism. Most American Jews with a religious affiliation belong to one of those branches, but none of the denominations is recognized as properly Jewish by Israels Orthodox religious authorities. And so the response to the shooting from Israel reflected some ambivalence not about the victims, but about the Jewishness of the site. Netanyahu quickly posted a video in which he said he was heartbroken and appalled by the murderous attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue. Advertisement But David Lau, Israels Ashkenazi chief rabbi, who is both a religious authority and a public servant, engaged in linguistic acrobatics so as to avoid referring to the site of the massacre as a synagogue, or Jewish house of worship. Interviewed by an ultra-Orthodox newspaper, Lau said the victims were killed because they were Jews in a place that for the killer was a place of clear Jewish character. Laus remarks sparked a firestorm, with opposition leaders calling on the government to break a decades-long unwritten agreement with ultra-Orthodox religious parties whereby other denominations of Judaism, principally the Reform and Conservative wings, have no legal standing. One result of that agreement is that Israel does not recognize the Jewishness of people who converted under the authority of progressive Jewish rabbis a significant detail since Israel offers citizenship to all Jews. Also, the few Reform and Conservative congregations in Israel dont qualify for public funding, as do Orthodox congregations, and their rabbis cannot perform officially sanctioned marriages or funerals. Still, most Israelis were horrified by the shooting, and didnt parse their grief. Yair Lapid, who hopes to replace Netanyahu as head of the centrist Yesh Atid party, tweeted, If you are murdered because you are a Jew, then you are a Jew. The Conservative and Reform are our brothers. They are our family. As Israel enters an election year, the country is fragmented by doctrinal rifts that seem only to worsen, and the breach between American Jewry and Israeli Jews has never been so acute. Neither side seems inclined to paper over the gaps: Last week, the annual general assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, hosted by Tel Aviv, was headlined: We Need to Talk. In one flashpoint in the conflict, Netanyahu last year buckled to ultra-Orthodox threats and broke a historic 2016 agreement brokered with progressive Jewish leaders to expand and upgrade an egalitarian area of the Western Wall plaza, which is run by state religious authorities. But the differences are not limited to internal Jewish matters. Netanyahus embrace of far-right European leaders who have more than a nodding relationship with anti-Semitism has alienated American Jews and worried even some of his political allies in Israel. In the last year, Netanyahu has enthusiastically welcomed to Jerusalem fellow right-wingers such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who campaigned for reelection by defaming the Hungarian-born Jewish American billionaire George Soros, and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who once famously compared himself to Adolf Hitler. Netanyahu believes alliances with nationalistic leaders will buffer him from Western European criticism of Israels treatment of Palestinians. But no political friendship has proved as provocative or as problematic as the one Netanyahu has nurtured with President Trump, who has low levels of support among American Jews. A survey released last week by the Mellman Group and the Jewish Electorate Institute found that 23% of American Jews support Trump, and despite some enthusiasm for his pro-Israel policies, 74% plan on voting for his Democratic opponent in 2020 regardless of the candidate. Despite claims by some American Jews that Trumps nationalistic and anti-immigrant stances are fueling anti-Semitism in the United States, Israels embrace of Trump only strengthened in the aftermath of the Pittsburgh massacre. In an interview with MSNBC, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer praised the president for his denunciation of anti-Semitism. Asked whether Trump might have emboldened anti-Semites with some of his language particularly his remarks last year that there were fine people on both sides when neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, Va. Dermer said that while he didnt agree with Trumps statement, The people we should blame for anti-Semitism is the anti-Semite. He also said: I see a lot of people on both sides who attack Jews, he said. To simply say that this is because of one person, only comes on one side, is to not understand the history of anti-Semitism or the reality of anti-Semitism, Dermer said. One of the big forces in college campuses today is anti-Semitism. And those anti-Semites are usually not neo-Nazis, on college campuses. Theyre coming from the radical left. Dermer was the first person to greet Trump as he arrived at the Tree of Life Synagogue and he walked him into the building as if welcoming a foreign dignitary to Israel. Israels Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett speaks to the media near the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 28, 2018. (Matt Rourke / Associated Press) As protesters chanted President hate, leave our state, Naftali Bennett, Israels minister for diaspora affairs, whom Netanyahu dispatched to Pittsburgh in a show of solidarity one day after the massacre, posted a robust defense of Trump that appeared to criticize local Jews. President Trump is a true friend of the state of Israel and to the Jewish people, Bennett declared, adding that criticism of him was unfair and wrong. Bennett exemplifies the head-turning complexity of Israels reactions to the massacre in Pittsburgh. He leads the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party, and is also a Netanyahu rival gearing up for elections in 2019. His base consists of religious supporters of Israeli West Bank settlements, who do not generally consider progressive Jews properly Jewish. With that in mind, Bennett on Sunday issued a carefully worded statement about the shooting incident against the Jewish community in Pittsburgh, avoiding the word synagogue. After two days in Pittsburgh, and as the controversy in Israel expanded, Bennett acknowledged in an interview with The Times that this was a brutal murder of Jews because they were Jews in a synagogue. Tarnopolsky is a special correspondent. UPDATES: Oct. 31, 2 p.m.: This article was updated to provide additional context for Dermers comments to MSNBC. This article was originally published at 7:05 p.m, Oct. 30. Egypt's Planning Minister Hala El-Saeed has said that the government seeks to achieve a gross domestic product growth rate of 10 percent by the end of the 2029/30 fiscal year. To meet this target, the government aims to reach a growth rate of 5.9 percent in the 2018/19 fiscal year, to gradually increase to eight and then 10 percent in the 2029/2030 fiscal year, El-Saeed said. The minister made the remarks during a regional population and development conference held in Beirut on Tuesday. Egypts gross domestic product grew to 5.3 percent in the 2017/18 fiscal year, the highest rate in a decade, according to El-Saeed. This was the latest sign of economic recovery in recent months amid tough reforms the Egyptian government is implementing, including tax hikes and subsidy cuts as part of a $12 billion IMF loan deal aimed at attracting foreign investors. Egypts economy has been hurt by years of turmoil following the 2011 popular uprising that scared away foreign investors and tourists. Search Keywords: Short link: Energy & Environment A Great Comeback of Sukam in the Solar Industry 31.10.2018 16:27:11 - Basic necessity are the most vital things one desires for in a daily life such as adequate water supply, plenty of fresh air, continuous electricity running in the home. Although several people get insufficient things to reside in. (live-PR.com) - Basic necessity are the most vital things one desires for in a daily life such as adequate water supply, plenty of fresh air, continuous electricity running in the home. Although several people get insufficient things to reside in. Many deals with inadequate water supply and electricity in their routine and draw-back like power-cut, low supply which mess up a jovial - Basic necessity are the most vital things one desires for in a daily life such as adequate water supply, plenty of fresh air, continuous electricity running in the home. Although several people get insufficient things to reside in.Many deals with inadequate water supply and electricity in their routine and draw-back like power-cut, low supply which mess up a jovial life. But there is always a solution to every problem. An enterprise which takes responsibility to overcome most of the problems faced by people in their monotonous routine work. The venture have such technology that supply efficient power solutions to the customers. Under the brand Sukam, the venture sells their solar products such as efficient inverters, solar batteries of different volts for charging, power guard an intelligent power stabilizer, generators, battery equalizers, solar grid tie inverters, home ups fabricated with the latest technologies. ABOUT THE SUKAM: Sukam power systems are a private Indian venture that provide solution to every power related problem by the use of their products. Hence, the company sells their products for both domestic work as well as industrial purposes. Sukam have spread its arm across all over the globe and sell their products in different countries too as the whole world now urge to use solar facility therefore the solar industry is booming and the demand of solar products thus increasing. Founded in 1998 by Kunwar Sachdeva as a small cable TV enterprise the founder once said he got frustrated by the frequent power-cuts so he himself designed an inverter but failed after long investment and efforts a successful venture was established as Sukam. The Head office is located in Haryana, India. Achievements: 1. Sukam have their number of patents in energy industry 2. It was the first venture to launch inverters made of plastic body and praised by this innovation to use the plastic in such high temperature 3. Sukam also made Wi-Fi or smartphone operated products 4. It made the solar street lights on roads Primarily,Sukam focuses on solar energy how to use solar energy wisely and efficiently in their electric products. Nearly every other institution uses their products such as in petrolpumps, defence, schools, government institution. Also won prominent awards in the field of energy industry. Latest Inverter of Sukam: Sukam recently launched its smart GTI Hybrid solar inverter. A successful mix of UPS on grid inverter. it is design so that to utilise the maximum solar power without wastage by giving extra power to grid which reduces your electricity bill Basically, it is the advanced design of solar inverters which gives power to house, industry using solar. Also contain MMPT charge controller and Bluetooth facility in it Basic features: 1) 1KW capacity 2) Back up time 6-10 hours 3) Can take load of 10leds, 2 fans, 1 TV, 1 AC 4) Battery can be charges from electricity also 5) MCB protected Sukam & Loom Solar Tie Ups: To increase the sale and to promote their products more the ventures tie up with fame e-marketing sites which is ethical in the business. Sukam had collaborated with Loom Solar for their growth in the solar products and offer goods with warranty and economic friendly. Loom Solar also deliver the goods within few days so it is beneficial to tie up with such eminent e-marketing site. Headquartered in Delhi, Loom Solar is one of the most famous solar brand stores in India, plus government of India has recognized it as the start up that provides following services:Latest Products with 100% guarantee, Installation of the product anywhere in India within 3 days and Easy government approvals. life. But there is always a solution to every problem.An enterprise which takes responsibility to overcome most of the problems faced by people in their monotonous routine work. The venture have such technology that supply efficient power solutions to the customers.Under the brand Sukam, the venture sells their solar products such as efficient inverters, solar batteries of different volts for charging, power guard an intelligent power stabilizer, generators, battery equalizers, solar grid tie inverters, home ups fabricated with the latest technologies.ABOUT THE SUKAM:Sukam power systems are a private Indian venture that provide solution to every power related problem by the use of their products. Hence, the company sells their products for both domestic work as well as industrial purposes.Sukam have spread its arm across all over the globe and sell their products in different countries too as the whole world now urge to use solar facility therefore the solar industry is booming and the demand of solar products thus increasing.Founded in 1998 by Kunwar Sachdeva as a small cable TV enterprise the founder once said he got frustrated by the frequent power-cuts so he himself designed an inverter but failed after long investment and efforts a successful venture was established as Sukam. The Head office is located in Haryana, India.Achievements:1. Sukam have their number of patents in energy industry2. It was the first venture to launch inverters made of plastic body and praised by this innovation to use the plastic in such high temperature3. Sukam also made Wi-Fi or smartphone operated products4. It made the solar street lights on roadsPrimarily,Sukam focuses on solar energy how to use solar energy wisely and efficiently in their electric products. Nearly every other institution uses their products such as in petrolpumps, defence, schools, government institution. Also won prominent awards in the field of energy industry.Latest Inverter of Sukam:Sukam recently launched its smart GTI Hybrid solar inverter. A successful mix of UPS on grid inverter. it is design so that to utilise the maximum solar power without wastage by giving extra power to grid which reduces your electricity billBasically, it is the advanced design of solar inverters which gives power to house, industry using solar. Also contain MMPT charge controller and Bluetooth facility in itBasic features:1) 1KW capacity2) Back up time 6-10 hours3) Can take load of 10leds, 2 fans, 1 TV, 1 AC4) Battery can be charges from electricity also5) MCB protectedSukam & Loom Solar Tie Ups:To increase the sale and to promote their products more the ventures tie up with fame e-marketing sites which is ethical in the business.Sukam had collaborated with Loom Solar for their growth in the solar products and offer goods with warranty and economic friendly. Loom Solar also deliver the goods within few days so it is beneficial to tie up with such eminent e-marketing site.Headquartered in Delhi, Loom Solar is one of the most famous solar brand stores in India, plus government of India has recognized it as the start up that provides following services:Latest Products with 100% guarantee, Installation of the product anywhere in India within 3 days and Easy government approvals. Press Information: Loom Solar Private Limited B-949, Green Field Colony Contact Person: Nishi Chnadra Marketing Marketing Phone: 8750778800 eMail: eMail Web: http://https://www.loomsolar.com/collections/sukam-solar-panels 31.10.2018 16:27:11 - Disclaimer: If you have any questions regarding information in this article please contact the author. Please do not contact Live-PR.com. We are not able to assist you. Live-PR.com disclaims content contained in this article. Live-PR.com is not authorized to give any information about content and not responsible for content posted by third party. Jeremy Ramseys photo of freshly-picked coffee cherries will be on the auction block Nov. 16. Download Image: Web Three distinct events on Nov. 16 will enable the Lycoming College and Williamsport communities to discover all there is to know about the brew that is making waves locally. Participants in a progressive dinner event in Williamsport Coffee for a Cause will have the opportunity to look at the Colleges Warrior Coffee from different perspectives, and gain a deeper understanding for and appreciation of all that the Warrior Coffee Project does for farmers and their families in the Dominican Republic, and for Lycoming College students and the surrounding communities. The evening begins with a coffee tasting and flavor profile of Warrior Coffee at Alabaster Coffee and Tea Co. (400 Pine St.), led by a team of coffee connoisseurs. Participants will move on to Moon & Raven Public House (155 W. Fourth St.) for an entree created exclusively for the event: Warrior Coffee-encrusted Faroe Islands salmon. The final stop is down the road at Peter Herdic House (407 W. Fourth St.) for a Warrior Coffee cheesecake with chocolate shortbread crust and chocolate-espresso toffee. Dinner-goers can also enjoy a handcrafted cocktail that highlights the distinctive attributes of Warrior Coffee (at an extra charge) while enjoying original photography and a talk by Herdic House November artist of the month and associate professor of chemistry at Lycoming College, Jeremy Ramsey, who visits the DR annually to perform water quality and coffee testing. Next is an auction of two of Ramseys framed photos and a 60kg bag of green coffee beans from the DR. The highest bidder will also win the opportunity to work with the experts at Alabaster to roast the green coffee beans into a unique brew. Professional designer Lynn Estomin will help to create a custom bag and label for the new coffee roast for an exclusive holiday gift that cant be topped! Tickets to all three events can be purchased for $55 and comes with exclusive samples of Warrior Coffee microlots. All are welcome to make one or more stops at any of these locations on a pay-as-you-go basis. For those unable to join the festivities on Nov. 16, bags of Warrior Coffee will be for sale at Alabaster; Moon & Ravens coffee encrusted Faroe Islands salmon will be available from Nov. 16-Dec. 16; Warrior Coffee Cheesecake and handcrafted coffee cocktail will be at Peter Herdic House during the month of November. For every coffee entree sold from Nov. 16-Dec. 16, Moon & Raven will donate $2 to the Warrior Coffee Project, and Herdic House will donate $1.50 for every dessert and $2 for every cocktail sold during November. Ticket purchase and a detailed schedule of events is available at http://www.lycoming.edu /coffeeforacause. A lot of people in Williamsport have heard of Warrior Coffee, but arent quite sure what the project is about and how it benefits the community, said Caroline Payne, Ph.D., associate professor of political science and director of the Warrior Coffee Project. This progressive dinner will be a fun way to taste and learn all about the program and the effect it has on the local and global economies, and to directly support the people involved, many of whom will be in attendance that evening, talking to our coffee drinkers and diners. Since 2013, Lycoming College ventures in the Dominican Republic have continued to provide students with real-world opportunities in which they can apply what theyve learned about responsible, sustainable development to help a community in need. The purchase of Warrior Coffees supports educational opportunities for Lycoming College students to study and conduct research in the developing world. Students from all majors have the chance to learn the science of growing coffee while designing and implementing community and economic development projects relevant to their major. Learn more at https://www.lycoming.edu /coffee/. Egypt-based Orascom Investment Holding said on Wednesday it expected to acquire 30 percent of Sarwa Capitals shares in November. Orascom requested approval on Wednesday from the Financial Regulatory Authority to buy a non-controlling stake of 216 million shares of Sarwa at 7.36 Egyptian pounds ($0.4121) each. If it only acquired between 144 million and 216 million shares, it would pay 6.62 pounds a share, Chief Executive Tamer El Mahdi told Reuters. Search Keywords: Short link: The Egyptian Association of Russian and Soviet University Graduates marked the 75th anniversary of Russian-Egyptian diplomatic relations in a celebration at the Cairo Opera House on 29 October. The celebration was attended by Russian Ambassador to Cairo Sergei Kravchenko, chairman of the board of directors of the House of Books and National Documents Hesham Azmi, secretary-general of the Egyptian-Russian Friendship Association Ehab Sorour, chairman of the Egyptian Solidarity Committee Helmy El-Hadidi, former Egyptian ambassador to Russia Ezzat Saad, vice president of the Arab Union of Russian University Graduates Fathi Toghan, and former vice president of the Supreme Constitutional Court Tahani El-Gebali. Ambassador Kravchenko said that the current successful relations between Egypt and Russia are the natural outcome of the cooperation process that began under the leadership of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, who has decided to open a new chapter in bilateral relations. It is important that we have the ability, given the current political will, to continue constructive cooperation in all fields. In a speech, president of the Egyptian Association of Russian and Soviet University Graduates Sherif Gad stressed that holding the celebration under the auspices of President El-Sisi sends a strong message to Russia about its importance to Egypt on the official and popular levels. After the comprehensive partnership agreement was signed between the two countries, there is no place for hesitation in implementing mega-projects, Gad said. Azmi, who was present as a representative of the Ministry of Culture, pointed out that Cairos Academy of Arts was established in cooperation with Russia, and Soviet experts played a great role in the early days of the academy. Azmi affirmed that Egypt looks forward to greater cooperation with Russia, especially after the president's decision to name 2020 the Egyptian-Russian Cultural Year. During the celebration, Azmi presented the shield of the Ministry of Culture to Russian Ambassador Kravchenko. The Egyptian Association of Russian and Soviet University Graduates granted its shield to director of the Russian Cultural Centre in Cairo Aleksey Tevanyan. The celebration ended with a performance by Egypt's National Troupe for Folk Arts. 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: To access our in-house intelligence please request a trial here. Read this article and more for a 30 day period. Are you already an Managing IP subscriber? Login here The Egyptian-German documentary Dreamaway has toured some of the world's top festivals, and comes to Egypt within the upcoming Cairo International Film Festival This week the London Guardians Charlie Phillips described the documentary Dreamaway by Marouan Omara and Johanna Domke as a brilliantly bizarre look at the desolate Egyptian holiday resort Sharm El-Sheikh. The political uncertainty of recent years have taken it off the package holiday map, but the staff of its sprawling hotels remain, albeit on reduced wages. Every day they go through the motions of their morning dance, preparing the massage tables, cleaning empty rooms, serenading the ballroom and DJing round the swimming pool. All to barely any guests. The Egyptian-German directorial team go beyond simply observing the resorts emptiness, and document the fantasies of a bored group of staff who spend their days dreaming of an alternative life. Omara and Domke seamlessly move from real life to magical realist semi-scripted sequences, in which their characters are urged by a monkey in a truck to dramatically reveal their feelings. Why their interrogator should be a monkey is never revealed, but it works perfectly. Selected for the documentary competition of the BFI London Film Festival (10-21 October), the films international premiere took place at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, while the Middle East premiere took place at El Gouna Film Festival. The staff are young Egyptians who in the process of discovering how isolated and desperate their lives are, much like the life of the ghost town they inhabit nonetheless uphold their far-fetched dreams. The challenging political and economic conditions after the Arab Spring and the aftermath of terrorist attacks on the city three years ago are not directly mentioned, but whether in the characters behaviour or through intelligent use of music, they are hinted at throughout. Though his feature-length debut, Dreamaway is not Omaras first collaboration with Domke. Both visual artists as well as filmmakers, they previously made the medium-length Crop (2013), which also made the rounds of the festivals. Im more comfortable building a project with a partner from the start, he explains. Its not so much divvying up tasks as interacting and steering the boat to shore. Domkes presence is particularly apposite since the film is about a city where Egyptians and Westerners meet, culturally speaking, and this is precisely the process Johanna and I use. We have a very interesting time discussing a given situation in the light of our respective backgrounds. A German-Egyptian coproduction, the film also brings together Russian producer Roman Roitman, co-founder of the Monokel production company in Germany, Egyptian producer Mark Lotfi, founder of the Fig Leaf Studios production company in Alexandria, German photographer Jakob Beurle, German editor Gesa Jager and Egyptian editor Louly Seif. The journey of this film started in 2013 right after Crop, Omara explains. It took a long time to secure the big budget and find a producer. Lotfi joined the team after Roitman. I had worked with Lotfi on different projects, I believe he has the most professional executive team available for an indie film. As the multinational team discussed the project the process, he says, became part of the vision. Omara and Domke break the fourth wall, having the characters directly tell the viewers of their agony and desperation. They also walk a tightrope between documentary and fiction, with a combination of fantasy and realism reflecting a dreamy state of mind. This technique, Omara says, reflects the choice of Sharm El-Sheikh, where the only residents are either Egyptian tourism service employees or foreign tourists. The two sides meet for a few weeks during which they are free to hide and fake aspects of their image. The city becomes a stage where acting and living can barely be told apart. Indeed it is not clear whether the characters are actors or real people. How much of Dreamaway is real? Omara says 300 people responded to the films casting call. Of course their stories were important but there was also their ambition to act. Their passion for appearing on screen was a factor in the selection process, as well as to what extent their stories serve the film. The thin line separating reality from fiction is what these characters represent. That makes the question of whether it is fiction or documentary less relevant. But how to do we see the art of filmmaking the first place? We are experimenting and rediscovering our cinematic language, and Dreamaway is not the only example of this. Omara cites Ahmed Abdallahs Microphone (2010) and Ahmed Fawzi Salehs Poisonous Roses (2018) as examples of how documentary and fiction combine. He says that, coming from a photography background, he is happy to join that club: I am very inspired by the freedom and experimentation photography permits. In each of my three films I try to break the rules to develop a new cinematic language. Though it deals with a specific place and time, Dreamaway is meant to be timeless and universal. It was in this context, too, that Omara and Domke developed the device of the monkey in a mans clothes, mentioned in The Guardian review. We wanted to find a way to break the realistic strictures of the film, Omara says. That is where the monkey idea came from. It was developed until it became what it is in the film. It was a risk but during the editing phase we could see it helped make the film whole by connecting its various strands. Omaras says securing the budget was a challenge, since it was significantly bigger than that of the average independent film in Egypt, especially where the fictional parts are concerned. But the greatest challenge of all was the style itself: It was not easy to make a film which is neither completely documentary nor completely fiction, especially as an aspiring director. Everyone keeps asking, Well, which is it? The funders, the censors authorities, even the assistant directors, some of whom will start giving you advice when they feel youre doing it wrong! Omara could not be prouder of the end product, he says, which went to the Chicago, Leipzig and Bergen festivals as well as London and Karlovy Vary, but the El Gouna screening, he feels, was quite special. El Gouna is the closest point to Sharm, and its tourist resort that looks very much like the settings. I believe when people watch the film in such a place they will look around and reflect on it, finding a clear connection, which isnt possible when the film is screened in a European city. Still, he hopes the film will have wider screening opportunities in Egypt. This article was first published on Al-Ahram Weekly. 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: US Elections May Trigger Major Stock Market Bottom PART II The clock is ticking on our expected bottom formation and now is the time for skilled traders to begin to position their trades for the remainder of 2018 and early 2019. We detailed why we believe the US equities markets have already, or are currently, hammering out a price bottom after the last few weeks downside price activity. In part one of this article, we illustrated how the US elections cycles are really more of a global geopolitical event and often drive price rotation in the months prior to these elections. Please take a minute to read Part 1 of this two-part research post if you have not already done so. In this second part of our US election research post, we are going to continue to review topics that were previously discussed as well as highlight how certain market segments appear to be setting up for a massive price reversal. So, lets get started. Keeping in mind the information we presented in Part 1 of this research, our hypothesis is that US elections cycles present a huge opportunity for skilled traders by creating volatility and rotation in price and many segments of the global markets. Over the past 3+ years, we have been writing about what we call a capital shift that has been taking place. Near the end of the Obama presidency (2015 & 2016), a number of factors were taking place in the US and global economy. First, the start of the new Presidential Election cycle events was already working through the news cycles the selection of the candidates. Second, China had recently instilled capital controls to prevent a capital outflow issue and to support their bulging economy locally. Lastly, emerging markets and oil had collapsed, putting incredible pressures on certain foreign markets to support their local economies and find suitable sources for their investments as currencies started to collapse as well. This event, that actually started in 2014 or so, initiated what we call the capital shift where cash quickly moved out of risky investments and hunted for and deployed within safer investment structures the US and major global equity markets. In particular, we believe the US Technology, healthcare and biotech sectors were huge beneficiaries of these new capital investments and we believe as these share prices started increasing, more and more capital kept flowing into these sectors like a dog chasing his tail. The price advances seem to never end until the 2016 election cycle event. This caused the entire global equities markets to pause for a few months as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump battled it out. Within this Weekly XLF chart, you can see how quickly after the US presidential election the Financial Sector sprung back to life rallying nearly 20% within the 6 weeks following the Trump victory. This is a massive move for investors and traders. Skilled traders know to watch for these setups within election cycle events and this is the one reason we are writing this article for you today to keep you informed that massive trading opportunities exist over the next 3~6+ weeks. You can also see from this chart that by the time President Trump was sworn into office, the XLF price rotated within a 12~15% range before the new Trump policies and objectives began to be announced (near October 2017). At that time, the Financial sector skyrocketed again by another 35~40% reaching a peak near $30.60 in January 2018. Pay attention to what we are trying to suggest to you as skilled traders, we are about 7~10 days away from a US mid-term election that will likely present opportunities like this again and we want all of you to understand the huge potential for very big price swings that are setting up right now. The XLF is trading near $25.25 and any upside potential to near recent highs would reflect a 12~15% price increase (or more). Should this mid-term election result in increased fear in the markets and a related price downturn, the nearest support highlighted by the WHITE line on this chart would reflect a -9% price decrease. Either way, up or down, the potential for the Financial sector to generate big gain is already there waiting for us to execute. As we stated in Part 1, our predictive modeling systems have been suggesting that a major price bottom formation will setup sometime between November 8 and November 12 and that price will rally throughout the end of 2018 as the Santa Rally kicks into gear again. The recent GDP numbers support this outcome as the US economy is knocking out 3.5~3.8% levels every quarter. We found the move in the Transportation Index very interesting in terms of relative price analysis. The $TRAN index rotated lower to meet our expected 5~8% targets, then blew past those levels last week to drop to below our BLUE projected Fib extension level then recover. The recent new low in the $TRAN will set up a new Fibonacci price bottom and will establish new upside price targets as the bottoms forms and price stalls headed into the mid-term elections. We know this will occur as Fibonacci price theory operates on price peaks and valleys and we expect a continued price bottom to form over the next 7 to 10 Daily trading sessions. Once this price low formation is established and confirmed, our price modeling systems will generate new upside projection levels that will help us understand how far and fast price will attempt to move higher. Major election cycles happen every two years in the US and are real opportunities for skilled traders. The first rule is that you should be very cautious as major election events begin to unfold such as major Presidential election cycles. Understand that these events can, and often do, sew fear and uncertainty into the markets and could be predicted by some very interesting price swings in commodities, foreign markets, currencies or equities. As the election cycle continues, prepare for the opportunities that will unfold and make sure you watch the commodities, like Gold, Silver, Oil and the US Dollar, for signs of contagion, capitulation, and fear. We believe our September 17th analysis of a price bottom setting up near or before November 12 is still the valid outcome of this election cycle and we believe there will be huge opportunities for skilled traders immediately after this US election event. Be prepared and dont miss this chance to really capture some great trading opportunities. Our predictive modeling systems called this move nearly 4 weeks in advance and now they are calling for a bottom to set up near November 10th and a price rally to resume throughout the rest of 2018. If you want to find out how these incredible tools can help you find and execute better trades, then visit www.TheTechnicalTraders.com to learn more. 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. The following is a statement by Esquerda Marxista (Marxist Left): the Brazilian section of the IMT, after the victory of far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro in the Brazilian elections. The comrades explain the tasks ahead for the Brazilian left, who must immediately begin building a resistance against the reactionary and repressive policies of a Bolsonaro government. [Read the statement in Portuguese] Bolsonaros victory in the Brazilian elections is a demonstration of the political collapse of the New Republic regime and of the class conciliation brought about by the 1988 Constitution. It also demonstrates that huge sectors of the masses are disillusioned with democracy. Most of them (including Bolsonaro voters, and those who spoiled their ballots or abstained) made it clear they care little for this democracy, and ignored Haddad (PT) and others calls for defence of a democracy that has only brought them hardship and suffering. A new political situation has now opened up. The old parties and politicians representatives of the status quo were swept away. As the Brazilian Marxists always stated: the policies of the "Car Wash operation" designed by the US Justice Department were modelled on the Italian "Clean Hands"; that is, to allow the removal of parties and politicians hated by the masses in an attempt to rescue threatened institutions. That the new is only a reincarnation of the old is only to be expected: it will remain the case until revolution comes and clears out all the muck from the old society. We are witnessing the end of the era of reactionary class collaboration between the PT and the bourgeois parties. The deepening crisis of capitalism nationally and internationally has now found its expression in a government that is ostensibly against all collaboration and wholly committed to attacking the working class. This government is ultraliberal: a shameless servant of the interests of imperialist finance capital. Such a government can only govern by seeking to constitute itself as a Bonapartist government above the classes, and basing itself on repression, whether masked or not by the actions of the judiciary. How far this government can proceed in this direction and fulfil its objectives will depend first and foremost on the class struggle: the working class in particular, and the politics of its leaders. Bolsonaro is the by-product of an ongoing political, economic and social crisis and the betrayals of the PT while in power / Image: Agencia Brasil Bolsonaro is the by-product of a political, economic and social crisis that has dragged on for years. The responsibility for this lies entirely with Lula and the PT's leadership, who ruled for 13 years and in that time betrayed the hopes and support they received from millions of Brazilians to change this country. The systematic work of Lula and the leadership of the PT with their policy of alliances with the bourgeoisie and governing in the interests of capital, and the destruction of the class consciousness of the same working masses who carried the PT to the presidency of the Republic has had the effect of delivering millions of desperate peasants, unemployed workers, disorganised workers, and young people with no future, into the arms of an unscrupulous adventurer and his entourage of ultra-reactionaries, fascists, landowners (who hunt down Landless Peasants Movement activists and indigenous peoples) and ruined shopkeepers. The PT has delivered the masses into the arms of a right-wing, demagogic Bonapartist, who claims to be governed by "Brazil above everything, and God above everyone"! Bolsonaro won the election with 57,797,847 votes (39.24 percent of the total eligible voters). Haddad had 47,040,906 votes (31.93 percent of the total). Spoiled ballots, blank ballots and abstentions totalled more than 42m voters. This means that 89.5m voters (60.76 percent) do not feel politically represented by the winner in the most polarised election in decades. These figures show that there is a huge basis for building resistance against the government. In our statement after the first round besides affirming a vote for Haddad in the second round (with no support for Haddad's programme and policy, but to bar Bolsonaro) we stated: "With these results [of the first round] and the expansion of political polarisation, a new situation opened up in Brazil." Now, with Bolsonaro's victory, the political situation has leapt forward again. The next period will see severe attacks against all proletarian conquests and democratic freedoms, and will see cultural and religious obscurantism dominating government actions, all at the service of international finance capital and its smaller Brazilian partners. The fundamental task of the Marxists is to help organise the resistance, based on the unity of the workers and the youth, and in this struggle build the Marxist revolutionary organisation: the Marxist Left. Intentions and reality Bolsonaro, on 21 October, declared to his supporters at Paulista Avenue: "MST [Movement of Landless Peasants] bandits and MTST [Movement of the Homeless] thugs, your actions will be typified as terrorism. You will no longer bring terror to the countryside or the city. And this gang [referring to the left, or the red scum as he described them throughout the speech], if you want to stay here, will have to put yourselves under the same law as the rest of us. Otherwise, you can get out or go to jail." In his first Internet broadcast to his followers, he said: "We can no longer continue to flirt with socialism, communism and populism, and with extremism on the left." In his official statement for the press, Bolsonaro read out the following declaration: With you as my witnesses, this government will be a defender of the Constitution, of Democracy and of Freedom Freedom is a fundamental principle of Constitution: freedom to come and go, to walk in the streets; freedom of enterprise; political freedom; freedom of opinion; religious freedom; freedom to make choices and have them respected. This is a country for all of us: Brazilians born or raised. A Brazil with diverse opinions, colours and orientations." In the first speech on the internet, he reaffirmed what he said by holding a copy of the Constitution. At another time, he prayed, together with his team thanking God for his victory. It is an effort to show himself "above all" to demonstrate that he answers to God, rather than the world of men. His whole attitude is, on the one hand, to assert himself as a ruling Bonaparte to whom all owe obedience; and on the other to calm the bourgeoisie who fear he will provoke a social conflagration. But his direct statements to his followers show that he knows he does not have a politically homogenous militant party: a fascist or paramilitary force capable of unleashing terror against the workers and their organisations. He is trying to build this, but he is still far from that goal. His supporters include small, insignificant fascist groups encouraged and emboldened by his victory but they are not the social fighting force of a fascist party. Bolsonaros campaign programme was "against all the old corrupt parties and against this rotten system." But in fact, he is an agent of that system / Image: Fabio Rodrigues Pozzebom Therefore, he will be forced to use the repressive levers of the state apparatus (the police, judiciary, etc.) to discipline the masses. This mediocre and ignorant former military man speaks, acts and thinks like a law enforcement officer who intends to end the class struggle by the intervention of the police. This is impossible to accomplish. In the current international situation, this policy will meet with huge and invincible resistance. Even if he attempted to go down this route, after the fighting subsided, Bolsonaro would be stuck in an economic crisis in a semi-colonial country, faced with the growing hatred of the masses: including a large part of his current voters. Bolsonaros campaign programme was "against all the old corrupt parties and against this rotten system." But in fact, he is an agent of that system, brought about to save capitalism and deepen exploitation. In the context of capitalist crisis, this will also mean more corruption. He also says: "put all the bad guys in jail and make sure the people are armed to defend themselves." It is inconceivable that the bourgeoisie in the epoch of capitalist decay, in which the suffering of the masses will only increase will permit the general armament of the population. In the United States, almost all the bourgeoisie have been fighting for years to disarm the population, depriving them of arms conquered in the revolutionary years of that country's constitution. And obviously, there is no way to get all the bad guys in jail, because capitalism is a thriving factory of gangsters and bandits of all kinds. Only the end of capitalism can solve this. Finally, he promises: "I will make Brazil a strong and wealthy nation, reducing the size of the state, selling state companies, opening Brazil to international investors, ending unemployment by creating a green-and-yellow labour portfolio, and reforming social security." The translation of this policy is, in the order: cuts and privatisation of public services, carving up public institutions and selling them off to multinationals and cronies, the delivery of Brazils natural resources and the wealth of the working-class into the hands of multinationals and speculators; destruction of the progressive accomplishments of the working class; and dissolution of social security, with its transformation into pension funds. This programme is both impossible to carry out within capitalism and will cause an even greater social tragedy. As a whole, this programme will isolate Bolsonaro and propel his own voters against him in a short space of time. The Bonapartist candidate has attained power in a situation of economic crisis, which he will not be able to solve and which will provoke an explosion of struggles. Very quickly, the conscious vanguard of the working class and youth will rearm and scream at the top of their lungs, in the streets, in factories, in schools and at workplaces: Bolsonaro out! Down with the reactionary government! For a workers' government! Perspectives of the Bolsonaro government Capitalism, in its phase of senile decay, is incapable of maintaining the democratic institutions the bourgeoisie developed in its period of ascension. In the epoch of imperialism in which revolution and counterrevolution face each other permanently democracy is increasingly a farce and the state is increasingly forced to reveal what it truly is: a band of armed men tasked with defending existing property relations the control of the means of production, and privileges of a minority exploitation class. The legal veneer placed over repression and attacks on democratic freedoms won through hard struggle by the proletariat have started to peel away, as the state becomes ever-more selective in its application of laws. The judiciary increasingly arrogates the right to decide on everything: to legislate and to execute in an attempt to govern directly, and save a state that is unable to maintain itself by normal democratic means. Bolsonaro a right-wing demagogue and outspoken anti-communist who has managed to profit from the demoralisation of the system its traditional parties will deepen the Bonapartist character of the state apparatus. Bonapartism is characterised by authoritarian governance and attacks on democratic freedoms, led by a figure who represents the incarnation of the nation who tries to rise above the classes to save the ruling class. Trotsky described it as follows: "A regime which indicates that antagonisms within society have become so great that the machinery of the state to 'regulate' and 'order' these antagonisms while remaining as an instrument of property owners assumes certain independence from all classes. The Bonapartist regime can only achieve a comparatively stable and enduring character in the case of ending a revolutionary epoch; when the balance of forces has already been put to the test in battles; when the revolutionary classes are already exhausted, but the possessing classes have not yet escaped terror: 'Will there be no further convulsions tomorrow?' Without this basic condition, that is, without a prior exhaustion of the mass energies in the fighting, the Bonapartist regime is not in a position to advance." The Marxist Left reaffirms its analysis that there is no social basis for a fascist regime today: the fascist groups are very small, there is neither a party nor a paramilitary organisation by which the petty-bourgeoisie can attack the mass workers organisations, and certainly not to establish a military dictatorship in the style of 1964-1985. There has been no "exhaustion of the energies of the masses necessary for the advancement of a Bonapartist regime towards a fascist government. The working class is disoriented, but it is not defeated / Image: Marxist Left Additionally, there has been no "exhaustion of the energies of the masses: one of the conditions pointed out by Trotsky for the advancement of a Bonapartist regime towards a fascist government. The working class is disoriented by repeated betrayals and blockades, but it is not defeated. This is not the perspective for Brazil, immersed as it is in the international crisis of capitalism. The role of the PT and the future of PSOL The low PT vote in the working-class neighbourhoods of the Sao Paulo working belt and its defeat in all the great cities of the south and southeast shows the party has been abandoned by the most important layers of the proletariat, which once formed its flesh and blood. And even in the northeast, the biggest victories of the PT were in the interior: it was almost defeated in the capitals. Bolsonaro only managed to grow due to the absence of a socialist party, capable of channelling the hatred towards the system. Bolsonaro, by contrast, appeared as the new, anti-establishment candidate, and this guaranteed his victory. The PT line in the second round, of "uniting for democracy", led to defeat / Image: Agencia Brasil It is a great misunderstanding to blame the fake news and promotion of propaganda on WhatsApp (paid for by pro-Bolsonaro businessmen) for this outcome. The problem is political. The PTs campaign did not connect with the anti-establishment sentiment present at the base of society and, therefore, could not convince the millions of people who abstained or spoiled their ballots, and left the door open for the right wing, who partly capitalised on this sentiment. The PT line in the second round, of "uniting for democracy" of proposing to govern in a national union, of seeking to join with all that is "old" in society was a line of defeat, as we previously explained. The "democratic front" also dragged down the PSOL. PSOL, having failed with the Boulos campaign, diluted itself in Haddad's campaign instead of putting up a real fight against Bolsonaro. It shouldve called for a PT vote in the second round to stop Bolsonaro, but maintained its independence and criticism of the PTs conciliation, pointing to need to build a revolutionary, socialist alternative to the PT. PSOL, having failed with the Boulos campaign, diluted itself in Haddad's campaign instead of putting up a real fight against Bolsonaro / Image: fair use The PSOL, if it does not change its policy, will be seen more and more as a mere appendage of the PT, which will emerge as the opposition party to Bolsonaro. The PSOL will thus be unable to build itself up as an alternative in politically reorganising and arming the working class. It could actually take a shortcut to the same impasse faced by the PT. It is urgent that the PSOL leadership convene an extraordinary congress to take stock of the Boulos campaign, break with the PT's "Democratic Front" and rearm the party to face the Bolsonaro government. Study, organise, mobilise Anti-Bolsonaro protests in the capital, Brasilia / Image: fair use It is necessary to immediately organise the resistance and fight against the Bolsonaro government. This includes preparing ourselves theoretically and politically to understand the situation, and taking stock of the character and fighting forces of our adversary. We must study the history of the revolutionary labour movement. The Marxist Left will publish a series of articles related to the current situation on our website. But we must also prepare for extreme right-wing provocations, as well as steeling the working class and youth, and their organisations, against the repressive economic and social attacks to come. The police, extreme right-wing groups and reactionaries of all kinds will feel more comfortable to act with Bolsonaro as president. In any fight, if someone attacks and the opponent does not defend himself, he will end up being massacred. When fascism was a real threat in Brazil, the united anti-fascist front, propelled by the Trotskyists, led a street battle that drove away the Integralists (the Brazilian fascists). This is the character we must give to our resistance, and to the defence of our organisations, in the face of attacks by proto-fascist groups who are encouraged to act in the present situation. The example of the mass response by UNB students, on 29 October, in driving out a 30-strong group of Bolsonaro supporters who tried to invade UNB to "hunt down Communists" points the way forward. This is the perspective we should raise in all worker and youth organisations. Students at Brasilia University (UNB) repel Bolsonaro supporters who wanted to occupy it pic.twitter.com/V3pKnxh6lC Jorge Martin (@marxistJorge) October 29, 2018 Against the action of provocateurs in assemblies of trade unions, students, demonstrations and debates, it is necessary to organise security services from the ranks of our own movement: a tradition forgotten by the left after years of relative democratic freedom. It is worth remembering that the CUT [the main trade union confederation] was only founded because its organisers distinguished themselves at CONCLAT [the Congress of the Working Class in 1981, at which the CUT was founded]. Otherwise, the PCdoB [Communist Party of Brazil], PCB [Brazilian Communist Party] allied with the pelegos [employers unions], would have forcibly prevented its constitution. Trade unions and trade union confederations Trade unions can and should play a very important role in the fight against this government. The main problem is that most of the trade union leaders are committed to the continuation of capitalism. They are deeply linked to the bourgeois state apparatus and guided by a policy of class collaboration. As you can see in Argentina, the government is on the offensive, but the trade union leaders are holding back workers struggles and are instead waiting for the 2019 presidential elections in which Cristina Kirchner will be running. Here in Brazil, the key phrase given by Haddad in his speech after the second round was "we prepare for four years from now", and the slogan "Happy 2022". Those who expect a turn to the left by the union leadership should dispense with this illusion. They have become an obstacle to the struggles of the workers and want to help save capitalism. This does not exempt us from pointing out the enormous responsibility they have in setting the direction of trade union organisations, starting with the CUT. We must open the discussion in all unions about the need to prepare for the CUT congress, and discuss how to organise, unify and centralise the fight in defence of the working class and against the government. Thousands took to the streets against Bolsonaro on 29 October / Image: Ricardo Stuckert The national and international political situation must be faced with energy and resoluteness by revolutionaries. There are undoubtedly difficulties: in particular, the absence of a party to represent and organise the proletariat. The working class retains its strength, despite the fact that most of its leaders have betrayed it in an attempt to maintain class peace. In this situation, where youth in particular are seeking a way out, there is a possibility of building a strong Marxist organisation. It is time to study, write, organise, and raise the low political and theoretical level that pervades in our time, as well as combat the widespread hopelessness in society, and build a force capable of transforming the situation. Organise to face Bolsonaro and the capitalist system he represents! And struggle for socialist revolution: the only force that can avert the course towards barbarism! German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced her withdrawal from the Christian Democratic Unions (CDU) leadership election race, as well as her candidacy for the next German parliamentary election. This marks a political earthquake and the end of an era in German politics, as Merkel has been Chancellor since 2005 and leader of the CDU since 2001. This announcement was precipitated by CDUs second humiliating defeat in two weeks in the recent elections in the federal states of Bavaria and Hesse, where the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) faced big losses, barely holding onto power. Establishment parties in decline In Sundays elections in Hesse, the CDU won 27 percent of the vote, down 11 points compared to 2013: its worst result since 1966. Merkels ally, Volker Bouffier barely gained a mandate to form the next regional government. The CDUs junior coalition partner in the federal governments Grand Coalition the Social Democrats (SPD) fared even worse, dropping 11 points to 19.8 percent: the party's worst result since 1946 in Hesse, a region that long ago was considered a red stronghold. In Sundays elections in Hesse, Merkels ally, Volker Bouffier barely gained a mandate to form the next regional government / Image: Olaf Kosinsky The liberal Green party, which has been a regional coalition partner of the CDU in Hesse for the last five years, came out as the biggest winner, rising more than eight points to 19.8 percent of the vote, securing a continuation of the regional government under Bouffier, but with a majority of just one seat. The right-nationalist, Alternative for Germany (AfD) came in fourth with 13.1 percent and for the first time managed to elect MPs to the Hesse parliament. Die Linke (Left Party) and the ultra-liberal FDP also gained slightly, taking 6.3 and 7.5 percent of the vote respectively. The election results in Hesse mirror the situation in Bavaria, where the CSU, which has enjoyed an absolute majority in the region for all but five of the years since 1962, was reduced to 37 percent: its lowest result since 1957. The SPD suffered a humiliating defeat and scored a mere 9.7 percent share of the votes cast. This has plunged the federal government into crisis. What these results reveal is a growing resentment amongst the population against the traditional parties, who are seen as the establishment and as ever-more-divorced from the lives of ordinary people. Class contradictions On paper, Germany is doing great. The economy, by far the strongest in Europe, is steadily growing at around 2 percent per year. Unemployment is at a historical low of 4.9 percent officially, although real unemployment and underemployment are higher. But most of this growth has not translated into higher living standards for the majority. In fact, part of Germanys economic success is based on attacks on living standards set by the Gerhard Schroeder-led, SPD-Green government between 1998 and 2005. Today, millions of German workers are forced to live on casual jobs in an ever-more-precarious situation. The Gerhard Schroeder-led, SPD-Green government between 1998 and 2005 attacked the working class and has cast a shadow over the SPD's reputation ever since / Image: GmbH The SPD is very proud of introducing the minimum wage in 2016, which now stands at 8.84 per hour. This is just under 1,500 per month before taxes and social insurance contributions, if you are lucky to be employed full time. But that barely covers the basics of life. According to a report by The Economic and Social Science Institute (WSI) of the trade union-supported Hans-Bockler-Stiftung, a third of German households could sustain themselves for a maximum of a few weeks or possibly a few months if they lost their source of income. An important part of the working class is essentially living from paycheck to paycheck, while the rich get richer every day. Inequality in Germany today is at its worst level since 1913 and the poorest 40 percent of the population have less purchasing power today than 20 years ago. At the same time, the government jealously guards its austerity policies, refusing to increase state spending, even though the state has been continuously running a surplus. Mass resentment against the government has thus been accumulating for a long time. CDU/CSU crisis But this resentment could not find any outlet through the SPD or trade union leaders, who are all in one way or another tainted by the policies of the coalition government. In this context, Germanys participation in the Greek and Eurozone bailout packages as well as Angela Merkels decision to accept up to 1 million refugees in 2015 opened the path for right-nationalist forces such as the AfD, and factions within Merkels own party, to attack her from the right. Demagogically blaming the government for caring about people from other nations before Germans, they are feeding off the anger of desperate, disgruntled layers of middle-and-working-class people, who do not see an alternative in any other party. Of course, Merkel is not herself any kind of anti-racist democrat, but her views reflect the majority opinion of German big business, which favoured those measures for their own class interests. The growing pressure from a rising AfD opened rifts and conflicts between the CDU and the CSU, and within these parties themselves. Over the summer, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer who is also the leader of the CSU threatened to pull his party from the federal government (thereby provoking early elections) if Merkel did not agree to introduce border controls. In the end, a compromise was reached. Feeling the fading fortunes of the government, Seehofer was clearly trying to distance himself from it ahead of the regional elections. But the Bavarian elections results show that Seehofers gamble did not work and, in fact, the opportunistic behaviour of both sides further discredited them In the eyes of most people. This is playing in favour of the AfD, which is always trying to appear as the defenders of the common man against the ruling political machine. Interior Minister Horst Seehofer leader of the CSU threatened to pull his party from the federal government (thereby provoking early elections) if Merkel did not agree to introduce border controls / Image: POR The image of power hungry, self-seeking cynics fits well with what ordinary Germans think of the establishment politicians. Nearly 75 percent of voters who left the CDU, and more than 50 percent of those who left the SPD, said they did so in order to send the party a message. The decline of the main establishment parties is highly significant. Between them the SPD and the CDU used to have between 60 and 80 percent of the votes in elections since German unification, and even 90 percent in the 1970s. In the 2017 elections, they barely mustered 50 percent. Today they stand at 40 percent in the polls. Both government parties are deeply destabilised as a result of this. The results in Bavaria and Hesse home to Germanys financial heart, Frankfurt are adding fuel to the fire. Even Hesses premier, Volker Bouffier (who used to be a close Merkel ally), sniped at the result: The message to Berlin is absolutely clear: govern properly. A sign of what lies ahead was revealed in the election of the conservative floor leader in the Bundestag a few weeks ago. Here, Merkels longtime ally Volker Kauder was unexpectedly defeated in a coup orchestrated by a number of CDU and CSU MPs, in clear defiance of Merkel. This is a reflection of the centrifugal forces that are developing within the party and which are bound to be reinforced at the CDUs party congress in early December. Immediately after Merkels announcement that she would not stand for re-election, party leaders were falling over each other to declare their candidacy for the CDU chairman position. One of the contenders is the ambitious Friedrich Merz, who was pushed aside by Merkel in the 2002 leadership contest and has been waiting for his revenge ever since then. He gave up his Bundestag seat in frustration in 2009 and is now a major lobbyist for finance capital and big business, sitting in the supervisory boards of Blackrock and a dozen more influential companies. Merz is favoured by many capitalists and ultra-liberal right-wingers within the party although his victory is far from certain. The final result of the internal election in the CDU could see a fierce opponent of Merkel run the party a situation which could lead to a crisis ridden and probably short-lived government. SPD at a dead end The CDUs coalition partner, the SPD, is in no better shape. While claiming to be a social-democratic, working-class party, it is increasingly seen as nothing more than CDU-light. Having participated in all governments since 1998 with the exception of 2009-2013, when Merkel leaned on the arch-liberal FDP for a term it is rightly regarded by an increasing number of workers as complicit in the austerity policies and in countless attacks on their livelihoods carried out in this period. In the 2017 Bundestag elections the party received 20.5 percent of the vote: the lowest since 1932. When the election defeat was announced, SPD leader Schulz proclaimed the SPD would not enter a grand coalition government and go into the opposition, which raised hopes in the ranks of a left-wing turn. These hopes were dashed by the sudden u-turn imposed by the leadership. An internal opposition calling for the party to leave the grand coalition was eventually defeated. The party tops have forced through the third coalition government agreement under Merkel since 2005, thus plunging the party into an even deeper crisis. What this made apparent, before the eyes of millions of people, is the SPD bureaucracys hunger for ministerial posts, and its inability to withstand the enormous pressure by German big business to support Merkel and stave off an imminent political crisis. The SPD leadership has so far been unwilling to break with the CDU/CSU, and even if they eventually managed to do so, the party is set for a terminal decline unless there is a decisive turn to the left / Image: SPD Schleswig Holstein Clearly, the crisis could only be postponed for so long. Since the formation of the new coalition government in April, support for the SPD has plunged even further, and it is polling no more than 14 percent nationally. This was confirmed by the humiliating defeats in the regional elections, which will inevitably increase the tensions within the party, potentially to the point of withdrawing from government. But the SPD leadership has so far been unwilling to break with the CDU/CSU, and even if they eventually managed to do so, the party is set for a terminal decline unless there is a decisive turn to the left. The whole political equilibrium in Germany is at risk: a nightmare scenario for Angela Merkel and German big business. Nevertheless, these ladies and gentlemen are assisted by the endless greed of SPD MPs, many of whom would lose their privileged positions if elections were called today. After the Hesse elections, SPD leader Andrea Nahles tried to appear defiant by calling for the government to change the way it worked, but at this stage there is no evidence that she is willing to back up her words with action. The image of sly and spineless SPD careerists refusing to leave government for their own benefit is a further factor in pushing the party down in the polls. Thus, the majority see no possible change coming from the established parties. In protest, droves of people have been voting for the Greens, who appear to have been almost reborn. Last year, the party was fighting to stay above the 5 percent parliamentary threshold before finally landing at 8.9 percent at the elections. Today, they are projected to score 20 percent of the vote, making them the second party in parliament. On the one hand, this is a reflection of the hatred that people have accumulated towards the SPD and the CDU; and on the other, it is a reflection of liberal and christian voters disgruntled with the anti-immigrant policies of the CDU/CSU. In fact, while the international media mainly focuses on the CDU/CSU losing votes to the AfD, it is losing almost the same amount of votes to the Greens. These are liberals and middle class people who see no benefits in closing down borders and leaving the EU. This is bound to add to the centrifugal forces that are threatening to tear the CDU and CSU apart from inside. No working class alternative Under the impact of sharpening class contradictions, the traditional political system is falling apart. But this process is only finding a partial and distorted reflection in the growth of AfD and the Greens. Immigration is not the real problem faced by the German workers. In fact, since Merkel accepted 1 million refugees in 2015, unemployment has fallen by 2 percent officially and crime stands at its lowest level since 1992. The real criminals and parasites in German society are amongst the capitalist class, living lavishly off the back of the daily toil of the German working class. But the AfD conveniently forgets to criticise this class, because it represents one of its wings. By pointing a finger at the immigrants, it is attempting to divide the working class and weaken it in the face of the bourgeoisie. The liberal Green party, which has been a regional coalition partner of the CDU in Hesse for the last five years, came out as the biggest winner, rising more than eight points to 19.8 percent of the vote / Image: Scheint sinnig Further EU integration, which the Greens argue for, is not going to solve anything either. The EU is an instrument of the European capitalist class, and in particular the German one. For German big business, open borders are very important because they allow Germany to flood the EU market with cheap goods and at the same time import cheap labour. The EU serves solely the interests of the capitalists. The real enemy of the German working class is the capitalist class. By forcing through severe anti-union and austerity measures they have secured for themselves a huge pool of highly qualified, cheap labour in the German working class. On this basis they are raking in record profits every year, while the majority of Germans are seeing their living standards steadily decline. Radical mood Had there been a left-wing party with a clear, radical plan of exposing the German capitalist class and calling for the expropriation of its wealth to be used for the improvement of society, it would immediately have begun to gain an echo within society. But no such party exists. Die Linke, the most left-wing party in the Bundestag, is formally a socialist party, but in practice it is just a left version of Social Democracy. The party is putting forward reformist demands, such as higher taxes for the rich, but it is by and large avoiding the question of nationalisation and expropriation of banks, monopolies, private housing companies and big landowners. The little opposition it puts up is tame and countered by the fact that in the East, where they have been traditionally stronger and have ministers in three governments, they are carrying out capitalist policies and following the dictates of the Grand Coalition. Thus, the party in the East is seen as part of the establishment and has been hemorrhaging support to AfD. While there is plenty of radical talk in the party resolutions and programmes of Die Linke, hardly anything of this is visible in its public campaigns, or where the party is in power. Although nationalisation of the banks has been official party policy since the crisis 10 years ago, this is not put forward in any election or public campaigns. At best, the party leans on a German version of Jeremy Corbyns slogan For the many, not the few. The party appears lifeless and has little appeal to people who are looking for a genuine and radical way out of the crisis. In fact, while the SPD has been hemorrhaging support from workers and youth who are tired of the partys right-wing drift, Die Linke has barely picked up in the opinion polls. In the Bavarian elections, Die Linke only scored 3.2 percent. In Hesse, where the party has a more left-wing and more militant profile, it received 6.3 percent. Wagenknecht thinks she and Aufstehen can gain the support of people who are drifting towards AfD by courting anti-immigrant sentiments. But that will only strengthen the AfD / Image: Flickr, dielinke In recent months, the dissatisfaction has led one of the factions at the top of the Die Linke, led by Sahra Wagenknecht and Oskar Lafontaine, to set up a broad anti-establishment movement called Aufstehen (Stand up). Portraying this movement as an open break with establishment politics, they have called for a reversal of privatisations an and end to imperialist foreign policy and a drastic improvement in welfare and living conditions. The list of prominent Aufstehen supporters also includes some of the opponents of the Grand Coalition within the SPD and a number of veteran trade unionists. Towards the end of a summer, which had seen a significant rise in strikes and protests, the movement gained up to 150,000 online supporters within a few weeks. This reveals the enormous potential for a radical, working-class organisation. But since then, Aufstehen has remained stagnant. Its leaders have not taken any other bold measures, probably fearing losing control over the movement. Now, some local demos have been called for this coming weekend. The setting up of local, rank-and-file structures is also beginning, but slowly. At the same time, Wagenknecht, who is enjoying some personal popularity in opinion polls and represents the most prominent face of the movement, has been flirting with nationalism, opposing open borders as well as not supporting the call for a massive anti-racist demonstration which drew 250,000 people in Berlin on 13 October. She keeps calling on the left to be realistic and to talk about so called real issues concerning the working class. But all of this is having a demoralising effect on some of the advanced layers of the working class who are correctly opposed to any policy that breaks working-class unity. Wagenknecht thinks she can cleverly gain the support of people who are drifting towards AfD. But, as we have seen in the past couple of years with the SPD and CDU, adopting a more anti-immigrant tone is only going to strengthen the AfD. The rise of the AfD is mainly a result of capitalist policies, which Die Linke regional leaders themselves have been complicit in implementing while in power. The rise of the AfD is mainly a result of capitalist policies, which Die Linke regional leaders themselves have been complicit in implementing while in power / Image: vfutscher Whether Aufstehen will attract disenchanted former SPD supporters and many other politically homeless workers and youth in sizeable numbers, and this develop into a real anti-establishment movement, is yet to be seen, but what it does reveal is the explosive mood that is brewing underneath the surface. Under the impact of sharpening class contradictions, we are seeing the beginning of the breaking up of the political equilibrium, which was built after the Second World War and further consolidated after German unification. All that used to be solid and stable is melting as Germany enters a period of instability, crisis and class struggle. Nothing but crisis ahead The dominant sections of the ruling class forced the SPD and CDU/CSU to form a government. In so doing, they were trying to avert imminent disaster and an uncontrolled crisis. They want stability to remain within the EU their primary market for export at any cost. But nothing has been solved. On the contrary, being in government is ripping both parties apart. There is the potential for Merkel to resign as chancellor and for the coalition to break up long before the next general elections, officially due in autumn 2021. For instance, if the CDU elects an anti-Merkel leader, or if the SPD opposition forces the party to withdraw from government. This is a period of economic, social and political turbulence that could produce unforeseen and surprising results at any time. But the bourgeoisie is still putting enormous pressure on the parties to avoid this. Furthermore, the ever-greedy MPs can always be trusted to be wary of forcing new elections, as many of them would not be guaranteed to be re-elected. If the government was to last until the next elections in 2021, this would mean an extensive collapse of both parties, leaving the big bourgeoisie with little direct, political influence apart from through the Greens. In any case, political instability would be the main characteristic of this and any future government, and this will also have a severe impact on the EU. What we are witnessing today is merely the prelude to the great class struggles that will shake Germany and the rest of world in the next period / Image: Flickr, EU2017EE This process will be further exacerbated by external political and economic shocks such as Brexit, the Italian banking crisis, the rising trade wars or a slump in the world economy. All of these will exacerbate class contradictions and pit the German working class against big business. What we are witnessing today is merely the prelude to the great class struggles that will shake Germany and the rest of world in the next period. A French-British archaeological mission from the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology and the UK's Liverpool University have discovered ancient engravings alabaster quarries in Tel El-Amarna that could help reveal how ancient Egyptians managed to move stone blocks from alabaster quarries during the Khufu period. Dr Mostafa Waziri, the secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in statements on Tuesday that the mission started work at the site in Minya, Upper Egypt in 2012. Waziri explained that the mission conducted engineering and topographic surveys to investigate how ancient Egyptians extracted and moved alabaster, one of the most important materials used in making statues, sarcophagi, tiles and vases. Tel El-Amarna represents the remains of the capital city established in 1346 BC by the Pharaoh Akhenaten of the late Eighteenth Dynasty, and abandoned shortly after his death in 1332 BC. Search Keywords: Short link: The recruiters at the manufacturing job expo were getting territorial. They scanned the crowd of the Idaho Center in Nampa, attempting to make sustained eye contact with passers-by. They edged business cards to the front of tables. A glance from a potential applicant was enough to signal interest. They pounced. We have several positions open at the moment, they told candidates. Have we mentioned our excellent benefits? And, here, make sure you get a chance to try our product. With the economy roaring, manufacturers looking to grow are getting desperate for candidates, with some expanding benefits or raising wages to compete. Idahos 2.7 percent unemployment rate is the lowest its been in the last 10 years. By Kate Talerico [email protected] https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/business/article220256580.html The world may not have seen the back of US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, despite her recently announced resignation In an abrupt and unforeseen move, Nikki Haley resigned from her post as US ambassador to the United Nations recently. The resignation left friends and foes, including White House staff, baffled. Many have reflected on Haleys future, asking some plausible questions and making a few conceivable predications. Analysts have asked if Haleys departure was done in good faith or whether it was a tactic meant to see her return to office stronger, and, if so, what the world should expect. Haleys wheeling and dealing have been atypical, and it would pay in the long run to try to make sense of this important politician. I doubt that Nikki Haley plans on withdrawing from the political arena altogether. In fact, it may be truer to say that she has perfected her exit in the hope of a more profound re-entry at a future date. Having reached the peak of what the UN can offer her, and since her aspirations do not stop there, Haley is moving on. She also did not leave US President Donald Trump in the lurch, but instead gave him time to find a replacement as she will formally leave office at the end of the year. Her resignation has been the only recent White House resignation that was not fraught, but instead ended on mutually friendly terms. On her way up, Haley faced hurdles that she easily overcame. Her Indian origins and her parents religious affiliation as Sikhs could have been considered as hurdles by some, but they do not seem to have been so for Haley who took up Christianity later in life possibly to avoid any racial discrimination she may have faced. Once assigned the UN position, Haley made a powerful impact on deliberations in the organisation, mainly due to her hardline bias in favour of the US and Israel. She snubbed many in the process, but she never flinched. When Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, for example, Egypt put forward a draft UN resolution criticising this move. Haley then issued a direct threat, warning delegates not to vote for the resolution. She also sent a letter to UN delegations saying that the president will be watching the vote carefully and that she would report back on those who voted against us. She has defended Trump unreservedly. For instance, when delegates at the UN laughed at him during the General Assembly meetings in September, Haley said that this was prompted by respect as they love his honesty. Later, she said that delegates at the UN were falling over themselves trying to get a picture with the president and praising his speech, a comment that bemused many critics. As she resigned her office, Haley considered her achievements at the UN. Now the United States is respected. Countries may not like what we do, but they respect what we do, she said, even as the polls showed otherwise. Expectations regarding Haleys future are tremendous. Some say that she exited her UN post in defiance of Trump since he had bypassed her for the position of US secretary of state twice. Others warn that Haley could be in the White House in 2024. In the meantime, Haley has announced that she has no intention of running in the 2020 US presidential elections, but that she will support Trump. As for 2024, that will be a different ballgame, and by then Haley will still only be 52 years old. What does the world, in particular the Arab world, gain or lose from Haleys resignation from the UN and her continuing presence in the political realm? She has proven to be a staunch ally of Israel, and at meetings of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pressure group, she has proclaimed her allegiance to the country. The US will always stand with Israel, she has said more than once. In contrast, Haley views Palestine as not a UN member state or any state at all, and she has adamantly supported Trumps withholding of aid to the Palestinians. She has even questioned the Palestinian right of return to their land as part of any negotiated peace settlement. US policy will not change with Haleys departure, but no one can deny that Haleys views resonated powerfully in the hallways of the UN. It was she who said loud and clear that I wear heels, but its not a fashion statement. Its because if I see something wrong, Im gonna kick em every single time. It seems likely that despite her recent resignation as US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley will be back with a vengeance, and the world, in particular the Arab world, should be forewarned. * The writer is a political analyst. *A version of this article appears in print in the 1 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Whats behind Nikki Haleys resignation? Search Keywords: Short link: Despite being more antagonistic towards the press than any president in US history, Trump continues to control the narrative, ultimately getting his way The relationship between heads of state and the media is inherently tense. On the one hand, they rely on each other. Government leaders need the media to promote their policies and political and ideological outlooks, while the media needs government leaders as sources and as items in its news and other programmes. On the other hand, they are antitheses. Government leaders want secrecy. Journalists want to unearth and expose secrets. The former think that they represent national interests because of the legitimacy they possess as heads of state. The latter sees itself as the first step in the process of keeping political officials accountable. The result of this combination of mutual dependency and antithesis is a state of tension that can, on occasion, escalate into a type of war. US history has continually epitomised this state and the tension would occasionally escalate to seething when secrecy was at play or when journalists acted as though they were representatives of public opinion. But President Donald Trump treats journalists like no president before him. He has declared a state of war against them and even branded them as Americas enemy. They are the constant source of fake news, the cause of division in society, forever biased in order to promote their own interests rather than the higher national interest. This is not so much a battle over freedom of expression or broadcasting information before the time is right, as it is a political battle of the first order between an elected president who had prevailed in the polls over the presss preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton. Since that electoral battle, he has continued to prevail in one battle after the other. It is sometimes possible to see this as a battle between liberal philosophy or the liberal movement and conservative philosophy or (generally white) ultranationalism. We see this confrontation in most Western countries these days. However, it is particularly salient in the US where the warfare is open, the hostility raw and the language used is unfamiliar and unexpected for a democratic society. The profound changes that are sweeping democratic societies have reached a point where the term non-liberal democracy has been coined to express the transformation. A non-liberal democracy is one that retains the procedures that have to be followed under the constitution and the law, but in which there is no tolerance for or willingness to listen to the other side. The inevitable result is a sharp polarisation harmful to public policy. President Trump, since his election, has had to overcome two kinds of deficiencies. The first is that he won the Electoral College vote but not the popular vote. When the Electoral College decides the outcome of a presidential election, rather than the will of the majority, this can become a constant source of nagging. The second is the strong suspicions raised by the still ongoing investigation into Russian tampering in the polls in favour of Trump who may be the first president in US history to praise Russia and its president. The story of Trumps election did not end on the day the election results were announced. He may not have experienced the challenge that occurred in the case of George Bush Jr. who also won only thanks to the Electoral College. But, even though Trumps legitimacy is solid, he has had to remain in campaign mode ever since he first moved into the White House. In democratic societies, the leaderships battle with the press is commonly conducted via political parties, the presidents supporters and those who agree with his policies and disapprove of the policies advocated by the other sides in the political process. Heads of state (with perhaps the exception of Richard Nixon) always strive to keep their office above the fray. They also court certain journalists and media figures and grant them exclusive interviews. Bob Woodward had this kind of status. He has conducted numerous deep and thought-provoking interviews with Clinton, Bush Jr and Obama and written from these several books. When Woodward tried but failed to get an interview with Trump, that failure led to Fear, which is based on inside sources in the White House, instead of the president himself. Trumps way of handling his relationship with the press and media is unlike any of the methods of his predecessors and maybe his successors as well. His is the direct, gloves-off approach and this made his popularity soar almost overnight. In most public opinion polls, Trump had an approval rating of 40 per cent which, while obviously short of a majority, was sufficient to win the elections due to the zeal and dedication of his supporters and because the remaining 60 per cent, while keen to voice their views, often failed to report to the polls in sufficient numbers on voting day. The Latino community, frequently targeted by Trump during his election campaign, certainly has no love lost for him. But it has the lowest voter turnout rate of any minority in US history. Recently, Trump has found a new method for dealing with the press. He has begun to pick certain causes and rally public opinion behind them in a way that casts the opposition media as a proponent of mad-capped attitudes that run counter to US interests. Trump emerged the victor in the battle surrounding Brett Kavanaugh, not only because his nominee for the Supreme Court was confirmed but also because Trump won a five to four majority in favour of the conservatives on the Supreme Court. Trump homed in on Kavanaughs judicial career and the high esteem the judge enjoys among his colleagues and he pitted these factors against an alleged rape that occurred decades ago and the lack of any evidence that would stand up in court. Truth was not what counted here, but rather the ability to rally public opinion around what was said to be true. The media relied on the argument that a woman and university professor would never lie about such a thing as having been the victim of a sexual assault. Trump relied on his base which held that an allegation should never be accepted without evidence to substantiate it. Trump came out further ahead when the press, after losing its battle in the newspapers, the television screens and the social networking sites, lost again in the street where demonstrations were staged to keep the Senate from confirming Kavanaugh. The pattern reoccurred in the case of the caravan of migrants from Honduras and Guatemala that set off on a march through Mexico towards the US border and that collected, along the way, thousands of others who want to seek asylum in the US. The US press cast the event as a cause of the poor and downtrodden desperate to escape the misery and oppression in their own countries, setting their hopes on the US just as millions of other people had done before them. The call went out to apply the law which meant, firstly, that the caravan needed a sponsor in order to set the judicial procedures in motion for each individual in the caravan and, secondly, that there is a humanitarian tragedy that is putting Trump and the US government under the glare of criticism and censure. Trump, for his part, found that one of the main themes of his electoral campaign had returned physically embodied in that march of thousands that not only terrifies his white Republican conservative base but also many others in the US who have come to see migration and asylum as a kind of invasion. Not only did Trump seize the opportunity to capitalise on this fear by saying that the migrants had criminals and rapists among them. He also added to their numbers Middle Easterners which, over there, translates as terrorists. Trump had pledged to build a wall between the US and Mexico. It appears that he got what he wanted, whether the US press likes it or not. * The writer is chairman of the board, CEO and director of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies. *A version of this article appears in print in the 1 November, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: The press and the president Search Keywords: Short link: Friends on the Run hit the trail again 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. When familiar faces struck a deal with The Greene to again take over the closed Choes Bistro, it was a case of old owners, cleaning up a new owners mess. Michelle and Charles Yang managed Choes Asian Bistro from December 2014 through March 2017. After turning it over to new management, back rent and tax questions forced The Greene to close the restaurant. The Yangs came back to the rescue re-opening the eatery in April 2018. Today, after 7 months, new management has fine tuned their dishes. They will be adding a new chef and new menu additions are around the corner. The Food Adventures Crew has exclusive scoop on what could be the turning point for Ace Asian Cafe. HERES THE SKINNY ON ACE ASIAN CAFE at THE GREENE: Located at 4394 Juniper Way at The Greene outdoor mall in Beavercreek, Ace Asian Bistro has a menu that encompasses many countries, including THAILAND, CHINA, KOREA, and JAPAN. The restaurant is open Monday Thursday: 11:30am -10pm, Friday: 11:30am 11pm Saturday: Noon 11pm Sunday: Noon 9pm Ace Asian Cafe is currently developing some new specials for kids and seniors, as well as special discount days for Air Force members. Could we see a weekly special of endless sushi? Plans are also in the works for a special Food Adventure Tour of Asia ! Stay tuned to Dayton Most Metro for info on the December event. Then menu highlights are a full-blown list of sushi offerings, an option to sit at a table with a Korean BBQ built in, Pad Thai and Chinese Dishes. Want some Sake? Theyve got you covered there with a full selection and a cocktail rich bar. Besides a full dining room, sushi bar and cocktail bar, Ace Asian Cafe has a 50 person upstairs seating area for private events. It also has a Korean BBQ seating option for about 24 seats in the dining room. The ambiance is elegant and makes it feel like you are at a special occasion. Menu prices are typically $12.95- $14.95 for entrees. Lunch Bento Boxes are a great way to try a variety of foods and run about $10.95. Sushi Rolls run from 8 bucks to about $13.50. We have had good service on our visits here. The wait staff was attentive and friendly. Time to explore the menu which takes on an entire continent. Our patented must eats MUST EATS at ACE ASIAN CAFE: CRAB RANGOON: The old standard and everyones favorite, seems to be the most popular menu item here. Nice and creamy and a sauce like you have never tasted before for dipping. It is a smoky sweet n sour sauce. BENTO BOX WITH TERIYAKI SALMON: One of the best ways to sample the menu is through a Bento Box. And at the lunch price of $10.95 it is economical. You pick 2 entree dishes and it is served with a spring roll, rice, orange slices and a salad. Your entree choices include pad Thai, sushi rolls, Korean Bulgogi, Curry dishes and Chinese entrees. CALAMARI IN SPICY CHILI SAUCE: Deep fried calamari rings with a fantastic dipping sauce. The sweet sauce and spice, is the perfect contrast to the light crunch. The calamari does not have a fishy taste at all. HOT N SOUR SOUP: Their version is definitely worth ordering. All of their soups are good, but this one is the best. Mouth watering with a touch of heat. YELLOWTAIL NIGIRI Then simple thought of a fresh piece of raw fish and rice. If raw is your thing, try the Yellowtail. Dip in wasabi and soy sauce to complete the tasty deal. THE WASHINGTON SUSHI ROLL: Our favorite sushi roll is this one. It features cooked Shrimp Tempura, Cucumber, and cooked Crab topped with Salmon, Avocado, Tobago, Wasabi Dressing, Sweet Sauce & Goma Dressing. The result is a sweet and crunchy taste. If you like shrimp, crab and salmon, you must try this roll. GENERAL TSOS CHICKEN: They have a nice take on an old favorite. Medium sized chunks of deep-fried shrimp, tossed in a light brown sauce with stir fired vegetable surrounding the plate. A good, old-fashioned staple of Chinese cuisine done right. CHICKEN BULGOGI on the KOREAN BBQ TABLE: You or the server get to cook this shredded marinated chicken on the table side grill. It is a fun experience and the aroma as the chicken cooks is amazing. A few minutes and sizzles later, and you have a piping hot chicken grilled dish in front of you. Served with rice, the grilled onion and spices are a perfect blend. Honorable Mention: Katsu Chicken Bento Box A nice white meat piece, sliced and panko fried, drizzled with Asian sauces. Blue Crab Stuffed Salmon Baked Salmon with blue crab, stir fired vegetables and Asian spices. ***EXCLUSIVE SCOOP ON NEW MENU ITEMS COMING TO ACE ASIAN CAFE !!*** This Spring some new menu items will be in play . Only Food Adventures and Dayton Most Metro has the scoop. Sorry about the quality, we had to do mission impossible and Indiana Jones type stuff to get you these papers. They are adding salads, udon and soba soups, and even a katsu curry dish. Make sure you visit Ace Asian Cafe at the Greene. The atmosphere is perfect for a special occasion meal or meeting. Any celebration would be a success at this restaurant. For more Food Adventures , look for us each and every week here at Dayton Most Metro ! Cant get enough? Then join the nearly 8,000 foodies following us on FACEBOOK by clicking here! Feel free to browse the gallery below as only we can produce tons of great food photos week in and week out InSites Consulting Buys South Africa's Columinate Global consumer agency InSites Consulting has acquired Johannesburg, South Africa-based researcher Columinate, for an undisclosed sum. Columinate uses a range of digital methodologies to help clients understand and engage with their customers. A year ago, it launched an approach to measure a research participant's nonconscious attitudes and behaviour towards concepts, brands, services and products. InSites says South Africa is the continent's largest research market, representing 50% of all MR spend, and will give it a 'strong strategic position' there. This is InSites' second acquisition, after Sydney-based Direction First less than a year ago, and the two new bases add to existing offices in Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, the US, Germany and Romania. Last month, investment firm Mentha Capital acquired a majority stake in InSites. Following the latest transaction, Columinate co-founder and CEO Henk Pretorius (pictured) will continue in his role of MD of the South African office, but will also join InSites as a Managing Partner. Kristof De Wulf, co-founder and CEO of InSites, comments: 'Today, we anchor our global presence across four continents and eight offices. With the intellectual capital, client network and digital technology which Columinate brings to the table, we will be able to better service the needs of and unlock more benefits for our global clients'. Web sites: www.insites-consulting.com and www.columinate.com . Political class must sacrifice in the ... State NSF marks 100 years of Naga Club Visser, Bose, NSF officials and others after unveiling monolith. (NP) Correspondent KOHIMA, OCT 31 (NPN) | Publish Date: 10/31/2018 12:19:24 PM IST Celebration of the 100th year of Naga Club under the theme Celebrating the legacy began with participation of Nagas from western, northern and southern areas and Myanmar at a function organised by Naga Students Federation (NSF) at Naga Solidarity Park here on Wednesday. United Nations consultant for peace building and dialogue Philippus Petrus Visser took part in the function as an honoured guest. The programme was also attended by various frontal tribal bodies, Naga Hoho, Naga Mothers Association, NPMHR, Khasi Students Union and well wishers including former NSF office bearers. In his address, Visser said he was honoured to be part of the celebrations commemorating 100 years of Naga Clubs legacy and struggle. He stressed that unity was essential for political struggle and urged the Nagas to find ways to work together cutting across tribal divides. Visser said he could not comment on Naga political struggle, but shared his experiences and urged Naga people to ponder what hindered finding a solution to the issue. Citing the instance of worlds youngest nation South Sudan that got independence in 2011, he said two years later, civil war erupted due to divisions among the people who belonged to different ethnic groups. Stressing the need for relationship between political leadership and communities, the UN consultant urged the Naga people to celebrate 100 years of Naga Club by striving to leave behind another legacy for the next 100 years for the upcoming generations. In his address, former secretary general of South Asia Forum for Human Rights (SAFHR) Tapan Bose said he had travelled the length and breadth of Naga areas and found the Naga people well-cultured, but unfortunately were not found interesting by Indian States. He added that the Naga people were fighting for their right to self determination and right to life, while continuing to live in peace in the manner they had over the centuries. He observed that the submission of memorandum by Naga Club to Simon Commission became a historical event for the Nagas. Bose alleged that the idea of Indias sovereignty and nationalism was so overwhelming among a section of leaders in the country immediately after independence that they had forgotten the concept of human rights and sent Assam Rifles to Naga hills. He reminded the participants of Oinam village incident of 1987. The former SAFHR secretary general urged the Naga people to introduce a system whereby all the tribes with their diversity and culture could live together under one political system as one people, having total control over their lives, resources, legal system, etc. He also emphasised Nagas having their own constitution, while still being part of the Indian constitution to protect their history and culture, control over resources, their languages, right to retain their identity, maintain diversity, etc. Speaking on the occasion, organising committee convener Neingulo Krome said the rally was being held to commemorate 100 years of Naga Club, honour its pioneers and celebrate the legacy. He said the Naga Solidarity Park was established 25 years ago when Nagas from all Naga areas had come together and celebrated 1993 as the International Year of the Worlds Indigenous Peoples as declared by the United Nations with the motto Indigenous Peoples - A New Partnership. He said a function was jointly organised by Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights and NSF from December 1 to 5 that year. Neingulo remarked that despite the many challenges our society was facing today due to some internal contradictions, which continued to mar Naga society, our ancestors who laid the foundation of our nationhood must be looking at todays gathering with affection as we equally embrace their blessings upon us. He said Today, as we all join our hearts and souls to re-affirm the pledge of our ancestors, we re-iterate that the land of Nagas straddles across the political boundaries, which the British drew to demarcate territories of India and Burma (Myanmar) without consulting the Nagas. This imaginary line runs through the middle of villages and even houses. According to him, the political boundaries further divided Naga areas into the present States of Nagaland, Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, besides the erstwhile Sagaing Division and the recently-formed Self-Administered Zone in Burma that left out Khamti, Homalin, Tamu, etc, and also many Nagas living in Kachin in Myanmar. However, he stressed We are all here cutting across national and international boundaries, representing all these geographical regions to reaffirm what our ancestors and Naga Club had stood hundreds years ago. The programme was compered by Theophilus and Gugu Haralu and traditional blessing done by former chairman Japfuphiki Pfutsana Krotho. A one-minute silence was observed in honour of departed souls and associated with Naga club. Welcome address was delivered by NSF president Christopher Ltu, while Nagas from Myanmar and from western, northern and southern areas presented cultural items. As North East Students Organisation chairman Samuel B Jyrwa shared a solidarity message, representatives from Arunachal Pradesh and Kuki Inpi, Nagaland spoke on the occasion. Poetry reading was done by Virokono Kuotsu, while southern Nagas from Oniam shared the tale of struggle and suffering caused by Assam Rifles personnel after their camp was attacked. Eirene choir presented postlude and closing prayer said by Rev Fr Paul Punii. More than 4,000 people, including students, general public, student leaders and others, attended the programme. Sesa sen By Express News Service BHUBANESWAR: Its a matter of time before Jubilant FoodWorks-operated Dominos Pizza renews its famous slogan, Dominos Pizza are best enjoyed with Coke. To be sure, you are not getting any Coke with your pizza anymore. Like it or not, you may have to take home a bottle of Pepsi branded beverages. On Tuesday, JFL signed a multi-year deal with PepsiCo as its exclusive beverage partner, ditching its alliance with Coca-Cola. The move, industry watchers say, is perhaps to save cost and boost the profitability of the pizza maker. As part of the partnership, the PepsiCo portfolio of carbonated beveragesPepsi, Mountain Dew, 7Up and Mirinda, along with Lipton Ice Teawill be sold across all Dominos restaurants in the country. Historically, Dominos has had exclusive partnership deals with Coca-Cola worldwide, with only a few exceptions, such as Australia, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Malaysia, where it serves PepsiCo beverages. The partnership will bring in fresh focus on our beverage portfolio. Now, we look forward to offering greater beverage variety and thereby enhancing the Dominos Pizza experience for our guests, said Pratik Pota, Chief Executive Officer and Whole Time Director, Jubilant FoodWorks. The company had a strong partnership with Coca-Cola India for over 20 years now. Analysts say that the move is expected to give a boost to PepsiCos food service business in the country. PepsiCo has exclusive tie-ups with many of Dominos rival food chains such as KFC, Subway, Pizza Hut and Burger King, besides multiplex players such as PVR in India. However, McDonald continues to enjoy its long-standing alliance with Coca-Cola. On Twitter, the announcement received mixed reactions, with some rejoicing and others lamenting the changing alliance. Not done Dominos, pizza tastes best with coke, tweeted a coke fan. The Michigan-based Dominos Pizza has a network of 1.167 stores across 269 cities. Besides India, the company and its subsidiaries have exclusive rights to develop and operate the brand in Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. It also has exclusive rights for developing and operating Dunkin Donuts restaurants for India. By Express News Service BHUBANESWAR: In a move to support the domestic industry, the government is considering a proposal to increase the import duty on aluminium scrap and primary aluminium amid high growth in inward shipments, sources said. The move is in retaliation against US President Donald Trumps decision to impose heavy tariffs on imported steel and aluminium items. Vedanta Group chairman Anil Agarwal reiterated in a tweet on Monday that the government should consider increasing import duty on primary and scrap aluminium to 10 per cent each. Amid the ongoing tariff war between the US and China, Agarwal noted that India was becoming a dumping ground, with scrap imports surging over 140 per cent in the last quarter. During the first quarter of the FY19, imports of aluminium scrap increased to 36,000 tonnes from 16,000 tonnes. Aluminium is the only metal which has differential duty for metal and scrap, and the rise in importswhich comes in the wake of the US tariff hike --- is threatening the survival of the domestic industry, pointed out Aluminium Association of India (AAI). In a memorandum to the mines ministry, AAI stated that over the last seven years, imports of total aluminium scrap rose by 98 per cent to 931,000 tonnes, reducing the capacity utilisation of domestic players to less than 70 per cent. The association has said that an estimated 30 per cent of Chinas aluminium scrap imports come from the US. Other aluminium makers, such as Hindalco and Nalco, have also urged the government to increase the basic customs duty on the metal and the metal scrap from 7.5 per cent and 2.5 per cent, respectively. The industry also wanted the government to reduce the import duty on critical raw materials such as alumina to nil from five per cent now, and on coal tar pitch to 2.5 per cent from five per cent currently. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: In a blow to broadcasting companies, not the least of which is Star Indiathe countrys largest broadcast network-- the Supreme Court has dismissed its plea challenging the Madras High Courts order upholding the sector regulators new tariff reform. The SCs decision ensures that consumers no longer have to pay for channels they do not want to watch since the new guidelines implemented in June mandate that broadcasting companies cannot mix free-to-air channels with pay channels in bouquets. This came as a blow to the broadcasting networks, who have been bundling their poorly performing channels with high-performing and FTA channels, forcing consumers to end up buying a bouquet of channels they did not want to watch, to be able to watch a highly popular one. The Trai had also prescribed timelines for the stakeholders, with a deadline of August 31 for implementation. However, when the Madras High Court set aside Star Indias petition against the order in May, the broadcaster had gone to the Supreme Court on the grounds that the tariff regulations issued by Trai were in conflict with the Copyright Act, 1957. However, on Tuesday, a bench comprising Justices Rohinton F Nariman and Navin Sinha dismissed Star Indias petition. Most major broadcasters have already complied with the Trai order. By Express News Service BENGALURU: The Cubbon Park police has recorded the statements of two witnesses in connection with the case filed by actress Sruthi Hariharan against actor Arjun Sarja. Police sources say that both the witnesses alleged that Sruthi was upset about how Sarja behaved with her. Makeup artist Kiran and Monica, an associate director of Vismaya, appeared before the police on Tuesday and gave their statements regarding the allegations made by Sruthi that Sarja made her uncomfortable by touching her inappropriately on the sets of the movie.Sources say that Monica had said that Sruthi was dull on the sets. I enquired what had happened and she said she was upset with the way Arjun Sarja behaved with her. I was not too bothered as it was not concerned with me but I consoled Sruthi, a source said quoting Monica. ALSO READ | Arjuns injunction plea against Sruthi Hariharan adjourned Even Kiran is said to have made a similar statement indicating that all was not well with Sruthi on the sets of the movie. I was not at the shooting spot but Sruthi came out of the sets weeping and told me that Sarja was troubling her. Also, it is true that Sarja had stopped his car next to Sruthis car at Devanahalli Signal, but I am not sure what he said to her, Kiran reportedly told the police. Two other witnesses, Sruthis assistant Boregowda and her friend Yashaswini have reportedly sought some time to give their statements. The police will summon more witnesses including the film director Arun Vaidyanathan as part of the probe. Sarja moves HC Actor Arjun Sarja has approached the Karnataka High Court against the FIR registered against him by actor Sruthi Hariharan on the charge of sexual harassment. Sarjas petition, seeking to quash the FIR, is likely to come up for hearing on Wednesday. Sarja said that the #MeToo movement has become humour for those off the market By Express News Service BENGALURU: A decorated senior researcher of the reputed Indian Institute of Science (IISc) here, Prof Giridhar Madras, has been asked to take compulsory retirement after an internal committee inquiry found evidence of him sexually harassing one of his former students who is currently a PhD scholar. His faculty profile has already been taken down from the IISc website. A complaint was received from a PhD student about sexual harassment by a senior professor. The complaint was enquired into by the internal complaints committee of the institute, IISc said in a statement. The governing council being the appointing authority for faculty deliberated on the inquiry report and resolved to compulsorily retire the faculty with immediate effect, it said.The orders were served on the faculty on October 22, 2018 and he stands compulsorily retired, it said. The IISc officials did not say whether he would be entitled to retirement benefits. The 51-year-old Giridhar Madras, an alumnus of IIT Madras, has been with IISc since 1998 and is the recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award (2009), JC Bose National Fellowship, and the IISc award for excellence in research. He holds fellowships from all three national science academies as well as the Indian National Academy of Engineering. Now, there is uncertainty over his awards and fellowships being rescinded. ALSO READ | #MeToo: Not the first sexual harrasment case at the Indian Institute of Science The institutes internal complaints committee found Giridhar guilty of sexual misconduct after a month-long investigation. The disciplinary action against him was recommended by the IIScs council. According to sources, Prof Giridhar was accused by one of his former students. The student accused him of making sexually coloured remarks and of harassing her with repeated late-night phone calls. The disciplinary body took action citing Rule 11 mentioned in the Central Civil Services Classification Control and Appeal Rules. The rule applies to employees of IISc. IISc does not tolerate any form of harassment and has vowed to take all measures to make sure that women on the campus do not face any harassment, a senior professor, who asked not to be identified, said. However, when questioned about what exactly was the complaint and when the incident came to light, IISc officials said they cannot divulge any information. The New Indian Express found that the institutes policy of dealing with sexual harassment at workplace includes a clause, among other common provisions, that protects the privacy of the complainant and the respondent even after the committee has completed its enquiries and recommended a course of action to the institute. When TNIE contacted the institutes director Prof Anurag Kumar for comments on the case, he did not respond to calls. S Lalitha By Express News Service BENGALURU: A 34-year-old Nepali woman heading from Bengaluru to Sharjah was caught by immigration officials at the Kempegowda International Airport for allegedly carrying a fake letter from the Nepal embassy. She has been booked under three sections of the Indian Penal Code and is in jail now. According to airport police, Sita Singali arrived from Kathmandu on Saturday (October 29). She was heading to Sharjah by an Emirates flight the same night when immigration officials at the international departure zone took her into custody after checking her documents. Singali's passport was stamped with a 3-month visa to stay in Sharjah. It was accompanied by a letter from the Nepal embassy in New Delhi authorising her to stay in the United Arab Emirates. "The letter immediately aroused suspicion among immigration officials as the word 'Embassy' in the letter was wrongly spelt as 'Emnassy'. On closer examination of the letter, they found the seal to be fake, as well as the signature signed below it," a top police official said. Singali was taken into custody. "She protested, stating that the letter was genuinely obtained from her country's embassy in India," he added. The immigration department handed her over to the airport police. "She has been booked under Sections 420 (Cheating) and Sections 465 (Forgery) and 471 (Usage of a fraud document as a genuine one) of the Indian Penal Code," another police official said. Interrogation revealed that Sangli was educated up to Class V and worked at a flower market in Nepal. She was remanded to judicial custody. The airport police are in the process of writing to the Nepali embassy to ascertain the genuineness of her claim. By PTI CHENNAI: The Madras High Court Wednesday dismissed a petition filed by 14 accused in the Ayanavaram child rape case, seeking transfer of the probe to the CBI. Rejecting the petition, Justice A D Jagadish Chandra saaid, "No specific material fact has been averted in the petition regarding mala fide exercise of power by the Inspector of Police who is the investigated the case. "The petitioners have not made out any extraordinary or special grounds for transfer of investigation or for further investigation." The matter relates to the rape of an 11-year-old hearing-impaired girl by a group of 18 people working at an apartment complex in Ayanavaram locality here, like plumbers, housekeepers, security guards and lift operators. ALSO READ: Hearing-impaired 11-year-old girl in Chennai allegedly raped by 18 men over six months The girl was allegedly sexually assaulted several times by the accused over seven months. All 18 were first arrested, and then detained under the Goondas Act. Recently, the Goondas Advisory Board also confirmed the detention of the 17 under the Act. Claiming that the allegations against them were false, the petitioners said it was very strange that the minor girl was still alive despite the claim of her having been "raped" on multiple occasions. Noting that they had no bad antecedents, the petitioners alleged that all of them have lost their jobs and were forced to vacate their house by the landlords. ALSO READ: Advocates attack men who allegedly raped hearing impaired 11-year-old Chennai girl for over six months Adverse media reports had prejudiced the minds of police and others, they claimed. The horrific incident had led to shock and outrage and the arrested had been attacked by some lawyers in the court when they were produced on July 17. According to police, the girl was sedated with injections, drug-laced soft drinks and made to sniff a powder by the accused before sexually assaulting her repeatedly. The incident had come to light after the victim, a class seven student, narrated her ordeal to her elder sister, who then informed their parents. Following this a police complaint was lodged on July 15. By Express News Service KOCHI: Completing its fourth circumnavigation voyage, INS Tarangini, the Navys three-masted sail training ship, docked at the Kochi Naval Base on Tuesday. The 21-year-old ship, captained by Commander Rahul Mehta with a crew of nine officers and 43 sailors, set sail from Kochi on April 10 for its fourth Lokayan, a seven-month voyage to Europe. During its 205-day journey, the ship traversed 22,000 miles (35,405 km) and called on 15 ports in 13 countries. The crew was felicitated by SNC Chief of Staff Rear Admiral N J Nadkarni at the reception ceremony on Tuesday. Besides providing sail training 120 sea trainees, the ship participated in the culminating event of the Three Festival Tall Ships Regatta at Bordeaux in France and in the Tall Ships Races Europe, 2018 from Sunderland in the UK to Esbjerg in Denmark and Stavanger in Norway to Harlingen in Netherlands. The ship sailed across the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar, the North Atlantic Ocean, the Bay of Biscay, English Channel and reached Norway crossing the North Sea before returning to Kochi. The ship participated in a sailing parade alongside hundreds of other vessels, including 200 tall ships. Mehta addressed the audience on behalf of all tall ships at the grand culmination ceremony of the Tall Ships Race at Harlingen on August 5, said a Navy officer. The High Commission and Defence Attache at Saudi Arabia facilitated the visit of two Muslim personnel from the ship to Mecca to perform Umrah during the ships stay at Jeddah. We are the only country outside Europe to participate in the events. We faced tough challenges, like experiencing rough seas and extreme climatic conditions, with wind gushing at 50 knots and waves rising as high as 10-15 ft. INS Tarangini is an open vessel and we were exposed to the weather. At times, the temperature dropped below 10 degree celsius and there were cold rains. The Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the North Atlantic Ocean and Bay of Biscay are known for turbulent waters. But we took it in stride, said Mehta. He said hundreds of Keralites visited the ship at Jeddah, Muscat and Djibouti. Indian Ocean naval symposium on Nov 13, 14 A Tall Ship Race will be organised as part of the Indian Ocean naval symposium scheduled to be held in Kochi on November 13 and 14. Twenty sea riders, including INS Tarangini, INS Sudarshini and Oman ship Zinat Al Bihaar, from various countries will participate. The race will start from Kochi on November 14 and is expected to culminate at Muscat on November 27. Representatives from 32 countries will attend the naval symposium. Defence Minister Nirmala Seetharaman will inaugurate the event. Eight countries, including China and Russia, will participate as observers. Anilkumar T By Express News Service KOCHI: With the tipper lorries in the district claiming three lives in two separate incidents, the Motor Vehicle Department (MVD) is set to resume a crackdown on lorry drivers engaging in reckless driving. The department had stalled the drive against the tipper lorry drivers after they put up a commendable effort during the floods to rescue the victims. However, the department decided to crack the whip after three lives were lost in two separate mishaps at Tripunithura and Perumbavoor on Sunday. As per the report prepared by the MVD, the three deaths happened due to the rash and reckless driving. Ratheesh, 40, his wife Raji, 32, of Kinginimattom near Kolancheri and Geetha, 50, wife of Sajikumar, died in two separate incidents after the tipper lorries mowed them down. The tipper lorries assumed a special status post flood due to their heroic deeds. There was no complaint against them for the past two months. But, things have changed with complaints pouring against them. The accidents at Perumbavoor and Tripunithura are real examples of reckless driving, said enforcement RTO K M Shaji. According to the Enforcement RTO, two teams have been constituted exclusively for rural Ernakulam for the same. Complaints against speeding and overloading are rampant. If the load is above the allowed limit, the brake system may not be functional and this result in the mishap. We are planning to carry out the drive to nab over speeding and overloading lorries, added RTO. As per the government order, the tippers are not allowed to ply between 9 am to 10 am and 4 pm and 5 pm. However, most tipper crew dont follow government orders. The Motor Vehicle Department (MVD) had taken action against 275 vehicles and issued notices to suspend the licence of 29 drivers in a 24-hour special drive against tipper lorries for overloading and rash driving in the last December. However, the department officers are of the opinion that a joint drive with the Police Department needs to be carried out to come down against the Tipper mafia. After the flood, they have already established a relationship with the top officers. Whenever they caught red-handed, they get help from the top officers. This should be avoided and both the enforcement agency should work together, said a top officer with the MVD. Meanwhile, District Collector K Mohammed Y Safirulla said a meeting of police officers and the MVD officers will be convened to take action against reckless driving. By PTI MUMBAI: A massive fire broke out at a slum in suburban Bandra Tuesday morning, a fire brigade official said. No loss of life has been reported so far and eight water tankers, nine fire engines as well as ten fire tenders have been rushed to the spot to put out the blaze, the official said. #Visuals: Level-3 fire breaks out in a slum at Lalmati, opposite Bandra Fire Station on Nagardas Road. 9 Fire tenders at the spot. #Mumbai pic.twitter.com/awQZXWeu2y ANI (@ANI) October 30, 2018 The incident was reported at 11.50 am in Nargis Dutt Nagar slum, located opposite Bandra fire station in Bandra (West), the disaster management cell of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said in a statement. "A joint team of fire brigade, ward staffers and Mumbai Police personnel has been mobilised to douse the flames," it added. Local MLA and Mumbai BJP chief Ashish Shelar, who is overseeing the rescue operation, said prima facie the blaze was triggered by a cylinder blast in the slum. (Further details are awaited) By Express News Service VIJAYAWADA: A 25-year-old girl lodged a complaint with the Bhavanipuram police on Monday night stating she was cheated of Rs 75,000 in the name of a lucky draw. The victim was identified as Shaik Bibi, a resident of Old Housing Board Colony Shaik Bibi, and reportedly worked as a sales person at a private company. As per her complaint, Bibi received a phone call from an unidentified person on October 22 and was told that she had won a car in the lucky draw for the online purchase she made on October 6. Believing his words, Bibi deposited Rs 75,000 in a bank account in three phases. She realised she was cheated when the fraud switched off his phones on Monday. By Express News Service RAIPUR: Former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi ending the suspense over contesting the upcoming polls said that his party has declared him as a candidate to contest from the reserved scheduled tribe seat of Marwahi - his traditional stronghold in Bilaspur district. The Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) in its latest list of 26 candidates announced the name of Ajit Jogi from Marwahi, which is now being represented by his son Amit Jogi. The 72-year-old bureaucrat-turned-politician though had earlier declared his willingness to contest an election against the chief minister Raman Singh from Rajnandgaon seat but latter backed out citing that the alliance wanted him to campaign across the 90 Assembly segments of the state. Jogi's regional outfit JCC (J) has entered into a pre-poll alliance with the Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party and the Communist Party of India (CPI). The JCC (J) is yet to announce from where Amit Jogi will contest the polls. Jogi's daughter in law Richa Jogi is contesting on BSP ticket from Akaltara seat in Janjgir-Champa. Jogi's wife Renu is seeking a Congress ticket from her existing constituency Kota, she is representing since 2008, is yet to get confirmation whether her name will again be considered. Ajit Jogi wants the wife should join his party and will offer her the party ticket from Kota if Congress declines. By Online Desk Halloween was originally meant to be the celebration of the dead, a day to remember saints and martyrs from the past. As times changed, the festival is now associated with all things spooky. For movie lovers, here are some classic horror movies, that were a huge hit back, to binge watch on Halloween night. 1. Scream (1996) Directed by Wes Craven, Scream is a black comedy and slasher genre. The movie revolves around a killer called Ghostface, who kills teenagers until one solves the mystery. Earning around $173 million worldwide, the film was partially based on true events. Ghostface's mask was based on Edvard Munch's famous painting 'The Scream. The movie was followed by three sequels. 2. The Exorcist (1973) Photo | IMDB The film is about a teenage girl, Regan, who is possessed by a devil and how her mother with the help of two priests saves the girl. Directed by William Friedkin, the movie is part of an exorcist franchise and is considered as one of the highest grossing films in history with over $441 million worldwide. Considered as one of the greatest horror films of all time, the film experienced troubled production and a few claimed that the set was cursed. The set even caught fire during the shoot causing delays and the creepiest part is that the whole set was destroyed apart from Regan's room, which was completely undamaged. This movie is not for the weak hearts and you've been warned over the spider walk scene. 3. Child's Play (1988) Who knew an innocent gift would turn into an evil mess? A widow unknowingly purchases a doll named Chucky, which is possessed by a serial killer, to gift her six-year-old son. The doll comes up with creative ways to kill people, biting, stabbing and what not. You would never want to buy a doll ever again after watching this movie. The film was made into several sequels and a TV series is in production for a release in 2019. 4. Halloween (1978) Directed by John Carpenter, Halloween tells the story of a serial killer, Michael Myers. On a Halloween night, six-year-old Michael brutally murders his 17-year-old sister and was locked away for 15 years. He then escapes while being transferred for a court date and continues his killings and targets teenage babysitters on Halloween night. 5. Dead Alive (1992) What's Halloween without a zombie movie in the list? Originally titled as Braindead, this dark comedy was directed by Peter Jackson. A village boy's mother gets bitten by a rabid rat-monkey and dies. She wakes up from the grave and converts the residents of Newtown into a swarm of zombies. This blood-splattered horror masterpiece is considered as one of the goriest fright films of all time by movie critics. Better have a bucket nearby, just in case. 6. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) Photo | IMDB Clarice Starling, a young FBI agent, investigates a vicious murderer nicknamed Buffalo Bill, who skins young women after killing them. To get further insight into the investigation, she seeks help from Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a former psychiatrist and a cannibalistic serial killer. Buffalo Bill from this psychological horror movie is based on three serial killers. With a nail-biting turn of events, would Clarice Starling find the madman? 7. The Blair Witch Project (1999) Photo | IMDB Three film students travel to Maryland Black woods to shoot a documentary on the legendary Local Blair Witch for their project. They interview the locals about the Blair witch and research about it. While they tent deep in the woods, they hear mysterious noises and are continuously disturbed by some dark force. The students curiosity leads to their worst nightmare. While they fear for their lives will they escape the dark woods? 8. The Shining (1980) Photo | IMDB Directed by Stanley Kubrick, the film is based on Stephen King's 1997 novel The Shining. Jack Torrance, an aspiring writer moves to an isolated Historic Overlook Hotel with his family in winter. Jack ignores the manager's warning about a previous caretaker, who went crazy and slaughtered his family. His son, Danny gets bloody visions and "shining" hints frequently. While Jack starts exhibiting weird and crazy behavior, his wife Wendy tries to escape the hotel with Danny. With Wendy and Danny trapped in the hotel, will they escape from the murderous threats from Jack? By Online Desk The Madras High Court on Tuesday quashed a criminal case by music maestro Ilaiyaraaja, against Echo Recording Company for selling his hits without paying royalty. The musician filed a complaint against the company in March 2010, after which he filed an FIR in April 2010 under Section 418 (cheating) of Indian Penal Code. According to a report in The Hindu, Justice MV Muralidaran pointed out that the criminal case was unnecessary when there are already pending copyright cases by the musician. Therefore, the judge ruled that the prosecutor cannot pursue both civil and criminal proceedings, and said Ilaiyaraaja could claim royalty through the civil suits. Musician Ilaiyaraaja has similar cases against Agi Music Pvt Ltd, Unisys Info Solution Pvt Ltd, and Giri Trading Company. In 2014, the High Court banned the companies from selling records with the composer's hits which violated copyrights. Gopinath Rajendran By Express News Service Actor Pavel Navageethan, who played Shiva in Dhanushs Vada Chennai, was hoping to direct a film when he was asked to meet director Vetri Maaran. I had written a script and was telling that story to many production houses. Thats when I was called for Vada Chennai. I told them I was busy narrating a script and asked if I could come the next day. They were okay with it, but I was apprehensive that they would think I was acting pricey, says Pavel, who also acted in Kuttram Kadithal, Magalir Mattum, and Madras. When I went in, Vetri sir gazed at me and said ah, okay pa, and I only got to meet him properly on the sets. I wasnt told what role Id be playing, and when I asked a co-director, he said it is the role of the heros friend. I was told that Ill be needed for 10 days and if director sir is impressed with my acting, he would extend my role. I wasnt sure how theyd do it but I took it as a challenge, he adds. A scene from Vada Chennai And sure enough, thanks to Pavels performance, his character was given more scenes. From 10, the number of days I worked became 80, out of the 100 days the film was shot for. Right from the eleventh day, there was a sense of satisfaction that my work was liked by the makers, says the actor, who even spent time with Vetri Maaran during post production. If Vetri sir likes a person, he makes sure that person is around him. If I got up to leave the studio when he entered, he would tell me to stay back and see how the work happened. Interestingly, by then, Pavel had completed shooting his directorial debut. Vetri sir saw the film and he said he liked it. I even told him that I was worried that Vada Chennai could brand me as an actor, while I preferred direction. But he told me to continue acting so I could learn more from those working around me. 'Vada Chennai' movie review: A gritty, even if rushed, gangster drama with unforgettable stretches The actor, who will next be seen alongside Mammootty in Peranbu, was apprehensive about acting in front of Samuthirakani and Dhanush. Kani sir and Dhanush sir would finish their scenes very quickly irrespective of how long the dialogues were. As theyre so perfect, it made me feel conscious about my lines, he says. Ask him about his directorial debut and he says, I was waiting for a good banner to release the film. Vada Chennai has made that process easier. I was roaming around with a script for eight years, but no one paid heed. But now that Im a known actor, it opens up more avenues for me. I suppose it gives them a sense of confidence that I can make a good film. Ill speak about it more when the film is ready for release, concludes Pavel, who reveals that its title will be Otta Thoodhuvan. Ejaz Kaiser By Express News Service RAIPU: A day after the deadly Maoist attack at Aranpur in strife-torn Dantewada district, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh held a review meeting with top officials on the law and order situation prevailing in Naxal-affected areas that are going to the polls on November 12. On Tuesday, two policemen and a Doordarshan (DD) news cameraman Achyutanand Sahoo were killed by Maoists in an ambush in the forested terrain of Nilavaya close to Aranpur Village. A three-member DD team was on an election coverage assignment in Dantewada, about 420 km south of Raipur. An anguished Singh condemned the Maoist attack as a "cowardly act". He directed the officials to step-up the anti-Maoist operations and ensure 'free, fair and peaceful' polls in the region. ALSO READ: Government announces Rs 15 lakh for slain Doordarshan cameraman's family Chief Secretary Ajay Singh, Principal Secretary to Singh, DGP AN Upadhyay, Special DG (anti -Maoist operation) D M Awasthi, ADG (Intelligence) Ashok Juneja and other senior officials were present during the review meeting. A jawan critically injured in the attack succumbed to bullet injuries in Raipur on Wednesday. Rakesh Kaushal who was air-lifted from Dantewada to the state capital died in a private nursing home Ram Krishna Care Hospital taking the toll to four. The two jawans, Sub-Inspector Rudra Pratap Singh and an Assistant Constable Mangal Ram were killed on Tuesday by the rebels. ALSO READ: For Doordarshan cameraperson Achyutananda Sahoo, work always came first Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) O P Rawat is visiting Chhattisgarh on Wednesday evening to hold a review meeting with the electoral officers, district police chiefs over the poll preparedness besides the security arrangements in the sensitive areas. Besides the top state officials, the CEC will also have discussions with the representatives of recognised political parties. By IANS NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed for shifting of Brajesh Thakur -- the main accused in Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case -- to Patiala prison from Bihar's Bhagalpur jail. A bench headed by Justice Madan B. Lokur ordered for Thakur's shifting to the high-security prison in Punjab, despite the defence counsel suggested to shift him to Delhi. "No, no, Delhi is already polluted (overcrowded)," Justice Lokur said. The court also expressed its displeasure over the police not arresting another accused and former Bihar Minister Manju Verma. She was a Minister in Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led government. "Her bail was rejected on October 9. Why have you not arrested her...because she was a Cabinet Minister? Nobody could trace her. Why was she not arrested?" Justice Lokur asked, brushing aside all explanations by senior counsel Ranjit Kumar appearing for the state. Pointing to the depravity of the crime where 34 of the 41 minors housed in a short-stay home were confirmed to have been raped, Justice Lokur said: "These girls were injected with drugs and a person is allowed to construct a four-storeyed building without windows!" Describing what all has happened as "indefensible", senior counsel Kumar said the authorities are looking into how the building was constructed, who sanctioned the plan and why it should not be demolished. The court also questioned the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) over changing the team investigating the case despite its orders. Telling the CBI officer present in the court that it had issued the September 20 order on keeping intact the investigating team, the court directed that the names of the officers who were there in the investigating team and that of those who are at present in the team be placed before it on Wednesday morning. By PTI NEW DELHI: Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu Tuesday said regulator DGCA has been asked to look at engines and other issues related to airlines following the plane crash in Indonesia. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) reviewed the performance of Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes operated by Jet Airways and SpiceJet, a senior official said Tuesday. The development comes a day after a Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft operated by Indonesia's Lion Air crashed into the sea shortly after taking off from Jakarta. There were more than 180 people on board. "Now because of yesterday's incident, we have also asked (DGCA) to look at engines etc. DGCA has been asked to do it," Prabhu told PTI. Specific details could not be immediately ascertained. The minister also said that the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has been told about having daily safety reports from all airlines and various installations, including airports, to be submitted to a safety audit. Currently, Jet Airways and SpiceJet are the only domestic carriers flying Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. Together, they have six such planes. "As on date, six B 737 MAX 8 aircraft in India have accumulated about 4,000 hours since their induction effective June 2018 onwards. There are no significant technical issues encountered on these aircraft," the DGCA official said Tuesday. The DGCA has also sought details about the plane crash in Indonesia from Boeing and US regulator Federal Aviation Authority (FAA). In September, the minister directed officials concerned to prepare a comprehensive safety audit plan, which involves assessment of safety parameters of all scheduled airlines, aerodromes, flying training schools and MROs (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul Organisations). In recent times, there have been incidents of mid-air engine failures, involving the Pratt and Whitney (P&W) engine-powered Airbus A320 neo planes being operated by domestic budget carriers IndiGo and GoAir. Anant ST Das By Express News Service PATNA: An arrest warrant was issued on Wednesday by a Bihar court against the state's absconding former social welfare minister and ruling JD(U) legislator Manju Verma in a case related to possession of illegal ammunition, which is an offshoot of the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual abuses case. The court of the additional chief judicial magistrate (ACJM) at Manjhaul in Begusarai district issued the warrant on a petition moved by the district police. Hours earlier, the state government had told the Supreme Court that Verma, who was forced to resign in August in the wake of the Muzaffarpur scandal, could not be traced by police. The top court had pulled up the state police over its failure to arrest her. Verma's anticipatory bail was rejected by Patna High Court on October 9. Her husband, former JD(U) MLC Chandrashekhar Verma, who is also a co-accused in the ammunition recovery case, had surrendered before the Manjhaul court two days ago after evading arrest for over a month. Begusarai police had conducted several raids to arrest him after obtaining a warrant against him on September 21, a day after the Supreme Court asked Bihar police to look into the recovery of live cartridges "with some seriousness". While a few attendants were seen at Manju Verma's residence in Patna till Tuesday, the premises were found totally deserted on Wednesday. There was also no trace of her at her and her husband's ancestral villages in Begusarai, said police sources.Fifty live cartridges were recovered at the Vermas' house at Cheria Bariyarpur village in Begusarai district by CBI during a raid on August 17 in connection with the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual abuses case. The couple was booked under the Arms Act. The cartridges of different bores were found to be illegal. Nineteen of them belonged to prohibited guns such as self-loading rifles (SLR), which civilians are not allowed to own. The main Opposition RJD accused the Nitish Kumar-led NDA government of shielding Manju Verma, who belongs to the OBC Koeri caste, from arrest. "The Verma couple still enjoys the government's protection. If she remains untraceable, our party workers will find her out and facilitate her arrest," said RJD leader and former minister Vijay Prakash. RJD MLA Bhai Birendra claimed she has taken shelter in the CM's residence itself."CBI should quiz CM Nitish Kumar in the shelter home scandal because he had extremely good relations with the main accused Brajesh Thakur," said RJD national vice-president Shivanand Tiwari. By PTI NEW DELHI: The Union government Wednesday said it is not seeking decryption of messages on WhatsApp but rather the location and identity of those spreading misinformation that provokes violence and heinous offences. After meeting with WhatsApp Vice President Chris Daniels, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said: "On the issue of traceability, I emphasised that when we talk of traceability, we don't talk of decrypting messages". "We insist rather on location and identification of the sender of WhatsApp messages when such messages lead to provocation of violence, heinous offences and other serious crimes," he said. ALSO READ: IT Ministry mulls third notice to WhatsApp; may insist on message traceability Prasad added that he has been assured by the WhatsApp team that they will look into the matter and revert. The Facebook-owned company has been under pressure for months now to put in place a mechanism to clamp down on fake messages on its platform. "I met Chris Daniels, along with his team, and discussed various issues of the past. They have assured us that they have appointed a grievance officer for India. I have suggested that we will appreciate if grievance officer is also located in India," Prasad said. The minister said during the meeting, he also emphasised that WhatsApp is an important instrument of message circulation, especially during elections." It is appropriate and desirable that the institutional integrity of this platform is maintained, so that abusers cannot abuse it. They (WhatsApp) have also assured that they will work with my department in preventing circulation of spam farms," he said. ALSO READ: Supreme Court rap makes WhatsApp appoint Grievance Officer By Express News Service RAIPUR: When caught in a crossfire between the security forces and the outlawed CPI (Maoist) in the forested terrain of Nilavaya in the virtual war zone of Dantewada, how apprehensive and endangered a civilian could feel is aptly reflected in a video created by one of the trapped members of the Doordarshan team on Tuesday. ALSO READ: Doordarshan cameraman, two policemen killed in Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh Lighting assistant Mormukut Sharma recorded a message for his mother on his smartphone expressing the fear that he might not survive. In the mobile phone clipping, that has gone viral a day after the rebel attack, Sharma said that he was not afraid of death that seems so close with the bullets flying everywhere, even as in the background the sound of exchange of fire between the rebels and the forces could be heard. ALSO READ: Government announces Rs 15 lakh for slain Doordarshan cameraman's family Telling his mother about the terror attack and how his team and the security forces were ambushed by the Maoists while going for the election coverage assignment in Dantewada, he said, I love you a lot ma. Perhaps I may not survive the attack. The situation is very precarious. But don't know why in-spite of facing death, I don't feel scared. But its impossible that we will come out of this alive. He said despite the fact that they were accompanied by six or seven security personnel they were trapped in an ambush. As he lay there with the bullets flying around and feeling apprehensive about his own survival, he commented that he was thirsty. ALSO READ: For Doordarshan cameraperson Achyutananda Sahoo, work always came first In the video Sharma can be seen asking for water from a security personnel, who passed by him during the ongoing gunfight and was advised to lie prone on the ground in a ditch behind a tree till the situation turned safe. DD reporter Dhiraj Kumar and Sharma miraculously survived the Maoist attack while their colleague and a cameraman Achyutanand Sahoo was killed. By PTI RAIPUR: Four Naxals who were allegedly involved in the recent killing of a villager in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Narayanpur district were arrested Wednesday, police said. The rebels were apprehended by a team of police's District Reserve Guard from a weekly market at Sonpur village under Narayanpur police station limits, district Superintendent of Police Jitendra Shukla told PTI. Those arrested were identified as Masiya Ram Hichami (21), Modda Hichami (20), Sonaru Hichami (20) and Hadam Usendi. They were allegedly involved in the killing of Sukhlal Nureti, resident of Sonpur, on October 6, the SP said. Nureti was killed by Naxals on suspicion that he was a police informer, he added. Sumi Sukanya Dutta By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The Modi governments much-touted new education policy is set to miss yet another deadline on Wednesday as the fourth extension given to a committee, constituted to draft it, comes to an end. Sources in the Union Human Resources Development Ministry said the committee under former ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan had been signalled to go slow in the election season. As the code of conduct for Assembly elections in five states is on, we are not in a position to make headway in that direction, said a senior HRD official. Also the committee wanted some more time as it is holding detailed consultations with states. The panel was set up in June 2017 and was supposed to submit its report by December, but was given an extension till March 2018. Later, it was given another extension till August, which was again extended by two months. Ministry sources said the education policy might not be announced in the governments current term of as it would not want to anger any camp. Apart from Kasturirangan, the committee has eight members, including mathematician Manjul Bhargava. According to people familiar with the matter, the panels likely suggestions may not be implemented even in the next academic year. The government had earlier come up with a draft policy, formulated by a panel headed by former cabinet secretary TSR Subramanian during Smriti Iranis term as HRD minister. But after Prakash Javadekar replaced her, the new committee was set up. Deadline extended thrice, report not final The Kasturirangan panel set up to draft the policy was set up in June 2017 and was supposed to submit its report by December, but was given three extensions, the latest one expiring today. Ramananda Sengupta By Express News Service NEW DELHI: India has signed a $950m contract with Russia for the procurement of two frigates fitted with BrahMos missiles, a move that is unlikely to go down well in Washington. Last month, the Cabinet Committee on Security had approved the purchase of four frigates from Russia, along with the S400 Triumpf air defense platform, Kamov Utility Helicopters, and the joint production of the latest AK series rifles in India. Despite Washingtons threat to impose sanctions on countries which engage in significant transactions with Russia, New Delhi has made it clear that it will not compromise on its strategic needs. The two 3620 ton Admiral Grigorovich frigates, being built at Yantar Shipyard in Kaliningrad, are upgraded variants of the six Talwar-class frigates that Russia built for the Indian Navy between 2003 and 2013. With a top speed of 30 knots, they have an endurance of around 30 days and can be used for anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, as well as anti-air warfare missions. Reports said that while these frigates will be shipped to India for fitting them with gas turbine engines from Ukraine, two others are likely to be built in India later, though an agreement that is yet to be signed. By PTI UNITED NATIONS: India has slammed Pakistan for raising the Kashmir issue at a UN General Assembly session, saying it has become Islamabad's habit to misuse any forum for "narrow political gains" and asserting that the right to self-determination cannot be abused to undermine a nation's territorial integrity. First Secretary in India's Permanent Mission to the UN Paulomi Tripathi was responding to Pakistani envoy Maleeha Lodhi's remarks at the session that the struggle of the Kashmiri people for their right to self-determination has been suppressed for decades. ALSO READ | UN General Assembly: India says it knows how to handle Pakistan's 'one trick pony' acts Lodhi said that the Kashmir issue will remain on "the UN agenda until the Kashmiri people are allowed to exercise their will, according to the agreed method prescribed by the Security Council - a plebiscite under the auspices of the United Nations." "We reject the unwarranted reference made by one delegation to the State of Jammu and Kashmir which is an integral part of India," Tripathi said at a UNGA Third Committee session Tuesday on Elimination of racism, xenophobia and Right of people to self-determination. She said that it has become Pakistan's habit to misuse any forum for narrow political gains. "In reality, it is the people of India as well as of our region and beyond, have to suffer most egregious violation of human rights inflicted by terrorism emanating from beyond our borders," she said. "The right to self-determination cannot be abused and misrepresented with the aim of undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a Member State," Tripathi said. She asserted that self-determination has long been recognised as the right of peoples of non-self-governing colonies and trust territories to independence and self-government. Pointing that there are still 17 non-self governing territories which are in various stages of decolonisation, Tripathi said the international community must step up efforts to reach the conclusion of this long-drawn process. She described Palestine as the "unfinished task" in the realisation of the right of people to self-determination, saying India is committed to the cause of the people of Palestine and the country has substantially scaled up bilateral development partnerships and increased contribution to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). On the issue of racism, Tripathi said despite efforts made in combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, these pernicious ills continue to persist in different forms and manifestations. "Rise of exclusionist ideologies inciting discrimination and violence threaten to subvert the globalised economic order and social cohesion," she said stressing that there is need for comprehensive legal and administrative responses to counter emerging challenges. She voiced India's concern over the alarming rise in use of digital space for dissemination of racist and xenophobic material as well as for recruitment, networking and fundraising by groups espousing these ideologies. "We must acknowledge that racial equality and freedom of expression need not be pursued in a zero-sum manner," she said adding that private entities including conventional and social media and civil society need to develop and observe codes of conduct that embody commitment to racial equality and non-discrimination. Immunities enjoyed by the social media platforms for contents by users, must be counterbalanced with responsible content moderation and norms for removing objectionable contents on voluntary basis, Tripathi said. She further said that complementary domestic action and international cooperation is necessary to effectively implement the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action to realize inclusive growth envisaged in 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. By Express News Service MUMBAI: Water conservationist Dr Rajendra Singh on Tuesday criticised the Maharashtra government for flaws in its flagship programme JalYukt Shivar saying that the scheme has benefited contractors more than the farmers or the cause of water conservation. Kisani, Jawani Aur Pani (Agriculture, Youth and Water) are under threat in Maharashtra, Singh said while speaking at the concluding session of an agro exhibition at Sangli in Western Maharashtra. The JalYukt Shivar scheme was originally going on very well. However, it was ruined once it went into the hands of contractors. They started using machines and started overusing them for their own benefit, he said. Had the scheme, which aims to focus on water and soil conservation, been implemented with due diligence and by keeping away vested interests it could have become a success study for such schemes elsewhere in the world, he added. The much-vaunted scheme has been the subject of intense debate and criticism as Opposition parties claim it is a scam. The Devendra Fadnavis-led government, however, continues to claim that the scheme has been very successful. By Express News Service NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court quashed the Centres decision to appoint Air Marshal Rajvir Singh as Director General of Medical Services (Army) and asked it to appoint Lt-General Manomoy Ganguly to the post. A bench of Justices A K Siki and Ashok Bhushan said Lt-Gen Ganguly had to initially fight for promotion and then for the post of DGMS. ...We allow this writ petition (of Ganguly) and quash orders dated August 10 (to appoint Singh) and issue mandamus directing the respondents (the Centre and others) to appoint petitioner (Ganguly) as DGMS, it said. The petitioner said the government is finding excuses to deny him the post of DGMS (Army). By Express News Service NEW DELHI: Former Union minister M J Akbar, who resigned earlier this month amid sexual harassment allegations, recorded his statement in the defamation case he has filed against journalist Priya Ramani before a Delhi court on Wednesday. In his testimony recorded before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Samar Vishal, Akbar accused Ramani of intentionally making malicious, fabricated and salacious allegations to harm his reputation. I've filed criminal defamation complaint against Priya Ramani for a series of tweets that she published. First one came to my notice on my return from my official tour. The tweet had a link to an article in a magazine called vogue: MJ Akbar in Delhi's Patiala House Court. #MeToo pic.twitter.com/o4RTcAwc8A ANI (@ANI) October 31, 2018 In his statement, Akbar told the court about his credentials and professional background as a journalist and in public life and explained the nature and basis of his complaint against Ramani, who posted a series of tweets under #MeToo accusing the former minister of state for external affairs of predatory behaviour. Calling defamatory the tweets by Ramani from October 10 to 13, and an article published in Vogue India October 2017, Akbar said, It has lowered my reputation in the eyes of the right-thinking members of the public, my friends, colleagues, peers and professional and political fraternity, thereby causing irreparable loss to my reputation and goodwill. There was immediate damage because of the scurrilous nature of these concocted and false allegations. I was attacked in a personal capacity about fabricated non-events allegedly done two decades ago. The court slated the hearing for recording of statement of other witnesses for November 12. By PTI NEW DELHI: In a stern order, the Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre for pricing details of the 36 Rafale fighter jets India is buying from France but agreed that strategic and confidential information need not be disclosed. A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said, "Centre should give the details in a sealed cover within 10 days."During the hearing, Attorney General K K Venugopal had expressed reservations about disclosing the details of pricing of the jets and said its cost was not even disclosed in Parliament."If pricing is something exclusive and you are not sharing it with us, please file an affidavit and say so," said Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi. The court also directed the Centre must bring details of the decision making process of the deal in the public domain, except those that are confidential and have strategic importance and slated the hearing for November 14. The court was hearing four petitions, including one by advocate Prashant Bhushan and former union ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha who are seeking a court-monitored CBI investigation in the procurement of the fighter jets."That you will have to wait," CJI said, adding, "Let CBI put its house in order first." AG also told the bench that the documents pertaining to details of the steps taken in the decision making process leading to the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets is placed by the Centre before the court and are covered by the Official Secrets Act. On this the bench said, the court did not want to record any finding or view on the documents placed before it. It also observed that information regarding induction of the Indian offset partner be given to the court and the petitioners. The Rafale fighter is a twin-engine Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) manufactured by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation. In August 2007, the Indian Air Force advanced a proposal to buy 126 fighter aircraft and floated a tender. Following this, an invitation was sent to various aviation companies to participate in the bidding process. By PTI JAMMU KASHMIR: Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik Wednesday said terrorism in Kashmir cannot be wiped out by killing militants but by bringing them back to the mainstream. Talking of Pakistan's role in fanning terrorism in the state, the governor said the neighbouring country wants Jammu and Kashmir to remain disturbed, but its designs keep failing as they did recently during the recent municipal polls. ALSO READ: Two militants killed in a gunfight with security forces in Kashmirs Pulwama district "Terrorism cannot be wiped out by killing militants. More of them will keep joining terror groups. They will keep attacking police and security forces which will, in turn, fire bullets, not bouquets. And they will die in the process," he said. "We do not want them to die. We want them to leave the gun culture and come back to the mainstream," he added. Malik made the remarks while talking to reporters on the sidelines of a Power Department function. "Our aim is not to hunt them down but to eradicate terrorism. We want the people in the Valley to understand that nothing is to be achieved from terrorism," he said. ALSO READ: Six militants killed in two encounters in Jammu and Kashmir Terming terror attacks on the security personnel as "unfortunate", Malik said, "The police are fighting bravely and will take care of the situation. " On radicalisation of youths in Kashmir, he said, "Those who are being radicalised need to know that it will not benefit them. We cannot settle an issue by taking up arms. We can do it through talks." Pakistan, he said, has a "big role" in fomenting trouble in Kashmir. ALSO READ: Two militants, two soldiers killed in Kashmir violence "It wants the state to remain disturbed. But its designs keep failing as it failed recently. It could do nothing to disrupt the municipal polls in the state," he said. "Pakistan is frustrated with its own problems as it is having to sell its household items to run the country," he added. The governor hoped that unlike the recent urban body polls, the voter turnout would improve in the upcoming panchayat elections. By ANI WASHINGTON D.C. : United States President Donald Trump will not attend India's Republic Day celebrations next year due to "scheduling constraints," the White House confirmed on Tuesday. "President Trump was honored by Prime Minister Modi's invitation for him to be Chief Guest of India's Republic Day on January 26, 2019 but is unable to participate due to scheduling constraints," a statement from White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders read. "The President enjoys a strong personal rapport with Prime Minister Modi developed through two meetings and several phone calls and remains committed to deepening the U.S.-India strategic partnership. The President very much looks forward to meeting Prime Minister Modi again at the earliest opportunity," the statement added. Trump would have been the second US President to attend the Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi. Former President Barack Obama was part of the celebration in 2015. Trump's rejection of the invitation comes amid straining relations between the two countries over India's decision to purchase oil from Iran and the sign the deal with Russia for the S-400 missile Triumf surface-to-air missiles. By UNI LUCKNOW: Remembering Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his 137 birth anniversary, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday said that the former was the architect of Republic India as Dr B R Ambedkar was of Constitution. Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik and Mr Adityanath paid floral tributes to Sardar Patel, flagged off ' Run For Unity', administered oath to the youths and people to serve the nation for the unity and integrity. The Chief Minister said that people taking oath of country's unity and integrity should follow the path shown by Sardar Patel and work to serve the nation. Both the dignitaries also garlanded the statue of Iron man Sardar Patel at Hazratganj here and inaugurated a photo exhibition on Patel. They also took the salute at an impressive parade by the school children and security personnel in front of the Vidhan Sabha. The Governor, while addressing a function, said, ''Sardar Patel was a symbol of unity of the country. The world's tallest statue of unity, inaugurated in Gujarat by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today, was constructed with scrap iron and other materials collected from all over the country. "We can say that UP too has contributed in the construction of the statue," he said. "Several smaller states were not ready to join the country after Independence but it was only the effort of Sardar Patel that they joined and now the country has turned into a powerful nation of the world," Mr Naik said. The march-past started from Vidhan Bhawan and ended at the Sikander Bagh while the 'Run for Unity' began from Vidhan Sabha and culminated at the K D Singh Babu Stadium. Narendra Modi By The first half of 1947 was a critical period in Indias history. The end of colonial rule was certain and so was Indias partition but what was uncertain was whether there would be more than one division. Prices were rising, food shortages were common. But over and above everything else, the unity of India was under severe strain. It was in these circumstances that the States Department came into being in June 1947. Among the chief aims of this Department was to give impetus and top priority to negotiations vis-a-vis Indias relationship with the over 550 princely states, which were as diverse as they could get, be it in size, population, terrain or economic situation. No wonder, Mahatma Gandhi remarked, The problem of the states is so difficult that YOU alone can solve it. In vintage Sardar Patel style, he went about his work with precision, firmness and administrative efficiency. Time was less and the task was Herculean. But this was no ordinary person; it was Sardar Patel, who was determined not to let his nation down. One by one, he and his team negotiated with the princely states and ensured that they all became a part of free India. It was due to the round-the-clock effort of Sardar Patel that the map of India is what it is today! Once freedom was won, V P Menon, it is said, wanted to retire from government service, only to be told by Patel that this was neither the time to rest nor the time to retire. Such was Sardar Patels firm resolve. Menon was made the secretary of the States Department. In his book The Story of the Integration of Indian States, he writes about how Sardar Patel led from the front and inspired the entire team to work assiduously. He also writes that Patel was clear first and foremost came the interests of the people of India; there would be no compromise on that. On 15th August 1947, we celebrated the dawn of a new destiny, but the work of nation-building was far from complete. As Independent Indias first Home Minister, he set the stage for an administrative framework that continues to serve the nation, be it in matters of day-to-day governance or protecting the interests of the people, particularly the poor and marginalized. Sardar Patel was a veteran administrator. His own experience in governance, particularly in the 1920s, when he served the Ahmedabad municipality, was extremely handy when he worked towards strengthening independent Indias administrative framework. While in Ahmedabad, he did commendable work in furthering cleanliness in the city. He ensured clean and functioning drainage systems across the city. He also focused on other aspects of urban infrastructures, such as roads, electricity and education. Today, if India is known for a vibrant cooperative sector, a large part of the credit goes to Sardar Patel. The roots of Amul can be traced back to his vision for empowering local communities, particularly women. It was Patel who also popularised the idea of cooperative housing societies, thus ensuring dignity and shelter for many. Two traits synonymous with Sardar Patel are trust and integrity. The farmers of India had unparalleled faith in him. After all, he was a kisan putra (son of a farmer), who led from the front during the Bardoli Satyagraha. The working class saw him as a ray of hope, a leader who would speak up for them. Traders and industrialists preferred to work with Sardar Patel because they felt here was a stalwart who had a vision for Indias economic and industrial growth. His political peers, too, trusted him. Acharya Kripalani remarked that whenever they faced an issue and if Bapus guidance was not available, they would turn to Sardar Patel. When political negotiations were at their peak in 1947, Sarojini Naidu called him the man of decision and man of action.Everyone trusted him, his words and his actions. Sardar Patel continues to be respected across caste, creed, faith, age! This years Sardar Jayanti is even more special. With the blessings of 130 crore Indians, the Statue of Unity is being inaugurated today. Situated on the banks of the Narmada, the Statue of Unity is the tallest in the world. Dharti Putra Sardar Patel will stand tall in the skies, to guide us and inspire us. I congratulate all those who have worked day and night to ensure that this grand statue as a tribute to Sardar Patel becomes a reality. My mind goes back to 31st October 2013, when we laid the foundation stone for this ambitious project. In record time, a project of such scale has become ready and this should make every Indian proud. I urge you all to visit the Statue of Unity in the times to come. The Statue of Unity is a symbol of both the unity of hearts and the geographical integrity of our motherland. It is a reminder that divided, we may not be even able to face ourselves. United, we can face the world and scale new heights of growth and glory. Sardar Patel worked with astonishing speed to dismantle the history of imperialism and create the geography of unity with the spirit of nationalism. He saved India from Balkanisation and integrated even the weakest of limbs into the national framework. Today, we, the 130 crore Indians are working shoulder to shoulder to build a New India that is strong, prosperous and inclusive. Every decision is being taken to ensure that the fruits of development reach the most vulnerable, without any corruption or favouritism, just as Sardar Patel would have wanted it. By Express News Service VIJAYAWADA: Lauding the move of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu to bring all the non-BJP parties on a single platform, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav has urged Naidu to take steps to unite all the non-BJP parties at the national level using his political image. In a telephonic interaction with Naidu, Yadav assured that his party will support the TDP chiefs move. The SP chief also lauded Naidu for developing AP in the past four-and-half years. On his part, Naidu accused the Narendra Modi government of bringing the nation on the verge of economic collapse. Interestingly, Akilesh Yadav dialled Naidu days after the latter met BSP leader Mayawati in New Delhi as part of his efforts to unite all non-BJP parties at the national level. By Express News Service VISAKHAPATNAM: JanEpalli Srinivasa Rao, who was charged with attempt to murder Opposition YSR Congress leader YS Jagan Mohan Reddy at Visakhapatnam airport, has claimed he carried out the attack on his own and no one was behind him. Srinivasa Rao was on Tuesday shifted to hospital after he complained of pain in the chest and hands and was taken back to the Airport police station after medical tests. Speaking to media for the first time at King George Hospital, he said he had threat to his life and wanted to explain to the people the reasons for his attack on the YSRC leader. Being subjected to questioning for the past two days, Srinivasa Rao in the afternoon complained of pain in the chest and hands. Police immediately called a private practitioner, Dr Devudu Babu, who referred Srinivasa to KGH for tests. Srinivasa Rao vitals are in good condition. He is able to speak and answer to the police. Though his radial pulse is normal, I cannot get pulse on the fingertips so we have referred him to KGH for further tests, Dr Devudu Babu said adding, Srinivasa Rao was saying he did not need any treatment and wanted his organs to be donated. On his mental condition, the doctor said an evaluation by a psychiatrist was needed. P6 Srinivasa Rao was immediately shifted to KGH in a wheel chair. While being shifted in a police vehicle, Srinivasa Rao tried to speak to reporters. Please sir. Please sir. I have to convey some facts to the people. Give me one opportunity to speak, he pleaded as he was taken away in a police vehicle. At KGH too, he tried to speak to media but police did not allow reporters to go near him. Srinivasa Rao repeatedly said he had threat to his life. I carried out the attack on my own. No one is behind me, he said adding that he attacked Jagan only to convey the problems of the people to Jagan. Nannu champestunnaranna, (they are killing me), he shouted as he was whisked into the ward. He also said some people were trying to politicise his death. KGH duty doctors attended to him around 5.20 pm. After scanning and thorough examination at cardiology department, the doctors said his health condition was normal and he could be taken back to the police station. We have conducted all necessary medical tests on Srinivasa Rao, who came here with a complaint of chest pain. In our diagnosis, through scanning and other tests, we found that the chest pain is due to gastric trouble as he has reportedly not taken his breakfast and lunch properly. As other findings are normal, we suggested that he can be taken back to the police station, a KGH doctor said. Later, police took Srinivasa Rao to Airport police station. Speaking to media later in the night, Visakhapatnam Commissioner of Police Mahesh Chandra Laddha, however, said Srinivasa Rao was taken to KGH for a routine medical checkup. On the progress of investigation, the CP said Srinivasa Rao was not cooperating with the investigation officials. We have to corroborate what he is saying, Laddha said adding that two teams were sent to Madhya Pradesh and Odisha to question some of the co-workers of the accused. Srinivasa Rao used the mobile phone of one of his co-workers from MP, he said adding that the accused had three bank accounts (in SBI, Vijaya Bank and Andhra Bank). He received Rs 20,000 and Rs 40,000 from some accounts and the same was transferred to other accounts immediately, he said adding they were verifying the transactions. We are also verifying the call details of the accused, he said. Laddha further added that only three persons had appeared before them while they questioned 38 witnesses in the attack case. Meanwhile, YSRC leader Botcha Satyanarayana said Srinivasa Rao should be provided proper security as he was fearing threat to his life. By Express News Service KADAPA: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has announced that the State government will set up Integrated Steel Plant in Kadapa on its own. We have waited for long for the Centre to set up the steel plant. But, it failed to do so. We will set up Rayalaseema Steel Plant in Kadapa on our own. The State Cabinet will meet in the next two days and we will give clearance for the plant, Naidu said, while addressing the Dharma Porata Deeksha in Proddutur on Tuesday. The Chief Minister said Macon, a consultancy company, certified that establishment of steel factory in Kadapa is feasible. The Union Steel Ministry raised around 11 queries, which were answered promptly by the State government. The State has given two months time to the Centre to respond positively on the issue when MP CM Ramesh embarked on fast unto death, but in vain. Describing the attack on Leader of the Opposition YS Jagan Mohan Reddy at Visakhapatnam International Airport as kodi kathi drama (drama of a cockfight knife), the Chief Minister said that he had escaped from the landmine blast triggered by Maoists, but never criticised the then Opposition Leader YS Rajasekhar Reddy. When an admirer of Jagan Mohan Reddy attacked him, the Opposition party pointed fingers at me. In fact, I have been fighting against faction violence, communalism and rowdyism, he said, adding that what film actor Sivaji predicted is taking place in the State. Taking exception to Governor ESL Narasimhan directly calling the DGP soon after the incident, the Chief Minister termed it an unconstitutional Act. Naidu also alleged that the Centre was intimidating the TDP leaders with I-T raids. As long as the TDP was in the NDA, no I-T raid was conducted in the State, he claimed. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh visited Guntur to lay the foundation stone of BJP party office, but he did not visit the cyclone-affected areas in Srikakulam, he said. In the wake of the Centres vindictive acts against the TDP government, I am planning to unite like-minded parties before the next general elections. I met many national leaders in New Delhi the other day. I am not scared of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he thundered. Naidu also defended TDPs poll alliance with the Congress in Telangana, calling it a political compulsion. He also announced to take up the second phase of Galeru-Nagiri project works at an estimated cost of Rs 3,500 crore. Tenders for the same would be invited within a month, he said. Earlier, the Chief Minister unveiled pylons marking the release of 12 TMC of water to the Gandikota project. On the occasion, TDP MP JC Diwakar Reddy donated Rs 10 lakh to Chief Ministers Relief Fund for relief works in cyclone-affected districts in the State. Ministers Nara Lokesh, C Adinarayana Reddy, Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy, MPs C M Ramesh, and P Ashok Gajapathi Raju also spoke. By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Firefighters battled hard late into Wednesday night to contain a massive blaze which swept through a plastic factory at Manvila in the district. The fire broke out late in the evening at the factory and godown of Family Plastics. The four-storey building reportedly contained a huge storage of raw materials and also chemicals, and the conflagration engulfed the entire structure, defeating all attempts to douse it. The blaze was visible from miles around. A preliminary estimate pegged the loss at Rs 500 crore. By 10 pm, around 30 fire tenders were on the job fighting the fire. Within two hours of the blaze, the district administration also ordered the evacuation of local residents within a radius of one kilometre as the danger from inhaling the toxic fumes became increasingly high. While no casualties were reported, two men - identified as Jayaram Raghu and Gireesh - were admitted to the casualty wing of the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital, reportedly after inhaling the fumes. Their condition is stable, hospital sources said. The factory and godown is situated inside the industrial estate at Manvila. The fire was first noticed around 7.20 pm. The first shift had ended at 7 pm and a number of the employees were still inside the building taking their bath and preparing to leave. Staff detailed for the evening shift had started arriving by then. On seeing the fire, all of them rushed out, raising the alarm. Local people said they heard multiple explosions from the burning factory. #Kerala #Fire Firefighters struggling to put out the huge fire at a plastic factory at #Manvila industrial area in #Thiruvananthapuram. No casualties as workers escape. Minister @kadakampalli Surendran admits existing systems inadequate to contain fire.@NewIndianXpress pic.twitter.com/rq0r55NbWZ Sovi Vidyadharan (@vidyadharansovi) October 31, 2018 "It would be difficult to put out the fire. We are waiting for it to subside. But steps have been taken to prevent it from spreading to nearby industrial units, District Collector K Vasuki said. After the alarm was raised, all the firefighting units in Thiruvananthapuram district, and later Kollam, were rushed to the spot. But at the time of filing this report, the fire has been raging through the facility for nearly four hours. Later in the night, the Fire and Rescue Service alerted units in Alappuzha also. According to the fire and rescue service, nearly 30 units - including that of the Fire and Rescue Service, the Thiruvananthapuram Airport and the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) were called in. Although a short circuit is suspected to be the cause of Wednesday nights fire, only a detailed investigation can ascertain it. In fact, a fire had broken out at the factory only two days back. While it was smaller blaze, it nevertheless had taken five tenders to put it out. Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran and Mayor V K Prasanth visited Manvila after being alerted about the fire. By Express News Service KOCHI: The High Court on Tuesday asked the state government to file an affidavit on whether it issued any directive regarding preparations in Sabarimala for the three-month annual Mandalam-Makaravilakku pilgrim season starting November 17. The court issued the directive on the petition by T R Ramesh of Thiruvananthapuram, who sought a directive to the Travancore Devaswom Board not to implement any oral or written orders by the Chief Minister or Devaswom Minister on religious matters, the entry of pilgrims and other related matters in Sabarimala. Ramesh also sought to declare any interference by the government in TDBs administration as illegal. The petitioner alleged the CM and Devaswom Minister were interfering in matters of Sabarimala, which was illegal. The TDB must be allowed to decide on such matters. Even in filing a review petition or submitting a report to the Supreme Court on the entry of women to the hill shrine, the TDB cannot be guided or dictated by the Chief Minister or any member of the Cabinet, he alleged. He also pointed out the government had reportedly decided to deploy 5,000 policemen at Sannidhanam in the upcoming pilgrim season and restrict the entry of pilgrims. When the petition came up for hearing, the court asked the state whether any directive was issued by the state on Sabarimala pilgrimage. The state submitted the petitioner did not produce any government order with the petition. The High Court said the government should not conceal information from the court and inform it whether there was any directive to the TDB. The next court hearing will be held on Monday. By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Congress state leadership has found itself in a Catch-22 situation with party president Rahul Gandhi coming out in support of the Supreme Courts Sabarimala verdict. Even as the partys state unit has been on a warpath against the LDF Government for trying to implement the order, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan welcomed Rahuls statement. Pinarayi said Rahuls statement makes it clear he shares the same opinion made by the AICC, which had termed the SC verdict historical. Its noticeable that Congress spokesman Anand Sharma has supported Rahuls opinion. Its unfortunate that the Congress leadership in the state does not share the same opinion, said the CM. The stance taken by the Congress leadership in the state also points at the anti-democratic state in which the party has come to. The Congress in Kerala has moved away from the democratic values based on which the Indian Constitution was founded. A section within the Congress party in the state has been adopting a conservative stance, which could only help the BJP in the long run, he said. The Congress, with its rich tradition of being part of renaissance movements once, seems to be compromising with Sangh Parivar politics. Some leaders are not only rejecting secular values, but also dismissing the opinions of the party national leadership, he added. Express News Service BALANGIR/ BHUBANESWAR: As shock over Doordarshan cameraperson Achyutananda Sahoos death at the hands of Maoists in Dantewada gave way to grief, family members, friends and colleagues remembered the man he was - down to earth, helpful and a workoholic. Work always came first for Sahoo - married only a year and half back - who was in Dantewada since Monday along with colleagues reporter Dhiraj Kumar and lighting assistant Mormukut Sharma to cover Chhattisgarh elections. The Maoist attacked them while they were passing through a forest in Aranpur under Dantewada limits on two motorcycles. While his colleague escaped the attack, Sahoo fell to the bullets sprayed by Left extremists.A native of Ghusuramunda village under Loisingha police limits in Balangir district, the 34-year-old Sahoo completed his schooling and graduation and worked as a gram rozgar sevak in Budhipadar panchayat before joining the Indian Army as a clerk. Born to Tulasi and Narenendra Sahoo, the youngest among four siblings took voluntary retirement and joined Biju Patnaik Film & Television Institute (BPFTI) at Cuttack to study cinematography in 2008. His family members remember that he always had an interest in photography and videography. His teachers and friends from the institute, where Sahoo studied till 2011, recall Sahoo as a brave man of values. He was disciplined and a daredevil who brought new scripts and ideas to the classroom every day. He used to experiment with new visuals and videos in difficult landscapes, something that not many students will dare to do on a daily basis, Principal of BPFTI Dillip Kumar Panda said. He was a student whom many others in the institute emulated. Also, since he was two to three years older than his classmates, he was respected by all. In 2013, Sahoo joined Doordarshan as a cameraperson and covered official programmes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the last being inauguration of Jharsuguda Airport on September 22. Just hours before his death, Sahoo uploaded videos of Chitrakote waterfalls and selfies with a bunch of children and a friend. His senior from Biju Patnaik Film & Television Institute of Orissa, Manoranjan Badatya recounted how work was always a priority for Sahoo who was married a year-and-half back. This was perhaps the first time that he did not visit his family during Nuakhai festival due to his election coverage. He was an humble person who would help anyone and everyone. I was his senior in the college but younger in age but Sahoo would address me as Bhai, said Manoranjan who was associated with Sahoo for eight years. Anand Bhitria, his school friend from Budhipadar, recalled him as a person who always smiled through difficulties. For Sahoos elder brother, Prabhat, the loss is yet to sink in. I had spoken to him before he went to Chhattisgarh. His death has left us blank. Government should take stringent measures against Maoists to give us justice, he said. Sahoos mortal remains are being brought to his village where they will be consigned to flames after his parents and wife return from Haridwar and Delhi respectively. Alumni of Biju Patnaik Film & Television Institute of Orissa held condolence meetings in Cuttack and New Delhi on Tuesday evening. By Express News Service BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday requested the Centre to immediately bring out a notification naming Jharsuguda airport after well known freedom fighter Veer Surendra Sai.The Chief Minister raised the issue in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. You had announced the naming of Jharsuguda airport as Veer Surendra Sai airport as befitting tribute to the well known freedom fighter and son of the soil, he said and added that the Centre is yet issue a notification in this regard. Naveen also brought to the notice of the Prime Minister that Air Odisha has suspended its flight operations from Jharsuguda after October 6, 2018 without any valid reason. Jharsuguda airport was formally dedicated to the nation and UDAN flight operated by Air Odisha was flagged off by the Prime Minister on September 22, 2018. Stating that abrupt suspension of the existing operations has given a severe jolt to the aviation sector in Odisha, the Chief Minister said it has also hurt the sentiments of the people of Western Odisha. In order to make Jharsuguda airport a full-fledged commercial airport, I had also requested the Government of India to consider introduction of commercial flights in addition to UDAN flights, he said and added that the State Government is committed to provide necessary funds and support for further expansion of Jharsuguda airport. The Chief Minister urged the Prime Minister to direct the Ministry of Civil Aviation for immediate restoration of UDAN flight and also explore the possibility of starting operations from Jharsuguda to other parts of Odisha and neighbouring States through any airlines.He further requested the Prime Minister to instruct Air India to start operation from Bhubaneswar to New Delhi via Jharsuguda so that people of Western Odisha can benefit. T Muruganantham By Express News Service CHENNAI: The 18 disqualified AIADMK MLAs, who have been supporting AMMK leader TTV Dhinakaran, have decided not to move the Supreme Court against the Madras High Court verdict but face the by-election. The MLAs were oscillating for a week whether to challenge the Madras High Court verdict upholding their disqualification or to face the by-election. Announcing the decision not to challenge the Madras HC verdict before SC, Dhinakaran at Madurai told reporters that the ruling AIADMK candidates in these by-elections would not even get their deposits. ALSO READ | Disqualified MLAs will withdraw appeal if it hinders by-elections: TTV Chief Election Commission OP Rawat had said that if the disqualified MLAs fail to challenge the Madras HC verdict within 30 days of the verdict, the commission will start making arrangements for holding by-elections to the 18 constituencies. Since Tirupparankundram and Tiruvarur are lying vacant due to demise of the MLAs, by-election to these constituencies may also be clubbed with 18 constituencies. Now, the ball is in the court of Election Commission which has to take a decision as to whether to hold these by-elections along with the Lok Sabha elections which are to be held in April-May or to hold them ahead of the LS polls. Sensing the mood among the disqualified MLAs, the ruling AIADMK has already announced 122 election in-charges for these 20 constituencies which include the entire Cabinet and 90 senior functionaries of the party. Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami and other leaders expressed confidence that they would win all the 20 constituencies. The bypolls in the 20 constituencies would perhaps change the political scenario in Tamil Nadu. The ruling AIADMK has 116 members in the assembly, including the Speaker. But four of them have publicly announced that they are opposing the ruling regime and two more has not made their stance clear. So considering that only 109 MLAs are supporting the government, the party has to win at least 9 of the 20 seats to have a comfortable majority in the house. The DMK, with 97 members at present, have to win all 20 seats to reach the halfway mark of 117, but still lack of one seat for a simple majority in the house. Meanwhile, the AIADMK has also initiated action against three of its MLAs who are supporting Dhinakaran and its expected they may be disqualified by the Speaker, if they continue to refuse toe the party line. The names of 18 disqualified MLAs are Thanga Tamilselvan (Andipatti), R. Murugan (Harur), Cho. Mariappan Kennedy (Manamadurai), Dr. K. Kathikamu (Periyakulam), C. Jayanthi Padmanabhan (Gudiyattam), P. Palaniappan (Pappireddipatti), V. Senthil Balaji (Aravakurichi), Dr. S. Muthiah (Paramakudi), P. Vetrivel (Perambur), N.G. Parthiban (Sholingur), M. Kothandapani (Thiruporur), T.A. Elumalai (Poonamallee), M. Rengasamy (Thanjavur), R. Thangadurai (Nilakottai), R. Balasubramani (Ambur), 'Ethirkottai' S.G. Subramanian (Sattur), R. Sundararaj (Ottapidaram) and K. Uma Maheswari (Vilathikulam) By Express News Service VELLORE: Death of six persons over a period of one month due to swine flu infection has triggered scare and panic among the people in the district even as the district administration is fighting to save them from being falling victims to the dreaded infection. Close on the heels of the death of a Gudiyattam resident, Ramamoorthy, at a private hospital in Chennai, two women -- Rugmani, 61, of Periyankuppam and G Vinodhini, 27 of Veerankuppam in Ambur -- died of the infection on Monday at the Government Vellore Medical College Hospital, sources said. As soon as the loss of lives were reported, the authorities of government departments, including Health, rushed to the villages, where the deceased were staying, for carrying out sanitising and cleaning works. Fogging, chlorination and source reduction works were carried out, besides keeping the relatives of the deceased under surveillance with necessary medical support. G Pandian, a resident of Arcot; Dhanalakshmi of Vellore city; and Jamaluddin of Vaniyambadi were the other three people who reportedly died of H1N1 infection. This apart, the death of a child, infected with dengue, last week at Arakkonam has sent shivers among the people. However, top officials said that the situation was not alarming and they were initiating a lot of measures to arrest any outbreak. "We are carrying out extensive awareness campaign to educate the people to keep themselves clean and hygienic. The handwashing techniques are also explained to the public and the students in educational institutions," said KST Suresh, the deputy director of Health and Preventive Medicine. He said that special squads, quick response teams and hospitals-on-wheel were pressed into service for fever surveillance and subsequent treatment. Officials say that personal hygiene plays a key role in keeping viral infections at bay. In the meantime, activists blame the lax attitude of the authorities concerned and lack of round-the-year strategy for prevention of outbreak, for the current situation. "We can see the health department and civic body staff swing into action for cleaning works only during any outbreak, otherwise they are not at all worried about cleanliness and hygiene. Only if the preventive measures are taken up on a round-the-year basis, people can be saved from perishing due to infections like swine flu and dengue," said K Rathinasami, a social activist and the joint secretary of Consumer Protection Movement. The absence of elected representatives of civic bodies is also cited to be a big handicap in carrying out the cleaning works. Usha Nandhini, a social activist and a former councillor, says, "There is none to question the officials in absence elected local bodies. We see lesser number of conservancy workers in action. If the stagnant water is not pumped out, piled-up garbage is not removed and unused tyres and other scraps holding rain water are not cleared, then how you can prevent infections." By Express News Service HYDERABAD: BJP has a definitive plan for Dalit empowerment in Telangana. The saffron party has promised to construct a 150-ft Ambedkar statue at Tank Bund if voted to power. The claim was made by MP Bandaru Dattatreya while addressing a manifesto meeting with the Dalit activists. Telangana BJP chief K Laxman, MP Bandaru Dattatraya at a meeting with SC,ST organisations in Hyderabad on Tuesday | Sathya keerthi Earlier the party made a promise that it would rename Rajiv Gandhi international airport as Komaram Bheem International Airport. The BJP also promised to set up a tribal university in the State, a unifying development board that combines all thandas, Rs 3,000 monetary support for cobblers and reservation as per 2011 Census. Meanwhile, saffron partys Indrasena Reddy has complained to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) that TPCC president Uttam Kumar Reddy violated the Model Code of Conduct. He alleged that a Congress worker carried out religious propaganda in Secunderabad. J Deepti Nandan Reddy By Express News Service HYDERABAD: The Congress party is all set to release its first list on November 1 for more than 40 constituencies. It is reported that AICCs screening committee, led by Bhakta Charan Das, which had camped in the city for the past four days, has completed the screening of ticket aspirants and has left for Delhi on Tuesday. Also, party sources have unofficially released the almost final list of Congress candidates for as many as 56 constituencies. It is also learnt that the announcement for these constituencies is now only a formality. While Congress is also trying to wrap up seat sharing talks with its allies TDP, CPI and TJS in the next couple of days, notwithstanding the outcome of these talks, it is planning to release the first list of candidates for constituencies. We are working on finalising both seat sharing talks and contestants by November 1. If seat sharing talks prolong, AICC will announce candidates for the constituencies which are definitely going to be retained by us, and wont be claimed by our allies, said an insider from AICC. Senior leaders like TPCC chief Uttam Kumar Reddy, Revanth Reddy, K Jana Reddy, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, DK Aruna, Sabitha Indira Reddy, Ponnala Laxmaiah, Damodar Rajnarasimha and T Jeevan Reddy have found place in this rumoured list. It may be stated that though AICC had announced the relaxation of one ticket for one family rule, interestingly, no second member from the same family is mentioned in the list. Vijayashanti says she wants Dubbak Congress star campaigner and former MP sprang a surprise on Tuesday when she announced that she would like to contest from Dubbak constituency. The former Medak MP had maintained over the past few weeks that she was not interested in contesting in the elections. Congress leaders condemn CEO TPCC condemned CEO Rajat Kumar for saying that services of police personnel from AP would not be utilised for the elections. It is improper of the CEO to stereotype all policemen from Andhra as biased. Hyderabad is capital of both States, said TPCC spokesperson Dasoju Sravan Show me the proof of Naidus obstructions Telangana TDP general secretary N Narsi Reddy said that TRS leaders had been falsely claiming that AP CM Chandrababu Naidu was obstructing irrigation projects in Telagnana. Show me what projects Naidu tried to stop. Give me proof, Reddy demanded Harish Rao TPCC writes to DGP for enhanced security TPCC on Tuesday requested DGP Mahender Reddy to enhance security provided to its key leaders, including Z category security for TPCC chief Uttam Kumar Reddy. In a letter to the DGP, TPCC treasurer Gudur Narayan Reddy wrote, The threat perception for Congress leaders in Telangana has increased since the elections were announced. By AFP BLANTYRE (MALAWI): Campaigners in Malawi won an injunction on Wednesday to temporarily halt work on a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the commercial capital as part of a $10 million construction deal with Delhi. They argued in the high court that the statue, part of a deal to build a convention centre in Blantyre, celebrated Gandhi who they accused of using racial slurs in his lifetime. "Being black people ourselves, such remarks have invited a sense of loathing and detestation of Gandhi," said the "Gandhi Must Fall" group in their application which gave 18 grounds against the construction. Judge Michael Tembo ordered that work be suspended on the statue "until the hearing of the substantive matter" or a court order to the contrary. The site was deserted by Wednesday afternoon, an AFP correspondent saw, and a police officer said workers had been ordered home after the injunction was issued. Over 3,000 Malawians have signed a petition opposing the statue, saying the Indian independence hero had done nothing for the southern African country. Though Gandhi is more commonly remembered for his peaceful resistance to British rule in his native India, his legacy in Africa is more mixed. Foreign ministry official Isaac Munlo previously defended the statue, saying "Gandhi promoted values of simplicity, fight against social evils". "Gandhi is a role model of a human rights campaigner for both Africa and India," he said. Malawi and India established diplomatic ties in 1964 and New Delhi is one of the country's leading aid donors. Statues have sparked charged debates in Africa in recent years as the continent wrestles with the legacy of colonialism and history of racism. In 2016 Ghana's government said it wanted to relocate a statue of Gandhi on a university campus after professors launched a petition claiming he was racist. Students in South Africa successfully campaigned in 2015 for the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, a notoriously racist mining magnate who died in 1902, from the University of Cape Town campus. By AFP MOSCOW: Russia launched a terrorism probe Wednesday after a 17-year-old student blew himself up at the regional headquarters of the FSB security agency, wounding three employees. Several minutes before the suicide blast in the northern city of Arkhangelsk, a post on an anarchist forum warned of an imminent explosion. Investigators said they were checking whether the suspected bomber was a member of any banned organisations and talk to his friends and relatives to "find out the motives for the crime". An explosive device detonated in the FSB building shortly before 9:00 am (0600 GMT), authorities said. Investigators identified the bomber as a 17-year-old local resident. An official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, named the suicide bomber as Mikhail Zhlobitsky, a student at a local technical college. Investigators probing the attack released a photo of the suspect -- a skinny young man with a backpack -- inside the FSB building. Authorities cordoned off streets around the building for several hours, with police and experts combing the area for clues. Attacks on police and security services are common in Russia's restive Northern Caucasus, but are rare in the rest of the country. President Vladimir Putin -- himself a former FSB officer -- was informed about the explosion, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, but declined to speculate on the motive. Investigators said they had opened a probe into terrorism and illegal possession of ammunition. Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the Investigative Committee probing the case, said the young man's motives should be established "as soon as possible." Investigators searched Zhlobitsky's apartment and questioned his relatives and friends. Three FSB employees were hospitalised with injuries after the blast in Arkhangelsk, which is more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) north of Moscow. "One man is in surgery," a spokeswoman for the regional FSB told AFP. 'FSB has gone mad' Seven minutes before the blast, a post in an anarchist forum on Telegram, a messaging service, warned that the FSB building would be the target of a "terror attack." The writer of the post, who signed as Valeryan Panov, said he would claim responsibility for it. "The reasons are quite clear to you," said the post. "It (the FSB) is inventing cases and torturing people. I will most likely croak in the blast," he added. "I wish you a bright future of anarchist communism." The FSB is the main successor to the feared KGB agency known for persecuting dissidents in the Soviet era. Starting in 2017, the FSB has launched several cases against young anarchists in the cities of St Petersburg and Penza. Avtonom.org, an anarchist website, have labelled the arrests "repressions" and said the young men were being tortured in custody. The website said on Wednesday evening however that the attacker in Arkhangelsk "has never been in contact with us", that they don't know of any "noticeable anarchist activities" in the northern city. Attacks by anarchists on Russian authorities have in the past included setting police cars on fire and throwing Molotov cocktails at the offices of the ruling party United Russia. Regional governor Igor Orlov said that the authorities were working to establish the type of explosive used. "Things are very serious," he said, blaming the attack on "destructive forces" that influence young Russians. "We are taking measures to increase security of all public and state buildings in Arkhangelsk region," he added. By UNI DHAKA: Danish Minister for Development Cooperation on Wednesday announced additional funding of US$ 4.6 million to meet the urgent food needs of Rohingyas and host communities. Tornaes said they are doing whatever they can to put pressure on the government of Myanmar to make sure that a political solution to the Rohingya crisis is found. "I can assure you that from the Danish government side we're putting all the pressures that we can do," said the Danish Minister at a joint press conference in a city hotel mentioning that Denmark remains committed to standing by Bangladesh. ALSO READ | Australia slaps sanctions on Myanmar army generals over violence against Rohingya Earlier, the Danish Minister and Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) David Beasley jointly visited Rohingya camps in Kutupalong-Balukhali of Cox's Bazar district. Denmark has allocated US$ 13 million to WFP's efforts in relation to the crisis since August 2017, UNB reported The Danish Minister said her government remains committed to supporting those affected with both humanitarian and development assistance. She stressed the need for further cooperation, dialogue and sustained efforts from the international community. "It has been one year since I last visited these camps. I'm pleased to see positive changes. Indeed, the resilience demonstrated by the Rohingya community is evident to us all. ALSO READ | Young Rohingya girls largest group of trafficking victims: UN Migration Agency I'm impressed with the results of the combined efforts of the international community and the government of Bangladesh," the Danish Minister added. There is of course much more needs to be done, Minister TornAs said adding, "Yet, I must express appreciation for the work the WFP is carrying out in support of 870,000 refugees with protection, food and shelter." She said those who are responsible for atrocities committed against Rohingyas should be held accountable and laid emphasis on implementation of the Kofi Annan Commission recommendations and create conducive environment in Rakhine. Beasley said he was haunted by the stories he heard here in Cox's Bazar from the people who survived unspeakable persecution in Myanmar last year. "Returning to these camps now I'm heartened by the obvious improvements and I'm more determined than ever that the WFP will stand with those in need." ALSO READ | Suu Kyi promises 'transparency' over Rohingya atrocities He, however, said more work needs to be done to support the Rohingya people and local Bangladeshi communities. Beasley said the international community needs to work with Bangladesh to give the Rohingya children not just hope for a better future, but also the tools to thrive, including food, health and education. "The crisis must not be forgotten. I'm grateful to the people of Bangladesh for all that has been done to offer sanctuary to those who fled Myanmar and I'm grateful to the financial support and partnership of Denmark that has allowed WFP to continue its work here," Beasley said. The joint visit to Bangladesh underlined the strategic cooperation between the Danish government and the WFP to promote food security particularly in vulnerable countries and contexts to achieve zero hunger by 2030; and on promoting partnerships to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. By Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO: She was a self-described "adrenaline junkie," and he took "wow-worthy photos" of the couple posing at the edge of cliffs and jumping from planes that appeared on social media and a travel blog that attracted thousands of followers. READ | Kerala man, wife die after falling 800 feet in California's Yosemite National Park In one post at the Grand Canyon this spring, 30-year-old Meenakshi Moorthy even warned daredevils who try to snap selfies from dangerous heights: "Did you know that wind gusts can be FATAL???" The caption accompanies a photo of Moorthy sitting on the edge of the canyon's North Rim. This photo obtained from Facebook posted on June 26, 2017, shows a selfie of Vishnu Viswanath, right, and his wife Meenakshi Moorthy at Skydive Santa Barbara in Lompoc, Calif. (Photo | AP) The couple's latest trip turned out to be their last. Moorthy and her husband, Vishnu Viswanath, 29, who were Indian expats living in California, fell to their deaths in Yosemite National Park last week while taking a selfie, the man's brother said Tuesday. They set up their tripod near a ledge at a scenic overlook in the California park, Viswanath's brother, Jishnu Viswanath, told The Associated Press. Visitors saw the camera the next morning and alerted park rangers, who "used high-powered binoculars to find them and used helicopters to airlift the bodies," he said. In this Oct. 21, 2018 photo provided by Sean Matteson, Matteson poses for a selfie with his girlfriend Drea Rose Laguillo, in Yosemite National Park, Calif. (Photo | AP) Rangers found their bodies about 800 feet (245 meters) below Taft Point, where visitors can walk to the edge of a vertigo-inducing granite ledge that offers spectacular views of the Yosemite Valley below. Their thrill-seeking social media posts foreshadow the couple's link to the growing problem of selfie deaths. A study published this month in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care said 259 people had died taking selfies between October 2011 and November 2017. The report, based on findings from researchers in India who scoured worldwide media reports, said the main causes of selfie deaths were drowning, usually involving people being washed away by waves or falling from a boat, followed by people killed while posing in front of a moving train, deaths involving falls from high places or while taking pictures with dangerous animals. More than 10 people have died at Yosemite this year, some from natural causes and others from falls, park spokesman Scott Gediman said. Moorthy and Viswanath were born in India and had lived in the United States for a few years, most recently in the San Francisco Bay Area. Cisco India said Viswanath was a software engineer at the company's San Jose, California, headquarters in Silicon Valley. They graduated in 2010 from the College of Engineering, Chengannur, in the Alapuzha district of India's Kerala state, one of their professors, Nisha Kuruvilla, told AP. She said Moorthy and Viswanath were both good students who were fond of traveling and had married at a Hindu temple in Kerala in southern India four years ago. Moorthy described her and her husband as "travel obsessed" on their blog, "Holidays & Happily Ever Afters," which was taken down Tuesday. It was filled with photos of the couple in front of snowy peaks and on romantic trips across Europe, where they took selfies from a gondola in Venice, at the Leaning Tower of Pisa and at the Vatican. Moorthy wanted to work full time as a travel blogger, her brother-in-law said. She described herself in the blog as a "quirky free spirit" and "an ardent adrenaline junkie roller coasters and skydiving does not scare me." She posed at the edge of the Grand Canyon wearing a Wonder Woman costume, writing, "A lot of us including yours truly is a fan of daredevilry attempts of standing at the edge of cliffs and skyscrapers. But did you know that wind gust can be FATAL??? Is our life just worth one photo?" Her husband's Facebook cover photo shows the couple smiling, with arms around each other standing at a Grand Canyon precipice. "Living life on the edge," he wrote. In a post from July 2017, the couple celebrated their wedding anniversary by skydiving in Santa Barbara, California. Moorthy posted a video on Instagram that shows her in a T-shirt saying, "Gimme Danger," and flashing a thumbs-up as she jumps from the plane. "I believe I can flyyy. I believe i can touch the skyyy," she wrote in the post. "Aaaand touch the sky I did from an effin' 18000 feet thanks to the unconditional love-ninja in my life, Vishnu, who literally took this year's anniversary surprise a notch 'higher' than last year's hot air ballooning adventure, by gifting this adrenaline junkie with one of the highest tandem skydives in the world!" She also blogged about depression. In a post from April, Moorthy apologized to readers for going silent and "disappearing for more than a year." "Between battling the tightening tentacles of depression and blustering in the tempest of moving madness, I am afraid social media is taking a back seat??" she wrote. The couple's pictures indicated they liked to pose in scenic spots at sunset, which was the last time they were seen alive. In an eerie coincidence, another couple who hiked to Taft Point captured pictures of Moorthy prior to her fall, saying she appears in the background of two of their selfies. Sean Matteson said Moorthy stood out from the crowd enjoying sunset at the overlook because her hair was dyed bright pink. He said she made him a little nervous because she was close to the edge. "She was very close to the edge, but it looked like she was enjoying herself," said Matteson of Oakland, California. "She gave me the willies. There aren't any railings. I was not about to get that close to the edge. But she seemed comfortable. She didn't seem like she was in distress or anything." The travel advice website MyYosemitePark.com posted a photo of Taft Point to illustrate its "bad selfies" list, warning tourists: "Don't pose on top of a huge granite drop-off." It added, "It would only take a loose rock or bad footing to plummet." Yosemite spokeswoman Jamie Richards said officials were investigating the deaths, which could take several days. In India, after a rash of selfie-related deaths, the Tourism Ministry in April asked state government officials to safeguard tourists by installing signs in areas where accidents had occurred declaring them "no-selfie zones." By IANS DAMASCUS: More than 1,500 bodies have been found in a mass grave in Syria's Raqqa province, the former de facto capital of the Islamic State (IS), the media reported on Wednesday. ALSO READ | Islamic State fighters repel US-backed forces from east Syria holdout: Monitor Citing medical sources, the pro-government al-Watan newspaper said the bodies belonged to civilians who had been killed by the strikes of the US-led coalition on Raqqa. The bodies of 4,000 civilians had been found so far in mass graves in Raqqa, Xinhua news agency reported citing the newspaper. It said more bodies were being unearthed on a daily basis. The US-led coalition had supported the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in their push to capture IS' former stronghold Raqqa in 2017. By AFP ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's Supreme Court Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Christian mother facing execution for blasphemy in a landmark case which has incited deadly violence and reached as far as the Vatican. "The appeal is allowed. She has been acquitted. The judgement of high court, as well as trial court, is reversed. Her conviction is set aside," said Pakistan's Chief Justice Saqib Nisar in the ruling. Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in deeply conservative Muslim Pakistan, where even unproven allegations of insulting Islam and its Prophet Mohammed can provoke a violent and bloody death at the hands of vigilantes. Asia Bibi's case drew the attention of international rights groups and swiftly became the most high-profile in the country. ALSO READ | Pakistani Christians demand equal rights, abolition of blasphemy law Pope Benedict XVI called for her release in 2010, while in 2015 her daughter met his successor and the current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis. Freedom for Bibi in Pakistan, where university students have been lynched and Christians burnt in ovens over blasphemy claims, means a life under threat by hardliners, who regularly hold demonstrations calling for her execution. The allegations against Bibi date back to 2009, when she was working in a field and was asked to fetch water. Muslim women she was labouring with allegedly objected, saying that as a non-Muslim she was unfit to touch the water bowl. The women went to a local cleric and accused Bibi of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed, a charge punishable by death under colonial-era legislation. During the appeal hearing on October 8, a three-member panel of Supreme Court justices appeared to question the case against her, with Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, considered Pakistan's top expert in criminal law, listing flaws in the proceedings. "I don't see any derogatory remarks vis-a-vis the holy Koran as per the FIR," added Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, referring to the initial complaint filed in the case. Approximately 40 people are believed to be on death row or serving a life sentence in Pakistan for blasphemy, according to a 2018 report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Leading rights groups have long criticised the legislation, saying it is routinely abused to justify censorship, persecution, and even murder of minorities. In recent years, it has also been weaponised to smear dissenters and politicians. Mere calls to reform the law have provoked violence, most notably the assassination of Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Pakistan's most populous province Punjab, by his own bodyguard in broad daylight in Islamabad in 2011. Taseer had also called for Bibi's release. His assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, was executed in 2016 and has been feted as a hero by hardliners, with a shrine to him built by Islamists just outside the capital. Politicians including new prime minister Imran Khan invoked blasphemy during a general election this summer, vowing to defend the laws. Analysts have warned the tactic could deepen sectarian fractures and potentially spill into violence. By UNI ISLAMABAD: The issue of recovery of 12 Iranian border security guards kidnapped by militants a fortnight ago from a post in Iran's Mirjaveh region close to the Balochistan border was discussed at length when Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif met Prime Minister Imran Khan here on Wednesday. The kidnapping issue was is was among the host of issues deliberated in the meeting, Radio Pakistan reported. Jaish al-Adl, a terrorist group operating in the region, has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping. Iranian leaders believe that the kidnappers transferred the guards to Pakistan after taking them hostage. Earlier in the day, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had welcomed his Irani counterpart to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to a tweet shared by the Government of Pakistan, the two discussed "issues of mutual interest, including ways to enhance cooperation". This was Zarif's second visit to Pakistan in two months, Radio Pakistan reported. By PTI SEOUL: In a special gesture, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has gifted some meticulously tailored 'Modi jackets' to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who expressed his liking for them during his first state visit to India in July. 'Modi jackets' are basically a vest-like sleeveless jacket the leader (Modi) usually dons, state-run Yonhap news agency reported. President Moon expressed thanks to Prime Minister Modi on Wednesday for sending him the jackets. Moon also uploaded photos of him wearing the jackets in a Twitter posting, saying they "fit great". Prime Minister @narendramodi of India sent me some gorgeous garments. These are modernized versions of traditional Indian costume, known as the Modi Vest, that can also be worn easily in Korea. They fit perfectly. pic.twitter.com/3QTFIczX6H (@moonriver365) October 31, 2018 "Prime Minister @narendramodi of India sent me some gorgeous garments. These are modernised versions of traditional Indian costume, known as the 'Modi Vest', that can also be worn easily in Korea. They fit perfectly," Moon tweeted. During my visit to India, I had told the Prime Minister @narendramodi that he looked great in those vests, and he duly sent them over, all meticulously tailored to my size. I would like to thank him for this kind gesture. pic.twitter.com/wRgekJSW16 (@moonriver365) October 31, 2018 "During my visit to India, I had told the Prime Minister @narendramodi that he looked great in those vests, and he duly sent them over, all meticulously tailored to my size. I would like to thank him for this kind gesture," he tweeted. In a second photograph posted on Moon's Twitter account, four Modi jackets of different shades were displayed. In July, Moon made his first state visit to India during which he held talks with Modi on key issues such as the situation on the Korean peninsula, and ways to boost bilateral trade and defence cooperation. Moon also congratulated Modi on his selection as winner of this year's Seoul Peace Prize in recognition of his contribution to world peace through his economic vision. I have read Prime Minister Modis tweets upon winning the Seoul Peace Prize. They were written in Korean, and I was moved by his thoughtfulness. I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to Prime Minister Modi. https://t.co/ZLwBWAHb7J (@moonriver365) October 31, 2018 "I have read Prime Minister Modi's tweets upon winning the Seoul Peace Prize. They were written in Korean, and I was moved by his thoughtfulness. I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to Prime Minister Modi," Moon tweeted. . ,, . . Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 25, 2018 Last week, Modi was conferred with the Seoul Peace Prize for 2018 for his contribution to international cooperation and fostering global economic growth. By IANS ISLAMABAD: Radical Islamist groups protested on Wednesday in a number of Pakistan cities against the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the death sentence of Christian woman Asia Bibi, who had been convicted in 2010 of blasphemy. The top court acquitted Asia Bibi, a mother of five from Pakistan's Punjab province, earlier in the day and overturned her death sentence, Geo News reported. She was accused in 2009 of defiling the name of Prophet Muhammed during an argument with her neighbours. Bibi maintained her innocence but spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement. The landmark ruling set off violent protests by hardliners who support strong blasphemy laws. Demonstrations against the verdict were being held in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Multan. Clashes with the police were also reported, the BBC said. "The protest for the sanctity of the Prophet has started. We will die (for the sanctity). We are not going to step back," radical Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) -- which had threatened the judges with dire consequences if Asia Bibi was acquitted -- said in a statement. The TLP statement cited by Efe news warned that train stations and airports would be blocked. The Red Zone in Islamabad, where the Supreme Court is located, was sealed off by the police. Paramilitary forces were deployed to keep protesters away from the court. Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, who read out the ruling, said Asia Bibi could walk free from jail in Sheikupura, near Lahore, immediately if not wanted in connection with any other case. "The appeal is allowed. Sentence of death set aside. Asia Bibi acquitted of charges," said Justice Nisar. Asia Bibi's lawyer, closely flanked by a policeman, told the BBC that he was "happy" with the verdict, but also afraid for his and his client's safety. A police spokesperson in Lahore said that around 500 protesters had gathered outside the provincial Assembly and blocked roads in the area. "They are committing vandalism," he said. Protests with up to 300 participants, most of them supporters of the TLP, went ahead in many other places in Lahore. In Karachi, demonstrations were organized in at least five places, city spokesperson Abid Hussain said. Around 300 people blocked the main entrance to Islamabad, which connects it to neighbouring Rawalpindi. Under the Pakistan penal code, the offence of blasphemy is punishable by death or life imprisonment. Bibi's case has attracted widespread outrage and support from Christians worldwide and condemnation from conservative Islamist groups in Pakistan, who have demanded the death penalty for her. In 2011, senior politician Salman Taseer was shot dead by his own bodyguard for voicing support for Bibi. Also in 2011, a Christian minority minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, was shot dead at his home for defending Bibi and opposing the anti-blasphemy legislation. By UNI ADDIS ABABA: (ETHIOPIA): The World Bank has approved $1.2 billion fund to support economic growth policies in Ethiopia. The Board of Executive Directors approved the fund on Tuesday comprising a $600 million loan and $600 million grant from International Development Association (IDA), the bank said in a statement. "The Government of Ethiopia has embarked upon a path of political and economic transformation. In addition to measures that build peace with Eritrea, the Government has recently broadened the political space to include opposition parties," according to the Bank. The Ethiopian government also actively engaged in regional diplomacy, and announced a range of economic reforms designed to revitalize the economy by expanding the role of the private sector, Turkish news agency anadolu reported quoting World Bank. Among the reforms were the plans to gradually boost the economy, introduce competition and liberalize sectors dominated by key state-owned enterprises. "In light of these sweeping reforms, the Government has requested technical and financial support for the international community to implement its new pathway to growth. The World Bank's new operation responds to that request," the bank added. The fund also aims to achieve Ethiopia's vision of becoming a lower-middle-income country. On Wednesday, Haji Ibsa, the Finance Ministry spokesman said that "Ethiopia's relations with the World Bank has improved over the past six months" since Abiy Ahmed took the office of prime ministr on April 2. Established in 1960, the IDA helps the world's poorest countries by providing grants and low to zero-interest loans for projects and programs that boost economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve poor people's lives. IDA is one of the largest sources of assistance for the world's 75 poorest countries, 39 of which are in Africa. Multiple J-20 stealth fighter jets were spotted in the skies above Zhuhai, South China's Guangdong Province on Tuesday, in preparation for Airshow China 2018 in November, a military expert said. Four J-20s under the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force flew over the Zhuhai Jinwan Airport at about 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday. Two J-20 formations, each consisting of two fighter jets, made a low pass through the airport, after which one of them put on a solo aerobatics performance. The fighter jets soon left without landing at the airport. Airshow China 2018 will be held in Zhuhai from November 6-11. Despite the J-20's absence from the list of participating aircraft released by the air show's organizer on Saturday, the aircraft is very likely to make a surprise appearance, Song Zhongping, a military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Tuesday. The J-20 may put on flight performances to demonstrate how much the PLA Air Force has mastered it over the past two years, Song said. In the previous air show two years ago, the J-20 made its debut with a flyby exhibition for less than a minute at the opening ceremony. Spectators said it was very impressive, except it was too short. Song said that he expects the J-20 to be available for an extended period of time this year, noting it will conduct low passes in formation and solo aerobatics performances like it did on Tuesday. The J-20 will display more of its combat maneuverability that will amaze spectators at the air show, Song said. PLA Air Force's transport aircraft Y-20, the H-6K bomber, KJ-500 early warning aircraft, GJ-2 unmanned aerial vehicle and J-10B fighter plane are among the aircraft to be displayed at the air show, according to the list of participating aircraft. Champaign, IL (61820) Today Partly cloudy early followed by cloudy skies overnight. Low 31F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy early followed by cloudy skies overnight. Low 31F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. By Qiu Yue and Zhao Yuanzhi BEIJING, Oct. 31 (ChinaMil) -- Hong Kong media reported that China's first domestically-made aircraft carrier had departed from the Dalian Shipyard in northeast China's Liaoning Province for its third sea trial on the morning of October 28, according to Global Times. Chinese military expert Cao Weidong said in an interview that the sea trial is a more comprehensive test, and only three sea trials cannot complete all necessary testing subjects. If the entire sea trial can be completed within one year, then it means that the sea trial work of China's first domestically-made aircraft carrier is progressing smoothly, said Cao. According to reports, several tugboats began to move close to the domestic aircraft carrier at 9 a.m. on October 28. Firecrackers and saluting guns were fired to celebrate the third sea trial of China's first domestically-made aircraft carrier at around 10 a.m. Then the tugboats began to tow the aircraft carrier to the sea trial area. According to the photo published online, the No. 89 comprehensive support ship of the Chinese PLA Navy also sailed together with the aircraft carrier for the first time. Compared with the previous two sea trials, the third sea trial will be a more comprehensive test involving more systems, said Cao. The sea trail is a test from simple to complex and from a single system to the whole system. Therefore, the number of people participating in the sea trial and the equipment to be tested will increase. Accordingly, the comprehensive support ship sailed together with the aircraft carrier. "It is both a big hotel for support personnel and a large warehouse for spare equipment,"added Cao. The website of Taiwan's CTnews reported that the arresting cable and the side whip-shaped antenna had been installed in place, and various models of carrier-based aircraft had appeared on the flight deck based on the photos of the scene. The report believed that these models are for adaptability tests with the aircraft carrier. Cao introduced that the adaptability test will mainly test if the carrier-based aircraft can be normally dispatched on the deck, if they fit the hangar, and if the lift can carry the aircraft. The adaptability training of fighter jets is very complicated as it covers the basic aircraft dispatching and the more difficult take-off and landing.Only when the basic test is completed step by step, can the carrier-based aircraft be brought to the aircraft carrier for testing, and finally for take-off and landing training, according to Cao. Cao said that it is China's first fully domestic aircraft carrier. It is a very large system and each of the work is a new exploration. If the entire sea trial can be completed in a year or so, it is still considered relatively fast. "Three sea trials will not be able to complete all the testing subjects. Only when all the tests are completed, can we say that the aircraft carrier will be delivered soon," said Cao. Disclaimer: The authors are Qiu Yue and Zhao Yuanzhi with the Global Times. The article is translated from Chinese into English by China Military online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn. Chinamil.com.cn does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same. If the article carries photographs or images, we do not vouch for their authenticity. Wills Memorial Hospital hosts ribbon cutting ceremony for new garden On November 10, Wills Memorial Hospital hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony for their new flower garden. The garden was constructed for patients in the Respiratory Therapy/ VENT program. The project... City Council to hear second ethics complaint The Washington City Council has decided on December 8 at 6 p.m. at The Edward B. Pope Conference Center to hold an ethics hearing. The hearing comes as a result... Secretary for the Civil Service Joshua Law (centre) accompanied by Director-General of Investment Promotion Stephen Phillips (right) is briefed on the work of Invest Hong Kongs Transport & Industrial Team. Secretary for the Civil Service Joshua Law visited Invest Hong Kong today. Mr Law met Director-General of Investment Promotion Stephen Phillips and the directorate team for an update on the department's work in attracting direct investment from the Mainland and overseas. InvestHK has specialists in nine priority sectors, covering traditional pillars as well as new and emerging industries. Mr Law said he was pleased the department assisted more than 400 overseas and Mainland companies to set up or expand in Hong Kong in 2017, creating more than 5,000 jobs. He visited the departments Transport & Industrial Team to understand how it attracts and supports overseas and Mainland firms to set up business in Hong Kong. He was also briefed by the Marketing and Events Teams on their marketing strategy and promotional campaign. Wrapping up his visit, Mr Law met staff representatives of various grades to exchange views on matters of concern. He encouraged them to step up efforts in promoting Hong Kong's strengths, attracting more overseas and Mainland enterprises to set up business in the city. Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Following our Chief Executive's attendance at the first meeting of the leading group led by Vice-Premier Han Zheng for the development of the greater bay area (Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area) in Beijing in August, more initiatives have been announced. Last month, the Ministry of Science & Technology and the Innovation & Technology Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government signed a co-operation arrangement to promote exchanges and collaboration on science and technology as well as an agreement on jointly funded projects. The two sides will enhance co-operation in six areas, namely scientific research, development of platforms, nurturing of talent, transfer of research and development (R&D) results and incubation of innovation and technology (I&T) industry, integration into national development strategies, and cultivation of an I&T atmosphere. The two documents mark a new page of scientific and technological collaboration between the Mainland and Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the Chinese Academy of Sciences will establish a presence of its research institutions, the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine & Health and the Institute of Automation, in the two research clusters to be set up at the Hong Kong Science Park. This will enhance R&D collaboration with local higher education institutions and research and development centres. I will talk more about these clusters later on. Hong Kong has more than 40 academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering. We will establish a greater bay area academician alliance in Hong Kong to promote the participation of academicians in the development of the greater bay area. National I&T support With strong national support, the HKSAR Government is committed to fostering I&T development in Hong Kong. We will step up our efforts in eight major areas, namely increasing resources for R&D; pooling together technology talent; providing investment funding; providing technological research infrastructure; reviewing existing legislations and regulations; opening up government data; Government leading changes to procurement arrangements and strengthening popular science education. Further to the $78 billion invested in the past three years, the Policy Address this year announced by our Chief Executive on October 10 has further allocated $28 billion for I&T development. The unprecedented resources invested are the best proof of our commitment to developing I&T. Our Chief Executive has announced a number of new initiatives in her second Policy Address, focusing on expediting re-industrialisation; unleashing the R&D capability of universities and research institutions and fostering technology transfer; bringing I&T into the daily lives of citizens; and building a technology-savvy Government. For example, we will launch a $2 billion Re-industrialisation Funding Scheme to subsidise manufacturers, on a matching basis, to set up smart production lines in Hong Kong. To unleash our strengths in scientific research, we will double the funding ceiling for Technology Transfer Offices of dedicated universities, the Technology Start-up Support Scheme for Universities, State Key Laboratories and Hong Kong branches of the Chinese National Engineering Research Centre, providing more resources for R&D and its commercialisation. Among our key initiatives is the establishment of two world-class research clusters, as I mentioned earlier, at the Hong Kong Science Park, namely "[email protected] HK" that focuses on healthcare technologies, and "[email protected] HK" that focuses on artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics technologies. We will invest $10 billion to establish the two clusters, which will foster more synergy and collaboration between top local and overseas researchers and put Hong Kong on the global innovation map. Our targets are top-notch universities, research institutions and technology enterprises from all over the world. We will provide financial support for research centres and laboratories set up by non-profit making institutions at the two clusters. It is encouraging that in recent months, a number of world-renowned universities and research institutions have already approached us, expressing a keen interest in setting up research operations in Hong Kong. We welcome more research institutions and technology enterprises from the Belt & Road economies or AI/robotics technologies to come to Hong Kong and join the two research clusters. This will enable them to tap the enormous growth potential of I&T markets in the greater bay area. Such collaboration will surely be a win-win for all parties. Meanwhile, we are working full steam ahead to develop the Lok Ma Chau Loop into the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation & Technology Park. With a site area of 87 hectares - four times that of the Hong Kong Science Park in Tai Po, the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation & Technology Park will be Hong Kong's largest I&T platform ever, creating unprecedented opportunities for I&T development and collaboration. The park will be developed as a key base for scientific research, where relevant higher education, cultural and creative, as well as other complementary facilities will be provided. It will attract top-tier research institutions, technology enterprises and higher education institutes from Hong Kong, the Mainland and overseas. We have set aside $20 billion for the first phase development of the Park. Nurturing talent In addition to infrastructure, talent is also an essential piece in the jigsaw of I&T development. We launched the Technology Talent Admission Scheme in June to enable technology companies and institutes to admit on fast track overseas technology talent in focused technology areas, such as biotechnology, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and robotics. We also launched the $500 million Technology Talent Scheme in August. The Postdoctoral Hub programme provides funding support for enterprises to recruit postdoctoral talent for scientific research and product development. The scheme will also fund local companies on a 2 to 1 matching basis to train their staff in high-end technologies, especially those related to Industry 4.0, through its Re-industrialisation & Technology Training Programme. To encourage private investment in R&D, we have also introduced enhanced tax deduction for R&D investment. The first $2 million eligible R&D expenditure will enjoy a 300% tax deduction, with the remainder at 200%. Ladies and gentlemen, with I&T development high on the national agenda, and enjoying the dual advantage of "one country, two systems", Hong Kong will continue to seize the invaluable opportunities brought about by the greater bay area initiative in unleashing our I&T potential and developing Hong Kong into an international I&T hub. Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung gave these remarks at the Belt & Road Conference co-organised by China Daily and the Silk Road Economic Development Research Center on October 29. Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung In early 1978, the then Chinese Vice-Premier Gu Mu led a delegation to France and other Western European countries to understand the economic structure and development of Europe. At that time, Beijings international airport could manage the landing and takeoff of two planes per hour, whereas at Charles de Gaulle Airport of Paris, 60 flights took off and landed in an hour. Understandably, the Chinese delegation was spellbound. In December of 1978, the Central Peoples Government made an important step and pushed through multiple economic reforms, opening up China to the world. History was made thereafter. We began to witness an unprecedented growth in the Chinese economy, and how it swiftly and effectively raised the living standards of its vast population. The world watched in awe as Mainland China created countless economic miracles and gradually increased its influence on global issues. This transformation has changed the way that the world does business. China not only exported consumption goods such as sweaters, water bottles, mobile phones, but also technology and ideas. From 1979 to 2017, Chinas average economic growth stood at 9.5%, significantly higher than the 2.9% global average. In 2001, China became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO), completing the last leg of the countrys journey of integration into the world economy. WTO membership has opened up Chinas market for more international trade and investment, as well as opening up the world economy for Chinas exports. Made in China became a household brand, drastically changing consumer habits in every corner of the world. In the wake of the countrys reform and opening up, Hong Kongs labour-intensive production processes were relocated north to the Mainland. Hong Kongs geographic proximity to the Mainland has allowed easy access to the huge market and the vast population in the Mainland. Businessmen from Hong Kong equipped with capital, international trading networks and management expertise started from Shenzhen, and then slowly built up a sophisticated manufacturing network in Dongguan and other cities in Guangdong, shipping all their products to the world. Success stories of Hong Kong enterprises quickly caught the worlds attention, and encouraged many multinational companies to invest in China. Hong Kong does not only contribute to the economy of China, but has also benefitted substantially in many ways. At the dawn of the reform and opening up, as factories were moved to the Mainland, Hong Kong began to transform itself into a service economy, becoming an international finance, trading and maritime centre. When we look back at the past four decades, there is absolutely no doubt that Chinas reform and opening up has brought prosperity and stability to the country, as well as important changes to the economic and social landscape of Hong Kong. Hong Kong has grown from an economy focusing on light industries such as textiles and clothing, toys, watches and more to become an international financial, trading and transportation hub. Indeed, the Washington-based Heritage Foundation has rated Hong Kong the worlds freest economy for 24 years in a row. As an externally oriented, open and vibrant economy with a robust legal system and the rule of law; as an international financial, business, professional services, logistics and maritime centre; and as a safe and welcoming metropolis with world-class infrastructure where East blends harmoniously with West, Hong Kong is strategically placed and, indeed, destined to play a crucial role as the super-connector, super-facilitator and super-promoter between China and the world as our country continues to open up to the rest of the world. To contribute towards the countrys comprehensive reform, Hong Kong will strengthen its co-operation with the Mainland. Travelling to the Mainland cities is now much faster than ever. The Hong Kong Section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link came on stream last month (September). The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge has just commenced service. The Liantang/Heung Yuen Wai border crossing is expected to come into operation in the first half of next year and will further improve connectivity to the eastern part of the Pearl River Delta. Leveraging on our capability in scientific and technological research with four of our universities amongst the world top 100, and our institutional strengths and unique advantages under one country, two systems, Hong Kong is well placed to contribute to the national strategy of developing the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area into an international innovation and technology hub. As we celebrate this important occasion, an occasion for the 40th anniversary, let me reassure our international and local audience today that Hong Kong will continue to contribute to the reform and opening up of the motherland by playing a key and constructive role for the long-term development and prosperity of the country. Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung gave these remarks at the "Chinas 40 Years of Reform & Opening Up: Implications for the World & Role of Hong Kong" seminar on October 29. Secretary for Food & Health Prof Sophia Chan met various Mainland officials during her visit to Beijing today. This morning, Prof Chan met Minister of the General Administration of Customs Ni Yuefeng and Vice Minister of Agriculture & Rural Affairs Yu Kangzhen to learn about the latest situation of the outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) on the Mainland. She said the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government is very concerned about the outbreak and has been closely liaising with the General Administration of Customs and the Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Affairs on the latest developments. She noted that so far no pig farm registered for supplying Hong Kong has been affected and the supply of live pigs from the Mainland remains generally stable. "Although there is no food safety issue connected with ASF, the HKSAR Government has already stepped up bio-security measures in various areas, including pig farms, slaughterhouses and boundary checkpoints, to prevent infection to local pig farms, Prof Chan said. She also told Mr Yu the HKSAR Government has been promoting the sustainable development of the fisheries industry in recent years. We believe that the option for HKSAR fishermen to develop aquaculture business in Mainland waters is worth exploring." Prof Chan also signed a protocol with Director General of the General Office of the General Administration of Customs Zhang Guangzhi on the import of bird's nest products to the Mainland. "The formal signing of the protocol on (the) implementation of inspection and quarantine arrangements for imported bird's nest products from Hong Kong will help foster the trading of bird's nests between the Mainland and the HKSAR, and will also be welcomed by the trade of the two places. In the afternoon, she called on Hong Kong & Macao Affairs Office Deputy Director Song Zhe and Assistant Minister of Commerce Ren Hongbin. They discussed the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the current food supply to Hong Kong. Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung (centre) meets Hong Kong students during a visit to the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung visited two education institutions and an innovation and technology enterprise in Zhejiang today. In the morning, Mr Yeung toured Hangzhou CIS, a project run by Chinese International School, and visited the Xixi Park of Alibaba Group. While visiting the park, he met young people from Hong Kong and learned more about their work in the enterprise. Mr Yeung said the Internet and other technological advancements have removed geographical barriers to young people's learning and development. Hong Kong has put more emphasis on information technology and science, technology, engineering and mathematics education, while increasing investment in higher education to provide more research funding and nurture talents, he added. The education secretary encouraged youngsters to contribute to Hong Kong's development as an international innovation and technology hub. He also stopped by the China Academy of Art. In the past two days, Mr Yeung met Zhejiang Vice Governor Cheng Yuechong and Zhejiang Department of Education Director Guo Huawei. He also met CPC Hangzhou Committee Secretary Zhou Jiangyong, CPC Hangzhou Committee Secretary General Xu Ming, Hangzhou Government Vice Mayor Chen Hongying and Hangzhou Education Bureau Director Shen Jianping. Mrs Lam (left) introduces a handmade apron in the design of a cheongsam as a souvenir to members of the Japan-Hong Kong Parliamentarian League. Chief Executive Carrie Lam met Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike and attended a dinner hosted by the Japan-Hong Kong Parliamentarian League in Tokyo today. Mrs Lam told Ms Koike, as the first female Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, she was very pleased to meet the first female Governor of Tokyo. She said Tokyo and Hong Kong have a lot in common and both are important business hubs and financial centres. Mrs Lam added that Tokyo is a popular destination for Hong Kong tourists with more than a quarter of those bound for Japan visiting Tokyo last year. She said she hopes the Tokyo government will continue supporting the Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office in Tokyo so that exchanges and co-operation between the two places can be strengthened. She wrapped up her day with a dinner hosted by the Japan-Hong Kong Parliamentarian League, where she discussed affairs concerning Hong Kong and Japan with more than 20 members of the league. Noting that the league has been Hong Kongs important ally in promoting bilateral relations since its establishment in 1992, Mrs Lam thanked its chairman Wataru Takeshita, its past chairmen and all members for their support for Hong Kong over the years. Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Edward Yau joined Mrs Lam during the day's events. The Government is highly concerned about the traffic situation at the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and will follow up with the shuttle bus operator to find a viable solution. Acting Chief Executive Matthew Cheung made the statement ahead of the Executive Council meeting today, in response to the long queues of passengers waiting for shuttle buses at the bridges Hong Kong Port on Sunday. Mr Cheung said the problem stemmed from a surge in travellers, adding that the situation was unsatisfactory. He said the Transport Department is working closely with the shuttle bus operator to iron out the problem and find a viable solution. We hope that the operator can provide, deploy more buses to tackle the situation if warranted. The department will also maintain close liaison with the Zhuhai and Macau authorities, he added. The Hang Seng Management College has been granted approval to change its title to the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong. The Permanent Secretary for Education approved the change in accordance with the Post Secondary Colleges Ordinance, after the Chief Executive in Council gave the green light today to the colleges title change application. Congratulating the institution, Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung said the development of private universities adds diversity to Hong Kongs higher education system and provides a channel for all sectors to contribute resources and efforts for the benefit of students. The college is the first self-financing post-secondary education institution to acquire a university title since 2015, when a revised roadmap of criteria for registered post-secondary colleges to acquire a university title was published. Factors considered include the breadth of programmes offered, research capability, size and scale, governance and management, financial sustainability, academic environment and quality assurance. The Council for Accreditation of Academic & Vocational Qualifications conducted a review of the college last year at its invitation, and concluded that it met the standards expected of a private university. Established by the Hang Seng School of Commerce, the Hang Seng Management College has been registered under the ordinance since 2010. In the 2018-19 academic year, the college is running 19 self-financing locally-accredited post-secondary programmes with more than 4,000 students in total. Mrs Lam (second left) takes a selfie with Hong Kong people living, working and studying in Japan. Chief Executive Carrie Lam (second left), accompanied by Secretary for Innovation & Technology Nicholas Yang (left) tours Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City during a visit to Japan. Chief Executive Carrie Lam toured innovation and technology institutions and facilities in Japan today. In the morning, Mrs Lam visited Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City to learn about its developments in innovation, health services and smart city initiatives. Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City uses advanced technology to create a liveable neighbourhood which is environmentally friendly, favourable to the development of new industries and suitable for people of all ages. Mrs Lam then visited the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology (AIST) in Ibaraki Prefecture and was briefed on its operation and research achievements. She noted there are exchanges between universities in Hong Kong and the AIST, and welcomed it to collaborate with more universities and scientific research institutions in Hong Kong. In the afternoon, Mrs Lam had lunch with the Mayor of Tsukuba City Tatsuo Igarashi to learn about the city's successful experience in promoting I&T and measures in attracting scientific research institutions and talents. Mrs Lam said Hong Kong is striving to advance I&T development and said she hopes to strengthen collaboration with Tsukuba at the government level to provide more opportunities for joint development for enterprises of the two cities. She then visited the University of Tsukuba, which holds academic strengths in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, medicine and physical education. Mrs Lam said she was pleased to know the university has international exchange arrangements with the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, adding the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology has also collaborated with it on publications. The Chief Executive learned about the schools research on artificial intelligence and cybernics. She said the Hong Kong Science Park will establish in Hong Kong two world-class research clusters on healthcare technologies as well as on artificial intelligence and robotics technologies to attract top universities, research and development institutions, and scientific technology enterprises. She encouraged the University of Tsukuba to join the clusters and take part in scientific research projects in Hong Kong, and also welcomed its students to the city. Later, Mrs Lam met Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua and attended a dinner he hosted. She thanked the embassy for its continuous support for the work of the Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office (Tokyo), and the assistance to Hong Kong people visiting Japan when in need. Mrs Lam then met Hong Kong people living, working and studying in Japan to learn about their everyday lives. She updated them on the city's latest developments, including the recent commissioning of the Hong Kong Section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Edward Yau and Secretary for Innovation & Technology Nicholas Yang accompanied Mrs Lam during the days events. Chinese embassy staff, local residents, overseas Chinese, and representatives from Chinese-funded institutions bid goodbye to the Chinese naval hospital ship Peace Ark (Hull 866) at the Port of St. Johns, the capital of Antigua and Barbuda. (mod.gov.cn/Photo by Shi Kuiji) By Jiang Shan and Shi Kuiji PORT of ST. JOHNS, Oct. 31 (ChinaMil) -- The Chinese naval hospital ship Peace Ark (Hull 866), currently on its "Harmonious Mission 2018", successfully completed its eight-day friendly visit and medical service task to Antigua and Barbuda, and left the Port of St. Johns, the capital of the country, at around 10 a.m. on October 29. During the visit, the hospital ship Peace Ark has dispatched medical teams by ambulance helicopters for two consecutive days to provide urgent medical service to Barbuda. Local residents praised that the Chinese naval ambulance helicopters have set up an air medical passageway between the two islands of Antigua and Barbuda. The Peace Ark has completed treatment of 3,924 people-times, as well as CT, DR and other auxiliary examinations of 2,410 people-times during this trip. The Chinese medical staff also carried out physical examinations for 53 people, admitted 16 people into hospital and performed 14 cases of surgery. A farewell party for the Peace Ark was held by the Chinese Embassy in Antigua and Barbuda on the evening of October 28. Governor-General Sir Rodney Williams and his wife, Prime Minister Gaston Browne and his wife, together with Foreign Minister Paul Greene, Health Minister Molwyn Joseph, Chief of Staff of the Defense Force Trevor Thomas and other military and government officials of Antigua and Barbuda attended the party and delivered speeches respectively. Governor-General Williams said in his speech: "This mission has enhanced the traditional friendship between the two countries since 1983, and we hope to keep on the cooperation in the future and continue this profound friendship between the two countries." "The kind medical assistance has provided a healthier and brighter future for the people of Antigua and Barbuda. We welcome the Chinese naval ship Peace Ark to visit us again in the future," he added. Prime Minister Browne said the Peace Ark's medical service represents China's great help to the people of Antigua and Barbuda. "China has always been a good friend and partner of Antigua and Barbuda, and Antigua and Barbuda, in turn, is a trustworthy partner of China," added Browne. He said that he sincerely hoped a brighter future for China and a long-lasting friendship between the two countries. Wang Xianmin, ambassador of China to Antigua and Barbuda, said this year marked the 35th anniversary of China-Antigua and Barbuda diplomatic ties. "The Peace Ark has brought health, friendship and joy, and was greatly welcomed and praised by the government and the people of Antigua and Barbuda," he said. "The visit of the ship has injected new vitality and added new colors to the friendship between the nations," added Wang. It is reported that the Peace Ark is heading for its next stop, the Dominican Republic. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Hong Kong is consistently rated among the world's top three international financial centres and first in Asia. Our information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure is equally world-class. Hong Kong's financial regulatory framework enables innovation, while protecting users and the industry in general. And our talent pool is multilingual and multitalented as I'm sure you'll discover in the course of this FinTech Week. More importantly, Hong Kong welcomes you with an inclusive spirit of entrepreneurship, and with the assurance of a level playing field for all. You may be well aware that Hong Kong is the freest economy in the world. Our government concentrates on promoting and facilitating, so that you can focus yourself on innovating and business building. Earlier this year, I dedicated $500 million to develop the financial services industry, and fintech is definitely on the agenda. I also allocated nearly $200 million to Cyberport as part of our determined effort to support fintech start-ups. The Government's $2 billion Innovation & Technology Venture Fund and Cyberport's Macro Fund also help finance new fintech projects. Private funding from angel investors, venture capitalists and private equity funds is also rife. Indeed, investment in Hong Kong-based fintech companies exceeded US$500 million in 2017 - more than doubling the amount in 2016. Hong Kong is undoubtedly an ideal launch pad for those seeking a future in fintech. There are well over 300 fintech start-ups at Cyberport and Hong Kong Science Park and over 150 other fintech companies are flourishing in the private co-working spaces dotted all over Hong Kong. Our Fast Track Programme is here, right outside this hall, to support you to join the league. Specialists from InvestHK, as well as our financial regulators and fintech partners, are there to assist you, to help you launch your fintech future here in Hong Kong. What Hong Kong can offer is smartly summed up by the tagline of our new Hong Kong fintech logo, "Launch, Leap and Lead". I've touched on Hong Kong's resources for launching your fintech company or start-up. We'll help you make that leap as our city as a whole excitedly rolls into the era of fintech. Just last month, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority launched the Faster Payment System. That means instant fund transfer round the clock in both Hong Kong dollars and renminbi not only between banks, but also between e-wallets. A common QR code for retail payment has also been established, allowing Hong Kong merchants to accept payment from multiple channels, including e-wallets and individual banking apps. By the end of this year, the first batch of virtual bank licences will be given to those virtual banks to open their portals. An Open API framework is also on the way. It will allow fintech companies to collaborate with banks in providing innovative offerings. As for leading, that means, among other things, expanding our markets. We're certainly working on that. Those of you who make the trip to Shenzhen this Friday will get a first-hand appreciation for that and for the possibilities, the promise, of the Greater Bay Area and Hong Kong's role, very unique role, in this national development strategy. The Greater Bay Area links nine prosperous cities in southern China together with Hong Kong and Macau. Together, they count some 70 million ready consumers of financial services, and of course fintech. Financial Secretary Paul Chan gave these remarks at the opening of Hong Kong FinTech Week 2018 on October 31. Secretary for Development Michael Wong (front row, left) attends the 2018 World Cities Day Forum in Xuzhou. Secretary for Development Michael Wong today gave a keynote speech on green living and green cities at the 2018 World Cities Day Forum in Xuzhou, Jiangsu. He introduced Hong Kong's efforts in addressing the challenges of urbanisation, saying the Government enhances environmental capacity and promotes green living and sustainable development through innovative town planning, engineering design and city management. The forum is organised by the UN Human Settlements Programme, the Ministry of Housing & Urban-Rural Development and the Government of Jiangsu. Yesterday, Mr Wong attended a cultural exchange and dinner in Xuzhou, meeting Jiangsu Vice Governor Fei Gaoyun, Housing & Urban-Rural Development Vice Minister Ni Hong and the Special Envoy of the Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme Christine Musisi before the dinner. The Central Oregon Homebrewers Organization (COHO) is hosting an American Homebrewers Association (AHA) Learn to Homebrew Day event this Saturday, November 3rd, 2018. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held at Monkless Belgian Ales. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Learn to Homebrew Day and the 40th anniversary of the AHA, which organizes the worldwide celebration.More from a press release: Learn to Homebrew Day is an opportunity for homebrewers to draft their non-brewer friends and families to learn how to make their own beer. Hundreds of fun, educational events are held at homes, breweries, shops and clubs worldwide. COHO invites anyone interested in homebrewing to stop by Monkless Belgian Ales, located at 20750 High Desert Lane in Bend, starting at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 3, 2018 to join the fun! A few weeks ago Jim (Brooks of COHO) asked if he could bring his system over to the brewery and brew in the parking lot for AHA Learn to Homebrew Day I said absolutely, but why don't you brew inside the brewery! said Todd Clement of Monkless Belgian Ales. I love supporting the local homebrewers, and after all, Monkless got its start in my garage, so why not? We talked a bit and decided to use it as an opportunity to brew a pilot batch for a new recipe Ive been working on, a really big Belgian Dark Strong brewed on cacao nibs and fermented on raspberries. Ought to be a blast! Central Oregon has many terrific homebrewers, who are enthusiastic about the craft and willing to share their knowledge, said COHO president Jon Abernathy. Were thrilled to be able to celebrate Learn to Homebrew Day with a great brewery such as Monkless Belgian Ales, who themselves got started homebrewing! We invite anyone who is curious about homebrewing to join us, ask questions, and find out how to get started brewing at home! About Learn to Homebrew Day Established in 1999, Learn to Homebrew Day is an opportunity for homebrewers to teach their friends, families, and the public how to make their own beer. Hundreds of fun, educational events are held at homes, breweries, homebrew shops, and clubs worldwide. For more information, visit homebrewersassociation.org/ aha-events/learn-to-homebrew- day/. About COHO Central Oregon Homebrewers Organization was founded in 2005 in Bend as a means for homebrew enthusiasts to educate themselves and others about brewing beer, wine, and other fermentable beverages. The goal of the club is to associate ourselves with like minded individuals that have a thirst for knowledge and an appetite for an enjoyable time. The club is open to the public, and anyone with an interest is encouraged to participate. Visit http://www.cohomebrewers.org/ for more information. About Monkless Belgian Ales Monasteries have been brewing as far back as the sixth century to provide sustenance and benevolence to the communities they served. What made monastic breweries different was that the monks brought patience, process and dedication to the practice of brewing. At Monkless, there are no monks, but this is our devotion. We practice patience to perfection in our brewing process, focus exclusively on Belgian-style ales and believe we live in a benevolent universe. GOVERNMENT has withdrawn service licences for some service stations that were charging fuel prices above those recommended by the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority. Briefing journalists after yesterdays Cabinet meeting, Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa also said the amendments to Statutory Instrument (SI) 122 of 2017 had begun bearing fruits as the availability of basic commodities on the market was gradually improving. She said Cabinet was concerned about the continuing high prices, insistence by some retailers on payment in hard currency and the prevalence of the three-tier price structure. Minister Mutsvangwa said to protect the public, Cabinet resolved to vigorously enforce regulations which outlaw the three-tier pricing system and sanction those found on the wrong side of the law. On withdrawn fuel licences, she said: Government has withdrawn licences of some fuel service stations caught engaging in irregular trade practices. Government also observed that the availability of fuel had significantly improved amid high hopes that the situation should normalise in a few days time. Cabinet, once again wishes to reaffirm its commitment to bringing normalcy to the situation as soon as possible. Energy and Power Development Minister Dr Joram Gumbo said Glow Petroleum had three of its service stations shut down for overcharging. Overcharging was the main reason for closing those service stations, he said. ZERA regulates the prices of diesel and petrol and if you overcharge you get disciplined. This is really what happened. They got punished because they were charging above the recommended prices. Early this year ZERA pegged the pump prices at not more than $1,34 for diesel and not more than $1.41 for petrol. Minister Mutsvangwa said the full effects of the amendments to SI 122 of 2017 would be felt by mid-November. She said the dialogue between President Mnangagwa and captains of industry on Monday had set the right tone for an inclusive approach in resolving national challenges. As a way forward, Cabinet resolved the need for continuous dialogue between Government and the private sector in order to create common partnership in addressing national economic challenges, said Minister Mutsvangwa. It also resolved on the need to engage seed and fertiliser suppliers in order to guarantee the affordability of agricultural inputs especially seeds and fertilisers and the need to have an industrial fund in particular the foreign currency component, for re-tooling of the local industry. That assistance be targeted at small to medium enterprises in manufacturing in order to boost production and availability of basic commodities. She said Cabinet had also resolved that work on the local content policy be urgently finalised to promote the utilisation of local resources by industries. This, she said, reduced demand on foreign currency as well as increased employment creation. Minister Mutsvangwa said Cabinet emphasised on the need to pursue Government to Government agreements with countries like India for the provision of medicines to alleviate shortages. Such arrangements should enable NatPharm to procure medicines on credit, she said. The visit by the Vice President of India (Muppavarapu Venkaihah Naidu) during the course of this week should provide some significant headway in that regard. Minister Mutsvangwa said Cabinet considered and approved the Memorandum of Understanding on the harmonisation of the Seed Regulatory Framework in Sadc from the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement (Perrance Shiri). Zimbabwe will benefit from the MoU through increased access to regional seed markets for local companies, increased seed production, increased competition resulting in improved varieties and service delivery, improved national seed and food security through increased production as well as increased foreign currency earning through export of seed. She said Cabinet had also approved the Bilateral Air Service Agreement between Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The main objective of the agreement is to provide a governing framework for the operation of air transport between the two countries. Minister Mutsvangwa said Cabinet further approved principles of the Public Finance Management (Amendment) Bill presented by Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube. The Bill seeks to align the Public Management Act to the Constitution, enhance the public resources management framework in line with best practices and incorporate provisions that facilitate allocations of revenues to provincial and local tiers of Government It seeks to provide for the separation of estimates of revenue and expenditure for specific institutions and embrace the principle of mainstreaming gender responsive approaches to finance management matters and elimination of discrimination against women. Herald I implore all our boards to live up to their tasks. The road may not seem smooth, but I am confident that, if we work in close cooperation, we can collectively deliver and contribute to the development of the economy. It Was the 'Largest Crowdfunding Initiative' Ever. And It Failed By Yang Tiehu BEIJING, Oct. 31 (ChinaMil) -- The 12th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, also known as 2018 China Airshow or Zhuhai Airshow, will be held from November 6 to 11 in Zhuhai, a coastal city in south Chinas Guangdong Province. The Silk Road Eye active phased array airborne early warning (AEW) radar, developed by the 14th Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), will make its debut in this Airshow. If the early warning aircraft is a crown in the field of national defense equipment, then the early warning radar shall be the very jewel on that crown. At present, only a few countries in the world have the ability to develop the early warning radar. As the cradle of Chinas radar industry, the 14th Institute of CETC has developed a world-class solid-state active phased array early warning radar for the domestically-made KJ-2000 early warning aircraft, which filled the gap of China's large airborne early warning radar and promoted the development of Chinas AEW radar. The newly-developed Silk Road Eye AEW radar has strong competitive edge in regard to future war. Compared with earlier models, its radar array employs a new active phased array technology. At present, China is the only country in international military trade market that can provide such complete early warning aircraft. (Newser) An Illinois college professor and her husband were last seen Thursday and were reported missing Sunday night by a relative. The next day, their son told investigators he killed them both. And after two days of what the Peoria Journal Star calls "feverish" searching, their bodies were found Tuesday. Prosecutors say Jose Ramirez, 21, told his friends he was "sick of his parents," who both worked at Bradley University in Peoria. The bodies of Susan Brill de Ramirez, an English professor, and Antonio Ramirez Barron, who worked in the school's information technology department, were found in Spoon River, the AP reports. Both were 63. Ramirez, who was arrested Monday, faces first-degree murder charges. story continues below Ramirez allegedly told authorities he killed his parents Friday; they last reported to work on Thursday. Prosecutors allege he waited until they were asleep, entered their bedroom and used pepper spray as a distraction, then stabbed his father in the neck and stomach. When his mother woke up, they allege he stabbed her too. He then allegedly wrapped their bodies in a tarp and a tent, put them in his father's SUV, and dumped them from a bridge about 40 miles from his parents' home; he was unfamiliar with that area and couldn't give police an exact location. One of his friends is charged with obstruction of justice and concealment of a homicidal death; investigators say they have no evidence he was involved but that they believe he knew Ramirez killed them. (Her parents were murdered. She's missing. And a burglar was found with her clothes.) (Newser) President Trump and Melania Trump made a controversial visit to Pittsburgh on Tuesday to pay their respects to the 11 people killed in Saturday's synagogue mass shooting. The visit was opposed by local officials, including Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto, but not by Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who led them inside the Tree of Life synagogue, the BBC reports. Tens of thousands of people signed a petition opposing the presidential visit, blaming his rhetoric for violence carried out by white nationalists. As Trump arrived in the city, thousands of protesters gathered for two large rallies that eventually merged. Police stopped the protesters about half a block from the synagogue while Trump was there, but they turned their backs and knelt as his motorcade left the area, CBS Pittsburgh reports. story continues below The president and first lady spent a total of 18 minutes inside the synagogue before moving along a row of 11 wooden Stars of David outside, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. Trump placed a stone at each one and the first lady left a white rose. The coupleaccompanied by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushnerthen visited UPMC Presbyterian, where the president spoke to victims including an injured police officer. "The president kept a solemn tone and was gracious," says Dr. Steven Shapiro, the hospital's chief medical officer. "He was interested in hearing the patients' stories and meeting the doctors and caregivers." Democratic and Republican congressional leaders declined an invitation to join Trump in Pittsburgh, and Peduto and other top city officials did not meet him. (Muslim groups have raised more than $100,000 for victims.) (Newser) James "Whitey" Bulger was 89 years old and in poor health after multiple heart attacksbut he didn't die from natural causes. Sources tell the New York Times that the Boston mob boss, who was found dead in his cell early Tuesday, was beaten to death by at least two fellow inmates. Federal prison employees say Bulger was apparently killed at the Hazelton high-security prison in West Virginia between 6am, when cell doors were unlocked, and around 8am, when his body was found. He had been transferred to the prison the previous day and admitted to the general population. The sources say the killers were captured on surveillance video and are believed to be "affiliated with the mob." More: "Freddy hated rats." One of the inmates reportedly suspected of killing Bulger is Freddy Geas, a Mafia hitman serving a life sentenceand private investigator Ted McDonough tells the Boston Globe he is not surprised, considering Bulger's history as an FBI informant. "Freddy hated rats," McDonough says. "Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It's probably that simple." story continues below Multiple transfers . Another Boston Globe story reports that Bulger, who was captured in 2011 after 16 years as a fugitive and hit with two life sentences in 2013, had been in a central Florida prison from 2014 until recently, when he was transferred for allegedly threatening a staff member. He was reportedly moved to a transfer facility in Oklahoma last week and was moved to Hazelton, which is not a medical facility, despite his poor health. . Another Boston Globe story reports that Bulger, who was captured in 2011 after 16 years as a fugitive and hit with two life sentences in 2013, had been in a central Florida prison from 2014 until recently, when he was transferred for allegedly threatening a staff member. He was reportedly moved to a transfer facility in Oklahoma last week and was moved to Hazelton, which is not a medical facility, despite his poor health. Prison is "very understaffed." The prison, which houses around 1,280 inmates in its main facility, has long had problems with understaffing and inmate violence. "This is the third homicide in seven months at our facility," Richard Heldreth, president of the correctional officers union in Hazelton, tells WPRI. "We are very understaffed, we are short about 40 officers." The prison, which houses around 1,280 inmates in its main facility, has long had problems with understaffing and inmate violence. "This is the third homicide in seven months at our facility," Richard Heldreth, president of the correctional officers union in Hazelton, tells WPRI. "We are very understaffed, we are short about 40 officers." Lawyer blames the prison system. JW Carney Jr., an attorney who represented Bulger, blames the death on the prison system, the AP reports. Bulger "was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty," he says. A life of crime . The BBC looks back at Bulger's rise to the top of Boston's Winter Hill gang, "a criminal empire of loan sharking, gambling, extortion, drug dealing and murder," which inspired movies including The Departed. . The BBC looks back at Bulger's rise to the top of Boston's Winter Hill gang, "a criminal empire of loan sharking, gambling, extortion, drug dealing and murder," which inspired movies including The Departed. 19 murders . The AP looks at all 19 of the murders between 1973 and 1985 that prosecutors believe Bulger was involved in. A jury convicted him of 11. . The AP looks at all 19 of the murders between 1973 and 1985 that prosecutors believe Bulger was involved in. A jury convicted him of 11. "End of a very sad chapter." The mobster's death marks "the end of a very sad chapter in Boston's history, during which this man caused so much harm to many through his brutal crimes," Carmen Ortiz, former US Attorney for Massachusetts, told CNN. Steven Davis, brother of a woman Bulger was accused of strangling, was more blunt. "He had it coming to him and it's just sad that it took so long," he said. (In 2015, Bulger told high school students who wrote to him that his " life was wasted and spent foolishly." (Newser) An Indiana woman who discovered that her new neighbors had a biracial son toilet-papered the home and put an incredibly racist note on the front door, authorities say. Deborah Cantwell, 63, was arrested and charged with misdemeanor intimidation and criminal mischief over the incident in Greentown, Time reports. "THIS IS A WHITE NEIGHBORHOOD," the lengthy note said, telling the family they should have "CONSIDERED THE NEIGHBORS" before bringing the child to the area. "YOUR (N-word) KID IS NOT WELCOME!" The note even claimed that the stress of having a black neighbor could cause "serious health issues," the Washington Post reports. story continues below In a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for a lawyer, a fence, and a security system, Amy Pundt says her husband found the vile note when he went to check on the property the day after they closed. She says the episode has "destroyed the innocence" of her 15-year-son and badly affected her other children. Police say that when they interviewed Cantwell, she said she wrote the letter to "vent" and complained that "the blacks get away with it every time," the Kokomo Tribune reports. Police say Cantwell told them she was "just trying to let them know" they weren't welcome and she wasn't completely sorry for what she did because she felt like she "released some anger writing that letter." WTTV reports that the family has now received more than 70 cards and gift baskets from people who want to welcome them to the neighborhood. (This community wiped out racist graffiti before a family saw it.) (Newser) Authorities in Pakistan are braced for massive protests after the acquittal of a Christian woman who was sentenced to death in 2010 for alleged blasphemy against Islam. Asia Bibi was accused of making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed in a 2009 argument with farmworkers who refused to drink water from a container used by a Christian, the BBC reports. Judges on Pakistan's top court ruled that she had been sentenced on flimsy evidence, and a "confession" had been delivered in front of an angry crowd that was threatening to kill her. Her family says she never insulted the prophet. story continues below The judges ordered the release of Bibi, a mother of five who has spent most of the last eight years in solitary confinement. She was moved to an undisclosed location and is expected to leave the country, the AP reports. "I am very happy. My children are very happy," husband Ashiq Masih said. "We are grateful to God. We are grateful to the judges for giving us justice. We knew that she is innocent." Hardline Islamist clerics have called for rallies across the country to protest Bibi's release and security has been stepped up at churches. (In 2011, Pakistan's minister for religious minorities and the governor of Punjab province were assassinated for supporting changes to the country's blasphemy law.) (Newser) Just days after the slaying of 11 Jewish congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue, a GOP candidate for a state Senate seat in Connecticut is accused of sending a mailer using an "age-old anti-Semitic trope." The ad sent out by Ed Charamut includes what the Washington Post calls a "money-grubbing" picture (here) of smiling opponent Matt Lesser, clutching $100 bills with a "crazed look in his eyes." Lesser says the original image of him was altered to add the cash and exaggerate his expression; Charamut's Jewish campaign treasurer concedes Lesser's eyes were tweaked "to look bigger and greedy," per Raw Story. Lesser's reaction when he first heard about the ad: It was "some sort of mistake or misunderstanding." "I did not believe them, because we live in America," he adds. story continues below Others say the mailer was offensive, maybe intentionally so. But the 60-year-old GOP candidate insists the mailer was simply meant to draw a "sharp contrast" between his 35-year-old opponent's stance on tax policy and his own. "I reject hate speech in all its forms," he says. Other Republicans back him, with state Senate Chair JR Romano telling the Hartford Courant the hubbub is all "false outrage" perpetuated by Dems. "If you criticize any Democrat for failures and their record, they run into this shield that you're a racist." Romano later walked back those statements, agreeing the mailer was "offensive" after having "conversations with Jewish friends." (Mike Pence is facing his own controversy.) (Newser) Kanye West might not be making any more visits to the Oval Office: The rapper, who was heavily criticized by other artists for his bizarre meeting with President Trump earlier this month, is planning to take a step back from politics. "My eyes are now wide open and now realize Ive been used to spread messages I dont believe in. I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative," he tweeted Tuesday night. The decision appears to stem from involvement with the "Blexit" campaign for black people to leave the Democratic party, not his outspoken support of Trump, the BBC reports. story continues below In other tweets, West denied creating a logo for Brexit apparel, saying he had introduced campaign leader Candace Owens to the logo's creator, and "they didn't want their name on it so she used mine." "I never wanted any association with Blexit. I have nothing to do with it," he said. West also listed some of his beliefs, including common-sense gun laws, prison reform, and "love and compassion for people seeking asylum," the Guardian reports. Owens tweeted a statement Monday explaining that West had introduced her to the logo designer. She accused the press of using the rapper's name "to create drama and further divisiveness." (West's 2020 campaign for president now seems less likely.) (Newser) India's prime minister on Wednesday unveiled a towering bronze statue of Sardar Vallabbhai Patel, a key independence leader and the country's first home minister after British colonialists left in 1947. At 597 feet, the statue, built at a cost of $430 million, is the tallest in the world, almost twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty, the BBC reports. It was erected in Kevadiya, a village in Gujarat state. Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Patel hail from Gujarat state. Modi inaugurated the "Statue of Unity" on the bank of the Narmada river. He had promised the project despite criticism that India couldn't afford to spend so much money on a statue. Indian air force planes showered flower petals on the statue. story continues below Patel was known as the "Iron Man of India" for integrating various states in the post-independence era as the creation of Pakistan led to a massive bloodshed between Hindus and Muslims moving between the two nations. On Wednesday, Modi said Patel was a beacon of hope for India in the time of crisis and he will be a source of inspiration for ages to come, the AP reports. The monument will have a museum with 40,000 documents, 2,000 photographs and a research center dedicated to Patel's life and work. Thousands of police officers were deployed across the district to deal with protests. (A huge statue of the creator of the AK-47 was unveiled in Moscow last year.) (Newser) The discovery of human bones at a property next to the Vatican's embassy to Italy has renewed hope of solving a 35-year-old disappearance, which some claim involves the Vatican itself. Rome's chief prosecutor is working to identify the bones found during renovation work at the Vatican property in Rome's Parioli neighborhood, the Vatican said Tuesday. Italian media quickly inserted Emanuela Orlandi into the conversation, notes CNN: The 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican official vanished on June 22, 1983, after leaving a music lesson in Rome, reports the Guardian. In the years since, some have claimed she was kidnapped by the mafia to pressure the Vatican to recover a loan, or taken in an effort to free from prison the man who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981, per the BBC. story continues below Orlandi's brother has even suggested some Holy See complicity in the case. Just last year, an Italian journalist claimed a stolen Vatican document listed expenses for Orlandi's care after she disappeared, reports the AP, though the Vatican called the document a fake. Some also believe Orlandi's disappearance is linked to that of 15-year-old Mirella Gregori. Gregori vanished 40 days before Orlandi when she left her family's apartment to speak to a person who'd dialed the intercom, described as a school friend. "Above all we need to (establish) the period [of death] before we jump to conclusions," a Vatican rep tells the Guardian. Even so, a lawyer representing the family of Orlandi says they hope to finally "bring her home." Investigators last searched for the missing girl in a mob boss' jewel-encrusted tomb. (Read more Vatican stories.) (Newser) Thomas Tramaglini calls it a one-time mistake: While running on a high school track early on April 30, the New Jersey school superintendent felt the need to defecate and went behind the bleachers to do his business. "What I did was wrong," yet "I've been portrayed as a horrible, deranged person," the 42-year-old tells NJ.com following an Oct. 24 guilty plea to one count of public defecation. Tramaglini expects more court appearances in the future: He plans to sue Holmdel police for $1 million over a Facebook post naming Tramaglini as the man responsible for pooping on the track on a "daily basis," per the New York Post. story continues below Though Tramaglini was later diagnosed with a bowel condition known as runner's diarrhea, he says he only felt the need to poop while running about two or three times before April 30, when he had his first "bathroom emergency." For that, his life and reputation were ruined, says Tramaglini, adding he lost his job with a $147,504 annual salary on the eve of a five-year contract extension. His two kids, ages 7 and 10, are also "being ostracized and teased," he says. "That's, by far, the worst part." His lawsuit is expected to focus on his widely distributed mugshot, supposedly meant "for internal purposes only." (More on that here.) Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon on Wednesday failed to achieve sufficient voter turnout for a referendum on free school lunches largely seen as a de facto confidence vote. Turnout was only 25.7 percent or 2.15 million out of a total 8.38 million eligible voters, far short of the needed quorum of 33.3 percent needed. The opposition parties boycotted the vote, and the mayor ended up failing in his push to provide free meals only to students from low-income families and stop what he saw as a mostly populist measure of universal free lunches put in place by the Seoul City Council, which consists largely of progressive politicians. After watching the ballots being tallied, Oh in a press conference at City Hall said, "I humbly accept the results." Oh had pledged on Sunday to step down if turnout failed to reach the 33.3 percent quorum required to open ballot boxes and count the votes. An official at Oh's office said, "We will consult with the Grand National Party and Cheong Wa Dae and make an announcement on our position within one or two days." The official added there is no change the mayors determination to take responsibility for the vote." Oh met with GNP Chairman Hong Joon-pyo, Presidential Chief of Staff Yim Tae-hee and Chief of State Affairs Kim Hyo-jae on Wednesday evening and told them he would step down at a time set by the party. Hong apparently told Oh to resign after a National Assembly audit on Oct. 8. If Oh quits after Oct. 1, the by-election for the new mayor will be held along with the general election in April next year. But if he steps down by Sept. 20, the by-election will be held on Oct. 26. Hong said voter turnout "was higher than the 25.4 percent turnout in the 2010 local elections that elected Oh, so we see the results as a victory for the mayor. Mayor Oh must not step back immediately from a contest he virtually won." But the main opposition Democratic Party demanded that Oh resign immediately. (Newser) Some Beatles superfans are likely not feeling fine after a decision by Japan's Supreme Court regarding 50-year-old footage of the Fab Four from when they visited the Land of the Rising Sun. AFP reports that Beatles buffs from Nagoya had tried to get their hands on a 35-minute reel that showed scenes from the group's 1966 one-time tour in Japan, citing its importance as a "historical document." The video had been shot during the Beatles' five-concert tour for security reasons, and cops had been willing to release itbut only if all faces except those of the Beatles were blurred out to protect others' privacy. story continues below The fans argued that five decades had passed, meaning most would be hard-pressed to ID anyone seen in the video. Two lower courts sided against the fans' ask, and the Supreme Court similarly rejected the plea. For now, it looks like devotees will have to be satisfied with photos and conversations about that memorable visit. "The final concert given on July 2 was apparently electrifying," one fan laments. In the meantime, here are some photos from their 1966 visit, courtesy of Rolling Stone. (We'd like to see the footage of that time Paul McCartney got high and "saw God.") (Newser) After years of delay, including lengthy court battles and passionate protests from those willing to be arrested for blocking construction crews, builders of a giant telescope plan to move forward with constructing the $1.4 billion instrument on a Hawaii mountain that is considered sacred. The state Supreme Court's 4-1 ruling upholding the project's construction permit Tuesday is a victory for the contentious Thirty Meter Telescope planned for Hawaii's tallest mountain, Mauna Kea, the AP reports. Opponents say the telescope will desecrate sacred land on the Big Island. Supporters say it will bring educational and economic opportunities to the state. Plans for the project date to 2009, when scientists selected Mauna Kea after a five-year, around-the-world campaign to find the ideal site; since the groundbreaking ceremony in 2014, protests have intensified. story continues below Astronomy and Native Hawaiian "uses on Mauna Kea have co-existed for many years and the TMT Project will not curtail or restrict Native Hawaiian uses," the ruling said. The advanced telescope, which will reportedly allow astronomers to reach back 13 billion years, will answer some of the most fundamental questions of the universe, and Native Hawaiians will also benefit from it, the ruling added. Further legal action is still possible, state Attorney General Russell Suzuki said. There can be a motion for reconsideration filed within 10 days and following that, a request can be made to the US Supreme Court to review the decision, he said. Kealoha Pisciotta, one of the main leaders against the telescope, said she's doesn't know what their next steps will be, but she's not hopeful that more legal wrangling will help. Click for much more on the telescope, the years of battles, and one activist's suggestion that it might be time to "rise up" and "take to the streets." (Read more Hawaii stories.) (Newser) A Florida mayor allegedly offered a constituent speed bumps in exchange for sex. The Florida Commission on Ethics announced last week it found probable cause that David Stewart, mayor of Lantana since 2000, violated state statutes in the case by "misus[ing] his position to attempt to obtain a sexual benefit for himself" and "solicit[ing] sex from a constituent based on an understanding his vote, official action, or judgment would be influenced." He can now decide whether to settle the case or go before an administrative law judge for a hearing to decide whether he violated the statutes, the Palm Beach Post reports. . The case started when Catherine Padilla, who became friendly with Stewart years ago through the Kiwanis Club, filed an ethics complaint against the mayor in January. story continues below Padilla, who had been petitioning the town for speed bumps in her neighborhood after seeing animals and a child hit by cars on her street, per the Washington Post, said that three years prior, Stewart took her to lunch, then drove her to a motel and asked to "occupy" a room with her. She says he told her he'd "make sure" the neighborhood got the speed bumps if she had sex with him. She declined and wouldn't get out of the car. She says he later called her, before the Town Council voted on the matter, to tell her it wasn't too late to take him up on his offer; she again said no. The speed bumps were ultimately approved in 2015, but Padilla says after the vote, Stewart told her that he would get the speed bumps removed since she hadn't slept with him or thanked him for the devices being approved. Stewart denies the allegations, but Padilla said last week that he should step down from his office. (A speed bump was the subject of this odd lawsuit.) (Newser) A Mafia hit man is suspected to be behind the killing of James "Whitey" Bulger, who was found beaten to death in his prison cell Tuesday. Fotios "Freddy" Geas and at least one other inmate at the West Virginia prison to which Bulger had been transferred just hours before are believed to have been involved, a former investigator briefed on the case tells the AP. "Freddy hated rats," a private investigator tells the Boston Globe of Geas, 51, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2011 along with his brother for their roles in multiple violent crimes including the 2003 killing of a crime boss in Massachusetts. Bulger, a former Boston crime boss, was a longtime FBI informant. "Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It's probably that simple," the PI continues. story continues below Sources at USP Hazelton prison tell TMZ that Bulger, 89, was targeted for a mob hit and that his killers did to him what is typically done to so-called rats: They attempted to cut out his tongue and gouge out his eyes. The sources say four men walked into Bulger's cell, where he was sitting in a wheelchair, and used a lock in a sock to beat him and a shiv to attempt the aforementioned two gruesome tasks. There was reportedly "a lot of blood" in Bulger's mouth but it's unclear whether they succeeded. As relatives of Bulger victims celebrated his death, questions were also raised about why he was transferred in the first place and why he was placed in the general population. Bulger, says his attorney, "was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty." (In a "surreal" case, a mob victim's body was found 23 years later.) (Newser) The suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday, four days after 11 people were killed in the deadliest attack on Jews in American history. The indictment, which was expected, charges Robert Bowers with 44 counts, including hate crimes, the AP reports. Federal prosecutors have previously indicated they plan to seek the death penalty. The charges were announced on the second day of funerals for the victims. "Today begins the process of seeking justice for the victims of these hateful acts, and healing for the victims' families, the Jewish community, and our city," US Attorney Scott Brady said in a statement. "Our office will spare no resource, and will work with professionalism, integrity and diligence, in a way that honors the memories of the victims." story continues below Bowers, a 46-year-old truck driver, remained jailed without bail ahead of a preliminary hearing scheduled for Thursday. Authorities say he raged against Jews during the attack. Members of Pittsburgh's grief-stricken Jewish community, meanwhile, endured another round of funerals for the congregants who were gunned down in Saturday's rampage. Melvin Wax, 87, Irving Younger, 69, and Joyce Fienberg, 75, were being laid to rest as part of a weeklong series of services. Six people were wounded in the attack, including four police officers, two of whom remained hospitalized with gunshot wounds. Two congregants were still in the hospital, one in critical condition. In a bit of good news, hospital officials said the two most seriously injured shooting victims are improving. (Thousands protested President Trump's visit to the synagogue.) (Newser) A spokesman for Texas Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke says the Democratic congressman received threats earlier this year from the suspected pipe bomber in Florida, the AP reports. O'Rourke spokesman Chris Evans says Cesar Sayoc used Facebook to send threatening messages in April. Evans says O'Rourke, who's in a heated race against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, didn't receive suspicious packages in the mail. The FBI says Sayoc mailed 15 improvised explosive devices to prominent Democrats, Trump critics and media outlets before he was arrested last week. Evans says the Facebook messages were reported to US Capitol police at the time. He says FBI agents and dogs have also been at their campaign office in El Paso. (Sayoc was seen chanting "CNN sucks" at a Trump rally.) Yonhap news agency says U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is likely to meet with his North Korean counterpart in the United States next week. The news agency reports that the two sides are trying to arrange a meeting shortly after the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 6. Pompeo told VOA contributor Greta Van Susteren in an interview on Oct. 19 that he hoped the meeting would take place "in the next week and a half or so." Yonhap reported Monday that a South Korean diplomatic source with knowledge of U.S.-North Korea negotiations said, "At the time of Secretary Pompeo's remarks, [the meeting] was being planned for the end of October, but I understand that it was delayed by a couple days due to circumstances on the U.S. side." "The location will probably be the U.S. East Coast," the source said. Pompeo has met during previous talks with Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party Central Committee. However, the Nikkei Asian Review is reporting that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister Kim Yo-jong could also join the talks. Kim Yo-jong is said to have a close relationship with her brother. His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa has stressed that the stances of the United Arab Emirates towards Bahrain will remain engraved in the kingdoms history as they reflect the true meaning of fraternity and relations between two countries that share love, solidarity, as well as unified destiny and goals. HRH Premier pointed out that the stances of the UAE, under the leadership of President HH Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, are based on a deep-rooted legacy and approach spearheaded by the late Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, and is still adopted by UAE leaders. The Prime Minister made the statements as he received, at his Palace in Riffa, the UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, HH Shaikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who was accompanied by Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development, Noora bint Mohammed Al Kaabi, on the occasion of their visit to Bahrain to participate in the 8th session of the High Bahrain-UAE Joint Committee meeting. HH Shaikh Abdullah bin Zayed conveyed to HRH Premier greetings from the UAE President, HH Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed, Vice-President, Prime Minister and Dubai Ruler, HH Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, HH Shaikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, as well as their wishes of further progress and prosperity to Bahrain. HRH Premier expressed congratulations to the UAEs president, government and people following the successful launch of the first UAE-made satellite, KhalifaSat, describing it as a superb scientific achievement that is a source of pride for all GCC and Arab citizens. Bahrain was ranked the third best in the world when it comes to being an Islamic economy, according to findings of a study. The Kingdoms achievements as an Islamic economy was highlighted by the Global Islamic Economy Report 2018/19. The report provides a comprehensive view of Islamic economies around the world and how it caters to halal and Islamic market. It was developed by Thomson Reuters in collaboration with DinarStandard and supported by the Dubai Capital of Islamic Economy. Bahrain ranked highly in the Islamic Finance sector as well as halal travel, halal media, and recreation. In the list of top 15 Islamic economies, Malaysia was ranked first while the UAE was ranked second. Malaysia performed best in Islamic finance while the UAE performed well in areas such as halal food, halal travel, modest fashion, halal media, and recreation. With 1.8 billion Muslims spending nearly $2.1 trillion in 2017, Islamic economy continues its steady growth. But there is significant scope for growth and maturity in the Islamic Economy, with a mere $0.8 billion in disclosed private equity investments over three years, far less than the almost $600 billion in private equity and venture capital investments that occurred globally in 2017. An investment fund that would support startups in Bahrain as well as bring innovative businesses from around the world will soon be launched by C5 Capital, it was announced. C5 Capital, the London-based fund manager, will launch fundraising for an investment fund in the near future. Innovative companies, especially the ones that are cloud-enabled stand a chance to be supported by the fund, C5 Capital Investment Manager Zulfi Ali told Tribune. Our next phase is to have an investment fund that is based out of Bahrain but with a global investing mandate. We will also be looking for businesses that are in other parts of the world such as the US and Europe that we can bring to this region. Through our network and our local on the ground expertise here we are going to help them succeed in this part of the world, he said. When asked when the fundraising would begin, he said, The goal is to have it somewhere before the end of the year. Medical professionals have raised an alarm over students consuming a medicine to treat epilepsy, as a psychedelic drug. Following allegations, neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have decided to ban the drug, it is learned. According to experts, Lyrica causes the same effect as hashish for a person who does not suffer from any diseases, especially if taken in higher doses or mixed with other medications. Sources say Lyrica is sold at many pharmacies across the Kingdom while neighboring countries have banned the drug. Speaking to Tribune, Mohammed, a medical supervisor at a private school said scores of students are consuming Lyrica as it is considered to be one of the strongest neurotoxins. Doctors prescription is required to buy this drug. But many pharmacies sell Lyrica to anyone above 20, who resell it to students. The High Appeals Court has ordered a Bahraini medical doctor to pay BD19,000 for medicines she had stolen from a public pharmacy. This came after the Public Prosecution appealed the High Criminal Courts ruling which held her guilty and sentenced her to one year behind bars, but without ordering her to settle the value of the medicines she stole. According to court files, the defendant, aged 44, was convicted of prescribing medicines from a public pharmacy in bad faith. She was earlier sentenced to one year in prison, but her punishment was replaced with social service. Chinese authorities have stepped up efforts to block virtual private networks (VPN), service providers said Tuesday in describing a "cat-and-mouse" game with censors ahead of a major trade expo and internet conference. VPNs allow internet users in China, including foreign companies, to access overseas sites that authorities bar through the so-called Great Firewall, such as Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google. Since Xi Jinping became president in 2013, authorities have sought to curb VPN use, with providers suffering periodic lags in connectivity because of government blocks. "This time, the Chinese government seemed to have staff on the ground monitoring our response in real time and deploying additional blocks," said Sunday Yokubaitis, the chief executive of Golden Frog, the maker of the VyprVPN service. Authorities started blocking some of its services on Sunday, he told Reuters, although VyprVPN's service has since been restored in China. "Our counter measures usually work for a couple of days before the attack profile changes and they block us again," Yokubaitis said. The High Criminal Court has sentenced 13 defendants to life in prison for forming a terrorist cell. Eleven of them had their Bahraini nationality stripped, while seven of them were hit with BD100,000 fine each. Two other defendants were tried in connection with the case, including an Asian man, and both received 10 years behind bars each, but the Bahraini man was fined BD500. Five of the defendants were ordered to pay BD1551 collectively for the damages caused to private properties following the blast. According to court files, the 15 convicted men created and operated two cells belonging to Saraya Al Ashtar (Al Ashtar Brigades). They are said to have planned to murder police officers, and they detonated several bombs to achieve their goals. A police officer and a Bahraini woman were injured in the blast. As per police records, nine men are in police custody, but other defendants are still at large and were convicted in absentia. South Koreaas Supreme Court ordered a Japanese steelmaker on Tuesday to compensate Korean men forced to toil in its factory for Japanas World War II efforts, a landmark ruling that threatened to intensify friction between Americaas two key allies in Asia. The judges upheld a lower-court ruling that Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal must pay 100 million won, or about $88,700, to each of four South Korean men who said they were subject to forced labor for the company between 1941 and 1943. Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910 until Japanas surrender in 1945. The case has been closely followed in both South Korea and Japan, which have been locked in highly sensitive territorial and other disputes rooted in the colonial era. Japan insists that all matters concerning allegations of forced labor were settled under agreements that established bilateral diplomatic ties in 1965. But on Tuesday, the South Korean court ruled that those deals should not impede individual victimsa right to seek redress. If the Japanese company refuses to pay the compensation, the plaintiffs and their families could ask local courts to seize its assets in South Korea. The verdict could also open the floodgates for other victims and their families to file class-action lawsuits against Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal and other Japanese companies accused of capitalizing on forced labor. Tokyo Metropolitan Police have busted a massage parlor in Katsushika Ward that unlawfully provided sexual services in private rooms, reports TV Asahi Police have accused Koetsu Hira, the 54-year-old manager and a female Chinese national, also 54, of employing female masseuses to provide honban, or full sex, to male customers, which is a violation of the Anti-Prostitution Law. Hira admits to the allegations. However, the Chinese national denies the charges, telling police, aI only cleaned and did laundry.a The matter emerged after police received an anonymous tip in September about aillegal activitya taking place at the parlor. The parlor is also under investigation over immigration violations, police said. People in western Japan are protesting against a crime syndicate for giving away Halloween treats. The headquarters of Yamaguchi Gumi in the city of Kobe invites children for snacks on Halloween every year. The command center of the designated organized crime group is decorated with ghosts and other characters for the day. This year, residents of the area and police officers gathered to protest. They say the practice has a bad influence on children. Criminal groups are barred from engaging in certain activities, but giving away snacks is not among them. Police say Yamaguchi Gumi alleges it is just responding to children's requests. Police officers suspect the group wants to make a better impression on local residents to counter the increasingly severe restrictions it faces. One protester said adults must prevent children from getting gifts from gangsters because youngsters cannot judge what kind of people they are. Japanese farmers expressed concern Wednesday about an expected influx of imports and other effects of a trans-Pacific free trade agreement led by Japan that is set to enter into force on Dec. 30. Australia said earlier in the day it has become the sixth nation to ratify the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, fulfilling the requirements for the 11-member tariff-cutting framework to take effect. Japan, the leading economy in the deal, is one of the five other countries to have ratified it, along with Mexico, Singapore, New Zealand and Canada. The members yet to finish domestic procedures are Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru and Vietnam. One day after Sony announced it was charging ahead to a second consecutive year of record profits, rival Japanese electronics maker Panasonic released much gloomier results on Wednesday, with net profit sliding 4% to 113.6 billion yen ($1.01 billion) for the six months ended Sept. 30. With costs mounting in the emerging automotive battery business, and its struggling mainstay operations unable to fill in the gaps, the results showed group operating profit down 1% to 195.2 billion yen. Profit in the automotive segment tumbled 26% to 29 billion yen on rising costs at the massive U.S. battery factory Panasonic runs with Tesla, calling the company's growth strategy into question. The American electric-car partner is boosting production of its mass-market Tesla Model 3 to around 5,000 per week. Panasonic has poured more money into the joint plant and dispatched more engineers there to lift output accordingly. Higher costs in a field expected to enjoy long-term expansion could be considered growing pains of a sort for Panasonic. Of greater concern, however, are slowdowns in core operations like industrial systems and electronic appliances, on which the Japanese company relies for steady profits while it develops the auto battery business. Operating profit in the appliances segment fell 17% to 61.7 billion yen, owing partly to surging materials costs. Sales of white goods like refrigerators took a hit in Asia from more aggressive marketing by competitors. The industrial business, which Panasonic groups with automotive operations, suffered from declining capital spending in China amid the trade war with the U.S., which has eroded previously brisk demand for products such as industrial motors. Panasonic maintained its full-year forecast calling for a 12% rise in operating profit to 425 billion yen, but the outlook for individual businesses shows cause for concern. Japan's top wireless carrier, NTT Docomo, will lower its service charge by 20% to 40% while giving subscribers more freedom on phones, including letting them bring unlocked and secondhand devices to its network. The new pricing scheme will take effect sometime in the April-June quarter, the company said Wednesday. Japan's mobile carriers face mounting pressure from the government to lower rates, which are significantly higher than in other advanced economies. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said in August that mobile rates in Japan could be lowered by as much as 40%. With e-commerce giant Rakuten set to enter the mobile service market as Japan's fourth major player next fall, Docomo CEO Kazuhiro Yoshizawa told reporters: "We will boost our competitiveness ahead of the change in the market landscape." Docomo generally bundles service fees with discounted device payments. Many consumers have complained that the details of these schemes are hard to understand, so the company has decided to offer new mobile plans with low service fees but without any discounts on the devices themselves. It is considering completely separating the two charges in the future. While Docomo already does offer similar plans, they are currently limited to a handful of models. The new plans are expected to give customers more freedom to choose the handsets they want, including used devices bought from third parties. "Ivanka Trump had planned to visit Korea during the fourth week of October, but canceled at the last minute after fine-tuning her schedule," the source familiar with U.S. and Korean affairs said. U.S. President Donald Trump's daughter and White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump has canceled her plans to visit Korea in late October, according to a source on Tuesday. Ivanka Trump met with Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 24. Kang requested her to visit Korea again to help better bilateral relations. Ivanka came here during the Winter Olympics in February and met with President Moon Jae-in. Pundits speculate that the abrupt cancellation of the trip may be related to the lackluster progress of North Korean denuclearization. "North Korean nuclear negotiations have hit a snag, and Seoul and Washington have exposed some differences in lifting sanctions against the North over inter-Korean projects," a diplomatic source said. "Ivanka Trump's visit to Seoul at this point could send the wrong signal." Meanwhile, plans to have South Korean businesses return to the shuttered Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea are being delayed indefinitely as the U.S. continues to call on the South to slow down its speed of economic cooperation with the North. Some 150 business owners were going to visit the complex this week to inspect their facilities there. Ahead of the 2019 election, Youths in South-West have rejected Secretary to Government of the Federation, SGF reserved for the region by Peoples Democratic Party, PDP Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, saying, the party has never fulfill past pledge made to the region.The youths under the aegis of Progressive Yoruba Youth Congress, PYYC, yesterday alleged that the party has constantly shortchanged the region while assigning key position even after making promises publicly to secure South-West support.National President, PYYC, Mr. Kola Salawu at press briefing in Ikeja, argued that the tears of the region was wiped off by All Progressives Congress, APC in 2015 when it zoned the Vice President candidate post to South West and fulfilled it.Salawu added that the party has also handed over number two citizen post to the region which PDP couldnt give them rather; allot it to South-East, picking Peter Obi as Vice Presidential Candidate.According to him, we have rejected Atiku and his party. And doing so, we have decided to campaign for our Uncle, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo and President Muhammadu Buhari, during next year election.Salawu added South West will not go back to oblivion again. And all the good people of the region must rise up to protect this ongoing progress and support the one who has brought development to the region.We urge all sons and daughters of the South West of Nigeria to be politically awake and choose wisely in the forthcoming elections as the decisions we make will determine if the region will continue to enjoy the true benefits of good governance or we go back to the days of total neglect.Let us not forget that the neglect by the PDP was not only political but also infrastructural. The party for whatever reason barely completed or even carried out any major project in the South West. The Lagos Ibadan expressway, the busiest in the country was abandoned.The Benin Ore expressway was equally abandoned, so also was the Oyo- Ogbomosho road, there was barely any federal presence in the South West.We must also remain politically vigilant. When President Buhari s tenure ends in 2023 after he wins the 2019 elections, power will return to the southern part of Nigeria and that is just some four years away.We never can tell what will happen then as the highest ranking person in this government from the south is no other but His Excellency the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo. It may just be his turn, Salawu added. United Nations and Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, said they have received assurances from President Muhammadu Buhari as well as the nations security agencies of a free, fair and credible general election next year.This was disclosed by a delegation from the Joint Mission of Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, and United Nations, UN, led by United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for West Africa and the Sahel, Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas, when they paid a courtesy visit on Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in Abuja, yesterday.The UN Representative intimated the commission on efforts taken by the joint mission to solicit the support of other stakeholders towards achieving peaceful and credible elections in Nigeria in 2019.He said they had commenced interactions with candidates on ensuring conducive environment for the conduct of elections.He said: Yesterday, we had an audience with President Muhammadu Buhari and he assured us of his determination as chairman of ECOWAS and the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to do everything within his powers to ensure that credible, transparent, free and fair elections are conducted in 2019. The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youths wing has urged the National Working Committee, NWC, of the All Progressives Congress, APC, to clarify its position of the statement credited to Works and Housing Minister, Babatunde Fashola that APC would shift Presidency to the South West in 2023 if Buhari wins.The group said, we wont want to believe that the rumoured pact between President Muhammadu Buhari, PMB, and Tinubu concerning 2023 is true.A statement signed by the groups Acting National President, Dr. Kingsley Dozie and National Publicity Secretary, Chief Osmond Nkeoma said: We are making it categorically clear that Ndigbo are more united now than ever and no such evil pact can deprive us of our constitutional right to the presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. God will vindicate Ndigbo.Such provoking and inciting statements prove our suspicions that the PMB-led APC cannot be trusted.The fact remains that Ndigbo want restructuring now and have made it so clear through our restructuring summit and various discussions, statements and fora. Give us restructuring now and let 2023 take care of itself.We stand in total support of the Afenifere spokesman, Mr. Yinka Odumakin when he said: both the Buhari advocates in the South West and South east are not in tune with the mood of both zones.The mood of both zones is not Nigerian presidency in 2023 but restructuring in 2019, because if we restructure the country in 2019 and people have the autonomy to run their regions as they want within corporate Nigeria, Igbo 2023 Presidency will take care of itself.So, we advice Fashola to please concentrate on the task of providing stable power supply, good roads and quality housing to Nigerians rather than making unguarded and inviting statements. Home Just In Despite Province 2 dispute, Gandaki in rush to introduce provincial police law Pokhara, October 31 Notwithstanding the controversy surfaced after Province 2 government introduced Provincial Police Act, the provincial government in Gandaki seems to be in a rush to introduce a similar law. Provincial Minister for Internal Affairs and Law, Hari Bahadur Chuman, says the first draft has already been finalised. Arguing that peace and security of the province have been affected by the absence of police body, Chuman hints that it will follow suit of Province 2 in introducing the law before the formulation of new Federal Police Act. The Minister, however, maintains that the government will wait for Kathmandu to prepare the federal law for some days, warning it will go ahead with its own plan if the central government delays. We have maintained our discipline till date, he says, I wish our patience would not break. In another context, Chuman says his government is also planning to introduce a local administration act. Power generation in the country plunged to 2,390.20 megawatts on Monday as the number of idle power plants rose from seven to 15, according to the latest data from the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing.Total electricity generation has been hovering below 4,000MW in recent months and stood at 3,741.30MW as of 6am on Sunday.The nation generates most of its electricity from gas-fired power plants, while output from hydropower plants makes up about 30 per cent of the total.But the three hydropower plants accounted for more than 50 per cent of the electricity generated as of 6am on Monday, with Kainji, Jebba and Shiroro producing 366MW, 354MW and 494MW, respectively.Egbin, the biggest power station in the country, saw its output drop to 176MW on Monday from 306MW on Saturday.The idle plants are Sapele, Afam IV & V, Geregu, Omotosho, Geregu NIPP, Alaoji, Omotosho NIPP, Odukpani NIPP, Ihovbor NIPP, Gbarain NIPP, Okpai, Afam VI, AES, ASCO and Rivers IPP.It had been reported on Monday that electricity generation companies in the country were saying that their plants were being forced to operate below their optimal capacity levels.The Executive Secretary, Association of Power Generation Companies, the umbrella body for the Gencos, Dr Joy Ogaji, in an emailed response to questions from our correspondent, attributed the problem to transmission and distribution.She said, Specifically, generation companies are pinned down by some operational impediments. The frequency of instructions to either increase load or decrease load (ramp up and ramp down) and, in some cases, shut down, has induced damaging stresses to the components of the machines.These instructions, reflective of the grid behaviour, are subjecting key electrical components of the power plants to operational stresses. Our available generation has always been steady between 7,500MW and 8,000MW; you can check the records at the National Control Centre, Osogbo. Home Just In Fatal clash in Sarlahi: Police identify shooter Kathmandu, October 31 Investigating police officials have said they have identified the person who opened a fire during a clash between cadres of ruling Nepal Communist Party and main opposition Nepali Congress in Ramnagar of Sarlahi district, in Province 2. A Nepali Congress cadre, Ram Bilas Mahato (50), was killed in the incident on Tuesday afternoon. The party has suspected that some NCP cadres opened the fire. SP Posha Raj Pokharel, chief of the District Police Office, says police have intensified the manhunt to find the suspect. The DPO has requested the Central Investigation Bureau in Kathmandu to provide needful support in the search operation. Yes, we are preparing to send a team under the command of a deputy superintendent, a CIB officials informs Onlinekhabar in Kathmandu. Meanwhile, the Nepali Congress is planning to organise a protest programme in the district headquarters, Malangawa, today. The partys Vice President Bimalendra Nidhi and spokesperson Bishwa Prakash Sharma will address the demonstration. Police have said they have mobilised additional personnel to avoid any untoward incident. Home Just In From the Kathmandu Press: Wednesday, October 31, 2018 Two biggest issues that have been featured on the front pages of almost all Nepali and English broadsheet dailies published from Kathmandu on Wednesday are Prime Minister KP Sharma Olis message from a hospital bed that he would recover and come back to work soon, and the death of a Nepali Congress cadre in a political clash in Sarlahi district of Province 2 on Monday. Meanwhile, police have arrested an online journalist for disseminating fake news about Prime Minister Olis health and it has also received significant attention by the newspaper editors. Few other contemporary issues from political, sociocultural and economic spheres of the country have been published on the cover pages of Kathmandu newspapers today. Important Oli likely to be discharged today Whereas all newspapers report updates about Prime Minister Olis health along with his written message, The Himalayan Times reports in a box that Oli may get discharged from the hospital today. The newspaper quotes the Prime Ministers personal physician Divya Singh, who says he needs rest, but can be discharged by Wednesday. However, the THT report contradicts a report in Rajdhani, which says Oli will remain in hospital for next few days. Dharahara reconstruction finally begins After a long wait of three and half years since the devastating quake, the government has finally begun the reconstruction of historic Dharahara tower in Sundhara of Kathmandu, according to news reports in Rajdhani and Gorkhapatra. Quoting National Reconstruction Authority Chief Executive Officer Sushil Gyewali, Gorkhapatra says the reconstruction has already begun. Meanwhile, Rajdhani informs that the foundation stone will be laid before Tihar, which is just one week away. Meanwhile, many heritage sites including Ranipokhari and Kashthamandap are waiting for the reconstruction, according to Republica anchor story. Ignored Govt saves Rs 80 billion in three months In the first three months of current fiscal, the government collected revenues at an exciting pace. However, it could not spend the budget as planned, which resulted in the imbalanced saving, according to Nagarik lead story. The government has saved Rs 80 billion in this period, hence officials have stressed effective mobilisation of the money, according to the report. Two new aircraft cause Rs 10 million per day loss to NAC Annapurna Post reports in its lead story for the day that two recently purchased wide body aircraft have caused a huge loss to the national flag carrier, Nepal Airlines Corporation. The Corporation has spent Rs 760 million for the operation of the aircraft so far, but it has earned Rs 260 million, according to the report. Tourism Board to open its own hotel Nepal Tourism Board, a public private partnership body established to promote tourism activities in the country, has planned to open its own hotel in Khaptad region of farwestern Nepal, Karobar reports in its lead story. The Board has allocated Rs 60 million budget for the project, the report informs, adding the move is apparently against the intention of the Boards establishment. Nepal, India to monitor Rohingyas The Himalayan Times reports in a snippet that Nepal and India have decided to monitor the movement of Myanmars Rohingya refugees in border areas. A recent joint border security meeting made the decision, the report says, adding, Both countries have collected evidence that substantiate the claim that Rohingya refugees are illegally entering Nepal through the border points despite efforts on the part of authorities to prevent such movement. Interesting Chitwan rhinos on city walk Of late, rhinoceros of Chitwan National Park are spotted on nearby streets of Chitwan district, and it has caused a sense of fear among locals, Kantipur reports in its anchor story. Locals have complained that the wild animal destroys crops cultivated by the locals. Occasionally, it attacks and kills human beings as well. Sometimes, people also may resort to attack, killing the animals, the report informs. New private company to launch ebus service Days after Sajha Yatayat launched its ebus service, a new private company is launching the similar electric public transport system in four major cities including Kathmandu, Pokhara, Butwal and Bharatpur, Abhiyan reports in its anchor story. In Kathmandu, the company is constructing two charging stations with a target of launching the bus service within next one month, according to the report. The company has bought 13 buses in the first phase. Kathmandu, October 31 Members of Parliaments State Affairs and Good Governance Committee are to visit the Khokana and Bungmati sections of the Kathmandu-Nijgadh Fast-track, a strategically important road that will connect Kathmandu with the Terai. A meeting of the committee on Wednesday decided to undertake the visit to address issues raised by local residents of the two areas. According to the committee, local residents have filed complaints saying that their voices have not been heard during the construction process. The people of Khokana and Bungmati have said they have not received adequate compensation for their land. We are going there to ssee whats going on, a member told Onlinekhabar. Krishna Gopal Shrestha, a lawmaker from the Nepal Communist Party, has opposed the idea of visiting the sites. The local people and officials from the Nepali Army should be invited to the committees office, he is learnt to have said during Wednesdays meeting. Kathmandu, October 31 Ambassador of Pakistan to Nepal, Mazhar Javed says that the government and people of Pakistan are grateful to Nepal for its support and cooperation in difficult times. Javed, who was speaking at a programme at the Pakistani Embassy on Jammu and Kashmir Dispute and Recent Escalation in HR Violations, added that the ties between the two countries were strong, not only at the governmental level but also at the peoples level. Both Pakistan and Nepal have adopted the policy of non-interference in each others internal affairs, he said. The Pakistani ambassador reiterated that the Jammu-Kashmir dispute should be resolved by means of a referendum. >> Nepal has had remarkable success at tackling the poaching of its greater one-horned rhinos. But since 2015, it has witnessed a sharp increase in deaths from unknown or natural causes. >> A number of theories have been advanced to explain the deaths: habitat degradation in Chitwan National Park and its surroundings leading to increased conflict over resources; the area reaching its natural carrying capacity for rhinos; a baby boomer die-off; or a simple shift in cause of death from death by poaching to death by natural causes >> The government commissioned a study into the problem, but the report has not been published Thousands of tourists from around the world flock to Nepals Chitwan National Park every year to get a glimpse of the greater one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis). But for 46-year-old Nabin Adhikari, the animals are like colleagues. A wildlife guide for 16 years, Adhikari knows these rare animals and their habitat up close. Just a few months ago, I saw two rhinos fight for two to three hours, he says at the beginning of an early-morning tour. Eventually, the brawl ended and one of the rhinos was dead. Adhikari says he reported the incident to the parks veterinary staff. The rhino whose death Adhikari witnessed was one of at least half a dozen to die of non-human-related causes in the park in the first nine months of 2018. And its death appears to represent a growing trend in the park. Between 2004 and 2014, a total of 81 rhinos died from unknown or natural causes an average of around seven per year. That number has since shot up: From 2015 to 2017, 60 such deaths were recorded, an average of 20 per year. Whenever we get a call reporting a death, we have a feeling that it must be a greater one-horned rhino, says one park staffer. Nepali conservation authorities, who have been lauded for winning the war against poaching and shoring up the countrys rhino population to unprecedented numbers, are now worried that threats to the species persist. Now its these unexplained or natural deaths that are raising alarm. The spike in such deaths since 2014 is being taken seriously by the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, which recently formed a committee to prepare a report on the issue. Theories The results of the government study into rhino deaths have not yet been released. In the meantime, people on the ground advance a number of theories. Guides like Adhikari keep a keen eye on the rhinos their livelihood depends on knowing where tourists are most likely to spot the animals they pay to come and see. For me, the reason rhinos are dying is that they are fighting among themselves more often, Adhikari says. But if you want to understand the rhinos, you need to look at the Rapti. Snaking from east to west along Chitwans northern border, the Rapti River is a lifeline for the rhinos, which spend much of their lives immersed in water or grazing on aquatic plants. Driving through the Kumroj Community Forest buffer zone in the parks east, Adhikari gestures into the distance. Those are the waterholes where wed see rhinos wallow for up to 16 hours in summer, he says. But now, you neither see the waterholes, nor the rhinos. Adhikaris observations are backed by science: The river is changing. Mammologist Shant Raj Jnawali points to a number of factors: increasing human settlement in the headwaters of the river has led to land degradation and more silt in the water. This sediment has reshaped the riverbed and buried waterholes previously used by rhinos. The construction of dikes along the eastern part of the park has also altered the rivers flow. Rhinos are feeling the impact. Last years monsoon flood caused unprecedented property loss and animal casualties. The river inundated the eastern part of the park and at least 15 rhinos were swept away to India. One was found dead in the western sector. Many more were injured. That was the effect of the flood that was visible immediately. But there are other things that were not so obvious, says Ram Kumar Aryal, head of the Biodiversity Conservation Centre at Nepals National Trust for Nature Conservation. Aryal, who has been involved in Nepals rhino conservation program since its inception, says the flood may have pushed the rhino population downstream, into the parks western sector. Rhinos also likely moved west in search of new watering holes after theirs were silted up, Jnawali says. But while local people and prominent scientists seem to have reached a consensus that the rhino population in the western part of the park has increased, what that means exactly is still a topic of debate. Jnawali and Aryal suspect that as the density of rhinos has increased in the parks western sector, the rhinos living there face increasingly fierce competition over the areas finite natural resources. Observations from guide Adhikari and Kumroj Community Forest chairman Hira Bahadur Gurung support this. We have seen rhinos fight to occupy a waterhole. We have seen them fight over mating. The male rhino kills even the calf of a female who does not give in, Adhikari says. It is now hard to spot rhinos in the eastern sector, Gurung adds. Narendra Man Babu Pradhan, former warden of Chitwan National Park, questions whether increased competition is really leading to more rhino deaths. We might be seeing more mortality cases in the west because the population is concentrated there. We cannot expect rhinos to die in areas where they do not live, he says. Are rhino baby boomers dying off? Another hypothesis about the deaths suggests that we are currently seeing a natural die-off of rhino baby boomers. In the late 1960s, the rhino population in Chitwan dropped to a low of around 100. In response, Nepals government ramped up efforts to protect the species, even deploying the army to protect rhinos from poachers. The results were soon visible as better conditions led to a massive upturn in the population rhinos were more likely to live long enough to give birth, and those offspring were in turn more likely to survive and multiply. Researchers compare the rapid population increase to the baby boom in post-World War II United States. Its been around 45 years since the government implemented strict conservation measures to protect the rhinos, Aryal says. Nepali zookeepers have observed that the species have a lifespan of 45 years. So, maybe rhinos who were born during the spike are now dying. That could explain the recent spate of deaths, he says. Brook Milligan, a professor of biology at New Mexico State University, has a similar hunch. This cohort of rhinos could be called the baby boomers, he says. An unusually large cohort of human babies naturally results in a corresponding uptick in death rates as the end of the natural lifespan arrives. The same could well be true for rhinos, he adds. Jnawali, however, questions whether we are truly seeing the end of the natural lifespan of Chitwans baby boomers. Rhino life expectancy in the wild has not been sufficiently studied, he says. In the years I have worked with rhinos, I have seen that they live only for 15-20 years and that is why the baby boomer hypothesis may not be true. He suggests an alternative theory: as fewer rhinos are killed by poachers, more simply die of old age or other natural causes. In past, he says, poachers targeted adult rhinos and removed them from the population horns are sold by weight, and older rhinos have larger horns. As poaching numbers decline, he says he expects to see a natural uptick in deaths in the natural causes column. Determining cause of death Its late afternoon, and veterinarian Amir Sadaula and his team receive another call. A rhino was found dead near Meghauli, in the western part of the park, Sadaula says over the phone. Sometimes we get to the incident site within hours. But there are times when we get there weeks after a rhino has died. When the team arrives at the incident site quickly, its relatively easy to determine the cause of death. Normally, when we see a dead rhino, we immediately see what killed it, says veterinary technician Purushottam Pandey. Sometimes, for example, rhinos get stuck in swamps and die there. We have also seen situations when a mother fails to deliver her baby and either one or both of them die, says Pandey, who has also seen rhinos electrocuted on fences. All such non-poaching deaths would be counted as natural. Long delays, however, make autopsies more complicated. If we get to the site late, it is hard for us to pinpoint the cause of death. That is why so many deaths have been categorized as unknown cause, Pandey says. Its even harder to identify death cause of death when weather conditions are poor. During the monsoon, which lasts over three months, its not easy for wildlife guides or park officials to visit areas where rhinos live, Jnawali says. In fact, deaths that take place during this period may not get counted at all. While these deaths are a matter of concern for all stakeholders, they also present an opportunity, says Pradhan, the former Chitwan warden. During the early years of conservation, we focused on the numbers. We saved as many rhinos as we could. But now we need to move past that and adopt a more scientific approach of habitat management that takes the carrying capacity of the park into account. This was also the recommendation made by the government committee formed to look into the deaths. The committee, led by ecologist Laxman Poudyal, signaled that an unprecedented number of rhinos were living in the national park, and urged the government to commission a study to ascertain the carrying capacity of their habitat. This story was first published on Mongabay. Read the orginial story here. Washington, D.C. - The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) wishes to express its alarm over the increase in murders and aggressions against human rights defenders in Guatemala. The IACHR calls once more on the state of Guatemala to take urgent measures to protect those who are defending human rights in the country and to fully investigate these crimes, taking the fact that the victims were engaged in defending human rights fully into account. On June 27, 2018, the IACHR and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Guatemala condemned the murders of 10 human rights campaigners belonging to indigenous and peasant organizations that took place in the first half of the year. The two organizations also urged the state of Guatemala to make progress on adopting and implementing public policies to protect human rights defenders. Since then, the IACHR has learned of at least six further murders of human rights defenders in Guatemala. In the month of July alone, at least three social and community leaders were killed. Angel Estuardo Quevedo, a community leader from Casillas municipality, was murdered on July 12; Adolfo Chon Pacay, a member of the Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC) was murdered on July 20; and the body of Juana Raymundo was found with signs of torture on a riverbank between Nebaj and the Acambalam community on July 28. Juana Raymundo was a Maya Ixil human rights defender and a member and part of the leadership of the Committee for Peasant Development (CODECA). Juana Ramirez Santiago, a member of the board of directors of the Ixil Womens Network, was murdered on September 21, and father and son Benedicto Hernandez and Arnoldo Hernandez, both members of CUC, were murdered on October 10. The predicament of human rights defenders in Guatemala has been a source of ongoing concern for the IACHR due to the acts of violence, aggression, and criminalization that they are constantly exposed to. In its 2017 Country Report, the IACHR discussed the increase in attacks on and murders of human rights defenders in comparison with 2016. According to the Human Rights Ombudsman, 20 human rights defenders have been murdered so far in 2018. This figure was endorsed by the civil society organizations that took part in the public hearing entitled Reports of Grave Human Rights Violations in the Disappearance of Social and Peasant Leaders in Guatemala at the IACHRs 169th Period of Sessions in Boulder, Colorado. The IACHR wishes to remind the state of Guatemala of its duty to carry out official investigations into crimes of this sort and sanction those responsible for planning and implementing them. The Commission particularly urges the state to pursue lines of investigation that contemplate whether the murders in question were committed specifically because of the victims involvement in human rights work. These investigations must be exhaustive, serious, and impartial, and be conducted with due diligence. The IACHR insists that the state must take all necessary steps to guarantee the right to life, integrity, and security of all human rights defenders, especially indigenous and peasant leaders, who have been targeted by the current wave of violence and who face specific risks. "In the context of discrimination against women that prevails in Guatemala, women human rights defenders challenge stereotypes disapproving their participation in public life," stated Commissioner Margarette May Macaulay, President of the IACHR and Rapporteur on the Rights of Women and on the Rights of Persons of African Descent. "Because of their commitment, they are exposed to misogynistic attitudes, to threats of sexual aggression, to insults based on their gender and even, to their death. The stigmatization and violence against them very often extends to their families and their communities, with clear discriminatory and racist dimensions in the case of women human rights defenders of indigenous origins or African descent" she added. The State must also take the inherent risks faced by women human rights defenders into particular account, as the hazards that are inherent to their work are compounded by the prevailing context of gender discrimination. The state must therefore take reasonable steps to prevent acts of violence against them and attempt to remedy the current climate of discrimination, which fosters the repetition of such acts. Specifically, the state should take a special approach that includes a gender and ethnic-racial perspective when investigating, prosecuting, sanctioning, and providing reparation for these crimes. It is essential that the state of Guatemala approve the Public Policy for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, said Commissioner Francisco Eguiguren, IACHR rapporteur on human rights defenders. Any progress on passing this policy should include consultations with civil society organizations, he added. The IACHR also urges the state of Guatemala to provide the relevant resources and implement any training necessary for officials from the Public Prosecutors Office to be able to effectively implement the Investigation Protocol for Crimes against Human Rights Defenders, which was passed on May 14, 2018, in compliance with General Instruction 05-2018 from the attorney general. As the IACHR has observed previously, acts of violence and attacks against human rights defenders do not only affect the guarantees that apply to all human beings, they also undermine the fundamental role that human rights defenders play in society, thus rendering all those who they seek to protect defenseless. The Commission also wishes to remind the state of Guatemala that the work of human rights defenders is an essential part of building a solid, lasting, democratic society and that they play a key role in achieving rule of law and strengthening democracy. These individuals fight to combat impunity, and the monitoring, reporting, outreach, and education that they are engaged in is an essential contribution to guaranteeing human rights. A principal, autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), the IACHR derives its mandate from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has a mandate to promote respect for and to defend human rights in the region and acts as a consultative body to the OAS in this area. The Commission is composed of seven independent members who are elected in an individual capacity by the OAS General Assembly and who do not represent their countries of origin or residence. No. 230/18 #China Russia KADIZ 2 Chinese, 7 Russian warplanes enter S. Korea's air defense zone without notice: JCS Two Chinese and seven Russian military aircraft entered South Korea's air defense identification zone (KADIZ) without notice on Friday, prompting the country's Air Force to scrambl... #Netflix Netflix raises subscription fees in S. Korea amid controversies over network usage Netflix has raised its monthly subscription fees in South Korea as a vice parliamentary speaker proposed a bill to keep the U.S. streaming giant from getting a free ride on network... 31/10/2018 Africa has sustained gains in domestic resource mobilisation made since 2000, as tax revenues remained stable in 2016, according to Revenue Statistics in Africa 2018. Providing internationally comparable data for 21 participating countries, the report finds that the average tax-to-GDP ratio was 18.2% in 2016, the same level as in 2015, which represents a strong improvement from 13.1% in 2000. The third edition of Revenue Statistics in Africa, released today in Paris during the 18th International Economic Forum on Africa, shows that tax-to-GDP ratios varied widely across African countries, ranging from 7.6% in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to 29.4% in Tunisia in 2016. Six countries -Mauritius, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Togo and Tunisia- had tax-to-GDP ratios greater than or equal to 20% in 2016. In comparison, the average tax-to-GDP ratio for Latin America and the Caribbean was 22.7% and 34.3% for OECD countries in 2016. Revenue Statistics in Africa is a joint initiative between the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF), the African Union Commission (AUC) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and its Development Centre, with the support of the European Union. The publication, which now covers 21 countries, shows that revenue trends are mixed. Between 2015 and 2016, the tax-to-GDP ratios of 11 countries increased while those of 10 countries in the sample decreased. Botswana registered the highest increase (1.3 percentage points) followed by Mali (1.2 percentage points). The largest decreases (of over 2.0 percentage points) occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Niger. The changes in tax-to-GDP ratios were primarily due to economic factors. Declines in oil prices coupled with lower activity among mining and oil companies contributed to the decreases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Niger, while a significant increase in the sale of diamonds in Botswana has increased revenues. In contrast, the increased tax-to-GDP ratio in Mali is partly explained by improvements to tax administration. African economies continue to rely heavily on taxes on goods and services, which accounted for 54.6% of total tax revenues in the Africa (21) average. Value-added taxes (VAT) alone accounted for 29.3% of revenues. However, the contribution of income taxes is increasing: taxes on income and profits accounted for 34.3% of total revenues across the Africa (21) in 2016 and have contributed the most to growth in tax revenues since 2000, increasing by 2.6% of GDP to reach 6.2% of GDP in 2016. Corporate income tax revenue increased by 1.4 percentage points over this period to 2.8% of GDP, while revenue from personal income tax rose from 2.1% to 3.0% of GDP in 2016, a historic high. The report also contains data on non-tax revenues, which continued to decline across the 21 countries on average in 2016 but remain an important source of income in certain countries. These revenues, which include income from natural resources and grants, exceeded 5% of GDP in nine of the 21 countries. Revenue Statistics in Africa is an important part of the African Unions Strategy for the Harmonization of Statistics in Africa (SHaSA) and is aligned with the African Unions Agenda 2063 and SDG 17.1. This edition contains a special chapter on SHaSA, identifying its approach to establishing an efficient statistical system that covers the political, economic, social, environmental and cultural development and integration of Africa, as well as the role of Revenue Statistics in Africa in this strategy. KEY FINDINGS Tax revenues as a percentage of GDP The Africa (21) average tax-to-GDP ratio was 18.2% in 2016, which is 5.0 percentage points higher than in 2000 but unchanged from 2015. In 2016, tax-to-GDP ratios ranged from 7.6% in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to 29.4% in Tunisia. Six countries (Mauritius, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Togo and Tunisia) had tax-to-GDP ratios greater than or equal to 20% in 2016. The change in the tax-to-GDP ratio since 2000 is comparable with the increase in the LAC region (4.7 percentage points) and significantly stronger than growth amongst OECD countries over the same period (0.4 percentage points). Between 2015 and 2016, the tax-to-GDP ratios of 11 countries increased while those of 10 countries in the sample decreased. This contrasts with 2015, when the Africa (21) tax-to-GDP ratio increased by 0.5 percentage points from the previous year on average and in 15 of the 21 countries. Tax structure VAT revenue as a percentage of GDP in the Africa (21) increased by 2.0 percentage points from 2000, to 5.3% in 2016. VAT revenue accounted for the highest share of tax revenues in 2016 at 29.3%, an increase of 4.9 percentage points from 2000. The share of taxes on trade has fallen from 17.9% of total tax revenue to 11.6% over the same period. Revenue from income taxes contributed the most to growth in the average tax-to-GDP ratio of the Africa (21) between 2000 and 2016, increasing by 2.6% of GDP over this period to reach 6.2% of GDP in 2016. On average across the Africa (21), corporate income tax revenue increased by 1.4 percentage points from 1.4% to 2.8% of GDP between 2000 and 2016. The Africa (21) average tax structure is similar to that of LAC countries, although social security contributions in LAC are, on average, considerably higher. The Africa (21) average share of personal income tax (PIT) revenues to total tax revenue was 15.8% in 2016, lower than the OECD average (24.4%) but higher than the LAC average (9.7%). Non-tax revenues were equivalent to at least 5% of GDP in nine of the 21 countries in 2016. Of the 21 countries, all but four had lower non-tax revenues as a proportion of GDP in 2016 than in 2015. To access the report, country notes, and summaries, visit: http://oe.cd/revenue-statistics-africa Press contacts For further information or to obtain a copy of the report, journalists should contact: AUC : Yeo Dossina (DossinaY@africa-union.org ; +251 11 551 7700) and Jose Awong Alene (AleneJ@africa-union.org; +251 11 518 26 74) : Yeo Dossina (DossinaY@africa-union.org ; +251 11 551 7700) and Jose Awong Alene (AleneJ@africa-union.org; +251 11 518 26 74) ATAF : Nara Monkam, ATAF (nmonkam@ataftax.org; +27 12 451 8811) : Nara Monkam, ATAF (nmonkam@ataftax.org; +27 12 451 8811) OECD : Lawrence Speer (Lawrence.Speer@oecd.org; +33 1 45 24 79 70); Michelle Harding (Michelle.Harding@oecd.org; +33 1 45 24 93 68) : Lawrence Speer (Lawrence.Speer@oecd.org; +33 1 45 24 79 70); Michelle Harding (Michelle.Harding@oecd.org; +33 1 45 24 93 68) OECD Development Centre: Alexander Pick (Alexander.Pick@oecd.org; +33 1 45 24 87 27) 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. Leo Major: Who Says Righteous Fury, Revenge and Fighting Nazis Needs to be a Group Effort? By Kate Hudson | Celebrity | October 30, 2018 | Nazis are unilaterally bad. Sure, this may seem obvious, but in 2018 when national leaders refuse to condemn them, it can seem like hope is lost in our national discourse. It all feels very discouraging to anyone with a soul. As a general rule, I believe in the power of non-violent resistancean eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. However, the story Im about to share with you completely flies in the face of that, and you know what? I think we all should agree that when it comes to Nazis, you gotta do what you gotta do. This is a story for anyone who feels like they cant make a change in the evil chaos that permeates our daily lives. As the saying goes: If you think you are too small to make a difference, you havent spent the night with a mosquito. This is a story about Leo Major, a mosquito who one night in an epic fit of righteous revenge, singlehandedly neutralized an entire occupied village in the Netherlands of Nazis. Major was born in 1921 in America, but was raised in Montrealand he joined the Canadian Allied Forces in time to storm the beaches at Normandy in June 1944. He singlehandedly captured a German armored vehicle during D-Day, and when searched, the vehicle contained secret German codes. The stage was setMajor was a badass who could take on Nazis by himself and come out ahead. Cut to late in 1944. Major is on a solo reconnaissance mission and spots two Nazis out on patrol. Hes cold, hes wet, and he blames those two bastards for putting him into this situation. Now, most people would realize that theyre outnumbered in this scenario, and go get back-up. Most people arent Leo Major. You know what he does? Captures one Nazi, and uses him as bait to catch the other. Then, he somehow manages to turn two captives into 93, and marches an entire platoon of Nazis to the Canadian front lines. Another SS troop sees a large group marching towards Canadian territory and opens fire on themnot realizing that theyre firing on their own side (minus Major). so what does Major do? He keeps marching. (I imagine its still cold and wet, and he wants to go home, because at this point bullets mean nothing to him.) He gets (whats remaining) of his prisoners to the Canadians, and tells them the location of the other SS troops. As a result of this act of bravery (Im sure Major just called it Tuesday) hes chosen to receive a Distinguished Conduct Medalwhich he turns down, because he thought the General who would have given it out was incompetent. In February 1945, Major was helping a military Chaplain load bodies of fallen soldiers into a jeep, when on the way back from the mission their vehicle hit a landmine, and Majors back was broken in three places. For anyone else, the war would be over for them at this point. To be fair, the military tried to do the same for Major. But come on, Leo Major is not just anyone. So what does he do? Escapes from the military hospital, and stays with a family in a random town in the Netherlands while he recuperates (I mean, obviously). Within a month, he rejoins his platoon ready to take on more Nazis. Somehow he avoids punishment. Hes Leo Major. Probably wouldnt have stuck, anyway. All of this is already very impressive, and could stand alone as a real-life Canadian version of Captain America; but his magnum opus of revenge is yet to occur. Its April 1945 (basically two months since he broke his back). His regiment is approaching the town of Zwolle, Netherlands. Zwolle is heavily occupied by Nazi Forces, but it also has a strong German resistance as well. Major and his friend Corporal Willie Arseneault are assigned a reconnaissance mission to determine how many Nazi troops are in the city, and to contact the Dutch resistance. Major and Arseneault have other plansthey want to capture the city, alone. Arseneault, unfortunately was not Leo Major, and after unwittingly giving his and Majors position away, is struck and killed by a Nazi shot. Major is alone and angrythe Germans have killed his friend, so whats a man to do? If you said return to base and get backup, youre clearly not paying attention. No. Major storms into the town solo. After taking out a few Nazis (because they looked at him funny, and killed his friend) he captured a German officer, and since both spoke French, was able to communicate that the Canadian army would be storming the entire village in just a few hours. Major let him go, expecting him to let the commanding officers know of his plan. Then under the cover of darkness, he ran up and down the town, throwing grenades and firing rounds indiscriminately, to make the Germans believe that the Canadians had begun their attack. Every time he came upon a group of Nazis, he would engage in firefight, inevitably capture them, and take them outside of the city and deposit them with allied troops waiting in the vicinity. He did this four times that nightuntil he finally came upon the motherlode: the SS HQ in Zwolle (He had already burned down the Gestapo HQ, because thats what you do to evil.) Not only did he engage in firefight that killed four Nazi officers, he found that some of them were dressed as Dutch resistance members. The Zwolle resistance had been (or was about to be) infiltrated by Nazis. Not anymore. Major had either killed, captured, or forced the Nazis to flee Zwolle. This all went down in the span of about four and a half hours (he liberated an entire town in about the time it takes to watch The Return of the King: Extended Edition, for perspective). After it was said and done, Major rejoined his fallen friends body, and waited to transport it away for safe keeping. This time, Major accepted the Distinguished Conduct Medal. So what happened to Major after that night? No one knows Just kidding. He lived a nice, long life until he finally died in 2008, leaving behind his wife of 57 years, four children, and five grandchildren. Everything seems horrible and chaotic right now, and if it gets the best of you, take comfort that for whatever reason, the same universe that gave us Trump and his cronies, also gives us seemingly-super human people like Leo Major, who see evil and fascism, and hunt it for sport. If you want to read more about Major, I used the following sources for this write up: Bad Ass of the Week, allthatsinteresting.com, Britannica. 'Final Destination' Series Mindhole Blowers | Revisiting the 1993 Jennifer Aniston Classic, Leprechaun Kate is a staff contributor. You can follow her on Twitter. Header Image Source: Marvel Comics In 2014, Ryan Raftery took the stage at the Public Theater cabaret Joe's Pub as Anna Wintour. His satirical portrayal of the Vogue editor in an improbable, yet hilarious narrative about her potential firing at the behest of late Conde Nast owner S.I. Newhouse, earned him rave reviews and sold-out shows. In the years following Ryan Raftery is the Most Powerful Woman in Fashion, the Brooklyn native played Andy Cohen in Ryan Raftery's Watch What Happens Live on Stage! and Martha Stewart in Ryan Raftery: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of Martha Stewart. This month, he resumes his commentary on fashion at Joe's Pub with Ryan Raftery: The Obsession of Calvin Klein. "The greater the success, the higher the expectations," he muses over coffee in West Chelsea recounting the adage that opens the introduction to his latest show. "It's true. Everybody feels it." Created with that pressure front of mind, Raftery's latest musical is a winning satirical comedy and fashion history lesson intertwined with Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Riffing on the Bronx-born designer's debut fragrance Obsession, the fictional story follows Calvin Klein's (Raftery) paranoia about rival Ralph Lauren's (Miranda Noelle Wilson) attempts to sabotage him, along with his fixation on achieving perfection. With Donna Karan (Jess Watkins) a coarse custodian in Klein's office building who he transforms into a designer to distract from his nemesis as his henchwoman, Klein attempts to derail his preppy opponent's seemingly insurmountable success. The farcical production offers up both high-level humor for a fashion crowd (Donna Karan's "seven easy pieces" are framed as samples from the Calvin Klein reject pile) and jokes for the layperson that focus on fragrances and branding (Ralph Lauren's Polo pony logo is practically crucified). Just like Klein's ubiquitous underwear presented in the show as a revelation the designer has on a walk around Central Park Lake while the famous Swan Lake suite blares overhead Raftery's clever, campy production has mass appeal. It's also incredibly timely. The MET Costume Institute is gearing up for its spring 2019 exhibition dedicated to camp in fashion. "We are going through an extreme camp moment," Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton said in conversation with The New York Times earlier this month. "Whether it's pop camp, queer camp, high camp, or political camp Trump is a very camp figure I think it's very timely." Not even Raf Simons a Belgian minimalist haunted by adolescent angst and electronic music has been able to resist the genre in his tenure at Calvin Klein; in the past two seasons his references have included Jaws and Looney Toons characters. The show also manages to call out the rat race to build lifestyle brands and the unrelenting demand for product that exist in the fashion system. "I think that the fact that fashion designers have to produce on a set time line only accelerates [the stress]," Raftery says, noting that he relates as a creative in his own way. "From my stand point, every single one of my shows has been a bigger success than the last one. It is a mathematical certainty that that cannot keep happening. That can drive you crazy." Fashion's frenetic pace is something Raftery has experienced first-hand. Three years after spending a single day as Calvin Klein's assistant (he quit after realizing the sort of dedication the role calls for), Raftery landed in the PR Department at Coach in 2013. As an assistant, he carried Stuart Vevers' first collection for Coach in garment bags to Vogue for a pre-see appointment with Wintour. "I'll never forget the way the air felt as soon as you got off the elevators," he says of the magazine's former office at Times Square. "It was just like The Devil Wears Prada. There were people running around and pulling racks. Just knowing she [Anna Wintour] was on the other side of the wall was amazing." Raftery's idea for the show focused on Wintour crystalized shortly after that visit. Her response to Raftery's portrayal wasn't filled with as much admiration as his awe of her. "I ran into her in an elevator about four months ago. We were alone," he recalls. "We were there for maybe three seconds before I said, 'Hi, Anna!' Then she looked at me and said, 'Of course.' That's all she said. Her energy was such that she was pushing me away from her." Prior to that awkward run in, Wintour did donate a pair of sunglasses for charity production of Ryan Raftery is the Most Powerful Woman in Fashion. "That's all I'm ever going to get from her," he says entirely satisfied with it. The reception Raftery will receive from his new subjects remains to be seen. Klein, Karan, and Lauren have yet to publicly acknowledge the show. "I would love for them to know about it," Raftery says enthusiastically. "I don't think I have a shot in hell at getting any of them in the audience." He may not, but if the success of his opening night performance continues, Raftery might just be surprised. Ryan Raftery: The Obsession of Calvin Klein runs through November 17 at The Public Theater's cabaret club Joe's Pub. News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism. Iran Must Stop Imprisoning Lawyers for Defending Their Clients 10/31/18 Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran October 30, 2018-Iran's sentencing of attorney Mohammad Najafi to three years in prison and 74 lashes for "disturbing the state" and "publishing falsehoods" after he advocated for a young client who died under suspicious circumstances in an Iranian detention center is a flagrant violation of the right to counsel and a continuation of the unlawful assault on the legal profession in Iran that has left a half dozen attorneys behind bars for doing their job. The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) calls upon the Iranian authorities to immediately annul this sentence and release Mohammad Najafi. CHRI further calls upon the authorities to end their unlawful assault on the independence of the legal profession in Iran and release the other lawyers who have also been imprisoned for doing their job, including: Hoda Amid Arash Keykhosravi Ghasem Sholeh Sa'di Abdolfattah Soltani Nasrin Sotoudeh Payam Derafshan (currently out on bail) Farrokh Forouzan (currently out on bail) CHRI urges the international community, in all its interactions with the Islamic Republic, to directly and forcefully raise the issue of the unacceptability of the prosecution and imprisonment of attorneys for the defense of their clients. "The authorities now control not only the investigators, the prosecutors and the judges-they also want to control the lawyers; they are effectively trying to strip Iranians of the right to self-defense," said Hadi Ghaemi, CHRI executive director. In January 2018, attorney Mohammad Najafi told media outlets that the authorities were trying to cover up the cause of the suspicious death of Vahid Heydari, 22, who died in detention at the 12th Police Station in Arak sometime between the end of December 2017 and the beginning of January 2018 by claiming he had committed suicide. Iranian authorities have claimed at least two other detainees "committed suicide" in custody in 2018: Iranian-Canadian environmentalist Kavous Seyed-Emami and Sina Ghanbari. Iran's State Prisons Organization and the judiciary are responsible for ensuring the safety and well being of all detainees held in state custody but no one has been held responsible for these deaths and their cause of death remains unknown. Instead, Iran's judiciary has worked to silence those who have sought justice for the victims, including human rights lawyers. Judge Ghasem Abdollahi of the Appeals Court in Markazi Province upheld the sentences for Najafi: One year and 74 lashes for 'disturbing the state,' and two years for 'publishing falsehoods,'" Najafi wrote in a Facebook post on October 18, 2018. The UN has declared flogging a cruel and inhumane punishment tantamount to torture. But over 100 flogging sentences were issued in Iran in 2017, with at least 50 implemented, according to the UN. Najafi began his prison sentence in Arak's Central Prison on October 28. "I have been a lawyer and writer for years and during this time I have been repeatedly charged and acquitted," said Najafi in May 2018. "The authorities themselves have told me that they are trying to grind me into oblivion." Najafi is the sixth lawyer currently behind bars for performing his legal work. Four of the other imprisoned attorneys-Hoda Amid, Nasrin Sotoudeh, Arash Keykhosravi and Ghasem Sholeh Sa'di-were all jailed over the spring and summer of 2018, and the fifth, Abdolfattah Soltani, has been imprisoned for seven years (since September 2011). Two other recently jailed attorneys-Payam Derafshan and Farrokh Forouzan were released on bail. The lawyers have been imprisoned for trying to defend their clients, for defending political prisoners and for rejecting the state requirement that political detainees must only choose from a short list of state-approved lawyers for their defense. According to the "Note to Article 48" of Iran's Criminal Procedures Regulations, "In cases of crimes against internal or external security...during the investigation phase, the parties to the dispute are to select their attorneys from a list approved by the head of the judiciary." In an interview on June 4, 2018, human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh (who was not yet imprisoned) told CHRI that by approving only 20 lawyers in Tehran Province, the judiciary had disqualified 20,000 licensed lawyers and seriously undermined prisoners' due process rights, including the right to counsel and a fair trial. "Just imagine that a suspect has been charged by powerful military and security agencies and he goes in front of a judge in a court in Evin Prison under an intense climate of fear and intimidation and ... his only hope is to have an independent and honorable lawyer to defend him but now, with the implementation of the Note to Article 48, that path has been closed and we have to say goodbye to the legal profession in Iran," Sotoudeh said. "Everywhere in the world, it is usually the lawyers who act as the guardians of the rights of suspects and society and freedom of expression," she added. "Sharing information about a case is effective in that the judge will feel that his decisions are being watched by the public. But the judiciary's action is going to cut the flow of information regarding political cases and make it easier to violate the rights of suspects and to interrogate, prosecute and sentence political and civil rights activists without information reaching the public." "Iran's locking up and flogging of attorneys for trying to defend their clients is an outrageous violation of all international standards regarding the right to counsel," said Ghaemi. "The international community should forcefully condemn this unlawful behavior and demand the release of these attorneys." India, Iran, Russia push alternative to Suez Canal 10/31/18 Source: Press TV India, Iran and Russia will meet next month to discuss the operation of a 7,200 km trade and transport corridor that presents a cheaper and shorter alternative to the traditional route through the Suez Canal. The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a multimode network of sea and rail routes, will link the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf via Iran to Russia and North Europe. The project comes in the backdrop of China's multi-trillion-dollar One Belt One Road initiative. Within Iran, the two routes overlap in a potential boon to future businesses. New Delhi has been actively courting Tehran, given the utmost importance it attaches to the route and Iran has been receptive. Once operational, the corridor will allow India to send its goods to Bandar Abbas in Iran by sea, from where they will be transported to Iran's Bandar Anzali on the Caspian Sea by road. Next, they will be shipped to Astrakhan in Russia and transported into Europe by rail. The route will cut the time and cost of delivering goods by about 30 percent to more than 40 percent. Compared with the Suez Canal, the corridor will reduce the transport time between Mumbai and Moscow to about 20 days. The estimated capacity of the corridor is 20 to 30 million tonnes of goods per year. The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) India's Union Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu on Saturday met a Russian business delegation in New Delhi, where he said "all issues may be resolved in order to operationalize the (INSTC) route as early as possible." An official statement said India, Russia and Iran will hold a trilateral meeting on November 23 to make the route operational soon, Indian media reported Tuesday. "The INSTC is the shortest multimodal transportation route linking the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf via Iran to Russia and North Europe," India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in the statement. To access resource-rich Central Asia, India has to route its goods either through China, Europe or Iran. The routes through China and Europe are long, expensive and time consuming, with Iran being the most viable one. The first dry run of the INSTC was conducted in August 2014 and the second in April 2017. India is seeking to leverage the strategic Chabahar port in southeast Iran to link with the INSTC. The country has committed $500 million to Chabahar that it is building chiefly to crack open a trade and transport route to landlocked Afghanistan. Last week, senior officials from the two countries met their counterpart in Tehran to discuss a full commissioning of the port that the three countries are jointly developing. It was the first trilateral meeting of the Coordination Council of the Chabahar Agreement, coming in the face of fresh sanctions imposed by Washington on the Islamic Republic. "All sides shared the view that a full operationalization of the trilateral Chabahar initiative will promote connectivity and economic development of Afghanistan and the region," India's External Affairs Ministry said in a statement. For landlocked Afghanistan, the corridor means opening the way to billions of dollars in trade and cutting the country's dependence on foreigners for aid as well as stemming the illicit opium trade. The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta, will deliver the 2019 budget and policy statement of the government on November 15, the Speaker of Parliament Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye announced Tuesday. This hopefully, will be followed by the post-budget workshop and the consideration of the sectoral budget estimates by the committees of the House, he added. The reading of the budget comes at a time over one million Ghanaians, according to the Centre for Socioeconomic Studies (CSS) lost their jobs since 2017. The job cuts span the industrial, banking and mining sectors as well as the media and services sector. Also, according to a 2015 labour force survey, over one million Ghanaians from age 15 and older are unemployed, representing a total unemployment rate of 11.9 per cent. Of this number, about 714,916 are females, representing 57.2 per cent and 535,997 for males representing per cent. Speaking on Morning Starr last Thursday, the Executive Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) Professor Newman Kwadwo Kusi said he expects the 2019 budget to focus on job creation. I want to see that overall, the budget is designed to create jobs. We are looking at a budget that will grow agriculture and manufacturing to create jobs, Professor Newman Kusi said on Morning Starr Thursday. The government in an effort to tackle the countrys teething unemployment challenge, introduced the Nations Builders Corp (NaBCo) among other measures to temporarily address the situation, security experts warn could lead to a Ghanaian version of the Arab spring. The government has recruited over 100,000 on the NaBCo programme under seven different modules for a monthly stipend of GH700. The NABCO initiative is a very good programme and initiative, Professor Kusi told the host of Morning Starr Francis. However, we must ensure that after the three years, the workers get something doing from the programme. Professor Kusi also advised the government to cut down on the number of the social interventionist programmes it undertakes to ensure value for money. Barely two years in his administration, President Akufo-Addo has rolled out about five social interventionist programmes including, but not limited to one district, one factory, free Senior High School, Planting for food and Jobs, Youth in Afforestation and NaBCo. Every time the government wants to undertake major programmes, they have to go out and borrow and this is because we hardly take into consideration long-term plans for programmes or projects we embark on, bemoaned Professor Kusi. All the policies the government has launched in the last year and a half or so are very good but it looks like the government is taking on too many programmes that are not well designed to create a link between agriculture and manufacturing industries, he stressed. 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 Customers of Gold dealership firm Menzgold Company Limited have rejected the companys new trading product. Menzgold, in a statement, said it will resume full operations on or before 5 November 2018, with the launch of a new gold/collectibles trading product that would make it possible for existing transactions to be migrated unto that platform for immediate and prompt extra value and principal payments. Reacting to this, the leader and spokesperson of Class Action Group, a group of aggrieved clients of Menzgold, Lewis Pendragon, said they are not interested in any new product from Menzgold. He told Moro Awudu on the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Class91.3FM on Monday, 29 October 2018 that: Im not interested and Im not sure anybody will be interested for the simple reason that if I can meet you face-to-face and you are not honest, why would I want to meet you at a distance? The company has been unable to pay its clients their dividends due to an ongoing battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Bank of Ghana over its operations. While the state institutions say the company has not been licensed to take deposits, Menzgold insists it does not take deposits and does not answer to the two institutions. Some clients who have not been able to access their dividends, are seeking to terminate their contract with the company while others have hinted at dragging Menzgold to court. Meanwhile, Menzgold said it will, from 9 November 2018, pay 15 per cent of the principal investments to its clients. The company will send the clients direct messages to that end and make the payments into their bank accounts. Some customers who called into the EBS rejected the 15 per cent as proposed by the company and threatened to seek redress in court. Source: classfmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Director General of the Ghana Maritime Authority, Mr. Kwame Owusu, has dismissed claims that his outfit spent an amount of 10, 000 Ghana cedis on food for eight people. According to him, the number of people was 17 and not eight as reported by the media adding that the cost of food covered a series of meetings held by the authority. A memo leaked to the media last week revealed that on October 08, 2018, an amount GHc10, 652.05 worth of food was supplied to the authority by LUXE SUITES and HOTEL after a management and stakeholder meeting. Another Memo also revealed that GHc135, 125.00 was spent on food, drinks and music for staff during the end of year dinner party. But addressing a press conference Tuesday, Mr Owusu said the memo was deliberately leaked to the media for mischievous purposes. For the recordthe person who stole the documents was only doing it for mischief purposesany academician will know that it cannot be eight peoplewe are about 17 people, even eight people cannot form a quorum for us to have a meeting. Mr. Owusu lamented that the information was put out for him to look bad in the eyes of the public. The press conference comes a day after the Transport Ministry directed the Board of the Ghana Maritime Authority to investigate claims of financial malfeasance against the CEO of the authority, Mr. Kwame Owusu. A statement signed by the Transport Minister, Kwaku Ofori Asiamah, in parts read that My attention has been drawn to a number of allegations against the Director General of the Ghana Maritime Authority, Mr. Kwame Owusu, which have gone viral on social media. As the sector Minister with oversight responsibility over the Ghana Maritime Authority, I wish to indicate that I have directed the Board of the Authority to investigate the allegations and report to me for necessary action. Source: starrfm 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 His Royal Highness Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex and Chairman of the Duke of Edinburghs International Award, arrived in Ghana on Monday, 29 October 2018 to participate in this years Duke of Edinburghs International award ceremony to be held in the West African country. He was met on arrival by the Minister of Youth and Sports, Isaac Kwame Asiamah. Prince Edward praised the government of Ghana for its democratic credentials and urged the country to continue to ensure the development of the country. He assured the minister that the UK would continue to relate well with Ghana and its people. For his part, Mr Asiamah thanked the UK government for its support to Ghana. He promised that the government of Ghana would continue to promote the growth of the youth in the country. He also assured his guests that this years award ceremony would be organised very well. Present at the airport to welcome Prince Edward and his team were officials from the UK High Commission, officials of the government of Ghana, and the organisers of the award ceremony. Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The UN is investigating the alleged embezzlement of up to 5 billion that disappeared from accounts owned by Muammar Gaddafi, the former Libyan leader, according to Belgian MP Georges Gilkinet. UN documents confirm that Belgium failed to comply with a UN resolution on freezing Libyan assets, he told the Belgian news network RTBF. He said that so far, he had received fragmented information from Belgian authorities and that is vital to clarify the situation, which may lead to a big scandal, because hundreds of millions of euros were sent to unknown individuals in Libya who were not known. RTBF also cited an anonymous source claiming that since 2013 the missing assets from the accounts have allegedly been used to finance a civil war which led to a major migration crisis. In Belgium, the probe which is headed by investigator Michel Claise comes amid reports that a portion of Gaddafis assets could be sent to the Libyan Investment Authority, a sovereign fund. Furthermore, a special UN report also suggested that the money was received by the Libyan Investment Authority. As reported by Sputnik, its complex structure makes it almost impossible to find out what these funds were allocated for. The sum could have been sent to armed groups in Libya, something that further destabilized the region, according to the report. This comes after in March 2018, local media reported that around 10 billion of Libyan government funds, which were frozen as part of the sanctions against Gaddafis inner circle had vanished from a Belgian bank between 2013 and 2017. Back in November 2013, four Euroclear Bank accounts belonging to the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) and its subsidiary Libyan Foreign Investment Company (LFICO) in Bahrain and Luxembourg, contained some 16.1bn in frozen assets. However, when authorities tried to seize the funds in 2017, it turned out there was only just over 5bn left in those accounts, an investigation by Le Vif weekly revealed. There remains a little less than 5 billion euros on the four accounts opened at Euroclear Bank SA, Denis Goeman, a spokesman from Brussels prosecutors office told the Belgian publication. Michel Claise was initially the first to discovery that the funds were missing. He was in charge of the probe into alleged money laundering by Gaddafis inner circle, requested the seizure of the frozen Libyan funds. After the death of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the UN ruled that his assets should be frozen in four Belgian banks. However, it turned out later that interests and dividends from these assets have never been blocked. Belgiums finance ministry insisted that the interest payments were legal, Le Vifs investigation in March is certain that authorities must answer several crucial questions, the biggest one being: Where did the 10 billion vanish to? The probe by the UN and Michel Claise into the suspected illegal disbursement of interests and dividends on frozen accounts comes after months of denial from Foreign Minister Didier Reynders and silence from the rest of the cabinet. There has been little progress since the discovery of the initial missing 10 billion. Source: rt.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 Medical doctors in Ghana are worried over increasing unsafe abortion cases in the country. About 45 per cent of abortions in Ghana remain unsafe. In 2017, 53,114 abortion cases were recorded in government hospitals alone across the country, according to the Ghana Health Service (GHS). Globally, 25 million unsafe abortion cases are recorded every year, according to a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The anguish among medical doctors in the country is compounded by the increasing cases of teenage pregnancy while 35% pregnancies among married women are unplanned. According to a 2016 report, 110,000 adolescent girls in 352 basic schools across the country got pregnant that year. For fear of victimization, many of such teenagers resort to unsafe abortion methods leading to needless loss of lives and damage to wombs of many young girls. It is on this backdrop that, the Junior Doctors Association (JDA) in collaboration with DKT International as part of activities marking the 60th anniversary of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) organized sensitization exercise on safe abortion and reproductive health for students of Pentecost Senior High School (PENSEC) in Koforidua, in the Eastern Region. Chairman of Junior Doctors Association, Dr Desmond Oppong, stated that about 45% of abortion that is done in Ghana are unsafe and about 20% of sexually active non-married women do not use contraceptive. These figures are actually more because most of them dont come to the hospital so that is why it is very prudent for us to go out there and educate them and let them know that the best method of preventing all these is abstinence but if that is not met then other means of contraception use also come into place. He advised teenage girls who get pregnant to desist from using concoctions or patronising services of quacks to terminate the pregnancy rather walk to accredited health facilities for professional abortion care service. The General Secretary of the Junior Doctors Association, Dr Mawuena Hafeh, who touched on reproductive health advised the students to abstain from premarital sexual intercourse to prevent contracting sexually transmitted diseases. The headmaster of Pentecost Senior High School, Peter Atta Gyamfi, said the health talk was timely adding, of late weve been hearing cases of teenage pregnancies, unwanted pregnancies and abortions and we as a school thinks that it is timely. He added that, sometimes some of them even take drugs to terminate the pregnancies which end up in complications. Some of them are very innocent and therefore they can just be lured by their peers so with this education they will abstain from sex. Source: Today Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The newly-elected National Womens Organiser of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr Louisa Hanna Bissiw says Ghanaians must not give President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo a second chance in office in 2020. According to her, the President has left many Ghanaians in frustration due to the bad economy under his leadership. She also claimed the President has destroyed the buoyant economy he inherited from the erstwhile John Mahama administration. Joblessness is on the increase; doctors, nurses, teachers, drivers, students, traders are all crying due to the economic hardship they are saddled with at the moment, she said in an interview with Accra FM, Wednesday. The President promised that by the end of the year, every village in northern Ghana will have a dam; what has become of the promise? The year has almost ended and how many of those dams have been built? she asked. Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/Peacefmonline.com/ Twitter: @Washman5/ Instagram: Ambrose_wash Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Parliament has registered its strong opposition to the dissolution of the Governing Council of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) by the government. It said it would not tolerate any government interference in the affairs of autonomous tertiary institutions. Addressing a press conference on the developments at KNUST in Parliament House on Monday, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, said the unwarranted dissolution of the Governing Council of KNUST is not only unlawful but also an affront to the 1992 Constitution of Ghana which gives academic freedom and independence to institutions of higher learning as enshrined in Articles 21 and 70 of the Constitution. The Minority in Parliament unreservedly and absolutely denounces governments unlawful conduct in dissolving the Council of the University. We therefore demand the immediate reversal of this illegal act, the minority leader requested. The minority leader also said government showed gross disrespect to the Chancellor of KNUST, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, for not informing him before the unexpected dissolution of the Council and that should be condemned. The minority is concerned about how governments knee-jerk reaction has derailed the mediation efforts of the Chancellor, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, and the governments attempt to undermine his authority as Chancellor and disrupt the mediation efforts he has started, he added. The minority leader pointed out that government and for that matter President Akufo-Addo should take all the blame for the impasse at KNUST concerning the conversion of the single-sex halls into mixed halls, adding that the problem emanated from the Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh and the Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education, Prof Kwesi Yankah both of whom publicly endorsed the new hall policy even though enough consultations had not been done. Proactive and consultative leadership would have better managed governments unpopular policy of the conversion of single-sex halls of the residence of KNUST, the minority leader asserted, adding that the minority also condemns the violent demonstration of the students. Haruna Iddrisu also called for the re-instatement of the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Kwasi Obiri-Danso, adding that if government wants to dissolve the Council, it should rather change its representatives on the Council and not entirely dissolve it. We stand by UTAG, TEWU, FUSAG, GAUA and VCG and fully support them in their fight against oppressors rule in the universities, he added. 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 People walk past large letters spelling out UBC at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C., on November 22, 2015. The former chair of the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia is suing a woman claiming she falsely accused him of sexual and physical assaults. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck The Belgian authorities are planning a cull of wild boar to prevent further spread of African swine fever (ASF). A total of 114 dead wild boars have been diagnosed with ASF so far all of them have been located in the restriction zone in the Luxembourg region of the country, according to briefing from ForFarmers forwarded to the National Pig Association. It is expected that the number will continue to rise with a total of 300 to 400 boars confirmed with ASF) in Belgiums restricted zone. When this figure is stable then locally, the authorities intend to shoot the remaining wild boars in the restriction zone. While the infected area, which is near the French border, is densely populated with wild boar, there were, fortunately, very few commercial pigs. Around 3,000 domestic and commercial pigs in the restriction zone have already been culled as the authorities strive to keep the virus out of commercial pigs as well as limiting the spread in wild boar. Testing of dead wild boar continues, with samples is taken from their mouth, nose, spleen and bones and sent to Belgiums central laboratory, Sciensano, for diagnosis. After an initial sharp drop, on the back of export bans by non-EU countries, pig prices are now stable but still lower than before and lower than in surrounding countries. Compensation is being paid to pig farmers in the restriction zone whose pigs have been culled, but not to other farmers. Get Our E-Newsletter - Pig World's best stories in your in-box twice a week See e-newsletter example Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy KAMPALA People living with albinism have appealed for help as most of them not only face discrimination but also human rights abuse. A recent report presented to Parliament on the validation of the Situation Analysis of Persons with Albinism on 31 October says there is need to increase awareness and protection of their rights. Albinism is a rare group of genetic disorders that result from a reduction or absence of the pigment melanin that causes the skin, hair, or eyes to have little or no color. Mr. Aliro Omara, a consultant for Office of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights backed by the Uganda Albinism Society while delivering the report said there are still associated concerns, myths, health conditions, and superstitions as well as stereotypes centered on albinism. Many persons with albinism are discriminated culturally, socially and even by the government; parents of children with albinism are not aware of the risks their children face, Mr. Omara said. The report recommends the need to create and raise awareness about albinism and the issues surrounding it in order to make the public understand that albinos are human beings like any other and have feelings. There should be campaigns and albinism should be introduced into the curriculum; teachers and medical workers need to be sensitive to people with albinism and they should know that they have rights like other human beings, Mr Omara added. The report further recommends that the Uganda Bureau of Statistics should conduct a detailed survey of people with albinism and that there should be legislation to protect them. Impunity or any stigmatization of albinism should be stopped by all means and the only way to achieve this is by putting in place a law to protect people with albinism, Mr Omara explained. Ms Olive Namutebi, the executive director for Uganda Albinism Umbrella said in Uganda people living with albinism still face social discrimination from their parents and society. She called on parents and other stakeholders to accord Albinos equal opportunities, in regard to education and social protection. Ms Namutebi also urged for increased awareness campaigns to ensure Albinos are not kidnapped and sacrificed by criminal elements for witchcraft purposes. Ms Rebecca Kadaga, the speaker of parliament who officiated at the report launch as a chief guest, supported the recommendations on awareness, census of those with albinism and legislation. I think the Teacher Training Colleges and health training schools need to train future teachers and health workers on how to receive these children with open minds because they are human beings too, Ms. Kadaga said. Ms Kadaga also explained that in the future the census should capture people with disabilities separately. She said the process of a bill for Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) is underway but expressed disappointment that there are bureaucracies in the government. The Committees of Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Equal Opportunities and Human Rights need to bring up the Motion to debate this issue on the Floor of Parliament as the Bill is processed, she added. Mr William Nokrach (PWD, North) described the report as spot on because it clearly shows how people with albinism are extremely discriminated All district counties should do an extensive collection of data for people with disabilities so that the government can take necessary steps to plan for them and sensitization is needed urgently to save people with albinism from social discrimination, Mr Nokrach added. Mr Jacob Oboth (Indep, West Budama South) said, The issue of PWDs should not be left for just surveys but for purposes of planning, budgeting, and legislation. He said that MPs need to legislate to protect a particular group of people who are threatened especially the people with albinism Related KAMPALA Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) has terminated the contract of interdicted executive director Jolly Kaguhangire with immediate effect. Mr Emely Kugonza, the UIA chairman, in a letter dated October 26, informed Ms Kaguhangire of the boards decision that had been reached in a special sitting. The board [UIA] has resolved in a special meeting of October 26, 2018 to terminate your employment contract as executive director with immediate effect, the letter reads in part. The decision, according to the letter, had been reached based on findings of an independent investigation that was conducted by a six-member committee. UIA Board in June this year interdicted Ms Kaguhangire pending findings of investigations into alleged misuse of office, gross insubordination, incompetence, concealment, misinformation, lying to the board, defiance and misconduct of interdiction and several others. However, investigations, according to the letter, found her culpable of the above leading to the decision to fire her. All the above amount to gross misconduct in line with section 922 of the Human Resource manual. I, therefore, inform you that your employment as Uganda Investment Authority executive director is hereby terminated with immediate effect, the letter said. In a brief text, he said Mr. Basil Ajer, who has been acting executive director, wIll continue to hold the position until further notice. However, Ms Kaguhangire refused to comment on the matter but according to Daily Monitor, she was not aware of any decision by UIA to fire her. She was also quoted saying that no letter in that regard had been brought to her attention, adding that the termination, if true, would not be appropriate because none of the grounds for which she was interdicted would call for her firing. There are strong grounds for someone to be fired, which I do not think would be appropriate for me. I cannot imagine such, she was also quoted saying. It is not clear whether the embattled Kaguhangire will respect the boards decision to leave office. On previous attempts to getting her out the office, Kaguhangire declined to vacate office on grounds that the boards decision was not valid. Related Officers with the Oakland (CA) Police Department received a piece of evidence on Friday that they initially thought was a Halloween hoaxa human skull. People visiting an Oakland apartment complex last week found the head in the grassless yard with a couple of trees and took it to a police station, according to CBS News. "I can say in my years of service, I've never had a human skull delivered to the police station," Sergeant Michael Cardoza told KGO-TV. The Alameda County Coroner's Bureau is now working to determine the identity and cause of death. Embed from Getty Images Infamous Boston mob boss and federal informant James "Whitey" Bulger has been killed in prison, according to Fox News. Bulger was killed at a West Virginia prison, where he was recently transferred to serve the remainder of his two consecutive life sentencesplus five yearsfor his crimes. According to reports, Bulger was beaten to death by "multiple inmates" who may have connections to organized crime. Bulger had led the notorious Winter Hill Gang in Boston for many years, while also allegedly being an informant for the FBIa claim Bulger denied. An officer with the Baltimore County (MD) Police Department fatally shot a man who reportedly attempted to drag the officer from his fleeing SUV. Baltimore County police Corporal Shawn Vinson said that the manidentified as 28-year-old Derrick Alexander Sellmanwas driving erratically in a shopping mall parking lot, according to WBAL-TV. The officer motioned for Sellman to stop, which he did. Soon after, however, Sellman attempted to accelerate away, putting the officer at risk of being dragged by the vehicle, Vinson said. The officer then fired his service weaponkilling Sellman. A lieutenant with the Arlington (MA) Police Department has been relieved of duty after suggesting in a newsletter that police should put aside restraint and meet "violence with violence." According to NECN.com, Lieutenant Richard Pedrini has been placed on paid leave while officials investigate columns he wrote for the Massachusetts Police Association. Arlington Police Chief Frederick Ryan said in a statement, "The columns written by Mr. Pedrini in the Sentinel newsletter directly contradict the values, morals and mission statement of the Arlington Police Department. Such remarks risk eroding the public trust that municipal police departments in Massachusetts have worked so hard to build in recent years. I disavow the remarks in the strongest possible terms, and this matter will be dealt with swiftly and certainly." The Massachusetts Police Association Executive Board and President Alan Andrews also issued a statement, saying "The Massachusetts Police Association is committed to earnestly advocating for members of the law enforcement community and seeks to unify and empower law enforcement officers throughout the Commonwealth. However, some of the columns that were written in the latest issue of The Sentinel newsletter do not uphold the high standards of the MPA and its mission." A New York man has been convicted for trying to kill a cop with a meat cleaver in 2016. According to the New York Post, 34-year-old Akram Joudeh became enraged when he found an immobilization boot on the wheel of his Nissan Altima near Penn Station in Midtown. In the incident, NYPD detective Brian O'Donnell suffered a gash to his face that required 70 stitches to repair. Police responded when reports came in that Joudeh was trying to remove the boot by furiously swinging a hammer at it. Off-duty Detective O'Donnell saw the subject fleeing the scene and attempted to apprehend him. Joudeha Palestinian with a Jordanian passportreportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he slashed O'Donnell's face just before other responding officers opened fire on the attacker, wounding him. Joudeh reportedly had 15 prior arreststhe United States was reportedly attempting to deport him, according to the Post. Joudeh now faces up to 25 years in prison. According to the Associated Press, a veteran police officer with the Pullman (WA) Police Department has been arrested and charged with a felony count of first-degree custodial sexual misconduct. The incident in question reportedly involves an intoxicated Washington State University freshman in the custody of 49-year-old Sergeant Dan Hargraves. "The alleged criminal misconduct is completely unacceptable behavior for a Pullman Police Officer," Pullman Police Chief Gary Jenkins said in a statement. "We place a high value on the community's trust, and we will continue to work every day to earn and maintain that trust." Hargraves had been on paid administrative leave or desk duty since early April, when the woman reported the incident to police. Przepraszamy! Ogoszenie na stanowisku: Procurement Operations Associate with German wygaso z dniem 2019-03-16 Ta propozycja bya zozona przez Hays Poland Sp. z o.o. Mozliwe przyczyny wygasniecia ogoszenia to: propozycja zamieszczona przez pracodawce zostaa wycofana z naszej bazy zleceniodawca zakonczy proces rekrutacji uzyskujac odpowiednia ilosc zgoszen rekruter zmodyfikowa tresc zlecenia i jest ono dostepne pod innym adresem WWW dostawca tresci usuna ogoszenie z bazy danych niewasciwy adres url ogoszenia Jezeli poszukujesz pracy w branzy Inne / Pozostae, zajrzyj tutaj: Praca Inne / Pozostae Jezeli poszukujesz pracy na stanowisku Procurement Operations Associate with German, zajrzyj tutaj: Praca Procurement Operations Associate with German Jezeli poszukujesz pracy w miescie: Krakow, zajrzyj tutaj: Praca Krakow Pamietaj, ze mozesz takze rozpoczac poszukiwanie pracy od strony gownej, kliknij tutaj. Inne propozycje, ktore mogy byc w kregu Twoich zainteresowan: "Ascom recognized the need to build processes and tools that deliver consistent results and hence, harnessed several best practices in handset, battery, and system maintenance, as well as compliance adherence," said Mohamed Alaa Saayed, ICT Industry Director, Frost & Sullivan "It acknowledged the need to implement successful mobility solutions and has accordingly provided full documentation, best practice material, and diagnostic tools to a wide ecosystem of channel partners, individuals, and institutions." The demanding healthcare vertical has particularly benefitted from the Ascom Myco, purpose-built smart devices that enable Wi-Fi, DECT, and 4G LTE communications. Its robust design is capable of withstanding knocks and drops, and this product feature greatly helps it comply with industry safety and security standards. Furthermore, the Ascom Healthcare Platform supports the integration of existing hospital systems such as electronic patient health records, patient monitoring, lab, nurse call systems, and other medical devices. The company's sustained performance has established it as a key best-of-breed wireless endpoint developer. Its customer ownership experience is among the best in the industry with multiple organizations, including hospitals, healthcare institutions, manufacturing facilities, and retail stores, reporting high satisfaction with the way Ascom solutions address their unique needs and constraints. "With more than 100,000 installed systems, Ascom has positioned itself as a vendor of the most widely-used enterprise on-site wireless endpoints in the global market. It has also made significant efforts to secure tight integration with multiple third-party solutions and provide extensive configuration and customization options," noted Saayed. "While the company has recently focused on becoming the top wireless endpoint vendor in healthcare ICT by 2020, it will continue to also cater to other industries." Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents a Company of the Year award to the organization that demonstrates excellence in terms of growth strategy and implementation in its field. The award recognizes a high degree of innovation with products and technologies, and the resulting leadership in terms of customer value and market penetration. Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry. 1. According to Frost & Sullivan's latest Global Enterprise Communications Platforms and Endpoints Market study. About Ascom Ascom is a global solutions provider focused on healthcare ICT and mobile workflow solutions. The vision of Ascom is to close digital information gaps allowing for the best possible decisions anytime and anywhere. Ascom's mission is to provide mission-critical, real-time solutions for highly mobile, ad hoc, and time-sensitive environments. Ascom uses its unique product and solutions portfolio and software architecture capabilities to devise integration and mobilization solutions that provide truly smooth, complete and efficient workflows for healthcare as well as for industry and retail sectors. Ascom is headquartered in Baar (Switzerland), has operating businesses in 18 countries and employs around 1,300 people worldwide. Ascom registered shares (ASCN) are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange in Zurich. About Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector, and the investment community. Contact us: Start the discussion . Contact: Samantha Park P: 210.247.2426 F: 210.348.1003 E: [email protected] Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/774226/Ascom_Award.jpg Related Links http://www.frost.com SOURCE Frost & Sullivan Google Corporation has released a couple of new devices, including several smartphone and a display named Home Hub. For those of you who don't know, Home Hub was introduced a couple of days after Facebook launched its first gadget - a smart screen. This device is designed to consume audio and video content from certain resources. It support voice control and is adjusted to the user's location. So, what is so special about Google Home Hub? For starters, it can boast a 7-inch touch screen, like a small tablet. Actually, this screen was introduced as a supplementary feature to Google Home. Together, they make a perfect match. Also, the screen is capable of displaying Google Maps, photos, daily todos, and Youtube content. Everything is pretty cool. However, where is the camera? Isn't it so tiny that it's hard to find? Now it's not. the thing is, the device doesn't have a camera at all. Some of you might think this is a major drawback since you cannot have a video call with your friends. Still, the manufacturer did this intensionally. They assume that a camera would be an excessive element in this devices. This was done for security purposes as well. You see, now the user can take this devices to any place, including the bedroom, without having to woory about to possibility of someone spying on them. The screen is actually capable of adjusting its brightness to the surroundings. When the user goes to sleep, Home Hub switches to the Always-On mode. It also supports the Smart Home functionality and is capable of managing all the smart devices in your home, including your TV, audio system, light, doors, and so much more.The device costs 149 dollars. Each buyer gest a bonus - 6 months of Youtube Music subscription. 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 [CollisionLink] enables me to see the entire estimate sent over from a shop. It gives me the opportunity to convert parts over to OE and win some business," said Don Cushing, Mopar Masters Guild Treasurer and Wholesale Sales Manager at Tasca Automotive Group in Rhode Island. Mopar Masters Guild Chooses OEC Collisionlink As Preferred Parts Procurement Solution OE Collision Platform Remains Key Component of The Guilds Strategic Growth Plans At their annual meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, the Mopar Masters Guild (MMG), comprised of the countrys leading parts professionals from Fiat Chrysler dealerships, endorsed the CollisionLink solution by OEConnection LLC (OEC), the leading automotive technology provider for original equipment manufacturers (OEM) distribution networks. The Guild met with OEC last week to learn about upcoming product enhancements, and to discuss how the continued relationship between the Guild and OEC can benefit both parties. OEC and the Mopar Masters Guild have a long-standing relationship, spanning the majority of the 18 years OEC has been in operation. Ive been using CollisionLink for over ten years, said Don Cushing, Mopar Masters Guild Treasurer and Wholesale Sales Manager at Tasca Automotive Group in Rhode Island. Its the best tool out there. It enables me to see the entire estimate sent over from a shop. It gives me the opportunity to convert parts over to OE and win some business. Other solutions can leave me out of the sales process. What I appreciate most about CollisionLink is that I know OEC has the dealers best interests in mind, and we know they have our backs. We would prefer all parts platforms integrate with CollisionLink. It really makes our lives easier and it helps with reducing all the costs that come with all the different solutions out there, said Dan Hutton, Mopar Masters Guild Vendor Committee Chairperson for OEC and Fixed Ops Director at Tom OBrien CDJR in Indiana. And shops want to use it. Its the best-in-class of the solutions available today. According to the recent Who Pays for What? survey in CRASH Network and Collision Advice, over three quarters of shops surveyed use CollisionLink. In addition, CollisionLink was selected as the preferred solution by over 40% of shops, which is over three times more than any other parts procurement solution. Weve learned a lot from the Mopar Masters Guild over the years, said Bill Lopez, General Manager, Collision for OEC. We value their relationship and loyalty. We can show true incremental sales while others cant. Having their support is a validation of the value CollisionLink brings to dealers. About OEC OEConnection (OEC) is the leading automotive technology provider for OEM distribution networks, enabling automakers and dealerships around the world to deliver parts and service information quickly and accurately into the hands of repairers in collision, fleet, mechanical and retail segments, as well as their own service lanes, through a suite of parts cataloging, supply chain, pricing, ecommerce, service and business intelligence solutions. OEC serves nearly 50 international auto brands and fleet companies, and more than 150,000 dealership and repair customers worldwide. OEC is headquartered in the greater Cleveland area at 4205 Highlander Parkway, Richfield, Ohio, USA, 44286. Additional information is available at http://www.oeconnection.com or by emailing Kathy Jambor at Kathy.Jambor(at)OEConnection.com. About the Mopar Masters Guild Headquartered in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, the Mopar Masters Guild offers dealers an unrivaled lateral support system to help them identify business trends, changes, and opportunities and to better position themselves for success. Members benefit from access to a network of top Mopar dealerships and industry vendors. For more information about the Mopar Masters Guild, please contact info(at)moparmastersguild.com. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Kathy Jambor 888-776-5792, x1649 Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Rebuilding Median By LaGuardia Kicking off construction of a project to rebuild and beautify the Ditmars Blvd medians between 78th Street and the airport (82nd Street), a press conference... 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... Rantoul, IL (61866) Today Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 31F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 31F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Military court upholds 6-year term for ex-Russian general convicted of corruption / 16:43 31/10/2018 MOSCOW, October 31 (RAPSI) The Moscow Garrison Military Court has upheld a 6-year prison sentence for the former commander-in-chief of the Interior Ministrys internal troops Vyacheslav Varchuk convicted of taking an especially large-scale bribe, the press service of the Main Military Prosecutors Office reports. The sentence has become effective, the statement reads. The Moscow District Military Court convicted and sentenced Varchuk on July 19. The defendant was also fined 20 million rubles ($305,000) and lost his rank of General Lieutenant. The court found that in 2015-2016 the defendant and his alleged accomplice, subordinate officer Alexander Kostin, received a bribe for assistance in additional financing communications department of the Chief Command of Interior Ministrys internal troops. According to the sentence, Varchuk induced Kostin to use the latters power to include 10.5 million rubles ($160,000) to a federal budget. Investigators believe that the defendant wanted to lift suspicions from himself. Kostin admitted guilt, testified against the Lieutenant General and in October 2017 was sentenced to a four-year suspended term. Varchuk himself denied wrongdoing. Prosecutors asked the court to sentence the defendant to 12 years in a high security penal colony. Lieutenant General Vyacheslav Varchuk has acted as Finance chief of the Chief Command of the Interior Ministrys internal troops since December 9, 2002. Russian President fixes fines for rally organization violations RAPSI, Oleg Sivozhelezov 12:03 31/10/2018 MOSCOW, October 31 (RAPSI) Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill introducing fines of up to 100,000 rubles ($1,500) for abuse of right to hold rallies into law. The document has been published on the official website of legal information. Amendments would be issued to the Code of Administrative Offenses. The law envisages penalty for filing a notification of a public event with no intent to hold it, not meeting the requirement to notify authorities about refusal to hold a rally and failure to meet the deadline of filing such a notice. Under the document, these violations would result in fines from 5,000 to 20,000 rubles ($80 - 300) for individuals, from 10,000 to 30,000 rubles ($150 - 500) for officials and from 20,000 to 100,000 rubles ($300 - 1,500) for companies. According to the initiatives authors, cases of abuse of right to hold rallies have become more frequent recently. Such occasions are often incendiary, they believe. ITC will also launch paneer shortly and is also working on cheese and Tetra Pak milk After entering the fresh dairy segment recently in West Bengal and Bihar with the launch of pouch milk and curd, ITC is looking at expanding the range of products. We will enter the milkshake category in the next couple of months and shortly launch paneer. "There are teams working on cheese and Tetra Pak milk categories, said Hemant Malik, its divisional chief executive, food. The milkshake (flavoured milk) category in India is pegged at Rs 1,500 crore annually. ITC is likely to come up with kesar badam and fruit variants. While earlier launches in the dairy segment were under the Aashirvaad brand, the milkshake will be under a different one. It will be manufactured from its Kapurthala plant in Punjab, where ITC has invested Rs 800-1000 crore. Spread across 65 acres, this unit also produces wheat flour, snacks and noodles, among other products. Malik said it would be a pan-India launch. As ITC scales up the dairy business across the country, it is likely to focus on markets where it has core distribution and procurement strengths. These are in Uttar Pradesh (wheat procurement), Madhya Pradesh (soya), Andhra Pradesh (tobacco) and Karnataka. Paneer, however, will be focused at the Bengal-Bihar region. In the fresh dairy segment, the focus will be on Bengal and Bihar, at least in the coming six months. "If we see a larger opportunity and the category expands, we might opt for expansion into other states, said Malik. After 10 years of wait while setting up its back-end and procurement channels, ITC first launched pouch milk and curd at Munger and Patna in Bihar. And, recently in Kolkata, marking its foray into fresh dairy, which requires cold storage channels. In 2015, the company had first forayed into the dairy segment with the launch of ghee under the Aashirvaad Svasti brand in South India. This has been extended to markets in Delhi as well. ITC says the aim is region-specific products, since tastes and preferences differ. Image used for representation purpose only Photograph: Julie Toy/Getty Images The bullish outlook for gold is seen as a trigger for silver to perform better going ahead. Silver has not been delivering positive returns to investors across the globe, prompting them to stay away from the market the past few years. In fact, the precious metal is already down by as much as 14 per cent since January. But all that seems set to change for silver prices in the coming quarters. The fall in demand for the metal, especially from financial market investors going for exchange-traded products, is expected to reduce. Going ahead, expectations of a weak dollar and support from gold will help silver prices recover and the recovery is estimated to be faster than gold. Silver prices usually follow the prices of gold -- as a precious metal -- as well as base metals -- for industrial use, where it has a 55 per cent demand. The bullish outlook for gold is seen as a trigger for silver to perform better going ahead. Prices of the white metal have trailed those of gold, so far this year, in the precious metals space. And the ratio of fall in terms of beta or volatility has been 1:1.37. This means silver has fallen faster than gold, pushing the gold-to-silver price ratio to above 85 recently. Bernard Dahdah, senior commodity analyst at London-based Natixis Commodities, says, The strong correlation with gold, which is currently at 0.84, will help silver prices to benefit from gold rally. "The yellow metal is projected to rise as the US dollar could weaken going ahead. "We see silver prices outperforming gold prices, averaging $16.5/oz in 2019. So far this year, the average price of silver has been $16 per ounce. With the metal currently trading at $14.6-14.7 levels in the international market, it is likely to deliver good returns. The gold-to-silver price ratio is currently 84. The ratio indicates relative performance of both metals and determines the number of ounces of silver that can be bought with one ounce of gold. Silver has weakened by 1.37 times compared to gold in 2018. This means that for ever drop of $1 in gold price, silver has shed $1.37. Dahdah of Natixis says, The same beta will be seen as prices of both precious metals recover, meaning that silver will outperform gold. "This will also bring down gold-silver ratio to 73 next year. Silver is currently trading at above Rs 38,000 a kilogram in India and is likely to rise going ahead, as a falling rupee is expected to prop domestic prices. Kunal Shah, head of commodities at Nirmal Bang Commodities, says, We are bullish on gold and silver going forward, due to looming uncertainties on the geopolitical and monetary policy front. "Gold is expected to test Rs35,000 per 10 gram and silver 43,000 per kilo. He sees looming uncertainties because, the global economy has entered uncharted territory. In India, there is a new dimension to the silver scene. So far, Hindustan Zinc and some metal smelters/refiners have been suppling around 500 tonnes a year of the metal for the past one or two years. The Silver Institute, a global body that provides facts, trends and estimates for the industry, said in the World Silver Survey 2018 released two days ago, In addition to imported bullion, supplies also came from domestically mined and refined silver, metal refined from imported concentrates, and gold and silver dore. "Our estimate is that these together contributed to approximately 717 tonnes. Gold dore imports make up almost 40 per cent of the domestic demand of around 600 tonnes. Apart from producing the yellow metal, the dore also produces silver during the refining process. Such supplies have also increased in 2018 and are slated to rise, going ahead. The report also states that India has seen higher import of the metal in recent months, at 810 tonnes in May, the highest monthly import since May 2015. Even in April, imports were higher at 612 tonnes. Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters 'The CBI should be bifurcated and the CBI's charter should be restricted to anti-corruption cases.' 'The investigation of major criminal cases having national and international implications, and national crimes spread over more than one state may be entrusted to a new national crime bureau,' recommends Dr Madhav Godbole, the former home secretary. Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on assuming charge four years ago, had announced that his government would strive for less government and more governance. Little had he realised that this would be a daunting challenge to fulfil and it would remain one of his important unfulfilled promises. The print and electronic media has created an impression that the present in-fighting between the director and special director of the Central Bureau of Investigation and their levelling charges against each other is the most serious calamity in the CBI's history. But this is far from true. Public memory is phenomenally short. Volumes can be written about the misuse of CBI by successive governments and its high-handed, arbitrary functioning over the years since Independence, except for the years of Jawaharlal Nehru's regime as prime minister. To recapitulate just a few instances: After the Emergency the then CBI director was jailed by a Parliament resolution for having raided and arrested, on the directions of then prime minister Indira Gandhi, four officers of the industry ministry for showing the temerity to collect information about Maruti Udyog set up by Sanjay Gandhi, her wayward son. The Justice Shah Commission of Inquiry into the excesses of the Emergency had observed that the chief of the CBI had lent himself to serve the ends which were 'other than strictly legal, constitutional or moral'. A classic understatement! On return to power in 1980, Indira Gandhi issued orders for withdrawal and destruction of all copies of the Shah Commission reports. This is perhaps the only case in recorded history where a report of the judicial commission of inquiry was destroyed by the successor government. The two recent directors of the CBI are facing serious investigations for corruption charges and conflict of interest. Not long ago, a very senior CBI officer in Delhi was raided on corruption charges and he literally threw out sacks full of high denomination currency notes from his balcony in the high rise building in R K Puram. It was for the first (but certainly not the last) time that Delhi saw a torrential shower of currency notes! A recent news report mentions that at least 26 senior officers in CBI are facing charges of corruption. Misuse of CBI has repeatedly come to public notice. Some prominent cases in this behalf include Bofors, the Commonwealth Games, 2G scam, coal scam and so on. It was the government of the day which was calling the shots, and no political party should be permitted to take a holier than thou attitude. In the present imbroglio too many uneasy questions have arisen. They concern the CBI, the Central Vigilance Commission and the government itself. Why was the special director appointed when there were serious charges against him and the director had brought these to the notice of the government? Why did it take this long to complete the enquiry against the special director? Why were the counter-charges made by the special director against the director not looked into expeditiously? What was the government doing all this time when this in-fighting in CBI was continuing? Was there a need to carry out the coup-like operation in CBI at midnight to send the two officers on compulsory leave? Why was the national security advisor brought in it? Why was the Cabinet secretary sidelined? Why was the background and reputation of the interim director not checked before appointing him in that post when he was also working in the CBI itself? It is difficult to believe that the government was unaware of it. The CVC has also not come out unscathed in this sordid episode. It is not therefore surprising that the Supreme Court has directed that the enquiry against the director and the special director should be overseen by a retired judge of the Supreme Court. I was surprised to read that the government advocate was trying to persuade the court not to insist on it. This was certainly not in keeping with the government's avowed claim that it was trying its utmost to be fair and transparent in the matter. These are disturbing questions when the CBI and the CVC are working directly under the prime minister. Palliatives suggested by high courts and the apex court from time to time have not worked. For example, this 'caged parrot', as described by the Supreme Court, could not be handled by the CVC. Setting up of a high level selection committee for selection of the CBI director has not been successful as seen from the way the incumbent of the post has conducted himself. The much touted hawala case in which the Supreme Court gave a series of directions to give independence and autonomy to the CBI have also not worked. The then chief justice of India, J S Verma, who had presided over the bench and had pronounced the hawala judgment, had himself expressed his deep disappointment at the reluctance of CBI officers to exercise their authority independently. This was when Justice Verma was chairman of the National Human Rights Commission. Answers must be found to this troubling experience. Where do you go from here? The way forward is clear if there is a political will to take it. The important milestones are the following. First, as the estimates committee of Parliament had suggested in its 13th report in 1992, in view of the vast increase in the workload of the CBI, it should be bifurcated and the CBI's charter should be restricted to anti-corruption cases. The investigation of major criminal cases having national and international implications, and national crimes spread over more than one state may be entrusted to a new national crime bureau and it should be placed under the ministry of home affairs. As brought out in my memoirs, Unfinished Inning (1996), I had initiated action in this regard when I was Union home secretary in 1992, but it had to be given up abruptly at the direction of the then prime minister PV Narasimha Rao who did not want any restructuring of the CBI. Second, a new law may be enacted for the CBI. This matter has been under consideration for the last five decades. This will also require a Constitutional amendment for which concurrence of the states will be required. The states have been resisting this proposal due to the misuse of the CBI by the central government over the years by starting investigations against state leaders belonging to political parties opposed to the central government to settle political scores. I have been suggesting for some time that a high level governing board should be created for the CBI consisting of, apart from the prime minister and the concerned central ministers, a few chief ministers, by rotation. This proposal needs to be placed before the inter-state council and its approval obtained. Three, the charter of CBI should be clearly spelt out in the new law so that the CBI's work can be assessed with reference to its charter. Fourth, the CBI director should have a fixed term of three years and he should not be eligible for any employment under the state or central government after retirement. Fifth, the selection of the director should be by a high power selection committee comprising the prime minister, Chief Justice of India or a judge of the Supreme Court nominated by him, Lokpal (when appointed), and the leader of the Opposition (or of the largest party) in the Lok Sabha. Sixth, the CBI should be placed under the Lokpal, when appointed. Till then, it should be under the CVC. Correspondingly, the anti-corruption bureaus in the states should also be placed under the Lokayuktas. Seventh, the law should clearly lay down that the CBI should not be given any exemption from the Right to Information Act. Eighth, the law should provide for social audit of the work of the CBI. For this purpose, there should be a committee comprising jurists, retired judges, public persons, media and persons with experience of administration. The annual report of this committee should be placed before Parliament. The report should, inter alia, cover conviction rate of CBI cases, review of cases closed by the CBI, CBI cases dismissed by the courts during the year, observations made by courts on the working of the CBI, and any other matters concerning the credibility and efficiency of the CBI. This broad approach should also hold good for the new national crime bureau to be set up. The very fact that enacting a central legislation for the CBI has been pending for the last five decades shows that unless there is a strong political will, the conundrum of CBI shall continue forever. Not a very encouraging note on which to end this account of grim reality. Dr Madhav Godbole is a former home secretary and secretary, justice, Government of India. Utkarsh Mishra explains what Sardar Patel thought and said about the RSS. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi offers floral tributes to a portrait of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Photograph: Press Information Bureau What did Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Subhas Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh have in common, despite their multiple differences, and apart from the fact that they all were fighting for a free India? It was the fact that they all despised Hindu nationalists. Anyone saying that they were not on the same page -- even in the face of their glaring differences -- in their opposition to communal forces is being dishonest. Sardar Patel lived and died a Congressman. He was closer to Mahatma Gandhi than Nehru was, and in all respects he was more of a Congressman than Nehru. The irony of ironies, therefore, would be a Hindu nationalist using Sardar Patel to attack the Congress. This is perhaps the most ironical paradox of our times. And, hence, it becomes all the more important to restate what Sardar Patel thought and said about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its activities. Even before Gandhi's assassination, after which he imposed a ban on the RSS, Patel was advising the young men of the country not to follow the path of the Sangh. Speaking in Jaipur on December 17, 1947, Patel said: 'I have received complaints against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. If so many complaints are received, the Sangh should realise that there must be something wrong. I appreciate the enthusiasm of young men, but that should be diverted into constructive channels. 'There is a great deal to be done to make India militarily strong... All that cannot be achieved by the lathis of the Sangh which are being used for breaking the heads of a handful of Muslims. 'If they (the youngsters) follow the path which the Sangh has been following, they would be doing a disservice to the country.' In October 1947, Nehru wrote to Patel about false information being published in Hindu Outlook, a Hindu Mahasabha newspaper, about Nehru, his sister Vijaylakshmi Pandit and Patel. In his letter, Nehru wrote, 'I am enclosing a cutting from the Hindu Outlook of the 21st October... I cannot imagine any person outside the lunatic asylum saying anything like this or believing in it.' Patel replied in strong words, saying 'Hindu Outlook doesn't deserve to exist as a newspaper' and also informed that 'a pre-censorship order' had been passed against the paper. In another letter to Nehru dated May 4, 1948, Patel wrote, 'Thank you for your letter regarding the recrudescence of RSS activities. We have already warned provincial governments about this danger and have asked them to take all appropriate measures. 'We are doing so again. We ourselves have been ever watchful in our centrally administered areas and have not allowed, as far as possible, anything which would have any resemblance to usual RSS activities. 'The main difficulty however is that in some provinces the high courts have been acquitting persons who were arrested in connection with the round-up of RSS men.' On September 11, 1948, Patel wrote to then RSS chief Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar. Though he acknowledged the RSS's 'service to Hindu society', he attacked the RSS workers for 'attacking Mussalmans'. 'Organising Hindus and helping them is one thing, but going in for revenge for its sufferings on innocent and helpless men, women and children is quite another thing,' Patel wrote. 'All their (RSS members) speeches were full communal poison... As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the valuable life of Gandhiji... Under these conditions it became inevitable for the government to take action against the RSS.' And these lines from Patel's letter reveal what the RSS was up to even in the face of the ban: 'We have hoped that after this lapse of time, with full and proper consideration the RSS persons would come to the right path. But from the reports that come to me, it is evident that attempts to put fresh life into their same old activities are afoot.' Once again chastising the RSS in December 1948, Patel said 'the members of the RSS claim to be defenders of Hinduism, but they must know that Hinduism would not be saved by rowdyism'. On February 23, 1949, Patel addressed a gathering in Madras, one of his two speeches whose recording is available on YouTube. Talking about the RSS activities, he said, 'We in the government have been dealing with the RSS movement. They want that Hindu Rajya or Hindu culture should be imposed by force. No government can tolerate this. 'There are almost as many Muslims in this country as in the part that has been partitioned away. We are not going to drive them away. 'I have made them (the RSS people) an open offer: 'Change your plans, give up secrecy, eschew communal conflict, respect the Constitution of India, show your loyalty to the flag and make us believe that we can trust your words'.' In July that year, Patel's address in Travancore contained these memorable lines which are poignantly relevant even today: 'Do not be led away that Hinduism is in danger. Hinduism can never be in danger in India... when I hear some people talking about Hinduism in danger, I feel that they are going a wrong way. 'Do not indulge in scare-mongering for selfish ends. Do not employ wrong methods for catching votes or forming the parties.' These words prove that one cannot be an RSS pracharak and a 'disciple of Sardar Patel' simultaneously. 'Both Nehru and Patel were thorough gentlemen and whatever their differences never disrespected each other.' 'Neither Modi nor Rahul Gandhi has much in them to claim such legacies.' 'They are symptomatic of the sad days that have befallen the nation midwifed and contemplated by Nehru and Patel,' says Mohan Guruswamy. IMAGE: June 9, 1939: Mahatma Gandhi, centre, waits for a car outside Birla House, Bombay, on his return from Rajkot. Waiting with him are Jawaharlal Nehru, second from left, and Vallabhbhai Patel, second from right. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images Narendra Modi inaugurated the giant Sardar Patel statue facing the Narmada dam, 3.2 km away, on the river island called Sadhu Bet near Rajpipla in Gujarat. Standing almost six hundred feet tall, it is the world's tallest statue. The project began in December 2013, and is probably the only achievement the Modi government has to show. The project worth Rs 2,989 crores (Rs 29.89 billion) was won by Larsen and Toubro. Initially, the total cost of the project was estimated to be about Rs 3,001 crore (Rs 30.01 billion) and was paid for by the Government of India. Initially Modi flagged it off as to be built by small contributions and crowd funding, but like all his other projects the means were actually something else. IMAGE: Sardar Patel speaks on All India Radio, November 14, 1949, appealing for cooperation with the government in tiding over the then economic crisis. Photograph: Kind courtesy PIB/Instagram The statue was as much a bold assertion of Gujarati nationalism as it was to give Narendra Modi a political lineage to distinguish him from the parent RSS which sat out the freedom movement. Please note he didn't build a statue of Guru Golwalkar or Deendayal Upadhyaya or even V D Savarkar. Or for that matter even Subhas Chandra Bose who still has a far bigger imprint on our minds than Vallabhbhai Patel ever did. After Modi's brazen attempt to draw political sustenance from the memory of Sardar Patel, an unseemly argument has broken out between the Congress and BJP over who are the true inheritors of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's legacy. That the BJP's not so disguised attempt to arrogate it for itself in a bid to give itself a nationalist movement genealogy is a tawdry attempt to rewrite history. What Sardar Patel thought of the RSS is a matter of record. He minced no words about what he thought of it -- that it was fascist and narrow minded, and was responsible for the climate of hatred that led to Gandhiji's assassination. In a letter on July 18, 1948, after Gandhi's murder, the Sardar wrote to Syama Prasad Mukherjee, who would later found the Jan Sangh: 'As a result of the activities of these two bodies [the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha], particularly the former, an atmosphere was created in the country in which such a ghastly tragedy became possible.' 'There is no doubt in my mind the extreme section of the Hindu Mahasabha was involved in this conspiracy. The activities of the RSS constituted a clear threat to the existence of the Government and the State.' IMAGE: Portrait of the Indian interim government: Left to right: Sarat Chandra Bose, Jagjivan Ram, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel, Asaf Ali, Jawaharlal Nehru and Syed Ali Zaheer outside the council room at the Viceroy's House, now Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi, September 2, 1946. Photograph: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images The RSS now has the government, but it still presents a clear and present danger to the original idea of India, as an inclusive, egalitarian nation united by a Constitution and a shared purpose. Modi has invested hugely in creating the illusion that the Congress party's preferred leader was the Sardar and that Nehru was imposed on it. Nehru became PM because he was by far the Congress's most popular politician, after Gandhiji. Nehru was the party's star campaigner, captivating people with his soaring oratory and easy communication style in Hindustani. Patel might have had a firm grip on the Congress organisation, but he was far behind Nehru in popularity and charisma. Patel himself conceded this at a massively attended Congress rally in Bombay when he told the celebrated American author and journalist Vincent Sheehan, 'They come for Jawahar, not for me.' Patel's realism was the hallmark of his politics and that made him the perfect foil to Nehru's idealism. It is also well known that the Congress had little time for the Sardar's legacy till Narendra Modi tried to don it. But the Congress's attempt to rediscover the Sardar's legacy and claim exclusive rights over it is also no less tawdry. Even when L K Advani tried, it was not taken seriously. But like the Sardar, Modi too is a Gujarati and that has a certain resonance in that state. We know how strongly Modi feels about the Gujarati identity. His unwillingness to insure the Asiatic lion against extinction by translocating a few prides emanates from this. IMAGE: Sardar Patel visits Calcutta in January 1948. Photograph: Kind courtesy PIB/Instagram It is well known that there were serious differences between Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel. It was less a clash of personalities as it was a clash of ideologies. The Sardar espoused a more robust and practical nationalism, and laissez faire economic policies. Nehru wanted to dismantle the colonial bureaucratic system, but Patel wanted to retain the centralised civil service structure, the price for which we are still paying. Nehru was more internationalist, more leftist than realist, and preferred central planning to free market policies. Their policy inclinations were as different as chalk and cheese. But both were patriots tempered by the nationalist movement and both were popular leaders of the Congress rank and file, and the nation as a whole. IMAGE: Sardar Patel during the Independence Day session of the Constituent Assembly, August 15, 1947. Photograph: Kind courtesy PIB/Instagram Above all, both were thorough gentlemen and whatever their differences never disrespected each other and subverted each other with factional intrigue. They preferred a moderation in language that would now been seen as a sign of weakness. They preferred to conciliate rather than divide. It is also well known that after the death of Sardar Patel, something akin to a purge took place in the Congress and the Congress leaders who preferred to support the policies and politics espoused by the Sardar were shown their place or shown the door. The party donned socialist colours and its transformation was complete. With this physical purge, the intellectual purge of the Congress party also gathered pace, and Sardar Patel was practically airbrushed out of the Congress pantheon. For all practical purposes Sardar Patel became anathema for the Congress party, particularly after the advent of Indira Gandhi. It's another matter that after its ideological peregrinations for half a century, the Congress party returned to the very same laissez faire economics favoured by Patel and rejected by Nehru. IMAGE: Sardar Patel with Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew, former president of the Punjab provincial Congress committee in New Delhi, November 18, 1949. Photograph: Kind courtesy PIB/Instagram Congress leaders who now claim to be legatees of Sardar Patel would hardly know of him and what he stood for. For a start their language is different. Those days they belonged to a very different school of politics. Politics was about policies and grand ideas. To qualify in politics nowadays, one has to be a graduate of the school for scoundrels, where sycophancy and personality worship are the main attainments needed. Sardar Patel had a thriving law practice he abandoned to heed the Mahatma's call, Jawaharlal Nehru was a superbly educated and highly evolved personality, and politics to him was a calling not an occupation. Neither Narendra Modi nor Rahul Gandhi has much in them to claim such legacies. They are symptomatic of the sad days that have befallen the nation midwifed and contemplated by Nehru and Patel. 'Most Indians know very little about Patel which is a great shame.' IMAGE: Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel being sworn in as a Cabinet minister by President Rajendra Prasad, January 30, 1950. Photograph: Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi unveiled the Statue of Unity dedicated to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the tallest statue in the world, on October 31, the 143rd birth anniversary of Free India's first home minister. Modi often reiterates that Sardar Patel was not given his due as the Congress kept 'glorifying only one family' after Independence, even as historians and the Opposition often highlight the fact that it was Patel who banned the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh after Mahatma Gandhi's assassination and that he was always critical of Hindu nationalists. Hindol Sengupta, whose book on Sardar Patel, The Man Who Saved India, was released recently, believes that "Patel needed a significant public tribute and this particular government has chosen to give it in the form of this statue." "One party left the legacy of Patel in the dust, giving another party the chance to pick it up," Sengupta tells Rediff.com's Utkarsh Mishra. You start your book by talking about the state of Sardar Patel's house in Nadiad. Do you think instead of spending so much on the Statue of Unity, the government should have uplifted the residence into a Teen Murti-like memorial? This is like asking should the United States government have made a hospital in (Abraham) Lincoln's name instead of building the Lincoln Memorial. There can be no real answer to this. The only relevant answer is that Patel needed a significant public tribute and this particular government has chosen to give it in the form of this statue. Considering it took India till 1991 to give Patel a Bharat Ratna, which is quite shameful, a worthy tribute was long awaited. It is often said -- and you also write in your book -- that people know a lot about Gandhi and Nehru, but not about Patel. But do they really know Gandhi and Nehru? If they did, why is it so easy to malign these two men today? People believe just about anything said about them, especially about Nehru. I remember a line by Aatish Taseer in a New York Ttimes article, 'Nehru is one of those people I thought I knew without ever feeling the need to read'. We definitely know far more about Gandhi and Nehru than many other figures, especially Patel. Even if you compare the number of books that have been written and are still being written about Gandhi and Nehru to what has been written about Patel, it is negligible. This is why I wrote The Man Who Saved India because so little is known about Patel. Overall, Indians lack historical knowledge about their own country -- one of the biggest missing links is historical figures of the national movement beyond Gandhi and Nehru, and, of course, ancient India, about which most people know nothing. The prime minister, in his speeches, says leaders like Sardar Patel and Subhas Chandra Bose were 'forgotten' to 'glorify one family'. Would it be proper to say that they were 'forgotten'? Yes, they don't have as many schemes named after them as individuals from 'the family' have, but in the past decade or so, I think the personality most remembered or celebrated is Dr B R Ambedkar. Statistically it would not be true that the number of schemes is the same or around the same. So especially for Patel, most Indians know very little about him, which is a great shame because there would have been no India without Patel. Ambedkar has a political constituency and therefore he has been discussed a little more. But even with Ambedkar, most Indians would not be able to really give much details about his life and work apart from writing the Constitution. Like 'Gandhian' and 'Nehruvian' have their specific meanings, what do you mean when you say 'Patelian'? Can this government be called a 'Patelian' government, considering its economic, foreign and security policies? Considering the word Patelian only appeared with the publication of The Man Who Saved India, it is too early to decide which government is Patelian. But a Patelian idea of India is quite simple -- it is a small but strong State with a focus on a market-driven economy and a strong focus on national security. While Patel is largely known as a leader of farmers, you demonstrate in your book how he was also a friend of industry. What economic path would India have taken had Patel been the first prime minister? Could it have been very different from Nehruvian socialism? There is no doubt that Patel preferred the markets and not socialism. He spoke quite openly against socialism. He wanted Indian industry to flourish. He wanted Indian enterprises to grow and Indian goods to compete with the best in the world. He did not want excessive government ownership of enterprise. The RSS never tried to appropriate Patel the way the current dispensation is doing. How do you see the attempts of the Modi government pitching leaders like Patel and Bose -- who were as much against Hindu nationalists or Hindu Rashtra -- against Nehru? You have said in your book that glorification of Patel should not be seen as vilification of Nehru. But that's exactly what this government is doing, isn't it? I cannot comment on any government. But I shall only say that one party left the legacy of Patel in the dust and therefore giving another party the chance to pick it up. Now whether and to what extent each of them has done justice to Patel's legacy is still to be decided. Time will tell. Given his militant nationalism and popularity among the youth, including the armed revolutionaries, as you also have noted, Nehru should be the first favourite of the 'nationalists' today. But he is not. Is it only because his descendants ruled almost all along and still head the principal Opposition party? If Patel's children or grandchildren were in the same place, then the Hindu right today would be vilifying Patel instead of Nehru. Do you agree? I don't understand the reference to 'militant nationalism' as far as Nehru is concerned. Nehru had some support in the Left wing of the Congress. But only Subhas (Chandra) Bose was the major Congress leader who can be described as having taken a turn towards militant or radical nationalism. Nehru, Patel... they all continued to support Gandhian non-violence overarchingly. The rest of the question is contrarian history and no serious writer of history can answer questions on the basis of imaginary scenarios. History is the study, remember, of what has already happened, preferably long ago. Not what we imagine could have happened. Swept away by the 'Hindu vote tsunami' in 2014, the Congress is now making all efforts not to appear 'anti-Hindu'. Party president Rahul Gandhi is on an overdrive to visit temples. In this respect, can the legacy of leaders like Patel, C Rajagopalachari or K M Munshi help the Congress? These leaders never shied away from being identified as practising Hindus. They were confident of their religion and it is because of this confidence that the Hindutva brigade could never succeed in branding them 'anti-Hindu' as it can do with today's Congress. I can't comment on today's politics -- please remember no serious writer of history makes broad and generalised connections between history and contemporary news headlines -- but there is no doubt that Patel was not shy of his Hindu identity. After all, it was he who pushed for the rebuilding of the Somnath temple, a task completed after his death by K M Munshi. You have given a detailed account of Hindu-Muslim conflict in India, leading finally to Partition. But Patel was among the first leaders of the Congress to accept Partition. Why does the blame then single-handedly fall on Nehru? Is this a side effect of being more popular? Not sure who is 'single-handedly blaming Nehru' for Partition. Certainly not me. As I show in my book, Partition is the result of a complex set of issues and certainly the roots of the two-nation theory needs to be taken into account to understand this. Patel was not 'among the first leaders of the Congress' to accept Partition. In fact, he did all he could to stop it. He was just wise enough to see before many others that the situation might take a turn for the worse which might force the hand of the Congress. Which is what happened. The incidents of 1946 when Nehru became Congress president are presented differently at different places. Mr Modi told Parliament that '15 of 16 Provincial Congress Committees voted for Patel but Nehru was elected'. You have extensively quoted Durga Das's book while narrating those incidents in your book and Das clearly writes that J B Kriplani 'lobbied to get Nehru elected by the CWC'. Maulana Azad also writes in India Wins Freedom that Nehru was elected 'unanimously'. What exactly happened? And should Nehru or Gandhi be 'blamed' for it? There is little doubt that there was overwhelming support from the provincial Congress committees for the candidature of Patel and when Gandhi put this question to Nehru, he remained silent, suggesting that this would not be acceptable to him. Therefore, Gandhi turned to Patel, and as always Patel sacrificed. This is what happened and relations between Nehru and Patel never really reached a complete peaceful stage from that point onwards. Patel may have not held this against Gandhi, but he certainly took a more independent stance from this point on. IMAGE: Deputy Superintendent of Police Devender Kumar after being produced at Patiala House Court in New Delhi. Photograph: Arun Sharma/PTI Photo A Delhi court on Wednesday granted bail to Central Bureau of Investigation deputy superintendent of police Devender Kumar arrested in connection with bribery allegations involving the agency's Special Director Rakesh Asthana. Special CBI Judge Santosh Snehi Mann granted the relief to Kumar and asked him to furnish a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and a surety of like amount. The CBI did not oppose his bail petition. In his bail application, Kumar had termed his custody "illegal" and urged the court to set him free. The application also said Kumar was ready to abide by the conditions imposed by the court while granting him bail. Kumar and Asthana have already challenged the legality of the FIR filed against them. Besides them, two alleged middlemen -- Manoj Prasad and Somesh Prasad -- have also been named as accused in the case. The agency had earlier told the court that Kumar had tried to fabricate evidence during the investigation in another case. Kumar had claimed that he was falsely implicated in the case and that he was a victim of rivalry among the senior officers of the central probe agency. He had said he was investigating a case against meat exporter Moin Qureshi, in which the complainant in the present case -- Sathish Babu Sana -- was a suspect and the names of some past and present senior CBI officers had surfaced. Kumar had claimed that his arrest in the present case was motivated to stall the investigation in the case against Qureshi and that there was no direct allegation against him. If convicted, the accused may get a maximum 10-year jail term in the case. The FIR in the current case was lodged on the basis of a written complaint from Sana on October 15, wherein it was alleged that Kumar, being the IO in the case against Qureshi, was repeatedly calling the complainant to the CBI office to harass him and compel him to pay a bribe of Rs 5 crore for getting a clean chit in the case. The complaint had also said a part of the bribe was paid by Sana. IMAGE: Congress President Rahul Gandhi with former prime minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi release arrows from bow for the burning of Ravan during Dussehra celebrations at Red Fort in New Delhi. Photograph: PTI Photo Pitching for building a Ram temple in Ayodhya at the earliest, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Wednesday said the government should enact a law to acquire the land for the construction, just like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had rebuilt the Somnath temple in Gujarat. The RSS also urged the Centre to fulfil the "promise" made in 1994 by the then Congress government in the Supreme Court, saying it had agreed at that time to side with the Hindu community if an evidence was found of a pre-existing temple, before it was razed to build the Babri Masjid. Talking to reporters, RSS sah sarkaryavah (joint general secretary) Manmohan Vaidya said the issue of building a Ram temple at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh was not just limited to the Hindu and Muslim communities. He was addressing the media after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat inaugurated the Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal Baithak of the organisation at Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini in Bhayander. "The Ram temple is a matter of self-respect and pride. Like Sardar Patel had rebuilt the Somnath temple...the government should acquire the land for the construction of the Ram Temple and hand it over for its construction. The government should enact a law for this," Vaidya said, replying to a question. His comments came two days after the Supreme Court delayed the hearings in the Ayodhya land dispute case by setting the first week of January for the hearing dates to be decided. The Supreme Court Monday said an appropriate bench would start hearing the matters related to the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute from January next year, triggering demands within the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the RSS for a law for an early construction of the temple on the disputed site. The Congress has said all parties should abide by the court verdict. "The court has said a mosque is not mandatory for namaz and the prayers can be performed on the streets as well. Besides, namaz is not accepted if it is performed on a forcibly acquired land. The court has also said that this (acquiring of land) was not a religious deed," Vaidya said. He claimed that in 1994, during the Congress rule, the solicitor general had submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court, stating that the government would side with the sentiments of the Hindu community if an evidence was found of a razed temple, where the mosque was built. "Now, we have the evidence...Also, this issue has long been pending in the court without a decision. The issue is now only that of acquiring the land and handing it over for the construction of the temple," Vaidya said. The RSS leader said the issue was no more limited to Hindus and Muslims or a temple or a mosque, but about the restoration of the pride of the country. "The government should now fulfil the promise made in 1994," he added. The Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute is a centuries-old point of a tussle between Hindus and Muslims. The mosque was demolished by Hindu karsevaks on December 6, 1992 in Ayodhya, following which the country witnessed massive riots in which over 2,000 people were killed. On the unveiling of Sardar Patel's statue -- the tallest in the world -- by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat earlier in the day, Vaidya took a dig at the Congress, saying politics should not be played over it. The country was proud of Patel's achievements, he said, adding, "The Congress has the habit of criticising everything, but they cannot prove anything. This is an issue of national pride. Sardar Patel had played a big role in uniting the country after Independence and therefore, he was known as the Iron Man." Patel's statue would inspire the youth, Vaidya said. IMAGE: People distribute with sweets in Meerut on Wednesday after Delhi high court sentenced 16 ex-policemen to life imprisonment in 1987 Hashimpura massacre case. Photograph: PTI Photo The families of the 1987 Hashimpura massacre victims could not hold back tears on Wednesday after the Delhi high court sentenced 16 ex-policemen to life imprisonment for killing 38 people from the Muslim community. The high court verdict, which reversed the acquittal of the men from Uttar Pradesh's PAC, brought relief to some. But others felt that the life term awarded to them was not enough. Zulfikar, an eyewitness in the case, alleged that after the massacre, they were harassed not just by the police but also the state government. "The police and the government always tried to weaken this case, but we were not deterred and continued fighting. Finally, justice has been done today," he said. "It would have given us more relief if the accused had been sentenced to death," Zulfikar added. He said they will fight the case even if it goes to the Supreme Court. The killings took place 31 years ago. A little over a month after communal riots broke out in Meerut on April 14, 1987, the PAC and Army personnel carried out searches in Hashimpura and some other Meerut localities. The PAC personnel allegedly shot dead 38 men from Hashimpura and dumped their bodies into Muradnagar Gang nahar and the Hindon river. Zulfikar, Babbudin, Mujib-ur-Rehman, Mohammed Usman and Nayeem survived the massacre on May 22, Hashimpura residents said. Usman said people were picked up by the military from their homes on the pretext of a search operation and handed over to the PAC. "We were six brothers and our father. Fifty men were picked up in the evening, the children were spared, and were taken away in a PAC truck," he said, showing a bullet mark on his back. Expressing some disappointment over the court's verdict, he said, "It would have been far better if those evil people were sentenced to death." Zarina lost her husband Zahir Ahmed and son Javed. "I have counted the days since the massacre. My husband and son were killed by police personnel. I had a four-day-old son in my lap then. The accused should have been awarded death sentence," she said. Jamaluddin, who lost his son Kamruddin in the massacre said, "Never before have I seen or heard of such a long fight for justice. We got justice after a long fight. The trial court's order, which acquitted the accused, only rubbed salt on our wounds." Nasim Bano and Amir Fatima shudder when they recall the day when their brother, Siraj, was killed. They said their family was ruined. Their father died of grief, their mother became mentally unstable and though she was cured, she too died soon after. With the family's breadwinners taken away, the four sisters survive on whatever little they earn by stitching clothes. Nineteen people were named as accused in the case and charges were framed against 17 of them for offences of murder, attempt to murder, tampering with evidence and conspiracy, by the court here in 2006. Of the 17 accused, 16 were acquitted while one died during the trial. The trial court acquitted the 16 surviving accused in March 2015 giving them benefit of the doubt regarding their identities. This decision was challenged in the high court by the victims' families and eyewitnesses who survived the incident. The high court termed the massacre "targeted killing" of unarmed people by the police. Over three decades after the Hashimpura massacre in Uttar Pradesh in which 38 Muslims were shot dead in cold blood, the Delhi high court on Wednesday sentenced 16 former policemen to life imprisonment, holding it was a "targeted killing" of "unarmed, innocent and defenceless" persons. Photograph: Uttam Ghosh/ Rediff.com IMAGE: A survivor of the Hashimpura massacre shows the bullet wound he received on the night of May 22, 1987, when the PAC shot him. Reversing an order of the trial court in 2015 that acquitted the 16 personnel, who were with the Provincial Armed Constabulary, a bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel termed the case as an instance of custodial killing where the legal system was unable to effectively prosecute the perpetrators of gross human rights abuses. The court also said it was conscious that for the families of those killed, this was perhaps "too little, too late" as they have had to wait for 31 years for justice. Zulfikar Nasir, an eyewitness to the massacre, alleged that the police and government always tried to weaken this case but said the families of the victims were not deterred and continued fighting. "Finally justice has been done today. It would have given us more relief if the accused had been sentenced to death," he said. Around 42 to 45 Muslim men, old and young, were rounded up by the PAC from Hashimpura area in Meerut city on May 22, 1987 and taken away into the armed force's truck, the court noted. The victims were shot at two different locations by the PAC personnel with .303 rifles and the bodies were thrown into two canals -- Gang nahar and Hindon river, it said. During the hearings, it was stated by the counsels before the high court that in all 42 persons were killed. But the court in its 73-page judgement concluded that 38 were killed while five survived to recount the horrific tale. The dead bodies of just 11 of them were able to be identified later by their relatives while the remaining bodies were not recovered, it said. "This was a case of a targeted killing revealing an institutional bias within the law enforcement agents in this case," it said, lamenting the manner in which the law enforcement officials have "frustrated" the cause of justice by weeding out important records. "The prolongation of the trial for over two decades, compounded by the endemic systemic delays, have frustrated the attempts at securing effective justice for the victims," the court said and directed the convicts to surrender by November 22, failing which the SHO concerned will immediately take them into custody. It said a "disturbing" aspect of the case was the targeted killings of persons belonging to one minority community and it involved the abduction of 42 to 45 persons and killing of 38 of them soon after the incident of riots in which two rifles of the PAC were allegedly taken away by the rioters. "It points to the disproportionate reaction by the PAC in targeting the members of the minority community. The court is therefore unable to accept the submission on behalf of the accused that the motive for the commission of the crime was not proved," it added. The 16 former cops were held guilty for the offences of murder, kidnapping, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence under the IPC and the life terms effectively means they will be behind bars for the remainder of their natural life. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 30,000 each on the 16 convicts who all have retired from service. The verdict came on the appeals filed by the UP government, National Human Rights Commission, survivors and victims' families against the trial court verdict on March 21, 2015. The case was transferred to Delhi on a Supreme Court direction in September 2002 following a petition by the families of the massacre victims and survivors. "In arriving at this conclusion, we have also relied on the additional evidence recorded, which was not available to the trial court. We hold that this was targeted killing by armed forces of the unarmed, innocent and defenceless members of a particular community," the bench said in its verdict. The court further said the monetary compensation the families of the victims have received cannot make up for the lives lost and this case pointed to the systemic failure that results, not infrequently, in a miscarriage of justice. Senior advocate Rebecca John, representing the victims, said they have received over Rs 1 lakh each in compensation. Holding that the deaths of the victims were "custodial deaths", the court said although they were not taken to an enclosed place by the PAC, they were unlawfully detained, kept in a PAC truck and taken to two places and asked to keep their heads down and not allowed to move. "This leads this court to conclude that they were kept in unlawful custody by the accused purporting to discharge their official functions when in fact they were clearly acting illegally," it said. According to the then superintendent of police of Ghaziabad, Vibhuti Narain Rai, who conducted initial probe into the killings, the Hashimpura episode is a "sordid saga of the relations between the Indian State and minorities, the amoral attitude of the police and a frustratingly sluggish judicial system" Rai said that horrifying night of May 22 in the humid summer of 1987 still weighs heavy on his conscience. "And the subsequent days, similarly, are etched in my memory like as if on stone - it was something that overpowered the cop in me. The Hashimpura experience continues to torment me," he says. A Turkish prosecutor on Wednesday said that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and his body was "dismembered and destroyed". "In accordance with plans made in advance, the victim, Jamal Khashoggi, was strangled to death immediately after entering the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 for marriage formalities," said a statement from the office of Istanbul chief prosecutor Irfan Fidan. "The victim's body was dismembered and destroyed following his death by suffocation -- again, in line with advance plans," it added. The revelations came just hours after Saudi Arabia's chief prosecutor left Istanbul, and the Turkish prosecutor's office said it was "obliged" to reveal the details after the talks produced "no concrete results". Gruesome reports in the Turkish media had previously alleged that Khashoggi, a 59-year-old Washington Post contributor critical of the powerful Saudi crown prince, had been killed and cut into pieces by a team sent from Riyadh to silence him. His body has not been found. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged the Saudi regime to reveal the location of Khashoggi's body and who ordered the hit. Erdogan has also called on Riyadh reveal the identity of local "co-conspirators" that media reports claimed had disposed of Khashoggi's body. Khashoggi, a former royal family insider turned critic of the Saudi crown prince, disappeared after he entered the consulate on October 2 to collect a document for his upcoming marriage. Following a global outrage, the Saudi government in a statement acknowledged that Khashoggi was killed in a fistfight inside the consulate and noted that an interrogation went wrong. The incident has severely dented the international reputation of the Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Aveek Sen reports. IMAGE: A tweet by the police chief of Perak state in Malaysia confirming the Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative's arrest.(Click on image to read full letter) A 31-year-old Pakistani national has been arrested in Malaysia's Perak province on charges that he underwent terrorist training at a Lashkar-e-Tayiba camp before he arrived in Malaysia in August 2016. According to the statement tweeted by the police chief of Perak state, the Pakistani national was employed as a labourer in Perak. Two Malaysians, an Egyptian and another national from the Middle-East were also arrested along with the Pakistani national in counter-terrorism swoops conducted across four Malaysian states, police chief Fuzi Harun said on Wednesday. The Egyptian had allegedly met Osama bin Laden and was based in Afghanistan from 1988 to 1993. The Malaysians were arrested for allegedly sending funds to a Malaysian member of ISIS in Syria. In a landmark verdict, Pakistans Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Christian woman facing execution for blasphemy. Asia Bibi was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. She always maintained her innocence, but has spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement. Her case has been deeply divisive in Pakistan where there is strong support for the blasphemy laws. The apex court, in a three-member bench led by chief justice Saqib Nisar, issued the verdict on Wednesday morning, three weeks after they had reached a decision. The delay followed threats by blasphemy campaigners to hold protests. Her conviction is set aside and she is to be relieved forthwith if not required in other charges, said Nisar, reading out the judgment. There was tight security in the capital, Islamabad, amid fears of violence. Bibi was accused of committing blasphemy in 2009. She was convicted in 2010 by the trial court and her death sentence was maintained by the Lahore high court in 2014. She appealed against the conviction to the Supreme Court, which for the first time heard the case in July 2015. Bibis case gained prominence when former governor of Pakistans Punjab province Salman Taseer was killed in 2011 for supporting her and criticising the blasphemy laws. The blasphemy laws were promulgated by former military dictator Ziaul Haq in 1980s. A person convicted under these laws is given death sentence. Critics say strict blasphemy laws have often been used to get revenge after personal disputes, and that convictions are based on thin evidence. Dozens of people have been charged under the laws. Though, Bibi is being released there are fears that she might be at risk of being attacked by militants. Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday mocked Congress president Rahul Gandhi, saying he keeps repeating things like a stuck gramophone but people would not accept his "childish" claims and "lies" against the government as they make "fun" of such remarks. With campaign for assembly elections in five states under way and the Lok Sabha polls less than six months away, he stressed on his development plank during a video interaction with BJP workers, asking them to go to people with a three-point agenda -- development, fast development and development for all. To a question from a worker as to how they should respond to opposition leaders' "abuses" like calling him a scorpion -- an apparent reference to Congress leader Shashi Tharoor's recent remarks, Modi said they were offering him what they had. He was glad, the prime minister said, that he was of any use to them as it allows them to vent their anger and spend their time "happily" with their family members in evening. Citing an anonymous RSS functionary's comments to a journalist, Tharoor had said that Modi was like a scorpion sitting on a Shivlinga which can neither be removed from hand nor hit with a chappal. Modi, however, made fun of Gandhi when a party worker asked him as to how they should respond to the Congress president's comments in his rallies that there should be mobile manufacturing factories in the areas he visits. "There used to be gramophone records earlier. At times, it would get stuck and play same words again and again. There are some people like it. One thing occupies their mind and they keep repeating it. You should enjoy it. Don't get tensed," he told BJP workers. These people don't know that time has changed and they should not treat people as fools, Modi said, adding that nobody accepts such childish remarks. People make fun of it, he said. India has become a leading manufacturer of mobiles with over 100 factories producing them now under his government compared to only two that existed when he came to power in 2014, Modi said. He wondered if mobile was invented after he became prime minister as he attacked the previous government. Modi also targeted Gandhi without naming him over his recent criticism of the central government on the issue of One Rank One Pension for ex-servicemen. Congress governments were in power for decades and soldiers kept demanding OROP, he said, adding that they were not even heard. Since his government has implemented it so his rivals were concerned over ex-servicemen's "love" for him and repeating "lies after lies", he said. Modi claimed that "lies" of Congress leaders against the BJP and its governments on certain issues indicated his dispensation's success as he referred to his "digital India" campaign which, he added, had made lives easier for crores of people by letting them avail of government benefits sitting at home. Opposition leaders offered him abuses as this is what they had, he said, exhorting BJP workers to spread the "qualities" the party is known for -- love, hard work and sacrifice. The more dirt they throw at the BJP, the more lotus (BJP's electoral symbol) will bloom, he said. He asked BJP workers in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan to inform the masses about the development works the party's government had done in these states and also told them to remind the people about the poor governance when the opposition was in power. Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the two states where the BJP has been in power for 15 years, are no longer "bimaru" (sick) states, he said, adding that all the three states have reached new heights of development under the party's rule. He also asked the party's workers to run a campaign asking people to donate anywhere between Rs 5 and Rs 1,000 to the BJP through the Narendra Modi app. Modi described the statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, which he had inaugurated in Gujarat earlier in the day, as a work that will make coming generations proud. The current generation may not evaluate it, he said, adding that people now appreciate the enormity of Patel's work of uniting the country at a time when quarrels erupt over small issues such as language and food. The prime minister also spoke about his joy at seeing his dream realised following the inauguration of the statue. While opposition parties treated the poor like a vote bank, the BJP believed in empowering them so that they can pull themselves out of poverty, he said. The prime minister asked workers to popularise government schemes and its benefits through the use of mobile technology. He told booth workers to compare the achievements of his government with the past governments in terms of welfare of people through initiatives such as houses constructed, new electricity and gas connections provided, and new infrastructure built. 'The Naxals started firing indiscriminately.' 'The whole jungle echoed with the sound of bullets.' 'The only thing I heard from that side was 'Chhodna kisi ko nahi (don't let anyone escape)'.' 'We have come under a terrorist attack. We came to Dantewada to cover the election and the army was with us, when suddenly Naxalites surrounded us.' 'Mummy, if I survive this incident, I just want you to know that I love you very much. Chances are that I will be killed in this attack. The situation is not right.' Mormukut Sharma, an assistant cameraman at Doordarshan, recorded the above heartbreaking message and posted it on Twitter after he and two of his colleagues were attacked by Maoists while they were trying to reach a village in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, for election coverage. In the subsequent firing, his colleague Achyutanand Sahu were killed along with two Central Reserve Police Force troopers. For Sharma, his survival is nothing short of a miracle. He tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com about the horror that he experienced. "My team and I reached Raipur on October 26 and left for Dantewada the next day. I have been to Chhattisgarh on several occasions. I have also worked in places like Gadchiroli and Lalgarh (both Naxalite-affected areas in Maharashtra and West Bengal respectively). We were informed that elections were going to be conducted for the first time ever in a small village situated 50 km away from Dantewada. Sensing a good story there, we went to cover it and were accompanied by 150 policemen. The place was infested with Naxals, but when we saw so many policemen accompanying us there was little to fear for us. When reached there we discovered the village was 3 km away from the main road. Hence, we abandoned our vehicles and got onto bikes that the police provided us. Again, we weren't too afraid as each of us was accompanied by a CRPF jawan. Making our way to the village, we noticed that the Naxals had put up posters and banners on trees demanding that the election be boycotted by all in the village. We were just 200 metres away from the village when suddenly a volley of bullets zipped past us. None of us could understand what was happening. It was at that very moment that my friend and DD's video journalist Achyutanand Sahu died along with one jawan (later identified as Constable Mangalu). I jumped onto the other side of the road. Before doing so, I saw the Naxalites hiding in the bushes and firing indiscriminately. Sub-inspector Rudra Pratap retaliated, but he soon fell to the bullets and was martyred. After that, the Naxals started firing indiscriminately. The whole jungle echoed with the sound of bullets. I lay on the ground like a dead body. If I had raised even one finger they would have shot me. WATCH: Sharma's touching message to his mom Video: Kind courtesy @DDNewsLive/Twitter I thought I was going to die in two minutes. I recited shlokas from the Gita. We had only three jawans who were fighting, of which two had been killed. I then shot a video for my mother as I thought that would be my last video. If the situation wasn't dire enough, red ants started to climb up my body and to worsen the situation I was feeling very thirsty. My throat was dry and I was asking for water as I was feeling I would die of dehydration. At that moment, I realised that if I got up to ask for water I would be a dead man. I told myself that if I wanted to live I would have to lie down like a dead man and let the ants bite me and I would have to bear it. For 40 minutes the ants kept biting me. I was dying of thirst, but I did not move. I just told myself not to give up. After 40 minutes, the firing stopped and only then did I dream of getting off the ground. When I finally got the courage to stand up, all I could see were the trees around me completely destroyed by bullets. I don't know how many Naxalites were there, but they were present in big numbers. The only thing I heard from that side was 'Chhodna kisi ko nahi (don't let anyone escape).' I then went to see Sahu's body; it was very frightening. It is a very sad state of affairs that Doordarshan does not provide us with insurance. It is sadder that they are saying Sahu is not their employee. This is a truly sad state of journalism." William Hill PLC (WMH.L), a gambling company, on Wednesday announced a recommended public cash offer to buy Mr Green & Co AB. The company offers 69 Swedish kronor in cash per share in MRG. The total offer value for all shares in MRG amounts to approximately 2.82 billion kronor. The offer represents a premium of 48.5 percent compared to the closing price on October 30, the last trading day before the announcement of the Offer. It also represents a premium of 61.7 percent compared to the average of the last 30 days prior to October 30. The board of directors of MRG recommends the Offer for acceptance by the shareholders of MRG. Shareholders in MRG, representing in aggregate 40.04 percent of the stock have undertaken to accept the offer. MRG is a fast-growing, innovative iGaming group with operations in 13 and brands including Mr Green and Redbet. MRG holds remote gambling licences in Denmark, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Great Britain and Ireland. The company expects to obtain Swedish licences by year end. Philip Bowcock, William Hill PLC Chief Executive Officer, said, "This proposed acquisition accelerates the diversification of William Hill - immediately making us a more digital and more international . MRG will provide William Hill with an international hub in Malta with market entry expertise and strong growth momentum in a number of European countries. William Hill will move from a single brand to a suite of brands that can maximise growth opportunities moving forward in new and existing markets." For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Republican Congressman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., has climbed into the lead in a key Senate race in Tennessee, according to the results of a NBC News/Marist poll. The poll showed Blackburn with a 51 percent to 46 percent lead over former Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen among likely Tennessee voters. The latest results reflect a turnaround from a NBC/Marist poll conducted in late August showing Bredesen edging Blackburn by 48 percent to 46 percent. Blackburn has a narrower 49 percent to 46 percent lead over Bredesen among a larger group of registered voters, although that still reflects a notable reversal from the previous poll. While 7 percent of likely voters are either undecided or may change their mind before Election Day, Blackburn holds a significant 11-point lead among the 35 percent of likely voters who have already cast a ballot. The advantage for Blackburn comes even though her favorability rating among likely voters is split, with 45 percent having a favorable opinion of the congresswoman and 46 percent having an unfavorable opinion. Fifty-two percent of likely voters have a favorable opinion of Bredesen, but that is down from 61 percent in late August. The percentage of likely voters with an unfavorable opinion of Bredesen has also jumped to 39 percent from 22 percent. "The Senate contest in Tennessee presents an unusual picture in that the Democrat, Bredesen, is better liked than his Republican opponent Blackburn, yet trails in the head-to-head matchup," said Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, Director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. He added, "Shaping this contest is the popularity of President Trump and the desire of Tennessee voters to keep the GOP in control of Congress." The poll showed 52 percent of registered voters prefer a Congress controlled by Republicans, while 39 percent prefer a Congress controlled by Democrats. Eight percent are unsure. The NBC/Marist survey of 910 Tennessee adults was conducted October 23rd through 27th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.0 percentage points. Among 764 registered voters, the margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points and the margin of error among 471 likely voters is plus or minus 5.7 percentage points. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday held the central bank responsible for the mountain of bad loans, saying the Reserve Bank looked the other way when banks lent indiscriminately during 2008-14 to keep the economy humming. Jaitley's comments reflect a growing tension between the RBI and the government, days after the central bank Deputy Governor Viral Acharya made a bold pitch for autonomy and independence in the banking regulator's functioning. The Finance Minister said that after the global financial crisis in 2008 and until 2014, banks were told to open their doors and lend indiscriminately to keep the economy going "artificially". "The central bank looked the other way (when) there was indiscriminate lending... Total bank credit in India from Rs 18 lakh crore in 2008 went up to Rs 55 lakh crore by 2014. And this was something that banks couldn't sustain, the borrowers couldn't sustain and you had the NPA problem," Jaitley said at an event. "I am suprised that at that time, the government looked the other way, the banks looked the other way. I don't know what the central bank was doing. It was a regulator of these. They kept pushing the truth below the carpet," he said. "And we were told that the total NPA (non-performing assets) was Rs 2.5 lakh crore. But when we did the asset quality review in 2015, with the central bank doing it, we found that the NPA was already Rs 8.5 lakh crore," he added. At a lecture on October 26 in Mumbai, Acharya stressed the need for independence in the central bank's functioning, saying that the market can make the government pay for eroding the bank's independence. This is an interesting story. Remember the man of God from Germany who said his name was Dr. Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann? Well, if youve gone hazy in the head all of a sudden for whatever reason, please let me rattle your memory. As far as Im aware, the first time Id heard about Dr. Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann was when an email, bearing his name arrived at the Samoa Observer, on 25 October 2018. In it, he revealed he was staying at the Piula Theological College, out there at the Anoamaa. It also said: Dear Sir: Walking in the streets of Apia I saw some young men, one by one, dressed neatly and wearing on their shirts, the sign to be identified as missionaries of the LDS (Later Day Saints) Church. I asked them what they were here for, and they said they wre bringing the true Gospel of Jesus who loves all mankind. When I said that this Gospel was already here, they replied: No, the churches here do not know the right one; only we, the LDS have it, and therefore we must do this. When I told them about their strange history they would not believe it. I then praised their personal commitment but for a false matter they left. Now my concern (is): How for goodness sake does the LDS dare to make proselytises in a country which is under the Christian God, and took the preamble of the Constitution into it thus, making it look as if its a constitutional rank. Dr.Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann went on to say: The LDS is not a Christian Church as they deny central Christian creeds. They are not members of the World Council of Churches but a cult. How then do they fit into Christian principles and Samoan Custom and tradition? In fact they break the Constitution! Religious freedom is not covered by such activities the LDS is practicing. Sincerely, The Rev. Dr. Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann. Visiting Professor from Germany. And then in the 28 October 2018 edition of the Sunday Samoan, the editorial titled, Christian principles, Samoan Customs and six millions Jews, was published. The next day, when his letter was not responded to, Rev. Dr. Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann, emailed saying: Concerning my Letter to the Editor yesterday, I am staying with the Piula Theological College. The letter was signed by The Rev. Dr. Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann. In response, the writer emailed Dr.Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann, saying to him: Talofa Dr. Kuhlmann, Ive received your letter. I thought it would be just right for the Sunday edition of the Samoa Observer, since yours is a very relevant topic for discussion here in Samoa on Sunday, when most people go to church. Thank you, I said. Dr. Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann did not respond. Still, as Im now thinking about Dr. Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann claim that the LDS is not a Christian Church, nor is it a member of the World Council of Churches, since its just a cult, right now Im aware that my mind is zooming backwards in time, to when around six million Jews were murdered by the Nazi regime in Germany during the Second World War. Indeed, the story is that between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis sought to eradicate the entire Jewish community of Europe. It was when victims were murdered by death squads, or were transported to death camps during the Holocaust, which was mainly in Eastern Europe in places such as Poland and Ukraine. As for the term Holocaust, it referred mainly to the orchestrated murder of groups targeted by the Nazi regime including Romanians, Soviet Prisoners of War and civilians, Polish civilians, homosexuals, socialists, communists, trades unionists, disabled people, Freemasons, and Jehovahs Witnesses. The Nazis did not act alone. Countries which were occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War, such as Lithuania and the Ukraine, assisted the perpetrators. And yet, here in Samoa in October 2018, Dr. Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann is spreading the word, saying: The LDS is not a Christian Church as they deny central Christian creeds. They are not members of the World Council of Churches but its a cult. How then do they fit into Christian principles and Samoan Custom and tradition? In fact, they break the Constitution! Religious freedom is not covered by such activities the LDS is practicing. The truth is that the depravity of war in Germany, where six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust would have made it quite impossible, for those who were living there then to know what the truth truly looked like. As for the LDS Church, it was formally organised by Joseph Smith on April 6, 1830, in western New York. Initial converts were drawn to the church in part because of the newly published Book of Mormon, a self-described chronicle of indigenous American prophets that Smith said, hed translated from golden plates. Later, the LDS Churchs headquarters were located in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. And then in May 1843, four men were sent from Utah, to work as missionaries in the islands of the Pacific. Around the same time, two missionaries were also sent from Hawaii to establish the Church in Samoa. They were Kimo Pelia and Samuela Manoa; they laboured faithfully for nearly twenty years, isolated from the strength and support of the Church back there, in the United States of America. Pelia and Samuela baptised some in Tutuila, American Samoa. Later, after Elder Joseph H. Dean and his wife, Florence Ridges Dean arrived, the mission was formally organised on 17 June 1888. By1891, the mission in Samoa was developing steadily; along the way its headquarters were established right here in Apia, the capital of Western Samoa. And so, how then is it possible that after all these years, they are still feeling at home with those Christian principles, Samoan Customs and Traditions, right here in Samoa today? Well, perhaps Dr. Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann should know that it was that reason the editorial titled, Christian principles, Samoan Customs and six millions Jews, was published in the Sunday Samoan, on 28 October 2018. In any case, two days later, on 30 October 2018, another email from dr-kuhlmannarrived. It said: Dear Sir, I thank you for publishing my letter concerning the Mormon missionary activities on Samoan soil, though wrapped in a strong anti-German packing which, however, has nothing to do with the issue. Nevertheless, I now want to advice you to read: The American Holocaust by David Stannard and The Mountain Meadows Massacre by Juanita Brooks. The rest is with the Christians here to judge. Sincerely, The Rev . Dr. Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann, PhD, Theologie. P.S. He went on to say: I hope you will also publish the Holocaustand The Mountain Meadows Massacre, as well. In response, I concur, saying: Of course, Dr.Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann, with respect, I will. Now here they are: American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World by David E. Stannard (Author) www.amazon.com For four hundred years--from the first Spanish assaults against the Arawak people of Hispaniola in the 1490s to the U.S. Armys massacre of Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee in the 1890s the indigenous inhabitants of North and South America endured an unending firestorm of violence. During that time the native population of the Western Hemisphere declined by as many as 100 million people. Indeed, as historian David E. Stannard argues in this stunning new book, the European and white American destruction of the native peoples of the Americas was the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world. Stannard begins with a portrait of the enormous richness and diversity of life in the Americas prior to Columbuss fateful voyage in 1492. He then follows the path of genocide from the Indies to Mexico and Central and South America, then north to Florida, Virginia, and New England, and finally out across the Great Plains and Southwest to California and the North Pacific Coast. Stannard reveals that wherever Europeans or white Americans went, the native people were caught between imported plagues and barbarous atrocities, typically resulting in the annihilation of 95 percent of their populations. What kind of people, he asks, do such horrendous things to others? His highly provocative answer: Christians. Digging deeply into ancient European and Christian attitudes toward sex, race, and war, he finds the cultural ground well prepared by the end of the Middle Ages for the centuries-long genocide campaign that Europeans and their descendants launched--and in places continue to wage--against the New Worlds original inhabitants. Advancing a thesis that is sure to create much controversy, Stannard contends that the perpetrators of the American Holocaust drew on the same ideological wellspring as did the later architects of the Nazi Holocaust. It is an ideology that remains dangerously alive today, he adds, and one that in recent years has surfaced in American justifications for large-scale military intervention in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. At once sweeping in scope and meticulously detailed, American Holocaust is a work of impassioned scholarship that is certain to ignite intense historical and moral debate. The Mountain Meadows Massacre 3rd Edition by Juanita Brooks (Author), www.amazon.com In the Fall of 1857, some 120 California-bound emigrants were killed in lonely Mountain Meadows in southern Utah; only eighteen young children were spared. The men on the ground after the bloody deed took an oath that they would never mention the event again, either in public or in private. The leaders of the Mormon church also counseled silence. The first report, soon after the massacre, described it as an Indian onslaught at which a few white men were present, only one of whom, John D. Lee, was actually named. With admirable scholarship, Mrs. Brooks has traced the background of conflict, analyzed the emotional climate at the time, pointed up the social and military organization in Utah, and revealed the forces which culminated in the great tragedy at Mountain Meadows. The result is a near-classic treatment which neither smears nor clears the participants as individuals. It portrays an atmosphere of war hysteria, whipped up by recitals of past persecutions and the vision of an approaching army coming to drive the Mormons from their homes. Are you happy now Dr. Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann? Please let us know. Romania has nothing to offer Samoa! Quinoa Tuato Keep away from people who dont think like us! Keep our innocence! Quinoa Tuato Great, an indication of the acceptance of Samoa internationally. Good job! Orita Faiva Cool now Samoa will be able to have a Gymnastics team at the next Olympics thanks Romania. Teefaamoe Alefaio You cant judge one nation by one persons actions. Samoa has crime too, father raping his own daughter, killers on the sea wall...Romania have a lot to offer. Can teach you to work hard to achieve your goals, can teach you to take care of your lands. With other words can teach you to catch the fish. Fyi the gypsies are like Samoans and stop judging people and countries if u dont have proof! Cristina Tuiletufuga Paduraru The village council of Matautu, Falelatai has banned the building of pigsties on the sea. The decision follows the conclusion of their monthly meeting that was held last Saturday. Village council chairman, Nanai Moemai Nanai, told the Samoa Observer that the decision came about when the Ministry of Health visited them regarding health risks associated with building pigsties on the sea or close to the sea. We have always considered the health risks of having a pigsty on the ocean, Nanai said. We have to keep it clean and especially the smell of the pigsty hence why the village council has decided to enforce this on every family of the village. This doesnt mean each family cannot build a pigsty, they can but they have to make sure that they keep it clean all the time, as well as making sure it does not generate a bad smell because we know that it can really affect the way people live if the sty is not well looked after. According to the senior untitled men of the Lupematasila family, Afioga Tutasi, the council had already settled on the punishment to be put to any family, who is caught building a pigsty on the sea. The family and the matai of that particular family will be banned from the village if they are caught building a pigsty on the sea, he told this newspaper. Each family is allowed to have pigsties, but they have to build it inland not on the sea, as this will not only have an impact on the people but also the marine life. Mr. Tutasi praised the initiative because it would ensure their sustainable marine life and a healthier surrounding. Its good because we are supporting the Ministry of Healths initiative of keeping Samoa clean and healthy. This is not for the councils benefit, but rather everyone and as entitled men; we are here to support our village, especially our Government by working together to ensure we have a healthy and safe Samoa. Hardcore prisoners who were convicted for murder, rape or robbery can leave the Tafaigata prison under a special release to attend important family events. This is according to Minister of Prison and Correction Services, Tialavea Tionisio Hunt, who told the Samoa Observer that prisoners serving time for murder, rape or robbery are not eligible for the weekend or holiday parole, but can leave the prison to join their families at special occasions if given the special release. We are now releasing prisoners who meet all the requirements and this is only for special requests, this is different from the weekend and holiday parole, he said. Tialavea explained that under the new Prisons Act, which was signed into law in 2016, those convicted of murder, manslaughter, sexual connection, rape, incest, burglary and robbery are not eligible for special release, holiday release and weekend release. However, this law is not applicable to special request. Inmates who are convicted of the said crimes, will not be allowed out on holiday and weekend release. But they can be released on special release where they are escorted by a prison guard." And that is what we have been doing lately, when a request comes in for an inmate to be released for a funeral, birthday, wedding or any significant family event, we make sure the family understands the risks and the prisoner knows the rules of his special release. But these same prisoners are not eligible for the holiday and weekend release, he said. The Minister said under the current law, the Police Commissioner has the authority to release any inmate using a warrant. Last year, Supreme Court Justice Leiataualesa Daryl Clarke criticised the Samoa Prisons and Corrections Service (S.P.C.S.) over the unlawful release of inmates and threatened to hold the prisons commissioner in contempt if the practice continued. Tialavea said he believes that the weekend and holiday release of prisoners is a rehabilitation process for them. Lets say if an inmate is incarcerated for 10 years without any release, and upon release, he or she will be lost. Its like you left a dark room that youve been sitting in for 10 years, they are ready to see the outside world again, because the inmate has no idea whats going on. The four-hour power outage on Sunday was triggered by a systems failure, when Electrical Power Corporations solar and hydro systems could not meet the demand when a diesel generator went off. The E.P.C. Chief Executive Officer, Tologata Tile Tuimalealiifano, told the Samoa Observer yesterday that the country is moving towards renewable energy, which has seen the installation of solar and hydro systems to compliment and support a diesel generation system. But he said the adjustments experienced problems which resulted in Sundays power outage, as the grid controller was not able to ensure automatic coordination between the solar, hydro and diesel systems. So what happened is because solar and hydro is new, these are the things we implemented towards our target to 100 per cent renewable. We are learning the new adjustments to the systems but the main objective to maximize renewable energy. On Sunday 2:30 pm that was when the energy from the sun was maximised so the problem was we had too much electricity coming from solar plants, and the grid controller was trying to reduce the electricity that we were generating from diesel, in order to save diesel fuel. But in doing so somehow the diesel engine went off from this automatic coordination. The root force that happened on Sunday so when the diesel engine was down, the solar and hydro that were trying to supply and meet the demand, could not control the entire system. The system was struggling till it went off completely, he said. Tologata said the blackout on Sunday was an emergency and not a scheduled power outage, otherwise the E.P.C. would advised the public. Another thing that was mentioned in the paper was not informing the consumers. This was an emergency, not a planned power outage like we normally advise the public about. But we tried our very best. The E.P.C. is currently making adjustments to the automated power system to ensure a similar power outage does not reoccur, he added and indicated that they were working with the American energy company Tesla, which installed two Tesla Powerpack sites in Samoa, which according to the company are designed to capture renewable energy and offer support and stability to the E.P.C. We are working with Tesla from the lesson learnt on Sunday how we can improve the automatic system to address the issue so this does not happen again. While Samoa can be credited for having one of the regions largest solar power generation systems, Tologata said having an advanced renewable power generation system meant the E.P.C. would have difficulties seeking assistance in this area. Everything we do is a learning process as we go. The current situation Its about 50-60 per cent that is generated from renewable, proportionate to the diesel generator, he added. For Small Island Developing States, economies are often dependant on one or two sectors to keep them afloat. When those economies are oil and gas like they are in Bahrain, it might be time to think about investing in something new, as climate change results even more dangerous impacts. Attending the SAMOA Pathway multi-regional preparation meetings for the mid-term review next year is Noora Alamer, who sits on Bahrains supreme council for environment as the head of climate change and sustainable development. A small archipelago in the Persian Gulf, Bahrain was among the first countries to discover oil, and has been reaping the benefits of it for thousands of years, said Ms. Alamer. But a pivot away from burning fossil fuels in an effort to curb carbon emissions has resulted in a growing finance and banking sector, tourism sector and pearl market. Today, instead of financing the country using the oil pipelines, the Crown Prince of Bahrain has elected to spend the income on innovation and entrepreneurship to address climate change. We are looking at financing, innovation and creating incubators and hubs in order to innovate in a way thats sustainable, competitive and meets the future of what we need as a country. Through different partnerships, though we dont have one yet (with S.I.D.S), we are excited to get engaged through the S.A.M.O.A Pathway. Bahrain may differ somewhat to Pacific island nations in its oil economy but the vulnerabilities to climate change, said Ms. Alamer. When we look at other S.I.D.S we look at our similarities in our needs for adaptation, even things as simple as cross cultural knowledge on how to protect our seas, our coastlines. Every day, each of us leaves a data trail behind us as we go about our lives. Thanks to cell phones, there is more up-to-date information available than ever before. This data, when looked at from a slight distance, can share trends and information invaluable to development, says the head of Jakarta Pulse Lab, Derval Usher. Jakarta Pulse Lab, an organisation attempting to harness the data to help in development, is headquartered in Indonesia and is a branch of the United Nations Global Pulse Lab - the brainchild of Ban Ki Moon. Ms. Usher is in Samoa for the multi-regional preparation talks ahead of the SAMOA Pathway mid-term review next year to learn how the lab can help more small island developing states with their development. Were very problem focused, she said. Governments come to us with problems they need solving, and we develop a prototype to solve it. One way the lab has helped has been with public transport. Using social media like twitter, the lab is able to gather location data and track exactly where people are travelling to and from. Jakartas public transport system is heaving." By mapping common routes digitally, we were able to feed that back to city planners so that bus routes can be better planned, Ms. Usher said. Big data, or digital information gathered en masse (all together) doesnt individually identify users or their personal information. Rather, in large numbers it is insightful and can inform policy. Ms Usher said the more up-to-date data is harnessed the more effective and evidence based policies can be, ultimately better serving the development of a nation. Big data can inform social policy, finance, disaster planning and resilience. We are trying to understand how we can automate the process of deciding how to use resources, she said. Partner governments and businesses can build up their platforms however they like, Ms. Usher said. Its just a platform so you can have a consumer feedback mechanism, direct alerts to people through the mobile carriers, citizens reporting in during a disaster, she said. Samoa has great potential to utilise the Pulse Lab, and with a growing generation of digital natives it would be a missed opportunity not to take advantage, Ms. Usher said. GOVT. PRESS SECRETARIAT Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaoi is urging the high-level delegation gathered in Apia this week to support Small Island Developing States (S.I.D.S.) in the outcome of their discussions. As hosts of the Mid-Term Review of the Samoa Pathway taking place at the TATTE Convention Center this week, Prime Minister Tuilaepa reiterated the same message hes been sending out to world leaders to reaffirm hope for the S.I.D.S. family. Fittingly, one of the deliverables of your meeting will be the launch of the Samoa Declaration on Climate Change in the context of Sustainable Development for SIDS, Tuilaepa said. This is timely coming at the heels of the recently launched special scientific report by the IPCC on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 Degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, said the Samoan Leader. While the overall message is frightening, given the disastrous impacts such a scenario will have on SIDS, it still offers hope for the most vulnerable, but only if the worlds has the heart and willingness to respond is a far reaching and decisive way to do what is humanely, economically and morally correct. The moment of truth for SIDS is here. Utilize wisely this weeks interregional meeting. Tuilaepa said he expected discussions to be engaging, interactive, productive and pragmatic and linking all key actors who share a similar agenda and drive, to support SIDS in their efforts to achieve sustainable economic developments. The SAMOA Pathway strongly reaffirmed the categorisation of SIDS as a special group in need of special attention given their inherent vulnerabilities and the unique and special circumstances they all face not by choice and of their making, he said. We remain vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change and the wrath of ever frequent natural disaster. At a joint press conference after the official opening ceremonies, Tuilaepa reiterated the same call for SIDS and stakeholders to take advantage of the review to ensure that no one is left behind. In 2014 Samoa hosted the SIDS Conference and endorsed the outcome document - SAMOA Pathway. This Meeting is an opportunity for SIDS to do an honest assessment of what has been achieved since that Conference. Prior to this meeting, there were three regional preparatory meetings. The Pacific SIDS held its preparatory meeting in Tonga. Samoa is very happy that the SAMOA Pathway has returned to its namesake and birthplace with the hosting of this Inter regional preparatory meeting for its midterm review. We are pleased to welcome around 200 delegates from overseas representing Small Island Developing States, United Nations Agencies and other International and regional organization, Our Development Partners and stakeholders. Samoa also welcomes the opportunity for Samoa government officials and our partners representing the private sector, civil society organizations and communities to participate in the meeting and its side events. The meeting continues throughout this week with a range of side events organised for SIDS message of hope to be visible and audibly received by the rest of the world. Next year the United Nations will review the implementation of the SAMOA Pathway therefore this meeting is our opportunity as SIDS to discuss achievements, assess gaps and look at how to accelerate the implementation of the SID agenda - the SAMOA Pathway. With the extension of hours to sell alcohol in retail shops to 1.00 AM by the Liquor Board on October 25, 2018, our reporter Talaia Mika had to ask the public about their views on whether the extension was a positive move forward for Samoa, considering alcohol has been associated with many social crimes and domestic violence issues in the country. The response from some members of the public are highlighted below: Failani Saili, 74, Tanugamanono I strongly do not support this extension hours of alcohol sales. In my own belief, that will only add up to the problems of the youth nowadays. If we could change it again and lessen the hours for alcohol sales then it would be nice. I advise whoever is handling this to open alcohol market early so it could be closed early as well because I tell you alcohol is the number one cause of most of the problems these days. Toafa Ualika, 38, Fuailoloo I 100 percent disagree with this new platform for alcohol business. The more time we give alcoholics and sell beer is the more problems well cause ourselves. Ive been an alcoholic before but I stopped drinking due to some personal problems but thats my opinion. Its too much space and time were giving to the alcoholics to waste money and make problems. It can satisfy the businesses making a lot of money out of it but theyre not considering the difficulties that can follow. I dont like this extension hours. Rosa Taulapapa, 50, Vaitele Fou I do not support the time extended for alcohol sale in Samoa because we all know even the Prime Minister knows that alcohol is the number one factor thats causing so much trouble in our communities, especially the youth. Even our families rarely have peace when one of their members is an alcohol victim. Its becoming a sweet practice for the youngsters. Every alcoholic gets blamed for every corrupt moves found in families specially. Most children dont respect their parents when they get involved alcohol. Even the businesses disregard the time because they make money and theres no use advising the public about alcohol-related problems because the time for selling alcohol has been extended. Filipo Seufale, 55, Vaitele Fou Theres this thing called bond and if drinking hours get stretched then that means its also an extension for the wicked to strike. This is past our bedtime. A deep discussion is when you think about all sides of the story. To be honest, this is too much time for alcohol sales and its adding up to the family problems. No ones the same as the other and some prefer to cause trouble when affected by alcohol because not everyones educated inside a classroom. The right time to stop selling alcohol is somewhere around 8.00 PM. I do not support this new extension hours of alcohol being sold to the people, especially the youth. Toni Aukusitino, 27, Lepea My opinion on this is that its a very good idea to extend opening hours for alcohol to be sold in relation to the times that I need to buy alcohol. Some nights, I just wait for the time to buy beer even if its late in the night at 10.00 PM. Now that the opening hours to alcohol have been extended, Ill say I am indeed very happy for Ill buy beer earlier for satisfaction. I also know that a lot of businesses can benefit from this new extension, so why not? This is such a nice idea for us alcoholics. Thank you. Rikisone Masame, 23, Vaitele Fou I love this new platform because it can help out the developing businesses but the only problem with it is Sunday. Midnight is still Sunday so I dont think it should even reach midnight. Lets not try the dominant culture of not prioritising church services on Sundays by opening the extension of alcohol hours. We Samoans are Christians. We shouldnt allow alcohol on Sundays when we should be staying home with our families. Timoteo Timoteo, 20, Matautu The only thing I love about this new extension is that it can help develop the businesses. We all know we mostly depend on businesses to raise our families and develop our country and alcohol has been one of the huge contributions of income for our families and our country. I also know that a lot of stores and businesses dont sell alcohols on Sundays because of the laws being implemented but come to think of it, alcohol develops very good money here, so the extension of opening hours can help develop our businesses. JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) The search for the crashed Lion Air plane has found aircraft debris and passenger belongings on the seafloor but the object thought to be the fuselage is still eluding it, an Indonesian official said Wednesday, as chilling video of passengers boarding the fatal flight emerged. Search and Rescue Agency chief Muhammad Syaugi said the seafloor findings give the search team confidence they will find the body of the aircraft. The location of the airplane's "black box" flight data recorder has been identified, he said, but strong currents prevented it from being recovered. "We saw belongings such as life jackets, pants, clothes scattered on the seabed," Syaugi said. "We believe the fuselage will be around there, we hope that our target can be found." The 2-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet plunged into the Java Sea early Monday just minutes after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. The disaster has reignited concerns about safety in Indonesia's fast-growing aviation industry, which was recently removed from European Union and U.S. blacklists, and also raised doubts about the safety of Boeing's new generation 737 MAX 8 plane. Syaugi said one of the ships with high-tech equipment being used in the search dispatched a remote-operated vehicle that recorded parts of the aircraft on the seafloor but not the 22-meter (72-foot) -long object detected at a depth of 32 meters (105 feet) that is believed to be the fuselage. He said the area is about 400 meters (1,300 feet) from the coordinates where the airplane lost contact. Three other objects in separate locations were reached by divers but turned out to be two sunken boats and a fish trap. A remote-operated vehicle was sent to the black box location "but the currents on the seabed were very strong, the ROV was carried away," Syaugi said. Searchers have sent 57 body bags containing human remains to police identification experts who on Wednesday said they'd identified their first victim, a 24-year-old woman, from a ring and a right hand. Anguished family members have been providing samples for DNA tests and police say results are expected within 4-8 days. Musyafak, the head of Said Sukanto Police Hospital, said nearly 150 samples for DNA testing have been collected but more are still needed, especially from parents and children of victims. Boeing Co. experts were expected to arrive in Indonesia on Wednesday and Lion Air has said an "intense" internal investigation is underway in addition to the probe by safety regulators. Data from flight-tracking sites show the plane had erratic speed and altitude in the early minutes of a flight on Sunday and on its fatal flight Monday. Safety experts caution, however, that the data must be checked for accuracy against the plane's black boxes. Several passengers on the Sunday flight from Bali to Jakarta have recounted problems that included a long-delayed takeoff for an engine check and terrifying descents in the first 10 minutes in the air. Two interviewed on Indonesian TV recalled details such as a strange engine sound, a smell of burnt cables, and panicked passengers crying out for God to save them as the plane rapidly lost altitude. Later in the flight, a man who was either the captain or first officer walked through the plane and returned to the cockpit with what looked like a large manual. Lion Air has said maintenance was carried out on the aircraft after the Sunday flight and a problem, which it didn't specify, was fixed. Indonesian TV broadcast a smartphone video of passengers boarding Flight 610, its mundane details transformed into unsettling moments by knowledge of the tragedy that would transpire. It showed passengers' boarding passes being checked and people walking along a concourse and then down stairs with bright red and white Lion Air jets visible on the tarmac. At one point, the passenger who shot the video, Paul Ferdinand Ayorbaba, zoomed in on the flight number on his boarding pass. A part of the video shows passengers walking up the boarding stairs to a Lion jet. "My husband sent that video to me via WhatsApp. It was his last contact with me, his last message to me," said Inchy Ayorbaba, interviewed at the Jakarta police hospital where she had taken their three children for DNA tests. The messaging app's timestamp showed the video was sent about 35 minutes before the plane took off, said Ayorbaba, who first saw the message at 6:30 a.m., some 10 minutes after the plane departed, and then went back to sleep. Lion Air's technical director was removed from duty Wednesday at the order of the Transport Ministry. It also has ordered all Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes operated by Lion Air and national carrier Garuda to be inspected. Lion has ordered 50 of the jets, worth an estimated $6.2 billion, and currently operates nine. Daniel Putut, a Lion Air managing director, said Tuesday evening the airline has many questions for Boeing. "Of course there are lots of things we will ask them, we all have question marks here, 'Why? What's the matter with this new plane,'" Putut said. The crash is the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people died in the crash of a Garuda flight near Medan. In December 2014, an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea, killing all 162 on board. Indonesian airlines were barred in 2007 from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, though several were allowed to resume services in the following decade. The ban was completely lifted in June. The U.S. lifted a decadelong ban in 2016. Lion Air, a discount carrier, is one of Indonesia's youngest and biggest airlines, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations. It has been expanding aggressively in Southeast Asia, a fast-growing region of more than 600 million people. ISLAMABAD (AP) A Christian woman who spent eight years on death row under Pakistan's blasphemy law was acquitted and ordered released Wednesday by the country's top court, a ruling that raised fears of violence by religious extremists who held angry protests over the verdict. Asia Bibi was in an undisclosed location for her safety, and her lawyer said he expected that she would soon leave the country. France and Spain have offered asylum to the 54-year-old mother of five, who is a Roman Catholic. Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, who had received death threats, announced the landmark verdict that fully overturned her 2010 conviction to a packed courtroom amid increased security. Thousands of supporters of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik party, led by firebrand cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi, took to the streets in protests, demanding Bibi's public execution. Rizvi has turned out tens of thousands of supporters before, often forcing authorities to bow to his demands on religious matters. Hundreds of Islamists blocked a road linking the city of Rawalpindi with the capital, Islamabad, and protests were held in Karachi, Peshawar and other cities. In the eastern city of Multan, police arrested several demonstrators after clashes. Security forces moved quickly, deploying outside churches to protect minority Christians and urging demonstrators elsewhere to disperse peacefully. Commandos were sent to protect Nisar and the other two judges of the Supreme Court after a cleric in the eastern city of Lahore urged religious extremists to kill them. The outburst over the divisive blasphemy law prompted Prime Minister Imran Khan to go on national TV to guarantee their safety and criticize those who made verbal attacks on Pakistan's institutions, including his government. "They are not serving Islam, but trying to increase their vote bank," Khan said of the clerics. "They are doing their politics." The verdict was seen as a hopeful sign by Christians in Pakistan, where the mere rumor of blasphemy can spark lynchings. Religious minorities, who have been repeatedly targeted by extremists, fear the law because it is often used to settle scores and to pressure minorities. Religious extremists have made defending the law a central rallying cry and have attacked those who question it. Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province, was shot and killed by one of his guards in 2011 for defending Bibi and criticizing the misuse of the law. The assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, was hanged for the crime, but later was hailed by religious hard-liners as a martyr, with millions visiting a shrine set up for him near Islamabad. Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's minister for minorities, was killed later that year after demanding justice for Bibi. Bibi, who has been held in solitary confinement on death row since 2010, was accused of blasphemy after she quarreled with two fellow female farm workers, who refused to drink from a container used by a Christian. A few days later, a mob accused her of insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad, leading to her initial conviction. Bibi's family and her lawyer, Saiful Malook, say she never insulted the prophet. In previous hearings, Malook pointed to contradictions in testimony from witnesses. The two Muslim women who pressed charges against Bibi denied they quarreled with her, saying her outbursts against Islam were unprovoked despite several other witnesses who recalled the dispute. Chaudhry Ghulam Mustafa, a lawyer for one of the plaintiffs, rejected the verdict, saying Bibi had confessed to making derogatory remarks against the prophet to seek a pardon. The three judges upheld the blasphemy law itself, saying it was consistent with verses from Islam's holy book, the Quran. But they said prosecutors had failed to prove that Bibi violated the law. In addition to citing the Quran, the judges also referenced Shakespeare's "King Lear," saying Bibi was "more sinned against than sinning." The verdict suggested that officials could be open to demands from rights groups for stricter punishments for false accusations. "If our religion of Islam comes down heavily upon commission of blasphemy, then Islam is also very tough against those who level false allegations of a crime," they wrote. Bibi's husband praised the verdict. "I am very happy. My children are very happy. We are grateful to God. We are grateful to the judges for giving us justice. We knew that she is innocent," said Ashiq Masih. "My wife spent so many years in jail and we hope that we will soon be together in a peaceful place," he said. Pakistan has about 2.5 million Christians. Along with Shiites, Ahmadis and other minorities, they have been targeted by religious extremists. Malook said Bibi would be secreted out of the country quickly, adding that he is contemplating the same move. "I am afraid I will have to leave Pakistan. That is the only way to save my life," Malook said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "The situation, I am worried, will go very bad for me. I am the most soft target for all these people," he said, referring to religious extremists who he said have threatened his life. "People say, 'you are a brave man,' but before this, my life was happy. ... Now I am really afraid." Bibi's arrest, conviction and death sentence focused international attention on the law. Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson Center, called the ruling a "major legal milestone for Pakistan." Its significance, however, should not be overstated, and the power of the religiously motivated mob should not be understated, he added. "The increasing political clout of religious hard-liners, who boast the ability to mobilize in a big way, suggests that the state will be under more pressure than ever before," he said. "The sobering reality is that it's not going to get any easier to push for reform, much less repeal, of the blasphemy law, despite this landmark and very brave decision by the Pakistani Supreme Court." The decision also was praised by the Christian minority and human rights activists. "I salute to the honorable judges who refused to be cowed down and lit a candle in darkness and raised hopes in hopelessness," said Farhatullah Babar of Pakistan's People's Party of Benazir Bhutto. The former prime minister was killed by extremists in 2007 after she threatened to target them if she returned to power. Babar had advocated for changes to the law, making it a serious offense to wrongly accuse someone of blasphemy. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a government body, said Bibi's case "illustrates the extent to which blasphemy laws can be exploited to target minority communities." The United Nations Under Secretary for Economic and Social Affairs, Liu Zhenmin, had the opportunity to visit and inspect Samoas progress in its environment and climate change project sites on Monday. Mr. Liu is in Samoa for the week-long Inter-Regional Preparatory Meeting for the Midterm Review of the Samoa Pathway currently in progress at the TATTE Building, Apia. The Government of Samoa, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, with UNDP conducted the site visit to the Vaisigano River wall that is being constructed alongside the Vaisigano River. Mr. Liu, according to a press statement, was deeply involved for 10 years in climate change negotiations, including the conclusion of the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. He also widely participated in the international activities on the protection of our planet, including our oceans and has been consistently highlighting and advocating for sustainable development issues that are evident in Small Island Developing States countries through national projects. In Samoa, the Vaisigano River wall that is funded under the Vaisigano Catchment Project (V.C.P.) and E.W.A.C.C represents the Governments initial steps in operationalising a comprehensive flood management solution to enhance climate resilience along the catchment. The design and construction of the flood protection wall is envisaged to increase the resilience of the flood-affected communities and households along the area, which have been heavily impacted due to floods and cyclones as experienced with Cyclone Evan in 2012. Approval for the construction of the wall on the left and right banks of the Vaisigano River was given by the Government to protect the local community from inundation during flood events of up to 1:20 year (annual exceedance period AEP), said the statement. It further stated that following on from community consultations and assessments, the construction of the climate resilient infrastructure foresees flood mitigation and protection of community assets and livelihoods within the greater Apia area. Some of the major works visible to most of the public is the concrete river protection wall that can be seen from the Vaisigano Bridge that extends along the banks of Leone and Apia villages. Further up the river in Lelata, the V.C.P. will be raising the bridge to accommodate larger volumes of floodwater and conducting channelisation of the river, which involves the deepening of the river bed, streamlining of the river banks and the installation of protective river walls. Samoa is a hidden paradise according to Dokyung Ock and Jiyeon Yoon from South Korea. They are visiting the islands for the first time and were at the Samoa Tourism Authority Cultural Village when met Dear Tourist, on their fourth day in the country. Dokyung is from Busan Metropolitan City in South Korea which is the second most-populous city after Seoul. We came all the way from Korea to New Zealand, in which we stayed there for a year, after that we wanted to go some other unique places and we ended up discovering Samoa and we thought, why not give it a try. On our first day, we arrived on the afternoon and the weather was perfect, even though the humidity was quite high but it is expected from a Pacific island. But on the second day, which was Sunday all the shops were closed and that was quite disappointing, everyone went to church so we attended mass at the Mulivai Cathedral, he said. The 27-year-old was impressed with the unique design within the church building and said he was blown away by the beautiful artistry work in the church. I was blown away by the beautiful creative artistry within the church, it was exceptionally unique, plus everyone was dressed in white which was something quite fascinating to us. The next day we took the wooden bus to Lalomanu beach and I have to admit that I may have been to so many beaches but that beach stood out from the all the rest. We took pictures and got the chance to taste one of the Samoan beers which was called Taula and thats my favourite beer in Samoa so far, she added. Jiyeon is from the capital of South Korea, Seoul and were mesmerised by the To Sua Trench experience. We also got the chance to visit To Sua Ocean Trench and it was breathtaking to be honest, it feels like a different world there. You can be at peace just by being there; the scenery would just melt your heart. Our world is forever evolving and constantly changing yet that place seemed to be timeless. We will be travelling to Savaii for three days and so we are catching the ferry this afternoon and looking forward to seeing the blow holes and going to snorkel with the turtles, Jiyeon added. The 25-year-old also added that they did not like going on tours with a group as it takes the fun out of sightseeing, meaning that they wanted to take their time with enjoying everything they explore. We have not got the chance to try any Samoan food but we are willing to try some later on. Samoa if we have to sum it up it is a beautiful island filled with friendly people. Back in our country everyone is always in a rush but in Samoa the people are so laid back and just chilling with their way of life, the feeling I get her is just happiness, she stated. She added that they are only in Samoa for one week but its not enough to be fully satisfied with exploring the whole of Samoa. First time visitor to Samoa, Ludo Audet from France, says he would not change anything about Samoa. The 24-year-old has been in Samoa for the past 10 days. The Dear Tourist team met him at the Samoa Tourism Authority Cultural Village in Apia. Originally I am from France but I have worked in New Zealand for a year now and that is how I came across finding Samoa as a possible tourist destination, Ludo said. I thought of taking a break so I am here in Samoa for a three weeks holiday. I am currently staying at Olivias Accommodation, which is located in Matautu and that is quite convenient because its within the town area, which is fitting when I would like to do some shopping, Ludo said. He said for the first three days since he arrived, he had the chance to visit Lalomanu beach. It was sad because when we got there it was raining and it seemed it was not a good time. We also had went to Savaii and stayed at Falealupoa and Manase. I noticed that there were not many tourists there, he said. Ludo said his favourite Samoan food so far is raw fish with coconut cream. If the weather is good I would try going to the other side of Upolu and maybe stay there. I would not change anything about Samoa, I wish for it to stay the same way so it will retain its natural beauty. Samoas climate is very refreshing. It suits the natural beauty it comes along with. Ludo said he finds the Samoan people unique as well because of their warm and welcoming hospitality. Samoa is a small island nation made up of smaller islands, but it holds a very special place in the Pacific - it is the uniqueness of its culture whether it is displayed through its traditional dances or songs. I admire the importance of family within the Samoan culture. The elders have the highest form of respect given to them and that they are taken care of by the whole family throughout their whole lives, Ludo said it is not something you can find everywhere, which is a bonus for those who live in Samoa. I will definitely come back when I have the chance; it is worth experiencing countless times because I still cant get enough of Samoas breathtaking natural beauty. U-T business reporter Lori Weisberg received the Harold Keen Award for outstanding contributions in journalism Tuesday night at the 45th annual San Diego Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards Weisberg, a Southern California native and graduate of UCLA, covers tourism and hospitality for The San Diego Union-Tribune. She wrote for the Vista Press and The Orange County Register before joining the U-T in 1980. In the past 38 years, Weisberg has covered a variety of beats, from suburban communities in San Diego County to San Diego City Hall, downtown redevelopment and the real estate industry. Her current coverage includes the battle to expand the convention center, short-term rental regulations in San Diego and SeaWorld. Advertisement Weisbergs award is named after Harold Keen, who anchored San Diegos first television news broadcast in 1949. In other honors for the business team, real estate reporter Phillip Molnar won the first place award in the architecture and design category for his story about an East Village apartment building. He also shared a first place award with former business reporter Roger Showley in the real estate category for their comprehensive article on the San Diego housing crisis, and he shared a first place award in the features category with photojournalist Alejandro Tamayo for a story on Tijuana barber shops. - Startup founder Shiv Shukla took home the grand prize last week at San Diegos biggest pitch competition, bringing home a $50,000 check for striking a chord with the events judges. His company, Neuralace Medical, is tackling one of the most critical problems of our time: dependence on addictive painkillers. Shukla, 31, presented his startup idea on stage last Wednesday to a crowd of over 500 people at the annual John G. Watson Quick Pitch competition. Like the other nine finalists, he was only given two minutes to make his case. Voice trembling and visibly shaken by the task at hand, he managed to deliver the most compelling pitch of the night thanks to the gravity of the problem hes trying to solve. Shuklas company Neuralace makes a medical device that treats chronic pain caused by physical trauma like a car accident or injury. The device stimulates damaged nerves with magnetic pulses in an effort to re-enable the nerves to manage pain. The device is meant to be placed in pain clinics, where patients can go in for treatments that decrease in regularity as time goes on. A way to treat longterm pain without addictive and dangerous painkillers is striking to those familiar with the opioid epidemic in the U.S. About two-thirds of the 72,000 deaths last year from drug overdoses were caused by opioids. In fact, the same day Shukla was presenting his idea onstage, President Trump was signing a bipartisan package of measures to address the countrys debilitating opioid problem. The legislation is intended to cut down on the supply and access to opioids. Advertisement Neuralace is working on a important area of medical need, said Susie Harborth, an investor at BioInnovation Capital and judge at Quick Pitch. We thought the data they showed where patients reduced pain and were off opioids was very compelling. Shiv Shukla, founder and CEO of Neuralace Medical, with the Axon Therapy device. (Howard Lipin / The San Diego-Union-Tribune) Shukla said his exposure to the opioid problem began when he was a neurobiology undergraduate at UC Davis. He volunteered at a drug rehabilitation clinic, expecting to find there the stereotypical addicts portrayed in movies and television. Instead, what I found was really responsible adults who had gone through a surgical procedure and became hooked on prescribed opioids in a week or two, Shukla said. It blew me away. And physicians are frustrated, too, because they dont have anything else to offer these patients who are in pain. Thats when I decided not to go on to medical school. I knew I wanted to study pain research. This isnt Shuklas first endeavor in entrepreneurship. In 2013, he launched Theraflux Medical, which also focused on pain management devices. But the company disbanded a few years later when the co-founders decided to go separate directions. Neuralaces technology called Axon Therapy has completed a clinical trial testing the device in 20 patients. On average, patients have experienced up to 80 percent reduction in pain after one month of Axon Therapy. This small patient pool was enough to convince the FDA that they didnt need any further data, and green-lighted Neuralace to shoot for a 510(k) clearance, which would deem the product safe and effective. Shukla said he expects the clearance to come through in about a year. Neuralace has closed on $1.1 million in a friends and family round and a seed round led by FusionX Ventures. Shukla noted the total closed was less than the previously announced $2 million, as the company missed a milestone that would have triggered a later tranche. With a new timeline, however, Neuralace is on track to raise $2 million in a Series A round including previous investors. Shukla said he would use his Quick Pitch winnings to help fund an 80-person, multi-site clinical trial. We dont need the trial for FDA clearance, but I think well need it for adoption, Shukla said. The Axon Therapy device, which was developed in collaboration with UC San Diego and the regions VA Hospital, is currently being used in a clinical trial at the VA and in a clinic in Encinitas. The device will soon be tested in a trial at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla. Business brittany.meiling@sduniontribune.com 619-293-1286 Twitter: @BrittanyMeiling For some of the nearly 400 attendees at the candlelight vigil at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway Tuesday night, the words never again were on many tongues. On Saturday, 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue were shot to death by a suspect with violent anti-Semitic views. Seated near the front of the crowd with a candle in hand, Lotti Blumenthal had something different to say: Why is this happening again? Blumenthal was a 13-year-old German Jew in 1938 when she was saved from the Holocaust by the Kindertransport, a humanitarian rescue operation in Europe that saved nearly 10,000 Jewish children from Nazi death camps. Now 93, she lives in Rancho Bernardo and speaks to groups on the dangers of unchecked racism. 1 / 9 Members of the community came to unite for a candle light vigil at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway to honor the 11 victims killed in a Pittsburgh synagogue last Saturday. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 2 / 9 Members of the community came to unite for a candle light vigil at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway to honor the 11 victims killed in a Pittsburgh synagogue last Saturday. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 3 / 9 Members of the community came to unite for a candle light vigil at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway to honor the 11 victims killed in a Pittsburgh synagogue last Saturday. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 4 / 9 Members of the community came to unite for a candle light vigil at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway to honor the 11 victims killed in a Pittsburgh synagogue last Saturday. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 5 / 9 Members of the community came to unite for a candle light vigil at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway to honor the 11 victims killed in a Pittsburgh synagogue last Saturday. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 6 / 9 Members of the community came to unite for a candle light vigil at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway to honor the 11 victims killed in a Pittsburgh synagogue last Saturday. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 7 / 9 Members of the community came to unite for a candle light vigil at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway to honor the 11 victims killed in a Pittsburgh synagogue last Saturday. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 8 / 9 Members of the community came to unite for a candle light vigil at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway to honor the 11 victims killed in a Pittsburgh synagogue last Saturday. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 9 / 9 Members of the community came to unite for a candle light vigil at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway to honor the 11 victims killed in a Pittsburgh synagogue last Saturday. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Advertisement Shes horrified at the rising tide of anti-Semitism and shes sickened by the anti-immigrant attitudes expressed by President Donald Trump and Republican leaders. I look at these poor people in the (immigrant) caravan who are trying to flee and nobody wants them, Blumenthal said. Im so lucky that somebody wanted to save me. Tuesdays program began with songs of healing, peace and compassion led by Cantor Lori Frank of Temple Adat Shalom and Cantor Caitlin Bromberg of Ner Tamid Synagogue in Poway. The event was organized in just 24 hours by Ner Tamid President Marisa Connell and Adat Shalom co-Presidents Mary Klein and Hannah Cohen. Cohen said Saturdays event was the culmination of a growing tide of anti-Semitism that has crept up in the public discourse and on college campuses. A woman holds a candle and rose at a vigil Tuesday night at Temple Adat Shalom in Poway, organized to honor the 11 killed in a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Connell said she hoped that interfaith vigils like this can start a wave of love and healing. As awful as it was what happened on Saturday, that was not the norm. This is the norm, she said, pointing toward the growing crowd of men, women and children around her. The evenings host was Rabbi David Castiglione of Temple Adat Shalom. In his opening remarks he compared Trumps words and actions to those of the worlds faith leaders. Castiglione said Jesus never loved an AR-15 assault rifle, the Prophet Muhammad never mocked the disabled, the Sufi master never preached that loving him would enlighten others, and God never separated families and locked them in detention cells. Castiglione encouraged people to reach out to strangers and unify with them hand in hand, arm in arm. Poway Mayor Steve Vaus asked everyone in the crowd, which Poway sheriffs officials estimated at between 300 and 400, to hold their candles up high and said thats a wow, thats Poway. Vaus said that when he was a boy, his Jewish grandmother would often use the phrase love wins whenever things were off-kilter between him and his brothers. When the world has a broken heart, love wins, he said. Tonight love is winning. Another speaker on Tuesday was Yusef Miller, a board member for the San Diego Regional Interfaith Collaborative and outreach communications liaison for the Islamic Society of North County. Miller said before the program that Saturdays massacre has united the faith communities. Nothing is more important than we stand together now as one voice. Injustice committed against any of us is injustice against all of us, he said. The vigil was a good way to honor the dead and find personal healing, but Miller said it wont heal this divided nation. That will require getting people out of their homes, away from their computers and social media and meeting people of different ethnicities, nationalities and faiths face to face. We need to get out in the world, breathe the fresh air, eat at each others tables, he said. Only then will these injustices end. pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com A mining company is opening its quarry to the public, letting runners and joggers delve 600 feet into San Diego Countys only operational hard rock mine on Saturday, Nov. 3. The Quarry Crusher Run began in Columbia, S.C., when the Vulcan Materials Company decided to host a community run in its mine back in 2011. At the core of our business and our culture is giving back to the communities where we operate, said Barbara Goodrich-Welk, manager of Projects and External Affairs at Vulcan. Since then, Vulcan organized similar events in Baltimore, Nashville, Atlanta, and Birmingham. Chula Vistas mine, between the Mattress Firm Amphitheatre and State Route 125, hosted their first Quarry Run last year. Advertisement In each city, Vulcan partners with a local nonprofit to raise money. In Chula Vistas case, that nonprofit was the Chula Vista Firefighters Foundation. Last year, nearly 250 runners raised more than $25,000 for the organization, which supports fire safety, raises money for scholarships and helps families recover from local and regional fires. That money paid for a CPR program that helped nearly 500 people in Chula Vista become CPR certified, said Joshua Sanders, president of the Chula Vista Firefighters Foundation. Thats a program we had been trying to get off the ground for many years now and the fundraiser provided our primary funding for that, Sanders said. The CPR program offers two levels of certification and monthly classes in Chula Vista. This year, organizers expect between 350 and 400 people and they are on track to raise more money than last year, Goodrich-Welk said. Runners and walkers between 12 and 76 years old can sign up for the event online or at the starting line at 2275 Hard Rock Road. Participants have the option to go on a 3.5-mile or 6-mile course. The Quarry Crusher gives people an inside view into an active mine. The course takes runners to some of the deepest parts of the quarry and finishes in one of Chula Vistas tallest points. The course also features a 600-foot elevation change and lots of rocks. I personally think its beautiful, but Im a geologist, Goodrich-Welk said. I think the exciting part is when you get to the top. The reward is that you have beautiful views of downtown San Diego, Chula Vista and the Pacific Ocean. Contact Gustavo Solis via Email or Twitter Chula Vista last week shut down the 40th illegal pot shop in the city over the last three years, city officials announced Tuesday. The latest unlicensed marijuana dispensary to bite the dust was Green Gorilla at 1274 Third Avenue. Members of the City Attorneys Office and the Chula Vista Police Department executed an abatement warrant in the store on Oct. 22. An abatement warrant is a court order that lets the city to seize property that is being used for dangerous or unpermitted uses, said City Attorney Glen Googins. Chula Vista bans recreational and medical marijuana. Therefore, any dispensary in the city is unlicensed. Advertisement In March, the City Council approved regulations to legalize a recreational-use marijuana marketplace. But those regulations wont go into effect unless voters approve a tax measure in Novembers election. The citys regulations prohibit anyone involved with an illegal dispensary from receiving a license to operate legitimate cannabis businesses in the city, should the tax measure pass. City Council members hope tax revenues from legal marijuana businesses fund enforcement measures against the illegal dispensaries. Unlicensed pot shops sprung up in Chula Vista after California legalized recreational marijuana in 2016. Since then, Chula Vista has been playing a game of whack-a-mole, in which one dispensary opens as soon as another is shut down. Googins is in the process of creating a criminal prosecution unit to be more aggressive in shutting down illegal dispensaries. Additionally, he said, the city wants to hire a criminal prosecution team to speed up the process of closing down the illegal dispensaries. Contact Gustavo Solis via Email or Twitter What do rose petals, scorpion peppers, cucumbers and dill pickles have in common with vodka? Theyre locally farmed products used to create North Park-based 619 Spirits infused vodkas, the longtime passion of native San Diegan Nick Apostolopoulos. An escapee from the software world, Apostolopoulos started his 619 Vodka distillery in 2012. His former love for the software industry had begun mixing with hate, he said, laughing. More to the point, he was bored and saw the opportunity to create a business that still excites him after six years of producing award-winning vodkas. Like many drawn to commercial craft brewing and distilling, he got his start as a homebrewer. Rather than jump into the saturated local beer market, he decided to explore distilling spirits. Unlike brewing, he couldnt try it at home, since home-distilling is illegal under federal law, a strictly enforced vestige of the post-Prohibition era. After recent slight loosening of both federal and state laws controlling the highly regulated industry, he was able to start a small-scale local commercial distillery. Advertisement Unlike other local distillers, half of which make one of each of the main spirits, he opted to focus on just one. I love whiskey all spirits. But I was trying to find something typically Southern California and settled on vodka, a summertime San Diego drink by the pool, he said. Distilling the vodka, he explained, is the easy part. He started out using corn as his base but now uses cane sugar, which he ferments using champagne yeast for two to three days in 55-gallon drums. He then transfers the fermented liquid to his still. Currently using a 30-gallon hillbilly still, Apostolopoulos runs the mixture through the small still twice to achieve the 190-proof liquor required for vodka. Later he cuts the liquor with distilled water to reach 80 proof. Hes currently producing about 100-200 cases a month and expects to ramp up production once he finishes installing his new 1,200-liter still (just over 300 gallons), which will allow him to complete the distillation process in a single pass. Bottles of 619 Vodka at 619 Spirits Distillery and Tasting Room. (Eduardo Contreras / U-T) Handmade vodkas, he explained, are generally smoother than the mass producers versions, but theres little to differentiate the plain vodkas of the craft distillers. The creative part is what happens after it comes out of the still, he said. What appeals to him about vodka is its lack of flavor, making it a perfect base for cocktails and a canvas for his creativity. Vodka drinkers like a lot of different flavors. Its a neutral spirit you can do a lot of flavors. Were doing something different, he explained. That something different is the infusions 619 Spirits produces, five to 50 cases at a time, using locally grown farm products, most from the San Diego County region. What differentiates an infusion from a flavored vodka is the multiday steeping of natural products in the vodka, rather than the simple addition of a chemical flavoring. The fact we want to use real ingredients makes it more difficult, Apostolopoulos said. Had he opted to go to a commercial flavor house for essences for his vodkas, he could have avoided lengthy regulatory hoops. But, to use real foods rather than chemical flavorings, he had to get approval for every formula he might use for an infusion from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, known as the TTB, the successor agency to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. To gain TTBs consent, he had to provide food safety information for ingredients from the Food and Drug Administration. TTB, Apostolopoulos explained, even insisted on verification that cucumbers are safe for human consumption. After a two-year process, he emerged with 200 approved formulas for infusions such as his now-standard rose petal, cucumber, scorpion pepper and coffee, plus the more recently approved pickle infusion. Included were more exotic creations, such as the limited edition spicy Carolina Reaper/Ghost Pepper infusion hes debuting this week for Halloween and Day of the Dead, plus future planned infusions using butterfly pea flower, one of the few naturally occurring blue foods, and watermelon-basil-mint. The more complex we make the infusions, the harder it is to make cocktails, he explained. His rose petal-infused vodka is one of his stars, producing a fragrant pink spirit with a long, layered finish reminiscent of a fine Cognac, thanks to the power of the natural oils. Many guests enjoy drinking it on the rocks or in the distillerys Princess Cosmo cocktail, paired with lime and cranberry juice. He uses no coloring agents or other adulterants. Apostolopoulos, who grew up around his parents Escondido Greek restaurant, spent those two years designing and building his own distillery and tasting room. Along the way, he discovered hed need to include a restaurant to obtain the right liquor license. This enables him to fulfill his vision of going beyond a basic tasting room and allowing sales of other local producers spirits, wines and craft beers. When I realized I needed to put in a kitchen, I wanted to put in high-quality food to match the hand-crafted vodkas, he said. To run the kitchen, he hired as chef the sunny-tempered Clint Clark, a San Diegan with a fine dining background who worked under Gaven Kaysen at El Bizcocho and William Bradley at Addison. Clark describes the menu as casual upscale, suitable for pairing with cocktails, but he also creates regular specials, such as the featured quail, experimenting with using vodka in food. We try to make the food unexpected, he explained, with Apostolopoulos encouraging him to come up with cool dishes. Reflecting his hyper-local orientation and tech background, Apostolopoulos opted to innovate with tablet-based menus from San Diego-based Urban Translations, permitting addition of photos of dishes and drinks. As the recently opened distillery and restaurant settles into its routine, expect to see about 10 to 20 infusions offered and likely new products, including vodka-based fruit cellos, moonshine and liqueurs. The reason I started a distillery is to do cool new things, said Apostolopoulos, a man who admits to having 900 ideas at a time. Sours Larson is a San Diego freelance writer. 619 Spirits Distillery and Tasting Room Address: 3015 Lincoln Ave. in North Park. Hours: 4 p.m. to midnight daily; brunch is served on Saturday and Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Phone: (619) 255-6028 Online: facebook.com/619Spirits Pan Roasted Quail With Butternut Squash, Caramelized Pears and Vodka-Infused Bing Cherries, served with a Princess Cosmo thats made with 619 Rose Petal Vodka. (Eduardo Contreras / U-T) Pan-roasted Quail With Butternut Squash, Caramelized Pears and Vodka-Infused Bing Cherries Quail is available at specialty markets and butchers such as Seisels and Iowa Meat Farms, or ask your local meat market to order them. Makes 4 servings 1 14-ounce jar bing cherries Enough vodka to cover cherries, about 4 ounces 4 semi-boneless quail Salt and pepper to taste 2 tablespoons flour 3 tablespoons canola oil 1 cup butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into -inch dice 1 medium pear, peeled, cored and cut into small dice 1/4 cup golden raisins 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh rosemary, chopped 1/4 cup walnuts, chopped 1 cup barley, rice, couscous or other grain, cooked 1/2 cup Calvados (optional) 3 tablespoons sherry vinegar 2 tablespoons cold salted butter, cubed The day before serving quail or earlier, drain the liquid from the bing cherries and replace with sufficient vodka to cover the cherries. Let macerate until needed. Dry the quail and season with salt and pepper. In a shallow bowl toss the quail with flour to coat. On medium-high, heat the oil in a heavy saute pan. Shake off any excess flour from the quail and sear them on both sides until golden brown, about 2-3 minutes. Turn the quail pieces over and add the squash, cooking until they start to caramelize, about 2-3 minutes. Add pears, raisins, garlic, rosemary, walnuts and cooked barley or other grain. Lower the heat to medium and add the Calvados and sherry vinegar. Stir frequently until the liquid is reduced and thickened, about 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and add butter pieces, stirring gently until melted. Season with salt and pepper and arrange on a platter with quail atop the other ingredients, garnished with vodka-infused cherries. The 619 Deviled Eggs and a Cucumber Martini made with 619 Cucumber Vodka. (Eduardo Contreras / U-T) 619 Deviled Eggs These are not your mamas traditional deviled eggs. Chef Clark enjoys experimenting with variations on these eggs, a perennial favorite to accompany cocktails and vodkas or serve as appetizers. Makes 24 half eggs 12 fresh eggs 1/2 cup mayonnaise or aioli sauce (mayonnaise with crushed garlic, lemon juice and salt added) 2 tablespoons milk 1 shallot, finely chopped 1 teaspoon fresh dill, plus extra sprigs for garnish 1 cup cooked pork belly or bacon, finely chopped, plus extra strips for garnish 1/2 teaspoon fresh chives, chopped 1/2 teaspoon mustard powder 2 pinches chervil 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika, plus more for garnish 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder Hard-boil eggs, cooling them in an ice bath before peeling. Slice eggs in half and place yolks in a bowl, setting egg whites aside. Mash and whip egg yolks. In another bowl mix together remaining ingredients and fold into egg yolks. Make sure yolk mixture is cool before placing into a piping bag and filling the reserved egg whites. Arrange filled eggs on a tray. Garnish with strips of pork belly/bacon and sprigs of dill and dust with smoked paprika before serving. Recipes from chef Clint Clark of 619 Spirits Distillery, Tasting Room and Restaurant. Princess Cosmo Makes 1 cocktail 1/2 ounce triple sec 1/2 ounce lime juice 1/2 ounce cranberry juice 1 1/2 ounces 619 Rose Petal Vodka 1 nasturtium flower for garnish Ice Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake vigorously. Strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a nasturtium flower. Cucumber Martini Makes 1 cocktail 4 mint leaves 1/2 ounce lime juice 1/2 ounce simple syrup 1 slice fresh cucumber 1 1/2 ounces 619 Cucumber Vodka 1 mint sprig and extra cucumber slice for garnish Ice In a mixing glass muddle the mint, lime and simple syrup and cucumber. Add vodka and ice. Shake and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with a mint and sprig and cucumber slice. Cocktail ecipes courtesy of 619 Spirits staff. Theyre made with 619 Spirits handcrafted vodka infusions, available at the North Park distillery/tasting room/restaurant. Back by popular demand, PACIFIC presents the eighth annual Chain of Gourmand, which showcases a succession of local chefs who call out a favorite dish from a restaurant in San Diego County. The maker behind each of those dishes then names his/her fave, resulting this year in an eight-chef chain (plus a collaborating chef de cuisine) linked by mouthwatering cuisine ranging from upscale to casual. Kicking off the sequence is Lori Sauer, corporate pastry chef for Blue Bridge Hospitality. The company operates Liberty Public Market in Point Loma, as well as a portfolio of Coronado hot spots such as Leroys Kitchen + Lounge, Stake Chophouse & Bar, Maretalia Ristorante, West Pac Noodle Bar and the recently launched el Roys Tequila Bar + Kitchen. Pastry chef Lori Sauer at Crafted Baked Goods in Liberty Public Market. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Since taking the position two years ago, Sauer oversees the dessert menus for the groups multiple ventures. She also keeps the display cases stocked with eye-grabbing sweets at Crafted Baked Goods in Liberty Public Market. Advertisement Armed with diverse pastry experience from previously working at several notable San Diego restaurants (read more about Sauers background here), including Georges at the Cove, she knows a superior dessert when biting into one. Hence, her love for peaches and cream made by sous chef Keaton Henson at Saiko Sake & Sushi Bar in North Park. The dish, she says, isnt as simple as it sounds. Lori Sauers favorite dish: Peaches and Cream Chef: Keaton Henson Restaurant: Saiko Sake & Sushi Bar The flavor of the grilled, fresh peaches blended really well with yuzu and plum syrup, which made the dish explode. And I liked the temperature contrast of the hot peaches to the cold creme fraiche. Its the best dessert Ive had all year. Lori Sauer Sous chef Keaton Heston from Saiko Sake & Sushi Bar. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) This summers heat wave in San Diego prompted sous chef Keaton Henson to put a chilled dessert on the menu or in this case, something partly chilled. A native of rural Illinois, peaches with cream came to mind because he grew up eating the combo on hot days. Henson sources the fruit from the Thursday North Park Farmers Market. He cuts it up, sprinkles it with yuzu and salt, and grills it. The wedges are then tossed in cold creme fraiche and encircled by caramel-like plum sauce spiked with brown sugar, honey, thyme and vanilla. For winter, hell replace the peaches with whatever looks good at the markets. Saiko Sake & Sushi Bar: 2884 University Ave., North Park, 619.677.3907, saikosushisd.com Grilled peaches and cream dessert from sous chef Keaton Heston of Saiko Sake & Sushi Bar. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Keaton Hensons favorite dish: Yellowtail sashimi Chef: Davin Waite Restaurant: Wrench & Rodent Seabasstropub The sashimi is a course in Davins omakase tasting menu that Ive had multiple times. It has some kind of tropical fruit sauce. Its mind-blowing because the herb oil in the dish reminds me of fresh-cut grass, and the acidity from pickled veggies on top is like drinking lemonade on a summer afternoon. Keaton Henson Chef-owner Davin Waite of Wrench & Rodent Seabasstropub. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Complex passion fruit jello cut into small cubes garnishes the sashimi, which is draped with a blend containing some of the fruits seeds, fish sauce and a little honey. The remaining seeds are smoked to further garnish the yellowtail in concert with pickled onions and pinches of seaweed and ghost peppers. The chilies, said chef/owner Davin Waite, play off the sweet components of the dish. (Waites opah belly bacon was a favored dish in last years chain.) Wrench & Rodent Seabasstropub: 1815 S. Coast Hwy., Oceanside, 760.271.0531, seabasstropub.com Yellowtail sashimi from chef-owner, Davin Waite of Wrench & Rodent Seabasstropub. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Davin Waites favorite dish: Spicy smoked fish taco Chef: Andrew Bent Restaurant: Lola 55 This taco takes a pepper the Carolina Reaper thats typically difficult to harness and manipulates it with other ingredients so you have something thats spicy, but not so hot that it isnt enjoyable. You get sweet, spicy and smokiness all in one bite. Davin Waite Chef Drew Bent of Lola 55. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) It took chef Andrew Bent and his business partner, Frank Vizcarra, six months to perfect this top-selling taco, which captures a mesquite-roasted jalapeno stuffed with local opah belly. The pepper gets folded into a corn tortilla with bacon, mustard frill (bitter greens) and citrus soy sauce. Its subjective burn stems from salsa containing Carolina Reapers and two other chilies that are kept secret. On a heat scale of 1 to 10, this is a 12, Bent warns. Lola 55: 1290 F St., East Village, 619.542.9155, lola55catering.com The spicy smoked fish taco from Chef Drew Bent of Lola 55 has a Carolina reaper pepper salsa. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Andrew Bents favorite dish: The dirty flattop cheeseburger Chef: Brandon Zanavich Restaurant: The Friendly Heres an example of sound culinary technique applied to something as pedestrian as a burger. When it hits your lips, it over-delivers on any expectation you had. Ive probably eaten a bakers dozen so far. Andrew Bent Chef-owner Brandon Zanavich of The Friendly. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Using beef sporting a 73/27 meat-fat ratio, chef Brandon Zanavich smashes out some of the fat in the grilling process, but leaves enough in to keep the meat juicy. It reminds me of all the burgers I grew up eating in Detroit, he said, noting that the oozy creation comprises two patties, two slices of American cheese, caramelized onions, and garlic aioli made in-house. No substitutions or omissions are allowed. Its served on a buttered, grilled bun. The Friendly: 4592 30th St., North Park, 619.892.7840, facebook.com/thefriendlysd The dirty flattop cheeseburger from chef-owner, Brandon Zanavich of The Friendly. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Brandon Zanavichs favorite dish: Pacific halibut Chef: Brad Wise Restaurant: Trust On paper, it doesnt seem to make sense. Theres fried mushrooms and kumquat chutney on top. Underneath is baby bok choy, squash, salumi and scallop buerre blanc. But when you eat it, everything comes together so well. Brandon Zanavich Chef Brad Wise of Trust. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Chef/partner Brad Wises gussied-up halibut appears on the menu each year in spring and remains until halibut season wanes in early winter, at which point he swaps it out for local cod. The salumi element, he notes, is a hash of various meats while the buerre blanc is infused with scallop muscles and forms a moat around the pan-seared filet. (The intricate construct is Wises third dish in as many years to appear in our annual chain.) Trust: 3752 Park Blvd., Hillcrest, 619.795.6901, trustrestaurantsd.com Pacific halibut bedded on boo ahoy, squash and salumi hash topped with fried mushrooms and kumquat chutney and encircled with scallop burr blanc sauce from chef Brad Wise of Trust. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Brad Wises favorite dish: Prime 10-ounce New York steak Chef: Jason Knibb Restaurant: Nine-Ten You normally dont see classical dishes cooked to this level of perfection. It came medium-rare as requested, and with vegetables that included sunchokes roasted into candy-like morsels. Brad Wise Chef Jason Knibb of Nine-Ten. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) The bonus to this glistening hunk of beef is shallot-herb butter spiked with lobster stock, which chef Jason Knibb reduces to a near paste. It gives the dish a surf-and-turf twist, he said. Summer asparagus that appeared in the set will likely give way to squash by wintertime. But the treatment of the flame-grilled steak wont change with its simple seasoning of thyme and cracked black pepper. Nine-Ten: 910 Prospect St., La Jolla, 858.964.5400, nine-ten.com A 10-ounce prime New York steak with sun chokes, other veggies, herb-lobster butter and mushroom demi glace from chef Jason Knibb of Nine-Ten. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Jason Knibbs favorite dish: Tuna crudo Chef: Ryan Johnston Restaurant: Whisknladle The colors of the tuna, cantaloupe, pickled watermelon rind and cilantro were really beautiful. Served with chili oil and watermelon granita on top, the flavors were fresh and crisp. Jason Knibb Chef Ryan Johnston (right), culinary director of Whisknladle and chef de cuisine Natallie Avitia. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Inspired by halibut crudo with cucumber granita (shaved ice) that he ate in Paris, chef Ryan Johnston shared photos of the dish afterwards with Whisknladles chef de cuisine Natallie Avitia, who came up with the idea to use watermelon instead of cucumber in the granita. The duo utilized the rinds and pickled them for garnish, and chose tuna over halibut as the final tweak. The fish is seasoned with ginger, lime and salt. Available only in summer, Johnston assures it will return by early June. Whisknladle: 1044 Wall St., La Jolla, 858.551.7575, whisknladle.com Tuna crudo with watermelon shaved ice from Whisknladle. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Ryan Johnstons favorite dish: Firebird chicken sandwich Chef: Richard Blais Restaurant: The Crack Shack After recently eating hot chicken in Nashville, I gave this a try and thought it was perfectly crispy. There was also a nice sauce on it, and the cooling properties of the ranch dressing were very comforting and delicious. Ryan Johnston Chef Richard Blais of Crack Shack and his Firebird chicken sandwich. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Celebrity chef/cookbook author Richard Blais and his team have indeed taken cues from the Deep South for this fried chicken sandwich, served on a potato roll. The buttermilk-brined thigh flaunts a crunchy batter kissed with cayenne pepper and paprika. Its crowned with crispy onions and a handful of pickles (two are not enough, Blais notes), all of which enjoy a cascade of creamy ranch dressing as the requisite Southern California spin. The Crack Shack: 2266 Kettner Blvd., Little Italy, 619.795.3299, crackshack.com She bakes for numerous establishments and manages to do so with only one oven. As the corporate pastry chef for Blue Bridge Hospitality, Lori Sauer produces hundreds of cupcakes, layer cakes and other confections every week for the companys constellation of Coronado restaurants. She also cranks out dazzling treats for the retail shelves of Crafted Baked Goods, located inside Point Lomas Liberty Public Market, which the restaurant group also operates. Her modest, open kitchen resides within that space, where over a three-month period this summer she cranked out more than 14,000 cookies. People are blown away that I work with just a single oven, said Sauer, who rips into the flour sacks most days at 5 a.m. with support from her 18-member baking team. Advertisement Pastry chef Lori Sauer at Crafted Baked Goods in Liberty Public Market. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) The toothsome parade of treats that follows includes browned butter cakes, snacky caramel and coconut bars, colorful fruit tarts and a bevy of whimsically frosted cupcakes. Some of the goods are delivered to Blue Bridges various enterprises: Olive cakes destined to be plated in strawberry consomme go to Maretalia Ristorante; banana pudding cups are sent to Lil Piggys Bar-B-Q; and Swiss rolls with mallow cream show up at Leroys Kitchen + Lounge, where theyre served with ice cream and fudge sauce. Sauer began playing with pastry dough and rolling pins at an early age, probably when I was like 3 or 4 years old while hanging out in the kitchen with my mother, she recalled. By the age of 6, she had learned how to make cookies. Cake from pastry chef Lori Sauer at Crafted Baked Goods in Liberty Public Market. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) My father always wanted a cup of coffee with them and I didnt know why. He later admitted that he dipped the cookies into the coffee to make them somewhat edible. An illustrious career unfolded after completing a culinary program at her hometown community college in Riverside, at which point she began working under acclaimed Belgian pastry chef Jean Marie Verhoeven at Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula. He taught me everything I know about pastry and he gave me a solid foundation, she said. The experience readied her for the position of executive pastry chef at the former Anthology in Little Italy. She later fulfilled the same roles at The Lodge at Torrey Pines, The Bridges at Rancho Santa Fe, and then Georges at the Cove before joining Blue Bridge two years ago. Her most talked about dessert, she noted, is carrot cake from a recipe of Verhoevens that she tweaked. Sauer debuted the dessert several years ago at Georges and it became an instant hit. It has since carried over to Crafted Baked Goods. Unlike classic carrot cake, hers features pineapple juice in the crumb and has no nuts or raisins. Pastry chef Lori Sauer separates eggs at Crafted Baked Goods in Liberty Public Market. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) Its extremely moist and with a nice orange color, she added. Sauers career has led to some gratifying adventures, such as an educational working stint on a chocolate plantation in the Peruvian jungle, a gig helping other chefs at the Gastro Vino Baja Wine & Food Festival in Todos Santos, Mexico, and an opportunity for creating desserts at this years ChefsFeed Indie Week in both Houston and New Orleans. With a firm handle on the craft, she admits to occasional mishaps that plague even the most seasoned bakers, such as when a delicate meringue blows over because it was accidentally placed too close to an oven fan, or when the sugar in buttercream crystallizes because it was stirred while boiling. There are so many natural anxiety attacks that come with baking, she quipped, adding that her fall-winter line will highlight ingredients ranging from pumpkins, apples and parsnips to cranberries, nuts and pineapples. Crafted Baked Goods 2820 Historic Decatur Rd., Point Loma, 619.546.8885, craftedsd.com Blue Bridge Hospitality bluebridgehospitality.com Smart cookie 5 trusty baking tips from Lori Sauer Baking sheets with only one raised edge bring maximum airflow to your cookies, allowing them to cook evenly and slide directly off the pan onto serving dishes. For uniform-shaped cookies, roll the dough into a log of any width, chill, and then slice with a sharp knife opposed to fussing with a scooper. Roll out pie dough between two pieces of wax paper; its cleaner and wont require dusting the dough with extra flour as you go along. Rolling pins with handles (opposed to French pins without) make it easier to apply needed pressure to dense dough. Thicken fruit-pie fillings with tapioca pearls instead of corn starch to achieve a better mouth feel and glossier look. Read more... Chain of Gourmand 2018 October 31, 1967 The San Diego Union The San Diego Union-Tribune will mark its 150th anniversary in 2018 by presenting a significant front page from the archives each day throughout the year. Tuesday, October 31, 1967 While wildfires are common in San Diego County, several major fires in October have been unusually large. The first countywide mobilization of municipal firefighting resources for a wildland fire came in October 1967. Here are the first few paragraphs of the story: 2 Big Fires Sweep 55,000 Acres In S.D. County; L.A. Area Charred 26 Area Building Are Lost; Many Flee Swift Flames Hot, dry winds pushed two major fires out of control over 55,000 acres of central San Diego County yesterday, destroying at least 26 buildings, forcing evacuation of hundreds of residents and showering ashes as far as the ocean. In terms of acreage and property damage, they threatened to become the worst in the countys history. Flames charred 35,000 acres between Ramona and Poway and 20,000 acres in the Pine Hills area near Julian. Late last night, an estimated 900 firemen were battling both fire an fatigue as the twin blazes showed no sight of let-up. 20 Smaller Fires Flare Observers flying through a towering pall of smoke said there were at least 20 smaller fires near the larger ones, undoubtedly started when winds up to 70 miles an hour carried burning embers for miles. Prevented by high winds earlier in the day from flying, four aircraft from Ramona Airport dumped borate on the heaviest fire fronts just before dusk. There were no reported serious injuries, but at least five firemen were burned, another collapsed from smoke inhalation and dozens of livestock were reported destroyed. Six of the homes burned near Highway 67 in the Mt. Woodson area, according to James Fenlon, state forest ranger. Several Homes Near Poway Several homes in the $20,000-$50,000 class were destroyed in Green Valley, near Poway. Remainder of the 24 were in scattered locations, including three on Martincourt Road in Green Valley and four on High Valley Road. By last night, the Pine Hills fire had roared over 20,000 acres of heavy timber and a residential area south of the mountain community of Julian. It destroyed two structures, one a $25,000 home. Starting at 5 a.m. when high winds apparently blew down a power line, the Pine Hills fire burned tent buildings at the Camp Davidson Girl Scout Camp. Several other Pine Hills homes were threatened as the fire roared southwest toward the San Diego River, then turned north again under the prodding of fickle winds. In the Julian area last night, a new blaze raged about four miles southwest of a fire front in Pine Hills, burning at least 20 acres in the almost inaccessible San Diego River area. The river bed there is bounded by steep cliffs, some of which are 1,200 feet high. 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 high-ranking Los Angeles Police Department official was accused of having improper sexual relationships with officers under his command shortly before his sudden retirement last week, sources told The Times. The allegations against Assistant Chief Jorge Villegas, a 29-year veteran of the department, were referred to LAPDs internal affairs unit for an investigation this month, according to three law enforcement and city officials with knowledge of the situation. The officials requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case. Villegas could not be reached for comment. The sources said the department had not yet determined whether the allegations were true. It was also unclear whether Villegas announced retirement was related to the allegations. Advertisement Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore declined to comment. Josh Rubenstein, an LAPD spokesman, said Villegas has indicated that he is planning on retiring, and state law prohibits me from saying anything about personnel matters. His retirement is supposed to take effect by the end of the year, Rubenstein said. Steve Soboroff, president of the citys civilian Police Commission, said he received an anonymous letter this month accusing Villegas of misconduct. Soboroff declined to detail the alleged misconduct but said he referred the letter for further investigation. The commission received notice Oct. 23 that Villegas was stepping down, Soboroff said. The next thing that I know, theres a retirement, he said. In an email, the departments inspector general, Mark P. Smith, said he was unaware of whether any other Commissioners received the referenced letter. Some LAPD officials, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the allegations contained in the letter were older in nature, though they declined to elaborate. Villegas filed for divorce from his wife, a sergeant in the LAPDs Robbery-Homicide Division, in 2009, according to court records, though the divorce was never finalized. The filings in that case make no mention of any alleged improprieties by Villegas. Calls to attorneys involved in that case were not returned Wednesday. The two are still married. Several LAPD officials also said Villegas told fellow senior police staff that he was departing to work on a family business venture. Villegas, a longtime ally of Moore, was in charge of the office of support services, where he effectively utilized new technologies to improve performance and reduce waste, implemented de-escalation training for all officers and managed the LAPDs budget, according to his department biography. He also previously led the office of operations, where he helped update the agencys use-of-force policy, and served as the commanding officer over the Valley Bureau and as a captain in West L.A. Villegas was also one of five semifinalists in a nationwide search to become chief of the Seattle Police Department this year. The sudden retirement will prove costly to Villegas. He enrolled in the citys controversial Deferred Retirement Option Plan, better known by the acronym DROP, in 2015 and stood to gain nearly $1 million in additional pension funds had he remained with the department through 2020. DROP pays Los Angeles police officers and firefighters their salaries and pensions simultaneously during the last five years of their careers, even if they are not on active duty. By retiring early, Villegas will have to forfeit nearly half of that money. The LAPD has a long-enshrined policy that requires superiors and subordinates in the same chain of command to avoid potential conflicts. The policy notes that when such situations develop, the employees involved must immediately notify their commanding officer. If a superior enters into a personal or business relationship with a subordinate, the motive for decisions made by that superior relative to the subordinate may become suspect and compromise the integrity of those involved, the policy reads. This could lead to a disrupted work environment, reduced production and a decline in morale. Merrick Bobb, an expert on police reform who has conducted reviews involving the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department, said sexual relationships between supervisors and subordinate officers can wreak havoc on a police agency, leading to accusations of favoritism. It is deeply corrosive to the morale of a department whenever subordinates are in sexual relationships with their superiors, consensual or otherwise, he said. In 2006, the former head of the Los Angeles Police Departments internal affairs unit acknowledged in a sworn deposition that he had a three-year affair with a female sergeant under his supervision, raising new questions about how the watchdog unit operated. In the deposition, Michael Berkow, who was a married deputy chief, said he met a female sergeant in 2003 and had sex with her over the next three years. Until January 2005, she worked for the internal affairs division as an advocate, a kind of internal prosecutor handling police misconduct cases, including those involving inappropriate sexual relationships. Times staff writers Cindy Chang and Jack Dolan contributed to this report. james.queally@latimes.com Twitter: @JamesQueallyLAT richard.winton@latimes.com Twitter: @lacrimes UPDATES: Oct. 31, 6:30 p.m.: This article was updated with additional background about Villegas career and additional context about other allegations of sexual misconduct within the LAPD. This article was originally published at 9:00 p.m. on Oct. 30, 2018. Rep. Duncan Hunter has a lot going against him. He and his wife have been indicted by a federal grand jury on 60 counts alleging personal use of $250,000 in campaign funds. He has a paltry campaign war chest and is being significantly outspent by his Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar. He has been the focus of critical coverage by local and national news organizations, which have not only detailed his legal problems but also shed an unflattering light on his personal behavior. Advertisement Yet Hunter remains favored to win on Nov. 6, even though a new San Diego Union-Tribune/10News poll conducted by SurveyUSA shows his eight-point lead in August has shrunk to three points. Why is that? Basically, the fundamentals that gave him a huge advantage in past campaigns remain, even though his political prospects have diminished. It starts with the 50th Congressional District, which covers much of San Diegos East County and stretches north to Temecula. Its a district Donald Trump won by 15 points over Hillary Clinton in 2016 and where Republicans have a voter registration advantage of about the same margin. Hunter was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Trump and remains one of the presidents staunchest advocates. Some Republican voters are loath to back a Democrat in that very red district. Keeping the seat in GOP hands is important to many, and not just those intimately involved in politics. The calculus goes like this: Hunter wins and is ultimately cleared, or he gets convicted or agrees to a plea and steps down. That would lead to a special election that favors a Republican. Hunter and his wife, Margaret, pleaded not guilty to the charges and when people are interviewed in the district about his situation they often emphasize that a person is innocent until proved guilty. Hunter also underscores that the issue is over campaign funds. I didnt do anything illegal, and it wasnt government money, he recently told a small group in Valley Center, according to David Ross of the Valley Roadrunner. That may be an important distinction, though its impossible to say how much voters will pick up on it. Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds on personal travel, lavish meals and family expenses which is what the indictment says they did would be illegal. But that may seem less heinous to constituents than other kinds of misdeeds. For example, former Rep. Randy Duke Cunningham, R-San Diego, pleaded guilty in 2005 to conspiracy and tax evasion in a bribery scheme in which he directed government contracts to those who paid him. Also, Hunters constituents havent forgotten about his military background. He joined the Marines after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and served three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even while voicing concern about the indictment against Hunter, some people continue to express appreciation for his service. His backing of a strong military, hard line on illegal immigration, support for the Second Amendment, advocacy for lower taxes and opposition to abortion put him in sync with a lot of voters in the district. The five-term congressman is running against a formerly unknown, first-time candidate. Campa-Najjar has been spending a lot of time introducing himself to voters, who are much more familiar with Hunter, flaws and all. Hunters campaign has tried to raise national security concerns about Campa-Najjar because of the Democrats family history. His grandfather was a member of the Palestinian terrorist organization that staged the attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics that ended in the death of 11 members of the Israeli team. Campa-Najjar was born 16 years after his grandfather was killed and has denounced his actions. While Hunter was widely criticized for this tactic, even by some Republicans, it successfully took the focus off Hunters legal problems, at least for a while. Further, there have been few new developments in the Hunter case for weeks. The trial has been delayed until after the election. Hunters father, the former congressman with the same name, held a news conference further trying to paint Campa-Najjar as a security risk. Never mind that Campa-Najjar obtained two security clearances to work in the Obama administration. Candidate Hunter was no-show. While both Hunters took some heat, the event served as a reminder that theres something of a Hunter dynasty in East County. Even though the current congressman has been tarnished by the indictment, the Hunter name still carries weight. Thats earned Rep. Hunter the benefit of the doubt, at least from his core supporters. I hear that from a lot of people, said Barry Jantz, a Republican former La Mesa City Council member and longtime observer of politics in East County. The early polls in the race varied widely. A SurveyUSA poll in August had Hunter up by eight percentage points, but two polls taken around the same time in September had stark differences: Monmouth University had Hunter up by 15 points, while Berkeley IGS had him ahead by two. The closely watched FiveThirtyEight political website as of Tuesday afternoon still gave Hunter an 80 percent chance of winning and the Cook Political Report had the district leaning Republican. Hunters incumbency and family status in the district may help make up for some of Campa-Najjars big financial advantage. During a three-month period ending Sept. 30, Hunter raised $132,500, compared with $1.4 million for Campa-Najjar. From Oct. 1 through Oct. 24, Campa-Najjar raised $776,000 to $120,000 for Hunter. Campa-Najjar has used those funds on, among other things, ads to refocus the campaign on Hunters indictment. The money at the heart of the Hunter indictment was raised and spent years ago. Still, his campaign could sure use $250,000 right about now. Two Chinese intelligence officers and a group of alleged hackers have been charged in San Diego on accusations of infiltrating the computer networks of private companies in the U.S. and abroad to steal plans for a turbofan engine to be used in commercial airliners, according to the indictment unsealed Tuesday. The five-year conspiracy was led by Zha Rong, a division director of the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security, and Chai Meng, a section chief both supervisors overseeing human intelligence and intellectual property theft operations within the ranks of the Chinese government, according to the indictment. The indictment is among a small but growing collection of prosecutions that openly accuses the Chinese government of stealing U.S. trade secrets. Earlier this month, an intelligence officer from the same Chinese intelligence branch was extradited from Belgium to Ohio to face intellectual property theft charges relating to jet aircraft engines. Advertisement According to the indictment, Yanjun Xu, a deputy division director, targeted experts who worked as leaders in the aviation field in private companies including GE Aviation and invited them to China to give university presentations as a way to steal trade secrets. In September, a Chicago federal grand jury indicted a Chinese-born U.S. Army Reserves soldier who is accused of working as an agent for the same intelligence group. His role was to help recruit Chinese nationals working in the U.S. as scientists and engineers to become spies, according to the indictment. On Thursday, arrest warrants were issued for 10 people in the most recent case, however, all defendants are believed to be in China. This action is yet another example of criminal efforts by the (Ministry of State Security) to facilitate the theft of private data for Chinas commercial gain, U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman said in a statement. The concerted effort to steal, rather than simply purchase, commercially available products should offend every company that invests talent, energy, and shareholder money into the development of products. The officers are accused of deploying a group of hackers to steal information on the technology of a turbofan engine being developed by an unnamed French aerospace manufacturer and a U.S.-based company. The indictment does not name the U.S. company nor say where it is located. A state-controlled aerospace company in China had been working to develop similar technology for an engine to use in commercial airliners in China at the time, the indictment alleges. The intrusion, beginning in 2010, stretched beyond the two main companies involved and targeted several businesses through the U.S. from Massachusetts to Arizona to Oregon that were developing parts for the engine, according to the charges. Other victims included a company in Wisconsin, companies based in the United Kingdom, and a multinational conglomerate. The intelligence service also repeatedly tried to hack into a San Diego-based technology company as part of the conspiracy from 2012 to 2014 to steal commercial information and use its website as a watering hole, meaning anyone who visits the website could be vulnerable to infection. On top of the official conspiracy, two alleged hackers are also charged with orchestrating a separate attack on the company for their own criminal motivations, the U.S. Department of Justice said. The first attack occurred on Jan. 8, 2010, when hackers got inside the networks of Capstone Turbine, a gas turbine manufacturer based in Los Angeles. The hackers first created their own email within the network, and later installed malware onto Capstones website to make it a watering hole. The malware, called Sakula, was designed to exploit vulnerabilities in the Internet Explorer web browser. The hackers infiltrated an Arizona aerospace company in 2012 by sending an email that encouraged targets to click on a website that had been set up purporting to be Capstone Turbine, its domain misspelled by one letter. The conspiracy also used two insiders working for the French aerospace company to operate as moles, according to the indictment. The company had offices in Suzhou, Jinagsu province. In November 2013, an intelligence officer told Tian Xi, a product manager for the French company: Ill bring the (Trojan) horse (malware) to you tonight. Can you take the Frenchmen out to dinner tonight? Ill pretend I bump into you at the restaurant to say hello. This way we dont need to meet in Shanghai, the indictment states. A month later, the officer allegedly asked Xi three times if he had plant(ed) the horse. Another restaurant meeting occurred in January 2014 between the officer and Gu Gen, the French companys information technology infrastructure and security manager. Within weeks, Xi texted the officer: The horse was planted this morning. The prosecution is linked to another San Diego case that accuses a Shanghai malware broker of providing the Sakula program for the Capstone Turbine attacks. I believe that the novelty and rarity of this malware is evidence that only a small group of hackers knew of it and that they were working together, a San Diego cybersquad FBI agent noted in the complaint against the malware broker, Pingan Yu. Sakula is a rare program that was used in the theft of U.S. Office of Personnel Management hacks discovered in 2014 and 2015 that compromised the data of thousands of federal employees. The OPM breaches are not mentioned in either prosecution, however. Yu, 37 pleaded guilty to a computer hacking conspiracy in September relating to the Capstone case. When Yu was arrested in August 2017 at the Los Angeles airport, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters on Friday that China opposes of all forms criminal internet activity, according to a report by Reuters. kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @kristinadavis President Donald Trump announced in an interview this week his plans to issue an executive order to end citizenship for children born in the country to noncitizen parents, another way to further reduce the flow of immigration. But legal experts say Trumps plan would run afoul of the U.S. Constitutions separations of powers and would face tough legal challenges. Trump made the comments about his plan during an interview this week with the news organization Axios. It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You dont, Trump told Axios. READ MORE: Trump eyes order to end birthright citizenship. Legal experts say that would violate Constitution. Advertisement In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Twitter described Trumps plans as election season catnip. The President doesnt have this authority, but he does have an interest in dividing the country and riling up his base. This is midterm election nonsense, Emanuel wrote on Twitter. But what could this mean for children whose parents arent citizens? Here are five things to know about citizenship in the United States: 1. What part of the U.S. Constitution grants citizenship to people born here? The 14th Amendment grants citizenship to everyone born or naturalized in the United States. The amendment was ratified July 9, 1868, and also included citizenship for recently freed slaves. The amendment was part of the countrys Reconstruction era, and it was in response to Southern states that were passing laws limiting the rights of former slaves, according to Tulane University Law School. But the 14th Amendment didnt grant the right to citizenship to all. Native Americans were not considered citizens until 1924 when the Indian Citizenship Act was passed. 2. What legal hurdles could the executive order face? The president doesnt have the authority to amend the Constitution, but Trump could argue that his order is giving instructions on how to interpret the Constitution rather than changing it, said William Baude, a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Trumps proposed executive order could face further legal hurdles because the Constitution gives to Congress the power to decide who is a citizen, Baude said. A federal statute, 8 U.S. Code 1401, states a citizen is a person born in the United States, and Trump wouldnt be able to amend that through an executive order, he said. If Trump does issue an executive order, it could immediately be challenged by anyone who is denied a document such as a passport or Social Security number, he said. Frankly, Im not sure he is serious, Baude said about Trumps comments. This may be for attention. 3. How many children fall into this category? In 2014, an estimated 275,000 babies across the country were born to unauthorized immigrant parents, according to the Pew Research Center. Those children accounted for about 7 percent out of the 4 million births in 2014. Unauthorized immigrants include people who entered the country illegally or who have overstayed visas. 4. Whats the argument for changing who is a citizen? Some have argued that there has been a misreading of the 14th Amendment, which was meant to resolve the issue of citizenship for freed slaves. Michael Anton, who previously worked as a national security official in Trumps administration, penned an opinion column published in the Washington Post earlier this summer that called this type of citizenship a mistake whose time has gone. Baude said those in favor of changing who can be a citizen have focused on specific wording subject to the jurisdiction thereof that historically was meant to provide an exception for children of diplomats who were in the country. But now, some proponents of changing citizenship have argued that exception should also be applied to children of immigrants, Baude said. 5. So what could happen to the children? If the part of the 14th Amendment giving people birthright citizenship was revoked, children born here of noncitizen parents would become part of the at least 10 million people around the world that the United Nations Refugee Agency estimates are stateless, said Sarah Davila-Ruhaak, director of the International Human Rights Clinic at the John Marshall Law School. Most people who are considered without any nationality are typically children born in refugee camps. The children would not meet the definition of entering the country illegally and thus would be born into legal limbo, Davila-Ruhaak said. And as the children grow up and become adults, it would be unclear what their citizenship status would be, she said. I dont think that this is a sound legal argument that the Trump administration is making, Davila-Ruhaak said. This is another effort to justify mass deportations, and I think that its in line with the discriminatory treatment that the administration has had toward immigrants. The Washington Post contributed. emalagon@chicagotribune.com Twitter @ElviaMalagon UC San Diego plans to dramatically slow enrollment growth for two to three years so that it can absorb a huge increase in students and give the campus time to build or start about $1 billion in housing, classrooms and laboratories. The universitys enrollment has soared by an average of 1,059 students a year since 2008, making it one of the fastest growing schools in the country, and contributing to campus housing shortages each of the past two years. One of the biggest increases came this fall when enrollment unexpectedly jumped by about 2,200, giving the campus a record 38,798 students. That was an anomaly; we werent expecting it, Chancellor Pradeep Khosla told the Union-Tribune. We need to be a little more measured and controlled. Advertisement Khosla wants to limit enrollment growth to 300 to 500 students over each of the next two to three years. The plan would primarily affect freshmen and transfer students. The school admits two freshmen for every transfer it accepts. The plan would have to be approved by the University of California system, and there could be pushback. The UC has been growing rapidly and the system has been guiding a lot of students to its San Diego and Irvine campuses, which have room to grow. UC San Diego is popular, but not everyone wants to head to La Jolla. The campus was not the first choice of the majority of freshmen who enrolled there in fall 2017, according to a school survey. There are also some mixed feelings about the universitys rapid growth. Many students and faculty have expressed excitement that the campus is quickly approaching the size of some of the nations largest public research universities. But others are concerned that UC San Diego became more than twice as big as Stanford in the past decade. Students do not want the campus to grow any bigger, said Ella Chen, editor of The Triton, an independent campus newspaper. A lot of resources are already stretched thin and our lecture halls are massive and cant always accommodate everyone if the entire class actually shows up. Housing and parking are major issues and the growing pains are very apparent. The growth also is apparent at the schools two campus libraries. In September, they collectively drew 86,110 visitors, nearly 20,000 more than last September. The pace of growth may slow a bit. But thats likely to be short-lived. In an interview, Khosla spoke in detail about a massive construction boom thats now underway and likely to push enrollment to 42,000 within five years. And Khosla said he could envision a scenario where UC San Diego tops out at 48,000 to 50,000 over several decades. He also said for the first time that the school might partner with the private sector to build a hotel near Jacobs Medical Center on the universitys east campus. And he said it was conceivable that the campus could some day partner with San Diego Countys military and defense industries in developing a major national laboratory, a deal that could boost the schools current $1.2 billion in annual research funding by hundreds of millions of dollars. The campus already operates research ships on behalf of the Navy. So far, the school hasnt broached the national lab idea with the military or government. In the near-term, UC San Diego will push ahead with plans to make the university more of a residential campus. The school can currently house 15,800 students. It will try to roughly double that figure within a decade. And it is seriously considering creating campus housing for some faculty and staff. The university will add 4,164 student beds by late 2020. By that point, the university also will have completed a major expansion in the arts and humanities and social sciences, and will be constructing major buildings for Innovation and Design, and engineering. The campus also is planning a major student complex, known as Triton Pavilion, that will serve as the universitys main doorway. It will be located at a blue line trolley station thats scheduled to open in 2021. As this work unfolds, the campus will begin to expand from six colleges to eight, with plans to increase the number to 10 by the time the university is built out. An offer last week by the San Diego County Water Authority board chairman to settle a host of litigation with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California was not well received by water officials to the north. MWD leaders accused their San Diego counterparts of violating an agreement to negotiate in private and abruptly canceled a meeting previously scheduled for Tuesday. We were surprised by the unilateral decision by the San Diego County Water Authority to make the proposal letter public as our ongoing discussions were confidential and our agencies have an executed confidentiality agreement governing those discussions, the MWD chairman wrote Monday. In fact the press and legislative offices received the SDCWA letter before we did. The one-page response answered a proposal by water authority Chairman Jim Madaffer, who offered to settle as many as five separate lawsuits. In short, the San Diego agency would trim attorney fees it is owed if MWD makes other concessions. Advertisement In a response also dated Monday, Madaffer said the San Diego agency did not violate any agreement. The water authority has fully complied with the confidentiality agreement, he wrote. The specific approach stated in my letter was never previously presented to the Metropolitan, and thus was not a disclosure of any prior settlement discussions. Madaffer said he received positive feedback from his Oct. 25 proposal, including from some Metropolitan board members. He urged MWD to reconsider canceling the meeting. The Los Angeles water agency did not reinstate the settlement discussion but it also did not reject the settlement idea out of hand. In fact, it will discuss the issue next week. Rest assured that we will take the SDCWA proposal seriously, and it will receive Metropolitans full consideration, board Chairman Randy Record wrote. We will be in touch and look forward to working with you in the near future. The two water agencies have been at odds for years over rates Metropolitan charges San Diego County. In recent years, the San Diego agency has scaled back its reliance on Metropolitan for water supplies but at a significant price. An acre-foot of treated water from Metropolitan costs just over $1,000 while the same amount of water in San Diego costs about $1,600. jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonald Much more can be done in the short and long term to better serve San Diego County residents who need psychiatric help. That was the very clear consensus of the broad coalition of local organizations that convened before the San Diego County Board of Supervisors Tuesday. The meeting, which featured experts from law enforcement, social services, health care and many other disciplines, was spurred over the summer by Tri-City Medical Centers decision to shut down its psychiatric units. But organizers made it clear that they werent in the room to get mired in bed-counting. Though there were a few short-term fixes floated that will have a direct bearing on the psychiatric services situation in coastal North County, the bulk of the discussion focused on how to close long-standing gaps in a system estimated to serve about 9 percent of adults and 16 percent of youths across San Diego County. Advertisement Chairwoman Kristin Gaspar, whose office put the meeting together, made it clear the discussion was a starting point. Based on what was said Tuesday, she said her office intends to put together a board letter outlining the collaborative work that will be done in the future. Today really is the beginning of a much deeper dive and discussion in the future that actually is that collaborative approach that has been missing for so long, Gaspar said. A large number of officials came with their own examples of and ideas for how mental health services could be better handled. About one-third of county jail inmates have mental illnesses, and Sheriff Bill Gore said work is underway to get electronic access to inmates psychiatric health records so that jail-based mental health workers can be better informed in their work. We will have the ability to look at the inmates diagnosis, medication and psychiatric history and therefore provide more continuous care, Gore said. Neil Besse with the San Diego Public Defenders Office, highlighted his agencys efforts to create a Defense Transition Unit that connects clients with in-house medical workers for evaluations, which can divert them from jails to treatment programs. The program, Besse said, handled 1,758 referrals in its first two years. While these programs are examples of how agencies are already pursuing different ways of thinking about re-building the criminal justice system to better accommodate mental illnesses, some said during Tuesdays meeting that they believe its possible to move much further up stream and prevent arrests. County District Attorney Summer Stephan came prepared with a long list of insights about how interactions with law enforcement could be quickly improved to reduce the number of psychiatric cases that turn into 5150 emergency transports when law enforcement determines in the field that a person may be a danger to themselves or others. Stephan noted that law enforcement is often called to the scene by a loved one or acquaintance when psychiatric symptoms are not too severe and ends up getting called back days, weeks or months later when symptoms become more violent. The question is, what happened in-between those two incidents? The answer is, nothing, Stephan said, adding that she believes much can be done to connect those with psychiatric symptoms to follow-up care in the lull that usually spans the distance between minor problems and major ones. These days, she noted, automatic computer systems should be able to notify social service providers for follow-up after initial law enforcement encounters. Having a response thats systematic for those times when youre not in crisis is critical for stopping crisises from happening, Stephan said. She also called for increasing the hours that psychiatric services are available, especially pushing availability into weekends. To be sure, the county is already moving forward with many such ideas. It will spend $658 million on behavioral health services this fiscal year, up from $425 million in the 2014-2015 budget year. Increases in cash have paid for a significant increase in the number of psychiatric emergency response teams on the street and for an additional 150 long-term beds for psychiatric patients who need more than three days or two weeks in a locked unit for treatment. Hospitals have long complained that they lose money caring for the Medi-Cal patients in their units because reimbursement rates dont cover costs. Nick Macchione, director of the county Health and Human Services Agency, said that the county is planning to push the acute rates that local hospitals receive for psychiatric care to 13 percent above the states base rate, a move that is expected to increase county spending $6.7 million this fiscal year. The amount of additional cash that would flow to hospitals would be much higher, because county funds would draw additional federal Medicaid funds which are matched at rates ranging from 50 percent to 90 percent. Meanwhile, Tri-Citys behavioral health and crisis-stabilization units remain closed, and no one who spoke Tuesday shared an immediate plan to get them open again. Long-term plans, officials said, are to develop new inpatient psychiatric hospital units at Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, which has recently experienced a severe influx of mental health patients who need assessment. Alfredo Aguirre, director of behavioral health services for the county, said after the meeting that his division is closing in on a deal that would hire Exodus Recovery in Vista to provide 24/7 crisis stabilization services, including the ability to receive 5150 holds that would remove the need for law enforcement officers on the coast to drive to Escondido or even San Diego to transfer custody. In something of an ironic twist, Aguirre said that the county is considering leasing Tri-Citys now-empty behavioral health unit to house a crisis-stabilization unit operated by Exodus. Doing so, he said, would require some tenant improvements but it was not clear Tuesday how long such work would take. Tri-City cited needed upgrades, including removal of hanging risks such as drop ceilings, as one of the main reasons why it had to shut down. Such talk delighted the public speakers who addressed the board. Long frustrated with the fractured nature of psychiatric services, many said they welcome the new collaborative approach now coming together. Michael Bagby, North County Coastal chapter president of the National Alliance For Mental Illness, agreed with a comment made by San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer who said he regretted a tendency to wait for total consensus on all mental health issues before taking action on the most glaring problems. As your mayor suggested to you, please dont go for consensus. Pick the two or three items that make sense to you, push as hard as you can and go for it. We will support you wholeheartedly, Bagby said. The county plans to hire a consultant to direct future collaborative work around improving mental health services. Health Playlist On Now Video: Why aren't Americans getting flu shots? 0:37 On Now Video: Leaders urge public to help extinguish hepatitis outbreak On Now San Diego starts cleansing sidewalks, streets to combat hepatitis A On Now Video: Scripps to shutter its hospice service On Now Video: Scripps La Jolla hospitals nab top local spot in annual hospital rankings On Now Video: Does a parent's Alzheimer's doom their children? On Now Video: Vaccine can prevent human papillomavirus, which can cause cancer 0:31 On Now 23 local doctors have already faced state discipline in 2017 0:48 On Now EpiPen recall expands On Now Kids can add years to your life paul.sisson@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1850 Twitter: @paulsisson Palomar College students and community members near the schools San Marcos campus have greater access to fresh, nutritious and free food through a new partnership with the San Diego Food Bank, which has helped open similar pantries across the county. This is one of the nicer ones, Food Bank President and CEO James Floros said as he toured the Anita and Stan Maag Food and Nutrition Center after a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the school Monday. While Palomar Colleges partnership with the Food Bank is new, the school already was ahead of the curve in helping students in need make ends meet. Since 1983, the college has operated a modest pantry that it has kept stocked through donations and campus food drives. Since September 2017, the Office of Student Affairs at the school has distributed 25,000 pounds of food at the pantry, which saw 3,000 visitors. About 35 percent of the food was produce, and in all the pantry provided 12,000 meals. Advertisement The new food and nutrition center is larger, has refrigeration for frozen meals and dairy products, and is stocked with fresh produce, canned and boxed food and other products. Its open and inviting appearance near a dining area in the student union is intended to remove any stigma associated with its use, speakers at the ceremony said. The center was funded by a $400,000 gift from philanthropist Bob Wilson, who asked for it to be named after his friends Anita and Stan Maag, and with a $36,000 grant from the California Community Colleges Chancellors Office. That grant was part of $2.5 million that has been allocated to help colleges start or improve food pantries. Wilson, who attended the Monday ceremony, said his donation reflected his passion for helping education and people in need. Palomar College District Superintendent/President Joi Lin Blake said the expanded pantry is part of an effort to help students reach their educational goals. We want our college to be an environment where students needs are met with dignity and respect, she said at the ceremony. This facility allows us to expand the program and provide a safe and judgment-free facility where students can get what they need. Construction of the center began in March, and Student Affairs Director Sherry Titus said the school received the keys to the room just two weeks ago. The center still is being staffed, and Titus said it should be fully functional by the start of the spring semester. Until then, students and community members who have been using the original pantry can continue to get free food at the school. Floros said people also can visit the San Diego Food Bank website to find one of about 500 nonprofits that offer regular food distributions. A fall 2017 survey of California community colleges found that 57 percent of administrators, faculty and staff members said they had direct contact with students who experience food insecurity, meaning they dont have consistent access to enough food for a healthy, active life. A spring 2015 study found 40 percent of students in the University of California system regularly experience food insecurity, and Floros said UC San Diego has reported its level is 44 percent. The San Diego Food Bank had partnerships with some community colleges over the past few years, but Floros said he was inspired to make the effort regional after meeting Blake, who told him about the small pantry at Palomar College. When I met with Joi, she said, Were trying to do this, and need some love, he said. In January 2017, Floros invited representatives from all community colleges in the county to his office for what he called the great convening. He told the people at the meeting that if they wanted to start a pantry or expand one they already had, the Food Bank was there to help. Since then, every community college district in the county is working with the nonprofit or has applied to be one of its food distribution sites. The Food Bank helped expand an existing pantry at MiraCosta College, helped start a pantry at CSU San Marcos and has worked with San Diego State University on its pantry. Floros said he appreciated that Blake wanted the food pantry at Palomar College to be open to the public. One of the things I liked about Joi was that she said, If were doing this for our students, lets make it for anybody in the community, he recalled. As a community college, they feel its their responsibility to serve the whole community. Besides opening the new pantry, Titus said the school is taking other steps to help students in need. The Palomar Associated Student Government recently passed a resolution to pursue a safe-parking program on campus that would allow students to sleep in their cars at night. A similar program exist in Orange County at Cyprus College. The nonprofit Dreams for Change operates three safe parking lots San Diego, but there are none in North County. Homeless Playlist On Now San Diego hepatitis outbreak continues to grow: 481 cases On Now Homeless entrenched in booming tent city along Santa Ana River On Now San Diego mayor agreed to homeless hub, then delayed, advocates say On Now Homeless outreach in San Diego On Now Video: Street Art: Portraits of San Diego's Homeless #8 On Now In poverty himself, 'Water Man Dave,' is the fearless saint of San Diego's homeless 5:41 On Now Video: Homeless living in cars find safe havens 2:21 On Now Street Art: Portraits of San Diego's Homeless #7 On Now Pitching a tent plan for San Diego's homeless On Now Homeless efforts get $80M boost for various services gary.warth@sduniontribune.com Twitter: @GaryWarthUT 760-529-4939 President Donald Trumps plan to end birthright citizenship via executive order, announced a week before the midterm elections, thrust the issue in a matter of hours into the forefront of mainstream debate. Though the idea to stop children born to unauthorized immigrants, or parents in the U.S. temporarily, from having automatic citizenship has long lived in immigration restrictionist circles, it never had traction to get beyond bills introduced in Congress each term by Republicans like Rep. Steve King of Iowa. Trump has not announced a timeline for the order, and it is not yet clear what legal strategy it will take or who will be included in the new restrictions. The existence of the proposed executive order was reported by Axios Tuesday in a clip of an exclusive interview with the president that will air on HBO next week. Were the only country in the world where a person comes in, has a baby and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits, Trump told Axios. Its ridiculous. Its ridiculous, and it has to end. Advertisement There are 39 countries in the world that have birthright citizenship laws, according to the most recent data from the CIA World Factbook. Most of these countries are in North and South America. In Europe, Ireland is the only country that automatically grants citizenship at birth. Luxembourg will also grant citizenship at birth if the child isnt able to get citizenship elsewhere. In countries that dont have birthright citizenship, sometimes children born there end up stateless, as San Diego immigration attorney Regina Knoll witnessed growing up in Austria. In the U.S., citizenship is conferred based on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says, All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. The Supreme Court, in a case from the 1890s brought by a San Francisco-born man named Wong Kim Ark, decided the Amendments language included children born to immigrant parents who couldnt themselves become citizens. Wong Kim Arks parents were from China, and because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, they were not allowed to naturalize in the U.S. When Wong Kim Ark returned to the place of his birth after visiting China, he was detained and told he could not enter the country because he wasnt a citizen. He fought back in court and won in 1898. To historian Erika Lee, a professor at University of Minnesota, the governments argument at the time, based on racist, exclusionary laws, are a significant component of the push to end birthright citizenship. This was really a white supremacist argument that was the foundation behind the governments position, Lee said, and I would argue still colors the ways in which we see who is really American today. From her perspective, there is no wiggle room in the Supreme Courts decision. They explicitly said its about where you are born, not who your parents are, Lee said. From the immigration restrictionist perspective, the wiggle room comes based on the fact that Wong Kim Arks parents had permission to be living in San Francisco. Ted Hilton, a San Diegan who has long pushed for changes to birthright citizenship laws, sees a big distinction between the parents in Wong Kim Arks case and parents who are here as unauthorized immigrants. They had no intent of doing this for someone here unlawfully I can tell you, Hilton said of the Supreme Court decision. He was ecstatic over Tuesdays news. This is a historic day today for those of us who have been involved for over 25 years on this subject and waiting for it to somehow gain traction, Hilton said. We didnt know about this executive order. Its a tremendous sign for this cause. He hoped that with Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the bench, the Supreme Court will find in favor of the new restrictions after the legal challenge that will certainly come. California politicians who pushed for restrictive immigration laws over the years have advocated for changes to birthright citizenship. Former California Gov. Pete Wilson brought up the issue during his 1994 gubernatorial campaign, calling for a constitutional amendment blocking the right for children of unauthorized immigrants to be granted citizenship. That campaign also included a push for Proposition 187, which blocked unauthorized immigrants from access to health care and public education, among other measures, and was ruled unconstitutional after a court challenge. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-San Diego, in 2010 supported a measure to deny automatic citizenship to people born on U.S. soil. He offered backing for a bill, the Birthright Citizenship Act, that would have limited automatic citizenship to U.S.-born children who have at least one parent who is either a citizen, a legal permanent resident or a member of the military. King already has a bill with those same restrictions introduced in the House this term. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, announced Tuesday that he would introduce a similar measure in the Senate. Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee U.S./Mexico Border Program, said no matter how the change is made, ending birthright citizenship will heavily impact families in the border region. Its an injustice to the lived reality of border community members who live a more dynamic experience than that which is defined by country limitations, Rios said. Rios has family both in San Diego and Tijuana. One of his cousins lives on the U.S. side while that cousins parents reside in Mexico. He worried about what would happen to children of mixed-status families with one unauthorized immigrant parent or to children who arent able to become citizens of the countries where their parents were born. It could create a class of people living in the boundaries of the U.S. government, a stateless class of people who are disenfranchised without equal protection under the law, Rios said. Not all those who cross the border to give birth stay in the U.S. Sergio Sandoval, who was raised in Tijuana, was able to pursue his dreams of higher education in the U.S. and work for NASA because his mother gave birth to him in the U.S. U.S. hospitals have long drawn affluent foreigners who opt to give birth in the United States, a phenomenon known as birth tourism that confers U.S. citizenship on their children. The practice has been common along the U.S.-Mexico border, where Mexican parents cross on U.S. visitors visas to give birth in the United States in a paid arrangement with private hospitals. The parents often say they are doing it to give their children greater options, and U.S. officials have confirmed there is nothing illegal about it. 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 Sandra Dibble contributed reporting. Follow me on Facebook for live updates about immigration news kate.morrissey@sduniontribune.com, @bgirledukate on Twitter The suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday, four days after 11 people were killed and six wounded in the deadliest attack on Jews in American history. The indictment charges Robert Bowers with 44 counts, including hate crimes. Federal prosecutors have previously indicated they plan to seek the death penalty. The charges were announced on the second day of funerals for the victims. Today begins the process of seeking justice for the victims of these hateful acts, and healing for the victims families, the Jewish community, and our city, U.S. Attorney Scott Brady said in a statement. Our office will spare no resource, and will work with professionalism, integrity and diligence, in a way that honors the memories of the victims. Bowers, a 46-year-old truck driver, remained jailed without bail ahead of a preliminary hearing scheduled for Thursday. Authorities say he raged against Jews during the attack. Advertisement Members of Pittsburghs grief-stricken Jewish community, meanwhile, endured another round of funerals for the congregants who were gunned down in Saturdays rampage. Melvin Wax, 87, Irving Younger, 69, and Joyce Fienberg, 75, were being laid to rest as part of a weeklong series of services. It cant be fixed, Robert Libman said at the funeral of Fienberg, his sister, clutching his chest as he described the pain of losing her. My sister is dead. My sister was murdered. There was no one I know like her. Pure goodness. ... She was the most tolerant and gentle person that Ive ever known. Her sons, Anthony of Paris and Howard of Vienna, Va., said she spent five years caring for their father as he battled cancer, then after his death a few years ago, devoted more of her time and energy to Tree of Life. My mom would be very angry that her funeral wasnt able to be at Tree of Life and that her friends lost Saturday couldnt be here, Howard Fienberg said. Among those wounded in the attack were four police officers, two of whom remained hospitalized with gunshot wounds. Two congregants were still in the hospital, one in critical condition. Hospital officials said the two most seriously injured shooting victims are improving. A police officer and a congregant remained in intensive care but are doing much better now, Dr. Donald Yealy, chairman of emergency medicine at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said Wednesday. I think overall the prognoses are good now. But each of them, in a varying way, will have a different trajectory and likely will require a series of ongoing care. Over the past month, caught in the most competitive race of his political career and with his family dynasty hanging in the balance, Rep. Duncan Hunter embraced a campaign strategy that has been viewed as controversial to say the least. In addition to going after his opponent along traditional political lines in a district that has long been a Republican stronghold, Hunter has opted for a series of attacks labeling his Democratic challenger, Ammar Campa-Najjar, a national security risk, citing his Palestinian roots. Campa-Najjar, who was born in the U.S. to a Palestinian father and Mexican-American mother, has repeatedly rebuked Hunters claim pointing to, among other things, federal security clearances he received while working in former President Barack Obamas White House and Department of Labor. The candidate has criticized the attacks as a desperate attempt by Hunter to distract from his ongoing legal troubles. Hunter and his wife were indicted in late August on federal charges of fraud and misuse of campaign funds. They both have pleaded not guilty and are due back in court in December. Advertisement Hunters ads have been criticized, including by a group of 17 San Diego area rabbis who put out a statement on Wednesday. These false fear mongering claims undermine important Jewish values including the commitment to tolerance, honesty and respect, the rabbis said. Hunter, 41, of Alpine, is not backing down. These are facts and the idea that we cannot raise national security concern based on political correctness, we are not going to be painted into that box, said Mike Harrison, spokesman for Hunter, during an interview. For the media to immediately say hes playing the race card, that is lazy journalism because there are facts there that they have not looked into. Hunters allegations center on Campa-Najjars family history specifically, Campa-Najjars fathers decades working for the Palestinian government and the candidates grandfathers role in a 1972 terror attack at the Olympics in Munich. The lives of Campa-Najjars father and grandfather played out on the world stage. The killing of Campa-Najjars grandparents in front of their young son was shown in a scene in Munich, a 2005 Steven Spielberg movie. And their story is far more complex than any 30-second political ad could convey. There at the founding Campa-Najjars grandfather, Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar, was a leader in the Fatah political party, which was and remains today one of the largest factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Al-Najjar helped found the party alongside Yasser Arafat the former longtime leader of the PLO while the two were Palestinian refugees working in Kuwait in 1965, according to news reports. Al-Najjars success stemmed primarily from his skills as a gifted negotiator, forging ties between Palestinians and western European countries and negotiating among guerrilla factions of the larger PLO. He was a much loved leader, and his funeral cortege, together with his two comrades killed on 10 April 1973 was one of the largest in Lebanese history, said Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University of al-Najjar, in an email to the Union-Tribune. They were perceived by most Palestinians and Lebanese as national heroes. More than 100,000 people attended the funeral, and to this day al-Najjar has a hospital named after him in Rafah, Gaza. The Munich Massacre During the 1972 Olympics, eight heavily armed Palestinian terrorists stormed an apartment complex in Olympic Village, killing two Israeli athletes and taking nine others hostage. The terrorists were members of the organization known as Black September. Although there is disagreement among historians regarding the degree to which Fatah and the PLO exercised control over the group, Black September received funding and other support from the Fatah intelligence service, according to a 1973 report by the U.S. State Department. The terrorists demanded that Israel release more than 230 Palestinian prisoners. German authorities promised Black September and the hostages air transport to Cairo, but police planned an ambush before takeoff at an airport in Germany. That rescue attempt was botched. In the ensuing chaos, the terrorists killed all of the hostages. A German police officer and five of the terrorists were also killed. The attack, dubbed the Munich Massacre, thrust the Israel-Palestine conflict into a global spotlight, elevating tensions and eliciting a bloody Israeli response. In the following days Israel bombed PLO bases in Syria and Lebanon, killing not only PLO members but many civilians. Shortly thereafter then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir also authorized an assassination campaign that was unprecedented in scale. The campaign, which lasted decades, targeted members of Black September and the PLO, with the goal of going after those responsible for Munich, according to multiple news reports and books. Among those targets was al-Najjar, whom the Israeli government believed was involved. Among historians, though, there is debate about the level of involvement of al-Najjar and several other targets of Operation Wrath of God related to Munich. Some, like Israeli historian Benny Morris, believe al-Najjar was involved. In his book Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict 1881-1998, Morris said that al-Najjar was head of Fatahs intelligence arm (which ran Black September). Other historians are less certain. Black September was behind the Munich attack, and some Fatah leaders were definitely involved, but Israeli intelligence accused so many Fatah leaders and cadres of responsibility (as an excuse for killing them) that it is absurd to believe their claims, said Khalidi, the professor from Columbia University, by email. He may have been involved, but I doubt he was the mastermind, he added of al-Najjar. Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman who researched the subject extensively and wrote the book Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israels Targeted Assassinations also told the Union-Tribune by email that the evidence about al-Najjars involvement was not conclusive. The question who was or was not involved in Munich (aside from the perpetrators themselves) remains a matter of dispute, Bergman said. Hunters attacks have gone well beyond the question of al-Najjars involvement, stating, His grandfather masterminded the Munich Olympic massacre. But Mohammed Oudeh who died of kidney failure in 2010 is widely accepted to be the mastermind of the operation. In Oudehs 1999 memoir, he told the story behind how he planned the attack. In the 1990s and 2000s he gave interviews in which he discussed the subject further and expressed no regrets for his actions. The day of al-Najjars death, The New York Times reported that although his name has been linked, because of reported intelligence activity, to the Black September guerrilla organization it is not believed in informed guerilla circles that Mr. Najjar was in any operational control of the secret terrorist group. The nature of the struggle On April 9, 1973, a squad of Israeli commandos among them future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak conducted a raid in Beirut, Lebanon, in which they stormed an apartment complex and shot al-Najjar and his wife to death while their children were in the apartment. The death of al-Najjar and his wife left their four children orphaned, among them 11-year-old Yasser Najjar, who is the father of candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar. After the raid, Yasser Najjar and his siblings were sent to Cairo by King Hassan II of Morocco, and in time were separated, according to a 2002 report by the Chicago Tribune. Yasser Najjar studied in England and then later immigrated to the United States, where he gained citizenship, according to the Chicago Tribune. He moved to San Diego in 1981 and earned an MBA from San Diego State University. He opened clothing boutiques in Del Mar and La Jolla and met a girl from Logan Heights who hed eventually marry, Abigail Campa. In 1994, when the Palestinian National Authority was established and Yasser Arafat returned to Gaza, Najjar went as well, beginning what would turn into a 20-year-plus career with the group. I came back to Gaza eight years ago because I wanted to see what my parents died for, Najjar told the Chicago Tribune in 2002. For most of Najjars tenure he worked in the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation and as a diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Unlike his father who struck a more militant tone when dealing with Israel, Yasser Najjar publicly advocated for peace. The nature of the struggle has changed dramatically. Today its a worse struggle: coexistence, Najjar told the Washington Post in 1996. Its like a wife that you dont love, but you have to stay married. The Palestinian and Israeli people will inevitably work it out, to both their benefits. In 2003, he told NPR, I can hate the Israelis or Ehud Barak forever, you know, and Im entitled to. They took everything from me, my mother and my father. But at the end, for my children to live, I have to put my hatred aside. If I carry this hatred, my children will kill and end up being killed. And as a father, I dont want that. Palestine and Israel this area is the most beautiful on earth. Every year we are not building this country together, I mean, Israel and Palestine, every day we lose in conflict. It is a loss to us and to our children. During his time in the Palestinian Authority, Najjar also proved to be one of the groups internal critics. Israel has taken our dreams away, but so has the conduct of the Palestinian Authority, Najjar told the Tribune in 2002. Their officials had no right to become millionaires and take the money that belonged to the people. Ours is no longer a revolution or a cause with any hope. And that is the reason why people today blow themselves up to become martyrs. During the interview Najjar also predicted that a new movement would eventually sweep aside what he called a weak, corrupt and greedy Palestinian Authority and that movement would work with like-minded people on the Israeli side to find a solution to the two nations conflict. In his career with the Palestinian Authority, Najjar also had run-ins with the militant Hamas organization, a group the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization since 1997. In 2004, Najjar expressed concern to the Financial Times that Israels intent to withdraw settlements from the Gaza Strip would empower Hamas. Then in 2009 while working as an ambassador in Norway a letter circulated on an Arabic-language website claimed Najjar was assisting Israel in the war in the Gaza strip. Najjar said at the time the letter was fake and likely generated by Hamas. Najjar left the Palestinian Authority earlier this year and lives in Norway, according to his LinkedIn. He did not reply to a message seeking comment. Campa-Najjar said his father was fired from the authority after the candidates public criticism of his grandfathers actions. Despite Najjars talk of peace, the PLO and the Palestinian Authoritys relationship with Israel has historically been complex and often hostile. U.S. President Donald Trump, left, meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, in the West Bank City of Bethlehem. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Evan Vucci / AP) Prior to 1993, Arafat and the PLO refused to recognize Israels right to exist and one of the groups explicit goals was to liberate and uproot Zionists from the region in an effort to reclaim the land Palestinians themselves were expelled from when the state of Israel was established after World War II. Although Arafat and the PLO formally recognized Israels right to peaceful existence in 1993, peace talks in the time since have been turbulent or halted all together, with frequent armed conflict and civilian causalities. American life Ammar Campa-Najjar, 29, of Jamul, was born at Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa in 1989 16 years after the death of al-Najjar. Campa-Najjar said he doesnt recall his father talking about his family or life in the Middle East during those early years, but rather he was just a seemingly happy go-lucky guy immersed in his American life. He was really dedicated to being a father, a businessman and a husband, then a switch turned, Campa-Najjar said of his father. Three years after Yasser Najjar left for Gaza in 1994, Campa-Najjar along with his brother and mother moved there as well, in an effort to make sure the boys had both of their parents in their lives, he said. Campa-Najjar, his mother and brother, never lived with Najjar while in Gaza, and shortly after their arrival he remarried. Campa-Najjar said his father attempted to spend time with him but their relationship was strained. Life in Gaza also came as a huge culture shock for Campa-Najjar, who was 8 when he arrived. Although he attended a Catholic School there and saw some westerners because of that, most everything else was unfamiliar. Although he speaks Arabic along with Spanish and English his cousins would laugh at his efforts, and ultimately other children still viewed him as an American. Because I wasnt fully embraced by native Palestinians, I was forced into an outsiders view of the conflict and even something at a young age told me its not black and white, said Campa-Najjar, who supports a two-state solution for the region. After living in Gaza for four years, Campa-Najjar, his mother and brother fled escalating violence and moved back to San Diego County. From that point on, Campa-Najjar who was 12 at the time rarely saw his father, who remained in Gaza. Over the past month he has found himself forced to talk less about the issues and more about his family heritage due to Hunters attacks. Campa-Najjar said that he knew his grandfather would come up in the campaign, so in February when an Israeli newspaper first broke the story about his grandfathers terrorist ties he wasnt surprised. Campa-Najjar condemned the attack in Munich and his grandfather, which he did on multiple occasions thereafter as well. 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 just a few weeks ago following a press conference by Hunters father. I fully, unequivocally disavow the murder of innocent people. During a recent interview Campa-Najjar said he never really heard much about his grandparents when he was younger or while he was in Gaza. He had heard people say they were killed in the 70s and were martyrs, although he didnt know what that meant at the time. It wasnt until he saw the film Munich, released in 2005, that he realized what had happened. After that he began asking questions, but found answers limited. He remembers his aunts and his father saying their father wasnt a terrorist, but never offering many specifics. Despite criticism of Hunters attacks on Campa-Najjar and his family, the candidate said he has not changed his views on his grandfathers actions. I condemn the massacre, and if he was involved then my view remains the same, Campa-Najjar said. A developer plans to build a five-story parking garage at the San Ysidro border crossing near two outlet malls and a new northbound pedestrian entry facility. The San Diego Planning Commission last week unanimously approved the project, which will replace a one-story car insurance business and continue an ongoing, significant makeover of the busiest border crossing in the world. The parking levels will be built over 13,000 square feet of ground floor commercial space. Planning commissioners rejected the project in early October based on concerns about security at the garage, excessive signage and lack of facilities for bicycles. Last week, they praised the developer for making changes that address all of those concerns. Advertisement A security guard will be on site 24 hours a day and the garage will have multiple surveillance cameras. In addition, an electronic sign will announce how many of the 349 spaces in the garage are available at all times. One outward facing side of the garage will feature a large international graphic that will aim to encourage cooperation between countries, particularly Mexico and the U.S. I think its a handsome project, Commissioner Susan Peerson said during the public hearing. I think it will be an attribute to the community as well as the city. The owners of one of the nearby outlet malls, Outlets at the Border, raised concerns about thousands of pedestrians passing in front of the proposed entry to the garage. Because the garage entry is not at a controlled intersection, there will be no stoplight or walk/dont walk signs to help keep pedestrians safe. Commissioners didnt say they shared the safety concerns raised by the outlet owner, whose attorney also criticized the project more generally. We think its the wrong place and the wrong type of project for this important gateway to the international pedestrian point of entry, said the attorney, Ryan Waterman. Located at Virginia Avenue and Camino de la Plaza, the garage will replace BajaMex Insurance and the 2,400-square-foot building that houses that business. The project includes widening westbound Camino de la Plaza and restriping the road there to create side-by-side turning lanes. The retail storefronts, which will face Virginia Avenue and Camino de la Plaza, are designed to enhance the commercial district. david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick San Diego police Chief David Nisleit announced Tuesday that his department would not ban the use of a controversial neck hold known as a carotid restraint but would make policy changes regarding how often officers are trained in the technique and when to call for medical assistance. Nisleit explained the changes at a meeting of the Community Review Board on Police Practices, an oversight board thats limited in power, but can make policy recommendations to the San Diego Police Department. For the record: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported a statement from the police chief to the Community Review Board. The Police Department will not stop using the carotid restraint for people deemed to be actively resisting officers. The current policy also does not state which populations of people the carotid restraint should not be used on. The Union-Tribune regrets the error. In May, the Community Review Board recommended the removal of the carotid restraint technique as an option for officers dealing with someone displaying active resistance behavior. But the board recommended it be kept as a use-of-force option against suspects displaying assaultive or life-threatening behavior. San Diego police Chief David Nisleit speaks Tuesday to the Community Review Board on Police Practices about changes to the departments use of the carotid restraint. (Alex Riggins/SDUT) Advertisement Nisleit did not accept the suggestions outright, and instead proposed a series of other recommendations as outlined in a memo to the review board which he said reflect the need to take into consideration concerns expressed by the community, while continuing to provide officers from our Department with the tools to prevent the occurrence of deadly force situations whenever possible to safeguard lives. First among those recommendations was to make clear within the departments policies as well as to the public that a carotid restraint is different than a chokehold. The latter is already banned by department policy and will continue to be off-limits. The chief explained that the key difference between the two neck restraints has to do with where pressure is applied. A chokehold puts pressure on the front of the neck and throat, cutting off air, while a carotid restraint targets the vascular veins on the side of the neck and cuts off blood to render someone unconscious very, very quickly, Nisleit said. According to the Police Department, San Diego officers used the carotid restraint 406 times between 2013 and 2017, an average of 81.2 times per year. The policy changes announced by Nisleit Tuesday will also require medical examinations (of suspects) following each application of the carotid restraint. Current policy required that only suspects who exhibit symptoms of medical distress or those who are rendered unconscious by the carotid restraint are required to be examined medically. Policy language will also change to require officers to de-escalate situations, when possible, before using force, according to Nisleit. Officers will also be required to intervene and then immediately report to a supervisor if they observe another officer using excessive force. And officers will be trained on how and when to use the restraint every year instead of every two years, Nisleit told the community review board and community members gathered at the City Heights Weingart Library. The carotid restraint technique will continue to be prohibited, as it is now, to be used on the elderly, obvious juveniles and pregnant women. A group of activists from the Racial Justice Coalition of San Diego said at a news conference before Tuesdays announcement that the policy changes do not go far enough. Yusef Miller from the San Diego branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the Racial Justice Coalition wants a complete ban on this chokehold. The activists used the terms chokehold and carotid restraint interchangeably and reject the notion that one is dangerous enough to ban while the other is safe enough for officers to deploy. This chokehold is ineffective. Its aggressive and its deadly when used wrong, Miller said. Attorney Alara Chilton, immediate past-president of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association, called for an all-out ban on the carotid restraint. The challenge is that when a person is met with this kind of (restraint), that person becomes (too) difficult to (have it) applied safely, Chilton said. It is our position that you cannot apply it safely, because that person would be moving, and it would be very difficult to reach the appropriate artery to safely cut off the circulation. Chilton said theres been a lot of trauma and injury that results when this technique is applied. In his presentation to the Community Review Board, Nisleit said his department has had no in-custody deaths linked to the carotid restraint since 1992. In that case, 16-year-old John Hampton died after officers used a carotid restraint to subdue him. Hamptons death led to a study by the Police Department that found that seven suspects died in San Diego police custody between 1989 and 1992, including two who died after officers used the carotid hold, according to a Los Angeles Times article from August 1992. The department also issued stricter guidelines then on when and how police could use the carotid restraint. Then-police Chief Bob Burgreen defended the carotid restraint in 1992, telling the Times that If you take that tool away, what does an officer have left? Would you rather be rendered unconscious . . . or have an officer come at you with a (baton) and beat you until your bones break? In a real-world situation, those are the options and those are the only options. Nisleit and other police officials echoed those concerns Tuesday, saying that if officers were barred from using the carotid hold, they might have to resort to more violent means of suppression. Nisleit said data his department received from the Los Angeles Police Department showed that doing away with the carotid restraint option led to a more than 600-percent increase in injuries to suspects, and a more than 500-percent increase in injuries to officers. But the activists from the Racial Justice Coalition who said that use of force by police, including the carotid restraint, disproportionately targets people and communities of color were unswayed by the argument that removing the carotid restraint option would make injuries more likely. The carotid restraint is used as deadly force, said Bishop Cornelius Bowser, a pastor and the co-founder of the Community Assistance Support Team, who also said stricter regulations of when the hold can be used wont protect communities of color. You look at implicit biases, especially black people, throughout this city, this county and this nation, we are always viewed as dangerous, as hostile, as threatening and as a criminal, Bowser said. And so if (we) roll our eyes or talk back, it can be seen as a threat to that officer. Clovis Honore, first vice president of the San Diego chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said his organization stands in complete support of the total elimination of the chokehold or carotid restraint. Honore said he hoped the incremental changes announced Tuesday would continue to move to the complete elimination and ban of the carotid restraint. Twitter: @Alex_Riggins (619) 293-1710 alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com A former Jamul resident was arrested Tuesday morning in Maryland on suspicion of murdering his wife, whose body was discovered on the side of a hiking trail near the couples home the first week of 2017. Winnie Perry Whitby, 49, was being held Tuesday in the Talbot County Jail on Marylands Eastern Shore, San Diego County sheriffs homicide Lt. Rich Williams said. Sheriffs homicide detectives traveled to the East Coast to arrest Whitby with the help of Maryland State Police and U.S. Marshals, according to Williams. Whitbys wife, 49-year-old Melissa Estrada Whitby, was reported missing by coworkers on Dec. 30, 2016, Williams said. Hikers found her body just over a week later, on Jan. 7, 2017, off Skyline Truck Trail east of Lyons Valley Road. Advertisement The site where her body was dumped was about 2.5 miles from where the Whitbys lived on Skyline Truck Trail west of Hillary Drive. An autopsy revealed Melissa Whitby was the victim of a homicide, Williams said. Evidence gathered over the course of the ... investigation linked Winnie to the murder of Melissa Whitby, Williams said in a statement. Detectives did not say what evidence linked Whitby to his wifes killing. Around the time that Melissa Whitbys body was discovered, friends and coworkers remembered her as a passionate nurse and caring colleague at Villas Las Palmas Healthcare Center in El Cajon. Melissa was an amazing person, an amazing nurse with so much knowledge, Olivia Moreno said. She was an even better coworker and friend She was our momma bear. Winnie Perry Whitbys arrest which comes about 22 months after his wife was reported missing and then found slain is the second of its kind by the Sheriffs Department in the last five days. On Friday, sheriffs detectives arrested 39-year-old Hector Garcia Martinez, whose wife Maria Elena Guzman-Cordova, 38, was reported missing in October 2017. Martinez pleaded not guilty to a murder charge Monday. Sheriffs detectives asked anyone with information about Melissa Whitbys killing or anyone who may have seen related suspicious activity near the end of 2016 or first week of 2017 to call the sheriffs homicide unite at (858) 285-6330. Anonymous tipsters can also contact San Diego County Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477 or sdcrimestoppers.org. Twitter: @Alex_Riggins (619) 293-1710 alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com A San Diego man who was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison for a 2006 murder, then had that conviction wiped out after prosecutors developed doubts over the strength of DNA evidence used against him, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in a plea deal that allowed him to walk out of jail. Donnell Fulcher pleaded guilty Monday to a charge of voluntary manslaughter and assault with a firearm at a hearing in San Diego Superior Court. Under the terms of the plea bargain, he was sentenced to 14 years, but Superior Court Judge Kenneth So gave him credit for the time he has served in jail and prison on the chagres. That cleared the way for Fulcher to be released from custody. The case marked the first time that the District Attorneys Conviction Review Unit recommended giving up a conviction because of doubts about the evidence used to earn it. That decision was made in July when prosecutors did not contest Fulchers bid for a new trial because of the evidence issues, though they still contended he was guilty of the crime. Advertisement Fulcher had long maintained his innocence in the 2006 shotgun killing of Roberto Rodriguez on Sept. 10, 2006. It took two trials to convict him: the first jury deadlocked in favor of acquittal, but after another trial he was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 40 years to life in prison. The key evidence in the case was analysis of a glove and two shotgun shells, each containing a mixture of DNA from two people. Under DNA interpretation guidelines at the time, analysts determined that Fulchers DNA was part of the glove mixture and calculated the probability that an unrelated person would have the same DNA as 1 in 260 billion. The tests did not show Fulchers DNA as part of the mixture sample found on the shotgun shells. But his girlfriend was included as a possible source, with a probability match of 1 in 180,000 for one shell and 1 in 4,500 for the second. The girlfriend lived with Fulcher sometimes and cleaned his apartment, and testified that she had seen a bag of ammunition in a closet and touched it, court records show. Prosecutors argued that because she was a contributor to the DNA and was in Fulchers home often, the shells were his, according to court records. After he was convicted, however, the scientific group recognized as the leading organization for DNA evidence issued new guidelines to crime labs on how best to analyze mixture DNA samples. Properly analyzing such evidence has long been a topic of debate and concern among forensic scientists. The new guidelines are more conservative, lowering the probability of a random match and therefore dictating that some mixtures previously interpreted as a match to a defendant now be deemed inconclusive. While the San Diego Police Department crime lab adopted the new guidelines in 2011, the change was not known in the defense community until 2016. At that time, Fulchers lawyer Knut Johnson asked the District Attorneys Office to review his clients case, and the Conviction Review Unit agreed to recalculate the evidence using the new guidelines. The glove analysis dropped from a probability of 1 in 260 billion to 1 in 4.3 billion. But the analysis of the shotgun shells changed significantly, to inconclusive. Prosecutors then sought to retest the glove and shells. But there was not enough DNA left on the shells to retest and evidence on the glove was uninterpretable. Deputy District Attorney Hector Jimenez, who prosecuted Fulchers case, said Tuesday he was prepared to go for third trial. I believed he was the shooter and I still believe he is the shooter, he said. He said that given both the complexities of the case and the age, the plea deal was satisfactory. Rodriguez was shot while sitting in a car with his pregnant fiancee outside a restaurant on Newton Avenue in Barrio Logan. Jimenez argued at the trials that Fulcher was angry because eight days earlier his own car had been stolen from the same area and the shooting was a case of misplaced revenge. Twitter: @gregmoran greg.moran@sduniontribune.com A second suspect has been arrested in connection with the shooting death of an East Village businessman found mortally wounded inside his flooring-materials store Oct. 10 during a robbery. Lorena Del Carmen Espinoza, 34, was arrested Tuesday night at her home, said San Diego police Lt. Matt Dobbs. He said information from the public led to her arrest. Police had released a surveillance photo of a woman wearing a purple wig after 49-year-old Ghedeer Tony Radda of El Cajon was fatally shot at his Bottom Price Flooring store on G Street. This is a great example of the police and the community working together to solve crimes and remove violent suspects from our communities, Dobbs said. Advertisement Kevin Eugene Cartwright, 51, was arrested earlier this month and charged in the killing. He has pleaded not guilty to murder and is being held in lieu of $5 million bail in the death of Radda. Cartwright faces a charge of murder with special-circumstance allegations of murder during a robbery and murder during a burglary. Earlier this month, Deputy District Attorney Matthew Greco called the attack on Radda a calculated, violent and lethal ambush and said Radda was lured into a back room by a woman wearing a purple wig. Cartwright then allegedly came into the room, shot Radda multiple times and took money from the register, the prosecutor said. Cartwright escaped on foot and the woman drove off in his car, according to Greco. A security camera image released by police showed a woman wearing a purple wig and a man wearing a mask looking like a woman with grey hair and a wrinkled face. Cartwright served 10 years in prison for a series of eight robberies in 1989 and was sent back to prison in 2005 after being convicted of drug possession. Espinoza is scheduled to be arraigned in San Diego Superior Court on Friday. Twitter: @karenkucher (619) 293-1350 karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com UPDATES: 11:15 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details. This article was originally published at 9:40 a.m. Measure DD is a $403 million school construction bond for the Sweetwater Union High School District (SUHSD) that equates to a taxpayer-funded jobs program for unions and construction firms. If passed, it will result in the generational stacking of debt upon South Bay taxpayers and property owners. This bond is supported by South Bay United for Safe, Strong Schools Yes on DD, a contractor- and union-backed group that isnt concerned about safety or strong schools. This group is united only in the idea of jobs for union trades and construction firms. The group isnt funded or supported by South Bay citizens or organizations. A review of campaign disclosure documents from the San Diego County Registrar of Voters reveals that as of Oct. 17, the Yes on DD campaign has raised $100,000 from Balfour Beatty Construction of Dallas, Standard Drywall of Corona, SW Regional Council of Carpenters of Los Angeles, Associate Mechanical Contractors of Escondido, Electrical Industry Info Institute of San Diego, Kitchell of Phoenix and Progress Labor Alliance PAC of San Diego. Related: Why Sweetwaters Measure DD will benefit South Bay schools This is the third school construction bond presented to taxpayers and property owners by the SUHSD since 2000, bringing the total bonds to over $1 billion dollars with total debt likely to exceed $2 billion. In November 2000, voters approved Proposition BB in the amount of $187 million. In November 2006, voters approved Proposition O in the amount of $644 million. Nearly $800 million later, SUHSD has proven that its incapable of adequately and efficiently managing large construction projects, has routinely borrowed from bond funds to cover general fund expenses, and hasnt carried out the scope of work called for in the previous two bonds. Advertisement Currently, SUHSDs fiscally irresponsible practices and oversight has created a $30 million budget shortfall for the current school year. Of equal concern is the school board decision to approve a project labor agreement (PLA) which guarantees that all construction projects by the district will use only union labor. This effort was led by Sweetwater school board member Nicholas Segura, who is employed by IBEW 569 as business manager. A corruption scandal involving Proposition O bond funds resulted in the indictment of a former superintendent, several school board members, construction executives and several officials from neighboring school districts including Southwestern College. As a result, many projects were delayed and millions of dollars lost in construction defects, construction delays, lawsuits and legal fees. Under Proposition BB in 2000, the district sold bonds totaling $187 million. In addition, it received $147 million in state matching funds. South Bay and Sweetwater taxpayers and property owners are still paying these bonds and will likely be paying them until 2029 or beyond. Because of the corruption scandal and other factors, the district was not able to sell bonds for the total approved amount of $644 million for Proposition O. To date, the district has sold bonds totaling $445 million of the $644 million limit. Not including state matching funds for Proposition O, the district has had access to over $779 million for the remodeling, new construction and renovation of school facilities. South Bay and Sweetwater taxpayers and property owners are currently paying the debt on these bonds until 2049 or beyond. As an example of the level of dysfunction and mismanagement in the Sweetwater district, Bonita Vista Middle, Bonita Vista High, and Granger Junior High, three of the oldest schools in the district, received no significant funding from the two previous bonds of over $779 million. Approving this bond would obligate taxpayers for over $1 billion in school bonds for the Sweetwater Union High School District. This $1 billion does not consider other bonds currently being paid by South Bay taxpayers and property owners for other school districts such as Southwestern College, Chula Vista Elementary, National School District, South Bay Union and San Ysidro School District. The debt service on these bonds is likely to exceed $500 million. If approved this bond could extend the maturity on these bonds until well beyond the year 2100. South Bay voters and taxpayers should review their property tax bills to determine how much they are paying for all of the different school districts in the South Bay. They should also be aware that the South Bay Union (Measure NN) and Chula Vista Elementary (Measure VV) also have bonds on the current ballot. Vote no on Measure DD! Payne, Adato and Vasquez are South Bay residents. Clock resettings days are numbered Re Yes on Prop. 7 time switch but with caveat (Oct. 28): I agree with the Yes on Prop. 7 part, but I disagree with your recommended caveat. I favor switching to permanent daylight-saving time. The additional sunshine hours (consistent throughout the year) would make my personal life much better. Your Editorial Boards linkage of permanent daylight-saving time to required early school start times is short-sighted. It assumes that school start times are somehow irrevocably locked in place. The question of school start time is an entirely separate question and can be addressed either by independent Unified School District decision or, if necessary, by separate California legislation. Keith Bromley Advertisement University City --> Letters and commentary policy The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below. Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook. Most of the local election fundraising being done as Election Day nears appears to involve two candidates running for the at-large City Council seat. State-required forms turned in last week by appointed incumbent Caylin Frank show her raising $6,121 so far this calendar year, including $2,997 between Sept. 23 and Oct. 20. Challenger Torrey Powers has raised $8,263 to date, including $3,677 between Sept. 23 and Oct. 20, plus $3,661 in loans made to herself. The third at-large candidate, Tony Russo, has loaned himself $1,000 and received $500 in donations, according to his reporting form. Frank was appointed in June to fill the seat vacated by the retirement of Councilman Jim Cunningham until the Nov. 6 election. Her report filed last week shows she has spent $4,201 on her campaign and has $2,194 in her account. The report indicates 32 contributions received between Sept. 23 and Oct. 20, of which seven came from those with Poway addresses. The Deputy Sheriffs Association of San Diego Political Action Committee filed a separate report showing the spending of $1,937 on a mailer for Frank. The Powers statement shows $5,651 spent so far on the campaign, with $2,612 remaining as of Oct. 20. Powers reported receiving 42 contributions, 37 of which came from Poway addresses. Contributors of note include Cunningham and his wife, mayoral candidate Brian Edmonston and Poway Unified School District board member Kimberly Beatty and her husband. Under Poway election law, the maximum an individual can give a candidate is $100. The second of two citywide elections is for mayor. Here the pace of fundraising has slowed. Mayor Steve Vaus reported receiving $16,774 since the start of the year, but only $950 between Sept. 23 and Oct. 20. Challenger Brian Edmonston reported collecting $3,305 to date, but only $355 during the most-recent period. Yuri Bohlens report shows him receiving no donations, but loaning himself $1,551. Emily Johnsons report shows $1,095 in contributions, of which $927 came between Sept. 23 and Oct. 20. Of the 10 contributions received, five were from Poway residents. Vaus shows spending $9,403 on his campaign so far the most of any Poway candidate - and having a campaign balance of $7,370. He received 12 contributions during the most-recent reporting period, of which seven were from Poway. One notable donor was former San Diego Chargers player Shawne Merriman, who listed a Los Angeles address. Edmonston reported spending $3,374 on his election effort and having $297 on hand as of Oct. 20. He said he received two contributions during this period, both from Poway residents. Johnson reported spending $427 on her mayoral campaign and having $503 on hand. Bohlen reported spending $1,503 and having a $21 balance in his campaign account. Contributions also slowed in the District 1 council seat contest, with incumbent Dave Grosch reporting $195 in donations between Sept. 23 and Oct. 20, for a total of $3,174 raised this year. He reported $2,211 in expenditures and an Oct. 20 balance of $967. The $195 came from three donors, all living in Poway. Jonathan Ryan reported $200 in donations, both from Poway residents. He has raised $2,700 to date, including a $2,500 loan to himself. He reports spending $1,808 on his campaign and having an Oct. 20 balance of $891. John Carson reported receiving one $100 out-of-town donation. He has raised $3,023 to date, including a $1,200 loan to himself. He has spent $2,924 in the race and had $51 in the account as of Oct. 20. The District 3 race features incumbent Councilman John Mullin and challenger Joe Calabrese. Mullin reported receiving $440 between Sept. 23 and Oct. 20, bringing his campaign total to $5,515. He listed $3,692 in expenses and an Oct. 20 balance of $1,722. Mullin received five contributions during the period, of which four were from Poway residents. Calabrese is self-funding his effort with a $2,000 loan. He reported spending $1,513 as of Oct. 20 and a balance of $486. Email: editor@pomeradonews.com With $17.9 million in federal tax credits now assured, supporters of the 54-unit Villa de Vida apartment complex for the developmentally disabled are making plans for a spring groundbreaking ceremony. The California Tax Credit Allocation Committee announced last week that the project has qualified for $1.9 million in tax credits annually over each of the next 10 years, according to Hunter Christian, the non-profits executive director. Factoring in the time value of money, she said, the approval by the state is expected to generate the $17.9 million. The funding was the crucial piece to building the project, she said, as it will be extremely attractive to potential investors. The state agency handles federal tax allocations in California. Villa de Vida was at the top of a waiting list for this round of tax allocations and was moved up at the last minute, Christian said. We were cautiously optimistic the project would be funded this time around, she said, having been left off the funding list on two previous occasions. A few days earlier, Villa de Vida and its partnering nonprofit, Mercy Housing, received word of a $4.75 million low-interest loan from the County of San Diego. The money comes from the countys Innovative Housing Trust Fund and was contingent on the project raising the other revenue. Once started, construction is projected be completed in approximately 18 months. The apartment project, the largest of its kind in the county, is estimated to cost between $24 and $27 million to complete. Funding is coming from government and private sources. The City of Poway has agreed to donate the 2-acre site on Oak Knoll Road, valued at $2.1 million, and to fund a $750,000 low-interest loan. The Villa de Vida units will be rented to low- and moderate-income disabled adults who would live in what is called a permanent supportive housing environment. Rents, subsidized through the countys Section 8 program, will range from $458 to $764 per month, depending on income. The city will receive credit toward its regional fair share affordable housing allocation with completion of the project. Email: editor@pomeradonews.com Homeless concerning Having lived in Poway for over 25 years, I have watched the City in the Country still maintain its special atmosphere of friendliness and urban-yet-small-town feel. I am now alarmed, however, at homeless folks pushing their loaded carts up and down Poway Road at all hours of the day and night. They are also beginning to camp in vacant lots or unoccupied buildings and parking lots. We must do something right now to deter this situation. Whether it be citing them for loitering, finding out where they come from and sending them back or providing services to analyze their problems and obtain help for them. Otherwise, I guarantee, that we Poway residents will have the same situation with which the city of San Diego and all of the beach communities now deal: trash piles, drunk or drugged people lying on the street and the library becoming a home away from home. Any answers? Genie Brown Poway Who is obeying rules? One of the criteria I will be using to cast my vote is which candidates are abiding by our city codes and do not post their political signs on city property. Why would you vote for someone to lead our city who violates the rules? If you cant trust them with little things how do you trust them with a lot? Lori Rauterkus Poway Get rid of Lyles Back in a July column, Dick Lyles suggested that Donald Trump was more brusque than Barack Obama. More brusque? Are you kidding? How about more hateful? Trump seems to hate not only Obama but the late John McCain, women who stand up to him, Mexican immigrants, the FBI, the CIA and the DOJ. So much hate. And members of Trumps own inner circle have called him an idiot, a moron and unfit to serve. And Mr. Lyles, could only come up with more brusque? His latest columns are filled with nonsense. Like letter writer Erin Olson said recently, its time for him to retire. Michael Hadlow 4S Ranch Keep Lyles Dick Lyles Oct. 18 column on good governance hit it out of the park. Thanks, and best to him in the fight for our future. Jim Jenik Rancho Bernardo No respect for the law We have reached the point in our society where vitriolic voicing has been replaced by dangerous physical acts of violence. When you spread hate for a person or group of our society this is the natural flow of events. Those who feel the most hate will respond in a violent manner. People who hate have no respect for the rule of law. We cannot allow this kind of vitriolic voicing to continue. It only serves the few and endangers the many. People in power feed this sort of behavior with key words that set off violence. This is to their advantage to maintain their power. Shirley Cooper Rancho Bernardo Email: editor@pomeradonews.com Work is progressing to underground about 3 miles of overhead power lines in the Rancho Bernardo/4S Ranch area by next summer, according to San Diego Gas & Electric officials. The transmission line project between the Bernardo and Rancho Carmel Substations involves converting an existing 69-kV transmission line from an overhead to underground alignment. This includes removing about 3 miles of overhead transmission infrastructure and replacing it with an improved underground cable system along roadways within Rancho Bernardo Road, Camino San Bernardo and Camino del Norte, per a SDG&E project summary. Project manager Vihn Huynh and land management representative Danielle Weizman gave a progress update to the Rancho Bernardo Planning Board at its Oct. 18 meeting. Weizman said due to potential rain delays, Its a safe bet to say (completed) by late summer. But most work should be done by next March or April. She said the work is being done at night, between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. so there is no traffic impact during the day on the busy roadways between Rancho Bernardo and 4S Ranch. Most of the work is in the Rancho Bernardo Business Park area, but some goes along the west side of residential areas. Anything that remains above ground will have a shorter visual impact and there will be fewer poles than currently there, Weizman said. There will be reduced visual impact behind some homes. Huynh said the two main reasons for the project are improving capacity reliability and upgrading the transmission line facilities plus San Diegos goal to underground all of its electrical lines in order to have better aesthetics in all communities. Other stated project benefits include minimizing environmental impacts and future maintenance. There will be a completely new road when done, Huynh said when the board asked about the condition of the affected streets upon project completion next year. Email: rbnews@pomeradonews.com Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Maharashtra, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/31/2018 -- Broadcast media is a mass media that regularly disseminates sound and image programs to vast areas through radio waves or wires. Reports Monitor included a new market research study on the Global Broadcast Media Market Size, Status, and Forecast Market with several graphs, pie charts, tables, and figures, which makes it easier for the users to comprehend the report. Currently, the market is expanding its presence. A sample of this report is available upon request @ https://www.reportsmonitor.com/request_sample/169332 The research study offers a complete assessment of the market and includes future trends, industry participants' opinions, market growth factors, facts, and industry validated and authenticated market data. The research study provides computations for the Broadcast Media market size and status over the forecast period. Some are the major competitors included in this study are Comcast, DIRECTV, Walt Disney, News, Time Warner and More Summary: In 2017, the global Broadcast Mediamarket size was valued at USD XX Million and is expected to reach USD XX Million by the end of 2023, expanding at a CAGR of XX% over the forecast period, 2018-2023. This report highlights the global Broadcast Media status, growth potentials, key markets included, key players, and future forecast. The prime objectives of this study are to present the Broadcast Media growth in United States, Europe, and China. Some of the key features that are under offering & key highlights of the report: 1) What are the major companies that are currently profiled in this research study? Mentioned below are list of key players that are currently profiled in the report: "Comcast, DIRECTV, Walt Disney, News, Time Warner, and More " ** List of the key players may differ in the final report subject to name change/merger etc. 2) Can we include or profile a company as per our requirement? Yes, we can definitely add or profile new company as per client requirement in this research study. The research team will provide a final confirmation depending on the status of the survey. ** In case of a privately held company, data availability will be verified by the research analysts, wherein up to 3 players can be added at no added cost. Get Upto 50% Discount on this report @ https://www.reportsmonitor.com/check_discount/169332 3) What are the regions covered in this report? Can country-wise segmentation be provided? At present, this research report highlights and focuses on the following regions: United States, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India & Central & South America. ** One country as per the client need can be included at no added cost. In case of including more regional segments, quote may differ. 4) Can additional segments be included, or market breakdown is possible? Yes, inclusion of extra segmentation/market breakdown is possible pertaining to the availability of data and the difficulty of a survey. Nevertheless, a detailed client requirement is to be shared with our research analysts before giving final confirmation. ** Depending upon the requirement the deliverable time and quote will vary. Market Segment by Type, covers: Cable Radio Wireless Radio Market Segment by Applications, can be divided into: Government Unit Commercial Other To understand Global Broadcast Media Market Size, Status and Forecast market dynamics across the globe mainly, the global Broadcast Media Market Size, Status and Forecast market is studied across major regions. Reports Monitor also provides tailor-made regional and country-level reports for the following areas. North America: United States, Canada, and Mexico. South & Central America: Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. Middle East & Africa: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, Egypt and South Africa. Europe: UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Russia. Asia-Pacific: India, China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, and Australia. So as to get an in-depth view of the market Size, the competitive landscape analysis is provided i.e. revenue (Million USD) by players (2013-2018), revenue market share (%) by players (2013-2018) and further a qualitative analysis is prepared towards market concentration rate, product/service differences, new players, as well as the technological trends over the coming years. Competitive Analysis: The major competitors operating in this market are majorly focusing on innovation in production technologies to improve efficiency and shelf life. The best long-term growth opportunities for this sector can be considered by making sure that the ongoing process improvements and financial flexibility to invest in the optimal strategies. Company profile section of players such as Comcast, DIRECTV, Walt Disney, News, Time Warner and More comprises its basic data like headquarters, its market position, historical background, and top 5 competitors by market capitalization, revenue along with contact details. Each vendor/manufacturer's revenue generation information, growth rate, and gross profit margin has been mentioned to understand the tabular format over the forecast period. Furthermore, a separate section on the latest developments, including mergers, acquisition, or any new product/service launch etc has been included in this research study. In this market research study, the years taken into consideration to measure the size of Global Broadcast Media Market are as follows: History Year: 2013-2017 Base Year: 2017 Estimated Year: 2018 Forecast Year: 2018-2023 Key Stakeholders: Broadcast Media Market Size, Status and Forecast Manufacturers Broadcast Media Market Size, Status and Forecast Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers Broadcast Media Market Size, Status and Forecast Sub-component Manufacturers Industry Association Downstream Vendors Avail complete report of this research with TOC and List of Figures @ https://www.reportsmonitor.com/report/169332/Broadcast-Media-Market About Reports Monitor Reports Monitor is a market intelligence and consulting firm with extensive experience and knowledge of the Market Research industry. Our aim is to change the dynamics of the Market Research industry by providing quality intelligence backed by data. Your requirement for market forecasting is fulfilled by our exclusive quantitative and analytics-driven intelligence. Decision makers can now rely on our distinct data gathering methods to get factual market forecasting and detailed analysis. Sarasota, FL -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/31/2018 -- Zion Market Research has published a new report titled "Cosmetic Packaging Market by Material Type (Plastic, Glass, Paper and Others), by Container Type (Jars, Bottles, Tubes, Sachets and Others) for Hair Care, Nail Care, Skin Care, Makeup and Other Applications: China Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis and Forecast, 2016 2022" According to the report, the demand for cosmetic packaging market in China was valued at over USD 5.87 billion in 2016, is expected to reach above USD 7.75 billion in 2022 and is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of slightly above 4.8% between 2017 and 2022. Packaging is the key intermediate between the product and its target consumers. Packaging is vital in retaining loyal customers as well as inspiring new ones. Changes in packaging can expand a customer base by capturing new market segments and can manipulate shopping manners. Cosmetic packaging plays a crucial role in protecting the contents from outer environment and broadens its shelf life. Packaging helps in preventing the contamination of the contents and avoids microbial growth. Request Free Sample Research Report @ https://bit.ly/2yFdWYs Rapidly escalating cosmetic industry in China is expected to drive the cosmetic packaging market in coming years. Furthermore, there has been the intense rise in demand for color cosmetic which may positively influence the growth of the cosmetic packaging market in the forecast period. On the flip side, fluctuations of the raw material prices may limit the growth of cosmetic packaging market. Nevertheless, ongoing research for developing innovative, eco-friendly packaging techniques is expected to accelerate the growth of the cosmetic packaging market in coming period. The cosmetic packaging market can be segmented on the basis of material type into plastic, paper, glass and others. Plastic was the leading segment in 2016 and is expected to maintain its traction in the forecast period. Plastic is the most preferred material in the cosmetic packaging due to its cost-effectiveness, good performance, reliable protection, color versatility, flexibility and easy transportation and storage. Some of the major container types used in cosmetic packaging market are jars, tubes, bottles, sachets and others. Bottles curled the cosmetic packaging market in 2016 owing to their ease of handling and greater volume capacity. Tubes are expected to exhibit the fastest growth in the forecast period. Some of the major applications of the cosmetic packaging are hair care, skin care, nail care, make-up, and other applications. Skin care segment is expected to be the most attractive application segment of the market over the forecast period. Continuous product innovation in skin care products and development of more effective anti-aging and sun protection product trends in the cosmetic market is expected to drive the market in the upcoming future. Makeup is expected to prosper the market growth in forecast period owing to growing demand for color cosmetics in China. Request Free Brochure of This Report: https://bit.ly/2Q8xnj9 Per capita income levels are elevating continually in China, thus, the country is experiencing higher interest and shifting from the product. The rapid development of domestic cosmetics manufacturers in China has boosted the growth of domestic brands. The market share of domestic brands is growing gradually, posing competition to their foreign counterparts. Thus, the domestic cosmetic packaging industry is likely to boost the market in the coming years. Moreover, growing demand in the cosmetic market is the rapidly expanding middle class in China. Key players operating in the cosmetic packaging market are Jiangyin Bonus Cosmetics Packaging Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Taimei Cosmetic Packaging Co., Ltd, QUEENSPACK Co. Ltd, JUMBO, Alovey Cosmetic Packaging Co.,Ltd, Rise Cosmetic Packaging Co., Ltd., BI-packaging, IMS NINGBO LIMITED, Rayuen Packaging Co., Limited , Fine Cosmetic Packaging Co. Ltd., HCP Packaging and Auber Packaging Co., Ltd among others. Browse the full "Cosmetic Packaging Market by Material Type (Plastic, Glass, Paper and Others), by Container Type (Jars, Bottles, Tubes, Sachets and Others) for Hair Care, Nail Care, Skin Care, Makeup and Other Applications: China Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis and Forecast, 2016 2022" report at https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/report/cosmetic-packaging-market The report segments the China cosmetic packaging market as: Cosmetic Packaging Market: Material Analysis Plastic Glass Paper Others Cosmetic Packaging Market: Container Type Analysis Jars Tubes Bottles Sachets Other Cosmetic Packaging Market: Application Analysis Hair care Skincare Nail care Make-up Others Browse Full Report TOC (Table of Contents) here https://bit.ly/2Rnj8ac Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/31/2018 -- Cottonseed oil is an oil extracted from the seeds of cotton. Its production process involves pressing and extraction of oil from the cotton seeds followed by purification and refinement. The refinement of the oil is the key step as it helps in removing gossypol, a naturally occurring toxin that protects the cotton plant from damage. Cottonseed oil is essentially a by-product of the cotton industry along with cottonseed meal, hulls and linters. Over 10-15% of a cotton farmers income is expected to come from these by-products, making them considerably valuable products in cotton processing operations. Market Dynamics of Cottonseed Oil Market: The edible oil market is a highly competitive space occupied by numerous types of oils. The presence of many substitute products is a considerable drawback for the cottonseed oil market. From a consumer point of view, this represents a highly trend-driven market. The introduction of a new and healthy oils is bound to eat into the market of traditionally used oils, at least for a certain time period. This is regarded as a reason for the severe fluctuations observed in cottonseed oil retail demand and market values. Get Sample Copy of this report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2363 One key advantage in this scenario is in regard to the industrial use of cottonseed oils. The product is widely used in various food and beverage products. Such large scale operations rely on a consistent supply chain, which is going to get disturbed in the event of a change of base ingredient, and as such are not impacted by volatile market trends. Cottonseed oil is a good source of antioxidant- tocopherol. The other advantages enjoyed by cotton seed oil are a low relative price and easy availability in cotton producing regions. With the increasing public understanding of the composition of such oils, the fat and nutrient profiles of cooking oils become very important. Given the relatively high fraction of saturated fats in cottonseed oil, this becomes a significant constraining factor for the market. Market Segmentation of Cottonseed Oil Market: Cottonseed oil market is segmented by end-use application, raw material type and region. On the basis of end-use application, cottonseed oil market is segmented on the basis of retail, food processing, cosmetic applications and other industrial uses. The retail segment is centered on its use as a cooking oil. Given its high smoke point, cottonseed oil is mostly used for deep frying and baking. It is mostly used as a cooking medium and is also part of various fried and processed foods such as potato chips and French fries. Due to its ability to form a beta prime crystal, which enables a consistent texture and appearance, cottonseed oil is a major ingredient in whipped toppings, margarines, shortenings, spreads and icings. . Unlike other cooking oils cottonseed oil has a neutral taste, meaning it doesn't alter the natural taste of food being prepared over it. Due to this reason it is used as a salad oil, wherein enhancing the flavor of the salad ingredients is considered primal. Cotton seed oil is also used in several personal care or cosmetic products such as soaps, cosmetics and detergents. As mentioned above, untreated cottonseed consists of gossypol, a toxin present in cotton. Due to this reason, untreated cottonseed oil is used as an insecticide. Other minor applications of the product include its use in making rubber and explosives. On the basis of raw-material type, the market is segmented into genetically-modified (GM) cotton and non-GM cotton. The growing negative perception around GM crops makes this an important variable. Due to the promise of increased returns, many cotton farmers in the developing world switched to GM cotton over the last decade. It is estimated that GM cotton is cultivated in over 25 million hectares across the world, with over 75% of US cotton being genetically modified. This dominance of GM cotton is expected to decrease in response to growing consumer concerns and farmer protests across the world. Regional Outlook of Cottonseed Oil Market: Geographically, the global cottonseed oil market can be divided by major regions which include North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan and Middle East and Africa. Both on the production and consumption side, the market is heavily dominated by India and China. These countries produced and consumed over 55% of the total cottonseed oil made during the 2015-2016 period. Pakistan and Uzbekistan are the other major regions in the cottonseed oil market. This dominance by Asia countries is largely attributed to large amount of cotton cultivation in the region and the high domestic demand for low-priced cooking oil. United States (U.S.) is a major producer and consumer of cottonseed oil in the North American region. Unlike the Asian countries, U.S. also exports a considerable portion of its cottonseed oil to other regions. Brazil and Turkey are the other important regions in the market. Eastern European nations such as Azerbaijan are also important but are limited by weak domestic consumption. Key Market Players in Cottonseed Oil Market: Some of the key players of the market include, Cargill, Incorporated, Archer Daniels Midland Compan (ADM), PYCO Industries, Bunge Limited, Louis Dreyfus, Adani Wilmar (Fortune Foods), Maharashtra Solvent Extraction (P) Ltd, Oilseeds International, Ltd., maong the others. Read Comprehensive Overview with TOC of Report @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2363 Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/30/2018 -- Future Market Insights (FMI) delivers key insights on the wood pellet market in its latest report titled, 'Global Wood Pellet Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 20172027'. According to the report, the global wood pellet market is projected to expand at a healthy CAGR of 8.7% during the forecast period in terms of revenue. Wood pellets are defined as are biofuel made from compressed organic matter or biomass. These technologies use a wide range of materials such as forest & wood waste, agricultural residue, and other substances. Request for more (TOC And Sample): https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-484 Factors such as increasing consumption of wood pellets, increasing health consciousness among consumers, high consumption of wood pellets for residential heating, growing demand for wood pellets for electricity generation, growing exports of wood pellets rapidly growing demand for domestic wood pellets and energy, and climate change are the factors that drive the market. Enterprises and individuals, nowadays, need products that are environmentally-friendly. Collaborations between suppliers and producers ensure a strong bonding and progressive activities, and enhance the development process. This demand has given rise to the increased production of wood pellets. Government certification is a valuable tool to assure customers that the wood pellets are made from sustainably managed forests. Increasing certification criteria is the key restraining factor of the North American wood pellet market while exporting to other countries, where various rules mandate renewable energy production. The procurement policy of wood pellets is also one of the key restraining factors in the market here. The Sustainable Forestry Initiative and Forest Stewardship Council are the certification organizations in North America. 19% of U.S. commercial forestland is certified by major U.S. standards. According to the Wood Pellet Association of Canada, approx. 9% of the world's forests are certified. Out of them, more than 40% forests are in Canada, which makes these forests as an ideal source of wood pellets. On the basis of region, Western Europe is estimated to be the largest market for wood pellets, accounting for 72.6% value share of the global wood pellets market in 2017. The region continues to dominate the market, and is expected to continue to do so throughout the forecast period. Eastern Europe exports most of its produced wood pellets to other countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom, where it requires certification for exports. Various industries are focusing on getting certified with DINplus and green energy certifications, which will help in exporting the produced wood pellets. The rapid rate of the production of wood pellets in countries like Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia is a major driving factor of the wood pellet market in Eastern Europe, owing to the high amount of exports to the other developed countries of Western Europe. On the basis of end use, the industrial pellets for co-firing segment is projected to exhibit a CAGR of 11.0% and and 9.1% in terms of market value and volume, respectively, during the forecast period. This is attributed to the increasing demand for wood pellets in a wide range of end-user applications. The markets in APEJ, Western Europe, MEA, and Latin America are anticipated to contribute majorly to the global wood pellet market. The market in Western Europe is expected to account for 69.6% share in terms of value in the global wood pellet market, and be valued at US$ 14,694.6 Mn by 2027 end. The increasing demand for wood pellets for residential heating and energy and climate change in Western Europe is expected to fuel revenue growth of the market in the region. The market in Western Europe is estimated to be valued at US$ 6,686.2 Mn by 2017 end, and projected to expand at a CAGR of 8.2% during the forecast period. Get Report Customization @ https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-484 Factors such as increasing consumption of wood pellets, increasing health health consciousness among consumers, high consumption of wood pellets for residential heating, growing demand for wood pellets for electricity generation, growing exports of wood pellets, growing demand for domestic wood pellets and energy, and climate change are expected to drive revenue growth of the global wood pellet market. Key market participants covered in the report include Drax Biomas Inc, Rentech, Inc, Enviva Partners, LP, German Pellets GmbH, Viridis Energy Inc, AS Graanul Invest, Pinnacle Renewable Energy Inc, Lignetics of Idaho, Inc, Zilkha Biomass Energy, LLC, and Energy Girvan Limited. Harrisburg, NC -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/31/2018 -- The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the Ransomware Protection market and contains qualitative and quantitative insights, historical and forecasted data, competitor and regional analysis from 2013 to 2025. The research report provides analysis and information according to categories such as market segments, geographies, types and applications. Request a Free Sample Report before Purchase: https://www.marketinsightsreports.com/reports/0828811924/global-ransomware-protection-market-size-status-and-forecast-2018-2025/inquiry?source=releasewire&Mode=15 The report covers the profiles of major players in the global Ransomware Protection market such as: Intel Security(US), Symantec Corporation(US), Trend Micro(Japan), FireEye(US), Sophos(UK), Bitdefender(Romania), Kaspersky Lab(Russia), Malwarebytes(US), Zscaler(US), SentinelOne(US). Ransomware Protection Market, by Types: Standalone anti-ransomware software Secure web gateways Application control IDS/IPS Web filtering Threat intelligence Others Ransomware Protection Market, by Applications: Network protection Endpoint protection Email protection Database protection Web protection Geographically, this report studies the top producers and consumers, focuses on product capacity, production, value, consumption, market share and growth opportunity in these key regions, covering United States, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India, Central & South America. Several important Key questions answer covered in this Ransomware Protection market research report: - What is status of Ransomware Protection Market? -This Overview Includes Analysis of Scope, Prospect, Growth trend, Sales by regions, manufacturers, types and applications. - What trends, challenges and barriers are influencing its growth? - What is Ransomware Protection Market forecasts (2018-2025)? Considering Sales, Revenue, Growth rate, Price and Trends for Regions, Types and Applications? - Who Are Ransomware Protection Market Key Manufacturers? - What will be the market size and the growth rate in 2025? -What are the key factors driving the global Ransomware Protection market? - What are the key outcomes of the distinct analysis of the world Ransomware Protection Market-Analysis done by considering prime elements? Browse Full Report: https://www.marketinsightsreports.com/reports/0828811924/global-ransomware-protection-market-size-status-and-forecast-2018-2025?source=releasewire&Mode=15 The research includes historic data from 2013 to 2017 and forecasts until 2025 which makes the reports an invaluable resource for industry executives, marketing, sales and product managers, consultants, analysts, and other people looking for key industry data in readily accessible documents with clearly presented tables and graphs. The study comprises a mix of data pertaining to the key restraints, drivers, competitive landscape, regulatory forces, key strategies implemented by the key players, and opportunities, expected to have a profound impact on the scope of growth of the market. A detailed analysis of these factors allows the report to present a reliable forecast regarding the future growth dynamics of the Ransomware Protection market. About MarketInsightsReports MarketInsightsReports provides syndicated Market research reports to industries, organizations or even individuals with an aim of helping them in their decision making process. MarketInsightsReports has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain. Contact US: Irfan Tamboli (Head of Sales) Market Insights Reports Phone: + 1704 266 3234 | Mob: +91-750-707-8687 sales@marketinsightsreports.com | irfan@marketinsightsreports.com Connect with us On: https://www.linkedin.com/company/13411016/ https://www.facebook.com/Marketinsightsreports/ https://twitter.com/MIRresearch/ Sellbyville, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/31/2018 -- Solar PV Mounting Systems Market is expected to grow at over 6% and surpass 9 billion by 2024. Stringent government guidelines pertaining to carbon emissions and climate change will propel the installation of solar PV systems, which will augment the industry growth. Regulations including Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) and 2009/28/EC directive creating a need to adopt feasible technologies to generate electricity. Shift of consumer emphasis towards acceptance of renewable energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will further enhance the business growth. The EU has set targets for reduction of at least 40% domestic greenhouse gases by 2030 as compared with 1990 levels. Solar PV mounting systems market in Germany is set to grow over USD 150 million by 2024. Rising measures towards energy security along with growing adoption of energy efficient systems will complement the business landscape. In January 2016, Government of Germany introduced a law in which construction of new buildings will only be allowed if its energy requirement must be one-fourth of the previous threshold. Rising demand for standalone electricity system from far flung areas for reliable and uninterrupted supply will stimulate the growth of solar PV mounting systems market. High initial expense towards grid extension will steer the adoption of off-grid clean technologies including solar, which will positively influence the industry landscape. Request for Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/1647 Introduction of several government initiatives including tax rebates, power purchase agreement, soft loans, and subsidies will further complement the solar PV mounting systems market. In September 2014, government of Chile announced net-metering scheme, which will benefit the individuals to receive credit on utility bills for feeding surplus electricity to the grid. Ground mounted exceed over 75% of solar PV mounting systems market share in 2016 owing to its high efficiency and facility for inclination & orientation. Ongoing expansion of existing systems along with increasing demand for high capacity PV plants will positively influence the industry growth. Rising investments towards energy efficient building structure along with introduction of norms for net zero energy emission building will steer the growth of commercial solar PV mounting systems market during forecast period. Lloyds bank in 2016 announced to finance approximately USD 1 billion for commercial assets to curb greenhouse gas emissions from their real estate properties. Favorable government scheme including soft loans to encourage utilization of renewable energy and reduction of carbon footprints will augment Canada solar PV mounting systems market. Green building council of Canada introduced net zero carbon building structure in 2016 to limit carbon emissions to 30% by 2030. Increasing measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions coupled with rising demand for distributed electricity generation will stimulate the China solar PV mounting systems market. In 2015, Government of China announced to cut carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 60-65% by 2030 when compared with 2005 levels. Make an Inquiry for purchasing this Report @ https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/1647 Key industry players in solar PV mounting systems market include, Quick Mount PV, Landpower Solar, K2 SYSTEMS, UNIRAC, RBI Solar, Schletter, DPW Solar, SolarWorld, Versolsolar, Mounting Systems, Clenergy, Xiamen Grace Solar Technology, Suyash Metatech, SNS Corporation. 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. Pune, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/30/2018 -- The space mining market 2023 report provides a detailed overview of the industry including both qualitative and quantitative information. It provides overview and forecast of the global space mining market based on technology, solution, and application. Download Brochure of Space Mining Market spread across 113 Pages, Profiling 15 Companies and Supported with 27 Tables and 45 Figures is now available at https://www.reportsnreports.com/contacts/requestsample.aspx?name=1739721 Key Target Audience - Raw material vendors - Component and hardware providers - Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) - Space mining companies - Space agencies - Technology standards organizations, forums, alliances, and associations - Governments, financial institutions, and investment communities - Research organizations - Analysts and strategic business planners - Venture capitalists, private equity firms, and startup companies - Distributors The space mining market is expected to grow from USD 0.65 billion in 2018 to USD 2.84 billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 23.6%. Ongoing and impending space mining missions, increasing investments of private stakeholders in space mining companies, and rising number of government initiatives to frame regulations with respect to asteroid mining drive the space mining market growth. However, the high costs associated with asteroid mining may hinder the growth of the space mining market. Inquire for discount on Space Mining Market with Forecast, Analysis, Trends and Company Profiles at https://www.reportsnreports.com/contacts/discount.aspx?name=1739721 Major players and space agencies in the space mining market include Deep Space Industries (US); Planetary Resources (US); Moon Express (US); ispace (Japan); Asteroid Mining Corporation (UK); Shackleton Energy Company (SEC, US); Kleos Space (Luxembourg); TransAstra (US); Off World (US); SpaceFab.US (US); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, US); European Space Agency (ESA, France); Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA, Japan); China National Space Administration (CNSA, China); and Russian Federal Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS, Russia). The market for the spacecraft design phase to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period The space mining market for the spacecraft design phase is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. A spacecraft is a vehicle machine designed to fly in outer space. It used for various purposes, such as communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, planetary exploration, and transportation of humans and cargo. Depending on the mission type, the overall spacecraft is designed, consisting of various devices, such as instruments (which include radiometers, spectrometers, thermal emission and reflection systems, cameras, magnetometers, and multispectral scanners, among others), altitude control systems, and electric power systems. The design of the spacecraft has vital importance as the spacecraft has to sustain in critical or extreme conditions in space, such as microgravity. Get purchase at https://www.reportsnreports.com/purchase.aspx?name=1739721 ype M asteroids expected to grow at the highest CAGR in the space mining market during the forecast period Type M asteroids are metallic asteroids and are made of rare metals, such as the platinum group metals (PGM). These asteroids dwell in the middle region of the main belt in between S-type and C-type asteroids and have albedos varying from 0.10 to 0.18. These asteroids account for nearly 8% of the known asteroids. Examples of M-type asteroids include 16 Psyche, 21 Lutetia, 22 Kalliope, and 55 Pandora, among others. Type M asteroid would grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. M-type asteroids can be mined, and mined materials can be used in construction activities in space. Precious metals can be mined and taken back to Earth. Hence, a few players are targeting M-type asteroids for exploration and mining. Europe to grow at the highest CAGR in the space mining market during the forecast period One of the pioneers in space agencies is the European Space Agency (ESA). ESA's mission is to shape the development of Europe's space capability and ensure that investments in space continue to deliver benefits to citizens across the world. Luxembourg is the first European country to have a legal framework for the extraction of space-based resources. Luxembourg, under the Space Resources. lu initiative, provides legal, regulatory, and business environment, enabling private investors and companies to explore and use space resources. Also, the collaboration of Government of Luxembourg with various private players (such as Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources) to explore and mine asteroids is expected to provide opportunities for the players in the space mining market. Therefore, Europe is likely to exhibit the highest CAGR in the space mining market during the forecast period. In the process of determining and verifying the market size for several segments and sub segments gathered through secondary research, extensive primary interviews have been conducted with people holding key positions across regions. The breakup of the profiles of primary participants has been given below. - By Company Size: Tier 1 = 55%, Tier 2 = 25%, and Tier 3 = 20% - By Designation Level: C-Level Executives = 45%, Directors = 35%, and Others = 20% - By Region: North America = 75%, Europe = 15%, and APAC = 10% About ReportsnReports.com ReportsnReports.com is your single source for all market research needs. Our database includes 100,000+ market research reports from over 95 leading global publishers & in-depth market research studies of over 5000 micro markets. With comprehensive information about the publishers and the industries for which they publish market research reports, we help you in your purchase decision by mapping your information needs with our huge collection of reports. Sellbyville, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/30/2018 -- GMI presents a most up-to-date research on "Water Soluble Polymer Market Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Product (Polyacrylamide & Copolymers, Guar Gum & Derivatives, Polyvinyl Alcohol, Casein, Gelatin, Polyacrylic Acid & Copolymers), Growth Potential, Trends Statistics, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, France, Spain, Italy, China, India, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, South Africa) and Forecast 2017 2024". Water Soluble Polymer Market size will exceed USD 38 billion by 2024; according to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc. High growth in consumption in the water treatment industry will augment the demand for these products throughout the forecast years. The rising demand from oil & gas industry for reducing the hydrate formation in the oil pipelines will further complement the global water soluble polymer market size during the forecast timeframe. Request for a sample copy of this report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/2101 These polymers are used in various industry verticals such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, mining, F&B and textiles. High growth in consumption of these products across all these industry verticals will drive their demand, and will eventually drive the demand throughout the forecast period. In further, the rising demand for wastewater treatment in the developing nations of Asia Pacific and Latin America will give a significant boost to water soluble polymer market size. This market is also subjected to some restraints over the forecast period. Fluctuating raw material prices will likely present a significant challenge to the existing players. This market will also be liable to hinder, due to bearing a threat of showing negative impacts on the environment as well as humans. Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @ https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/2101 Polyacrylamide & copolymers held the largest water soluble polymer market share in 2016. The product is primarily used for its excellent thermal stability, solubility, high miscibility, and non-toxicity. They are mainly utilized in treating wastewater, where there are more suspended solid particles. This segment is projected to grow at a moderate CAGR due to its eco-friendly features. Water treatment application segment will be the major segment by 2024. High market growth would be primarily assisted by being further beneficial in lessening the toxicity in industrial effluents, helping to reduce industrial wastes, and further attaining sustainability to the environment. Browse Complete Report Summary @ https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/water-soluble-polymer-market Asia Pacific water soluble polymer market's was around USD 9 billion in 2016. Massive industrialization in developing economies such as India and China are creating huge wastewater generation, and will further assist the growth of Asia Pacific water soluble polymer market by 2024. In further, robust growth in regional verticals like oil & gas, pharmaceutical, and F&B will make a notable influence on global water soluble polymer growth over coming years. Major players in this market include: Kemira, BASF, SNF, Ashland, Kuraray, Arkema, Dow, DuPont, LG Chem, and Nitta Gelatin. 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. Read Related Report @ https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/water-softener-market Pune, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/31/2018 -- Wearable Tracking are those devices which help in monitoring and tracking the fitness of the people who are wearing it. These are the accessories, integrating advanced electronic technologies and provide the result related to distance walked or run, calorie consumption, and in some cases heartbeat and quality of sleep. Now a day's companies introduced different types of devices which can be worn at foot, wrist, and eyes. Today, people are using various kinds of networking devices to learn more about their health. Rapid technical advancement in motion sensors has improved the results of wearable tracking devices. Global Wearable Tracking Devices Market Major Key Players Some of the major market players are Adidas (Germany) Gramin Ltd (Switzerland) Apple Inc (US) Pebbel Technology Corp (US) Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (South Korea) Sony (Japan) Fitbit, Inc. (US) Google Inc. (US) Xiaomi Technology Co., Ltd. (China) Get Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/902 Global Wearable Tracking Devices Market - Segmentation The Global Wearable Tracking Devices Market is segmented on the basis of types, application, sales channel, and end-user. The global wearable tracking devices market, by type, is segmented into Wrist wear, Footwear and other. The wrist wear segment includes Fitness Bands and Smart watch. The Application segment is segmented into Healthcare, Consumer electronics, and others. Sales Channel segment consists of online and offline. On the basis of end-user, the market is categorized into Sportsperson, Patients, and Others. On the basis of region, the Global wearable tracking devices Market is segmented into the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa. The Americas is sub-segmented into North America and South America. The North American region is further segmented into the US and Canada. The European region is divided into two, namely, Western Europe and Eastern Europe. Western Europe is further classified into Germany, Italy, France, the UK, Spain, and the rest of Western Europe. The Asia Pacific region is sub-segmented into Japan, China, India, Australia, the Republic of Korea, and the rest of Asia Pacific. The Middle Eastern and African region is sub-segmented into the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, and the rest of the Middle East and Africa. Global Wearable Tracking Devices Market - Regional Analysis The market of the wearable tracking devices is much higher in the Americas region. There is a huge population which is suffering from chronic disease such as diabetes, obesity and also better awareness of healthcare increase the demand of wearable tracking devices market in this region. The WHO estimated that diabetes leads to 1.6 million deaths in 2015 and it is the major causes of blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke, and lower limb amputation. These huge patient population drag the attention of players towards the wearable tracking devices market. Asia Pacific and the Middle East and Africa region are considering the big market. Whereas country like India and china of Asia Pacific region are one of the fastest growing regions owing to the presence of huge population and also willing to invest in better treatment or fitness technology. Additionally, countries from this region looking forward to adopting advanced technology and treatment from developed nation in order to minimize the gap between demands and supplies of the products. Whereas the Middle East and Africa are the low market due to his incapability of investment. Europe is also considering the huge market for wearable tracking devices market players, owing to present of huge population affected with chronic disease. Moreover, Government support to enhance the treatment and fitness technology help them in capturing global market shares. Browse Complete 110 Pages Premium Research Report Enabled with 50+ Respective Tables and Figures @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/wearable-tracking-devices-market-902 Major Table of Content Chapter 1. Report Prologue Chapter 2. Market Introduction 2.1 Definition 2.2 Scope of the Study 2.2.1 Research Objective 2.2.2 Assumptions 2.2.3 Limitations Chapter 3. Research Methodology 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Primary Research 3.3 Secondary Research 3.4 Market Size Estimation Chapter 4. Market Dynamics Continued. About Market Research Future At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services. In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members. The Mediterranean tops the list, followed by European rivers, Alaska, the Caribbean and the Greek Isles. The 'Luxe Report' has established Virtuoso as a trusted trend predictor in unveiling consumer preferences in high-end and experiential travel. Personalization to the max Virtuoso travel advisers also revealed client requests that illustrate the desire for a deeper level of personalization and one-of-a-kind experiences. From specific seat numbers on planes and hotel room numbers to particular rental car types, travelers are more vocal about their precise preferences. Nothing is left to chance, as increasingly clients ask for prearranged meals and appointments. They are seeking not just restaurant reservations, but exact tables at in-demand hot spots as well as pre-ordering wine to accompany the meal. They also ask their adviser to book sessions with hairdressers, massage therapists and even tattoo artists. Key travel motivator: exploring new destinations Exploring new destinations is the prevailing travel motivator for 2019, followed by crossing off bucket-list items, seeking authentic experiences, rest and relaxation, and spending time or reconnecting with loved ones Japan tops the list of emerging destinations for the first time, having previously finished third and fifth in 2018 and 2017, respectively. Multigenerational travel maintains its stronghold as the hottest trend for 2019, a position it has held every year but one since 2011. Italy continues its reign as the top global destination as well as the leader for family travel, honeymoons and millennial travel. When it comes to 2019's top travel trends as identified by Virtuoso, following multigenerational travel are active or adventure trips, river cruising, luxury cruising and celebration travel. Italy is tops with millennials, too Following Italy among top travel destinations are France, South Africa, the United States and Iceland. Top millennial destinations are forecast as, No. 1 Italy, then Thailand, Iceland, South Africa and Australia, while family destinations are led by Italy, then Mexico, Hawaii, Orlando (Florida) and England. After Japan, top emerging destinations are Croatia, Iceland, Portugal and Egypt. South Africa tops Virtuoso's list of desired adventure destinations, followed by Iceland, New Zealand, the Galapagos Islands and Costa Rica. Paris leads the roster of cities Virtuoso's well-heeled clients would most like to visit, followed by Rome and New York City (tie), Cape Town, London and Tokyo. A total of 1,071 travel advisers from Virtuoso-affiliated agencies in North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa and the Middle East were surveyed. The letter of intent relates to MacGregors planned acquisition of the marine and offshore businesses of TTS Group and future cooperation potential between the two groups. The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals in China, Germany and South Korea, and MacGregor is expecting to receive these approvals by the end of 2018. Read more: MacGregor acquiring marine and offshore businesses of TTS Group MacGregor said that the cooperation with CSSC will further reinforce its presence in Asia, specifically in China, the worlds biggest shipbuilding market. "CSSC is a very important partner for MacGregor, as it is the primary shipbuilding group in China and well positioned as a global leader in the industry. The mutual trust built between MacGregor and CSSC during the 30 years of partnership will be a solid foundation for the new chapter of strategic cooperation, MacGregor stated. The term "energy justice" may not be widely known, but researchers at the Urban Energy Justice Lab (UEJL) in Ann Arbor are set on changing that. Dr. Tony Reames defines energy justice as fair and equitable access to affordable, reliable, and clean energy services. Reames founded UEJL in 2015 at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (U-M SEAS), where he is an assistant professor. He created UEJL as a way to concentrate his research efforts and engage students, the community, policymakers, government, and businesses around the concept of energy justice. "A just energy system fairly disseminates both the benefits and costs of energy services, and has representative and impartial energy decision-making," Reames says. There are three tenets of energy justice. The first is distributional justice, which focuses on the benefits and burdens of energy generation. The second is procedural justice, which considers access to participation in the energy decision-making process. The third is recognition justice, which is the identification of energy injustices affecting specific populations. UEJL research primarily spotlights fair and equitable access to reliable and affordable energy services, such as energy-efficient and renewable technology and programs. "We focus particularly on the institutional structures and policies that both produce and sustain inequalities across race, class, and place," Reames says. Most notably, he and his colleagues have studied spatial distribution energy efficiency in Detroit and Kansas City. They discovered that areas with more low-income Hispanic and African-American households are more likely to be energy-inefficient compared to higher-income areas with more Caucasian households. UEJL has also examined disparities in Michigan utilities' investments in energy efficiency programs, such as whole home retrofitting, weatherization assistance, and lightbulb replacement plans. "We found that utilities are under-performing in providing equitable investments to low-income households based on dollars spent and the proportion of low-income households in their territory," says Ben Stacey, a UEJL graduate research assistant. In the Washtenaw County region, Reames says the energy justice movement has been steadily evolving. "People are interested in local and regional renewables. There is a lot going on around the potential for battery storage to expand the viability of and access to renewables," he says. Reames says other areas of local public concern include economical energy rates, increasing efficiency and affordability to allow seniors to age in place, increasing efficiency in student housing, and rebuilding affordable housing more efficiently. Furthermore, UEJL has heard from students who are interested in participating in energy decision-making at the Michigan Public Service Commission. As interest in energy justice continues to develop, UEJL is striving to open up opportunities for communities to get more involved. Currently, UEJL is in the midst of launching a new initiative in Ypsilanti called the Community Engagement Energy Justice Project. UEJL is working with the Ypsilanti Housing Commission to develop "energy ambassadors" in the Hamilton Crossing, New Parkridge, and Sauk Trail neighborhoods. Those ambassadors will collaborate with U-M students from Reames' Energy Justice course to create "family energy nights." That project is inspired by the UK's "energy cafes," which aim to alleviate energy poverty by creating friendly spaces where people can get advice on understanding or lowering their energy bills. Dominic Bednar, a U-M Ph.D. candidate and UEJL doctoral research assistant, is spearheading the initiative and is excited at the possibilities the new program will offer. "The family energy nights will allow us to co-develop and co-create effective energy solutions and discuss available resources based on the specific needs and interests of each individual community," he says. "We're aiming to create a space that will serve as a safe place where people can come together to get advice and support in advocacy." Essentially, Reames and his colleagues want the UEJL's efforts to get more people engaged. "We want our work to impact policy, practice, and activism. A key component of energy justice is procedural justice, ensuring meaningful public participation," Reames says. "Our hope is that our findings encourage people to get involved in the energy decision-making process and to be the voice of the voiceless." Jaishree Drepaul-Bruder is a freelance writer and editor currently based in Ann Arbor. She can be reached at jaishreeedit@gmail.com. All photos by Doug Coombe Press Release October 31, 2018 Study shows PH among worst places to die ANGARA: PALLIATIVE, END OF LIFE CARE TO BE COVERED BY PHILHEALTH UNDER UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE BILL Palliative and end of life care services to patients with life-threatening diseases will soon be covered by Philhealth once the Universal Health Care bill is passed into law. Under the proposed measure, "every Filipino shall be granted immediate eligibility and access to preventive, promotive, curative, rehabilitative, and palliative health services." "Our healthcare system should not only work on curing and preventing sickness, it should also promote people's well-being, especially when they are enduring intense pain and suffering from chronic diseases. This measure guarantees the right of Filipinos to quality health care throughout their entire life cycle," said Senator Sonny Angara, one of the authors and sponsors of the Universal Health Care bill. Palliative and end of life care aim to improve the quality of life of patients with life-limiting, complex and chronic illnesses or those experiencing progressively debilitating diseases beyond any benefit from curative treatment. The senator cited a 2015 Quality of Death study index that listed the Philippines as one of the worst places to die, next only to Iraq and Bangladesh. The poor scores of the Philippines, which ranked 78th out of 80 countries, in terms of the quality of end-of-life care available was attributed to: the severe shortage of specialized palliative care professionals; lack of government-led strategy for the development and promotion of national palliative care; limited number of government subsidies or programs for individuals accessing palliative care services; and, limited public understanding and awareness of palliative care services. According to the World Health Organization, the following diseases require palliative care at the end-stage of life: cancer, cardiovascular diseases, chronic lung diseases, diabetes, tuberculosis, kidney failure, HIV-AIDS, Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, among others. Data from WHO showed that in 2012, about 300,000 of the estimated 515,000 reported deaths in the Philippines were due to noncommunicable diseases such as stroke, heart attack, cancer, chronic lung disease, and diabetes. "These diseases impose costs that are not only financial, but also emotional, social, and psychological, to the patients and their families," Angara said. "Maaaring wala nang lunas ang kanilang karamdaman at paghihirap, pero hindi ito dahilan para itigil natin ang pagkalinga sa kanila. The Universal Health Care bill is a step forward in ensuring that every Filipino family can be given proper care and assistance during the most challenging stages of illness," he added. Press Release October 31, 2018 ERB Upholds Legarda's Transfer of Registration to Pandan, Antique The Election Registration Board (ERB) of Pandan, Antique has upheld the transfer of voter registration of Senator Loren Legarda in Barangay Mag-aba, Pandan, Antique, declaring oppositions as "baseless and premature." On Wednesday, Legarda received the decision of the ERB Antique denying the oppositions filed by Atty. Robin P. Rubinos, Arnold Z. Sastrado, Erlinda C. Roquero and Felixberta B. Gumboc. "I humbly and warmly welcome the favorable decision of the ERB of Pandan, Antique. Even with three oppositions filed against my transfer of voter registration, I have been optimistic that I will win the case because I am fully compliant with the law," said Legarda, who is running as representative of the lone district of Antique. Legarda has been a resident of Barangay Mag-aba in Pandan, Antique from January 1, 2018 up to the present. This was certified by a Resolution issued by the Sangguniang Barangay. The fact of Legarda's actual residency in Barangay Mag-aba since January 1, 2018 more than complies with the requirements of Section 9 of R.A. No. 8189, which states that a citizen "who shall have resided in the Philippines for at least one year, and in the place wherein they propose to vote, for at least six months immediately preceding the election, may register as a voter." "I share this victory with my kasimanwas. I thank all those who believe in me and have been with me in this journey to help our beautiful and resource-rich province become progressive. This is just the beginning of more victories for our province. Nothing will stop me from serving our people," said the three-term senator. "I call on my fellow Antiquenos, let us unite for our province. Let us not instigate hate, instead, let us work together for the good of our people and our beloved province. There is so much we can do for Antique if we are united," Legarda concluded. Pyne Gould Corp will leave the NZX next month after minority investors backed a shift to The International Stock Exchange (TISE) in Guernsey, where the firm is domiciled. Interests associated with managing director George Kerr hold about 80 percent of the firm and weren't allowed to vote at today's special meeting. That left the decision to investors holding about 10.8 percent of the stock. Of the votes cast, 77 percent were in favour of leaving NZX and 79 percent supported listing in Guernsey if that was passed. The shares have been thinly traded in recent years, although a flurry of activity yesterday saw the biggest volume change hands in more than two years. The shares were recently down 2 percent at 24 cents, having slumped from 35 cents since the special meeting was called on Oct.19. "A shift of listing has been signalled by the board for many years and is consistent with our strategy to deliver value to shareholders over the long term," Kerr said. "It will also deliver short-term benefits, with a significant reduction in costs for the company which resulted from the duplication of auditors to meet NZX rules." Pyne Gould had 1,434 shareholders as at Aug. 30, of which 1,395 lived in New Zealand. It listed on the NZX in 2004, saying it wanted to boost liquidity for its shareholders in a transparent market. At the time it had 2,000 shareholders, more than three-quarters of whom were from Canterbury. Its businesses consisted of the rural services unit Pyne Gould Guinness, which later merged with Wrightson, Marac Finance and Perpetual Trust. The firm cited the extra cost of having auditors in both New Zealand and Guernsey for shifting the listing. The company paid 239,000 British pounds for its statutory audit and 76,000 pounds for the New Zealand audit in the year ended June 30. That's down from 478,000 pounds in 2017 and 443,000 pounds in 2016. In 2015, Pyne Gould paid 577,000 pounds in audit fees, of which 485,000 went to Grant Thornton and 92,000 to previous auditor PwC, and in 2014 it paid NZ$472,000 to PwC. Pyne Gould's auditor Grant Thornton NZ resigned in July after a waiver from the Guernsey regulator expired. The company was replaced by Grant Thornton Guernsey to meet the local law. Pyne Gould is on to its fourth audit firm since 2012, when KPMG quit over a disagreement with Kerr over whether some related party transactions needed disclosing. Later Grant Thornton NZ took over the audit from PwC. Its 2012 audit bill was $609,000 for PwC and $10,000 for KPMG. The company plans to organise sub-register services to facilitate trading by its New Zealand shareholders NZX trading is expected to end on Nov. 16 and the TISE listing will be effective from Nov. 21. (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. 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Related News: 19th November 2021 Morning Report Ryman Healthcare Limited (NZX: RYM) unaudited first half underlying profit of $95.9m Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Earnings Guidance 1H FY22 My Food Bag Group Limited (NZX: MFB) achieves record earnings; confirms dividend Turners Automotive Group Limited (NZX: TRA) delivers 24% increase in HY22 earnings AFT Pharmaceuticals Limited (NZX: AFT) reaffirms guidance and progresses growth plan 18th November 2021 Morning Report Blis Technologies Limited (NZX: BLT) Challenging market conditions in US impact half year result EROAD Limited (NZX: ERD) NZ Commerce Commission Clears Coretex Acquisition NZME Limited (NZX: NZM) Digital acceleration delivering on NZME's 2023 strategy Chinas Guangxi Fenglin Wood Industry Group has been given a green light to lease land to build and operate a $100 million-plus particle board factory in Kawerau. Fenglin last year announced plans to establish a plant in Kawerau by 2020 to produce 600,000 cubic metres of panel board a year and generate around 100 new jobs, at an expected cost of $180 million. According to the Overseas Investment Office, the new factory is likely to create approximately 110 full-time jobs in the Kawerau region and will "introduce new technology and increase export receipts." No price was disclosed for the leasehold, although the office noted the proposed development was expected to cost more than $100 million and be completed by 2024. Fenglin has approval to lease approximately 33 hectares of Maori freehold land owned by Putauaki Trust. When the proposal was first made, the Wood Processors & Manufacturers Association of New Zealand raised concerns that timber mills in the region didnt produce enough wood fibre to supply the proposed plant as well as the existing Kinleith and Tasman pulp mills near Tokoroa and in Kawerau respectively. However, an evaluation of wood fibre availability for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise by Finland forestry consultancy Indufor concluded there is more than enough wood available to support an additional 700,000 cubic metres of domestic fibre demand. Fenglins proposed plant is expected to initially produce particle board and later expand to medium-density fibre board. Founded in 2000, Fenglin was one of the earliest engineering board manufacturers in China and the first in Guangxi Province, according to its website. Listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Fenglin has three MDF plants and one particle board plant in China with total capacity of 810,000 cubic metres a year. It also owns about 14,000 hectares of forests to secure wood supply. With plants in Chinas Guangxi and Guangdon provinces, the company said it began to explore more international opportunities from 2015. (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: 19th November 2021 Morning Report Ryman Healthcare Limited (NZX: RYM) unaudited first half underlying profit of $95.9m Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Earnings Guidance 1H FY22 My Food Bag Group Limited (NZX: MFB) achieves record earnings; confirms dividend Turners Automotive Group Limited (NZX: TRA) delivers 24% increase in HY22 earnings AFT Pharmaceuticals Limited (NZX: AFT) reaffirms guidance and progresses growth plan 18th November 2021 Morning Report Blis Technologies Limited (NZX: BLT) Challenging market conditions in US impact half year result EROAD Limited (NZX: ERD) NZ Commerce Commission Clears Coretex Acquisition NZME Limited (NZX: NZM) Digital acceleration delivering on NZME's 2023 strategy Auckland International Airport's $1.8 billion infrastructure upgrade doesn't justify a 7.06 percent return on its regulated assets during the next five years, the Commerce Commission says. The regulator estimates Auckland Airport will generate an additional $37 million of profit beyond what it considers an appropriate return, but didn't go as far as to call all of those earnings excessive. The commission accepted there were risks associated with the major upgrade, but not enough to warrant the targeted returns. "We consider that the risks associated with the investment programme could justify a return that is slightly higher than our benchmark estimate," deputy chair Sue Begg said. "However, we arent persuaded that the full extent of Aucklands targeted return is warranted." The Commerce Commission reviews airport pricing on a semi-regular basis under an information disclosure regime meant to discourage operators from gouging customers. It gauges whether projected profits over a set period are excessive and that the services being offered do meet customer demands. Auckland Airport yesterday affirmed annual earnings guidance for underlying earnings of between $265 million and $275 million in the year ending June 30, up from $263.1 million. It told shareholders the airport is in a period of elevated investment to meet the swelling demand, with passenger numbers up 44 percent since 2012, the start of the previous regulated period. The commission said it wasn't concerned by the airport's investment plans, which will accommodate future growth, help manage congestion and improve service quality. The regulator also accepted the size of the investment elevated risks but didn't think it would affect the operator's cost of capital as much as Auckland Airport claimed. The airport is targeting a return of 6.99 percent on the bulk of its regulated assets and 7.9 percent on other regulated services. That amounts to a 7.06 percent return across the entire base. The regulator said the extra cost to consumers at the 6.99 percent target outweighed the risk of under-investment. It also said the 7.9 percent return on other services was too high. The commission said it was satisfied the information disclosure regime limited Auckland Airport's ability to extract excessive profits from customers. It didn't have significant concerns with the forecasts underpinning the operator's expected returns and didn't think projected growth in demand will lead to excessive profits. The Commerce Commission also reviewed Christchurch International Airport in this cycle, and found the South Island airport's targeted returns of 6.65 percent were reasonable and consistent with promoting long-term benefits for consumers. "We had no significant concerns with Christchurch Airports expenditure and demand forecasts, or the efficiency of its prices," Begg said. The regulator's report said Christchurch Airport had improved its transparency and consultation process since the previous pricing period and received favourable comments from airlines. However, the commission was concerned about the limited information provided on route incentive payments "Christchurch Airports target return is significantly lower than when it previously set prices," the report said. The airport's $82 million capital spending programme through the period was also considered to be business as usual. (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: 19th November 2021 Morning Report Ryman Healthcare Limited (NZX: RYM) unaudited first half underlying profit of $95.9m Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Earnings Guidance 1H FY22 My Food Bag Group Limited (NZX: MFB) achieves record earnings; confirms dividend Turners Automotive Group Limited (NZX: TRA) delivers 24% increase in HY22 earnings AFT Pharmaceuticals Limited (NZX: AFT) reaffirms guidance and progresses growth plan 18th November 2021 Morning Report Blis Technologies Limited (NZX: BLT) Challenging market conditions in US impact half year result EROAD Limited (NZX: ERD) NZ Commerce Commission Clears Coretex Acquisition NZME Limited (NZX: NZM) Digital acceleration delivering on NZME's 2023 strategy China battles 'unfair' trader image with import expo Shanghai, Oct 31 (AFP) Oct 31, 2018 President Xi Jinping opens a huge Shanghai import fair next week at which armies of Chinese companies will shop for billions of dollars in foreign goods as China seeks to counter charges that its markets aren't open. But not everyone is buying it. China's trade war adversary, the United States, is pointedly snubbing a gathering that will draw several overseas leaders, and foreign business figures privately dismiss it as a diversion that allows China to delay lifting barriers that protect its markets. It remains unknown whether Xi will use the China International Import Expo to announce new reforms, but Beijing insists the event already shows its willingness to reduce the surpluses it enjoys with trading partners. Xi has called it "no ordinary exhibition" and a sign of China "actively opening up markets". But the November 5-10 expo also sends another signal: as China pivots from an exports-based economy toward one based on the consumer buying power of its 1.4 billion people, other countries will need to play ball if they want a piece of that action. "It's China saying 'we are an increasingly important import market, and you're welcome to deal with us," said Gary Liu, president of the China Financial Reform Institute. "But if you want to start a trade war, then we can just trade with other countries." - Aggressive lobbying - Organisers say more than 3,000 foreign companies from 130 countries will come, including General Motors, Ford, Microsoft, Samsung, Walmart, Tesla, and Foxconn. Even tech giants Facebook and Google are signed up. Facebook is blocked in China, while Google pulled out years ago over censorship and cyber-attacks, but both are seen as eyeing new ways into the giant market. With the all-powerful Xi personally touting the expo, foreign business and diplomatic sources told AFP that China has aggressively recruited attendees, with some saying they are participating largely to please their hosts. Microsoft founder Bill Gates will join a business forum, but the touchy optics of attending a China import expo amid trade tension means few big-name American CEOs are confirmed, and most major companies contacted by AFP declined detailed comment. There are no plans for a "high-level" American government presence, the US embassy said. An embassy spokesman instead called for concrete Chinese steps to "level the playing field" for US companies. Foreign government and business groups have long complained over preferential treatment for Chinese firms, market access barriers, restrictive red tape, inadequate intellectual property protection and forced technology transfer -- issues US President Donald Trump has seized upon. - Buying alliances - "China needs to make the necessary reforms to end its unfair trade practices that are harming the world economy," the embassy spokesman told AFP. That prompted a retort from China's foreign ministry, which said that snubbing the expo while asking for market access was "extremely contradictory and hard to understand". China, meanwhile, has corralled thousands of businesses nationwide into "buying alliances", with organisers and state media playing up expectations for headline-grabbing deals. Shanghai's "buying alliance" alone will include more than 18,000 companies armed with 12 billion yuan ($1.7 billion) of "intended" spending, an official with the city's alliance told AFP. Jacob Parker, who heads the Beijing office of the US-China Business Council -- which represents US companies doing business in China -- said the expo could help some companies improve their networking and create more business. "There is nothing negative about the expo," Parker said. But from the standpoint of reducing trade barriers, "I don't know if it's meant to be a means to that end", he added. "We would certainly appreciate any announcements (about market reforms) next week, but when I talk to our members, the sense is that we have heard a lot of promises to date, but we need to see measurable progress on that front." Russia's new Siberian petrochemical giant looks to China Tobolsk, Russia, Oct 31 (AFP) Oct 31, 2018 In the heart of Russia's Siberia the country's number one petrochemical company Sibur is building a giant facility, a testament to its global ambitions and sights on the China market ahead of a massive IPO. More than 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles) east of Moscow, Tobolsk is the old Siberian capital known for the notorious jail that once held Russian literary giant Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The town's 17th-century fortress overlooks the powerful Irtysh river and its streets are lined with historic architecture. Now the city of fewer than 100,000 people is also getting what will be one of Russia's biggest petrochemical complexes, a multi-billion-dollar plan by privately owned Sibur to turn crude from nearby West Siberian fields into polymer granules used to make plastic products. The facility reflects a drive by Russia's oil industry to diversify its production and exports to create greater profit margins by developing petrochemicals on national soil rather than feeding foreign industries with its crude exports. "The factory is one of five biggest petrochemical projects under construction in the world," said Igor Klimov, director of the ZapSibNeftekhim project, which is valued at $9.5 billion and will let Sibur triple its production of polymers and double its revenues. The importance of the project has even pushed Sibur to invest in a new airport in Tobolsk after the old one closed two decades ago: construction is set to begin early next year. Currently nearly 90 percent complete, the ZapSibNeftekhim factory is set to launch production in the second quarter of 2019: some 28,000 people from nearly 20 countries are working on site right now, including from Turkey and China. Several European companies are also participating, including German gas giant Linde and TechnipFMC, an energy industry engineering group formed in a merger of France's Technip and FMC, an American company. "Technip took part and managed the engineering and the concept of this plant," TechnipFMC manager Jean-Mathieu Hartmann told AFP on a site visit. - IPO in the pipeline - Sixty percent of the new plant's production will be exported to Europe and Turkey, but also Russia's ex-Soviet neighbours and, notably, China. The Sibur group is controlled by Russian billionaires Leonid Mikhelson (48.5 percent) and Gennady Timchenko (17 percent), while China's oil and chemicals firm Sinopec and Silk Road Fund hold a total of 10 percent. The Asian market beckons Sibur: its other big investment idea is a mega-plant producing ethylene only about 80 kilometres from the Chinese border, in the Far-Eastern Amur region. The final investment decision will be in 2020, Sibur says. The Amur project would synergise with Gazprom, which will be transporting gas to Asia starting next year via its Power of Siberia eastern pipeline and is building a gas processing plant in the same area near the town Svobodny producing ethane, propane, and other gases used in the chemical industry. The new projects will make Sibur "one of the global petrochemical markets players," said Sibur CEO Dmitry Konov. And despite economic sanctions against Russia, the company is keen to raise capital for further growth through an IPO, potentially offering about 15 percent of the company to the market. The company could be ready for a listing "any time when the market is ready," a source close to Sibur told AFP. "It could probably happen next year... the placement could be worth around $2-2.5 billion." That could trump the record $2.2 billion raised by Rusal in 2010 and become the biggest Russian IPO since VTB bank's, which raised $8 billion in 2007. Konov believes Sibur is already "among the most sustainably profitable companies in the petrochemicals industry globally," and launching new projects would make it even more attractive to investors. As for sanctions, he said he believes the company possesses "strong fundamentals and is well positioned to weather any economic or geopolitical challenge." apo-ma/pvh/rl UNITED COMPANY RUSAL FRESENIUS MEDICAL CARE TECHNIP LINDE TechnipFMC SINOPEC - CHINA PETROLEUM & CHEMICAL CORPORATION Page Content For strengthening of socio-economic development of islands The Dutch Caribbean Kingdom partners (Aruba, Curacao, Sint Maarten) have all agreed to the need for developing policies to effectively respond to socio-economic issues and challenges facing them. The Dutch Caribbean Kingdom partners especially take into account the impact of regional and international developments concerning migration and its consequences for social economic issues. The aforementioned is but one of several important topics addressed last Friday when the Prime Ministers of Sint Maarten, Aruba and Curacao discussed ways to further intensify collaboration as partners in the Kingdom. Cooperation among the Dutch Caribbean Kingdom partners is seen as the most effective tool to strengthen, share and accelerate development within the countries and across the region. By sharing knowledge and best practices the Kingdom partners create ways to make positive impacts on their national developments, while making the most of the limited available resources and capacity. The Prime Ministers therefore agreed on signing a cooperation protocol on migration and population policy. The protocol addresses collective concerns of Small Island Development States (SIDS) with regards to their population and social economic development. The addressed issues and challenges are not only common to SIDS, but also typical because of their small scale and open economies. This, in turn, makes them extra sensitive to developments outside their borders. The Social Economic Councils of the Dutch Caribbean Kingdom Countries have already pledged to support each other by working together in developing a strategic policy which contributes to improving the resilience of Aruba, Curacao and St. Maarten. This policy should be based on the most effective use of possibilities and advantages that migration, and in particular labor migration, entails for a sustainable socio-economic development in the countries. It is the intention that the Social Economic Councils of Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten will jointly organize a Symposium on this particular topic, in early 2019. Together with all relevant stakeholders different scenarios will be explored to come to a shared vision on labor migration and refugee policy. The goal of developing cooperation agreements like this is to make an effort to transition to mutually beneficial relationships that will strengthen our capacity in the future, by making the best use possible of what we have available in the Caribbean region, says St. Maartens Prime Minister Leona Romeo-Marlin. Ultimately, the Dutch Caribbean Kingdom partners will be focusing on national ownership by aligning their national plans to sustainable development goals SDGs that are of common concern in the Caribbean region. Photo caption L to R Prime Minister of Aruba Evelyn Croes Wever, Prime Minister of Sint Maarten Leona Romeo Marlin & Prime Minister of Curacao, Eugene Rhuggenaath. 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In September, the Tenders Board awarded the contract for Maliolio River to Ah Liki Construction. The work is funded by the World Bank, who approved grant of $95.09 m to improve Samoas road network. This was confirmed by the L.T.A. Chief Executive Officer., Galumalemana Taatialeoitiiti Tutuvanu-Schwalger in response to questions from the Samoa Observer. Cyclone Evan that struck in December 2012 caused significant damage to the bridge in question. Last month, the L.T.A. issued a statement the evaluation resulted in the panels recommendation to award the contract to Ah Liki Construction; this recommendation has been approved by the Tenders Board and the Cabinet. The current Ford crossing at Samalaeulu prohibits crossing of vehicles during flash flood thus the construction of the bridge is vital to maintain connectivity even during severe bad weather and natural disasters. Ah Liki Construction will be employing people from the village during construction. The bridge is proposed to be located just west of the T-intersection of the Main Road south of Samalaeulu and due to the landform and hydrological characteristics of the river, the concrete bridge has a travelled portion (top surface) proposed to be 30m in length, and will have a 22.0 meters length elevated road extension situated on concrete footings immediately adjacent to it. The design is intended to provide level access to the bridge andelevated road extension from the top portion of the river channel on both sides. The span between bridge abutments is proposed to be 22.0 meters. The eastern abutment will be constructed part way down the slope of the riverbank, while the western abutment is situated on the elevated floodplain above the channel. Theconcrete footings for the elevated road portion will all be located in the floodplain. No changes to the hydrology of the river are proposed, the river channel, floodplain or river banks. Instead, the intention is that the bridge will be designed to fit the topographic and hydrological characteristics of the existing landscape, says the L.T.A statement. Delegations from Small Island States and their development partners are gathering in Apia this week to prepare for the S.I.D.S. Accelerated Modalities of Action (S.A.M.O.A.) Pathway report, due late 2019. The S.A.M.O.A. Pathway addresses the priorities of small islands States across the Pacific, Caribbean and A.I.M.S region (Atlantic, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean and South China Sea). Thirty-seven U.N. member states and 20 non-U.N. members are meeting at the T.A.T.T.E. Building for presentations, discussions and panels on the issues affecting them the most climate change, oceans, security and more. Steering Committee on S.I.D.S. Partnerships is currently chaired by Belize and Ireland, whose representatives highlighted that partnerships are the way of the future on tackling common issues. Permanent Representative of Belize to the United Nations, Lois Young, said the criteria for partnerships and how they should work together will be clear and easy to use, and will focus on development in areas that ripple outward. Education, for example, will affect health, crime, violence, and more, Ms. Young said at the opening yesterday. Speaking via a prepared video statement, U.N. Special Envoy for the ocean, Peter Thompson said all the S.I.D.S. goals, and especially those relating to reversing climate change are ambitious and require immense teamwork. This plan is for all of us to implement and to defend the integrity of the plan, he said. It is impossible without robust, durable partnerships. Minister of Finance, Sili Epa Tuioti said development and adjusting to reforms takes time, and moving forward, Samoa is looking ahead to 2040 to assess where it should get to compared with where it is now. What opportunities are there for us and what are we doing today that we should change? he said. Compiled by By Mata Press Service After almost a century of prohibition, Canada has become the second country in the world, after Uruguay, to fully legalize the use of cannabis. Accounting firm Deloitte estimates legal marijuana is expected to become more than a $6bn business in Canada in 2019, with up to $4.34bn coming from the legal recreational market and as much as $1.79bn from medical sales. The global legal medical cannabis market alone could be worth more than $50bn by 2025. The dizzying numbers surrounding Canada's green rush has triggered interest across Asia as hardliners soften their attitudes towards cannabis use, incentivized by the potential economic impact of legalizing the weed in their countries. Here is some of whats happening in Asia; SRI LANKA Sri Lanka will begin cultivating cannabis for medical purposes later this year. Health minister Rajitha Senaratne said he plans for cultivation to take place across 100 acres of designated cannabis plantation land in the north-central Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa districts. This is estimated to produce 25,000kg of the drug annually, which will be used for domestic Ayurveda - a South Asian system of medicine - and for export to North America. Farmers will be hired by the state to cultivate the cannabis, and production will be overseen by the military. Cannabis prohibition was initiated by British colonizers in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) in the late nineteenth and earlier twentieth century. THAILAND Thailands National Legislative Assembly (NLA) is currently drafting a new bill to remove marijuana from the Category 5 Narcotics list. But it will only apply use for medical purposes. The law is expected to be passed as law in April 2019, making Thailand the first Asian country to legalize medical cannabis and they will be competing in the market led by the US and Canada. The country's Governmental Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO) has also begun researching mass-producing medicines from the drug. While 72% of Thais support the move to legalize weed for medical purposes, a Nida poll found half said it should be restricted to hospital use. Back in the 1980s, Thailand used to be the worlds top exporter of illegal cannabis. MALAYSIA The challenge for Malaysia, which still imposes strict punishment for some drug trafficking offences, is how to draft new laws that are specific enough to differentiate marijuana for medical as opposed to recreational and other uses. The Ministry of Health, which has the final say, remains skeptical about the medicinal value of cannabis. The country's cabinet was reported to have "very briefly" discussed its medical value last month. Land and Natural Resources Xavier Jayakumar described getting cabinet support for medical marijuana use as an uphill battle. My own personal view is that if its got medicinal value, then it can be a controlled item that can be used by Ministry of Health for prescription purposes, he said. PHILIPPINES Despite President Rodrigo Dutertes bloody war on drugs that claimed the lives of thousands since mid-2016, the Philippines committee on Health in March last year endorsed the use of medical marijuana. House Bill 180 prescribes the rules for the proper use of medical marijuana, including the designation of a qualified medical cannabis physician, a medical cannabis patient who shall be issued an identification card, a qualified medical cannabis caregiver and a qualified medical cannabis compassionate centre. Lawmaker Rep. Seth Jalosjos believes legalizing marijuana for medical use, has the backing of the Philippine Cancer Society, will benefit thousands of patients suffering from serious and debilitating diseases. Medical marijuana has been frowned upon by Filipino leaders in the past, but Albano feels confident that his Bill will pass with Duterte in power. INDIA The usage of marijuana is rooted in ancient literature and Hindu mythology. Despite its illegality, it is well documented that marijuana is grown in many parts of the country, especially in villages in Himachal Pradesh and in the Indian Himalayas. Cannabis cultivation and trade are partially restricted in India. While its cultivation for industrial purposes (i.e. obtaining fibre such as industrial hemp or for horticultural use) is allowed, consuming it could lead to a jail term of six months or a hefty fine. Earlier this year Uttarakhand became the first State in the country to allow commercial cultivation of hemp crop. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, whose Patanjali company, has already made a fortune selling Ayurveda-based face cleansers, toothpaste, and detergents is now looking to cannabis as a growth avenue. There exists a huge market for cannabis in India. A lot of scientific research needs to be done, especially for those who are framing the laws, said Yash Kotak, founder, and director of Mumbai-based startup, The Bombay Hemp Company, which is backed by industrialist Ratan Tata. CHINA/HONG KONG While cannabis remains illegal in the Peoples Republic of China, the country itself produces 50% of the worlds supply. Chinas crops are largely hemp, and thus the non-psychotropic and fiber-rich variety of cannabis. As of 2017, Chinese companies have 309 out of the 606 patents filed around the world that relate to cannabis. So while cannabis remains illegal in the Peoples Republic of China, its massive economic potential poses a threat to cannabis interests around the world. In Hong Kong, manufacturing cannabis or any other drug included in the citys Dangerous Drugs Ordinance is deemed the most serious of all drug-related offenses. Any person who cultivates any plant of the genus cannabis faces an HK$100,000 fine and 15 years in prison. For Chinas pot to make a significant impression on the Western canna-economy, there must be state-approved logistics for global distribution and permissive banking regulations, experts say. Russia targets Dec 3 date for first manned ISS launch after accident Moscow, Oct 31 (AFP) Oct 31, 2018 Russia hopes to launch three crew for the International Space Station on December 3, the first manned blast-off since an accident this month, the Roscosmos space agency said Wednesday. Russia, the only country able to ferry astronauts to the orbiting science lab, suspended all launches after a rocket failed on October 11 just minutes after blast-off -- the first such incident in the history of post-Soviet space travel. Roscosmos executive director Sergei Krikalyov told the RIA Novosti state news agency: "The industry is now making significant efforts to move forward the launch to December 3." On the rocket destined for the ISS will be Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques, and NASA astronaut Anne McClain. The trio had originally been scheduled to blast off on December 20, but had their trip brought forward after the failed October 11 launch with Russia's Aleksey Ovchinin and NASA's Nick Hague on board. Ovchinin and Hague returned safely back to Earth in their capsule, and are likely get their chance to go to the space station in the spring, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin has said. Krikalyov said the astronauts currently on the ISS -- Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency, NASA's Serena Aunon-Chancellor, and Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos -- are expected to back on Earth "around December 20." They had initially been scheduled to land on December 13 after their stint on the ISS, a joint project of the space agencies of America, Europe, Russia, Japan and Canada. Meanwhile, an unmanned Progress cargo ship will blast off to the ISS on November 16 after its launch was postponed from October 30 due to the accident investigation, Krikalyov said. In the first official report on the cause of the October 11 accident, Roscosmos said a sensor that indicated the separation of the first two stages of the rocket malfunctioned. The Soyuz rocket used to launch astronauts has three stages, or segments. The first stage with four boosters is used to blast the rocket into the sky, before falling back to Earth, as the second and third stages continue the journey. "The reason found by the commission (investigating the accident) was the abnormal operation of a sensor that signals the separation of the first and second stages," Krikalyov said at a space industry event in Moscow. The malfunction led to one of the four boosters on the first stage failing to detach correctly and colliding with a fuel tank of the second stage, which exploded. Roscosmos is due to hold a press conference Thursday to further detail the findings of the accident probe. Mattis calls for Yemen ceasefire, peace talks within 'next 30 days' Washington, Oct 30 (AFP) Oct 30, 2018 US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis called Tuesday for a ceasefire in Yemen and for parties to come to the negotiating table within the next 30 days. The Pentagon chief said the US had been watching the conflict "for long enough" and said he believes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are in a US-backed coalition fighting Shiite Huthi rebels, are ready for talks. "We have got to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it some time in the future," Mattis said at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. "We need to be doing this in the next 30 days." He said the US is calling for all warring parties to meet with United Nations special envoy Martin Griffiths in Sweden in November and "come to a solution." Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the conflict between embattled Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, whose government is recognized by the United Nations, and the Huthis in 2015. Nearly 10,000 people have since been killed and the country now stands at the brink of famine. The United States has faced fierce international criticism for its role in supporting the Saudi-led coalition, especially after a series of strikes killed scores of civilians. Mattis said US support is based primarily on teaching the Saudi air force to improve targeting and to not drop bombs when there is any doubt about what they might hit. "Our goal right now is to achieve a level of capability by those forces fighting against the Huthis that they are not killing innocent people," he said. "The longer term solution, and by longer term I mean 30 days from now, we want to see everybody around a peace table based on a ceasefire, based on a pull back (of Huthis) from the border and then based on a ceasing dropping of bombs that will permit the special envoy Martin Griffiths... to get them together in Sweden and end this war. That is the only way we are going to really solve this." Last month, UN-led peace talks failed to take off after Huthi rebels refused to fly to Geneva over what they said was the UN's failure to guarantee a safe return to the capital Sanaa, which the group has controlled since 2014. US calls for Yemen ceasefire Washington, Oct 31 (AFP) Oct 31, 2018 The United States called Tuesday for a ceasefire and peace talks in Yemen, as the Saudi-led military coalition sent more than 10,000 new troops toward a vital rebel-held port city ahead of a new assault. Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said the US had been watching the conflict "for long enough," adding that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are in a US-backed coalition fighting Shiite Huthi rebels, are ready for talks. "We have got to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it some time in the future," Mattis said at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. "We need to be doing this in the next 30 days." He said the US is calling for all warring parties to meet with United Nations special envoy Martin Griffiths in Sweden in November and "come to a solution." US-Saudi ties have cooled in recent weeks after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent critic of the conservative kingdom, that has also tarnished the image of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the conflict between embattled Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, whose government is recognized by the United Nations, and the Huthis in 2015. Nearly 10,000 people have since been killed and the country now stands at the brink of famine, with more than 22 million Yemenis -- three quarters of the population -- in need of humanitarian assistance. The pro-government coalition deployed its reinforcements to the Red Sea coast ahead of a new offensive on Hodeida "within days," a military official told AFP earlier. He said they would also "secure areas liberated" from the Iran-linked Huthi rebels, and that forces from Sudan, part of the coalition, had moved in to "secure" areas around the city. Huthi rebels have for the past 10 days been stationing fighters on rooftops of buildings in Hodeida city, government military officials told AFP. The adjacent port is the entry point for more than 70 percent of imports to the impoverished country. - Peace is 'the only way' - The United States has faced fierce international criticism for its role in supporting the Saudi-led coalition, especially after a series of strikes killed scores of civilians. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for an end to all coalition air strikes in Yemen's populated areas. "The time is now for the cessation of hostilities, including missile and UAV (drone) strikes from Huthi-controlled areas into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates," Pompeo said in a statement. "Subsequently, coalition air strikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen." Mattis said US support is based primarily on teaching the Saudi air force to improve targeting and to not drop bombs when there is any doubt about what they might hit. "Our goal right now is to achieve a level of capability by those forces fighting against the Huthis that they are not killing innocent people," he said. Mattis said the ceasefire should be based on a pullback of Huthi rebels from the border and a ceasefire, and the parties must come together to end the war. "That will permit the special envoy Martin Griffiths... to get them together in Sweden and end this war. That is the only way we are going to really solve this," he added. Last month, UN-led peace talks failed to take off after Huthi rebels refused to fly to Geneva over what they said was the UN's failure to guarantee a safe return to the capital Sanaa, which the group has controlled since 2014. Pompeo said the peace talks would aim to "implement confidence-building measures to address the underlying issues of the conflict, the demilitarization of borders and the concentration of all large weapons under international observation." "A cessation of hostilities and vigorous resumption of a political track will help ease the humanitarian crisis as well," he added. "It is time to end this conflict, replace conflict with compromise and allow the Yemeni people to heal through peace and reconstruction." South Sudan rebel leader Machar back in Juba after two years Juba, Oct 31 (AFP) Oct 31, 2018 South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar returned to the capital Juba for the first time in more than two years Wednesday for a ceremony to welcome the latest peace accord for the war-ravaged country. Machar, who under the terms of the September deal is to be reinstated as vice president, had not set foot in the city since he fled in July 2016 under a hail of gunfire when an earlier peace agreement collapsed. The latest deal was signed in September to try to end a civil war that erupted in the world's youngest country in December 2013 and uprooted about four million people -- roughly a third of the population. The rebel chief was welcomed by President Salva Kiir, Machar's former ally turned bitter enemy, on his arrival at Juba's airport from Khartoum. The two rivals are to join regional leaders at the ceremony to publicly welcome the most recent agreement, signed in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. It was not immediately clear how long Machar would remain in Juba, as his aides have expressed concerns over his safety in the city. - 'Here for peace' - Lam Paul Gabriel, a spokesman for Machar's SPLM-IO rebel group, had said on Tuesday that he would be accompanied by around 30 political figures. "We are worried for his security in Juba, but the truth is here: we are for peace, and what we are trying to do is build trust. So that is why he is able to leave his forces behind and just go with politicians," Gabriel said. Several thousand people had already gathered for the ceremony at the John Garang Mausoleum, built in honour of the independence hero who was killed in a helicopter crash in 2005. Among regional leaders in Juba for the ceremony were Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Ethiopia's newly appointed President Sahle-Work Zewde and Somalia's head of state Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was also expected to attend. Machar fled Juba in July 2016 after fierce fighting erupted between government forces and his rebels, leaving several hundred people dead. He first headed on foot to the Democratic Republic of Congo before finally going into exile in South Africa. - Deep humanitarian crisis - South Sudan's civil war erupted when Kiir, a member of the Dinka tribe, accused his then deputy Machar, a Nuer, of plotting a coup. The conflict split the country along ethnic lines and has seen mass rape, the forced recruitment of child soldiers and attacks on civilians. It has caused one of the world's greatest humanitarian crises and wrecked the economy in a country which relies on oil production for the vast bulk of its revenues. The United Nations and the African Union earlier this month appealed to the country's warring parties to make concrete steps to implement the latest accord. South Sudan gained independence from its northern neighbour Sudan in 2011 after a 22-year civil war pitting rebel groups against Khartoum. Several ceasefires and peace agreements have so far failed to end the fighting in South Sudan that has killed an estimated 380,000 people, uprooted a third of the population, forced nearly two-and-a-half million into exile as refugees and triggered bouts of deadly famine. Sudan earlier this month appointed a peace envoy to South Sudan following the signing of the September accord in Addis. Iraq clears Swedish woman accused of belonging to IS Baghdad, Oct 31 (AFP) Oct 31, 2018 A court in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday cleared a Swedish woman of allegations that she belonged to the Islamic State group due to lack of evidence, a judicial source said. Under Iraq's anti-terrorism law, courts can sentence to death anyone found guilty of belonging to IS, including non-combatants. Victoria Lazar, a Swede of Serbian origin in her late 20s, was acquitted of the charge "for lack of sufficient evidence", the judicial source told AFP. But she was sentenced in a separate case to six months in prison for illegally entering Iraq, the source added. During questioning, Lazar had told interrogators she had come to Iraq with her husband and their three children, now aged five, four and three. She said her husband had been killed in 2016 during bombing of Tal Afar, near Mosul in the north of the country. More than 300 people, including around 100 foreigners, have been sentenced to death and many others to life imprisonment in Iraq for joining IS, the Sunni extremist group which at its peak controlled nearly a third of the country. EU condemns Denmark attack plot, urges support for Iran deal Brussels, Oct 31 (AFP) Oct 31, 2018 The EU on Wednesday condemned a foiled "attack" in Denmark blamed on Tehran but insisted the incident should not undermine Europe's support for the beleaguered Iran nuclear deal. Copenhagen recalled its ambassador to Tehran for consultations after Danish intelligence accused Iran of planning an attack in Denmark against three Iranians -- an allegation denied by the Islamic republic. Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said it was "totally unacceptable" for Iran to plan such an attack, while US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo congratulated Denmark on arresting what he called "an Iranian regime assassin". But there was a more measured response in Brussels, where officials are desperately trying to save the 2015 agreement to curb Iran's nuclear programme after Washington abruptly pulled out. "We deplore any threat to EU security and take every incident extremely seriously, and therefore we stand in solidarity with the member state concerned, in this case Denmark," Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, told reporters. US President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Iran accord -- known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- in May, slamming it as a bad deal and reimposing punishing sanctions on Iran. The EU and the three European signatories to the deal -- Britain, France and Germany -- have been trying to keep the deal alive. Kocijancic insisted efforts to save the deal did not mean the EU was overlooking other issues such as Iran's ballistic missile programme and interference in regional conflicts. "But we believe that the JCPOA, which has a very clear aim, needs to remain in place because it is an element of security, while other issues need to be addressed with all seriousness in parallel," she said. South Sudan rebel leader Machar back in Juba after two years Juba, Oct 31 (AFP) Oct 31, 2018 South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar returned to the capital Juba for the first time in more than two years Wednesday for a ceremony to welcome the latest peace accord for the war-ravaged country. Machar, who under the terms of the September deal is to be reinstated as vice president, had not set foot in the city since he fled in July 2016 under a hail of gunfire when an earlier peace pact collapsed. The new deal aims to end a civil war that erupted in the world's youngest country in December 2013 and uprooted about four million people -- roughly a third of the population. The rebel chief was welcomed at Juba's airport by President Salva Kiir, Machar's former ally turned bitter enemy. The two rivals then joined regional leaders at the ceremony to publicly welcome the most recent agreement, signed under international pressure on September 12 in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. "I want to reiterate in front of you that the war in South Sudan has come to an end," Kiir said, according to UN radio Miraya, repeating words often heard but not followed through. In a goodwill gesture, the president announced the release Wednesday of former rebel spokesman James Gatdet Dak, to be followed Thursday by the freeing of William John Endley, a retired South African colonel and ex-adviser to Machar. Both men were sentenced to death by a Juba court in January. UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) chief David Shearer hailed the moment of cooperation and said in a statement that building trust would be crucial. "To see parties that have previously been divided by violence coming together here in Juba, in a public sign of unity, sends a strong message to the citizens of this country that you are genuinely committed to end the suffering and build durable peace," he said. - 'Chance to restore hope' - Several thousand people gathered for the ceremony at the John Garang Mausoleum, built in honour of the independence hero killed in a helicopter crash in 2005. Among regional leaders attending were Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Ethiopia's newly appointed President Sahle-Work Zewde, Somalia's head of state Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. South Sudan gained independence from its northern neighbour Sudan in 2011 after a 22-year civil war pitting rebel groups against Khartoum. "Sadly, the hopes and dreams of that moment were lost in the outbreak of the war that has plagued this country for five long years," Shearer said. "This ceremony is a chance for the leaders here today to restore that hope and to secure a peaceful and prosperous future for their people." The deal has encountered delays on several issues including the reactivation of a joint committee on borders and the number of regional states. It was not known how long Machar would remain in Juba, as his aides have expressed concern for his safety in the city. Lam Paul Gabriel, a spokesman for Machar's SPLM-IO rebel group, said Tuesday Machar would be accompanied by about 30 political figures. "We are worried for his security in Juba, but the truth is here: we are for peace, and what we are trying to do is build trust. So that is why he is able to leave his forces behind and just go with politicians," Gabriel said. - Deep humanitarian crisis - South Sudan's civil war erupted when Kiir, a member of the Dinka tribe, accused his then deputy Machar, a Nuer, of plotting a coup. The conflict split the country along ethnic lines and has seen mass rape, the forced recruitment of child soldiers and attacks on civilians. It has caused one of the world's greatest humanitarian crises and wrecked the economy in a nation which relies on oil production for the bulk of its revenues. Machar fled Juba in July 2016 after fierce fighting erupted between government forces and his rebels, killing several hundred people. He headed on foot to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and went into exile in South Africa. Several ceasefire agreements and peace pacts have failed to end the fighting, which has killed an estimated 380,000 people, uprooted a third of the population, forced nearly two-and-a-half million into exile, and triggered bouts of deadly famine. Sudan this month appointed a peace envoy to South Sudan following the signing of the September accord in Addis. Bulgaria's arms exports top 1.2 billion euros in 2017 Sofia, Oct 31 (AFP) Oct 31, 2018 Bulgaria's booming arms trade continued to grow in 2017 with arms and ammunitions exports topping 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion), an official report showed Wednesday. Conflicts in the Middle East have boosted Bulgaria's arms sales in recent years to levels not seen since the fall of communism in 1989. Arms exports in 2017 reached 1.219 billion euros, or 20 percent up from 2016, when Bulgaria sold abroad 1.0 billion euros' worth of arms, according to data from the annual report of the country's export control committee. Saudi Arabia, India, the US and Iraq remained the main buyers of Bulgarian-made munitions and light weaponry. Experts believe that many of the weapons sold to Saudi Arabia and the US have ended up in the hands of armed groups backed by those countries in Syria and Yemen. Bulgaria's economy ministry has however insisted it cannot be held accountable for re-exports of arms by other countries. According to the Bulgarian Defence Industries' Association, more than 30,000 people are employed in the arms industry in Bulgaria. Under the Eastern Bloc defence treaty known as the Warsaw Pact, Bulgaria developed a powerful arms industry with some 115,000 workers. At the industry's height under communism it exported around 800 million dollars' worth of weapons annually, both to other Soviet bloc nations and also to pro-communist groups in Africa and the Middle East. The downfall of communism in 1989 plunged Bulgaria's industry into disarray, reducing the workforce to a tenth of its original size before recovering in recent years. South Sudan rebel leader Machar back in Juba after two years Juba, Oct 31 (AFP) Oct 31, 2018 South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar returned to the capital Juba for the first time in more than two years Wednesday, saying he arrived with a message of peace. Machar, who under the terms of the September deal is to be reinstated as vice president, had not set foot in the city since he fled in July 2016 under a hail of gunfire when an earlier peace pact collapsed. "Our message is one: We are for peace.... This peace is in our hearts and we are going to implement this agreement," Machar said at a ceremony to welcome the latest peace accord for the war-ravaged country. The new deal aims to end a civil war that erupted in the world's youngest country in December 2013 and uprooted about four million people -- roughly a third of the population. The rebel chief was welcomed at Juba's airport by President Salva Kiir, Machar's former ally turned bitter enemy. The two rivals then joined regional leaders at the ceremony to publicly welcome the most recent agreement, signed under international pressure on September 12 in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. "I want to reiterate in front of you that the war in South Sudan has come to an end," Kiir said, according to UN radio Miraya, repeating words often heard but not followed through. In a goodwill gesture, the president announced the release Wednesday of former rebel spokesman James Gatdet Dak, to be followed Thursday by the freeing of William John Endley, a retired South African colonel and ex-adviser to Machar. Both men were sentenced to death by a Juba court in January. UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) chief David Shearer hailed the moment of cooperation and said in a statement that building trust would be crucial. "To see parties that have previously been divided by violence coming together here in Juba, in a public sign of unity, sends a strong message to the citizens of this country that you are genuinely committed to end the suffering and build durable peace," he said. - 'Chance to restore hope' - Several thousand people gathered for the ceremony at the John Garang Mausoleum, built in honour of the independence hero killed in a helicopter crash in 2005. Among regional leaders attending were Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Ethiopia's newly appointed President Sahle-Work Zewde, Somalia's head of state Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. South Sudan gained independence from its northern neighbour Sudan in 2011 after a 22-year civil war pitting rebel groups against Khartoum. "Sadly, the hopes and dreams of that moment were lost in the outbreak of the war that has plagued this country for five long years," Shearer said. "This ceremony is a chance for the leaders here today to restore that hope and to secure a peaceful and prosperous future for their people." The deal has encountered delays on several issues including the reactivation of a joint committee on borders and the number of regional states. Machar returned to Khartoum later Wednesday, Kiir's spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said. Machar's aides had earlier expressed concern for his safety in Juba. - Deep humanitarian crisis - South Sudan's civil war erupted when Kiir, a member of the Dinka tribe, accused his then deputy Machar, a Nuer, of plotting a coup. The conflict split the country along ethnic lines and has seen mass rape, the forced recruitment of child soldiers and attacks on civilians. It has caused one of the world's greatest humanitarian crises and wrecked the economy in a nation which relies on oil production for the bulk of its revenues. Machar fled Juba in July 2016 after fierce fighting erupted between government forces and his rebels, killing several hundred people. He headed on foot to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and went into exile in South Africa. Several ceasefire agreements and peace pacts have failed to end the fighting, which has killed an estimated 380,000 people, uprooted a third of the population, forced nearly two-and-a-half million into exile, and triggered bouts of deadly famine. Sudan this month appointed a peace envoy to South Sudan following the signing of the September accord in Addis. The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2018 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement Mr. Ciruli is the Director of the Crossley Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Denvers Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He is an adjunct professor teaching public opinion and foreign policy. The Crossley Center conducts research and presents live and virtual programs on foreign policy, politics, public policy and public opinion. Mr. Ciruli holds a law degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and a bachelors degree cum laude in political science from UCLA. He is a member of the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), and is the past-president of the Pacific Chapter of AAPOR (PAPOR). Mr. Ciruli is a board member of the Social Science Foundation of the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies and past-president of the Georgetown Law Alumni Board and the Denver Athletic Club. Published: 31 October 2018 Foreign direct investments from Finland decreased slightly in 2017 At the end of 2017, the value of the stock of outward FDI was EUR 102.7 billion, of which equity accounted for EUR 114.5 billion and the value of debt capital for EUR -11.8 billion. The investment stock went down by EUR 0.2 billion year-on-year. In 2017, the net amount of FDI from Finland amounted to EUR -0.3 billion. FDI investment portfolio in 2005 to 2017. ) Starting from 2013, the figures are not fully comparable with those for 2004 to 2012 due to changes in the international statistical standard. At the end of 2017, the value of FDIs to Finland totalled EUR 73.5 billion, of which equity accounted for EUR 69.8 billion and the value of debt capital for EUR 3.6 billion. In 2017, Finland's inward FDI totalled EUR -0.6 billion on net, which is clearly less than in 2016, when the net inflow of Finlands FDI was EUR 8.4 billion. Examined by country group, investments from Finland are mainly directed to the EU area, whose combined share of the investment stock was 86 per cent at the end of 2017. The share of the countries belonging to the euro area in the stock of outward FDI was 54 per cent. In 2017, returns on inward FDI amounted in total to EUR 8.0 billion and on outward FDI to EUR 7.2 billion. Returns gained by Finland relative to the value of FDI grew from the previous year. In 2017, the rate of return was 7.8 per cent, having been 9.0 per cent in 2015. This release includes a review that examines in more detail the development of foreign direct investments in 2017. Source: Foreign direct investments 2017, Statistics Finland Inquiries: Riikka Tupala 029 551 3349, balanceofpayments@stat.fi Director in charge: Ville Vertanen Publication in pdf-format (365.6 kB) Updated 31.10.2018 Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Foreign direct investments [e-publication]. ISSN=2342-351X. 2017. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 20.11.2021]. Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/ssij/2017/ssij_2017_2018-10-31_tie_001_en.html TO VIEW MORE NEWS STORY, PLEASE CLICK ON NEWS TAB ON MAIN MENU BAR ABSTRACT This paper investigates the hydrocarbon generation potential of the shale beds penetrated by Kinasar-1 well in the SE depression of the Bornu Basin, Nigeria. The objective of the study was to select shale sample from the ditch cuttings of the well and assess their source rock status based on the integration of four routinely used indicators: TOC, HI, Tmax, and VR. While all the strata analysed contain sufficient organic matter (TOC > 0.5) for hydrocarbon generation, the HI/T max plot suggests slightly matured to matured type II/III kerogen that is capable of generating only gas as revealed by the HI/TOC plot. Of tectonic significance is the Vitrinite reflectance result, which suggests cooling, based on observed VR reversal at depth. This is interpreted herein as marking a period of uplift and erosion that is totally different from and occurred before the intra-Maastrichtian unconformity that affected all the basins of WACRS. Keywords: Bornu Basin, Gas, Kinasar, Source Rock, Unconformity 1. Introduction Evaluation of hydrocarbon generation potential of the Bornu Basin (Figure 1) is critical now that there is renew and more desperate interest in the search for hydrocarbon in the basin, considering the amount of futile efforts already put into it. Twenty three exploratory wells (Figure 1) have been drilled without any discovery in spite of major discoveries in its contiguous basins in the Chad and Niger territories. Encouraged by similar persistent efforts that eventually led to oil discovery in some other intercontinental basins in Africa, the Federal Government of Nigeria holds the opinion that commercial hydrocarbon deposit could be found in the basin. Every oil or gas play originates from source rock and the viability of each playconventional or unconventional, oil or gasdepends on it [1] . Source rock evaluation studies entail assessing the hydrocarbon generating potential of sediments by looking at the sediments capacity for hydrocarbon generation, type of organic matter (kerogen) present and what hydrocarbons might be expected after generation, and the sediments thermal maturity and how it has influenced generation [2] [3] . Various tools, techniques and indices for source rock evaluation are readily available and well documented in the literature [1] [4] [5] [6] . Extensive source rock assessments in the Bornu Basin have been carried out [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] . Based on these studies, source rock availability in the Bornu Basin was reviewed by Adekoya et al. [12] . More recent works include [13] . A fair knowledge of the hydrocarbon potential of the basin is known. Notwithstanding a more detailed study is still desirable, particularly studies that focus on individual exploration well in relation to each of the three depressions [14] in the basin. Beds within each of the sags are to a large extent correlatable [14] suggesting a genetic relationship that could permit interpolation of results all over a sag area. The aim of this work therefore is to ascertain source rock availability and quality within the strata penetrated by Kinasar-1 well with a view to relating the result to existing results within sag C in the Maiduguri SE portion of the basin, and other producing basins in like the Termit and Agadem and Tenere blocks of the Mega Chad Basin. The significance of Kinasar-1 well to source rock evaluation Figure 1. Regional tectonic map of western and central african rifted basins showing the relationship of the bornu basin to some other interior basins of africa (Schull, 1988; Obaje, 2004). in the Bornu Basin is twofold: firstly, it is one of the two wells where insignificant gas is documented and secondly it is the deepest well drilled so far in the basin [15] . The source rock evaluation is however limited to selected shales samples of the Fika Formation that shows potential for hydrocarbon generation. The optimism driving the research is that efforts leading to discovery of hydrocarbon in frontier basins require decades of intensive research and exploration. For example hydrocarbon was not discovered in the Niger Delta until about fifty years of exploration beginning from 1908 to 1957 when the oil was discovered in Oloibiri. 2. Geological Setting The Bornu Basin is one of the basins within the Mega Chad Basin, an inland rift basin which is part of the West and Central African Rift System (Figure 1). The geodynamic evolution of the West and Central African Rift System (WCARS) is linked to the development of the African plate throughout the Phanerozoic and is related to the polyphase break-up of the Gondwana supercontinent [16] [17] [18] [19] . The WCARS has been subdivided into two coeval Cretaceous genetically related but physically separated rift subsystems, which are the West African Rift Subsystem (WASBenue Trough, Yola/Garouna rift, Gongola/Bornu rift, Niger/Chad) and Central African Rift Subsystem (CASDoba, Doseo, Salamat). The geotectonic history of the WAS and CAS was divided into two pre-drift, two Cretaceous rift, one Paleogene rift and one post-rift phases. The Chad Basin straddles five countries, namely, Nigeria, Niger, Chad Republic, Cameroon and Central Africa Republic. Approximately one-tenth of its surface area constitutes the Bornu Basin. Stratigraphy The general geology of the Bornu Basin has received considerable attention [20] - [27] because of the intense search for hydrocarbon there. Its stratigraphic sequences have been extensively discussed and established [22] [25] [27] [28] [29] [30] to be related to that of the Benue Trough that has received considerable study and appear better understood (Figure 2). The principal stratigraphic units in the basin are: the Bima, Yolde/Gongila, Fika, Gombe, Kerri-Kerri and Chad Formations. The Bima Formation unconformably overlies the Precambrian basement and is considered to be generally composed of feldspathic, coarse grained sandstones with beds of quartz pebbles and some layers of shale. These sediments are mainly continental and vary in age from Neocomian to Cenomanian [31] . A widespread Cenomanian-Turorian marine transgression into the Chad basin led to the deposition of the Gongila and Fika Formations [32] [33] . Gongila Formation comprises shales and fossiliferous limestone, which marks the boundary with the underlying Bima Formation. It is important to note that in the upper Benue Trough, the Yolde Formation lies in between the Bima and Gongila Formations, which suggests the need to clarify its existence in the Bornu Basin. The Fika Formation is made up of blue-grey shales, with irregular limestone layers. Coniacian to Santonian age has been assigned to this formation. Overlying the Fika shale is the Gombe Formation. From outcrop and shallow borehole studies the formation consists of rare basal conglomerate, grit, sandstone and clay [33] . While Avbovbo [25] recognized coal beds as part of the Gombe Formation, Moumouni et al. [10] did not include the formation in the interpreted stratigraphy of some wells (Kanadi-1, Albarka-1, Gaibu-1 and Kasade-1). Between Gombe and the overlying Kerri-Kerri Formation an unconformity was observed [8] [12] [33] marking the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary. The Kerri-Kerri Formation consists mainly of fine to coarse grained ferruginous sandstones, siltstones, clays, clayey sandstones and laterite (oolitic and vesicular). The Kerri-Kerri and Chad Formations overlie the Cretaceous Formations and constitute the Tertiary sediments of the Chad Basi [29] . 3. Methodology Following a detailed sedimentological studies (result of which is not reported herein) of cuttings of Kinasar-1 well, nine samples were selected from the strata penetrated by the well, which is situated in the south-eastern portion of the Bornu Basin (Figure 3). The samples were sieve-washed under running water to remove drilling contaminants, dried and pulverized. The grounded samples were pre-treated to remove inorganic carbon, first with 10% hydrochloric Acid (HCl) and then with 30% HCl. The resulting carbonate free sample was analysed in the CS244 analyser to determine its total organic carbon (TOC). The TOC values were obtained in weight percent (wt%) of the original rock. Figure 2. Stratigraphic successions in the bornu basin and its contiguous benue trough (Obaje, 2004). Figure 3. Location of the Bornu Basin showing the location of drilled wells in the basin and three areas of thick sedimentary deposits in the basin. The focus of study is depression D. Inset Position of the basin in relation to Nigeria, Chad and Niger (Modified after Olabode et al., 2015). Rock-Eval pyrolysis was performed on each of the samples utilizing 100 mg of powdered whole rock and using a GEO-IMT-2005 instrument. The pyrolysis parameters obtained were the S1 peak (mg of pre-existing hydrocarbon per gram of rock), the S2 peak (mg of hydrocarbons per gram of rock, derived from thermal breakdown of the kerogen), the S3 peak (amount of CO 2 in mg CO 2 per g of rock produced during pyrolysis of kerogen), and the Tmax (temperature in C corresponding to maximum hydrocarbon generation). Other parameters derived from the foregoing data include the hydrogen index (HI), the production index (PI) and oxygen index (OI). The HI is S2 normalised to the TOC of the sample (mgHC/g TOC) and is indicative of unoxidised hydrogen in the system. The PI is indicative of thermal maturity and the hydrocarbon generation capability of the source rock, which is determined by S1/(S1 + S2). The OI is indicative of gas richness and is determined by S3/(S1 + S2) [1] . 4. Result 4.1. Bulk Geochemistry The TOC values of the samples except one generally vary from 0.60% to 1.63% (Table 1). The exception, obtained at a depth of 1670 - 1675 m, yielded an anomalous organic-rich facies with a TOC value of 2.30%. Eight of the samples have HI values between 50 and 100 mgHC/g TOC. This HI values are typical of Type III kerogen. Only one sample retrieved at a depth of 1670 - 1675 m has value below 60 mgHC/g TOC. Seven of the nine samples analysed for T max have values between 435C and 452C (Figure 4) suggesting thermally mature sediments. A slightly low T max value of 432C was obtained at a depth of 2140 - 2145 m. A sample analysed at a depth of 2280 - 2285 m is postmature (gas window) having T max value of 488C. This result is clearly displayed in Figure 5. On the HI/Tmax plot (Figure 5) the majority of the samples cluster at the centre of Type II/Type III Table 1. Pyrolysis results of selected shale cuttings from Kinasar-1 well, Bornu Basin, Nigeria. Figure 4. A plot of wire-line log and source rock indices derived from the bulk geochemical data of ditch cutting samples of Fika Shale in Kinasar-1 well, SE Bornu Basin, Nigeria. Figure 5. Source rock evaluation of the strata of Fika Shale as penetrated by Kinasar-1 well, SE Bornu Basin. (a) Type of kerogen plot showing type III/II kerogen; (b) Maturation level of the organic matter; and (c) Hydrocarbon generation potential. kerogen while some are at the boundary. Again some of the samples cluster at the point marking the onset of hydrocarbon generation window (Figure 5). 4.2. Vitrinite Reflectance Vitrinite reflectance is a better maturity indicator. Five of the samples selected at depths of 1040 m, 1290 m, 1670 m, 2180 m and 2280 m were analysed to determine the level of maturity in the area around the well using this tool. These samples were composed of siltstone and mudstone characterised by variable organic matter content (Figure 6). Siltstone samples had higher organic matter content varying from low to high while mudstone samples exhibited moderate organic matter content. Occasionally, there were one or two fragments of mudstone that were more laminated and had higher concentration of organic matter particles. Siltstone and mudstone samples were dominated by very small particles that were typically recycled vitrinite and inertinite and stringers of coal-like fragments (Figure 6). Primary vitrinite was present in low quantity and was poor and small and often difficult to distinguish from recycled vitrinite. Siltstone was occasionally glauconitic and had very light matrix bitumen stain. Mudstone samples showed moderate to strong matrix bitumen stain. There was a trace quantity of liptinite. Algal cysts fluoresced yellow with moderate intensity. One good quality spore fluoresced mid to dark orange with low intensity. Other tentatively identified algal cysts and spores were yellow orange and light orange, respectively. In some samples no convincing organic matter fluorescence was detected. Cavings were present. Thermal maturity in the samples varies from peak oil window to early peak oil window and late oil window to early wet gas/condensate zone (Figure 5). The vitrinite reflectance values are as contained in Figure 6(b). 5. Dicussion 5.1. Source Rock Evaluation in the South-Eastern Portion of the Bornu Basin The significance of Kinasar-1 well to source rock evaluation in the Bornu Basin is twofold: firstly, it is one of the two wells where insignificant gas are documented and secondly, it is the deepest well drilled so far in the basin [18] . Within the south-eastern portion of the basin, a fairly good wireline log correlation occurs among the existing exploration wells [14] suggesting possible genetically related shale beds within the Fika Formation. In this study, source rock evaluation concentrate on selected shale beds of Fika Formation considered viable as source rock. The section shallower than interval focus in this study contains predominantly clay, sands and clayey sands of Maastrichtian/Tertiary sequences [12] . Based on the 0.5 wt% as the lowest for hydrocarbon generation, the shale beds of the Fika Formation contain sufficient organic matter to generate hydrocarbon. All the samples had TOC greater than 0.5 wt%. A similar trend has been Figure 6. Organic matter type and level of maturation of Fika Shale as penetrated by Kinasar-1 well, SE Bornu Basin, Nigeria. (a) Depth/VR plot; (b) Table of VR Values; and (c) (d) (e) and (f) Histogram showing the type of the organic matter particles; (d) (e) (f) and (g) Histogram showing the type of the organic matter particles in Fika Formation as penetrated by Kinasar-1 well. reported from Gaibu-1 well [10] . From our [12] experience on the Bornu Basin the section within depth 2900 m to 4600 of Moumouni et al. [10] belongs to the Bima Formation. In fact, depth 2700 m to 2900 m falls within the Yolde/Gongila Formations that are deposited in a shallow marine environment. Gaibu well is another exploration well from south eastern portion of the basin having 10% of its tested samples yielding very good TOC results (2.0% - 5.7%) [11] . Similarly in Tuma well the TOC ranges between 0.69 and 1.89 within the depths 1000 and 3195 m [13] . Above 90% of the shaly section of Murshe-1 well has TOC above 0.6% required for hydrocarbon generation [13] . In Ziye-1 well also, above 80% of its analysed sample for TOC records value above 0.5 w% [15] . In terms of having sufficient organic matter for hydrocarbon generation in the south eastern portion of the Bornu Basin, there is no problem. Another important parameter for source rock status assessment is the level of maturity of the organic matter, which could be determined by the pyrolysis temperature that corresponds to Pyrolysis oven temperature (T max ) during maximum generation of hydrocarbons [1] . T max values greater than 435C (minimum required for hydrocarbon generation [4] [6] are recorded for the section of Gaibu-1 well (Table 1(a)) of Moumouni et al. [10] ) within the Fika Formation. Alalade and Tyson [11] examined two samples each for Tuma and Murshe wells and recorded values higher than 449C Tmax. In this study only one of the samples examined has Tmax greater than 435C (Table 1). These values suggest that the organic facies within the sampled intervals are thermally matured. Another parameter for organic matter maturation level determination is the coloration index. Based on the modified Colouration index [1] [34] thermal alteration ratings of organic matter particles of yellow and orange to brownish yellow suggests associated hydrocarbon of oil to dry gas. Apart from the traces of liptinite found in some of the samples, algal cysts found fluoresced yellow with moderate intensity. One good quality spore fluoresced mid to dark orange with low intensity. Other tentatively identified algal cysts and spores were yellow orange and light orange, respectively. All these point to the possibility of finding liquid hydrocarbon apart from the already recorded gas within the area around Kinasar-1 well. The most reliable thermal measurement is the vitrinite reflectance. This study records above 0.6 w% minimum required value [1] for sediments that are predominantly type three as it is in Kinasar-1 (Figure 5). Then the question is this: why are all the wells dry and only Kinasar-1 well produces only non-commercial gas? Evaluation of source rock potential is primarily based on appraisal of integrated multiple factors. Prominent among these factors is the hydrogen index, HI, which is derived from the ratio of CO 2 to TOC; and defined as 100 S3/TOC [34] . The HI is proportional to the amount of hydrogen contained within the kerogen. The value of HI provides information on the hydrocarbon product of sediments thus: between 50 and 200, gas; 200 to 300, Gas and oil; and above 300, oil [1] . In this study, the value of HI predominantly falls within gas zone (Table 1). In addition, the plot of HI against Tmax suggest that only few beds within the tested Fika Formation could generate lean oil but gas based on the few data point that clusters within the boundary of oil/gas generation zone (Figure 5). Generally, the level of the onset for oil generation delineated in this work is in fair agreement with the work of Nwakwo and Ekine [35] that the depth of oil ceiling in Kinasar 1 well lies at 1556 m. The onset of oil generation however contradicts earlier submissions of Genik [20] who estimated the threshold of the oil window in the Bornu Basin to be at a depth of 2000 m. In Kinasar-1 this depth is below the intra-Maastrichtian unconformity. 5.2. Implications of VR Reversal A critical look at the plot of VR against depth (Figure 4 and Figure 5) reveals a slight reversal in the depth trend of the VR value at about 2190 m. Similar trends in the reversal of VR readings were observed in the data presented by [10] and [11] (Figure 7) in the wells that are very close to kinasar-1 well (Figure 2). This reversal suggests a significant change of the geothermal gradient resulting from either a change in the thermal conductivity of the strata or exhumation event. Uplift and erosion following the Santonian squeeze have been reported in the basin. From the stratigraphic position of the point of reversal reported herein the exhumation event lead to suspected unconformity occurring probably during the Middle Cretaceous but before the Santonian. Figure 7. Vitrinite reflectance values obtained from the published works of Alalade and Tyson (2012) and Moumuni et al. (2007). Note the reversal in the % Ro values within a short range of depth in three selected wells from the SE portion (Figure 1) of the basin. The inferred cooling reflects exhumation that is totally different from the popular post Santonian squeeze in all the WCARS. 6. Conclusion The geochemical data obtained in this study revealed that, although the Bornu Basin is predominantly a potential gas prone basin, there are organic facies intervals that are oil prone within the basin. For example, by integrating data derived from four parameters of TOC, T max , HI and Ro defined by Peters (1986) in Kinasar-1 well, several potential gas source and two potential oil source beds could be distinguished in the studied section of Fika Shale. All the samples analysed shows matured and even post matured strata within the Fika Shale. The area of study has not recorded economic oil discovery because nearly all the tested beds have low Hydrogen Index but holds high potential for gas accumulation. A further exploration of higher structure within the area of study both temporally and spatially is recommended. This is because hydrocarbon generation in the studied area could be presumed to start at a relatively shallow depth of 1090 m. Acknowledgements The original research forming the source of the data used for this study was sponsored from the 2010 PTDF Research Competition funded by Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), Abuja, Nigeria. This is acknowledged with thanks. The authors are particularly grateful to Prof. R. W. Brown and Dr. K. Dobson of the University of Glasgow, UK for facilitating the geochemical analysis. Prof. C. M. Ekweozors advice on how to go about the analysis is also appreciated. The initial draft of the paper was reviewed by Prof. J. A. Adekoya. I thank the anonymous reviewer and Joanna Cheng for editorial handling and helpful comments. Conflicts of Interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper. Cite this paper Ola, P.S. (2018) Source Rock Evaluation of the Shale Beds Penetrated by Kinasar-1 Well, Se Bornu Basin, Nigeria. Open Journal of Geology, 8, 1056-1068. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojg.2018.811064 References 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. Mr Bean awarded prestigious YouTube Diamond Play Button Official Mr Bean YouTube channel surpasses 10 million subscribers to join the exclusive club of under 100 YouTube stars U.K.( ) Global star Mr Bean, has been awarded the YouTube Diamond Play Button for surpassing 10 million subscribers on the official Mr Bean channel www.youtube.com/MrBean . Mr Bean, whose original live action series predates the platform, is the oldest British recipient to join the elite Diamond Play Button club. Mr Bean also breaks additional records as the only one to do it using such few words and the first to reach this milestone using content that was first created nearly 30 years ago. The coveted Diamond Play Button award has been bestowed to less than 100 YouTube channels worldwide. Previous UK recipients include Ed Sheeran, Zoella and Adele. To commemorate this landmark milestone, Mr Bean has joined forces with creator and inventor Colin Furze, for the Mr Bean channels first ever YouTube collaboration. The timeless Mr Bean is the epitome of visual comedy, and with minimal dialogue, it appeals to audiences of any age, all around the world. Broadcast in nearly 200 territories with more than 4.5 billion video views on YouTube last year, Mr Bean is a truly global hit with fans from the UK to India, the U.S. and Brazil. The Mr Bean channel is amongst the top watched UK TV brands on YouTube globally. Mr Bean said, This is amazing! I cant believe it, for me! Thank you, thank you, thank you. Ben McOwen Wilson, YouTube Director of Partnerships of Europe, Middle East and Africa YouTube commented, Mr Bean is a cultural phenomenon and a great example of a British TV icon adapting and expanding for the digital age to reach new audiences through technologies like YouTube. We are so pleased to be celebrating this milestone and look forward to seeing what comes next. Wim Ponnet, Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer, Endemol Shine Group said, Stemming from just 14 original live action episodes, this milestone achievement on YouTube is testament to the enduring popularity of Mr Bean. By working closely with our platform partners, we will continue to grow our global community and entertain new audiences from all around the world with our timeless content. In celebration of the Diamond Play Button award, the channel will showcase all-new, bespoke content. Fans can enjoy the moment Colin presented a very excited Mr Bean (Rowan Atkinson) with the Diamond Play Button award https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQFAbLtkxcQ, in addition to a brand-new animated Mr Bean sketch featuring an animated Colin which he also voiced, which will be released tomorrow (Tuesday 30th October). On Thursday 1st November Colin will release his own special film to celebrate, as he constructs a Furze version of Mr Beans remote-controlled armchair, inspired by animated episode Caring Bean. One of Britains most famous comic creations of all time, Mr Bean first appeared on our screens in 1990, with the ever-versatile performer Rowan Atkinson playing the hapless hero. Now in production for its third series, Mr Bean Animated Series (voiced by Rowan Atkinson) celebrates the transition of a successful live action comedy series into a classic animated series. Mr Bean is produced by Tiger Aspect Productions, part of global content creator, producer and distributor Endemol Shine Group. A global TV hit, with nearly 30 years in continual distribution, the Mr Bean brand also enjoys considerable success beyond the TV screen with in excess of 30 million mobile game downloads and recently topping 80 million fans on Facebook, overtaking Rihanna, and higher than Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Manchester United to name a few. The Most Watched Videos on the Mr Bean YouTube Channel are: Prestigious French luxury label Morreale Paris have unveiled the Le Monde sur Mesure, an ultra-luxurious fragrance housed in a bespoke gold and diamond encrusted decanter that comes with the eye-popping and world record breaking price tag of $1.5 million. Created from 2 kilos of pure 18-karat gold armor and hand-polished diamonds of the highest grade, the Le Monde sur Mesure bottle takes one year to craft and comes with a unique serial number and a premium wooden travel case with a 18-karat gold bracelet. Filled with a scent of Parisian Roses de Mai and Himalayan Mountain Neroli, the Le Monde sur Mesure will be available only to select VIPs, and will come in 5, 7 and 10 lt. bottles. The brand will also introduce 300 ml consumer bottles priced at $300 for the rest of us. "It's not just a bottle, it's a piece of art," says Morreale's creative director, Maxime Rancon. "Each bottle is gold-armored. People are mesmerised when they see it." Clients are involved in the creative process, and the finished product is flown to them by private jet and with a full security detail. Every bottle is also presented with an 18-karat gold bracelet. The Le Monde sue Mesure will be unveiled in a private art tour at the historic Los Angeles estates towards the end of 2018. Im very proud to have sold this new MCY 96 to an existing Monte Carlo Yachts owner, who was looking to upgrade his previous yacht for a bigger model, says Sergio Loiacono, Simpson Marine Thailand Country Sales Manager. The new model MCY 96 was a natural choice and a perfect fit, and the fact the owner has chosen to buy a MCY design once again is a testament to the strong client support and excellent after-sales programme that this pedigree brand provides its customers. Having launched from Monfalcone, Italy, in July 2018, the yacht made its way to Asia, arriving in Pattaya at the end of September. We are delighted to have her here and we are looking forward to seeing her actively cruising through Thai waters, adds Loiacono. Like all Monte Carlo Yachts models, the design of the MCY 96 was once again entrusted to the renowned Nuvolari Lenard. The companys development of the MCY collections Future Classic award-winning design philosophy is visible throughout every nuance and detail of the Monte Carlo Yachts line. The exclusive line maximises visionary concepts and design elements to achieve unprecedented results in its category, as highlighted in the following statement from the yacht designers Carlo Nuvolari and Dan Lenard: Through the MCY 96, we sought to identify a common thread that links all of our Monte Carlo Yachts models, so they would be identifiable as a family, regardless of the overt style and technicalities. That common thread was beauty, and the sensation felt by those who see the yachts and cannot forget them. Beauty is found in balanced design and harmony in proportions, not aggressive lines or those that merely suggest speed. Beauty is never restricted by the narrow rules of architecture and design, but it is found in the feelings of those who experience something that we have designed. The new MCY 96 features sporty and contemporary looks, while still preserving the brands elegant and smooth lines. Upon boarding an instant sense of spaciousness becomes apparent. The cockpit is very generous, comparable to those on much larger yachts, and provides access to the very spacious flybridge that can be entirely customised for each client. Likewise, the interiors impress with the same amount of space and with light coming through wide side windows and saloon balconies. Continuing this theme of space, the master cabin, situated on the main deck bow area, is bigger than most master suites found on larger yachts. Below deck, the guest cabins are generous in size and perfect for relaxation after an active day on the water. Large hull windows in all the guest cabins fill these spaces with an abundance of natural light. The MCY 96 has quickly proved a huge success, with six units already sold. The first Monte Carlo Yachts 96 in Asia will celebrate her official launch at the 2018 Ocean Marina Pattaya Boat Show held on 29 November to 2 December. It was in 1992 that Mateo Alvarez formally gave his 12,000 square metre piece of land and the 17th century Trapiche del Prado building, which used to be part of the local sugar industry, to the council so they could build a home for the elderly. The almost 26 years which have passed since then have been full of ups and downs and the project has still not come to fruition, to the disgust of Mateo's family and to the detriment of residents of Marbella, a town which, even now in 2018, has no residential home of this type. However, it looks as if the Trapiche's luck may be changing. It seems that the council has made some progress and is hoping the works to shore up the old building can begin in December. This has to be done so that an inspection can be carried out of the sugar mill, and plans drawn up for its restoration. The local authority has also begun discussions with the Malaga branch of the regional government's Cultural department, about obtaining authorisation for specific plans and an exact location within the plot for the construction of a residential home for the elderly. It has assigned 10 million euros from the municipal budget plus EU funding for the project. "This would comply with my great-uncle's wishes, which were stated in the agreement under which he signed over the Trapiche," says Victoria Martin. Together with Fernando Martin Alvarez and Fernando Alvarez Cantos, Mateo's nephews, she has spent years defending his interests and trying to overcome the obstacles which kept blocking progress in the project. Previously, it was her father, Jose Luis Martin, (who in 2015 was posthumously awarded the title of Honorary Citizen), who held the reins of an initiative which at times which seemed doomed to oblivion. "We have been through some very bad times," says Fernando Alvarez, such as during the time of Jesus Gil, when the Trapiche building was turned into stables, and when another mayor from the same party (GIL) "offered us a strange business opportunity and even money if we would sign a Town Hall document agreeing they didn't have to fulfil our uncle's wishes". The uncertainty continued until, in 2008, the construction of the home for the elderly was finally announced and the first stone was laid. However, the construction company filed for bankruptcy shortly afterwards. "It was another obstacle, after all the others. Now we are trying to ensure that the different administrations do come to an agreement, because we have been through some very black periods," explains Fernando Martin, who says that the former mayor, Jose Bernal, while in power, offered to forgo the project and return the property to the family. Before that, there had been another failure in the attempt to fulfil Mateo Alvarez's wishes. The construction of the residence seemed to be getting nearer in 2002, when an agreement signed with Mensajeros de la Paz also fell through. Marbella council now says that it is keen to restore the Trapiche building and construct the residential home, and it has money to do it. In addition to the nearly ten million euros from the corruption scandal compensation funds set aside for the project, they have obtained another 4.6 million from the European EDUSI funds specifically for the restoration of the sugar mill. "We are talking about two different projects here but they are connected and we want to develop them together, although obviously the works will progress at a different speed," explains Marbella's general director of Culture, Carmen Diaz. Last week there was a meeting in Malaga at which council representatives gave the Junta de Andalucia's provincial Culture Delegation the plans for the two initiatives. The first urgent works will be the consolidation of the Trapiche building, which Carmen Diaz says should begin in December as authorisation was granted by the Junta in February and the document only needs to be signed. Now the local authority has also put on the table the idea of building a home for the elderly on the same plot. "What we are going to do is send the Junta the existing plans so they can study them and explain the conditions they would require so we can get to work," says the councillor for Works, Javier Garcia. Because this is a protected property, a series of conditions will be imposed. Aspects such as the topography of the terrain, which is on different levels, will have to be studied, as will the amount of building which is permitted and the size of new building, and the visual impact of the project. "There are different procedures which will have to be followed for each project, but what we want to do is be able to carry them out together," says Javier Garcia. In fact, the residence and the sugar mill will be linked, and not just because they will both be on the plot of land ceded 26 years ago by a Marbella resident. The idea of the Culture Department is to use part of the sugar factory, once restored, as communal areas for the senior citizens' home. The remainder will be used for cultural purposes. "We blame the politicians for the delay," say Mateo Alvarez's relatives, "although for years we have lacked support from the public to carry out the wishes of our uncle. We have felt very alone. It is only now that the survey has been carried out that we have seen that Marbella does support the project. We just want it to be done now. It has taken far too long." Marbella town hall has approved the construction of a new stretch of coastal pathway to link the El Pinillo area with the existing promenade at Rio Real. The plan is to extend the pathway by 640 metres, which is estimated to cost 918,000 euros and will take five months to complete. The project will mean that Banana Beach can be reached from Palm Beach without ever leaving the seafront. The whole area will also have lighting installed. Marbella council approved the project on Monday after permission had already been granted by the Environment ministry of the Andalusian regional government. Marbella council plans to ask the Diputacion provincial authority to subsidise the cost of the works, as the new additions will form part of its Gran Senda coastal walkway project which spans the province. In fact, in the summer, the Diputacion announced in Marbella that the provincial government would give close to a million euros to the project, fully financing it. This page no longer exists or may have been moved.If you believe this is a mistake please email . : 12 1958 . . , , . .. (1978-1982). . 1984 . . . . , , 140 , , , , . . - 6 1885 . : . , 6 , . , , ? . : , , , , . , , , . , , . , 6 1885 , . , , . , , , , , , 6 . , . , , . , , , , . . , - - . , , , , . , , , , . , , . , . : , ? . : , , , . , . , , , . . , . , , -, . , - , , . , . , , , . , - , , . , , , , . Channel 4 has confirmed that Leeds will be the location of its new National HQ and Bristol and Glasgow will be the locations of its two new Creative Hubs. The new National HQ and Creative Hubs will be home to 300 Channel 4 jobs when fully established, including key creative decision makers responsible for commissioning Channel 4 content and programmes from producers across the UK. The decision to select Leeds as the new National HQ and Bristol and Glasgow as new Creative Hubs followed an extensive pitch process. Over 30 pitches from cities and regions across the UK were received, which were shortlisted to 13 with three cities taken forward for advanced negotiations for the National HQ or Creative Hub option (Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester), and three further cities for the Creative Hubs (Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow). Detailed discussions with all six cities have been happening over the last three months, led by Channel 4s Chief Commercial Officer Jonathan Allan, alongside Chief Executive Alex Mahon. Reed Smith were external advisors to the Channel 4 process. Following these discussions, a recommendation was made by Alex Mahon and the Channel 4 Executive team, which was today approved by the Channel 4 Board. Channel 4 said the Leeds City Region put forward a comprehensive, compelling and ambitious strategy to partner with Channel 4 and the wider sector to support growth in the production and creative industries, and to nurture new talent from diverse backgrounds in the region and across the UK. Channel 4 said that locating the National HQ in Leeds will enable Channel 4 to unlock the potential for growth in the underserved East and North-East of England with Leeds extremely well-positioned to be a base for collaboration with producers and creative talent across other cities including Bradford, Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield. Leeds established digital industry and digital talent pool were factors as Channel 4s new Digital Creative Unit will be established in the National HQ to grow the Corporations impact across digital and social media platforms. Leeds also demonstrated a passionate commitment to work with Channel 4 to bring diverse new talent into the industry. The Channel 4 Executive team and Channel 4 Board believed that Bristol and Glasgow best delivered against the vision and objectives set out for the new Creative Hubs. Bristol will be home to one of the Creative Hubs and won its pitch because of its already thriving production sector, world-renowned factual producers and strengths in areas such as animation and digital production. Bristol was also chosen due to its proximity to another UK production him, Cardiff. Channel 4 says Glasgow was chosen as the other Creative Hub due to its well-established independent production sector and strong connection with Belfast and the production sector in Northern Ireland. Following discussions between Channel 4 and ITN, it has also been decided that a major new Channel 4 News hub will be established in Leeds, following the decision for Channel 4 to be located there in a new building including a studio with the capability to regularly co-anchor the programme. Alex Mahon, Channel 4 Chief Executive said: Diversity and inclusion have always been at the heart of Channel 4s mission and the launch of our 4 All the UK plan is the biggest and most exciting change in the organisations 36-year history as we open up Channel 4 to people from across the UK and supercharge the impact we have in all parts of the country. We will be spending up to 250m more on programming produced in the Nations and Regions and to catalyse that spend Im delighted to confirm that we will be establishing a new National HQ in Leeds and new Creative Hubs in Bristol and Glasgow. We undertook a rigorous process over the last seven months and the high calibre of all the pitches meant those were incredibly difficult decisions to make. However, I know that Leeds, Bristol and Glasgow will best deliver our objectives to grow the production sector across the UK, build the pipeline of creative talent outside London and support our increased investment in programming produced across the Nations and Regions. Leeds put forward a compelling and ambitious strategy for how they could work alongside Channel 4 to further build the strong independent production sector in the city and develop new diverse talent from across the region. Locating our National HQ in Leeds enables us to capitalise on a strong and fast-growing independent production sector in cities across the North of England and also has the potential to unlock growth in the North East and East of the country, an area without a major presence from other national broadcasters. Establishing a Creative Hub in Bristol gives Channel 4 the opportunity to build on thriving production communities in the city and to partner with Cardiff and harness the power of the wider creative industry across the South West and Wales. The city also put forward exciting social mobility proposals to develop talent across the wider region. Glasgow has a well-established production sector across multiple genres, and locating a Creative Hub in the city will give Channel 4 the opportunity to tap into the rich cultural diversity of Scotland and also allow us to exploit the citys strong connectivity with Belfast and the Northern Ireland production sector. The quality of pitches from all the cities involved in the final stage of the process was exceptionally high and Id like to take the opportunity to thank all those involved for the effort and passion they put in particularly Andy Street for Birmingham, Huw Thomas in Cardiff, and Sir Richard Leese in Greater Manchester. I hope we can continue discussions with all of them about how we can develop new partnerships with each of their cities particularly since we will be spending up to 250m more in the Nations and Regions over the next five years and want to work with producers and talent in all of these areas. Charles Gurassa, Channel 4 Chair said: Im delighted that the Channel 4 Board has today unanimously agreed that Channel 4 will establish its new National HQ in Leeds and two new Creative Hubs in Bristol and Glasgow. We were very impressed by the high quality of all the pitches delivered by the shortlisted cities and Id like to extend my thanks to all the many people involved. The Board reviewed and was satisfied that the selection process was carried out in a thorough and rigorous manner with the appropriate level of external assurance. We are very much looking forward to working with our new regional partners and more broadly with the production communities across the UK to further enhance our creative contribution nationwide. Further detailed work will now continue to identify locations and property within the National HQ and Creative Hub locations. Staff will begin to move to the new locations in H2 2019. Share this story 11 dead in Italy storms as wild weather sweeps Europe Rome, Oct 30 (AFP) Oct 30, 2018 The death toll from fierce storms battering Italy has risen to 11, civil protection authorities said Tuesday, as wild weather swept parts of Europe, leaving motorists and tourists stranded. Road were blocked and thousands of people were left without power in southern and central Europe, as rains and violent winds sparked flooding and tore trees from their roots. Thick snow has also cloaked French and Italian mountain regions, trapping hundreds of drivers in their cars and tourists in hotels. In Italy, where Venice was inundated by near-record flooding and ferocious storms drove high winds reaching up to 180 kilometres (110 miles) an hour, authorities announced a further six deaths, after confirming five people had died on Monday. "We are facing one of the most complex meteorological situations of the past 50 to 60 years," said Angelo Borrelli, head of the national civil protection agency. Luxury yachts lay smashed in the harbour of Rapallo near Genoa after a dam broke under pressure. "It was like a tsunami," one stunned port worker was quoted as saying by Italian media. - Coastal surge - "We thought the danger would come from the mountains, we thought the problem would be landslides," said Liguria head Giovanni Toti. "Instead, we get a coastal storm surge the likes of which we've never seen," he said. Authorities Tuesday reported a woman died when her home was engulfed by a mudslide in the northern region of Trentino, a man was killed in the northeastern Veneto region by a falling tree, and a firefighter died during relief operations in South Tyrol. Elsewhere, a man was killed while kitesurfing on Monday near the town of Cattolica on the Adriatic coast, while the body of another man was recovered Tuesday in Lake Levico in the north. A man was also missing at sea off Calabria in the southwest, while the body of another was found in a stream in northern Italy. Italian media reported that around 170 people, tourists and hotel staff, were stranded by heavy snowfall at the Stelvio Pass on the Swiss border. Meanwhile in Friuli Venezia Giulia, local authorities said some 23,000 people were without power. - Hundreds stranded - In France, more than 1,000 drivers were trapped in their cars for the night in the mountains of the Massif Central region as the roads were engulfed in snowstorms. Another 400 had to spend the night in train carriages at the main station in the eastern city of Lyon after heavy snow blocked the tracks. About 60,000 homes still remained without power on Tuesday evening across France -- mostly in the east and centre. Another 21,000 homes were also cut off on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, which was placed on red alert Monday for powerful winds, shutting its airports and ports. Croatia's Adriatic coast has also been battered by gale-force winds and heavy rains that have flooded streets, cut off power and ensnared road and maritime traffic. Meanwhile, a Slovenian surfer who went missing on Monday in the sea off Croatia's northern Istria peninsula was rescued Tuesday after being swept south to the Italian bay of Trieste. In Spain, over 100 soldiers were helping electrical repair crews to reach isolated areas of the northern region of Asturias, blanketed by heavy snowfall at the weekend. - Venice swamped - Italy's canal city of Venice was swamped as heavy rainfall pushed the water levels to near record levels on Monday. Tourists were barred from St Mark's Square as local authorities said the "acqua alta" (high water) peaked at 156 centimetres (61 inches). The waters have only topped 150 centimetres five times before in recorded history. Art experts were racing to evaluate the damage to thousand-year old mosaics in St Mark's Basilica after the Bapistry and Zen Chapel flooded. Two paintings by Spanish artist Joan Miro were damaged at the Palazzo Zaguri, where they had been waiting to be hung. Meteorologists expect the harsh weather to gradually ease in Italy. Storms have also swept into Switzerland, buffeting the Ticino region near the Italian border overnight, according to public broadcaster RTS. Roads were blocked by fallen trees and flooding, while strong winds ripped roof sections off buildings, including in Giubiasco where police said part of a firm's roof had smashed into a moving train and a house, without causing injury. In southern Austria, authorities have deployed hundreds of mobile anti-flooding dams as rivers burst their banks, while in the city of Salzburg a roof section from the mediaeval ramparts flew off in high winds. An 80-year-old driver and his passenger, 76, were killed Tuesday in an accident caused by a landslide on a road near Maribor in Slovenia. burs-ide/nla if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi... Today, the popular conception of medicine is of a sterile and prescribed discipline -- a cold and meticulous science that is measured in prescription slips and billable hours and the inscrutable minutiae of insurance plans. However, no amount of technological advancement or byzantine bureaucracy can change the fact that, at its core, medicine is about people using their knowledge and expertise to help the sick become well and to help the well to stay that way. In the Jewish tradition, the preservation of the life of one's self and one's fellows is viewed not merely as something to be aspired to, but as a commonly shared obligation. The Torah and rabbinic literature tell the Jewish people that, should they come across a person who has lost their good health, it is their responsibility to help restore it to him or her to the best their ability. As a person who is uniquely qualified to provide medical care, the physician holds a deeply important and spiritually charged role. Thus, the provision of care by a Jewish doctor or nurse is not simply the carrying out of professional duty, but also the fulfillment of a mitzvah, a divine commandment meted out by God. Before his life was so senselessly taken this past Saturday during the anti-Semitic terrorist act at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Jerry Rabinowitz, M.D., spent much of it adhering to the mitzvah calling on him to care for the sick around him and never to stand idly by the blood of his fellow. In a Facebook post made shortly after his death, ACT UP New York volunteer Michael Kerr memorialized Dr. Rabinowitz, detailing the compassion with which the doctor cared for people living with HIV in Pittsburgh at a time when many physicians either refused to accept them as patients or treated them with a toxic mixture of fear and judgment. "In the old days, for HIV patients in Pittsburgh, [Dr. Rabinowitz] was to one to go to," Kerr wrote. "Basically before there was effective treatment for fighting HIV itself, he was known in the community for keeping us alive the longest. He often held our hands (without rubber gloves) and always always hugged us as we left his office. . . . [T]hank you Dr. Rabinowitiz [sic] for having always been there during the most terrifying and frightening time of my life. You will be remembered by me always." A remembrance of Rabinowitz in The Washington Post features the testimony of several of his patients and members of his and other Jewish congregations in the area, painting a picture of Rabinowitz that echoes the sentiments of Michael Kerr. Those who knew and were served by him remembered him as a man of compassion who genuinely cared for his patients and made them feel loved. In the words of one patient, as reported by The Washington Post, "He makes you feel like you're the only person in the room, and that he has all the time in the world for you." By all accounts, Rabinowitz thoroughly embodied the wisdom of the medieval rabbinical scholar and physician Maimonides, who wrote, "[A] physician does not treat a disease, he rather treats a person." In recent years, Americans have been afforded far too many opportunities to hone our response to tragedy, mass shootings, and domestic terrorism driven by intense, incomprehensible hatred. And yet, far too often, we prove how little we have learned from this hideousness by focusing our collective attention on the perpetrators of these atrocities rather than on those who lost their lives in them. The societal conditions and cultural climate that foment rage in individuals who commit such crimes against humanity are important, as they help us to identify the root causes of hatred, but the individuals themselves are not. There is no reason to remember or even repeat the names of these men who attack synagogues and black churches and mosques, but there is an imperative to remember the names and celebrate the lives of people such as Jerry Rabinowitz. The mass shooting carried out at Tree of Life synagogue was the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history, but the hatred that inspired the attack was not confined to anti-Semitism. It was driven by a xenophobic rage against immigrants and those that would help them, such as the Jewish refugee aid organization HIAS, which the killer ranted about on social media. This rage was purposefully stoked by anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and incendiary rhetoric from President Trump and his allies about alleged "migrant caravans" in a naked attempt to gin up Republican enthusiasm for the midterm elections. The hate that spurred this attack is the selfsame hate that fuels the Trump administration's attempted erasure of transgender individuals and a white nationalist agenda that aims to disenfranchise voters of color and block entry into this country for refugees, the sick, and the poor. It is not enough for HIV advocates to mourn those murdered in Pittsburgh. We must also reach out to our Jewish allies, just as we reach out to immigrants, Muslim Americans, transgender individuals, and every other community whose very existence has been threatened by the tyranny and enmity of the Trump administration and those who support it. We must do this because in attacking Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, a man who took care of the HIV community at a time when many didn't, the shooter and the ideology of hatred that he embodies also attacked the entire HIV community. Moving forward through these arduous and frightening times, we must all do our best to honor the life and work of Jerry Rabinowitz by seeking to emulate the compassion and care he showed to his fellows. May his memory be a blessing. Looking for work? Want to move up in your career? Need information on settling in Metro Vancouver? On November 13, 2018, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the free Canadian Immigrant Fair can help you on your journey! Held at Vancouver Convention Centre East (999 Canada Place), steps from Waterfront Skytrain Station, this tradeshow and speakers series for skilled immigrants, newcomers, students and temporary residents is all about providing the information and inspiration people need as they look for jobs, go back to school and settle into their new home. In Metro Vancouver, 25,000 immigrants landed between January and August 2018, according to data from Immigrant, Refugees, Citizenship Canada. Thats the majority of the 32,000 who landed in the entire province of B.C. during that time period. And many more thousands come on temporary work permits, as refugees or as international students in hopes of staying permanently one day. Some may be fleeing war, while others are seeking new opportunities and a better life. But they all have one thing in common: they need information after they arrive to help them in their immigration journey. Thats where the Canadian Immigrant Fair comes in. Metro Vancouver is obviously a destination of choice, but it can also be a challenging place, given the issues of affordability and housing costs, says Margaret Jetelina, editor, Canadian Immigrant magazine, which is the host of the fair, in association with sponsor Public Mobile. Immigrants are coming to Canada, and its our responsibility to welcome them, and help them settle in and find success. Through the Canadian Immigrant Fair, we offer information on the three pillars of success after immigrating to Canada: careers, education and settlement. How the fair can help you The free fair will feature a tradeshow of diverse exhibitors, including career advisors, education institutes and social service agencies, plus several hiring companies, so dont forget your resume. Employers hiring onsite include Bayshore Home Health, Costco Wholesale, the Universal Group, Fresh Point, Sunrise Soya Foods, FPS Food Process Solutions, the Brick, Stongs Markets LP, and McDonald's Restaurants. If you have some other employer you want to approach, get job-ready with helpful resources such as free one-on-one advice at our Resume Clinic, run in partnership with MOSAIC immigrant settlement agency. And If you want a more professional headshot for your LinkedIn social media presence, the fairs associate sponsor Public Mobile will be offering a free professional photo booth to take your photo on site. The events popular speakers series includes an English pronunciation class by Catherine Steele, motivational workshops on succeeding in Canada by two RBC Top 25 Canadian Immigrants, Iman Aghay and Miroslav Reljic, plus a session on making the most of a job fair with Pacific Community Resources Societys Alexander Bell. Temporary residents and PRs looking to become citizens can also seek advice on the English testing requirements at the CELPIP English test workshop. You can also get advice from immigration consultants and lawyers at the fair. Learn more and register for the free fair at www.canadianimmigrant.ca/careerfair/vancouver. Registration also available at the door on the day of the event. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Muhamad Faisal Fariduddin A. Nasution (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 16:33 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a11f21 3 Opinion sustainability,digital-economy,economy,Internet Free Many of us would probably recall the dot-com bubble, or the Internet bubble, that occurred in the mid/late 1990s and early 2000s. While the stock market index peaked in value in the first quarter of the year 2000, it was soon followed by a crash that lasted to the final quarter of 2002. Such a misfortune has brought skepticism towards relatively any Internet-based startup company, fearing an imminent burst of bubbles of these companies particularly in developing countries. This sentiment can be noticed especially amongst the government and public sector, whose responsibility is to maintain political, economic, and social stability among others. As a new era of economy is changing business models and customer behavior, understanding the potentials this new economy brings and mitigating related risks and threats become a crucial agenda. Looking at our circumstances today, nevertheless, what causes the differences between today and 20 years ago? What causes the boom of digital startup companies and principal investing firms, particularly venture capital firms, which have a confidence in this new industry that could pose a risk similar to that in 20 years ago? The 20th century gave birth to the consumerism culture and two significant industrial revolutions, which are industry 2.0 (i.e., the 2nd industrial revolution that marked the technological revolution that took place in the early 1900s) and industry 3.0. While many of us believe that today is the era of digital revolution, it was the industry 3.0 (i.e., the 3rd industrial revolution that signified the birth of nuclear energy as well as information and communication technologies, ICT) that defined the digital revolution in its final stage. It was during this era when there was a transition from electricity and machines as the economy primary driver to ICT as the economy catalyst. The transition between these two eras is aligned with the shift in consumer behavior driven by attitudes among different generations: the baby boomers that highly value loyalty, the generation X-ers who are relatively independent and value balance in life, and the generation Y-ers, or the millennials, who value convenience and demand justification. As the new (4th) industrial revolution, or industry 4.0, places data and information as an invaluable strategic asset, the behavior at the demand side also shifts to information and convenience due to generation shift to the millennials. While industry 3.0 started the use of Internet in consumer services, industry 4.0 adds mobility to consumer experience and delivers artificial intelligence and machine learning to the manufacturing sector. As such, not only consumer behavior changes due to generation shifts, but the supply side must also adapt to the changing required competencies. The new economy is what many term as the sharing, or knowledge economy. The ecosystem of the knowledge economy is relatively small but progression to this economy is moving relatively faster due to the rapid advancement of ICT. Digital startup companies and tech-oriented venture capital firms are flourishing and mature incumbent players are undergoing ambitious digital transformation or actively seeking partnership with promising digital startup companies. While ICT goods (e.g., mobile phones and personal tablets) were considered luxurious goods a couple of decades ago, they are generally viewed today as a secondary good, if not a primary good in major metropolitan cities (some people joke that todays primary goods are foods, clothes, shelters, and data), as they have become much more affordable. Active ownership of smartphones in Indonesia has been predicted to grow by 275 percent in 5 years since 2013 even when there is a doubt of the extent of such ownership per individual (i.e., the growth number may be affected by certain respondents owning more than a smartphone device). In 2016, the World Bank has ranked Indonesia number 73 out of 139 countries in terms of its network readiness with an index score of 4.0 out of 7.0. Various social media platforms such as Facebook have claimed that a large number of their users are located in Indonesia. Barrier to entry in this new economy is very low as the primary capital is data and hence physical capital becoming a supporting capital instead that is simply needed to consume, process, and produce these data; one can compare todays physical capital to those capital in the previous industrial revolutions involving heavy-duty machineries. Even the supporting physical capital that function primarily to solicit, process, and distribute data are becoming relatively affordable compared to a few decades ago (one can think about servers, data centers, and even cloud services). While all these figures sound promising and fascinating, there are still substantial risks lurking in this growing knowledge economy. The Indonesian government has placed a strong emphasis in building Indonesia from remote areas and defined sharing economy as ekonomi gotong-royong, attempting to induce the growth of small-medium enterprises. Data and information have become the soul to both profit-seeking and non-profit organizations, allowing for custom-built or even hybrid service providers and agents to gain entry to the economy. Many key persons and influential figures, including the government, unfortunately are lacking familiarity with mitigating data-related operational risk, dealing with marginalized customers, and managing continuously-evolving business models and processes that have enjoyed advanced automation and obviously become much more streamlined and efficient. Todays demand-side business process is as simple as four clicks on a personal-computer mouse or four taps on a mobile-device screen. The change is now and undeniably inevitable. Indonesia was predicted by Google to emerge as the strongest player in the Southeast Asia digital economy by 2020 last year, yet getting there requires our assistance to secure its potentials for our future generations. The rapid advancement of ICT and changes of customer behavior demand our continuous learning and willingness to engage with the industry and our society in general. The government and public sector must have a clear vision to take Indonesia as the strongest player in the digital economy and therefore policies and standards must be transparent and harmonized across sectors as many economic players are efficiently streamlined or even emerging completely foreign to current standards and practices. Without a solid alliance between the government and public sector, academics and thought leaders, principal investors, and the industry, progression to digital economy may lead to the wrong direction. *** The writer works as a senior analyst at the Financial Service Authority (OJK). Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Washington, United States Wed, October 31, 2018 06:07 1116 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308779f8743 2 Health health,Canada,united-states,pregnancy,research,infants,medicine Free Women who want to bear children in their 30s and 40s often face a dilemma regarding how much time to wait between pregnancies. Doctors often advise they wait 18 to 24 months. But pregnancy risks mount with age. A study Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), based on 150,000 pregnancies in Canada from 2004 to 2014, concludes that waiting less than a year between pregnancies raises the risks, regardless of a woman's age. After a year, however, there is little difference in risk. "The take-home message from the study is that closely spaced pregnancies have risks for women of all ages," said study author Laura Schummers, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia. "We found that maternal risks were present for women 35 and older only, and not for younger women, whereas risks to the baby were present for women both aged 20 to 34 and women 35 and older. Risks were similar between 12 and 24 months, and "we saw a very small further reduction between 12 and 18 months," Schummers told AFP. The interpregnancy interval was calculated as the amount of time between the birth of one child and the conception of the next one. For women over 35, the risk of maternal complications was highest for pregnancies that began three, six or nine months following a prior birth. Read also: Week 34 of pregnancy reduces breast cancer risk: Study For infants, risks rose among closely timed pregnancies regardless of the mother's age. These included stillbirth, infant death in the first year of life, low birth weight and prematurity, and affected about two percent of infants in the study. When pregnancy began six months after a birth, the risk of premature birth rose 59 percent compared to pregnancies timed to begin 18 months after a birth. Doctors in the United States typically urge women to wait at least 18 months between childbirth and pregnancy. The World Health Organization recommends at least 24 months. "Our findings indicate a shorter optimal interval than previously thought (12-24 months) for women of all ages," concluded the study. "This finding may be reassuring, particularly for older women who must weigh the competing risks of increasing maternal age with longer interpregnancy intervals (including infertility and chromosomal anomalies) against the risks of short interpregnancy intervals." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Arbil, Iraq Wed, October 31, 2018 20:04 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a1d402 2 Entertainment Iraq,Israel,film,Kurds,Movie Free A film festival in Iraqi Kurdistan has removed an Israel picture from its official competition, prompting the jury to protest by refusing to present a top award. Israeli director Yona Rozenkier's The Dive, which portrays three brothers carrying out their father's last wish, was screened this month at the Duhok International Film Festival in northern Iraq. But festival organizers said Saturday they had "unwillingly" withdrawn the film from the world cinema competition, "due to regional complications and considerations". The move led the jury to refuse to announce a winner for the best international feature film, saying in an online statement the change to the selection "compromised our ability to make a final decision". Jury president Kristian Feigelson said in a separate statement that the film's withdrawal was the result of "political pressure coming officially from Baghdad". Read also: Pengabdi Setan wins at Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2018 But Iraq's culture ministry denied interfering in the festival. "We have not been contacted by the organizers of the festival and we have not been involved at any level in the holding of this event," a ministry spokesman told AFP. Like all but two Arab states, Iraq does not formally recognize the state of Israel and the countries are technically still at war. Last year a former Miss Iraq caused a scandal by taking a photo with Miss Israel. But Israel has far better relations with Iraqi Kurdistan and was the only country to support the autonomous region's independence referendum last year, which was branded illegal by Baghdad. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Jessicha Valentina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 16:36 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a1268e 1 People mortuary,makeup-artist,#makeup,Funeral,funeral-home,dead-body,#deadbody,dead,Halloween,#Halloween Free Despite humanitys efforts to achieve longevity, death is inevitable. Prior to burial, several steps are traditionally taken, which include bathing the body, putting on a shroud or applying makeup, depending on the religious beliefs of the deceased. The Jakarta Post talks to those who help tend the dead and make their living in the death business. No place for the faint-hearted Kasan Hermawan, 53, works in the mortuary at Harapan Kita Hospital, West Jakarta. Kasan works 24-hour shifts, starting at 7 a.m. His job starts whenever a hospital patient has drawn their last breath. When the mortuarys phone rings, Kasan will prepare a notification of death form and deliver it to the doctor who will then confirm the patients death and sign the form. Prior to transferring the body to the mortuary, according to procedures, the body will be kept in a room for two hours. Depending on the familys requests, Kasan will also wash the body and dress it or cover it in a kafan (shroud). Kasan Hermawan cleans up the mortuary washing table in Rumah Duka Harapan Kita, West Jakarta. (JP/Donny Fernando) Everyone can bathe a corpse, as long as they have the courage and willingness. Bathing is considerably easier than [dressing] the corpse," Kasan told The Jakarta Post. He also notes that one needed to be thoroughly prepared before deciding to take on the job. As long as they dont run away when they see the corpse, that would mean that they dont have the right spirit, he adds. Mortuary staff member Kasan Hermawan wears complete personal protective equipment (PPE) prior to washing a dead body. (JP/Donny Fernando) Complete protective gear, which includes gloves, a face mask and boots, is mandatory for staff when washing a dead body. We are required to use personal protective equipment [PPE], which includes a face mask, hair cover, gloves and boots. Although the person has passed away, the bacteria [in the corpse] might still be active. While we're washing the dead body, the bacteria could touch our hands or clothes and when we went home it might infect others, Kasan explained. Having worked in the mortuary for 33 years, Kasan admitted that he was scared at the beginning, but as time went by, he saw his job as an opportunity to help others in difficult times. There is no burden as long as we do our job with sincerity, he said. The calling Jakarta-born Benedictus Budiman had always dreamed of being a Navy officer, but life had its own plans and Budimans dream took a sharp turn when he failed the Navy admittance exam. He found a job in a funeral-service company in 2003 and is now the owner of Yayasan Kedukaan Anugrah Kasih, a one-stop funeral service. Benedictus Budiman checks Yayasan Anugrah Kasihs hearse in Rumah Duka Harapan Kita, West Jakarta. (JP/Donny Fernando) No one wanted to do this kind of job. In the beginning, I did not want to do this job. But its my calling and God uses me. I feel happy when I can help people during their grieving process, Budiman said, recalling his first years of work. He explained that the pressure was intense as he had to master all the funeral-related activities quickly. With help from his mentor Herryanto Setyadi, he managed to learn the ins and outs of the death business. After working for more than a decade, Budiman established Yayasan Kedukaan Anugrah Kasih, providing various funeral packages. With a starting price of Rp 12.8 million (US$841), the packages include a coffin, transportation services, embalming, bathing, makeup and funeral or cremation arrangements. Normally, distraught families are upset and confused [when they are bereaved]. So when they meet a funeral service like [mine], they ask about the total cost, looking for prices that suit their budgets, Budiman explained. Yayasan Anugrah Kasih owner Benedictus Budiman shows the inside of a casket. (JP/Donny Fernando) Serving all religions, Yayasan Kedukaan Anugrah Kasih currently partners with several funeral homes, namely Rumah Duka Harapan Kita, Grand Heaven, Rumah Duka Dharmais, Rumah Duka RS PGI Cikini and Rumah Duka Atmajaya. Working closely with death has taught Budiman lessons in humility, One day we will die too. [My job] is a lesson in life, youre not going to take anything with you when you die. You take only what you did for others. What do you want to be proud of? Although you have a lot of money, buildings, factories, when you die and get cremated you will only be a bag of ashes. Read also: Two hours of creepiness with The Sacred Riana Beautifying the dead Mortuary makeup artist Fakhru Agnia poses with his makeup kits in Rumah Duka Sentosa, Central Jakarta. (JP/Donny Fernando) Corpse makeup artist, Fakhru Agnia sent the Post an instant message, informing that he had to attend a corpse prior to the interview. After waiting for around 15 minutes, Fakhru invited us into the mortuary at Rumah Duka Sentosa in Central Jakarta. The mortuary was far from intimidating as the room was clean and bright, even with the presence of a corpse covered in a green sheet. Fakhru, who wears a long green coat that could lead some to mistake him for a doctor, ushered us into his workplace. Fakhru Agnia wears his equipment prior to beautifying a corpse. (JP/Donny Fernando) Working a 24-hour shift daily, mostly on stand-by, Fakhrus main job is to beautify corpses, or in several cases, restore the corpses natural state. He once had to restore a burn victims appearance, The body came with severe burns. I felt responsible to the family. Aside from restoration work, in other cases, Fakhru also has to cover up wounds or scars from medical treatment on corpses. Some people may have wounds from being on a ventilator for a long time. Its hard to put make-up on the wounds, I usually very carefully dry them using a hairdryer, he explained. According to Fakhru, there is no special beauty kits for corpses. He just uses local and international brands of cosmetics normally used by the living. Cosmetic [products] are actually similar to those [I] use for living people. Here, I offer both local and [international] makeup brands. But the technique is different. [We need to] do it slowly and carefully, Fakhru said. Fakhru said that as a mortuary makeup artist, he always tried to make the corpses look as natural as possible. We usually ask when the body will be buried or cremated, he said, explaining that in several conditions, the makeup on the corpse needs to last for days. I also touch up the makeup as the face might have dark spots or wrinkles after a few days, he said. Fakhru Agnia prepares his makeup kits at Rumah Duka Sentosa in Central Jakarta. (JP/Donny Fernando) Fakhrus skillful post-mortem beautification of their departed loved one can cost the bereaved family Rp 1 million for local cosmetics or Rp 2 million for the use of international-brand cosmetics. When not dealing with the dead, Fakhru works for the living, Im actually a makeup artist. I also do makeup for television shows, weddings and models. After a decade of working as a mortuary makeup artist, he can firmly say that the job is no walk in the park. Being a mortuary makeup artist is a very hard job. Personally, I think its [easier] to do makeup for living people, brides or celebrities than corpses. In a month, Fakhru handles about 50 corpses on average. However, lucrative the business may seem, Fakhru sees beyond the monetary value, "I actually dont see it from a commercial point of view. I just feel the job is more challenging. He was attracted to the job since he realized that there were not too many mortuary makeup artists, Most people are scared of [doing this job], he added. To inform the family about the corpses condition, Fakhru also makes it a point to take before-and-after photos. These are the pictures, he showed the Post a tablet computer filled with before-and-after photos. The makeup artist said that he had never had a complaint from the families about his work. (asw) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Charlotte Greenfield (Reuters) Wellington, New Zealand Wed, October 31, 2018 15:06 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a0d430 2 People Prince-Harry,Maori,New-Zealand,royals,Britain Free Britain's Prince Harry led a song at a Maori meeting ground in New Zealand's indigenous Te Reo language on Wednesday, the final day of his tour of the Pacific with his wife Meghan. The pair were welcomed onto the Te Papaiouru Marae on where his grandmother Queen Elizabeth visited in 1953 in the north-eastern town of Rotorua, famed for its geothermal activity and described by its mayor as the "heartland of Maori culture". Meghan wore a navy Stella McCartney dress and Harry a grey suit. Both were adorned by feathered cloaks gifted to them by the marae and Meghan also wore a carved greenstone necklace given to her by the country's governor general. Prince Harry opened his address in the Te Reo language and ended his speech with a Maori proverb. His strong pronunciation drew applause from the crowd. He then led a traditional song entitled "Te Aroha", which means "love" in Te Reo. Harry's enthusiasm towards the Maori language was welcomed by Rotorua Mayor Steve Chadwick Read also: Meghan beats Harry at 'welly wanging' in New Zealand "As our confidence as bilingual district grows, so does our confidence in our people and our future," he said in a speech. The use of Te Reo Maori language is experiencing a revival in New Zealand, after years of decline due to historical policies that cracked down on the use of the language, particularly in schools. Free Maori language courses often report being booked out and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said her infant daughter Neve Te Aroha will learn the language alongside English. The royal couple were set to depart New Zealand for London on Thursday after an two-week tour that has included visits to Australia, Tonga and Fiji. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Riska Rahman and Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 07:55 1116 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308779f908f 1 National Budi-Karya-Sumadi,Lion-Air,plane-crash,victims,DNA,#LionAirJT610,JT610 Free Lion Air operational director Daniel Putut said on Tuesday evening that Lion Air was ready to take responsibility for the victims of Mondays plane crash. He said during his visit to Kramatjati Police Hospital in East Jakarta that Lion Air had collected the data of 209 relatives of the victims and he promised to continue to provide them with up-to-date information. Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said at the same press conference that Lion Air had provided "friendly and good assistance" to the families of the plane crash victims. Read also: Distraught families recall JT610 passengers' last words The company has also cooperated with the National Police to provide psychological support, he said. He visited the hospital to check the progress of victim identification carried by police forensics and DNA experts. Earlier in a statement, Lion Air said it had provided flights to Jakarta for hundreds of family members of crew and passengers of flight JT610, which crashed into the Java Sea on Monday morning. The family members comprise 168 people from Pangkalpinang in Bangka Belitung Islands, three from Medan in North Sumatra, two from Padang in West Sumatra, four from Yogyakarta, two from Madiun in East Java and four others from Demak in Central Java. Lion Air corporate communications strategic officer Danang Mandala Prihantoro said that some family members had arrived at the Police Hospital where the bodies of victims were to be identified. Read also: Investigators must examine Lion Air's claim to have resolved technical problem: Expert "Lion Air has also prepared and provided psychological support for the families at the JT610 [crisis] center," Danang said in a statement on Tuesday. Following the incident, Lion Air has set up a crisis center at Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in East Jakarta where relatives and loved ones of the victims on board the flight can receive information. The Lion Air flight carried 189 people comprising 178 adult passengers, three minors, two pilots and six crew members on Monday morning and was scheduled to land at Depati Amir Airport in Pangkalpinang at 7:10 a.m. on Monday. Air traffic control at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport lost contact with the flight shortly after it took off at 6:20 a.m. The plane reportedly crashed 7 nautical miles north of Tanjung Bungin in Karawang, West Java. (afr) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) New York, United States Wed, October 31, 2018 16:04 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a0fb95 2 World #USA,#Terrorism,USA,Court,sentences,Algerian-Irish,jihadist Free Algerian-Irish jihadist Ali Charaf Damache, who pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in July, was sentenced to 15 years in jail on Tuesday, prosecutors in Philadelphia said. Damache, 53, known by the pseudonym "The black flag," was arrested in Spain in 2015, where he was suspected of plotting the murder of a Swedish cartoonist who had lampooned the Prophet Mohammed. He was extradited to the United States in 2017, accused of being the ringleader of a jihadist cell that was plotting attacks in Europe and southern Asia. "Todays sentencing marks the end of a long and arduous prosecution that has spanned more than nine years, involved four defendants and five unnamed co-conspirators, and required multiple coordinated international arrests and two extradition applications," said US Attorney William McSwain in a statement. "Damache and his co-conspirators were motivated by hate and prejudice, and their criminal activities presented a very real danger to our country and the world," he said. In negotiations over his agreement to plead guilty, Damache had accepted a 15-year prison sentence and renounced any appeals. He also agreed to extradition to either Ireland or Algeria once his US sentence has been served. Spanish officials said that when he was arrested in Barcelona in December 2015, Damache was plotting the murder of Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonish who had drawn caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. Another member of his cell, US citizen Colleen LaRose -- dubbed "Jihad Jane" - was sentenced in 2014 in Philadelphia to 10 years in jail for terrorism-related crimes. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 16:04 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a10658 1 City anies-baswedan,award,summit Free Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan received an honorary guest title from the Buenos Aires legislature for his participation in the Urban 20 (U20) Global Summit. Besides Anies, the mayor of Asuncion, Paraguay, Mario Ferreiro, and the mayor of Montevideo, Uruguay, Daniel Martinez, received the same title. "It is an honor to receive the honorary guest title. From all U20 participants, only three got the title," Anies said in a press release on Wednesday. Anies said he hoped cooperation between cities could be strengthened in the future. In the summit, which was held from Oct. 29 to 30, Anies spoke about the challenges of building public trust and involving residents through community action plans. The government tries to transform the bureaucracy, from being a facilitator to collaborator, said acting head of the Jakarta Communication, Information and Statistics Agency, Atika Nur Rahmania. According to Atika, Anies discussed kampung planning through community action plans. Anies also held bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the event, including with Mark Watts, the executive director of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, to talk about Jakartas commitment to lowering greenhouse emissions to 30 percent in 2030. Deputy head of the Buenos Aires Council, Francisco Quintana, said he hoped that with cooperation with other cities, including Jakarta, Buenos Aires could create better public policy in the future. "U20 summits can be a tool for us to promote measures to make our cities cleaner, more inclusive, stronger and more prosperous," Quintana said. (cal/gis) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 15:29 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a0de35 1 City Tangerang,vehicles-taxes,Samsat,Banten Free Car and motorcycle owners in Tangerang, Banten, flocked to the Vehicle Document Registration Center (Samsat) in Cikokol on Wednesday morning, the last day to pay late vehicle taxes and vehicle ownership transfer fees (BBNKB) without incurring penalties. The Banten Tax Agency set its vehicle tax amnesty from Aug. 1 to Oct. 31 at all Samsat across the province. Zulkarnaen, 37, who got ticket number 48 in the long line at the Cikokol center, said he arrived at 7 a.m. to find the Samsat already crowded. I just found the time to [pay the tax] now, as I was busy with work. It would have been extremely unfortunate if I couldn't do it today, [as] tomorrow I would have to pay the penalty, he said on Wednesday as quoted by wartakota.tribunnews.com. I haven't paid the tax for two years, he added. Separately, Sari echoed Zulkarnaen's sentiments. The 28-year-old Tangerang resident had come to Samsat Cikokol to transfer ownership of her car. I asked my office for permission [to take a day off]. It is rather troublesome going back and forth, and also getting the vehicle checked, too, she said. Samsat Cikokol billing and receipts head Idham Arief said earlier that the vehicle tax amnesty aimed to ease the financial burden for vehicle owners in Banten while increasing the province's tax revenue. (sau) Adya Laksmana Sudrajat proposed to his girlfriend Nadia Octavia Hollywood style, popping the question on a 16-meter tall billboard on one of Jakartas busiest streets. The billboard proposal, up from Monday to Tuesday on Jl. Gatot Subroto in South Jakarta at the JTKI building complex, read: "Happy birthday my love. Will you marry me? Nadia Octavia. Adya got on his knees in front of the billboard on Tuesday, on Nadia's birthday. Nadia said she gladly accepted Adyas proposal. Of course, Im happy. Im being proposed to. I wasnt even expecting it, so I teared up a bit [when I saw the billboard], Nadia told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. She said she thought her boyfriend was only picking her up for a birthday lunch, but it turned out Adya brought her to Jl. Gatot Subroto and proposed to her there, under the billboard. On Wednesday, Nadia, a doctor, posted the picture of her with her engagement ring and another with Adya on his knees as she beamed with happiness on her Instagram account. Adya said he was simply trying to show he was willing to take their one-year relationship to the next level. Its simple really. I just want to show Nadia that I want to bring this to another level, Adya told the Post. The photo of the billboard went viral, with netizens swooning over Adyas grand gesture of love. Twitter user @womanfeeds posted a picture of the billboard and tweeted I just saw this from the office. Please tell Nadia Octavia to say yes. The post has been retweeted over 6,000 times as of Wednesday. {mu} Ngeliat ini dari kantor, tolong kepada Nadia Oktavia segera katakan "yes" huhu pic.twitter.com/eGUUb4kgea {MU} LANGGAR RULES? BLOCK (@womanfeeds) October 30, 2018 Another user, @amfhybi responded The romantic standard has just gotten more expensive, making impoverished men scratch their heads. standar keromantisan makin mahal cowo miskin kebingungan lala (@amfhybi) October 30, 2018 On Wednesday, the Post found the billboard had been changed to a picture of Adya with Diaz Hendropriyono, a presidential special staffer, the son of top intelligence officer A.M. Hendropriyono and chairman of the Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI). The statement accompanying the picture thanked President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo for Indonesia's success as the host of the 2018 Asian Games. Underneath the picture was the name of Adya's company, event organizer PT Laksmindo Bahtera, and the business number. According to the company's website, Adya is the business development director and legal director of the event organizer that owns the billboard on which he made the proposal. (evi) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Ottawa, Canada Wed, October 31, 2018 14:02 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a09b68 2 World #Canada,#Syria,Canada,father,calls,jihadists,home,Syria Free The father of a British-Canadian dual national held by Kurds in Syria pleaded Tuesday for Ottawa's help to rescue him and at least 18 other Canadians, amid concerns that some of them pose a security risk. Jack Letts, 23, has been held in Syria for 18 months, his father John told reporters in Ottawa. "I need your help to save my son's life," said Letts, who appeared at a press conference with Alexandra Bain, director of Families Against Violent Extremism. They said nine Canadians including the younger Letts as well as at least 10 of their children -- some taken to Syria, some born in the war zone -- are currently being held by Kurdish authorities on Syrian soil. Bain said they face a cold winter ahead, are given little to eat, are not provided an education and tuberculosis has started to spread in the camps. "These people need to be brought home to Canada and they need to be brought home now," Bain said. The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said it will not risk sending officials to Syria to negotiate for their release, citing security concerns. Ottawa has also raised concerns about the collection of evidence in conflict zones to prosecute returnees under Canadian terrorism laws. "We are aware of Canadian citizens being detained in Syria," foreign ministry spokesman Stefano Maron told AFP. "Given the security situation on the ground, the government of Canada's ability to provide consular assistance in any part of Syria is extremely limited," he said. "Canada is engaged in these cases and is providing assistance, to the limited extent possible," including verifying their "whereabouts and well-being," Maron added. The families of detainees and their supporters were to meet later Tuesday with senior Canadian foreign ministry officials to pitch their proposal for a brokered return. Letts and Bain said the human rights organization Reprieve would travel to camps in northern Syria to help facilitate their return, but only if Canada agrees to supply the returnees with travel documents. To alleviate public concerns about repatriating Canadians with possible terror links, Bain said returnees would agree to "voluntary security arrangements," without elaborating on the terms. Reprieve has previously helped repatriate an American from Syria under similar circumstances, Bain noted. The reason for Letts' presence in Syria is somewhat unclear. British media have suggested he is fighting for extremist groups, but his father said he was "not a violent jihadist" though he might have been "naive and wrong" to go to Syria. Canadian officials had been trying to secure Letts' return home but suddenly halted their efforts in May, the father said. "They just said there's nothing we can do because it's too dangerous," he told reporters, holding back tears. The father suggested pressure on Canada from Britain, which has refused to take Jack back, or the upcoming Canadian election in 2019 may have factored into the decision. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Riza Roidila Mufti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 13:36 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a099c7 1 National #LionAirJT610,#government,government,JT610,Lion-Air,plane-crash Free The government has ordered that all Boeing 737 MAX 8 flown by Indonesian carriers be checked following Monday's crash of Lion Air flight JT610, which used the same type of aircraft. The Transportation Ministry has sent a letter to Lion Air and flag carrier Garuda Indonesia the two Indonesian airlines that operate the MAX 8 to carry out a "special" airworthiness test on their fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 8. Lion Air operates 11 Boeing 737 MAX 8, while Garuda Indonesia operates one MAX 8 aircraft. We will conclude the [test] and provide the results to the KNKT as their basis for determining the cause of the incident, said Transportation Ministers Budi Karya Sumadi on Tuesday, referring to the National Transportation Safety Committee. In a letter dated Oct. 29, the ministry's airworthiness and aircraft operations director Capt. Avirianto requested the directors of PT Lion Mentari Airlines, which operates Lion Air, and PT Garuda Indonesia to run several checks on the aircraft. Avirianto requested them to check the airlines' MAX 8 fleet for any signs of repeated problems in flight logs, troubleshooting procedures, conformity between these procedures and airworthiness standards, and adequate onboard equipment and facilities to implement troubleshooting procedures. The results are to be submitted to the Transportation Ministry's airworthiness and civil aviation directorates for review. Earlier, Budi said Lion Air flight JT610, which served the Jakarta-Pangkal Pinang route, had been certified airworthy and had a valid airworthiness certificate and aircraft registration on the day of the accident. The minister also said that airlines were required to conduct processes to determine the aircraft's fitness for flight, such as periodic maintenance, during the documents' validity periods. "During that period, there were indeed measures that the [aircraft's] operators must carry out on the airworthiness of each aircraft in reference to procedures set by the civil aviation directorate general," he said. The government also planned to send an inspection team to conduct a special audit on PT Lion Mentari Airlines and Batam Aero Technic maintenance company. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Riza Roidila Mufti and Marchio Irfan Gorbiano (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 20:29 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a1d956 1 National aviation-security,Lion-Air,JT610,transportation-ministry Free Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi said on Wednesday that the government had ordered a temporary suspension of Lion Airs technical director Muhammad Asif as the ministry conducts its own investigation into the flight JT610 crash. Budi added that the temporary suspension would support the investigation and make it more transparent without interference from too many parties. We have had a meeting involving the director general of air transportation, as well as Soekarno-Hatta airport authority. From our observation and based on the [technical directors] job description, we conclude that the airworthiness of an aircraft is the technical directors responsibility, he said. Aside from the airline executives suspension, the government also called for the temporary suspension of a technical staff member who had approved the takeoff of the aircraft used on flight JT610 from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Tangerang, to Depati Amir Airport, Pangkalpinang, Bangka-Belitung Islands, on Monday. Budi said the ministry through its Directorate of Aircraft Airworthiness and Operation was conducting an evaluation and special audit of Lion Air regarding the JT610 accident. The results of the ministry inspection would be reported to the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT), which is currently also conducting an investigation. The KNKT findings will later be used by the Transportation Ministry as the basis of whether or not to impose sanctions on the airline. "If it is proven that there was negligence by the airline, we will impose strong sanctions in accordance with the law." said the minister, adding that the sanctions could implicate airline employees, directors, and the entire company. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31 2018 Two-hundred-and-forty schools, from elementary to high school level, in North Jakarta have installed waste banks that are expected to have a positive impact on the environment as well as educate students on waste management. Establishing waste banks was the right method to introduce a waste management system, North Jakarta Mayor Syamsuddin Lologau said. [To have 240 waste banks] is extraordinary as it means every school has a waste bank. I hope it can educate the students [on 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 31, 2018 17:09 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a13c6c 1 National mourning,#LionAirJT610,Lion-Air,plane-crash,Java-Sea,karawang,victim Free How can a mother explain to her two young children that their father will never come home again? So said Helda Aprilia, 31, the wife of Ibnu Hantoro, a 33-year-old doctor who was among the 189 people on board Lion Air flight JT610 that crashed into the Java Sea on Monday morning. Their children are 4-year-old Farisa and 1-year-old Fatih "I don't know what to tell them when they ask, because they will certainly ask about their father. What they do know is that their father is working," Helda, who is also a doctor, said as quoted by kompas.com. Ibnu was on the flight from Jakarta to Pangkalpinang in Bangka Belitung Islands after visiting his family in Depok, West Java. He was on his way to report for duty as a specialist at Bangka Tengah General Hospital (RSUD) in a regency neighboring Pangkalpinang. But the flight, which carried 181 passengers, two pilots and six crew members, never made it to its destination. Read also: Lion Air JT610 crash: I want to bring my husband home no matter what Sitting inside her house in Depok, Helda, who works at the Pasar Rebo Regional Hospital in East Jakarta, told reporters on Monday that Ibnu was very caring and loving towards his family, especially Farisa and Fatih. "He was very attentive towards his children and he loved them. He often video called them when he was in Pangkalpinang," Helda said as quoted by kompas.com. Every time her husband had to fly back to work, their eldest daughter, Farisa, always waited for him to return. When Ibnu came home, Farisa would wait by the door to greet him and gave him a hug, Helda said. Farisa has no idea that Ibnu is one of the victims on the downed Lion Air flight and the next hardest thing for Helda to do is to explain her husband' whereabouts to her children. "Oh God, [Ibnu] had planned that the four of us would go on a vacation in December," Helda said. Flight JT610 was scheduled to land at Depati Amir Airport at 7:10 a.m. on Monday, but air traffic control at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten, lost contact with it shortly after take-off at 6:20 a.m. The plane crashed 7 nautical miles off the coast of Tanjung Bungin in Karawang, West Java. (afr) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Riska Rahman and Ivany Atina Arby (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 10:03 1116 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a02689 1 National Lion-Air,#LionAirJT610,#LionAir,JT610,search-and-rescue,victims,plane-crash Free The National Police have begun to collect antemortem data and DNA samples from relatives of the victims of the crash of Lion Air flight JT610, but the process is moving at a snails pace because they have only body parts to work with. Head of the National Police Medical and Health Center, Brig. Gen. Arthur Tampi, said the disaster victim identification (DVI) team had collected 147 DNA samples and 185 items of antemortem data from the families of the victims as of Tuesday night. We hope that the families can be patient during these times, as it is harder for us to identify body parts rather than intact remains, he said during a press conference at the hospital, adding that the process of matching DNA samples with the remains took longer than the usual fingerprint and visual identification. Read also: We're ready to take responsibility for crash victims: Lion Air Hundreds of grieving relatives have come to the hospital to have their data collected. One of the relatives, Samsuri, 60, wiped tears from his face as he entered the identification center set up at Kramatjati Police Hospital in East Jakarta on Tuesday. He, along with his wife and grandchildren, was hoping to identify his daughter, Liany. Liany, her husband Herman and 5-year-old son Kenzo were traveling back to their hometown of Sungailiat, Bangka regency, Bangka Belitung Islands, located about 30 kilometers from Pangkalpinang, after attending a friends wedding last weekend. Were still waiting for Lianys other two children to bring the documentation needed to identify our daughter and her family, he told The Jakarta Post. One of Lianys other children is pursuing an undergraduate degree in Malaysia, while the other is still in high school in Bangka. The police have asked families of the victims of the Lion Air flight from Jakarta to Pangkalpinang, to report to the hospital bringing documentation such as school diplomas, dental and medical records and the victims personal effects such as toothbrushes, combs or items of clothing. Read also: [UPDATED] Lion Air JT610 crash: What we know so far They also asked for parents, siblings or children of the victims to come to the identification center to provide DNA samples. These samples, along with the victims DNA and personal effects, will be used to help identify the bodies of the victims. Arthur explained that the police needed at least four days to process each DNA sample. They also need at least four to eight days to match the samples they receive with each body part retrieved by the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas). Some 900 personnel have been scouring the Java Sea and they have so far collected 37 body bags containing body parts and debris from the plane in the last two days, according to Basarnas operations deputy Nugroho Budi Wiryanto. Twenty-four of those bags had been taken to the hospital on Monday and were being examined by the police. Senior Basarnas official Didi Hamzar said that among the 900 personnel were 50 divers from Basarnas, the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the National Police. As of Tuesday afternoon, the search and rescue team, aboard four multipurpose research vessels, 35 smaller vessels and two helicopters, had only been able to find bits of wreckage, several body parts and personal belongings believed to belong to passengers. Meanwhile, the fuselage of the plane, in which most of the victims are thought to be, has not been located. Col. Salim of the Jakarta Navy Base said the crew of the KRI Rigel, taking part in the search, had yet to find any major pieces of wreckage. Meanwhile, passenger remains are believed to have drifted further away from the likely scene of the crash. Basarnas, therefore, expanded the search area on Tuesday to 10 nautical miles from the place where the plane is thought to have gone down, from the previous 5 nautical miles on Monday. The agency has also called on fishermen who find anything related to the plane crash to report their findings to a post set up in Tanjung Karawang, West Java. David Cessare, an intern at The Jakarta Post, contributed to the story from KRI Rigel in the Java Sea, off Karawang. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 09:45 1116 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a013e9 1 World Saudi-Arabia,Indonesia,migrant-workers,migrant-protection,death-penalty,human-rights,MigrantCare Free The government has aired its deep concerns about the execution of Indonesian migrant worker Tuti Tursilawati, which was carried out on Monday without the prior knowledge of her family or Indonesian officials. Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi immediately called her Saudi counterpart Adel bin Ahmed Al Jubeir to express her disapproval on the execution, of which she was notified after it took place on Monday. Tutis execution was carried out without [prior notification]. I also summoned the Saudi ambassador [Usamah Muhammad Al Syuaiby] in Jakarta to meet me in Bali, she told reporters on Tuesday on the sidelines of the Our Ocean Conference in Bali, according to a distributed recording of her interview. Separately in Jakarta, the ministrys director for overseas citizen protection, Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, said Tutis family had accepted her passing, after it was revealed that he had personally delivered the news of her execution in a visit to her hometown in Majalengka, West Java. Read also: Indonesia must scrap workers agreement with Saudi Arabia following execution: NGO Iqbal said they were surprised because almost two weeks ago on Oct. 19, Tuti was allowed to talk to her mother through a video call to say she was healthy and unworried about her execution. Tuti was charged with the premeditated murder of her employers father, who she beat to death with a stick. According to Saudi criminal law, the act is punishable by had ghillah (absolute death). In contrast to previous reports, Tuti did not commit the murder in self-defense against attempted rape. It is true that Tuti had been harassed, but not when she committed the murder, Iqbal said. After the incident, Tuti ran away from her employer but was raped by nine Saudi men before the police took her into custody. All of her rapists were processed separately. Observors say Indonesia is unable to criticize other countries that uphold capital punishment without appearing hypocritical. Under President Joko Jokowi Widodo, Indonesia has executed 18 death row inmates convicted of drug-related offenses, including foreigners, in three batches since 2015. Instead, Jakarta complained about the lack of consular notification in cases that fall under Saudi authority. International law expert Hikmahanto Juwana from the University of Indonesia said Riyadh had violated the norms of international relations by not informing Indonesia about the execution. In an attempt to prevent such disputes from arising, Indonesia pursued last week a mandatory consular notification agreement with Saudi Arabia, which Iqbal said had been received positively by the Saudi delegation. The Saudi Embassy in Jakarta was unable to provide immediate comment. Meanwhile, the Migrant CARE advocacy group has called on the Manpower Ministry to scrap a recent agreement with its Saudi counterpart to send Indonesian migrant workers to the kingdom. The One Channel System was a scheme agreed upon by the two countries manpower ministers in mid-October, which allows for the placement of a limited number of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia. However, Migrant CARE founder Anis Hidayah said the government was violating the 2017 law on the protection of migrant workers by rushing into a deal that bypasses a 2015 ban on sending migrant domestic workers to the Middle East. The law prohibits private organizations from recruiting migrant workers but this project allows it. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 17:11 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a143fd 4 Business high-speed-railway,jakarta,bandung,land-acquisition Free The company behind the Jakarta-Banding high-speed railway project PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia Cina (KCIC) has said that land acquisition for the project reached 80 percent in October. KCIC president director Chandra Dwiputra added that the acquisition of the other 20 percent was expected to be completed by the end of this year. "The remaining 20 percent of land for the project is spread over a number of locations. Most of the sites are social or public-facility land like roads, mosques, etc. We have to construct alternative facilities for them, he said as reported by kontan.co.id on Wednesday. Land in the Karawang industrial estate on which is built five factories was also being acquired, he said. Chandra gave an assurance that the company was now in the process of accelerating the project construction, while the process of completing the acquisition was under way after the China Development Bank (CDB) had disbursed US$810.4 million. He said KCIC was scheduled to receive another disbursement of $365 million in December. Chandra said the company had so far spent Rp 4.5 trillion ($296 million) on land acquisition, while the projected total investment for the project amounted to $6.07 billion. Meanwhile, he said that by the end of 2018 the construction of the project was expected to reach 8 percent. The groundbreaking for the project was held in early 2016. (bbn) Lion Air Group founder Rusdi Kirana has apologized to the families of passengers and crew aboard Lion Air flight JT610, which crashed into the Java Sea, saying that he was "deeply shocked" by the tragedy. Rusdi, who is the current Indonesian ambassador to Malaysia, visited the families of victims at Ibis Cawang Hotel in East Jakarta on Tuesday, a day after the plane went down en route from Jakarta to Pangkalpinang in Bangka Belitung Islands on Monday morning. "I apologize, whatever the reasons may be. I am currently trying my best," Rusdi said as quoted by kompas.com. "I extend my condolences. I am saddened and honestly, I am deeply shocked [by the incident]." Lion Air management, Rusdi said on Tuesday, was ready to be audited following the crash. "If the findings in the [audit] point to our wrongdoing, we will not object to any penalty," he said. Rusdi resigned from his position as Lion Air CEO in 2014. He was appointed by President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo as a member of the Presidential Advisory Board in 2015, later resigning his membership when he was inaugurated as ambassador last year. Read also: Suspected fuselage of Lion Air JT 610 found: TNI chief Rusdi, who cofounded the low-cost carrier Lion Mentari Airlines in 1999, helped oversee the expansion of Lion Air in the past decade to become the country's largest privately run airline. In 2013 Lion Air ordered 234 aircraft from French manufacturer Airbus, earning Rusdi an award from the French government for the biggest purchase ever received by the company at that time. The plane crash on Monday was the latest and worst incident involving Lion Air, which has been involved in a number of incidents over the past decade. The management, Rusdi said, would provide the families of people aboard the downed JT610 with Rp 5 million (US$328) each to support their stay in Jakarta during the recovery of victims' bodies and subsequent identification process. Another Rp 25 million would be provided by the management to support the funeral costs of those killed in the incident, he said. (afr) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 09:06 1116 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308779fcfba 1 National Lion-Air,plane-crash,#LionAirJT610,DNA,Kramat-Jati-Police-Hospital,Palembang,South-Sumatra Free The wife of Ahmad Endang Rokhmana came to a harbor at Tanjung Priok Seaport in North Jakarta from Tasikmalaya, West Java, to search for her husbands belongings. The harbor, Jakarta International Container Terminal 2, is the first place National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) personnel bring the debris of the plane and the remains of the victims of Monday's Lion Air flight JT610 crash before they are taken to Kramatjati Police Hospital in East Jakarta. Im looking for my husbands ID cards. I want to see the proof [that he was in the crash] Basarnas could find, Siti Nuraini said as quoted by kompas.com. She said she came with her child and two in-laws from Tasikmalaya to Jakarta on Monday. She had gone to the Kramatjati Police Hospital to give information to help identify her husband. I want some certain news as soon as possible. Whatever happens, I want to bring my husband home to Tasikmalaya, she said. Endang was a civil servant at the Finance Ministry, stationed in Pangkalpinang, Bangka Belitung Islands. He came home once every two weeks to be with his family. Siti said the last communication between her and Endang was on Monday morning when he told her he had arrived at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. Read also: Distraught families recall JT610 passengers' last words Head of the National Police Medical and Health Center, Brig. Gen. Arthur Tampi said on Tuesday the disaster victim identification (DVI) team had collected 147 DNA samples and 185 items of antemortem data from the families of the victims as of Tuesday night. We hope that the families can be patient during these times, as it is harder for us to identify body parts than intact remains, he said during a press conference at the hospital, adding that the process of matching DNA samples with the remains took longer than fingerprint and visual identification. Meanwhile, the South Sumatra Police in Palembang have opened an antemortem and DNA post for the relatives of seven victims hailing from the province. The seven were: Reski Amalia, 32, from Palembang; Rian Ariandi, 23, and Rapi Andrian, 22, from Lubuk Linggau city; husband and wife Candra Kirana, 29, and Cici Ariska, 28, as well as Asep Sarifuddin, 19, and Dadang, 27, from Penukal Abab Lematang Ilir regency. Read also: [UPDATED] Lion Air JT610 crash: What we know so far We have been asked to collect antemortem data, South Sumatra Polices medical and health unit head, Sr. Comr. Tri Yuwono Putra, said Tuesday. He said only the relatives of Reski Amalia had come to Bhayangkara Police Hospital in Palembang. Other relatives can go to [Palembang], they dont have to go to Jakarta. We will send the data to Jakarta, he said. (evi) Yulia Savitri contributed to this story from Palembang, South Sumatra. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 13:31 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a09196 1 Business Bulog,rice,stock,imports,Budi-Waseso,comments Free The State Logistics Agency (Bulog) says its rice stock of 2.4 million tons is adequate to meet domestic demand. Therefore, the company assures that the country does not need to import the commodity. It indicates that we have strong stock, Bulog president director Budi Waseso said in a statement on Wednesday. He said Bulog was committed to implementing its main duties purchasing rice from farmers, carrying out market operations to stabilize prices and maintaining strong rice stocks to assure the availability of the commodity. The agency is required to maintain between 1 and 1.5 million tons of rice that should be ready to be distributed to Bulogs warehouses across the country at any time. As a price stabilizing institution, Bulog continuously carries out market intervention. With it, the commodity should always be available and of good quality, Budi said, adding that since January, Bulog had released 384,328 tons rice for market operations, an average of 2,500 per day. Bulog will continue to monitor rice prices, said Budi. Bulog purchases 3,000 tons of unhusked rice from farmers every day, he said, adding that with the absorption of farmers rice, Bulog could also stock up until the end of 2018.(bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ina Parlina and Gemma Holliani Cahya (The Jakarta Post) Nusa Dua, Bali Wed, October 31, 2018 10:11 1116 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a02bd0 1 National Our-Ocean-Conference,ocean-environment,Conference,#environment,Indonesia Free The main meetings of the Our Ocean Conference (OOC) wrapped up on Tuesday with a fresh determination to protect and create sustainable and healthy oceans across the globe. Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said that real solutions were needed for marine conservation efforts, requiring innovation and concrete action with measurable outcomes, which was only achievable if all stakeholders chipped in. No country, no organization can solve problems without support. [...] Support can only be gained by showing tangible results, he said. Collaboration is the oxygen of our work, Luhut added. Even the most powerful actor in any given time in history has needed to collaborate. The two-day 2018 OOC was capped off with hundreds of new commitments to ensuring healthy oceans, as well as the expression of a determination to achieve the ocean-related aims of the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDG) 14. In total, 287 targets were set, worth more than US$10 billion, mainly focused on marine protected areas (MPA), which are considered essential to maintaining the sustainability of ocean resources that can contribute to food and protein security, as well as addressing marine pollution. This number is beyond our expectations. We are thankful for your collective contributions to making our oceans healthier and sustainable, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti said. Susi described the new commitments as tangible, including the target to create 14 million square kilometers of new MPAs. The ministrys expert staff member Suseno said that this year even more stakeholders, from civil society organizations to philanthropists and private sector actors, had joined the sustainable oceans campaign by also making commitments with the participating countries. This is mainly the result of the efforts of the young generation [who continue to push for stakeholders other than governments to play a greater role], he said. Indonesia made 23 new commitments on Tuesday. This year, Indonesia implemented a mechanism to monitor and track existing OOC commitments, officials said. From the first day of the 2018 OOC, Susi pushed for a joint effort to create a tracking mechanism for the 663 commitments OOC participants had made during past conferences. Prior to this years OOC, participants had made 663 commitments since the first conference in the United States in 2014. To date, 206 commitments have been fulfilled. UN special envoy for the ocean Peter Thompson said that since the UN Ocean Conference in June 2017, at which the international community gathered to support the implementation of SDG 14, there had been a wave of ocean protection efforts across the globe. There are 10 ocean-related targets under SDG 14 four of which, including a goal to establish 10 percent of the worlds oceans as MPAs, are supposed to be achieved by 2020. Despite the international communitys determination, there was no room for complacency, Thompson added, as countries only had about 18 months left to achieve the four goals. I am very confident that we will hit those four targets but only if we keep our shoulder to the wheel between now and 2020, he said. On Tuesday, Indonesia officially handed the OOC baton to Norway, which will host the sixth forum next year. During the handover ceremony, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said she believed the OOC is in good hands. I know how much Norway cares about and loves the sea, citing her experience as an Indonesian ambassador to Norway 13 years ago. All the dignitaries, including Susi, later attended a closing ceremony and official dinner. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 17:33 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a15b76 1 National IndonesiaLeaks,KPK,National-Police,Tito-Karnavian Free The red financial records book that has been the focus of an investigative report by independent whistle-blower platform IndonesiaLeaks was confiscated by police on Monday, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) confirmed. "KPK leaders have decided to give the two pieces of evidence [to the Jakarta Police] because of a court order from the South Jakarta District Court dated Oct. 23, 2018," KPK spokesperson Febri Diansyah said on Tuesday. The Red Book was among the pieces of evidence confiscated for a graft case involving meat-importing businessman Basuki Hariman and former Constitutional Court justice Patrialis Akbar. Patrialis was accused of accepting Rp 2 billion [$150,455] in fees from Basuki in return for making a favorable ruling on a petition against a 2014 law on husbandry and animal health. Basuki has since been sentenced to seven years in prison, while Patrialis received eight years imprisonment. Read also: Jokowi camp questions motivation of IndonesiaLeaks report on top cop The IndonesiaLeaks report published earlier this month said that CCTV footage allegedly showed two police officers who were assigned as KPK investigators at the time ripping out several pages of a book detailing transactions between Basuki and National Police chief Tito Karnavian. Febri said according to a letter from Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Idham Azis, the book was confiscated as part of the police's investigation into obstruction of justice in relation to a graft case. The two police officers implicated by the report, Adj. Sr. Comr. Roland Ronaldy and Comr. Harun, both left the KPK a few months after the alleged incident took place and returned to the National Police. Roland has since been promoted to Cirebon Police chief in West Java, while Harun is the head of a subdivision in the Jakarta Police's special crimes directorate. (kmt) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 10:52 1116 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a048d1 1 Business bekraf,festival,surabaya Free The Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) plans to organize the 2018 Bekraf Festival in the East Java capital of Surabaya on Nov. 15 to 17, the second edition of the annual event to promote creative economy, after the first events success in Bandung, West Java, which attracted 33,900 visitors. The Bekraf Festival is expected to raise awareness on the potential of the creative economy, said Bekraf head Triawan Munaf in a press conference in Jakarta on Monday, adding that the event would also showcase the agencys activities. He said during the festival, Bekraf would present 45 programs that had been implemented in discussions, workshops, performances and exhibitions. Surabaya was appointed to host the event for its contributions to the creative economy, Triawan said. He said a survey conducted by Statistics Indonesia in 2016 showed that Surabaya had the largest number of creative economy businesses, 6.41 percent of the total business in the country, while based on the result of mapping in 99 cities, Surabaya was at the top list of cities with a growing creative economy. With the implementation of the Bekraf Festival in Surabaya, we hope people become more aware and concerned about the development of the creative economy in their regions. We hope it will also have a positive impact on the development of the creative economy in the country, he added. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 13:04 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a0817f 1 National #LionAirJT610,#LionAir,lion-air-group,plane-crash,TNI,Hadi-Tjahjanto Free Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Air Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto said on Wednesday that a joint search and rescue team had found an object believed to be the aircraft fuselage of missing Lion Air flight JT 610, although this has yet to be confirmed. "We have marked the coordinates and all vessels are being focused to those coordinates to confirm it," Hadi told reporters as broadcast live on TV One. "Hopefully the object is part of the aircraft we are looking for." The object in question is about 22 meters long. Hadi said the effort was being led by the Navys KRI Rigel, which has various equipment such as a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and multi beam echo sounder, as well as other vessels from the Navy's Hydrography and Oceanography Center (Pushidros) that have similar equipment. "Basarnas [the National Search and Rescue Agency] is also deploying its own vessels with similar capabilities," he said. Hadi together with Basarnas chief Marshal M. Syaugi and the Navy's Fleet I chief Rear Adm. Yudo Margono are scheduled to go to the coordinates soon. The Lion Air Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed on Monday morning into the Java Sea off Karawang, West Java, about 13 minutes after taking off from Soekarno Hatta International Airport bound for Depati Amir Airport in Pangkalpinang, Bangka Belitung Islands. (nvn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31 2018 The United States top naval officer has implied that Washington had accepted Indonesias interpretation of the Indo-Pacific concept, which emphasizes, among other things, openness and inclusivity. The US Navy Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John M. Richardson said on Tuesday that Washington and Jakarta shared a similar view of the Indo-Pacific strategy: free, inclusive and founded on rule-based order that has fueled prosperity and growth of the entire world for the last 70 years. Particularly with Indonesia and Southeast Asia, we are pretty much together in the conceptual approach to the future; an approach that [levels] the playing field for all to prosper, respects sovereignty; an approach that would object to any coercive techniques. I think they are very much aligned to the principles, he said during a forum in Jakarta themed, Allies and Partners: US-Indonesia Naval Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. 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 Peter Altmaier (The Jakarta Post) Berlin Thu, November 1 2018 We are visiting Indonesia for economic policy talks just as this country is coping with some tough times. We were all greatly moved by the way Indonesia was hit so severely by the earthquakes and tsunami in September. On behalf of the German government and of all Germans, I would like to express our countrys heartfelt sympathy and condolences for the many victims. Despite all the problems, Indonesia is offering its guests a warm welcome and great hospitality. It reminds us once again that our countries are linked not just by a stable partnership, but by much more: by a friendship based on shared values of democracy and mutual respect. Indonesia has become a key player within the region, and also amongst the G20 countries. Not least, the holding of the Asian Games in Jakarta and the meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Bali underline the countrys international importance. 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 Dian Septiari, Marchio Irfan Gorbiano and Ati Nurbaiti (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, November 1 2018 Manpower Minister Hanif Dhakiri has said he will review a scheme to send migrant workers to Saudi Arabia after the kingdom executed an Indonesian domestic worker without notifying her family or consular staff. Tuti Tursilawati was executed Monday seven years after she was sentenced to death for killing her employers father in an act she had claimed was self-defense. The execution casts a shadow over a recent agreement to send a limited number of migrant workers to Saudi Arabia under the One Channel System, despite a 2015 moratorium banning new domestic workers from entering 21 Middle Eastern countries. 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 Namira Samir (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Thu, November 1 2018 Exclusive growth is like a poison, it is deadly but kills slowly, said Sri Mulyani Indrawati at the WikiStage World Bank Group in Lima, Peru in 2015, when she was its managing director. During the recent Bali meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group, in a seminar on women in the workplace Sri Mulyani, now finance minister, echoed experts who said unpaid household chores must be included in the measurement of a countrys economy. Though some doubt she was serious, better recognition of what is mostly unpaid womens work is urgent. Men and women could not work in the formal or informal economy without anyone taking care of their small children. The Indonesian government is focused on transforming human capital to achieve sustainable economic growth; 20 percent of the state budget is allocated for education with emphasis on disadvantaged groups, including the poor and those living in least-developed regions. Yet economic growth remains stagnant at 5 percent, with 6.87 million people still jobless and 25.95 million people living below the national poverty line, according to Statistics Indonesia (BPS). More investment in human capital would yield economic benefits for the population and the country; but what causes Indonesias sluggish growth? Benefits of growth and rising income are clearly unevenly distributed. The common indication of inequality, Indonesias Gini ratio, was at 0.39, with rural income inequality on the rise. The extent of inequality should be further examined. Among our population of 265 million, 131.88 million are women and the remaining 133.12 million are men. In the first quarter of 2018, the employment to population ratio was 78.62 percent for men and 52.73 percent for women. Thus, nearly half of Indonesias women are unable to participate in the economy. Gender stereotyping in Indonesia, as in other countries, has resulted in women being unable to pursue professional areas as much as men, among others, given lack of recognition of women in the pool of qualified labor force. Lack of recognition of womens contribution in the economy includes their unpaid household chores and family care, which is often ignored in policy. Surveys show that the bulk of unpaid household chores or 75 percent of all unpaid care work is carried out by women and girls, according to Bloomberg. The latest International Labor Organization report on care work demonstrates that in the Asia-Pacific, women spend 4.1 times more time than men on doing unpaid care work daily. Despite progress here and there, deficits in gender equality policies, most specifically care policies, remain widest in these regions. This is a concern that must be immediately addressed by policymakers. Sacrificing womens capability to contribute to the countrys economy merely because of gender stereotyping should and must be stopped. The feminist scholar Silvia Federici states economic production is impossible without womens uncompensated non-economic labor. Overturning the stereotypes of what women should and should not do would not only need public education to change views that women alone should by nature take care of the family and household without pay. Policymakers also need better acknowledgment of the significance of womens contribution to the economy. Especially in developing countries like Indonesia where most economic activities are in the informal sector, the failure to incorporate unpaid domestic work into economic growth calculations would make the final measurement such as gross domestic product (GDP) misleading. Designing a standardized measurement to include unpaid household chores requires an arduous effort; even if it is quantified and assigned a monetary value, such measurement cannot be a quantification of monetized activities such as the GDP. It is better to separately measure unpaid household chores and family care, to complement GDP. This has worked in how we measure poverty. To complement the monetary measure of poverty, the United Nations Development Program and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom have created a multidimensional poverty index, which measures deprivation according to three dimensions; education, health and living standards. By including unpaid household chores in the economy with a nationally or internationally standardized measurement, Indonesias decisionmakers, from the local to national level, would better understand the gender gaps in the economy, how much women contribute through the informal sector or unpaid work, and their state of well-being. In addition to designing a new measurement to complement the monetary measure of economic growth, there are other ways in which the government can further reduce the gender gap. The Finance Ministry has started to adopt gender-responsive budgeting, which aims to better ensure that government spending and investments have positive impacts on both men and women. Among gender-responsive budgeting measures, in gender mainstreaming budgets are allocated to improve human resources quality of both men and women. To improve equality, allocation is increased for spending in sectors that benefit women, namely education, health and employment. Almost all provinces in Indonesia have adopted the gender-responsive planning and budgeting, though much improvement is needed. Among others specific budget allocations are needed for specific activities. The demand for better and fairer opportunities for women requires the integration of gender issues in the macroeconomy. Enacting carefully designed policies on gender equality would better address the challenge on advancing womens empowerment. _________________________ The writer is a researcher and consultant with main interests in multidimensional poverty alleviation, gender inequality and Islamic social finance. She holds a masters degree in Islamic finance and management from Durham University, the United Kingdom. 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 (Vietnam News/ANN) Hanoi, Vietnam Wed, October 31, 2018 19:08 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a1bf3e 2 SE Asia #SoutheastAsia,#Vietnam,Vietnam,calls,social-media,codes-of-ethics Free The Government has urged the Ministry of Information and Communications to build a code of ethics on social networks for internet service providers and users to create a healthy networking atmosphere in the country. Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh made the request at a conference on the implementation of National Assembly resolutions on cyber security surveillance yesterday. Binh said the Government had asked the ministry to develop a code of ethics on social networks operating in Viet Nam such as Facebook and YouTube. It had also asked professional agencies to co-operate with Facebook and Google to remove false and misleading information that runs counter to the Party and States viewpoints, policies and political platform. The Government had asked network operators to deploy new technical solutions to effectively prevent the spread of false information on websites and social networks with international domain names and hosting servers located in other countries. According to the report, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc directed the ministry to create a national cyber security monitoring centre. The centre, which was part of the project on supervising the cyber security of IT systems to respond to cyber attacks, would automatically review, discover and evaluate information on the Internet. There are some 55 million internet users in the country, accounting for 57 per cent of the population. Of these, 50 million access the internet via mobile phones. Each user spends between 2.5 and seven hours each day on the internet, with Facebook and YouTube being the most popular websites. Also in the field of information and communications, the Government has instructed the ministry to study and implement comprehensive measures on management. Mobile telecommunications enterprises such as VNPT, Viettel, MobiFone, Gmobile and Vietnamobile have been required to guide customers to update and register their information for better management. They were also encouraged to have economic measures to boost mobile subscribers. The government has determined that the digital content industry was an important factor in sustaining the growth of the telecoms industry, contributing to establishing the countrys digital economy. In order to develop the countrys digital content ecosystem, the Government has directed an overview of current status, development potentials, barriers and legal deficiencies to solve difficulties and promote digital content creation. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fulya Ozerkan (Agence France-Presse) Istanbul Wed, October 31, 2018 11:02 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a05151 2 News Turkey,Airport,travel,Istanbul,Recep-Tayyip-Erdogan Free Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday opened Istanbul's new international airport, which his government says will eventually become the world's largest, with great fanfare. "The new airport will be the pride of our country and an example to the world," Erdogan said at a lavish opening ceremony featuring several heads of state. At the inauguration -- which coincided with the 95th anniversary of modern Turkey's founding by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -- Erdogan also revealed that the airport would be named "Istanbul". "Istanbul is not only our biggest city but also the most valuable trademark of our country," he said. The airport, one of a number of mega-projects built under Erdogan's rule, will be little used until next year after construction was marred by delays and a workers' strike over poor conditions. Erdogan has championed the 10.5-billion euro ($12-billion) project in his bid to make Istanbul a global travel hub linking Europe, Asia and Africa and turn flag carrier Turkish Airlines into an aviation giant. But the airport will only offer flights to five destinations until an expanded opening on December 29, from when it is expected to handle up to 90 million passengers a year, rising to up to 200 million when all facilities are completed in 2028. That would be nearly double the 103.9 million passengers moving through the world's current busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson in the US city of Atlanta. The opening ceremony was attended by several leaders including Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and war crimes. The first flight from the new facility will be to the capital Ankara on Wednesday. Read also: Turkey to unveil giant new Istanbul airport '80 Eiffel Towers' It had been thought the new facility would replace the city's ageing Ataturk Airport, but Erdogan said it would remain in service, including for events such as air shows, adding that its unused parts would be transformed into a "national park as promised". Planes and equipment are expected to be moved from Ataturk to the new facility for the expanded launch in late December. "Ataturk Airport will continue to serve with the same name," he added. Erdogan called the new airport a "giant", with officials saying that its 1.4 million-square metre terminal building was eight times larger than Ankara's terminal. "Moreover, 80 Eiffel Towers could be constructed with the steel of 640,000 tonnes used in the construction." When finished in 2028, it will have six runways and two terminals spread over 76 square kilometres (29 square miles). That would make it three times the size of Ataturk. "With its cargo and aviation terminals, parking lots, support units, and social facilities it is a really gigantic work," said Erdogan. Authorities say a metro line will be built to link the airport, which is near the Black Sea coast on the European side of Istanbul, to the city centre 35 kilometres (22 miles) away. Read also: A walk between continents in Turkey Crackdown on striking workers The airport will be one of the crowning jewels in Erdogan's bid to transform Turkey's infrastructure in time for the country's centenary in 2023. Other massive projects include a third bridge over the Bosphorus Strait connecting Istanbul's Europe and Asia sides, opened in 2016, and a man-made canal to relieve pressure on the strait. However, critics have blasted Erdogan's mega-projects as excessive and damaging to the environment, and the airport's construction was hit by controversy. Last month, hundreds of workers walked off the job to protest poor conditions and work-related deaths on the site. Turkish authorities quickly cracked down, arresting hundreds, according to labour unions. Most were released without charge, but around 20 remain in prison. Thirty workers have died on the site since construction began in 2015, according to Istanbul airport authorities. The unions say the real number is much higher. Construction Union Insaat-Is announced on Twitter that another worker died from a fall on Sunday, just one day before the inauguration. In his speech, Erdogan thanked the workers. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Keshie Hernitaningtyas (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 10:02 1116 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a01d0e 1 News RedDoorz,Hotel,travel,travelers,tourism,budget-traveling,budget-hotel,millennials Free Thanks to its young population, well-performing economy and high demand for domestic travel, Indonesia offers the biggest opportunity among other Southeast Asian countries for affordable online hotel booking platform RedDoorz. "[Indonesia] is our most exciting market; the largest in Southeast Asia. Three things are happening at the same time: the country is doing very well economically; there is a young population that loves to travel; and the government has a vision to promote domestic tourism and destinations," shared RedDoorz founder and CEO Amit Saberwal during a recent interview with The Jakarta Post. Very mobile-driven, the young population serves as an important segment for the company. "They need accommodation that is very good in quality but not very expensive. They want to book it online so everything has to be easy to find, easily priced," said Saberwal, who was born and brought up in India and whose hospitality experience includes stints at New Delhi-based The Park Hotels and online travel agency MakeMyTrip. Starting off in Singapore in 2015 before landing in Indonesia, and later followed by branches in the Philippines and Vietnam, RedDoorz currently has 330 employees -- 270 of whom are based in Indonesia, managing around 500 properties across 20 cities. "All properties are operated by property owners. Using RedDoorz, the properties have access to technology that allows them to price at the right price -- because like an airline, prices keep changing, sometimes it's high, sometimes it's low based on demand. Rooms are advertised online through our app, which accepts payments using credit cards, bank payments and ATM payments. All aspects of distribution are taken care of by us," said Saberwal. To maintain quality, the properties are given a constantly moving score based on ratings from guests after their stay; reviews given on Google, TripAdvisor or other platforms; and certain daily actions are required by RedDoorz. "When the property is doing well, it will be rated accordingly. Property owners can see the scores; when it starts dipping, we will go and inform the owners and their employees on what they should be doing correctly based on the situation," said Saberwal. Read also: Three newly opened lodging options for budget travelers in Jakarta Among the basic training provided to the hotel staff are how to greet customers, make the bed, clean the bathroom and basic English. "Part of our mission is to make sure overall human resources and property standards are high. We are in 20 cities in Indonesia, including small cities, where many people cannot speak English, but international customers are coming more and more to Indonesia," said Saberwal. Other than Jakarta, Bandung and Yogyakarta are said to be the company's largest markets. "Most of our customers are Indonesians, but in places like Yogyakarta and Bali, international customers are coming in. So we need to teach the staff basic English and hospitality standards. Many of these people have never had formal training. We want to help them improve their education so they can get better jobs in better hotels in the future. It's a holistic approach." Prior to cooperating with a property, Saberwal said they look for what their customers are looking for. "We figured out that apart from great price, customers look for free Wi-Fi -- this is the number one thing they look for. Also, mineral water in the room, white clean linen so they can sleep well, a television, clean bathroom and toiletries of good quality. Fundamentally, a property has to provide all that to customers. If they're not of that standard, they have to upgrade themselves to that standard." As Southeast Asia is said to have hundreds of thousands of budget properties, the company is optimistic that it will be able to grow to 1500 properties by 2019. "That's our short-term plan. Our long-term plan is to go much deeper into the ecosystem of Indonesian hospitality and technology, such as enhancing our loyalty program. We also believe as our customers evolve from being very young, 25 to 35 years old, they become young professionals. Hence there'll be opportunities to have more brands and technology in the system. It's an evolutionary process." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Wed, October 31, 2018 18:32 1115 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877a1868d 4 News KAI,railway,travel,Train,exhibition,KAIExpo Free State railway company PT KAI is scheduled to hold the 2018 KAIExpo this weekend at the Indonesia Convention Exhibition (ICE) BSD in Tangerang, Banten. #SahabatKAI, dapatkan tiket promo #KAIExpo mulai dari "50rb" di Indonesia Convention Exhibition BSD, event berlangsung tgl. 3-4 Nopember 2018 . Nikmati beragam acara menarik seperti: Pameran Produk, Talkshow, Cosplay Performance, Music, Games, dll.#KAIExpo #AyoNaikKereta pic.twitter.com/3DdnGxxOSN Kereta Api Indonesia (@KAI121) October 27, 2018 The expo is a railway industry exhibition themed Grow Together in Harmony, where railway-related firms such as PT KAI, state-owned train manufacturer PT Industri Kereta Api (INKA), LRT Jabodetabek, East Japan Railway Company Singapore Office and Nisshin Electric Construction Co. Ltd. will discuss developments in the industry. We want to approach the public and show new developments through exhibitions. We also want to receive suggestions through discussions with the visitors, Dody Budiawan, PT KAIs commercial president director, said during a press conference in Jakarta on Tuesday as quoted by kompas.com. PT KAI will reportedly sell 239,249 tickets with discounts of up to 75 percent at the event. The tickets are for trains departing between Nov. 5 and Feb 1, 2019, with the exclusion of dates between Dec. 14 and Jan. 6, 2019. Read also: Priority class train available daily between Jakarta and Semarang Among the destinations offered are Jakarta, Bandung in West Java, Yogyakarta, Surakarta and Semarang in Central Java and Surabaya in East Java. Tickets for new routes such as Banyuwangi in East Java and Sumatra Island are also available. Some of the rumored prices are Rp 150,000 (US$10) for the Jakarta-Surabaya routes from the original Rp 485,000, Rp 150,000 from Rp 495,000 for the Bandung-Surabaya routes and Rp 75,000 from Rp 125,000 for the Bandung-Jakarta routes. About 20,000 daily visitors are estimated to attend the event. To avoid overcrowding, PT KAI has prepared 100 counters for ticket purchases and extra security. Musical acts JKT48 and Sheila On 7 are set to perform on the first and second days of the exhibit, respectively. Visitors can enter anytime between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. by paying a Rp 20,000 entry fees. (iru/kes) Disney's brand-new fancy dining place, 21 Royal, promises to give us the fairytale treatment - for a steep price. Image Source: Unsplash For the small sum of $15,000, you can reserve a table and enjoy drinks, a seven-course dinner as well as dessert, all provided by Disneylands expert chefs and sommelier. Find the hidden fancy dining place close to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneys original theme park in California. Look for a single hanging sign in the New Orleans Square area, as that is the only indication of the fancy dining space which was based off Walt and Lillian Disneys plans for a luxurious oasis in which to host celebrities and dignitaries, according to its website. The 21 Royal can be booked for up to 12 guests for that perfect small dinner party. The price includes park admission for everyone, valet service and tip, a Disney spokeswoman told The Huffington Post. 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 Chapman Elementary School recently began the first of many groundbreaking events for the school, students, staff and families of the Gibraltar School District community. All were invited to attend a ceremony for the new gymnasium that will be built this year as an addition to the school building in Rockwood. Gibraltar school board members Lisa Darville, Christie Conroy-Heinz and Jim Crapko attended the ceremony. Supt. Amy Conway, Maintenance Director Kelly Greenhalgh, and Chapman Principal Leslie Guizzetti also participated in the ceremonial first dig. All students were given construction hats for the event. To commemorate the occasion, staff and students created a time capsule to capture the day in the life of a Chapman student. We have just under 450 students in our building, with a small gymnasium that is also used as our cafeteria, Guizzetti said. Although it is not unusual to share this space in elementary schools, the space is not large enough to host all of our students for events or activities. The new gymnasium will allow for this communal area along with enhancing our overall space to teach physical education. The groundbreaking of the gymnasium is the first of many additions and improvements that Chapman will see in the next couple of years as part of the bond project that was passed by the community last spring. We are thankful for the continuous support for our schools from our community, Conway said. Passing the bond has allowed for many needed updates and opportunities for our Gibraltar district schools and students. Along with the gymnasium, another major improvement is making Chapman a 1:1 technology building. Guizzetti explained that this means every student at Chapman will have a technology device at the school. Kindergarten through second-grade students will have iPads and third- through fifth-graders have Chromebooks. Other updates and additions that were passed with the bond include new security cameras, renovations on the front entrance and offices to create a sally-port safety entrance, a new music room and an updated media center space that will include a Makerspace. This is only my second year as principal at Chapman, said Guizzetti. I am so thrilled to be a part of this and thankful to our community and parents that made this possible for our students. Hope & Cope is putting the fun in fundraising with two special events this November: a hike of Mount Royals three summits on Sunday, Nov. 4 and an exclusive screening of the film Love, Gilda on Monday, Nov. 12. Hike of Mount Royals three summits Launched in March 2018, Kili chez nous features 10 monthly hikes in the beautiful mountain regions of Quebec. The hikes are part of an overall campaign called Tell Cancer to Take a Hike, which included a climb of Africas Mount Kilimanjaro last March for the truly adventurous. Kili chez nous continues to attract fitness enthusiasts of all ages who love hiking and who are motivated by the opportunity to help cancer patients with every step they take. This first foray into adventure fundraising has so far raised in excess of $525,000 for Hope & Cope. As the campaign winds down, Montrealers of all fitness levels are invited to join the Kili chez nous team on Sunday, Nov. 4, for a one-time minimum gift of $100 to Hope & Cope, as they hike the three summits of Mount Royal, with breathtaking views at the top of each summit. We want to give everyone an opportunity to be part of the action and enjoy the Kili team spirit while raising funds for Hope & Cope, says Hope & Cope Board member and Tell Cancer to Take a Hike Chair, Howard Stotland, adding that this pioneering cancer support organization matters to the thousands of patients diagnosed with cancer each year who depend on its support to cope with this devastating disease. Register online at https://hopeandcopekilicheznous.com/3/donate.htm Love, Gilda For the cinematically inclined, Hope & Cope is offering an exclusive screening of the film Love, Gilda. This uplifting documentary portrays the honest and whimsical world of the beloved performer Gilda Radner of Saturday Night Live fame, from her childhood through her comedy career and ultimately, her struggles with cancer. Much like Gildas Clubs founded in her name, the Hope & Cope Wellness Centre is a place where cancer patients and their families can focus on wellness, in mind, body and spirit, explains event chair Marlene King. Events like these help ensure that Hope & Cope can continue to offer these wonderful programs free of charge to all Montrealers. The screening will take place at Cinema Guzzo, Spheretech, 3500 Cote Vertu Blvd. on Monday, Nov. 12 at 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets cost $136 (includes complimentary snacks and a $100 tax receipt) and may be obtained online at https://jghfoundation.akaraisin.com/gilda Hope & Cope AB Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. 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. You cannot print contents of this website. Sign in Welcome, Login to your account. Forget password? Remember me Sign in Recover your password. A password will be e-mailed to you. Bridging Gaps in local history Throughout Burke County a number of bridges and roads stand as monuments, honoring the legacies of those who played a significant role in the countys history. Many local citizens and visitors to the county pass over those bridges and highways every day without knowing the significance of those being honored.... Gearing up for the holidays Waynesboro is kicking off the holidays this Sunday with one of the communitys favorite shopping days Downtown Open House, and other events will follow as the Christmas season draws near. The Annual Downtown Open House, which is sponsored by the Waynesboro Downtown Development Authority (DDA) and the Burke County... Shadrack rumored to get liquor store The Waynesboro City Council voted to appoint Rob White to the Historic Preservation Commission Monday. The HPC has five voting commissioners and two ex officio commissioners who do not vote. Ex officio members are not required to live in the county and as long as they have something to contribute,... Sardis Breast Cancer Walk A crowd of people participated in The Reduce Your Risk Breast Cancer Walk November 13 at 9 a.m. at the SGA Elementary School, Sardis. We're sorry! This content is only available to online subscribers. Please login below or Subscribe today! Username Password Remember Me Forgot Password EZULWINI Help us get back our money amassed illegally through enactment of legislation to provide for asset seizure. This is the clear message which has been relayed by the multi-billion Emalangeni retirement and pension funds industry to the newly-sworn Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini and yet to be appointed Cabinet ministers. Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Sandile Dlamini said the onus of the newly-appointed and elected officials together with Legislature, would be to devise a comprehensive formula or strategy that would see into that assets accumulated by corrupt means gets taken back to where they genuinely belong. What will be important is not just to incarcerate the culprits but recover the assets they gained through corrupt means, Dlamini advised during the Eswatini Retirement Funds breakfast meeting convened at the Royal Swazi Spa Gigis Restaurant yesterday. Dlamini recalled that a majority of presentations made during the Peoples Parliament (Sibaya) convened last week, were centred on combating corruption. He said this showed that there was a strong willingness by senior officials in high echelons of power to minimise the negatives of this social ill, especially on the economy, which was a step in the right direction. We are ecstatic that a promising PM has been appointed and confident that they will drive the economy towards the right direction, Dlamini emphasised. Without substantiating his allegations, the CEO said there had been enormous land which had been taken away through corrupt practices since the kingdom gained independence from British colonialism in 1968, which ought to be brought back to its rightful owners. Therefore, providing another valid reason why asset forfeiture would work a great deal in terms of reviving the economy through giving back to Ceaser what belongs to Ceaser. The country suffers a double loss through corruption. We lose out on tax and ill gotten wealth which provides all the reason to eliminate corruption in order to bring about economic transformation, Dlamini stated. Further, Dlamini said focus also ought to be given to eliminating loopholes in the procurement system. He claimed that overpricing was rife, especially in the utilisation of public funds which should come to an end. Government spends nearly E10 billion of public funds in procurement of goods and services without following the laid down procedure. Scathing Swaziland Public Procurement Regulatory Agency (SPPRA) recently made this scathing revelation on how public funds get used by parastatals and central government procures goods and services without adhering to the Public Procurement Act of 2011, especially section 45 which informs processes how a tender should be issued and granted. SPPRA scting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Musa Sikhondze, decried the manner in which public funds were being used up without adhering to the act. He mentioned that parastatals such as the Swaziland Revenue Authority (SRA) fully adhered to the act but there remained a lot of entities that breach the law almost on a daily basis. MBABANE - Sometimes bad things happen to good people. This popular saying proved to be true to Eswatinis top comedian Mduduzi Mdura Dlamini, when he got hijacked and robbed of his items last Sunday at Mahwalala in Mbabane. Mdura, who was in the company of his manager Larry Mhlanga and South African Idols Finalist Xmile, were hijacked and robbed around 10pm, after performing at the popular MTN Rhymes and Laughter show at Sibebe Resort. In the tragic incident, the South African star was robbed of a Huawei P10 cellphone worth over E13 000 and about E4 500 cash, totalling the loss to over E17 000. It is said that the incident prevailed around 10pm when the comedian was driving his manager, Mhlanga, and his children to his house in Mpolonjeni through the Nhlanganisweni road. Blocked Four unknown and armed men blocked the road, hijacked the car at Mahwalala and robbed them of their items after attempting to steal the car. After being defeated in stealing the car, the four men flee the scene, living the victims unharmed. Confirming the incident was Mdura, stating that it was tragic. However, he stated that he was grateful that they were left unharmed. Unharmed We are grateful for our lives and for being left unharmed. There is nothing they took from us that we cannot replace with time, said the comedian. Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati, confirmed this tragic incident. No arrests in relation to this incident which befell the comedian and his acquaintances have been made, said Vilakati. MANZINI His plans of making it to Cairo have been slightly disturbed after he lost his passport while in the Kingdom of Eswatini. This is the story of Thato Sengange Molosankwe (40) who started walking from Cape Town on July 18, 2018 and his goal is to reach Cairo and hopefully inspire men from all walks of life along the way. The entire journey of 49 African countries is expected to take Molosankwe a period of over a year to complete. Molosankwe said when he reached Eswatini through Mahamba border Gate, he was from Lesotho. He said while in the kingdom, he visited the Gables Shopping Centre in Ezulwini and decided to withdraw some money as he felt hungry. The bank cards were inside a wallet, which had the passport as well. I suspect that I mistakenly dropped it while withdrawing the money from the ATM. When I discovered that I had lost it, I immediately went to the police to report the incident. Losing the passport has not at all deterred me on my walk to Cairo. It is an unfortunate incident, however, I am hoping it will be found as soon as possible, Molosankwe said. Forced He mentioned that if not found by Friday, he would be forced to fly back to South Africa to apply for a new one, which would take approximately three weeks. I am currently on my way to Lobamba Police Station for an affidavit. A video footage could be played to see who took it. The affidavit will be used for the application of the new one, just in case the lost one is not found, he said. Meanwhile, Molosankwe said upon his arrival in Mahamba, he received a warm reception from the station commander and other officers from the police post. Pointing at his camp tent, he said it was a very useful shelter, as he sought refuge in police stations, where he was provided with protection, especially during the night. He said he was roped in by the Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA) to discuss issues of gender-based Violence (GBV). During the walks, I try to engage men on violence, why they would abuse their partners and end up killing them. I have heard horrifying stories. We have the recent case of the pastor who is currently appearing in court for the alleged rape of young women in South Africa. I also read a story while I was in Eswatini on a similar case, which proves that this is a problem affecting all the countries. Gender-based violence has to end, we need to intervene, take action and find solutions, Molosankwe said. He also mentioned that he had enough of untold stories and wanted abuse to end. Molosankwe added that the 42 177 kilometres would not only challenge him, but also the opinions of men in Africa as a whole. Many women stay in abusive relationships and marriages for the wrong reasons, it could be because of culture and embarrassment, among others. Along his walk, Molosankwe also makes stops at schools to educate the pupils about abuse. He also speaks to men he meets along the roadside and explains how devastating abuse was to women and reasons with them about being the change. privileged Asked why he did not lose weight due to the walks, Molosankwe said he was privileged as the people he came across fed him all sorts of food. Meanwhile, SWAGAAs Communications and Advocacy Officer Slindele Nxumalo said Molosankwes walk had come at a time when every stakeholder in the fight against GBV was desperate for a solution towards ending this scourge. SWAGAA sincerely appreciates the courage and commitment exhibited by this man, as he has personally dedicated himself towards fighting GBV across Africa. With his experience, new and unknown drivers of violence will be uncovered, subsequently guiding activists such as SWAGAA on how best this scourge could be tackled, Nxumalo said. LOZITHA Whether government is already saving costs or not, the new Prime Minister, Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini is using the late former premiers vehicle. The new PM was chauffeured to Mandvulo Grand Hall in the Mercedes Benz that was last used by the late PM Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini. Just after 11am, the new PM was chauffeured to the meeting where the new legislator met with the King in the silver car, registered GSD 001 PC. The car is registered under government. It could not be established whether Dlamini would continue utilising the car or this was a temporary measure while their conditions of service as the 11th Parliament were still being addressed. However, onlookers said they were pleased that the new premier had utilised the government car as it was still in good condition. MBABANE Well-known Manzini businessman Mike Mamba is demanding E465 000 from the estate of the late Victor Gamedze. Mamba has since instituted legal proceedings against the estate of the late Gamedze and the Master of the High Court where he is demanding payment of the aforementioned amount. He alleged that during his lifetime, the late Gamedze had a business relationship with him. Mamba claimed that in terms of the business relationship, he (Mamba) would provide transportation services of goods and merchandise to the deceased. The goods were transported from within SADC countries including South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho and Mozambique, including Tanzania and Malawi, submitted Mamba. According to Mamba, it was the term of the agreement that he was to provide transportation of the goods to various destinations and the deceased was to pay him for same in the amount of E465 000. The nature of goods that Mamba claimed to have transported for Gamedze is not outlined and/or stated in the agreement purportedly signed by the parties. The alleged agreement has been annexed to Mambas particulars of claim. He averred that the agreement between him and the late Gamedze was made in Mbabane. Mamba informed the court that Gamedze signed an acknowledgment of debt. Mamba submitted that he had already rendered the services at the time of signing of the acknowledgment of debt. Debt He averred that the acknowledgment of debt was a confirmation of indebtedness of Gamedze to him for services already performed at the time of signature by both parties to the agreement. The businessman alleged that the acknowledgment was personally signed by Gamedze and he reportedly did so voluntarily and under no compulsion whatsoever. I provided the transportation services to the deceased and he met his death before paying for the services I rendered at his special instance and request, alleged Mamba. He highlighted that Gamedze met his untimely death on or about January 14, 2018 and could not perform his obligations arising from the agreement, being payment of the service fee in the amount of E465 000. Mamba claimed that he had written letters of demand to the defendants but they allegedly refused and/or repudiated the claim and further challenged him to file his matter in court. Retention The retention of monies by the defendant is unlawful and is perpetuating an incident of unlawful breach of the agreement of services between the plaintiff (Mamba) and the deceased, reads part of Mambas particulars of claim. The matter is still pending in court and the respondents in the matter are yet to file their papers. Mamba averred that the High Court had necessary jurisdiction to hear and determine the matter as it arose between a private individual residing and doing business within the borders of the Kingdom of Eswatini. LOZITHA Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Eswatini Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini has been christened with the name Sibaya. This occurred over the weekend when he underwent the traditional initiation (kubutseka) into one of the Kings regiments. The traditional name was revealed by the PM when he introduced himself to the parliamentarians before His Majesty King Mswati III. Sibaya literally means that he was given the name because he was the first PM to be chosen at Sibaya (cattle byre) after he made his submissions on improving the economy before the King and nation. The premier informed the legislators that they each had only three minutes to introduce themselves before the King and also give solutions on how the countrys economy could be turned into a prosperous one. These before you, Your Majesty, are the parliamentarians from each chamber and they are all very excited to be in front of you, especially because they are the ones who have on their shoulders, the task to deliver on Vision 2022, said Dlamini. He said this was the first Parliament that was expected to take the country to First World status. The premier said all the arms of government, including the Judiciary, needed to work together. He said he was fortunately able to articulate what he wanted to say at Sibaya when he made his presentation. As parliamentarians and various government ministries, you are expected to contribute meaningful ideas that will take us to First World Status, said Dlamini. He gave the example of Singapore, a country he said at one point was forced to import water from Malaysia, but said nowadays it was one of the leading economies of the world. This is a great challenge, but I can assure you that it is possible to achieve it, said Dlamini. Again he recapped the manner in which the Parliamentarians were expected to address the King. 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. English French OTTAWA, Oct. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Canadian Museum of Nature is pleased to announce the support of Enbridge Inc. as presenting sponsor of the museums new exhibition that shares inspiring stories of Canadian women in science. Courage and Passion: Canadian Women in Natural Sciences profiles amazing women who have broken barriers to pursue their passion for science. It reveals the contributions of innovative trailblazers in science from the 17th century right up to present times. The exhibition, which opened July 28 and runs until March 31, 2019, also addresses the social and gender barriers these women faced, with contemporary insights to inspire girls and young women with an interest in science. Enbridge is pleased to support this exhibit in honour of the trail-breaking efforts of women in science, said Roxanna Benoit, Vice President Public Affairs, Communications and Sustainability. We are proud to celebrate the history of these pioneering women, who not only contributed to such a diversity of scientific pursuits, but also put their energy into paving the way for future generations. We are extremely grateful to Enbridge Inc. for its support in bringing the stories of these women to light, says Meg Beckel, President and CEO of the Canadian Museum of Nature. Many of those featured in Courage and Passion pursued their work with little outside recognition, but their stories should be known by all Canadians, especially young people with a passion for science. The exhibition highlights trailblazers in numerous science disciplines, such as botany, zoology, geology, agriculture, physics, paleontology and even early medicine. A historical timeline introduces 20 key women scientists and their accomplishments. Artefacts, archival documents, specimens and videos help share their stories. A second section presents current opportunities in sciencewhether in the lab, in the field, in the classroom or in the boardroomwhile challenging some of the gender stereotypes girls still face today. Throughout the exhibition, three young guidesa grade-schooler, a teen and a university studentshare their take on women in science. The exhibition was developed by the museum to mark 100 years since gender was removed as a barrier to voting in federal elections, effectively granting women the right to vote. The milestone was passed when the museum served as the temporary home for Parliament following the fire that destroyed the Centre Block in 1916. Supporting sponsors for Courage and Passion are Lundin Mining and Sherritt International. The museum will host a special event celebrating the success of Courage and Passion on Tuesday, October 30. For more information about the exhibition, visit nature.ca. U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (center) was the guest speaker at Tuesdays Titusville Rotary Club meeting held at Towne Square Building. Kelly is joined by Rotary members Chris Fiely (left) and Jen Snyder. Black Friday deals experts at Consumer Articles share the best early HP Chromebook, Surface Pro & Apple MacBook laptop deals of Black Friday 2018 BOSTON, Oct. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) In search of the best MacBook, Surface & traditional laptop deals for Black Friday 2018? Online sales analysts at Consumer Articles have reviewed the best Black Friday laptop deals for 2018 and are listing the top choices for shoppers below. Best early Black Friday laptop deals: The team of online sales specialists at Consumer Articles help shoppers save money by tracking the best online deals across a range of products. This year Consumer Articles are predicting deals on a broad range of laptops from manufacturers including HP, Apple, Samsung, Acer, Microsoft and Dell. Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2018 sales are on track to break online spending records with more shoppers than ever set to take to the web to search for deals. A total of $19.62 billion was spent online during the Black Friday sales weekend last year. This represents a 15% ($2.6 billion) increase over the same period the year before. About Consumer Articles: Consumer Articles review the latest news and trends in the world of online retail and e-commerce. Consumer Articles participates in affiliate programs including the Amazon Associates program and earns income by providing links to Amazon.com and other websites. Media Contact: Andy Mathews (andy@nicelynetwork.com) By Azernews By Narmina Mammadova SIAL Paris, one of the largest food exhibitions in Europe, has ended in Paris. The national stand was popular and the exhibition brought Azerbaijan worthy contracts on the supply of local goods to foreign countries. Products of 23 Azerbaijani companies were represented at the Made in Azerbaijan stand, Azerbaijans Economy Ministry said in a message on October 30. National products attracted the attention of visitors and foreign companies by its quality and taste just like at previous exhibitions. As part of the exhibition, a preliminary agreement was reached on the export of wine and other alcoholic beverages of the Azerbaijani company A+Co to Norway, as well as export of the products of the Goygol Wine Factory to the U.S., Cambodia and China. Negotiations were held on the export of products of Azerbaijani companies Aznar and Agro-Azerinvest to Brazil, Ukraine and Germany. Tovuz Baltiya company conducted negotiations with companies from Japan, Italy, China, Romania and Cambodia to export its products. In addition, the Azerbaijani company Mars-FK reached an agreement on exporting 36 tons of nuts to France, 18 tons to Djibouti and also 18 tons of nuts per week to Poland. Meanwhile, Kaslar company has reached an agreement to export 40 tons of nuts to Poland. In the near future, the export of products to the mentioned countries will be launched. In addition, an agreement was reached between the Azerbaijani company Eco-Dry and Al-Camil company from Djibouti to sign an agreement on the export of apples. The company Azerstar, which produces fruits and vegetables, reached an agreement to export its products to Russia, Italy and France, while AZ-Granata company reached an agreement to export pomegranate juice to Israel, the U.S., and pomegranate wine to Spain. Balkhurma company continues negotiations with wholesale companies in France, Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Romania, as well as with Horeca chain of stores operating in Italy, Dubai, Egypt and Japan, for the export of its products. The exhibition in Paris was attended by 7,020 companies from 109 countries. Participation in the major food exhibitions is a valuable tool for promoting national products and increasing non-oil export. Export missions is another way of attracting interest of foreign companies to the local products. Earlier, the products of the Azerbaijani companies included in the export mission caused great interest among Mongolian companies too. Azerbaijani companies Absheron-Sharab, A+Co, Merit Brand, Sharg Ulduzu, Agro-Azerinvest, Aspi Agro, Azeri met with the largest distributor of wine products in Mongolia - World Wine LLC and Sansar chain stores. Primary agreements were reached on the export of Azerbaijani wines to Mongolia, as well as on the export of products between the Azerbaijani company Aspi Agro and the Mongolian company World Wine. An agreement on the sale of plant extract was also reached between the Azerbaijani company Herba Flora and the Mongolian company Vitalit Invest. The Azerbaijani company Konfirom and the Mongolian companies Shizhirzhin Group, Altan Jolo Impex, McN Export negotiated on the export of confectionery products, Gilan FMCG and the Mongolian Vertus Group and supermarket chain Sansar - on the export of fruit juices and canned products. The opening of trading houses is one of the significant events carried out within the framework of expanding the export of Azerbaijani products and promoting the Made in Azerbaijan brand. Earlier, agreements were reached with a Chinese company selling alcoholic beverages, as they liked Azerbaijani wines for their taste and prices. As a result, Azerbaijani pavilion was opened in the Chinese city of Luzhou in late September. Today, trading houses of Azerbaijan are open in Belarus, Latvia and Ukraine. Until the end of 2018, it is planned to open trade and wine houses in the UAE, Russia, Poland and Kazakhstan. The retail sales volume general index (turnover in fixed prices) rose 3.2 pct in August compared with the same month last year Greek retail sales volume grew 3.2% in August mainly thanks to tourism with only the fuel category recording a decline, Hellenic Statistical Authority said on Wednesday, according to ANA. The statistics service, in a monthly report, attributed this development to sales rises in furniture/home appliances (6.7 pct), supermarkets (6.1 pct), bookstores (3.2 pct), department stores (2.9 pct), food/tobacco/alcohol (2.1 pct), pharmaceuticals/cosmetics (0.8 pct) and clothing/footwear (0.7 pct). On the other hand the volume of sales fell in fuel/lubricants (2.2 pct). RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: ChristosV License: CC-BY-SA The 8th Annual Capital Link Operational Excellence in Shipping Best Industry Practices Forum, is organized today at the Athens Hilton, focuses on strategies to address the challenges ahead for the shipping industry. The forum brings together leaders and representatives from across the shipping industry. Attendees include senior executives from 29 major shipping companies, three major classification societies (Bureau Veritas, DNVGL, and Lloyds Register), the Liberian Registry (the biggest registry in the world), the International Maritime Organization, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the heads of four international shipping organizations (BIMCO, INTERCARGO, INTERTANKO, and the European Community Shipowners Association). Furthermore, representatives will be in attendance from global banks (ABN AMRO, DVB Bank) and from ExxonMobil. This years theme is The Industry at a Crossroads, and the three top agenda items to be discussed are the transformational impact of technology and digitalization, the necessity of maritime education, and forthcoming environmental regulations. This latter topic will be the one for which the most time will be devoted. Read more at greekreporter.com RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report The largest hub for cargo headed to and from northern Greece The head of the recently privatized Thessaloniki Port Authority (OL.Th) this week promised to maintain the ports status as the largest hub for cargo headed to and from northern Greece, as well as aggressively expanding into neighboring Serbia, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM). Addressing a one-day seminar in the northern Greece metropolis, port authority president and CEO Sotiris Theofanis said the port is ready to open transit hubs in Skopje, Sofia and Belgrade. He also said Greece can sustain up to three major transit hubs. According to its concession agreement, the now privately-run port authority must implement 180 million euros in initial investments, including a rebuilding of the pier at the container terminal, replacement of cargo cranes and capacity. Read more at naftemporiki.gr RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: George M. Groutas License: CC-BY-SA Regulators in Beijing are focusing on POS payments - through Greek banks - by PRC nationals to acquire property in Greece, thereby taking advantage of the visa program Alleged violations of China's capital controls in Greek real estate transactions linked with the so-called "Golden Visa" program have involved a high-profile executive vice-president of the Jumbo group, one of the biggest toy and children's retailers in southeast Europe, naftemporiki.gr reports. News of the financial investigation by Chinese authorities generated an immediate reaction in Athens this week, with Jumbo founder and CEO Apostolos Vakakis reportedly requesting the resignation of the ATHEX-listed company's VP and board member Evangelos Papaevangelou. The latter has founded a real estate holding and management company over the recent period - completely separate from Jumbo - that has aggressively entered in the property sector in the east Mediterranean country, especially in e-auctions. Regulators in Beijing are focusing on POS payments - through Greek banks - by PRC nationals to acquire property in Greece, thereby taking advantage of the visa program. The latter grants third country nationals a residency visa when they purchase real estate in Greece with transactions exceeding 250,000 euros. Reports on Wednesday morning in the Greek capital cited possible involvement by Greek tax authorities, given that the "golden visa" program reportedly does not envision the use of POS payments. "There is no surprise in the field of realtors regarding the specific pyramid program of buying and selling properties to Chinese involving a Greek businessman. It was known to all that there are groups of people, who in cooperation with Chinese agents, buy apartments at ridiculously low prices which they then transfer to the Chinese, earning thousands of euros from this procedure and the finals buyer takes the residency permit in our country", commented Ioannis Revythis, president of the Realtors Federation Greece, according to ANA. 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 Omans Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has awarded a contract to build a landmark 100 megawatt (MW) solar photovoltaic independent power producer (IPP) project to a joint Japanese-Omani consortium. The Marubeni Consortium, comprising the Marubeni Corporation (Japan) as the lead founder, Oman Gas Company, Bahwan Renewable Energy Company and Modern Channels Services, won the bidding process which attracted competitive tenders from highly reputed global developers in the renewable energy industry. The plant will provide power for PDOs interior operations and be the first of its type in Oman. It will also be the worlds first utility-scale solar project to have an oil and gas company as the sole wholesale buyer of electricity. The project includes the design, procurement, construction, commissioning, financing and operation and maintenance of the solar photovoltaic plant with a capacity of 100 MW. The installation will be located at Amin, which lies in southern Oman in PDOs concession area, approximately 210 km northwest of Thumrait. The power will be structured as an IPP under the terms of the power purchase agreement for a period of 23 years. The awarding ceremony will take place on November 7 at PDOs Muscat headquarters when more information will be released. PDO managing director Raoul Restucci said: We look forward to working with the Marubeni Corporation and consortium partners to build our first IPP renewable energy project and as another building block in support of Oman's outstanding potential in renewable energy. PDO has already ventured into solar energy with the large Miraah solar plant in Amal, which it is developing with partners GlassPoint Solar to produce steam for thermal enhanced oil recovery. PDO is also installing thousands of solar panels in car-parks at its Mina Al Fahal headquarters to power key offices and feed into the national grid during non-working hours. TradeArabia News Service The Egyptian Government, represented by the Ministry of Trade and Industry and Ministry of Education and Technical Education, has signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Siemens, to improve the competitiveness of Egyptian industry, by providing world-class digitisation and automation solutions and upskilling of Egypts industrial workforce. As part of ongoing support to Egypt Vision 2030, industrialisation was identified as a central pillar of the countrys economic transformation strategy, said a statement. The agreement was signed on the sideline of the G20 Investment Summit German Business and Compact with Africa Countries in Berlin, by Engineer Amr Nassar-Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Tarek Shawki, Minister of Education and Technical Education, along with Joe Kaiser, CEO of Siemens AG. The MoU seeks to achieve progress in several areas including but not limited to, industrialisation and industrial zones, automation and digitalisation, education and training, and energy saving, safety solutions and environment protection. Engineer Amr Nassar, Minister of Trade and Industry, said: Egypt has identified industrialisation as a priority sector as part of our Vision 2030 economic development strategy. The ministry is helping lead this effort by working in partnership with industrial manufacturing and digitalisation leaders such as Siemens, who bring advanced technologies and training capabilities, he said. Through this collaboration and its emphasis on digitalization and automation, we will provide Egyptian companies with new tools to continually raise quality standards of Egyptian manufacturing and give Egyptian workers the skills and training to lead our nation to the industries of the future, he added. Emad Ghaly, chief executive officer, Siemens in Egypt, said: Building on our long history of successful collaboration in Egypt, including the successful recent delivery of a record-breaking 14.4 gigawatts of new electricity to the Egyptian people, our company will leverage its global expertise in manufacturing, digitalisation and automation to help expand Egypts industrial output, increase the competitiveness of industrial manufacturing, and expand education, training and skills throughout Egypts industrial workforce. The agreement identifies specific collaboration in the following four area: Industrialisation and Industrial Zones: Siemens will work with the government to promote industrialization, and the development of industrial zones, with focus on discrete and process industries. Siemens will bring specific expertise and industrial know-how to help Egyptian industry improve competitiveness. The government will enhance the environment in these sectors through regulatory support. To help expand Egyptian exports, Siemens will work with the government to promote industrial localisation and increase the international competitiveness of Egyptian exports by enabling regional OEMs and equipment manufacturers through adoption of automation and digitalization. Automation and Digitalisation: Siemens and the government will work, not only to increase adoption of automation and digitalisation across Egyptian industry, but also to ensure that these systems operate to global standards. As part of this effort to drive a digital transformation, Siemens will work with the ministry to promote system interconnection, data collection, data transmission, and data analytics, and to leverage Internet of Things (IoT) integration. Education and Training: Recognising the need to ensure a skilled workforce as part of this industrialisation vision, the agreement looks to upgrade existing education and training approaches via factory of the future - ready training assets and more certified industrial training instructors. This would be followed by a national rollout of industrialisation training to prepare workers for the future of manufacturing. In parallel, digitalization and industrialisation education will be integrated into existing the vocational education and training system. Up to 100 local software developers will be built up within 1.5 years as first step. Longer term, digitalisation and industry-specific training will be enabled through digital twin software, and connectivity to the Siemens MindSphere platform for cloud computing, data analytics, smart data, and cybersecurity. Energy Saving, Safety Solutions and Environment Protection: The agreement seeks to implement advanced energy efficiency solutions for industry, including intelligent safety and monitoring solutions for manufacturing and process automation to protect people, machines and the environment. TradeArabia News Service Du, from UAE-based Emirates Integrated Telecommunication Company (EITC), has signed a network installation outsource for services (NIO) contract with China Communication Services International (CCS). The contract will enable CCS UAE to provide services for installation and maintenance works across dus vast Access and Transport Network. Building upon the UAEs burgeoning relations with the Peoples Republic of China, Osman Sultan, CEO of EITC, recently welcomed Zhaoxiong Chen, Chinese Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, along with Xu Chu Guo, of China Communication Services International (CCS), to enhance business relations and to discuss business possibilities and different models specific to the telecommunications and IT industry. Osman Sultan said: This contract signifies another bold step towards the unity and progress of our two countries and solidifies dus commitment to transform our core network so we can continue to be the backbone for solutions, services and experiences in line with the Smart City agenda. In signing this significant agreement, du will also boost development and prosperity of both the UAE and China through our aligned principles and Government-led strategic objectives. The scope of the contract between du and CCS includes telecommunication infrastructure, fibre network connectivity, FTTH, FTTX, GPON Migration, ICT Services for data centers, ISP and OSP Cabling. The implementation of this work will be carried out on both the copper and fibre networks. TradeArabia News Service The rise of machine learning and advanced sensor technologies, the shift of customer transactions from ownership to rentals and subscriptions, the reorganisation of an industry from selling cars to managing transportation assets and, the rapid redistribution of profits from sales to new profit centres, are the future trends in the automotive industry, according to an expert from Amena -the only Automotive Association for the Mena region. Alan Whaley, founder and chairman at Amena spoke about the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) at a recent digital transformation themed workshop held in Dubai and hosted by CDK Global the leading-dealer management software provider for the global automotive retail industry. Commenting on the power of AI, Whaley said: Vehicles in the future will be equipped with a wide number of internal and external sensors feeding AI that will be able to detect cognitive and emotional state of cabin occupants, through which every journey can be tailor-made, from background music, to route preference, inside temperature, cabin fragrance etc. CDK Global Connect is an annual event that focuses on automotive retailing. The one-day event was attended by key speakers from CDK Global who spoke about the companys strategy, product highlights and vision for the automotive industry. They were joined by Eleni Kitra, Global Sales, head of Financial Services & Automotive, Mena, at Facebook who addressed delegates about the importance of building the engine on the Facebook family of apps to generate sales for your brand along with Pierre De Feuardant, Business Development Manager, Mena at Google Mena who spoke about the change in the GCC car buying customer behaviour. Commenting on customer behaviour in the GCC, De Feuardant said: Our research suggests that digital is the way forward, especially in the GCC car buying process. Furthermore, it takes car buyers in the GCC 900+ digital touchpoints to buy a car, with 67 per cent of UAE buyers not loyal to a specific brand. The car buying process also varied according to each country with buyers in the UAE making a purchase within two weeks, while 71 per cent in Kuwait will buy a car within two months with 53 per cent of the dealership visits happening in the third month of the car buying process. However, the same percentage is willing to buy from a dealer who they had no relationship with in the past. This poses as a challenge for dealers who are eager to win customers back. Hence its essential for dealers to compare, understand and monitor the contribution of each media to driving sales, he added. Additional reports from Google Mena suggested that online research is the first and most important part of the car buying process for UAE buyers with 38 per cent investing time in doing a thorough research about the new car they will buy, while 57 per cent will start their research with a query. Voice search associates with this trend, enabling demanding buyers to explore newer concepts on the go. Eighty-two per cent of buyers considered YouTube as the primary destination to watch videos about cars while 89 per cent felt the platform showcased independent and credible videos about cars. Janne Kilpelainen, general manager Middle East at CDK Global, said: At CDK Global we understand that the industry is changing rapidly, and in a changing industry our role also needs to change. Hence were making an effort to develop a flexible retail operating platform to connect manufacturers, dealers, our partners and consumers. This platform would focus on digitalisation of automotive workflows that would ultimately create a seamless consumer experience. CDK Global invests heavily in research and development, identifying the challenges faced by automotive retailers all over the world to help them improve their service. CDK Globals integrated DMS technology allows dealer groups to create a consistently high customer experience across all sites. - TradeArabia News Service SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, Oct. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Almas Jiwani, CEO of the Almas Jiwani Foundation and a global voice for gender equality and womens economic empowerment, addressed the TELUS International womens group Connections at TELUS Internationals offices in Santa Tecla, El Salvador on October 11th, 2018. Miss Jiwani presented a motivating opening speech about how women can continue to seek opportunities to reach their full potential, and also took part in a panel exchange to help facilitate discussion on the challenges young Salvadoran women face today. Over 50 women from middle and upper management attended the meeting, and key TELUS International leaders shared in the dialogue. The meeting concluded with a tour of TELUS Internationals impressive facilities just outside San Salvador. "We are honored to welcome Ms. Almas Jiwani and have her speak and inspire our team members. This has been a very special event for Connections - the TELUS women's network, a special group within the company that promotes the empowerment of women, and their professional and personal growth. Connections - the TELUS women's network, is an initiative from our parent company TELUS, and El Salvador was the first country in TELUS International to have its own Connections chapter. Group members participate in leadership development opportunities, volunteer together in their communities, and connect with one another at networking events," said Jose Calderon, VP of Operations for El Salvador. I am often asked if I agree that womens empowerment is more about mindsets than anything else. I agree that for us to see material change in this area, it requires that men and women in society start from a premise that we are equals, and that is indeed a mindset change. Thats a mindset that accepts that women are as capable as men of running a country, or an organization. Its a mindset that does not automatically devalue the worth of an idea or task simply because it has been fulfilled historically by a woman. Its a mindset that does not think it is a waste of resources to educate women and give them access to resources, said Almas Jiwani, CEO of Almas Jiwani Foundation. Almas concluded her presentation by asking attendees: What would our collective future look like if we as women actually defined our lives for ourselves? If we chose to shake off the restrictions forced on us by our backgrounds, the expectations of family and those close to us, and by what we are told by others are our limitations? How much more could we - as women - achieve? added Jiwani. About the 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 TELUS International TELUS International focuses on the value of human connection to design, build and deliver high-tech, high-touch customer experiences powered by next-gen digital solutions. With over 30,000 team members and delivery centers across North and Central America, Europe and Asia, TELUS International empowers customer experience innovation through digital enablement, spirited teamwork, agile thinking, and a caring culture that puts customers first. Learn more at: telusinternational.com Contact information Almas Jiwani Foundation Nicole Mankinen VP, Communications and International Development info@almasjiwanifoundation.org www.almasjiwanifoundation.org Canadian Embassy in El Salvador Valerie Bouchard Foreign Policy and Public Affairs Officer www.sansalvador.gc.ca (503) 2133-1129 Centro Financiero Gigante, 63 Avenida Sur y Alameda Roosevelt Lobby II, San Salvador, El Salvador Emirates has expanded the network of destinations served by its flagship A380 aircraft with the launch of new scheduled A380 services to Hamburg and Osaka this week. The inaugural A380 service from Dubai to Osaka landed on October 28 at 16:55 local time while the second A380 service launch from Dubai to Hamburg landed at 12:55 local time on October 29. Both aircraft were greeted by traditional water cannon salutes, and VIP delegations from Dubai, Hamburg and Osaka, including Emirates executives, VIP guests, media and industry partners, attended ceremonies in the arrival airports. For Emirates, the A380 inaugural flight to Hamburg was a special celebratory event, marking the homecoming of the aircraft to the city where it was manufactured and fitted out. To celebrate the launch, Emirates chefs created a special menu, allowing passengers to have a taste of the region in flight and enjoy specialty German dishes. As with all Emirates flights to Japan, passengers on board the inaugural flight enjoyed Japanese inspired cuisine, including traditional Kaiseki menus and specially-designed bento boxes. On arrival at Kansai International Airport, flight EK316 was received with a warm welcome and both its operating crew and airport staff greeted each other by exchanging a traditional Japanese bow. Emirates has grown demand for its services on both routes and together with the increasing popularity of the Emirates A380 experience among customers, the airline made the decision to deploy its A380 aircraft to both Osaka and Hamburg. With 105 A380s in its fleet, Emirates operates this popular aircraft to the most number of global cities of any airline. Osaka became Emirates 49th global A380 destination while its long-time friendship city Hamburg joined the A380 network as the airlines 50th A380 destination. Flights to Osakas Kansai International Airport were introduced as a daily service in April 2004 and Emirates has since transported nearly 2.6 million passengers between Osaka and Emirates Dubai hub. With the A380 now serving the route, Osaka joins Tokyos Narita as another of Japans airport gateways operated by Emirates A380 aircraft. Emirates is now operating all German gateways with its A380 fleet, including Frankfurt, Munich and Dusseldorf in addition to Hamburg, making Germany the most served European country by the Emirates A380 after the UK. Emirates started operating daily Hamburg flights in March 2006 and introduced a second daily service from September 2011. We are finally bringing our flagship aircraft home as all our A380s are being fitted at Airbus in Hamburg. We are the first airline to offer scheduled A380 services into Hamburg and we are proud to operate the A380 on flights to all German gateways, said Thierry Antinori, Emirates executive vice president and chief commercial officer. Adding Osaka to our growing list of A380 destination cities allows us to provide our customers in Japan with the best-in-class onboard product and innovative offering that the aircraft offers this is a great achievement for us. Osaka is a significant gateway for Emirates in Japan and this capacity increase allows us to extend our A380 service to passengers who appreciate an unrivalled travel experience, he said. Flights on Emirates Dubai-Osaka route operate as EK316/ 317, served by a three-class configured A380 aircraft that can accommodate 489 passengers, with 399 spacious Economy Class seats on the main deck and 76 fully flat-bed mini-pods in Business Class in addition to 14 First Class Private Suites on the upper deck. EK316 departs Dubai (DXB) daily at 03:05hrs and arrives in Osaka (KIX) at 16:55hrs (arrival time is 17:05hrs from December 1 until March 31, 2019). EK317 departs Osaka at 23:35hrs and lands in Dubai (DXB) at 05:45hrs the following morning (all times are local). For travellers from Hamburg, flights will have a total of 517 seats in a three-class configuration, with 427 spacious seats in Economy on the main deck, 76 fully flat-bed seats in Business and 14 First Class Private Suites on the upper deck. EK061 will depart from Dubai every day at 15:00hrs and arrive in Hamburg (HAM) at 19:05hrs. The return flight, EK062, is scheduled to depart Hamburg at 21:00hrs and lands in Dubai at 06:20hrs the next morning (all times are local). In addition to the flight operated by the A380, the additional daily flights EK059/EK060 between Dubai and Hamburg will serve the route, operated by a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. - TradeArabia News Service Customers travelling on Emirates flights to India in the coming days are in for a special treat as the airline celebrates the festival of lights with traditional Diwali delicacies. From November 4 to 10, customers travelling in all classes between Dubai and India will enjoy classic Indian sweets and delicacies associated with Diwali. Emirates will also extend the celebrations to select lounges across its global network by offering its customers special dishes. During the festival week, Emirates customers in Economy Class can enjoy gram flour-based Motichoor Laddu served with all meals. In First Class and Business class, passengers can look forward to fig-based Anjeer Chakkar and Motichoor Laddu in addition to the dessert menu. On November 7, Emirates premium lounges in Dubai, Delhi, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Kuala Lumpur will also join in the celebrations and serve sweets such as barfis, laddoos, jalebis; mains such as biryani rice and chapatti; snacks like dal kachori, samosa; and desserts such as angoori rabdi, Rasmalai and kheer. The celebrations are part of Emirates ongoing investment to offer customers seasonal menus and a chance to sample new flavours from different destinations when travelling. In all classes, Emirates serves multi-course meals prepared by award-winning chefs. The airlines regionally inspired cuisine is often complemented by seasonal offerings, such as special menus for Christmas, Lunar New Year, Oktoberfest, and Eid. To give customers a behind-the-scenes look at how it creates its onboard menus and works with its global partners, Emirates has recently launched its own Food and Wine channels on ice. The Food Channel showcases the detail that goes into menu development by Emirates chefs and ingredient sourcing for onboard meals. The Wine Channel gives an inside look into Emirates $700 million dollar investment in fine wines and its regional and seasonal food menus prepared by award-winning chefs. Both the Emirates Food and Wine Channels can now be viewed on all flights. - TradeArabia News Service Experts at dnata Travel have handpicked a bespoke selection of offers for UAE travellers to make the most of the upcoming long weekend in celebration of UAE National Day (December 2). The curated selection of holiday packages contains return flights to destinations across the world with a three-night stay in a five-star hotel with breakfast included, all priced at under Dh2,000 ($544.4) per person. With our UAE National Day offers, we wanted to include destinations at a close enough flight time to enjoy over a long weekend, and also locations that are popular or currently trending with UAE travellers, said Emily Williams, head of product at dnata Travel. Destinations included in the specially tailored list are Bangkok, Prague, Cairo, The Dead Sea, Istanbul, Baku, Salalah, Yerevan, Kuala Lumpur, and Kuwait City. Over the summer months, some of the most popular destinations to travel to from the UAE with dnata Travel included Bangkok which will be in its dry season in December and Istanbul, which is cooler in the winter months for city explorers, added Williams. December is also the perfect time to experience Prague whilst the city transforms into a real-life winter wonderland and hosts its renowned annual festive markets. This is an outstanding opportunity to experience some of the worlds most sought-after destinations for UAE travellers in popular, luxury hotels - all at special rates, Williams said. The list of special offers is available on a dedicated page on the Dnata Travel website. - TradeArabia News Service Deutsche Bank Launches Big Data Service Securities Service Deutsche Bank is launching its enterprise analytics capability, which collates and analyses millions of lines of data daily to identify opportunities for efficiencies in the banks and its clients securities settlements. Deutsche Banks Securities Services will be bringing live its new enterprise analytics capability in November 2018, enabling daily data analysis on securities transactions. Starting with the German market and with a wider roll-out planned, the platform represents a key step towards unlocking the value of Deutsche Banks huge repository of transaction data, which details the holdings and movements of cash, securities and other instruments in and out of client accounts. This launch is the fruit of agile delivery and close collaboration between Deutsche Banks Securities Services team and its Dublin-based Data Labs, bringing together business expertise, and specialist data techniques and technology to source, analyse and extract meaningful insights for the bank and its clients. This includes consolidating data from a complex landscape of systems and databases onto a new scalable platform and then integrating it with business analytics capabilities. This is a ground-breaking launch for Deutsche Bank and the wider banking industry, says Fiona Gallagher, Deutsche Banks Head of GTB Securities Services. There has been a lot of media attention surrounding technology companies moving into the banking space but this move sees us flex our own muscles when it comes to an area traditionally in the technology domain. We have the data, we have the technological and analytical capabilities via our data labs and of course, we have the banking expertise putting us in a strong position to dig into client data in a way thats yet to be fully explored in Securities Services. Deutsche Banks deep wells of data have the potential to yield insights affecting all areas of its internal and client-supporting activities. For example, one initial use case identified includes analysing clients intraday cash liquidity utilisation, providing valuable insights that enable them to optimise their available liquidity, reduce their funding costs and maximise their returns on cash. This is just the starting point for Securities Services on this journey, concludes Gallagher. Going forward, there will be continued focus on working in partnership, swiftly and smartly, both within Deutsche Bank and with our clients, to address further priority problem areas. Next on the agenda for data analytics is ensuring we can identify and understand the drivers behind settlement fails a key part of achieving settlement efficiency. This is increasingly important following the introduction of the penalty regime under Central Securities Depositary Regulation (CSDR). For more information on related topics, visit the following channels: Rosenblatt Forms Investment Banking Advisory Board Rosenblatt Securities is pleased to announce that it has formed an Investment Banking Advisory Board. Comprised of a distinguished group of financial-technology and capital-markets industry leaders, the Advisory Board will help Rosenblatts well-respected banking team stay on top of cutting-edge industry developments, expand its network and source transactions. Current members include: Tom Ascher: Executive Chairman, Quantitative Brokers; member of Centana Growth Partners Board of Advisors; former Chief Strategy Officer, International Securities Exchange and former Vice Chairman of the CBOE Christian Katz: Executive Chairman, Swiss Crypto Exchange, and Vice Chairman of Saxo Bank (Switzerland); former executive positions as CEO, SIX Swiss Exchange, Vice Chairman, Stoxx, and Chairman of FESE, the Federation of European Securities Exchanges Vivian Maese: Partner and Co-Chair of the Financial Institutions Industry Group and FinTech Industry Group, Latham & Watkins; former Deputy General Counsel, Citigroup, and General Counsel, BIDS Trading; recently named Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, and FinTech Trailblazer by The National Law Journal Akbar Poonawala, CFA: Co-Founder, Pivot Investment Partners, a late stage venture and growth equity-focused investment firm that invests in transformative fintech companies; former Head of Global Transaction Banking for the Americas, Deutsche Bank Neeraj Sahai: President & CEO, Jade Lion Capital; former President, Standard & Poors Ratings; former Head of Securities & Fund Services, Citigroup, and former board member of DTCC, CRISIL and ISSA Bill Stephenson: Founder & Partner, AIR Summit Holdings, which hosts a series of events focused on investment management technology; former Global Head of Trading, Franklin Templeton Investments Ray Tierney: President & COO, iSENTIUM; board member of several Fintech companies; former CEO, Bloomberg Tradebook Greg Tusar: Co-Founder and COO, Tagomi, an advisory firm focused on servicing the institutional space in the cryptocurrency markets; former Head of Client Market Making & Execution Services, KCG and Partner/Global Head of Electronic Trading at Goldman Sachs I have been a long-time fan of the Rosenblatt team, their expertise and the content that they produce," said new Advisory Board member Tom Ascher. Ascher added, "Rosenblatts Global Exchange Leader Conference and Financial Technologies Summit are must-attend events, and their market structure newsletters are terrific resources. With financial technology redefining markets and the businesses around them, Rosenblatt is highly attuned to the rapidly evolving landscape. I am excited to be working with them more closely in an advisory capacity, as Rosenblatt expands its commitment to serving the FinTech community. Rosenblatt has been able to successfully build upon our deep domain expertise in market structure and exchanges to expand into other areas of FinTech, said Vikas Shah, Rosenblatts Managing Director of FinTech Investment Banking. Shah added, Theres a critical need in the marketplace for a middle-market M&A and capital-raising boutique thats hyper-focused on FinTech. Im looking forward to working with the Advisory Board and leveraging their collective expertise as we strive to deliver value-add to entrepreneurs, new entrants and incumbents alike within the FinTech ecosystem. For more information on related topics, visit the following channels: Coinbase Gets Approval to Offer Crypto Custody Services in New York Score a big crypto win for the Big Apple. New York regulators just approved Coinbase to offer custody services for crypto assets. The move is designed to provide a safe and secure home for the nascent asset class as well as address a major concern for potential investors who holds the asset during trading and settlement. The new custodial entity, dubbed Coinbase Custody Trust Company LLC, was announced in an official announcement on Oct 23, according to CoinTelegraph. The New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) has authorized Coinbase CTC to provide a limited range of custody services for virtual currencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Ripple (XRP) and Litecoin (LTC). According to CoinTelegraph, Asiff Hirji, President and COO of Coinbase, stated that since 2014, the New York Department of Financial Services has proven itself to be a strong advocate in its support for the responsible growth of the cryptocurrency industry. Hirji further added: The New York State Limited Purpose Trust charter, which now enables Coinbase Custody to act as a Qualified Custodian for crypto assets, builds on our unparalleled success as a crypto custodian while holding the company to the same exacting fiduciary standards and oversight of other, mature financial institutions operating in New York. The custody service I reported to offer myriad security measurements and precautions including on-chain segregation of crypto assets, offline, multi-sig and geographically distributed transaction protection and robust cold storage auditing and reporting. For more information on related topics, visit the following channels: The delegation of Turkmenistan took part in the World Investment Forum in Geneva under the overall theme Investing in Sustainable Development (WIF-2018), which was organized by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The Turkmen delegation showcased Turkmenistans investment opportunities and economic potential at Investment Village exhibition. As part of the session on Business Development in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the Turkmen representatives briefed the forum participants on the major international projects implemented in the country in the spheres of energy, transport and industry. At the end of the WIF-2018, the exposition of Turkmenistan was awarded the UNCTAD certificate. The World Investment Forum is the pre-eminent global platform for investment and development that is held every 2 years. TURKMENISTAN.RU, 2021 Selbyville, Delaware, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Industrial Fall Protection Equipment Market will exceed USD 3.8 billion by 2024; according to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc. Rising focus on workers safety during construction, mining, energy and oil & gas industries are escalating global fall protection equipment market demand. It involves use of controls which are preferably designed to protect personnel from falling preventing deaths and injuries. Mishaps and occupational hazards including falling off the overhead platforms, or elevated work stations are factors giving rise for protection measures from various industries may foster industry growth demand. Body belts for industrial fall protection equipment market size may surpass consumption at 50 million units by 2024. These are mainly used in conjunction with full body harness to provide protection against injuries. OSHA also recommends usage of body belts during falling from elevated truck platforms. Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/1693 Germany fall protection equipment market size was valued at over 105 million in 2017. Increasing renewable energy industry demand has led to rise in product usages such as harnesses and netting may favor market growth in the region. The safety standards in Germany follow the directives of the European Union and are developed locally by the Joint German Occupational Safety & Health Strategy. Factors hindering industrial fall protection equipment market are selling of low quality and inexpensive products with nonexistence of product demand in the U.S., China, and Germany. Although, contractors or manufacturers choose to supersede requirements for fall protection to protect their workers and implement safety standards. Browse key industry insights spread across 220 pages with 193 market data tables and 25 figures & charts from the report, Industrial Fall Protection Equipment Market Share & Forecast, 2018 2024 in detail along with the table of contents: https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/fall-protection-market U.S. hard goods for industrial fall protection equipment market size is poised to exceed USD 7 million over the forecast timeframe. These include mainly anchors, retractable blocks, and carabiners. Anchors are installed in the roof and connected to lanyards which prevents workers from falling. Strict mandates regulated by the government to maintain standards at workshop to avoid hazards and injuries which in turn boost regional demand. China industrial fall protection equipment industry demand from oil & gas applications may show substantial growth at around 9% up to 2024. These are widely designed to help employees to work efficiently and durable to withstand corrosive materials, grime, and grease within the oil & gas sector. Companies offers lanyards, harnesses, ladder safety, netting, carabiners, and rescue systems designed for the industry. Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @ https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/1693 MSA Safety Company, 3M, Honeywell Miller, SKYLOTEC, and Capital Safety are key industrial players in industrial fall protection equipment market. Companies are focusing on offering complete product portfolio as per standards listed by authorities to meet required comfort and protection will stimulate fall protection equipment market growth. Also, companies offer various benefits such as ease of application, high reliability, and innovative features and are sold through companys website. Browse Related Reports: Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Market Forecast, 2017 2024 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Market will surpass USD 70 billion by 2024. Personal protective equipment is used to protect body from infection, injury, and accidental hazards along with workplace safety to the employees. It includes protective helmets, clothing, goggles, gloves, respiratory protection, and footwear. https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/personal-protective-equipment-PPE-market Industrial Head Protection Market Forecast, 2017 2024 Industrial Head Protection Market size was above USD 2.3 billion in 2016 and expects volume consumption to surpass 400 million units by 2024. Rising influence on considering workers safety at high priority in mining, oil & gas, and construction industries should drive industrial head protection market size. https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/industrial-head-protection-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. Entrepreneur Zeinab employs 43 vulnerable women, including Afghan refugees, in her sewing factory in the Iranian city of Shiraz. UNHCR/Sebastian Rich NEW YORK, United States The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi today called on UN member states to get behind a new global compact on refugees, which places the dignity, rights and aspirations of refugees and their hosts at its core. Presenting his annual report and the compact to the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly in New York, Grandi said that multilateralism was holding its ground amidst much adversity, but needed reinvigorating. Refugees are an international concern, and a shared responsibility, Grandi said. In the compact, we will for the first time have a practical workable model, a set of tools that translates this principle into action. Grandi expressed concern about how more and more frequently, refugees and migrants have become targets and casualties of divisive political agendas and of regional and international politics. See also: World leaders voice strong support for new refugee deal at UN General Assembly We must find a way to shake off the politics and bring attention back to what matters dignity, rights, and shared humanity, Grandi added. Two years ago, UNHCR was asked by the UN General Assembly to consult with all UN member states and other stakeholders to develop a new international deal for refugees known as the global compact on refugees and to propose it as part of its annual report to the world body, as Grandi did today. In the compact, we will for the first time have a practical workable model, a set of tools that translates this principle into action. Refugees, if given the opportunity, can also be catalysts of humanity, solidarity, of a sense of shared purpose in society in other words, of all that binds us together and makes us stronger in facing global challenges, Grandi said. Crises across all continents have driven the number of people forcibly displaced to 68.5 million people, including more than 25.4 million refugees, Grandi noted in his speech to the UN committee. Political solutions remain largely out of reach, he said, while the intersection of conflict with other factors like climate change, poverty and inequality have led to complex population flows, which are difficult to address. Grandi also noted that while there are many sobering examples of refugees and asylum-seekers being pushed away, there were countless local communities around the world often in remote, border areas which continue to offer protection and support to refugees despite their own limited means, driven by compassion and fundamental human values. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi (centre at dais) proposes a new international deal for refugees at the UN General Assembly's Third Committee in New York on October 31, 2018. UN Photo/Manuel Elias In many of these places, a new comprehensive response to refugees is taking root. Decades of keeping refugees apart, consigned to camps or on the margins of society are giving way to a fundamentally different approach including refugees in national systems, societies and economies of their host countries for the time that it is necessary, and enabling them to contribute to their new communities and to secure their own futures, pending a solution to their plight, Grandi said, noting the that the global compact started with the generosity of these communities. Grandi urged member states to give the collective endeavor that the compact is strong support, and to help with its implementation. Recalling the courage, resilience and determination of many displaced people he had met over the past year in Kenya, Syria, Iran and Colombia, among other countries, Grandi hoped this would be a moment to look back on. It will be up to all of us to make it work; to ensure that its promise becomes a reality for the millions of refugees and displaced people around the world who are counting on us." A moment when practical people came together to chart a different course towards a better, fairer, more equitable response to refugee crises, shielded from the vagaries of politics, adapted to our challenging world. It will be up to all of us to make it work; to ensure that its promise becomes a reality for them, and the millions of refugees and displaced people around the world who are counting on us, he concluded. The global compact on refugees is expected to be validated by the UN General Assembly by the end of 2018. You can read the full text of the High Commissioner's address here. Huge consignment of charas worth Rs 1.5 crore seized, one arrested Bettiah, Oct 31 (UNI) Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) sleuths seized huge consignment of charas worth Rs 1.5 crore and arrested a smuggler near Semribari bridge under Nakardehi outpost under Narkatiaganj police station area in West Champran district today. SSB`s 44th battalion commandant Rajesh Tikku said that the consignment was seized when it was being smuggled from Nepal. He said, a peddler identified as Dayali Rawat, a native of Dasota village under Nepal`s Sherwa police station area was arrested from the spot. An intensive interrogation of peddler is on to nab other members of his gang, Mr Tikku added. New Delhi, Oct 31 (UNI) Minister of State for Tourism, KJ Alphons on Tuesday chaired the Programme and Budget Committee meeting of United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) at Bahrain, a release from the ministry of tourism said. In his opening remarks, the Minister highlighted the role of tourism in socio-economic development through job creation, enterprise and environment development and foreign exchange earnings. As the chair of the Committee, the Minister informed the session that for the first time, UNWTO had a surplus budget and most of the arrears due have been paid. India will be the chair of Programme and Budget Committee of UNWTO Executive Council till 2021. At the sidelines, the Tourism Minister also met the Secretary-General of UNWTO, Mr. Zurab Pololikashvili and discussed on involving UNWTO in developing tourism as a strong agent for the better future of the world and establishing the Global Public Private Partnerships. The Minister, along with a delegation of senior officials, is attending the 109th session of UNWTO Executive Council in Manama, Bahrain. The three day Session of UNWTO Executive Council began on October 30 The Executive Council will discuss several topics on the agenda that are related to the development of global Tourism sector. The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is the United Nations agency responsible for the promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism. The UNWTO Executive Council represents the Organizations governing body whose task is to take all necessary measures in consultation with the Secretary-General, for implementation of its own decisions and recommendations of the Assembly and report thereupon to the Assembly. The Council meets at least twice a year, with the next meeting to be held in Bahrain. The council consists of 35 Full Members elected by the assembly in proportion of one member for every Five Full Members, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure laid down by the Assembly with a view to achieving fair and equitable geographical distribution. UNI AR SHK2145 Chicago, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Opportunity International is pleased to announce the winners of the Women and Girls Opportunity (WeGO) Awards. The inaugural WeGO Award seeks to highlight and honor Opportunity International partners around the world who work selflessly in challenging environments to implement projects that improve livelihoods and financial opportunities of women and girls around the world. Winners of this award receive a small cash prize to support their projects implementation. For nearly half a century, Opportunity International has worked to empower some of the most marginalized women around the world by listening to them, said Lydia Baldridge Meier, Senior Vice President for Philanthropy Services at Opportunity International. The WeGO Awards are meant to shine a light on some of the most innovative ways our partners are doing that work. I was thrilled to see the volume of great submissions, and I am looking forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that all our partners around the world can learn from each other. Together, we are creating opportunities for women living in poverty to change the future for themselves, their families and the world!" FIRST PRIZE ($5,000): Youth apprenticeship program in Ghana Opportunitys microfinance partner Sinapi Aba Trust runs a job training program offering livelihood opportunities to young people, mostly young women and girls (ages 15-25), who are poor, uneducated, orphaned or caring for sick parents or siblings. The livelihood program provides on-the-job apprenticeships with experienced mentors, usually Sinapi Aba Trusts clients, who lead them in developing valuable skills, including hands-on training, small business education and mentorship from female leaders in the community who help encourage and inspire the young women in the program. More than 3,000 apprentices 80 percent of whom are young women have completed the program, and a recent survey showed that one year after completion, 97 percent of graduates were employed. Sinapi Aba Trust plans to use its award winnings to expand its program to the northern part of Ghana. SECOND PRIZE ($2,500): Recovery and economic empowerment program in Malawi Opportunity Malawi partners with the Freedom from Fistula Foundation, providing financial services to women who are experiencing pain and ostracism as a result of fistula, an obstetric condition. Through the partnership, the organizations work together to help these women undergo fistula repair and reintegrate into their communities, providing financial literacy and entrepreneur training, soft loans and savings accounts to help the women launch small-scale businesses. Since 2012, more than 3,000 women and girls have gone through the program in Malawi. Opportunity Malawi hopes to reach another 1,500 women in the next three years, using part of its winnings from this award to expand its outreach. THIRD PRIZE ($1,000): Women banking agents program in India Center for Development Orientation and Training (CDOT) is an Opportunity International partner in Indias Bihar state, serving 4,000 women with loans and thousands more with access to savings opportunities. CDOT is also working to establish more women as agent bankers, small shop owners who have enough cash flow to also serve as deposit-takers or cash providers in their local community on behalf of larger financial institutions. Each agent banker earns a small transaction commission for their work. Agent bankers also help their female clients by serving as a source of financial education and encouragement. The organization hopes to expand the program and train more agent bankers beyond Bihar state. # # # ABOUT OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL Opportunity International is a global microfinance non-profit committed to ending extreme poverty and promoting quality education for poor families. Since 1971, Opportunity has helped millions of families work their way out of poverty by providing financial resources, training and delivering ongoing support to start small businesses, earn living wages and feed their families. To get more children into better quality schools, the organization provides loans to families seeking tuition and educators who want to improve local schools. In 2017, Opportunity International issued nearly $1.6 billion in loans, reaching nearly 9 million clients in 22 countries, and helped fund 1,800 schools serving more than 500,000 children. Discover more at opportunity.org or join the conversation on facebook.com/opportunityintl and twitter.com/opportunityintl. United Nations, Oct 31 (UNI) UN general secretary Antonio Guterres has informed the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that he wishes to appoint the veteran Norwegian diplomat Geir Pederson as the UN special envoy to Syria. According to the sources, the secretary general delivered the news in a letter to UN Security Council members, reports The National. I am pleased to inform you of my intention to announce the appointment of Mr Geir O Pedersen as my Special Envoy for Syria. Washington DC, Oct 31 (UNI) US defence secretary James Mattis, has called for ceasefire in Yemen while attending an event on Tuesday. "We have go to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it some time in the future," Mattis said while speaking at the United States Institute of Peace. "We need to be doing this in the next 30 days", Sputnik International reported. Yemen's population is suffering under the worst humanitarian crisis on earth, according to the United Nations. The Saudi-led coalition has been supplied with fresh munitions and mid-air fuel supplies by US and western backers. Houthi rebels have been fighting against the government in Yemen supported by Saudi Arabia. The UN says more than 7,600 people mostly civilians have been killed and close to 42,000 others injured. The fighting and a partial blockade by the coalition has also left 22 million people in need of humanitarian aid, created the world's largest food security emergency, and led to a cholera outbreak that is thought to have affected 1.1 million people. UNI XC KPV 0455 Uzbekistan Foreign Minister to visit Pakistan on Nov 1 Islamabad, Oct 31 (UNI) Mr. Abdulaziz Kamilov, Foreign Minister of Uzbekistan will pay an official visit to Pakistan on Thursday, November 1 along with a five-member delegation. During his visit he will attend delegation level talks with his Paksitani counterpart Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said a statement issued by Pakistan Foreign ministry on Wednesday. This will be the Uzbek Foreign Minister's second visit to Pakistan this year. English Dutch Highlights All business areas perform well; Dispute Wintrack II to arbitration, loss provision of 10 million; Order book at healthy level, stood at 2.0 billion end-September; Strong cash development, early reduction of credit facility to 121 million; Heijmans reiterates its forecast that all business units will make a positive contribution to the result for 2018. Ton Hillen, Chairman of the Executive Board /CEO Heijmans: The market conditions and the performance of Property Development and our residential building activities remain good, with revenues and results that continue to increase in the second half of the year. Our non-residential activities are on track with the start-up of a number of new projects, and the increased revenue will translate into a positive contribution to Heijmans operating result. The majority of our infra activities are performing in line with expectations. We remain cautious and selective in our acquisition policy, in view of current market conditions. The Wintrack II project has been terminated by client TenneT as a result of a difference of opinion. We are taking this dispute to arbitration. Our strong market positions and the positive development of our activities have improved our financial position, which has enabled us to accelerate the reduction of our credit facility to the level agreed for mid-2019. We reiterate our outlook for 2018. Property Development The positive developments at Property Development have continued, with growth in both revenue and result. The energy we have put over the past few months into maintaining a healthy pipeline of new projects up for sale, is now paying off. In the period to 26 October of this year, we sold 1,631 homes, compared with 1,636 homes in the same period of last year. Heijmans sold 922 of these homes to private buyers (2017: 1,061) and sold 709 to investors (2017: 575). Heijmans continues to feel the persistent pressure on the housing market. Due to the lack of new development locations in the Netherlands, rising costs and the availability of resources, the supply on the housing market is lagging the enormous demand, while rising house prices are putting additional pressure on the affordability of homes. Heijmans is responding to this by working with preferred procurement partners and using standardised concepts whenever possible. In the period under review, Heijmans closed a development contract with the city of Rotterdam for new-build project Havenkwartier, which includes 200 owner-occupier homes in the Katendrecht district of the city. A number of projects also progressed to the sales phase, including Greenville Leidsche Rijn and De Verbinding Spaarndammerhart, while we have been making preparations to start construction on the Land van Dico project in Uden in May 2019. Building & Technology The development of Building & Technology is on track, with clear growth in residential building activities and the targeted acquisition of non-residential projects, as well as the acquisition and extension of service & maintenance contracts. At the residential building activities, revenue, result and order book have all increased. Heijmans concept homes are very much in demand. So far this year, we have produced the shells of around 800 homes, which puts Heijmans on track to realise more than 1,000 of these homes in 2018. Heijmans offers both Heijmans Huismerk and Heijmans Wenswonen homes (in Berkel-Enschot and Nijkerk among other places), as well as Heijmans ONE homes (in Nijkerk among others). Heijmans has developed gas-free versions of these homes. The non-residential projects that Heijmans acquired at the end of 2017 and in early 2018 are progressing to the production phase, which has pushed revenues to a considerably higher level than last year. This is also contributing to the result and order book. At end-August, it was announced that Heijmans had been chosen as a preferred candidate in Schiphols Main contracts 2019 tender for the Terminals 1 & 2 Parcel, with accompanying piers. The initial term of this contract is three years, with an option to extend the contract by two terms of three years. The specification phase is now fully underway and we expect to reach a final agreement at the end of 2018, after which we will begin execution in April 2019. The construction of the New Amsterdam Court House (NACH) and the construction of the new head office for the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which Heijmans is realising in partnership with Dura Vermeer, are moving full steam ahead.Heijmans is also building a number of high-grade data centres. Heijmans realises a substantial share of these revenues from renovation, maintenance and management contracts, with a strong focus on increasing the sustainability of buildings. Examples of current projects in this segment include 174 homes in Alandsbeek, Leusden, 24 homes in Hoofddorp and 64 homes in Zoetermeer. Heijmans also completed the large-scale renovation of a care home complex in Valkenswaard, which included the realisation of 105 care apartments. As part of the non-residential activities, Heijmans is currently redeveloping the tax offices on Laan op Zuid in Rotterdam into a central government office, including maintenance. Another example is the long-term maintenance contract for former royal palace and museum Paleis Het Loo, where Heijmans is currently also renewing and extending the technical installations. Heijmans Technical Services activities (maintenance and management) once again recorded an increase in revenue and result. In this segment, Heijmans is currently working for various clients, including ministries, educational institutions and medical centres. Through its client knowledge, Services has managed to translate long-term partnerships and integrated approach into stable growth at healthy margins for many years in succession. These activities use their strong base to deliver a structural contribution to the continued development of Building & Technology. Infra Unlike Heijmans other business areas, Infra is not focused on growth. Instead, the focus on predictability and a healthy balance in its order book remains this business areas highest priority. Revenue and result were in line with expectations in the third quarter. In the third quarter, TenneT formally terminated the Wintrack II contract. The Heijmans-Europoles consortium and TenneT have failed to reach an amicable agreement and this dispute will now be submitted for arbitration. In the third quarter, Heijmans took a loss provision of 10 million for unpaid invoices and costs, as well as the settlement of any commitments already entered into. As a result of this contract termination, Infras order book has been adjusted by 130 million. Heijmans has signed a Letter of Intent with the Province of North Holland for the joint completion of the Wilhelmina lock project. The parties have reached agreements on the further planning and execution, as a result of which the project remains within the previously stated financial bandwidth. The work on this project will resume in February 2019. In Schiphols Main contracts 2019 tender, Heijmans has also been selected as a preferred candidate for the Runway sites Parcel. The specification phase for this parcel is also fully underway. We expect to complete this phase by the end of 2018, after which we will be able to start work on the project in April 2019. Heijmans recently received the final award for the maintenance of the main waterway Lemmer Delfzijl. The work on the N23 road project and the Gaasperdammerweg section of the A9 motorway are progressing according to plan. The progress of the work on the Beatrix lock in Nieuwegein is on track. The widening of the A27/A1 motorway project is close to completion, barring a number of finishing touches. In the regional infra activities, Heijmans is working on a number of projects, including the redevelopment of the Dardanellenstraat, part of Distripark in Rotterdam, for the Port of Rotterdam. We recently also delivered the redevelopment of the Quackplein in Nijmegen. Outlook Heijmans operational business is performing according to plan. Property Development and Building & Technology are making solid progress. The growth of the property development and residential building activities has continued and Heijmans has been able to seize targeted opportunities in the non-residential market, as a result of which the non-residential activities will make a positive contribution to our operating result. Although most of the infra activities are performing in line with expectations, predictability and stability remain our highest priorities. As long as the risk-return ratios in the infra market remain suboptimal, Heijmans has no growth ambitions for its infra business. While Infras results have been negatively impacted by the termination of the Wintrack II contract, these are still positive overall. Heijmans reiterates its forecast that all its business areas will make a positive contribution to its result for 2018. Heijmans cash position has developed positively and the companys debt position has further improved. As a result of this, in the third quarter Heijmans decided to reduce its credit facility by 22.75 million, which the company effectuated early October. This means that Heijmans has already realised the phased reduction to 121 million, originally scheduled for 30 June 2019, and KBC has left the bank syndicate early. The bank syndicate now consists of ABN AMRO, ING and Rabobank and these banks have committed until mid-2022. Annual results 2018 Heijmans will publish its annual results for 2018 on Thursday 21 February 2019. About Heijmans Heijmans is a listed company that combines activities related to property development, building & technology, roads and civil engineering in the areas living, working and connecting. Our constant focus on quality improvements, innovation and integrated solutions enables us to generate added value for our clients. Heijmans realises projects for private consumers, companies and public sector bodies, and together we are building the spatial contours of tomorrow. You will find additional information at our website: www.heijmans.nl For more information / not for publication: Media Marieke Swinkels-Verstappen Communications +31 73 543 52 17 mswinkels-verstappen@heijmans.nl Analysts Guido Peters Investor Relations + 31 73 543 52 17 gpeters@heijmans.nl Attachment UW Masters Degree in English Program Ranked Nationally A masters degree in English from the University of Wyoming is one of the best in the nation, according to recent rankings from the SR Education Group (SREG). The education research publisher tabbed UWs program 13th in the country for Best Online Colleges for a Masters in English. The 2019 rankings are based on salary potential and tuition rates. SREGs analysis took into account average mid-career salary data from PayScale and manually researched annual tuition rates in order to determine which schools offer the best value to their students. Inclusion on this lists shows high return on investment and commitment to affordability, two key factors to prospective students. To view the top-ranked programs, click here. SREG also ranked UW 16th in the nation for Most Affordable Masters in English Online. The rankings represent online schools across the nation that are committed to providing affordable, economical options for students. Every year, SREG manually researches the tuition rates of every accredited college offering fully online degrees in order to determine and rank the most affordable options. To view the top-ranked programs, click here. We are thrilled to see our distance MA degree included on the SER Group's rankings, says Michael Edson, director of graduate studies. The program is a three-year, cohort-based degree for working professionals. Students take all the same courses and, in addition to meeting via Zoom, they gather each summer on the UW campus for a weeklong residency course. The program builds great community even when students live in California, Colorado and Texas, Edson says. We work hard to provide students with personalized mentoring and professionalization, and this ranking shows that we're providing excellent experience and credentials while keeping costs low. Kelly Kinney, department head for English, has been impressed by Edsons work with the online graduate program. I am proud the department has been honored with these national awards, she says. While we have students from across the country pursuing the degree for a variety of reasons, I think its fair to say that most of our students value the program for the ways that it expands their professional experiences as high school language arts educators. As we grow the degree, I hope we can develop more programming that helps working professionals meet a variety of career goals, whether in education, nonprofit and public humanities work, professional writing or elsewhere. For more information, email Edson at medson@uwyo.edu or Kinney at kelly.kinney@uwyo.edu. About SR Education Group Headquartered in Kirkland, Wash., SR Education Group was founded in 2004 by CEO Sung Rhee. The companys mission is to create authoritative online resources for students seeking an online education program that best suits their budget and career aspirations. SREG is passionate about making quality education attainable for everyone and believes that objective information about education, careers and educational financing should be free and easily accessible. For more information, visit https://www.sreducationgroup.org/. Phase 1 (6 to 9 months) of potential multi-year effort Service agreement to generate US$1.7M of revenue Novoheart will have exclusive rights to the iPSC cell lines for cardiac applications Partnership is another step towards clinical translation of Novohearts technologies VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Novoheart (Novoheart or the Company) (TSXV: NVH; FWB: 3NH), a global stem cell biotechnology company, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a service agreement with Xellera Therapeutics Limited, representing Phase 1 of an intended long-term strategic partnership between the companies. The vision of the long-term partnership is to build clinical-grade human stem cell libraries for the development of cell-based therapies. Phase 1 will focus on the first steps towards Xellera Therapeutics building a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) facility for generating clinical-grade human stem cell lines, initially within the Southern Chinese population. Xellera Therapeutics is a precision medicine company founded by prominent stem cell experts from the U.K., U.S. and Hong Kong with the mission of building haplotype-matched human stem cell libraries for commercializing cell-based therapies for various degenerative conditions affecting organ systems such as the heart, the eye and the central nervous system. These clinical-grade stem cell libraries will allow quicker identification of suitable donor material for cell-based therapies, minimizing the wait and avoiding complications commonly associated with transplantation, such as immune rejection or side effects caused by immunosuppression. Under the service agreement, Novoheart has agreed to assist in the development of the haplobank of clinical-grade stem cells. Phase 1 will generate US$1.7M of revenue for Novoheart, with the services anticipated to be provided over the next 6 to 9 months. As part of the agreement, Novoheart will have exclusive rights to the human stem cell lines for producing clinical-grade human heart cells and cardiac derivatives, which it can commercialize at its discretion for research and therapeutic use. This arrangement will allow Novoheart to build a valuable new bank of clinical-grade, haplotype-matched human heart cells to develop cell-based heart therapies, and will further expand its offering into clinical applications, in addition to preclinical drug screening with the MyHeartTM Platform. This is an exciting partnership that represents our commitment to regenerative medicine, said Novoheart CSO Kevin Costa. The work were carrying out in this service agreement provides an exceptional opportunity to translate our pioneering technologies and experiences in heart engineering into developments of clinical therapies that will have direct benefits to patients. This ultimately creates significant value for both our clients and investors." About Novoheart: Novoheart is a global stem cell biotechnology company pioneering an array of next-generation human heart tissue prototypes. It is the first company in the world to have engineered miniature living human heart pumps that can revolutionize drug discovery, helping to save time and money for developing new therapeutics. Also known as ' human heart-in-a-jar' , Novohearts bio-artificial human heart constructs are created using state-of-the-art and proprietary stem cell and bioengineering approaches and are utilized by drug developers for accurate preclinical testing as to the effectiveness and safety of new drugs, maximizing the successes in drug discovery whilst minimizing costs and harm caused to patients. About Xellera Therapeutics Limited: Xellera Therapeutics Limited (XT) is dedicated to developing cell- and gene-based therapies. XTs mission is to bring advanced therapeutic options to patients in an era of precision medicine. Related Party Disclosure As one of the scientists involved in establishing Xellera Therapeutics, Dr. Ronald Li, Novohearts Chief Executive Officer, received an indirect minority interest in Xellera Therapeutics. Dr. Li is therefore considered a control person of Xellera Therapeutics, and as Dr. Li is a control person of Novoheart by virtue of his ownership of Novoheart shares, Xellera Therapeutics is considered a related party of Novoheart and the service agreement entered into by Novoheart with Xellera Therapeutics is considered a related party transaction within the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (MI 61-101). It is also contemplated that Dr. Li will be appointed as a director of Xellera Therapeutics, but that his personal time commitment to Xellera Therapeutics will not be material to fulfilment of his duties as a director and CEO of Novoheart. Prior to entering into the service agreement with Xellera Therapeutics, a special committee of independent directors of Novoheart was formed with a mandate to: review and make a recommendation with respect to Dr. Lis involvement in Xellera Therapeutics; review the proposed service agreement with Xellera Therapeutics; and, if thought fit, make a recommendation to Novohearts board of directors. Novoheart has approved Dr. Lis participation in Xellera Therapeutics and entered into the service agreement with Xellera Therapeutics on the basis of its assessment of the potential benefits to Novoheart and the desire of the parties to commence phase 1 relating to the GMP stem cell facility on an expeditious basis. A material change report in respect of the service agreement will be filed within 10 days of the date of this press release, which will contain a description of the process undertaken by the special committee and the board of directors of Novoheart. Information in this press release regarding Xellera Therapeutics and Dr. Lis participation in that company has been provided to Novoheart by Dr. Li. For further information, please contact: Ronald Li, CEO info@novoheart.com Babak Pedram, Investor Relations Virtus Advisory Group Tel: 416-995-8651 bpedram@virtusadvisory.com For media enquiries or interviews, please contact: Josh Stanbury, Media Relations Tel. 416-628-7441 media@novoheart.com Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Below Deck Naked Smoothies Season 6 Episode 5 Editors Rating 5 stars * * * * * Previous Next Photo: Bravo With last episodes drunken night behind us, the sun has risen over Tahiti once more, beckoning the hopelessly farmer-tanned bodies of the deck crew forth from their bunks, only to be greeted by resident buzzkill Chandler. Chandler is the kind of boss who shows up to work early, not to do work and be useful and exhibit talent, but to make other people feel less adequate. Not that anyone on his team does feel less than Chandler. They all have giant egos, sure, but also, Chandler is truly no better than them at doing boat chores. Heres the thing people like Chandler make me really wonder about this show: Is it really that hard to take people out on a boat for two days and serve them a piece of veal here and there? Kate is running her to-do list meetings from her bed, hungover, in last nights earrings, Cheeto crumbs in her hair and ramen crusts forming on her shelf, and her team is notably more functional than Chandlers. That said, the interior trio has plenty of its own drama. Im completely over this two-faced bullshit with Kate and Josiah, Caroline says after shes woken up with her foot all puffy, like shes part-Michelin Man. She visits Kate and Josiah, who are cowering under a throw blanket, to say she heard them shit-talking her last night. Kates all, What did I say? I was drunk. Josiah is too stunned to be caught with his hair down to say a word. Then Caroline leaves, and Kate, who just doesnt care, is like, That was weird. Because, as one of the two perennial cast members on this show, she knows shes the bechamel sauce holding this macaroni and cheese together, whereas Caroline is the novelty addition that just happened to be lying around in the fridge. This season its bacon, next season its day-old lobster meat, and it doesnt matter to Kate who comes and goes. Shes Captain Lees favorite, and as long as she refrains from throwing strawberry syrup in the guests faces, shell be fine. When Kate finally crawls out of her bed, Rhylee attacks her for not cleaning up the crew mess. Kate is like, I am too busy wiping wannabe Instagram influencer asses for a living and Im not doing that now or ever. This leads Rhylee to attack Kate on the radio for not staying busy enough when she jokes with Ashton about his looking like a dangling slice of sex while hes washing the windows. As Adrian lays duck skin and brie on a pizza for his personal lunch, Ashton approaches Rhylee on deck to tell her that her life will be easier in the long run if she can refrain from attacking Kate. This fires up Rhylee, who declares that she wont be spoken to in that manner. Which, yes, I get it, but Kate isnt, like, a random person on the plane with an over-reclined seat shes a tangential boss! Captain Lee makes like a Kardashian on Instagram and reclines, shirtless, onto a set of gold brocade cushions, while the rest of the crew continues to ready the boat for the horny, newly moneyed, Instagram-obsessed nightmares set to board the boat the next day. They eat Chinese takeout for lunch and Caroline returns from the doctor to report that her foot is infected, which is just a thing that happens in Tahiti. Kate: Gross. As Rhylee reflects on how far shes fallen, from running her own boat in Alaska to cleaning up Kates cornflake bowls, Ashton bonds with Adrian as he gleefully hacks away at a pile of raw chickens. Adrian says he used to work in his dads BBQ restaurant and was fat. Ashton tells Ross and Chandler it blows his mind that Adrian doesnt plan his meals in advance. Chandler says, Its like the deck crew. Har-har! And hes the only one laughing, because hes too solipsistic to realize that its his fault that their work isnt planned out and therefore suffers. He then holds his deck team meeting, in which he natters on about incredibly irrelevant information such as that the forthcoming guests just want to soak in the Tahitian culture. He ends with, Im gonna grab a quick bite. Yall wanna keep grindin? Like, no? His team feels confused, and Chandler, who is about as useful as a piece of decorative coral, blames them for his own weaknesses. Look at that mega yacht, its ridiculous! the primary proclaims as he approaches the boat. I thought their behavior with their phones was bad, but his use of the term mega yacht in conversation may, in fact, be worse. As soon as they walk aboard they start Instagramming: themselves; each other; the boat. It is horrifying. They practically Instagram the contents of the toilet. While Caroline tells the guests all about her infected foot, Chandler gets mad at Rhylee for dragging a fender. Ashton says that he gets that Chandler dislikes Rhylee but that he shouldnt let that cloud his judgement as bosun. Ashton, perhaps the only member of the crew with a shred of maturity, should be bosun. Chandler then decides its time to unroll the slide, but tells Rhylee to take a break before they do so since she doesnt know how to do it. Because Chandler fancies himself the Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting of inflatable slides: the only one who can solve the equation! Except successfully unrolling a slide is not tantamount to winning the Fields Medal, and he should have shown her how he likes the slide deployed instead of exiling her to the garbage bin serving as the crew mess. After Caroline struggles to serve the guests tequila shots, Kate says she doesnt care about Carolines foot or her feelings, that the boat is big, and she needs a third stew. Case in point: the primary naked in his room and ordering fruit smoothies, a request so urgent he couldnt even throw some brocade decor over his junk. Kate struggles to make the shots, admitting they taste terrible along the way, but throws them on a tray with a giant napkin and a flower, and they end up looking like the kind of thing youd happily spend $13 for on a beach in Miami. Chandlers incompetence is once again explored in a scene in which Lee gets mad at him for communicating with his team on a different radio channel. Chandler is all, I didnt want to clog the radio. And Lee is all, I dont want to die in case of emergency because you decided to use a different channel. Chandler then holes away in the crew mess to eat his feelings. Caroline asks him for a favor and he says no, that he will not be bothered to help her and has to take a nap. Caroline is understandably mad, and Chandler says, Live a day in the life of a deckhand, which puts Caroline in an even worse mood, causing her to snap at Ashton when she has to iron the guests evening wear in the repulsive crew mess. This confuses me, because there has to be a better place to iron white gowns than the tiny, filthy dining hall? To Carolines credit, she apologizes to Ashton right before exposing his shirtless body to the juicy used condom festering on the nightstand of the master bedroom. Kate, in a valiant effort to create Instagram moments for the guests beyond their own faces, decorates shirtless Ashton in Tahitian foliage so he can carry dinner plates to the guests and create a spectacle. Turns out, they are, in fact, only interested in their own faces, and his glorious, slippery body goes mostly awkwardly ignored and un-photographed. The episode ends with more Rhylee drama. The guests want to go fishing I guess because standing next to a large dead fish makes a statement on social media? and Chandler has to assign crew members to handle the excursion. Rhylee would be the obvious choice. None of these fuckheads know how to fish, she says. Which is true! Nor does anyone want to get up at 6 a.m. and actually do it besides her. But Chandler, in keeping with his dickheadedness, tells Ashton he must go. The episode concludes with everyone feeling disgruntled, except the resident fish, who now surely wont be slain at the hands of these travesties of human beings. Photo: Warner Bros, The Weinstein Company and Sundance Selects This Halloween, we need more than jump scares and gross-outs. You know whats scarier than monsters, ghouls, and goblins? The patriarchy. Forget the blood geysers, aliens, and flesh-devouring apocalypses we need thrillers and horror flicks that get at the truly terrifying stuff of female experience, like being married (to a psychopath), getting pregnant (with the devil), going to a doctor (who doesnt believe you), or walking home alone at night. So if youre feeling trolled by the whole world and you want to feel a little less alone, this primal-scream inducing list of Halloween-y whodunits is for you. Each movie captures something special about how the world screws over women and, more often than not, the final culprit or the monster in the closet turns out to be the powers that be, those who refuse to listen and take every opportunity to write you off as crazy. These movies are about the sorts of daily, earthly frights that make us howl at the moon and scream into pillows in real life and theyre what we deserve to watch (and identify with) this spooktacular season. This Halloween, the call is coming from inside the house, and by the house I mean the patriarchy. Gaslight (1944) No better place to start than with the source of gaslighting. Ingrid Bergman stars as a swooning, glassy-eyed bride whose new husband (Charles Boyer) tries to convince her shes going mad in order to get her family jewels. Let the cruel, manipulative shenanigans begin; he does things like give her an heirloom brooch, steal it back, then watch in an all according to plan kind of way as she hysterically looks for it. The crime here is not about the brooch, of course (not even about the murder hes also clearly guilty of); its about making a woman distrust her own eyes, ears, mind, and memory and its one of the oldest, cruelest tricks in the book. What makes Gaslight such a touchstone is that its so straightforward: to make her doubt herself, he quite literally rearranges the world around her, and you know its him the whole time. What makes Gaslight a classic is that Bergman is such a revelation to watch. Shadow of a Doubt (1943) The thing about Alfred Hitchcock is theres always a little part of you that doesnt really know if he did it. Instead, the Master of Suspense leaves you with much scarier, realer questions like, But would he really betray me? and Who can I trust, if not him? So it is with the aptly named Shadow of a Doubt, in which the villainous Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) not only terrorizes his teenage niece and namesake (Teresa Wright), but also has a virulent, murderous disgust toward old ladies. I mean this guy really hates women! But our young female protagonist, like the rest of her family, positively adores her uncle. Perhaps the scariest, most pertinent question of this underappreciated classic is: How could someone I love so much, who means so much to all of us, commit this violence? The fact that young Charlie keeps her uncles secret is also complicated and prescient, as is Uncle Charlies malicious inquiry: You think youre the clever little girl who knows something, but you dont know anything What would you tell? Who would believe you? (For another fun tale about a rampant misogynist who kills widows while terrorizing children along the way, please see 1955s Night of the Hunter.) Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) Its hard to avoid being labeled nuts when you uncover incriminating info that might undermine order. Especially when that info is brimming with salty, salacious details that question hetero dominant norms. Thats what happens in Suddenly, Last Summer when Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn) tries to get Catherine Holly (Elizabeth Taylor) lobotomized so shell finally shut up about Venables son Sebastian, his evident homosexuality, and his (problematic) death at the hands of a pack of lustful vacationers down by the baths. Many movies feature ladies turning psychotic at the moment a powerful institution or malicious individual realizes they have a lot to lose, but in Suddenly, Last Summer, Hepburn, Taylor, and Tennessee Williamss script carry out this plot device with thrilling fervor and histrionics. Exhibit A: Hepburns piercing delivery of, Doctor! See how she destroys us with her tongue for a hatchet? Youve got to cut this hideous story out of her brain! Rosemarys Baby (1968) Dont let anyone tell you this psycho horror is a story about a Satanic cult. Thats like saying The Wizard of Oz is about tornado safety and Citizen Kane is about a sled. The real crimes against Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) are much more earthly and terrifying than devil worship. Shes a woman made palpably anxious by her pursuit of upper-class domestic bliss and by her narcissist husband (literally named Guy and played by John Cassavetes). And thats before shes drugged, wakes up with scratches all over her body, and hears Guy saying, I didnt want to miss out. Her rape results in a pregnancy, during which she becomes increasingly ill, but Guy, her neighbors, and one doctor after another disavow her experience of her own body. The prevailing feeling is that THEYRE ALL IN ON IT, and its an all-too-familiar one. Perhaps worst of all (worse even than Guy continually dissing her new pixie cut), Rosemary is berated by hubby and docs alike for reading books to learn more about her condition and for talking to her gal pals about her pregnancy (Pain like that is a warning that something isnt right, they say, you cant go on suffering like that!). As in real life, books and friendship prove to be Rosemarys best weapons in this maddening world, though here they arent quite enough to avoid a diabolical, harrowing birth scene. The fact that a movie about such distinctly feminine horrors comes from Roman Polanski is conflicting to say the least, haunting even. That in and of itself is worthy of late-night discussion with your favorite feminists. The Shining (1980) If Rosemarys Baby is all about bodily autonomy, then The Shining is all about marriage. What caused the Overlook Hotels previous off-season caretaker to murder his family with an ax? Well, the hotel manager explains, its what the old-timers might call cabin fever a kind of claustrophobic reaction which can occur when people are shut in together for prolonged periods of time. Does anyone else hear wedding bells? The central horror at the heart of this classic really just boils down to Jack Torrance (the maniacal Jack Nicholson) being a colossal dick to his wife Wendy (the saucer-eyed Shelley Duvall). For signs of the almost commonplace marriage plot here, look no further than the famous staircase scene: Wendy has just found that, for all her husbands self-serious proclamations about his writing, he is in fact a fraud, a dull boy. She backs her way up the stairs, swinging a bat in self-defense as he stalks up the staircase after her. He yells at her about whether or not they should take their son to the doctor, and then pivots to full-throttle self-pity: Has it ever occurred to you what would happen to my future if I would fail to live up to my responsibilities? he screams. Hes a husband turned monster, driven psychotic by his professional shortcomings and the time he drunkenly broke his sons shoulder, among other failures of masculinity. Hed almost be a cliche of a deadbeat alcoholic husband and father if Nicholsons performance werent so totally unhinged. He mocks her whimpering and, finally nearing the top of the stairs, proclaims in syrupy faux sweetness, Wendy, darling, light of my life, Im not going to hurt you Im just going to bash your brains in. Love you too, honey. In the Cut (2003) Go ahead and disregard the 34% Rotten Tomatoes score for this suspense thriller, which has a twist or two that I, for one, didnt see coming. Someones going around decapitating women, and Franny (Meg Ryan) gets entangled in the investigation as well as with the lead detective (Mark Ruffalo). Its the hostile, sexually oversaturated atmosphere director Jane Campion creates thats so compelling here. Women are constantly running from something in the background of this movie, and huge flags (the film takes place post-9/11) drape across buildings as quiet memorials and omens of wars to come. Fear is in the air. In the Cut takes those age-old questions (Can I trust him? Did he do it?) and applies them to the whole world, so that every character, every street corner, every comment, and most definitely anything sex-related becomes a potential threat. Like in the real world, this is confusing, uncomfortable, and exhausting which is maybe why some viewers dont like it. There are also some seriously under-interrogated racial dynamics as well as a cheesy moment or two. What In the Cut gets right, though, is this unrelenting hum of sexualized fear. Its about meeting your sister for coffee the morning after being mugged, and tearing up when she says, Oh sweetie, upon seeing your black eye. And you dont even make a big deal about the mugging, talking instead about how you dont really trust the guy you just slept with. And then your mentally ill, stalker ex-boyfriend (here, Kevin Bacon) shows up to the coffee shop with his hairless dog and just stares through the glass, waiting for you to leave. And when you do, and you gently tell him again, You know I dont think we should see each other anymore, he says, Well Ill have to think about that, as if it were an open question, as if your words and fear dont matter. Teeth (2007) Come for the coming-of-age story, stay for the grotesque, campy castration sequences. In some tellings of the vagina dentata myth, the toothed genitalia and the woman it belongs to might be construed as villainous. Not so here, where the boys and men are squarely to blame they go too far, dont hear no, and treat women as either conquest or quite literally like dogs (theres a rottweiler named Mother as well as some unmentionable foreplay with a dog biscuit). I cant imagine its a spoiler to tell you the arc of Teeth takes our female protagonist from virginal nymph to somewhat more self-actualized owner of teeth down there! The deeper, more satisfying arc, though, is that shes a promise-ring clad, abstinence-preaching girl who finally removes the censorship sticker from her textbooks female anatomy page, holds a mirror up to herself, makes thorough use of a vibrator, and in her final smirk seems to imagine the advantages her vaginal peculiarities might offer. The Babadook (2014) This movie opens with a childs voice waking up his mother (Mom! Mom! Mom!) and never really stops being about how annoying kids can be and how hard parenting is. Amelia (Essie Davis) is a widow and single mom whose 7-year-old son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) is a chronic under-the-bed-checker who is deeply worried that his mother, like his father, will be taken away. The monster that does eventually come, the Babadook, emerges from a terrifying childrens book and, while Samuels petrified nightly, Amelia grows increasingly impatient. Soon though, Amelia too must recognize the horror of the Babadook, which for her results in various failures motherhood: she cant cook, clean, or sleep enough; she pops pills, makes ice cream for dinner by way of apology, keeps the house dark and the TV on. She says cuttingly mean things just to finally get some peace and quiet. This is no boring domestic drama though its all extremely scary. Scariest of all, for a while the movie does a brilliant job conflating Samuels terrified claims about the Babadook with his extremely normal but deeply annoying demands of his mother (Look at me! Look at me!). In this, The Babadook makes its most incisive commentary on the horrific pressures of motherhood: Its so easy not to listen to your kid and consider the midnight-whats-in-the-closet fears as foolish instead of versions of our own worst nightmares. But, the more you deny it, the stronger I get, says the Babadook. Under the Skin (2013) Under the Skin is a weirdo, sci-fi, art-film take on a genre Id like to call the streetwalker revenge film, a subset of the feminist revenge film genre thats just brimming with movies you should see. While these fantasies of female rage and empowerment are thrilling because you finally get to see ladies kick ass while giving zero fucks, Under the Skin does something a little different and therefore belongs on this list. Scarlett Johansson is an alien who lures innocent-ish men into her van, and then into her black tarpit-like lair. Before she can get to snatching dudes, though, she has to undergo a process of feminization she inhabits ScarJos body, gets a fur coat, puts on lipstick for the first time. She flirts. The ostensible horror of the film is the creepy senselessness with which she disposes her male victims, but her arc of becoming a woman is the much more terrifying and compelling horror, as proven by the films final act. By then, shes doing exceedingly human things like going sightseeing with a man, being cared for, and having feelings, and theres a sense that maybe her narrative will end like that of all good women in satisfied domestic bliss. But the devastating brutality of the last scene makes her quite literally come apart at the seams, and she looks as if shes shocked that such violence had found her in her new traditional female role, as if she thought she were above such earthly humiliations and ruin. Unsane (2018) + Gothika (2003) Unsane is the scariest movie of the year and I will stand by that even after you unjustly lock me in a mental institution. Gothika, also about a lady trapped in a psychiatric ward, is a slightly campier, more supernatural member of the genre, but both films are terrifying in their relatability. Nothing is scarier and more crazy-making than having your claims of male aggression and violence invalidated, which is what happens to both Unsanes Claire Foy and Gothikas Halle Berry. Whats more, once your testimony is written off as unreliable, every piece of mounting evidence is used to bolster the case for your insanity rather than the case for his crimes. Ghosts, stalkers, and maniacal doctors aside, in Unsane and Gothika, the painfully familiar horror is the cascading betrayals of not being believed, and the mental institution is a beautifully literal manifestation of this problem of trusting women, which allows the violence to continue despite female outcry. That these leading ladies only hope for being believed and freed is a mother (Unsane) and a network of female allies (Gothika) also feels rather close to home. Furthermore, the fact that Halle Berry is a rare exception as a woman of color in this genre gives you a good idea of who even gets to be considered a victim and who doesnt both in Hollywood and in life. Safe (1995) In this slow creep of a thriller, Carol White (Julianne Moore) is an affluent, 1980s housewife in the San Fernando Valley whos getting sick and doesnt know why. It starts out like a classic horror movie, with ominous music accompanying Carol and her husband as they wind their way up a hill at night. But the only monster waiting for them at the top is a clinically clean suburban home, a stale marriage, and bad sex. Maybe thats it then: Carol is just allergic to the boredom and beauty standards for rich white ladies of a certain set (fruit diet and hyper-spandexed aerobics class be damned!). But Carols symptoms exceed this diagnosis too: Shes suddenly allergic to milk; she has a coughing fit from a trucks exhaust; she collapses from chemicals at the dry cleaner. With condescending and sexist doctors who are no help at all, Carol investigates Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and heads to a healing retreat center in the desert. But the communitys culty vibes dont quite make this the happy ending we, or Carol, have been looking for. In fact, we can never quite pinpoint who or what is to blame for Carols illness, and thats the subtle horror here. What if its not just the doctor, or your husband, the pressure to meet strict feminine standards, or a world full of toxic chemicals but all of it together? What if, instead of a bad guy, youre trapped in an overwhelming, interlocking system? Then what do you do? Then where do you go? Jon Stewart and Dave Chappelle. Photo: CNN To promote their comedy tour, Jon Stewart and Dave Chappelle recently sat down for a lengthy interview with CNNs Christiane Amanpour that covers a little bit of everything, from whether or not Trump is good for comedy (Chappelle: Hes getting too much credit. Hes not making the wave, hes surfing it) to how Stewart thinks the mainstream media puts too much emphasis on Twitter as a reliable arbiter of the emotional state of an issue. The two also shared their thoughts on the current political divide in the U.S., Louis C.K.s recent comeback, and what Stewart learned about sexism during his Daily Show days. Below are some of the best quotes from the interview. Chappelle on if were more divided now than before: Even when they say that Russia influenced the election, its kind of like, Is Russia making us racist? Is that whos doing it? Okay, thank goodness, I thought it was us. Chappelle on why he doesnt get stuck in the political divide: Because most of the political discussion is so binary, and Im way more interesting than that. Most people are, if you talk to them. I hear people say Families are not speaking to one another because of politics that sounds insane to me. There are tons of people I love and respect that I completely disagree with. Chappelle on his 2016 SNL monologue saying hed give Trump a chance: I think I said the right thing at the right time, you know what I mean? I think that we had to kind of recalibrate and kind of put things in perspective. Im a black American, so these feelings that people felt right after the election we felt that many elections consecutively. Stewart on Trumps attacks on journalists: I think that journalists have taken it personally. They are personally wounded and offended by this man. He baits them, and they dive in. And what hes done well, I thought, is appeal to their own narcissism, to their own ego Because the journalists stand up and say, We are noble! How dare you sir! And they take it personally, and now, hes changed the conversation to not that his policies are silly or not working or any of those other things its all about the fight. Hes able to tune out everything else and get people just focused on the fight. Hes gonna win that fight. Stewart on sexism in comedy: It started out as a male-dominated field. Its not a particularly welcoming field you sort of have to come out there and cut your teeth on it. Ill tell you a story: So we had, on The Daily Show, there was an article about us [that] said it was a sexist environment, we didnt have women writers. And I got very offended by that. I was very mad. I was like, Are you saying Im not a feminist? I was raised by a single mother. She wore a T-shirt that said A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. And me and my brother were like, I think we might be men? So I was mad how can they say such a thing? And I went back to the writers room, and I was like, You believe this, Steve? What do you think, Greg? Dave? Tom? Mike? And then I was like, Oooohhh. And it was right. But the reason it was right was not necessarily one that we had seen before. We had put in a system of getting writers where there were no names on it. We thought thats color-blind, gender-blind, et cetera. But what you dont realize is the system itself the tributaries that feed us those submissions is polluted itself, so all were getting are white males whove been to Ivy League colleges and wrote for the Lampoon or funny Jewish guys from Brown. So what you had to say, then, is Send me not that. Send me your women, send me people of color. And then wed get the submissions and go I cant believe how funny women have gotten just recently. [Laughs.] But do you see what I mean? Its a systemic issue, and I think what can mostly help change is when you open up new tributaries to bring in talent, and then they grow, and then they help grow their communities and tell their stories. Stewart on the debate around Louis C.K. returning to comedy clubs: I think the question itself is somewhat unanswerable when you talk about the right way in society to rehabilitate. Its something weve struggled with in the criminal justice system forever There is no recipe; there is no model that can be put together and say, If he did one, two, and three, everybody would be cool. I dont think it works that way. This is something that we find together as a society, but I dont know that you can say theres a formula here that makes sense. Im a believer in restorative justice and the idea that when transgressions occur, the parties must participate together to bring themselves to some conclusion. But the truth is, you wont find 100 percent. You cant say, Whats the right way to do this so that everybody will be okay? because they wont. Watch the full interview right here: VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (TSX Venture Exchange: TEN / US: TCEGF) Terraco Gold Corp. (Terraco or the Company) is pleased to announce that drilling is currently underway at the Spring Valley Gold Project (Spring Valley) located in Pershing County, Nevada. We are excited to see that Waterton Global Resource Management (Waterton) is currently drilling at the multimillion-ounce Spring Valley Gold Project. We believe that Spring Valley is a key asset within Watertons asset portfolio and this drilling program clearly confirms their commitment and priority to advancing the project. The drill program being conducted is currently utilizing two drill rigs. We believe that Spring Valley is the only remaining multimillion-ounce Nevada-based gold asset that is currently not owned by a major gold production company. As a significant royalty holder of Spring Valley, we are extremely pleased to see forward momentum onsite at Spring Valley, stated Todd Hilditch, President and CEO of Terraco. Terraco holds the following Spring Valley core and district royalty assets (see maps below): up to a 3% NSR on a majority of the current resources of Spring Valley (claims boundary in red); a 1.5% NSR on a portion of Spring Valley on the north side of the resource (claim boundary in green); a 0.5% NSR within a one-half mile of the red claims and outlined in blue (not including the area in green); a 2% NSR on the 35sq km Moonlight Project adjoining Spring Valley to the north Images accompanying this announcement are available at: Map of Terracos Spring Valley Royalties Map of Terracos Spring Valley and Moonlight Royalties Recent photos of Spring Valley and the drill rigs onsite will be available on Terracos website. Spring Valley was acquired by Waterton in 2015 and hosts a 2014 published National Instrument 43-101 compliant gold resource of 4,120,000 million ounces of gold measured + indicated and 990,000 ounces inferred. The technical report titled NI 43-101 Technical Report on Resource, Spring Valley Project was filed by Midway Gold Corp. on September 9, 2014 and is based on work completed in a joint venture between Midway Gold Corp. and Barrick Gold Corporation. The technical report is available at www.sedar.com under Midway Gold Corporations profile. The Company also announces that, pursuant to its stock option plan and subject to regulatory acceptance, it has granted an aggregate total of 3,900,000 incentive stock options to certain directors, officers, employees and consultants of the Company, subject to certain vesting provisions. These options will be exercisable at a price of $0.07 per common share and will expire on October 30, 2023. On October 29, 2018, 2,925,000 stock options issued to certain directors, officers, employees and consultants expired. This release has been reviewed and approved by Charles Sulfrian, CPG., Consultant, of Terraco and a qualified person, as defined by National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. About Terraco Terraco is a gold royalty company with a royalty portfolio that is currently focused largely on or around the multi-million ounce Spring Valley Gold Project located in Pershing County, Nevada. The Company is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "TEN". Please visit the Company's website at www.terracogold.com for additional information. On Behalf of the Company: Todd Hilditch President and CEO Tel: 1-604-443-3831 Toll free: 1-877-792-6688 Ext. 2 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. ForwardLooking Statements This news release contains forwardlooking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forwardlooking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on them because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forwardlooking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature, they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Additional information on these and other factors that could affect the Companys operations and financial results are included in reports on file with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and may be accessed through the SEDAR website (www.sedar.com ) . Terraco Gold Corp. Suite 2390, 1055 West Hastings Street Vancouver, British Columbia Canada V6E 2E9 Tel: (604) 443-3830 Toll free: 1 (877) 792-6688 Fax: (604) 682-3860 www.terracogold.com NR 2018-01 Photo: Courtesy of Amazon Studios Luca Guadagninos Suspiria, which expands its theatrical run this weekend, may forego the lush color palette that Dario Argentos original is famous for, but it still makes a mighty visual impact. A big reason why: the films intricately staged dance sequences, which are woven together with scenes of extravagant violence. In the new Suspiria, dance is an act of both life and death. It lifts the members of the Helena Markos Dance Company into a state of higher consciousness, but by channeling the power of the witches running it, can also be used as a weapon to murder, maim, and summon death itself. There are three key performances that chart the path of Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson) as Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton) grooms her to fulfill the covens long-simmering plans to save its deteriorating leader, Helena Markos (also Tilda Swinton in heavy prosthetics!). The dances themselves are captivating, but when spliced together with scenes of ritual torture they make for a discomfiting codependency between grace and brutality. To more fully understand how that tension came to life, Vulture spoke with Belgian choreographer Damien Jalet about Suspirias featured dance pieces. Olgas Last Dance Earlier this year, sneak-peek footage of Suspiria was shared at the closed industry event CinemaCon, and reports came rolling out of a woman being hideously contorted into a mess of broken bones, urine, spittle, and blood. When the films teaser finally arrived months later, we saw a brief glimpse of a woman pressed against a mirrored wall with her jaw being snapped out of place. That woman was Elena Fokina in the role of Olga, a young dancer trying to flee the Academy after coming to suspect that its matrons are up to no good, and the extreme pain she endures comes courtesy of an oblivious Susie, who thinks she is auditioning for solo part, but is actually channeling the anger of the witches and punishing the obstreperous Olga. When I read this scene I said, Oh, my god. This could be ridiculous if its not well done, Jalet said of the films first big sequence, which must establish dance as a driving plot element, connect the protagonist to the power of the coven, and showcase the thematic tension between life and death that dance creates in the world. The script was describing something a bit more balletic with lots of kicks and high legs, but I was more interested to develop something more visceral, more internal, angular, with really sharp, clear direction that is coming from Susie. Jalet started by working together with Guadagnino and Fokina to map out Olgas lines on the set where her part of the scene would take place. The character would be tossed about the room, but Jalet said it took surgical precision to make sure her movements could be synced up with Johnsons in the editing room, all while taking into account the most effective angles for filming and the needs of the visual effects team, who would be outfitting Fokina with a graduating series of prosthetics to make her more mangled as the dance progressed. Oh and also, it had to look entirely reactive and spontaneous instead of academic or too square. With Elena we really worked on trying to generate body movement that seemed to be coming from an external, invisible force, something that she feels pushed, pulled, twisted, that makes her jump, Jalet explained, adding that they wanted to rely on Fokinas body as much as possible in place of digital effects. We had to be very technical in the sense that the first thing that would get affected was the ribs and the throat and the arms then the legs. Elena is such a strong dancer and performer that she could really create all the violence within herself. Volk In Suspiria, Volk is a dance created at the Academy that featured Blanc in the original role of the protagonist, the part Susie was auditioning for when she turned Olga into a human pretzel earlier in the film. And its actually based off a performance Jalet choreographed in 2013, called Les Meduses, that was staged at the Louvre. The themes Jalet built into that performance just happened to overlap uncannily with those of Suspirias central dance piece, so he modified it first for Olgas death scene, when it would be a solo for Susie, and then again for the whole group during the recital. The original rope costumes, which were meant to convey a sense of being bound or tied up, were even reimagined for the film and changed from white to red. It was inspired by the sculptures in the Louvre museum where those nymphs seem to be under a spell, said Jalet. Its all inspired by the myth of Medusa, to literally transform you into stone, to be stupefied, to be bewitched in a way. Its really also interesting, because Medusa is one of the three Gorgons, and in Suspiria there is the Three Mothers. So, there was also a metaphor. All these female sculptures, a room full of women and female energy, but actually it has been sculpted by men. As a male choreographer, I wanted them to feel like they rebel against the curse of a certain female representation, and then it fit for me with the whole story line. Its a dance of resistance, trying to break something, and the original trio was really trying to break a spell. The Les Meduses choreography was for meant for three women and had no featured soloist, meaning it had to be scaled up to 12 dancers for Volk with a protagonist part built in for Susie. Jalet modified the movements with the help of another dancer in Suspiria. He incorporated the image of the pentagram without being too heavy-handed about it via the design visible on the floor during the recital. (It also echoes the line drawing we see briefly in Patricias journal.) And while it was originally meant to appear as projected light, Jalet insisted it be literally laid out in silver tape. He wanted to make sure the dance was heavily informed by the number five and geometric patterns, connecting it to pagan iconography, and the visible floor design could serve the dual purpose of evoking a gateway to something being accessed by the witches and dancers, as well as a spiders web trapping the performers in the influence of Markos. According to Jalet, Thom Yorke got hung up for six months on the score for the Volk scene while trying to effectively connect it to the dance movements, since the choreography had been designed to separate music. The Black Sabbath The organized chaos of the Black Sabbath is both an extension of and a reaction to the iterations of Volk. The more refined and exacting aspects of the earlier dances give way to something restless and raw. The dancers previously bound by ropes are now naked and wildly free of their bindings. The ever-present sound of breathing which actually served as a substitute for percussion during Volk reaches a frantic crescendo. A lot of the movements, I tried to make them come from the thoracic cage and also the lungs, Jalet explained, extending the presence of the Mother of Sighs through all his work. Its already in the audition of Susie. Its there during Olgas scene, and then in Volk its very present, and in the Sabbath theres this explosion of breathing that was very literally all coming from opening and closing the lungs. The Sabbath is also the culmination of Susies battle with gravity. She is scolded by Blanc at one point for her resistance to leaving the floor, because the pull of Markos is drawing her down to the Mutterhaus chamber under the Academy. That pull eventually leads Susie to the Room of the Feasts for the Black Sabbath. To create something more tribal than the earlier numbers, Jalet took inspiration from both an Indonesian dance done only by women on their knees that involves rapid hand movements, and from another show he previously choreographed, called Vessel. They are entranced but they are not conscious of what they are doing, said Jalet. In Vessel, they created these geometric forms just using their hair and the naked body to generate a totem or something. At one point the dancers become furniture in a way. With Luca we wanted to go from something pretty technical, mathematical, with a certain sense of elegance, to something where the body becomes wilder and more and more distorted to work with these physical sculptures where the dancers become a decoration. One of those decorations is a human pyramid that unfolds startlingly at the beginning of the ritual. Given the setting, manufacturing a sense of madness wasnt hard. The Sabbath was one of the last scenes they shot after months of production. It was December in the mountains. Everyone was freezing, and Jalet had to choreograph for about 40 different performers from different backgrounds and skill levels. One of the dancers nearly fainted because of the intensity of the movements, and it took a week just to film this one scene that weighs in at almost 15 minutes. But with bodies being disemboweled, heads exploding, and almost everyone in constant motion, each persons path had to be meticulously laid out which included making room for death incarnate as it passed through the room to maintain purpose in the ritual. It was really wild, Jalet said. With all the organs and working with all this fake blood and all this hair everywhere, it was like this for a few days. Also, we were heating each other with a gas heater, so the air was really dry, and the dancers, because they were naked, wanted to have the smallest crew possible. It was a tense moment. Photo: Gimlet In The Horror of Dolores Roach, Gimlets new fiction podcast out just in time for Halloween, Dolores returns home from a 16-year prison stint for pot possession to find her old neighborhood, Washington Heights, unrecognizable. A Chase Bank has replaced the diner, a T-Mobile has taken over the little family-run bakery. Theres a Planet fuckin Fitness, Dolores says, horrified. The only piece of the old neighborhood that remains is Empanada Loca, run by an old buddy of hers, but business is failing until Dolores sets up a massage parlor in the basement and has an unfortunate encounter with the sleazy landlord trying to evict them, setting into motion a macabre retelling of Sweeney Todd where cannibalism is a metaphor for gentrification. (It turns out hipsters cant get enough of the Empanada Locas new special ingredient.) The story began as a one-woman play called Empanada Loca, written by Aaron Mark a Washington Heights gentrifier, himself for his muse, Daphne Rubin-Vega, whose breakout role was Mimi in the original Broadway production of Rent, another woman on the wrong end of gentrifications relentless bite. Unlike Mimi, Dolores isnt waiting around for a man to save her, a characteristic that Rubin-Vega relishes. Shes a survivor. A warrior of the people, which I find very thrilling, Rubin-Vega said over the phone. In the podcast, Rubin-Vega is joined by Bobby Cannavale, who plays the owner of Empanada Loca, a misunderstood culinary visionary (and high-end weed connoisseur) who comes up with a creative solution to dispose of the body after Dolores strangles a customer in a fit of rage, desperation, and euphoria. Rubin-Vega delivers a tour de force performance; as the New York Times put it, in an article about new fiction podcasts, her voice slinks into the listeners mind in a way that feels unrivaled in audio. The day before Halloween, Vulture caught up with Marks and Rubin-Vega to discuss the inspiration for the podcast, why female serial killers are inherently feminist, and the politics of cannibalism. Beware of spoilers! Hows it going? Daphne Rubin-Vega: We are giddy with delight. So whats the origin story for this story? Aaron Mark: Id been working on a series of one-person horror plays that were contemporary reinventions of old horror characters and properties, and I had this crazy idea for a contemporary reimagination of the old Sweeney Todd legend back from the penny-dreadful days. I wanted to write it for Daphne. I was a huge fan, and she was someone who Id wanted to work with for a long time. As an audience member, I wanted to see her play a kind of role that I hadnt seen her play before. So I wrote it for her and sent her the script. DRV: At the time, I was working on my own solo material, and I wasnt actually all that interested in his writing. [Laughs.] But when he presented Empanada Loca to me I was blown away. I put down what I was doing. There was an aspect of Dolores, as a survivor, as a spokesperson for every disenfranchised person, that for me personally is a very important story to tell from my experience as an actor, and more so from my experience as a human being. Shes a really interesting character, one who I feel like I havent met in the horror cannon. A woman of color who has been unjustly oppressed by the criminal-justice system, but who also turns out to be a serial killer. Which feels like a progressive statement of some kind. Shes a female serial killer, and yet her anger is righteous and justified, and yet she also loves murdering people. How did she come together as a character? AM: That was really the hook from the beginning: Can we meet a character who is behaving in ways that we, hopefully, think we never would behave, and yet we absolutely identify with her and love her? I wanted to do a deep dive into a character we havent seen depicted much in the horror cannon. Yeah, she is killing people and you will identity with her. DRV: I keep coming back to cannibalism of our culture. Its not even figurative anymore. We can literally say that were a cannibalistic culture. Its not a condition of this culture, its actually a birth defect. What thrills me about Dolores is that she gets to exemplify that in this very dramatic way. Do you think theres something inherently feminist and progressive about the idea of a female serial killer? DRV: Well, yeah. Im not advocating violence. Not to get it twisted, but to advocate for a strong self-sustaining woman who has embraced the idea that shes going to unequivocally win at the expense of others if need be thats feminist. The embodiment of a female serial killer that we all love is sort of the most outrageous thing we can imagine. I dont think we sat down and planned it that way, but thats who she turned out to be. Why did you decide to set it the story in Washington Heights? AM: Ive lived in that part of Washington Heights for nine years now. I moved in at the beginning of what is currently this wave of gentrification thats happening now at the speed of light. The early part of this was me showing up there and having to grapple with, frankly, myself as a gentrifier. What am I doing here? The character and the story was very much drawn from my experience moving there and watching the gentrification happen. And living on the first floor, where I could hear people all night out my window talking. Dolores is very much drawn from people Ive known in my neighborhood. So howd you get into Doloress head? DRV: Dolores is practical, lovable, goodhearted. She means well. The problem is, the events in her life have been so unfortunate that theyve led her to make some other unfortunate decisions. But really, she tries to stay good. And I think thats important. Theres also an element of incredible vulnerability and honesty. Or at least, in the realm of what were doing, shes very honest to us. We can trust her, and I think thats what makes her work. Yeah, she reflects on her murders in a really authentic and weirdly endearing way, which makes her very different from, say, Walter White, whos always justifying everything he does. Shes honest about the euphoria. DRV: Thats her way of celebrating her power. Its the only power she gets. AM: Shes been backed up into a corner to such a degree. For me, as a writer, it was exciting and challenging to embrace, on the one hand, the horror, and on the other, the really fundamental, very frightening, animalistic survival instinct that I think all human beings have. And really, what are the circumstances, for any human being on the planet, that would lead any of us to behave in this way? DRV: Plus, Dolores is living underground when shes telling her story. If youre a sentient being, you might notice that there are people around right now that are having completely different experiences than you are. In the past couple of years, Ive been living on a block in Chelsea, and on my block, theres a three-dollar pizza, and theres a homeless shelter, and a design studio, and one of those waiting-three-months-to-get-into-the-restaurant situations but people have to walk over homeless motherfuckers to get to that place. Thats a fact. Dolores, whether we like it or not, is a very palpable reminder of the fact that some people are really going underground. And some people dont come back up. They really dont. We did a fair amount of research on that. What kind of research did you guys do for the show? AM: I did a lot of reading. DRV: I did a lot of killing. Im joking! So what was the collaboration like? AM: Id write the scripts, then Id come and sit in Daphnes apartment, where we are now, and Id read them to her out loud, which was a bizarre and weird experience, of reading Dolores for Daphne. And then shed weigh in. DRV: Id go over the script, making it terser, leaner, to make every section pack a punch. Dolores needs to keep the audience there. Youre her victim, but you dont know that yet. So theres an urgency there. I want to talk about the cannibalism. One of the most disturbing parts of the show, I thought, was the way that this new meat source becomes wildly popular and Empanada Loca becomes a successful business again. Why do you think hipsters love human meat so much? AM: Well, as Louis says spoiler alert meat is meat! Flesh is flesh. I mean, Im not a cannibal myself. But if were seeing through the lens of a character whos really meant to embody this kind of base, animalistic survival instinct that shes backed into, then it felt right that she would fit into this idea of cannibalism, both literal and figurative. Were all the same molecules in meat form, walking around. DRV: The only reason we eat what we eat is because we won. We get to eat animals because we won. AM: Its so tied to power dynamics. DRV: Human flesh is a game-changer, right? It allows Louis to exercise his creative potential. He gets to act out and express his artistic vision, at the expense of life, right? I keep thinking about this image of biting the hand that feeds you you have to bite the hand that feeds you if you want to make any kind of impression. It only works one way with power. Im curious, Daphne. Your breakout role in Rent was also about gentrification. Does this role feel like coming full circle in a way? DRV: I have this uncanny way of coming full circle in that way. All my roles are interconnected in the sense that Ive always played someone who is a fish out of water in some way. I represent the other in your neighborhood. Its funny because, it started out as a joke, but I didnt even realize how funny slashnot funny it was. I used to be in a girl group, we made records on Atlantic Records, and we used to be described as the hot blonde, the brunette girl next door, and the ubiquitous urban street element. I was the urban element. The world out there always depicts me as other. Its really hard to answer that because, in a way, its sort of like asking for approval from a system that doesnt behoove me to get an approval from. And thats the thing about Dolores. She doesnt need your approval. So whats next for Dolores? Is she going to come back to the surface? AM: Its never clear to me what Im allowed to say and not say, but what I can tell you is that theres certainly more story for Dolores, and we certainly hope that were going to be able to tell the rest of her story. Did working on the show ruin empanadas for you? Can you eat them now? AM: After I wrote the play, I couldnt touch them for about a year. I had a visceral, holy shit, I just killed off one of my favorite foods. Ive since gotten over that and I eat them all the time. DRV: When we first got into it, I was so into the idea of making my own empanadas. I made them from scratch, and I overstuffed them, so they were these tails. And I could not bring myself to eat them they just looked too much like a dead rodent. My son ate them, though. I nibbled at the fried part, but I dont eat the inside anymore. From Days of Rage, at Second Stage. Photo: Joan Marcus Against the backdrop of an endless, unwinnable war raging halfway across the world, and a polarizing president recklessly stoking the flames of racist backlash at home, a generation of young people rises up to demand change from a corrupt political establishment. So reads the marketing copy for Days of Rage, the new play by Steven Levenson (Dear Evan Hansen) at Second Stage Theater under the clean-cut direction of Trip Cullman. The play takes place in Ithaca, New York, in 1969 its title refers to the Chicago antiwar demonstrations organized by the Weathermen that October but its goal is to get us thinking about 2018, about our own rage-filled days. Its determined to give the lie to the seemingly daily use of the word unprecedented to describe the Trump epoch this moment were living in, it argues, has decades upon decades of precedent. Other generations of young people have burned with righteous fury, have thrown themselves into protesting and organizing and collectivizing, have seen themselves as the revolution to end all revolutions, and have ultimately grown up to become liberal Democrats. The plays title comes to reflect not a specific historical protest, nor even a specific moment in time, be it 1969 or 2018, but the idea of youth itself. Like Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange (before American editors and then Kubrick got their hands on it, at least), Levenson suggests that, eventually, our days of rage must pass into days of reason. Theres some truth in that, and yet something about Levensons play doesnt sit right with me. Its a slick piece of work, a little too calculated for my taste. I left it feeling like I had just watched a careful balancing act, a story that skirted having too much of an opinion, instead contenting itself with pointing out that, Hey, these things are complicated. I dont want a play to tell me what to believe, but I want it to believe something, and to me, Days of Rage feels like its hedging its bets. The passionate convictions and tangled self-delusions of its characters are presented in a pretty tidy dramatic box even, where one major plotline is concerned, a downright formulaic one and its historical parallel, while tonally resonant, also seems flawed in some significant ways. Even if youre frustrated by the rhetoric of todays radical leftists, theyre not the ones planting bombs. That would be (so far) an unhinged supporter of the party thats actually in power. And while I found three of the plays five characters believably insufferable, I couldnt help feeling that the depiction of these young would-be revolutionaries as patronizing, power-drunk, blindly hypocritical, and increasingly inhumane might go down too easily with people who just want the kids these days to quiet down. Is it fair to bring up the Weathermen and their bombs when the public faces of todays progressive youth movements, people like Emma Gonzalez, are advocating so clearly and bravely for nonviolence? Does a theyll grow out of it play actually feel right right now? Wheres the line between the potential wisdom in Levensons play and its own brand of self-regard? Only one person on stage really changes during Days of Rage. That person is Jenny (Lauren Patten). Shes 20 years old, smart, serious, and massively sensitive, and to the vast concern of her middle-class parents in Darien, Connecticut shes dropped out of school to devote herself to the anti-war effort and live with a collective of radical activists. Theyve got ideological ties to SDS, but none of them are students at this point: Why do you want to organize at a place you dropped out of? asks a newcomer to the group, and Jennys closest friend, Spence (Mike Faist), can only stammer, Thats a great question, before falling back on a list of party-line talking points. Spence and Jenny have known each other since childhood. When things get tough, they lock eyes and recite, almost ritualistically, Youre my best friend, Youre my best friend, too. Its a secret, subversive gesture, because it acknowledges each other as special if the third member of their trio, Quinn (Odessa Young), caught them at it, shed probably reprimand such a brazen display of bourgeois individualism. Jenny and Spence are both college dropouts who come from relatively well-off, if not necessarily well-adjusted, families; Quinn once worked at the college bookstore and has left behind a working-class upbringing to join the movement. All three are barely into their 20s, and their passionate desire to be a part of something greater than themselves daily rubs up against their instinctual need to self-define. They sleep together, because monogamous two-person relationships [are] one of the main forms of oppression that capitalism uses against people but we get the sense that really its just Spence who gets to go back and forth between women. The apparent free-love fest is loaded with unspoken jealousies, resentments, and tensions. Nothing about these kids is as free as theyd like to believe. In fact, theyre mentally and spiritually rigid. Theyre hopped up on Marx and Engels as if socialist theory is smack and in a way, it is. Its filling the same hole, the hole that some people fill with religion and some with money and some, these days, with 4chan. The hole that exists instead of a solid sense of self. There is actually no such thing as atheism, said David Foster Wallace in a 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. Spence and Jenny and Quinn do it by standing on cold street corners attempting to attract converts to their specific brand of fundamentalism. Its slow work, and their collective is hurting on the numbers front. Two of its former members have skipped town for Ann Arbor, where the Weather Underground was founded. They thought we needed to be more disciplined, Jenny says, repressing a shiver at the memory of Richard and Jeff. They would get furious, if they thought you were being selfish Or if you were too hung up, in terms of, you know, sex There was a calendar. A schedule. Who was supposed to sleep with who. If were not already fully clear that theres something rotten being propagated beneath the banners of solidarity and idealism, we cant very well miss it now. Somewhere along the way, the collective became a cult, more interested in publicly trying and excommunicating its own than in building a better world. This insidious mission drift does nothing to put off Peggy (Tavi Gevinson), a wide-eyed young runaway who shows up in town with a duffel bag, $2,000, and a maniacal desire to join the movement. Shes one of two catalytic outsiders that Levenson throws into the mix the other is Hal (J. Alphonse Nicholson), a young man who meets Jenny when the manager of the Sears where he works sends him outside to stop her leafletting on private property. Though hes only 23, Hal is the plays only adult, and Nicholson effortlessly makes him the most sympathetic, emotionally intelligent person on stage. When Spence, Jenny, and Quinn find out that their former roommates have been involved with a failed attempt to bomb a bank in Detroit, Hal matter-of-factly speaks up: I wonder how many people were just there trying to deposit their paychecks. Go home to their families. Black people. Brown people. Those are your people, right? Hal is black, and as he embarks on a tentative relationship with Jenny, he finds himself surrounded by young white people who are desperate to be in solidarity with [his] struggle I hate white people, the practically translucent Peggy avows fervently and who do far more explaining than they do listening. Spence lectures him about the Holocaust and Quinn doesnt hide her disgust with the fact that his younger brother willingly enlisted in the army. Both of them scoff when he tells them he voted for Humphrey. Yeah, thats not really how change happens, though, is it? Spence drawls, Voting. Elections. When Hal next sees Jenny, his eyes are hard with irony. They told me a lot of stuff I didnt know, he says coolly. About the movement. About the collective. About monogamy. Oh, and racism. I had no idea it was even a problem before I talked to them. Hal opens Jennys eyes to the poisonous, self-defeating solipsism shes gotten caught up in, and her process of extracting herself, of finding other things to do about the worlds injustices, constitutes the plays real arc. Their story feels like the more sincere and nuanced one, but it gets subsumed inside the drama over Peggy, who blazes into the collective like a cross between Abigail from The Crucible and Twiggy. Shes a pint-size Robespierre, sowing bitterness and discontent in the guise of sympathy and honest feedback, pitting Quinn and Spence against Jenny (and slipping into bed with both of them, in moments that feel necessitated by plot rather than based on real chemistry), and more and more recklessly assuming the mantle left by Richard and Jeff that of first among equals, the one with the power to exalt or annihilate. Gevinson makes Peggy blank-faced and driven, a power addict whose tiny frame seems to swell as she asserts her moral reign of terror. Shes the human equivalent of the Milgram experiments, bringing out the basest instincts in everyone she touches. But she also brings out the shallowest impulses in the play. Revealing the resolution of her plotline would be a super-spoiler, but its the kind of twist thats too clean and clever by half, that ultimately turns Peggy herself into less of a character than a kind of piranha that can be dropped into the plots fish tank and allowed to wreak just enough havoc before being conveniently netted and removed. She leaves Spence and Quinn battered and destabilized, and Levenson leaves us with the feeling that everything weve seen has been a cautionary tale [about] the excesses of youth. Cullman keeps the play moving, but doesnt force it into real clarity about what it would like us to think or feel in its wake. Though its doing its best not to be up-front about it, Days of Rage is in fact a politically moderate play, a proponent of the slow and steady road toward change. I dont disagree that, due to human nature alone, that road may well be the only one were capable of treading; nevertheless, Levensons play left me feeling the same way I felt on November 9, 2016, when I found myself in a kitchen with a white guy of about my age, who was comfortably assuring everyone present that the arc of history bends towards justice. It just felt so easy for him to say. So impersonal. So free of risk. That same complacency is hiding inside Days of Rage, under the guise of complexity. Theres an undertone of superiority to the story, the kind that comes not from real, empathetic maturity but from a slightly older kid whos trying to set himself apart from the slightly younger kids. While I respect the plays implication that there will never be one revolution to end all revolutions especially not one that embraces violence I question the neatness of its structure and the ease with which were able to write off the immaturity of its central characters. I wish it had spent less time balancing on the fence, looking down at complicated issues, and more time showing me truly complicated people. Days of Rage is at Second Stage. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Legend Power Systems Inc. (TSX-V: LPS), a global leader in voltage management technology, today announced strategic partnerships with New York based Lido Energy Partners, LLC (Lido), an energy-sector focused business development consultancy, and Skaled Consulting, LLC (Skaled), a sales consulting and strategy firm. Both organizations have successful track records facilitating U.S. expansion. Lido and Skaled will concentrate on systematically increasing volume at the top of Legends sales funnel, improving sales conversion ratios in all stages of the sales cycle and increasing velocity across the complete customer sales process. "We are thrilled to be working with Legend Power Systems to establish their national footprint. The Harmonizer provides an innovative approach to reducing a building's energy load. The U.S. energy efficiency sector is a mature market and it is exciting to be able to introduce such a fresh and differentiated solution. Legend has already established itself as a formidable force in Canada, and now American buildings are able to benefit from it too," said Sarah Driansky , Managing Partner at Lido Energy Partners. Its always exciting to work with innovative organizations, such as Legend Power, who are uniquely positioned for rapid growth in both the commercial and public sectors, said Jake Dunlap, CEO of Skaled. Based on what weve learned about Legend, we feel that our professional and focused content and training will be invaluable to their sales efforts. Todays announcement of newly established relationships with Lido and Skaled represents another important step in building on our U.S. growth foundation, said Randy Buchamer, CEO of Legend Power Systems. We believe these new partnerships will help us accelerate delivery on our multi-vertical, multi-regional market penetration objectives for the U.S. by putting to use knowledge and capabilities of best-in-class solution providers. Lido and Skaled are the perfect partners to help us fully realize our significant growth potential in a timely and efficient way. About Lido Energy Partners Lido Energy Partners was founded to solve one of the biggest challenges facing companies in energy, water and waste: organic growth. They specialize in business development efforts for commercial entities and developers. Lido Energy Partners focuses on building out market development efforts for energy companies poised for rapid growth. They navigate margin compression, regulatory uncertainty, rapidly evolving technology, geopolitical influence and steep competition to identify and seize on opportunities to facilitate top-line growth. About Skaled Skaled is a leading U.S. based, sales consulting firm that utilizes world class experience to help companies scale effectively and efficiently. They help partners optimize their sales process, people, and technology to accelerate business growth. Skaled also works with industry leaders in emerging technologies and large enterprises such as LinkedIn, Microsoft and ADP to optimize their sales process, people, and technology. As a result, businesses are able to transform customer generation into repeatable, short-term and long-term strategies. About Legend Power Systems Inc. Legend Power Systems Inc. ( www.legendpower.com ) is a global leader in voltage management technology. We help buildings use less energy by eliminating overvoltage; an inherent challenge associated with power grids around the world. Legends industry-proven Harmonizer enables dynamic power-management of an entire building. The proprietary and patented system reduces total energy consumption and power costs, while also maximizing the life of electrical equipment. Legends unique solution is also a key contributor to both corporate sustainability efforts, and the meeting of utility energy efficiency targets. For further information, please contact: Steve Vanry, CFO + 1 604 671 9522 svanry@legendpower.com Sean Peasgood, Investor Relations + 1 647 503 1054 sean@sophiccapital.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statements This Press Release may contain statements which constitute forward-looking information, including statements regarding the plans, intentions, beliefs and current expectations of the Company, its directors, or its officers with respect to the future business activities and operating performance of the Company. The words may, would, could, will, intend, plan, anticipate, believe, estimate, expect and similar expressions, as they relate to the Company, or its management, are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future business activities or performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and that the Companys future business activities may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. Such risks, uncertainties and factors are described in the periodic filings with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities, including the Companys quarterly and annual Managements Discussion & Analysis, which may be viewed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Although the Company has attempted to identify important risks, uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be others that cause results not be as anticipated, estimated or intended. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements other than as may be required by applicable law. The Directorate General of Customs and Excise of Indonesia (DGCE) and the WCO Asia/Pacific Security Project co-hosted a workshop in Jakarta from 16 to 19 October 2018, funded by the Government of Japan. 20 officers representing the Customs administrations of Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam attended the WCO Sub-regional Passenger Controls Workshop. The workshop was facilitated by the WCO Asia Pacific Security Project with assistance from United States Customs and Border Protection (US CBP) and Japan Customs. Mr. Norikazu Kuramoto, Deputy Director from Japan Customs, spoke of the commitment of the Government of Japan to work with the WCO to increase the capability of Customs administrations in South East Asia to respond to the terrorist threat. The workshop participants were presented with an overview of the security threat environment in South East Asia including the current and potential future threat from Foreign Terrorist Fighters. The participants discussed the challenges that each of their Customs administration faces with respect to threats in the passenger environment along with the current state of passenger controls in their countries. The attendees were provided with briefings on how Japan Customs and US CBP conduct pre-arrival risk assessment as part of passenger control systems in their respective countries. The WCOs Global Traveler Assessment System (GTAS) was also demonstrated to the participants as a tool for pre-arrival risk assessment. Indonesian DGCE hosted an informative visit to Soekarno Hatta International Airport where a demonstration of their pre-arrival risk assessment system and passenger clearance process was provided to participants. The emphasis in these presentations was on the value of pre-arrival risk assessment systems for identifying high risk air travelers utilizing advanced passenger information (API and PNR) received from airlines. Implementation of pre-arrival risk assessment systems is not without its challenges and the presenters and participants were able to discuss ways of overcoming the challenges and emphasized the need for appropriate legislation to be in place along with agreements with partner agencies. An overview of the WCO Passenger Controls training material was also provided so that the workshop attendees could consider and recommend the material for possible future training opportunities in their home Customs administrations. The workshop facilitators then worked with the participants to develop their own 'action plans' for improving Passenger Controls in their administrations. In closing the workshop Mr. Khoirul Hadziq, Head of Section, Enforcement and Investigation at DGCE provided words of encouragement to the participants on the importance of passenger controls and wished everyone the best as they returned to their home country Customs administrations. If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now! Submit French English QUEBEC, Quebec, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HEXO Corp. (HEXO or the Company) (TSX:HEXO) has announced the closing of the acquisition of its interest in a large facility in Belleville, Ontario. This is the first facility that the Company has established outside of Quebec, further delivering on its national expansion strategy and allowing HEXO to create a centre of excellence for the development of advanced cannabis products. Closing the transaction and acquiring our interest in this facility is integral to carrying out our hub and spoke business strategy, said Sebastien St-Louis, HEXOs CEO and co-founder. The space can be scaled up based on our future needs and provides HEXO with the infrastructure it needs to continue partnering with Fortune 500 companies and to create category-winning cosmetics, edibles, vapes and more. The centralized location, conveniently located along primary shipping routes in Ontario, will allow HEXO to process and distribute cannabis-based products to fulfil its commitments across Canada. The Company will host an event in late November to give the residents of Belleville and the surrounding areas the opportunity to come learn about HEXOs history and vision from Chief Brand Officer and co-founder, Adam Miron. HEXO will also use the event as an opportunity to provide information about the types of jobs that will be available at the facility and the projected timelines for the Belleville location. Establishing operations in Belleville allows us to capture the skilled local workforce, many of whom may have previously worked at the facility when it was a Sears Distribution Centre, said Miron. We look forward to building close ties in the region and supporting its economic wellbeing for years to come. The building is owned by Belleville Complex Inc. and is a joint venture in which Olegna Holdings Inc. will hold a 75% interest and HEXO will hold a 25% interest, with the potential to acquire an additional 10% interest once certain milestones are met. In addition to its initial lease of 579,000 sq. ft. of the space under a long-term lease, HEXO will have rights of first offer and first refusal to lease the remaining space in the building. The transaction is considered a related party transaction within the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61 - 101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (MI 61-101) because Mr. Vincent Chiara, a director of HEXO, holds a majority interest in Olegna Holdings Inc. HEXO is relying on applicable exemptions from the minority approval and valuation requirements of MI 61-101 on the basis that neither the fair market value of the subject matter of, nor the fair market value of the consideration for, the transaction exceeds 25% of HEXOs market capitalization. The terms of the transaction have been reviewed and approved by the independent directors of the Company, and the rental rates for the facility were supported by estimates from independent appraisers. 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. Forward-Looking Information This press release may contain forward-looking information that is based on certain assumptions and involves known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events to differ materially from current assumptions and expectations. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. A more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company appears in the Companys Annual Information Form and continuous disclosure filings, which are available on SEDARs website at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation, except to the extent required by law, to update or revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events, or for any other reason. Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Toronto Stock Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Investor Relations: Kathy Chow 1-866-438-8429 invest@HEXO.com www.ir.hexo.com Media Relations: Sarah Brown media@hexo.com Director Adam Miron 819-639-5498 By West Kentucky Star Staff Oct. 31, 2018 | 03:23 PM | PADUCAH With six days before the election, one candidate for Paducah City Commission is dropping out of the race.In an email received by West Kentucky Star on Wednesday, Mike Reed says he has withdrawn from the race due to, "emergent health issues and a verbal commitment."Reed's press release urges those who hope to "drain Paducah's swamp," to expel incumbents on the commission by only voting for candidates Scott Jackson and Brenda McElroy, whom he calls, "virtuous conservatives."He thanked the local Republican party and those who have supported and prayed for him during the campaign.McCracken County Clerk Julie Griggs told West Kentucky Star she has not yet heard from Reed, and he has not filed official paperwork to withdraw from the race.Reed's official withdrawal would leave seven candidates on the November 6 ballot. Four will be elected to represent the city.Here is the entire press release from Mike Reed:From Mike Reed, 2018 Candidate for Paducah City CommissionerEmergent health issues and a verbal commitment demand my withdrawal from the 2018 race for Paducah City Commissioner.I entered this race to expose and correct long-term assaults on families like mine that local government and police have refused to address.Such lawless cruelty threatens every member of our community and prevents the growth we all pray for.Today I abandon the race for Paducah City Commissioner but, I will not simply accept and tolerate Paducahs special brand of manipulation by sneak attack!I urge those hoping to drain Paducahs swamp to expel the incumbents by choosing virtuous conservatives.I ask my supporters and friends to vote for Scott Jackson and Brenda McElroy only.Many thanks to the local GOP and the kind prayers of supporters and well-wishers.May God guide and prosper Paducah.Mike Reed. By West Kentucky Star Staff Nov. 25, 2018 | 07:43 PM | PADUCAH A Paducah teen who was reported missing has been found and is safe.The Paducah Police Department says 17-year-old Devon Maxwell-Hall, who was reported missing on Sunday afternoon, has been located and is in good health.Original Story:Police need the public's help locating a missing Paducah teen. According to the Paducah Police Department, 17-year-old Devon Maxwell-Hall, of Bronson Street, was reported missing Sunday afternoon. He was last seen on Bridge Street. Maxwell-Hall is described as a black male, 6'0 tall and 175 pounds, with black hair above the ear and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing black pants, a dark blue shirt, a black jacket and black shoes. Police say Maxwell-Hall has a history of seizures and takes medicine that helps prevent them. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Maxwell-Hall is asked to contact the Paducah Police Department. By West Kentucky Star Staff Oct. 30, 2018 | 06:08 PM | PADUCAH The Paducah Police Department is investigating a couple of suspicious vehicle fires from Monday.Police say the first fire was reported at 4:20 am in the 1300 block of Atkins Street. First responders found a Toyota Camry owned by Beverly Kenney was engulfed in flames. This was in the H.C. Mathis Apartment complex, which is run by Paducah Housing Authority and designed for people age 62 and above.Ten minutes later, another vehicle fire was reported in the 800 block of North 25th Street, about one-half mile away. Those who arrived found a 2001 Ford Crown Victoria, owned by Frank James, Jr., was on fire.Investigators believe both fires were intentionally set, but did not give any additional details.On August 27, police asked for the public's help in their investigation of two other vehicle fires. One was on Harrison Street on June 30, and another on August 19 along North 24th Street - just a block away from the scene of one of Monday's fires.The Police Department told West Kentucky Star Tuesday that it hasn't been determined if Monday's fires and those from this summer are related. On the Net: Advertisement By West Kentucky Star Staff Oct. 30, 2018 | WEST PADUCAH By West Kentucky Star Staff Oct. 30, 2018 | 01:45 PM | WEST PADUCAH A busy intersection in western McCracken County will be improved using state funding. Governor Matt Bevin's office announced Tuesday that $350,000 has been granted to realign the "Y" intersection of U.S. Highway 62 and Kentucky Highway 286 at Milan Station. Almost 5,000 vehicles travel through the intersection each day. KYTC Chief Engineer Kyle Poat said the improvements have been welcomed by leaders in McCracken, Ballard and Carlisle counties. Governor Bevins continued support of improving areas where we have safety concerns, coupled with high truck traffic volumes, has allowed us to focus our attention on improving the dynamics of this intersection, Poat said. With the anticipated increase in large truck traffic along KY 286 due to the re-opening of the paper mill in Wickliffe in the coming months, this project will help foster a safer connection with U.S. 62 for folks traveling to and from Ballard and Carlisle Counties, and beyond, while continuing to support job creation, retention and development. McCracken County Judge-Executive Bob Leeper anticipates the positive impact of the project, saying The Governor and Transportation Cabinet's commitment to improving this intersection will be exciting news to everyone who travels this section of highway. Carlisle County Judge-Executive Greg Terry said it will also benefit residents of his county and nearby Ballard County. As a frequent traveler on Highway 62 I have been aware of the ongoing hazards of the intersection at U.S. Hwy 62 and KY 286. When I was asked if there were any issues on state roads in our area, this one intersection first came to mind," Terry said. "I know it is not in Carlisle County, but many, if not most, of our residents travel Highway 62 regularly, and by far this intersection has been the spot of many accidents and close calls. I wanted to make sure our citizens are safe not just on our county roads, but also any state road they travel in our area. I greatly appreciate that KYTC will improve the alignment of this intersection. In the release, State Senator Danny Carroll and Rep. Steven Rudy also expressed their appreciation for the funding and subsequent improvements. By West Kentucky Star Staff Oct. 31, 2018 | 06:31 AM | FANCY FARM A Mayfield woman is facing endangerment and drug charges after her young child was allegedly found standing in the road. According to the Graves County Sheriff's Office, deputies were called on Tuesday to Rule Shack Road near Fancy Farm, regarding a small boy that was by himself in the roadway. Upon arrival to the area, deputies spoke to a witness that had almost hit the boy with a vehicle. Deputies said the witness stopped and followed the child to a home on Rule Shack Road, where the child entered an open door to the rear of the home. The witness did not see anyone inside and reportedly called out with no reply. The witness then stood by until deputies arrived. Deputies made contact with 22-year-old Emily Wilson, of Mayfield, at the home. Wilson reportedly gave deputies consent to search her home, where they allegedly found a partially smoked marijuana "joint." Child Protective Services was notified and the two-year-old boy was placed in the care of other family members. Wilson was charged with wanton endangerment and possession of marijuana. She was lodged in the Graves County Jail. By West Kentucky Star Staff Oct. 27, 2018 | 11:28 AM | WESTERN KENTUCKY; SOUTHERN ILLINOIS Kentucky Illinois Kentucky Illinois Because of rain the forecast, many communities and organizations moved their Halloween celebrations to Tuesday, but there are still haunted events, fall festivals and other activities on Wednesday, and a few activities over the weekend. Here is our list of events:McCracken County Judge-Executive Bob Leeper issued a statement Monday, saying, "We are receiving numerous calls related to Halloween and the activity of trick-or-treating. We are planning to allow those activities to occur on Halloween, which is Wednesday this year.The city of Mayfield's trick-or-treating will remain on Wednesday, according to officials.Trick-or treating at Mayfield City Hall will be held from 3-6 p.m.Industrial Slaughter House in Fancy Farm, open Wednesday, Oct. 31 (Click here for more)Twelve Oaks Baptist Church is hosting their Fall Festival from 6-8 pm. The huge annual event for kids includes food, fun, games, and more. Inflatables will be set up in the Family Life Center. Kids can dress up in their favorite costumes (nothing scary, please) and get ready to gorge themselves on sweets. The church is located at 2110 New Holt Road in Paducah.Trunk or Treat from 6-8 pm at Lone Oak Church of Christ, 2960 Lone Oak Road in Paducah.Trunk or Treat at First Baptist Church of Calvert City on Ash Street, 5-7 pm.Trunk or Treat at Paducah's First Church of the Nazarene from 5-7 pm. Decorated cars filled with treats, a chili supper, and games. Family photos available (delivery by email). The church is at 2626 Adams Street.Trunk or Treat at Bardwell Baptist Church, 323 HWY 51 N, Bardwell, beginning at 6 pm.Trunk or Treat at Beulah Baptist Church on Highway 307 in Fancy Farm from 6 - 8:30 pm. Everyone is encouraged to bring chili or a soup and a dessert to share.Trunk-or-Treat at Bethel Baptist Church in Glibertsville from 6-8 p.m. The event will be moved in the Fellowship Hall if it rains.Trunk-or-Treat in Grand Rivers in the Grand Rivers Community Center from 5-7 p.m.Trick-or-treating in Hardin from 5-7 p.m.Trunk-or-Treat at Milburn Church of Christ from 5-7 p.m. In case of rain the event will be moved into the fellowship hall.Trail of Treats at Reidland Baptist Church from 5:30-7:30 p.m.Fall Festival at Bellview Baptist Church from 5:30-7:30 p.m.Trunk or Treat at Ohio Valley Baptist Church in Ledbetter, beginning at 6pm. In case of rain, they will be set up inside in the activity building behind the church.Mayfield/Graves County Kindness Rocks hosts their 2nd annual, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" Trunk or Treat from 5:30-8:30 pm. The event is INDOORS at Cartwright Grove on the Mayfield-Graves Co. Fairgrounds.Harvest Festival at Melber Baptist Church from 6-8 pm.Trunk or Treat at First Christian Church in Metropolis from 5-8 pm.Chittyville School Haunted House near Herrin, IL, open Wednesday, Oct. 31 (Click here for more )Paducah Regional Sportsplex will host their first-ever Fall Festival from 1-7 pm. There will be 20 vendors, games, hay rides, and concessions. Arm bands and Tickets will be available at the door. For more information, call 270-744-8310.The Super Museum in Metropolis is hosting a superhero meet and greet from 11 am 3 pm. It includes a costume contest and other activities. Proceeds will benefit the Super Museum's Renovation Fund.If you know of an event that we don't have listed, please email us at news@wkyx.com. By WestKyStar & MSU Staff Oct. 30, 2018 | 02:22 PM | MURRAY During the event, veterans and active-duty members of the U.S. Armed Forces will learn how to file VA disability claims, speak to Murray State staff about VA benefits, learn about suicide prevention resources and have their resumes reviewed by Murray State Career Services staff. Refreshments, games and door prizes will be available during this event that is fun for the whole family. The western part of Kentucky has so much respect for and a desire to help military members both past and current, said Jud Faust, coordinator for veteran military student success at Murray State. This event provides that opportunity. Veterans and members of the Armed Forces will be able to learn about services offered by the local community. Funding for the Purchase Area Military Day event is made possible by a grant to Four Rivers from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Four Rivers Behavioral Health Regional Prevention Center believes those who have served or are currently serving our country through military service deserve a huge thanks for the sacrifices they have made, said Ellen Walsh, director of the prevention center. In addition to co-sponsoring events like the Purchase Area Military Appreciation Day, Murray State offers a number of services for members of the U.S. Armed Forces, including in-state tuition rates, a veterans lounge, the Veteran Student Organization and school certifying officials serving as liaisons to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs. Notably, Murray State has also launched a new pricing model to support military students in earning their college degrees at little or no-out-of-pocket cost. Learn more about the new initiative at murraystate.edu/militaryrate . Contact Faust at 270-809-5343 or jfaust@murraystate.edu for more information about Purchase Area Military Appreciation Day or about support services for military students at Murray State. Murray State University and Four Rivers Behavioral Health Regional Prevention Center are collaborating to host a Purchase Area Military Appreciation Day on Saturday, Nov. 3, from 10 am to 5 pm in the Curris Center Ballroom on the Universitys campus. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Evrim Resources Corp. (TSX.V:EVM) ("Evrim" or the "Company") is pleased to announce it has signed a three-year exploration alliance agreement (the "Alliance") with Meridian Gold Co. (Meridian), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yamana Gold Inc. ("Yamana"). The Alliance allows Evrim royalty free access to Yamanas dataset in the western United States for gold and base metal project generation. The dataset contains information from more than 7,000 locations ranging from early stage exploration to advanced projects and represents approximately 30 years of exploration work completed by Meridian and predecessor FMC Gold Co. The dataset covers a large portion of the western United States with a particular focus on Nevada. "The dataset consists of digital and non-digital data with proprietary non-public information that has not been reviewed for many years, making it a unique and valuable asset, commented Paddy Nicol, Evrims President and CEO. Western United States represents a new mining and exploration jurisdiction for Evrim and reinforces our strategy to gain competitive advantages in areas in which we operate. We look forward to applying our skillset to identify new opportunities with this under-utilized dataset. During the alliance period, Evrim will compile a fully digital and comprehensive dataset to generate new targets and ideas within the designated area (see Figure 1). Should Evrim acquire a project within the designated area, Yamana will have the exclusive right for 60 days to enter into an option agreement to earn a 75% interest on terms as follows: Within the first two years, Yamana will fund [at least] US$1,000,000 for initial exploration expenditures, including any acquisition or land staking costs; Solely fund additional exploration expenditures between years 3 and 10, or until such time as Yamana has defined a NI 43-101 compliant pre-feasibility study on a minimum 1 million ounce gold equivalent resource; Make a cash payment of US$150,000 upon signing the option agreement and additional payments of US$100,000 on the first, second and third anniversaries; Upon Yamana earning its interest and the formation of a joint venture, Yamana and Evrim will jointly fund programs on a respective 75%/25% basis; Should Evrims interest in a project fall below 10%, its interest will convert to a 2.5% net smelter royalty ("NSR") of which 1.25% NSR can be purchased by Yamana prior to production for US$5 million; and Evrim will be operator during the first US$10 million of exploration expenditures. The option period is independent of the alliance period and may extend beyond the three-year term. At the end of the Alliance, both parties will retain a copy of the digital database. Figure 1 Location of datapoints in the Yamana western United States dataset is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/de071747-0222-49e6-b793-f1e6e7ff28f6 About Evrim Resources Evrim Resources is a mineral exploration company whose goal is to participate in significant exploration discoveries supported by a sustainable business model. The Company is well financed, has a diverse range of quality projects and a database covering substantial areas of Mexico and the western United States. The Companys projects are advanced through stand alone exploration or option and joint venture agreements with industry partners to create shareholder value. Evrims business plan also includes royalty creation utilizing the Companys exploration expertise and existing projects. On Behalf of the Board EVRIM RESOURCES CORP. Paddy Nicol President & CEO To find out more about Evrim Resources Corp., please contact Paddy Nicol, President, or Charles Funk, VP New Opportunities and Exploration at 604-248-8648, or Donna Yoshimatsu at 416-722-2456. Visit our website at www.evrimresources.com. Forward Looking Information This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward looking statements". All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that Evrim Resources Corp. (the "Company) expects to occur, are forward looking statements. Forward looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, and continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward looking statements. Forward looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Companys management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. English Norwegian Orkla is hosting a capital markets day in London today, at which the Group will announce its new main financial goals. Its strategy of being a leading branded consumer goods company remains unchanged. The Board of Directors will propose a dividend policy aimed at increasing the dividend from its current level of NOK 2.60 per share, normally to within 50-70% of Earnings Per Share. Orkla targets long-term organic growth at least in line with market growth. By 2021, Orkla aims to achieve growth in underlying EBIT margins of at least 1.5 percentage points, adjusted for M&A and foreign exchange. Strategically attractive acquisitions will continue to be a key part of Orkla's growth strategy and value creation model. At the same time, the Group will focus more strongly on reducing complexity through more active portfolio management. The Group has ambitions of achieving a marked improvement in working capital efficiency, targeting a reduction of 3 percentage points in net working capital/net sales value by 2021. "Orkla has transitioned from a conglomerate to a leading branded consumer goods company. We continue to increase the Group's profitability by improving efficiency in every part of our value chain. Orkla will strengthen its leading local brands while reducing the complexity of its portfolio. We are laying the foundation for greater future growth by strengthening our presence in higher-growth channels, categories and geographies. By delivering strong innovations, we will continue to be consumers' first choice," says Orkla President and CEO Peter A. Ruzicka in a commentary. The presentations scheduled to be held at today's event are attached herewith, and a webcast may be seen at www.orkla.com. Orkla ASA Oslo, 31 October 2018 Ref.: Senior Vice President Investor Relations Thomas Ljungqvist Tel.: +47 482 59 618 E-mail: thomas.ljungqvist@orkla.no Group Director Corporate Communications and Corporate Affairs Hakon Mageli Tel.: +47 928 45 828 E-mail: hakon.mageli@orkla.no This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5 -12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act. Attachment PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Phoenix Capital Resources (Phoenix), a leading middle market special situations investment bank, served as the financial advisor and investment banker to Carroll Consultants, Ltd. (Carroll or the Company) in its merger with Cafaro Greenleaf. For over 60 years, Carroll has been a leading independent retirement plan consulting, administration, and investment advisory firm. Headquartered in Wayne, PA, the Company has guided employers in the development of their retirement and health and welfare plans with a nationwide focus and expertise in the areas of higher education and independent schools. Cafaro Greenleaf is a leading national investment advisory and consulting firm for corporate, public, and not for profit retirement and benefit plans. Founded in 1981, Cafaro Greenleaf is headquartered in New Jersey and is a second-generation investment firm with offices and clients across the country. Phoenix was engaged by Carroll to evaluate strategic options for the Company. Phoenix conducted an exhaustive search of potential strategic partners and identified numerous qualified candidates. At the end of the day, we felt Cafaro Greenleaf provided the best cultural fit for Carrolls customers and employees, and Carrolls 60+ year legacy will continue with the combined resources that Cafaro Greenleaf brings to the table, says Michael Jacoby, Senior Managing Director of Phoenix. Michael Jacoby, Senior Managing Director and Michael Gaul led the Phoenix team in advising Carroll and in structuring and negotiating the transaction. I am delighted to be partnering with Cafaro Greenleaf in support of Carrolls continued growth, said Marcie Carroll, President of Carroll. Our clients and their employees will be the beneficiaries of our enhanced services and resources. The Phoenix team was invaluable to me at every step along the way and in helping me navigate this complex transaction. About Phoenix: For 30 years, Phoenix has provided smarter, operationally focused solutions for middle market companies in transition. 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. 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. If you would like to learn more about Phoenix, please visit http://www.phoenixmanagement.com/, http://www.phoenixcapitalresources.com/ or http://www.phoenixmanagement.com/phoenix-transaction-advisory-services/overview English Lithuanian Lietuvos Energijos Gamyba, AB, company code 302648707, registered office at Elektrines st. 21, Elektrenai (hereinafter referred to as the Company). The total number of registered ordinary shares issued by company is 648 002 629, ISIN code LT0000128571. The Company informs, that on 30 October 2018 The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania dismissed the Companys appeal upholding the former Vilnius Regional Administrative Court decision of 2 July 2017 which dismissed the Companys complaint. In this case the Company requested the following points: to repeal the provisions of the National Commission for Energy Control and Prices (hereinafter the NCC) Resolution No O3-562 of 22 October 2015 On determining the cap prices for capacity reserve services of the Company for the year 2016; to repeal the former NCC Resolution No O3-685 of 23 rd December 2015 On the amendment of Resolution No. O3-562 of 22 nd On determining the cap prices for capacity reserve services of the Company for the year 2016 and the Resolution of NCC No O3-131 of 25 May 2016 On determining the cap prices for capacity reserve services of the Company for the year 2016 December 2015 On the amendment of Resolution No. O3-562 of 22 On determining the cap prices for capacity reserve services of the Company for the year 2016 and the Resolution of NCC No O3-131 of 25 May 2016 On determining the cap prices for capacity reserve services of the Company for the year 2016 to repeal Clause 1.3 of NCCs Resolution No. O3-579 On determining the public interest service (hereinafter PI services) fees and prices for the year 2016 and its respective amendments, namely: Clause 2 of NCCs Resolution No O3-687 of 23rd December 2015 On amendment of Resolution No. O3-579 On determining the cap prices for capacity reserve services of Lietuvos Energijos Gamyba AB for the year 2015 and Clause 1.2 NCCs Resolution No O3-133 of 30th October 2015 On amendment of NCCs Resolution No. O3-579 On determining the public interest service fees and prices for the year 2016. This decision by The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania is without appeal. One of the subject matters of this legal dispute have been the Resolutions of NCC by which NCCs Resolution NoO3-757 of 7th August 2014 has been implemented. The latter Resolution recognized the Company as having a significant subject within the market of production of electric energy. This Resolution has been repealed by a decision of 2016 by The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania is without appeal. Yet due to the decision of 30th October 2018 by The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania, the Resolutions of NCC that implemented NCCs Resolution NoO3-757 of 7th August 2014 under which during 2016 the Company has not received 2,51 million Eur in payments for PI services. In its financial report for the first three quarters (that have ended on 30th September 2018), the Company has stated that its total undefined assets as of 30th September 2018 amounted to 2,51 million Eur. The Company emphasizes that the decision of 30th October 2018 by The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania goes cardinally against the former legal practice as on the 5th August 2016 the Regional Administrative Court of Vilnius has repealed an analogous NCCs Resolution that also implemented NCCs Resolution NoO3-757 of 7th August 2014 and under which during 2015 the Company has not received 5,4 million Eur in payments for PI services. By way of implementing this decision of the Regional Administrative Court of Vilnius, these payments are turned back to the Company over 2018. The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania has further found and stated the following: The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania has dismissed the Companys complaint and left the decision of 15 th June 2017 of Vilnius Regional Administrative Court unchanged, by which the Companys complaint to dismiss NCCs Resolution No O3-852 of 17 October 2014 On determining the cap prices for capacity reserve services of Lietuvos Energijos Gamyba AB for the year 2015, and in respect of the NCCs Resolution No O3-866 of 30 October 2014 On determining the purchase prices for the year 2015 for electricity produced at the Lithuanian Power Plant of Lietuvos Energijos Gamyba AB. The decision of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania is without appeal. June 2017 of Vilnius Regional Administrative Court unchanged, by which the Companys complaint to dismiss NCCs Resolution No O3-852 of 17 October 2014 On determining the cap prices for capacity reserve services of Lietuvos Energijos Gamyba AB for the year 2015, and in respect of the NCCs Resolution No O3-866 of 30 October 2014 On determining the purchase prices for the year 2015 for electricity produced at the Lithuanian Power Plant of Lietuvos Energijos Gamyba AB. The decision of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania is without appeal. The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania has dismissed the Companys complaint and left the decision of 19 th April 2017 of Vilnius Regional Administrative Court unchanged, by which the Company complained to dismiss the clauses of NCCs Resolution No. O3-391 of 29 November 2016 On determining the cap prices for capacity reserve services of Lietuvos Energijos Gamyba AB for the year 2017. The Company also requested to oblige the NCC to recalculate the cap prices for services of guaranteeing the active power secondary emergency reserve, taking into account the constant expenditure of Second Kruonis Storage Pumped unit. The decision of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania is without appeal. April 2017 of Vilnius Regional Administrative Court unchanged, by which the Company complained to dismiss the clauses of NCCs Resolution No. O3-391 of 29 November 2016 On determining the cap prices for capacity reserve services of Lietuvos Energijos Gamyba AB for the year 2017. The Company also requested to oblige the NCC to recalculate the cap prices for services of guaranteeing the active power secondary emergency reserve, taking into account the constant expenditure of Second Kruonis Storage Pumped unit. The decision of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania is without appeal. The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania has dismissed the Companys complaint and left the decision of 24th April 2018 of Vilnius Regional Administrative Court unchanged by which the Companys complaint was dismissed. With this complaint the Company requested: to repeal NCCs Resolution No O3E-559 of 30 November 2017 On determining the cap prices for capacity reserve services of the Company for the year 2018 and NCCs Resolution No O3E-598 of 20 December 2017 On amendment of amending NCCs Resolution No O3E-559 of 30 November 2017 On determining the cap prices for capacity reserve services of the Company for the year 2018; to repeal NCCs Resolution No O3E-599 of 20 December 2017 On determining the PI service fees and prices for the year 2018; in accordance with Clause 7.4 of the Guidelines for PI services within the energy sector that have been enacted by the Governments of Lithuania18th by Decree No 916 on 18th July 2012 (hereinafter the Guidelines) to oblige NCC to recalculate all expenditure that comprises from common-station asset usage for the production of electric energy, its deterioration while other indirect expenditure amounts are assigned to assets used for the production of electric energy taking into account the capacity and remaining timeframe of usage of the equipment in operation; taking into account the recalculation of the need of PI services, to oblige the NCC to recalculate the fees for PI services for comsumers prescribed within Clause 21 of the Guidelines. The decision of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania is without appeal. The Company has recognized the effect of all the aforementioned NCCs Resolutions in its financial reports, hence there will be no further effect on the Companys results. 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 College attracting students from across the globe This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Oct 31st, 2018 Coleg Cambria is making waves on the international stage having welcomed more than 75 Chinese students to its summer school programme over the summer. With youngsters from as far away as Zimbabwe, Thailand, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates joining further and higher education courses this academic year, Cambrias international team is now focused on new territories including the Far East. First class vocational qualifications, accommodation with local families and a popular buddy system have all supported their decision to enrol at the north east Wales college and take up their studies in the UK. International Coordinator Natalie Roberts says Coleg Cambrias reputation overseas is growing and was bolstered by the introduction of a raft of new courses for 2017/18 in engineering, agriculture, creative media and catering, coupled with their industry links and career progression opportunities. The summer school was very successful and gave the students a flavour of life at Cambria and here in North Wales, said Natalie, previously International Sales Executive at Oxford University Press. The colleges cutting-edge facilities and courses are a big selling point, but so is the cost of living in this region, its beautiful scenery and the vast array of sectors and businesses we work alongside. These are all key to attracting students from all over the world, and only reinforce our plans to build on the relationships we have in place with partner colleges and institutions in Asia and across Europe. During their stay in Flintshire and Wrexham, the Chinese cohorts explored Wales and other areas of the UK, discovering more about UK history, language and culture while taking in sights and landmarks such as Windsor Castle, the British Museum and even Manchester Uniteds stadium, Old Trafford. The college has also delivered Erasmus placements to students from Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Western Europe to experience a wide range of programmes from car mechanics and hairdressing, to performing arts, design, business and textiles. Natalie added: Cambria has such a strong work-based curriculum which appeals to anyone wherever they are in the world because there is the best chance of a career on graduating. The college is truly world-leading, and with a new strategy in place we will further build on the hard work which has taken place in past years to establish Coleg Cambria as a truly international institution. Petition launched for better deal on business rates in Wales This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Oct 31st, 2018 A petition has been launched asking Welsh Government to support our traders by addressing the issue of business rates, pointing to the recent Budget that gave tax breaks to some non-domestic rate payers in England. Cllr Andrew Atkinson the founder of the campaign said, Please sign and share this petition. Our traders need the support of Welsh Government and a better deal on their business rates. England already has a more favourable scheme and its about to get a whole lot better again. Please add your voice to this petition to encourage the Welsh Government to act and adopt a similar scheme. Its a tough time for our traders and Wrexham is an incredible example of community spirit, traders working together and a packed calendar of town events but volunteers can only do so much. Business rates is a huge issue facing our traders and they need support. We need the Welsh Government to back our traders in the same way as across the border. Any help that the Welsh Government can give our traders in this way is most welcome and we look forward to discussing this further with our AMs. Cllr Atkinson is working with local businessman Alex Jones, Chairman of the Wrexham Town Centre Forum, on the petition. Although the topic of rates was raised in yesterdays Town Centre Forum Steering Group, we are told todays petition is itself separate from the Forum. Mr Jones has written to Mark Drakeford AM Minister for Finance as Chair of the Forum over the subject of rates asking for support for traders but has been disappointed with the reply which he says gave no answers and nothing new. Mr Jones said: The High Streets are under immense pressure, and the increase in the multiplier and decrease of the High Street rate relief from 1500 to 750 by the Welsh Government is having a negative impact on traders. In England the rate relief is currently set at 15,000 yet in Wales we are 12,000 and thats without the big changes ahead. The small business rate multiplier in England is 48.0p, in Wales its 51.4p. Many national retailers are looking at relocating out of towns or shutting up shop completely, as this is no secret and not just an issue in Wales. The increase in sales made online are the shopping habits of today but the online retailers dont necessarily have the overheads like a High Street business. I was disappointed with the response to my letter to Mark Drakeford AM as it only really told us what we already know. Now there is a very significant saving on its way just across the border and Im looking to the Welsh Government to see how they will respond. Please do sign and share the petition. Im hopeful that we can all work together on this issue and look forward to Mr Drakefords response. Cllr Atkinson and Mr Jones say they will be reaching out to Assembly Members and Welsh Members of Parliament of all parties seeking support and backing for changes. The Chancellor said he was looking to help Englands High Streets by cutting business rates by a third for all in England with a rateable value of 51,000 or less over two years. The Treasury said the new rates relief, targeted at smaller retailers, would knock a third off their bills and that 90% of them would benefit from the policy. In 2019/20 Welsh Government will get 26.8m from the business rates discount spending in England, due to the way devolved services are funded, with non-domestic rates in Wales being the responsibility of the Welsh Government. You can read and sign the petition here. Top pic: Shops in town before the paving upgrade! Two police officers face misconduct case over Nicholas Churton murder contacts This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Oct 31st, 2018 Two police officers will face a misconduct case, and North Wales Police are being urged to review procedures in recognising vulnerability, after an investigation into contact with a man murdered in Wrexham. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) today published a lengthy statement on their investigation on North Wales Police contact with murder victim Nicholas Churton. Mr Churton was found dead in his home in Caia in March 2017. Jordan Davidson admitted his murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Local MP Ian Lucas has also today reiterated his calls for an over-arching independent investigation into Mr Churtons death looking at the roles of the police, the probation service and the Community Rehabilitation Company. In todays statement the IOPC say: We have completed our investigation into NWP contact with Mr Churton in the 11 days prior to his death including their response to his call that a man called Jordan had been in his home. We are continuing a second investigation into NWPs contact with Davidson following his release from prison on licence in December 2016 in the period leading up to the murder of Mr Churton. Our first investigation has found that Mr Churton called NWP on 14 March 2017 to report that two days earlier he had been threatened with a hammer in his home by a man called Jordan who tried to steal his television and stole his house keys. Later that day, a police officer called Mr Churton back to take further details about Jordan. The officer recorded the incident as theft rather than as a robbery which may have influenced the level of threat and the risk assessment made in respect of Mr Churton. Details of a neighbour identified by Mr Churton who may have had more information about Davidson were not recorded and vulnerability factors were not correctly identified despite there being a number of issues to indicate Mr Churton was vulnerable. The occurrence on the incident log was viewed by three further supervisors who also failed to identify that the circumstances amounted to a robbery and not a theft. On 21 March, 2017, the same police officer called Mr Churton again to obtain further details about Jordan and advised him that he should speak to his friends to try to find out the suspects details himself. Mr Churton called NWP on 23 March 2017 to tell them the full name was Jordan Davidson. Four days later, he was found dead at his home and Davidson was arrested for murder. IOPC Director for Wales Catrin Evans said: This was a horrific murder and the responsibility for Mr Churtons death lies squarely with Jordan Davidson. My thoughts remain with Mr Churtons family and friends. Our first investigation found there were areas for improvement in police recognising Mr Churtons vulnerability and ensuring all available information was recorded accurately. Police requesting a vulnerable victim of crime carry out a line of enquiry themselves to find out who the offender was, has, in my view, the potential to increase the risk to the victim. I am discussing the learning identified during the course of this investigation with North Wales Police. We are progressing our further enquiries into how the force handled Davidson after his release from prison and their liaison with other agencies. Following the investigation, the IOPC say North Wales Police have agreed that a police officer has a case to answer for misconduct over allegations that the log in relation to the incident on 12 March was inaccurate, key information was omitted and that the officers risk assessment did not adequately take into account Mr Churtons vulnerability. They add that the force also agreed a police sergeant has a case to answer for misconduct for allegedly failing to identify the urgency of the response needed in the circumstances in reviewing the officers actions. North Wales Police have also agreed to review their policies and procedures in recognising vulnerability, grading and resourcing and making use of intelligence with the IOPC adding North Wales Police have already undertaken work in some of these areas since referring Mr Churtons death in March 2017. While not amounting to misconduct, performance issues were identified for another police sergeant and an acting inspector for their supervision and they are being dealt with by the force by way of management action. A call handler who took the initial call on 14 March 2017 left their role in August 2018. We are unable to make case to answer determinations in relation to their involvement with Mr Churton as a member of Police Staff. We will consider publishing our investigation reports at the end of the second investigation and after any potential misconduct proceedings. Ian Lucas MP told us today: It is important to remember that responsibility for Nicholas Churtons death lies with Jordan Davidson. However, there have been systemic failings in relation to this case and that is why I have been pressing for answers on behalf of Mr Churtons family and my constituents for so long. I believe that we have a broken criminal justice system and that this system failed Mr Churton. The IOPC investigation into North Wales Polices contact with Mr Churton is one of three separate inquiries into the way the case was handled, two from the IOPC and one by the probation service. While these individual aspects do need to be looked at, it would be more helpful to have an over-arching independent investigation into Mr Churtons death looking at the roles of the police, the probation service and the Community Rehabilitation Company. This is something I have called for in the Commons. Only then might we get the full picture and answers to the questions I have been asking for 18 months. Nick Beams, a decades-long leader of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and a prominent writer for the World Socialist Web Site, this month completed a successful series of lectures at Australian universities on the contemporary relevance of Karl Marx, 200 years since after his birth. Events were sponsored by clubs of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), the SEPs youth movement, at Western Sydney University (WSU), the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Macquarie University in Sydney, at Newcastle University, a working class campus north of Sydney, at University of Melbourne and via video link to Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. The meetings were attended by dozens of people, including diverse layers of international and domestic students and academics, along with workers and retirees. A section of the Melbourne meeting Beams delivered an extensive report, published separately on the WSWS today. He stressed that the 2008 global financial meltdown, and the social, economic and geopolitical crises that have flowed from it, could only be understood on the basis of the categories and concepts elaborated by Marx. Beams emphasised that Marxs theoretical developments were inseparable from his work as a revolutionary to politically arm the emerging working class for the tasks that it confronted. Beams detailed Marxs major discoveries, including his labour theory of value and identification of the revolutionary role of the working class. He concluded by stressing the need to carry out the revolutionary task revealed by the analysis and work of Marx by joining and building the International Committee of the Fourth International. Beams lecture provoked a series of questions at each campus. The meeting at UNSW was attended by a significant cohort of Chinese international students. One asked whether Stalinism was an extreme form of Marxism. Beams stated that Stalinism was the antithesis, the opposite, of Marxism. He reviewed the role of Stalinism, in betraying countless revolutions and carrying out the mass murder of the flower of revolutionary Marxism in Russia." Beams addressing the UNSW meeting Beams noted that this was a product of the nationalist perspective of the Stalinist bureaucracy, which repudiated the socialist and internationalist perspective which had been the basis of the October 1917 Revolution. Beams stated that this was a decisive issue in China, because Maoism is a derivative of Stalinism and the fundamental tenet of Stalinism is nationalism. Its origins lie in the perspective of socialism in one country, versus world socialist revolution as advanced by Lenin and Trotsky. Another student asked about the role of the peasantry in socialist revolution. In response, Beams explained that it was a great myth, promoted especially by anti-Marxist tendencies in the 1960s and 70s, that the peasantry could play an independent revolutionary role. He said: Trotsky explained this very well in his analysis of the Russian Revolution. The peasantry is an intermediate layer. The two main classes are those of the city: the capitalist class and the working class. The peasant is driven into struggle, it is dominated by big capital just as the small farmer is today. But the peasant cannot resolve the fundamental contradictions of society, because the peasant has a fundamentally different relationship to the means of production to the proletariat. The peasant aspires to acquire his holdings. The working class can only resolve the oppression it suffers by overthrowing the very system of private profit and leading mankind to a new stage of historical development. Beams explained that the massive growth of the Chinese working class over the past three decades had substantiated the classical Marxist analysis and further refuted the promotion of the independent revolutionary role of the peasantry by Maoism. Other students asked how the socialist revolution would develop in China, and the global impact that it would have. Another asked for an assessment of the ecological movement. At Newcastle University, one student asked for empirical evidence that Marxs analysis had been correct. Beams stated in reply: The evidence of what is being raised is clear. It is the ongoing and empirical data of the crises of this system. It is not a theoretical postulate on the pages of Das Kapital. We have had two world wars fought for profit, we had the Great Depression. Today, in the midst of extraordinary wealth, we have poverty and unprecedented social inequality. We have an enormous technological development over the last 20 years. Were going to have even more in the next period with Artificial Intelligence and bourgeois economists are worried it will cause ever greater impoverishment. Capitalism is heading from one disaster to another. In Wellington, one student took issue with Beams emphasis on class, rather than other forms of identity. Beams replied that class divisions were objective and, as Marx explained, it did not matter what members of a class thought about themselves. We all grew up in different places, we have different ideas and cultural experiences, but these are not germane to the driving forces that overthrow capitalism. Beams pointed out that in the Egyptian revolution of 2011, religious barriers which are supposedly insuperable, were in fact overcome. There was a common struggle in which these various identities didnt go away, but they were not the determinant driving force. He said the promotion of identity politics was intended to divide and atomise the working class along racial, sexual, national, whatever lines it can find, and divert workers and youth away from a socialist perspective. WSWS reporters interviewed some of the students who had attended the lectures. At UNSW, one Chinese international student commented: I have learned a lot. I have acquired new knowledge, more understanding of the socialist revolution against the capitalist system. I totally agree the working class should be united. The student expressed his appreciation for Beams clarification of the anti-Marxist character of Maoism, stating, I now have a learning plan to study the real Chinese history. Another Chinese international student said: I became interested in Marxism when I was about 13 years old. I read the Communist Manifesto when I was 14. When I saw there was a lecture about Karl Marx here on campus I wanted to attend. I consider myself a revolutionary, but I have found that nobody I meet understands those ideas. After the lecture, I have the confidence that I do have some comrades, I am not alone. Asked about the internationalist perspective of the ICFI, he commented: I think it is becoming more necessary to fight against nationalism and imperialism, and global capitalism, and important to give up the differences of race, and religion, and strive to unite and fight for revolution. Zoe and Caitlin Zoe, who is studying sonic arts at Victoria University in Wellington, said the talk was especially helpful in going into ideas that I've recently been exposed to, including the discussion on the need to build a political party and what a socialist revolution entails. Zoe had become interested in socialism because she saw a lot of poverty growing up in Blenheim, [in the South Island] where I lived in the poorest area of town." She decided to come to the lecture after watching a Netflix documentary about Karl Marx and reading the Communist Manifesto. An anthropology student, Caitlyn, told the WSWS she found the lecture fascinating because every other time I've heard about Marxism or communism in Russia or China its been in a way that I cant really identify with, it seems like it was in a different era that I have no context for. Tenzin Caitlyn found especially interesting the ideas about identifying as working people, rather than through a religion or through other aspects, to unify in that way. She said the discussion had helped her to understand why society could not be fundamentally changed by elevating people of colour or minorities into high-power positions. Tenzin, a student in her final year of high school, drew diagrams during the lecture, about the exchange of money for commodities. Sayed The lecture was difficult but good, she said. I was nodding the whole time, going, yes, throw it at me! Students like myself arent really aware of these things, but applying Marxism to our current society reinforces the importance of it. The fact is that this isnt just history. We cant just ignore it, because history repeats itself. Were still capitalistic, our society still revolves around buying and selling of commodities. Sayed, an engineering student at Victoria University who is originally from Bangladesh, said: I could especially relate to what Nick was saying about the state of American politics and how Trump got into power. He was absolutely right. Trump used economic anxieties in the working class to drum up power. Obama made big promises and then didnt deliver. Workers felt left out and then some looked to Trump. It has been said that the progress of human social and political thought leads from Aristotle to Marx, and is thereafter either a further development of Marx, or arguments and analyses that attempt to refute him. Whether or not you agree with this assessment, there is no question that Marx stands as a giant in the development of human thought and knowledge. He carried out a veritable revolution in the field of philosophy, and, together with his lifelong collaborator Frederick Engels, was the originator of the materialist conception of history, which transformed that discipline. He was the author of Das Kapital, the 150th anniversary of which we commemorated last year. A seminal work that analysed the laws of motion of capitalist economy, its writing was a feat never matched, rivalled, or even attempted since, by the bourgeois academy, for all its vast resources. Watch full lecture of Nick Beams at UNSW above Most importantly of all, Marx was the founder of the modern revolutionary socialist movement. For more than 150 years, Marxs theories and scientific analyses have inspired and guided hundreds of millions of people in every corner of the globe, as they have sought to storm the heavens, defying all odds, and to cleanse the world of every form of class oppression and inequality, in order to enable humanity to raise itself to its full height, stretch its limbs and expand its mind, to enjoy real and lasting freedom. Apart from Charles Darwin, the author of the theory of evolution, there is no other 19th century figure who exercises such influence in the modern world. And there is a connection between these two figures because, as Engels explained so well in his graveside speech on the death of Marx: Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history. Attempts to refute Marxs Capital The specific laws of development of capitalist society were laid bare by Marx in his masterwork Capital. In the words of a reviewer of the first edition, cited by Marx as an exposition of his method, the book illuminated the special laws that regulate the origins, existence, development and death of this social system and its replacement by a higher one. Down through the years the bourgeoisie and its ideologists have attempted, in one way or another, to refute the analysis contained in Capital. But they have invariably suffered the misfortune that, just as they advance a theory proclaiming the death and burial of Marx, some crisis in the capitalist system makes it all too clear that it is, indeed, riven by the irresolvable contradictions he had revealed. And here we are now, having just passed the tenth anniversary of one of the greatest financial meltdowns in history, if not the greatest. Many articles have been published in the bourgeois media by commentators on this event. But there is no one who can suggest that this crisiswhich plunged millions into poverty and whose social effects continue to deepenhas been resolved. Rather, they scan the horizon for where the next crisis will emerge from the acceleration of debt, the vast expanse of speculation, a crisis in emerging markets, a meltdown of the stock markets, sparked by the growing upsurge of the working class, or some other, at this stage unknown, cause. The diseases of the profit system that led to the crisis have not been cured. On the contrary, they have metastasised and mutated into even more malignant forms. When Capital was first published, it was generally ignored by the bourgeois academy. But when it became the theoretical foundation for the development of a socialist movement of the working class, in the last quarter of the 19th century, that tactic could no longer be continued. Capital had to be refuted. Reflecting the general trend of bourgeois pressures at the end of the 19th century, one of the most serious of the refutation efforts came from within the socialist movement itself. In the late 1890s, Eduard Bernstein, a leading figure in the German Social Democratic Partya party which claimed to rest on Marxist foundationsproposed a wholesale revision of Marxs analysis. At its core, Bernsteins revisionism, more accurately described as an outright repudiation of Marx, consisted of two interconnected components. First, that socialism would not come about through the seizure of political power by the working class in a revolution, as had been previously maintained, but would emerge through the gradual accumulation of reforms within the capitalist system, particularly the gains made by the trade unions. Second, according to Bernstein, Marxs analysis that the contradictions of capitalism would produce an economic breakdown had been refuted by events. The development of vast corporations and banks, and the expansion of the credit system, had made the storms and crises of Marxs day a thing of the past. Bernsteins perspective was decisively refuted by the outbreak of World War 1. The contradictions of capitalism had not been overcome. They were assuming an ever more violent and explosive form. Nothing like this had ever been seen before. As Trotsky wrote, in a direct reference to Bernstein and the entire revisionist school: The War of 1914 is the most colossal breakdown in history of an economic system destroyed by its own inherent contradictions. Those contradictions were no longer theoretical postulates on the pages of Capital, but were being materially expressed in the cold, the misery, filth, disease and the endless slaughter of the flower of the youth on the battlefields of Europe. If socialism could have been considered more advantageous than capitalism in the 19th century, the world war fought at the beginning of the 20th for profits and markets, in the interests of capital, meant it had become a burning necessity to prevent the plunging of human civilisation into barbarism. If one were to summarise the efforts of bourgeois economy to refute Marx, they boil down to the following: that capitalism is not riven by fundamental and irresolvable contradictions. The first attempt was based on Says Law, which prevailed until the 1930s Depression made it untenable. This law maintained that since every commodity seller was also a buyer, there could be no permanent over-production. Any problems that did arise were simply a result of disproportionality. After the disaster of the Great Depression, this doctrine was replaced by Keynesianism. It claimed that the problems of capitalism arose not from its inherent contradictions, but from muddled thinking, and that they could be resolved through judicious state intervention to ensure effective demand. The post-World War II boom and its demise History, however, delivered its verdict on Keynesianism in the mid-1970s, with the breakdown of the post-war boom, a consequence of the resurgence of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Marx had characterised this tendency as the most important law of political economy, above all, from an historical point of view. The booms demise was accompanied by a revolutionary upsurge of the working class, beginning with the May-June 1968 events in France, and extending across many countries, shaking the political and economic structures of world capitalism to their foundations. However, the bourgeoisie was able to withstand the enormous economic and political upheavals of this period due to the betrayals of the working class by its Stalinist, social democratic and trade union leaderships. Having being able to cling to power, the bourgeoisie then launched an offensive against the working class, marked politically by the coming to power of the Reagan presidency in the United States and the Thatcher government in Britain. A new free market ideology was advanced, and placed front and centre. In the words of Margaret Thatcher, there was no alternative. But it was not only a question of a new ideology. Capitalism underwent a major restructuring, through the deployment of advanced computer-based and information technologies, which led to what we have now come to designate as the globalisation of production. Globalisation was to have far reaching consequences. It cut the ground from under the feet of all those parties and organisationsthe Stalinist and social democratic parties, the trade unions and the so-called national liberation movementswhich based themselves on a national program. One of the most graphic expressions of this process emerged in 1989-91, with the liquidation of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe and then the Soviet Union itself, regimes falsely labelled as Marxist. The liquidation of the USSR was met with an orgy of celebration by the bourgeoisie and its ideologists. From the political rostrum, in the media, in the universities and well-resourced think tanks, and from the pulpit, they proclaimed that the demise of the USSR represented the final proof of the superiority of the private ownership of the means of production and finance; that the so-called free market was the only viable, indeed, the only historically possible, form of socio-economic organisation; that conscious socialist economic planning was inherently impossible; and finally, and most importantly, that Marxism was forever dead and buried. Capitalism, freed from its historical nemesis in the form of socialist revolution, was now poised to bring economic advancement, democracy and peace to the peoples of the world. The crises and crimes of the past quarter century History, in the form of the criminal events of the past quarter century, has cast its verdict on this claim. It has consisted of continuous wars and the looming threat of a new world war; the exponential growth of social inequality; the development of ever-more violent and authoritarian forms of rule; the state and corporate organisation of censorship; the creation of millions of refugees; the return of concentration camps; the forcible separation of children from their parents; the escalation of police violence; the rise of extreme right-wing and outright fascist organisations; to cite just a few examples. Even as the new doctrines of the bourgeoisie, based on the so-called efficient markets hypothesis were being advanced, storms clouds were massing. A series of financial crises, starting with the global stock market crash of October 1987, in which Wall Street lost 22 percent in a single day, erupted, culminating, in 2008, in the most serious breakdown since the Great Depression of the 1930s. What has happened since then? Governments and central banks around the world, starting with the Obama administration and the US Federal Reserve, have pumped trillions of dollars into the financial system, handing over untold wealth to the very banks and finance houses whose activities led to the crisis in the first place, thus enabling still further speculation. Immediately after the crisis, the leaders of world capitalism gathered in London for a meeting of the G20, to pledge they would not go down the road of the 1930s and impose the kind of tariff measures that played a key role in exacerbating the Depression and creating the conditions for World War 2. Today, we are at the beginning of a global trade war, an economic war with military implications, that intensifies every day, as the US imposes tariffs left, right and centre against foes and supposed strategic allies alike. Every country, with the US in the lead, is building up its military forces in preparation for another world war. Innumerable flashpoints for such a conflict have already been created: in the Middle East, in Northeast Asia, around Korea, in the South China Sea, in Eastern Europe over Ukraine, that could spark a war between nuclear-armed powers. All over the world, the cost of the economic disaster has been borne by the working class, in the form of stagnant and declining wages and cuts in social spending. Exploitation has intensified along with the development of new forms, such as those used by Amazon. Hundreds of millions of young people are being denied any prospect of a secure future. One of Marxs most frequently criticised conclusions has been his analysis that the inherent, objective logic of the capitalist system leads to the accumulation of wealth at one pole and the creation of poverty, misery and degradation at the other. What is the situation today? Since 2008, the policies developed in the US, and followed to one degree or another around the world, have institutionalised a process in which stock exchanges and financial markets function like some kind of giant financial vacuum cleaner, sucking up wealth and then exhaling it into the hands of the corporate and financial oligarchy, along with a tiny handful of people in the upper echelons of the income scale, This is no aberration or temporary phenomenon. It is a permanent, entrenched feature of economic life. At the same time, the claims of working people for improvements in their conditionsin health, education, social services, aged care, pensions or the construction of public infrastructureare met with the response there is no money. And that is true. Not because insufficient wealth is being produced, but because the wealth that is created through the labour, skills and ingenuity of billions of working people the world over, is, on an unprecedented scale, being funnelled into the bank accounts, stock portfolios and lifestyles of the ultra-wealthy. The re-emergence of working class struggle To this point, the financial oligarchys actions, its states and institutions, have gone unopposed. Not because there is a lack of hostility to these; there is, on the contrary, seething anger; but because the working class has been suppressed by all the parties of the political establishment, along with the trade unions and their supporters in the pseudo-left, who maintain that the class struggle is a thing of the past and that the focus now must be on identity politics, preoccupied with race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, etc. to the exclusion of class. This situation is, however, beginning to change. The year 2018 has seen a resurgence of class struggle around the world. The working class is being radicalised by the conditions created by decaying capitalism. Its struggles must be fertilised and developed, that is, politically armed, with an understanding of the laws of capitalism uncovered and laid bare by Marx. How then to undertake an understanding of Marx and, above all, his seminal work, Capital? Marx: the scientist and the revolutionist Such an understanding will be aided by making clear that, while Marx provided a scientific analysis of the laws of capitalist development, he did not do so out of academic interest. He worked, as Engels emphasised in the graveside speech, as a revolutionist, seeking to provide the working class with the theoretical weapons it needed in order to overthrow capitalism and end class oppression, thus opening the way for the development of a higher form of society, in which the condition for the development of each individual would be the condition for the development of all. Capital, therefore, is not a book about economics as such, but centres on this struggle. While Marx strived for the highest development of science, Marx the scientist and Marx the revolutionist are inseparable. In fact, his enormous scientific breakthroughs were only possible because he was a revolutionist, with a critical attitude to bourgeois society, based on the understanding that its economic categories were not natural and therefore eternal, as maintained by the bourgeois economists, but the outcome of historical development. Marx, of course, did not begin his intellectual and political life as a Marxist. So what was the path of his development? From revolutionary democrat to Marxist Marx began as a revolutionary democrat, concerned with the key political issue in his native Germany at that time: how to bring Germany into the modern age? How to carry out the transformation of the country in line with the great changes wrought by the French revolution of 1789-93? A key intellectual influence on Marxs intellectual development was the philosophy of Hegel. Marx had begun his studies in the field of law, but philosophy rapidly became his central preoccupation. This was because the questions of philosophy were bound up with politics, and big political issues were on the order of the day. Those pushing for political change in Germany maintained that just as the natural sciences had been freed from religion in order to become productive, so politics, likewise, had to be freed from religion. Philosophy, i.e., reason, had to become the basis for political organisation, just as it had become the basis for natural science. According to Hegel, the state was the embodiment of reason. But there was a contradiction here. The enemy of reason, i.e., philosophy, was religion. But the Prussian state protected religion, maintaining it was a state based on religion. It regarded philosophy and its appeal to reason as the enemy of religion and, therefore, of the state itself. The protection of religion by the state took a concrete form, through the imposition of censorship. Marxs battle against it began with his work, first as a contributing journalist, and very soon as editor, on the Rheinische Zeitung, a publication established by bourgeois liberals to advocate the reform of the Prussian state, in line with developments in France. This was a very formative experience for Marx because, in the course of opposing the Rhenish parliament on its position regarding the theft of wood by peasants, and on the impoverished conditions of the peasant wine producers of the Moselle region, the state acted not according to reason but openly sided with the landowners. As Marx was to later write, I found myself in the embarrassing position of having to discuss what is known as material interests. The bourgeois owners of the newspaper thought that with a more compliant editorial line they would be able to avoid censorship. Marx completely rejected this position. He withdrew from the public stage to undertake, at the age of just 25, a critical re-examination of the philosophy of Hegel, in order, as he put it later, to dispel the doubts assailing him, namely that the state was the embodiment of reason. The materialist conception of history That critical re-examination, centring on Hegels treatment of the state in his philosophy of law, was to culminate in a revolution in human thoughti.e., in the development of the materialist conception of history. Previous critics of Hegel had maintained that his philosophy, which had provided a justification for the Prussian state in the name of reason, was the outcome of a conservative outlook on his part. Marx went deeper, showing that the problem lay at the very centre of Hegels method itself, in which every development was seen as the outcome of human thought. Consequently, the state was conceived as the outcome of reason and logic. In other words, Hegel presented the world upside down. This inversion could be seen in his analysis of the state. He maintained that it was the state that formed the organising and logical principle for what he called civil societythe family, commerce and the activities of daily life. In fact, Marx explained, it was the other way around. The state arose out of civil society, whose anatomy had to be sought in political economy. In other words, one had to undertake a materialist analysis of society. But such an analysis could not be a return to the materialist philosophy developed by the French philosophes of the 18th century Enlightenment, because this had been completely unable to answer the question of how society developed. The French materialists maintained that man was a product of his social environment, advancing the vitally important conception that both his vices and virtues were to be found there, and not in some innate God-given qualities, least of all in grace or original sin. If the environment could be changed, they argued, then mans virtues could be developed and his vices progressively eliminated. Changes in the social environment would bring about changes in consciousness. But how was the social environment to be changed? By changes in public opinion, that is, social consciousness. But social consciousness, public opinion, was a product of the social environment. And so, French materialism set up a conundrum that it was unable to solve. The solution lay in the discovery of an objective social process, which did not depend on public opinion, but which determined both the social environment and social consciousness. The discovery of this social process lay at the heart of the development of the materialist conception of history. Its essential foundations were laid out in the work that has come down to us as the German Ideology, written in 1845. It consisted of the critical reworking of philosophy undertaken by Marx and his now close collaborator, Frederick Engels, who had turned Marx to the study of political economy. In the German Ideology, they wrote, it was necessary to start from real individuals in their activity, the material conditions in which they lived, and the changes in those material conditions brought about by their activity, above all in production. Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like, Marx and Engels wrote. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organisation. By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life. The materialist conception of history is concisely summed up in the famous Preface to the Critique of Political Economy written in 1859: In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite social relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production ... with the property relations within which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. Having elaborated the materialist conception of history, the task was now to apply it to the capitalist economy, to discover the specific laws of its development. But such an analysis of this, the most complex of all forms of socio-economic organisation, presented great theoretical challenges. These were concentrated in the question of where to begin. Should one start with technology and the development of the productive forces? Or population, or, breaking that down, with the classes into which the population was divided? Or, perhaps with capital, with money and finance? The list goes on. Marxs Grundrisse Marx discovered the starting point in the work he conducted in a matter of a few months during 1857-58. He was driven back to work on political economy by the eruption of a major economic crisis, which, he believed, would produce a new revolutionary upsurge after the defeat of the 1848 revolutions. In order to try to prepare this movement, he worked frantically day and night. The results can be found in what is now called the Grundrisse, the rough draft for what was to become Capital. This work is very much a voyage of discovery. The starting point of the Grundrisse is money. Marx, therefore, subjects the analysis made by the Proudhonists in France to a detailed critique. The Proudhonists advanced a form of petty-bourgeois socialism, based on small artisans and craftsmen, which held that the exploitation carried out under capitalism, as well as its crises, could be overcome by reforming the monetary system, while retaining commodity production, that is, the production of goods for the market. There was, however, a fatal flaw in this approach. Money was not some kind of technical device that had been invented, and so could be replaced by another mechanism, or a reformed monetary system. It arose out of the system of commodity production itself, which the Proudhonists proposed to retain. To do away with the existing monetary system, while retaining commodity production, would be like getting rid of the Pope without abolishing the Catholic Church. After dealing with money, Marx examines the question of capital, and at the end of 880 pages of analysis arrives at the starting point. The first category in which bourgeois wealth presents itself is that of the commodity. This is preceded by a note: This to be brought forward. A short sentence, but a turning point in human understanding. Marxs Capital Accordingly, Capital begins: The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an immense accumulation of commodities; the individual commodity appears as its elementary form. Our investigation therefore begins with the analysis of the commodity. Marx then proceeds to show that the commodity is the unity of two determinations. It is first of all a use-value, a thing that satisfies a material need, whether that need is connected to immediate consumption or further production. It is also a value that appears in the form of exchange-value, that is, the relationship in which different use-values exchange one for another. Marx then proceeds to examine this appearance form, this relationship. He makes the following decisive point, fundamental to everything that follows: If I say 20 yards of linen equals one coat, that is, 20 yards of linen exchanges for one coat, I am saying that these two different things are commensurable, they have the same quantity. But to have the same quantity, to be able to be measured one against the other, they must be qualitatively the same thing. What is being equated in the exchange relation where 20 yards of linen equals one coat? What is the common quality they have? It cannot have anything to do with their use valuesbecause they are different things. The common quality is that they are products of human labour, and the measure of this general or abstract human labour, is what determines the proportions in which they exchange. Each commodity has a value that is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour expended in its production. Why does Marx say socially necessary? Because it is clear that, say for example, it takes, on average, one hour to produce 20 yards of linen, and one hour, on average, to produce one coat, then the two will be equal. But if an individual weaver takes two hours to produce 20 yards of linen, he will not receive back two coats when he takes that linen to the market. One hour of his concrete labour will not count as socially necessary abstract human labour, because he will have worked twice as long as the average weaver. Moreover, the weaver will not be told that one hour of his labour has been socially unnecessary by any person, but by a thing, by the relationship of his commodity to other commoditiesthingsin the market. Here we see the origin of what Marx called the fetishism of commodities, which assumes fantastic forms in the present day world, where millions of people are told by a movement in the financial markets, or by a profit and loss account, i.e., by things, that they must be thrown out of their livelihood. How then is value expressed or revealed? If I pick up the 20 yards of linen, twist and turn it as much as I like, subject it to detailed chemical analysis, I will not find an atom of value within it. But it has a value; it is worth something. It can only show the value it contains, however, when it enters into an exchange relation with another commodity, in this case, the coat. And that exchange relationship is determined by the quantity of value it contains. The coat is the material representative of the value contained within the linen. But this is still not sufficient. The linen must be able to express its value in relation to the whole world of commodities. Commodity production, itself, generates the formation of a specific commodity, standing aside from all others, which is the general material representative of the value of all commodities. That commodity is money. It is the material representative of the abstract human labour contained in all commodities, which is the substance of their value. In his examination of the value form, something that had not even been attempted by his classical bourgeois predecessors, Marx makes a decisive advance in his discovery of what he called the dual character of labour, which, he insisted, was critical to an understanding of political economy. Let me point to one reason why that is the case. We have seen that Marx explains that the objective foundation of social revolution is the growing contradiction between the development of the productive forces of society and the social relations within which they have developed. How is this contradiction expressed in the commodity, the cell-form of capitalism? A development of the productive forces in linen production will bring about an increase in material use values. But the value of each yard of linen will have decreased, because it contains less socially necessary labour time. Thus we have a contradictory movement. The development of the productive forces has increased material use values. But the value of each piece of linen has been reduced. Capitalist production however, is not production for increased material wealth, it is production aimed at the expansion of value. Marx had already pointed to the expression of this contradiction in the Communist Manifesto. There he points out that in capitalist crises an epidemic breaks out that in all earlier epochs would have seemed an absurditythe epidemic of over-production. Society is thrown back, industry and commerce are destroyed. Why? Because there is too much industry, too much commerce, too much civilisation and millions are plunged into poverty, not because of a famine or some other natural disaster, as in previous times, but because the productive forces have come into conflict with the social relations within which they have developed. Having shown how money, as the general representative of value, arises out of the commodity form of production, Marx then develops his analysis of the interaction between money and commodities. From the standpoint of the commodity, this takes the form of commodity-money-commodity. That is, it consists of the exchange of a commodity for money and then the purchase of another commodity with money, whereby the movement ends, since the commodity that has been purchased drops out of the sphere of circulation and is consumed. But viewed from the side, of money, the movement is very different. Here, the form of circulation takes the form of money-commodity-money. The money at the end of the process does not drop out of circulation, but begins the process again. And here we have the genesis of capital, as self-expanding value. Money, the material representative of value, is thrown into circulation with the purchase of commodities. Commodities are then turned back into money, which then purchases commodities again. But in this circuit, money as capital, expands in size. If there is no expansion there is no point in beginningthe owner of money might just as well have kept it in his pocket. What then, is the source of this expansion of money, that is, the expansion of value? How can additional value arise, since, in the sphere of circulation, equivalents exchange for equivalents? This is the problem that taxed the brains of Marxs predecessors. How was it possible, on the basis of the law of value, for an expansion of value to take place? It is no use trying to explain it by saying that robbery or theft occurs, or that the commodity sold by the capitalist in order to return to money, is sold at above its value. This is because in both cases, and they undoubtedly take place, the overall mass of value does not increase, it has merely been redistributed. If I take $10 from your pocket, I have expanded the value I hold, but the total value in this room has not increased. Yet the capitalist system as a whole is evidently characterised by the expansion of value. This was the great stumbling block that Marx overcame. Moneybags, he wrote, must be so lucky as to find on the market a commodity which is, itself, the source of additional value. And that commodity is labour power, the commodity that the worker sells to the capitalist. Having purchased that commodity, the capitalist, like every other purchaser of a commodity in the market, is entitled to consume it. The capitalist, having also purchased raw materials and other means of production, consumes labour power by setting the worker to work in the transformation of these raw materials, and the means of production, into other commodities that are then sold to realise more money. The raw materials and means of production pass on the value embodied in them to the final commoditythat is, their consumption does not increase overall value. But the consumption of the commodity, labour power, does. This is because the value of the commodity the worker sells to the capitalist, his or her labour power, is less than the value that is added by the worker in the course of the working day. The worker does not sell his or her labour to the capitalist, but his or her capacity to labour or labour power. The value of that commodity is the value of the commodities needed to reproduce itthe value of the commodities needed to sustain the worker and the workers family so that the next generation of workers can emerge. These commodities embody, say, four hours of socially necessary labour. But the worker does not work for just four hours, he or she works for eight or ten or even more. The capitalist, like every other commodity owner, is entitled to the fruits of the use value, realised in consumption, of the commodity he has purchased. And the use-value of the commodity labour power, realised in the process of production, is the additional or surplus value that it creates. The epoch-making significance of this discovery by Marx was rightly emphasised by Engels. Marx was by no means the first socialist, he explained. The socialism of earlier times trenchantly criticised capitalism and its consequences. But it could not explain them; it could only reject them as evil as it denounced the exploitation of the working class. It could not grasp the nature of the process itself. This was done through the discovery of surplus value. With these two great discoveries, Engels continued, the materialist conception of history and the revelation of the secret of capitalistic production through surplus value socialism became a science. The next thing was to work out all its details and relations. The revolutionary role of the working class With the discovery of the secret of surplus value, Marx established that the working class, that class which sells its labour power to capital, is the sole social force within capitalism whose historical task is to overthrow it. No other social entity can carry this out. Marx had verified a conclusion that he had previously drawn: the historical mission of the working class, the task to which it would be driven, arising from its objective position within the capitalist mode of production, was to overthrow it and the whole system of commodity production on which it was based. The working class was not simply an exploited class, but a revolutionary class, created by capitalism itself. As he put it in one of his early writings: It is not a question of what this or that proletarian, or even the whole proletariat, at the moment regards as its aim. It is a question of what the proletariat is, and what, in accordance with this being, it will historically be compelled to do. Its aim and historical action is visibly and irrevocably foreshadowed in its life situation as in the whole organisation of bourgeois society today. As I noted at the outset, Marxs analysis was at first ignored. But that attempt to confine him to oblivion could not be maintained. His theory now had to be refuted. And insofar as that task was undertaken, it consisted of the claim that his procedure was unscientific and arbitrary, because in starting with the commodity, and then examining the unfolding of the contradictions within it, Marx had simply developed his theory to achieve the result he desired. This assertion of an arbitrary beginning is a crucial component of all the attacks on Marx, not only by outright bourgeois opponents such as Bohm-Bawerk, who was the first to advance it in the 1890s, but down to the present day. It is the central claim made by David Harvey, for example, who has put himself forward as a guide to Marxs Capital, both in his books and in a series of online lectures. Marxs starting point, Harvey maintains, is the concept of the commodity and it is crucial to understand that he is constructing an argument on the basis of an already determined conclusion. Now, if that were the case, then Marxs entire analysis would have to be thrown out, on the grounds that it is completely unscientific. Marx, in fact, replied to such criticism in the last years of his life. I do not proceed on the basis of concepts hence also not from the value-concept What I proceed from is the simplest social form in which the product of labour in contemporary society manifests itself, and this is as commodity. To elaborate this crucial point. A bushel of wheat produced by a slave has the same use-value as a bushel of wheat produced by a peasant farmer. But these two products of labour arise in two different social forms. Every society is based on the expenditure of human labour. But that expenditure takes place within definite social relations. In the first case, the bushel of wheat is the product of the labour of a slave who is owned by his master. He has not produced a commodity, that is, a material thing destined for exchange. In the second case, the same thing has been produced, but that thing, that product of labour, is embedded in an entirely different set of social relations. The commodity as Marxs starting point Marxs selection of the commodity as the starting point is not arbitrary, but thoroughly materialistic and scientific. Contained within the commodity, the simplest economic concretum of capitalist economy is, so to speak, the DNA of this social order. You might ask why I have focused on Marxs analysis of the commodity. The reason is that, as the most basic of all the economic phenomena of capitalism, it is simply accepted as natural, and therefore eternal, and from this acceptance all the other economic categories arising from the commodity, such as profit, wages, interest, credit etc. are so regarded. If one has not scientifically probed the essential nature of the commodity, this cell of the capitalist economy, as Marx did, then one cannot understand the most important phenomena of our timesabove all the recurring crises of the profit systemmuch less grasp how to overcome them. We saw that the commodity is the unity of two opposed determinations, use value and exchange value, and that a growth in the productive forces, giving rise to an expansion of use values, could produce the opposite movement in value. How does this contradiction appear in a fully developed capitalist economy? The growth of the productive forces signifies that ever greater masses of raw materials, machinery etc. are transformed by ever smaller amounts of labour, giving rise to the ever greater production of material wealth. However, capitalism is not production of material wealth as such, but is driven by the extraction of surplus value. Here we have a contradiction because, on the one hand, production is carried out through an ever smaller proportion of living labour, while on the other, living labour is the sole source of surplus value, the basis of profit. This contradiction expresses itself in the form of a persistent tendency for the rate of profit to fall, and so gives rise to recurring crises. The bourgeois economists seek to provide an explanation for these this one was caused by insufficient demand, that one by the breakdown of Keynesian measures, and so on. But they can never explain why crises recur. And their explanations become ever more bankrupt. In the last few days, Mr Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve at the time of the 2008 meltdown, has told us that this collapse, marked by panic and lack of confidence, was caused by panic and lack of confidence! The fundamental contradiction within capitalism The crises of capitalism take different forms according to the historical circumstances in which they arise. But, in essence, they constitute the eruption of the contradiction, rooted in the very cell form of capitalismthe commoditybetween the growth of the productive forces and the social relations of the profit system. How can this contradiction be overcome? Not within the framework of the capitalist system, because all the efforts to do so, as history has demonstrated, only lead to its eruption in an even more explosive form. This can only be overcome through the overthrow of capitalist social relations. Billions of people the world over want, desire, a better world, free of all the horrors the profit system is unleashing upon them. But those desires and strivings remain but dreams, unless there is a material social force within capitalism whose life interests stand opposed to the system of capitalist social relations. That material social force is the international working class. This conception is opposed by all the practitioners of identity politics and the theoreticians of post-modernism. Let us conduct a thought experiment for a moment. Imagine that the dream of the practitioners of identity politics is fulfilled; that women, gays, people of colour, indigenous populations occupy all the key positions of power, and all white males have been excluded. This would make not one iota of difference to the operation of the laws of capitalist economy. But the critics are not silenced. The working class as depicted by Marx no longer exists, they maintain. Of course, the concrete forms of labour undertaken by the working class have changed over the years, in line with the development of the productive forces. They are not those of 150, 100 or even of 30 years ago. But the social relationships of capitalism, based on commodity production and the buying and selling of labour power, have remained the same from the time of the industrial revolution onwards. When one hears the claim that the working class no longer exists, or has been reduced to a marginal existence; when one reads a book by a practitioner of pseudo-left politics with the title Farewell to the Working Class, one sometimes says to oneself, are these people blind? The past three decades or so have witnessed one of the greatest changes in world historythe transformation of the hundreds of millions of peasant producers, in countries such as India and China and elsewhere, into proletarians, and the proletarianisation of what were once considered to be middle class occupations in the advanced capitalist countries. Blindness to this process is not the result of defective theoretical eyesight. It is the expression of a very definite class standpointthe result of efforts by privileged layers in academia, the media and elsewhere to deflect the growing hostility to capitalism, above all among young people, away from the scientific analysis of Marxism, and its understanding of the revolutionary role of the working class, and toward one or another form of identity politics. The necessity for the revolutionary party Closely connected with these positions is the denial of the need for a revolutionary party. Indeed, the common thread of all the various positions of the pseudo-left is that the building of such a party, above all as developed by Lenin, is some kind of original sin that leads inexorably to Stalinism. David Harvey even tries to invoke support from Marx in denying the necessity for a revolutionary party. He writes: Communists, Marx and Engels averred in their original conception laid out in The Communist Manifesto, have no political party. They simply constitute themselves at all times and in all places as those who understand the limits and destructive tendencies of the capitalist order, as well as the innumerable ideological masks and false legitimations that capitalists and their apologists (particularly in the media) produce in order to perpetuate their singular class power. It would take more time than we have available here to detail all the instances where this position has been refuted. Let us merely note that 40 years after the publication of the Communist Manifesto, Engels wrote that the working class could only come to power through a revolution and that for the proletariat to be strong enough to win on the decisive day it mustand this Marx and I have been arguing since 1847form a separate party distinct from all others and opposed to them, a conscious class party. The forms taken by the revolutionary party have necessarily undergone development since the days of Marx and Engels, on the basis of the lessons drawn from the historical experiences of the international workers movement. In particular, the most decisive was that carried out by Lenin at the beginning of the 20th century. He insisted that a revolutionary party could only develop through a theoretical, political and organisational struggle, within the workers movement itself, against opportunism, that is, against the constantly recurring pressure to undermine the struggle for the historical revolutionary interests of the working class, in the interests of supposed short term gains. Outlined in theoretical form in his 1902 pamphlet What is to be Done?, Lenins perspective was verified in practice. In 1917, the Bolshevik party he had constructed, based on an intransigent struggle against opportunism, for which he had been denounced as a hair splitter, a dogmatist and a sectarian, carried out the first, and, to this day, the only conquest of political power by the working class. What is that party today? It is the International Committee of the Fourth International, grounded on the vast historical experience of the past 100 years: the fight waged by Lenin against opportunism, the struggle against counter-revolutionary Stalinism by Leon Trotsky from 1923 onwards. culminating in the founding of the Fourth International in 1938, and then the fight waged by our movement, the International Committee of the Fourth International, since 1953, against all those tendencies that emerged from within the Trotskyist movement itself, which sought to downplay, remove or emasculate its central perspective: that the key task in the overthrow of the capitalist system is the resolution of the crisis of the leadership of the working class. That task remains before us. But the objective historical conditions for its accomplishment have been created: first, the ever deepening crisis of the capitalist mode of production, and second, the absolute bankruptcy and decay of the old organisations that held away over the working class and have played the central role in propping up the capitalist system. But here one must recall another key point raised by Marx. History, he insisted, wages no battles. It fights no fights. It is real, live, active men and women who do that. On that basis, I urge you to join the ICFI and carry out the revolutionary task before us, revealed through the ground-breaking analysis and work of Karl Marx. 5G Americas Report Details the Innovative Evolution of Security in 5G BELLEVUE, Wash., Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 5G is not just about faster, bigger or better. Its about enabling a diverse new set of services and use cases affecting nearly every aspect of our lives. But to live up to their potential, those 5G-enabled applications must be delivered securely. 5G Americas, the industry trade association and voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas, today announced the publication of The Evolution of Security in 5G which details a 5G world that is defined by the core tenets of network security architecture an evolution of best common practices for people, processes and tools. 5G will enable Massive Internet of Things (MIoT) applications such as the traffic sensors and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) services that are the foundation for smart cities. Its critical that hackers cant access that data, hijack IoT devices or disrupt the services with Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Fortunately, security has been a top architectural priority for global standards organization 3GPP and is very strong with LTE which is the foundation for 5G. Chris Pearson, President, 5G Americas, said, The mobile wireless industry has long focused on security which has been a strong differentiator against many other wireless technologies where network architectures have been more vulnerable for corruption. Mobiles use of licensed spectrum offers a commanding layer of protection against eavesdropping on data, voice and video traffic. With the current focus on 5G, the mobile industry takes security measures to a higher level with a wide variety of new, advanced safeguards. The report describes 5G safeguards in depth, as well as the vulnerabilities and attack vectors that theyre designed to mitigate. It also explores how 5G differs from 4G and 3G in terms of radio and core network architectures, and how those differences affect the security mechanisms available to mobile operators, their business partners and their customers. For example, 5G is the first mobile architecture designed to support multiple, specific use cases, each with their own unique cybersecurity requirements. In the enterprise IT world, network segmentation is a common, proven way to mitigate security risks. 5G introduces the concept of network slicing, which provides mobile operators with segmentation capabilities that werent possible with previous generations. Key functions and frameworks specific to previous generations (3G, 4G) will continue to work within the overall 5G umbrella. 5G allows for a proliferation of access technologies of all types with data speeds from Gbps to Kbps, licensed and unlicensed, that are based on wide swaths of spectrum bands and include technologies specified by standards bodies other than 3GPP. The Evolution of Security in 5G report delves into details encompassing security topics such as cybersecurity considerations and responses, 5G use cases, security functions for 5G-DDoS, various types of threats that are imperative to combat in the connected world of 5G, mitigated controls for 5G networks, and IoT threat mitigation and detection. In addition to new opportunities and capabilities, 5G creates new cybersecurity considerations and attack vectors through its use of the cloud and edge computing, and convergence of mobile and traditional IT networks, remarked Mike Geller, Principal Systems Engineer, Cisco and co-leader of the report. 5G security is manageable by applying techniques such as automation, orchestration, distributed network build, policy, analytics and much more. Security is, and always has been, critical to the mobile networks we build and operate and will remain so into the future. The Evolution of Security in 5G was written by members of 5G Americas and is available for free download on the 5G Americas website. Sankar Ray from AT&T and Mike Geller from Cisco led the white paper working group with support from 5G Americas Board of Governors who participated in the development of this white paper. About 5G Americas: The Voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas 5G Americas is an industry trade organization composed of leading telecommunications service providers and manufacturers. The organization's mission is to advocate for and foster the advancement and full capabilities of LTE wireless technologies and their evolution to 5G, throughout the ecosystem's networks, services, applications and wirelessly connected devices in the Americas. 5G Americas is invested in developing a connected wireless community while leading 5G development for all the Americas. 5G Americas is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. More information is available at www.5gamericas.org or Twitter @5GAmericas. 5G Americas' Board of Governors members include: AT&T, Cable & Wireless, Cisco, CommScope, Ericsson, Intel, Kathrein, Mavenir, Nokia, Qualcomm Incorporated, Samsung, Shaw Communications Inc., Sprint, T-Mobile US, Inc., Telefonica and WOM. The destruction of the National Health Service (NHS) continues apace, with outsourcing one of the most effective methods of diverting public assets into private hands. At the start of the month, 250 NHS estates, procurement and facilities staff working at East Kent Hospitals had their jobs outsourced to a subsidiary company, 2together Support Solutions. This follows a four-day strike at the end of September by affected staff, after 85 percent of them voted in favour of a strike. The new subsidiary company was announced in May and formally began trading on August 1. The company was set up by East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust (EKHUFT). The subsidiary company is just one of numerous companiesalso referred to as subcosthat have been set up primarily as a tax avoidance move by multiple NHS trusts. Private companies that operate within the NHS can apply for VAT exemption, whilst NHS Trusts are unable to apply. The Guardian reported in September that around 35 trusts have set up subcos and moved non-medical staff into them, or said they intend to do so. The 250 staff will be added to the already 850 that were transferred from Serco, which used to hold the contract for clearing and catering in the trusts. While the 250 transferred workers will retain the pay and conditions they currently have with the NHS trusts, new hires and the 850 moved from private conglomerate, Serco, are not going to be on NHS pay or conditions, creating a de facto two-tier workforce. A spokesman for the subsidiary claimed, We have confirmed NHS staff who are transferring to 2gether Support Solutions do so on their existing terms and conditions, this includes pay, annual leave and access to the NHS pension scheme. Such assurances are bogus. On October 11, staff at the subsidiary company iFM Bolton went on strike over pay. The pay deal offered by the subsidiary brings most staff to less than 8 an hour, which is under the rates for counterparts within NHS trusts. This was after promising staff they would be employed on NHS rates of pay. A domestic worker, speaking to the Salford Star, declared, We need the same pay as the NHS staff. Were on poverty pay at the moment and we work damn hard. Amid the growing concerns over the use of subcos, NHS Improvement (NHSI)the regulator of the countrys NHS trustsissued a notice to pause any current plans to create new subsidiaries or change existing subsidiaries. Jonathan Ashworth, Labours Shadow Health Secretary, heralded the move by NHS Improvement as a victory. Similar comments came from Unites national officer for health and UNISONs head of health also referring to an apparent victory. These claims have already proved to be false, as both the East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust and the York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust ignored the notice and the strikes opposing the outsourcing. As the Salisbury Journal reported, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust began consultation in September to move 375 health care workers into the subsidiary company Salisbury Healthcare Solutions (SHS). Upon the release of the NHSI notice, a spokesman for the SHS merely declared that after the consultation was finished it would simply pause the implementation of the plans. Even though the consultation was made under existing guidelines, the trust is not looking to withdraw the entire proposal. Staff had expressed concerns, outside the September annual general meeting, that the proposal lacked details around pay and conditions of the workers set to be transferred. Over the last year, several high-profile subsidiary transfers have failed. The Guardian reported in September that Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation backed down from moving 600 staff members to its subsidiary bodyTees, Esk and Wear Valleys Estates FM Limitedafter UNISON threatened legal action. Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh foundation trust also abandoned plans to move 900 staff members to its subsidiary WWL Solutions in June. In 2010, Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust created TQtwentyonea separated business entity, as a part of the privatisation processcreating the conditions to attack pay, terms and conditions. By 2013, TQtwentyone, which provided social care services to people with learning difficulties and mental health needs in southern England, forced its 1,886 workers to sign new contracts. These included a restructured pay system, an end to unsocial hours payments and a drastic reduction in annual leave. TQtwentyone managers argued that workers had to agree to lower their wages and conditions because they cannot compete with private providers who are fiercely competitive on price in the social care market. However, the crucial role in facilitating the contracts going through was played by the health unions. Unison, Unite and the Royal College of Nursing isolated the struggle of the health workers and made sure that this inferior contract was imposed on health workers as the employers wanted. NHS Fightback, initiated by the Socialist Equality Party, warned about the consequences, stating, The [subsidiary] was expected to increase new business by 9 percent a year, by taking over services from other Trusts and local authorities. The merger of services with the accompanying slashing of jobs, wages and conditions and rationing of services is a vital stage in the governments strategy of privatising the NHS (emphasis added). Now, large swathes of these services have been sold off to the private sector, driving down the pay, terms and conditions of workers and hugely reducing the quality of services. In 2014, a document was published by the Smith Institute in cooperation with UNISON, which consisted of case studies examining five different areas of outsourcing of various public services to private companies. One study analysed the outsourcing of patient transport services (PTS) from the University Hospital North Staffordshire NHS Trust to two separate bodiesParkwood and NSL. It made several key findings, among which were: Underlying problems with providing a service for the price agreed with knock-on effects for patients. Along with the breakdown in the employment relationship, this made it more difficult for [the staff] to do their jobs. Other observations were that the overall employment package was markedly inferior across all the key criteriapay, leave, overtime, sick pay and antisocial hours. NHS FightBack urges the formation of rank-and-file committees of action, independently of the unions, to organise and coordinate opposition to the privatisation of the NHS. We urge health workers to contact NHS FightBack to discuss these vital issues and take the struggle forward. Visit nhsfightback.org and facebook.com/Fight4theNHS. EASTPOINT, Fla. (WTXL) - Florida Governor Rick Scott announced on Wednesday that the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) will be awarding an additional $2.6 million in funding to assist Floridians impacted by the Limerock Wildfire in Eastpoint. The additional funding will help with the repairing and rebuilding of homes in Franklin County. The funding is in addition to the 24 travel trailers that were purchased in July to help the victims of the fire. My heart goes out to each one of the families affected by this devastating wildfire, and Im proud DEO is providing $2.6 million in funding to help in their time of need," said Gov. Scott. "While we have also made strides to provide temporary housing for these families, now is the time to focus on long-term recovery efforts. On June 24, the Eastpoint Wildfire damaged or destroyed more than 35 homes in Franklin County. This funding is critical to make sure that everyone impacted by the Limerock Wildfire is able to rebuild and recover," said Franklin County Sheriff A.J. Smith. "I want to thank Governor Scott for his unwavering commitment to our community. (RNN) - A Florida woman received a package in the mail that looked eerily similar to those that contained pipe bombs sent to critics of President Donald Trump. It turned out to be something she had ordered. Its understandable why her mail was so alarming. The padded manila envelope was fixed with several American flag stamps, as were the packages allegedly sent by ardent Trump supporter Cesar Sayoc. Even so, the flags were not in the same pattern as the ones placed on the package bombs. But that wasnt the only difference. The womans Winter Haven address had been handwritten. The packages with bombs had addresses on computer-printed labels. She took the package to the Polk County Sheriffs Office and deputies ordered the building evacuated. A HAZMAT crew inspected it and a bomb-sniffing dog was also dispatched. Deputies finally opened the package and discovered it was an item she had ordered. Copyright 2018 Raycom News Network. All rights reserved. Georgia law forbids registered sex offenders from participating in Halloween, to include decorations on their property, the Facebook page for the Butts County Sheriffs Office says. Make sure to avoid houses which are marked with the attached posted signs in front ... TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A Tallahassee man said suicidal thoughts prompted him to make bomb threats in hopes he could get help. Blake G. Hairston, 67, is scheduled to appear in court again on Wednesday. A judge denied him bond Tuesday and directed Hairston to see a doctor for a mental health assessment. No pipe bombs were found at the three Tallahassee schools and two grocery stores where Hairston claimed they were in phone calls. Hairston said he knew his phone had a GPS and law enforcement would be responding to his residence when he made the threats, according to a probable cause affidavit. When law enforcement did not respond, court documents said, Hairston called the 211 Crisis Hotline and stayed on the phone with them for a long while before law enforcement responded to his residence. Deputies came to Hairston's residence and conducted a "knock and talk" to determine who called 911. While a person at 211 Crisis Hotline talked to Hairston, someone from the hotline called the Consolidated Dispatch Agency and said they were on the phone with a suicidal subject within Hairston's apartment complex. Hairston was directed by the Crisis Hotline person to exit his residence, which he did, court documents said. After giving Hairston the Miranda Warning, deputies said he told them he had recently had suicidal thoughts. Deputies arrested Hairston on a charge of making a false report of planting a bomb or explosive and transported him to the Leon County Detention Facility. Man arrested in bomb threats to Tallahassee schools denied bail TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - The man accused of making bomb threats to three high schools and two grocery stores in Tallahassee was in court Tuesday morning. Blake Hairston is charged with making a false report of planting a bomb or explosive. For now, Hairston remains in jail without bond, but that could change on Wednesday. While the prosecution requested at least a bond of $25,000 be set, Judge Nina Richardson said that with bomb threats called into multiple high schools and a grocery store, there's a lot of concern for the safety of the community if Hairston is released. "I can tell you that right now, the court is concerned for the community and is not comfortable releasing you until we get a mental health assessment," said Judge Richardson. Hairston attempted to discuss his motive with the judge, but his public defender stopped him from saying anything that the state could use against him later. Hairston will see a doctor for a mental health assessment and is expected to return to court Wednesday morning. Judge Richardson also mentioned that Hairston told officers he needed help and asked Hairston to bring that up during his mental health assessment. No devices or bomb making materials were found at any of the places he claimed. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - The man arrested for making bomb threats to three Tallahassee schools will remain in jail without bail for now, a judge decided Tuesday. At his first court appearance, Blake Hairston, 67, who was arrested Monday, attempted to address the judge but his public defender stopped him from speaking. Hairston is to see a doctor by Wednesday morning, the judge said, saying that after a mental health assessment an appropriate bond will be set. Man arrested in connection to making multiple bomb threats in Tallahassee TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - The Leon County Sheriff's Office have arrested a Tallahassee man in connection to calling in multiple bomb threats to three Tallahassee schools Monday morning. Blake Hairston, 67, was arrested by LCSO on Monday. Around 9:00 a.m. Monday, the Consolidated Dispatch Agency received a phone call stating explosive devices had been placed at Godby, Leon, and Rickards High Schools and two local grocery stores. LCSO originally reported one of the calls came into Lincoln. They later corrected that info to say that it was actually Leon that was threatened. LCSO said through continued investigation, law enforcement was able to find Hairston at his home. Hairston accompanied deputies to the Sheriffs Office to speak with detectives. After speaking with detectives, LCSO stated Harrison was arrested and taken to the Leon County Detention Facility. LCSO said no devices were found at any of the reported locations and no bomb making materials were located in conjunction with the investigation. He is being charged with making a false report of planting a bomb or explosive. His bond has been set at $10,000. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - The Leon County Sheriff's Office and the Tallahassee Police Department are investigating after they responded to several local high schools and a Publix for called-in bomb threats. Leon County Schools sent the following email to schools Monday morning: Principals: This morning the Consolidated Dispatch Agency (911) received a bomb threat from a caller identifying Leon, Godby, Rickards as well as the Publix on Park Avenue. At this time we have no information to deem this a credible threat and there are no current issues being reported to our district security staff. The Leon County Sheriffs Office is investigating. In an abundance of caution, we thought it important to communicate this to ALL schools. Please advise all of your security staff to be on heightened awareness due to this situation. If you have any questions or concerns please call the District Security Center at 922-5437. The Tallahassee Police Department confirmed they were dispatched to the 2200 block on Claremont Lane at 9:04 a.m. for a bomb threat. At this time, TPD is working to determine whether or not the threat is credible. There are currently trying to trace who the call came from and where it originated. Additionally, according to the TOPS website (Tallahassee Online Police Statistics), at 10:21 a.m., law enforcement was alerted to another incident involving threats in the 500 block of West Tennessee Street. We have no word on whether or not any of these are credible. We will bring you more information when it becomes available. File Photo: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at an event on opioid abuse at the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on Oct. 24, 2018. (Xinhua/Ting Shen) WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump plans to remove the right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born in the United States, according to an interview excerpt released Tuesday. Trump told "Axios on HBO" that he has run the idea of ending birthright citizenship by his counsel and plans to proceed with the move, which would certainly stir controversy and spark a court fight. "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States... with all of those benefits," Trump said. "It's ridiculous. And it has to end." The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to citizenship for all born on U.S. soil to immigrant parents - whether they are in the country legally or not. More than 30 countries, most in the Western Hemisphere, provide birthright citizenship, according to Axios. To change the constitution requires a two thirds majority in Congress, but Trump insisted that he can do it with an executive order. "It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't," Trump said. "You can definitely do it with an Act of Congress. But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order." "It's in the process. It'll happen... with an executive order," he added. Trump's comments were released a week ahead of the highly-contested midterm elections, which could see Democrats seizing control of at least part of the Republican-held Congress. Trump has been seeking to place the issue of immigration front and center in the elections. He has long called for an end to birthright citizenship, as have many conservatives. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 00:56:20|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close The fifth World Buddhist Forum closes in Putian, southeast China's Fujian Province, Oct. 30, 2018. (Xinhua/Wei Peiquan) PUTIAN, Fujian, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- The fifth World Buddhist Forum concluded on Tuesday in the city of Putian, east China's Fujian Province, with proposals for promoting Buddhist interactions and cultural relics protection. A record number of about 1,000 Buddhists, scholars and representatives from 55 countries and regions attended the three-day event, which is jointly hosted by the Buddhist Association of China and China Religious Culture Communication Association. Wang Zuo'an, head of the China Religious Culture Communication Association, said they will continue to develop the forum into the most influential mechanism for Buddhist exchanges, so as to spread the voice of Buddhism in the world. Proposals were made in a declaration at the conclusion of the forum for promoting the Buddhist spirits of peace and philanthropy, protecting the world's Buddhist cultural relics and enhancing people-to-people interactions along the Belt and Road, among others. The World Buddhist Forum was initiated by the Buddhist circles in the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao in 2005. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 01:51:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close VILNIUS, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Lithuanian economy dropped by 0.4 percent in the third quarter amid poor agricultural yields, according to Statistics Lithuania on Tuesday. In seasonally- and calendar-adjusted terms, Lithuania's GDP dropped by 0.4 percent in the third quarter, compared to the second quarter of 2018, according to Statistics Lithuania. It was the first negative quarterly GDP change for the Lithuanian economy since 2009, local economists said. In seasonally and calendar adjusted terms, annual GDP growth in the third quarter decelerated to 2.7 percent from 3.8 percent in the second quarter of 2018. According to economists from the Bank of Lithuania, a drop in agricultural yields is to blame for the slowdown of the Lithuanian economy. "According to preliminary estimates from Statistics Lithuania, the agricultural yields this year should be 25 percent lower than in the previous year, this negatively affects the economic development," said Darius Imbrasas, an economist from the Bank of Lithuania. This year, the drop in agricultural yields has been caused by prolonged drought earlier this summer prompting the country's government to declare a nationwide emergency situation. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 01:51:34|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close JUBA, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan confirmed on Tuesday that at least four African leaders will attend the much-anticipated peace celebrations slated for Wednesday in Juba. Michael Makuei Lueth, minister of information, told journalists in Juba that the leaders from the regional bloc, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) have confirmed they will attend the peace celebrations to mark the end of the more than four years of conflict. He said President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, Somalia's Mohamed Abdulahi Mohamed and Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde will attend the fete. He disclosed that other dignitaries will include Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and Nasser Bourita, Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs as well as delegations from Nigeria and South Africa. Makuei said they had expected several African Heads of States and Government but conceded that this has not been possible due to the ongoing meeting between Chancellor Angela Merkel with some African presidents in Germany under a forum to encourage private investment in Africa. Meanwhile, rebel leader Riek Machar who signed a final peace agreement with President Salva Kiir in September in Ethiopia will also be attending the peace celebrations after more than two years in exile. Machar fled Juba in the wake of renewed violence in July 2016 and he is expected to return to his former post of First Vice President. South Sudan descended into civil war in July 2013 and the conflict has created one of the fastest growing refugee crises in the world. A peace agreement signed in 2015 to end the violence was again violated in July 2016 when the rival factions resumed fighting in the capital, Juba, forcing Machar to flee into exile. The UN estimates that about 4 million South Sudanese have been displaced internally and externally. China's telecom giant Huawei displays 5G technology at the 2018 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 26, 2018. (Xinhua/Guo Qiuda) MADRID, Oct. 30 (XINHUA) -- The Chinese high-tech company Huawei and the Spanish National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE) launched a competition on cybersecurity to encourage young talents on the "key area for a safer society", Huawei CEO in Spain Tony Jin Yong said during a presentation to Xinhua. "The purpose is not so useful for Huawei, but for society, we need to promote cybersecurity in Spain, we have to inspire them to contribute to cybersecurity, this is just the beginning," he said. Registration period for the contest called Cybersecurity Talent Challenge will be open from Oct. 30 to Nov. 18. According to Jin Yong, cybersecurity is a requirement for the digital world. "The whole society is turning to the digital world and we need to secure networks to carry out this change," he said. The contest is the first of its kind in the collaboration between Huawei and INCIBE, which signed an agreement in 2016. Alberto Hernandez, director of INCIBE, stressed that Spain is a prepared country against cyber attacks, but has a deficit in the number of young people trained to work in this area. "Cybersecurity is a challenge for national security and we are all working together to protect our businesses, citizens and infrastructure, but we must continue to promote this talent, to obtain all of the above, we need people well trained in cybersecurity," he said. "It is an area with a very large potential, it is an opportunity for our country to create jobs and create new companies, so we are investing a lot of public funds to promote research and capacity development," said Hernandez. The first three classified will win Huawei devices such as laptops or smartphones. Huawei devices are among the most popular digital products in Spain. Silver Spring, Md., Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Researchers and clinicians associated with The Obesity Society (TOS) say that new, evidence-informed strategies need to be developed to help combat the lack of potential qualified recruits who want to join the military but cannot due to overweight and obesity. Developing innovative evidenced-informed interventions that reduce and prevent childhood obesity and improve physical fitness are critical not only for the health and wellness of our nation, but for national security, said Diana Thomas, a member of the TOS Advocacy Committee, and a professor of mathematics at the United States Military Academy. Unhealthy and Unprepared, a recent study conducted by the Mission: Readiness Council for a Strong America, concluded that the increasing numbers of youth who are overweight will significantly hamper the countrys ability to maintain national security. According to the Pentagon, 71 percent of Americans ages 17 to 24 are ineligible to join the military, primarily because they are too heavy or poorly educated, or they have a record of serious crime or drug abuse. Weight-related issues appear as the single greatest reason for ineligibility. There is no simple solution or easy answer to this problem, said Aaron Kelly, PhD, chair of the TOS Pediatric Obesity Section and co-director of the University of Minnesota Center for Pediatric Obesity Medicine. Preventing and effectively treating pediatric obesity has proven to be exceedingly challenging. Investing in research represents the first and most critical step toward finding solutions. In this age of political hyper-partisanship, this is one issue for which all should be able to find common ground. American citizens and lawmakers need to prioritize funding for obesity research in this country. Obesity has placed an unacceptably high burden our healthcare system and now looms as a threat to fulfill recruitment into our military services. The Mission: Readiness Council for a Strong America study revealed that of the 29 percent of young Americans who hold a high school diploma, have no criminal record and no chronic medical issues, only one in six would qualify and be available for active duty; fewer still (13 percent) would qualify, be available, and could achieve a satisfactory score on the Armed Forces Qualifications Test. We need to be able to communicate early and in an acceptable manner the concerns of inappropriate weight gain in our youth. Additionally, an integrated effort supported by all sectors in the community will be needed to achieve the necessary sustained improvement in nutritional intake and physical activity associated with a healthier lifestyle, said Van S. Hubbard, MD, PhD, who recently retired from the Division of Nutrition Research Coordination at the National Institutes of Health. Our nations soldiers are encountering more complex and challenging conflicts than ever before. Preparing a combat ready force begins long before basic training, concluded Thomas. # # # The Obesity Society (TOS) is the leading organization of scientists and health professionals devoted to understanding and reversing the epidemic of obesity and its adverse health, economic and societal effects. Combining the perspective of physicians and other clinicians, scientists, policymakers and patients, TOS promotes innovative research, education, and evidence-based clinical care to improve the health and well-being of all people with obesity. For more information, visit www.obesity.org and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 02:11:37|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close RIGA, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- With negotiations among political parties on Latvia's next government coalition stalling, President Raimonds Vejonis on Tuesday held another round of consultations with potential heads of government, but these meetings produced no significant breakthrough either. The three candidates for Latvia's prime minister -- Artis Pabriks of the liberal alliance For Development/For, Janis Bordans of the New Conservative Party and Aldis Gobzems of KPV LV -- partly accepted the president's criticism for the slow pace of government formation talks, but said that politicians needed to sort out the situation. Pabriks, who was the first premiership candidate to meet with President Vejonis in Riga Castle, told reporters after the talks that his government would be likely to secure some 45 votes in Latvia's 100-seat parliament, including those of his party and MPs from the outgoing coalition. Pabriks is also ready to start talks in order to achieve greater support in the parliament. Pabriks also admitted it was hard to find a solution in a situation where none of the political parties was ready to back down from their positions. Bordans, who was the next to meet with the president, reasserted his readiness to form a change-oriented government and that he considered himself the best candidate for prime minster. He said his government would have the support of 66 lawmakers. Gobzems, the last candidate for prime minister to meet with the president, also touted himself as the candidate best suited for the premiership role, promising Latvia a fresh breakthrough and agenda under his leadership. He also voiced confidence that the consultations with the president would give the government formation process new dynamic. After the first round of talks with the political parties represented in Latvia's new parliament, the 13th Saeima, President Vejonis had named Pabriks, Bordans and Gobzems as the three most likely candidates to head Latvia's next government. The president expects the parties to come to an agreement on the new coalition government by Nov. 6 when the new parliament is due to hold its first session. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 02:31:41|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close TEHRAN, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian foreign ministry on Tuesday dismissed allegations by Denmark that Iran was planning an assassination of a dissident living in the European state. "The allegations are the enemies' conspiracy to influence the expanding Iran-Europe relations under the current special circumstances," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by official IRNA news agency. According to Western media, Finn Borch Andersen, chief of Danish security service, said earlier in the day that Denmark has "suspected that an Iranian intelligence service had tried to carry out an attack on an Iranian Arab opposition figure on its soil." "A Norwegian citizen of Iranian background has been arrested," he added. The attack was meant to target the leader of the Danish branch of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz, Andersen told a news conference. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 03:31:55|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close By Nathan Morley BRUSSELS, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- The leader of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) has said U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to pull the United States out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty is a huge blow to European security. Trump has announced that the United States planned to quit the treaty over what it sees as violations of the agreement by Moscow. Kate Hudson, General Secretary of the CND, told Xinhua that tearing up the INF treaty will mark the end of the restraints on nuclear arsenals achieved in the 1980s. "The INF Treaty was achieved largely as a massive result of popular protest against cruise and Pershing missiles over a number of years, and this needs to be reignited. Failure to do so and to defend the gains of the Treaty will ultimately result in nuclear war," Hudson told Xinhua in an interview from London. CND advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Hudson describes the abandonment of the accord as a "dangerous and destabilizing move" with the potential revert the world back to the worst days of the Cold War. The historic Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, known as INF, was signed by former U.S. president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. "It meant cruise missiles were removed from Britain and Pershing, cruise and SS-20 missiles from continental Europe.... It will open the way for the return of cruise-type missiles to Europe -- and the increased potential for nuclear war on our continent," Hudson said. When enforced, the pact eliminated all ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range of 300 to 3,000 miles and aimed at the total destruction of over 800 U.S. missiles in Europe and 1,700 Russian missiles in Asia and Europe. "I would say that it (the accord) will be very difficult to save because of President Trump's unilateral contempt for international law, but it may be possible if the rest of the international community remains resolute in its support for the Treaty, and if there is a powerful civil society response," Hudson said. The pact was widely credited with strengthening the U.S. and its allies' security, whilst enhancing global stability and bringing in stringent arms control. This possible abandonment of the accord has stunned President Trump's critics and supporters, as the U.S. pledged to increase its nuclear stockpile, whilst unraveling the existing framework for nuclear control. "It unleashes the possibility, not only of a spiraling nuclear arms race, but of greater numbers of U.S. nuclear weapons coming to Europe. We must stand resolutely against this return to the nuclear escalation of the Cold War and CND calls on all peoples once again to reject these moves," Hudson added Russian President Vladimir Putin says he wants to discuss the arms treaty with Trump when the two meet in Paris on Nov. 11. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 03:41:57|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close NICOSIA, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Cyprus and Britain are very close to a Brexit agreement on the status of the British bases on the eastern Mediterranean island after Britain leaves the European Union, Foreign Minister Nicos Christodoulides said on Tuesday. He told state television in an interview that the negotiations have reached the "final straight", meaning they are close to the end. "Our aim is to safeguard that Cypriots living within the boundaries of the bases will not have fewer rights than the rest of the citizens...This means the European acquis will be applied on the people living in the bases", Christodoulides said. The agreement being discussed is believed to be similar to that being discussed between Britain and Spain on the status of Gibraltar after Brexit. Britain retained two sovereign base areas totaling 254 square kilometers, or 3 percent of the land area of Cyprus, when it granted independence to the island in 1960. Out of a total of 15,000 people living within the boundaries of the two bases at Akrotiri, on the south coast of the island, and Dhekelia in the southeast, 7,500 are Greek Cypriots who live on farmland making about 60 percent of the total territory. They are technically living on British soil, which however, is neither marked nor physically separated from the rest of the island. In 2014 the residents within the bases were granted equal rights for the development of their land as the rest of Cypriots. Beyond the rights of the residents of the bases, Cyprus and Britain will still have to agree on "border" arrangements regarding supplies for the bases imported through Cypriot ports. But this will largely be agreed between the European Union and Britain as part of the wider market relations they are trying to establish after Brexit. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 04:42:13|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BUDAPEST, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Hungarian government will terminate the jobs of close to 7,000 civil servants as from Jan. 1, 2019, according to a government decree published on Tuesday in the Official Journal. "In total, 6,810 posts will cease to exist from Jan. 1, 2019," according to the decree. "A total of 2,600 posts will be terminated directly in the ministries, while the remaining 4,210 posts will be terminated from the different institutions of the government," according to the announcement. The ministry of innovation and technology will take the biggest hit with 517 posts disappearing, followed by the interior ministry with 401 civil servant job positions are being made redundant. In the case of the institutions associated with the ministries, institutions controlled by the ministry of human capacities (responsible for education and health care) will lay off 2,250 employees while the institutions supervised by the ministry of finance will work with 954 less people from next year. The downsizing of people working in the central administration is an old plan for the Hungarian government. The dismissed workers will be assisted by various methods, including tax breaks and assistance in job searches. According to the latest official figures, unemployment stood at 3.8 percent in Hungary. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 05:12:20|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close BERLIN, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Former chief executive of Audi, Rupert Stadler, who was arrested due to the diesel emissions scandal in June, will be released from custody on parole, the higher regional court of Munich announced on Tuesday. Stadler will be released on bail and is not allowed to contact anyone relevant to the investigation. The former Audi CEO allegedly attempted to influence a witness in the investigation against Porsche during a wire-tapped telephone conversation. The court in Munich will determine whether Stadler is guilty of fraud and "indirect false certification" of several hundred thousand sold diesel vehicles. German luxury car maker Audi was already handed an 800-million-euro (910 million U.S. dollars) regulatory fine by the Munich State Prosecution Office. Stadler had been chief executive of Audi for eleven years. Audi board member for sales and marketing, Bram Schot, is currently heading the company as provisional chairman. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 06:52:39|Editor: ZD Video Player Close LOS ANGELES, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- A young Indian couple living in the U.S. Bay Area were identified as victims of falling from an overlook in Yosemite National Park, according to local media reports on Tuesday. Meenakshi Moorthy, 30, and her husband, Vishnu Viswanath, 29, both born in India and living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area, died last week as they fell from Taft Point, a scenic spot located 3,500 feet (1,067 meters) above Yosemite Valley, according to park officials. The couple maintained a website called "Holidays and Happily Ever Afters" about their travel adventures, and described themselves as a "dream doer duo," according to local media. Park rangers recovered their bodies Thursday on steep terrain 800 feet (244 meters) below Taft Point. The recovery operation involved park rangers using technical climbing and rappelling techniques, in addition to helicopter support from the California Highway Patrol for a short-haul operation. Park officials were still investigating the cause of their deaths, and the investigation could take several days, said Jamie Richards, a spokesperson of Yosemite National Park. Yosemite is located in California's Sierra Nevada mountains. Taft Point is a popular hiking destination with views of Yosemite Falls. At its peak, Taft Point's elevation is more than 7,000 feet (2,134 meters). Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 06:57:40|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close LONDON, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- The latest budget unveiled by British Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond saw him give away 20 billion pounds worth of extras, a decision which could lead to much higher borrowing in the future if there is an unfavorable Brexit, a leading expert warned on Tuesday afternoon. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) in London, told a press conference: "Mr Hammond is willing to gamble on the public finances. Because yesterday's Budget was a bit of a gamble." Johnson outlined in a separate newspaper article for London's Evening Standard that the figures behind Hammond's Monday Budget, which saw him spend lavishly on healthcare, would "go out of the window" in the event of a British exit from the European Union (EU) with no deal over trade and tariffs. This so-called Chaotic Brexit would be triggered if the EU and Britain fail to make progress in talks on a separation treaty. The primary stumbling block is the nature of the trade and tariff border between EU member state Ireland and Britain's Northern Ireland, the only land border between the two sides. The prospect of a chaotic Brexit would have an immediate effect on the British economy, which would then be hit by increased costs from the hard border between Britain and the EU, which is Britain's largest single export market.This would damage government income. Johnson said: ""Suppose the public finance forecasts deteriorate significantly next year. They might. There's perhaps a one in three chance of that. What will Hammond do then? "The chances of getting sizeable tax rises through parliament are next to nil. It's surely borrowing that would take the strain. That's a judgment... that could see debt ratchet upwards." Hammond had used a windfall of 20 billion pounds (about 25.4 billion U.S. dollars) revealed in new data and statistics from the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR), the independent government data body. The OBR's data is used as the basis for all income and expenditure figures and for all forecasts of economic performance and measures of the economy used in Hammond's Budget. Johnson said: " What does explain the improvements which allowed the Chancellor space for his largess? It mostly comes down to small scale improvements in a range of forecast tax revenues -- they keep coming in a bit better than expected." The flagship proposal in Hammond's Budget was the increase in spending on the government-funded National Health Service (NHS), set to increase by 20 billion pounds by 2023/24, the end of the Budget forecast period. Johnson dissected the government's increased spending plan to reveal that it is a reversal of the underfunding in historic terms that the NHS endured under the austerity policies of Hammond and his predecessor George Osborne as Chancellor of the Exchequer since 2010. Johnson said it was difficult to measure spending on the NHS but under several measures, the rise was what one is measuring between 2.6 percent a year (an estimate of total health spending increases between 2017-18 and 2023-24) and 3.4 percent a year (daily spending on the NHS over the same period). That compares with average increases of 3.7 percent a year over the NHS's entire history, and a 6 percent a year between 1997 and 2010, said Johnson. Day-to-day spending on all other public services, such as education and police, is set to be "essentially flat", said Johnson, continuing a long-term trend. "Health spending will have risen from 23 percent of public service spending in 2000 to 29 percent in 2010, and is set to reach 38 percent by 2023-24. That is a remarkable increase. Other public services have been paying the price. At some point, we will need to pay more tax if we are to continue to increase spending on the NHS like this," Johnson said. (1 pound = 1.27 U.S. dollars) Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 07:12:44|Editor: ZD Video Player Close SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 3.4 million residents in the U.S. State of Washington were affected by data breaches that leaked their privacy between July 2017 and July 2018, the Washington Attorney General (AG)'s office said in a report Tuesday. The AG Office said that the privacy-comprising cases have increased 700,000, or 26 percent, over the previous year, and grown by nearly 3 million, or more than 700 percent, compared to two years ago. "The number of Washingtonians impacted by data breaches increased for the second consecutive year," said Washington AG Bob Ferguson, who delivered his third annual Data Breach Report. According to Washington law, data breaches are only reported if they potentially affect 500 people or more, and Ferguson said his office has received 51 such notifications for fiscal year 2018. Malicious cyberattacks continue to be the leading cause of data breaches affecting Washingtonians, Ferguson wrote in his report, which found that these breaches were discovered at all levels, whether local, state, regional or national. Ferguson urged to strengthen Washington' s data breach notification law, and suggested that any individual should be notified of a breach within 30 days if the breach is discovered. The AG Office should also be notified of a breach in 10 days in case of a breach discovery, he asserted. Ferguson said his office has been taking measures to press businesses or companies in Washington State to better protect the privacy of Washingtonians. Many newer legislation was spurred by the 2017 Uber data breach, which potentially affected personal information of some 13,000 drivers in the state. The Uber breach forced the ride-hailing company to pay 5.79 million U.S. dollars to Washington state, which included 170 million dollars for the 13,000 impacted drivers. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 09:05:49|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close Visitors view artworks during a preview of the exhibition "Gordon Parks: The New Tide, Early Work 1940-1950" at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the United States, on Oct. 30, 2018. The exhibition, bringing together 150 photographs and ephemera, focuses on the formative decade of the American photographer's 60-year career. It will be opened to the public from Nov. 4, 2018 to Feb. 18, 2019. (Xinhua/Liu Jie) TORONTO, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Partners Real Estate Investment Trust (Partners REIT or the REIT) (TSX:PAR.UN) is pleased to announce that the parties to the Class Action against, among others, certain former trustees and a former officer of Partners REIT, have signed minutes of settlement and will seek approval of the settlement by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and to have the Class Action dismissed. A hearing for court approval of the settlement is scheduled for December 14, 2018. The Class Action relates to the purchase by the REIT of three properties in April 2014, which purchase was rescinded in October 2014. As previously disclosed by the REIT, the REIT has certain indemnity obligations to its former trustees and former officer named in the Class Action, although the REIT has insurance in place and did not expect the Class Action to be material to its business and affairs. Subject to the Courts approval of the settlement, all claims made against the REITs former trustees and former officer will be dismissed. The monies to fund the settlement will be primarily funded by available insurance, and it is expected that there will be no material impact to the REITs business and affairs. About Partners REIT Partners REIT is a real estate investment trust that manages a portfolio of retail and mixed-use community and neighbourhood shopping centres located in both primary and secondary markets across Canada. Disclaimer Certain statements included in this press release constitute forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, those identified by the expressions expect, will and similar expressions to the extent they relate to Partners REIT. The forward-looking statements are not historical facts but reflect Partners REITs 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. Although Partners REIT believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guaranteeing of future performance and, accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Partners REIT Investor Relations 1 (844) 474-9620 ext. 401 investor.relations@partnersreit.com Jane Domenico Chief Executive Officer (416) 855-3313 ext. 401 Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 10:01:20|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close (181030) -- ZADAR (CROATIA), Oct. 30, 2018 (Xinhua) -- Photo taken on Oct. 30, 2018 shows boats affected by strong wind in Zadar, Croatia. Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service issued orange and red warning for the Adriatic during last weekend, as southeasterly wind and heavy rains battered most of the coast. (Xinhua/Dino Stanin) Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 09:33:07|Editor: ZD Video Player Close PARIS, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Second-seeded Novak Djokovic breezed past Portugal's Joao Sousa in straight sets to make into the round of 16, while French players failed to please home crowds as five of six featuring in Tuesday's action crashed out from the competition at the 2018 ATP Paris Masters. Djokovic didn't concede a set in his previous five head-to-heads against Sousa. Both players maintained their serves in the first three games, before the Serbian took advantage of first serves trouble from his opponent for the first break of the match. Then Djokovic built a 4-1 lead after holding his own service, while seeing his Portuguese rival bounce back strongly for a 4-all. The world No. 2 broke for the second time in the 12th game to bag the first set 7-5. Djokovic continued his momentum with five straight games into the second set, and seemed to be little tested en route to his 6-1 victory. He converted his third match points as Sousa's backhand went long. Djokovic is vying for the top position on the ATP world rankings with Rafael Nadal. The Serbian has not been world No. 1 since the 2016 Paris Masters. He needs to advance further than the Spaniard to regain the top place. Fifth seed Marin Cilic overcame Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-3, 6-4, while the 14th-seeded Greek talent Stefanos Tsitsipas was ousted by Damir Dzumhur 6-3, 6-3. There was little to celebrate for home players. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga suffered an agonizing loss to Canadian opponent Milos Raonic after two hours and 52 minutes, as three sets were forced into tie-breaks at 6-7 (4), 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5). Tsonga's compatriot Jeremy Chardy fell to Spaniard Fernando Verdasco 6-4, 6-4. Defeats also arrived for other two Frenchmen Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Benoit Paire. Only Gilles Simon moved through Tuesday's first round at the expense of Lucas Pouille in an all-France duel at 6-3, 6-4. Roger Federer, fresh from his 99th tour-level title in his hometown Basel last weekend, confirmed his participation in the French capital, marking his first appearance in the tournament over the past three years. "Mostly I feel like it's better for me to play matches rather than practice," Federer told a news conference. The third seed will take on Raonic in Wednesday's second round. Nadal will face his fellow Spaniard Fernando Verdasco. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 09:48:10|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close SYDNEY, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- With demand for fresh Aussie produce like dairy, meat, seafood and vegetables soaring in China, former Australian Ambassador to China Geoff Raby told Fairfax Media on Wednesday that there are huge opportunities for businesses who can transport goods quickly and efficiently. Raby who is also the chairman of logistics operation Wiseway Group said the company would list on the Australian Stock Exchange to raise 26.1 million Australian dollars (18.5 million U.S. dollars). Founded 13 years ago, the company is now looking to expand its widely successful dry cargo business arm which transports goods such as milk powder and vitamins, to include more perishable items. "They have invested to capture the growing fresh food trade," Raby said. "They can deliver fresh milk into Chengdu within 24 hours from the farm gate in Australia." "They are shipping mangos and salmon from Tasmania and we see the real growth potential from the business in fresh food." Although Wiseway Group does utilize shipping for its nearly 700 customers, the majority of its revenue comes from air freight. "Like any business with China you have to have scale and agility and speed," Raby said. "This represents the scale of China and massive growth. It is all tied in to the growing middle class and high-value consumption story." Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 09:58:12|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close MEXICO CITY, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Mexican Economy Minister Iledfonso Guajardo on Tuesday dismissed suggestions that the cancellation of Mexico City's new airport project could spark an economic crisis. "That this could be a factor that leads to a crisis, I think is an interpretation that is a tad exaggerated," Guajardo told reporters. The most important element for a healthy economy is transparency and compliance with the law, he added. His comments came on the heels of Monday's announcement by Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador that he would cancel construction of Mexico's new international airport after a four-day nationwide poll showed a majority of the voters were against the project. Touted as the biggest infrastructure project of the current administration, the new airport became a point of contention due to its high construction costs, high maintenance costs, environmental impact and a less than transparent bidding process. Its feasibility -- built on a swampy lake bed in Texcoco, 32 km from Mexico City -- and price tag have been a constant source of controversy since the project was announced. Still, Lopez Obrador's announcement sent Mexico's benchmark indices down on Monday, registering their worst results since November 2016, when Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. The peso also slid slightly against the U.S. dollar. Mexico uses a "free floating" currency exchange system that often sees large fluctuations before recovering. "We saw the market's reaction, but it's clearly a reaction, it isn't a trend yet," the minister said. "In the past two and a half years we have had surprises where it (the peso) has reached levels that sanity and economic reality did not sustain, and it returned to much more accessible levels," he added. The airport project, considered to be outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto's largest legacy, is expected to require some 13.3 billion U.S. dollars to build, and millions more to maintain annually. However, supporters of the project say that with several billion U.S. dollars already invested in laying the foundations and buying building materials, the cost of cancelling the project would be huge. Lopez Obrador is scheduled to take office on Dec. 1. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 10:13:19|Editor: ZD Video Player Close KIEV, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian presidential candidate and opposition party leader Yulia Tymoshenko has proposed a new format of international talks on Ukraine's crisis, called Budapest Plus, the party's press service said Tuesday in a statement. The format should incorporate the leaders of the countries who have signed the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, according to the statement. These countries include Ukraine, the United States, Britain and Russia. Tymoshenko said she planned to ask some other major countries to join the format. Tymoshenko added that after the presidential election in Ukraine, scheduled for March 31, 2019, she will initiate a gathering in the Budapest Plus format. The conflict in Ukraine's eastern region of Donbas started in April 2014, after government forces launched offensives to regain control of the cities and towns seized by armed groups which had declared independence from Kiev. In June 2014, leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France formed a Normandy format group in an attempt to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Besides, the Trilateral Contact Group consisting of representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) hold regular talks on ways to resolve the conflict. Under the Budapest memorandum signed in December 1994, Ukraine got security guarantees from the United States, Britain and Russia in exchange for Kiev to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and surrender what was then the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal. Members of Search and rescue team unload a bucket of debris and luggage of crashed Lion Air JT 610, at Tanjung Pakis offshore in Karawang, West Java Province, Indonesia, Oct. 30, 2018. (Xinhua/Zulkarnain) JAKARTA, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian rescuers will extend the area of search operation for the victims and the main wreckage of the fatal air crash on Monday with all 189 people on board likely killed, while a forensic team is striving to identify the bodies of victims. The national search and rescue office deputy chief Nugroho Budi Wiryanto disclosed on Tuesday evening that the search operation will be extended to 15 nautical miles on Wednesday from 10 nautical miles on Tuesday, aiming at maximizing the search mission to find the main wreckage of the almost new Lion Air Boeing 737 max 8 jet plane and the victims. "Tomorrow we will widen the area of search, the ships that we use will be maximize, (and) diving will be also intensified," he said. Members of Indonesian Navy special force prepare for searching victims of the crashed Lion Air JT 610, at Tanjung Pakis offshore, Indonesia, Oct. 30, 2018. (Xinhua/Zulkarnain) The search will include ships equipped with technology of echo-sounder and sonar to detect the position of the main wreckage of the aircraft, said Wiryanto. Search for the wreckage of the aircraft, which went down in the water of Tanjung Karawang shortly after taking off from Soekarno-Hatta airport in Banten province, was in the radius of five nautical miles from the spot believed to be the crash site, according to rescue office. Separately at the police hospital in Jakarta, a forensic team is striving to identify the bodies of victims on Tuesday. Head of Health and Medical Department of Indonesian National Police Brigadier General Arthur Tampi said the forensic team has received body parts retrieved among the debris floating on the waters. "We have conducted forensic examination, doctors have done it," he said. Arthur Latief, head of media communication of the national search and rescue office told Xinhua by phone that a total of 10 body bags have been sent to the police hospital. Indonesian Search and Rescue (SAR) and Forensic team members check the victim of the crashed Lion Air JT 610, at the Tanjung Priok port, Jakarta, Indonesia, Oct. 30. 2018. (Xinhua/Veri Sanovri) Tampi said that the forensic team has collected a total of 185 ante-mortem data, and as many as 147 of them have been taken DNA data. However, none of the victims could be identified on Tuesday as many of the ante-mortem data have similarities, so the team has to wait for the DNA data to come out in four to eight days. According to the national search and rescue agency, two foreign nationals are among the victims, an Indian pilot and an Italian national. Edward Sirait, president and CEO of the Lion Air Group said that the Boeing 737 max 8 was purchased by the company this year, and started operating in August. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 11:08:30|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close by Matthew Rusling WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Just a week ahead of U.S. midterm elections, President Donald Trump stated that he has been thinking of ending birthright citizenship with an executive order. The move has been an effort to appeal to Trump's constituents who list illegal immigration as a top concern, experts said, calling it unconstitutional. Trump said on Tuesday he has discussed with White House council the possibility of bringing a halt to granting automatic citizenship to babies born in the United States to non-citizen parents and believes he can achieve this by enacting an executive order. "Trump is attempting to please his base by denying birthright status to foreign babies born in the United States," Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua. "It is a way to sound tough on immigration without getting Congress to pass a bill," West said. "Trump plans to implement this idea through an executive order. That approach is not likely to be constitutional," West said, adding that if found to be unconstitutional, it will have no impact. Trump is unlikely to be able to pull this off via executive decree, "unless he can convince federal courts to go along, and there's not a lot of reason to think they would," Christopher Galdieri, assistant professor at Saint Anselm College, told Xinhua. In the short term, such an executive order would be immediately challenged in court and likely enjoined, Galdieri said. The appeals process would then take it to the Supreme Court where it would need five votes to survive. "I am skeptical that Chief Justice Roberts would support the view that a president can redefine the meaning of the constitution via executive order, but it's within the realm of possibility," Galdieri said. "Domestically, it would likely make the issue break along partisan fault lines," Galdieri said. "By suggesting he's going to do so via executive order, Trump is trying to energize his base of supporters by dangling the prospect of achieving a policy goal," Galdieri said. Trump's announcement, according to some experts, has been the most hardline move in recent memory of any president who aims to get tough on illegal immigration. Recent weeks have seen the issue of immigration once again dominate political discussions, as Trump's constituents still view illegal immigration as one of the nation's most pressing matters. Illegal immigration has also been in the spotlight as a migrant caravan is slowly making its way by foot through Mexico to the U.S. border, with the aim of entering the United States. Trump has said they will not be allowed to enter, as they have not gone through all the necessary legal channels. Some pundits have noted that they can simply claim amnesty -- say they are being persecuted in their home countries -- and they will have to be allowed in, in order to determine whether the claim is true. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 11:08:30|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close JAKARTA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- A total of 37 bags of body parts from the crashed Indonesian plane have been brought to a Jakarta hospital for identification, according to a rescuer on Wednesday. The Lion Air plane with 189 people onboard crashed into the waters off karawang of Indonesia's West Java province shortly after taking off from Jakarta on Monday. Rescuers put the body parts they had found earlier into 37 bags and took them to the police hospital in Jakarta for identification, Yusuf Latief, head of communication for media of the national search and rescue office said. "A total of 37 body bags, all of them containing parts of human bodies, the victims of the Lion Air plane, have been brought to the police hospital," he told Xinhua by phone. More items belonging to the passengers of the Boeing 737 Max 8 jet plane have also been retrieved by the rescuers, he said. Latief reaffirmed that the search for the victims and the main wreckage of the aircraft is still ongoing Wednesday. The rescuers extended the area of search operation on Wednesday to 15 nautical miles, according to the national search and rescue office deputy chief Nugroho Budi Wiryanto. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 11:53:37|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close by Naim-Ul-Karim DHAKA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- China is turning into a key future export destination as it is opening wider to the rest of the world, Bangladesh's apex trade body chief has said. Md Shafiul Islam Mohiuddin, president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), made the remarks in an exclusive interview with Xinhua ahead of the upcoming China International Import Expo (CIIE). The expo is one of the mega initiatives which China has so far made to benefit the rest of the world at large, said the business leader. With regard to the CIIE which runs from Nov. 5 to Nov. 10, he said the expo is very important as it paves the way to get introduced with new products. In the expo, he said Bangladesh's key focus will be showcasing its globally demandable competitive and diversified products to have more new markets in China and elsewhere in the world. "China is a very big country with its 1.3 billion population. Even if a single product of ours hits that (Chinese) market that will surely pave the way for a huge market access there," Mohiuddin said. He said China has already given duty free access to most of the Bangladesh products. "So, our exporters have their special privileges there. This expo also creates opportunities to become acquainted with (business of) other countries who export (to China)." The FBCCI chief said Bangladeshi businessmen are nowadays going more to China. "Many businesses are really quite busy with the Chinese market which is turning into a key future export destination for the countries across the world." Meanwhile, the business leader said that India and China being two giant neighbors, Bangladesh has specially enormous business opportunities due to its suitable geographical location. "I wish every success to the participants in the expo and hope they would have well rewards from the expo." Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 12:03:38|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close BEIJING, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese procuratorates have approved the arrest of over 57,000 people suspected of gang crimes in some 17,000 cases in the first nine months this year, the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) said Tuesday. Meanwhile, more than 200 people were arrested for sheltering criminal organizations by concealing their crimes or shielding them from punishment, the SPP said. Of those arrested for gang crimes, over 32,000 have been prosecuted, according to the SPP. The SPP has worked with the Ministry of Public Security to supervise the crackdown on 24 major gang crimes in Hebei, Henan and Yunnan provinces this year. The agency has built a team specializing in gang crimes, which was dispatched to Yunnan to help guide the fight against cross-border gang crimes, the SPP said. Meanwhile, procuratorates at all levels have joined in the crackdown on gang crimes, strengthening supervision over case registration, investigations, trials, and execution of punishments. BURLINGAME, Calif., Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WeDriveU, the leader in transportation solutions specializing in corporate and university shuttles, today announced the company has expanded its senior executive team and promoted key leaders to accelerate the companys next growth stage. John Sperry has joined the company as Senior Vice President of Human Resources to oversee HR strategy, recruiting and talent management. A 28-year HR veteran, Sperry excels at designing and building innovative HR programs in high-growth organizations. Sperry joins WeDriveU from Able Services, the largest privately-held facility services provider in the United States with 17,000 employees in 46 states. As VP of HR, he led the transformation of human capital management to support the companys rapid growth, spearheading talent acquisition, benefits compliance and strategic technology initiatives. Previously, Sperry served as VP of Human Capital and Employee Advocacy at Tiburon, Inc. (acquired by TriTech Software Systems), where he architected HR measurement and analytics, recruiting, retention and compensation strategies. Sperry has also held senior HR roles at companies such as KodakGallery.com, Audatex (formerly ADP Claims Services Group) and ADP Dealer Services. John is an accomplished HR leader with a tremendous track record of developing thriving, people-focused organizations, said Dennis Carlson, President & CEO, WeDriveU. His proven experience and creative approach to developing teams and processes in large organizations makes him a perfect fit to scale talent initiatives for our next stage of growth. WeDriveU also announced several leadership team promotions: Pat McConn has been promoted to Chief Financial Officer, with expanded responsibility for WeDriveUs financial and organizational strategies, procurement and contract review. McConn reports to Dennis Carlson, President & CEO. Alex Heliotis has been promoted to Vice President, Operations, with expanded responsibility for WeDriveUs nationwide team of Operations Directors who oversee dedicated onsite managers, and its Operations Control Center. Heliotis reports to Tim Wayland, Chief Operating Officer. Garin Fainstein has been promoted to Vice President & Controller, expanding his role in the areas of financial reporting and analysis, internal controls, audit and treasury. Fainstein reports to Pat McConn. Carlson added, The contributions Pat, Alex and Garin have made over the past few years have been instrumental in our spectacular growth. We congratulate them on their expanded leadership role. About WeDriveU WeDriveU is the leader in transportation solutions, specializing in corporate and university shuttles. WeDriveU is experiencing significant growth in its 30th anniversary year and serves over 6.9M annual passengers. Recognized as a pioneer in mobility, WeDriveU is a strategic partner to the worlds top brands, with client programs that consistently earn awards for excellence in commuting and sustainability. WeDriveU operates across the U.S. www.wedriveu.com @wedriveu WeDriveU is a registered trademark of WeDriveU, Inc. Other marks are property of their owners. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d400c79e-4e20-46da-8498-d107d274da08 Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 12:23:41|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close KABUL, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- At least seven people were killed and several others wounded after a suicide bomber struck a government employees' vehicle in the eastern side of Kabul Wednesday, an Afghan Interior Ministry official said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 12:43:45|Editor: Chengcheng Video Player Close HANOI, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will attend the China International Import Expo (CIIE) early next month in Shanghai, China, daily newspaper Nhan Dan (People) reported on Wednesday. The CIIE, the first import-themed national-level expo in the world, will be held from Nov. 5 to 10 in Shanghai, gathering more than 3,000 companies from over 130 countries and regions. China remained Vietnam's biggest import market with turnovers of 52.9 billion U.S. dollars in the first 10 months of this year, up 12.4 percent against the same period last year, said Vietnam's General Statistics Office. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 12:58:49|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close Afghan security force members inspect at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, Oct. 31, 2018. At least seven people were killed and several others wounded after a suicide bomber struck a government employees' vehicle outside a main prison in the eastern side of Afghan capital Wednesday, an Interior Ministry official said.(Xinhua/Rahmat Alizadah) KABUL, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- At least seven people were killed and several others wounded after a suicide bomber struck a government employees' vehicle outside a main prison in the eastern side of Afghan capital Wednesday, an Interior Ministry official said. "The initial information found the blast occurred roughly at 07:25 a.m. local time after the vehicle arrived at the main gate of Pul-e-Charkhi prison," the official told Xinhua anonymously. Most of the affected people were female employees of the prison aboard the vehicle and at least three children were among the injured. Security forces have cordoned off the area for precautionary measures. The casualties were shifted to nearby hospitals by ambulances and police vehicles. The number of casualties may rise, the source added. Over the past few months, Afghanistan, especially Kabul, has witnessed waves of terror attacks by the Islamic State (IS) outfit and Taliban insurgents. More than 2,790 civilians were killed and over 5,250 others injured in conflict-related incidents in the first nine months of the year in the war-torn country, according to figures released by the United Nations mission in the country. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 13:28:54|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close OTTAWA, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- "I'm very excited about the China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai and the opportunity that presents to Prince Edward Island exporters and for Canadians to engage with Chinese partners and with consumers," Canada's Prince Edward Island Premier Wade MacLauchlan told Xinhua Tuesday. The premier is among a delegation of more than 600 Canadian federal ministers, provincial premiers and business people for the CIIE, China's first-ever fair of this kind scheduled for Nov. 5-10 in Shanghai. The delegation will be led by Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Lawrence MacAulay, whose home province is Prince Edward Island. MacLauchlan said he was "aware of the role of President Xi Jinping in launching this initiative" and "proud" that the Canadian delegation will be led by a Prince Edward Island-born federal minister. The Canadian delegation is one of the largest from Europe and America, a clear sign of the great importance Canada attaches to the event. China-Canada relations enjoy a solid foundation and bright prospects. The two countries, though at different stages of development, are highly complementary and hence natural partners of cooperation. The bilateral trade volume, which hit 72.77 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, rose to 49.87 billion dollars in the first eight months of 2018, among which China's imports from Canada jumped 8.6 percent to 12.65 billion dollars, according to the Chinese embassy to Canada. The CIIE is the latest move of China to promote trade liberalization and further open up its market. Meanwhile, Canadian exporters are hoping to draw more potential buyers via the expo. China now ranks as Prince Edward Island's second-largest export market, according to the latest provincial government report. Upbeat about the fast-growing trade between the Island and China, MacLauchlan said: "I am looking forward to seeing all of the activities and building relationships that we will continue to pursue as we continue to grow." "I will do everything to take advantage of this great trade expo. We have a number of businesses from Prince Edward Island that will be taking part ... So, look forward to the trade expo and wish everyone great success," the premier added. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 13:38:56|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close SEOUL, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Top diplomats of South Korea and Japan had a phone conversation Wednesday over the South Korean top court's ruling on the wartime forced labor, according to Seoul's foreign ministry. South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha had phone talks on Wednesday morning with her Japanese counterpart Taro Kono to exchange opinions over the Supreme Court's ruling on the four South Korean victims who were forced into labor for a Japanese steel producer during World War . The Supreme Court judged Tuesday that Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. must pay 100 million won (about 87,700 U.S. dollars) to each of the four victims who initiated the damages lawsuit in 2005. In response to the Japanese government's worry about the top court's ruling, Kang told Kono that the South Korean government respected the judiciary branch's judgement. Kang and Kono stressed the need to continue cooperation for the development of the bilateral relations in a future-oriented manner, the Seoul ministry said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 13:43:57|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close JAKARTA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- An object suspected to be the fuselage of the crashed Indonesia Lion Air plane was located, Indonesian military commander Air Marshall Hadi Tjahjanto said on Wednesday. An Indonesian navy vessel equipped with advanced sonar instrument was dispatched to the location to confirm whether the object was the fuselage of the Lion Air JT 610 flight, which crashed into the sea off Karawang in Indonesia's West Java province Monday morning. "Now we will focus our search on object in the seabed that we suspect part of JT 610," Hadi said in the search center in Tanjung Priok seaport. He did not give details to the exact location of the suspected plane wreckage. The object was 22-meter long, 5-meter wide and 10-meter high. The passenger jet en route to Pangkal Pinang with 189 people onboard crashed shortly after taking off from Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta international airport on Monday morning. The Boeing 737 Max 8, a brand new version of the 737 model, was manufactured this year and was put into operation in mid-August, according to the low-cost airline. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 14:09:01|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close CANBERRA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Australia's top business group has urged workers to embrace automation, dismissing fears that the trend will result in widespread job loss. The Business Council of Australia (BCA) on Wednesday cited a research that found automation could add 250 billion Australian dollars (177 billion U.S. dollars) to the nation's economy by 2025. "Change is already upon us. These forces are happening today," BCA chief Jennifer Westacott said in a speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday. "There is little evidence to suggest that technological change is speeding up the rate of job loss in our community." Westacott released a BCA study that found that the rate of job loss due to automation in 2018 was consistent with other peaks over the last 50 years. "Our analysis shows the percentage of workers forced to change jobs has almost halved over the last two decades," she said. The BCA's findings contradict those of the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia, which estimated that as many as five million jobs could be lost to automation by the mid-2030s. "When I hear people saying they want to slow down this rate of change, erect barriers to transition, and bring back protectionism, I shake my head," Westacott said. "This is ubiquitous. It's unstoppable. It's borderless. It's consumer driven. It's skills-focused. If done well, it will be a force for good." The BCA's campaign to embrace automation comes at a time when the Australian Council of Trade Unions is pushing for new laws to boost stagnating wage growth for Australian workers with the issue set to be a key battleground in the 2019 general election. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 14:19:04|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Tuesday called on all parties concerned to take measures to decrease tensions and resolve the conflict in Ukraine peacefully. Voicing opposition to interference in Ukraine's internal affairs by any external forces, Wu Haitao, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, called for the comprehensive implementation of Resolution 2202 (2015) and the Minsk II agreement regarding the resolution of conflict in Ukraine. The Minsk II agreement refers to a package of measures signed in early 2015 between Kiev and the representatives of the two eastern regions claiming independence. The agreement came into being after leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany reached consensus on measures to stop armed conflict in eastern Ukraine in the aftermath of the collapse of the first cease-fire deal between Ukraine's warring parties. The international community should continue to promote diplomatic efforts toward a resolution of the conflict, said the Chinese diplomat, who also urged Security Council members to remain united over the issue. The Chinese envoy noted that the legitimate rights and interests of all parties and ethnic groups in the region must be respected. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 14:19:06|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close CANBERRA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- An Australian data company has successfully mapped every building in the country in a world-first. The Geoscape data set, collected by PSMA Australia, marks the first time that every building on a continent has been mapped. It revealed that there were 15.2 million buildings in Australia larger than nine square meters. PSMA Australia was established by the state and territory governments of Australia to collate the data to provide an accurate picture of Australia's infrastructure. "The information provided is already available to anyone who walked down the street," PSMA chief executive Dan Paull told Fairfax Media. "The information has not been brought together previously. "I think it's an exciting landmark." PSMA used artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze satellite images of Australia and create the data set, which shows every building in three-dimensions. "Australia's a very large country. We didn't know where the buildings actually were. You have to look at the entire 7.6 million square kilometres to know where all the buildings are," Paull said. "We saw this as something that could greatly improve the quality of communications, planning and insurance." In addition to its use for infrastructure purposes, the data will be widely used for planning to see how a proposed structure fits into a space and even how it casts a shadow. According to the analysis, Australia's largest building is the Melbourne Airport while the tallest is Melbourne's Eureka Tower. New South Wales (NSW), Australia's most populous state, had the highest percentage of Australia's buildings with 27.8 percent while Victoria, the nation's fastest-growing state, had the highest density. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 15:34:18|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Several experts on Tuesday refuted the accusation that China is a revisionist country where global governance is concerned, saying that the interests of the United States and the Asian country are not fundamentally incompatible. The Trump administration, in its earlier released national security strategy, labeled China and Russia as U.S. competitors and revisionist nations. Its recent trade and diplomatic provocations against China have incited widespread fear that Washington is re-directing its engagement with Beijing in order to contain it. NOT REVISIONIST While attending a debate over whether "U.S. and Chinese long-term interests are fundamentally incompatible," Susan Thornton, former acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, said China is not a revisionist country. China and the United States both have an interest in the continuation of the international system, and both are permanent members of the UN Security Council, Thornton said. "In this respect, I would argue that China is not revisionist, that China sees itself as wanting to prolong and continue the existing international order albeit with some changes," she said. The debate is part of a string of events regarding U.S.-China relations co-hosted by the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings Institution and the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School. Thornton believed that the two countries' interests are not fundamentally incompatible, and there are ways to manage the differences via diplomacy. "We have many interests in common with China," she said. "China and the U.S. are both interested in countering instability and conflict among regional hotspots." The veteran diplomat said that the two nations must further their shared interests through diplomacy and cooperation. RESPECT, RECIPROCITY To ensure that the U.S.-China relations are moving in a constructive direction, U.S. experts believed that mutual respect and reciprocity are required. David Lampton, a professor and director of China Studies Emeritus at Johns Hopkins University, said that both sides have to work for "a framework towards balance as opposed to primacy by either." Thornton echoed that view by saying that all concerns between the two nations "can be worked on so that they become either manageable or less problematic." To maintain the momentum of bilateral engagement, Lampton said that the United States has state governments which have more compatible interests with China, and encouraged China and the United States to foster cooperation at provincial and local levels. Thornton also said that "coming to the conclusion that this is some kind of fundamental incompatibilities is certainly not in the long-term interest of the United States and its allies." BETTER FUTURE Thornton said that despite the current hostility towards China, the U.S. relations with China will be better off in the future. "We know that the U.S. wants to avoid conflict with China and maybe the most fundamental interest we have in common is the mutual desire to avoid conflict," she said. China is willing to "continue to have a constructive relationship with the United States," Thornton added. "We can find some common ground. We do have agency within our governments to cut through these increasingly tense, difficult, conflicting interests. Manage them well and look for those areas of commonality," she said. SMITHFIELD, Va., Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Smithfield Foods, Inc. is pleased to announce a $210,000 donation to BoysGrow , a Missouri-based nonprofit program focused on mentoring Kansas Citys urban youth through agricultural entrepreneurship. The donation supports the construction of a new 3,400 square foot farm kitchen to support food production, culinary arts, vocational training, events, and agritourism. The project officially broke ground in a ceremony yesterday at the BoysGrow campus in Kansas City. Expected competition date for the culinary center is Summer 2019. Once finalized, the center will provide additional space for the existing culinary program and the ability to offer resources to more students in coming years. Our goal is to empower youth through hands-on learning experiences, giving them access to healthy food, vocational training, establishing work ethic, providing positive mentorship, and allowing them to earn a paycheck, said John Gordon, executive director of BoysGrow. We are grateful to Smithfield Foods for their donation and commitment to community stewardship to make the dream of this new facility come to life. BoysGrow provides a two-year program that accepts 14-15 boys per year. Since 2010, nearly 200 teenagers have successfully completed the program. The new culinary center will add a certified kitchen, post-harvest handling room, office space, and an event space to hold up to 60 people. This will enable BoysGrow to grow more local, fresh food for program youth, their families, and the greater community. This farm kitchen will be a tremendous asset to this community. Were proud to support the organizations mission to provide an abundance of opportunities for our youth and engage the local food community, said Mark Garrett, chief diversity and engagement officer for Smithfield Foods and Smithfield Foundation board member. Smithfield Foods has a strong commitment to supporting the communities we serve, and we are thrilled to provide this gift to make this dream a reality. With more than 2,750 employees in the state of Missouri, Smithfields support of BoysGrow aligns with its commitment to contribute to the vitality of the communities where its employees live and work. For more information about Smithfields commitment to its local communities, please visit smithfieldfoods.com/helpingcommunities . About Smithfield Foods Smithfield Foods is a $15 billion global food company and the world's largest pork processor and hog producer. In the United States, the company is also the leader in numerous packaged meats categories with popular brands including Smithfield, Eckrich, Nathans Famous, Farmland, Armour, Farmer John, Kretschmar, John Morrell, Cooks, Gwaltney, Carando, Margherita, Curlys, Healthy Ones, Morliny, Krakus, and Berlinki. Smithfield Foods is committed to providing good food in a responsible way and maintains robust animal care, community involvement, employee safety, environmental, and food safety and quality programs. For more information, visit www.smithfieldfoods.com , and connect with us on Facebook , Twitter and LinkedIn . About BoysGrow Founded in 2010, BoysGrow is a Kansas City based nonprofit that uses agriculture to teach urban youth about entrepreneurism. The youth, 14-17 years old, commit to the two-year program and have a hand in all aspects of the nonprofit and the businesses. They are paid for the efforts and assist with our 10-acre production farm, create value-added products and do all things related to the business from public speaking to sales and web design. Our young men establish healthy work-ethic at a young age and also learn what it means to be a leader, how to network with professionals and the patience of growing food. We are excited for the growth of BoysGrow and the opportunities ahead. One aspect of the program that has taken off is our Mentorship Program. During their two years in the program the young men create true friendships with the staff and mentors in the program. We think relationships are built through Time and Experiences and at this time in their life young people can always use more positive mentors. Media Contacts: Smithfield Foods, Inc. Lisa Martin lvmartin@smithfield.com (757) 365-1980 BoysGrow John Gordon, Jr. jgordonkc@gmail.com (773) 793-5056 A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ec3c5c0e-8b51-41de-95d9-5d9d5a049001 Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 15:34:18|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BANGKOK, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- A ferry boat shuttling passengers between Pattaya and Hua Hin across the Gulf of Thailand, which has temporarily stopped service, will be returning to the sea on Thursday. Hua Hin City's chief clerk Chareewat Phramanee confirmed on Wednesday that Royal Passenger Liner Co.'s ferry boat will resume daily service throughout the upcoming high tourist season. Given a low turnout of passengers during low season, the ferry boat has suspended service from Sept. 20 until Wednesday. The 340-seat catamaran shuttles passengers daily between Pattaya and Hua Hin for a fare of 1,250 baht (about 37.87 U.S. dollars) in economy class and 1,550 baht (about 46.96 U.S. dollars) in first class. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 15:34:18|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close HANOI, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam imported completely-built automobiles and components for assembly totaling over 4.1 billion U.S. dollars in the first 10 months of this year, seeing a year-on-year decrease of 4 percent. Specifically, the country imported roughly 51,300 completely-built automobiles worth nearly 1.2 billion U.S. dollars, posting respective drops of 33.8 percent and 32.1 percent, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade on Wednesday. In October alone, Vietnam spent 233 million U.S. dollars importing 11,000 automobiles. Early this year, few automobiles, especially cars, were imported to Vietnam because traders were not well-prepared to comply with a new governmental decree which requires traders to provide more relevant certificates and to undergo more tests than before, according to local experts. Last year, Vietnam spent over 5.3 billion U.S. dollars importing 94,000 completely-built automobiles and components for assembly. Meanwhile, its total automobile sales were 272,750 units, according to the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association. Total vehicle sales in Vietnam will increase to over 284,400 units this year, global research company BMI Research forecast recently. Vietnam imported 528,200 completely-built automobiles totaling nearly 11.7 billion U.S. dollars in the 2011-2017 period, including 236,520 under-nine-seat cars worth roughly 3.1 billion U.S. dollars, according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs. Vietnam imported cars mainly from India, Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 15:44:19|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close Indonesian Search and Rescue (SAR) and Forensic members check the body bag that contains victim of the crashed Lion Air JT 610 at the Tanjung Priok port, Jakarta, Indonesia, Oct. 31, 2018. Search teams on Wednesday detected signals possibly from a black box of the crashed Indonesian Lion Air plane, a rescue official said. (Xinhua/Veri Sanovri) JAKARTA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- An object suspected to be the fuselage of the crashed Indonesia Lion Air plane was located on the seabed, a rescue official said on Wednesday. A ship equipped with side scan sonar device and remotely operated vehicle (ROV) has detected an object, suspected to be part of the fuselage of Lion Air JT 610 flight, which crashed into the sea off Karawang in Indonesia's West Java province Monday morning. The object was detected on the seabed in waters of Tanjung Pakis in Karawang district of West Java province, said Didi Hamzar, director for preparedness of Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas). Divers are approaching the object to confirm whether it belongs to the aircraft, Hamzar told a press conference at his office. Indonesian Military Commander Air Chief Marshal and head of Basarnas Muhammad Syaugi are heading to the location where the object was spotted. The object is said to be 22 meters long, five meters wide and 10 meters high. Meanwhile, a total of 49 bangs of body parts have been retrieved from the sea as of Wednesday, Hamzar said. Rescuers on Wednesday extended the search radius to 15 nautical miles, according to Basarnas deputy chief Nugroho Budi Wiryanto. The plane en route to the city of Pangkal Pinang with 189 people on board was reported missing at around 6:30 a.m. local time Monday (2330 GMT Sunday), and was believed to have crashed 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta international airport. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 15:44:20|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close by Misbah Saba Malik ISLAMABAD, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Yousuf Ali, owner of a plastic home appliances factory from Pakistan's Swat district, has been importing manufacturing material from China, as he believes that the imported goods are cost-effective and of better quality. "China ... has strengthened its labor force by giving it technical training. Pakistan and China can do better business if China provides technical assistance to Pakistan and set up their factories here in joint ventures so that we can save import cost," said Ali. Ali has been associated with the plastic industry for more than a decade; he made the remarks Tuesday on the sidelines of a forum on promoting business between Pakistan and China, which was attended by businessmen from both sides, who are interested in doing business in Pakistan by forming joint business ventures in the private sector. Several Memorandums of Understanding were signed, and several joint business ventures are expected to form in the near future. Speaking at the event, Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Yao Jing said that the joint business ventures between Pakistani and Chinese businessmen bring new hope and opportunity for business groups of both countries. He said that through these ventures, China would provide investment and technology to Pakistani private sector, which will help to develop Pakistani business and also give access for Pakistani products to Chinese markets. Asad Mashadi, former president of Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Xinhua that a large number of Pakistani businessmen are interested in trade with China's private and government sectors by setting up joint ventures. He said China is making significant investment in Pakistan under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), so this kind of communication in the private sector will help both countries. "China as a neighboring country can bring big investment and have a joint venture with Pakistani business community and establish manufacturing units because we have certain difficulties in importing the products because of import bill. If Chinese companies set up manufacturing facilities in Pakistan, it will increase the Chinese trade through local manufacturing in Pakistan," Mashadi said. "Pakistani businessmen are interested in making business ventures with Chinese companies to build manufacturing plants of the goods they import from China, in Pakistan," he said. Shahid Saleem, president of the Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Xinhua that Pakistani traders have high hopes and expectations from the potential joint ventures with Chinese businessmen as they will benefit both sides. It will be a win-win situation when the Chinese side provides technical support, Pakistani partners provide logistic support and the final products are exported to the world. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 15:59:26|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ISLAMABAD, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif held talks with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi in Islamabad, officials said Wednesday. Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Faisal said that detailed discussions were held on all issues of mutual interest including ways to enhance cooperation took place. "Talks between Iran and Pakistan took place on all issues of mutual interest," Faisal said on Twitter. The Iranian top diplomat arrived in the Pakistani capital early Wednesday. Iranian official media reported earlier that heading a politico-military delegation, Zarif will be "kept abreast of the measures Pakistan government has adopted for security and release of Iranian border guards," who were kidnapped earlier this month. A group of 14 Iranian border guards were kidnapped by an armed group in Mirjaveh border point in Iran's southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan Province on Oct. 16, according to Iranian officials. Iranian officials had been in contact with Pakistani counterparts since the kidnapping of the border guards, however, there is no progress about their whereabouts. A Sunni extremist group Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice) had claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and also released two photographs showing seven members of the elite Revolutionary Guards force and five police commandos, according to Iranian media reports. Pakistani officials said senior military officials of the two countries were making efforts to recover the missing guards, whom Iran believed might have been shifted to Pakistani side of the border. Chief of Staff of the Iranian armed forces Mohammad Hossein Bagheri spoke to his Pakistani counterpart Qamar Javed Bajwa by phone after the incident and sought his cooperation to secure the release of the guards. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 16:29:36|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close BEIJING, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- China hopes Japan will keep its promise and properly deal with Taiwan-related issues so as to safeguard the political foundation for the healthy development of China-Japan relations, a spokesperson said Wednesday. Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, made the remarks at a press conference. The Japanese side has affirmed many times that it will continue to abide by the spirit of the four political documents between China and Japan, Ma said. The four documents refer to the 1972 Sino-Japanese Joint Statement, the 1978 China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship, the 1998 China-Japan Joint Declaration, and the 2008 joint statement on advancing strategic and mutually beneficial relations. During Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's official visit to China last week, he reiterated Japan's stance toward Taiwan, which had been made clear in the 1972 Sino-Japanese Joint Statement. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 16:34:40|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close MALE, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Maldives Supreme Court has temporarily suspended the 13-year jail sentence handed on to the country's former President Mohamed Nasheed until it reviews his conviction as requested by the prosecutor general, local media reported Wednesday. The court ordered the government, police and prison authorities to adhere to the suspension of the sentence which was handed on to Nasheed in 2015 by a criminal court. The prosecutor general's office last Sunday sought a Supreme Court review of Nasheed's conviction, given under the island's terrorism law, for ordering the military to detain a top judge when Nasheed was president in 2012. Nasheed was later offered asylum in Britain when he went there for medical treatment on leave from prison. Local media reports said Nasheed is set to return to the Maldives on Nov. 1. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 16:39:41|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close SEOUL, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's corporate profitability hit a new record high last year thanks to strong chip export, central bank data showed Wednesday. The ratio of operating profit to revenue, which gauges corporate profitability, in all industries stood at 6.1 percent in 2017, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). It was the highest since the bank began compiling the data in 2009. The ratio among manufacturers gained to 7.6 percent last year, with the figure for non-manufacturers unchanged at 4.9 percent. The record profitability was attributed to brisk export of locally-made semiconductors. The profitability ratio for the electric, electronic and machinery sectors more than doubled to 11.7 percent last year from 5.8 percent a year ago. Revenue in all industries expanded 9.2 percent in 2017, the highest since 2011. It was up from the previous year's growth rate of 2.6 percent. The revenue among manufactures advanced 9 percent last year, after falling 0.6 percent in the prior year on strong chip export and higher export price for oil products amid the expensive crude oil. The debt-to-equity ratio in all industries declined to 114.1 percent in 2017 from 121.2 percent a year earlier. The figure for manufacturers fell from 80.2 percent to 77.0 percent in the cited period, while the reading for non-manufacturers dipped from 165.2 percent to 151.7 percent. The results were based on the BOK assessment of 655,524 non-financial companies. Workers pull an unidentified body at a mass grave in Raqqa, Syria on October 16, 2018. (Reuters photo) DAMASCUS, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- More than 1,500 bodies of civilians have been found in a newly-discovered mass grave in Syria's northern province of Raqqa, the former de facto capital of the Islamic State (IS), the pro-government al-Watan newspaper said Wednesday. Citing medical sources, the newspaper said the bodies belong to civilians who had been killed by the strikes of the U.S.-led coalition on Raqqa. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 17:09:50|Editor: mmm Video Player Close MOSCOW, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- At least one person was killed and three others injured after an unknown explosive device went off Wednesday at the entrance of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) building in the northwestern city of Arkhangelsk, the region's governor, Igor Orlov said. The crime was committed inside the building and it is too early to draw conclusions, Orlov said. Security has been tightened in public areas of the city as the type of the explosive device is being identified, he said. TORONTO, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 55 North Mining Inc. (TSXV:FFF) (55 North or the Company) (formerly named SGX Resources Inc.) announces that the Company has accepted the resignation of Jennifer Boyle as a Director of the Company. The Board of Directors would like to thank Ms. Boyle for her contributions to the Company. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Mr. Bruce Reid Chief Executive Officer, Director 55 North Mining Inc. br@idahochamp.com The TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. CAUTION REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION This news release of 55 North contains statements that constitute forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Companys actual results, performance or achievements, or developments in the industry to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 18:44:38|Editor: mmm Video Player Close An Indian potter makes earthen lamps ahead of Diwali festival in Bangalore, India, Oct. 30, 2018. People buy earthen lamps to decorate their homes during Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. (Xinhua/Stringer) Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 18:55:18|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close SANTO DOMINGO, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Dominican Republic President Danilo Medina's first state visit to China is set to enhance mutual understanding, deepen friendship and promote bilateral cooperation, Chinese ambassador to the Caribbean country Zhang Run told Xinhua on Monday. Zhang made the remarks following Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang's announcement on Monday that Medina will pay a state visit to China at the invitation of President Xi Jinping and attend the first China International Import Expo (CIIE), which runs from Nov. 5 to 10 in Shanghai. China and the Dominican Republic signed a joint communique in Beijing on May 1 on the establishment of diplomatic relations. There have been vigorous exchanges between governments, legislative bodies, political parties, enterprises, think tanks and media. Both sides have also opened embassies in and sent ambassadors to each other, said Zhang. The Dominican government has also set up a special office to coordinate the affairs related to exchanges and cooperation with China, Zhang said. China and the Dominican Republic are naturally complementary partners. China boasts a large consumer market and various competitive products of high quality. The Dominican Republic provides a favorable business environment for foreign investment, thanks to its political and social stability as well as open and inclusive economic policies, Zhang added. Many Chinese companies have now either launched factories or set up offices in the Caribbean country related to power development, communication, mining and light industry, the ambassador said. Speaking of the upcoming CIIE, the ambassador listed several specialty products the Caribbean country will present to the Chinese market. One item is blue amber, which is unique to the Dominican Republic and popular among Chinese consumers. Quite a few Chinese e-commerce platforms have started to sell it, according to Zhang. In addition, tobacco, rum, pineapple, banana, cacao and other products from the Dominican Republic are of high quality and ready to take their share of the Chinese market, he said. Zhang also touted the Dominican Republic as a promising destination for Chinese tourists. Its capital, Santo Domingo, known as the first city of the "New World," is widely favored for its blue skies, beautiful beaches and low traveling costs, drawing over 6.2 million international tourists in 2017, according to official statistics. The Chinese ambassador, who arrived in the Dominican Republic on Aug. 19, said he felt there was wide consensus among all parties and all walks of life here to support the establishment of diplomatic relations with China and deepen their friendly cooperation. He said the development of bilateral ties is in the fundamental interests of the two peoples, conducive to the prosperity and stability of Latin America and the Caribbean and opens up a new space for mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation in the region. "The relationship between China and the Dominican Republic is comprehensive," Zhang said. "So long as it is handled properly with respective strengths of both sides fully tapped, there will be bright prospects in the relationship." Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 18:55:19|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ISLAMABAD, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Wednesday presided over a preparatory meeting for the upcoming prime minister's visit to China via video conference with the Ambassador of Pakistan in Beijing and senior officials of the Embassy, the foreign ministry said. Prime Minister Imran Khan is scheduled to visit China on his first official visit on Nov. 2-5. During his visit, the prime minister will meet the Chinese leadership and also visit Shanghai to participate in the first China International Import Expo as a guest of honor. The visit of Prime Minister Khan to China will be instrumental in elevating the all-weather strategic cooperative partnership between Pakistan and China to new heights. The visit will further strengthen the close and warm ties between the two brotherly countries, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "The two countries are close friends, good neighbors and development partners. The bilateral relationship has withstood the test of times. Regardless of domestic or international changes, this close friendship has served as a model of state-to-state relations for other countries," the statement quoted Qureshi as telling participants of the meeting. Highlighting that the bilateral relationship has been further strengthened particularly in economic field by the launching of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the foreign minister underscored that CPEC has added another important socio-economic development dimension to the bilateral relationship. The new government in Pakistan has pledged its complete support and commitment to the advancement of CPEC, said Qureshi. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 19:10:22|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim has called for open trade and greater integration to reinvigorate the multilateral trading system in a recent exclusive interview with Xinhua. Kim said amid the rise of trade tensions around the world, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization have worked together to advocate open trade. "Trade is an engine of growth that creates jobs, reduces poverty and increases economic opportunity," Kim said, adding that over 1 billion people have moved out of poverty because of economic growth underpinned by open trade since 1990. Recognizing the importance of global commerce for growth and poverty reduction, the World Bank will focus the next World Development Report on global value chains and their potential for helping developing countries integrate into global markets and create jobs, he said. "The current focus on trade tensions prevents us from looking at the unique untapped benefits further trade reform can bring to the global economy ... we need to strengthen and reinvest in the global trading system," Kim argued, suggesting greater openness in the areas of services and electronic commerce would promote competition, lift productivity, and raise living standards. Kim will visit China on Nov. 1-7, and will address the first China International Import Expo (CIIE), which will be held from Nov. 5 to 10 in Shanghai. The expo is a significant move of the Chinese government to push forward a new round of high-level opening-up, and an important measure to actively open the Chinese market to the world. More than 3,000 companies, including over 200 enterprises that are leading in their industries from over 130 different countries and regions, have confirmed their participation in the expo. "We appreciate China's recent decision to lower import tariffs on 40 percent of product categories ... we understand the CIIE as also showcasing China's greater openness to importers. These are all moves in the right direction," Kim said. "We support what China is doing to expand imports and address global trade imbalances," he added. Kim, along with the leaders of five other major international economic and financial institutions, will also participate in a roundtable meeting held by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Nov. 6. They will discuss such topics as trends in the world economy, safeguarding the multilateral trading system, China's economy and reform and opening-up, according to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang. "Central to that discussion will be to underline the need for continued close collaboration on challenges that require multilateral approaches despite growing headwinds," said Kim. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 19:25:25|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank is "well positioned" to provide support for Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects, said World Bank Group (WBG) President Jim Yong Kim. Kim made the remarks in a recent exclusive interview with Xinhua before his upcoming visit to China scheduled for Nov. 1-7. He said the WBG can support BRI projects with its experience in similar trade and connectivity projects, its unique institutional setup covering private and public sectors, as well as its range of financial and non-financial services, such as guarantees and investment dispute settlement. "The WBG can, for instance, advise on the economic viability of infrastructure investments, complementary policy and regulatory reforms, and the application of environmental, social and fiduciary standards," he added. The WBG is undertaking a comprehensive study on the economic impact of the BRI to help better inform policy makers in countries along its paths, Kim said, adding that it's also cooperating with Chinese institutions on setting standards in areas such as anti-corruption. While developing countries and emerging markets have a "massive infrastructure deficit," the focus of the BRI needs to be on "broader connectivity and integration" and beyond building roads, rail and bridges, said the World Bank chief. "Countries along the Belt and Road must improve border and customs procedures, trade facilitation, and investment climates to maximize development benefits from investments in infrastructure," he said. In Kim's view, the size and scale of the BRI involves cross-border, complex and large infrastructure investments, and the success of these investments is "highly dependent on the overall viability of the projects as well as on the institutional capacity of countries." "We need to be vigilant and mitigate potential risks -- including debt sustainability -- to ensure they don't undermine the BRI's potential benefits," he said, adding the WBG is prepared to provide interested member countries with support to maximize the development benefits of BRI projects. The BRI, proposed in 2013, aims to achieve policy, infrastructure, trade, financial and people-to-people connectivity along and beyond the ancient Silk Road trade routes, thus building a platform for international cooperation to create new drivers of growth. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 19:45:29|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close TEHRAN, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh on Wednesday denied that Russia sells Iran's crude oil in the international market in the face of U.S. sanctions on Iran's energy exports. "I deny the news aired recently by some western media in this regard," Zanganeh told reporters here in Tehran after the cabinet meeting. He refrained from answering the question concerning the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran's oil exports. "I do not speak about the oil sales and the (impending U.S.) sanctions," he stressed. Iranian officials have reiterated that the United States would not be able to stop Iran's crude sales. The U.S. State Department has set Nov. 4 as the deadline for international oil buyers to stop all their oil purchases from Iran. Otherwise they will face U.S. punishments. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 19:50:31|Editor: mmm Video Player Close BERLIN, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- A large number of German businesses are in favor of cooperation with Chinese firms in Africa, a study titled "China in Africa" published by Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI) has found. The study, published on Monday, said China is deeply involved in the development of Africa after years of engagement. It is now one of the largest investors in many African countries and makes great contributions to local growth. "China's further growing presence in Africa is a reality that companies need to address," said GTAI Chairman and CEO Juergen Friedrich. In a survey conducted for the study, a large number of German firms expressed willingness to develop trilateral cooperation with African and Chinese companies, in order to explore opportunities in the rapid development of the continent. They see Chinese companies are more trailblazers and partners than competitors. "Cooperation with a successful player like China should make sense, and the study showcased many examples and projects in this aspect," Friedrich said. The study found that such trilateral cooperation has been overwhelmingly positive. Know-how and technologies from China and Germany can be quite complementary and serve the urbanization of Africa. German businesses are attracted by the huge potential of Africa's economy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on Tuesday that she wants to create new incentives to boost German private investment in Africa. "We want to send a strong signal together here that we are interested in a good and profitable neighborhood between Africa and Europe," Merkel told an economic conference in Berlin. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 19:55:35|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close MOSCOW, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- A young man detonated a bomb Wednesday morning in the building of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in the northwestern city of Arkhangelsk, killing himself and wounding three FSB officers, the Russian Investigative Committee said. "According to preliminary information, a 17-year-old local resident was killed when an improvised explosive device he brought into the building went off," the committee said in a statement. The identity of the deceased has been established and an investigation is underway to uncover the man's reason for detonating the bomb, it said. The committee opened a criminal case on the grounds of a terrorist attack and illegal possession of munitions. Igor Orlov, governor of Arkhangelsk region, said in a separate statement that the regional government had taken all possible measures to enhance the security of public and state institutions. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been informed of the explosion, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 20:10:40|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai speaks at a screening of documentary "Better Angels" at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., the United States, on Oct. 30, 2018. Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai said Tuesday that China and the United States should let their "better angels" enhance the bilateral relationship, especially at a time of doubt. (Xinhua/Liu Jie) WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai said Tuesday that China and the United States should let their "better angels" enhance the bilateral relationship, especially at a time of doubt. Speaking at a screening of documentary "Better Angels" at the National Press Club, Cui said people-to-people exchanges demonstrated in the film provided a firm ground for the China-U.S. relationship. The term "better angels" came from the inaugural address of former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who pleaded that divided northern and southern states should bond rather than split. "We are not enemies, but friends... Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory... when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature," Lincoln said. Noting that China and the United States will soon be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, Cui said the relationship has come a long way in the past four decades. "It has made great strides, while also has had its share of setbacks. But every time it risked being stranded, every time its future was cast into doubt, the people of our two countries would be there, quietly but persistently, doing their part, lifting it out of the quagmire, and moving it forward," he said. Cui acknowledged the current tension between Beijing and Washington but "Thanks to their unremitting efforts, we have been able to rise above differences and ensure the sustained and steady growth of our relations; thanks to their unswerving commitment, we have blazed a trail of win-win cooperation and seen our interests as closely tied as never before." Cui said. The film "Better Angels" is a documentary directed by award-winning director Malcolm Clarke and produced by U.S. producer William Mundell and award-winning Chinese producer Han Yi. The film features stories of how ordinary Chinese and Americans benefit from a close Sino-U.S. relationship. The film will hit the big screens in China in December this year and the United States in January next year. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 20:20:42|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close DAR ES SALAAM, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania on Wednesday launched an aerial wildlife census in the Selous-Mikumi ecosystem, targeting large mammals like elephants and buffalo. The census is conducted by state-owned Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI), the Tanzania Wildlife Management Authority (TAWA), and the Tanzania National Park (TANAPA), in collaboration with Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS). "The census targets large mammals, such as elephants and buffalo, and will estimate wildlife populations, their distribution as well as signs of illegal human activities in the Selous Game Reserve, Mikumi National Park and the Selous-Niassa corridor," said an FZS statement. Aerial wildlife censuses in the Selous-Mikumi Ecosystem have been conducted every three to four years since 1976. The overall coverage of the Selous-Mikumi Aerial Wildlife Census is approximately 110,000 square km. The latest census was initially planned to be conducted in 2017, but had to be postponed due to excessive tree canopy cover that hampers aerial survey visibility, the statement said. TAWIRI, the leading organization in the census, said the current conditions allowed the assessment to be successfully completed and provide reliable data for the estimate of wildlife populations and trends in the Selous-Mikumi Ecosystem. Selous Game Reserve has faced many conservation challenges in recent decades, the statement said, adding that subsequent to the massive decline of elephants in the late 1970s and 1980s, elephant population estimates dropped from approximately 109,000 to 31,889. Elephant numbers showed recovery later, reaching an estimated 65,000 individuals in 2006, it added. The most recent surge in poaching occurred in the late 2000s and early 2010s, driven by soaring demand for ivory, cut elephant population estimates to 14,867 in 2014, according to the statement. "Selous Game Reserve was placed on the list of World Heritage in Danger in 2014 mainly due to the poaching threat," said the statement. Tanzania has since made great strides in curbing poaching and strengthening the Selous Game Reserve management and protection, including the establishment of Tanzania Wildlife Management Authority, improved law enforcement, and intensive anti-poaching initiatives that include regular aerial surveillance, the statement added. The 17 women were arrested last Friday without any charges laid so far, following the complaint by neighbours over noise. The Philippines ambassador to Saudi Arabia issued an advisory reminding his compatriots not to take part in non-Islamic celebrations, like Christmas. The recent wave of arrests and rights violations show the superficiality of the reforms undertaken by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Riyadh (AsiaNews/Agencies) Saudi authorities arrested 17 Filipino migrant women for participating in a Halloween party, the Philippines Foreign Ministry has reported. Saudi intelligence officers arrested the women when they raided a compound in the Saudi capital last Friday, following complaints from neighbours over the noise. Upon arrival, the officers found the women were holding a party dedicated to Halloween, which falls tomorrow, an ancient Celtic tradition that is popular in English-speaking countries but also in other parts of the world. At present, the charges are unclear, but the Philippines Foreign Ministry noted that, given the countrys strict adherence to Islam, Saudi laws prohibit unattached men and women being seen together in public The Philippine Star newspaper cited a Facebook post by a man called Humoud Al Fajrawi as saying that some of the partygoers had not known that the event was Halloween-themed. The Philippines ambassador in Riyadh, Adnan Alonto said that initial information indicated the organisers of the party had been charged with holding an event without a permit and for disturbing the neighbourhood. On Sunday, he issued an advisory reminding the Filipino community in Saudi Arabia to "refrain from organising or attending events or gatherings that are unsanctioned or without permission" from the local authorities. "In addition, everyone is reminded to avoid mixed crowds, consuming liquor, and holding public practice of traditions that are associated with religions other than Islam, such as Halloween, Valentines and Christmas." This case shows once again how shallow the reform programme (Vision 2030) of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) actually is, this despite the hoopla by the countrys media. So far, reforms have been minimal, the most hyped being the right to drive granted to women. In reality, over the past year, a large shadow has been cast over MbSs reforms, most notably following the arrest of senior officials and businessmen as well activists and critics, not to mention the latest incident involving the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. NEW YORK, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Genco Shipping & Trading Limited (NYSE: GNK) announced today that it will hold a conference call to discuss the Companys results for the third quarter of 2018 on Thursday, November 8, 2018 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. The conference call will also be broadcast live over the Internet and include a slide presentation. The Company will issue financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2018 on Wednesday, November 7, 2018 after the close of market trading. What: Third Quarter 2018 Conference Call When: Thursday, November 8, 2018 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time Where: There are two ways to access the call: Dial-in: 785-424-1802 or 877-830-2636; Passcode: 8797872 Please dial in at least 10 minutes prior to 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time to ensure a prompt start to the call. For live webcast and slide presentation: http://www.gencoshipping.com If you are unable to participate at this time, a replay of the call will be available for two weeks at 888-203-1112 or 719-457-0820. Enter the code 8797872 to access the audio replay. The webcast will also be archived on the Companys website: http://www.gencoshipping.com . About Genco Shipping & Trading Limited Genco Shipping & Trading Limited transports iron ore, coal, grain, steel products and other drybulk cargoes along worldwide shipping routes. As of October 31, 2018, Genco Shipping & Trading Limiteds fleet consists of 17 Capesize, five Panamax, six Ultramax, 20 Supramax, one Handymax and 14 Handysize vessels with an aggregate capacity of approximately 5,376,000 dwt. CONTACT: Apostolos Zafolias Chief Financial Officer Genco Shipping & Trading Limited (646) 443-8550 Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 20:30:44|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close HARARE, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwean seed producers have cut the prices of their products following an outcry from farmers and representations by the government. The producers more than doubled their prices last week, citing unfavorable operating conditions. A snap survey by Xinhua on Wednesday showed that prices have been down drastically, although they remained high for many farmers. One leading seed producer cut the price of medium-season variety of maize seed from 250.82 Zimbabwean bond dollars per 25 kg bag to 138 dollars, while prices for a 10 kg bag of the same variety went down from 100 dollars to 55 dollars. Despite the reduction, farmers on Wednesday said the prices are still too high and production would be adversely affected. A bag of maize seed, now costing 55 dollars, was selling for 25 U.S. dollars last season. Zimbabwean monetary authorities peg the bond dollars at 1:1 to the U.S. dollar, but the greenback is sold at more than twice the bond dollar on the black market. President of the Zimbabwe Farmers' Union Abdul Nyathi told Xinhua on Wednesday that the price cuts are not enough and small-holder farmers still cannot afford to plant in the coming season. "Take for instance the 10 kg bag of maize, which was selling at around 25 dollars last season. The same now costs 55 dollars, and this is double last season's price," he said. "A lot of people are saying this is not sustainable and they will not go back on the land to farm." He also said the producers had only reduced prices of short- and medium-season variety seeds and left the high yielding longer-term varieties untouched. "Farmers prefer the long-term varieties because they have higher yields, but the producers left the prices very high. Wait and see if anyone will buy those seeds," he said. Prices of fertilizers also went down, with a 50 kg bag of top dressing going down from 80 bond dollars to 60 dollars, while basal fertilizer went down from 75 dollars to 55 dollars. Both fertilizers cost less than 40 dollars last season. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 20:30:45|Editor: mmm Video Player Close BEIJING, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of China (CPC) on Wednesday finished releasing the list of progress made by 30 regions and entities inspected in the first round of disciplinary inspection by the 19th CPC Central Committee. Starting in late February, 15 inspection teams stayed in Party organizations in 14 provincial-level regions, eight central government agencies and eight centrally-administered state-owned enterprises for inspection until late May. According to the list made public on the website of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, some of the inspected regions have taken a strong hand on corruption and bad conduct. In eastern Shandong Province, 3,095 have been punished for such problems since the round of inspection, while 12,098 were punished in Hunan Province for corruption and bad conduct in poverty alleviation from January to August. Others made efforts to erase the influence of punished former officials. Infringements of the public interest or involving criminal gangs have also been a target, with Shanxi Province launching a campaign to bust crimes related to antiques. Hainan Province has focused on problems the public detest, such as illicit monopolies in certain markets and drug trafficking. The second round of disciplinary inspection by the 19th CPC Central Committee is underway. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 20:35:47|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ADEN, Yemen, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Four Yemeni policemen were killed when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle in the southern province of al-Dhalea on Wednesday, a security official told Xinhua. "An improvised explosive device planted by unknown militants struck a vehicle in Sanah area of al-Dhalea around noon today, killing four police members on the spot," a local security official said on condition of anonymity. The bomb attack was apparently aimed at the 7th Army Battalion Col. Taher Oqla, but he survived the attack unharmed, the source said. "The army official passed through the same road just several minutes after the bomb attack," he said. The local security source blamed militants of the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch saying that terror elements are active in the area. However, terror groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State that are largely relying on roadside and suicide bombings are yet to claim responsibility for the attack. Government officials, including high-ranking security commanders and intelligence officers, have been the prime targets in kidnapping incidents as well as armed attacks launched by unknown gunmen in recent days. The impoverished Arab country has been locked into a civil war since the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including the 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 Houthi rebels forced him into exile. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 20:40:47|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close KAMPALA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Uganda's ministry of health on Wednesday confirmed a case of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) in the western district of Kabarole. Emmanuel Ainebyoona, senior public relation officer for the ministry of health, told Xinhua by telephone that laboratory results from samples taken from a female patient under isolation at Fort Portal regional referral hospital tested positive of the fever. "There is a confirmed case of CCHF in Kabarole, but there are measures put in place to ensure that the disease doesn't spread," Ainebyoona said. He said a national rapid response team from the ministry of health and that of agriculture, animal industry and fisheries has been dispatched to Kabarole to handle and contain the outbreak. The CCHF is a tick-borne illness transmitted to humans through tick bites. It can also be transmitted through direct contact with the blood, secretions and the organs of infected people. According to the World Health Organization, a CCHF outbreak constitutes a threat to public health. The global health body says the fever, endemic in Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East, is associated with a high case fatality ratio of 10-40 percent. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 20:45:49|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close ANKARA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- After successive warnings to launch a military offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria, Turkey prepares a new push against Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in east of Euphrates River. "We have completed our preparations, plans, programs regarding this issue," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his lawmakers in the parliament on Tuesday. The Turkish president confirmed media reports that the Turkish Armed Forces fired artillery shells at YPG positions east of the Euphrates in the Kobane region of northern Syria on Sunday. "In fact, in the past few days, we have begun real interventions against the organization," he said adding that Turkey will soon launch "more effective operations." Anadolu Agency reported Sunday that Turkish howitzers hit YPG targets in Zor Magar region along the Turkish-Syrian border line in the west of Ayn Al Arab district. The attack had nothing to do with political agenda of Turkey, a security official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity, saying that the Turkish military previously targeted YPG position in the east of Euphrates on similar cases. The shelling of Syrian Kurdish positions on the Euphrates' eastern shore came just two days after Erdogan gave his "final warning" to the YPG to retreat and accused the United States of dragging its feet in an agreement to remove the group from Turkish border. Speaking after a four-way Syria summit in Istanbul with leaders of France, Germany and Russia on Saturday, Turkish president said Turkey would continue to eliminate the threats "at its sources in the east of Euphrates as it does in its West." One of the factors of Turkey's increasing rhetoric for a new attack on U.S.-backed Kurds in Syria is delay in Manbij roadmap, according to Hasan Unal from International Relations Department of Maltepe University. "Turkey is disappointed with Washington as the U.S. is still arming the YPG," he said. Elaborating on timing of a possible military operation, Unal said it is unlikely that Turkey will soon expand a military assault against Kurds since Ankara has to lay diplomatic and political grounds for an incursion first. The YPG has been local ally of the U.S. in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria. Ankara, however, considers the group as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and says the YPG's presence on Turkey's long border with Syria poses a national security threat. Ankara also fears that territorial gains of Syrian Kurds will embolden the aspirations of its own Kurdish population to form an independent state in southeast Turkey. Turkish army launched two massive operations in northern Syria in the past two years to push YPG out of the area in west of the Euphrates but had to stop at the river to avoid a confrontation with the U.S. soldiers there. U.S. support for the Syrian Kurds has been one of many points of contention straining ties between two NATO allies in recent years. In a bid to calm down tensions, the U.S. and Turkey in June agreed to work together in Manbij, west of the Euphrates, for retreat of the YPG members after Ankara repeatedly threatened to attack the city. Manbij is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella group dominated by the YPG. However, Ankara has long been complaining that Washington is delaying the implementation of the deal. Erdogan on Tuesday said the United States turned the Manbij deal between Ankara and Washington into a tool to stall Turkey. Unal draws attention to the timing of Ankara's increasing discourse against the Syrian Kurds since a deal between Turkey and Russia on rebel stronghold, Idlib, was sealed in Sochi last month which aims demilitarization of the front lines between government and opposition forces in the province. "Turkey's statements with regards to Syrian issue are focused on east of Euphrates since a Sochi deal with Russia," the expert said arguing that Ankara and Moscow most likely discussed the issue of Syrian Kurds on the sidelines of Sochi meeting. Unal noted that since then Russian officials have also brought the issue to the agenda of their statements. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 21:00:52|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close PARIS, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Foreign Affairs Minister Jean Yves Le Drian said on Wednesday that France will not rule out any sanctions against Saudi Arabia if investigation into the killing of journalist Jamal Khshoggi showed it was involved in the murder. Speaking to RTL radio in an interview, Minister Le Drian stressed "It is important that this crime be punished, that the perpetrators be identified, that the truth be established." "And today, even though the Saudi authorities have admitted that there was a murder, the account is not here ...So long as those who are responsible and the circumstances around the killing are not made public, released and evaluated, we will go on demanding the truth," he said. Jamal Khashoggi, a harsh critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, disappeared during a visit to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on Oct. 2. After two weeks of denial, Riyadh admitted that the 60-year-old political dissent, also a Washington Post columnist, was killed during a physical fight with the people he met in the Saudi consulate, but did not give any explanation on the cause of his death. Kahshoggi's body has not been found yet. "It's in terms of the identification of the culprits, of the transparency that will be made that we will take the necessary sanctions, and we do not prohibit anything on these sanctions," the French top diplomat said. "First, we'll impose sanctions against the guilty parties. Then we'll decide sanctions against a state (Saudi Arabia)," he added without elaborating. Asked if Paris would heed Berlin's call to suspend weapons sales until the truth about the journalist's murder is established, the French minister said Germany had taken initiative too early. "I think we must wait for the investigation to find the culprits," he stressed. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 21:20:59|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Brunei's Consumer Price Index (CPI) in August 2018 increased by 0.3 percent year-on-year compared to August in 2017, owing to the rise in prices of food and education, according to the latest statistics from Brunei's Department of Economic Planning and Development (JPKE) at the Prime Minister's Office on Wednesday. In its monthly CPI report, JPKE said that the Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages prices increased by 2.2 percent, while the Non-Food prices decreased by 0.2 percent year-on-year. The increase in the overall CPI in August was largely attributed to the rise in the indices of food and non-alcoholic beverages (2.2 percent), education (1.7 percent), and recreation and culture (1.4 percent). A senior manager of Baiduri Bank, which is the second biggest local bank by total assets in Brunei, told Xinhua that the country's CPI has been stable for the past year, which is supportive of local economy growth. On a month-a-month basis, the CPI in August 2018 increased by 0.1 percent compared to July in 2018. CPI is a measure of price changes of goods and services paid by the consumers in a specified period. Brunei's list of goods and services in the CPI is based on the average expenditure per household. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 21:26:00|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close TEHRAN, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- In a blaze erupted from a plane wreckage in Iran's Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA) on Wednesday morning, 10 people were injured, official IRNA news agency reported. The plane belonged to Iran's Mahan Airlines, the Public Relations Manager of Tehran Emergency Center, Mohammad Karam Dorabadi, told IRNA. The blaze was contained and all the 10 injured people were transferred to the hospital by helicopter, Mohammad Karam Dorabadi was quoted as saying. He said that the cause of the incident will be announced later. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 21:41:04|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close YAOUNDE, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Cameroon Minister of Defense Joseph Beti Assomo said Wednesday four armed separatists were killed by government forces on Tuesday after the death of an American missionary in Bambui, a locality in Northwest, one of the two war-torn Anglophone regions of the country. "Terrorists that killed the American missionary Charles Trumann Wesco in Bambui Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, have been neutralized." Assomo said in a statement that was released early Wednesday. On Tuesday, armed separatist fighters blamed government forces for killing the missionary in a crossfire but Assomo denied the allegations, stressing that the missionary was shot by the separatists whom he called "terrorists." According to Assomo, the separatists killed Wesco as they made their way to attack the Bambili Gendarmerie Brigade and the University of Bamenda. "A lieutenant colonel and a student were injured." Assomo said. Medics at the Bamenda Regional Hospital where Wesco was rushed to after the shooting said he was shot in the head while in his car. "We tried in vain to save his life." Kingue Thompson Njie, director of Bamenda Regional Hospital, told Xinhua, added that Wesco's wife and children who were with him in the vehicle were unharmed. Fighting between government forces and armed separatist groups has displaced over 200,000 Cameroonians internally, according to the United Nations. More than 150 government forces have been killed, according to the Cameroon army. Clashes started in October 2017 after the separatists declared the "independence" of a nation called "Ambazonia" in the two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 21:41:06|Editor: mmm Video Player Close LHASA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- A commercial complex opened in Gyirong county in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region near the border with Nepal on Wednesday. According to the local government, the Gyirong international bordertrade market was constructed with a total investment of 42.5 million yuan (about 6 million U.S. dollars). Businessmen from Nepal, Pakistan and other nearby countries opened their booths at the market on the first business day, attracting many tourists. "The opening of the market will boost the development of border trade and local tourism industry," said Hu Hong, head of the county government. In the first half of 2018, the combined value of imports and exports in Gyirong port reached 1.39 billion yuan, up 11.8 percent year-on-year. NEW YORK, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Honeywell International, Inc. (Honeywell or the Company) (NYSE: HON) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, District of New Jersey, and indexed under 18-cv-15536, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons and entities, other than Defendants and their affiliates, who purchased or otherwise, acquired Honeywell securities between February 9, 2018 through October 19, 2018, both dates inclusive (the Class Period), seeking to recover damages caused by Defendants violations of the federal securities laws and to pursue remedies under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act) and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, against the Company and certain of its top officials. If you are a shareholder who purchased Honeywell securities between February 9, 2018, and October 19, 2018, both dates inclusive, you have until January 2, 2019, to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased. [Click here to join this class action] Honeywell is a multinational conglomerate that makes a variety of commercial and consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems. Honeywell previously owned Bendix Friction Materials (Bendix), a manufacturer of automotive, truck and industrial brakes. Despite known health hazards, Bendix used asbestos in its brake- and clutch-pad products until 2001. Honeywell sold Bendix in 2014. Throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding Dycoms business, operational and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Honeywells Bendix asbestos-related liability was greater than initially reported; (ii) the Company maintained improper accounting practices in connection with its Bendix asbestos-related liability; and (iii) as a result, Honeywells public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. On August 23, 2018, Honeywell disclosed that the Companys Bendix asbestos-related liability is estimated to be $1,693 million as of June 30, 2018. This is $1,083 million higher than the Companys prior estimation. Honeywell further advised investors that Bendix asbestos-related insurance assets are estimated to be $187 million as of June 30, 2018, which is $65 million higher than the Companys prior estimate. Then, on October 19, 2018, Honeywell filed a quarterly report with the SEC for the quarter ended September 30, 2018. In its quarterly report, Honeywell advised investors that the SECs Division of Corporate Finance had reviewed Honeywells prior accounting for liability for unasserted Bendix-related asbestos claims and that [o]n September 13, 2018, following completion of Corporation Finances review, the SEC Division of Enforcement advised that it has opened an investigation related to this matter. On Honeywells stock price fell $1.72 per share, or 1.11%, to close at $153.47 per share on October 19, 2018. Over the following three trading sessions, Honeywells stock price fell by an additional $7.87, or 5.3%, to close at $140.72 per share on October 24, 2018. The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com CONTACT: Robert S. Willoughby Pomerantz LLP rswilloughby@pomlaw.com 888-476-6529 ext. 9980 Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 21:51:08|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close SINGAPORE, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Singapore's total loans and advances including bills financing of Domestic Banking Units (DBU) declined by 0.06 percent month on month in September, comparing with a 0.36 percent increase for August, according to data released by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Wednesday. On a year-on-year basis, the total loans and advances of DBUs increased by 4.5 percent year on year to a predicted 669.51 billion Singapore dollars in September, marking the 24th straight month of positive growth. In September, Singaporean DBU's loans to businesses grew 5.34 percent year on year and declined 0.25 percent month on month to 403.74 billion dollars. In a breakdown, the loans to building and construction reached 130.48 billion dollars, rising 8.61 percent year on year. DBU's consumer loans in September reached 265.78 billion Singapore dollars, up 3.26 percent year on year and 0.22 percent month on month. Selena Ling, head of Treasury Research & Strategy of OCBC Bank, said the 4.5 percent year-on-year growth in domestic bank lending was the lowest since February 2018, and the growth in business loans eased from 7 percent year on year in August to 5.3 percent year on year in September, which is also the slowest year-on-year pace since February 2018. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 22:06:10|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BUCHAREST, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Romanian Atomic Forum (ROMATOM) and the Organisation of Canadian Nuclear Industries (OCNI) renewed their memorandum of understanding on nuclear power co-operation, ROMATOM announced on Wednesday in a press statement. The newly-signed memorandum described ways in which the two sides will continue to collaborate to identify opportunities for nuclear suppliers in Romania and Canada, to encourage and facilitate cooperation between research institutes and universities in the two countries on nuclear research, development and education, according to the statement. "Romania and Canada are long-term partners in nuclear power, starting with the development of Units 1 and 2 at the Cernavoda nuclear-power plant," Gheorghe Lucaciu, executive director of ROMATOM, was quoted as saying by official Agerpres news agency. "Romania's energy program provides for the further development of the nuclear programme by extending the Unit 1 service life and building units 3 and 4 as part of the solution to ensure Romania's security of supply and the achievement of environmental targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050," he added. ROMATOM has over 35 active member companies operating in areas such as equipment manufacturing, construction, technical design and other nuclear services that support the nuclear industry in Romania, while OCNI is an association that includes over 200 leading Canadian suppliers for the nuclear industries in Canada and foreign markets. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 22:13:21|Editor: mmm Video Player Close People feed black-headed gulls at Dianchi Lake in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan Province, Oct. 31, 2018. Thousands of black-headed gulls have migrated to the city during these days. Kunming is known as the "spring city" for its mild climate and year-round green environment. (Xinhua/Hu Chao) German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a press conference at the headquarters of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Berlin, the capital of Germany, on Oct. 29, 2018. Merkel said Monday that she would not run for another term as chancellor in 2021 when the current term ends. (Xinhua/Lian zhen) BERLIN, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- An announcement by Angela Merkel to step down from the leadership of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and leave German politics after her current term as chancellor has been met with concern in many European capitals over its wider implications for the continent. French president Emmanuel Macron described the gradual retreat which Merkel initiated during a meeting of senior CDU officials on Monday as "extremely graceful" and praised her long-standing engagement on behalf of the European Union (EU). However, he also warned that the development was "not re-assuring" during a time when far-right movements were gaining traction throughout the bloc. Poland's foreign minister Jacek Czaputowicz similarly expressed respect for Merkel's decision, while vowing that his country would continue to cooperate closely her while she remained in power. He added that the 64-year-old was guaranteed a place in history books for the "important role" she had played in the EU during past years. The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera wrote that Europe would mourn Merkel's departure as a whole. "The Germans who had her as chancellor since 2005 have survived the worst economic crisis of a century unharmed. And we European, who have experienced her hesitancy, but also her ability to always do the right thing when it was necessary and there was no alternative." Although Merkel's decision not to run for a fifth term as chancellor may not be surprising in itself, her surrender of the CDU leadership in the middle of the current legislative period was seen by some as a development which could significantly weaken her hand in Brussels. "Much will be determined by who succeeds her in the CDU leadership," Guntram Wolff, director of the Bruegel think-tank, said. Wolff predicted that she could struggle to make further progress with reforms of joint EU migration policy and the Eurozone single currency area unless the role is filled by an ally of the chancellor who backs her positions in the German federal parliament as well. In light of such concerns, the Spanish daily El Mundo cautioned that the reverberations of Merkel's gradual resignation were unlikely to be confined to Germany alone. "Merkel is not just Europe. Together with France. She has vigorously defended values for many years which have made Europe to one of the areas in the democratic world with the greatest prosperity and progress. El Mundo added that Merkel's retreat was also bad news for the EU because it faced "difficult challenges in the coming years", such as the departure of the United Kingdom and the consolidation of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 22:21:15|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- For the month of July 2018, Brunei recorded 366.7 million Brunei dollars (264.6 million U.S. dollars) trade balance from 307.2 million Brunei dollars in July 2017, a 19.4 percent year-on-year rise. According to the latest statistics released by the Department of Economic Planning and Development (JPKE) at the Prime Minister's Office on Wednesday, the exports amounted to 841.0 million Brunei dollars in July 2018, a 41.6 percent year-on-year increase. Mineral Fuels recorded the highest contribution with 748.4 million Brunei dollars, or 89.0 percent of total exports. The biggest export market was Japan with 22.5 percent of total exports, followed by Australia (14.1 percent), South Korea (13.3 percent) and Thailand (11.5 percent). In July 2018, total imports were valued at 474.3 million Brunei dollars, a 65.5 percent year-on-year increase. The highest imports came from the Chinese mainland with 47 percent of total imports, followed by Singapore (14.6 percent) and Malaysia (12.7 percent). Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 22:46:22|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close PARIS, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- French President Emmanuel Macron saw his efforts to breath fresh air into his five-year term with new cabinet, were in vain after three quarters of people still disapprove of his ruling way, a poll showed on Wednesday. A Kantar Sofres-onepoint pollster found that only 26 percent of respondents still credit the 40-year-old top official to fix the country's economic and social problems, down by four percentage points compared to figures released earlier this month. For the May-October period, Macron's popularity lost 15 points, it added. Dogged by critics for having a vertical, monarchical way of governing and a reputation of arrogance, France's youngest top official in its modern history, suffered a setback, this month, after the three ministers' resignation that put into question his craftiness and unpopular economic and social reforms ignited public anger. In a cabinet reshuffle on Oct. 16, he hoped "to form a renewed team with a second breath, but whose political mandate remains the same," according to his office, the Elysee. The poll was conducted on Oct. 24-27. One Thousand people were questioned at their homes. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 22:46:22|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ISTANBUL, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor Office said on Wednesday that the body of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was dismembered after he was killed inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in the city. "In accordance with plans made in advance, Jamal Khashoggi was choked to death immediately after entering the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, for marriage formalities," the office said in a written statement. "The victim's body was dismembered and destroyed following his death by suffocation, in line with advance plans," added the statement. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 22:56:24|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close CAPE TOWN, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) on Wednesday laid criminal charges against Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Zweli Mkhize for his alleged role in the VBS Mutual Bank scandal. The DA accuses Mkhize of siphoning 2 million rand (about 138,000 U.S. dollars) as "donation" from VBS Mutual Bank in 2016 during his tenure as treasurer-general of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in return for his help in raising funds from municipalities and state institutions. Mkhize rejected the allegations, saying he had never assisted VBS in securing any funding from municipalities or any other state institution. The DA said Mkhize violated the Prevention of Organized Crime Act (POCA), which stipulates receiving kickbacks from any financial institution for political purposes as "unlawful activities." This explains why there was little action taken by Mkhize to intervene in the several municipalities that lost money to the VBS heist, said DA Shadow Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Kevin Mileham. "The minister must do the right thing and resign as he has clearly failed to fulfill his duties as minister and has seemingly breached his oath of office," Mileham said. The looting of VBS will continue to impact service delivery for a long time, he said, adding that many people nearly lost their life savings and the families of the bank's retrenched employees have lost a valuable source of income. "It is now in the hands of the police to investigate these charges to ensure that the minister be held accountable for any wrongdoing," said Mileham. Also on Wednesday, Mkhize refuted allegations that he had received donation money from the VBS Mutual Bank in exchange for doing favor for the bank. "If any financial contribution was made to the ANC by VBS or any other company, this would have been without any influence or commitment from the ANC to do favors," Mkhize said. Mkhize said he, in his capacity as former ANC treasurer-general, had never assisted VBS in securing any funding from municipalities or any other state institution. Mkhize is seen as the main figure embroiled in the VBS Mutual Bank scandal, in which up to 900 million rand (about 62 million dollars) in deposits at the bank could not be traced due to alleged irregularities. Much of the money was deposited by ANC-run municipalities. In a report released in early October, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) identified 50 people associated with the ANC and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) who allegedly used their political influence to ransack and defraud the bank. As one of South Africa's smallest lenders, VBS has operated as a licensed mutual bank, funded by its members, for 25 years. The lender, which isn't listed, gained attention in 2016 when it gave then president Jacob Zuma a mortgage to settle a Constitutional Court order to repay taxpayers some of the money spent on upgrading his private residence. The bank operates six branches across the country and calls itself a black-owned specialist corporate-finance and retail bank. Its total assets were 2.4 billion rand (about 166 million dollars) at the end of December last year, according to the most recent central bank data. The bank has been put under administration since April due to severe liquidity crisis. File Photo: Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai speaks at the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States of America during a Chinese New Year celebration reception in Washington D.C., the United States, on Feb. 13, 2018. (Xinhua/Yang Chenglin) WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai said Tuesday that China and the United States should let their "better angels" enhance the bilateral relationship, especially at a time of doubt. Speaking at a screening of documentary "Better Angels" at the National Press Club, Cui said people-to-people exchanges demonstrated in the film provided a firm ground for the China-U.S. relationship. The term "better angels" came from the inaugural address of former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who pleaded that divided northern and southern states should bond rather than split. "We are not enemies, but friends... Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory... when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature," Lincoln said. Noting that China and the United States will soon be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, Cui said the relationship has come a long way in the past four decades. "It has made great strides, while also has had its share of setbacks. But every time it risked being stranded, every time its future was cast into doubt, the people of our two countries would be there, quietly but persistently, doing their part, lifting it out of the quagmire, and moving it forward," he said. Cui acknowledged the current tension between Beijing and Washington but "Thanks to their unremitting efforts, we have been able to rise above differences and ensure the sustained and steady growth of our relations; thanks to their unswerving commitment, we have blazed a trail of win-win cooperation and seen our interests as closely tied as never before." Cui said. The film "Better Angels" is a documentary directed by award-winning director Malcolm Clarke and produced by U.S. producer William Mundell and award-winning Chinese producer Han Yi. The film features stories of how ordinary Chinese and Americans benefit from a close Sino-U.S. relationship. The film will hit the big screens in China in December this year and the United States in January next year. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 23:11:28|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close JUBA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan's rebel leader Riek Machar on Wednesday commended efforts of various African leaders for reviving the peace process in the wake of the renewed July violence in 2016. Machar, who leads the main rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army-in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO), lauded President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni for helping the warring parties reach compromises that ushered in the final peace deal in Ethiopia. "We thank President al-Bashir for doing the most difficult task of persuading the parties to reach compromises in the midst of great suspicion and skepticism among the regional and international actors and more worse among us the warring parties," Machar told peace celebrations in Juba attended by African leaders and diplomats. He said Khartoum has become a hub for peacemaking and thanked President al-Bashir on proving the skeptics wrong. The Sudanese leader mediated the peace process under the auspices of the east African bloc the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which saw South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and Machar meet face-to-face after the 2015 peace deal was weakened. Machar, who fled the capital following renewed violence in 2016, had been exiled to South Africa. "I would like to thank in person Abiy Ahmed Ali, prime minister of Ethiopia, for taking the courageous decision of extracting me from that confinement to engage in face-to-face meeting with my brother President Salva Kiir in order for us to end the impasse," said Machar. He also commended the IGAD leaders for delegating and mandating president al-Bashir to mediate the crises and take the lead in the process on behalf of the bloc, which led to the signing of Khartoum peace declaration and subsequent agreement. Machar thanked Kenyatta for supporting the Khartoum peace process after it gained momentum under President al-Bashir's mediation. "We want to thank you again that you have helped us to bring peace to our country. We also want to thank your competent mediation team led by your foreign minister, Al-Dirdiri Mohamed Ahmed, for the hard work and tremendous effort to pull former warring parties together to cross the finishing line," he said. Machar said Museveni fully backed the peace process and several meetings occurred at Uganda's State House in Entebbe, where a number of compromises were made. He also extended thanks to countries and organizations including the European Union, IGAD partner forums and China. David Shearer, head of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), paid tribute to regional leaders, specifically the leaders of Sudan and Uganda for the crucial roles they played in securing the agreement and who continue to champion its full implementation. "Some clashes still persist in parts of the country, but overall levels of fighting have reduced. Very simply, that reduction has meant that fewer have died, more humanitarian goods have flowed to those who need them and, people once again can start planning for their own future," said Shearer. There is still much hard work ahead to ensure that the revitalized peace agreement is fully implemented, he said. Shearer urged the South Sudan leaders to embrace trust, the key ingredient for peace implementation. "Let me assure you, the United Nations is absolutely committed to working with you all as a partner," he said. "We will stand alongside the parties as they move forward in peace. We will use our resources and our presence across the country to support reconciliation and peace building," Shearer said. English French Acquisition of SIX Payment Services by Worldline: Publication of the information document (Document E) Bezons, October 31, 2018. Worldline announces the publication of the information document (Document E) in connection with the contemplated contribution by SIX Group AG of its payment services division. The Document E was registered with the French Autorite des marches financiers (the "AMF") under number E-18-070 on October 31, 2018. The Document E incorporates by reference the 2017 registration document filed with the AMF on March 21, 2018 under number D. 18-0163 (the "2017 Registration Document") and the update to the 2017 Registration Document including the half year financial report filed with the AMF on August 1, 2018 under number D. 18-0163-A01 (the "2017 Registration Document Update"). The Document E was prepared in connection with the contribution in kind by SIX Group AG of all of the shares of SIX Payment Services AG, SIX Payment Services (Europe) SA and SIX Payment Services (Luxembourg) SA (the "Contribution"), for which SIX Group AG will notably receive 49,066,878 Worldline shares representing 26.60 % of the share capital and 17.70 % of the voting rights of Worldline. The Contribution will be submitted for approval by Worldline's Combined General Meeting convened to be held on November 30, 2018. A report on the value of the contributions and a report on the consideration for the contributions were prepared in connection with the Contribution by BM&A, appointed as contribution auditor (commissaire aux apports) by the Commercial Court of Pontoise by court order (ordonnance) dated June 4, 2018. These reports are attached to the Document E. The Document E also contains unaudited pro forma condensed financial information, for illustrative purposes only and of a hypothetical nature, including the unaudited pro forma condensed balance sheet which purports to present the effects of the Contribution if the Contribution had been completed on December 31, 2017 and the unaudited pro forma condensed income statement which purports to present the effects of the Contribution if the Contribution had been completed on January 1, 2017. Worldline also draws the public's attention to the risk factors presented in the Document E, the 2017 Registration Document and the 2017 Registration Document Update. The Document E as well as the 2017 Registration Document and the 2017 Registration Document Update are available free of charge and on demand at Worldline's registered office (80, Quai Voltaire - 95870 Bezons, France), and on the websites of Worldline (www.worldline.com) in the "Investors" section and of the AMF (www.amf-france.org). Contacts Investor Relations David Pierre-Kahn Email: David.pierre-kahn@worldline.com Communication Sandrine van der Ghinst Email: sandrine.vanderghinst@worldline.com About Worldline Worldline [Euronext: WLN] is the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry. Worldline delivers new-generation services, enabling its customers to offer smooth and innovative solutions to the end consumer. Key actor for B2B2C industries, with nearly 45 years of experience, Worldline supports and contributes to the success of all businesses and administrative services in a perpetually evolving market. Worldline offers a unique and flexible business model built around a global and growing portfolio, thus enabling end-to-end support. Worldline activities are organized around three axes: Merchant Services, Mobility & e-Transactional Services and Financial Services including equensWorldline. Worldline employs more than 9,400 people worldwide, with revenue of 1.6 billion in 2017. Worldline is an Atos company. worldline.com Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 23:21:30|Editor: Yang Yi Video Player Close Photo taken on Oct. 31, 2018 shows the hand over of 64 ton diesel from PetroChina to a Lao company at Laos-China border, in Boten, Laos, Oct. 31, 2018. With over 64 ton diesel, handed over from PetroChina to a Lao company at Laos-China border, the first export of Chinese refined oil to Lao market was made on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Liu Ailun) BOTEN, Laos, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- With over 64 ton diesel, handed over from PetroChina to a Lao company at Laos-China border, the first export of Chinese refined oil to Lao market was made on Wednesday. PetroChina International (Yunnan) Co. Ltd, a subsidiary of PetroChina group, has been studying and preparing for two years to reach the Lao fuel market since 2016. With the aims to expand its petroleum products sales in southeastern Asia and to seek new routes to market, the PetroChina company with its Lao partner undertook thorough researches in demands, market access, custom clearance and transportation, etc. Finally, the first tanks of Chinese refined oil products, loaded in Kunming of China's Yunnan province and travelling for over 700 km, arrived at the importer's depot in Boten, the Laos-China border town, over 370 km north of Lao capital Vientiane. Chindasack Nhotmanhkhong, director of the Nationwide Trading Petroleum Public Company of Laos (NTP), the importer, told Xinhua on Wednesday that the deal done is meaningful, since it will enrich Laos with one more petroleum importing source and route. Laos mostly imported petroleum products from or via Thailand and Vietnam before. "I am also feeling proud of being engaged in the specific work of national development strategy to convert Laos from a landlocked to a land-linked country, and of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative," said Chindasack. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 23:31:32|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close NAIROBI, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Wednesday the country needs policy and legal reforms to boost tax revenues. Kenyatta told a tax forum in Nairobi that whereas commendable strides have been made to improve the tax environment for individuals and business, more reforms needs to be done in both tax policy and tax administration. "Treasury must consistently review tax policy and propose legislation to rationalize areas of duplication to simplify compliance at all levels and also encourage self declaration and make it all easier for all Kenyans to willingly pay taxes using the most convenient tools at their disposal," Kenyatta said during the taxpayers' day event, which is organized every year to honor distinguished taxpayers. The highlight of the event was the launch of the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Integrated Scanner Command and Control Center, a web-based solution that integrates all KRA scanners with the aim of monitoring their operations. The center will create synergy in image analysis, thereby improve non-intrusive inspection of cargo, and boost trade facilitation. Kenyatta said that over the past few years, the impressive growth in the gross domestic product (GDP) has outstripped the growth of the tax base and as a result it tend to fall upon on few citizens to carry the burden of many. He noted that the government has taken steps to widen the tax base by implementing more broad based taxes as a means to bring more Kenyans into the tax net. "But the reforms are far from enough to sustain our national aspirations," he added. The Kenyan leader said that the tax regime should support the aspirations of the "Big Four" agenda of affordable housing, universal healthcare, manufacturing and food security, and should be aligned to mobilize investment, both domestic and foreign. The tax laws must also reflect the seriousness of tax collection and the consequences of default, Kenyatta said. There should be no room for tax evaders to thrive in Kenya, and that criminal cartels like those who smuggle imported taxable goods through the points of entry should be easily detected and contained in the shortest possible time. He directed the KRA to incorporate technology in its operations and use big data to predict revenue trends and detect leakages. Traders who operate fake electronic tax registers should also be prosecuted for contravening the law, the president said. He said high net worth individuals whose lifestyles are not reflective of the taxes that they pay ought to be compelled to demonstrate the sources of their wealth. Henry Rotich, cabinet secretary in the national treasury, said that the selflessness and hard work of patriotic taxpayers has enabled Kenyans to fund its development programs. Government efforts to enlist more tax payers is bearing fruit as more Kenyans are embracing voluntary tax compliance by enrolling into the iTax platform, Rotich said. The KRA is collaborating with the ministry of education to ensure that a "tax culture" is entrenched in the value system of children, he added. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 23:36:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BUDAPEST, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- The interest in the new Hungarian vehicle test track in Zalaegerszeg, West Hungary is enormous, with enquiries from hundreds of companies working in or with the automotive sector, according to official sources here on Wednesday. "The new Zalaegerszeg test track already signed its first four contracts with testing companies, but hundreds of other companies are interested in the test circuit called Zala Zone," said Hungarian innovation and technology minister Laszlo Palkovics. "The first four buyers have already completed many tests on the track, and negotiations are underway with 300 companies," Palkovics told Hungarian news agency MTI. "Most of them are automotive manufacturers, suppliers, and telecommunications companies," he added. Palkovics spoke of the uniqueness of Zala Zone and of its outstanding complexity when it comes to self-driving technologies. "This one-of-a-kind development in the automotive industry was one the reasons why BMW chose Hungary for the location of its new plant." Earlier this year, German car maker BMW chose the Hungarian town of Debrecen for the location of its new state-of-the-art plant. The full range services of Zala Zone will be ready at the end of 2019 or early 2020. The high-speed steer ability course, the dynamic road surface, the two main buildings and the 5G communications system have been installed, according to the minister. Zala Zone is unique because the traditional test track features -- focusing on driving and driving stability -- are combined with the research and development infrastructure elements of future vehicles in a multi-level validation system. It also allows validation tests for autonomous (self-driving) vehicles and electric vehicles as well. The Hungarian government decided to create the Zala Zone in May 2016. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 23:41:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close In this file photo, Jin Yong receives an interview with Xinhua in Hong Kong, south China, on Aug. 11, 2004. Famous Chinese martial arts novelist Louis Cha Leung-yung, more widely known by his pen name Jin Yong, died at 94 at a hospital in Hong Kong on Tuesday. Cha created many widespread martial arts novels between 1955 and 1972. Cha, who also co-founded the Hong Kong daily newspaper Ming Pao, has been regarded as one of the greatest and most popular martial arts writers. (Xinhua/Tao Ming) By Xinhua writers Bai Xu and Ren Liying BEIJING, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- What are martial arts and swordsmen like? To most Chinese, the answer is to be found in the works of the late novelist Jin Yong. Jin, whose real name was Zha Liangyong (also known as Louis Cha), died on Tuesday evening in Hong Kong, aged 94. The news soon went viral on the Chinese mainland, where he inspired a generation, ushering them into the world of Wuxia (swordsmen). Wang Xiaolei, better known by his nickname Liushenleilei, has an official WeChat account with more than 100,000 followers. His articles are about Jin Yong's novels. "I began reading Jin's novels when I was in middle school," he told Xinhua. "At that time reading books like those were forbidden by parents and teachers, who feared that would distract us from study at school." "While learning about the death of Mr. Jin I was having supper," he said. "I suddenly felt at a loss. I later sat in the toilet for quiet a while to calm down." On early Wednesday morning, he released an article mourning Jin. "I have no chance to meet you. You even didn't know the existence of my official WeChat account," Wang wrote. "Should I meet you, I would have asked you if you liked my article and if I could be considered your disciple?" "I am only one of the tens of thousands of Jin's readers. He was liked by so many people. I never feel alone." Wang said he believed the reason why Jin had so many fans was that Chinese people had a deeply-rooted admiration for chivalry and love for the country. "So the swordsmen under Jin's pens were their idols." He noted that Jin had vast knowledge of Chinese traditional culture, as shown across his books. In terms of writing technique, Jin borrowed from Western plays. "Some of his plots were just like ancient Greek tragedy," he said. "For instance, in his 'Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils,' the hero was like a tragic figure in Greek mythology." Zhang Fang also has an official WeChat account about history and Chinese literature. On Wednesday he released a prose written in the classical literary style in memory of the novelist. "When I was a child, I watched TV dramas without knowing they were adapted from his books," he said. "When I entered primary school, I began reading his novels, only to find them so intriguing." To some extent, his parents fell in love because of Jin Yong. "They were watching a movie adapted from Jin's novel in the cinema when they met each other," Zhang said. While learning about Jin's death, he was reading the writer's book. "In his book you can learn about Chinese calligraphy, painting, music, medicine and wine," he said. "He was the most successful writer in popularizing traditional Chinese culture." Zhang noted that when their generation began reading Jin's books, they were at an age when the their sense of value was just taking shape. "After I grew up, I found that my personality was so affected by the heroes in his books," he said. Meng Yuan, who was supposed to work overtime in her company, felt too sad to continue when hearing about Jin's passing. "He took me into such a wonderland," she said. When she was in middle school, she used to make up similar swordsman stories with her friends, some of which she still remembers. "Writers in the West created new worlds like the one in the Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter," she continued. "If there is an imagined world in China, that is the world with martial arts and swordsmen Jin penned for us." People living as far afield as Australia mourned for Jin on Wednesday. Ouyang Dipin, manager of the Asia Collections in the National Library of Australia, told Xinhua that they had a collection of 28 books by Jin Yong, and were preparing an exhibition. Ouyang arrived in Australia 23 years ago, but the move didn't prevent her from reading Jin's books. "He had such excellent depiction of humanity and human emotions," she said. "In Australia I know there are scholars studying his works." Fan Shengyu, a senior lecturer with the Australian National University, said that Jin's influence knew no national boundary. "No matter in New York, Singapore or Vancouver, where there are Chinese, there are his readers," he said. "His death marks the end of an era for martial art novels. We can hardly expect to see other writers with such influence and artistic achievement as him." (Xinhua writer Liu Enli contributed to this story) Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 23:46:36|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close LONDON, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- A tree created in the shape of the letter "n" by a young man to woo the girl of his dreams has been named Britain's tree of the year. The unusual shape of the beech tree was created nearly 100 years ago in the English county of Yorkshire by Vic Stead. He regularly walked along an old colliery railway line from his home near Leeds, to visit Nellie, his girlfriend who lived in nearby Aberford. The couple married and brought up a family. Still known as Nellie's Tree, it beat finalists from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to win the top prize in the Woodland Trust's search for Britain's tree of the year. Though the couple have now passed away, Nellie's tree, also known by locals as the love tree, is a popular place for lovers to propose. The romantic history of the tree won the hearts of voters, making it the clear winner in the annual competition. Nellie's tree will now go forward into the contest to find Europe's tree of the year. The tree was nominated by the couple's grandson, Chris Lund, who described how the story was told to him as a child by his grandparents. According to Lund's story his grandfather once came across three beech saplings on his walk. He grafted one sapling between the other two to form the letter "n" in an affectionate love letter with a difference. Lund said: "I am absolutely astounded and hugely happy with the support the tree has had. I think it's just the wonderful story behind it. It is a fitting tribute to my grandparents. It just shows how important it is to protect the nature around us and also what we could lose if we are not careful." Kaye Brennan from the Woodland Trust, said: "Nellie's Tree is a really fitting winner as all our trees could do with a bit more love right now. Since last year's contest thousands of trees have been needlessly lost across towns and cities. "We hope tale of Nellie's tree stands as a beacon for the need to protect our special trees and the wonderful tales they have to tell." Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 23:51:38|Editor: Liangyu Video Player Close by Wang Lili, Xia Lixin SINGAPORE, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- For the past 20-odd years, the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) has always been on the list of the topics that the leaders of the two countries have touched upon during their meetings, said Chan Soo Sen, the first chief executive officer (CEO) of the China-Singapore SIP Development Co Ltd. "Moreover, they have also expressed satisfaction over its development which makes me feel relieved," said Chan in a recent interview with Xinhua. In February 1994, China and Singapore signed an agreement to jointly set up the SIP, the first intergovernmental cooperation project between the two countries which also stands as the test field for China to draw experiences from Singapore on its path of reform and opening-up to the outside world. Chan arrived in Suzhou in China's Jiangsu province in March 1994 on his appointment as the SIP's first CEO. At that time, the joint venture between the two countries had not yet been established, and the certificate to change the use of the allocated land from agricultural farm into industrial park had not yet been approved. To save time, Chan proposed boldly to circle a trail area of two square km to begin with. Two months later in May 1994, the SIP officially kicked off thanks to Chan's proposals and efforts. The joint venture was set up half a year later. The land usage application was ratified and the SIP construction went into full swing a year later. Chan recalled that they had tried their best to attract investments. those foreign investors who were originally thinking of investing in Singapore but worried about the operating costs there were introduced to the SIP to do businesses in the joint program. With concerted efforts from China and Singapore, the SIP had been a home to 156 projects from 92 companies which are on the list of the world's top-ranking 500 enterprises by the end of 2017. It had an accumulated 4,000 foreign-funded projects with a total investment of 30.3 billion U.S. dollars. After his return to Singapore in 1996, Chan became a member of the parliament and a high-ranking minister in several governmental departments. He continued to make contribution to the exchanges and cooperation between Singapore and China after his retirement from politics. The SIP had grown to rank the first among China's 219 state-level economic and technological development zones in an overall evaluation published in May this year by the Ministry of Commerce of China. It was also a top performer in key benchmarks including technological innovation and foreign trade. Besides the SIP, China and Singapore have also embarked on two other intergovernmental cooperation projects. The Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city was started in 2008 to jointly develop a socially harmonious, environmentally friendly and resource-conserving eco-city in Northern China's Tianjin. The China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity kicked off in January 2016 to pilot cooperation between the two countries in fields ranging from financial services, aviation, transportation, and logistics to information communications technology. In the 1990s, Singapore shared its experiences with China in fields like attracting foreign investment and getting geared to the international norms through the joint program of the SIP, Chan said, adding their gaps regarding experiences and know-hows are getting narrower. "We are joining hands to blaze a new trail together that has not been treaded before." Singapore and China have greater potentials for future cooperations within the framework of China's Belt and Road Initiative, Chan Soo Sen said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 23:51:39|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close HONG KONG, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong was ranked the fourth globally on the ease of doing business, moving up one place from being the fifth last year, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government quoted a World Bank annual report as saying on Wednesday. The World Bank's Doing Business 2019 Report, which was released Wednesday, compared the ease of doing business in 190 economies through 10 indicators. Hong Kong performed well in a number of the indicators and was ranked the first for both "paying taxes" and "dealing with construction permits". "The score of Hong Kong has improved from 83.44 last year to 84.22 this year, reflecting continuous enhancements in our business facilitation measures," the HKSAR government said. "The World Bank commends Hong Kong for the successful implementation of reform measures to improve the ease of doing business." "In the past 10 years, Hong Kong has maintained its position among the world's top ranking economies in the report, re-affirming our favorable business environment for overseas companies to set up their regional headquarters and offices, and for all businesses to flourish," a spokesman said. The HKSAR government will study the report carefully and continue to work closely with the business sector and other stakeholders to reform the existing regulatory regimes, enhance regulatory efficiency and reduce business compliance costs, so as to further improve the business environment in Hong Kong, the spokesman added. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 23:56:42|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BERLIN, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Audi's earnings slumped as a consequence of "extraordinary factors" during the third quarter (Q3) of 2018, figures published on Wednesday by the German luxury carmaker and Volkswagen Group subsidiary show. Gross revenue and vehicle deliveries both fell from 14 billion euros to 13 billion euros and from 471,780 units to 458,488 units respectively between Q3 2017 and Q3 2018. During the same period, Audi's operating profit including special items collapsed from 1.26 billion euros to 110 million euros. "The third quarter of this year featured numerous adverse factors for the Audi Group: As expected, restrictions in the sales portfolio caused by the changeover to WLTP had an increasingly negative effect", according to a statement published by Audi. Aside from the new exhaust systems testing standard, the Ingolstadt-based company highlighted the imposition of an 800-million-euro "dieselgate" fine by German prosecutors and the "broadest model initiative in Audi's history" as circumstances which undermined its quarterly earnings performance. Audi also said, however, that group revenue of 44.25 billion euros for the period from January through September has held steady at the previous year's level. As predicted earlier by Audi and experienced by several major carmakers during the past months, a difficult transition to the Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP) certification standard provided particularly damaging to the company's production volumes and finances in Q3. On Tuesday, the Volkswagen Group' flagship brand Volkswagen blamed a similar decline in vehicle sales and deliveries on the impact of the regulatory change in Q3. Source: Xinhua| 2018-10-31 23:56:42|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BERLIN, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- The arrival of immigrants from other European Union (EU) members provides a significant boost to Germany's gross domestic product (GDP), a study published on Wednesday by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) found. According to the study, the migration of more than five million EU citizens to the bloc's single largest economy since 2011 has raised German annual GDP growth by an average of 0.2 percentage points. In individual years such as 2015, the benefit which Germany reaped from the freedom of movement within the EU was even put as high as 0.3 percentage points. Vacancies in German companies which are filled by EU citizens lead to higher overall employment in the country which is also reflected in higher consumer demand. Additionally, the freedom of businesses in Germany to hire workers from any of the EU's 28 current members helps alleviate domestic labor shortages which would otherwise result in higher production costs, higher prices and slower growth. "Without immigration from the rest of the EU, GDP in Germany would have merely expanded by 1.2 percent, rather than 1.5 percent, in 2015", Marius Clemens, a research associate in the DIW's Forecasting and Economic Policy department, said. "This is a not insignificant contribution which EU immigration has made - and continues to make", Clemens added. Drawing on data compiled by the Federal Statistical Office and Eurostat, Clemens and his co-author Janine Hart calculated that 5.1 million EU citizens in total have come to Germany during the past seven years. The group consequently accounted for a larger share of immigrants than all other countries combined. One reason for the silent uptick in EU immigration from 2011 onwards was identified by the study in the gradual introduction of free movement for laborers for the latest members of the bloc. The DIW further pointed out that many citizens in southern European countries which were more heavily affected by the latest economic crisis moved to Germany in search of better opportunities. The study authors highlighted that the relative deterioration of economic conditions in the country of origin relative to Germany was generally the most common factor (60 percent) which could explain changes in the pattern of EU migration witnessed since 2011. "EU immigrants come to us to find work - and this is mostly also what happens, as many studies show", Hart explained. Most EU immigrants in Germany are young, well-qualified and have high labor market participation rates. In 2017, the share of citizens of other countries who were employed was measured at 74.6 percent, compared to 70.6 percent for German citizens. Clemens argued on Wednesday that German policymakers were well-advised to ensure the continued and improved access of EU citizens to the domestic labor market in light of a rapidly ageing local population and increasingly severe labor shortages. "In order to remain attractive to immigrants from Europe, Germany will have to make a greater effort because the economy is already improving again in many countries and the Eurozone in particular", he warned. For example, immigrants from the bloc would have to be offered more opportunities to find jobs in Germany which were appropriate for the level of their professional skills. The study authors proposed simplifying existing procedures for the recognition of foreign qualification towards that end. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 00:06:44|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close ISTANBUL, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office said on Wednesday that the body of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was dismembered after he was strangled to death inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in the city. "In accordance with plans made in advance, Jamal Khashoggi was choked to death immediately after entering the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018, for marriage formalities," the office said in a written statement. "The victim's body was dismembered and destroyed following his death by suffocation, in line with advance plans," added the statement. The prosecutor's office also noted that no concrete results had come out of the meetings with Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb in Istanbul, "despite the good intentions to uncover the truth behind Khashoggi's killing." During the meetings, the Turkish side asked where Khashoggi's body was, whether the Saudi investigation had discovered anything regarding the planning stage of the killing and the identity of the reported "local cooperator." According to the statement, the Istanbul chief prosecutor reiterated a call for the extradition of the suspects arrested in Saudi Arabia, saying "Turkish courts have jurisdiction over the case in line with Turkish law and principles of international law, provided that Jamal Khashoggi was killed in Turkey." Al-Mojeb reportedly left Turkey on Wednesday after meeting with his Turkish colleagues and inspecting the Saudi consulate, where Khashoggi was last seen on Oct. 2. Riyadh has acknowledged Khashoggi as a victim to a premeditated killing inside the Saudi mission in Istanbul. The Saudi side has reportedly invited the Istanbul chief prosecutor to Saudi Arabia along with the evidence collected during the investigation. TORONTO, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canada House Wellness Group Inc. (Canada House or the Company) (CSE: CHV) is pleased to announce the results of the companys Annual General and Special Meeting of shareholders that was held in Toronto, Ontario on Tuesday, October 30, where a number of business items were presented and approved by the shareholders in attendance. The Directors of the Company that were nominated at the meeting Norman Betts, Chris Churchill-Smith, Dennis Moir and Mike Southwell were elected to hold office until the next Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, or until their successors are elected or appointed. In addition, RSM Canada LLP, Chartered Professional Accountants, formerly Collins Barrow Toronto LLP, were appointed as auditors of the Company for the following year and the Directors were authorized to fix their remuneration. Finally, shareholders approved a motion to approve the filing of articles of amendment to change the name of the Company to Canada House Group Inc., Canada House Cannabis Group Inc. or another name as approved by the Directors. A further announcement will be made when the name change is formally affected. The Company also is pleased to announce the immediate granting of 1,500,000 stock options to Directors and senior employees at an exercise price of $0.19 and with a term of 5-years. The grant was made in accordance with the Companys stock option plan and the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange. Canada House Wellness Group Inc. Canada House is an experienced, integrated medical cannabis company providing patient-specific cannabinoid therapy products and services through its clinics and licensed producer. Canada House is the parent company of Canada House Clinics Inc., Knalysis Technologies and Abba Medix Corp. For more information please visit www.canadahouse.ca or www.sedar.com . For further information, please contact: Boom Capital Markets Steve Low 647-620-5101 steve@boomcapitalmarkets.com Canada House Wellness Group Inc. Chris Churchill-Smith, CEO 514-313-0102 chris.smith@canadahouse.ca Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information. This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements that relate to, among other things, the Companys clinic, production and technology businesses, its future plans, the Companys markets, objectives, goals, strategies, intentions, beliefs, expectations and estimates, and can generally be identified by the use of words such as may, will, could, should, would, likely, possible, expect, intend, estimate, anticipate, believe, plan, objective and continue (or the negative thereof) and words and expressions of similar import. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, such statements involve risks and uncertainties, and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Certain material factors or assumptions are applied in making forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Material assumptions used to develop forward-looking information in this news release include, among other things, the regulations related to cannabis use under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations and the act respecting cannabis and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code and other Acts, passed by the Canadian Federal government, making cannabis legal for recreational use by October 17, 2018; Company liquidity and capital resources, including the availability of additional capital resources to fund its activities; level of competition; the ability to adapt products and services to the changing market; the ability to attract and retain key executives; and the ability to execute strategic plans. Additional information about material factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations and about material factors or assumptions applied in making forward-looking statements may be found in the Companys most recent annual and interim Managements Discussion and Analysis under Risk and Uncertainties as well as in other public disclosure documents filed with Canadian securities regulatory authorities. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the forward-looking statements contained in this document, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 00:11:46|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close TIRANA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Albanian police arrested five people charged with criminal offenses of "trafficking in human beings" and "assistance for illegal border crossing", local media reported on Wednesday. According to a police report, the five citizens provided reception, transportation and accommodation facilities such as hotels and residential homes for third-country nationals, mainly Syrians, and enabled their trafficking from the territory of Albania to Montenegro to the final destination of the European Union (EU) countries. The Local Directorate of Shkodra Police, northwest Albania, in cooperation with the Prosecutor's Office of the Shkodra Judicial District, the Directorate of the Special Operations Force in Tirana, after several months' investigation, completed the operation coded "GRE-HOT". The structured criminal group on human trafficking exercised activity from Greece in the cities of Korca, Elbasan, Tirana, Lezha, Shkodra, Malesi e Madhe and then the transition to Montenegro. Meanwhile, the police also seized 3 vehicles used for the transportation of the foreign nationals, an amount of euro currency and many cell phones. In June 2018, the Albanian border police announced they would take additional measures along the border with Greece to stop the illegal migrants whose number increased significantly. According to the border police report, more and more immigrants use the Albanian territory as a transit to move further to EU countries. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 00:21:48|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close TALLINN, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- The biggest risk to banking in Estonia continues to come from the Nordic countries despite of the strong financial position of the Estonian banking sector, the Bank of Estonia said on Wednesday. The financial position of the Estonian banking sector is strong. The level of own funds of the banks is high, the quality of the loan portfolio of the banks is very good, and loan losses are small, the Estonian central bank said in a press release. The biggest risk to banking in Estonia continues to come from the Nordic countries. The sources of risk there are the high indebtedness of households and high dependence of banks on market-based financing large debt of households. If developments were to turn bad, the ability of Estonia to export could be reduced and the funding conditions for Estonian companies could be tightened, it added. The departure of some foreign banks has reduced the relations between the Estonian banking sector and the Nordic countries, but this brings a new danger to financial stability in Estonia, it noted. The role of Nordic parent banks in funding the banks will decline in future and they will start more and more to access funding from international financial markets. The banks operating in Estonia largely fund themselves with client deposits and loans from their parent banks, but financial markets are a more volatile source of funding, said the press release. The overall trustworthiness of the Estonian financial sector, which has been shaken of late by the money laundering scandal, will also become more important, said the press release. However, the impact of the money laundering scandal on the Estonian financial sector overall remains small, as Danske Bank, which has been in the centre of the suspicions of money laundering, has ended its business with non-residents in Estonia, while small Estonian bank Versobank AS was closed in March over failures to remedy regulatory breaches in areas such as money laundering after a request from the Estonian Financial Supervision Authority, it added. The major share of the funding for the Estonian banking sector comes from resident client deposits, and the share of non-resident deposits has fallen over the years and is now only 7 percent, while companies from outside the European Union are now less than 1 percent of all clients, according to the Bank of Estonia. Another risk to financial stability alongside the risk from the Nordic countries is the rapid growth in the real estate and construction sector in Estonia, as it is sucking in labour, investment and funding, said the press release. South Sudan's main opposition leader Riek Machar (R, front) and his wife arrive before the country's peace day celebration at Juba International Airport in Juba, capital of South Sudan, Oct. 30, 2018. (Xinhua/Daniel Majack) JUBA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan's rebel leader Riek Machar on Wednesday commended efforts of various African leaders for reviving the peace process in the wake of the renewed July violence in 2016. Machar, who leads the main rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army-in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO), lauded President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni for helping the warring parties reach compromises that ushered in the final peace deal in Ethiopia. "We thank President al-Bashir for doing the most difficult task of persuading the parties to reach compromises in the midst of great suspicion and skepticism among the regional and international actors and more worse among us the warring parties," Machar told peace celebrations in Juba attended by African leaders and diplomats. He said Khartoum has become a hub for peacemaking and thanked President al-Bashir on proving the skeptics wrong. The Sudanese leader mediated the peace process under the auspices of the east African bloc the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which saw South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and Machar meet face-to-face after the 2015 peace deal was weakened. Machar, who fled the capital following renewed violence in 2016, had been exiled to South Africa. "I would like to thank in person Abiy Ahmed Ali, prime minister of Ethiopia, for taking the courageous decision of extracting me from that confinement to engage in face-to-face meeting with my brother President Salva Kiir in order for us to end the impasse," said Machar. He also commended the IGAD leaders for delegating and mandating president al-Bashir to mediate the crises and take the lead in the process on behalf of the bloc, which led to the signing of Khartoum peace declaration and subsequent agreement. Machar thanked Kenyatta for supporting the Khartoum peace process after it gained momentum under President al-Bashir's mediation. "We want to thank you again that you have helped us to bring peace to our country. We also want to thank your competent mediation team led by your foreign minister, Al-Dirdiri Mohamed Ahmed, for the hard work and tremendous effort to pull former warring parties together to cross the finishing line," he said. Machar said Museveni fully backed the peace process and several meetings occurred at Uganda's State House in Entebbe, where a number of compromises were made. He also extended thanks to countries and organizations including the European Union, IGAD partner forums and China. David Shearer, head of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), paid tribute to regional leaders, specifically the leaders of Sudan and Uganda for the crucial roles they played in securing the agreement and who continue to champion its full implementation. "Some clashes still persist in parts of the country, but overall levels of fighting have reduced. Very simply, that reduction has meant that fewer have died, more humanitarian goods have flowed to those who need them and, people once again can start planning for their own future," said Shearer. There is still much hard work ahead to ensure that the revitalized peace agreement is fully implemented, he said. Shearer urged the South Sudan leaders to embrace trust, the key ingredient for peace implementation. "Let me assure you, the United Nations is absolutely committed to working with you all as a partner," he said. "We will stand alongside the parties as they move forward in peace. We will use our resources and our presence across the country to support reconciliation and peace building," Shearer said. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 01:42:02|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday announced the appointment of Geir Pedersen of Norway as his new special envoy for Syria to succeed Staffan de Mistura, who steps down in November. Pedersen has decades of political and diplomatic experience, having served both in government and United Nations capacities, said Guterres' press office in a statement. He is the current Norwegian ambassador to China. Before that he was Norway's permanent representative to the United Nations between 2012 and 2017. Pedersen served the United Nations in various roles, including as special coordinator for Lebanon between 2007 and 2008 and as personal representative of the secretary-general for Southern Lebanon between 2005 and 2007. He also worked as director of the Asia and Pacific Division in the Department of Political Affairs. Between 1998 and 2003, Pedersen served as the Norwegian representative to the Palestinian Authority. In 1993, he was a member of the Norwegian team to the Oslo negotiations that led to the signing of the declaration of principles and the mutual recognition between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel. Born in Oslo in September 1955, he is married and has five children. Pedersen takes up the Syria position at a critical time. De Mistura is struggling to convene a constitutional committee that is tasked to draft a new constitution for the war-torn country. He told the Security Council last week that Damascus refused to recognize the United Nations' role in forming the constitutional committee. De Mistura will brief the Security Council on Nov. 19 for the last time as special envoy. He decided to step down to have more time with his family. Guterres on Wednesday reiterated his "deepest gratitude" to de Mistura for his efforts and contributions to the search for peace in Syria. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 01:57:04|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the country's military is being mobilized at southern border with Mexico, in another effort to deter members of a caravan of Central American migrants from reaching the border. "Many more troops coming. We will NOT let these Caravans, which are also made up of some very bad thugs and gang members, into the U.S.," Trump said in a tweet without providing any evidence. "Our Border is sacred, must come in legally. TURN AROUND!" the tweet read. The comments followed a Pentagon announcement earlier this week that 5,200 troops would be sent to the U.S.-Mexico border to support law enforcement activities and help stop what the Trump called an "invasion" by Central American migrants. The president is doubling down his hardline stance on immigration, an issue he's trying to place center and front in the November midterm elections, which could see Democrats seizing control of at least part of the Republican-held Congress. According to an interview with Axios, released in part on Tuesday, Trump revealed that he plans to end the right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants, born in the United States. Birthright citizenship in the country is enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which allows for "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Trump said he can and will end birthright citizenship with an executive order, though many, including Republicans, were questioning his legal grounds. "Well you obviously cannot do that," House Speaker Paul Ryan told a local radio station in the state of Kentucky on Tuesday. "You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order." Angered by the remarks, Trump tweeted Wednesday that Ryan "should be focusing on holding the Majority rather than giving his opinions on Birthright Citizenship." "Our new Republican Majority will work on this, Closing the Immigration Loopholes and Securing our Border!" the president said in his tweet. Ryan announced in April that he would not seek re-election in November. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 02:02:08|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close VILNIUS, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Lithuania's economy growth slowdown is being seen, however the new economy crisis is not "around the corner", Vitas Vasiliauskas, chairman of Lithuania's central bank, said on Wednesday. "I would not say that the crisis is just around the corner, nevertheless, we undoubtedly see some indicators of a slowdown," Vasiliauskas was quoted by local media as speaking to reporters. The central banker was speaking after he gave his testimony to parliament's committee examining the reasons behind the 2008-2009 financial crisis in the country. Lithuania now looks "much better" than before the decade-old crisis, Vasiliauskas underlined. "Without any doubts, we will face a slowdown eventually. The question is how we will be prepared for this," he added. While giving his testimony at the parliamentary committee of budget and finance, Vasiliauskas admitted that some mistakes were made by the central bank before the past crisis. "The central bank was not prudent enough and did not do everything it could with possibilities existing at the time," the head of bank said. The growth of credit market was unsustainable before the financial crisis, he added. Lithuania's parliament earlier this year obliged the committee to examine the causes of the 2008-2009 financial crisis in Lithuania and evaluate decisions on the state finances adopted by previous governments which were in place after 2005. The investigation is scheduled to be completed by mid-April 2019. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 02:12:12|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- A study published on Wednesday in the journal PLOS One provided molecular, DNA evidence that domestic animals made their way into high mountain corridors along the ancient Silk Road more than four thousand years ago. Using ancient proteins and DNA recovered from tiny pieces of animal bone, German, French and Russian scientists found that long before the creation of Silk Road, a set of trade routes linking East and West Eurasia through its arid continental interior, pastoral herders living in the mountains of Central Asia helped form new cultural and biological links across this region. However, in many of the most important channels of the Silk Road itself, including Kyrgyzstan's Alay Valley, a large mountain corridor linking northwest China with the oases cities, very little is known about the life of the early people who lived there in the centuries preceding the Silk Road era. In 2017, an international team of researchers identified a series of never-before-seen habitation sites along the mountain margins that form Kyrgzstan's southern border with Tajikistan. Test excavations and surveys at these sites produced archaeological animal bones that promised to shed light on how people used the Alay region in the past. But those bones were so small and badly broken that researchers could no longer use their size and shape to identify which species they originally belonged to. William Taylor from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and his colleagues used laser-based, mass spectrometry to identify the peptide building blocks that make up collagen inside the bone itself and produce unique "fingerprints." They discovered that people living in the Alay Valley began herding sheep, goat, and cattle by at least 4,300 years ago. Combining their work with ancient DNA research at France's University of Toulouse, they also found that in later centuries, as Silk Road trade flourished across the region, transport animals like domestic horses and Bactrian camel became increasingly significant in Alay. This study showed that biomolecular methods and ancient DNA can take the fragmented piles of bone that have been almost worthless to archaeologists and open up a whole new world of insights into the human story across Central Asia, according to Taylor. Lu Gaoqing was inaugurated as the head of University of Surrey in April 2016. by Xinhua writers Zhang Dailei, Gu Zhenqiu, Larry Neild LONDON, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- After Brexit, universities in Britain will face challenges of declining student numbers and losing access to European Union (EU) research funding, but they have the chance to develop a solution, Lu Gaoqing, the president and vice-chancellor of the University of Surrey, has told Xinhua. NEW STRATEGY TO DRAW INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS Lu, the first Chinese academic to lead a UK university, says the whole higher education sector of Britain is now discussing the possible impact of Brexit as many universities believe that there would be a smaller number of EU students. Citing University of Surrey figures, Lu estimated there would be a reduction of at least half of its current 1,300 students from the EU. Founded in the 1960s and located in Guildford, Surrey, the public research university specializes in science, engineering, medicine and business. Approximately 5,500 foreign students are currently enrolled, out of a student headcount of 18,000. At the moment, students from EU countries are treated as UK students and pay a home fee. But once Britain is out of the EU, "we will see the demand plummet because they have to pay a full international tuition fee," said Lu. As a board member of Universities UK, the representative organization for UK's universities, Lu said the organization has been talking about possibilities of offering a discount or a scholarship to attract as many future EU students as possible. "Depending on the deal that the UK will have with the EU, there may or may not be a new policy to support the European students," he told Xinhua, "But then there is always an issue -- the fairness to other international students. You may damage your other international markets if you say we will give preferential treatment to EU students by giving a tuition fee waiver or discount. It is very, very tricky." He said the UK universities need to develop strategies to look at how to increase other international student numbers to compensate for the loss of the EU students. "We will definitely continue to have some EU students, however, we are also preparing to increase international students from China, India, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and also Latin America," he said. MORE FUNDING FOR RESEARCH When working at the University of Queensland, Australia, as a double Highly Cited Researcher in both materials science and chemistry, Lu has published over 500 journal papers and founded the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Functional Nanomaterials where he served as director for eight years. After coming to the UK, he has been appointed to the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology (CST), and served on boards of UK Research and Innovation, and National Physical Laboratory. He said that besides the possible decrease of EU student numbers, another major concern for UK universities is the challenge of losing access to EU research funding. But he said the UK government was considering injecting more investment into R&D if it fails to reach a good exit deal with EU. "One of the key agenda items of the Board of UK Research and Innovation is to discuss how the country can prepare for a post-Brexit situation without EU funding," Lu said. "We are discussing a new deal, as an associate membership country, or we are going to set up our own global fund." Lu has worked closely with the UK government ministers on the CST. He said the UK government has committed more money to research, innovation and commercialization of technology post-Brexit. "The CST is working to develop the road map on how are we going to get there, where is the money coming from, and what will we spend the money on. And that is going to see a tremendous uplifting in the total amount of money invested in research and development. We are talking about 2.4 percent of GDP by 2027, which is very significant," Lu said, something he sees as a great opportunity for the higher education institutions post-Brexit. NOT TO BECOME SLAVES OF RANKING Talking about university rankings, Lu said every ranking system has its flaws therefore the ranking itself should not be the drivers for any university. He believes that if a university does well in educating its students and in research, making a greater contribution to society, it should be doing very well in any league tables. However, he recognized that rankings, no matter how imperfect they might be, will remain a reference point for prospective students and their parents. So "in a way we cannot ignore the rankings, but we should not become the slaves of rankings." He said that higher educational institutions should focus on the long-term strategy to deliver the excellent education and experience for students as well as impactful research and innovation. "I think rankings play a role in students' choice in selecting universities. We have to pay attention to the underlying factors behind the rankings. When you understand what actually contributes to a bad experience for the student, you do more work and more investment, you care more about the students' learning journey and learning outcomes," Lu added. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 02:52:18|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close TALLINN, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Estonian government decided Wednesday to call up 1,248 reservists for a snap military exercise, the Estonian defense ministry announced. The supplementary reservist training event, titled Okas ("Quill") 2018, aims to review the functioning of the chain of command in national defense, from decision-making to gathering reservists in the rapid response structure, as well as to check for combat readiness, said a press release. The exercise will be rehearsing in nature, it said, stressing there was no immediate security threat to Estonia. The assigned reservists from the reserve unit of a logistics battalion, including those reservists assigned to the unit's mobilization reserve, must immediately report to the designated rally point, it noted. In December 2017, an emergency military exercise Okas involving 669 reservists was held at the Johvi base in northeastern Estonia. In accordance with the Estonian National Defence Act, the government may announce an additional reservist training to rehearse and check the combat readiness of reserve units at short notice, instead of the regular advance notice of 120 days, according to the defense ministry. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 03:22:28|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close NEW YORK, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday pledged to combat anti-Semitism and neo-Nazi ideas. "We must not only stand up and combat anti-Semitism, but we also must be firm against the new rise of neo-Nazi ideas which we are seeing taking hold in many parts of the western world," the UN chief said. He made the remarks at an event entitled "United Against Hate: Inter-Religious Leadership in Solidarity with Pittsburgh" held at Park East Synagogue in Manhattan of New York City. The secretary-general expressed his solidarity with the Jewish community of Pittsburgh and the world over, as well as the people of the United States. Anti-Semitism, he noted, is "the oldest form of hatred and discrimination" in the history of the world. Talking about his concerns over the different forms of hatred, the UN chief noted that there is not only a rise in anti-Semitism but also in persecution and attacks on other religious groups, as well as refugees and migrants. Diversity, the secretary-general said, is richness and not a threat. To make diversity work, "we need investment in education and social cohesion." Spotting the black swans The next crisis could start a long way from New York The recovery of the rich world now threatens overextended developing economies. TURKEYS LARGEST city, Istanbul, is intimately linked to the Bosporus. In the year 324AD, the emperor Constantine established a new capital for the Roman empire on the western side of the strait of water that connects the Black Sea with the Aegean. The location was perfect: easily defensible and strategically invaluable, at the hinge between Europe and Asia. If one Bosporus is a strategic asset, two are even better, reasoned Suleiman the Magnificent, sultan of the Ottoman empire in the 16th century. So he proposed to dig a canal to Istanbuls west, providing a second sea route across the Eurasian isthmus. His plan did not come to fruition, but it is back on the agenda now. In 2011 Recep Tayyip Erdogan, another Turkish leader with grand visions, announced a $20bn project called Kanal Istanbul to provide a route parallel to the existing strait. It is an example of what Mr Erdogan himself has called crazy projects: monumental building feats to reflect the greatness of his regime. No one is sure if the canal will be finished. But the economic tailwinds that made such grandiose plans possible have abated, so Turkey is now facing an economic reckoning which could threaten the canals completion and is starting to threaten other emerging markets, too. After the global financial crisis, money draining away from stricken advanced economies flooded into emerging markets. Some of them borrowed too enthusiastically and kept an imprudently loose rein on banks and firms. The recovery of the rich world, and the withdrawal of monetary support, now threatens those overextended developing economies. Every struggling emerging market founders in its own way, and Turkeys troubles have been exacerbated by its own particular economic and political woes. But the broad shift in financial conditions that is now squeezing the emerging world will inevitably induce some familiar crises. Business cycles are a matter of feedback loops. In good times, people spend and invest more. Asset prices rise, worries about risk recede, and banks open their credit taps. Easier credit underpins spending and investment, and on the cycle goes. Governments try to moderate booms but often overdo or underdo it. Eventually some error flips the cycle from expansion to contraction. Nervous consumers cut back, firms shelve investment plans, asset prices fall and banks curtail credit. Lending which looked sensible one day becomes a danger to the economy the next. The integration of the global financial system has turned national financial systems into a vast single sea of money that rises and falls with changes in saving and investment around the world. In the 2000s, for example, the international banking system channelled massive savings accumulated by oil exporters and large emerging markets into rich-world property markets. If such shifting tides are mismanaged, they almost invariably cause economic trouble. Today, the tide is on the move again. It is most easily observed in the emerging world. Developing countries bounced back from the global financial crisis relatively quickly, buoyed by an explosive Chinese recovery. As quantitative easing in advanced economies depressed the yield on rich-world bonds, investors increasingly looked to the emerging world for better returns. The double boost of Chinese demand and rich-world capital threatened to create unmanageable credit booms in some emerging economies, which have long viewed such inflows of capital with a wary eye. Reversals in the past often left the unlucky ones with piles of unaffordable debt. The recent experience of some developing countries such as Turkey may foreshadow a return of the sort of woes experienced by emerging Asia in the late 1990s. Turkey has been running a large current-account deficit (indicating heavy reliance on capital flows from abroad), has borrowed heavily in dollars and has an alarmingly low level of foreign-exchange reserves. A loss of market confidence could lead to a dramatic depreciation, waves of defaults and painful adjustments in the Turkish economy. Turkey is not big enough to cause global economic trouble all on its own. But should the forces squeezing Turkey drag down a broader swathe of emerging economies, governments around the world could have a serious problem on their hands. In the past, torrents of money from abroad proved irresistible to governments in the emerging world. Most have since learned to borrow more carefully and in local currency, and to accumulate a war chest of foreign-exchange reserves. Even so, borrowing by emerging-market firms (not banks) through issuance of dollar-denominated bonds has increased by an average of more than 10% per year since the financial crisis. It has roughly doubled in Brazil and Mexico, tripled in South Africa and Indonesia, and quadrupled in Chile and Argentina, according to a recent analysis published by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Borrowing from abroad has gone hand in hand with large current-account deficits; net flows of foreign money into a country allow it to consume more than it produces. But as the American economy has strengthened and the Fed has tightened, capital flows into America have grown and the dollar has appreciated. The first big round of post-crisis appreciation took place in 2014, in the wake of the taper tantrum, as the Fed phased out the stimulative bond-buying it had undertaken in the early 2010s. As a result, emerging-market currencies dropped and growth in trade, borrowing and GDP slowed. Now monetary policy across rich economies is becoming tighter and the rise in the dollar has resumed. The problem, says Hyun Song Shin, of the BIS, is that dollar borrowing by emerging-market firms effectively expanded the monetary reach of the Federal Reserve. Higher American interest rates and a stronger dollar will place financial pressure on big emerging-market firms, forcing them to cut back on investment and spending. Foreign-exchange reserves held by governments are probably sufficient to prevent financial stress at big corporations from translating into a broader panic; but the closing of the credit taps, and pressure on firms to deleverage, will cause a sharp contraction in much of the emerging world that will be felt in advanced economies, too. For countries which have been running current-account deficits, that means buying less from the rest of the world and selling more. Advanced economies will be affected as the value of their investments abroad declines and their exports shrink. China is not normal Just how much all this will dampen growth will depend on what happens in China. Although it shares some features with other emerging markets, it is so vast and so unique that it represents its own sort of threat. The economic collapse of Chinas main export markets during the global financial crisis raised the risk of a sharp slowdown, rising unemployment and political instability. Its leaders responded with a massive fiscal stimulus directed primarily at investment, estimated at around 12.5% of GDP and financed mostly by borrowing, much of it by local governments and large firms. Overall, Chinese debt rocketed after the crisis, from about 175% of GDP in 2009 to more than 300% now. To make matters worse, borrowing has become less efficient over the past decade as more of it has been done in places and by firms with declining growth in productivity. In more recent times the government has tried to rein in, though not stop, the credit boom. Such an extraordinary rise in debt, and particularly in credit used unproductively, would normally ring alarm bells. But China is not a normal country. Highly indebted emerging economies usually worry about servicing foreign-currency-denominated debt as capital flees the country. But China tightly controls its capital account, and both the government and Chinese banks maintain large asset piles. Moreover, the government has far more control over the economy than in most countries and is determined to avoid the emergence of any kind of destabilising crisis. Even so, Chinas debts are hardly problem-free. Economic growth has decelerated steadily since 2010. Still, it continues at more than 6% per year, which adds about $1.5trn to the global economy each year (a Russia, give or take). To maintain growth at that clip requires a steady increase both in the economys supply capacity and in demand. Increasing capacity has long ceased to mean adding new factories, railways and skyscrapers; instead, it involves the difficult business of technological advancement and reallocation of resources to sectors with higher productivity. Maintaining political support for the reforms needed to make this possible has proved hard, even for a powerful leader like Xi Jinping. On the contrary, recent borrowing props up low-productivity firms and sectors that ought to have shrunk. And if China were to succeed in boosting the supply side of the economy, demand might become a problem. Culling unproductive businesses would mean less spending and fewer jobs. Households would be obvious candidates for replacing lost demand, but progress on shifting to a more consumption-based growth model has been slow and has relied in part on increasing levels of household debt. Besides, setting monetary policy in such a way as to reduce borrowing by weak firms but encourage household credit growth is tricky. Rising household incomes could help, but China has had difficulty in achieving this; household incomes as a share of GDP have fallen since 2016. If Chinas exchange rate were to weaken sufficiently, the increase in sales to foreigners could help offset weak domestic demand. But that risks enraging America, and encouraging Mr Trump to intensify his trade war. A drop in the yuan would also add to the financial stress on Chinese firms with large dollar-denominated debts. And China exporting its way out of trouble might place an undue burden on the rest of the global economy. In the past, rich countries could shrug off the sort of adjustments in emerging markets that appear to be looming. But times have changed. Chinas last real economic dip occurred during the financial crisis, when the entire world was reeling. The last serious growth hiccup before that was after the Tiananmen Square unrest in 1989. At that time Chinese GDP was about 4% of the global total; now it is 19% (measured at purchasing-power parity, or PPP). Over the same period emerging markets share of world GDP has risen from 36% to 59% at PPP. Those markets could cause a downturn in the global economy all by themselves. Yet not everything is rosy in the rich world either. Although the euro-area economy enjoyed faster growth in 2017, the boom has since cooled, even as the European Central Bank (ECB) has moved toward monetary tightening. An end to quantitative easing by the ECB, set for the end of 2018, and the prospect of rate increases, probably would not be enough to endanger the euro-area recovery. But an end to asset purchases could make markets react faster to political changes that threaten to reignite the euro crisis. Italy, in particular, is a ticking time bomb. The election of a populist coalition in March rattled bond markets. With Italian government debt at around 2trn, or 130% of GDP, it would not take much to set off a new crisis, which would be extremely difficult to control. Panic in Italy might radiate out across financial markets, putting a chill on investment and growth worldwide. America has its own vulnerabilities. The ratio of non-financial corporate debt to GDP has reached an all-time high of more than 73%. A worryingly large share of recent borrowing has come in the form of leveraged loans, an alternative to bonds. The business is reminiscent of the mortgage-backed security market which featured prominently in the global financial crisis. Investor demand for such securities has rocketed in recent years, because payouts vary with interest rates, which have been rising. The size of the market has doubled since 2010, to more than $1trn, and is now nearly as large as the market for high-yield bonds. Expansion in lending has come at the expense of credit standards. The share of new leveraged loans considered to have weak protections against default is growing; in the first quarter of 2018 it exceeded 80%. Despite the parallels with pre-crisis mortgage lending, a meltdown in this market is unlikely to generate the same havoc. But an outbreak of defaults could contribute to a rapid contraction in lending to firms and a tightening of creditsufficient, perhaps, to touch off a new American recession. One of the lessons of the crisis is that panics can be caused by things hidden until it is too late. One such surprise might be a rise in the cost of oil. Prices have crept up over the past year, from $50 per barrel to around $80. Politically generated disruptions to supply in Venezuela and Iran could strain the market further. A number of other black swans may be heading upriver even now. Costly frauds may be hiding within underexamined corporate balance-sheets. Elections could go one way not another. Global pandemics might erupt. Once credit, spending and optimism have reigned for a time, the interplay of foreseen and unforeseen circumstances may cause them to stop doing so. At that point behaviour which seemed reasonable and responsible will start to look like folly, the crazy projects of the world will seem unconscionably reckless, and the world will be in trouble again. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 03:57:38|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close GENEVA, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- More than 8.4 million people in Yemen are living on the edge of famine in the world's largest hunger crisis, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said Wednesday, adding it needs more resources to feed them. Herve Verhoosel, senior spokesperson for the WFP in Geneva, said that according to the Integrated Phase Classification scale, 8.4 million people are in "emergency phase", which means the situation is so dire these that people could fall into famine if they do not continue to receive adequate and sustained food and nutrition assistance. The WFP noted that the number of people close to famine is increasing each day due to "causes entirely related to man-made conflict." This number will increase sharply in the next projection, and could reach up to 14 million, said Verhoosel who noted that formally declaring a famine is based on the outcome of a scientific process. "WFP currently has enough cereals in the country to assist 6.4 million of the hungriest Yemenis for two and a half months, and we aim to reach 8 million," he said. Ensuring the free flow of both commercial and humanitarian food into the country is key to addressing the growing hunger crisis across the country, given that Yemen depends almost entirely on food imports, said the spokesperson. As of mid-October, the WFP had several food shipments on their way to Yemen destined to various ports throughout the country and has started to use the port of Salalah, in neighboring Oman, as a supplementary route. "In order to maintain and scale up crucial food assistance, WFP urgently needs a minimum 117 million U.S. dollars over the coming six months," said Verhoosel. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 04:22:47|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BERLIN, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Only 38 of the 97 heavy military equipment newly delivered to the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) in 2017 can currently be used, according to an official report by the ministry of defense seen by the German press agency (dpa) on Wednesday. According to the report in response to a parliamentary enquiry by the left party (Die Linke), the quality of delivery could "still be improved" particularly regarding the A400M transport aircraft and the Puma infantry fighting vehicle. Only 27 of the 71 Puma tanks delivered last year are operational and only four out of eight new A400M aircrafts are airworthy. "We are still seeing the industry in the duty to fulfil the stipulated services as quickly as possible," said parliamentary state secretary Peter Tauber in response to the enquiry by Matthias Hoehn, member of parliament of Die Linke. Operational readiness of the new military equipment is well below the average of all 53 main weapon systems that are available to the German military. The latest internal investigation from February 2018 shows that over half of these older weapon systems are operational. The goal of the Bundeswehr is to keep 70 percent of its weapon systems ready for deployment. Defense minister Ursula von der Leyen announced a major reform of Germany's armed forced shortly after she took office and seeks to significantly improve the operational readiness of the German military's equipment. According to left party member Hoehn, von der Leyen would not live up to her own expectations. "It is a scandal if Ms. von der Leyen allows this billion-dollar botch by the arms industry at the taxpayer's expenses." On Wednesday, von der Leyen visited a German field camp near the Oslo-Gardermoen airport which is part of the multinational NATO maneuver "Trident Juncture" currently taking place in Norway. During the NATO operation, Germany deploys the second largest contingent of troops after the United States with about 8,000 soldiers. In addition, almost 100 tanks and several ships of the German navy are taking part in the "Trident Juncture" maneuver in the Scandinavian country. People gather to protest the arrival of U.S. President Donald Trump as he visits the Tree of Life Congregation on Oct. 30, 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the United States. (AFP Photo) WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. federal jury has charged a Pennsylvania man with 44 counts, including hate crimes, for killing 11 and injuring six people during shootings at a synagogue in Pittsburgh last weekend, authorities announced Wednesday. "Hatred and violence on the basis of religion can have no place in our society," U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a press release, announcing the charges against Robert Bowers, 46, of Baldwin, state of Pennsylvania. According to the indictment, Bowers drove to the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood last Saturday where members of three congregations gathered to engage in religious worship. The indictment alleges that after entering the building, Bowers, armed with multiple firearms, opened fire, killing and injuring worshippers, as well as injuring multiple responding public safety officers. Inside the building, Bowers made statements indicating his desire to "kill Jews." The victims include 11 worshipers at the synagogue who were killed, and two members of the congregations who were critically injured by Bowers. Nine other members of the congregations escaped unharmed. In addition, four law enforcement officers were injured while trying to stop Bowers' rampage. "Today begins the process of seeking justice for the victims of these hateful acts, and healing for the victims' families, the Jewish community, and our city," U.S. Attorney Scott Brady said. "Our office will spare no resource, and will work with professionalism, integrity and diligence, in a way that honors the memories of the victims," Brady said. The funerals for the victims began on Tuesday and are continuing through the rest of the week. U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump traveled to Pittsburgh Tuesday afternoon to offer condolences to the victims of the Synagogue shooting. The FBI conducted the investigation, leading to the indictment in this case. Bowers, a truck driver, remained jailed without bail ahead of a preliminary hearing scheduled for Thursday. He faces a maximum possible penalty of death, or life without parole, followed by a consecutive sentence of 535 years of imprisonment. An indictment is a formal accusation of conduct, not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 05:12:57|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close CHICAGO, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- General Motors on Wednesday reported 2.5 billion U.S. dollar profit in the third quarter, up significantly year on year, thanks to satisfactory performance in North America and China. The profit was in sharp contrast to a year ago, when GM posted a huge loss due to the sale of its failing Opel-Vauxhall business in Europe. GM North America posted strong margins of 10.2 percent in the third quarter, driven by an increase in average transaction prices. The U.S. automaker delivered nearly 700,000 vehicles in its home market in the third quarter, while some 836,000 vehicles were delivered in China in the same period. GM's losses in South America were offset by the 500 million dollars it made in China. "Our third-quarter performance demonstrates our determination to manage risks and deliver strong business results while continuing to advance the future of mobility," said GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra in a statement. Despite challenging market conditions, according to the Q3 report, GM China achieved record third-quarter equity income, driven by a strong mix of vehicles in popular segments, led by record Cadillac sales and strong Chevrolet deliveries. In a bid to keep its momentum in China, GM has been introducing 10 new or refreshed models in the second half of 2018. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 05:33:00|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close BUCHAREST, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Sibiu Salami, a Romanian deli, will be promoted in Romania, Spain and Italy for three years, with a European grant of 1.5 million euros (1.7 million U.S. dollars), announced the Association of Sibiu Salami Producers on Wednesday. The association also announced Nov. 1 would become "National Day of Sibiu Salami" starting this year. Sibiu Salami is the only Romanian product of the processed meat category recognized in 2016 with the European quality distinction Protected Geographical Indication (PGI). And the Association of Sibiu Salami Producers won the 1.5 million-euro EU grant in 2017. "Sibiu Salami remains a super premium niche sausage in the minds of our consumers...the annual consumption is only four slices per capita in Romania," Carmen Gavrilescu, president of the association, told a press conference. According to her, production in 2017 was 2,100 tonnes and they forecast 2,400 tonnes this year. "Our goal is to reach 3,000 tons in the next two years." As for the National Day of Sibiu Salami on Nov.1, Gavrilescu explained that it's the time when INDAGRA, the most famous fair for agriculture in Romania, is held and it is the place where manufacturers meet with consumers and retailers. The delicious ruby-colored salami, covered with white noble mold that has been produced in Romania for over 100 years, following the same recipe and the same processes. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 06:08:10|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close HELSINKI, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- A court in Helsinki on Wednesday gave prison sentences to people involved in a high-profile art forgery trial. The owner of Galerie Vision was given a five year sentence and her spouse four years. A man who had assisted got three years. Galerie Vision in Helsinki had been the center of operations for extensive sales of forged art for five years. The most expensive forged work was sold as a painting by the French artist Fernard Leger (1881-1955) at 2.2 million euros. Prosecutor Pertti Kononen told national broadcaster Yle that the verdict sent the right message "to the people to be more careful in purchasing art". The court also sentenced some 13 million euros compensation. The court did not order the convicted to be detained at this stage. It is possible the cases will go to the appeals court level. Some of the paintings sold as works of Leger are still missing. The police would have preferred that all the forged works be confiscated as criminality tools, but that did not happen. Police consider it possible that they would be recycled in further transactions. Leading Finnish art dealerships, Bukowski and Hagelstam, have assured measures have been taken to avoid forgeries in the future. Former employees of both houses were among the accused, but the charges were dropped. Galrie Vision itself was declared bankrupt in mid-October this year. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 06:08:10|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close DAMASCUS, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has temporarily suspended its wide-scale offensive against the Islamic State (IS) in eastern Syria amid Turkish strikes, a war monitor reported Wednesday. The SDF, which was amassing a large number of forces to have another round of battles against the IS on the eastern bank of Euphrates River, has temporarily halted their offensive after they came under Turkish shelling, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Britain-based watchdog group said the Turkish side, which has been threatening to launch offensives on the Kurdish-led SDF in the eastern Euphrates, held meetings with Turkish-backed rebels as part of the preparations to launch an offensive on the Kurdish-led groups. It said the preliminary Turkish shelling Wednesday targeted the SDF positions in the areas of Ayn al-Arab, or Kobane, as well as in the town of Tal Abyad in northern Syria, killing four fighters. With the shelling, the SDF had to halt the campaign against IS in the group's last pocket in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zour province in eastern Syria, said the observatory. The SDF has been on crushing offensive against IS in the eastern Euphrates since Sept. 10, but the terror-designated group succeeded in a counter-offensive recently to recapture all fallen areas from the SDF. After this setback, the U.S.-backed SDF started amassing forces again for another round of battles to dislodge IS in its last pocket in eastern Syria. Despite the tension that would grow with the U.S., Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that his country had finalized plans for a "comprehensive and effective" operation that would target the U.S.-backed Kurdish groups in the east of the Euphrates River. His remarks came a day after the Turkish forces shelled positions of the Kurdish militia in northern Syria. The Turkish stance also reflects the desire to defeat the Kurdish militia in the eastern Euphrates after they had already pushed them to retreat from the western side of the river in two cross-border operations in 2016 and 2018. Throughout the over seven-year-long war in Syria, Turkey has made it clear it won't tolerate a growing Kurdish influence in northern Syria near the Turkish border. Ankara has already backed Syrian rebels to push the Kurdish forces out of the northern enclave of Afrin earlier this year. Source: Xinhua| 2018-11-01 06:18:13|Editor: Yurou Video Player Close PARIS, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Current world No. 1 Rafael Nadal announced his withdrawal from the ATP Paris Masters 2018 due to an abdominal problem, while seeded players unsurprisingly moved through the second round here on Wednesday. Nadal's withdrawal is set to send Novak Djokovic back to the top spot in the upcoming ATP rankings for the first time in two years. "The last few days I started to feel a little bit the abdominal, especially when I was serving," Nadal told a news conference. "I was checking with the doctor and the doctor says that is recommended to not play, because if I continue the abdominal maybe can break and can be a major thing, and I really don't want that," he added. Nadal was expected to make his return in Paris after retiring in the U.S. Open semifinals due to a knee injury. He was scheduled to face his fellow Spanish Fernando Verdasco in the second round on Wednesday afternoon, but made his decision to withdraw from the competition just prior to the duel. Tunisian Malek Jaziri, in place of Nadal as a lucky loser, stepped up to see off Verdasco 7-6 (5), 1-6, 6-3. Third-seeded Roger Federer enjoyed a walkover into last 16 as his opponent Milos Raonic from Canada withdrew from the competition due to an elbow injury. The Swiss legend will next face Fabio Fognini, who also benefited a walkover from his Hungarian opponent Marton Fucsovics' withdrawal. No. 6 seed Dominic Thiem got over home crowds' support to eliminate Frenchman Gilles Simon in straight sets. Thiem, the 2018 Roland Garros runner-up, took advantage of his high-quality serves to snatch four games in a row before building a commanding 5-1 lead, but the home favorite regrouped and responded by winning three games in a row. Then Thiem steadied his nerves for a 6-4 first set win with an ace. The Austrian was well on track to victory with five games in hand in the second set. Although Simon triumphed the following two games, Thiem managed to convert his second match point at 6-2. Thiem controls his own destiny at No. 8 in the ATP Race to London, while Kei Nishikori and John Isner, two chasers for ATP Finals spots, also marched through Wednesday's match. Nishikori overcame Adrian Mannarino of France 7-5, 6-4. Isner beat Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan 6-3, 6-7 (2), 7-6 (1). For a chance to qualify for the Finals, Nishikori needs to reach the semifinals and Isner must advance to the final at the Paris Masters. Defending champion Jack Sock saw off French veteran Richard Gasquet 6-3, 6-3, seeing no Frenchman through the singles second round. Other prominent names like Alexander Zverev, Kevin Anderson and Grigor Dimitrov also secured their berths in Thursday's round of 16. The government yesterday denied that it is considering a new ban on Sunday shopping after the Innovation and Technology Ministry state secretary Peter Cseresnyes scheduled a meeting with the head of government-friendly retail workers union KDFSZ. The union suggested that the government is reconsidering a full or maybe partial Sunday closing. The government firmly denied this, saying in a statement that the ban on working on Sundays is a closed issue and the government does not intend to re-open this question. KDFSZ leader Csaba Bubenko said the cabint had asked the ministry to put the issue of Sunday closing on the agenda. Hungary is a European hub for the development of autonomous vehicle systems, the innovation and technology minister said after an informal meeting of European transportation ministers in Graz. Hungary is a leader in the research and development of technologies that support the future of selfdriving cars, Laszlo Palkovics told MTI. This was why, he said, the government has decided to build a globally unique test environment which includes a self-driving vehicle test track in Zalaegerszeg, in western Hungary. Hungary is also collaborating with Austria and Slovenia in the development of selfdriving vehicles, the minister said, adding that the countries wanted to see how such a car behaves when it crosses borders. Palkovics said Hungary is also a leader in the use of 4G and 5G networks. MTI photo: Illyes Tibor The son of one of New Yorks most notorious slumlords is following in his fathers footsteps, according to the tenants in a South Bronx building he owns. The 386 East 139th St. Tenants Associations lawsuit against Saul Piller, son of Moshe Piller, and his property-management company, went to trial October 29th, after Bronx Housing Court Judge David J. Bryan rejected the landlords motion to dismiss the case. The nine tenants suing allege that the building has chronic problems with rats, leaks, and lack of heat and hot water; that the landlord has either failed to do repairs ordered by the city last year or done inadequate patch jobs; and that he has harassed tenants by filing baseless eviction cases against some and offering others money to move out. Basically, hes a slumlord, says Shaquan Clark, 42, a tax-preparation office manager who moved in about two and a half years ago. Her kitchen ceiling caved in from leaks, and the lights in the buildings common areas are often broken, she says. Sometimes, when you go in the hallway, its black. Saul Piller acquired the five-story red-brick walkup in 2014 for $1,430,000, according to property records. His father, Moshe Piller, was ranked fourth on the Public Advocates 100 Worst Landlords list in 2015 and owns a Hunts Point building where two baby girls were scalded to death when a radiator burst in December 2016. The two are partners in Ryms Realty Group, which in 2014 spent $40 million to buy a building at Broadway and 37th Street in Manhattan. A rat hole recently plugged up in Shaquan Clark's apartment (Steven Wishnia / Gothamist) The 139th Street tenants began organizing in late 2016, led by Juan Cano, who has lived in the building since 2000, on the same floor as his mother and nephew. He had the advantage of being fluent in both English and Spanish. We were barely getting any heat and I think its because we were being punished because the landlord just wanted us out, Cano declared in a court affidavit. There was garbage everywhere. Thats around the time that rats and mice started to infest the building. In March 2017, the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development got a court to order the landlord to provide heat and hot water. HPD and other city agencies also found repeated signs of rat infestation. Tenants say some repairs have been made. Lillian Morada, 93, points at her newly plastered bathroom ceiling. They fixed it a couple weeks ago, she says. But she still keeps towels stuffed into the window to prevent rain from coming in. Its just the half-assed patching up, says Shaquan Clark. She says her bathroom ceiling was fixed, but the source of the leak wasnt. The moisture is in the yellowness, she adds, pointing at a discolored spot. When it rains, thats when the water leaks in. Several tenants claim they were offered buyouts to move out, and in February, the landlord tried to evict Morada, a rent-controlled tenant, and another woman whose rent is subsidized because she is disabled. Piller quickly dropped both cases. The building is on the corner of Willis Avenue, a wide, sunny street of churches, housing projects, bodegas, and schools. Its a few blocks north of the gentrifier-beachhead Piano District, but Cano says the landlords motive for wanting them out is less upscale: The city will pay $2,000 to $3,000 a month to rent apartments for formerly homeless people. Shaquan Clark (right) and another tenant outside 386 East 139th Street (Steven Wishnia / Gothamist) Shaquan Clark is one of them. She says the cluster site housing program shes in pays the landlord about $2,500 a month in rent, and her share varies with her income. In tax season she pays $1,875, but in the off-season, when she works part-time, it goes down to $400. The main harassment is around repairs, tenants say. They were mad because I reported them, says Morada. The disabled woman told the court that when she complained, a burly building worker she knows as Dmitri told her, youre stepping on the wrong toes. Tenants are more afraid of asking the landlord for repairs than of the problems, says Rajiv Jaswa, an Urban Justice Center lawyer representing them. As two reporters enter the building, Dmitri tells them its private property. Escorted by a group of tenants, they ignore him. Clark points out the gap between her kitchen counter and the wall and the hole around the pipe under her sink, both places where she says rats got into her apartment. Theyve been hastily filled with foam. Downstairs, she and another tenant show the uneven staircase, with empty spots under the steps filled with plaster, a rathole in the wall, and the three-inch gap under the door to the basement, wide enough for rats to come through. They tell you not to talk, but thats not fair, she says. What about the next person who moves in? Calls to numbers listed under an address for Saul and Moshe Piller have gone unanswered. The landlords lawyer had argued that the tenants suit should be dismissed because they could not claim an actual injury traceable to the defendant; that the only evidence about building conditions that should be considered was the owners work orders, because the tenants complaints were opinions; and that allegations about harassment were a community spread vicious rumor. I can confidently state that myself or no member of my staff have never contacted a tenant regarding signing a buyout agreement or surrender agreement; never interfered in tenant associations meeting; sending inaccurate rent statements; entered apartment without authorization; commenced frivolous evictions; and used threaten language that harasses a tenant, property manager Sam Rosner averred in an affidavit filed October 11th. From my knowledge no direct evidence of harassment of tenants by the staff, landlords or owners. He called the tenants suit a "game of 'he said, she said'" and accused the Urban Justice Center of wanting to use "their most friendly forum in the Judicial branch" to "usurp the Legislative branch by making laws to stop gentrification." Judge Bryan postponed the trial to November 13th after the landlords lawyer asked to withdraw from the case. An enormous skeleton of a building had lied abandoned for years on an outlying plot in Kiskunfelegyhaza suggesting that its construction may have been halted due to bankruptcy. What used to be an eyesore, however, is now a fully completed factory surrounded by barb wire: this is where the Hungarian military industry has been rejuvenated and where arms production will fully start next January. The factory will produce weapons based on licenses from a Czech manufacturer. The project cost close to 22 billion Hungarian forints at the current exchange rate, this is approximately 67 million. Prime minister Viktor Orban has been working on strengthening the military of Hungary for years, and he has also been trying to make the military more popular among citizens. The brand new, 67-million firearm factory is part of this push. In the summer of 2018 Orban appointed former defense minister Istvan Simicsko as the government representative for patriotic education. Simicskos job is to figure out how to integrate patriotic education into the national curriculum. This month the current defense minister Tibor Benko said that he wants to add eight thousand soldiers to the army: he would raise their numbers from 29700 to 37650. Moreover, the soon-to-be-fired civil servants, according to press reports, will be forced to join the reserve army if they want to qualify for help from the state to find new jobs. It has been reported that the government is planning to make nine or ten thousand civil servants redundant. There will be infrastructure development as well: a government decree from last September says that the state will build 40 new shooting ranges in 2017 and 2018. The cost is 17 billion Hungarian forints. Budapests St. Andrea Wine & Gourmet Bar has announced it is joining the National Ambulance Services "Life Saving Point" initiative, committed to helping anyone suffering a cardiac arrest, according to a press release sent to the Budapest Business Journal. The establishment now pledges to provide life-saving treatment inside the restaurant as well as in the immediate vicinity of the Eiffel Palace building, in which it is housed. As part of the program, the St. Andrea Wine & Gourmet Bar is now fitted with a semi-automatic defibrillator. Some 26 staff members of the restaurant were educated on basic methods to save lives, making sure they could help anyone with a cardiac arrest in need of pre-hospital treatment. This education is one of the key requirements of an establishment becoming a "Life Saving Point." The brand is being built by the National Ambulance Service to save lives, with the main focus on social responsibility. Those who gain the label become part of a movement to create a safer living environment, according to the press release. Photo: Representatives of St. Andrea Wine & Gourmet Bar showing off their certification from the National Ambulance Service. Iti doresti fonduri nerambursabile pentru IMM-ul tau? Primul pas este alegerea consultantului potrivit Una dintre cele mai potrivite metode prin care iti poti dezvolta afacerea este obtinerea Fondurilor Nerambursabile. Fondurile Nerambursabile pot proveni de la Uniunea Europeana sau de la Stat, [citeste mai departe] There is a Han behind Han Dynasty, which in 11 years has grown from a single Sichuan restaurant in Exton into a nine-location mini-empire in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania suburbs, and more recently in New York City. It's Han Chiang. Chiang, who turns 40 in December and is married to the first bus girl he hired at Exton (Jing Zhang), is neither a trained chef nor businessman. In fact, he said, for the first 27 years of his life, he was a constant source of disappointment to his parents, Tao Pin and Lung Lung, who emigrated from Taiwan with Han's older sister, Cat, in 1992. Then he had an epiphany. We chatted last week at his Old City location, set up in a former brokerage house at 123 Chestnut St. Chiang is pretty much an open book, though he declined to talk about his sister, who with her husband owns DanDan restaurants in Center City and Wayne. Tell me about your childhood. Growing up in Taiwan, I was always an outcast. Always, I got beaten by the teacher almost every day. That's the system there. You're late, you didn't pass the test, talking in class. Always getting beaten up. I wasn't getting bullied, but I was bullying other kids. I was always the youngest one in my class and didn't do so well in school. I just hate reading. The school system in Taiwan they want you to memorize everything. That's not a good system for me. I was just always below average in school and that's why my parents wanted to bring me here. They think this American school system would be much better for me. When I got here, I went to a school called Octorara in Atglen [Chester County]. The first year was very hard. I was getting bullied by bigger classmates because I couldn't speak English. I was the only Asian kid in the whole school. I got suspended all the time and my parents sent me to a Christian school in the 10th grade. I went to Drexel for electrical engineering, but I got kicked out three times, each time for six months. The fourth time, they just kicked me out. Why? Because I hate school. Why did you enroll in college if you hated school? Because in the Asian culture family, that's what I'm expected to do, because both my parents are college grads. In that era, it was very rare, because they were World War II refugees. Throughout my school years in Taiwan, I was the only kid with both parents that went to college, so education is expected from my parents. My mom was very hard on me growing up. She expect me to always be working. I started when I was 7 years old in a factory. My mom always had some type of small business, and in Taiwan, you go to school six days a week. Sunday, I had to go help them at the store or something. I always loved working growing up. I worked at computer-training school, computer warehouse, and a law firm doing computers. Never in a million years I would think I would work in a restaurant business. How did that happen? I wanted to be like my mom. I want to be an entrepreneur, have my own business. By the time I got kicked out of school, I was just going down this downward spiral, depressed. Seeing all my friends, my family, everybody graduate college, getting a job, married, house, cars. I had nothing. I was still living at home with my mom, helping her with a flower shop. There's one moment in my life when I completely changed my life around. My cousin was getting married. I grew up with him. He was like my brother. He was getting married to a beautiful wife. His family is very wealthy. He already had a house, he had cars, and at the time I was nobody. On his wedding day, I got this depression over me that I'm just a no-good son of a b-. That day, I finally realized that I've been [messing up] over and over and over, and that the only blame I could blame is myself. After that day, I started working super, super hard. I had to prove to myself that I can do something out of my life. Then I started saving some money. Throughout the years, I would say, "Mom, give me some money. It's time for me to open a business." She's like, "You can't even graduate college. Once you graduate college, then we can talk about it." So, by the time I was 27, she really didn't know what to do with me anymore and she said, "All right, fine. What do you want to do?" I thought about it for a long time and I don't have any other skills. I don't know what to do, so I thought about opening a Chinese restaurant. I thought, I don't need any skills as long as I can work very, very hard. Tell me about Exton, your first restaurant. It was very hard because a lot of staff didn't really believe in me and when I told them to do things, they wouldn't really do it for me. I literally worked three years straight, 365 days a year, 10 hours a day, and I was living inside my restaurant half the time. When I opened at 108 Chestnut [in Old City], I lived in the basement for 10 months. I was obsessed with the business. There was nothing I was thinking about except my restaurants. Why was your next restaurant in Royersford? My mom did that. One day, she had a piece of paper and she's like, "Here, sign this. I just bought a restaurant in Royersford." I'm like, "Where the [heck] is Royersford? Mom, I want to go to Philadelphia." She's like, "If you don't sign it, I'll give [the restaurant] to your brother-in-law." I signed and opened Royersford. It was a good training for me that even in Royersford, I could build a Chinese restaurant. When I first opened the East Village location five years ago, a customer walked in and he's like, "Oh, you guys are from Philly right?" I'm like, "Yeah." He's like, "What are you doing in New York?" I'm like, "Haven't you heard that if you can make it in New York City, you can make it anywhere?" "You guys are from Philly, you'll never make it in New York." I'm like, "If I can make it in Royersford, I can make it anywhere." How did you think of the name Han Dynasty? In the beginning, I was thinking all these corny Chinese restaurant names like Panda and Great Wall, and then I was taking a shower one day and the name just hit me. I love history as well, so I started calling my friends and family, "I have a name for the restaurant Han Dynasty." Everybody's like, "You don't really want to do that. You don't want to use your name. What if you fail?" I was still debating using the name. Then I went to the internet and was trying to register handynasty dot com. It was taken. It was a porn site at the time. I'm like, "What?" Then I read the URL and I'm like [oh, my], this is "handy nasty," and at that moment I knew I had to name it Han Dynasty. Do you have any hobbies? Opening restaurants. Seriously? Every night, I go home, I smoke a little pot and watch some movie and play some video games. It's my way of turning down a little bit, or I can't stop thinking about restaurants. I still want to open 100 of them. Got to dream big. If you don't, how are you going to accomplish a lot of things? Do you ever worry about being spread too thin? Sometimes. When there's a problem, I always solve the problems. When one restaurant has a problem, it's fine, I can always solve it, but it's when multiple restaurants having problems, that's when I feel the pressure. I have a lot of hardworking guys who work for me. All of my managers, all of my partners, they all started working for me as a busboy, so they all have three things in common. Number one, they have to work hard. Number two is, I call it sacrifice. We've all hit rock bottom before and we use that to learn. Number three is, the person has to have a great heart. I think everything else can be taught. This weekend, in the wake of the massacre at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams raised some eyebrows when he announced he would bring his own gun into houses of worship in the future, and encouraged off-duty officers to do the same. "I'm not going to live the way it ought to be, I'm going to live the way it is," he said at a news conference outside a Jewish family services center in Midwood on Sunday. Adams's statement echoed something President Trump said after the deadly shooting: "If there was an armed guard inside the temple, they would have been able to stop him," he said. That assertion drew widespread condemnation, in part because armed officers did respond to the scene on Saturday, exchanging gunfire with alleged shooter Robert Bowers. Four on-duty officers in tactical gear were shot and injured, and Bowers was allegedly still able to kill 11 people with an AR-15-style assault rifle and at least three handguns. Adams's remarks were met with skepticism by many city officials, including City councilman Mark Levine, former NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly, and Mayor Bill de Blasio. We spoke to Adams about the controversial statements, and why he thinks it's the right way to keep worshipers safe. We've seen there's been a bit of pushback from other local politicians, including former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor de Blasio, who said, "Houses of worship do not have to have armed guards to be able to practice their religions...Thats not America." I wanted to see what your reaction to that is. Okay, now think about it for a moment. After the Pittsburgh incident, what did we put in front of all of our synagogues in the city? We put heavily armed police officers, with in some cases automatic weapons, assault weapons. That is the image you see: just about every synagogue has a patrol car, some of the larger ones we had an ESU unit with a tactical force with heavily armed guards, at the doors of all of these synagogues. After the assault in North Carolina, we did the same thing for our Christian churches. We put the police officers with heavy guns in front of these places of worship. So if we placed them out front on duty, what is the radical change to say, if you attend this synagogue or church or mosque or Sikh temple, if you are an attendee there, communicate with the leader inside your church. Let them know that you are an off-duty police officer, coordinate with them on where you should sit that you could have a view of the entire perimeter, and that the people who run the service can notify you if a person enters who is suspicious, and you could take appropriate action. A police officer is required by department policy...it is strongly encouraged that he or she carries their weapon 24 hours a day. The only restrictions placed on them is if you are going to consume alcoholthat is the only restriction. Not if you enter a house of worship, but if you are going to consume alcohol. If the mayor and police commissioner goes inside the church or synagogue, they go inside with their detail, and said detail have guns. Are all New York City officers trained for situations like this? Are there officers who carry guns who may not have the right training for these sort of scenarios? The answer is yes, we all train. We obviously get hours of training in the police academy. That is why I specifically stated that this is not something that should be for permit holders or target practice holders or people who have carry permits. They are not given training of evacuation. They're not given the training of how to deal with a stressful encounter. Police officers are given a multi-layer of training of how to discharge their weapon when they're off-duty, how to display the shields, what to do if they are confronted by responding uniformed officers. There's an entire series of training that the average New York City police officers go through to be prepared in situations like this that a person who's a mere permit holder never receives. There have been a lot of studies and academic papers in recent years that point to the fact that having more guns around does not necessarily keep people safer, and can increase the likelihood of there being a gun incident. Faced with incidents like this, is the best solution to increase or encourage more gun use? Why not promote more rules and restrictions and limits on gun ownership, other sorts of policy to stop unhinged people from getting the guns in the first place? I think what you're asking is logical and reasonable. Keep in mind that when you look at those studies, those studies are dealing with everyday people without the proper training of dealing with a stressful situation. Those studies are not dealing with police officers. If we're just talking about the O.K. Corral, where everyone brings their guns into a house of worship, that's a problem. Because not enough people understand how to properly respondhow to identify a threat, and how to terminate a threat. So the studies that everyone is pointing to, these are not studies involved police officers. They're studies involving those areas where everyone is allowed to carry a gun. That is not what I am saying. So yes, we should be looking at ways of preventing guns. I led the conversation in the state. If one Googles my record on making firearms and guns difficult to obtain, I led that legislation. I showed how easy it is to bring in high speed assault rifles walking down Broadway from Westchester County into the Bronx. I did an undercover sting to show how easy you can walk into a gun shop with just a driver's license and get a high speed ammunition clips. This has been my conversation, anti-violence, and we're dealing with two different scenarios. Here's where we are right now in America based on the trends that we can acknowledge: there is an energy in the country that an individual [will] wake up in the morning and state, "I want to hurt a particular group based on their ethnicity." Then...they are going to the locations where the groups congregate. So if I want to shoot someone that's a Sikh, I'm going to a Sikh temple. If that person wants to shoot someone that is Jewish, they go into a synagogue. So people who have these evil intentions are going to locations where people congregate. And we can't ignore that. And the best tool we have are those officersand I'm going to be very clear on what I'm calling forthose officers who attend the particular house of worship, communicating with the leadership of those houses and the staff that runs the services, identifying themselves as an off-duty officer, carrying a gun that the department states they should carry at all times, communicating with any officer out front. This is the type of coordination that will enhance the security of any house of worship. People that go to pray should not become human prey. And I don't know anyoneeven people who criticize mewhen I present them with a question, when you're sitting inside a church or synagogue or mosque with your family, someone walks in with an automatic rifle, puts 13 rounds in a clip into that gun, cock it back, and start discharging one at a time at innocent people. And if you know there's a police officer who's off-duty who worships there, part of your prayer is to pray that he's armed that he could stop this person. Even if you call the cops, which takes five minutes on average to come, it's not going to stop the innocent lives of people who are being killed, as we saw in North Carolina where about 20 people were shot, 11 people in Pittsburgh. These numbers are real. All I ask, what I want from the public is what I want for my family, and that is to have legal men and women who are trained to prevent innocent people from losing their lives. What would you say to people who feel uncomfortable with any weapons being inside a synagogue or church? People who would say, "okay, they're outside the synagogue and that is what it is, but we don't want weapons or guns being brought inside our places of worship?" And I respect that. If the congregants, if the people who run the servicethe rabbi, the pastor, the Imamif that's their decision, I respect that. But we should at least give people the opportunity to make that decision. Many people are not aware that police officers carry their guns on and off-duty. So people should at least be allowed to make that decision, to factor it into their security plan. They may tell the officer, "we don't want you to carry your gun, but we would like you to be placed somewhere in the service where you can use your law enforcement experience to do an analysis if there is a danger here." And in my conversations with many of my faith leaders, many of them now currently have armed security in their churches. And this is not new. This is not something that started with this weekend's shooting. We started this conversation after the North Carolina shootingwe asked faith leaders to start doing an analysis of their law enforcement personnel to assist in security. What do you say when President Trump suggests that we start training teachers and the gun lobby wants to start arming children, and we start training members of these communities in these scenarios? Is that an acceptable response to these scenarios? No, it's not. I think, number one, President Trump has created some of the energy that is causing some of these attacks, in my opinion. And number two, there's no replacement for a trained police officer, who not only received his training in his academies or his instructional services. Not only do they receive in-service repeated training, but they also have real life experiences of interacting with people and using police sixth sense to determine if there's a dangerous situation and how to terminate that right. The operator of Parx Casino in Bensalem was fined $25,000 on Wednesday for three instances of putting untested progressive slot machines into play. Read more An Erie casino was fined $47,500 Wednesday for allowing underage patrons access to its gaming floor, including a 20-year-old man who used the ID of a woman twice his age, but was allowed to enter after claiming he was in gender transition. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board on Wednesday levied five fines totaling $128,000 against three casinos and an equipment supplier. The sanctions included a $47,500 penalty against Presque Isle Downs and Casino in Erie County for allowing five people under 21 access to the gaming floor on different occasions. In some cases underage patrons entered Presque Isle unchallenged. But one 20-year-old man in August was stopped at the door after showing the identification of a 42-year-old woman. A security guard allowed him in after he said he was in gender transition. The man re-entered the casino two more times that night, and wagered several times at blackjack, before he left the ID with a suspicious security officer and disregarded instructions to wait. Other penalties levied Wednesday included a $25,000 fine against the operator of the Parx Casino in Bucks County for putting unapproved progressive slot machines into play, and two fines totaling $45,000 against Harrah's Philadelphia Casino & Racetrack for allowing the operation of noncompliant slot machines and for errors and omissions in its "roulette chip discrepancy logs." The board also levied a fine of $10,500 against Genesis Gaming Solutions, Inc., a Texas table games manufacturer, for failing to submit audited financial statements for three years. In this Oct. 26, 2018 photo, President Donald Trump points to the media as he speaks during a campaign rally in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton) Read more A swirl of noise and nonsense spinning around what President Trump calls a "national emergency" due to the "invasion" of our southern border by a Central American migrant caravan of "criminals and unknown Middle Easterners" is, well, just jaw-dropping. It's as transparently political as politics can get. It's aimed at base-rousing for next week's midterms. And it raises (along with the eyebrows of sensible citizens) two questions: Does it work? Does it impact Pennsylvania races? Before we go there, please remember that the whirling mix includes an olio of odd, nutsy stuff on social media, aired by some news (read Fox News) outlets suggesting that unless the caravan is stopped, we all risk imminent infection from smallpox and/or leprosy. I wish I was making this up. And Trump, as usual, is doubling down. He ordered 5,200-plus military troops to the border before Election Day, even though the caravan is weeks away. He says he'll sign an executive order ending the "ridiculous" 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship for all U.S.-born children, including those born to noncitizens. It occurs to me that if the president feels so strongly about this constitutional right (and believes he has legal authority to end it), he could have signed such an order at any point since taking office. But to Pennsylvania. State GOP Chairman Val DiGiorgio says that because the Democratic Party is a "full-throttle open-borders party," Trump's blitz of border talk is good for state Republican candidates. "I can tell you, anecdotally, it is helping energize people," DiGiorgio says. "To the extent we believe Democratic intensity has been high all year, it helps our turnout. And anything that helps Republican intensity helps all Republican candidates." When I ask if he thinks Trump's timing on a troop call-up and ending the 14th Amendment's birthright citizenship might seem politically suspicious so close to an election, he says, "The timing of this caravan is suspect. Who's putting these folks up to that?" I ask if he thinks, maybe, George Soros? "I really don't know," he says. Nancy Patton Mills, who chairs the state Democratic Party, also thinks Trump's border talk can influence the election. But in a different way. "I think it works against him," she says. "People are seeing now that the 'invasion' is a hoax. It doesn't exist. People will see through his rhetoric, and there will be a backlash against it." She adds, "And it can't be overlooked that that rhetoric was certainly part of, and somewhat an influence in, the murders here in the [Tree of Life] synagogue, because [alleged shooter Robert Bowers] said he was worried about the 'invasion.' " It has been reported that Bowers' last social media post before the shootings noted that the immigrant-aid society HIAS "likes to bring in invaders that kill our people." So, amid views that Trump's fiery rhetoric on the caravan contributed to the synagogue murders in Pittsburgh last weekend, we have Trump's fiery rhetoric on multiple border issues looking to contribute to GOP campaigns next week. It's probably worth noting that Franklin and Marshall College polling shows just 7 percent of registered state voters see immigration issues "most important" in considering candidates for U.S. Senate. Issues ranked higher include general alignment with political views, health care, and, of course, Donald Trump. Nonetheless, Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta regularly tangle on immigration. During a debate last week in Pittsburgh, Barletta referred to the caravan as "an invasion." He and his campaign often hit Casey for supporting "sanctuary cities" and open borders. If Trump's hard stress on such issues helps anyone, it's Barletta who could use it. Casey says Barletta's part of a Republican majority that does nothing on immigration. He says the GOP uses the issue "to divide people." And it does. And it fires up Trump's base. And it clearly worked two years ago. It's just hard to see how overreaching with eleventh-hour border troops and a questionable constitutional challenge makes much difference now. Unless the "invasion" gets here early, spreading pox and leprosy. Congress egged on by the polar extremes is out of step with the rest of us. Read more It's been a rough few weeks for our national psyche. The trifecta of a contentious Kavanaugh fight, a pipe bomber who targeted victims based on partisanship, and a murderous anti-Semite has saddened and sapped the nation of its energy. It's enough to make a casual observer think America is inexorably divided. But that would be the wrong conclusion. There is actually positive political news around us, if only we would appreciate and draw strength from it. Consider four recent data sets: The exhausted majority First, just days before a Florida loner began mailing explosive devices, the not-for-profit group More in Common USA released a study called Hidden Tribes. It was based on an 8,000 person survey and potentially represents the largest examination ever of America's polarized landscape. Here's the conclusion: While our nation is becoming increasingly diverse, a relatively small, outspoken, politically-active group of voters at the far ends of the aisle are the ones dividing us. Their loud voices representing a combined total of just 14 percent of us are nevertheless controlling our political discourse. On the hard left there are 8 percent of Americans, four in five of whom are white. They are well-educated, frequently vote, cheerlead for their party's campaigns, and stay active on social media. It's pretty much the same, except for viewpoint, with the 6 percent of people on the hard right. The rest of us have allowed our debate to be controlled by these warring extremes. According to the survey, about 67 percent of us comprise an "exhausted majority," unrepresented by the polar opposites and desirous of something other than the status quo. Among the majority, there is agreement even on hot-button issues. Take immigration. Three quarters of Americans support a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, or those brought illegally to the U.S. as children, if they attend college or join the military. Additionally, four out of five Americans believe that "political correctness has gone too far in America," and 81 percent agree that racism is at least somewhat of a problem in the U.S. Polarization of elected officials You'd never know there was so much unity among Americans by looking at our leaders, as evidenced in data set No. 2. While the Senate was consumed with partisan rancor over the Brett Kavanaugh nomination, a Michigan State University professor of psychology and global urban studies published a study that revealed that polarization among elected officials is at a modern all-time high and cannot get any higher. No surprise, you are probably thinking. This analysis was published in the journal Social Networks. Zachary Neal examined political networks among all members of the House and Senate. Specifically, he studied sponsorship of bills introduced in Congress between 1973 and 2016. He found that while thousands of bills are introduced each year, the average member of Congress co-sponsors only about 200. And what usually determines what they will cosponsor? Not the subject matter, but the party affiliation of the proposer. "The polarization that we're seeing today is not driven simply by members of the same party wanting to work with each other, it's now also driven by an active avoidance of bipartisan collaboration, something I might call strong polarization. It's gotten worse in every year since the 1970s," Neal told me. Average Americans no more polarized than before But just like the polar extremes who have commandeered the exhausted majority, these partisan politicians are not representative of the rest of us, as evidenced in data set No. 3, the 2017 book: "Unstable Majorities: Polarization, Party Sorting and Political Stalemate" by Stanford's Morris Fiorina. Fiorina found that despite how things appear in the news, average Americans are no more politically divided now than we were in the 1970s. The typical Democratic or Republican voter has not adopted more extreme ideological views. Instead, it's the parties and the politicians that are more polarized and have sorted into narrow groups that don't represent the whole of us. Sadly, what many have done is to think worse of the other side. It's become personal, not issue-driven. Growth of Independents No wonder, then, what is revealed in data set No. 4, the latest monthly survey by Gallup, which found that while those identifying as Republican or Democrat is in decline, the number of Independents continues to grow. According to Gallup, 26 percent of Americans say they are Republicans, 27 percent say they are Democrats, but 44 percent say they are Independents. Yes, there is political division in the nation too much of it! But Congress egged on by the polar extremes is out of step with the rest of us. That's the good news. Every Day Is Extra By John Kerry Simon & Schuster. 622 pp. $35 Reviewed by Beverly Gage At about 600 pages, John Kerry's autobiography offers a detailed account of his life from birth to the present, recounting his path from naval officer to antiwar activist to local politician and finally to Democratic presidential candidate and secretary of state. This could have been a complicated tale, spiked with insight about the dilemmas of power or the challenges of legitimacy now facing America's liberal elite. But Kerry mostly skims along the surface, offering stories of boarding school and Vietnam and the campaign trail in an even, conversational tone. Many of those stories especially about Vietnam and Massachusetts politics are interesting, but the whole never quite manages to be greater than the sum of its parts. The book's title hints at a certain late-life humility, yet the memoir suffers from a lack of self-scrutiny on some fundamental political questions. For example, Kerry does not engage persuasively with the major, inescapable fact of his birth into a life of privilege. Recall that this is a man who spent much of 2004 facing down accusations that he was out of touch with the people, windsurfing while the world burned. In his memoir, he remains surprisingly untroubled by this populist critique. The same might be said about many other chapters of his life. One exception was his service in Vietnam, the most dramatic section of the book and ultimately the launching pad for his political career. After graduating from Yale, Kerry volunteered to serve as a naval officer and famously ended up assigned to the Swift boats, lumbering river patrol vehicles whose loud engines and difficult controls never quite lived up to the agile promise of their name. Kerry evokes the tedium, thrill, and fear of Swift boat service, along with the anguish of losing close friends in an unwinnable war. Today, he comes at the story with righteous outrage, not only about the poor decisions of U.S. leaders but also about the distortions and false accusations made by fellow veterans during the 2004 presidential campaign. "What still sticks in my craw is the way these men who served on Swift boats themselves turned the words Swift boat into a pejorative." Even here, though, he shies away from some knotty questions including his decision to support the Iraq War more than three decades after denouncing Vietnam as a mistake and a national tragedy. Kerry ends up blaming George W. Bush for failing to deliver on commitments to diplomacy and multilateralism, but he reserves his greatest umbrage for the antiwar activists who split with him over Iraq. "I was naive and overly optimistic to think that the activists would judge my record since 1971 and stick by me rather than get behind someone who had never bled with them," he writes with indignation without quite addressing whether Iraq, in the end, turned out to be a repeat of what went wrong in Vietnam. Kerry is at his best not in wrestling with such existential difficulties but in describing the dilemmas of on-the-ground politics: how to choose a vice presidential candidate, how to decide whether to accept public money. He recalls the 2004 race as the "last presidential campaign of a more personal era," when it was still possible for candidates to talk honestly with individual voters without worrying that the exchange would end up online. He harbors a certain nostalgia for the lost world of bipartisan Washington, where politicians of differing views tolerated one another at dinner or prayer breakfasts or in the Senate gym. When Kerry name-drops, it's often in homage to that bygone capital, where men like Ted Kennedy and John McCain could give as good as they got and still shake hands at the next cocktail party. Unsurprisingly, Kerry aims most of his hostile fire at Republicans. Though he can't help admiring the party's strategic success, he worries about the decline of truth, virtue, and democracy that seems to have accompanied Republican rule. He views himself as the canary in the coal mine. "It was amazing how low their party stooped," he writes of the 2004 campaign. "I had volunteered to go to Vietnam. Bush didn't. Cheney didn't." He concludes that "politics had clearly entered a dark, new chapter" by then and has been growing dimmer ever since. For all of this partisan hostility, though, it's worth keeping in mind what Kerry and Bush have in common: Both came from wealthy, elite families with longstanding political ties; they even went to Yale at the same time. In recent years, Republicans have been adept at selling their high-born candidates as champions of the common man. Democrats, by contrast, have allowed themselves to be cast as insular elites, preaching to the masses while talking mostly to each other. Despite its value as the record of a life in politics, Every Day Is Extra will do little to dispel that myth. Beverly Gage teaches U.S. political history at Yale. Artist Jeff Koons in front of one of his "Gazing Ball" paintings in The Price of Everything, directed by Nathaniel Kahn. Read more Near the opening of Nathaniel Kahn's sharp, highly entertaining new documentary, The Price of Everything, former auctioneer Simon de Pury remarks that "it's very important for good art to be expensive. You only protect things that are valuable. If something has no financial value, people don't care." And at the end of the movie, paintings just auctioned for millions upon millions of dollars are trucked off to a secure Brooklyn warehouse and packed away, out of sight behind metal grates, presumably until some future moment when the grates are rolled up and the paintings are trucked off to another auction to be sold again for even more millions of dollars. Kahn, the son of Philadelphia's great 20th-century architect Louis Kahn, calls the moment when the gates come down and the art is locked away out of sight "the tail that snaps around and stings you" at the movie's end. Art locked away unseen in the dark of an outer borough such a dismal fate for work made to be seen. From creation to storage, Kahn takes the viewer on a voyage through a phantasmagorical world of ludicrous oceans of wealth sloshing around in search of a bucket of art to drown. When the film opens in Philadelphia Nov. 2 at the Philadelphia Film Center (formerly the Prince Theater), the filmmaker will be on hand for the 7:30 p.m. performance, along with producer Jennifer Blei Stockman, former president of the Guggenheim Museum, for give and take with the audience. He'll return Nov. 5, but that screening is sold out. Best known, probably, for the documentary My Architect (2003), about his father, Nathaniel Kahn managed to gain entree to the penthouses of the high rollers, the studios of the art makers, the planning sessions of the sellers and the dealers. "Artists have been collected by patrons and wealthy people and kings and princes and princesses since the Renaissance and no doubt before," Kahn, 55 and a native Philadelphian, said in a recent interview. "But never before have we seen what we're seeing now a whole different kind of use of art, and that is art as speculative financial instrument. That is a reflection of the world we live in today." Here is artist Jeff Koons, as slick-talking as any wolf of Wall Street (where he got his career off the ground selling commodities and other financial instruments), and just as rich, standing in the midst of his art-production factory while dozens of studio workers turn out his artwork copies of Old Masters with large, shiny Christmas balls affixed to the canvas. Koons argues that it makes no difference that he isn't "physically doing it" because he created "the systems" through which the workers turn out a Koons. Here is former plastics manufacturer Stefan Edlis, displaying his fabulous art collection neatly chronicled in a computer spreadsheet for all to see. Edlis, who is actually a nuanced and sympathetic character, points out that "to be an effective collector, deep down you have to be shallow." Edlis shows off his his own Koons "Gazing Ball" attached to a replica of Gustave Courbet's Le Sommeil. "I have a Courbet!" he enthuses. "A knockoff doesn't get you a lot of credit as an art collector because anybody can do that, but put a gazing ball on it and presto!" Here is Larry Poons, who with his rhyming fellow artist lends a kind of dialectical tension to the film. Poons was one of the stars of the 1960s world of Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns. But Poons had an epiphany: He realized that if he stayed in that swirl of New York, he would be trapped into making the same thing over and over. The money and fame and fortune were too seductive. Poons withdrew to an upstate farmhouse and, though he continued to show annually in the city, he showed what he wanted to, not what collectors demanded. Kahn captures Poons, now 80, at the moment when he is preparing for a new gallery exhibition on his own terms of extraordinarily colorful and expressive work, so different from his efforts as a young man. The impish Poons, craggy and white-haired, tells Kahn that "art and money have no intrinsic hookup at all." "It's not like sports, where your batting average is your batting average," Poons says. "You know, that's the bottom line . They tried to make it much like that: like, the best artist is the most expensive artist, same thing." Price certainly has nothing to do with the quality of art, Poons says. "Art doesn't give a s-," he says. Kahn, who records all of this (and a great deal more), says that for better or for worse, "capitalism finds a way to make a market out of everything." "Ultimately, art is about communication," he says. "Art is driven by artists who have something to express that is about who we are and the human experience. It's about their moment in time. It's also about trying to touch the timeless. These are things we definitely need in our society and in our culture. It's about who we are." So having spent months with Poons and Koons (for a while, Kahn said, the documentary was tentatively titled From Poons to Koons), what are artists telling us about ourselves? "We are often confusing the price of something with its intrinsic value," Kahn said. Collector Edlis makes the point in the film, quoting Oscar Wilde's definition of a cynic. He and Kahn are discussing a painting in Edlis' collection. "I bought it for $10 million," Edlis says. "For $10 million in '97?" Kahn responds. "Yeah," says Edlis. "What would this piece be worth now?" Kahn asks. "$100 million," Edlis says. "Seems a crazy amount of money," Kahn says. "Do you think it's worth it?" Says Edlis: "Well, let's see. The stretcher is probably worth $80, and we have some high-quality canvas. I don't know about the cost of the paints. There's a lot of people that know the price of everything and the value of nothing. So, apply that." "The Price of Everything" will also be available Nov. 12 on HBO Go and HBO Now, and Nov. 13 via On Demand. Judging by the Dock Street Brewery T-shirt that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia cocreator Rob McElhenney has sported in a few episodes of the show, his character, Mac is a pretty big fan of the West Philly-based beer company. But unlike with Chase Utley, Mac's other obsession, the crew over at Dock Street appears to love him right back. So much, in fact, that the company has brewed a beer to encourage McElhenney to pay Dock Street a visit sometime in the near future. Dubbed "The Gang Tries to Get Mac to Come to Dock Street," the brew is a 5.5 percent alcohol milk stout that Dock Street plans to drop for It's Always Sunny's season 13 finale next week. According to a release, 16-ounce cans of the beer will go up for sale at the brewery (701 S 50th St) starting at 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 7. Dock Street will also hold a viewing party for It's Always Sunny's season-ender starting at 10 p.m., and will remain open through 10:30 p.m. to celebrate the finale. Fans can RSVP for the event via Facebook. "We might get a visit, we might get a lawsuit, but at least we'll be laughing," the company said via a release. Fans who can't make it out to the brewery can order the beer via the GoPuff app. No other retailers will be carrying the It's Always Sunny tribute beer. While Mac appears to be a Dock Street fan, he is far from the biggest drinker in the Gang, as a study from Alcohol.org showed earlier this year. The biggest drunk is actually Charlie Day's Charlie Kelly, who, across 12 seasons of the show, racked up 324 references to drugs or alcohol. Mac, meanwhile, came in second-to-last out of the group with 217 mentions in 12 seasons, followed by Danny DeVito's frank with 14 references. Regardless of their level of drunkenness, the Gang this week returns to the Eagles' win in Super Bowl LII. The episode, titled "The Gang Wins the Big Game," follows Mac, Frank, and a few other cast members to Minnesota as they watch the Birds take down the Patriots. Charlie, who was left back in Philly on accident last week, meanwhile, holds down the fort at home. What will happen in the finale, however, is anyone's guess. It's Always Sunny airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on FXX. Check out a preview of this week's episode below: Christina Duckett-Brooker, left, adds grated cheddar to a pot of macaroni and cheese crafted by students in Cooking with Confidence, a program created in partnership with the Free Library of Philadelphia's Culinary Literacy Center and the Philadelphia Autism Project designed to teach adults with autism basic cooking skills. Read more Four adults, ranging in age from 21 to 29, gathered in the Free Library of Philadelphia's Culinary Literary Center, each with a different tool a chef's knife, a wooden mixing spoon, a metal grater, a baking dish waiting to be buttered. The budding cooks are participants of this fall's Cooking with Confidence program, a three-class series geared to those on the autism spectrum. The free classes are open to anyone 18 and older who has the ability to use language, with or without an augmentative communication device. "I'm 23. I can't go trick-or-treating anymore, but I do want to be Beyonce," Christina Duckett-Brooker said, buttering a baking dish soon to be filled with veggie-loaded mac and cheese. Without pausing, she changed the subject. "We're making butterscotch squash," she said to the cooking instructor standing before her, turning a butternut squash into butterscotch-color cubes. Then: "Do you like Whitney Houston?" The classes, which began in 2017, were established by the Culinary Literary Center in partnership with the Philadelphia Autism Project of the A.J. Drexel Autism Institute at Drexel University. Duckett-Brooker always smiling, always chatting says she's thrilled to be a part of the educational opportunity. "The primary goal is centered on the basic life skill of cooking everyone needs to know how to make a meal, and people with autism are no exception," said Lindsay Shea, program director of the Philadelphia Autism Project. "There's also a huge social component. We hope this helps participants gain the skills they need to feel comfortable having a meal with friends." According to the most recent Pennsylvania Autism Needs Assessment, more than half of autistic people surveyed reported they wanted more friendships or more romantic relationships, and close to half said they wished they had more friends with whom to socialize or confide in. Autism Spectrum Disorder spans a broad range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech, and nonverbal communication. "There's a wide variety of presentations of autism, and the social deficits are embodied in many, many different ways," Shea said. "An individual may make too much eye contact or too little, or have personal space issues, whether they situate themselves too close or too far from a person they're speaking with, or they might have a conversation with you about trains, and talk only about trains for an entire hour." Though each person with ASD is different, Shea said everyday skills like sitting down to have a conversation over dinner often become challenging. "In the cooking classes, there's a wide range of functioning among the participants, and I think that's a bit of the beauty of the class," Shea said. "It's reflective of the span of the autism community, while creating one common goal learning a skill that everyone in life needs." The wide variation in what it means to be have autism is clear among the small group at a recent Cooking with Confidence class. One 21-year-old student barely said a word during the two-hour session, keeping her eyes on the grater when given several blocks of cheese to shred. Meanwhile, Beyonce-aspirant Duckett-Brooker never stopped chattering, whether stirring a pot of pasta, pouring water into everyone's dinner glass, or working with a library volunteer to determine how many sets of silverware were needed for the night. Another participant, John Pagnoni, 29, shared his dreams of one day opening a restaurant. "I want to employ people on the autism spectrum and give them opportunities like I've been given," Pagnoni said, pulling out his phone to show off photos of spinach artichoke dip and a cauliflower rice dish with tofu he recently whipped up on his own. Asked to pour several boxes of pasta into a large pot of boiling water, Pagnoni paused to make sure the instructor, Claire Richardson, knew what she was doing. "Did you put the salt in the water yet?" he asked, making clear this wasn't his first pasta prep session. Richardson, who has a 14-year-old son with ASD, has led all four rounds of the Cooking with Confidence series. "A lot of kids on the spectrum get pigeonholed into certain meals since they don't always like to try anything new," Richardson said. "Like with my son, I wanted to be an encouraging force to get these individuals to step outside of their box. It doesn't matter who you are, everyone needs to learn to eat foods beyond pizza and hot dogs." Recipes in the cooking series are chosen to be fairly simple and healthful. The mac and cheese that kicked off this round was layered with corn, peas, squash, carrots, and cauliflower. Class two features a smoked cauliflower and veggie quiche; the final class is pierogies with salsa fresca. "We try to pair something familiar, like pasta, with a healthy component, sneaking veggies in as best as we can," Richardson said. All the produce creates plenty of opportunities to practice knife skills and other activities, like peeling and seeding. "I try to gauge their skills so whether they get a chef's knife or a lettuce knife or just the peeler, we put them to work so that they can start to build their confidence," Richardson said. Everyone in class is given multiple tasks across two hours and praised positively throughout the process. Halfway through, Pagnoni was assigned to chop a butternut squash while other participants learned to fold napkins and properly set a table. "We'll find these instances in class where we start to see a caretaker take over a small task, and we give soft reminders that we want the student to give it a try first," said Liz Fitzgerald, director of the Free Library's Culinary Literacy Center. "It becomes as much of a learning experience for the caretaker as it does for the student sometimes." Funded through a grant that's about to run out, the program is one Fitzgerald and Shea would like to see continue. They're brainstorming ideas for seeking external funding. "When we opened back in 2014, we started to think about the kinds of people we wanted to serve and began looking at the communities in Philadelphia that were underserved," Fitzgerald said. "Our mission was to open up the kitchen to all Philadelphians, no matter who they were or where they came from. This program fit right into that, and it has become one of my favorites." Each class sends participants home with a printed copy of the day's recipe and a canvas grocery bag filled with ingredients. Whether on their own or with the assistance of a caregiver, they're encouraged to use their new skills and confidence to recreate the meal at home. And most often do, showing up with photos at the next week's class of what they've made. "Through childhood and adolescence, there's so much going on with families caring for those with autism in terms of just navigating the system figuring out how to get their kid to and from school, getting them into the right classrooms, safety concerns," Shea said. "With so many competing demands, there's not as much energy left to dive into these smaller skills that many of us were taught from our parents, like learning how to chop an onion or not to put your elbows on the table. But it's not too late for them to learn." As the students gathered around the table to share in the goodness of their labor, many praised how delicious the pasta turned out. Pagnoni chatted about additions he'd make, like crab or kale. Nasya Henderson quietly asked for plain noodles. "You have to try it first, Nasya," Richardson said. Henderson took a bite, followed by another and another before she slowly pushed her bowl aside. The students are given a survey to fill out after class, and everyone Henderson included marked the highest rating, "good," when asked about the overall experience. They all also said the leaders did a good job helping them learn. "Out of all the different cooking classes I've taught over the years, this one remains my favorite," Richardson said. "The participants have no filter; they're completely genuine and are just really hilarious. And I leave knowing that I'm building their confidence to go out and experience an important part of life." Canadian cigarette cartons with disturbing and graphic images, part of a campaign to deter smoking. Read more The warning labels are shocking, and they are meant to be. Photos of cancerous growths, surgical holes in throats, amputations, gangrenous feet, and dying people are shown on cigarette packages from 120 countries and mandated by their governments to stand out. But in the United States, where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than 480,000 people die each year as a result of smoking and more than 16 million Americans are living with a smoking-related illness, there are small, text-only warnings on cigarette packages. University of Pennsylvania researchers at the Annenberg School for Communication analyzed more than 300 photo warning labels to see what was most effective in getting smokers to quit. They found that images of diseased body parts and those that showed impacts on real people were the most influential. The study was published last week in the medical journal Tobacco Control. "Humans act in response to our emotions," said Jazmyne Sutton, lead author. "When we feel a negative emotion fear, disgust, etc. we want to avoid the source of that emotion." Researchers noted that in 2009, Congress instructed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to require the use of pictorial warning labels. The mandate was held up by legal challenges from tobacco manufacturers and a retailer. In September, a court order was issued stating that the FDA must speed up its timeline. The researchers showed 1,400 smokers recruited for the study images on cigarette packs from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, as well as pictorial warnings proposed by the FDA that have not yet been implemented, anti-smoking messages produced by the tobacco companies, testimonial pictorial warnings developed for an experimental study, and ads used in various local and national campaigns. They hoped to home in on some of the features such as image color, use of male or female characters, and presence of medical equipment on the packs that might improve or impede an ad campaign's effectiveness and help guide future designs, said Joseph N. Cappella, senior author. Last month, the Canadian Cancer Society published a similar report ranking countries on the size of their warning labels on cigarette packs. The U.S. was last out of 206 countries. Timor-Leste, Nepal, and Vanuatu were the top three. Large graphic photos on cigarette packages are a cost-effective way to get a public-health message on the dangers and consequences of smoking across not only to users but to family, friends and co-workers who also see the images, Canadian researchers found. The most effective warnings were those that covered more than 50 percent of the packaging, they found. We get the rituals associated with Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Halloween. But before bed Saturday night, millions of households engaged in what many believe is a pointless ritual: setting clocks back one hour to end daylight saving time (officially, that happens 2 a.m. Sunday). And, no, the point isn't to get an extra hour of sleep. The real goal is to save energy, but does it even accomplish that? The European Commission recently proposed to end daylight saving time, possibly as soon as next year, believing that the practice is outdated. It conducted a public survey that received 4.6 million replies and found 84 percent of European citizens were in favor of doing away with it. There is no similar movement in the United States, but there are still plenty of people who question the point. First, some quick background on daylight saving time. Ben Franklin sometimes gets credit for coming up with the idea because of a 1784 essay for the Journal of Paris that suggested the French could save on the cost of candles by getting out of bed earlier to take advantage of sunshine. But the piece was satirical and he never mentioned turning clocks back or forward. Germany became the first country to adopt the measure to save coal during World War I. France and other countries followed suit. The United States tried daylight saving time in fits and starts beginning in 1918, but repealed it a year later. However, some states set their own daylight saving time, leading to confusion. It wasn't until the establishment of a uniform system under the Uniform Time Act of 1966 that daylight saving time became standard. It gained traction under the belief that electricity use inside homes would drop as people stayed outside to enjoy the later sunset. And, it was believed most people would be awake after the sun had already risen and have less need for lights. The federal government also believed daylight saving time, which begins in spring and ends in fall, would prevent traffic crashes, as more people would travel to and from school or work during daylight. Further, it was believed that daylight saving time would reduce crime, as more people remained outside during daylight when less crime took place. The government liked daylight saving time so much that it decided to extend it in 2007. The start of daylight saving time was moved up to the second Sunday in March, instead of its traditional start on the first Sunday of April. In the fall, the return to standard time was moved from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November, or one week later. But no one really knew how much energy was saved during the seven-month period. So Congress asked for a study of daylight saving time's impact on national energy consumption from an expert panel. Their findings: meh. In their 2008 report, panelists concluded that the total electricity saved in the extended daylight saving time amounted to about 0.03 percent of the entire year. "The electricity savings are small compared to the national total for the year," the report's authors wrote. They found that changes in traffic volume and gas consumption were statistically insignificant. The study did not examine whether daylight saving time impacted children traveling to school, whether traffic accidents rose or fell, or whether it reduced crime. Helmut Zarbl, director of Rutgers Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, is an expert in circadian rhythm which is controlled by the timing of lightness and darkness during the day and its influence on sleep-wake cycles. It affects hormones and sleep. "Disruption of the circadian rhythm is a health risk," Zarbl said, noting studies showing those already at risk of a heart attack or stroke faced an even bigger risk with time changes. Other studies show that people are more groggy the day after and that rates of auto accidents go up while work productivity goes down. Zarbl said it can take a week for a person to feel normal again. Tinkering with circadian rhythm is no small thing, he said. "Every cell in your body has a clock and there are billions of cells," he noted. "So it's like making billions and billions of wrist watches and setting them to a different time. Every cell has a clock that runs 24 hours, but they all need to be synchronized." Rebecca Umbach, who graduated with a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in May, authored a study published last year in the Journal of Experimental Criminology that examined the impact of daylight saving time on crime. The study analyzed crime rates the day after the start of daylight saving time, and the day after the end of daylight saving time (this weekend). She thought people would be more irritable in the spring after losing an hour of sleep, a correlation borne out in previous studies, which might translate to an increase in crime. She was wrong. From 2001 to 2014, there were actually almost 3 percent fewer assaults on the day after daylight saving time began. Counterintuitively, she found a near 3 percent rise in assaults the day after the return to standard time. "It's funny because people feel very strongly about daylight saving time," said Umbach. "I didn't realize that until the research received coverage in the news and people just came out of the woodwork with opinions on it." Other studies have suggested that the sudden time shift in the spring disrupts the circadian rhythm of humans, bringing fatigue and inattentiveness. Studies have indicated a spike in car crashes and workplace injury. In the end, though, it's hard to draw any conclusions whether daylight saving time is hurtful or whether it has real benefits. Umbach has another hypothesis on why there are movements to do away with daylight saving time. "I think people just get very annoyed by the inconvenience of it," she said. The midterm elections are less than a week from now, and polls show that large majorities of Americans want to keep the Affordable Care Act provisions that protect people with pre-existing conditions from being turned down because of their medical history (75 percent) or charged higher premiums (72 percent). It's no wonder then that politicians are trying to outdo each other in promising to never, ever take away such protections. Yet many of the politicians now promising to protect pre-existing conditions have documented records of doing the opposite, voting for legislation or supporting lawsuits that would once again allow insurance companies to turn down such applicants, charge them higher premiums, and/or exclude coverage for the medical services they need. So if you hear a politician who voted for the ACA repeal-and-replace bills last year, or who is involved in a current lawsuit to overturn the ACA's pre-existing condition protections, promise now to defend those protections, don't believe it. Here's why. All the ACA repeal-and-replace bills considered by Congress last year would have allowed sale of insurance that doesn't cover the care that people with pre-existing conditions need. Requiring insurers to, say, cover cancer patients is meaningless if they are allowed to exclude coverage for chemotherapy. None of the ACA repeal-and-replace bills had a viable alternative to ensure that premiums would be affordable, and that the plans would cover the care patients with pre-existing conditions need, so a vote for them was a vote to weaken protections for pre-existing conditions. The bills also would have repealed Medicaid expansion and/or capped and cut the federal contribution to Medicaid. The result would have been millions more uninsured, many of them low-income people with pre-existing conditions. Fortunately, none of those bills had enough votes to pass both the House and Senate, so the ACA's protections for pre-existing conditions remain (mostly) in effect. Even in the absence of repeal legislation, the Trump administration has acted on its own through the regulatory process to weaken them, proposing a rule that would allow sale of so-called "short-term" plans for up to a year (and then renewal for two more years) that are exempted from the ACA's requirements that essential benefits be covered. That would weaken pre-existing conditions in two ways. First, people who buy the short-term plans will find that they typically don't cover things such as prescription drugs, mental health and substance-use disorder treatments, or maternity care, so if they get sick or pregnant while enrolled in them, tough luck, the care they need likely won't be covered. In Philadelphia, for instance, of the short-term plans that currently are on sale, just 33 percent of them cover prescription drugs or substance-use treatment, and only 57 percent of them cover mental health; none of them cover maternity care. Second, if a lot of healthy people buy these bare-bones plans, it will drive up premiums for people who have pre-existing conditions by removing healthy people from the insurance pool needed to keep premiums low for those who are sick. And last week, the administration announced that it will allow states to get waivers to sell insurance that does not have to cover needed medical care. There's also a pending lawsuit, brought by 20 Republican governors or state attorneys general, that asks a federal judge to rule that the ACA's pre-existing condition protections are unconstitutional. Many of those governors or attorneys general are now running for re-election or higher office this November. Here's the bottom line: Members of Congress who voted for the ACA repeal bills are on record as voting to weaken or repeal protections for people with pre-existing conditions, without offering an alternative to ensure those patients would have access to affordable insurance that covers the care they need. The governors and state attorneys general who have brought the lawsuit to bring down the ACA are on record as wanting to overturn its pre-existing-condition protections, without offering an alternative to ensure patients will have access to affordable insurance that covers the care they need. So why should anyone believe them now when they say they will protect patients with pre-existing conditions? Kids these days may only know Jon Stewart as that kindly New Jersey man who rescues viral video animals, but the elderly among us remember the days when we used to huddle around the TV set every night at 11 p.m. to watch him mercilessly roast the likes of George W. Bush and Tucker Carlson on The Daily Show. That Stewart, the politically-insightful comedian with an enjoyably terrible Mitch McConnell impression, is currently touring with Dave Chappelle, and the two men sat down with CNN's Christiane Amanpour to talk about all the hot button comedy issues of the day, including Trump's war with the media (LOL), Louis C.K.'s comeback (ROTFL), sexism in the industry (LMHO), and the politically divided state of the nation (LMAO). Among the highlights was Stewart and Chappelle comparing stand-up shows to Trump's crowd work at rallies, and how Trump tries to use live audiences to his advantage: "Donald Trump is a salesman who changes his pitch depending on who he's in front of. What he doesn't realize is that it's all being recorded," Stewart said. "If you ask him about it, and you say, 'is it OK to body slam a reporter?' 'No no, that was just a little joke in front of friends.'" Stewart also noted he thinks the media is still covering Trump wrong, falling into his traps: "I think that journalists have taken it personally," he said. "They are personally wounded and offended by this man. He baits them. And they dive in. And what hes done well, I thought, is appeal to their own narcissism, to their own ego... the journalists stand up and say, 'We are noble! How dare you sir!' And they take it personally, and now hes changed the conversation to not that his policies are silly or not working or any of those other things its all about the fight. Hes able to tune out everything else and get people just focused on the fight. Hes gonna win that fight." President Trump has been able to appeal to journalists own narcissism by attacking them, says Jon Stewart. They take it personally, and now hes changed the conversation to, not that his policies are silly or not working its all about the fight. pic.twitter.com/2N3V5NqZ6Q Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) October 30, 2018 Chappelle added that he still stands by his 2016 SNL monologue saying hed give Trump a chance: "I think I said the right thing at the right time, you know what I mean?" he said. "I think that we had to kind of recalibrate and kind of put things in perspective. Im a black American, so these feelings that people felt right after the election we felt that many elections consecutively." He also said he doesn't understand how families have become so binary over politics: "I hear people say, 'Families are not speaking to one another because of politics.' That sounds insane to me. There are tons of people I love and respect that I completely disagree with." And as for the C.K. elephant in the room, Stewart added: "I think the question itself is somewhat unanswerable when you talk about the 'right way' in society to rehabilitate," he said. "Its something weve struggled with in the criminal justice system forever... There is no recipe; there is no model that can be put together and say, If he did one, two, and three, everybody would be cool. I dont think it works that way. This is something that we find together as a society, but I dont know that you can say theres a formula here that makes sense. Im a believer in restorative justice and the idea that when transgressions occur, the parties must participate together to bring themselves to some conclusion. But the truth is, you wont find 100 percent. You cant say, Whats the right way to do this so that everybody will be okay? because they wont." THE PARENT: Krista Morse, 41, of King of Prussia THE CHILD: Emerson Alice, born March 21, 2018, adopted September 24, 2018 HER FIRST GLIMPSE OF HER DAUGHTER: "Red hair. Little button nose. Full lips, perfect ears. Pretty big: 7 pounds, 12 ounces. It was so easy to love her." She was the kid who dressed her dogs in baby clothes and pulled her niece, born when Krista was 12, in a red Radio Flyer wagon. When her cousin dated a woman with two children, Krista loved how they pronounced her name, "Fwista," because their toddler tongues couldn't manage the K or the R. It was no surprise, then, when she graduated from high school, signed with a nanny agency, and moved from Montana to Jenkintown to care for a 5-year-old boy and his 8-week-old sister. The experience was a reality check: learning to discipline a recalcitrant preschooler, remaining patient when the baby shrieked with colic. "I learned this is not just a doll; there's a lot that goes into [parenting]," Krista says. After a year of full-time work, Krista returned for freshman year at Montana State University. But after her sojourn on the East Coast, that area felt empty of opportunity. She came back to work for the Jenkintown family the baby was now getting ready for preschool then for another family with three girls, including toddler twins. In the meantime, she completed her business degree at Temple University. There wasn't much time for dating, and none of the guys she met seemed like "the one." At 31, Krista met a man who seemed to have long-term potential. They lived together for three years. "He always said, 'You can have anything you want.' But when I said, 'I want to start a family,' he said, 'Anything but that.' " He suggested they get a dog as proxy for a baby. Krista declined. "Age 35 was kind of that line in the sand. After that, they say it's harder to get pregnant. I said I would do it on my own." She didn't feel intimate enough with any male friends to request their sperm "It's not like asking, 'Hey, can I borrow your sweatshirt?' " she laughs so she browsed the donor catalog at Fairfax Cryobank, searching for physical traits that rhymed with hers (blond, blue-eyed, of northern European descent) and qualities, such as a strength in math, that could complement her weaker points. After six unsuccessful cycles of insemination, the fertility specialist recommended surgery to remove an ovarian cyst. Then Krista tried to conceive seven more times. In hindsight, she can spot the uh-oh signs: the bad omen of spraining her ankle on the day of her first fertility consultation; the time her doctor, during an appointment, grabbed another patient's records. After her final intrauterine insemination in February 2017, Krista had such a strong hunch the procedure hadn't worked that she didn't even go to the doctor for a two-week check of her hormone levels. When a nurse phoned, nonetheless, to say, "I'm calling with your blood results," Krista knew it was time to switch gears. She briefly considered international adoption but found many countries did not smile on single parents. An educational meeting at A Baby Step Adoption convinced her she'd found the right agency. She was matched after two months with a woman in Omaha who said she was due with a biracial baby girl. But there were uh-oh signs here, too: The woman had used drugs in the past, and she didn't have any ID. It turned out she was faking the pregnancy, sending the agency ultrasound images that belonged to a pregnant friend. "It was crazy," Krista recalls. "Everyone kept saying to me, 'You're handling this so well.' I thought: What am I supposed to do?" On March 13, A Baby Step sent another email: a healthy baby, gender unknown, due later that month to parents who lived in Iowa. Krista flew there on the 20th, the day before the birth mom was to be induced, and met the couple at a local restaurant. "I was super-excited, but they were completely on the other end: They'd been though this pregnancy for nine months, and now they were going to hand their baby to a complete stranger." Despite the birth mom's natural shyness, they found common ground: she had a cat named Sammy, the same name as Krista's dog. "When we left, I said, 'Can I give you a hug?' " Krista recalls. At the hospital the next day, she paced in a room near the nursery texting friends, checking email from work, reading Cinder, her book club choice for the month while nurses gave periodic updates: She's fully dilated. She's laboring down. The baby's born. "There was a screaming baby lying on one of the carts with the heat lamp on her. The nurse said, 'She's here. It's a girl.' Shortly after that, they brought her to my room. It felt very surreal." Emerson, a name that means "brave one," had red hair and full lips. She slept through nearly all of a hellish travel day 12 hours from Sioux City to Philadelphia, with a four-hour delay in Chicago snuggled in a carrier that made Krista feel like a 19th-century work ox. Despite her nanny credentials, parenthood was an anxiety-spiked learning curve: Why did Emerson sound like Darth Vader when she breathed? And that cry was she hungry or tired or wet? They needed bananas; was the trip out of the house really worth it? "Two months ago, I could just walk out the door. Now it's different. It's not just me anymore." Krista wonders about the future. "The more open I can be, the more comfortable she'll be. But what if she gets to be 10 years old and says, 'I hate you'? Is she going to want to meet that [birth] family and decide that's a better fit for her?" At the same time, she says, "I can't imagine being on the other side, having to make a choice that you can't take care of your own child. I'm a complete stranger to them, and they're handing over their baby. The whole journey has been so humbling." Titanic departing Southampton, England, on its ill-fated Atlantic crossing to New York in April 1912. Read more The planned replica of the ill-fated ship Titanic is once again aiming to set sail. Originally intended to be launched in 2016 by the Blue Star Line a nod to the owner of the original ship, the White Star Line Australian businessman Clive Palmer shut down efforts in 2015 because of a financial dispute between a Chinese company and Blue Star Line's parent company, the Palmer-owned Mineralogy. Now a news release for the line says that the financial dispute has been resolved and that Palmer is once again planning to put the ocean liner into service. "Blue Star Line will create an authentic Titanic experience, providing passengers with a ship that has the same interiors and cabin layout as the original vessel, while integrating modern safety procedures, navigation methods, and 21st-century technology to produce the highest level of luxurious comfort," Palmer said in the news release in September. The original liner sank in 1912 on its maiden voyage after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic, resulting in the deaths of 1,503 passengers and crew. Improvements for the new liner include more lifeboats and a steel-reinforced hull. Plans for the ship have it not only retracing the original Titanic's Southampton-to-New York route, but also doing global sailings, Palmer said. USA Today reported the ship's first sailing is aiming for 2022. "Millions have dreamt of sailing on her, seeing her in port, and experiencing her unique majesty," Palmer said. "Titanic II will be the ship where those dreams come true." Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross on Oct. 31, 2018, announces the firing of Officer Eric Ruch Jr., who fatally shot an unarmed man last December. Read more Saying that three other officers had shown restraint by not firing at an unarmed man on an East Germantown street last year, Police Commissioner Richard Ross on Wednesday announced that he was terminating Police Officer Eric Ruch Jr. in the shooting of Dennis Plowden Jr., who died after a bullet went through his left hand and into his head. "The three other officers, including his partner, had taken cover and given themselves an opportunity to assess the situation," Ross said at a news conference at Police Headquarters. "He did not do that, for whatever reason, thus putting himself in harm's way and in turn being the only one to fire one fatal shot." Ruch, 30, a 10-year veteran of the force who had been assigned to the 35th District in Ogontz, was given 30 days' notice with intent to dismiss for the Dec. 27, 2017, shooting of the 25-year-old. "It's not a perfect world," Ross said. "Officers are not always able to take cover. But it is striking that three of the four do, and one does not." The shooting capped a high-speed car chase that began when officers spotted Plowden driving a white Hyundai that had been connected to a homicide a week before, police said. On the day he died, Plowden, who was not a suspect in the slaying, was taking Christmas gifts to his mother, Chinita McCoy, in East Germantown. The chase ended when Plowden's car crashed at high speed into two parked cars on Nedro Avenue at Opal Street. Plowden stumbled from the car, likely "dazed and disoriented" from the crash, and sat on the curb with his right hand behind his body, Ross said. Officers ordered him to show his hands, and he was shot soon afterward. The dismissal marks the second time in two years that Ross has fired an officer for a fatal on-duty shooting. Last year, he fired Officer Ryan Pownall for the June 2017 shooting death of David Jones during a traffic stop. The District Attorney's Office in September charged Pownall with third-degree murder and related counts. He is free on bail awaiting trial. Ben Waxman, a spokesman for District Attorney Larry Krasner, said their investigation into Plowden's shooting is not yet completed. "These are difficult decisions that we make," Ross said of the decision to dismiss Ruch. "We don't take them lightly, despite what anyone might think, including police officers. There's no rush to judgment, which should be clear. This wasn't prompted by any protests or anything like that." Paul Hetznecker, a civil rights attorney who said he plans to file a federal lawsuit against Ruch and the city on behalf of Plowden's widow, Tania Bond, welcomed the news of the officer's dismissal. "I give credit to Commissioner Ross for making the decision to fire Officer Ruch, taking his badge and gun, and terminating his license to kill," Hetznecker said. "While the residents of the city of Philadelphia are safer because of this decision, this does not exonerate the Philadelphia Police Department, as this decision should have been made long before Ruch killed my client's husband. "The decision to fire Officer Ruch does not change the fact that Ruch used unlawful, deadly force on Dennis Plowden, who was unarmed." Ruch's union, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, said in a statement that it stands by him and will defend him. Ross said the department's Use of Force Review Board determined that Ruch violated policy by discharging his weapon. The policy, he said, states in part, "Officers shall not use deadly force against another person unless they have an objectively reasonable belief that they must protect themselves or another person from death or serious bodily injury." Ruch should have recognized that Plowden was dazed from the crash on Nedro, which resulted in the car's airbags deploying, Ross said. It was the second time in 2017 that Ruch had shot a man while on duty. He returned to duty a month after the first episode, in which an armed suspect was injured, police said. No weapon was found on or near Plowden or in the Hyundai, and he did not own the vehicle. Police have declined to identify a female passenger who was in the Hyundai during the pursuit. Plowden's relatives say they don't know who owned the Hyundai, and they don't know who the passenger was. At the time of his death, Plowden was awaiting trial on misdemeanor charges of driving under the influence and a summary offense of driving with a suspended license in January 2017. He was on probation after pleading guilty in 2016 to felony charges of possession with intent to deliver drugs three years earlier. Staff writer Julie Shaw contributed to this article. State Rep. Vanessa Brown (D.,Phila.) was the only defendant in a sting investigation to fight her case in court. Read more State Rep. Vanessa Lowery Brown's four-year fight to clear her name against bribery charges failed Wednesday when a jury convicted her on all counts. Brown, 52, a Democrat who has represented portions of West Philadelphia for nearly a decade, was the last defendant in the ambitious and controversial sting investigation launched by state prosecutors nearly a decade ago but secretly killed by then-Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane. The guilty verdict represented the most dramatic repudiation yet of Kane's criticism of the sting, which she had contended could not produce winnable cases in court. After four hours of deliberation, the jury in Harrisburg found Brown guilty of seven charges five felony counts of violating the state conflict-of-interest law, a felony count of accepting $4,000 in bribes, and a misdemeanor count of failing to report the payments on her financial-disclosure form. After the sting cases were resurrected by Philadelphia's district attorney, five other defendants four former state lawmakers and a Traffic Court judge, all Philadelphia Democrats pleaded guilty or no contest to sting-related charges. While the others, with the exception of the judge, struck deals to keep their government pensions, Brown will lose hers as a consequence of her conviction. Under the law, Brown, running unopposed in next month's election, will be barred from her House post upon her sentencing. The others resigned as part of their deals but were spared any time behind bars. Through a circuitous path, the sting probe led to Kane's political downfall and conviction on criminal charges. Outraged when the Inquirer broke the news in 2014 of her decision to shut down the sting the previous year, Kane leaked confidential information to the media in a bid to embarrass a former state prosecutor she blamed for the Inquirer report. She was later found to have lied to a grand jury investigating her leak and was sentenced to serve at least 10 months in a county jail. Kane, the first woman and first Democrat to be elected state attorney general, is free pending appeals. Brown long ago confessed she had taken money in the undercover sting; she had little choice but to do so since she was video-recorded pocketing a total of $4,000 in five payments, at one point looking at $2,000 in cash in her Harrisburg office and declaring, "Ooh, good looking! Thank you twice." Her defense fought a protracted battle on her behalf anyway. Her team lawyers Patrick Casey, John Dempsey, and Erik Anderson argued that the sting had unfairly targeted Brown and the others as African Americans and Democrats. After the judge rejected those arguments, the defense contended that Brown had been illegally entrapped by a seductive, manipulative and "lethal" undercover agent, Tyron B. Ali. Prosecutors Michael Sprow and Ryan Shovlin said Brown had only herself to blame. They said she pushed Ali for money and plotted with him about ways to hide the payments. "It's the correct outcome and it's long overdue," Sprow said after the verdict came in. "They rolled the dice in arguing entrapment in a situation where it didn't apply. And the jury saw through that defense." As for Kane, Sprow said, "Obviously, she was wrong. We presented the case in court, and it was a strong case. Everything about her assessment of this case was wrong." Kane did not immediately return a call seeking comment. In 2009, Ali agreed to become an undercover informant to win leniency in his own criminal case. He had been arrested on charges of a massive fraud, siphoning off $430,000 in state money from a program to provide meals to low-income children and seniors in North Philadelphia. Cooperation paid off for Ali. Other prosecutors eventually dropped all charges against him and asserted that the financial loss was far less. Ali, a registered lobbyist, moved in political circles. From 2010 to 2012, under the guidance of former top prosecutor Frank Fina and case agent Claude Thomas, Ali made 113 secret tapes and videos of state lawmakers and others at times video-recording them with a lens placed in his glasses. Without any public announcement and without even telling the state Ethics Commission that lawmakers had accepted money without disclosing it on required forms Kane aborted the investigation. The fraud inquiry involving Ali was kept secret under court seal. When the Inquirer later revealed her decision, Kane criticized the investigation essentially on the grounds raised unsuccessfully by Brown's defense lawyers at trial. She said the case was tainted by racial targeting and would not lead to a win in court. After the case became public then-Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams rejected that criticism, harshly assailed Kane and adopted the case. In time, former State Reps. Michelle Brownlee, Harold James, and Ronald Waters and former Traffic Court President Judge Thomasine Tynes all pleaded guilty to crimes related to the sting. State Rep. Louis Williams Bishop pleaded no contest. The case against Brown, filed in 2014, was handed off to the Dauphin County District Attorney's Office for prosecution. Brown originally pleaded guilty as well, even acknowledging she knew she was breaking the law. I am sorry. I never wanted to be in this position, Brown testified before the grand jury. But now that I look back, it was the wrong thing. It was wrong. I accept full responsibility for what Ive done. However you celebrate Halloween dressing in costume, trick-or-treating, watching scary movies chances are you'll end up with an overflowing candy jar. Why not give some back? Dental clinics around the region, including Doc Bresler's Cavity Busters, a chain in Philadelphia, are participating in a Halloween candy buyback. You can sell your extra candy for a dollar per pound (up to 5 pounds) at one of Cavity Busters' two buyback locations. The pediatric dental clinic sees the holiday as a good opportunity to communicate with kids that some types of candy are bad for their teeth. "We kind of have a little bit of an educational session back and forth with the kids, just to let them know that the sticky candy isn't really the best because it comes in the most contact with your teeth, whereas the chocolate candy melts away," said Jeana DiLacqua, the company's community outreach director. "And we get that couple of minutes to discuss that with them and their parents as well." In turn, the clinics, which started the program in 2014, will match the amount they pay for the candy with donations to local charities. This year, they'll donate to Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation and Temple Dental Haiti Club, a student organization in Temple University Kornberg School of Dentistry that helps provide dental health to the Haitian community. The candy collected will be sent to Operation Gratitude, an organization that sends care packages to veterans and members of the armed forces. This year, Cavity Busters will accept candy at their Northeast Philly location on from noon to 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 1, and 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, Nov. 2. "We don't necessarily want to take away the holiday completely, so we try and offer them a service that they do come in," DiLacqua said. Some schools, including Jenkintown and Overlook Elementary Schools in Montgomery County, are having schoolwide collections of excess candy and donating it to cavity busters, she said. Cavity Busters is part of a national program, Halloween Buy Back 2018, that started in 2005 and has partnered with many other organizations and dental clinics around the country, including some in the Philadelphia suburbs and South Jersey. Not in the city? No worries. Search your zip code on the Halloween Buy Back website for a location near you. Jacob Servais was fatally shot by a detective in the parking lot of Just Four Wheels vehicle rentals at 2587 S. Delsea Dr. in Vineland. Read more The New Jersey Attorney General's Office on Wednesday identified the detective who fatally shot a 19-year-old Millville man two weeks ago in Vineland. John Caccia of the Cape May County Prosecutor's Office fired his Glock 19 service pistol three times at Jacob Servais in the parking lot of Just Four Wheels vehicle rentals at 2587 S. Delsea Dr. about 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 18. Investigators did not say whether Servais had been armed at the time. The Attorney General's Shooting Response Team, which is continuing to investigate the shooting, reported that detectives with the Cape May County Prosecutor's Office and Lower Township Police Department were conducting surveillance in the area of the rental business as part of an investigation of a violent crime that occurred in Cape May County earlier in the month. The shooting response team reported that Caccia "encountered" Servais, who was driving a Nissan Altima and was a possible suspect in the earlier violent crime, and fatally shot him. Officials did not give details on the earlier crime. Servais was taken by ambulance to Inspira Medical Center in Vineland, where he was pronounced dead. None of the detectives were hurt. "The nature of any resistance and the use of any weapon on the part of Mr. Servais remain the subject of the ongoing investigation, and no further information will be released at this time," the Attorney General's Office said in a statement. Caccia has been placed on administrative leave. This is the second fatal police-involved shooting in Vineland in three months. In July, Rashaun Washington, 37, of Camden, was shot and killed by Vineland police after a standoff outside his home. That shooting happened after Washington told officers that he was holding an explosive device wrapped in a shirt, according to body camera footage. Cherokee High School is located on Tomlinson Mill Road in Marlton. Read more A Cherokee High School teacher sexually assaulted one of his students, prosecutors said Wednesday in announcing his arrest on multiple counts of sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child, and official misconduct. Brantley Cesanek, 30, of Haddon Township, is accused of having an ongoing sexual relationship with a female student in 2016 and 2017, when she was 16 and 17 years old, prosecutors in Burlington and Camden Counties said. Cesanek was arrested Tuesday. The alleged victim described sex acts with the defendant that happened on multiple occasions during her junior year and senior year, according to an affidavit of probable cause. Cesanek admitted that the student stayed over his house twice while she was in high school, but said their sexual relationship did not begin until after she graduated, the affidavit said. Cesanek taught Latin at Cherokee High School in Marlton and was a mentor for a robotics team there, according to the school district's website. He began teaching there in 2011. Officials at the Lenape Regional High School District declined to comment because of the ongoing investigation, but provided copies of two emails sent to parents Wednesday. "As soon as we were made aware of this matter, Mr. Cesanek was not permitted on our grounds or at our events district-wide," superintendent Carol Birnbohm wrote in an email Wednesday afternoon. Laura Bishop, a spokesperson for the district, said Cesanek had been suspended from his teaching job. The investigation began when the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office and Evesham Township Police Department received a tip about the alleged relationship. The Camden County Prosecutor's Office joined the investigation when authorities discovered that the alleged sexual assaults took place in Cesanek's home. Cesanek is being held at the Camden County Correctional Facility awaiting a detention hearing. The investigation is ongoing. The Burlington County chapter of the New Jersey Education Association office declined to comment. Citing a study that shows schools across Pennsylvania have wasted tens of millions in taxpayer dollars on roofing, a state legislator has introduced a bill to open major construction projects to competitive bidding. State Rep. Jesse Topper said his bill, now in the State Government Committee, would improve on so-called cooperative purchasing. In cooperative-purchasing agreements, schools pool their money to purchase items such as classroom and cafeteria supplies. School officials say that by using a centralized system they save cash and time. But Topper questioned the wisdom of using the system for roofing and other construction projects. "Co-op purchasing has some things it can do for time factor and familiarity, but we need to balance a lot of that to ensure we're getting the best bang for our buck," said Topper, a Republican who represents parts of Bedford, Franklin, and Fulton Counties. By using cooperative purchasing instead of competitive bidding, school districts overspent by more than $100 million on school roofing projects from 2005 to 2010, according to an assessment by market research firm Ducker Worldwide commissioned by the Coalition for Procurement Reform, which represents national and state consulting and construction companies. The researcher interviewed 52 roofing contractors and architects and analyzed 73 school district contracts. It also collected more than 80 price points to calculate the total cost per square foot of installed roofing. "The money that's being wasted through the co-ops could be spent toward the items that a school needs," said Janial Mack, spokeswoman for the coalition. Topper's bill would outlaw the practice specifically for construction projects. For Pennsylvania public schools that often struggle to make ends meet, the bill's backers believe, competitive bidding would save money. Topper has received mixed responses from school districts on cooperative purchasing, he said. Some like it, he said, but others "really feel they've gotten burned on cost or quality." Still, many school officials maintain that cooperative purchasing agreements offer a valuable option for construction projects, said Jay Himes, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials. "It can assure quality, reduce maintenance costs, and provide consistency," Himes said. Cooperative purchasing agreements have been challenged in other states, including Virginia and Indiana, and at the school district level in Baltimore County Public Schools. At the Big Spring School District in Newville, west of Harrisburg, the district originally received a bid for a middle school roof project from a cooperative for $2.4 million. The open bid for the same project cost $1.4 million, according to Mack's testimony at the state Capitol. Mark J. Sobek, president and founder of a Wilkes-Barre roofing consulting firm that is a member of the procurement coalition, said he is upset that districts are overspending on roofing. "It's offensive to me," he said. In Pennsylvania, the Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit oversees the state's cooperative purchasing agreements for the Association of Educational Purchasing Agencies. The intermediate unit receives about a 2 percent discount on each project, said Jeffrey Kimball, director of cooperative purchasing services. Kimball said the products that the association offers schools may be more expensive, but are of higher quality than other roofing contractors could offer. He added that an open bid wouldn't take into account the cost to design and monitor the project, as a cooperative does. Cooperative-purchasing critics "kept bringing up the easy button," Kimball said. "It's not so much what's easier, it's about what's giving you the best." Kimball said school districts, not the state, should be able to decide if cooperative purchasing is the best method for them. "At the end of the day," he said, "that's what has to be preserved, so that the districts are able to make the best choice for their taxpayers." A cracked sewer pipe cut off the water supply to cells at Delaware County's prison this weekend, preventing its 1,883 inmates from flushing their toilets for about 24 hours, prison officials said. The resulting smell and inconvenience at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility was debated Wednesday at a County Council meeting amid simmering tensions among political leaders over the local prison, the only privately run facility of its kind in Pennsylvania. David Byrne, the facility's warden, made a rare appearance at the meeting, saying he wanted to dispel what he called rumors and misinformation that had been circulating about the incident. During that explanation, Byrne clashed with Kevin Madden, a Democratic councilman who has been calling for changes in the county's prison operations. Madden said he toured the facility on Monday and spoke with 10 inmates who described stench and blocked toilets. In one cell he visited, he said, the toilet bowl was filled with human waste and the three inmates who shared the space had been wrapping the bowl in cellophane to mitigate the smell. "I know this isn't Club Med, but there's a certain level of sanitation that needs to be maintained," Madden said, chastising the company that operates the prison for not having a contingency plan to handle this type of outage. "I get that unforeseen accidents can occur. No one could've known the pipe would crack," he added. "What I don't have patience for is that no plan for this was in place." Council Chairman John McBlain, a Republican, sparred with Madden, accusing the first-term councilman of taking up for anti-prison activists. "I just want the facts available, not some hysterical story to further a political agenda," McBlain said. "We should make decisions based on facts, not political agendas." Byrne responded that the prison does have contingency plans in place and followed them. He said an internal audit of the response to the water outage was underway. "We moved swiftly to protect inmates and the community at large," Byrne said, later telling Madden that he must "humbly disagree" with the version reported to the councilman by some of the inmates. The council discussion was sent against the backdrop of a long-simmering debate over whether George W. Hill should remain privatized. The facility is operated by the GEO Group, the second-largest private prison firm in the world. Delaware County's contract with the Florida-based corporation expires in December, and the county is in the middle of fielding bids for running the prison. Simultaneously, a growing contingent of grassroots activists, some of them former inmates, has become more vocal in recent months. One group, the Delaware County Coalition for Prison Reform, held a public forum in September extolling the benefits of making the prison publicly run. In the meantime, GEO has been beset by rampant reports of suicide and violence, most of which that have become public through legal action. Byrne, reading from prepared comments at Wednesday's meeting, said staff at the prison discovered a crack in the water main leading from the municipal line to the prison's wastewater treatment plant about 12:30 a.m. Saturday. Water to the sinks and toilets in the facility was shut down as the pipe was repaired, with water restored to the sinks later that day, Byrne said. It took somewhat longer for the toilets to return to normal a little less than 24 hours, by his estimate, a delay owed to the fact that each toilet had to be turned off and on manually. The water was also temporarily shut off Monday, he said, as a permanent replacement pipe was fitted in place of the one that cracked. Byrne estimated that the damaged pipe was more than 100 years old, dating back to when the first prison was built on the property in Thornton. The water outage did not affect medical or meal service, he said. As for the toilets, he said, buckets of water were made available to inmates who wanted to manually flush the toilets in their cells. Madden said the inmates he spoke with were not made aware of the availability of the water buckets. NYPD officers arrested the neighbor suspected of killing Susan Trott in her Upper West Side apartment earlier this month, taking 24-year-old Anya Johnston into custody on Wednesday afternoon. She has been charged with murder and burglary. Just before 5 a.m. on Sunday, October 21st, police responded to a welfare check requested by one of Trott's colleagues after days of radio silence. Upon arrival, they found a trail of blood leading from the living room to her bedroom, where the 70-year-old was lying on the floor with her throat slashed. Investigators noted no signs of forced entry, and both the guest log and building security footage suggested no one had come to visit Trott. Authorities quickly concluded that "all the pieces of that puzzle are in that building," as Chief of Detectives Dermont Shea put it last week, and focused their attentions on a "female person of interest." With recognition to the skill & tireless efforts of the @NYPD24Pct Detective Sqd, Manhattan North Homicide Sqd, the NYPD Crime Scene Unit & the @manhattanDA, Im pleased to announce an arrest has been made in the murder of Susan Trott (victim shown below). #YourCityYourDetectives pic.twitter.com/N9IW2HZvXS Chief Dermot F. Shea (@NYPDDetectives) October 31, 2018 No motive has been named, but Trott's friends have speculated that consistently high tensions with her neighbors may have played a role. Trott's habit of scattering bird seed for pigeons reportedly attracted rats to the block, which others in her building did not appreciate. She and her neighbors also clashed over dog etiquette, with the building board getting involved and conflict apparently boiling over into a physical altercation on at least one occasion, when another resident shoved Trott. Police confirmed to Gothamist that Johnston has been in a psychiatric facility since the 21st, but could not confirm reports that she had a history of mental illness, which translated to unpredictable behavior when she stopped taking her medication. Trott had lived in her apartment since the 1980s, and was an established advertising freelancer with an eccentric reputation in her neighborhood. She could often be seen wheeling her aging bulldog around in a baby carriage, or tending to the pigeons in nearby Riverside Park. It's not presently clear, however, what series of events led to her murder. U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa. (left) and Democratic challenger George Scott are facing off in a Congressional race centered on Harrisburg. A Democratic upset there could signal a wave for their party on Election Night. Read more If a Democratic wave takes shape on election night, some of the first warning signs could arrive in Harrisburg or Erie County. Democrats are targeting two solidly Republican districts in those areas, hoping that a surge could give them a chance in races well outside the typical swing districts. The party's best chance for a House majority still runs through suburbs like those around Philadelphia and other big cities. But a shot at a true wave could hinge on difficult exurban and rural races like these. The district around Harrisburg has given Republicans the most anxiety. Recent polls from the New York Times/Siena College and Susquehanna Polling and Research both found virtual ties between Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry and his Democratic challenger, George Scott. "If Scott Perry loses, people better be battening down the hatches elsewhere. It's going to be a long, wet night," said Charlie Gerow, a Republican strategist who lives in the district. One poll this week even suggested a close contest between Republican U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker and Democratic challenger Jess King in a Lancaster County-based district that President Trump won by nearly 26 percentage points. By contrast, another dark horse race in the Scranton area could send up a warning sign for Democrats, as Republicans hope to unseat U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright in a district that swung strongly toward Trump. The incumbents are still favored in each race, but national analysts give Democrats the better chances of pulling off the upsets. National groups in both parties have been dropping campaign money into the Harrisburg-based 10th District, and national Democrats are spending in the 16th in Northwestern Pennsylvania, where U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly faces a challenge from Ron DiNicola, a lawyer and former Erie County solicitor. "I'd keep an eye on both of them, but especially keep an eye on the 10th," U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, chairman of the Democrats' national congressional campaign arm, said in September. Democratic aides said last week that the analysis still stands. Republicans have taken note. Trump held an Oct. 10 rally on Kelly's home turf and Vice President Pence flew in last week for events with Perry and John Chrin, Cartwright's challenger in Northeast Pennsylvania. Military Backgrounds Perry has an Army background, but in Scott he faces a square-jawed pastor who also has military credentials. Scott was an Army lieutenant colonel who served in the Persian Gulf during the first Iraq war and in Kuwait after 9/11. The Democrat drew national attention during the party primary with an ad showing him disassembling a rifle by hand and dumping it into a fire. At a campaign stop at York College of Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Scott said his background and roots in the area have opened doors in a conservative district. "I'm a pastor, but I'm running as a citizen," said Scott. "And what I've been surprised by is the number of people who have encouraged me to speak out politically about my faith. I think oftentimes, the Democratic Party has shied away from that, and what I've heard from a large number of people, including Democrats, is that is part of the reason we support you. They see me as a different kind of Democrat." Voters, he said, "see in me someone who has their best interests at heart someone who puts their needs and the needs of our nation above the needs of the party." Like many Democrats running in conservative territory, Scott said he would strive for bipartisan solutions, but also said he's "shocked" by the inability of Republicans in Congress to check Trump, and that it's a concern he has heard from voters in both parties. His run has been boosted by new district boundaries drawn by the Supreme Court after it ruled Pennsylvania's old congressional map was unconstitutional. It's now a district that supported Trump by 9 percentage points, instead of 22 under the old borders. Despite that shift to a more moderate composition, Perry, who served in Iraq as an Army helicopter pilot and then in the state legislature, remains a devout conservative who aligns with the far-right House Freedom Caucus. The group's leader, U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows (R., N.C.) is sending in campaign money to try to save him. >> VOTERS GUIDE: View candidates in the 2018 midterm election based on your address, or browse all the action in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware Perry's campaign did not respond to multiple requests to attend his events. Several Pennsylvania Republicans, including Gerow, predicted that Perry would win. But several groused that the incumbent, who has never had a close call, didn't take the threat seriously, even when political professionals warned him. "Until recently, I don't think the congressman thought he had a race," said Josh Novotney, a Philadelphia Republican who has previously worked with the party's House campaign arm. He said national Republicans and Perry "seem to be considering it a real race now, but it will probably be tighter than it should be." An Erie County battle At first glance, Kelly's district appears to be the bigger stretch for Democrats. Trump won it by 20 percentage points. But the district also narrowly voted for Barack Obama in 2008, giving Democrats some hope. The Democratic challenger there, DiNicola, is more measured in his stance toward Trump than many in his party. He praised the president for "cracking down on the Chinese" and said his main goal reforming campaign spending would further Trump's pledge to "drain the swamp." A boxer when he was in the Marines, DiNicola said he would support Trump on issues that are helpful to Western Pennsylvania and criticized Kelly for voting in favor of a trade deal with South Korea. (The pact was also backed by 59 House Democrats and signed by Obama in 2011.) "I'm not in a race to critique the president. He came to my district to campaign for my opponent, and he graciously did not saddle me with a nickname that I will have for the rest of my life, so I'm pretty good with him so far," DiNicola said in an interview. Kelly, however, scoffed at that notion. "He can say what he wants. Nancy Pelosi will tell him what shirt to wear, what tie to wear," Kelly said. Kelly, who ran his family's car dealership in Butler before joining Congress as part of the tea party wave, said Trump and the GOP have breathed life into a struggling region. People's "lives the last 21 months have changed dramatically under this administration," he said in an interview. Echoing Trump, he also warned about the caravan of migrants moving through Central America toward the U.S. border, though it is 1,000 miles away, saying Americans should be concerned about people who might "live in their houses and eat their food and use their doctors." A Times/Siena poll in early October found Kelly with an 8 percentage point advantage. If Democrats see hope in those races, though, Northeast Pennsylvania presents a potential stumbling block. Cartwright's district swung roughly 22 percentage points from Obama toward Trump, one of the largest rightward shifts in the country. Republicans see a chance to offset expected losses elsewhere. Independent political analysts, however, rate the race as a "likely" victory for Cartwright, and a mid-October Times/Siena poll found the Democrat with a 12-point lead. If an upset emerges in any of the races, it could signal which party will end election night smiling. Staff writer Angela Couloumbis contributed to this article. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) talks during a campaign stop at the Laborers Local 135 in Norristown, Pa., on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. Casey is running for re-election against Republican Lou Barletta. TIM TAI / Staff Photographer Read more The midterm race in Pennsylvania for U.S. Senate could have been a contender for statewide fascination, a rematch of the 2016 presidential election here that ended with Donald Trump prevailing by a fraction of a percentage point. Instead, the contest between the incumbent, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., and his Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, has been more snoozy than newsy as it enters the final week before Election Day. Barletta insists the "sleepy" nature of the race plays to his advantage and has discouraged outside political organizations from flooding the air with independent ads, allowing Barletta to focus on drawing contrasts with Casey in front of crowds on the campaign trail. "I like where we are because I believe there's the same kind of movement here in Pennsylvania that was happening during the Trump-Clinton campaign," Barletta said Tuesday after stumping in Chambersburg and Mechanicsburg, in the central region. "Although it has been written as a disadvantage to me, I'm glad it's a sleepy race, because it kept these outside groups out." Casey, who is seeking a third term, didn't buy into his opponent's somnolent read during a campaign stop at a union hall in Montgomery County on Tuesday afternoon. "It may be a race where people kind of focused on it late," said the Democrat from Scranton. "But I think it's going to be a fight to the finish, and we're going to be all across the state in the course of seven days to try to get votes in every community." There has been plenty of effort to inject energy into the Senate race. Trump has visited Pennsylvania twice for Barletta rallies and fund-raisers Wilkes-Barre in August and Erie three weeks ago. He also sent Vice President Pence to Philadelphia in July to help raise funds for Barletta, who was co-chairman of Trump's campaign in Pennsylvania in 2016. Former President Barack Obama came calling on Casey's behalf in September, rallying Democrats in Philadelphia. Still, the race lacks much drama. An average of polling compiled by the website Real Clear Politics shows Casey holding a 16-point edge on Barletta. That is likely a function of name recognition. Casey is the son of a former governor and has held some sort of statewide office for two decades. Barletta, a former mayor of Hazleton who has served four terms in the House, has been unable to raise enough money to broadcast enough campaign commercials to tell his story. >> VOTERS GUIDE: View candidates in the 2018 midterm election based on your address, or browse all the action in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware The most recent federal campaign finance reports show Barletta with just over $1 million in the bank as of Oct. 17 while Casey had just under $4.5 million. Casey has presented himself as a check on Trump's power, railing about corporate interests that push for tax breaks, pliant U.S. Supreme Court justices, and limits to organized labor. Barletta pitches himself as a needed ally for the president in the Senate, especially on immigration issues, and knocks Casey as sliding from moderate to more progressive while in office. Casey had no interest in acting overconfident, predicting that "Republicans will come home" for Barletta and casting Pennsylvania as "a 52-48 kind of state," a potential percentage spread for the vote next Tuesday. Here, at last, Casey and Barletta find common ground. I think right now this is a razor-thin race, Barletta said. I felt that way a week out in the presidential election. Arizona teachers camp out at the capitol in Phoenix during budget debate in the spring; Gov. Ducey agreed to give teachers a near 20 percent pay raise. (AP Photo/Matt York) Read more Hot-button issues like immigration and guns might be commanding more attention, but in Pennsylvania and around the country, education has become a major player in state elections. From Arizona and Oklahoma to Florida and Maryland, candidates for governor across party lines have been committing to steer more money toward schools and, in a number of states, pledging to boost teacher paychecks elevating a lower-profile issue into a campaign-trail talking point. Gubernatorial campaigns always feature "sort of a litany of issues create jobs, improve the state's economy, educate our kids. But this time, it really is more top of mind, and I think more pivotal in a number of races," said Jennifer Duffy, a senior editor who tracks governors' races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. School funding has been a prominent issue in deep-red states like Kansas and Oklahoma, where "there is a serious backlash against Republican governors who cut taxes" at the expense of education budgets, Duffy said. While teacher unions have generally allied with Democrats, Republicans also have been voicing support for educators. In Arizona among the states where teachers walked out earlier this year Republican Gov. Doug Ducey has described himself as "on the side of the teacher," pointing to a budget he signed promising a nearly 20 percent pay increase over three years. In Florida, Democrat Andrew Gillum proposes increasing corporate income taxes to raise $1 billion in revenue for public education, while conservative Republican Ron DeSantis says he will "boost classroom spending for students and teachers." Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican who warred with teachers over legislation that weakened unions, has branded himself the "pro-education governor" as he defends his seat against Democratic state school superintendent Tony Evers. And in Pennsylvania, Scott Wagner, a Republican trying to unseat Democratic Gov. Wolf, has pledged to put an additional $1 billion into public education even as he has contended schools "have enough" money. Meanwhile, Wolf, who boosted funding by nearly $2 billion though most of that was used for pension costs has emphasized his continued support for education. Following the recession, "a lot of people have been waiting for money to go into education, and wondering why if the economy is doing well, public schools aren't doing as well," said Mike Griffith, a school finance consultant with the Education Commission of the States. Teacher strikes in six states earlier this year have also drawn new attention to school funding. For advocates trying to engage voters, "you have to talk about things like that not 'schools don't have enough money,' but 'we have 27 teaching openings that we can't fill,'" Griffith said. A national Education Next survey this year found that 49 percent of respondents who were given information about teacher salaries in their state said pay should increase up 13 points from last year. In the six strike states, 63 percent of respondents said pay should increase, compared with 47 percent elsewhere. The only year in the survey's 12-year history when a higher percentage of respondents said teacher pay should increase was 2008, just before the financial crisis. Of respondents supplied data on how much their school district spends per student, 47 percent said spending should increase up 7 points from last year. In a number of states, voters will decide on ballot measures to put more money into education. In Colorado, they will be asked to raise taxes on income over $150,000 and to raise the corporate income tax rate to increase K-12 funding. Maryland voters will decide whether to dedicate an increasing amount of gambling revenue to education; Missouri voters, to legalize medical marijuana and devote a portion of tax revenue to early childhood education; Oklahoma voters, to use property taxes to fund school operations and construction. Also before voters in several states are proposed bond measures, including in New Jersey, where voters will decide whether to bond $500 million to expand county vocational technical schools and pay for school security upgrades. >> VOTERS GUIDE: View candidates in the 2018 midterm election based on your address, or browse all the action in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware >> SIGN UP: Get daily text messages on key issues leading up to the election Making education a prime campaign issue isn't necessarily buoying candidates. In Maryland, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan is leading in polls despite Democratic challenger Ben Jealous' pledge to raise teacher pay nearly 30 percent and legalize and tax marijuana to pay for universal pre-kindergarten. "There's outrage all over Oklahoma about the state of schools. There's not outrage all over Maryland," Duffy said. She said that while Baltimore schools are struggling, in the suburbs of Washington, "voters are pretty happy" with their schools. Hogan has been touting his education record, running ads promoting "record" funding for schools during his tenure. While some Democrats including in Arizona and Florida are pitching tax increases to fund education, a number of Republican candidates are talking about directing money to classrooms. DeSantis, the Florida Republican, pledges to "boost" spending for students and teachers by requiring 80 percent of education funding to go to classrooms, though details of the plan aren't clear. For Republicans, "especially in a state like Pennsylvania, a lot of this is trying to connect with blue-collar voters" who like their schools and teachers, said Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. But he questioned how much impact such appeals would have in a polarized election climate: "Usually, education gets the most traction when folks are playing for the middle." School funding isn't the only education issue at play. In Ohio, the collapse of an online charter school has provided ammunition for Democrats trying to regain power from state Republicans, who have supported school choice policies. "Elected officials at the state level have seen that education reform is very complicated politically," said Martin West, a professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "Some of these issues of test-based accountability, school choice they are complex." That may be part of the reason candidates are instead talking about funding schools, West said: "No candidate wants to be seen as stingy when it comes to K-12 education funding." Scott Wallace, Democratic candidate for U.S House in First District, talks to Naomi T. Judge outsider he home in Levittown, Pa. Tuesday, October 29, 2018. Read more Mary Jo Kirschman drove 2 hours to volunteer for Scott Wallace's congressional campaign. Inside a spare campaign office in Bucks County on a cloudy October day, the middle-aged Baltimore resident and a dozen or so others were preparing to go door to door in search of voters. Wallace, a Democrat trying to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, had a suggestion for winning over people in the suburban swing district. "I always start by asking them what their big issue is," he said. "But then, the umbrella issue I find works best across the board, including among Republicans and independents, is corporate money in politics." Wallace has promised he won't take campaign funds from corporate political action committees. Another detail to stress, he said: Fitzpatrick, who has campaigned as a moderate, votes with President Trump 84 percent of the time. "One word you'll never hear cross his lips is Republican," Wallace said. "But every time Trump needs him, he's right there. So don't let people get away with thinking he's a moderate." Kirschman is in the Philadelphia suburbs this weekend because she wants Democrats to take back the House and the First District race is one of the most competitive congressional elections in the country. With Democrats now speculating control of the chamber could come down to a handful of contests, voters in Bucks County will likely have an outsize role in determining whether Republicans are expelled from power. "We feel like we need to spread our wings and fly to the hot campaign," said Kirschman. "We've got to flip Congress." Bucks County residents have a history of splitting their tickets: At various times, voters have supported Hillary Clinton, Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, Democratic Gov. Wolf, and former Republican Gov. Tom Corbett. Most recent polls in the First District, which includes a portion of Montgomery County, have found Fitzpatrick ahead by a slim margin. The race is of such national importance that journalists from France, Germany, and Japan have studied it. Indivisible Baltimore, Swing Left, and University of Pennsylvania students have flocked to the region to help Wallace. Whether they're successful may depend on whether Bucks County voters, sometimes described as "parochial" by political analysts, see this year's election as a referendum on Trump or their self-described "centrist" Republican incumbent. An anti-Trump campaign in a swing district Wallace, a 67-year-old multi-millionaire philanthropist, never ran for office until this year. For the last 15 years, he ran a family foundation with his wife, which distributed grants to groups attempting to fight climate change, protect women's rights, and overhaul the criminal justice system, as well as liberal media organizations. David Hunter, an environmental law professor at American University, called the Global Wallace Fund "one of the more cutting-edge foundations on climate justice." (Hunter noted that he formerly received funding from the foundation, which also has supported groups on whose boards he sits.) Earlier in his career, Wallace worked as a lawyer for a U.S. Senate committee and a director at the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. He said he decided to run because he was frustrated with Trump. "Trump got elected and started betraying many of the promises that he made to work for working people," he said. "We were also losing something about who we are as a nation, something about our democratic values, our respect for the institutions of law and the press." Much of Wallace's campaign has focused on tying his opponent to Trump and national Republicans. His TV ads have assailed Fitzpatrick for voting for Trump's tax cuts, which he said "exploded our debt by $2 trillion." He noted in a recent debate that Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan fund-raised for Fitzpatrick this month a visit Fitzpatrick didn't publicize. Wallace has also repeatedly highlighted that "84 percent" figure, from the data-journalism website FiveThirtyEight. Fitzpatrick counters that the number is based on a fraction of Congress' votes. Wallace's strategy of nationalizing the election could succeed in a district where Trump is unpopular. Like many other well-educated suburbs in the U.S., the president's job approval rating is underwater in the First District, according to polling by the New York Times and Siena College. Wallace's job is trickier than other similarly situated Democrats, however. Republicans in purple districts across the country have played defense by highlighting bipartisan bonafides, but few have done so as effectively as Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick has touted votes against repealing the Affordable Care Act, NRA-backed legislation requiring states to honor other states' concealed-carry gun permits, and a bill opposing a carbon tax. He also comes from a political family with a centrist identity, and has won the support of labor unions and gun-control groups. >> VOTERS GUIDE: View candidates in the 2018 midterm election based on your address, or browse all the action in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware >> SIGN UP: Get daily text messages on key issues leading up to the election Wallace, meanwhile, has unique weaknesses as a candidate: Though he was born in Bucks County, he lived in Washington and South Africa until recently. He also inherited his wealth and was born into a minor Democratic royal family his grandfather was a vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt giving firepower to Republicans who brand him as out of touch. But Wallace has the cash to fight back: He's spent more than $8 million of his own funds on the race, which is one of the most expensive in the nation. Outside groups have also poured money into the campaign, most of it against Wallace. Wallace's campaign seems most centered on turning out Democrats. He has embraced the surge in liberal activism in the wake of Trump's election, campaigning alongside gun-control and environmental activists, as well as students. He's also raised the issue of climate change to a degree not often seen in this year's congressional races. Still, in a place like Bucks County, he needs to win over some independents. Wallace tells voters that he was hired as a U.S. Senate attorney by Republicans. Like Fitzpatrick, he has described himself as independent. He has also declined to say whether he will vote for Nancy Pelosi for House speaker if Democrats win the majority. Control of the U.S. House could come down to this race A Democratic committee person told the Inquirer and Daily News that he's voting for Fitzpatrick. A registered independent said he's casting a ballot for Wallace. A lifelong Republican woman said she's likely voting a straight ticket this year for Democrats. Bucks County is home to many swing voters, which means that even though political observers say all politics is local here, the district also often moves with the nation. In 2006, Fitzpatrick's brother, former Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, was ousted in a Democratic wave and then swept back into the House amid the tea party revolt of 2010. With days to go till Election Day, Wallace reflected on the national importance of his campaign. "It could come down to this race," he said. "If we lose this race and we come down to 22 seats" meaning the Democrats fail to take the majority by a single seat "I'll feel pretty miserable and I'll blame myself." But, he said, that "just increases your determination." If Wallace is lucky, there are more voters in suburbs like Mark Popjoy than not. After an October debate between Wallace and Fitzpatrick in Doylestown, Popjoy, an engineer from Montgomery Township, said he is voting for the Democrat. He used to vote for Republicans. In many ways, he's exactly the kind of voter that Fitzpatrick should have a chance of winning over. But the GOP has "moved away" from him in recent years, Popjoy said. "I was a Northeast, moderate Republican," he said. "I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I haven't changed." Popjoy, in particular, said he thought Fitzpatrick's vote for tax cuts was financially irresponsible. While he talked about the changing GOP, an aide for Fitzpatrick approached Popjoy and his wife, Ellie Reader. She asked if they wanted a copy of a Washington Post article, which found that Democrats had falsely claimed Fitzpatrick voted against safeguarding people with pre-existing conditions. They didn't, Reader replied: "We're voting for Wallace." HARRISBURG Jurors on Wednesday will begin weighing the fate of Democratic State Rep. Vanessa Lowery Brown, deciding whether she was a politician so desperate for money that she readily accepted cash bribes or an unsuspecting victim of a "lethal human being." The case a Dauphin County jury of seven women and five men will decide is the final chapter of a sweeping sting operation that the state Attorney General's Office ran from 2010 to 2012. The investigation divided the state's legal and political communities even as it resulted in guilty or no-contest pleas from five Philadelphia Democrats, including four legislators. Brown, whose 190th District takes in portions of West Philadelphia, faces bribery and other charges for accepting $4,000 in 2011 from the sting's undercover operative, Tyron B. Ali. She was the only defendant to take a case to trial. During closing arguments Tuesday afternoon, First Assistant District Attorney Michael A. Sprow told jurors that Brown admitted to a grand jury that heard evidence in the case that she knew she was committing a crime when she accepted from Ali envelopes stuffed with cash. Brown understood there were "strings attached" to the money she received from Ali, Sprow told the jury. During those exchanges, she and Ali who was posing as a lobbyist and secretly recording the conversations discussed specific pieces of legislation and how she should vote on them. "This was cash for votes," said Sprow, who is trying the case with Deputy District Attorney Ryan Shovlin. Added Sprow: "The defendant is a grown woman. She made the decision to take this money. She made the decision to do something she knew was illegal. And it's time for her to be held accountable." Brown's defense lawyer, Patrick A. Casey, countered that his client was a victim of an unscrupulous "con man," calling Ali a "lethal human being." Ali pushed so hard to get Brown to break the law that he engaged in entrapment, Casey argued. And entrapment "is a complete defense to any of her actions in response to his conduct." Casey said that the people who were supposed to be overseeing Ali including the lead agent in the case allowed him to operate virtually unchecked during the sting. Dozens of phone calls between Ali and his client were never recorded, said Casey, who also noted that the lead agent also did not prepare written summaries of Ali's interactions with Brown. Prosecutors, Casey said, should have walked away from Brown after she rejected Ali's offer of cash during their first meeting, and told him to write a check. "He is calling her unsupervised, unrecorded, unwritten down," Casey told the jurors. "That should shock your conscience. That that predator is permitted to run his own investigation of this woman." Sprow said that Brown may have initially rejected Ali's cash offer, but during that same meeting began scheming for Ali to funnel the money through a nonprofit to avoid detection. That conversation was recorded. To prove entrapment, said Sprow, Brown would have to show that the government used methods so extreme that it induced her to commit a crime. In Brown's case, said Sprow, her own words to the grand jury demonstrate clearly that she knew what she was doing was wrong. "I am sorry. I never wanted to be in this position," she told the grand jury. "It was wrong. I accept full responsibility for what I've done." Brown, who is unopposed in her reelection bid next week, did not testify in her own defense. Graham Davenport Andrews, 88, of Newtown Square, an executive with Merrill Lynch and a civic leader who served 15 years on the Radnor Township Board of Commissioners, died Friday, Oct. 26, of pneumonia at Bryn Mawr Hospital. Known as "Gray," Mr. Andrews was born in New Haven, Conn., to Clarence F. and Doris Davenport Andrews. He graduated from Lyman Hall High School in Wallingford, Conn., in 1947 and from Brown University, with a bachelor's degree in economics, in 1951. Mr. Andrews served in the Navy from 1953 to 1956 and was deployed to Korea and Japan. Before being honorably discharged with the rank of lieutenant, he supervised the logistics of getting supply ships to dock properly at military bases. "He learned Japanese and Korean from being over there," said daughter Alyce Gesner Andrews. "Any [Asian] friends we had, he could talk to them." After the war, Mr. Andrews worked as a logistics expert, scheduling docking for barges that came up the Delaware River to the Atlantic Richfield Co. marine terminals. In 1964, he left to become a vice president and financial adviser at Merrill Lynch in Wayne and Philadelphia. His favorite part of the job was following the stock market and mentoring trainees. "He was the senior of all new trainees in the Philadelphia office," his daughter said. He retired in 2008. Mr. Andrews was active in municipal politics as longtime campaign chair for the Radnor Republican Party. In 1984, he was elected a Radnor Township commissioner from the Fourth Ward. He was president of the seven-member board from 1986 to 1999, when he resigned because he was moving out of the township. "As a part of that job, he ran the police department," his daughter said. "He loved getting the police report. He was a peace-maker, on an even keel." As board president, he took on some thorny issues, such as construction of the Radnor Trail between Wayne and Strafford. Most of the commissioners opposed the trail in 1993 and 1994, but public opinion was split. Homeowners whose properties backed up to the trail begged the commissioners to scrap the plan, fearing crime and invasion of their privacy. Other residents liked the trail concept. Some commissioners' meetings grew so heated that police had to be called to quell shouting matches in the audience. Mr. Andrews, however, refused a request by the project's opponents to withdraw the application for federal funds to cover 80 percent of the project cost. The rest was to come from PennDot. The matter was put to a public referendum in 1995, and it was approved. Construction began in 2004. Mr. Andrews was a member of Wayne Presbyterian Church, where he served as an elder, trustee, and deacon. He was a member and past president of the St. Andrew's Society of Philadelphia. He also served on the board of directors for the Radnor High School Scholarship Fund, and St. Christopher's Hospital for Children. Mr. Andrews' activities were often in the news, including on the Inquirer's society page. In the summer of 1967, he and his wife, Jean Fergusson Reed Andrews, threw a party at their Radnor home to plan a fall fund-raiser hosted by the Friends of St. Christopher's. Mr. Andrews loved the water. He spent many summers at his grandparents' house in Jamestown, on Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay. Later, with his family, he enjoyed family homes in Madison, Conn., and Avalon, N.J. He loved the Flyers, politics, Scottish history, and spending time with his grandchildren. On holidays and birthdays, he composed limericks. "He was a kind, generous, funny guy," his daughter said. Besides his wife and daughter, he is survived by daughters Elizabeth Alcorn Andrews and Margaret Andrews Rosecky; five grandchildren; a brother; a niece; and two nephews. A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9, at Wayne Presbyterian Church, 125 E. Lancaster Ave., Wayne, Pa. 19087. Interment is private. Memorial donations may be made to St. Christopher's Foundation for Children, 1800 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 1550, Philadelphia, Pa. 19103, or to Wayne Presbyterian Church at the address above. The photographs we're featuring here are unusual for a number of reasons: We typically don't run so many images with an editorial, and we typically don't feature candidates running for office in districts far beyond our coverage area. But these photos are unusual for a much bigger reason: These are the women running for Congress in a state that has a terrible track record for female representation. With so many women running, these images represent history in the making for Pennsylvania. Consider: In a state where women are 51 percent of the population, our congressional delegation of 18 is all male. We're one of just 11 states with no women in Congress. Former Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky was the first woman to win a congressional election in Pennsylvania without succeeding her husband. That was 1993. Three women preceded her as members of the Pennsylvania delegation, but in each case, they were elected to their late husbands' seats. Three women have followed her, including former Rep. Allyson Schwartz, who left to run for governor four years ago. How do the interests and concerns of half the population get understood and represented in Congress without women in office? While not exclusively the concern of women, they can bring expertise, focus, and understanding to the issues of health care, reproductive rights, education, family, workplace, gun safety, and more. Without a better balance in Congress, those issues often become marginalized and not given the weight they deserve. And a polarized lawmaking body gets further mired in strife and inaction. This is the 21st century. Do we really need to spell out the value of full representation? Some of the women shown here are in races we were not able to include in our endorsement process of meeting and interviewing candidates. But we have no hesitation in endorsing their candidacies as another reason to take these midterm elections seriously. Pennsylvania won't progress until the imbalance in representation is rectified. Here are the races: Madeleine Dean is running in the Fourth District. We endorsed her in the primary, citing her support for gun control as a founder of PA SAFE, a caucus of state legislators and firearm safety advocates. Two women vie for the Fifth District Pearl Kim and Mary Gay Scanlon. We did not meet with Pearl Kim, a special-victims prosecutor in the Delaware County District Attorney's Office; we endorsed Scanlon, a lawyer and community activist, in the May primary, calling her a "standout." It's important to note they will appear on some ballots twice: in a special election to fill a seat left when U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan resigned and the general election in a newly drawn Fifth District. These candidates represent a new era in Pennsylvania and a chance for your vote to help make history. NEW DELHI: Bihar government on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that former cabinet minister Manju Verma, who had to resign after Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case came to light, has gone into hiding and could not be traced out by police in a case lodged against her under Arms Act. The Supreme Court came down heavily on the state agencies and law enforcement bodies for failing to arrest Verma. All is not well in Bihar. Former minister goes hiding and the government does not know and has failed to arrest her after her bail plea rejected, said the top court. The SC on Tuesday had pulled up Bihar Police for not arresting Verma even after her anticipatory bail application was dismissed by the Patna High Court on October 9. Her husband Chandrashekhar Verma had surrendered before a Begusarai court on Monday in connection with the arms case registered against him, the apex court was informed by the Bihar government. The top court on Tuesday ordered that prime accused Brajesh Thakur be shifted out of the state to Punjab's Patiala jail. The court also directed that Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual abuse case, be shifted to the Patiala high-security jail in Punjab from Bihar's Bhagalpur jail. Over 30 girls were allegedly raped and sexually abused at the shelter home in Muzaffarpur. The case of alleged sexual exploitation was highlighted in an audit report submitted by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to the state's social welfare department. An FIR was lodged on May 31 against 11 people, including Brajesh Thakur, who was running the shelter home. The probe was later taken over by the CBI. So far 17 persons have been arrested in connection with the case. If you are an optimist like I am, you would see a silver lining in the royal mess we are witnessing in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which has lately been rechristened as the Central Bureau of Infighting after its No. 1 and No. 2 accused each other of irregularities and started investigating each other instead of the welter of corruption cases plaguing India. But we ought to have known better. Ever since the Modi government came to power, fighting corruption has been its chosen plank. The problem, however, is the "Gujarat model" of picking favourite officers to fight politically promised battles is not an easy one. Simply put, we are witnessing a case of Chanakya-era style of a Hindu king using handpicked loyalists in his durbar-style governance being superimposed on a Westminster system of administration inherited from British rule under which the civil servants are largely independent. In the Westminster system, you usually trust the bureaucracy, of which the CBI is a part, and do not violate its procedures. When officers don't play ball, you transfer them gently to nondescript departments. The civil servant is not really a servant, as we learned in the hilarious episodes of the BBC comedy, Yes, Minister. However, the Modi government has bitten off more than it can chew -- or at least wants to. Last week, former BJP minister and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leading critic now, Arun Shourie, joked that in Gujarat, civil servants were "civil...(pause)...servants". Whether it is in surprising the country with a demonetisation of high-value currency notes or in the running of the country's premier investigation agency, the Modi government has relied on its chosen people rather than traditional processes, and has substantially bypassed the bureaucracy than enlist its help. This brings in risks of the kind the government has been facing already. It is, of course, a huge challenge when corruption is endemic in the system and you use the bureaucracy to tackle corruption. While we may shed a tear or two for the ostensibly noble intent of the Modi government, we may add that it is not advisable to rush in where angels fear to tread. What seems to have happened in the CBI case is that the No.1, Alok Verma, felt sidelined. Experience tells me that army officers, police officers and bureaucrats take their hierarchical prestige very seriously, and being sidelined in favour of a junior can trigger sparks of vengeance. So we can see a comic Yes, Minister episode assuming the dark colours of a Netflix-run Sacred Games with its thriller skulduggery. With very un-sacred consequences, as we witnessed last week, when the government moved like Pakistan's coup-loving army one dark night to remove the two warring super cops from office. With the matter now placed firmly under the Supreme Court's supervision, a new chapter has begun. For too long, we have had a public discourse in which the CBI (technically under the Home Ministry) being described as a "caged parrot" on the one hand, even as it claims to be an autonomous sleuthing body. It is therefore natural that CBI director Alok Verma could take his removal to the Supreme Court and gain public sympathy and opposition support. A Catch-22 situation arises for the Modi government because if you interfere in the CBI, you are proving allegations of a caged parrot and if you don't you are seen doing nothing to fight corruption. The Central Vigilance Commission is looking into allegations against Alok Verma. Not for nothing, the CVC is described as a postman who forwards corruption complaints. It is officially not an investigating agency and usually works with the CBI as a partner. More important, the government has to approve the CVC taking up any investigation into corruption cases. There are also questions on how senior officials could be appointed to the CBI with CVC clearance in the first place when there were allegations pending against them. Now, consider the irony of the fact that a government accused of corruption is approving a probe into the affairs of a man who is heading the very agency that gives teeth to the largely toothless CVC! I can almost hear you say: "Where is the Lok Pal when you need her?" Though a law was passed in 2013 to set up a Lok Pal, for technical reasons the law that enables the appointment of a constitutional ombudsman to probe allegations of serious corruption has been a non-starter. In the light of all this, I do believe there is a silver lining when the CBI's state of affairs lands up in the Supreme Court. There is something fundamentally wrong in the system when the CVC is toothless, the Lok Pal is absent, the CBI is a caged parrot in perception or reality and there are widespread allegations of political corruption. The highest court of the land should treat the CBI mess as an opportunity to get a clean-up done. Not just in the current standoff. It should hopefully do something in the long-term interest of fighting corruption and maladministration. It is not yet clear if the Supreme Court will overstep its brief as far as the current case is concerned, but, given the court's far-reaching pronouncements on issues ranging from privacy to gay rights, one hopes those pleading in the larger public interest will goad it to do something more. I for one would prefer the Supreme Court to have a permanent interest in the functioning of the CBI pending the appointment of a Lok Pal. India's premier investigating agency could do with some judicial muscle. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.) NEW DELHI: Despite several preventive measures taken by the authorities to curb rising pollution, the air quality in the national capital turned severe on Tuesday. This is probably for the first time in this season that the air quality in the national capital has reached such levels due to an increase in stubble burning in the neighbouring states. A thick layer of smog engulfed Delhi's India Gate and other parts of the national capital this morning. According to the Air Quality Index (AQI) data, major pollutant PM 2.5 was recorded 262 (poor) and PM 10 at 283 (poor) in the Lodhi Road area this morning. All construction activities banned from Nov 1 Sensing the situation, the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) said that the use of private vehicles may be stopped in the national capital if the situation of air pollution gets worse. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) has banned all construction activities from November 1 for 10 days and directed the authorities to intensify patrolling in "hot spots". The EPCA's directions to the Delhi Pollution Control Committee came after it accepted the recommendation of a Central Pollution Control Board-led task force for the period between November 1 to 10 when further deterioration of air is expected due to festival season and stubble burning in neighbouring states. The order includes a ban on all construction activities involving excavation, civil construction to remain closed in Delhi and other NCR districts from November 1-10, closure of all stone crushers, hot mix plants generating dust pollution in Delhi and NCR districts from November 1-10. All industries using coal and biomass as fuel (excluding thermal and waste to energy plants) to remain closed in Delhi and NCR districts from November 4-10 is another order. The EPCA has also asked DPCC to direct transport department and traffic police to intensify checking of polluting vehicles and control travel congestion in Delhi and other NCR districts during November 1-10. It has also asked for intensified patrolling in industrial areas and other hot spots so as to completely control waste burning and industrial emissions. Following the direction from the EPCA, the DPCC notified Delhi Development Authority, Navratna Central Public Sector, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, Delhi Transport Corporation, National Highway Authority of India, India Meteorological Department, New Delhi Municipal Council, South Delhi Municipal Council, East Delhi Municipal Council and Public Works Department to enforce these measures. An EPCA official also said if the air continues to deteriorate further even after the implementation of measures introduced under the emergency plan then they are considering to regulate use of private vehicles. The EPCA has also asked DPCC to publish in newspapers advisory for public, recommending them to reduce outdoor activities and minimise their travel using private vehicles as much as possible, the official said. The EPCA has asked DPCC to give the order to all government agencies concerned in this regard, an official said. Centre-run System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) recorded the AQI at 410. 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'. Eighteen areas in Delhi recorded 'severe' air quality with the highest AQI at 4 PM recorded at Anand Vihar at 467, according to a data by the CPCB. Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon and Noida recorded 'severe' air pollution, crossing the AQI of 400. Greater Noida's air is also on the brink of turning severe, the data said. SAFAR has attributed the spike to "heavy stubble burning in the last 24 hours and calm winds". About 28 per cent of pollution by PM2.5 (presence of particles in the air with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers) on Tuesday was caused due to regional factors like stubble burning, SAFAR officials said. Special teams formed to check pollution and violators Delhi Environment Minister Imran Hussain has announced deploying 44 teams, including from Central departments, from November 1 to keep a check on pollution and violators. In a statement issued on Tuesday, Hussain said the "urgent campaign" is being jointly organised by the Delhi government and the Centre. "Under the campaign, we appeal to the citizens to strictly avoid activities that add to air pollution," he said. The 44 teams will comprise SDMs, officers from the municipal corporations, Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), Delhi Environment Department, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), and the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. "From garbage/stubble burning to dusty roads, vehicular emission and use of diesel generators, the teams will be mandated to curb local source of air pollution and take strict action against violators responsible for sources of air pollution across Delhi," Hussain`s office said. "Strict punitive action will be taken against violators of dust control measures and those burning waste material, plastic, garbage in the open," the Minister said. The joint campaign will be flagged off at the Indira Paryavaran Bhawan, Jor Bagh, on November 1 by the Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Dr. Harsh Vardhan and Delhi Environment Minister Imran Hussain. New Delhi: Amidst the alleged ongoing rift between the government and RBI, sources have said that RBI Governor Urjit Patel will not quit from his post. Sources told Zeebiz that the reports of his resignation are utterly baseless. The Central Bank Governor has called for a board meeting on November 19 to discuss the pending issues and also discuss on the issues that have led to a tug-of-war kind of situation beteween RBI and government. Finance Ministry issues statement The Finance Ministry on Wednesday emphasised on public interest and requirements of economy as the guiding force for both the parties, adding that it has never made consultations with the central bank public. Issuing a statement, the Finance Ministry said, The autonomy for the Central Bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential and accepted governance requirement. Governments in India have nurtured and respected this. Both the Government and the Central Bank, in their functioning, have to be guided by public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy. The Finance Ministry said that it has never made public the subject matter of consultations with the apex bank. Extensive consultations on several issues take place between government and RBI from time to time. This is equally true of all regulators. Government has never made public the subject matter of those consultations. Only final decisions are communicated. The Government, through these consultations, places its assessment on issues and suggests possible solutions. The Government will continue to do so, Finance Ministry statement said. Section 7 of RBI Act The government statement comes after reports that it has invoked never-before-used powers under Section 7 of the RBI Act that empowers the government to consult and give instructions to the central bank governor to act on certain issues that the government considers serious and in public interest. What led to the current chaos? The rift between the RBI and the government has spilled into the public domain after Deputy Governor Viral Acharya said last week that undermining central bank independence could be "potentially catastrophic", indicating the authority is pushing back against government pressure to relax its policies and reduce its powers ahead of a general election due by May. Recently, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley blamed the central bank for failing to stop a lending spree during 2008-2014 that left banks with $150 billion of bad debt. Chandigarh: The Haryana government on Tuesday said that salary for the period of the strike and unauthorised absence of Haryana Roadways employees from October 16 to date should not be released till further orders. The direction came as the strike by roadways staff, which has crippled the state-run public transport system in the state, completed 15 days. Thousands of passengers are being put to inconvenience across Haryana for the past 15 days owing to the strike by the roadways staff. However, the Haryana Transport Department said that the salary bill will be prepared and submitted accordingly for the strike period of the agitating staff. "It will be the personal responsibility of concerned general manager and accounts officer to ascertain the compliance of the orders," a state government spokesman said here on Tuesday. Repeated rounds of talks between the Haryana government and the agitating roadways staff have failed to resolve the issue, particularly on the issue of privatising some services in the transport sector. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said that no privatisation is being carried out in the state roadways and the kilometre scheme would not affect any employee of the Haryana Roadways. Khattar told the media in Kurukshetra, around 110 km from here, on Tuesday that only the roadways fleet is being expanded. "Under the new scheme, driver would be the bus owner, whereas conductor would be deputed by the state government and revenue generated would also be of the state roadways. Similarly, the route and time table would be decided by the state roadways. The scheme is completely in favour of employees and it would improve the transportation system," Khattar pointed out. AHMEDABAD: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set to unveil the Statue of Unity - the worlds tallest statue - in Gujarat's Kevadiya on Wednesday. The statue with a height of 182 metres (597 feet) will be inaugurated on the occasion of the 143rd birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Catch the Live Streaming of unveiling of 'Statue of Unity' in Gujarat by PM Modi on Zee News A 'Run For Unity' is also being held across the country as a fitting tribute to Sardar Patel - the country's first Home Minister. Sardar Patel's 143rd birth anniversary Live Updates: PM Narendra Modi to unveil 'Statue of Unity' in Gujarat Elaborate security arrangements have also been put in place in Kevadiya ahead of the inauguration. Apprehending protests, the Gujarat Police have detained several tribal leaders and activists in the Narmada district ahead of the inauguration of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel`s statue. The police went knocking on the doors of several tribal activists and leaders in Kevadia, Rajpipla and Dediapada talukas (blocks), detaining them under IPC 68, fearing disruption of the government programmes on Wednesday. On the occasion of the 143rd birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while paying homage to the freedom fighter, hailed him as the "stalwart who unified India.""We bow to the great Sardar Patel, the stalwart who unified India and served the nation tirelessly, on his Jayanti," he tweeted. The Delhi High Court on Wednesday dismissed a PIL filed which sought the National Commission for Women (NCW) and Centre to take suo moto action against sexual assualt and harassment cases under #MeToo movement on the social media. A bench comprising Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice VK Rao said, ", "We are not inclined to entertain it. Please don't waste our time. Let the affected individual come. Dismissed." The petetion was field by lawyer Joginder Kumar Sukhija who said that the NCW failed to perform its duty to enquire the matter under #MeToo movement. Sukhija filed his petition saying that the NCW and the Ministry of Women and Child Development should take suo moto notice harrasment cases. Earlier, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi has asked the NCW to probe expeditiously all complaints of sexual harassment received by them under #MeToo movement. "I have asked NCW to probe expeditiously each and every complaint of sexual harassments of women at workplace," Gandhi told reporters. Meanwhile, in the wake of many women coming forward with complaints of their sexual harassments at workplace under the #MeToo campaign, the NCW had created a dedicated email ID to receive their complaints. "The Commission urges women, who have come forward on social media and other platforms about their alleged harassments, to send their formal written complaints to ncw.Metoo@gmail.Com," the NCW said in a statement. The Supreme Court on Wednesday clarified its order on the sale of firecrackers saying that firecrackers other than green crackers will not be sold in the Delhi-NCR region this festival season. A bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said firecrackers already produced can be sold this festival season but only in other parts of the country. In Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and other southern states, firecrackers can be burst from 4 am to 5 am and from 9 pm to 10 pm during festivals, the apex court said. The apex court said its direction on community bursting of firecrackers will apply pan India for two hours. Its directions on the ban on the sale of firecrackers through e-commerce websites will apply pan India, the court said. Earlier on Tuesday, the top court had modified its previous ruling on the bursting of firecrackers and allowed the state government to fix the timing for doing so during big festivals. The top court modified its earlier order by which bursting of firecrackers was allowed between 8 PM to 10 PM on Diwali, according to news agency ANI. The top court even allowed the state governments to fix the timing with a rider that the total timing must not exceed beyond two hours in a day. The court also clarified that its order on burning green firecrackers will be applicable only in Delhi. The top court passed the order while responding to a petition filed by the Tamil Nadu government in which urged it to allow bursting of firecrackers on Diwali morning as per religious practices in the state, besides the already permitted period between 8 PM to 10 PM. The plea, filed through advocate B Vinod Khanna, sought modification of apex court order that allowed bursting of firecrackers from 8 PM to 10 PM on Diwali and other festivals and said the state should be given permission between 4.30 AM to 6.30 AM as well. According to the petition, as far as Diwali celebrations are concerned, each state or sect has a separate set of beliefs, traditions and culture and the apex court's restriction would amount to "rejecting the people with their due religious rights and would subject the people of the state into much hardship". "Diwali is a practice religiously and scrupulously followed by the Hindus from time immemorial and it had become a core and essential religious practice which is also protected under Article 25 of the Constitution as their fundamental right," it said. Diwali is celebrated in the state early in the morning to commemorate the death of Narakashura, the evil slain by the Goddess in the early hours of dawn, it said. The plea contended that the modification sought by it was in the interest of the environment. "It would be in the interest of environment not to subject the entire population to burst firecrackers within a stipulated short time as it would lead to la arger volume of emissions within a short span. Permitting people to burst firecrackers at two different times with due intervals would facilitate dissemination of the smoke. "Further, making fire and rescue facilities available in case of any mishap would also be convenient when crackers are burst at different points of time with intervals than in the case of the entire mass bursting crackers within limited hours," it said. The petition also sought permission to allow people to continue to celebrate Diwali in their traditional way by bursting firecrackers in the early morning as well as during the time fixed by the top court. "In view of the presence of large population of people from other states of India in Tamil Nadu, it is necessary to permit them to celebrate Diwali as per their religious practice in the evening hours," it said. The top court had on October 23, said that people in the country can burst firecrackers from 8 PM to 10 PM only on Diwali and other festivals and had allowed manufacture and sale of just "green crackers" which have a low emission of light, sound and harmful chemicals. It had carved out an exception for the Christmas and the New Year eve saying that crackers for these occasions would be burst between 11.55 PM and 12.30 AM, since these celebrations start at midnight. It also banned the manufacture, sale and use of joined firecrackers (series crackers or laris) saying that they cause "huge air, noise and solid waste problems". The apex court had said the noise and smoke emission limits of the crackers will have to be approved by the Petroleum and Explosive Safety Organization (PESO), under the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry. New Delhi: India on Wednesday said it has lodged strong protests with China and Pakistan over a proposed bus service between the two countries through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said on Wednesday the bus service will be a violation of India's sovereignty and territorial integrity. According to reports, the new bus service will be launched between Lahore in Pakistan and Kashgar in China via Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on November 13. Kumar said it has been India's consistent and well-known position that the "so-called China-Pakistan 'Boundary Agreement' of 1963 is illegal and invalid, and has never been recognised by the Government of India." "Therefore, any such bus service through Pakistan Occupied Jammu & Kashmir will be a violation of India's sovereignty and territorial integrity," he added. The MEA spokesperson was responding to media queries regarding the proposed bus service. The USD 50-billion CPEC, launched in 2015, is a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking China's resource-rich Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with Pakistan's strategic Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea. Days after YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) chief Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy was attacked at the Visakhapatnam airport in Andhra Pradesh, the party on Tuesday demanded a CBI or judicial inquiry into the matter to unearth the fact and alleged that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu was involved in the a "conspiracy". YSRCP Rajya Sabha member V Vijayasai Reddy, addressing the media, also alleged that the attack had been planned for the last six months. Reddy also said that the party had no confidence on state government and alleged that even the state police department is being headed by a biased person. "The attacker could have chosen to attack Jagan Garu at padayatra itself where there was minimum security unlike the airport. This indicates that the attack was pre-planned and it was being planned for last 6 months. There is suspicion that CM Naidu was involved in this particular conspiracy. We've absolutely no confidence on Andhra Pradesh Govt. Even the state Police Dept is headed by a biased person. So,we demand an inquiry either by CBI or judiciary to unearth the fact," said Reddy. The party, however, asserted that Jagan, also is the leader of opposition in Andhra Pradesh assembly, will continue his 'padayatra' across the state, undeterred by such attacks. Reddy also added that a representation in this regard has been made to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, as reported by news agency PTI. Rubbishing the allegations, Andhra Pradesh chief minister's OSD for media affairs Telaprolu Srinivas Rao claimed that YSRCP leaders were trying to create unrest in the state. The YSRCP alleged that the state police is "biased" in its investigation and is working as per the direction of the chief minister. However, OSD to the Andhra Pradesh CM T S Rao alleged that "the person who attacked (Jagan) is a YSRCP man". "They (YSRCP) are trying to give a negative impression....They are trying to create unrest in the state," he alleged and claimed that YSRCP was acting at the behest of a national party. But the YSRCP questioned the police's handling of the case. YSRCP leader V Y Subba Reddy asked how the accused (Srinivas) was allowed to work on the airport premises despite having a criminal case pending against him. He claimed that the state government might "divert" the case and therefore a third party probe is required. Another YSRCP leader Varaprasad Rao said currently the probe is focused on the accused and not on conspirators. "We want conspirators to be probed. This is not possible with the Andhra Pradesh police. Hence, we want a central agency to investigate the case," he added. On October 25, Jagan was attacked by J Srinivas, who worked in a cafeteria at the Visakhapatnam Airport. He was stabbed by man with a sharp-edged object. Jagan suffered minor injuries on the left arm. He was on his way to Hyderabad. The assailant came up to Reddy on the pretext of taking a selfie and launched an attack, according to PTI. The 45-year-old leader is the son of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy. He founded the YSR Congress Party in March 2011 almost four months after quitting the Congress. Jagan is currently the Leader of Opposition in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly after his party emerged as the second largest in the state elections in May 2014. Jagan had won from Kadapa constituency in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections as a member of the Congress. MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government on Wednesday declared drought in 151 talukas in 26 districts. At least 112 talukas are facing severe drought and 39 talukas are facing moderate drought. On October 23, the state government had declared that 180 talukas were facing drought-like conditions. The 26 districts that are now facing drought comprise eight districts each in the Vidarbha and the Marathwada regions, five districts in North Maharashtra, four districts in western Maharashtra and Palghar district in the coastal Konkan region. At least 13 talukas in Jalgaon district in north Maharashtra are affected by severe drought, followed by Ahmednagar and Beed (11 talukas each), Solapur and Aurangabad districts (9 talukas each). Other districts that are affected by drought are as follows: Pune, Sangli, Satara, Palghar, Dhule, Nandurbar, Nashik, Jalna, Nanded, Parbhani, Osmanabad, Hingoli, Latur, Akola, Amravati, Buldhana, Washim, Yavatmal, Chandrapur, Nagpur and Wardha. "The ground truthing/verification was done and based on indicators of rainfall deficit, reservoir storage, ground water index, soil moisture, the drought was declared," a Revenue department official said. The opposition Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had accused the BJP-led government of shirking its responsibility by not declaring drought in the state and hiding behind vague terminology such as "drought-like" or "scarcity-like" conditions. The opposition Congress accused the ruling dispensation of "delay" in making the announcement, which it said might deprive the state of the Central funds. Senior Congress leader and former chief minister Prithviraj Chavan also alleged the state government had failed to abide by the "2016 Central drought manual" under which it is supposed to notify Kharif drought by October 30. "As per the manual, the state governments have to declare drought through a notification specifying clearly the geographical extent and administrative units such as gram panchayats, blocks, mandals, talukas, sub-division and districts. "Such notification should indicate the level of severity of the drought (moderate or severe)," he said. Chavan, who had served as the chief minister between November 2010 to September 2014, said the declaration of Kharif drought should be done by October 30 and that of Rabi drought by March 31. "The state governments will declare the calamity as drought and not by any other nomenclature," he said. He said the Maharashtra government had issued an order, dated October 7, 2017 listing a procedure and time table that is supposed to be followed while declaring drought. "Instead of implementing this procedure, the government is busy celebrating its fourth anniversary in office. Andhra Pradesh had declared drought on August 8 and Karnataka on September 14. The two states have already started implementing drought-relief measures," Chavan said. He questioned whether the delay in declaring drought was due to "lack of funds" in the state exchequer. "Doesn't it (the government) know that the Central funds will not be received due to delay in declaring drought. Who will be responsible if farmers take any extreme steps in the wake of such a crisis," Chavan questionned. The NCP also slammed the state government for delay in declaring drought. "As many as 100 talukas in the state are still reeling under drought," alleged Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council Dhananjay Munde, hours after the drought was announced. He demanded a compensation at Rs 50,000 per hectare for farmers who suffered crop loss due to drought. Munde's counterpart in the Legislative Assembly and senior Congress leader Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil also echoed the same demands. Maharashtra state Congress president Ashok Chavan said the government was "compelled" to declare drought because of the pressure being exerted by his party. He said 20,000 village in 201 talukas are reeling under drought. Chavan demanded "concrete steps" for drought mitigation. (With PTI Inputs) NEW DELHI: A Delhi court will on Wednesday recdord the statement of former Union Minister MJ Akbar in connection with a defamation suit filed by him against journalist Priya Ramani who had accused him of sexual harassment. The court will begin pre-summoning evidence in the case today. Akbar had sued Ramani, seeking her prosecution under Sections 499 and 500 of the IPC for defamation. On October 17, Akbar had stepped down as the Minister of State in MEA following a flurry of allegations made against him by at least 15 women, who accused him of sexual misconduct during his stint as the editor of The Asian Age. On Octobber 18, the court took judicial note of Akbar's criminal defamation complaint against Ramani and decided to record the statement of the former minister on October 31 in the case. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal heard the submissions of senior advocate Geeta Luthra, representing Akbar, that the "controversial" tweets and similar social media posts of Ramani have caused irreparable loss to his reputation built over 40 years. "Let the matter be fixed for examination of the complainant (Akbar) and his witnesses for October 31," the magistrate said. The senior lawyer referred to the sequence of events and said that Akbar has resigned from the post of Minister of State for External Affairs due to these allegations and this showed the extent of damage caused to his reputation. She also referred to the reputation of Akbar as a journalist and sought judicial intervention in the matter by taking cognisance of the complaint. As per the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the court would now record the pre-summoning evidence and statement of Akbar and other witnesses referred to in the complaint and would issue a notice to Ramani to face trial if it is satisfied that there is prima-facie substance in the complaint. Akbar had earlier tendered his resignation after making it clear that he had filed the case in his "personal" capacity and would fight it out in the court of law. "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. Akbar then 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 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 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 termed as "scandalous" the allegations made by Ramani and said the "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 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. The women who accused Akbar of sexual harassment included Ghazala Wahab, Shuma Raha, Anju Bharti and Shutapa Paul. NEW DELHI: The nation remembered former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on her death anniversary. The first and the only woman Prime Minister of India, Indira was assassinated at her New Delhi residence on October 31, 1984. Tributes to our former Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi on her death anniversary, tweeted Prime Minister Modi. Tributes to our former Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi on her death anniversary. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 31, 2018 Several Congress leaders took to social media to pay tributes. "Remembering Dadi today with a deep sense of happiness. She taught me so much and gave me unending love. She gave so much of herself to her people. I am very proud of her, tweeted Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. Remembering Dadi today with a deep sense of happiness. She taught me so much and gave me unending love. She gave so much of herself to her people. I am very proud of her. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) October 31, 2018 Rahul along with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh paid floral tributes at Shakti Sthal, Indira Gandhi's samadhi. Today we honour the Late Smt. Indira Gandhi, the first female Prime Minister of India and one of the strongest leaders our country has seen. Through her premiership, our nation saw great victory, incredible development & most importantly upliftment of all sections of society, tweeted Congress' official handle. Today we honour the Late Smt. Indira Gandhi, the first female Prime Minister of India & one of the strongest leaders our country has seen. Through her premiership, our nation saw great victory, incredible development & most importantly upliftment of all sections of society. pic.twitter.com/LwM3Se3305 Congress (@INCIndia) October 31, 2018 On 31 st October 1984 34 years ago Indira Gandhi martyred herself on the alter of National Unity & integrity of India.The Iron Lady who changed the map of South Asia in 1971 was dignity, courage & grit personified. My salute to her on the day of her martyrdom #ShaheedIndiraGandhi, wrote Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari. On 31 st October 1984 34 years ago Indira Gandhi martyred herself on the alter of National Unity & integrity of India.The Iron Lady who changed the map of South Asia in 1971 was dignity, courage & grit personified. My salute to her on the day of her martyrdom #ShaheedIndiraGandhi Manish Tewari (@ManishTewari) October 31, 2018 'The power to question is the basis of all human progress' Remembering the words of wisdom of Indias first and till date only female PM, the Iron Lady #IndiraGandhi ji on the anniversary of her demise. My tributes to her eternal soul, tweeted Congress leader Sachin Pilot. The power to question is the basis of all human progress Remembering the words of wisdom of Indias first and till date only female PM, the Iron Lady #IndiraGandhi ji on the anniversary of her demise. My tributes to her eternal soul. Sachin Pilot (@SachinPilot) October 31, 2018 Indira Gandhi was shot dead by two of her bodyguards on October 31, 1984. The third Arab Catholic Youth Congress was held on 26-27 October in the Emirates, to coincide with the Synod. The two-day meeting unfolded in English, Arabic, Hindi and Malay. For the vicar, it provided an opportunity to talk with young people who are well integrated in the Church. Some of the topics included the Christian and Arab identity, the message for Islam, and keeping "the fire of faith alive". Abu Dhabi (AsiaNews) The two-day 2018 Arab Catholic Youth Congress (ACYC) was held on 26-27 October in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, at the St Anthony of Padua Parish, bringing together some 1,600 young Catholics, aged 18 to 35, from across the Arabian Peninsula. Speaking to AsiaNews, Mgr Paul Hinder, Apostolic Vicar of southern Arabia (United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yemen), said that it was a "very peaceful and joyous" event that rekindled "the fire of faith" among young Catholics living in Arabia amid the Muslim majority, bearing witness to Christ through "deeds more than words". "Most came from the Emirates, but there were delegations from every nation, i.e. Oman, Emirati, Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan. They participated in the festival of faith, which had a strong charismatic imprint," the prelate said. The meeting, which was the most impressive gathering of young Catholics from the region, had as its theme Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favour with God. Organised to coincide with the last days of the Synod on Young People, in the Vatican, the event dedicated to the youth in the Vicariate was the third of its kind after those in Dubai in 2009 and Abu Dhabi in 2012. In addition to the apostolic vicar, other high-ranking officials attended, included Mgr Camillo Ballin, Apostolic Vicar for northern Arabia (Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar) and the Apostolic Nuncio Mgr Francisco Padilla. On the first day, young people participated in meetings and discussion groups in English, Arabic, Hindi and Malay. On the second day, bishops, other speakers and various leaders joined the conference. On the Vicariates Facebook page, organisers posted excerpts from the inaugural ceremony. "Those two days were full of joy," said Mgr Hinder, and Young people were not afraid to approach their bishop and to talk to each other. They are well integrated in the local Church, and many belong to prayer groups or Church movements. Some of them have gone to World Youth Days or will go to the next one" in Panama in January 2019. The Vicariates young people were interested in the Youth Synod but could not follow its activities on a regular basis. "Here the issues were different from those heard in the Vatican, explained Mgr Hinder. We asked for help on how to deepen our faith, how to live it in a Muslim majority context, and how to interact with other faiths. The issue of abuses also came up, and participants asked what we thought about it and how it is possible to rebuild trust within the Church, even though there is no deep crisis with us as in other parts of the world." The vicar told young people to trust, not to fear despite difficulties, because we must not lose hope. Events like this can help boost the faith, in a context of great challenges in which Christians are also approached with the intention of being converted. "This issue is not as important for immigrants but is very present for Arabs. Local Muslims struggle to understand and accept that there are Christian Arabs." Finally, the apostolic vicar said that he hopes that young people will keep the fire of faith alive. We must bear witness to our belonging to Christ through deeds and gestures. As Saint Francis used to say, we must be present among them (Muslims) without creating scandals and, if God presents the occasion, proclaim the Gospel in words and concrete actions." NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Centre to submit the price and other details of the Rafale fighter jet deals in a sealed envelope within 10 days to the top court. Clarifying that it doesn't want technical details pertaining to the Rafale deal, the Supreme Court asked the Centre to share information which can be brought in the public domain with the petitioners. Details considered "strategic and confidential" can be held back, added the top court. A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising of Justices U U Lalit and K M Joseph, was listening to two PILs filed lawyers Manohar Lal Sharma and Vineet Dhanda on India's deal with France to buy the fighter jets. The top court has now fixed the matter for hearing on November 14. During the hearing, Attorney General K K Venugopal said that the pricing of the jet is something exclusive and can't be shared. To this, the top court asked the centre to file an affidavit stating the same. The top court, on October 10, had directed the Centre to provide in a sealed cover the "details of the steps" taken in the decision-making process, sans pricing and technical information, which led to the deal. Dassault Aviation is expected to deliver the 36 fighter jets to India from 2019. A huge political row over the Centre's deal with France, spearheaded by Congress party, emerged in the past few months. Congress president Rahul Gandhi has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of benefitting Reliance Defences Anil Ambani with the deal. Earlier this month, an investigative report by French news website Mediapart claimed that it was imperative and obligatory for Dassault Aviation to agree to work with Anil Ambani's firm in order to procure the contract to produce 36 Rafale jets for India. The report quoted a leaked company document of Dassault Aviation, where a senior company executive was recorded as saying the same. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after talks with the then French President Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. The final deal was sealed on September 23, 2016. New Delhi: The war of words between Shashi Tharoor and BJP leaders has escalated in recent days and on Wednesday, the Congress leader sent a notice to RS Prasad seeking an apology for him. Tharoor was blasted by RS Prasad for reportedly claiming that an unnamed RSS source had told a journalist about how PM Narendra Modi was like a scorpion sitting on Shiv Linga who cannot be removed by hand or hit by slippers. Prasad, in a tweet of his, had referred to Tharoor as an accused in a murder case who had attempted to disrespect Lord Shiva. He had then sought an apology from Rahul Gandhi in the matter. Shashi Tharoor who is accused in a murder case has attempted to disrespect Lord Shiva. I seek a reply from Rahul Gandhi who claims himself to be a Bhakt of Lord Shiva on this horrific denunciation of Hindu gods by a Congress MP. Rahul Gandhi must apologize to all Hindus. pic.twitter.com/QeShJoCHDZ Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) October 28, 2018 While an apology is unlikely to come, Tharoor has fired a legal notice to the union minister in which he has warned of legal action unless he apologises within 48 hours. In the notice, Tharoor has also accused Prasad of making false and defamatory statements against him. The remark in question itself was reportedly made by Tharoor on October 27 while speaking at the Bengaluru Literature Festival on his recently launched book "The Paradoxical Prime Minister: Narendra Modi And His India". His defence? "This comment (not by me) has been in the public domain for six years. R.S. Prasad making an issue of a six-year-old quote shows how little new the BJP has to offer the nation," he had tweeted. The war of words between Tharoor and BJP leaders has been as regular as it has been severe. Most recently, Tharoor even questioned PM Narendra Modi for inaugurating a statue of Sardar Patel when there is no statue of a similar or larger size of Mahatma Gandhi. "The biggest one (statue of Mahatma Gandhi) is in Parliament. But this is a 182-metre statue for his disciple. Why is there such a big statue for a disciple of Gandhiji in the country where there is no statue of that size for the Mahatma?" he said at an event in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday. (With PTI inputs) New Delhi: Hailing his contribution towards unifying India, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Wednesday that it was India's misfortune that Sardar Vallabhai Patel was never the Prime Minister of the country. The country celebrated Sardar Patel's 143rd birth anniversary with much fervour while Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a statue of the iconic leader which is the tallest in the world. Political mudslinging though was plentiful as well with leaders of both BJP and Congress slamming each other using Sardar Patel as reference. "Had Kashmir been in Sardar Patel's hands instead of Jawaharlal Nehru, its 1/3rd part won't have been with Pakistan," said Chouhan at an event. "India was unfortunate that Sardar Patel was not its PM. What Congress did to him need not be said again." Chouhan also said that the Congress was guilty of having forgotten Sardar Patel. "Congress never gave due respects to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. It forgot him, who unified India. I congratulate the PM that he unveiled the world's tallest statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel today," he said. Political rivals have often accused Congress of having sidelined Sardar Patel and given the importance and respect due to him to Nehru. Nehru was the country's first Prime Minister while Patel - the country's first Home Minister - is credited for having ensured merger of 500 princely states with the Union of India shortly after independence from British rule. The political bickering over the contribution of different political leaders in India's independence, however, continues unabated. At the unveiling of the Statue of Unity, even PM Modi send out a message to political opponents. "During the last four years, our government has set up many memorials of our national heroes, including this sky-high statue of Sardar Patel, his museum in Delhi, Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar's Panch Tirth and a memorial dedicated to son of Gujarat's soil, Shyamji Krishna Varma," he said. "But, to my surprise, some people of this country are seeing our movement through the political glasses. We are criticized for praising the contributions of national heroes like Sardar Patel. We are made to feel as if we have committed a serious crime." PM Modi's remarks were soon met with another set of accusations from Congress president Rahul Gandhi who said that the Centre was guilty of treason because it was smashing institutions set up by Sardar Patel. Twitter was abuzz with South Korean President Moon Jae-in's heartfelt tweets for Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday afternoon. The South Korean President was thanking PM Modi for a set of gorgeous traditional Indian half-vests that the Prime Minister had sent over. In a series of tweets, Moon writes, Prime Minister @narendramodi of India sent me some gorgeous garments. These are modernized versions of traditional Indian costume, known as the Modi Vest, that can also be worn easily in Korea. They fit perfectly Prime Minister @narendramodi of India sent me some gorgeous garments. These are modernized versions of traditional Indian costume, known as the Modi Vest, that can also be worn easily in Korea. They fit perfectly. pic.twitter.com/3QTFIczX6H (@moonriver365) October 31, 2018 During my visit to India, I had told the Prime Minister @narendramodi that he looked great in those vests, and he duly sent them over, all meticulously tailored to my size. I would like to thank him for this kind gesture, he adds. During my visit to India, I had told the Prime Minister @narendramodi that he looked great in those vests, and he duly sent them over, all meticulously tailored to my size. I would like to thank him for this kind gesture. pic.twitter.com/wRgekJSW16 (@moonriver365) October 31, 2018 He also thanked the PM for his tweeted in Korean upon winning the Seoul Peace Prize. I have read Prime Minister Modis tweets upon winning the Seoul Peace Prize. They were written in Korean, and I was moved by his thoughtfulness. I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to Prime Minister Modi. I have read Prime Minister Modis tweets upon winning the Seoul Peace Prize. They were written in Korean, and I was moved by his thoughtfulness. I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to Prime Minister Modi. https://t.co/ZLwBWAHb7J (@moonriver365) October 31, 2018 The South Korean First Lady Kim Jung-sook is scheduled to visit India, without President Moon Jae-in, for a four-day trip starting next week. She's expected to meet the PM Modi. As Moon thanked the PM for the 'Modi vests', several users on Twitter reminded that the jackets are originally called Nehru jackets. Its really nice of our PM to send these but could he not have sent them without changing the name? All my life Ive known these jackets as Nehru jackets & now I find these ones have been labelled 'Modi Jacket'. Clearly nothing existed in India before 2014, tweeted former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. New Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday accused the Centre of destroying institutions which had been created by Sardar Vallabhai Patel. His latest attack against the BJP government comes on a day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the world's tallest statue to honour the country's first Home Minister. Rahul took to Twitter moments after PM Modi had inaugurated the 182m Statue of Unity, and accused his government of targeting the vision of Sardar Patel. "Ironic that a statue of Sardar Patel is being inaugurated, but every institution he helped build is being smashed. The systematic destruction of India's institutions is nothing short of treason," he wrote on the micro-blogging website. Ironic that a statue of Sardar Patel is being inaugurated, but every institution he helped build is being smashed. The systematic destruction of India's institutions is nothing short of treason. #StatueOfUnity Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) October 31, 2018 Sardar Patel was an iconic leader of the country's freedom struggle and is remembered fondly for unifying the country by bringing together 500 princely states to the Union of India. He used force to annex princely states of Junagadh ruled by Nawab and Hyderabad ruled by nizam, both of whom had wished not to merge their states with the India union. It is to honour Sardar Patel for his contributions that a his statue was envisioned by PM Modi when he was the CM of Gujarat. The foundation stone was laid in 2013 and work was completed in record time. While Rahul made no mention of the statue itself in his tweets on Wednesday, he did salute Sardar Patel on his birth anniversary. "A man with a steely will, tempered by compassion, he was a Congressman to the core, who had no tolerance for bigotry or communalism. On his birth anniversary, I salute this great son of India," tweeted the Congress president. NEW DELHI: As South Korean President Moon Jae-in thanked the Prime Minister for 'gorgeous' 'Modi vests', former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah wondered when did the garment's name change from Nehru jacket. Its really nice of our PM to send these but could he not have sent them without changing the name? All my life Ive known these jackets as Nehru jackets & now I find these ones have been labelled Modi Jacket. Clearly nothing existed in India before 2014, writes Abdullah. Its really nice of our PM to send these but could he not have sent them without changing the name? All my life Ive known these jackets as Nehru jackets & now I find these ones have been labelled Modi Jacket. Clearly nothing existed in India before 2014. https://t.co/MOa0wY37tr Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) October 31, 2018 Abdullah wasn't the only Twitter user to raise this. Sanjay Yadav, political advisor of RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, tweeted, So PM Modi changed the label from Nehru Jacket to Modi Jacket. OMG. So PM Modi changed the label from Nehru Jacket to Modi Jacket. OMG https://t.co/LSNdJYaFlb Sanjay Yadav (@sanjuydv) October 31, 2018 Some users pointed out that the vests are neither 'Modi jackets' or 'Nehru jackets' but orginally called 'Sardari'. Mr. President, You are wrong. This is not Modi Vest, this is Nehru jacket. Modi is no Nehru, can never be one. If anything Modi, that is Khaki Nikkar. https://t.co/8DrZ8b1RVM Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) October 31, 2018 On Wednesday afternoon, South Korean President Moon Jae-in thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for sending over traditional Indian half-vests. Prime Minister @narendramodi of India sent me some gorgeous garments. These are modernized versions of traditional Indian costume, known as the Modi Vest, that can also be worn easily in Korea. They fit perfectly. Prime Minister @narendramodi of India sent me some gorgeous garments. These are modernized versions of traditional Indian costume, known as the Modi Vest, that can also be worn easily in Korea. They fit perfectly. pic.twitter.com/3QTFIczX6H (@moonriver365) October 31, 2018 He adds, During my visit to India, I had told the Prime Minister @narendramodi that he looked great in those vests, and he duly sent them over, all meticulously tailored to my size. I would like to thank him for this kind gesture. During my visit to India, I had told the Prime Minister @narendramodi that he looked great in those vests, and he duly sent them over, all meticulously tailored to my size. I would like to thank him for this kind gesture. pic.twitter.com/wRgekJSW16 (@moonriver365) October 31, 2018 He also thanked the PM for his tweeted in Korean upon winning the Seoul Peace Prize. I have read Prime Minister Modis tweets upon winning the Seoul Peace Prize. They were written in Korean, and I was moved by his thoughtfulness. I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to Prime Minister Modi, he wrote. I have read Prime Minister Modis tweets upon winning the Seoul Peace Prize. They were written in Korean, and I was moved by his thoughtfulness. I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to Prime Minister Modi. https://t.co/ZLwBWAHb7J (@moonriver365) October 31, 2018 The South Korean First Lady Kim Jung-sook is scheduled to visit India, without President Moon Jae-in, for a four-day trip starting next week. She's expected to meet the PM Modi too. As Moon thanked the PM for the 'Modi vests', several users on Twitter reminded that the jackets are originally called Nehru jackets. MUMBAI: Amid growing clamour for an ordinance paving way for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, Ramdas Athawale, has said that it would not be right to bring an ordinance in this regard. Republican Party of India (RPI) chief also maintained that the unity between Hindus and Muslims should not be disturbed at any cost, which, he feels, won't be good for the social fabric of the country. ''My party's stand is that unity between Hindus and Muslims shouldn't be disturbed. If a decision is taken for temple then it should be taken for Mosque as well. I think the demand for an ordinance that is being done is not right,'' Union Minister Ramdas Athawale said. My party's stand is that unity between Hindus & Muslims shouldn't be disturbed. If decision is taken for Temple then decision should be taken for Mosque as well. I think demand for ordinance that is being done is not right: Union Minister Ramdas Athawale #AyodhyaRamMandir (30.10) pic.twitter.com/4zFkzOVBLn ANI (@ANI) October 30, 2018 The minister also warned that the society will be divided if any decision is taken under pressure. ''Any decision in this regard should send a message of unity, Athawale said while interacting with the mediapersons at the UT guest house. Athawalemade these remarks days after Swami Chakrapani, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat and a delegation of saints associated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) asked the Central Government to bring an ordinance in this regard. It is to be noted that the Supreme Court had on Monday adjourned the Ayodhya title suit till January 2019 to fix the date of hearing in the matter. The top court adjourned the matter which challenged the Allahabad High Court ruling of 2010, which had ordered division of the disputed land in Ayodhya into three parts for each of the parties -- the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla. Meanwhile, shifting his focus on other issues, the RPI chief said, Though there are some reservations on the part of the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, it will ultimately come back. The RPI wants two Lok Sabha seats if the tie-up materialises. If it does not, we hope to get at least three to four seats. Athawale also targeted the Congress party and said that it would hardly get 60-70 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Commenting on the current CBI infighting, Athawale added that the tussle had tarnished the image of the premier investigating the agency. Had the government not sent the officers on leave, Rahul Gandhi would have accused the government of inaction. Now, the government has acted, still, the Congress is crying foul. It is the court to decide the matter now, Athawale said. On the issue of reservation, the leader said, There is already 50 per cent reservation. Economically weaker sections should be provided 25 per cent reservation, taking the total percentage to 75. He said the reservation on the basis of caste should stay. New Delhi: Chinese smartphone brand OnePlus launched its much-anticipated OnePlus 6T in India, a day after its global debut in New York The OnePlus 6T with 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage will come starting price of Rs 37,999. The 8GM RAM + 128GB storage will be available at Rs 41,999 and 8GB RAM + 256GB storage variant will come at Rs 45,999. The company also introduced its new Type-C Bullets earphones in matte black colour variant for Rs 1,490. OnePlus has done away with the rear mounted fingerprint scanner for an "in-display" scanner on the OnePlus 6T. Featuring "screen unlock" -- the industry's fastest in-display fingerprint technology, the smartphone provides users with a fast, natural and intuitive way to unlock their devices, thus, benefiting from a large display with minimal bezels, according to the company. The much-talked about waterdrop notch lends OnePlus 6T an immersive 6.41-inch Optic AMOLED display with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. Under the hood, the phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset. Smart Boost is a new feature in the OnePlus 6T which improves app cold start speeds by up to 20 per cent by storing data from frequently used apps in the phone's RAM. The smartphone has a bigger 3,700 mAh battery which provides a 20 per cent increased battery life compared to the previuous-gen OnePlus 6. The OnePlus 6T's camera includes software optimisations and added features such as the "Nightscape" feature which assists in capturing low-light urban environments with improved clarity, less noise, accurate colour reproduction and better dynamic range. The camera hardware boasts of a combination of 16MP f/1.7 and 20MP f/1.7 rear-facing cameras with Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) and Electronic Image Stabilisation (EIS) features, while the front-facing camera is a 16MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture and EIS. Availability and launch offers The device will be available during a preview sale starting November 1 on Amazon.in where people can avail cashback worth Rs 2,000 on ICICI Bank debit and credit cards and Citibank credit cards. From November 2, OnePlus 6T will be available on all online and offline channels, with Rs 1,500 cashback on certain banks' debit and credit cards. Reliance Jio has announced an instant cashback of Rs 5,400 on the OnePlus 6T. The plan will entitle them to 3GB 4G data per day for a period of 28 days with unlimited voice calls, SMS and access to Jios premium applications. Effectively, the offer will bring a total of 3TB of 4G data to the users over 36 recharges. The Jio cashback is available for both existing and new Jio subscribers who purchase the OnePlus 6T. Customers can avail the offer with the first Rs 299 prepaid recharge. The cashback vouchers can be redeemed for subsequent recharges of Rs 299. With IANS Inputs Bhubaneswar: Koraput MLA Krushna Chandra Sagaria resigned from the Odisha State Assembly on Tuesday, claiming that he has no moral right to hold the position after failing to get justice for the Kundli gangrape victim who committed suicide earlier this year. As a MLA from Koraput I have failed to ensure justice to Kunduli rape victim even after a year of the incident. So, I resigned today, said the Odisha Congress leader, adding, If I am unable to give justice to a poor dalit girl using the constitutional post, I have no moral rights of holding the position anymore. On October 10 last year, a 14-year-old girl from Musaguda village was allegedly raped by four men while she was returning home from a market under Pottangi police limits in Kunduli area inder Koraput district. On January 22, 2018, the minor victim committed suicide citing police inaction in the rape case. State-wide protests emerged, forcing police to declare it as a Red-flag case. Till date, not a single accused has been arrested in the case, said Sagaria. My resignation is a symbol of protest. I've resigned also to create awareness among people, he added. New Delhi: Bollywood actress Fatima Sana Sheikh, who will be next seen in Thugs of Hindostan opposite legend Amitabh Bachchan and industry's perfectionist Aamir Khan, made a stunning appearance on a magazine cover. Sharing the cover on her social media, Fatima Sana Shaikh said, "Femina wedding times @taras84 Hair and make up @jmarcepedrozo Styled by @lynnsight". After undergoing an incredible transformation as a wrestler for her debut film Dangal, Fatima Sana Shaikh left no stones unturned to ace her character in 'Thugs of Hindostan'. Apart from following a rigorous workout routine, Fatima also worked hard on her look. The actress was seen sporting hair extensions as well as distinguished eyebrows. The magazine unravels yet another avatar of the actress as she looks ethereal as a bride. Fatima Sana Shaikh who garnered love and appreciation from the audience and critics alike for her Blockbuster debut Dangal has left the audience awaiting for her power-packed performance in the film after treating with the strong and fierce glimpses in the trailer. The Chinese side alerted India for possible flood-like situation after another landslide took place at the same location in Milin County in the lower ranges of Yaluzangbu River in Tiber Autonomous Region of China on October 29. The river was blocked and a barrier lake was formed again, according to media reports. Counselor Ji Rong, spokesperson of Chinese Embassy in India confirmed the news and said that the relevant information has been shared with India. Ministry of Water Resources of China informed the Indian Embassy in China of the latest developments and began to share hydrological information with India every hour through bilaterally agreed channels, ANI reported. The barrier lake began to overflow on Wednesday and the Chines side is closely monitoring the situation of the barrier lake. The Indian side is timely notified about relevant information. On October 17, China had communicated to India about a landslide near Jiala Village in Milin County in the lower ranges of Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet, which led to the formation of an artificial lake. As the water started breaching the lake, the districts along the Brahmaputra river in Arunachal Pradesh were put on high alert for possible flash floods. The Yarlung Tsangpo, as it is referred to by China, is known as Siang in Arunachal Pradesh and the Brahmaputra after it reaches Assam. "This time the landside occurred at the same place and has again led to creation of an artificial lake, which has now started breaching. However, the situation is not grave as it was a fortnight ago," Rong said. From May, China resumed sharing hydrological data on the Brahmaputra and Sutlej rivers. In April, the two sides had signed an agreement to share data on Brahmaputra and Sutlej. For the Brahmaputra river, data was shared by China from May 15, while it started sharing data for the Sutlej from June 1 until October 15. However, the two recent events have taken place after the data sharing period was over. "The agreement also states that data has to be shared in case of an emergency and they (China) have done that," the official added. Earlier on October 20, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal had directed authorities in districts bordering Arunachal Pradesh to "remain alert" for possible flash flood after China informed India about a landslide blocking a river in Tibet leading to the formation of an artificial lake. The Yarlung Tsangpo river is known as the Siang after it enters India at Arunachal Pradesh from the Tibetan region and is called the Brahmaputra once it reaches Assam. The district administration, District Disaster Management Authorities (DDMA) and all other departments concerned were asked to remain on alert. (With Agency Inputs) Washington: President Donald Trump's decision to bring an executive order to end the right to the US citizenship for children born in the US to non-citizens has invited widespread criticism, even from his own party. In his latest hardline immigration rhetoric ahead of the midterm congressional elections, Trump, in an interview with Axios, has said birthright citizenship "has to end" and that it would "with an executive order." "You cannot end the birthright citizenship with an executive order," said Congressman Paul Ryan, Speaker of the US House of Representatives. "We didn't like it when (former President) Obama tried changing immigration laws via executive action, and obviously as conservatives, we believe in the Constitution," Ryan told a local radio station in Lexington, Kentucky. Under the current laws, anyone born in the US irrespective of the nationality of parents, automatically becomes an American citizen. "It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment, one amendment. You don't have to do it. Number one. Number two, you can definitely do it with an act of Congress. But now they are saying, I can do it just with an executive order," Trump told Axios in an interview. A portion of the interview was released Tuesday. The full interview "Axios on HBO" is scheduled to be aired on Sunday. Such a practice to give citizenship to anyone born in the US is "ridiculous", Trump said. He said that we are the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the US for 85 years with all of those benefits. "It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end". Trump said that the effort to end this practice was in the process. "We are in the process. It'll happen with an executive order. That's what you're talking about." According to Axios, Trump said that he has run the idea of ending birthright citizenship by his counsel and plans to proceed with the highly-controversial move, which certainly will face legal challenges. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, said it would require a constitutional amendment to make necessary changes on who all can acquire citizenship. "I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me it would take a constitutional amendment to change that as opposed to an executive order," Grassley told a local news channel in Iowa. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution affirms that, with very few exceptions, all persons born in the US are American citizens, regardless of the immigration status of their parents, said the American Immigration Council. The Supreme Court has upheld the principle of birthright citizenship for more than a century, it said. "Birthright citizenship defines who we are as a nation and is a core part of our American heritage and history. Eliminating birthright citizenship would do nothing to solve our immigration issues," said Beth Werlin, executive director of the American Immigration Council. "No president can change the Constitution with the stroke of a pen. The only way to eliminate birthright citizenship would be through a new Constitutional amendment," he said. Breitbart News, however, came out in support of Trump's move. Revoking birthright citizenship would have immediate and far-reaching consequences, it said. "It would mean the children of illegal aliens, even if born in the United States, would not be bestowed US citizenship upon birth," it said. "It would also likely deter the practice of foreigners having 'anchor babies', where they aim to give birth to children on US soil so as to obtain US citizenship for their children at birth," Breitbart said. Vice President Mike Pence also came out in Trump's defence, saying, "The President has made clear is that we are looking at action that would reconsider birthright citizenship." "We all know what the 14th Amendment says. We all cherish the language of the 14th Amendment. But the Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled on whether or not the language of the 14th Amendment, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, applies specifically to people who are in the country illegally. I think the President is looking at executive action. I know the Congress has looked at legislative action to reconsider that," Pence said in an interview. Another Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi slammed Trump for his move. "President Trump's new claim he can unilaterally end the Constitution's guarantee of citizenship shows Republicans' spiraling desperation to distract from their assault on Medicare, Medicaid and people with pre-existing conditions," she said. "The President does not have the power to erase parts of the Constitution, but he and the GOP Congress have spent two years trying to erase protections for people with pre-existing conditions," Pelosi said. Senator Lindsay Graham said that he intends to introduce a legislation in the Senate to bring a constitutional amendment in this regard. Istanbul: Istanbul's chief prosecutor's office said on Wednesday journalist Jamal Khashoggi was suffocated as soon as he entered Saudi Arabia's consulate on October 2 in a pre-planned killing, and his body was then dismembered and disposed of. It also said in a statement that no concrete results were reached in chief prosecutor Irfan Fidan's talks in Istanbul this week with Saudi public prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb. WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Tuesday for a cessation of hostilities in Yemen and said UN-led negotiations to end the civil war should begin next month. In a statement, Pompeo said missile and drone strikes by Iran-allied Houthi rebels against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates should stop, and the Saudi-led coalition must cease air strikes in all populated areas of Yemen. Yemen is one of the poorest Arab countries and faces the world`s worst humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by a nearly four-year-old war that pits the Houthis against the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the West. "The time is now for the cessation of hostilities, including missile and UAV strikes from Houthi-controlled areas into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates," Pompeo said, using an acronym for unmanned aerial vehicles. "Subsequently, Coalition air strikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen," he added. The United States helps the coalition by refueling its jets and providing training in targeting. Pompeo said last month that he had certified to the US Congress that Saudi Arabia and the UAE were working to reduce civilian casualties in Yemen. Three-quarters of Yemen`s population, or 22 million people, require aid and 8.4 million people are on the brink of starvation. UN special envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths said earlier this month that the United Nations hoped to resume consultations between the warring sides by November. Both Pompeo and US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis voiced support for the UN effort. Mattis, addressing a forum in Washington on Tuesday, defended U.S. efforts to help reduce casualties by the Saudi-led coalition and said all sides needed to take meaningful steps toward a ceasefire and negotiations in the next 30 days. Mattis added that the Saudis and Emiratis appeared ready to embrace efforts by Griffiths to find a negotiated solution to the conflict. Weve got to move toward a peace effort here. And we cant say were going to do it sometime in the future. We need to be doing this in the next 30 days, Mattis said. Pompeo said the consultations planned by Griffiths should start in November "to implement confidence-building measures to address the underlying issues of the conflict, the demilitarization of borders, and the concentration of all large weapons under international observation." A cessation of hostilities and resumption of a political track would help ease the humanitarian crisis, Pompeo said. Open source Luxury cars are riding off-road here, tumble-down huts are co-located with fashionable villas, gun battles in the street. This is the amber land of the Ukrainian Polissia. Who patronizes this illegal business? And who absorbs all these shadow billions? Amber is fossilized tree resin, which has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since times immemorable. Ukraine has one of the world largest reserves of this gemstone. Literally billions of dollars lie under the feet. Officially, Yantar Ukrainy (Amber of Ukraine) state enterprise has the right to mine and process amber. Amber, which is dug out of the ground, is a raw material. The gemstone is processed, then the masters manually make icons, decorations, and other things of it. But in reality, the state enterprise is barely afloat. According to its CEO, various officials do not agree on the allocation of new deposits. Consequently, the state enterprise produces almost nothing. Last year, only 670 kg were mined, and some 710 kg the year before. In order to at least somehow exist and earn money on the processing of amber, the Amber of Ukraine company buys amber in Russia. Meanwhile, the head of Klesiv urban-type settlement (Rivne region), Vasyl Hrynyk, declares that a state-owned enterprise can be specially made bankrupt so that it can be privatized for a very low price. In the meantime, the state does not earn anything on it, illegal miners and their patrons use this matter to get richer. It is very easy to buy amber in Polissia. Almost every house is involved it this trade. A design weight is a kilogram. As a rule, they do not trade in smaller measures. The amber admission is of 20 and 50 asset prices. The cost depends on the size of the stones. One kilogram of small stones might cost 200-500 USD. One kilogram of bigger stones, 10 20 grams might cost at least 1,000 USD, if the stones are more than 20 grams, the cost might reach 2000 USD per kilogram. If you're lucky enough to dig 100-gram stones, you will easily receive 4,000 USD for one kilogram. The profiteers buy the amber from the locals at this rate. Then they ship it to Poland, Ukrainian amber becomes more expensive by at least 200 USD. According to official estimates of Ukraines State Service of Geology and Subsoil, up to 300 tons of amber are illegally mined annually. Turnovers of the black market are estimated at 500 million dollars. Following the diamond prosecutors, Ukraine has its own amber ones. Then the corresponding bodies informed that they have found a collection of expensive watches at a law enforcement officers place (for a 100,000 USD) and seized several bags of gemstone. The operation was led by the head of Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) Vasyl Hrytsak and Prosecutor General Lutsenko. Deputy prosecutor of Rivne region, Andriy Borovyk, was called the main patron of the illegal trade. During one operation, more than a hundred searches were carried out and 32 people were detained. Among them are the former leaders of the local police and then lieutenant colonel of Rivne SBU Vadym Fedoruk. The flip-flopper in police uniform rigged the criminals. The local top dog Ushaty was the helpless pawn. The vanguard of the mafia clan was Dubrovytsia district of Rivne region, a rich in amber land along the Belarus border. The key figures of the amber business resided and hunted here: top dog Ushaty, local police officer Anatoliy Smolianets, and ex-head of the local regional department Serhiy Rodzin. High-ranking prosecutor Andriy Borovyk, whom the investigation called the main patron of illegal amber mining, spent a year in the remand prison, and in 2017 he was released. Borovyk calls this criminal case the revenge of the amber mafia. Did I have anything to do with the illegal mining of amber? Of course, I did. I struggled with this dishonorable activity. Over the past year, I have detained more than four tons of illegally mined amber, which was later confiscated by the state, Borovyk assures. The ex-prosecutor claims that just before the arrest, he planned to smoke out the amber mafia bosses. My arrest was beneficial to those people, engaged in illegal mining of amber, he says. The case against Borovyk has already been submitted to the court. He is accused of creating and managing a criminal group. He faces up to 20 years behind the bars. However, the former prosecutor will not go to jail, his lawyer says. And not because they are not guilty they just made a lot of procedural errors. Borovyk held the position of deputy prosecutor of the region and was accused of taking more than half a million dollars of unlawful benefit. So, according to the criminal procedure law, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) should investigate it, but for some reason the main military prosecutors office considered it, the lawyer said. Therefore, the court cannot imprison Borovyk, the lawyer claims. Amber fever started with Rivne region. Gemstone has been illegally mined here for more than 10 years. Our journalists come to Klesiv. Total depredation of nature could be seen here. Amber is dug up almost freely here. A swampy field is a place of a totally cut forest. A lot of equipment, hundreds of people who resemble a huge anthill and a web of hoses this is how the spontaneous amber mining in Kukhitska Volia in Rivne region looks like. Now the turnovers are not that high; the locals complain because a lot of special forces units are deployed there. The locals say that if you pay a bribe of a hundred bucks to the law enforcement officers, then they let you dig on the sly. The entrance of the local Klondike is not protected by any law enforcers. A lot of cars without a license plate and people with nets could be noticed here. Zhytomyr region, Olevsk district. Until 2014, it was an ordinary provincial district center, and now real wars for control over nearby amber deposits erupt here. Shootout on the local streets is a usual thing here. "On the night of January 16, 2017, armed men who were in charge of controlling the amber buyers entered Olevsk to set their own rules; they came across resistance from the local guys; a skirmish during the conflict occured," Olevsk deputy mayor Oleksandr Nikolaychuk noted. The miners tirelessly work with their shovels here. Journalists asked to be a part of a deal, soon they started digging. We had to dig into deep at least 5 meters. A shovel bumped into something hard, the soil is quite stony. And finally, fortunate favoured us. Real amber! Suddenly, the miners stopped mining and scattered. They were warned about the police raid in advance. Journalists dug with everyone and run away together. Former Donbas soldiers were among the diggers too. The number of illegal diggers is a thousand times as much as the number of law enforcement officers. The Polish city of Gdansk is the world capital of amber. Contracts for millions of deliveries are signed here. Open-air jewelry trade is developed here. A museum of amber is also located here. The Poles enjoy at the expense of our gemstone. The biggest lump, held in the local museum, is from Ukraine. Souvenirs also come from our Polissia. Poland produces only 8 tons of amber per year. Therefore, in fact, Gdansk is only a meeting place for Ukrainian wheeler-dealers with the main buyers - the Chinese. Our journalists arrived in Gdansk just at the time of the international exhibition of amber. Dozen flags could be seen on flagpoles, and Ukraine is not officially represented there, a lot of cars with Ukrainian license plates are parked near the exhibition hall. Are fellow countrymen stand right in front of the entrance. The biggest parties are sent to China. Ukrainian amber is well appreciated in Celestial. The exhibition variety is really astonishing. These small statues of precious stones are worth thousands of euros. And the word "Ukraine" sounds like a quality mark. The exhibition has its own laboratory to immediately check the quality of amber. This honorable gentleman is the representative of the President of Poland in Gdansk in the amber affairs. He admits that Poland is very interested in smuggling from Ukraine. They earn good money on it. Private mining activity has been legalized in Poland since the 70s. It is enough to register a company, to sign an agreement with the owner of the land - because it is private in Poland. The tax is two euros per kilogram of amber. And then businessmen should not leave the lunar landscape, but put the land plot in order. Polish laws are loyal to our smuggled amber and legalizing it is not a problem. Having a perfect opportunity to earn millions of dollars, Ukraine has lapsed back into a mere supplier of raw materials. Ukraine has elaborated special laws on amber mining regulation, however, they are out of the current agenda. People of Ukraines Polissia are ready to officially extract amber, however, keeping this issue in an illegal plane is beneficial for the local officials and law enforcers. Read the original text at 112.ua. By drawing on its pan-Slavic ties with some of the Balkan countries, Russia has tried to legitimize its presence and increase its influence in the region Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic kremlin.ru The Western Balkan countries have once again become the battlefield of the great powers since Russia has lately started using this region to position itself as a superpower in the international system more assertively. By drawing on its pan-Slavic ties with some of the Balkan countries, Russia has tried to legitimize its presence and raise its influence in the region. Although it has never left the region, its foreign policy strategies towards the Balkan countries have altered over time. Currently, Russia has tried to play a role in the important developments of Balkan politics such as in the latest regional tensions surrounding Serbia and Kosovo. Russian influence in the Western Balkans cannot be understood without analyzing the function of the international system, relations among the great powers, their balance of power, and the historical background of the region. Since the 1990s, ethnic conflicts which ended up with the military interventions in the Western Balkans have played an important role in the reformulation of the international system orders. The break-up of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War brought about an emergence of the US as a hegemonic power. The US-led NATO military interventions in the Balkans (both in Bosnia Herzegovina and Kosovo but especially in Kosovo) then contributed to the solidification of the USA position, further undermining Russias attempt to position itself as a great power. NATOs military intervention in Kosovo has brought a new paradigm in the international arena by framing Western support and legitimacy of the intervention as humanitarian. This portrayal was not uncontested, however, and triggered a debate regarding international law and order. In the opposition to the Western position, Russia has supported Serbia in the international arena by condemning the intervention in Kosovo as unjust and against the international law. Russia has thus used Kosovos case as a strategic opportunity to reassert its role in the international system. Furthermore, the military intervention in Kosovo has served as a tipping point for Russian foreign strategy since Russia started to use it as a precedent and a legitimization of its own military interventions elsewhere, as seen in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The annexation of Crimea and instability in Ukraine show a further conversation of Russias foreign policy into a more aggressive and revisionist, as Moscow openly started to oppose the Western norms and principles accepted as international values. Fighting against Western dominance in general and USA hegemony in particular positions Russia as an economic and military alternative for the Western Balkan countries. Yet, instead of having a clear strategy towards the Western Balkans, Russia rather concentrates on strategic profits from the political mistakes committed in the region by the Western powers and their general lack of attention given to the Balkans. Although the Western Balkan countries are in the process of the EU integration, they still face obstacles of ethnic tensions, corruption, unstable social conditions and economic stagnation. These vulnerabilities are exploited by the great powers to spread their influence in the Balkans. Although the EU has played a significant role in the democratization process of the countries, the Unions own issues such as migration, and or Brexit, have enabled Russia to play a more active role and enhance its economic, cultural and military relations with these countries. In this regard, Serbia is Russias biggest cultural and military ally in the region. Russia has also become Serbias major supporter in opposing Kosovos statehood in the international arena. The two countries have mutually benefited from their cooperation, Russia proving its international power through its influence in Serbia, and Serbia using it for its own political benefits, and as bait to the EU, i.e.threatening the EU to go under Russian political umbrella, and most importantly to bring Russian influence in the region. In the recent meeting between Vucic and Putin in Moscow where they discussed how to push forward the dialogue with Kosovo, Vucic was interested in presenting the support for Russia in the process. Even though the specifics of the meeting were not shared with the public the message that also Putin wanted to give through the meeting was clear: West should count with Russia when it comes to the important political developments in the region. Last but not least, there is a final stage of dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia currently taking place. If successfully finalized, it would enable Serbia to speed up its EU membership process and secure financial benefit as an EU country whereas for Kosovo it would open the UN membership door. Possession of a veto in the UN Security Council makes Russia a crucial player in the process and also enables it to prevent Kosovos membership in the UN and its full international recognition. To sum up, Russias foreign policy is directed towards emphasizing that the international system is not unipolar where the West is the greatest international power but rather bipolar, where Russia plays a preeminent role in shaping the daily politics. Its influence is therefore directed towards the aspiring - but not yet - EU and NATO membership, and Russia becomes an instrumental player in their membership processes into these international organizations. Read the original text at European Western Balkans. Related video: Since the morning of October 30, Russian armed mercenaries have shelled Ukrainian outposts in Donbas 21 times. The HQ of the Joint Forces Operation reproted this on Facebook on Wednesday morning. On six occasions, militants opened fire from Minsk-banned weapons six times. 120 mm mines hit Luhanske; 82 mm mortars were used during the attacks on Avdiivka, Pisky, Lomakyne and Luhanske. The enemy used IFVs, grenade launchers, large-caliber machine guns and small arms. Skirmishes were observed in Luhanske, Verkhnyotoretske, Avdiivka, Pisky, Optyne, Mariinka, Krasnohorivka, Pavlopol, Hnutove, Lomakyno, Vodyane and Lebedynske. Two Ukrainian servicemen were wounded in action. Earlier, Volodymyr Yelchenko, the country's permanent envoy in the UN stated that the illegal election in the occupied Donbas may become the starting point of the new armed Russian aggression in Ukraine. The agenda of the Council's session was focused on the ongoing aggression in eastern Ukraine. As the discussion was in progress, Yelchenko said that 'there are signs that the these so-called 'elections' could become the starting point for the new sequence of the armed aggression'. Open source Over the past 24 hours, Russian mercenaries attacked Ukrainian military positions in Donbas nine times. Two Ukrainian fighters sustained combat wounds in action, the HQ of the Joint Forces Operation reported. The outposts in Luhanske, Avdiivka, Pisky, and Lomakyno came under fire from 82 mm mortars. In two cases, hostile IFVs opened fire near Avdiivka and Opytne. Small arms fire was observed in Mariinka, Pavlopil, and Lebedynske. Meanwhile, in Europe, as Trident Juncture military exercise is in full swing, NATO armed formations trained in specific conditions of the Norwegian coastline. The troops apparently practiced in performing defensive maneuvers in the area of Trondheim. 'The military demonstration at a wind-blown waterfront site near Trondheim was part of the massive, two-week Trident Juncture exercise and displayed the allies combined firepower to NATO dignitaries, foreign observers and the international media. Military officials have stated that the exercise is not targeting any one country. But the fictitious scenario involves repelling a 'near-peer' threat in Europe. NATO has been reassuring its allies in Eastern Europe against potential threats posed by Russia, whose military has grown more assertive since it annexed Ukraines Crimean Peninsula in 2014,' reads the story by Stars and Stripes. Some of the country's indicators and parameters have improved Doing Business ranking, Ukraine, 2018 Open source Ukraine has gone up five positions up in the Doing Business rating and currently comes 71st. This research was published on Doing Business website of the World Bank. Doing Business ranking, Ukraine, 2018 Doingbusiness According to the information, Ukraine improved the following indicators: - minority shareholders protection (81st place last year and 72nd place this year) by requiring detailed immediate public disclosure of related-party transactions; - dealing with construction permits made easier, by eliminating a requirement that the investors obtain clearance from the State Service of Ukraine for Emergency Situations (from 35th to 30th place); "Ukraine made construction permitting more costly by increasing the contribution fee to the city social and engineering-transport infrastructure. On the other hand, Ukraine made dealing with construction permits easier by eliminating a requirement that investors obtain clearance from the State Service of Ukraine for Emergency Situations," the message says. Doing Business ranking, Ukraine, 2018 Doingbusiness - trading across borders, as it was simplified by eliminating the verification requirement on auto parts from the State Service of Export Control (from 119th place to 78th). - enforcing contracts made easier by introducing a simplified procedure for small claims and pre-trial conferences as part of the case management techniques used in all commercial courts. As it was reported earlier, Russias renowned Memorial Human Rights Centre has once again marked Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression on 30 October by publishing new lists of political prisoners currently held in Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea. There has been a massive increase, from 117 a year ago to 195 now, with Memorial warning that the real number is likely to be very much higher People demanding to free political prisoners Human Rights in Ukraine Placards above from top left clockwise explaining how the people in the photo became political prisoners. Denis Bakholdin for protesting against Russias aggression against Ukraine; Oyub Titiev for defending human rights in Chechnya from Ramzan Kadyrov; Andriy Kolomiyets for taking part, as a Ukrainian, in Ukraines Euromaidan; Yuri Dmitriev, for restoring the names of executed labour camp prisoners; the Novoye Velichiye Casefor discussing political issues on social media chats. Russias renowned Memorial Human Rights Centre has once again marked Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression on 30 October by publishing new lists of political prisoners currently held in Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea. There has been a massive increase, from 117 a year ago to 195 now, with the Memorial warning that the real number is likely to be very much higher. Russia is certainly holding far more Ukrainian political prisoners than the list would suggest. Memorial HRC is right to wish to analyze the charges and evidence, if any, backing them, before drawing conclusions, though in many cases such analysis is largely a formality. Russia is now holding over 30 Ukrainian Muslims from Crimea prisoner on charges of involvement in the peaceful pan-Islamist movement Hizb ut-Tahrir which is legal in Ukraine. Since Memorial considers all those convicted merely of involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir to be political prisoners, and with respect to Crimea also points out that Russia is in breach of international law by applying its legislation on occupied territory, it is merely a question of time before all Crimean Muslims in custody are declared political prisoners. Memorials list does not include several Ukrainian political prisoners, presumably because of the secrecy Russia maintained and the use of pressure to force the men into agreeing to admit to the charges. Valentin Vyhivsky, for example, was abducted from Simferopol in September 2014 and taken to Lefortovo Prison in Moscow where he was held incommunicado for several months and never had a proper lawyer until after he had been convicted of mystery spying and sentenced to 11 years imprisonment. Ukrainian academic Dmytro Shtyblikov was also prevented from seeing a lawyer and placed under immense pressure until he agreed to plead guilty to planning acts of sabotage in Crimea. The list does not include Mykola Shyptur, Maidan activist and probably Russias first Ukrainian political prisoner who was probably arrested, charged and convicted on absurd charges because the inadvertent involvement of a police officer made it difficult for him to be abducted and killed (details here) It also omits Oleksiy Sizonovych, a pensioner who was abducted by Luhansk militants and almost certainly tortured both in Ukraine and then after having been illegally taken to Russia. He was sentenced to 12 years after being forced into admitting to the charges in the absence of a real lawyer and without any contact with members of his family.. It will soon be one year since the FSB and Russias National Guard tried to arrest Vedzhie Kashka, the 83-year-old veteran of the Crimean Tatar national movement, and instead caused her death. Four men in their fifties and sixties remain imprisoned, although the charges against them are nonsensical and the entire case is clearly being used to try to discredit the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people which Russia has been ordered by the International Court of Justice to stop persecuting. The abovementioned is not intended as a criticism of the Memorial HRC, but as an indication of how many prisoners cases it may not be identified as political because Russia maintains unwarranted secrecy, and/or uses inadmissible pressure to force them to admit to crimes they never committed. Such pressure in very many cases includes direct methods of torture. Over the last year, the FSB have also resorted to shocking methods against young Russians. In the Novoye Velichiye case, for example, around 15 young people are facing long sentences on charges of organizing an extremist group, although it appears that the said group was effectively created by an FSB officer who used forms of provocation and deceit to incriminate young people who would otherwise have simply continued expressing politically critical opinions on social media. Since 2014, Russia has systematically persecuted its own citizens, as well as Ukrainians for expressing critical views about its annexation of Crimea and military aggression against Ukraine. It is also now persecuting historians who have uncovered the crimes and the mass graves of the victims of Stalins Terror. Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression coincides with the anniversary of the mass execution by the quota of Ukrainian, Russian and other prisoners sent to the notorious Solovki Labour Camp during the worst months of Stalins Terror. From 27 October to 4 November 1937, 1,111 prisoners were executed by the NKVD, including 289 Ukrainian writers, playwrights, scientists and other members of the intelligentsia. Their remains lie, together with those of nearly nine thousand victims, at the Sandarmokh Clearing in Karelia, near the Russian border with Finland. It was historian Yuri Dmitriev and colleagues from the Memorial Society who uncovered the mass graves at the Sandarmokh Clearing in Karelia, with Sergei Koltyrin, the Director of a local museum working closely with them. Both Dmitriev and Koltyrin are now imprisoned on charges clearly aimed at discrediting them and Memorial. The arrests have coincided with a brazen attempt to rewrite the history of Sandarmokh and place in question the proven fact that the graves there are those of thousands of victims of the Terror (See Russia arrests second historian of Stalins Terror). Memorial HRC reports that about half of the political prisoners it has identified are being persecuted for their religious beliefs. It suggests that here the real number could be 3-4 times higher. The figures are also set to rise with Russias persecution of Jehovahs Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists gaining pace. It is frighteningly obvious that Russia FSB are using the same tactics against Crimean Muslims and Jehovahs witnesses, with such persecution requiring very little effort for the enforcement officers and likely promotion or other perks for good statistics on fighting fictitious terrorism or extremism (details here). Read the original text here. Hungary does not suffer from Trianon syndrome and has any angst for lands, which entered Austro-Hungarian Empire once Open source Foreign Minister of Hungary Peter Szijjarto claimed that Budapest has never had any plans to conquer particular areas of Zakarpattia region or to ensure its autonomous state, as Gazeta Prawna reported. According to the minister, Hungary does not suffer from the 'Trianon syndrome' or has any angst for the lands, which belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire once. 'I always reject the accusations of revisionism. It is silly and false insinuations. I repeat one more time, we are not the revisionists, the minister said, answering the question of a journalist whether Budapest will decide to change the borders for the protection of the Hungarian minority amid the crisis in relations with Ukraine. Szijjarto added that Budapest wants to see Ukraine as a strong and democratic state, as the Hungarians also live there. As we reported, Hungary has changed the name of the minister for Zakarpattia. The decision was published by the Hungarian Justice Ministry on October 29. Earlier, Ukrinform agency published a video where a few Ukrainians receive the Hungarian passports and owe allegiance to Hungary in the Consulate in Berehove, Zakarpattia region, western Ukraine. The Hungarian diplomat recommended not to inform the Ukrainian authorities about receiving the new documents. Yuriy Lutsenko, Prosecutor General, claimed that Ukraine's Security Service investigates this case; however, the service denied this. Tamas Menczer, Hungarys Foreign Minister Spokesperson, later reported that Hungary would not withdraw its consul from Berehove due to the scandalous video about the issuance of Hungarian passports to the Ukrainians. In its turn, Ukraine claimed that in case the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Hungary does not withdraw their consul from Berehove, the Ukrainian side will offer him to abandon the territory. Related video: Volodymyr Yelchenko reminded that the election should take place solely under the Ukrainian law The illegal election in the occupied Donbas may become the starting point of the new armed Russian aggression in Ukraine. Volodymyr Yelchenko, the country's permanent envoy in the UN said that at the UN Security Council session as quoted by Interfax news agency. The agenda of the Council's session was focused on the ongoing aggression in eastern Ukraine. As the discussion was in progress, Yelchenko said that 'there are signs that the these so-called 'elections' could become the starting point for the new sequence of the armed aggression'. The Ukrainian diplomat underlined that the local election in Donbas should take place solely under the Ukrainian law. He also turned the audience's attention to the ongoing breaches of the UN Convention on Maritime Law, committed by Russia. 'Over the past six months, Russia halted over 200 vessels on their way to the ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk', he said. Besides, during the UN Security Council session, eight EU member countries urged Russia to stop preparations for the illegal election in the occupied territories of Ukraine. The joint statement signed by these countries' representatives claimes that the 'elections' are not in line with Minsk agreements and violate the Ukrainian law. Minsk, the capital city of Belarus hosts the Munich Security Conference 2018 - for the second time this year. The key topics for discussion are the ongoing armed conflict in Donbas and the Minsk peace process. 'As tensions between East and West continue to rise, the Munich Security Conference (MSC) sees the imperative to maintain open channels of communication, foster mutual understanding and tend dependable personal networks at the highest political levels. Against this background, the MSC has decided to hold its next Core Group Meeting in Minsk', reads the message on the MSC's website. Heads of states, prime ministers, top-level diplomats and leaders of special services and research centers attend the conference, where the main events take place on October 31 and November 1. Munich Security Conference is considered the major global forum in terms of regional and international security matters. As we reported earlier, Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel is to pay a visit to Kyiv on Thursday, November 1 to discuss the implementation of Minsk Agreements with President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. Ulrike Demmer, the official representative of Germanys Government, said this to the press, Interfax-Ukraine reports. 'Bilateral relationships will be the core of the talks,' Demmer said. The politicians will also discuss the situation in the Donbas conflict zone and 'the implementation of Minsk Agreements'. The law eases the mechanism of bringing to justice an investigator, a prosecutor, a police officer who made the wrong decision during the investigation of a criminal case President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed the law on the prevention of illegal raids that aim to seize property by the means of hired masked gunmen. He claimed this at the meeting with the representatives of Ukrainian business, as 112 Ukraine TV channel broadcasted the event. 'Law under the conventional name Stop the masks show eases the mechanism of prosecution of an investigator, a prosecutor, a police officer who made a wrong decision during the investigation of a criminal case, which subsequently was canceled by the court. Basically, from now on, for the improper prosecution of business, they will hold personal responsibility, including the financial kind, the President said. Reportedly, the Ukrainian parliament adopted a law on the observance of the rights of participants in criminal proceedings and other persons during the pre-trial investigation. The draft law amends several articles of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, in terms of providing another person whose rights or legitimate interests are limited during the pre-trial investigation, or his representative the right to file petitions to the investigator. The prosecutor is to close the criminal proceedings if there is an unreasonable decision of the investigator or no criminal offense is detected. Ukraine's foreign minister is also sure that Russia aims to its own reality UN Security Council Open source After the session of the UN Security Council, dedicated to the situation in the occupied territories of Ukraine, Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin reported on Twitter that the texts for Russias Foreign Ministry are written by Russian propaganda channels. 'Earlier, the Foreign Ministry of Russia wrote the texts for the propaganda channels; now, these channels write for the Foreign Ministry. But, after all, in many ways, it is the same. And Russia completely aims to its own reality, not only from the Western one but also that of the whole adequate world,' Klimkin wrote. As we reported, Vasily Nebenzya, the Permanent Representative of Russia at the UN accused Ukraine of the organization of the 'terrorist act', during which Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the head of 'Donetsk Peoples Republic' was killed. Also, the members of the UN Security Council rejected Russias proposal to invite the representatives of the occupied Donbas to participate in the session of the UN Security Council on Ukraine. Reportedly, on October 30, the UN Security Council had a session dedicated to the situation on the occupied territories of Ukraine. Related video: The Russian side may denounce the European Convention for Human Rights and leave the authority, but it must inform the Court six months before the exit, - Anna Yudkovska, the Ukrainian judge who serves with the ECHR Anna Yudkovska Open source Russia is obliged to obey and act according to the decisions of the ECHR - even if it abandons the Council of Europe. Anna Yudkovska, the judge who represents Ukraine in the ECHR's line-up said this quoting the Kremlin's statements about possible withdrawal from the Council of Europe. According to her, the rules that are applied to the Court's decisions in such cases are stipulated in the European Convention for Human Rights. Russia may denounce the Convention and withdraw from the Court's line-up but it still has to report on it six months before the exit. 'But even this step does not release the state from the obligation to live up by the ECHR decisions about the violations that occurred before the moment the state denounced the Convention, that is, abandons the Council of Europe', Yudkovska stated. 'Victims of the violations still can file complaints against Russia within the six-months-long period since Russia officially claimed to exit the Council of Europe. These appeals will be considered by the Court, and Russia will have to live up to these decisions. This, of course, also applies to the currently considered complaints, where there are no decisions made yet'. Earlier, Earlier, Ukrainian Justice Ministry filed six complaints against Russia, submitting them for consideration by the ECHR. One of the appeals concerns the violations of political prisoners' rights. Previously, Russian Parliamentary Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said Russia considers leaving the Council of Europe. UN Security Council Open source The U.S. claims that Russia's provocations in the Sea of Azov breach Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Johnathan Cohen, the U.S. Deputy Representative in the UN said this during the Security Council session on October 30. 'Russias occupation of the Crimean peninsula and its aggressive actions in the Sea of Azov, where Russia is harassing and obstructing international shipping bound for Ukraines ports, further demonstrate Moscows blatant violation of Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity and readiness to undermine the regional stability', reads the statement as posted on the U.S. mission's website. The official stressed that the provocations get in the way of negotiations in the Normandy format and the dialogue between Kurt Volker and Vladislav Surkov, the major American and Russian diplomats in this process. Speaking of the 'election' in occupied Donbas, slated for November 11, Cohen emphasized that 'the United States joins with others in condemning the announcement by the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples Republics that they intend to hold what they are calling elections on November 11'. 'These actions are clearly illegitimate and have no basis in Ukrainian law (...) These sham elections, staged by Russia, run directly counter to efforts to implement the Minsk peace agreements. The elections also obstruct and undermine efforts to end the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has killed over 10,000 people and causes more casualties daily. The Minsk agreements state that the OSCE must supervise elections, which are to be held in accordance with Ukrainian law and OSCE standards. The November 11 balloting will satisfy none of these conditions', Cohen said. Israel will become the 46th country to open the free trade area for Ukrainian goods, - Stepan Kubiv, First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Ukraine and Israel are ready to sign the bilateral Free Trade Area Agreement by the end of 2018. First Vice Prime Minister Stepan Kubiv reported this during the Cabinet session on Wednesday. 'We entered the final stage of preparation of the Free Trade Area with Israel. The deal will be signed by the end of the year', he said. Kubiv also stressed that Israel will become the 46th country to open the free trade area for Ukrainian goods. Ukraine and Israel completed the technical initializing of the deal earlier this year; the talks were completed in March. Later, in August, the sides agreed to sign it. The document totally consists of 12 sections and the number of additions, which were processed, concurs with the international practice of concluding such documents. The UN Security Council had a session dedicated to the situation on the occupied territories of Donbas Eight EU member stated at the UN (France, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Great Britain, Belgium and Germany) urged Russias authorities to cease the preparation to the illegal elections on the occupied territories of Ukraine, as the press office of the British Government reports. We condemn the illegitimate elections planned for 11 November in the non-government controlled territories of the so-called Luhansk Peoples Republic and Donetsk Peoples Republic. If held, these illegitimate elections would contravene commitments made under the Minsk agreements and violate Ukrainian law. Any such illegal elections would be incompatible with the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, the message says. It was noted that the states support the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within the internationally recognized borders. We call on the international community to stand united in opposing these illegitimate elections that can only serve to undermine efforts to achieve peace in the region. We urge the separatists to abandon the plans for elections and call on Russia to bring its considerable influence to bear to stop the elections from taking place, the statement reads. The members of the UN Security Council rejected Russias proposal to invite the representatives of the occupied Donbas to participate in the session of the Council on Ukraine. Yet, the Russian delegation brought Yelena Kravchenko, the so-called head of the Central Electoral Commission of Luhansk Peoples Republic to the session, but she was not allowed to deliver a speech. The second hearing, where the court is to make the final decision will be appointed later Anna Yudkovskaya, the judge of the European Court of Human Rights Open source The first hearing on the case 'Ukraine against Russia' on the occupation of Crimea is scheduled for February 27, 2019; Hanna Yudkivska, the judge of the European Court of Human Rights said this as Eurointegration reported. 'As a rule, the procedure is the following: the court conducts communication with the governments of both countries. Then, the case is considered; these are the first hearings. Then, the court (we have a Grand Chamber for this purpose) makes the preliminary ruling on the matters of principle, whether there is a violation. We prepare the decision, and the Grand Chamber meets again at the second hearing, where the draft decision is considered. Then, the chamber conducts final voting,' she explained. The break between the first and the second hearings on the cases the Grand Chamber considers already's been taking an entire year. 'We can expect that the decision on the Crimean case 'Ukraine against Russia' will be made in at least a year, given its acceptability and essence,' Yudkivska stressed. Speaking of the compensation, this question will be postponed in compliance with the established practice, as the judge specified. 'In addition, as it was with the cases on Nagorno-Karabakh, the decision on the merits was made in 2015, and two years after that, the court decided on the compensation,' Yudkivska reiterated. Special services tried to get information on ranks, positions, locations and duties of the officers and the data about military units, where they serve, their involvement in the operations of the Joint Forces Officers of Russian Federal Security Service Open source Ukraine's military counterintelligence revealed that the FSB, Russias Federal Security Service and the so-called 'National Security Ministry' of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine recruited relatives of Ukrainian army officers; the SBU press service reported this on Wednesday. The operatives found that the wives of three Armed Forces' officers were recruited during their stay in Russia and on the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. 'The women undertook psychological pressure, they were threatened with a ban to leave or enter the country, imprisonment and suppression on their parents. Therefore, they provided written agreements for a confidential cooperation taking pseudonyms,' the message says. The special services tried to get information on ranks, positions, locations and duties of the officers and the data about military units, where they serve as well as their involvement in the operations of the Joint Forces. It was noted that the wives of the officers were forced to agree on cooperation with Russian special services, but after they returned to Ukraine, they were helping the investigation and testifying on the conditions of their recruitment and tasks. Ukraines Security Service reminds that the state treason and creation of terrorist groups and organizations leads to imprisonment for up to 15 years, as Criminal Code puts it. Yet, if a citizen did not act voluntarily and willingly informed the state institutions on his/her links to foreign special services, no criminal liability is provided. Earlier, Ukraines Security Service stated that Russia deployed recruitment centers and units of Wagner private military company in Luhansk region. The limitations will last within the period on November 1-4 Open source Ukraine declared the zone for civil aircraft flights over the Black Sea near the western coast of Crimea dangerous because of missile-launching exercises in early November, as Russian Interfax reports referring to the international order on flights limits. The zone of the airspace over the Black Sea is dangerous for the civil aviation, the Russian side is responsible for the managing of this area. Limitations are set due to Ukraines missile-launching exercises on November 1-4. Therefore, Kyiv banned flights of civil aviation in this area in all heights, the message says. Ukraine has not commented on this information yet. After Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014, the Ukrainian Government closed the airports on the peninsula. Any flights back and forth are considered a violation of Ukraines legislation and international regulations. The session is dedicated to the situation on the occupied territories of Ukraine The members of the UN Security Council rejected Russias proposal to invite the representatives of the occupied Donbas to participate in the session of the Council on Ukraine, as the UN News Centre reported on Twitter. Russia urged the members of the UN Security Council to let Yelena Kravchenko, the so-called 'Head of the Central Electoral Commission of Luhansk Peoples Republic' deliver a speech at the session of the Council. The Chairman of the session put the question to a vote: only Russia voted for, seven countries voted against, and seven more abstained. Reportedly, on October 30, the UN Security Council had a session dedicated to the situation on the occupied territories of Ukraine. Besides, this month Ukraine claimed an unprecedented Russia's militarization of Crimea. Related video: Earlier, the drivers could go 80 km per hour at 17 streets during the warm season Since November 1, vehicle drivers will not be allowed to go faster than 80 km per hour at 17 streets across Kyiv; the respective decision acted only during the warm season from April 1 till November 1. Such decision was made for the comfort and convenience of the drivers, as Kyiv City Council ruled on October 9. Deputy Mayor of the council also specified that 17 streets on the list were chosen as they are equipped for more intensive traffic; there are no ground pedestrian crossings as well as the intersections of the transport flows at one level. In winter, the only restriction of 50 km per hour will work at Kyiv roads due to the difficult weather conditions. Reportedly, since October 8, the Ukrainian police monitor the road traffic in Kyiv and in many regions across the country, using the TruCam surveillance systems. The TruCam devices were set next to the road signs warning of photo and video recording of safety violations, on the certain sections of international highways and in the cities where the high level of road accident hazard is observed. Service transport vehicles with blue flash beacons will be there, too. Lukashenko added that it is also important to find a compromise in the matter of introducing peacekeepers in Donbas Belarus is ready to help to resolve the conflict in Donbas and to take control over the state border of Ukraine and Russia. President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko claimed this at the opening of Munich Security Conference in Minsk. Lets be honest: a solution to the conflict in the Donbas could have been found long ago - if there was enough will... We are ready to take responsibility for ensuring peace in the eastern regions of Ukraine and on the Russian-Ukrainian border, Lukashenko claimed. He also added there is a need to continue the search for the mutually acceptable solution for the deployment of peacekeepers in Donbas. It is possible to consider options for deploying a joint UN and OSCE mission in Ukraine. It can include servicemen, police officers, civilian personnel from the countries that made a strong contribution to its resolution over the whole period of the conflict. It is necessary to ensure the phasing principle in the deployment of this mission, but there is almost no time left, Lukashenko added. According to him, it is also important to continue working in the Normandy format, in order to ensure a clear control mechanism to monitor the implementation of the Minsk Agreements. Earlier, President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko claimed that Minsk is ready to interfere in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia because there is no end to the brothers conflict. Anna Yudkovska Open source During the consideration of the Crimean part of the 'Ukraine against Russia' case, the European Court on Human Rights (ECHR) should foind out the date when Russia assumed control over the Crimean peninsula. Hanna Yudkivska, the judge to the ECHR from Ukraine made such statement, as Yevropeiska Pravda reported. As she explained, Russia is accused of the numerous violations of the human rights, including the persecution of the national minorities. 'It is about Article 2 of the Convention on the right to live, Article 3 on the prohibition of torture and Article 5 on the right for liberty. The kidnapping of the activists took place there, as well as violations of freedom of speech, when the journalists were arrested and deprived of the equipment and materials and many other facts,' she said. Due to this, it is necessary to establish the date when Russia took control over the territory. 'Despite the fact that the Council of Europe finds Crimea Ukrainian, the state that controls the peninsula is proclaimed guilty in violation of human rights there, so the ECHR needs to establish when Russia claimed responsibility for the systematic violations of human rights in Crimea,' Yudkivska reported. The Ukrainian side claims that Russia has taken control over Crimea since February 2014, before the annexation of the peninsula on March 27, 2014. Earlier, Ukrainian Justice Ministry filed six complaints against Russia, submitting them for consideration by the ECHR. One of the appeals concerns the violations of political prisoners' rights. Reportedly, Ukraine has filed a lawsuit in ECHR against Russia, due to the violation of Ukrainian political prisoners' rights. In particular, the Ukrainian Government states the systemic violations of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms by the Russian side. Related video: According to Vasiliy Nebenzya, the election has no connection to Minsk measures and it is only of the 'municipal nature' Ukraine organized a terrorist act, during which Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the head of Donetsk Peoples Republic was killed. Vasily Nebenzya, the Permanent Representative of Russia at the UN said this during his spech at the UN Security Council session, as Ukrinform news agency reported. 'The election of the heads of the republics and lawmakers of the peoples councils scheduled on November 11 was caused by the necessity to fill the power vacuum after the murder of Zakharchenko,' Nebenzya said. The Russian representative also used the old propaganda cliches of the Kremlin against Ukraine, mentioning 'the blockade from Kyiv' and 'constant threats of the use of force from the Ukrainian government'. Moreover, he repeated the words that supposedly Kyiv 'did not observe the agreements on the ceasefire and shied away from the fulfillment of the political commitments within Minsk agreements'. At the same time, Nebenzya absolved Russia of the responsibility for the necessity to fulfill Minsk agreements, emphasizing that 'all points of the complex of measures relate to Ukraine and the militants - and none to Russia.' Nebenzya also accused the EU and the U.S. of the fact that Minsk agreements are not fulfilled, also complaining that Russia 'pays the price' for it by the Western sanctions aiming against it. As we reported, the members of the UN Security Council rejected Russias proposal to invite the representatives of the occupied Donbas to participate in the session of the Council on Ukraine. Reportedly, on October 30, the UN Security Council had a session dedicated to the situation on the occupied territories of Ukraine. Related video: The purpose of the visit of European parliamentarians is to personally figure out the reasons for the scandalous vote regarding the sanctions against 112 Ukraine and NewsOne and monitor the situation with the freedom of speech in Ukraine MEPs David Coburn, Jonathan Arnott visit 112 Ukraine TV channel, Oct.30, 2018 112 Agency European lawmakers David Coburn and Jonathan Arnott visited the main office of 112 Ukraine TV channel in Kyiv on October 30. Their goal was to personally find out the reasons for the scandalous voting on sanctions against 112 Ukraine and NewsOne and to monitor the situation with freedom of speech in Ukraine. The MEPs have already acquainted with the internal work of the TV channel, its professional team, the process of providing news and live broadcasts. In addition, their visit was broadcasted live on 112 Ukraine TV channel. After that, European deputies participated in the TV project of Elina Beketova, where they shared their impressions about the work of Ukraines broadcasting leader and concern over Ukrainian authorities pressure on the TV channel. MEPs David Coburn, Jonathan Arnott visit 112 Ukraine TV channel, Oct.30, 2018 112 Agency On October 31, the European deputies will meet with the head of the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine Yuriy Artemenko, and find out the reason Ukrainian authorities are obstructing the work of one of the country's top TV channels and why the National TV Council supports this. We are glad to welcome on our TV channel European deputies who share our position and are ready to fight for the truth. They got acquainted with the work of our large team of professionals; and now they want to hear the opinion of people whose vision on freedom of speech in Ukraine radically differs from ours. With this visit, we created a unique precedent on the media scene of Ukraine, so we are looking forward to our European friends meeting with usurpers of freedom of speech in Ukraine,' 112 Ukraine general producer Artem Marchevsky said. MEPs David Coburn, Jonathan Arnott visit 112 Ukraine TV channel, Oct.30, 2018 112 Agency As it was reported earlier, Ukraines Verkhovna Rada urged the countrys National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine to introduce sanctions against several Ukrainian TV channels. 229 MPs supported the draft law No. 9157 on 'Approval of recommendations to introduce personal special economic sanctions and other restrictive measures (sanctions)'. Thirteen European parliamentarians appeal to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to revoke the decision on imposing sanctions on 112 Ukraine and NewsOne TV channels. The leaders of 112 Ukraine and NewsOne channels arrived in Brussels personally to talk to the parliamentarians and to get their support. The issue of freedom of speech in Ukraine is brought up at the international conferences, forums and in the offices of European parliamentarians. The politicians carefully study the situation regarding sanctions against Ukrainian broadcasters and sign the petition. Both sides in Donbas continue to violate ceasefire regime, the official says Open source First Deputy Head of OSCE SMM in Ukraine Alexander Hug claimed that the warring sides in Donbas do not follow the ceasefire regime, this is why he retires with with anxiety and sadness. He claimed this at the briefing, Ukrainian News report. As anyone who works in OSCE, I have to abandon my office after 10 years of working in the organization. I have been giving short reports on the situation on Donbas almost every week for about four years. Believe me, I am not satisfied with what I am going to say, - little has changed over that time. The sides are still violating the agreements on the ceasefire set four years ago, Hug claimed. He added that he leaves the post with mixed emotions, with anxiety and sadness, because despite the efforts of the mission the sides still dont follow the ceasefire regime. Earlier, Alexander Hug claimed that he leaves the post of the deputy head of OSCE SMM on November 1. At the same time, he didnt specify the name of his successor. Reportedly, Alexander Hug started working in OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine in late March 2014. The President of Ukraine noted that the results of the session demonstrate that the international community continues isolating Moscow The President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko thanked Ukraines international partners for the support at the session of the UN Security Council dedicated to the situation in the occupied territories of Ukraine, as he wrote on Facebook. 'I am grateful to the international partners and the leadership of the UN Secretariat for the firm solidarity with Ukraine and a call to strengthen the humanitarian aid to alleviate the effects of Russias destructive aggression,' Poroshenko wrote. He urged the Kremlin 'to cease its brutal aggression in Donbas, to refuse from arms deliveries to the occupied territories and stop the obstruction of Minsk Agreements'. 'Moscow has to refuse from conduction of fake 'local elections' on the occupied Donbas in November; its illegal, its another example of Russias subversive activity,' the statement says. At the UN session, eight EU member states urged the Russian authorities to cease the preparation to the illegal elections on Ukraines occupied territories. The statement of the countries says that the elections contradict with Minsk Agreements and violate the Ukrainian legislation. Related video: Valery Maksymenko, the Deputy Head of the authority, stated that the Ukrainian political prisoner is working all day long The procedures to properly finish Oleg Sentsovs hunger strike are almost completed. TASS reported this referring to Valery Maksymenko, the Deputy Head of Russias Federal Prison Service, KrymRealii reports. 'He is fine, and the treatment is already over. Next week, we will conduct a consultation on his health condition. But basically, all the indicators are normal as for today; he returns to normal nutrition mode quite well,' Maksymenko said. According to him, Sentsov eats normally, just like the other prisoners and works all days long. 'He is not seating, and not lying, he is working all days long and asks for paper all the timeHe is writing books, scripts, and he answers the letters,' Maksymenko noted. As Interfax news agency reported, referring to Maksymenko, over the past three weeks, Sentsov gained some 10 kg and almost returned to his normal weight he had before the hunger strike. 'He consumes normal food, with the recommendations of the doctors, and he is being examined regularly', the Deputy Head stated. At the same time, the website of the Federal Penitentiary Service has no information of Sentsovs returning back to normal nutrition mode. Related video: The weapon is mounted on the armored car; it is also equipped with the automatic system of deployment and fire management Tests of new Bars-8MMK 120mm mortar carrier vehicle, mounted on an armored car was held in Ukraine. The press office of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) reported this on Wednesday. According to Secretary of NSDC Oleksandr Turchynov, Ukrainian manufacturers built the mortar carrier vehicle, which is based on the Bars-8 armored car. The mortar carrier vehicle can quickly reach the required firing point. Its computer system allows to be positioned on the ground; it takes only one minute to start firing from a carrying position, Turchynov said. According to him, it takes the crew of the vehicle, which includes three people, only 20 seconds to abandon a firing position. He also advised that the vehicle is equipped with 60 mines and an automatic system of deployment and fire management. The manufacturers completed several tasks during the development of this mortar carrier vehicle. In particular, the best time of deployment and redeployment, the flexible moving on off-road, the ability to destroy targets with high accuracy - and the main thing, safe use, the Secretary of the Council claimed. Turchynov hopes that Bars-8MMK will take a rightful place in the armaments of the Ground Forces, the Airborn Assault Troops and the Special Operations Forces - after the tests are over. Reportedly, Ukroboronprom concern to start manufacturing Lev, the armed repair vehicles. Image Comics Through Pizzagates and Shia LeBeouf-happenings, ART and much more, Burquenos share a sense of we re- in- this- togetherness which triumphs over xenophobic attitudes and cultural homogeneity. Yes, our little-big city has its ups and downs, but there is a warmth to bumming a lighter from a stranger. Small moments that make up the material of our lives can overcome the pervasive sense of fear creeping into the nervous system of our country. Naturally then, leave it to a Burqueno and a long time Vertigo editor (publisher of all comics progressive and intellectual during the '90s) to bring inclusiveness to the front of our lobes with Infidel. In this comic, local Aaron Campbell along with writer Pornsak Pichetshote bring us a twist on the familiar haunted house tale, which expertly demonstrates how diversity and inclusiveness is the only way forward for comic readers and creators. While a few small minded criers have bemoaned some titles' positioning of minority characters as leads in the Marvel and DC outings of the 2010s, it is evident that the trend of media representation is anything but a fad, in fact, has been a long time coming. Infidel is a horror story about racist ghosts. This is obviously an over-generalization, but its not a lie either. The characters who are privileged enough to not be subjected to the hate of the aggressing apparitions find them invisible and end up questioning the sanity of those affected. You, the reader, will watch ghostly horrors (brilliantly and disgustingly brought to life by Campbells multimedia approach) physically and verbally assault the books central protagonists as a means of haunting a subsidized apartment building where God-fearing, low income, white folk live in fear of their equally disadvantaged Muslim neighbors. Never has there been a clearer allegory for the privilege of ignorance in the comic book world. That said, Infidel makes its stand first and foremost as a bone-chilling ghost story with tension so masterfully paced, you will be hard pressed to put it down. Each characters motivations come forward as the plot unfolds, bringing with them the hidden prejudices we carry with us. Even the antagonists are written from a deeply human place of empathy and understanding, careful not to stuff and burn a strawman when real-life examples are so close at hand. This is character drama on a par with Breaking Bad, accompanied by visuals more disturbing than those found in American Horror Story. These moments of expertly applied craft highlight the effectiveness of the medium as a visual art, with all the pace and referential advantages of literature. Image Comics At the end of Infidel, I was struck by a sensation of complete embarrassment. The story of a haunted house is nothing new and horror comics have been extremely trendy over the last decade, yet I simply hadnt previously read anything like Pichetshotes masterwork. At best, echoes of Alan Moores work on Swamp Thing penetrate Infidels ethos as thoughtful horror, but truly the credit is deserved by Campbell and Pichetshote alone. By positioning their charactersof racial and cultural backgrounds too often relegated to a cast of supporting charactersas leads, and presenting the audience with their perspectives, the pair invoke a graphic novel work that feels utterly fresh despite its roots in some of the oldest comic book stories ever told. The fact that what feels like a renaissance comes from something so simple as a Muslim lead and her agnostic black American friend feels a bit shameful for comic book fans who have only been primarily reading the work produced by the dominant publishers (by proxy, telling the stories of the dominant culture). Marvels recent shake-up of their main roster feels a bit like a Band-Aid on an enormous wound. For a while there, Sam Wilson (better known as Marvels Black superhero, Falcon, portrayed by Anthony Mackie in the films) was Captain America. His stories focused largely on his outsider status and the peoples resistance to him taking (white) Steve Rogers place. These stories mirrored a real-life vocal minority of comic book readers calling foul at the perceived PC cash-grab. The pervasive thought being that diversity among Marvels headliners was an insincere attempt to cash in on good will, turning political correctness into capital, besmirching the perceived legacies of these white male leads. At the end of the day these stories benefited few, because after a few short years, Steve Rogers was returned to his position as Captain America. Captain America is no more black today than he is a werewolf. (This also happened, look it up.) The same can be said for when Thor was replaced by a woman (Jane Foster, portrayed by Natalie Portman in the films) and what will assuredly happen to black teenager Riri Williams aka Ironheart, currently Iron Mans stand-in while hes in space, or dead, or an A.I. or something. While well-intentioned, Marvels approach has yielded little in the way of actual change. The future of comics does not lie in a repackaging of Captain America, but in all new characters and stories yet to be told, featuring humans and mutants of demographics long suppressed by the mainstream. Championing the voices of creatives in this field to author their own stories in the medium, as well as recognizing that the stories of POC are a reflection of actual comic book readers is vital for the form to stay relevant. Meanwhile, Campbell and Pichetshote dont care who cries foul at their diverse and inclusive comic book because it is so evidently the way of the future and a rich tale which deserves to be told. In fact, everyones story deserves to be told, and it should never have taken us this long to come to that conclusion. Image saw this need when they decided to publish Infidel. In a move that should surprise no one, TriStar Pictures has identified this need as well and has already optioned Infidel for a film adaptation. If you are of the aforementioned vocal minority of comic book fans who see this all as a marketing ploy, I urge you to pick up a copy of Infidel for yourself. I urge you to embrace the points of connecting, like sharing a lighter. Or laugh together over that time Susana Martinez got white girl wasted and said the word pizza a dozen times on the Santa Fe 911 line. Discuss Infidel or take a friend to our local comic book store Red Planet, where Indigenous and POC voices are amplified. It's not just work like Infidel and retailers like Red Planet that put Albuquerque at the forefront of the industry. We also serve as host to Indigenous Comic-Con, (this weekend Nov. 2 to 4 at Isleta Resort and Casino) an event which merges comic book and geek culture with the art and perspectives of Native creators. The continued growth of this event indicates only positive change and greater access to more diverse stories. Infidel can be found at your local comic book shop, and in all major book retailers. Find out more about Indigenous Comic Con, and grab tickets at indigenouscomiccon. com. Corey Yazzie In awareness of the political trajectory this republic has taken since November 2016, we here at Weekly Alibi have given up on the cruel pretense that certain members of the Republican party, their platform or their vision for America may be salvageable. They are not. We dont believe in giving quarter to a political organization that has caged children, continued to utter insults at women, excuses itself from complicity in the violence of its most dedicated followers and generally mocks American values while waving a nationalist flag. Whats the purpose of pretending that such un-American behavior is acceptable? The Republicans are complicit in Trumps dark triumph. Theyve allowed Trump to take on faux-heroic, authoritarian proportions, directly lashing themselves to the man or otherwise turning their eyes and ears away while he and his cronies dangerously deconstruct the republic. The GOP must be voted from officemust be rendered ineffectual, impotent and unmemorableso that our nation can progress. That progress begins with a national Congress and a state leadership enabled to check the presidents misadventures and the ruling partys freedom to operate in such despotic chaos. Committing to this dutiful process means embracing the Democratic party for this election and the next one in 2020, too. For those in such a position, think about it this way: Rarely, citizens come into possession of the tools necessary to drive out the parties that either surely signify or at best abet darkness. This is one of those times. Vote them out, vote Democrat. That is not to say that the bright-eyed, brilliant, blue-wave forming Donkeys will get a pass from this newspaper. Far from it, weve been openly critical of their group and individual politics before and will do so again. But right now, compadres, they are the best hope we have. This year, the group representing the Democratic Party in New Mexico is an exceptional collection of humans. At the nexus of this community of tuned-in, radiant public servants, policy makers and political personages is the candidate for governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham. Recently, Weekly Alibi chatted with the Democratic candidate for the states top spot. With less than a week to go before the election happens, Grisham is confident and enthused. Shes up in the polls and ready to rock. Weekly Alibi: Because of your deep connection to New Mexico, I understand that you might have had experiences or feelings that are particular to citizens of the Land of Enchantment. What are the most important issues to you then, issues that may also be affecting others in this state? Michelle Lujan Grisham: Youre right, family is very important. As New Mexicans, we are very proud of this state and of our familys connections. I am a caregiver for my mother; Ive got two grandchildren. And I get asked or told this in every single community I visit, every single day I campaign: Please tell me my children can stay here. Tell me my grandchildren can stay here. So we are going to invest in the sorts of things that bolster the economy but we are also going to pay attention to those issues that are family-oriented otherwise, we end up losing our talent pool. Were a small state, we have to have that talent pool. I think about my own family: my own daughter, an engineer, she left the state. It took her two years to get back and find a meaningful career here. Many of the New Mexicans I talk to are worried about that. [Hearing those family stories] gives me the opportunity to talk about my economic ideas. That strengthens our families, that beautiful segue where we can talk about leadership, policies and plans and relate it to people who are worried about their families. Since these family issues seem to boil down to economic issues, I am wondering what are your plans for addressing such problems? Sure, lets talk about the economic components, but first lets make sure that people have integrity, that theres justice, that theres compassion. Because if we think about the economy just for the sake of the economy and dont actually lift people up at the same time youve got a disconnect in your work. You could use the [New Mexico] procurement code in a way that really shores up small business investment. Were not investing the interest from the permanent fund in a way that bolsters the economy. We are not starting with renewable energy. All of that begins to shift how we structure our economic investments. Now, heres the compassionate component: Lift people out of poverty with a working families tax credit. Do more to insure that folks have meaningful access to healthcare and childcare. We want to get rid of the thing called the cliff effect, which means that if you get a $200 raise and you are on public assistance, for say, housing or childcare, you stand to lose $600 in benefits. So we crack this cycle that you [otherwise] cant get out of by investing in the resiliency of New Mexicans and by building our own healthcare system. Were going to start by leveraging Medicaid, making sure that we have Medicaid buy-in because too many folks cannot afford insurance products on the exchange or the networks are too narrow. These are the kinds of things that create economic sustainability and take care of New Mexicans at the same time. We took a look at the Medicaid buy-in moving through the local level a couple of weeks ago, so its good to know that progressive proposal is on track. I was also interested to read that you favor re-implementing the methane rule, another issue Weekly Alibi looked at recently. Tell our readers a bit about that, please. The methane rule, first of all, is a job creator. It will create hundreds of jobs for New Mexicans. Thats exactly what we want. And it addresses the fact that we are serious about climate change, about greenhouse gas emissions. Methane [from natural gas production] is one of the very worst [polluters]. We are going to make money for the fossil fuel industry and we are going to protect New Mexicans from climate change. We are going to protect the environment and people in the affected communities. Colorado has demonstrated unequivocally that you can do this: You can bring the oil and gas industry together with the environmental community. We can put that practice together, have people work together. Thats the kind of leadership New Mexico deserves. How do you feel about a contention about oil and gas revenue that the N.M. Legislative Finance Committee made in a report earlier this year? They said that relying on income from such a volatile industry should be approached with great caution. How do you feel about that? Theyre right. And this is what has hurt the state. In a boom cycle, such as the one we are currently experiencing, folks who do not really have a visionwho arent really thinking about our futureare sitting on their laurels saying we dont have to do anything. And if you do anything to this booming industry, its a signal to oil and gas that you are going to tell them to stop producing. My opponent says that about my plans all the time. But no, responsibly working in this state and giving back the tools we need to create a sustainable economic future are things everyone should want. Thats why I am talking about transforming New Mexico. We cant waste any more time. We have to think about climate change. Weve got a decade; New Mexico has the worst methane hotspots in the nation. We have to lead in these areas. We can do that productively. Weve been meeting with experts in the oil and gas industry, being clear about our objectives about whats right for New Mexico. How does what is happening with regards to Trump and immigration affect New Mexicans? How are you going to work on ameliorating that ill effect? Im the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; its been an incredible amount of work given this administration. His is an administration that is promoting fear and racism and he isnt taking any of the responsibility for making the kinds of changes and investments that would redirect the migration of people that are fleeing [their own countries]. New Mexicans get that. Were insulted for the most part by the notion that a wall is the way to go. We reject that. But New Mexicans also know theres a downside to immigration. I want to be clear that we want a secure border; we want to do everything we can to take out nefarious characters engaged in crossing the border. As a border state we need to stand up against family separations; we are still appalled by those sorts of actions. We want security but not the hateful fear-mongering. Is the legalization of recreational cannabis a realistic goal for New Mexico? The Legislature has been working tirelessly on that issue. Ive signaled to the Legislature that if they bring me a recreational cannabis law that deals with the unintended consequences [like] workplace intoxication, driving intoxication issues and the whole public safety gamut: prevention, highly regulated ediblesand heres one of the leading issues, the law must protect medical cannabis, we dont want patients to be priced out of the market, if I get a bill that addresses those issues then Im a likely signatory on a recreational cannabis bill. But I want us to be smart about it. Vanessa Valdivia It is an interesting contested race for US Senate between Incumbent Democrat Martin Heinrich, political newcomer Republican Mick Rich and former Republican governor and presidential candidate now Libertarian Gary Johnson. But the choice is more than clear who should continue to represent our eclectic, culturally layered state in the big room on Capitol Hill. Whos That? Incumbent US Senator Martin Heinrich is the candidate for us, for Albuquerque and New Mexico. Weekly Alibi endorses this candidate and reminds you not to take his reelection for granted. In other words, do vote. Heinrich got his political start when he served one term as an Albuquerque City Councilor, an effort this paper fully supported. He then bounced from the municipal table to Capitol Hill to serve two terms in the US House of Representatives. In 2012, he was elected as our junior US Senator to fill the political boots left by longtime US Senator Jeff Bingaman. He served alongside senior US Senator Tom Udall. Heinrich has a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Missouri. He is married to his college girlfriend Julie Hicks and they have two sons. When first coming to New Mexico, he worked on directed energy stuff at the then Phillips Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base. He did a stint at AmeriCorps and as executive director of Cottonwood Gulch Foundation, a nonprofit focused on youth and the environment. Former Governor Bill Richardson appointed Heinrich as the states Natural Resources Trustee where he worked to restore the states land and water resources. Why Heinrich? The short answer is he is the best candidate: The Republican candidate is nearly invisible, the Libertarian customarily intoxicated with by-the-bootstraps capitalism. The better answer is that Heinrich has grown into his job as a statesman representing not only Albuquerque, but the entire state. To lose that respected experience at this most critical time in our countrys history would not only be a blow to all New Mexicans, but the United States as well. Heinrich has earned his way on Capitol Hill to sit on several powerful Senate committees such as the Energy and Natural Resources, Armed Services, Intelligence and Joint Economic committees. He has leveled some hard-hitting questions during several Senate hearings related to the crazy Trump administrations shenanigans. Heinrich is also a pretty regular kind of person, at ease with constituents and leaders alike, whether at the state fair or in session at the US Capitol building. He was born in Nevada, raised and educated in Missouri before settling in New Mexico. Heinrichs dad was an immigrant who came to the US from Nazi Germany as a young boy in the 30s. His dad served in the Navy then became a utility lineman. His mom was a seamstress who also worked in an automobile factory. Neither got a college education but that did not stop them from instilling educational values. He has worked in the trenches as a fellow with AmeriCorps, educating youth in natural sciences and environmental issues at Cottonwood Gulch Foundation and learned to play politics at the local City Council table. Progressive, community-minded Heinrich has been solid on his stance for a fair path to immigration reform versus stupid, fearful wall building. He has worked hard to protect our young student DACA dreamers by opposing the Trump administration attempts to end the program. He supports deporting criminals not splitting up families seeking asylum or entry into the United States. I have stood with New Mexicans to oppose Trumps border wall and inhumane immigration policies, he told Weekly Alibi. Guns are another issue where Heinrich rises to the top. He is an outdoorsman who owns guns but supports universal background checks and supports a military style assault weapons ban. On the touchy issue of abortion, he minds his own business and has said he thinks healthcare decisions should be left to women and their doctors. He supports a universal healthcare system saying, I have helped stop Republican attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and take away healthcare coverage from thousands of New Mexicans. Heinrich is big on the environment and agrees with climate scientists that if we fail to act on climate change it will be catastrophic. He has backed his words up with action by supporting renewable energy use and funded climate change research. We need to act on climate change. Rather than running from the data, we need to confront the challenge head on. I am proud to have negotiated a bipartisan agreement in the Senate that extended renewable energy tax incentives that are driving billions in investment and creating thousands of jobs in New Mexicos growing clean energy industrywhile reducing carbon emissions and mitigating climate impacts, Heinrich said in a recent interview. As far as cannabis is concerned, Heinrich has held his cards pretty close to his chest, but we at this newspaper hope his view on the matter is an evolving one. Earlier this yearon April 20 or 4/20 which is the national unofficial marijuana holidayhe tweeted out that it was time to legalize cannabis. Then midsummer he unceremoniously cosigned on to the Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act which would remove the drug from the federal governments list of Schedule 1 narcotics. While the post of sheriff carries with it a great amount of responsibility and power, many voters still fail to give it the proper attention. A sheriff will run the county's jails and set its arrest policies, which in turn will influence state law enforcement policy. Bernalillo County's current sheriff, Democrat Manuel Gonzales III, represents the most populated county in New Mexico, giving his office an especially weighty influence on state policies. He is up for reelection this year, challenged by retired Albuquerque police officer Lou Golson. Both candidates have had long careers in law enforcement. Since 1989 Gonzales has served in all divisions, commands and shifts within the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Department. According to his campaign website, he aggressively worked his way through the department and was unanimously appointed sheriff in 2009 by the Bernalillo County Commission following his predecessor's resignation. He failed to win the next year's election, but won when he ran again in 2014. Republican Golson's career began in 1977 as a civilian with the US Air Force Security Police. In 1979 he went on active duty and was assigned to Kirtland AFB as a Law Enforcement Specialist. When he ended his tour of duty, he stayed in New Mexico and joined the Albuquerque Police Department. During a traffic stop in 2015, he was shot four times. After two surgeries and five months of recovery, he returned to work at the Albuquerque Police Academy. He continued to serve until 2016, when doctors told him he would be unable to return to active uniformed duty, and he resigned. The two candidates met at a public forum in September to discuss their stances, but Gonzales refused to meet with Golson last month for an hour-long debate. Gonzales reportedly accused his opponent of stealing his platforms. Whatever I say he tries to make his own, he told reporters. He also said he didn't see the benefit in debating. Golson pointed out that his stances have been publicly posted on his campaign website since he announced his bid for sheriff earlier this year. While both candidates do appear to share similar views on a number of issues facing the countyincluding the need to better coordinate with local, state and federal authorities, facilitate government transparency and increase community involvement in battling crimeone place where they differ significantly is their opinion of the use of body cams. Golson says he wants to implement a rule requiring all deputies to wear a body camera while on duty. On his campaign website, he says the practice is the national standard, and calls for full police transparency. In an interview with the Albuquerque Journal, he said the use of both lapel cams and police cruiser dashboard cams would gather the most and best information. Gonzales has been opposed to the idea of using body cams for some time. Last year he was criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union and the New Mexico Foundation of Open Government because he said body cam footage gives a one-sided, lop-sided story and could be used by the media to depict the department unfavorably. He would rather see the implementation of dash cams alone. Golson has said that under Gonzales' watch, BCSO employees have been allowed to become reckless and need to be more closely scrutinized. He has voiced concerns over the current sheriff's use-of-force policy, saying it allows for deputies to use violence unnecessarily. During Gonzales' term as sheriff, a new car chase policy was introduced that allowed deputies to chase a fleeing misdemeanor suspect if they appear to be driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or if they are endangering other drivers with flagrantly reckless driving. An earlier policy only allowed officers to pursue those suspected of a violent felony. The year the new policy was introduced, the number of police car chases in Bernalillo rose to 74, compared with only 11 pursuits the year before. And nine deputy-involved shootings occurred within the last five months of 2017 under the current sheriff, leading the activist group APD and BCSO in Crisis to speak against his reelection last November. At the time, the American Civil Liberties Union again suggested the department use lapel cameras. Gonzales once more denounced their use. Gonzales has blamed the rise in car chases and police shootings on a coinciding rise in crime rates and says that he is already providing high level transparency and accountability. He wants to increase police presence in the community instead of spending funds on the implementation of body cams. The future of [body-worn camera technology] appears to be ambiguous and costly, he told reporters. Golson says he'll see the cameras are implemented immediately if he is elected. It shows youre not afraid to put anything out theregood, bad or indifferent, he told reporters. But he says the cameras are only one example of how the department's policies are outdated and in need of an overhaul. But Gonzales believes that his constituents are happy with his job so far. The public knows exactly where I stand. Ive been here three and a half years, and they come up to me every day in the public and support me, he told reporters. I have no doubts that Ill be reelected. I feel very confident were doing an outstanding job. Are you lost in the wild? Sorry, but the page you're looking for has not been found Try checking the URL for errors, goto home or try to search below. Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. Please call your State Representative and State Senator and tell them to vote against legislation repealing the Parental Notice of Abortion ... Furthermore, imports to the Inca country will total US$42.576 billion this year, a 10% expansion compared to 2017 (US$38.704 billion). "This country is one of the few in the region that includes questions on e-commerce in its surveys, censuses of economic establishments or interviews with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)," it said. "One-third of Peruvian firms carried out commercial promotion activities through the Internet in 2016. This is the chief means of promoting their products and represents 41% of the amount spent on the main forms of business advertising," ECLAC added. Latin America and the Caribbean a second On the other hand, ECLAC projects a 9.7% increase in regional good exports value this year , thus expanding foryear in a row, after the sharp fall between 2012 and 2016. Fraternity to Church Reimagining the Deke Shant by James Leonard From the October, 2018 issue Half the brick wall out front is gone, along with the wrought-iron gate. The stonework screening the wheelchair lift is unfinished, exposing a cement block core, and the landscape beds are covered with chipboard. But there's a friendly, goateed greeter at the door, coffee and pastries are set out in the first-floor social room, and children are racing up the stairs to the second-floor sanctuary. The Deke Shant--the narrow, steep-roofed structure that has loomed enigmatically over E. William St. since 1878--is now officially a church. "We're just delighted," says Carmine Lapham. A cheerful, white-haired woman, she explains that her daughter Lorraine is married to Bart Bryant, co-pastor of Redeemer Ann Arbor. "The city made them do a lot more than they expected," Lapham adds, "but they persisted." The first service a week earlier, she says, drew more than 100 people. She was especially impressed because "it was so small when they started." Co-pastor Jim Mong moved from Grand Rapids to launch the church three years ago. "I'm from southwest Detroit and grew up loving Ann Arbor," he says. He and others presented the idea of a student ministry to Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Ada, where he was an associate pastor. The congregation agreed to support his family financially while he launched it. Other congregations also contributed, including some associated with Acts 29, a "church-planting network" that is sometimes described as "Neo-Calvinist." Mong calls it "a vibrant Reformed community." Redeemer started out meeting in homes, with students who'd grown up in an Acts 29 congregation in Trenton as some of its first congregants. "Two years ago we started meeting in the evening" at the Michigan League, Mong says. "Then a year ago we started meeting at the Lord of Light" Lutheran Church. But Mong says the church blending Presbyterian and Baptist traditions was always looking for a home of its own. Lorraine Bryant was the first to notice that the Shant was available. "It's a beautiful building," Mong ...continued below... says, "and the location a block from the U is amazing. God opened the door!"Bart Bryant emails that it "wouldn't be prudent" to discuss finances, but city records indicate that Redeemer paid the fraternity's foundation $780,000--and that was just the start. "Usability-wise it was pretty funky," says contractor Geoff Perkins.---The Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity was founded at Yale in 1844. Distinguished Dekes include five Republican presidents: Rutherford B. Hayes, Theodore Roosevelt, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and U-M grad Gerald Ford. There's a photo of the DKE flag flying at the North Pole with its discoverer, brother Robert Peary.The U-M "Omicron" chapter was chartered in 1855. Members built the "Hall of Omicron" twenty-three years later.There is no record of how it came to be known as the Shant. "I don't know, and I don't know anybody who knows," says Doug Lanpher, executive director of the international DKE fraternity and president of its foundation. "Short for 'shanty' is the best guess I've heard.""It was designed by William LeBaron Jenny," says architect Gary Cooper, who oversaw the renovation. Before becoming famous as "the father of the skyscraper," Jenny was the first U-M professor of architecture from 1876 to 1880. "He designed this building based on another building in Chicago based on a French church," Cooper says.Beyond that, "there's very little known about the building," Cooper says. "There's no record. Nobody outside the chapter was allowed in until 1972."So just what the brothers did there remains obscure. Old pamphlets say DKE hazing rituals involved "horseplay and rough-house," and according to a 1990 Observer article, "For a time, there was a rope snare in the Shant's huge main room that would catch the unaware pledge and fetch him up like a bird to the second floor, where he would find himself in the presence of the then-presiding brother." That seems to be a variant of a story told in the 1971--it reported that a renovation that year had preserved "trap doors used to drop unsuspecting pledges from a rope ladder."Perkins says his crews found "no evidence of a rope ladder," but surmises "it was probably eliminated when DKE started using the first floor for their offices. We have been involved in other secret passages in other fraternities but [found] no evidence in this building."Undertaken after several years of abandonment and vandalism, the 1971 renovation cost $100,000 and belatedly brought the building into the twentieth century--adding running water, heat, and electricity. (Until then, the windowless first floor had been illuminated only by gaslight and candlelight.) Despite another round of fundraising in 1980, however, the Shant remained a drag on the Omicron chapter's finances, and in 1987 it transferred ownership to what's now called the DEKE Foundation.Though U-M Dekes continued to hold an annual ceremony at the Shant and hosted an occasional alumni tailgate there, from then on it functioned primarily as the headquarters of the foundation and the international fraternity."It was fun to watch people walk by and look up," says Lanpher, who first worked there in 2009. "It is a little understood building." But "with no windows and no parking, it really wasn't suitable--and then we outgrew it."Letting go of a building that the frat had owned for so long was an "emotional decision," Lanpher says, but "it needed quite a bit of repairs, and we decided not to spend the money on it." So the foundation sold the Shant, earmarked the proceeds for member education and leadership training, and moved to an actual office on Plymouth Rd.The building needed even more work than the Dekes--or the church--realized. "We were working with [Redeemer] prior to their purchasing the building," Perkins says. "We looked at it, and, once closing took place, we had meetings with the city to talk about what they were going to require--and they required us to do a lot more than we originally anticipated."We didn't anticipate having to put in an elevator," he explains. "We didn't anticipate having to bring the bathrooms up to code. We didn't expect that [changing ownership] would trigger code requirements."We regularly had a crew of three carpenters," he adds. "We had an electrical contractor with usually a couple of guys, a mechanical contractor with four guys, [and] a plumber with one or two guys.""Then you had the masons," says Randy Walker, Perkins' project manager. "The masons dug out the basement--by hand. Those five guys took a wall down and had a conveyor belt stuck out" through the hole. "Because the site is so confining, they'd get a pile and haul it away--and then get another pile and haul it away!" And because the original stone foundation wasn't deep enough, they built a new concrete-block wall inside it.When they were done, the basement had eight-and-a-half-foot ceilings, with mechanical rooms, barrier-free bathrooms on the west wall, and what will be a nursery with maize-and-blue-painted walls in the center.The carpenters took out a wall on the first floor and put in a new beam to take the load. And they removed what Cooper calls "a beautiful winding stair" to put in a new, bigger stairwell with steps that meet current codes.That added still more to the cost, but proved a blessing in disguise. "The city gave us a pass on having to go through site plan approval," says Perkins. That's mandatory "when you add more than two hundred square feet to a building, and we would have been subjected to the whole plethora of stormwater detention, landscaping requirements, bike racks"--all of which the city has decided are essential since 1878. The basement expansion was bigger than that--but after deducting the space lost to the elevator shaft, stairwell, and barrier-free bathrooms, "we actually lost nine square feet."Even so, all the extra work "added time to the whole thing," Perkins sighs. His crews worked eighteen-hour days to get the building open at the beginning of September. It's "because it's a young congregation," he explains, "and it's very much oriented around the school year."---At 10:30, a large TV in the social room flicks on, showing people trickling into the sanctuary upstairs. Everyone else follows, and soon sixty or so people are settling in on upholstered metal chairs under a small skylight. A pair of stained-glass windows, though set with DKE symbols, give the space something of the feel of a traditional church. There's a big screen here, too, currently scrolling a list of upcoming activities--the women's group meets at the church on Tuesday night, the men's breakfast is at 6:30 a.m. Thursday at Angelo's on the Side ("it's early, but it's worth it," Mong says).Today's congregation is mostly white, but there's one African American and a number of Asians. About a third are college age, and children outnumber seniors. (The Bryants' children are grown, but Mong and his wife, Susannah, have six youngsters.) Led by a five-piece band, the group sings contemporary "praise songs" with varying degrees of confidence. Mong offers a prayer for an Acts 29 congregation in Central America, asking God to "lift up men" to guide it--women aren't allowed to lead either Orthodox Presbyterian or Acts 29 congregations. There's a Bible reading about suffering unjustly, and an analytical sermon by Bryant on suffering, sin, and salvation.On Monday, Perkins' crews are back at work. Once the courtyard landscaping is done, they'll rebuild the brick wall and rehang the wrought-iron gate. Mong says they'll also replace the pavers bearing the names of Dekes who contributed to past building renovations. "We have Gerald Ford's two pavers that we're going to put back," he says.Perkins says they'll also restore one more bit of Deke archaeology: "Abe the fraternity dog was buried in the courtyard," he says. They know because they found his tiny marble headstone.They'll return it when the work is done. In case anyone is wondering, Walker adds, "We didn't find Abe." [Originally published in October, 2018.] >> AnnArborObserver.com >> City Guide >> Community Services >> Legal Services, Mediation, and Consumer Services City Guide Legal Services, Mediation, and Consumer Services Better Business Bureau of Detroit and Eastern Michigan /detroit Provides accreditation services and online reviews for local businesses, alerts consumers to scams, and creates marketplace trust via dispute resolution services. info@easternmichiganbbb.org 20300 W. Twelve Mile, #202, Southfield, MI 48076 [ map ] (248) 223-9400 Civil Criminal Litigation Clinic Free legal services Sept.-Apr. for low-income Washtenaw county residents. Law students supervised by a law professor handle landlord-tenant disputes, consumer cases, and misdemeanor defense cases by appointment. mclp@umich.edu 801 Monroe, 363 Legal Research Bldg. [ map ] (734) 763-4319 The Dispute Resolution Center Provides conflict resolution services that are affordable, constructive, restorative, and healing through mediation, restorative circles and training to Washtenaw and Livingston counties. 4133 Washtenaw, #B125. Mailing address: P.O. Box 8645, AA 48107 [ map ] (734) 794-2125 Fair Housing Center of Southeast & Mid Michigan Investigates complaints of discrimination in the rental, sale, or financing of housing. Federal and state laws prohibit discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex (incl. sexual harassment), familial status (families with kids), disability, marital status and age. Additional ordinances in Washtenaw County include protection against discrimination based on "arrest record, gender expression, educational association, family responsibilities, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, height, HIV status, political beliefs, immigrant status, sexual orientation, source of income, veteran status, victim of domestic violence or stalking, or weight." Fair-housing services (investigations, testing, advice, advocacy, conciliation, attorney referral, and community education), are free to county residents. info@fhcmichigan.org P.O. Box 7825, AA 48107 (877) 979-3247 Family Law Project /services /services-offered Free legal counseling for victims of domestic violence, for personal protection orders and family law issues. Must be referred through SafeHouse Center, (734) 995-5444. flp@lsscm.org (734) 998-9454 Related Topics: International Services (Jewish Family Services) Low-cost help with paperwork, application status tracking, legal advocacy, and support for individuals interested in bringing relatives to the U.S. Citizenship education classes to assist eligible legal permanent residents in the naturalization process. info@jfsannarbor.org 2245 S. State [ map ] (734) 769-0209 Lawyer Referral & Information Service (LRIS) (Washtenaw County Bar Association) Helps county residents determine whether they need a lawyer and refers them to one if needed. $30 fee includes 30 minutes of the lawyer's time. The Family Law Modest Means Program accepts online applications for reduced-cost ($75/hr.) lawyers in family law cases. washbar.org /lawyer.html 101 E. Huron (County Courthouse), #1111 [ map ] (734) 996-3229 Legal Services of South Central Michigan Free civil legal assistance for low-income people and seniors in cases such as landlord-tenant disputes, tax and mortgage foreclosure, public benefits, and consumer issues. Limited services in family law matters. Call for appointment Mon.-Fri. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. lsscm.org 15 S. Washington, Ypsilanti [ map ] (734) 665-6181 Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC) (Michigan Advocacy Program) Provides an array of free legal services for non-citizens, including naturalization assistance, representation for victims of crime, survivors of domestic violence, the protection of civil and human rights, and more. michiganimmigrant.org 15 S Washington, #201, Ypsilanti [ map ] (734) 239-6863 Michigan Legal Help, (Michigan Advocacy Program) Web resource helps people handle simple civil legal problems without a lawyer. Website offers articles to learn about a specific area of the law and toolkits to help prepare for a court appearance. Forms and materials available in English or Spanish. michiganlegalhelp.org 15 S. Washington, Ypsilanti [ map ] U-M Student Legal Services Licensed attorneys give free legal advice and representation to currently enrolled U-M students on the Ann Arbor campus for civil, criminal, family, divorce, consumer, or landlord-tenant cases. Call for appointment Mon.-Fri. 9 a.m.-noon & 1-5 p.m. studentlegalservices.umich.edu 715 N. University, #202 [ map ] (734) 763-9920 Washtenaw County/Eastern Michigan University Legal Resource Center (LRC) Free help with court procedures in 4 civil law areas (family law, probate, small claims, and landlord-tenant), plus free forms for residents representing themselves in court. No criminal matters or appeals. Call or walk in; no appointment necessary. Tues.-Thurs. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. emich.edu /engage /communitylink /legal-resource-center /index.php YEREVAN, OCTOBER 31, ARMENPRESS. Indonesian authorities said theyve possibly located the fuselage of the crashed Lion Air Flight JT610 off Jakartas coast. "Based on the presentation of the head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, the coordinates of the suspected body of the aircraft have been found," Indonesias military chief Hadi Tjahjanto said. "Pinger locators" are being used to try to locate the so-called "black boxes" containing the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, according to the Reuters news agency. "Yesterday afternoon, the team had heard a ping sound in a location at 35 meters depth," Haryo Satmiko, the deputy chief of the national transport safety panel, told Reuters, referring to a depth of 115 feet. Earlier Jakarta Post reported that representatives of Boeing and the US government will arrive in Indonesia to join the investigation into the crash. The Boeing 737 Max 8 jet, commissioned only two months ago, crashed into the Java Sea moments after takeoff on October 29. There were 189 people on board, including three children, and they are all presumed dead. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, OCTOBER 31, ARMENPRESS. Members of Parliament representing national minorities have expressed willingness to run for parliament in the upcoming expected snap polls under the ruling party list. We will try to nominate our candidacies through any party. We wont run under opposition lists because national minorities should be with the government. We solve all our community issues with the government. If they accept us, we will be in their lists, Member of Parliament from the Kurdish community of the Republican [HHK] faction Knyaz Hasanov told ARMENPRESS. He said he will express his final decision after the domestic political developments conclude. Lawmaker Arsen Mikhaylov, representing the Assyrian community from the Republican faction, says that they will definitely participate in the expected early elections. We arent affiliated to any party, we came to parliament by quota from the national communities. We cant leave the Assyrian community in Armenia as opposition. Therefore we will be within the governmental force, he said. He ruled out running for parliament under the Republican Party list. MP for the Yazidi community (HHK faction) Rustam Makhmudyan said they have a desire to run in the elections but as long as the incumbent parliament functions he cant go into details. He said he doesnt have a clear decision yet on whose list he wants to be included. ARMENPRESS also contacted the ruling party for the governments opinion in this regard. MP Lena Nazaryan from the Civil Contract Party, the leader of the Yelk faction, said naturally their list will include representatives of national minorities. It is also an onbligation for factions envisaged by the Electoral Code. Besides an obligation, it is a good opportunity for national minorities to be represented in our list too. We are in contact with community representatives and we are considering cooperating with different candidates, she said. She didnt rule out the participation of incumbent national minority lawmakers in the process, but at the same time she said that they are ready to get acquainted with other representatives. Incumbent acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has been formally nominated as a candidate in the upcoming final round of electing a prime minister in parliament. The first round failed to elect a prime minister, as intended. The parliament will be dissolved by virtue of law if it fails to elect a prime minister in the second and final round also. Pashinyans nomination as a candidate is a technicality and he himself urged lawmakers to vote him down to disband the parliament. If the second round fails to elect a premier, this will be the first time in the history of Armenia when a parliament is being disbanded. He was nominated by the Yelk and Tsarukyan factions, Yelk faction leader MP Lena Nazaryan told ARMENPRESS. A candidate requires the backing of 1/3rd of the 105 MPs to be nominated. He is the only candidate. The election, or rather confirmation hearing, will take place November 1, 12:00. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan tendered a technical resignation on October 16 in order to launch the process of calling early elections. Under the law, if a prime minister resigns lawmakers must elect a new PM within two weeks. If MPs fail to elect a PM during the first vote, a second round takes place a week later. Prior to the vote, parliamentary factions must nominate candidates for the election. All factions agreed that they wouldnt nominate anyone in order to pave way for dissolution. But the Yelk faction nominated incumbent Nikol Pashinyan in a technical maneuver because the Constitution says that a vote must take place. Lawmakers are expected to deliberately vote down Pashinyan in order to fail the election and head for eventual dissolution, and early elections. Pashinyan took office after massive protests in April forced president-turned PM Serzh Sargsyan to resign. But Sargsyans Republican Party (HHK) still has most seats in parliament. Since taking office, PM Nikol Pashinyan has numerously said that the incumbent parliament doesnt represent the people and that early elections should take place as soon as possible. Below is an excerpt from Article 149 of the Constitution of Armenia on Election and Appointment of the Prime Minister: In case the Prime Minister submits a resignation or in other cases of the office of the Prime Minister becoming vacant, the factions of the National Assembly shall be entitled to nominate candidates for Prime Minister within a period of seven days after accepting the resignation of the Government. The National Assembly shall elect the Prime Minister by majority of votes of the total number of Deputies [Members of Parliament]. In case Prime Minister is not elected, a new election of Prime Minister shall be held seven days after voting, wherein the candidates for Prime Minister nominated by at least one third of the total number of Deputies shall be entitled to participate. In case Prime Minister is not elected by majority of votes of the total number of Deputies, the National Assembly shall be dissolved by virtue of law. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, OCTOBER 31, ARMENPRESS. Units from the U.S. military and Japan Self-Defense Force (JSDF) began exercise Keen Sword at military installations throughout Japan and surrounding waters on October 29, the US Navy said in a press release. The biennial exercise is the latest in a series of joint/bilateral field training exercises since 1986 designed to increase combat readiness and interoperability of U.S. forces and the JSDF. "Keen Sword will give U.S. and Japanese forces an opportunity to practice critical air, maritime and amphibious capabilities essential for Japans defense and for regional security," said Lt. Gen. Jerry P. Martinez, commander of U.S. Forces Japan. "Just as important, the exercise is a visible demonstration of the strength and durability of the U.S-Japan alliance and our shared pursuit of a free and open Indo-Pacific region." Approximately 10,000 U.S. service members from commands such as U.S. Pacific Fleet, U.S. Forces Japan, 7th Fleet, 5th Air Force, 374th Airlift Wing, 18th Wing, 35th Fighter Wing, and III Marine Expeditionary Force will take part. Two Royal Canadian Navy ships will participate in the maritime portion of the exercise for the first time, along with observers from several other partner nations. Martinez said, "These developments are a positive sign of our shared interest in expanding partnerships and increasing multilateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific." The U.S.-Japan alliance has been the cornerstone of regional peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region for nearly 60 years, and events like Keen Sword ensure that we will remain ready for the next sixty years," Martinez added. Exercises like Keen Sword provide the JSDF and U.S. military opportunities to train together across a variety of mission areas in realistic scenarios to enhance crisis response capabilities. "On behalf of the 54,000 men and women of U.S. Forces Japan, I am proud to be a part of this alliance that is so essential to our two nations shared interests," Martinez said. "We look forward to working side by side with our Japanese allies to make this important bilateral exercise a success." YEREVAN, OCTOBER 31, ARMENPRESS. At least 25 people were killed after an Afghan helicopter crashed in the western part of the country, authorities confirmed to local media. Provincial officials and top military officers are reportedly among the casualties, RT reports. As the story unfolded, the Taliban claimed credit for the attack, saying their militants shot the helicopter down. Afghan authorities blamed the incident on the bad weather. The head of the Farah provincial council and the deputy commander of the Afghan Armys 207th corps are said to be among the officials on board the ill-fated aircraft. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 24, ARMENPRESS. The bill on declaring criminal amnesty doesnt seek a goal of reducing the workload of correctional facilities, it is an entirely humanitarian act, acting justice minister Artak Zeynalyan said during parliamentary debates of the bill. This is being implemented to mark the 2800th anniversary of Erebuni-Yerevan and the 100th anniversary of the First Republic of Armenia, he said. He said that as of today there are 2888 prisoners in correctional facilities in Armenia, whereas the system can house 5346 convicts or detainees, thus substantiating that the bill doesnt seek to reduce workload. The parliament is currently debating the bill on granting amnesty. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, OCTOBER 31, ARMENPRESS. The European Union-Armenia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee adopted a final statement on Armenias domestic political life during a session on October 24, MP Armen Ashotyan, head of the Armenian delegation to the Committee, told reporters in the Parliament, reports Armenpress. The document thoroughly touches upon Armenias domestic policy. There are political assessments over the parliaments activity in the 9th point, an importance was attached to refrain from the campaign of hatred and violence. It calls on the political forces to show restraint. The document puts a task on the authorities to ensure equal conditions for all political forces during the upcoming elections. It urges to take into account all proposals made by the CoE Venice Commission and the OSCE/ODIHR, which, in particular, relate to the Electoral Code reforms, Ashotyan said. The document also contains points relating to the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. 34th point calls on all EU member states to recognize the Armenian Genocide, and the 31 point urges the Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities to solve the NK conflict exclusively through negotiations and peaceful means. Armen Ashotyan said this serves a base for moving forward our views more confidently in the future. The Karabakh conflict is not and will not be settled by statements, but this creates a political circle, and the solution must be made in it, therefore its very important that our diplomats, quoting these documents, will be able to move forward their views in the future, the lawmaker said, attaching importance to the adoption of the statement. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, OCTOBER 31, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian parliament adopted at first hearing the bill on granting clemency on criminal cases. 72 MPs voted in favor of the bill. No one voted against. The second hearing and voting will take place November 1. If passed, the amnesty bill will cover nearly 660 convicts the largest amnesty ever, acting justice minister Artak Zeynalyan said today at parliamentary debates. The bill is currently being debated in parliament. The amnesty will also cover 2720 people under probation from a total of 3850, he said. It will also cover 1096 out of the 6140 criminal cases under investigation at the investigative committee. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, OCTOBER 31, ARMENPRESS. Chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council Gagik Harutyunyan on October 31 received President of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe Gianni Buquicchio and Commission Secretary Thomas Markert, the Supreme Judicial Council told Armenpress. The officials arrived in Armenia to participate in the Constitutional Culture international conference organized by the International Analytical Center, the Constitutional Court and the Center of the Constitutional Law of the Republic of Armenia. During the meeting Gagik Harutyunyan introduced the Commission President on the conceptual approaches and procedures aimed at raising the efficiency of justice developed by the Council and etc. A number of issues relating to the justice processes were also discussed. Gianni Buquicchio welcomed and attached importance to the active participation of Gagik Harutyunyan, as a member of the Venice Commission, to the solution of urgent issues relating to the judicial power. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, OCTOBER 31, ARMENPRESS. Acting minister of transport, communication and information technologies Hakob Arshakyan received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Poland to Armenia Pawel Cieplak, the ministry told Armenpress. The acting minister touched upon the existing cooperation in transportation and aviation sectors, expressed readiness to develop and expand partnership directions between the two states in the fields of communication and high technologies. In his turn the Polish Ambassador thanked for the reception and stated that the number of flights from Armenia to Poland has increased recently thanks to the cooperation. The Ambassador also assured that he will take practical steps to expand the cooperation circles between Armenia and Poland in the ministrys activity sectors. During the meeting a number of other issues of bilateral interest were discussed. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, OCTOBER 31, ARMENPRESS. Armenias delegation led by President Armen Sarkissian, while in Belarus on a working visit, visited the Wargaming company which is the developer of the famous World of Tanks game, Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan, who is among the delegation members, said on Facebook, reports Armenpress. Yesterday together with the Presidents delegation I also visited the Wargaming company which is the developer of the famous World of Tanks game. The company leadership introduced us on their activity directions, success story and development programs, Grigoryan said. Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan YEREVAN, OCTOBER 31, ARMENPRESS. Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has awarded the title of Peoples Artist of Armenia to actor, scriptwriter Yervand Manaryan, 94. I made a decision to award Yervand Manaryan the title of Peoples Artist of Armenia. He did not receive this truly earned title for many years because of his political opposition views. The decision will come into effect de jure after the president signs it, Pashinyan said on Facebook. Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan YEREVAN, 31 OCTOBER, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 31 October, USD exchange rate up by 0.25 drams to 486.24 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 0.93 drams to 551.20 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate stood at 7.40 drams. GBP exchange rate down by 1.14 drams to 619.13 drams. The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals. Gold price down by 74.53 drams to 19156.65 drams. Silver price down by 3.40 drams to 225.51 drams. Platinum price down by 8.90 drams to 13069.17 drams. YEREVAN, OCTOBER 19, ARMENPRESS. Armenia ranks 41st in World Banks Doing Business rating, while it ranked 47th last year. ARMENPRESS reports World Bank Country Manager for Armenia Sylvie Bossoutrot noted that the main reasons of Armenias progress are the improvements in business regulations. Sylvie Bossoutrot informed that according to Doing Business report Armenia has made significant improvements in a number of spheres, including simplification of registration of businesses, protection of investors, simplification of taxation process and implementation of contracts. According to the World Bank Country Manager, Armenia has become the 8th country in the world in terms of speedy business registration. Armenia has surpassed its neighbor Turkey in Doing Business rating, which ranks 43rd, but remains behind Georgia, which ranks 6th. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan YEREVAN, OCTOBER 31, ARMENPRESS. Acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan received President of the Venice Commission Gianni Buquicchio on October 31. As ARMENPRESS was informed from the official website of the Prime Minister of Armenia, greeting the guest, Nikol Pashinyan thanked the Venice Commission for supporting the amendments in the Electoral Code of Armenia and for the relevant consultations. The acting PM noted that the reforms of the Electoral Code were aimed at ensuring maximally free, fare and transparent electoral system, and added that the Armenian Government highlights the cooperation with the Venice Commission and the OSCE-ODIHR. Gianni Buquicchio welcomed the initiative of the Government to implement reforms in the Electoral Code. According to him, the Venice Commission positively assessed the planned reforms which are aimed at the exercise of the right to vote, the protection of observers' rights, the enhancement of media accessibility, the transparency of the electoral process, the fight against election fraud, the elimination of the number of coalition participants after the first round of elections and so on. The President of the Venice Commission hoped that the electoral reform process will have a successful end. Nikol Pashinyan and Gianni Buquicchio discussed a number of issues referring to the political developments in Armenia, referred to the organization of the early parliamentary elections. The acting prime Minister of Armenia emphasized that the Government will spare no efforts to organize and hold elections the results of which will not be questioned by anyone. Pashinyan emphasized that Armenia is resolutely moving forward in the direction of developing democracy and the justice system, the protection of human rights, and the development of civil society. According to the ac ting PM, the reforms in the mentioned spheres are priorities, while the development of democracy is an internal demand, conviction and fundamental value for the Armenian public. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan We werent especially interested in who picked up those keys. We just turned our backs and went home. We didnt even look over our shoulder to see how our cobbled together creation was faring. We then tossed it the keys and said go for it. Our creation was done in the tried and true Australian way known as bush carpentry. Our lackadaisical administrators pulled together over 800 disparate tribes using fencing wire and odd bits of wood and some rusty tin and called it a dinky-di nation. TUMBY BAY - Heres an inescapable truth. Papua New Guinea is Australias baby. We conceived it, modelled it and then launched it into the world with Made in Australia firmly stamped on its bum. There it was bobbing around in the Coral Sea wondering what had happened to it. The trouble was that, while we werent watching, a lot of other people were. There was a sitting duck waiting to be plucked. And pluck it they did. It was like a beacon for every carpetbagger, neer-do-well, get-rich-quick jockey and unsavoury character in the neighbourhood, including a lot of Aussies. In their inimitable way, they subverted the government to their way of thinking. Greed and the rabid exploitation of resources were the orders of the day. Any hint of empathy, human rights and morality were quickly shown the door. Our only reaction has been to use it as a sort of salve for our collective human conscience by chucking it a big bucket of money every year with no real regard for what it is spent on. Oh, and weve also used it as a dumping ground for some of our own problems - like asylum seekers - with the effrontery to think PNG might actually welcome them to its shores. And what did we do when some timid little soul had the gall to ask us what we are going to do about it? Why, we pulled out the old sovereignty card. Oh no, we cant do anything, they are a sovereign nation, we cant interfere, that would be most undiplomatic. But its a mess. Theres a horrible little man in charge who is orchestrating wholesale economic and social rape while pocketing the proceeds. None of our business. Next question? But Australia helped create the place. Dont we feel some sort of moral obligation to help? What about the poor people that the little man and his loathsome mates are ripping off? What about those poor people in the bush with no hospitals and medicines and disintegrating schools? What about those poor kids dying of diseases from the dark ages? What about those teachers who havent been paid in months? What about those flash Italian cars? What about. yes theres more. Next question. What about the Chinese? The what? The Chinese, theyre buying up the place and talking about building military bases around there somewhere. Good grief! Nobody told us about that. Werent you watching? Dont be cheeky. So what are you going to do? Sorry, cant talk, got to go. Now where the hell is that foreign minister? We need to phone Donald to check something out. Her modelling identified the least-cost route as going from Borneo to Sulawesi and through a series of smaller islands to Misool Island off the coast of West Papua. New Guinea was connected by land to Australia until about 10,000 years ago, meaning the first people could walk down through what is now Cape York to the rest of the continent. Kealy said she hoped the research would help answer the question of why archaeological sites in Australia which show human occupation around 65,000 years ago are so much older than sites that have been discovered in the countries that were long suspected to be en route. A study led by Australian National University PhD candidate Shimona Kealy and published in the Journal of Human Evolution has modelled the most likely route from south-east Asia to the Australian mainland based on which pathway would have required the least expenditure of energy and resources. SYDNEY - The first people to arrive in Australia are likely to have sailed east from Borneo to Sulawesi and island-hopped to New Guinea, according to research. Two possible routes used by the first humans to reach Australia identified by Joseph Birdsell in 1977. Research by the Australian National University shows the red northern route was more likely (Shimona Kealy, ANU) The visibility and the shorter distances between the islands is what really makes [this route] much more feasible for travel, she told Guardian Australia. Most of the time that visibility is shore-to-shore visibility. Kealy also tracked other factors, like whether a particular route would involve going over or around a hill, in order to determine the most likely path of travel. We are looking at the first sea journey of our species, she said. The route follows roughly the same path as the northern route described by US anthropologist Joseph Birdsell in 1977, who theorised two likely paths that have been largely accepted and used as a model for researchers. Birdsells northern route goes through Sulawesi to West Papua and the southern route goes through Timor and ends with a significant sea crossing to the Northern Territory or Kimberley coastline. Archeologists have since found a number of sites in East Timor that show proof of human occupation, but none are older than 45,000 years old. Artefacts from the oldest known site in Australia, a rock shelter at Madjedbebe in the Jabiluka mining lease within the Kakadu national park, on Mirarr country, have been dated at 65,000 years old. A site on Barrow Island off the coast of Western Australia has been dated at 50,000 years old. Obviously people had to travel through these islands somehow to get to Australia so presumably the dates that we found in Australia should be younger or around the same age as the dates that we are getting from these East Timor sites, Kealy said. The fact that those sites are significantly younger, she said, suggests that maybe the first peoples took a different path. Islands along Birdsells northern route have received comparatively little archeological attention due to isolation, expense, and political conflict in West Papua. Kealy and co-author Prof Sue OConnor, are applying for research grants to investigate some likely sites along the northern route next year. If we can find something thats older than 60,000 years old, I would be super-dooper happy, she said. The timeframe of 65,000 plus years is not universally accepted in the academic community. Another recent study asserted 50,000 to 55,000 years was the most likely timeframe but Kealy said her modelling tracked changes in both coastline and sea level from 45,000 to 70,000 years ago. The sea level was at its lowest point 65,000 years ago and highest 70,000 years ago. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared to fire a warning shot at Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday. Speaking about the investigation into Jamal Khashoggi's killing, Erdogan said on Tuesday: "There is no point in procrastinating or trying to save some people from under this." Erdogan didn't name anyone, but this likely meant Crown Prince Mohammed. Saudi officials have been focused on distancing its leadership from Khashoggi's death and combatting claims that the crown prince was involved in the operation. The Turkish president hinted that the investigation into journalist Jamal Khashoggi's death was trying to "protect certain people," a possible warning shot to Saudi Arabia's crown prince. Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the Saudi public prosecutor on Tuesday to "reveal" the people responsible for Khashoggi's killing, which took place in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. "Our prosecutor asked who sent the group that came here and said that this needed to be looked at," Erdogan said. "Saudi officials need to reveal the local cooperators. Let us know whoever this person is and we will find them. "We cannot leave this issue unsolved, we need to solve it now. There is no point in procrastinating or trying to save some people from under this." Though Erdogan didn't say who "some people| might be, it is likely that he meant Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. https://twitter.com/AfafSaoudi/status/1057232364751843328?ref_src=twsrc^tfw Saudi officials have been focused on distancing its leadership from Khashoggi's death and combatting claims that Crown Prince Mohammed was involved in the operation. Their claims have been doubted by experts, however, and Saudi Arabia has shifted its version of events multiple times. At the same time, Turkish officials have been challenging the Saudi account of Khashoggi's killing for weeks through intelligence leaks and bold public statements. Story continues Last week, Turkish and Saudi leaders touted their countries' relationships, suggesting that Erdogan did not suspect the Saudi monarchy personally, but the cordial tone has not persisted. Khashoggi mbs Search for the "local cooperator" Erdogan on Tuesday also renewed calls to Riyadh to reveal the identity of a local Turkish cooperator whom Saudis claim was given Khashoggi's body. He also pressed the Saudis to allow Turkey to prosecute the suspects involved in the killing. Saudi Arabia has said it wants to prosecute them itself. Saudi prosecutors anonymously told Reuters and the Associated Press last week that Khashoggi's killers rolled up the journalist's body after killing him in a sort of fabric, and handed it over to an unnamed collaborator in Istanbul for disposal. "Saudi officials need to reveal the local cooperators. Let us know whoever this person is and we will find them," he told reporters at Turkey's parliament, according to Reuters. Erdogan also repeated his demand that the 18 suspects Saudi Arabia arrested over Khashoggi's killing - which include the 15 agents who flew to Istanbul - should be prosecuted in Turkey. He said on Tuesday: "Yesterday, our prosecutor told the Saudi prosecutor that the prosecution could be carried out in Turkey since the location of the crime is Istanbul." Erdogan the strongman Erdogan's latest comments squared with a strongman rhetoric he routinely employs in his speeches. He has previously emphasised that Khashoggi's killing took place in Turkey - albeit on diplomatic Saudi property - and said it was therefore up to his country to uncover the truth. Erdogan has for years cracked down on his country's military officials, intelligence agents, and journalists, in the name of national security. This grew more intense after members of the Turkish armed forces attempted to launch a coup against him in July 2016. Lisel Hintz, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, told Business Insider last week that Erdogan likely "took this as a personal affront that Saudi Arabia would carry out this action on his soil." "Turkey doesn't want to take the blame for allowing this to take place on its territory," she added. The top Saudi public prosecutor visited Istanbul this week to discuss his country's investigation into the killing with his counterpart in the city. Saudi Attorney General Saud al-Mujeb met Irfan Fidan, Istanbul's chief public prosecutor, twice in two days and went inside the consulate - the site of the killing - for 90 minutes on Tuesday, Turkey's state-owned Anadolu Agency reported. Neither side has made a public statement about the visit. One potential piece of evidence that Turkish officials have against Saudi Arabia is an audio recording of Khashoggi's last moments. It's not clear whether the Saudi prosecutors have heard this. CIA Director Gina Haspel reportedly heard the tape during a visit to Turkey last week. She briefed President Donald Trump on her visit to Turkey, but it is not clear whether she addressed the audio, the BBC reported. Khashoggi's fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, criticised Trump on his reaction to Khashoggi's killing. Khashoggi was a green card holder and wrote columns for The Washington Post. She told an audience in London, according to Reuters: "I am disappointed by the actions of the leadership in many countries, particularly in the US. "President Trump should help reveal the truth and ensure justice be served. He should not pave the way for a cover-up of my fiance's murder. Let's not let money taint our conscience and compromise our values." For the majority of Asia Bibi's life she lived in obscurity like many of Pakistan's downtrodden Christian minority, until a blasphemy allegation saw her sentenced to death in a case that divided the nation. She was thrust into the spotlight in deeply conservative Muslim Pakistan, where even unsubstantiated accusations of disrespecting Islam can provoke death at the hands of mobs. On Wednesday a government source confirmed she had finally left the country "of her own free will", marking the latest chapter in a decade-long saga. The allegations against Bibi date back to 2009, when Muslim field labourers who were working alongside refused to share water with her because she was Christian. An argument broke out and a Muslim woman later went to a local cleric and accused Bibi of committing blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed -- a charge punishable by death under legislation that rights groups say is routinely abused to target religious minorities and settle personal scores. Bibi was convicted and sentenced to hang in 2010, despite her advocates maintaining her innocence and insisting the argument was a personal dispute. The illiterate, Christian mother spent the next eight years behind bars, often in a cramped windowless cell during periods of solitary confinement. Her husband Ashiq Mesih told AFP last year that the family was struggling to cope with the fallout of the case. "Living in Pakistan for us is very difficult. We don't go out of our home and if we go, we come out very carefully," he said. Their daughters Esham and Esha, who is mentally and physically disabled, were forced to live away from their father for some time over safety fears. It is believed Bibi's daughters have already fled to Canada. Although it was not confirmed when Bibi may have left or where she may have gone, her lawyer, Saif ul Mulook, said he understood from "sources" that she was also in Canada. Nothing has been confirmed officially by Islamabad and the Canadian government has given no information on Bibi's case. - 'Justice prevailed' - Bibi's plight drew the attention of international rights groups and quickly evolved into the most high-profile case in the country, with Pope Benedict XVI calling for her release in 2010. Her case was also championed by liberal provincial governor Salmaan Taseer, who spoke out in support of Bibi and against intimidation by religious hardliners in repeated television appearances. Taseer was later gunned down in broad daylight in Islamabad in 2011 by one of his own bodyguards who cited the governor's position on reforming the country's blasphemy laws as the motive. The state hanged his assassin Mumtaz Qadri in 2016 in a Supreme Court decision that was hailed by progressives, but brought hardliners into the streets supporting Qadri and demanding Bibi's death. For years, Bibi, who has asthma, continued to languish in prison even after her appeal reached the Supreme Court in 2014. However in a landmark ruling last year, Pakistan's chief justice said her conviction had been "reversed". Leading rights groups welcomed the decision even as religious extremists launched protests across the country and swarmed the streets in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi, closing down key roads. Bibi was set for immediate release following the Supreme Court's ruling. But in a deal to ease the unrest a review of the ruling was allowed. The Supreme Court rejected the challenge against its decision in January this year, finally lifting the last legal hurdle against her. However activists have long warned that freedom in Pakistan for Bibi would likely mean a life under threat by hardliners who have long called for her death. Prior to her departure she was believed to have been held in protective custody since her acquittal. Even as she faced an uncertain future, Bibi told AFP last year that the acquittal was an answered prayer. "I had dreamed that the walls of the prison are falling apart," Bibi told AFP by phone at the time. "I can't believe it." The illiterate, Christian mother has been behind bars in a prison in central Pakistan, spending years in a cramped windowless cell during periods of solitary confinement ABC/Randy HolmesIce Cube is ready to end his eight-year album hiatus: He announced today hes dropping his tenth studio album, Everythangs Corrupt, on December 7. The former N.W.A. member posted the album image of a bloody hand clutching a $100 bill on Instagram with the comment, December 7, 2018. A day that will live in Infamy... Cube was referencing Japans surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 which led to the United States entering World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed that day "a date which will live in infamy. The actor/rappers most recent album, I Am the West, was released in 2010. Since then, hes focused on his film career, including Ride Along, and Ride Along 2 with Kevin Hart. Cube is currently in pre-production for a new installment of the Friday franchise, Last Friday, which will also star Mike Epps. Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. I have not been updating this blog for years, but Im keeping it around because it has many of my posts from a decade ago! For the moment, heres why you c... 8 months ago An Australian nun who battled a government bid to expel her from the Philippines after she angered President Rodrigo Duterte, said Wednesday she will leave rather than face certain arrest and deportation. Sister Patricia Fox's abrupt announcement came because immigration authorities refused hours earlier to extend her tourist visa and ordered the 71-year-old out by Saturday. Fox, who has spent nearly three decades advocating for the Philippines' poorest, has become a symbol of understated resistance during her seven-month administrative fight to stay. But with her legal options all but exhausted, the soft-spoken nun decided to return to Australia rather than take the risk of being removed forcibly. "I've been given an ultimatum that if I don't leave by 3 November, they will send people to chase me," she told AFP. "There is no point being arrested and deported and I don't have any choice." Her supporters condemned the denial and pledged to keep up their legal battle to allow her to return. "We will not allow the government to forcibly expel Sr. Fox," the National Union of People's Lawyers said in a statement. "Our fight is not yet over." She apparently angered the president by joining a fact-finding mission in April to investigate alleged abuses against farmers, including killings and evictions by soldiers fighting guerrillas in the southern Philippines. - 'Return once Duterte gone' - In Duterte's hometown of Davao, Fox went to see farmers detained on charges of possessing explosives, and attended a press conference by workers who were fired after demanding better wages and conditions. Shortly after that she was arrested briefly on charges of violating her visa's terms against activism and the slow turning wheels of the Philippine bureaucracy began moving to strip her of her papers. It coincided with a crackdown by Duterte against foreigners whom he accuses of meddling in his nation's affairs. In April, Manila also expelled Italian Giacomo Filibeck, deputy secretary general of the Party of European Socialists, who had condemned Duterte's anti-drug war. Four months later Australian rights activist Gill Boehringer, 84, was barred entry for having attended a protest in 2015, allegedly in violation of immigration laws. Duterte accused Fox of "disorderly conduct" and said: "Don't let her in because that nun has a shameless mouth". She landed in the Philippines in 1990 as a member of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion, a congregation of nuns founded in France in 1847 and famed for harbouring Jews fleeing from Nazi persecution in World War II. A former practising lawyer who worked with indigent clients in Australia, Fox has said she has been educating landless Filipino farm hands and factory workers about their rights. Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra told AFP that Fox has to leave the Philippines because her visa will expire, even though the deportation case against her is not resolved. "If Sister Fox eventually wins, her name will be removed from the immigration blacklist and she may return to the Philippines," he said. Fox imagines a slightly different scenario under which she will make her way back to Manila. "Maybe when Duterte is not there anymore," she said, referring to the 2022 end of his term. Australian Catholic nun Sister Patricia Fox says she will now leave the Philippines rather than risk deportation A little boy has tested positive for meth after going trick or treating in his local neighbourhood. Braylen Carwell, 5, had ventured out in Galion, Ohio in the US to celebrate Halloween this week, only to fall ill shortly after his outing. I couldnt move my arm or my fingers, he explained to US television station 10TV. As he began to have a seizure, his mother, Julia Pence, rushed him to hospital. They found methamphetamine in his urine, Ms Pence revealed. Braylen Carwell was hospitalised for seven hours after traces of meth were found in his urine. Source: 10TV Among the childs treats hed collected from nearby homes was a set of fake vampire teeth, which he tried on twice. After not eating any of his collected sweets, the family determined the teeth must have been responsible for the meth. Police collected the teeth and sweets for testing and investigations are ongoing. Ms Pence revealed she and her partner are former meth addicts, but vows the traces of meth were not from her home. The boys mother, Julia Pence, was horrified by the revelation. Source: 10TV While doctors have said Braylen will make a full recovery from the intake of meth, police are urging parents to be extra vigilant when it comes to treats collected by their children. Please check your childrens candy that was received today while trick or treating, Galion Police Department wrote on Facebook on Sunday. Please check any non-candy items such as rings, bracelets, necklaces or fake teeth. If you suspect that anything has been tampered with, please contact our department by phone so that an officer can stop and collect the items. Brazil's environment ministry said Wednesday that far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro's plan to merge it with the agriculture ministry is "reckless" and will undermine not only environmental protection but economic growth. Bolsonaro's team confirmed Tuesday he would combine the two ministries, drawing condemnation from activists who warned the move would subordinate environmental regulation to agrobusiness in a country that is home to some of Earth's most vital natural resources, including the Amazon rainforest. "Weakening the environment ministry's authority at a time when concern over the climate crisis is intensifying would be reckless. More than ever, the world is counting on Brazil to maintain its environmental leadership," the ministry said in a statement. It underlined its role in preventing "criminal and predatory exploitation" of Brazil's resources, and said "the national economy would suffer, especially agrobusiness, from possible reprisals by importing countries." Bolsonaro, a former army captain whose vitriolic, hardline rhetoric has deeply divided Brazil, had promised in the past that the combined ministry would "come from the productive sector," saying: "We won't have any more fights over this." But environmentalists have strongly condemned the move -- a "grave mistake" and "shot in the foot," according to Greenpeace. The Amazon is vital to the exchange of oxygen for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere -- a check on global warming. Most of the rainforest is located in Brazil, which has taken major steps in recent years to protect it in the face of massive deforestation that has reduced its size by about 20 percent in the past 50 years. Environmentalists warn that progress will now be jeopardized. "We are entering a tragic time in which environmental protection will amount to nothing. The Bolsonaro government hasn't even started and the backsliding is already incalculable," respected former environment minister Marina Silva tweeted Tuesday. Youngsters on the Jaraua river in Brazil's Amazon, the state of Amazonas, a vital natural resource that environmentalist worry could be put at risk by President-elect Jair Bolsonaro's policies Britain's Brexit minister believes there could be a divorce deal with the European Union by November 21, it emerged Wednesday, although Downing Street was more cautious. Dominic Raab made the comment in a letter to the House of Commons Brexit scrutiny committee, dated October 24 but only now made public. "I would be happy to give evidence to the committee when a deal is finalised, and currently expect 21 November to be suitable," he wrote. Both Raab and Oliver Robbins, Prime Minister Theresa May's chief Brexit advisor, have been invited to address the committee on that date. Most of the divorce deal with Brussels is agreed but talks remain stuck on how to avoid new checks on Britain's land border with EU member Ireland after it leaves the bloc's single market and customs union. Raab will visit the UK province of Northern Ireland on Friday on a "fact-finding trip", which will include meetings with local businesses and politicians, an official in his ministry told AFP. EU leaders had mooted a special summit in mid-November to seal the Brexit deal, but warned earlier this month that this would not happen without more progress on the Irish issue. Raab wrote: "The end is now firmly in sight and, while obstacles remain, it cannot be beyond us to navigate them." However, May's spokesman refused to repeat the date of November 21, only repeating that "we wish to conclude the deal as quickly as possible". Previously, he had said the government was pressing for a deal this autumn. British officials are keen to avoid the negotiations dragging on, with Brexit day scheduled for March 29. Separately, Raab's predecessor David Davis, who quit over the government's approach to Brexit in July, said the final deal will likely pass when it comes to a vote in the House of Commons. Davis is among a large minority of May's Conservative MPs who strongly oppose her strategy, raising fears the deal will be rejected. "The fear of no deal, I think.... that will win and there will be a deal," Davis told an event on Tuesday evening, according to Sky News television. Davis on Wednesday retracted his reported remarks saying that any deal similar to May's current plan of close economic ties with the EU "will not pass the Commons". Most of London's divorce deal with Brussels is agreed but talks remain stuck on how to avoid new checks on Britain's land border with EU member Ireland after it leaves the bloc's single market and customs union Faced with an influx of asylum seekers from the United States, Canada is planning to substantially step up deportations of illegal migrants, Canada's public broadcaster reported Wednesday. A leaked email from a senior Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) official to staff, cited by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the goal is to deport some 10,000 persons a year, as much as a 35 percent increase over recent years. CBSA enforcement director Brad Wozny wrote that in recent weeks he has "been involved in several discussions both regionally and nationally concerning the government of Canada's decision to substantially increase removal efforts." "Initial discussions have the agency working towards a new national target of 10,000 removals/year," he adds. The CBC said 18,000 people, mostly failed refugee claimants, currently face deportation. So far this year 6,083 have been deported, compared to a total of 8,472 in 2017 and 18,987 in 2012. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government is "trying to improve the immigration system and be more expeditious in handling cases." Border Security Minister Bill Blair, meanwhile, confirmed that the government has "added additional resources to ensure that (the CBSA) has what they need to do the job." He noted that only asylum seekers who "have gone through all the legal processes of determining their eligibility for the protection of Canada" and been found "to have not been eligible are subject to removal." This hardening of the government's position comes as Trudeau's Liberals face increased political attacks ahead of next year's election from opposition Tories, who accuse the government of mismanaging a migrant "crisis." Donald Trump's election as US president triggered a spike in asylum seekers who have simply walked across the border into Canada, some braving biting cold and dangerous treks through the wilds. According to the latest government data, more than 30,000 have come from the United States in search of asylum. Most were originally from Nigeria, Haiti, Turkey, Eritrea or Colombia. Canada is facing an influx of migrants from the United States, like these who crossed into Quebec in August A young travel-obsessed couple who plunged more than 200 metres to their deaths from an iconic lookout at Californias Yosemite National Park had shared an eerie warning on social media just months earlier. Park rangers recovered the bodies of 29-year-old Vishnu Viswanath and 30-year-old Meenakshi Moorthy on Thursday about 245 metres below Taft Point, where visitors can walk to the edge of a granite ledge that doesnt have a railing. The Indian software engineer, who had recently moved to California from New York, had set up their tripod near the ledge on Tuesday evening, his brother, Jishnu Viswanath explained. Park visitors the next morning saw the camera and alerted rangers, who used high-powered binoculars to find them and used helicopters to airlift the bodies, he said. Vishnu Viswanath, 29, and Meenakshi Moorthy, 30, fell to their deaths from the Parks Taft Point. Image: Instagram/ On March 28, Ms Moorthy shared a sunset image on Instagram where she can be seen sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon. But its the caption, not the photo, that is now being scrutinised. A lot of us including yours truly is a fan of daredevilry attempts of standing at the edge of cliffs and skyscrapers, but did you know that wind gusts can be FATAL? she wrote. Is our life just worth one photo? Ms Moorthy uploaded this photo in March, warning travellers not to risk their lives for photos. Image: Instagram/Holidays and HappilyEverAfters Yosemite spokeswoman Jamie Richards said in a statement that park officials were investigating the deaths and that the investigation could take several days. The couples funeral will take place in the US because the bodies were not in a condition to be flown back to India, Jishnu Viswanath said. She was very close to the edge: Wife spotted in couples photo In yet another unnerving coincidence, a man who had hiked to the same spot with his girlfriend captured pictures of Meenakshi prior to her fall, saying she accidentally appears in the background of two of their selfie photos. Sean Matteson said Meenakshi stood out from the crowd enjoying the sunset atop Taft Point last week because her hair was dyed bright pink and that she made him a little nervous because he felt she was standing too close to the edge. Story continues Sean Matteson poses for a selfie with his girlfriend Drea Rose Laguillo, unaware at the time Meenakshi Moorthy was in the background. Image: AP She was very close to the edge, but it looked like she was enjoying herself, said Matteson, who lives in Oakland, California. She gave me the willies. There arent any railings. I was not about to get that close to the edge. But she seemed comfortable. She didnt seem like she was in distress or anything. Matteson said Ms Moorthys pink-haired visage appears in the background of two photos he snapped of himself and his girlfriend Drea Rose Laguillo. Matteson said he doesnt recall noticing Viswanath when he and his girlfriend were at the overlook with less than a dozen other tourists. The couple left the overlook as darkness was approaching, Matteson said. Vishnu Viswanath and Meenakshi Moorthy had just moved to California from New York. Image: Instagram/Holidays and HappilyEverAfters The couple was travel-obsessed, Ms Moorthy wrote on a blog called Holidays and HappilyEverAfters filled with photos of them in front of snowy peaks, the Eiffel tower and tulip fields. She had wanted to work full time as a travel blogger, Viswanath said. The couple graduated in 2010 from the College of Engineering, Chengannur, in Alapuzha district of Kerala state, one of their professors, Dr. Nisha Kuruvilla, told AP. She said the couple were both good students who were fond of travelling and had married at a Hindu temple in Kerala in southern India four years ago. In India, after a rash of selfie-related deaths, the Tourism Ministry in April asked state government officials to safeguard tourists by installing signs in areas where accidents had occurred declaring them no-selfie zones. Police have found a mother and her six-month-old boy safe and well after they were missing for 24 hours. Ellen Puru, 39, and her 6-month-old son were reported missing after being seen at an address in the Gold Coast on October 31. The pair were at a location in Lochinvar Court, Highland Park. Mum Ellen Puru (right) and her baby son (left). Source: Queensland Police Police believed they were travelling in a 1996 Hyundai Excel. On Thursday morning, officers said the pair were found safe and well and thanked the public for their assistance. Officials have put signs in front of certain homes this Halloween, warning trick-or-treaters to stay away at all costs. The signs have been posted in the front yards of registered sex offenders in Georgia, US by the local Sheriffs office. Warning! Stop, the sign said. No trick-or-treat at this address!! A community safety message from Butts County Sheriff Gary Long. A photograph of the sign was shared on Facebook over the weekend by the Butts County Sheriffs office, Fox 8 Cleveland reported. The signs were posted in Georgia, US. Source: Fox 8 Cleveland Sheriff Long posted the signs, hoping to warn the community to avoid the sex offenders homes this Halloween. There are some sex offenders that are not happy, Sheriff Long told local outlet WCNC. But Im not in the business of making them happy. Im in the business of keeping safe communities and making sure that our children are protected. In another Halloween safety move, a Melbourne mum has shared her system for children to trick or treat safely, without bugging neighbours who dont celebrate Halloween. The human race has wiped out 60 per cent of Earths animal life since 1970, causing the planet to enter its sixth mass extinction event, alarming new research by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has found. Humanity and the way we feed, fuel and finance our societies and economies is pushing nature and the services that power and sustain us to the brink, according to WWFs Living Planet Report 2018 . Its taken 44 years for humans to wipe out about 60 per cent of the planets animal life. And the future is predicted to be grim, with more than two thirds of the worlds wildlife expected to be gone by 2020 if current trends continue, the AAF claims. Australias koala population is disappearing at a rate of about 20 per cent a decade. Source: AAP The report, which tracked more than 4000 species across almost 17,000 populations from 1970 to 2014, also found Australias koala population is disappearing at a rate of about 20 per cent a decade. The crisis is more apparent in South and Central America, which have been hit hardest with a 89 per cent decline in wildlife over the 44-year period studied. Climate-warming carbon dioxide levels are estimated to be at their highest for 800,000 years. The report presents a sobering picture of the impact of human activity on the worlds wildlife, forests, oceans, rivers and climate, the conservation organisation claims. The findings underline the rapidly-closing window for action and the urgent need for the global community to collectively rethink and redefine how we value, protect and restore nature, the WWF says. The top threats to species identified in the report are directly linked to human activities, including habitat loss and degradation and over exploitation of wildlife. Human activity has severely impacted the habitats and natural resources wildlife and humanity depend on, including our Great Barrier Reef. Source: AAP Earth enters sixth mass extinction event The index of extinction risk shows wildlife is on an accelerating slide towards oblivion, currently at a rate of 100 to 1000 times more than only a few centuries ago. This has placed Earth in its sixth such mass extinction event in half-a-billion years, with the latest caused by human activity. Story continues Over recent decades, human activity has also severely impacted the habitats and natural resources wildlife and humanity depend on, such as oceans, forests, coral reefs like our Great Barrier Reef, wetlands and mangroves. The Earth is estimated to have lost about half of its shallow water corals in the past 30 years and 20 percent of the Amazon has disappeared in less than 50 years. This report sounds a warning shot across our bow, said WWF-US President and CEO Carter Roberts. Natural systems essential to our survival forests, oceans, and rivers remain in decline. Wildlife around the world continue to dwindle. It reminds us we need to change course. Its time to balance our consumption with the needs of nature, and to protect the only planet that is our home, he said. If Brazil's far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro wants to make good on his promise to reboot the economy, he should stop his attacks on the environment, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The former army captain, who won the giant Latin American country's election Sunday, will merge the agriculture and environment ministries, an adviser confirmed Tuesday -- infuriating environmentalists, who warn the latter will be neutered by business interests. Bolsonaro, who is backed by the powerful agro-industry lobby, has vowed not to let the environment get in the way of kick-starting a flagging economy. That has drawn warnings from environmentalists about the potential impact his policies will have on Brazil's natural resources, and particularly the Amazon rainforest, known as the "lungs of the planet." - Service economy, jungle-style - Taking a step back from the debate, the WWF insisted that a strong economy and healthy environment in fact go hand in hand. The vital role forests play in purifying our air and water should be seen as "environmental services," said Andre Nahur, coordinator of the group's climate change and energy program in Brazil. "They guarantee that important sectors of the economy such as agrobusiness and energy continue producing and contributing to GDP," he told AFP in an interview. "In today's world, where our main biomes (such as the Amazon) are reaching the point of no return in terms of biodiversity loss, it's vital the new president recognize the role that socio-environmental issues play in maintaining economic growth." The Amazon, which is being deforested at an annual rate of some 52,000 square kilometers (20,000 square miles) -- an area the size of Costa Rica -- is vital to the exchange of oxygen for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a check on global warming. Worryingly, about 20 percent of the rainforest has been lost in the past 50 years, according to WWF. Most of the Amazon is located in Brazil, which has taken major steps in recent years to curb deforestation. Yet Bolsonaro's electoral platform made no mention of the words "Amazon," "deforestation" or "climate change" -- part of the hardline conservative worldview that has earned him the nickname "Tropical Trump." In fact, saving the Amazon ought to be apolitical, Nahur argued. "Sustainable development needs to be a cross-party concern," he said. - Paris accord threat - "These days, in any country in the world, development, GDP growth, expanding employment, and improving people's quality of life are a priority," said Nahur. "The thing is, we have to recognize that it's impossible to maintain people's quality of life without environmental balance." During the campaign, Bolsonaro pledged to follow US President Donald Trump's lead and pull Brazil from the Paris climate accord signed by 195 countries in 2015. He has since backtracked, though he says he wants a guarantee the deal will not strip Brazil's sovereignty over the Amazon. There is nothing to fear on that count, said Nahur. The Paris deal "doesn't violate national sovereignty or create the slightest risk of losing territory. That doesn't exist. It's not in the treaty," he said. Brazil's far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro will merge the agriculture and environment ministries, an adviser confirmed -- a move activists warn will put agrobusiness interests before the environment Sinking into a padded leather chair on a government jet, Saudi ambassador Mohammed al-Jaber buckles up for what he calls a mammoth mission -- rebuilding Yemen as it teeters on the edge of catastrophe. After a ruinous three-year conflict, the Arab world's poorest country faces the double whammy of a looming famine and an economic crisis that has sent the Yemeni currency in free fall, as the United States urgently calls for a ceasefire. Saudi Arabia has faced virulent international criticism for leading an intervention in Yemen in 2015 against Iran-aligned Huthi rebels -- and the recent murder of critic Jamal Khashoggi has put its bombing campaign under fresh scrutiny. But Jaber, seen as the most influential Arab diplomat engaged on Yemen, sought to shift the narrative on another front: rebuilding the conflict-scarred country. "Development of Yemen cannot wait until the Huthis accept peace talks," said Jaber, who was appointed ambassador in 2014, just days before the rebels overran the capital. The United Nations said Wednesday it aimed to relaunch Yemen peace talks "within a month", after a previous attempt collapsed in September when the rebels refused to travel to Geneva, saying their conditions had not been met. Jaber, 48, spoke to AFP on an aircraft this week flying to the informal capital Aden to oversee the arrival of a Saudi oil tanker with the first instalment of petroleum products worth $60 million. The fuel is meant for power stations amid chronic electricity outages. As his aides served up pastries, dates and Arabic coffee, Jaber rattled off a list of what he called Saudi-funded "injection projects" related to electricity, education and healthcare. "Our goal in Yemen is not to control it," the Riyadh-based envoy said, asserting the Saudi intervention was unlike the US invasion of Iraq. "This is a war of necessity, not a war of choice." - Khashoggi murder - Saudi Arabia's image has taken a beating globally over its intervention in Yemen, amid rising civilian deaths reported by the UN, war crimes allegations and warnings of an impending famine triggered by the conflict. The kingdom has shrugged off many of the claims as highly exaggerated. But even the US, a close ally which supports Saudi-led forces by refuelling their jets and selling them weapons, finally called Tuesday for a ceasefire and peace talks in Yemen within the next 30 days. Aggravating the situation for the kingdom was Khashoggi's murder in the kingdom's Istanbul consulate on October 2. Saudi Arabia initially attributed his death to a fistfight before accepting what Turkish investigators said all along -- that he was killed in a premeditated murder. "The Khashoggi case has cast a new spotlight on Yemen because it raises doubts over the Saudi narrative," said Elisabeth Kendall, a research fellow at Oxford University. "If Saudi lied over the fate of Khashoggi, at least initially, then its credibility in explaining away the horrors of the Yemen war is also in doubt." But Jaber said extrapolating the Khashoggi affair to criticise Saudi efforts in Yemen was unfair. He said images splashed in global media of emaciated Yemeni children in famine-like conditions "break my heart", but added that Saudi Arabia alone was not responsible. The Huthis, he said, were an intractable foe, repeatedly spurning UN-backed efforts to jumpstart peace talks. A seasoned diplomat, Jaber has consistently sought to emphasise Saudi-funded development projects, "suggesting an aim to shift the shape of the discourse on Yemen", said Adam Baron, a Yemen expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations. - 'Saving from collapse' - In Aden, guards in camouflage fatigues with pistols strapped to the thigh whisked Jaber in an armoured car trailed by militiamen in pickup trucks that careened through streets riddled with tanks, Humvees and checkpoints. In a meeting at the prime minister's office, Yemeni bankers, businessmen and civil society representatives railed about corruption, unemployment as businesses were shutting down, and a dysfunctional government machinery. Jaber took copious notes as they spoke, assuring them of progress. "We are here to support Yemenis... until there is a functioning state," he said. He later sat down in the hilltop presidential palace, chewing qat -- a mild stimulant popular in Yemen -- with another group of government officials. The palace -- a cluster of colonial-era villas overlooking the azure expanse of the Arabian Sea -- bristled with armed militiamen but lacked a president as internationally backed leader Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi is believed to be based in Saudi Arabia. "Yemen has two parallel governments with one currency and one economy," said Yemen's central bank governor Mohamad Zemam, who was at the meeting. "We need peace efforts to unify the two." Showing AFP a bank statement on his phone of Saudi Arabia's recent deposit of $200 million in the bank to support the plummeting riyal, he said some businessmen had little faith the government was solvent until he showed them this proof. Such is the dire state of finances that until the Saudi fuel aid arrived even the presidential palace was crippled by several hours of daily power cuts, he said. "We are trying to survive... and save our (state) from collapse," said Zemam, who took his post in February. Jaber said Saudi support was not equal to a blank cheque. "Our money is not for corrupt people, it is for Yemeni people," he said. Saudi ambassador to Yemen Mohammed Said Al-Jaber (C) arrives in the southern Yemeni port of Aden to oversee an aid delivery of fuel from Saudi Arabia on October 29, 2018 A security guard stands by a ship docked in the southern Yemeni port of Aden on October 29, 2018 Saudi ambassador to Yemen, Mohammed al-Jaber, takes selfie with a Saudi guard aboard an aircraft while en route to Aden on October 29, 2018 Military helicopters fly over a ship as it arrives in the southern Yemeni port of Aden on October 29, 2018 Nubank is the online bank with the greatest number of clients outside of Asia. Fellow Brazilian startup 99 is a platform that connects 300,000 taxi drivers and chauffeurs to provide a competitive service in which passengers pay less while drivers earn more. Rappi's orange clad bicycle couriers have sprung up in 27 Latin American cities offering services as varied as delivering cash and pizzas to walking dogs or looking for lost keys. These are among a new breed of South American "unicorns" -- young digital companies that defied struggling economies and flourished to such an extant they are now worth a minimum of one billion dollars. Since the dot.com boom years, successful tech companies have sprung up all over Asia, the United States and Europe but Latin America remained a relative backwater. Little by little, that's starting to change with a fistful of companies, mostly based in Brazil and run by dynamic young entrepreneurs, breaking the mold and acting as regional pioneers. Brazilians 99, Nubank, PagSeguro, ArcoEducacao and Stone Pagamentos, along with Colombian Rappi, are the latest in the region to cross the billion dollar value threshold, and they've done so in ingenious ways. What's more, their success is attracting unprecedented levels of investment. - 500% growth in one year - Six years after its launch, 99 became a unicorn this year after receiving a $100 million investment from the Chinese Uber: DiDi Chuxing. It's presence has spread to 500 cities and after riding out the recession from 2015-16, 99 grew 500 percent in 2017, its 31-year-old president Matheus Moraes told AFP. In order to do so, 99 had to overcome classic Brazilian problems relating to infrastructure and price competition. "Our strategy is to offer more competitive fares with greater guarantees for the driver," said Moraes. He says 99's 300,000 employees earn 20 percent more than independent drivers, while its 14 million passengers pay 15 percent less. Nubank is a financial technology company created in 2013, whose founders -- including 37-year-old Colombian David Velez -- wanted to "break from the system's inertia" and demonstrate that "there are no sacred industries" without room for innovation. In March, it surpassed the one billion dollar mark. "The macroeconomic environment was a huge challenge given that since we launched, Brazil's gross domestic product has shrunk by eight percent," said Velez. However, legal barriers remain in an industry 90 percent controlled by banks. The overall aim, says Velez, is to reach Brazilians excluded from the banking system. "It's the first minute of the first half of the match," added Velez. - Colombian first - Since launching in 2015, Rappi has spread into Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. In September it received a $200 million investment from a group led by Hong Kong-based venture capitalists DST Global. Originally picked up by seed accelerator Y Combinator, which previously invested in the likes of Airbnb, Reddit and Dropbox, Rappi has since become the first Colombian unicorn. Investment in such firms is on the increase with more than one billion dollars shelled out by risk investment funds in 2017, an unprecedented sum, according to Julie Ruvolo, the venture capital director at Latin American Association of Venture and Private Capital (LAVCA). "In 2018, there were individual investments of more than $100 million, with greater participation from global investors" such as SoftBank or Tencent, said Ruvolo, who expects new records to be broken this year. Brazil led the way in 2017, attracting $859 million spread across 113 agreements. In the cases of PagSeguro's online payment system and ArcoEducacao's education platform, both gained value after launching on Wall Street. Soon an Argentine company will be in that crowd, with video games and mobile apps developer Etermax approaching the $1 billion threshold, according to a ranking list by Surfing Tsunamis and NXTP Labs. Created in 2009 by Maximo Cavazzani, now 33, Etermax produced the Apalabrados game, which was the most downloaded in Spain in 2012, and Preguntados, which went viral in Finland, Turkey and the US, where it's known as Trivia Crack. - Discipline - Argentina's economic problems have actually benefited creative entrepreneurs, Cavazzani says. "In 2009, the global economic crisis wreaked havoc and Argentina was in a difficult financial situation and didn't have access to creditors," he said. "That forced us to be disciplined from the first day." Since then, Etermax has expanded into Germany, Mexico, Uruguay and soon Brazil, too. But expanding a startup in Argentina isn't as easy as in Silicon Valley, where funds are readily available, Cavazzani says. "We had to generate enough capital to meet the payroll from the beginning." Added to that was the difficulty posed by a highly sophisticated product that requires a rare expertise. Even so, Etermax is thriving and well on its way to joining the ranks of the increasingly commonplace Latin American unicorns. Rappi couriers are easily identifiable by their orange bags and outfits but the company has distinguished itself by becoming Colombia's first unicorn Taxi drivers connected to the highly successful Brazilian 99 platform earn 20 percent more than independent drivers, the company's president says Rappi, with its distinctive orange color and mustache motif, took off after a $200 million investment from Asia Some 14 million passengers are connected to the 99 platform via their smartphones and company bosses claim it saves them 15 percent in taxi fares A gunman accused of shooting dead his mother and brother in a cross-border family dispute is the head of a local sporting shooters branch. Paul Cohrs remained in hospital on Wednesday after allegedly shooting 82-year-old Bette Cohrs in Victoria, and Ray Cohrs, 63, across the border in NSW a day earlier. The 58-year-old was found at a property near Lake Victoria in NSW with what police believe were self-inflicted gunshot wounds. He was taken to Mildura Base Hospital under police guard and later transferred to Melbournes Alfred Hospital where his condition is listed as critical but stable. Bette Cohrs, 82, died after being shot in regional Victoria. Photo: 7News The Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (SSAA) said Cohrs was head of the Mildura branch. We have received unofficial confirmation that the shooting tragedy in Mildura involves SSAA Mildura president Paul Cohrs, it said in a statement posted on Facebook. We are deeply shocked and saddened by this news and our thoughts are with the Cohrs family. News Corp says Cohrs was also a former Wentworth Shire councillor in NSW. It is thought a four-year-old boy could have witnessed the death of Cohrs mother, who was found at Red Cliffs property, south of Mildura. The child was inside the house at the time but police do not know if he saw the shooting. The body of Ray Cohrs was discovered in the far-western NSW town of Rufus later on Tuesday afternoon. The Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (SSAA) said Paul Cohrs was head of the Mildura branch. Photo: 7 News A 55-year-old male, unrelated to the family, raised the alarm. He had been held against his will but is uninjured, police said. The Cohrs family are well-respected in the area and own several construction businesses, a spokesman for SSAA said. Homicide squad detectives from both states continue the investigation. 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) Lifeline 13 11 14 Indonesias navy may have found the crashed Lion Air passenger jet in seas northwest of Jakarta. Lion Air flight JT610 crashed not long after departure from Jakarta on Monday morning. It had 189 passengers on board and rescuers confirmed human remains had been recovered 15km off the coast in the Java Sea. On Wednesday, Indonesias navy said a 22-metre object had been found at a depth of 32 metres. Navy officer Haris Djoko Nugroho said divers will be deployed after a side-scan sonar produced a more detailed image of the object and location. He added the object was first located on Tuesday evening. Rescuers search the sea for the sunken Lion Air passenger jet on Wednesday. Source: AAP There are some small objects that we found, but last night, thank God, we found a large enough object, he said. Earlier, Indonesias military chief Hadi Tjahjanto said a search effort had identified the possible seabed location of the plane. This morning Ive been briefed by the head of Search and Rescue Agency about the strong possibility of the location coordinates of Flight 610, he said. Were going to see it ourselves on location and hopefully that is the main body of the plane that weve been looking for. A Lion Air passenger jet of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 series at Jakarta Airport. Its the same type which crashed. Source: AAP Identification of bodies underway Officials said the non-stop search effort has sent 48 body bags containing human remains to police identification experts. Anguished family members have been providing samples for DNA tests and police say results are expected within four to eight days. Musyafak, the head of Said Sukanto Police Hospital, said nearly 150 samples for testing have been collected but more are still needed, especially from parents and children of victims. Wreckage from the Lion Air found during rescue operations off the north coast of Karawang regency, West Java. Source: AAP Ping sound may have located plane Indonesia deployed pinger locators at the crash site in the hunt for the planes black boxes, as the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder are known. Yesterday afternoon, the team had heard a ping sound in a location at 35 metres depth, Haryo Satmiko, the deputy chief of the national transport safety panel, told Reuters. Story continues This morning, at 5am, the team has gone back to dive at the location. Relatives wait for the news of the forensics inspection at the Police Hospital, Jakarta, Indonesia. Source: AAP Although it is now almost certain that everyone on the plane died, relatives are desperate to find traces of their loved ones, with only debris and body parts found so far. I keep praying for a miracle, although, logically, the plane has sunk in the ocean, Toni Priyono Adhi, whose daughter was aboard, said. But as a parent, I want a miracle. with Reuters and Associated Press A Sydney man has picked up a $1.8 million-dollar home without paying for it, thanks to an obscure, old law. Property developer Bill Gertos was visiting a client when he came across the empty house in Ashbury, in Sydneys inner west, in 1998. After asking around about the property, he learned the elderly lady who lived there had died. With curiosity getting the better of him, Mr Gertos entered through the back door and found the rubbish-filled house was indeed unoccupied, News Corp reports. Mr Gertos is now the proud owner of 6 Malleny Street, Ashbury. Image: Newscorp via Sunrise The next day he paid a builder to change the locks, kicking off a 20-year-long project that saw him renovate and rent out the property. Through an arcane law commonly known as squatters rights, Mr Gertos tried to officially claim ownership of 6 Malleny Street. His claim was halted when the family of a man, who had purchased the property in 1927, filed an injunction, arguing Mr Gertos could not claim squatters rights as he had rented the house out and not lived in it himself. Over 20 years, he renovated and rented out the property. Image: Newscorp via Sunrise But it wasnt enough to convince the Supreme Court, who on Tuesday ruled that Mr Gertos had fulfilled the necessary requirements to claim ownership. Squatters rights, legally referred to as adverse possession, allows someone who occupies a property for a certain period to claim ownership. In New South Wales that period is 12 years. US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis called Tuesday for a ceasefire in Yemen and for parties to come to the negotiating table within the next 30 days. The Pentagon chief said the US had been watching the conflict "for long enough" and said he believes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are in a US-backed coalition fighting Shiite Huthi rebels, are ready for talks. "We have got to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it some time in the future," Mattis said at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. "We need to be doing this in the next 30 days." He said the US is calling for all warring parties to meet with United Nations special envoy Martin Griffiths in Sweden in November and "come to a solution." Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the conflict between embattled Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, whose government is recognized by the United Nations, and the Huthis in 2015. Nearly 10,000 people have since been killed and the country now stands at the brink of famine. The United States has faced fierce international criticism for its role in supporting the Saudi-led coalition, especially after a series of strikes killed scores of civilians. Mattis said US support is based primarily on teaching the Saudi air force to improve targeting and to not drop bombs when there is any doubt about what they might hit. "Our goal right now is to achieve a level of capability by those forces fighting against the Huthis that they are not killing innocent people," he said. "The longer term solution, and by longer term I mean 30 days from now, we want to see everybody around a peace table based on a ceasefire, based on a pull back (of Huthis) from the border and then based on a ceasing dropping of bombs that will permit the special envoy Martin Griffiths... to get them together in Sweden and end this war. That is the only way we are going to really solve this." Last month, UN-led peace talks failed to take off after Huthi rebels refused to fly to Geneva over what they said was the UN's failure to guarantee a safe return to the capital Sanaa, which the group has controlled since 2014. The US is calling for all Yemen warring parties to meet in Sweden in November and "come to a solution" Over 13 million Shiite pilgrims crowded Iraq's holy city of Karbala Tuesday to mark the annual Arbaeen commemoration, under tight security less than a year after the country declared victory over the Islamic State group. Arbaeen is one of the world's biggest religious festivals and marks the end of the 40-day mourning period for the seventh-century killing of Imam Hussein by the forces of the Caliph Yazid -- a formative event in Shiite Islam. Dressed in black, pilgrims beat their heads and chests as they thronged the golden-domed mausoleum where the Prophet Mohammed's grandson is buried. Imam Hussein's killing in the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD was part of a fierce dispute over who should succeed the Prophet, which eventually developed into a bitter schism between the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam. The authorities estimated that more than 13 million worshippers had flocked to Karbala, 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Baghdad, from across Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Gulf states and even Europe and the US. Some 1.8 million visas were handed out to worshippers from neighbouring Iran. Kuwaiti Ahmed Hussein lauded his "brother Iraqis who have been so generous" to the pilgrims as they journeyed for hundreds of kilometres by foot to their destination. As tradition dictates those living along the route offered free meals, cups of tea and even massages to the passing faithful. Niman al-Bachashi had come from Najaf, another Iraqi holy city, and insisted that he felt "no threat" despite fresh memories of the carnage that has rocked Iraq. Baghdad declared victory over the Sunni jihadists of IS in December after a brutal fight to drive them from Iraqi towns and cities. But the jihadists still roam areas along the border with Syria and maintain the capacity to launch deadly attacks. To protect the Arbaeen commemoration 30,000 soldiers and police officers were deployed, as well as 22,000 fighters from the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary forces, commanders said. Security forces checked pilgrims and vehicles and guarded hundreds of kilometres of roads leading to Karbala. A Shiite Muslim pilgrim prays near the shrine of saint al-Abbas in the central Iraqi holy city of Karbala on October 30, 2018, during the Arbaeen religious festival Shiite Muslim pilgrims gather at the shrine of saint al-Abbas in the central Iraqi holy city of Karbala on October 30, 2018, during the Arbaeen religious festival Shiite Muslim pilgrims wave religious flags as they gather near the shrine of saint al-Abbas in the central Iraqi holy city of Karbala on October 30, 2018 The family of a teenager who went missing in Italy in 1983 called Wednesday on the Vatican to provide more details on the discovery of human remains in one of its properties. The bones were uncovered on Monday by builders refurbishing a building owned by the Vatican in Rome, the Holy See said, in a potential breakthrough for police investigating one of Italy's darkest mysteries. Since the grisly find, Italian media have been rife with speculation that they could shed light on the fate of one or possibly two teenagers who went missing in the 1980s. "We will ask Rome prosecutors and the Holy See how the bones were found and why their discovery has been linked to the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi or Mirella Gregori," the Orlandi's family lawyer, Laura Sgro, told the media. The statement released by the Holy See on Tuesday "provides hardly any information," she said. Sgro was speaking on behalf of the family, which she said would not comment until DNA tests had been performed. The remains were discovered in a building in the leafy grounds of the Holy See's embassy to Italy. The property had been left to the Vatican in 1949 by a Jewish businessman who belonged to the Fascist party before the introduction of racial laws in Italy, and later converted to Catholicism, according to Italian media. Builders found a near-complete skeleton in one spot and fragments of bones in another, the Repubblica daily said. The Vatican's statement on Tuesday made no reference to either Orlandi or Gregori. Both girls were underage when they went missing separately in Rome in 1983. - 'Cover-up' - Orlandi was the daughter of a member of the Vatican's police, and was last seen on June 22, 1983 when leaving a music class. Theories have circulated that the then 15-year-old was kidnapped by an organised crime gang to put pressure on Vatican officials to recover a loan. Another claim was that she was taken to force the release from prison of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who attempted to assassinate Pope Jean Paul II in 1981. Orlandi's brother Pietro has been leading a decades-long campaign to find out what happened to her and has accused the Vatican of silence and even complicity in the case. In 2017, conspiracy specialists were driven into a frenzy by a leaked -- but apparently falsified -- document, purportedly written by a cardinal and pointing to a Vatican cover-up. It referred to an expenses report of what the Vatican spent on kidnapping Orlandi and sending her to live abroad in secret. The Vatican has said on several occasions that it has cooperated with Italian police in the case. Gregori, then 16, disappeared exactly 40 days before Orlandi. Her mother says she answered the intercom at the family apartment before telling her parents it was a school friend and she was going out to speak to him. She never returned. "In my heart, I hope the bones are Mirella's, so we can put an end to this affair and I can have somewhere to go and cry and take my sister flowers," Maria Antonietta Gregori told La Repubblica daily. Investigators have not ruled out that the cases could be connected. - 'Truth and justice' - It is not the first time Italian police have followed a possible lead to finding Orlandi's body. In 2012, forensic experts exhuming the tomb of a notorious local crime boss at a Vatican church uncovered some 400 boxes of bones. Enrico De Pedis, head of the Magliana gang, was suspected of involvement in her kidnapping and some speculated the youngster may be buried alongside him -- although DNA tests failed to find a match. Sightings of the teenager over the years proved unfounded. She would now be 50 years old. The first investigation into Orlandi's disappearance was closed in 1997. In 2007, De Pedis' lover told investigators he had kidnapped and killed the girl on the order of the head of the Vatican bank. The claim -- that she saw the girl's body buried in a sack under cement -- sparked a fresh enquiry that led nowhere. Police shut the probe again in 2016, after which Pietro Orlando called on the Vatican to open its own investigation. "Truth and justice are sacrosanct. We will never give up," he told the media on the last anniversary of her disappearance. Emanuela Orlandi was the daughter of a member of the Vatican police The human remains were discovered in a building in the leafy grounds of the Holy See's embassy to Italy Bone fragments were found during construction work at the Vatican building Vigils have been held on the anniversary of the 1983 disappearance of Italian teenager Emanuela Orlandi A top Myanmar official said Wednesday that his country would take back a first group of 2,000 Rohingya refugees from camps in Bangladesh in November despite widespread doubts over the proposal. Officials from the two countries announced on Tuesday that some of the 720,000 Muslim Rohingya who fled a deadly military clampdown in the Buddhist-majority country last year would start returning next month. Myanmar foreign secretary Myint Thu visited the camps in Cox's Bazar on Wednesday to discuss the repatriations with refugees. Most repeated demands that they be given Myanmar nationality with full rights before they return. Thu said Myanmar has verified 5,000 names on a list of 8,032 Rohingya that Bangladesh authorities sent in February. "From that 5,000, the first batch will be about 2,000 people. And then a second batch will follow. So in mid-November we will receive the first batch," Thu told reporters. Bangladesh officials said a new list of 24,342 Rohingya names was handed over in talks this week. But Rohingya representatives expressed strong doubts about going back despite the announcement. "We would rather die in the camp in Bangladesh. We will not return without any guarantee of citizenship or fully restored rights," Abdul Hakim, one refugee from Myanmar's Rakhine state, told AFP. The United Nations, aid groups and even Bangladesh authorities have said any repatriation must be voluntary. Oxfam spokesperson Rachael Reilly said the refugees "want to see justice served and an end to the violence and discrimination that have caused this crisis". "It is deeply concerning that Rohingya people may be sent back to Myanmar to face the same persecution they fled," she said. The 720,000 joined about 300,000 who fled earlier violence in Myanmar, where the Rohingya are refused citizenship and rights. Many brought harrowing tales of rape, murder and burning of villages. Investigators have said senior Myanmar military officials should be prosecuted for genocide, but Myanmar has rejected the calls, insisting it only targeted militants. The two neighbours first announced a large-scale repatriation plan in November 2017. But it has failed to advance, with each government blaming the other. Myanmar's foreign secretary visited the camps in Cox's Bazar on Wednesday to discuss repatriations with refugees. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan hit out at religious hardliners and appealed for calm Wednesday after extremists called for the country's Supreme Court justices to be murdered for overturning the conviction of a Christian woman facing execution for blasphemy. Khan, who took to the nation's airwaves several hours after the court ordered the acquittal of Asia Bibi, delivered a forceful call for Pakistanis to respect the verdict which sparked protests across the country. "They are inciting you for their own political gain, you should not get trapped by them for the sake of the country, they are doing no service to Islam," Khan said in a televised broadcast. "We will protect people's properties and lives, we will not allow any sabotage, we will not allow any traffic to be stopped," he added. Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in deeply conservative Muslim Pakistan, where even unproven allegations of insulting Islam and its Prophet Mohammed can provoke death at the hands of vigilantes. Demonstrations broke out in major cities across Pakistan in the ruling's wake, with club-wielding protesters blocking Islamabad's main highway and barricading roads in Karachi and Lahore. One of the most vocal groups -- the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) -- called for "mutiny" against the army's top brass and the assassination of the top court's justices. "The Muslim generals of the army, it is their responsibility that they should launch a rebellion against these generals," Afzal Qadri -- a TLP leader -- told supporters in Lahore. For hours the acquittal was met with near silence on the country's airwaves as broadcasters appeared to steer clear of covering the controversial topic. Khan, who has previously caused concern with his full-throated defence of blasphemy laws during his recent election campaign, vowed on Wednesday to hit back against hardliners inciting violence, saying the inflammatory rhetoric would only benefit "Pakistan's enemies". - Protection detail? - Bibi was set to be released immediately according to the court, although there was no word if any security arrangements were being made for her protection. Her legal team celebrated amid beefed-up security in Islamabad. "The verdict has shown that the poor, the minorities and the lowest segments of society can get justice in this country despite its shortcomings," Bibi's lawyer Saif-ul-Mulook told AFP. "This is the biggest and happiest day of my life." Bibi appeared to be in a state of disbelief after hearing that Pakistan's Chief Justice Saqib Nisar had quashed her conviction nearly eight years after she was first sentenced to death. "I can't believe what I am hearing, will I go out now? Will they let me out, really?" Bibi told AFP by phone from prison after the ruling. "I just don't know what to say, I am very happy, I can't believe it." Her case drew the attention of international rights groups and swiftly became the most high-profile in the country. Pope Benedict XVI called for her release in 2010, while in 2015 her daughter met his successor and the current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis. Freedom for Bibi in Pakistan, where university students have been lynched and Christians burnt in ovens over blasphemy claims, means a life under threat by hardliners, who regularly hold demonstrations calling for her execution. The allegations against Bibi date back to 2009, when Muslim women she was labouring with in a field objected to sharing water with her because she was Christian. After an argument, the women went to a local cleric and accused Bibi of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed, a charge punishable by death under colonial-era legislation. - Long-criticised law - During the appeal hearing on October 8, a three-member panel of Supreme Court justices appeared to question the case against her, with Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, considered Pakistan's top expert in criminal law, listing flaws in the proceedings. "I don't see any derogatory remarks vis-a-vis the holy Koran as per the FIR," added Chief Justice Nisar, referring to the initial complaint filed in the case. Approximately 40 people are believed to be on death row or serving a life sentence in Pakistan for blasphemy, according to a 2018 report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Rights groups have long criticised the legislation, saying it is routinely abused to justify censorship, persecution, and even the murder of minorities. In recent years, it has also been used to smear dissenters and politicians. Mere calls to reform the law have provoked violence, most notably the assassination of Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, by his own bodyguard in broad daylight in Islamabad in 2011. His assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, was executed in 2016 and has been feted as a hero by hardliners, who built a shrine to him just outside the capital. Taseer had also called for Bibi's release and his son Shahbaz tweeted "Pakistan Zindabad" ("Long live Pakistan") following the ruling. Asia Bibi (left) pictured alongside former governor of Punjab Salman Taseer who was later assassinated for supporting Christian minorities Hardline religious political parties protested the acquittal of Asia Bibi Bibi's lawyer Saif-ul-Mulook told AFP 'the verdict has shown that the poor, the minorities and the lowest segments of society can get justice in this country despite its shortcomings' Bibi was set to be released immediately according to the court Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in deeply conservative Muslim Pakistan More than 100 groups urged the International Labour Organization to stop taking money from tobacco companies as the UN body prepared Wednesday to once again debate the controversial issue. In a letter addressed to ILO's governing body, a number of national and non-governmental health and anti-tobacco groups warned late Tuesday that the ILO risked "tarnishing its reputation and the effectiveness of its work" if it did not cut ties with the tobacco industry. The UN labour agency has long been under fire for its partnerships with tobacco companies and has been accused of jeopardising global efforts to regulate tobacco use and reduce the negative health impacts of smoking. The ILO's governing body is set to debate the issue again Wednesday, and health and anti-tobacco advocates are hoping it will decide to join other UN agencies -- most notably the World Health Organization -- in flatly refusing to engage with the industry. - 'Spread death' - "Tobacco companies that spread death and disease across the globe should have no place in the ILO, or any responsible organisation," said Matt Myers, head of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids -- one of the organisations behind the letter. It is unclear how quickly the ILO will be able to decide the matter -- the agency has already debated the issue and postponed a decision three times in the past year and a half. The ILO has until now justified its ties to the tobacco companies as a way of helping improve the working conditions of the some 60 million people involved in tobacco growing and production worldwide. The agency has over the past decade received around $15 million from some of the world's biggest tobacco companies towards two "charitable partnerships" aimed at reducing child labour in tobacco fields across a range of countries. The contract for one of those partnerships, ECLT, backed by British-American Tobacco, Philip Morris International and others to the tune of $5.0 million, expired last June, but ILO has allowed the programme to continue without additional funding until it reaches a decision. The contract for the second partnership, ARISE, into which Japan Tobacco International (JTI) has poured $10 million, is meanwhile due to expire in December. This "creates an opportunity for the ILO to start afresh in 2019," the letter said. - 'No conflict' - That would be a shame, according to JTI, which maintains its ARISE initiative has since 2011 helped remove 39,000 children from tobacco fields in Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Brazil, and get them into school. "We are committed to fighting child labour in our supply chain," Elaine McKay, JTI's Social Programmes Director, told AFP. A number of tobacco-growing countries have also voiced opposition in the past to ILO cutting its tobacco ties. Zambia's labour commissioner, Chanda Kaziya, told AFP earlier this month that children in his country were benefiting from the industry-funded programmes, and worried that other financing might not be available. "I am not going to look around and see children suffer because I have no financing, and the sector is there and I can see millions of dollars there," he said. But Tuesday's letter alleged that the projects had only "nominal impact" and charged that the companies involved were using them "to provide cover for egregious tobacco industry abuse". "The tobacco industry has derived nearly 20 times more in economic benefit from unpaid child labour in Malawi alone than it spent on all its social programming," the letter maintained, pointing to a 2006 study published in the journal Tobacco Control. "They seriously need some updated evidence," said JTI's McKay. She also slammed the charge that Big Tobacco is using the ILO partnerships simply to "advance its objectives within the UN more broadly." "I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that there is no conflict. There is no undue influence," she said. More than 100 activist groups urged the International Labour Organization to cut their links with tobacco companies Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla landed Wednesday in The Gambia for the first leg of a week-long African tour aimed at strengthening ties with Commonwealth nations. The Prince of Wales, heir to the throne, took over as head of the 53-member Commonwealth of Nations in April, succeeding his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. He and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, were received Wednesday by Gambian President Adama Barrow and his wife Fatou Bah-Barrow. The country, which is almost completely surrounded by Senegal along the West African coast, was readmitted to the Commonwealth in February, after abruptly leaving the organisation in 2013. On Thursday, Prince Charles is to visit the Medical Research Council, a faculty of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, during what is his first visit to the country. He and Camilla are then expected to visit Ghana before ending their trip in Nigeria on November 6 - 8, a statement said. As Britain prepares to leave the European Union in 2019, the prince aims to "celebrate the UK's dynamic, forward-looking partnerships" with Commonwealth nations, it said, adding that Charles has already visited 44 of them. Britain's Prince Charles, Prince of Wales (R) is making his first visit to The Gambia Prince Charles and Camilla were welcomed by Gambia's President Adama Barrow and his wife Fatou Bah-Barrow at the airport in Banjul Omar Qudrat denies any contradiction in his being both a Muslim and a Republican in the era of President Donald Trump. In fact, he is so convinced that his party is still one of diversity, despite the president's rhetoric, that he is running for Congress in California's 52nd District on a Republican ticket. "I'm American period. I was born and raised in this country," Qudrat, whose parent were immigrants from Afghanistan, told AFP. "We have a very diverse party. We just don't talk about it and make it like the number one talking point about us," he said. "I was endorsed by numerous sitting senior members of Congress and it had nothing to do with my ethnicity and religion." The reality is, however, that if he wins his race, the 37-year-old would be the first Muslim Republican to take a seat in Congress. There are currently two Muslims in the House of Representatives -- Keith Ellison and Andre Carson. Both are Democrats. But the label barely matters for Qudrat. "My run for Congress has to do with reality. And real issues," he said, dismissing what he called "identity politics." "I don't think that ethnicity is a qualification," he said. That is why he did not rush to denounce Trump's ban on people from a number of Muslim-majority countries from entering the country, instead arguing that as former Defense Department worker, he was aware of national security issues. At the same time, he avoids talking about scandal-plagued fellow California Republican Duncan Hunter, who is running against a Democrat of mixed Palestinian and Mexican heritage and who has warned that "radical Muslims are trying to infiltrate the US government," even though his opponent is a Christian. "I've got to talk about the issues in my district and that's it," Qudrat said. - 'False promises' - Qudrat grew up in a violent neighborhood of Los Angeles, where gangs ruled the streets and shoot-outs were common. He was in the fifth grade when a gang tried to recruit him for the first time, and a year later he was offered a gun for sale: a 25mm pistol for $25. "I'll tell you why I am Republican," he recently told a gathering of students organized by the University of San Diego. "I don't believe in government, I believe in people." He blames the Democrats for "not delivering" and making "false promises," something he attributes to his Democrat rival Scott Peters, whom he is currently trailing in polls. Qudrat learned from his parents -- big supporters of Ronald Reagan, who armed Afghanistan's mujahedin to fight the Soviet occupation -- to have "belief in yourself and self determination." "And that matched more with the Republican political philosophy," said the young candidate, who says he has never felt discriminated against in the United States. Ten years after the 9/11 terror attacks, Qudrat, who speaks fluent Dari and has degrees in law and international relations, worked for the Department of Defense in Afghanistan, trying to improve the country's judicial system. He then worked for the military prosecutor's office processing detainees in the Guantanamo Bay prison. He thinks the United States has to "end the war in Afghanistan and do so in a responsible manner that will ensure Afghanistan does not again become a safe haven for terrorist networks that can plot and attack us with impunity." If he does win his seat, he hopes to use his experience in Congress's committees on the armed forces and foreign relations. - 'We have laws' - Qudrat -- who is pro-life and favors tax cuts for the middle classes -- said Trump could do more to unite Americans, but at the same time he defends his economic record. "President Trump evokes feelings among some people that really caused them to oppose him," he said. "Do you want to derail the progress that's being made right now?" he argues, citing low unemployment, especially among minority groups, and rising wages among blue collar workers. "There are real lives that are improving," he said. "I have to support that." He agrees with the president on the need to improve border security, but has avoided commenting on whether he supports his plan for a wall on the Mexico border. He also supports a legislative solution for the so-called "dreamers," children of migrant parents who entered the country without documentation and who now may face deportation themselves, despite having lived in the United States their whole lives. "I do not believe a two-year-old or a three-year-old could have had criminal intent when they were brought involuntarily into our country," he said. "Therefore we should not treat them as criminals," he said. "They are otherwise American in every way except for their legal status." "America is the most generous, compassionate nation on earth," he said. But, he noted, "we have laws." Omar Qudrat, who is running as a Republican for Congress in California's 52nd district, is a Muslim who sees no contradiction with US President Donald Trump rhetoric Qudrat would the first Muslim Republican to take a seat in Congress if he wins Qudrat says US President Donald Trump could do more to unite Americans but that voting Democrat would derail the "progress" underway Qudrat is the son of Afghan immigrants who is running for Congress India inaugurated the world's tallest statue on Wednesday with fireworks, folk dances and floral tributes, deploying tight security amid an outcry by local groups over the soaring cost of the 182-metre (600-feet) sculpture of an independence hero. Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially opened the statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel describing the completion of his pet project as "a day that will be remembered in the history of India". Air force jets flew over the giant figure and clouds of rose petals were dropped from helicopters onto its head as Modi bent in front of the statue on the ground. Modi hailed Sardar Patel's "strategic thinking" in bringing together the disparate country after independence in 1947 and described the Statue of Unity as "a symbol of our engineering and technical prowess". More than 5,000 armed police guarded the huge site in a remote corner of Gujarat state, with Anand Mazgaonkar, a community group leader in Narmada district, accusing plain clothes officers of detaining 12 people late Tuesday. Police denied the claims. But the authorities took no chances in case community groups staged protests to condemn the decision to spend 29.9 billion rupees ($400 million) -- much of it public funds -- to build the statue over a nearly four-year period. Hundreds of Chinese have been among the 3,500 workers involved in its construction. Drones and helicopters kept watch on the area, according to police, after the chiefs of 22 villages signed a letter calling on Modi to stay away from the inauguration. Posters of Modi with Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani were torn down or had their faces blackened at the weekend. Police guarded new posters put in their place. - 'Iron Man' - Local legislator Chotu Vasava said: "Tribal groups have been exploited by different governments, the ruling BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) is repeating it again." "I am not against Sardar, but what is the use of the statue if the people on the land have to suffer and are moved from their homes?" The Gujarat government said the 185 families moved to make way for the statue had been compensated and given 1,200 acres (475 hectares) of land. More than 80 percent of the local population are from tribal groups with special protected status. In the largely tribal town of Dediapada, roughly 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the statue, villagers shuttered shops and closed the main market for the day in protest. "We are still facing problems of water, health infrastructure and employment," one resident, Vikram Vasava, told a local broadcaster. "How will the statue help us?" Sardar Patel was a deputy prime minister in India's first post-independence government. He became known as "the Iron Man" by convincing feuding states -- sometimes with a threat of force -- to join the new united country. His name had been largely overshadowed by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has dominated Indian politics since 1947. But Modi-inspired nationalists have sought to put him back in the forefront, with critics accusing them of appropriating his legacy. The statue is more than twice the size of New York's Statue of Liberty and also dwarfs the 128-metre (400-feet) high Spring Temple Buddha in China, the world's next-biggest statue. It is made up of nearly 100,000 tonnes of concrete and steel. Online booking to visit the Statue of Unity has opened with a 350 rupee ($4.75) admission fee for the 153-metre-high observation deck. Indian authorities hope the statue will attract 15,000 visitors a day. India is also working on a giant statue of 17th-century warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji, riding a horse and brandishing a sword, which should dominate the Mumbai shoreline from 2021. The current design would make it 212 metres high. Indian officials were concerned that community groups could stage protests to demand compensation for land taken to erect the Statue of Unity Modi hailed Sardar Patel's "strategic thinking" in bringing together the disparate country after independence in 1947 Air force jets flew over the giant figure and clouds of rose petals were dropped from helicopters onto its head Modi's nationalist government made the Statue of Unity one of its flagship projects ahead of a national election next year Modi paid tribute while the air force jets roared overhead and dance troupes performed A school district has been forced to apologise after kids were left with bald patches from random drug tests. Chantel Anderson, an 18-year-old cancer survivor student, had a chunk of her hair shaved off during the tests in Kansas, US. The spot was the size of a quarter in the back of her head, Mother Jeanette Anderson told Yahoo Lifestyle. She was about in tears when she told us about it. It was upsetting because it happened to her, but she also saw it happen to other kids and that was upsetting to her too. The hair loss was devastating to Chantel, who is a survivor of paediatric brain cancer which affected her pituitary gland. Some of Chantels hair was shaved off for a school drug test. Source: Brian Anderson Her hair is also very thin and takes such a long time to grow that shes only had a couple of haircuts in the past 15 years. Hair follicles for drug testing are typically taken from multiple places on the head so that no bald spot will be visible. This lady that did it- I dont think she had a heart, Chantels father, Brian Anderson, said. Mike Gower, the school superintendent apologised to the family and told local news station KSNW that the schools would no longer use the drug testing company. Neither Mr Gower nor the drug testing company, Compliance One, have returned Yahoo Lifestyles calls requesting comment. Chantel Anderson is a cancer survivor. Source: Brian Anderson Mr Gower said the policy of random drug testing using hair follicles, which detects drug use going back as far as 90 days, will remain in place in the district. However, he plans to introduce new rules to make sure students are not alone with a testing person from the company. Despite the bad experience, Mr Anderson says he believes that schools should continue drug testing. I think its a good thing, he says. It just needs to be done a better way, so its less stressful for the kids. Elsewhere, a schoolboy mocked for hairless patches that left him nearly fully bald is now overwhelmed with confidence thanks to a fake hair tattoo. A suicide bomber targeting a bus carrying employees of Afghanistan's biggest prison killed at least seven people on Wednesday, officials said, in the latest militant attack in the war-torn country. Another eight were wounded in the blast at the entrance to the facility in Kabul, which police spokesman Basir Mujahid said hit a vehicle ferrying Pul-e-Charkhi prison staff. Among the casualties were police officers guarding the main gate and prison staff. The attacker was on foot, interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said. He struck as the bus was entering the jail in the east of the Afghan capital. The Islamic State group (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack via its Amaq propaganda agency, SITE Intelligence Group said. IS has claimed most suicide attacks in Kabul in recent months. The attack comes days after a suicide bomber blew himself up near the entrance of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission in Kabul, killing at least one person and wounding six. A wave of election-related violence has killed or wounded hundreds across the country in recent months as the Taliban and IS step up attacks on Afghan security forces and government workers. Afghanistan's long-delayed parliamentary election, which was held over three days this month, was marred by chaos and deadly attacks. Two days before voting began on October 20, a Taliban-claimed shooting killed a powerful police chief in the southern province of Kandahar. General Abdul Raziq was among three people killed in the brazen insider attack on a high-level security meeting in the provincial capital that was attended by General Scott Miller, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan. Miller escaped unhurt, but US Brigadier General Jeffrey Smiley was among 13 people wounded in the shooting, which the Taliban said had targeted Miller and Raziq. US officials and NATO's Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan were adamant that Miller had not been a target. Several days later another Taliban-claimed assault killed a NATO soldier and and wounded two others -- all from the Czech Republic -- in the western province of Herat. The attacks came amid a flurry of US-led diplomatic activity to convince the Taliban, Afghanistan's largest militant group, to negotiate an end to the 17-year war. Earlier this month, newly appointed US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met with Taliban representatives in Qatar. Less than two weeks later a top Taliban commander held in Pakistani detention for more than eight years was freed. A senior Taliban leader told AFP the group had requested the release of Abdul Ghani Baradar and several others at the meeting with Khalilzad. The group confirmed Wednesday it had appointed five former Guantanamo Bay detainees to its political office in Doha who have authority to "talk about peace". The blast near the Pul-e-Charkhi prison in Kabul, seen here in a file picture, killed at least seven people South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar returned to the capital Juba for the first time in more than two years Wednesday, saying he arrived with a message of peace. Machar, who under the terms of the September deal is to be reinstated as vice president, had not set foot in the city since he fled in July 2016 under a hail of gunfire when an earlier peace pact collapsed. "Our message is one: We are for peace.... This peace is in our hearts and we are going to implement this agreement," Machar said at a ceremony to welcome the latest peace accord for the war-ravaged country. The new deal aims to end a civil war that erupted in the world's youngest country in December 2013 and uprooted about four million people -- roughly a third of the population. The rebel chief was welcomed at Juba's airport by President Salva Kiir, Machar's former ally turned bitter enemy. The two rivals then joined regional leaders at the ceremony to publicly welcome the most recent agreement, signed under international pressure on September 12 in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. "I want to reiterate in front of you that the war in South Sudan has come to an end," Kiir said, according to UN radio Miraya, repeating words often heard but not followed through. In a goodwill gesture, the president announced the release Wednesday of former rebel spokesman James Gatdet Dak, to be followed Thursday by the freeing of William John Endley, a retired South African colonel and ex-adviser to Machar. Both men were sentenced to death by a Juba court in January. UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) chief David Shearer hailed the moment of cooperation and said in a statement that building trust would be crucial. "To see parties that have previously been divided by violence coming together here in Juba, in a public sign of unity, sends a strong message to the citizens of this country that you are genuinely committed to end the suffering and build durable peace," he said. - 'Chance to restore hope' - Several thousand people gathered for the ceremony at the John Garang Mausoleum, built in honour of the independence hero killed in a helicopter crash in 2005. Among regional leaders attending were Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Ethiopia's newly appointed President Sahle-Work Zewde, Somalia's head of state Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. South Sudan gained independence from its northern neighbour Sudan in 2011 after a 22-year civil war pitting rebel groups against Khartoum. "Sadly, the hopes and dreams of that moment were lost in the outbreak of the war that has plagued this country for five long years," Shearer said. "This ceremony is a chance for the leaders here today to restore that hope and to secure a peaceful and prosperous future for their people." The deal has encountered delays on several issues including the reactivation of a joint committee on borders and the number of regional states. Machar returned to Khartoum later Wednesday, Kiir's spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said. Machar's aides had earlier expressed concern for his safety in Juba. - Deep humanitarian crisis - South Sudan's civil war erupted when Kiir, a member of the Dinka tribe, accused his then deputy Machar, a Nuer, of plotting a coup. The conflict split the country along ethnic lines and has seen mass rape, the forced recruitment of child soldiers and attacks on civilians. It has caused one of the world's greatest humanitarian crises and wrecked the economy in a nation which relies on oil production for the bulk of its revenues. Machar fled Juba in July 2016 after fierce fighting erupted between government forces and his rebels, killing several hundred people. He headed on foot to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and went into exile in South Africa. Several ceasefire agreements and peace pacts have failed to end the fighting, which has killed an estimated 380,000 people, uprooted a third of the population, forced nearly two-and-a-half million into exile, and triggered bouts of deadly famine. Sudan this month appointed a peace envoy to South Sudan following the signing of the September accord in Addis. South Sudan's rebel leader Riek Machar is to be reinstated as vice president under the terms of the peace deal Map locating Juba, capital of South Sudan, where rebel leader Riek Machar returned for the first time in more than two years on Wednesday to take part in a peace ceremony. South Sudan President Salva Kiir (R) walks with Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir (L) ahead of a Juba airport ceremony to welcome the latest peace accord for the war-ravaged south Among tentative signs of progress, South Sudan has opened a new terminal building at Juba International Airport Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and his body was dismembered and destroyed as part of a premeditated plan, Turkey's chief prosecutor said Wednesday, making details of the murder public for the first time. The revelations came only an hour after Saudi Arabia's chief prosecutor left Istanbul, and his Turkish counterpart said he was "obliged" to release the information after their talks produced "no concrete results". Gruesome reports in the Turkish media had previously alleged that Khashoggi, a 59-year-old Washington Post contributor who had criticised the powerful Saudi crown prince, was killed and cut into pieces by a team sent from Riyadh to silence him. His body has not been found. "In accordance with plans made in advance, the victim, Jamal Khashoggi, was strangled to death immediately after entering the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 for marriage formalities," said a statement from the office of Istanbul chief prosecutor Irfan Fidan. "The victim's body was dismembered and destroyed following his death by suffocation -? again, in line with advance plans," it added. Saudi Arabia sent the head of its investigation to Istanbul this week, seeking to draw a line under a crisis that has brought near unprecedented scrutiny on the oil-rich Gulf nation. Attorney General Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb arrived in Istanbul on Sunday, met with Fidan twice, visited the consulate and spoke with Turkey's MIT intelligence agency. He then flew out of Istanbul on Wednesday afternoon without making a public statement. "Despite our well-intentioned efforts to reveal the truth, no concrete results have come out of those meetings," the Turkish prosecutor's office said. It added that the Saudi prosector's office invited Fidan and his delegation to Riyadh "along with the evidence they have obtained". A senior Turkish official earlier said that Saudi officials seemed "primarily interested in finding out what evidence Turkey had against the perpetrators". "We did not get the impression that they were keen on genuinely cooperating with the investigation," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. - 'Who gave the command?' - After initially insisting Khashoggi left the consulate unharmed, then saying he died in a brawl during an interview gone wrong, the Saudi regime has admitted he was killed by a "rogue operation" and arrested 18 people. But a spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party, Omer Celik, said on Wednesday that the murder could not have been carried out without instructions from "high-level" officials in Riyadh. "Who gave the command?" Celik asked at a press conference, adding he believed it was "out of the question" that Saudi authorities had not learned where the body was. Erdogan has repeatedly requested the suspects be extradited to Turkey for trial -- which Riyadh has refused to do -- as well as reveal the location of Khashoggi's body and who ordered the hit. Abdulkadir Selvi, a well-connected pro-government columnist for Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper, on Wednesday accused the Saudi prosecutor of "working to save the crown prince by covering up the investigation rather than shed light on the murder". The affair has tarnished the image of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who has positioned himself as a Saudi reformer. He has denounced the murder as "repulsive" and strongly denied any involvement. - 'Violated international law' - The case has also sorely strained relations between the ultra-conservative kingdom and the West. France said Wednesday that "not enough" was being done to find those responsible for the murder of the Saudi journalist, who was an insider in royal circles before going into self-imposed exile in the United States last year. In an editorial published Tuesday, the Washington Post accused the administration of US President Donald Trump of "playing along" and "pretending to believe that the Saudis can conduct a credible probe -- even though a chief suspect is the kingdom's own autocratic ruler". The editorial also urged the US Congress to impose sanctions on those responsible. On Wednesday Switzerland said it would halt deliveries of spare weapons parts to Saudi Arabia over the murder. While Trump has called the case "one of the worst cover-ups in history", he warned against halting a Saudi arms deal, saying it would harm US jobs. However, relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia, long-time allies, have cooled. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday said the murder "violates the norms of international law. That much is very, very clear". And on Tuesday, Washington called for a ceasefire and peace talks in Yemen, where the US has faced fierce international criticism for supporting a Saudi-led coalition. Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said the US had been watching the conflict, in which nearly 10,000 people have been killed, "for long enough". Saudi Arabia has admitted that dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in its consulate in Istanbul Saudi Attorney General Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb was the first Saudi official to acknowledge that the killing was "premeditated" based on the results of Turkey's investigation Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi vanished after visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 Demonstrators in Washington demanded justice for missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a protest on October 8 Saudi Arabian officials have appeared unwilling to "genuinely cooperate" with Turkey's investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a senior Turkish official said Wednesday. "The Saudi officials seemed primarily interested in finding out what evidence the Turkish authorities had against the perpetrators," the official told AFP on the condition of anonymity. "We did not get the impression that they were keen on genuinely cooperating with the investigation," the official said, referring to the latest contacts between Ankara and Riyadh. The comments come as Saudi Arabia's chief public prosecutor is in Istanbul to meet with Turkish authorities as part of the ongoing investigation. However Turkish media has reported that Saudi Attorney General Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb has refused to share information from Riyadh's own investigation since arriving on Sunday. Khashoggi, a 59-year-old Washington Post contributor, was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 to obtain paperwork ahead of his upcoming wedding. His body has not been found. The case has brought near unprecedented international scrutiny on Saudi Arabia and its powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom Khashoggi had criticised. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly called on Saudi authorities to reveal the location of Khashoggi's body and who ordered his murder. The Saudi prosecutor met with Istanbul chief prosecutor Irfan Fidan twice this week at Istanbul's main court and visited the consulate -- the scene of the murder -- on Tuesday. The private DHA news agency reported that Mojeb also held talks at the regional head offices of the Turkish Intelligence Organisation (MIT) overnight. But there was no immediate information on what was discussed. Khashoggi, a 59-year-old Washington Post contributor, was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 to obtain paperwork ahead of his upcoming wedding. His body has not been found United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has informed the Security Council that he wishes to appoint Norwegian diplomat Geir Pedersen as the next special envoy to Syria, diplomatic sources told AFP Tuesday. Pedersen is currently Norway's ambassador to China and has previously served as its envoy to the UN. "I am pleased to inform you of my intention to announce the appointment of Mr Geir O Pedersen as my Special Envoy for Syria. In taking this decision, I have consulted broadly, including with the government of the Syrian Arab Republic," Guterres wrote in a letter seen by AFP. "Mr Pedersen will support the Syrian parties by facilitating an inclusive and credible political solution that meets the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people," the letter read. It also thanked Staffan de Mistura, the outgoing envoy, "for his more than four years of concerted efforts and contributions to search for peace in Syria." The leaders of Turkey, Russia, France and Germany met in Istanbul at the weekend and called for a political solution to the war and a permanent truce in the last major rebel-held bastion of Idlib. Their joint statement called for a committee to be established to draft Syria's post-war constitution before the end of the year, "paving the way for free and fair elections" in the war-torn country. The Syria conflict, which began with anti-government street protests in 2011, has claimed more than 360,000 lives and drawn in foreign powers and various jihadist groups. Geir Pedersen (L), seen here with former Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora in Beirut in 2008, has been appointed as the UN's special envoy to Syria The UN Security Council on Wednesday threw its weight behind planned talks on Western Sahara as it voted to extend for six months its decades-old mission in the disputed north African territory. The council adopted a US-drafted resolution that renewed the mission, known as MINURSO, until April 30, setting a deadline for progress in the push to relaunch political talks. The resolution was adopted by a vote of 12 in favor in the 15-member council. Russia, Ethiopia and Bolivia abstained. Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Polisario Front have accepted a UN invitation to hold talks in Geneva December 5-6 that could pave the way to formal negotiations on ending the conflict. These meetings will be the first held on Western Sahara since 2012. The United Nations has repeatedly failed to broker a settlement in Western Sahara, where Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario fought for control from 1975 to 1991. One of the UN's oldest missions, MINURSO was deployed in 1991 to monitor a ceasefire and organize a referendum on the status of the territory. That vote however never materialized. A settlement in Western Sahara would allow the United Nations to consider a pullout of MINURSO at a time when the United States, the UN's number one financial backer, is seeking to reduce the cost of peace operations. US Deputy Ambassador Jonathan Cohen told the council that the United States will not allow the Western Sahara conflict "to slip into the shadows" and warned that MINURSO may be on the chopping block. "Further renewals will not be automatic," said Cohen. France, which has friendly ties with Morocco, had pushed for a one-year renewal of the mission to allow the new diplomatic effort to take hold, but in the end bowed to US insistence for a shorter extension. "Shortening mandates seems to us to be a false good idea, without any real impact on the political process," French Ambassador Francois Delattre told the council. The resolution welcomed the decision of the four parties to attend "without preconditions and in good faith" the Geneva talks convened by UN envoy Horst Koehler, a former German president. Morocco however continues to maintain that negotiations on a settlement should focus on its proposal for autonomy for Western Sahara while the Polisario insists that the status of the territory -- a former Spanish colony -- should be decided in a referendum on independence. UN efforts have failed to resolve the conflict over Western Sahara, where Morocco and the Polisario fought a war that ended in 1991; Polisario activists are demanding an independence referendum A Kurdish-led force backed by a US-led coalition said Wednesday it was suspending operations against the Islamic State group after Turkey shelled Kurdish militia posts in northern Syria. The Syrian Democratic Forces, joint Arab-Kurdish units led by the Kurds, announced a "temporary halt" to their operation, launched in eastern Syria on September 10, and condemned Turkey's "provocations". On Wednesday, Turkish shelling of Kurdish positions in the Kobane sector of northern Syria killed four fighters, according to Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency. The SDF condemned what it called the "coordination" of Turkey's attacks with a fightback by jihadists and warned of "a prolonged halt to our military operation" against IS if Ankara keeps up its strikes. Hundreds of Kurdish civilians, carrying party flags, demonstrated in the streets of the northeastern city of Qamishli to denounce the Turkish attacks. Backed by coalition air strikes, the SDF aims to expel IS from a holdout on the Iraqi border, but the jihadists staged a vicious fightback last week under the cover of a sand storm, forcing a retreat. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the IS counter-attack killed at least 72 fighters from the SDF, which is dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). The monitoring group said hundreds of Kurdish fighters, men and women, had since been deployed on the outskirts of the IS holdout of Hajin. On Tuesday, two days after another round of shelling of Kurdish posts in northern Syria, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country had completed preparations for a new operation to "destroy" the YPG militia, which Ankara has branded a terrorist group. The YPG has worked closely with the United States in the fight against IS jihadists in Syria, straining ties between Washington and Ankara. Syrian Kurds demonstrate in Qamishli, northeast Syria, against Turkish shelling of Kurdish militia posts Coalition forces and Syrian Democratic Forces fighters are seen at a command post near the village of Susah in Deir Ezzor province, near the Syrian border with Iraq, on September 14, 2018 A woman has been charged after three young siblings were struck and killed as they tried to board a school bus. Xzavier Ingle, his twin brother, Mason Ingle, both 6, and their sister, Alivia Stahl, 9, all died at the scene from injuries sustained in the crash in Rochester, Indiana, US on Tuesday morning. Indiana State Police arrested Alyssa L. Shepherd, 24, on Tuesday afternoon before laying charges including reckless homicide. Xzavier Ingle, his twin brother, Mason Ingle, both 6, and their sister, Alivia Stahl, 9, all died at the scene from injuries sustained in the crash. Source: WGN TV This was a very bad day for the state of Indiana, Inspector Sergeant Tony Slocum said. First responders dont usually shed tears at crash scenes but there were some tears shed today and of course they were warranted because our hearts go out to the families involved, to everyone involved. Police allege Shepherd passed the bus while the stop arm was extended. Alyssa L. Shepherd, 24, has been charged with reckless homicide. Her Toyota (pictured) was severely damaged in the crash. Source: Indiana State Police A fourth child, Maverik Lowe, 11, was also injured in the crash and was airlifted to hospital in a critical condition. Police say the children were crossing the road to board the empty bus when they were allegedly struck by Shepherds Toyota Tacoma. Police are continuing their investigations. The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed they are also investigating the crash, Fox59 reported. Millions of dead and millions more wounded, widowed and orphaned: the dizzying casualty tolls from World War I are an indication of the scale and horror of the 1914-1918 conflict. A lack of reliable statistics from the 52-month war a century ago makes the figures difficult to pin down, accounting for the sometimes substantial variations between historians. AFP has compiled the most widely accepted figures from the Great War, providing estimates in cases where major discrepancies remain. - More than 70 nations - Even this figure is tricky, as many of the more than 70 current-day nations drawn into the conflict had not yet gained independence from the six empires and colonial powers at its heart: Austria-Hungary, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the Ottoman empire. A dozen independent nations went to war at its start in 1914, the rest entering later, such as Italy in 1915 and the United States in 1917. Together the warring nations accounted for more than 800 million people, which was more than half the world's population at the time. Only around 20 countries across the globe were to remain neutral throughout the conflict, most of them in Latin America or northern Europe. - 70 million troops - About 20 million men were mobilised by the warring parties at the outset, the number rising to around 70 million as the war dragged on and expanded. There were eight million soldiers from France, 13 million from Germany, nine million from Austria-Hungary and six million from Italy. Britain sent nine million men, including troops from around the British Empire, chiefly India. The United States deployed four million. - 10 million soldiers killed - Germany and Russia suffered the highest numbers of dead and wounded, with 10 million soldiers generally estimated to have been killed and more than double that number wounded overall. Here is a broad breakdown: Russia: two million dead, five million injured; Germany: two million dead, 4.2 million injured; France: 1.4 million dead, 4.2 million injured; Austria-Hungary: 1.4 million dead, 3.6 million injured; Britain and British empire: 960,000 dead, two million injured; Italy: 600,000 dead, one million injured; Ottoman empire: 800,000 dead; United States: 117,000 dead. Serbia suffered the worst losses proportional to the size of its army with 130,000 dead and 135,000 wounded, or three-quarters of its forces. The opening weeks of the war exacted the heaviest human toll. For example, 27,000 French soldiers were killed in a single day on August 22, 1914, the deadliest day in the history of the French army. Artillery fire caused 70 percent of the casualties in the fighting, after which between five and six million men were left mutilated for life. The conflict saw the first large-scale use of chemical weapons when German forces deployed chlorine gas at Ypres in Belgium in 1915. Toxic gas eventually claimed 20,000 lives over the war. - Millions of civilians dead - Between five and 10 million civilians are estimated to have been killed in the war and its consequences, which were many and make a precise figure difficult to establish. The toll generally includes those killed in the actual fighting as well as from the resulting forced displacements of populations, famine and the subsequent civil conflicts in Russia, eastern Europe and Turkey. Some historians include the disputed figure of 1.2-1.5 million Armenians massacred in the Ottoman empire. A Spanish influenza epidemic that broke out at the end of the war then spread across the world claimed tens of millions of lives in Europe. - Other figures - - There were six million prisoners of war. - By 1915 about 20 million civilians were living under the occupation of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. Most were in Belgium, France, Poland and Serbia. - The war left 10 million refugees across Europe. - And three million widows and six million orphans. - Around 1.3 billion shells were fired during the conflict. - About 10 billion letters and packages were exchanged between fighters on the front and their loved ones back home. - The war is estimated to have cost the main parties the equivalent of three or four times the combined GDP of its European players, who were left ruined by the conflict. The Vieil Armand military cemetery in France's Vosges region, pictured in 2018, where some 30,000 French and German soldiers died during World War I Estimated toll of WWI dead and injured by country AUBURN The two candidates for the 126th Assembly District didn't disagree on everything during a televised debate at Cayuga Community College Wednesday, but the forum featured a few contentious moments. Early in the debate, Assemblyman Gary Finch and challenger Keith Batman were asked to assess each other's handling of Owasco Lake water issues. Finch, R-Springport, recalled a meeting organized by U.S. Rep. John Katko two years ago to discuss the need for water filtration systems. At the conclusion of the meeting, Finch said Batman, a Cayuga County legislator, told him and state Assemblyman Bob Oaks that they "didn't need to be involved until he let us know." Finch took issue with that because state funding would support the project. He said he was involved in the effort to secure $2 million for the city of Auburn and town of Owasco to install carbon filtration systems. Batman explained that because local officials had made progress in developing ideas for a solution, the meeting Finch referred to was "largely talk." "(Finch and Oaks) had virtually no rule in securing that money,' he said. Finch responded, "It's nice to know that the efforts that we took evidently have fallen on deaf ears. I know where that money came from, and it came from the state of New York and it came through the efforts of Oaks, (state Sen. John DeFrancisco) and myself working together with the other stakeholders to bring that money forward." The foes clashed again during a question about combating corruption in state government. Batman, who supports term limits, eliminating campaign finance loopholes and an independent ethics commission, accused Finch of an "ethical lapse." He was referring to an investigative series published by The Citizen in 2017 that revealed Finch had an Auburn-area businessman, Thomas Galbato, on his payroll. When asked about it at the debate, Finch defended his hiring of Galbato and said he "worked every hour he put on the time sheet." He acknowledged a mistake was made on one time sheet when Galbato reported working for the assemblyman, but was actually recovering from a heart attack. Finch called Galbato a "valuable employee." He said the Tom Thumb Drive In owner brought information to the office and provided guidance on drunk driving. Galbato's wife, Carmella, was killed by a drunk driver in 1979. "There was no ethical issue there whatsoever," said Finch. "He worked for every dime." Batman disagreed. "That investigative report paints a whole different picture," he said. The candidates shared their views on other issues, including the Interstate 81 project. There are a few proposals to replace the I-81 viaduct in Syracuse: A community grid, which would make use of the existing street network; rebuilding the viaduct; or a hybrid community grid-tunnel option. Finch prefers the hybrid option with the tunnel. Batman doesn't have a preference. They agreed that concerns about increasing truck traffic in surrounding communities should be addressed. On education aid, Batman called for changing how schools are funded in New York. The state is one of the few that funds education through property taxes, he said. The formula to determine school aid is "almost impossible to comprehend," Finch said. "There's no fair system, and that's the problem," he added. The final question of the debate asked the candidates why voters should choose a candidate based on whether they will be in the majority or minority conference. Batman has made the case throughout the campaign that he would be better positioned to secure resources because, as a Democrat, he would be in the majority. Finch, who has been a member of the Assembly GOP minority since he was elected in 1999, said he doesn't believe voters should choose a candidate based on if they will be in the majority or not. "It's a question of what you can do," he said. "It's a question about leadership. It's a question about being able to work with your colleagues." Batman agreed that collaboration is important. But he added that it's naive to think that party affiliation doesn't matter in state government. If he's elected to the Assembly, he reiterated that he would be in a better position to secure funding because he would be in the majority. He also noted that if there's a Democratic state Senate, it will be more important to have a Democratic Assembly member to advocate for the district. "It's important to have someone there who has the connections to get the resources," Batman said. Finch will appear on the Republican, Conservative, Independence and Reform party lines. Batman has the Democratic, Women's Equality and Working Families party lines. The 126th district covers parts of Cayuga, Chenango, Cortland and Onondaga counties. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 6. Online producer Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding. Love 2 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Two U.S. senators hope John Mannion will be elected to the state Senate next week. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand endorsed Mannion in the 50th Senate District race Wednesday. Mannion, a Democrat, is running to succeed retiring state Sen. John DeFrancisco, a Republican who has held the seat since 1992. The Republican candidate in the race is Onondaga County Comptroller Bob Antonacci. In separate statements, Gillibrand and Schumer, both Democrats, explained why they are supporting Mannion in the 50th district race. Schumer highlighted Mannion's public service and his role educating thousands of students throughout his 25-year career as a teacher. Mannion is now an Advanced Placement biology teacher at West Genesee High School in Camillus. "John understands the issues facing central New York and he will work tirelessly to get results for his constituents," Schumer said. Gillibrand echoed that sentiment in her endorsement of Mannion. She said the schoolteacher and state Senate candidate understands the needs of the 50th district. Mannion, she added, "has the vision and experience central New York communities need to help kick start the economy, provide real job training and growth, and ensure this region gets its fair share of state aid and investment." New York's U.S. senators have endorsed other candidates for state-level office. Last week, Schumer endorsed Cayuga County Legislator Keith Batman in the 126th Assembly District race. Mannion welcomed Gillibrand and Schumer's support. "For too long, we have been ignored and our region has suffered," he said. "I am going to fight for our communities in the state Senate, and with support from great public servants like Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, I know we will do great things for central New York." Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Ahead of Election Day, business groups reiterated their support of Bob Antonacci in the 50th Senate District race. Antonacci, a Republican, held a press conference Monday at OneGroup in Syracuse with leaders of several New York-based business groups. His supporters include the Upstate Jobs Party, which endorsed Antonacci for the 50th district seat. Martin Babinec, a Mohawk Valley businessman and founder of the Upstate Jobs Party, praised Antonacci's focus on economic issues and the state's population loss. Antonacci is running on the Upstate Jobs Party line. From Antonacci's perspective, the top issue in the race is job creation. "I am committed to cutting taxes, reducing energy costs, and eliminating the regulatory burdens that are holding job creators back," he said. "It's time to roll up our sleeves and work together to create an upstate economy where businesses can grow and thrive." Other business groups were represented at the press conference. The Associated General Contractors of New York State, the Business Council of New York State, the National Federation of Independent Business and Unshackle Upstate are supporting Antonacci in the 50th district race. Antonacci is running to succeed retiring state Sen. John DeFrancisco, a Republican and the outgoing deputy majority leader. DeFrancisco was elected to the seat in 1992. Michael Kracker, executive director of Unshackle Upstate, explained why Antonacci received the group's endorsement. He cited Antonacci's efforts to "stand up for overburdened taxpayers and employers" across the district. "At a time when powerful special interests are trying to weaken the property tax cap and enact a $200 billion government-run health care system, it's critical to have fiscally responsible representatives like Bob Antonacci in Albany," Kracker added. Antonacci's opponent is Democratic candidate John Mannion. Election Day is Tuesday. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 SYRACUSE With less than a week to go until Election Day, Nov. 6, the second-most powerful House Democrat visited central New York Wednesday to support Dana Balter in the 24th Congressional District race. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, joined Balter, D-Syracuse, for a press conference on protecting Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. The pair were surrounded by advocates, health care workers and seniors. Hoyer criticized his Republican colleagues in Congress for suggesting that cuts to the social insurance programs are needed to trim down the national debt. He recalled serving in Congress during President Bill Clinton's tenure and the GOP-led Congress wanted to slash taxes. Clinton, Hoyer said, told Republicans to preserve Social Security first. Medicare and Social Security, he noted, have kept millions of people out of poverty and allowed them to remain self-sufficient after retiring from their jobs. "We want that security to be there for people as they expect and as they need," he said. Proponents of the programs also spoke at the press conference. Pat Greenberg, a retired Crouse Hospital nurse who is supporting Balter in the 24th district race, detailed why the programs are necessary and how they benefit older Americans. Greenberg revealed that she is tending to her elderly parents, who couldn't survive if it wasn't for Medicare. To preserve Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, Balter said the top 5 percent of income earners should be paying into the programs at the same rate as everyone else. She also called for a halt to "irresponsible tax giveaways" to corporations and the wealthy. "We need to be investing those dollars in the programs that people all across our district depend on," she said. Hoyer railed against the tax overhaul the GOP-led Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed last year. Balter's opponent, Republican U.S. Rep. John Katko, was one of four New York GOP members who voted for the tax measure. Hoyer contended that the tax law largely benefits the wealthy and puts health care protections at risk. A provision in the tax legislation eliminates the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate penalty in 2019. The individual mandate requires people to buy health insurance. If they don't, they must pay a fine $695 for adults or 2.5 percent of household income, whichever is greater. Eliminating the individual mandate could have consequences. Insurers sought approval in New York for double-digit premium rate increases next year. The insurance companies cited the individual mandate's repeal as one reason why they proposed rate increases for 2019. "The incumbent in this district," Hoyer said, referring to Katko, "voted to make insurance much more expensive when he voted for the tax bill." That's one reason why Hoyer wants Balter to win the 24th district race. Balter wasn't the House Democrats' preferred candidate in this district. Earlier this year, Hoyer, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and others supported Juanita Perez Williams in a primary against Balter. Despite national Democrats supporting and funding Perez Williams, Balter won the Democratic primary by 25 points. House Democrats began rallying behind Balter over the summer. The race has received more attention after Balter raised more than $1.5 million in the third quarter, a record for a Syracuse-area congressional candidate. Hoyer's political action committee, AmeriPAC, donated $5,000 to Balter's campaign. Balter, Hoyer said, will come to Congress and "make sure that we meet our commitments." "Dana Balter will make a difference," he added. Balter and Katko are in a competitive race for the 24th district seat. While a Siena College poll released Sunday showed Katko with a double-digit lead, developments over the past few weeks suggest the race is much closer than the survey suggests. A Democratic super PAC, House Majority PAC, is running ads in the Syracuse media market. Two GOP outside groups, the Congressional Leadership Fund and National Republican Congressional Committee, are airing ads, too. Political forecasters rate the race "lean Republican," which means Katko is favored to win by a small margin. Online producer Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding. Love 2 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 3 OWASCO A group of about 100 people with a vested interest in the economic development of upstate New York were packed into the Emerson Park Pavilion in Owasco Tuesday. The LOCATE Finger Lakes initiative hosted its first Economic Development Summit at the pavilion. Various business leaders and owners from throughout the state attended the event. The initiative, directed by former state Sen. Mike Nozzolio, is meant to spotlight the Finger Lakes region, with a particular aim toward economic development. After Nozzolio spoke first, a panel discussion on state and regional economic development kicked off. The panelists were Empire State Development Central New York Corporation Regional Director Jim Fayle, Greg Albert, of the Finger Lakes Office of Empire State Development and Southern Tier Deputy Director at Empire State Development Corporation Joseph Roman, all spoke, moderated by Cayuga Economic Development Agency Executive Director Tracy Verrier. Agricultural businesses received some attention at the event. Fayle said there are opportunities for both traditional agricultural avenues such as dairy he cited work Empire State Development has done with Cayuga Milk Ingredients in the past and farming involved with the state's craft brewing industry. "Agriculture is a key industry statewide. I think there's a lot of great opportunities that we can start building on," Fayle said. The summit's keynote speaker was Paul Barrett, publisher for the Finger Lakes Times in Geneva. He has been with the newspaper for 10 years and has worked for papers in states such as Texas. His economic development experience includes stints as the chairman of the East Mississippi Business Development Corporation and efforts with Nozzolio after he moved to New York. He said he wants more people countrywide to know about the Finger Lakes region. "There is a lot of room for improvement here. There is an abundance of energy, of excitement, of brainpower, capability," Barrett said. Other speakers included, Jan Nyrop, the director of the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station, Caitlin Schickel, program coordinator for the Center for Regional Economic Advancement at Cornell University, Brooke Mayer, project associate for the Center of Excellence in Food and Agriculture for Cornell AgriTech, and Judy McKinney Cherry, the executive director for the Schuyler County Partnership for Economic Development. Michelle Walker, work based learning coordinator for Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES, said during the event's lunch period she came to get a sense of where people who spoke believe the economic future of Cayuga County is going and determine how BOCES can best prepare students. She said she got the impression that there is a big focus on agriculture and manufacturing. She said she was happy panelists appeared to be thinking about future developments and about how to ensure people are both present and employed in the region. Andrew Raus, vice president of Northeast Buildings for the architecture, engineering and planning group Bergmann Associates, said having so many people with different experiences under the same roof can be an incredible learning opportunity. "The real value of an event like this is it's not every day you get all of these people in one room," Raus said. Staff writer Kelly Rocheleau can be reached at (315) 282-2243 or kelly.rocheleau@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @KellyRocheleau. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. AUBURN Miss Mary Elizabeth Oropallo, 90, of North Fulton Street, Auburn, died on Monday, Oct. 29, 2018, at her home. Miss Oropallo was born in Auburn, the daughter of Philip and Genevieve Leston Oropallo and was a member of Holy Family Church. She enjoyed knitting and crossword puzzles. Along with her parents, she was predeceased by her two brothers, Philip and Robert. She is survived by several cousins. There will be no calling hours. A Mass of Christian burial will be celebrated at 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3, 2018, in Holy Family Church. Interment will be in St. Josephs Cemetery, Fleming. Arrangements are with Farrells Funeral Service, Inc., 84 South St., Auburn. You may not be in the habit of voting for Democrats, but a vote for Keith Batman has little to do with party and much to do with helping the Finger Lakes get needed resources from the state. I am a Republican, I was given support under the local Democratic Party line in a previous re-election, and I will be voting to send Batman to Albany. You may have good impressions of Gary Finch because he has a familiar name, he is congenial and the incumbent, but the hard facts are these: the Assembly currently has 103 Democrats and 41 Republicans. Gary Finch will never be in the majority party. Being in the majority party has consequences; I see one of those positive consequences as having a better chance of access to state funds for my township and the Finger Lakes region. Because Gary Finch is in the minority, Albany simply doesnt have to give him what he asks for. You may like the idea that Gary Finch is from here, knows what this area needs and can be a voice for upstate. The same can be said for Keith Batman. He has lived in Cayuga County and has been an active member of the community for years. Batman has been an outstanding Cayuga County legislator, Scipio town supervisor, school board member and educator. He has spoken up for countless individuals, businesses and organizations. He has certainly spoken up for me and for those of us in southern Cayuga County. Batman also knows which roads need paving and which waterways need to be preserved. He will listen to the concerns that our townships have with the state Department of Transportation which previously have fallen on deaf-ear. Batman also knows what kind of tax breaks will best help the region succeed. Batman knows which community organizations can do the most with grant money. Not always hand-outs but perhaps hand-ups. Batman can represent our shared local interests just like Finch does, but because Batman will be in the majority party, he can get our region the funds it needs to thrive. Have you considered who can better represent you, where you live and why? You dont have to agree with the Democratic Party to vote for Keith Batman. You only have to want the Finger Lakes to get a seat at the table and its fair share of state funding. A vote for Batman gives our shared local interests that seat. Vote Batman for state assemblyman, District 126. Lorie Sellen-Gross Genoa Lorie Sellen-Gross is town supervisor of Genoa. Love 0 Funny 3 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 After a federal judge threw out Stormy Daniels defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump earlier this month, Trump vowed to go after the AVN Hall of Famerwhom he also insulted by calling her horseface, as AVN.com reported. Trumps effort to go after Daniels began in earnest on Monday, when Trump filed a motion in a Los Angeles federal court, demanding that Daniels pay his lawyers feesto the tune of a whopping $342,000. According to the motion filed by Trumps lawyer Charles Harder, Trump's attorneys tried to meet with Daniels lawyer Michael Avenatti to discuss a settlement of the fees soon after Judge S. James Otero dismissed the lawsuit. But Avenatti claimed he was too busy, eventually setting up a phone meeting which took place October 26. But on that call, Avenatti refused to come to terms over the fee payment, and vowed to oppose any effort by Trumps lawyers to collect. We now know that Trump believes in legalizing marijuana, Avenatti quipped to Bloomberg News. This request is nothing compared to what he will owe my client, he added referring to Daniels other lawsuit against Trump, over a $130,000 hush money deal designed to keep Daniels quiet about her 2006 sexual encounter with Trump. The defamation lawsuit was prompted when Trump took to his Twitter account to deride Daniels claim that she was physically threatened by a man invoking Trumps name as a total con job. The new Trump filing claims that Daniels filed her lawsuit against Trump not because it had any merit, but instead for the ulterior purposes of raising her media profile, engaging in political attacks against the president by herself and her attorney, who has appeared on more than 150 national television news interviews attacking the President and now is exploring a run for the presidency himself in 2020. Avenatti called the $342,000 sum Trump claims Daniels owes him, a number created out of whole cloth, according to The New York Post. Otero dismissed the defamation case, ruling that Trumps total con job statement fell under the category of rhetorical hyperbole normally associated with politics and public discourse. In dismissing the case, he ruled that Daniels must reimburse Trump for his lawyers fees, but no amount was specified. Photo by Gary / Wikimedia Commons Should Beaufort County elected officials demand that every alleged incident of Child Rape be investigated in Beaufort County? Yes, without fail, irrespective of the parties involved; this heinous crime must be investigated, and the truth be known. John Adcock, Republican (appointed incumbent). Occupation: Attorney, small business owner. Education: Appalachian State University, double major bachelor's degrees in community/regional planning and geography. The Catholic University of America, master's in international affairs. Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, juris doctorate. Career Highlights: Contracting officer for the U.S. Department of Defense international office. Local government land use planner. Worked on Town of Boone Planning Commission. Sydney Batch, Democrat. Occupation: Attorney, small business owner. Education:UNC-Chapel Hill, bachelor's, master's of social work, and juris doctorate degrees. Career highlights: 10th Judicial District Grievance Committee member. Adjunct faculty member for UNC School of Government continuing legal education. Former N.C. Family Court Advisory Committee member. Former board member Wake County Women's Center. Guy Meilleur, Libertarian. No profile available. CJ Photo by Kari Travis House District 37 (covers southern Wake County bordering Johnston, Harnett, and Chatham counties.)Education, health care, and transportation are among candidates' top issues in a southeast Wake County battleground district.Republican incumbent John Adcock, Democrat Sydney Batch, and Libertarian Guy Meilleur are vying to fill the House District 37 seat left vacant Aug. 31 when first-term Republican Linda Hunt Williams resigned. Her husband got a job in Louisiana, and the Republican House Executive Committee unanimously selected Adcock to complete her unexpired term.The N.C. FreeEnterprise Foundation, which closely tracks state elections and voter behavior patterns, rates the district competitive, although Hunt Williams won in a three-way race with 52 percent of the vote in 2016.For years, political battles have percolated in North Carolina over gerrymandered legislative and congressional districts. House District 37 was among those involved in federal court-ordered changes this year, but the U.S. Supreme Court blocked a revised map of the district from being implemented.The district is still part of a state court lawsuit seeking to declare it unconstitutional.Calls to establish a nonpartisan, independent redistricting commission have intensified amid the spate of lawsuits. Adcock is receptive to such a change.he said.Adcock said improvements to transportation are greatly needed, and must be a priority.Adcock said.Carolina Journal made several attempts to contact Batch. Her campaign declined to arrange an interview, and did not respond to an email with questions. She announced in August she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She took some time off from campaigning, but said she would remain in the race.Meilleur did not respond to requests for an interview.Batch said on her Facebook pageand that she willshe said on her Facebook page.Adcock said parents should have options for their children, and that is why he is an advocate for well-run charter schools and school vouchers.Adcock said.He supports more classroom resources, efforts to retain good teachers, and increased teacher pay.Adcock wants to support more programs for post-secondary vocational education and training.he said.Adcock said if elected he will continue to support a strong, vibrant local economy, and effective, state-of-the-art schools.he said. Contest marks culture clash between GOP incumbent Ted Budd, a Davie County businessman, and Democrat Kathy Manning, a Greensboro attorney and philanthropist Ted Budd, Republican (first-term incumbent). Education: Appalachian State University, bachelor's degree in business management. Wake Forest University, MBA. Dallas Theological Seminary, master's in educational leadership. Career highlights: The Budd Group, family-owned facility services business. Owner of Pro Shots, and firearm retail store, training center, and indoor range. Board member, North Carolinians for Home Education Kathy Manning, Democrat. Occupation: Attorney specializing in immigration law. Education: Harvard University, bachelor's degree. University of Michigan, law degree. Career highlights: The Jewish Federations of North America, board chairwoman. Former partner at major law firm. Worked with various civic and religious organizations. Fundraiser for community projects. N.C. 13th U.S. Congressional District (Southwestern half of Guilford County, and parts of Forsyth, Davidson, Davie, Rowan, and Iredell counties.)As the Nov. 6 midterm elections approach, many pundits project Democrats will retake the majority in the House of Representatives and think North Carolina's 13th Congressional District could figure in that blue wave.The race between incumbent Rep. Ted Budd, a Republican, and Democratic challenger Kathy Manning is the "biggest culture clash in the country," according to one political analyst.It isn't hard to see why the Cook Political Report would characterize the 13th District race that way. The district itself is a clash of cultures, stretching from the progressive suburbs of Greensboro into the more rural areas of the western Piedmont.The candidates reflect these differences. Budd is a businessman involved in The Budd Group, his family's facility services company. He also owns and operates a gun shop and shooting range in the Davie County town of Advance.Budd writes on his website,Manning is a Greensboro-based attorney and philanthropist. Most recently she played a major role in raising private funds for Greensboro's Tanger Center for the Performing Arts. The $78.1 million center, which will be completed by June 2019, is a "public-private partnership," with half the funds coming from Greensboro taxpayers, and the other half coming from private donations.The race is tight both in the polls and in fundraising. A New York Times poll from Oct. 3-8 had Budd leading Manning 47 percent to 41 percent, with 12 percent undecided. Real Clear Politics lists the race a toss-up. Its average of polls from Oct. 3-12 had Budd leading 45.5 percent to 41 percent.Manning holds the fundraising advantage, with a total of $1.9 million raised compared to Budd's $1.2 million.The contest has become more heated as it heads to the wire. Both the Budd campaign and a political action committee supporting him have aired ads claiming Manning is benefitting from a $30 million taxpayer-funded downtown Greensboro parking deck. The facility would service a Westin hotel in which Manning's husband, Randall Kaplan, is an investor.Manning said the ads are "riddled with lies," and she has nothing to do with the Westin project.Manning's campaign did not respond to requests for an interview.Budd doubled down on his claims in an interview with Carolina Journal. He said people parking in downtown GreensboroBudd runs on a straightforward, conservative platform, saying American citizensHe voted against a defense appropriation bill in September, arguing in a press release itCJ asked Budd if he anticipated the cutthroat, inside-the-beltway atmosphere when he was elected in 2016.he said.Budd believes policies enacted by the Republican-led Congress and Trump - most notably individual and corporate tax cuts - will continue to have a positive effect should Republicans maintain control of Congress.Budd said.The biggest issue to tackle is the national debt. Democrats claim Republicans will cut Social Security and Medicare in an effort to reduce the debt. Budd considers the claim "laughable." He said many on the opposite side of the aisle want to expand Medicare to provide universal health insurance to everyone at a cost of $32 trillion over a decade.Budd, who serves on the House Financial Services Committee, said the best way to trim the debt is to continue growing the economy.he said.Budd thinks the debt can be whittled down by keeping spending flat. He praised Trump's request that his cabinet present a 5 percent spending reduction.Budd said.The GOP will have to hold its majorities in the midterm election to maintain the progress, he said.Budd said.Manning's website lists the standard issues most candidates say they'll fight for: Jobs, better education, and health care.Manning says she'll fight for good paying jobs for North Carolinians, addingTrade has been a hot-button issue since Trump was elected in 2016. Manning saidHealth care became a personal issue for Manning when her daughter became ill several years ago. She said sheManning also supports allowing Medicare to negotiate more affordable prescription drug prices.A big question is how Manning would govern should Democrats flip the House. Some say the party is becoming more extreme. They point to the controversy surrounding the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Democrats' vow to fight Trump on every issue.Manning aired an ad stating she would not support Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-California, for House speaker if Democrats reclaim the chamber.Manning said in the ad. Mike Clampitt, Republican (one-term incumbent). Occupation: Retired firefighter. Education: Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, fire science and technology. Career highlights: Sergeant-at-arms in the N.C. General Assembly. Charlotte Fire Department captain. Joe Sam Queen, Democrat. Occupation: Architect. Education: N.C. State University, architecture and master of architecture degrees. Career highlights: Three-term state senator, two-term state representative. Teaching fellow, N.C. State University. President, director, and member of numerous civic boards. "And, being from here in the mountains of Western North Carolina, I am familiar with the challenges our youth, working families, and seniors face. Because of my diverse background, it gives me an opportunity to promote, work, and get results for our region." N.C. House District 119 (Swain and Jackson counties, part of Haywood County)For voters in House District 119, it's a case of deja vu all over again. Republican incumbent Mike Clampitt and Democrat Joe Sam Queen are battling in another general election to win the legislative seat.This is the fourth consecutive election in which the two have squared off. Clampitt beat Queen by 277 votes in the 2016 election. Queen defeated Clampitt in 2012 and 2014.The district is listed as competitive by the N.C. FreeEnterprise Foundation, which closely tracks state elections and voting behavior patterns. Both candidates stress their experience as a factor in why voters should give them the edge in the toss-up race.Clampitt said.Clampitt thinks the largest challenges the district faces relate to drug abuse and mental health concerns.he said.Queen, who served a combined 10 years in the state House and Senate, did not respond to repeated requests from Carolina Journal for an interview.His campaign website lays out his priorities, and he is active on social media. The website includes a page "about Joe Sam Queen" that states he is "Passionate. Experienced. Effective." It lists professional accomplishments, board memberships, civic activities, and affiliations, memberships, and awards.His website also has pages for three policy topics - jobs, education, and health care. Queen's posted comments on health care focus on expanding Medicaid, and his ability to attract money to the area.Queen's campaign website stresses thatIt mentions K-12 education, community colleges, universities, and internet access as critical areas. Queen makes no mention of school choice.Clampitt said education is important, but he also believes strongly in school choice.Clampitt said.The candidates differ on some of the six state constitutional amendments voters will decide on the Nov. 6 ballot. Clampitt supports all six, and is a cosponsor of two of them: Marsy's Law, to give victims greater rights in the criminal justice system; and to require voter identification at the polls.Queen's web page makes no reference to the proposed amendments. He has, however, posted links on Twitter to articles questioning proposed amendments on judicial vacancies and the state elections board which would reduce the governor's power. It happened at the Commissioners meeting on October 1, and again at a special called meeting on October 22 2018. The Beaufort County Commissioners approved an ordinance and a contract without a review by the board in open session. Simply put, they did the same thing the Democrats did when ObamaCare was passed.On October 1, by a vote of six to one, an ordinance regulating solar farms was approved without a review by the entire board in open session. The proposed ordinance was presented three days before the meeting. During the 22 years I have been a commissioner we have never approved an ordinance, or for that matter anything else, without a review of the item in public. This is a prime example of backroom dealing. With only three days for commissioners to look at the ordinance and zero time for the public to review, a public hearing was held at the October 1 meeting and a vote taken.I objected to the procedure because it was a cram down. There are several regulations in the ordinance that are un-enforceable. Moreover, there are other serious defects. There is a good chance the solar industry may sue to get reasonable regulations. The method of enforcement is questionable because outside contractors are empowered to make enforcement decisions. That appears to be an unlawful delegation of government power to private parties.It is not that I am against any solar ordinance but this ordinance is intended not to regulate the industry but to stop all solar development in Beaufort County. The courts will have a field day with this, at great expense to the taxpayers, if this is challenged in court.The bad thing about the solar industry is the number of politicians at the federal and state levels who have been bought off by the large sums of money funneled to the Federal and state Democrat and Republican caucuses. There is no question the public pays subsidies to the industry and this results a higher cost for electricity. All of this came out of the Obama administration. The only good thing about solar is that land owners in Beaufort County can make in one year of leasing what they could make in five years farming. I favor the local farmer.This ordinance has major flaws in that it presents regulations that are virtually impossible to enforce. It is the work of Ron Buzzeo and Frankie Waters.It happened again on October 22. FEMA threw a monkey wrench into the collection of yard waste generated by Hurricane Florence. Beaufort County had a contract in place for a company to collect the waste. The contract was developed in advance and was to be activated simply by us calling the contractor. The contractor would go to work within a few days of the call. FEMA claimed, because of new federal regulations, that our contract should be re-bid with some changes or they would not pay us for the cleanup. This is why waste has not been picked up.We re-bided the contract according to FEMA requirements. Beaufort County staff did not make the decision of who to award the new contract to based solely on price. They used a system that is used for employing professionals. This system is subjective which means the contract can go to whomever is the favorite bidder as opposed to a competitive bidding process. The contract was awarded to the company that had the bid before FEMA required us to change the contract.Here is the ugly part. The Board was never presented with a copy of the new contract. We were given the agenda (one sheet) and another sheet talking about the process. The amount of money the contractor is to be paid was never stated. The manager gave a brief summary. The Board voted five to one to approve the contract. Jerry Langley was absent. I voted against the contract because I have never seen it. Does anyone see anything wrong? The meeting may have lasted ten minutes.The issue is the same with the solar ordinance and the trash pick-up contract. Secret government. Failure to follow an open public process. Failure of allowing both the public and the Board of Commissioners to examine the issues, the terms and conditions of the ordinance and contract. In both cases the Board approved an ordinance and a contract without performing their fiduciary duty to the public. Who is going to pay for the lawsuits that will probably come from the flawed solar ordinance? What if FEMA refuses to pay all of the cost of trash pickup or there is a contractor dispute with the county for trash pickup? The County is required to pay the contractor and then negotiate with FEMA to get our money back. The answer is that you, the taxpayer, is on the hook in both cases.With the election of Fake Frankie Waters, along with the other phony Republicans to the Board within the last four years, we are making more and more decisions in the backroom. Our budget is in excess of 60 million dollars per year. We only meet once each month and that meeting is getting shorter and shorter. That is because more and more decisions are made in secret. Fake Frankie Waters is using the same tactics that resulted in the failure of Tri-County Telephone Company, the Beaufort County Hospital and the Belhaven Hospital. That is, Secret Governance.The present Board of Commissioners is providing no oversight to county government. A part of that proof is in their willingness to accept whatever the staff presents to them as gospel. That is why we have spent ten million dollars of savings and have 8 million dollars that is off budget this year alone. Now they are trying to build a new jail complex again without the public knowing what is going on, and have added 90 employees during the past three years.This is why the sheriff is wildly spending money. Because of lack of oversight, we just three months ago, wrote a check for $346,000 for medical care for one prisoner. The Sheriffs excuse was he did not know anything about it until he got the bill. Not one word of reprimand was issued to anyone, nor was anything done to prevent it from happening again. This is gross negligence. During this month the Sheriff is spending $80,000 for new guns and changing uniforms again. Why? If there was money in the Sheriff's budget for these un-necessary expenses why did the Board of Commissioners take $346,000 out of fund balance to cover the medical bill?You can stop all of this by not voting for Fake Frankie Waters and Ernie Coleman on November 6th. Help clean up the Beaufort County swamp. Dr. Ford Grant, faculty director of the School of Dental Medicines community service learning center in Ahoskie, talks with patient Amber Doering. The dental school has received national recognition for its innovative approach to dental education. (Photos by Rhett Butler) ECU fourth-year dental student Velvet McClurkin discusses the results of an oral exam with patient Tommy Pearson at the dental schools community service-learning center in Ahoskie. The national organization representing all U.S. and Canadian dental schools announced last week that a 2019 award for innovation will go to the School of Dental Medicine at East Carolina University. It is the first national honor to recognize the university for its breakthrough approach to providing practical experience for future dentists through rural service-learning centers across North Carolina.The American Dental Education Association's (ADEA) ADEAGies Foundation said the ECU dental school is a recipient of the William J. Gies Award for Vision, Innovation and Achievement, in the Innovation category. The mission of the foundation, which is the philanthropic arm of the ADEA, is to enhance oral health through transformational advances in dental education, research, leadership and recognition.The annual Gies Award honors individuals and organizations who exemplify the highest standards in oral health and dental education, research and leadership.said Dr. Richard W. Valachovic, president and CEO of the ADEA.The ECU School of Dental Medicine earned the designation for strategically placing eight state-of-the-art service-learning centers in rural and underserved communities across North Carolina where dental students and residents can hone their skills. The centers and on-campus dental clinics have treated nearly 60,000 patients since the first center opened in 2012-many of whom previously had little or no access to dental care.said Dr. Greg Chadwick, dean.The community service-learning centers-overseen by faculty directors who establish roots as active members of these communities-treat patients while providing students and residents vital education and hands-on clinical experiences.said ECU Chancellor Dr. Cecil P. Staton.Last year, the UNC Board of Governors awarded Chadwick the 2017 Gov. James E. Holshouser Jr. Award for Excellence in Public Service. That honor focused on the efforts of Chadwick and the School of Dental Medicine to improve the quality of life for North Carolina's citizens.The school's community service-learning centers are based in Ahoskie, Brunswick County, Davidson County, Elizabeth City, Lillington, Robeson County, Spruce Pine and Sylva. Fourth-year dental students complete nine-week rotations at three different centers to experience a range of patients and cases and to live in diverse communities as they learn.The School of Dental Medicine graduated its first class in 2015 and now boasts more than 200 alumni. While many of those are in the process of completing dental residencies or military obligations out of state, 71 percent are already practicing in North Carolina.The 2019 Gies Awards will be presented on March 18 in tandem with the 2019 ADEA Annual Session & Exhibition in Chicago. On Monday, President Trump announced to Axios on HBO that he would pursue an executive order to outlaw birthright citizenship just before the election. "It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment," Trump stated. "Guess what? You don't." He then added, "You can definitely do it with an act of Congress. But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order...We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States...with all of those benefits. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end."Trump isn't wrong that the United States is one of only two developed countries to maintain birthright citizenship (the other is Canada). But it's dicey whether an executive order could simply change birthright citizenship, or whether an act of Congress could.At issue is the interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which provides:The key phrase here is "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." As Ilya Shapiro of CATO Institute points out, that phrase was originally written to exclude the children of Native American tribes from American citizenship - since those children were subject to the jurisdiction of Native American governance - as well as the children of foreign diplomats and soldiers from abroad fighting on American land. The amendment was specifically written in order to guarantee the citizenship of freed slaves and their children, in order to abrogate the Supreme Court's despicable Dred Scott ruling. Senator Jacob Howard (R-MI) explained the purpose of theprovision:In 1884, the Supreme Court ruled that a Native American born under the jurisdiction of a Native American tribe could not unilaterally make himself a United States citizen, since "no one can become a citizen of a nation without its consent." In 1898, the Supreme Court ruled that Wong Kim Ark, a child born in the United States to legal resident Chinese immigrants, was included in the birthright citizenship provided by the 14th Amendment. In 1982, the Supreme Court ruled that for a state to deny public benefits to the child of illegal immigrants would be illegal; Justice William Brennan wrote in a footnote, "[N]o plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment 'jurisdiction' can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful."The Court has never fully decided on whether the 14th Amendment protects the children of illegal immigrants - people who are clearly subject to the jurisdiction of foreign countries. Illegal immigrants have a right under the Vienna Convention to consular contact if they arrested for a crime, for example. It seems highly unlikely that the framers of the 14th Amendment meant to include the children of illegal immigrants. But the Supreme Court has also been warmer toward birthright citizenship to children of illegal immigrants than the text would warrant.Presumably, Trump knows that an executive order will immediately be challenged in court, and then taken to the Supreme Court. That's his goal. So no, an executive order won't immediately take effect, and even an act of Congress would be litigated. But the issue itself isn't quite as clear-cut as advocates for birthright citizenship maintain. The IPKat has had his portrait painted by the AmeriKat - raising another issue of non-human authorship/ownership "Last Friday was a remarkable day in the history of art sales. For the first time a painting made entirely using Artificial Intelligence was sold at auctioning house Christies New York Edmond de Belamy, from La Famille de Belamy was originally estimated at $7,000-$10,000 but ultimately sold for the staggering amount of $432,500 (including fees). Much like a painting of human origin, the painting sold at Christies was signed by the artist with a core component of the algorithm that created it:min G max D Ex[log(D(x))]+Ez[log(1-D(G(z))]. The artist's signature? Edmond de Belamy come into existence? It essentially comes down to teaching a computer how to paint. The portrait was made with machine learning algorithms called Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). These algorithms are capable of generating images by mimicking characteristics of images from a training dataset (but are also capable of generating other output such as music and text). The artist Pierre Fautrel of the Paris-based art collective Obvious Art (which includes Hugo Caselles-Dupre and Gauthier Vernier) inserted 15,000 portraits dating from the 14th to the 20th century into the software, enabling it to make portraits itself. This led to a series of eleven unique images Edmond de Belamy is one. So how did this portrait of the imaginarycome into existence? It essentially comes down to teaching a computer how to paint. The portrait was made with machine learning algorithms called Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). These algorithms are capable of generating images by mimicking characteristics of images from a training dataset (but are also capable of generating other output such as music and text). The artist Pierre Fautrel of the Paris-based art collective(which includes Hugo Caselles-Dupre and Gauthier Vernier) inserted 15,000 portraits dating from the 14to the 20century into the software, enabling it to make portraits itself. This led to aportraying the Belamy family, of whichis one. The sale of Edmond de Belamy raises fundamental questions as to how centuries of IP law will interact with AI, the obvious question being whether there can be copyright in an AI-created portrait. Visually these paintings can hardly (if at all) be distinguished from paintings of human origin, supporting the view that if copyright protects expression (as opposed to an idea), there is an artistic expression to some extent. On the one hand, the AI can be seen as a tool used by a human artist. On the other hand, one could argue that the AI itself is emulating creativity, not the person feeding data to the machine. But is that enough, or even relevant for copyright law's purposes? Even assuming there can be copyright protection, a fierce debate can be held over who is the author and, therefore, who owns it. Is it Pierre Fautrel, who used the software to create the series of paintings and selected the paintings for the dataset, or are we in the realms of joint ownership with the creator of the algorithms? These questions will become more difficult to answer with the increasing potential of independently operating AI systems [particularly if AI datasets are pulling from open source material, notes the AmeriKat] . The answers to these questions can have far reaching implications, from everyday issues such as whether Edmond de Belamy can be freely copied by others, to more peculiar questions, for example, with respect to the droit de suite. With the fast-paced development of AI algorithms, their broad applicability, and the recent high-value auction of Edmond de Belamy, these questions will have to be answered. National courts are likely to grapple with these questions sooner rather than later. Under Dutch law there is a rather low threshold for obtaining copyright protection. Hence, if presented in front of a Dutch court, copyright protection would likely be afforded as long as human choices such as feeding specific information to the software are involved. Even if no human choices are involved other than in creating the software, for example by connecting the software to Google images for its data input, copyright protection would likely be afforded to the person who wrote the software, both for the software and the resulting painting. A distinct IP question is what are people paying for when buying AI paintings? In legal terms they are buying a physical object. To the extent that any copyright exists (which may differ from territory to territory) they may also be getting an implicit or implied license. However, not all purchase agreements provide much clarity on what rights the buyer is getting. It is questionable whether amounts in the range of $432,500 would be paid for non-exclusive AI paintings. [Which creates a fun question as to whether, when Christie's delivers your painting, they also give you a hard drive with the code, says the AmeriKat] . A more policy driven question also needs to be answered: Why are buyers willing to pay so much for AI art? Is it the concept of buying a new and currently still rather unique form of art? In other words, is this a first time value? Or are people paying for the actual (artistic?) expression of the algorithms?" On the final question of authorship, Caselles-Dupre explained that: "If the artist is the one that creates the image, then that would be the machine. If the artist is the one that holds the vision and wants to share the message, then that would be us. " What do readers think? Perhaps the answer to that last question may answer whether copyright subsists and should protect such works and which part of the subject-matter, muses the AmeriKat. If emotion has little to do with so many protectable works now, then why treat AI any differently? Does it matter that this form of AI algorithm is using data sets to imitate previous work in creating a new work (i.e. GAN), as opposed to the CAN (Creative Adversarial Networks) system at Rutgers which is using data sets to create novel works - something different than the data? Or are different AI systems just doing what artists have done for centuries - imitating and breaking the mold?On the final question of authorship, Caselles-Duprethat:What do readers think? being her medium of choice since kittenhood.The paintbrush is dictated by the AmeriKat's paw which, in turn, is dictated by the spark of artistic expression and emotion lighting up the hemispheres of her brain. Artistic expression which cannot be downloaded, decoded or analyzed in any complete way. It is this artistic expression and the old image of the tortured, hungry and, often, poor artist, that historically fueled some of the philosophic underpinnings of some copyright systems and, in particular, purportedly justified moral rights and duration extensions.Over the last century, the subject matter of copyright has seen an expansion as the proliferation of information has created "new" subject matter capable of protection with the justifications for protection aligning more with traditional economic rationales of copyright and IP systems. So what happens when a "modern" technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), meets a field more closely associated with the romantic (big and little 'R') notions of copyright. Last week's story from New York, sheds some light on these issues. The AmeriKat has turned to Kat friend,at Dutch IP firm, Brinkhof , who reports on last week's news: How Do We Stop Mass Murder? By Rob Morse. October 28th, 2018 Article Original After the murders at the Pittsburg Synagogue, I keep seeing this question on Quora; 'How do we stop mass murder?' Most of the people asking this question feel strongly about things they don't understand. They have not studied the issues of physical defense or contemporary mental health. I'm sorry to give them the bad news, but there is no magic button to fix the human condition. There is hope. We can not eliminate mass murder, but we can reduce it. i. We developed mass murderers after we developed mass media. Stop rewarding narcissistic murderers with a billion dollars of publicity. ii. Almost all mass murders are in so called "gun-free" zones. Make the government strictly liable for every injury in a government mandated "gun-free" zone. iii. Make owners/operators strictly liable for every injury in a privately mandated "gun-free" zones. I'm tempted to add that we should hold bureaucrats responsible for the crazy people they release back into society, but we have never found a way to hold bureaucrats responsible. To claim that as a solution is magical thinking and this isn't a blog about speculative fiction. The three things I mentioned won't end the problem of mass murder, but they will help a lot. If you doubt that conclusion, then please consider this; Is there any "gun-free" zone where we have not found a gun? I have not found a single one. I've also heard people propose more background checks and more bureaucratic "no-buy" lists. That sounds too good to be true..and it is. Gun prohibition would disarm an honest citizen like me, but prohibition has not stopped criminals or determined murderers. Rob outlines three very relevant ways to mitigate the problem. The first is one which in essence JPFO is heavily promoting - "Don't Inspire Evil" - put a stop to excessive media exposure on such events and in particular constantly showing suspect images. The second and third involving "Gun-free-zones" is perhaps obvious to those who understand the problem best, whereby it should be known that crminals will never obey such a restriction. Then, hold bodies and authorities liable for the results of death and injury in these 'controlled' places. Of course, many fail to see the logic in such an approach. Back to Top Even if Anthony had a year to analyze and dissect each piece...(he couldn't tell if it would)... stand the harsh light of public exposure. WUWT insider Willis Eschenbach tells you all you need to know about Anthony Watts and his blog, WattsUpWithThat (WUWT). As part of his scathing commentary , Wondering Willis accuses Anthony Watts of being clueless about the blog articles he posts. To paraphrase: Click here to read more. Guest Post By Dr. William Oliver Hedgepeth Faculty Member, Transportation and Logistics Management, American Public University If you are not into logistics, supply chain management, manufacturing or warehousing, you might not ever think about where products begin. Each element is important and a part of the often invisible supply chain for all products. The items you purchase in a grocery store, for example, represent the end product of a complex spider web of raw materials and finished products in constant motion. The Vanilla Shortage and Supply Chain Management Our food supply chains can be affected by manmade incidents and Mother Natures disasters. If you love to visit your favorite bakery, you may have noticed the price of donuts increasing over the past few years due to the rising cost of vanilla. The price of vanilla beans was $100 per kilogram in 2015. By the end of 2017, vanilla cost $500 per kilogram and its price is likely to increase further in 2018. The problem for vanilla is that 80% of the crop comes from a special orchid grown in one place, Madagascar. It takes five or more years for the crop to replenish itself before it can be harvested again. The collapse of the vanilla supply chain was compounded by another supply chain element, the living things that pollinate the orchid. In all parts of the world, a key worker in the fields is the bee. The enemy of the vanilla flower were the rains that ripped across Madagascar and destroyed acres of plants, creating a shortage of vanilla beans. Honey Bees Offer Lesson in Proper Supply Chain Management Dr. Wayne Surles has studied the honey bee for over 20 years, looking into what helps and what hurts the bees in the making of honey. He examined pesticides that affect honey production as well as other agricultural products. Dr. Surles says that 30% of the honey bee population is lost each winter and in the summer months. The Richmond Beekeepers Association keeps statistics and information on how to protect honey bees so they can do their job of pollination and produce honey. Currently, there appear to be nearly two and a half million beehives in the U.S. When it is time to pollinate fruit trees and other crops, bees are often shipped around the country to do the all-important job of fertilizing crops. However, it seems that bees are dying from a lack of the proper amount of nectar and pollen that sustain them. Also, a mysterious illness known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has destroyed untold numbers of beehives. A survey of nearly 5,000 beekeepers across the United States found a third of the bees they managed died from this disorder between April 2016 and March 2017. As a result, the natural swarming of bees in time for the growing season is in decline and a new supply chain has emerged. If the honey bee was the beginning of that jar of honey in its supply chain, now we have to extend that supply chain to a new origin the beekeeper. Beekeepers now travel around the county to the farms with hives of honey bees, the starting point of so many agricultural products, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services reports. Those transportation costs and the upkeep of beehives must then be added to the cost of gathering that honey or other foods. The extension of the supply chain starting point for honey is now longer and more complex. Pesticides Also Affecting Supply Chain Management But there is another enemy of this new starting point besides CCD. It comes in the form of pesticides that are resistant to insects, including the honey bee. Currently, companies that produce great agricultural products, such as Bayer and Monsanto, also continue to manufacture pesticides to control weeds and kill bugs that destroy crops. There is a large and growing chorus of people against the increased use of such pesticides and herbicides, which could also contribute to the spread of CCD. The starting point of the new fruit and vegetable supply chain in the U.S. is under attack from a manmade enemy, even more so than from too much rain, wind, and sun. I own an old farm with fruit trees. The farm used to have a huge blackberry bush that attracted bees and bugs. I killed the bees and bugs with pesticides and sprayed so much Roundup on the weeds that the blackberry bush died and the pesticide got into the soil. As a result, my fruit trees have not produced but a handful of apples, peaches, and pears in the past five years. I am part of the man-made problem responsible for the new food supply chain beginning. Have I learned my lesson? Yes. But others need to earn to be careful too. Supply chains are useful, but they are vulnerable to the whims of Mother Nature and human actions. About the Author Dr. Oliver Hedgepeth is a full-time professor at American Public University (APU). He is the former program director of three academic programs: Reverse Logistics Management, Transportation and Logistics Management and Government Contracting. Dr. Hedgepeth was a tenured associate professor of Logistics and chair of the Logistics Department at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He has published two books, RFID Metrics and How Grandma Braided the Rain. To toss or not to toss? That is the question. Whether you should toss your medications after the expiration date or keep them remains a widely debated topic. Though studies have shown some medications keep their potency far past their expiration dates, for most medications, the expiration date is there for a reason. Here are just a few examples of situations where using expired medications might do more harm than good: 1. Some medications are more sensitive to the environment that others. Factors like temperature, sunlight, and humidity can cause many medications to break down and lose their strength. For instance, the blood thinner dabigatran (Pradaxa) is so sensitive to moisture that the manufacturer recommends you keep the medication in its original container and discard it 4 months after opening the bottle. In other words, the clock starts ticking on these capsules from the moment you open the bottle. Imagine what would happen if you took this medication 8 or 9 months after having opened the bottle? It probably wouldnt work very well, and you could be putting yourself at risk for blood clots, stroke, or worse. 2. Some health conditions require very specific doses without a lot of wiggle room. Several examples come to mind hereone being thyroid disease. Think of your thyroid as a picky eater with a Goldilocks syndrome: It doesnt like the porridgeor the medication dose too high or too low. It likes its medication dose just rightand every single time, at that. Any dose other than what the thyroid needs can make it very unhappy and make you feel worse. Lets say an expired bottle of thyroid medication contains 95% of the actual active ingredient instead of the full amount guaranteed if used by the expiration date. While you might not notice much of a difference in your health if your antibiotic were five percent weaker, a five percent difference in your thyroid medication might throw your thyroidand your bodycompletely out of whack. This small difference could derail all your hard work to get your health back on track. Far-right Twitter troll Jacob Wohl (age 20) looks like he could be in a heap o' trouble. The banned-for-life ex-futures trader recently announced that he was in possession of an investigator's report alleging that Mueller raped a woman in 2010. Wohl gave the report to a right-wing website, The Gateway Pundit, which published the report. But there are more holes in his story than Swiss cheese. And now the FBI is investigating this as a possible fraud. EXCLUSIVE DOCUMENTS: Special Counsel and Former FBI Director Robert Mueller Accused of Rape By 'Very Credible Witness ' https://t.co/n4brvtkWsn Jacob Wohl (@JacobAWohl) October 30, 2018 Wohl denies having any connection to the investigation firm, Surefire Intelligence, but DNS records show that Wohl himself registered the domain: Surely you jest pic.twitter.com/hhYihwjt62 a plot gone awry (@flowerednews) October 30, 2018 Jacob, you are in WAY over your head with this one. Why the lies then? pic.twitter.com/3NGdbyQLo1 Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) October 30, 2018 Also, look at the photo of Surefire Intelligence's managing partner, "Matthew Cohen." It's Wohl, as can be seen by comparing the photo with a photo of Wohl: And the phone number for Surefire Intelligence? Why, it's young Master Wohl's mommy: From NBC: Wohl declined to comment on his involvement with Surefire Intelligence. However, his email is listed in the domain records for Surefire Intelligence's website and calls to a number listed on the Surefire Intelligence website went to a voicemail message which provided another phone number, listed in public records as belonging to Wohl's mother. Wohl stopped responding to NBC News after being told Surefire's official phone number redirects to his mother's voicemail. Other members of Surefire Intelligence use photos from models' websites: Surefire Intelligence's "Tel Aviv Station Chief" is an Israeli supermodel pic.twitter.com/W6S8IOhT5P Aric Toler (@AricToler) October 30, 2018 The FBI is now investigating this possible scam against Mueller, after a woman contacted reporters to tell them that she'd been offered money to claim Mueller sexually harassed her. From NBC News: Multiple reporters were contacted over the past few weeks by a woman who said she had been offered money to say she had been harassed by Mueller, the special counsel who is probing possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. After investigating, according to the political website Hill Reporter, the reporters each independently determined the allegations of misconduct and harassment were likely a hoax and that it was unclear if the woman had been offered money to make the claim. The reporters then contacted the special counsel's office to report that they had been approached about the scheme. While investigating the possibility of a hoax, the Hill Reporter's Ed Krassenstein, who was one of the reporters contacted, said he received threats, including a text message reading, "You're in over your head. Drop this" which included his and another editor's home addresses. Even Gateway Pundit is distancing itself from Wohl, saying: We took the documents down and we are currently investigating these accusations. There are also very serious allegations against Jacob Wohl. We are also looking into this. There is still a press conference scheduled for Thursday at noon in Washington DC. Maybe Wohl's important pal will save him: Greyhound announced that it was pulling its buses out of western Canada earlier this year. For anyone that owns a car? No big deal. For those living in remote western communities without access to a vehicle of their own or other means of transportation to shuttle them to more populous locales, it's a disaster. On October 31st, decades of being able to rely on a Greyhound ride to take an inexpensive trip into the city to access government services, make a visit to the hospital or see far-flung friends or family will come to an end. From the CBC: When Lillian Sylvestre heard Greyhound Canada was ending its western bus service, she made arrangements to visit her children in Red Deer on the route she's taken for the last four decades. Sylvestre lives in Sprague, Man., minutes from the Minnesota and Ontario borders. It lost its bus service to Winnipeg several years ago. "It was sad when all the small communities lost the bus route," she said. "It is very hard because I used to hop on the bus in Sprague ten o'clock in the morning, go do my business doctor, whatever in the city here, six o'clock eight o'clock I'm home. Now I can't do that. I got to rely on my kids, in-laws, friends." The closure will effect almost all routes west of Sudbury, Ontario. As part of Greyhound's spinning down their western services, 415 people will lose their jobs. In total, 400 communities will lose access to Greyhound's services. the company says that their pulling out of Western Canada is due to a 40% drop in ridership since 2010business that may have been lost to other transportation services. But those services don't run in all 400 locations that Greyhound is abandoning. In some cases, the only alternative for folks looking to leave their community is in a cabif one will come out to pick them up. Communities screwed over by Greyhound's exit and both provincial and federal governments are scrambling to sort out subsidized transportation for those no longer able to hop a ride on the long-running bus line. In some areas, homegrown ride-sharing programs may be the only viable option. The ties that bind us together are falling apart, piece by piece. Image by Douglas Antunes Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link Vice decided to test out Facebook's commitment to positively identifying the people and organizations behind political ads, so they applied for clearance to buy ads in the names of ever sitting US Senator, showing no proof, and Facebook granted permission in each case. They didn't go on to buy ads, but if they had, those ads would have run with Facebook's standard "paid for" disclosures, as in "Paid For By Chuck Schumer." It turns out that Facebook's new anti-fraudulent political ad measure operates on the honor system. To test it, VICE News applied to buy fake ads on behalf of all 100 sitting U.S. senators, including ads "Paid for by" by Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer. Facebook's approvals were bipartisan: All 100 sailed through the system, indicating that just about anyone can buy an ad identified as "Paid for by" by a major U.S. politician. What's more, all of these approvals were granted to be shared from pages for fake political groups such as "Cookies for Political Transparency" and "Ninja Turtles PAC." VICE News did not buy any Facebook ads as part of the test; rather, we received approval to include "Paid for by" disclosures for potential ads. We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them. [William Turton/Vice] (via JWZ) The United States Senate Intelligence Committee is "pursuing a wide-ranging investigation" into ex-White House adviser Steve Bannon's activities during the 2016 election, Reuters reports, and looking into what possible co-conspirators George Papadopoulos and Carter Page had to do with those activities. They're looking to determine "What Bannon might know about any contacts" that 2 Trump campaign advisers, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, had with the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The probe is also looking into Bannon's "role" at the dirty political data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica, which Trump's campaign under Bannon hired to "target messages to potentially sympathetic voters." Before he joined the Trump campaign, Bannon was vice president of Cambridge Analytica. The company has officially been dismantled after a UK probe into its role in Brexit. Reuters reports that Senate Intel is also trying to interview other witnesses about what "Cambridge Analytica and affiliated companies" did in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. Bannon is to be interviewed by the committee in late November, Reuters reports. Synagogue Massacre: We Guard What We Value President, Secret Service Armored Money Shipment School Synagogue By David Stolinsky. October 29th, 2018 Article Original We guard what we value. Our political leaders? Of course. Our money? Absolutely. Our children or our houses of worship? Not so much. My wife and I often visit a nearby mall. The Rolex store and the Louis Vuitton store have very large men in dark suits standing near the door to inhibit shoplifting. The mall is large enough to require three armored-car services to remove the cash. We see the armored-car guards walking briskly, with the money bag in one hand and the other hand hovering near their holstered pistol. When we go to the bank, we see the tellers behind thick sheets of bullet-resistant glass. Other banks employ armed guards. Money is obviously valuable, and we go to great pains to protect it. Perhaps that is why Los Angeles no longer has the distinction of being the bank-robbery capital of America. But when we pass schools elementary, middle, or high schools we see young people and teachers, and an occasional elderly crossing guard. But we never, literally never, see an armed guard, much less a police officer. Yes, we know that Los Angeles, like many cities, has a school police force. We know that there may be an officer somewhere in the high school. But we also know that he or she is there to try to enforce some semblance of discipline, which teachers and principals are no longer willing or able to do. But protect the young people from attackers? Not really. Similarly, when we pass synagogues, we see no security officers. The only exception is that on the High Holidays, we may see traffic officers to help with the congestion and parking. The same is true for churches on Christmas and Easter. But protect worshippers from attackers? No, not really. Then we watch TV news and see white-collar criminals sentenced to many decades in prison for financial crimes. Bernie Madoff wrecked many peoples lives with his Ponzi scheme. But when we sentenced him to 150 years in prison, while we sentence men who beat, rape, or disable their victims to a few years, what are we saying about our own values? Madoffs values were so rotten than he impoverished friends and strangers alike. But our values have deteriorated to the point that financial crimes often receive harsher punishment than violent crimes. Is this how we wish to be remembered? Do we want our tombstone to read, They valued money more than human life? Like so many mass murders, the recent murder of 11 at Tree of Life Synagogue in suburban Pittsburgh occurred in a gun-free zone. Revealingly, the Aurora, Colorado, movie-theater murderer reportedly passed up two theaters nearer his home to attack a gun-free multiplex. That is, it is revealing to those who wish to have the facts revealed. Regrettably, many people are not in this group. If this happened once or twice, we could claim that we just didnt understand the folly of proclaiming gun-free theaters, schools, or houses of worship. But after it has happened again and again, what excuse do we have for our gross negligence and profound stupidity? In fact, if anti-gun fanatics actually believed what they say if they truly believed that a gun in your home makes you less safe they would post signs outside their homes proclaiming, There are no guns in this house. But in all the years we have walked dogs in the liberal enclaves of Beverly Hills, West Los Angeles, and Westwood, we have never not once seen such a sign. On the contrary, we see many signs posted by alarm services, some boasting, Armed response. Hypocrisy? We dont care about no stinkin hypocrisy. Were progressives! It takes only seconds to call the police. Waiting for them to arrive could take the rest of your life. Anon. When seconds count, the police are just minutes away. Clint Smith, firearms instructor Progressives insist that a fence on the border wont work. No? Then why does a fence around the White House work? President Obama claimed that it is ridiculous to assert that more guns will make us safer. No, more guns wouldnt make him safer. He and his family already were guarded by squads of highly trained, armed agents. But more guns will make us safer, and will make our children much safer. They arent being guarded at all. Isnt empathy for the weak and defenseless a liberal characteristic? Its not? My mistake. On the contrary, Governor Jerry Brown of California who is guarded by the Highway Patrol signed a law that forbids teachers and staff from carrying guns in schools, even if the superintendent approves, and the teachers are properly trained and licensed. Similar laws are in effect elsewhere. But there are roughly 100,000 schools in America. It is impossible to place police in all schools at all times. Instead, we proudly announce that schools are gun-free zones that is, soft targets. The same is true for houses of worship. President Trump expressed his profound sorrow after the Tree of Life Synagogue mass murder. He added that if an armed defender had been present, some or all of the murders might have been prevented. Immediately, CNN pundits condemned him for not waiting until all the facts were known. But what conceivable facts could negate this obvious truth? There is stupid, and then there is dangerously stupid. Not to be outdone, the mayor of Pittsburgh opined that armed defenders were not the answer. Others chimed in, declaring that we had to eliminate hatred and anti-Semitism from the world. And when, precisely, will that happen? No, dont do what can be done now, and which has been proved to work. Instead, do nothing and blather about world peace, while John Lennons Imagine plays in the background. Lennon had a beautiful dream. But Mark David Chapman, who murdered him, had other, more violent dreams. There is an old saying: Put your money where your mouth is. I would paraphrase this as: Put your armed guards where what you value is. People who guard their money more closely than they guard their families deserve to keep neither. David Stolinsky - www.stolinsky.com. Contact: dstol@prodigy.net. Back to Top President Donald Trump said today he may issue an order to deploy more troops, possibly up to 15,000, to the U.S. southern border with Mexico. The midterm elections are next week, and Trump is playing to racist voters who are inspired to vote Republican by his white supremacist fearmongering over a so-called "migrant caravan" of a few thousand poor and underfed people from Central America who are a thousand miles away from our border, and probably won't make it here by Election Day, November 6. Trump said: "As far as the caravan is concerned, our military is out, we have about 5,000we'll go up to anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 military personnel, on top of Border Patrol, ICE, and everybody else at the border. Nobody's coming in." "Immigration is a very, very big, and very dangerousa really dangerous topic," says President Trump. In today's exchange with reporters, the President was asked if he considered himself a fearmonger. Trump: "No, I'm not fearmonger at all. Immigration is a very important subject." He also said: QUESTION: Have you received a subpoena at all from Robert Mueller? TRUMP: No. Breaking: Trump, talking to reporters before leaving WH for Florida, says troop deployment to border may go up to 10,000 to 15,000 on top of border patrol officers. Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) October 31, 2018 President Trump re: ending birthright citizenship says that if President Obama "could do DACA, we can do this by executive order." DACA wasn't set up by executive order; it was White House guidance to DHS. Important legal distinction. Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) October 31, 2018 Trump's off to Florida to stump for the midterms, with: -Ronna McDaniel -Kevin Hassett -Bill Shine -Dan Scavino -Stephen Miller -Johnny DeStefano on board AF1 with him. pic.twitter.com/2N1LxXyzYY Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) October 31, 2018 If the President is calling for war against an invading army, shouldn't the U.S. Congress be voting on a declaration of war? Trump is threatening to deploy more troops against these "enemies" than we have in Iraq or Afghanistan. Michael McFaul (@McFaul) October 31, 2018 According to NBC News, this would be similar to the number of U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan. https://t.co/Pq27hQTJdI Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 31, 2018 Trump says Republicans are doing "very well" with women voters because they want security: "They don't want these people pouring into our country totally unchecked" pic.twitter.com/IbRX6dwYh6 CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 31, 2018 - Radio presenter for 702, Aubrey Masango has been asked to apologise for degrading a caller to his show - Pieter Greyling phoned into the show to share his views on lan expropriation without compensation - The caller claims that Masango twisted his words and he felt hurt by the comments that were made about him PAY ATTENTION: Click See First under the Following tab to see Briefly.co.za News on your News Feed! Radio personality Aubrey Masango has landed in hot water for making condescending comments to a caller on his show in August. The Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCSSA) has demanded that the 702 presenter apologise for his remarks immediately. During Masangos Late Night Talk Show, the topic of discussion was focussed on land expropriation without compensation and Pieter Greyling had phoned in to give his opinion. According to Greyling, Masango misinterpreted the comments that he had made during his call and a heated discussion ensued. Allegedly the radio presenter accused Greyling of saying that the Khoisan were lesser Africans, but according to the caller, he never said anything of the sort. PAY ATTENTION: Save mobile data with FreeBasics: Briefly is now available on the app When he confronted Masango, he was called a liar and he felt extremely hurt when the presenter began humiliating him on air. While the call only lasted five minutes, Masango proceeded to degrade Greyling for the next hour without giving him the chance to explain himself. According to TimesLIVE, he reached out to the radio personality via Whastapp, however, he got no response. The BCSSA issued a statement that said that Masango became very emotional during the discussion and prevented Greyling from expanding on his opinions. The commission also stated that the presenter also spoke about the caller when other listeners phoned in to give their views. READ ALSO: Rambi Sechoaro aims to take the crown of Miss International 2018 Briefly.co.za learned that Masango referred to Greylings remarks as utter nonsense a total of 57 times and never once did he give an explanation as to why he made such comments. Thabisile Mbete, the broadcasters manager, came forward to announce that the presenter will be taking leave after Wednesdays show once he has offered an apology to Greyling. The radio station has also been rapped over the knuckles for the way they approached such a controversial topic. According to sections of the Broadcasting Code, 702 should have tried harder to ensure that the differing opinions were treated equally and if a caller does need to be reprimanded for their comments, they should be given the chance to explain themselves. Do you have a story to share with us? Inbox us on our Facebook page and we could feature your story. Watch the animated video and head over to Briefly South Africas Youtube channel for more. To stay up to date with the latest news, download our news app on Google Play or iTunes today. Source: Briefly.co.za News / Local by Stephen Jakes The City of Bulawayo will be holding a Service to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the declaration of Bulawayo as a City on Sunday 4th November 2018 at the Celebration Church at 10:00 hours.City's senior public relations officer Nesisa Mpofu said this year's Annual Civic Service coincidentally falls on the exact day when Bulawayo was declared a City."Bulawayo was declared a City on 4th November 1943 and every year, a Civic Service to commemorate and celebrate the declaration of Bulawayo as a City is held on a Sunday near 4 November. Annually, a divine church service is held at the incumbent Mayor's Church and in this particular case it is going to be conducted by the Celebration Church Bulawayo located at 76 Josiah Tongogara Street and Leopold Takawira Avenue. The Church service will be conducted by the Mayor's Chaplain, with Councillors, Council Staff and members of the public in attendance," she said."The Annual Civic Service Celebration is a service that is directly organized and facilitated by the incumbent Mayor's Church, with the assistance from Council staff. It is a Civic function which is open to all residents and we invite the people of Bulawayo to support and display a community spirit." News / National by newzimbabwe.com ECONET founder and executive chairman Strive Masiyiwa has said he believes President Emmerson Mnangagwa is sincere in what he is trying to do to turn Zimbabwe's crippled economy around.Speaking in an interview with CNBCAfrica, Masiyiwa said he has invested some $1.5 billion in Zimbabwe over the past decade and would always invest in the country "come rain or sunshine".The intervention by Masiyiwa - an internationally respected businessman entrepreneur, and philanthropist - is certain to be welcomed by President Mnangagwa and his under-fire administration.Having moved to charm the world with reform pledges after taking over power through a military coup last November, Mnangagwa's momentum was rocked by a disputed victory in the July 30 vote and post-election violence which left six people dead.Fiscal and monetary policy interventions after the vote have also plunged an already struggling economy into further crisis with shortages of basic commodities becoming common and prices spiralling.Masiyiwa - now based in the United Kingdom has not returned to Zimbabwe since the year 2000 when he left the country and settled in South Africa from where he developed Econet into a global telecoms and fintech behemoth.In the CNBCAfrica interview, the Econet founder backed calls for the removal of sanctions against Zimbabwe, saying the country should not have to operate with "its hands tied behind its back".Masiyiwa appears to have taken a shine to the Mnangagwa administration after being blocked from launching his business and then hounded into exile by the former Mugabe regime.At the height of the cholera crisis, the Zanu PF leader revealed that the Econet founder had phoned him from Ethiopia and donated US$10m to help address the epidemic which claimed more than 50 lives across the country. News / National by Staff reporter Air Namibia announced that its flights to Harare and Victoria Falls will commence with effect from the 28th of October 2018 while the days of operation remain unchanged.Windhoek to Harare is operated on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday whereas the Windhoek-Victoria Falls route is operated on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.Zimbabwean officials attempted to impound an Air Namibia leased aircraft recently after a court in that country gave the order in response to a lawsuit brought against the airline by a Zimbabwean family.The family sued Air Namibia of US$1 million claiming that it was subjected to humiliation when it got deported in Namibia en route to Turkey after failing an immigration test.On 27 June 2018, the Zimbabwean high court made an Ex Parte order for the attachment of Air Namibia property or aircraft without notification.Air Namibia had suspended flights into Zimbabwe as it disputed the family's claim of victimisation and further argued that one of the planes that had almost been attached was a leased aircraft.An application was heard on the 23rd of October 2018 in which the airline was granted an extension of time to file an appeal and condonation was equally granted to file opposing papers by the Supreme Court in Zimbabwe.The latest Supreme Court order was made with costs against the passengers and Air Namibia has in the meantime said, "We are confident that this matter will come to a conclusion soon and trust that Air Namibia can count on your continued support, as we continue to offer the most professional and pleasant experience for our passengers." News / National by AFP A BULAWAYO court freed on bail a man detained for insulting the president while testifying before a commission probing the fatal shooting of six civilians during post-election protests in August, lawyers said on Monday.Prosecutors said Wisdom Mkwananzi, 32, pointed at President Emmerson Mnangagwa's official portrait hung on the wall of a hall where the commission was hearing evidence from witnesses, and said: "I am an orphan because of this man. He killed my parents."He was accusing Mnangagwa of leading Gukurahundi, a government crackdown in the 1980s during which rights groups say at least 20 000 suspected government opponents were killed.Mkwananzi was released on $200 bail, according Kumbirai Mafunda, spokesperson for Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights."He was charged with undermining the authority of the president, assaulting police officers during his arrest and lying under oath," Mafunda told AFP.Mkwananzi is the latest person to be charged with insulting Mnangagwa.Earlier this month, Alexander Chidzedzere was arrested in the northern town of Kariba on accusations of undermining the authority of the president after he alleged that the ruling Zanu-PF party won the July 30 general elections through rigging.In May, John Mahlabera, 36, an officer at Chiredzi prison in the southern province of Masvingo, was summoned to appear before a disciplinary hearing after he allegedly called main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa "my president" on social media.In August, a well-known critic of the president, Munyaradzi Shoko had charges against him dropped after being briefly held for posting on Facebook that the president's name was "generally associated with evil and devilish deeds".Mnangagwa took over from long-time ruler Robert Mugabe following a brief military takeover in November 2017 and he went on to win the presidential election.During Mugabe's rule arrests on charges of insulting the president were common.Human rights lawyers said this year that since 2010 they had represented nearly 200 people arrested and charged for insulting or undermining the authority of the president. News / National by Staff reporter Econet founder Strive Masiyiwa has called for sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the United States to be removed, saying they were not justified.The 57-year-old telecoms tycoon's unusually forthright comments about Zimbabwean politics were made in a TV interview with CNBC Africa recorded October 26 in Sandton, Johannesburg.Masiyiwa said sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the United States had paralysed the country, whose prospects of coming out of the economic crisis were dim for the same reason."I think for instance that the sanctions should be removed, there's no justification for them anymore. They should be removed. I've always been on record to say the sanctions are not justified and now we're almost 20 years into the sanctions. You can't have one country operate with its hands tied behind its back," he said.The United States maintains that the sanctions, which have been revised a few times, were put in place to force Zimbabwe to meet its obligations of respecting human rights, good governance, free and fair elections and aligning laws with a new constitution adopted in 2013.Masiyiwa also give a ringing endorsement of President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government, saying he believes the Zanu-PF leader who won a disputed election in July is "sincere". News / National by Mandla Ndlovu The United States Foreign Press Centers (FPC) invited veteran Zimbabwean journalist Kelvin Jakachira to cover the U.S. mid-term elections in California and Nevada from October 31 - November 8, 2018.Jakachira is the Group Editor in Chief at media conglomerate AB Communications, which runs several commercial radio stations including the national ZiFM Stereo, as well as a business and financial weekly newspaper, the Business Times.Jakachira, who has covered elections in Zimbabwe for various local and international media outlets since starting his journalism career at the Mutare based Manica Post in 1993, will join 24 other journalists drawn from across the world to interpret events and outcomes of the 2018 U.S. mid-term elections."I am delighted and look forward to this once in a lifetime opportunity, said Jakachira. Observing the U.S. mid-term elections is a milestone especially coming after elections in Zimbabwe."An activist and scribe, Jakachira is also a member of the Board of Trustees at the Zimbabwe chapter of the media freedom advocacy group- the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA).The United States is a much bigger democracy and its electoral processes are stable and predictable- that gives me a good starting point especially assessing the impact of the election of Donald Trump. I hope Zimbabwean journalists and the public learn from my experience and coverage.Mid-term elections in the United States are held every four years in November in the middle of the President s four-year term of office. U.S. voters will be electing members of Congress, which comprises the House of Representatives and the Senate. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs while 35 of the 100 Senate seats are open for this election.FPC helps foreign media provide in-depth, accurate, and balanced news from the United States, by providing direct access to authoritative American information sources News / National by Ndou Paul Let's talks about the Beitbridge-Masvingo-Harare-Chirundu Highway rehabilitation and dualisation. The Highway will now be fixed in 2 phases that will see some parts of the road being widened, while others parts will be dualised #TSP #Vision2030 pic.twitter.com/nYsxRMGsfK Ministry of Information, Publicity & Broadcasting (@InfoMinZW) October 31, 2018 Feasibility studies have indicated that the complete dualisation of the Highway is not viable because traffic volumes are not sufficient for the project to recoup it's costs. The entire Highway would require 6k vehicles daily, paying tolls fees at each of the 7 tollgates #TSP pic.twitter.com/qBxr1SLvc6 Ministry of Information, Publicity & Broadcasting (@InfoMinZW) October 31, 2018 Presently, traffic on the Beitbridge-Masvingo-Harare Highway is about 2 600 vehicles per day while on the Harare-Chirundu Highway it's 1040 vehicles per day. In light of this, the best course of action is to widen most parts of the road #TSP #Vision2030 pic.twitter.com/cBPQul6Nwm Ministry of Information, Publicity & Broadcasting (@InfoMinZW) October 31, 2018 The road is on a 8/10 configuration whereby 8m of the road is tarred while 2m is the gravel shoulder. The road will be widened to make it 12.5m in width. Making it at par with the Beitbridge-Polokwane and Chirundu-Lusaka Highways which have similar configurations #TSP #Vision2030 pic.twitter.com/UMPE2aNHmN Ministry of Information, Publicity & Broadcasting (@InfoMinZW) October 31, 2018 Dualisation will be carried out as one enters and exits towns in order to manage congestion. The dualisation would be on 10km on both sides of the towns. On the Harare-Chirundu Highway, work will be carried out to straighten some of the curves. #TSP #VISION2030 pic.twitter.com/JyBlb5sqsN Ministry of Information, Publicity & Broadcasting (@InfoMinZW) October 31, 2018 GOVERNMENT has abandoned the controversial $2,7 billion deal with Chinese firm Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Group Limited (Afecc) for the dualisation of the Beitbridge-Masvingo-Harare-Chirundu highway after the company expressed concern over how it would recoup its investment.The government today said the Beitbridge-Masvingo-Harare-Chirundu Highway highways dualisation will now be fixed in 2 phases that will see some parts of the road being widened, while others parts will be dualised.Government said that dualisation will be carried out as one enters and exits towns in order to manage congestion. The dualisation would be for 10km on both sides of the towns.Feasibility studies have indicated that the complete dualisation of the Highway is not viable because traffic volumes are not sufficient for the project to recoup it's costs. The entire Highway would require 6k vehicles daily, paying tolls fees at each of the 7 tollgatesPresently, traffic on the Beitbridge - Masvingo - Harare Highway is about 2 600 vehicles per day while on the Harare - Chirundu Highway it's 1 040 vehicles per day. In light of this, the best course of action is to widen most parts of the road.The road is on a 8/10 configuration whereby 8m of the road is tarred while 2m is the gravel shoulder. The road will be widened to make it 12.5m in width. Making it at par with the Beitbridge - Polokwane and Chirundu - Lusaka Highways which have similar configurations. The Polokwane - Beitbridge road has seen an increase in the number of accidents because it is not wide enough.Dualisation will be carried out as one enters and exits towns in order to manage congestion. The dualisation would be on 10km on both sides of the towns. On the Harare-Chirundu Highway, work will be carried out to straighten some of the curves. News / National by Staff Reporter Deputy chief secretary to the president and Cabinet, Justin Mupamhanga, has been embroiled in a nasty farm wrangle in Bindura, following a boundary dispute which has spilled into the High Court.According to the court application, Soul Gomwe is the applicant, while Mupamhanga and Lands minister Perrance Shiri are cited as respondents.Gomwe told the court that in 2002, he was allocated Subdivision 3 and 4 of Argyle Park Farm in Bindura by the Lands minister."The respondent (Mupamhanga) and I have been involved in a boundary dispute which dates back to 2003. That dispute remains unresolved up to date. Since 2003, the first respondent has made numerous illegal attempts to illegally appropriate 40 hectares of my piece of land and a farm house, which attempts I have been resisting since 2003",Gomwe said.He said he had written letters to the relevant authorities seeking remedies against Mupamhanga."The first respondent showed his determination to annex the aforesaid 40 hectares of land which constitute 20 hectares of arable land by clandestinely obtaining a purported 99-year lease from the office of the second respondent (Lands minister) through fraudulent means.The purported 99-year lease has a map which purportedly extends the boundaries of his farm Tomy Farm. The aforesaid 99-year lease has effect of consolidating my farm with the first respondents farm," Gomwe told the court.He accused Mupamhanga and the Lands minister of unilaterally changing his farms boundaries, without affording him an opportunity to make any representations."I submit with due respect that the decision to change the boundaries of our respective farms has the effect of adversely affecting my rights, as such, it was irregular and illegal for the second respondent to alter the boundaries without affording the applicant an opportunity to be heard," he said.He said that it is also government policy that no 99-year lease is issued to anyone in the event that there is a pending dispute over a particular farm, adding that Mupamhanga had misrepresented that there was no dispute pertaining to the land in question.He said Mupamhanga had approached the court in 2013, seeking to evict him from the 40 hectares. He however, said the application was dismissed on the basis that it was not proper for Mupamhanga to evict him using a map that was obtained through unprocedural means.Gomwe said he later filed a complaint to the Zimbabwe Land Commission in October last year, forcing Mupamhanga to file another application seeking to evict him.The Zimbabwe Land Commission ruled in Gomwes favour, and Mupamhanga appealed to the Lands ministry and the hearing is still pending.He however, said Mupamhanga has started erecting a fence which cuts across his field. He said Mupamhanga has resorted to use of violence and intimidation in trying to wrestle the piece of land.Gomwe is now seeking an interdict, barring Mupamhanga from annexing his farm by erecting a fence before the finalisation of the appeal and that the government official be ordered not to use any threats of violence against him.Mupamhanga has not yet responded to the application. On this episode of Radio Free Acton, Gleaves Whitney, Director of Grand Valley State Universitys Howenstein Center for Presidential Studies, talks with Hank Meijer, Co-Chairman and CEO of US supermarket chain Meijer, about the story of Arthur Vandenberg (1884-1951), a US senator from Michigan who became one of the founders of modern US foreign policy. Then, Bruce Edward Walker speaks with Ben Lockerd, Professor of English at Grand Valley State University, about the horror fiction of Russell Kirk. Check out these additional resources on this weeks podcast topics: Purchase Arthur Vandenberg: The Man in the Middle of the American Century by Hank Meijer Video: Hank Meijer on Arthur Vandenbergs global legacy Register here for the upcoming two-day conference: Crisis in the Public Square: A Response from the Kuyperian Tradition Purchase Ancestral Shadows: An Anthology of Ghostly Tales by Russell Kirk Video: Russell Kirks contributions to conservatism Do you have questions for the Radio Free Acton team that you would like answered in future podcast segments? We want to hear from you! Leave a message at 888-705-4180 or email [email protected] Lastly, if you like what you heard on todays episode, dont forget to give us a rating on iTunes. News / National by Staff reporter A number of product lines that have become household names in Zimbabwe are being smuggled out of the country, thereby depriving the fiscus of millions of United States dollars.The Daily News can reveal that a number of popular brands manufactured in Zimbabwe are finding their way into countries such as Zambia and Malawi, through illegal means.Manufacturers of some of the products revealed that while they were battling to meet local demand, they have been alerted to incidents whereby dealers were emptying supermarkets shelves and smuggling these out of the country.Industry and Commerce minister Mangaliso Ndlovu confirmed the development, saying panic buying and the up-surge in parallel market rates have resulted in the hoarding of basic commodities manufactured locally, adding that these were being smuggled out of the country."They (smugglers) take advantage of the parallel markets rates when the US dollar gained massive value over the bond," said Ndlovu, warning that smuggling poses a significant threat to the country's economy as these culprits were evading payment of clearance fees."This is now a police matter, these people hoard basic commodities from retailers and smuggle them out of the country," said Ndlovu.Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers president, Denford Mutashu, said while they welcome exports into the region and beyond to reduce trade imbalances, it was regrettable that some of the goods were getting out of the country through nefarious smuggling rings.The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) said it is now on high alert to deal with any form of smuggling."Members of the public are called upon to report cases of smuggling to the nearest Zimra office and the appropriate response will be taken," said Zimra's head of corporate communication, Francis Chimanda. News / National by Mandla Ndlovu Self exiled Former ZANU PF Politiburo member Jonathan has mocked ZANU PF Secretary for administration Obert Mpofu calling him a traumatised political orphan."ZanuPF's National Youth League Assembly sights show a troubled Obert Mpofu whose transition from an Obedient Son to an Orphan has been traumatic. He dared chair the central committee that got the crocodile in and up. Now the crocodile's jaws are on Mpofu and it wants to chew him up," Prof Moyo saidThe political fight between Moyo and Mpofu has been raging for years.In 2017 Moyo attacked Obert Mpofu, calling his comments that the he was working in cahoots with Kasukuwere to destabilise party as reckless, irresponsible, disrespectful and unacceptable. Moyo took a dig accusing him of throwing his weight around and abusing his power in the Provincial Coordinating Committee (PCC) in Matebeleland North."Mpofu abused PCC, as he so often does, in mistaken belief that just because he has a big body he should throw his weight around."Obert Mpofu believes he is the Zanu PF PCC in Mat North. This rot of his has gone on for too long and too far. Mpofu is a colleague in Politburo, and not my boss. If he does not respect this fact, he must prepare for the consequences.I for one will not allow Obert Mpofu to impersonate King Lobengula, pretending to be Matabeleland North's centre of power." Said Moyo then.Jonathan Moyo said Mpofu's claim to be the obedient son, were a gimmick used to cover up for his greedy exploits and they have never fooled anyone.Obert Mpofu chaired the Politiburo meeting that fired Jonathan Moyo and other G40 members. By Hyonhee Shin and Kiyoshi Takenaka SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) - South Korea's top court ruled on Tuesday Japan's Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. <5401.T> must compensate four South Koreans for their forced labour during World War Two, a verdict Japan denounced as "unthinkable" while expressing hope that the uneasy neighbours' cooperation on North Korea would not be hurt. In a landmark ruling, South Korea's Supreme Court upheld a 2013 order for the company to pay 100 million won (68,451.44 pounds) to each of the four steel workers who initiated the suit in 2005, seeking compensation and unpaid wages. The court ruled that the former labourers' right to reparation was not terminated by a 1965 treaty normalising diplomatic ties, rejecting the position taken by the Japanese government and courts, Yonhap news agency said. Lee Choon-shik, the 94-year-old sole surviving plaintiff, welcomed the ruling, saying in a televised news conference that it was "heartbreaking to see it today, left alone alive". Japan and South Korea share a bitter history that includes Japan's 1910-45 colonisation of the Korean peninsula and the use of comfort women, Japan's euphemism for girls and women, many of them Korean, forced to work in its wartime brothels. The ruling prompted a swift and angry reaction from Tokyo. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, speaking in parliament, said the matter had been "completely and finally" settled by the 1965 treaty. "This verdict is a decision that is impossible in light of international law," he said. Foreign Minister Taro Kono, who summoned South Korean ambassador Lee Su-hoon after the verdict, said it "fundamentally overturned the legal basis for bilateral friendship since the normalisation of ties in 1965". But Kono told reporters he hoped Seoul would do what was needed to prevent the matter from affecting cooperation between the two U.S. Asian allies in trying to rein in North Korea's nuclear programme. Story continues Nippon Steel said the verdict was "deeply regrettable" and that it would review it before taking any next steps. DAMAGE TO TIES Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kotaro Nogami told a news conference that if Seoul did not respond promptly, Tokyo would consider its options, including international arbitration. Nippon Steel, which merged with Sumitomo Metal Industries in 2012, had argued that it was not responsible for the actions of the wartime steelmaker. Some Seoul officials and experts fear the court's decision, final and binding, could damage bilateral relations. If Nippon Steel refuses to compensate, the plaintiffs could request a seizure of the company's property in South Korea, which may result in an exit of some Japanese businesses, a cut in investment and a flare-up in anti-Japanese sentiment. South Korea's foreign ministry, under a previous government, said that a seizure of assets could drive relations into an "irreversible catastrophe". South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Roh Kyu-deok said it was "exploring all possibilities" but has raised the need with Tokyo for joint efforts to keep the matter from hurting ties. "We might have to brace for not only a diplomatic crisis but a pull-out of some Japanese firms and a fall in new investment", said Shin Beom-chul, a senior fellow at Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. Other former labourers and survivors of wartime atrocities, including the comfort women and two atomic bombings in Japan, could also follow suit, activists and analysts said. There are 14 similar damages lawsuits pending in court against firms including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd <7011.T> and Mitsui Mining and Smelting Co Ltd <5706.T>. A panel endorsed by the South Korean government in 2012 unveiled a list of 299 Japanese companies which it said committed "war crimes". Tuesday's ruling eliminated the "room for diplomacy" and Japan could take the case to international arbitration, though South Korea is not a member of the International Court of Justice, said Jin Chang-soo, a senior fellow at the Sejong Institute think tank south of Seoul. He said it was significant that the ruling upheld a 2012 verdict that Japan's occupation of the peninsula was illegal. "But the 1965 treaty has been the foundation for the bilateral ties ever since, and now there may well be trust issues, uncertainties over our economy, and impact on cooperation over the North Korean nuclear issue", Jin added. Shares of Nippon Steel ended up 0.44 percent at 2,065.0 yen after reaching an intra-day high of 2,086.5 yen before the court ruling. (Reporting by Hyonhee Shin in Seoul, Kiyoshi Takenaka and Elaine Lies in Tokyo; additional writing by Linda Sieg; Additional reporting by Jeongmin Kim and Jane Chung in SEOUL, and Linda Sieg, Yuka Obayashi and Kiyoshi Takenaka in TOKYO; Editing by Robert Birsel and Nick Macfie) The criticism was brutal. "The image projected by the governing coalition is unacceptable." But it didn't come from the increasingly powerful opposition in Germany. This was the verdict of the chancellor herself. And with that, Angela Merkel announced Monday she would not run again in December for the post of leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the main party in the grand coalition governing the country. Having said that, Merkel, 64, also said she would remain as chancellor until the next scheduled elections in 2021. In other words, a political death foretold and a very long deathbed scene. As a commentator in the major German weekly Die Zeit put it, she is departing "in her inimitable way." That's Merkel's hope. Reality may dash that hope but more of that later. Merkel 'felt she was irreplaceable' She was once called the "Teflon Chancellor." But hubris infected her, according to Jakob Augstein, longtime columnist for the magazine Der Spiegel. "She stayed too long in her job," he wrote Monday. "It was a sign of inexcusable hubris. In a crisis but when isn't there a crisis? Angela Merkel felt she was irreplaceable." The voters increasingly didn't. On Sunday in elections in Hesse, one of 16 German states, her CDU dropped from over 38 per cent to 27 per cent of the vote. In Bavaria, the CDU's sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), dropped by 10 per cent in elections two weeks earlier. The other big loser in these elections was the Social Democratic party, the junior member of the grand coalition. In both contests, the Greens on the left and the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) made big gains. Commentators around Europe are already talking of the breakup of the stable party system that has seen either the CDU or the Social Democrats running German governments since the Second World War. 13 years in high office The political writing was on the wall more than a year ago. In national elections Merkel's party lost eight per cent, dropping to 33 per cent. The Social Democrats did even worse, with only 20 per cent of the vote, their worst tally in 70 years. And the far-right AfD entered the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, for the first time, with over 12 per cent of the vote. Story continues Merkel got another unmistakable warning in September. Her longtime ally Volker Kauder was dumped as the CDU's floor leader in the Bundestag in a vote by her own MPs. Markus Schreiber/Associated Press Not surprisingly, in announcing her decision to step down as party leader on Monday, Merkel said she'd actually made her decision some time ago. She saw the political blood on the floor. What went wrong for Merkel? Some, like Augstein, point to the fact that 13 years in high office is too long and breeds a certain arrogance. Others point to her fateful decision in 2015 to open Germany's door and let in hundreds of thousands of refugees, most of them Syrian. I stood on the border between Hungary and Austria as the gates opened in September 2015 and the refugees flowed through, most to be taken by train to Munich. People cheered. Europe, and much of the world, applauded. But beside me a German cameraman from Bavaria muttered, "The Germans aren't going to like this." I was surprised and dismissive, but I shouldn't have been. The Germans swallowed and took in an estimated one million refugees, but almost from that moment Merkel's popularity began to drop. And just as significantly, the AfD, which was born as an anti-euro and European Union party, shifted dramatically. Its target now became immigrants and refugees, and it rose dramatically in the opinion polls. Future of coalition uncertain Merkel and her party have been steadily battered since then. But the Social Democrats have almost been knocked out. In Hesse, the Greens came within a few thousand votes of beating the Social Democrats into third place. One German commentator called the grand coalition a "black hole" for the Social Democrats. They have been chained to Merkel and her policies, and their support has drained away. And so now many in the party leadership talk of crashing out of the government to save the soul of the party. The breakup of the coalition would rip up Merkel's scenario of staying as chancellor until 2021 because early elections would almost certainly have to be held. And she has said she won't run again. Leah Millis/Reuters Regardless of who replaces her, the CDU may be tempted to shift to the right, becoming more overtly nationalist to try to win votes back from the AfD. And in the wake of early elections, it might be tempted to form a coalition with the AfD. It's hardly far-fetched that's exactly what happened next door last year in Austria. The prospect makes many of Germany's neighbours tremble. Jan Machacek, a Czech commentator, on Monday conjured up the vision of a newly nationalist German government bellowing "Germany First" in Trumpian fashion and undermining the vision and the structure of the European Union. Enoch Powell, a British politician, once said, "All political careers end in tears." Merkel isn't crying, but many in her party may be shedding tears over a tarnished legacy. By Colin Packham SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia must restrict foreign firms with government ties from its 5G mobile communications network because it is critical infrastructure, the head of one of the country's intelligence agencies said, helping to explain why China's Huawei was banned. Australia expanded its national security rules in August to exclude telecommunication equipment suppliers that it believes have ties to foreign governments. Huawei Technologies Co Ltd said after the policy announcement that it would be prohibited from Australia's new broadband network. The events soured bilateral relations between Canberra and China. "5G technology will underpin the communications that Australians rely on every day, from our health systems and the potential applications of remote surgery, to self-driving cars and through to the operation of our power and water supply," Mike Burgess, director-general of the Australian Signals Directorate, said in rare public comments late on Monday. "A potential threat anywhere in the network will be a threat to the whole network," he said in a speech that did not mention Huawei or any other firm by name. A spokesman for Huawei did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The company has previously denied it answers to the Chinese government. Speaking in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said cooperation between Chinese and Australian companies was win-win, and Australia should not put up barriers to this. "We urge the Australian side to abandon ideological prejudices and create a fair competition environment for Chinese companies' operations in Australia. We hope Australia handles this issue with caution," Lu added. Huawei had offered Canberra access to its technology to satisfy security concerns, while it also argued the company structure hadn't changed since it was allowed to supply equipment to Australia's 4G network. But Burgess said the 5G network requires different rules. "Historically, we have protected the sensitive information and functions at the core of our telecommunications networks by confining our high-risk vendors to the edge of our networks," Burgess said. "But the distinction between core and edge collapses in 5G networks," he said. Western intelligence agencies have raised concerns for years that Huawei, the world's largest maker of telecommunications network gear, is beholden to the Chinese government, raising the risk of espionage. The United States in August restricted access for Huawei and compatriot ZTE Corp to its lucrative market for similar reasons. Australia previously banned Huawei from providing equipment for its fiber-optic network and moved to block it from laying submarine cables in the Pacific. Although widely expected, the move added to tensions in bilateral ties as Canberra had previously accused China of meddling in its domestic politics, which soured trade ties. (Reporting by Colin Packham; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Neil Fullick and Darren Schuettler) Canada's border agency is stepping up efforts to deport failed refugee claimants and other foreign nationals not welcome in this country, setting a goal of dramatically increasing deportation numbers by up to 35 per cent. An email from the director of Canada Border Services Agency's Enforcement and Intelligence Operations Division, sent Oct. 17 and obtained by CBC News, outlines the plan to ramp up removals to 10,000 people a year. "Over the last few weeks I have been involved in several discussions both regionally and nationally concerning the Government of Canada's decision to substantially increase removal efforts including the re-establishment of national and regional targets, a practice many of you may still remember," Brad Wozny wrote to staff. "Initial discussions have the agency working towards a new national target of 10,000 removals/year. This would imply about a 25-35 per cent increase over the last couple years." CBSA confirmed it has set a national goal of 10,000 removals a year. Agency spokesperson Barre Campbell said Canada remains an open and welcoming place for people seeking refuge and will continue to treat them fairly and with compassion while expediting removals. "To ensure that the CBSA is meeting its mandate under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to conduct removals as soon as possible, the agency is focused on increasing overall removal numbers for the current fiscal year and beyond," said Campbell in an email. The directive comes as the Liberals face tough criticism from the opposition Conservatives over border security and the handling of asylum seekers crossing into Canada outside of regular border points. The Conservatives have called the situation a "crisis," while the Liberals have insisted the government is adequately managing what it calls a "challenge." 'Actionable cases' There are 18,000 cases now in the deportation inventory, most of them failed refugee claimants. Delays in the process can be caused by appeals and legal proceedings, court sentences, a temporary suspension of removals, a lack of valid travel documents, medical issues, or an eligible claimant's application for a Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA), Campbell said. Story continues He said there are now about 5,300 "actionable cases" with no known impediment to deportation. Darren Calabrese/Canadian Press "While Canada is a humanitarian country that has welcomed many immigrants and asylum seekers over the years, those coming to our country are expected to abide by our laws and processes," Campbell said. "As these individuals are processed through the asylum system, those whose claims are not eligible are required to leave Canada or be removed." Asked about the mandate on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government is taking steps to strengthen the immigration system. "We are in the process of looking at how we can improve the immigration system to see how can we more rapidly deal with files. It is a priority for us to have an immigration system that works, and that is always what we are going to try to do," he said. The number of deportations fluctuates but has declined dramatically in the last five years, from 18,987 in 2012 to 8,472 in 2017. There have been 6,083 removals so far this year. Few asylum-seekers removed In May, officials said that of the 68,000 asylum seekers who had entered Canada since the beginning of 2017, less than one per cent had been removed from the country even though a high percentage had been deemed ineligible to stay. At the time, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said it was too early in the process to expect large numbers of asylum seekers to become subject to removal orders, but added it's important to speed up the entire determination, appeals and removal process. Today, Goodale said the CBSA is doing its part. "We've indicated that we have to pick up the pace in terms of that activity, and we've provided some extra resources for CBSA to do the work that is necessary," he said. This year's budget allocated an extra $7.5 million to CBSA to ensure that once a rejected refugee claimant has exhausted all legal avenues of appeal, and all administrative requirements are met, he or she can be promptly removed. Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel said the government has failed to stem the flow of people illegally crossing in to Canada outside of official border points, leading to excessive pressure on the system. The government also has failed to remove those deemed ineligible in a timely way, she said. "This shows the lack of seriousness that the government has in terms of this broader issue as well as the lack of a plan," she said. "So without seeing any sort of concrete plan to reduce demand on the system, as well as how it would be executed, I would say that this is lofty thinking rather than anything sort of real." Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees, said it should be expected that as the number of asylum seekers climbs, the number of removals also would increase. But she said arbitrary targets set in past have led to removal orders that did not take into account compelling humanitarian factors. Consider case specifics "I think that the risk is that we're going to be seeing more stories in the media of individuals and families where many Canadians would say, 'Well, this doesn't make sense, why would we be deporting these people given their individual fact circumstances?' And yet, that's very likely to happen," she said. The CBSA says it sets priorities for removals. Cases involving national security, organized crime, crimes against humanity and other criminal acts and failed refugee claimants who arrived irregularly get top priority. Other failed refugee claimants get secondary priority for removal, followed by anyone else deemed inadmissible, including those who have overstayed travel, work or student visas. Dench said that under a quota system, border officials tend to focus on the "easiest" removals such as families and failed refugee claimants and set aside more challenging cases, such as people with criminal records, because they tend to require more officers to handle each case. Distorting priorities "They get (lower) numbers for the same number of officers," she said. "So it can distort where the priorities go, in terms of removals, and maybe leads to priorities being different from what most Canadians would consider should be the top priorities." Ntebo Ebenezer Awungafac, a human rights activist from Cameroon, has been deemed inadmissible to Canada and now fears deportation. He was affiliated with an anglophone minority rights group that had a splinter that advocated violent resistance, but insisted he was never involved with that wing. Awungafac said he remains optimistic that Canada will let him stay, and his lawyer is exploring all legal avenues. "I fear with the work I was doing back home, if I'm going back now with the warrant of arrest I have back home, I will not be alive," he said. The email from Wozny said the CBSA also is working on an action plan to improve data integrity and the accuracy of information in the removal system, with updates on arrests, the outcome of hearings and clients who left Canada voluntarily or received status. Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press A poll released by the Angus Reid Institute in August suggested two-thirds of Canadians believe the influx of asylum seekers into Canada is a "crisis," and that could have political repercussions for the Liberal government and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Another survey by the same firm made public later that month indicated about half of those surveyed want to see the number of immigrants coming to Canada lowered. The Angus Reid Institute found 49 per cent of Canadians wanted to see the federal government's 2018 target of 310,000 immigrants reduced. In 2014, 36 per cent said it should be reduced. Other studies have found more positive views on Canada's immigration levels. An Environics Institute survey released in March found that six in 10 Canadians disagreed with the negative statement "Overall, there is too much immigration in Canada," compared with one-third who agreed. Residents and businesses in the Montreal area can expect mail delivery delays this week as the rotating postal worker strike has landed in the city. "We're fighting for equity and we're also fighting for health and safety issues," Mathieu Clermont, a Canada Post regional officer for Montreal, said outside a Saint-Laurent sorting centre where workers were picketing on Tuesday. "There are a lot of members that are struggling in Montreal because they were doing too much overtime." Members of the Montreal chapter of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, which represents some 6,800 employees, went on strike at 10:30 p.m. Monday. Among them was Stanley Ferdinand. He was a mail carrier for nine years before getting a job at the sorting centre. Working inside is a bit easier, he said, but he knows what his mail carrying colleagues are going through as one the driving forces behind the protest is the extra time it takes to deliver all the parcels that are flooding the mail stream these days. "I used to walk 21 to 22 kilometres per day," he told CBC News on Tuesday, saying he'd work 12-hour days as a carrier. "I know it's difficult for them." These strikes are generally supposed to last 24 hours, but that hasn't always been the case. For example, union members in Quebec's Magdalen Islands went on strike from Saturday to Monday. The Montreal chapter confirmed late Tuesday that their strike would last 25 hours, ending at 11:30 p.m. Lauren McCallum/CBC The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), which represents 50,000 postal employees, launched the rotating walkouts earlier this month to pressure Canada Post into accepting contract changes. The CUPW said its key demands are job security, an end to forced overtime and overburdening, better health and safety measures, service expansion and equality for rural and suburban mail carriers. Negotiations are ongoing at the federal level. Strikes also began Monday in Pickering, Oshawa and Thunder Bay, Ont., and striking continues in Vancouver and Sudbury. Story continues In a statement published Monday, Canada Post said it is working to mitigate the difficulties experienced by mail carriers due to the increase in parcel shipments. 'Long days of work' Annie Lesage, who represents the local chapter of the CUPW, says there will certainly be no mail delivered Tuesday. As for Wednesday or Thursday, she wasn't as certain as Canada Post may bring in temporary workers to get the job done if the strike continues. Lesage said she does not know how long the strike will last. She said she is waiting for orders to come down from her union at the national level. A similar strike in the Greater Toronto Area lasted two days. Lauren McCallum/CBC Lesage said there are so many parcels coming through that mail carriers are unable to keep up with demand. For instance, routes designed for 30 parcels now have 100. Mail carriers, she said, have "long days of work." Lessage said an estimated 30 per cent of workers are part-time and on call. Those hours could be merged to create more full-time workers, she said. Outside of Montreal, she said it takes rural mail carriers sometimes eight hours to finish their route, but they are paid for six. This, she said, is another reason workers are protesting. Businesses rely on Canada Post Quebec's Federation of the Chambers of Commerce is hoping for a quick resolution to the strike. "A postal service is essential for the Quebec economy," said spokesperson Joanne Beauvais, especially as an increasing number of businesses are making the shift to online shopping. The federation, she added, has been pushing businesses in the province to make that transition to online commerce, but "the issue is, once you've made that transition, it's hard if the parcels can't be delivered to the clients." Beyond online shopping and commerce, she said it is important for businesses to be able to send invoices and collect payments by mail. With files from Lauren McCallum, Radio-Canada and La Presse Canadienne The Canada Revenue Agency netted more than $1 billion over the past five years through the agency's annual reviews of Canadians' federal benefits prompting critics to accuse the agency of making money off the most vulnerable. Critics also say that some of the benefit money clawed back from taxpayers is actually coming from people who qualify for those benefits but couldn't prove it because of the agency's onerous standards, tight timelines and bureaucratic bungling. "The part that's troubling is what we hear from Canadians (who) ... do qualify for the benefit but simply can't comply with the demands put on them to prove their claim with the CRA," said Conservative national revenue critic Pat Kelly in an interview with CBC News. "If people are just simply giving up on benefits to which they're entitled, that's not the way that a government should raise revenue." CRA numbers provided to CBC News show that since 2013-2014, CRA benefit reviews have identified $3.021 billion to be repaid by taxpayers while the amount the agency found it owed taxpayers through those reviews totalled $1.837 billion. The result: the CRA netted $1.184 billion through benefit reviews over five years. "It's a big number and it would represent many thousands of families that would be affected, so this reaches into every community across Canada," said Kelly. An 'easy target' The smallest yearly gap between the amount payable to the CRA through benefit reviews and the amount the agency owed was recorded in 2013-2014: $128 million. The widest gap was recorded in 2015-2016: $415 million. Gerry Campbell is a tax specialist with Liberty Tax Services in Toronto. He said that while there's no doubt CRA reviews catch people who should not be receiving benefits, or are getting too much, he's also sure that some of the money the agency claws back is coming from Canadians who are eligible for their benefits. Story continues "The eligible benefit deduction and the subsequent child tax benefits is probably the government's most cost effective clawback they have," said Campbell. "The CRA is a collection agency. For them, it's an easy target." Each year, the CRA reviews the eligibility of hundreds of thousands of Canadians for the Canada Child Benefit (and its predecessor, the Universal Child Care Benefit) and the GST/HST credit. Eligibility for those benefits can change due to shifts in income, marital status and custody status, among other things. Most of the time, the CRA is wrong. These families ... don't know to whom to turn. - NDP finance critic Peter Julian Over the past five years, the agency has reviewed 332,131 accounts each year on average. About 62 per cent of those accounts are found to be in need of adjustment one way or the other. "At its core, the objective of the benefits validation program is to ensure that the right recipients receive the right amount of benefits no more and no less," said agency officials in an email to CBC News. "The program does not have any revenue targets." The CRA's benefit reviews have come under increased scrutiny in the past year as Canadians have come forward with complaints about the agency's onerous requests for proof of eligibility. Some have claimed that, even when taxpayers are able to comply with the 30 day time limit, the CRA does not believe them. Others have come forward accusing the agency of losing their submitted documentation or giving them inconsistent information over the phone. "In so many of these cases, these benefits are being denied unjustly. Revenue Canada is actually pushing for repayment from folks who should be receiving the benefit," said NDP finance critic Peter Julian. "Through these reviews there's a crackdown on families. And families often don't have the resources to push back." Last spring, the agency commissioned its own focus group study of Canadians who had seen their benefits cut off and subsequently restored. The study found many people experienced problems with the benefits validation process failing to receive an initial review letter requesting documentation, not being given enough time to gather the necessary proof, finding that the documentation demanded by CRA was too difficult to pull together. Gathering the required proof can involve going to school officials or medical professionals, navigating the legal system or reaching out to an estranged spouse for help. Many Canadians told the focus group they're still frustrated by their inability to get anyone from CRA on the phone, which makes it difficult to ask for time extensions. A long wait for reversals "The CRA asks to provide your information within 30 days and if you can't meet that, you can get cut off," said Campbell, adding that if someone objects and submits documents for further review, there's no reciprocal commitment from CRA to deal with that submission within a certain period of time. Benefit reductions and clawbacks can be reversed, he said, but it can take months or longer to sort it all out. "And they've been living on that child tax benefit. It can be part of the rent they pay every month." The CRA's own focus study recommended that the agency officially lengthen its initial time allotment for Canadians to comply with a review. The CRA hasn't followed through on that recommendation so far. The agency says instead that, if recipients have not responded to a request for information, instead of adjusting their benefits immediately the agency will contact taxpayers first, and offer them access to the agent working their case if they need more time. Justin Tang/THE CANADIAN PRESS National Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier declined to do an interview with CBC News. She said in an emailed statement that, since coming to power, the Liberal government has invested in a new client-focused approach at CRA that has resulted in service improvements. "As a former social worker, I recognize that the credits and benefits offered to the most vulnerable Canadians are essential for them to make ends meet," she said. "That is why, in the spirit of better service, it is important to me that Canadians receive the amounts to which they are entitled." The minister has admitted that more work needs to be done. She announced Monday the appointment of the agency's assistant commissioner as its first Chief Service Officer, who will launch consultations with Canadians on how to improve the CRA's service. Small fry vs. big fish Julian, meanwhile, said the problems created by the benefit reviews seem to be getting worse. "What I'm finding in my riding is more and more people who do qualify for the benefits are seeing them taken away, often by administrative fiat," he said. "And most of the time, the CRA is wrong. But because these families don't have the resources, they don't know to whom to turn." The NDP has long argued that under the previous Conservative government, and now under the Liberals, the CRA has targeted average Canadians while shying away from going after the big tax cheats who have the resources to fight the agency. The numbers the CRA provided on benefit reviews do not include a tally of future benefit payments that would have been paid out to Canadians if a review had not reduced or eliminated them. In other words, the numbers do not include money the government is saving going forward by not paying the benefits. The father of Jack Letts, a young British-Canadian man dubbed "Jihadi Jack" by British media, said information exists that proves his son was not a supporter of the Islamic State but that information is sealed as part of a court case against himself and his wife. The extraordinary claim was made by John Letts during a news conference on Parliament Hill Tuesday, prior to a meeting between Letts and senior officials at Global Affairs Canada. "For three years we have not been allowed to talk about our case, or counter lies that have been printed about Jack, because of contempt of court rules," Letts said, referring to the charges of funding terrorism filed by British authorities against himself and his wife, Sally Lane. "I want everyone here to know what we know that Jack worked with others in the religious opposition to ISIS in Raqqa. He condemned ISIS on social media and he wants to spend the rest of his life living peacefully and bearing witness against ISIS." Sean Kilpatrick/THE CANADIAN PRESS Letts and his wife were charged in early 2016 with sending money overseas, or arranging to do so, when there was reason to believe it could be used in support of terrorism. Their case is still pending. They maintain their innocence and say they were sending their son cash to get him out of ISIS-controlled territory in Syria, where he had gone as part of a religious quest in 2014. Letts said Tuesday he's expecting British authorities to arrest him upon his return to the U.K. on Wednesday because he's violated the publication ban surrounding details of the case. A 'media witch hunt' "Unfortunately, I do not have any other choice than to speak out because I love my son and I think he's innocent," Letts said. The fate of Jack Letts and eight other Canadians who left the country to join ISIS has been the subject of furious debate in Parliament. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has attacked the Liberal government for helping Letts and considering his appeal to come to this country. Story continues "British terrorist Jihadi Jack, a U.K. citizen, who may or may not have ever set foot in Canada, reportedly received help from a government representative," the Conservative leader said, leading off question period on Oct. 16. "The Liberals proactively reached out to him to help him come to Canada. Why?" On Tuesday, Letts said he and his wife have been subjected to a "media witch hunt" and their son is guilty only of being a devout Muslim and going to Syria in 2014 to help other Muslims. "He felt he had a religious duty to help others who were suffering," said John Letts. The younger Letts is a Muslim convert who grew up in Oxford. His father is Canadian. His mother is a landed immigrant in this country and all of their children hold dual citizenship. The image painted of Jack by his father, in the news conference and in multiple media interviews this week, stands in stark contrast to the one presented in the House of Commons. In an open letter to MPs recently, Letts accused Scheer of spreading "lies" about his son, but chose not to renew the attack directly on the opposition leader on Tuesday. He said he would be the first to condemn Jack if there was proof his son was involved with ISIS, and that those who did fight for ISIS should be brought to justice. Charity offers to get Canadian detainees home His case, Letts said, is being conflated with others, such as Canadian ISIS fighter Muhammad Ali, who went by the name Abu Turaab Al-Kanadi. Ali told Global News earlier this month he wants to return home and is one of at least three Canadians who allegedly travelled to Syria to join ISIS and are now imprisoned by the Kurds. The Liberal government has said it cannot help with the repatriation because it has no consular support nearby, the region is unstable and officials cannot safely travel there. Alexandra Bain, director of Families Against Violent Extremism, said her organization helped U.S. officials bring an American woman and her four children home from Kurdish-held territory in Syria in August. She said her organization and another charity, Reprieve, have offered to do the same thing for the Canadian detainees, but they have been turned down. Clive Stafford-Smith, the lawyer representing Letts and the founder of Reprieve, is prepared to make the journey to northern Syria and only asks that the Canadian government issue emergency passports that would allow the detainees back into the country. Bain said she believes the Liberal government is "afraid and they're not sure how to do (it), and we would really like to help because we have done it already." Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale insisted Tuesday that the federal government has no duty to act to secure the detainees' release. "There is no legal obligation on the government of Canada to repatriate in these circumstances. No offer of repatriation has been made and there's certainly no deal with the Kurds," he said following a cabinet meeting. Members of the other detainees' families did not appear at Tuesday's news conference "because they greatly fear the negative repercussions of appearing in public," Bain said. John Letts apparently had no such fear. "Other countries, including the USA, have brought their citizens home, so why can't Canada?" he said, before addressing the reporters in the room directly. "I need your help to save my son's life." By Mohamed Junayd MALE (Reuters) - The Maldives' Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed exiled former president Mohamed Nasheed's 13-year jail sentence on terrorism charges, allowing him to go home this week. Nasheed has said he will return on Thursday. The move comes days before newly elected President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih is scheduled to take his oath of office. Solih, a close ally of Nasheed, unseated former pro-China leader Abdulla Yameen in the Sept. 23 poll by a 16.8 percent margin. Nasheed was sentenced to jail for ordering the abduction of a judge after a rushed and widely criticized trial in March 2015. He went into exile during a medical trip to Britain. The Muslim-majority tourist paradise has been in political upheaval since February, when a state of emergency was imposed by Yameen to annul a court ruling that quashed the convictions of nine opposition leaders, including Nasheed. The Maldives, located near key shipping lanes, has become a battleground for China and India as they compete for influence in the region. The Supreme Court also reinstated 12 opposition lawmakers who were stripped of their seats when they defected to the opposition in 2017. (Writing by Shihar Aneez; Editing by Nick Macfie) ULAANBAATAR (Reuters) - Mongolia has banned the celebration of Halloween in schools this year, reflecting growing fears that the landlocked country's rapid economic transformation is eroding its native Buddhist traditions. In a directive sent to all schools last week, the education ministry said parents had complained in the past about their children trying to collect money and asking for Halloween costumes. Stressing that Halloween was not an officially recognized holiday, it ordered all schools to put a stop to organized celebrations this year. Halloween has become increasingly popular in the capital Ulaanbaatar. "Our school has specialized classes in the English language, and that's why we celebrated Halloween in many different ways," said G. Erdenechimeg, a social worker at the 23rd School in Ulaanbaatar, which focuses on foreign languages. "Generally, it's all about the children's attitude," she added. "Some may get into their roles too deeply or misuse (Halloween) and have a negative social effect. For this reason, it has been decided not to celebrate." Mongolia has undergone a rapid transformation since its Moscow-backed Communist regime collapsed in 1990, with a succession of governments trying to modernize the economy and open up to foreign investment. In a bid to offset the impact of giant neighbors Russia and China, Mongolia has also courted "third neighbors" like the United States and Japan, leading to growing cultural ties. But the rapid pace of change has stoked concerns that its nomadic and Buddhist culture is being left behind. Halloween celebrations are still expected to continue in Ulaanbaatar, home to nearly half of Mongolia's population of 3 million. "I haven't seen the decision have any impact or affect our sales so far," said D. Purev, owner of the Party Shop, which stocks Halloween-related goods in Ulaanbaatar. (Reporting by Suvdantsetseg Tsagaanbaatar; Writing by David Stanway; Editing by Nick Macfie) Saskatchewan teens are smoking almost three times more than their peers in other provinces, according to newly released numbers. Health Canada's 2017 Canadian Tobacco Alcohol and Drugs Survey found that 21.9 per cent of youth aged 15 to 19 identified as tobacco smokers, compared to a national rate of 7.9 per cent. "Nationally, the rate has continued to fall and has continued to fall among other provinces and ours has remained stubbornly high," said Donna Pasiechnik, who is a health policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society in Regina. The concern, she said, is about youth smokers turning into lifelong addicts with lifelong health complications. Pasiechnik said Saskatchewan has fallen behind other provinces and needs to do more to help cut back tobacco consumption. "We pull in nearly $300 million a year in tobacco taxes. We don't spend anything to help people quit or or stop people from starting," she said. Pasiechnik said she has worked in tobacco control for 15 years and is frustrated because health groups continue to ask for change to no avail. "It's a concern, of course, because if we don't control tobacco we will not control cancer. It's disheartening," she said. Mohn Rasfan/AFP/Getty Images Pasiechnik said simple measures such as banning smoking at all playgrounds and on hospital grounds can make a difference. She said seven other provinces have banned smoking on all outdoor bar patios. A ban on all flavoured tobacco and requiring retail licenses could also help control tobacco, she said. She questioned why people need a license to sell cannabis but not tobacco, which she called "the deadliest consumer product on the market." Furthermore, she suggested the sale of tobacco be banned at post-secondary institutions and sporting facilities. "We cannot do this alone. Municipalities have stepped up. The federal government has stepped up. It's time for the Saskatchewan government to step up," she said. Story continues Pasiechnik said higher tobacco taxes would be one of the most effective ways to reduce smoking, but that past recommendations to the province have fallen on deaf ears. "I don't know who's in their ear, but it's certainly not us, because it's not just the Cancer Society calling for this. Doctors have called [for it], the Lung Association, the Saskatchewan Coalition for Tobacco Reductions," she said. "In a province where we're trying to grapple with rising health care costs, why are we not taking this problem more seriously?" Saskatchewan Health Minister Jim Reiter said the province already has "very high taxes on tobacco," but that tax rates will be reviewed with this year's upcoming budget, as they are every year. Reiter said he would like to meet with members from the Cancer Society to hear their "perspective" on the issue. "We're extremely concerned if rates are going in the wrong direction," he said. "We don't want people to be smoking. Its a huge drain on health care and it causes tragedy in families everywhere." - with files from Adam Hunter. By Asif Shahzad and Mubasher Bukhari ISLAMABAD/LAHORE (Reuters) - Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday freed a Christian woman from a death sentence for blasphemy against Islam and overturned her conviction, sparking angry protests and death threats from an ultra-Islamist party and cheers from human rights advocates. New Prime Minister Imran Khan issued a warning to the religious right late in the evening that any prolonged blockade of streets would be met with action. Asia Bibi, a mother of four, had been living on death row since 2010, when she became the first woman to be sentenced to death by hanging under Pakistan's draconian blasphemy laws, which critics say are too harsh and often misused. She was condemned for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbors objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim. Bibi has always denied committing blasphemy. The case has outraged Christians worldwide - Pope Francis said he personally prayed for Bibi - and has been a source of division within Pakistan, where two politicians who sought to help Bibi were assassinated. Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, who headed a special three-judge bench set up for the appeal, cited the Koran in the ruling, writing that "tolerance is the basic principle of Islam" and noting the religion condemns injustice and oppression. In overturning her conviction, the ruling said the evidence against Bibi was insufficient. Bibi did not appear in the courtroom and her whereabouts were a closely held secret for fear of attacks on her and her family. Many have speculated they will be forced to leave the country, but there was no confirmation of their plans. Her lawyer called the court ruling "great news" for Pakistan. "Asia Bibi has finally been served justice," lawyer Saiful Mulook told Reuters. "Pakistan's Supreme Court must be appreciated that it upheld the law of the land and didn't succumb to any pressure." DEATH THREATS Supporters of Islamist political party Tehreek-e-Labaik (TLP) immediately condemned Wednesday's ruling and blocked roads in major cities, pelting police with stones in the eastern city of Lahore. Street protests and blockades of major roads were spreading by mid-afternoon, paralyzing parts of Islamabad, Lahore and other cities. One of the TLP's top leaders called for the death of Nisar, the chief justice, and the two other judges on the panel. "They all three deserve to be killed. Either their security should kill them, their driver kill them, or their cook kill them," TLP co-founder Muhammad Afzal Qadri told a protest in Lahore. "Whoever, who has got any access to them, kill them before the evening." He also called for the ouster of Khan's new government of and for army officers to rise up against powerful military chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who he said "should be sacked from the army". Khan addressed the nation in a televised speech on Wednesday night, supporting the court ruling and warning the ultra-Islamists not to disrupt the nation. "We will not allow any damages to occur. We will not allow traffic to be blocked," Khan said. "I appeal to you, do not push the state to the extent that it is forced to take action." The TLP was founded out of a movement supporting a bodyguard who assassinated Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer for advocating for Bibi in 2011. Federal minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti was also killed after calling for her release. In November, TLP staged a crippling blockade of Islamabad after small changes to a religious oath taken by election candidates, which it said were tantamount to blasphemy. Seven people were killed and more than 200 wounded in clashes with the police and TLP's supporters only dispersed after striking a deal with the military. BLASPHEMY LAW CRITICIZED In February, Bibi's husband, Ashiq Masih, and one of her daughters met Pope Francis shortly before Rome's ancient Coliseum was lit in red one evening in solidarity with persecuted Christians, and Bibi in particular. The pope told Bibi's daughter: "I think often of your mother and I pray for her." Christians make up only about 2 percent of Pakistan's population and are often discriminated against. Dozens of Pakistanis - including many minority Christians or members of the Ahmadi faith - have been sentenced to death for blasphemy in the past decade, though no one has been executed. Rights groups say the blasphemy law is exploited by religious extremists as well as ordinary Pakistanis to settle personal scores. Additionally, at least 65 people have been murdered over blasphemy allegations since 1990, including a 23-year-old student beaten to death on his university campus last year. "This is a landmark verdict," said Omar Waraich, deputy South Asia director for Amnesty International. "The message must go out that the blasphemy laws will no longer be used to persecute the country's most vulnerable minorities." (Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alex Richardson) Riot police dispersed jubilant students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst on Sunday, October 28, after the Boston Red Sox won their fourth World Series title in 15 years. These videos, captured by Gretchen Keller of the Massachusetts Daily Collegian, show the drama unfolding. Thousands of students were seen celebrating on campus after the Red Sox 5-1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers, MassLive.com reported. Credit: Gretchen Keller/Massachusetts Daily Collegian via Storyful By Josh Smith and David Brunnstrom SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - South Korea's spy agency has observed preparations by North Korea for international inspections at several of its nuclear and missile test sites, the Yonhap news agency said on Wednesday, citing a South Korean lawmaker. U.S. officials declined to confirm the observations, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in Washington he planned to meet his North Korean negotiating counterpart next week and would speak to him about inspections. Pompeo said in a radio interview that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had committed to allowing U.S. inspectors at two "significant" sites when he met him in Pyongyang this month. "We hope to get them there before too long," he told the Laura Ingraham show. Pompeo did not identify the sites. Kim Min-ki of South Korea's ruling Democratic Party told reporters earlier that the country's National Intelligence Service observed North Koreans "conducting preparation and intelligence activities that seem to be in preparation for foreign inspectors visit" at Punggye-ri nuclear test site and the Sohae Satellite launching ground. The lawmaker added that no major movements had been seen at Yongbyon, the North's main nuclear complex. North Korea has stopped nuclear and missile tests in the past year, but it did not allow international inspections of its dismantling of Punggye-ri in May, drawing criticism that the action was merely for show and could be reversed. In September, Kim Jong Un also pledged at a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in to close Sohae and allow experts to observe the dismantling of the missile engine-testing site and a launch pad. At the time, Moon said North Korea agreed to let international inspectors observe a "permanent dismantlement" of key missile facilities, and take further steps, such as closing Yongbyon, in return for reciprocal moves by the United States. Washington has demanded steps such as a full disclosure of the Norths nuclear and missile facilities, before agreeing to Pyongyangs key goals. American officials have been skeptical of Kim's commitment to giving up nuclear weapons, but the Norths pledge at the summit with the South drew an enthusiastic response from President Donald Trump, who met Kim in an unprecedented summit in June and has been keen on a second meeting. During an inspection of a large construction project at a tourism resort in Wonsan, Kim told workers that such economic projects are a new "decisive battle" for supporting the ruling party and pushing back against international sanctions over the nuclear program, North Korean state media reported on Thursday. "The hostile forces are foolishly keen on vicious sanctions to stand in our way toward promotion of people's wellbeing and development and to lead us to change and submission, but they will be made to clearly see over time how our country that has built its strength hundreds of times defying hardship build its own country as a powerful nation by its own strength, technology and efforts," he said on Korean Central News Agency. Pompeo told Laura Ingraham Washington hoped the second summit would take place early next year "where we can make a substantial breakthrough in taking down the nuclear threat from North Korea." "Theres a lot of work which remains, and Chairman Kim has made clear to me - just as plain as Im speaking to you, Laura - that he has the intention to denuclearize and well do everything we can to assist him in following through on that commitment." Pompeo did not name his counterpart, but Kim Yong Chol, a close aide to Kim Jong Un, has led past negotiating sessions with him. The State Department declined to provide details, but the meeting is expected to take place in New York. Also in Washington, South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo said the United States and South Korea would make a decision by December on major joint military exercises for 2019. Earlier this month, the two countries suspended Vigilant Ace, one of several exercises that have been halted to encourage dialogue. "We are not right now concerned with a loss of combat capability," U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters after the meeting with his South Korean counterpart. "Clearly as we go forward, we'll have to make adaptations to ensure we don't lose that capability. But right now, again this is not a total suspension of all collaboration and military exercises," Mattis added. (Reporting by Josh Smith; additional reporting by David Brunnstrom and Idrees Ali in Washington; editing by Peter Cooney, James Dalgleish and Diane Craft) Mounir el Motassadeq is back in his home country after spending nearly 15 years in prison (Picture: Daniel Bockwoldt/dpa/via AP) The man known as the treasurer for the 9/11 terrorists has returned to his home country to a heros welcome, it has been reported. Mounir el-Motassadeq is one of only two men jailed over the 9/11 terror attacks and has served less than 15 years in prison. He was deported from Germany back to his home country of Morocco after being released early. According to the Daily Mail, el-Motassadeq is now living in his family home in a suburb of Marrakech with his wife and children and has been greeted by well-wishers since his return. The newspaper said people had described the jubilant reaction of friends, family and neighbours when the 44-year-old returned, with people coming from all over Morocco to see him. El Motassadeq before his trial in Hamburg, northern Germany (Picture: AP Photo/Fabian Bimmer, Pool) El-Motassadeq, who was described during his trial as the treasurer for the 9/11 hijackers, served less than 15 years in prison for his part in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in September 2001. Zacarias Moussaoui, the only other man convicted over the attacks, is serving six life sentences in a maximum security prison in the US after admitting to being part of the plot. MORE: Dad who sent smiling Snapchat picture of son to mother before beating him to death jailed for life MORE: Council failings saw homeless boy, 17, given a tent to live in by social worker According to the Mail, El-Motassadeq grinned and said he was too busy to speak when the newspaper tracked him down in Marrakech, while his sister reportedly said praise be to God when asked if she was happy about his release. One neighbour told the paper the streets were full of people coming to see him after his return. Neighbours said they were very happy to have him back. One Hayat, a former model for Louis Vuitton said there were jubilant scenes after his return on Friday. 2 arrested with illegal drugs from Banke, Kathmandu Police have arrested two persons along with illegal pharmaceutical drugs from Banke and Kathmandu districts on Tuesday. Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh. blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. ..31 October '18..The Gaza Ministry of Health issued a statement about the critical shortage of immunosuppressant and other drugs in Gaza, jeopardizing the health and life of hundreds of patients who have had successful kidney transplants.Without those drugs, the patients may have to return to going on dialysis, their new kidneys becoming useless.There are 333 kidney transplant patients in Gaza, and hundreds more with renal failure who need medicines desperately. (Photo: Twitter/Johnnie Moore)Johnnie Moore with Mustofa Bisri, chief advisor of the Nahdlatul Ulama organisation Christians have united with Muslim scholars in calling for an end to hate and the politicization of Islam at a major faith gathering in Indonesia. The Nusantara Statement calls upon faith leaders worldwide to work together for peace, equality and the protection of human dignity. Among the Christians signing the declaration were Johnnie Moore, founder of the Kairos Company, and Archbishop Joseph D'Souza, president of the All India Christian Council. It reads: 'We call upon people of goodwill of every faith and nation to join in building a global consensus to prevent the political weaponization of Islam, whether by Muslims or non-Muslims, and to curtail the spread of communal hatred by fostering the emergence of a truly just and harmonious world order, founded upon respect for the equal rights and dignity of every human being.' The statement was issued at the Second Global Unity Forum in Yogyakarta, Indonesia this week, hosted by moderate Islamic organisation Nahdlatul Ulama and attended by faith leaders from over 20 countries. Archbishop D'Souza welcomed the statement, saying that the weaponization of Islam as well as Hinduism and Christianity 'has led to hate, violence and division'. 'And as it usually happens, the ones who suffer the most are the poor, marginalized and the outcastes. This must end,' he said. He continued: 'Every major world religion can agree on these two things: every human life is equal and has inherent dignity, and all violence is evil and not from God. 'These ideas, captured in the Nusantara Statement, are essential for a truly pluralistic society that acknowledges the uniqueness and identity of other faiths and provides the space for multifaith cooperation and dialogue. In the end, the vision is for religion to be a blessing to the world and not a curse.' While Islam's birthplace is in the Middle East, Archbishop D'Souza said it was 'logical' that the statement emerged from Indonesia, the world's most populous country, which he said 'has historically represented the best of Islam'. Nahdlatul Ulama was founded by late Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid and aims, among other things, to promote a tolerant and inclusive Islam. During his lifetime, President Wahid received the Magsaysay Award and the Top Honor Prize by the World Peace Prize Awarding Council for his work in building democracy in Indonesia and promoting peace and inter-religious cooperation. He also received the Simon Wiesenthal Center's prestigious 'medal of valor' for his work promoting peaceful coexistence between religious communities. Rev Moore, a fellow Wiesenthal Center honoree, said he was 'honored' to sign his name on the statement. He added: 'There is a new spirit of friendship and cooperation emerging among the most influential leaders of the world's largest religious communities in the active promotion of peaceful coexistence, in unrelenting opposition to extremism and with a determination to make the world a better place for our children. 'It is always a privilege as a Christian leader to stand in solidarity with those who promote peace among the world's other religions and to overtly and fearlessly defy those who aim to use religion as a means of promoting violence.' I have to admit, I never was and am still not a big fan of reading and writing. I scarcely read books and I scarcely write things for enjoyment. In spite of my clear bias, I am a strong advocate for writing journals as I have the firsthand experience of the great benefits it brought to my soul. Here is just one reason why you should commit to personal spiritual journals if you are not already in habit of doing so. The bible commands us to do so (loosely speaking). Alrighty bear with me, here comes a long portion of scripture: Joshua chapter 4, verses 1-7 When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, 2 Take twelve men from the people, from each tribe a man, 3 and command them, saying, Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests' feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight. 4 Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. 5 And Joshua said to them, Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, 6 that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, What do those stones mean to you? 7 then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever. To any of you who are hermeneutic freaks (including myself), I know this will be a slightly stretched interpretation, but these verses have truly engrained within me the importance of writing journals. After a stunning miracle performed by God for the people of Israel, God commands the Israelites to take 12 stones out from the middle of the Jordan river as a memorial to tell their children in future generations of such a miracle God had performed for the Israelites. You see we human beings, truly dumb creatures that we are, always forget the amazing things that God has done in our lives. The times that he has miraculously provided for our needs, times when he has comforted us like none other in this whole cosmos, times he has shown our soul of the wretch that we are, times he reminded us of his unconceivable mercy towards us through the cross of Jesus Christ and so much more that the list can go on forever. It is because God knows that humans forget these things that he instructed the Israelites to take something that will be a constant reminder to them of the miraculous work which God has done for us in our lives. Journals in this sense are like the 12 stones from the Jordan riverbed. It is a way for us to record memorable moments we had with God so that we can go back to it to constantly remind ourselves of the things he has done in our lives. Beware of the bandits! The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy (John chapter 10, verse 10). Part of our forgetfulness can be blamed on Satan and his pesky minions that invade into our memory safe to steal, kill and destroy the miraculous and redemptive works God has performed in our lives. By continuously writing and revisiting our journals for reflection, we are practically erecting an immovable Jordan riverbed Stonehenge inside the house, making it impossible for Satan to come to steal and destroy our precious memories with God. I like my stones the best. Even though I have benefited much from journals of John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards and of course my dear George Whitfield, I have always found my journals to be of most comfort and encouragement to me. I think this is because my journal shows a track record of the outworking of Gods gracious providence in my life that others journals cannot contain, and this indeed is why I find my journal the best journal out of this whole world to me. In times when I am down because I doubt God loves me or I doubt because of my lack of spiritual growth, I go search for my 12 Jordan rocks inside my drawer. I simply spend some time silently gazing at it, recollecting the memories using my five senses with the help of the Holy Spirit. Then I rememberand am awestruckof his love towards his children and countless acts of love he has shown in my life, of which it whispers into my soul saying God is love (1 John chapter 4, verse 8). Richard Kwon is from Auckland, a regular lay person who just loves the Lord. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp LinkedIn Email Telegram Nairobi, Kenya, October 31, 2018Authorities in Somalia should urgently investigate the killing of radio journalist Abdullahi Mire Hashi, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. At least two unidentified gunmen shot Abdullahi in the town of Elasha Biyaha, about 17 km from the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on October 27, according to media reports and two local press rights groups. Abdullahi, the producer and host of a daily show broadcast on the privately owned radio station Darul Sunnah, was shot dead after attending afternoon prayers at a mosque near his station, Ismail Sheikh Khalifa, chair of the advocacy group Human Rights Journalists (HRJ), and Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu, secretary-general of the government-recognized National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), told CPJ. The gunmen fled the scene immediately after the attack, Ismail and Mohamed said. Authorities in Somalia have a solemn duty to investigate the killing of Abdullahi Mire Hashi and bring those responsible to justice, said CPJ Sub-Saharan Africa Representative Muthoki Mumo. Somalia continues to rank as the worst country in the world for securing justice in the murders of journalists. Rigorously investigating these attacks is the key to addressing the environment of fear in which the press operates. The radio station for which Abdullahi worked focuses on religious programming. The journalist hosted the show, This Morning on Darul Sunnah, during which listeners called in to describe conditions in their part of town. The show was described as non-political by Mohamed and Ismail. Ismail said that at least three local journalists, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, told him that Abdullahi had said he recently received anonymous phone calls questioning why the station was not covering the militant group Al-Shabaabs operations in the region. The town where Abdullahi worked is in an insecure region. A military base for the African Union Mission in Somalia there has been the site of attacks by Al-Shabaab. An October 28 report by the Kenyan-based newspaper The East African said that no group had taken responsibility for the attack. A police officer who spoke to the Chinese state-owned news agency Xinhua on October 27 said that details about the case were scant. Abdirahman Yusuf Al-Adala, the director general in the Somali federal ministry of information, told CPJ in an email today that the attack looked like terrorist action. He said that the government condemned the killing and that security services were investigating. CPJs calls, a voicemail, and a text message sent to Bashir Abdi Mohamed, Somalias police commissioner, went unanswered. Somalia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. For the past four years, the country has topped CPJs impunity index, which spotlights countries where journalists are slain and their killers go free. The 2018 index shows that 25 journalists were murdered with complete impunity between September 1, 2008 and August 31, 2018. 3 arrested with illegal pharmaceutical drugs from Nawalparasi, Banke Police have arrested three people in possession of illegal contraband from Nawalparasi and Banke districts on Tuesday. A British woman faces death by hanging after being charged with murdering her allegedly abusive husband with a kitchen knife in their idyllic Malaysian retirement home.Petite Samantha Jones, barefoot and wearing an orange prison suit with the words 'Police Lockup' emblazoned across it, appeared sombre and nervous as she was formally charged with murdering husband John, 63, in Langkawi on Tuesday.Samantha was charged with murdering her husband between 1am and 3am on October 18 at their 200,000 home overlooking paddy fields in a quiet village on the island.Scroll down for videoMurder carries a mandatory sentence of death by hanging in Malaysia, although her claim of self-defence could lead to her being convicted under a different section carrying a prison term.The court heard John Jones died of a single stab wound to the chest, with the blade puncturing his liver.Samantha nodded when asked if she understood the charge which was translated to English for her by a court interpreter. She did not speak during the brief hearing.No plea was entered and magistrate Adibah Husna Zainal Abidin remanded her in custody until November 29 as the investigation and forensic reports into the killing in the early hours of October 18 continue.Samantha, 51, has spent the past 12 days in police cells in Langkawi after the killing which she has admitted but says was in self-defence after he kicked and punched her in the villa they have lived in for 11 years.Her sister, who flew out from the UK to support Samantha shortly after her arrest and has visited her regularly, was in court but refused to talk to reporters.Samantha bowed her head to avoid being photographed as she was led into court at midday after being taken to court in a police car escorted by female officers.Her lawyer Sangeet Kaur Deo said after the hearing Samantha: 'My client is okay and doing quite well given the circumstances. It is very overwhelming (for her) at the moment.'Ms Deo declined to comment on Samantha's claims that she had been physically abused by her husband before the killing.MailOnline revealed last week how Samantha has told investigators her husband punched her in the face and kicked her in the stomach after a night of drinking before the killing, following years of physical abuse.She claims she grabbed a kitchen knife to defend herself and he goaded her to stab him before she fled to the bedroom holding the knife.Samantha says she only thrust the knife into the chest of the burly retired fire-fighter when he chased after her and lunged at her in a renewed attack.She then ran out of the villa and alerted an expatriate woman neighbour. When they tried to go to John's help as he lay stricken, he pointed at Samantha and said in his dying words: 'Stay away. You stabbed me, you stabbed me.'Samantha, a former insurance clerk from Somerset, is expected to be transferred from police cells in Langkawi to a prison on the Malaysian mainland in the next 24 hours.The island's police chief Superintendent Mohamed Iqbal told Mail Online a medical investigation of Samantha after the killing found no evidence of any injuries to support her claim John kicked and punched her. 'There were no injuries (to Samantha) at all,' he said.The couple lived in a single-storey home with views over paddy fields in a tiny village two miles from the sea built 11 years ago under Malaysia's My Second Home programme which has seen hundreds of Britons gain residency on the island.Harley Davidson-riding John, who has two grown-up children from a previous marriage and four grandchildren, was a popular and gregarious figure on the island and a regular at bars and restaurants along the lively Centai Beach tourist strip.But despite their seemingly sunny lifestyle, Samantha has told police John was a heavy-drinking wife beater who she twice reported to police in the UK for assault before the couple emigrated to Langkawi.Friends say he couple separated temporarily while in Malaysia because of his violent outbursts. John, originally from Stourport in Worcestershire, underwent treatment to control his temper and his drinking before they reconciled.John, who was chief fire officer in Yeovil, Somerset, immediately before his retirement, had returned from a visit to his family in England shortly before his death.On the day of the murder, the couple went for sunset drinks together on Centai Beach, a popular area for expatriates to meet and drink out of sight of their teetotal local neighbours on the predominantly Muslim island.A close friend of the couple, who asked not to be named, said: 'Sam went home after a while because she wasn't feeling well and John told her he would be home by 9pm.'He ended up in another bar drinking with a friend. She kept trying to contact him through a friend to tell him to come home he doesn't carry a mobile phone. John didn't go home until after midnight. I just wish I 'd been there to tell him it was time to go home.'A fierce row broke out when John returned home which Samantha claims escalated when John kicked her in the stomach and punched her in the face.A police source said: 'She went into the kitchen and took out a kitchen knife to hold him at bay but he reacted by goading her and pointing to his chest and saying 'Go on then, stab me'.'Samantha tells police she then went into the bedroom holding the knife and stabbed her husband once in the chest when he came after her and lunched towards her as she backed up against a wardrobe.She then ran to her neighbours for help and returned with the wife, a middle-aged British expatriate, who witnessed John's dying words as he lay on the villa floor.Another expatriate friend of the couple, who also asked not to be named, said: 'John and Sam had had had problems in the past and separated for a while and that John went into rehab to get himself sorted out.'But we thought they'd put all of that behind them. They were absolutely devoted to each other and John even had her name tattooed on the inside of his arm.'Everyone is just trying to get their heads around what has happened. They were the nicest people you could meet. But who knows what goes on behind closed doors?'In a tribute to John in his hometown newspaper, relatives said: 'John was a loving family man who thought the world of them. He moved to Malaysia after retiring but often returned to see his family.'He even came back earlier this year to complete the Three Peaks Challenge, climbing Ben Nevis, Snowdon and Scafell, with his daughter. He spent his whole working life with the fire service and he will be greatly missed.'Although murder currently carries the death penalty in Malaysia, the government has announced it is preparing to change the law to abolish capital punishment. More than 1,200 people are currently on death row in the country.Read more: The Star - Sheffield News Bangladesh: 8-month ban on 'jatka' fishing from Thursday October 31,2018 | Source: Dhaka Tribune An eight-month-long ban has been imposed on catching, selling, hoarding and transporting of 'jatka' (ilish fry less than 25cm long) from Thursday with the purpose of increasing production. District and divisional Fisheries officers said the authorities imposed the ban on catching ilish fry from November 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019, across 7,000 square km of coastal, estuarial and riverine areas to ensure free breeding of ilish. They said during the time, the government will provide aid to the fishermen, reports UNB. Chandpur Fisheries Research Institute's Chief Scientific Officer Dr Anisur Rahman said the mother ilish have already started to move towards the coastal areas for laying eggs. An ilish can lay around 2.1 million eggs. Bagerhat zone Fisheries Officer Zia Haider said if the ban is followed strictly, there is a possibility of at least 500,000 metric tons of ilish production due in the next season. He said the government will provide 40kg of rice to the fishermen per capita in each month during the ban. According to the Fisheries Department, there are at least 1.6 to 2 million registered fishermen in Bangladesh and among them 39,103 are in the district, he said. Following the government's attempt to increase ilish production, some 496,000 metric tons of ilish were produced in the fiscal year 2016-2017, while it increased to 590,000 in the fiscal year of 2017-2018, he added. Two fishermen of Sarankhola upazila, Rafiqul Islam and Abu Taleb said the government should provide food to those fishermen who will refrain from catching fish during the ban. Wishing anonymity, a fisherman said the government will have to take action against those factories involved in producing thinly knitted nets. Afghan army helicopter crash kills 25, including a top commander An army helicopter crashed in southwestern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing 25 people on board, including a top commander and the head of the provincial council key in fighting off a Taliban attack in May, officials said. Maharashtra: Over 5000 fishermen hold protest at Sassoon Docks against draft guidelines for designated corridors for big vessels by Vinay Dalvi October 31,2018 | Source: Mumbai Mirror Several fishermen on Tuesday gathered at the Sassoon Docks protesting against the designated corridor for merchant ships in between 15 to 35 nautical claiming that it could impact fishing activities as it is the main ground for fishing. The Centre had come with draft guidelines to create a special corridor for merchant vehicles to help the Sagarmala Project from Gujarat to Kanyakumari. On Tuesday, fisherman from several coastal areas of Maharashtra and Konkan gathered at the Sassoon Docksin Colaba. They claimed that the government had not taken them in confidence before coming up with the draft guidelines for designated corridors. More than 5,000 fishermen had gathered at the docks. Our only aim was that Centre should have considered our view. They want to keep 15 to 35 nautical miles from surface for special designated corridor for all big vessels and have asked us that we should not come to the area with small boats and trawlers. They also stressed that we should not put our nets in these designated areas because if tomorrow our trawler is hit by a big vessel in these designated corridors, we wont get any compensation, said Ganesh Nakhawa, director, Karanja Macchimar Society and leader of Maharashtra Purse Seine Welfare Association. The fishermen claimed that in Mumbai most of the fishing starts after 15 nautical miles because due to pollution, all good fish is between 15 to 35 nautical miles and up to 50 nautical miles and such a corridor could affect the fishing and exports in the country. Around 3 crore people are dependent on fishing directly or indirectly in the country and such a decision will impact all of their livelihoods. We dont want to oppose but the Centre should have at least considered us before making such a decision. They are doing it to favor private commercial shipping companies by sideling the interests of fishermen, said Ravikiran Toraskar of Shramik Macchima Kriti Samiti. They can make specialised corridors, but they need to discuss it with fishermen and push it to more nautical miles from the surface so that fishing also happens. The continental shelf differs from area to area. We all came together to protest against it. Fishermen from Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Palghar and Raigad also gathered with us, said Nakhawa. On Monday, we met Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation Nitin Gadkari along with our umbrella forum National Fish Workers Forum (NFF) Chairman Narendra Patil. But Gadkari was not very positive. Hence, we continued with the protest. Our protests are till now silent but if they continue with the draft we will turn violent, said Nakhawa. Nakhawa added that Mahadev Jankar Minister for Animal Husbandry, Dairy Development and Fisheries Development visited them at Sassoon Docks and promised that the CM Devendra Fadnavis will speak to Nitin Gadkari as after 15 nautical miles it is the jurisdiction of the centre. The fisherman also condemned the new CRZ which was implemented to facilitate implementation of Sagarmala Project. It suggested decreasing buffer zone area up to 50 metres from the high tide line as against buffer zone of 500 metres. The new CRZ will lead to ecological damages of areas classified as most sensitive coastal zones, said Toraskar. The government has aired its deep concerns about the execution of Indonesian migrant worker Tuti Tursilawati, which was carried out on Monday without the prior knowledge of her family or Indonesian officials. Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi immediately called her Saudi counterpart Adel bin Ahmed Al Jubeir to express her disapproval on the execution, of which she was notified after it took place on Monday. Tutis execution was carried out without [prior notification]. I also summoned the Saudi ambassador [Usamah Muhammad Al Syuaiby] in Jakarta to meet me in Bali, she told reporters on Tuesday on the sidelines of the Our Ocean Conference in Bali, according to a distributed recording of her interview. Separately in Jakarta, the ministrys director for overseas citizen protection, Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, said Tutis family had accepted her passing, after it was revealed that he had personally delivered the news of her execution in a visit to her hometown in Majalengka, West Java. Iqbal said they were surprised because almost two weeks ago on Oct. 19, Tuti was allowed to talk to her mother through a video call to say she was healthy and unworried about her execution. Tuti was charged with the premeditated murder of her employers father, who she beat to death with a stick. According to Saudi criminal law, the act is punishable by had ghillah (absolute death). In contrast to previous reports, Tuti did not commit the murder in self-defense against attempted rape. It is true that Tuti had been harassed, but not when she committed the murder, Iqbal said. After the incident, Tuti ran away from her employer but was raped by nine Saudi men before the police took her into custody. All of her rapists were processed separately. Observers say Indonesia is unable to criticize other countries that uphold capital punishment without appearing hypocritical. Under President Joko Jokowi Widodo, Indonesia has executed 18 death row inmates convicted of drug-related offenses, including foreigners, in three batches since 2015. Instead, Jakarta complained about the lack of consular notification in cases that fall under Saudi authority. International law expert Hikmahanto Juwana from the University of Indonesia said Riyadh had violated the norms of international relations by not informing Indonesia about the execution. In an attempt to prevent such disputes from arising, Indonesia pursued last week a mandatory consular notification agreement with Saudi Arabia, which Iqbal said had been received positively by the Saudi delegation. The Saudi Embassy in Jakarta was unable to provide immediate comment. Meanwhile, the Migrant CARE advocacy group has called on the Manpower Ministry to scrap a recent agreement with its Saudi counterpart to send Indonesian migrant workers to the kingdom. The One Channel System was a scheme agreed upon by the two countries manpower ministers in mid-October, which allows for the placement of a limited number of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia. However, Migrant CARE founder Anis Hidayah said the government was violating the 2017 law on the protection of migrant workers by rushing into a deal that bypasses a 2015 ban on sending migrant domestic workers to the Middle East. The law prohibits private organizations from recruiting migrant workers but this project allows it. | 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 Argus Leader reporter Danielle Ferguson was one of the media witnesses for Rodney Berget's execution Monday at the South Dakota State Penitentiary. These are her impressions following that assignment: One of the more revealing moments was when we were stopped between the very gates Rodney Berget almost escaped from after he and Eric Robert killed correctional officer Ronald Johnson seven years ago. It was shortly after 7 p.m., six hours after Berget was originally scheduled to be put to death, and the collection of witnesses media, Johnson's family members, law enforcement representatives was finally being moved to the execution viewing area. My group made it through one gate and stopped, waiting for the second gate to open, when one of the retired Department of Corrections officers who was with our group said, This is where they almost escaped. It was then that the gravity of the situation hit me. I had gone through the day trying to remain professional, polite and somewhat stoic. I was focusing on my role as a media witness to the execution and preparing myself for taking accurate notes of what occurred in the chamber. RELATED: South Dakota executes Rodney Berget My nerves had calmed a bit throughout the six-hour wait as the United States Supreme Court heard a motion to stay the execution from attorney Juliet Yackel, who firmly believed Rodney Berget had an intellectual disability. A circuit court judge ruled earlier this year that Berget was not mentally impaired, addressing an issue that delayed the execution for years. The Supreme Court motion was ultimately denied, paving the way for the state of South Dakota to put a prisoner to death for the 19th time in its history. Im not here to tell you about my individual thoughts on the death penalty or the justice system. My objective is to share my experience of what happened to give you a look into the process. Journalists as "pool reporters" have a unique responsibility in executions. We must serve as witnesses for the public and rest of the media. I was aware of my role and prepared to carry it out. I asked a few other reporters who had covered an execution about their experiences, and they all said about the same thing: It's a clinical process and, if all goes as planned, a fairly calm and quick one. A group of five of us from the Argus Leader went to the Ronald R.J. Johnson Training Academy at the penitentiary at about 10 a.m. Monday, three and a half hours before Berget was scheduled to be executed. Media witnesses Don Jorgensen from KELO-TV, Dave Kolpack from The Associated Press and myself were brought into an old training room around 12:30 p.m. with three other witnesses, retired Department of Corrections employees. The six of us waited in the room, which had a view of what used to be the former wardens home and the parking lot in front of the prison lobby, with our escort from the DOC. We were to wait there until an officer retrieved us to bring us to the execution room. Our wait grew longer as we waited for a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court. We werent allowed to have our phones, so we werent in the know about updates in the case. We were at the mercy of the occasional update from our escort, who tried his best to get us what information he could. While we waited, we got to know each other. The other media witnesses and I learned more about the penitentiary and heard some interesting stories from the retired DOC employees also serving as witnesses to the execution. During this time I wondered how the Johnson family was doing during what must have been a painful stalemate of waiting. They'd waited seven years for this, their personal tragedy aired to the public for nearly a decade, and when at last a somewhat final moment of closure was within reach, they had to wait yet again. I had spoken with Lynette Johnson, R.J.s wife, just days before, and I thought of her familys agonizing road to recovery. It was sobering. I thought about Berget. Had he been strapped to the table? If he had, at what point did DOC staff say he could get up? Was he to be served another last meal? These details may seem small in comparison to the grand scheme of the day, but I wondered. When 3:30 p.m. rolled around and we still hadnt heard word on a ruling, pizza was ordered for the witnesses. We ended up getting a break shortly after 4 p.m. The Supreme Court had ultimately denied that motion, and the execution was set to move forward. We shuffled back into the oddly familiar training room around 5:30 p.m. It wasnt until about 7 p.m. that a correctional officer knocked on our door and asked, Are you ready? We walked down narrow stairs and out of the lobby and filed into a red van. After the retired DOC officer noted that we were between the gates Robert and Berget almost escaped from, he pointed out a mesh that was added to the bars of the gate that Robert started to climb in a last-ditch effort to escape. The material was added after the escape attempt. We got out of the red van and went into the building with the execution room, which sits directly across from Pheasantland Industries building, where Johnson was killed. Seeing those landmark tethers to what happened that April 2011 morning put a knot in my chest. I was nervous for what we were about to see, but then I thought of the Johnson family and couldnt imagine what they must have been feeling. I couldnt imagine being a correctional officer having to go to work every day knowing what happened to one of their own inside these walls. We walked through a metal detector, down a hallway and into another room. We had to wait another 10 or so minutes until we could walk to our viewing room. We were the last group to be moved and had to wait until the others were situated in their rooms. We walked through a dimly lit hallway and up narrow stairs into exam room No. 1. We fumbled around in the dark a bit. The blinds to the execution room were closed, and we couldnt turn on a light. We grabbed the legal pads and pens provided to us, adjusted our chairs around the 3-by-3-foot window and waited for the curtain draw. My heart started racing a bit again when I heard the warden over the intercom say to lift the curtains. And there was Berget, on a table. Covered in white sheets, his wrists tied with tan leather straps, staring at the ceiling. He seemed calm. The warden said there were no pending appeals and that they were ready to move forward with the sentence from the court. Warden Darin Young moved the microphone over toward Berget and motioned for him to say any words he wanted to. Sorry for the delay, Berget said. Got caught in traffic. He paused, took a few breaths, and continued. In all seriousness, (I wanted to) thank everybody that was there for me. He paused again to note how shaky his voice was. He got somewhat emotional, pausing to take a few deep breaths, and he finished his statement. I love you, and Ill meet you out there, he said after naming a few people individually, telling them he loved them. He seemed to be holding a peace sign with his left hand. What we didnt know at the time of the execution was that the drugs had started flowing as he was talking. Shortly after his statement, Berget seemed to groan in reaction to the drugs, took a few gasping breaths and snorted about two times. It seemed as if he fell asleep. I thought of how Lynette described Eric Roberts execution, which she and her family also witnessed. Peaceful and dignified, she said. The coroner was brought in and stated the time of death was 7:37 p.m. The curtains were drawn, and we walked out of our viewing room, signed the execution witness document and were escorted back to the training academy, where we were to be available for questions from our fellow media members. We watched as Johnsons daughter, Toni Schafer, and Lynette gave emotional statements about the father, husband and grandfather that was lost. Lynette pleaded with those watching or reading about the news to be mindful of the fact their grandchildren are older and have social media. Please, leave them out of this, she said. It put a lump in my throat, as that was something she said she was most worried about when we spoke last week. I was in awe of the bravery of the Johnson family, to get up in front of a dozen members of the media and provide such composed statements after such an emotional moment. Their road to recovery is not over. Though it seemed they may feel a bit safer knowing the second of two men who killed their loved one is no longer here, I know their grief will linger. Berget's execution is something I will never forget. But I know the impact of yesterday will hit harder and longer for those who knew and loved Ron Johnson. | 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 Vijayawada: Jana Sena founder K. Pawan Kalyans mother Anjana Devi donated Rs 4 lakh to the Jana Sena at the party office in Hyderabad on Tuesday. She blessed the founder and sought to work for the empowerment of suppressed communities of society. She said that the jobs of police personnel were very challenging and asked her son to help police families. She said that she knows about police jobs as her grandfather worked as a police constable during the British regime and her father worked as a circle inspector in the excise department. Anjana Devi recalled that their family had shifted to West Godavari and she got married to K. Venkat Rao, who was working as a police constable in the excise department. She said that her husband got promoted to assistant superintendent and retired. She said she was getting the pension and donated the pension to Jana Senas fund. She also recalled that the then AP chief minister N.T. Rama Rao had lessened retirement age to 55 years, but Nadendla Bhaskar Rao after assuming the CMs post had raised the limit to 58 years and it had helped their family. Mr Kalyan and former Assembly Speaker Nadendla Manohar took blessings from Anjana Devi. Mr Kalyan said that the contributory pension scheme was not good for the government employees and stated that he would work for the cancellation of CPS. He said that the Jana Sena yatra would resume on November 2 from the East Godavari district and a big public meeting would be held near Tuni railway station on that day. On November 3, a public meeting would be held at the Kathipudi junction and a Rachbanda programme would be conducted on November 4. On November 5, a public meeting would be held at Peddapuram and he would interact with SEZ victims on November 6 at Kakinada and another public meeting would be held at Pithapuram on that same day. On November 7, Mr Kalyan would meet leaders of various sections of the society and on November 9, he would address a public meeting at Kakinada. Prime Minister Narendra Modi got the Statue of Unity the worlds tallest statue erected in honour of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and inaugurated it in Gujarat on Wednesday, the 143rd birth anniversary of the redoubtable freedom fighter and Indias first home minister, amid state-sponsored fanfare. But all Indians, of all classes and regions, will find it inexplicable that Mr Modi should altogether overlook the fact that October 31 is also an anniversary of the tragic assassination of Indira Gandhi, who was not only the tallest of world leaders in her day but a deeply admired one within the country though she had her critics. Mrs Gandhi was cut down on account of fighting Pakistan-fanned terrorism in Punjab. She had also helped bring about the birth of Bangladesh, cutting Pakistan to size. In independent India, no other leader can lay a greater claim to preserving the countrys unity and integrity. Yet, Mr Modi has chosen to forget this. The reasons are narrow, partisan politics. But ordinary people have longer memories. Mr Modi especially got the Patel statue erected at a cost of some Rs 3,000 crores for reasons that are wholly unclear. In the absence of a clear explanation it may only be surmised that he aims to draw electoral dividend from this exercise. Every Indian knows of the stalwart contribution of Sardar Patel in integrating the erstwhile princely states into newly-independent India. The great man needs no statuary edifice to remind us of his invaluable life, just like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru do not. Gandhi, Nehru and Patel (and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose) sit in the hearts of all Indians. They are not in need of sarkari pooja and remembrance. The kings of yore built statues to themselves so that the world may not forget them. Mr Modis political energy that has gone into the Statue of Unity would thus appear to be an exercise in superfluity. For the sake of perspective, we cannot but note that while Mr Modi, a Gujarati, built the statue to commemorate a fellow Gujarati, he forgot another Gujarati great Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who is still remembered and deeply admired by the world, though the RSS, from which the current PM springs, sees him very differently. This tells its own story. And since the PM himself has made so much of the fact that the statue he has had built (at such great cost) is the tallest in the world, he should brace himself for the fact that this distinction is expected shortly to be eclipsed by the Shivaji statue in Mumbai. There is a cynical view abroad that since the achievements of the present regime are limited, by any yardstick, the PM wishes to go down at least as a builder of monuments. Farmers rue delay in procuring paddy, accuse influential traders lobby Farmers in the far western region of Kailali are not a happy lot this year. Despite the government fixing paddys minimum support price (MSP) for this year, farmers allege that prices are being controlled by private traders because the state-owned Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) has not procured their produce. I am a retired newspaperman. I live in Poca, WV, with my wife of 44 years, Lou Ann. I grew up in Cleveland. Three kids. Grandfather. Report all errors to DonSurber@GMail.com Beer maker Sabeco has reported after tax profits of $149 million in Jan-Sept 2018, down 6 percent year-on-year. The companys total revenue in the first nine months of the year was VND25.5 trillion ($1.1 billion), 70 percent of its annual target. According to the companys third quarter financial report Sabeco, formally known as Saigon Beer Alcohol Beverage Corp, beer continued to dominate its revenue structure, netting over 85 percent of total income. The remaining revenue came from packaging, other beverages and spirits. Sabeco recently unveiled a restructuring plan to improve profit margins by 3-4 percentage points over the next few years. The company plans to adjust its business operations in five key segments: manufacturing, distribution, marketing, supply chain and storage. This plan involves the leading beer maker in Vietnam considering acquiring minority stakes in beer factories and distribution units. The companys management board has also announced that one of its top priorities is to develop a better distribution system in major cities, especially in HCM City. Through this, Sabeco hopes to regain market share in urban areas currently dominated by Heineken. According to the Ho Chi Minh City Securities Corporation, Sabeco occupies approximately 42.8 percent of the domestic beer market. Due to increasing competition from multinational companies, this figure is down slightly from 43.6 percent in the previous year. As a result, consumption growth of Sabecos beer was less than the industry average, totalling 1.85 billion litres. The corporation estimates that by the end of 2019, Sabeco's beer market share will increase slightly to 43 percent thanks to its marketing efforts and the launch of new products. Consumption of Sabeco-made beer is also expected to increase to 1.95 billion liters. Thai Beverage PCL (ThaiBev) is currently the dominant shareholder in Sabeco, which sells popular beer brands kike Saigon Beer and 333. Hoa Sen is one of many private universities seeing ownership transfer in Vietnam in recent years. Photo courtesy of Hoa Sen As M&A activity heats up in the education sector, opinion is divided on whether it is a positive or negative development. An extraordinary general body meeting of the Hoa Sen University was called last Tuesday to discuss the implications of Nguyen Hoang Corporation acquiring a large stake in it. Nguyen Hoang is a private education group of Vietnam. Given the scale of the transaction and the fact that Hoa Sen has become a prestigious, well known university in the country, the acquisition has stirred much debate and dispute in the education sector. Some are wary of education being treated as just another business, and worry about the impact it will have on the quality of education and the original orientations of the universities. Others argue that this is not a bad thing, that it is normal commercial activity that can have beneficial impacts. According to experts, Hoa Sen carries a value of around VND2 trillion ($85.6 million) with modern facilities, many students, good reputation and decent growth momentum. Although it has experienced temporary internal disputes and devaluations, the university is still one of the educational institutions in Vietnam with high revenues from student fees. Hoa Sen is one of several private universities in Vietnam that have experienced ownership transfers in recent years. Many corporations with strong financial reserves are investing millions to acquire universities and colleges in the country. Easier path to ownership Experts say that sale and acquisition of private university stocks have boomed in Vietnam over the past few years, because buying shares in an operating university is far easier than establishing a new one. Economist Tran Vinh Du told the Thanh Nien newspaper that regulations setting a minimum capital requirement of VND 1 trillion ($42.8 million) to set up a university makes it extremely difficult for people to consider starting new institutions, as few have this kind of money to invest. But for just tens or hundreds of billions of Vietnamese dong ($1=VND23,380), one can buy high stakes in a college or university. The legal processes required to buy a school is much less complex than to establish a new one, he noted. The Hutech Education Development Joint Stock Company bought more than VND100 billion ($4.28 million) worth of shares in the HCMC University of Economics and Finance (UEF) in 2014. The Hung Hau Joint Stock Company has purchased shares in Van Hien University worth VND60 billion ($2.58 million), apart from acquiring Van Xuan College and Van Tuong Secondary School in HCMC. The Thanh Tay University is now owned by the Vicostone Joint Stock Company (VCS). Normal commerce Economist Du said that trading in private university equity was completely normal and something that can be expected to continue for a while. Basically, the investment in, or generally speaking, the sale and acquisition of universities at the moment has more positives and negatives, said Dam Quang Minh, Principal of the Phu Xuan University. This is a chance for universities to develop and reform, he said. Another issue we need to be aware of is that these acquisitions are usually transfers of ownership from individuals to institutional investors. This is therefore, better from a management perspective for the universities. In January 2018, at the Finalizing policies and legislation on private universities" conference at the Committee on Culture, Youth, and Children organised by the National Assembly, education experts were still vehemently debating whether private universities should be regarded as businesses. Regulated business Some experts found that the transfer of private universities in recent years no different than mergers and acquisitions of ordinary companies. Accordingly, they suggested that private universities be considered a regulated business. Pham Phu, a former lecturer at the HCM City Polytechnic University, said many Asian countries see private universities as semi-for profit organisations. This means that while private universities are treated as for-profit organizations, they are subjected to management policies that prevent them from becoming fully profit-oritented companies. Vietnam currently has 84 private schools, of which 60 are universities and 24 are colleges, with over 13,000 lecturers and 330,000 students. Their students account for 14 percent of all students in the country. Vietnams IT industry is attracting overseas investment as well as overseas Vietnamese talent with good jobs and pay packages. For the past 10 to 15 years, leading companies like Intel, IBM, Samsung Display, Nokia, and Microsoft have chosen Vietnam for software outsourcing. However, software developers in Vietnam had no idea about the products they were working on, such as their final use and who they were being made for. Therefore, this work did not add much value to the local industry. However, it laid the foundation for Vietnams IT industry to grow steadily and emerge as a regional tech hub. Some even dubbed it the Silicon Valley of Asia, with automation, artificial intelligence (AI), deep learning, and machine learning reaching deep into Vietnamese society. IT is now one of the hottest industries in Vietnam. Thanks to new government policies to attract more IT businesses, many start-up companies from America, Europe and Australia, and some from neighbouring countries such as Singapore have set up software development centres in Vietnam. This has led to a significant increase in demand for software engineers, software developers and maintenance engineers. Vietnamese talent in the software development industry is highly valued for their hard-working spirit, flexibility and adaptability to the fast changing environment. The greatest demand for tech talent mostly comes from start-up companies in e-commerce, fintech, payment solutions, online lending platforms, blockchain and similar industries. Other areas including creative tech products, gaming, advertising and media also need hi-tech professionals. A common problem faced by these technology companies is the shortage of experienced talents for senior roles. The greatest demand for technology talent comes from start-up companies in e-commerce, fintech, payment solutions, online lending platforms, blockchain and similar fields. With the number of tech start-ups driving demand for senior tech roles and the talent shortage for positions such as data scientist and UX/UI developers, companies are open to expanding their search beyond Vietnam and hiring IT professionals from other countries. Stacy Do (aka Thu Do), an IT consultant at specialist professional recruitment consultancy Robert Walters, said: Actually, there are more and more talented employees in the market. However, the biggest challenges for these local candidates are communication in English and ability to integrate into a professional working environment. Robert Walters, one of the worlds leading specialist recruitment consultancies, which has an office in Vietnam, has launched a campaign in Vietnam called Come Home Pho Good to attract talented Vietnamese living and working abroad to return home to work for companies based in Vietnam. Stacy Do also said that 15-20 percent of overseas Vietnamese are interested in coming back to work in Vietnam. The biggest reason for returning is the growing software market in Vietnam, because it is a promising one with plenty of areas to explore and gain new skill sets. Additionally, with the high demand for talent in the tech sector, returning Vietnamese with the right skill sets and experience are able to find jobs with salaries similar to what they would get in developed countries Stacy Do-Robert Walters senior consultant of Information Technology discipline. In HCMC, leading technology companies are willing to offer a competitive salary range to recruit top talent. For instance, the salary range for a senior developer with 10-15 years of experience is $2,500 - $4,000 (VND60-90 million) per month. Professionals who have more than 15 years of experience with in-demand skill sets can expect an average monthly income of around VND100 million. Besides, returning Vietnamese are more interested in working for start-up companies because they can now get involvedin end-to-end product development until the final launch in the market. Huy Nguyen, creative director for a start-up,said: There is real potential in Vietnams dynamic economy to develop blockchain (technology). But the challenge is that most young Vietnamese are still hesitant to join this wave. My decision to come back began from my desire to share the skills and knowledge of this industry I have acquired. I am willing to put all of my effort to organize training sessions at least once a month for my colleagues. Industry 4.0, with its high demand for qualified professionals, has been shaping a dynamic, promising and highly competitive market in Vietnam. As a result Vietnam is definitely an attractive destination for Vietnamese talent abroad to come back for good. Start-up KardiaChain has set its sights on building an interoperable block chain system to connect various industries irrespective of their protocols. Thus it could create a block chain linking healthcare, education, transportation and urban planning and management. The company announced plans to Build an interconnected block chain for the development of smart cities at the recent Vietnam Cryptocurrencies & Digital Assets Dialogue. After a long period of research, development and successfully experimenting with various improvements in block chain technology, KardiaChain can now connect any block chain it wants to despite different protocols, Hung Nguyen, its chairman and co-founder, said. This is an essential requirement for efficient development of smart cities. This technology allows access to publicly available databases of government departments and businesses while still ensuring security and transparency among stakeholders as the data is stored in a seamless decentralized system. Officials from various government agencies with KardiaChains advisors at CDAD 2018 Hung went on to add: KardiaChain enables an inter-connected block chain ecosystem which allows Vietnam to thrive and become a leader in applying block chain technology to public administration and business development. He also revealed that the mission of the project is to offer a smart ecosystem with the capacity to link different block chain systems and utilize the collective strength of all existing block chains to enhance scalability and practicability while reducing cost. KardiaChain will play a vital role in bringing block chain technology to the public and into everyday life. Hung Nguyen, KardiaChains Chairman (left) and CEO Tri Pham (right) presenting KardiaChains innovative technologies at CDAD 2018 According to Hung, KardiaChain has achieved a breakthrough in block chain technology and is in the process of obtaining a patent. This breakthrough includes Dual Master Node, which facilitates a stable and secure connection to any block chain of choice, whatever their protocol, allowing inter-chain transfer of both assets and data without requiring any changes in participating block chains. The technology is being developed by a team of senior Vietnamese software engineers at Google, Microsoft and Amazon at Silicon Valley. KardiaChain research is set to ensure that comprehensive compatibility with future technologies is within reach. In particular, to lay a solid foundation for the future development of smart cities, KardiaChain will start to employ block chain technology in the following critical areas: Healthcare Block chain technology allows storing patients medical records and previous prescriptions in a secured manner, preventing any potential losses or confusion. Healthcare facilities can utilize this data during treatment no matter where the patients go for medical intervention in Vietnam and overseas without any privacy concerns. Education The KardiaChain ecosystem enables schools and universities to store and share students profiles. This will help improve management transparency, cut down on paperwork and inhibit cheating behaviors such as pirating records and altering scores. With information being digitized, student admission departments can quickly verify and choose the most suitable candidates. Precise performance records can simplify the process of setting entry benchmarks and criteria for a more efficient admission process. Job recruitment In future KardiaChain technologies can help speed up the recruitment process by lessening the need to verify personal antecedents including transcripts and academic records. Recruiters will not need to worry about fake certificates or documents. Students can also opt to share their performance records before graduating with potential recruiters. Business data management When each local authority employs a separate block chain system to store its data on human resources, tax, financial statements, KardiaChain offers an ecosystem which links all these block chains, allowing government departments from the top to bottom levels to access all the latest updates on the structure and operation of a business. Tax and financial authorities can share information about a business in a secure manner to improve oversight. Binh Huy Nguyen, chairman of Technimex JSC and an advisor to KardiaChain, believes the processes of business registration and reporting financial statements are still too complex and involve too much paperwork besides suffering from a lack of transparency in spelling out new regulations from the government. These are obstacles limiting the growth of businesses, he warned. Binh has many years of experience in building and managing a range of technology projects with an investment of tens of millions of dollars. KardiaChain aims to help government authorities, departments and businesses overcome this challenge effectively at an optimal cost, he said. Professionals at the presentation by KardiaChains advisors on its block chain technology at CDAD 2018. Connection with customers data overseas Many banks and financial institutions worldwide have begun to use block chain for storing and sharing customer data and making inter-bank transfers. According to KardiaChains advisor, Martin Juillard, who is also executive director and EMEA head of convertible bonds sales at Nomura Bank, blockchain technology will be the future of the financial industry and KardiaChain will act as the bridge between Vietnamese banks and financial institutions and international banks for database sharing. Its achievements so far have been due to a combination of relentless effort from the team and valuable contributions toward strategic planning and vision by its advisors, including Dr Nguyen Khoi Pham, a former minister of natural resources and environment, and Lam Thanh Nguyen, former CEO of FPT software, and many top experts. Tri Pham, CEO and co-founder of KardiaChain, said in the upcoming period the company would focus on integrating block chain technology into government departments across the country and deepening partnerships with Vietnamese businesses, multinationals and foreign businesses to build a diverse block chain ecosystem. More information on the project can be found at: www.kardiachain.io A Vietnamese had entered South Korea illegally through Incheon Port, police said. Photo by Shutterstock/Myungku Kim South Korean authorities are looking for two men, one Vietnamese and the other Chinese, for illegally entering the country. The 24-year-old Vietnamese sailor allegedly reached Incheon Port on a cargo ship that docked last Thursday and fled from the harbor during predawn hours, when there is little surveillance, the KBS World Radio reported, citing Incheon Port Security officials. The hunt for the man began after security officers last Sunday confirmed his illegal status at the Hyundai Steel port in Incheon. Immigration officials are also hunting for another 53-year-old Chinese sailor who also illegally entered the country through an Incheon wharf on October 22. South Korea is one of the largest labor export markets for Vietnam. However, the number of migrant workers who reside in the country illegally is relatively high. There were over 45,398 Vietnamese migrant workers in South Korea as of June 2018. The majority of them are registered under the Employment Permit System, according to official labor reports. Vietnamese also account for 30-40 percent of around 200,000 illegal foreign workers in South Korea. Fuel prices likely to go up after festivals Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) said it was under extreme financial pressure due to rising oil prices in the global market, hinting that it may jack up prices after the Tihar festival which begins next week. Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh (C) arrives at Tu Hieu Pagoda in Hue in central Vietnam on Sunday. Photo by VnExpress/Vo Thanh Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, who has returned from Thailand to his native Vietnam, said he is back for good. Thich Nhat Hanh, one of Buddhisms most influential leaders, said in a letter to his disciples he would live in the Tu Hieu Pagoda in Hue, central Vietnam, where he studied and practiced Zen Buddhism from 1942. The Buddhism knowledge and wisdom I learned from Tu Hieu is now spreading all over the world, and I believe its time for me to get back to my roots, he said. Students of Tu Hieu are now living and practicing Buddhism in many different places around the world and as a way to remind them of their roots, I want to die here in Tu Hieu. Thich Nhat Hanh, considered the second most influential Buddhist leader in the world after the Dalai Lama, returned to Vietnam last Saturday. Born in 1926, he became a monk at the age of 23 after studying Buddhism for seven years. In the 1960s he spearheaded a movement by Buddhists in South Vietnam that called for a negotiated end to the Vietnam War. He left the country in 1966 and has lived in Plum Village in southern France for decades, traveling regularly throughout North America and Europe to give lectures on mindfulness and peace. His key teaching is that through mindfulness people can learn to live happily in the present, which is the only way to truly develop peace, both within oneself and in the world outside. He has visited Vietnam several times, in 2005, 2007 and 2008 meeting with devout Buddhists and offering prayers for war victims. He stayed at Tu Hieu during a private trip in August last year. In 2014 he suffered a stroke and was hospitalized in France for four and a half months. He stayed at Plum Village in Thailand from 2016. Thich Nhat Hanh is also a poet and peace activist. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize by Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1967, and is the author of more than 100 books, including the bestselling The Miracle of Mindfulness. "Walk With Me," a documentary about Thich Nhat Hanh and his Buddhism practice, was released in cinemas in Vietnam in March last year. Finding Phong finds a paying audience in Vietnam Will people pay to watch documentaries in Vietnam? A film about a transgender person has raised hopes they will. The audience cheered and clapped as the screen faded to black at a cinema in Hanoi. The applause was not for a sold-out Hollywood blockbuster, a Vietnamese action movie or a tear-jerking romance. This time, the audience was cheering for Finding Phong, the first independent Vietnamese documentary to be screened in the country's top cinema chains. This marks a milestone for the independent documentary making industry in Vietnam, where such filmmakers have struggled to find support as well an audience that typically thinks documentaries are stuff you watch on TV for a few minutes before switching channels. Finding Phong premiered on October 2 in HCMC. More than 200 people showed up to meet Phong, a transgender person who underwent male-to-female surgery in Thailand to achieve her dream of becoming a woman. Finding Phong depicts the life of Phong, a transgender person who underwent male-to-female surgery to achieve her dream of becoming a woman. Photo courtesy of Tran Phuong Thao Very few of them are likely to have known that it took four years for Finding Phong to be screened in Vietnams cinemas, although it was very much a movie made in the country. We brought the film to major cinemas in the country, but they refused to screen it. They said it would not attract an audience, said Tran Phuong Thao, who co-directed the film with her French husband Swann Dubus. Thao was referring to 2015. The film had been finished in 2014 and she was looking for a way to have it reach the masses. The cinemas werent wrong. They needed to get something back for screening a movie. Whos going to cover all the cinema costs if no one pays for tickets? Thao told VnExpress International. Thaos struggle is not new for Vietnamese independent filmmakers. The latest edition of this story is one that goes back to 2004. Tran Phuong Thao, co-director of Finding Phong. Photo by VnExpress/Hoang Nguyen History and prejudice 2004 is considered a landmark year for independent documentary making in Vietnam because the first Varan filmmaking course in the country was launched then. Varan is a documentary style originating in France that focuses on capturing the nature of events and people without filmmakers direct interference. The courses opened a new chapter in Vietnams documentary history, which had been dominated until then by government-funded propaganda films. But the first Vietnamese independent documentary filmmakers soon found out that their movies, despite being made with a lot of passion, could not attract an audience. Vietnamese audiences have a prejudice against documentaries and are reluctant to see them, said Bui Thac Chuyen, the first Vietnamese filmmaker to win an award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival Cinefondation, a foundation dedicated to support young creators worldwide. They think of documentaries as old war films funded by the government for propaganda. They dont think its worth their time, Chuyen told VnExpress International. Therefore, documentaries are typically screened only in cultural centers in Hanoi and HCMC for a small audience. Even annual documentary festivals are attended by a limited number of viewers, no match for entertaining Hollywood movies that dominate cinemas. Tran Phuong Thao (R) and Le Anh Phong (L), the main character of Finding Phong at a meeting with audience. Photo by VnExpress/An Nguyen The small audience image also meant that cinemas and production companies invest more in screening Hollywood films, ignoring documentary projects that also require financial support, Chuyen said. Nguyen Tran Khanh, a representative of Blue Production, the partner company in releasing Finding Phong, explained the viewing habits of most Vietnamese when he said: They assume that documentaries are meant to be watched on television, and they only know documentary films via awards, not commercial distribution. Tran Thanh Hien, an independent director and former instructor at documentary center Hanoi DocLab, said most independent documentary filmmakers have to seek funding outside the country. Filmmakers usually have to find financial support from international film festivals in Asia or Europe. There is very limited support from Vietnam, said Hien. Although the government-funded Studio for Documentary & Scientific Film offers funding, it is only for members of this organization who usually make government-ordered documentaries, he said. The lack of finance forces filmmakers to take up side projects to make a living, creating more challenges in the already difficult filmmaking process, Hien added. A scene in Finding Phong, when the main character attempted to do her make-up. Good premise Before Finding Phong, another documentary had garnered public attention. In 2014, Madam Phungs Last Journey, a film about a drag queens performance group directed by Nguyen Thi Tham, marked the first time that a documentary was screened in a cinema in Vietnam. The film was at first independently distributed by Blue Production at cultural centers, said Khanh. As it attracted lots of public attention, Madam Phungs Last Journey was later shown in two cinemas in Ho Chi Minh City and one cinema in Da Nang City. But Finding Phong has taken another, bigger step in getting documentaries to the general public as it was screened at the countrys top cinema chains in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. It is a milestone when the distributor can negotiate with the cinemas, said co-director Thao. The film has come out when the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community in Vietnam is finding its voice, another breakthrough in a country where sex and gender orientations are still taboo topics not openly discussed. The year the film was completed, 2014, was also when the first VietPride event was organized. This annual event now gathers thousands of people marching for the rights of the often ostracized community. While Finding Phong was being screened at international film festivals in 2015, Vietnams main legislative body, the National Assembly, approved a law that allows transgender people to change their legal gender identity. In the revised Marriage and Family Law that took effect on January 1, 2015, the article prohibiting "same sex marriage" was removed. Even Vietnamese film authorities have supported Finding Phong by giving it the P rating, suitable for all ages, although the film has sensitive scenes showing pictures of human sexual organs. VietPride parade in Ho Chi Minh City in 2018. Photo by VnExpress/Hoang Dung Quality, not category But there are other aspects of Finding Phong that have kept the audience interested. The film, released on October 12, 2018, has been assigned screening slots in cinema throughout October. Finding Phong is a very good film. It blurs the border between a documentary and a feature film and shows that the value of a work of art lies in its quality, not category, said Pham Thu Hang, an independent documentary filmmaker. To a transgender person, coming out and convincing family members of his or her desire to change sex is an extremely difficult task, given the social norms and prejudices in the country. In Finding Phong, however, Phongs optimistic and lively personality generates a positive vibe. The characters natural dialogues and Phongs excitement when discovering the feminine changes in her body add to the optimistic feel. Thao and her husband Dubus have also included Phongs own video journals, which capture her most personal thoughts, expressed in imaginary conversations with her mother, the person who was most difficult for Phong to persuade. Transgender is a good topic, but the way the filmmakers crafted the film was even better. It touches the audiences emotions. It touches my emotion, said Hang. The film made its international debut at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (BAFICI) in 2015. In the following two years, it won six international prizes, including the Grand Prix at the 2015 Jean Rouch International Film Festival and Official Selection at the 2015 San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival. Hang, whose debut feature has recently been premiered at the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival in South Korea, is confident that Vietnamese audience will learn to appreciate good documentaries because of Finding Phong. Most of them just havent seen a good film yet, she said. Chuyen was also optimistic about the future of independent documentaries in Vietnam. "When people pay to see a documentary, the filmmakers will be more motivated to pursue their path." Finally, people have started to notice Vietnamese documentaries, he added. Hien said he believes that the film will be a good first step for documentaries to reach the general audience. Cinemas will also see that there are good values of showing a documentary. They might screen more films in that category for this reason, even though they wont make much profit from those films, he said. Finding Phong will set a good premise. Viewers will see that they can learn more from a documentary than a regular Hollywood movie. Story by Dat Nguyen, Bao Ngoc Chinese intelligence officer broke into private companiescomputer systems, according to a U.S. indictment unsealed on Tuesday. The indictment said at the time of the intrusions, a Chinese-state owned aerospace company was working to develop a comparable engine for use in aircraft manufactured in China and in other countries. The 10 people charged conspired to steal sensitive data that could be used by Chinese entities to build the same or similar engine without incurring substantial research and development expenses, the indictment released by the U.S. Department of Justice said. It said more than a dozen companies were targeted, but only Capstone Turbine Corp was identified by name. Others were listed as a French aerospace manufacturer with an office in Suzhou, China, a United Kingdom aerospace company and a multinational conglomerate that produces commercial and consumer products and aerospace systems. The indictment charges Zha Rong and Chai Meng along with other co-conspirators who worked for the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security, a unit of the foreign intelligence arm of the Ministry of State Security. It says their efforts to steal sensitive commercial aviation and other data took place from January 2010 through May 2015. Polish MFA: Germany acts against EU position on Nord Stream 2 Germany blocks the adoption of the Third Gas Directive. If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter Ukraine, Israel to sign free trade deal by year-end: Kubiv Israel will become the 46th country with which Ukraine has a free trade area. If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers from November 1 raised the price of gas for the population by 23.5%, to UAH 8,550, or US$304, per 1,000 cubic meters. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says Ukraine undertook to bring domestic prices of natural gas to the level of those on the international market way back in 2008, which was stipulated in a document signed by the then prime minister. "Do you remember when the relevant Memorandum with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was signed? On October 31, on the very same day, but in 2008. Exactly ten years ago. It is strange that the opposition does not celebrate that 'solemn' date," the presidential press service quoted him as saying at a meeting with Ukrainian and foreign businesspeople in Kyiv on October 31. "The International Monetary Fund was then headed by Dominique Strauss-Kahn. And I will not say who was the Prime Minister at that time. It sounds like 'Cherchez la femme' in French." "It is worth noting that the obligation to equalize internal and external gas prices the price of domestic and the price of imported gas, was undertaken by Ukraine when, for example, the head of the current government, Volodymyr Groysman, was the mayor of Vinnytsia and was dealing with the issues of trams and utility offices, not gas," Poroshenko said. He also recalled that those commitments had been made to receive large-scale support from the IMF. "54 billion dollars. This is the total debt inherited from today's truth seekers in 2007-2013, when they had power," Poroshenko said. "However, such obligations are absolutely non-personal. They are of internationally binding by nature. The state has made the commitment we must fulfill it," he added. Read alsoUkraine's gas giant publishes quotations of gas for households until April 30 That is why the government, acting within its competence and responsibility, has decided to raise tariffs "to continue cooperation with the Fund (IMF)," Poroshenko said. The president once again stressed that the current state of the economy would already allow Ukraine to do without borrowing. "Let me stress if it was not for the peak payments on old loans that must be handled in 2019," he added. The president said that "the only free cheese is in the mouse trap, and cheap gas is in Russia's cage, and this is the only way to fulfill the promise of halving gas tariffs." As UNIAN reported, Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers from November 1 raised the price of gas for the population by 23.5%, to UAH 8,550, or US$304, per 1,000 cubic meters. The respective Cabinet resolution was published on the Ukrainian government's portal on October 27. The price of gas for the population before the increase was UAH 4,942 (about US$175) per 1,000 cubic meters without VAT and transportation costs. It was UAH 6,958 (about US$247) if all taxes and costs are included. The price of natural gas for households is a subject of negotiations between Ukraine and the International Monetary Fund, which insists that the gas price should be raised to the level of import parity. Fund crunch hits reconstruction of quake-ravaged Tatopani road Once the busiest trade gateway between Nepal and China, the border town of Tatopani in Sindhupalchok district has fallen into a torpor after the devastating earthquake of 2015. Wednesday, October 31, 2018 Asia Bibi's death sentence revoked by Pakistani Supreme Court The Pakistani Christian lady Asia Bibi was convicted in 2010 after being accused by Muslim villagers of blasphemy. Gratefully, the Supreme Court eventually did not bow to the enormous ideological campaign of the fundamentalists, revoking Asias death sentence. Fighting injustice is at the very heart of Christian politics. For the ECPM, persecution of Christians is inseparably a part of where we stand for as an outspoken Christian party. ECPM MEPs Van Dalen, Gericke, Jurek and Skripek have visited Pakistan several times, advocating Asia Bibis acquittal. Mr. Van Dalen was quoted today, saying: "The Supreme Court has accepted the acquittal appeal, which means that the death sentence is being revoked. There is so much reason for being grateful. After a nightmare of nine years in death row, Asia got her freedom back. At the same, new concerns are raising: what will be the reaction of the extremists? As we speak, there are already tremendous protests in the streets against the decision of the Pakistani Supreme Court. The situation of Christian minorities remains worrying in Pakistan and other countries in the region. The ECPM will always promote freedom of religion in Europe and beyond, with the modest means we have as an organisation. Poroshenko signs law on changes in resumption of lending, changes in legislation to improve functioning of financial sector President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has signed a law on amending certain legislative acts on the resumption of lending and on improving the functioning of the financial sector. "There was a lot of discussion about this law, the signature under which Ukraine has been waiting during these days. I think that the law on amendments to some legislative acts on the resumption of lending is very necessary. The government should clear the way for economic recovery, and economic development is impossible without financial resources," Poroshenko said at a meeting with Ukrainian and foreign business representatives. The head of state stressed the importance of further improving the mechanisms of the functioning of the financial sector and signed the relevant law. "The mechanisms of corporate governance of state-owned banks need to be changed. To make it more transparent, more understandable, more predictable. This law provides for a new procedure for forming the members of supervisory boards and ensuring the transparency of state banks, which now account for more than half of the country's financial sector. The majority in these boards should be independent members, independent directors," Poroshenko said. Impunity must end Judicial punishment is the only remedy and hope for breaking the chain of impunity Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that a long period of economic growth is beginning in the country thanks to the adoption of anti-crisis measures. "Most forecasts show that Ukraine, as a result of tough and complex anti-crisis measures, is entering a long period of economic growth," he said at a meeting with business representatives in Kyiv on Wednesday. He noted that the key risks that jeopardize these positive predictions, unfortunately, are political risks. Poroshenko recalled that Ukraine is entering the electoral period and at this time it is waiting for a wave of populism and difficulties in making any reformist decisions. "The country is entering a protracted electoral cycle. It was my conscious position that after the presidential elections, after my election as president in 2014, early parliamentary and local elections could be organized. Why? So that the country could have four years for reform. So that we could talk about development, about reforms, rather than about populist measures, promises," Poroshenko said. Poroshenko: certain agreement with IMF on introduction of exit capital tax in Ukraine achieved President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has stressed he would take a consistent position on the introduction of an exit capital tax in Ukraine and declared a certain agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on this issue has been achieved. Speaking about an exit capital tax at a meeting with Ukrainian and international business associations in Kyiv, the head of state noted this issue was one of the key topics during the recent negotiations with the IMF. "More time than on discussing an exit capital tax with the IMF was spent only on government debates on tariffs," he said. "From the total rejection of this reform, from the categorical "no," fortunately, the IMF has moved on to its specific perception," Poroshenko noted, adding that "the key issues are fiscal risks, compensators." The president spoke for the earliest possible development of an acceptable model of this reform for all the parties, including the government, Ukrainian politicians, international partners, and business. "For my part, I am not going to abandon the idea of an exit capital tax and I hope it will be realized at the first opportunity," he said. "If you want to withdraw money [outside Ukraine] for use, please pay. If you want to invest in development [of the economy and business], the state facilitates," Poroshenko said. The UN calls on the parties to the conflict in Donbas to comply with the ceasefire regime, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Rosemary Dicarlo has said. "The United Nations continues to call upon the parties to ensure the full and immediate implementation of the ceasefire agreements and exercise utmost restraint in order to protect civilians. The priority of the parties should be to withdraw heavy weapons from populated areas without delay, disengage forces and protect civilian infrastructure. Any risk of escalation, provocation or miscalculation must also be avoided in regard to increased tensions in the Sea of Azov," she said at the UNSC meeting on Tuesday. She urged all parties to display the necessary political will and recommit to the full implementation of the Minsk agreements to bring the conflict to an end. She reported that on 7 September, the de facto entities in Donetsk and Luhansk announced the holding of so-called "leadership" elections scheduled for 11 November. "Despite Ukraine's objections, it is reported that both are still going ahead and ballots are being planned for "Head of Republic" and "People's Councils" for five-year terms," she said. Noting that election-related matters are included as part of a comprehensive negotiation under the Minsk agreements, she cautioned that the votes, taken outside Ukraine's legal framework, would be incompatible with the peace process. Illegal elections in ORDLO can be starting point of new Russia's armed aggression - Yelchenko Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Volodymyr Yelchenko has said illegal elections on the territory of certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions can become a new starting point for Russia's armed aggression. Expressing his deepest disappointment at the Russian Federation's stance on the war-torn Donbas regions, he said holding "so-called early elections" in Donetsk and Luhansk would amount to putting armed gang leaders in illegitimate representative bodies. "Any such elections will be null and void and not recognized by Ukraine or the international community," he said, speaking at the UNSC meeting on Tuesday. The representative of Ukraine recalled that local elections in the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions should be held in accordance with Ukrainian legislation. He also spoke about Russia's continuing violations of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in the Azov Sea. He called the Sea of Azov another theatre of belligerence, with 200 vessels on their way to Ukrainian ports stopped "in an abusive manner" by the Russian Federation. Employees of Ukraine's SBU Security Service's counterintelligence service has exposed repeated recruitment by representatives of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and security services of the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics of close relatives of Ukrainian military personnel. The SBU has said at least three wives of officers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were targets for recruitment. According to the SBU's press service, SBU agents said the wives of three officers were recruited during their stay with their parents in Russia and the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The women were subjected to psychological pressure. They were threatened with a ban on entry and exit, prison and harassment of their parents. As a result, they gave written consent to confidential cooperation with Russian security services. "Russian security forces and their puppet-controlled units also tried to get information from women about military ranks, positions, location and the official duties of their husbands, as well as information about military units where they serve and their involvement in combined forces," the SBU said. The SBU military counterintelligence operatives warned Ukrainian citizens forced to agree to cooperate with the enemy's special services. After returning to the territory controlled by the Ukrainian authorities, the women cooperated with the investigation and gave testimony regarding the circumstances of their recruitment and the assignments received. The penalty for committing crimes under Part 1 of Article 111 (high treason) and Article 258-3 (creation of a terrorist group or a terrorist organization) under Ukraine's Criminal Code provides for imprisonment for up to 15 years. At the same time, in accordance with provisions of Part 2 of Article 111 of Ukraine's Criminal Code, Ukrainian citizens are exempt from criminal responsibility if they refuse to cooperate with a foreign state and report such incidents to state authorities. Part 2 of Article 258-3 provides for the exemption from criminal liability of a person who voluntarily reports relevant terrorist activity or information contributing to its termination or to the disclosure of crimes committed in connection with the creation or activity of such terrorist groups or organizations. Russia's hybrid military forces have mounted 21 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas in the past 24 hours, with two Ukrainian soldiers reported as wounded in action (WIA), the press centre of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) has reported. "Invaders opened aimed fire at the position of our troops 21 times. At the same time, the enemy used weapons banned by the Minsk agreements six times. ... Two soldiers of the JFO were injured in hostilities on October 30," the JFO said on Facebook on Wednesday morning. According to the staff, Ukrainian army positions were attacked near Luhanske, Verkhniotoretske, Avdiyivka, Pisky, Opytne, Maryinka, Krasnohorivka, Pavlopil, Hnutove, Lomakyne, Vodiane, and Lybidynske. Three enemy troops were killed and another two were wounded, Ukrainian intelligence said. MFA declares inadmissibility of Russia's intentions to take away property of Mejlis of Crimean Tatar people in Crimea The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expresses a protest against yet another intensification of repressions by the Russian Federation against the citizens of Ukraine in the occupied territories of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine in its statement, posted by its press service on Tuesday, recalled that on October 27, Russian security forces broke into the meeting of the Crimean Solidarity organization and prevented its holding. "The charges of lawyer Edem Semedlyaev, human rights activist Lilia Gemedgi and coordinator of the Crimean Solidarity Dilyar Memetov, in the violation of anti-terrorism and anti-extremist legislation are another attempt to intimidate. We are concerned over today's reports on new searches in the houses of the Crimean Tatars, which resulted in the detention of a representative of the Crimean Tatar community Dilyar Gafarov," the statement reads. The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine once again draws attention of international partners that Russia's use of "antiterrorist legislation to persecute dissent and human rights activities in the occupied Ukrainian territories discredits the antiterrorist measures of the world community, of which Moscow is a party." The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine declares the inadmissibility of the intentions of the Russian occupation authorities to transfer the property of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people to the "Spiritual Direction of the Muslims of Crimea" managed by Moscow. "This is a continuation of the targeted discriminatory policy of the occupation authorities towards the Crimean Tatars - the indigenous people of Crimea," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said. Kyiv demands from the Russian Federation to immediately stop the prosecution of activists and human rights defenders in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, to release all illegally detained citizens of Ukraine and to resume the activities of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people. The Foreign Ministry insists that the Russian Federation should fully comply with the requirements of the resolutions of the UN General Assembly, as well as the order of the UN International Court of Justice on measures within the framework of the claim of Ukraine against the Russian Federation on the application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn will visit Ukraine on an official visit. According to the message on the website of the European Commission, Hahn will visit Ukraine on November 9. An informed source told Interfax-Ukraine that the purpose of the visit is to discuss the reform agenda, as well as the progress achieved in the framework of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union. KYIV. Oct 31 (Interfax-Ukraine) The draft law "On the Freedom of Movement and a Free Choice of Place of Residence in Ukraine," which provides for a simplified procedure to register newborns in Ukraine, may be passed by the Verkhovna Rada by the end of this year, MP Serhiy Berezenko, a member of Petro Poroshenko Bloc's faction in the parliament, has announced. Speaking at a news conference at Interfax-Ukraine on October 31, the MP said that the bill is already registered with the parliament under number 9218. "I hope that it will be considered by the Verkhovna Rada soon to be included into its agenda and then it will be handed over to the relevant committee. i.e. the human rights committee," he said. When asked when the bill can be voted into law, he said, "I hope that if we work hard together [with other MPs in the parliament], this bill can be voted into law by the year's close." Berezenko added that six months after it is adopted, i.e. by next summer, the law will come into effect in Ukraine. The MP said that the bill provides for a simplified procedure to register newborns so that such a service would be provided directly at maternity clinics. "Over 60% of children are not registered anywhere after their birth up until the age of adulthood. This is due to a lot of problems, including those of pecuniary nature that arise when a child is born," he said. Thus, as the MP explained, the bill will provide the mother with an opportunity to approach a maternity clinic where her child is born and receive eight services there at once, such as the state registration of the birth of a child, the registration of the place of residence of a newborn child, the allocation of social aid upon birth, the registration of the baby in the electronic health care system to be assigned a child's doctor, the determination of the child's citizenship, and the certification of the parents of a family with many children. In his turn, speaking at the press conference, Gregor Virant, the former Minister of Interior and Public Administration Governance of Slovenia, told the journalists about the introduction of a similar legislative norm in his country, which turned out to be a success. He said that at present 90% of registrations of newborns and relevant administrative services are done in a similar fashion. By Masoud Kazemzadeh Recently, the son of an influential religious and political leader of the Islamic Republic has alleged that the failed 1986 plot to bomb targets in Saudi Arabia during the Hajj ceremonies involved the highest echelons of Irans leadership. Ahmad Montazeri, the son of the late Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri, once the designated heir to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, has recently been speaking out about the 1986 Hajj scandal, a terror operation that has remained obscure for three decades. There are very few publicly known facts about the operation. During the 1986 Hajj pilgrimage, Saudi security officials at Jeddah airport discovered 150 kilograms of TNT that were hidden in the luggage of 150 Iranian pilgrims. Hojatolislam Mehdi Karrubi, the person appointed by Khomeini to be the chairman of Irans Hajj mission, officially apologized to king Fahad of Saudi Arabia. The Saudis detained three Iranian officials in Jeddah but released the rest of the pilgrims. The Saudi Interior Ministry published a statement at the time reading Mohammad Hassan Ali Mohammadi, the highest official on the air plane, has confessed that he and his group were sent for the mission by the leaders of Iran. They wanted to use the explosives in the holy mosques in Mecca. The Iranian government denied any involvement and executed a man named Seyed Mehdi Hashemi on September 28, 1987 for the crime of organizing the plot. Hashemi was a mid-ranking cleric and one of the top officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). He had been the head of the IRGCs Office for Liberation Movements Abroad, which was responsible for providing assistance to radical Islamist groups (e.g., Lebanese Hezbollah and Jihadists in Afghanistan). More than 30 years later, Montazeri is now claiming that Hashemi was innocent and that the official story implicating him is false. The two were connected by family ties, as Hashemis brother was married to Montazeris sister. Hashemi was also an ardent follower of Montazeris father, who was the next in line to become Supreme Leader at the time of the plot. Available evidence suggests that Montazeris claim is credible and that the official version is most probably false. 1. Ahmad Khomeini, the powerful and ruthless son of the Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, wanted to become Supreme Leader himself and had been trying to undermine Grand Ayatollah Montazeri. Accusing Hashemi, one of Montazeris staunchest supporters, of a rogue terror plot was a way to undermine Montazeri and diminish his chances for becoming Supreme Leader. This episode did in fact undermine Montazeri. However, it was Montazeris forceful opposition to the mass executions of political prisoners during August and September of 1988, that finally convinced Ayatollah Khomeini to dismiss Montazeri from the position of Deputy Supreme Leader. The massacre of political prisoners, too, were orchestrated by Ahmad Khomeini. 2. When the August 1986 Hajj incident occurred, Hashemi was under surveillance by the Intelligence Ministry and was no longer at his earlier position at the IRGC. Had Hashemi done what was alleged, then there would have been plenty of hard evidence. 3.Hashemi was arrested in October 1986 after his followers kidnapped a Syrian official from the Syrian embassy in Tehran. Hashemis associates told the Syrian official about the secret meetings between the chairman of Irans parliament, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and American officials that later came to be known as the Iran-Contra Affair. The secret meetings occurred in May in Tehran with the authorization and strong support of Khomeini. The U.S. and Israel secretly provided Iran with sophisticated weapons in exchange for Iran getting the Lebanese Hezbollah to release American hostages in Lebanon. Hashemi and Grand Ayatollah Montazeri had strongly opposed the deal, and Hashemis friends leaked the news about the secret meetings. The revelation of this sensitive secret was very embarrassing for the regime, because it showed that Khomeini was clandestinely collaborating with Israeli and American officials while publicly calling for their destruction. Several allegations were later made against Hashemi, including that he was responsible for the Hajj plot. 4.One major piece of evidence undermining the official story was presented in a 2015 VOA Persian Service interview with Morteza Moussavi, previously a high ranking official with SAVAK, the Shahs secret police, who was tasked with heading up a new counter-espionage unit after the Islamic Revolution toppled the Shah in 1979. In the VOA interview, Moussavi claimed he knew about the plot before it was carried out. He said he had a copy of the minutes of the meeting in which officials hatched the plot. According to Moussavi, the plot was the brainchild of IRGC Gen. Mohsen Rezai. The officials present at the meeting that discussed the plot included Prime Minister Mir-Hussein Moussavi, Intelligence Minister Mohammad Mohammadi Reyshahri, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, Minister of the IRGC Mohsen Rafighdoost, and Minister of Islamic Guidance Mohammad Khatami. The goal of the plot was for the IRGC to take control of Mecca. Moussavi claims that he provided the evidence to both the U.S. and Saudi officials and then left Iran. 5.Hard-line websites critical of Rafsanjani have published Hashemis confession, in which he states that after his arrest some IRGC agents told him that the operation was conducted under Rafsanjanis direction. Confessions are often extracted under torture in Iran, and thus one may dismiss them as unreliable. What makes this one relevant, however, is that despite the torture, Hashemi still implicates Rafsanjani. Industrialist Agrawal held for 'not paying' sugarcane farmers Police have arrested industrialist Rakesh Agrawal from the Capital on Wednesday on the charge of defaulting payment to sugarcane farmers. Tehran, Oct 31, 2018 (AFP) Iran's foreign ministry summoned the Danish ambassador on Wednesday over the arrest of an Iranian-Norwegian national for allegedly plotting an attack in Denmark. "The Danish ambassador arrived at the foreign ministry this morning," foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said in a statement, saying he met with a senior official for European affairs. "In this meeting the official strongly denied the biased reports on a foiled attack plot on an Iranian dissident in Denmark and its attribution to the Islamic republic of Iran," Ghasemi added. The official also warned against "hasty and controversial actions". The Danish ambassador is being recalled by Copenhagen over the alleged plot to kill three Iranians living in the Scandinavian country. In September, Tehran accused Denmark, along with the Netherlands and Britain, of "hosting several members of the terrorist group" that Iran holds responsible for an attack in the city of Ahvaz in southwestern Iran that killed 24 people. Ghasemi earlier called the Danish allegations "a continuation of conspiracies by the enemies of good and developing relations between Iran and Europe." On 30 October, Denmark's Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen accused Iran of plotting to assassinate an Iranian Arab opposition leader in Denmark. He said Denmark will push for fresh EU-wide sanctions against Iran. Later, on the same day, Denmark recalled its ambassador from Tehran, while the Iranian foreign ministry denied any connection with the alleged plot. This was not the only act of terror by Iran in Europe. On July 5, US Department of State published a list of some of Iran's acts of terror in Europe between 1979 and 2018. This was after a plot to target a gathering of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in a Paris suburb came to light a few days after the June 30 event. The meeting was also attended by leading US figures, including close allies of US President Donald Trump. Six people, including an Iranian diplomat were arrested afterwards in coordinated raids by European police forces. The Iranian diplomat linked to the alleged bomb plot against an Iranian opposition rally in France has been recently extradited from Germany to Belgium. Speaking on the impact of the development on the future of ties between Tehran and Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron said on October 12 it was not clear whether the foiled attack on the Paris-based Iranian opposition group was ordered by the higher echelons of authorities in Tehran. "As you know Iran is sometimes divided into different factions and tensions, and so I can't say today whether the order came from the top or from this (security) service or that division," he told France 24 television in an interview. France's foreign ministry had said on Oct. 2 that there was no doubt the Iranian intelligence ministry was behind the June plot and froze assets belonging to Tehran's intelligence services and two Iranian nationals. The world press were closely watching the developments. In an October 12 article the Washington Post warned that the "Foiled Paris bomb plot raises fears that Iran is planning attacks in Europe," a forecast that came true rather quickly. Referring to the implications of the factional divide in Iran and the role it plays to furthering acts of terror in Europe, the Washington Post wrote, "While U.S. officials have accused Irans top leaders of being behind the biggest plots, Iranian intelligence factions have sometimes acted in competition with one another, with little apparent coordination with the countrys ruling clerics, former U.S. officials said. Some think that pattern may be repeating now." The role of factional infighting in Iran's acts of terror in Europe was well known for about three decades. A 1990 Rand Corporation report titled "Recent Trends and Future Prospects of Iranian Sponsored International Terrorism" reviewed the backdrop and motivation of Iranian atrocities in Europe in extraordinary detail. "In the future, however, if factional disputes in Tehran over the succession issue become sufficiently acute and persistent to supersede concern over foreign policy, terrorist activities could proliferate as a result of various factions' preoccupation with efforts to embarrass or under- mine the power of other factions. It is important to note that the Iranian-sponsored terrorists have great potential for growth, since they have not developed particularly close ties with radical, left-wing, or anti-Western non-Shia terrorist groups in Europe or elsewhere. Alliances with these groups could be exploited if factional infighting were to increase radically now that Khomeini has died." the report observed. The factional infighting in Iran has never been as fierce as it is now. The two leading factions, the reform faction and hardliners will go out of their way and do anything to incriminate their political rivals or to undermine their plans in domestic politics and foreign relations. Iranian politicians visiting US and Europe have been observed blaming the opposite faction for disgraceful measures such as imprisoning innocent people or attacking opposition figures living in exile. But factional politics can go so far as an explanation for acts that violate basic norms of state conduct. Maybe one or two rogue acts can be attributed to factional infighting, but four decades of terror operations could not have gone on by a country where the Supreme Leader controls so many levers of power. The strong response by Denmark to the latest suspected plot perhaps signifies a new era in which Europe might resolve to take Tehran to task. A city council meeting in the southwestern city of Abadan came to an abrupt end October 29 when police stormed the meeting and arrested one of the council members. The Prosecutor-General of Abadan, a city in the oil-rich Khuzestan province, confirmed that the council member, whose identity he did not disclose, had been arrested in the middle of the session. While the arrests of city council members are fairly common in Iran, an arrest made during a council meeting is unprecedented. "The city council member has been charged with bribery and taken into custody, pending further investigation, said Prosecutor-General Nasser Gholami. He was detained after Abadan's Intelligence Department reported that a series of mainly financial crimes have been committed by a ring of individuals in collaboration with this council member. Several people colluded with the council member to guarantee they and their associates would win lucrative city contracts, Gholami alleged, adding that he estimates the accused council member pocketed more than 2.7 trillion rials (roughly $64 million) in kick-backs and illegal payments from the citys coffers. Once a contract was finalized, Gholami said, the council member was paid according to the value of the deal. An undisclosed number of other individuals accused of participating in the ring have been charged with fraud and forgery, and warrants have been issued for their arrest, Gholami said. The chairman of the nine-member city council, Abdollah Kabi, told the governments official news agency IRNA that unidentified plainclothesmen burst into the room where the members were meeting and seized his colleague. He emphasized that he still does not know which authorities arrested his colleague. Iranian state media have published several reports in recent months concerning the arrest of city council members across the country on myriad charges, including financial, moral, social, and political crimes. Although the exact number of those arrested and records of their trials are not available, Interior Ministry Spokesman Salman Samani says 283 elected city council members have been expelled from their positions by the ministry since city councils were re-established in 1999. City and village councils were originally created in 1968 under the reign of the Shah. Members were elected by direct public vote to a four-year term. With the downfall of the monarchy and the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, the councils were abolished until the era of reformist President Mohammad Khatami (1998-2005). Shiraz City Council Member Qasem Moghimi told IRNA September 27 that authorities had arrested his fellow council member Mehdi Hajati for supporting Bahais. Bahais are a persecuted religious minority in Iran. Also a member of the citizens rights commission, Hajati was reportedly arrested after tweeting September 25 that he had knocked on every door to try to free two of my Bahai friends from detention without success. Bahais are regularly subjected to harassment and arbitrary detention in Iran for practicing their faith, which is not recognized by Irans constitution. State media reported September 4 that five members of the city council in the city of Babol were arrested and removed from their position for their alleged involvement in a sex scandal. Abuja, Oct 30, 2018 (AFP) - Nigerian police fired shots and tear gas at thousands of supporters of an imprisoned Shiite cleric in Abuja on Tuesday, just a day after three people were killed in similar clashes which sparked warnings to the government that a heavy-handed crackdown could radicalize the group. At least six Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) supporters have now been killed since Saturday during protests calling for the release of Ibrahim Zakzaky, who has been in custody since December 2015. Nigerian police said 400 members of IMN were arrested, some of whom were carrying "dangerous weapons". According to an AFP correspondent at the scene, the march of several thousand IMN members in central Abuja was peaceful, though some unarmed protesters threw stones at police, who then fired into the crowd and used tear gas to stop the procession. At least six injured IMN members were taken away in cars while the area was patrolled by dozens of police. "A lot of our people had been injured, so far we don't have any record of death," IMN spokesman Ibrahim Musa told AFP. By Tuesday evening the head of Abuja police Bala Ciroma reported that "a total of 400 members of IMN... who participated in the violent protest of today are currently being detained" for investigation, after which they would be arraigned in court. He added that "dangerous weapons were also recovered from them." Nigeria's military said on Monday three IMN supporters were killed during another protest on the outskirts of Abuja. The army said troops and police "repelled the attack" and that IMN "fired weapons" and threw stones and Molotov cocktails. AFP photographs of the aftermath showed several civilians on the ground near police but it was unclear whether they were dead or injured. On Saturday, three other IMN members were killed during protests in Abuja. The army claimed the protesters attacked a military convoy and tried to steal weapons and ammunition -- an account the IMN "categorically" denies. IMN spokesman Musa claimed 27 people have been killed since Saturday and that the death toll could be higher since "scores" of people were injured and troops took away others. "We are working towards their release to us for burial," Musa said. Human rights group Amnesty International on Monday said reports that troops fired live bullets at protesters were "very disturbing" and would be unlawful if they were unarmed. The IMN has staged a series of demonstrations demanding the release of leader Zakzaky, who has been detained since bloody clashes broke out in the northern city of Zaria in 2015. Then, the military was accused of killing more than 300 IMN supporters and burying them in mass graves. Zakzaky has been at loggerheads with Nigeria's secular authorities for years because of his calls for an Iranian-style Islamic revolution. Northern Nigeria is majority Sunni Muslim. The cleric, who is in his mid-sixties and lost his sight in one eye during the 2015 clashes, has been seen in public only twice since he was detained. Nigeria's government has previously ignored a court order to release Zakzaky and his wife. In April, at least 115 IMN supporters were arrested at protests in Abuja during which police used tear gas and water cannon. IMN processions for the annual Ashura festival have frequently been flashpoints. In November 2016, at least 10 people were killed when police opened fire near the northern city of Kano. Amaechi Nwokolo, a security analyst at the Roman Institute for International Studies in Abuja, said the security forces had "no right to use that maximum force" on unarmed protesters, warning that it might "motivate others to radicalise". WASHINGTON, Oct 30 (Reuters) U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Tuesday for a cessation of hostilities in Yemen and said U.N.-led negotiations to end the civil war should begin next month. In a statement, Pompeo said missile and drone strikes by Iran-allied Houthi rebels against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates should stop, and the Saudi-led coalition must cease air strikes in all populated areas of Yemen. Yemen is one of the poorest Arab countries and faces the world's worst humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by a nearly four-year-old war that pits the Houthis against the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the West. "The time is now for the cessation of hostilities, including missile and UAV strikes from Houthi-controlled areas into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates," Pompeo said, using an acronym for unmanned aerial vehicles. "Subsequently, Coalition air strikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen," he added. The United States helps the coalition by refueling its jets and providing training in targeting. Pompeo said last month that he had certified to the U.S. Congress that Saudi Arabia and the UAE were working to reduce civilian casualties in Yemen. Three-quarters of Yemen's population, or 22 million people, require aid and 8.4 million people are on the brink of starvation. U.N. special envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths said earlier this month that the United Nations hoped to resume consultations between the warring sides by November. Both Pompeo and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis voiced support for the U.N. effort. Mattis, addressing a forum in Washington on Tuesday, defended U.S. efforts to help reduce casualties by the Saudi-led coalition and said all sides needed to take meaningful steps toward a ceasefire and negotiations in the next 30 days. Mattis added that the Saudis and Emiratis appeared ready to embrace efforts by Griffiths to find a negotiated solution to the conflict. Weve got to move toward a peace effort here. And we cant say were going to do it sometime in the future. We need to be doing this in the next 30 days, Mattis said. Pompeo said the consultations planned by Griffiths should start in November "to implement confidence-building measures to address the underlying issues of the conflict, the demilitarization of borders, and the concentration of all large weapons under international observation." A cessation of hostilities and resumption of a political track would help ease the humanitarian crisis, Pompeo said. (Reporting by Phil Stewart, Eric Beech and Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Peter Cooney) Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev has fired a deputy prime minister, Zoyyir Mirzaev, after an RFE/RL report revealed that the powerful official humiliated farmers on a recent agricultural inspection trip to a rural area. A statement posted on the president's website on October 29 said that Mirzaev was being dismissed "for serious shortcomings" and that one of Mirziyoev's policies was "to secure rule of law and preserve rights and freedoms for citizens." The statement came two days after RFE/RL's Uzbek Service published a report after investigating a widely circulating photo that showed local officials and farmers in the Oqqurgon district near Tashkent apparently being forced to stand in a water-filled ditch. The report identified the location where the incident took place as well as the identity of those present, including Mirzaev. An Oqqurgon district official told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity that three of the six men standing in the ditch were officials of the district administration, two were farmers, and one was an elderly leader of a local community. They were forced to stand in the ditch by several regional officials and Mirzaev, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. The official said the men, who were being punished for their "failure" to water local wheat fields in a timely fashion, were forced to stand in the cold water for 40-45 minutes. The idea of the "punishment" was "to water those responsible for being unable to water wheat fields," said the official, who added that the men were then forced to run about a kilometer in wet pants. "The men then ran and a car was following them.... I have never seen anything like that before. It was terrible," the official said. WATCH: In another example of official misconduct caught on camera in Uzbekistan, a policeman has been fired after slapping and kicking a local baker in his shop. The RFE/RL report prompted a range of reactions on social networks. Many Facebook users took part in flash mob, tagged #Ariqchallenge, in which they condemned Mirzaev's conduct and mocked the officials' readiness to follow orders from their superiors. Mirzoyev, a longtime prime minister who became president after autocratic predecessor Islam Karimov's death was announced in September 2016, has said that the protection of citizens' rights is one of his priorities. Mirziyoev has taken steps to implement reforms in Uzbekistan, where torture and other rights abuses were widespread under Karimov, and improve ties with the outside world. In May, Amnesty International regional director Marie Struthers said that "some positive steps taken by the authorities over the last 18 months are encouraging" but that "much remains to be done to fully address the grave human rights violations of the past." Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 By Rashid Shirinov Trend: The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in the first 8 months of 2018 amounted to $168.1 million, Kazakh Investment and Development Minister Zhenis Kassymbek said at a meeting with the Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov in Astana, Kazakh Investment and Development Ministry said in a statement. This is more than twice the figure for the same period last year ($81.5 million). During the meeting, the sides discussed issues of bilateral cooperation in such sectors as trade, investment, export operations, etc. Kassymbek noted the successful implementation of the agreements reached during the official visit of the Kazakh president to Azerbaijan in April 2017. Shahbazov, in turn, noted the importance of deepening relations through holding meetings of the intergovernmental commission, establishing relations between partners in various sectors and organizing meetings of business circles of the two countries. It is worth noting that exports from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan in January-August 2018 amounted to $134.6 million, which is 115.3 percent higher than in the same period of 2017 ($62.5 million). Imports to Kazakhstan from Azerbaijan in January-August 2018 amounted to $33.5 million, which is 75.7 percent more compared to the same period last year ($19.1 million). Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 Trend: The ceasefire monitoring exercise on the Line of Contact, in the direction of Aghdam region, held in accordance with the mandate of Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on October 31, ended with no incident, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan said in a message on Oct. 31. The Personal Representative`s field assistants Mihail Olaru and Simon Tiller carried out the monitoring exercise from the territory of Azerbaijan. The Personal Representative Andrzej Kasprzyk, his field assistant Ghenadie Petrica, Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group Igor Popov, Stephane Visconti and his personal assistant Quentin de Rancourt, Andrew Schofer and his personal assistant David Burnstein carried out the monitoring exercise on the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan that is occupied and controlled by the armed forces of Armenia. 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. 31 Trend: On the instructions of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Ilham Aliyev, Minister of Defense Colonel General Zakir Hasanov visited the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic to participate in joint tactical-special exercises of the formations and military units of the troops of Nakhchivan. Hasanov also visited the territories liberated from the Armenian occupation, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan said in a message on Oct. 31. The Minister of Defense got acquainted with a reliable defense system created at the positions in the village of Gunnut and in the surrounding territories, including at the height of Gyzylgaya, as well as engineering work carried out here and army household facilities built there. Buildings constructed in accordance with the terrain features of the location of military units and climatic conditions are equipped with necessary equipment, as well as permanent electricity and heating system. Colonel General Hasanov also met with soldiers and officers on the front line, inquired about the organization of the military service and presented valuable gifts to a group of servicemen who distinguished themselves in the service. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 By Leman Zeynalova Trend: Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry is studying the issue of the illegal visit of Belgian MPs to Azerbaijans occupied territories, the ministry told Trend Oct. 31. After that, a decision will be made to include their names in the list of undesirable persons due to the illegal visit, the ministry said. On Oct. 30, Jean-Jacques Flahaux, a member of the Belgian Federal Parliament, chairman of the Reformist Movement for international relations, and his deputy made an illegal visit to the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia. 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 While most people know today as Halloween, for millions of Christians October 31, 2018 is also the 501st anniversary of Reformation Day. Here are five facts about the Protestant holiday: 1. Reformation Day celebrates Martin Luthers nailing his ninety-five theses to the church door Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. (Some scholars debate whether he posted them to the door then, later in November, or whether he even posted them at all.) By posting them to the church doorwhich was similar to a public bulletin boardLuther intended to start a debate among his fellow academics. 2. While the historical date for the observance of Reformation is October 31st, most churches celebrate it on the last Sunday in October. The only countries in which Reformation Day is a national holiday are Chile and Slovenia. (Though in Chile its called Dia Nacional de las Iglesias Evangelicas y ProtestantesNational Day of the Evangelical and Protestant Churches.) 3. On the first Reformation Day, when he posted the ninety-five theses, Luther was not yet a Protestant. (He would later say that at the time he was a committed Catholic who would have murderedor at least been willing to see murder committedin the name of the Pope.) 4. The theses that sparked the Reformation were not particularly radical, and key Lutheran doctrines, such as justification by grace through faith alone, were not included. The theses were mainly about the selling of indulgences, which the Catholic Church defines as a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints. At the time, believers could pay for an indulgence to reduce the punishment of someone believed to be in Purgatory. 5. On this same day, Luther sent a letter to the Archbishop of Mainz, under whom, as it says in the letter, Papal indulgences for the building of St. Peters are circulating under your most distinguished name. Soon after this letter was sent, the theses were circulating among the intellectual elite. Although the rapid spread of the ideas that launched the Protestant Reformation are often attributed to the printing press (which had been around for more than 60 years), some scholars now say the document went viral because of the wider system of media sharing along social networkswhat is called social media today. Low bids hit construction projects Contractors winning deals for bids as low as a half of the estimated project cost has emerged as a key reason behind the slow progress of work at the sites of three bridges and a wall along the Mid-Hill Highway in Sindhuli district. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 Trend: On the sidelines of the official visit to Bulgaria the delegation led by Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov met with the Speaker of the National Assembly of Bulgaria Tsveta Karayancheva, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan said in a message on Oct. 31. At the meeting the sides expressed satisfaction on the development level of the relations between the two friendly countries which is based on the strategic partnership. In this regard, the importance of the Joint Statement on the strategic partnership between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Bulgaria signed in Sofia on March 4, 2015 during the official visit of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev was emphasized. The Speaker of the Bulgarian National Assembly recalled with pleasure her visit to Azerbaijan in September 2018, aimed at attending the ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Parliament. The sides highly appreciated the activities of the interparliamentary friendship groups in furthering the development of cooperation between the countries. The sides exchanged their views on the energy and transport projects implemented with the initiative and participation of Azerbaijan, as well as the involvement of the Bulgarian companies in these projects. Furthermore, the sides stressed that these projects have a huge potential from the point of view of development of economic ties between the two countries and underlined the necessity of continuation of the activities in this field. At the meeting the sides also exchanged views on other issues of mutual interest. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 Trend: Armenians living in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh want to live according to the laws of Azerbaijan, since Azerbaijan is a strong, developing country where social welfare is at a high level, chairman of the Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan Bayram Safarov said on Oct. 31. Safarov noted that if the Armenians of Karabakh want to live together with Azerbaijanis, they must have Azerbaijani identity cards. "If they do not want this, then let them go to Armenia and live there," Safarov added. He also noted that for many years the situation in Armenia has been tense. "Once again I say that before the election of a new government in the occupier country, the situation will be unstable, and after the election, other processes will begin. It may be easy to come to power, but it is not easy to keep it. Nikol Pashinyan has no experience in public administration. Until now, the people in Armenia have been victims of a criminal policy. Thousands of people leave Armenia annually. Armenia is actually not a country, but an outpost," Safarov added. He noted that regardless of who comes to power, the only way to save Armenia from social and economic problems is to abandon its aggressive policy. Safarov also said that Azerbaijan will never accept the occupation of its lands and will not give up the struggle for the liberation of these lands. "As a result of a successful policy, the diplomatic advantage is on our side. The territorial integrity of Azerbaijan is supported internationally, Nagorno-Karabakh is recognized as a territory of Azerbaijan. Recently a major country like Germany stated this, which also confirms my words," Safarov 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. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 By Samir Ali Trend: The false nature of visits to the occupied Azerbaijani territories by the marginalized people, brought together by Armenian lobbyists under the guise of "prestigious diplomats and politicians", is gradually being exposed, editor-in-chief of the Baki Kheber newspaper, expert Aydin Guliyev told Trend Oct. 31. He noted that this work, carried out for many years by the Armenian lobby, not only hasn't given any effect, but also has begun to take on an increasingly irresponsible character. "The Armenians really hoped that they could achieve recognition of the separatist regime established in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan as an independent entity," the expert said. Guliyev said as a result of revelation of the false nature of the Armenian claims, the Armenians' tactics to arrange visits of emissaries to Karabakh now has begun to work against themselves. "After each visit, authoritative organizations make unequivocal statements about non-recognition of the separatist regime and demonstrate to the whole world the falsity of the Armenians' intentions. In addition, the number of people whom they lure in Karabakh is rapidly decreasing. Now, the representatives of serious European circles, the MPs do not show interest in such visits," Guliyev added. The expert noted that it is enough to look at the list of persons brought to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. The activity of these people, who became the last hope for Armenia and turned into puppet politicians, proves once again that the Armenian leadership is well aware that it has lost the diplomatic struggle, and it wants to hide its major defeat by bringing people from abroad to Karabakh, the expert added. Yesterday, Jean-Jacques Flahaux, a member of the Belgian Federal Parliament, chairman of the Reformist Movement for international relations, and Julie Szmai, deputy chairman of the Reformist Movement for international relations made an illegal visit to the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia. 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, Nov. 1 Trend: On the sidelines of his official visit to Bulgaria Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov met with the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria Ekaterina Zakharieva, Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry told Trend Nov. 1. The sides emphasized that the bilateral relations between the two states on the level of strategic partnership are based on the norms and principles of international law, particularly on the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of international recognized borders, as well as on mutual understanding and trust. The Ministers highly appreciated the current level of cooperation between the two states and underlined the existence of mutual interest and wide potential for development of cooperation in the fields of energy, transport, agriculture, tourism, ICT and environment. Minister E.Mammadyarov invited his Bulgarian counterpart to attend the meeting of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization (BSEC) to be held on December 14, 2018 in Baku. After the bilateral exchange the first meeting of the Strategic Dialogue of Azerbaijan and Bulgaria was held between the delegations of the both sides. At the meeting wide range of issues of the bilateral cooperation agenda, including bilateral economic and trade relations, implementation of the projects in the fields of energy, transport and transit, partnership relations of Azerbaijan with the European Union and the ongoing negotiations on the new Agreement to be agreed between the sides, which will constitute the legal basis of the relations, cooperation of Azerbaijan and Bulgaria within regional and international organizations, as well as the other issues of mutual interest were discussed. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 Trend: On October 30, 2018, Mr. Mauro Dell'Ambrogio, the State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation of the Swiss Confederation, visited Training & Consulting and Information Centre which is called as Holcim Academy in the framework of his visit to Azerbaijan. Along with the Swiss official, the Ambassador of Switzerland, board of directors of Holcim Azerbaijan, and other quests attended the meeting. The uniqueness of the centre is creating opportunity for masters in construction sector to increase their profits by increasing professionalism and by using of innovative technologies. Along with education, one of the main advantages of the academy is providing practical information about products application of new construction materials. In addition, people who want to become a plasterer, bricklayer occupation can participate in free trainings and seminars at the centre and gain a new profession that will have a positive impact to decrease unemployment rate. Most importantly, participants can choose from list of curriculum as well as offer a new topic that interests them. Alexander Potaenko, Head of the Holcim Academy, informed the guests about the activities of the centre. Our Academy's activity is at an early stage and we already developed program for the next five years, he said. Anyone who wants to engage in plaster and finished concrete materials can benefit from our centre regardless of their experience. The daily use of proposed technological equipment in cement application significantly increases the productivity and quality of the masons work. Frederic Guimbal, General Director of Holcim Azerbaijan said that the construction sector in Azerbaijan is developing rapidly but there is not due attention to the occupational health and safety and vocational education. Zero harm and zero incident are the foundation of Holcim's culture, and we are not tolerating any violation in this area, he said. For that reason OH&S is part of the master's curriculum. Building Together the Foundation of Tomorrow! Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 Trend: Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS) hosted a meeting with State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation of the Swiss Confederation Mauro Dell'Ambrogio. It was attended by the BHOS Rector Elmar Gasimov; Science Advisor to the State Secretary Philippe Roesle; Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Swiss Confederation Khanim Ibrahimova and Swiss Ambassador to Azerbaijan Philipp Stalder. Executive Deputy Director for International Affairs of the University of Geneva Dr. Alexander Hedjasi, Managing Director of ABB Company in Azerbaijan Rustam Gasimov and the Higher School key staff members also participated in the meeting. Having welcomed the guests, the Rector Elmar Gasimov spoke about BHOS activities and tremendous success achieved this year. All prospective students who earned 700 (the highest) points at the entrance exams in the first specialty group chose BHOS. In addition, all 26 undergraduates awarded Presidential scholarship in this specialty group are the BHOS students, and these achievements made the Higher School the leader among national universities, he said. Elmar Gasimov also noted that the language of instruction at BHOS is English and the graduates can easily find jobs at large transnational companies or continue their education abroad. Mauro Dell'Ambrogio extended his gratitude to Rector Elmar Gasimov and highly praised the BHOS campus and its conditions. He informed that the main objective of his visit to Azerbaijan was to develop cooperation in economic and social spheres including science and education. As a leading national higher educational institution, BHOS could be one of the first to establish partnership with Swiss technical universities, said the State Secretary. In the words of Swiss Ambassador to Azerbaijan Philipp Stalder, ABB Company made significant investments in the Higher School and set up a hi-tech training laboratory at the campus. In his turn, Rector Elmar Gasimov expressed his gratitude to Managing Director of ABB Company in Azerbaijan Rustam Gasimov for the fruitful cooperation and highly praised the contribution made by the Swiss Confederation towards education in Azerbaijan. During the visit, the Swiss delegation led by State Secretary Mauro Dell'Ambrogio were acquainted with the BHOS facilities. At the ABB training laboratory, the Process Automation Engineering students made a presentation on the modern equipment installed by the company and advanced technologies used during practical lessons. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 By Ilhama Isabalayeva - Trend: The EU will continue to support the education system of Azerbaijan at a high level, Alexandra Nerisanu, Acting Director of Cooperation Department of EU Delegation to Azerbaijan, said at a conference Oct. 31 held within the project titled "Support to the Establishment of Ganja Regional Industrial VET Competence Center". She noted that a lot of people in Azerbaijan have acquired very rich experience, abilities and skills outside the formal education system. "It must be recognized that the participation of these people in the labor market is very important for the further development of the country. The contribution they make to the development of society can be very large. I believe that citizens should be provided with these opportunities, and in this connection documents should be prepared, and their experience and skills should be officially recognized. After that, they can even continue their education and training," Nerisanu said. She noted that all this, in turn, can contribute to the fight against unemployment. Nerisanu added that the EU is very pleased that it supports Azerbaijan in this process. "The support provided to all levels of education is at the heart of the EU activities in Azerbaijan, and therefore, there is a constant close cooperation with the Ministry of Education," she said. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 Trend: The youth with special talent in the field of information technologies and capable of coding their innovative ideas demonstrated their skills in Hackathon-AzIn 2018 competition organized by AzInTelecom LLC under the Ministry of Transportation, Communication and High Technologies. The competition organized by AzInTelecom LLC with the support of High Technologies Park and Azercell Telecom LLCs sponsorship within the framework of Innovation Week held for the first time in Azerbaijan announced its winners. Upon the evaluation of the jury, the teams called Dostlar (Friends), Express and Ml learning became winners of the three-stage competition which assigned to develop web application for facial recognition technology. Dostlar (Friends), Express and Ml learning were awarded by AzInTelecom in the amount of 5000 AZN, 3000 AZN and 1000 AZN respectively. The successful teams received valuable presents from the Golden sponsor Azercell Telecom LLC as well. Notably, at the first stage, the participants of Hackathon participants were given the relevant assignment on the topic. At the second stage, they worked on programming and presentation of the assignment. The solutions were evaluated on the basis of a number of criteria, such as logic, design, functionality and, innovation. Hackathon is a team game in which like-minded people perform coding of their innovative ideas. In the course of this competition, participants come together to find out and present a new solution to the assignment within 24-48 hours. Azercell Telecom will further continue to support projects and startups in the field of information technologies. For more information, please contact [email protected] The leader of the mobile communication industry of Azerbaijan and the biggest investor in the non-oil sector Azercell Telecom LLC was founded in 1996. With 48% share of Azerbaijans mobile market Azercells network covers 80% of the territory and 99,8% of population of the country. Currently, 4,5 million subscribers choose Azercell services. Azercell has pioneered an important number of innovations in Azerbaijan, including GSM technology, advance payment system, 24/7 Customer Care, online customer services, GPRS/EDGE, M2M, MobilBank, one-stop- shop service offices Azercell Express, mobile e-service ASAN signature, etc. Azercell deployed first 4G LTE services in Azerbaijan in 2012. According to the results of mobile network quality surveys of Global Wireless Solutions company and international systems specialized in wireless coverage mapping such as Opensignal and Testmy.net, Azercells network demonstrated the best results among the mobile operators of Azerbaijan. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 By Ilhama Isabalayeva - Trend: The work to be carried out as part of Azerbaijans Employment Strategy for 2019-2030, approved by President Ilham Aliyev, will be very important, Sahil Babayev, Azerbaijans minister of labor and social protection of the population, said. Babayev made the remarks in Baku on Oct. 31 at a conference held as part of the project entitled "Supporting the Establishment of Regional Professional Competence Center in Ganja". He said that Azerbaijan follows the path of rapid development. Azerbaijan is becoming a dynamically developing country, he noted. These positive trends also bring difficulties. Almost 100,000 new people enter the labor market of Azerbaijan every year. The difficulties are related to ensuring that these human resources meet the requirements of the labor market. Therefore, the work carried out as part of the employment strategy is important. The minister noted that the directions for encouraging the labor market for subsequent periods should be predicted. He also reminded that poverty is at the level of five percent in Azerbaijan. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 Trend: A list of plants and plant products, which are considered quarantine objects, has been approved in Azerbaijan, the countrys Cabinet of Ministers said in a message Oct. 31. The decision on the approval was signed by Azerbaijans Prime Minister Novruz Mammadov. The list was approved in order to apply the Law on Amendments to the Decree of the President of Azerbaijan On the Application of the Law on Phytosanitary Control dated February 23, 2018 and the implementation of paragraph 1.4 of the Decree dated April 16, 2018 On Amendments to the Decree of the President of Azerbaijan On Application of the law On phytosanitary control dated August 2, 2006. Medical specialists yet to reach affected area in Saptari The disease that claimed two children at Kanchanrup Municipality in Saptari district last week is yet to be identified. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Oct. 31 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: A special land fund for agricultural use with a total area of 117,774.9 hectares has been established in Turkmenistan according to the decree signed by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper reported. In accordance with the established procedure, plots for the long-term use of private agricultural producers for growing crops that are included in the state order for 2019 were allocated from the fund, the report said. The president ordered to keep the focus on large-scale reforms implemented in agriculture, report said. To this end, it is necessary to use new, efficient methods of management, systematically expand the share of the private sector in the agricultural industry and support successful tenants, the report said citing Berdimuhamedov. Meanwhile, Turkmenistan intends to stop the export of cotton fiber and to switch to processing of cotton fiber fully within the country. Raw materials are in demand by dozens of enterprises of the dynamically developing Turkmen textile industry. Until recently, up to 70 percent of the cultivated raw materials were processed in the country. The total area allocated for cotton was 545,000 hectares. In 2018, it is planned to harvest 1,05 million tons of cotton, including 207,000 tons in Akhal province, 230,000 tons in Dashoguz, 300,000 tons in Lebap, 313,000 tons in Mary. Over 1.1 million tons of cotton was harvested in 2017. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 By Fikret Dolukhanov Trend: The World Bank and the Ministry of Housing and Communal Services (MHCS) co-hosted a roundtable to discuss water supply and sanitation sector reform priorities to promote sustainable service delivery in Uzbekistan, the WBs press service said. Development partners including Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Asian Development Bank (ADB), European Commission, and French Agency for International Development participated in the event, along with other representatives from the Government including Ministry of Finance and State Committee for Investments. To improve the delivery of utility services to the population, the Government takes measures to modernize water supply and sewage systems across the country using public and foreign investment into the sector. For this end, in 20172018, public funds totaling over UZS1.2 trillion were allocated from the state budget. It is expected that over 450,000 citizens will get better access to safe drinking water after the completion of construction works and launch of new water supply facilities in 2018, said Minister of Housing and Communal Services Muzaffar Saliev. Participants discussed key issues identified by the MHCS in their sector analysis, including qualification and skills gaps for sector professionals, motivation and incentives for SUE Suvokova staff, corporate Governance arrangements including personnel performance evaluation systems, high energy consumption and water losses, information and communication systems, asset management and inefficient tariff policies and procedures. It was noted during the meeting that whilst water tariffs in Uzbekistan have been increasing, they are still amongst the lowest in the World. At current rates, the utilities cannot fully cover their operating and maintenance costs and invest into service expansion. The participants highlighted the urgent need to change the tariff policy to improve the financial sustainability of the sector. The participants highlighted that efforts should continue to focus on efficiency gains related to metering (over 2 million households still remain unmetered, or 56 percent of all consumers in the country), non-revenue water (in 2017, reported loss reached 469 million m3, or 32 percent of total water production, that at todays average tariff equals to $37.5 million of lost revenue) and energy use (640 million kWh were consumed by the Suvokova in 2017, or around 1.2 percent of total electricity consumption in the country, that at todays average energy price equals to $19.5 million). For instance, if SUE Suvokova invests in energy efficient technologies, it will result in savings $30-40 million over a 5-year period, and savings over $100 million will be reached as energy prices increase. Nowadays, 17.3 million people (53 percent of all consumers) have access to water supply services through SUE Suvokova. Meanwhile, estimated 6.4 million people (19 percent) get services from other providers, and some 9.1 million (28 percent) dont have access to water supply services or rely on self-supply. The roundtable also considered Swiss experience of community-based service provision in rural areas and the need to develop a regulatory framework for alternative service providers. The World Bank believes that there is a need to address the issues of the water supply and sanitation sectors sustainability on a more systematic basis. Therefore, we are shifting away from classical infrastructure projects to a program of investments into policy, institutional and infrastructure improvements strongly linked to the Governments sector reforms said David Lord, Senior Water Supply and Sanitation Specialist, World Bank. Unless we address binding constraints surrounding utilities, they will not be able to achieve progress in service improvements. The new Water Services and Institutional Support Program to be launched in 2019 with the assistance of the World Bank is designed to strengthen the enabling environment and capacity of both national and regional sector institutions, added David Lord. The roundtable helped to foster a shared understanding of the water supply and sanitation sector development and coordinate distribution of technical support from international partners for the reform process in the country. In Uzbekistan, the World Bank is implementing 18 projects totaling over $ 3.3 billion with the aim to support the Governments ambitious social and economic reforms. These projects support macroeconomic reforms, development of agriculture and water resources management, healthcare, education, water supply and sanitation, energy, transport, and urban sectors. They contribute to the countrys economic growth and higher living standards for the people of Uzbekistan. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @FDolukhanov Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 By Rashid Shirinov Trend: Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have discussed the supply of railcars and locomotives, Kazakh Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said at a meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart Parviz Shahbazov, Kazinform reported. "Now the railway operators discuss the supply of railcars and locomotives with pre-export financing," the Kazakh minister said. He also noted that Kazakhstans exports to Azerbaijan for 8 months of this year increased by more than twice, while imports grew by 75-76 percent. "It is important that at our request, the Azerbaijani side resumed purchases of Kazakh grain. It has also facilitated the growth of turnover," said Bozumbayev. The minister specified that Azerbaijan supplies steel structures, ferrous metal products, pipe, etc., which are used in oil operations and modernization of the Tengiz field in the west of Kazakhstan. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan supplies agricultural, engineering and petroleum products to Azerbaijan. Shahbazov, in turn, said that the two countries have a wide range of mutual cooperation, covering a lot of areas - economy, culture, humanitarian issues, etc. "Today is the 15th meeting of our intergovernmental commission, where we will summarize the results of the past year. We have a very voluminous and substantial draft document that we are going to sign today," he added. The Azerbaijani minister also expressed hope that even more work will be done as a follow-up to the last years work within the framework of the roadmap. Details added (first version posted on 12:51) Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 By Matanat Nasibova - Trend: In 2019, Azerbaijan will open 10 more trading houses abroad, Acting President of the Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) Yusif Abdullayev said at a press conference Oct. 31. He said that several trading houses may open in China. Abdullayev also noted that next year Azerbaijani entrepreneurs will participate in international exhibitions in China and South Korea. He reminded that in October this year, Azerbaijani entrepreneurs participated in a food exhibition in Seoul. It was a very good platform via which we demonstrated Azerbaijani products under the 'Made in Azerbaijan' brand, he said. He noted that in general, since the beginning of the year, Azerbaijani businessmen have taken part in eight international exhibitions, including Prodexpo, International Green Week 2018, and others. He added that Azerbaijan took part in the International Green Week for the 10th time. Azerbaijan presented agricultural products at the exhibition, especially the products of companies from the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, he said. Abdullayev also spoke about the activities of AZPROMO, noting that in the first nine months of this year, the Foundation organized 180 events, 155 of which were held within the country and 25 were held abroad. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 Trend: The development of tax and expenditure policy next year and the changes made to the tax system have been discussed at the meeting held by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on October 30, Uzbekistan News reported. After the cancellation of compulsory deductions from the proceeds starting from January 1, 2019, the enterprises in Uzbekistan will save 5.2 trillion soums of income. The growth in household incomes will be 6.5 percent due to the reduction of the maximum rate of personal income tax from 22 percent to 12 percent, the single social payment rate from 25 percent to 15 percent, as well as the abolition of the 8 percent insurance premium. The rates of the tax on the property of legal entities (from 5 to 2 percent), the income tax (from 14 to 12 percent), the single tax payment for small businesses (from 5 to 4 percent) will also be reduced. These measures will help to leave 2 trillion soums of additional funds at the disposal of entrepreneurs. In total, the number of taxes and obligatory payments will be reduced from 19 to 15. The reduction of taxes will cause a decrease in budget revenues. The instruction was given at the meeting to compensate for this process by systematic work on the legalization of the number of employees and wages. Details added (first version posted on 17:25) Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 By Taleh Mursagulov - Trend: Azerbaijan has significantly improved its positions in the World Bank Group's Doing Business ranking published today. Thus, Azerbaijan ranked 25th among 190 countries in Doing Business 2019, while it was 57th in Doing Business 2018. According to Doing Business 2019, Azerbaijan ranks 9th in "Business registration", 17th in "Registering property", 22nd in "Getting credit", 2nd in "Protecting minority investors", 28th in "Taxation". According to Doing Business 2019, Azerbaijan has entered the list of countries with the most noticeable improvement in the economy. Doing Business authors said that Azerbaijan has carried out a record number of reforms aimed at simplifying doing business in 2017-2018 among 10 economies that have shown significant improvement. In particular, the authors stressed that Azerbaijan has simplified the process of obtaining building permits, connecting to power grids, registering property, getting credit, taxation, international trade. The authors also stressed labor market reforms and reforms aimed at protecting minority investors. Some of these reforms include institutional changes, the authors said. Azerbaijan has created a "single window" for issuing building permits, which reduces the time to obtain a permit to 80 days. Azerbaijan has also improved access to loans by creating the first credit bureau and a movable property registry. Moreover, the authors emphasize that the process of connecting to the electricity grids has also been simplified thanks to the ASAN Kommunal centers in Azerbaijan. Doing Business is annually published by the World Bank Group, which assesses regulatory standards in entrepreneurial activity. Azerbaijan joined the WB Group in 1992. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct.31 Trend: Asia is forecast to be the major contributor to the growth of the global propylene industry between 2017 and 2026, accounting for around 55% of the global planned and announced propylene capacity additions by 2026, according to leading data and analytics company GlobalData. The companys report: Q3 2018 Global Propylene Capacity and Capital Expenditure Outlook Dangote Industries Ltd Drives Global Capacity Additions reveals that around 111 planned and announced plants are scheduled to come online, predominantly in Asia and the Middle East, over the next nine years. Within Asia, China plans to add a total capacity of approximately 11.0 million tons per annum (mtpa) by 2026 with the help of 33 planned and announced propylene plants. Capital expenditure (capex) for these plants totals US$7.33bn over the next nine years. Major capacity additions will be from Oriental Energy Co Ltd. Dayanand Kharade, Petrochemicals Analyst at GlobalData, explains: China will expand its propylene capacity at the fastest pace than of any country over the next five years. Despite being the largest producer of propylene, it is unable to meet its own rapidly growing domestic demand, forcing the construction of more capacity. GlobalData identifies the Middle East as the second highest in terms of propylene capacity additions. Within the region, Iran has 14 planned and announced propylene plants, with a total capacity of roughly 2.8 mtpa by 2026. Capex for these plants is US$2.71bn. Kharade adds: In the Middle East, Irans state owned company, The National Petrochemical Company is facilitating investments in petrochemical capacity additions. The US plans to spend US$0.90bn on three planned and announced propylene plants, with a capacity of around 1.2 mtpa during the outlook period. Major capacity additions will be from Formosa Plastics Group. In the Former Soviet Union (FSU), most propylene capacity additions are in Russia, with capacity of approximately 1.6 mtpa by 2026. Capex for these plants totals US$1.66bn during the outlook period. Sibur Holding is the top company accounting for the major capacity additions in Russia. Brazil and Bolivia together lead in South America with planned and announced capacity additions of around 1.2 mtpa by 2026. Capex for these plants totals US$1.10bn. In Africa, Nigeria plans to spend US$1.64bn to add a capacity of roughly 1.7 mtpa, which is expected to come on-stream by 2026. In Europe, Belgium plans to spend US$0.71bn on the addition of a capacity of 0.7 mtpa, which is expected to come on-stream by 2026. Dangote Group, Oriental Energy Co Ltd, and Formosa Plastics Group are the top three companies globally in terms of planned capacity additions over the outlook period. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 Trend: Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are discussing the possibility of building a plant for the production of liquefied natural gas in western Kazakhstan, Kazakh Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev told reporters, Interfax-Kazakhstan reported. We are considering the issue of construction of a liquefied gas production plant in Aktau for its further export to and transit through Azerbaijan. These issues are on the agenda, Bozumbayev said. In addition, he said, the possibility of creating a joint venture in Kazakhstan in the field of petroleum engineering is being discussed with Azerbaijan. "Azerbaijan has a developed petroleum engineering industry. We are now discussing the creation of such plants in Kazakhstan with the participation of Azerbaijani capital, and using their experience, skills, and technologies, in order to sell the products to oil companies in the future," the minister said. He stressed that since petroleum engineering products are imported by foreign companies in large quantities for the development of fields, the joint venture may start its activities with the assembly of oil and gas engineering equipment. Bozumbayev also said the railway administrations of the two countries are discussing the possibility of supplying railcars and locomotives to Azerbaijan on pre-export financing terms. Oil prices were little changed in volatile trade on Wednesday as strong US demand for fuel helped offset a sixth straight week of crude builds and evidence of rising global supply despite sanctions that are already curbing Iranian crude exports, Reuters reports. The Brent crude December LCOc1 futures contract, which expires Wednesday, fell 21 cents to $75.70 a barrel by 1:23 p.m. EDT (1723 GMT). The more-active January contract LCOF9 rose 1 cent to $75.96 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 futures rose 10 cents to $66.08 a barrel. Both benchmarks were about $10 a barrel below four-year highs reached on Oct. 3. Both contracts are on track for their worst monthly performance since July 2016, with Brent set to fall 8.5 percent for the month and WTI on course to drop 9.8 percent. Oil prices gained after the US Energy Information Administration said crude inventories USOILC=ECI rose 3.2 million barrels last week, less than expected. Gasoline and distillate stockpiles fell as total product demand over the past four weeks rose 5.4 percent from a year ago. The report was modestly supportive due to the decent sized drawdowns in refined products, and the strong demand for them, said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital Management in New York. Crude futures traded choppily on Wednesday, with Brent rising by $1 a barrel earlier in the session before retreating. Investors are weighing market sentiment ahead of new US sanctions on Iran that begin on Nov. 4. Theres this perception that theres enough oil in the market right now to get through the Iranian sanctions. Technically the market has been in a weak position, said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. Washington has made it clear to Tehrans customers that it expects them to stop buying any Iranian crude oil from that date. Imports of Iranian crude by major buyers in Asia hit a 32-month low in September as China, South Korea and Japan sharply cut their purchases ahead of the sanctions, government and ship-tracking data showed. But oil supply from other countries is rising. The top three producers - Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States - pumped 33 million barrels per day (bpd) in September, Refinitiv data showed, an increase of 10 million bpd since the start of the decade. Russian oil output has reached 11.41 million bpd, a level unseen since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, an industry source told Reuters. Oil market sentiment received some support from equity markets, which pulled back from 20-month lows after pledges by China to support its markets. Oil has been caught in the global financial market slump this month, raising concerns about global oil demand. Equities have been under pressure from the trade war between the worlds two largest economies, the United States and China. The United States has already imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods and China has responded with retaliatory duties on $110 billion worth of US goods. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: Istanbuls new airport, which is also called Istanbul, will contribute to the growth of tourism, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey told Trend Oct. 31. The ministry noted that air transport is the most popular one for tourist trips to Turkey. In particular, 5,383,332 foreign tourists visited Turkey in August 2018, and 4,224,997 of them arrived in the country via air transport, which makes up 78.48 percent of the total number of tourists, the ministry said. The ministry also noted that in August 2018, 1,387,953 tourists arrived in Istanbul by air transport. Turkey is also implementing a number of domestic transport projects, which will also contribute to the development of domestic tourism, the ministry said. The opening ceremony of the new airport in Istanbul was held on October 29 and was attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Minister of Transport and Infrastructure of Turkey Mehmet Cahit Turhan. The Ataturk Airport in Istanbul will end operating flights at 00:00 (GMT +3) on Dec. 31. Beginning from 00:00 (GMT +3) on Dec. 31, all passenger and cargo flights will be operated from the third airport of Istanbul. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Meet the acid attack survivor who challenged Nepal's laws to help others like her Sangita Magar's life was changed forever after she was attacked with acid three years ago. Since then, she has been speaking up against violence against women and raising her voice to support survivors. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 Trend: Renewable energy, green technologies, efficient use of resources, and harmonization of environmental legislation were the main topics studied during the training courses conducted by the OSCE Program Office in Dushanbe in October, the Tajik news agency Avesta reported. The OSCE Program Office in Dushanbe stated that the training courses in the cities of Bokhtar, Khujand, Khorog and the Rasht region contributed to the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in Tajikistan. Some 140 participants, including representatives of local authorities, business entities, youth and OSCEs Aarhus Centers from all regions of Tajikistan attended the training. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Oct. 31 By Huseyn Hasanov Trend: The Turkmen parliament has adopted a draft law on land melioration, the countrys ministry of agriculture said in a message, the Turkmenistan State News Agency reported. The document defines the legal, economic and organizational basis for land melioration and regulates the relations arising in this area. In the socio-economic strategy, special importance in Turkmenistan is attached to the rational use of land and water resources, increasing the manufacture of various agricultural products, environmental protection. Turkmenistan is mostly desert yet much much of its population is involved in irrigation farming, predominantly of cotton and wheat. About 48 percent of Turkmenistans labor force is in agriculture (compared to 2.5 percent in the U.S.). Some 3.7 percent of the land is classified as arable, and less than 0.2 percent is planted to permanent crops. About 17,500 square kilometers are irrigated, mainly for cotton production. Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrived in Islamabad early on Wednesday to hold meetings with Prime Minister Imran Khan, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and other high level officials.Senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs received Zarif at the airport. It is the second visit of Iranian minister to Pakistan since Imran Khan's government came into power, IRNA reports. Pakistan attaches great importance to its relations with Iran; it is a brotherly Muslim country and an important neighbour. Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi said that during his visit, Zarif will be kept abreast of the measures Pakistan government has adopted for security and release of Iranian border guards. The Iranian diplomat previously travelled to Pakistan on August 31 when he and Imran Khan had discussed matters related to bilateral relations and regional security. The Pakistani premier, at that time, had said the two countries enjoy historical and religious ties and that the people of both nations needed to extend cooperation in different fields. Zarif had also met Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Jawed Bajwa at the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi where, according to the military's media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the two talked regional security and matters of mutual interest. The Iranian foreign minister had appreciated Pakistans contributions to the prevention of regional conflicts. Islamabad took sincere steps towards peace and stability in South Asia, Zarif had said. During his meeting with Qureshi, the two ministers, as per the Foreign Office (FO), had discussed the ways to enhance cooperation and strengthen relations between the two states. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 By Elnur Baghishov Trend: Trade turnover and trade cooperation between Iran and Turkey are growing, Shata cited Iranian Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade Reza Rahmani as saying. Rahmani made the remarks at a meeting with Turkish ambassador to Tehran Reza Hakan Tekin at an event organized by the Turkish embassy in Tehran on the occasion of the 95th anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. He said the Islamic Republic of Iran considers comprehensive relations and cooperation with neighboring countries, Islamic countries, mainly Turkey, as one of the main foreign policy strategies. Rahmani added that the Iranian Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade seeks to create favorable conditions within a win-win strategy for development of cooperation and relations between Iranian and Turkish businessmen as part of a joint Iran-Turkey commission. The minister stressed that Iran does not see any restriction to development of relations with Turkey. Ambassador of Iran to Pakistan Mehdi Honardoost has met with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi to discuss the fate of abducted Iranian border guards, IRNA reports. On October 16, Irans Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) said terrorists had kidnapped the Iranian forces, including local Basij volunteer forces and border guards, near the town of Mirjaveh on the Pakistani border. Pakistan has already assured Iran of its full cooperation to recover the Iranian border guards safely. Both sides during the meeting which was held at Pakistans foreign ministry, emphasized to further strengthened bilateral ties in all areas. The ambassador told Pakistani foreign minister that his country attaches great value to its ties with Pakistan. They also discussed regional and international development with special focus on regional security. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi expressing his views said that Iran is an important neighbor of Pakistan and Pakistan always desires to enhance its relations with the Islamic Republic. The two sides exchanged views on matter of mutual interest, including bilateral cooperation. They also emphasized on strengthening of trade and cultural cooperation between the two countries. They also reviewed progress on the issue of abducted border guards. Soon after the abduction of Iranian border guards, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi spoke over the phone regarding the matter. Mr Zarif during the conversation had asked the Pakistani government to enhance security along the border by increasing troops deployment and other measures. The Iranian foreign minister had also urged the Pakistani authorities to act swiftly to recover the hostages and arrest the elements behind the terrorist incident in accordance with the previous understandings between the two countries. Meanwhile Commander of the Ground Forces of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour had also visited Pakistan to discuss the fate of abducted Iranian border guards. Tehran has summoned the Danish Ambassador to Iran Danny Annan to strongly protest against the political and media reaction of certain Danish officials, said the spokesman of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday, IRNA reports. The protest by Iran came after Denmark accused an Iranian-Norwegian of having plans to assassinate a person in the Nordic nation, said Bahram Qassemi. 'In the meeting, the ministry of foreign affairs, once again, denied the one-sided reports about an attempted assassination of an Iranian opposition member and alleging that Iran was behind the failed attack,' Qassemi said. He added that the Danish ambassador was informed that the such reactions are actually the continuation of the plots by the known enemies and attempts aimed at undermining the expanding relations between Iran and Europe at such special and critical time. Iran Foreign Ministry also emphasized adopting a calculated and wise approach towards the issue and warned against taking uncalculated and scandalous measures. Meantime, the Danish envoy said that he has been summoned to Copenhagen for consultation and that he will try to raise and follow up Iran's expectations. The victory of Grigol Vashadze in the Georgian presidential election may unleash an all-out civil conflict in the country, lawmaker Gedevan Popkhadze of the ruling Georgian Dream party said, TASS reports. "Im firmly convinced that Vashadzes election victory will become a real step toward the civil war in Georgia. Vashadze and the United National Movement (UNM), which nominated him as a presidential candidate, have revanchist ideas and goals," the lawmaker told reporters in Tbilisi. "Vashadze himself said on numerous occasions that he intends to let ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili return to the country if he wins the election. And we all know too well what Saakashvili and his team plan to do if they rise to power." A number of other prominent Georgian politicians share this point of view, while others accuse the ruling party and its members of trying to intimidate voters with political consequences to secure their support. Members of the European Georgia opposition party urged the ruling Georgian Dreams leadership to condemn those statements. "I think that this statement by Popkhadze reflects the stance of some of the ruling partys leaders. I think that the Georgian Dream should weigh this statement and distance itself from Popkhadzes words," said Gigi Ugulava, a leader of European Georgia. During the October 24 debates with his main opponent, independent candidate Salome Zurabishvili, Vashadze said that his election victory would "launch a power transition process in the country." He also said that ex-president Saakashvili, found guilty in absentia on a series of charges, must be given an opportunity to return to Georgia to "answer questions of law-enforcement bodies." Besides, the Georgian president has the authority to pardon prisoners. The Georgian Central Election commission said on Monday that an independent presidential candidate, 66-year-old Salome Zurabishvili has received 38.64% of the vote, while her key rival Grigol Vashadze, nominated by the United National Movement party, has secured 37.74% of the vote. Both candidates will go to runoff no later than December 2, as the first round of the elections was deemed too close to call. Russia will work to improve relations with Georgia after the election of Georgias new president, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told journalists on Wednesday, TASS reports. "We will see the election results and then we will work to improve our bilateral relations to the extent the Georgian side is ready for it," he said. According to preliminary results, independent presidential candidate Salome Zurabishvili, who was supported by the ruling Georgian Dream Party and secured 38.64% of votes, won the October 28 election. She was followed by Grigol Vashadze of United National Movement and 10 ally organizations, who secured 37.74% of votes. They entered the second round that, according to the Central Election Commission, will be held not later than on December 2. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that he had discussed with a Russian delegation, led by Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Storchak, the ways to strengthen Venezuela's economic independence, Sputnik International reported. Maduro met with the Russian delegation in Caracas on Tuesday. "An extraordinary working meeting with the Russian deputy finance minister and a work team of economic experts. We discussed the ideas which will help us to improve the new economic model in order to definitively strengthen our economic independence," Maduro said on Twitter. Venezuela has been suffering from a deep economic crisis caused by the fall of global oil prices. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday announced the appointment of Geir Pedersen of Norway as his new special envoy for Syria to succeed Staffan de Mistura, who steps down in November, according to Xinhua. Pedersen has decades of political and diplomatic experience, having served both in government and United Nations capacities, said Guterres' press office in a statement. He is the current Norwegian ambassador to China. Before that he was Norway's permanent representative to the United Nations between 2012 and 2017. Pedersen served the United Nations in various roles, including as special coordinator for Lebanon between 2007 and 2008 and as personal representative of the secretary-general for Southern Lebanon between 2005 and 2007. He also worked as director of the Asia and Pacific Division in the Department of Political Affairs. Between 1998 and 2003, Pedersen served as the Norwegian representative to the Palestinian Authority. In 1993, he was a member of the Norwegian team to the Oslo negotiations that led to the signing of the declaration of principles and the mutual recognition between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel. Born in Oslo in September 1955, he is married and has five children. Pedersen takes up the Syria position at a critical time. De Mistura is struggling to convene a constitutional committee that is tasked to draft a new constitution for the war-torn country. He told the Security Council last week that Damascus refused to recognize the United Nations' role in forming the constitutional committee. De Mistura will brief the Security Council on Nov. 19 for the last time as special envoy. He decided to step down to have more time with his family. Guterres on Wednesday reiterated his "deepest gratitude" to de Mistura for his efforts and contributions to the search for peace in Syria. Tika R Pradhan is a senior political correspondent for the Post, covering politics, parliament, judiciary and social affairs. Pradhan joined the Post in 2016 after working at The Himalayan Times for more than a decade. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has informed the Security Council that he intends to appoint veteran Norwegian diplomat Geir Pedersen as his special envoy for Syria, The Associated Press reported. Pedersen is currently Norway's ambassador to China and previously served as his country's U.N. ambassador. He will replace Staffan de Mistura, who announced this month that he will be leaving the post at the end of November. Guterres says in a letter to the council obtained Tuesday night by The Associated Press that Pedersen will provide "good offices" aimed at ending the seven-year Syrian conflict and will lead U.N. efforts to facilitate "an inclusive and credible political solution that meets the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people." The secretary-general calls on the international community and the Syrian government to give Pedersen "unified and unwavering support." UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a letter to UN Security Council members that he had decided to appoint Norwegian diplomat Geir Pedersen as his new special envoy for Syria, diplomatic sources told TASS. According to the sources, the secretary general delivered the news in a letter to UN Security Council members. "In taking this decision, I have consulted broadly, including with the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic," reads the letter. According to Guterres, the new envoy would "support the Syrian parties by facilitating an inclusive and credible political solution that meets the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people." New Zealand police confirmed in a statement on Wednesday that two people were killed following an avalanche at Aoraki Mount Cook National Park, Sputnik reported. "Police can confirm that two people have died following a reported avalanche on Mt Hicks, in Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park. The Rescue Coordination Center was alerted to the incident via a personal locator beacon this morning," the statement read. Police said a group of three people were ascending Mount Hicks when they were caught in an avalanche, which killed two mountain guides. A third person, a woman, managed to free herself. In March this year, a 400-meter wide avalanche started at an altitude of about 2,200 meters above the sea hit the Swiss ski resort in the Vallon d'Arbi region near to Riddes in canton Vaud. One person was confirmed died back then. Indonesian search and rescue workers have a strong indication that an underwater sound they have heard is from the black box of a Lion Air passenger jet that crashed with 189 people on board this week, the countrys military chief said on Wednesday, Reuters reports. Military chief Hadi Tjahjanto told that divers had already gone down to check the location, but were struggling with strong currents. We hope tonight we can drop anchor and release the ROV (remotely operated underwater vehicle) again and I am sure we will find a black box given the strong indication, and not far from there, the main body of the plane, Tjahjanto said. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said after the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) meeting in Brussels on Wednesday that the alliance was ready to continue a dialogue on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, Sputnik reported. "Allies and Russia shared views on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty," NATO said in a statement following the NRC meeting. In addition, Stoltenberg noted that all allies agreed that the INF treaty has been crucial to Euro-Atlantic security. "We all agree that the INF Treaty has been crucial to Euro-Atlantic security Allies urge Russia again to ensure full compliance with the INF Treaty without delay. While we stand ready to continue dialogue on this issue with Russia, as an Alliance we are also committed to take effective measures to continue to ensure the safety and security of all Allies," Stoltenberg said. Russia, on its part, said that INF treaty is important as a factor in maintaining European and global stability, Permanent Mission to NATO noted. The NATO-Russia Council, which brings together the 29 Allies and Russia, met in Brussels on Wednesday to exchange views on a wide range of topics, including issues related to military activities, reciprocal transparency and risk reduction; the situation in and around Ukraine; Afghanistan; and hybrid challenges. According to the statement released by NATO press service, NATO and Russia provided briefings on major exercises "in the spirit of transparency." The council was established on May 28, 2002 and was effectively suspended by the alliance in 2014-2016 over the situation in Ukraine. The latest NATO-Russia Council meeting was held in late May at NATO headquarters in Brussels. A total of 3.9 tonnes of food products were delivered by officers of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties in Syria to two settlements in the Deir ez-Zor and Hama governorates, the Centers chief, Vladimir Savchenko, said, TASS reports. "During the day, officers of the Russian reconciliation center conducted two humanitarian operations. As many as 900 bags with food with an overall weight of 3.9 tonnes were distributed among civilians in the settlements of al-Tabiya in the Deir ez-Zor governorate and al-Hashimiya in the Hama governorate," he said. Apart from that, fresh bread was handed out to people in an Aleppo neighborhood. "Since the beginning of the settlement process in Syria, officers of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties have conducted a total of 1,976 humanitarian operation. The overall weight of humanitarian cargoes is 3,092 tonnes," he said. However, according to Savchenko, ceasefire violations by illegal armed groups operating in the Idlib de-escalation zone continue. Thus, during the day shelling attacks were reported from the settlement of Ikko in the Latakia governorate and the settlement of Tell Bazzam in the Hama governorate. Russia is set to accept an invitation by Peking Universitys Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Center to team up to develop new cancer and AIDS drugs, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said, TASS reports. "We will accept your invitation," she said in a conversation with the Centers staff member. According to the Chinese scientist, the universitys research laboratory does not yet have experience in cooperating with Russia but it already works together with research centers in Canada, the United States and Europe. "We will take this into consideration," the Russian deputy prime minister noted. Golikova arrived in the Chinese capital of Beijing in the run-up to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedevs visit, scheduled to take place on November 5-7. While in Beijing, she will hold talks with her Chinese counterpart Sun Chunlan, attend the 19th meeting of the Russian-Chinese Commission on Humanitarian Cooperation, and visit the inauguration ceremony for the Russian-Chinese Association on Television Cooperation. In addition, she is also going to take part in a ceremony to launch an online section dedicated to humanitarian ties and interaction between both countries within the mobile app called "Russia and China: the Basics". Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump will discuss the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty at their meeting in Paris on November 11, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters at the sixth World Congress of Russian Compatriots, TASS reports. "Everything will be discussed as soon as they meet," Lavrov said when asked if Putin and Trump were expected to discuss the INF Treaty at their upcoming meeting. The European Union is starting to realize that the threat of Nazism resurging is real and that it can no longer sweep the matter under the rug, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday, commenting on the European Parliaments adoption of a resolution on the rise of neo-fascist violence in Europe on October 25, TASS reports. "The Russian Foreign Ministry has traditionally tried to refrain from commenting on the European Parliaments work. However, in this case, we deem it possible to make an exception, since the adoption of this resolution indicates that the European Union is finally beginning to realize that the threat of Nazisms resurgence is real and can no longer maintain a wall of silence on this problem," the diplomat emphasized. "We highlight the harsh tone of this document. It contains references to specific instances of neo-Nazi violence and hate, in addition to racist and xenophobic crimes in Europe, including annual gatherings in Riga honoring ex-Waffen-SS members and Ukrainian nationalists thuggery," Zakharova went on to say. "European Parliament members recognize that Nazism, racism and xenophobia are becoming routine in the EU. Whats more, neo-Nazi organizations feel particularly at home in some of its member-states." The Russian diplomat welcomed the appeal addressed to EU members to strongly condemn and punish those who commit hate crimes and use the language of hatred, including statements made by politicians and officials at all levels and in any media outlets. "For a long time now, we have been drawing the attention of Europeans and the global community as a whole to this dangerous trend," Zakharova stressed. "At the heart of this work is the Russia-initiated UN General Assembly Resolution on combating the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, which, by the way, is mentioned in the preamble to the aforementioned European Parliament resolution." The diplomat hoped that the EU was aware of the threat of rising Nazism and would start to fight it effectively. "We anticipate that along with European Parliament members, all EU member-states will recognize the threat of Nazisms resurgence in Europe and will combat its manifestations in every possible way," she stressed. Provocations with the use of toxic chemicals are being planned in some regions in Syria, in particular in the Aleppo region, Major General Igor Konashenkov, the spokesman for Russias Defense Ministry, said on Wednesday, TASS reports. "Besides, similar provocations [with toxic chemicals] are being planned in other Syrian regions," Konashenkov said. "Yesterday, residents of the Aleppo province informed [us] that militants were preparing another action. Members of the White Helmets organization have arrived at populated localities of Azaz, Marea and Chobanbei carrying professional video equipment. Along with this, tanks with poisonous substances, allegedly chlorine gas, have been brought in." Militants of the Turkistan Islamic Party (outlawed in Russia) have transported 20 ten-liter containers with chlorine to Syrias Idlib province to carry out provocations, he added. "The Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Sides has obtained information that on October 27 terrorists from the Turkistan Islamic Party transported 20 ten-liter chlorine containers from Maarat al-Numan to carry out provocations. They were unloaded in the inhabited communities of Kfar Nebel and al-Huash," Konashenkov said. The Russian Defense Ministry has been monitoring arms supply channels used by the Islamic State terror group (outlawed in Russia). "According to available information, ISIL units continue to receive cutting-edge weapons and military equipment. We are closely monitoring these arms supply channels and have established a special commission for that purpose," Konashenkov said. NC to protest in Sarlahi over cadres death Nepali Congress is organising a protest programme over the death of its party cadre at Ramnagar Rural Municipality in Sarlahi district. Russian President Vladimir Putin and President of Cubas Council of State and Council of Ministers, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, will discuss cooperation in the military-technical sphere at the talks on November 2, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, TASS reports. "As for the upcoming contacts with the President of Cubas Council of State and Council of Ministers, it can certainly be assumed that the military-technical cooperation issue will be high on the agenda," Peskov said. The Kremlin spokesman declined to comment on whether the provision of loans for the purchase of military equipment to Cuba would be discussed during the meeting. "I cannot provide you with more detailed information. Military-technical cooperation will be on the agenda," he said answering a question on the issue. On November 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold talks with Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, the President of Cubas Council of State and Council of Ministers. The Kremlin press service earlier reported that the two leaders are expected to discuss the current state and prospects for deepening bilateral cooperation in various areas and exchange views on pressing global and regional issues. According to the Cuban Constitution, the president of the Council of State is the head of state and government and is elected for a five-year term. Diaz-Canel Bermudez, 57, replaced 86-year-old Raul Castro who was Cubas leader since 2008. Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 31 By Rufiz Hafizoglu Trend: Saudi reporter Jamal Khashoggi was strangled in the Saudi Consulate General, the Turkish Prosecutor Generals Office said in a statement Oct. 31. The Prosecutor Generals Office stated that after the murder, Khashoggi's body was dismembered. On Oct. 2, Khashoggi, known for his critical statements about the policy of Riyadh, disappeared when he visited the consulate general of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul, where he came to obtain documents for registration of a marriage with a Turkish citizen. A few days later, the Turkish police launched an investigation into his disappearance. On Oct. 20, the Saudi authorities reported that Khashoggi was killed as a result of a conflict in the Consulate General. The Attorney General of Saudi Arabia Sheikh Saud al-Muadjib said 18 nationals of the country are under investigation, whose identities have not been revealed. He also spoke about the dismissal of the adviser to the crown prince, General Ahmed al-Assiri, who held a high position in the intelligence services of the kingdom, and the adviser to the Royal Court Saud al-Qahtani. Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the murderers of Khashoggi must be convicted in Turkey. Erdogan noted that Turkey has a lot of new facts regarding the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but, at the same time, Turkey considers it premature make all the information public. Erdogan noted that Jamal Khashoggi's murder is not an ordinary crime. The president also noted that 18 people are suspected of Khashoggi's murder and the Saudi authorities should investigate the case. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu The US State Department has called for an end to the strikes of the Saudi-led coalition in all populated areas of Yemen, Sputnik International reported. The Saudi-led coalition engaged in the Yemeni conflict must cease all airstrikes in populated areas in the country, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a press release. "[Saudi-led] Coalition air strikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen," Pompeo said on Tuesday. Pompeo is also calling for all parties involved in the conflict to begin talks in a third country under UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths and for the implementation of a demilitarization zone in Yemen, the release said. Earlier on Tuesday, US Defense Secretary James Mattis appeared to set a 30-day deadline for a ceasefire to occur in Yemen during comments at an event in Washington, DC, adding that all sides need to gather around a table, with a ceasefire in place and with a halt on air strike operations firmly in place. U.S. President Donald Trump said he thinks there will be a great deal with China on trade, but warned that he has billions of dollars worth of new tariffs ready to go if a deal isnt possible, Reuters reported. I think that we will make a great deal with China and it has to be great, because theyve drained our country, Trump told FOX News Channels The Ingraham Angle on Monday. Trump said in the interview he would like to make a deal now, but that China was not ready. He did not elaborate. Bloomberg news reported on Monday that Washington was preparing to announce tariffs on all remaining Chinese imports by early December if talks next month between Trump and his counterpart Xi Jinping fail to ease the trade war. Both Trump and Xi are expected to attend next months G20 summit in Buenos Aires, where they could meet. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China and the United States have all along been in communication about exchanges at all levels, including a possible Xi-Trump meeting in Argentina, though he gave no details. If the United States is not willing to promote win-win cooperation with China then China is fully confident in being able to continue with its reforms and develop itself, Lu added. The United States has already imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods, and China has responded with retaliatory duties on $110 billion worth of U.S. goods. And I have $267 billion waiting to go if we cant make a deal, Trump said. Trump has long threatened to impose tariffs on all remaining Chinese imports into the United States if Beijing fails to meet U.S. demands for sweeping changes to Chinese trade, technology transfer and industrial subsidy policies. US President Donald Trump will listen to the advice of his administrations members before making the final decision on whether to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis said, TASS reports. "I was in Prague the day before yesterday and I met with our two NATO nations' ministers there, there were two other nations when I was in Manama last Saturday. And we're doing everything we can to try to find any option [of solving the INF Treaty issue]," Mattis said in a speech at the Washington-based US Institute of Peace on Tuesday, adding that Washington would "continue to collaborate very, very closely with our allies and consult with them, and that's both through the ministers of defense and ministers of foreign affairs." He also expressed hope that the INF Treaty issue would be central during the upcoming meeting of NATO foreign ministers. "I don't want to go into too much details, but there are options - both symmetrical and asymmetrical - that are available, but I am not committed to anything right now. That's a grave decision, that the President will take council from all of us and it will be up to President Trump, and his views on nuclear weapons (and I think it is pretty well known - he hates them). And we will be working this issue with him," the US official added. Chinese intelligence officers conspired with hackers and company insiders to break into private companies computer systems and steal information on a turbo fan engine used in commercial jetliners, according to a U.S. indictment unsealed, Reuters reports. The indictment said that at the time of the hacks, a Chinese-state owned aerospace company was working to develop a comparable engine for use in aircraft manufactured in China and in other countries. Chinese-made jets, including the C919 and ARJ21, currently use foreign engines but the country has been trying to develop a competitive homegrown alternative. The 10 people charged conspired to steal sensitive data that could be used by Chinese entities to build the same or similar engine without incurring substantial research and development expenses, the indictment released by the U.S. Department of Justice said. It said more than a dozen companies were targeted, but only Capstone Turbine Corp was identified by name. The Justice Department said those hacked included a French firm co-developing a turbofan jet engine with a U.S. company. Frances only civil turbofan engine maker, Safran SA, co-develops engines with U.S.-based General Electric Co through their longstanding CFM International partnership, the worlds biggest jet engine manufacturer by number of units sold. The ventures latest engine, known as LEAP, powers the largest category of Airbus SE and Boeing Co jets and includes a version for Chinas new passenger plane, the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China C919. A Safran spokesman in China declined to comment and the companys French head office could not be contacted outside normal business hours. GE declined to comment. The indictment charges Zha Rong and Chai Meng along with other co-conspirators who worked for the Jiangsu province Ministry of State Security, a unit of the foreign intelligence arm of the Ministry of State Security. It says their efforts to steal sensitive commercial aviation and other data took place from January 2010 through May 2015. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the charges were groundless. The relevant accusations are pure fiction and totally fabricated, he told reporters in Beijing, without elaborating. This is the third major corporate espionage-related case involving Chinese intelligence officers brought by the Justice Department since last month. In late September, a Chinese national who had also enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve was arrested in Chicago for working for Chinese intelligence to recruit engineers and scientists, including some who worked for U.S. defense contractors. In October, the Justice Department also announced it had arrested a spy for Chinas Ministry of State Security on charges of economic espionage and attempting to steal trade secrets from several U.S. aviation and aerospace companies. In that matter, the FBI said the extradition of Chinese operative Xu Yanjun from Belgium was unprecedented, and the case highlighted the Chinese governments direct control over economic espionage in the United States. John Demers, the head of the Justice Departments National Security Division, highlighted the pattern of the three cases in a public statement. This is just the beginning, he said. Together with our federal partners, we will redouble our efforts to safeguard Americas ingenuity and investment. More than 5,000 active-duty military troops will deploy to the southern border by the end of this week, Defense Department officials said on Monday, an escalation of a midterm election show of force against a caravan of Central American migrants that President Trump has characterized as an invasion of our country, according to New York Times. The massing of American troops comes as Mr. Trump has seized on the caravan as a closing political message in the final week before the midterms, warning darkly - and without evidence - that Middle Eastern people are part of a dangerous mob of migrants threatening to surge into communities here. But the caravan, which has shrunk from 7,000 people to less than 3,500, is still weeks away from reaching the United States. The rare use of the active-duty military to bolster Mr. Trumps campaign message has intensified criticism that the president is using the military for political gain. This is using the troops as props, said Jason Dempsey, who served as an Army infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan and is now an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Were using a bunch of people to waste their time while they backstop the Border Patrol. The military buildup is the culmination of Mr. Trumps efforts in recent weeks to appeal to his most fervent supporters and to focus the nations attention on the migrant caravan. In an interview on Fox News late Monday, Mr. Trump said the caravan amounted to an invasion by a lot of bad people and gang members, and said the migrants are wasting their time because the troops will block their entry. The president said his administration will build tent cities to indefinitely hold any migrants who try to seek asylum in the United States, in apparent defiance of court orders that prohibit long-term detention of children or families. We are going to put tents up all over the place, Mr. Trump said during an interview on Monday night on The Ingraham Angle. We are not going to build structures and spend all of this, hundreds of millions of dollars, he said. We are going to have tents. They are going to be very nice, and if they dont get asylum, they get out. KYODO NEWS - Oct 31, 2018 - 15:00 | All, Japan, World Japanese farmers expressed concern Wednesday about an expected influx of imports and other effects of a trans-Pacific free trade agreement led by Japan that is set to enter into force on Dec. 30. Australia said earlier in the day it has become the sixth nation to ratify the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, fulfilling the requirements for the 11-member tariff-cutting framework to take effect. (Japanese farmers' rally against the Trans-Pacific Partnership initiative in Tokyo in 2015) Reaching the required number of states to have ratified the deal occurred "rather fast," said 60-year-old Tatsumi Dejima, who runs a farm in the village of Sarabetsu in Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island prefecture known for producing half of Japan's raw milk. "If cheap dairy products start coming in from overseas, consumers will probably choose the imports. I fear it would be too late if countermeasures are taken after we start to be affected," he said. Japan, the leading economy in the deal, is one of the five other countries to have ratified it, along with Mexico, Singapore, New Zealand and Canada. The members yet to finish domestic procedures are Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru and Vietnam. In the southwestern prefecture of Kagoshima, which raises the largest number of pigs in Japan, Michio Ushidome, the head of an association of black-pig producers, expressed doubts about the touted benefits of the pact. "Small farmers like us are unlikely to enjoy benefits from it," he said, adding he hopes the rift between the pact's signatories and the United States, which pulled out of the framework in 2017, would not grow to affect exports of Japanese farm products. "We want (the government) to make sure it takes support measures if pig-farming businesses begin to feel the crunch," Ushidome said. Other farmers, including rice producer Mitsuo Ota in Daisen, Akita Prefecture, also worry about lower tariffs. "It is something the government decided in consideration of the country's trade overall. No matter how much we farmers oppose it, we have to follow the decision in the end," said Ota. Japan's business sector, in contrast, welcomed the pact's expected entry into force. "It is an enormous achievement. We, as corporate managers, very much welcome the move," said Hiroaki Nakanishi, chairman of Japan's largest business lobby the Japan Business Federation, commonly known as Keidanren. Nakanishi said that even though he can understand the reasons behind the United States' withdrawal from the framework, Japan needs to promote free trade deals. "People should understand each country has its own circumstances to consider," Nakanishi said. KYODO NEWS - Oct 31, 2018 - 21:35 | All, World A trans-Pacific free trade pact without the United States covering 13 percent of the global economy is set to enter into force on Dec. 30 after Australia's ratification Wednesday, a move that appears to counter U.S. President Donald Trump's protectionist policy. "We will proactively engage in strengthening trade framework based on free and fair rules," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the Japanese Diet as Australia became the sixth nation to ratify the 11-member deal. (Ministers of the 11 countries remaining in the Trans-Pacific Partnership pose before a signing ceremony of the revised free trade pact in Santiago, Chile, on March 8, 2018.) The deal, which will cut tariffs on agriculture and industrial products and also ease investment restrictions and enhance protection of intellectual property rights, stipulates that it will enter into force 60 days after at least six signatories complete necessary domestic procedures. Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan's state minister in charge of the trade pact, said he hopes to join hands with countries sharing the existing members' vision for free trade. Japan plans to chair the first ministerial meeting as early as mid-January to discuss the future acceptance of such members and the implementation of the trade pact, according to Motegi. The implementation of the deal will allow "consumers to purchase foreign products at a cheaper price and also make it easier for Japanese companies to operate overseas," Motegi said. Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and Singapore are the first six nations to ratify the agreement. The other members yet to finish their domestic procedures are Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru, and Vietnam. Britain, Colombia, Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand are among countries having shown interest in joining the pact, known officially as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called the trade agreement "one of the most comprehensive and ambitious" in the country's recent history as Canberra notified New Zealand of its completion of domestic procedures. Following an abrupt U.S. pullout from the original 12-member framework under Trump in January 2017, the remaining countries signed the current revised pact in March this year. The remaining 11 countries aim to show their commitment to free trade even as the world grapples with an escalating trade war between the United States and China as the two world's largest economies engage in tit-for-tat exchanges of higher tariffs. The development also comes days ahead of the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 6 when Trump hopes to garner voter support for his "America First" agenda. Japanese government officials hope that the CPTPP will help inject momentum into Tokyo's push for multilateral free trade ahead of the expected start of bilateral negotiations for a Japan-U.S. trade agreement in January. When the CPTPP takes effect, Japan's economy is projected to get an 8 trillion yen ($71 billion) boost although agricultural and sea produce trade may see a negative impact of up to 150 billion yen, according to the government. Japanese automakers are expected to benefit from the deal, which would eliminate 6.1-percent tariffs on passenger cars currently imposed by Canada in the fifth year after the pact comes into effect, while Australia's tariffs on vehicles will be removed immediately. Despite the government's measures to mitigate the impact on domestic agricultural sector and help it enhance competitiveness overseas, many Japanese farmers have voiced wariness about the influx of cheaper livestock products due to the implementation of the CPTPP. Japan's tariffs on beef will be cut to 9 percent in the 16th year from the current 38.5 percent, while the 4.3-percent duty imposed on high-priced pork will be eliminated in the 10th year, welcoming news for consumers but a challenge to Japanese livestock producers. By Kylie Sertic, KYODO NEWS - Oct 31, 2018 - 10:16 | World, All The U.S. midterm elections are often seen as a referendum on the sitting president's popularity, but the results of the 2018 races are likely to have more far-reaching consequences no matter which party controls Congress. For Japan, the question of bilateral trade negotiations -- which the two governments are expected to start in mid-January -- looms large. If the Republican Party maintains its majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives in the Nov. 6 elections, President Donald Trump's "America First" policy will continue unhindered, meaning he will keep pushing Tokyo to conclude a bilateral trade agreement in Washington's favor, according to experts. However, if the Democratic Party takes control of one or both chambers of Congress, the party will have the ability to exercise oversight of the Trump administration's activities including handling of foreign affairs, the experts say. With polls indicating a possible Democratic takeover of the House, Tobias Harris, vice president of Teneo Intelligence, a business strategic consulting firm in Washington, said a Democratic-controlled House may give Japan some leverage. In the upcoming contests, all 435 seats in the House and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate are up for grabs. Polls suggest the Republicans are likely to retain their majority in the upper chamber. Given that trade deals must be ratified by both houses, Harris, who specializes in U.S.-Japan relations, said, "Japan knows that if it's dealing with a Trump administration that can't actually promise that it will be able to ratify anything, there's an incentive to Japan to stall and try to drag negotiations out in the hopes of outlasting the Trump administration." Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed in September to start negotiations for a bilateral trade agreement. The move is a concession by Tokyo, which dropped its earlier insistence on a multilateral approach to trade issues in the face of Trump's threat to impose tariffs on Japanese automobile imports. A prevailing concern about the upcoming trade talks is the prospect of auto tariffs, despite Trump and Abe agreeing that such duties would not be put in place while talks are under way. While Abe has a temporary reprieve, speculation remains as to what Trump will do. Brushing aside protests from Japan and other countries, Trump pushed ahead with invoking global tariffs on steel and aluminum imports earlier this year, citing concern about U.S. national security. "It's a very tricky balance trying to find the sweet spot in terms of how far Japan can hold out versus how much they can trust that the Trump administration is going to take the hardest line and actually follow through on it," Harris said. "To that extent, a divided Congress deepens the uncertainty surrounding what the Trump administration can actually do," he said. Other experts also point to such uncertainty, but add that even if the Democrats retake the House, they are unlikely to strongly constrain the administration's efforts to apply pressure to Japan on a bilateral trade deal. "Democrats will try to gum up the works of Trump's foreign policy generally, because they want to deprive him of successes for political reasons, and because ideologically they oppose some of his approaches," said Benjamin Self, vice president of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation in Washington. "But that's less true with regard to trade," said Self, an expert on U.S.-Japan relations. "The Democrats express an anti-free trade sentiment and always have." While holding out may be Japan's only hope to avoid concessions, the Trump administration is likely to call for an increased access to Japan's agricultural market, regardless of the election results, according to experts. Farmers, ranchers and other agricultural goods producers have strong political clout with Congress, especially the Senate, to convey their concerns about farm exports. "So let's assume that the Republicans retain control of the Senate, this will remain a priority issue for them and the White House," Self said. Referring to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue's recent calls on Japan to cut tariffs on agricultural products below levels agreed to under the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Self said, "Japan was afraid of what a bilateral (pact) would entail, that the Trump administration would be asking for more and giving less." "But at least from the Japanese point of view, they should have confidence, regardless of who takes the House, that they can hold the line at TPP," an 11-member regional free trade agreement from which Trump withdrew the United States last year, he said. Perdue was throwing hardballs despite the shared understanding between Trump and Abe that Washington would not demand deeper farm tariff cuts than levels Tokyo has agreed to in other trade pacts such as the TPP and the Japan-European Union FTA. No power outage during Tihar festival: Ghising Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) Managing Director Kulman Ghising has said that there would be no power outage during the Tihar festival when the demand for electricity would surge as everyone drapes their houses with strings of lights. The police said that Roy and Ansys mother had studied at the same college in Kochi and were members of an alumni group. One dead, seven hurt in clash between party cadres A 55-year-old man succumbed to bullet injuries following a violent clash between supporters of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) and the Nepali Congress at Bauharwa in Sarlahi district on Tuesday. Paving work on runway at Bhairahawa airport starts Work began Tuesday on laying the first asphalt layer on the new runway at Gautam Buddha International Airport in Bhairahawa with the target of testing the pavement within six months. PM Oli informally starts work Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has started carrying out his duties informally from the hospital itself. While the ocean energy sector is still at an early stage of development, a new report analyses ten future emerging technologies to generate energy from the ocean tides and waves. An integrated systems approach is necessary for their successful commercialisation. It still takes a level of almost science fiction fantasy to imagine that we can use the oceans' permanent movement to power our cities and houses. Yet, such ideas are on designer desks, going through demonstrations of viability, towards possible commercial success. Moving to economically viable ocean energy technologies is a huge step towards decarbonisation and the growth of the blue economy in many coastal areas. With only 17 MW compared to 15.8 GW of offshore wind of operating capacity installed in European waters, mostly as demonstration or first-of-a-kind precommercial projects, every technological solution proposed to bridge the gap between R&D stage and the commercialisation of ocean energy devices can be seen for the time being as a future emerging technology. As part of the European Commission's internal Low Carbon Energy Observatory (LCEO) project, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) is developing an inventory of Future Emerging Technologies relevant to energy supply. 30 experts in the ocean energy analysed the needs for the sector, and the type of innovations to bridge the gap with the market. The new report, Future emerging technologies for the ocean energy sector: innovation and game-changers offers policy makers and all other ocean energy stakeholders an array of innovations that can bring ocean energy to the market, but it still needs further R&D, supported by private, national or European funding, and that would help maintain European leadership in this emerging sector. The experts describe state of advancement of each of the technology family, advantages, technological limitations, as well as their technology readiness level. Emerging industry brimming with ideas In Europe a large variety of concepts have been developed for ocean energy conversion, with more than 200 different devices proposed. The experts talk about ten ocean energy technology families, which group together wave or tidal converters, subsystems and components that are characterised by a common operating or design principle. Tidal energy In terms of speed of development, the first generation of tidal energy converters is heading the group. They have reached the pre-commercial stage with the total installed capacity of around 12 MW in Europe and the speed of development is medium, with devices having reached maturity after 10+ years of R&D. Floating tidal devices do not require heavy and costly foundation systems. Speed of the technology development is medium/fast (meaning between less than 5 to 15 years), with some floating tidal platforms already at an advanced stage of development. Third generation tidal energy converters extract energy from a tidal flow or water flow using the sails, kites, or simulating fish-swimming motion. The speed of development is medium/fast, and is affected by the development of materials and ancillary technology. Wave energy As for wave energy, the research goes back 40 years. The availability of testing facilities and new computational tools are making research more accessible and opening up new opportunities leading to novel approach to the first generation of wave energy concepts. The advancement of artificial intelligence and learning algorithms offer an opportunity for developing designs which are more efficient. Development speed is in medium-slow range. Novel wave energy concepts exploit the material-flexibility and the orbital velocities of water particles to convert wave power to electricity. They are characterised by an overall simplicity of design compared to first generation wave energy devices. Yet they are at early stages of development, with no device installed in real sea and the maximum power rating for the device yet to be identified. Innovative tidal and wave energy power take off This big group of different approaches on how to extract power from the ocean and convert it into electricity offers many possibilities for innovation and unlocking the potential of ocean energy in Europe. Direct drive, hydraulic and inertia systems are more advanced. Mechanical systems can be at a relatively fast pace, while dielectric elastomers offer fast speed of development but require more R&D. Further information on those concepts is available through Marinet 2 P Horizon 2020 project, the Wave Energy Scotland program and the European Marine Energy Centre list of wave and tidal energy technology. Conclusions and recommendations for further work An integrated systems approach is required to develop successful marine energy systems; therefore collaboration with industry and engagement with original equipment manufacturers from the early stage of development is recommended. System capabilities and requirements should be properly defined and made transparent to increase the effectiveness of future emerging technologies development and applicability to ocean energy technologies. The transferability of solutions from other sector, as well as the development of new technologies and materials could impact significantly on the speed of development of future emerging technologies for ocean energy. The impact of the future emerging technologies should be put in the context of the priorities for the ocean energy sector as identified through the Ocean Energy Roadmap and the SET-Plan Implementation Plan. A further analysis is needed to prioritise which options could have the greatest impact on the sector in achieving short-term goals (2025 targets) and long term ambitions (100 GW of installed capacity by 2050). This report compiles the outcomes of an international workshop on emerging energy technologies held in March 2019 ### Japanese researchers have developed an automated method of tracking single fluorescently labeled molecules in living cells, enabling large numbers of molecules to be analyzed and characterized rapidly and cost-effectively Osaka, Japan - To understand the mechanisms by which molecules act in cells, or the effects of drugs on them, it would be ideal to be able to track individual molecules, including where in the cell they are located and what modifications they undergo when conditions in the cell change. However, this has proven difficult with existing technologies, particularly given the amount of time required to perform such monitoring. A research team centered at Osaka University, in collaboration with RIKEN, has developed a system that can overcome these difficulties by automatically searching for, focusing on, imaging, and tracking single molecules within living cells. The team showed that this approach could analyze hundreds of thousands of single molecules in hundreds of cells in a short period, providing reliable data on the status and dynamics of molecules of interest. For the development of this method, reported in the journal Nature Communications, the team used an artificial intelligence-based system, involving the training of neural networks to learn to focus correctly on a sample and to automatically search for cells, followed by the tracking of single fluorescently labeled molecules with a total internal reflection fluorescence microscope. The team tested this system on a receptor protein called EGFR, which is more or less free to move along the plasma membrane in which it is expressed depending on whether it has undergone a certain modification. Their findings showed that the system could differentiate between modifying and nonmodifying conditions by tracking the movements of single receptors in membranes. "We used the results obtained by our system to calculate pharmacological parameters, such as those reflecting the efficacy of drugs and the speed with which molecules diffuse away from their initial location," corresponding author Masashiro Ueda from Osaka University says. "The findings matched the values obtained in earlier studies using traditional labor-intensive methods, supporting the value of this system." "A major benefit of this approach is that the effects of ligands and inhibitors on a target can be quantified at the single-molecule level," adds Ueda. "The automation provided by this approach means that a large number of targets exposed to such molecules can be characterized at low cost, increasing the reliability of the results." As future work, the team hopes to apply this system to the monitoring of single molecules elsewhere in the cell, such as in the nucleus and organelles, using other optical microscopes. The system should also be applicable clinically for reliable genome-wide screening and for pharmacological testing. ### The article "Automated single-molecule imaging in living cells" was published in Nature Communications, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05524-7. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=17&v=xf2s5OTAhXI About Osaka University Osaka University was founded in 1931 as one of the seven imperial universities of Japan and now has expanded to one of Japan's leading comprehensive universities. The University has now embarked on open research revolution from a position as Japan's most innovative university and among the most innovative institutions in the world according to Reuters 2015 Top 100 Innovative Universities and the Nature Index Innovation 2017. The university's ability to innovate from the stage of fundamental research through the creation of useful technology with economic impact stems from its broad disciplinary spectrum. Website: http://resou.osaka-u.ac.jp/en/top If you encountered an elephant bird today, it would be hard to miss. Measuring in at over 10 feet tall, the extinct avian is the largest bird known to science. However, while you looked up in awe, it's likely that the big bird would not be looking back. According to brain reconstruction research led by The University of Texas at Austin, the part of the elephant bird brain that processed vision was tiny, a trait that indicates they were nocturnal and possibly blind. The findings were published Oct. 31 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. A nocturnal lifestyle is a trait shared by the elephant bird's closest living relative, the kiwi -- a practically blind, chicken-size denizen of New Zealand -- and a clue that is helping scientists learn more about the elephant bird's behavior and habitat, said Christopher Torres, a Ph.D. candidate who led the research. "Studying brain shape is a really useful way of connecting ecology -- the relationship between the bird and the environment -- and anatomy," Torres said. "Discoveries like these give us tremendous insights into the lives of these bizarre and poorly understood birds." Julia Clarke, a professor at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences and Torres' Ph.D. adviser, co-authored the study. Torres is a student in UT's Department of Integrative Biology in the College of Natural Sciences. Elephant birds were large, flightless and lived in what is now Madagascar until a mixture of habitat loss and potential human meddling led to their demise between 500 and 1,000 years ago. "Humans lived alongside, and even hunted, elephant birds for thousands of years," Torres said. "But we still know practically nothing about their lives. We don't even really know exactly when or why they went extinct." Scientists had previously assumed that elephant birds were similar to other big, flightless birds, like emus and ostriches -- both of which are active during the day and have good eyesight. But Torres and Clarke revealed that elephant birds had distinctly different lifestyles through reconstructions of their brains. Bird skulls wrap tightly around their brains, with the turns and curves of the bone corresponding to brain structures. The researchers studied the skulls of two species of elephant birds. By using CT-imaging data of the two elephant bird skulls, the researchers were able to create digital brain reconstructions called endocasts. In addition to the elephant bird skulls, the researchers also created endocasts for close relatives of the elephant bird, both living and extinct. In both elephant bird skulls, the optic lobe -- a bundle of brain nerves that controls eyesight -- was very small, with the structure almost absent in the larger species. The lobe had the most in common with that of a kiwi, which Torres said came as a "total shock" because of the kiwi's poor vision and nocturnal behavior. "No one has ever suspected that elephant birds were nocturnal," Torres said. "The few studies that speculated on what their behavior was like explicitly assumed they were active during the day." Andrew Iwaniuk, an associate professor at the University of Lethbridge and an expert on brain evolution in birds who was not involved with the research, said that he had a similar reaction to the findings. "I was surprised that the visual system is so small in a bird this big," he said. "For a bird this large to evolve a nocturnal lifestyle is truly bizarre and speaks to an ecology unlike that of their closest relatives or any other bird species that we know of." In addition to vision, the endocasts rendering of the olfactory bulb -- the part of the brain that processes the sense of smell -- helped shed light on the habitats where elephant birds lived. The larger of the two species of elephant bird had a large olfactory bulb, a trait associated with forest dwelling. In contrast, the smaller elephant bird species had a smaller olfactory bulb, possibly indicating that it lived in grasslands. The smaller species also appears to have somewhat keener vision, which means it may have been more active at dusk than during the pitch black of night. "Details like these not only tell us about what the lives of elephant birds were like, but also what life in general was like on Madagascar in the distant past," Clarke said. "As recently as 500 years ago, very nearly blind, giant flightless birds were crashing around the forests of Madagascar in the dark. No one ever expected that." ### This work was funded by a National Science Foundation grant and the Jackson School of Geosciences. By Laurence Frost PARIS (Reuters) - European planemaker Airbus softened its key target for jet deliveries on Wednesday and warned that reaching it would be a "greater stretch" after a sequence of industrial problems. The cautious tone on deliveries - which implied a 2 percent cut in the annual target by changing its parameters to include a recently acquired Canadian jet - came despite higher than expected third-quarter core earnings and strong demand from airlines. The maker of jetliners, satellites and helicopters said it had made an adjusted operating profit of 1.576 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in the quarter on revenues of 15.451 billion. Analysts on average expected third-quarter adjusted operating profit of 1.441 billion euros on sales of 15.316 billion, according to a Reuters poll. Airbus shares rose 0.3 percent to 94.21 euros. The company has been struggling with fresh industrial problems as production of its fast-selling A321neo passenger jet hit a snag in Hamburg, Germany, even as bottlenecks eased at some engine makers. The problems with the A321neo, a model central to Airbus's ambition to dominate the top end of the single-aisle market and thwart Boeing's plans for a new mid-sized passenger jet, were first reported by Reuters. "A lot remains to be done before the end of the year to fulfill commitments," Airbus said in a statement. Airbus stuck to its headline target of around 800 commercial deliveries in 2018 but disclosed this now included 18 deliveries of the Bombardier CSeries jet, renamed A220. Delegates at a Hong Kong gathering this week had warned that Airbus faced a challenge to meet the crucial goal. Airbus also trimmed its cashflow target for the year. INDUSTRIAL CHALLENGES Delays in supplies of engines for medium-haul jets from Pratt & Whitney and French-U.S. supplier CFM International are receding but Britain's Rolls-Royce last week cut the number of engines it plans to deliver for the wide-body Airbus A330neo this year. "We have engines and we have the airframes but the whole industrial planning had to be reshuffled time and again ... next to some industrial challenges on our own operation," Finance Director Harald Wilhelm told analysts. Story continues Boeing too has suffered industrial problems, but the world's largest planemaker last week reported stronger-than-expected profits, reflecting continued strong airliner demand. The commercial aerospace sector is in the eighth year of an extended upcycle but there are some concerns about airline profitability that usually drives jet orders, speakers at the Airline Economics conference in Hong Kong said this week. Even so, planemakers and their suppliers are pushing production to record levels based on eight years' worth of new plane orders, and their attention is focused on ironing out flaws in an already stretched global supply chain. Airbus said talks aimed at overhauling a loss-making contract with European buyer nations for the delayed A400M military airlifter were advancing "a bit slower than planned," as Airbus focuses on commercial deliveries and securing the ramp-up of the A320neo family, which includes the A321neo. (Reporting by Laurence Frost and Tim Hepher; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Susan Fenton) (Bloomberg) -- General Electric Co.s Kristen Michaud is a top client in a business that generates $1 trillion a year for banks -- and shes deeply frustrated. Michaud helps run GEs cash-management system, using 200 banks and 8,000 accounts to move money to remote corners of the world. When sending cash, she doesnt always know how much intermediaries might nibble away in fees, or when it will reach suppliers. Payments can pass from bank to bank, arriving in strange amounts with memos erased, leaving recipients confused. You might have a supplier calling you up saying they didnt get paid and then youre spending days working with multiple banking partners to chase down the status, Michaud said. It could take multiple days for a bank to respond. Subscribe to The New Economy on Apple PodcastsSubscribe to The New Economy on Pocket Casts Payment apps -- such as Chinese juggernauts Alipay and WeChat Pay -- are making the movement of money look so easy that banks biggest customers are losing patience with the global patchwork thats handled their funds for decades. Such apps have barely started serving multinationals, but their presence is putting pressure on financial firms to up their game, or risk losing their grip on another business. Corporate treasury officials such as Michaud have been expressing growing exasperation at industry conferences, sometimes contrasting the slow, opaque system they use with Chinese apps and services such as PayPal Holdings Inc.s Venmo that beam money almost instantly between consumers and retailers. If technology can help millennials split a restaurant bill in seconds or let tourists tap phones to pay taxis abroad, why must companies sometimes wait three to five days to confirm their money reached its destination? Were coming into this age thats more digital, Michaud said. Similar to the Amazon example, you want to know if your package was delivered to your house or to your apartment, and so the same should hold true with a payment. Story continues Banks say theyre working on improvements. And so far, corporations are sticking with them because of their proven security for both money and data. Even if apps enhance services to lure big companies, banks will undoubtedly strive to fend them off. The stakes are high, because handling cross-border payments is especially lucrative. The $23 trillion in corporate money that flows over borders annually is dwarfed by the $104 trillion that moves between businesses within their own countries, but it generates about half of the revenue that facilitators collect. Banks dominate international money flows, handling about 95 percent. Along the way, banks and their partners deduct about $1.02 trillion in fees and foreign-exchange costs, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Much of the innovation in payments in recent years has occurred on the consumer side, as tech startups sought to wrest business from banks, which then fought back with apps of their own. Many upstarts carry out transactions within their own ecosystem, instantly shifting money from one account to another. That contrasts with the network corporations use when moving money overseas. They rely on the correspondent banking system, which links domestic banks with foreign counterparts. In a cross-border payment, a corporations money may jump from one bank to the next in a chain several links long, with each setting its own timeline and fees along the way. Harry Newman, the head of banking at SWIFT, the messaging system that connects 10,000 financial institutions around the world, concedes the existing system needs to improve. Correspondent banking has been around for a long time and its done a good job for many years, he said in an interview. But its obviously a child of the 80s and it lacked the transparency and predictability that you really want to see in a modern payments mechanism. Cautionary Tale SWIFT has been working on a plan for making overseas transfers more efficient. In a campaign, known as the global payments innovation initiative, SWIFT partnered with banks around the world to help give corporate clients more information on fees and real-time updates on transactions. That transparency pushes correspondent banks to work faster and keep fees competitive. Chinese banks, already facing the stiffest competition from apps, are among the most enthusiastic supporters, according to Newman. Beyond fintechs, banks are also looking at new technologies to continue their push to improve their treasury services offerings. JPMorgan Chase & Co. has partnered with 75 banks in its Interbank Information Network, which uses blockchain to speed cross-border payments. For the financial industry, the cautionary tale is China, where banks learned that payments and commerce can happen largely without them. Money there now flows mainly through Alibaba Group Holdings Alipay and Tencent Holdings Ltd.s WeChat Pay, which combine social media, commerce and financial services. Consumers sent more than $2.9 trillion inside the two systems in 2016. Could corporations be next? The innovations of consumer payments in Asia are redefining the entire payments landscape, said Manish Kohli, global head of payments and receivables inside Citigroup Inc.s treasury management business. This will have an impact on the world of business-to-business and institutional payments. To contact the reporter on this story: Jenny Surane in New York at jsurane4@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, David Scheer, Dan Reichl For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com 2018 Bloomberg L.P. PM Olis health improving, might get discharged soon Doctors at Manmohan Cardiothoracic Vascular and Transplant Centre (MCVTC) in Maharajgunj, Kathmandu, said that the health condition of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has improved and he might get discharged in a couple of days. Exclusive: Defense firms see only hundreds of new U.S. jobs from Saudi mega deal By Mike Stone WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Every time President Donald Trump mentions the $110 billion arms deal he negotiated with Saudi Arabia last year, he quickly follows up, saying "It's 500,000 jobs." But if he means new U.S. defense jobs, an internal document seen by Reuters from Lockheed Martin forecasts fewer than 1,000 positions would be created by the defense contractor, which could potentially deliver around $28 billion of goods in the deal. Lockheed instead predicts the deal could create nearly 10,000 new jobs in Saudi Arabia, while keeping up to 18,000 existing U.S. workers busy if the whole package comes together - an outcome experts say is unlikely. (Graphic: U.S. weapons deliveries to Saudi Arabia - https://tmsnrt.rs/2JgvPkq) A person familiar with U.S. defense company Raytheon Co's planning said if the Saudi order were executed it could help to sustain about 10,000 U.S. jobs, but the number of new jobs created would be a small percentage of that figure. Lockheed Martin Corp declined to comment on the Saudi package. Raytheon Chief Financial Officer Toby O'Brien said last week that hiring overall is growing, but he did not pin it to any particular program. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Jobs are important to Trump. He campaigned on his ability to create American jobs, especially high-paying manufacturing ones. Meanwhile he has limited his criticism of Saudi leadership over the killing of a prominent critic because he did not want to endanger the massive arms deal. (Graphic: Fraying relations: Saudi Arabia and the United States - https://tmsnrt.rs/2O92usN) Trump's 500,000 figure has been greeted with widespread skepticism given the five biggest U.S. defense contractors, who make nearly every item on the Saudi list, now employ 383,000 people. The Lockheed document, which includes the workforce projections related to the Saudi deal, and interviews with defense industry sources familiar with the arms package suggest that between 20,000 and 40,000 current U.S. defense industry workers could be involved in Saudi-bound production if the whole $110 billion package goes through. Story continues Existing workers typically are experienced, skilled, who can be redeployed more easily than new hires who would require significant upfront investment in their training. One significant caveat to any predictions on job creation is whether all of the missile defenses and radars, ships, tanks, software, bombs and other equipment listed in the full Saudi package get delivered. SAUDI ARABIA JOBS Interviews with people familiar with other major defense contractors' plans and estimates reflect similar dynamic as Lockheed's and Raytheon's plans - relatively minor additions to their U.S. workforce and more significant build-up in Saudi Arabia. Since Trump's trip to the Kingdom last year, little economic activity has taken place beyond Lockheed's work on four frigates the Saudis have ordered. The order will yield nearly 10,000 jobs in the Saudi ports for maintenance workers, but only 500 new U.S. jobs will be created, according to documents seen by Reuters. Executives at the several of top U.S. defense companies say Riyadh had wanted much of the military equipment as a way to both develop new domestic industry and to create new jobs and local expertise as a part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 initiative to wean the country off oil dependency. Saudi Arabia has set a goal of creating 40,000 defense industry jobs by 2030. The arms package Trump announced in May 2017 came under renewed scrutiny after the Oct. 2 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The killing provoked international outrage and both the administration and defense contractors have been working to prevent a backlash that could imperil what Trump has called a "tremendous order" and 500,000 jobs. Industry executives have argued that without the Saudi package coming through they would have fewer orders to fill, but robust U.S. defense budgets, which account for the majority of their sales, coupled with a record backlog of orders suggest little risk that workers would face layoffs if the Saudi sales package failed to materialize. Certainly for each defense manufacturing job, other adjacent jobs are supported indirectly by higher demand for defense products. But Heidi Garrett-Peltier, a research fellow at the Political Economy Research Institute, estimated that for this type of industry the highest multiplier would be just below 3.2. Given that, 20,000 to 40,000 sustained or new jobs could generate between about 64,000 to 128,000 jobs in related industries, Reuters calculations show, bringing the total of sustained and new jobs to between 84,000 and 168,000. In short, 500,000 jobs Trump keeps bringing up is at least three to five times higher than what one could expect from the Saudi deal, given the estimates from the companies themselves, plus the most generous use of the indirect multiplier. By its own math, the U.S. State Department said in May 2017 that the Saudi deal could support "tens of thousands of new jobs in the United States." (Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington, Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Chris Sanders and Tomasz Janowski) Judge Rodney Gilstrap, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas/photo by Diego Radzinschi, National Law Journal The Eastern District of Texas is back in business. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Monday rejected a big tech industry push to overrule a venue ruling from U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap that subjects Google to patent infringement suits in the district. In re Google comes over the dissent of a Federal Circuit judge who said Gilstrap is disregarding clear directions from the Federal Circuit. Judge Jimmie Reyna said Gilstrap's decision will have far-reaching implications" for Google and other companies that conduct their business over the internet. Gilstrap ruled earlier this summer that servers Google leases at internet service providers (ISPs) in the Eastern District of Texas constitute a regular and established place of business under the patent venue statute. Hogan Lovells partner Neal Katyal led Google's charge for mandamus review at the Federal Circuit, with amicus support from Intel, Netflix, Salesforce, HP and others. They argued that a place of business must be owned or leased by the defendant and fixed permanently to qualify as a regular and established place of business. Gilstrap, they said, was in effect overruling the U.S. Supreme Court's TC Heartland decision that has forced patent holders to sue more often where defendants are headquartered. They got no sympathy from Federal Circuit Judges Timothy Dyk and Richard Taranto. Google's contracts with the ISPs establish strong Google control over the servers and their physical location, they noted in a nonprecedential, per curiam order. While Gilstrap may not be right, they suggested, he wasn't so clearly wrong as to warrant mandamus review before trial. And the issue hasn't divided district judges all over the country, as was the case when the court agreed to take up the Micron venue case on mandamus last fall. Dyk and Taranto said Google will have every right to raise the issue following trial. Although the Federal Circuit has taken up venue issues pretrial in exceptional circumstances, we do not find such circumstances in this case, they wrote. The win goes to a Thompson & Knight team that represented patent owner Seven Networks LLC. Partners Max Ciccarelli, Bruce Sostek and J. Michael Heinlen and associate Natalie Cooley were on the briefs. Reyna said leaving Gilstrap's decision in place will cause confusion. For example, is every individual cell phone tower a 'regular and established place of business' for a cellular service provider? he wrote. And is a home office that contains at least a computer a 'regular and established place of business' simply because an employer provides the computer and controls its operation and placement? Leaving this issue to percolate longer in the courts as the majority suggests, Reyna concluded, will only result in wasted judicial and litigant resources as they continue to wrestle in uncertainty. FILE PHOTO: The General Electric logo is pictured on the General Electric offshore wind turbine plant in Montoir-de-Bretagne, near Saint-Nazaire, western France, November 21, 2016. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo PARIS (Reuters) - French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Wednesday he would press General Electric's new chief executive to stick to French job creation pledges made by the CEO's predecessor. The French government brandished the threat of fines in June after former GE Chief Executive John Flannery told Le Maire that the company would fail to create as many jobs as promised when it bought Alstom's energy business in 2015. The group ousted Flannery on Monday, replacing him with outsider Larry Culp while booking a $23 billion (18 billion pounds) charge to write off goodwill at its power division, primarily from the 2015 acquisition. "I will make contact in the coming days with General Electric's new CEO to ask him to keep his predecessors commitments to the French state and workers," Le Maire told lawmakers in the lower house of parliament. GE had committed to create 1,000 net new jobs by the end of this year when it bought Alstom's (ALSO.PA) energy business, but Flannery said in June that that target was "out of reach". The government later raised the possibility of fines worth 50,000 euros for each job not created. (Reporting by Leigh Thomas and Yann Le Guernigou; editing by Richard Lough) Owens-Illinois (OI) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.75 per share, in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate. This compares to earnings of $0.77 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. A quarter ago, it was expected that this glass container manufacturer would post earnings of $0.75 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.77, delivering a surprise of 2.67%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times. Owens-Illinois, which belongs to the Zacks Glass Products industry, posted revenues of $1.73 billion for the quarter ended September 2018, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.52%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $1.79 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates just once over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Owens-Illinois shares have lost about 26.5% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's decline of -1.2%. What's Next for Owens-Illinois? While Owens-Illinois has underperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Story continues Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Owens-Illinois was unfavorable. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to underperform the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $0.63 on $1.70 billion in revenues for the coming quarter and $2.74 on $6.97 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year. Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Glass Products is currently in the bottom 4% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1. 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 Owens-Illinois, Inc. (OI) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research FILE PHOTO: New Zealand's Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker signs the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, in Santiago, Chile March 8, 2018. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado By Charlotte Greenfield WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A landmark 11-member trade deal aimed at slashing barriers in some of Asia Pacific's fastest growing economies will come into force at the end of December, the New Zealand government said on Wednesday. The deal would move forward after Australia informed New Zealand that it had become the sixth nation to formally ratify the deal, alongside Canada, Japan, Mexico and Singapore. "This triggers the 60 day countdown to entry into force of the Agreement and the first round of tariff cuts," said New Zealand Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker. His country is responsible for official tasks such as receiving and circulating notifications made by members of the pact. The original 12-member deal was thrown into limbo early last year when President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement to prioritize protecting U.S. jobs.. The 11 remaining nations, led by Japan, finalised a revised trade pact in January, called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). The success of the deal has been touted by officials in Japan and other member countries as an antidote to counter growing U.S. protectionism, and with the hope that Washington would eventually sign back up. Australia said the agreement will boost agricultural exports, set to be worth more than A$52 billion ($36.91 billion) this year despite a crippling drought across much of the country's east coast. "It will give Australian grain farmers a good reason to smile, at a time when drought conditions have played havoc for many, by ensuring improved market access and better grain prices once more favorable seasonal conditions return," said Luke Mathews, trading and economics manager at industry body, GrainGrowers Australia. The deal will reduce tariffs in economies that together amount to more than 13 percent of global GDP - a total of $10 trillion. With the United States, it would have represented 40 percent. The five member countries still to ratify the deal are Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru and Vietnam. (Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield and Praveen Menon in WELLINGTON,; Additional reporting by Colin Packham in Sydney; Editing by William Maclean & Shri Navaratnam) BancorpSouth (BXS) reported earnings 30 days ago. What's next for the stock? We take a look at earnings estimates for some clues. Pennsylvania Real Estate (PEI) came out with quarterly funds from operations (FFO) of $0.35 per share, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.36 per share. This compares to FFO of $0.42 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an FFO surprise of -2.78%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this shopping mall real estate investment trust would post FFO of $0.34 per share when it actually produced FFO of $0.39, delivering a surprise of 14.71%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus FFO estimates two times. Pennsylvania Real Estate, which belongs to the Zacks REIT and Equity Trust - Retail industry, posted revenues of $83.90 million for the quarter ended September 2018, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 3.70%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $84.37 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates just once over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future FFO expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Pennsylvania Real Estate shares have lost about 20.6% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's decline of -1.2%. What's Next for Pennsylvania Real Estate? While Pennsylvania Real Estate has underperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's FFO outlook. Not only does this include current consensus FFO expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of estimate revisions. Story continues Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Pennsylvania Real Estate was unfavorable. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to underperform the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus FFO estimate is $0.47 on $97.73 million in revenues for the coming quarter and $1.51 on $361.93 million in revenues for the current fiscal year. Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, REIT and Equity Trust - Retail is currently in the bottom 18% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1. 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 Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PEI) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission is a 1988 made-for-TV film directed by Lee H. Katzin, and is the third sequel to The Dirty Dozen. It features an all-new "dirty dozen", with the exception of the returning Joe Stern, under the leadership of Major Wright (performed by Telly Savalas in his final film appearance). The plot concerns Major Wright and his convict commando squad attempting to stop 12 top Nazis, who are trying to organize a Fourth Reich. Synopsis [ edit ] Opening [ edit ] The film opens with Major Wright leading a group of commandos in Nazi-occupied Denmark. The group is on their way to meet up with a "good German," Naval Captain Carl Ludwig. As Ludwig appears through the fog to Major Wright and his men, they are glad to see he's alone, however, he is actually being followed by a German patrol. Realizing that they cannot allow Ludwig to be captured alive, the commandos spring into action. Ludwig is shot by the patrol, as Major Wright and his commandos arrive and kill them. Before he succumbs to his wounds, Ludwig utters the phrase, "vierundzwanzig, zwanzig" (2420), which Major Wright does not understand. Back in England, Major Wright, General Worden (Ernest Borgnine), Lieutenant Carol Campbell (Heather Thomas) and a British Colonel are driving along when they happen upon two American GIs brawling outside a pub. Major Wright has the two men, Fred Collins and Tom Ricketts, arrested, because "they might come in handy on the next mission." At U.S. Army Headquarters in London, the Colonel and others are seen discussing the Germans' plans for developing a Fourth Reich (in case they lose the war) in the Middle East under the guidance of SS General Kurt Richter who has selected 12 loyal and influential Nazis under age 35 to be transported to Istanbul and build the new Reich over the course of 10 years, 20 years or a century if necessary. The 12 men will be boarding a train in Munich and will travel along the old Orient Express route to Istanbul in neutral Turkey. Major Wright is ordered to recruit 12 men from Forbes Road Military Prison for a suicide mission aimed at preventing the train from reaching its destination and killing Richter's selected 12 Nazis. Before making his selections at Forbes Road, Major Wright is joined by General Worden, who reveals that General Richter's 12 men will be riding in Orient Express train car #2420, which explains Captain Ludwig's words. Training [ edit ] Once again, Major Wright is joined by Sergeant Holt, who assists in keeping the 'dirty dozen' in line. The group is shown practicing their bayonet technique, during which a few of the men display their disdain for the major. Meanwhile, at SS Headquarters in Berlin, numerous SS officers are shown being briefed by General Richter on the exploits of Major Wright and Richter informs them that he has recruited a new 'dirty dozen' and intends to try to stop the Orient Express from reaching its destination. Richter reveals that this info was supplied by an informant who is close to the situation. The 'dirty dozen' are to take their first and last training jumps at night due to time constraints. When his turn comes to jump, D'Agostino panics and has to be 'persuaded' out of the plane. The last member of the dozen to jump is Hoffman, however, his chute never opens and he 'bounces.' The next day, Major Wright brings the Colonel and Lieutenant Campbell out to reveal that upon recovering Hoffman's body, he found that Hoffman's chute had been sabotaged. Having lost his European 'expert,' Campbell volunteers her services to Major Wright, as she had spent her formative years in Europe while her father served as a diplomat and possesses extensive knowledge of various European languages and customs, including Yugoslavia. Major Wright is skeptical at first and tells her of the danger, but he ultimately accepts, making Campbell the first female member of the 'dirty dozen.' In the film room the rest of the dozen are introduced to Lieutenant Campbell and then go through identifying Richter's 12 and their importance to the Fourth Reich mission. Afterwards, the dozen are supposed to view a film on Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia, however, that film was switched with a blue film. On their final day of training, the 'dirty dozen' undergo a train jumping exercise, which involves them staying out of sight and then dropping down onto a train from bridge supports. When the dozen completes this successfully, Major Wright knows they are ready, and rewards them with a final night of drunken debauchery and female companionship. As the men celebrate, General Worden and the Colonel arrive, which we learn was at Major Wright's request. The major reveals that he believes there is a traitor in the 'dirty dozen' who is feeding information to the Germans. Both General Worden and (particularly) the Colonel want to abort the mission, but Major Wright talks them out of it, saying down the line he'll figure out who the traitor is and get rid of him. Mission [ edit ] Major Wright, figuring the Germans will be waiting at the drop zone, orders the pilots to drop the 'dirty dozen' some 20 miles away from Skopje. The Yugoslavian Resistance Fighters who were stationed at the original drop zone are surrounded by the SS and shot. One is "allowed" to survive for "interrogation purposes." In Skopje, Major Wright and Demchuk don civilian clothes and go to the apartment of Resistance leader Yelena Voskovic where they are greeted suspiciously due to the disappearance of the Resistance fighters sent to meet the dozen at the drop zone. Major Wright is able to defuse the tenuous situation and the 'dirty dozen' and the Resistance fighters band together. Meanwhile, the SS are shown torturing the lone surviving Resistance fighter, who happens to be Yelena's brother. He passes out before giving them any information. As the dozen and the Resistance group are resting at a farmhouse, Major Wright reveals to a concerned Stern and Hamilton that there is a traitor in the dirty dozen this time, and that's why plans have changed. Back on the trail, the 'dirty dozen' and the partisans disguise themselves as Macedonian Orthodox mourners transporting a coffin (carrying Hamilton) to cross through a checkpoint. A German guard checks the coffin and is met by machine gun fire from Hamilton and a battle ensues, with the group successfully destroying the checkpoint with only one casualty, Munoz. Later on, while the group is resting in the woods at night, Major Wright reveals the new attack point - east of Sofia. It is here that Stern and Lieutenant Campbell share a tender moment and kiss. Back in England at U.S. Army Headquarters, the Colonel informs General Worden that no attack has taken place yet and that he has put the 12th Fighter Command on standby. Now in Sofia, and dressed as civilians, Major Wright, Demchuk, Yelena and one of her men kill the Bulgarian soldier and an officer, who guards at a major bridge checkpoint. The helmets of the Bulgarian soldiers have the Bulgarian national flag on the right, but the colors are in a wrong order: White on top, green in the middle, red on the bottom. The green and red are switched. The rest of the dozen to get ready for the forthcoming train. Meanwhile, aboard the train, General Richter addresses his 12 men. One of them, Kranz, reveals that Hitler has given him a letter that names Richter as Hitler's successor and leader of the Fourth Reich. As the train reaches the bridge, the 'dirty dozen' infiltrate it and the battle begins. While heading through the train cars to get to Richter's 12, Hamilton is wounded in the leg. Demchuk makes his way to the locomotive and seizes control of the train. Echevarria is wounded in the shoulder and Wilson and Porter are killed while clearing out the train. Major Wright and Yelena secure the rear, completing total control of the train. With the targets locked in car #2420, Major Wright decides to hold them as hostages instead of killing them. The Germans (Actually, Bulgarian soldiers, wearing Bulgarian uniforms and speaking Bulgarian language), in an attempt to block the train, move a tanker car in its path, causing Demchuk to bring the train to a screeching halt. Major Wright goes to check the situation and is followed by D'Agostino who decides to "provide cover." Sensing trouble, Major Wright catches D'Agostino placing a grenade on the tanker. After removing the grenade, Major Wright confronts D'Agostino, questions him as to why he would sell out his country and then shoots him. The major then decides to attach the tanker to the front of the train as "insurance." As the train approaches Dranos, Greece, the Germans set up a road block. Seeing and expecting the road block, Major Wright orders everyone (but Richter's 12) off the train as the Germans, led by Richter, open fire. In the ensuing battle, Ricketts is mortally wounded and Mitchell is killed while leaping from the train, and Demchuk is killed before he can even exit the locomotive. The train (and tanker), now just carrying Richter's 12 plows through the German road block creating a chain reaction of explosions that destroys the German unit stationed there, General Richter, and the 12 men in car #2420. Major Wright and the survivors move out to link up with a British submarine in the Aegean Sea and head back to England, however, Yelena opts to go back to Yugoslavia and join up with Tito's partisans because "[her] life is here, always." Besides Major Wright and Sergeant Holt, the survivors of the 'dirty dozen' are: Joseph Stern, Lieutenant Campbell, Joseph Hamilton, Fred Collins and Roberto Echevarria. Cast and characters [ edit ] The Dirty Dozen [ edit ] Joseph Stern (Hunt Block) - unsentenced; Stern is back in prison after assaulting an officer in a bar. He's skeptical of re-joining the 'dirty dozen' at first, but later joins the rest of the men in line at roll call. Dravko Demchuk (Alex Cord) - sentenced to hang; a former train operator in Yugoslavia turned train robber. His expertise regarding trains is vital to the mission. Carmine D'Agostino (Erik Estrada) - sentenced to hang; D'Agostino was a former "hotshot syndicate hitman." Fred Collins (John Matuszak) - unsentenced; along with Tom Ricketts, he was arrested on Major Wright's orders after brawling outside a Liverpool pub. Known for his great hand-to-hand fighting ability and his "great left hand." Tom Ricketts (Ray Mancini) - unsentenced; nicknamed "Shorty" by best friend Fred Collins. Like his friend, possesses great hand-to-hand combat ability. Joseph Hamilton (Ernie Hudson) - sentenced to hang; African-American soldier who killed his white French wife after she was unfaithful. Hamilton broke out of his cell, scaled a guard tower and seized control of a machine gun before Major Wright talked him down. Thomas Hoffman (Derek Hoxby) - sentenced to 50 years hard labor; fluent in German, Hoffman had traveled in Europe for years and his familiarity with Yugoslavia made him an important member of the dozen. Lonnie Wilson (James Carroll Jordan) - sentenced to 40 years hard labor. Roberto Echevarria (Richard Yniguez) - sentenced to 50 years hard labor; a bank robber with gangland ties, Echevarria was caught and disarmed by Major Wright after stealing Wright's trench knife at the training site. PMs health improving further: Hospital Prime Minister KP Sharma Olis health has improved further on Wednesday, doctors involved in his treatment said. By Alexandra Alper and Marta Nogueira RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 30 (Reuters) - A decision by Petrobras not to invest in drilling new wells has derailed Chevron Corp's plan to resume exploration in a Brazilian offshore field, people familiar with the matter said. Chevron, which operates the field with a 52 percent stake, approved the drilling plan but Petrobras, which holds a 30 percent stake nixed the move, according to two people close to the talks. Brazil's state-controlled oil company, officially known as Petroleo Brasileiro, is prioritizing development of pre-salt offshore resources where billions of barrels of oil lie under a thick layer of salt below the ocean floor, the two people said. The Frade field is post salt and has less oil than pre-salt fields. Petrobras and Schlumberger NV, which planned to drill six wells for some $20 million, could not immediately be reached for comment. Chevron declined to comment. Brazilian energy company Petro Rio SA said on Monday it bought the remaining 12 percent from Frade Japao. Petro Rio SA CEO Nelson Queiroz told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday the company would be interested in buying Petrobras' stake. "We see extending the life of the field as a positive, drilling new wells," he said. Chevron and Petrobras halted exploration in the Frade field after a 2011 spill that led to criminal charges and a civil lawsuit. Petrobras, one of the world's most indebted oil companies, has slashed outlays and focused its shrunken capital expenditure budget on developing stakes in the world class pre-salt play in Latin America's top producer. Other oil majors are also spending top dollar to lock in stakes to the area to replenish shrunken reserves amid rising oil prices. (Writing by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) Photo credit: Virgin Orbit From Popular Mechanics A number of companies are exploring ways to launch a rocket not from a launchpad, but from a plane in flight. Now Richard Branson wants to do it, too. Virgin Orbit, part of Branson's aerospace business, has successfully attached a rocket to a 747 jet. The first-ever 747 converted to carry rockets is called "Cosmic Girl," and the rocket is called "LauncherOne." By carrying the rocket to 35,000 feet before launch, Virgin one can deploy small-scale satellites without relying on-and paying for-the traditional ground launch. Virgin Orbit explained in a press release: "Air launch frees missions from traffic jams at the existing launch sites; eliminates the need for costly, fixed ground infrastructure; and makes the system more resilient to unfavorable weather conditions." Virgin isn't charting new territory here. Orbital ATK, purchased in June by aerospace and defense juggernaut Northrop Grumman, first launched its Pegasus rocket from a converted aircraft called "Stargazer" in 1990 and successfully sent 44 payloads into space before Pegasus's last launch in 2016. Perhaps the best-known current project in this space is Stratolaunch Systems, the aerospace company founded by the late Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen that is known for its hulking six-engined plane. Photo credit: NASA Branson described LauncherOne in a blog post last weekend: "At 70 feet, it is twice the length of a London bus and will travel at more than 20 times the speed of sound. The rocket weighs 57,000 pounds, which is the equivalent to 25 small family cars." The company plans to conduct test flights before officially embarking on launches for the Department of Defense, the Italian satellite manufacturer Sitael, and other contractors starting in 2021. Source: Business Insider ('You Might Also Like',) The world's first humanless warehouse is run only by robots and is a model for the future Mujin, a start-up spun out of Tokyo University, has developed robot controllers that can fully automate warehouses and fulfillment centers. Its customer, JD.com, has what it calls the world's first fully automated e-commerce warehouse in China equipped with Mujin robots. The Japanese start-up wants to help automate warehouses in the United States. At a recent technology show in Tokyo, a large robot arm reached into a full-sized mockup of a shipping container and began unloading boxes from it. Set on a platform that moved back and forth, the robot was doing a job usually carried out by warehouse workers and forklift operators. The goal of the company that's developing it, Mujin, is total automation. The system, still a prototype, doesn't work perfectly it accidentally damaged a box during the demo but it's going to be trialed in warehouses in Japan this year. "Lifting heavy boxes is probably the most backbreaking task in warehouse logistics," said Mujin's American co-founder and CTO, Rosen Diankov. "A lot of companies are looking for truck unloading systems, and I believe we're the closest to commercialization." More from At Work: This start-up created the first US farm run by robots How AI is changing the way you apply for jobs The Tokyo-based start-up is aiming to be a leader in automating logistics processes. To do that, it's building robot controllers and camera systems and integrating them with existing industrial robot arms. The key product here is the controllers each about the size of a briefcase, one for motion planning and one for vision that act as an operating system that can control the hardware from any robot manufacturer. If a goal such as grasping an object is input, the controllers automatically can generate motions for robots, eliminating the traditional need to "teach" robots manually. The result, according to the company, is higher productivity for users. Story continues Simply put, the technology based on motion planning and computer vision makes industrial robots capable of autonomous and intelligent action. Mujin turned heads when it showed off its transformation of a warehouse operated by Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com JD . The 40,000-sq-m facility in Shanghai began full operations in June. It was equipped with 20 industrial robots that pick, transfer and pack packages using crates on conveyor belts, as well as camera systems and Mujin robot controllers. Other robots carted merchandise around to loading docks and trucks. Amazon AMZN also has i nvested heavily in automating its fulfillment centers , buying Mass.-based robot company Kiva Systems for $775 million in 2012, but JD.com called its facility the world's first fully automated e-commerce warehouse. Instead of the usual 400 to 500 workers needed to run a warehouse that size, it needs only five. And their job is only to service the machines, not run operations. Standardizing total automation "My goal is to automate warehouses in America and make a lot of success stories there," said Diankov. "But will people value that, and are there enough people with expertise to do it? That's why we started in Japan." Mujin's plan is to move away from customization for every client and standardize a complete automation package. "Unfortunately, just having a robot system work perfectly is not enough, and we need to have the equipment and system around the robot to finally allow it to contribute to the operations of the business," said Diankov. "Once there are enough solid standardized components for warehouse automation, we can focus our energies to quickly deploy and perfect them." Born in Bulgaria, Diankov moved to the United States at age 10 and studied robot engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, where he earned a Ph.D. After stints at seminal California robotics start-up Willow Garage and the University of Tokyo's JSK Robotics Lab, he founded Mujin in 2011 with CEO Issei Takino. Staffed by about 70 people, including many non-Japanese, the start-up is headquartered in a working class district on the eastern side of Tokyo. While preaching the value of automation at trade shows, the company reminds people that the number of workers in Japan is dropping by 2,125 per day, due to the country's low birthrate and aging population. "In the U.S., robot technology is often undervalued and directly compared to the value of human workers ," said Diankov. "If you're going to be competing with that from day one, maybe you have no room to grow quickly. In Japan they have a mindset that values robotics much more, even if it sometimes doesn't make economic sense. They're willing to jump into investments into robotics." Diankov believes fears of robots taking jobs from people don't reflect the reality of the workplace. "Introducing robots creates more jobs, and history has shown that's been the case," he said. "Companies that have embraced automation, like Toyota it's the biggest car company in the world now." No fuzzy logic Mujin is building smart machines based on model-based approaches to robotics. Unlike applications in the current fad for deep learning, Mujin's controllers are not learning to accomplish a task through trial and error. There's no guesswork involved. They're programmed to do a specific task very well, and every position of every joint of a Mujin robot is tracked, down to the millisecond. While that lowers the possibility for error, it also imposes a massive computational burden on the controllers, so they're equipped with fast microchips that can evaluate tens of thousands of possible moves, choosing the best one in less than a second. "The approach is like that of a train, plane or rocket you don't want it to be self-learning, just predictable when it goes from A to B," said Diankov. "That's how you create innovation, with perfectly predictable systems. That's what we're trying to do with robotics. I like to call this machine intelligence, not artificial intelligence." Rosen said Mujin is probably the only robotics start-up doing this advanced robotics stuff that's not working at a loss. The company has raised $7 million in VC funding from Tokyo venture capital firms JAFCO and the University of Tokyo Edge Capital. It's also earning revenue from projects for Japanese firms, such as Askul, which specializes in e-commerce for office supplies, and Paltac, a logistics firm, as well as JD.com in China. Mujin also has managed to penetrate Japan's conservative $1.4 billion robot manufacturing industry, dominated by global players like Fanuc and Yaskawa Electric. It's persuaded robot makers to loosen their tight grip on their confidential software so that Mujin controllers can directly run robot servomotors. Now the start-up wants to scale as quickly as possible and expand into the United States. "End customers are choosing Mujin first before they choose the robots," said Takino, who met Diankov when he was a salesman with Iscar, an Israeli machine tool company owned by Berkshire Hathaway. "We are robot controller makers, which is like Windows for industrial robots. Windows was popular for the killer application it introduced browsing the internet. We want to make killer apps like bin picking as easy as possible." "We're at the cusp where all these different automation technologies including robot hardware, sensing hardware, AI algorithms, conveyor systems and sorting systems coming together," said Diankov. "Five years ago it was not possible, because there were too many unknowns. But today there's a solution for each of these different components in the warehouse. And now it's a race to see which company puts all the components together the fastest and has the end result. There are several choices for each component, and the jury's still out on what a completely automated warehouse will look like." More From CNBC Security beefed up at MoFAGA following protests Security has been stepped up in front of the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration inside Singha Durbar in the Capital on Wednesday following a sit-in protest organised by the staffers working in the Ministry on contract basis. Pakistan has freed a Christian woman who spent eight years on death row after its Supreme Court acquitted her of blasphemy charges in a landmark decision that ignited angry protests and death threats from a hard-line Islamist party. After her release late on October 31, Asia Bibi was taken to an undisclosed location for her safety, and her lawyer said she would soon leave the country. France and Spain have offered asylum to the 54-year-old mother of five, who is a Roman Catholic. Chief Justice Saqib Nisar earlier in the day overturned Bibi's conviction by the Lahore High Court in 2010 for allegedly insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad, saying there was insufficient evidence that she violated Pakistan's blasphemy law and suggesting the accusations against her were "false." The court decision was hailed by rights activists, with Omar Waraich, deputy South Asia director for Amnesty International, calling it "a landmark verdict." However, the ruling angered supporters of the hard-line Islamist Tehrik-e Labaik Pakistan (TLP) party, who blocked roads in major cities, pelting police with stones in the eastern city of Lahore. Hundreds of Islamists blocked a road linking the city of Rawalpindi with the capital, Islamabad, and protests were held in Karachi, Peshawar and other cities. In the eastern city of Multan, police arrested several demonstrators after clashes. The TLP called for the ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khan's government and said that Nasir, the chief justice, and "all those who ordered the release of Asia deserve death." Pakistani security forces deployed outside churches to protect minority Christians and urged demonstrators to disperse peacefully. Commandos were sent to protect Nisar and the other two judges of the high court who received death threats. Khan in a televised speech appealed for calm and questioned the motives of the extremists, who have made calls for enforcing the blasphemy law a central rallying cry and have attacked those who question it. "They are inciting you for their own political gain. You should not get trapped by them for the sake of the country. They are doing no service to Islam," Khan said. Khan said that "the state will fulfill its responsibility" and asked the Islamists not to compel the security forces to take action against them. Bibi's conviction and death sentence had outraged Christians worldwide. Pope Benedict XVI called for her release in 2010, while in 2015 her daughter met his successor and the current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis. In 2011, two government officials -- a Pakistani governor and a minister of minorities -- were assassinated for having called for reform of the blasphemy law and speaking out in support of Bibi. Insulting Islam is punishable by death in Pakistan, and the mere rumor of blasphemy can lead to lynchings by mobs. Bibi was sentenced to death by a district court in the central province of Punjab in 2010 for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbors objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim. Bibi always denied the allegations. Christians make up only about 2 percent of Pakistan's population and are sometimes discriminated against. Approximately 40 people are believed to be on death row or serving a life sentence in Pakistan for blasphemy, according to a 2018 report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. At least 1,472 people were charged under Pakistan's blasphemy laws between 1987 and 2016, according to the Lahore-based Center for Social Justice. It said Muslims constituted a majority of those prosecuted, followed by members of the Ahmadi, Christian, and Hindu minorities. Rights groups say the laws are increasingly exploited by religious extremists as well as ordinary Pakistanis to settle personal scores. No judicial execution for blasphemy has ever occurred in Pakistan, but 20 of those charged were murdered. Bibi's lawyer Malook said she would be secreted out of the country quickly, and he told the Associated Press he expected to follow suit because he has also received death threats. "I am afraid I will have to leave Pakistan. That is the only way to save my life," he said. Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson Center, called the court ruling a "major legal milestone for Pakistan." Its significance, however, should not be overstated, and the power of the religiously motivated mob should not be understated, he said. "The increasing political clout of religious hard-liners, who boast the ability to mobilize in a big way, suggests that the state will be under more pressure than ever before," he said. "The sobering reality is that it's not going to get any easier to push for reform, much less repeal, of the blasphemy law, despite this landmark and very brave decision by the Pakistani Supreme Court." With reporting by AP, AFP, dpa, RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal, and Reuters The government had decorated him for showing extraordinary courage in the face of terrorists, suicide bombers, and hardened criminals. But authorities and the family of Tahir Dawar, a senior police officer in northwestern Pakistan, are struggling to determine his whereabouts after he mysteriously disappeared in the capital, Islamabad, on October 26. His brother Ahmaduddin Dawar says police officials in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province assured him they are doing their best to locate his brother, who was serving as a superintendent or senior police official in the regional capital, Peshawar. We are very grateful to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police because they are doing their utmost to find him, he told Radio Mashaal. They are exploring all possible avenues to trace him, but so far we have no clues. Ahmaduddin says his brothers mobile phone was switched off on the evening of October 26 but was briefly turned on early the next morning to send his family a brief message. The message said, I am near Sarai Alamgir at Jhelum (a city near Islamabad in the eastern Punjab Province), he said. Although it came from his phone, we dont think it was him who sent that particular message because it wasnt his style of writing. That was the last we heard from him. Tahir joined the police in 1995 as a junior officer and rose through the ranks to become superintendent of police in Peshawar to spearhead suburban operations in the sprawling city of more than 4 million people. Mohammad Zafar Ali, a deputy inspector general in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, says police in the province are deeply troubled over the disappearance. Tahir was a capable and diligent officer. We are very worried about how suddenly he went missing, he told Pakistans private Hum News TV. He was an outstanding officer who had survived two suicide attacks and had been awarded with the top prize for bravery. Tahir earned his reputation while serving with the police in Bannu. The dusty city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa borders his native North Waziristan tribal district, where the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda allies practically ruled for more than a decade. The militants had moved to the region following a U.S.-led military intervention dislodged the hard-line Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan in late 2001. One of his guards sacrificed his life to protect Tahir from a suicide bomber in 2009. Islamabad awarded him the Qauid-e Azam Medal, the top decoration for police officials showing extraordinary courage. During that time, he also sustained grave injuries after a shootout with criminals near Bannu. He represented Pakistan in the United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan. He is a real asset to the police force [in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa], Ali said. He says Tahirs elderly mother, wife, and seven children are anxiously awaiting his return. His youngest daughter, Fatima, repeatedly asks everyone when her father is coming back, he said. While his family and police officials are reluctant to accuse anyone in relation to his disappearance, activists in Bannu and North Waziristan have been vocal. Noor Islam Dawar, leader of the Youth of Waziristan, an activist group, alleged that Pakistans powerful spy services are holding Tahir. Is this the reward for his honesty, bravery, and professionalism: to be kidnapped? he told protesters in Bannu on October 28. It was not possible to immediately seek comment from Pakistans intelligence services or powerful military. But in the past the military has strongly rejected claims that its secret services are involved in large-scale disappearances. In recent years the enforced disappearances of suspected Islamist militants, separatists, activists, and civilians have provoked major protests and numerous court cases. International rights watchdogs have called on Islamabad to address the issue. In addition, a government-appointed commission established that thousands of Pakistani citizens remain missing. Ahmaduddin says that given his brothers contributions, he hopes Tahir will be soon reunited with his loved ones. My brother has endured a lot while serving the government of Pakistan, he noted. Radio Mashaal correspondent Umar Daraz Wazir continued reporting from Bannu, Pakistan. To let The government must immediately fill all the empty ambassadorial positions Halloween is the perfect time to dig into some seriously scary grub: cow tongues, duck livers, pig ears, lamb kidneys and even Rocky Mountain oysters (cow testicles). It might sound awful, but its really just offal. Thats the term for the parts of an animal that typically fall off (off fall) the butchers table the organs, entrails and extremities. These are some of the tastiest parts of an animal and even have higher concentrations of vitamins and minerals, like iron in liver, said Noah Siebenaller, executive chef and co-owner of the soon-to-open Beast & Brews butcher shop, tap- house and restaurant. Its also less wasteful to use the whole animal any way you can. And these parts of the animal are less expensive. Some people squeal when they see trotters (pig feet), thymus (sweet breads) and tongue. I look at them and salivate, Siebenaller said. Smoked tongue makes some of the best tacos to be found. In the commercial meat business, much offal is used in such items as hot dogs and sausage, and they are consumed without a second thought. When were butchering an animal, we want to make sure we utilize all the parts, said Jason Nauert, butcher and co-owner of Beast & Brews. Its our responsibility. Nauert and Siebenaller put their heads together last year to take a beer-pairing dinner at Phantom Canyon Brewing Co. to terrifying new heights using a whole pig. It was a true nose-to-tail experience for diners. Half of the pig already had been cooked into outrageously delicious dishes, but the other half hadnt, so Nauert gave a butchering demonstration using the uncooked pig. Sound gross? It was spellbinding watching Nauert do the butchering and then thoroughly enjoyable downing what some might consider the bizarre eats that Siebenaller created. That was last year. In the coming year, theyll open Beast & Brews, billed as one of the first Colorado restaurants to house a butcher shop, 99 varieties of local self-serve craft beer and a high-quality fast-food eatery, all under one roof. Nauert promises to have a fresh supply of offal for sale, and Siebenaller will create surprising dishes from them as well as regular dishes. Offal is also known as variety meats, which Jennifer McLagan writes about in her cookbook Odd Bits. A hundred years ago, kidneys and other variety meats were a common sight on American dinner tables, she said, as well as during the Great Depression, when meat was expensive and scarce. Today, we might not see animal brains, tongues and intestines in grocery stores, but you can spot them in ethnic stores. Hispanic markets sell fresh calf livers, pig heads and feet, and small intestines of pigs to make chitterlings or chitlins. And huge sheets of fried fatty pig skin are ready to be snacked on as chicharron. So rather than dwell in the heebie-jeebies these animal parts might conjure, embrace your adventurous side in the spirit of the holiday. Theres some offal good eating to be had. Lengua Tortas or Tacos Lengua Tortas or Tacos Yield: 8 servings 3 - 4 pound beef tongue (lengua) 1 large onion, quartered 1 head of garlic, peeled and cloves slightly smashed 4 bay leaves 3 - 4 dried ancho or chipotle peppers 1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns 1 tablespoon whole cumin seeds Sprig or two of fresh cilantro Salt and pepper to taste 1 medium bell pepper, yellow, red or green, seeded and diced 1 cup chopped tomato white onion, chopped Chile flakes to taste 2 tablespoons olive oil Salt ane pepper to taste Curtido, escabeche, lettuce, chipotle mayonnaise, beans, onions, avocado, cotija cheese, and limes 6 Bolillo rolls for tortas or 12 corn tortillas for tacos Procedure: In a pressure cooker, add first nine ingredients for the lengua. Turn to high pressure and cook on high for 1 hour. Let pressure naturally release. While waiting for pressure to release, prepare an ice bath. Plunge lengua into ice bath, remove to a cutting board and remove the skin and any tough muscle. Dice into pieces. Reserve cup of stock from pressure cooker, discard or reserve rest for another recipe. Turn the pressure cooker to sauce setting and saute bell pepper, tomato, onion and chile flakes in olive oil until softened. Add reserved cup stock and diced lengua. Bring to a boil and let sauce reduce slightly. Serve lengua on rolls or tortillas using toppings as desired. Source: Gather Food Studio Chicken Liver Toast with Spiced Pecans Chicken Liver Toast with Spiced Pecans Yield: 4 servings 1 cup pecan halves 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted teaspoon smoked paprika teaspoon sugar teaspoon cayenne teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 2 teaspoons flaked salt, such as Maldon 1 pound chicken livers, cleaned Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for garnish 1 clove garlic, thinly sliced small yellow onion, thinly sliced 2 ounces bourbon 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 bay leaf 1 sprig thyme Salt and pepper to taste Country bread, sliced and grilled, for serving 2 tablespoons roughly chopped parsley 1 tablespoons roughly chopped mint 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, preferably aged Salt and pepper to taste Procedure: Instructions Make the pecans: Heat oven to 375 degrees. Toss pecans, butter, paprika, sugar, cayenne, and pepper on a parchment paperlined baking sheet. Bake until nuts are lightly toasted and fragrant, 78 minutes; let cool. Roughly chop and toss with salt; set aside. Make the chicken livers: Pat livers dry using paper towels; season with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a 12 inch cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Arrange chicken livers in an even layer and sprinkle with garlic and onion; cook without stirring until browned, 12 minutes. Using tongs, flip livers and reduce heat to medium. Add bourbon and carefully ignite; cook until almost evaporated, about 1 minute. Stir in butter, bay leaf, and thyme; cook until livers are slightly pink in the center, about 1 minute more. Let cool slightly. Discard herbs and transfer liver mixture to a food processor; add salt and pepper and pulse until roughly chopped. To serve, spread liver mixture on grilled bread ; garnish with reserved pecans, the parsley, mint, and lemon zest. Drizzle with more oil and the balsamic; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Source: saveur.com Contact the writer: 636-0271. California zinfandel has long been my favorite red wine. There are many reasons it should be yours, too. It can be made in different styles: from bold and jammy with high alcohol to balanced, elegant and nuanced. Expect fresh, succulent fruit, a brash, wild character, moderate tannin, and spicy accents. It is grown successfully all over California. And some zinfandel vineyards are among the oldest in the U.S. Thus, the term Old Vine has become a badge of honor for producers and a clue to a more concentrated, intense wine. Zinfandel is the quintessential American grape, an immigrant that came to California in the early 1800s from Eastern Europe and has succeeded there better than anywhere else. It offers excellent value, considering the overall quality, which can rival the finest wines. Almost all the best are under $50 and there are countless good ones under $30. Sonoma County (with beauties from the Dry Creek, Russian River, Sonoma and Alexander valleys) is arguably the premier source of superior zinfandel in the state. Not all the valleys were represented in my tasting, but here is ample evidence. From Dry Creek Valley, the Pedroncelli family offers the zesty, minty, sleek 2015 Mother Clone ($19) from some vines over 100 and the woodsy, spicy, rustic 2016 Bushnell Vineyard ($26). The Dry Creek Vineyard produces its intense, lively, firm 2016 Old Vine ($35) from average 95-plus-year-old vines. The cool climate of the Russian River Valley is better known for pinot noir and chardonnay. But the valleys zins similarly are notable for good acidity and elegance. The comparison holds for Dutton Goldfield, whose zesty, refined, seamless, complex 2015 Dutton Ranch Morelli Lane Vineyard ($50) originates from a 100-plus vineyard. And Sidebar offers a rich, heady 2016 Old Vine ($28), a field blend from the pre-1900 Alegria Vineyard. I also had three good ones carrying a Sonoma County designation. The tight, concentrated 2016 Dry Creek Vineyard Heritage Vines ($24), from young vines grafted to pre-Prohibition budwood; rich, juicy 2015 Decoy ($25), the entry-level brand in the Duckhorn portfolio; and one of my favorites from the tasting, the seamless, fruit-filed 2016 Bear Flag ($30). Though the Napa Valley is best known for cabernet sauvignon, it is surprisingly reliable for zinfandel. Good examples include: luscious, peppery 2016 Frank Family Napa Valley ($37) and juicy, focused, sleek 2013 Grgich Hills ($36). For many, Lodi is synonymous with zinfandel, as it grows an estimated 40 percent of Californias zinfandel grapes. Its hallmark is good value, like these: jammy, smooth 2015 Seven Deadly Zins Old Vine ($16) and the berry compote of 2017 Cline Old Vine ($12). A couple of other hidden gems: a bright, juicy 2014 Edmeades Mendocino County ($20) and the surprisingly rich and flavorful for the price 2016 Cline Ancient Vines ($15). Finally a special feature: Ravenswood was established 1976 by Joel Peterson and both have reached icon status in California wine for an array of single-vineyard zinfandels. Here are three (2015, $39), each from old vines: the concentrated, minty, luscious Dickerson Vineyard (Napa Valley) is one of the few 100 percent zinfandel; dense, structured, licorice of Teldeschi Vineyard (Dry Creek Valley); and full-bodied, deep, energetic Belloni Vineyard (Russian River Valley). As many as 200 Fort Carson soldiers were ordered to head south, Army Secretary Mark Esper and Colorado Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner used stops in Colorado Springs on Wednesday to voice approval for the Trump administrations move to use thousands of troops to seal Americas border with Mexico. The local soldiers attached to a pair of logistics companies from the posts 4th Sustainment Brigade will be joined on Operation Faithful Patriot by planners from U.S. Northern Command at Peterson Air Force Base, which is overseeing the border mission. Sources at Fort Carson say the entire units may not ship out, with just elements of the companies assigned to border duty. That move could significantly cut the number of troops involved. Exact numbers were not released. The troops arent heading to the border with loaded rifles. Instead, they will support Border Patrol efforts, a news release from Northern Command said. The command said troops will provide planning, engineering, transportation, logistics and medical support to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The border mission is the first of its kind in more than a century, dating to when Gen. John J. Pershing led Army forces against Mexican rebel leader Pancho Villa, and comes as Fort Carsons forces are heavily committed overseas. The post has about 10,000 soldiers deployed, mostly in Afghanistan. Another 5,000 troops from the post are about to head overseas to Afghanistan and Kuwait. Esper, who spent Wednesday visiting with Fort Carson leaders, troops and families, said the border mission wont interfere with the Armys combat readiness and efforts to modernize its formations. We get missions all the time and its something we have to manage, Esper said. The border mission initially will involve more than 5,000 Army troops, with most of them coming from Fort Hood, Texas. Gardner, who has been a critic of some Trump administration moves, said he likes the border plan. We have to have a secure border, Gardner said after his meeting with Esper. For Fort Carson, securing the border means sending two units that can help manage supplies for other Army units. The headquarters company of the 4th Sustainment Brigade and the headquarters of the brigades 68th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion were ordered to the border. The 4th Sustainment Brigade has trained with Northern Command to provide assistance in natural disasters, with its troops helping with relief after Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in 2017. At the border, the Fort Carson soldiers and their comrades from other posts will assist the Border Patrol, but wont be directly busting undocumented immigrants. Thats because the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 forbids use of active-duty troops to enforce U.S. laws. While the active-duty Army is new to border work, part-time troops have been active on the border over the past 12 years. In 2006, President George W. Bush authorized the call-up of more than 32,000 National Guard troops to back the Border Patrol in its efforts to stem illegal immigration from Mexico. That $1.2 billion, two-year program saw Guard members keep watch on the ground and in the air while also providing logistic and administrative support to law enforcement. In 2010, President Barack Obama sent another contingent of Guard troops to the border to help catch undocumented immigrants. Trumps mission, while drawing wide praise from Republican lawmakers, has drawn criticism from Democrats and immigrant rights groups including the American Civil Liberties Union. The Fort Carson deployments come as Trump offers another immigration plan, which would deny citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants born on U.S. soil. Addressing that move, Gardner said adequate border security must come first. I think the way we address this has to be through border security, Gardner said. If we make our border security work, this isnt an issue. Contact Tom Roeder: 636-0240 Twitter: @xroederx Sources at Fort Carson say the entire units may not ship out, with just elements of the companies assigned to border duty. That move could significantly cut the number of troops involved. A Colorado Springs woman arrested in the shooting death of her 2-year-old son had loaded the gun to protect herself from her methamphetamine dealer, an arrest affidavit says. Melissa Adamson, 32, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of child abuse resulting in the death of Lokhi Richard Bloom. She posted $10,000 bail and was released. Adamson told police that she had received a text from her methamphetamine dealer sometime on Oct. 21 regarding a dispute over a drug deal, the affidavit says. She loaded her pink and black .380-caliber handgun and chambered a round to protect herself from the dealer, whom she identified as Beast. In the afternoon or early evening, Adamson saw her drug dealer outside her home in the 1500 block of Hartford Street on her surveillance cameras. After he left, she placed her gun inside a home office and went to the garage to call her sister. While in the garage, she told police that she heard something, possibly a gunshot, arrest records say. A video recording system showed the boy walking down the hallway and entering the office alone at 5:18 p.m. A short time later, a man in the home Terry Bloom got up from watching TV, went to the office and came out carrying Lokhi, who appeared to be injured, arrest records say. When deputies arrived, the child was in Adamsons arms, said El Paso County Sheriffs Office spokeswoman Jacqueline Kirby. Lokhi died at a hospital. Investigators determined that the boy found the gun and apparently shot himself. His death is not considered a homicide. Adamson was found guilty of child abuse knowingly/recklessly causing bodily abuse in September 2015, before Lokhi was born, court records show. Randy Hays, who lives in a nearby unit, told The Gazette that the boy had two older brothers. Twitter: @lizmforster Phone: 636-0193 Gov. John Hickenlooper took another step forward in ending the will-he-or-wont-he-run-for-president question Wednesday morning. At a diner in Hooksett, N.H., Hickenlooper told a woman: Im the governor of Colorado and Im going to run for president. Adam Sexton, political director for WMUR, the ABC affiliate TV station in Manchester, N.H., posted a video clip of Hickenlooper saying that on Twitter. The Colorado governors statement drew congratulations from those around him. But then Hickenlooper hesitated, just a bit. To be honest, he told the woman behind the counter, I havent made a final decision, and if I say Im absolutely going to, then there are all kinds of legal ramifications. Im leaning strongly. On Sept. 17, Hickenlooper formed a leadership political action committee, seen as an important preliminary step in moving toward a presidential run. The Giddyup PAC reported at the end of September that it had raised $280,075 just in that two-week period. According to FEC records, the PAC does not qualify for more than one candidate. The PAC is allowed under election laws to raise money and other campaign resources to help Hickenlooper travel to raise his profile. Brad Komar, executive director of Hickenloopers Giddyup PAC, said the governor makes clear in the video that hes joking and in his next sentence, [says] that hes not made a decision yet. If he had, his wife would have been the first to know. Hickenlooper is in New Hampshire to support 2018 candidates, Komar added. Its the second time in the last 11 days that he referred to his presidential ambitions. The Des Moines Register reported on Oct. 19 that Hickenlooper seemed to be moving closer to a decision to run. According to the Register story, Hickenlooper met with 25 Democratic activists in Iowa. I think theres a pretty high probability that were going to go ahead and do it, he said, adding that he is continuing to talk about it with his wife, Robin. Hickenlooper is among at least six prominent Democrats who visited Iowa in October who may be toying with a 2020 run. They include California Sen. Kamala Harris, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Hickenlooper has been mentioned as a presidential candidate going back at least two years. Often named alongside him is Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich. The two teamed up on a plea to Congress in 2017 on national health care and again earlier this year. Kasich, however, may have his own aspirations for higher office. In a Twitter exchange earlier this year, Kasich needled Hickenlooper about an April trip to Iowa, stating no one goes there by accident. Hickenlooper shot back, Hey friend. Thats rich! We were invited by the IA Republican Gov to talk apprenticeship renaissance & STEM @futurereadyiowa. What are you up to in New Hampshire??? Hickenlooper has frequently said he was making up his mind about whether to seek the White House. He said Aug. 24 at an event in Denver that he was talking with friends about the possibility, and in an interview Sept. 17 with Colorado Public Radios Ryan Warner, he said he probably would not make up his mind until two or three months after leaving office in January. Once you do it, its full-time, seven days a week, 70-80 hours a week for, quite possibly, two years, Hickenlooper told CPR. I think when you make that kind of commitment, you had better have thought of all the ramifications, not just for myself, but for my family for my wife, for my son. Sitoula is a human rights lawyer who is currently working with the International Labour Organisation in Nepal on the issue of gender and migration. With Election Day looming, the Sierra Club is pumping money and effort into the Colorado governors and state Senate races, hoping to tip the In this September 2015 photo, Syrian refugees covered in dust arrive at the Trabeel border after crossing into Jordanian territory from Syria. If voters approve a certain sales tax increase Nov. 6, the Pikes Peak region will be on track to see improved highways, from extra lanes on Interstate 25 to upgraded rural thoroughfares such as Colorado 94 and U.S. 24 East. Proposition 110 would raise the state sales tax by 0.62 percent 6 cents per $10 purchase for 20 years and allow the state to borrow up to $6 billion for transportation projects. The sales tax revenue would repay the debt and finance more than 100 projects on a list approved by the state Transportation Commission in July. That to-do list includes widening I-25 to eight lanes from Cimarron Street to Briargate Parkway and building transit hubs in Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs. The revenue also would fund multi-modal transportation projects and bolster county and municipal transportation budgets. Another measure, Proposition 109, would allow the state to borrow up to $3.5 billion in 2019 to use on 66 specific projects. That list would have to be thinned, though, because the projects are estimated to cost $5.6 billion. Several projects in that proposal overlap with the Proposition 110 list. Both could fund intersection and drainage improvements along Ute Pass on U.S. 24, a new interchange at North Powers Boulevard and Research Parkway, and a widening of I-25 to six lanes from South Academy Boulevard to Lake Avenue. The Proposition 109 bond issue also could fund an interim continuous-flow intersection to ease traffic flow on North Powers Boulevard from Constitution Avenue to North Carefree Circle. Proponents of 109 say it will force the state to prioritize important infrastructure projects after years of under-investment in Colorados transportation system. And it wouldnt raise taxes, unlike Proposition 110, they say. Opponents, however, say any economic downturn would force the state to take money from other important areas, such as education and health care, to repay the debt about $260 million a year for 20 years, including interest. Other skeptics say a more long-term solution is needed rather than one big bond issue. The reality is that El Paso County and all of its municipalities have over $4 billion in unfunded transportation projects and no other potential sources of funds to cover the related public desire to minimize congestion growth and safety, said Rocky Scott, who represents the county on the Transportation Commission and supports Proposition 110. The cost of transportation funding inaction to the citizens and businesses of El Paso County will be much higher than the sales taxes involved in Proposition 110, Scott said. Local critics of the sales tax increase argue that Pikes Peak region taxpayers already pay more than other Colorado areas for road maintenance and improvements. Thats because of the voter-approved Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority, which collects a 1 percent sales tax from residents and visitors in Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, Fountain and other area jurisdictions. Also, Colorado Springs voters approved a city sales tax increase of 0.62 percent in 2015 to fund road repairs, maintenance and other improvements. Mayor John Suthers has said that if Proposition 110 passes, his administration wont seek to renew that roads tax, known as 2C, in 2020 because sales tax rates will be exorbitant. Proposition 110 would provide about $20 million a year to Colorado Springs, but 2C now generates about $50 million annually. So the city would lose about $30 million a year for transportation if voters approve the new sales tax increase, Suthers has said. The Colorado Department of Transportation estimates that Proposition 110 also would generate these revenues in the Pikes Peak region: El Paso County: $10 million in the first year; $286 million over 20 years Teller County: $2 million in the first year; $52 million over 20 years Calhan: $36,000 in the first year; $1 million over 20 years Fountain: $767,000 in the first year; $22 million over 20 years Green Mountain Falls: $32,000 in the first year; $900,000 over 20 years Manitou Springs: $180,000 in the first year; $5 million over 20 years Monument: $228,000 in the first year; $6 million over 20 years Palmer Lake: $108,000 in the first year; $3 million over 20 years Woodland Park: $343,000 in the first year; $10 million over 20 years If both propositions pass, the courts will decide if the policies conflict before either takes effect, said CDOT spokeswoman Michelle Peulen. 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 Austin, Texas, Oct. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Austin-based Legacy International, a full-service sales and marketing partner for resort-style, master planned communities globally, today announced it has promoted Mandy van Streepen to be its first Chief Operating Officer. Philip Jalufka, CEO, founded Legacy International over 10 years ago with a mission to provide world-class sales and marketing solutions for residential developers around the world and has grown his company into the nationally recognized powerhouse that it is today. The success of Legacy International caught the attention of a prominent investor who commissioned Jalufka to exclusively oversee his real estate sales for his investment portfolio, steadily pursuing and acquiring new positions. This ambitious venture led to the creation of Legacy Performance Capital (LPC), an asset management and opportunity fund acquiring various real estate investment assets throughout the nation and beyond. Jalufka is passionate about finding opportunities for his team to grow and advance their careers within the Legacy platform. With a new focus on the establishment of Legacy Performance Capital he took the largest step in Legacys 10-year history and created an executive-level position for Mandy van Streepen to lead full operations of Legacy International. Mandy is a perfect fit for the COO position, said Jalufka. Over the past three years, we have been impressed by her commitment, focus and work ethic. She demands and delivers nothing less than world-class performance. She is passionate about people and relationships, an excellent strategist, and creating procedures to ensure goals are met. Thats a rare combination of talents. As Legacy Internationals COO, van Streepen will support all levels of the Legacy senior leadership in the companys daily operations. The four pillars of Legacy International revolve around people, training, strategy, and accountability. Mandy will focus on growing and enhancing the Legacy sales team, assessing the companys current position, setting goals for the coming year, and implementing innovative programs and strategies to achieve robust sales activities. That includes being more accountable to Legacys developers and pivoting when needed to meet the needs and demands of each client. A native of South Africa, in pursuit of her American Dream, Mandy moved to the United States and served as Director of Marketing for Legacy Internationals McCombs Properties Portfolio backed by Texas billionaire Red McCombs. For the past three years, she has been the driving force behind launching the McCombs Properties brand and setting and achieving the portfolios goals. In this role, she used her extensive marketing, operations and project management experience, working with the sales teams, marketing companies, developers, builders and various vendors. Its all about creating opportunities for the excellent team we have said van Streepen. My signature initiative is to expand on our established Boot Camp and Professional Selling System by growing the Training Innovation Program. Well also identify where we need to add the most talented, dedicated people for the Legacy leadership, sales and operations team. Legacy International is focused on growing and disrupting the industry, said Jalufka. Our three main goals are people, people and people. We want to change lives by helping our team members and homeowners reach their greatest. Philip graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and proudly served his country as a commissioned, special operations aviation officer. The support for our nations heroes runs deep within the culture of Legacy and is tangibly demonstrated through generous contributions to the Wounded Warrior Project and Heroes for Freedom Foundation. Over the past few years, Mandy has been highly effective in helping us enhance and enrich the lives of our employees and philanthropic partners, Jalufka stated. Legacy is privileged to have an influential woman of Mandys caliber leading the organization and she will be even more impactful as COO. ### About Legacy International Legacy provides custom real estate solutions for active adult, metropolitan, luxury resort and residential developments with a suite of services including world-class consulting, sales knowledge, marketing expertise and brokerage operations for master planned developers. The Legacy portfolio includes over 50 projects with 23 teams deployed, generating $1 billion in listings and 60 percent growth year over year. Legacys single objective is to maximize the return on investment to the developer through strategic management of the comprehensive sales and marketing process. With a center of gravity in Texas, Legacy has sales and marketing teams deployed in Arizona, Florida and throughout the Americas. A number of new developments will be breaking ground across the nation in 2019. To learn more visit www.legacyirp.com or call 512.266.9311. About Legacy Performance Capital A passionate real estate team with decades of experience in residential, resort and multi-family development has identified a pipeline of diverse opportunities. This team provides a full suite of functional area services with a systems-based platform, alongside industry leading strategic partners. To capitalize on these innovative real estate opportunities, team leadership organizes an asset management and opportunity fund, with a significant business development, working capital and acquisitions investment. This capital, known as Legacy Performance Capital (LPC), will resource various real estate ventures achieving optimum return rates. With a center of gravity in Texas and an active presence through the United States and the Americas, this will create new and enhanced opportunities for the Team and future owners while maximizing profit for the investment partners. To learn more visit www.legacyperformancecapital.com or call 512.266.9311. Attachments English Finnish Publishing of Silmaasema's Interim Report 1-9/2018 and invitation to a briefing Silmaasema Oyj Press Release 31 October 2018 at 9:00 EET Silmaasema Oyj will publish its Interim Report 1-9/2018 on Friday 9 November 2018 approximately at 9:00 a.m. EET. The Interim Report and related presentation material will be available on the company's web site https://company.silmaasema.fi/en/reports-and-presentations after publishing. Audiocast and conference call for investment analysts and the press A briefing for investment analysts and the press will be arranged on Friday 9 November 2018 at 10:30 a.m. EET through a live audiocast combined with a conference call. The briefing will be hosted by Interim CEO, CFO Anu Kankkunen. Follow the live audiocast at https://silmaasema.videosync.fi/q3-2018 Conference call numbers: Finland +358 (0) 981 710 495 UK +44 (0) 203 194 0552 USA +1 855 716 1597 Sweden +46 (0) 856 642 702 Recording of the audiocast and conference call as well as Finnish audiocast presentations will be later available on the company's website. Additional information Tuukka Hirvonen, Head of Communications and Investor Relations, tel. +358 50 416 7700 SILMAASEMA OYJ Communications Silmaasema is a Finnish company, which offers all products and services for optical retail and eye healthcare nationwide. Silmaasema is the largest private eye clinic provider offering eye surgeries and the second largest optical retail chain in Finland. The Silmaasema chain has over 150 stores and 14 eye clinics in Finland as well as ten stores in Estonia. The Silmaasema chain employs close to 1,000 eye healthcare professionals. Silmaasema's Group net sales were EUR 118.3 million in 2017 and adjusted EBITDA was EUR 11.8 million. English Dutch French Today Ageas announces it has reached an agreement with BNP Paribas Cardif to sell its 33% share in the share capital of Cardif Lux Vie S.A. (CLV), for a total cash consideration of EUR 152 million, as well as the repayment to Ageas of EUR 30 million for subordinated loans. The divestment of its minority stake in CLV is in line with Ageas's strategy to concentrate its efforts on further developing businesses where it holds stronger positions or in growth markets. The sale also offers an opportunity to crystallise the value that has been created over the past years. In 2011, BNP Paribas Cardif, Ageas and BGL BNP Paribas merged their existing Life insurance operations to create the joint-venture Cardif Lux Vie that mainly focuses on international wealth management business. As a result of the merger, Ageas became a 33% shareholder, where the other 66% of CLV's shares are held by BNP Paribas Cardif and BGL BNP Paribas. The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close at the latest during the first quarter of 2019. The divestment is expected to generate a capital gain of EUR 39 million. It is estimated that the transaction will also have a positive impact on the Group Solvency II ageas ratio of approximately 7%, based on the position as at the end of June 2018. Commenting on the transaction, Bart De Smet, CEO of Ageas, says: "I would like to take this opportunity to thank the management team and staff of CLV, as well as our joint-venture partners for the excellent cooperation over the past 7 years." Ageas is a listed international insurance Group with a heritage spanning 190 years. It offers Retail and Business customers Life and Non-Life insurance products designed to suit their specific needs, today and tomorrow. As one of Europe's larger insurance companies, Ageas concentrates its activities in Europe and Asia, which together make up the major part of the global insurance market. It operates successful insurance businesses in Belgium, the UK, Luxembourg, France, Portugal, Turkey, China, Malaysia, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, and the Philippines through a combination of wholly owned subsidiaries and long term partnerships with strong financial institutions and key distributors. Ageas ranks among the market leaders in the countries in which it operates. It represents a staff force of over 50,000 people and reported annual inflows close to EUR 34 billion in 2017 (all figures at 100%). TORONTO, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Xanadu Mines Ltd (ASX: XAM, TSX: XAM) (Xanadu or the Company) is pleased to announce that an interim upgrade to the Mineral Resource Estimate at its Kharmagtai Project in Mongolias South Gobi region has resulted in a 400% increase in contained copper and a 249% increase in gold (Figure 1 and Table 1) compared with the resource update announced on 19 March 2015 at the same 0.3% Cu cut-off grade. HIGHLIGHTS Major increase in Kharmagtai Open-Cut Mineral Resource Estimate (Resource) to 598Mt containing 1.9Mt copper and 4.3Moz gold (2.6Mt copper equivalent metal) Interim resource upgrade represents a 400% increase in contained copper and a 249% increase in contained gold within the open cut Scoping Study on shallow, higher grade starter project (due Q4, 2018) Shallow higher-grade core has a current resource of 54Mt @ 0.86% CuEq at a 0.6% CuEq cut off, some 61% of which is in the Indicated category (by tonnage) Metallurgical test work programme being scoped to support a geometallurgical study Further resource growth will come from: --extension of White Hill pit to include new results --conversion of inferred mineral resources to indicated category on recent infill drilling --addition of resources from the newly discovered Zaraa porphyry (not factored into this resource upgrade), and --continued exploration success from high priority targets at Zephyr and Sandstorm. The Mineral Resource estimate has been prepared by independent consultants, CSA Global Pty Ltd (CSA Global) and is reported in accordance with the JORC Code (2012 Edition) and National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101) to support the upcoming Scoping Study on a shallow, higher grade starter project. A global Resource update incorporating results from Xanadus fourth porphyry discovery at Kharmagtai, Zaraa, and other successful drilling will be incorporated as drilling progresses. Xanadus Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Dr Andrew Stewart, said: Xanadus exploration has been very efficient, driven by a high-quality geological model and understanding of the deposits. We are extremely delighted with the new results, particularly with the substantial increase in the open-pit shallow Resource base at Kharmagtai. With a 400% increase in contained copper, we are confident that the upcoming Scoping Study will show a financially robust open-pit starter project that will pave the way for Kharmagtai to develop into another high-quality Mongolian mining operation. Xanadu has entered an exciting period of cost-effective discovery and growth. Since acquiring the Kharmagtai project, we have been able to discover copper at a cost of less than 1c a pound, which is well below the global average of 4-7c per pound. We are now in the privileged position of controlling a large exploration district with outstanding potential. I'm highly optimistic that we will continue to grow the resource base at Kharmagtai where the existing Resource remains open both along strike and at depth. With the discovery of Zaraa and mineralisation intersected down to 1,200 vertical metres and still open, we believe there is an opportunity for a very large-scale system. The addition of Zaraa to the global resource base should have a positive impact on the overall scale and grade. We are now thinking about how big the mineral endowment could be at Kharmagtai and what future production it could sustain. The Kharmagtai Scoping Study remains on-track for completion in Q4 2018. MINERAL RESOURCE ESTIMATE This Mineral Resource Estimate is the first update to the maiden Resource announced on March 2015 (ASX release dated 19th March 2015). The upgraded Mineral Resource Estimate is summarised in Table 1. The Mineral Resources are quoted above 0.3% CuEq cutoff within a conceptual constraining wireframe. The parameters used to generate an optimised ultimate open pit shell are provided in Table 2. The Resource models are well understood and there is substantial upside potential to be realised by better understanding the economics of the deposit. As demonstrated in the images below, significant volumes of mineralisation have been modelled that fall outside of the constraining pit wireframe. These parts of the model will be targeted for further investigation through economic studies to assess if more of this material can be brought into the Mineral Resource. Table 1: Interim Kharmagtai Mineral Resource Estimate Deposit Classification Tonnes Grades Contained Metal Mt CuEq, % Cu, % Au, g/t CuEq, Kt Cu, Kt Au, Koz White Hill Indicated 45.2 0.42 0.30 0.23 189 135 340 Stockwork Hill 74.4 0.59 0.38 0.41 441 286 972 Copper Hill 9.7 0.76 0.48 0.54 73 47 167 Total Indicated 129.3 0.54 0.36 0.36 703 468 1,479 White Hill Inferred 412.8 0.40 0.31 0.17 1,653 1,299 2,227 Stockwork Hill 55.4 0.47 0.30 0.34 263 167 601 Copper Hill 0.7 0.39 0.31 0.16 3 2 4 Total Inferred 468.9 0.41 0.31 0.19 1,919 1,468 2,832 Mineral Resources are classified according to CIM Guidelines . Mineral Resources for open pit mining are estimated within the limits of an ultimate pit shell. A cut-off grade of 0.3% CuEq has been applied for open pit resources. Density values of 2.65 t/m 3 for oxide zones; 2.76, 2.74, 2.73 and 2.71 t/m 3 for country rocks, 2.78, 2.80 2.77, 2.81 and 2.76 t/m 3 for porphyries and 2.76 t/m 3 for andesite dyke were used for the model cells. for oxide zones; 2.76, 2.74, 2.73 and 2.71 t/m for country rocks, 2.78, 2.80 2.77, 2.81 and 2.76 t/m for porphyries and 2.76 t/m for andesite dyke were used for the model cells. CuEq copper equivalent was calculated using conversion factor 0.62097 for gold. Metal prices used were 3.1 $/lb for copper and 1320 $/oz for gold, recoveries 70% for gold and 85% for copper (82.35% relative gold to copper recovery), copper equivalent formula applied: CuEq = Cu + Au * 0.62097 * 0.8235. Rows and columns may not add up exactly due to rounding. This Mineral Resource update incorporates the results from drill programs completed since 2015 including much of the latest infill drilling program which was completed in Q3 2018 totalling approximately 8,725m in 27 drill holes. The primary aim of the drilling program was to infill the deposit within the conceptual pit to focus on converting the Inferred Mineral Resource to the Indicated category. The completed JORC (2012) and NI 43-101 resource demonstrates that the mineralisation is robust and continuous with over 22% of the resource classified in the Indicated Mineral Resource category. The substantial increase in the revised Resource combined with higher confidence from the recent resource drilling is expected to have strong positive impact on the life of mine at Kharmagtai. Table 2 below provides a summary of the resource model at various cut off grades. Xanadu is now focused on the completion of the Scoping Study which is expected in Q4 2018 and will reflect the Companys strategy of proving- up a significant Resource upgrade, with an initial focus on a higher-grade open pit starter project to demonstrate project economics. The optimal marginal cut-off for resources is under review as part of the Scoping Study with consideration of a cut-off of approximately 0.6% CuEq. Table 2: Constraining Pit Parameters used for Resource Estimate Parameters Units Value 1. Mining Ore mining cost $/t 2.49 Waste mining cost $/t 2.49 Mining losses % 0 Mining dilution % 5 2. Processing Processing cost (including G&A costs) g/t 4.2 Processing recovery: Gold % 70 Copper % 85 3. Pricing Elements price: Gold $/oz 1,320 Copper $/t 6,834 Selling cost for Au $/oz 4 Selling cost for Cu $/t 1,030 4. Other to optimization SG parameters t/m3 2.75 General pit slopes 50 Table 3: Grade-tonnage Table Summary Cut-Off CuEq(%) Mining Method Resource Category Material (Mt) CuEq (%) Cu (%) Au (g/t) Cu (kt) Au (Koz) CuEq (kt) 0.2 OC Indicated 187.6 0.45 0.31 0.29 572.5 1737.0 848.8 0.2 OC Inferred 854.5 0.34 0.26 0.15 2205.6 4228.6 2878.2 0.2 Total Ind + Inf 1042.1 0.36 0.27 0.18 2778.1 5965.6 3727.0 0.3 OC Indicated 129.3 0.54 0.36 0.36 468.0 1478.9 703.2 0.3 OC Inferred 468.9 0.41 0.31 0.19 1468.2 2831.7 1918.6 0.3 Total Ind + Inf 598.2 0.44 0.32 0.22 1936.2 4310.6 2621.8 0.4 OC Indicated 80.0 0.67 0.43 0.46 346.0 1172.7 532.5 0.4 OC Inferred 189.9 0.50 0.38 0.24 718.5 1479.1 953.7 0.4 UG Indicated 2.3 0.59 0.40 0.37 9.1 27.1 13.4 0.4 UG Inferred 28.4 0.51 0.38 0.26 106.6 232.9 143.7 0.4 Total Ind + Inf 300.5 0.55 0.39 0.30 1180.2 2911.9 1643.4 0.5 OC Indicated 49.4 0.80 0.51 0.57 251.1 912.2 396.2 0.5 OC Inferred 68.2 0.60 0.44 0.33 297.3 723.4 412.4 0.5 UG Indicated 1.5 0.67 0.45 0.44 6.6 20.6 9.9 0.5 UG Inferred 8.3 0.63 0.44 0.37 36.7 98.4 52.4 0.5 Total Ind + Inf 127.4 0.68 0.46 0.43 591.7 1754.6 870.8 0.6 OC Indicated 33.0 0.93 0.57 0.69 189.6 736.1 306.7 0.6 OC Inferred 20.7 0.75 0.50 0.49 103.8 323.9 155.3 0.6 UG Indicated 0.9 0.75 0.49 0.50 4.5 14.9 6.9 0.6 UG Inferred 3.9 0.74 0.49 0.49 19.1 60.8 28.7 0.6 Total Ind + Inf 58.6 0.85 0.54 0.60 317.0 1135.7 497.6 GEOLOGY AND GEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION New geological understanding of intrusive units and structures controlling mineralisation at Kharmagtai has driven the formation of a high-quality 3D geological model. This 3D geological model was used to define hard boundaries around which the mineral resource estimate could be built, resulting in a more realistic and accurate estimation. The 3D model was based on complete relogging of the +110km of diamond drilling conducted within the mineral resource area over the past 30 years. This relogging has standardised the geology across the deposits and many phases of drilling/previous loggers, allowing a high-quality 3D model to be generated. This model not only forms a robust framework for the Mineral Resource update but allows predictions as to extensions to the deposits to be identified and drilled. 3D geological wireframes were developed for all major geological formations of the deposits, including country rock, all porphyry phases, andesite dykes and breccia pipes. The base of oxidation surface was developed based on geological logging and used to domain the deposits. In addition, three wireframe solid models were developed for the level of veining: <0.5%, 0.5 to 1.5% and >1.5% of veining for each deposit. All geological domains were sub-domained using the wireframes for veining and divided into oxidised and fresh material. The additional drilling since the last Mineral Resource and other exploration and evaluation programs such as - relogging of historical core, geophysical review and geochemistry studies have delivered superior understanding of the deposit geometry. This has led to greater confidence in the geological and grade continuity and has infilled several areas of the deposit. The programs have collectively allowed us to deliver a more robust and larger Mineral Resource. The Mineral Resources have been estimated using all available analytical data. This has included diamond core drilling (NQ, PQ and HQ, reverse circulation percussion drilling and in some areas channel samples taken at surface. Additional data on drilling and sampling procedures is provided in Table 1. Significant drilling has taken place since the last Resource in 2015 which has driven the increase in resources. The drilling pre-2015 and since the last resource is provided in the collar plan below and Table 4. Table 4: Drill Hole Summary Timing Reverse Circulation Metres Diamond Core Metres RC and Diamond Metres Trenches Metres Drilling <2015 155 24553 252 88511.1 0 0 106 39774 Drilling >2015+ 68 13107 116 57876.7 22 5323.1 17 5618 Total 223 37660 368 146387.8 22 5323.1 123 45392 ESTIMATION METHODOLOGY A block model was created to encompass the full extent of the Kharmagtai deposits (White Hill, Copper Hill and Stockwork Hill - other exploration areas were excluded). The block model used a parent cell size of 20 m(E) x 20 m(N) x 20 m(RL) with sub-celling to 4 m(E) x 4 m(N) x 4 m(RL) to maintain the resolution of the wireframed geological domains and rock types. An empty block model was created within the closed wireframe models for the geological domains, rock types, barren dykes, level of veining (stockwork) and breccia. The model was also coded according to the oxide zones. Each modelled geological domain was assigned several unique codes in the model file (geology, veining and breccia). The block model was then restricted below the topography surface. Copper and gold grade values were interpolated into the empty block models separately for each modelled geological domain of the deposits using the Ordinary Kriging method. The Ordinary Kriging process was performed at different search radii until all cells were interpolated. The search radii were determined for each domain based on the parameters of the modelled semi-variogram ranges averaged for each direction for copper and gold. The blocks were interpolated using only assay composites restricted by the corresponding domain for each deposit. When model cells were estimated using radii not exceeding the full semi-variogram ranges, a restriction of at least three samples from at least two drill holes or trenches was applied to increase the reliability of the estimates. CRITERIA USED FOR CLASSIFICATION The classification level was based upon an assessment of geological understanding, geological continuity, mineralization continuity, drill hole spacing, QC results, search and interpolation parameters and an analysis of available density information. The following approach was adopted: Measured Resources: Not reported. Not reported. Indicated Resources: Were classified where the drill density did not exceed 65 m x 65 m with at least two mineralisation intersections on a drilled cross section. Geological and structural continuity have been interpreted with moderate confidence levels and blocks were interpolated at least the second run. Were classified where the drill density did not exceed 65 m x 65 m with at least two mineralisation intersections on a drilled cross section. Geological and structural continuity have been interpreted with moderate confidence levels and blocks were interpolated at least the second run. Inferred Resources: Inferred Mineral Resources were assigned to all model blocks lying outside the Indicated wireframes, which still display reasonable strike continuity and down dip extension, based on the current drill hole and trench intersections NEXT STEPS This interim Resource update is specifically designed to support a smaller-scale high-grade open pit Scoping Study for the existing resources at Kharmagtai. The focus once this work is completed will be to add the new discoveries (Zaraa and White Hill West) to the global resource base and explore the many opportunities identified by the interim Resource update. Xanadus near-term brownfields exploration strategy will focus on: Zaraa Resource Drilling Golden Eagle - Oxide gold At Zaraa, the focus will be on developing a maiden Mineral Resource estimate to add to the global Kharmagtai Mineral Resource base. This maiden Resource Estimate will provide the platform from which potential mining scenarios can be explored. At Golden Eagle, the focus will be on defining a potential shallow oxide gold project where a cost-effective leach operation may have strong synergies with a starter project on the existing Resources. Initial metallurgical work is being scoped and planning is being conducted around closer spaced shallow drilling to define a potential maiden oxide gold Resource at Golden Eagle. This oxide gold opportunity at Golden Eagle may synergise well with the oxide gold caps on the three existing resource to provide a moderate to large scale, low-cost oxide gold leach opportunity early in the development pipeline at Kharmagtai. ZARAA CRACKING THE CODE FOR ADDITIONAL EXPLORATION SUCCESSES Given the early drilling success at Zaraa, we are confident that we have cracked the geological code for additional exploration successes in the Kharmagtai area in 2019 and beyond. This latest discovery at Zaraa validates our exploration model for the geological features controlling the high-grade copper-gold mineralization in the district. This model reflects the accumulation of in-depth, new geological insights gained by Xanadus exploration team during nearly two decades of exploring in the region. Furthermore, numerous high priority brownfield exploration targets close to the existing resource have been identified from the extensive review of historical drill results and will be tested in the near future. The exploration potential of the new and extensive Zaraa discovery is being assessed simultaneously with the development plan for White Hill, Stockwork Hill and Copper Hill, for example one option is to develop an underground drive from the bottom of the Kharmagtai open pit directly to the high-grade core at Zaraa containing > 2% CuEq material. Xanadus aggressive 2018 exploration drilling program, which was targeting the discovery of additional porphyry copper-gold centres undercover in the large underexplored Kharmagtai porphyry district has proved to be highly successful with the discovery of the blind Zaraa porphyry copper-gold centre. With five recent drill holes featuring close to 1km of continuous copper-gold mineralisation, the new discovery of Zaraa supports the definition of a fourth large-scale porphyry deposit located only 2km east-southeast of the currently defined resources. The objective is now to demonstrate that this large-scale porphyry has both open pit and underground potential. The Company looks forward to providing further regular updates on its ongoing active development campaign. QUALIFIED PERSON STATEMENT The information in this announcement that relates to Mineral Resources is based on information compiled by Dmitry Pertel who is responsible for the Mineral Resource estimate. Mr Pertel is a full time employee of CSA Global and is a Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists, has sufficient experience relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity he is undertaking to qualify as the Qualified Person as defined in the CIM Guidelines and National Instrument 43-101. Mr Pertel consents to the inclusion in the report of the matters based on this information in the form and context in which it appears. The information in this announcement that relates to exploration results is based on information compiled by Dr Andrew Stewart who is responsible for the exploration data, comments on exploration target sizes, QA/QC and geological interpretation and information. Dr Stewart, who is an employee of Xanadu and is a Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists, has sufficient experience relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity he is undertaking to qualify as the Competent Person as defined in the 2012 Edition of the Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves and the National Instrument 43-101. Dr Stewart consents to the inclusion in the report of the matters based on this information in the form and context in which it appears. DISCLAIMER This ASX/TSX press release has been prepared by Xanadu Mines Ltd and neither the ASX or the TSX, nor their regulation service providers accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release. Forwardlooking statements Certain statements contained in this press release, including information as to the future financial or operating performance of Xanadu and its projects may also include statements which are forwardlooking statements that may include, amongst other things, statements regarding targets, estimates and assumptions in respect of mineral reserves and mineral resources and anticipated grades and recovery rates, production and prices, recovery costs and results, capital expenditures and are or may be based on assumptions and estimates related to future technical, economic, market, political, social and other conditions. These forwardlooking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Xanadu, are inherently subject to significant technical, business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties and contingencies and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from estimated or anticipated events or results reflected in such forwardlooking statements. Xanadu disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly or release any revisions to any forwardlooking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, circumstances or results or otherwise after todays date or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, other than required by the Corporations Act and ASX and TSX Listing Rules. The words believe, expect, anticipate, indicate, contemplate, target, plan, intends, continue, budget, estimate, may, will, schedule and similar expressions identify forwardlooking statements. All forwardlooking statements made in this press release are qualified by the foregoing cautionary statements. Investors are cautioned that forwardlooking statements are not guarantees of future performance and accordingly investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forwardlooking statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein. For further information, please contact: Andrew Stewart Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer T: +612 8280 7497 M: +976 9999 9211 Andrew.stewart@xanadumines.com www.xanadumines.com APPENDIX 1: KHARMAGTAI TABLE 1 (JORC 2012) Set out below is Section 1 and Section 2 of Table 1 under the JORC Code, 2012 Edition for the Kharmagtai project. Data provided by Xanadu. This Table 1 updates the JORC Table 1 disclosure dated 31 July 2018. 1.1 JORC TABLE 1 - SECTION 1 - SAMPLING TECHNIQUES AND DATA Criteria JORC Code explanation Commentary Sampling techniques Nature and quality of sampling (eg cut channels, random chips, or specific specialised industry standard measurement tools appropriate to the minerals under investigation, such as down hole gamma sondes, or handheld XRF instruments, etc). These examples should not be taken as limiting the broad meaning of sampling. Include reference to measures taken to ensure sample representivity and the appropriate calibration of any measurement tools or systems used. Aspects of the determination of mineralisation that are Material to the Public Report. In cases where industry standard work has been done this would be relatively simple (e.g. reverse circulation drilling was used to obtain 1 m samples from which 3 kg was pulverised to produce a 30 g charge for fire assay). In other cases more explanation may be required, such as where there is coarse gold that has inherent sampling problems. Unusual commodities or mineralisation types (e.g. submarine nodules) may warrant disclosure of detailed information. The resource estimate is based on diamond drill core samples, RC chip samples and channel samples from surface trenches. Representative core samples were split from PQ, HQ & NQ diameter diamond drill core on site using rock saws, on a routine 2m sample interval that also honours lithological/intrusive contacts. The orientation of the cut line is controlled using the core orientation line ensuring uniformity of core splitting wherever the core has been successfully oriented. Sample intervals are defined and subsequently checked by geologists, and sample tags are attached (stapled) to the plastic core trays for every sample interval. RC chip samples are splits from one meter intervals using a 75%:25% riffle splitter to obtain a 3kg sample RC samples are uniform 2m samples formed from the combination of two split 1m samples. Drilling techniques Drill type (e.g. core, reverse circulation, open-hole hammer, rotary air blast, auger, Bangka, sonic, etc.) and details (e.g. core diameter, triple or standard tube, depth of diamond tails, face-sampling bit or other type, whether core is oriented and if so, by what method, etc). The Mineral Resource estimation has been based upon diamond drilling of PQ, HQ and NQ diameters with both standard and triple tube core recovery configurations, RC drilling and surface trenching with channel sampling. All drill core drilled by Xanadu has been oriented using the Reflex Ace tool. Drill sample recovery Method of recording and assessing core and chip sample recoveries and results assessed. Measures taken to maximise sample recovery and ensure representative nature of the samples. Whether a relationship exists between sample recovery and grade and whether sample bias may have occurred due to preferential loss/gain of fine/coarse material. Diamond drill core recoveries were assessed using the standard industry (best) practice which involves: removing the core from core trays; reassembling multiple core runs in a v-rail; measuring core lengths with a tape measure, assessing recovery against core block depth measurements and recording any measured core loss for each core run. Diamond core recoveries average 97% through mineralization. Overall, core quality is good, with minimal core loss. Where there is localized faulting and or fracturing core recoveries decrease, however, this is a very small percentage of the mineralized intersections. RC recoveries are measured using whole weight of each 1m intercept measured before splitting Analysis of recovery results vs grade shows no significant trends that might indicate sampling bias introduced by variable recovery in fault/fracture zones. Logging Whether core and chip samples have been geologically and geotechnically logged to a level of detail to support appropriate Mineral Resource estimation, mining studies and metallurgical studies. Whether logging is qualitative or quantitative in nature. Core (or costean, channel, etc) photography. The total length and percentage of the relevant intersections logged. All drill core is geologically logged by well-trained geologists using a modified Anaconda-style logging system methodology. The Anaconda method of logging and mapping is specifically designed for porphyry Cu-Au mineral systems and is entirely appropriate to support Mineral Resource Estimation, mining and metallurgical studies. Logging of lithology, alteration and mineralogy is intrinsically qualitative in nature. However, the logging is subsequently supported by 4 Acid ICP-MS (48 element) geochemistry and SWIR spectral mineralogy (facilitating semi-quantitative/calculated mineralogical, lithological and alteration classification) which is integrated with the logging to improve cross section interpretation and 3D geological model development. Drill core is also systematically logged for both geotechnical features and geological structures. Where drill core has been successfully oriented, the orientation of structures and geotechnical features are also routinely measured. Both wet and dry core photos are taken after core has been logged and marked-up but before drill core has been cut. Sub-sampling techniques and sample preparation If core, whether cut or sawn and whether quarter, half or all core taken. If non-core, whether riffled, tube sampled, rotary split, etc and whether sampled wet or dry. For all sample types, the nature, quality and appropriateness of the sample preparation technique. Quality control procedures adopted for all sub-sampling stages to maximise representivity of samples. Measures taken to ensure that the sampling is representative of the in situ material collected, including for instance results for field duplicate/second-half sampling. Whether sample sizes are appropriate to the grain size of the material being sampled. All drill core samples are core splits from either PQ, HQ or NQ diameter cores. A routine 2m sample interval is used, but this is varied locally to honour lithological/intrusive contacts. The minimum allowed sample length is 30cm. Core is appropriately split (onsite) using diamond core saws with the cut line routinely located relative to the core orientation line (where present) to provide consistency of sample split selection. The diamond saws are regularly flushed with water to minimize potential contamination. A field duplicate core sample is collected every 30 th sample to ensure the representivity of the in situ material collected. The performance of these field duplicates are routinely analysed as part of Xanadus sample QC process. sample to ensure the representivity of the in situ material collected. The performance of these field duplicates are routinely analysed as part of Xanadus sample QC process. Routine sample preparation and analyses of DDH samples were carried out by ALS Mongolia LLC (ALS Mongolia), who operates an independent sample preparation and analytical laboratory in Ulaanbaatar. All samples were prepared to meet standard quality control procedures as follows: Crushed to 75% passing 2mm, split to 1kg, pulverised to 85% passing 200 mesh (75 microns) and split to 150g sample pulp. ALS Mongolia Geochemistry labs quality management system is certified to ISO 9001:2008. The sample support (sub-sample mass and comminution) is appropriate for the grainsize and Cu-Au distribution of the porphyry Cu-Au mineralization and associated host rocks. Quality of assay data and laboratory tests The nature, quality and appropriateness of the assaying and laboratory procedures used and whether the technique is considered partial or total. For geophysical tools, spectrometers, handheld XRF instruments, etc, the parameters used in determining the analysis including instrument make and model, reading times, calibrations factors applied and their derivation, etc. Nature of quality control procedures adopted (eg standards, blanks, duplicates, external laboratory checks) and whether acceptable levels of accuracy (ie lack of bias) and precision have been established. All samples were routinely assayed by ALS Mongolia for gold Au is determined using a 25g fire assay fusion, cupelled to obtain a bead, and digested with Aqua Regia, followed by an atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) finish, with a lower detection (LDL) of 0.01 ppm. All samples were also submitted to ALS Mongolia for the 48 element package ME-ICP61 using a four acid digest (considered to be an effective total digest for the elements relevant to the MRE). Where copper is over-range (>1% Cu), it is analysed by a second analytical technique (Cu-OG62), which has a higher upper detection limit (UDL) of 5% copper. Quality assurance has been managed by insertion of appropriate Standards (1:30 samples suitable Ore Research Pty Ltd certified standards), Blanks (1:30 samples), Duplicates (1:30 samples core duplicate) by XAM. Assay results outside the optimal range for methods were re-analysed by appropriate methods. Ore Research Pty Ltd certified copper and gold standards have been implemented as a part of QC procedures, as well as coarse and pulp blanks, and certified matrix matched copper-gold standards. QC monitoring is an active and ongoing processes on batch by batch basis by which unacceptable results are re-assayed as soon as practicable. Prior to 2014: Cu, Ag, Pb, Zn, As and Mo were routinely determined using a three-acid-digestion of a 0.3g sub-sample followed by an AAS finish (AAS21R) at SGS Mongolia. Samples were digested with nitric, hydrochloric and perchloric acids to dryness before leaching with hydrochloric acid to dissolve soluble salts and made to 15ml volume with distilled water. The LDL for copper using this technique was 2ppm. Where copper was over-range (>1% Cu), it was analysed by a second analytical technique (AAS22S), which has a higher upper detection limit (UDL) of 5% copper. Gold analysis method was essentially unchanged. Verification of sampling and assaying The verification of significant intersections by either independent or alternative company personnel. The use of twinned holes. Documentation of primary data, data entry procedures, data verification, data storage (physical and electronic) protocols. Discuss any adjustment to assay data. All assay data QAQC is checked prior to loading into XAMs Geobank data base. The data is managed by XAM geologists. The data base and geological interpretation is managed by XAM. Check assays are submitted to an umpire lab (SGS Mongolia) for duplicate analysis. No twinned drill holes exist. There have been no adjustments to any of the assay data. Location of data points Accuracy and quality of surveys used to locate drill holes (collar and down-hole surveys), trenches, mine workings and other locations used in Mineral Resource estimation. Specification of the grid system used. Quality and adequacy of topographic control. Diamond drill holes have been surveyed with a differential global positioning system (DGPS) to within 10cm accuracy. The grid system used for the project is UTM WGS-84 Zone 48N Historically, Eastman Kodak and Flexit electronic multi-shot downhole survey tools have been used at Kharmagtai to collect down hole azimuth and inclination information for the majority of the diamond drill holes. Single shots were typically taken every 30m to 50m during the drilling process, and a multi-shot survey with readings every 3-5m are conducted at the completion of the drill hole. As these tools rely on the earths magnetic field to measure azimuth, there is some localised interference/inaccuracy introduced by the presence of magnetite in some parts of the Kharmagtai mineral system. The extent of this interference cannot be quantified on a reading-by-reading basis. More recently (since September 2017), a north-seeking gyro has been employed by the drilling crews on site (rented and operated by the drilling contractor), providing accurate downhole orientation measurements unaffected by magnetic effects. Xanadu have a permanent calibration station setup for the gyro tool, which is routinely calibrated every 2 weeks (calibration records are maintained and were sighted) The project DTM is based on 1 m contours from satellite imagery with an accuracy of 0.1 m. Data spacing and distribution Data spacing for reporting of Exploration Results. Whether the data spacing and distribution is sufficient to establish the degree of geological and grade continuity appropriate for the Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve estimation procedure(s) and classifications applied. Whether sample compositing has been applied. Holes spacings range from <50m spacings within the core of mineralization to +500m spacings for exploration drilling. Hole spacings can be determined using the sections and drill plans provided. Holes range from vertical to an inclination of -60 degrees depending on the attitude of the target and the drilling method. The data spacing and distribution is sufficient to establish anomalism and targeting for porphyry Cu-Au, tourmaline breccia and epithermal target types. Holes have been drilled to a maximum of 1,300m vertical depth. The data spacing and distribution is sufficient to establish geological and grade continuity, and to support the Mineral Resource classification. Orientation of data in relation to geological structure Whether the orientation of sampling achieves unbiased sampling of possible structures and the extent to which this is known, considering the deposit type. If the relationship between the drilling orientation and the orientation of key mineralised structures is considered to have introduced a sampling bias, this should be assessed and reported if material. Drilling is conducted in a predominantly regular grid to allow unbiased interpretation and targeting. Scissor drilling, as well as some vertical and oblique drilling, has been used in key mineralised zones to achieve unbiased sampling of interpreted structures and mineralised zones, and in particular to assist in constraining the geometry of the mineralised hydrothermal tourmaline-sulphide breccia domains. Sample security The measures taken to ensure sample security. Samples are delivered from the drill rig to the core shed twice daily and are never left unattended at the rig. Samples are dispatched from site in locked boxes transported on XAM company vehicles to ALS lab in Ulaanbaatar. Sample shipment receipt is signed off at the Laboratory with additional email confirmation of receipt. Samples are then stored at the lab and returned to a locked storage site. Audits or reviews The results of any audits or reviews of sampling techniques and data. Internal audits of sampling techniques and data management are undertaken on a regular basis, to ensure industry best practice is employed at all times. External reviews and audits have been conducted by the following groups: 2012: AMC Consultants Pty Ltd. was engaged to conduct an Independent Technical Report which reviewed drilling and sampling procedures. It was concluded that sampling and data record was to an appropriate standard. 2013: Mining Associates Ltd. was engaged to conduct an Independent Technical Report to review drilling, sampling techniques and QAQC. Methods were found to conform to international best practice. 2018: CSA Global reviewed the entire drilling, logging, sampling, sample shipping and laboratory processes during the competent persons site visit for the 2018 MRe, and found the systems and adherence to protocols to be to an appropriate standard. 1.2 JORC TABLE 1 - SECTION 2 - REPORTING OF EXPLORATION RESULTS Criteria JORC Code explanation Commentary Mineral tenement and land tenure status Type, reference name/number, location and ownership including agreements or material issues with third parties such as joint ventures, partnerships, overriding royalties, native title interests, historical sites, wilderness or national park and environmental settings. The security of the tenure held at the time of reporting along with any known impediments to obtaining a licence to operate in the area. The Project comprises 1 Mining Licence (MV-17387A). The Kharmagtai mining license MV-17387A is 100% owned by Oyut Ulaan LLC. THR Oyu Tolgoi Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd) (THR) owns 90% of Oyut Ulaan LLC. The remaining 10% is owned by Quincunx Ltd (Quincunx). The Mongolian Minerals Law (2006) and Mongolian Land Law (2002) govern exploration, mining and land use rights for the project. Exploration done by other parties Acknowledgment and appraisal of exploration by other parties. Detailed exploration was conducted by Quincunx Ltd, Ivanhoe Mines Ltd and Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd including extensive surface mapping, trenching, diamond drilling, surface geochemistry and geophysics. Geology Deposit type, geological setting and style of mineralisation. The mineralisation is characterised as porphyry copper-gold type. Porphyry copper-gold deposits are formed from magmatic hydrothermal fluids typically associated with felsic intrusive stocks that have deposited metals as sulphides both within the intrusive and the intruded host rocks. Quartz stockwork veining is typically associated with sulphides occurring both within the quartz veinlets and disseminated thought out the wall rock. Porphyry deposits are typically large tonnage deposits ranging from low to high grade and are generally mined by large scale open pit or underground bulk mining methods. The prospects at Kharmagtai are atypical in that they are associated with intermediate intrusions of diorite to quartz diorite composition; however the deposits are significant in terms of gold:copper ratio, and similar to other gold-rich porphyry deposits. Drill hole Information A summary of all information material to the understanding of the exploration results including a tabulation of the following information for all Material drill holes: --easting and northing of the drill hole collar --elevation or RL (Reduced Level elevation above sea level in metres) of the drill hole collar --dip and azimuth of the hole --down hole length and interception depth --hole length. --easting and northing of the drill hole collar --elevation or RL (Reduced Level elevation above sea level in metres) of the drill hole collar --dip and azimuth of the hole --down hole length and interception depth --hole length. If the exclusion of this information is justified on the basis that the information is not Material and this exclusion does not detract from the understanding of the report, the Competent Person should clearly explain why this is the case. Diamond holes, RC holes and trenches are the principal source of geological and grade data for the Project. Image removed and available in the link below http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/eea9ce86-33be-4151-b1a3-3b1d1b377afc Image removed and available in the link below http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/eea9ce86-33be-4151-b1a3-3b1d1b377afc See figures in main report. Data aggregation methods In reporting Exploration Results, weighting averaging techniques, maximum and/or minimum grade truncations (eg cutting of high grades) and cut-off grades are usually Material and should be stated. Where aggregate intercepts incorporate short lengths of high grade results and longer lengths of low grade results, the procedure used for such aggregation should be stated and some typical examples of such aggregations should be shown in detail. The assumptions used for any reporting of metal equivalent values should be clearly stated. Weighted averages have not been used in this work Some compositing has been used in this resource but with statistically relevant techniques that do not include internal dilution The following metal equivalent calculations were used: CuEq = Cu% + (Au g/t x 0.51139) Formula is based on a $3.1/lb copper price and a $1,320/oz gold price. A relative gold to copper recovery factor of 82.35% was used (85% copper recovery and 70% gold recovery), gold to copper conversion factor of 0.62097 was applied. All prices are in USD. Relationship between mineralisation widths and intercept lengths These relationships are particularly important in the reporting of Exploration Results. If the geometry of the mineralisation with respect to the drill hole angle is known, its nature should be reported. If it is not known and only the down hole lengths are reported, there should be a clear statement to this effect (e.g. down hole length, true width not known). Mineralised structures are variable in orientation, and therefore drill orientations have been adjusted from place to place in order to allow intersection angles as close as possible to true widths. Exploration results have been reported as an interval with 'from' and 'to' stated in tables of significant economic intercepts. Tables clearly indicate that true widths will generally be narrower than those reported. Diagrams Appropriate maps and sections (with scales) and tabulations of intercepts should be included for any significant discovery being reported These should include, but not be limited to a plan view of drill hole collar locations and appropriate sectional views. See figures in main report. Balanced reporting Where comprehensive reporting of all Exploration Results is not practicable, representative reporting of both low and high grades and/or widths should be practiced to avoid misleading reporting of Exploration Results. Resources have been reported at a range of cut-off grades, above a minimum suitable for open pit mining, and above a minimum suitable for underground mining. Other substantive exploration data Other exploration data, if meaningful and material, should be reported including (but not limited to): geological observations; geophysical survey results; geochemical survey results; bulk samples size and method of treatment; metallurgical test results; bulk density, groundwater, geotechnical and rock characteristics; potential deleterious or contaminating substances. Extensive work in this area has been done and is reported separately. See the company website for significant announcements and milestones. Work that has been done includes; relogging of core, structural studies, alteration studies, geotechnical studies and preliminary metallurgical test works. The project has been subject to various geophysical studies including aeromagnetic, radiometric surveys and electromagnetic surveys over discrete targets. Further work The nature and scale of planned further work (e.g. tests for lateral extensions or depth extensions or large-scale step-out drilling). Diagrams clearly highlighting the areas of possible extensions, including the main geological interpretations and future drilling areas, provided this information is not commercially sensitive. The mineralisation is open at depth and along strike. Current estimates are restricted to those expected to be reasonable for open pit mining. Limited drilling below this depth (- 300m rl) shows widths and grades potentially suitable for underground extraction. Exploration is on-going. 1.3 JORC TABLE 1 SECTION 3 ESTIMATION AND REPORTING OF MINERAL RESOURCES Criteria JORC Code explanation Commentary Database integrity Measures taken to ensure that data has not been corrupted by, for example, transcription or keying errors, between its initial collection and its use for Mineral Resource estimation purposes. Data validation procedures used. The database is managed using Micromine Geobank software. Data is logged directly into an Excel spread sheet logging system with drop down field lists. Validation checks are written into the importing program ensures all data is of high quality. Digital assay data is obtained from the Laboratory, QA/QC checked and imported. Geobank exported to CSV TEXT and imported directly to the Micromine software used for the MRE. The combined database was provided for the MRE. Validation of the data import include checks for the following: Duplicate drill hole or trench names, One or more drill hole collar or trench coordinates missing in the collar file, FROM or TO missing or absent in the assay file, FROM > TO in the assay file, Sample intervals overlap in the assay file, First sample is not equal to 0 m in the assay file, First depth is not equal to 0 m in the survey file, Several downhole survey records exist for the same depth, Azimuth is not between 0 and 360 in the survey file, Dip is not between 0 and 90 in the survey file, Azimuth or dip is missing in survey file, Total depth of the holes is less than the depth of the last sample, Total length of trenches is less than the total length of all samples. Negative sample grades. No logical errors were identified in the analytical data. Site visits Comment on any site visits undertaken by the Competent Person and the outcome of those visits. If no site visits have been undertaken indicate why this is the case. Warren Potma, an employee of CSA Global, visited the Kharmagtai project, located in Mongolia, over 4 days from 18th to 22nd September 2018. The site visit was required for the purposes of inspection, ground truthing, review of activities, and collection of information and data. Geological interpretation Confidence in (or conversely, the uncertainty of ) the geological interpretation of the mineral deposit. Nature of the data used and of any assumptions made. The effect, if any, of alternative interpretations on Mineral Resource estimation. The use of geology in guiding and controlling Mineral Resource estimation. The factors affecting continuity both of grade and geology. Geological data has been collected in a consistent manner that has allowed the development of geological models to support the Mineral Resource estimate. Copper and gold mineralisation is controlled by porphyry phases, oxidation zone, level of veining, breccia, country rocks and barren dykes. Full geological models of all major geological formations were developed for each deposit, and the block models were domained accordingly. Domaining of the deposit mineralisation was based on the current understanding of the deposits geology. All major geological formations were wireframed by Xanadu geologists using Leapfrog software, including porphyry phases, country rocks, barren dyke, base of oxidation surface and breccia bodies. All geological formations were domained by the level of development of stockwork - <0.5% veining, 0.5-1.5% veining and >1.5% veining. All provided wireframe models were imported into Micromine software and validated by CSA Global. Geological interpretation and wireframing were based on sampling results of drill holes and trenches, which were logged at 2 m intervals (average). No alternative interpretations were adopted. Lithological logging was mainly used to interpret and to wireframe the geological formations. Geological logging of veining was used to wireframe the stockwork and breccia domains. Dimensions The extent and variability of the Mineral Resource expressed as length (along strike or otherwise), plan width, and depth below surface to the upper and lower limits of the Mineral Resource. Altan Tolgoi: The strike length of the mineralised zone is about 1,200 m. Width is up to 800 m, no plunging, traced down dip to 1,030 m. Mineralisation is outcropped at the surface. Tsagaan Sudal: The strike length of the mineralised zone is about 1,200 m. Width is up to 730 m, no plunging, traced down dip to 1,080 m. Mineralisation is outcropped at the surface. Zesen Uul: The strike length of the mineralised zone is about 630 m. Width is up to 150 m with apparent plunging to SW at about 40 degrees. traced down dip to 420 m dipping 70 degrees to SE. Mineralisation is outcropped at the surface. Estimation and modelling techniques The nature and appropriateness of the estimation technique(s) applied and key assumptions, including treatment of extreme grade values, domaining, interpolation parameters and maximum distance of extrapolation from data points. If a computer assisted estimation method was chosen include a description of computer software and parameters used. The availability of check estimates, previous estimates and/or mine production records and whether the Mineral Resource estimate takes appropriate account of such data. The assumptions made regarding recovery of by-products. Estimation of deleterious elements or other non-grade variables of economic significance (e.g. sulphur for acid mine drainage characterisation). In the case of block model interpolation, the block size in relation to the average sample spacing and the search employed. Any assumptions behind modelling of selective mining units. Any assumptions about correlation between variables. Description of how the geological interpretation was used to control the resource estimates. Discussion of basis for using or not using grade cutting or capping. The process of validation, the checking process used, the comparison of model data to drill hole data, and use of reconciliation data if available. The MRE is based on surface drilling and trenching results using Ordinary Kriging (OK) to inform 20 m x 20 m x 20 m blocks. The block model was constrained by wireframes modelled for the geological formations of the deposits and coded and domained by the level of oxidation and level of veining. The OK interpolation was carried out separately for each geological domain of each deposit. Hard boundaries were used between the interpreted geological domains. The drill hole and trench data were composited to a target length of 2 m based on the length analysis of raw intercepts. Top-cuts were estimated separately for gold and coper grades for each modelled domain and applied to sampled intervals before length compositing. Interpolation parameters were as follows: Image removed and available in the link below http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f1328cec-f8db-47d7-9b35-804c13734e94 Previous JORC-compliant Mineral Resources were estimated by Mining Associates, and the estimate was available for review. No current mining is occurring at the Kharmagtai project. No by-products are assumed at this stage. Estimated molybdenum and silver grades appear to be sub-economic to extract at this stage of the project evaluation. Sulphur grades were interpolated into the models to establish their potential affect to metallurgical processing. The optimal parent cell size was selected in the course of block modelling. The linear parent cell dimensions along X- and Y-axes were 20 m x 20 m. The vertical parent cell dimension was 20 m. Block grades were interpolated using parent cell estimation. Nominal drill spacing was about 40 m x 40 m at the central parts of the deposits. It was assumed that a 20 m x 20 m x 20 m parent cell approximately reflects SMU for large scale open pit mining. No assumptions about correlation between variables were made. Geological interpretation was based on the results of detailed geological logging, which resulted in the development of wireframe models for all major geological formations for each deposit, which control copper and gold mineralisation (country rocks, porphyry phases, barren dyke. Logging of the level of veining and level of oxidation was used to develop wireframe models for the stockwork development (<0.5% veining, 0.5-1.5% veining and >1.5% veining) and also for breccia pipe and surface for the base of oxidation surface. The wireframe models for stockwork, breccia and oxidation were used to sub-domain the main geological formations of each deposit. All wireframe models were developed by Xanadu geologists using Leapfrog software. Top-cutting was applied separately for each geological domain and sub-domain based on the results of the classical statistical analysis. Grade estimation was validated using visual inspection of interpolated block grades vs. sample data, alternative interpolation methods and swath plots. Moisture Whether the tonnages are estimated on a dry basis or with natural moisture, and the method of determination of the moisture content. Moisture was not considered in the density assignment and all tonnage estimates are based on dry tonnes. Cut-off parameters The basis of the adopted cut-off grade(s) or quality parameters applied. A cut-off grade of 0.3% CuEq was used to report the Mineral Resources for open pit mining within the limits of ultimate undiscounted pit shell, and a cut-off of 0.5% CuEq was used to report the Mineral Resources for underground mining below the ultimate undiscounted pit shell. Mining factors or assumptions Assumptions made regarding possible mining methods, minimum mining dimensions and internal (or, if applicable, external) mining dilution. It is always necessary as part of the process of determining reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction to consider potential mining methods, but the assumptions made regarding mining methods and parameters when estimating Mineral Resources may not always be rigorous. Where this is the case, this should be reported with an explanation of the basis of the mining assumptions made. No mining factors have been applied to the in-situ grade estimates for mining dilution or loss as a result of the grade control or mining process. The deposit is amenable to large scale bulk mining. The Mineral Resource is reported above and outside of an optimised ultimate pit shell (Lerch Grossman algorithm), mineralisation below the pit shell is reported at a higher cut-off to reflect the increased costs associated with block cave underground mining. Metallurgical factors or assumptions The basis for assumptions or predictions regarding metallurgical amenability. It is always necessary as part of the process of determining reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction to consider potential metallurgical methods, but the assumptions regarding metallurgical treatment processes and parameters made when reporting Mineral Resources may not always be rigorous. Where this is the case, this should be reported with an explanation of the basis of the metallurgical assumptions made. No metallurgical factors have been applied to the in-situ grade estimates. Metallurgical recoveries were used when copper equivalent grades were calculated in the model. The applied recoveries were 85% for copper and 70% for gold. Relative gold to copper recovery was 82%. Environmental factors or assumptions Assumptions made regarding possible waste and process residue disposal options. It is always necessary as part of the process of determining reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction to consider the potential environmental impacts of the mining and processing operation. While at this stage the determination of potential environmental impacts, particularly for a greenfields project, may not always be well advanced, the status of early consideration of these potential environmental impacts should be reported. Where these aspects have not been considered this should be reported with an explanation of the environmental assumptions made. An environmental baseline study was completed in 2003 by Eco Trade Co. Ltd. of Mongolia in cooperation with Sustainability Pty Ltd of Australia. The baseline study report was produced to meet the requirements for screening under the Mongolian Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Procedures administered by the Mongolian Ministry for Nature and Environment (MNE). Bulk density Whether assumed or determined. If assumed, the basis for the assumptions. If determined, the method used, whether wet or dry, the frequency of the measurements, the nature, size and representativeness of the samples. The bulk density for bulk material must have been measured by methods that adequately account for void spaces (vugs, porosity, etc.), moisture and differences between rock and alteration zones within the deposit. Discuss assumptions for bulk density estimates used in the evaluation process of the different materials. Image removed and available in the link below http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/fc7278d4-bce0-4b40-9f95-169bae5584c6 A total of 4428 measurements for bulk density are recorded in the database, all of which were determined by the water immersion method. The average density of all samples is approximately 2.75 t/m 3 . In detail there are some differences in density between different rock types. Therefore, since the model includes all major geological domains, density values were applied separately for each domain: . In detail there are some differences in density between different rock types. Therefore, since the model includes all major geological domains, density values were applied separately for each domain: Average bulk density values were applied for each geological domain, though there could be variations in density values due to presence of sulphides or level of alteration. Classification The basis for the classification of the Mineral Resources into varying confidence categories. Whether appropriate account has been taken of all relevant factors (i.e. relative confidence in tonnage/grade estimations, reliability of input data, confidence in continuity of geology and metal values, quality, quantity and distribution of the data). Whether the result appropriately reflects the Competent Persons view of the deposit. The Mineral Resource has been classified based on the guidelines specified in the JORC Code. The classification level is based upon an assessment of geological understanding of the deposit, geological and mineralization continuity, drill hole spacing, QC results, search and interpolation parameters and an analysis of available density information. The following approach was adopted: --Measured Resources: Not reported. --Indicated Resources: It was decided that Indicated Mineral Resources be assigned to blocks which were explored with the drill density not exceeding approximately 65 m x 65 m with at least two mineralization intersections on exploration lines. Geological structures are relatively well understood and interpreted. --Inferred Resources: Inferred Mineral Resources are model blocks lying outside the Indicated wireframes, which still display reasonable strike continuity and down dip extension, based on the current drill hole and trench intersections. Data quality, grade continuity, structural continuity and drill spacing were assessed by CSA Global to form an opinion regarding resource confidence. The classification reflects the Competent Persons view of the deposit. Audits or reviews The results of any audits or reviews of Mineral Resource estimates. The Mineral Resource block model was peer reviewed internally by a Principal Resource Geologist employed by CSA Global and the conclusion was made that the procedures used to estimate and classify the Mineral Resource are appropriate. Discussion of relative accuracy/ confidence Where appropriate a statement of the relative accuracy and confidence level in the Mineral Resource estimate using an approach or procedure deemed appropriate by the Competent Person. For example, the application of statistical or geostatistical procedures to quantify the relative accuracy of the resource within stated confidence limits, or, if such an approach is not deemed appropriate, a qualitative discussion of the factors that could affect the relative accuracy and confidence of the estimate. The statement should specify whether it relates to global or local estimates, and, if local, state the relevant tonnages, which should be relevant to technical and economic evaluation. Documentation should include assumptions made and the procedures used. These statements of relative accuracy and confidence of the estimate should be compared with production data, where available. Industry standard modelling techniques were used, including but not limited to: --Classical statistical analysis, --Interpretation and wireframing of main geological formations, --Top-cutting and interval compositing, --Domaining of the model using level of logging veining, breccia and zone of oxidation, --Geostatistical analysis, --Block modelling and grade interpolation techniques, --Model classification, validation and reporting, The relative accuracy of the estimate is reflected in the classification of the deposit. The estimate is related to the global estimate of the deposit suitable for subsequent PFS or further exploration at the deposit. No historical production data is available for comparison with the MRE. The Mineral Resource accuracy is communicated through the classification assigned to various parts of the deposit. 1.4 JORC TABLE 1 SECTION 4 ESTIMATION AND REPORTING OF ORE RESERVES Ore Reserves are not reported so this is not applicable to this report. Photos accompanying this announcement are available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/228639c8-2f07-4c85-97d4-dcc69d96155d http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/0d7dbe89-6027-4a28-8c81-a0cc8f7962bd http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8065609a-5a28-41b7-b849-76cc1e89e740 English Lithuanian In accordance with the paragraph 5 of Article 372 of the Law on Companies of the Republic of Lithuania, on 26 October, 2018 the President of AB Grigeo applied to the company's Audit Committee for the opinion on the intention to enter into the transaction with the related party - its 100% owned subsidiary UAB Grigeo Packaging, legal entity code 302329061, address Vilniaus g. 10, Grigiskes, Vilnius City municipality, the Republic of Lithuania. On October 31, 2018 AB Grigeo received the opinion of the Audit Committee on the conclusion of the transaction with the related party. In the opinion of the Company's Audit Committee, the transaction intended to be concluded between AB Grigeo and its subsidiary UAB Grigeo Packaging, i.e. transfer of part of the business of AB Grigeo - the corrugated cardboard production business - to UAB Grigeo Packaging on the basis of the Share subscription agreement and the Business Acceptance-Transfer Act in exchange for the newly issued shares of UAB Grigeo Packaging is fair and reasoned as regards AB Grigeo and its shareholders who are not a party of the transaction. The shareholders of the company may apply for a copy of the Audit Committee`s opinion by submitting a written request to the company's office at Vilniaus g. 10, Grigiskes, Vilniaus m. sav., the Republic of Lithuania or transmitting it by electronic means by e-mail info@grigeo.lt . AB Grigeo no later than within 3 days from the receipt of the request will provide a copy of this opinion to the shareholder against a signature or send it by a registered mail or electronic means, provided that the security of the information transmitted is ensured and the shareholders identity can be established. The shareholder can also get acquainted with the opinion received at the companys office at Vilniaus g. 10, Grigiskes, Vilniaus m. sav., the Republic of Lithuania on business days from 8.00 a.m. till 4.00 p.m. notifying about the request by email info@grigeo.lt of phone +370 5 243 58 01 one business day in advance. Gintautas Pangonis President of AB Grigeo +370 5 243 5801 LONDON, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Horizonte Minerals Plc, (AIM: HZM, TSX: HZM) (Horizonte or the Company), the nickel development company focused in Brazil, is pleased to announce the appointment of Endeavour Financial, a leading financial advisor in the mining sector, to advise on the arrangement of the project financing for the Araguaia Ferronickel Project (Araguaia, or the Project), following the release of its Feasibility Study results on 29 October 2018. Jeremy Martin, Chief Executive of Horizonte, commented: Following the release of the results of the Feasibility Study on Monday, we are pleased to announce the appointment of Endeavour Financial as our financial advisor, focusing on the debt and offtake development package for Araguaia. Endeavour Financial is a well-regarded firm with a strong track record of success in the mining industry, specialising in arranging multi-sourced financing for single asset development companies, an example being the recently closed US$750 million financing package for Lundin Gold's Fruta del Norte project in Ecuador. We have noted the movement in the share price yesterday on AIM with some concern and confirm we are not aware of any unpublished price sensitive information. The Feasibility Study represents a major de-risking step as we move towards the award of the construction licence and advancing the Project funding. The results of the study confirmed Araguaia is a high grade, scalable resource, with low capital intensity, in the lower quartile of the C1 cost curve for nickel laterites, and we are confident in our ability to raise development finance for the Project. The Company is currently well funded and we look forward to updating the market on developments at both Araguaia and at the Vermelho nickel cobalt project. For further information visit www.horizonteminerals.com or contact: Horizonte Minerals plc Jeremy Martin (CEO) +44 (0) 203 356 2901 Numis Securities Ltd (NOMAD & Broker) John Prior Paul Gillam +44 (0) 207 260 1000 Shard Capital (Joint Broker) Damon Heath Erik Woolgar +44 (0) 20 186 9952 Tavistock (Financial PR) Emily Fenton Gareth Tredway +44 (0) 207 920 3150 About Horizonte Minerals: Horizonte Minerals plc is an AIM and TSX-listed nickel development company focused in Brazil. The Company is developing the Araguaia project, as the next major ferronickel mine in Brazil, and the Vermelho nickel-cobalt project, with the aim of being able to supply nickel and cobalt to the EV battery market. Both projects are 100% owned. About Endeavour Financial: West Palm Beach, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- West Palm Beach, FL October 31, 2018 As part of its efforts to connect knowledge-seeking fans with trustworthy and informational content, Ultra Docu, the HD network featuring a collection of Latin American documentaries, as well as lifestyle and human-interest programming from around the globe, will highlight the network premiere of one powerful documentary every Thursday at 8 p.m. EST throughout November. As the year comes to an end, weve put together a collection of new educational documentaries on relevant topics affecting the U.S. and Latin America, stated Jesus Pinango, Director of TV Content Strategy at Olympusat. In addition, we are celebrating our origins and culture, showcasing historic documentaries that highlight the courage and ingenuity of some of historys most celebrated generals. The documentaries premiering this month on Ultra Docu are: Linea de Aborto 11/1/2018 at 8 p.m. EST Synopsis: In a country where abortion is prohibited under all circumstances, Linea de Aborto follows the members of a feminist organization as they go against the system, handout information and aid women who are looking to terminate their pregnancies. El Ataque de los Troles 11/8/2018 at 8 p.m. EST Synopsis: Has internet anonymity unleashed a dark demon lurking in all of us? This film reveals the hard truths surrounding anonymity, dark instincts and freedom on the internet. Technology has made us vulnerable to a new kind of predator the internet troll. El Alamo 11/15/2018 at 8 p.m. EST Synopsis: In spring of 1836 about 200 Texans withstood the 13-day siege of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Those who didnt die fighting were executed. This is the story behind the battle that inspired Texans to finally become independent from Mexico and join the Union. Nacion de Inmigrantes 11/22/2018 at 8 p.m. EST Synopsis: The story of the modern immigrant rights movement and the struggle of single mother, Elvira Arellano, who fought against her deportation. It tells how organizations, activists, community leaders and individuals came together to oppose bill HR 4437 and the anti-immigration forces. La Batalla de Zacatecas 11/29/2018 at 8 p.m. EST Synopsis: Narrated by Paco Taibo II, this documentary follows the events surrounding the Battle of Zacatecas. Pancho Villa's Division del Norte decisively defeated the federal troops of General Luis Medina Barron becoming the bloodiest battle in the campaign to overthrow Mexican President Victoriano Huerta. Ultra Docu is owned and operated by Olympusat, Inc., and its currently available on Charter Spectrum, Claro TV, Hotwire Communications, Verizon FiOS and VEMOX. For more information on Ultra Docus programming, please visit ultradocutv.com and vemox.com. About Olympusat, Inc. (www.olympusat.com) Based in West Palm Beach, FL, Olympusat, Inc. is one of the largest independent media corporations specializing in ownership, distribution, production and technical services. The company has established itself as a leader in the Hispanic television and media space through its 60+ HD Spanish and English-language television networks, among them the top-rated Spanish-language movie channel Cine Mexicano, the popular Ultra HD Plex, and a distinctive religious channels and Specialty Suite representing some of the biggest networks in the industry. Olympusats content is comprised of original productions, dubbed content from Europe and Asia and licensed in-language content from the U.S., Spain and Latin America. Olympusat provides Spanish dubbing services in its Mexico City facilities for the USA and Latin-American Hispanic market. Recently Olympusat has launched VEMOX, the white label OTT TV Everywhere B2B solution, available for download in Apple Store (iOS), Google Play Store (Android), Apple TV, Xbox One, and Samsung Smart TVs. Attachments English Danish Today, GPV, Denmarks largest EMS (Electronics Manufacturing Service) company, signed an agreement to acquire Swiss-based peer CCS, which is headquartered in Lachen, Switzerland. The transaction has an enterprise value of approximately DKK 800 million on a debt-free basis. The agreement is subject to approval by the relevant authorities, and the transaction is expected to be completed by the end of 2018. Except for transaction costs incurred in 2018, the acquisition will not affect the current full-year guidance. Founded in Switzerland in 1985 under the name Formatest AG, the CCS Group specialises in electronics, system integration and cable harness manufacturing. The company operates production facilities in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Sri Lanka and China. CCS reported revenue of DKK 1.4 billion and EBITDA of close to DKK 100 million in 2017. The company employs about 2,300 people, of which some 50% are based in Europe and the rest in Sri Lanka and in China. The CCS business complements GPVs current activities and market coverage. The transaction creates a strong global EMS business headquartered in Denmark that will have production facilities in Asia, Europe and the Americas, about 3,700 employees and combined revenue of about DKK 2.6 billion. For further information, see the press release issued today. Schouw & Co.'s Q3 interim report is scheduled for release on 12 November 2018. Aktieselskabet Schouw & Co. Jrn Ankr Thomsen, Chairman Jens Bjerg Srensen, CEO, tel. +45 86 11 22 22 Attachments VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- New Age Farm Inc. (CSE:NF) (OTC:NWGFF) (FSE:ONF) (New Age Farm or the Company) is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary, We Are Kured LLC (Kured), has sold through the entirety of the original shipment of their 500mg disposable vaporizer pens to its South American subsidiary. Additionally, Kured has successfully shipped its second batch to South America and expects that its subsidiary should move through the product shipment quickly. Joshua Bartch, New Age Farms Chief Executive Officer, stated: We are incredibly satisfied with the rate that the product is moving in Chile, our first territory in Latin America that we have been targeting. We have been receiving very positive feedback from the current customers in Chile and are looking forward to expanding our footprint elsewhere in Latin America. We are currently bolstering our infrastructure in the region to include a dedicated sales force as well as working on various other logistics to improve our profitability and efficiency overall. About New Age Farm New Age Farm is an agricultural services company offering unique turnkey growing infrastructure and services for licensed growers and processors of luxury marijuana crops at its agri-campuses in Washington State. In November 2012, the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) passed Initiative 502 (I-502). I-502 authorized the WSLCB to regulate and tax recreational marijuana products for persons over twenty-one years of age and thereby created a new industry for the growing, processing and selling of Washington State-regulated recreational marijuana products. New Age Farm provides innovative solutions for growers and processors in this burgeoning industry. About We Are Kured, LLC Kured is a wholly owned subsidiary of New Age Farm, acquired in December 2017. Kured is building an innovative online CBD and lifestyle company. Kured has partnered with best in class hemp cultivators, edible manufacturers, cutting edge product formulators to develop, market and distribute multiple lines of CBD products including, but not limited to, CBD vaporizer pens, topicals, gel capsules and more. All of Kureds products are 100% THC free and will be available for purchase internationally. THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, is the primary active ingredient in cannabis. For further information about New Age Farm, please consult the Companys profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com or visit the Companys website at www.newagefarminc.com . For further information about We Are Kured, please visit their website at www.wearekured.com . On Behalf of the Board of Directors Joshua Bartch Chief Executive Officer info@newagefarminc.com For Further Information Contact Corporate Communications corpcom@newagefarminc.com 888-871-3936 We Are Kured Contact: Ben Martch Founder & CEO www.wearekured.com The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release and accepts no responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy hereof. This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect managements current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect managements current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Readers are cautioned that these forward looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected including, but not limited to completion of planned improvements at both the Canadian and US sites on schedule and on budget, the availability of financing needed to complete the Companys planned improvements on commercially reasonable terms, planned occupancy by the tenant-growers, commencement of operations, differences in yield on expected harvests, delays in obtaining statutory approval for marijuana production plans, issues that may arise throughout the grow period, outdoor crops affected by weather, the ability to mitigate the risk of loss through appropriate insurance policies, and the risks presented by federal statutes that may contradict local and state legislation respecting legalized marijuana. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances save as required under applicable securities legislation. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell securities and the Company is not soliciting an offer to buy securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. This news release does not constitute an offer of securities for sale in the United States. These securities have not and will not be registered under United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to a U.S. Person unless so registered, or an exemption from registration is relied upon. English Estonian Correction: additional information about the work experience of Guldar Kivro and ownership of the shares of the issuer. Supervisory Board of OU TS Laevad, the subsidiary company of AS Tallinna Sadam, has decided to appoint Guldar Kivro as new member of the Management Board of OU TS Laevad as of 09.12.2018. The service contract of Mart Loik, the current member of the Management Board of OU TS Laevad will end on 08.12.2018. Guldar Kivro has graduated the Estonian Maritime Academy on the field of ship management. Since 2005 he worked as second Officer and Chief Officer on the ships of Tallink. In 2013, Guldar joined the Scottish shipping company Vroon Offshore, where he worked as a Chief Officer and, from 2014, as a captain on oil platform fleet rescue vessels. In June 2016, Guldar joined OU TS Laevad as a captain-project manager of the construction of new ferries and has been the captain of the m/v TIIU since the arrival of the ferry on the line. Guldar Kivro will be responsible for shipping. Guldar Kivro holds 50 shares of AS Tallinna Sadam. Tallinna Sadam is one of the largest cargo- and passenger port complexes in the Baltic Sea region, which in 2017 serviced 10.6 million passengers and 19.2 million tons of cargo. In addition to passenger and freight services, Tallinna Sadam group also operates in shipping business via its subsidiaries OU TS Laevad provides ferry services between the Estonian mainland and the largest islands, and OU TS Shipping charters its multifunctional vessel m/v Botnica for icebreaking and construction services in Estonia and offshore projects abroad. Tallinna Sadam group is also a shareholder of an associate AS Green Marine, which provides waste management services. Tallinna Sadam group's sales in 2017 totaled EUR 121.3 million, adjusted EBITDA EUR 66.5 million and net profit EUR 26.4 million. Additional information: English Lithuanian AB Energijos Skirstymo Operatorius (hereinafter the Company or ESO), code 304151376, registered office address Aguonu St. 24, Vilnius. The total number of the registered ordinary shares issued by AB Energijos Skirstymo Operatorius is 894 630 333; ISIN code LT0000130023. On 21 September 2018 it concluded a transaction on sale - purchase of business segment whereby ESO as of 1 October 2018 transferred the business segment of the public supply of electric energy with the related assets, rights and duties (hereinafter the Business segment) to Lietuvos Energijos Tiekimas, UAB (hereinafter LET), legal entity code 303383884, registered office address Zveju St. 14, LT-09310 Vilnius, Lithuania. As it was announced earlier the public supply electricity operations constituting the Business segment are continuous which causes changes in the Business segment in the period from the cut-off balance sheet of 30 June 2018 until the transfer of the Business segment on 1 October 2018. Taking into account the terms of the Sale and Purchase agreement the price of the Business segment is adjusted. The Company informs that the adjusted Business segment price 27 441 351 EUR (twenty seven million four hundred forty one thousand three hundred fifty one euros). The Business segment price adjustment was caused by the difference between actual and forecasted amounts from the moment of the Business cut-off balance to the moment of the Business segment transferring: the difference between income, which are conditioned from the change between electricity purchase price set by the National Commission for Energy Control and Prices and the actual electricity purchase price, changes in transferred tax losses and the difference between the net cash (consisting of cash and cash equivalents and the advance amounts received from public supply of electric energy consumer). As it was noted earlier the value of the Business segment being sold was determined by an independent property valuer UAB Ernst & Young Baltic the adjusted Business segment prices meets the market value. The transaction was concluded with a view to ensuring more transparent operations of the distribution system operator and refining the operations regulated by the State within Lietuvos Energija UAB group of companies. Information is not confidential. Representative for Public Relations of Energijos Skirstymo Operatorius AB Tomas Kavaliauskas, tel. +370 61751616, e-mail. tomas.kavaliauskas@eso.lt English Icelandic Islandsbanki will publish its financial results for the first nine months of 2018 during the morning of Thursday 8 November Investor call in English at 9:30 GMT The Bank will host an investor call in English at 9:30 GMT on 8 November. The call will start with a short macro update on the Icelandic economy, followed by a review of the financial results and Q&A. Please register by replying to: ir@islandsbanki.is . Dial-in details and investor material will be sent prior to the call. Islandsbanki plans to publish its interim and annual financial statements according to the below financial calendar: Q4 2018 and year-end results - 14 February 2019 Annual General Meeting 21 March 2019 Please note that the dates are subject to change. For further information please contact: Gunnar S. Magnusson, Head of Investor Relations, gunnarsm@islandsbanki.is , +354 440 4665 rishi141 wrote: What is the general procedure for submitting a LoR by our recommender? Do they upload the PDF copy of our hard LoR? Or is there a field where they can type in their comments? I am asking this because I made a hard copy of my LoR in 2017 with the university letterheads, and I don't if that'll work this time around if a PDF copy of the scanned hardcopy is uploaded. Or are the university letterheads not required? There is also no additional information about this on the university website. I wonder why that is the case. Any replies would be highly appreciated!! By Ritah Kemigisa. The opposition Democratic Party has revealed they are to privately prosecute military officers who tortured in broad day light one of their own Yusuf Kawooya near Christ the King church. According to the party president Nobert Mao, the party lawyers have been instructed to file a formal case in court before the end of this week. Mao adds that they are to also sue on behalf of Kawooya to have him compensated for the injuries he sustained. Kawooya who is currently receiving treatment after he was detained at the Special investigation Unit in Kireka was tortured by nun-uniformed military personnel near Christ the King before being bundled into a taxi with tainted windows. goodyear2013 wrote: More than any other single event in the history of Europe, the Spanish Inquisition, instituted by Ferdinand and Isabella and controlled by the Spanish kings, is remembered for the burning of persons condemned as heretics. A. More than any other single event in the history of Europe, the Spanish Inquisition, instituted by Ferdinand and Isabella and controlled by the Spanish kings, is remembered B. More than any single event in the history of Europe, the Spanish Inquisition, instituted by Ferdinand and Isabella and controlled by the Spanish kings, was remembered C. The Spanish Inquisition, instituted by Ferdinand and Isabella and controlled by the Spanish kings, more than any event in the history of Europe, is remembered D. More than any other single event in the history of Europe, the Spanish Inquisition, instituted by Ferdinand and Isabella and controlled by the Spanish kings, are remembered E. The Spanish Inquisition, instituted by Ferdinand and Isabella and controlled by the Spanish kings, are remembered more than any single event in the history of Europe OFFICIAL EXPLANATION: Here the underlined section is quite long, but this question is actually easier than it may at first appear. The modifying phrases set off by commas should tell you to start by checking for subject-verb agreement. If you do this, you'll discover the construction the Spanish Inquisition . . . arein (D) and (E), so you can eliminate these choices. Choice (B) uses the past- tense was, which isnt appropriate: the Spanish Inquisition is still remembered. This brings us down to (A) and (C). The difference between these two is the placement of the phrase more than any other single event in the history of Europe.Where is it bet- ter placed? In (A) it clearly modifies is remembered. In (C) it could just as easily modify instituted by Ferdinand and Isabella and controlled by the Spanish kings. Choice (A) is clearer, so it's the best answer._________________ Sitting a half-game shy of second in the Conference USA standings, UTSA volleyball will conclude its regular-season road schedule, traveling to face Louisiana Tech on Friday at 7 p.m. CT before venturing to face Middle Tennessee on Sunday at 12 p.m.UTSA (16-7, 8-3 Conference USA) looks to finish the 2018 regular-season schedule strong with matches at LA Tech and MTSU, before hosting UTEP to conclude the home slate. The Roadrunners are in third place in the C-USA standings, with Rice (10-0) and FAU (8-2) owning the first two spots.The Roadrunners have totaled 13.9 kills, 13.2 assists, 1.4 aces, 16 digs and 1.8 blocks per set as a team in 2018. UTSA has been paced by freshmenand, with Smith owning the lead among C-USA freshmen with 3.11 kills and 2.97 digs per set. Lopez averages 2.94 kills and 1.9 digs per set. Juniorsandhave been weapons, with McCulloch owning 2.81 kills per set and Teal sporting 2.36 kills per set with a .324 hitting percentage.UTSA senior liberoleads the team with 4.24 digs per set and senior setterowns a team-best 8.33 assists per set.Louisiana Tech (6-20, 1-10 C-USA) will be seeking to snap a 10-match losing streak entering the weekend. The Lady Techsters have wins over six wins on the year, including two vs. SWAC schools, and a four-set win over MTSU.Middle Tennessee (7-17, 2-8 C-USA) enters the weekend on a two-match losing streak after posting back-to-back wins over UAB and UTEP. The Blue Raiders have averaged 11.9 kills, 11.1 assists, 1l3 aces, 13.7 digs and 1.4 blocks per set as a team. MTSU has seen Bailey Mason (3.10 kills per set), Sarah Sumida (6.05 assists per set) and Regan Coughlin (2.30 digs per set) lead the team individually.The Roadrunners own a 9-2 mark in games played vs. Louisiana Tech, including a 2-1 record in Ruston, La. UTSA has won eight of the last nine meetings in the series. UTSA leads the all-time series with MTSU, 5-3, including a 3-1 mark in Murfreesboro, Tenn. UTSA has won four consecutive meetings in the series with a 12-2 mark in sets. Are you sure you want to delete this post? Coming into the 2018 midterm elections, the Republican party has majority control of both the House and the Senate. Of course, that could change. If the Democrats can manage to net 23 seats in the House, of the 435 seats up for grabs (all of them), they will regain control of the House of Representatives. All Democrats need are 2 net wins in the Senate (of the 35 up for grabs this cycle), but that is currently being projected as a long shot. By net, I mean the Democrats would maintain all the seats they currently occupy, and then win over some more that are currently being occupied by Republicans. It's an interesting moment in politics when the midterms come around, as the results can speak really loudly and clearly as to how the country feels about the current administration's first 2 years in office, as well as the overall direction we all feel the country is headed, both with the economy at large, international relations, and all kinds of other social issues. You hear it being called a referendum on Trump. And that's true. But I believe it goes further than that. It's kinda like a mid season political report card, with lots of real world implications. If both the House and Senate stay red, it will be clear the majority, no matter how small, is in general acceptance of the current state of affairs. If one or two parts of congress flip blue, that will show the opposition was displeased enough to show up to the polls and force a changing of the guard. Happens all the time in the US really. Majority control flip flops constantly, and that can be seen as a good thing to my mind. An ongoing balance of power and agenda. I am really curious to see how the American people grade this first 2 years of the Trump administration, and how each state shows up to the polls. How do you think it'll play out? Do you think the current administration deserves to maintain control, or will the Democrats garner some power back? By Moses Kyeyune. The Uganda Prison Services is choking with over Shillings 65 billion in utility debts due to increasing numbers of remanded inmates. According to the Auditor Generals report for the Financial Year ending December 2016, Uganda prisons was nursing unpaid debts amounting close to 50 billion Shillings only on utilities. Food Bills topped the list with 30 billion shillings followed by electricity with 8.7 billion shillings, while water Bills came third at 7.1 billion shillings, and staff uniforms with 3.1 billion shillings. The Auditor General John Muwanga noted that, the entity risks losing business with the service providers and could be sued for non-payment with chances of penalties that may include interest on unpaid balances. In his response, the prisons undersecretary Samuel Baker Emuku has blamed the burden on increase in prisoner population, which he said has a direct bearing on food, electricity and uniforms. He told the Public Accounts Committee chaired by Soroti Woman MP Angeline Osege this after that the arrears have grown alongside the growing prisoners population, in the face of inadequate budget support. One of the core promises that swept President Donald Trump into office was that he would renegotiate better deals for the United States with our traditional trading partners. With the announcement of a new trade pact among the United States, Mexico, and Canada, we welcomed the tremendous news that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will be, if approved by Congress, replaced by a much stronger agreement. Known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the package will be important for American workers and our economy as a whole, including the agricultural sector, which counts Mexico and Canada in our top three trading partners. I have long said that I believe our country is located in the best neighborhood on Earth North America with valuable allies to our north and south. Though the old NAFTA agreement was considered a generally positive compact for agriculture, there was certainly room for much-needed improvement. Under USMCA, we have created new rules to help our farmers, ranchers, and workers better face the challenges of the 21st century economy, which will secure greater access to Mexican and Canadian markets and maintain and improve the highly productive, integrated agricultural relationships we have as nations. Protects cheese names in Mexico The agreement with Mexico came first, near the end of August, and includes a number of provisions sought by the United States. Importantly, 21st century innovations in agricultural biotechnology are addressed for the first time, including cutting-edge processes like gene editing. These innovations serve as a template for agreements in the future. And we mutually pledge to work together to reduce trade-distorting policies, increase transparency, and ensure non-discriminatory treatment in grading of agricultural products. In addition, the United States and Mexico agreed not to use so-called geographic indicators to restrict the marketing of certain cheeses under common names, such as Provolone, Swiss, or Ricotta, which the European Union had wanted to restrict. Eliminates Class 7 in Canada The second piece of the USMCA puzzle was the negotiation with Canada, where key sticking points centered on dairy issues and were among the last to be cleared. Notably, as one of the presidents top goals, the new agreement will eliminate Canadas unfair Class 6 and Class 7 milk pricing schemes, in which Canada has used low-priced products to undercut United States dairy sales in Canada and other international markets. The deal will also crack open additional access of United States dairy into Canada, including products like fluid milk, cream, butter, skim milk, and cheese, and it will also preserve and expand critical access for United States poultry and egg producers. Americas wheat farmers also get a big win. A reform of Canadas discriminatory wheat grading process will help United States wheat growers along the border become more competitive. These are all significant victories for American agriculture. Willing to walk away As we celebrate this breakthrough, it is worth noting that there were many detractors who said it could not be done. But the emergence of an agreement is further proof that President Trumps trade negotiation strategy is working. To strike the best deals possible for the United States, the president has shown that he is willing to walk away from the bargaining table if he feels our country is being unfairly treated. In the case of USMCA, the presidents approach resulted in earnest negotiations among the three nations and a final package, which is beneficial for all three countries. More in store This is not the first major step forward in international trade under the Trump administration, nor do we feel it will be the last. Before President Trump successfully concluded USCMA, he made good on his promise to revise and improve KORUS, the trade pact with the Republic of Korea. Add to these achievements the presidents recent announcement of his intention to negotiate a trade deal with Japan a significant market for United States agriculture exports that, until recently, had rejected talks of a bilateral agreement with the United States and growing optimism for a successful trade deal with the European Union, and it is easy to see the dominoes falling. The president is committed to achieving good trade deals for America including our current issues with China, which I believe we will surmount as well. Free and fair The bottom line is this: Free, fair, and expanded trade among nations is good for the American economy and our highly productive farmers, ranchers, foresters, and producers. The newly-minted USMCA goes in the win column for President Trump and his negotiating team, led by our United States Trade Representative, Ambassador Robert Lighthizer. Our economy, and American agriculture, will be better off for it. To comment, email your remarks to intel@hoards.com. (c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2018 October 22, 2018 The information below has been supplied by dairy marketers and other industry organizations. It has not been edited, verified or endorsed by Hoards Dairyman. College students with an interest in dairy can now apply to be a dairy ambassador in one of eight states across the Midwest. The Dairy Ambassador program provides students with leadership opportunities to connect with consumers and share their dairy story while networking with their peers and industry professionals. Programs are available in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. To be considered, applicants must be enrolled in a post-secondary school, communicate effectively through writing and speaking and possess a passion for dairy. Applicants do not have to be majoring in agriculture. Ambassadors are expected to serve a one-year term, starting January 1, 2019 and ending December 31, 2019. Ambassadors participate in a variety of activities which may include interaction with consumers at county and state fairs, school presentations and attendance at dairy industry meetings. Each ambassador will receive a $1,000 scholarship at the end of their term. The Dairy Ambassador program is a coordinated effort between Midwest Dairy and various colleges and state extension programs within the eight states where programs are available. The program began in Nebraska five years ago and has since grown to include multiple states. It is effective in shaping future dairy champions to promote the dairy community and supports Midwest Dairys mission to give consumers an excellent dairy experience. Students can apply at MidwestDairy.com, in the For Farmers section, under Ambassadors. Applications are due December 1, 2018. Selected ambassadors will be notified before January 1, 2019. If you have questions, please contact Theresa Reps at treps@midwestdairy.com or 651-383-3737. Midwest Dairy represents 7,000 dairy farm families and works on their behalf to build dairy demand by inspiring consumer confidence in our products and production practices. We are committed to Bringing Dairy to Life! by Giving Consumers an Excellent Dairy Experience and are funded by farmers across a 10-state region, including Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. For more information, visit MidwestDairy.com. Follow us on Twitter and find us on Facebook at Midwest Dairy. IceViking strongly condemns physical attacks and harassment directed towards them. They are also often victims of the Islamic idea. This is true when it comes to the cruel and tragic treatment of Muslim women and children when it is in accord with the Koran, the example of Mohammed and Islamic law, Sharia, which may be applied regardless of where a Muslim male may find himself in the world, whether in a Muslim or non-Muslim country. However, in no way, shape or form should one judge all Muslim men because of what is in Islamic scripture and what constitutes the Islamic law, Sharia. "Race", ethnicity or basically anything that you are "merely" born with should never be a basis for bigotry and discrimination. Apostates from Islam have been executed for 1400 years in accord with the Koran and the words and actions of the Islamic prophet Mohammed and Islamic law, Sharia. They should be lovingly helped. Furthermore, approximately as many as 11,000,000 Muslims may have been killed by other Muslims since 1948. To quote the website The Religion of Peace (TROP), edited by Glen Roberts: While it may be safe to say that a true Muslim would not intentionally kill another true Muslim ( 4:92-93 ), the Quran places no such value on the life of a Muslim who is not true. Consider verse 9:73 : Strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be harsh against them, their abode is Hell. The Arabic for strive hard uses the same root as Jihad - and the context in this sura is holy war (see v. 86 and 91). Thus, there are two distinct classes of people that a true Muslim is to target with harshness: disbelievers and hypocrites. A disbeliever obviously refers to a non-Muslim, so a "hypocrite" must be a Muslim of some sort. In fact, hypocrites are those who say they believe, but do not act as they should. In other words, they are "Muslims", but not true Muslims. They will go to hell just as unbelievers do, and so, according to the verse, their lives matter for naught. The same sura says that a hypocrite can be recognized not just by lack of piety (reluctance to follow Sharia), but by fear of death ( 9:56 ), reluctance to fight ( 9:44-45 ) and even friendliness toward non-believers ( 9:67 ). A true Muslim would thus be a pious person who relishes martyrdom, is eager to fight, and shuns non-believers. Even the Quranic passage that warns against killing "believers" ( 4:88-94 ) is more complicated than it first appears. It never says that a true Muslim is incapable of killing another Muslim, just that it should not be done. In fact, it makes exceptions for the unintentional killing of "believers" in war and mandates the killing of "hypocrites." Verse 17:33 says, "Do not kill anyone which Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause" . The greatest cause of all is that Islam be superior ( 9:33 ), which is exactly what Islamic terrorists say is their goal. Thus believing Muslims are allowed to be collateral damage in the war on unbelievers. There is sadly a phenomena that I`ve noticed in Sweden and elsewhere of people using true facts about Islamic doctrine and history as a cover for all sorts of irrational targeting of Muslims, ranging from xenophobia and racism to verbal abuse and physical attacks. This is strongly condemned by this website and does not in any way serve serious criticism of orthodox Islam and other important work. It`s also important that one tries to express oneself in a civilized way. Words matter. In this bloggers humble opinion the root cause of the problem is the ancient doctrine of orthodox Islam. In simple terms a non-Muslim is a Kafir. " The Koran defines the kafir and kafir is not a neutral word. A kafir is not merely someone who does not agree with Islam, but a kafir is evil, disgusting, the lowest form of life." An exact quote, as stated in the writings of Dr. Bill Warner in the article "Kafir" at http://www.politicalislam.com/kafir . In the perfect Koran (Allah`s direct and literal word as revealed to Mohammed through the angel Jibril), Muslims are told 89 times to emulate Mohammed in all ways (see Koran 33:21 for instance). Mohammed`s example, the Sunna, is found in the Hadith (stories of what Mohammed said and did) and the Sira (biographies of Mohammed). Islamic law, Sharia , is directly derived from these unchanging scriptures. It is based on the Koran`s numerous commands to obey Allah and obey the Messenger, that is Mohammed (see Koran 4:59 for instance). Islam is Sharia. Sharia is Islam. It is a capital crime for Muslims to deny Sharia in any way. A Muslim is someone who submits to Islam and submitting to Islam means obeying the Sharia of Allah. Sharia law includes pronouncements for both Muslims and non-Muslims (Kafirs). Islam is a "complete way of life", a "complete code of life", a "complete system of life". Islam is not just a religion but also a comprehensive ideology. Islam is a supremacist ideology. Islam is a totalitarian and imperialistic ideology akin to Communism and Nazism. Islam is a civilization. Islamic law, Sharia, is a manual for a civilization. Islamic law, Sharia, governs every aspect of life. It has a say about every conceivable human act . Non-Muslims are morally and legally inferior in Islam. Women are morally and legally inferior in Islam. The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS by Robert Spencer is the first one-volume history of jihad in the English language and a great book on the topic. Allah guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for him (Koran 9:111). A hadith depicts a Muslim asking Muhammad: "Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward)." Muhammad replied, "I do not find such a deed." (Bukhari 4.52.44) Muhammad himself said: I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah, and he who professed it was guaranteed the protection of his property and life on my behalf except for the right affairs rest with Allah. (Sahih Muslim 30) Freedom of speech, human rights, democracy, science and human lives are all at stake in the fight against the Islamic Jihad. 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 Editors note: Earlier this year, Sam Northern, a National Board-certified Teacher-Librarian at Simpson Elementary School in Franklin, Kentucky, traveled to Finland as part of the The Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching (DAT) Program . While there, he observed classroom instruction and studied best practices in phenomenon-based learning, which allows students to study real-world issues and explore their curiosities. Finland, a geographically remote country in Northern Europe, consistently tops the rankings of the worlds education systems. Not bad for a nation that mandates just one standardized exam at the end of 12th grade. Despite the Finnish education systems success, in 2016, the country underwent a national curriculum reform. Since then, Finnish students receive periods of phenomenon-based learning (PhenoBL), a type of inquiry-based learning. A phenomenon is defined as something that exists and can be seen, felt, tasted, etc., especially something unusual or interesting. Examples of phenomena include scientific discoveries, trends in technology, and natural disasters. Learning about or witnessing phenomena sparks our curiosities. With PhenoBL, students interact around real-world issues to investigate a problem or explore a curiosity from multiple vantage points. Students study phenomena as complete entities in their real contexts along with related interdisciplinary [or intersecting] information and skills. It is the process of exploring questions using evidence collected from research. The information that is gathered is studied with and against existing models and theories. The insight gained from their investigations lead students to new understandings. Finnish students use this hands-on approach to explore themes ranging from entrepreneurship to space exploration. Figure 1 outlines learning strategies for each phase of the inquiry process, as adapted from the American Association of School Librarians . Through investigative research and product design, students master learning standards and develop passions that last a lifetime. PhenoBL in Action In Finland, I observed The English School in Helsinki conduct a phenomenon week that centered on the concept of time. The English Schools entire student body from pre-school to grade six participated in the phenomenon-based learning event. Students approached it from many angles: First and second grade classrooms learned about Finnish clockmakers and then constructed their own grandfather clocks out of cardboard. Third grade students created calendars from different cultures throughout history. Fourth and fifth graders projected the future of their city by designing blueprints and maps. Sixth grade classrooms used the phenomenon of time to create visual itineraries for their annual class trip to England. Every single project was the result of questions posed by students. Students inquiries about time motivated and directed the learning process. Benefits of PhenoBL Phenomenon-based learning gives students the opportunity to explore. I observed a sixth grade class in Finland use high-tech virtual reality equipment to explore Google Earth . Students viewed locations from around the world in three dimensions. They even interacted with the environment using motion-tracked handheld controllers. For the countries selected, students prepared detailed itineraries and travel brochures based on their research. During PhenoBL, students create. Finnish students explored design during their phenomenon-based learning week. After researching famous Finnish designers, students used Tinkercad , a 3D design program, to make their own creations. Designs ranged from the practical (furniture) to the imaginative (new modes of transportation). Students use PhenoBL to advocate. Some Finnish seventh grade students researched the amount of water usage in their community and in their homes. They created graphs depicting this information along with facts and statistics to show the need for conservation. In addition to the research, students programmed LEGO robots to solve a set of missions that pertained to waterhow we find, transport, use, or dispose of it. At the end of the project, groups presented their research, programmed robotics, and proposed water conservation solutions to a panel of judges. The project began with students desire to explore real life phenomenon and create their own models, which led them to advocate for action. PhenoBL also promotes teacher collaboration. At Espoonlahti School in Finland, teachers from different disciplines team up to develop and implement interdisciplinary phenomenon projects. For example, art and physics classes collaborate to learn how to use lighting when photographing. Biology and cooking classes collaborate on projects to learn about marine life before preparing special seafood dishes. A Lasting Impact The results of PhenoBL extend beyond a final presentation. Students will experience the inquiry process, develop 21st-century skills, and discover a new or renewed passion for learning. Still, a culminating product is a major component of inquiry-based learning because it gives students the opportunity to share their learning with an audience. There are a number of formats students can choose from to demonstrate their learning. PhenoBL encourages students to consider new alternatives for sharing their projects. I have seen students create digital and physical posters, three-dimensional models, graphic designs, and short videos. All of these presentation methods are visible and, therefore, acceptable. The presentations turned out to be a lot of fun and, hopefully, positively affected someone in the crowd. Yes, a fascinating phenomenon is at the center of Finlands newest instructional model. Yet, without students engaging with the elements of inquiry, the phenomenon is like the Sun without orbiting planets. Students curiosities about the topic, their quest for information, and their efforts constructing products that demonstrate learning is what makes the phenomenon so interesting. PhenoBL sparks students to do more than shoot for the stars. It challenges them to pursue their dreams through a new way of learning that was previously left uncovered. Connect with Sam , Heather , and the Center for Global Education on Twitter. Table by created and used with permission of the author. Photo taken by and used with permission of the author. - Vice Ganda recently took a trip to Hong Kong along with his friends and the Hashtags - The video showed Vice and the Hashtags enjoying themselves over food and Disneyland - The fans had fun commenting on who they recognized in the short video PAY ATTENTION: Click "See First" under the "Following" tab to see It is not just on-screen when Vice Ganda can be funny and entertaining. It is also when he is out and about and off-camera. He recently took a trip to Hong Kong with the Hashtags and his other friends. In a video collage posted by The Pinoy Channel, you can see Vice and company have lunch then go and have fun in Disneyland PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read The almost 4 minute long video was clearly taken from different Instagram stories including Vice Gandas. The fans obviously didnt mind because it was their opportunity to get to see their idols just being themselves without being bombarded by screaming fans. POPULAR: Read more news about Vice Ganda! Read more The fans had a field day upon watching their idols on YouTube and started commenting on the video pointing out the people they spotted. Sino po ang mga Hashtags kasama po ni Vice? Nakita ko sina Wilbert Kid Maru Jimboy at Vitto Other fans commented how inspired they were of Vice Gandas accomplishments. From zero to milyonaryo = meme vice ganda Apak apakan mo sarili mo para matupad mo lahat ng pangarap mo kakainspire si meme Then since the video showed a lot of Kid Yambao, the focus of the comments were mostly on him. Pogi ko KID vaaakkklllaaannnggg toohh Yung thumbnail mukha girl si kit Love you meme hehe I love u din Kay k1d..... What do you think? Hit us up on the comments below. Vice Ganda got started in showbiz as a stand-up comedian. He got his first break as a guest stand-up comic for Wowowee. The 42-year old is now a successful actor and producer and even a mainstay host in Its Showtime. In a previous report by , Vice Ganda gives an early Christmas gift to unsuspecting tricycle driver. Today we are going to ask Philippines strangers some very funny Tagalog tricky questions! Do you think you can answer them correctly? These individuals from the Philippines have their answers! What Does Monkey-Eating-Eagle Eat? This questions might sound easy, but in reality, they are pretty tricky and it is easy to make a mistake! - on Source: Kami.com.ph Power cuts were due to the debts accumulated over the past period. Since late Tuesday, October 31, residents of two so-called "Voitsekhovsky Apartment Blocks," located on 19 and 19A Kharkiv Highway in Kyiv, have been blocking the motorway after power supplies were cut to their homes. Protesters only allow passage of ambulances and trams, the Ukrainian news outlet Hromadske wrote on October 31. The residents plan to continue the rally until power supplies are restored. In the morning, activists came out to negotiate with DTEK, the electricity supplier company. According to one of the protesters, Vadym Nahorny, his house was disconnected from electricity over a UAH 2.7 million (US$95,745) debt before DTEK Kyiv Power Grids. Read alsoKlitschko: ambulance response time in Kyiv down from 1 hour to just 10 minutes As UNIAN reported earlier, on August 3, 2017, residents of the "Voitsekhovsky Apartments" had already blocked traffic due to problems with electricity and water supplies. As a result of their talks with authorities and Kyivenergo, an agreement was reached on the restoration of power supplies. Kyiv Mayor's adviser and Ukrainian MP Dmytro Belotserkovets said that five of the seven houses in the residential area had not been properly put into operation, while two of them had been put into operation "fraudulently" under court decisions issued before 2014. According to Belotserkovets, there are two elements to the problem: the accumulated multi-million dollar debt for electricity supplied at a commercial rate, which forced Kyivenergo curtail its services, and an unfinished power supply system. The relevant decree is posted on the presidential website. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has tapped former head of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's main department in Kyiv Oleksandr Tereshchuk, who was dismissed under the lustration law and then reinstated in July 2015 and who has been First Deputy Chairman of Odesa Regional State Administration until recently, to work as governor in Kyiv region. Prior to that, the president dismissed Kyiv region's Governor Oleksandr Horhan based on a letter of resignation. Decree No. 348/2018 of October 30, on Horhan's dismissal and Decree No. 349/2018 of October 30, on Tereshchuk's appointment as Chairman of Kyiv Regional State Administration are available on the presidential website. UNIAN memo. Tereshchuk was born in Vinnitsa region in 1964. In 1991, he graduated from Kyiv Higher School under the Ministry of Internal Affairs. From March 2008 to March 2010, he was Deputy Head of the Main Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in Kyiv and headed of the HR department. From March 2010 to June 2012, he worked as chief of Kyiv's Holosiyivsky district police. From June 2012 to November 2012, he headed the anti-drug-trafficking department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. From November 17, 2012 to July 2014, he was police chief in Volyn region. He was serving in the northwestern city of Lutsk when the Revolution of Dignity broke out in Ukraine. He reportedly sent Berkut riot police officers from Lutsk to Kyiv's Maidan, fulfilling the then interior minister's order. Tereshchuk resigned in February 2014 right after the then president Viktor Yanukovych fled Ukraine. Read also"Yanukovych Helipad" handed back to Kyiv municipal community After the Maidan events, he returned to Kyiv and was appointed police chief in the city of Kyiv in July 2014. Almost one year after, in June 2015, he was dismissed under the so-called lustration law, which is a special public employment law regulating the process of examining whether a person holding certain higher public posts worked or collaborated with the Yanukovych regime. But on July 3, 2015, Poroshenko signed an order to withdraw Tereshchuk from the effect of the lustration law and reinstated him in office at the request of the parliament's national security and defense committee. Yet, in December 2015, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced Tereshchuk had been dismissed, citing the latter's reluctance in reforms of the law-enforcement sector. Some media reported that Tereshchuk had been fired for attempts to stall the police reform and organize rallies with the involvement of former police officers against the then head of the National Police, reformist Khatia Dekanoidze. But Tereshchuk found a new job, and from April 2017 to October 30, 2018, he served as First Deputy Chairman of Odesa Regional State Administration. At that post, he was engaged in routine issues of the region's life. Particularly during my sojourns in South Africa, it may not be possible for me to perform the moderation function speedily. I regret the necessity of moderation but it has been rendered inevitable by the behaviour of a particular commentator whose contributions will always and without exception be rejected. No correspondence will be entered into regarding moderation decisions. Readers are invited to comment on blog posts. All comments require to be pre-moderated by me, and I shall reject all (a) that are not related to the Lockerbie disaster or (b) that fail to meet my -- perhaps idiosyncratic -- standards of courtesy towards other contributors. Comments will not be rejected simply because I disagree with them or because I, or other contributors, find them irritating. But comments will be rejected if they distort or misrepresent the evidence; are defamatory; or if they risk embroiling me, as publisher, in defamation proceedings. I am perfectly relaxed about being sued in respect of material which I personally have posted -- but not in respect of material that others wish to post as comments and which, in any case, I often strongly disagree with. Tuesday, October 30, 2018 The Oklahoma Supreme Court accepted the resignation of an attorney who had difficulty complying with alcohol-related driving laws as reflected below (a) State of Oklahoma v. John Eldon Dalton, Oklahoma County, Case No. CF 2016-2943: On April 19, 2016, Dalton was charged with (Count 1) Driving Under the Influence and (Count 2) Driving Under Revocation. On July 13, 2018, after Dalton pled guilty to these charges, he was sentenced to twenty years as to Count 1 and one year as to Count 2, suspended, all counts to run concurrent with each other and concurrent with his sentence in Oklahoma County, Case No. CF-2013-572 and to attend weekend community service and to pay fines. (b) State of Oklahoma v. John Eldon Dalton, Oklahoma County, Case No. CF-2013-572: On January 24, 2013, Dalton was charged with (Count 1) Driving While Under the Influence and (Count 2) Speeding. On June 13, 2013, after Dalton pled guilty to these charges, he was sentenced to a ten-year suspended sentence as to Count 1 and a fine only as to Count 2. (c) State of Oklahoma v. John Eldon Dalton, Oklahoma County, Case No. CF-2009-1638: On March 12, 2009, Dalton was charged with (Count 1) Driving Under the Influence and (Count 2) Driving While Privilege Revoked. Dalton entered a plea of guilty with a delayed sentencing agreement and performance contract for Drug /DUI Court on May 20, 2009. On December 30, 2010, this case was dismissed against Dalton for his successful completion of Drug/DUI Court. (d) State of Oklahoma v. John Eldon Dalton, Oklahoma County Case No. CF-2006-6224: On September 25, 2006, Dalton was charged with (Count 1) Driving Under the Influence and (Count 2) Driving While Privilege Revoked. On May 16, 2007, after Dalton pled guilty to these charges, he was sentenced to six years suspended as to Count 1 and Count 2 was dismissed. (e) State of Oklahoma v. John Eldon Dalton, Oklahoma County, Case No. CF-2003-6442: On November 24, 2003, Dalton was charged with Driving Under the Influence. On February 9, 2004, after he pled guilty to this charge, he was sentenced to five years, suspended, along with fines, community service, random urinalyses and other programs. As a result of this conviction, Dalton was issued a Private Reprimand by the Professional Responsibility Commission on March 26, 2004 (State of Oklahoma ex rel. Oklahoma Bar Association v. John Eldon Dalton, OBAD No. 1606). (Mike Frisch) https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2018/10/the-oklahoma-supreme-court-accepted-the-resignation-of-an-attorney-who-had-difficulty-complying-with-alcohol-related-driving.html Chinese officials say the country will permit trading of products made from endangered tigers and rhinos in special cases. The decision ended a ban that had been in effect since 1993. No reason was given for lifting the ban. A government statement issued on Monday did not note any change to existing law. Instead, the statement said the government would control the trade. The new rules permit the sale of rhino horns and tiger bones from farmed animals. The animal parts may be sold only if the products are for medical research or treatment. Tiger bone and rhino horn are used in traditional Chinese medicine. There is a lack of evidence, however, that they are effective in treating disease. The statement said the central government urged governments at all levels to improve publicity activities for protecting rhinos and tigers to help the public actively boycott any illegal purchases. Wildlife conservation groups have condemned the decision. The U.S.-based World Wildlife Fund said the move would lead to devastating results around the world. It said illegal hunters would be able to hide behind the legalized trade. Margaret Kinnaird is with the World Wildlife Fund. She said in a statement, With wild tiger and rhino populations at such low levels and facing numerous threats, legalized trade in their parts is simply too great a gamble for China to take. She added that the decision appeared to go against, in her words, the leadership China has shown recently in tackling the illegal wildlife trade. China banned the sale of ivory from elephant tusks earlier this year, a move that conservationists praised. Britains Environmental Investigation Agency said the move hurts international efforts for tiger and rhino conservation. The group added that China has destroyed its reputation as a growing leader in conservation. Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Chinas position on protecting endangered animals is unchanged. He said the changes are aimed at making earlier rules clearer and increasing enforcement. There are fewer than 4,000 wild tigers left in the world, according to 2016 reports. Studies estimate the population of wild rhinos to be less than 30,000. Im Ashley Thompson. The Associated Press reported this story. Ashley Thompson adapted it for Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story endangered adj. describes a kind of animal or plant that has become very rare that could die out completely gamble n. something that could produce a desired result or a bad result tackle v. to deal with something conservation n. the protection of animals, plants and natural resources reputation n. the common opinion that people have about someone or something The Halloween holiday is October 31. Tens of millions of children will put on costumes that night and visit their neighbors homes. The neighbors will give them candy. Americans are expected to spend about $9 billion on Halloween this year. Most of the money is spent on costumes, decorations and candy. The National Retail Federation estimates that more than 175 million Americans are planning to take part in Halloween activities this year. The online candy seller CandyStore.com looked through 11 years of data to learn which Halloween candy is most popular in each American state. The company found that, overall, Skittles, M&M's and Snickers are the most popular candies. The favorite candy of Texans, though, is Reeses Peanut Butter Cup. And candy corn came in first in the states of Alabama, Michigan, Idaho and New Mexico. But children who live in Oregon may be among the luckiest in America; larger-size candy bars are a usual treat in the northwestern state. What will children wear this Halloween? The National Retail Federation says princess, superhero and Batman costumes are the most popular choices among kids. Adults, however, favor frightening characters, like witches and vampires. Even America's animals are getting into the action. Dog and cat owners plan to dress their animal friends as pumpkins, hotdogs and bumblebees, the retail group says. Im Caty Weaver. Dora Mekouar wrote this story for VOA News. Caty Weaver adapted it for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor. ____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story costume - n. the clothes that are worn by someone (such as an actor) who is trying to look like a different person or thing candy - n. a sweet food made with sugar or chocolate decoration - n. something that is added to something else to make it look more appealing witch - n. a woman who is thought to have magic powers vampire - n. a dead person who leaves the grave at night to bite and suck the blood of living people pumpkin - n. a large, round, orange vegetable used as food and sometimes as a decoration hot dog - n. a small cooked sausage that is mild in flavor and is usually served in a long roll (called a hot dog bun) bumblebee - n. a large, hairy kind of bee; (bee. a black and yellow flying insect that can sting and that is often kept in hives for the honey that it produces) Thirty five miles north of Charlotte, suburban Lake Norman, named as one of the best places in North Carolina to bring up a family, is a fast-growing area that now features a Chabad center for the areas Jewish families. In late September, as Hurricane Florence made landfall, Rabbi Chaim and Chaya Greenberg and their baby, Rivka, opened the doors of Chabad of Lake Norman. Families who had recently moved to the area told us they missed their Chabad centers back home, and we are glad to fill the niche, says Chaya. According to Chaim, an estimated 2,000 of the areas 130,000 residents, are Jewish. Some are members of the local Reform temple, but the majority are not affiliated. We want these people to know that, at Chabad they have a home, he says. We can celebrate and grow together, regardless of our Jewish knowledge or background. The Greenbergs hosted many families over the High Holiday period and are now working on plans for Chanukah. They are arranging public menorah lightings and are collaborating with the Home Depot to host a menorah building workshop for children. They will also be reaching out to the handful of Jewish students at Davidson College, located in the Lake Norman area. Though the Jewish students are a tiny minority on campus, we want to bring Jewish programs to them too. For more information and to support Chabad of Lake Norman, visit www.chabadlakenorman.com The man accused of killing 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh reportedly left messages on a small social media service. The suspect, Robert Bowers, was charged with 29 crimes, including hate crimes, related to the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The attack on the Jewish religious center also injured at least six others, including four police officers. On the morning of the shooting, a person using the name of Robert Bowers posted an anti-Semitic message on a social media service called Gab. The message targeted a Jewish nonprofit group called HIAS. The group seeks to help refugees around the world. The message said: HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. The post continued, I cant sit by and watch my people get slaughteredIm going in. Officials said Bowers called out "All Jews must die," before he fired at people inside the synagogue. The Southern Poverty Law Center is a nonprofit civil rights group. It said an examination of the suspects social media activity on Gab showed he had posted or reposted content at least 68 times. It said the postings often dealt with numerous anti-Semitic conspiracy theories long publicized by neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups. By Monday, Gab was no longer available on the internet after several companies supporting the site cut off services for policy violations. The Gab service was launched in 2016 by Andrew Torba. He said his purpose was to provide another social media choice for people facing restrictions by other services. The site gained popularity as Twitter and Facebook sought to ban members of a movement known as the alt-right. The alt-right is a far-right movement that publicizes extreme ideas -- mainly on the internet. Twitter, Facebook and other social media have said bans are carried out when users violate policies against hate speech or threats of violence, not because of their political views. On its Twitter page, Gab describes itself as built, owned and funded by The People, with a mission to defend individual liberty and free expression online." The service lets users read and write messages called gabs. The company that hosted the site, GoDaddy, said it decided to end its service because Gab had violated a policy against promoting violence. Payment company PayPal also banned Gab from using its services. Apple and Google blocked app sales of Gab for violating hate speech policies. In an interview published Tuesday on the internet, Torba said he was horrified when he learned the shooting suspect had used Gab. He said Bowers clearly violated a company policy that bans threats of violence and terrorism. But Torba said he did not know about Bowers or his postings until after the attack. Torba said his company had fully cooperated with U.S. law enforcement officials since the attack to bring justice to an alleged terrorist. He added, Because of the data we provided, they now have plenty of evidence for their case. In a statement, Torba called the actions against his site and new criticism after the Pittsburgh shooting unfair. He says the site simply aims to defend free expression for all individuals. Social media often brings out the best and the worst of humanity, his statement said. He added that he was working to find new partner companies to support the service so it can return to the internet. Gab isnt going anywhere, he wrote. Other sites known to be popular with alt-right groups are 4chan and Reddit. These sites both have areas where members can read and post political views. Oren Segal is the director of the Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism. He told Yahoo News his organization has already observed internet discussions among extremists about what will happen if Gab goes away forever. He said it is highly likely that another service sharing Gabs views on uncensored speech would take over. This is the beginning of this discussion, Segal said. Gab being taken down is not the end. Im Bryan Lynn. Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English, based on reports from the Associated Press, Reuters and other online sources. Mario Ritter was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page. _______________________________________________________________ Quiz - Reports: Accused Pittsburgh Killer Put Racist Posts on Social Media Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story synagogue n. the house of worship and communal center of a Jewish congregation slaughter v. to kill a lot of people in a cruel way conspiracy theory n. a belief that an event or situation is the result of a secret plan made by powerful people view n. an opinion or way of thinking about something liberty n. the freedom to live, work and travel as you desire promote v. encourage something to happen or develop app n. a computer program that performs a special function alleged adj. accused of something not yet legally proven data n. information or facts about something plenty adj. a lot of something President Donald Trump says he wants to end to the constitutional right of citizenship for babies born in the United States to non-U.S. citizens. Trump made the comments on the television program Axios on HBO. They come a week before general elections, also called mid-term elections. The name comes from the fact that they come half way through the president's four-year term in office. The Associated Press (AP) reports that the president wants to energize his supporters and help the Republican Party keep control of Congress. Trump has expressed concern about a large group of Central American migrants walking across Mexico toward the U.S. border. On Monday, the Trump administration announced it is sending thousands of troops to the border area. The president has said he will build tent cities for those seeking asylum. Does president have the power? For years, Trump and many U.S. conservatives have called for an end to birthright citizenship. One idea is for the president to sign an executive order to suspend that constitutional right. But it is not clear if a president has the power to declare that children born in the United States to those living here illegally are not citizens. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees that right for all children born in the United States. When asked if he had the power to make such a change, Trump said, theyre saying I can do it just with an executive order. He added that were the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby isa citizen of the United States. A 2010 study from the Center for Immigration Studies showed that 30 countries offered birthright citizenship. Some of Trumps recent comments were published Tuesday on Axioss website. The president said that government lawyers are studying his proposal. It is unclear how quickly he would act on the executive order. A person close to the Trump White House said the issue of birthright citizenship had been raised many times during the past year. However, some White House officials reportedly expressed opposition to any change. White House lawyers will work with the Justice Department to develop a legal justification for the action, the person said. The person added that it is one of many immigration policy changes being discussed. Some legal experts say no Legal experts questioned whether Trump has the power to make such changes with an executive order. Omar Jadwat is the director of the Immigrants Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York. He noted that the U.S. Constitution is very clear. If you are born in the United States, youre a citizen, he said. He added that it was outrageous that the president can think he can override constitutional guarantees by issuing an executive order. Jadwat said the president is required to defend the Constitution. He added that Trump can try to get Congress to pass a constitutional amendment, but he said, "I dont think they are anywhere close to getting that. Any decision by Congress would end up in court, Jadwat said. Suzanna Sherry is a professor of law at Vanderbilt Law School in Tennessee. She told the Associated Press that people who are telling Trump he can change the Constitution with an executive order are mistaken. He cant do it by himself, she said, adding that he cannot do it even if Congress agrees. Sherry said, I think it would take a Constitutional amendment. Under the Constitution, an amendment may be proposed by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Or two-third of state legislatures must call for a special meeting, or constitutional convention. Others disagree But other experts say the U.S. president may have the power to end birthright citizenship. Jon Feere is an adviser at Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He has argued that that the president could limit citizenship through an executive order. Feere wrote that a president could direct the government to follow his interpretation of the Supreme Courts past rulings. The court has only ruled on the children of legal immigrants. It has not ruled on the children of those asking for asylum or those who are in the country illegally. Feere also wrote that a president could tell the government to give Social Security numbers and passports only to children who have at least one parent who is a citizen or parents who are in the United States legally. His argument was published in The Hill in 2015. The first line of the 14th Amendment states that All persons born or naturalized in the United Statesare citizens of the United States Congress passed the 14th Amendment in 1866 after the Civil War. It was agreed to by three-fourths of the states in 1868. At the time, the amendment was seen as a way to guarantee citizenship to freed slaves and their children. Im Ashley Thompson. And I'm Mario Ritter. The Associated Press reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it for Learning English. The editor was George Grow. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story tent n.a cloth house for temporary living birthright n.the rights given to a person at birth executive adj.something from the Presidential arm of the government outrageous adj.very bad or wrong in a way that causes anger, too bad to be accepted or allowed interpretation n.the way something is explained or understood convention - n. a large meeting of people Samsung has unveiled two new image sensors for smartphone cameras that let you snap high-resolution images using a tiny camera. The 32MP ISOCELL Bright GD1 and 48MP ISOCELL Bright GM1 should go into mass production before the end of the year, which means we could see them in smartphones early next year. Both sensors feature 0.8 micrometer designs, allowing cameras to capture more pixels without taking up much space. But they also both use Samsungs latest pixel isolation technology for improved performance and the ability to combine data from multiple pixels to capture more light when youre shooting an 8MP or 12MP image. Samsung says that feature allows the sensors to offer the same level of light sensitivity youd expect from an image sensor with 1.6 micrometer pixels. Other features include support for electronic image stabilization, and real-time high dynamic range processing for still photos and videos. Theres no word on which phones will make use of the new camera sensors, but I wouldnt be surprised to see them in the Galaxy S10 when Samsung unveils it early next year. Samsung isnt the first company to offer a smartphone with such a high pixel count. Sony recently introduced its own 48MP image sensor. Huaweis latest flagships have 40MP cameras. And Nokias Lumia 1020 smartphone packed a 41MP camera when it was release way back in 2013. Share this article: Share this: Facebook Twitter Reddit Pocket Tumblr Pinterest LinkedIn Email We listen to local police and fire departments scanner traffic, but sometimes miss crimes, wrecks, fires or other incidents, especially if they happen overnight. If you know of something were not covering yet, please let Managing Editor Jeff Pownall know by emailing him at jpownall@lufkindailynews.com, or submit a news tip online by visiting lufkindailynews.com/tips. For the next few weeks, Rick will be out and about discussing his new edited volume, Bush-Obama School Reform: Lessons Learned . While hes away, several of the contributors have agreed to stop by and offer their reflections on what weve learned from the Bush-Obama era. This week, youll hear from Ricks co-editor Mike McShane, director of national research at EdChoice. Mike will be sharing some big-picture thoughts about why the Bush-Obama era matters and what it has to teach. When Bush-Obama School Reform: Lessons Learned was released, Rick hosted a panel discussion about the book at AEI. Erica Green of the New York Times acted as moderator and asked us all a great question: Where were you when you learned your first lesson of the Bush-Obama school reform era? Its a question that Ive been thinking about since that day, and Id like to expound on it a bit more. Ill admit, I was not as seasoned as my fellow panelists. As I said at the time, I was a junior in high school when President Bush signed No Child Left Behind into law, and had just finished teaching high school and was preparing to start graduate school when President Obama announced Race to the Top. By the time I came onto the scene most of the cake was baked. Ill admit, I came to Washington, D.C. back in 2012 optimistic about the general direction of federal education policy. I bought into the bipartisan plaudits that Race to the Top and Secretary Duncan had received. I listened to folks like David Coleman talk about the goals of the Common Core and thought that it was something worth carefully considering, if not supporting. Maybe I had watched too many episodes of The West Wing, but I thought everything was just going to fall into place. I realized that might not be so when Rick recommended that I read Jeffrey Pressman and Aaron Wildavskys 1973 classic Implementation to help frame a chapter I was writing for a project that became Common Core Meets Education Reform . (Funny story, I actually lied to Rick and told him that I had read the book in grad school and totally understood why he was telling me to reference it. I then scurried home, immediately ordered it on Amazon, and tore through it as soon as it arrived. Ah youth!) Pressman and Wildavskys compelling tale of a federal works project in Oakland, California, presents a simple and intuitive framework for estimating the likelihood of a particular program working according to plan. First, estimate the likelihood that each of the steps that needs to take place for the program to be successful will actually happen. Then, combine the individual probabilities into one big cumulative probability for the entire enterprise. Those of you who are mathematically inclined will see the issue right away. Even for a set of high-probability events, the likelihood that all of them break the right way is low. Think about a series of ten events that each has a 95 percent chance of happening. Multiply 0.95 by 0.95 ten times and you end up with 0.6, or a 60 percent chance of everything working out. Ten events with a 90 percent probability (which is still super high!) lead to a cumulative probability of only 35 percent. Change two of those ten events to a coin flip, and youre at an 11 percent cumulative probability. And this is only 10 events; the more you add, the lower the final number. OK, no more math, I promise. The point that Im trying to make here is just that the more complicated programs are, and the more folks that have to make key decisions, and the more veto points that are included at different levels of government, the more events get added to the chain that have to all work in order for the overall project to work. Each addition makes the overall likelihood of success decrease. The Common Core was more than just changing standards, and teacher evaluation was more than just passing a law. Huge changes needed to be made in assessments, classroom practice, school management, and much more. Each possessed a huge chain of events that needed to work out in order for the project to be successful. Those chains were broken all over the place. On the flip side, some of the policy changes incentivized by Race to the Top and other federal efforts had far fewer events that had to come together. Getting states to lift charter caps, for example, was really just passing a single law. Getting them to break down the firewall between student records and teacher records was straightforward as well. So was cutting checks to help finance charter school facilities. Fewer events, fewer actors, higher likelihood of success. Those bullish on the federal governments ability to effect positive change should think deeply about what kinds of projects they want the federal government to tackle. The more complex the change, the less likely the federal government can get it done. Mike McShane 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. 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Participants will include faculty and researchers from higher education institutions and organizations working for the well being of refugees and migrants on a daily basis, such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the Center for Migration Studies in New York and the Jesuit Refugee Service. Registration is now open for the conference. Last year, the first conference of the RME network in Rome not only presented best practices in the field of refugee and migrant education, but also connected researchers and institutions working for their well being. The 2017 conference concluded with an audience with Pope Francis, who urged participants to acknowledge that universities have a special duty of studying causes of remote migration. He stressed that "it is likewise important to take into account the reactions negative in principle, at times even discriminatory and xenophobic that the arrival of migrants is generating in countries of ancient Christian Tradition, in order to recommend programs for educating consciences. With this in mind, the upcoming conference at Manhattan College will also focus on education about refugees and migrants, which is crucial for a better understanding and their acceptance worldwide. "Today, education of refugees and teaching students about migrants and refugees is a major challenge of higher education institutions, but at the same time we see it as an opportunity. An opportunity to show the social responsibility of universities in carrying the mission that Pope Francis entrusted to us during last year's audience" says Anthony Cernera, Ph.D., president of the Being the Blessing Foundation and one of the founders of RME Network. The conference will take place two months after the United Nations discusses the Global Compact on Refugees. "The plight of refugees and migrants worldwide is urgent and complex, demanding our best thinking as well as our sincere commitment to action," said Brennan O'Donnell, president of Manhattan College. "We are pleased to be working in partnership with RME and Being the Blessing Foundation to explore how universities can help provide vital resources in response to pressing needs." The event is being co-sponsored by Manhattan Colleges Peace Studies program, the Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Center and the Catholic Relief Services Faculty Taskforce. For more information, contact Kevin Ahern, Ph.D., assistant professor of religious studies, at kevin.ahern@manhattan.edu or (718) 862-3865. (HealthDay)The American Medical Association (AMA) today announced a new $15 million competitive grant initiative, the "Reimagining Residency" initiative, aimed at improving residency training. The AMA will award $15 million over five years to eight innovations that promote systemic change in graduate medical education. The innovations will be chosen from U.S. graduate medical education sponsors, medical schools, health systems, and/or medical specialty societies. The organizations whose initiatives are chosen will join an AMA-convened consortium to jointly evaluate successes and lessons learned and promote dissemination and adoption of innovations. From Jan. 3 through Feb. 1, 2019, organizations interested in applying for the initiative must submit letters of intent describing the goals and scope of their proposed projects. The AMA will then invite a select group of organizations to submit full proposals by April 17, 2019, and will announce the selected organizations at its annual meeting in June 2019. As part of the consortium, the eight selected institutional partners will meet to agree on "standardized criteria for student assessment, resident selection procedures, on-boarding/transition of students to residency, off-cycle selection of residents, core curriculum for residents in health systems science, and a common evaluation program that measures performance, patient outcomes, and learner well-being," the AMA wrote in a press release. Explore further AMA awards grants for medical education innovation More information: More Information Copyright 2018 HealthDay. All rights reserved. Professor Raimondo Ascione, and Professor Saadeh Suleiman, from the Bristol Heart Institute, will explore whether treatment with two drugs, which are already used in other ways in people with heart conditions, could benefit patients undergoing open-heart surgery. They have been awarded a grant of nearly 300,000 by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) to carry out this work. Open-heart surgery typically requires stopping the heart for one to two hours, while blood is pumped around the body using a heart-lung machine. Despite many advances, stopping the heart in this way still leads to significant injury, which is associated with complications after the surgery. Previous studies carried out in Professors Suleiman and Halestrap's laboratories in rodents showed that consecutive use of two drugs, isoprenaline and adenosine, can activate protective pathways and limit heart damage following a heart attack. The team will now test this discovery in a pig model of heart attack and cardiac surgery at the University of Bristol's Translational Biomedical Research Centre (TBRC). The pig heart is very similar to the human heart in its size, anatomy and function. In the first part of the research project, the scientists will check the safety and feasibility of the surgery and isoprenaline/adenosine treatment and determine suitable doses. In the second part of the study, the team will assess whether this treatment can limit damage caused to the injured pig heart when it is stopped during cardiac surgery and aim to establish the mechanisms underlying any protective effect. Raimondo Ascione, Professor of Cardiac Surgery and Translational Research in the Bristol Medical School, and TBRC Director, who is leading the research, said: "This research could potentially benefit millions of cardiac surgery patients globally, and is aimed at paving the way for future first-in-man trials. "This work, with its multidisciplinary and translational focus, could reduce the use of NHS resources and also benefit the scientific community." Professors Ascione and Suleiman, who have been collaborating for years on this area of research, added: "This research project, because of the relevance of the model to human physiology, will also establish a method for testing new drugs or formulations in the UK, which could benefit people in the future." Dr. Lucie Duluc, Research Advisor at the BHF, said: "Preventing heart injury after surgery would be of huge benefit to the thousands of patients in the UK who have these crucial operations every year. "Professor Ascione and Professor Suleiman have already demonstrated the potential to trigger a protective response within the heart in rodents, and this research is the next step towards translating that potential into a treatment that can benefit patients. "This research will improve our understanding of the ways in which the heart protects itself after loss and restoration of blood supply and may identify new targets to prevent subsequent heart injury. "Funding for this research has only been made possible by the fantastic generosity of the public. We rely on their support to drive forward research programmes in our mission to beat heartbreak forever and ensure that we keep hearts beating and blood flowing." The two-year research project titled 'Consecutive isoprenaline/adenosine to improve myocardial cardioplegic protection in a porcine model of ischemic heart failure with superimposed cardiac surgery' is funded by the BHF and will begin on 1 December 2018. Explore further Mortality still high after surgery for congenital heart defects (HealthDay)Three experimental Ebola vaccines trigger an immune response that lasts for more than two years against the deadly disease, researchers report. In addition to being welcome news for the Ebola outbreak that's now spreading throughout the Democratic Republic of Congo, this success story is spurring research into the development of similar vaccines for other infectious diseases, the researchers added. In the new study, British scientists analyzed blood samples taken from healthy volunteers who had received one of the three Ebola vaccine regimens more than two years earlier. The results showed that all three vaccines "were still producing a strong antibody response to the disease two-and-a-half years after immunization, which is really good news," said study co-author Katie Ewer, from Oxford University in the United Kingdom. The study was presented Monday at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene's annual meeting, in New Orleans. One of the vaccines is already being used to fight the outbreak in the Congo that aid workers are struggling to contain because it is unfolding in a highly dangerous conflict zone. With 155 deaths already confirmed since Ebola was declared in the country's northern region in August, fears of a cross-border epidemic are rising with new cases reported close to the Ugandan frontier, The Telegraph reported this week. Meanwhile, the other two Ebola vaccines are being used as platforms for new vaccines against several other diseases with the potential to cause epidemics, including Lassa fever, Nipah virus disease, and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). "The Ebola vaccine work that intensified after the outbreak in West Africa [2013-2016] has produced an explosion of vaccine development that could leave us much better prepared to fight other outbreaks of infectious diseases," Ewer said in a society news release. "It has helped policy makers and funders understand the need. And that support has helped validate new vaccine platforms, including one that is adaptable for a number of viral diseases," Ewer explained. Study co-author Dr. Matthew Snape, who's also from Oxford, said the findings "will be invaluable when deciding which strategy to use to induce long-lasting protection, for example in health care workers in areas at ongoing risk of Ebola outbreaks." Snape added that "another important question is whether the persistence of this immune response can be enhanced by giving a 'late-booster' dose of vaccine 3 to 4 years after the initial immunization, and we will be studying this in further work in the U.K. and Senegal in the coming year." Research presented at meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. Explore further New evidence of durable immune response to 3 experimental Ebola vaccines helps drive new wave of vaccine development More information: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on Ebola Copyright 2018 HealthDay. All rights reserved. (HealthDay)The prevalence of erectile dysfunction (ED) is 29 percent among male childhood cancer survivors (CCS), according to a research letter published online Oct. 4 in JAMA Oncology. Laura van Iersel, M.D., from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study involving male CCSs aged 18 years or older who had been diagnosed with childhood cancer at least 10 years prior and completed questionnaires on sexual health. Data were included for 1,021 participants; ED scores were available for 956 participants. The researchers found that 29 percent of the participants reported ED. Independent risk factors for ED in sexually active participants included Hispanic or other race/ethnicity, age at the time of the study, and low testosterone levels (relative risks, 1.94, 0.98, and 1.7, respectively). Black race was also a risk factor for ED (relative risk, 1.51) when data of both sexually active and non-sexually active participants were combined. In both the sexually active and combined groups, individuals with greater body image dissatisfaction and low lean muscle mass were more likely to report ED. "Although the results from these analyses are hypothesis-generating and need validation in an independent cohort, our data support the hypothesis that ED may be a modifiable condition in CCSs," the authors write. Explore further Intervention cuts risk for HIV in young transgender women Copyright 2018 HealthDay. All rights reserved. A woman wears this soft and flexible groundbreaking new sensor, developed by the Rogers Research Group at Northwestern University, which uses measurements of temperature and heat transfer to non-invasively tell if and how much fluid is flowing through a shunt in a hydrocephalus patient. In the study, the skin sensor allowed hydrocephalus patients to see within five minutes of placing it on their skin if there was flow through their shunt. Credit: Northwestern University Most people simply take ibuprofen when they get a headache. But for someone with hydrocephalusa potentially life-threatening condition in which excess fluid builds up in the braina headache can indicate a serious problem that can result in a hospital visit, thousands of dollars in scans, radiation and sometimes surgery. A new wireless, Band-Aid-like sensor developed at Northwestern University could revolutionize the way patients manage hydrocephalus and potentially save the U.S. health care system millions of dollars. The current standard of care involves the surgical implantation of a tube known as a 'shunt' to drain this excess fluid out of the brain. Shunts have a nearly 100 percent failure rate over 10 years, and diagnosing shunt failure is notoriously difficult. A Northwestern Medicine clinical study successfully tested the device, known as a wearable shunt monitor, on five adult patients with hydrocephalus. The findings will be published Oct. 31 in Science Translational Medicine. Device could change the lives of a million patients A device like this would be life changing for Willie Meyer, 26, who has undergone 190 surgeries, spent virtually every holiday in the emergency room and almost missed his high school graduation because of emergency brain surgeries. "I'm trying to live a normal life, and I really can't because of the headaches," Meyer said. Hydrocephalus affects one in 1,000 live births and is about as common as Down Syndrome. Treating the condition costs an estimated $50,000 per patient per year, and costs the U.S. health care system about $1 billion per year. If left untreated, hydrocephalus can lead to death. To treat the condition, surgeons implant a straw-like catheter, or shunt, into the brain to drain the excess fluid to another part of the body. More than 1 million Americans live with shunts and the constant threat of their failure. B-roll of this soft and flexible groundbreaking new sensor, developed by the Rogers Research Group at Northwestern University, which uses measurements of temperature and heat transfer to non-invasively tell if and how much fluid is flowing through a shunt in a hydrocephalus patient. In the study, the skin sensor allowed hydrocephalus patients to see within five minutes of placing it on their skin if there was flow through their shunt. Credit: Northwestern University When a shunt fails, the patient can experience headaches, nausea and low energy. A patient experiencing any of these symptoms must visit a hospital because if their symptoms are caused by a malfunctioning shunt, they could be life threatening. Once at the hospital, the patient must get a CT scan or an MRI and sometimes must undergo surgery to see if the shunt is working properly. The groundbreaking new sensor, developed by the Rogers Research Group at Northwestern, allowed patients in the study to determine within five minutes of placing it on their skin if fluid was flowing through their shunt. The soft and flexible sensor uses measurements of temperature and heat transfer to non-invasively tell if and how much fluid is flowing through. "We envision you could do this while you're sitting in the waiting room waiting to see the doctor," said co-lead author Siddharth Krishnan, a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Rogers Research Group. "A nurse could come and place it on you and five minutes later, you have a measurement." 'A Band-Aid talking to a cellphone' A very small rechargeable battery is built into the sensor. The device is Bluetooth enabled so it can talk to a smartphone and deliver the readings via an Android app. "At the end of the day, from a patient perspective, it looks like a Band-Aid that's talking to their cellphone," said co-senior author John A. Rogers. "It's a wearable device with a specific but useful mode of operation that's addressing an unmet need in clinical medicine," said Rogers, the Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Neurological Surgery in the McCormick School of Engineering and a professor of neurological surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "There's nothing like this out there today." Data visualization highlighting the operation of the wearable thermal array as recorded during a live measurement. In this video, the epidermal device integrates conformally onto the skin at a location with an implanted catheter (a "shunt") to drain excess cerebrospinal fluid in patients suffering from hydrocephalus.This sensor pre-dates the Band-Aid-like wearable shunt monitor sensor the authors used in the clinical trial. The materials and thermal physics insights gained from this type of sensor allowed the study authors to refine this design into a much simpler platform suitable for clinical use and wireless integration.The device uses an array of 100 precision temperature sensors to thermally map this location to detect characteristic heat signatures associated with fluid flow to quantitatively assess in a noninvasive manner how well the shunt is working. Credit: Rogers Research Group, Northwestern University Next steps: Clinical pediatric trial and moving beyond the lab A larger pediatric clinical trial will be starting soon at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago with the goal of targeting this very vulnerable population. The study authors are also working on outsourced production on the scale of a few hundred sensors to support this study and further develop the technology. "We realized this couldn't be one of those research projects that stopped with the paper," Krishnan said. "The last few months have been about taking this lab-scale prototype that we've essentially built by hand and thinking about how to make that something that can be manufactured externally with the same level of performance." That would be a relieve for Willie Meyer's mother, Beth Meyer. She said she learned Willie had hydrocephalus when he was two years old after complaining that "his hair hurt." He was too young to know how to vocalize his headache, which is common among pediatric hydrocephalus patients and is a source of stress for their caregivers. "Shunt malfunction symptoms, like headaches or sleepiness, are things kids can have for lots of reasons, like the flu," said co-senior author Dr. Matthew Potts, assistant professor of neurological surgery at Feinberg and a Northwestern Medicine physician. "So if a child has these symptoms, it's very hard to know, and every time your kid says they have a headache or feels a little sleepy, you automatically think, 'Is this the shunt?' We believe that this device can spare patients a lot of the danger and costs of this process." When Willie was younger, Beth said they needed to bring along copies of his CT scans when they traveled, and would research local neurosurgeons in the area in case Willie got a headache. "The biggest part of hydrocephalus is the unpredictability and not being able to know from one day to the next whether you'll be in the emergency room or at home," Beth said. "This type of device would get rid of the uncertainty." Co-lead author Dr. Amit Ayer, a sixth-year neurosurgery resident at Northwestern Medicine and an MBA student at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, has treated Willie's hydrocephalus for the last four years. Ayer said his patients are a driving force behind his motivation to get the device to market. A diagram showing the positioning of the shunt sensor in relation to a catheter used for hydrocephalus (blue line). On the right, the sensor is fixed to a hydrocephalus patient using a soft mounting frame and imaged with doppler ultrasound. Credit: S.R. Krishnan et al., Science Translational Medicine (2018) "Our patients want to know when they can actually use the device and be part of the trial," Ayer said. "I want to get it out there, so we can help make their lives better." Hydrocephalus can affect adults and children. Often the child is born with with the condition, whereas in adults, it can be acquired from some trauma-related injury, such as bleeding inside the brain or a brain tumor, Potts said. Given the uncertainty and failure rates associated with shunts, the technology could create immense savings and improve the quality of life for nearly a million people in the U.S. alone. The science behind the device The sensor advances concepts in skin-like "epidermal electronics," which the Rogers Research Group has been working on for nearly a decade. The sensor uses a thermal transport measurement, which means the sensor uses tiny amounts of thermal power to minimally increase the temperature of the skin. If the shunt is working and the excess cerebral spinal fluid is draining properly, the sensor will measure a characteristic heat signature. Similarly, if there is no flow because the shunt has malfunctioned, the sensor will be able to quickly indicate that through heat flow measurements. The team tested the device in the laboratory before heading to the clinic to perform a pilot study on five patients at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The team could detect clear differences in cases between measurements over working shunts and on adjacent confusing control locations with no flow. "This means if someone wants to check if their shunt is working, say, when they have a headache, they can quickly do what we call a 'spot measurement,'" said co-lead author Dr. Tyler Ray, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Rogers Research Group. "This device can also measure flow throughout the day enabling, for the first time, the possibility of continuously monitoring shunt performance. This can lead to important insights into the dynamics of cerebral spinal fluid flow previously inaccessible with current diagnostic tools and flow measurement techniques." Explore further A smarter device to treat pediatric hydrocephalus and ease parents' worry More information: S.R. Krishnan el al., "Epidermal electronics for noninvasive, wireless, quantitative assessment of ventricular shunt function in hydrocephalus patients," Science Translational Medicine (2018). Journal information: Science Translational Medicine S.R. Krishnan el al., "Epidermal electronics for noninvasive, wireless, quantitative assessment of ventricular shunt function in hydrocephalus patients,"(2018). stm.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/ scitranslmed.aat8437 Credit: imec A transformative technology for detecting and recording neural activity in the brain is now available for researchers to purchase through imec, a leading nanoelectronics research center in Belgium. Neuropixels, a new neural-recording technology that lets scientists simultaneously monitor hundreds of neurons throughout an animal's brain, is now being made available for purchase by the research community. The technology vastly improves upon previous methods of detecting and recording neural activity in the brains of living animals, says Tim Harris, a senior fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)'s Janelia Research Campus and leader of the Neuropixels collaboration. Researchers can now collect "more data as good as they have ever taken and it's easier to obtain than before," he says. That could make it easier for researchers to learn how cells and circuits in the brain work together to process information, he adds. The release of Neuropixels follows five years of development supported by a $5.5 million investment from HHMI, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust. Several million dollars more were contributed by the Allen Institute, Wellcome, and HHMI to support testing, refinement, and specification. Probing the brain Neuropixels probes, thin silicon slivers about 10 millimeters long, are equipped with 960 electrodes to detect electrical activity in the brain. Because they are about the same length as a mouse's brain, theycan collect data from many brain regions at once. The probes are densely packed with electrodes, making it easier for researchers to pinpoint the cellular sources of the brain's signals than they could with earlier technologies. Additionally, each Neuropixels probe incorporates its own recording system, reducing the output wires to a single pair and keeping the necessary hardware compact. When the Neuropixels project began in 2013, the electrophysiology probes available to most labs had, at most, 64 sensors. Researchers could measure the activity of individual neurons within a specific spot in the brain or detect patterns of regional activity, but they could not do both at the same time. HHMI and its collaborators knew that the technological leap needed by the neuroscience community would require millions of dollars and fabrication capabilities well beyond that of an academic institution so they came together to fund the high-risk project. Matt Jones, a neuroscientist whose lab at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom tested Neuropixels during the development process, says the new probes have transformed researchers' chances of cracking the neural code. His team used to painstakingly position recording tools in a few regions of rats' brains to record the activity of a few dozen neurons, monitoring the cells over hours as the animals learned and slept. "This approach is slow, but it worked," he says. "And then Neuropixels arrived." Now, Jones and his team routinely record from more than 600 neurons at a time, monitoring cells distributed over a wide swath of the brain over multiple days. Ready for order Imec, a nanoelectronics research center in Leuven, Belgium where Neuropixels' prototypes were developed and manufactured, is producing the probes and is the sole source of distribution to the research community. Imec will begin making the probes available on October 31, 2018. Researchers can request the probes, which are priced at 1,200 Euros, at www.neuropixels.org or www.neuropixels.info. Six hundred probes are now ready to be distributed, and at least 2,400 more will be produced in 2019. Labs that place orders for 20 or more probes before November 30, 2018, will be entered into a lottery system for immediate fulfillment. Ship dates will be determined by lottery, with the first 30 selected (for orders of 20 probes or more) in 2018, and the remainder for 2019 (minimum order of five probes). If demand for Neuropixels probes remains high, production rates may increase late next year, Harris says. Since the earliest stages of development, the Neuropixels team has been committed to supplying the new probes to as many labs as possible at the lowest possible cost. To keep users' costs down, training and technical support for the devices will be provided by labs around the world whose researchers worked with prototype models during their development. Explore further New silicon probes record activity of hundreds of neurons simultaneously Graphic representation of falloposcope image resolution on the University of Arizona's "Block A." Credit: University of Arizona Ovarian cancer claims the highest mortality rate of all gynecologic cancers, as high as 70 percentin part because the disease is rarely detected earlier than stage 3 or 4. When the disease is discovered early in its development, however, survival rates are high, so an effective screening technique for early detection could not only save lives, but drastically improve their quality. With a $863,000, three-year grant from the United States Army, Jennifer Barton, director of the BIO5 Institute and professor of biomedical engineering, biosystems engineering, electrical and computer engineering and optical sciences, is continuing her research into a disposable falloposcope to detect early-stage ovarian cancer. A falloposcope is an endoscope used to image the fallopian tubes, where researchers now believe ovarian cancer originates. While Barton and her team have conducted studies to demonstrate the feasibility of a minimally invasive, inexpensive and highly sensitive falloposcope, this funding will allow them to ready the device for the clinic and test it for the first time in vivo, or in a living person. "Previous studies were great for showing that the idea was sound, but of course there's a lot of engineering that goes into building something that is safe, robust and easy to use in a surgical setting," Barton said. Reducing Unnecessary Procedures Certain factors, including a strong family or personal history of breast or ovarian cancer, endometriosis and alterations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, can increase a woman's risk of contracting ovarian cancer, so physicians often counsel these women to have their ovaries and fallopian tubes removed as a precaution. "The problem is that even if you have these genetic mutations in the BRCA gene, you're still probably not going to get ovarian cancer," Barton said. "But if you do get it, the outcome is likely to be poor. The consequences are so bad that women with these mutations and women with strong family histories of ovarian cancer are just counseled to have their ovaries and fallopian tubes removed." Prophylactic salpingo-oophorectomy, or precautionary removal of healthy ovaries and fallopian tubes, isn't a simple procedure, nor is it without consequence. It means loss of fertility, hormone replacement therapy to counteract the early onset of menopause, and the psychological toll that comes with both. The risk of cardiovascular disease after menopause, or after the procedure, increases as well. "If you could go in to screen for cancer, and tell with certainty that a person is perfectly fineand have them return for another screening down the linethen women wouldn't be having these life-altering surgeries unless they're absolutely necessary," Barton said. "For women whose screenings show evidence of cancer, we could recommend they go ahead with the surgery, but at least they would know it was necessary, and maybe we could delay it to when they're 45 instead of 35." Testing In Vivo Barton's collaborators include Dr. Kenneth Hatch, UA professor in the Division of Gynecologic Oncology, and Dr. John M. Heusinkveld, UA assistant professor and associate director of the Division of Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery. Both are part of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She also has a team of optical sciences graduate students and recently graduated engineers helping with fabrication of the falloposcopes. "I really like bridging the gap between medicine and engineering," said Gabriella Romano, a recent biomedical engineering graduate who works in Barton's lab. "I think there are a lot of problems to be solved in the realm of cancer research." While Drs. Hatch and Heusinkveld will be testing the new device in real volunteers, they'll be doing it as safely as possible, by only testing the device in patients already scheduled for a hysteroscopy or fallopian tube removal, and in those willing to volunteer as test subjects. Essentially, the falloposcope will be tagging along with the hysteroscope, adding very little time to the procedure and virtually no additional risk to the patient. "If we were just doing a hysteroscopy, a possible risk to the patient would be damage to the fallopian tubes," Dr. Heusinkveld said. "But in this case, we're taking the tubes out anyway, so it essentially eliminates risk to the volunteer." In fact, if the falloposcope does, by some chance, damage the fallopian tubes, Barton and her team will be able to examine the damage to the removed tissue to see what went wrong, and make adjustments accordingly. While this study will not answer the question of whether or not researchers can actually detect early ovarian cancer in vivo, it will show that they can conduct the falloposcope procedure in a living human and gain quality images. "Ideally, this study will leave us with a really robust imaging system for getting high-quality images of normal fallopian tubes and ovaries, and procedures that work smoothly every time in the operating room," Barton said. "Thus, we'll have our baseline to start our next study, which would be to do this in high-risk women who are undergoing salpingo-oophorectomy." Provided by University of Arizona College of Engineering A study commissioned to help guide revisions of best practices in providing palliative care finds that there is a wide and varied body of evidence to support such clinical practice guidelines. The systematic review by researchers from the RAND Corporation found that the research base for palliative care was larger than generally appreciated, although there was limited evidence across some areas of clinical practice such as how to care for patients during the last days of their lives. Published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, the study was conducted to support the fourth edition of the National Consensus Project's Clinical Practices Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care, which establishes best practices in end-of-life care. While previous guidelines have been developed through consensus among experts, the systematic review was incorporated into the just-released fourth edition of the guidelines. "Our review will help guide best practices going forward and help focus future research efforts to build a high-quality evidence base for end-of-life care," said Sangeeta Ahluwalia, the study's lead author and a senior policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "While the palliative care evidence base has been rapidly growing, we now better understand where there are gaps." Palliative care is a rapidly growing field aimed at improving quality of life for patients with serious illness and their caregivers. Inpatient palliative care programs have increased sharply in recent years, with two-thirds of hospitals with 50 or more beds reporting that they have an interdisciplinary palliative care team. Researchers from the Southern California Evidence-based Practice Center at RAND reviewed the research literature to assess the status of evidence across eight domains of palliative care: the structure and process of care; physical aspects of care; psychological aspects of care; social aspects of care; spiritual, religious and existential aspects of care; cultural aspects of care; care of the patient nearing the end of life; and ethical and legal aspects of care. The most promising approaches to palliative care structure and process identified by the review include home-based palliative care, interdisciplinary team care and telehealth interventions. The findings support continued growth in these areas, with attention needed on workforce expansion, quality assessment of these services and innovative payment models. The study also found there is now documented evidence for comprehensive palliative care and music/art therapy addressing physical and psychological aspects of care. However, the existing evidence base for social needs assessments and culturally-sensitive care remains very limited. There is also documented evidence that grief and bereavement support services appear to improve key outcomes for caregivers, but the evidence base for effective approaches for care focused on the last days of life is very limited. Evidence for physician orders and advance directive interventions showed the strongest evidence in the ethical and legal aspects of care domain. Ethics consultations improve consensus in the intensive care unit, which can help reduce use of high-intensity and often life-prolonging treatments at the end of life. "Our review documents a substantial body of evidence to support clinical practice guidelines for palliative care, but the quality of evidence remains limited," said Susanne Hempel, the study's senior author and co-director of the Evidence-based Practice Center at RAND. "This comprehensive review underscores the importance of targeting future research toward building high-quality evidence in key areas of clinical practice, and patient and caregiver needs." Explore further Having hospital palliative care doesn't impact Tx intensity Credit: CC0 Public Domain They both helped carry their babyand made medical history in the process. Ashleigh Coulter, 28, and her wife Bliss Coulter, 36, of Texas, took turns carrying their baby boy, thanks to the help of two fertility specialists. They are believed to be the first same-sex couple to take turns physically carrying their baby's embryo. While Bliss wanted a child that was biologically hers, Ashleigh wanted to carry the baby. "I've always wanted my own child but I didn't want to give birth to my own child. I didn't know anything like this existed," Bliss Coulter told the Daily News in a phone interview recently. Determined to make the couple's wishes come true, Dr. Kathy Doody and her husband Kevinfertility specialists at CARE Fertility Clinic in Bedford, Texasdecided to try Effortless Reciprocal In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). In the procedure, the eggs and sperm are introduced in an INVOcell device, which is inserted into the vagina during an incubation period. The INVOcell devicea small plastic capsulewas put into Bliss, allowing the egg to be fertilized with donor sperm. It's held in place with a small diaphragm and has holes in it to allow secretions to come out. "We harvest the egg, put it with the sperm for five minutes and then place it directly into the vagina with the INVOcell device," Dr. Doody told The News. "The vagina works as a very good incubator." After five days, the embryo was removed from Bliss and frozen. Prior to the embryo being inserted into Ashleigh, her body had to be prepped with hormonesestrogen by mouth and progesterone injectionswhich took about three weeks. "They placed the embryo in my body and they did a blood test 10 days laterand we got pregnant on the first try," recalled Ashleigh, who carried the baby for nine months. Stetson Coulter was born in June 2018 weighing 8 pounds, 4 ounces. "He's healthy, happy, and we had no complications," Ashleigh said. The women, who married in 2015, have faced many questions about the risks of the unique process, but the dangers are no different than traditional IVF. "In fact, it's more natural because everything is happening inside the body rather than inside a lab," Ashleigh Coulter said. The Coulters hope to inspire other same-sex couples to go through Effortless IVFwhich is about half the cost of traditional IVF. In Texas, traditional IVF costs could reach as high as $20,000, which is significantly higher than effortless IVF, which could cost up to $6,500. "In the LGBT community, it seems like there's always one person in a couple that more so wants to carry the child ... with this procedure it will open up a huge window for those that are like me," Bliss said. Explore further Experimental infertility treatment seems effective, cheaper 2018 New York Daily News Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Credit: CC0 Public Domain Studying the three-dimensional structure of DNA and its dynamics is revealing a lot of information about gene expression, expanding our knowledge of how cells, tissues and organs actually work in health and disease. Properly producing and managing this large amount of data is both challenging and necessary for the progress of this field. In a perspective paper published in Nature Genetics, top researchers call for unified standards and suggest guidelines in this emerging and promising research area. Just as a map of the world is more than a list of places and street names, the genome is more than a string of letters. A complex choreography of proteins and nucleic acids interact differentially over time in the DNA, thus cells can selectively manage genetic information during development and cell differentiation or in response to physiological and environmental aspects. Scientists worldwide are developing new technologies and making progress towards understanding the dynamics of three-dimensional organization of the nucleus. This new approach will allow researchers to map the differences between cell types, to explore how gene expression actually works in health or disease, and to discover how DNA functions are achieved even it is packed within the tiny nucleus. "We know that genome folding and its dynamics modulates gene expression and new technologies allow us to build 3-D models to study these changes, which is currently shaking up genome research and boosting our understanding of the cell nucleus complexity," explains Marc A. Marti-Renom, ICREA research professor at the Centro Nacional de Analisis Genomico (CNAG-CRG) of the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona, Spain. "This is an absolutely promising field and we would like to call for standards since the rapid development of methods and the increasing complexity of data pose many challenges that must be addressed now," he states. In a perspective article published in the current issue of Nature Genetics, leading scientists in the field of dynamics and structural genomics have called for standards in 3-D genome and epigenetic data. They describe the main challenges in this field and provide guidelines to think about strategies for shared standardized validation of 4-D nucleome data sets and models. This paper comes out of their experience in the 4-D Nucleome Initiative as part of the LifeTime initiative for a new FET-Flagship in Europe to understand how genomes function within cells, and how cells form tissues and dynamically remodel their activities when tissues progress towards disease. Explore further When a chemical tag makes the difference in cell fate and gene expression More information: Marc A. Marti-Renom et al, Challenges and guidelines toward 4D nucleome data and model standards, Nature Genetics (2018). Journal information: Nature Genetics Marc A. Marti-Renom et al, Challenges and guidelines toward 4D nucleome data and model standards,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41588-018-0236-3 Provided by Center for Genomic Regulation Emory cardiologists think that mapping of wall shear stress (WSS) can help predict heart attacks and guide treatment. This shows the levels of WSS in a coronary artery from someone who had a heart attack. Credit: Emory University A heart attack is like an earthquake. When a patient is having a heart attack, it's easy for cardiologists to look at a coronary artery and identify the blockages that are causing trouble. However, predicting exactly where and when a seismic fault will rupture in the future is a scientific challenge in both geology and cardiology. In a recent paper in Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Habib Samady, MD, and colleagues at Emory and Georgia Tech show that the goal is achievable, in principle. Calculating and mapping how hard the blood's flow is tugging on the coronary artery wall known as "wall shear stress" could allow cardiologists to predict heart attacks, the results show. "We've made a lot of progress on defining and identifying 'vulnerable plaque'," says Samady, director of interventional cardiology/cardiac catheterization at Emory University Hospital. "The techniques we're using are now fast enough that they could help guide clinical decision-making." Here's where the analogy to geography comes in. By vulnerable plaque, Samady means a spot in a coronary artery that is likely to burst and cause a clot nearby, obstructing blood flow. The researchers' approach, based on fluid dynamics, involves seeing a coronary artery like a meandering river, in which sediment (atherosclerotic plaque) builds up in some places and erodes in others. Samady says it has become possible to condense complicated fluid dynamics calculations, so that what once took months now might take a half hour. Previous research from Emory showed that high levels of wall shear stress correlate with changes in the physical/imaging characteristics of the plaque over time. It gave hints where bad things might happen, in patients with relatively mild heart disease. In contrast, the current results show that where bad things actually did happen, the shear stress was significantly higher. "This is the most clinically relevant work we have done," says Parham Eshtehardi, MD, a cardiovascular research fellow, looking back on the team's previous research, published in Circulation in 2011. Co-first authors of the paper are cardiology research fellow Arnav Kumar, MD and Georgia Tech engineer Elizabeth Thompson, now a medical student at Penn. Co-authors include Georgia Tech biomedical engineers Don Giddens, Ph.D. and Emory mathematicians David Molony, Ph.D., Adrien Lefieux, Ph.D., and Alessandro Veneziani, Ph.D. Other contributing cardiologists included Bill Gogas, MD and Spencer King, MD from Emory, Bill Fearon, MD from Stanford University and international collaborators from Belgium. How did the Emory researchers find a large group of people who were at risk of having a heart attack, with well-mapped coronary arteries? They tapped into an ongoing debate about who needs to have a stent, a small tube that keeps a coronary artery open. It has been unclear whether it's better to pre-emptively implant a stent for someone who has stable disease. Samady and his team extracted data from a large multi-center clinical trial called FAME-II, which evaluated whether measuring FFR (fractional flow reserve) can help doctors make decisions about stents. FFR looks at how much a blockage reduces flow compared to the maximum possible. The group of people they were interested in were patients who had an abnormal FFR, and were being treated with statins and other preventive medicines only. These patients were at risk of having subsequent chest pain or a heart attack, but as controls in the FAME-II study, didn't get stents. During three years of the FAME-II study, out of 441 patients being treated medically, 34 had heart attacks. The Emory/Georgia Tech researchers were able to analyze the coronary arteries of 29 people who experienced heart attacks, and compared them to 29 study participants who didn't have heart attacks, but were equally 'at-risk' based on their FFR value. Looking at wall shear stress, the differences between people who had heart attacks and didn't were the greatest at the throat of the lesion, the problem area of the coronary artery. And measuring shear stress provided more information, in terms of predicting heart attacks, compared with FFR by itself. What's next? Ideally, confirmatory studies. Samady says his group has been looking at using non-invasive CT, instead of catheterization and angiography, to get the structural information about coronary arteries. They are also planning to harness the fluid dynamics approach to study patients after they have a heart attack and have a stent implanted, looking at what happens in other arteries. The Emory team has a companion paper in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions, which looks at the other side of the coin, low wall shear stress, in patients with non-obstructive coronary artery disease. In this paper, low shear stress is a sign of endothelial dysfunction, a precursor to atherosclerosis. The researchers want to investigate if low WSS can help identify patients who will benefit from more aggressive life style changes or preventive therapies like statins, and hence also prevent future heart attacks. Explore further Predicting perilous plaque in coronary arteries via fluid dynamics More information: Arnav Kumar et al. Low Coronary Wall Shear Stress Is Associated With Severe Endothelial Dysfunction in Patients With Nonobstructive Coronary Artery Disease, JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions (2018). Arnav Kumar et al. Low Coronary Wall Shear Stress Is Associated With Severe Endothelial Dysfunction in Patients With Nonobstructive Coronary Artery Disease,(2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.jcin.2018.07.004 Habib Samady et al. Coronary Artery Wall Shear Stress Is Associated With Progression and Transformation of Atherosclerotic Plaque and Arterial Remodeling in Patients With Coronary Artery Disease, Circulation (2011). DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.111.021824 Journal information: Journal of the American College of Cardiology , Circulation Newsletter Subscribe now to get updates from armenian media & videos... NOTICE: TO BE CLEAR: WE HAVE OUTLINED UNDER OUR RECORD MAINTENANCE POLICY WHAT WE BELIEVE TO BE A FAIR PROCESS FOR ALL. SIMPLY PUT: IF THE COURT SAW FIT TO EXPUNGE YOUR RECORD,SO WILL WE, FREE OF CHARGE. ARRESTS DO NOT IMPLY GUILT AND CRIMINAL CHARGES ARE MERELY ACCUSATIONS,EVERYONE IS PRESUMED INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY IN A COURT OF LAW AND CONVICTED. 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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... Spartanburg County, SC - A woman is accused of being naked and screaming at pedestrians outside a motel room, according to a report from Spartanburg Co. Sheriff's Office. Deputies were dispatched to 810 Hospitality Dr. (Caroline Inn & Suites) for a report of a woman at the motel who was not leaving her motel room after check-out time was up. They found a naked woman wrapped around the building support pole outside the room who was screaming at nearby pedestrians. They say Ashley Nicole Hunt, 25, appeared to under the influence of an unknown substance and was disoriented as to where she was. The report says she was visible to the public and anyone driving past the location. The deputy told Hunt to cover herself and she declined. Hunt then picked up something, broke it and took a defensive stance with what first appeared to be broken glass, according to the report. The deputy told Hunt to put down the object and she did. Hunt was arrested, but continued to be belligerent by yelling and kicking out with both her legs, according to the report. Someone gave the deputy a towel and they covered Hunt's body before putting her in the patrol car. The hotel manager told the deputy she didn't know where Hunt had come from, but a resident at the motel allowed her into the motel room to shower. Hunt then got aggressive and refused to leave so the manager called law enforcement, according to the report. Hunt was charged with Public Disorderly Conduct and Indecent Exposure. Absa Group became one of the first large corporates to use the .Africa domain by changing its website address to www.absa.africa. The .Africa domain was launched just more than a year ago, and is widely promoted by the African Union to support and develop business on the African continent. Absa said that this adoption was not without its challenges, and there were several things Absa learnt from adopting the .Africa domain. When Absa began the process of migrating its online information to its new domain, it was not even a year old. No other large corporate adopted .Africa, leaving Absa on its own to figure out how to best transfer data, integrate the new domain, and enable top-tier cyber protection. The process differs from that which would have applied to moving information to another traditional domain name. Absa had to not only set up the new domain and all its security protocols, but also migrate almost 60,000 email addresses while minimising downtime. The transfer of data and email addresses was by far one of the most complex aspects of the process, and Absas teams have transferred over 6 000 accounts since 11 July 2018, according to Absas brand technology lead Craig du Toit. IT infrastructure Newer domains are also not generally on whitelists which ensures users can easily access websites with more traditional domains even if they are publicly supported by credible organisations such as the African Union. However, traditional domains are oversubscribed, and newer domains give corporates like Absa the opportunity to open options for themselves, it said. Knowing that trademark and copyright protection are vital to any brand, Absa registered more than 400 additional domains as part of a wider defensive strategy against those that buy domains they do not intend to use. Absa looked to other large corporates that have successfully migrated domains for guidance on policies and procedures, as the company had to change its domain from that of Barclays Africa to a name resembling its African identity. However, Absa discovered that there is no policy to follow, considering other large corporates have moved their domain, but never to one as unknown as .Africa. Absa developed an email and domain naming policy from scratch, specifically to ensure there were no issues when assigning email addresses. Now read: Bank Zero starts trial run in South Africa Between potholes, crime, and rule-breakers, driving in South Africa can be downright dangerous. Accidents are becoming increasingly common on local roads, and even minor incidents can be a headache to resolve. Even if you were not the cause of an accident, you would still need to rely on the testimony of eyewitnesses to substantiate your claims. For this reason, many South Africans are now turning to dashcams as a solution to their traffic woes. Dashcams are powered by your vehicles battery and record video (and sometimes sound) constantly. Depending on the model, these dashboard-mounted cameras can also automatically save recorded video to an inserted SD card upon detecting an impact or sudden stop. MyBroadband spoke to Arrive Alive, Justice Project South Africa, and Garmin about the effectiveness of dashcams for South African motorists. Arrive Alive Arrive Alive editor Johan Jonck told MyBroadband that dashcams are invaluable for both insurance and legal proceedings. Too often without evidence it becomes a he says she says scenario, the dashcam will easily ensure that the evidence speaks for itself, Jonck said. It can be excellent evidentiary proof in court and a tool to bring perpetrators to justice. He added that a dashcam can also be used for post-crash analysis and even prevent distracted driving if it monitors the driver in addition to the road. Jonck said that South African drivers should definitely install dashcams in their vehicles. Sadly, we also need to admit that crime is always a factor to consider and this includes crime in the traffic enforcement environment. Jonck said cameras could help prevent altercations with traffic officers emanating from the desire to solicit a bribe from a motorist. Justice Project South Africa Justice Project South Africa chairman Howard Dembovsky said the presence of dashcam footage could mean the difference between an insurance claim being approved or not. Also bear in mind that if you are one of the approximately 70% of motorists who dont have insurance, such video footage could assist you in getting the other party to pay, Dembovsky said. Be warned however that video footage can equally prove that you were the culpable party, so always drive defensively and strictly within the framework of the law. Dembovsky said drivers should consider a number of factors before deciding to purchase a dashcam for their vehicle. Owning a dash/helmet camera can be of immense value in proving that the actions of another person or factors other than your own negligence led to a crash you become involved in. But what about the situation where a law enforcement official accuses you of disobeying a road traffic sign/marking, speeding and so on? What about the situation many motorists face where cops actively solicit bribes from them? When its your word against a cops the likelihood of your side of the story just being accepted is quite low, but if the situation is recorded on video, there can be no doubt about what happened, he said. Dembovsky noted that it is strange not a single insurance company in South Africa requires or encourages South Africans to install a dashcam on their vehicle, despite the value of the evidence for proving claims. He added that buyers should not buy cheap dashcam models. A relatively good dashcam will set you back somewhere in the region of R3,500, Dembovsky said. Garmin Garmin South Africa automotive category manager Mathys Thompson told MyBroadband that high-quality dashcam footage should be able to prove where culpability lies in the event of an accident. With the presence of high quality HD dashcam footage, that is stamped with the exact time, date, coordinates, and the speed a user was travelling at, the footage will clearly show who was in the wrong, Thompson said. Things happen in the blink of an eye, and witnesses do not always capture the whole event as they need to often reach for a phone, unlock it, activate the camera, switch to video, and start recording. Thompson described a dashcam as an eyewitness which never blinks, and records the lead-up to an incident in addition to the actual event and its aftermath. In addition to video, dashcams also record audio in the vehicle recording the conversations had with individuals inside or next to the vehicle. We all forget things. But forgetting certain ingredients in your homeowners association (HOA) insurance recipe can be a disaster. These optional coverages can look boring. They arent exciting like chocolate. Theyre more like salt and yeast that you cant see. But if you forget them, your insurance recipe can turn out like a disaster. So, lets run down the list of some of the ingredients you should discuss with your agent. You may not need all of these, but you should be aware of them. Umbrella coverage I mentioned in my last article that you may need umbrella coverage in an HOA insurance policy in California. Why? Two reasons. First, even though the Davis-Stirling Act requires a minimum of $2 million of liability coverage, in todays world, that may not be nearly enough. It may less expensive, and more comprehensive, to increase that limit with an umbrella policy. Second, an umbrella policy often contains broader coverage language. In simple English, this means that some types of things that may be denied under your regular liability policy just might be covered under a broader umbrella policy. Thats no guarantee of future coverage (I have to be careful here), but its sometimes the case. Umbrella coverage can sometimes operate as gap coverage. Its worth discussing with your agent. Directors & Officers Insurance (D&O) D&O insurance protects the board much like malpractice insurance protects a doctor from damages due to mistakes, or an insurance agent or accountant from accidental errors and omissions. You might ask why that benefits the association. Simple. The cost of defending the board from a lawsuit will typically be passed on to all the association members according to the CC&Rs (the governing documents everyone in the association is bound by). Read the exclusions. Ask questions. This type of coverage can vary greatly between policies and carriers. As it is in recipes, so it is with insurance. The devil is in the details. And the details are often found in the exclusions section of a policy. Always go through it carefully with your agent. Flood insurance We know how wet it can get in Napa, Calistoga, St. Helena, Yountville, American Canyon and Sonoma. The question to ask your agent is... do we need to consider flood insurance? Dont assume the answer. Sewer drain backup coverage A close cousin to flood insurance is sewer backup. Part of preparing your HOA coverage package is to discuss all of the what-ifs with your agent. Employee-related coverages Even if you have only one employee, and even if they are part-time, you need to discuss optional coverage that would cover employees and their actions. You and your agent can discuss Crime Coverage (which can protect against employee dishonesty), Workers Compensation and Employment Practices Liability, to name a few. Earthquake insurance This is often called Differences in Conditions Coverage. Its optional (if offered). But it should be on the discussion list when preparing the recipe for your final HOA insurance package. Commercial auto coverage When you or an employee drives a personal vehicle on an association business-related errand, the association could be held liable for an accident. Discuss this scenario ahead of time. As always... Make sure you sit down with a local agent who has your best interests at heart. They can take the time to make sure the recipe for your homeowners association insurance is exactly what you need. Bruce Sackrison is an insurance property and casualty broker affiliated with Professional Insurance Associates. He is at 707-931-0186 or bruces@sackifs.com. Dear Tom and Alan: Im 66 and my wife is 62. Im getting inundated with mail and robo-calls telling me not to miss the deadline (for open enrollment). Ive been told Dec. 7, Dec. 15, and Jan. 31. My drug plan seems to be OK, although it goes up each year, but Im not sure what the deal is with my wifes medical plan. Why do all these timelines/deadlines seem so punitive? Butch Tom: OK, Butch, the easy part is your prescription drug plan, AKA, Medicare Part D. Every year between Oct. 15 and Dec. 7, you can enroll in any plan with any company you choose. If you dont do anything, your current plan simply rolls over for another year. Depending upon how its working for you, you either get to have it or youre stuck with it until the next open enrollment. The reason you dont just drop a drug plan is that there is a penalty for each month you were eligible, but didnt have it. The penalty is added to whichever plan you do sign up for and it never goes away. What could be considered punitive about Medicare Part D is the amount you have to pay if you make too much money. Given the rather benign acronym, IRMAA, the Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount is what you pay should your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) exceed $170,000 for you and your wife. Al: For people under age 65, the open enrollment period is different. For most of the country, its the rather limited time frame of Nov. 1 to Dec. 15. In California, our dates go from Oct. 15 to Jan. 15, 2019. If youve seen the Covered California ads on television, they mention Dec. 15 as a deadline, but only if you require a Jan. 1 start date. Otherwise, you can wait all the way up to Jan. 15 to get a Feb. 1 effective date. For many people, not doing anything means your plan rolls over for the new year at the new rates. Our reader mentioned Jan. 31, but that seems to be beyond the deadline, unless someone has a qualifying event. Tom: Getting back to IRMAA, making too much money can also cost you on your Medicare Part B (remember, Part A = hospital; Part B = doctors; Part C= Advantage plans; Part D = drugs). The majority of people on Medicare pay zero for Part A and $134 for Part B. A MAGI of $170,000 to $214,000 results in an additional $53.50 to the $134.00. A MAGI of $214,000 to $267,000 adds on $133.90. A MAGI of $267,000 to $320,000 adds on $214.30. And, finally, if your MAGI is above $320,000, you get to add on $294.60 per month to your Part B, and, $74.80 per month to your Part D. This is not considered a penalty, just paying your fair share. Al: Maybe not punitive, but its sure got to sting! Submit questions to schrette@gmail.com or alancash@gmail.com. For the first time in its eight-year history, the Napa Valley Film Festival will host a drive-in movie theater at the Napa County Fairgrounds in Calistoga, one of several special venues targeted to Upvalley audiences. By not screening in Calistoga we felt like we were letting (that audience) down. When we got back together in January of this year we said, We want to go back to Calistoga, we want the residents to feel like we care, and that they have something, said Brenda Lhormer, co-founder of the NVFF, which will take place at venues up and down the valley Nov. 7-11. Along with the fairgrounds, Upvalley screenings will be held at such venues as the Cameo Cinema, Farmstead at Long Meadow Ranch, Native Sons Hall, and Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena. This year will also introduce a new venue, at the Acacia barn at Las Alcobas, in St. Helena. Lhormer said she is always looking for more ideas for the festival and to have more of a presence Upvalley, and hopes that going forward the event can integrate more venues into the Upper Valley festivities. If we can get over venue challenges, we are willing to grow and do much more (in Calistoga) Lhormer said. If there were a Calistoga winery that wanted to partner with us, to do two or three films this summer, maybe outdoors under the stars, that would be a done deal. The NVFF offers a variety of passes, for a weekend or for the full event, that start at $20 for a film screening or panel discussion, all the way up to the Patron Level with prices starting at $2,500. Lhormer also said she has a personal message for the residents of Calistoga: I would just encourage anyone who has limited time, who doesnt want to buy a pass to just see a movie and spend 20 bucks. Dont be afraid to come out. Calistoga drive-in The drive-in will take place at the Napa County Fairgrounds in Calistoga. Beginning on Wednesday Nov. 7, gates will open at 3 p.m. each day during the festival. Two films will be shown starting at 5 and 8:30 p.m. Movie-goers are encouraged to come either by car or on foot and with picnic supplies, to get the most fun out of the event. Attendees will be able to purchase wine and popcorn, and food trucks will also be parked at the event on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The film schedule is a mix of all genres playing Wednesday through Sunday. The fairgrounds drive-in will have space for approximately 50 cars and seating for 100 people. Pass holders will receive priority parking. Rush passes will cost $20. If the response to the drive through is positive enough the event could become a mainstay of the Calistoga branch of the festival, Lhormer said. Intermissions Wine tasting intermissions are also special events to look for Upvalley. The events will take place between film showings, with live music and wine featured from vintners throughout the valley. Intermissions will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. each day at Farmstead in St. Helena and at The Studio by Feast it Forward in Napa. The events will be free for all passholders. Food and film Variety: Ten Chefs to Watch is a food and film event that takes place from 2 to 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8, at Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena. The event will feature 10 chefs, each serving a dish inspired by food in film. A celebrity panel of judges will follow with a discussion about trends in food and film. This event is only open to pass plus VIP members for an additional fee of $25, and is free for Patron members. This is my personal favorite event because I am a huge foodie and wine lover and collector, Lhormer said. Mingle with celebrities Movie-goers will also be able to meet with celebrities throughout the week at dinners and special events. This year the festival will specifically hold tributes to Geena Davis (Thelma and Louise, 1991), and Lawrence Fishburne (The Matrix, 1999). Fishburnes tribute will be held Nov. 8 at the Lincoln Theater in Napa, and Davis will be held Nov. 9 at Lincoln Theater. Davis will receive the Davis Estates Visionary Tribute. The Miner Family Winery Legacy Ensemble Tribute to the Groundlings Theatre and School and some of their famous alumni from "Saturday Night Live" will be held at the Lincoln Theater at 1:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9. This event is open to all passholders and $50 for individual ticket holders. Growing popularity The NVFF has recently been named one of the Top 10 Film Fests in America by a USA Today opinion poll. Lhormer said, In just two or three years our reputation just soared. Its because we put on a great show. Ive just been so grateful for the team I work with. Lhormer also said she has been in touch with Netflix to hold a sneak preview event in honor of Amy Poehlers new film Wine Country prior to the official release. Filmed partially in downtown Calistoga, it strives to highlight the personality of the Napa Valley. Lhormer said that she hopes it can work out such that Calistoga can be a part of this preview event. For more information visit nvff.org or call (707) 225-7500. Anyone interested in volunteering for the events should contact Debbie@nvff.org. The original posting of this story has been revised to include the correct spelling of Brenda Lhormer's name, the correct website for the Napa Valley Film Festival, and correct information about the available of intermissions to all passholders, the genres of the featured films, the location of the Geena Davis tribute, and details about the Groundlings tribute. Are homeowners who lost everything in the North Bay wildfires last year finding enough relief to rebuild a year after the devastation? California lawmakers met Tuesday morning at Napa Valley College to find out. A joint hearing of the state Assembly and Senate insurance committees, joined by state Sen. Bill Dodd and Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, heard from experts on the rebuilding struggles facing homeowners on the path to remaking their old lives. In the wake of the fires, thousands of destroyed homes pushed insurance claims into the billions of dollars, setting homeowners down a path of recovery that continues to drag on a year later. While several thousand homes are under reconstruction throughout the region, many fire victims are still wrangling with insurers over valuations and the costs of rebuilding. Tim Larsen, an executive general adjuster with the Greenspan Company, works with consumers to negotiate claim settlements with their insurance companies. Its taking a long time to adjust these claims, Larsen said, citing a chronic turnover of adjusters on the part of insurers. In many cases, adjusters are assigned by insurance companies to areas and claims based on priority. They dont keep these people in place for very long, because next thing you know, theres another storm in Florida and you have to go there. Larsen has seen some claims from the 2017 wildfires go through 10 adjusters over the last 12 months. Every time you get a new adjuster, youve got to reeducate the adjuster on whats going on with the file and time is lost . Frankly its to the detriment of the insured. Larsen alerted lawmakers to another issue stemming from insurers use of Xactimate, a program that helps determine the value of house repairs or replacement. Though widely used in settling claims, the programs valuations are often not in line with the numbers a homeowner would glean from a contractor. Its not reality, Larsen said. Often times, the money that Xactimate is coming up with for the rebuild of the home is not sufficient for market conditions. In the North Bay and neighboring counties, those market conditions are currently anything but normal, according to panelist Keith Woods. Woods is CEO of the North Coast Builders Exchange, an association of contractors, architects, engineers and building supply members spread across Napa, Lake, Sonoma and Mendocino counties. The group is headquartered in Sonoma County, where, Woods said, a year after the fires there are two themes. One is the widely used recovery mantra Sonoma Strong. The second, Woods said, is Sonoma Uncertain. We have fire victims who still in great numbers do not know what theyre going to do. Whether they can afford to rebuild or even want to rebuild for a number of reasons. Surveying contractors ahead of the hearing, Woods was told that for projects going up after the fires, the overall costs of building had increased by 20 to 25 percent due to a steep labor shortage across the region. The magnitude of the disaster has led to competition for labor like weve never experienced before, Woods said. According to Woods, due to the stresses of cost and efficiency, less than 5 percent of homeowners are rebuilding the same house they lost to the fires. Location is a key factor in the difficulty and cost of rebuilding, Woods added. Flatter areas like Coffey Park, where 1,300 homes were lost, are markedly easier for contractors to handle, compared to hillside lots. The most efficient process involves homeowners choosing from a set of models offered by the contractor, without any customizations. Santa Rosa City Councilmember and Vice Mayor Chris Rogers cited two-thirds of Santa Rosans who lost their homes and were underinsured by more than $300,000. More than half of his constituents have yet to find settlements with their insurance that will allow them to begin rebuilding. More than 1,000 Santa Rosa homes are now under construction, replacing a third of what was lost, Rogers said. But, he added, Where people are really having a hard time is in getting that number from their insurance. And for many, the end of an 18-month period of temporary assistance is now looming. Rogers pressed for an extension of that period, citing one example of a water system in Fountain Grove that had melted, polluting the areas soil with benzene. The cleanup lasted an entire year, during which homeowners nearby have been unable to begin reconstruction. Those residents are now expected to move back into their homes before the assistance period is up. Thats not going to happen, Rogers said, accusing insurers of exploiting the deadline. In a lot of ways, this 18-month metric is being used to try to leverage settlements faster from my constituents, many of whom are reporting that they are getting low-balled and they feel like they have no options but to sign, he told the committee. Rogers urged legislators to revisit bills that the insurance committees introduced last year, including a bill from state Sen. Mike McGuire that would have allowed fire victims to be paid out for the items in their homes that were destroyed, without going through the process of itemizing them. Thats the one that I hear more often than not, Rogers said, where people want to throw up their hands and say What was the point of having insurance? Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa (DNT) which won this years Bhutan parliamentary elections nominated Nyishog Saephu candidate Wangchuk Namgyel as Speaker and Kabisa Talog candidate Tshencho Wangdi as the Deputy Speaker. This was reported by Kuensel on Tuesday. The third National Assembly will elect its Speaker and Deputy Speaker on October 31. Also read: Lotay Tshering-led DNT wins Bhutans 3rd National Assembly polls According to media reports, the rules of procedure allow any individual member of the House to submit his nomination for the post. A report published on October 26, 2018 by Kuensel stated the first session of the House will convene after the formation of the Cabinet. As per Article 17(3) of the Constitution, the prime minister-elect, Dr Lotay Tshering, is expected to recommend the names of new ministers after the Druk Gyalpo confers him the Dakeyen. It is the prerogative of the prime minister to name a Cabinet member. The report earlier quoted DNT general secretary Phurba as saying that the party would follow the law in forming of the government. Also read: Bhutan polls: Seven out of 10 women candidates register victory Its the prerogative of the party president to be the prime minister-elect. We would have chosen a different candidate for the post of prime minister only if the party president had not won from his constituency, he had said. Druk Phuensum Tshogpas (DPT) general secretary, Sangay Phurba, said that the party president Dr Pema Gyamtsho (PhD) was expected to be the next opposition leader. It will be a second term as opposition leader for Pema Gyamtsho, who became DPT party president in 2013. The 12th Five-Year Plan and the 2018-19 annual budget, which commenced from July 1, are awaiting Parliaments endorsement. The current fiscal year coincides with the first year of the 12th Plan. The new government will align its manifesto with the 12th Plan to fulfill its pledges. Article 19(1) of the Constitution prescribes that the interim government appointed by the Druk Gyalpo functions for a period of 90 days. The interim government ceases to exist with the constitution of the new National Assembly and the new prime government entering office. The results were declared on October 19 and DNT was Dr Lotay Tshering-led DNT party was declared the winners. BJP legislator from Bokajan Numal Momin on Wednesday came down heavily on Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) leader Akhil Gogoi and said the latter has been following the dictation of AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal. Addressing media here, the BJP MLA reaffirmed his partys stand on Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. Momin said: Once the Bill is passed not a single non-national, even if a Hindu, who came to India after December 31, 2014 will be allowed to take shelter in India. At a time when the Bill has been opposed by most of the organisations and political parties in the Brahmaputra Valley, allowing immigrants from Bangladesh to seek citizenship in India, Momin said the Bill, if passed would help stop infiltration from Bangladesh. and accused Gogoi of shouting more on the issue to make Ajmal the next chief minister of Assam. A person who has close link with Bangladesh origin leader pretends to be peasants leader which is a good joke ever. The main objective of Gogoi is to hamper the progress of development in the state and he is doing that on Badruddins dictation, Momin said. He asked Akhil Gogoi to utter Joi Aai Asom if he has the courage instead of clicking photo with people who utters Pakistan Zindabad. Moreover, Momin challenged Gogoi to contest panchayat election against BJP if he has courage. Momin also said that the pamphlets distributed by KMSS and other organisations to make aware the people on the rumours spread by BJP on Tuesday were itself a rumour. It is not BJP. It is Gogoi, who has been spreading rumours on Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016. BJP has been trying to make people understand about the facts behind the bill, Momin said. Moreover, lashing out at Upamanyu Hazarika, convenor of Prabrajan Birodhi Mancha, Momin said, Hazarikas allegation that BJP has backed the Maitri Samabesh by 26 Bengali organisations on November 17 is completely baseless. Momin asked Hazarika to come with facts if he has any proof. Meanwhile, state BJP minority wing chief Syed Mominul Awal termed Akhil Gogoi as Supandi (a famous character of Tinkle, a comic book, who amuses everybody with his stupidity). Awal said, Gogois agitation over Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 and NRC is just a drama. He has been misleading the people of the state and instigating them to go to the street. The Kokrajhar Police and the 12 Sikh Li battalion of the Army, during a joint operation, nabbed a cadre of the anti-talk faction of the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB-S) in Bhawraguri village under Karigaon Outpost in Kokrajhar district on Tuesday night. The arrested NDFB(S) cadre has been identified as Jayanta Narzary alias N. Jawglang from whose possession arms and ammunition were recovered. According to Kokrajhar Police, the joint operation team was led by Punamjit Nath, Deputy Superintendent of Police (P). The Kokrajhar Police stated that based on a specific input about movement of cadres of the anti-talk faction of the NDFB (S) in Bhawraguri village under Karigaon Outpost in Kokrajhar, the joint operation was launched in the general area of the village in the evening on Tuesday. Multiple ambushes and naka were laid by the joint operations team. At around 9 PM, an individual on a bike was apprehended. During spot interrogation, the identity of the person was revealed as 24-year-old Jayanta Narzary alias N. Jawglang, son of late Ranjan Narzary, a resident of No.1 Kusumbil (Soraibil) under Gossaigaon Police Station, informed police. Kokrajhar District Police also informed that one .22 pistol, five rounds of .22 live ammunition, one hand grenade, one mobile phone, one Bajaj Discover bike and other incriminating materials were recovered from the possession of the arrested NDFB(S) cadre. In this connection, a case has been registered at Kokrajhar Police Station vide No. 540/2018. The police also informed that the arrested NDFB(S) cadre, Jayanta Narzary alias N. Jawglang, is a hardcore cadre of the 42nd batch of the militant outfit and infiltrated into Kokrajhar district during November and December, 2017 from Myanmar. He is involved in many activities in the last one year. Further investigation is going on, stated Kokrajhar Police. Armenia President visits National University of Singapore Gia, wanted by French law-enforcement authorities, found at Armenia's Bagratashen checkpoint Leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia agree to meet in Brussels European Council: Pashinyan and Aliyev agreed to establish direct communication line at level of defense ministers Armenia's Representative to OSCE speaks about Azerbaijan's recent attack at Permanent Council's session Armenia serviceman Meruzhan Harutyunyan, killed in Syunik Province, was buried at Yerablur Military Pantheon Armenian News-NEWS.am's special report: Drive from Kapan to Tchakatashen is 150 km instead of previous 8 km 3 Armenian servicemen killed during Nov. 16 Azerbaijani attack posthumously awarded presidential medals Left-wing trade unions hold protest against Turkey's Erdogan in Izmir Armenia FM presents situation following Azerbaijani attack during meeting with Lithuanian Seimas Vice-President Armenia delegation covers Azerbaijan's Nov. 16 attack during online meeting of CSTO PA Permanent Commissions Armenia PM receives delegation led by Vice President of Lithuanian Seimas Lavrov, Cavusoglu discuss bilateral ties and regional issues Karabakh: Azerbaijani side, in Shushi, transfers bodies of 3 Armenian soldiers killed on Nov. 16 NEWS.am daily digest: 19.11.21 Armenian Embassy in Russia: Armenia citizens - mother and child - evacuated from Afghanistan Georgia refuses to be a part of '3+3' format with regard to South Caucasus The occupied Hadrut of our days (PHOTOS) Arabologist: Photo of map of Turkic world shown by Erdogan and Bahceli is simply a gift for Armenian diplomacy Situation is tense in Armenia's Kasakh, residents protesting against acting village head (LIVE) Opposition With Honor legislature faction MP: No one knows if Armenia petitioned to Russia for military assistance Armenia opposition MP: There is a threat that Baku will always get what it wants through use of force Lavrov is certain that the Russia-Armenia-Azerbaijan summit will take place Ann Linde: OSCE working very closely with Russia to resolve Karabakh conflict Karabakh FM congratulates newly appointed Abkhazia counterpart Dollar relatively stable in Armenia Armenia parliament majority members do not deny possibility of exchange of territories with Azerbaijan Armenia ruling party MP: Public and competent authorities need to know circumstances behind captures of soldiers Armenia ruling party MP assures that situation on the border is currently stable Armenia ruling party MP: Confidentiality of process of preparing for demarcation is strictly necessary Armenia PM: Citizens of EEU countries will be able to receive loans in all territories of member states Armenian serviceman, 19, dies in Georgia's Akhalkalaki Armenia legislature majority faction lawmaker: Russia military intervention is not end in itself High commissioner: Diaspora is considering ways to help hundreds of Ethiopia Armenians Opposition With Honor parliament faction: Armenia authorities trying to push territorial losses issue to backburner Legislature majority faction MP: Armenia authorities do not make any demands on Russia Opposition Armenia Faction in parliament: Authorities are unable to distinguish between priority and secondary issues 3 more die of coronavirus in Artsakh Bruno Retailleau: France must support Armenia more firmly against aggressions by Azerbaijan Armenia parliament majority faction: Border delimitation preparation process will start from point zero PM: Armenia exports to other EEU countries increased by 27.8% Armenias Pashinyan: Azerbaijan provocations are aimed at disrupting arrangements reached by trilateral statements California Armenian couple accused of fraud flee leaving their 3 children behind 799 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Katherine Clark: Azerbaijan must acknowledge and respect Armenian sovereignty Eurasian Intergovernmental Council enlarged meeting underway in Yerevan Russia peacekeepers patrol along Karabakh border delimitation line MOD: According to current data Armenia has 6 military casualties as result of Tuesdays attack by Azerbaijan Turkish Islamic preachers organization denies reports of his death Newspaper: What happened to missing Armenia soldiers during recent hostilities? Armenia MOD dismisses reports about not allowing officers with higher rank than major to go up to combat positions US virtually completes development of new tactical nuclear gravity bomb B61-12 Newspaper: Officers with higher rank than major not allowed to combat positions during recent hostilities in Syunik Opposition MP: Granting corridor to Azerbaijan through Syunik Province will be gravest crime against Armenia US Department of State representative says why Azerbaijan is not invited to Summit for Democracy Armenian human rights activists to submit letters to ECHR regarding soldiers captured and considered missing Armenia FM stresses importance of addressable response to Azerbaijan's actions during talk with Greek counterpart Ex-ruling party official: Armenia authorities found reason for MOD's resignation after his visit to Karabakh Republican Party of Armenia spokesperson: Nikol Pashinyan gave a confessional testimony in parliament yesterday Armenia President talks about states' collective responsibility at Bloomberg New Economy Forum Turkish website reports poisoning of Fetullah Gulen Armenia FM holds phone talks with Cypriot counterpart, presents situation created after Azerbaijani attack Mirzoyan, Zas discuss CSTO's possible actions to stabilize situation on Armenia-Azerbaijan border, if necessary Mothers of deceased servicemen demand Armenia PM's resignation Azerbaijani Armed Forces open fire at tractor in Armenia's Verin Shorzha village Putin: Events unfolding on Armenia-Azerbaijan border attest to fact that situation has not calmed down in the region Lithuania supports Armenia's territorial integrity NEWS.am daily digest: 18.11.21 Ex-ruling party official: Incumbent authorities created deliberately organized chaos in Armenia Armenia Prosecutor General's Office to examine news about 6 Azeri servicemen captured and then secretly returned Dollar goes up in Armenia Armenia MOD planning training camps for reservists Sergey Lavrov, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office to discuss assistance to resolve situation in Karabakh High-tech industry minister receives Chinese recipient of Armenia State Prize for global contributions to IT sector Eurasian Intergovernmental Council's narrow-format session kicks off in Yerevan Pashinyan views Eurasian integration as one of Armenia's priorities Two Armenian citizens found in Afghanistan Armenian health ministry gets $ 2.5 million to fight COVID-19 OSCE Chairperson-in-Office has telephone conversation with Jeyhun Bayramov Deceased Armenian soldier Taron Sahakyan's brother refutes news that he was captured and tortured to death YEREVAN. The Armenian side has offered to replace CSTO Secretary General Yuri Khachaturov, however, there is still no final decision on the matter, Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Ruben Rubinyan told reporters on Wednesday. As to Armenias position in CSTO in the context of recalling Khachaturov, the official said the position is stronger than ever. Asked by reporters whether Armenia will still have the mandate of the secretary general, Rubinyan said there is no final decision, and he would avoid making any comments. Everything will be clear in the near future, he said. Incumbent CSTO Secretary General and Armenias former Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Khachaturov has been charged in Armenia within the framework of the criminal case into the tragic events that transpired in capital city Yerevan on March 1 and 2, 2008and under Article 300.1 Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code; that is, breaching Armenias constitutional order, in conspiracy with others. YEREVAN. Armenian Deputy FM Ruben Rubinyan said he is not the deputy foreign minister of U.S. and he does not want to comment on the remarks by national security adviser John Bolton. I can say that any solution on Karabakh has to be agreed and has to be acceptable to the people of Armenia and Artsakh. And the principles acceptable to the Armenian side are known, he said. Asked whether he sees danger in the statements of the American officials, Rubinyan replied Absolutely no. During his visit to Yerevan John Bolton urged Armenia to give up historical cliches. He said Nikol Pashinyan will have high legitimacy after the snap elections and will be able to assume leadership on the settlement of Karabakh conflict. He also spoke about the possibility of purchasing American weapons, as the American weapons are better than the Russian ones. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for the end of hostilities in Yemen, Reuters reported. According to his statement, missile and drone strikes by Iran-allied Houthi rebels against Saudi Arabia and the UAE should stop, and the Saudi-led coalition must cease air strikes in all populated areas of Yemen. According to the US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis all parties to the conflict should take steps towards a truce and begin talks within the next month. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are voiced support for the U.N. effort. Weve got to move toward a peace effort here. And we cant say were going to do it sometime in the future. We need to be doing this in the next 30 days, Mattis said. YEREVAN. Armenias investment attractiveness has increased in recent months after the revolution, German Ambassador to Armenia Matthias Kiesler said this at an event timed to the World Savings Day. According to him, after the early elections in Armenia, the priority task of the government should be the preservation of investment attractiveness. The German Embassy together with the Armenian authorities is working towards encouraging investments from Germany. In particular, many representatives of German IT companies come to Armenia. But we need to think about how to attract German investments in the industry as well, the ambassador said. He added that two years ago Germans made significant investments in the mining industry of Armenia. This will have a long lasting effect, since the opportunities in this industry are quite wide, said Kiesler. According to the Statistical Committee, the volume of investment in the Armenian economy in the second quarter of 2018 amounted to $ 525.5 million, an increase of 3.5% in annual terms. At the same time, direct foreign investment in the second quarter of 2018 amounted to $ 75 million, a decrease of 43.5% over the year. YEREVAN. The executive branch of Armenia did not give appropriate assessments to the statements of US national security adviser John Bolton and the outgoing ambassador to Armenia, Richard Mills, Deputy Chair of the Republican Party of Armenia, head of the standing parliamentary committee on foreign relations Armen Ashotyan told reporters on Wednesday. According to him, the Karabakh conflict cannot be resolved through statements, the signing of various declarations, as well as resolutions, OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs press releases, and official statements of the leaders of the parties to the conflict. However all this creates a clear political situation, a political framework which will help us in finding the solution. Therefore, the political assessments of the European Parliament are very important in this case, as later these documents can be referred to, Ashotyan noted. Speaking on Boltons visit to Armenia, Ashotyan noted that the South Caucasus does not represent any special value for the US. According to the deputy, this region is important for US and Russia to be close to Syria and Iran. Both Russia and the United States are trying to consolidate their political capital in this region, to increase their influence in order to fulfill their future goals, the deputy concluded. Iran, Turkey and Azerbaijan share stance over Middle East, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in Istanbul during the joint press conference with his Turkish and Azerbaijani counterparts Mevlut Cavusoglu and Elmar Mammadyarov. Cooperation among Tehran, Ankara and Baku is very important for development of the three countries, development of the region, the improvement of living conditions and the promotion of regional peace and security which is, unfortunately, faced with multiple challenges, Iran-Daily reported quoting Zarif. He expressed hope that regional issues, particularly concerning Syrian, Palestinian and Yemeni people would be resolved peacefully. The Turkish Foreign Minster, in his turn, noted that Tehran, Ankara and Baku oppose unilateral measures on regional issues and believe that common and multilateral decisions should be taken in this regard. The sides agreed that regional problems should be resolved peacefully through dialogue. Cavusoglu urged to continue the joint cooperation in order to promote the regional stability, peace and security. According to him, the trilateral economic cooperation will also be in the interests of other states of the region. Turkey urges to continue cooperation with Iran after the US withdrawal from the Iran's nuclear deal, he said adding that Turkey holds consultations with European states over the continuation of cooperation with Iran. Cathay Dragon flies HK-Davao route posted October 31, 2018 at 08:15 pm by Darwin G. Amojelar October 31, 2018 at 08:15 pm The Department of Transportation said Davao Citys Francisco Bangoy International Airport is now serving flights from Hong Kong. Hong Kong-based Cathay Dragon would fly the Hong Kong-Davao-Hong Kong route five times weekly every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday utilizing an Airbus A320 aircraft. I am very happy that the people of Hong Kong and the people of Davao and Mindanao are finally connected through this new route, Transporation Undersecretary for aviation and airports Manuel Antonio Tamayo said.Operating at five times every week, this connection will surely open tons of opportunities for the city of Davao and Hong Kong in terms of trade and tourism, Tamayo said. Cathay Dragon whose home airport is the award-winning Hong Kong International Airport is the premium, full-serviced regional airline of the Cathay Pacific Group. COMMENT DISCLAIMER: Reader comments posted on this Web site are not in any way endorsed by Manila Standard. Comments are views by manilastandard.net readers who exercise their right to free expression and they do not necessarily represent or reflect the position or viewpoint of manilastandard.net. While reserving this publications right to delete comments that are deemed offensive, indecent or inconsistent with Manila Standard editorial standards, Manila Standard may not be held liable for any false information posted by readers in this comments section. Armenian National Assembly Deputy Speaker Mikayel Melkumyan received on Wednesday the Russian Ambassador to Armenia Sergey Kopirkin. During the meeting, the sides discussed the internal political issues of Armenia, the electoral process, the development of the economy, as well as the peaceful settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Both sides highlighted the improvement and development of the Armenian-Russian economic cooperation. Mikayel Melkumyan presented the procedure of the parliamentary elections being designed in the future, expressed regret that the reformed Electoral Code was not passed, compared with the acting Code, as it is one step forward. The Deputy Speaker also touched upon the activities of the National Commission on Investigative Committee created to investigate the gas and electricity supply and distribution systems, as well as a number of problems existing in these areas. According to him, several provisions of the inter-state treaty regulating the relations on gas and electric power signed in December 2013 between Armenia and Russia restrict the efficiency of the tariff policy. The ambassador, in his turn, asked about the final result of the activity of the National Assembly Investigative Committee. Mikayel Melkumyan noted that after the end of the works a report would be presented to the parliament and the full text would be sent to the heads of the relevant bodies. Central Australia could be the location for an "Australian Alcatraz" that houses high-level terrorists, if an Alice Springs business group proposal goes ahead, ABC News reported. The Alice Springs Major Business Group (ASMBG) is currently lobbying for a privately run detention centre to be built in the middle of the Red Centre, with the facility purposely designed to detain criminals who have broken federal terrorism laws. It hopes the project will woo private investment and create a new industry in the NT. The ambitious proposal has made its way to the desks of the Northern Territory Chief Minister as well as the federal Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. In a letter sent to the Chief Minister, the business group chaired by Alice Springs airport manager David Batic, said the correctional facility would serve a critical need for a "centralised USA-style federal penitentiary". "It's not a government project, it's not on government land, it doesn't involve the Territory Government at all it's a private sector on private sector land that involves the Australian Government," Chief Minister Michael Gunner noted. The Philippine Competition Commission approved the 51-percent acquisition in Coca-Cola Femsa Philippines Inc. by two units led by Atlanta-based The Coca-Cola Company. The anti-trust body said in a decision the proposed acquisition by Coca-Cola South Asia Holdings Inc. and Coca-Cola Holdings (Overseas) Ltd. of a 51-percent stake in Coca-Cola Femsa Philippines would not result in substantial lessening of competition in the market. Coca-Cola Femsa Philippines is a Philippines-based company engaged in bottling and distribution of Coca-Cola soft drink brands. Prior to the deal, it was led by Mexican company Coca-Cola Femsa S.A.B. de C.V., the worlds largest franchise bottler of Coca-Cola trademark drinks. In view of the recommendation from the Merger and Acquisitions Office on the basis obtained from the parties and other sources to date, the proposed acquisition by Coca-Cola South Asia Holdings Inc. and Coca-Cola Holdings (Overseas) Ltd. of shares in Coca-Cola Femsa Philippines will not substantial lessening of competition in the relevant market, the PCC said. It said that post transaction, Coca-Cola Femsa Philippines would be wholly-owned by Coca-Cola South Asia Holdings Inc. and Coca-Cola Holdings (Overseas) Limited. Coca-Cola South Asia Holdings and Coca-Cola Holdings (Overseas) are indirectly owned subsidiaries of The Coca-Cola Company.Coca-Cola Femsa acquired 51 percent of Coca-Cola Bottlers Philippines Inc. from The Coca-Cola Company for $688.5 million in an all-cash transaction in 2013. It was Coca-Cola Femsas first operation outside Latin America and was seen as a potential jump-off point for expansion in the rest of Asia Pacific. The Coca-Cola Company expressed confidence about the growth prospects of the Philippine bottling operations, adding the market was now in a better position for future success. Coca-Cola Femsa Philippines has been dealing with labor problems since late 2016. It warned in August 2017 it might revisit its investment plan in the Philippines, if Congress approved the proposed tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in its original form. Beverages with caloric and non-caloric sweeteners were taxed P6 per liter while those using high-fructose corn syrup, a cheap sugar substitute, were charged P12 per liter under the first package of tax reforms that took effect at the start of 2018. SYDNEY, AustraliaA massive trans-Pacific trade deal cleared a final hurdle Wednesday allowing it to enter into force this year, a pointed rebuke of President Donald Trumps protectionist policies from some of Americas closest allies. Hours before an administrative deadline, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that his government had ratified the 11-country pact, meaning a quorum of more than half the members have formally signed on. Australia is the sixth country to ratify the agreement, meaning it can now enter into force on 30 December this year, said centre-right leader Morrison. Other signatories include G7 economies Japan and Canada. The so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) had a difficult birth and had appeared to be foundering when Trump withdrew the US shortly after coming to office. That turned out to be the opening salvo in Trumps winner-takes-all, America first and threat-heavy approach to trade relations. Frantic behind-the-scenes, Japanese-led diplomacy kept a slimmed-down version of the pact alive among the remaining membersin the hope that Washington will have a change of heart, or government, and will eventually join. The entry into force will send a strong message that the new rules of the 21st century, which are free and fair, will be established and will spread to the world, said Toshimitsu Motegi, Japans minister in charge of economic revitalisation. The deal was spearheaded by then-president Barack Obama, who saw it as a geopolitical power play, with ramifications far beyond tradea way of binding rising Asian powers into a rules-based, American-backed order and countering Chinas might-is-right approach to commerce in the Asia-Pacific region.Even without the participation of the worlds largest economy, the deal has been described as a game changer. It covers many rapidly growing economies that account for around 14 percent of world trade. As well as binding countries into a tougher legal framework for trade, lowering tariffs and opening markets, the pact will also introduce new labor standards and force some governments to bring competition into sectors long dominated by insiders and political cronies. Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and Singapore have already signed off on the agreement, meaning more than half of the members have now ratified it. On December 30, a first round of tariff cuts will now come into effect. The timing means there will be the added bonus of a second round of tariff cuts on 1 January 2019, said New Zealand trade minister David Parker. I expect other signatories will come on board he added, referring to the remaining five members who have not yet formally ratifiedBrunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru and Vietnam. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the military had surpassed maritime challenges besetting the countrys territorial disputes. These have all been marred by intrusion in the West Philippine Sea even as the government steps up the completion of a beaching ramp to hasten security in Pagasa Island, the largest island inside the Kalayaan Group of Islands. At the sidelines of the 79th anniversary of the Department of National Defense in Camp Aguinaldo Lorenzana revealed the military increased air and maritime patrols, especially in hotly-contested areas in WPS which amounted to 46, 694 cases of intrusion, wherein 40,135 were challenged at sea. The AFP intercepted intrusions to (sic) Philippine claimed features. Littoral monitoring detachments and littoral observatory stations provided common air and maritime operating picture in West Philippine Sea, Philippine Rise and other parts of Philippine territory, he said. For the period in review, AFP detected 46, 694 incidents and challenged 40, 35 vessels passing through the Philippine territory, he added. Lorenzana said most of the intrusions were by way of poaching into the countrys maritime waters and were perpetrated by Vietnamese fishing boats. Lorenzana, however, failed to include Chinas intrusion activities in maritime waters, particularly in Scarborough Shoal and other areas within the 200 Exclusive Economic Zone that triggered diplomatic row with Beijing.He said the military was actively beefing-up the countrys territorial waters with the Navy initiating at least 3, 8366 surface mission, covering 143, 445 nautical miles of maritime waters. The Philippine Air Force, on the other hand, also conducted air patrol along the countrys frontier covering 12, 157.5 nautical miles. These operations, he said, greatly enhanced the defense efforts of the government by showing out presence in the areas within the EEZ. To establish strategically maritime presence and maintain effective occupation in Philippine-held islands and features, Lorenzana said the military deployed 28 personnel in said areas. He noted that the construction of a beaching ramp in Pagasa Island was already 40 percent completed, the first project of the government in the biggest Philippine-held Island in the Kalayaan municipality. Disease, disorder, and modern-day SLAVERY heading to U.S. from Mexico, Central America and South America Here they come in droves, thanks to the open-border policy installed by Obama and promoted by every Democratic-socialist-communist nut-job gunning for political status and new positions this fall. The Democrats want more illegal voters for their desperate win to regain the House and Senate, and they want new broke slaves working on their plantations while begging for more free stuff, like healthcare, a drivers license, future amnesty, and of course some food credits. The caravan of 15,000 refugees could be harboring diseases, parasites, pathogens, STDs, and yes, criminals and terrorists. Still, the Democrats dont care, because its all about regaining power and control over a country they believe would be better off without borders, police, prisons, or private businesses. Diseased Caravans: Remember the tuberculosis epidemic in Minnesota from the refugees just a few years ago? In a shocking report from 2014, nearly every fourth refugee who settled in Minnesota tested positive for tuberculosis, a dangerous, infectious bacterial disease that affects the lungs and can spread from one person to another via sneezes and coughs. The Democrats like these kinds of outbreaks though, because that promotes forced vaccination, and thats another form of nanny-state tyranny used as a revenue tool, along with mass media fear-mongering and propaganda. Plus, most vaccines are loaded with neurotoxins and known carcinogens, which fuels the sick-care-industrial-complex, adding to the chaos that demands bigger government to save the sheeple from all the ironically imported problems. Big Food corporations and the biotechnology giants, like Monsanto/Bayer, Syngenta, Dow, Dupont, and Cargill, absolutely love the slave labor they can take advantage of when Mexican, Central American, and South American migrants come to this country and work in the genetically modified corn, soy, canola, and cotton fields like slaves (for minimum wages at best) while contracting cancer and dementia from all the chemical pesticides. Abducted children a huge problem during mass illegal immigration attempts Another major issue that the Democratic-led mass media never covers is the fact that many children who involuntarily take part in these mass illegal migrations never even make it to America, as theyre abducted, raped, and often killed, or sold into sex slavery by gangs and coyote thugs. Uneducated and naive migrant parents think that they might be giving their children a better life if they take a chance and let some strangers taxi their kids to the border, only to find out theyll never see those kids again, and that better life will most likely turn into the worst nightmare ever. In fact, the entire caravan heading to the U.S. now has halted due to a child abduction of this very nature. The U.S. will look like a third world country if the Democrats regain power Every year for the past three decades, at least 70,000 refugees have been resettled in the U.S. by the federal government. It is not uncommon for these folks to carry diseases with them, including whooping cough, diphtheria, tuberculosis, shingles, and measles. The irony of the whole abolish ICE propaganda is that the very people who promote a border-free world are endangering themselves and their own children by welcoming diseased migrants into the country. So much for herd immunity theories being effective, huh? How can you blame the unvaccinated for your problems when you welcome the unvaccinated with open arms and open borders? The fact is, illegal immigrants bring with them a twenty percent higher chance of carrying infectious diseases than U.S. citizens would incur otherwise. Plus, since these immigrants are often malnourished and poor (at least at first), that means theyre probably buying fast food and drinking tap water, adding to their own health chaos and that of those who come into contact with them. So, when the 15,000+ person migrant caravan of illegal aliens reaches the U.S. border, and the Democratic press are snapping photos right and left of the tortured children who are supposedly separated from their parents and man-handled by those evil ICE police and our National Guard troops, remember that you and your family might just be getting spared disease, disorder, rape and terrorism. Sources for this article include: NaturalNews.com DailyCaller.com Health.State.MN.US Trump.news The Department of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday advised members of the Filipino community in Nigeria to remain vigilant as violent clashes between police and protesting members of a Muslim organization in the African country started Tuesday. More than a hundred Filipinos in the Nigerian capital were urged to remain indoors in view of the violence. Ambassador to Nigeria Shirley Ho-Vicario said the Embassy was in touch with Filipino community leaders and that no Filipino had been harmed. Reports placed the number of protestors from the Islamic Movement in Nigeria who were killed from three to 18. This, after security forces reportedly opened fire when they were attacked by Shia protestors demanding the release from detention of their leader. The envoy said the Embassy also told the 3,000 members of the Filipino community in Lagos, Nigerias largest city, to exercise caution. Meanwhile, the Department of Foreign Affairs reported that the seven Filipino seafarers kidnapped in Nigeria last month were released on Sunday.The Philippine Embassy in Abuja confirmed the release in its report to Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Tuesday. Ambassador to Nigeria Shirley Ho-Vicario said the Filipino seafarers are now in Zurich, Switzerland, from where they will be flown to Manila. The seven were among the 12 crew members of the Swiss-owned MV Glarus taken by armed men, who boarded their vessel on Sept. 22. They were reported to have been taken by the gunmen as the vessel was making its way from Lagos to Port Harcourt. According to the envoy, all 12 crew members were released on Oct. 28. Given the way the actresses of Blue is the Warmest Color talked about the way he treated them, I can't say I'm shocked. Reply Thread Link Pretty much what I was going to say Reply Parent Thread Link Mte Reply Parent Thread Link my first thought was about what had been exposed by the actresses during that promo cycle. Reply Parent Thread Link my first thought too Reply Parent Thread Link came in here to say this... Reply Parent Thread Link Shocking Reply Thread Link I love this .gif so much. Watching the video of it is truly hilarious. Reply Parent Thread Link Lol Ive always wondered whats going on in this gif Reply Parent Thread Expand Link That explains a lot... Reply Thread Link Well, I can't say I'm surprised He's been accused of harassment before (not sexual harassment) Lea was also very clear about how difficult it was to work with him, how he made them shoot a sex scene completely naked for 10 days straight Reply Thread Link He's definitely a piece of shit, but the point of Venus noire was to show the terrifying objectification of this woman though. Hard movie to watch. Reply Parent Thread Link It's like the definition of Male Gazey. I'm shocked that so many fellow queer women adore it. Reply Parent Thread Link it was male gazey and all around terrible...and 3 hours for no gd reason. Reply Parent Thread Link ...yeah, not hard to believe, sadly. Whatever happened with his newer film, the one that's apparently even more gross and exploitative than BitWC? Reply Thread Link do you mean "mektoub my love"? its 3 hours of ass shots, i can't even remember what the movie was about Reply Parent Thread Link Yeah, that's it. I remember hearing scathing things from whatever festival that was, but then nothing since. smh. Reply Parent Thread Link justice for adele and lea Reply Thread Link We been knew he was a piece of shit. He literally still goes out of his way to shit on Lea because she called him out, he's a vindictive asshole who makes films where he preys on low income, no name recognition girls who want to be actresses - his biggest mistake was honestly hiring Lea who has fuck it all to hell money and can say whatever she wants. Wonder what ever happened to those multiple lawsuits of him breaking union laws and not paying people. Edited at 2018-10-31 07:12 pm (UTC) Reply Thread Link Not surprising at all. Reply Thread Link don't find this hard to believe at all Reply Thread Link On the morning of publication of the EIA-914 and EIA PSM reports today (October 31), providing US monthly oil production data for August 2018, Rystad Energy analysis indicates that the market should expect significant outperformance of US oil production compared to the EIAs predictions. The EIAs current Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) suggests total US oil production growth of 90,000 bpd from July to August 2018 with nationwide oil production averaging 11.05 million bpd in August 2018. According to the EIA, 80,000 bpd of this growth should come from Alaska, whereas the predicted decline in production from the Gulf of Mexico nearly offsets the projected increase from the Lower 48 states excluding the Gulf of Mexico. However, actual well production data and daily throughout figures from the TAPS pipeline suggests that this projection for Alaska is in fact too optimistic, with August 2018 oil production averaging 428,000 bpd, about 40,000 bpd below the EIAs expectations. Nevertheless, preliminary production data for the US Gulf of Mexico suggest further growth potential of 60,000-70,000 bpd in August, starkly contrasting the STEOs projected decline of 50,000 bpd. The growth is largely driven by Anadarko and Hess, which exhibit a combined jump in operated oil production of 66,000 bpd in August amid completion of temporary field maintenance as very limited volumes come from new wells. Yet the most impressive addition is set to arrive from the Lower 48 states excluding the Gulf of Mexico. The most recent data shows that wells and leases with complete reporting through August 2018 generated collective additions of 112,000 bpd from July to August. The Permian Midland, the Texas-side of the Permian Delaware and the Eagle Ford contribute 46,000, 30,000 and 30,000 bpd additions, respectively. It should be noted that the remaining volumes which have not yet been reported normally contribute positively to the final addition because the most recent month is the one that is most exposed to the reporting delay, says Artem Abramov, Head of Shale Research at Rystad Energy. Essentially, this makes us more confident that Texas added between 35,000 and 50,000 bpd in August in the most conservative scenario. (Click to enlarge) Outside of Texas, we calculate a 22,000 bpd addition from North Dakota, which has already been confirmed by North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC). Both Colorado and New Mexico oil production climbed significantly in August, with growth of 40,000 and 37,000 bpd, respectively, in a conservative case. In Colorado, we are finally observing a delayed impact on production from strong fracking activity seen in the first half of 2018 amid resolution of in-basin gas processing bottlenecks. In addition, Wyoming has displayed capacity to achieve additions of 12,000 bpd in August, with growth driven primarily by a major round of completions by EOG Resources. Related: EIA: Market Tightens As Outages From Iran, Venezuela Pile Up The market should be prepared for the potential high case scenario when EIAs monthly data is published. In this scenario, Lower 48 excluding GoM adds 270,000 bpd in August. This might push US oil output to 11.3 million bpd, Abramov says. Downside risk exists, but we doubt that growth below 130,000 bpd is realistic, and even that is higher than the EIAs STEO. Long-term oil production potential from the US remains dramatic as long as oil prices stay above $50 per barrel. Even in a scenario of $55 per barrel we see US oil output growing to 16.5 million bpd by 2030. Moving to a price environment of $75 per barrel would unlock an additional 5.3 million bpd of volumes in 2030, but it also results in faster acceleration of base decline and earlier plateau in production. The shale industry is still in the middle of a long-term investment cycle, says Per Magnus Nysveen, Senior Partner and Head of Analysis at Rystad Energy. If a favorable price environment persists, we will see the US oil adding the equivalent of one Saudi Arabia over the next 10 years and with healthy profits seen as soon as the early 2020s. (Click to enlarge) By Rystad Energy More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Establishing American energy dominance has been a key policy objective of the Trump Administration. Since coming to office, President Donald S. Trump has made increasing U.S. energy production and energy exports a priority. And for a time, it looked like he might pull it off. Oil production has doubled since 2008. This year American oil output exceeded 10 million bpd for the first time in decades. Production from the shale revolution, particularly the Permian Basin of Texas, has been booming. Investment into new leases both onshore and off has increased, as the Trump Administration has opened up federal land and the entire coastal plain for drilling. The EIA predicts that U.S. production will continue to rise, exceeding 11.5 million bpd in 2019. According to Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and EPA chief Scott Pruitt in a June 2017 op-ed, energy dominance means a self-reliant and secure nation, free from the geopolitical turmoil of other nations that seek to use energy as an economic weapon. Energy dominance, in other words, means energy independence, an oft-repeated political slogan deployed by virtually every U.S. President since Richard Nixon. But the United States cannot be completely independent from the global energy market. Nor cannot it achieve full self-sufficiency in energy consumption while insulating itself from changes in oil and gas prices. The fallout from the killing of Jamal Khashoggi led a sudden increase in tensions between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, the worlds top oil exporter. Prices ticked upwards based on fears that a diplomatic spat could disrupt Saudi oil sales to the U.S., which average around 1 million bpd according to the EIA. Related: Cold Snap Could Send Natural Gas To $5 The U.S. imports less from Saudi now than it did in 2008, when imports stood at 1.5 million bpd. But the incident highlighted the fact that the U.S. still relies on imports to cover domestic consumption: in 2017, imports averaged 10 million bpd. According to the most recent EIA data, the energy trade gap has narrowed, but wont disappear entirely if current consumption trends continue. Production will continue to rise, but infrastructure constraints will hold back increased output in the Permian. The Trump Administration could alleviate the pressure by cutting back on consumption, but the government has done just the opposite. Federal fuel economy restrictions have been weakened and research into conservation and alternative transportation has been slashed. Along with energy dominance, another key aspect of Trumps policy has been to pressure Iran through economic sanctions, scheduled to go into effect on November 5. A months-long effort to restrict Iranian oil exports has succeeded in slashing them by a half, but this has placed the U.S. in a bind: it needs OPEC producers to keep pumping to make up the loss of Irans product on the market. Related: Irans Worst Nightmare Is Coming True While fears of a supply crunch seem overblown, and the market may even be flirting with a glut going into the 2018-2019 winter season, the situation shows that U.S. hopes of energy independence are misplaced. There is no safety for the U.S. consumer in todays globalized energy market, particularly when the U.S. government upends the market by targeting oil producers. This realization seems to have hit the Trump Administration. The Wall Street Journal reported that Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin is urging caution in the administrations response to the European Unions attempts to work around Iran sanctions. Iran is facing a bleaker situation, as oil prices fall and China suspends purchases of Iranian crude. The U.S. may succeed in bringing maximum pressure on Iran in the short term. But if the supply situation tightens, Irans crude might find markets again. If energy dominance means re-positioning the U.S. as a major oil producer and exporter, the Trump Administration has succeeded in following the course set by the Obama Administration. But the U.S. shouldnt hold out hope for true energy independence if it continues to rely on fossil fuel consumption. In todays globally integrated world, such a thing simply does not exist. By Gregory Brew for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Senator Joel Villanueva said the entry of a third telecommunications service provider could boost the implementation of the proposed Telecommuting Act or Work-From-Home Act. Telecommuting is the partial or total substitution of computers or telecommunication technologies, or both, for the commute to work by employees. The entry of a third telco player will create competition and provide better services amid consumer problems on the countrys slow and expensive Internet. It will accommodate the potential influx of reliance on technology that may be brought about by the subsequent implementation of our Telecommuting Bill, said Villanueva, author and sponsor of the measure. Based on content delivery provider Akamais Global State of the Internet report in May 2017, the Philippines is reported to have the slowest average internet speed in Asia Pacific with an average of 5.5 megabits per second. This is much lower than the global average internet connection speed which is pegged at 7.2 mbps. At present, internet services in the country are being offered by only two major telecom providersthe PLDT and Globe Telecom. We want to push for our Filipino workers to have a meaningful work-life balance by encouraging employers to explore telecommuting as a way of allowing work flexibility, the senator said. We therefore urge the Department of Information and Communications Technology, the National Telecommunications Commission and the private sector to work together to upgrade our existing Internet infrastructure for our employees to afford an option to work under a flexible work arrangement, Villanueva said.Information and Communications Technology Acting Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr. earlier divulged that the winning third telecommunications network provider may start getting its own subscribers by June next year. So far, five local companies and at least seven foreign ones have expressed interest in filling the countrys need for a third telco provider. These include PT&T, Now, Converge, Transpacific-Broadband and TiereOne. Meanwhile, the foreign companies vying for the slot include China Telecom, KT Corp., LG U+, KDDI Corp., Viettel, Vietnam Telecom, Telenor and AT&T. The telecommunications companies vying to be the third telco player must have a congressional franchise or one that covers a bidding agreement with committed local or foreign investors. They must also have a paid-up capital of at least P10 billion or, if covered by a bidding agreement, the aggregate paid capital of its members should be at least P10 billion. The minimum or maximum average broadband speed of the bidding companies should likewise be 5 megabytes per second to 55 megabytes per second. Oil markets could be heading for a possible showdown this week, as U.S. sanctions on Iran will be implemented fully, OPEC+ producers have opened the valves and the global economy is showing some cracks. In the meantime, reports are emerging that a possible oil glut is again on the horizon, as demand growth could be fledgling. These possible doomsday scenarios are again showing a possible herd-mentality in the press. Even that the so-called OPEC+ production cut agreement has been very successful lately and global oil storage volumes were on their way down, the market is envisaging a possible new tsunami of oil flooding the markets. However, several main issues could ease the bearish impact of this news in the next two weeks. The effects of the Iran sanctions may already be fully priced in, but looking at the current market situation, most of this could be distorted. Not only is OPEC+ sticking to its official compliance rates, producing enough crude to supply the current demand, but Iran is going full throttle to reap, what could well be the last financial rewards for some time to come. By producing and exporting all Tehran can get on its vessels, part of the current perceived oil supply is just going to be temporary, and without the help of European and Asian customers, Iranian exports will fall to historically unprecedented levels. The last surge in Iranian oil and petrochemical exports is to be expected to hit the market within the next 2-6 weeks, after that the options to close oil deals with Tehran will be very limited. It also has become clear that OPEC+ has silently agreed on a strategy to not to get into an open conflict with Washington. The continuing calls and tweets coming from the White House, pushing for additional oil on the market, have been heard by Riyadh, Moscow, Abu Dhabi and others. The power of U.S. president Trump should, however, not be overestimated. Washington doesnt have the teeth at present to force major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia, UAE or Russia to produce more. OPEC+ members are willing to open up their taps not due to Washingtons political views, but only to reap the financial rewards of the extremely high demand in Asia and elsewhere. Neither Riyadh, Abu Dhabi nor Moscow expect a new oil glut in the near future when opening the taps today. Related: U.S. Oil To Significantly Outperform This Year At the same time, Washington is doing what some Arab countries have asked it to do, block the expansion of Iran in the Middle East by strangling its economy. Until November 4th at least Saudi Arabia and the UAE will be supporting Washington in these efforts. By opening up the taps, Donald Trumps Grand Old Party (Republicans) is not facing a direct election defeat by the Democratic Party. If OPEC+ would have stuck to their production cut agreement, targeting higher revenues only, Trump would have had to face the wrath of the majority of U.S. motorists coming days. Iran sanctions, Khashoggi or Russias cyber war against the West is just a side note in local U.S. media in relation to the perceived economic damage of high gasoline prices. U.S. voters are voting not with their hearts but with their car keys. Saudi Arabia and Russia have understood that by keeping prices at a lower level at present, supported by additional Iranian oil and the US-China trade war, Trumps GOP victory in the upcoming elections on November 6th is more likely than at a time of high gasoline prices. Even though the media is portraying the relationship between Washington (Trump) and Riyadh or Moscow to be fabulous, this needs to be taken with a truckload of salt. It is a marriage of convenience. A strong Trump administration, with the support of Congress and Senate, is of strategic importance to Moscow and Riyadh at present. The latter two have understood that on the short term, reasonably low oil prices will beneficial for all. Stable global economic growth, lower unemployment figures in the U.S., low gasoline prices, in combination with the implementation of U.S. sanctions on Iran, will be needed to convince the audience in the U.S. mid-terms. In two weeks this picture however could change dramatically. The implementation of U.S. Sanctions on Iran and a persistent Trump administration could give enough space to maneuver for OPEC+ on the oil production front. The perceived threat of a new oil glut, as even the IEA has warned, in 2019 will not be taken as a fact of life by Russia, Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC. A repeat of the last years is not at all in the interest of the global oil giants. Related: Can Russia Relieve The Iranian Oil Crisis? Some indications of a new strategic turn have already been given by Saudi Minister of Energy Khalid Al Falih and others. OPEC officials have openly stated that the ongoing cooperation within the NOPEC framework will not only become a normal fact of life, but will always include the option to address oil production volumes. If the market is threatened to be flooded, even if Iranian volumes are taken out, OPEC+ will be implementing all necessary measures to counter this. For most oil producers, the main leading theme the coming years will be to set up a stable market in which volumes and price levels are receiving the highest rewards. In stark contrast to the perceived financial targets of OPEC+ by Western media, higher revenues are not needed to spend outside of the energy sectors, but to sustain current production volumes and to increase future production to counter expected demand. Without higher oil prices these goals are not achieved by any of the NOCs. Without a multi-trillion US$ investment spree the coming years, oil production will not be able to counter future demand levels. Looking at the current situation, OPEC+ will slowly but without any doubt, set in place a new production cut agreement, most probably just after November. Some facts will emerge just before the OPEC meeting in December, but looking at some of the statements made by Khalid Al Falih, Barkindo and others, a new era of cuts or lower additional production is imminent. If these are not put in place, 2019 could become a very instable and potentially threatening oil and gas year. Without stability, OPEC and others are not going to be able to invest sufficient money in new production. Whatever Washington will be tweeting after November 6, OPEC will probably not be as interested as they are now. Instead of expecting lower oil prices in 2019, based on the signals received from financial institutions, investors should be bracing themselves for the opposite. OPECs full throttle production approach at present will not be in place for longer. There will be no need to comply to requests anymore. Saudis spare production capacity is at its lowest since years, and the reality could well be that Saudi oil fields are hurting as a result of the current production strategy. For OPEC, oil is a lifeline, economically and politically. Short-term gains, ruling Western investors and analysis, are not included in Saudi-Russian energy and economic strategies. The highest potential yield decides the outcome, not Western politics or Iranian sanctions. By Cyril Widdershoven for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The deadline for implementation of U.S. sanctions on Iran is just days away, and the Trump administration is having second thoughts about how hard to press the Islamic Republic. More accurately, there seems to be disagreement from within the Trump administration. According to the Wall Street Journal, Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin is leaning towards a more cautious approach, which would mean refraining from punishing the European Union for its efforts at keeping business ties alive with Tehran. One of the key issues is the use of Swift, a financial-messaging service that is critical to global finance. Swift helps process international financial payments, and the cooperation of Swift during the prior round of Iran sanctions between 2012 and 2016 was critical in isolating Tehran. This time around, Europe is resisting the U.S. maximum pressure campaign. The EU is forbidding European companies from complying with U.S. sanctions, although the measure is mostly toothless. Nevertheless, top officials from within the Trump administration are at odds over how far to go. Our objective is to make sure that financial institutions do not process sanctioned transactions, Mnuchin told the WSJ last week. The Treasury Department is having very specific discussions with Swift, Mnuchin said, before adding that I will use all the tools in my power to make sure that sanctioned transactions do not occur. However, Mnuchin is wary of pressing too hard, fearing that it might lead to less help from Europe in regards to Iran. Also, others fear that the hard line will spur Europe and others into seeking an alternative financial architecture that could undermine U.S. dominance over international finance in the long-term. Already, the overuse of sanctions seems to be adding momentum to efforts to use alternative currencies to the U.S. dollar. Related: Irans Worst Nightmare Is Coming True Europes effort at building a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to help European companies evade U.S. sanctions is evidence of this danger. Recent comments from the French foreign minister hinted at a broader campaign for the SPV to undercut U.S. influence. The SPV is being setup for the sole purpose of skirting Iran sanctions, but it could have broader uses. The SPV aims to create an economic sovereignty tool for the European Union beyond this one case. It is therefore a long-term plan that will protect European companies in the future from the effect of illegal extraterritorial sanctions, a spokeswoman for the French foreign minister said. Meanwhile, Trumps national security adviser John Bolton, who has long pushed for regime change in Iran, unsurprisingly favors a hardline approach. He wants to sanction Swift and punish banks doing business with Iran. The internal battle is creating confusion, and the mixed messages are grating on European capitals. Still waiting for U.S. replies on all these issues, a senior European diplomat told the WSJ last week. Zero clarity. Related: Oil Production On Federal Lands To Hit New Record November 4 is rapidly approaching, and despite the confusion on what the U.S. will do, the pressure campaign is nevertheless having the effect of curtailing Irans oil exports. The Chinese government has reportedly told its state-owned companies not to book purchases from Iran, a surprise move after repeatedly vowing not to comply with American demands. The decision by Beijing is a huge blow to Tehran, and it could translate into more export losses. The WSJ reports that CNPC and Sinopec have not secured any shipments from Iran for November. In September, China imported 600,000 bpd from Iran. The recent decline in oil prices might provide just a bit more breathing room for countries to cut out Iran, and a bit more leverage to Washington as it seeks to eliminate Irans oil exports. There may not be much need for waivers because [Tehrans oil buyers] are stopping business with Iran even before sanctions start, an American official told the WSJ. However, exports will not fall to zero. India has already booked some shipments from November and is actively seeking a waiver from the United States. Iran will also be able to smuggle shipments and discount cargoes in order to keep the oil flowing to some degree. Moreover, cutting out the 1.6-1.7 million barrels per day of oil exports from Iran (as of September) entirely would likely tighten the oil market beyond what Washington is comfortable with. As a result, Irans oil exports will not fall to zero. By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Oil companies have spent more than US$31 million to fight a ballot initiative in Washington State that proposes a U.S. first state-wide carbon taxdouble the amount that environmental activists and billionaires have raised to back the initiative in the ballot for the November 6 elections. The initiative, known as 1631, proposes a carbon emissions fee of US$15 per metric ton of carbon beginning on January 1, 2020. The fee would increase by US$2 a year until Washington States greenhouse gas reduction goals are met. The proposal also calls for using the revenue from the fee to fund various programs and projects related to the environment. Washington State is one of several U.S. states that have said that theyre still on board with their commitment to act on climate despite the fact that U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement. Washington is the leading producer of electricity from hydroelectric sources, and although not a crude oil producing state, Washington ranks fifth in the U.S. in crude oil refining capacity, according to EIA data. The amount that Big Oil has raised to fight the measure is the biggest ever in Washington state to defeat a ballot initiative, according to data by the state Public Disclosure Commission reviewed by Reuters. The previous record sum for defeating a ballot initiative in Washington State was raised back in 2013, when agriculture and food companies spent US$24 million to defeat an initiative that requires labeling of genetically modified foods. While the Western States Petroleum Associationincluding BP America, Phillips 66, and Andeavorhas raised more than US$31 million to fight the initiative, activists and billionaires including Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg have raised US$15.2 million to support the initiative, according to state data reviewed by Reuters. It is a poorly designed policy, BP spokesman Jason Ryan told Reuters, noting that while BP backs action to fight climate change, it strongly opposes the initiative in Washington because the company thinks it would disrupt the local economy. With Big Oil spending $30 million, that makes it a real fight, Bill Holland, state policy director for the League of Conservation Voters which backs the initiative told Reuters. According to a statewide Crosscut/Elway Poll conducted in early October, 50 percent of the 400 registered voters polled said they would support the initiative, 36 percent said they were against the initiative, while 14 percent were undecided. The poll has a margin of error of 5 points. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Chinas Sinopec, the worlds top refiner by capacity, is in talks with government authorities and suppliers to make special arrangements for Iranian crude oil imports in the coming weeks, S&P Global Platts quoted a senior Sinopec manager as saying on the companys Q3 earnings call on Wednesday. Sinopec buys around two-thirds of Chinas crude oil imports from Iran. China as a whole is the single largest oil customer of Tehran and wasnt expected to bring down its oil imports from Iran to zero, as the U.S. has been demanding from Iranian buyers with the sanctions that snap back in five days. Sinopecs imports from Iran averaged 410,000 bpd last year, making up 8.6 percent of the companys total crude throughput, according to Platts data based on company filings with the U.S. SEC. Many of Sinopecs refineries in China are configured to use oil from Iran, Platts quoted the companys Vice President Huang Wensheng as saying on the briefing call on Wednesday. Yet, the manager was confident that Sinopecwhich imports 85 percent of the crude it processeswould have security in oil supply despite the uncertainties regarding Iranian oil. Sinopec has already executed its crude oil import plan for November, Huang said, but declined to elaborate on loadings for Iranian oil. Last week, reports had it that Chinas largest refiners, state-held Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), hadnt booked any crude oil cargoes from Iran for November due to fears that in doing so, they would be in breach of the U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil. The key concern for the state-owned refiners is the uncertainty over whether Irans Chinese customers could obtain waivers from the sanctions, Reuters reported last week, quoting two people with direct knowledge of the plans. China has said that it would not stop buying Iranian oil despite U.S. efforts to have the Iranian exports down to zero. But Beijing was also said to have agreed to refrain from increasing its oil purchases from Iran. Iran, for its part, is keen to keep its single biggest oil customer when U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil exports kick in. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Brazils state energy giant Petrobras has decided not to go through with a drilling plan at a field operated by Chevron, effectively ruining the supermajors plans for the field, Reuters reports, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter. Chevron has a 52-percent stake in the Frade field and Petrobras has 30 percent, but for the Brazilian company, this field is not a priority, the source said. The priority is the pre-salt zone, which is seen as the biggest production growth area in Brazilian oil. Petrobras, in fact, is so disinterested in the Frade field that it might sell its stake in it. Earlier this week, a private Brazilian energy company, Petro Rio, bought 12 percent in the Frade field from another firm, Frade Japao, and its chief executive told Reuters it could also buy Petrobras stake in the field. We see extending the life of the field as a positive, drilling new wells, Nelson Queiroz said. Earlier, Petrobras had planned to drill six new wells at the field, worth some US$20 million. Reuters notes exploration at the Frade field was suspended in 2011 after a spill. The project, whose cost was back in 2009 estimated at US$3 billion by Chevron, produced first oil in the same year, and at the time Chevron expected peak output of 90,000 bpd of oil and natural gas, to be achieved in 2011. Related: Equinor Strikes More Oil At Giant Johan Castberg Field While the Frade field is in the Campos Basin, a prolific oil and gas area, it is not part of the pre-salt zone that has attracted the most attention from the energy industry and has seen supermajors compete for a bite of this pie that could contain several billion barrels of crude. Some Big Oil majors are already in Brazil, including Statoil, Shell, and Total. The Norwegian state oil company is developing the Carcara fieldpart of the prolific Santos Basin. Shell is a strategic partner of Petrobras in the pre-salt layer, holding minority interests in the Libra and Lula fields and in other areas such as Sapinhoa, Lapa, and Iara, all of which are located in the Santos Basin. Total is the partner of Shell, Petrobras, and CNPC in the Libra field, also in the Santos Basin, and is considered one of the biggest offshore discoveries in the Brazilian pre-salt zone. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Faced with an influx of asylum seekers from the United States, Canada is planning to substantially step up deportations of illegal migrants, Canada's public broadcaster reported Wednesday. A leaked email from a senior Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) official to staff, cited by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the goal is to deport some 10,000 persons a year, as much as a 35 percent increase over recent years. CBSA enforcement director Brad Wozny wrote that in recent weeks he has "been involved in several discussions both regionally and nationally concerning the government of Canada's decision to substantially increase removal efforts." "Initial discussions have the agency working towards a new national target of 10,000 removals/year," he adds. The CBC said 18,000 people, mostly failed refugee claimants, currently face deportation. So far this year 6,083 have been deported, compared to a total of 8,472 in 2017 and 18,987 in 2012. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government is "trying to improve the immigration system and be more expeditious in handling cases." Border Security Minister Bill Blair, meanwhile, confirmed that the government has "added additional resources to ensure that (the CBSA) has what they need to do the job." He noted that only asylum seekers who "have gone through all the legal processes of determining their eligibility for the protection of Canada" and been found "to have not been eligible are subject to removal." This hardening of the government's position comes as Trudeau's Liberals face increased political attacks ahead of next year's election from opposition Tories, who accuse the government of mismanaging a migrant "crisis." Donald Trump's election as US president triggered a spike in asylum seekers who have simply walked across the border into Canada, some braving biting cold and dangerous treks through the wilds. According to the latest government data, more than 30,000 have come from the United States in search of asylum. Most were originally from Nigeria, Haiti, Turkey, Eritrea or Colombia. Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) sees no reason for Congress not to pass the proposed P3.757 trillion national budget for 2019. I dont see any problem, cooperative naman yung Congress, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said. Although House Committee on Appropriations chairperson Rep. Karlo Nograles is among those being considered by President Rodrigo Duterte for the Cabinet Secretary post, Diokno said it will not affect the passage of the 2019 proposed national budget. The President targets to sign and finally enact into law the 2019 General Appropriations Act on the third week of December. We are already scheduling the signing of the bill sometime maybe between December 15 to December 20 ang signingtarget signing yun ng bill, Diokno said. Meanwhile, the DBM reported that the department has already released 96 percent (P3.599-T) of the 2018 national budget. Among the major releases in October include P34-B for the implementation of the Basic Education Program of the Department of Education; P1.1-M subsidy for the Public Utility Modernization Project; and P6.7-B for the pension differential arrearage of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Diokno assured continued transparency in the budget releases of the government. We will continue to provide updates and our people can count on the efficient and transparent release of funds by the DBM, he said. The department has also released P662.5-M to replenish the Quick Response Fund of the Department of Social Welfare and Development. Part of the fund will be used to provide assistance to areas affected by Typhoon Rosita in northern Luzon and in preparation for other calamities that could hit the country in the remaining two months of this year. Rosalie Coz The post Duterte admin eyes 3rd week of December for enactment of proposed P3.757T 2019 budget appeared first on UNTV News. AMID the government's relentless drive against illegal drugs, President Rodrigo Duterte has institutionalized the Philippine Anti-Illegal Drugs Strategy (Pads).Duterte signed on October 29 Executive AMID the government's relentless drive against illegal drugs, President Rodrigo Duterte has institutionalized the Philippine Anti-Illegal Drugs Strategy (Pads). Duterte signed on October 29 Executive Order (EO) 66, directing all government offices, department bureaus, agencies, and offices, including government-owned or -controlled corporations (GOCCs) and state universities and colleges (SUCs), to implement the Pads, in accordance with their respective mandates. EO 66 also encouraged non-government organizations, civil society organizations, and private institutions to actively support the projects and programs under the Pads. "The proliferation of prohibited drugs and their precursors is a serious national concern, encompassing social, economic, psychological and economic interests, which necessitates the active and unified involvement of various government and non-government agencies," EO 66 said. "To ensure the successful implementation of the Pads and to demonstrate our country's resolve in confronting the issue on illegal drugs, it is necessary to ensure that government and non-government entities carry out their respective functions and tasks under the Pads," it added. Duterte, through the EO, tasked the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) to the lead agency in the Pads's implementation. All government departments and agencies, including GOCCs and SUCs, were directed to formulate and submit to the DDB their respective implementing and operational plans relative to the Pads, within 60 days from the implementation of EO 66. They were also required to formulate and adopt drug-free workplace programs, and conduct authorized drug testing among their respective officials and personnel, in accordance with the provisions of Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act, and relevant issuances and circulars of the DDB and the Civil Service Commission. The Department of Labor and Employment, on the other hand, was instructed to ensure the formulation and implementation of drug-free workplace programs and authorized drug testing in the private sector. EO 66 also urged local government units (LGUs) to formulate and submit their own implementation and operation plans to the DDB and establish or strengthen their Anti-Drug Abuse Councils. LGUs were also asked to work in partnership with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Philippine National Police in implementing the Pads, as well as to coordinate with the Department of Health relative to the assessment of drug personalities. (SunStar Philippines) PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the revival of barter in Mindanao in a bid to promote growth and order in the war-torn region.Under Executive Order (EO) 64, Duterte said reviving barter in Mindanao PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the revival of barter in Mindanao in a bid to promote growth and order in the war-torn region. Under Executive Order (EO) 64, Duterte said reviving barter in Mindanao would not only create jobs and business opportunities, but would also strengthen trade and commerce among member-states of BIMP-Eaga, or the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Growth Area. "Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines-Asean Growth Area (BIMP-Eaga) is linked by a long history of trade and economic, with barter as a major form of commercial exchange," EO 64, inked on October 29, read. "Barter is an ancient commercial practice among our people in the Southern Philippines, which continues to thrive and evolve as a living tradition until the present day," it added. Section 104 of Republic Act (RA) 10863 or the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act provides that all goods imported into the Philippines shall be subject to duty upon importation, including goods previously exported from the Philippines, except as otherwise provided by law. Under Article 5, Section 2(e) of RA 11054 or the Organic Law for the Bangsamoro Region in Muslim Mindanao, the Bangsamoro government shall exercise its duty over barter and countertrade, without prejudice to the general provision of the President. The Asean Free Trade Agreement and the Asean Trade in Goods Agreement (Atiga) institute effective preferential tariff scheme, requiring member states to eliminate import duties on several products traded within the region, except for rice, corn and sugar. Import duties were eliminated in 2010 for the Asean-6 composed of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, and in 2015, with flexibility until 2018, for Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Duterte's order to revive barter in Mindanao was consistent with his administration's 10-point socio-economic agenda to promote rural and value chain development. Story continues The President's EO also established the Mindanao Barter Council (MBC) to supervise, coordinate, and harmonize policies, programs and activities on barter in the southern Philippines. The principal office of the MBC, which will be attached to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) for policy and program coordination, will be in Jolo, Sulu. The council will be chaired by Trade Secretary, and vice chaired by Mindanao Development Authority chair and Bureau of Customs chief. Other members include Finance, Foreign Affairs, and Agriculture departments; DTI's office in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm); Maritime Industry Authority; Philippine Coast Guard; and Philippine Ports Authority. The MBC was tasked to facilitate the establishment of an enabling environment conducive to the growth and development of barter in Mindanao. It was also mandated to formulate and issue rules and regulations on the registration of qualified traders authorized to engaged in barter, including imposition of reasonable registration fees and facilitation of all documentary requirements necessary to avail of the zero-tariff benefits under the Atiga. EO 64 also instructed the council to issue comprehensive guidelines governing barter; review existing policies, rules and regulations of government agencies that affect all aspects of barter; and submit recommendations to the President and Congress. Barter ports would be established in the ports of Siasi and Jolo in Sulu, and Bongai in Tawi-Tawi. Creation of other barter ports would be subject to the President's approval, upon the MBC's recommendation. Under EO 64, goods traded under the barter system should enter Philippine territory only through barter ports. Products enjoying tariff protections or quantitative restrictions like rice, corn and sugar should still be regulated by applicable laws, rules and regulations. Qualified traders of allowable barter goods should import or export only after securing the required goods declaration or export declaration, clearances, licenses, and any other requirements prescribed under existing laws. (SunStar Philippines) Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan hit out at religious hardliners and appealed for calm Wednesday after extremists called for the country's Supreme Court justices to be murdered for overturning the conviction of a Christian woman facing execution for blasphemy. Khan, who took to the nation's airwaves several hours after the court ordered the acquittal of Asia Bibi, delivered a forceful call for Pakistanis to respect the verdict which sparked protests across the country. "They are inciting you for their own political gain, you should not get trapped by them for the sake of the country, they are doing no service to Islam," Khan said in a televised broadcast. "We will protect people's properties and lives, we will not allow any sabotage, we will not allow any traffic to be stopped," he added. Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in deeply conservative Muslim Pakistan, where even unproven allegations of insulting Islam and its Prophet Mohammed can provoke death at the hands of vigilantes. Demonstrations broke out in major cities across Pakistan in the ruling's wake, with club-wielding protesters blocking Islamabad's main highway and barricading roads in Karachi and Lahore. One of the most vocal groups -- the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) -- called for "mutiny" against the army's top brass and the assassination of the top court's justices. "The Muslim generals of the army, it is their responsibility that they should launch a rebellion against these generals," Afzal Qadri -- a TLP leader -- told supporters in Lahore. For hours the acquittal was met with near silence on the country's airwaves as broadcasters appeared to steer clear of covering the controversial topic. Khan, who has previously caused concern with his full-throated defence of blasphemy laws during his recent election campaign, vowed on Wednesday to hit back against hardliners inciting violence, saying the inflammatory rhetoric would only benefit "Pakistan's enemies". - Protection detail? - Bibi was set to be released immediately according to the court, although there was no word if any security arrangements were being made for her protection. Her legal team celebrated amid beefed-up security in Islamabad. "The verdict has shown that the poor, the minorities and the lowest segments of society can get justice in this country despite its shortcomings," Bibi's lawyer Saif-ul-Mulook told AFP. "This is the biggest and happiest day of my life." Bibi appeared to be in a state of disbelief after hearing that Pakistan's Chief Justice Saqib Nisar had quashed her conviction nearly eight years after she was first sentenced to death. "I can't believe what I am hearing, will I go out now? Will they let me out, really?" Bibi told AFP by phone from prison after the ruling. "I just don't know what to say, I am very happy, I can't believe it." Her case drew the attention of international rights groups and swiftly became the most high-profile in the country. Pope Benedict XVI called for her release in 2010, while in 2015 her daughter met his successor and the current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis. Freedom for Bibi in Pakistan, where university students have been lynched and Christians burnt in ovens over blasphemy claims, means a life under threat by hardliners, who regularly hold demonstrations calling for her execution. The allegations against Bibi date back to 2009, when Muslim women she was labouring with in a field objected to sharing water with her because she was Christian. After an argument, the women went to a local cleric and accused Bibi of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed, a charge punishable by death under colonial-era legislation. - Long-criticised law - During the appeal hearing on October 8, a three-member panel of Supreme Court justices appeared to question the case against her, with Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, considered Pakistan's top expert in criminal law, listing flaws in the proceedings. "I don't see any derogatory remarks vis-a-vis the holy Koran as per the FIR," added Chief Justice Nisar, referring to the initial complaint filed in the case. Approximately 40 people are believed to be on death row or serving a life sentence in Pakistan for blasphemy, according to a 2018 report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Rights groups have long criticised the legislation, saying it is routinely abused to justify censorship, persecution, and even the murder of minorities. In recent years, it has also been used to smear dissenters and politicians. Mere calls to reform the law have provoked violence, most notably the assassination of Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, by his own bodyguard in broad daylight in Islamabad in 2011. His assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, was executed in 2016 and has been feted as a hero by hardliners, who built a shrine to him just outside the capital. Taseer had also called for Bibi's release and his son Shahbaz tweeted "Pakistan Zindabad" ("Long live Pakistan") following the ruling. The Court of Appeals has dismissed the petition of the Department of Budget and Management seeking to enjoin the payment of retirement benefits worth P139 million to a group of retired public attorneys. In a 15-page decision, the CAs 12th Division junked the petition filed by DBM last year seeking for a reversal of the ruling of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court, Branch 230, which ordered the release of the retirement benefits for retired lawyers of the Public Attorney's Office The appellate court instead upheld the ruling of the lower court that voided DBM Legal Services Opinion No. 14 issued in November 2015 by former DBM Secretary Florencio Abad, which based the benefits of retired PAO lawyers on average of their salaries during service with the agency. The assailed RTC ruling rendered by Judge Maria Gilda Loja-Pangilinan held that retired PAO lawyers are entitled to the same retirement privileges as those of their counterparts in the National Prosecution Service under the Republic Act 9406 or the PAO law and that reference shall be made on the retirement benefits of the prosecutors in the National Prosecution Service presently governed by the NAPROSS Law or Republic Act No. 11071. According to the appellate court, the decision of the RTC was already final and executory which made the petition moot and academic. "Notwithstanding the Court's disposition of the procedural issues, the instant petition remains dismissible. It has been rendered moot and academic by virtue of the entry of judgment made by the trial court on May 27, 2017, and more importantly by the admitted disbursement of retirement benefits of the private respondents consistent with the PAO Law and NAPROSS Law," the CA said, in a ruling penned by Associate Justice Gabriel Robeniol. "Pursuant to the Entry of Judgment dated May 27, 2017, the Trial Court's decision dated Feb. 14, 2017 had already acquired finality and had thus become immutable and unalterable. The subsequent compliance with the directive therein made through the release and payment of the gratuity differentials of private respondents rendered the said Decision also fully executed," the appellate court added.The CA also ruled that since the case was already moot, its review on the validity of the DBM legal opinion would no longer have any use. "The only remaining legal consequence of this Court's judgment in the Petition is the affirmation of the propriety of the issuance of the DBM LS Opinion No. 14 or its rejection for being issued with grave abuse of discretion. Such a disposition, under the circumstances, would reduce the Court's judgment to a mere advisory opinion which does not have factual consequence," it said. The DBM earlier withheld the benefits of the retired PAO lawyers despite resolutions issued by both the House committee on justice and Senate committee on finance last January supporting the release of the retirement benefits. The petition in the RTC questioning the DBM legal opinion was filed in June 2016 by retired PAO lawyers led by Elpidio Bacuyag, who are now senior citizens. The PAO retirees questioned the withholding of their retirement benefits, saying most of them are already ailing and that two of their members had already passed away. CEBU Archbishop Jose Palma has urged the faithful to pray for the blessings they received in 2018 and for President Rodrigo Duterte.He appealed to the public not to cheer on the chief executives unflattering THE results of a survey on the impact of the US-China trade conflict on the members of the Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. (Philexport) showed little to no impact on their businesses. Conducted during the recent General Membership Meeting of Philexport, which was attended by nearly 300 members from various sectors, the respondents were mostly small enterprises from the holiday decors group. Of the 51 respondents to the poll, the majority (26) are exporting to the US while only five are exporting to China (additionally, two in each of the total number of exporters to the US and China are exporting to both). Meanwhile, 22 are not or not yet exporting to either of the two countries. Of the 26 respondents that export to the US, the holiday decor sector has the most number of finished product exports to the US. This is followed by the food and jewelry, metals, housewares, and resource-based sectors. Three key findings emerged from the poll participated in by micro, small, medium and large enterprises. Of these groups, nearly 53 percent of all respondents were small companies. Foremost among the results is that majority of the respondents expressed interest in taking advantage of the opportunity the US-China conflict might bring, such as becoming a part of the supply chain of firms that might transfer their business to the Philippines from the US or China. Out of the overall 51 respondents, 42 or 82.4 percent are open to the chance to become part of the US and China supply chains should firms in the two countries shift production to the Philippines. This reflects the openness of Philippine exporters in diversifying their respective businesses, said the Philexport report. Another major result is that a lot of Philippine exporters do not rely heavily on US and Chinese supply chains for their businesses. This means lesser impact would be felt by Philippine exporters from the US-China trade impasse. Specifically, 19 respondents (37.3 percent) claimed to not feel the impact of the US-China trade war in their export business because they are not part of the supply chain of the two countries. Of the respondents who are a part of the US and/or China supply chains, the export business of the 12 respondents (23.5 percent) felt a slight impact. This was followed by nine respondents saying they felt no impact, eight respondents with moderate impact, and only three respondents experiencing a high impact. Philexport is looking at appropriate policy actions based on the outcome of the survey. (PR) Singapore will gauge public attitudes towards the death penalty in a survey, the interior ministry said Wednesday, as human rights groups renewed calls for its abolition. The city-state -- which staunchly maintains that capital punishment is a crime deterrent -- executed eight convicts last year, the highest number in a decade, according to official data. They had all committed drug offences. The Straits Times said it was the first time that the government department in charge of prisons has conducted a survey on the subject. Last week's hanging in Singapore of convicted Malaysian drug trafficker Prabu N Pathmanathan sparked fresh calls to scrap capital punishment, a penalty that dates to British colonial rule but has been retained by the city state since independence. Neighbouring Malaysia, where the cabinet had decided to abolish the death penalty, had asked Singapore to spare the 31-year-old convict on humanitarian grounds. "The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is conducting the survey to give us a better understanding of Singapore residents' attitudes towards the death penalty," MHA said in a statement to AFP. It said the survey is part of the government's "regular research on our criminal justice system" and involves citizens and permanent residents. "Participants were randomly selected based on age, race and gender, for a representative sample of the Singapore resident population," it added. Some 2,000 respondents will be questioned between October and December by market research consultancy Blackbox Research, which the MHA has commissioned for the project, the newspaper said. Human rights groups said the survey is unlikely to be a prelude to Singapore softening its position on capital punishment. "There's been no indication whatsoever that Singapore's position on use of the death penalty is softening," said Phil Robertson, deputy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch. "One wonders whether the MHA is counting on a survey of public opinion to back their views and provide justification for their continued defiance of the international trend towards abolishing the death penalty," he told AFP. "Opinion polls are a questionable measure of public support for the death penalty," said Amnesty International's Singapore researcher Rachel Chhoa-Howard. "As more and more governments move away from the death penalty, this announcement is completely out of step with the times," she told AFP. "Authorities must resume its moratorium on executions, as a first step to abolishing this cruel punishment once and for all." Previously, the death penalty in Singapore was mandatory for crimes like drug trafficking and murder. Following a review, legislation was passed in 2012 removing the mandatory provision for drug trafficking and murder under certain circumstances. BEFORE I became an avid Game of Thrones fan, visiting Croatia, especially Dubrovnik, was already on my bucket list.I attribute this to Shailesh, an Indian who owned a travel agency in Prague. Five years BEFORE I became an avid Game of Thrones fan, visiting Croatia, especially Dubrovnik, was already on my bucket list. I attribute this to Shailesh, an Indian who owned a travel agency in Prague. Five years ago, he met us for dinner on our first night there, and I remember him telling us, if you fall in love with Prague, then you will absolutely fall in love with Dubrovnik. Fast forward to 2018, we found ourselves on a plane from Spain to Split, the second largest city in Croatia. With Game of Thrones entering its final season in 2019, more people have become fascinated with this country and we wanted to visit it before it became too crowded. The modern Split has a long history starting from being founded as a Greek colony in the second century BC, surviving wars and transitions, culminating in 1991 when Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia and became an independent state. The most popular tourist spot in this city is Diocletians Palace built in the fourth century AD. The Roman Emperor Diocletian built this massive palace for his retirement. He had no heirs, so when he passed, this palace remained empty for several decades until the seventh century when nearby residents started to move into the palace to flee from invaders. Their descendants occupy these areas now, and as I walked through the palace corridors, I saw little apartments, distinct in design from each other, with shops or cafes on the ground floors. Our guide said, it was probably the only palace in history where people just move in, get settled and stay for generations on end. As she pointed out areas of the complex where Game of Thrones scenes were filmed, I read the flyer and realized this place was the worlds most complete Roman palace remains, thus earning its place in the Unesco Heritage List. A few hours away from Split is the Plitvice Lakes National Park and our driver-guide, Boran, deserves special mention. All the way to the park, he described the scenes we saw and even predicted weather changes while moving through towns! When we complimented him, he said guides in Croatia have to be properly educated in tourism and have to take exams about all the 20 counties. The protected area of Plitvice covers around 73,350 acres and gets over a million visitors a year. It is famous for its lakes arranged in cascades which are all interconnected and follow the water flow. They are separated by natural dams of travertine (a mix of moss, algae and bacteria which become encrusted) and there are a total of 16 lakes. We visited in early spring, just as the waters were melting, so the water levels were at a high maximizing the experience, but also getting us quite drenched in the process. Plitvices beauty can render one speechless and had me wanting to go back to see the same scenes in autumn. Troubled Italian carrier Alitalia has received three takeover offers as part of its latest rescue efforts, the company says Troubled Italian carrier Alitalia has received three takeover offers as part of its latest rescue efforts, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. The offers will be examined by Alitalia's external administrators before being passed on to Italy's ministry of economic development. Italy's state-owned railway operator on Tuesday said it was set to make an offer to buy Alitalia. Railway group Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) did not provide any details. But the Italian press had earlier suggested that the FS offer would carry certain conditions, such as an alliance with a foreign airline. German company Lufthansa has expressed interest in Alitalia in recent monthsas has Britain's EasyJet and the Hungarian WizzAir. But on Tuesday Lufthansa ruled out any deal in which the Italian state was involved. Easyjet has also confirmed an interest in a "restructured" Alitalia as part of a consortium. Alitalia, which employs more than 11,000 people, has struggled to compete with low-cost European rivals and has gone into administration. 2018 AFP Credit: CC0 Public Domain Antibiotic resistance is a complex problem in animal husbandry. Antibiotics are essential for both veterinary and human healthcare, but their usage can lead to antimicrobial resistance. Dik Mevius, an expert in the use of antibiotics for livestock management, gives here an overview of this collaborative work and findings within EFFORT where he coordinated the collection of samples and farm data as part of research on antibiotic resistance in the food chain, and zoonotic transmission. Antibiotic resistance is globally a growing problem which affects both humans and animals. Tackling it is therefore a high priority for organisations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WAO/OIE). European collaboration For their part of the EFFORT project, Dik Mevius and his team at Wageningen Bioveterinary Research (WBVR) coordinated the collection of samples from various animal sources (including chickens, pigs, veal calves, turkeys, wild boar, fish, companion animals and meat) in nine countries, in close collaboration with the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS) at Utrecht University. They also collected data on farm practices, and how farms are managed and make use of antibiotics. This research provides important insight into country, animal sector and farm factors that affect antibiotic resistance levels. And that brings us closer to answering the question: how can we control antibiotic resistance? Resistant intestinal tract bacteria related to antibiotic usage The first results that were published were on intestinal tract bacteria (antibiotic-usage.htm" target="_blank">www.wur.nl/en/newsarticle/Resi to-antibiotic-usage.htm). The research revealed that the quantity and type of bacterial resistomes present in the intestinal tract varies by animal species and country. This means that further research is needed into the causal factors for each animal species. Higher levels of resistance genes in the resistomes are found in the intestinal tracts of pigs than those of chicks, but at the same time chicks have a greater variety of resistance genes. The results of this research are relevant to humans as well as animals, as humans are exposed to resistomes through the food they eat. New results and publications This is just a snapshot: much more data has been collected and analysed, and results will be shared in future publications. Researchers at Ghent University in Belgium have carried out a detailed analysis of antibiotic usage and how it differs by animal species and country. This data is being mapped against the prevalence of E. coli bacteria resistance for each species and country. IRAS is researching how specific farm practices can affect the variance in resistance. Results will also be published on people employed in the food supply chain (such as abattoir workers). This research analysed stool samples of those workers to identify their resistomes and compare them to that of the general population. The objective was to determine the effects of occupational exposure related to employment in the industry. The use of technologies based on sequence analysis (metagenomic analysis) and the standardisation of DNA extraction and bioinformatics analysis in this research provide a frame of reference for future research and the monitoring of antibiotic resistance. Limiting usage and preventing disease introduction Within Europe, and specifically the Netherlands, we are fairly advanced in tackling antibiotic resistance. But we still need to be vigilant in guarding against the introduction of antibiotic resistance from different origins and other parts of the world. Preventing the introduction of disease is an important challenge for livestock keepers. It's therefore also important that the industry limits the use of antibiotics to when it's really necessary and maintains good standards of hygiene and biosecurity. Results for policymakers In Nov. 2018, the researchers present the results of their work. High-impact speakers including Louise Fresco (food and agriculture expert and President of the Wageningen University & Research Executive Board) and Mark Woolhouse (professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh) will share their vision on the development of global agriculture and the impact of responsible antibiotic use. Explore further Antibiotic resistance can be caused by small amounts of antibiotics More information: For more information, see For more information, see www.effort-against-amr.eu/ Provided by Wageningen Bioveterinary Research Credit: CC0 Public Domain Choosing a baby's name that is distinctive is becoming harder, research reveals. Greater media access, global communication and rising immigration have increased people's exposure to different names, but also ensures these become common more quickly. Using a tool originally created for understanding how genes behave, researchers from the University of Edinburgh analysed trends in the names given to more than 22 million babies born in the UK over almost 180 years, between 1838 and 2016. Naming trends were linked to historical events or people in the public eye, experts found. Changes in tradition, multiculturalism and people's ongoing quest for individuality also played a part. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, name choices were relatively stable, dominated by biblical names such as John and Mary. These traditional names became relatively unpopular in the years following the Second World War, when increased migration introduced names of Polish, Italian and Indian origin. Spikes in popularity for certain names become more frequent in the 21st century, but these fell out of fashion owing to over-use. Experts found that the use of hyphens and variant spelling to make existing names distinctsuch as Amelia-Rose, and Rebekah instead of Rebeccahad increased substantially in recent years. This demonstrates society's shifting desire for recognisable, but rare, names they suggest. The research is published in PLoS One. Stephen J Bush, Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute, said: "Collectively, shifting patterns of name choice provide a fascinating insight into changes in societal values, personal tastes and ethnic and cultural diversity from the Victorian era to the present day. The speed with which modern name choices fall in and out of favour reflects their increased exposure and people's ongoing desire for distinctiveness." An interactive database of names created during the project is available: demos.flourish.studio/namehistory/ Explore further American baby names are trending more and more unique even as other parts of culture go traditional Meet the world's first cowboy robot. It does not look like something from Hollywood or Silicon Valley. Cargill Inc., one of the nation's largest producers of beef, has developed a robotic cattle driver used to herd the large mammals from the pen to processing plant. The Minnetonka-based agribusiness unveiled the machine at the North American Meat Institute's conference on animal handling in Kansas City, Mo. The robot's purpose is twofold: to reduce the stress levels that cattle experience when being corralled, and to protect the workers who otherwise are in proximity to the 1,500-pound creatures. "If a bull wants to hurt the robot, hurt the robot," said Brad Churchill, Cargill's plant operations manager at its High River, Alberta, facility. "I can repair the robot. I can't repair my employees." With long, Gumby-like arms waving plastic bags, the three-wheeled robot mimics the effective movements of human cattle drivers while minimizing the more erratic motions people make that can startle them. A human's voice recording is broadcast from speakers embedded in the robot, prodding the cattle with familiar phrases like "Come on, let's move it" or "Hey, hey." The company consulted famed animal behaviorist Temple Grandin during development. After visiting a beef plant and even operating the robot from an elevated catwalk using its remote-control joystick, Grandin gave the technology her approval, calling it "a major innovation in the handling and welfare of farm animals." "This device will lead to huge strides in employee safety while moving large animals and reduce the stress on cattle across the country," Grandin said in a statement. Churchill, who suggested the technology to company leadership after seeing it used in a different situation, said this is not a way to displace workers. "The number of people doesn't change, but now we are able to move these cattle in such a way in that we are always able to keep a gate between our people and the cattle," he said. It took Cargill a couple of tries, however, before finding the right size, materials and features for its robotic cattle driver. The first prototype had six wheels and was made of plastic. That one got beat up by a dairy bull. A second version was closer, but Cargill made some tweaks, raising its wheel clearance and going to a tricycle-like setup for easier maneuvering. The final version is made of steel and weighs 450 pounds. "We have yet to have an animal flip the robot, but they have moved it to the side," Churchill said. Flock Free, a New Jersey-based company that makes machinesincluding robotsdesigned to keep birds away from storage containers of grains or other agricultural products, is manufacturing the robotic cattle drivers for Cargill. Cargill plans to order two robots for each of its eight U.S. and Canada beef plants. Each machine costs about $40,000. The company hopes to use it in other animal handling situations, such as with large tom turkeys that can be aggressive toward humans. Explore further Certification would ensure quality welfare during cattle transport 2018 Star Tribune (Minneapolis) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Atoke worm of Platynereis dumerilii swimming in a petridish. Credit: Martin Guhmann/Wikimedia Commons/CC-BY-SA 4.0 A team of researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Germany and the University of Exeter in the U.K. has conducted the first comprehensive study of the head chemosensory organ physiology in an annelid. In their paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Biology, the group describes their study of the brain of the marine worm Platynereis dumerilii and what they found. P. dumerilii is one of the smallest animals that has a brainit is a worm that lives in the sea and is related to the earthworm. Its head covering is nearly transparent and its neural cells are very similar to human neural cellstwo characteristics that make the worm a good choice for learning more about how the human neural network operates and perhaps as a vehicle for studying brain diseases such as Alzheimer's. To learn more about how it works, the researchers used a fluorescent dye to highlight portions of the P. dumerilii brain as the worm went about its normal activities. In their study, the researchers used six-day-old wormsthe age when the worms' brain has fully developed. The study involved noting which parts of the brain were active during separate activities by combining calcium imaging and microfluidics as a means of recording neural activity. They note that the approach works because it can take advantage of the role that calcium ions play in the transmission of brain signals. They report that they were able to record action in the whole head of the worm, and found that the worm has four kinds of neural structures that sense stimuliin this case, amino acids, esters, sugars and alcohols. They also found that antennae were the main chemically sensitive organs used by the worms The work resulted in the first description of brain action in the worms using chemical stimulation. The researchers suggest that chemosensation is one of the important sensory mechanisms for marine annelids such as P. dumerilii. They also suggest that juvenile P. dumerilii can serve as a good model for studying anilid chemosensory systems. Explore further Flashing neurons in worms reveal how the brain generates behavior More information: Thomas F. Chartier et al. Whole-head recording of chemosensory activity in the marine annelid Platynereis dumerilii, Open Biology (2018). Journal information: Open Biology Thomas F. Chartier et al. Whole-head recording of chemosensory activity in the marine annelid Platynereis dumerilii,(2018). DOI: 10.1098/rsob.180139 2018 Science X Network General view of the 5-HT3 receptor, which is made of 5 subunits. Credit: Hugues Nury, IBS/CNRS/ESRF In November 2017, a Titan Krios cryo-electron microscope (cryo-EM) was inaugurated at the ESRF, the European Synchrotron, France. Data collected on this cryo-EM features in a Nature publication describing the activation cycle of a serotonin receptor targeted by medication against chemotherapy- and radiotherapy-induced nausea. Thanks to cryo-EM, researchers can now freeze biomolecules in action, including highly important membrane proteins in several conformations, and visualise each of these at atomic resolution. Cryo-EM thus allows researchers to produce snapshots revealing the dynamics of proteins when they interact with other molecules, information that is crucial both for a basic understanding of life's chemistry and for the development of pharmaceuticals. The research in Nature is a result of an international collaboration of scientists from the Institute of Structural biology (IBS-mixed research unit CEA-CNRS-University Grenoble Alps), the Institut Pasteur, the University of Lorraine (France), the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), the University of Illinois (US) and the biotech company Theranyx. The focus of the paper, featuring data from the ESRF cryo-EM, is the activation cycle of the 5-HT3 receptor, belonging to the family of serotonin receptors. These receptors are well known for influencing biological and neurological processes such as anxiety, appetite, mood, nausea, sleep and thermoregulation, among others. Unlike the other serotonin receptors, which are G protein-coupled receptors, 5-HT3 is a neurotransmitter-gated ion channel and changes its conformation during activation. It is present in the brain, as well as in the enteric nervous system, the peripheral nervous system that drives the digestive tract. General view of the 5-HT3 receptor, which is made of 5 subunits. The structure of the subunits in pink and violet is represented in a spherical shape, whilst the experimental data are represented by a white surface in the other three subunits. Credit: Hugues Nury/IBS 5-HT3 is a target for drugs and pharmaceutical companies have studied it extensively. When patients undergo chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, they often suffer from nausea and vomiting as side effects. In fact, the chemicals used in cancer treatment trigger an elevation of serotonin signalling, which in turn activates 5-HT3 to open its ion channel, which then causes nausea. "The receptor has been widely studied due to its importance, but it hasn't been until recently that we have accessed it at the atomic scale, thanks to cryo-electron microscopy, among other techniques," explains Hugues Nury, main author of the paper and CNRS scientist at the IBS. View of the linking site of serotonin (in green), located between the pink and the violet subunits. The microscopy experimental data are represented by a translucent surface. Credit: Hugues Nury/IBS The results published in Nature show the receptor 5-HT3 in four different conformations. Images of three of these were obtained at the Center for Cellular Imaging and Nano Analytics in Switzerland whilst the fourth, which finally allowed a full understanding of the activation mechanism of 5-HT3, was obtained at the ESRF. One of the conformations is inhibited thanks to the binding of anti-nausea and anti-vomiting drug widely used in chemotherapy. The images obtained of the receptor may therefore lead to the design of more efficient antinausea drugs for the treatment of patients undergoing therapy for cancers. "These results contribute to our knowledge on how 5-HT3 receptors behave. They provide a framework for the myriad of mutations described in the literature: we can now look where they are, what are the motions in these zones, and sometimes why the mutations altered the receptor function. Now we also see the binding pockets in unprecedented details, which can help the development of future drugs," explains Hugues Nury. Explore further Full-length serotonin receptor structure seen for first time More information: Sandip Basak et al. Cryo-EM reveals two distinct serotonin-bound conformations of full-length 5-HT3A receptor, Nature (2018). Sandip Basak et al. Cryo-EM reveals two distinct serotonin-bound conformations of full-length 5-HT3A receptor,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0660-7 Lucie Polovinkin et al. Conformational transitions of the serotonin 5-HT3 receptor, Nature (2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0672-3 , https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0672-3 Journal information: Nature Fossil theropod dinosaur egg (front), with corvid eggs in a nest. Fossil Deinonychus and oviraptor eggs were probably similar in coloration to corvid eggs. Credit: Jasmina Wiemann/Yale University A new study says the colors found in modern birds' eggs did not evolve independently, as previously thought, but evolved instead from dinosaurs. According to researchers at Yale, the American Museum of Natural History, and the University of Bonn, birds inherited their egg color from non-avian dinosaur ancestors that laid eggs in fully or partially open nests. The researchers' findings appear Oct. 31 in the online edition of the journal Nature. "This completely changes our understanding of how egg colors evolved," said the study's lead author, Yale paleontologist Jasmina Wiemann. "For two centuries, ornithologists assumed that egg color appeared in modern birds' eggs multiple times, independently." The egg colors of birds reflect characteristic preferences in nesting environments and brooding behaviors. Modern birds use only two pigments, red and blue, to create all of the various egg colors, spots, and speckles. Wiemann and her colleagues analyzed 18 fossil dinosaur eggshell samples from around the world, using non-destructive laser microspectroscopy to test for the presence of the two eggshell pigments. They found them in eggshells belonging to Eumaniraptoran dinosaurs, which include small, carnivorous dinosaurs such as Velociraptor. Illustration of a hatching Deinonychus chick from a blue egg with brown spots. The diversity researchers recovered for dinosaur egg colors mirrors that found for modern bird eggs. Credit: Jasmina Wiemann/Yale University "We infer that egg color co-evolved with open nesting habits in dinosaurs," Wiemann said. "Once dinosaurs started to build open nests, exposure of the eggs to visually hunting predators and even nesting parasites favored the evolution of camouflaging egg colors, and individually recognizable patterns of spots and speckles." An assortment of paleognath and neognath bird eggs and a fossil theropod egg (on the right). Credit: Jasmina Wiemann/Yale University Co-author Mark Norell, the Macaulay Curator of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, noted that "Colored eggs have been considered a unique bird characteristic for over a century. Like feathers and wishbones, we now know that egg color evolved in their dinosaur predecessors long before birds appeared." Explore further Non-avian dinosaur found to have laid blue eggs More information: Dinosaur egg colour had a single evolutionary origin, Nature (2018). www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0646-5 Journal information: Nature Dinosaur egg colour had a single evolutionary origin,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0646-5 Two Muslim lawmakers on Wednesday expressed dismay over the move of their fellow Moro who led the petition before the Supreme Court questioning the constitutionality of the Bangsamoro Organic Law. Anak Mindanao party-list Reps. Amihilda Sangcopan and Makmod Mending expressed their sentiments after Sulu Gov. Abdusakur Tan II filed a petition for certiorari and prohibition asking the high court to review the legality and constitutionality of the BOL. While we recognize the right of every citizen to contest the states laws and policies through the courts, we are surprised that a fellow Moro, who never lifted a finger to work for peace and unity, would seek to nullify BOL before the high court, Sangcopan and Mending said in a joint statement. Last Tuesday, Deputy Speaker and Sulu Rep. Munir M. Arbison said the challenge mounted by Tan II against the BOL is bound to fail. Anak Mindanao has been at the forefront of efforts at the House of Representatives to pass a Bangsamoro law acceptable to the majority of national legislators, they said. They said the struggle to have this law approved has been long, difficult, and painful for us and other Moro leaders.Like Arbison, Sangcopan and Mending expressed strong belief that the BOL will hurdle constitutionality test. Public hearings were conducted in Mindanao before the law was approved by the two chambers of congress. Gov. Tan had every opportunity to voice out his opposition to this landmark legislation and suggested revisions during those days or even through mass media, said Sangcopan and Mending. The two lawmakers also stood by the legality of the BOL. We trust that RA (Republic Act) 11054 (BOL) will stand the test of Constitutionality and that premium should be placed more in the pursuit of peace and unity. It is now time for Mindanaoans to stand up and show this nation that Bangsamoro Organic Law transcends politics of patronage and that we will unite against those who sabotage peace for their own interests. Anak Mindanao is stronger, together, they added. Arbison argued that the BOL can withstand the constitutionality test and any other inquiry with regards to its legality, even as he chided Tans move as blatantly misguided, erroneous, and misleading. Eurasian perch from lake Loosalu rabajarv. Credit: Estonian University of Life Sciences In a study published recently in the scientific journal G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics, researchers from Estonian University of Life Sciences, in collaboration with colleagues from University of Turku, assembled the Eurasian perch genome. It is three times smaller than the human genome, yet contains about 1 billion nucleotides and more than 23,000 genes. The investigated perch originated from the dark waters of lake Loosalu in the midst of the bogs of Rapla county. The results of the research enable scientists all over the world to better understand the effect of natural selection. The Eurasian perch is a very common fish species in Estonia and Eurasia. Its habitat ranges from the British Isles to the Russian Far East. The species can live and successfully reproduce in extreme environmental conditions. Therefore, the perch is found in oligotrophic clear-water lakes, the brackish waters of the Baltic Sea and acidic dark-water bog lakes where other fish species cannot survive. However, it is not known yet what genetic mechanisms have helped the perch adapt to such varied living conditions. The perch is an important link in the food chain of water bodies. Additionally, the striped fish has a huge impact on the methane cycle of lakes, reducing methane emissions by lakes almost tenfold by changing the food chain. As methane is a much more effective greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, the perch plays an important role in the reduction of global warming. "This is why it is especially important to understand the adaptation mechanisms of the perch in bog lakes poor in oxygen (and rich in humic substances), where methane emission is the highest and the perch is often the sole fish species," said the ichthyologist Anti Vasemagi, professor at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and senior researcher at Estonian University of Life Sciences, who led the research. Scientists are heading to lake Loosalu rabajarv. Credit: Estonian University of Life Sciences According to Vasemagi, the assembled genome is a significant milestone. "Compared to the previously studied fish species, the genome is of high value, as we used innovative methodology based on separate marking of long DNA molecules and determining the sequence of the short ones," Vasemagi said. The scientist said that the applied methodology allows sequencing even large genomes quickly, comparatively cheaply and precisely, during which the exceedingly difficult task of matching the genome together is divided into millions of lesser puzzles. Thus, it is finally possible to conduct studies covering the whole genome of different fish species. Vasemagi added that the easiest way for grasping the size of the genome is by converting its measurements understandably to humans. "If you imagine that the length of one base pair is one millimetre, the perch genome can reach from Tartu to Berlin," he said, adding that the next task for the research group is mapping genome regions, or kilometre posts on the route from Tartu to Berlin, that contain traces of natural selection. What's more, the perch is an important commercially exploited fish species and also a very popular target among recreational fishermen. It is widely farmed in many locations in Europe. "Sequencing the perch genome enables scientists to map the regions of the genome that affect the fish's growth rate, time of reaching sexual maturity, resistance to diseases, and other important aquacultural characteristics,"said professor Riho Gross, the chair of aquaculture at Estonian University of Life Sciences. "Sequencing the perch genome will simplify similar studies in North America, where a close relative of our perch, the yellow perch (Latin name Perca flavescens) is widespread. Sequencing perch genome is just the first step towards understanding which evolutionary mechanisms have made the perch one of the most successful and widespread fish species in temperate Eurasia," Vasemagi concluded. Explore further Study shows evolution does not always mean more diversification More information: Mikhail Yu. Ozerov et al, Highly Continuous Genome Assembly of Eurasian Perch (Perca fluviatilis) Using Linked-Read Sequencing, G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics (2018). Mikhail Yu. Ozerov et al, Highly Continuous Genome Assembly of Eurasian Perch (Perca fluviatilis) Using Linked-Read Sequencing,(2018). DOI: 10.1534/g3.118.200768 Provided by Estonian Research Council An aerial photo shows peat soil collapse in the Florida Everglades. Photo by Stephen Davis, The Everglades Foundation. Credit: Stephen Davis, The Everglades Foundation More saltwater in the Everglades could make climate change worse, a new Florida International University study found. Some parts of the Everglades can release up to three times the amount of carbon dioxide when salinity levels are high and water levels are low, according to FIU scientists . Peat soil in the Florida Everglades can trap harmful carbon dioxide when water levels are high. But intruding saltwater could cause peat soil to break down and release large amounts of carbon. "We were surprised to see a large amount of carbon loss when only a modest amount of saltwater intruded the dry marsh. We didn't see the same result when the same modest amount of saltwater intruded the wet marsh," said Ben Wilson, author of the study, who conducted the research as a biology Ph.D. student at FIU. "The carbon that is potentially being lost from the Everglades during these events is comparable to the carbon dioxide emitted by 35,000 cars annually. It shows even if salinity increases gradually with sea level rise, as long as the coastal Everglades receives more freshwater, some of its negative impacts can be mitigated." Those negative impacts are already being seen. Sixty-five percent of plant roots in fresh water marshes and 72 percent of roots in brackish water marshes died because of increased salinity levels brought on by sea level rise, according to the study. "Without management interventions like delivery of more water to help mitigate the peat collapse, some areas of the coastal Everglades will be vulnerable as saltwater moves in with sea level rise," said Tiffany Troxler, director of science in FIU's Sea Level Solutions Center and lead primary investigator of the study. "We are collaborating with management agencies on ways in which results can be used in efforts to improve water delivery to the coastal Everglades." The study was funded by the Florida Sea Grant, including cooperative agreements with Everglades National Park, the Everglades Foundation and the South Florida Water Management District. The scientists also relied on funding and data from the Florida Coastal Everglades Long Term Ecological Research (FCE-LTER) program. Housed at FIU and funded by the National Science Foundation, the FCE-LTER program leads some of the largest and longest studies on how water, people and climate impact the Everglades. The study was recently published in Ecological Applications. Explore further Everglades needs more fresh water to fight salt water intrusion More information: Benjamin J. Wilson et al. Salinity pulses interact with seasonal dry-down to increase ecosystem carbon loss in marshes of the Florida Everglades, Ecological Applications (2018). Journal information: Ecological Applications Benjamin J. Wilson et al. Salinity pulses interact with seasonal dry-down to increase ecosystem carbon loss in marshes of the Florida Everglades,(2018). DOI: 10.1002/eap.1798 A digital brain reconstruction of the recently extinct elephant bird revealed that its optic lobes were virtually absent, a trait it shares with the closely-related kiwi and which indicates that it was nocturnal and possibly blind. This is in contrast to the distantly related tinamous, which is active during the day and can see. Credit: C. Torres for The University of Texas at Austin. If you encountered an elephant bird today, it would be hard to miss. Measuring in at over 10 feet tall, the extinct avian is the largest bird known to science. However, while you looked up in awe, it's likely that the big bird would not be looking back. According to brain reconstruction research led by The University of Texas at Austin, the part of the elephant bird brain that processed vision was tiny, a trait that indicates they were nocturnal and possibly blind. The findings were published Oct. 31 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. A nocturnal lifestyle is a trait shared by the elephant bird's closest living relative, the kiwia practically blind, chicken-size denizen of New Zealandand a clue that is helping scientists learn more about the elephant bird's behavior and habitat, said Christopher Torres, a Ph.D. candidate who led the research. "Studying brain shape is a really useful way of connecting ecologythe relationship between the bird and the environmentand anatomy," Torres said. "Discoveries like these give us tremendous insights into the lives of these bizarre and poorly understood birds." Julia Clarke, a professor at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences and Torres' Ph.D. adviser, co-authored the study. Torres is a student in UT's Department of Integrative Biology in the College of Natural Sciences. Elephant birds were large, flightless and lived in what is now Madagascar until a mixture of habitat loss and potential human meddling led to their demise between 500 and 1,000 years ago. "Humans lived alongside, and even hunted, elephant birds for thousands of years," Torres said. "But we still know practically nothing about their lives. We don't even really know exactly when or why they went extinct." Giant nocturnal elephant birds are shown foraging in the ancient forests of Madagascar at night. Credit: John Maisano for the University of Texas at Austin Jackson School of Geosciences. Scientists had previously assumed that elephant birds were similar to other big, flightless birds, like emus and ostrichesboth of which are active during the day and have good eyesight. But Torres and Clarke revealed that elephant birds had distinctly different lifestyles through reconstructions of their brains. Bird skulls wrap tightly around their brains, with the turns and curves of the bone corresponding to brain structures. The researchers studied the skulls of two species of elephant birds. By using CT-imaging data of the two elephant bird skulls, the researchers were able to create digital brain reconstructions called endocasts. In addition to the elephant bird skulls, the researchers also created endocasts for close relatives of the elephant bird, both living and extinct. In both elephant bird skulls, the optic lobea bundle of brain nerves that controls eyesightwas very small, with the structure almost absent in the larger species. The lobe had the most in common with that of a kiwi, which Torres said came as a "total shock" because of the kiwi's poor vision and nocturnal behavior. "No one has ever suspected that elephant birds were nocturnal," Torres said. "The few studies that speculated on what their behavior was like explicitly assumed they were active during the day." Andrew Iwaniuk, an associate professor at the University of Lethbridge and an expert on brain evolution in birds who was not involved with the research, said that he had a similar reaction to the findings. "I was surprised that the visual system is so small in a bird this big," he said. "For a bird this large to evolve a nocturnal lifestyle is truly bizarre and speaks to an ecology unlike that of their closest relatives or any other bird species that we know of." In addition to vision, the endocasts rendering of the olfactory bulbthe part of the brain that processes the sense of smellhelped shed light on the habitats where elephant birds lived. The larger of the two species of elephant bird had a large olfactory bulb, a trait associated with forest dwelling. In contrast, the smaller elephant bird species had a smaller olfactory bulb, possibly indicating that it lived in grasslands. The smaller species also appears to have somewhat keener vision, which means it may have been more active at dusk than during the pitch black of night. "Details like these not only tell us about what the lives of elephant birds were like, but also what life in general was like on Madagascar in the distant past," Clarke said. "As recently as 500 years ago, very nearly blind, giant flightless birds were crashing around the forests of Madagascar in the dark. No one ever expected that." More information: Nocturnal giants: evolution of the sensory ecology in elephant birds and other palaeognaths inferred from digital brain reconstructions, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, rspb.royalsocietypublishing.or .1098/rspb.2018.1540 Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B Nocturnal giants: evolution of the sensory ecology in elephant birds and other palaeognaths inferred from digital brain reconstructions, The ATV-derived service module, sitting directly below Orions crew capsule, will provide propulsion, power, thermal control, as well as supplying water and gas to the astronauts in the habitable module. The first Orion mission will be an uncrewed lunar flyby in 2017, returning to Earths atmosphere at 11 km/s the fastest reentry ever. Credit: NASA The European Service Module that will power and propel the Orion spacecraft on its first mission around the moon will ship early next week from Bremen to the United States. It will take off in an Antonov An-124 aircraft in the early hours of 5 November and arrive at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA on 6 November. Designed and manufactured in Italy and Germany, the powerful workhorse is Europe's contribution to humanity's return to the moon. Trusted partner For the first time, NASA will use a European-built system as a critical element to power an American spacecraft, thanks in large part to ESA's successful Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) programme that brought supplies to the International Space Station. The knowledge gained by ESA and European industry from designing, building and operating the complex and successful Automated Transfer Vehicle missions was instrumental for ESA's participation in NASA's Orion spacecraft. The unit resembles ATV, from which it evolved. Three types of engine will propel Orion to its destination and can turn it in all directions to align the spacecraft as needed. Inside the European Service Module, large tanks hold fuel as well consumables for the astronauts: oxygen, nitrogen and water. Radiators and heat exchangers keep the astronauts and equipment at a comfortable temperature, while the module's structure is the backbone of the entire vehicle, like a car chassis. ATV Jules Verne. Credit: ESA/NASA The European Service Module was built by main contractor Airbus Defence and Space, with many companies all over Europe supplying components. The final product recently completed final integration and testing in Europe. Next steps Once at Kennedy Space Center, the European Service Module will be connected to the Orion crew module and its adapter in preparation for Exploration Mission-1 a test flight without astronauts that will travel farther into space than any human-rated spacecraft has ventured. The mission is expected to launch in 2020. Work is already underway on the second European Service Module that will power a crewed mission around the moon. The Orion spacecraft will eventually launch together with components of the Gateway, a human-tended outpost in lunar orbit that will aid human and robotic exploration of the moon. Technicians work underneath the European Service Module for NASAs Orion spacecraft, September 2018. Credit: ESAA. Conigli Explore further Orion's first Service Module integration complete Study authors Megan Fuller (right) and Niny Rao (left), faculty at Jefferson (Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University) Credit: Jefferson (Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University) In a new study, Jefferson (Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University) researchers found chemical differences between hot and cold brew coffee that may have health impacts. In particular, the researchers found that hot-brewed coffee has higher levels of antioxidants, which are believed to be responsible for some of the health benefits of coffee. The study, published Oct. 30 in Scientific Reports, also found that the pH levels of both hot and cold coffee were similar, ranging from 4.85 to 5.13 for all coffee samples tested. Coffee companies and lifestyle blogs have tended to tout cold brew coffee as being less acidic than hot coffee and thus less likely to cause heartburn or gastrointestinal problems. The study was done by Niny Rao, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry, and Megan Fuller, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemistry, both of them coffee drinkers who wondered whether the chemical make-up of cold brew differed from that of hot coffee. While the popularity of cold brew coffee has soared in recent yearsthe U.S. market grew 580 percent from 2011 to 2016they found almost no studies on cold brew, which is a no-heat, long-steeping method of preparation. At the same time, there is well-documented research that hot-brewed coffee has some measurable health benefits, including lower risk of some cancers, diabetes and depression. While the overall pH levels were similar, Fuller and Rao found that the hot-brewed coffee method had more total titratable acids, which may be responsible for the hot cup's higher antioxidant levels. "Coffee has a lot of antioxidants, if you drink it in moderation, research shows it can be pretty good for you," Fuller said. "We found the hot brew has more antioxidant capacity." And considering hot and cold brews have comparable pH levels, Rao said, coffee drinkers should not consider cold brew a "silver bullet" for avoiding gastrointestinal distress. Explore further Video: Better coffee through chemistry More information: Niny Z. Rao et al, Acidity and Antioxidant Activity of Cold Brew Coffee, Scientific Reports (2018). Journal information: Scientific Reports Niny Z. Rao et al, Acidity and Antioxidant Activity of Cold Brew Coffee,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-34392-w ESO's exquisitely sensitive GRAVITY instrument has added further evidence to the long-standing assumption that a supermassive black hole lurks in the centre of the Milky Way. New observations show clumps of gas swirling around at about 30 percent of the speed of light on a circular orbit just outside a four million solar mass black hole -- the first time material has been observed orbiting close to the point of no return, and the most detailed observations yet of material orbiting this close to a black hole. This visualisation uses data from simulations of orbital motions of gas swirling around at about 30% of the speed of light on a circular orbit around the black hole. Credit: ESO/Gravity Consortium/L. Calcada ESO's exquisitely sensitive GRAVITY instrument has added further evidence to the long-standing assumption that a supermassive black hole lurks in the centre of the Milky Way. New observations show clumps of gas swirling around at about 30% of the speed of light on a circular orbit just outside its event horizonthe first time material has been observed orbiting close to the point of no return, and the most detailed observations yet of material orbiting this close to a black hole. ESO's GRAVITY instrument on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) Interferometer has been used by scientists from a consortium of European institutions, including ESO, to observe flares of infrared radiation coming from the accretion disc around Sagittarius A*, the massive object at the heart of the Milky Way. The observed flares provide long-awaited confirmation that the object in the centre of our galaxy is, as has long been assumed, a supermassive black hole. The flares originate from material orbiting very close to the black hole's event horizonmaking these the most detailed observations yet of material orbiting this close to a black hole. While some matter in the accretion discthe belt of gas orbiting Sagittarius A* at relativistic speedscan orbit the black hole safely, anything that gets too close is doomed to be pulled beyond the event horizon. The closest point to a black hole that material can orbit without being irresistibly drawn inwards by the immense mass is known as the innermost stable orbit, and it is from here that the observed flares originate. "It's mind-boggling to actually witness material orbiting a massive black hole at 30% of the speed of light," marvelled Oliver Pfuhl, a scientist at the MPE. "GRAVITY's tremendous sensitivity has allowed us to observe the accretion processes in real time in unprecedented detail." These measurements were only possible thanks to international collaboration and state-of-the-art instrumentation. The GRAVITY instrument which made this work possible combines the light from four telescopes of ESO's VLT to create a virtual super-telescope 130 metres in diameter, and has already been used to probe the nature of Sagittarius A*. Earlier this year, GRAVITY and SINFONI, another instrument on the VLT, allowed the same team to accurately measure the close fly-by of the star S2 as it passed through the extreme gravitational field near Sagittarius A*, and for the first time revealed the effects predicted by Einstein's general relativity in such an extreme environment. During S2's close fly-by, strong infrared emission was also observed. "We were closely monitoring S2, and of course we always keep an eye on Sagittarius A*," explained Pfuhl. "During our observations, we were lucky enough to notice three bright flares from around the black holeit was a lucky coincidence!" This emission, from highly energetic electrons very close to the black hole, was visible as three prominent bright flares, and exactly matches theoretical predictions for hot spots orbiting close to a black hole of four million solar masses. The flares are thought to originate from magnetic interactions in the very hot gas orbiting very close to Sagittarius A*. Reinhard Genzel, of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching, Germany, who led the study, explained: "This always was one of our dream projects but we did not dare to hope that it would become possible so soon." Referring to the long-standing assumption that Sagittarius A* is a supermassive black hole, Genzel concluded that "the result is a resounding confirmation of the massive black hole paradigm." Explore further Image: Cloudlets swarm around our local supermassive black hole More information: "Detection of Orbital Motions Near the Last Stable Circular Orbit of the Massive Black Hole SgrA*", by the GRAVITY Collaboration, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 31 October 2018. Journal information: Astronomy & Astrophysics "Detection of Orbital Motions Near the Last Stable Circular Orbit of the Massive Black Hole SgrA*", by the GRAVITY Collaboration,, 31 October 2018. www.eso.org/public/archives/re eso1835/eso1835a.pdf . DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201834294 At 2:15 a.m. EDT (0615 UTC) on Oct. 31, the MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite gathered infrared data on Hurricane Oscar. Strongest thunderstorms circled the center and were in a thick band west of center where cloud top temperatures were as cold as minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 53 Celsius). Credit: NASA/NRL NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the North Atlantic Ocean and gathered temperature data on Hurricane Oscar. The data showed the bulk of strong storms were in the northwestern quadrant as Oscar began transitioning into an extra-tropical storm. On Oct. 31 at 2:15 a.m. EDT (0615 UTC) the MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite gathered infrared data on Oscar. Infrared data provides temperature information. Strongest thunderstorms were west and northwest of the center where MODIS found cloud top temperatures as cold as minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 53 Celsius). NASA research has shown that cloud tops with temperatures that cold were high in the troposphere and have the ability to generate heavy rain. At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC) on Oct. 31 the center of Hurricane Oscar was located near latitude 34.1 degrees north and longitude 53.6 degrees west. That's about 660 miles (1,060 km) east-northeast of Bermuda. Oscar is moving toward the northeast near 22 mph (35 kph). A faster north-northeast to northeast motion is expected during the next few days. Maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 75 mph (120 kph) with higher gusts. The estimated minimum central pressure is 982 millibars. The National Hurricane Center noted at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), "Oscar is quickly transforming into an extratropical low. Although there is still a little bit of deep convection just north of the center, a more prominent cloud shield extends northward from the western part of the circulation." NOAA's GOES-16 satellite imagery showed Oscar's center nearly embedded within a frontal zone and cold air moving into the back side of the system. Oscar is expected to become an extratropical low over the north-central Atlantic Ocean by tonight, Oct. 31 (EDT). Although gradual weakening is expected during the next several days, Oscar is expected to remain a powerful post-tropical cyclone over the north-central and northeastern Atlantic Ocean into the weekend. Although far from land, large swells generated by Oscar will affect Bermuda through Wednesday, Oct. 31. Conceptual image of the Lucy mission. Credit: NASA/SwRI NASA's mission to perform the first reconnaissance of the Trojans, a population of primitive asteroids orbiting in tandem with Jupiter, passed a critical milestone today. NASA has given approval for the implementation and 2021 launch of the Lucy spacecraft. The confirmation review, formally known as "Key Decision Point C," authorized continuation of the project into the development phase and set its cost and schedule. The confirmation review panel approved the detailed plans, instrument suite, budget and risk factor analysis for the spacecraft. The next major mission milestone, the Critical Design Review, will examine the detailed Lucy system design. After a successful critical design review, the project team will assemble the spacecraft and its instruments. "Up until now this mission has entirely been on paper," said Lucy Principal Investigator Hal Levison of the Southwest Research Institute at Boulder, Colorado. "Now we have the go ahead to actually cut metal and start putting this spacecraft together." Lucy, the first space mission to study the Trojans, takes its name from the fossilized human ancestor called "Lucy" by her discoverers whose skeleton provided unique insight into humanity's evolution. Likewise, the Lucy mission will revolutionize our knowledge of planetary origins and the formation of the solar system. Lucy is planned for launch October 2021. During its 12-year journey, the spacecraft will visit seven different asteroids - a Main Belt asteroid and six Trojans. The spacecraft and a remote-sensing instrument suite will study the geology, surface composition, and bulk physical properties of these bodies at close range. "Today's confirmation of Lucy is a key step towards better understanding the role that small bodies played in the formation of the Solar System and life on Earth," said Adriana Ocampo, Lucy's program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. "We congratulate the entire team for their hard work." Explore further NASA selects mission to study Jupiter's Trojan asteroids Scientists at the University of Plymouth are conducting a long-term investigation into the behavior of sea anemones. Credit: Fabian Rudin/University of Plymouth Environmental conditions could play a major role in the instigation of fights within the animal kingdom, according to new research. Scientists at the University of Plymouth have discovered that different flow regimes and oxygen levels within the marine environment are likely to result in conflict. Writing in the Journal of Experimental Biology, they say that conditions also play a key role in an individual's resources of strength and stamina andconsequentlytheir success in such battles. The study is part of a long-term investigation into the behaviour of sea anemones, funded through a grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. Professor Mark Briffa and Dr. Sarah Lane, from the University's Marine Biology and Ecology Research Centre, have previously demonstrated the influence of both immune function and prior experience on the likelihood of fighting success. They have also shown that creatures who instigate fights are just as likely to suffer long term harm as those defending themselves. However, the current study could be particularly relevant amid continuing changes to the marine environment brought on by global warming. Dr. Lane, a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, said: "The coastal environment that these sea anemones live in is rarely stable. We wanted to understand how such changes might affect the fights which take place in the wild. Our results revealed conditions can not only prompt fights but completely alter both an individual's ability to fight and its motivation." The study focused on the beadlet sea anemone Actinia equina, which is found in large quantities on coastlines across the UK. Scientists exposed some creatures to decreased levels of oxygen (hypoxia) within tanks and then examined their willingness to fight over a prize they would encounter in the wild, fast-flowing water. The results showed those anemones who had been living in aerated water were more likely to initiate combat, and more successful in it, than their oxygen-deprived rivals. However, those housed in hypoxic conditions were still willing to start fightsand succeeded in themagainst those from similar conditions. Professor Briffa, who has been studying animal behaviour within the marine environment for more than 20 years, added: "Typically we think of fighting prowess as an intrinsic trait of individual animals. Our new study shows that external conditions can cause differences in fighting ability, in a way that influences the outcome of a fight and has the potential to be seen throughout the animal kingdom." More information: Sarah M. Lane et al, How does the environment affect fighting? The interaction between extrinsic fighting ability and resource value during contests, The Journal of Experimental Biology (2018). Journal information: Journal of Experimental Biology Sarah M. Lane et al, How does the environment affect fighting? The interaction between extrinsic fighting ability and resource value during contests,(2018). DOI: 10.1242/jeb.187740 Farming with no chemical inputs in Senegal. Credit: CIRAD In Africa, the development of organic agriculture is facing specific challenges because of the need to achieve food security for a rapidly expanding population and the persistent low chemical input use for producing food for home consumption. We are familiar with the export of certified organic products to countries in the North, but know little about organic farming's potential for the continent's development. Yet the movement is booming. Ludovic Temple, an economist with CIRAD, has coordinated a collective summary documenting how organic production can constitute a technological pathway, providing a structure for the development of the food and agricultural sector in Africa. For some years now, organic farming has become increasingly institutionalised in Africa with the emergence of continental networks, such as AfrONet (African Organic Network), created in 2014. It promotes organic and ecological farming on the continent by organising events, such as the 4th African conference on organic agriculture due to take place in Senegal with CIRAD's participation (see inset). Uganda's success story In Uganda, organic agriculture has gradually become institutionalised since the 1990s. This East African country now has 200 000 certified "organic" producers, a national movement has emerged (NOGAMUNational Organic Agricultural Movement of Uganda) and a specific policy is being drafted. "In this country, organic farming has been adopted by the agricultural sector, which is largely made up of family farming in terms of the number of farmers involved in the movement, Uganda is the first African country and the second in the world after India," as Pauline Bendjebbar explains. She is a Ph.D. student in political sciences working with CIRAD. Her thesis is devoted to the institutionalisation of organic farming in Africa. The young researcher's work has led to the deconstruction of two widely held assumptions: Organic agriculture in Africa is "organic by default." It is a fact that African agriculture is based on natural traditional techniques and has the lowest level of chemical input use in the world. However, several scientific articles highlight the serious problems and the pollution generated by chemical inputs on the continent, particularly in peri-urban zones. Furthermore, supporters of organic farming use more technical and structured methods than traditional methods. African organic agriculture produces for export to countries in the North. The export of products certified by a third party has indeed been one of the driving forces in the development of organic production in Africa. However, many organic farming initiatives have been launched with food security goals. The certification models are far more varied than in northern countries, like the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS), little known in Europe. To develop organic farming in all its diversity, it must be certified whatever the contexts and the target markets. "In which case, the European example, where third party certification has superseded all the other systems, should not be followed," asserts Sylvaine Lemeilleur, a CIRAD economist. Elsewhere in the world, several certification systems coexist, which is often better. For example, in Brazil several certification models provide access to the same national organic farming standard. "Maintaining a combination of guarantee systems is the best way to include the maximum number of producers in the 'organic' movement," says Sylvaine Lemeilleur, who is a PGS specialist. "Each certification method has advantages and disadvantages. Third party certification is expensive for producers, while PGS require farmers' time and involvement, especially to coordinate inspections. The former is better adapted to production for export, while the PGS are more suited to local and national markets. "When African countries have their own public policies for organic farming, they should strive to make them compatible and inclusive. For example, if grants for organic conversion are created, they should apply to all certification systems so that no farmers are excluded." The Supreme Court has upheld the acquittal by the Sandiganbayan of one of the graft charges filed against former Caloocan City Mayor Enrico Recom Echiverri for lack of evidence. In a decision, the SCs Second Division dismissed a petition by the Office of the Ombudsman assailing the decision of the anti-graft courts to grant Echiverris demurrer to evidence that resulted his acquittal for one of more than 40 cases. The tribunal sustained the April 16 and June 13, 2018 resolutions of the Sandiganbayan clearing Echiverri and two former city officers of violation of Section 3(e) of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act due to the failure of the prosecution to establish their guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The SC said that the Ombudsman, through the Office of the Special Prosecutor, failed to sufficiently show that the Sandiganbayan gravely abused its discretion when it granted the former mayor and his co-accuseds demurrer to evidence. The high court also affirmed the acquittals of former city accountant Edna Centeno and former city budget officer Jesusa Garcia. A demurrer to evidence is a motion to dismiss the case on the basis of lack of sufficient evidence to convict the accused. One can be filed after the prosecution rests its case. The Ombudsman had alleged that the accused awarded an P8-million contract for a local road and drainage system improvement project to P.B. Grey Construction without authorization from Caloocan Citys Sangguniang Panlungsod. Centeno and Garcia were also charged with the crime of falsification of public documents. In April, the Sandiganbayan ruled that there was no evidence to even hint Echiverri was motivated by bad faith in entering into a contract for the project. All three were acquitted of graft, while Centeno and Garcia were cleared of charges for falsification of public documents.This prompted the Office of the Ombudsman to run to the SC for relief. But the SC agreed with the Sandiganbayans ruling that granting the demurrer to evidence was warranted because the prosecutions evidence showed the former mayor was authorized by an ordinance to enact a supplemental budget to enter into city development projects, including the allegedly anomalous road and drainage improvement bid. The SC ruled that the Ombudsman prosecutors evidence also showed the project underwent the required procurement process, thereby eliminating the possibility that it was entered into by respondents with manifest partiality or with gross inexcusable negligence, and/or that it resulted in undue injury or actual damage to the local government. The tribunal also held that since the granting of the demurrer to evidence operates as an acquittal, reopening the case will subject the former accused to double jeopardy, which violates the Constitution. None of the exceptions to the rule against double jeopardy are present in the case, it added. As such, respondents acquittal can no longer be overturned, the SC declared. However, Echiverri is far from being off the hook, as he still faces at least 40 more pending graft cases, in connection with his alleged misuse of P235.65 million out of a loan he entered with the Landbank of the Philippines for various local infrastructure projects. The rugged landscape of northern California provided a natural laboratory to investigate the factors influencing forest regeneration after wildfire. This photograph taken just west of Happy Camp California shows areas that burned 20 years earlier. Portions of the landscape were managed while other areas were left to regenerate naturally. Credit: Jeff Shatford Researchers at Portland State University and Oregon State University looking at the aftermath of wildfires in southwestern Oregon and northern California found that after 20 years, even in severely burned areas, Douglas fir grew back on its own without the need for salvage logging and replanting. The study, published online Oct. 26 in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, is the latest to address the contentious issue of whether forest managers should log dead timber and plant new trees after fires, or let them regenerate on their own. Melissa Lucash, an assistant research professor of geography in PSU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a co-author of the study, said that concerns in the Klamath over whether conifer forests would regenerate after high-severity fires have led to salvage logging, replanting and shrub removal on federal lands throughout the region. But the study found that the density of Douglas-fir was relatively high after 20 years and was unaffected by whether or not a site had been managed. "This is an area where forest managers are really worried that the Douglas-fir won't come back, but what we found is that they come back just fine on their own," she said. "We forget the power of natural regeneration and that these burned sites don't need to be salvage logged and planted." Tree boles remain standing 20 years later after the wildfire that killed them on Grider Ridge in northern California. Naturally regenerating Douglas-fir sapling emerge from the shrub fields. Credit: Jeff Shatford Lucash suggests that those resources could instead be reallocated elsewhere, perhaps to thinning forests to prevent high-severity wildfires. The research team also included Maria Jose Lopez, a research associate at Universidad del Cono Sur de las Americas in Paraguay; Terry Marcey, a recent graduate of PSU's Environmental Science and Management program; David Hibbs, a professor emeritus in Oregon State University's College of Forestry; Jeff Shatford, a terrestrial habitat specialist in British Columbia's Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development; and Jonathan Thompson, a senior ecologist for Harvard Forest. The authors sampled 62 field sites that had severely burned 20 years prior on both north and south slopes of the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountainsome of which had been salvaged logged and replanted and others that had been left to regenerate on its own. Among the study's findings: Aspect, or the direction a slope faces, played an important role in determining the effectiveness of post-fire practices. Density of Douglas-fir was higher on north than south aspects, but was unaffected by whether or not a site had been managed, suggesting that Douglas-fir regeneration is inherently less abundant on hot and dry sites and management does not influence the outcome. On the flip side, management practices increased the density of ponderosa pine on south aspects, but had no impact on north aspects. That finding suggests that with rising temperatures and increasing severity of fires in the region, management would be most effective when tailored to promote drought-tolerant ponderosa pine on south aspects. Managed sites had taller conifers, which can improve fire resistance, but also had fewer snagsan important habitat feature for bird, small mammals and amphibian species in the region. The authors recommend that forest managers should avoid applying the same post-fire management practices everywhere and should instead tailor practices to specific objectives and the landscape context. Explore further High wildfire severity risk seen in young plantation forests More information: Maria J. Lopez Ortiz et al, Post-fire management affects species composition but not Douglas-fir regeneration in the Klamath Mountains, Forest Ecology and Management (2018). Journal information: Forest Ecology and Management Maria J. Lopez Ortiz et al, Post-fire management affects species composition but not Douglas-fir regeneration in the Klamath Mountains,(2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2018.10.030 This heat map shows the volume of calls from refugees to non-refugees in Turkey from January to early March, 2017. Credit: Beichen Tian When refugees use their mobile phones they leave clues about how well they are integrating (or not) into their host country. Clio Andris, assistant professor of geography in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, is analyzing a year's worth of phone calls to find the clues to help address the Syrian refugee crisis in Turkey. "We responded to the Data for Refugees (D4R) Challenge which provides researchers with call data records (CDR) collected during the 2017 calendar year. Researchers tend to get excited about CDR data because they show human calling, texting and mobility patterns at a very fine grain level. The data challenge is a great opportunity," Andris said. "And equally compelling is a real opportunity to help refugees." The CDR data does not include personal information about the callers or the content of the phone calls. "The identification of the phone numbers have been masked, and we don't have extensive mobility data about anyone," Andris said. There are 3.5 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey, who have fled since the beginning of the civil war in 2011, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Andris and team received a seed grant from Penn State's Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) to analyze call data records from a Turkish telecom company. The multi-college research team also includes Carleen Maitland and Zhenhui (Jessie) Li, both associate professors in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, and Guangqing Chi, associate professor of rural sociology and demography and public health sciences in the College of Agricultural Sciences. The data are supplied by Turk Telekom, in partnership with the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) and Bogazici University, and in collaboration with several academic and non-governmental organizations, including UNHCR Turkey, UNICEF, and the International Organization for Migration. "We are going to use the percentage of calls between refugees and non-refugees as a proxy measure of economic and social integration," Andris said. "The more calls between the groups, the more integrated into the community the refugees may be, as they are part of one another's social life. We are in the process of crunching those numbers now." Beichen Tian, a graduate student in geography, is assisting with the project. "Second, we will geolocate the places that individual refugees who appear to be more integrated tend to visit over a two-week long period to determine what kinds of community resources such as markets, schools, places of worship, government services, etc. are there," Andris said. "Then we will better understand the types of places and ground conditions in the local environment that tend to correspond to better integration." "It's correlation, not causation," Andris said. "But the analysis should reveal patterns or rules that can help inform policymakers about which socio-environmental variables are most conducive to refugee integrationat least in Turkey, and possibly in other locations. We also can identify which types of cities, population densities and surrounding populations tend to be conducive to integration." This study is just the first step in a larger research project Andris is planning. "Our larger project will investigate what kinds of geographic locales tend to be most conducive to integration. We are hoping to get to talk with more experts on the topic and confirm or verify our data set by speaking with locals involved in refugee life in Turkey," she said. According to the call for proposals, the goals of the D4R Challenge are: to contribute to the welfare of the refugee populations; to gain insights on key issues, such as safety and security, health, education, unemployment, social integration and segregation, mobility, and distribution of resources and infrastructure; to aid governments and international bodies model the dynamics of the refugee populations and to discover vulnerabilities (socio-economic vulnerabilities, gaps in education and services, etc.); and to seed further projects, co-created with refugees, resulting in new applications, services and innovative solutions for refugees in Turkey and elsewhere. Explore further High unmet need for dental care among Syrian refugees, research shows Dr. Hamer and Alyssa Meyers Applying a 24-Hour Continuous Read Ambulatory ECG Holter Monitor. Credit: Italo Zecca, Ph.D. student More than 100 working dogs employed by the federal government across the United States have been infected with the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, the cause of Chagas disease, which may lead to heart problems, according to a new study presented today at the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) Annual Meeting. Chagas disease is a tropical infection spread by a blood-sucking triatomine or "kissing bug" that may pose a growing threat in the United States. Once known only in Mexico, Central America and South America, Chagas is now making tentative incursions into the United States, infecting canines and humans. But the extent of the risk, for either, is not clearly defined. "We were surprised to find that so many dogs, including those working outside of the kissing bug range, had been exposed to the parasite T. cruzi, and were exhibiting heart abnormalities associated with the disease," said Alyssa Meyers, a Ph.D. candidate at Texas A&M University who presented the findings. The T. cruzi parasite is transmitted through the feces of kissing bugs, so called due to their tendency to feed around the mouth. Infections in humans or dogs initially can produce a fever and fatigue. But even infections that produce no symptoms can lead to an enlarged heart or abnormal heart rhythms that can cause sudden death. Meyers said that because kissing bugs can thrive in locations with high concentrations of hosts, like dog kennels, dogs in training facilities could be at risk for exposure. These dogs train at facilities in Texas and Virginia, two states with known populations of kissing bugs that carry the Chagas parasite, and it is likely that some dogs were exposed while training in the South. "From previous studies we knew that shelter and stray dogs were at risk for exposure, likely because of their time spent outdoors, and perhaps the dogs working along the U.S.-Mexico border who spend long hours outside often at night might be equally exposed," she said. "We were not expecting infection in dogs that spend most of their time working along the border with Canada or in airports in Nebraska." Meyers and fellow researchers at Texas A&M University worked with colleagues from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to collect and test blood samples from 1,660 working dogs in 43 states whose duties include border patrol, search and rescue, detecting drugs and explosives, and assisting officers who guard federal buildings. The testingwhich was prompted by evidence of Chagas in dogs working on the Mexican borderrevealed that 121 dogs, or more than 7 percent tested, had antibodies to T. cruzi, indicating an ongoing infection. Many of the infected dogs also showed signs of heart abnormalities associated with Chagas that can be fatal. Meyers said that in South America, dogs have served as effective sentinels to provide early warning of Chagas risk to humans, though dogs themselves pose little direct risk of infecting humans. But Meyers added that uncertainty about where the infected dogs picked up the parasiteincluding dogs now working in states within the kissing bug rangemakes it difficult to say what the findings mean for human risks. Most human cases diagnosed in the U.S. are believed to have been caused by infections picked up in Latin America. But there have been documented cases of locally acquired infections in some of the southern statesArizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas. In some states this has prompted regular surveillance. Kissing bugs are now found in 27 states and as far north as Delaware. And a growing number of those bugs are known to be carrying the Chagas parasite. Risks for Dogs May Not Mean Dangers for Humans Meyers said the discovery of a relatively high rate of Chagas infections in working dogs is not necessarily an indication of an increasing threat to people. "A positive dog usually signals that infected kissing bugs are in the environment," Meyers noted. "But the risk to humans is likely not equal to dogs, in part because dogs have a tendency to eat bugs that could be infected with the parasite and dogs spend more time outdoors." Also, unlike the kissing bugs that transmit Chagas in Mexico and Central America, studies show the varieties found in the U.S. are less likely to infest houses, significantly reducing encounters with humans. Meanwhile, there is concern about how the disease may affect working dogs exposed to the disease, given the many important functions they provide. For example, in 2009, several military working dogs serving alongside U.S. troops conducting bomb detection work in Iraq had to be evacuated due to heart problems linked to Chagas infections, leaving troops without an important member of their team. "Not all dogs that are exposed to the parasite develop cardiac disease. Many can live a happy, healthy life," Meyers said. "We are trying to understand why some dogs remain asymptomatic, while others develop Chagas cardiomyopathy. These dogs play a critical role in our country's security, and we want to make sure we are doing everything we can do to keep them healthy." To learn more about the effect of Chagas on the DHS dogs, a subset of the infected dogs were outfitted with wearable electrocardiogram or ECG monitors that allowed researchers to obtain 24 hours of data on cardiac performance. "We just pulled the dogs aside for a few minutes to put on the monitors and then they went right back to work," Meyers said. The monitors revealed that over two-thirds of the infected dogs were showing early signs of cardiac problems associated with Chagas. The dogs are now being monitored for any signs of progression of cardiac problems. But there are no treatments available specifically for dogs infected with Chagas disease, and the researchers said that medications used to protect dogs from fleas and ticks are not known to repel either kissing bugs or the Chagas parasite. There are drugs available to treat human infections, but their efficacy varies and is especially low for infections that have been lingering for a long period undetected. A follow-up study is planned to explore interventions that can help the DHS dogs avoid exposure to kissing bugs. The researchers also are collecting additional cardiac data from the dogs in an effort to better determine whether the abnormalities detected pose an immediate risk. "This silent killer Chagas has posed a real risk to humans in certain parts of the country," said ASTMH President Regina Rabinovich, MD. "Ongoing support for research to track where this disease is and how it got there is crucial, as is enhanced education and training for those in the health sector to better recognize this disease." Explore further Research finds high rate of Texas bugs carrying Chagas disease Texas undergraduate teams pitched their startup ideas recently at the University of Texas-Austin to win their share of $50,000. University of Texas-Austin students made up four of the five winning teams at DisrupTexas, an undergraduate pitch competition hosted by UT-Austin's Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship, Growth and Renewal. The event featured 25 finalists from UT-Austin, the University of North Texas, Trinity, Texas State, UT-Dallas and the University of Houston. Teams presented 10-minute pitches followed by a five-minute feedback session from four judges. UT students Katherine Allen and Atreya Misra took home the top prize - $20,000for their employer recruitment startup, Flo Recruit. Allen and Misra began working together in 2016, first selling their web application to student organizations. The pair formally founded Flo Recruit in January and now have seven paying customers across the country. The idea for Flo Recruit began as Allen and Misra were job hunting for life after college. "We were going through the corporate recruiting process ourselves," said Allen, a mechanical engineering and Plan II senior. "And we realized the same issues that were plaguing student organizations were plaguing larger companies." Flo Recruit helps companies quickly receive candidate information and gather employee feedback on candidates. Allen and Misra hope their startup will eventually help detect bias in the hiring process and predict the likelihood of a candidate being hired even before the interview process begins. The co-founders said they plan to use their prize money to go toward gaining new customers. "I didn't expect we'd make it as far as we did," said Misra, an electrical engineering doctoral candidate. "It was really nice to be honored." Four other teams took home money at DisrupTexas. Pigeon, a business communication platform, won $10,000. UT-Dallas' Survivr, a virtual reality platform that standardizes police training, won $5,000. Pro Lit Fic, a self-publishing and peer review platform, won $3,000. Event planning startup Dive won $2,000. DisrupTexas also gave away $15,000 in Oracle credits. Explore further Texas guv confirms Amazon visit to Austin, Dallas 2018 Austin American-Statesman, Texas Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Vietnam has rolled out a series of measures to boost its control of online communication, which critics say is aimed at punishing activists Vietnam said Wednesday it has set up a web monitoring unit that can scan up to 100 million news items per day for "false information", in a move that tightens its grip on internet freedom. The one-party state has rolled out a series of measures to boost its control of online communication, which critics say is aimed at punishing activists who use Facebook and YouTube as their main platforms. Lawmakers passed a tough cybersecurity law in June requiring internet providers to store data in the country and remove "toxic content" if requested to do so. Firms like Facebook and Google will also have to hand over user data if asked by the government. Neither company has publicly commented on the bill. The move came after a top general announced a 10,000-strong internet task force had been set up to monitor online posts. Dissidents say the cyber-soldiers flood their Facebook pages with pro-government commentary. The latest system includes software that can allegedly read 100 million items online daily "for analysis, evaluation and categorisation," said information minister Nguyen Manh Hung, according to the government's website. "It is necessary to legally punish those who publish wrong information on social media... we cannot leave this front unmanned," he said. He did not provide details on how the virtual unit functions, or how the so-called dubbed the National Centre on Supervising Information can scan such a large chunk of data. In a veiled reference to Facebook and Google, he added Vietnam should be "tougher" in asking international internet companies to follow Vietnamese laws, namely requests to remove information. The communist country has tightened the noose on internet expression and is accused of targeting activists, who rely on Facebook as a widely popular and crucial platform since all media is state-controlled. The cybersecurity law, which mimics China's web law and is set to come into effect in January, prompted outcry from the US, the EU and rights groups. The Ministry of Public security said the bill was aimed at staving off cyber-attacksand weeding out "hostile and reactionary forces" using the web to stir up violence and dissent, according to a transcript of a question-and-answer session with lawmakers this week. Shrinking freedoms Critics say web freedom is shrinking under a hardline administration in charge since 2016, under which dozens of activists have been jailed at a pace not seen in years. The administration has also gone after protestors who waged rare protests in June over a proposed investment law, with nearly 80 people jailed. Another 30 people were sentenced to between two and 3.5 years on Wednesday in central Binh Thuan province, where the demonstrations spun out of control. The nation-wide protestswhich also included calls to scrap the cyber lawcame as a surprise in a country where demonstrations of any kind are banned. They were fuelled by anti-China sentiment, with protestors accusing the government of offering long-term leases to Chinese investors in proposed special economic zones, though Beijing was not named in the bill. Explore further Anger as Zambia announces tax on internet calls 2018 AFP The Bureau of Immigration ordered Australian nun Patricia Fox to leave the country after the bureau denied her application for an extension of her temporary visa which will expire on Nov. 3. The 72-year-old nun, who personally went to the bureau to apply for the extension of her temporary visa in a bid to extend her stay in the country, is contesting her deportation order before the Department of Justice which is still pending. Foxs request for an extension of her missionary visa was petitioned by the Superior of the Religieuse De Notre Dame De Sion, Inc. The controversial nun will be considered an overstaying alien starting Nov. 4, the BI said. However, Fox can still stay in the country without prejudice to the resolution of her appeal to the DOJ on her deportation case, the BI said.BI spokesperson Dana Krizia Sandoval said that Sister Fox violated the conditions of her stay and is considered undesirable, hence a deportation order was issued against her. She admitted that the BI cannot forcibly deport the nun because of the pending petition before the DOJ. Until a final resolution of the visa cancellation and/or deportation proceedings is reached, or until the expiration of her missionary visa, whichever comes first, Sister Fox may continue to perform her duties as a missionary in the Philippines, the DOJ said in a statement. The presence of three justices in the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal is intended to tone down the political nature of the cases and to assure impartiality in the judgment of the tribunal. The Supreme Court made the declaration as it dismissed the petition filed by former Marinduque Rep. Regina Ongsiako Reyes who challenged the alleged constitutionality of some provisions in the 2015 Revised Rules of the HRET. Under the Constitution, the HRET is mandated to resolve all contests relating to the election, returns, and qualification of the members of the House of Representatives. It is a collegial body composed of three SC justices and six members of the House. In her petition, Reyes assailed the constitutionality of Rule 6(a) of HRETs Revised Rules, which provides that the presence of at least one justice and four members of the Tribunal shall be necessary to constitute a quorum. Reyes argued that the rule on the presence of one SC justice to constitute a quorum violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution and gives undue power to the justices over the legislators. This means that even when all the Justices are present, at least two members of the House of Representatives need to be present to constitute a quorum. Without this rule, it would be possible for five members of the House of Representatives to convene and have a quorum even when no Justice is present. This would render ineffective the rationale contemplated by the framers of the 1935 and 1987 Constitutions for placing the Justices as members of the HRET, the SC decision penned by Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, According to the tribunal, Reyes is nitpicking in claiming that Rule 6(a) unduly favors the Justices because under the same rule, it is possible for four members of the House of Representatives and only one Justice to constitute a quorum. Rule 6(a) of the 2015 HRET Rules does not make the Justices indispensable members to constitute a quorum but ensures that representatives from both the Judicial and Legislative departments are present to constitute a quorum, the high court ruled. The SC also said the rule does not violate equal protection clause in the Constitution.There is a substantial distinction between the Justices of the Supreme Court and the members of the House of Representatives. There are only three Justice-members while there are six Legislator-members of the HRET. Hence, there is a valid classification. The classification is justified because it was placed to ensure the presence of members from both the Judicial and Legislative branches of the government to constitute a quorum. There is no violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution, the SC pointed out. Reyes also challenged the alleged ambiguity in the HRET rules, particularly on cases of inhibition of members, under Rules 6 and 69. However, the high court held that a member of the HRET who inhibits or is disqualified from participating in the deliberations cannot be considered present for the purpose of having a quorum. The SC said that Rule 69 clearly shows that the SC and the House of Representatives have the authority to designate a Special Member or Members who could act as temporary replacement or replacements in cases when one or some of the Members of the Tribunal inhibit from a case or are disqualified from participating in the deliberations of a particular election contest when the required quorum cannot be met. There is no basis to petitioners claim that a member who inhibits or otherwise disqualified can sit in the deliberations to achieve the required quorum, the high court said. The tribunal also rejected Reyes argument that the Revised Rules of the HRET expanded the jurisdiction of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on cases involving members of the House of Representatives. The HRETs jurisdiction is provided under Section 17, Article VI of the 1987 Constitution. There is no room for the Comelec to assume jurisdiction because HRETs jurisdiction is constitutionally mandated, it said. The SC emphasized that the filing of an election protest or a petition for quo warranto should be within fifteen (15) days from June 30 of the election year if the winning candidate was proclaimed on or before said date; however, if the winning candidate was proclaimed after June 30 of the election year, within fifteen (15) days from the date of promulgation. 1 hour ago Elizabeth Holmes takes the stand in her criminal fraud trial SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) Fallen Silicon Valley star Elizabeth Holmes, accused of bamboozling investors and patients about her startup Theranos and its medical device that she said would reshape health care, took the witness stand late Friday in her trial for criminal fraud. The surprise decision to have Holmes testify so early in her defense came as a bombshell and carries considerable risk. Read Article "She has been a topnotch executive." "She has been a topnotch executive." The word brand is not a political concept. It belongs to the worlds of marketing and intellectual property law. But one of the candidates in next years contest for the mayorship of Makati City has now made brand a political concept. The candidate is a former mayor of the nations financial capital, Jejomar Binay Jr. Young Mr. Binay is running against one of his sisters, incumbent mayor Abigail Binay-Campos. After two terms as a councilor, he succeeded his father and motherJejomar Sr. and Elenita Binayas Makatis chief executive until 2013, when the Office of the Ombudsman charged him criminal and administrative offenses related to the bidding for and continuation of Makati city halls Parking Building II. At the time of the promulgation of the Office of the Ombudsmans resolution, Mayor AbigailAbby to her numerous admirerswas completing a term as Representative of Makatis First District. In keeping with Philippine politics dynastic culture, Abigail Binay was enlisted to run for mayor in the 2016 election. Her husband, Luis Campos, is the current Representative of the citys Second District. Enter the idea of branding. Queried by the media as to why there is a brother-against-sister political situation in his city, Junjun Binay had this to say: I could not ignore the clamor coming from Makati residents, who said that they miss the Binay brand of leadership. There are two noteworthy words in the phrase Binay brand of leadership: brand and leadership. Let us examine them in turn. First, leadership. Pressed to expound on his idea of leadership, former Vice-President Jejomar Binays only son had this to say: When our constituents ask us to serve, we cannot say no. When the public needs our help and care, we cannot turn them down.Next, the matter of brand. From the above-quoted statements it would appear that Junjun Binays idea of a brand of leadership is (not being able to) say no and (not being able to) turn them down. Thats not the Binay brand of leadership: thats the Junjun Binay brand of leadership. Young Mr. Binay should not associate the rest of his family in his brand of leadership. Junjun Binay does notand apparently cannotcomprehend the essence of good leadership. Like this countrys other elected officials, its mayors are not placed in positions of power so as to be all things to all men. Not all of the things that constituents ask for are desirable or socially sound; the mark of a leader, a good leader, is to be able to say no to, and turn down the requests of, those who ask public officials for undesirable and anti-social things. Without intending to boost her candidacy, I think it bears saying that Mayor Abby Binay has been a top-notch chief executive. After the bad things that have happened to her father and brother, her occupancy of the mayors office has been like a breath of fresh air for arguably the nations most progressive city. The mayor has been very careful in her actions and has kept her nose clean. Hers has been a no-scandal administration. Indeed, the very fact that most of the members of the city council and the majority of the barangay captains are said to have declared their support for Junjun Binaythe clamor coming from Makati residents?speaks volumes. Have they abandoned Mayor Abby because they have not been getting from her the goodies that they so easily used to get from her brother? Sure looks like it. Former Vice President Binay, wishing to appear impartial but pretty obviously favoring Mayor Abby, has declared that it is up to Makatis citizens to decide who should be the citys chief executive during the three years that begin on July 1, 2019. He is absolutely right. The residents of Makatis 33 barangays should decide for themselves whether Mayor Abby should stay or go. They should ignore the defection of all those opportunistic and self-serving city councilors and barangay captains. October 31, 2018 in Photo and Video (E) [prMac.com] Vilnius, Lithuania - The Pixelmator Team today announced it is planning to release a brand new app for iPad, the AI-powered Pixelmator Photo. Pixelmator Photo gives users all the tools they need to edit photos on iPad - a collection of nondestructive, desktop-class color adjustments, a set of stunning, machine learning-enhanced film emulation presets, a magical Repair tool to remove unwanted objects from photos, support for editing RAW images, and more. "From the very first day that we released Pixelmator Pro on Mac, we wanted to bring the same photo editing experience to iPad," said Saulius Dailide, one of the founders of the Pixelmator Team. "And with Pixelmator Photo, we're bringing a fantastic collection of photo editing tools to iPad - our powerful color adjustments, the magical Repair tool, groundbreaking, AI-powered image enhancement, and more." Pixelmator Photo brings a desktop photo editing experience to iPad. It features full support for RAW images from over 500 cameras, a collection of powerful, nondestructive color adjustments - foundational adjustments like Brightness, Exposure, and Saturation, time-tested photo editing classics, such as Levels, and Curves, a Grain adjustment for adding film grain, and many others. And the Repair and Crop tools let users perfect all the details - from removing small blemishes and entire objects to perfecting the composition. Pixelmator Photo also takes full advantage of Core ML, using machine learning to power its ML Fix, ML Presets, and ML Crop features. ML Crop uses a machine learning algorithm to suggest a way of improving the composition of a photo. Users can choose an aspect ratio and tap the ML Crop button to be offered a suggestion, optionally resizing and repositioning the cropping box to refine the suggestion. ML Fix uses a Core ML-powered algorithm trained on 20 million professional photos to intelligently enhance exposure, white balance, and every individual color range in an image. ML Fix is designed to take care of all the time-consuming little things that go into a great photo, allowing users to focus on adding their own creative finishing touches. The machine learning-enhanced film emulation presets allow users to effortlessly emulate the look of analog film in their digital photos. Each preset has been meticulously designed and refined using genuine photographs developed with classic films like Kodak Portra, Fujifilm Superia, Ilford HP5, and others. And with ML Presets, Pixelmator Photo first balances the lighting and colors in a photo using a cutting-edge machine learning algorithm, only then applying the preset to ensure they keep their unique look on every photo. Pixelmator Photo will be available exclusively for iPad and is coming to the App Store later this year. Founded in 2007 by two brothers, Saulius Dailide and Aidas Dailide, the Pixelmator Team develops Pixelmator - the world's most innovative image editing app for Mac and iOS. Pixelmator has been honored with numerous awards, such as the Mac App of the Year award in 2011, the iPad App of the Year award in 2014, and many more. Pixelmator for iPad was featured at the Apple Special Event in October 2014. All Material and Software (C) Copyright 2007-2018 Pixelmator. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iPhone, iPad and macOS are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other trademarks and registered trademarks may be the property of their respective owners. ### "My best guesstimate is that the military will try to blend in and learn the trade at Customs." "My best guesstimate is that the military will try to blend in and learn the trade at Customs." Although one big problem in the Bureau of Customs is certainly the issue of corruption, it is by no means the only one. There are other issues in the BOC that are also crying for reform. Perhaps tired of the never-ending corruption allegations within the agency, the President has ordered the military to take control of the graft ridden agency. It has however, come under criticism from some quarters which is hardly surprising. This sort of experiment has happened before and ended in failure. Why the government this trying it again, we do not know. Maybe it has found a new formula that will work this time. In the first attempt, new graduates from the Philippine Military Academy were assigned to the Customs bureau. Eventually, the system swallowed those bright young graduates which is exactly the words being used by President Duterte in describing what happened to Faeldon and Lapena in the BOCHonest people being swallowed by a corrupt system. The President is well known for his partiality to military men. Maybe the President still believes that assigning men with proven integrity to inject some values can still reform a rotten and corrupt agency. It is unfortunately not enough. The BOC is a snake pit. It is an agency where unscrupulous and corrupt people can become very rich quickly. There was this story about a BOC janitor who was charged several years ago for corruption. He was apparently found to have owned a sizable house and a couple of vehicles while receiving a janitors pay. How much more for the gods who run the bureau? We can only guess. The average life span of a customs commissioner has not been long in the past several years. Faeldon did not last long and so did Lapena. Eventually, these people will find themselves being charged for corruption which have happened to last three. We will have to wait and see what will happen to the new one who is another military man. It would also be interesting how the military will try to solve the corruption problem of the agency. The Customs bureau is a complex agency populated by people with vastly different culture than the military. My best guesstimate is that the military will try to blend in and learn the trade.The mafia within the Bureau, however, will simply run circles around them which means that it will be business as usual. And why is corruption so pervasive in the Bureau that it can easily swallow the most principled of men? In one study on the issue of corruption, organizations lacking in regulations and standard operating procedures are usually the ones susceptible to corruption. This is because it allows officials of that agency to play god. For instance, although all shipment are supposed to be X-rayed, before release, we know that there are exceptions especially when there is port congestion. In the case of Mangaoang versus Lapena, if the X-ray division did find something in the magnetic canisters, why were they not inspected? Why were they allowed to pass? Why the detection was was only revealed in the Senate hearing when there was already an intelligence report that there was the possibility of illegal drug smuggling? The X-ray division actually forms part of the intelligence gathering process because X-ray machines can detect suspicious shipments which is the reason why all shipments must be X-rayed with no exceptions. Another thing that needs to be corrected is the single documentation process. In the Bureau, the document that is going out the BOC is different from the one going in. There is no better example of this than our imports from China. As far as Philippine officials records are concerned, the figure is about $15 billion. But the figure coming from China tells a different story. It is almost twice the amount at something like $29 billion. It is therefore, quite easy to calculate how much taxes the government is losing as a result of this malpractice. Clearly, the beneficiaries of this practice are corrupt bureau officials and the importers who will make a killing at the expense of the government and Juan dela Cruz. The bureau therefore, must have to implement this single-document policy if it wants to collect all taxes due it. When the government can plug these loopholes that allow corrupt officials to play god, corruption in the bureau can be reduced and that is probably the best that government can hope forsimply to reduce corruption. How about the tussle between Mangaoang and her boss Sid Lapena? I think Senator Ping Lacson described it best when he said that Lapena may have been promoted but to many, he lost some grounds on the confidence issue and credibility even if the President defended him vigorously. The other thing that Lapena lost is bragging rights. Being abruptly removed from a job even for promotion cannot entirely be viewed as positive. Maybe the President should have waited for some time before transferring Lapena to a higher position so as not to give fuel to Lapenas critics and Mangaoang claiming credit for his ouster. She is now in fact being praised by government critics as a dragon slayer and is now being offered protection in the witness protection program. There are now calls that Lapena be charged for the P11 billion in methamphetamine that slipped through the customs by virtue of command responsibility. But it is not as simple as that. Malacanang has a definition of what constitutes command responsibility. Lapena must first be proven to have done nothing after finding out about the missing illegal drug shipment. "I support the transfer of administration of the Bureau of Customs to the military." "I support the transfer of administration of the Bureau of Customs to the military." Of all the agencies in government, the Bureau of Customs is perceived to be one of the most corrupt in our country. The BOC is regarded as ground zero for smuggling, bribery and entry points for drugs and other illegal goods. Since the start of the current administration, many smuggled goods have been intercepted and seized by the Bureau. In 2016, P2 million worth of ecstasy tablets and shabu were seized and another P1.2 million worth of ecstasy tablets were found in a plastic bag both at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. In 2017, the bureau recovered P6.4-billion worth of shabu in a warehouse in Valenzuela which were concealed in a metal cylinder and were believed to have come from China. In the same year, another P234 million worth of illegal drugs were intercepted and confiscated by the bureau. In June this year, 17.96 kilos of shabu and 1.03 kilos of marijuana with an estimated value of P133.6 million were seized at NAIA and Port of Clark. Last August, P4.3 billion worth of shabu was intercepted at the Manila port. Meanwhile, in September, 800 grams of shabu amounting to P5.44 million was also seized at NAIA. Last October, the most recent and yet the biggest controversy faced by the Bureau is the missing P11 billion worth of shabu that was allegedly contained in the four magnetic lifters confiscated in Cavite.These are the conditions precedent that may have triggered the President to issue an order for the military to control activities within the BOC. He recently appointed former Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief General Leonardo Guerrero as its new commissioner and then directed the Armed Forces of the Philippines to take over the agency to eradicate corruption and large-scale smuggling especially of illegal drugs. Customs officials have admitted before the presence of corruption in the Bureau. Given this mess, it takes great political will to clean this agency. The President has showed us this, with his strong mindset and bold move to appoint military men in his Cabinet. The AFP abides by its morals of honor, service and patriotism. They are honed to uphold discipline, order, and integrity. These principles are of paramount importance to ensure efficiency and purity of a government entity, especially with the likes of Bureau of Customs. As the agency most tainted with corruption, the Bureau of Customs needs leaders who practice and manifest these values. The most important thing is to restore order, discipline, and integrity in the agency. A military leadership exactly fits this need. While there have been some reservations that this is not the perfect solution, what is? The President has been intolerant of bureaucracy. Bureaucracy makes it conducive for corruption to occur. While this may take a while to eliminate, the takeover of the military is hoped to make a difference and a huge improvement in the processes in the bureau. I support the transfer of administration of the Bureau of Customs to the military. As the President himself said, the military can do things expeditiously. At this point, the country needs immediate solutions to our never-ending problems such as corruption, smuggling, and illegal drugs. The seizure of illegal drugs at the point of entry is crucial and beneficial to the war against illegal drugs. At the same time, cleansing the agency of its evils will result in efficient management and strict implementation of the law. Military participation is intended to be temporary. While the administration is deciding on realistic, appropriate and lasting solutions to the BOC, perhaps my House Resolution No. 1918, where I proposed the possible engagement of the SGS or the Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS) of Switzerland, which was contracted by the government in the 1990s to take charge of the inspection and valuation of imported goods, could be tabled for discussion. "So long as there is demand, there will be supply." By tradition, Filipinos visit their dead in public cemeteries and memorial parks. As early as Tuesday, families of the dead have trooped to these places, putting up tents, spending time together, remembering their loved ones and also having some fun. This practice was handed down to us by the Mexicans with whom we traded. My family never missed going to the La Loma cemetery where my parents were buried. When the Loyola Memorial Park became available, we buried their bones there. It is also there where my wifes family is interred. Years ago, however, we stopped going to cemeteries on Nov. 1 because of the terrible traffic. Now we visit the dead on their birthdays and anniversaries. Anyhow, we remember them every day, wherever we are. I notice that Filipinos have the nasty habit of leaving trash behind when they visit their loved ones. I find it disgusting. * * * It should be clear by now to President Duterte that so long as there is demand for illegal drugs, syndicates will always be there to provide supply especially given out porous borders. With three to four million drug users nationwide, thats a lot of demand in any language! The problem is that the President is looking at it as a law and order problem. The police kill addicts and pushers. But this approach wont work because drugs are a health issue more than anything else. So long as there are drug abusers and addicts, demand will be there. Customs knows this so well. The solution then is to cut off that demand by rehabilitating drug abusers and addicts at community-based rehabilitation centers. I can say this because I worked for years as vice president for DARE Foundation under Bob Garon. In other countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, the government does not go around killing drug users. Instead they impose the death penalty on those responsible for the entry of illegal drugs. In Colombia and Peru, the government goes after the cartels and syndicates. Here in the Philippines, together with putting up rehab centers nationwide, the government should go after narcopoliticians who make the distribution of drugs possible. Through this, I think the President can minimize the menace. The question is whether he is listening.* * * Malacanang is now obviously aware that the Presidents order for the military to take over the Bureau of Customs is unconstitutionalthe military cannot take over civilian functions and the President cannot just replace Customs personnel without due process. Now Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo says the President was just talking about intimidation, not a takeover. President Duterte, being a lawyer, should have been advised on the unconstitutionality of what he wanted to happen because it would affect his credibility. For the President to backtrack now would tell us he really says words he does not mean. We understand his exasperation at the rampant smuggling at the bureau. Indeed, even good men appear to be swallowed by the corrupt system. Now we hear the new Customs Commissioner Leonardo Rey Guerrero vowing to institute reforms at Customs. Its the same old line. But can the bureau ever be free from smuggling and corruption? I have covered 10 administrations in almost 70 years of journalism. Everyone promised to eradicate corruptioneveryone failed. I have spoken with businessmen on what could be done to address the problem. The answer they give me is privatization. Leave everything to the private sector, they say. This could be done with enough political will. * * * I have long been urging the government to turn its attention to the deplorable state of our jails, particularly at the New Bilibid Prison. I saw photos released by Reutersand my heart sank. Inmates have to take turns sleeping because there is not enough space. They are not animals! If there is an ultimate violation of human rights, this is it. And then, the inmates have to make do with a P50 daily food allowance. The relocation of the NBP has been planned under previous administrations, but up to now, nothing has been done. It was built for 2,400 inmates but now the number is ten times that. As far as I know, there was already a plan to relocate the NBP to Laur, Nueva Ecija. There were already three bidders who had prequalified. But former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre, for some reason, decided to junk the project. Was there a favored bidder who did not prequalify? This must be investigated. I have yet to see President Duterte visit NBP or any Metro Manila jail to see how pitiful the conditions of the inmate really are. One of these days, there might be an epidemic there. www.emiljurado.weebly.com " " A bird's-eye view of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge in Zhuhai, Guangdong, China. TPG/Getty Images The world's longest sea-crossing bridge has opened, connecting mainland China to Hong Kong. The 34-mile (55-kilometer) bridge cost $20 billion, took nine years to construct and will reduce travel time between its three terminal locations along the Pearl River Delta Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao from 3 hours to 30 minutes. Officially known as the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, the structure consists of three cable-stayed bridges, an undersea tunnel and four artificial islands. The bridge has been engineered to withstand earthquakes, typhoons and run-ins with shipping vessels, with 400,000 tons (363,000 metric tons) of steel used for reinforcement. By comparison, that's 4.5 times the amount of steel in San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, according to Travel Wire Asia. Advertisement Artificial islands were built in shallow waters to buoy the bridge's crossing; two of the islands are used as entrances and exits for a 4-mile (6.7-kilometer) tunnel through which drivers can travel under the sea's busiest shipping lane. While the bridge removes a travel barrier for some, it puts other barriers in place for others. Private car owners in Hong Kong will require special permits to cross, or they will need to take a paid shuttle bus, and will still need to pass through immigration. It's a political maneuver that has left some citizens and pundits wary. Some "view the bridge as a way of transferring money from taxpayers to local and Chinese oligarchs, whose construction firms built the whole project," wrote Martin Sebena, a Ph.D. student at the University of Hong Kong and a research fellow at the Institute of Asian Studies in Slovakia. In 1997, Hong Kong a former British territory became a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China. China agreed to allow Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy in its economic and social systems for 50 years from the date of the handover. Similarly, in 1999, Macao one of the oldest surviving Portuguese settlements was turned over to China with the promise that its way of life would largely be left alone for 50 years. The bridge connecting these two territories to mainland China could have a far-reaching future impact, both politically and culturally. Now That's Horrifying It's been widely publicized that nine workers died and another 275 were injured during the construction of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, but the construction activity may just kill off the remaining population of endangered Chinese white dolphins that make their home in the Pearl River Delta, too. A Bangladesh court on Tuesday doubled a jail term for imprisoned opposition leader Khaleda Zia from five to 10 years following a prosecution appeal. The decision came the day after Zia, 73, was ordered jailed for seven years in a separate case, piling pressure on the opposition ahead of a national election. The increased term was ordered over embezzlement charges for which Zia, arch-rival of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, was sentenced in February. "The high court has upheld the lower court verdict and raised the jail sentence from original five years to 10 years," anti-corruption commission prosecutor Khurshid A Khan told AFP. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the main opposition movement that Zia still leads from behind bars, has vowed nationwide marches later Tuesday to protest the verdict. The latest court ruling deals a crushing blow to the BNP and its embattled leader, who despite being jailed had clung to a faint hope of running against Hasina in election slated for December. "She cannot contest the elections unless the conviction is set aside by a higher court," Bangladesh's attorney general Mahbubey Alam told AFP. Zia was originally found guilty and sentenced to five years for embezzling money meant for an orphanage, a charge her supporters say is politically motivated. That verdict in February triggered violent clashes in major cities across the Muslim-majority democracy of 160 million, with opposition demonstrators clashing with police and activists from the ruling party. Zia, widow of assassinated military dictator Ziaur Rahman, faces dozens of separate charges related to violence and corruption that her lawyers insist are baseless. Her son and heir-apparent Tarique Rahman was jailed for life in absentia this month over a 2004 grenade attack on a Hasina political rally. Rahman lives in exile in London. In recent months, her health has deteriorated inside the abandoned 19th-century jail -- where she is the only inmate -- with a physician saying that arthritis has rendered Zia's left hand useless. Her lawyers have accused the government of putting her health at risk by refusing her specialised care in prison. New Caledonia, a tiny French territory in the remote Pacific, goes to the polls Sunday to decide whether to seek independence from its rulers on the other side of the world. There are fears that the referendum could reignite old tensions between indigenous Kanak people and whites who have settled on the islands, which are home to a quarter of the world's known nickel supplies, a vital component in electronics manufacturing. Ringed by dazzling white beaches and turquoise waters, New Caledonia is one of a handful of French island outposts scattered around the globe -- a legacy of the country's 19th-century empire-building -- which retain strategic importance. The referendum will be a test of the appeal of remaining part of France for such far-flung territories, which are heavily dependent on state handouts but where many feel overlooked by Paris. Both French Guiana in South America and the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte have been rocked since last year by major protests over living standards and perceived neglect. Yet few expect New Caledonia, home to 269,000 people, to vote for independence from France, which claimed the archipelago in 1853. Indigenous people make up less than half of the electorate, and not all of them want to break free from Paris, 18,000 kilometres (11,000 miles) away. "We have everything we need with France -- schools, hospitals," said Marceline Bolo, a housewife in the Noumea suburbs, describing herself as "proud to be French". Surveys suggest between 60 and 69 percent will vote against a split in Sunday's vote, the culmination of a two-decade process that has seen powers devolved to local authorities. Hundreds of separatists turned out for a final rally in Noumea on Tuesday, waving a sea of colourful Kanak flags to a backdrop of local Kaneka music. Over the noise of the crowd, Roch Wamytan, leader of the separatist UC-FLNKS alliance, urged Kanaks to seek self-determination from "colonist" France, which he said was hanging on to "the last shreds of its empire". Yet many "no" voters point to the 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) the French state pours into New Caledonia's coffers every year, fearing for the economy if the archipelago was to go it alone. Others worry that China could use an independent New Caledonia as a vehicle for its growing influence in the Pacific, following major investment in Vanuatu, another territory which broke from France in 1980. - Leap into the unknown? - New Caledonia already runs its own affairs in many areas, although defence, foreign affairs and higher education are still decided by Paris. "We are already a semi-independent country -- we exercise many powers, so it wouldn't be a leap into the unknown," said Paul Neaouytine, head of the northern province, a separatist stronghold. Others say this is precisely the reason why New Caledonia does not need to split from France. "I don't really understand why we're having such a vote," said retired doctor Rene Gagnolet, resolutely opposed to independence, as he sat in Noumea's market. The referendum will only serve to "whet the appetites of some against us whites", he predicted. His table-mate and former patient Sosefo Taofifenua, part of a large minority hailing from another French Pacific territory, Wallis and Futuna, was meanwhile torn. "My heart is voting with the Kanaks, but my head tells me to stay French," the 72-year-old said, still unsure if he will vote on Sunday. Decades of resentment, not least over the thousands of hectares (acres) of land seized from indigenous people by colonisers, boiled over into deadly clashes in the 1980s. The violence, which claimed more than 70 lives, led to the 1998 Noumea Accord which paved the way for devolution and efforts to redress the economic balance. Yet sharp inequalities remain and New Caledonia's former high commissioner Alain Christnacht, who helped draft the 1998 deal, worries the referendum could revive old animosities. "Kanaks are working as managers, doctors, engineers, airline pilots. Society has moved forward a lot," he said. "But there is also, among Kanaks, a faint concern that immigration will bring them to just 20 or 10 percent of the population, like the Maoris in New Zealand or Aboriginal Australians," he added. "A common society is under construction there, but it's a fragile one." Under the 1998 deal, in the event of a "no" vote two further referendums on independence could still be held before 2022. Khalifa Haftar, head of self-imposed Libyan National Army (LNA) met Monday with Italian Giuseppe Conte for talks in the buildup to an international conference in the Italian city of Palermo on the North African country. Haftar, reports say arrived Sunday in Rome and held series of talks with Conte. The EU country is hosting on November 12-13, in Palermo, an international conference on Libya meant to come out with a peace plan that will overcome several years of political turmoil that ensued the 2011 NATO-backed revolution that toppled Muammar Ghaddafi. Haftar who heads of East-based LNA has emerged as key player in the political life of the North African country as his army control vast swathes of the eastern part of the oil-rich country. Libya has had two distinctive governments. The Beida government, supported by Haftars army, and the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), based in Tripoli. Haftar had criticized Italy for backing the GNA. Italy is reportedly seeking to win the Libyan army generals support for the Palermo conference that Rome is planning to use to assert its role in Libya as a former colonial power. Rome is also trying to outshine Frances efforts to snatch a consensus from Libyan political stakeholders to implement a road map that provided for elections in December this year. Paris hosted in May four Libyan figures among whom Haftar and GNA head Faiez Serraj who agreed to endorse the December polls but the pledges are yet to bear fruits. Denmark on Tuesday recalled its ambassador to Iran after it accused Tehran of plotting a foiled "attack" against three Iranians living in the Scandinavian country. "I have decided to recall Denmark's ambassador in Tehran for consultations... Denmark can in no way accept that people with ties to Iran's intelligence service plot attacks against people in Denmark," Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen told reporters. "It is the Iranian government, it is the Iranian state that is behind" the plot, Samuelsen said. He added that he was consulting with "partners and allies", including the EU, about possible sanctions. Earlier Tuesday, the head of Denmark's intelligence service PET, Finn Borch Andersen, said his agency believed the Iranian intelligence service "was planning an attack in Denmark" against three Iranians suspected of belonging to the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz. A Norwegian of Iranian origin was arrested on October 21 for allegedly planning the attack and spying for Iran. The suspect was detained in the southwestern Swedish city of Goteborg, according to the Swedish security service Sapo. Iran has denied the Danish allegations, with foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi saying they were part of a European conspiracy against Iran. In late September, Tehran accused Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain of "hosting several members of the terrorist group" that Iran holds responsible for an attack in the mainly ethnic Arab city of Ahvaz in southwestern Iran. The September 22 attack, during which five commandos opened fire on a military parade, left 24 people dead. The so-called Islamic State group and a separatist Arab group claimed responsibility, and Iran staged several operations in Iraq and Syria in response. - 'Will stand up to Iran' - Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen echoed Samuelsen's comments, writing on Twitter: "It is totally unacceptable that Iran or any other foreign state plans assassinations on Danish soil. Further actions against Iran will be discussed in the EU." In Oslo, where he was meeting other Northern European leaders, Rasmussen spoke with British counterpart Theresa May, whom he said expressed "support" for Denmark. "In close collaboration with UK and other countries we will stand up to Iran," he added. Iran's ambassador to Denmark was summoned to the foreign ministry Tuesday for an explanation. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US also stood behind Denmark. "We congratulate the government of Denmark on its arrest of an Iranian regime assassin. For nearly 40 years, Europe has been the target of Iran-sponsored terrorist attacks. We call on our allies and partners to confront the full range of Iran's threats to peace and security," Pompeo wrote on Twitter. The US and European countries nonetheless have different approaches to engagement with Iran. In May, the US pulled out of a 2015 international accord on Iran's nuclear programme and in August it reimposed sanctions against Tehran. A second wave of sanctions is to take effect on November 5. EU countries, China and Russia want to preserve the 2015 agreement and maintain trade ties with Iran however. PET's announcement ended weeks of speculation about why Denmark shut down bridges and ferries to Sweden on September 28 during a manhunt that mobilised hundreds of police and the military. The shutdown was aimed at foiling the Iranian operation, PET acknowledged on Tuesday. If Brazil's far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro wants to make good on his promise to reboot the economy, he should stop his attacks on the environment, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The former army captain, who won the giant Latin American country's election Sunday, will merge the agriculture and environment ministries, an adviser confirmed Tuesday -- infuriating environmentalists, who warn the latter will be neutered by business interests. Bolsonaro, who is backed by the powerful agro-industry lobby, has vowed not to let the environment get in the way of kick-starting a flagging economy. That has drawn warnings from environmentalists about the potential impact his policies will have on Brazil's natural resources, and particularly the Amazon rainforest, known as the "lungs of the planet." - Service economy, jungle-style - Taking a step back from the debate, the WWF insisted that a strong economy and healthy environment in fact go hand in hand. The vital role forests play in purifying our air and water should be seen as "environmental services," said Andre Nahur, coordinator of the group's climate change and energy program in Brazil. "They guarantee that important sectors of the economy such as agrobusiness and energy continue producing and contributing to GDP," he told AFP in an interview. "In today's world, where our main biomes (such as the Amazon) are reaching the point of no return in terms of biodiversity loss, it's vital the new president recognize the role that socio-environmental issues play in maintaining economic growth." The Amazon, which is being deforested at an annual rate of some 52,000 square kilometers (20,000 square miles) -- an area the size of Costa Rica -- is vital to the exchange of oxygen for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a check on global warming. Worryingly, about 20 percent of the rainforest has been lost in the past 50 years, according to WWF. Most of the Amazon is located in Brazil, which has taken major steps in recent years to curb deforestation. Yet Bolsonaro's electoral platform made no mention of the words "Amazon," "deforestation" or "climate change" -- part of the hardline conservative worldview that has earned him the nickname "Tropical Trump." In fact, saving the Amazon ought to be apolitical, Nahur argued. "Sustainable development needs to be a cross-party concern," he said. - Paris accord threat - "These days, in any country in the world, development, GDP growth, expanding employment, and improving people's quality of life are a priority," said Nahur. "The thing is, we have to recognize that it's impossible to maintain people's quality of life without environmental balance." During the campaign, Bolsonaro pledged to follow US President Donald Trump's lead and pull Brazil from the Paris climate accord signed by 195 countries in 2015. He has since backtracked, though he says he wants a guarantee the deal will not strip Brazil's sovereignty over the Amazon. There is nothing to fear on that count, said Nahur. The Paris deal "doesn't violate national sovereignty or create the slightest risk of losing territory. That doesn't exist. It's not in the treaty," he said. France has launched a nationwide probe into incidents of babies being born with either missing or malformed arms after abnormal rates of birth defects in several regions have sparked a public health scare. Francois Bourdillon, head of the Public Health France agency, confirmed for the first time that a national investigation was "underway" and the results would be known in about three months. "Nothing is being hidden from you," he assured listeners to RTL radio. Confidence in the state's handling of the issue took a blow Monday night when health authorities reported an additional 11 cases in the Ain area near the Swiss border between 2000 and 2014 which had not previously been made public. A relatively small number of cases have been detected so far in total -- about 25 over the past 15 years in the regions of Brittany, Loire-Atlantique and Ain -- but the defects have caused public alarm and have been widely reported by the French media. Officials had already called the number of cases in Brittany and the Loire-Atlantique areas, on France's west coast, statistically "excessive" and Health Minister Agnes Buzyn has vowed to investigate further. "We don't want to exclude anything," Buzyn told the BFM television channel on Tuesday. "It's maybe something environmental, it's maybe what they (pregnant mothers) ate, it's perhaps what they breathed in," she said. - No explanations found - But for mothers like Isabelle Taymans-Grassin, herself a doctor, there is a sense of suspicion over the way authorities handled information. "It was a shock, a sense of living in a nightmare," she told AFP recalling the birth of her daughter Charlotte in 2012 with a deformed left arm. A few months later, she said she began to discover other families in the same situation in Guidel, Morbihan in northwest France. But they were not convinced by health officials. "We had the impression they wanted to stifle this affair. All the families had that feeling," she said. So far, no explanation has been found for the deformations despite tests on the mothers to see if they were exposed to common substances. Some environmentalists have claimed pesticides or other chemicals could be to blame -- the cases are clustered in rural areas -- but there is no evidence at this point to back up the claims. The defects could also be genetic. In the 1950s and 1960s, thousands of babies around the world were born with missing or stunted limbs linked to the use of the drug thalidomide, which was used to treat nausea in pregnant women. It was banned in the 1960s. The incidents of babies born without arms was brought to public attention by a scientist at the Remera public health body, which was created after the thalidomide scandal and is responsible for tracking birth defects. The scientist, Emmanuelle Amar, has been hailed as a whistle blower by ecologists and campaigners, but has been attacked for scare-mongering by others, including fellow scientists. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) She was a self-described "adrenaline junkie," and he took "wow-worthy photos" of the couple posing at the edge of cliffs and jumping from planes that appeared on social media and a travel blog that attracted thousands of followers. In one post at the Grand Canyon this spring, 30-year-old Meenakshi Moorthy even warned daredevils who try to snap selfies from dangerous heights: "Did you know that wind gusts can be FATAL???" The caption accompanies a photo of Moorthy sitting on the edge of the canyon's North Rim. The couple's latest trip turned out to be their last. Moorthy and her husband, Vishnu Viswanath, 29, who were Indian expats living in California, fell to their deaths in Yosemite National Park last week while taking a selfie, the man's brother said Tuesday. They set up their tripod near a ledge at a scenic overlook in the California park, Viswanath's brother, Jishnu Viswanath, told The Associated Press. Visitors saw the camera the next morning and alerted park rangers, who "used high-powered binoculars to find them and used helicopters to airlift the bodies," he said. Rangers found their bodies about 800 feet (245 meters) below Taft Point, where visitors can walk to the edge of a vertigo-inducing granite ledge that offers spectacular views of the Yosemite Valley below. Their thrill-seeking social media posts foreshadow the couple's link to the growing problem of selfie deaths. A study published this month in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care said 259 people had died taking selfies between October 2011 and November 2017. The report, based on findings from researchers in India who scoured worldwide media reports, said the main causes of selfie deaths were drowning, usually involving people being washed away by waves or falling from a boat, followed by people killed while posing in front of a moving train, deaths involving falls from high places or while taking pictures with dangerous animals. Story continues More than 10 people have died at Yosemite this year, some from natural causes and others from falls, park spokesman Scott Gediman said. Moorthy and Viswanath were born in India and had lived in the United States for a few years, most recently in the San Francisco Bay Area. Cisco India said Viswanath was a software engineer at the company's San Jose, California, headquarters in Silicon Valley. They graduated in 2010 from the College of Engineering, Chengannur, in the Alapuzha district of India's Kerala state, one of their professors, Nisha Kuruvilla, told AP. She said Moorthy and Viswanath were both good students who were fond of traveling and had married at a Hindu temple in Kerala in southern India four years ago. Moorthy described her and her husband as "travel obsessed" on their blog, "Holidays & Happily Ever Afters," which was taken down Tuesday. It was filled with photos of the couple in front of snowy peaks and on romantic trips across Europe, where they took selfies from a gondola in Venice, at the Leaning Tower of Pisa and at the Vatican. Moorthy wanted to work full time as a travel blogger, her brother-in-law said. She described herself in the blog as a "quirky free spirit" and "an ardent adrenaline junkie roller coasters and skydiving does not scare me." She posed at the edge of the Grand Canyon wearing a Wonder Woman costume, writing, "A lot of us including yours truly is a fan of daredevilry attempts of standing at the edge of cliffs and skyscrapers. But did you know that wind gust can be FATAL??? Is our life just worth one photo?" Her husband's Facebook cover photo shows the couple smiling, with arms around each other standing at a Grand Canyon precipice. "Living life on the edge," he wrote. In a post from July 2017, the couple celebrated their wedding anniversary by skydiving in Santa Barbara, California. Moorthy posted a video on Instagram that shows her in a T-shirt saying, "Gimme Danger," and flashing a thumbs-up as she jumps from the plane. "I believe I can flyyy. I believe i can touch the skyyy," she wrote in the post. "Aaaand touch the sky I did from an effin' 18000 feet thanks to the unconditional love-ninja in my life, Vishnu, who literally took this year's anniversary surprise a notch 'higher' than last year's hot air ballooning adventure, by gifting this adrenaline junkie with one of the highest tandem skydives in the world!" She also blogged about depression. In a post from April, Moorthy apologized to readers for going silent and "disappearing for more than a year." "Between battling the tightening tentacles of depression and blustering in the tempest of moving madness, I am afraid social media is taking a back seat??" she wrote. The couple's pictures indicated they liked to pose in scenic spots at sunset, which was the last time they were seen alive. In an eerie coincidence, another couple who hiked to Taft Point captured pictures of Moorthy prior to her fall, saying she appears in the background of two of their selfies. Sean Matteson said Moorthy stood out from the crowd enjoying sunset at the overlook because her hair was dyed bright pink. He said she made him a little nervous because she was close to the edge. "She was very close to the edge, but it looked like she was enjoying herself," said Matteson of Oakland, California. "She gave me the willies. There aren't any railings. I was not about to get that close to the edge. But she seemed comfortable. She didn't seem like she was in distress or anything." The travel advice website MyYosemitePark.com posted a photo of Taft Point to illustrate its "bad selfies" list, warning tourists: "Don't pose on top of a huge granite drop-off." It added, "It would only take a loose rock or bad footing to plummet." Yosemite spokeswoman Jamie Richards said officials were investigating the deaths, which could take several days. In India, after a rash of selfie-related deaths, the Tourism Ministry in April asked state government officials to safeguard tourists by installing signs in areas where accidents had occurred declaring them "no-selfie zones." ___ Associated Press writers Ashok Sharma and Chonchui Ngashangva contributed to this report from New Delhi. ___ This story has been corrected to fix spellings of Meenakshi and Viswanath. Indonesian investigators said they were homing in on the black box from a crashed jetliner after locating its "pings" on Wednesday, two days after the jet crashed shortly after take-off with 189 people on board. Retrieving the black box will be key to unlocking why the Boeing 737-MAX, one of the world's newest and most advanced commercial passenger jets, nosedived into the Java sea so soon after leaving Jakarta. Authorities said they believed they were closing in on the main wreckage and had picked up the box's signals some 30-40 meters (100-130 feet) below the surface of the water off Indonesia's north coast, where the plane crashed Monday. "We've detected the black box signal," Muhammad Syaugi, head of Indonesian search and rescue agency, told reporters in Jakarta. "We could see a lot of passengers' belongings -- lifejackets, pants, clothes -- underwater not just on the surface," he added, saying the debris suggested the main fuselage should be nearby. The black box contains flight data that shows the speed, altitude and direction of the plane, while the cockpit voice recorder keeps track of conversations and other sounds in the cockpit. Dozens of divers were taking part in the 1,000-strong personnel recovery effort along with helicopters and ships, but authorities have all but ruled out finding any survivors. The development comes as Boeing officials were due to meet with Lion Air on Wednesday, after Indonesia ordered an inspection of the US plane maker's 737-MAX jets. Indonesia's transport minister Budi Karya Sumadi took the unusual step of ordering the temporary removal of Lion Air's technical director and several other staff who cleared the flight, citing government authority over the aviation sector. He later stressed that the measure meant to free up the technical director to help with the crash probe. - 'Worst in the world' - Aviation experts say it is too early to determine what caused the accident. But Lion's admission that the plane had an unspecified technical issue on a previous flight -- as well as the plane's abrupt nosedive just 12 minutes after takeoff -- have raised questions about whether it had any faults specific to the newly released model, including a speed-and-altitude system malfunction. "The bigger picture here is that you've got a lot of American carriers flying the same aircraft," Stephen Wright, aviation expert at the University of Leeds, told AFP. "Is there (a problem) that could affect other aircraft?" The crash has also resurrected concerns about Indonesia's patchy air safety record which led to a now-lifted ban on its planes entering US and European airspace. Lion's co-founder Rusdi Kirana, now Indonesia's ambassador to Malaysia, said in a 2015 interview that "my airline is the worst in the world, but you don't have a choice". Founded in 1999, the budget carrier capitalised on a boom in Indonesia's aviation industry, but has been plagued by safety woes and complaints over unreliable scheduling and poor service. Lion was involved in a number of incidents including a fatal 2004 crash and a collision between two Lion Air planes at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta airport. Indonesia's biggest low-cost carrier announced this year it was buying 50 Boeing-737 MAX 10 jets for $6.24 billion. Boeing suspended release of the fuel-efficient 737 MAX just days before its first commercial delivery last year due to an engine issue. But the single-aisle jet was subsequently cleared for commercial delivery and has had thousands of orders from more than 100 customers worldwide. - 'Dad, I love you every day' - Distraught relatives sifted through clothes, wallets and other retrieved personal effects on a Jakarta dockside, as authorities sent body parts to hospital for DNA testing "He was the best husband in the world," 33-year-old Ningsi Ayorbaba said of her partner Ferdinand Paul Ayorbaba, who was on the flight. "We had planned to celebrate our 15th anniversary in April...Today, I'm bringing in DNA samples." Late Wednesday, forensic analysts said they had made their first confirmed identification -- a 24-year-old female chemical engineering graduate who described herself in an online blog as "energetic and highly motivated". Among the items plucked from the water was a smartphone case with the image of a couple walking hand-in-hand over a bridge. The story went viral online and the pair were later identified as Ine Yunita Savitri and her husband Wahjoe Noegrohantoro, who was on the downed jet. Savitri was not on the plane. On Tuesday, their daughter Samantha posted the image to her Instagram account with the words: "Dad, I love you every day". United Nations human rights experts have urged Saudi Arabia to immediately halt the execution of six people sentenced to death for crimes allegedly committed when they were under the age of 18. The experts warned that carrying out the sentences could amount to arbitrary executions. The six who face imminent execution were sentenced for charges that the experts said criminalize fundamental human rights, including the freedom of assembly and expression. The six individuals, all male, Ali al-Nimr; Dawood al-Marhoon; Abdullah al-Zaher; Mujtaba al-Sweikat; Salman Qureish; and Abdulkarim al-Hawaj were allegedly tortured and ill-treated, forced to confess, denied adequate legal assistance during trial and never had access to an effective complaint mechanism, the experts said. As a State Party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Saudi Arabia is under an obligation to treat everyone under the age of 18 as a child, the group said in a news release issued by the UN human rights office, OHCHR, on Monday. Children should never be subject to the death penalty, this practice violates an existing norm of customary international law and renders the punishment tantamount to torture [] In these circumstances, the execution of these six individuals would constitute arbitrary executions, they stressed. Saudi Arabia must ensure that children who have not benefited from a fair trial be immediately released and that those among them who were sentenced to death have their sentence commuted in line with international juvenile justice standards and the Committee of the Rights of the Childs recommendations in 2016, the experts said. The experts acknowledged the recent review initiated by Saudi Arabia of juvenile law but expressed regret that the amendments introduced in the legislation continue to fail to adequately protect children. The law still allows for the death penalty to be imposed on child offenders aged between 15 and 18, said the release. Saudi Arabia should promptly amend its legislation with a view to unambiguously prohibiting the imposition of the death sentence on children, urged the UN rights experts. Over 13 million Shiite pilgrims crowded Iraq's holy city of Karbala Tuesday to mark the annual Arbaeen commemoration, under tight security less than a year after the country declared victory over the Islamic State group. Arbaeen is one of the world's biggest religious festivals and marks the end of the 40-day mourning period for the seventh-century killing of Imam Hussein by the forces of the Caliph Yazid -- a formative event in Shiite Islam. Dressed in black, pilgrims beat their heads and chests as they thronged the golden-domed mausoleum where the Prophet Mohammed's grandson is buried. Imam Hussein's killing in the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD was part of a fierce dispute over who should succeed the Prophet, which eventually developed into a bitter schism between the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam. The authorities estimated that more than 13 million worshippers had flocked to Karbala, 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Baghdad, from across Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Gulf states and even Europe and the US. Some 1.8 million visas were handed out to worshippers from neighbouring Iran. Kuwaiti Ahmed Hussein lauded his "brother Iraqis who have been so generous" to the pilgrims as they journeyed for hundreds of kilometres by foot to their destination. As tradition dictates those living along the route offered free meals, cups of tea and even massages to the passing faithful. Niman al-Bachashi had come from Najaf, another Iraqi holy city, and insisted that he felt "no threat" despite fresh memories of the carnage that has rocked Iraq. Baghdad declared victory over the Sunni jihadists of IS in December after a brutal fight to drive them from Iraqi towns and cities. But the jihadists still roam areas along the border with Syria and maintain the capacity to launch deadly attacks. To protect the Arbaeen commemoration 30,000 soldiers and police officers were deployed, as well as 22,000 fighters from the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary forces, commanders said. Security forces checked pilgrims and vehicles and guarded hundreds of kilometres of roads leading to Karbala. No 2 spot at University of Hong Kong unfilled for more than three years, with no new search in sight The No 2 management post at Hong Kongs oldest university has been unfilled for three-and-a-half years, and this may not change soon, the Post has learned. The University of Hong Kong has been unable to find a new provost and deputy vice chancellor since mid-2015, after two rounds of unsuccessful searches in 2015 and July 2016, and the search process has been suspended since, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter confirmed. Two of the four candidates dropped out in the first round in mid-2015 shortly before the schools governing council refused to appoint legal scholar Johannes Chan Man-mun as pro-vice-chancellor. The pro-vice-chancellor is one step below the provost in the universitys chain of command. Another two candidates were found in early 2016, but the panel chaired by then vice chancellor Peter Mathieson agreed in July that both were not suitable. A third search by the same panel, originally scheduled for early 2017, never took place after Mathieson himself resigned in February that year. We had no clue that Mathieson would leave six months [for a search] originally sounded pretty good said one source involved in the hiring process. The embattled vice chancellor, whose two years on the job saw him embroiled in controversy over both the Johannes Chan appointment saga and the Occupy movement of 2014, left the university in January this year and was succeeded by Zhang Xiang in July. Another source with knowledge of the matter said: [A new search for a provost] may have to wait until Zhang decides when to start but theres no search ongoing, not that I know of. The turbulent process has forced HKU to appoint Paul Tam Kwong-hang, the schools vice-president from 2003 to 2015, to serve as interim provost until a candidate is found a role he has held for three years. Tam, who served under former vice chancellor Tsui Lap-chee before Mathieson took office, is about 64 or 65, according to his ex-classmate David Lee Ka-yan. Story continues When the external search for a provost was suspended, I was in no hurry to restart it because I was happy with Paul Tam as the interim appointee, and he was happy to continue in that role, Mathieson, now head of the University of Edinburgh, said in a written reply to the Post. He would not say how long he anticipated Tam would remain in the role. When I decided to leave HKU, it was logical for the next president to decide about the role of provost, he said. Tam has not responded to inquiries from the Post on his plans. A university spokesperson would not confirm if the interim provost had any intention of retiring soon, or when a new search would begin, confirming only that no candidate for the post had been found so far. In general, for search and selection, it is normal that if a suitable candidate cannot be identified, the process will be put on hold and will be reactivated where appropriate, the spokesperson said. HKU executive vice-president Steve Cannon said he did not know when Tams term would end. You have to ask Paul, I have absolutely no idea, he said. Two major HKU staff unions said the university should commence a new search for a provost as soon as possible. Stephen Chan Chit-kwai, chairman of the HKU staff association, said that although he felt Tam was doing fine at his job, the school management should explain to the governing council if they intended to keep him on for the long run. William Cheung Sing-wai, chairman of the universitys academic staff association, warned that the process could take more than a year. Even for a dean of a faculty, the search could take more than one year, Cheung said. This includes time for screening and any time for handover, including having the candidate leaving their original job. He added that having the same school management for a long period could hamper innovation, particularly when Zhang, the vice chancellor, was new to Hong Kong and had to count on Tam for major decisions. This article No 2 spot at University of Hong Kong unfilled for more than three years, with no new search in sight first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018. FILE PHOTO: The leader of the Norwegian Christian Democratic Party Knut Arild Hareide speaks to his party's board at the Norwegian parliament in Oslo, Norway March 19, 2018. REUTERS/Joachim Dagenborg/File Photo OSLO (Reuters) - Norway's Christian Democratic Party (CDP), which holds the balance of power in parliament, is expected to maintain its support for the minority government in a crucial vote this week, broadcasters NRK and TV2 reported. CDP leader Knut Arild Hareide has proposed switching the party's allegiance to Labour and forming a centre-left government. However, a narrow majority of 190 CDP delegates due to vote on the issue at a party congress on Friday said they will back Conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg, NRK and TV2 reported late on Tuesday. If confirmed, the outcome would be a big boost for Solberg's centre-right government, which has relied on the support of the independent CDP since 2013, and now sees a chance to form a majority cabinet that would cement its position until the next election in 2021. Hareide's proposal was seen as a bid to boost the CDP's flagging fortunes after it won just 4.2 percent of the vote in the 2017 election, down from a record 13.7 percent 20 years earlier. Hareide has grown frustrated over issues ranging from social policy to public security, and by the continued inclusion of the right-wing, anti-immigration Progress Party in government. CDP's two deputy leaders have argued in favour of joining Solberg's government, preferring the party's traditional Conservative ally over Labour. The vote on Friday is expected to take place via secret ballot, however, and Hareide still hopes to persuade a majority of delegates to back his view. A centre-left government could impose some restraints on Norway's oil industry, including state-controlled Equinor, by limiting the awards of new exploration acreage, and would likely raise taxes for high earners and the wealthy. NRK, TV2 and newspaper VG said 99 delegates at the CDP congress were expected to back Solberg's government, above the 96 votes needed for a majority. (Reporting by Terje Solsvik; Editing by Susan Fenton) Global investment firm KKR is investing about S$200 million into PropertyGuru through a Series D round of funding, said Asias leading property technology group on Wednesday... Members of PropertyGurus leadership, together with investors from KKR, share a toast to celebrate the new partnership. Global investment firm KKR is investing about S$200 million into PropertyGuru through a Series D round of funding, said Asias leading property technology group on Wednesday (31 Oct). With this round of funding, KKR joins an impressive investor list that includes TPG, Emtek and Square Peg Capital. This new investment is a great validation of the technology-driven growth that PropertyGuru has delivered. Backed by a decade of market leadership in Southeast Asia and delivering a record year for business performance today the group is profitable, cash flow positive and has revenues growing more than 25 percent year-on-year, said Hari V. Krishnan, CEO at PropertyGuru Group. Ashish Shastry, Member & Head of Southeast Asia at KKR, added: With rapid online migration well underway across many industries, the PropertyGuru team, led by Hari V. Krishnan, has clearly established itself as the Southeast Asian champion in the online property space. We look forward to partnering with them to help take them to the next level. Other regional technology investments by KKR include Indonesian ride-hailing platform Go-Jek and Voyager Innovations in the Philippines. Ganen Sarvanathan, Chairman of the PropertyGuru Group Board and Co-Managing Partner of TPG Capital Asia, said: We welcome KKR as an investor and representatives on the board and look forward to working with them to accelerate PropertyGurus growth across the region. On Wednesday, PropertyGuru also announced the full consolidation of Vietnams number one property portal Batdongsan.com.vn into the Group. The property portal attracts over four million users generating over 70 million page views each month. Batdongsan.com.vn joins PropertyGurus market leading businesses across the region PropertyGuru in Singapore and Malaysia, DDproperty in Thailand, and Rumah.com in Indonesia. With this, the Group enjoys 55 percent market share across Southeast Asia and is the preferred property portal brand. Story continues Batdongsan and PropertyGuru Group have had a long-standing partnership and we are very pleased to cement that today as PropertyGuru invests further in the business, said Batdongsan Founder and Managing Director Le Xuan Truong. Said Krishnan: We first invested in Batdongsan in 2016 and have been impressed with their very strong market leadership fuelled by delivering great value to the Vietnamese property sector. Today, we reinforce our commitment to Vietnam with the consolidation of Batdongsan. We look forward to making our regional expertise fully available to Vietnamese property seekers as well as to help the countrys real estate industry benefit from ASEAN integration. These newest announcements come just months after PropertyGuru unveiled a successful brand refresh with revamped websites and mobile apps that are powered by Artificial Intelligence an industry first in Southeast Asia. Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg Turkish Airways and Hong Kong Airlines Monday signed a codesharing agreement that will enable the Turkish national airline to expand its routes into Asia and the pacific. Under the agreement, Turkish Airlines will now fly to Auckland, Bangkok and Osaka and several other destinations in the region. Hong Kong Airlines on the other hand will add new destinations in Istanbul, Paris, London, Barcelona and other European countries. The agreement came few moments before the inauguration of Istanbul second airport, constructed at a cost put at $7.2 billion. The opening of Istanbul New Airport will further contribute and create new opportunities to promote the cultural and commercial relations between Istanbul and Hong Kong, said Turkish Airlines CEO Bilal Eksi. Hong Kong Airlines CEO Wang Liya believed the signing will open up new frontiers and provide greater convenience to the airlines clients. Turkish Airlines operates six flights per week between Hong Kong and Istanbul. The Turkish national carrier will be the first airline to fly from the Istanbul airport, on October 31, with a flight to capital Ankara. It will subsequently fly to the Turkish resort town Antalya on Nov.1 and to Izmir on Nov. 2. The first international flights will go to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) on Nov. 1 and to Azerbaijan on Nov. 8, reports say. Russia launched a terrorism probe Wednesday after a 17-year-old student blew himself up at the regional headquarters of the FSB security agency, wounding three employees. Several minutes before the suicide blast in the northern city of Arkhangelsk, a post on an anarchist forum warned of an imminent explosion. Investigators said they were checking whether the suspected bomber was a member of any banned organisations and talk to his friends and relatives to "find out the motives for the crime". An explosive device detonated in the FSB building shortly before 9:00 am (0600 GMT), authorities said. Investigators identified the bomber as a 17-year-old local resident. An official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, named the suicide bomber as Mikhail Zhlobitsky, a student at a local technical college. Investigators probing the attack released a photo of the suspect -- a skinny young man with a backpack -- inside the FSB building. Authorities cordoned off streets around the building for several hours, with police and experts combing the area for clues. Attacks on police and security services are common in Russia's restive Northern Caucasus, but are rare in the rest of the country. President Vladimir Putin -- himself a former FSB officer -- was informed about the explosion, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, but declined to speculate on the motive. Investigators said they had opened a probe into terrorism and illegal possession of ammunition. Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the Investigative Committee probing the case, said the young man's motives should be established "as soon as possible." Investigators searched Zhlobitsky's apartment and questioned his relatives and friends. Three FSB employees were hospitalised with injuries after the blast in Arkhangelsk, which is more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) north of Moscow. "One man is in surgery," a spokeswoman for the regional FSB told AFP. - 'FSB has gone mad' - Seven minutes before the blast, a post in an anarchist forum on Telegram, a messaging service, warned that the FSB building would be the target of a "terror attack." The writer of the post, who signed as Valeryan Panov, said he would claim responsibility for it. "The reasons are quite clear to you," said the post. "It (the FSB) is inventing cases and torturing people. I will most likely croak in the blast," he added. "I wish you a bright future of anarchist communism." The FSB is the main successor to the feared KGB agency known for persecuting dissidents in the Soviet era. Starting in 2017, the FSB has launched several cases against young anarchists in the cities of St Petersburg and Penza. Avtonom.org, an anarchist website, have labelled the arrests "repressions" and said the young men were being tortured in custody. The website said on Wednesday evening however that the attacker in Arkhangelsk "has never been in contact with us", that they don't know of any "noticeable anarchist activities" in the northern city. Attacks by anarchists on Russian authorities have in the past included setting police cars on fire and throwing Molotov cocktails at the offices of the ruling party United Russia. Regional governor Igor Orlov said that the authorities were working to establish the type of explosive used. "Things are very serious," he said, blaming the attack on "destructive forces" that influence young Russians. "We are taking measures to increase security of all public and state buildings in Arkhangelsk region," he added. Captain (CPT) Tan Baoshu, 30, was charged with rash act causing death, which carries a jail term of up to five years, or a fine, or both. (PHOTO: Getty Images) A Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) officer involved in the death of full-time National Serviceman (NSF) Dave Lee on 30 April was charged in the State Courts on Wednesday (31 October). Captain (CPT) Tan Baoshu, 30, was charged with rash act causing death, which carries a jail term of up to five years, or a fine, or both. He was the Officer Commanding of the Support Company of 1st Battalion Singapore Guards, where Lee was serving his NS duties in. Lee, a Corporal First Class (CFC) Guardsman, died two weeks after being admitted to Changi General Hospital for heatstroke. The 19-year-old had completed an 8km fast march in Bedok Camp on 18 April before he showed signs of heat injury and had to be hospitalised. CPT Tan was the Supervising Officer for the fast march, which happened between 6.30am and 8.25am. He was charged for failing to evacuate CFC Lee in a timely manner and for not allowing necessary treatment to him from 8.25am to 9.10am. In response to media queries, the Ministry of Defence said that CPT Tan has been suspended from service pending the outcome of the court proceedings. Six more SAF servicemen involved Six other SAF servicemen two regular servicemen and four National Servicemen were involved in the incident, and have been referred to the Ministry of Defence (Mindef) for investigations. Mindef said in a press release that it will defer its internal proceedings until after the conclusion of the criminal proceedings against CPT Tan. It added that the six servicemen will be liable for punishments under the SAF Act if internal investigations found them guilty of military offences. Punishments range from a fine to detention and/or reduction in rank as well as administrative penalties. Mindef/SAF takes the safety of our servicemen seriously, Mindef said in its press release. SAF personnel who conduct unauthorised activities, or who wilfully or negligently fail to comply with training safety regulations, will be severely dealt with and prosecuted under military law by way of Summary Trial or General Court Martial, or under criminal law before the civil courts. Story continues On Wednesday, Tans lawyer Eunice Chua asked for a four-week adjournment to take instructions. The court will hear the case again on 28 November. Decoys deployed One of the disguised men seen leaving the State Courts on Wednesday (31 October) morning following the charging of SAF Captain Tan Baoshu. (PHOTO: Dhany Osman / Yahoo News Singapore) Tan was accompanied to court by a group of four other men. All the men were dressed in long-sleeved white shirts and dark coloured pants. Following the court hearing, two men in similar disguises dark hooded jackets, face masks and sunglasses were seen rushing out of the State Courts building in separate directions. One of the men was believed to be Tan, while the other was believed to be one of the men who followed him to court. Committee of Inquiry findings Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen told Parliament in August that a committee of inquiry (COI) found that Lee died from multiple organ injuries as a result of his heat stroke. The COIs preliminary assessment was that he succumbed to heat stroke likely because of inadequate on-site casualty management and delayed evacuation to the medical centre. It noted that possible contributing causes were accumulated fatigue, insufficient rest, CFC Lees less-than-optimal state of health and his potential use of medication. CFC Lee had been taking medication in the weeks prior to the fast march for acute upper respiratory tract infection. His platoon was also given unauthorised punishment in the form of physical exercises for about 30 minutes the night before the 8km fast march. The commander was punishing the team for a perceived lack of teamwork and using mobile phones after lights out despite repeated warnings. The COI felt that the punishment compromised the soldiers required seven hours of rest. The lack of sleep could have been the one of the factors which caused Lee to be more fatigued before the fast march. Related stories: Family of 19-year-old NSF who died after fast march demand full explanation from SAF Death of NSF Dave Lee: We want full discovery of facts, says Ng Eng Hen CFC Dave Lees death: COI finds breaches of training safety and discipline rules Ng Eng Hen South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar returned to the capital Juba for the first time in more than two years Wednesday, saying he arrived with a message of peace. Machar, who under the terms of the September deal is to be reinstated as vice president, had not set foot in the city since he fled in July 2016 under a hail of gunfire when an earlier peace pact collapsed. "Our message is one: We are for peace.... This peace is in our hearts and we are going to implement this agreement," Machar said at a ceremony to welcome the latest peace accord for the war-ravaged country. The new deal aims to end a civil war that erupted in the world's youngest country in December 2013 and uprooted about four million people -- roughly a third of the population. The rebel chief was welcomed at Juba's airport by President Salva Kiir, Machar's former ally turned bitter enemy. The two rivals then joined regional leaders at the ceremony to publicly welcome the most recent agreement, signed under international pressure on September 12 in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. "I want to reiterate in front of you that the war in South Sudan has come to an end," Kiir said, according to UN radio Miraya, repeating words often heard but not followed through. In a goodwill gesture, the president announced the release Wednesday of former rebel spokesman James Gatdet Dak, to be followed Thursday by the freeing of William John Endley, a retired South African colonel and ex-adviser to Machar. Both men were sentenced to death by a Juba court in January. UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) chief David Shearer hailed the moment of cooperation and said in a statement that building trust would be crucial. "To see parties that have previously been divided by violence coming together here in Juba, in a public sign of unity, sends a strong message to the citizens of this country that you are genuinely committed to end the suffering and build durable peace," he said. - 'Chance to restore hope' - Several thousand people gathered for the ceremony at the John Garang Mausoleum, built in honour of the independence hero killed in a helicopter crash in 2005. Among regional leaders attending were Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Ethiopia's newly appointed President Sahle-Work Zewde, Somalia's head of state Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. South Sudan gained independence from its northern neighbour Sudan in 2011 after a 22-year civil war pitting rebel groups against Khartoum. "Sadly, the hopes and dreams of that moment were lost in the outbreak of the war that has plagued this country for five long years," Shearer said. "This ceremony is a chance for the leaders here today to restore that hope and to secure a peaceful and prosperous future for their people." The deal has encountered delays on several issues including the reactivation of a joint committee on borders and the number of regional states. Machar returned to Khartoum later Wednesday, Kiir's spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said. Machar's aides had earlier expressed concern for his safety in Juba. - Deep humanitarian crisis - South Sudan's civil war erupted when Kiir, a member of the Dinka tribe, accused his then deputy Machar, a Nuer, of plotting a coup. The conflict split the country along ethnic lines and has seen mass rape, the forced recruitment of child soldiers and attacks on civilians. It has caused one of the world's greatest humanitarian crises and wrecked the economy in a nation which relies on oil production for the bulk of its revenues. Machar fled Juba in July 2016 after fierce fighting erupted between government forces and his rebels, killing several hundred people. He headed on foot to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and went into exile in South Africa. Several ceasefire agreements and peace pacts have failed to end the fighting, which has killed an estimated 380,000 people, uprooted a third of the population, forced nearly two-and-a-half million into exile, and triggered bouts of deadly famine. Sudan this month appointed a peace envoy to South Sudan following the signing of the September accord in Addis. Sri Lanka's attorney general Wednesday refused to endorse the president's dismissal of the prime minister for a former strongman accused of rights abuses, the clearest sign yet the move may be unconstitutional. The country has been locked in a tense standoff between two rivals claiming to head Sri Lanka's government since Prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's shock sacking last Friday. The president and parliamentary speaker held emergency talks Wednesday in a bid to work out a compromise and avoid a showdown, official sources close to both sides told AFP. The crisis talks came after Attorney General Jayantha Jayasuriya cast fresh doubt on the legality of President Maithripala Sirisena's actions, declining to endorse them. Jayasuriya's refusal bolstered Wickremesinghe's claim that the president acted outside the constitution by dumping him for Mahinda Rajapakse, a former president who ruled with an iron fist for a decade. Wickremesinghe has refused to leave the prime minister's official residence and demanded Sirisena reconvene parliament so MPs can vote for a leader and end the constitutional crisis. Sirisena had resisted international pressure to revoke his suspension of parliament for 20 days while his appointee Rajapakse has assumed his duties, naming a new cabinet and addressing bureaucrats at the finance ministry on Wednesday. The two rivals are also jockeying for power behind the scenes, battling to tempt lawmakers from opposing sides to bolster their numbers if a vote is held. "Having regard to the role of the Attorney General under the constitution, I am of the view that expressing an opinion on the said questions would be deemed inappropriate," said Jayasuriya, the government's top legal advisor. Sri Lanka's parliamentary speaker had asked Jayasuriya to provide his legal opinion as pressure builds on Sirisena to resolve the nearly week-long impasse that has left one dead in clashes. Wickremesinghe amended the constitution after winning the premiership in 2015 to remove the president's power to sack prime ministers. Sirisena insists his actions were legal but Speaker Karu Jayasuriya has also refused to defend his manoeuvrings while warning of a "bloodbath" if the president delayed the opening of parliament. - Journalists targeted - Sri Lanka's journalists have been caught in the power struggle between the warring leaders. Reporters without Borders (RSF) said supporters of Rajapakse, whose tenure was marred by allegations of rights violations and corruption, stormed state-owned media institutions shortly after his appointment late Friday night, roughing up ministers and journalists who then had to be rescued by police commandos. "The violence with which Mahinda Rajapakse's bully boys took over the state media is absolutely unacceptable," RSF said, adding that the crisis recalled the "darkest hours of the Rajapakse presidency between 2005 and 2015". "We call on all parties to act responsibly by guaranteeing journalists' safety and by respecting their editorial independence, so that impartial news coverage is available to the public." Journalists say that state media has largely become pro-Rajapakse while private networks have kept up a low-level coverage of Wickremesinghe. During Rajapakse's tenure, 17 journalists and media workers were killed, according to rights organisations. In 2015, Wickremesinghe helped Sirisena to defeat Rajapakse and formed a unity government, but the two have drifted apart over policy and personality clashes. Rajapakse has given five legislators from Wickremesinghe's party ministerial portfolios in his cabinet after persuading them to change sides. Wickremesinghe, meanwhile, has convinced at least two lawmakers from Sirisena's camp to join his United National Party. Following the latest defections, Wickremesinghe has 104 MPs in the 225-seat chamber while Rajapakse and Sirisena together have 99. A majority of the 22 remaining MPs are expected to back Wickremesinghe in any vote, observers said. A demonstrator holds flags of Taiwan and the United States in support of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen during an stop-over after her visit to Latin America in Burlingame, California, U.S., January 14, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam TAIPEI (Reuters) - Efforts to decide self-ruled Taiwan's future by "other than peaceful means" are a grave concern to the United States, a senior American diplomat said on Wednesday, amid renewed tension between China and the island it considers a wayward province. Washington does not have diplomatic ties with Taipei, but is its main arms supplier and strongest international backer. This month, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen vowed to boost national security and said her government would not submit to Chinese suppression. "Any effort to determine Taiwan's future by other than peaceful means...is of grave concern to the United States," Brent Christensen, the director of the United States' de facto embassy in Taipei, told reporters. He did not elaborate. China, which has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, has boosted military and diplomatic pressure on Taipei. The Chinese military has stepped up encirclement drills around Taiwan, which the island has denounced as intimidation, and three former allies, El Salvador, Burkina Faso and the Dominican Republic, switched ties to Beijing this year. The United States' new $256-million representative office in Taiwan's capital is an "important symbol" of their partnership, Christensen said, adding that Washington would keep backing Taiwan's "substantive role" in the international community. China has been infuriated by recent U.S. sanctions on its military, among several flashpoints in ties ranging from a bitter trade war and the issue of Taiwan to China's increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea. Last week, the United States sent two warships through the Taiwan Strait in its second such operation this year, despite opposition from China. In Beijing, a spokesman for China's policy-making Taiwan Affairs Office said the Taiwan issue was about China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Story continues "We resolutely opposed any official exchanges or military contacts between the U.S. side and the Taiwan region," Ma Xiaoguang told a regular news briefing shortly before Christensen's comments. "I would like here to stress again - the consequences will be reaped by relying on foreigners to build yourselves up, or colluding with foreign forces to damage peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait," he added, referring to Taiwan's government. (Reporting by Jess Macy Yu; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Yimou Lee; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has informed the Security Council that he wishes to appoint Norwegian diplomat Geir Pedersen as the next special envoy to Syria, diplomatic sources told AFP Tuesday. Pedersen is currently Norway's ambassador to China and has previously served as its envoy to the UN. "I am pleased to inform you of my intention to announce the appointment of Mr Geir O Pedersen as my Special Envoy for Syria. In taking this decision, I have consulted broadly, including with the government of the Syrian Arab Republic," Guterres wrote in a letter seen by AFP. "Mr Pedersen will support the Syrian parties by facilitating an inclusive and credible political solution that meets the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people," the letter read. It also thanked Staffan de Mistura, the outgoing envoy, "for his more than four years of concerted efforts and contributions to search for peace in Syria." The leaders of Turkey, Russia, France and Germany met in Istanbul at the weekend and called for a political solution to the war and a permanent truce in the last major rebel-held bastion of Idlib. Their joint statement called for a committee to be established to draft Syria's post-war constitution before the end of the year, "paving the way for free and fair elections" in the war-torn country. The Syria conflict, which began with anti-government street protests in 2011, has claimed more than 360,000 lives and drawn in foreign powers and various jihadist groups. The wife of British academic held in detention over espionage charges has said Tuesday that the 31-year old man has been temporarily released pending his next court appearance scheduled for November 21. Daniela Tejada, in a written statement, confirmed reports that her husband, Matthew Hedges, has been temporarily freed but was told to remain in the Gulf country until his next hearing. I of course welcome this development. However, I cannot allow myself to get too excited by this information as Matt is not fully free yet, she said. BBC reports noted that Hedges has been released but the Emirati authorities have confiscated his passport and requested an ankle monitor. The British government also indicated it is monitoring the case and has voiced its concerns to the Emirati authorities. We are monitoring developments closely and have made the Emirati authorities aware of all our concerns. We continue to do everything we can for Matthew and his family, said a spokeswoman for Britains foreign office in London. Matthew Hedges, a doctoral student at Durham University was arrested in May this year at Dubai airport after two weeks of research in the country. He was charged this month with spying for a foreign state, and jeopardizing the military, economic and political security of the country. The Gulf country has not named the country. Hedges who has received the support of 120 other academics from around the world in a petition demanding his release, is a doctoral student in the School of Government and International Affairs whose research interests include civil-military relations, political economy and tribalism. United States wont allow force against Taiwan, new US envoy says as Beijing piles on pressure The United States will not stand by to allow any non-peaceful attempt to unilaterally alter the status quo of Taiwan, a senior US diplomat has said in an apparent warning against Beijings threats to retake the self-ruled island, by force if necessary. Washington would also do all it could to help Taiwan rejoin some international organisations such as Interpol, the official said, despite strong protests from Beijing, which considers Taiwan a wayward province. In his debut press conference on the island on Wednesday, Brent Christensen, the new director of the US de facto embassy, the American Institute in Taiwan, signalled stronger US support for the island in the face of persistent pressure from Beijing against Taipei. I am here to tell you that US policy towards Taiwan has not changed, Christensen said. Any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means represents a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and is of grave concern to the United States. We are opposed to unilateral attempts to change the status quo. Since Tsai Ing-wen, of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, became the islands president in 2016 and refused to accept the one-China principle, Beijing has stepped up pressure against Taiwan, including staging war games around the island and poaching five of Taipeis allies. It has also demanded that international companies, including airlines, change the title of Taiwan to either a Chinese province or China, Taiwan to indicate that the island is a part of China. The principle is part of an understanding reached in 1992 between unofficial representatives of Beijing and Taipei that there is only one China, but each side would have its own interpretation of what constitutes China. Christensen said that as the new US envoy to Taiwan he would do all he could to promote security cooperation between Washington and Taipei, saying promoting security cooperation and improving Taiwans self-defence capability go hand in hand. Story continues He also said it was the US obligation to support Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defence capability against coercion and this policy was consistent for both the Democratic and Republican parties. He cited the Trump administrations approval of two arms sales, including the US$330 million deal for spare parts for the islands F-16s and other warplanes, as examples of that commitment. He said one of his four priorities as the institutes director was to promote Taiwans participation in the international community. As we face a multitude of global challenges the impacts of global health pandemics; transnational terrorism and crime; and the insidious spread of disinformation, to name a few we cannot afford to exclude a society [Taiwan] with so much to offer the world, he said. He said the US had long been a vocal supporter of Taiwans meaningful participation in international organisations. We continue our informal consultations and engagement to allow Taiwan to have a more substantive role in the international community, he said, adding that the broader engagement would benefit the global community. He said he expected high-level US officials would visit Taiwan in line with the newly enacted Taiwan Travel Act, which allows exchanges of top-level officials between Taiwan and the United States. Christensen said the institute would move to its US$255 million new compound at the end of this year and he hoped it would be a good chance for a high-level US official to visit. Christensens comments are expected to again infuriate Beijing, which has loudly protested against the US for supplying arms to Taiwan and allowing senior officials to visit the island acts the mainland says violates the one-China policy that Washington committed to observe after switching official recognition to Beijing. This article United States wont allow force against Taiwan, new US envoy says as Beijing piles on pressure first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018. Hong Kongs education chief told lawmakers on Wednesday that 16 people have been injured during protests on university campuses in the last five years, saying students had learned about improper behaviour from the Occupy movement and clashes in the Legislative Council. Kevin Yeung Yun-hung was responding at the weekly Legco meeting to the question of pro-establishment lawmaker Starry Lee Wai-king, who asked if the series of incidents showed a problem in the citys education system. Yeung said data obtained from the Education Bureau showed that, since 2014, there have been 11 incidents of demonstrations on campus by university students that developed into confrontations, resulting in a total of 14 members of teaching staff and two others being wounded. But Yeung said it wasnt from their schooling that the youngsters learned such behaviour. People see youngsters manifesting certain improper behaviours and they think theres something wrong with the education system, but I can certainly say that theyre not taught to do these things, Yeung said. Where did they learn it? Weve seen media reports of insults and the Occupy movement or even from inside this chamber. You can imagine how it looks when you can see them happening from TV. He admitted that something needed to be done in the education system to instil positive messages and values in students via after-school activities and other such measures. The clashes included the protest by 200 students who besieged a University of Hong Kong governing council meeting in 2016, trapping council members inside, including Professor Arthur Li Kwok-cheung, for hours. Police officers with batons and pepper spray were deployed at the scene. The chaos erupted after students demanded a restructuring of the council so that the chief executive would no longer be the default chancellor of HKU. In another incident earlier this year, about 30 Baptist University students staged an eight-hour stand-off at the schools language centre after dissatisfaction about the schools requirement that all students must pass a Mandarin exam to graduate. Story continues The students were filmed hurling vulgarities at staff, drawing severe criticism from both on and off campus. The Education Bureau said that the police would generally not intervene in such emergency incidents and would only enter campuses upon the schools request. Democratic Party lawmaker Andrew Wan Siu-kin said Yeungs argument was misdirected, and showed the government had not reflected on political deadlock since the Occupy movement and on long-standing social inequality. It would be naive for Yeung to put the blame only on the Occupy movement, said Wan. University students were only taking part because of their conscience and passion for society. Wholesale and retail lawmaker Peter Shiu Ka-fai suggested that, to better protect the safety of on-campus staff, students conduct should be noted on their transcripts. This would ensure elders and teachers at universities are respected and students do not throw insults at them. The secretary said the decision to do so should be up to individual institutions but that he would forward the recommendations to the different universities. Baptist Universitys student union acting executive committee vice-president Mak Kwan-wai said Yeungs comments that students had learned improper behaviour from the Occupy movement and clashes in Legco were groundless. Its strange to say that because every student has their own independent thinking, he said. Davin Wong, student union president at the University of Hong Kong, said he did not think Occupy movement and conflicts inside the legislative chamber were related to students behaviour on campus. I cant understand why Yeung made such a claim, Wong said. He said university students just wanted to manage the school with their teachers to make it a better place. He also rejected suggestions to mark students conducts on their transcripts, adding that university education promotes freedom and that means allowing students to do what they want and be responsible for what they do. Additional reporting by Alvin Lum and Kanis Leung This article Unruly students learned improper behaviour from Occupy movement, says Hong Kong education chief first appeared on South China Morning Post For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018. The Vatican said Tuesday it agreed with Spain's efforts to find an alternative to the Madrid cathedral as a place to rebury late dictator Francisco Franco, once he is exhumed from his vast mausoleum. Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who came to power in June, has vowed to remove Franco's remains from the grandiose monument in the Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) near Madrid, an imposing basilica that was built in part by the forced labour of political prisoners during his regime. Spanish lawmakers in September approved a decree authorising the exhumation. But Franco's family, which had opposed the exhumation, wants now to inter his remains in a family crypt at Madrid's central Almudena Cathedral next to the royal palace and near the Plaza de Oriente square used by Franco as the venue for his public addresses. The government's plan is for Franco's embalmed body to be relocated to a more discreet spot which followers wouldn't find easy to visit to pay homage. Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo discussed the issue on Monday during talks at the Vatican with State Secretary Pietro Parolin. "We agreed... to find a solution which obviously can't be the Almudena," she told reporters in Madrid on Tuesday. "Franco's remains can't be placed in any place where they could be glorified." The Vatican said in a statement Tuesday that it does not oppose Franco's exhumation but stressed that Parolin "did not at any point express a view as to the place of reburial". "Its true that Mrs Carmen Calvo expressed concern over the possible burial in the Almudena Cathedral and her desire to explore other alternatives including through dialogue with the (Franco) family. The secretary of state found this solution appropriate." Another possible resting spot for Franco's remains is the El Prado cemetery near Madrid where his wife is buried. The Valley of the Fallen, which was built by Franco's regime between 1940 and 1959, holds the remains of around 37,000 who died on both sides of the civil war, which was triggered by Franco's rebellion against an elected Republican government. The row over where to move the remains of the dictator who ruled Spain from the end of the 1936-39 civil war until his death in 1975 has sparked a fierce debate in Spain. Yahoo News photo Illustration; photos: AP, Getty Images WASHINGTON In mock battles at the Armys massive combat training centers in Californias Mojave Desert, Louisianas pine forests and Germanys mud, the service is spending less time preparing troops for meetings with village elders and more time training soldiers how to respond to artillery barrages and attacks from enemy fighter bombers. After spending the last 17 years fighting grinding counterinsurgencies in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army is shifting its gaze. This years National Defense Strategy charged the military with preparing for high-intensity conflict against major nation-state threats like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. The Army is falling in line. The change is popular with the current crop of generals, to judge from their comments at the recent Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting and exposition in Washington, D.C. But if the militarys post-Korean War history is any guide, the Armys next war is more likely to be another messy insurgency than a conflict with a major power. Army senior leaders say that they can prepare adequately for both. Others are not so sure. We have a bad habit of not being able to stop the pendulum in the middle, said retired Col. Joe Collins, a professor at the National War College. That context has some observers including the general arguably most associated with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars cautioning that as the Army gears up for war on the European plains, it must not forget the lessons it has paid such a high price in blood to learn. It is reasonable to refocus a fair amount on higher-end tasks on which we didnt focus a great deal during the years of back-to-back deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, said retired Gen. David Petraeus, who at different periods was the senior U.S. commander for each of those wars. But we do need to retain the lessons that we learned too often the hard way in those counterinsurgency campaigns. The Army has been here before. After withdrawing from Vietnam in the mid-1970s, the service turned its attention to preparing for war in Europe against the Soviet Union and wanted nothing more to do with the sort of battles it had fought in the jungles of southeast Asia. We did walk away from it, said retired Lt. Gen. Guy Swan, vice president of education at the Association of the U.S. Army. The only lesson the Army seemed to learn from Vietnam was that it didnt want to fight a counterinsurgency again. Story continues But the Army doesnt get to pick its wars. When President George W. Bush nominated Gen. George Casey to lead the military effort in Iraq in June 2004 as that country was starting its slide into anarchic civil war, he was selecting a general who had achieved four-star rank without ever reading a book on guerrilla warfare. Its unlikely that Casey was alone in that regard among the Armys senior leaders. The full cost of that institutional amnesia became clear only as the United States and its allies lost control of Iraq to Sunni insurgents and Iranian-sponsored Shia militias. By the time the U.S. military had climbed back up the steep counterinsurgency learning curve towards the end of 2007, almost 4,000 American troops were dead. One of the faulty assumptions that Army officers made in the years between Vietnam and Iraq was that units trained for high-intensity conflict would be able to handle anything else. If we can face the Russians, then we can handle these guerrillas, was how Swan described their attitude. And that was not the case. Todays senior Army leaders seem convinced that the service can combine training for tank-on-tank battles with preparation for counterinsurgency and other forms of low-intensity conflict. Gen. Stephen Townsend, head of Army Training and Doctrine Command, acknowledged that the service could not afford to completely turn its back on the sort of warfare it had been conducting in Afghanistan and Iraq. The future of war will be a hybrid threat, he told reporters at the recent Army association meeting in Washington, D.C. . Therell be everything from tanks and missiles and fighter-bombers down to criminal gangs, terrorists, suicide bombers and guerrilla cells. Were going to have to do all of that, the full spectrum of conflict. Other generals sounded the same theme. But occasionally there were faint echoes of the post-Vietnam mantra that, as Swan put it, any tank unit can handle guerrillas. We dont forget the lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, said Brig. Gen. Christopher LaNeve, who heads 7th Army Training Command in Grafenwoehr, Germany. But its easy to transition from a high-intensity fight to a counterinsurgency, he told an audience at the meeting. Its harder, he said, to make the opposite switch. Todays colonels and generals made their careers conducting counterinsurgency campaigns, but the Army has always been more comfortable preparing for high-intensity, artillery-intensive warfare than for the dirty, messy business of putting down insurgencies, not to mention peacekeeping (now almost officially a dirty word in the service). As the Armys commitment to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began to wind down, there was almost a sense of relief that we can go back to real soldiering, like after Vietnam, said Petraeus. Army officers simply have a greater comfort level with conventional wars, he said, and its about getting resources, he said. And big wars get you big resources. Swan said there was some truth to that theory, but he argued the major reason the Army defaults to high-intensity conflict is because that sort of war is the most dangerous to American interests, even if a less likely scenario. If youre an army thats expected to fight and win the nations wars, I think you have to lean towards the higher end of the spectrum, Swan said. Even Petraeus, who as a lieutenant general oversaw the 2006 publication of the services counterinsurgency doctrine manual, says it is reasonable for the Army to refocus on high-end conflict. But, he added, the service must remember that all operations include a mix of offense, defense and stability. Todays senior Army leaders say that wont happen again. Whether we want to or not, were going to find ourselves doing a peacekeeping operation or doing a stability operation, doing another counterinsurgency somewhere in the world, Townsend said. Others are not so sure. Im concerned that while the Army says were not going to do that, theyre not making the adjustments in our education and our training that ensure that our forces and our junior officers and [non-commissioned officers] see this as not a binary but a continuum which theyve got to be prepared to fight in, said retired Col. John Agoglia, who was the director of the Counterinsurgency Training Center in Kabul, Afghanistan from 2008 to 2010. That training and education will grow in importance in the coming years as fewer and fewer soldiers will have firsthand experience of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Already, comparatively few junior officers and enlisted soldiers have the benefit of that experience. That might present the Army with a challenge, said Swan, who cited as an example his son, a first lieutenant who graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point two years ago. He hasnt deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq, and what hes been doing has been tank gunnery, Swan said. He is focused on Russians and other high-end competitors. The training centers, which include permanent opposing forces (essentially home teams that visiting units train against), could shift back to a counterinsurgency scenario very quickly, said Mario Hoffmann of the Training and Doctrine Commands intelligence directorate. However, doing so would require an enormous increase in the number of role players involved (who usually play civilians on the battlefield) as well as an expansion of the facilities for training units in urban warfare, he said at the AUSA annual meeting. Even now, Hoffmann said, even though most training is focused on the metal-on-metal combined arms threat, every unit rotating through every combat training center should be fighting elements of irregular warfare, to include insurgencies or guerrillas or terrorists. But how should the Army prepare to fight across the full spectrum of conflict when there is an inevitable zero-sum element to decisions about how to spend training resources, particularly the resource of time? A day spent on counterinsurgency, perhaps by training how best to interact with Afghan village elders, is a day not spent training for tank warfare on the plains of Europe. The Army is, in part, answering this question by creating conventional Army units that specialize in low-intensity conflict, a task that has been normally carried out by Special Forces. Scarred by the experience of trying and failing to win counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq with its own combat formations, the service is planning for campaigns in which its role is to advise and assist host nation forces in putting down insurgencies, rather than to do the fighting itself. We think the United States Army in particular but the military writ large will be in an advise-and-assist role for years and decades to come, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told reporters. He acknowledged that the Armys traditional experts at this work are its Special Forces, who call it foreign internal defense. However, Milley said, theres simply not enough of them to handle the workload on their own. Milleys solution to this problem is the Security Force Assistance Brigade, a new type of unit that includes the officers and sergeants of a regular infantry brigade, but not the junior soldiers. The idea is that the SFABs will train and advise foreign militaries, to include accompanying their partner units into combat. One is already in Afghanistan, another is scheduled to deploy next spring, three more are planned for the active force and one for the National Guard. Each SFAB (pronounced ess-fab) will have about 800 soldiers, and the Army is putting significant resources towards its goal of filling them with some of the Armys most talented soldiers. That is a big change from what you saw after Vietnam, said Guy Swan. Theyre putting the best and brightest in those units, at the expense of a lot of other missions, in the process causing some angst in the rest of the Army, he said. The SFABs are a demonstrable symbol that the Armys leaders recognize that the service will continue to be involved in low-intensity conflicts, and we have to capture those lessons learned and we have to put them into a formation, said Maj. Gen. Charles Flynn, the assistant deputy chief of staff in the Armys operations directorate, at an event hosted by Defense One. However, while the SFABs appear to be evidence that the Army is preparing for a future characterized by low-intensity conflicts, Milley suggested that at least as important to him was that the SFABs would free up for high-intensity operations upwards of half-a-dozen brigades that are currently deployed on advise-and-assist missions. What these SFABs do there is as we deploy them we should be able to recoup or get back the conventional brigades that weve ripped apart, Milley said. Another advantage is that if the service needs to rapidly expand the number of combat brigades in a national emergency, the SFABs, could be quickly fleshed out with junior soldiers, according to Swan. Those outfits were a way to husband end strength and key billets, he said. If the next chief sees that same logic, then I think they will survive. One test of how much priority the Army will continue to place on counterinsurgency is whether the colonels who command SFABs get promoted to one-star generals and selected for key jobs like assistant division commander at the same rate as their peers who command regular infantry, armor and artillery brigades, Petraeus said. When the Army stood up much smaller advisor teams in Iraq and Afghanistan, the colonels who commanded them were promoted at a much lower rate than their combat arms peers. The Army doesnt have a brilliant track record with a lot of these programs like that, said Agoglia. SFABs? he said. Theyre only going to last until the next chief of staff comes in and maybe he gets tired of it. _____ Read more from Yahoo News: A 30-year old woman blew herself up Monday in central Tunis leaving twenty people, including 15 police officers and three civilians and two children, injured, in the first major terror attack witnessed by the country since 2015. An explosion rattled the central Habib Bourguiba avenue. The subside bomber, a 30-year old woman, is not known by authorities for being member of any terror group. The attack is the first in three years following a string of terror assaults in the capital and in the much visited Sousse city. In Mars 2015, a commando of Islamic State group (ISIS) militants mowed down 21 people mostly foreign tourists at Bardo Museum, near the parliament in Tunis. In June, same year, 38 people among whom 30 Briton tourists died after a gunman assaulted a hotel in Sousse near the sea. In November 2015, a subside bomber blew himself in Tunis, hitting a bus of presidential guards. Twelve members of the forces were killed. The attacks scared away foreign tourists. Security measures including state of emergency adopted by authorities, soothed fears. The tourism sector has witnessed a rebound with more than six million foreign travelers visiting Tunisia in the first nine months of 2018, according to government data. Arrivals rose 16.9 percent to 6.3 million in the first three quarters (Q) of this year. Tourism revenues over the period reached $1.2 billion, scoring a 27.6 rise per cent year-on-year. Abdellatif Hammouchi, the head of the Moroccan secret services, the DGST (Formerly known as the DST, Directorate of Territory Surveillance), held talks with the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim Ben Hamad Al Thani in Doha. Abdellatif Hammouchi, known for his long experience in counterterrorism, discussed with Sheikh Tamim several topics of common interest and issues relating to cooperation between the two countries, according to the Qatari news agency, QNA. The head of the Moroccan police also conferred with Qatars Premier and Minister of the Interior Sheikh Abdullah Bin Nasser Bin Khalifa Al Thani. Hammouchis meetings with the Qatari officials are part of the reinforcement of security cooperation between the two countries. they were held on the sidelines of the Moroccan officials participation in the 12th International Exhibition of Internal Security and Civil Security Milipol Qatar 2018 held in Doha October 29-31. About 219 companies from 24 countries participated in this international security gathering. The official inauguration of the event took place on Monday, in the presence of several ministers, security leaders and senior military officers from the various participating countries, including Morocco. The international exhibition, dedicated to homeland security and Civil Defense in the Middle East region, is a showcase that allows the various participants to show their latest innovations in the field of civil security. The innovations include public security, defense solutions and equipment, telecom security and technologies, firefighting, radiation detection, emergency equipment, law enforcement products, communications software, and airport security systems among others. Defense specialists from Qatar, France, Turkey, Bulgaria, China, Denmark, Italy, Germany, Spain, Morocco, UK, USA, Russia, Greece, India, Latvia, Slovenia and Switzerland have exhibited their innovations in various fields. Founded in 1996, Milipol Qatar is a trade event dedicated to homeland security founded and organized by the Qatari Ministry of Interior and the French-based Comexposium Security. China's Greenhouse Gas Emissions Posted on 31 October 2018 by Riduna China is the worlds largest emitter of greenhouse gasses so we should be particularly interested in the level of its emissions, as well as the success of the practices and policies it pursues to reduce them. After all, Chinas emissions are likely to have the greatest influence on future global warming and our ability to keep average global temperature rise to less than 2C above those of the pre-industrial era. However, CO2 emissions in 2017 for China are not known with any accuracy, even by the Chinese government. Some estimates suggest 9.8 gigatonnes (Gt.), while others claim it to be 11.7 Gt. Clearly both can not be right and it is possible that both estimates could be wrong. CFC-11 Emissions The 1987 Montreal Protocol has been signed by China and 197 other countries. The Protocol commits all countries to abolish production and use of ozone depleting halocarbon gasses to zero by 2010 because they destroy the ozone layer which protects the earths surface from harmful ultra violet radiation. Halocarbons are also very powerful greenhouse gasses, particularly CFC-11 which has a lifetime in the atmosphere of 45 years or more The Kigali Amendment (2016) further requires phase-down of all hydrofluorocarbon gasses which have a greenhouse effect, some of which can be used as a substitute for halocarbons. If all countries had complied with the Montreal Protocol, it should have been expected that global CFC-11 emissions would have fallen sharply after 1995 when developed countries were required to reduce their production and use and to zero by 2010 when all other countries ceased production. However, as show in Fig. 1, this is not what has happened. Fig. 1. Decline in CFC-11 emissions predicted by the 1987 Montreal Protocol compared with actual emissions recorded by NOAA. Source: Montzka et al., 2018. On the basis of air samples taken in South Korea, NOAAs Dr Montzka concluded that the likely source of CFC-11 emissions was in east Asia, even though all countries in that region reported to the UN administering authority that they remained in compliance with the Montreal Protocol. Apart from being an ozone destroyer, CFC-11 is also a very potent greenhouse gas with Global Warming Potential 4,750 times that of CO2. Measurement of CFC-11 concentration in the atmosphere show that around 67,000 tonnes of CFC-11, or 0.3 Gt CO 2eq. are reaching the atmosphere each year from these sources. The Chinese Government has not previously been officially aware of these and possibly other emissions when compiling statistics on greenhouse gas emissions. In 2017 a London based organisation, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) determined that China was the source of these emissions. In 2018 the EIA published its report Blowing It which concluded that at least 18 Chemical Companies in 10 Provinces are actively engaged in the production of CFC-11 and that it is used throughout China as a blowing agent for production of insulating foam products used in the building and other industries. The reason for its on-going use? It was easier to use and more profitable than use of alternative gasses. The production and use of CFC-11 in China could be more widespread than reported by EIA. Even if this is not the case, it is difficult to understand how such widespread production and use of CFC-11 could have gone undetected by the Chinese National and ten Provincial Governments for so many years. How could the EIA investigate and compile a detailed report on the matter in less than a year while the UN agency responsible for ensuring international compliance with the Montreal Protocol has yet to offer comment or action? Promoting Coal In a well researched article, Tiboku Hirochi points to the dichotomy of huge investment made by China in renewable energy (prompted by the need for breathable air in megacities) and the building of large numbers of coal fired power stations, many of them overseas. She reports findings from the Urgewald data base which concludes that companies specialising in design and construction of coal-fired power stations are engaged in or propose building 1,600 new power stations in 62 countries. Eleven of the 20 largest companies involved in their construction are either owned or financed by the Chinese Government. It is estimated that if all of these coal-fired power stations were built, they would have the capacity to increase global coal-fired electricity generation by 43%, significantly increasing greenhouse gas emissions at a time when the IPCC is calling for their rapid reduction. Chinese companies are engaged in designing, building and in some cases owning and operating coal fired power stations in developing countries. Many of these investments are part of the One Belt One Road expansionist initiative of the Chinese Government. Further, over the last 15 years some $50 billion has been invested by China in the production, transport and use of coal. It appears to be State Policy to promote increased use of coal both within China and by investment overseas. Some of the countries where coal-fired power stations are being built by Chinese companies (eg Malawi, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran and others) will be using coal-fired electricity generation for the first time. Rather than speeding-up transition to a decarbonised economy, those building additional coal fired generating capacity are collectively slowing the process and, in so doing, committing the world to average global warming well in excess of 2C by 2100 and a climate which will be both unpredictable and dangerous. Consequences Developing countries intending to host new fossil-fuelled electricity generation need to understand but may not fully do so that they are committing themselves, possibly until 2060, to using energy which, as shown in Fig. 2, is already more expensive than electricity generated from renewable sources. If the latter were unable to ensure production of dispatchable power 24/7 this might be understandable but this is no longer the case. Advances in technology now enable grid scale renewable generators to store electricity as pumped hydro or in batteries, the latter already available at a cost of less than $4/MWh and falling further as storage capacity continues to rise. Fig. 2. The levalized cost of generating electricity in North America from renewable sources fell; below $50/mWh in 2017, lower than Gas ($60/mWh) and other non-renewable sources. The cost of generating from renewables is likely to continue falling. Source: Lazards LCOE 11. The implications for economic development are that countries reliant on expensive new coal fired generation will find it difficult to produce goods and services for export or domestic use at the same price as countries now converting to much cheaper renewable energy. They may be able to compensate for reliance on more expensive energy by lowering the cost of other factors of production, such as the cost of labour but this could result in lower living standards and more expensive good and services. A more serious aspect of continued expansion and reliance on coal fired generation is that it adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, increasing the speed with which global warming occurs. Unless the intended increase in use of coal is stopped, it could result in average global warming of more than 2C above pre-industrial temperatures, possibly as soon as 2050 and over 3C by 2100. The result could be catastrophic onset of: Less predictable more extreme climate events which reduce ability to produce and distribute food and other goods and services. Air and Ocean warming increasing the rate of land based ice loss, producing more rapid sea level rise and flooding of coastal land and cities. Damage to the cryosphere resulting in uncontrollable release of greenhouse gasses which further increase the speed of global warming. There is only one way we can avoid the worst effects of these outcomes and that is by reducing greenhouse gas emission and doing so as rapidly as possible. The most effective way of achieving this is to reduce burning fossil fuels and meeting energy needs from renewable sources. This is being achieved by Australian State Governments which have approved investment in renewable energy on a scale predicted to result in the country meeting 50% of national electricity demand from renewable sources before 2030. If Australia can achieve this outcome, so can Egypt and other African countries now seeking to build coal-fired power stations. Counter Action Reports that work on building hundreds of coal-fired power stations has resumed in China is reported to be associated with a decision of the Central Government to delegate policy implementation and environmental monitoring to Provincial governments. The result is generating capacity which, for the time being, far exceeds demand but does keep the workforce fully employed and so contributes to maintaining national stability (Fn). It also caters for future growth enabling closure of older, dirtier power stations. This may be so but more centralised administration, ensuring prompt closure of high emitting generators seems desirable if real reduction in emissions is to be achieved. There is no evidence that such closures are occurring. Can China and others engaged in proliferation of fossil-fuelled power stations be persuaded to offer host countries renewable energy instead? China is, after all, a major producer and exporter of solar panels and wind turbines so a change to funding overseas renewable electricity generation would stimulate this sector of their domestic economy, produce new employment opportunities and create new wealth. Should multilateral funding agencies such as the I.B.R.D. or UN agencies such as the UN Environmental Program be more closely monitoring countries intending to expand use of coal to generate electricity or for other industrial uses? Could multilateral banks offer them finance on concessional conditions to build renewable generating capacity with appropriate storage to ensure continuity and stability of supply? Could such finance match or better offers made by China and other countries now funding new fossil fuelled power generation? It may no longer be possible to avoid a more severe climate or the destructive effects of sea level rise later this century but their onset can and must - be slowed so that technology and strategies can be developed to deal with the effects of their inevitable onset. Pursuing the status quo is not an option unless we wish to risk the need to deal with the effect of a more severe climate which irreparably damages world food production and transport infrastructure in coming decades. Footnote: A frequent visitor to China reminded me that the country had always been ruled by dynasties which remained in power for as long as they held the Mandate of Heaven. The Communist Dynasty which presently ruled would do so as long as it could maintain very high employment levels but were that ability to fail, the Dynasty would fall. The imperative of maintaining high employment may account for the building of ghost cities containing 64 million vacant apartments, unused infrastructure - and power stations surplus to demand all paid for by public debt of such magnitude as to endanger, rather than strengthen, national stability. The Hollywood Reporter and other outlets are reporting that two-time Academy Award nominee Naomi Watts has been tapped to star in HBOs Game of Thrones prequel series. Watts will reportedly lead an ensemble cast, playing a charismatic socialite hiding a dark secret. HBO announced earlier this year that it would move forward with a pilot for the untitled series, which will be set thousands of years before the current hit show. While little is known about the prequel series plot, HBO has teased that it will cause fans to rethink what they already know about the horrifying secrets of Westeros history and the true origin of the White Walkers. The series pilot comes from Game of Thrones scribe George R. R. Martin and British writer and producer Jane Goldman, who has worked on the Kingsman and X-Men franchises. Speaking of powerful and corrupt empires, Watts will also play Gretchen Carlson in Showtimes upcoming limited series about disgraced Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes. Kanye West is rejecting any association with Blexit, the conservative movement urging black Americans to leave the Democratic Party. Though the movements founder Candace Owens had reportedly claimed in a speech that West helped design the logo used on Blexit apparel and merchandise, she has since backtracked, writing in a statement posted to Twitter that West introduced her to the designer of the X used in the logo but was not personally involved in its design. Now, West is also trying to set the record straight with a series of tweets posted on Tuesday that say he has nothing to do with Owens movement. Advertisement In addition to clarifying some of his political beliefs, West also writes, My eyes are now wide open and now realize Ive been used to spread messages I dont believe in. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I would like to thank my family, loved ones, and community for supporting my ACTUAL beliefs and my vision for a better world. ye (@kanyewest) October 30, 2018 Advertisement I support creating jobs and opportunities for people who need them the most, I support prison reform, I support common-sense gun laws that will make our world safer. ye (@kanyewest) October 30, 2018 I support those who risk their lives to serve and protect us and I support holding people who misuse their power accountable. I believe in love and compassion for people seeking asylum and parents who are fighting to protect their children from violence and war. ye (@kanyewest) October 30, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement I introduced Candace to the person who made the logo and they didnt want their name on it so she used mine. I never wanted any association with Blexit. I have nothing to do with it. ye (@kanyewest) October 30, 2018 Advertisement My eyes are now wide open and now realize Ive been used to spread messages I dont believe in. I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative !!! ye (@kanyewest) October 30, 2018 So who is the mystery designer that West recommended to Owens? According to West, they didnt want their name on the project either, and Owens writes that this person has totally different political beliefs from her. Fortunately, they wont need to design any kind of enticing visual for #Yexit, which is already picking up plenty of steam after Wests announcement. Morocco has reiterated its position in favor of an inter-Libyan solution brokered by the UN as the war-ravaged country continues to be divided by two rival governments. Speaking at a joint press conference in Rabat Monday with UN Special Envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame, Moroccos foreign minister Nasser Bourita stressed that Morocco supports a negotiated solution to the Libyan crisis. The Moroccan Foreign Minister voiced support for the efforts led by the UN Special Envoy, noting that Morocco attaches particular interest to Libyas stability. Morocco, which hosted talks between Libyas vying factions that led to the Skhirate agreement, has always expressed commitment to a political, mutually acceptable and lasting solution that would restore Libyas stability, unity and safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Skhirate Agreement has always been described by Morocco and foreign powers as a sound platform for resolving the crisis that has been rattling Libya for years. The agreement, concluded on December 17, 2015, was meant as a solid basis to settle the Libyan crisis. Seven years after the collapse of Gadhafi regime, Libya remains in turmoil, battered by infighting between heavily armed militias and a political crisis that has divided the country. The Government of National Accord (GNA) controls the western part of the country while a rival administration backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar reigns in the east. Lucky for me, the employee handbook at This American Life says to be nice to the fact-checker. I suspect sometimes it might be hard. I am nettlesome and ask tons of questions. I pester colleagues for phone numbers so I can call up sources, but I also find my own experts, which can be a pain if they undercut a producers reportingbut, hey, I dont make the mistakes, I only find them. Thats not to say our hostand my bossIra Glass wont put me in my place. I remember one day I was in his office while he was writing, and I interrupted him to say: Its not one-third, its more like two-fifths. He looked from his computer screen to me. He let a silence bloom. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Christopher, he finally said. Nobody will even know what that means. One-third is good enough for the radio. We moved on. But I cant quite move on after seeing the Broadway production The Lifespan of a Fact, adapted from a real interaction between a writer and a fact-checker at the Believer. I just never have dealt with a writer so outlandish as the one played by Bobby Cannavale. He goes by the name John DAgata. Never heard of him? Its OK. You will. In 1,000 years, his essay What Happens There will be as widely read as Herodotus. He sees into the abyss while writing about the suicide of a Las Vegas teenager, so if his masterpiece is riddled with inaccuracies, which a fact-checker flags in a spreadsheet 130 pages long, its fine because the writing is truer for all the lying. DAgatas prose is just too beautiful, he says, to use the more accurate thirty-one so he had to swap in a thirty-four to hit a more aesthetically pleasing rhythm. I tried to check out his claim but couldnt get Shakespeare on the phone. I suppose Ill have to trust the great bard gave DAgata a standing ovation from the grave. I do know that, when challenged, the essayist screams poetically erudite zingers, like calling the fact-checker a toddler shit. Advertisement Advertisement I mean, who dreamed this guy up? I dont know any serious long-form literary editor who would tolerate a writer like this, even with the fancy professor of creative writing pedigree. Yet hes fawned over and indulged by Cherry Jones, playing the supposedly esteemed editor Emilywho works for a magazine that goes nameless, though its clearly on par with the high-end places like Conde Nast, which has an ample budget for fact-checking departments. Well, not this glossy. Its apparently broke and an intern gets the job. That would never happen at a major publication. Advertisement Its just Broadway and supposed to be fun, so who cares, right? And so I suspended my disbelief and laughed, especially at Daniel Radcliffe, who plays the fact-checker, Jim Fingal. I saw my young, eager intern self on the stage, and his frantic worry about whether some bar with dancing women wearing nipple pasties should also be considered a strip club is an authentic concern, albeit a minor one, that Id raise with a producer. I also happen to dress like Fingal, in the same basic Brooklyn prep: ratty sweaters over untucked Oxfords, khakis, and Adidas (though my sneakers are Nikesthe Greek goddess of victory, by the way, which I am sure Fingal would also note). Oh, also like him? I have a taste for craft ales. After we wrap an episode of the show, the producers tend to drink whiskey, but I grab an IPA from our red fridge. Advertisement Advertisement So, yeah, a few things rang true. But I also found that my disbelief could not remain suspended. It drove me nuts that the audience was going to leave the theater believing DAgatas existential grandstanding about numbers was worth sincere thought. Does a grieving mothers request for privacy outweigh getting concrete answers so we could more specifically hold the police accountable? Sure, Ira and I often civilly discuss things like immigration stats, which arent always as clear cut as you might expect, and, yes, if I were fact-checking this essay, I might call our office manager, Frances, to ask the color of the refrigerator. But thats usually the easy part of the job. I also pretty much try to speak to anyone who appears on the show. Generally, they think its great that I walk through scripts with them, asking odd things like whether scorpions could survive days in diesel (yes), but Ive also been yelled at, belittled as if a kidIm 41and hung up on. Once, a man responded to my seeking his comment by reminding me of the day of the rope when pinkos like me will be hung. I take this in stride. People are interesting, even when mean. Advertisement Advertisement (Except John DAgata.) The play skips over how much time fact-checkers spend on the phone. I practically live on it. Some of the conversations can be haunting. Not all that long ago, I talked to a man who was accused of sexually or emotionally harassing some female employees, and while the reporter had reached out to try to interview him a number of times and emailed him all the allegations, I still called him with detailed questions about penises, anuses, and breasts. He told me that in his city it was a warm, sunny day, but he could hardly stand up. He had to lean against a car. He told me hed expected me to ask things like if he ever wore corduroys. Advertisement Advertisement Is this the most uncomfortable fact-check youve ever done? he said. Its probably not. Well, he said. Im still sorry you have to ask these unsettling questions. Later, as the long day wound down, and my mind started to race, I wondered: Did I have a humane moment with this man? Did he finally feel the weight of the accusations? Or was this guy trying to play me for a chump? Get me on his side? Ill never know. I do end up feeling strangely emotional about some people. We did a story about MS-13, and one mother whod lost a teenager to gang violence declined to speak for fact-checking by sending this text: If you could tell me you were going to give me back my son, Id do whatever you wanted. But dead is dead. I dont even have time for myself. In the play, DAgata ponders whether his mom died in her chair when she blacked out, in an ambulance before the EMTs resuscitated her, or at the hospital when doctors took her off life support. He asks with righteous sweat which is true (uh, shes not dead until taken off life support, professor), but a fact-check quandary with real stakes goes like this: Does a grieving mothers request for privacy outweigh my colleagues and I wanting to get concrete answers so we could more specifically hold the police accountable for their mistreatment of her? Ten hours before our show went on the air, a producer drove to her last known address. My colleague knocked on old neighbors doors, went to churches, talked to pastors, and attended a funeral. We didnt find her. Back in the office, we reworded details to better reflect our sourcing, and the reporter headed into the studio to retrack. Id already pushed my feelings about the heartbreaking text from my headwe had a deadline to meet. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement That night when I got home I opened a cold lager. (Lager, by the way, is the craft-ale term for the lighter Buds I drink when it gets rather late into the night, and, well, Im just trying to fall asleep.) I sat on the living room sofa, only one lamp light on. I live in a small apartment, and my 4-year-old son slept in his nook behind a curtain, and my wife, in our bed, slept behind the only door to another room. She insists we keep all the shutters closed, so people dont see in, but before I lived with her, Id kept my blinds open. I get claustrophobic. I tried to read the news, but Id already read too much: MS-13 members laughing in court with a victims mother present. Bones gashed by machetes found scattered over the killing fields. I turned off the light. My bones itched. My thoughts spun. I couldnt help but to think that my colleagues and I made our livings out of the misery of others. Advertisement Of course, as an essayist who acts as if hell be read throughout eternity, John DAgata cant be bothered to think about others. He has to contemplate grandiose thingslike the true color of a brown brick. Its a shame audiences drawn to Broadway by this seemingly serious play about serious issues will think the importance of accuracy is so silly. While Id like counter with something like trust in journalism isnt some joke, that seems just as annoying as this trite play. But I find myself returning to the assignment John DAgata was supposed to be writing in Las Vegas, about the suicide of a single teenager. Ask yourself: How much about the world and the pain of others do you know? When you learn about them, do you think its inconsequential if the details are a bunch of lies? Last nights Daily Show came from Miami, where host Trevor Noah discussed Trumps latest strategy to motivate his voters before the midterm elections. It consists, he says, of, scaring the shit out of his voters, specifically by using brown people. The Presidents move comes just in time for Halloween, but a racist Halloween, or as Megyn Kelly calls it, Halloween. More specifically, what Noah is referring to is Trumps tactic to use the migrant caravanwhere thousands of Central Americans mostly from Honduras are making their way to the United States by footto cause hysteria and panic among his voting base. Noah explains that these migrants are, walking partly as a protest and partly to apply for asylum and a better life, and adds that, theyve got no food, theyve got no water, theres nowhere to bathe. In short, he jokes, its basically like Burning Man except the people arent pretending to be poor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trumps response to the impoverished group of people fleeing violence was to send more than 5,000 troop members to the Mexican border, a number far greater than those who make up the caravan, and almost equal to the U.S. forces fighting ISIS in Iraq. Really? Trumps sending the same amount of troops to deal with asylum seekers as he sent to fight ISIS? asks Noah in disbelief. He also reminds us that, these people arent illegal, and adds that, theyre planning to apply for asylum once they get to the U.S. border. Noah has a suggestion for Trump on how to deal with the migrants in less ridiculous way: instead of sending 5,000 troops to the border, why not send 5,000 judges and lawyers to help with the asylum process? He also believes the reason why the President is sending the military is because, in his mind, this is an invasion, and explains that, when I say in his mind, what I mean is on Fox news. He wants to know, what kind of invaders apply to come in AND give the enemy three-months warning? Care and Feeding is Slates parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Email careandfeeding@slate.com or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group. Dear Care and Feeding, When is it appropriate to confront a stranger over their treatment of a child? When I was walking by a group on the sidewalk, I watched one of the little boys (my guess is he was 5 or 6 years old) approach one of the women in the group, perhaps his mother. She promptly smacked him on his upper arm and yelled at him not to interrupt her. At the time, I decided to mind my own business and keep walking. But the memory sticks with me, likely due to guilt. Would it have been appropriate to say something? If so, what? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement A Concerned Passerby Dear ACP, This is such a complicated and layered question, and such an important one. I wish there existed a clear set of guidelines, a flow chart or decision tree that we could all use, but this is really one of those things where you have to actually make a decision based on an emotionally intelligent reading of a situation. I would also argue that the rules arent the same for everyone, that not everyone should intervene in the same situations in the same way. Im going to assume your question is more about situations where you feel a persons parenting is doing emotional harm. I think we can all agree that if you see anyone physically harming a child in a way that is likely to lead to serious injury, then you should intervene in any way that you possibly can. That said, this question makes me think about a phrase someone once told me about: spiritual consent. As in, what gives you spiritual consent to tell someone what you think about what theyre doing? It is an important concept, because when you act without consent, youre likely to cause more harm than good. Advertisement Advertisement One thing that helps you ask for and get spiritual consent to intervene is your motivation for intervening in the first place. Ask yourself what your goal is. If your goal is ego feeding (especially the ego-feeding proposition of making it known that you are morally superior), then its fairly likely that youll just end up being a dick about it. But if you are intervening to help, then your intervention has a greater chance of being useful to the family. I would say that unless youre willing to commit time to actually helping in the moment, you should probably keep your opinions to yourself. No one responds well to drive-by criticism, which feels disrespectful probably because its offered without consent. On the other hand, an offer like Wow, its hard managing shopping and kids. Do you want me to help with those bags so you can pick her up? is entirely different. Of course, someone might take offense to that too, but its much more likely to actually help because genuinely helpingrather than judgingis your primary goal. Advertisement Advertisement But of course, there will be way more situations in which you are not able to intervene like this, and in the brief window in which you interact with this family, all you would be able to manage is to display your disapproval. If thats the case, then I think its best to be quiet. People may want to believe that we live in a small village, but we dont. We live in a shared, complicated world in which our baseline understandings often dont match, and where trust is therefore not assumed. As such, you cannot go around imposing your vision of parenting on unknown adults. But you can always smile at a kid who is in distress to let them know that everything is going to be all right. Advertisement Advertisement Dear Care and Feeding, Recently, my daughters ninth-grade teacher contacted me about an assignment she turned in. My daughter wrote a dark, intensely emotional in-class essay about feeling like a stranger from her home culture. We adopted her as an infant from Ethiopia, and my husband and I naturally discussed all the repercussions that could come with interracial adoption. In addition, from an early age, we made no secret to our daughter that it was OK if she had complicated feelings surrounding her adoption, that she will definitely have different cultural experiences than our own, and that she was absolutely welcome to seek out whatever communities/friends/etc. she felt most comfortable and happy with. We enrolled her in adoption therapy when she was a bit older (after about six sessions, she declared it was a waste of time because she didnt have bad feelings about her adoption). We stocked our home full of cookbooks (shes turned up her nose at all Ethiopian cuisine and instead prefers mashed potatoes and chicken tenders). We even offered to return to calling her by her Ethiopian name (she picked an American nickname in early grade school thats shes insisted upon ever since). Ive asked what she wants to do to connect with her birth home, but shes always said that shes an American and wants to be treated as such. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Her teacher contacted us with understandable concern; her in-class personal essay describes a narrative of being plucked from the place she called home, being smothered by American culture, and never fitting in with anyone around her. Its really depressing to read! Where did I screw up? Ive always been proactive about connecting her with the place where she was born, but shes never seemed to care. Should I re-enroll her in adoption therapy? I feel like I missed something huge, and I dont know what happened. Please help. Lost Mother of a Lost Child Dear LMoaLC, You didnt screw up. You said that you were OK if she had complicated feelings, so guess what, she has complicated feelings. Im sure she loves you and feels safe and loved in your home. Im sure she is, to a significant extent, culturally assimilated and comfortable in her world. Im also sure that she has doubts, concerns, and feelings of discomfort about who she is and what her story is. Im sure these things are changing for her every day. Advertisement My guess is shes exploring them in her schoolwork rather than with you for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to: a) she likes having a dramatic story; b) shes afraid you would be hurt if she said these things directly to youwhich, to be fair, you kind of are; c) she wants to impress a teacher or classmate; d) she has no idea why this stuff is coming out, it just is and shes not about to stand in the way of inspiration; e) watching the world and the country unfold as it is every day is making her feel an increased solidarity with people of color and think more deeply about her story and how to be more honest about all of its layers. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Bringing a child of color into a white world and a white family is not easy. Its never going to be easy. Its not going to be easy for the child, and its not going to be easy for you. This is one of the ways in which thats true. You have to sit with your own discomfort. You have to talk to friends, your private therapist, your loved ones about itbut not your daughter. You have to resist the temptation to make it about you and where you did or didnt go wrong. You didnt go wrong. She is having a human response to a situation. Let her have it, and be her mother. That means love her unconditionally, support her, feed her, listen to her. She is lucky to have you. Thats a fact, so dont get obsessed with whether or not she sees it that way right now. Dear Care and Feeding, My Caucasian son who is 6 wants to dress up as Michael Jackson and paint his face. How do I explain it to him so he understands why he cannot? Man in the Mirror? Dear MitM, Christ, I cant wait until this fucking holiday is over. This is the newest meme Ive seen circulating among my conservative acquaintances on Facebook: Its a picture of the migrant caravan from Honduras thats making its way toward the United States border. The people are on the march; some carry backpacks, some carry nothing but the clothes on their backs. Stamped on top are the words, Imagine if these people marched on their own government and demanded change instead of marching toward ours and demanding charity. Of course, we dont have to imagine; when Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez was sworn in for his second term in January, people took to the streets to protest election irregularities and were met with tear gas and bloodshed. These people have tried asking for change, but they still face political turmoil, extreme poverty, and deadly violence. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The people who post these types of memes are the descendants of migrants, too, but to them its a historically acceptable migrationthe kind where you dumped tea in Boston Harbor to earn your freedom, or you came through Ellis Island and cried tears of joy when you finally saw the Statue of Liberty. In other words, it happened a long time ago and it happened for white people, and its been recast as a story of triumph. When I see memes about migrant caravans or refugee children in cages at the border, I think about Valdese, North Carolina, a town I visited this summer. Valdese was settled 125 years ago by a migrant caravan of sorts, and the town mythologizes that migration with a walking tour that recounts the journey from Italy to North Carolina and an outdoor drama thats been running for 51 years. Its a celebration of immigration in a town that is 97 percent white and leans conservative Republican, and my visit made me wonder how the news we live through today will be portrayed a hundred years from now. Advertisement Valdese is about an hour from Charlotte and an hour from Asheville, just off I-40, the east-west interstate in North Carolina. The town is just 7.6 square miles and had a population of 4,490 people in the 2010 census. According to the Yellow Pages, there are 18 restaurants within the town limits, five of them fast-food chains, but there are more than 20 churches. Advertisement If youve heard of the Waldensians, the religious sect that settled Valdese in 1893, it may be because Pope Francis went to a Waldensian church in Turin in 2015 to ask forgiveness from the sect on the part of the Catholic Church. The Waldensians sometimes receive credit for being the first Protestants or the oldest evangelical movement. Before Martin Luther nailed his theses to the church door, before Henry VIII decided he wanted a divorce, there was Peter Waldo. Waldo was a wealthy merchant in France in the 1180s who gave up all his possessions, took to the streets, and began to preach that the Catholic Church was a sinful example of gluttony to anyone who would listen. Advertisement Advertisement Waldensians settled in the Cottian Alps between France and Italy. They were excommunicated by Pope Lucius III in 1184 and endured several centuries of persecution. Waldensians were burned at the stake and depicted as witches. There were numerous massacres tacitly approved by the papacy, including one in 1655 that inspired John Milton to write the sonnet, On the Late Massacre in Piedmont. The Waldensians were forced from their land and walked in the snow to Switzerland before mounting a comeback to their Italian homeland in 1689 that became known as the Glorious Return. Advertisement Those centuries of persecution are the centerpiece of Valdeses tourism economy, such as it is. Act 1 of From This Day Forward, the outdoor drama performed each year in Valdese by the Old Colony Players, focuses on the years of 1685 to 1690 and the political tensions and massacres that forced the Waldensians to leave. Early in the play, which is rated PG13 for battle scenes, a man is burned at the stake for the crime of having a Bible. The current production includes gunfire, swordplay, and booming cannons. As Waldensians were slaughtered, the actorsthere are 37 of them, many wearing pristine white apronshit the red dirt stage with such a force that I had to wonder how much laundry was required after each show. An 11-year-old lay face down for so long that I worried about her ability to breathe. Advertisement The first part of the Trail of Faith, a walking tour of 15 monuments in Valdese, is similarly violent. More than half of the monuments deal with the persecution the Waldensians endured in Italy and the ways in which their faith helped them to overcome. The trails first stop is a plain three-story building meant to show how Waldensian evangelists studied in secret, memorizing the Bible and sleeping with stabled animals for warmth. On the walls are engravings of the torture that Waldensians endured. One man had his penis cut off and stuffed into his mouth, and then he was put on public display like that. Waldensians were cooked alive so they could be eaten. They did not lose their faith. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The trail also features a replica of a cave where Waldensians gathered to practice their faith in secret. Visitors are invited to crawl into the entrance of the cave to understand how hard it was for Waldensians to worship. From the cave, the trail goes to a replica of a Waldensian church. The original, known as the Temple of Ciabas, located in the small village of Angrogna, Italy, is thought to be the oldest church built from the ground up for Protestant worship. It was destroyed by Catholic sympathizers many times, but rebuilt over and over. As they rebuilt, the Waldensians started adding things like spikes on the windows and a special window above the entrance where they could pour hot oil on soldiers trying to break in. Despite all the violence, Waldensians are always depicted in Valdeses tourist attractions as brave, hardworking, and strengthened by their faith. The trail includes a one-room schoolhouse, where kids would memorize the Bible for hours so theyd know scripture in case their Bibles were confiscated. Waldensian schoolhouses usually had a big bookcase where the kids would take their naps. As proof, there is a historical photo of a teacher standing sternly by a bookcase, a child on every shelf. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The persecution that the Waldensians endured was so intense that you might think it was what led the people to leave Europe. However, King Charles Albert of Sardinia granted the Waldensians full legal and political rights in 1848. It was not danger but safety that led to their journey to North Carolina. Not being raped or murdered or forced underground led to a new problem: overpopulation. Luckily, there was a man in North Carolina with some land for sale. In 1892, two Waldensian scouts came to North Carolina to see the 10,000 acres that were available. One scout thought the land would work well for a new settlement, but the other thought it was terribletoo rocky, not enough fertile soil. The latter scout was correct, but the Waldensians bought the land as a group and came to the United States anyway. Advertisement Advertisement This is the point where the second act of From This Day Forward and the second half of the Trail of Faith begin. The Trail of Faith becomes a tribute to how hard the Waldensians worked to make this land their home, with replicas of community bread ovens and the local sawmill. In the play, the hardworking Waldensian immigrants are determined to hold on to the ways of their native land; it sometimes seems they would have stayed in Italy if it was possible. But they persevere, even though working in the sawmill is difficult and they live far away from each other. Their farms are so far apart, in fact, that one character becomes hysterically homesick and lonely and begins talking to her doll. Her husband brings a doctor and some local townspeople to see her, and one of them says that if she misses the Alps so much, she should just return there. Another character says that she cant; she and her husband spent all of their money coming to North Carolina, so theres no way to return now. The character eventually cheers up when she receives an invitation to a wedding between a Waldensian woman and a native North Carolinian. Advertisement Advertisement Its at moments like that, when immigrants are accepted and supported, when the idea of an immigrant returning to her home country is unthinkable because theres no money for the trip, that it becomes impossible to forget that youre in Burke County, where Donald Trump captured 67 percent of the vote in 2016. Perhaps in a different time, the immigration plotlines wouldnt stand out so much, but in this particular year, I was very conscious of the fact that the Waldensians were white and from the Italian Alps, not shithole countries. The Waldensians were the epitome of the good immigrant: They worked hard and worshipped a Christian God. They were able to enter the country because they made a fortunate connection with a man willing to sell them land before they arrived. It wasnt completely easy; some locals prayed that the ship carrying the immigrants would sink and were suspicious of their faith, but in the play, at least, they soon learn to accept their new neighbors. Advertisement Advertisement Immigrants are often told to assimilate as quickly as possible, and in some ways, the Waldensian immigrants did. They became Presbyterian in 1895. They learned English (the play depicts an elderly widow learning the English word for bloomers). In the 1930s, Valdese was known as North Carolinas Fastest Growing Town because of its successful industries. Valdese Weavers is currently one of the largest employee-owned companies in the state and the largest provider of decorative fabric for the home in the country, and Bimbo Bakeries, the corporation responsible for Thomas, Arnold, and Entenmanns, among other beloved bread products, works out of buildings originally owned by Waldensian Bakeries. And yet the town clings to its history and insists via its websites and promotional materials that it be known for its association with those long-ago Waldensians, the ones who would die for the crime of memorizing the Bible in the 1600s. In his directors note for the program of From This Day Forward, Matthew Boerger writes that the play is our retelling of perhaps one of the most inspiring and remarkable examples of human spirit ever recorded in the annals of history. An example of a repressed, persecuted community who simply wished to live and worship in peace, and instead were met with bloodshed and blind intolerance from their fellow man If we forget the story of the Waldensians, the persecution, hardship, and prejudice they endured, then history is doomed to repeat itself. Its a lofty statement, to be sure, but again, the Waldensians didnt come to America looking to escape this persecution; they came because there were too many of them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its not uncommon for white Americans to tell others to get over persecution that came centuries beforeblack people who bring up slavery, for example, or Native Americans who talk about the loss of their ancestral homes. The people of Valdese are able to celebrate immigration and their ancestors history of persecution because they, and those ancestors, are white. While the Waldensians struggled for their freedom, they were fortunate, in a way, to do so at a time when it was still possible to sail, en masse, to another land and to imagine you would be welcomed there. The fact that From This Day Forward still exists speaks to Americans desires to see our nations ideals of freedom and tolerance celebrated. But the memes on Facebook speak to the ugly fact that we have a hard time extending those values to those who arent white and have the bad luck to be coming in 2018. If someone from the migrant caravan were to write the outdoor drama of their experiencethe desperate poverty, the hope for a better lifeI dont think it would end with the jubilant dance numbers that Valdeses story does. On Tuesday, New York magazine released a series of interviews with twelve young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 who say they probably arent voting in the upcoming midterm elections. The series perfectly (one might even say cynically) combined two of the Politically Onlines favorite foils: maddening nonvoters and the apathy of the Youth toward treasured institutions. Its not entirely surprising, then, that the piece immediately went hate-viral and set alight media Slack channels across the country. Advertisement There are, to be sure, some truly asinine rationales undergirding some of these non-voters decision-making processes. One former socialist mentions both Machiavelli and Cicero as key figures that provided so much nuance upon reading them that he no longer feels like he can make an informed decision. Another says mailing things makes him anxious. But despite the fact that some part of each of these nonvoters vignettes read like parodies of identity-obsessed millennialssurely not the result of selective editingthe immediate and visceral rage that is now being directed at them is misplaced. It fundamentally ignores the very real, to them at least, justifications for not voting that these millennial/gen-z cusps articulatejustifications that wont be swayed by yelling at them online. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lets start with the one thats probably the easiest to understand for those of you are probably hate-clicking on this right now: The plain simple fact that, for a lot of people, voting isnt easy. It was easier to get my medical-marijuana cardnot a right, or even federally legalthan it was to register to vote, said one respondent. Massachusetts had online registration but only if you have a DMV-issued ID. I dont drive, so I was like, okay, I can register in person, but Im also dealing with a chronic illness. The intentionally opaque process of getting adequate voter ID is compounded by a uniquely millennial problem: Never having a permanent address because youre bouncing from rented apartment to rented apartment. If you choose to vote where your parents livethe most stable option unless, of course, your parents movethen welcome to the headache of absentee voting. Its such a tedious process to even get registered in Texas, let alone vote as an absentee, said a 21-year-old in Austin. Advertisement Now, Im sure most of you are rolling your eyes right now, saying Rachelle, being an adult is about doing the difficult but necessary things in life. And its true that no one is running to a gynecology appointment or gleefully looking forward to filing their income taxes. Its also true that as a black woman, few people understand more than I do how hard-won the right to vote is or how important it is to push past the minutia to exercise that right. But maybe, just maybe, these interviews shouldnt just act as an indictment of youthful laziness. They should hammer home that one of our primary political objectives needs to be making voting less difficult. Whether its something as mundane as untethering the absentee ballot process from the postage system (which apparently causes this age subset an undue amount of stamp-related stress), or striking down demonstrably racist voter ID policies or automatically registering everyone at the age of 18, its clear at this point that voter apathy on some level is fueled by the bureaucratic morass of the process. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement When wading through that morass feels futile, or you dont feel informed or excited about a candidate (as so many of these young adults noted), the choice to not vote doesnt read as insanely as the naysayers preachy outrage suggests. Its easy to forget that most of the people in this interview would only really remember three presidents, two of whom lost the popular vote by huge margins. They only know a stagnant, divided Democratic Party and a violently racist Republican one. They are, with a few notable exceptions, only familiar with the lesser of two evils. They have little tangible proof that the process works and are surrounded by constant news of how that process is being undermined by Russia and gerrymandering and voter fraud commissions. I know, I know, a plurality of people overcome all of that and still vote. But as one respondent notes, I think youve got to have something besides just strategic voting, or people resigning themselves to a candidate they dont love but who is at least a Democrat. When voting is framed as moral imperative, which it often is, its not ludicrous to think that one might skip out on the hassle if no candidate in your district lines up with your own stated values. Advertisement Advertisement Of course, the prospect of living in an ethno-state run by rich white men who separate children from their parents and refuse to condemn Nazis should be alarming enough to get most people out to vote. But as much as we all wish it was, its clear at this point that its not. It was clear in 2016, its clear now, and it will be painfully clear in 2020 if all we plan to do to convince non-voters is spew patriotic platitudes and righteous anger across Twitter. For anyone who has watched with horror the path this country has gone down over past two, four, twelve, hundred years, thats a hard pill to swallow. But if you truly care about getting people like those represented in that series of interviews to vote, swallow it you must. Advertisement Advertisement These interviews illuminate our dire need for a paradigm shift around the institution of voting, both in terms of the way we talk about it and the way we do it. Rather than sitting in an immediate outrage that reeks of self-righteousness and isnt likely to sway anyone, we need to answer the questions these interviews raise. What have we done to frame politics in such a way that so many of these young adults are stricken with the fear that theyre not informed enough to make a choice? Where are they being socialized into the idea that voting is an individual act with these moral consequences or the climax of democracy rather than one part of a collective action? Why cant we, in the year 2018, just vote on a secure government website that lets us post a sticker to Insta afterward? These questions are not an excuse for nonvoters, nor a defense. But they are asking us to look at low voter enthusiasm and turnout with the same pragmatism that scoldy journalists and other upstanding citizens are telling these young adults to practice. The system is broken, and sneering at young people who are, in the final analysis, just pointing that out wont fix it. First it was sending 1,000 United States Army troops to secure the Southern border with Mexico. Then 5,000. Now President Donald Trump is considering banning all Central American migrants from entering the country, including asylum-seekers, and abolishing birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants. Yes, Trumps manipulation of the caravan of displaced Central Americans is a classic wag-the-dog public relations gambit: fabricate a threat before an election and orchestrate a huge show of force to distract and mobilize your base. But publicity stunt or not, the U.S. reaction to the caravan exemplifies a broader crisis. As governments from the European Union to Australia to Tanzania to Peru deter, reroute, or otherwise prevent refugees from crossing borders, they are hollowing out one of the clearest and most essential rules of international human rights law: the obligation to provide refuge to the persecuted. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Unlike many of the claims made about them by the president and his supporters, the horrors those in the caravan face in their home countries are anything but fake. Gangs in Central Americas northern triangleHonduras, El Salvador, and Guatemalaterrorize civilians. They target women and children for forced recruitment, extort businesses on pain of death, and use sexual violence to control the population. Governments in the region have proved incapable of keeping the population safe. These circumstances make a convincing case for the right to asylum under U.S. immigration law. Though subject to judges interpretations, many such asylum cases have been approved. The simple act of filing for asylum after setting foot on U.S. soil (no matter how you get here) triggers protection obligations under international law, which ostensibly prevent the government from sending migrants back to a country where their life or liberty is in danger. This restriction against sending asylum-seekers back, known as non-refoulement, is one of the strongest international human rights norms. Advertisement These norms emerged in the aftermath of World War II in part as a humanitarian imperative (history does not look kindly on the U.S. sending boats of Jews back to the perils of Nazi Germany), as well as a practical and political one. The 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, which codified the right to asylum and principle of non-refoulement, remain (more or less) the cornerstones of refugee law. The more states undercut asylum norms, the more likely it is that others will do the same. To claim these protections, though, migrants first have to cross a border. This is the loophole governments are using to get around their duty to protect refugees. Rather than sending refugees home, states enact evermore creative and brutal policies to block them from stepping foot in their territory. The right to asylum is steadily eroding not because governments are outright denying the right to asylum exists, but because they are effectively denying anyone from ever invoking it. This is exactly what we see with Trump sending active-duty troops to scare the Central American migrants away from the border. The same deterrence logic is behind increased detention policies in countries like Greece, Macedonia, and Hungary. The assumption is that if countries make asylum-seekers more vulnerable in the process of claiming refuge, they will be too afraid to try. Advertisement Advertisement Sending troops to physically block refugees from entering is only one of myriad ways countries are skirting their asylum obligations. More often the tactics are less overt, though equally devastating. This summer the EU decided it would use regional disembarkation platforms to offload asylum-seekers in international waters or non-EU countries. If enforced, this means that migrants caught crossing the Mediterranean into Europe will be taken to processing centers in countries like Morocco or Turkey, presumably run by international organizations like the United Nations or the International Organization for Migration who will sort out which refugees qualify for asylum. The EU would then admit only those deemed to qualify for refugee status. But, by offshoring the processing centers, they effectively fob off their obligations by shifting the physical duties of refugee protection and non-refoulement to less powerful countries. Advertisement Advertisement And if past experience is any guide, the regional disembarkation platforms are more likely to breed human rights violations than protect asylum-seekers. Australia uses similar offshoring techniques, dumping any refugees who try to enter the country by boat in detention facilities on the island nation of Nauru and on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. Under this policy, the refugees on Nauru and Manus, many of whom fled from war zones in places like Iran, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Sudan, have been subject to sometimes fatal medical neglect and assaulted. The years of arbitrary detention have created widespread mental health issues such that asylum-seekers, including children as young as 12, regularly attempt suicide. Yet, Australia still refuses to process the refugees asylum claims on the mainland: Letting them onto Australian shores would invoke non-refoulement obligations, making it all that much harder to send them away. (Of course, if you are wealthy enough to enter Australia by plane, youre more than welcome to apply for asylum.) Advertisement Advertisement In the extreme, offshoring does not require a disembarkation point. In 2015, emboldened by Australias success banning boat arrivals, the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, pushed boats of Rohingya refugees out of their territorial waters stranding them at sea. Advertisement In addition to deterring and offshoring refugees, an equally insidious trend is the use of labels like economic migrant to disqualify migrants from refugee status. To gain asylum protections, migrants must demonstrate that they fear persecution in their home country based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Its no coincidence, then, that the rhetoric coming out the United States accuses Central American migrants of fleeing poverty. Just being poor does not qualify you for refugee status. But the notion that asylum-seekers fall into one of two categories, economic migrants or real refugees, is a gross mischaracterization of the causes of forced displacement. As journalist Sonia Nazario notes, even the migrants in the caravan who say they are fleeing for economic reasons are also fleeing the consequences of violence: The majority of businesses in these countries are closing because the owners cant pay off the gangs threatening to kill them. Advertisement Across the world, governments have seized on this false dichotomy and weaponized the rhetoric of economic-induced migration. In Tanzania, the government is using the narrative of poverty-induced migration both to tighten borders against new Burundian refugees, as well as to repatriate those already in country. Burundian refugees do face acute poverty. But people flee for multiple reasons. Burundians are also fleeing a government-directed campaign of torture, forced conscription, murder, and sexual assault against anyone perceived to support the opposition. Using similar rhetoric, countries throughout Western Europe have denied refuge to Afghan asylum-seekers on the grounds that theyre seeking a more comfortable life rather than fleeing danger like the Syrians. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Another common trick is to use seemingly banal bureaucratic rules to stymie potential refugees from crossing borders. In August, Peru and Ecuador announced that they would require Venezuelan refugees to present a passport in order to cross the border. On the surface, this might seem reasonable. But refugees fleeing violence, turmoil, and poverty frequently do not have official documents or passports. So, these regulations effectively bar them from claiming asylum. Advertisement The humanitarian consequences of sending armed troops to deter migrants from crossing borders, rerouting migrants at sea to offshore detention centers, or rebranding asylum-seekers as economic migrants are horrific. Central American migrants denied asylum have been murdered after arriving back to their home countries. Gangs target returnees for retribution because they tried to escape. Similarly, youth militias allied with the ruling party in Burundi are likely to target returning Burundian refugees as traitors to the regime. Deterrence, repatriation, and deportation are also simply ineffective at curbing the flow of migrants. In Afghanistan in 2008 and 2009, some returning refugees faced such a violent backlash in their home communities that they were forced to flee again. The horrific treatment of Central American migrants in the U.S. has yet to deter asylum-seekers from trying to seek protection. In fact, mass deportation of Salvadoran migrants from the U.S. in the 1990s is directly linked to the proliferation of gang violence that forces refugees to flee today. Still, the more states undercut asylum norms, the more likely it is that others will do the same. Trumps show of force at the border is not only an issue for the midterms. It is one more ax hacking away at what is left the right to asylum. And it is sending a message to other countries, in bold letters, inviting them to do the same. Fake News 2018: Misinformation reached an all-time low in Brazil, Ciara Long writes, as the country elected its far-right President Jair Bolsonaro on the heels of a sustained and pernicious fake news campaign on WhatsApp, among other social media platforms, perpetuated by his supporters. And maybe its impact couldve been lessened, except Brazilians use WhatsApp for everything, according to Tania Menai. Not for profit: Christina Cauterucci believes Christine Blasey Ford and finds it implausible she came forward with accusations against Brett Kavanaugh in the hopes of one day crowdfunding money to enrich herself, but theres still something a little off about the $840,000 in GoFundMe campaigns thats been raised for the wealthy professor. Advertisement Well-meaning, intelligent straight people: For Outwards Radical issue, Alex Borinsky writes that theres more to camp and swish and effeminacy than meets the eye. Faggotry, he says, is knowing the limits of straight societyand speaking from the heart as if they were not so. Two migrations: The small town of Valdese, North Carolina, prides itself on its origin story: the persecution, flight, and resettlement of members of the Waldensian Church. Writer Molly Edmonds visited the town and explores the (white) immigration we celebrate and the immigration we dont. For fun: Who is Halloween really for, after all? I wore an Umbreon costume to work, Dawnthea Now that Brett Kavanaugh is sitting on the Supreme Court, Christine Blasey Ford is no longer making daily headlines. But shes still making money via GoFundMe, where one of two massively successful fundraising pages is still collecting donations for a no-strings-attached pot that currently contains more than $633,000. An Oct. 3 message from Ford on the page, which was initially set up by an anonymous person or people identified as her neighbors and colleagues, says the funds will be used for security, housing, transportation and other related expenses incurred as a result of her public sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh. I cannot express how grateful I am for the outpouring of support and generosity that we have received through this GoFundMe account, Ford wrote in that message, adding, I feel like all of you who have made a contribution are on this journey with me, which is very heartening. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ford received multiple death threats after putting her name to a confidential letter shed sent to her congressional representative detailing an attempted rape Kavanaugh allegedly perpetrated against her in the early 1980s. The money from two Ford-affiliated GoFundMe pages (the second stopped accepting money on Sept. 20, when it had amassed nearly $210,000) was raised based on the promise that it would help defray the cost of a security detail. The costs for security, housing, transportation and other related expenses are much higher than we anticipated and they do not show signs of letting up, she said in the Oct. 3 message. On Monday, the investigations arm of the right-leaning website RealClearPolitics published a piece suggesting these fundraising efforts may explain why Ford accused Kavanaugh of assault. Democrats repeatedly asserted that Christine Blasey Ford had nothing to gain by coming forward with her explosive accusation of attempted rape against the Supreme Court nominee, reporter Paul Sperry writes. In fact, Ford stands to gain some $1 million and counting from national crowdfunding campaigns launched by friends and other supporters, while she is said to be fielding book offers. Sperry casts doubt on the idea that Ford and her husband need donations, noting that they own two homes valued at a combined $4.3 million, sold a bed-and-breakfast a decade ago for more than $1.5 million, and hold well-paying gigs in academia and biotechnology, respectively. Sperry also questions where the GoFundMe money is going, since Fords lawyers offered their services pro bono. He estimates that Ford could have spent only about $55,000 on security so far and claims shes been staying with relatives and at her beach house, not in any rented safe house shed have to shell out for. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sperry doesnt explain where he got the $1 million figurethe two GoFundMe sums add up to about $840,000, and a third fundraiser thats garnered about $31,000 is earmarked for a proposed endowed professorship or scholarship that wouldnt enrich Ford at all. And there is a large, meaningful distance between having something to gain from coming forward with sexual assault allegations and accepting material gestures of gratitude. I do not believe Ford lied about a sexual assault in hopes that someone would make her a GoFundMe. With that said, it does make me a little uncomfortable to watch more than 13,000 people give money to an already-wealthy woman for unspecified expenses related to a sexual assault accusation when so many other survivors are trying to get by with far greater need and far less social, institutional, and financial support. Advertisement Crowdfunding sites have made it easy for people to convert feelings of sympathy into monetary gifts. Occasionally, well-meaning attempts to help the victim of targeted mistreatment or random tragedy go viral, bringing the beneficiary a major windfall. When 68-year-old bus monitor Karen Klein was captured on tape getting taunted by a group of boys in 2012, a random man who saw the video started an Indiegogo campaign with the goal of raising $5,000 to send Klein on the vacation of a lifetime. It ended up yielding more than $700,000, effectively setting her up for retirement, or a year of lavish spending, or whatever else she might want to do. Klein left her job and used $100,000 of the money to set up an anti-bullying foundation that stopped posting updates in 2013. Its hard to escape the notion that, while Klein absolutely deserved the vacation of a lifetime, the extra $695,000 could have gone to better use elsewheresay, to existing organizations doing anti-bullying work, or to pay the medical and counseling expenses incurred by victims of hate crimes. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The same goes for the $840,000 donated to Ford. If Ford isnt part of the 1 percent, shes darn close, and its highly probable that the majority of her patrons have less money than she does. The donors to these campaigns were surely motivated by feelings of helplessness and anger. For some of her backers, Ford was an avatar of their painful memories of sexual exploitation; for others, she represented their fears of womens fate under three Republican-controlled branches of government. They couldnt not do something after witnessing the all-male GOP contingent on the Senate Judiciary Committee defend an accused sexual abuser instead of simply nominating an equally conservative replacement. They couldnt give Ford a hug, a pep talk, or the power to make Kavanaugh supporters care. All they could do was give her money. Advertisement Rich people shouldnt be the only ones who have the option of going public with sexual assault allegations of national import. But if Ford ends up making a hefty profit once her expenses are covered, which it looks like she almost certainly will, that will be a major loss for the anti-rape organizations that could have bankrolled survivor support programs with those funds. Fords acceptance of the money also feeds into the time-honored canard that women lie about sex crimes to get money and fame. When Paula Jones accused then-President Bill Clinton of sexually harassing her during his tenure as governor of Arkansas, Clinton adviser James Carville quipped, If you drag a hundred dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what youll find. (Weirdly, Sen. Lindsey Graham invoked that line during the Kavanaugh hearings to argue that Trumps mockery of Ford wasnt wholly unprecedented.) Advertisement Advertisement It was a lot harder to portray Ford as a low-class opportunist. In almost every way, she was the victim most likely to be believed: a white woman from a respectable, well-to-do family who attended elite private schools and traveled in the same elevated social circles as her alleged assailant. With her many degrees, prominent professional status, and position in the rarefied circles of Palo Alto, California, Ford had much to lose. Why, then, would she lie? Advertisement Sperry has one theory. Local records show that Christine Blasey Ford recently applied for a building permit to remodel their Santa Cruz beach house. The application was made on July 16just two weeks before she sent her letter accusing Kavanaugh of assaulting her, he writes. The proposed remodeling job is significant and expensive. Advertisement Its just as easy, though, to build a completely different theory using the exact same evidence. The fact that Fords personal financial decisionsher sale of a bed-and-breakfast, her decision to remodel her homeare now being picked apart only constitutes further proof that bringing a sexual assault claim subjects the accuser to intense scrutiny. Even if Ford becomes a folk hero on the left, her name will always be linked to sexual abuse and the man who allegedly assaulted her. And while Fords multimillion-dollar real estate assets may mean she doesnt need $840,000 in donations to cover her security costs, they also mean she didnt need to subject herself to national scrutiny, shame, and death threats to underwrite a home renovation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In his piece, Sperry worries that Fords GoFundMe take sets a dangerous precedent by creating a new incentive for accusers and encouraging partisan activists to offer crowdfunding as a form of bounty on political foes, or to buy witness testimony against political adversaries. This argument is unconvincing, because the barriers to reporting sexual abuse by powerful perpetrators are far mightier than the rewards. Making a practice of crowdfunding support for accusers could mitigate some of the power differentials that keep survivors silent when theyre not model victims like Ford. With the promise of help paying expenses, less wealthy survivors may be more likely to confront their assailants, knowing that whatever they losework clients, anonymity, employability in a certain region or industrythey will have some protection against falling into poverty, at least for a little while. Crowdfunding campaigns like the ones supporting Ford could also send a message to those inclined to harass survivors that death threats wont be enough to intimidate accusers into silence. Rich people shouldnt be the only ones who have the option of going public with sexual assault allegations of national import. Advertisement Advertisement No survivor of assault should have to pay to tell the truth, especially when that truth could protect others from harm or keep an unrepentant abuser out of a position of power. And Ford shouldnt be financially penalized for her courage. But reparations or damages for victims are supposed to come from those who enacted or benefited from the harm done, not from sympathetic observers moved by an infuriating story. Advertisement The question of whether Ford should profit from her testimony is an incredibly thorny one. Sperry, who has spent the past month smearing Ford as a deceitful political actor with poor character, is not well-equipped to answer it. In one of several pieces hes written about Ford, Sperry claimed she wasnt exactly a choir girl in high school and was known by a sexually derogatory nickname suggesting she was promiscuous. He also wrote that, according to a source, in Fords high school yearbooks, girls boasted of passing out from binge drinking and targeting boys at Georgetown Prep for sexual encounters. Advertisement Given what Sperry has written about Ford, I believe he wouldve found some reason to accuse her of profiteering even if the GoFundMe campaigns had never cropped up. Still, it would be a lot easier to defend Ford against Sperrys claims if she were more transparent about where the money was going or if she publicly diverted the extra funds to some of the many organizations that support lower-income survivors. In a perfect world, all sexual assault survivors would get the money they need. In this one, those whose bravery and relative privilege elicit a disproportionate outpouring of financial support should spread their resources around. The scurrilous attempt to smear special counsel Robert Mueller with accusations of sexual misconduct took a particularly delicious turn Tuesday afternoon, when scrutiny over the pretty clearly fabricated charges turned toward random right-wing Twitter nut and apparent disgraced hedge-fund bro, Jacob Wohl. The twentysomething Wohl and others in the MAGAsphere began cryptically tweeting hints Monday of a mega-scoop that was about to drop about Mueller, causing the story to flare into the public sphere, particularly on giddy right-wing sites. It quickly became clear that something was not right about the very thin, utterly sensational story being pushed by Wohl and fellow conservative political activist Jack Burkman, and emails emerged from women notifying reporters and the special counsels office that they had been approached by individuals saying they were investigators and offering tens of thousands of dollars to come forward with cooked-up allegations about the man investigating the president. The Mueller team got wind of the setup attempt last week and referred the case to the FBI for investigation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Those are the nuts and boltsthat we know of so farof this pretty pathetic attempt to harm the Russia investigation by impugning Robert Muellers character. The smear operation is likely not only against the law; the intent to derail a federal investigation into the president is beyond serious. EXCLUSIVE DOCUMENTS: Special Counsel and Former FBI Director Robert Mueller Accused of Rape By 'Very Credible Witness ' https://t.co/n4brvtkWsn Jacob Wohl (@JacobAWohl) October 30, 2018 Advertisement The details, however, of the sheer ineptitude of these two absolute jokers (and avowed conspiracy theorists), Burkman and internet person Jacob Wohl, who also writes for the far-right conspiracy site Gateway Pundit, are pricelessand hilarious. Much of the ineptitude centers around the company Surefire Intelligence, which has a web presence, a LinkedIn page, and all of the sort-of trappings of a real business. Wohl says Burkman, who has simultaneously been dropping hints online of a Mueller bombshell, hired Surefire to help with the investigation into Robert Mueller. The investigation by Surefire was pretty much a fraud masquerading as reporting. Heres how it worked, from the Atlantic: Advertisement Jennifer Taub, an associate professor at Vermont Law School, received an email from a man using a Surefire Intelligence email address around the same time, on October 22. Its my understanding that you may have had some past encounters with Robert Mueller, he told Taub, according to the email she forwarded me on Tuesday afternoon. I would like to discuss those encounters with you. (Taub told me she has never had any encounters with Mueller, though she does appear on CNN at times as an expert commentator.) I believe a basic telephone call, for which I would compensate you at whatever rate you see fit (inside reason), would be a good place to start, the man continued. My organization is conducting an examination of Robert Muellers past. Tell me a decent method to contact you by telephone (or Signal, which would be ideal) and a beginning rate to talk with you about all encounters youve had with Special Counsel Mueller. We would likewise pay you for any references that you may have. Lastly, I would appreciate your discretion here, as this is a very sensitive matter. Taub told me she forwarded the email to the special counsels office, noting that she did not plan to respond. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Surefire describes itself on its website as a private intel agency that designs and executes bespoke solutions for businesses and individuals who face complex business and litigation challenges. Since-deleted Craigslist advertisements for the company said it was founded by two members of Israels elite intelligence community, the Daily Beast reports. The ads billed services including counter intelligence, private spies, and ethical hackers. If the fact that the company was advertising on Craigslist wasnt a big enough red flag, how about the fact that at least seven of the companys supposed employees LinkedIn profiles use obviously fake headshots of supermodels and actors. The headshot of Surefires Tel Aviv station chief is a photo of Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli; the financial investigator is played by Academy Awardwinning actor Christoph Waltz; and on and on and on. Advertisement After the press started asking questions about the company, Wohl clammed up and denied having any ties to Surefire Intelligence. Odd. Jacob Wohl says he doesn't know nuttin' about Surefire Intelligence, the firm tied to the bizarre Mueller allegations. Take a look at the photos below of Mathhew Cohen, head of 'Surefire,' and of Jacob Wohl. pic.twitter.com/Q1rAW4wkPO Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) October 30, 2018 Advertisement Surefires website lists Wohls email address in the companys domain records. NBC News found the phone number listed on Surefires website directed callers to another number that is listed as belonging to Wohls mom. Wohl likely needs a lawyer, but instead is busy tweeting trying to muddy the waters. Advertisement Believe all women. Jacob Wohl (@JacobAWohl) October 30, 2018 Advertisement If the muddying doesnt work out, theres alway Wohls dad: A payment made to an alleged witness against Robert Mueller may be the biggest *FAKE NEWS* of the year. David Wohl (@DavidWohl) October 30, 2018 The tweet doesnt fall far from the tree. The sheriffs office in Butts County, Georgia, has been placing yard signs in front of the homes of registered sex offenders in the area that read, Warning! No trick-or-treat at this address!! Each one of the 54 registered sex offenders in the county now has a sign in their yards. Im not trying to humiliate em or anything like that. Lets face reality: We have a greater chance of children getting run over by a car [on Halloween] than being a victim of sexual assault by a repeat offender, Sheriff Gary Long told CBS. But at the end of the day if, in fact, we had a child that fell victim to a sexual assault, especially by a convicted sex offender, I dont think I could sleep at night. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In previous years, the sheriffs office has just put signs on the doors of homes belonging to sex offenders in preparation for Halloween. Georgia state agencies have traditionally forbidden sex offenders from decorating their houses and participating in other Halloween activities. This year, however, Long claims that there will be more house-to-house trick or treating because a popular Halloween event in the town square has been canceled. Therefore, the sheriff decided to make the signs more prominent because of the expected increase in foot traffic through certain neighborhoods. The Butts County Sheriffs Office has argued it has the right to do so under a Georgia law that dictates that sheriffs must, in part, Inform the public of the presence of sexual offenders in each community. Last week, the mayor of Grovetown, Georgialocated about 100 miles away from Butts Countyannounced plans to corral the citys registered sex offenders and detain them at City Hall for three hours on Halloween. The mayor, Gary Jones, also justified his actions by citing the safety of kids trick or treating. After weeks of detailed leaks, the Turkish government has come out publicly with its account of what happened when Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. He was strangled very soon after he arrived and his body was then dismembered, the chief prosecutor of Istanbul said Wednesday. By going public now with information that had been anonymously provided to Turkish and Western media outlets, Turkey is demonstrating its frustration with the failure of the Saudis to clear up any of the big remaining questions about Khashoggis death, like where the body is and if the killing was premeditated, according to the New York Times. (Saudi Arabia said only after weeks of dissembling that Khashoggi had been killed in a fistfight and that it would do its own investigation of the killing.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Turkish prosecutors meeting with the visiting Saudi investigator could not reach a concrete outcome, the Istanbul prosecutor said in a statement, and thus they were compelled to publicly release more details. The Washington Post reported that the Saudi prosecutor did not tell Turkish officials the location of Khashoggis body or the identity of a local collaborator who Saudi authorities have asserted helped dispose of the journalists remains. The pattern since Khashoggis disappearance is that Turkish officials have either leaked or publicly released information about the dissident journalists death when talks with Saudi Arabia were unproductive and then closed the spigot when they were getting somewhere, thus putting Turkeys government and its authoritarian leader in control of a massive international scandal for nearly a month. Saudi Arabia said it has detained 18 people allegedly connected with the killing and forced the resignation of five senior officials, including two close to the countrys crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman. Saudi officials later leaked that Khashoggi had been killed in a choke hold. Slates expanded voting rights coverage is made possible by the support of Slate Plus members and readers like you. On Oct. 14, Dion Jackson mailed in an absentee ballot application for the upcoming election. Jackson, an enrolled member of the Spirit Lake Tribe who lives on the Spirit Lake Reservation in North Dakota, is an American who is qualified to vote. But on Oct. 22, he received a letter explaining that his application had been rejected. The street address that Jackson had listedthe one that appears on his state-issued IDwas invalid, the letter explained. If he did not take further action, he would not be allowed to vote in the midterm election. Advertisement There is no street sign identifying Jacksons street. There is no number on his house. A state database identifies his street as Unknown2. Jackson would not be permitted to vote because, according to the state, he has no real address. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Jacksons struggle is currently playing out across North Dakota. A stringent new law that requires all voters to prove their residential street address has placed an immense burden on Native Americans in the state. Many live on rural reservations in houses with no residential address, rendering them incapable of casting a ballot. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block a lower court decision upholding this rule, over a pointed dissent by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Now Native American voters are back in court, asking a federal judge to grant them relief. This time, they arent just arguing that the law makes voting more onerous. Theyve demonstrated that the law may make it impossible for them to vote at all. Advertisement The new lawsuit, filed on Tuesday by the Campaign Legal Center, the Native American Rights Fund, and Robins Kaplan, vividly illustrates how Native American voters have wound up disenfranchised. For decades, North Dakotans could vote with a valid residential or mailing address, which allowed rural tribal voters to use their P.O. Box as identification. After Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp triumphed in 2012 by fewer than 3,000 votes, Republicans altered the law. Heitkamp won with strong support from Native Americans, so the GOP passed legislation that targeted their access to the franchise. The new law compels voters to present an ID at the polls that lists their current residential (not mailing) addressor, if voting by absentee ballot, provide one that corresponds to a state database. Advertisement Advertisement U.S. District Judge Daniel L. Hovland blocked that requirement in April, citing its discriminatory and burdensome impact on Native Americans. He noted that if the law takes full effect in November, it will prevent about 5,000 Native American voters from casting a ballot. Yet the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Hovland by a 21 vote in September, allowing the state to enforce its residential street address rule for most voters. At the end of its opinion, however, the majority signaled that it was open to more limited relief: If any resident of North Dakota lacks a current residential street address and is denied an opportunity to vote on that basis, it wrote, the courthouse doors remain open. Advertisement Advertisement Native Americans ability to vote should not hinge on the competence of random officials like Kurt. The plaintiffs in this latest lawsuit take the majority at its word. Using maps, photographs, and GPS, they explain the bind that North Dakota has placed them in. There are no street signs to identify the roads on which their houses are located. In some instances, the state has given them conflicting information about their residential address. Consider these quandaries: Leslie and Clark Peltier are enrolled members of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians who live on reservation trust land. Their rural home has no address. During the 2012 election, a county representative assigned them the address 10296 40th Ave. NE, with no town or ZIP code. When they obtained drivers licenses, the state identified their town as Belcourt, North Dakota, 58316. But the secretary of states database lists their town as St. John, North Dakota, 58369. They cannot vote unless they resolve this discrepancyyet they have no apparent way of doing so. Advertisement Terry Yellow Fat is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe who lives in Fort Yates, North Dakota. Several years ago, the government put up a sign on his street that said Buffalo Avenue, so he assumed he lived on Buffalo Avenue. But when he asked the sheriff for his 911 addressthe location used for emergency serviceshe was told he lived on 1343 92nd St. In fact, thats the address of a liquor store down the street from his house, yet the state now considers it to be his official address. Yellow Fat is thus caught in a Catch-22: To vote, he must produce an ID listing his address as 1343 92nd St. But if he uses that address to vote, he will be violating the law, because it is not actually the fixed permanent dwelling at which he resides. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Ace Charette, an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe, lives in Rolette County with his fiancee, Andrea Riggs, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation. They in a rental home that has no street address. To obtain a residential address, they contacted Rolla City Hall but were told they had to appear in person at a courthouse in Rolla, about 10 miles away. Andrea visited the courthouse three times before an employee was present who could assist her. This employee, who identified himself only as Kurt, stated that the county had two mapping programs that often conflicted with each other. Each produced a different address for Riggs and Charettes house. He selected one and wrote it on a sheet of paper. This paper is the only official documentation that Riggs and Charette received indicating their address, and it is insufficient to vote.* Advertisement Since the 8th Circuit lifted the block on the new law, tribal governments have scrambled to hand out hundreds of new ID cards, usually for free. But thousands of Native Americans still dont have identification with a residential street address deemed valid by the state. And as the examples above illustrate, hundreds more simply cannot get them at all. To make matters worse, North Dakotas Republican Secretary of State Alvin Jaeger has indicated that he will strictly enforce the residential address requirement and refused to say whether hell accept newly printed tribal IDs. Advertisement Advertisement In light of these roadblocks, Tuesdays lawsuit urges the federal district court to block the residential address rule in counties that encompass Indian reservationsor, at a minimum, for the voters who brought this suit. As an alternative, the lawsuit proposes letting voters identify their residences on a precinct map to verify their eligibility. These solutions make a great deal of sense. If the courthouse doors truly remain open, after all, Native Americans ability to vote should not hinge on the competence of random officials like Kurt. Advertisement Advertisement It is worth marveling at how far afield the North Dakota government has drifted from the original rationale behind its new law. When they introduced this legislation, Republicans claimed they were seeking to curb voter fraud. (There is no evidence that voter fraud is a problem in North Dakota, or anywhere else in the U.S.) Yet no one seriously claims that Native Americans are exploiting their lack of a residential address to cast illegal ballots. This legal battle has laid bare the laws true intentto disenfranchise minority voters who might give Heitkamp another term. Now Native Americans must plead with the courts to stop their state from voiding their vote. This is not what a democracy looks like. Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect Robert Bowers was able to buy the AR-15 rifle and three handguns used in the attack legally, according to federal authorities who spoke with the New York Times. He also had six additional guns at homethree more handguns, a shotgun, and two other riflesall purchased and owned legally, along with a license to own handguns. Bowers was able to assemble his arsenal because he did not fall into any category barred from gun ownership under federal law, including felons, convicted domestic abusers, dishonorably discharged veterans, or people adjudicated to be mentally ill or subject to certain restraining orders, according to the Times. And while the city of Pittsburgh passed an assault rifle ban 25 years ago, Pennsylvania laws have superseded it, effectively making the guns legal to buy and own across the state. Pennsylvania is also not a state that has a red flag law, which empowers police to confiscate guns temporarily if they find that a gun owner is likely harm themselves or others. Although a red flag bill was introduced in the Legislature this year by a Pennsylvania Republican and was partially drafted in consultation with the National Rifle Association, the bill never passed, thanks in part to NRA opposition. The Christian rabbi who was invited onstage by Vice President Mike Pence at a Tuesday rally for a congressional candidate in Michigan to lead a prayer in memory of the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting victims was defrocked 15 years ago, the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations told NBC News. The choice of Loren Jacobs outraged some Jews, who were insulted by the choice of a man belonging to a group that believes Jesus is the son of God for the remembrance of the synagogue victims. Some Jews have said that Jacobs should not be called a rabbi, given that his beliefs align more with Christianity than Judaism. Advertisement According to NBC, a spokeswoman for the religious group said the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations stripped Jacobs of his rabbinic ordination after our judicial board found him guilty of libel. Its unclear what that libel would refer to, but NBC notes that he had expressed views that the group had not been conservative enough when it came to doctrine. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The Michigan candidate Pence was appearing for, Lena Epstein, is a member of a Detroit-area synagogue. A spokesman for Pence said that Epstein had invited Jacobs. In response to the backlash over the choice of the religious leader, Epstein said on Twitter that criticism of her and Pence amounted to religious intolerance. Statement on Jewish Faith and Religious Tolerance: pic.twitter.com/QUxYG3ZIh5 Lena Epstein (@LenaEpstein) October 30, 2018 Advertisement She did not mention Jacobs but instead said she had invited the prayer because we must unite as a nationwhile embracing our religious differencesin the aftermath of Pennsylvania. Pences appearance with Jacobs wasnt the only time the Trump administration has been criticized for its handling of the Pittsburgh shooting. Appearing on Fox & Friends afterward, Kellyanne Conway suggested that the Trump administration could be considered a victim of unfair accusations that the presidents inflammatory rhetoric has contributed to the rise of anti-Semitic hate crimes since the election, and she asserted that the massacre amounted to anti-religiosity in general, bringing Christianity into a specifically Jewish tragedy. When Robert Bowers, the suspect in the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting that claimed 11 lives and injured nine other people, was taken to Allegheny General Hospital after sustaining gunshot wounds by police, at least three of the doctors and nurses who took care of him were Jewish. So is the hospitals president, Jeffrey Cohen, who visited Bowers in his recovery room. Isnt it ironic that somebody who is yelling in the ambulance and in the hospital, I want to kill all the Jews, is taken care of by a Jewish nurse and theres a Jewish hospital president that comes in to check on him afterwards? Cohen told CNN. Advertisement Cohen lives across the street from the Tree of Life, where he is a longtime member, and has deep personal connections with the synagogue. According to Tribune-Review, his mother-in-law attends services nearly every day. He knew nine of the people who were killed. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Nonetheless, Cohen and his team treated Bowers as they would any other patient. Were here to take care of sick people, were not here to judge you, Cohen said in an interview with a Pittsburgh TV station. Were here to take care of people that need our help. The young nurse who immediately attended to Bowers broke down in tears shortly after the treatment. The nurse that took care of him, his father is a rabbi in the South Hills, Cohen told the Pittsburgh Business Times. He told me he went home that night to his parents house and hugged his parents, and I told him that his parents raised a really good kid. Advertisement At one point, Cohen personally checked in with Bowers to ask him how we was doing. [Bowers] asked me who I was, I said Im Dr. Cohen, the president of the hospital, Cohen told CNN. And I turned around and left. And the FBI agent that was guarding him said, I dont know that I could have done that. I said, If you were in my shoes, Im sure you couldve. Bowers was discharged from Allegheny General Hospital on Monday morning and appeared in court in a wheelchair to hear the charges against him: 29 federal counts of hate crimes, violence, and firearm offenses. He may face the death penalty if convicted. The mother of two Saudi Arabian sisters whose bodies washed up last week on Manhattans shoreline, bound together with tape, said an official at the Saudi Arabian Embassy had told her just before the daughters were discovered that her family had been ordered to leave the U.S. because her daughters had requested political asylum, authorities said Tuesday. According to the Associated Press, the daughters have been identified as 16-year-old Tala Farea and 22-year-old Rotana Farea, who lived in Fairfax, Virginia. Both the New York Police Department and Saudi officials have said they are looking into the deaths. Advertisement The sisters were discovered last Wednesday on the bank of the Hudson River. They were fully clothed and bound together, facing one another. Medical examiners have not determined cause of death. The bodies appeared not to show any signs of major trauma, ruling out the initial police theory that they had jumped from the George Washington Bridge, according to the AP. Police are still investigating the possibility of suicide, but they are not ruling out murder. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to the Arab News, an English paper in Saudi Arabia, their mother reported Tala, the younger daughter, missing months ago but called off the search when she learned Tala was staying with Rotana in New York City. Its unclear where the sisters were staying before they died. Advertisement According to the New York Times, authorities say the sisters were also reported missing last year, and when local police found them, the sisters asked for protection and were placed in a shelter. In August, Tala was reported missing, and in October, someone again reported the sisters missing, according to the Times. A Saudi consulate official said the two sisters were students accompanying their brother in Washington, according to a statement from the Saudi Arabian Consulate General posted Tuesday. The older sister was enrolled at George Mason University, but she left in the spring. According to the AP, the two sisters had moved with their family to Fairfax from Saudi Arabia in 2015. Generally speaking, American Jews do not live in Israel. We live in the United States. New York? Of course. Florida? Its the bubbe belt. But Tel Aviv? Only a few of us enjoy falafel quite enough to decamp there. This fact does not seem to have registered with a number of high-profile Republicans, who have taken to using their support for the Jewish state as a sort of all purpose pass to fan antisemitism at home. Thats been especially apparent in the wake of Saturdays tragic shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, as Donald Trump and his allies have tried to squelch any suggestion that president might have helped set the stage for violence through incitement. Advertisement The charge against Trump is that he has mainstreamed white nationalism through his attacks on immigrants and Muslims, and his frequent waves to the alt-right, helping to foster a political climate where hatred of Jews is bound to take seed and flourish. Trump has also at various times trafficked in anti-Semitic tropes and stereotypes. Whether or not he harbors any personal animus towards the community, his rhetoricespecially his grotesque Charlottesville responsehas often catered to hardcore anti-Semites, or chummed the water by hyping conspiracies that are bound to take on Elders of Zion-ish life of their own. Such is the case with Pittsburgh shooter, Robert Bowers. The killer disliked Trump because of the presidents ties to Israel. But he fixated on the immigrant caravan that the White House hyped as an election season ploy, concluding it was all part of a Jewish plot to supplant white Americans. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Trumpists have brought up three main defenses in response. They note, again, that Bowers wasnt a supporter of the president. They also note that Trumps daughter Ivanka and trusted son-in-law Jared Kushner are orthodox Jews, which certainly suggests Trump is comfortable with some Jews. Beyond that, they incessantly bring up his reflexive support for Israel. Donald Trump is the first president in 23 years to keep our nations promise to the people of Israel and to recognize Jerusalem as its capital and to move our embassy, former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka told Fox News. On Monday, Trump pal Sean Hannity ventured that perhaps no president is modern history has demonstrated more support for Israel and the Jewish people than president trump. During his sitdown with Laura Ingraham, Trump himself responded to a softball question about antisemitism by announcing that the Israeli government had just given him an award thanking him for the embassy move. Im going to show you right after this the most beautiful plaque, he kvelled. It just came! Advertisement None of this actually rebuts the idea that Trump has trafficked in conspiracies and language that put Jewish lives at risk. But it does speak to a broader outlook among Republicans that one somehow cant be guilty of perpetuating antisemitism so long as he properly supports Israel. Not all of them are quite so explicit about it as Trump, but the idea does seem to hover as a tacit assumption among many conservatives. Advertisement The prize example may be Steve King, the Iowa congressman who has pushed further into open white supremacism than any other Washington lawmaker. King is a devoted supporter of Jewish state. Hes also an anti-immigrant fanatic who is friendly with members of the Europes hard right, has endorsed a white supremacist for Toronto mayor, and recently talked about wanting an alternative Polish perspective on the Holocaust after visiting Auschwitz. Another pro-Israel stalwart, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, tossed lighter fluid on the caravan conspiracies that motivated Bowers this month, with a viral tweet suggesting that the train of refugees may have been funded by Jewish billionaire George Soros, who figures heavily in antisemitic myth making, and whom Republicans have turned into a political bogeyman. (The GOP has decided to continue featuring Soros in their midterm attack ads, despite the shootings in Pittsburgh and the fact that the man was just targeted for assassination by the alleged MAGABomber, Cesar Sayoc, Jr.) When Gaetz got into a bit of hot water for inviting a holocaust denying conservative troll to the state of the union, one of his political backers was quick to point out that the Congressman was a champion of Israel. (That supporter was himself Jewish). Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The excuse-me-I-support-Israel defense sometimes pops up in less sinister, but nonetheless offensive contexts. The other day, Charlie Kirk posted a video of himself destroying a left-wing rabbi who spoke up at one of his events. In it, the young conservative chud boorishly lectured the rabbi for not taking the bible literally, which unfortunately echoes a longstanding antisemitic trope where Christians accuse Jews of perverting their own religion. When the rabbi called him out on this, Kirk just waved the guy away. You will find no bigger defender of the State of Israel or the Jewish people than me, he said. (Note which came first). One glaring problem with using Israel as a shield against accusations of antisemitism is that, well, some vocal antisemities really like Israel. Richard Spencer, the alt-rights closest thing to an intellectual, sees the country as a perfect model for the white ethnostate hed like to one day create. Hes referred to his philosophyperhaps a bit trollishlyas white zionism, and as he once put it: I would say, if I were to have a beer with [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, I bet we would agree on everything. Advertisement Advertisement Spencer doesnt speak for many people, obviously. But a great deal of U.S. political support for Israel comes the from the much more influential evangelical movement, which can be worrisome for Jews in its own way. Many Christian Zionists seem to believe that Jewish control of the holy land is necessary to bring about the apocalypse and Christs return to earth. Not to put too fine a point on it, but most of us dont exactly find comfort in being cast as extras in the schlock end-of-days action movie thats probably playing inside Mike Pences head. Movement officials have toned down the eschatology, and now claim it simply recognizes that the Jews have a special biblical claim on Israel. As the website says: There remains a national destiny over the Jewish people and her national homeland is her everlasting possession in fulfillment of Gods plans and purposes for her. That too might be a bit discomforting for many American Jews; it suggests our destiny, after all, is in another country, not the one we call home now. It again casts us as the other. Advertisement Advertisement Some politicians who conflate support for Israel with support for Jews more broadly also have a dark habit of dividing us into two camps: The good Jews and the bad Jews, the real and the fake. The former support Israel, and are generally conservative. The latter criticize it and are generally more liberal, which seems to make them fair game for the sorts of antisemitic tropes Soros is subjected to. Again, Steve King may have offered the purest expression of this sentiment a few years back when he told Boston Herald Radio, I dont understand how Jews in America can be Democrats first and Jewish second. To whatever extent that men like King feel emboldened to embrace white nationalist movements that imperil the Jewish community because they believe theyre on the side of the true Jews, well, its both a bit ironic and terrifying. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But ultimately, the excuse-me-but-I-support-Israel defense fails for a more fundamental reason: Its a non-sequitur. Just like racism isnt merely about overt, personal dislike for minorities, antisemitism isnt just about loathing all Jews as a people. Its about indulging in tropes that keep Jew hatred alive, or put some Jewsas a groupin danger. You can commit an antisemitic act without being a dyed-in-the-wool antisemite. You dont have to be Louis Farrakhan to a pose a danger to the community. Talking about your love of Israel when someone calls you out for antisemtism is a bit like saying some of my best friends are black when youre called out for racism. Sure, youre fine with them. But what about the rest of us? White House counsel Don McGahn led the confirmations of two conservative Supreme Court justices, numerous lower-court justices, and helped oversee a winnowing away of the regulatory state in his less than two years in the notoriously grueling job. One might think that the president celebrated his last day by giving a valedictory speech to the staff or even an attaboy with a awkward-but-affectionate handshake. Ha! In McGahns final meeting with Trump before leaving the White House two weeks ago, CNN reports, the president blamed him for Robert Muellers appointment and groused to McGahn about Muellers appointment made on McGahns watch as White House counsel, and the cloud the investigation has continued to cast over the presidency. Advertisement Trump getting very mad at some of his closest and most loyal advisers and staffers about the Mueller investigation is, of course, not limited to his former White House counsel. He regularly mocks Attorney General Jeff Sessions in public and private for recusing himself from the FBIs investigation into possible collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign. Trump announced McGahns departure in August without McGahn knowing in advance that the president would do so. The announcement came after the New York Times reported that McGahn had been a rather fulsome cooperator with Robert Muellers investigators because he and his lawyer were convinced that Trump would try to pin any obstruction of justice on him. Before that, according to CNN and other reports, McGahn had refused to fire Robert Mueller after the president asked him to, and had threatened to resign if forced to do so. President Trump and Melania Trump met with Rabbi Jeffrey Myers on during their visit to Pittsburgh on Tuesday and laid flowers and stones on memorials for the 11 worshipers killed at the Tree of Life synagogue. Meanwhile, thousands of protesters gathered blocks away, singing Hebrew songs. The scene outside Tree of Life. pic.twitter.com/vQb25diE4M Colin Deppen (@colin_deppen) October 30, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The president and first lady did not travel with and were not greeted by any local or state politicians when they arrived Tuesday afternoon. The mayor, local government officials, and the Republicans and Democrats in the congressional leadership refused to join the president. Instead Trump arrived at the synagogue with daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, who are both Orthodox Jews, along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is Jewish, and Israeli ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer. Trumps next stop on his brief trip was to visit with police officers and first responders in local hospitals. Rabbi Myers was one of the few local figures or members of the Jewish community who welcomed the presidents visit. Some objected because of the timingJewish funerals tend occur very soon after someones death, and two of the funerals were Tuesday. Others said that Trumps aggressive rhetoric against immigrants and overall divisiveness hardly made him the comforter the community sought. Advertisement Now is not the time, Pittsburgh City Councilman Corey OConnor told CNN. While a number of local officials and members of the Pittsburgh Jewish community spoke out against Trumps visit, Rabbi Myers was the one notable exception who said he would welcome Trump to the synagogue. Now is not the time, Pittsburgh city councilman Corey OConnor told CNN. The Trump administrations top two Cabinet secretaries called this week for a cease-fire in Yemen and talks to end the countrys brutal war. Better late than never. But the call comes very late, after a shameful stream of U.S. complicity in the killing, and contains a precondition that makes the gesture seem less than sincere. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a written statement, and Secretary of Defense James Mattis made remarks at a Washington think tank, to the effect that the war must stop. Mattis said all parties should meet in Geneva for talks led by U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths within the next 30 days. Pompeo said these talks should address the underlying issues of the conflict, the demilitarization of borders, and the concentration of all large weapons under international observation. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement However, the underlying issues are precisely what both officials are ignoring. The war, in its current incarnation, has gone on for almost four years, ravaging villages and cities, leaving 50,000 people dead, not counting those killed by disease and starvation, and more than 3 million displaced. Its most recent raging battle, over the Red Sea port of Hodeida, has blocked the import of food and other basic supplies, placing more than 8 million people on the brink of famine. Mattis condemned Iran for continuing to supply arms to the Houthi rebels of northern Yemen. But he didnt so much as wave a finger at Saudi Arabia for its airstrikes, which have been enabled by American munitions and intelligence supportand which have also killed many civilians. Advertisement The underlying issues are precisely what both officials are ignoring. Pompeo was a bit more evenhanded in his spread of the blame, though he demanded that, as a prelude to peace talks, the Houthis cease hostilitiesthen, subsequently, the coalition of Saudi and Emirati forces, which are backing Yemens displaced government, must cease bombing populated areas. Pompeo would have made a better case had he instead used the word simultaneously. The Houthis are unlikely to stop fighting based on little more than an assurance that their foes will reciprocate at some point in the future. Advertisement Neither official said much about the roots of the war, which can be traced back (again, in its current incarnation) to the disastrous decision, in 1990, to unify North and South Yemen, which before then were separate states. The Houthis are Zaydi Muslims, a Shiite sect that has been the dominant force in northern Yemen for centuries, while Sunnis had been the dominant sect in the south. Since unification, the southern Sunnis have ruled, marginalizing the northern Shiitesinspiring revolt, especially since Yemen, the poorest of all the Arab countries, has few resources to share in the first place. Advertisement Advertisement The latest phase of the war began in 2014, when the Houthis captured Yemens capital, Sanaa. The following year, the regions Sunni and Shiite powers increasingly exploited the fighting as a proxy war for their own all-consuming conflictand the local combatants eagerly accepted their arms and assistance: the Houthis, supplied by Iran; the Yemen government, by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Early on in this expanded war, President Barack Obama aided the Sunni powers, in part to assure them of continued U.S. support in the wake of the Iran nuclear deal, which inspired worries that Washington was forming an alliance with Tehran. After the Saudis started bombing Houthi-held areas indiscriminately, Obama pressured them to stop and, once that failed, cut back on assistancebut didnt end it. Advertisement Advertisement Trump has taken a harder line on the regional dispute, drawing closer to the Saudis and all but waging war on Iran; in that spirit, he has increased support of the Saudi air war in Yemen. In September, Pompeo signed a certificate, affirming that the Saudis were acting to reduce the harm to civilians; without the certificate, Congress, which has grown increasingly critical of the U.S. role in the war, would have cut off arms sales. Pompeos signature came just weeks after two Saudi bombing raids killed scores of civiliansleading all parties to suspect the good faith of any peaceful gesture from Washington. Here is where Pompeo and Mattis are skirting the key issue, at least the issue on which they could have some direct and immediate impact. Earlier this month, in the wake of the Saudis killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and a scholar at the Brookings Institution, suggested suspending U.S. arms deliveries to Saudi Arabia as a way of gaining leverage over Riyadh. The Saudi air force, Riedel wrote, is entirely dependent on American and British support for its air fleet. If either Washington or London halts the flow of logistics, its planes and helicopters will be grounded. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Khashoggis final column before his death was about the war in Yemen, for which he blamed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally. Salman was the one who pushed for escalating the war against the Houthis, which has been a disaster for the Saudis too, costing the governmentby Riedels estimateat least $50 billion a year, with no end in sight. In a report this past August, a U.N. group condemned the Houthis for their use of wide areaeffect weapons in urban warfare, their ballistic missile attacks against Saudi territory, and their restrictions on humanitarian supplies to the city of Taiz. However, the report also found that the Saudi-led airstrikes have killed the most civilians and that the Saudi blockade on air and naval access to Yemens ports constitutes a violation of international law. Advertisement According to the International Crisis Group, 70 percent of Yemen depends on supplies imported through the blockaded ports, and the current fighting around Hodeida will likely prove a tipping point for what the UN describes as the worlds biggest humanitarian crisis. The ICG is ecumenical in its condemnation: Everyone is to blame for the coming fallout, it concludes in its latest report on the war. The Houthis should be held accountable for refusing to attend peace talks that the U.N. organized last month in Geneva. The Saudis are to blame for their massive bombing. Pompeo made things worse by signing the certification allowing arms sales to go forth, in a reflection of the Trump administrations tendency to give the Saudis and the Emirates considerable slack. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Meanwhile, the Saudis insist that the best route to peace is to bash the Houthis into surrendering their grip on the area around the port. But, for years now, the Houthisskilled and aggressive fightershave held on. It is the messiest war in the world and one in which the combined pressure of outside powers could have an effect, since the local combatants couldnt sustain much of a war without these same powers armaments. Advertisement It is good that Pompeo and Mattis issued their calls for peace. Pompeos marks the first call by the Trump administration for a halt to the Saudi and UAE bombing (however ineffectual the call may be, given its demand that the Houthis stop fighting first). Now they should go further and delink the war from the wider sectarian conflict thats fueling itusing what pressure they have, including the suspension of arms sales, to move all parties to the peace tables, irrespective of consequences for Saudi or Iranian influence in the region. The human costs are soaring too high for a little geopolitical skirmishing to get in the way of peace. Omega Pays Debt to Budget, Resumes Work By Tea Mariamidze After 3 month pause, the tobacco factory of Omega Group has resumed working. The accounts of the Omega Group Tobacco (OGT) were unfrozen after it paid part of its debt to the state budget.According to the information of Georgias Finance Ministry, the company had more than GEL 50 million debt to the state, adding they were not paying taxes.In March 2018, the Revenue Service (RS) appealed to Tbilisi City Court to obtain a permit for the sale of seized property of OGT. In June, the Tbilisi City Court satisfied the request of the Revenue Service, which was appealed by the company. On the decision of the Appeals Court on 25 July 2018, the company's complaint was not satisfied and the Revenue Service was granted permission to sell the sequestered property of Omega Group., in case the company did not cover the debt.The Revenue Service says Omega Group paid 1 million GEL on October 26 and asked for a renewal of production to "maintain jobs and continue production so the company was granted such rights.The RS says they made such a decision to let the company resume operations. According to the agency, Omega Group has to present a proposal on the schedule how it is going to cover the remaining debt.Omega and its founder Zaza Okuashvili says that under the Georgian Dream leadership its cigarette company OGT suffered $100 million in losses after multinational company British American Tobacco violated the laws on competition and tobacco control with the help of the Georgian Dream government members.The corporation says that they had to take loans from banks to cover their necessary expenses to the staff and the state budget but they failed to do so.The company stressed they asked the government to restructure and reschedule their debt. According to them, the government does not help them because TV Company Iberia, which belongs to Omega Group, is often criticizing the authorities. In the past week, reports of foreign interference in American elections have reached what appears to be a crescendo, with multiple reports about foreign influence operations and targeting of our election infrastructure as well as federal and state efforts to push back. Amid these reports, its important for the American public to understand that in the nearly two years since November 2016, election officials (in coordination with state and federal agencies) have done much to secure our voting infrastructure. Perhaps most importantly, federal and state agencies as well as security experts have worked with election officials to provide cybersecurity trainings, risk assessments, and new tools for preventing and detecting attacks. Advertisement But no election is perfect. Whether or not there are additional attacks against our election system, there will inevitably be some failures. For both glitches and cyberattacks, there are critical, immediate steps that officials can take (and in most cases, are already taking) to ensure that all citizens can vote and that their votes will be accurately counted. The infrastructure we use to administer and vote in elections in the United States is vast and includes election websites that provide voters information on their polling places, voting machines, and systems that report unofficial results on election night. Past attacks on election systems, both here and abroad, show that we should assume any part of them could be a target, and act with measures to prevent, detect, and recover against such attacks. Here are the kinds of election-security issues and voting-system glitches that we need to be most aware ofas well as the steps we can take to ensure they dont interfere with our ability to cast and count ballotsas we approach both the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential race. Failures of Registrations Systems or E-Poll Books Voter-registration systems contain the official list of registered voters used for determining voter eligibility. Electronic poll books are laptops or tables that contain voter-registration information. Poll workers in 34 states use them to look up and check in voters at polling places. If a bad actor or a glitch changes voter information on either of these systemsmarking voters as having voted, changing their addresses, or taking them off the lists entirelythere could be chaos and long lines at the polls, which may deprive citizens of the right to vote. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The easiest thing for election officials to do: provide sufficient provisional ballots for two to three hours of peak voting in every polling place. Under the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002, most states are required to allow voters to cast a provisional ballot if the voters name is not in the poll book or if there is any problem with her registration information (including not being listed as registered). Unfortunately, there is no minimum requirement for the number of provisional ballots in each polling place. Voting-Equipment Failures Even under the best of circumstances, equipment failures occur. Machines can freeze or fail to start. Candidates names might be missing from the ballot, as recently happened on some voting machines in Arkansas. On older touch-screen machines, in particular, there might be vote flipping, where voters select one candidate on a touch-screen machine but another choice shows up on the review screen. Weve seen reports of vote flipping in both Georgia and Texas this year. (Vote flipping is disconcerting, can undermine confidence in our elections, and even potentially costs votes if voters dont carefully check their review screens. But it is almost certainly the result of a malfunction or other error, rather than a hackif someone were going to steal a vote by messing with the software, he wouldnt let the voter know he was doing it.) Advertisement Advertisement Direct-recording electronic machines that do not require a voter to use a paper ballot can cause more problems at the polls in the event of a failure. These machinesused by 22 states as primary polling-place equipment in at least some jurisdictionswill not function until repaired or replaced, and jurisdictions using them will need to print emergency ballots in advance of the election to allow voting to continue in case of machine failure. Advertisement Emergency ballots are different than provisional ballots that are provided to voters when their eligibility is unclear. Emergency ballots should be counted after the election without any additional scrutiny of voter qualifications, unlike provisional ballots that require research of voter eligibility. We should also audit all voting systems that have paper backups. Eighty percent of Americans will vote on a paper ballot or a machine with a paper trail this November. By using the paper to check the machines in a public review after election night, we can verify that the software on voting machines has produced the correct outcome. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 33 states mandate some kind of postelection audit, though most are not as robust as they should be. Attacks on Election Night Reporting Officials usually post unofficial results on election night at the local and state level. While this information does not reflect the certified results, large changes in election night results and the final outcome can create questions for voters about the accuracy of the process. Advertisement Advertisement Election night reporting sites are prime targets for denial of service attacksin which attackers overload servers with requestsbecause they force reporting sites to go down at the moment most people are looking at them. This can create negative media attention about the process and doubt about whether the results can be trusted. In fact, bad actors have successfully attacked election-reporting systems around the world, including in Ukraine and Bulgaria and more recently here in the United States. Several states, including Arizona and Virginia, experienced election night reporting failures in the 2014 midterm elections. In making changes afterward, many focused on establishing a redundant system that could be made available if the main system failed. It will be critical for officials to communicate clearly with the public and the media in the event of an attack on election night reporting, and for them to provide accurate information through redundant systems that have been established. Advertisement Advertisement Once we get through Election Day 2018, it is critical we invest in securing elections for 2020, before what DHS Undersecretary Christopher Krebs has called the big game. That means, at the very least, passing the bipartisan Secure Elections Act, which would create new federal guidelines for election cybersecurity. It means replacing aging equipment (especially in the 13 states that still use machines without paper backups) with machines that are more secure and reliable. And it means and mandating robust postelection audits so that were actually comparing what is on paper ballots filled out by voters with software-generated results, enhancing public trust in our elections. Whiles its hard to call it a silver lining, Russias interference in the 2016 election exposed vulnerabilities that need to be shored up to make our elections more secure and more reliable, even without the threat of foreign agents. This year, election officials are taking important steps to detect and recover from cyberattacks and election-system failures. After this election is over, its on us to convince our leaders to pass policies that strengthen and secure the ballot. Its one thing to use science fiction to imagine the future, to extrapolate a technology or trend forward a few decades and show how it evolves in isolation. For instance, Isaac Asimovs robot stories extended the very limited computing machines of his day with timeless logic puzzles to envision how artificial beings might think. Better yet to come up with a cool idea and leave implementation to the engineers, like with Minority Reports inspiring gestural computing interface. But as science-fiction author Frederik Pohl put it, A good science-fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam. Great science fiction is more than a gripping plot or interesting settingit offers a densely textured, plausible alternative reality layered on top of our own. Few novels have done that more successfully than Bruce Sterlings Distraction, a science-fiction novel that was released 20 years ago. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Distraction is alarmingly predictive in the way it depicts a world in which America has gone deeply off the rails. Politics is a cynical farce. The economy makes no sense and everyone is broke, except for a handful of billionaires. Spam emails sent out by artificial intelligence with dark ties to politicians feed conspiracy theories to gullible mentally ill people, inciting them to commit political assassinations. Covert wiretapping is the national pastime. Permanent encampments of homeless dissidents strangle major cities while internet flamewars spill over into street fights between ideological militias. Climate change is washing away the coasts and burning out the western forests. And the president might be a foreign agent in the employ of Americas greatest geopolitical foe. Twenty years ago, Sterling wrote a story about the coming Loud Ages, an age of howling noise and endless diversions and interruptions. Today our phones buzz with constant outrage, scandal, demands for attention, and six-second gumdrops of affirmation. There is no better description of the zeitgeist than absolute distraction. Advertisement Distractions protagonist is Oscar Valparaiso, a high-energy, impeccably dressed political consultant who ran a successful outsider Senate campaign, which helped him land a position on the Senate science committees staff. During the lame-duck doldrums between the 2044 election and the inauguration, he sets out to investigate the Collaboratory, a massive genetics lab in East Texas. Oscars course puts him in direct opposition to Green Huey, the charismatic, authoritarian governor of Louisiana who has used outlaw biotech to transform his state, wiping out mosquitoes and cleaning the bayous with giant chimeric catfish. Huey is set on the presidency, and if he has to hack peoples brains to get there, then thats what hell do. Advertisement Advertisement Oscars mission, on the other hand, is to reform American science. The problems are myriad: no funding, visionless leadership with no plan to deal with the changing climate, and a hyper-stimulated population that no longer believes in objective external reality. In one evocative scene, Greta Penninger, a Nobel Prizewinning neurologist, envisions a return to the 20th century golden age of science: the Apollo program, the Human Genome Project, a parade of whiz-bang superweapons and consumer toys. Miracles on tap. But Oscar sees those miracles as disasters. Rockets and atomic bombs made it possible to bring about the apocalypse in a single afternoon. The internet turned out to be the perfect platform for propaganda and intellectual property theft. Breakthroughs in biotechnology saved lives but could not make those people happy or fulfilled. Miracles evaporate under the tedium of everyday life, and we live in the residue of unintended consequences and slow-motion catastrophe. Advertisement Advertisement And scientists themselves arent helping matters in Distraction: Theyve accepted that real breakthroughs are impossible, and the best that they can do is serve as conduit for pork-barrel corruption. In response, Oscar envisions a scientific revolution: a strike in which scientists refuse to do anything other than their research, in the hopes of buying enough time to save the lab and fix the parts of the country he can. Strikes are by nature temporary, but before Oscar and Gretas action can run out of momentum, Green Huey attempts to kidnap them and liquidate the lab so he can pick over the ruins. When the kidnapping fails, Oscar has to find new allies who can counter the rogue governor. Advertisement Advertisement Twenty years ago, Bruce Sterling wrote a story about the coming Loud Ages, an age of howling noise and endless diversions and interruptions. That brings us to the centerpiece of the book, where Oscar forges a new political coalition between the Collaboratorys renegade scientists and the Moderators, one of the nomad tribes that are the last vital force in American life. The nomads are the roughly one-third of Americans who have given been abandoned, thanks to the collapse of American consumerism. Nomad soldiers (squads of teenage girls, the perfect guerrilla commandos in a surveillance state on alert for male terrorists) allow Oscar and Greta retake the lab. Nomad bioreactors provide food, and nomad computers and cellphones replace lab systems wrecked in Hueys counter-coup. While the nomads provide muscle and logistics, the scientists provide a sense of idealism and purpose for the nomads, who dont recognize their own political power. The alliance threatens everything about the status quo. Advertisement The boldness of Distraction is that it imagines a collapsing America that still feels livable. Its very easy for science fiction to say that things are bad and theyre only going to get far worse. Margaret Atwood has a distinguished career warning us of the consequences of our sins, such as surrendering to religious fundamentalism in The Handmaids Tale or erasing nature and then civilization in Oryx & Crake. Tyrannical societies provide a backdrop for phoenix-like heroes to overcome the odds, as in Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games and Pierce Browns Red Rising. Its radical for science fiction to say times are bad, theyre getting weird, yet people will survive by political organization without resorting to deus ex machina like aliens, or A.I., or a superhuman messiah. This optimism, even in the face of entirely reasonable cynicism about the political process, is why its important to read Distraction now. Oscar says it better than I could: [America] invented the future! We built it! And if they could design or market it a little better than we could, then we just invented something even more amazing yet. If it took imagination, we always had that. If it took enterprise, we always had it! If it took daring and even ruthlessness, we had it. We are a nation of hands-on cosmic mechanics! Read an interview between Bruce Sterling and Michael Burnam-Fink about Distraction, supporting science, and the future of politics. Facebook missed analyst estimates in several key areas but didnt lose users despite a massive data breach, the company said in its third-quarter earnings report on Tuesday. Facebook reported $13.73 billion in revenue, about $50 million below the expected $13.78 billion. It had 1.49 billion daily active users for the quarter, down from the projected 1.51 billion, and 2.27 billion monthly active users, below the expected 2.29 billion. However, Facebook did beat expectations by about 30 cents for its earnings per share, coming in at $1.76. Advertisement It looks as if user growth has slowed in North America and Europe, its most important markets. CEO Mark Zuckerberg also warned investors that revenue growth may continue to be underwhelming as Facebook transitions to emphasizing Stories rather than the News Feed. Zuckerberg noted that the shift hasnt been as smooth as Id hoped. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Though user growth did not beat expectations, it also looks that Facebook didnt lose users, a fear that investors had going into the call given a major data breach that embroiled the company this quarter, along with the continued fallout from scandals that it has been dealing with over the past year. In September, Facebook disclosed that hackers exploited a vulnerability in the platform that exposed the personal data of approximately 30 million users. Advertisement We have a long road ahead to prevent these kinds of attacks in the future, Zuckerberg said. He added that he believes the company has made a lot of progress in the last few years with regard to security. We still have a year before our systems are at the level that we want, but they are getting better every day. Zuckerberg also noted that the upcoming U.S. midterm elections will be a major test of the protections that the company introduced after the 2016 election. With a community of two billion people, we will see all the good and bad that humanity can do, and we will never be perfect, but Im proud of the work were doing here, the CEO told investors. Weve reduced the incentives to spread misinformation, were partnering more closely with governments and outside experts to improve security and we set a new standard for transparency in advertising. Facebooks shares dropped 5 percent upon the initial release of its Q3 figures but rebounded quickly. 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. View Transcript 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 speak with researcher Pablo Ortellado to look further into the presidential election in Brazil and how tech played a role. On Sunday, the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro was elected president, and many have attributed his victory to misinformation that spread like wildfire through WhatsApp in the months leading up to the election. Advertisement And its time again for more gadgets. Apple unveiled a new series of gizmos on Tuesday in Brooklyn: There were big changes to the iPad, Macbook Air, and Mac Mini. The hosts are also joined by Joan Donovan, a lead researcher at Data & Society, who focuses on how hate groups congregate on social media. This conversation, sadly, comes following the horrific terrorist attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh over the weekend. The shooter, Robert Bowers, had been an active user of the free-speechcentric social media platform Gab that has become a kind of digital playpen for neo-Nazi and white supremacists since forming in 2016. Gab went offline Sunday night. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement 5:43 - Interview with Pablo Ortellado Advertisement 15:11 - Interview with Joan Donovan 33:41 - Dont Close My Tabs Stories discussed on the show: Slate: Apple Finally Released New Macs. But It Really Wants You to Buy an iPad Pro. The New York Times: Fake News Is Poisoning Brazilian Politics. WhatsApp Can Stop It. Slate: The Synagogue Shooters Social Media Platform Is in PerilBecause Its Hate-Speech-Friendly Policy Is Morally Bankrupt Slate: The Pipe Bomb Suspect Appears To Have Made Death Threats. Twitter Saw No Problem. Slate: The Google X Executive Accused of Sexual Harassment Has Now Resigned Dont Close My Tabs: The New York Times: How Google Protected Andy Rubin, the Father of Android Frontline: The Facebook Dilemma (Part One) 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. Corporations operating in developing nations are often involved in large infrastructure developments and commercial venturessome high-risk regions present opportunities to create or protect market shares. These environments and risks are making security management practitioners and their expertise increasingly sought after. Whether the threat to foreign corporations in individual developing nations is real or only perceived, unique challenges exist for the expatriate security professional. There are no nations in the world closer than Czechs and Slovaks, the Czech President said on this occasion. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled The formation of Czechoslovakia in 1918 allowed Czechs and Slovaks to safeguard their nationalities, languages and the freedom to develop, said Czech President Milos Zeman on October 30, during celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of the Slovak Nation and the creation of Czechoslovakia. Both nations were under threat of national assimilation Czechs by Germanisation and Slovaks by Magyarisation (or Hungarisation), Zeman pointed out, as quoted by the TASR newswire. There are no nations in the world closer than Czechs and Slovaks, he said. Its not just the language similarity. Hence, I hope well stay together in the European Union for many years to come. Just as I wished the Czech nation a prosperous future two days ago at Prague Castle, I wish the same to you. I wish you love, happiness, friendship and a prosperous future. Slovak nation changes Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis (himself of Slovak origin) emphasised that over the course of a single century, Slovaks have changed from an oppressed ethnic minority in Austria-Hungary to a confident and independent nation. A member of the EU and NATO that prospers and would have undoubtedly made the signatories of the Martin Declaration proud. The gathering that met at this place exactly a hundred years ago demonstrated that Slovaks are an independent nation willing to take their own fate into their hands, he stated, as cited by TASR. Without the marriage between the two nations, neither would have accomplished self-determination in the post-First World War era on its own. Together, however, we made it, Babis commented. I understand the joint past, which lasted a respectable 75 years, as a commitment towards the people of the Czech and Slovak Republics. There are no better ties in Europe or elsewhere in the world than those between the Czech and Slovak Republics, between our nations. May they remain that way forever. The centenary celebrated The nationwide celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of the Slovak Nation started October 30 with a wreath-laying in front of the historical building of the former Hornouhorska (Upper-Hungary) Banka Tatra on Stefanikova Street in Martin, the SITA newswire wrote. On its facade, a board commemorates the adoption of the Declaration on October 30, 1918 in what was called Turciansky Svaty Martin at that time that marked the split of the Slovak nation from Hungary and its decision for independence. It was used by Slovaks to claim their right to self-determination and co-found Czechoslovakia in 1918. The anniversary was commemorated by Slovak and Czech presidents (Andrej Kiska and Milos Zeman, respectively), Speaker of Slovak parliament Andrej Danko, Speaker of the Czech Chamber of Deputies (i.e. parliament) Radek Vondracek, Speaker of Czech Parliamentary Senate Milan Stech, Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, his Czech counterpart Andrej Babis and Slovak Defence Minister Peter Gajdos, according to TASR. Politicians views of Czechoslovak ties There were hundreds of public figures behind the formation of Czechoslovakia who deserve our gratitude and respect for their courage and determination, President Andrej Kiska said. In his speech, Kiska pointed to the chequered and arduous path leading to the declaration of an independent state of Czechs and Slovaks, and related individual historical events, in particular the inking of the declaration on October 30, 1918. Around 200 public figures gathered here to declare the right of self-determination for the Slovak nation and the willingness to live in a shared state with the Czech nation in the Declaration of the Slovak Nation, he noted, as quoted by TASR. Lets say up front that these individuals had it rough: they faced persecution, imprisonment, but fought for the rights of us, Slovaks, so please, lets show respect for the founding fathers of the Martin Declaration, the president summed up. PM Pellegrini said that it was in Martin where political initiatives were engendered, which fundamentally altered the fate of the Slovak nation and laid the groundwork for Slovaks to enjoy their independent statehood and take responsibility for their own future. We need to realise that no matter what kind of political project or idea we champion, the project cant be successfully promoted without the support of the public, premier noted. The world is changing, new challenges appearing. Without sticking together for the state and nation and its future, well never move forward. The Czechoslovak Republic was significant in triggering the all-round development of the Slovak nation, Parliamentary Speaker Andrej Danko said, adding that the relations of the two nations have remained above-standard to this day, and it is these ties and our peaceful break-up in the early 1990s that inspire respect around the world. The break-up set an example in terms of maturity and refinement. The commemorative event attended by top Slovak and Czech officials followed up on weekend celebrations (October 27-28) held in Czech and Slovak towns on the 100th anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia. American travellers experienced a Slovak-style Thanksgiving in western Slovakia. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/522733368&color=%23096f52&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true Subscribe to the Spectacular Slovakia podcast for free: Do you like wine? This week, Don Stoll and Pat Alexy Stoll, authors of the Spectacular Slovakia travel guides, will take you for a trip to Pezinok, where one of the countrys biggest wine festivals takes place every autumn. Wine is not the only delicious thing to be found there, though - you can also indulge in some tasty Slovak street food. What does a proper Slovak goose feast look like and why should you be careful when buying burcak? Listen to the latest podcast episode to find out. The Spectacular Slovakia travel podcast is the latest addition to our range of travel-related products. This programme is part of The Slovak Spectator subscription and our readers receive it every Thursday morning as part of their subscription. More information: Print+audio: shop.spectator.sme.sk/newspaper Online+audio: www.sme.sk/predplatne-spectator Amid celebrations of the centenary of the first Czechoslovak Republic, their visit almost went unnoticed by official institutions. News: Receive favorite authors articles by email. Try the new feature and turn on the subscription. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Former prime minister and head of the ruling Smer party, Robert Fico, visited Cuba with the head of the parliamentary European affairs committee, Lubos Blaha. Apart from a single photo from their visit to Cuba featuring both of them with President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel, no further details are known about their visit to this communist country, the Sme daily wrote. Neither the parliament, nor the Foreign Ministry know the reason of their foreign trip, what they are dealing with, and what their itinerary is. In reaction to reports of Cuban media and a story run by the Sme daily, Fico wrote on Facebook on October 29 that they are at a fair in Havana. The Fair of Havana, or FIHAV, is the most important Cuban commercial fair and representative of Latin America and the Caribbean. It takes place from October 29 to November 2 this year, according to Sme. Fico and Blaha with the Smer delegation arrived in Cuba before the fair began, probably sometime last weekend. Why Cuba? Why now? Fico has had a close relationship with Cuba for a long time. Ten years ago, he celebrated at the Cuban Embassy the revolution that catapulted communist dictator Fidel Castro into power in 1959, Sme wrote. Explaining the issue, Fico wrote in a Facebook post that they all came to Havana on the occasion of the important fair, in which representatives of tens of countries from all over the world participate. Their goal has been to support good ties with the Cuban republic, and especially Slovak investments, which are among the most successful in Cuba, according to the ex-prime minister. He stressed the honour of being received by the Cuban president, and added that they also met the local Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz. The Office of the Delaware State Veterinarian has reported a confirmed case of West Nile Virus in a Standardbred. An unvaccinated yearling Standardbred filly in Kent County showed an onset of clinical signs on October 11, including ataxia in all four limbs, buckling in the forelimbs progressing to recumbency, muscle fasciculations and somnolence. The horse was euthanized on 10/15/2018 following 60 hours of recumbency. Samples taken showed positive IgM capture ELISA, and positive PCR on necropsy. (Office of the Delaware State Veterinarian) Less Income, Smaller Loan By Levan Khutsishvili On October 27, President of the Association of Banks, Alexander Dzneladze declared that since the new regulations on loans from November 1, certain types of loans will disappear from the market.Implementation of this provision will restrict the activities of banks and also40-50% of those consumers who could get the loan, after this regulation, will not afford the loan. Besides, all the products can not fit into the new regulations and presumably, some specific directions will be suspended. In fact, some products will disappear from the market. For now, it is unclear which product will vanish because every bank will individually decide which loan to leave and which not. But it may not be easy for banks and other credit organizations to make some effort on small loans. Accordingly, it is possible that there will be no quick loans, " said Dzneladze.According to him, it is not excluded that at the first stage, for a certain period, loans price will be increased. According to AleksanderDzneladze, if this provision comes into force, consumer loans portfolio will be reduced by 30% and mortgage loans by 3-4%.New regulations that will go in force from November 1, directly address to the mortgage loans. If a person who has no more than one residence wants to get a mortgage loan he or she will not be allowed to do it ,as according to the new regulation mortgagor should have more than one residence, if not, than co-mortgagor should own more than one immovable property and at the same time, property that mortgagor/co-mortgagor uses for housing is not guaranteed for already exciting mortgage loan.Changes will appear regarding the limits and coefficients of loans, as well as conditions of giving the loan. A person with the 1000-dollar income per month will get only that amount of money as a loan when that person will need to pay a maximum 200 GEL per month. At the same time person can get a mortgage loan for maximum15 years, consumer loans secured by immovable property - 10 years, in case of transport loan - 6 years, for the rest of the loans for maximum amount - 4 years.And regulation document says that ratios will increase in parallel to the user's income. For example, the maximal coefficient of loan service for the person having from 1 000 to 3,000 GEL income should be 25%; In case of income of 3 000-5000 GEL - 30%; Within 5 000-7 000 GEL - 40%; In case of monthly income from 7,000 to 10 thousand GEL - 50%.What will change regulations? In the long-term period, it should reduce the dependence of citizens on banks, as According to the report of the International Monetary Fund, Georgia ranks second in the world with the banking indebted population. For every 1,000 people, 676 people have a bank debt (2015).Based on the datas from 2013 IMF was concerned that every third borrower in Georgia paid more than half of its income to the bank's debt service on a monthly basis. Today this figure will be much higher.According to the international standards, Loan repayment schedule for physical persons should be distributed so that the citizen does not pay more than 30% of his personal income to cover the loan on a monthly basis. For loans issued in foreign currency, this limit should be no more than 20%. New regulations attempt to implement international standards in Bank sector. Mountain Shadows in Wayanad is just the place for a dreamy vacation Les lunettes de marque ne sont pas ce qui manque dans les commerces. Il y en a de toutes les sortes dont les lunettes de [] In the age of robust economic growth and dynamic global integration, for high-profile industries such as artificial intelligence, technology, finance or education, attracting overseas talents to return home to work is the top priority for Vietnam as well as other countries in the region. However, it remains a big challenge for companies to approach and convince these talents to come home. In a survey conducted by Robert Walters with more than 5,000 HR professionals, managers and candidates working in Asian and Western companies in China and Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, 70 percent of Asian companies shared that they are planning to expand globally in the next three years. Forty-four percent of these companies wish to increase their international talents headcount in the next 12 months. As hiring demand continues to rise, the resource for specialist and highly-skilled professionals becomes scarce, which poses a challenge for both multinational corporations and domestic firms intending to expand globally. As hiring foreign employees becomes increasingly difficult for various reasons, companies are now seeking local employees who currently reside and work abroad. Robert Walters a global specialist professional recruitment consultancy equipped with global networks and deep local insights, has launched Come Home Pho Good," a campaign targeting overseas professional Vietnamese to return home to work. After two years since the launch, Come Home Pho Good has reached out to more than 5,000 overseas Vietnamese talents, among which 1,200 shared their wish to return home to work. Mr. Adrien Bizouard, Country Manager of Robert Walters Vietnam, shared: Come Home Pho Good was launched in May 2016. At the time, Vietnam was considered a fast-growing economy. More and more foreign companies invested into Vietnam, generating a trend in domestic businesses desiring to expand globally. To do this, they would need the human capital that know the local market and have international exposure. However, it would be challenging and time-consuming for the employers to approach the candidates by themselves. Our campaign Come Home Pho Good has proved to be effective in fulfilling this urgent demand of employers and successfully recruited highly-skilled Vietnamese professionals from overseas to return home to work. Adrien Bizouard, Country Manager of Robert Walters Vietnam One might challenge, why not hire candidates who currently reside in Vietnam? Of course, there are opportunities for local candidates, but the pool of skilled and experienced talents are very limited as Vietnam is still a developing country, in which the quality of education and training are not on a par with other developed countries, especially when it comes to high-profile industries like IT, Finance, etc. The number of Vietnamese students studying abroad is still increasing, yet the statistics show only a small proportion of them choose to return home to work, causing a social phenomenon better known as brain drain - the flight of human capital a few years ago. The differences between an oversea candidate and a local candidate actually include many factors," said Andrew Humphreys, Associate Director of Supply Chain & Engineering, Sales & Marketing Industrial of Robert Walters. It is relatively easy to find an overseas candidate who has the skills and fluency in English. They are also more easily adapted to high-pressure working environments and can work independently. They are more open to changes and care about the development of their companies. Furthermore, they can connect better with their employers. In general, it is a challenge to find a local Vietnamese talent who possesses all of these qualities. Andrew Humphreys, Associate Director of Supply Chain & Engineering, Sales & Marketing Industrial of Robert Walters He continued: In my experience, Vietnamese people who have worked abroad in multinational companies usually will have the competitive skills as previously mentioned. Those skills are even more needed in the industries like engineering, where work usually involves manufacturing plants, production lines, etc., in which there is a real need for specialists with high-level managerial skills to oversee the whole process of production and manufacturing. What do overseas Vietnamese candidates think about returning to Vietnam to work? As informed by Robert Walters recruiting consultants, one of their major concerns is whether the working environment in the country is professional enough. The next concern is the salary, as in foreign countries, they usually have much better salary and benefit packages. Likewise, some candidates think that they would have opportunities to get promoted, contribute to the growth and development of the companies and the country if they return home. On the other hand, to overseas candidates who want to return home, finding a suitable job is a real challenge. Tra Tran, International Candidate Manager of Robert Walters Vietnam, shared that as someone who studied and worked in the U.S. for many years, she could only look for opportunities in Vietnam through the usual job posting sites, but could not find anything that suited her interests and career goals. Tra said: People who have been abroad for a long time will not have the right insight into Vietnam's job market and a rich social network. This might limit them from finding a suitable job, which is time-consuming and can cause anxiety. Recruiting companies that have experts who understand the market like Robert Walters will help people like myself to approach and find jobs in more efficient and specific manners. Recruitment through specialist firms like Robert Walters will be very different from the usual job ads posted online which only include general job description. Robert Walters will help candidates update information about the job market in more detail, understand clearly the position and specific responsibility they need to undertake in Vietnam," Tra said. Tra Tran, International Candidate Manager of Robert Walters Vietnam Understanding the local market and being trend-savvy are the key factors that help Robert Walters succeed in Vietnam as the only recruiting company that makes the efforts to bring overseas Vietnamese talents home to work. The campaign Come Home Pho Good has been launched in other Southeast Asian countries like Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines with similar names. Come Home Pho Good has opened doors for many overseas talents to see the opportunities that the country has for them. To get more insights and updates about recruitment trends and the job market in Vietnam, please contact Tra Tran via tra.tran@robertwalters.com.vn. It is unlikely that car prices will go down anytime soon in Vietnam when the market is rather small, elevating production costs and deterring support industry investors, insiders have said. Vietnam is still a small auto market where about 300,000 cars were sold last year, Shinjiro Kajikawa, deputy general director of Toyota Motor Vietnam, said on Tuesday at a conference on auto support industries in Hanoi. The larger a market is, the easier it is to lower production costs, Shinjiro remarked. The cost to produce cars in Vietnam is 15-30 percent more expensive than that of imported automobiles, he said. That figures would still be10-20 percent even when transport expenses have been included. Local firms have failed to offer good quality and delivery services while costs have become a real burden to them, the executive added. He said that a carmaker would save US$1.9 million if it could cut $48 per set of components and production is 40,000 vehicles a year. But that still would not be enough to recoup investment early, Shinjiro said. However when production rises to 60,000 automobiles a year, a company would get back what they have invested in four years, he asserted. This proves the importance of production. But there has not been proper policy to boost production, which is a real problem, the Toyota executive said. Vietnam now has 358 firms operating in auto-related industries, a small number compared to 2,500 companies in Thailand, said Luong Duc Toan, a senior official from the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade. Carmakers tend to order components from foreign-invested firms in Vietnam, with purely domestic companies grabbing a minute share of the pie, Toan said. Over 90 percent of parts suppliers are foreign-invested firms, he noted. An extremely small number of local firms can join the supply chain of carmakers in Vietnam, the official admitted. A representative from the Vietnamese small and medium enterprises said capital is an obstacle as a car parts production line costs tens of millions of U.S. dollars. Firms say they only invest if the market is stable, the representative said. Cars are in demand in Vietnam as the middle class is growing. Some car manufacturers include Toyota, Truong Hai, and VinFast. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! With distinctive attractiveness in comparison with other coastal cities, the central Vietnamese city of Da Nang is currently the top destination chosen by couples for their wedding photos. Less than two hours flying from Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi, Da Nang usually welcomes crowds of couples, who come for their photo shoots, especially on weekends. The city is becoming more and more beautiful with various landscapes, ancient or modern, from seas to mountains and lakes. My Khe Beach, Son Tra Peninsula, Love Lock Bridge, Han River, Hai Van Pass, Ba Na Hills are among the popular choices around the city. Many people also take advantage of this trend to offer photo shoot services, diverse in forms, packages and prices. And it seems that they are making a fortune from these businesses. Tai, a teen boy who controls bamboo rafts to carry couples for photo shoots at the Green Lake in Da Nang, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that he managed to paddle a few dozen trips a day, each of which costs VND50,000 (US$2.15). On weekends, the number of grooms and brides is double that on weekdays, so sometimes they have to wait for nearly an hour for their turn, said a drink vendor at the Black Rock Beach in Son Tra Peninsula. Wedding couples seen in Da Nang are not just people living in this coastal city, but a lot of them are young people from other localities. I heard that Da Nang is a livable city with beautiful scenery, and indeed it is, said Khuong Hung Anh, 27, coming to Da Nang from Hanoi with his fiancee Ha Bao Khanh, 24, on a four-day trip for their bridal photos. We chose to take photos in Hoi An, My Khe Beach, the Golden Bridge at Ba Na Hills which is a new attraction in Da Nang and felt quite satisfied, Anh told Tuoi Tre. A couple poses for their wedding photo at the Green Lake in Son Tra Peninsula, Da Nang. Photo: Tuoi Tre A bride has her make-up done at a street drink stall near a photo spot. Photo: Tuoi Tre Tai, a teen boy who controls bamboo rafts to carry couples for photo shoots at the Green Lake in Da Nang, shows a couple how to pose for their wedding photo. Photo: Tuoi Tre A couple poses for their wedding photo at the Green Lake in Son Tra Peninsula, Da Nang. Photo: Tuoi Tre A couple poses for their wedding photo at the Green Lake in Son Tra Peninsula, Da Nang. Photo: Tuoi Tre Two couples prepare for their photo shoot at the Green Lake in Son Tra Peninsula, Da Nang. Photo: Tuoi Tre A couple poses for their wedding photo at a riverbank opposite the Dragon Bridge in Da Nang. Photo: Tuoi Tre A couple poses for their wedding photo at the Love Lock Bridge in Da Nang. Photo: Tuoi Tre Two couples prepare for their photo shoot at the Love Lock Bridge in Da Nang. Photo: Tuoi Tre A team of photographers take wedding photos of a couple at the Green Lake in Son Tra Peninsula, Da Nang. Photo: Tuoi Tre A couple poses for their wedding photo at a coastal road in Son Tra Peninsula, Da Nang. Photo: Tuoi Tre Three couples pose for their wedding photos at a riverbank along the Han River in Da Nang. Photo: Tuoi Tre A couple poses for their wedding photo at My Khe Beach in Da Nang City. Photo: Tuoi Tre A couple poses for their wedding photo at Hai Van Pass in Da Nang. Photo: Tuoi Tre A couple poses for their wedding photo at the Golden Bridge in Ba Na Hills, Da Nang. Photo: Tuoi Tre A couple poses for their wedding photo at Asia Park in Da Nang. Photo: Tuoi Tre A bride poses for her wedding photo at the Black Rock Beach in Son Tra Peninsula, Da Nang. Photo: Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The 5th Saigon International Guitar Festival and Competition (SIGF) is going to be held at the Conservatory of Ho Chi Minh City on Nguyen Du Street, District 1 from October 31 to November 4. Every November since 2014, the festival has been organized in the city, slowly blending in and becoming imbedded in the citys culture. The event is an opportunity for the greatest talents across the country, in the region, as well as all over the world to gather and showcase their talent to the world. This year, there will also be a classical guitar competition on a Southeast Asian scale as part of the event with participants from Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The competition is aimed at attracting contestants from countries where there is an increasing interest in classical guitars, while also encouraging young artists to showcase their flair. SGIF include three categories under 18, all age groups, and non-professional. The non-professional is only open to Vietnamese contestants. After having organized the event for four years, we have built a network of those who are interested in festivals both domestic and international so attracting contestants for the competition does not pose a significant difficulty, guitarist Nguyen Thanh Huy, head of the guitar department at the Conservatory of Ho Chi Minh City, said. In addition to the competition, the festival consists of outstanding classical guitar performances by the most talented guitarists across the world. The festival will open at 7:00 pm October 31, with an Italian Voices to Chaconne by the Master performance and the participation of many other artists including Lorenzo from Italy, French guitar teacher Gerard Abiton, Vietnamese artist Thu Le, and 40 young guitarists from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Can Tho. On the second day, the Serenade of the Festival concert will start at 8:00 pm on November 1, performed by Vietnams Kim Chung, Leon Koudelak from the Czech Republic, Carlo Aonzo from Italy, and Rene Izquierdo from Cuba. The Japan-Vietnam friendship concert will be held on November 2 at 5:00 pm. Lastly, Romance in the Night will be performed by Italian artist Salvatore Fodera, Paul Cesarczyk from Poland, and Rene Izquierdo on the last day of the festival, November 3, at 8:00 pm. The festival will end with the final concert The Magic Guitar performed by Japanese artist Tomonori Arai and a solo performance from one of the most outstanding guitarists in the world, Rene Izquierdo. Rene Izquierdo has already won many international awards and is currently a professor in classical guitars at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Milwaukee, the United States. Beside the competition and concerts, other activities within the scope of the SIGF are eight master classes for young artists, a workshop to introduce the international community to the contemporary guitar style of Tran Dinh Vu, and a presentation on symphonies with two musical instruments, the mandolin and guitar. Vietnam Airlines flight attendant Loan Vuong is representing Vietnam at Mrs International 2018, to be held in Singapore from October 10 to November 5. Born in 1986 in Ho Chi Minh City, Loan Vuong is one of the few women that still have a beauty pageant body after getting married and having a child. Being 170 centimeters tall, the beautys body measurements are 88 58 92. She competed at Miss Travel in 2008 and was one of the top five contestants, while claiming the Impressive Face title in the contest. Despite having a child, the beauty pageant still manages to keep fit. Photo: Vinh Thuy The beauty took a break of seven years and came back in 2015 to compete at Miss Business, where she was also one of the top five contestants and fetched herself two titles: Fitness Beauty and the contestant with the best Q&A session. In December 2017, Loan Vuong participated in Miss Royalty International and placed second, along with three other titles including Miss Congeniality, the contestant with the best traditional attire, and the contestant with the most impressive lingerie. In May 2018, the Miss Royalty Internationals first runner-up was chosen by the Embassy of Vietnam in Myanmar as an icon of the Vietnamese Days event in the country, which promoted tourist and cultural activities between the two countries. Loan Vuong in the Vietnam Airlines uniform for flight attendants. Photo: Vinh Thuy Despite owning an international beauty pageant title, Loan Vuong still wants to compete at Mrs International 2018. I like exploring, conquering, and overcoming my limits, she said. Hence, even though I have a first runner-up title of an international competition, I still want to try my best at the Mrs International beauty pageant and hope to have the best outcome, as well as valuable experience in life. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Sixteen officials in northern Vietnam, including high-ranking ones, have been prosecuted for their violations in the site clearance and resultant compensation related to the building of the countrys largest hydroelectric plant. They are charged with deliberate breaches of state regulations on economic management and lack of responsibility, the Peoples Procuracy of the northern province of Son La said in a statement. The wrongdoings led to grave consequences, according to prosecutors. Amongst the sixteen officials are Trieu Ngoc Hoan, director of the Son La Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Phan Tien Dien, the departments deputy director, and Truong Tan Dung, deputy director of the provincial Department of Finance. A local man named Deo Van Ban is also implicated in the case for giving bribes. Vietnam completed the 2,400-megawatt Son La hydropower plant in late 2012, with extensive relocation and resettlement having taken place a decade earlier. In 2014, Truong Tan Dung, the then-deputy chairman of the provinces Muong La District, was tasked with monitoring land measurement and mapping the affected areas so that recompense for the displaced households could be paid. But Dung violated regulations during the process, and this was chiefly seen in the case of a villager named Deo Van Ban. Police search the house of Deo Van Ban in Son La Province, northern Vietnam. Photo: Tuoi Tre Ban clandestinely asked measurement officials to increase the recorded area of the affected land that he owned on promises that he shared with them the discrepancy, according to prosecutors. As a result Ban received over VND1.2 billion (US$51,600), more than what he was expected to obtain. Dungs misconduct is the immediate cause of incorrect measurement and mapping, the Son La Peoples Procuracy stressed. The departments deputy director Phan Tien Dien, another deputy chairman of Muong La at the time, knew full well that the compensation documents prepared by Dung were wrong but he signed them without reporting the problem to the higher-level authorities. Trieu Ngoc Hoan, director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Son La Province, northern Vietnam. Photo: Tuoi Tre Trieu Ngoc Hoan, as head of the environment department, was charged with serious negligence for failing to examine the figures and documents on the mapping for veracity before he gave official approval for the compensation, the procuracy added. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! 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 [] Police in the southern Vietnamese province of Binh Phuoc on Tuesday confirmed one of its high-ranking officers crashed his car into two motorbikes and injured two people, but they said investigation is still underway to clarify the cause of the accident. Senior lieutenant Vu Van Hai, deputy chief of the police unit in the provinces Dong Xoai Town, asserted that a flat tire caused his car to ram the motorbikes, while eyewitnesses claimed to see him walk out of his vehicle in a seemingly intoxicated state. According to initial police reports, Hai was driving a five-seater car along National Highway 14 at around 9:00 pm on Monday when he hit two motorbikes running in the same direction. Eyewitnesses recalled seeing the automobile mounting up and down the sidewalk before slamming into the motorcycles. The vehicle only stopped after hitting an object on a nearby promenade. The two people on the motorbikes were then hospitalized for serious injuries. They were later transferred to Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City for further treatment. Competent authorities later carried out an investigation at the crash site. Some by-standers said they saw Hai stagger out of the car, as if he had drunk somewhere. However, the police officer asserted he was only disoriented after the airbag went off during the crash. He also attributed the accident to his flat tire. Meanwhile, both the provincial Department of Police and Peoples Procuracy have yet to announce any information regarding Hais breath alcohol test. According to Thai Van Chung, a lawyer from the Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association, the breath alcohol content has to be measured at the scene, whose results must not be kept secret. Competent authorities should also evaluate the injuries of the victims to assist the probing, Chung added. An official from the provincial Peoples Procuracy told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that the agency will closely supervise the case and ensure suitable solutions. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Multiple makeshift ferry wharves have mushroomed along the Vietnam-Cambodia border, providing free transport for Vietnamese citizens who want to gamble at Cambodian casinos. These ferries can be spotted near the Long Binh Bridge, which connects Cambodias Kan Danl Province and the Mekong Delta province of An Giang. Since the bridge was opened to traffic two years ago, several casinos have been established on Cambodias side of the borderline. A makeshift parking lot has formed on the Vietnamese side, along with the ferry wharves. A casino on Cambodias side of the border. Photo: Tuoi Tre Guests of the casinos are able to travel across the river between the two countries without any fare. They only have to pay the parking fee, which is VND5,000 (US$0.21) per motorbike and VND50,000 ($2) to VND100,000 ($4) per automobile. During an interview with Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper, local authorities said they had not been aware of the situation. The makeshift ferry wharf on Cambodias side of the border. Photo: Tuoi Tre After reviewing the photos taken by the reporters, the officials stated that managing the border area is under the authority of border gate officers. According to Colonel Nguyen Thuong Le, head of the border gate office in An Giang Province, there are three casinos on Cambodias side of the boundary. I will order an investigation into the case. However, local administrations should also examine the legitimacy of the makeshift parking lot, Col. Le added. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! As countries in Europe have moved to ban a range of single-use plastics to curb pollution, the issue remains unaddressed in Vietnam where flourishing coffee franchises continue to favor plastic cups and utensils over glass or ceramic ware. At a popular coffee chain in Vietnam with hundreds of stores nationwide, every drink on the menu is served in plastic cups, even for dine-in customers. Visiting one of its locations inside a shopping mall in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, your correspondent asked employees why they did not use glass or ceramic cups for drinks served on the spot. Is this your first time here? an employee seemed surprised by the question. Theres no glass or ceramic ware here. Plastic cups are convenient and leave no dishes to be cleaned. Customers can clean up after themselves when theyve finished, the employee explained. Inside the packed store, plastic straws and cups could be seen lying around on every of its 20-strong tables. For takeaways, the amount of plastics used is even more alarming, as each drink or food is individually wrapped in its own plastic bag before being put into a bigger bag, with plastic utensils provided generously even when they are not asked for. Dine-in customers are served drinks in plastic cups at a coffee shop in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Tuoi Tre If we dont use plastics, what are the alternatives? asked the owner of a bubble tea shop on Pham Van Dong Street in Ho Chi Minh City. My, 23, an office worker in Phu Nhuan District, recalls an experience when a coffee shop in the southern metropolis refused to sell her a drink in a reusable cup she had brought along, insisting instead on using plastic cups available at the store. They said I could pour the drink from the plastic cup into my reusable cup on my own, but they would have to deliver it to me in the plastic cup nonetheless, My said. Thanh, 40, who has worked for more than a decade as a garbage collector in Ho Chi Minh City, said there has been an observable increase in plastic wastes in the city in recent years as coffee and fast food chains began to flourish. These include items of different shapes and sizes, ranging from spoons, straws and bags to cups, bowls, and plates, all used only once before they are thrown away. Ive heard about the harmful environmental effects of single-use plastics but I didnt pay much attention to them, said Doan Thi Thap, 30, a resident in District 9. Plastics are everywhere and used by everyone. Even if youre aware that theyre bad, you cant avoid using them, she said. Last week, the European Parliament voted to ban a range of single-use plastics such as straws, cotton buds and cutlery and to ensure most bottles are recycled in a bid to curb ocean pollution. Under the proposal, ten single-use plastic products would be banned by 2021 and EU states are obliged to recycle 90 percent of plastic bottles by 2025. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Health officials in a Mekong Delta province in southern Vietnam have warning of complicated developments in dengue and hand, foot, mouth disease following the death two children recently. The two diseases are now a cause for real concern in Tien Giang Province, Tran Thanh Thao, director of the provincial Department of Health, said on Wednesday. Two have been killed by dengue fever and hand, foot, mouth disease, Thao said. The health department is cooperating with relevant agencies to monitor the diseases, keep the people updated on them, and raise their awareness. A child suffering from hand, foot, mouth disease in Tien Giang Province, southern Vietnam. Photo: Tuoi Tre Dang Ngoc Tan T., a two-year-old child from Cai Be District, died from hand, foot, mouth disease on October 27. Earlier on October 19, Dieu Thi Vu H., a seven-year-old from Go Cong Tay District, surrendered to dengue fever, prolonged shock, and multi-organ damage. There have been 2,365 hand, foot, mouth diagnoses in Tien Giang in the year to date. Cai Be, Cai Lay, and Go Cong Dong are the three districts that have reported a large number of cases. The province has reported 1,576 dengue cases, with Cai Be, Chau Thanh, and Cai Lay District topping the list. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Create NSW, BBC Studios Australia and the Australian International Documentary Conference have teamed up to launch the Unscripted International Producer Placement initiative, to provide $50,000 to support a mid-career NSW-based documentary maker. The successful applicant will work alongside the BBC Studios documentary team in the UK for up to six months, placed with a team that suits their experience and area of interest. In addition, the six shortlisted applicants will receive travel, accommodation and discounted entry to the Melbourne-based AIDC conference from 3-6 March next year. Executive Director for Create Investment and Engagement, Elizabeth W. Scott said, This placement is an incredible and a genuinely once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and were thrilled to be able to make it happen with our partners. Crafting internationally-supported career development opportunities like this for NSW creatives will help drive the sector forward and I have no doubt that this will be a fascinating ride for our recipient. BBC Studios ANZ Director of Production, Kylie Washington, said, As we launch our new production arm in Australia, were proud to be able to support the rich talent base in NSW with this documentary placement at BBC Studios in the UK. This is the first step on our journey to work closely with the local production industry and we are so grateful to Create NSW and the AIDC for helping to make this happen. AIDC CEO & Conference Director, Alice Burgin, said, Thinking big and getting inspired is our focus for AIDC 2019, and this incredible opportunity will provide one talented mid-career practitioner the chance to do just that! This attachment will be career-defining, so we are incredibly happy to be collaborating with BBC Studios and Create NSW to bring it to life. Applications close Wednesday 9 January 2019. ABC has announced a new comedy series, Frayed, starring Australian comedian Sarah Kendall. The six part bittersweet comedy / drama marks the first scripted co-commission between ABC and Sky (UK) and is now filming in Newcastle (NSW), Sydney & London. Set in 1989, Frayed follows the journey of Sammy Cooper (Sarah Kendall), a fabulously wealthy London housewife who is forced to return to the town in Australia she grew up in. In coming home, Sammy must revisit her past and the events that led her to flee as a teenager years ago. The series is described as painfully funny and sometimes dark and at its heart a journey of one flawed family confronting their secrets and trying to find a way back. Further cast are yet to be announced. Sarah Kendall says: I just wanted to visit my family in Newcastle but I ended up shooting a 6 part comedy here for the ABC and Sky. Im incredibly excited to be given this opportunity. And I also love free flights. Skys Head of Comedy Jon Mountague says: We can all relate in some way to complex family drama, which is at the heart of this ingeniously written comedy. Sarah Kendall is an exceptional lead and Im excited to add Frayed to Skys line-up of original British comedy in 2019. ABC Head of Comedy Rick Kalowski says: Frayed is among the funniest, but also most moving, pieces Ive ever had the pleasure to work on. Id been a fan of Sarah Kendalls standup for years and am delighted to be collaborating with Sky, Sharon Horgan and Clelia Mountfords Merman, and Kevin Whytes Guesswork to bring Frayed to Australian and worldwide audiences next year. Frayed will air on ABC in 2019. Frayed is created and written by star Kendall and produced by Merman Television (Motherland/BBC, There She Goes/BBC, Women on the Verge/UKTV, Catastrophe C4/Amazon), the production company founded and run by award-winning duo Sharon Horgan and Clelia Mountford, in association with Australias Guesswork Television (ABCs Rosehaven, Get Krack!n, Please Like Me). Production Credits: A Merman production in association with Guesswork Television for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Sky in association with Create NSW. Produced by Nicole ODonohue. Merman Executive Producers Clelia Mountford and Sharon Horgan. Guesswork Television Executive Producer Kevin Whyte. Commissioned by Skys Executive Producer Morwenna Gordon. ABC Executive Producers Rick Kalowski and Que Minh Luu. Matriarch, a thrilling horror gets its worldwide premiere at Glasgows Popcorn Horror Fest after being snapped up by a major Hollywood studio. With its Scottish premiere seizing a spooky Halloween timing for its debut, the independent film Matriarch is already receiving a scary amount of attention from the regional media and movie fans alike. Written and directed by former River City star, Scott Vickers, the Film has already received a major Hollywood deal, with the Cineworld release taking place in Glasgow on the 2nd of November. Charlie, who is the lead actress in the movie, plays Rachel Hopkins, a traumatised pregnant wife. In this exclusive and revealing interview, she shared with us her experience making the film as well as past and future projects which have made her such an iconic and exciting young actress. Film projects Sabina: Which film projects are you most proud of? Charlie: I am most proud of this new film, Matriarch. It was my first lead role in a feature film and I loved every minute of it. It's pretty remarkable what we achieved on such a short shoot-time, just over two weeks! Working with Scott Vickers (director/writer) has been the highlight of my career and it was great to act alongside him too. Filming Matriarch was an incredible experience, and one I'll never forget. Sabina: How does it feel to have a lead role in a film like Matriarch"? Charlie: Fantastic. It was wonderful to be given the opportunity to play a lead role like that so early in my career. When I read the script I instantly knew I wanted to be part of it. It was great filming alongside Julie Hannan, who plays the other lead role Agnes Fairbairn as she's an incredible actress. About the character Sabina: Can you describe your character in the film? Charlie: I play Rachel Hopkins, a lawyer who is eight months pregnant at the start of the film. Rachel and her husband Matt, having had a car crash in the Scottish countryside, seek help from local farmers. Things soon start to take a sinister turn as Rachel goes into labour. When faced with adversity, Rachel has to become a fighter. She goes through one hell of a journey and constantly proves to be brave and determined. There's a lot of despair felt by Rachel, but her courage drives her forward. Sabina: Did you face any challenges while filming? Charlie: There are always challenges when making a film, but it's how you deal with them that matters. We were a very tight team, which I think is especially important for independent filmmaking, in terms of budget and time etc. On my only day off from filming, I grabbed some wellies and a shovel and helped dig up a mound of grass and moss for a fight scene that day. I wasn't asked to help out, but I wanted to. I'd been with the cast and crew all day every day, so it felt strange to not 'muck in' where I could. Most days I was covered in a lot of fake blood and other makeup. It was a challenge just to get it off and required a good soak in the bath, plus a shower every night just to feel like Charlie again. It was also a very emotional role to play, but that's the sort of challenge I love! Next projects on the horizon Sabina: What are the next projects on the horizon? Charlie: I've just finished filming Clays Redemption, playing 'The Boss'. It's a sci-fi thriller along the lines of Blade Runner and scheduled for release in 2019. I also start filming High Water early next year, playing Rhian Morris, a ballsy newspaper editor. High Water is a neo-noir thriller set in Brighton in the 90's. Photo: Reuters Barclays is one step closer to shifting a chunk of its business before Brexit on 29 March 2019, after court filings showed the banking giant will seek final approval from the High Court in January next year to move over 200bn ($254bn) in assets to its Irish subsidiary. The bank, which said earlier this year that the unit will absorb 224bn of its total 1.17tn in assets, told the High Court that it will move around 6,800 clients, mainly from the European Economic Area, to Dublin. About 5,500 of those clients will come from its corporate, investment, and private banking divisions, while 1,290 clients, with deposits of about 1.4bn, will come from its deposit-taking business. A judgment handed down by Judge Antony Zacaroli revealed that the application for the move filed by Barclays assumes that its UK divisions will lose their passporting rights, the mechanism that allows them to do business in other EU countries. The transfer will see parts of the Barclays Bank PLC and Barclays Capital Securities LTD divisions, as well as its Barclaycard business in Germany, legally transferred to Barclays Bank Ireland PLC, in a move that will make Barclays Irelands largest bank by assets. Bank of Ireland, which has around 109bn in assets, is currently Irelands largest bank. Zacaroli told Barclays that it should assume the High Court had the authority to approve the legal transfer, following uncertainty over legal jurisdiction. The judgement noted that, had that guidance not been given, Barclays would have had to amend agreements with a very large number of clients within its securities business. The court will also rule in January as to what steps Barclays must take with respect to EU clients who have signed contracts governed by English law. The bank, which will move into its new Dublin offices in November, expects to be fully operational in Ireland by March 2019, and has already begun expanding its Irish workforce by around 200 people. Japan's national flag is seen behind the logo of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc (MUFG) at its bank branch in Tokyo, Japan September 5, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon By Byron Kaye and Taiga Uranaka SYDNEY/TOKYO (Reuters) - Commonwealth Bank of Australia will sell its asset management arm to Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group <8306.T> for $2.9 billion in a surprise sale, the latest business to be sold by an Australian financial giant amid unprecedented regulatory scrutiny. Australia's biggest lender said it was cancelling plans to list Colonial First State Global Asset Management in favour of a sale to create "a simpler, better bank". For MUFG, Japan's biggest financial group, the acquisition is the first in a grand plan to expand aggressively into overseas asset management, for which it has prepped a 1 trillion yen ($8.8 billion) warchest. "We are aiming to be within the global top 15 with about 100 trillion yen ($885 billion) in assets under management," Yutaka Kawakami, executive officer in charge of the bank's global asset management business, told reporters in Tokyo. The deal takes MUFG, currently ranked 39th, a long way towards that goal, bringing its total AUM to $727 billion and making it the biggest asset manager in the Asia-Oceania region, it said. CBA said the price tag was equivalent to 17.5 times Colonial's annual net profit, far higher than the multiples seen for similar asset managers on the Australian sharemarket. "On the surface it looks fantastic, for CBA shareholders anyway, and cleans up one of their outstanding issues," said Matthew Haupt, portfolio manager at Wilson Asset management, which owns CBA stock. "The Japanese have done it again, they like paying decent multiples," he added. Australian finance companies are rushing to offload non-core business units amid widespread expectations that a Royal Commission inquiry will result in a regulatory overhaul of the sector, including new rules forcing banks to split. The inquiry has exposed a slew of misconduct in the country's financial sector and slammed what it called a culture of greed. CBA has been the most criticised of Australia's Big Four lenders although its global asset management arm did not come under fire. Story continues The deal also coincides with a spike in interest from Asian financial firms which see the world's No. 14 economy as a developed and stable market. Japanese lenders, in particular, are keen to diversify away from stagnant growth at home and are attracted to the non-volatile revenues offered by asset management fees. MUFG said it was attracted to Colonial's global reach, both in terms of clients and investment assets as well its strength in Asia and other emerging markets. It is looking at boutique-type firms that specialise in specific asset classes as likely targets for further acquisitions, Kawakami said. Shares in MUFG were up 2.6 percent in afternoon trade, while CBA finished 1.6 percent higher, both outperforming their broader markets. Australia's top four banks plus AMP have sold $12 billion in assets over the past two years, not including the MUFG deal. The MUFG deal takes CBA's assets sales to Asian interests in the past year to about A$8 billion. CBA had planned to bundle Colonial with a host of domestic wealth management businesses in the sharemarket listing. It now plans to pursue the listing without it, prompting analyst concerns about the appeal of the remaining entity. "It will boost capital levels (but) I'm not sure what it means for their remaining wealth management business," said Morningstar banking analyst David Ellis. "I'm not sure how much demand there is for that type of business in Australia," he added. ($1 = 1.4102 Australian dollars) ($1 = 113.2000 yen) (Reporting by Byron Kaye. Additional reporting by Colin Packham in Sydney and Nikhil Kurian Nainan in Bengaluru; Editing by Edwina Gibbs) (Changes embassy to consulate in first paragraph) LONDON, Oct (Shenzhen: 000069.SZ - news) 31 (Reuters) - Standard Chartered (BSE: 580001.BO - news) is pressing on with its application for a banking licence in Saudi Arabia, its chief financial officer said on Wednesday, despite global outrage over the murder of a journalist in the country's Turkish consulate. "We have taken account of recent events, but conversely this is about running a business for the long term and that process will continue," CFO Andy Halford told reporters. The bank in October last year said it was talking to regulators about applying for a licence in the kingdom. Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and a critic of Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. StanChart (HKSE: 2888-OL.HK - news) 's rival HSBC said this week it saw little long-term impact on Saudi Arabia investment from the case. Asia, Africa and Middle East-focused StanChart warned earlier on Wednesday about the impact on its business from rising trade tensions. (Reporting by Lawrence White Editing by Edmund Blair) By Ahmed Eljechtimi CASABLANCA, Morocco (Reuters) - After two sleepless days and nights begging on the streets of Casablanca, Guinea teenager Ismail could finally afford to rebuild his home in a temporary camp opposite the city's main bus terminal. The 18-year-old was among the 1,000 migrants whose tents and belongings were destroyed by a fire late on Saturday, the third at the camp since July 2017. It is unclear how the fire started. On Monday, Ismail and his camp neighbours began clearing debris, sawing and nailing wooden frames as they began to rebuild the area which last week housed 300 plastic tents. "I spent Saturday and Sunday night in the street unable to sleep after the fire," said Ismail, who declined to give his full name because he did not want his family to find out about his suffering. Ismail was one of some 6,000 Africans that were moved by the Moroccan government from the northern city of Tangier and a nearby forest to the country's south in an attempt to stop them crossing over to Spain. Officials described the moves as a crackdown on illegal trafficking networks. Rights groups have called it forced displacement. Morocco to Spain has become the gateway to Europe for many African migrants after Italy closed its doors to most asylum-seekers who were entering via Libya. Ismail, though, had begun heading north again. He lives in Casablanca, a central coastal city and major transport hub, but he wants to keep going north. "I am planning to stay in Casablanca until I get enough money to go to the north where I can attempt another crossing of the fence of one of the Spanish cities," he said referring to Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish enclaves. More than 6,000 migrants have made it to Melilla and Spains nearby territory Ceuta so far this year, according to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR. Others pay smugglers to get them across the 14 km (9 miles) of sea to Spain. But until the funds are raised, a temporary home in Casablanca needs to be rebuilt. Story continues James is 26 and arrived in Morocco from Sierra Leone nine months ago after crossing from Algeria. Holding a hammer and nails which he bad bought, he was waiting for one of "the big brothers" to tell him where to build a tent. The "big brothers" are camp elders representing the different sub-Saharan communities in the camp. "In fall and winter we need more plastic for the tent's roof and more blankets to feel warm. I hope I will find some before it gets colder," he said, looking at the foggy sky. ($1 = 9.5472 Moroccan dirham) (Reporting by Ahmed Eljechtimi; Editing by Ulf Laessing and Patrick Johnston) Pakistans top court on Wednesday overturned the death sentence of a Christian woman accused of blasphemy. While Ireland recently voted to oust its medieval law, many European countries still have laws criminalising blasphemy. Could the tide finally be turning against blasphemy? On October 26, 64.8 percent of the Irish population voted to remove blasphemy as an offence from the predominantly Catholic country's constitution. On October 31, Pakistans Supreme Court acquitted Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy, of all charges. The landmark ruling triggered protests in several Pakistani cities by hardliners who support the countrys strict blasphemy laws. Blasphemy is broadly defined as the act of speaking in a way that shows irreverence for God or something sacred. Some religions consider blasphemy to be a religious crime. Blasphemy laws are most common in majority Muslim countries of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as some parts of Southeast Asia. Blasphemy legislation tends to escape the spotlight in many Western countries until specific, high-profile cases spark news headlines or international rights campaigns. It still carries the death penalty in countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Somalia. However, blasphemy does exist as a punishable crime in many other countries around the world, including a dozen countries in Europe. Punishment ranges from fines to prison sentences. France outlawed blasphemy at the time of the French revolution in the late 18th century, according to articles 10 and 11 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Following the 1814 Bourbon Restoration, notions of religious insult were reintroduced until it was definitely removed in the 1881 Press Freedom Law. Blasphemy has never been reinstated since. However blasphemy remained a statute law in the eastern region of Alsace-Moselle. The little-used provision made the news in 2014, when a French Islamist group attempted to use it to sue the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. This legal loophole was only repealed by the French Senate in October 2016. Story continues Blasphemous toilet paper Germanys blasphemy laws have been reasonably dormant. However, in 2006, they received much media attention when Manfred van H. was prosecuted for defamation for distributing rolls of toilet paper with the words "Koran, the Holy Koran" stamped on them. And, in 2016, Albert Voss, a former physics teacher and avowed atheist, was convicted of blasphemy after he daubed the rear window of his car with anti-Christian slogans. He was fined 500. Neither Spain nor Portugal have anti-blasphemy laws, although both have legislation on religious hatred that is rarely used. The United Kingdom has a unique situation: blasphemy was abolished as an offence in England and Wales in 2008, but it remains in Scotland and Northern Ireland. In Greece, a blogger who created a Facebook page poking fun at a revered Greek Orthodox monk was sentenced to 10 months in prison in 2012 after being found guilty of blasphemy. Thousands of Greeks took to social media sites to protest the arrest of Filippos Loizos, 28, who used a play on words to portray Father Paisios as a traditional pasta-based dish. Loizoss sentence was later overthrown on appeal. Indeed, Greek courts are not averse to using the blasphemy law in the case of satirists and not necessarily only Greek ones. In 2005, Austrian cartoonist Gerhard Haderer's depiction of Christ as a naked pot-smoking surfer provoked a six-month suspended sentence for the artist in absentia. Haderer apparently did not even know that his book, The Life of Jesus", had been published in Greece until he received the court summons. He too was later acquitted on appeal. Should art be beyond the law? Art is often the cause of blasphemy court cases in Italy, where the current law punishes public offences to religion. In 2006, author Oriana Fallaci was accused of defaming Islam in her book, The Strength of Reason, one of a trilogy she published since the September 11 attacks on the US. In the book, Fallaci was alleged to have made 18 blasphemous statements, including referring to Islam as "a pool that never purifies". She was charged with violating a law that forbids defamatory statements about a religion acknowledged by the Italian state. The trial never concluded as Fallaci died from breast cancer during its proceedings. In Denmark in 2017, a man who posted a video of himself burning the Koran on Facebook only narrowly avoided trial when politicians abolished a centuries-old blasphemy law. Poland, an overwhelmingly Catholic country, has a legal provision against publicly offending a person's religious feelings rather than a distinct blasphemy law. This carries the potential of up to two years in prison. In 2002, artist Dorota Nieznalska was sued under the law for a sculpture in which male genitals were shown attached to a Christian crucifix. After a hugely divisive trial, she received a sentence of six months community service. But there was such international protest that her sentence was successfully appealed. The Turkish Penal Code criminalises blasphemy and religious insult, as well as hate speech. In April 2013, world-renowned pianist Fazil Say was given a 10-month suspended sentence for religious defamation in connection with a series of Twitter posts, including one declaring himself an atheist and another quoting 12th century Persian poet Omar Khayyam poking fun of the Islamic vision of paradise. After a lengthy battle in the courts, Say was finally acquitted in September 2016. In Ireland, prior to the October 26 decision to repeal the legislation, the last successful blasphemy case dates back to 1703. A Unitarian pastor and author Thomas Emlyn was convicted of blasphemy for his book that argued Jesus Christ was not the equal of God the Father. The book provoked huge outrage and Emlyn was fined 1,000, which was a very significant amount at the time, and one years imprisonment. Britain has backed a top-level call by the United States for a complete ceasefire in the Yemen civil war and for peace talks to start next month. Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, spoke last night about the issue with Martin Griffiths, a British diplomat who is serving as the UN special envoy for Yemen. In a statement, Mr Griffiths said he welcomed the calls for the immediate resumption of the efforts to reach a ceasefire and stresses that military action is not the solution to this conflict. "We remain committed to bring the Yemeni parties to the negotiations table within a month. Dialogue remains the only path to reach an inclusive agreement," he said. It comes as Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, and Jim Mattis, the defence secretary, urged an end to the fighting that has pitted Iran-backed Houti rebels against forces loyal to the internationally-recognised president, supported by a Saudi-led coalition. Nearly 10,000 people have since been killed and the country now stands at the brink of a famine that the UN says could be the worst the world has seen in more than a century. Yemen is one of the poorest Arab countries and faces the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Britain and the United States supply weapons and intelligence to Saudi Arabia, a relationship that has drawn increasing condemnation as civilian casualties in Yemen mount - and amid the global outcry following the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. A diplomatic source said Mr Hunt supported the US calls for a ceasefire within 30 days. During Prime Minister's Questions in Parliament, Theresa May said "we certainly back the US's call for de-escalation in Yemen." She went on to echo Mr Hunt's words, saying: "A nationwide ceasefire will only have an effect on the ground if it is underpinned by a political deal between the conflict parties. "The foreign secretary discussed this with Martin Griffiths, the UN Envoy last night and agreed the UK will continue to encourage all parties to agree to de-escalation and a lasting political deal which ensures any ceasefire holds in the long term." Story continues Setting out the framework for a peace plane, Mr Pompeo said UN-led negotiations to end the civil war should begin in November in Sweden. He said missile and drone strikes by Houthi rebels against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates should stop, and the Saudi-led coalition must cease air strikes in all populated areas of Yemen. "The time is now for the cessation of hostilities, including missile and UAV strikes from Houthi-controlled areas into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates," Mr Pompeo said, using an acronym for unmanned aerial vehicles. "Subsequently, coalition air strikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen," he said. Mr Mattis, addressing a forum in Washington on Tuesday, defended US efforts to help reduce casualties by the Saudi-led coalition and said all sides needed to take meaningful steps toward a ceasefire and negotiations in the next 30 days. The United States helps the coalition by refuelling its jets and providing training in targeting. Three-quarters of Yemen's population, or 22 million people, require aid and 8.4 million people are on the brink of starvation. FILE PHOTO - Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May stands at the door of 10 Downing Street in London, Britain, October 24, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday backed a U.S. call for a cessation of hostilities in the Yemen war, a conflict that has killed at least 10,000 people and brought on the world's worst humanitarian crisis. But foreign minister Jeremy Hunt told lawmakers that Britain - an ally and arms supplier to Saudi Arabia - would be careful in any response to the Saudi role in the conflict due to commercial interests and a fear of "unintended consequences". May, who is under pressure to end British arms sales to Saudi Arabia to stop their use in the war, said she supported U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's appeal for a ceasefire but a political agreement was needed. "We certainly back the U.S.'s call for de-escalation in Yemen," May told parliament. "A nationwide ceasefire will only have an effect on the ground if it is underpinned by a political deal between the conflict parties." Yemen, one of the poorest Arab countries, is locked in a nearly four-year-old war that pits Iran-aligned Houthi rebels against the government backed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the West. Its plight and the Saudi Arabia intervention have taken centre stage after the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at its embassy in Turkey. The Saudi-led coalition has conducted frequent air strikes targeting the Houthis and has often hit civilians, although it denies doing so intentionally. Foreign minister Hunt welcomed the U.S. announcement but he added that Britain's position had to be considered for two reasons. "Firstly we do have a commercial relationship (with Saudi Arabia). There are jobs in the UK...at stake so when it comes to the issue of arms sales we have our procedures," Hunt said. Second, he said, "we just have to be very careful about any action we take that there aren't unintended consequences". British exports to Saudi Arabia have provided billions of pounds of revenue for the British arms trade, but opposition has grown as the conflict and humanitarian crisis in Yemen worsened. Story continues A spokesman for Britain's main opposition Labour Party, which backs an immediate halt to arms supplies to Saudi Arabia, told reporters it was "quite clear that the prime minister is not supporting the call for an urgent ceasefire". "That goes to highlight the role that the British government has played in supporting the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen and the direct advice to Saudi military in that campaign by British forces under government direction." (Reporting by Elizabeth Piper, William James and Kylie MacLellan; editing by Stephen Addison and Angus MacSwan) FILE PHOTO: People hold Egyptian flags as they wait to cast their votes during the presidential election in Cairo, Egypt, March 26, 2018. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund has reached a staff-level agreement with Egypt to disburse another $2 billion (1.5 billion) from the country's $12 billion extended fund facility, it said on Tuesday. The funds will be available upon IMF executive board approval of a fourth review of the three-year programme, the organisation said in a statement. At the conclusion of a staff visit to Cairo, IMF Middle East and Central Asia Assistant Director Subir Lall said that Egypt's implementation of an economic reform programme helped the economy to perform well, with 5.3 percent growth in fiscal 2017/2018 and lower unemployment. For fiscal 2018/2019 and beyond, Lall said Egypt's goal remains to cut general government debt and achieve a primary surplus of 2 percent of GDP. He said the government also remains committed to continuing energy subsidy reforms and raising revenues to invest in well targeted social safety net, health, education and infrastructure. (Reporting by David Lawder, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Richard Chang) Brazil's new president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, waves to supporters as he watches airplanes performing near his condominium at Barra da Tijuca neighbourhood in Rio de Janeiro Brazil's new president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, waves to supporters as he watches airplanes performing near his condominium at Barra da Tijuca neighbourhood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil October 31, 2018. REUTERS/Lucas Landau By Rodrigo Viga Gaier RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil's far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro set about staffing up his new administration on Wednesday, naming an astronaut as science minister as a top anti-corruption judge mulled a job offer. Bolsonaro won the presidential race on Sunday, easily overcoming his leftist opponent with a vow to kneecap violent drug gangs and end years of political graft. He has also said he wants to roughly halve the size of the presidential cabinet. Bolsonaro, who nearly died from a stab wound while campaigning last month, donned a bulletproof vest on Wednesday and headed to the beach in Rio de Janeiro to attend an acrobatic air show in his honour. The former army captain said on Twitter that Marcos Pontes, a Brazilian astronaut who was the country's first person in space, would be his science and technology minister. A full cabinet will be announced next month, Bolsonaro's future chief of staff Onyx Lorenzoni said in a private meeting, according to two people who heard the remarks. On Thursday, Bolsonaro is due to meet with crusading anti-corruption judge Sergio Moro, who led the so-called "Car Wash" probe snaring big names in Brazil's political class and opening the door for Bolsonaro's tough-on-corruption campaign. Bolsonaro has previously said he wants Moro to serve as his justice minister and eventually join the Supreme Court. The court's next vacancy is expected in 2020. A columnist for Estado de S. Paulo reported on Wednesday that Moro will accept an offer from Bolsonaro to run the justice ministry with expanded powers over corruption and public safety, without citing a source. However, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that Moro had not yet made up his mind. A third person said his conditions included the passage of new anti-corruption legislation and expansion of the justice ministry's responsibilities to include the federal police and the auditing office that roots out graft in the federal budget. Story continues Moro, who oversaw graft investigations culminating with a 12-year bribery and money laundering sentence for leftist former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has been cautious in public statements. "In the event I'm indeed offered a post, it will be subject to a balanced discussion and reflection," Moro said in a statement on Tuesday. As part of his drive to slim down government, Bolsonaro has proposed combining three existing ministries into the portfolio of his chief economic adviser and folding together the ministries of agriculture and environment. The first idea has faced resistance from industrial leaders and the latter has been criticized by the outgoing heads of the ministries. "How will a minister of agriculture comment on an oil field or mineral exploration?" current Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi said in a statement. Current Environment Minister Edson Duarte released a statement warning the move could "overload the ministry with so many and such varied agendas it would threaten Brazil's role in global decision-making forums." (Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier in Rio de Janeiro, Ricardo Brito and Jake Spring in Brasilia and Brad Brooks in Sao Paulo; Writing and additional reporting by Gabriel Stargardter and Marcelo Rochabrun; editing by Brad Haynes and Rosalba O'Brien) Taiwan Military Reuters Taiwan must continuously increase its defense spending if it is to have the ability to deter and repel a cross-strait invasion, David Helvey, US principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs stressed Monday. China has turned up the pressure on Taiwan, both diplomatically and militarily. Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged troops in southern China to prepare for war while the Chinese defense minister has stressed that China will not cede a "single inch" of territory. The US has already approved two arms sales packages to Taiwan in the past 18 months, as the US attempts to establish a "more normal foreign military sales relationship," as Randall Schriver, the US assistant secretary of defence for Asian and Pacific security affairs, said earlier this month. Beijing has strongly criticized closer ties between the US and Taiwan. A Pentagon official is urging Taiwan to ramp up its defence budget to protect against potential attacks from mainland China. David Helvey, US principal deputy assistant secretary of defence for Asian and Pacific security affairs, told a conference in Annapolis, Maryland on Monday that the self-ruled island must have resources to modernise its military and provide the critical materiel, manning and training needed to deter, or if necessary defeat, a cross-strait invasion. Helvey said Taiwans current efforts will falter unless its defence budgets keep growing, according to a transcript of his remarks released by the US-Taiwan Defence Industry Conference on Tuesday. The official also accused China of attempting to erode Taiwans diplomatic space in the international arena while increasing the frequency and scale of [Peoples Liberation Army] activity within and beyond the First Island Chain. The first island chain refers to the first chain of major archipelagos, including Taiwan and Japan, out from the East Asian continental mainland coast. Story continues Helvey said that by stepping up Beijing's ability to strike with advanced equipment, including long range bombers, the PLA was trying to end the era of zero military conflict that had existed in the Taiwan Strait since 1949, when the mainlands Communist Party won a civil war that drove the Nationalist government to the island. These coercive acts only make more difficult the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues in a manner and scope, and at a pace, acceptable to the people on both sides, the official said. Under the Taiwan Relations Act, the US has been selling arms to Taiwan to maintain the islands self-defence capability as part of an overall effort to prevent the mainland from taking it over by force. Helveys comments come four days after President Xi Jinping, during an inspection tour in Guangdong province, told the Chinese military region responsible for monitoring Taiwan and the South China Sea to prepare for war. Defence Minister Wei Fenghe also vowed on Thursday not to cede a single inch of territory to Taiwan, which the mainland has consistently regarded as a wayward province, to be brought into line by force if necessary. Wei is expected to meet US defence chief James Mattis in Washington next week. Pentagon spokesman Christopher Logan said in an email that Mattis has invited Wei to visit the US capital during the week of November 5. Helvey told the defence industry meeting that the US and Taiwan both needed to update their thinking on arms procurement, planning and training to counter a potential strike against the island by mainland forces. These changes are essential if we are to look dispassionately at the military balance in the region and devise a way ahead that ensures Taiwan has the ability to resist coercion and deter aggression, the Pentagon official said. US President Donald Trump has approved two separate packages of arms sales to the island in less than 18 months. The first, valued at US$1.4 billion, came in June 2017, the second, worth US$330 million, in September. Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the US-Taiwan Business Council, speculated on Sunday during a press conference that the US government would likely notify the US Congress of new arms sales to Taiwan, worth at least US$50 million, sometime before the end of this year. The Washington-area business council is a non-profit group advocating for closer business ties with the self-governing island, focusing on defence procurement. The US is Taiwans sole arms supplier even though no formal diplomatic relations exist between the two. Taiwans deputy defence minister, Chang Guan-chung, who led a Taiwanese delegation to the two-day Annapolis conference, declined to confirm whether a new arms deal with the US would occur this year. York W. Chen, the deputy secretary general with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's National Security Council, told reporters the Taiwanese government would welcome future new arms sales by the US. He also said Taiwan would welcome normalised and multilevel arms sales with the US based on a case-by-case review of requests for weapons purchases. A new system could result in more frequent sales of arms to Taiwan, Chen said. The Pentagon already has advocated for establishing such a system for its arms sales to Taiwan. Randall Schriver, the US assistant secretary of defence for Asian and Pacific security affairs, was quoted by Taiwans Central News Agency this month as saying the US was moving towards a more normal foreign military sales relationship with the island. China strongly opposes any US arms sales and official contact with Taiwan. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang last week urged the US to correct its mistakes, stop any official contact and military ties with and arms sales to the Taiwan region. Meanwhile, Taiwan has continuously expressed a desire to acquire advanced American weapons. Its defence ministry has said it needs M1A2 Abrams battle tanks and has suggested it plans to acquire US F-35 fighter jets, saying it wants new fighters capable of vertical or short take-off and landing and having stealth characteristics. Derek Grossman, a senior defence analyst with Rand Corp, said Taiwan is certainly interested in acquiring the F-35 for the vertical/short take-off and landing capability it would provide its air force. Grossman said Taiwans interest in getting F-35s is driven by the accuracy of Chinas short-range ballistic missiles, which could target the Taiwan air forces runways in precision strikes to keep the islands aircraft grounded. If tensions continue to persist in the US-China relationship, its conceivable Washington might ramp up arms sales beyond just once or twice a year, Grossman said. The Trump administration, however, could alternatively dangle the prospect of cutting arms sales as a bargaining chip in broader policy discussions with China, whether on North Korea, trade, or the South China Sea, Grossman said. NOW WATCH: A first look at the new $5.7 million Bugatti Divo from the Paris Motor Show 2018 See Also: All 189 people on board were killed in the incident. The Queen has sent a message of condolence to Indonesias president Joko Widodo following the plane crash in his country which killed all on board. The two-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet plunged into the Java Sea early on Monday just minutes after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on the flight. In her words of sympathy sent on the day of the accident, but released on Wednesday, the Queen said: Prince Philip and I were saddened by the news of the plane crash near Jakarta this morning. Her Majesty The Queen has sent the following message to The President of Indonesia: https://t.co/NC5bZXC51s The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) October 31, 2018 We send our sincere condolences to you, the families and friends of those who have died, and to the Indonesian people. The search for the crashed Lion Air plane has found aircraft debris and passenger belongings on the seafloor. Search and Rescue Agency chief Muhammad Syaugi has said the seafloor findings give the search team confidence they will find the body of the aircraft. The US Defense Department announced on October 29 that it would send 5,200 troops to Americas southern border by the end of the week. The troops are expected to join 2,000 National Guard members already deployed there, assembling a force exceeding the US military footprint in Iraq and Syria, the Wall Street Journal reported. The move came as US President Donald Trump repeatedly called attention to a migrant caravan moving through Central America, using speeches and tweets to refer to it as an invasion. The caravan was hundreds of miles from the border in late October and was not expected to arrive there for two months. This footage shows crews and equipment preparing to leave Fort Knox, Kentucky, to be deployed to the southwest border region as part of the effort to support border security, in an operation dubbed Faithful Patriot. Credit: TSgt Nick Kibbey via Storyful FILE PHOTO: Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan attends the official opening ceremony of Istanbul's new airport, in Istanbul, Turkey, October 29, 2018. REUTERS/Murad Sezer ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Tuesday to crush Kurdish fighters east of the Euphrates river in Syria, announcing a major military operation against U.S. allies in an area where Washington supports them with troops on the ground. Syria's YPG Kurdish militia are the core of a force that has fought against Islamic State with the support of U.S. air power, arms, funds, training and an estimated 2,000 American special forces troops on the ground. Turkey, Washington's main Muslim ally within NATO, considers the YPG an enemy and has already intervened to sweep the fighters from territory west of the Euphrates in military campaigns over the past two years. Previous campaigns halted at the banks of the river, in part to avoid direct confrontation with Washington. But Erdogan said Turkey was now prepared to press on. "We will destroy the terror structure east of the Euphrates River. We have completed preparations and plans regarding this issue," Erdogan said in a speech to lawmakers from his AK Party. "We have started active intervention operations against the terror organisation in the last couple of days. We will soon come down hard on the terror organisation with more extensive and effective operations." State-owned Anadolu news agency said on Sunday Turkish forces had already bombarded positions east of the river held by the YPG. Turkey has been infuriated by U.S. support for the YPG, which it considers a terrorist organisation and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has fought an insurgency in southeast Turkey for more than three decades. Erdogan issued what he said was a "final warning" last week to those who would endanger Turkey's borders. He said then that Turkey would focus its attention on the east of the Euphrates, rather than the Manbij area just west of the river, where U.S. and Turkish forces agreed in June to carry out joint patrols. (Reporting by Gulsen Solaker; Writing by Ezgi Erkoyun; Editing by Daren Butler and Peter Graff) Twenty-five people have been killed after an Afghan army helicopter crashed in bad weather. The crash happened in the western Farah province, which borders Iran. All 25 people on board were killed, including the deputy commander of the western zone, a provincial spokesman said. General Naimudullah Khalil died alongside two members of the Farah provincial council, including chairman Farid Bakhtawar. Mohammad Naser Mehri, spokesman for the Farah governor, said the helicopter crashed shortly after taking off from the mountainous Anar Dara district at around 9.10am (4.40am GMT). It was heading towards nearby Herat province. The Taliban claimed its militants brought it down, while provincial council member Dadullah Qaneh said the helicopter hit a mountain peak in poor weather. Helicopter crashes are not uncommon in the mountainous country. In September, five crew members died when their helicopter crashed. Investigators blamed the crash on a technical failure, but did not provide further explanation. Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a suicide bomb attack took place outside the country's largest prison on the edge of the capital Kabul. No one has claimed the attack which claimed the lives of seven people, including prison workers and security personnel, the interior ministry said. The attacker targeted a bus carrying prison workers, he said. The Pul-e-Charkhi prison houses hundreds of inmates, including a large number of Taliban insurgents. Abadullah Karimi, a prison official, said the attack occurred near the prison gate where visitors were waiting to pass a rigorous security check before entering. U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo calls for end to fighting in Yemen WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Tuesday for a cessation of hostilities in Yemen and said U.N.-led negotiations to end the civil war should begin next month. In a statement, Pompeo said missile and drone strikes by Iran-allied Houthi rebels against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates should stop, and the Saudi-led coalition must cease air strikes in all populated areas of Yemen. Yemen is one of the poorest Arab countries and faces the world's worst humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by a nearly four-year-old war that pits the Houthis against the internationally recognised government backed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the West. "The time is now for the cessation of hostilities, including missile and UAV strikes from Houthi-controlled areas into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates," Pompeo said, using an acronym for unmanned aerial vehicles. "Subsequently, Coalition air strikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen," he added. The United States helps the coalition by refuelling its jets and providing training in targeting. Pompeo said last month that he had certified to the U.S. Congress that Saudi Arabia and the UAE were working to reduce civilian casualties in Yemen. Three-quarters of Yemen's population, or 22 million people, require aid and 8.4 million people are on the brink of starvation. U.N. special envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths said earlier this month that the United Nations hoped to resume consultations between the warring sides by November. Both Pompeo and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis voiced support for the U.N. effort. Mattis, addressing a forum in Washington on Tuesday, defended U.S. efforts to help reduce casualties by the Saudi-led coalition and said all sides needed to take meaningful steps towards a ceasefire and negotiations in the next 30 days. Mattis added that the Saudis and Emiratis appeared ready to embrace efforts by Griffiths to find a negotiated solution to the conflict. Story continues Weve got to move towards a peace effort here. And we cant say were going to do it sometime in the future. We need to be doing this in the next 30 days, Mattis said. Pompeo said the consultations planned by Griffiths should start in November "to implement confidence-building measures to address the underlying issues of the conflict, the demilitarization of borders, and the concentration of all large weapons under international observation." A cessation of hostilities and resumption of a political track would help ease the humanitarian crisis, Pompeo said. (Reporting by Phil Stewart, Eric Beech and Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Peter Cooney) The University of North Georgia (UNG) jumped nearly 50 places when it rocketed to No. 80 on the Military Times' 2019 Best for Vets college list. Christy Orr, assistant director of Student Life and Veteran and Adult Learner Program (VALP) at UNG, said UNG was one of seven Georgia public colleges and universities ranked on the list. Orr explained to be included on the list shows veterans and active military that UNG is committed to serving and supporting our military personnel. UNG has been named on the list five times since 2013. "Being in the top 100, in my opinion, sets us a level above other institutions with the services we provide," she said. "I was ecstatic at the results. My goal for this year was to break the top 100. Next year, my goal is to be in the top 50." Rankings are based on the results of a comprehensive school-by-school assessment of veteran and military student services and rates of academic achievement and a detailed review of public data collected by federal agencies. Military Times explained the Best for Vets college rankings is an editorially independent, objective and rigorous news project. It evaluates many factors that help make colleges and universities a good fit for service members, military veterans and their families. About 500 colleges applied to be considered for the survey. The University of North Georgia (UNG) was ranked No. 80 on the Military Times' 2019 Best for Vets college list. The survey asks colleges and universities to disclose academic outcome and input data, describe the aspects of veteran culture on campus and meticulously document the array of services, special policies, accommodations, and financial incentives offered to students with military ties. Some of UNG's resources are scholarships specifically for veterans, priority registration for veterans, and veteran and adult learners programs such as tutoring, financial assistance and resume writing, to name a few. Another accommodation for veterans or active military is the Military Resource Center (MRC) on UNGs Gainesville Campus. It has a study space, computer stations, free printing, and access to a kitchenette. Tyler Yearwood, who served in the U.S. Army from 2011-16 and was honorably discharged as a sergeant, said the MRC supplied him a reprieve during his daily routine. "It was a place where I could meet other veterans who could provide me informal advice about school," the 26-year-old Jefferson, Georgia, man said. "In my classes, I was with 18-year-old kids who I couldn't connect to. But in the Military Resource Center, it was a place for me to go and fit in." Fitting in and sharing a similar combat background Yearwood served as a combat medic in Afghanistan was only part of it. The junior majoring in nursing also formed new friendship at the MRC. "I have at least 10 to 15 people that I could call immediately if I needed something," Yearwood said. "One guy I went to high school with and we were not friends then. But we connected at the MRC and now he's one of my best friends." The Gainesville Campus is not the only one with an active group of vets and places for them to congregate. On the Dahlonega Campus, the Veterans Resource Center has a lounge space, computer stations, free printing, a private restroom, and a kitchenette. On all campuses, UNG designates certain areas as "Green Zones" with university officials trained to help student veterans identify and connect with the appropriate resources. "If a veteran sees a sticker with Green Zone, then he or she knows a faculty or staff member can help them there," Orr said. Military Times announced its ninth annual listings on the website Rebootcamp. More than 500 four-year, two-year, online and non-traditional, and career and technical schools were listed in their respective categories. To learn more, visit https://charts.militarytimes.com/. The University of New Orleans (11-17, 5-8 Southland) look to play spoiler on Senior night against Sam Houston State (20-5, 12-1 Southland) Tuesday evening in the Bernard G. Johnson Coliseum. But the Bearkats took the match 3-0 (20-25, 22-25, 23-25)Sam Houston looked to be the dominant team early jumping out to a 10-9 lead and would stretch it to a 19-9 lead moments later.But the Privateers would battle back and go on an 8-0 run, taking advantage of a few Bearkat miscues and getting a service ace from freshman setter. And just moments later the Privateers pulled to within one at 21-20, off an ace from Grice.But Sam Houston scored the final five-point to take the opening stanza 25-20.The two teams were evenly matched in the early going in set two, but Sam Houston held the advantage at 9-8. And the Bearkats look like they were going to take set two easily getting to 24-18, but UNO had other plans and used a 5-0 run to make it 24-22 to force a late Bearkat timeout.Sam Houston did not waste any time out the break, taking set two 25-22, and going up in the match 2-0.UNO looked to force a fourth set after taking a 7-5 lead early in set three. And the Privateer lead grew to 20-17 later in the set. But the Bearkats chipped away at the UNO lead and eventually to the match after winning set three 25-23.The Privateers hit the road one last time, and make the short trip to Nicholls on Saturday at 1 p.m.fell one block away from a double-double finishing with 11 kill and nine blocks and hit .455 in the match.andadded eight kills apiece.andcombined for 32 helpers.Fans are encouraged to follow @PrivateersVB on Twitter, @PrivateersVB on Instagram, like /PrivateersVB on Facebook and subscribe to the PrivateerAthletics YouTube channel. Alaska: Anchorage news reveals that the eighth inmate to die this year in the custody of the Department of Corrections passed away on October 28. KTUU reported that Nancy G. Analoak, aged 47, died after three days in the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center. The cause of death has not yet been revealed. The female detainee in Alaska unresponsive The KTUU report noted the unresponsive female detainee was found in her cell at around midday by a nurse. Emergency medical treatment failed to revive her and she was pronounced dead. The facility in Eagle River is where people are held pre-trial. There is to be a full investigation into the death. This will be carried out by the Alaska State Troopers and the State Medical Examiner's Office. Previous deaths in DOC custody In February 2018, a Spring Creek prison inmate developed serious medical symptoms and he was taken to the Spring Creek medical unit. In fairness to the corrections officers, Romeo K. Iyapana got treated as fast as possible. Later, transferred to Alaska Regional Hospital in Anchorage, he died six hours after presenting with illness. Rethinking Alaskas only maximum-security prison - Anchorage Daily News - great article about a really impressive initiative https://t.co/DPE6CT8HQs Luke Jones (@slukejones) October 30, 2018 In August 2018, Wildwood Pretrial Facility inmate Kendall J. Barrett died in Kenai hospital. KTVA noted he suffered from injuries following a suicide attempt. Officers found him in his cell, unresponsive, at about 5:30 PM. The inmate was rushed to hospital but died the next day. In May 2018, Alaska Public Media reported Leslie Aveoganna, 57, another inmate at the Wildwood Correction Center in Kenai passed away. Discuss this news on Eunomia There was no obvious injury and an autopsy was ordered. It was the third death at the facility in 2018. In September, Goose Creek Correctional Center lost an inmate as well. Frontiersman reported that Douglas W. Artemis had been in the facility for about two weeks. Foul play was not suspected. Doran Jennings, 27, died by apparent suicide in solitary confinement in an Alaska prison. It would be the Alaska prison system's third suicide this year. https://t.co/bRYlImChny #HALTsolitary (@NYCAIC) October 30, 2018 Historical deaths in correctional custody flagged problems Back in 2015, the Treatment Advocacy Org noted that four deaths flagged some problems within the Alaska Corrections department. "Davon Mosley was found dead in his cell in April of 2014 after spending two weeks in segregation at the Anchorage correctional facility." Allegedly he was left naked after being pepper sprayed and died from 12 ulcers. Apart from Mosley, three other inmates deaths were checked out by a joint Alaska House and Senate judiciary committee hearing. "Walt Monegan, DOC Interim Commissioner, apologized for the deaths and promised change." This is a big issue that involves everything from creating new markets to developing a bean that is delicious and nutritious, so we wanted to collaborate to come up with the best solution, said Bo Zhang, an assistant professor in the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences and the principal investigator on the project. One of the challenges of the current variety of edamame is that the size of the plant is too short for modern tractor combines to harvest. It also has a canopy that is too open for U.S. soils, which lets too many weeds grow between the plants. To address this, Zhang and others are developing a new variety that is taller and will work with existing combine equipment for harvest. The team is growing test crops at Virginia Techs Kentland Farm and the Eastern Shore Agricultural Research and Extension Center. Edamame consumers also like large beans, but current commercial soybean cultivars are too small for edamame market. Through the joint effort of Virginia Tech, University of Missouri, and University of Arkansas, the team has planted and harvested approximately 300 large-seeded exotic soybean plant varieties. They are being evaluated for agronomic traits, pod appearance, bean composition, sensory traits, and other characteristics for the selection of parent plant traits to develop improved edamame progeny. Once the crops are harvested, they are processed to stop plant enzymes from causing quality changes and tested to ensure the flavor, texture, and other characteristics are suited for the American palate. This testing is possibly through the universitys Department of Food Science and Technology pilot plant and sensory evaluation laboratories. Finding the right edamame variety for success in the U.S. market means asking for consumer input early in the evaluation, said Susan Duncan, a professor of food science and technology and assistant director of the Virginia Agricultural Experiment Station. Including consumer evaluation of bean characteristics during this early stage of variety selection allows the researchers to select varieties that show promise for success. The way consumers rate appearance, aroma, flavor, sweetness, and texture will be important in determining the plant varieties. Analysis of aroma chemistry and the amino acids in the protein structure also help verify the flavor quality and nutrition of the selected bean varieties. We know that in order for this project to be successful, we have to grow a product that is not only delicious, but also matches this traditional Asian food into the American preferences, so we are doing a robust series of tests to make sure Americans will love this variety of edamame, said Duncan. Meanwhile, agricultural economists will examine what the market for the product is, so that producers can take advantage of the new crop and maximize profits. Once the research is complete, the information will be shared with stakeholders and producers via Virginia Cooperative Extension. A series of workshops, outreach events, and other activities will help spread the word to have maximum impact. This is a great project where so many different people, with so many different viewpoints, are working together to benefit both American consumers and producers, Duncan said. Convicted murderers and terrorists are among the group of harmless, poor migrants in the caravan approaching the U.S. border Elected Democrats and their party propaganda wing, the establishment media, have portrayed the thousands of mostly Central American migrants traipsing towards the United States as harmless, poor individuals escaping violence and political persecution in their home countries. No doubt that most of them are poor, but there are questions about whether theyre really being persecuted, whether theyre really in danger, and whether many of them are who they say they are. Over the weekend, Fox News reporter Griff Jenkins, who is traveling with one of the caravans, interviewed a man called Jose who says he wants to come to the U.S. Actually, he said he wants to get back into the United States. Hes been deported before, so that makes him a criminal already. But thats not all. Jose is wanted for attempted murder in his words, a third-degree felony. You read that right. He says he wants to come back into the U.S. to seek a pardon, but the chances of that happening are about as remote as the chances of Barack Obama admitting his was the most corrupt administration in U.S. history. Watch: It would only make sense that there would be criminals among the 7,500-odd migrants who are currently in southern Mexico. Jose cant be the only migrant whos been deported from the United States. But more than that, other reports have said that MS-13 members are among the caravan. (Related: Trump on migrant caravan: We dont want them.) The criminal/terrorist element Investigative journalist Sara A. Carter, who has traveled to Central America to interview Guatemalan, Honduran, and Mexican leaders and officials regarding the migrants, reported, Guatemalan intelligence discovered people from India, Bangladesh, [and] Africa had also joined in with the caravan. I bumped into a number of young MS-13 gang members, she tweeted, according to AMI Newswire. POTUS Donald Trump tweeted last week that people from the Middle East were among those traveling with the caravan, but the disgustingly dishonest American media refused to report it and instead questioned the presidents truthfulness (because hes a bigot and hates people from Muslim countries, dont you know). They were, however, quick to report that he said last week he had no proof of anything regarding who was actually traveling within the caravan, though he said he had very good information about it which, to a president, means hard-core intelligence. Turns out he was right. Again. AMI Newswire reported further: Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales told American reporters that his country has detained roughly 100 terrorism suspects, some of whom were ISIS members. Morales reportedly made the comments during a speech at a conference in Washington D.C. over the weekend. [W]e have not only detained [terrorists] within our territory, but they have been deported to their country of origin, Morales said in reference to his efforts since taking office in 2016. There is no bigger criminal and threat to the U.S. than a terrorist. And theres no better way to infiltrate our country than by blending in with a mass of humanity across open borders. But their efforts are not likely to be successful. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nelson said Sunday that the migrants arent going to be allowed into the country so the best thing they could do is turn around and go home or accept Mexicos offer of asylum (which hundreds have done). There is a legal way to get into this country. Those who choose to enter illegally will be stopped, she told Fox News Sunday. The Trump administration is serious about preventing the migrants from entering. Reports last week said the Pentagon was sending 800 active duty Army soldiers to the border to help bolster security along with Border Patrol and about 2,100 National Guard troops. Troop strength, however, has been increased to 5,000. Read more about the migrant invasion of the U.S. at InvasionUSA.news. Sources include: TheNationalSentinel.com ZeroHedge.com TheGatewayPundit.com A variety of events over the next week bring on the spooky spirit of Halloween at Emory, giving everyone more than a ghost of a chance to have fun and participate in interesting activities. Here are some of the events from now through Halloween night: Thursday, Oct. 25 Want to do some Halloween carving thats not too scary? Sign up for Halloween with Carvey the Carver on Thursday, Oct. 25, at 4 p.m. Come to the TechLab on the second floor of Cox Hall inside the Computer Lab there and learn how to use a 3D carving tool in the design and cutting of Halloween decorations, guided by a promised master of mayhem. Learn the basics of Computer Numeric Control cutting and object design to spruce up objects for holiday flair. Haunted Harris, a tradition in scary experiences, will be Thursday evening from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m., held at Harris Hall at the Complex. This year, Haunted Harris is partnering with Emory HelpLine by initiating a suggested donation of $1 as an entrance fee, with all proceeds going directly to the Emory HelpLine. The event is geared toward ages 17 and up, but if younger ones come, guides are prepared to keep the tour a little milder. Saturday, Oct. 27 Be prepared to run for your life Saturday morning as you try to escape zombies in Lullwater Preserve in GlobeMed's infamous Zombie 5k. Registration opens at 9:15 at the Student Academic and Activity Center. There will be breakfast and refreshments served and prizes are promised for the three fastest men and women racers. Price is $15 for Emory students who can pay via Venmo. Its $20 for everyone else. All proceeds benefit the Migrant Assistance Program (MAP) Foundation in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Mummies, Milkshakes and Meows the Meows added this year for the Divine Felines exhibition for kids is Saturday evening from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Carlos Museum. Inside the museum, guests can explore the fascinating objects of the galleries, including cat and dog mummies in the exhibition Divine Felines and visit very old friends in the Egyptian galleries. Then, when the sky darkens, everyone is invited to get cozy on the Emory Quadrangle with blankets and/or lawn chairs for the hilarious Three Stooges short film "We Want Our Mummy" and the classic Abbot and Costellos "Meet the Mummy" up on the big screen outside in front of the museum. Jakes Ice Cream will be on hand with hot dogs and milkshakes for sale to enjoy. Mummies & Milkshakes is free to Carlos Museum members; $5 for nonmembers; and children ages 5 and under are free. Contact Alyson Vuley at 404-727-0519. The Media Literature and Arts Outreach House promises a Saturday night to die for at their Monster Mash on Oct. 27. Monster Mash has ghoulish treats to eat, music for dancing to wake the undead, a scary movie and a costume contest with prizes. Guests can also carve some crafts with Science.Art.Wonder. The Mash is free and open to all. Another party Saturday night, from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., takes place at Bread Coffeehouse, located on Clifton Road at the North Decatur Road intersection. Join Emory NERD Club, along with Anime Club, Esports and Artisan Guild, for their annual Halloween Party. Therell be food, drinks, board games, video games, movies and a costume contest with prizes. Sunday, Oct. 28 Sunday, Oct. 28, predicted to be mostly sunny, is the day for the 6th Annual Open Streets Emory Village. Everyone is encouraged to walk, bike or roll into Emory Village for family-friendly, car-free fun. Dress up to participate in the Halloween Parade, join the Glenn Trunk and Treaters, and watch the popular Dog Costume and Best in Show contests. Also scheduled are local musicians and performers, a puppet factory, circus performers and more. There will be a climbing wall to scale, food and opportunities to dance. Halloween: Wednesday, Oct. 31 Theres The Witching Hour, a celebration of witches and an introduction to their history, on Halloween day at the Center for Women. Guests are invited to drop in any time between 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. for snacks & spooks. The documentary "Witches: A Century of Murder" will be screened and you can create your own DIY decorative potions. Ava Kofman in the New York Times: In the summer of 1996, during an international anthropology conference in southeastern Brazil, Bruno Latour, Frances most famous and misunderstood philosopher, was approached by an anxious-looking developmental psychologist. The psychologist had a delicate question, and for this reason he requested that Latour meet him in a secluded spot beside a lake at the Swiss-style resort where they were staying. Removing from his pocket a piece of paper on which hed scribbled some notes, the psychologist hesitated before asking, Do you believe in reality? For a moment, Latour thought he was being set up for a joke. His early work, it was true, had done more than that of any other living thinker to unsettle the traditional understanding of how we acquire knowledge of whats real. It had long been taken for granted, for example, that scientific facts and entities, like cells and quarks and prions, existed out there in the world before they were discovered by scientists. Latour turned this notion on its head. In a series of controversial books in the 1970s and 1980s, he argued that scientific facts should instead be seen as a product of scientific inquiry. Facts, Latour said, were networked; they stood or fell not on the strength of their inherent veracity but on the strength of the institutions and practices that produced them and made them intelligible. If this network broke down, the facts would go with them. Still, Latour had never seen himself as doing anything so radical, or absurd, as calling into question the existence of reality. As a founder of the new academic discipline of science and technology studies, or S.T.S., Latour regarded himself and his colleagues as allies of science. Of course he believed in reality, he told the psychologist, convinced that the conversation was in jest. More here. Linda Rodriguez McRobbie in the Boston Globe: HALLOWEEN IS THE ONE night of the year when were allowed to be just a little evil. But, say some scientists, its not just on Halloween that we give ourselves permission to be bad. It was the everyday sadism, the pleasure that people find in others pain, that struck psychologist Delroy Paulhus, who studies evil professionally. The head of a University of British Columbia research lab that examines dark personality traits, Paulhus was part of a team of researchers who in 2002 identified the dark triad, three distinct antisocial personality traits: narcissism, or aggressive self-promotion; Machiavellianism, the desire to manipulate those around you; and callous, self-aggrandizing, impulsive psychopathy. In 2013, based on research that came out of his lab, the trio was joined by a fourth everyday sadism. In a set of experiments led by Erin Buckels, a scientist in Paulhuss lab, participants were asked whether theyd rather kill bugs, help an exterminator kill them, clean toilets, or plunge their hands in ice water for 60 seconds. Fifty-three percent of the respondents said theyd either kill the bugs or help the exterminator; those who elected to kill the bugs, some 26.8 percent, were then presented with three woodlice named Tootsie, Muffin, and Ike and a coffee grinder (unbeknownst to the participants, the bugs were shielded from a crunchy death by a plastic insert over the blades). Not only did the 26 percent kill some or all of the bugs, but some of them also professed to enjoy it. More here. Emory students, faculty and staff gathered Monday at the Cannon Chapel overhang to remember the victims of the anti-semitic shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. With the flag on the Emory Quad flying at half-staff, the campus community gathered Monday to remember the victims of the shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Students, faculty and staff filled the Cannon Chapel overhang between the Modern Languages Building and White Hall at 5:30 p.m. for the hour-long, student-led remembrance. Lisa Garvin, acting dean of the chapel and religious life, opened the remembrance by reading from a community message sent by Emory President Claire E. Sterk, before turning the program over to students. I encourage us to stand together, rejecting violence and modeling its opposite: non-violence, compassion, and the love that goes hand-in-hand with justice, Sterk said in the message, sent via email to the Emory community on Sunday. I am proud that Emory strives to be a place where people can hold difficult conversations respectfully and where all of us regardless of who we are, where we were born, whom we love, or how we choose to worship can find a home to flourish. Wearing yarmulkes, Buddhist monks robes, white physician coats, business suits, sweatshirts and scrubs, the diverse attendees held candles as student speakers offered prayers and reflections. Jesse Steinman offered insights from the Torah and Kate Kandor read the names of the 11 victims and recited the mourners Kaddish, with many in the audience joining in. Stephen Mattes then led the audience in reciting from the Tehillim, or Psalms, with the familiar words Even when I walk in the valley of darkness, I will fear no evil, for you are with me offered first in Hebrew, then in English. Xavier Sayeed, Himani Shetti, Anna Farrell and Lacey Campbell offered messages of peace and solidarity from Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian traditions, respectively. Lindsay Gorby, a senior in Emory College, grew up in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill that is home to Tree of Life Synagogue and offered poignant reflections on her hometown and the tight-knit Jewish community there. It will take more than bullets to break the foundation of love and support that we have for one another, she said. Closing the speech that she said she never, ever wanted to have to write, Gorby offered a message of unity and mutual support. I pray that you never see your home on the national news, littered with federal agents, and I pray that your home never feels the utter devastation, shock and grief that mine has, she said. But if it ever does, we will be here. People from all races, nationalities, political parties, faiths and sexual orientations will be here. It is our believe that community, love and support unite us closer than any act of violence can divide us. We will be here, together. Abby Busis then called on those present to help support the community impacted by the shooting by sending financial contributions to the Tree of Life Congregation and by writing prayers and notes that will be sent to the Jewish University Center of Pittsburgh to be given to students there. Briley Newell, who had briefly served as a music teacher at Tree of Life, concluded the ceremony with a song. After the service ended, attendees gathered around tables to write their messages on construction paper cut into shapes of leaves in honor of Tree of Life. Support resources Below is information about resources for those who have been impacted by this tragedy, or who would like support dealing with other issues: Emory Helpline is an anonymous, peer counseling telephone service for students. It is open from 8:30 p.m. to 1 a.m., seven days a week, during the regular academic year (excluding major holidays). Students with non-urgent mental health situations may contact the Helpline at 404-727-4357 (HELP). Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) provides individual, group and couples counseling; stress management classes; and community outreach to provide support for students and assist them in negotiating emotional and interpersonal difficulties as they matriculate through Emory University. 404-727-7450. Student Intervention Services (SIS) assists students in times of crisis. It also offers impartial, judgment-free counsel for students seeking guidance and assistance through life's ongoing challenges. 404-430-1120. Student Health Services (SHS) offers free psychiatric services for all enrolled Emory students. Services include diagnostic psychiatric evaluations, medication evaluations, long-term management of psychiatric medications, and community referrals. Learn more information about reaching SHS after-hours emergencies or call 404-727-7551. Office of Spiritual and Religious Life is located in the Alumni Memorial University Center (AMUC 125) and Cannon Chapel (Suite 316). Services are available for students, faculty and staff. 404-727-6225. Faculty Staff Assistance Program (FSAP) provides support for employees, including daytime emergency appointments and on-call after-hours services. Visit the emergency services webpage or call 404-727-9355 (WELL). New redistricting map heading to Aberdeen City Council Some minor adjustments were made to the city's four-district map for city council positions using the new 2020 census information. ATLANTA In a story Oct. 30 about concerns over mailed ballots being rejected by election officials for various reasons, The Associated Press reported erroneously where a New Hampshire woman dropped off her absentee ballot. It was at her town clerks office, not her county office. A corrected version of the story is below: Rejection of mail-in ballots raises alarm ahead of election Mailed-in ballots provide convenience and are intended to boost turnout, but its also easy for voters who use them to miss a step By CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY Associated Press ATLANTA Drawing on her years of military experience, Maureen Heard was careful to follow all the rules when she filled out an absentee ballot in 2016. She read the instructions thoroughly, signed where she was supposed to, put the ballot in its envelope and dropped it off at the clerks office in her New Hampshire town. She then left so she could return to a temporary federal work assignment in Washington, D.C. I have learned over the years, many years in the military of filling out forms, how to fill out forms and I was very intimidated by the process, said Heard, who served in the Air Force and was a lieutenant in the U.S. Coast Guard. I was like, Oh my gosh, I have to make sure I get it absolutely right. And then it didnt count. Heard, 57, discovered last year that she was among roughly 319,000 voters across the country whose absentee ballots were rejected during the last presidential election. The reasons varied, ranging from missed deadlines to failure to sign the return envelope. Heards ballot was tossed out because her signature did not match the one on file at her local election office. More people than ever are returning their ballots by mail or dropping them off at a local election location rather than voting in a booth on Election Day. Those developments make it easier to cast ballots and are designed to boost turnout. The trend also is raising concerns about whether voters can be assured their ballots will count or be notified in time if there is a problem. Voting rights activists want to ensure that voters are given a reasonable chance to fix any problems. Earlier this month, the ACLU and other groups filed lawsuits in Georgia after an Atlanta-area county reported a comparatively high rate of rejected absentee ballots during the start of early voting. Those actions followed similar lawsuits in New Hampshire and California. Its hard to see what is missing, said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, which advocated for changes to California law. People are all focused on what is the vote count. They are not focused on what ballots werent counted. Nearly one of every four ballots cast in 2016 came through the mail or was handed in at a drop-off location, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. The commissions data show that 99 percent of completed absentee and mailed ballots are eventually counted. Election officials use signature matching to verify a persons identity, but advocates say many election offices lack training and standards. Matching signatures is particularly fraught because a persons handwriting can change over time and be affected by age or disability. In August, a federal judge ruled that New Hampshires signature-matching process was fundamentally flawed because voters are not given notice if its the reason a ballot was rejected. She also said the election office workers inspecting the signatures did not receive training in handwriting analysis or signature comparisons. For the most part, signature variations are of little consequence in a persons life, U.S. District Judge Landya McCafferty wrote. But in the context of absentee voting, these variations become profoundly consequential. A judge in California sided with the ACLU in a similar lawsuit in March. Last month, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law the Every Vote Counts Act, which requires local election officials to notify voters of mismatched signatures at least eight days before election results become certified. Voters then have several days to resolve the issue. In Georgia, the ballot rejections in Gwinnett County were running well ahead of the other large counties ringing Atlanta. Gwinnett County had rejected 9.6 percent of all absentee mail ballots as of Oct. 12, while DeKalb County had rejected 1.9 percent and Fulton County had rejected none, according to court filings. Candice Broce, spokeswoman for the secretary of states office, said state officials were aware of the concerns and opened an investigation. Georgia law requires voters to be told promptly of a problem, but does not specify a time period. In Gwinnett County, this means sending a voter notice in the mail within three days, according to county officials. Voters who are notified of a problem can request a new ballot or vote in person, but the law does not provide time after the election to resolve the problems. That potentially affects voters who drop off their ballots on or near Election Day. A federal judge ruled last week that Georgia election officials cannot reject ballots for a signature mismatch without providing voters an opportunity to verify their identity; they would have almost a week to do so under the ruling. The state plans to appeal. Were not attacking signature-matching as a way to do something, as a tool for confirming identity, said Sophia Lakin, a staff attorney with the ACLU. We are concerned about making sure that its not something that prevents someone from voting. It all depends on how its being implemented. Three states Colorado, Oregon and Washington send ballots in the mail to all registered voters. Oregon allows voters 14 days after an election to resolve a signature mismatch and provides training to local election officials about how to verify signatures. Part of the training includes an acknowledgement that signatures can change over time, said Nancy Blankenship, clerk of Deschutes County in Bend, Oregon. Any time voters correspond with her office, their signatures are added to their file so election workers have a history of signatures to use for comparison. ___ Associated Press writer Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report. ___ Follow Christina Almeida Cassidy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AP_Christina Deputies say they caught an Arizona man with a trunk full of meth at an Albuquerque motel on Monday. Gabriel Figueroa, 33, is charged with trafficking controlled substances. According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, detectives received specific, detailed information of a drug deal at certain time and place. The criminal complaint does not detail where or when the transaction or arrest occurred. Following the transaction, Deputies followed the suspect, later identified as Figueroa of Phoenix AZ, back to his hotel and arrested him. Figueroa told detectives that he had a personal amount of cocaine on his person, a detective wrote. Deputies say Figueroa gave them permission to search his car, where they found 14 pounds of meth in individually sealed bags in the trunk. Figueroa stated the methamphetamine belonged to him, a detective wrote. 23:33 Amid a clamour within the BJP for bringing a legislation for early construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Thursday said any ordinance by the government or a bill passed in Parliament will be unconstitutional when the matter is sub-judice. Bringing an ordinance or law pending an appeal in the Supreme Court will be an "adventurist action", he said. "In my view, to bring an ordinance would be unconstitutional. So let us see whether the government recognises the constitutional position or it will indulge in an adventurist action. An ordinance when the appeal is pending will be an adventurist action. It will be unconstitutional," he told reporters at the AICC briefing. He said the demand for an ordinance was a trial balloon and the government is letting its followers "test the water". "They are floating all these balloons to see what the public reaction is, but the matter is pending before the Supreme Court as a regular appeal against the Allahabad High Court judgment," he said. "In my view an ordinance would be unconstitutional. A Bill would also be unconstitutional. You cannot pass a Bill setting aside the judgment of a High Court when the matter is pending in the Supreme Court. That is my understanding of law. I may be right, I may be wrong," he said. Amid a growing chorus from saffron outfits for an ordinance on construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya, BJP MP Rakesh Sinha on Thursday said he will bring a private member's bill in this regard and asked opposition leaders including Congress chief Rahul Gandhi whether they will support it. -- PTI The annual Data Users Conference hosted by the University of New Mexicos Bureau of Business and Economic Research will be Nov. 15 at the CNM Workforce Training Center. The conference is aimed at both beginning and professional data users in the state and surrounding areas and can be valuable for private businesses, government agencies, service organizations and information providers, according to BBER. Among the presentations will be news from the U.S. Census Bureau on 2020 preparations; new Census data tools; the economic Census; and New Mexico population estimates and projections. Bureau Director Jeffrey Mitchell will review of New Mexicos recent economic performance and offer a short-term economic outlook over lunch. More information and registration is available here. A man robbed a northeast Albuquerque bank on Tuesday afternoon, according to the FBI. FBI spokesman Frank Fisher said the suspect robbed the Washington Federal Bank, at 3000 Eubank NE, around 1:30 p.m. Fisher did not give any other details of the robbery but did release surveillance photos of the suspect. He said the FBI may pay up to $1,000 for information leading to the suspects arrest and conviction. Tips: Anyone with information about this robbery is asked to call the FBI at (505) 889-1300, or Albuquerque Metro Crime Stoppers, anonymously, at (505) 843-STOP. Police say the owner and employees of We Buy It pawn shop on East Central were buying it all right stolen goods, that is. Aaron Sheridan, 28, Paul Skersick, 31, and Fatu Ulale Jr., 27, were arrested Monday night and are each charged with criminal solicitation and conspiracy. The men will be released on their own recognizance. None of them have a criminal history. Ulale is a former University of New Mexico football player. According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, an undercover operation by the Albuquerque Police Departments Organized Crime Unit determined the three were regularly buying items for the pawn shop, located on Central near Louisiana, that were obviously stolen. Gilbert Gallegos, an APD spokesman, said police are now pursuing racketeering charges against Sheridan, the owner. He said officers found between $5,000 and $10,000 worth of stolen items but did not say if the items were stolen from businesses or homes. By Tuesday morning, the store was closed and the shelves and display cases were empty. Sheridan, Skersick and Ulale were still in jail Tuesday evening. We Buy It, also known as Axis Global Corp., opened in 2016 and since then police say they have talked to many shoplifters who said they or their associates would steal things from stores to sell to employees there. Detectives say although a lot of people were seen going in and out of the shop nearly every day, they seldom reported transactions to the leadsonline database a database used to determine whether stolen items are showing up at pawn shops. Gallegos said, per city ordinance, pawn shops are required to report all firearms and all items worth more than $10 that they buy from individuals. When the shop was closed for an annual inspection earlier this year, detectives say they saw multiple people coming to the door apparently trying to buy drugs. So in September, an undercover detective worked with Home Depot to set up a sting. Home Depot supplied brand new tools in unopened packages worth nearly $1,000 for the undercover detective to sell. At We Buy It, Skersick bought the tools for $180, according to the complaint. Then, the detective said, Skersick wrote down the name and product number of a different saw and asked if the undercover detective could get that item that day. When the detective returned a short time later acting shady about how he got there and saying he had a friend run interference while he took the tools from Home Depot Skersick and Sheridan agreed to buy the saw from him, according to the complaint. Paul then stated keep coming through, everyday and keep doing what youre doing,' the detective wrote in the complaint. Detectives complied, repeating the operation at least three times. Craig Aldrich, whose family owns the Jewelry Repair Service a couple of doors down from the now vacant pawn shop, said he would frequently see many people going in and out of building. He said he learned of the criminal enterprise when his father told him police were raiding the business Monday evening. Weve been here 45 years, Aldrich said. Weve seen everything that goes on on Central. Cannon Air Force Base officials announced two weeks ago that potentially carcinogenic chemicals present in an old fire-fighting foam used on base had seeped into the groundwater on and around the Clovis-area base. Three of 25 private water wells checked so far were determined to contain above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys health advisory of 70 parts per trillion for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. The EPA has not established a drinking water standard for the chemicals, which are also used in non-stick materials such as Teflon. Cannon switched to a more environment-friendly fire-fighting foam last year, as have many other bases. The Air Force said in a news release sent out Oct. 24 that a four-mile area near the southeast corner of the base is likely where the most contamination is present. Concentrations in the three wells above EPA recommendations ranged from 146 to 1,649 parts per trillion. The Air Force has provided alternative drinking water at those locations. Two wells had detectable but below recommended levels and the remaining 20 did not contain detectable PFAS levels. Two of the three water sources identified as being above limits are located at local dairies. Curry County is one of the states top dairy producers. New Mexico Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Kristie Garcia said the EPAs recommendations only apply to water used for human consumption. They are not appropriate for use in identifying risk levels for ingestion of food sources. The New Mexico Department of Agriculture has requested that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration immediately determine if any impacts on health exist, Garcia wrote in an email. U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., met with Clovis citizens last week and said many expressed worries over human health, local property values and agricultural concerns. Agriculture is a critical component of the local economy, and we are aware that at least two dairies are being affected by this situation and are struggling to get assistance from the Air Force, Udall said in an emailed statement. We need to ensure that the Air Force and Department of Defense take care of all who are impacted, both private citizens and businesses to ensure the safe water every single family, rancher and farmer deserves. Udall also co-authored a letter with U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., sent to Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson on Monday. Cannon Air Force Base spokesman JP Rebello said the Air Force Civil Engineer Center, which is leading the investigation, is planning a town hall for stakeholders in November that will include state and federal agencies. Costume-clad kids will be looking for Halloween treats today, while parents will be looking to keep their kids from dangerous tricks. There are a number of places in the Albuquerque area where kids can go to trick-or-treat in safety, and maybe even learn something. The Bernalillo County Fire Prevention Bureau offers a few tips to keep kids safe: Check costume labels to make sure they are made from fire-retardant materials; have children carry a flashlight after sundown; adults should supervise lighting candles for jack-o-lanterns; and parents should accompany young children on their rounds and check all candy before consumption. Bernalillo County Fire Department crews will be handing out candy to trick-or-treaters, while supplies last, at all of its stations between 5-8 p.m. today. Operation Boo also gives children the chance to see and meet firefighters. For a list of county fire station locations, go to www.bernco.gov/Fire-Districts. Albuquerque Fire Rescue will host the Otherealm haunted house at Fire Station No. 5, 123 Dallas NE, from 5-9 p.m. Visitors will join an AFR firefighter as he searches for his missing crew inside the fire station, which has been taken over by the Otherealm. The haunted house is recommended for children ages 12 and older. Children under 12 will not be admitted without an adult. However, the fire station will also have a fun and safe area where families and younger children can play games or activities, interact with local AFR firefighters and APD officers, and collect candy treats. Children can trick-or-treat in the warmth and safety of Coronado Center as merchants pass out treats from 6-9 p.m. Visitors are encouraged to bring canned food donations to benefit Joy Junction homeless shelter. For a real scare, the ABQ BioPark will host BOO at the BUGarium from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Kids will be able to get up close to arthropods, stick their hands in a tub of superworms, cuddle a caterpillar, touch a tarantula and more. At 2 p.m., kids can stop by the Aquarium to watch the annual Underwater Pumpkin Carving event in the Ocean Tank. Both events are included with regular admission to the BioPark at 2601 Central NW. Dragon Lights Albuquerque and Dragons House of Horror, are offering a free trick-or-treat Halloween experience from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at Expo New Mexico, 300 San Pedro NE. Kids 15 and younger accompanied by adults can visit a haunted house, while performers dressed in Chinese cultural costumes will hand out candy alongside a 40-foot dragon lantern, a 20-foot shark lantern and other exhibits. Since New Mexicans put their trust in me to represent them in the United States Senate, I have remained focused on building a brighter future for our state. My priorities are New Mexicos priorities an economy that works for everyone, affordable health care, keeping our nation safe, and continuing to make our state a better place to live in and call home. Despite polarized politics in Washington, over the past six years, Ive continued to find ways to solve problems and deliver results for New Mexico. As we look to whats ahead for New Mexico, I know theres still much more to do. I know the value of investing in our communities and creating opportunity in every corner of our state. That starts with creating opportunities for every single New Mexico child. Investing in early education has shown to be the most effective thing we can do to prepare our children to succeed. Thats why I was one of the first elected leaders to push for investing a portion of our states Permanent Fund to make sure all New Mexico children get a head start. We need to create a fully-funded, locally-driven public education pipeline one that carries students from early childhood education to affordable college or technical degrees to fill the jobs of the future that are being created in New Mexico. As new threats emerge and technology evolves, so must the missions of our military installations and labs. Thats why Ive taken leadership roles on committees that set the policies for our military and our national energy priorities. I have passed defense legislation and steered funding that will help New Mexico maintain its role as a leader in national defense for years to come. Ive proudly delivered more than $1.25 billion in new investment for New Mexicos military installations, secured multiple forward-looking missions at our bases and our national defense labs, and created thousands of new jobs in national security and innovation. With our abundant wind and sun, and premier energy research and development, New Mexico can and should lead the nation as we transition to cleaner energy production. I successfully negotiated a bipartisan agreement in the Senate that extended renewable energy tax incentives that are driving billions in investment and creating thousands of jobs in New Mexicos clean energy industry especially in rural communities. Last year, New Mexico led the entire nation in building new wind projects. If we take the steps to prepare our energy infrastructure for the future, we can keep creating good-paying jobs and bring new revenue to our state. I understand how important our public lands are to our way of life in the Land of Enchantment. Public lands connect people of all means with our traditions and the great outdoors when we protect these places, we attract visitors from around the world and expand opportunities for locals to enjoy outdoor traditions like hunting, camping and fishing that are among the pillars of Western culture and a thriving outdoor recreation economy. In recent years, I have created numerous new protections and expanded access to our public lands that are fueling New Mexicos $9.9 billion outdoor recreation industry and the 99,000 jobs it supports. And we cant leave our rural communities behind. We need to improve access to broadband in rural and tribal communities, support rural health clinics and invest in infrastructure. I also refuse to back down from standing up for the things that make America the greatest nation on Earth. I stood with New Mexicans who oppose a border wall that our border communities do not want and inhumane immigration policies that turn away refugees and separate immigrant parents from their children. I helped stop Republican attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, and take away health care coverage from hundreds of thousands of New Mexicans. And I have called for building an economy that works for all of us by rebuilding our infrastructure and investing in our communities instead of giving away billions in tax breaks to major corporations and the wealthiest Americans. As I humbly seek your support for another term in the Senate, I know theres much more to do. If you put your trust in me again, I am energized and ready to keep working to move our state forward. I wont stop until every New Mexican, in every corner of our state, is thriving. The important thing to understand about the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history is that the alleged killer did not merely hate us Jews for who we are. He hated us, judging by his social media postings, for what we believe for the highest ideals of what the Jewish religion embodies. Begin with the name of the synagogue in Pittsburgh he attacked, Tree of Life. This name is a metaphor for the Torah, Judaisms foundational document. Every Shabbat, as the Torah scroll is returned to the ark, the congregation sings these words, in Hebrew: It is a tree of life to all who hold fast to it . Its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace. Help us turn to you, Lord, and we shall return. How awful that a synagogue whose name evokes this yearning for Gods protection instead found itself the scene of such carnage and such evil. Among the murdered: A 97-year-old woman. A husband and wife in their 80s. Two brothers, 59 and 54. And why? Because their religion teaches tolerance and, more than tolerance, the obligation to welcome and care for those most in need. At least 36 times, the Torah exhorts us to embrace the outsider, the immigrant. I chanted this passage from Leviticus at my daughters bat mitzvah: The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. That tolerance, it appears, incited Robert Bowers, the accused murderer. On Gab, the extremist haven social network, he attacked HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. The group was founded in 1881 to help Jews, like my grandparents and great-grandparents, fleeing the pogroms of Russia and Eastern Europe. But its mission has broadened to fulfilling the biblical injunction to care for the stranger. As HIAS president Mark Hetfield likes to say, HIAS was founded to welcome refugees because they were Jewish. Today, HIAS welcomes refugees because we are Jewish. Hence Bowerss rage. HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people, he wrote a few hours before the rampage. I cant sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, Im going in. A few weeks earlier, he posted a link about the groups National Refugee Shabbat, writing, Why hello there hias! You like to bring in hostile invaders to dwell among us? Another post he shared: Open you Eyes! Its the filthy EVIL jews Bringing the Filthy EVIL Muslims into the Country!! Anti-Semitism is a disease without a cure and, seemingly, without end. It persists from generation to generation and society to society. People like Bowers have always been part of an ugly American fringe. Social media simply provides a powerful new mechanism for transmitting such long-standing venom and amplifying pre-existing hatreds in an age of increasing tribalism. Which brings us to our president. It looks definitely like its an anti-Semitic crime. That is something you wouldnt believe could still be going on, President Trump said Saturday in Indiana. You wouldnt? Only if you were willfully blind to what has been going on, from Nazi protesters in Charlottesville chanting Jews will not replace us to ugly memes of Jewish reporters with Stars of David being thrust into ovens. Just the day before Saturdays massacre, Trump, at a White House event, attacked globalists code-word alert and chuckled as audience members called out George Soros! code-word alert and shouted Lock him up about the Hungarian-born Jewish financier. If Trump is not deliberately flirting with anti-Semitism and anti-Semites, he is regrettably oblivious to their presence. But his administrations animus toward refugees, exemplified by Trumps own incendiary rhetoric, seems most directly linked to Bowerss alarm about hostile invaders who kill our people. If there is not cause and effect between Trumps language and Bowerss alleged actions, there is moral culpability for creating this overheated climate of fear. From the supposed Mexican rapists of his campaign launch to his unsupported claims that the migrant caravan includes very tough criminal elements and unknown Middle Easterners, Trump has stoked the fears of the Bowerses among us. To this, the only response can be to insist that what the Torah teaches about loving the stranger is true and right. And that this is not just Jewish wisdom it is, Trump notwithstanding, an American value. Eleven Americans died for it Saturday. Do not forget them. Email ruthmarcus@washpost.com; (c) 2018, Washington Post Writers Group. Using transparency and the University of New Mexico in a sentence conjures up a list of things like oil and water, salt and pepper, up and down. They dont have much in common. Slammed recently by the state attorney general for a disturbing pattern of concealment and deliberate misrepresentation, the states flagship university has for years had a deep institutional resistance to the notion the public has a right to know about such things as who applies for jobs that pay nice six-figure salaries funded from the public treasury. UNM argues releasing information such as job applicants hinders its ability to hire the best and brightest who might not want their current boss to know theyre looking for a new gig. But that collides with accountable governance and the states Inspection of Public Records Act, which wisely says citizens are entitled to the most information possible about the workings of their government including UNM. UNMs history includes two bruising lawsuits in which transparency advocates, including the Journal and the Foundation for Open Government, prevailed, after which the state Supreme Court and the Legislature made it clear that unless lawmakers grant a specific exception, government records are accessible to the public. The university even recognized this by adopting a regents policy a couple of presidents ago that says, The identity, the job application, and the resume or curriculum vitae of a candidate (for university employment) are public records and are subject to public inspection in accordance with IPRA. Fast forward to this years search for a new chief legal counsel. UNM said in August it had 36 applicants for the top attorney position, which pays $265,000. At that point UNM had only released the names of its three finalists. In October it released the names of 10 applicants, including those original three, in response to a Journal IPRA request. As for the rest? UNM officials said those names were the property of a search firm the university hired and only 10 could fairly be considered applicants after affirmatively responding upon request that they wished to move forward in the search. These were the applicants who were interviewed on campus by the search committee. This is nonsense and doublespeak. First, search firms have a vested interest in secrecy. They can keep a stable of candidates and trot them out for jobs. Further, documents held by a private company on behalf of a government body are public record regardless of how you define applicant or candidate. You cant skirt the law by outsourcing, and you dont get points for talking the transparency talk while failing to walk the walk. It leaves the impression of concealment and deliberate misrepresentation rather than an acknowledgement UNM is a public university. And what makes this issue so important right now is the university is in the midst of filling two of its top positions provost and executive vice president for administration/chief financial officer/chief operating officer. It is using search firms for both. State law says the public should have access to the names of all who apply, and its important candidates know this up front. There are a lot of smart people at UNM, and they want to attract the best candidates. But that shouldnt be at the expense of transparency, and they shouldnt be using their talents to circumvent the publics right to know. If UNM wants to go back to the old days when top officials could hire cronies in secret processes at taxpayer expense and then unveil their choices to an uninformed and unsuspecting public, it will need to convince the Legislature, governor and courts thats the way things should be done. Until then, it should comply with the law. 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. President Donald Trump, a self-styled nationalist who has warned of an invasion of refugees from Central America, is making the fundamental question of American identity the centerpiece of his closing argument in the midterm elections. Trumps hard-line rhetoric on immigration has been a hallmark of his political brand for years, and Republican candidates have largely followed his lead throughout the 2018 campaign. But Tuesday, with emotions still raw over the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre and a string of mail bombs sent to Trump critics, the president took his efforts to a new level vowing to issue an executive order to curtail birthright citizenship. Trumps sharpened tone creates potential complications for some Republican candidates, particularly those in centrist suburban House districts where many GOP voters have grown uneasy about the president, as Trump embarks on a final week of nearly nonstop rallies where immigration is likely to be a frequent topic. There were signs Tuesday that some Trump allies were nervous about sparking a deeper cultural debate in the campaigns final stretch, particularly with some critics alleging that hostile political rhetoric has played a role in encouraging violence. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., typically loath to criticize Trump, swiftly expressed skepticism about the presidents view that he could limit the constitutionally guaranteed citizenship rights of anyone born on U.S. soil. Later, Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, the head of the House Republicans campaign arm, condemned Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, one of the most outspoken immigration critics in Congress, for supporting nationalist politicians, tweeting, We must stand up against white supremacy and hate. Kanye West, a prominent African-American musician who embraced Trump in a much-hyped Oval Office meeting this month, tweeted Tuesday: My eyes are now wide open and now realize Ive been used to spread messages I dont believe in. I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative!!! Yet many Republicans voiced support for Trumps broader goal of limiting illegal immigration, and the presidents decision to put the issue at the forefront reflected the extent to which he has changed the rules of engagement. While Republicans have long criticized Democrats for emphasizing identity politics in their courtship of ethnic minorities to win elections, Trump is now taking steps seemingly designed to mobilize his heavily white base. And with the past weeks violence coming after three years of warnings from critics that Trump was stoking racism, his unwillingness to tone down his nationalist appeals is reviving concerns about his closing strategy. Its very risky, said Alex Conant, a longtime Republican consultant. Obviously Republicans who show up at his rallies, they love it. But hes not going to suburbia, because a lot of those policies dont play well with suburban Republicans. Its frankly why our House majority is at risk. Trump is single-mindedly focused on turning out his base, Conant added. If youre in a deep-red state, thats great. If youre in a purple state or a swing district, its a problem. The approach that Trump and his allies are taking sets up a campaign in which the two parties are not so much debating as talking past one another. Trump continues to hammer away on immigration with little response from Democratic leaders, while Democrats remain almost solely focused on health care. Trump has tried out other issues, including floating a new tax cut last week, but he rarely strays too far from immigration, the fiery topic that has animated him, and his loyal base, from the time he announced his presidential campaign in 2015. A week ago he openly embraced the racially loaded word nationalist to describe his political philosophy. Even as a shocked nation turned toward a pipe-bomber from Florida and a gunman in Pittsburgh, the president amped up his rhetoric and the bluntness of his proposals to try to regain the spotlight. First, he sounded alarms about the migrant caravan marching through Mexico, claiming that it was an invasion even though it remained nearly 1,000 miles away. Then, he ordered 5,200 U.S. troops to the southern border. On Tuesday a day when he visited grief-stricken Pittsburgh he unveiled a constitutionally dubious proposal to end the right of U.S. citizenship for children born in the United States to noncitizens. He also talked about building tent cities for migrants. You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order, Ryan said during a radio interview with Kentucky-based station WVLK. We didnt like it when Obama tried changing immigration laws via executive action, and obviously as conservatives we believe in the Constitution. Rep. Ryan Costello, R-Pa., said Trump was engaging in political malpractice and putting suburban Republicans in competitive districts at risk. So now POTUS, out of nowhere, brings birthright citizenship up, he wrote on Twitter. Besides being basic tenet of America, its political malpractice. Bob Hugin, a Republican and Marine Corps veteran running against Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., in a race that Democrats have been concerned about, also denounced Trumps proposal. The President is wrong to end #BirthrightCitizenship, he wrote on Twitter. I took an oath to defend the Constitution including the 14th Amendment. Were a nation of immigrants made better by the diversity of its people, especially in NJ. We need compassionate comprehensive immigration reform now. Those comments came shortly before Stivers condemned King, saying that his recent comments, actions, and retweets are completely inappropriate. We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn this behavior, Stivers wrote in a tweet. King, who is running for a ninth term, has a long record of incendiary remarks, saying in 2013 that some Hispanics have calves the size of cantaloupes because theyre hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. He has kept a Confederate flag on his desk and has unapologetically embraced white-nationalist rhetoric with little consequence. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report changed its rating for Kings district Tuesday from likely Republican to lean Republican, noting that Kings Democratic opponent has outraised him, in large part thanks to disgusted national donors who view King as a racist. But other Republicans were fully embracing Trump and his political brand of attacking his opponents and using racial undertones. The National Republican Congressional Committee even while distancing itself from King has been running an ad in a Minnesota congressional district showing George Soros, the Jewish philanthropist and Democratic donor who was the target of one of the pipe bombs sent by mail last week, behind stacks of cash. In Connecticut, a Republican state Senate candidate mailed campaign literature that depicts his Democratic opponent, Matthew Lesser, holding a fistful of cash near his mouth. Lesser is Jewish, and the ad has triggered complaints of anti-Semitism. Democrats have largely avoided engaging with Trump, issuing brief statements about his immigration proposals but then quickly turning toward health care. President Trumps new claim he can unilaterally end the Constitutions guarantee of citizenship shows Republicans spiraling desperation to distract from their assault on Medicare, Medicaid and people with pre-existing conditions, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement Tuesday. Clearly, Republicans will do absolutely anything to divert attention away from their votes to take away Americans health care. Democrats say the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans have voted repeatedly to repeal, is an issue that resonates with voters. They argue that Republicans are particularly vulnerable because the law includes a popular provision to protect those with preexisting conditions. I did vote to repeal and replace Obamacare on that House bill Im getting my ass kicked for it right now because its being misconstrued by the Democrats, Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., told Sean Hannity on his radio show last week. Theyre trying to, you know, invoke fear in people who have family members or loved ones with preexisting conditions. In a seven-week period since Labor Day, health care was mentioned in 45 percent of all federal campaign ads, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the Wesleyan Media Project. That was more than double the second-most-talked-about issue, taxes, followed by the budget and Medicare. In an indication that candidates dont want to talk about immigration as much as Trump does, the topic was mentioned in only 9 percent of ads in congressional races less often than campaign finance and corruption. But in an election in which both parties are trying to motivate their core supporters, immigration is still an issue that drives Republican energy. Xenophobia and anti-immigration has been used in elections before, said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian. Its just surprising Trump is doing it in such a Day-Glo fashion. Usually its subterranean, its more dog whistle and nods and winks. If Trumps strategy wins, it could illustrate once again that he can tap into a strain in the electorate that is more potent than many realize. Since the Civil War weve never had a president who tries to destroy the melting-pot story, Brinkley said. Usually it becomes a point of national pride: We can all blend in here; the Statue of Liberty; everyone is welcome. Trump wants to make a distinction: Theres real Americans and fake Americans. Democrat Debra Haaland is maintaining her fundraising edge over her Republican and Libertarian opponents for an open U.S. House seat in central New Mexico. According to new Federal Election Commission filings, the Laguna Pueblo member and former state Democratic Party chairwoman raised $159,954 during the first two weeks of October. Republican former state lawmaker Janice Arnold-Jones pulled in $21,510 and Libertarian Lloyd Princeton raised $444, reports show. Haalands campaign reported having $143,028 cash on hand on Oct. 17. Arnold-Jones reported $30,104 cash on hand, while Princeton had $625. The filings come as Haaland is seeking to become the first Native American woman elected to Congress, along with Kansas Democrat Sharice Davids. All three candidates are vying to succeed Democratic Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is running for New Mexico governor, in a district that has leaned Democratic in recent elections. Democrats consider the 1st Congressional District seat safe and it has been held by a Democrat since 2009. Throughout the campaign, Haaland has repeatedly told voters that Congress has never had a voice like mine and vowed to make New Mexico a state that relies on oil and gas revenues to fund education 100 percent reliant on renewable sources of energy in the new future. Arnold-Jones has suggested in interviews that there may have been other Native American women in Congress and said that Haaland didnt grow up on an American Indian reservation. However, Arnold-Jones does not appear to be getting the same support from Republicans as U.S. House candidate Yvette Herrell has in a closely watched race in southern New Mexico. Copyright 2018 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE With Election Day less than a week away, New Mexico gubernatorial candidates Michelle Lujan Grisham and Steve Pearce both say they would push for more openness in state government, including posting the governors schedules online and updating the states Sunshine Portal. The two candidates have also expressed support for legislation requiring more disclosure of funded public works projects. Under the states current system, which has been criticized for its secretive nature, lawmakers are not required to disclose their final allocations. However, as recent New Mexico governors have found out, its often easier to promote transparency than consistently provide it. Both of the states last two governors Republican Susana Martinez and Democrat Bill Richardson faced lawsuits over their handling of public records requests. Pearce campaign adviser Kevin Sheridan said the Republican is committed to increasing public trust in state government after a series of ethics scandals involving public officials. He is committed to transparency in government and will hold every agency accountable for the people of New Mexico, Sheridan said. He will welcome collaboration, new ideas and input from every corner of the state and give voice to every citizen that interacts with state government. Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has also advocated for a more transparent state government. At a March forum hosted by the Foundation for Open Government, she said documents created by government agencies should generally be available free or at low cost to the public. If you are denying access because people have an inability to pay for copies or administrative time, then youre not meeting the spirit of sunshine laws or transparent government, Lujan Grisham said. While touting transparency, both candidates suggested certain limits should be allowed when it comes to publicly releasing police incident reports and videos of arrests and crime scenes. In response to a Journal questionnaire, Pearce said there should be a standard process involving judicial oversight to determine whether the records and footage should be released. We need be careful that the rush to release information does not compromise individual rights and ongoing investigations, he said. Lujan Grisham, in response to the same question, said simple incident reports and videos should be made public with a few possible exceptions. I support police body cameras, but there may be exceptions to public release to provide for the safety and privacy of victims and because of fear of retaliation in some gang-related crimes, she said. Sunshine Portal On the subject of the states Sunshine Portal, an online database that was launched in 2010, both Lujan Grisham and Pearce say they support updating it to ensure its accessible and contains accurate information. State law requires the posting of many financial documents, contracts and other data on the Sunshine Portal, but critics say much of the required information has not been posted for years or is woefully outdated. The two gubernatorial campaigns also told the Journal they favor maintaining and possibly expanding state government webcasting. Martinez launched a webcasting initiative in 2011 that provided public access to legislative hearings angering some lawmakers in the process before lawmakers enacted their own webcasting and archiving functions. The Governors Office also webcasts the meetings of various state boards and commissions. Lujan Grisham campaign spokesman James Hallinan said the Democratic candidate backs the practice, but he did not directly respond to a question about whether Lujan Grisham would continue the webcasting of board and commission meetings. Transparency in government is paramount, and as such, Michelle will work with the Legislature to find the best plan to make legislative committees more accessible to all members of the public, Hallinan said. Pearces campaign adviser said webcasting allows voters to keep track of legislative actions while increasing accountability and transparency. Transparency problems Both of two New Mexicos most recent governors encountered turbulence caused by transparency-related issues. Martinez, who is barred from seeking a third consecutive term and will step down at years end, was sued by The Associated Press in 2013 for refusing to release records about her work and travel schedules, cellphone calls and expenses of the security officers who travel with the governor. That lawsuit was settled in 2015 after the Martinez administration agreed to release some of the requested information. She also faced a 2013 lawsuit by the Santa Fe Reporter, a weekly newspaper, claiming that her office discriminated against it and delayed public records requests. A district judge in Santa Fe ruled last year that the Martinez administration did not violate constitutional rights by not providing information to the newspaper, but she did rule that the Governors Office violated the Inspection of Public Records Act. Meanwhile, Richardson faced a lawsuit for failing to disclose the identities of 59 appointed state employees whose firings were announced in 2009. That lawsuit was ultimately settled after Martinez took office in 2011. Richardsons administration also faced scrutiny for at times declining to update reporters and his lieutenant governor about his whereabouts. Pearce and Lujan Grisham are competing to be New Mexicos 28th governor since statehood, and their showdown represents the first time in modern state history that two sitting members of Congress have run against each other for governor. Early voting is underway statewide and runs through Saturday. Election Day is Nov. 6. PITTSBURGH The suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday, and members of a grief-stricken Jewish community endured another round of funerals for victims of the worst anti-Semitic attack in American history. Robert Bowers, a 46-year-old truck driver who authorities say raged against Jews as he gunned down 11 and wounded six, was charged in a 44-count indictment with murder, hate crimes and other offenses that could bring the death penalty. The indictment, which was expected, was announced on the second day of a weeklong series of funerals for congregants who perished in the mass shooting at Tree of Life synagogue. Today begins the process of seeking justice for the victims of these hateful acts, and healing for the victims families, the Jewish community, and our city, U.S. Attorney Scott Brady said in a statement. Our office will spare no resource, and will work with professionalism, integrity and diligence, in a way that honors the memories of the victims. One after another, services were held for three more victims of the rampage: Joyce Fienberg, 75; Melvin Wax, 87, and Irving Younger, 69. It cant be fixed, Robert Libman said at his sisters funeral, clutching his chest as he described the pain of losing her. My sister is dead. My sister was murdered. There was no one I know like her. Pure goodness. She was the most tolerant and gentle person that Ive ever known. Fienbergs sons, Anthony, of Paris, and Howard, of Vienna, Virginia, said she spent five years caring for their father as he battled cancer, then, after his death a few years ago, devoted more of her time and energy to Tree of Life. She was a retired researcher at the University of Pittsburgh. My mom would be very angry that her funeral wasnt able to be at Tree of Life, and that her friends lost Saturday couldnt be here, Howard Fienberg said. Younger had a small realty office in Squirrel Hill, the heart of Pittsburghs Jewish community, and coached baseball for more than 20 years. He loved to talk, and would gladly share his life story or stop strangers on the street to show them pictures of his grandson in California. One friend called him a kibbitzing, people-loving man. Widowed a decade ago, Younger had a son and daughter in California, who waited all day Saturday to learn if he had survived. That waiting stage was just unbearable, said his son, Jared, of Los Angeles. Saturday was the most lonely day of my life. Jared Younger said that when his sister contacted him, he had a feeling it was about his father. Irving Younger hadnt been in great health, undergoing bypass surgery last year. Jared Younger said his dad drank Diet Coke for 40 years, quipping he was anti-water. The days other funeral was held for Wax, a retired accountant who was regarded as a core member of the congregation at New Light, which rented space in the lower level of Tree of Life. A drained-looking Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, a survivor of the weekend shooting, hurried from service to service. I cant imagine the stress hes under, said his predecessor, Rabbi Charles Chuck Diamond. As Youngers service was wrapping up, Myers momentarily forgot to read a letter to his family that another rabbi had sent. After preparing for five funerals, you get a little verklempt, Myers said. Bowers remained jailed without bail ahead of an arraignment scheduled for Thursday. ISTANBUL Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and his body was dismembered before it was removed, a top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday. Chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidans office also said in a statement that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb over the killing yielded no concrete result despite Turkeys good-intentioned efforts to reveal the truth. The statement was the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Khashoggi was strangled and mutilated after he entered the Saudi Consulate on Oct. 2. It also pointed to a lack of cooperation from Saudi officials in the investigation of the slaying. In accordance with plans made in advance, the victim, Jamal Khashoggi, was strangled and killed immediately after entering the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia, the prosecutors office said. The victim Jamal Khashoggis body was dismembered and destroyed following his death by suffocation, again in line with the advance plans, the two-page statement read. Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 suspects in the journalists slaying who were detained in Saudi Arabia. It also is pressing Saudi Arabia for information about who ordered Khashoggis killing and the location of his remains. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Riyadh to disclose the identity of an alleged local collaborator said to have been involved in getting rid of Khashoggis body. Saudi chief prosecutor al-Mojeb met with Fidan twice and also visited the Turkish intelligence agencys Istanbul headquarters this week before leaving for Riyadh on a private jet Wednesday. Saudi Arabia has not commented directly on the prosecutors visit and al-Mojeb did not respond to journalists questions at the airport as he departed. Fidans office said the Saudi delegation submitted a written statement and invited the Turkish delegation to come to Saudi Arabia bringing evidence obtained during the course of the investigation. The Saudi representatives said the whereabouts of Khashoggis remains and whether the killing was premeditated or not would only come to light through a joint interrogation by Turkish and Saudi investigators, according to the statement. The statement said Turkey renewed its request for the 18 suspects to be extradited. It did not say if Turkish officials would travel to Saudi Arabia. On Wednesday, a lawmaker and spokesman for Turkeys ruling party again called on Saudi Arabia to reveal where Khashoggis body is, who gave the orders for the killing and who the alleged Turkish collaborator is. Instead of trying to find out what (evidence) Turkey has, Saudi authorities should give the answers to these questions, Omer Celik told reporters. This is not an incident that could have taken place without a high-level order. Celik added: We are not blaming anyone in advance but we will not allow anything to be covered up. Khashoggi, a 59-year-old columnist for The Washington Post, vanished after entering the consulate in Istanbul to pick up paperwork he needed for his upcoming marriage. His Turkish fiancee was waiting for him outside. A critic of the Saudi crown prince, Khashoggi had been living in exile in the United States. Turkey alleges a hit squad from Saudi Arabia including a member of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans entourage during a trip to the United States went to Istanbul to kill the journalist and then tried to cover it up. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia changed its narrative about Khashoggis killing several times, eventually admitting Khashoggi died inside the consulate. Saudi Arabia only recently acknowledged Turkish evidence showed the slaying was premeditated. Hurriyet newspaper columnist Abdulkadir Selvi, who is known to be close to the Turkish government, said the Saudi prosecutor revealed nothing new to Turkish investigators during his three-day visit and left with several questions unanswered. Rather than share the information he has, the Saudi prosecutor tried to learn what information and evidence Turkey has in its hands, Selvi wrote Wednesday. He added: The chief prosecutor is not trying to shed light on the murder, he is trying to save the crown prince. __ Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Neyran Elden in Istanbul contributed. WASHINGTON The Supreme Court struggled Wednesday over what to do about an $8.5 million class-action settlement involving Google and privacy concerns in which all the money went to lawyers and nonprofit groups but nothing was paid to 129 million people who used Google to perform internet searches. The justices considered objections to the settlement in a case involving Google searches people do about themselves. The lawsuit argues that Google sends website operators potentially identifying information when someone clicks on a link produced by a search. The suit says the practice violates users privacy under federal law. The issue at the court concerns the rare instances in which courts approve a cy pres settlement, roughly translated as near as possible, and find its impractical to send money to the very large class of affected people. Google agreed to settle the class action for users of its search function between 2006 and 2014. Of the $8.5 million, $2.1 million eventually went to lawyers, $1 million paid administrative costs and $5.3 million was set aside for six organizations that deal with internet privacy issues. Four of the groups are affiliated with universities, while the other two are the World Privacy Forum and AARP. The three individuals who initially sued received $5,000 each, but the millions of Google users they represented received nothing. If all 129 million people had been paid, they would have gotten 4 cents each. Settlements in which class members get no money at all are rare, class action expert and Harvard law professor William Rubenstein wrote in a court filing. Rubsenstein counted 18 such settlements stretching back to 1995. Theodore Frank, representing himself and other objecting Google users, said that if the court were to uphold the settlement, it would create perverse incentives for class counsel to divert money away from their clients and to third parties. The justices seemed to approach the case from several different angles, making it hard to see how it would be resolved. Chief Justice John Roberts, among the justices who appeared most critical of the settlement, tended to sarcasm in asking whether AARP was an appropriate recipient of some of the money. As if this is only a problem for elderly people? Roberts asked. The chief justice also raised questions about Googles involvement in the process of picking the recipients of the money, including a group it had previously contributed to. Well, dont you think its just a little bit fishy? Roberts asked lawyer Jeffrey Lamken, who supported the settlement on behalf of the individual plaintiffs and the class. Less than a month removed from his tumultuous confirmation with its allegations of sexual misconduct, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he understood why people would object to the information about their searches being provided to websites. I dont think anyone would want the disclosure of everything they searched for disclosed to other people. That seems a harm, Kavanaugh said. The justices understanding of the technology at issue in their cases can be imperfect. On Wednesday, Andrew Pincus, the lawyer representing Google, had to explain several times that the initial lawsuit was over referrer headers, information that is sent to a website when someone clicks on a link suggested by a Google search. Justice Samuel Alito complained that following a search for mens shoes, he is bombarded by ads for shoes. Different issue, Pincus said. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wasnt persuaded. And given that I went into a store not long ago, and without giving them anything except my credit card, they came back with my website, I it seems, Sotomayor said, not explaining what she meant by her website. Pincus replied: Well, there are lots of ways that information is disclosed that dont have to do with the referrer header. Again, were talking about the referrer header here. The deal to bring Netflixs first U.S. production hub to Albuquerque is sealed at least on the citys end. Mayor Tim Keller today signed the bill, unanimously approved by councilors earlier this month, that includes a $4.5 million city economic incentive package for the California-based streaming-video giant to assist in its purchase of Albuquerque Studios. All that our Legislature, governors, mayors and councilors have done over the years set the stage for this, Keller said during the bill signing ceremony at City Hall. Now, we elevate that stage to the next level. The bill also includes language related to the citys role as fiscal agent for the states $10 million contribution in Local Economic Development Act funds. As part of the agreement, Netflix commits to direct spending on its own productions in New Mexico of at least $600 million in the first five years operating the studio, as well as $400 million in direct and indirect spending, which includes leasing the facility to other production companies, in the following five years. The deal is expected to bring the equivalent of about 1,000 film and television production jobs per year. Netflix is in negotiations to purchase the 28-acre Albuquerque Studios site with plans to make it its principal production hub in the United States. The company uses three production facilities in North America other than Albuquerque Atlanta, Los Angeles and Vancouver, Canada all of which are leased facilities. Netflix intends to invest more than $30 million for acquisition, renovation and improvement at Albuquerque Studios, which it is to maintain and operate for at least 10 years. The final hurdle is closure on the sale of the studio and its nine sound stages, production offices and back lot. Alicia Keyes, head of the citys film office, told the Journal closure on the sale is not complete but is imminent. Netflix officials have not released details about the sale price of the studio. Clawbacks include monetary penalties if Netflixs spending by Dec. 31, 2023, is less than 90 percent of the $600 million performance target or spending is not at least an additional $400 million by Dec. 31, 2028. They also include monetary penalties if Netflix ceases operations at the studio before Dec. 31, 2028. ABC/Randy HolmesMetallica pulled out a Kill 'Em All deep cut for their show in Philadelphia last week when they played 1983's "Phantom Lord" for the first time in five years. You can watch official footage of the rare performance now on YouTube. Prior to the Philly show, Metallica hadn't played "Phantom Lord" live since 2013. If you're looking for more vintage Metallica material, the metal legends are releasing a deluxe reissue of their 1988 opus ...And Justice for All this Friday, November 2. Metallica is currently touring the U.S. behind their latest album, 2016's Hardwired...to Self-Destruct. The outing continues this Saturday, November 3, with an acoustic hometown benefit show in San Francisco. Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. About 70 dignitaries including imperial family members and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday attended the wedding banquet of the former Princess Ayako, the youngest daughter of Emperor Akihito's late cousin, and her husband Kei Moriya in Tokyo following their marriage the previous day. Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako were also among the participants at the event held at a luxury hotel in Tokyo. At the outset, the prime minister delivered a congratulatory speech and the crown prince gave a toast. "Please make a joyous family full of smiles by taking care of each other," said the crown prince, who also spoke about his experience of meeting with Moriya's grandparents while he was studying in Britain. Chico Police Arrest Suspect in Homicide Investigation Chico police arrested Samuel Johnson for the suspected murder of a woman on Chico State's campus. Her body was found in front of Kendall Hall tuesday morning. The Butte County Coroner says she died of blunt force trauma. Investigators say the victim and Johnson knew each other and were both homeless. Junes Fire Update Cal Fire has contained a 550-acre fire in Palermo Tuesday. Winds spread flames across several properties but Cal Fire says one homeowner's defensiable space helped firefighter stop is from spreading further. Arson Suspect Appears in Court Tuesday The suspect in more than 40 suspicious fires in Cottonwood and Anderson appeared in court. 18-year old Samuel Scholofield faces 54 charges including first-degree murder and attempted murder. If convicted, he faces life in prison. He's expected back in court on Nov. 13. Utility Company Takes Responsibility for Thomas Fire The Southern California utility company Edison said its equipment likely sparked the deadly Thomas Fire in Ventura County last December. The company is facing dozens of lawsuits. Cal Fire is investigating the official cause. Fire Warning Issued Over Halloween Decorations Redding firefighters are putting out a warning after Halloween decorations caused a house fire Tuesday morning. They said not to overload power sockets or power strips and switch to LED lights. Plutos Restaurant Closing in Downtown Chico The Pluto's restaurant in downtown Chico is closing on Wednesday. The owner said if people come and they have enough food, they may open for lunch tomorrow. Bauli, the Italian bakery and confectionary brand, is set to complete a decade in India in 2019. The company entered India in 2009 in West Bengal through a joint venture with Dream Bake. It started with the production of ready-to-eat, cream filled puff rolls. After receiving overwhelming response from the East markets, Bauli expanded to the rest of the markets in India with the entire range of soft fine puff rolls, the flagship product called Bauli Moonfils. As per media reports, Bauli proposes to invest around 80 million in India and has already invested a reported 35 million in setting up a manufacturing facility in Baramati near Pune, Maharashtra. The company has now devised more growth plans for other markets across India. Adgully spoke to Stefano Zancan, Global CEO, Bauli; Veenesh Priyadarshi, Sales & Marketing Director, Bauli India; and Anil Nair, CEO & Managing Partner, L&K Saatchi & Saatchi, to know about Baulis growth in India, marketing strategy, advertising plans, the road ahead and more. Excerpts: Can you share some details about your global growth and your market share in the global arena? Stefano Zancan: Bauli is not a very big company it is half a billion euro in size. In terms of potential growth, we have to pick markets and regions of the world in which we want to develop. India is really the first region outside of Italy in which we want to establish ourselves. In all other regions, we are served more by trading companies, which includes shipping. Baramati near Pune is the first manufacturing unit that we have established outside of Italy. How has your journey in India been so far? Stefano Zancan: Coming to India was not easy at all, because India has a high level of complexity. You need to be very humble and make a serious effort to understand this market due to the complexity of managing relationship with the Government, because they are not one but many. India, for me, is not a country but rather the United States of India! Everything that you see around you demonstrates this. Now you have a national GST, but before that it was really very different. As for culture, India is an amazingly complex and rich historical development. In dealing one end with another in India would be like having a Russian in talks with a Portuguese! So, we need to put an effort into understanding that there are many languages and many cultures and probably it is impossible to have one pair fits all and so we need to develop enough amenities in tune with all the consumers across India. That is a major effort. The second point is that starting from scratch means not having a history in this country, which means the effort in letting people know that we exist is a very big one. That is why I am saying that getting into India is not simple, partly because entering a new market in which you are unknown is anyway a difficult exercise, whereas on the other side there are the ways of India that you have to respect. There is a saying that goes It could be hard to get in, but then you have the true competitive advantage against anyone who wants to come in after us, and thats why I believe this is the right time to be here. What is the extent of your presence in India since your launch here in 2009? Stefano Zancan: We launched first in West Bangal in 2009 in partnership with Dream Bake, but now we are purely on our own. There is still a deal in place for the benefit of everybody who was involved at that point in time and that partnership predominantly covers West Bengal, the Seven Sisters, Odisha, Bihar and others. As we progressed we realised that there wasnt enough capability, hence we decided to shift our base to Maharashtra on the manufacturing side and from there we built our sales force. Veenesh Priyadarshi: Between 2009 and 2016, we were servicing only the eastern part of the country. Our factory in Baramati came up last year and in the last 12 months or so we have started sales and distribution across the entire country. As of now, we cover the entire part of the country from Kerala to Jammu and Kashmir and from Gujarat to the East. We cover more or less all the channels there is general trade, e-commerce, and we have our footprint across all these channels across geographies. Are you also planning to set up individual stores? Veenesh Priyadarshi: Not really. Bauli as a group is into long shelf life bakery products, we are not into fresh bakery products even in Italy. Our aim is to give consumers a lot of products that have a long shelf life that can be distributed across the length and breadth of the country. Stefano Zancan: It is true that in Italy we do a have couple of retail points as well. But this is a different type of business and it is managed separately. It is a concept that we are considering, but it is not something that we want to roll out in an important way anywhere around the world, particularly in India. Who are your prime competitors? Veenesh Priyadarshi: The competition is from bakery brands like Britannia, Parle, and General Mills. As of now though, no one else in the market has the product that we have. Ours is a new company, a new brand, a new product category and a new team so pretty much everything is new. The last one year has been full of learning. The good thing is that at the end of that journey we have come out alive and kicking. As Baulis creative agency, how has L&K Saatchi & Saatchi helped build up the brand through its advertising and communication? Anil Nair: From day one we understood the equation of a new company, new brand, and new category, so rushing into communication and rushing into making wonderful campaigns was not in the plan. Ours is not a campaign-focused strategy, though we have done television commercials and all that, but the fact is that our focus has been to support Bauli for the long term, because they have been quite humble. But the fact is that they have gone around and developed quite a lot of concepts around the world and that is Baulis differential as opposed to the many names that he has taken, even if it is General Mills for that matter. Bauli offers new cuisine opportunities in India, giving it a twist they also have an unbelievable range of cakes around the world. As an agency our attempt is to actually partner them in being market partner and market expansion partner and therefore, work closely with the marketing team in planning each role out and preparing for newer concepts. I think thats the whole interesting thing about Bauli everything is new. It is not starting with any context, so you are not looking at the competition; we are fighting to create a new habit. We are fighting our way into tiffin boxes or snack boxes, where such a product was not there before. A whole lot of work needs to be done, and while you might see the tip of the iceberg outside, what goes on inside is a long term game and we understood that from day one when we were briefed. If you look at it, a lot of companies have come to India, but not one of them has put a penny on the ground as far as manufacturing is concerned. It is a whopping investment, coming from a company of their size in a market like India. Stefano Zancan: You see, that is the difference. As I said earlier, this is a family business and I am very glad to say that I have never worked for anybody else but family businesses all my life and the reason is because you can think long term. The purpose of the exercise is not making money. It is producing great food that the people can enjoy, because this is the spirit of the founder. This is about making certain type of bakeries that are not common around the world that we believe that a lot of people could really love. When you start with that principle, then you cannot really compete with those others that I prefer not to mention, because they have another way of thinking. Anil Nair: When you are in a market that is changing and you are actually leading it, the learning curve for you is sharper and interesting. The thing is that the market has not changed, it is changing. The continuous term here is the critical thing. The frequency of campaigns will now go up as a support to what is going on ground, across geographies and the depth and width of distribution. dentsu X has bagged the media duties of Dairy Day Icecream, following a multi-agency pitch. Dairy Day Ice Cream, established in 2002 by professionals with more than 25 years of industry experience and headquartered in Bangalore, is now one of the prominent brands with considerable marketshare in South India. Known for their innovative flavours, quality and pioneering practices, many of which are industry firsts, Dairy Day is one of the most exciting brand in Indian ice-cream sector. Commenting on assigning the business to dentsu X, Mr. M N Jaganath, Co-founder commented, I trust dentsu X in partnering us, in building and taking our business from strength to strength. We have always believed in innovating, re-defining norms in serving our consumers. We found dentsu X resonating this philosophy and attitude and have chosen them to walk the path with us. dentsu X, an integrated media specialist from Dentsu Aegis Network, believes in building experiences that go beyond simple media exposures. Commenting on the win, Divya Karani, Chief Executive Officer - dentsu X says, Winning the Dairy Day Ice-cream is recognition of our data driven, consumer centric approach. Together, we will design strategies for Dairy Day that will make the brand promise & experience a part of everyday consumer life and conversation. We are happy & look forward to working with the one of the most innovative brands in the sector! Kirana11, a Bengaluru-based online-to-offline grocery platform, has changed to Avenue11 to reposition itself in the e-grocery segment. As an O2O marketing platform, Kirana11 leveraged the offline presence of local stores in an area to serve customers better while reducing the delivery cost at the same time. As Avenue11, the startup aspires to deliver a better O2O experience to consumers by temporarily shifting away from tie-ups with local stores. Transition from Kirana11 to Avenue11 is a strategic rebranding move that represents our shift from a hyperlocal model to an inventory based model that will also allow us to offer premium products to consumers," says Nakkyun Chong, CEO of Avenue11. Avenue11 is an e-grocery platform which aims at redefining the grocery space in the Indian market. Founded by Korean expat and serial entrepreneur Nakkyun Chong, Avenue11 is owned by Planet11 E-commerce Solutions India Pvt. Ltd. Currently operational only in select parts of Bengaluru, Avenue 11 claims to have a monthly GMV of INR 2 Crores. As of today, the company is reported to have raised funds amounting to $9 million from various South-Asian investors. Kirana11 to Avenue11: As Kirana11, the company was helping kirana stores connect with the digital community. Over the last year of its operation, the company realized that not all local stores are ready to cater to online consumers today. They aren't willing to invest in technology and in improving customer service quality - keys to an excellent consumer-experience. The company has now decided to first build a strong base of online consumers before approaching select kirana stores. The strategy will help in increasing market share and strengthening Avenue11s brand recognition among consumers and businesses alike. Avenue11 provides doorstep delivery of a wide range of products from world-renowned brands. Kirana11s makeover to Avenue11 will make the grocery shopping experience more exciting and hassle-free for its customers. Avenue11 has a user-friendly interface, offers a variety of payment options and allows customers to choose convenient delivery slots. The e-grocery market in India: The online market for grocery and food items is becoming one of the fastest-growing segments in India. As per reports, only around 2 million people in India are currently using e-grocery platforms. The compound annual growth rate is expected to have a 141% growth by the year 2020 according to a report by Morgan Stanley. Market leaders, like Big Basket, and Grofers are tapping the growing potential of the segment with their entry into Tier II and Tier III cities. Future plans: Targeting Bengaluru first, Avenue11 plans to expand its online as well as the offline presence in the food and grocery segment. Avenue11s future strategy is to establish a unique O2O, Online-to-offline, model. The online orders will be serviced by offline partner stores which will help cut down the current logistic cost to almost half. To cater to the continuous customer demand, Avenue11 will associate only with local stores that meet key criteria such as floor space and number of stock keeping units sold. Avenue11 is continuously innovating to enhance their customers shopping experience. The Avenue11 app comes with exciting features and experimental discount methods. The company is ready to operate through an omnichannel system and is ready to launch around 100 offline stores of Avenue11 in the near future. Avenue11 also plans to bring the quality and infrastructure of Korean standards to the Indian grocery shoppers. 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. At the annual policy gathering of US and Arab leaders in Washington today, two participants got up to shake hands. How are you doing? one asked. About as well as you can be doing, was the reply. The exchange captured the mood at this years National Council on US-Arab Relations policymakers conference, a staple of Washingtons fall calendar since 1992. The usually bullish whos who of US and Arab policymakers, defense and energy business leaders and academics was overshadowed by the slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and its impact on US-Saudi relations. Despite the controversy, turnout on the first day of the two-day conference was about the same as in past years, James Zogby, a well-known pollster on Arab issues, told Al-Monitor. As the day went on and the ballroom filled up, with a rumored protest by womens rights group Code Pink failing to materialize, speaker after speaker made the case that Khashoggis death should not and would not have much of a lasting impact on US-Gulf ties. Subjecting the future of the relationship on this issue is not healthy at all, said Prince Turki al-Faisal, a one-time Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to the United States. Promising the Khashoggi probe would move forward, Prince Turki expressed confidence US-Saudi ties would endure. I believe it will survive this crisis, he said, describing the friendship as thicker than water making a sly reference to oil. Turki also compared the writers death to Israeli killings of Gazans before calling for a moment of silence for Saturdays shooting victims at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Other speakers were even more strident in defending Riyadh from leaked Turkish allegations that Saudi military officials dismembered Khashoggi inside the Istanbul consulate. The truth about Khashoggis murder is out, said Khalaf al-Habtoor, an Emirati businessman whose hotel projects were displayed in glossy brochures near the conference check-in. The criminals will be tried and will receive a fitting punishment. Shifting back and forth in his chair and fidgeting with the lapels of his suit during a testy series of questions from former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Habtoor insisted that US businesses and officials who dropped out of a recent Saudi investment conference engulfed by controversy over Khashoggis death could lose opportunities to other countries. It was a big mistake. They were the losers, 100%. 'Davos in the Desert' was well-attended, he said. Those who turn their back on Saudi give their opportunity to Russia, China, and Europe, and elsewhere. Meanwhile, US officials who spoke at the gathering remained eager to get Saudi Arabias help to advance the Donald Trump administrations goals in the region. Kent Logsdon, the principal deputy assistant secretary at the State Departments Bureau of Energy Resources, said he was very excited about the Middle East Strategic Alliance, a US-backed military grouping designed to counter Iran. But its not clear, after Khashoggis death, how quickly that cooperation will be coming. Al-Monitor reported in September that the White House has delayed the rollout for the group until next year. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the Israeli militarys killing of Gaza protesters a massacre. Ilhan Omar has referred to Israel as the apartheid Israeli regime. And Rashida Tlaib would be the first Democrat in Congress to explicitly reject a two-state solution in favor of a one-state solution. Their willingness to challenge bipartisan orthodoxy has put them on a collision course with Democratic leaders as the Donald Trump administration tilts US policy ever further in favor of Israel. These three young, women of color have been more to the left than any previous member of Congress [on Israel], said Joel Rubin, a former State Department liaison to Congress under the Barack Obama administration. They will feel that potentially its in their political self-interest to communicate that, which is a different dynamic. Tlaib, who is running unopposed for a House seat in a Michigan district, is set to become the first Palestinian American congresswoman after narrowly winning her primary race earlier this year. She and Omar, a Somali refugee from Minnesota, are likely to become the first two Muslim women in Congress. Meanwhile, New York Democrat Ocasio-Cortez has closely tied herself to progressive stalwart Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who has not shied away from criticizing Israel since his failed 2016 presidential campaign. You essentially have a dynamic in the Democratic Party of a significant number of progressive candidates and members challenging the status quo on a variety of issues, said Rubin, a former political director for the liberal Israel policy lobby J Street. And much of the Democratic base looks at Palestinian rights as a core issue. A Pew poll from January found that only 27% of Democrats sympathize more with Israel than Palestine. At the same time, a Gallup poll from March found that 64% of Democrats view Israel favorably. The positions of the three progressive newcomers stand in stark contrast to Democratic leaders in Congress favored by the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). These include Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Eliot Engel, D-N.Y. It remains an open question whether Democratic leaders would permit challengers of the status quo such as Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and Tlaib to join the foreign affairs panel or if they would even seek such a role. Nevertheless, they could use their influence in Congress as an ideological lightning rod for a Democratic base that has become increasingly pro-Palestinian in recent years. They can still have a rhetorical role, said Rubin. Theyll become a locus point for organizing on these issues. They will be the ones to introduce legislation. They will be the ones to write letters. They will be the ones to host meetings and do press conferences. And that will challenge not just the current Democratic leadership on Israel issues, but it will also challenge J Street leadership on the Democratic progressive side of Israel-Palestine. J Streets political action committee has endorsed 152 Democratic candidates for Congress this election cycle. But those endorsements exclude both the pro-Israel old guard like Schumer and Engel as well as the new firebrands like Ocasio-Cortez and Omar. But J Street did endorse Tlaib, only to rescind the endorsement after she won her primary. At issue were Tlaibs statements made during an interview with In These Times, in which she lambasted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus apartheid policies. She went on to say that she does not support aid to a Netanyahu Israel and called for a single state where Palestinians enjoy equal rights, arguing that separate but equal does not work. This isnt your parents' or your grandparents Democratic Party anymore. While J Street is also fiercely critical of the Netanyahu government, the interview contradicted its policy preferences. Support for a two-state solution is a foundational principle for J Street and that was for us a step too far, J Streets National Political Director Aaron Davis told Al-Monitor. Davis noted that while J Street no longer backs any of the three candidates, it continues to engage with their campaigns and remains willing to do so. Ocasio-Cortez has also balked at committing to a two-state solution, noting in July that she would not announce her position until she finished engaging with activists. Conversely, Omar unequivocally endorsed a two-state solution in August despite her 2012 remarks stating that Israel has hypnotized the world. Such rhetoric has alienated traditional pro-Israel Democrats. They dont represent the Democratic Partys views on this issue, Halie Soifer, the executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA), told Al-Monitor. Republicans continue to try to politicize Israel every election cycle. They try to use this as a wedge issue to pick off Jewish voters. But even one of JDCAs endorsed House candidates, New Yorks Antonio Delgado, took heat last week during a debate for stating that Israel is not a Jewish democracy on account of its West Bank settlements. I do think its kind of wild how much attention is given to one Democrat whos expressed some skepticism about the validity of a two-state solution from the left when we have a president and administration that has actively stopped talking about a two-state solution and is pushing us toward a one-state nightmare, said Logan Bayroff, J Streets communications director. Despite moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem and slashing economic and humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, Trump finally endorsed a two-state solution as his preferred solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict last month. Meanwhile, right-wing Reps. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, and Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., co-founded the Israel Victory Caucus, which urges the Palestinians to accept defeat at the hands of the Israelis in lieu of direct negotiations. Republicans have touted their pro-Israel credentials as a counterweight to progressives they deem insufficiently supportive of Israel in their long-running quest to peel off Jewish voters, who overwhelmingly identify as Democrats. Just this month, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, attacked his opponent Rep. Beto ORourke for accepting $160,000 in campaign funds from J Street, which he described as rabidly anti-Israel. And Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who is under federal indictment for embezzling campaign funds, has tried to smear his Palestinian-American opponent Ammar Campa-Najjar a Christian as an Islamist. But a poll this month from the Mellman Group found that more than 62% of American Jews "disapprove of Trumps "handling of relations with the Palestinians. The poll also found that 74% of Jews intend to vote Democrat in the upcoming midterm elections. These changes dont happen overnight, but I think it takes a little time for things to catch up, Neil Strauss, the digital director for the Republican Jewish Coalition, told Al-Monitor. Our point is this isnt your parents' or your grandparents Democratic Party anymore. CAIRO Egypts Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation organized Oct. 14-18 Cairo Water Week, marking the country's first international event to initiate a public debate about water scarcity risks and challenges in Egypt and the region. The event was an important milestone for the Egyptian government, which succeeded in raising its concerns about water issues, such as water scarcity and the dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Cairo Water Week included bilateral talks between Egyptian officials and international water organizations, research institutes and experts, including the European Union, United Nations, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, World Water Council, Stockholm International Water Institute and International Water Management Institute, and sessions that tackled several water issues, including the GERD case. Experts from the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation addressed the risks of climate change and called for financial and technical support for programs to counter those risks in Egypt. In addition, they warned against social risks and political repercussions of the ongoing disputes with the eastern Nile Basin countries over the GERD case. The government also talked about coordination projects with Nile Basin countries under Egyptian auspices, such as the navigational line to connect Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean. No specific programs were announced during the event, but some parties, including the UN and EU, pledged to continue working with the Egyptian government to counter the challenges the country faces, such as enhancing water management programs. In his speech during the closing session of Cairo Water Week, EU Ambassador to Egypt Ivan Surkos stressed the EUs support to Egypt, especially in water-related issues. Yosri Khafaga, spokesman for the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, told Al-Monitor, The Ministry of Irrigation considers Cairo Water Week a promotion of its rhetoric on developing water resources and on the requirements to implement sustainable development plans and provide support through partnerships with foreign organizations. We expect increasing partnerships with water and environment organizations. Khafaga added, The Ministry of Irrigation sent out several messages focusing on the importance of rational [water] management between the countries sharing basins of international rivers and warning against monopolized measures and decisions that might harm other countries interests. The ministry also highlighted Egypts experience in rationalized use of water and in integrated water resources management to face scarcity and resolve local disputes over water between farmers. During the conference opening, Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly said, Water is one of the most important issues of Egypts national security. Most development plans are linked to [ensure] abundance of water resources. The government has made a plan of action [during the event] based on three themes to achieve national security, including developing water resources from different sources, rationalizing water use and supporting cooperation with neighboring countries to optimize benefits. Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel Ati tackled several challenges that threaten the political, economic and social levels if local and international efforts and solutions are not implemented. He said during the opening session, Any change in Egypts water quota would have negative repercussions on millions of Egyptians who work in agriculture. Ati warned against possible environmental disasters due to climate change, saying, The Delta lands in Egypt are at great risk, basically because of the sea level rise. It caused seawater and groundwater which is the main source of freshwater for locals intrusion. The conference focused on the debate over the GERD and the technical disputes over the ripples of the dam storage and operation by Ethiopia, and on ways to find impartial and international solutions. The results of international studies were shown during one of the sessions, revealing the danger of unilateral decisions that Ethiopia might take to fill and operate the dam reservoir, as well as the negative impact on Egyptian water interests. One of the international studies was conducted by Karel Heynert, a water management expert in the Dutch government, and Deltares Consultancy. The latter withdrew its participation in the technical studies on the GERD impact. Heynert said in his study that Egypt was affected socially and economically and that agricultural production could drop by $42 billion during the storage stage. Discussing the results of the study in Cairo, he said, Both the Renaissance Dam and the Aswan Dam might constitute a huge problem for the Nile River in the absence of joint management [between the concerned countries]. Filling the Renaissance Dam for several years would have negative repercussions on the Aswan Dam during the drought period, especially if it was operated without coordination with the downstream countries. Since June 2013, tripartite negotiations on the GERD impacts on downstream countries, mainly Egypt and Sudan, kicked off on the political, security and technical levels. Back then, a report from the international panel of experts on the GERD called for conducting two studies to assess the hydraulic, environmental and economical impacts of the dam on Egypt and Sudan. But negotiations have faced many hurdles since 2013. Despite the leaders' attempts to facilitate the studies in order to agree on rules for the filling and operation processes of the dam, technical disputes continue. Yasir Mohamed, director of the Hydraulics Research Center in Sudan, told Al-Monitor, Organizing the session [on the GERD impact] during Cairo Water Week and displaying the results of scientific research are a major step. This is the first time we have a neutral [objective] platform where international studies and research on the sensitive GERD issue are displayed, as well the scenarios of filling it that remain a point of technical contention between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. In addition to the general discussions during Cairo Water Week, bilateral talks were held between Egyptian officials, including Madbouly and Ati, and representatives of international organizations. Loic Fauchon, president of the World Water Council, told Al-Monitor, I discussed the situation of the Nile Basin with the prime minister and the minister of water, and I delved into the ongoing dialogue regarding Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisis initiatives to solve the disputes with Ethiopia and Sudan. Fauchon said he could not reveal more information on these initiatives until the three countries agree on them. We have expertise to help in mediation between the Nile Basin countries to facilitate the dialogue. We will carry out this mission, if they ask for it, he said. He added, One conference cannot result in specific outcomes, but we are moving step by step. The discussions guarantee that water scarcity will be at the top of priorities, and that pressure will be put on politicians, decision-makers and political forces. Most African countries do not prioritize water although their water security suffers. Key Republicans are putting the brakes on a nuclear cooperation deal with Riyadh as blowback over the slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi continues. Five Republican senators have asked President Donald Trump to end talks with Saudi Arabia over a deal that would allow Riyadh to develop a civilian nuclear program using US technology. The quintet sent a letter to Trump today threatening to block any such deal with the Saudis, citing the Khashoggi affair, the Yemen war and last years bizarre alleged detention of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. The ongoing revelations about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as certain Saudi actions related to Yemen and Lebanon, have raised further serious concerns about the transparency, accountability and judgement of current decision-makers in Saudi Arabia, the senators wrote. In turn, these serious questions have solidified our reservations about pursuing a potential US civil nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia. If Trump goes ahead with a deal, the senators wrote, they will introduce legislation to block it. Why it matters: Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Cory Gardner, R-Colo., staunch supporters of the US military relationship with Saudi Arabia, joined Saudi critics Todd Young, R-Ind., Rand Paul, R-Ky. and Dean Heller, R-Nev., in the ultimatum, indicating Riyadhs rapid loss of support on Capitol Hill in the wake of Khashoggis grisly murder. Gold standard: The blanket refusal to approve any civil nuclear agreement with Riyadh no matter how robust is a marked escalation in congressional rhetoric. Congress had previously been willing to allow an agreement as long as it adhered to the so-called gold standard, which would prohibit Saudi Arabia from certain activities that could be used in a nuclear weapons program. In the letter, the senators note that the Saudis have for many years refused to accept an agreement that includes requirements against pursuing technologies to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium-laden spent nuclear fuel. Whats next: If Washington and Riyadh agree on a deal, Congress has the opportunity to veto it. Todays letter indicates that even the most robust gold standard agreement will face an uphill battle on Capitol Hill. Congress has also ordered the Trump administration to launch a federal probe into Khashoggis death, which could lead to sanctions against senior Saudi officials. And just this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for an end to hostilities in Yemen as Congress threatens to advance legislation ending US support for the Saudi-led war against the Houthis. Know more: As congressional correspondent Bryant Harris reported last month, not all Republicans are as wary of a Saudi nuclear deal read his scoop on how some of them blocked legislation on the matter here. But that was before Khashoggis death. Make sure to follow Al-Monitor to keep tabs on the damage the scandal has done to the Saudis reputation in Washington. -Bryant Harris Most of the political forces participating in the Iraqi parliament have stressed the need to leave the quota system behind. The deeply entrenched differences, however, surfaced during the parliament session that convened to give confidence to the new government, which predicts four years of tug-of-war and conflicts of interest. The council of Dhi Qar province, the fourth largest of Iraq, criticized in an official statement on Oct. 27 the government of new Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi and called it disappointing and a partisan government par excellence, adding, In light of the current situation, we expect the government to fail or slack in providing its services to citizens. The Iraqi parliament voted Oct. 24 on Abdul Mahdi as prime minister. Parliament also gave confidence to 14 ministers from Abdul Mahdis list of candidates. But the deep differences between the political parties impeded the voted on eight other ministers, leaving the prime minister with an incomplete Cabinet. Among those not voted on were the minister of interior and the minister of defense, two positions that have always been a bone of contention among the different political actors in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. In light of the vacuum in sensitive security ministries, the prime minister announced Oct. 26 that he would act as both the minister of the interior and the minister of defense until new ministers are appointed. Some ministers in the new Cabinets have been accused of belonging to the Baath Party. Minister of Education [Saba Khairoddin al-Taai ] served as the director of the office of Khamis al-Khanjar [the leader of the Arab project who is accused of having links to the Baath Party and Saddam Hussein's family], and her husband was the director of the security apparatus under Saddam who was involved in [the killing of a group of officers from the Jubur tribe] and the suppression of the '91 uprising, Iraqi politician Ghaleb al-Shabandar said Oct. 25. Minister of Youth [Ahmed Riyad al-Obaidi ] was imprisoned in Camp Bucca for [being accused of] killing based on sect, Shabandar added. The issue of the affiliation of some Iraqi politicians, especially Sunnis, with the Baath Party has been a major issue between the different political parties since 2003. Former Prime Minister and head of the Iraqi National List Ayad Allawi dropped a bombshell when he announced during a televised interview Oct. 21 that Muqtada al-Sadrs Sairoon Alliance and the Fatah bloc headed by Hadi al-Amiri took over the major ministries in their attempt to form a new government. This is despite Sadrs insistence that his alliance will not go back to the quota system in the formation of the government. Nassar al-Rabii, head of the Sadrist movement political committee, commented on the same day that the Sairoon Alliance has not nominated a single candidate for the government." The Sairoon Alliance will not participate in the government or the opposition until the abolishment of the sectarian and political quota system in the distribution of positions, he added. In the same vein, Sadr called upon other blocs to renounce the quota system in forming the government. He tweeted Oct. 15, Let us save Iraq and leave the quota behind us. Let us keep the corrupt away and renew the era of Iraq with new honest faces a jab at Iraqi Kurds. Two days before that, Sadr addressed Iraqs Sunni leaders in another tweet: I swear on our honorable resistance against the occupier, on our unified prayers. I swear on our efforts to expel all those who unrightfully attacked us. I swear on the moderate positions we took with you, especially in Anbar and Mosul and elsewhere, if you abandon the sectarian quotas. With these emotional messages, Sadr who leads the biggest parliamentary bloc seemed to be seeking the formation of a government away from quotas. On Oct. 4, he pledged not to nominate any candidate to the Cabinet, giving free reign to Abdul Mahdi to choose his Cabinet. Also, the Sairoon Alliance issued a statement Oct. 19 praising the Fatah and al-Hikma blocs for agreeing to give the prime minister the freedom to choose his ministers. It is clear, however, that the political blocs that have benefited from the quota system over the past 15 years insist on squeezing some privileges out of the new government. The prime minister is not only facing pressure to form the government, but also to form it with regard to Iraqs external relations. Iraqi parties close to Iran have begun to pressure Abdul Mahdi in terms of his position on the presence of US forces in the country even before the formation of the Cabinet. Aletejah TV, which is affiliated with the Hezbollah Brigades, published a report Oct. 6, criticizing what it called a lack of clarity in Abdul Mahdis position on the presence of US forces in Iraq. The report predicted that the prime minister is likely to take the US side. Abu Taleb al-Saidi, a prominent leader in the Hezbollah Brigades, threatened in June to overthrow then-outgoing Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, saying, To the head of the United Kingdom Diaspora in Iraq, Mr. Abadi, I say that this sacred blood will bring down your throne. It is known that the parties close to Iraq prevented Abadi from ascending to the prime minister post for a second term for many reasons, mainly his positive position on the ongoing US presence in Iraq. Faced with all this pressure, it does not appear that the prime minister has the upper hand in choosing his ministers or leeway to shape the countrys policies in the coming years. Severe dust storms have facilitated advances by the Islamic State (IS) in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border in recent days, putting the largest Iraqi city alongside it at risk. Otherworldly shades of red, orange and sandy yellow were an intermittent backdrop for days across most of western Anbar, with very low visibility rendering airstrikes and other coalition activities against the terrorist group still in control of Hejin across the border in Syrias Deir ez-Zor province difficult. IS has retaken the entire Syrian side of the Baghouz area and the town of Soussa in recent days, Al-Monitor was told by security sources working near the border on Oct. 29. US airstrikes in the past month in and near the town of Hejin have hit targets with reportedly large numbers of civilians in them, including mosques, possibly indicating a significant shift from long-standing counterinsurgency doctrines and tighter targeting rules. On the Iraqi side of the border, al-Qaim remains calm but wary as IS pushes uncomfortably close. Some IS rockets strayed into the Iraqi side of the Baghouz area from Syrian territory in early October, Al-Monitor was told by an officer when visiting the border fence there on Oct. 16. This correspondent was able to spot positions of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the other side at that time, but they have since pulled out, the officer added in a WhatsApp conversation on Oct. 29. He noted that several mortars had struck near the border area in recent days, but none had crossed into Iraq. Col. Moussa Hamad al-Karbouly, who leads the Sunni Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) force Aaly al-Furat Brigade, told Al-Monitor the same day that IS flags could clearly be seen on the other side of the border after SDF fighters abandoned their positions. Meanwhile, the situation in al-Qaim is apparently calm but still lacking in services. Dozens of downed electricity pylons still flank the road just after the turnoff to the city of Anah to al-Qaim along the main road through the desert. In a visit to al-Qaim on Oct. 16, Al-Monitor was told by Mayor Ahmed Jadeyan that a lack of electricity was still the most critical problem, although the lack of schools, employment and reconstruction were also reasons some inhabitants were not returning. ''Civilians are scared that IS will cross back from Syria,'' he also noted, estimating that about 60% of the population had returned to the city in the year since its liberation from IS. Women, many of whom still wear niqabs, could be seen in the mornings on the main roads, but few were present in the early afternoons. Regarding security, the city police chief claimed that "all the problems the police have dealt with recently in the city have been of a criminal and not a terrorist nature. Not far from the city, however, near the valuable Akkas gas field, two attacks in a single week led to the death of at least four officers in October. The area outside of the city is the responsibility of the army as well as local and non-local PMU. Though the default assumption is that the culprit was IS, a police officer and others Al-Monitor spoke with claimed non-local PMU or others interested in controlling smuggling routes into Syria may be behind the attacks. Underlying tension between local and non-local security forces continues to be seen. Police officer Maj. Bassam Mohamed Ibrahim al-Dulaimi said that though security in the area was relatively good, non-local PMU were a problem and would become more of one in the future. Non-local PMU Kataib Hezbollah [Hezbollah Brigades] and IS are two faces of the same coin, he said, while officers surrounding him advised him not to say this in front of the media. We're all afraid of them, he added, noting that at one point his car had been hit by Iranians driving a car with Iraqi license plates in the city linked to the non-local PMU. He said that civilians have often called the police about Persian-speaking men wearing Kandahari-style clothes who had been seen in the market, but that no one, not even the Iraqi government or the [United States], can do anything about it." Meanwhile, violent crime that might or might not be linked to terrorism is not widely reported. In August, a woman of around 60 years of age was shot point-blank in the forehead in Qaim, sources from the city told Al-Monitor. Asked about this case, officers said that some of her relatives had joined IS and are currently thought to be in IS-held Hejin across the border in Syria. An officer tasked with the investigation told Al-Monitor that they had been unaware of any previous threats against her, adding that at least 350 families in al-Qaim with relatives who had joined IS had left during the liberation of the city. A more recent incident involved the extrajudicial killing of a man allegedly by men driving a vehicle with PMU insignia. In an interview in Karbala a few days before the incident, Qassim Musleh the western Anbar commander for the PMU and leader of the non-local PMU Tufuf Brigade had told Al-Monitor that he had information that attacks were being planned to use PMU vehicles and uniforms to conduct killings so as to discredit the PMU and its armed groups integrated into the national security forces. The non-local PMU have in recent days urged for reinforcements to be called to the border area north of the Euphrates River. Until recently, border guards, the 8th Division of the army and local PMU Aaly al-Furat had full responsibility for that area. Al-Monitor was told by a member of the local security forces that a small contingent of non-local PMU had been sent to the area by Oct. 29. Although for the moment the combined Iraqi security forces in the area seem to be holding up well, any security breach due to a lack of cooperation or powerplays may lead to IS making headway into Iraq once again. It has been almost 10 years since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that if he was elected, he would order the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to invade Gaza, bring down the Hamas regime and destroy the terror nest that it has become. On Oct. 29, Netanyahu admitted for the first time that Israel has no interest in toppling the Hamas regime. The prime minister summoned political reporters and regaled them with a very detailed and convincing speech as to why Israel has no current interest in bringing down Hamas and would, therefore, make do with reaching an arrangement to keep Gaza from total collapse. The reasoning, in Netanyahus own words, was that the collapse of Gaza would blow up in our faces. He then went on to blame Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the collapse of Gazas humanitarian infrastructures. Until now, Netanyahu has built up his image as the macho strongman, facing off against Hamas. He even used a similar expression as a slogan in previous election campaigns. He made a sharp distinction between his own policies and those of the previous governments, with particular emphasis on Ehud Olmerts policies. But Olmert led the IDF through Operation Cast Lead in 2008 and ground maneuvers in Gaza, stopping before Hamas was defeated for all the same reasons that Netanyahu listed this week. Back then, Netanyahu lashed out at Olmert, then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak, declaring that things will look very different under him. Today, it became quite clear that he wasnt quite telling the truth, or as it is described in Israel, The things we see from here cant be seen from there meaning that things look different from the prime ministers seat. For the first time ever, Netanyahu admitted as much. What is remarkable about this chaotic and unresolvable situation is the way that history has been turned upside down. At about the same time that the prime minister was saying this, the PLOs Central Committee meeting in Ramallah on Oct. 28 decided to call on Abbas to place recognition of Israel on hold along with any security coordination between the Palestinian forces, the IDF and Shin Bet. This call for measures expressed Abbas recent policy of burning the house down. They leave him watching with nervous anticipation at Israels attempts to rescue Hamas, while he remains isolated in Ramallah. The situation in late 2018, more than 25 years after the signing of the historic Oslo Accords, is as follows. Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) are locked in a longstanding conflict. There has been little communication between them for a very long time, and the two are moving apart rapidly. Meanwhile, Israel and Hamas are drawing closer. They are now engaged in indirect negotiations, and the two of them recognize each other at least indirectly. Israel regards Hamas as the sovereign authority in Gaza and is trying to keep it that way, while Hamas continues to preach Israels destruction and, to that end, tries to ignite the region and instill an atmosphere of terror. If the three architects of the Oslo Accords Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres were to wake up from their eternal rest, they would have a hard time understanding how the parties got to where they did. Netanyahu went into extensive detail with the reporters about his expansive efforts to reach a long-term arrangement with Hamas in Gaza. According to him, they almost reached such an arrangement just last week, but then the hordes stormed the border fence again. The ensuing day of battle pushed his diplomatic efforts several steps backward. As of now, it remains unclear as to what the parties will reach first: an arrangement or a widespread military conflict. Netanyahu went out of his way to explain to his listeners why another round of fighting in Gaza would serve no one. What would we do with Gaza if we conquered it? he asked. We would still have no one to give it to. If there was someone to whom we could hand it over, then we would have conquered it by now, but no one even wants to consider that. I know that if we do go to war in Gaza, everyone will applaud me for the first two hours. The question is, what happens after that? As of now, Netanyahu has the most left-wing views in the Security Cabinet he leads in the most right-wing government in all of Israels history. It is possible that Interior Minister Aryeh Deri is somewhere to the left of him, but no one else. The main opponent to this approach is Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, who has been stating openly for the past two weeks that there is no way to reach an agreement with Hamas and that Israel should, therefore, deliver the hardest blow we can. Yet while Liberman is head of the security establishment, at this point he makes up an insignificant minority in the Cabinet. The Likuds ministers support Netanyahu, as does Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon of the Kulanu Party. Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked of HaBayit HaYehudi usually try to position themselves to the right of Netanyahu, but even they do not support the occupation of the Gaza Strip. They would prefer to see a long and intense air strike rather than troops on the ground. Netanyahu, on the other hand, still favors seeing if it is possible to reach an arrangement. He is placing his hopes on Egypt, Qatar, UN Emissary to the Middle East Nikolay Mladenov and anyone else who is willing to help out except for Abbas, of course. Ultimately, Netanyahus interests are not being driven solely by his natural concern about a military entanglement. Rather, his reasoning is purely political. His explicit policy is to continue maintaining a separation between Gaza and the West Bank, no matter the cost. He ignores the fact that there is a perfect solution for ruling Gaza if and when the IDF occupies it. The problem, as he sees it, is that this perfect solution is the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, or, in other words, Abbas. It doesnt matter that Israel has signed detailed agreements with the Palestinian leadership and that Abbas has maintained security and strategic coordination with it for years and with whom full coordination continues despite this weeks PLO call. Netanyahu will not allow this to happen. What worried him is that if Abbas returns to Gaza and takes the reins of power from Hamas, he and the Israeli right will immediately lose their ultimate excuse, i.e., that negotiations have reached a deadlock. Suddenly, there would be a single, unified Palestinian partner in Gaza and the West Bank with whom Israel would be obliged to negotiate. That is the one possibility that Netanyahu will do everything he can to avoid. If he has to reach an ad hoc alliance with Hamas in order to achieve this, then he has no choice but to do so. After all, the only thing more dangerous to Netanyahu than getting tangled up in war is getting tangled up in peace. Lawyers for Turkish civil society leader Osman Kavala, jailed a year ago on suspicion of involvement in a failed military coup, broke their silence on Wednesday to call for his release, saying the failure to indict him amounted to torture. Kavalas case has become another flashpoint in Turkeys troubled relationship with the West since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began a far-reaching crackdown against his opponents and civil society in the wake of the militarys attempt to seize power in 2016. More than 50,000 people, including politicians, journalists and rights activists, have been imprisoned. Kavala, 61, has been held in solitary confinement without any formal indictment or even a deposition by the prosecutor, leaving his lawyers to speculate over what charges he might eventually face. He was formally arrested on suspicion that he supported four distinct terrorist groups and sought to topple Turkeys constitutional order and government. We do not know what he is accused of. His basic rights are being violated, and enduring this for a year now amounts to torture, lawyer Koksal Bayraktar told a news conference. If there is rule of law in Turkey, then Kavala must be released and appear before a court once the crimes for which he was arrested have been articulated. Kavalas defense team had previously kept a low profile, hoping that the Turkish legal process would work and to avoid making the case an international issue. However, officials in Europe have said Kavalas plight violates international judicial and human rights standards. His current arbitrary detention represents a further blow in the ongoing crackdown against Turkish civil society, Antonio Panzeri, chairman of the European Parliaments subcommittee on human rights, said this month. The Turkish authorities need to ensure that the physical and psychological integrity of all human rights defenders are guaranteed, that the presumption of innocence is respected and that the justice system is independent. In June, Kavala applied to the European Court of Human Rights, which agreed in August to expedite the case and is now waiting for the Turkish government to make its defense by Jan. 10. Kavalas prolonged detention highlights the state of crisis in the Turkish judiciary, whose wheels have ground to a near halt after more than 4,500 judges and prosecutors were fired after the coup. Critics accuse the government of exerting political control over the justice system. Erdogan himself singled Kavala out a week after his detention, deriding him as Turkeys Soros. George Soros is a billionaire philanthropist targeted by right-wing extremists in the United States and eastern Europe. They say hes an NGO representative We see him behind efforts to funnel resources to obvious places, Erdogan told his ruling party in parliament. The government has used lengthy pre-trial detention periods to suppress political dissent, said Howard Eissenstat, a professor at St. Lawrence University and senior nonresident fellow at the Project on Middle East Democracy. It has been aimed particularly at journalists and political dissidents, allowing the government to silence those jailed and strike fear into those still working. It flies in the face of any right to a fair and speedy trial, he told Al-Monitor. Unable to meet prosecutors or read an indictment, Kavalas lawyers have been left to piece together the case largely from pro-government media coverage, which has smeared him since his arrest. Those outlets allege his criminal case has been merged with that of Metin Topuz, an employee at the US Consulate in Istanbul who was detained on coup-plotting charges and whose case has helped sour relations between Ankara and Washington. We cant access the criminal file, so we are working in abstract darkness, Bayraktar said. Kavala has also been accused of attacking the government for allegedly organizing a mass demonstration to save Gezi Park from Erdogans plans to replace it with a shopping mall in 2013, his lawyers said. Other allegations include support for the movement of the Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who the government says masterminded the coup attempt, as well as Kurdish insurgents and two far-left militant groups. I don't think anyone seriously believes that Kavala is guilty of anything more than demonstrating the continued, stubborn vibrancy of civil society in Turkey, said Eissenstat.His case is meant to be an example to others his very prominence is demonstration that nobody is safe. Kavala's continued detention is an important piece of this larger attack on civil society, he said, pointing to more than 1,000 civil society groups that have been banned since the coup attempt. The soft-spoken Kavala, the scion of a wealthy family, has spent much of his fortune sponsoring art and culture and promoting dialogue among Turkeys polarized communities. Dubbed the red millionaire for his left-leaning causes, he has advocated for Turkish reconciliation with both Armenians and Kurds and worked with the government to save Armenian historical sites in Turkey, including Ani, the great medieval capital in eastern Turkey that was inscribed on UNESCOs World Heritage List in 2016. Osman Kavala is not a figure we are used to seeing in our midst. Hes not Kurdish, but he works on the Kurdish problem; hes not Armenian, but he is involved in Armenian issues, said lawyer Ilkan Koyuncu. We just cant accept that someone, especially someone wealthy, would involve himself in civil society. Because we cannot understand him, we criminalize him. Abdulkadir Selvi, a columnist for Hurriyet with close ties to the government, wrote on Oct. 16 that he may find reprieve when Turkey releases a judicial reform strategy next month with the hope of currying favor with the EU in its bid to expand a customs union to include more Turkish exports to its biggest trading partner. Turkey freed American pastor Andrew Brunson this month after imprisoning him two years ago on coup-related charges, and his release was widely seen as an effort by Ankara to mend fences with the United States following threats by President Donald Trump to sanction Turkey over the case. Just as Brunsons release created a chance to turn the crisis in Turkish-American relations into an opportunity, we could seize the same with Osman Kavala in relations with the EU, Selvi wrote, but added that he did not expect an indictment anytime soon. Rachel Goshgarian, an associate professor of history at Lafayette College, has worked with Kavala for a decade on projects related to Armenian cultural heritage in Turkey, including on Anis architecture. His absence over the past year has deprived Turkish civil society of one of its greatest champions, she told Al-Monitor. He has given his life and his energies to making Turkey a place where all of the people who call it home feel comfortable and appreciated, Goshgarian said. How someone like him ends up in jail for over a year without any obvious reason seems to me not only totally unfair to him, but to Turkish society. GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip For the first time in the history of Palestinian trade, Palestinian exports exceeded the $1 billion mark in 2017. On World Statistics Day (Oct. 20), the head of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), Ola Awad, released the data on Palestinian exports. Economic experts, however, believe that this is a small rise with no impact on the Palestinian trade deficit. Palestinian imports reached $5.3 billion in 2017, according to the PCBS, while Gazas total exports amounted to $8.3 million, which constitutes 0.78% only of the total Palestinian exports for 2017. This reflects the bad situation of Gazas export sector, due to the Israeli blockade and the prevailing political conditions. Conversely, Palestinian imports from Israel stood at $3.234 billion in 2017, which is a 3.2% increase compared to 2016 with $3.12 billion worth of imports, according to the PCBS. Imports from Israel constitute about 60.3% of the total Palestinian imports. This increase comes in tandem with the launching of campaigns to boycott Israeli products by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as well as governmental and local nongovernmental organizations. The spokesman for the Ministry of National Economy, Azmi Abdul Rahman, told Al-Monitor that the export sector in Palestine is crippled because of Israels control of all crossings and ports, with exports and imports being subject to Israeli procedures. Abdul Rahman noted that the Paris Protocol granted the Israeli authorities 3% of the total value of taxes, in return for organizing the collections of funds and taxes for imports and exports to the Palestinian side, stressing that 75% of exports were carried out through Israeli mediation. Israel has taken over all Palestinian sectors to prevent us from achieving economic independence and to maintain a subordinate economy, Abdul Rahman said. He noted that the ministry has been working on reducing the economic dependence on Israel through the signing of trade agreements with friendly countries, attracting delegations and traders to encourage direct imports and exports, without any Israeli mediators that continue to stand in the way of Palestinian importers. Abdul Rahman added that the economic reality in the Gaza Strip is harsh and is tied to security and political equations. He said that before the Israeli blockade Gazas exports were not major, but they have taken a nosedive since 2006. He explained that exports exceeding the $1 billion mark is not a breakthrough since the Palestinian trade deficit is over $4 billion in favor of imports. We are working according to the national strategic plan for exports, which aims at increasing the market share of local products in foreign markets, by meeting the requirements of the countries targeted for exportation, appointing economic attaches to the Palestinian embassies, overhauling the Palestinian Standards Institution [PSI] and enhancing the legal environment to encourage local production, he said. Meanwhile, Director General of the Palestine Trade Center (PALTRADE) Hanan Taha told Al-Monitor that the export sector has witnessed a remarkable development recently. She explained that Palestinian producers have become aware of the importance of exportation, as a result of initiatives by local and foreign NGOs that promote entering the foreign markets, providing local producers and suppliers with the necessary information to this effect. She said that given the small local market, entering foreign markets is of paramount importance, pointing out that the Council of Ministers endorsed the decision to label Palestinian products, which was followed by the PALTRADE initiative Made in Palestine that was launched Sept. 27 in the United Arab Emirates to promote Palestinian products in regional and international markets. The Palestinian Exporter Award which has been organized annually by PALTRADE since 2016 has contributed to improving the image of the Palestinian product as well as its quality, Taha said. She noted that this move, however, does not rise up to the expected economic aspirations, as the export sector still needs a major breakthrough. Taha explained that Gaza should have contributed more in the upsurge of Palestinian exports but has instead seen a significant decline due to the sanctions, restrictions and weak production. Commenting on the increase in Israeli imports, Taha said that 42% of the imports from Israel are in the energy and oil derivatives sector. This issue requires finding strategic alternatives as well as international and political agreements to end this exchange. Baker Shtayeh, a professor in the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at An-Najah National University in Nablus, told Al-Monitor that the export sector is very weak. He does not believe this small increase is a good indicator, noting that 83% of Palestinian exports go to Israel in the form of complementary industries, as part of subcontracts. Palestinian companies are contracted to produce some materials that are necessary for other industries, in a bid to benefit from cheap Palestinian man power and to evade taxes. Shtayeh noted that less than 6% of exports are directed to the markets of neighboring countries, which proves the vulnerability of the Palestinian products and poor ability to compete even on Arab markets, where Palestinian goods are exempted from taxes and customs. He believes that this is due to the lack of confidence in the quality of the Palestinian products, since the PSI has basic standardization requirements that are not difficult to meet and standard certifications are granted easily. Shtayeh called for strengthening trade relations with neighboring countries and for openness to new markets, such as East Africa, which has begun to form large consumer markets. He talked about some promising sectors in Palestine, namely in the stone and marble industry, pharmaceutical sector as well as furniture and date products. He pointed out that Israel imposes restrictions on Palestinian importers if they seek to import without an Israeli mediator, as Palestinian products are subject to security screening, which is not the case with Israeli importers. Security clearance might take weeks or even months, resulting in major losses for Palestinian merchants, especially with products that have a short shelf life. He called upon the Palestinian government to set forth financial policies to compensate Palestinian importers, who import under the names of Israeli merchants, to avoid losses, or to find a viable diplomatic solution with Israel. The entire world has been preoccupied with the slaying Oct. 2 of Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Some Palestinians support Saudi Arabia while others blame Saudi officials for what they believe was an assassination. A group of journalists has launched a campaign seeking justice for their colleague and protection for members of their profession. One prominent writer said the sorrow he felt moved him to resign. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had issued a statement Oct. 14 expressing his appreciation of Saudi support for the Palestinian cause and said Palestine is standing by Saudi Arabias side. On Oct. 20, the Palestinian Authority (PA) announced it officially supports Saudi Arabia and the latter's narrative regarding Khashoggi's killing. The PA said Saudi Arabia, under the leadership of King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is a "state of justice, values and principles" and praised Saudi Arabia's efforts to uphold the law. Although Saudi Arabia provided varying narratives regarding Khashoggi's death, the Saudi attorney general finally stated Oct. 20 that Khashoggi had died following a fight with people he met with in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. On Oct. 25, the attorney general went farther, announcing his finding that Khashoggi's slaying had been deliberate and premeditated. Turkish officials claim to have evidence that Khashoggi was tortured and his body dismembered with a saw in the consulate by a Saudi hit squad. His body hasn't been found, despite extensive searches. The official Palestinian support for Saudi Arabia is inconsistent with that of many Palestinian writers, journalists and intellectuals who expressed their anger at Khashoggis fate, which they consider an assassination of free speech. Palestinian journalist and novelist Rabai al-Madhoun, editor of Palestinian affairs at Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat, posted on his Facebook page Oct. 22, Khashoggi has made me retire today. I resigned from the newspaper after 18 years because what happened with Khashoggi has turned my life upside down. Madhoun's resignation had a major impact on the Palestinian press and culture, be it because of the admiration he has won over the years or for his courage to express his position on this shocking incident. His post had received more than 1,700 likes, 215 comments and 200 shares as of Oct. 30. Speaking to Al-Monitor from London, Madhoun said, My stance is a matter of principle. Khashoggis death was shocking, horrifying, terrifying, painful, terrible and unprecedented, and all those who planned to kill him and had anything to do with the murder should be punished for their role in the crime. Madhoun, 73, is one of Palestines most prominent novelists and has worked for Arab, Palestinian and international newspapers. Before Madhoun's resignation, a group of Palestinian journalists and writers on Oct. 19 launched an online petition calling for officials to reveal the fate of Khashoggi, hold accountable those behind his disappearance, enact laws to protect journalists and ensure their freedom of action, and punish those who violate their rights. Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian Al-Monitor contributor who initiated the campaign, told Al-Monitor the Khashoggi incident "prompted us to prepare a petition demanding that [those responsible] disclose what happened to him, even after his death was announced. The petition is still valid." Fadi Quran is a senior campaigner at Avaaz ("Voice") in the Middle East, a 16-language global petition site that is similar in function to Change.org, which also has a Khashoggi petition that had about 65,000 signatures as of Oct. 30. Quran, who is overseeing the Khashoggi petition drive on Avaaz, told Al-Monitor the campaign seeks to gather signatures "from senior Palestinian authors" and demands "that such crimes be prevented." "The petition has no expiry date; we are still collecting signatures and sending it to many who may share our opinion," he added. The difference in the Palestinian positions on the Khashoggi incident has been obvious on social media and in articles by Palestinian writers who stood beside Khashoggi, despite the PAs position in support of Saudi Arabia. A bone saw ended Khashoggi's life, but our pens will fight on his behalf. The chances of our pens winning this battle are greater than any bone saw, author Wissam Afifah said in an Oct. 25 opinion piece on the Hamas-affiliated website Al-Aqsa. Political analyst Ashraf al-Ajrami wrote Oct. 24 in the PA-affiliated al-Ayyam, Khashoggi's death was a humanitarian and political disaster, and a fatal mistake committed by Saudi agencies. It caused a major scandal whose political and economic consequences will be hard for those involved to contain. Palestinian Minister of Culture Ehab Bseiso in Ramallah told Al-Monitor, Palestinian intellectuals have the right to express their positions. In Palestine, we have multiple views in journalism, and we are keen on preserving the freedom of expression without interfering in the political aspect of any issue. Bseiso added, The official Palestinian position was declared, and we stand against any violation against any journalist and writer because of their stances. In light of the Khashoggi incident, we demand justice and protection for authors, without interfering in the policies of neighboring countries. Khashoggi's positions were pro-Palestinian. His last tweet, on Oct. 1, read, I have Palestine on my mind. Despite the Israeli lobbys power in limiting any sympathy with it, [Palestines] voice rises. On Sept. 30, he had tweeted, Israels actions in the Palestinian territories show discrimination and apartheid. In an Oct. 16 YouTube clip, Khashoggi warned Palestinians against giving up Jerusalem to Israel and said the city is as important as Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. During Israel's war on Gaza in 2014, he had said Hamas proved that its modest rockets have become far more threatening. Ahmed Zaghbar, head of the Palestinian Press Bloc in Gaza, told Al-Monitor, We express our absolute rejection of the terrorist crime that took Khashoggi's life in the most brutal of ways. We believe that he paid with his life for the freedom that he always called for. Zaghbar added, His assassination represents an attack on the free entities in the world. The press should condemn this crime, and those responsible should not go unpunished. WASHINGTON Amid growing fears of famine and congressional misgivings about US support for the Saudi-led air war in Yemen, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis threw their support behind UN Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths peace efforts, calling for all parties to the conflict to observe a cessation of hostilities and agree to attend peace talks next month, likely in Sweden. The time is now for the cessation of hostilities, including missile and UAV strikes from Houthi-controlled areas into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Pompeo said in a statement Tuesday. He said that subsequently, coalition airstrikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen. While a State Department official said the United States wants to see Houthi missile strikes into Saudi Arabia end first, he did not say that was a condition for calling on the Saudi-led military coalition to end their airstrikes into populated areas of Yemen. What were calling for is an immediate cessation of hostilities, State Department spokesman Robert Palladino told journalists at the State Department today. We want the parties to engage in the consultations in good faith. We believe a cessation of hostilities is the best basis for that. As far as specific conditions, thats something the special envoy has to answer, Palladino said. We are urging all sides consistently to end the conflict in this dire humanitarian situation. "We have got to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it sometime in the future," Mattis said at the US Institute of Peace on Tuesday. We need to be doing this in the next 30 days." Griffiths, who met with Mattis, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan and National Security Council officials during consultations in Washington last week, said today that he welcomed the show of support from Washington. I urge all concerned parties to seize this opportunity to engage constructively with our current efforts to swiftly resume political consultations to agree on a framework for political negotiations, and confidence-building measures, in particular enhancing the capacities of the Central Bank of Yemen, the exchange of prisoners and the re-opening of Sanaa airport, Griffiths said in a statement today. We remain committed to bring the Yemeni parties to the negotiations table within a month. Dialogue remains the only path to reach an inclusive agreement. Griffiths also told the BBC today that while a total countrywide cease-fire may not be immediately feasible, de-escalation efforts in that direction were very welcome. He called for three main steps: a freeze of military activities at the key Red Sea port of Hodeidah the key logistics hub for importing food and fuel to the capital, Sanaa; the suspension of long-range drone and missile attacks by the Houthis into Saudi Arabia; and a suspension of Saudi airstrikes on the civilian populations in Yemen. The UN envoy has continued to make progress in laying the groundwork for a Yemen political reconciliation process, Palladino said. Based on meetings with him last week, We believe the climate is right for both sides to come to the table. The United States hopes that a cessation of violence and vigorous talks will help alleviate the humanitarian crisis, Palladino said. I think this is the certainly the strongest statement [on Yemen] the US has put out during the Trump administration, Gregory Johnsen, a former member of the UN panel of experts on Yemen, told Al-Monitor today. What is quite obviously the coordinated statements of the secretary of defense and secretary of state [using] the most forceful language the US has used in the last couple years. This is going to be interesting, whether the US has the leverage it thinks it has, Johnsen said. Is it able to convince the Saudi and UAE allies that negotiating now is in their best interests? In a sign that the Saudis and Emiratis may not be enthusiastic about Washingtons cease-fire calls, unnamed pro Saudi-led military coalition sources told Reuters and The National that they had amassed thousands of troops to move on or at least put pressure on the Houthi rebels in Hodeidah. We've been hearing about a push on Hodeidah for a while, but then again we've been hearing about a push on Hodeidah almost since the war began, Johnsen said. But I would imagine things will change if the US is serious about putting pressure on all sides for peace talks. The question, I think, is how long the US is willing to sustain this pressure. The renewed US administration efforts to try to de-escalate the Yemen war may also reflect growing congressional misgivings about the US role in the conflict, particularly in the wake of the Saudi killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, widely believed to have been authorized by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Its past time for the United States to use our leverage to help end this horrific war, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said today, adding that she was encouraged by the Trump administration call for a cease-fire. Leaders of Turkey, Russia, Germany and France agreed at an Oct. 27 summit in Istanbul that the key to peace in Syria lies with a UN-backed process. Syria, however, begs to differ. Moscow and Ankara called the summit to bring together some members of two groups working separately toward solutions to the Syrian war: the so-called "small group," which includes France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Britain and the United States; and the group led by the trio of Iran, Russia and Turkey that has been holding talks in Astana, Kazakhstan. It was the first time the two groups had sat down together at the negotiating table, and it provided few reasons for optimism. Each country has its own interests in Syria and in broadening the group. Russia, a guarantor of an all-Syria cease-fire, seeks a return of refugees from Middle East countries to Syria (a nod toward Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's wishes) and foreign investments aimed at bolstering the regime. Turkey, a NATO member, would like to remove the financial burden of its involvement in the war and perhaps gain some support in its opposition to Assad. In such an arena, France and Germany pretend to be interested in the settlement, address the refugee return under Russia's terms and hope for the best. The four-nation summit was preceded by bilateral contacts between all the attendees regarding Syria. On Oct. 25, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, who asked Macron to present their common vision on Syria at the Istanbul summit. Prior to his own travel to Turkey, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with Macron, and shortly after arriving, Putin held bilateral meetings with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In addition, Russia and Turkey held negotiations between their foreign and defense ministries, respectively, although no further details of these meetings were provided due to restrictions on speaking to the media, Turkey's Anadolu Agency news group reported. It took the leaders of the four nations almost three hours to speak to each other away from prying eyes. Neither the subsequent press statement nor the joint communique spelled out any new agreements. Rather, both documents in their usual manner reiterated the parties' commitment to Syrias territorial integrity and emphasized the necessity to resolve the conflict only through political and diplomatic means. Such pronouncements have invariably been part of various forums and conferences. However, given this was the first such meeting of the four, these principles will perhaps have more meaning. Initially, the Turkish proposal was to come together as early as Sept. 7. Almost two weeks before Erdogan announced the date, a source related to the French government argued it would be "premature to hold talks at such a high level, as Paris wanted intensive negotiations to guarantee a cease-fire and ward off Syrias offensive against rebel-held Idlib. So instead, the presidents of Iran, Russia and Turkey met Sept. 7 online. Within 10 days, Erdogan's plan laid the foundation for a Russia-Turkey deal that was welcomed by the West and made it possible for the sides to then come together in Istanbul. At the Istanbul summit, Macron labeled a military operation in Idlib unacceptable, saying it would trigger a new wave of refugees, which to some extent reinforced support for the Russia-Turkey agreement on the de-escalation zone. But even as the summit was taking place, there were media reports that pro-Syrian forces were violating the agreement by shelling the demilitarized zone south of Idlib, and Putin stressed that Moscow views the Idlib agreement as temporary and is ready to "provide effective support" for the Syrian army to eliminate the militant threat if Turkey is unable to get those groups to withdraw. Although Putin's statement sounded like a warning, Moscow is unlikely to be looking for a pretext to start a military operation that could put it at loggerheads with Ankara. Moreover, such an operation could scuttle the initiative to engage European sponsors in restoring the Syrian infrastructure. However, should the negotiations with the West ultimately fail, Russia may resume its activity in Idlib to give impetus to backstage negotiations, a source in the Russian armed forces told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. The September arrival of Syrian Arab Army Brig. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan who commands the Tiger Forces and is constantly guarded by Russian special forces at the Abu al-Duhur Air Base in Idlib gave rise to speculation about an imminent start of operations west and south of the de-escalation zone. However, some sources say the Tiger Forces see the Abu al-Duhur Air Base as their permanent base and the units arrival doesnt imply an operation. Moreover, one should keep in mind Merkels statement that the Syrian reconciliation process should move forward under UN auspices and Erdogans call once again to form a committee to create a new Syrian Constitution by the end of the year. The Constitutional Commission is to have 150 members, with 50 proposed by the Syrian regime, 50 by the opposition and 50 by the UN. However, Damascus rejects any role for the UN. The Syrian government has virtually plugged up its ears and dug in its heels. It opposes even concessions that could be dropped later, not to mention amendments to the constitution even though the regime's opponents demand a new set of fundamental principles, a source close to the Russian diplomatic corps told Al-Monitor. The situation with the [UN] list for the Constitutional Commission candidates which should include representatives of civil society and experts and to which the government actually added Baathists can be an illustrative case in the matter. The regimes strong desire to transfer the entire negotiation process to Damascus by declaring it an internal affair and allowing only the 'acceptable' opposition representatives to join also causes concern, the Russian source concluded. Basically, that's what UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura said on the eve of the Istanbul summit as he was reporting to the Security Council on the results of his trip to Damascus and talks with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, a prominent representative of the conservative wing in the Syrian regime. Walid Muallem didnt accept a role for the UN in identifying or selecting a third list, Mistura said. The next day, speaking at the Istanbul press conference, Merkel addressed the subject of Syrian elections. "We need transparent elections that will be held under the supervision of international observers," she said, adding, Refugees should take part in this process as well." However, her words can hardly be regarded as evidence that Europe is ready to finance the refugees' return, which should be linked to the reconstruction process. Given the uncertainty around Idlib and the Kurdish territories, it's naive to assume that Europe will invest heavily in rebuilding the infrastructure of opposition-controlled areas. Erdogan, in turn, called for providing more humanitarian aid to the Syrians, emphasizing Turkish efforts in this area, and also promoted expanding the Syrian settlement format to include European members. Ankara must be seeking to counterbalance the Astana trio's tandem of Russia and Iran, which, unlike Turkey, favor keeping Assad in power. Russia, for its part, can play up the direct involvement in the settlement process of Germany and France: By agreeing to participate in such summits, they are recognizing Assad's Baathist regime as a legitimate ruler of Syria and aren't excluding the idea of a Baathist being elected in the future. Both sources Al-Monitor spoke with say the small group is set to approve the Constitutional Commission if Syria presents a balanced third list. However, given Damascus unwillingness to implement even cosmetic reforms and include a few opposition members on the commission, Europe can only wait for acceptable initiatives from the Kremlin and make a pretense of deliberating the issue. European countries seeking to preserve the Iran nuclear deal in the face of resumed US sanctions are urging the Donald Trump administration to clarify how they can continue to legally provide food, medicine and medical devices to Iran. Humanitarian trade is supposed to be exempt from the sanctions, which go back into full effect on Nov. 5. But with European banks reluctant to finance any transactions with Iran for fear of jeopardizing their much more lucrative US business, it remains unclear how crucial items will continue to flow to the Iranian people. At an event at the conservative Hudson Institute on Oct. 29, French Ambassador to Washington Gerard Araud said US European allies are expecting our American friends to make some gestures. For instance, the humanitarian goods. Of course, humanitarian goods are not sanctioned. But the fact is that the banks are so terrified by the sanctions that they dont want to do anything with Iran. Araud added, There is a strong risk in a few months that there will be a shortage of medicine in Iran if we dont do something positive to solve this problem. Already, some Iranians are having difficulty finding life-saving medications in the market. One Iranian charity told the Christian Science Monitor that it has run out of four imported drugs used to treat cancer in children and is having difficulty receiving monetary donations from Europe. During a previous period of sanctions before the conclusion of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iranians also complained of shortages of vital medicines. However, banking and other sanctions at that time had broader international support because they had a clear goal: negotiations and a nuclear agreement. This time, US action is unilateral and the other parties to the JCPOA are trying to convince Iran to continue to comply with restrictions on its nuclear program absent the economic benefits it was promised. Anticipating the resumed sanctions, US humanitarian trade with Iran is already down 40% under the Trump presidency compared to the situation that existed under the Barack Obama administration. The Trump administration insists that it is on the side of Iranian voices and that its maximum pressure campaign only intends to squeeze the government, not the people, of Iran. But according to a European diplomat who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, neither the State Department nor the Treasury Department has given any guidance on how legitimate transactions can take place after Nov. 5. The State Departments homepage is entirely devoted to a sanctions countdown that lists Secretary of State Mike Pompeos 12 demands for radical changes in Iranian policies. These, plus improvement in Irans human rights record, are apparent US preconditions for new negotiations with the Islamic Republic demands that Iran has rejected. Asked if he could offer any guidance to the Europeans, a sanctions expert at the State Department declined to comment. Other administration officials have privately suggested that they are reluctant to whitelist any Iranian financial institution even a private bank that has never been designated as connected to terrorism. Many Iranians and Europeans were surprised when the Treasury Department on Oct. 16 sanctioned Parsian Bank which had been a major conduit for humanitarian trade to Iran on grounds that an investment company distantly linked to the Basij paramilitary organization had once owned 0.3% of the banks stock. One positive development for the survival of the nuclear deal is that the Trump administration appears reluctant to block the SWIFT financial messaging system from continuing to work with Iranian banks. The State Department is also signaling that it will give waivers to some major Iranian oil importers and that it has abandoned any expectation of reducing Iranian oil exports to zero by the November deadline. Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior fellow and deputy head of the Middle East program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Al-Monitor that the European Union was seeking to ensure that at least a specified bank in Europe can handle payment transactions for humanitarian-related goods. They are pressing the US on this issue, including to ensure that there is not a broad sanctioning of Iranian private banks [for example, as we saw this month with Bank Parsian] that are the counterparts for many European companies exporting humanitarian goods to Iran. Another possibility is that European companies could use a new Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) that the EU is creating to facilitate Europe-Iran trade. While the details of how this mechanism will work have not been disclosed, it could function as a sort of clearinghouse for bartering Irans oil for humanitarian goods. The concept recalls the oil-for-food program set up in the 1990s that allowed Iraq to sell a limited amount of oil and ostensibly use the proceeds to feed its people. That program, however, was riddled with corruption on the part of Iraqi officials and middlemen, and tens of thousands of Iraqi children died of hunger and disease. Geranmayeh said such a barter arrangement is not the ideal choice neither for Iran nor European companies. But as an urgent bridging solution, it might be that the SPV is used in this way. Other Iran analysts said it was incumbent upon the Trump administration to resolve this issue and not allow Iranians to die from diseases for which medicine is readily available in the West. This should be a proactive effort on the part of the Trump administration, Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution told an audience Oct. 30 at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She noted that there were vulnerable children and others who suffer from diseases and need US-origin drugs. Alabama is 9th in the nation among states where the debt loads of public college graduates are the highest. And its one of only five states where average debt exceeds family income. The average college graduate in Alabama is carrying about $31,275 in debt, according to a report last year by the Institute for College Access and Success. And 50 percent of graduates here are carrying some kind of debt. In addition, several other metrics show those who carry that debt are having a difficult time paying it off. Take Justin Joiner as an example. A resident of Marshall County, Joiner went to Snead State Community College for just under two years. From my perspective and experience, the necessity of getting a college education was driven into our heads almost incessantly, Joiner said. Federal Pell Grants covered his costs for those two years, and he had some pocket money for expenses left over, he said. He then transferred to Jacksonville State University, where he graduated in April 2013 with a degree in psychology. As he received his diploma, he was left with $30,000 in college-related debt. Joiner now works as a social service caseworker with the Department of Human Resources. He is also part of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which allows a borrower to work 10 years in a public service role in order to have his student loans forgiven. Joiner has seven years left. His ultimate goal, he said, was to become a counselor. But to be eligible, he would need a Masters degree. I cannot afford to place an even greater financial burden on my family and pursue my dream career, he said. And not everyone is accepted into the program Joiner is a part of. Congress authorized $350 million earlier this year for an expanded version, but CNBC reported this week that almost 90 percent of those who applied were denied, for various reasons. Joiners situation illustrates a deeper problem that isnt just confined to Alabama. The cost of gaining a college education seen by many as a way to progress toward a high-earning career is increasing eight times as quickly as wages are rising, according to Forbes. The National Center for Education Statistics puts the average cost of a four-year college education at a public university at $104,480 a figure virtually impossible for lower and middle-class families to consider without accumulating debt. Last year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that 44 million Americans currently owe more than $1.4 trillion in student debt. Generation Progress, an affiliate of the Center for American Progress, this month created a database showing areas around the country where student loan debt is delinquent. Using tax and credit data, it found that borrowers with the lowest student loan balances are the most likely to default. Why? Because they are also the ones likely facing the worst prospects in the labor market. For Alabama, it shows that much of the states loan burden would be characterized as more than 90 days delinquent. Joiner said he and others feel the burden and wonder. When you consider the low return of investment on many degrees and the stressors of having student loan debt follow you for much of the rest of your life, you cannot help but ask yourself at times if it was worth it, he said. Consumer Reports has dropped the Honda Odyssey from recommended status following its annual reliability survey, one of 12 models that didnt make the cut this year. The survey, which collected data from members on more than 500,000 vehicles, also passed over mainstays from Tesla, BMW, Chrysler, Ford, Kia, Mercedes-Benz and Mazda. The Odyssey is solely manufactured at Hondas plant in Lincoln. Mercedes-Benzs E Class, which was also left off the survey, is not manufactured at the automakers Vance plant. What was the issue with the Odyssey? According to Consumer Reports, the minivan had much-worse-than-average reliability, with problems including the infotainment display freezing and losing all functionality, and power sliding doors that wouldnt close. The automaker told CR it had released over-the-air software updates which can be downloaded by the customer using any Wifi connection. As for the door problem, Honda plans to issue a service bulletin with specific dealer repair guidance soon. Honda spokesman Steve Kinkade said the company values all customer feedback, which it factors into product development. Consumer Reports assessment of reliability leans heavily on the usability of infotainment systems," Kinkade said. Todays vehicles have added many functions to meet customer demand for a connected in-vehicle experience and some customers find the controls for these functions complex or have experienced technical issues. A number of our newest vehicles have the ability to update software via over the air updates (OTA) and we have employed this in several instances to quickly address usability issues. The Days of the Dead are here. Everyone knows the secular holiday of Halloween, which happens tonight, Oct. 31. Americans dress up in costumes, decorate their homes and welcome trick-or-treaters to their doors by handing out candy. Not everybody knows Halloween derives from a holy day, All Saints' Day on Nov. 1, which is followed by All Souls' day on Nov. 2. The root word of Halloween is ''hallow,'' which means ''holy.'' The suffix "een" is an abbreviation of "evening." Halloween refers to the Eve of All Hallows, the night before All Saints' Day, the Christian holy day that honors saintly people of the past. All Saints' Day In the Catholic Church, Nov. 1 is normally a holy day of obligation, when all Catholics are expected to attend Mass. All Souls' Day All Souls' Day is a day to pray for all souls. Among Catholics, prayers are offered for those in purgatory, waiting to get into heaven. On All Souls' Day, Catholic churches have a Book of the Dead, in which parishioners have an opportunity to write the names of relatives to be remembered. Roots of Halloween More than a thousand years ago in Ireland and Britain, a common custom of Christians was to come together on the eve of the feast of All Hallows Day to ask for God's blessing and protection from evil in the world. Often, they would dress in costumes of saints or evil spirits and act out the battle between good and evil around bonfires. That's the source of the modern observance of Halloween. All Saints' Day emanates from early Christian celebrations of martyrs in the Eastern Church, dating to the fourth century. The church observance was in turn built upon pagan customs of honoring the dead. The Christian concept of the importance of the individual soul underlies All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, which are observed worldwide primarily in the Catholic and Anglican traditions. In Europe, Samhain was a Gaelic festival of the dead marking the end of the harvest and the beginning of the darkest time of year, a time when the spirit world was more closely aligned to the physical world. In the Americas, church ritual mixed with native celebration of ancestors. Mayans, Incans and other Native Americans had great reverence for the dead and ancestor worship was culturally important. That tradition blended into the Catholic holy days of the dead. Dia de los Muertos The ''Dia de los Muertos,'' or ''day of the dead,'' in Latin countries keeps alive some of the tradition of honoring souls of the dead. In many countries, Nov. 2 is a national holiday - the Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos, the climax of the Days of the Dead. It's the climax of three days of celebration: All Hallow's Eve, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. People often dress as skeletons as a way of remembering the dead and celebrating their ancestors. In Catholic churches on Nov. 2, for All Souls' Day, one of the readings during the Mass is from the Book of Wisdom, which is biblical for Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, but not for Protestants, who don't include it in their Bible: The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them, the Book of Wisdom says. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace. Halloween 2018: What time does trick or treat start where I live? Latest forecast What is Halloween? What does trick or treat mean? Holiday history, legends, more Halloween 2018: How old is too old to trick or treat? Most popular costumes Oct. 31 is here. Halloween, the time for trick or treating, haunts and haints and ghosts and goblins. According to History.com, Halloween traces its roots to the pre-Christian Celtic festival of Samhain, which was celebrated on the night of Oct. 31. The ancient Celts believed the dead returned to earth on Samhain and would celebrate with bonfires and other practices to honor the deceased. Some celebrations involved people dressing up in costumes, often choosing ghosts and demons to act out the parts. The Catholic church later tried to shift the holidays focus to Nov. 1, known as All Hallows Day or All Saints Day, a time to honor Catholic Saints. The celebration included people visiting their neighbors to receive "treats" in exchange for praying for the souls of their loved ones. In return, the visitors would often tell a joke or perform an act as a "trick." However you celebrate the holiday, here are some of the best spooky quotes for Halloween: Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere. Hes gotta pick this one. Hes got to. I dont see how a pumpkin patch can be more sincere than this one. You can look around and theres not a sign of hypocrisy. Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see. - - Linus from Its the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. - - William Shakespeare in MacBeth On Halloween you get to become anything that you want to be. - - Ava Dellaira Halloween is not only about putting on a costume, but its about finding the imagination and costume within ourselves. - - Elvis Duran Halloween is an opportunity to be really creative. - - Judy Gold Halloween is one day of breaking out of your shell, one day you can be completely expressive, where the world gives you license to dress up. Chris March The worst thing about Halloween is, of course, candy corn. Its unbelievable to me. Candy corn is the only candy in the history of America thats never been advertised. And theres a reason. All of the candy corn that was ever made was made in 1911. And so, since nobody eats that stuff, every year theres a ton of it left over. - - Lewis Black If ever there was a holiday that deserves to be commercialized, its Halloween. We havent taken it away from kids. Weve just expanded it so that the kid in adults can enjoy it, too. - - Cassandra Peterson Its said that All Hallows' Eve is one of the nights when the veil between the worlds is thin - and whether you believe in such things or not, those roaming spirits probably believe in you, or at least acknowledge your existence, considering that it used to be their own. Even the air feels different on Halloween, autumn-crisp and bright. - - Erin Morgenstern The great thing about candy is that it cant be spoiled by the adult world. Candy is innocent. And all Halloween candy pales next to candy corn, if only because candy corn used to appear, like the Great Pumpkin, solely on Halloween. - - Rosecrans Baldwin Alabama lawmaker and Republican lieutenant governor candidate Will Ainsworth says his wife was injured in a skeet shooting accident on Tuesday. The doctors and paramedics who treated Kendall said it was a clean cut that required staples to close, Ainsworth said in a statement to AL.com on Wednesday morning. It is believed she might have been hit by a piece of the throwing mechanism or debris from a clay while she was shooting. Ainsworth announced on social media Tuesday evening that his wife was going to Huntsville Hospital for treatment of an injury suffered in a gun accident. We are thankful for the many prayers said on her behalf by concerned citizens across the state, Ainsworth said this morning. Ainsworth said the accident happened while their family was shooting skeet. The Ainsworths, of Guntersville, have three young children. Ainsworth said he is stepping away from his lieutenant governor campaign to stay home with his wife as she heals over the next few days. Ainsworth faces Democrat Will Boyd in next Tuesdays general election. Ainsworth has been a representative in the state legislature since 2014. Earlier this year, he led the charge to allow trained, certified school teachers and administrators to carry guns on campuses. After 17 people were gunned down at a high school in Parkland, Florida, Ainsworth sponsored the legislation, which drew roiling debate in Montgomery. The legislation didnt have enough support to become law. The voices of more than 1,000 people singing pierced the bustle of nighttime in Birminghams Highland Park Community Tuesday. Let there be love and understanding among us, and I will build this world from love, they sang. The people behind these voices gathered at Temple Beth-El to remember the 11 people who died in a mass shooting at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburg during a Saturday morning Sabbath service. More than 260 miles away on Alabamas Gulf Coast, Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson gave deeply felt remarks as people of all faiths wiped away tears on what was clearly a moving evening for most at the Ahavas Chesed synagogue in the west of the city. Its time for us to unite and look at things differently, Stimpson told the 400 attendees. We can be the example, not just for Mobile, not just the nation, but the world. Attendees at a Mobile, Alabama, vigil remember those killed at a synagogue in Pittsburgh by lighting candles outside the Ahavas Chesed synagogue. The vigil was multi faith and attended by approximately 400 people. pic.twitter.com/YwWBmE1FWC Christopher Harress (@Charress) October 31, 2018 From the back of the spacious room, Yarmulkes of varying bright colors were tilted back as the attendees watched and listened intently to an equally diverse group of speakers that included those from law enforcement but also Islam and Christian groups from all over Mobile and Baldwin County. Richard Moore, the U.S. District Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, echoed the words of his boss Attorney General Jeff Sessions by saying that the attack was not only an attack on Judaism but an attack on all faiths. Moore said that the local law enforcement in Pennsylvania would would likely seek the harshest punishment possible when prosecuting Robert Bowers, the accused gunman. Mobile Police Assistant Chief Klay Godwin said that the turnout had rejuvenated my faith in humanity and promised that his officers would do all in their power to not only protect the Jewish community but people of all faiths in the city. He also added that officers were on site at the synagogue in the immediate aftermath of the shooting in Pittsburgh. Dr. Buzz Wilcoxon of Springhill Presbyterian, who wore a yarmulke in solidarity with the Jewish community, led attendees in singing words from Psalm 136: The steadfast love of the lord endures forever. Imam Ron Ali, Mobile Masjid of Al-Islam, greeted the room by saying shalom, a Hebrew salutation meaning peace. When the children in our nation suffer death in an environment of learning my heart aches, he said. On the stage, behind whats known as an Aron Kodesh an ornate set of golden doors where the torah scrolls are kept Rabbi Yossi Goldwasser flanked Imam Ali and Dr. Wilcoxon. While on the other side of the stage, the Archbishop of Mobile Thomas Rodi sat next to two other Jewish representatives and Rev. Dr. Joy Blaylock of Redeemer Episcopal, who gave a deeply emotional speech. I stand in this place, humbled, to give witness to the beauty, the compassion, the wisdom and brilliance of the Jewish faith a faith and a people that changed my life and that of millions across the world, she said. "And I stand before you now, as a friend, a minister, a wife, a mother, to denounce every form of racism, bigotry and hatred that is stirring or being stirred among us. Before guiding attendees outside for a candlelit vigil, Rabbi Steve Silberman asked that they reach for the Siddur, a Jewish prayer book, and read together. Breaking the somber silence, Rabbi Silberman got a rare laugh from the room after reminding those unfamiliar with the Siddur that the pages turned from right to left. People are yearning to express and experience love, kindness and respect, he said. "Were talking about human compassion and kindness and love and appreciation. Lately weve been seeing so many terrible events, many people are hurting and theyre saying we need love we need respect and so we had people here from all walks of life in Alabama. Zach Pall, a Jewish man and international Israeli lacrosse player, at a Pittsburgh rally in Mobile. Meanwhile, in Birmingham, faith leaders from multiple Jewish, Christian and Muslim congregationsas well as those who claim no faithgathered to stand for unity and for peace among all people. Any attack on one of us is an attack on all of us, said Rabbi Moshe Rube of Knesseth Israel Congregation in Birmingham during the gathering. But we use that (hate) to fuel love and solidarity. The names of the 11 slain were read aloud and a prayer of mourning offered. While the event was an opportunity to mourn, the overarching theme was that love of and hope. This is the America I prefer to see us as, said Rabbi Yussi Friendman of Chabad of Alabama, as he stretched his arms to the crowd, now spilling across the street and onto the steps of businesses adjacent Temple Beth-El. He concluded with a charge to do good to others. The Birmingham Jewish community is asking the city to do 1,100 good deeds, or mitzvahs, as a way to spread love and light in the wake of tragedy. Sen. Doug Jones as well as Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin attended the event. Ended the vigil with a walk down Highland Avenue from Temple Beth-El to Temple Emanu-El. These people just attended a vigil for peace in memory of the 11 slain during Shabbat service at Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburg. pic.twitter.com/GiNCs4HyaH Anna Beahm (@_AnnaBeahm) October 31, 2018 We are a diverse city. We are a diverse community, but at the end of the day we are one. What you do to one, you do to all and we will stand united, Jones said after the Birmingham event. The voices of hate are the loudest but theyre not the most prolific We are really a state of grace and civility and this shows it right here in Birmingham. When a tragedy like this happens miles away, we feel it and we respond. In prepared remarks, which were read aloud at the event, Woodfin said Birminghams Jewish community served as a source of leadership and support for the city during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Rabbi Stephen Slater of Temple Beth-El said organizers were pleasantly surprised by the turnout by the event in Birmingham. It makes me happy to see that people really care about each other, Slater said. But it shouldnt take sad events like this to bring us together. We should really try to see each other on better occasions. Slater said leaders from all faiths either called or sent gifts to the Jewish congregations in Birmingham after the news about Saturdays attack in Pittsburgh. The event ended with attendants walking from Temple Beth-El to Temple Emanu-El, just a few blocks down Highland Avenue. A record number of women in Alabama are running for office, 49 legislative candidates and nine congressional and state executive candidates, spurred in part by grassroots organizations that lead the charge. 2018 has been heralded as the Year of the Woman, as a record number of women are running for public office in the U.S. House, Senate and state legislatures. The phrase was also used in 1992 when Americans voted in more new women to Congress than any other time, the same year Anita Hill testified against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to an all-male Senate Judiciary Committee. But does the Year of the Woman only count if theyre Democrats? While much of the national media attention surrounding women running for office focuses on Blue states, Alabama is defying that narrative with its most prominent female candidate being a Republican. Again women are mobilizing in record numbers, marching in time to the voices of the #metoo movement. According to FiveThirtyEight, at least 100 women are expected to serve in Congress, including two women in Alabama. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala, who is running unopposed and either Rep. Martha Roby, R-Ala., or Tabitha Isner, the Democratic candidate. Despite Alabamas good-ole-boy reputation, women currently helm the states top-elected position. Alabama is one of just seven states to have more than one female governor, Lurleen Wallace and now Kay Ivey. And two women head both Democratic and Republican state parties, Nancy Worley and Terry Lathan respectively. However, the three do not have reputations for championing womens issues. Alabamas current chief justice is also a woman. Lyn Stuart was appointed to fill the vacant position when Roy Moore stepped down in 2017. However, Stuart lost to Tom Parker in her bid for the Republican nomination this summer. Public Service Commissioner Twinkle Cavanaugh also lost in her effort to become the Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor, with the nomination going to Rep. Will Ainsworth. Ivey is up against a much younger Democratic male candidate. She has faced malicious rumors that often beset female candidates, such as her age, presumed sexuality and health. The same rumors plagued Hillary Clinton during her run for president in 2016. But, unlike on the Democratic side of the aisle, there have been few, if any, women-led groups publicly heralding her bravery, her grit and willingness to take these rumors in strife. Groups such as Emerge, EMILYs list and Woke Vote have championed Democratic women through monetary support and online classes to encourage more women to run for office. Tabitha Isner credits these new resources for unleashing a sea of Democratic women in 2018 running for office. I think a lot of us were already fired up for our communities and wanting to serve, Isner said. The difference in the last year or two years is that there has been more support available. Isner is an Emerge America alumna, where she received training on fundraising tactic, social media and campaign strategy. The organization trained 23 Alabamians pursuing office at every level. Before women had the passion and the desire to serve in this way, but maybe didnt feel like they had a lot of people supporting them and all it took was a little nudge of support to bring a lot of us off the sidelines, Isner said. Lathan said the Alabama Republican Party is in always in conversation with Republican women seeking office. We have training sessions for all folks, Lathan said in May. We have many women attend our larger training sessions in the first part of the year and we have about 170 women in our state party and we have around 132 running for office. Lathan cited the Alabama Federation of Republican Women as one of the largest GOP organizations in the state. From every elected official category in our state, we have conservative women in politics. They bring great insight and perspective to all issues, Lathan said in an emailed statement to AL.com. Rep. Martha Roby, R-Ala, said in an email to AL.com she is grateful for the support of Alabama Republican women. "House Republicans have recruited a significant number of female candidates across the country this election cycle, and I have been proud to support and encourage them. As I always say, all issues are 'women's issues.' From the economy to our military and agriculture, women bring an important perspective to all of the challenges facing our country, which is why I have urged females in the Republican Party to step up and run for local, state, and federal positions over the years. According to Glamour, at least 70 black women ran for local and state office in Alabama during the primaries, a record-breaking number. Miranda Joseph is one of the dozens of black women leading the charge. She is running for state auditor for the third time against incumbent Jim Zeigler. She said the lack of support from the state Democratic party makes it harder for the women coming out in droves this year to win races. The lack of support is really hurting a lot of Democrats statewide and local, Joseph said. We can still win. We just have to work harder and work smarter, which is what women do all the time. Black women in Alabama have been credited for Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., win in 2016, but are no strangers to carrying political movements in the state. Derryn Moten, chairman of Alabama State University's history and political science department, told AL.com earlier this year change in the state has hinged on black women, citing Rosa Parks and Jo Anne Robinson, the organizer of the Montgomery Bus Boycotts. Ivey is expected to defeat Maddox on Nov. 6, keeping Alabama atop the wave of women in positions of power post #metoo. Halloween is a time for little ghosts and goblins to go door to door in search of sweet treats. And, according to the billions of dollars being spent by adults, its not just little ones who are joining in the fun. The National Retail Federation estimated some $9 billion will be spent on Halloween this year. Seven in 10 consumers plan to celebrate the holiday this year, spending an average of $90 per person. Ninety percent of those polled by NRF said they plan to purchase candy, 70 percent will buy a costume. The survey showed women are much more likely than men to celebrate by carving pumpkins and decorating their homes. Men, on the other hand, are significantly more likely to attend a Halloween party. Halloween history According to History.com, Halloween, also known as All Hallows Eve, traces its roots to the pre-Christian Celtic festival of Samhain, which was celebrated on the night of Oct. 31. The ancient Celts believed the dead returned to earth on Samhain and would celebrate with bonfires and other practices to honor the deceased. Some celebrations involved people dressing up in costumes, often choosing ghosts and demons to act out the parts. The early Christian church wanted to change the focus of the holiday and looked to replace it with its own event, designating Nov. 1 as All Hallows Day or All Saints Day, a time to honor Catholic Saints. The day was celebrated in much the same way, however, with bonfires and masquerades. People would also visit neighbors and receive "treats" in exchange for praying for the souls of their loved ones. In return, the visitors would often tell a joke or perform an act as a "trick." Early Colonists - many of whom were religious Puritans - didn't celebrate Halloween. Irish immigrants coming to America in the 1840s helped popularize the tradition and it soon spread throughout the U.S. Early celebrations included fireworks, ghost stories and general mischief making. The Irish also brought the tradition of Jack O' Lanterns, carved pumpkin as a way to fend off evil spirits. The earliest known use of the words "trick or treat" occurred in 1934 when a Portland, Oregon newspaper ran an article about how local youth had pulled numerous Halloween pranks. The phrase eventually showed up on greeting cards and by the 1940s was in general use on the holiday. Top costumes Google has tracked this years top costumes. Here they are: 1. Fortnite 2. Spiderman 3. Unicorn 4. Dinosaur 5. Witch 6. Harley Quinn 7. Superhero 8. Pirate 9. Rabbit 10. Princess 11. Clown 12. Wonder Woman 13. Mouse 14. The Incredibles 15. Mermaid 16. Zombie 17. Monster 18. Ninka 19. Doll 20. Batman 21. 1980s 22. Bear 23. Black Panther 24. Vampire 25. Pumpkin You can see how the map of the top costumes in each part of the country here. The wife of Alabama lieutenant governor candidate Will Ainsworth was injured in a gun accident" today, the Republican candidate said on social media. God was looking after our family this afternoon, Ainsworth wrote on Twitter. Kendall was injured in a gun accident, but is stable and ok. [Update: Ainsworth says wife was hurt while shooting skeet] Ainsworth, of Guntersville, said in the 4:43 p.m. Tweet that they were going to Huntsville Hospital. We are thankful it doesnt appear serious, but covet your prayers while the doctors treat her. We are glad to hear she is ok! Sending prayers your way. ALGOP (@ALGOP) October 30, 2018 A call to Ainsworths cellphone wasnt immediately returned. He later posted a statement to his Twitter account. While skeet shooting with our family on Tuesday evening, my wife, Kendall, was involved in a minor accident and suffered an injury that required staples. Through Gods grace and the intercessory prayers of thousands of family members, friends and supporters, the emergency room doctors who treated her injury predict a full recovery, and she was released shortly [sic] being treated," he said in the statement. I will be stepping away from the campaign trail for a few days in order to attend to Kendall as she heals. Ainsworth and his wife have three young children. Ainsworth has been a representative in the state legislature since 2014. Earlier this year, he led the charge to allow trained, certified school teachers and administrators to carry guns on campuses. After 17 people were gunned down at a high school in Parkland, Florida, Ainsworth sponsored the legislation, which drew roiling debate in Montgomery. The legislation didnt have enough support to become law. Ainsworth is running against Democrat Will Boyd. The election is Tuesday, Nov. 6. Updated at 9:55 p.m. to add a statement from Ainsworth. AL.com journalist Anna Beahm contributed to this report. A group of Alabama legislators will meet today to determine the fate of home-birth midwives, at least for the near future. Last year, the state legislature passed a bill, later signed into law, that would allow accredited midwives to attend home births in Alabama for the first time in more than 40 years. But Alabama women cant hire those midwives yet. The law says certified professional midwives which deliver babies in out-of-hospital settings and legally practice in about 33 other states can now apply for a license to practice in Alabama. Before that can happen, the Board has one final hurdle: getting its rules and regulations approved by the Legislative Council. The Council, made up of state representatives and senators, will hear arguments today from proponents and opponents of the proposed rules which would govern how home-birth midwives can operate. If (the Legislative Council) accepts the rules and regulations, we can move forward and begin the process of accepting applications and issuing licenses for Certified Professional Midwives, said Kaycee Cavender, a member of the Board of Midwifery. If they reject them, we basically start all over. We were told by the lawyers for the Legislative Referral Services that if it fails, we are not legally in a position to do anything with the rules and regulations until after the 2019 legislative session. If thats the case, it could be June 2019 or later before the Council could look at a new set of rules and regulations. So it would be another eight months at least that mothers have to wait to get access to Certified Professional Midwives, said Cavender, even though this law was passed last year. Pros and cons The Board of Midwifery faces strong pushback from old opponents: medical groups around the state representing doctors, hospitals and other medical providers who fought the passage of last years law. Many of the groups have been heavily involved in the drafting of the proposed rules. One of the most active has been the Medical Association of the State of Alabama (MASA), a professional organization that represents Alabama physicians. Mark Jackson, MASAs executive director, said he had some major concerns with the rules and regulations the Board will present at todays meeting. One of those is the proposal to allow midwives to administer certain prescription drugs to their patients. We did not feel that was appropriate and dont think thats allowed by statute, said Jackson. We pointed that out to (the Board) in our conversations and previous meetings, but that language stayed in the rules. Cavender argues that the law does not specifically say the Board can authorize midwives to dispense certain medications, but that it did give the Board authority to create rules and regulations that are based on guidelines created by the North American Registry of Midwives. Cavender also said the Board believes the rules would not violate the Alabama Controlled Substances Act because the certain prescription drugs allowed in the midwife regulations are non-narcotic. Another issue that could hamper the passage of the midwife regulations deals with newborn care. The rules and regulations state the midwife is able to care for the newborn for up to six weeks after birth, said Cavender. Midwives are trained to provide newborn care. Its part of their scope of practice. Jackson disagrees. Certainly they care for the newborn immediately after the birth, he said, but in a reasonably short period of time, that care needs to be turned over to a pediatrician. Dr. Wes Stubblefield, president of the Alabama Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement that his organization strongly opposes the rules as written, specifically regarding the care of newborns six weeks after delivery. We are working with a coalition of organizations that is submitting substitute rules to the legislature for consideration, said Stubblefield. Coalitions Cavender said the Board has worked very hard to be inclusive of medical groups and allow them the opportunity to voice their concerns so we could address them. Its just wrong that these medical groups continue to defeat our rules and regulations and block them in the name of the safety of mom and babe, and meanwhile, our infant mortality rate is still one of the worst in the nation, she said. Why are we not making a proven health provider accessible in Alabama? She faults the medical groups for influencing legislators on the Legislative Council. Sen. Jim McClendon, R-Springville, is a member of the Legislative Council and the chair of the Senate Health & Human Services Committee. He said parts of the proposed rules appear to be inconsistent with the bill that legislators passed last year. Those rules have to be consistent with the statute that authorizes that agency to exist, he said. If there are areas that seem contrary to the statute contrary to what the law allows then thats not good. Youve got to stay in the law. The prescription drug issue was one particular sticking point, he said. Well see what happens, he said. Im not going to predict whats going to happen. The City of High Point, North Carolina takes its Halloween candy seriously. The city recently posted a message on Facebook that it was banning the candy known as Peanut Butter Kisses most recognizable for their distinctive black and orange wrappings. Alright everybody, we're giving you a one-week notice as you prepare for trick-or-treaters to remind y'all that by order of the City of High Point Emperor of Acceptable Candy (it's a real thing), these are banned. No one likes them, don't give them out, the city wrote on its Facebook page. Alright everybody, we're giving you a one-week notice as you prepare for trick-or-treaters to remind y'all that by order... Posted by City of High Point Government on Wednesday, October 24, 2018 The post has been liked more than 1,000 times and has garnered more than 350 comments, including some that swear they love the candies. Fans of the peanut butter kisses seem to be the minority, however, CandyStore.com ranked them as the fifth worst Halloween candy. The bottom 10 were: 1. Circus Peanuts 2. Candy Corn (proving some people have no taste) 3. Wax Cola Bottles 4. Necco Wafers 5. Peanut Butter Kisses 6. Tootsie Rolls 7. Smarties 8. Licorice 9. Good and Plenty 10. Mary Janes Readers' picks for the best Halloween candies A three-time sex offender, who is now accused of raping a 79-year-old Huntsville woman, has asked an Alabama judge to order he be castrated. Stephen Gordon Bunyard has multiple sex offense convictions dating back to the 1980s, according to Alabama Law Enforcement Agency records. Now, hes charged with first-degree rape and failure to register as a sex offender, court records show. Bunyard also is known by two aliases: Melvin Knight and Kevin Neil Means, records show. Bunyard, 56, was in court today to be sentenced on a probation violation. Through his lawyer, Bunyard asked the judge to issue a lighter sentence in exchange for an order that he be castrated. I certainly dont have the authority to order castration, said Madison County Circuit Judge James Smith. Alabama doesnt have a law on the books that allows judges to sentence convicts to undergo castration. As recently as 2016, state Rep. Steve Hurst has filed legislation that would require anyone convicted of sexually assaulting a child to be surgically castrated before being released from prison. The legislation didnt gain enough support to become state law. Some states allow sex offenders to opt for castration, according to ABC News. Smith instead ordered Bunyard to 30 years in prison for violating the terms of his probation in a 2007 sex crime conviction. In the 2007 case, Bunyard was convicted of sodomizing a senior citizen in Madison County, according to court documents. He also was accused of kidnapping and robbing the woman while armed with a screwdriver, records show. After pleading guilty to sodomy and robbery, he was sentenced in 2008 to 20 years on each charge. The sentences were split for Bunyard to serve five years in prison and another five on probation for each charge. He received one year of jail credit for time served awaiting trial. Bunyard was released from prison in July 2017. The convict violated probation when he was arrested and convicted of DUI in Tennessee earlier this year, authorities said. He admitted that violation today in court. Bunyard also was accused of violating probation by committing the alleged rape in Huntsville earlier this year. Bunyard denies that charge. I deny that Im guilty of that, said Bunyard, who stood in the courtroom, clad in an orange jail jumpsuit with shackles on his wrists and ankles. Huntsville police Lt. Michael Johnson said Bunyard is accused of raping the 79-year-old victim at her home in April 2018. He befriended the elderly victim who had provided him past assistance with food and work on her property, Johnson said. Madison County Assistant District Attorney Tim Douthit said Bunyard misled the woman about his identity by using the alias Melvin Knight. Bunyard made the woman swear on a Bible that she wouldnt tell anyone about the rape, court records state. Stephen Bunyard is held in the Madison County jail pending his transport to prison. This is one of the most heinous offenses Ive seen in my time as a sex crimes prosecutor, Douthit said. Huntsville police got a warrant for Bunyards arrest on the rape charge on April 30. But the next day Bunyard left town in a stolen vehicle, according to court records. Bunyard was arrested in Franklin County, Tennessee on May 2, court documents say. He was charged with driving under the influence, evading arrest and theft of property. Bunyard was driving a truck that had been reported stolen in Huntsville on May 1, records say. In Tennessee, Bunyard pleaded guilty to DUI, and the other charges were dropped. Law enforcement records show Bunyard has been convicted in two other sex crimes cases in Texas. In 1984, he was convicted of sexually assaulting a senior citizen, records show. In 1993, Bunyard was convicted of indecency with a 14-year-old girl, according to his sex offender registry entry. As for Bunyards castration request, defense attorney Larry Marsili said hes never had a client who sought such punishment. Even though it was an unusual request, my client seems well aware of what he was asking for, said Marsili, who previously requested a mental evaluation of Bunyard. The judge denied that request. Douthit said hes never had a case in which the defendant asked for castration. Ive been prosecuting sex crimes for a while, and this is a new one on me, Douthit said. The election is one week away and in ruby red Republican Alabama, the Democratic candidate for governor still sees a path to victory. Speaking to reporters following a speech to the Downtown Huntsville Rotary Club, Walt Maddox didnt make any dramatic predictions for a stunning victory over Republican Kay Ivey. But the possibility of a win still appears, well, possible. I believe people in this state, particularly those in the center, are looking for a candidate and not a party, Maddox said. I believe in terms of solutions weve been talking about, we are that candidate that can move Alabama. His six-week bus tour around the state arrived in the Rocket City Tuesday for three days of north Alabama events before looping the state once more before election day. Maddoxs speech drew a larger-than-normal crowd to the Rotary club, members were told, and the Tuscaloosa mayor outlined his typical stump speech of wanting more for Alabama and a first-day-in-office initiative of expanding Medicaid and calling a special session to pass an education lottery amendment. He also dropped words of praise on his audience Huntsville is the model city for the rest of the state, Maddox said and lauded Mayor Tommy Battle, who was not in attendance. Huntsville is the exception, not the rule, Maddox said. He also expressed concern for the state of mental health care in Alabama as well as infrastructure issues. And he responded to a question from the audience that he opposes abortion except in the cases of protecting the health of the mother, rape or incest. Alabama, for all our pockets of brilliance, is in crisis, Maddox said. And this moment needs more than rhetoric. It needs leadership. It needs action. And thats why I want to serve as your governor. But will that opportunity present itself to Maddox in seven days? Ivey is considered the heavy favorite to win her first full term in office and the lack of public polling on the race is perhaps an indication that the outcome is a foregone conclusion. That uphill climb, though, has left Maddox undaunted. Internally, we feel really good because of our internal data, Maddox said. But we also feel good by looking at the momentum and the enthusiasm. You look at the crowds that have been amassing on the campaign trail the last few weeks. There is this feeling within this campaign that people are beginning to understand that this election has consequences. The opportunities have never been clearer for Alabama and the differences clearer, too, between the two candidates. We like that contrast. Maddox repeatedly mentioned that Ivey has touted all thats good in the state while presenting no ideas to make improvements. I respect Gov. Ivey and I respect her 35 years of service in Montgomery, Maddox said following his speech. But this election is uniquely about the future of this state and whether we want to come out of the shadows of being at or near the bottom in everything that matters. One of the ways we can do that is by passing an education lottery. The other way is expanding Medicaid creating 30,000 new jobs and enhancing health care across the state. Maddox said his biggest challenge is still catching up to Iveys name ID, which is put at 95 percent across the state compared to 65 percent for himself. But if that path to victory exists, what does that path look like? In every election, youre going to have Republicans and Democrats that are going to make up 60 percent that are likely going to vote in that direction, he said. But you always have that 40 percent that are in the middle that are looking for a candidate to address those issues. We see significant movement in that direction but were going to have to continue to work hard. This is really about the governor has defined she likes where Alabama is. Im not satisfied at being at or near the bottom. This election, to us, is about the future. We feel a majority of Alabamians are ready to have a governor who is going to fight for a better future for every single person in the state. The day they laid Paul Hubbert in the ground, the obituaries didnt list the Alabama Education Association among his survivors. A lot of folks myself among them thought the teachers professional organization (Shhh! Dont say union.) was as dead as its former executive secretary. Alabama Republicans merrily dug a hole for it right next to Hubbert. For decades, AEA and Hubbert and Alabama Democratic Party all meant the same thing. The influence of AEA and its power lobbyist, Hubbert, were something to behold. On the State House floor, Hubbert could motion with his finger and lawmakers would rush to him like dogs called by their master. But four years ago, that influence was gone. Hubbards successor, Henry Mabry, spent more than $12 million on campaign contributions in 2014 on 70 different races. And won seven. Even worse, under Mabrys leadership, AEA lost millions on risky securities and ran up millions more in debt. Within a year, the National Education Association intervened. AEAs national parent pushed out Mabry and Alabama Democratic Party boss Joe Reed. The career staff Mabry hadnt run off quietly went to work rebuilding the organization. Since then, not many folks have heard from them. Its easy to turn your back on the graveyard. But AEA wasnt dead. There was a plan put in place by the staff in 2015 to begin to develop relationships with the legislators that had been elected, many of them Republicans, and to present a more policy-focused AEA, says Susan Kennedy, AEAs public policy and government relations manager. And we left behind negative politics. Thats a nice way of saying AEA is now a truly non-partisan organization, even if its not neutral on policy issues such as the Alabama Accountability Act. Four years after its death, AEA is again among the most influential political operations in Alabama. This election season, AEAs political action committee, AVOTE, is again among the largest political donors in the state, with more than $2 million in campaign contributions since last summer. Thats far less than the $12 million Mabry gambled four years ago, but it puts AEA on the same level as the Business Council of Alabama and other powerful special interest groups, if not above them. This time, those contributions have a much different distribution and a much different result. In 2015, the Alabama Republican Party formally adopted a rule in its bylaws prohibiting the party from accepting AEA money and strongly discouraging any of its candidates from taking money, either. Its a rule at least 80 Republicans candidates for state office have ignored. Of the roughly $2 million AEA has contributed to campaigns this election, $1,198,500 has gone to Republican candidates. Just $837,000 went to Democrats. While 54 Democrats accepted donations from AEA, at least 80 Republicans did the same. Those Republican candidates include some of the Legislatures most influential members, such as state Senate Rules Chairman Jabo Waggoner and state House Speaker Mac McCutcheon. Most of the candidates AEA backed have made it through competitive primaries, and few face strong opposition in the general election next week. But AEA, like a lot of special interests, isnt beyond using its campaign money to lets put it gently build relationships even where races havent been competitive. It gave $157,500 to 27 candidates in post-election donations candidates who had won their primaries and faced no opposition in the general election, according to campaign finance data from the Alabama Secretary of States office. AEA also gave about $390,000 to candidates who faced no opposition in either the primary or the general election. Alabama campaign finance law allows officials to use unspent campaign donations for expenses related to the office, like travel, meals, or tickets to the Iron Bowl. Or to put it another way, under Alabama ethics law, its illegal to buy a lawmaker lunch if it costs more than $25. But if you give a lawmaker $25,000 in campaign donations, they can buy themselves breakfast lunch and dinner for the next four years. Love it or hate it, thats the sort of thing lawmakers remember They wont forget AEA is still alive and well. Even if everyone mistakes them for dead. 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. A young Homewood man who touched hearts throughout the nation and beyond over the summer when he walked more than 20 miles to work to be on time for his first on a new job will appear Friday on the Steve Harvey show. Walter Carr, who in July was surprised by his Bellhops movers boss with a gift of a car, taped the show last month in Los Angeles. Harvey is an Emmy Award-winning TV personality, talk show host, actor and comedian. It all began late on the night of July 12 when Carr's car broke down. Knowing he had to be at work at 8 a.m. the following day, he called a few people but couldn't find a ride. He said he then pulled up his Google maps to see how long it would take him if he walked. He set out at midnight from near the Palisades in Homewood to the job site on the far end of Pelham. He took U.S. 280 and walked throughout the night. In Pelham, he encountered several police officers who stopped to question why he was walking alone in the middle of the night. After hearing his story, the officers took him to breakfast and ultimately gave him a ride the rest of the way to the home of Jenny and Chris Lamey, who was packing up to move. Jenny Lamey was impressed by Carr and quickly formed a bond with him. The following day she posted about the experience on Facebook and Carr's story took off. The following day, with the Lamey family and Pelham police in attendance, Bellhops CEO Luke Marklin surprised Carr by handing over his own 2014 Ford Escort. "I am honestly blown away by him,'' Marklin said of Carr. "Everything he did that day is exactly who we are - heart and grit." Carr then experienced a whirlwind of national news shows. Before he even had a Twitter account of his own, others were blowing up theirs with the hashtag #belikewalter. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey tweeted her admiration for him, as did United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. A GoFundMe established in his name hit more than $60,000 and Carr then pledged that any money received on top of that would go to the Birmingham Ed Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing the number of students in Birmingham City Schools that are on the path to college, career, and life readiness. Carr took part in the program when he was a student at Carver High School. Carr said the program unites middle and high school students to network and brainstorm ways to better the school experience. Carr is finishing up school at Lawson State and continues to work for Bellhops. He is joined by Lamey, Marklin, and JW Carpenter from the Birmingham Education Foundation on Fridays show. The show will air at 2 p.m. central on NBC. It was truly an amazing show, said Birmingham publicist Wendy Garner of Wendy Garner Media & Marketing. It offers a lot of good and hope in a time when its desperately needed. There wasnt a dry eye in the studio. A former Alabama couple was found slain in their Louisiana business, both victims of homicide. The bodies of Eugene Frank Gurley, 72, and Patricia Gurley, 70, - who attended high school in Birmingham and college in Calhoun County - were discovered Tuesday night at National Pool Builders, which was owned by the couple. Denham Police Department officers responded to the scene in Livingston Parish, not far from Baton Rouge, on a welfare check. Police Chief Shannon Womack said neighbors of the couple reported neither had been seen or heard from since Monday. Officers and the Gurleys son ultimately forced entry into the business and discovered the crime scene. The cause of death has not been released but Denham Police Chief Shannon Womack at a press conference Wednesday afternoon called the crime the most "senseless and heinous" in his career. The chief said his department is being assisted by the Louisiana State Police Crime Laboratory, analysts from the Louisiana State Analytical and Fusion Exchange and agents from the Louisiana State Police Fugitive Apprehension Task Force. Michael T. Collins is a person of interest in the double homicide of a former Alabama couple found dead in their Louisiana business. Late Wednesday afternoon, Womack announced a person of interest in the case. Michael T. Collins, 45, has an outstanding warrant for simple burglary. He is believed to be in possession of the couples white 2016 Nissan Frontier pickup truck bearing Louisiana license plate Y193507. Womack said Collins may in, or headed toward, Macon County, Tenn. The couple both attended the old Banks High School in east Birmingham, which was later converted to a middle school before finally closing in 2007. After high school, the couple attended Jacksonville State University. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Gurleys family and friends, Womack said. All of the resources of our department, as well as those of our law enforcement partners, are being utilized to identify and apprehend the person or persons responsible for this heinous crime as quickly as possible. Nothing anyone can do will bring back Marie and Eddie Leachs son, but the grieving southeast Alabama parents hope and pray someone can give them back something that would mean so much to them. Austin Leach, 24, was struck and killed almost one week ago on Interstate 20/59 northbound near Jaybird Road. It was about 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 24, when the Henry County man was hit by one vehicle, and then run over by several more vehicles. He was pronounced dead on the scene. Leach always carried with him a blue tote box and black duffel bag. Tucked inside along with his clothing and shoes were his childhood Bible and letters his mother had written to him. It is those mementos worth little money but priceless to his parents - that they desperately want to find. It is something that would bring us closure, Eddie Leach said. Austin Leach, who was from Headland, had been taking part in a 30-day program at The Foundry in Bessemer. He had left voluntarily, his father said, and they believe he was walking northbound toward Birmingham to get to the Firehouse Shelter, where he had eaten a meal earlier in the week. He didnt know the city very well, but he knew the interstate and what exits to take, Eddie Leach said. He wasnt a city boy, but he knew the exits on the eight miles from Bessemer to Third Avenue North in Birmingham. Austin Leach's family are searching for this blue tote box that contained their son's belongings. Eddie Leach said his son had battled addiction but was determined to get well. He wasnt giving up, his father said. He wasnt a quitter. He said his son never missed a Sunday in church and was dearly loved by his family. He was a kind-hearted, loving person, Eddie Leach said. He was the funny man in the family. His son, he said, was bad to leave his bags different places tuck them away to come back later for them. He isnt sure if thats what happened with his tote box and back bag, or if they got strewn when Austin Leach was hit. Theres also a chance he had left them in a taxi earlier in the day. The letters for which the family is searching are the ones his mother wrote to him while Austin Leach was in rehabilitation. The family was offering a $200 reward for the return of his belongings, but that reward has now been increased to $500. . "Theres nothing else we can do,'' he said. Its just tragic. The parents also hope their sons death will educate others. If people see someone walking in the week hours of the morning on an interstate, they need to pick up the phone and let law enforcement know, Eddie Leach said. Theyre not out there for a walk in the park. Anyone with information on Austin Leachs belongings is asked to call his parents at 1-334-701-3627 or 1-334-701-2229. Update: Two more people have come forward so a $500 reward now stands for return of Austins belonging. I know a thing or two about anger and hate, America. Hell, I grew up in Birmingham. Youve seen the old photos, surely. Mobs of young white men and women snarling at black children as they walked into white schools for the first time. Young men beating Freedom Riders with a pipe at the bus station. Because they dared call for equal treatment of all people. Ive talked to many of those people over the years, the ones who stood and yelled. The ones who committed crimes of violence. The ones who did nothing. Some grew old and bitter, retreating into themselves as they longed for a past tilted in their favor. Others came to feel shame. For the things they said, or did, or the things they did not have courage to do. Ive seen what happens when politicians incite mobs until the mobs end up inciting the politicians. Look at em run, Birmingham Police Commissioner Bull Connor said. I want to see the dogs work." Gov. George Wallace pandered for segregation forever and vowed to capitalize on the peoples racism to win elections. And he did. His acolytes were people like Tommy Blanton, Bobby Frank Cherry and Robert Chambliss the men who bombed Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham and killed four little girls. Those are the pathetic men, testimony and FBI interviews would show, who sat around their Klavern planning attacks on blacks and Jews and Catholics any who threatened their own insecure lives. Some 40 bombs exploded in Birmingham between the 40s and 1963 because of those and other small men. Other bombs were intended but did not go off, like one with 54 sticks of dynamite at Temple Beth-El, snuffed out by the rain. It took the deaths of those four girls in 1963 for Birmingham to begin to feel shame. I still dont know if it was the shame of guilt and regret, or the shame of being seen, stark and naked, for what we really were. Birmingham lawyer Charles Morgan forced the city to look at itself the day after that bombing. Bill Hudson captured this lasting image of firefighters turning their hoses on civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham in 1963. Who did it, he asked a civic club. We all did it. The 'who' is every individual who talks about the (N-words) and spreads the seeds of his hate to his neighbor and his son, he said. The who is every governor who ever shouted for lawlessness and became a law violator. It is every Senator and representative who with mock humility tells everybody that things back home aren't really like they are. It is courts that move ever so slowly and newspapers that timorously defend the law. Morgan was essentially run out of town. But Birmingham would begin to pay its debt. The city was the size of Atlanta in the 50s. It has lost 40 percent of its population since 1960. But gradually the racial violence ebbed and the rhetoric vanished. The mobs slipped away and the Ku Klux Klan for a time all but disappeared. Connor was forced out and Wallace would apologize, and somehow receive support from black people in Alabama. For a while, anyway, people had the decency to feel shame for their racism. I miss those days. Because now the world feels a lot like the Birmingham of my youth. With bombs and mobs and violence and silence and permission to hate. Without so much as shame. I fear well wake one day like Morgan did. Angry and hurt and just a little too late. Remember Birmingham. Do something. Say something. Be something. 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. Melanie Browns parents and grandparents hailed from Birminghams Titusville neighborhood, so when she had the opportunity to buy a house there, she went for it. When you experience the Titusville community, to me it is just like experiencing home, said Brown, who works as a financial officer in the University of Alabama at Birminghams information technology department. When she and her husband bought the 60-year-old home in 2013, it needed some work, she said. Her family of seven couldnt afford to make most of the repairs. Anytime it rained I had to get the buckets ready, she said, referring to a leaky roof. Thats why Brown jumped at the chance to take part in a pilot program at UAB that provides employees with incentives to fix up their current homes or buy homes in the neighborhoods surrounding the university: Five Points South, Glen Iris and North and South Titusville. It has really been instrumental in making our home safer and more beautiful, she said, of the grant she received last year. UAB is now in the second year of the five-year pilot. The Blazer Home program provides up to 10 grants each fiscal year for amounts up to $8,000 that employees can use to help purchase a home or make renovations to their current home. Employees have to apply, be eligible to buy a home and agree to work for the university for five years. Our proposed investment of $400,000 through 50 UAB homeowners over five years in these neighboring communities is an indication of our commitment to the vitality and safety of our adjacent neighborhoods, our employees and our city, Allen Bolton, vice president for finance and administration, said in a statement when the program was first announced to employees. "We also hope that UAB is just the first among Alabama employers to provide employer-assisted housing benefits." According to UAB, about 825 benefit-eligible employees already live in Five Points South, Glen Iris and North and South Titusville, along with nearly 1,100 students. UAB has about 25,184 employees, most of which are full-time and eligible for the incentive program. The 2016-17 Blaze Leadership Academy, which prepares faculty and staff to take on senior leadership roles, came up with the concept for the Blazer Home Program -- an incentive offered by many universities across the country to recruit and attract employees. The next years leadership academy pursued the development and implementation of the program. The UAB Educational Foundation provided funding for the pilot program. We think it is important to encourage residential development that has the potential to bring stability and vitality to the areas around campus, said Jodie Mote, the foundations treasurer. It also provides yet another way to strengthen the relationship between the university and the neighboring communities, and it fits nicely with our mission. Josephine Banks, executive director for human resources at UAB, said the program is also designed to strengthen the universitys connection to its adjacent neighborhoods and help the university attract and retain valuable employees. She said the university received 27 applications for the program in year one, and it received 21 applications in the second year. Only one employee has used the grant to purchase a home so far, Banks said. We set aside some of the grant funds for those who submitted homebuyer applications, and they have until the end of this year to successfully find a home within the incentive zone, she said. At the end of the five years, Banks said the university will determine the success of the program and whether it should be halted or expanded. The oversight committee has not determined metrics, but our hope is that the program will have a positive impact on faculty and staff recruitment/retention, community relationships, sustainability efforts, and community revitalization, she said. We are into the second year of the five-year pilot program expansion will be based on the success of the pilot and available funds. Brown said she is glad UAB saw the value of extending the grants to North and South Titusville. I really think it is an overlooked part of the UAB area, she said. It is just one of those neighborhoods where you dont really think about South Titusville having the same appeal as Glen Iris and you really should. I am glad they made the commitment to improve the neighborhood because a lot of our residents are older. Brown said the neighborhood is just as close to the citys amenities as Glen Iris and Five Points South. LaShand Flood purchased her home in Titusville in 2011 because it was close to her job at Princeton Hospital. Also, her mother was sick and thats where her mothers physician was located. When I moved into my home, it was just me and my mom, she said. We had always talked about doing upgrades, but we didnt have (the money). Flood started working in the accounting department at UAB about two years ago. She knew she had to apply when she learned about the Blazer Home program. With the grant money Flood was able to do the home upgrades and repairs that she and her mother had dreamed about doing, even though, her mother is no longer with her. She died four years ago. I am grateful, she said. Flood renovated the kitchen and bathroom, installed a privacy fence and painted the exterior. I hope more people take advantage of the program and see what Titusville is all about, she said. Strong to severe storms will be possible across most of Alabama starting early Thursday morning and lasting through the day, according to forecasters. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center says most of the state could see strong storms, but the best chances will be across south Alabama. Storms are expected to move from west to east across Alabama ahead of a strong cold front. The strongest storms could contain damaging wind gusts and heavy rain, and a few tornadoes will also be possible, mainly across south Alabama. Here's a look at what to expect by region: NORTH ALABAMA (NWS) Storms could begin as early as late tonight across north Alabama, but the chances will be greatest from around 4 a.m. until 10 a.m. Thursday, according to the National Weather Service in Huntsville. Winds could gust as high as 55-65 mph with the strongest storms. Forecasters are also expecting 1 to 2 inches of rain. CENTRAL ALABAMA (NWS) All of central Alabama will run the risk of seeing strong storms, but the best chances will be roughly from Montgomery southward, according to the National Weather Service in Birmingham. A few tornadoes will be possible, especially along and south of the U.S. Highway 80 corridor. Wind gusts up to 60 mph are also possible. The storms could begin by 6 a.m. Thursday in west Alabama (which is a bit later than originally forecast) and roll eastward, reaching the Birmingham area anywhere from 7 a.m. until noon. They could reach eastern Alabama by 10 a.m. and exit the state by 4 p.m. SOUTH ALABAMA (NWS) The line of storms is forecast to reach southwest Alabama a bit later, according to the National Weather Service in Mobile. The main window for storms in southwest Alabama will be from 10 a.m. until around 6 p.m. Damaging winds, large hail and a few tornadoes will be possible areawide. Forecasters noted that isolated storms will also be possible ahead of the main line of storms, and "these supercell thunderstorms will pose a higher risk for large hail and tornado development." Heavy rain is expected to accompany the line of storms, and 1-3 inches will be possible, which raises the risk of localized flooding. As for southeast Alabama, the weather service in Tallahassee, Fla., said the best time for storms will come Thursday afternoon and last into the evening. Damaging winds of up to 60 mph will be possible, as well as isolated tornadoes. The weather service noted that storm effects will be greater in areas affected by Hurricane Michael. Tommy Battle is Mayor of Huntsville, Alabama. In front of hundreds of business executives, development officers, and elected leaders from across the Southeast U.S. attending a premiere international business conference in Toyko in October, Toyotas senior officer made a statement that quieted the room. Tetsuo Ogawa said the main reason Toyota chose Huntsville as the site for its new Mazda joint venture was because of the companys long and successful relationship with our community. If anyone ever wondered why we travel across the world to attend a conference, this is the penultimate explanation. It simply boils down to relationships, just as Mr. Ogawa said. Huntsville Mayor Tommy BattleAL.com Our state has been blessed with over 71 Japanese companies that have located in Alabama. These companies have provided thousands of jobs in industries as varied as automotive, finance, and advanced materials. In the name of strong relationship building, our delegation traveled to Japan to meet our international partners at the 41st annual joint meeting of the Southeast U.S.-Japan and the Japan-Southeast associations, known as SEUS Japan 41. It was the prime opportunity to meet face-to-face with the Toyota executive team. It was also the fifth time our Huntsville executives have met with Toyota in Japan in as many years. While we were solidifying our relations with our old friends from Toyota, this trip offered us the opportunity to start relationships with our new friends at Mazda. Our conversation centered on the future of the automotive industry. The automotive industry is more than just making cars; its about moving people. Toyota is putting a lot of emphasis on hydrogen cell clean energy technology while Mazda is continuing to advance its rotary engine that could change the industry by extending the range cars can travel. Both are innovative companies bringing their strengths together to form one brand: Mazda-Toyota Manufacturing. They are doing that in Huntsville. Officials from the Alabama Department of Commerce, and Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle, met with officials from Mazda and Toyota in anticipation of the $1.6 billion automobile factory. Our time in Japan also allowed us the opportunity to visit with the Japanese technology partner of GE Aviation in the development of ceramic matrix composites. NSG Industries is a leader in the development of advanced materials and is based in Toyama. The new materials being developed by these innovative leaders will help the aerospace industry by providing parts that are lighter and stronger. The important material is now being developed in two places in the world: Japan and in Huntsville. The visit to Japan was also a time to celebrate the many contributions Japanese companies have made in Alabama and the Southeastern region as well. The SEUS Japan 41 theme was success through tradition, innovation and partnerships. At SEUS we heard the story of Toray, a manufacturer of composite carbon fiber that located its first U.S. plant in Decatur, Alabama. It was fitting that Decatur Mayor Tab Bowling and Morgan County Chairman Ray Long were there to solidify their communitys relationship with Toray and with Daikin, another great industrial partner. Jasper Mayor David OMary was accompanied by his local Japanese company Yokozu. Yokozu was talking to us about doing business with Mazda-Toyota and plans to accommodate for expansions. My thanks to the 41-member Alabama delegation in attendance this past week. They took time away from their jobs and families. They flew half way around the world and back. The bottom line -- they took the time to strengthen industry relationships so that in the future Alabama can continue to '"win" these big projects that lead to jobs and new investment for our communities. As fighting in parts of Iraq intensifies, a visual breakdown of the control of territory after years of war. After more than a decade of instability, parts of Iraq still lie in shambles, with several forces and groups fighting for control of large swathes of the country. ISIL, also known as ISIS, no longer holds towns and cities, but its fighters still operate in the desert regions around the Iraq-Syria border. Iraqs military has launched another offensive to target ISIL sleeper cells and pockets long after the group lost territory. Mariana Prandini Assis is a human rights lawyer and a PhD Candidate in Politics at the New School for Social Research. Brazil has just elected Jair Bolsonaro as its next president a man well-known nationally and internationally for his misogyny and homophobia. Although over the years, his rhetoric targeting women, the LGBTQI community and minorities grew increasingly obscene, it in no way upset his political career. In fact, it seemed to strengthen it. During a parliamentary debate in 2014, he told MP Maria do Rosario that he would not rape her because she was not worth it. The same year, he suggested during a TV interview that spanking a son who showed signs of being gay was the best way for parents to change his behaviour and assure he would grow up as a proper man. In 2017, he claimed that after having four sons, having a daughter was the result of a moment of weakness. In making these outrageous assertions in public, Bolsonaro was aiming to position himself strategically as a key player within the so-called war on gender ideology. This political choice helped him gain popularity and eventually win the presidency. Now he is likely to pay back the reactionary forces who contributed to his political success by empowering them in their war on progressive gender activism in Brazil. What is gender ideology? The term gender ideology has no academic or theoretical basis, nor a clear and coherent definition. It is used within conservative religious circles to vaguely denote policies or activism aimed at improving gender equality and upholding the rights of women and the LGBTQI community. It has its roots in the response of the Catholic Church and a number of influential conservative activists to the progress made on these fronts at the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development and the 1995 World Conference on Women. This idea of a gender conspiracy or an agenda to undermine family and religious values and promote immorality quickly spread throughout the world after the mid-1990s. Conservative circles started instrumentalising the word gender to come after different enemies at different times: feminists, gays, trans people, etc. As the pink wave receded in Latin America over the past five years, the crusade on gender ideology spread across the region. It was fed by the resurgence of the conservative opposition and the rise of Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal groups. In Brazil, the legal recognition of same-sex unions by the Supreme Court in 2011, was the turning point for anti-gender crusaders. It was in the aftermath of this groundbreaking decision that the hysteria around gender ideology gained momentum and visibility. Since then the evangelical parliamentary bloc, a key force behind Bolsonaros successful candidacy, has systematically tried to undermine the expansion of sexual rights, including same-sex marriage and reproductive rights, and particularly the right to abortion. They have regularly submitted proposed legislation, including draft laws to recognise the rights of an unborn child, to define the family as a unit consisting of a man, a woman and their children, and to criminalise abortion even in the case of rape. While none of these proposals has been passed, they have given an opportunity for the evangelical bloc to market itself as the defender of the traditional family and Christian values and stir public controversy. In this way, it gradually etched the idea in the publics mind that the values of the Brazilian society are indeed under attack and that a war needs to be waged on the subversive, immoral gender ideology to save them. Bolsonaros own career as an anti-gender crusader also started back in 2011. Then and now, Brazil has been dealing with alarming rates of violent deaths related to homophobia. In 2017, reports registered at least 445 LGBTQI deaths, a 30 percent increase from 2016. In this context, in 2011 then Education Minister Fernando Haddad (now Bolsonaros former election opponent), launched an initiative to distribute educational materials aimed at combating homophobia and discrimination in schools. Bolsonaro called the materials a gay kit and declared it a direct threat to the natural sexual binary, to children and to the Brazilian family. He led a public campaign which successfully swayed public opinion against the measure, forcing then President Dilma Rousseff to veto the distribution of these materials. Hegemonic masculinity and violence One of the high points of the crusade against gender ideology was during what many see as the parliamentary coup against the Workers Party in 2016. While many factors and political interests were at play during the impeachment proceedings against Dilma, the reactionary discourse on gender and sexuality played an important role in galvanising popular support for the move. The oppositions public rhetoric employing misogyny, ridicule and moralist appeals to traditional family values incited against Brazils first female president and paved the way for the return of white, male, sexist and authoritarian politics. Bolsonaro, of course, actively participated in the whole charade, famously dedicating his vote in favour of Dilmas impeachment to Colonel Brilhante Ustra, the head of the feared Doi-Codi torture unit. This was meant to taunt the former president who herself suffered torture at the hands of Brazils military dictatorship. Thus the message that Bolsonaro and his allies delivered in 2016 was clear: Women and LGBTQI people are not welcome in politics, and neither are policies promoting gender and sexual justice. Then in 2018 during his election campaign, Bolsonaro not only embodied and praised this hegemonic form of masculinity but also actively projected himself as a crusader against gender ideology. Anti-gender rhetoric was also generously used even in the fake news campaign aimed at smearing his opponent. One fake story distributed on WhatsApp claimed Haddad supplied schools with erotic baby bottles in public child care centres. Another claimed his running mate, Manuela DAvila, was an atheist who defiled religious symbols. The effects of Bolsonaros crusade against gender ideology have not been limited to Brazilian politics but have also extended to the Brazilian streets, where violence initiated by his supporters has escalated. During this polarised election campaign, different forms of gender-based and racialised political violence increased significantly. More than 50 violent incidents perpetrated by Bolsonaro supporters were registered during this election season, with many of the victims being women, blacks, and LGBTQI. In his post-election-victory speech, Bolsonaro said his campaign had relied on the Bible, the toolbox to fix men and women, demonstrating clearly that he will continue down the same path he had walked over the past few years only now he would have the power to realise all that he believes in. His rise to power has unleashed the most brutal side of the gender ideology crusade by pushing beyond the institutional constraints of politics to the point where hostile rhetoric about political enemies encourages their physical annihilation in the public sphere. Our only choice going forward is to come together and confront this rising tide of gender-based and racialised violence as a united front of democratic forces. If we fail to unite, we risk losing ground to Bolsonaros dangerous and dehumanising rhetoric and more innocent lives. It is in the interest of Israel for Jewish Americans and Jewish Europeans to feel unsafe. The massacre of Jewish worshippers on Saturday by an avowed anti-Semite in Pittsburgh reveals a clear, straight line between Trumps sustained dog-whistles against Jews, black people, Muslims, immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community to the violence carried out by right-wing white nationalists. Robert Bowers, apprehended after a shooting spree that killed 11 people, explained he wanted all Jews to die and described immigrants and asylum-seekers as invaders of the United States. Instead of condemning far-right nationalism, Trump reinforced this hysteria, tweeting on Monday that a caravan of asylum-seekers coming from Honduras should be considered as an invasion and that the US military would be waiting for them. Last week, Trump proudly embraced the nationalist term. Bowers had consumed and regurgitated the lethal rhetoric of far-right extremists who want to rid the US of non-white, non-Christian people, and of a government which constantly incites hatred and vilification of all marginalized groups. Three days earlier, a white supremacist in Kentucky set out to kill black people. He eventually murdered Maurice Stallard, 69, and Vickie Lee Jones, 67, in a grocery store. There is no question that these killers were motivated by the white nationalist extremism the Trump administrations has adopted and encouraged. After Saturdays synagogue massacre, curiously, Israeli leaders offered their condolences but refused to address Trumps responsibility for fuelling such anti-Semitic violence. Instead, they scrambled to provide cover for the US president while Israel advocates attempted to blame the rise in anti-Semitism on left-wing, anti-racist and anti-fascist activists who campaign for Palestinian rights. Why would they do this, especially when American Jewish support for Trump is overwhelmingly low, and while Israel claims to be the protector of all Jewish people? To whom or to what were they speaking? The unwillingness by Israeli leaders to confront such modern-day Nazism and the political forces pushing state-sponsored bigotry and hatred exposes that states unsettling alliance with Trump and his agenda. For Israel, Trump has been the ideal partner in its efforts to crush Palestinian resistance and deny rights to African asylum-seekers while entrenching apartheid and systematic, unchecked violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Trump has, in turn, looked to Israel to model his policies of intensified militarisation of the US-Mexico border, his authoritarian threats against asylum-seekers and immigrants, and his open embrace of nationalist figures and right-wing legislators. Notorious white supremacist Richard Spencer, speaking about his dream to make the US a European ethno-nationalist state, for example, has said he sees Israel as the ideal model. Spencer has even dubbed his project for an Aryan state white Zionism. Brazils president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right extremist who has promised to treat social movements as terrorist organisations and wage a war on poor and indigenous communities, has also embraced Israel and says he will like Trump move his countrys embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Israeli flags were prominently waved during rallies celebrating Bolsonaros win on Sunday, a chilling symbol of Israels popularity in fascist political movements. But there is another reason Israel is embracing todays white nationalists. Right-wing extremists openly yearn to push Jewish people out of the US and Europe a fantasy shared by Israels top leadership. The appeal to Jews to leave their homes and settle in Israel on Palestinian land is a main tenet of Zionism, Israels state ideology. But only a tiny number of ideologically motivated Jews are prepared to leave the safety, prosperity and comfort they enjoy in their home countries in North America and Europe for a hard life in Israel. Meanwhile, many Israeli Jews, especially the young and most educated, are leaving a drain Israel is hard pressed to stop. So unable to attract Jews from abroad, Israeli leaders must convince Jewish people that they are unsafe and unwanted everywhere everywhere except for Israel. Just like Trump, Israels main weapon is fear. Israeli politicians like opposition leader Avy Gabbay who on Sunday urged American Jews, in grief and traumatised by the Pittsburgh massacre, to emigrate to Israel seek to deliberately weaken the safety and diversity of communities in which Jewish people around the world are rooted. Israels education minister Naftali Bennett, an extreme right-wing supporter of Israels settler population who has bragged about killing Arabs, used the massacre of Jewish worshippers to dehumanise Palestinians. The efforts of Bennett and Gabbay did nothing to assuage the Jewish communitys fears, but they did exploit anti-Semitism for Israels gain and they gave Trump yet another tacit endorsement of his policies. Instead of fighting to make the world a safer place for Jews for everyone wherever they live, wherever they make their home, Israels leaders and their supporters align openly with Trumps agenda even when it means siding with white nationalist movements who espouse deep anti-Semitism. Its a horrifying and stark reality and one that Israeli leaders can only try to cover up by falsely deflecting the blame for the lethal anti-Semitism that visited the Tree of Life synagogue onto anti-racist activists and even left-wing Jewish groups. Israel and its lobby have spent millions of dollars in recent years on campaigns to conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, especially on US college campuses. They are trying to suppress the nonviolent, anti-racist boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights by smearing it as anti-Semitic, while giving actual cover to anti-Semitism across the US. Israels hardline advocates show deep contempt for American Jews who stand with the marginalised and oppressed, who reject Israels unmitigated violence against Palestinians, who remain grounded in our communities fighting against systemic racism and injustice propagated by Trump and his authoritarian allies in Israel. When Trump announced he would be visiting Pittsburgh, members of the progressive Jewish community there immediately stated that he was not welcome until he denounces white nationalism that targets Jews, migrant families, people of colour, Muslims, people with disabilities and LGBTQ people. He went anyway. Jewish communities in the US are drawing a line: as we refuse to accept Trumps right-wing nationalism that fomented the massacre in Pittsburgh, we also refuse to advocate for Israel as it embodies and sharpens that nationalist fantasy. Instead, we fight for a broad-based, inclusive and just future for us all. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. Army helicopter carrying senior officials crashes in western Farah province on way to Herat, killing all 25 on board. Officials say an Afghan army helicopter carrying senior officials has crashed, killing all 25 on board. Naser Mehri, a spokesman for the governor of western Farah province, said two army helicopters were on their way to neighbouring Herat province when one lost control. Among the dead were the deputy army corps commander for western Afghanistan and head of the Farah provincial council, Mehri said. Provincial council member Dadullah Qaneh said the helicopter hit a mountain peak in poor weather en route to neighbouring Herat province. A Taliban spokesperson said fighters belonging to the armed group shot it down. Senior Afghan government and military officials often travel by helicopter in regions where the Taliban has a large presence. London A British Muslim of Iranian descent will fight Boris Johnson for the former foreign secretarys constituency, marking a moment in politics that, according to the young parliamentary candidate, could come to represent poetic justice. Ali Milani, 24, recently graduated in International Relations from Brunel University London, and has been selected by Britains main opposition Labour Party to take on Johnson in his constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Johnson, 54, is a politician with the ruling Conservative Party. He was foreign secretary and London mayor, but has attracted most attention for his outlandish statements and often racist language, including derogatory remarks about Muslims. Britains next general election is due to take place in 2022, but Prime Minister Theresa Mays minority government is teetering on the brink of collapse amid divisions within her party largely stirred by Johnson over Brexit. Milani, third from left, is trying to overturn a majority of 5,000 [Courtersy: Ali Milani] The Conservative leaders aides had hinted at a ballot taking place as early as November to shore up support within the party, but that now seems unlikely to materialise. Nevertheless, Johnson, a Brexit hardliner has emerged as Mays primary challenger. Milani plans to make his mark on history and thwart Johnsons ambitions. We (Labour Party members) thought there was a lot of poetic justice in me standing against Boris, he told Al Jazeera. A young local Muslim activist whos grown up in the area, versus someone whos not from the area and who as far as I know, doesnt live there. For Boris, its always about Boris Born in the Iranian capital, Tehran, Milani moved to the UK when he was three years old and has spent the rest of his life in Hillingdon, the area where he is now standing to become an MP. Milani cut his teeth in student politics as an elected executive in the National Union of Students and was later elected as a Labour councillor. His political leanings tilt heavily to the Labour Partys left, in line with its leader, Jeremy Corbyn. The British Iranian said his campaign would focus on his credentials as a local, affected by similar issues and concerns as his fellow constituents. That, he added, would be in stark contrast to Johnsons record as an MP. I use the local hospital, Ive been to school there, Ive worked there, and lived there, and all of that. That is whats ultimately going to defeat him. Johnson is a member of an out-of-touch elite, according to Milani, someone who had been politically parachuted into the area and was using the constituency as a platform to advance his own scheming within the Conservative party. The way you connect with voters is to talk about the things they care about. Ali Milani, Labour councillor People can see that for Boris, its always about Boris. Everything is a ploy to him, he doesnt care. Milanis rival has faced accusations of dog whistling to the far right, recently causing a media uproar by comparing Muslim women who wore the face veil to letterboxes. His previous racist outbursts include using the racial slur piccaninnies to describe black people and referring to their watermelon smiles, another offensive trope. Johnson later apologised for the remarks but has had more race-related controversies since, notably blaming former US President Barack Obamas Kenyan heritage for his ancestral dislike of the British empire. For Milani, such remarks additionally render Johnson unfit to represent the constituency. Our community is one that is proud of its diversity and sees it as a source of strength, he said. To have [an MP] who so readily and frequently uses such offensive and incendiary remarks proves to us that he is not only unfit to be a foreign secretary, but he is unfit to be in any public office. Chances of an upset Milani faces a difficult challenge. Johnson has a significant majority of just over 5,000 votes, and that was despite a stronger than expected Labour showing in the 2017 election, which saw the ruling Conservatives lose their majority in the House of Commons. But Milani sees more than a glimmer of hope after Labour cut Johnsons majority during the 2015 election in half. He also believes Johsons behaviour during the Brexit negotiations will cost him further support. There is some evidence to support such an optimistic outlook. In February, a report by the Global Future think-tank said several seats, including Johnsons, were at risk as voters shifted away from traditional party allegiances and increasingly based decisions on where candidates stood on the issues they cared about. Simon Griffiths, a senior lecturer in Politics at Goldsmiths, University of London, said Milanis challenge would be in taking on such a well-known rival. There have been murmurs of a snap election ahead of the conclusion of Brexit talks [Courtesy: Ali Milani] I wouldnt like to predict what will happen, he said, adding: That would be a big majority to overturn though, and Johnsons name will help him compared to the rivals voters certainly know who he is. Milanis optimism lies in the belief that his and his partys vision of the future will win out over the lure of Johnsons brand of personality politics. The key thing for me is that Boris thinks its about Boris, for me its a platform to help our community, Milani said. We talk to them about things they care about, so things like investment in public services, the NHS, hate crime, housing, healthcare, and so on. The way you connect with voters is to talk about the things they care about. Allies show off might in NATOs biggest war games post-Cold War NATO began the main phase of military exercises in a display of force meant to underline its ability to deter Russia. Deal reduces tariffs in economies that together amount to more than 13 percent of global GDP a total of $10 trillion. A landmark 11-country deal that will slash tariffs across much of the Asia-Pacific will come into force at the end of December, New Zealand said on Wednesday, a rare bright spot for global commerce as the US-China trade war intensifies. The deal moved forward after Australia became the sixth nation to formally ratify it, alongside Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and Singapore. This triggers the 60-day countdown to entry into force of the agreement and the first round of tariff cuts, said New Zealand Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker. His country is responsible for official tasks such as receiving and circulating notifications made by members of the pact. The original 12-member deal was thrown into limbo early last year when US President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement to prioritise protecting American jobs. The remaining nations, led by Japan, finalised a revised trade pact in January, called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). The deal will reduce tariffs in economies that together amount to more than 13 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) a total of $10 trillion. With the US, it would have represented 40 percent. As protectionist moves strengthen across the world, the importance of free and fair rules is growing more and more, Japanese Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told a news conference in Tokyo. He added that Japan would continue to be a flag-bearer for free trade. Escalating trade war The success of the deal has been touted by officials in Japan and other member countries as an antidote to counter growing US protectionism. They hope that Washington would eventually recommit to the pact. Trumps economic agenda, however, remains focused on China as a trade war between the worlds two largest economies shows little sign of abating. Trump on Tuesday warned he is ready to impose additional tariffs on Chinese goods if an agreement with Beijing could not be reached. The US has already imposed tariffs on $250bn worth of Chinese goods, and China has responded with retaliatory duties on $110bn worth of US products. The trade war threatens to check global economic growth, though signatories to CPTPP said the deal would be a boon for several sectors. Australia said the agreement will boost agricultural exports, set to be worth more than $52bn $36.9bn this year despite a crippling drought. The five member countries still to ratify the deal are Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru and Vietnam. While most of the remaining parties to the agreement have vowed to ratify the deal, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said he was still weighing its benefits. Malware and phishing techniques allegedly used to target computers and remove data on jet engines and parts from firms. Chinese intelligence officers conspired with hackers and company insiders to break into private companies computer systems and steal information on a turbofan engine used in commercial jetliners, according to a US indictment. The 10 people charged conspired to steal sensitive data that could be used by Chinese entities to build the same or similar engine without incurring substantial research and development expenses the indictment released by the US Department of Justice said on Tuesday. More than a dozen companies were targeted, but only Capstone Turbine Corp was identified by name. Others were listed as a French aerospace manufacturer with an office in Suzhou, China, a United Kingdom aerospace company, and a multinational conglomerate that produces commercial and consumer products and aerospace systems. The indictment charges Zha Rong and Chai Meng along with other co-conspirators who worked for the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security, a unit of the foreign intelligence arm of the Ministry of State Security. The indictment detailed efforts to use malware and phishing techniques to hack into target computers and remove data on the engines and parts. Corporate espionage Six hackers who worked under the spies were also named, and two men who worked for the French company. Their efforts to steal sensitive commercial aviation and other data took place from January 2010 through May 2015. The case has added to rising tensions between Beijing and Washington over geopolitics, trade, hacking and corporate espionage. It marks the third major corporate espionage-related case involving Chinese intelligence officers brought by the Justice Department since last month. In late September, a Chinese national who also enlisted in the US Army Reserve was arrested in Chicago for working for Chinese intelligence to recruit engineers and scientists, including some who worked for US defence contractors. Earlier in October, the Justice Department also announced it arrested a spy for Chinas Ministry of State Security on charges of economic espionage and attempting to steal trade secrets from several US aviation and aerospace companies. In that matter, the FBI said the extradition of Chinese operative Xu Yanjun from Belgium was unprecedented, and the case highlighted the Chinese governments direct control over economic espionage in the United States. {articleGUID} After Xus arrest, China said the US was making something out of thin air. Private data theft John Demers, the head of the Justice Departments National Security Division, highlighted the pattern of the three cases. This is just the beginning, he said in a statement. Together with our federal partners, we will redouble our efforts to safeguard Americas ingenuity and investment. The FBI worked on the case together with Frances General Directorate for Internal Security. This action is yet another example of criminal efforts by the [Ministry of State Security] to facilitate the theft of private data for Chinas commercial gain, US Attorney Adam Braverman said in a statement. The concerted effort to steal, rather than simply purchase, commercially available products should offend every company that invests talent, energy, and shareholder money into the development of products. Three others were injured when an explosive device went off inside the FSB building in Arkhangelsk city. A 17-year-old student has blown himself up in the lobby of Russias Federal Security Service (FSB) in the northern city of Arkhangelsk, injuring three employees. The unnamed teenager detonated a homemade explosive device at about 9am (06:00 GMT) on Wednesday and died on the spot, the countrys Investigative Committee said in a statement. The Committee released a CCTV photo of the perpetrator, a young, clean-shaven white man with short brown hair. An official, who spoke to AFP news agency on condition of anonymity, named the suicide bomber as Mikhail Zhlobitsky, a student at a local technical college. Svetlana Petrenko, the spokeswoman for the Investigative Committee, said the bombers flat was being searched and that his friends and close relatives were being questioned. She said checks would also be carried out to establish whether he was a member of any banned group. The FSB is the main successor to the feared KGB agency [Reuters] Regional governor Igor Orlov said that the authorities were working to establish the type of explosive used. Things are very serious, he said. We are taking measures to increase security of all public and state buildings in Arkhangelsk region. Communist anarchists Seven minutes before the blast, a post in an anarchist forum on Telegram, a messaging service, warned that the FSB building would be the target of a terror attack. The writer of the post, who signed as Valeryan Panov, said he would claim responsibility for it. The reasons are quite clear to you. I have decided to do this because the FSB has gone fucking mad. It is inventing cases and torturing people, said the post. I will most likely croak in the blast. I wish you a bright future of anarchist communism. The FSB is the main successor to the feared KGB agency, known for persecuting dissidents in the Soviet era. Attacks by anarchists on Russian authorities have in the past included setting police cars on fire and throwing Molotov cocktails at the offices of the ruling party United Russia. James Mattis says the US has watched the bloody conflict long enough and he wants dropping of bombs to stop. Top American officials called for a ceasefire in Yemen and demanded warring parties immediately come to the negotiating table. The comments came as the Saudi-Emirati-led military coalition deployed more than 10,000 new troops towards a vital rebel-held port city in the run-up to a new assault. James Mattis, the Pentagon chief, said the US had been watching the conflict for long enough, adding he believes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who are in a US-backed coalition fighting Houthi rebels are ready for talks. We have got to move toward a peace effort here, and we cant say we are going to do it sometime in the future, Mattis said at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. We need to be doing this in the next 30 days. Come to a solution US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo later called on the Saudi-Emirati coalition to stop air attacks in populated areas in Yemen. Pompeo said the time is now for the cessation of hostilities in the war-plagued country. Mattis said the United States is calling for all factions to meet United Nations Special Envoy Martin Griffiths in Sweden in November and come to a solution. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the conflict between embattled Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, whose government is recognised by the United Nations, and the Houthis in 2015. At least 10,000 people a figure that hasnt been updated in years and is likely significantly higher have since been killed and the country that now stands at the brink of famine that threatens an estimated 13 million. The UN says Yemen could become the worst humanitarian catastrophe the world has seen in 100 years. US Congress provoked Kevin Martin, president of the grassroots Peace Action group, said the people of Yemen need peace right now and even 30 days to halt fighting is too long. I think the Trump administration is trying to get out ahead of a stampede. Congress, public opinion and the media have all turned very much against this war, Martin told Al Jazeera from Washington, DC. He said international pressure is also mounting on the Saudis, which could force them to heed US demands to end the war in Yemen. Unfortunately its taken the school bus bombing tragedy of a few months ago, and then the horrible murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Those are awful and it shouldnt have taken anything like that, but it does seem to have provoked more people in Congress to speak out against this, said Martin. US-Saudi ties have cooled in recent weeks after Khashoggis killing, which has also tarnished the image of powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Killing innocent people {articleGUID} The United States has faced fierce international criticism for its role in supporting the Saudi-led coalition, especially after a series of air attacks killed scores of civilians. Mattis said US support is based primarily on teaching the Saudi air force to improve targeting and to not drop bombs when there is any doubt about what they might hit. Our goal right now is to achieve a level of capability by those forces fighting against the Houthis that they are not killing innocent people, he said. The longer-term solution and by longer term I mean 30 days from now we want to see everybody around a peace table based on a ceasefire, based on a pullback [of Houthis] from the border and then based on a ceasing dropping of bombs that will permit the special envoy Martin Griffiths to get them together in Sweden and end this war. That is the only way we are going to really solve this. On Thursday, Qatar welcomed the US call for a ceasefire, urging the international community to take all necessary measures to address the grave humanitarian situation and insure humanitarian access to all of Yemen. Last month, UN-led peace talks failed to take off after Houthi rebels refused to fly to Geneva over what they said was the UNs failure to guarantee a safe return to the capital Sanaa, which the group has controlled since 2014. The coalition deployed its 10,000 reinforcements to the Red Sea coast in the face of the new offensive on Hodeidah within days, a military official told AFP news agency. He said they would also secure areas liberated from the Houthi rebels and forces from Sudan, part of the coalition, had moved in to secure areas around the city. Houthi rebels have for the past 10 days been stationing fighters on rooftops of buildings in Hodeidah city, government military officials said. Honduran government preventing many from fleeing to US Hondurans say Washingtons pressure has led to the crackdown on those fleeing poverty and violence. Armed forces chief says possible seabed location of the downed aircraft may have been found after 189 were killed. Indonesia deployed divers on Wednesday around the site of an aircraft that crashed into the Java Sea with 189 people on board after picking up a signal searchers believe reveals the planes location. Armed forces Chief Hadi Tjahjanto said a search-and-rescue effort identified the possible seabed location of the downed jet. Debris and some human remains were found previously, but not the main fuselage and black boxes. We strongly believe that we have found a part of the fuselage of JT610, Hadi told TV One, referring to the flight. The search team had the location coordinates but now had to confirm it was the fuselage, he added. A 22-metre long object was found at a depth of 32 metres, the navy said. Naval officer Haris Djoko Nugroho said divers would go down to the site once a side-scan sonar provided a more detailed picture of the object. The aircraft crashed into the sea with 189 people onboard on Monday. There were no survivors. The search was expanded on Wednesday to 15 nautical miles from the point where the plane lost contact, according officials. Ground staff lost contact with Lion Air flight JT610, shortly after the Boeing 737 MAX 8 took off in the morning from the capital Jakarta on its way to the tin-mining town of Pangkal Pinang. Indonesia sent teams of divers to search for the fuselage while also using pinger locators to find the cockpit recorders and find out why an almost-new plane crashed into the sea only 13 minutes after take off. Meanwhile, Indonesias transport minister removed the technical director of Lion Air and several technicians after the crash. Today we dismiss [the director] from his position and his duty, Budi Karya Sumadi said, citing the accident as the reason. He said technicians were also dismissed, Antara news agency reported. The deputy of the national transport safety committee has said the plane had technical problems on its previous flight from the city of Denpasar on Bali island on Sunday including an issue over unreliable airspeed. The pilot had asked to return to base shortly after take off. Investigators are trying to determine why he issued the request. Indonesias President Joko Widodo visited Jakartas port on Tuesday where the pile of debris has been laid out on tarpaulins, examining the items which include mangled seats, bags, shoes and flight attendant uniforms. Officials said human remains were collected in 37 body bags after sweeps of the crash site, roughly 15km off the coast. DNA identification Dozens of relatives of those on board gathered at a police hospital where body bags were brought for forensic doctors to try to identify victims, including by taking saliva swabs from family members for DNA tests. I keep praying for a miracle although logically, the plane has sunk in the ocean, said Toni Priyono Adhi, whose daughter was on the flight. But as a parent, I want a miracle. The accident was the first to be reported involving the widely sold Boeing 737 MAX. Privately owned Lion Air, founded in 1999, said the aircraft, which had been in operation since August, was airworthy. Its pilot and co-pilot together amassed 11,000 hours of flying time. Lion Air said it would meet a team from Boeing on Wednesday to discuss what happened. We have many questions for them This was a new plane, Lion Air Director Daniel Putut told reporters. Jakarta has filed an official protest after Saudi Arabia executed Tuti Tursilawati without notifying consular staff. Indonesia has filed an official protest with Saudi Arabia after the kingdom executed an Indonesian domestic worker without notifying her family or consular staff. Tuti Tursilawati was executed on Monday in the city of Taif, Indonesias foreign ministry said, seven years after she was sentenced to death for killing her employer in an act she claimed was self-defence from sexual abuse. President Joko Widodo criticised the decision on Wednesday, saying the government has officially protested to Riyadh and demanded better protection of Indonesian workers in the country. Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, director at the foreign ministrys Indonesian citizens protection department, told reporters on Tuesday the move was regrettable. The execution of Tuti Tursilawati was done without notification to our representatives, either in Riyadh or Jeddah, he said at a news conference. Tursilawati claimed she was acting in self-defence when she killed her employer in 2010 after he tried to rape her. Migrant Care, an NGO advocating for the rights of Indonesian workers abroad, condemned the execution and urged the government to take serious diplomatic steps. It said Indonesia should reverse its recent decision to allow a limited number of Indonesian migrant workers to Saudi Arabia despite a 2015 moratorium banning new domestic workers from entering 21 Middle Eastern countries. Punishable by death Indonesia introduced the ban following the execution of two other Indonesian maids by Saudi Arabia the same year. Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy and armed robbery are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabias strict version of Islamic law. As well as the Middle East, Indonesia also sends domestic workers to many parts of Asia, including Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia, and has often complained about the treatment of its workers abroad. GCC countries have come under fire over its controversial Kafala system of sponsorship for migrant workers, which is used to varying extents in different countries across the region. It restricts most workers from moving to a new job before their contracts end unless they obtain their employers consent, trapping many workers in abusive situations. International rights and labour groups have called for comprehensive laws to protect migrant labourers and reforming the kafala system. And according to Human Rights Watch several Gulf countries have slowly improved the labour protections for migrant domestic workers. Sleeper cells use vast desert of Anbar province for regrouping and planning new attacks, Iraqi army says. Al Qaim, Iraq The vast Anbar desert stretches across almost a third of Iraq, 138,000 square-kilometres of no mans land to the countrys west. Here, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS) sleeper cells use the remote areas mountain ranges, valleys and caves to plan and launch their attacks from. The Iraqi military and US-led coalition are hesitant to give exact numbers but estimate that a few hundred fighters clustered in groups as small as two are all that remains of the group. In remote parts, ISIL fighters have stopped their aggressive tactics of killing and abducting locals. Instead, a few fighters will show up from time to time to seek food and supplies. The challenge This is not an easy area for the authorities to search and monitor. The rugged terrain makes manning checkpoints and surveillance posts extremely challenging, as does the vastness of the area; the Iraq-Syria border alone stretches some 600 kilometres. Iraqi forces say they are doing all they can to prevent these areas from becoming safe havens for ISIL. There are plans to invest over $3m in building a border fence equipped with advanced surveillance and watchtowers. The fence should stretch from Anbar to Nineveh, covering Iraqs entire border with Syria. So far, only 20km of the long border with Syria has been fenced. The US-led coalition is supporting these efforts, pushing to take advantage of ISILs shift from an organised force to an unpredictable and weakened revolt. US Colonel Sean Ryan, spokesperson for Combined Joint Task Force, told Al Jazeera: There are pockets of ISIS we knew and we saw where some of them escaped to. The ironic thing is that they planned for their failure four years ago; Anbar was their final destination if this caliphate did not work out, which it didnt. But some Iraqis in remote parts are not feeling as confident, saying that while security forces may control the day, the night still belongs to ISIL. Iraqs security forces say thats changing. Mohammed al-Askari, a senior adviser in Iraqs defence ministry, told Al Jazeera: To some extent, I would agree that sometimes ISIL has the night and security forces have the day. But such things are in the past; it used to happen during ISIL reign when it controlled Mosul, Ramadi, Fallujah and al-Qaim. The spokesperson for the Iraqi Combined Operations Command, Brigadier General Yahya Rasoul, is adamant that after the Iraqi armys victory, ISILs presence on the ground has been routed. Iraqi forces are continuing military operations to hunt down ISIL militants south of Kirkuk, the Hawijah mountain ranges, Hamrin basin, several areas in Diyalah and the desert areas in Salahuddin and Anbar. Near the Iraq-Syria border, these divisions are conducting search ops, raids and arrests backed by intelligence. Building trust People in remote parts of Salahuddin, Anbar and Nineveh predominantly Sunni areas have told Al Jazeera that they are afraid to identify themselves because they fear reprisals, both from returning ISIL fighters and from security forces for speaking out about their dissatisfaction. But Iraqi forces say that too is changing as their efforts to build confidence and gain the trust of the people take root, adding that Iraqis are no longer demanding that security forces leave their neighbourhoods as they used to in the past. Many of these predominantly Sunni areas are under the control of Iran-backed Shia militias also known as the Hashd or popular mobilisation units which were the spearhead in defeating ISIL but have also been accused of human rights violations, arbitrary arrests, torture, and killings. Although they have been brought under the control of the prime ministers office, its widely believed that they draw their strength and orders from across the border. Major General Tahseen al-Khafaji, spokesperson for Iraqs defence ministry, says: It is very important for people in these remote areas to become better educated to gain awareness and a different culture. Those same people have witnessed ISILs havoc and destruction they lived under ISIL rule in the past three years and witnessed atrocities. That is why it is key to have the security apparatuses strengthen their relationship with the people who will, in turn, compare the dark times under ISIL and the current situation that has better security and stability. We admit that the security sometimes has flaws but we are at the same time monitoring as the Ministry of Defence and as an intelligence and military establishment to catch anyone who is trying to do bad things and degrade the relationship between us and the people. Spreading awareness is key, but the most important thing is building trust. Pockets of ISIL fighters have escaped to Anbar where fighters are in hiding, the Iraqi army says [Osama Bin Javaid/Al Jazeera] Boots on the ground The US-led coalition against ISIL is one of the largest in terms of number of countries united to fight a single enemy. While many Iraqis havent forgotten the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, there are many others who are thankful for the USs help in the fight against ISIL. These days the coalitions mission in Iraq is to advise, assist and train. But because of the nature and size of the terrain in Anbar, al-Khafaji says air cover is crucial. All we need from the coalition is training, arming and enhancing our air force we have advanced air force capacity and fighter jets but we need more air force efforts and training. We need at least 4-5 years to establish a strong and independent air force unit. That is why we crucially need air force support. Boots on the ground, however, remain a touchy subject: We do not need foreign ground troops, we have all the troops we need in order to track down the remnants of ISIL, all we need is proper training. We have a plan that was initiated in 2017 when the coalition and NATO took on the responsibility to train our forces, al-Khafaji says. 2018 is a year of building and training. In 2019, our own trainers [trained by] by the coalition will begin supervising our troops. By 2020, the Iraqi Ministry of Defence will take care of training our forces and the role of the coalition will become supervisory. By 2021, Iraqs military establishment will be divided into divisions including north, central and south. All this will be done in cooperation with the coalition, he added. Stopping the resurgence ISIL has been carrying out up to five attacks every month and continues to kill and maim Iraqi soldiers and militia fighters. The threat of ISIL regrouping in the desert and making a comeback is still a reality because of the difficulty in tracing and identifying their desert hideouts. Iraqi forces dismiss the criticism that they and their militia counterparts are untrained to hold the peace, that they lack local knowledge or that the trust gap with local communities is a hindrance against ISIL. Al-Askari says: ISIL, since its rise and until its eventual fall, in Iraq fully depends on misinformation, brainwashing and falsifying ideologies. ISIL is not giving up easily, it is a relentless enemy and we know that. That is why ISIL is in the phase of trying to rebuild its capacity, to try to resurface with a new method and new leaders. We have accurate info that ISIL despite its efforts to resurface is still collapsing. We are tracking down how money is reaching ISIL through money laundering. In the past few days, the mostly Kurdish SDF forces have stepped up their offensive against ISIL and, as a result, more Iraqi soldiers and tanks have been sent to Al Qaim. The newly sworn-in government of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi now faces the daunting task of stopping cross-border infiltration from Syria, as well as to rebuild trust with local communities who are as uncertain about the future as US-backed troops who seemingly find themselves providing cover to Iran-backed Shia fighters. The first public revelations in killing come after talks with Saudi prosecutor produced no concrete results. Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and then his body was dismembered, the office of citys chief prosecutor said on Wednesday, in the first official comment in a case that has caused a global outrage. In accordance with plans made in advance, the victim, Jamal Khashoggi, was choked to death immediately after entering the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, for marriage formalities, the statement said. The victims body was dismembered and destroyed following his death by suffocation again, in line with advance plans, it added. In a statement on Wednesday, the prosecutors office described three days of meetings with Saud Al-Mujab, Saudi public prosecutor, as producing no concrete results. {articleGUID} Despite our well-intentioned efforts to reveal the truth, no concrete results have come out of those meetings, the office said hours after the Saudi prosecutor left Istanbul. Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who wrote for the Washington Post, was killed in the consulate he was visiting, an incident that has increased tensions between Riyadh and Ankara. Eighteen men have reportedly been arrested in Saudi Arabia in connection with the murder and investigations are ongoing. Ankara has been urging extradition of the men from Saudi Arabia to be tried in Turkey. Turkish and international media, according to information from anonymous Turkish sources, had previously reported that Khashoggi was interrogated and tortured in the consulate, before he was killed. Saud al-Qahtani, a now-sacked top aide of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was the person who interrogated him, according to reports. Rogue operators After the disappearance of the Washington Post columnist, Saudi Arabia had claimed that he left the consulate shortly after entering it and then later said that Khashoggi was killed in a botched interrogation. Riyadh recently admitted that a pre-meditated plan was made to kill Khashoggi, but says it was put together by rogue operators without the knowledge of the crown prince, who has been under fire over the brutal killing. The Istanbul prosecutors office also said on Wednesday that it asked Al-Mujab about the location of Khashoggis body, which is still missing, and sought information on a reported local cooperator. According to the statement by the office, the Saudi side said in return that Riyadh made no remarks about the existence of a local cooperator, adding that the location of the body can only be found through investigations. In the meetings, the Turkish authorities also reiterated their request for extradition of the suspects. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has toughened his stance on the case, saying a game was being played to protect senior figures linked to the crime. Disappointment Yasin Aktay, an adviser to Erdogan, said the prosecutors statement is a disappointment for the mutual investigation process. The agreement between the two sides to cooperate in the case raised expectations to shed light on the details of the killing of Khashoggi and who was behind it, Aktay, who was also a friend of the journalist, told Al Jazeera. {articleGUID} But the Saudi officials seem like they have come to Istanbul to be able to obtain the information Turkey has on the murder, rather than mutual sharing of information on the case. Aktay also said that the Saudi judiciary was not in a suitable position to hear the case. It is obvious that these suspects did not act on their own. Therefore, a political will, whoever it is, that can order a murder in a foreign country, can easily influence the courts in Saudi Arabia as well, Aktay said. Earlier in the month, Turkey and Saudi Arabia agreed to jointly investigate the murder of Khashoggi, a critic of bin Salman. Follow Umut Uras on Twitter: @Um_Uras The only surviving full brother of Saudi Arabias King Salman has reportedly returned to the kingdom, amid an international outcry over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz flew back to Riyadh from London on Tuesday, according to three Saudi sources close to the prince cited by The New York Times, in what some analysts are calling a potential challenge to the authority of Saudi Arabias de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Sources told the Times that Prince Ahmed arrived in the Saudi capital around 01:30 on Tuesday (22:30 GMT on Monday) and was warmly received by his nephew, the crown prince, who greeted him at the airport. London-based Middle East Eye also reported Prince Ahmeds return, quoting a source close to the prince as saying his return is intended to shake up the kingdoms leadership. {articleGUID} The prince wants to play a role to make these changes, which means either he himself will play a major role in any new arrangement or to help choose an alternative to MBS, the source was cited as saying. David Hearst, editor-in-chief of the Middle East Eye, said that Prince Ahmeds arrival is likely to cause some discomfort for the crown prince. Mohammed bin Salman has become a focus of the [royal] familys discontent, a symbol of it. Prince Ahmed had always made his objection to the crown prince known. He was one of the three members on the allegiance council who did not vote for him. Hes made other public signs of his disapproval, Hearst said. One of the most senior members of the royal family, Prince Ahmed who has been living in the United Kingdom is said to have agreed to return to Riyadh only after receiving security assurances from the UK and United States. Reports say the prince had been afraid to return after publicly challenging bin Salman on several occasions. In November 2017, bin Salman conducted a sweeping purge of senior ministers and princes as part of purported anti-corruption measures. The supposed return comes almost a month after Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who wrote for the Washington Post, was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 2. Eighteen men have been arrested in Saudi Arabia in connection with the murder, which is thought to have been ordered by top-level Saudi officials. Investigations are ongoing. Who is Prince Ahmed? Prince Ahmed has publicly criticised bin Salman on several occasions [File: Fahad Shadeed/Reuters] The younger brother of King Salman, Prince Ahmed, now in his 70s, is one of the most senior members of the Saudi royal family. His position as the kings brother lends him a special importance in the kingdom. He and the king are the last remaining members of the powerful Sudairi seven, a bloc comprised of the seven sons of King Abdul Aziz considered the kingdoms modern founder and his favourite wife Hussa bint Ahmed al-Sudairi. The brothers banded together to ensure the throne and important ministries passed between them and stayed out of the reach of the kings dozens of other sons. {articleGUID} Prince Ahmed served as deputy interior minister for decades and briefly as interior minister in 2012, but has been in retirement since then, spending most of his time in London. Mahjoob Zweiri, director of the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University, said the apparent arrival of Prince Ahmed in Riyadh could signal a change at the top of the Saudi leadership. I think the gesture means there is a change coming some time soon, he told Al Jazeera. Lets not forget there is also a level of anger at the behaviour of Mohammed bin Salman when it comes to the region and inside Saudi Arabia. There are forces inside Saudi Arabia that are not happy with whats happening. {articleGUID} Prince Ahmed caused controversy in September when a video of him speaking to protesters in London sparked concerns about his loyalty to bin Salman. The nearly two-minute clip appeared to show him asking demonstrators protesting the kingdoms role in the war in Yemen why they were complaining to him instead of the king and crown prince. He also said he hoped that wars in Yemen and elsewhere would stop as soon as possible. Shortly afterwards, Prince Ahmed issued a brief official statement saying that his comments were intended to clarify that the king and crown prince are responsible for the state and its decisions. What does this mean for the Khashoggi case? Al Jazeeras Zeina Khodr, reporting from Istanbul, said the timing of Prince Ahmeds return which has not been officially confirmed by Riyadh is significant. It comes at a time when Saudi Arabia has come under international pressure to come clean on exactly what happened inside its consulate and to come clean on who ordered that killing, the Al Jazeera correspondent said. many in the international community believe that order was given by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. What is happening inside the royal family in the kingdom, it is hard to say for the time being but there is no doubt that this crisis could have repercussions for the Saudi royal family, for Saudi Arabia. {articleGUID} Is something being worked out behind the scenes that will satisfy all parties? now there seem to be attempts to contain this crisis, she said. Zweiri from Qatar University said Prince Ahmeds reported return is a direct consequence of Khashoggis killing, as well as international players desire to ensure the kingdoms stability. There was serious pressure on the ruling family in Saudi Arabia, on the crown prince himself, there is a serious critique to his foreign policy and his political behaviour and its obvious that the UK and the United States have decided to have a serious move, he told Al Jazeera. I think they want to move for the sake of protecting their national interests in the region because Saudi Arabia is, for them, an important player in the Middle East region, he said. They have to choose whether the future of Saudi Arabia is collaboration with the international community or keeping Mohammed bin Salman. From the first expected Muslim congresswomen to the first expected openly gay governor, heres who to look out for. This years US midterm elections have already made history. In the primaries, a record number of women, Native Americans, and Muslim candidates ran for office. And as Americans gear up for the November 6 vote, there are several candidates looking to make history again. From the first expected Muslim congresswomen to the first expected openly gay governor, heres who to look out for: Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar Set to become the first Muslim congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are expected to become the first Muslim congresswomen [AP Photo] Both Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar are running in Democrat-safe seats, and if, as expected, they win their respective races, they will jointly become the first Muslim congresswomen. Tlaib, a Palestinian American, is running for Michigans 13th Congressional District without a competitor. Omar, who arrived in the US at the age of 14 after fleeing civil war in Somalia, is contesting Minnesotas 5th District. Omar would also be the first Somali American to serve in the US Congress. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Set to become the youngest congresswoman New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez participates in a town hall meeting [Patrick Semansky/AP Photo] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary for New Yorks 14th District and if she, as expected, wins in the midterm elections she will make history as the youngest woman in history to join Congress. Born to a father from South Bronx and a mother from Puerto Rico, Ocasio-Cortez was an organiser for the 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. Stacey Abrams Could become first black female governor Stacey Abrams is running neck and neck with her Republican rival [John Locher/AP Photo] A member of the Georgia House of Representatives since 2007, Stacey Abrams has already made history as the first black woman to win a nomination to run as governor by a major party, but shes hoping to go a step forward by winning the states gubernatorial election. {articleGUID} Shes running close behind Republican candidate Brian Kemp, with polls putting her within two percentage points of her rival. The race has been marred by allegations of voter suppression. Kemp, Georgias current secretary of state, is currently holding up 53,000 voter registration applications, most of them belonging to African Americans. He says hes complying with the states exact match ID law, but Abrams maintains her opponent has disproportionately purged voters of colour, stopped voters of colour, arrested voters of colour. Deb Haaland Set to become the first Native American woman in Congress Deb Haaland poses for a portrait during the Democratic Primary elections in a Nob Hill Neighborhood in Albuquerque, New Mexico [Juan Labreche/AP Photo] If Deb Haaland can hang on to her lead in New Mexicos 1st District House race, she will become the first Native American woman elected to Congress. {articleGUID} Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna tribe, says she will prioritise climate change, as well as a number of other progressive issues, such as Medicare-for-all and debt-free education. Jared Polis Could become the first openly gay governor Jared Polis is one of the richest members of the House of Representatives [David Zalubowsk/AP Photo] With a net worth of close to $400m, Democrat Jared Polis is already one of the richest members of the House of Representatives but in entering the Colorado gubernatorial contest, he could become the first openly gay governor of a state. Opinion polls give him a comfortable seven-point lead over his Republican rival, Walker Stapleton. Ayanna Pressley Set to become Massachusettss first black congresswoman Democratic candidate for US House of Representatives Ayanna Pressley points to her supporters after winning the Democratic primary in Massachusetts [Brian Snyder/Reuters] Democrat Ayanna Pressley surprised many when she upset 10-term incumbent Michael Capuano during Massachusettss 7th Congressional District primary. She is running uncontested on November 6, meaning she is set to become the states first black congresswoman. Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia Set to become Texass first Latina congresswomen Veronica Escobar (left) and Sylvia Garcia [AP Photo] In a state with a Hispanic population of close to 40 percent, Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia are hoping to become the first women of Latin American origin to represent Texas in the House of Representatives. Escobar is running in Texass 16th District, while Garcia is running in the states 29th District. Both are Democratic strongholds and it looks likely they will on November 6. Christine Hallquist Could become the first transgender governor Christine Hallquist is a former IBM engineer [Wilson Ring/AP Photo] Christine Hallquist made history in August when she won the Vermont Democratic gubernatorial nomination for 2018, becoming the first transgender woman to get on to a major party ticket for governor. The former IBM engineer faces an uphill task from there, however, with polls giving Republican rival Phil Scott a double-digit lead. Andrew Gillum Could become Floridas first black governor Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum gestures as he debates Republican Ron DeSantis [Wilfredo Lee//Reuters] If Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum can best Republican US Representative Ron DeSantis on November 6, he will become the states first black governor. The 39-year-old already made history during the primary when he became the first black major party nominee for governor in Florida. The latest opinion polls showed Gillum with a slight lead over his opponent. The progressive candidate, who advocates for Medicare-for-all and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has been a frequent target of President Donald Trump. Nevada Could become the first state with a female-majority legislature A woman holds up a sign during the Womens March rally in Las Vegas, Nevada [Steve Marcus/Reuters] Women won a record number of primary races in Nevadas primary. Female candidates are favoured to control 27 seats after the November election, but they would still need five to control the majority, according to the Reno Gazette. The newspaper noted, however, there are a number of tight races in which women could pick up the seats needed. Republicans retain Senate control, shattering Democrats hope of anti-Trump wave sweeping them into the majority. The United States has voted in midterm elections that will help define the remaining two years of President Donald Trumps first term in office. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives were up for grabs on Tuesday, as well as 35 seats in the Senate, and 39 governorships in 36 states and three US territories. Trumps Republican party lost a majority in the House of Representatives but held onto the Senate. Follow all the major updates: Wednesday, November 7 Jeff Sessions resigns at Trumps request US President Donald Trump forced out Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday, less than 24 hours Republican party lost control of the House of Representatives. Sessions informed Trump of his resignation in a letter sent to the president earlier in the day. In the letter, which was widely shared by US media, Sessions said he was resigning at your [Trumps] request. On Twitter, Trump thanked Sessions for his service and wished him well. He said Matthew G Whitaker, Sessionss chief of staff, would become the acting attorney general until a replacement is announced, which the president said would come at a later date. Read our full report here. Senator Tester re-elected, takes Democrats to 46 seats in the Senate Democratic Senator Jon Tester of Montana was re-elected to third term, defeating Republican Matt Rosendale. Testers victory gives Democrats 46 seats in the Senate, including two independent members who caucus with Democrats. Vice President Mike Pence will be Trumps running mate Trump was asked by a member of the press if Vice President Mike Pence would be his running mate in the 2020 presidential contest. Trump asked Pence to stand up and raise his right hand, in an apparent joke, then asked if would join his ticket in 2020. Pence said he would. Trump not concerned with Mueller investigation During a question and answer session, Trump was asked whether or not he would end the Mueller investigation into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia. I could have ended it anytime I wanted, I didnt. There was no collusion, Trump said. However, the president said the investigation should end as it costs millions of taxpayer dollars and is directed by angry Democrats. It should end, because its very bad for our country, Trump said. Trump pushes for bipartisanship Id like to see bipartisanship, Trump said in response to a question from the press, citing healthcare and infrastructure as issues on which Republicans could work with Democrats. The president implored politicians to put partisanship aside and keep the economic miracle going, Trump said, referencing a strong economic outlook and the historically low unemployment rate in the US. There are a lot of great things we can do together, Trump said. Losing Republicans refused Trumps embrace Trump mocked Republicans who avoided campaigning with him before congressional elections and who were not elected during their races, referencing a list of candidates by name. Those are some of the people who decided for their own reason not to embrace whether its me or what we stand for, Trump told reporters. They did very poorly. Im not sure that I should be happy or sad but I feel just fine about it. Republicans defied history with Senate gains: Trump Trump extolled Republican gains in the Senate and minimised losses in the House as victories for his party during a speech on midterm elections. As of now, we picked up, it looks like three, could be four, perhaps two, but we picked up a lot, Trump commented on Republican gains in the Senate. Democrats won a majority of seats in the House, but Trump said his party did will considering the historic number of retirements Republicans faced. Trump claimed 43 Republican representatives retired. Trump threatens Democrats with investigations over leaks Democrats are ready to use their majority in the House of Representatives to launch accountability investigations into the conduct of the Trump administration, CNN reported on Wednesday. Trump responded to reports about possible investigations with a counter-threat. If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level. Two can play that game! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2018 Tuesday, November 6 Democrat wins Nevada governors post Democrat Steve Sisolak defeated Republican Adam Laxalt in the contest to replace termed-out Republican Brian Sandoval as governor of Nevada. Sisolak repeatedly campaigned on a pledge to stand up to President Donald Trump, who supported Laxalt. Sisolak chairs the Clark County Commission, which oversees the Las Vegas Strip and surrounding areas. He rose to prominence following the 2017 mass shooting on the Strip, starting an online fundraiser that amassed millions of dollars for victims. Democrat wins Nevada Senate vote Democratic Representative Jacky Rosen of Nevada was elected to the Senate, ousting Republican incumbent Dean Heller. Georgia race too close to call The hotly contested race in Georgia, where Democrat Stacey Abrams was seeking to become the first black woman to be elected governor of a US state, remains too close to call early on Wednesday. Abrams, 44, was locked in a tight battle with Republican Brian Kemp, the states secretary of state. There was a minor party candidate also in the race and, under Georgia law, if no candidate exceeds 50 percent of the vote, the top two finishers advance to a December runoff election. By 2am EST (07:00 GMT), Kemp held a three-point lead, but Abrams told her supporters that she expected a runoff once all votes were counted. I promise you tonight that we are going to make sure every vote is counted, she said. We are still on the verge of history, and the best is yet to come. Democrat Dianne Feinstein re-elected as California Senator Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California wins reelection to a fifth full term, defeating Democrat Kevin de Leon. Democrat Evers wins Wisconsin governors seat Democrat Tony Evers won the Wisconsin governors race on Tuesday, ending the conservative Scott Walkers eight years in power, according to data provider DDHQ. Evers, 66, has been the states top education official since 2009. GOP keeps Idaho, South Dakota governors offices Republicans have kept control of the governors offices in Idaho and South Dakota by winning elections to succeed departing GOP incumbents. Republican Kristi Noem turned back an unusually strong challenge from Democratic state Senator Billie Sutton to win South Dakotas gubernatorial race Tuesday. She will become the first female governor in state history and will succeed term-limited Governor Dennis Daugaard. In Idaho, Lieutenant Governor Brad Little defeated former Democratic state lawmaker Paulette Jordon to become the next governor. Little will succeed retiring Governor CL Butch Otter, who has been in office since 2007. Democrat Janet Mills wins Maine governors seat Democrats have regained control of the Maine governors office with a victory in an open-seat election by Democratic Attorney General Janet Mills. Mills defeated Republican businessman Shawn Moody and independent State Treasurer Terry Hayes in Tuesdays gubernatorial race. She will succeed Republican Governor Paul LePage, who was term-limited after eight years in office. Republican Kim Reynolds win Iowa governors seat Republican Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has won a full term in office by defeating Democratic businessman Fred Hubbell. Reynolds victory on Tuesday makes her the first woman to be elected governor in Iowa. She previously won two terms as lieutenant governor and was elevated to chief executive when Governor Terry Branstad was named by President Donald Trump to serve as ambassador to China in 2017. Reynolds also previously served in the state legislature. Iowa had been one of the states where Democrats thought they had a chance of flipping control of the governors office. Democrat Gavin Newsom wins California governors office Democrat Gavin Newsom has won the governors race in California, a state that has provided some of the strongest resistance to President Donald Trump. Newsom defeated Republican businessman John Cox in Tuesdays election to succeed outgoing Democratic Governor Jerry Brown. Brown and Newsom are critics of the Republican president. Newsom served as lieutenant governor under Brown and has pledged to pursue universal healthcare and increase housing construction. He previously was mayor of San Francisco, where he gained attention for ordering the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples before it was legal. Governors in Vermont and Oregon keep their seats Republican Governor Phil Scott won re-election on Tuesday in the traditionally Democratic state of Vermont by defeating Democratic challenger Christine Hallquist. In Oregon, Democratic Governor Kate Brown won reelection over Republican challenger Knute Buehler. Republicans had believed that Oregon provided one of their best chances to flip a Democratic governors seat in a year when Democrats generally have been making gains. Democrats on Tuesday flipped governors offices in at least four states Illinois, Kansas, Michigan and New Mexico. Republicans entered Election Day holding 33 governors offices and two-thirds of the state legislative chambers. Democrat Laura Kelly wins Kansas governors race Democrat Laura Kelly has defeated a prominent ally of President Donald Trump, Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach, to win the Kansas governors race. Kobach had built a national profile as an advocate of tough immigration policies and strict voter photo ID laws. He served as vice chairman of Trumps now-defunct commission on voter fraud. Kelly will be Kansas third governor in a year. Republican Governor Sam Brownback resigned in January to accept a position in Trumps administration. He was succeeded by Lieutenant Governor Jeff Colyer, whom Kobach defeated in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Republicans win Arizona, New Hampshire and Ohio In Ohio, Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine defeated Democrat Richard Cordray on Tuesday to lead a GOP sweep of nonjudicial statewide offices. DeWine will succeed term-limited Republican Governor John Kasich. Cordray had been an Obama-era consumer protection chief. Arizona Governor Doug Ducey defeated Democratic education professor David Garcia to win reelection in a race that focused on border security and education. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu won another two-year term by defeating former Democrat state Senator Molly Kelly. Republican Ron DeSantis wins Florida governors seat Republican Ron DeSantis will be Floridas next governor, riding President Donald Trumps support to a victory over Democrat Andrew Gillum. The 40-year-old former congressman and Navy officer won on Tuesday after Trump went to Florida twice in the final six days of the election to help increase Republican turnout. Gillum was hoping to become Floridas first black governor. He conceded late on Tuesday. DeSantis was considered an underdog until Trump injected himself in the Republican primary, helping DeSantis cruise to victory over better-funded and better-known Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam. DeSantis stumbled after his nomination, most notably by saying Floridians shouldnt monkey this up be electing Gillum. Although he took a more moderate turn after the primary, he relied heavily on Trump in the last days of the election. Democrats win in Minnesota and Hawaii Democrats held on to governors offices in Minnesota and Hawaii. Minnesota Representative Tim Walz defeated Republican Jeff Johnson on Tuesday to mark the first time since the 1950s that one of Minnesotas political parties has held on to the office for at least three terms. He will replace Governor Mark Dayton, who chose not to seek reelection. In Hawaii, Governor David Ige won reelection by defeating Republican state Representative Andria Tupola. Hawaii is a heavily Democratic state. Democrats win in Michigan, New Mexico and Illinois Democrats JB Pritzker in Illinois, Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan and Michelle Lujan Grisham in New Mexico won elections on Tuesday for seats previously held by Republicans. Democratic gubernatorial candidates also were putting up strong challenges in the previously Republican-held states of Iowa, Kansas, Wisconsin and South Dakota. Heading into Tuesdays elections, Republicans controlled 33 governors office and two-thirds of all state legislative chambers. That included 25 states where they held a trifecta of power, compared with just eight for Democrats. Whitmers victory breaks that Republican trifecta in Michigan. The Democratic gubernatorial victories in Illinois and New Mexico could give them trifectas there. Republicans keep Nebraska governor seat Republican Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts has won re-election to another term by defeating Democratic state Senator Bob Krist. Ricketts victory on Tuesday will extend a 20-year run of Republican governors in the conservative state. Ricketts has pledged to keep pushing for lower taxes and limits on state spending. He will be paired with a state legislative chamber that is officially nonpartisan but also has a majority of Republicans. Krist was previously a Republican but changed his affiliation after announcing his run for governor. This is history https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1060027114618085377?ref_src=twsrc^tfw Pelosi promises a new day Democrat House leader, Nancy Pelosi, is speaking in Washington, DC. She promised that a Democrat-run House of Representatives will work towards better wages and lower prescription prices. Tomorrow will be a new day in America, she said. We did it. Together. We did it. Lets get ready to work #ForThePeople! NP Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) November 7, 2018 Sharice Davids wins fifth district in Kansas Native American Sharice Davids has unseated Republican Kevin Yoder in Kansas, meaning she will share Deb Haalands honour of being the first female Native Americans in the US Congress. #ShariceDavids has become the nation's first gay, Native American person elected to U.S. Congress, winning her race for Kansas's 3rd Congressional District! #ElectionNight pic.twitter.com/a7urbToDEl The Advocate (@TheAdvocateMag) November 7, 2018 Trump declares tremendous success The Republicans seem set to lose the House, but that hasnt stopped the US president from claiming victory. Tremendous success tonight. Thank you to all! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2018 Democrats win House Well have a full breakdown of projections shortly but until then read our report here. AP calls Senate for Republicans The Democrats will now be hoping to secure control of the House. Ted Cruz wins Texas Senate race Though it seemed tight at times, the Republican has fended off a challenge by Democrat Beto ORourke Andrew Gillum concedes in Florida Pro-Trump Republican Ron DeSantis has taken the Florida governorship, beating a spirited campaign by Democrat Andrew Gillum. Veronica Escobar wins Texass 16th Alongside fellow Democrat, Sylvia Garcia, Veronica Escobar will be the first Latina woman to represent Texas in the House. Deb Haaland becomes first Native American woman to get elected to Congress Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna tribe, won New Mexicos first congressional district. The Democrat said she will prioritise climate change in the House, as well as a number of other progressive issues, such as Medicare-for-all and debt-free education. Read our report here. Deb Haaland poses for a portrait in a Nob Hill Neighborhood in Albuquerque, New Mexico [Juan Labreche/AP Photo] Republicans are on the brink on winning the Senate The Republicans have 50 Senate seats so far to the Democrats on 38 seats, just one more win will secure the upper house of Congress for the GOP. Jared Polis wins Colorado governorship Colorado has elected the first openly gay governor of a US state. Democrat Jared Polis beat his Republican rival, Walker Stapleton. Wow!! Congratulations @jaredpolis of Colorado who just became the first openly gay man to be elected Governor in US History!!! billy eichner (@billyeichner) November 7, 2018 Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez elected to New Yorks 14th Progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman ever elected to the US Congress. Democrat Ilhan Omar wins Minnesotas fifth Its official. Ilhan Omar becomes the (joint) first Muslim congresswoman. The Somali-American fled civil war and arrived in the US at 14. Amendment 4 in Florida restores voting rights to as many as 1.4 million people Floridians have voted to allow people with past convictions to vote. Florida will restore voting rights to as many as 1.4 million residents who have a past felony conviction, after passing a ballot measure that the Brennan Center is proud to have helped draft! More on the impact of this ballot measure: https://t.co/a4EQpQ6Vnp pic.twitter.com/mGACR0mNMF Brennan Center (@BrennanCenter) November 7, 2018 Sylvia Garcia wins House seat in Texas Sylvia Garcia is the first Latina woman to win a seat in Congress representing Texas. Shes expected to be joined by fellow Democrat, Veronica Escobar, shortly. Veronica Escobar (left) and Sylvia Garcia [AP Photo] Smashing barriers: Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar Read our report on what will be a landmark moment for American Muslim women. Congratulations to my sister @RashidaTlaib on your victory! I cannot wait to serve with you, inshallah. Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 7, 2018 Rashida Tlaib becomes first Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar is expected to follow soon after. For a look at Tlaib and others who might make history tonight, read our piece here. Rashida Tlaib, Democratic candidate for Michigans 13th Congressional District [Paul Sancya/AP Photo] What happens if the Democrats take the House? The most likely scenario- at the moment- appears to be that the Democrats will take the lower house of Congress, the House of Representatives, while the Republicans hold the Senate. Larry Beinhart, the author of the critically claimed novel, Wag the Dog, writes on what might happen in the scenario: It would make for fabulous drama. More outrageous than House of Cards, not quite as murderous as Game of Thrones. The Democrats will control the house committees, meaning theyll control investigations and they will have subpoena power. Read the full piece here. #StayInLine trends on Twitter Over on US Twitter, people are encouraging those who have found themselves in long lines waiting to vote, to not leave. If someone happens to be in a line just before a polling station closes, they are still eligible to vote. If they tell you the line will be shorter later, If they tell you the machines dont work, If they try to intimidate you, or If youre standing in line when the polls close, Stay in line and call 866-OUR-VOTE for help. #StayInLine #VoteToday pic.twitter.com/s3luyFuSf6 Kristen Clarke 866-OUR-VOTE (@KristenClarkeJD) November 6, 2018 Floridas 27th flips to Democrats Democrat Donna Shalala has replaced a retiring Republican in Floridas 27th. Andre Carson win reelection to House The Democrat was the second Muslim to serve in the US Congress and will be the only Muslim male in the House of Representatives after securing Indianas seventh district. Ayanna Pressley wins Massachusetts seventh district Democrat Ayanna Pressley becomes the first black woman to represent Massachusetts in the US Congress. Elizabeth Warren wins reelection to Senate Possible Democrat 2020 contender, Elizabeth Warren, has been re-elected to her US Senate seat in Massachusetts. Thank you, Massachusetts! Six years ago, I promised to go to Washington to fight for you every single day. Tonight, let's send the powerful interests a message: We're just getting started. Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) November 7, 2018 Tim Kaine wins reelection to Senate Hillary Clintons 2016 running mate, Tim Kaine, has won re-election to the US Senate representing the state of Virginia. FiveThirtyEight forecast Take any prediction this early in the night with a pinch of salt, but prediction site FiveThirtyEight has the Democrats up 35 seats, according to current trends. The reason for caution? Most prediction sites early into election night in 2016 had the chances of Hillary Clinton winning at almost 90 percent. Leon Guerrero wins Guam governor race Former Democrat lawmaker, Leon Guerrero, has won the gubernatorial race in the US territory of Guam. Beyonce endorses Beto ORouke in Texas Beyonce has endorsed Texas Democratic Senate hopeful Beto ORourke over Republican incumbent Ted Cruz in the final hours before her home states polls close. Beyonce released a series of Instagram posts with a black and white Beto cap. ORourke himself then retweeted one of the pictures under the caption Thank you, Beyonce. An El Paso congressman, ORourke is trying to become the first Democrat to win statewide office in Texas since 1994. Hes drawn the admiration of many celebrities, including Texas country music icon Willie Nelson. Having an issue at a polling station? This hotline can help. Volunteers at Election Protection, a voter protection coalition, are fielding calls about issues at polling places. As polls begin to close in the eastern part of the US, Election Protection encourages individuals to stay in line to ensure they get to vote. If you are waiting in line to vote because of a broken scanner, malfunctioning machine or other problems, #StayInLine! Call 866-OUR-VOTE to speak to a live trained volunteer who can help answer your questions about voting. #ElectionDay Election Protection (@866OURVOTE) November 6, 2018 First polling stations close The first polls have closed in parts of Indiana and Kentucky. ACLU sends letter to South Carolina over inconsistent voting procedures The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said it sent a letter to South Carolina officials over inconsistent procedures. There were reports earlier in the day that voting machines were changing individuals choices. Voters were encouraged to double check their ballots before confirming their votes. Officials told local media that machines in at least one county were being recalibrated, which they said often happens on election day. They added, however, there were problems with failures with the machines batteries. The ACLU demanded that all individuals be provided with a paper ballot to vote. If youre in line when polls close, STAY in line, the rights group said. It is your right to vote. We've sent a letter to South Carolina elections officials outlining inconsistent procedures and demanding that everyone be provided a paper ballot to vote. If you're in line when polls close, STAY in line. It is your right to vote. https://t.co/q8OJqiTMOA ACLU (@ACLU) November 6, 2018 Rainbow over the Capitol with hours left before polls start to close Healthcare and immigration top voters minds on election day According to an AP VoteCast survey, healthcare and immigration were high on voters minds as they cast their ballots in the midterms Department of Homeland Security: No sign of breaches so far There have so far been no signs of breaches in US election infrastructure during voting in Tuesdays congressional elections, US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said. At this time, we have no indication of compromise to our nations election infrastructure that would prevent voting, change vote counts or distrust the ability to tally votes, Nielsen told reporters. James Comey gets the vote out Former FBI director James Comey posted this picture of himself on Twitter while door knocking to get people out to vote. Many analysts put Hillary Clintons defeat in 2016 down to Comeys dramatic intervention before that election, announcing in a letter sent to Congress that the former secretary of state was being investigated by the FBI over her emails. His relationship with Donald Trump soured soon after his election, ironically citing his handling of the Clinton situation. Trump eventually sacked Comey in May 2017. Voted. Now going out to knock on doors to urge everyone to vote. Should be fun. pic.twitter.com/xvofJXSPb9 James Comey (@Comey) November 6, 2018 Who is Stacey Abrams? Democrat Stacey Abrams could become the USs first black female governor if she can best her Republican opponent Brian Kemp in a Georgia election marked by voter suppression claims and racist robocalls. The neck-in-neck race has been one of the most closely watched races this midterm season. Stacey Abrams could become the first black woman ever elected governor in the U.S.pic.twitter.com/YGf3aWwOhO AJ+ (@ajplus) August 1, 2018 Abrams started her political career at the age of 29 when she was appointed Atlantas Deputy City Attorney. In 2007, voters elected her to Georgias General Assembly as a Democrat, where she eventually became state House minority leader. As a state legislator, Abrams successfully fought to expand public transportation funding, railed against tax cuts and advocated criminal justice reform. She also founded the New Georgia Project, an NGO that worked to register voters of colour and advocated voting rights. For a look at the other candidates looking to make history, have a read of our piece here. Oprah Winfrey takes part in a town hall meeting with Stacey Abrams (left) in Marietta [File: Christopher Aluka Berry/Reuters] Voting machines in Atlanta Some potentially disturbing news coming out of Atlanta. Reports on Twitter say some polling stations are suffering from a shortage of voting machines, while others are reporting technical difficulties. Atlanta is in Georgia, where the first black female candidate for governor, Stacey Abrams, is standing against Republican Brian Kemp. The latter has attracted strong criticism for refusing to give up his position as Georgias secretary of state, a position which involves overseeing the election. Kemp has dismissed the charge of a conflict of interest and has instead doubled down on his position by using his office to accuse to Democrats of hacking a state voter registry without presenting evidence. America is broken .. The voting process has been and continues to be subverted. BREAKING: 4-hour lines to vote outside Atlanta due to broken voting machines ThinkProgress https://t.co/lUl7ukdvrq mark thompson (@MarkTLive) November 6, 2018 Send your questions to The Stream If you have questions about the midterms, you can get in touch with The Stream on Twitter. Theyll be answering your questions during a special election night show with AJ. Do you have questions about the midterm elections? Tweet them to us and well get you answers during our special Tuesday night #Midterms2018 coverage with @ajplus. https://t.co/OdtIar05s5 The Stream (@AJStream) November 6, 2018 The Evangelical factor Despite his many scandals and allegations of sexual harassment, Donald Trump won about 80 percent of the Evangelical Christian vote in 2016. During the past four decades, the voting bloc has emerged as one of the most important within the US political system. By appointing Supreme Court judges with conservative views on abortion and moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Trump has gone further to satisfy the Evangelical bloc than any other president. This Al Jazeera explainer is a primer on one of the most powerful religious blocs in the country. The first Native American congresswoman In the 229 years since the US Congress was established, not one member has been a Native American woman. That will likely change tonight, with Deb Haaland poised to take New Mexicos first district. Haaland was born to a Norwegian-American father and a mother from the Laguna Pueblo tribe. "Perhaps having a Native woman in Congress once and for all would mean something, not just to New Mexico, but to women of color across the country." Deb Haaland says 2018 is the time to take a stand. #ElectionDay pic.twitter.com/y2oZk5z3tE AJ+ (@ajplus) November 6, 2018 How will the midterms affect the Middle East The general character of its foreign policy in the region is expected to remain more or less the same, says Joe Macaron of the Arab Center in Washington, DC. Who is Ilhan Omar? In a few hours time, counting will begin in Minnesota and Ilhan Omar is set to be announced a congresswoman for the states fifth district. Her election will mark the start of a new episode in her journey, which started as a refugee fleeing civil war in Somalia. When she moved to the US, aged 14, Omar got her first taste of political life, translating for her grandfather at Democratic Farmer Labor party meetings. Ilhan Omar could become the first woman in Congress to wear a hijab. pic.twitter.com/TrxjRbbJwh AJ+ (@ajplus) August 19, 2018 In 2016, she won a seat on the Minnesota state legislator and in August of this year, Omar secured just shy of half the vote to win the Democratic primary. As a congresswoman, she has pledged to fight for Medicare for all and debt-free colleges. Stopped for lunch and to talk to voters at HolyLand, an immigrant-owned business that started in 1986 with 2 employees and now employs 160 people. These stories are everywhere. pic.twitter.com/cvAWGodz8A Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 6, 2018 Whats at stake in the midterms? First-time voters Here are some tweets by immigrants voting for the first time today. I became a citizen on January 25th, 2018 and my first vote went for @BetoORourke! I waited 24 years for this privilege so there is no excuse for you all to make a plan and #GoVote #BetoForTexas pic.twitter.com/e2h95uR4os Hans Red (@HanSolo218) November 6, 2018 My first time voting was quite an experience at a fire station and in the middle of filling out my ballot, a call came in and the firefighters suited up and left on a truck. Proud immigrant on #ElectionDay. Now go out and VOTE!!! pic.twitter.com/VjOnhCOPYz Camila (@moxiemila) November 6, 2018 OMG! My parents voted! This is the first time I think they've ever been able to vote together. As a daughter of immigrants, I'm so proud to see both parents (one who is a new citizen) voting on #ElectionDay. YES WE CAN! #WeVoteWeWin @AmandaKhan310 pic.twitter.com/6NyidftSW3 ethany Khan (@BethanyKhan) November 6, 2018 What voting means to US Muslims A recent study found two in five Americans thought Islam was incompatible with US values. For many Muslims, elections are an opportunity to help elect candidates they think will tackle hateful rhetoric and policies that they believe unfairly target them. https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1059846741237907456?ref_src=twsrc^tfw Stand together. Work together. March together. Vote together. Because others died marching so that you could. Every single vote counts. Every single one. #VoteToday #GoVote #ElectionDay pic.twitter.com/cg8BwDEalL Dr. Omar Suleiman (@omarsuleiman504) November 6, 2018 Barack Obama urges Americans to vote Not as exciting as Hillary Clintons call to arms but the former president has called on his fellow citizens to turn up at polling stations. Today is the day. Today, its your turn to raise your voice to change the course of this country for the better. So make it count. Get out there and vote. Go to https://t.co/NKXRGNgbZX or call 833-336-VOTE to confirm where you can vote and check voting hours. pic.twitter.com/6xdMbKhwkr Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 6, 2018 Lines form as Americans pour out to vote Reports of queues forming on Twitter are no substitute for the official figures that will come out after the election, but anecdotally at least, there seems to be some truth in the idea that many more people are coming out than have in previous years. Its raining in a large part of the US East Coast, so these voters seem especially dedicated: It's been 40 minutes and I'm still in line to vote. None of us have ever seen turnout like this before in this Brooklyn district. And it's pouring rain. This is astounding.@BrianLehrer @WNYC @jaketapper @chrislhayes @RonaldKlain @NBCNews pic.twitter.com/FlbCh5Ms4w Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) November 6, 2018 Central Precinct in Arlington, VA I've never waited in a line longer than 5 or 10 people. Today, the line is snaked around twice with over 100 people waiting in line. #ElectionDay #Midterms2018 pic.twitter.com/KIf9T5Pi54 Matt Rogers (@Politidope) November 6, 2018 The women looking to make history These are the women looking to make history tonight, they include Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, who are expected to become the first Muslim congresswomen, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whos become the youngest congresswomen in history. Read our roundup of those looking to make a mark on history here. Twitter joins efforts to get vote out thank u, vote Twitter (@Twitter) November 5, 2018 Who benefits from high turnout? This is what Birmingham University academic Scott Lucas told Al Jazeera: Keep an eye on the voter turnout, higher it goes, the more chance of an upset of the polls which will favour the Democrats, especially if it is amongst the youth and women. NGOs helped Native Americans in North Dakota get ID In 2012, Heidi Heitkamp won North Dakota with a majority just shy of 3,000, largely due to the Native American vote. In the six years since, Republican state legislators have introduced new stricter voter ID rules, which critics say unfairly target the Native American community. A Supreme Court ruling in October backed the states right to require street addresses on IDs instead of post office boxes. Many Native Americans do not live in areas with street addresses, nor can they afford to get new IDs with a street address assigned through the statewide 911 system. Free programmes have managed to help more than 2,000 voters on four reservations get proper credentials. For more on voter suppression in the US, read this. Walkouts begin Students have started walking out of classes to vote in this years midterms. For many who turned 18 after the 2016 US presidential election, the 2018 vote will be their first chance to cast a ballot. Read our full report here. 10 AM! #WalkOutToVote LETS GO cam ACAB (@SIGHMANSIONZ) November 6, 2018 Hillary Clinton: Today, we say enough Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump, has issued a powerful call to action in a series of Tweets on Tuesday morning. The Democrat former Secretary of State accused Trump of undermining democratic institutions and values in the US. Well vote for fantastic candidates all over the country- including a historic number of women- who want to raise wages, fight for justice, and help more people get health care, Clinton wrote. If they win, theyll do great things for America. Let's exercise our birthright as Americans today, put those people in office, and continue the hard work of saving our democracy. It'll take all of us. Happy Election Day. Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 6, 2018 #IVoted trends on US Twitter The hashtag trends every election and it usually includes selfies of voters outside polling stations and people wearing I voted stickers. Here are some of the more interesting tweets this year: https://twitter.com/KristanMorley/status/1059811282348576768?ref_src=twsrc^tfw https://twitter.com/XstalBooks/status/1059813107353247746?ref_src=twsrc^tfw This is Canela. She wants you to go vote today, and how can you say no to that face?! Shed also like to remind you to look up the judges on the ballot because those elections are just as important #ElectionDay #IVoted @darth pic.twitter.com/lybFzNdBhu maria 6-feet-away otero (@mariaaleote) November 6, 2018 Fox presenter slammed for joining Trump rally Fox News receives a lot of criticism for its pro-Trump slant and on the eve of the election, one of its star hosts drew a lot of controversy after appearing with Trump at a rally in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. The president called Hannity onto the stage, the Fox News presenter obliged and addressing reporters at the back of the rally, mouthed fake news. Fox News host Sean Hannity is now campaigning with Trump on stage pic.twitter.com/MemnzqY3Pz Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) November 6, 2018 Polls open in Alabama, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin Polls have opened in Texas where Democrat Beto ORourke is challenging incumbent Republican, Ted Cruz, for a seat on the Senate. ORourke has run a strong campaign, with some polls putting him even with Cruz in the deeply red state, but election prediction site FiveThreeEigh give Cruz the advantage. Texas will be an interesting test of how increased voter turnout affects the final result. Both major parties claim higher turnout will benefit their final showing. Early voting in Texas alone surpassed the states total turnout for the 2014 midterms. ACLU advice on voter intimidation The American Civil Liberties Union has this advice out on voter intimidation. It comes within a context of widespread allegations of voter suppression and confusion over voter ID laws in some states. Hate speech and the midterms This years midterms have been bitterly fought but beyond everyday electioneering lies something more sinister. The run-up to this years vote including a failed pipe bombing campaign targeting opponents of President Donald Trump, the murder of two African-Americans in a grocery store by a white supremacist, and a massacre of Jewish worshippers by a man shouting anti-Semitic slurs at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Coupled with the violence, has been a rise in anti-immigration rhetoric within parts of the Republican party, spearheaded by Trump and others on the GOPs far-right. In this piece, Al Jazeera looks at how the rise of hate speech and violent acts are linked. Explaining Trumps appeal in small-town Kentucky Al Jazeera spoke to Trump-supporting residents in Irvine in Kentucky to gauge why the Republican president attracts such strong support. Issues that came up frequently? Immigration and jobs. Read the story here. Residents of more eastern states head to the polls Residents in parts of Alabama, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Tennessee are heading to the polls. Many polling stations across these states and Washington, DC opened at 7am local time (12GMT). Polls open in North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia Polls opened at 6:30am local time (11:30GMT) in North Carolina, Ohio and West Virginia. The Senate race in West Virginia will be one to watch as Democratic incumbent Joe Manchin faces off against Republican Patrick Morrisey. The latest polls give Manchin the edge, but an upset victory could spoil his partys hopes of taking back the Senate. Read about other Senate races you should watch here. Students will walk out to vote at 10am Students from the across the US will walk out of their classrooms on Tuesday at 10am and head to a polling station to cast their vote. The walkout is organised by the Future Coalition, a national network of youth-led organisations and initiatives, and for many participants, it will be their first time exercising their right to vote. Some adults speak down to us as if were not capable of making our own decisions or talking about the tragedies that affect our world. But tomorrow we prove that we young people will make change happen. pic.twitter.com/Yu7ZWQ9UR7 Future Coalition (@FutureCoalition) November 6, 2018 Polls open in more states Polls have opened in parts of Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, New York, New Jersey, Vermont and Virginia Facebook blocks 115 accounts before US midterm elections Facebook announced late on Monday it had blocked 30 Facebook accounts and 85 Instagram accounts for possibly being engaged in coordinated inauthentic behaviour. Almost all the Facebook Pages associated with these accounts appear to be in the French or Russian languages, while the Instagram accounts seem to have mostly been in English some were focused on celebrities, others political debate, Facebook said in a statement. Typically, we would be further along with our analysis before announcing anything publicly. But given that we are only one day away from important elections in the US, we wanted to let people know about the action weve taken and the facts as we know them today. Once we know more including whether these accounts are linked to the Russia-based Internet Research Agency or other foreign entities we will update this post. The first polls in the US midterm elections have opened in Vermont. Polling stations in the rest of the state and many other states on the East Coast will soon follow between 6am and 7am local time (11-12GMT) A look at the US Capitol on the morning of the midterm elections Polls will open across the East Coast in the coming hours. Heres a look at the US Capitol building early on Tuesday morning. The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. is shrouded in fog as America prepares to head to the polls in the high-stakes 2018 midterm elections. https://t.co/UArp71kKgt pic.twitter.com/mciFJgIEn7 ABC News (@ABC) November 6, 2018 Google tells Americans to go vote Google changed its google doodle in the US to go vote with a link to find a polling place. Its #ElectionDay and @Google is making sure everyone knows where to vote. Clicking on Go Vote will take you to another page to find your polling place. pic.twitter.com/C3ZA4fD25e Vicki Bradley (@VickiMarie31) November 6, 2018 Trump: In a sense, Im on the ticket Trump used his final pitch to ask voters to help preserve fragile GOP victories that could be erased by Democratic gains in Congress. Acknowledging the stakes in the closing days of campaigning, Trump stressed to voters that everything is on the line. Its all fragile. Everything I told you about, it can be undone and changed by the Democrats if they get in, Trump told supporters. You see how theyve behaved. You see whats happening with them. Theyve really become radicalised. Trump spent his final hours on the campaign trail in Ohio, Indiana and Missouri, where his rhetoric on immigration turned harsh and he lobbed attacks at Democrats. The contrast in this election could not be more clear. Democrats produce mobs, Trump said at his final rally in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Thats whats happened. Republicans produce jobs. Trump has also sought to distance himself from any potential blame if Republicans lose control of the House, saying, My primary focus has been on the Senate. Whatever the outcome, Trump made clear he knew his political future was on the line. In a sense, I am on the ticket, he told a raucous crowd in Cleveland. Voting officials under scrutiny amid heavy election turnout Federal and state officials have been working for nearly two years to shore up the nations election infrastructure from cyberattacks by Russians or others seeking to disrupt the voting process. It turns out that many of the problems are closer to home. Early voting leading up to Tuesdays midterm election has revealed a wide variety of concerns with voting and registration systems around the country from machines that changed voter selections to registration forms tossed out because of clerical errors. Election officials and voting rights groups fear that voter confidence in the results could be undermined if such problems become even more widespread on Election Day, as millions of Americans head to the polls to decide pivotal races for Congress and governor. Hannity joins Trump on stage despite claiming he wouldnt Fox News Channel insisted Sean Hannity would not be part of President Donald Trumps last midterm election rally on Monday but Trump called on Hannity to join him onstage anyway. Hannity appeared on the podium with the president and delivered brief remarks. Another Fox News personality, Jeanine Pirro, also appeared onstage with the president. Hannity, cable news most popular personality, told the crowd, By the way, all those people in the back are fake news. It was an extraordinary scene after the news network had worked on Monday to establish distance between Hannity and the campaign. Trumps campaign had billed Hannity as a special guest at the rally, but Fox had said that wasnt so, insisting he was merely broadcasting his show from the arena. US officials warn Americans of influence efforts Americans must be aware of foreign actors attempting to influence their choice as they vote in the midterm elections, a joint statement by US security agencies warned. Naming Russia, China, and Iran, the statement said local officials would be on hand at polling stations to prevent any attempts to sway American voters. Our agencies have been working in unprecedented ways to combat influence efforts and to support state and local officials in securing our elections, it said. But Americans should be aware that foreign actors and Russia in particular continue to try to influence public sentiment and voter perceptions through actions intended to sow discord. The departments said agents do this by spreading false information on candidates and disseminating propaganda on social media. The United States will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections from Russia, China, Iran, or other nations, the statement said. Click here for all previous updates. Migrant caravan: More people enter Mexico to join march to US Mexican authorities are under pressure from the US to make migrants from Central America stay in Mexico, instead of pressing on. The $430m Statue of Unity is being seen as PM Narendra Modis bid to undermine rivals in Nehru-Gandhi family. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has unveiled a 182-metre statue, the worlds tallest, to honour Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, one of the countrys founding fathers and its first home minister. The $430m Statue of Unity, built on an island in Narmada river, was inaugurated by Modi on Wednesday in the western Indian state of Gujarat, home to both Patel and Modi. Patel was deputy to Jawaharlal Nehru, Indias first prime minister, also the great grandfather of current Congress party president, Rahul Gandhi. Patels legacy has been frequently used by Modi to undermine his chief political rivals, the Gandhi-Nehru family, which gave India three prime ministers. Speaking at the inauguration, Modi, who had commissioned the statue in 2010 when he was Gujarat states chief minister, said, Events like today are very very important in a countrys history and such events are difficult to erase. It is an historic and inspiring occasion for all Indians. Patriotism is the foundation on which our culture is built, the Hindu nationalist leader said. Around 3,500 workers and 250 engineers worked to build the gigantic statue made of concrete, steel and bronze panels, located on the island called Sadhu Bet, around 200km from Gujarats capital city, Ahmedabad. There will be a viewing gallery some 153 metres up, near the chest of the towering statue, which, critics say, is part of a larger right-wing project of revising Indias history to suit the Hindu nationalist agenda. Ironic that a statue of Sardar Patel is being inaugurated, but every institution he helped build is being smashed. The systematic destruction of India's institutions is nothing short of treason. #StatueOfUnity Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) October 31, 2018 The project includes appropriating the legacy of freedom fighters and leaders from the liberal opposition Congress, who do not belong to the Nehru-Gandhi family. Another controversial statue, that of 17th century Maratha warrior, Shivaji Bhosle, is currently being built in Mumbai. Both the statues dwarf the Statue of Liberty in height and together cost almost $1bn. Why Patel? Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, also known as the Iron Man of India, persuaded feuding states to merge and become part of the Indian union after independence from the British rule in 1947. Patel worked alongside Nehru to build the nation after the Indian subcontinent was divided into India and Pakistan, one of the bloodiest events in South Asia that resulted in nearly a million deaths and displaced 15 million people. Historians like AG Noorani say Nehru and Patel held divergent views on how the young Indian republic is to be shaped, despite being members of the same Congress party, with the latter perceived by some as more pro-Hindu. While the majority of Indians are Hindus, Muslims and people of other faiths account for some 240 million, or a fifth, of the populace. Thousands of Gujarats tribals in villages near the site protested against the million-dollar statue [Sam Panthaky/AFP] Modi and his BJP party are at loggerheads with the secular ethos that largely shaped a post-colonial India governed by Nehru and the Congress for more than half a century. They believe Patel would have made a better leader. Every Indian regrets Sardar Patel did not become the first prime minister. Had he been the first prime minister, the countrys fate and face would have been completely different, Modi has said repeatedly in the past few years. Facing a series of state elections in the coming months before a national election due by May, the ruling BJP believes there is much to be gained from appropriating Patels legacy. Rakesh Sinha, lawmaker and member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJPs ideological mentor, says the Hindu supremacist organisation is the true successor of Patels legacy. Patel had a home-grown concept of nationalism. While others like Nehru advocated a European idea of nationalism, Patel valorised the Indian tradition of civilisational nation state. This meant one nation, one people. Our government is guided by this ideology, Sinha told Al Jazeera. Battle of ideas Analysts say it suits Modi and the BJP to take refuge in Patels colossal shade, invoking his efforts in integrating erstwhile princely states into the Indian republic. The eulogies being paid to Patel are merely a cover. All they want is to malign Indias left-leaning social democrat founding father Nehru. It is a battle of ideas, Aditya Mukherjee, professor of history at Jawaharlal Nehru University, told Al Jazeera. {articleGUID} Others warn the ambitions of Hindu nationalists extend beyond holding political power and includes shaping of a national identity to match the idea that India is a nation of and for Hindus. The Hindu nationalists believe Nehru and [Mahatma] Gandhi didnt allow India to become a Hindu state. So, a conservative Hindu Patel was the natural choice to counterbalance Gandhi, Manimugdha Sharma, political analyst in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera. Commentators also refer to the irony of Modi supporting Patel, who helped ban the RSS after Nathuram Godse, who historians say was linked to the Hindu supremacist organisation, assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. Its a different matter that Patel was staunchly against a Hindu nation and had famously said in February 1949: Hindu rule is a mad idea. It will kill the soul of India, Sharma said. Politics over statues Mumbais planned $515m statue of Shivaji reveres a regional ruler who challenged the medieval Mughal empire and today stands as a symbol of Hindu pride. Critics say a debate over such statues is necessary at a time when ruling BJP is erasing Indian history of its Muslim heritage by renaming roads and railway stations, and rewriting of textbooks. Earlier this month, the Islamic name of a north Indian city, Allahabad, was changed to Prayagraj, which has Hindu associations. Its a paradox that the Statue of Unity is leading to disunity. The politics behind these statues is obvious: to lionise someone by demonising someone else, said Sharma. Historians like Mukherjee say the Hindu nationalists want a monochromatic, homogenous India, which this land never was. {articleGUID} They want to wash over the entire medieval period because they are irritated that some Muslim rulers were around. For them theres ancient India and then suddenly we jump over to post-independence India, he said. But the RSS says such statues set a western idea of nationalism right. When you write artificial history intended to support a western version of nationalism, it will not be accepted. If there are versions of history that were concocted, we will set it right, Rakesh Sinha told Al Jazeera. #StatueOfUnity, built at an estimated cost of Rs. 2,989 cr, can fund 2 All India Institute of Medical Sciences, 5 #solarpower plants of 75 megawatt each, 3 Chandrayan-2 missions to the moon and various #irrigation schemes/projects in #Gujarat. https://t.co/DjCdBL6I3O IndiaSpend (@IndiaSpend) October 31, 2018 Tribals displaced The costly statue projects have also been criticised as being unnecessary in a nation where one-third of the 1.2 billion people live in abject poverty. Local organisations claim as many as 75,000 tribal people were displaced from their lands by the Statue of Unity project, which has been financed by government and public donations. {articleGUID} The chiefs of nearly two dozen villages around the Patel statue had warned Modi to stay away from the inauguration. Posters of Modi with Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani were torn down or had their faces blackened over the weekend, AFP news agency reported. Activists said about a dozen of their leaders were detained ahead of the opening of the statue. Anand Mazgaonkar, a community leader in Narmada district, told AFP that police in plain clothes took away 12 people late on Tuesday to the local police headquarters. Authorities denied the allegations, but admitted that they took no chances. More than 5,000 police personnel were deployed at various points in the 10km radius of the statue site, Narmada police inspector general Abhay Chudasama told AFP. Analysts say the government should have its priorities cut out. A country struggling to create jobs amid a sluggish economy could have surely avoided this wasteful expenditure. India needs gigantic growth, not gigantic statues, said Sharma. After winning record number of primary races, Nevada female candidates set their sights on making history on November 6. Patricia Ackerman never thought shed run for office in the US. A successful business owner by the age of 21, an award-winning actress at the age of 30 and then an FBI agent sent on undercover missions to Russia, Ackerman said she never knew where she was going. I always had my bags packed, she told Al Jazeera. But when Donald Trump was elected US president in 2016, the first-generation American, born to Ukrainian immigrants who both survived imprisonment by the Nazis, knew she had to run. It was [because] of the 2016 presidential elections, she said. I had no inclination to get into politics prior to it. Less than a week before the midterm elections, Ackerman, a Democrat running for Nevadas State Assembly in the states 39th district, now spends her days knocking on peoples doors. If she, along with several other female hopefuls win, the state may make history, becoming the first in the country to have a female-majority legislature. Patricia Ackerman, candidate for Nevadas State Assembly District 39 seat [Courtesy of Patricia Ackerman] For 70 years, this seat [in the 39th district] has not had a Democrat, let alone a woman, Ackerman told Al Jazeera. Vying to represent a conservative district, Ackerman faces an uphill battle against incumbent Jim Wheeler, who caused national outrage in 2013 when he said he would vote for slavery if that was what his constituents wanted. But women in several other districts have a good shot at either obtaining or keeping their seat on November 6. It can be done According to a study by the Reno Gazette, women are favoured to control 27 seats 19 in the Assembly and eight in the Senate in the states 63-seat legislature. They would still need to pick up five additional seats to obtain the majority but, the newspaper noted, there are several tight key races in both the state senate and assembly that could give women the upper hand. We are excited and hopeful to see a women majority in the Nevada State Legislature in 2019, said Danna Lovell, executive director of Emerge Nevada, an organisation that recruits and trains women who want to run for office. It can be done, but will take an extraordinary GOTV [Get Out To Vote] effort which is currently under way! Early voting numbers are up, and enthusiasm is high on both sides. In the end, it will be a close call. Lovell said she saw a number of women, including Ackerman, empowered by the Womens March the day after Trump was elected. This led to a movement where women pledged to get involved and planned to significantly change the face of politics, she said. Lovell noted that Emerge Nevada has seen a fivefold increase in the number of women applying to train with them in 2018 when compared with any previous year. A woman holds up a sign during the Womens March rally in Las Vegas, Nevada [Steve Marcus/Reuters] These women are powerhouses About 40 percent of the states current legislature is female, and Lovell said women have already made a difference. According to Lovell, once elected, female legislators introduce and support legislation that focuses on families and womens rights. In addition to voting for their representatives, Nevada residents will also decide on a number of ballot questions, including whether to approve a tax exemption on certain feminine hygiene products. Jordan Tama, a professor at the American University and scholar on US foreign policy and Congress, said the high number of women running this year is not surprising following the #MeToo movement and the Supreme Court nomination that saw Brett Kavanaugh take a seat on the now right-leaning Supreme Court, casting a dark cloud over issues including reproductive rights and access to abortion. All of the other woman running, all the way down, we see, we realise that these women are powerhouses, they are determined. The community is determined. Patricia Ackerman, candidate for Nevada's State Assembly District 39 He said that with more women serving in office, people can expect a more cooperative leadership style. Studies show that with more women in legislature it provides a more collaborative leadership by the elected officials, which is certainly needed today, he said. For Ackerman, her journey has not only brought her closer to her community, but to other female candidates wanting to make history in Nevada. All of the other woman running, all the way down, we see, we realise that these women are powerhouses, they are determined. The community is determined, she said. Pyongyang says it dismantled Punggye-ri site in May, but did not allow international inspections at the time. North Korea is preparing its Punggye-ri nuclear test site for international inspectors, Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday, citing South Koreas spy agency. While North Korea has stopped nuclear and missile tests in the past year, it did not allow international inspections of its dismantling of Punggye-ri in May, prompting criticism that its actions were merely for show and could be reversed. North Korea agreed to allow international inspectors to observe a permanent dismantlement of key missile facilities, in return for reciprocal measures by the United States, the Souths President Moon Jae-in said in September. The country also promised further steps, including the closure of its main Yongbyon nuclear complex, Moon said following his summit with the Norths Kim Jong Un. Kim vowed to work towards denuclearisation during his unprecedented June summit with US President Donald Trump. But Pyongyangs actions have fallen short of US demands for irreversible steps to scrap its arsenal, including a full disclosure of nuclear facilities and materials. Contentious no-fly zone Effective on Thursday, a no-fly zone between North and South Korea will extend 40km north and south from the Military Demarcation Line in the east and 20km in the west for fixed-wing aircraft. The agreement also bars live-fire drills involving fixed-wing aircraft and air-to-ground guided weapons in the no-fly area. South Korea and the US had held such drills regularly until halting joint exercises in June. The military accord, sealed during last months summit in Pyongyang, is one of the most concrete agreements between the two Asian neighbours this year. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed discontent with the agreement during a phone call with his counterpart earlier this month. UN chief Antonio Guterres informed the Security Council he intends to appoint Geir Pedersen as his special envoy. United Nations (UN) chief Antonio Guterres has informed the Security Council that he wishes to appoint Norwegian diplomat Geir Pedersen as the next special envoy to war-torn Syria. I am pleased to inform you of my intention to announce the appointment of Mr Geir O Pedersen as my Special Envoy for Syria, Guterres wrote in a letter seen by AFP news agency. In taking this decision, I have consulted broadly, including with the government of the Syrian Arab Republic, the letter said. Diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity said Pedersen, currently Norways ambassador to China, had the informal approval of the councils five permanent members Russia, China, the United States, France and Britain. {articleGUID} Mr Pedersen will support the Syrian parties by facilitating an inclusive and credible political solution that meets the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people, the UN chief said in his letter. Pedersen will replace Staffan de Mistura, who announced earlier this month that he is leaving the position by November end. Mistura held the position for more than four years- the longest serving of three UN mediators so far and said he was quitting due to family reasons. The secretary-general called on the international community and the Syrian government to give Pedersen unified and unwavering support. In his letter @antonioguterres tells Security Council I call on the international community and the Syrian Government to give Mr. Pedersen unified and unwavering support in order for him to succeed in his mission. https://t.co/3OIx4IlxYx JAMES BAYS (@baysontheroad) October 30, 2018 Challenging task The Syria conflict, which began with anti-government street protests in 2011, has claimed more than 360,000 lives and drawn in foreign powers and various armed groups. The Norwegian diplomat faces obstacles in negotiating a political deal, which the West has said is needed to unlock its reconstruction support and to encourage the bulk of the millions of Syrian refugees in Europe and the Middle East to return. {articleGUID} Misturas predecessors former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi both quit in frustration. The leaders of Turkey, Russia, France and Germany met in Istanbul last weekend and called for a political solution to the war and a permanent truce in the last major rebel-held bastion of Idlib. Their joint statement called for a committee to be established to draft Syrias post-war constitution before the end of the year, paving the way for free and fair elections in the war-torn country. UN efforts are currently focused on trying to convene a committee to rewrite Syrias constitution. Court frees Aasia Bibi on death row for nine years in a case that has become emblematic of fair trial concerns. Islamabad, Pakistan Pakistans Supreme Court has acquitted a Christian woman convicted for blasphemy, prompting protests by far-right groups that have been demanding her execution for years. Aasia Bibi was cleared of all blasphemy charges and authorities were ordered to release her after nine years on death row, Chief Justice Saqib Nisar announced in the capital, Islamabad, on Wednesday. This appeal is allowed. The judgements of the High Court, as well as the Trial Court, are reversed. Consequently, the conviction as also the sentence of death awarded to the appellant is set aside and she is acquitted of the charge, Nisar told a packed courtroom. Late on Wednesday, Prime Minister Imran Khan issued a warning to the religious right that any prolonged blockade of streets would be met with action, while appealing for Pakistanis to respect the verdict. They are inciting you for their own political gain, you should not get trapped by them for the sake of the country, they are doing no service to Islam, Khan said in a televised broadcast. We will protect peoples properties and lives, we will not allow any sabotage, we will not allow any traffic to be stopped, he added. Bibi, 53, a native of the central Pakistan village of Ithan Wali, was accused by two Muslim women of having insulted Islams Prophet Muhammad and the Quran during an argument sparked by their refusal to drink water from the same vessel as her in 2009. She was convicted and sentenced to death by a trial court in November 2010, with the Lahore High Court upholding her conviction four years later. {articleGUID} Rights groups and Bibis lawyers, however, argued that there were numerous fair trial concerns in her case, one that became emblematic of such concerns in many cases under Pakistans strict blasphemy laws. Blasphemy against Islam and its Prophet is a sensitive subject in Pakistan, where the crime can carry a compulsory death sentence. Increasingly, blasphemy accusations have resulted in mob lynchings and extrajudicial murders. At least 74 people have been killed in violence related to blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to an Al Jazeera tally. Those killed include a provincial governor and a federal minister who stood up for Bibi when she was first accused in 2009. On Wednesday, judges said they agreed that Bibi had not been tried fairly, noting glaring and stark contradictions in the prosecutions evidence, and ordered her immediate release. Justice Asif Khosa, writing in the full verdict, issued shortly after Wednesdays announcement, said the truth had not been fully revealed during the trial. {articleGUID} [There is] the irresistible and unfortunate impression that all those concerned in the case with providing evidence and conducting investigation had taken upon themselves not to speak the truth of at least not to divulge the whole truth, he wrote. Aasia has gotten justice at last, Bibis lawyer Saif-ul-Malook told Al Jazeera shortly after the verdict was announced. Amnesty International hailed Wednesdays decision as a landmark verdict. For the past eight years, Aasia Bibis life languished in limbo. Despite her protest of innocence, and despite the lack of evidence against her, this case was used to rouse angry mobs, justify the assassinations of two senior officials, and intimidate the Pakistani state into capitulation, the rights group said. Justice has finally prevailed. The message must go out that the blasphemy laws will no longer be used to persecute the countrys most vulnerable minorities, said Amnestys Omar Waraich, deputy South Asia director. There are still roughly 40 other peopleon death row or serving life sentences for blasphemy in Pakistan, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Malik Bashir Awan, father of the man who killed a Punjab governor over his support for Bibi, told protesters in Islamabad they must take revenge for Wednesdays verdict [Asad Hashim/Al Jazeera] Protests across country Following the announcement, protests broke out in various cities on the call of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a far-right political and religious group led by firebrand Muslim leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi that has long called for Bibi to be executed. TLP leaders, including Rizvi, gathered outside government buildings in the eastern city of Lahore, while smaller groups of protesters blocked roads in the southern city of Karachi, the capital Islamabad and various towns in Punjab province. Following the verdict, TLP called for the deaths of the judges who overturned Bibis sentence, as well as the ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khans government. [The judges] who have ordered the release of the accursed Aasia are all liable to be killed under religious edict, said Afzal Qadri, a TLP leader, at the Lahore protest. {articleGUID} The lawyers for the complainant in the case, prayer leader Muhammad Salim, said they would decide whether to file a review petition after reading the detailed verdict. TLP and its followers have often accused rights groups that work with those accused of blasphemy, and courts that have upheld appeals, of working under foreign influence. We were expecting this decision, because the judges are bound in slavery, said an angry Tahira Shaheen, one of Salims lawyers. This is the slavery of the West, of which we have never been set free. Hundreds gathered at Islamabads Faizabad interchange, blocking a major highway and demanding that decision to acquit Bibi be rescinded [Asad Hashim/Al Jazeera] Must take revenge In the capital Islamabad, hundreds of protesters gathered to block the main Faizabad highway interchange, a key entry point into the city. We must take revenge for this verdict, said Malik Bashir Awan, father to Mumtaz Qadri, the man who assassinated Punjab Governor Taseer in 2010 over his support for Bibi. His words were met with loud cheers, and chants for those who commit blasphemy to be beheaded. Bibis family, and those of other people accused of blasphemy, have long faced death threats, and are forced to change their whereabouts often due to security concerns. They were not present in court on Wednesday. The government is not interested in my security, said Malook, Bibis lawyer. That I am alive now if only under Allahs protection. At the protest in Islamabad, demonstrators said they would continue to block the highway until their demands were met. Our faith says that a blasphemer must be put to death, said Hasan Chisti, 31, a vegetable shop owner who participated in a three-week TLP blockade of the same highway interchange last year. We do not accept this decision at all, and we will stay here as long as our leaders demand it. Asad Hashim is Al Jazeeras digital correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @AsadHashim Imran Khan says far-right protesters must disperse after Christian woman acquitted following years on death row. Islamabad, Pakistan Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has appealed for calm after far-right protesters blocked roads in several major cities following the Supreme Courts acquittal of a Christian woman who had been sentenced to death on blasphemy charges. Aasia Bibi, 53, who has been death row for eight years, was acquitted by the countrys top court on Wednesday morning. Bibis case had become emblematic of fair trial concerns in cases Pakistans strict blasphemy laws, and on Wednesday judges found there had been glaring and stark contradictions in the prosecutions case against her. {articleGUID} The announcement of the verdict prompted thousands to protest across the country, rallied by the far-right Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) political party and religious organisation. The TLP, headed by Khadim Hussain Rizvi, has campaigned on the issue of blasphemy for years and has been calling for Bibi to be executed since its inception. On Wednesday, TLP leader Afzal Qadri called for the three Supreme Court judges who heard Bibis appeal to be killed. [The judges] who have ordered the release of the accused Aasia are all liable to be killed under religious edict, said Qadri at a protest in the eastern city of Lahore. In a televised address to the nation, Prime Minister Khan rebuked the TLP for taking the law into their own hands, accusing them of stirring up religious sentiments for political gain. I say to these people: do not confront this state do not damage this country for your vote bank, said Khan. If you do this, I promise that the government will do its duty I ask you: do not force the government to have to take action. Blasphemy against Islam and its Prophet is a sensitive subject in Pakistan, where the crime can carry a compulsory death sentence. Pakistani Christians pray for Aasia Bibi, a mother of five who has been on death row since 2010 [File: AP] Increasingly, blasphemy accusations have resulted in mob lynchings and extrajudicial murders. At least 74 people have been killed in violence related to blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to an Al Jazeera tally. Those killed include a provincial governor and a federal minister who stood up for Bibi when she was first accused in 2009. There are still roughly 40 other people on death row, or serving life sentences for blasphemy in Pakistan, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). While the largest protest was held outside government buildings in Lahore, hundreds of TLP supporters also gathered to block major roads in the southern city of Karachi, the capital Islamabad and smaller towns in Punjab province. In Islamabad, hundreds of protesters gathered to block the main Faizabad highway interchange, a key entry point into the city. We must take revenge for this verdict, said Malik Bashir Awan, father of Mumtaz Qadri, the man who assassinated Punjab Governor Salman Taseer in 2010 over his support for Bibi. There are still roughly 40 people on death row for blasphemy in Pakistan [File: AP] His words were met with loud cheers, and chants for those who commit blasphemy to be beheaded. Earlier on Wednesday, rights activists hailed the decision to acquit Bibi, who has protested her innocence since her arrest in 2009. {articleGUID} Bibi, a native of the central village of Ithan Wali, was initially accused of having committed blasphemy following an argument with two Muslim women, who objected to her use of the same water vessel as them due to her religion. She was convicted and sentenced to death by a trial court in November 2010, with the Lahore High Court upholding her conviction four years later. On Wednesday, however, the Supreme Court said that parts of the prosecutions case were nothing short of concoction. [There is] the irresistible and unfortunate impression that all those concerned in the case with providing evidence and conducting investigation had taken upon themselves not to speak the truth or at least not to divulge the whole truth, wrote Justice Asif Khosa in the detailed verdict. The court ordered Bibis immediate release from custody, where she has been kept in solitary confinement for years due to death threats. Her family, who have lived in hiding for years due to the security threats, were not present in the courtroom. The prosecution lawyers said they would read through the detailed judgment before deciding whether to exercise their right to file a review petition against the acquittal. Aasia has gotten justice at last, Bibis lawyer Saif-ul-Malook told Al Jazeera shortly after the verdict was announced. Despite PM Khans warning, many protesters remained out on the streets protesting the verdict on Wednesday night. The most important thing in the universe is the honour of the Prophet Muhammed everything else is secondary to this, said Muhammad Zaman, 30, a government employee who joined the TLPs blockade of a major motorway into Islamabad. In this country, Islamic law must be considered to be above the constitution and other laws. Asad Hashim is Al Jazeeras digital correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @AsadHashim. Robert Bowers, who has been charged with 44 counts, regularly made anti-Semitic comments on social media. The suspect in a mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh that killed 11 worshipers has been charged on a total of 44 counts, up from 29 counts previously, according to a federal indictment filed on Wednesday. The charges against Robert Bowers, the suspect in what is believed to be the deadliest attack on Jews in the United States in recent history, include religious hate crimes, firearms charges and causing injury to police officers. Bowers is due to appear at a second hearing in federal court in Pittsburgh on Thursday. Bowers reportedly made anti-Semitic remarks as he opened fire on worshipers inside the building, killing 11 and wounding several others, including police officers responding at the scene. The new charges included 11 counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death and various charges related to his use of a gun in anti-religious violence. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty. Mugshot of Robert Bowers, alleged synagogue shooter [AFP] The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said the massacre may be the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history. It also comes at a time of increasing debate over gun violence in the US, where firearms are linked to more than 30,000 deaths annually. Funerals held Mourners gathered this week for the funerals of Melvin Wax, 88, who was leading Sabbath services when the attack began, retired real estate agent Irving Younger, 69, and retired university researcher Joyce Fienberg, 75. The aftermath of the tragedy still pervaded life in the Squirrel Hill neighbourhood where the synagogue is located. In coffee shops, customers talked about the victims they knew, remembering them as civic-minded, kind and pillars of the community. In the street, friends embraced and comforted one another during the period of raw grief. Libby Zal said that Younger was such a fixture in Squirrel Hill that a local store he frequented would send him a get well card if he did not appear after three days. {articleGUID} Dan Frankel, a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, called Younger outgoing and opinionated. He was very interested in social justice and he probably would not have wanted the death penalty (for the gunman), Frankel said. Jodi Smith, a Pittsburgh native, joined mourners ahead of the Wax funeral at the Ralph Schugar Chapel and remembered him as a very polite, gentle man. I could have claimed him as a father, Smith said. He was always at the synagogue, always helping out. The synagogue had been his life since his wife passed away a few years ago. Fienberg spent 25 years as a researcher at the University of Pittsburghs Learning Research and Development Center until she retired in 2008. She was an engaging, elegant, and warm person, the centre said on Facebook. Bridges not walls The synagogue attack has heightened a national debate over Republican US President Donald Trumps rhetoric, which critics say has contributed to a surge in white-nationalist and neo-Nazi activity. His administration denies he has encouraged far-right violence and is instead attempting to unify the US. Amid the first funerals for victims on Tuesday, Trump visited Tree of Life. Thousands protested his presence in the city, accusing him of using rhetoric that has fueled anti-Semitism in America. Several thousand protesters, a diverse crowd of all ages, held an anti-Trump rally about a block away from the synagogue just as his visit began, singing Old Testament psalms and carrying signs with such slogans as: We build bridges not walls. Trump made no public comments during his visit but wrote on Twitter on Wednesday morning that his office had been shown great respect on a very sad and solemn day in Pittsburgh. Small protest was not seen by us, staged far away, he tweeted. The Fake News stories were just the opposite-Disgraceful! {articleGUID} More than 1,800 people paid their respects on Tuesday at Rodef Shalom, another synagogue in Squirrel Hill, the heart of the citys Jewish community. Trumps visit to Pennsylvanias second largest city came a week before midterm elections that will determine whether his Republican Party maintains control of both houses of Congress or whether the Democrats seize a majority in one chamber or both. The accused gunman in the synagogue attack, Robert Bowers, was charged on Monday with 29 federal felony counts including hate crimes. Earlier this year, the ADL said that anti-Semitic incidents had reached their highest level in more than two decades, swelling by 57 percent in 2017 when compared with the year prior. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) statistics showed that, in 2016, more than half of the victims in anti-religious hate crimes were Jewish, while another 24.5 percent were Muslim. In response, China warns Taipei against colluding with foreign forces to disrupt stability in the Taiwan Strait. The United States told Taiwan it has its back on Wednesday amid rising threats from China against the self-governing island. Efforts to decide Taiwans future by anything other than peaceful means are a grave concern to the US, Brent Christensen, Washingtons de facto ambassador to Taiwan, told reporters. In Beijing, a spokesman for Chinas policy-making Taiwan Affairs Office said the Taiwan issue was about Chinas sovereignty and territorial integrity, and warned Taipei against teaming up with foreign forces. We resolutely opposed any official exchanges or military contacts between the US side and the Taiwan region, Ma Xiaoguang told a regular news briefing. I would like here to stress again the consequences will be reaped by relying on foreigners to build yourselves up, or colluding with foreign forces to damage peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, he added, referring to Taiwans government. The US is Taiwans main arms supplier and strongest international backer. This month, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen vowed to boost national security and said her government would not submit to Chinese suppression. China which has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control since a split after a civil war in 1949 has boosted military and diplomatic pressure on Taipei in recent months. The Chinese military stepped up encirclement drills around Taiwan, which the island has denounced as intimidation, and three former allies El Salvador, Burkina Faso and the Dominican Republic switched ties to Beijing this year. The US new $256m representative office in Taiwans capital is an important symbol of their partnership, Christensen said, adding Washington would keep backing Taiwans substantive role in the international community. {articleGUID} China has been infuriated by recent US sanctions on its military, among several flashpoints in ties ranging from a bitter trade war and the issue of Taiwan to Chinas increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea. Last week, the US sent two warships through the Taiwan Strait in its second such operation this year, despite opposition from China. The US cut formal ties with Taiwan in 1979 to recognise Beijing, but the sides maintain robust unofficial military and diplomatic ties. IMN says security forces opened fire on its members calling for the release of their leader, as 400 are arrested. A jailed Nigerian Shia leaders movement said security forces had killed at least 42 of its members during two days of violent crackdowns on protests in the capital, Abuja. The Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) said on Wednesday that security forces opened fire with live ammunition on members who had marched in the hundreds to demand the release of their leader Ibrahim el-Zakzaky. {articleGUID} The number of people killed since Saturday in the protests hit at least 48, according to the IMN, contrasting with the militarys official death toll of six. Clashes erupted between soldiers and IMN supporters in Abuja on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, said Ibrahim Musa, an IMN spokesman. IMN counted at least six bodies on Saturday and 35 bodies on Monday, while seven people were killed on Tuesday, Musa said. Authorities said that 400 IMN members were detained, waiting to be arraigned in court on Wednesday. They are likely to be charged for inciting violence and carrying dangerous weapons, according to Abuja police commissioner Bala Ciroma. Leader in prison since 2015 El-Zakzaky has been jailed since 2015 when the army killed hundreds of his followers at his compound and a nearby mosque and burial ground. He was charged in April this year with murder over the 2015 violence after being held for more than two years. Authorities ignored a court ruling during the period before he was charged, ordering him to be released, sparking protests from his followers. {articleGUID} IMN protests have frequently been met with force. In April, police fired bullets and tear gas during days of protests by IMN, wounding at least four protesters. President Muhammadu Buhari has in the past accused the Shia Muslims of creating a state within a state, though he acknowledged civilian deaths could not be justified. Since then, however, the government has remained largely silent on accusations it has used excessive force against the group. Around half of Nigerias 190 million people are Muslims. Although virtually all of them are Sunnis, el-Zakzaky has attracted an estimated three million followers as a preacher of Shia Islam since being drawn to that sect by the 1979 revolution in Iran. Ex-vice president Riek Machar returned for the first time since 2016 to take part in a peace ceremony. South Sudan rebel leader and former vice president, Riek Machar, has returned to the capital, Juba, more than two years after he fled the country after the collapse of a 2016 peace deal. He returned on Wednesday to take part in a peace ceremony. Machar fled to neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo in 2016. He later travelled to South Africa, where he was held under house arrest until earlier this year. Last month, he and President Salva Kiir signed a new peace deal in Ethiopia in the latest attempt to end the five-year civil war that erupted in the worlds youngest country in December 2013. On Wednesday, Kiir said Machars imprisoned South African adviser, William Endley, and a rebel group spokesman, James Gatdet, would be released on Thursday as part of the peace deal. Endley will be deported to South Africa upon release, Kiir said. Machars previous homecoming in April 2016 was put off by wrangling over how many bodyguards he could bring with him and what weapons they would carry. Safety concerns It was not immediately clear how long Machar would remain in Juba, as his aides have expressed concerns over his safety in the city. We are worried for his security in Juba, but the truth is here: we are for peace, and what we are trying to do is build trust, Gabriel said. Several thousand people have gathered for the ceremony at the John Garang Mausoleum, built in honour of the independence hero who was killed in a helicopter crash in 2005. Among regional leaders in Juba for the ceremony were Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Ethiopias newly appointed President Sahle-Work Zewde and Somalias head of state Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was also expected to attend. Humanitarian crisis South Sudan gained independence from its northern neighbour Sudan in 2011 after a 22-year civil war pitting rebel groups against Khartoum. Two years later, the country descended into civil war after Kiir accused his then-deputy, Machar, of plotting a coup. Ethnically-charged fighting soon spread from the capital across the impoverished state, shutting down oil fields, forcing millions to flee and killing tens of thousands of people. The conflict split the country along ethnic lines and has seen mass rape, the forced recruitment of child soldiers and attacks on civilians. It has caused one of the worlds greatest humanitarian crises and wrecked the economy in a country which relies on oil production for the vast bulk of its revenues. A power-sharing deal that returned Machar to the vice presidency was signed in 2015. But it collapsed a year later in a deadly battle that saw Machar flee into exile. The United Nations and the African Union earlier this month appealed to the countrys warring parties to make concrete steps to implement the latest accord. Attacker detonated explosives near vehicle of employees from Pul-e-Charkhi prison on Kabul outskirts, officials say. A suicide bomber targeting a bus of government employees near Kabuls biggest prison has killed at least seven people on Wednesday. Interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said the attacker detonated explosives near a vehicle of the employees from Pul-e-Charkhi prison on the outskirts of the Afghan capital. Another five people were wounded in the blast. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The attacker was on foot, Danish said. The attack comes days after a suicide attack near the entrance of Afghanistans Independent Election Commission in Kabul, killing at least one person and wounding six. Afghan civilians continue to be killed in record numbers by anti-government armed groups this year, and the United Nations said the deaths have been the highest since 2014. Bern temporarily stops sending spare parts and munitions for air-defence systems and firearms for private use. Switzerland has halted the delivery of spare weapon parts to Saudi Arabia, citing concern over the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdoms consulate in Istanbul. Fabian Maienfisch, spokesman of the economic affairs department, told AFP news agency on Wednesday that Bern would follow developments and potentially reverse the decision in the future. The Swiss government halted arms exports to Saudi Arabia in 2009 but was until now supplying the kingdom with spare parts as well as munitions for air-defence systems and firearms for private use. Khashoggi, a 59-year-old Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed after entering the consulate in Istanbul on October 2. On Wednesday, Turkeys chief prosecutor made details of the murder public for the first time, revealing that the journalist had been strangled as soon as he entered the consulate. Gruesome reports in the Turkish media had previously alleged that Khashoggi had been killed and cut into pieces by a team sent from Riyadh to silence him. His body is still missing. After initially insisting that Khashoggi left the consulate unharmed, then saying he died in a brawl during an interview, the Saudi government ultimately admitted he was killed by a rogue operation, and arrested 18 people. The case has sorely strained relations between Saudi Arabia and the West and has fuelled international debate about arms deliveries to the ultra-conservative kingdom. Five former Afghan prisoners join political team in Doha amid ongoing negotiations to end 17-year deadly conflict. The Taliban have appointed five former commanders who spent more than a decade as prisoners in Guantanamo Bay as members of its political office in Qatar, where tentative talks to end the Afghan conflict are ongoing. The five commanders, Mohammad Fazl, Mohammed Nabi, Khairullah Khairkhwa, Abdul Haq Wasiq and Noorullah Noori, were held for 12 years in the US detention centre before being released in 2012 as part of a prisoner exchange in return for US soldier Berg Bergdahl. They were settled in Qatar following their release but until now had not been directly involved in political activities, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said on Wednesday. {articleGUID} The announcement comes amid a flurry of US-led diplomatic activity to convince Afghanistans largest armed group to negotiate an end to the 17-year war. Taliban office was opened in Doha, the Qatari capital, in 2013 at the request of the US to facilitate talks. Earlier this month, Taliban officials met the recently appointed US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in Doha, having already met Alice Wells, principal deputy assistant secretary for South and Central Asia, there earlier in the year. A very sensitive time {articleGUID} A Taliban official in Qatar said that while the former commanders, who were close to the movements late founder Mullah Mohammad Omar, had not been attached to the political office earlier, the office has sought their opinions and advice in the past. The appointments have been made at a very sensitive time and will help strengthen the Talibans political team, the groups official told AFP. Some observers saw the move as a good sign for renewed efforts to bring about peace in Afghanistan, which has been ravaged by war since 2001. The Taliban are showing some positive gestures towards peace talks, political analyst Atta Noori said. The old team always failed to deliver because they were not given enough authority. But a Western diplomat in Kabul expressed cautious optimism. It does look like they are preparing for something, what I dont know, he said. The appointments follow the release of senior Taliban figure Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar by Pakistan last week. The Taliban office was shut shortly after opening in 2013 when it came under pressure over a flag hung outside the office the same flag that was flown during Taliban rule in Afghanistan. Afghan president at the time, Hamid Karzai, subsequently halted peace efforts, saying the office was presenting itself as an unofficial embassy for a government-in-exile. The flag has since been taken down and the office has been empty with no official announcements about a possible reopening. Talks with the Taliban have since been taking place elsewhere in Doha. Media says Saudi Arabias top diplomats in Istanbul should be questioned. By In the week of Bombgate and now Synagoguegate, Jonah Goldberg wrings his hands over the temptations of tribalism, while Angelo Codevilla says, more or less , that we are in a revolution, sports fans, so get used to it. Look, I get Jonah's point. When you get to the point of dueling tribalisms, as now, then the partisans on each side just pick up the narrative of their own side, and damn the torpedoes. And that's a shame. In other words, we are in a revolutionary situation where nobody will be satisfied except by a trial of arms between the two American tribes. Hopefully, the trial of arms will be a succession of electoral defeats for the Democrats. Trouble is that last time this happened, when the Democrats lost five of six presidential elections in a row, and they cried Uncle, and declared themselves moderate New Democrats, we the voters believed them and elected Bill Clinton in 1992. And what did the Democrats do? They pushed HillaryCare, and then got their heads handed to them in 1994 with the first Republican Congress in 40 years. You'd think the Democrats would learn from that. Instead they did Resistance 1.0 after the 2000 change election. Hey, Dems. Sometimes you win a change election by a hair. Remember 1960? Some people said you guys won that change election with a bit of honest graft in Illinois with Mayor Daley, proprietor, and Texas with Lyndon Johnson, proprietor. Now we are in Resistance 2.0, the second change election in 20 years that the Democrats have refused to concede. Are they dumb or somep'n? The problem, Jonah, is that nicey-nicey, a la Bush, ain't gonna do it, not anymore. We are in a situation where, twice in 20 years, Democrats have refused to concede a normal change election where the result went against them. And let it be said that both times, the refusal to concede started right at the top with Candidates Gore and Clinton. If Democratic leaders won't concede normal change elections and say, "We are all Americans" and "Wait until next time," then someone needs to teach them a lesson, good and hard. But Paul Ryan is on 60 Minutes mourning the rise of the " left-wing Alinsky thing " on the right. Unfortunately the right practices identity politics as well. It's the day and age, technology and everything else, identity politics which is now being pack practiced on both sides of the aisle is unfortunately working. That's in response to the usual question-begging question from CBS's John Dickerson asking whether President Trump's rallies "sow division in the country." You mean to say, in the immortal words of Mike Wallace, that the politician President Trump tries to divide the American people into "us" and "them"? No kidding! That is why I invented my maxim that "politics is division." It means, John Dickerson, that politics, all politics, is about dividing people into tribes of "us" and "them." Our side? Good guys. The other side? Bad guys. We win; they lose. Full Stop. Period. Then there is my " Law of the Incoming Rounds ." People are really sensitive about other people attacking their side. They don't bother much about the stuff their own side shoots off. Ever notice that, John Dickerson? If you don't like incoming rounds, then don't do politics, Mr. Dickerson and Mr. Speaker. Hey, maybe that's why Speaker Ryan is retiring. He has finally realized that politics is division, and he doesn't like it. You can see the worldview behind the question John Dickerson poses. He just has no clue that his side, the elite educated-class media bubble, is playing identity politics and shooting off virulent attacks on the other side every day of the week. But he is shocked, shocked, at the violent rhetoric of the customers at the bar of Rick's Cafe Americain Don's Cafe Trumpien. Basically, our liberal friends are saying "No Fair" that the Trump Republican Party is now doing the "Alinsky-style thing." 'Cos Alinsky's Rules are for Radicals, not for Deplorables. Let us say it again. The reason we got Trump is that the conservative movement that's you, Jonah & Co. and the Republican Party that's you, Paul Ryan & Co. failed to defend ordinary middle-class people from years and years of the left calling us all racists, sexists, and homophobes. So now Paul Ryan is deploring that President Trump is firing back? Hey, Paul, if you had defended us with the courage and chutzpah of President Trump, maybe you would now be president, with the Democrats in the middle of another New Democrat cycle pretending there ain't nobody here but us moderates. Instead, we have our General Trump, of whom some like to say, "We can't spare this man. He fights." Or, as the left likes to say: "Revolution, baby!" History, as the saying goes, is a lie agreed upon, and there has perhaps been no bigger lie detrimental to the future national security and economic well-being of the United States that the 14th Amendment, clearly written to protect the rights of African-American slaves liberated by the first Republican President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, somehow confers citizenship on the offspring of anybody whose pregnant and can sneak past the U.S. Border Patrol. U.S. citizenship is rendered meaningless if it is defined as an accident of geography and it is the clear that this was not the intention authors of those who wrote the 14th Amendment and shepherded it into the Constitution. President Trump has rightly targeted birthright citizenship as an historical error that needs to be corrected: President Trump said in a newly released interview he plans to sign an executive order ending so-called "birthright citizenship" for babies of non-citizens born on U.S. soil -- a move that would mark a major overhaul of immigration policy and trigger an almost-certain legal battle Michael Anton, a former national security adviser for Trump, pointed out in July that "theres a clause in the middle of the amendment that people ignore or they misinterpret subject to the jurisdiction thereof. "What they are saying is, if you are born on U.S. soil subject to the jurisdiction of the United States meaning youre the child of citizens or the child of legal immigrants, then you are entitled to citizenship, Anton told Fox News Tucker Carlson in July. If you are here illegally, if you owe allegiance to a foreign nation, if youre the citizen of a foreign country, that clause does not apply to you. Anton is stunningly correct and clearly echoes the sentiments and legislative intent of the authors of the 14th Amendment. The only question is whether this historical error is better corrected though a clarifying amendment, legislation, or through a Trump executive order. GOP Rep. Steve King, R-IA, has proposed legislation: In January of this year, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) proposed the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2015 (HR 140) that seeks to amend current law by making requirements for citizenship more narrow, and, in Kings opinion, more constitutional A Century ago it didnt matter very much that a practice began that has now grown into a birthright citizenship, an anchor baby agenda, King said. When they started granting automatic citizenship on all babies born in the United States they missed the clause in the 14th Amendment that says, And subject to the jurisdiction thereof. So once the practice began, it grew out of proportion and today between 340,000 and 750,000 babies are born in America each year that get automatic citizenship even though both parents are illegal immigrants. That has got to stop. Kings bill seeks to amend section 301 of the Immigration and Nationality Act to clarify those classes of individuals born in the United States who are nationals and citizens of the United States at birth. The bill states that a person born in the United States is a citizen if one parent is (1) a citizen or national of the United States, (2) an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States whose residence is in the United States; or (3) an alien performing active service in the armed forces. But some would argue that no clarifying legislation is necessary and that as a result of President Trumps appointment of originalist interpreters of the Constitution to the Supreme Court, the original intent of the 14th Amendment can be restored. The Supreme Court has never said birthright citizenship is constitutional and legal scholars have noted that supporters of birthright citizenship, a gross misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment, ignore the intentions of those who wrote it. Peter H. Schuck, Yale Universitys Simeon E. Baldwin Professor of Law Emeritus and self-described militant moderate, reiterated his opinion Monday that birthright citizenship is not required by the U.S. Constitution. Though opposed to many of the presidents positions, he was surprised the administration has not made opposition to citizenship for the children of illegal aliens more central to its immigration policy On at least one key immigration stance, however, Schuck appears to be in agreement with President Trump. In the 1990s, along with Yale Political Scientist Rogers Smith, he determined, in a book called Citizenship Without Consent, that the policy of granting citizenship to everyone born on American soil, including so-called anchor-babies -- those born to illegal aliens -- was not mandated by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as is popularly trumpeted by open-borders supporters. Trump came to the same conclusion on the campaign trail, once stating, Were the only ones dumb enough, stupid enough to have it. This misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment, written to guarantee the citizenship rights of freed slaves after the Civil War, has morphed the amendment into a guarantee of birthright citizenship. Merely being born on American soil is said to make you a U.S. citizen. Sneak past the U.S. Border Patrol, have your baby, and you not only have a U.S. citizen but what is called an anchor baby allowing you to stay and bring others in under the banner of family reunification. Trump during the campaign correctly called the flawed concept of birthright citizenship the biggest magnet for illegal immigration. He would end it and as for family reunification, Trump is all for it, just saying it should happen on the other side of the U.S.-Mexico border. As The New York Post reported: Trump described his expanded vision of how to secure American borders during a wide-ranging interview Sunday on NBCs Meet The Press, and in a position paper he later released, saying that he would push to end the constitutionally protected citizenship rights of children of any family living illegally inside the US. They have to go, Trump said. What theyre doing, theyre having a baby. And then all of a sudden, nobody knows... the babys here. Birthright citizenship is the exception and not the rule worldwide. Even our European brethren, as fond as they are of refugees and open borders, do not embrace it. As Liz Peek writes on FoxNews.com, birthright citizenship is indeed a big magnet for illegal immigration: The United States is one of only two developed countries in the world that still bestows citizenship on every person born on our nations soil. Having a child become a U.S. citizen is the greatest reward possible for someone who enters the country illegally. Such status is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in free education and benefits, not to mention the incalculable value of our countrys security and freedoms. Historically, there was bipartisan enthusiasm for dumping this program; even Democrat Harry Reid had proposed its termination. The costs of birthright citizenship are staggering, especially when you consider the costs of what is called chain migration. Once of age the baby born here can sponsor others. It has even given rise to what is called birth tourism where pregnant women are brought to the United States, ostensibly as tourists, to give birth here and have their child dubbed an American citizen by birth. Critics have said that the task, even if justified, is well nigh impossible, requiring amending the U.S. Constitution. In reality, it may not require altering the 14th Amendment -- only correctly interpreting it -- perhaps through clarifying legislation. The 14th Amendment, passed, on July 3, 1866, reads, All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. This was done, again, to guarantee the citizenship rights of freed slaves, not illegal aliens. The 1857 Dred Scott decision had held that no black, not even a freed black, could be considered a citizen. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in October, 2008, John C. Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University and a fellow at the Claremont Institute, argued that illegal aliens are still foreign nationals and are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction, except for purposes of deportation, and therefore their children born on American soil should not be automatically considered U.S. citizens: John Eastman of the Claremont Institute testified before the subcommittee, saying, the Supreme Court has never actually held that anyone who happens to make it to U.S. soil can unilaterally bestow citizenship on their children merely by giving birth here. Although such an understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment has become widespread in recent years, it is not the understanding of those who drafted the Fourteenth Amendment, or of those who ratified it, or of the leading constitutional commentators of the time. Neither was it the understanding of the Supreme Court when the Court first considered the matter in 1872, or when it considered the matter a second time a decade later in 1884, or even when it considered the matter a third time fifteen years after that in the decision many erroneously view as interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment to mandate automatic citizenship for anyone and everyone born on U.S. soil, whether their parents were here permanently or only temporarily, legally or illegally, or might even be here as enemy combatants seeking to commit acts of terrorism against the United States and its citizens. Eastman argues that the modern view of the Fourteenth Amendment ignores a key phrase in the Citizenship Clause. Mere birth on U.S. soil just isnt enough. A person must be both born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction." During debate on the 14th Amendment, Sen. Jacob Merritt Howard of Michigan added jurisdiction language specifically to avoid accident of birth being the sole criteria for citizenship. And if citizenship was determined just by place of birth, why did it take an act of Congress in 1922 to give American Indians birthright citizenship, if they already had citizenship by birthright under the 14th Amendment? Rep. John Bingham of Ohio, who is regarded as the father of the 14th Amendment, said it meant that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your constitution itself, a natural born citizen Rep. Nathan Deal of Georgia sought to clarify the situation through HR. 698 the Citizenship Reform Act of 2005, which would have amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to deny automatic citizenship to children born of the United States of parents who are not U.S. citizens or are not permanent resident aliens. HR. 698 declared: "It is the purpose of this Act to deny automatic citizenship at birth to children born in the United States to parents who are not citizens or permanent resident aliens." The bill undertook to clarify "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" to the meaning originally intended by Congress in the14th Amendment. The current interpretation of birthright citizenship may in fact have been a huge mistake and given the burden illegal aliens have imposed on our welfare, educational, and health care systems as well as through increased crime on our legal system, a very costly one. There may be hope of correctly interpreting the 14th Amendment through a court case as President Trump reshapes the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, with justices of a more originalist bent. As noted, the misinterpretation could be corrected through clarifying legislation. We can correct it judicially or legislatively and we should. Donald Trump was right -- becoming a U.S. citizen should require more than your mother successfully sneaking past the Border Patrol. Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investors Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications. The murder of eleven people at a Pittsburgh synagogue has been widely reported in the media as the worst attack on the American Jewish community in U.S. history. This is not necessarily true, but it enhances the media meme that the right-wing nutjob who committed the act was encouraged by President Trump's rhetoric. In fact, evidence suggests that the killer despises Trump, whom he evidently believes is a Jewish-influenced globalist. The attack has nothing to do with Trump, but as usual, it is being politicized by the left anyway. So the president's actions, personally addressing the scourge of anti-Semitism, ordering in federal authorities to prosecute the killer, and calling for the death penalty, are correct both morally and as a practical political matter. The deadliest on the U.S. Jewish community was on 9/11, when an estimated 270-400 Jews died. Jews were not the sole target of the attack, but the selection of New York City as center of action was no accident. New York is the most Jewish city in the world outside of Israel, a fact not lost on the terrorists who flew the planes into the Twin Towers. Nor was the synagogue in Pittsburgh the largest specifically Jewish target for domestic terrorism. The largest hostage crisis involving the U.S. Jewish community was the takeover of the B'nai B'rith in Washington, D.C. in 1977, where 100 hostages were taken and held and, fortunately, eventually released. What these attacks have in common, and what the media obscures, is that radical Islamists were involved, not right-wing extremists. It is the left that regularly acts as apologist for Islamic radicals, some of whom are within its ranks or allied (e.g., the Nation of Islam) Thus, the attack allows the mainstream media to avoid the less comforting fact that the greatest threats to the American Jewish community come from Islamic extremists and their helpmates on the left. But the situation is what it is. A crazy associated with the so-called Alt-Right committed the act, and Trump needs to act accordingly. So I disagree with Andrew McCarthy, who writes at National Review that the federal government ought to stay out of the prosecution of the Pittsburgh murderer. There is a moral imperative confronting Trump vis-a-vis the extremist right. Federal action will help address that, and, bluntly, it is better politics. An unfortunate ancillary consequence of the Pittsburgh attack is that it will drive many Jews farther to the left, toward a movement that fundamentally is hostile to their interests. This aligns with a persistent cultural feeling within the Jewish community that the Republican Party is endemically hostile to Jews, though in the modern United States, there is almost no evidence of this, and in fact, the opposite is mostly the case. Republicans have been making modest inroads in recent elections against monolithic Jewish support for Democrats, but the recent attack will likely allow Democrats to regain ground. Breaking off even small parts of the Democrat coalition of minorities and grievance groups can yield critical benefits to Republicans during elections, especially in purple states with significant Jewish populations, like Florida. Trump actually appears to be doing this among black Americans and Latinos. Among Jews, Trump did no worse than Bush II, and better than Bush I and McCain, winning about a quarter of the Jewish vote in the last election. He might have been expected to improve upon that, given the booming economy, his strong support of Israel, his administration's position on affirmative action (which disproportionately hurts Jews as well as Asians), and his own Jewish grandchildren. That's not to say doing so is easy. Many liberal Jews self-identify more as "social justice warriors" than supporters of Israel and take extreme positions on Trump. A few months ago, my sister told a woman at her synagogue that she'd voted for Trump. The woman snarled, "Well, if I'd known that, I never would have befriended you!" and stormed off. Such nastiness is not appreciated among Jews any more than in the general population. The woman my sister met was not representative of most in the synagogue, at least in obsessiveness. People like her, as with angry leftist agitators nationwide, actually help Trump. But now this woman will feel vindicated, and some who might have otherwise shunned her rudeness and hostility will now see it justified. Liberal Jews, perhaps more than any other identifiable group on the left, are virtue-signalers. They do this because the left doesn't see them as an oppressed minority, as opposed to just a group of generally well-to-do white people. To make up for it, these liberal Jews give more money, try harder to earn their SJW stripes, and have made a cottage industry out of the "Jew critical of Israel" stance. The Pittsburgh attack plays well into this mindset and will give justification in the minds of many more moderate Jews to reject moving rightward. It will give them the "victim status" that other segments of the left claim but that American Jews have been denied. A strong federal response led by President Trump is not legally necessary. However, it is morally imperative to demonstrate the administration's rejection of anti-Semitism and politically wise. "It was always burning, since the world's been turning." Apologies to Billy Joel. But Trump really didn't start this fire of incivility. Nor did he ever preach violence. Or racial animosity. Or economic injustice. He doesn't roll that way. Never has. Never will. He fights. Hard. But the characterization and narrative of him being unfit, racist, and violent is absurd. Don't tell that to your leftist friends and their biased media allies. They want you to believe that Trump did start the fire. All the fires. Not only did he start them, but he's responsible for everything the left perceives as wrong with our world. Everything. If you're a leftist, and particularly a media leftist, think of what you've blamed him for. It's a staggering list. A list of deceit from the left that may never end. Treason with Russia, sexually assaulting numerous women, starting fights; he's racist, misogynistic, hates immigrants, cheats on his taxes, cheated in business, uses the presidency to enrich his family and companies. He incited the pipe bomb violence and the synagogue murders. Start with numero uno: Trump colluding with Russia to steal the election from Hillary. A more deceit-filled, stupid narrative may never have been pushed by the Democratic media slaves. Ever. Yet it's still alive after two years of nonstop coverage and proclamation. It's like the return of the living dead. It never stops coming even though there is zero evidence of any such collusion happening. Zero. Yet the geniuses in our leftist media will never admit there is no evidence. Jake Tapper, Joe Scarborough, and Rachel Maddow have gotten richer off this giant fake scandal than any con man ever could have. They reported it daily, breathlessly implying treason, a stolen election, an unfit president, a man for no seasons. Rumor has it there was a video of Trump telling a Russian official to go tell Putin that after the election, he would have more latitude to do what Russia wanted. But CNN and our leftist media could never find it. Oh, wait. That was the video they never played because Obama was caught saying that on a hot mic. As to the rest of the list, it was all made up as well; none of these things has any evidence to back it up. The media meme they wanted us all to believe: orange man bad. They have pretended there is a new scandal virtually every week, making it up out of thin air. Often, they recycle them. Nope. Trump didn't start the fire. The elite leftist Democrat-media-NeverTrump complex did. And those within it did so in a manner that has virtually destroyed their credibility, their minds, perhaps their souls. Recall if you will the many "journalists" and "news organizations" who made the claim they would not do objective coverage of Trump because he was so "dangerous." According to them, they saw a man so vile, so crude, so extreme, so awful, and so disastrous in his thinking that they would not give him the benefit of fair coverage. This was an assault led by the so-called paper of record, by one Jim Rutenburg on August 7, 2016. It became the default position of our leftist media. Recall if you will the Sea Island Conference, where the tech lords, many major media figures, and a host of NeverTrumps met on a posh Georgia island in order to stop Trump from going farther. Recall the day after the election, when the NYT actually apologized to its readers, and the nation, for being so biased and so awful with its lack of correct journalistic practice. Quote the Times: "[We will] rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor." Heh. Anyone who believed that needs a share of my expensive bridge. Ninety-two percent negative in the face of a great, ascending economy, and some of the most monumental foreign policy achievements in the past 40 years. Do you remember the video some brave person released showing Google execs and some underlings lamenting the election of Trump? We could have called it "The Day After." The video was as embarrassing as that movie. My take: a bunch of self-serving, self-unaware tech nerd millionaires with propellers on their heads whining about what more they could have done, and about how they would have to suck it up and be even more dishonest. So dear leftists. Dear media malaprops. Dear tech lords. Dear Democrat ick Party. Trump didn't start the fire. You did. You and your vileness. You and your self-proclaimed elite smarts. Your self-projection of superiority. Your pretense of smug self-righteousness. Recapping, consider Donald Trump's opponents. The Republican establishment. The bloated Hillary machine. The fake news old media. And, of course, the tech lords and their platforms. Let me add: these tech lords went from "Don't Be Evil" to (I paraphrase) "Let's use our power and money to further the (evil) leftist agenda" in less than a decade. They were, and are, all in with the destruction of Trump. They are all in for the destruction of center-right thinking. The current tech giants are embarrassing, using their power in a way far worse than Microsoft ever did. They are getting away with it right in front of our eyes. Their hubris has no end. It's too bad George Gilder's new vision of a world without Google can't come more quickly. Let's hope they are reined in before they do irrevocable harm to the U.S. and the world. Coming back to the point, in order to win, Trump had to fight all these giants. Big, ugly, powerful giants. He won. He beat them all. It's one of the true electoral miracles of our time. As if God decided He would intervene. A lot of us on the center-right pitched in. Enough of us joined the Trump train early on. And he keeps on winning. Thank God. He was clearly the right choice. He didn't start this rancor, but he sure fought all the right people to a standstill. Many of them have ruined their own lives, professions, and reputations. While Trump helps amazingly good things happen for our country in spite of them, they keep lighting fires. No, these are not Trump's fires; these are the fires of the left. They manufacture outrage to regain power. The left's ugliness is unprecedented in these times. Leftists' blaming Trump and the center-right for everything is sick. It's been an epic battle to watch as Trump builds things while they try to burn them, as Trump extinguishes one flame after another while they blame him for the fires they set. When the smoke finally rises, like Churchill, Trump will be seen as one of the great men and movers of his times. Image credit: Flickr. The American people should be proud of their president. In the wake of the tragic shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, President Trump spoke out in the most forceful condemnation of anti-Semitism ever uttered by an American president. While former president Barack Obama nonsensically chose to the blame the lawfully possessed firearm used in the crime, as if the gun fired itself, Trump put the blame squarely where it belongs: on the evil ideology and man who pulled the trigger while shouting, Kill all the Jews! In a speech in Murphysboro, Illinois, Trump declared, We must stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters to defeat anti-Semitism, vanquish the forces of hate Through the centuries, the Jews have endured terrible persecutionThose seeking [the Jewish peoples] destruction, we will seek their destruction. Trump's historic declaration in Murphysboro, Illinois The president is doing much more than offering his thoughts and prayers to the families whose loved ones were murdered by this evil, anti-Semite, Robert Bowers. The president has vowed to go on the offensive to seek the destruction of those forces of hate who would persecute our Jewish friends, neighbors and fellow countrymen. The president has vowed to use the full force and power of the U.S. Department of Justice to bring Bowers to justice. The very same day Bowers committed these horrible crimes, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions filed a 29-count complaint against him in federal court. Now thats quick and decisive action. The charges include hate crimes and 11 counts of Obstruction of Exercise of Religious Beliefs Resulting in Death. The president is doing exactly what he said he would do seek the destruction of the man who destroyed the lives of 11, innocent Jewish Americans simply attempting to exercise their religious freedom. These charges carry the death penalty. Pittsburgh City police have filed charges also. But they were filed in state court. And because Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf refuses to carry out the death penalty, Bowers, if hes only convicted of state charges, will be spared paying what Trump refers to as the ultimate price so long as Tom Wolf remains our governor. This evil, anti-Semite should be put to death, not allowed to live the rest of his life at taxpayer expense. Such punishment not only fits the crime it carries out the words of the Torah, Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. (Deuteronomy 19:21) While the president has taken direct and aggressive action against the mass murderer, a group of self-proclaimed leaders of Pittsburghs Jewish community, have condemned the president. The group, Bend the Arc Jewish Action, has declared Trump persona non grata in Pittsburgh until and unless he ceases his, assault on immigrants and refugees. Those are harsh and unfair words spoken at a time of mourning in America. Lets hope the members of Bend the Arc can put politics aside and practice what they preach that every human being is made btzelem Elohim, in the image of God, even Trump. The president believes that to protect the American people from the followers of al-Qaida, the Islamic State or one of the many anti-Semitic terrorist groups who would come here to harm and kill Americans, particularly Jewish Americans, we need a thorough vetting process and a border wall; and we need to stand that wall. The president is leading the rhetorical fight against anti-Semitism as well. And, some of the leaders of the Democratic Party would do well to follow his lead. It was painful to watch former president Bill Clinton recently share the stage, a handshake and a laugh with the virulent anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan a man who has called Judaism a gutter religion and who declared just months before, Satanic Jews have infected the whole world with poison and deceit. Clinton should have rebuked Farrakhan instead of warmly embracing him. Former president Barack Obama, former Nation of Islam member and current Democratic National Committee Deputy Chair, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), have all shamefully accepted Farrakhans political and financial support. Recently a secret photo of a smiling Obama and Farrakhan, coming out of Congressional Black Caucus meeting in our US Capitol Building, taken when Obama was a newly elected senator, was released. These Democratic leaders should not be smiling and socializing with this heinous, anti-Semite. And, then theres Trump. Hes not only strongly condemning anti-Semitism but bringing the full power and prestige of the U.S. government to bear upon those would seek the destruction of the Jewish people. Trump is proving once again that, unlike his critics who pay lip service to religious tolerance while embracing deplorable anti-Semites like Louis Farrakhan, Trump is confronting and attempting to destroy this evil and perverse ideology. And for that the American people should laud and not condemn him. Because of his unprecedented words and actions confronting the ancient scourge of anti-Semitism, perhaps Donald Trump will go down in history as Americas first Jewish President. Marc A. Scaringi, Esq. Mr. Scaringi is an attorney in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a radio talk show host of The Marc Scaringi Show on WHP 580AM and I Heart Radio and a Donald J. Trump endorsed Delegate to the 2016 Republican National Conventio The Constitution calls for the redrawing of congressional districts every ten years. This will occur again in 2020. The act of redistricting is important because voters elect their state representatives, state senators, and members of the U.S. House of Representatives from these newly drawn districts. In Florida, both congressional and state legislative district lines are drawn by the state legislature. Congressional lines are adopted as regular legislation and are subject to gubernatorial veto. State legislative lines are passed via joint resolution and are not subject to gubernatorial veto. State legislative district maps are automatically submitted to the Florida Supreme Court for approval. In the event that the court rejects the lines, the legislature is given a second chance to draft a plan. If the legislature cannot approve a state legislative redistricting plan, the state attorney general must ask the state supreme court to draft a plan. There are no similar procedures in place for congressional districts. The Florida Supreme Court recently ruled that the next governor of Florida will have the opportunity to appoint three new justices to the Florida Supreme Court. Republican Party of Florida chairman Blaise Ingoglia stated: "Andrew Gillum would appoint radical, activist justices who would legislate from the bench and work to eliminate school choice, erode pro-life principles and impose big-government ideology on our state." A far-left court could also impact Florida's district maps. For example, if Democrats are unhappy with how the legislature draws the lines, they will likely contest the proposed drawings and file a lawsuit. Assuming that this happens, the case could end up in the Supreme Court, at which time the Democrats will submit their proposed districts to the far left-leaning court. These districts will likely favor a shift in the balance of power to the Democrats. Redistricting affects political power. It determines which party controls Congress and state and local governments across the country. Even when the population is divided equally, drawing the lines one-way can reward Democrats and punish Republicans or vice versa. Some line-drawing can protect incumbents. Some line-drawing can guarantee they will face a potent challenger, either from their own party or the opposite party. Consequently, redistricting has a direct bearing on what matters a legislature chooses to tackle, and which to ignore. If Andrew Gillum is elected governor of Florida, he will appoint far left-leaning justices who will be more inclined to favor the Democratic proposed state district maps. Gillum, a Democrat, will also have the power to veto the proposed congressional district lines. If this happens, and district lines are drawn in a manner that favors Democrats, many more Democrats will be elected in subsequent elections, and the Florida congressional delegation could turn Democrat. This sentiment is shared by some Democrats not only in Florida, but around the country. "Democrats are in good shape to win a lot of governorships in important states and be able to force through fair lines after the next census," said John Hagner, a Democratic strategist and redistricting expert who is involved in a number of gubernatorial races this year. If Democrats can sweep the governors' races in those states a real possibility that could lead to huge gains and a much more even playing field in the battle for the House after the decennial census and redistricting play out before the 2022 elections. If the states' maps are dramatically redrawn by 2022, however, that will change. Rather than having a perennially uphill challenge at winning House control, Democrats will only be looking at a small disadvantage largely driven by the tendency of Democrats to cluster in more densely populated areas and the drawing of minority-majority districts. If Andrew Gillum is elected, he will appoint activist Supreme Court justices who will legislate from the bench and potentially help shape the newly drawn district maps to benefit Democratic candidates. For this reason, among others, Republican voter turnout is vital next week. Mr. Hakim is a writer and a practicing attorney. His articles have been published in The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, The Western Journal, American Thinker and other online publications. https://thoughtfullyconservative.wordpress.com Twitter: @Elad3599 No, I haven't attended the vigils, the interfaith prayer services, the gatherings, or other feel-good manifestations of hand-holding kumbaya after the recent carnage in Pittsburgh. Or those of other slaughters in black churches, schools, workplaces, outdoor concerts, or wherever. It is not because I'm not appalled at the loss of innocent life there. I am. But the attendees leave, feeling they did something, resume their lives...'til the next time. For some, it is a form of healing. But the gooey statements of mindless cliches that condemn the evil, preaching a form of artificial unity while condemning the inanimate weapon or mental illness for the horrendous deed, evading the issue of the hatred prevalent in some individuals and communities alienates me. Also, the leeching groups and individuals who latch on to the incident to promote their agenda gun control, dislike of a political figure desecrate the victims and diminishes the evil. For example, on Monday, Pittsburgh's mayor Bill Peduto (D) spoke movingly about the consequences of hatred. Peduto took the microphone, speaking passionately about the Pittsburgh community and combating hatred. "We come together tonight to mourn, and it's the right thing to do. We lost eleven of our neighbors, and we're here to mourn the way that they were taken from us. We're here to mourn the fact that we live in a society where something like this could even exist. We're here to mourn the attack upon our Jewish community. We're here to be supporters. We're here to make sure that those victims' families have what Pittsburghers do, the understanding that we are all here for them and we will help them through this horror that they are living. We are here to recognize the officers and the two members of the congregation who are still suffering, and to let them and their families know, we're here for you because we're Pittsburghers and that's what we do. We care and take care of those in need and we show it as a community of one." He spoke about the toughness of the Pittsburgh community. "We will drive anti-Semitism and the hate of any people back to the basement on their computer and away from the open discussions and dialogues around this city, around this state, and around this country," Peduto said. His words prompted a standing ovation from those in the room. "Here's another thing about Pittsburgh we're a resilient people. We will work together as one. We will defeat hate with love. We will be a city of compassion welcoming to all people no matter what your religion or where your family came from on this earth or your status," Peduto said. As I stated, moving. But that was Monday. On Tuesday, Peduto and others revealed themselves as petty, divisive political hacks, encouraging hate with more hate, turning Pittsburgh into a city of political exploitation, unwelcoming to certain people depending on their political affiliation or their beliefs or whether they and their families came from on this (un)approved political earth or their status. They refused to meet with the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump. (R). The Tuesday Peduto and his colleagues is the real Peduto, desecrating the victims and their families and all of Pittsburgh. The Monday Peduto is the phony Peduto, callously exploiting vulnerable people after a tragedy for mere political gain. Meanwhile, the fake news media, too lazy to do any checking, elevated a fringe, George Soros- and son-funded far lefty group, Bend the Arc, into an important Jewish communal organization composed of "Jewish leaders" who opposed Trump, greeting him with hate-filled signs. Uh, no. Instead, I will do as we are commanded to do in Judaism: remember. Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey after you left Egypt. How, unafraid by fear of G-d, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary and cut down all the weak stragglers, women and children, in the rear. Therefore, when the L-rd your G-d grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the Land that the L-rd your G-d is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget. And I will do what is necessary to protect myself. And I will silently utter the traditional Jewish phrase offered to families of the victims upon leaving a house of mourning: "May you be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem and know no more sorrow." Attend a Trump rally, and you'll hear raucous chants of "USA!" the people's rallying cry of spirit, unity, and resolve, the cry of soldiers going into battle. An open secret today is that America is at war: Democrats, Republican turncoats, activist judges, and media who self-identify as the "Resistance" versus the American people. "Resistance" is a misnomer. This cabal isn't resisting attack; it's attacking. The left uses paradoxical terms to soften hot-button issues like socialized medicine ("Affordable Care Act"), killing babies ("women's health"), and global redistribution of American wealth ("free trade"). This thought control tactic is just one line of attack. The left emotionally abuses people, shames us as racists if we don't condemn police, heartless if we don't embrace illegals, bigots if we practice our Christian faith. Leftists inject the politics of hate into our movies, books, music, sports. People feel government's tightening grip but have no way to stop it. Washington is a separate kingdom, a burgeoning autocracy far from the working classes, well out of earshot. On June 16, 2015, Donald J. Trump announced his run for president, his dream to "Make America Great Again." Trump pledged to self-finance no Washington money masters. Then he spoke truth to power on illegal immigration, didn't echo the agitprop that people who break into our country are hardworking folks just trying to feed their families. He said Mexico isn't sending its best. They're sending people that have lots of problems. ... They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. Kaboom! Media exploded in a Trump-bashing blitzkrieg, saying Trump labeled all Hispanics murderers and rapists, is a racist tyrant talking up a Berlin-style wall. It was a brutal barrage, every media outlet in for the kill. Corporations piled on. NBC, Macy's, Univision, and NASCAR publicly cut ties with Trump. But when the smoke cleared, Trump was still standing, and standing by his remarks. A tiny sliver of hope surfaced: someone had touched the third rail of illegal immigration and survived. Despite the hateful media onslaught or maybe because of it, Trump's rallies grew even larger, louder, and more energetic. Then Donald Trump became the Republican nominee. The establishment freaked out. Can't have it, won't allow it! Hallelujah! We have a fighter, a winner! Finally, at 3:00 A.M. on November 9, President-Elect Donald J. Trump took the stage. Hillary Clinton had conceded. The crowd erupted in chants of "USA!" the rallying cry of loyal soldiers who ignored the Pravda press and showed up at the polls. These were shouts of joy, of victory. The "Resistance" never stops trying to retake power. They attack the President with Russian collusion, the 25th Amendment, and this week's scandal. They prop up the Kavanaugh kangaroo court, support an illegal caravan heading to our border, and now blame Trump and his supporters for bomb threats. It's obvious sedition, an ongoing threat to overthrow our government. Will Democrats win in November? Not impossible. But even if they somehow flip the House, they will have won a battle, not the war. There's no turning back for America now, no surrender to tyranny. America's the greatest country on earth, a nation of freedom and unlimited potential, a nation blessed with promise and prosperity. That's why tens of thousands stand in line for ten, twelve, 24 hours to attend a Trump rally, why we'd crawl through broken glass to vote for our president, to take back our country. "We will not bend; we will not break. We will never give in; we will never give up. We will never back down; we will never surrender. We will always fight on to victory." President Donald J. Trump USA! USA! Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr. Democratic Gubernatorial nominee Gretchen Whitmire and her running mate Garlin Gilchrist are promoting government-run health care, sanctuary cities, and the elimination of government agencies that protect citizens. This socialist dynamic duo wants to outlaw the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. They want to turn Michigan into a sanctuary state for lawbreakers. They want to reverse any economic gains in Michigan by adopting Jennifer Granholm-style big spending programs, rolling back even the modest gains achieved during the Gov. Rick Snyder years. Gilchrist is a former organizer for Moveon.org, the left-wing group that got its start during the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton. From that perch, he has advocated the elimination of the Department of Homeland Security, stating, I question why we even have a Department of Homeland Security. Regarding drivers licenses for illegal aliens, Mr. Gilcrest has stated that he has passionately advocated for every state to give illegal aliens drivers licenses. During a radio interview, Gilcrest said, Theres been arguments and fights in states across the country and municipalities across the country about whether undocumented immigrants could have drivers licenses, whether they could have real ID that the type of id that you need to do so many things in day to day life and its really great to see the District of Columbia really stepping up and joining ten other states that now grant this right to undocumented immigrants. This is the type of win that you can start in every state. This is exactly the type of thing that citizens can push for and win. In the state legislature, Whitmer voted three times to allow illegal aliens to gain access to drivers licenses. This American-citizen-last damaged mindset is exactly why we must rally to the cause and overwhelm the Democrat vote come November 6th! Michigan is not alone. In Florida, for instance, where the states low taxes made it a haven for businesses and individuals seeking to find a better life, the Democrats nominated Andrew Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, to be their standard bearer for governor this year. Endorsed by Sen. Sanders in the primary, Gillum has proposed a series of tax hikes that would make New Yorkers blush. He proposes a 40% corporate tax increase for state businesses, which would give the Sunshine State the highest corporate tax rate in the region. Gillums worldview can only be described as Marxist. He has claimed that by virtue of being born each of us has the absolute right to adequate food, shelter, clothing, water, healthcare, effective public transportation, dignified work, living wages. The folks of Tallahassee are probably glad Gillum is running for governor in the hopes hell get the hell out of town so they can start rebuilding a safe streets community in his wake. The media likes to talk about the pending Blue Wave, but polls in Michigan and Florida show these races are neck and neck. Michigan Republican Senate candidate John James is closing the gap with long-term liberal Sen. Debbie Stabenow. Likewise, Bill Schuette is gaining ground on the Whitmer/Gilcrest ticket as more people realize how out of step with the mainstream voters of the state. Whether in Florida, Michigan, or elsewhere, it is becoming apparent that the Democrats' race to the left is not creating the blue wave, but instead is opening up the eyes of millions of Americans that embracing socialism and a Venezuela-meets-Cuban end game is not a winning strategy. Lets hope America hangs ten as it surfs the red wave needed to beat back this radical push to the left in Michigan, Florida and everywhere in between. Thayrone X (Theron Hughes) is host of On The Edge with Thayrone' which can be heard on WAAM Radio 1600 AM in Ann Arbor Michigan, find out more at www.waamradio.com. The Dems and the media are having another Trump-induced stroke over the issue of "birthright citizenship." The Dems; the media; and Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, would have you believe that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees U.S. citizenship to anyone born in this country. The 14th Amendment was passed by a Republican Congress after the Civil War to guarantee citizenship and equal rights to the freed slaves. The relevant portion of the 14th Amendment reads: Section 1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. The 14th Amendment does not guarantee citizenship to everyone born in the USA. The language states that the persons born or naturalized, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens. If you are a naturalized citizen, you take an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution and renounce allegiance to foreign powers and thus subject yourself to the jurisdiction of the USA: I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God. The question, then, is, how is a person born in the United States subject to the jurisdiction of the USA? The few relevant Supreme Court cases state that the status of the parents determines the citizenship of the child. This means that if the parents are illegal aliens, they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the USA for purposes of the 14th Amendment citizenship test. Proponents for U.S. citizenship for all born in the USA of illegal aliens cite the Supreme Court case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898). But this case dealt with legal immigrants, not illegal, who had established a legal residence in the USA and thus domiciled in the USA. The Court stated: [A]t the time of his said birth, his mother and father were domiciled residents of the United States, and had established and enjoyed a permanent domicil and residence therein at said city and county of San Francisco, State aforesaid. The key is that the parents were lawfully "domiciled" in the USA. In Elkins v. Moreno, the Supreme Court dealt with "domicile" for in-state tuition in Maryland. "Domicile" is complicated, but the key is that one has a permanent legal residence. President Trump has announced he will deal by executive order with the question of citizenship for children born of illegal aliens. Senator Lindsey Graham announced he will introduce legislation to amend the 14th Amendment, similar to President Trump's proposed executive order. The question is the meaning of "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" if the baby's parents are illegal aliens. President Trump can issue an executive order to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services that the policy of the United States is that children born of illegal aliens are not citizens because the parents as illegal aliens are subject to a foreign power. Illegal aliens are citizens of a country other than the USA and owe legal allegiance to that country. The ACLU will immediately file a lawsuit, most likely by forum shopping in the 9th Circuit in California or Hawaii, to challenge the executive order. The Supreme Court will eventually determine the meaning of "subject to the jurisdiction." The important fact is that President Trump will force a discussion of this issue, which he may win in court. A constitutional amendment will take too long, so the best method is an executive order to get the case to the Supreme Court as quickly as possible. Dogs are known for their powerful sniffing abilities. But, canines' heightened senses aren't only valuable for these situations. According to the last global report on the disease, cases had increased by five million to a new total of 216 million cases a year. "Our results show that sniffer dogs could be a serious way of making diagnosis of people who don't show any symptoms, but are still infectious, quicker and easier". This research was recently presented at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene's annual meeting in New Orleans. Researchers gave nylon socks to a group of school-age children in the Upper River region of the Gambia in west Africa. The dogs, which are kept at the Medical Detection Dogs charity in Milton Keynes, UK, were able to accurately categorize 70 percent of the malaria-infected samples and 90 percent of the non-infected samples. Following this stage, the socks were frozen and sent to the United Kingdom, where two canines, including a Labrador-retriever cross mix and a Labrador, were trained for a period of time to detect if socks were worn by children with malaria or not. Malaria is a disease with many identifiable symptoms, including sweating, vomiting and bloody stools. Dogs could test a whole community in a short space of time. These parasites reached the sexual stage of their reproduction cycle, making it hard to determine if these socks had signs of malaria. He said: "This could provide a non-invasive way of screening for the disease at ports of entry in a similar way to how sniffer dogs are routinely used". Using a study of 175 socks worn from children overnight, 30 were discovered to have been worn by children infected with the malaria parasite. A new study has revealed that sniff dogs could be trained to detect malaria in people infected with the disease. "But it appears that once the malaria parasite is in someone's body it causes quite a big change that the dogs are able to detect quite easily, so it's very exciting". The goal, according to Lindsay, is to further testing in countries where there might be different types of malaria parasites. "This could help prevent the spread of malaria to countries that have been declared malaria free and also ensure that people, many of whom might be unaware that they are infected with the malaria parasite, receive antimalarial drug treatment for the disease". Sometime in the 1960s, as I recall, a prominent person in the news made the sarcastic statement that if an enemy invasion army were to land on our shores, the ACLU would meet the soldiers on the beaches to protect their rights. The ACLU quickly protested, averring that, patriots all, they would do no such thing. Being a parody writer myself, I once wrote a fictional piece about the Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941) in which an ACLU lawyer sought an injunction against American armed resistance. He stated, "As soon as those Japanese aircraft entered American airspace, their pilots were entitled to the full protections of the United States Constitution, including the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law." Today, we are living parody. A massive parade of foreign nationals is marching toward our border, its members openly proclaiming that they intend to illegally enter our country. They have already stormed and breached the southern border of Mexico in a glaring preview of their defiance of law, so they are clearly to be believed. And where is the American political left? Are leftists decrying the violation of our national sovereignty? Are they demanding that our government protect its citizens from encroachment? Of course not. They are the parody. They of the left are seeking ways in which to prevent the administration from doing any of that. This is President Trump's PATCO moment. Remember that? Soon after President Ronald Reagan took office, in 1981, members of the unionized left organized a strike of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. They were adamant that their demands be met, or else PATCO would shut down all air traffic in the United States. Reagan gave the union members 48 hours in which to return to work or be irrevocably fired. You can't do that, the striking controllers jeered. Twenty-four hours later, they were all fired, and not one of those who continued the illegal strike has been rehired. Shortly afterward, PATCO ceased to exist. Reagan's bold stance was noted by the USSR, our deadliest enemy at the time, and the Soviets were reminded of his tenacity when he walked out of the nuclear arms reduction talks, an act that the left screeched would start a nuclear war. Instead, the Russians relented, and the talks were concluded in our favor. Now it is Trump who is being told by the left that he has no right to defend the nation against invasion. Leftist lawyers are coming to the aid not of their country, but of the invaders. They are claiming that Trump is violating the Constitution, or at least their twisted interpretation of it. A former member of the Supreme Court, the late Justice Robert H. Jackson, in his dissenting opinion in Terminiello v. Chicago, made a statement that ranks among the most powerful ever made from the bench. He said, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact." Those on the left most assuredly disagree. In the old Latin quarter in Paris, stands a magnificent 18th century buildingthe temple to all the gods, the Pantheon. Originally constructed as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve, it was later converted into a mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens such as Voltaire, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Marie and Pierre Curie, and Jean Moulin. Today, the Pantheon resembles less of a church and more of a museum. The church had long been stripped off its altar. In the apse, instead, hangs from under the central dome, a large metal pendulum that challenges the very beliefs the Church once held. Foucault pendulum at the Pantheon, in Paris. Photo credit: Misko/Flickr This is the famous Foucault pendulum, one of the best-known experiments in the history of science that has been recreated thousands of times across the world in schools, museums, observatories, public parks and even churches. It created a sensation when it was first displayed to the public, and it continues to awe scientists and laymen till today. For thousands of years people debated whether the sun revolves around the earth (the geocentric model) or the earth revolves around the sun (the heliocentric model). The church maintained that the earth was stationary but astronomers such as Copernicus and Galileo provided enough proof to change the views of the scientific world to heliocentrism. Ever since then, it had been taken for granted that the earth rotates on its axis. But nobody had actually demonstrated the fact. For a normal observer, the earth seemed stationary and aside from the apparent spin of the sky, there was no observable effect that could be attributed to the rotation. Jean Bernard Leon Foucault was the leading experimental physicist of his day. While working on a clock with a conical pendulum, Foucault placed a steel rod in a lathe and then accidentally bumped the rod and set it into motion. Foucault noticed that the rod tended to maintain its plane of vibration even when rotated. He perceived that if an oscillating pendulum maintained its plane of vibration, as the rod did, it might provide a mechanical demonstration of the earth's rotation. Foucault determined that the period of rotation of the plane of the pendulum's oscillation varied by latitudeat the poles it would take the pendulum exactly 24 hours to complete one rotation, while at the equator no rotation would be observed. In between the poles and the equator the period would be inversely proportional to the sine of the latitude where the pendulum oscillated. Foucault first demonstrated his discovery to the Academy of Sciences at the Paris observatory in January 1851. By graduating the circumference of the circle described by the pendulum's arc of oscillation, Foucault demonstrated that the earth had moved from the pendulum's plane of oscillation, providing compelling and tangible proof of the earth's rotation. In March 1851, at the request of President Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Foucault performed the experiment at the Pantheon with a gigantic pendulum 28 kg in weight hanging from a wire 67 meters in length. The experiment drew a large crowd. People were fascinated to see the earths rotation rendered actually visible before their very eyes. It was such a practical, evident and majestic demonstration of the rotation of the earth that it could seen and understood even by an unscientific observer. News of the Foucault pendulum spread like wildfire, and before long people all over Europe and in America began demanding demonstration and explanation of the phenomenon. Experiments were repeated, both in private and in public, by scientists and enthusiasts, in laboratories, private homes, public places, government buildings, schools and universities and churches. Never before a scientific experiment had so captured the imagination of the public. The Foucault pendulum's popularity was a result of its highly visual effect, its illustration of a basic physical principle, its use of readily available apparatus, and its ability to fascinate observers, writes Michael F. Conlin. No one made religious objections to the demonstration of the earth's rotation with a Foucault pendulum [in a church] observes Conlin. Instead, churchmen participated in the scientific controversy. The Reverend John L. Dagg, a leading Baptist theologian and president of Mercer University, presented a geometric proof of the Foucault pendulum. The remarkable experiment eventually helped erase the last traces of lingering doubt the Church had against the heliocentric model. Foucaults definitive proof of the rotation of the earth helped vindicate Galileo, Copernicus and Giordano Bruno, writes Amir D. Aczel, author of Pendulum: Leon Foucault and the Triumph of Science. After Foucault successfully demonstration of the earths rotation Church scholars themselves embraced the heliocentric Copernican view of the world and openly wrote about Foucaults proof. In 1911, the Jesuit priest J.G. Hagen wrote a major study called The Rotation of the Earth: The Earths Mechanical Proofs Ancient and New. Today, there are a number of churches where one can see a Foucault pendulum in motion, such as Saint Isaac's Cathedral in Saint Petersburg, St. Peter and St. Pauls Church in Krakow, San Petronio Basilica in Bologna, Grote Kerk, in Veere, to name a few. Foucault pendulum at the Pantheon, in Paris. Photo credit: Stephen Heller-Murphy/Flickr The Pantheon where the original Foucault pendulum was installed. Photo credit: Juanedc.com/Flickr Between the Google+ privacy scandal and the companys new hardware devices, as well as the Huawei Mate 20 and OnePlus 6T announcements and everything else that happened over the course of this month, you almost missed the fact that Facebook recently did something unsurprising-but-still-incredibly-surprising; as it turns out, all those reports about the company working on a smart speaker lineup were correct. The jokes write themselves the company thats been in the middle of some of the biggest user data leaks ever many of which happened just this year now wants to put a camera in your house and mic it up. The firm whose co-founder and CEO routinely has to remind the general public that his company technically isnt a surveillance organization, that was abused by foreign actors seeking to polarize the American public and influence its democratic process, as well as meddle with the dealings of other countries, a company whose entire business model lives and dies by how much data it can devour about you now wants you to put its camera-microphone combo into your home. Better yet, it wants you to pay for the privilege, with the Portal starting at $199. For just $150 extra, youll be able to get your hands on the Portal+ which will in turn be able to get Facebooks eyes on your habits as the gadget will actually follow you with its gaze around the room thanks to its rotatory base. Sure, Facebook wont literally be spying on your every move while youre unaware of it and the Portal series of display-equipped speakers will only be fully functional while youre actually using it for video calls. However, dont forget the tech making the communication magic happen here is basically Messenger. In other words, all usage patterns and personal information collected by Facebooks omnipresent IM app are also what the two Portal speakers will be gathering on you. Naturally, they might be even better at doing so seeing how theyve been designed to be the center of ones Internet-connected household. Advertisement No company should attempt to enter an entirely new market shortly after enduring a debacle the size of Cambridge Analytica that directly affects those ambitions. Facebook may even agree with that point to a degree as it originally wanted to launch the Portal family in May but postponed it to early October, hoping the public will move on in the meantime. That plan may have actually worked had the company not disclosed the largest data breach in its history just ten days prior to debuting its latest spying tools, revealing that around 30 million accounts were compromised after their access tokens allowing for repeated login-free sessions were stolen. Facebooks response? Asking you for $350 so that it can put a machine that will harvest even more of your data that can get leaked further down the line. But hey, look at all these video chats! It really feels like the other person is right next to you because the camera follows you around or something. Facebook doesnt completely lack self-awareness but apparently doesnt have enough of it to just cut its losses, which really shouldnt be that big of a deal seeing how the Portal speakers arent exactly revolutionary gadgets that sucked up a significant portion of its R&D budget. Sure, this is the first time its mysterious Building 8 actually delivered a consumer-grade product but at what cost and with what results? That self-awareness evident from the way Facebook markets these devices; go to portal.facebook.com and youll be greeted by a laughable line about these speakers being private by design. Why? Primarily because these products ship with a plastic lens cover that you literally slap on the front-facing camera lens. So, on one hand, Facebook knows its track record with user privacy is horrible enough to warrant including a literal cover for a camera its trying to sell but on the other, it apparently has a hard time grasping how such a necessity may indicate it shouldnt be trying to pitch one to consumers in the first place. Would you buy a smoke detector from a company whose offices burned down on countless occasions in the past? Probably not, and thats even if you could somehow obtain a guarantee the firm in question has the best intentions for you, which is hardly the case for a conglomerate whose entire business model relies on having hundreds of millions of people use its free services, then profile them for the purposes of ad targeting. One could say that same argument could be against Google and theyd be largely correct, though Alphabets subsidiary at least has a significantly better track record with keeping user data private and its been playing the information harvesting game for longer than Facebook. So, when November 13 arrives and the two Portal speakers actually start shipping to customers, theres a good chance both will be dead on arrival. Sure, the general publics attention span isnt particularly long but the sheer volume of Facebooks recent privacy scandals should still be too much for the average American to take in and buy the Portal or Portal+ over something like the Echo Show thats both cheaper, more versatile, and comes from a company that hasnt been leaking user info en masse every other day since its inception. Alright, that last part was an embellishment. It probably happened every day. Advertisement Facebooks growing hardware ambitions are still concerning; the sole fact that the Portal lineup actually happened even after all of those data scandals the company found itself in suggest this particular tech juggernaut is adamant to get into your home one way or another and will certainly keep trying until it succeeds. To make matters worse, the firm is barely even trying to address these issues and appears to be well-aware of the ridiculousness of its consumer electronics ambitions as it chose to pursue them with little transparency. Among other things, thats also evidenced by the fact that numerous Facebook representatives failed to respond to a request for comment on this article for more than a week. All things considered, you can certainly leave it to Facebook to make something like smart speakers a product category that already raises major digital privacy concerns even creepier. Google X director Rich DeVaul, has now resigned from his position at the company and wont be receiving a severance package, according to unnamed sources reported as close to the matter. The executives departure has yet to be verified by the Alphabet-owned company or its counterpart Google. However, if accurate, the circumstances of the departure are likely related to recent reports involving Mr. DeVaul and several other executives at Alphabets various subsidiaries. Namely, the executive was one of several employees facing allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment while at the company. Background: Mr. DeVauls own accusations stem from back in 2013, with claims surfacing that the executive had propositioned a hardware engineer named Star Simpson during the process of an interview. Specifically, the circumstances of the allegation begin with Mr. DeVaul suggesting that he and his wife were polyamorous before asking Ms. Simpson to accompany him to Burning Man in Nevada. While at the gathering, Mr. DeVaul is said to have asked Ms. Simpson to remove her shirt with the promise of a back rub. The offer was refused and Ms. Simpson was later informed that she did not get the job. When human resources officials at Google were contacted about the ordeal, they reportedly asked that the alleged victim remain quiet about the instance and indicated that appropriate steps had been taken in response to the allegation. The company denied the latter allegation but cited employee confidentiality with regard to the exact nature of its response to the claim. In the meantime, DeVaul is not the only employee to stand accused of similar misconduct and abuse. The allegations have included those at nearly every executive level within the company. Furthermore, because of the companys previous missteps in giving some of those who have already been fired or left the organization severance or exit packages, the controversy appears to be growing exponentially. For example, Andy Rubin, who is arguably on of the most important figure behind the eventual release of Android, stepped away from the company with over $90 million despite accusations of sexual assault. Meanwhile, Googles responses to the allegations have been mixed, at best. In one email responding to more recent reports, the company failed to address the underlying misconduct in question. That particular communication chose instead to focus on the past couple of years with regard to improvements the company is making in a more general sense with regard to employment and policies. However, the company did confirm that thirteen upper-level employees of a total of 48 former employees were fired over the course of two years for related conduct. Advertisement Impact: In light of the ongoing discourse and the amount of effort the company is undertaking to try and preserve its image, the controversy surrounding Google has continued to grow. In fact, several hundred Google employees have planned a company-wide walkout in response, set to take place on November 2. Whats more, employees have actively positioned for the removal of other accused employees such as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development David Drummond while also petitioning for the removal of key figures in the company including Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt. The apparent upheaval and ensuing internal struggles that Google is facing are likely having serious ramifications for Alphabet as a whole, as pressure mounts in pursuit of more straightforward answers and a more direct response to the accusations. However, this latest report could also signify a shift in how the company is responding to these types of allegations. If true, it will have essentially shown that the company can and will fire its high-level employees from a position of relative, albeit experimental, importance without any of the usual exit pay. The only questions that remain are whether it will take further steps or further corrective steps in response to other ongoing controversies of a similar nature and whether that will help reduce the internal turmoil at all. Developers in the US can now take advantage of HTC VIVEs WAVE SDK open-source platform for developers called, according to a recent announcement from the company. For clarity, thats HTCs development platform that brings Android-powered experiences such as those on offer through Googles Daydream program together under the already successful VIVE branding. It supports standalone and smartphone tethered devices as well to those headsets that require an Android device to be slotted in, standardizing the experience of developing experiences across all of those. Moreover, it provides an additional five SDKs on top of the standard VIVE Wave SDK right out of the box. The primary SDK enables developers to take a project from start to finish with a variety of features on top of enabling fine control over 3DOF and 6DOF head and controller tracking and finished products with less than 20ms of motion to photon latency. Background: This new developer kit was initially launched in China in November 2017 along with the companys HTC VIVE Focus standalone VR headset. The underlying goal in that region, as with the latest launch, is to centralize the mobile VR market. Thats a goal thats at least partially enabled by the fact that Wave SDK completely open-source. That means developers can essentially develop a project once and have it work on any standalone or Android-powered VR product, massively extending their available audience while still having access to the tools already in use for generating those experiences. The kit enables stereo rendering with Asynchronous TimeWarp, single-buffer V-Sync scheduled rendering, strip rendering, lens distortion and chromatic aberration correction, predictive tracking, 2D system overlays, and a safety virtual wall. Beyond that, the new platform also allows third-party controllers, cameras, and other hardware add-ons to be included in a software build. Although thats already a fairly robust set of features to include in a developer kit, thats not including the built-in SDKs available to ensure that experiences will work across the board. For starters, Wave OEM SDK is intended to make it easy for hardware developers to easily incorporate support for the platform at the system level. Meanwhile, Wave Native (Android) SDK, Wave Unity SDK, and Wave UE4 SDK are self-explanatory. The latter two enable seamless incorporation with Unity and Unreal Engine 4, respectively, while the Native SDK enables the VR functionality found in native Android-based VR development. Finally, Wave PluginKit SDK is a developer kit specifically for accessory and peripheral makers, allowing drivers to be installed via a simple APK installation Advertisement Impact: With the US-specific platform announcement, porting experiences from existing platforms such as Samsungs Galaxy Gear VR or Daydream will become a much more simplified task for developers in the region. In fact, the company says that process can take as little as a few hours or a week with Wave SDK. The combined effect of all of that is that developers wont need to learn new tools, set up entirely new builds from scratch, or put in months of effort but will be able to move their products across the vast majority of available VR platforms. With regard to end users, the net effect should be that more VR content will become rapidly available and that it wont really matter which supported hardware theyve chosen, with VIVE Wave SDK A bunch of OnePlus 6Ts features have just landed on the OnePlus 6 thanks to a new Open Beta update that the company has started pushing out. The company has announced via its official forums that the Open Beta 6 update for the OnePlus 6 has started rolling out, and it brings both Nightscape and Studio Lighting camera features to the device. Nightscape is a much-talked-about OnePlus 6T mode that should boost image quality in low light scenarios, and its not surprising that it arrived to the OnePlus 6 so soon, as the OnePlus 6 has the exact same cameras as the OnePlus 6T. On top of those two camera features, this beta update also brings new navigation gestures to the device, which essentially means that you will be able to swipe from the center to the upper right corner in order to swiftly switch between the last two apps youve used. This is only applicable if youre using OnePlus very own gesture-based navigation, of course. On top of that, youre also getting the ability to hold the power button for 0.5 seconds in order to activate Google Assistant. This update will also improve the gallery experience on the OnePlus 6, as the companys changelog promises that its Gallery app will run smoother and that the zooming gesture has also been improved. On top of all that, a new Google quick search box design is rolling out with this update, while the screenshot-taking experience has also been improved here. This Open Beta update will bring the November Android security patch to your OnePlus 6, while the About phone UI has also been improved. All in all, this update brings you all the notable software changes that the OnePlus 6T brought to the table. Background: The OnePlus 6T got announced a couple of days ago in New York, and the company has promised that the new software features will arrive to the OnePlus 6 really soon, maybe even within a week. Well, considering that an Open Beta update is already out, the stable release is probably not far off, as long as the company doesnt find any notable bugs in this update, of course. The OnePlus 6T has a lot of similarities with the OnePlus 6, in addition to the same camera sensors that weve already mentioned, the device also comes with the same RAM setup, and the same processor. The general build is quite similar as well, though the OnePlus 6T does not sport a fingerprint scanner on the back, and it has a much smaller notch than the OnePlus 6. Advertisement Impact: The Nightscape mode should help with low light photography, while Studio Lighting should improve some photos as well, though were yet to test both of those features. Its good to see that OnePlus is pushing out all of these features to the other 2018 flagship so soon. If youre running previous Open Beta software on your OnePlus 6, you will get this update OTA, though do keep in mind that you will not get stable updates if you are running Open Beta software, so once the stable build is out, it may be wise to switch to a stable channel. Denmark has recalled its ambassador to Iran after it accused Tehran of plotting a foiled "attack" against three Iranians living in the Scandinavian country. The Danish government promised swift reaction to the revelations. Danish intelligence chief Finn Borch Andersen on Tuesday confirmed the measures had been taken to prevent the planned attack. In a ministry statement issued earlier in the day, Samuelsen said that the Iranian ambassador in Copenhagen had been summoned to the foreign ministry. Norway's Police Security Service said it was cooperating with Danish police on the case, which it also described as a planned attack in Denmark. PET believes that the Iranian agency aimed to assassinate the leader of a Danish branch of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA), which supports the establishment of a separate Arab state in Iran's Khuzestan Province. Borch Andersen said Danish police had arrested the Norwegian citizen on October 21 on suspicion of helping an unknown Iranian intelligence service "to act in Denmark" and for involvement in planning to kill an opposition member. "We are of course very aware that members of ASMLA may have violated the law by approving of the attack in Iran on September 22", Andersen said, adding that PET is investigating the members along in collaboration with local police. Foreign minister Anders Samuelsen said on Twitter on Tuesday that Denmark will respond. On Friday, France expelled an Iranian diplomat over a bomb plot against a rally organised by Iranian opposition groups, diplomatic and security sources said. The EU is trying to save a 2015 deal with Iran that curbed its nuclear activity in exchange for the lifting of worldwide sanctions after the United States withdrew from the pact and reimposed far-flung financial penalties on Tehran. Denmark's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen summoned the ambassador of Iran, Mr. Morteza Moradian, to a meeting with the political director of the ministry. 'This is completely unacceptable. Andersen said the arrested Norwegian citizen had denied charges in court of helping a foreign intelligence service plot an assassination in Denmark. In fact, the gravity of the matter is hard to describe. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Bahram Qasemi, dismissed the accusations. A few days earlier, the Norwegian suspect had been observed photographing and watching the Denmark home of the ASMLA leader, police said. Tasnim news agency quoted him as saying: "This is a continuation of enemies" plots to damage Iranian relations with Europe at this critical time'. The Danish security service then bolstered police protection of the ASMLA leader in Denmark and two associates. In late September, Tehran accused Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain of "hosting several members of the terrorist group" that Iran accuses of being responsible for an attack in the mainly ethnic Arab city of Ahvaz in southwestern Iran. The terror attack on the military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz. The EU is trying to save big powers' 2015 deal with Iran that curbed its nuclear activity in exchange for the lifting of global sanctions after the United States withdrew from the pact and reimposed far-flung financial penalties on Tehran. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) armed group and a separatist Arab group claimed responsibility. Samsungs upcoming flip smartphone known as the W2019 recently reappeared in a number of leaked higher-quality photos via the Chinese social network Weibo, with the said image gallery (included below) showcasing the unit from all angles. The device bears the same copper/brown color as seen in previous images, and features a solid metal body with chamfered edges, as well as a black glass panel on the back. Much like the previous model launched last year, theres no 3.5-millimeter headphone jack to be seen anywhere around the edges of the device but the W2019 does feature a USB Type-C connector in its place. To be clear, this isnt Samsungs upcoming foldable smartphone known as the Galaxy X or Galaxy F, but instead, the W2019 is a continuation of the OEMs flip phone series which remained somewhat popular in Asian countries including China. There, the form factor appears to have maintained a niche audience and Samsung continued to deliver these Android-based flip phones throughout the past several years. The W2019 is the latest entry in the series, and its existence has been confirmed by Samsung itself earlier in October when the device received a premature support page on the OEMs official Chinese website. Likewise, some of the flip smartphones internal specifications have been previously confirmed by the regulatory agency TENAA, and like other models in the series, the W2019 is expected to adopt high-end components, including a Snapdragon 845 chipset supplied by Qualcomm, and 6GB of RAM. As revealed by previous reports and reconfirmed by these new live images, the W2019 will also be the first in the flip phone series to make the jump to a dual camera setup. Once again, its quite odd to see the Korean OEM juxtaposing this old form factor with the lack of a basic feature such as a standard 3.5-millimeter headphone jack, but nevertheless, Samsungs flip phones have always walked this fine line between the old and the new with aspects like combining Android OS and touch screens with a numerical keypad. Perhaps Samsung knows its audience, as these smart flip phones are largely targeted at senior customers who might not be too inclined to listen to music in their headphones. As for the rest of the world, the W201x flip phone series has been reserved for Asia and it probably wont be any different for the upcoming model. Sonys latest earnings report for the second quarter highlight relatively good overall growth thats offset by losses suffered in every category measured for its mobile division. In fact, in terms of sales and operating revenues for the three months ending September 30, the companys mobile unit lost just over $480 million compared to the previous year. That deficit is in spite of the tech giants overall company growth of around $1.113 billion year-over-year for the first half of the fiscal year. By quarter, that equates to an approximate shift of around $8.857 toward the negative. Total sales and revenues were, by comparison, up by around 1-percent while operating income was bolstered by 30-percent. Gaming, on the other hand, continues to be Sonys biggest generator of income, with a year-over-year increase just above $316.6 million for that period. Background: The losses posted by Sonys mobile division for the third calendar quarter arent surprising at all with consideration the results of the previous quarter. In the first fiscal quarter of the calendar year the second calendar quarter Sony posted the equivalent of $97 million in the negative over the three-month period ending June 30. Its total handset sales, meanwhile, dropped by $435 million. That represents just over a 10-percent increase to the overall losses for Sony Mobile. Despite optimism for the units future performance and the companys expected benefits from foreign exchange rate changes, the unit appears to be well on track to posting losses for the full fiscal year 2018. Total revenues for the companys mobile operations this year have dropped again to land at approximately $1.04 billion from last quarters $1.18 billion. Setting that aside, the companys total consolidated gains are listed at just over $1.06 billion year-over-year. All of those losses, however, are in spite of the fact that the company has put out at least two praise-worthy handsets this year with the Xperia XZ2 Premium and the newer Sony Xperia XZ3. The latter of those devices had even been rated by a Strategy Analytics survey as having one of the best OLED displays on the market as of late August. The handset features an HDR-rated QHD+ panel that gives users ready access to a smooth Android 9 Pie experience out of the box, backed by an octa-core Snapdragon 845 SoC. Memory is set at 4GB while storage is a respectable 64GB and front-firing stereo speakers were part of that build as well as a haptic feedback-based Dynamic Vibration System. While there have been subsequent devices that are almost certainly better on the display front, not least of all the new Razer Phone 2, all of that adds up to a flagship that seems to be at least on par with its rivals. At the same time, its entry price point of $899 is considerably less expensive than at least some competing handsets. Advertisement Impact: It isnt immediately clear exactly where Sony is going wrong on the mobile front but the outlook is not a good one for the Android smartphone portion of its business. Factoring in the aforementioned $1.04 billion in total mobile revenues, the company cant really withstand these types of sustained losses for many more quarters. That doesnt mean the unit will necessarily fail, as other companies such as HTC have been in similarly dire straights on the mobile front and are still producing great handsets. But it does mean that, for now, Sonys mobile unit is not doing as well as the company has hoped it would be. Googles CEO, Sundar Pichai wrote an apology letter to the entire company in Mountain View, not so much to apologize for how past sexual harassment cases were handled, but to let everyone know that there will be a much harder line going forward. This means that Google is going to be cracking down on those that have sexual harassment and/or assault complaints against them, instead of letting them resign and giving them a hefty exit package as was the case with Andy Rubin. On top of that, Pichai also said he would support those employees who chose to take part in the womens walk that is taking place Thursday. In the letter, Pichai also expressed that he is deeply sorry for the past actions and the pain they have caused employees. He also reiterated something that Alphabets CEO, Larry Page mentioned last week during a company-wide meeting (Googles weekly TGIF meeting), that if even one person experiences Google the way the New York Times described, we are not the company we aspire to be. Google isnt waiting either, Alphabets subsidiary, X, just lost its director due to some sexual misconduct complaints against him. Alphabet wasted no time in getting rid of Richard DeVaul, and with all of the headlines that Google has been a part of in the past week, its not a surprise to see Google jumping on this really quick to quiet it down. Pichai also said in his email to employees that the apology given at the TGIF meeting last week was not enough, and many of his subordinates emailed him to let him know. Pichai agreed, and vowed to do better. Of course, the cases that were mentioned by the New York Times took place before Pichai became CEO, and was a product manager of Chrome and then Chrome and Android. So its not technically on Pichais watch, but he is taking the blame for it, as a CEO should. Background: Last week, the New York Times published a pretty damning piece on the atmosphere at Google, particularly revolving around Andy Rubin. As many may know, Rubin created Android, which is how he got a job at Google the company bought Android and Rubin was part of the deal. Rubin left Google in 2014, in what was a pretty big surprise to a lot of people. But that was four years ago. Since then, weve learned exactly why Rubin left the company. Rubin was the subject of a sexual assault claim from a coworker, who said that he coerced her into having sex. When Googles CEO (at the time, this was before Alphabet was formed), Larry Page found out about this, he asked for his resignation. With Rubin resigning his post at Google, he did also get an exit package. A package that Google was under no obligation to give Rubin. But Google gave him $90 million as a parting gift which was being paid out over monthly payments of around $2 million per month. That sounds pretty sketchy, right? Sure, Page did the right thing in getting rid of Rubin, but to give him $90 million that he was not entitled to (not part of his contract, if he were to get fired or leave the company). Advertisement Rubin wasnt the only one either. According to the report from the New York Times, this happened with at least three other senior executives at the company. And one of them even got to keep their job. The report also mentioned how Google co-founder Sergey Brin had an extramarital affair in the early days of Google, with an employee. Now that was a consensual thing, so it wasnt really a big deal, but it shows that there are plenty of issues over at Google when it comes to this subject. Impact: After Hollywood has had its #MeToo moment, it looks like Google and other tech companies are about to have their own. This is not surprising in the least, considering that in Silicon Valley, the majority of the high-ranking executives are male, with females working the lower-ranking jobs. Which means you have a similar situation to whats happening in Hollywood. Where the male with all the power is able to leverage that power to get the woman to do what he wants, or he can ruin her career. Its unfortunate, but it is very likely that Google/Alphabet is not alone here. It wouldnt be surprising to see others come out with similar stories. Though these stories didnt come from those that were assaulted, surprisingly. But instead from people inside Google who had knowledge of the cases for Rubin and these other executives who are no longer with the company. Pichai also mentioned that since he took the role of chief executive over at Google, it has been personally important to me that we take a much harder line on inappropriate behavior. He mentioned that in the past two years, they have terminated 48 people, including 13 that were senior managers or higher ranked, for sexual harassment. Pichai also mentioned that none of these 48 received an exit package. In fact, Pichai went on to say that none of the executives who left the company voluntarily during a sexual harassment investigation, received an exit package. Which shows that Google is taking the right steps, at least right now. Pichai also stressed that product managers will be briefed on whats happening Thursday, so that those that want to participate in the walkout on Thursday will have the full support that they need. This is a good move for Pichai and senior leadership at Google. Instead of forcing its employees to stay at work or be terminated, they are supporting them. And that is because this walkout is over how sexual assaulters have been treated, and how those that were assaulted were not believed. Basically, Google made it easy for employees to sexually assault a co-worker and then receive a fat check when leaving the company. And obviously, that is not how it is supposed to happen here. Posted on: October 31, 2018 3:51 PM The Bishop of Mauritius, Ian Ernest, has warned that a national census on the populations ethnic and religious background would only aggravate those divides that already exist. The Creole ethnic group makes up around one quarter of the island-nations population. This group, descended mainly from slaves, are said to face discrimination in the areas of education, jobs and housing. The majority Indo-Mauritian population hold most of the top political posts in the country. The United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recently warned of the de facto discrimination faced by Creole people and called for statistics in the country to be broken down by ethnicity so that the scale of the issue can be measured. A debate has been opened about whether or not the country should update the last ethnic and religious census, dating back decades, Bishop Ian said. I believe that this would only aggravate those divides that already exist. For better or worse, as a result of our history, we are a multi-religious and multi-ethnic society and the way forward is to emphasise our common humanity. He said that the previous census created a crude divide in which people were classed as Hindu, Muslim, Sino-Maurition or a category of general population merely lumping together everyone else, he said. It produced a religious and ethnic muddle. Tamils, Telegus and Marathis may be of Indian origin but have their own identity, he said. And what of a Christian who is of Indian origin? Some Sino-Mauritians are Christian and some Buddhist. . . There are different groupings amongst all the main religious communities. Do Christians from the historic established churches of our country have much in common with members of new emerging Christian groupings? And in what category should atheists be placed? Such a survey would open a can of worms which, he said, joking that this was not the answer except for fishermen. He added: For politicians, the solution should be to select candidates on their merits not on their ancestral backgrounds. For voters, the solution is to actually vote for competent and honest individuals, genuinely prepared to serve their electors and the country. Attitudes wont change overnight but it is my duty, and that of my fellow religious leaders, to help change the thinking of politicians and individuals. Many will consider this hopelessly idealistic but the only way humanity really progresses is through espousing values and ideals. My Church does not recognise division and wishes to play no part in it. Instead, the concept of one people and one nation, rather than lip service to that concept, is what should bring us all together. Bishop Ian, the former Primate of the hurch of the Province of the Indian Ocean, described Mauritius as a rich inheritance of mutual respect and responsibility that were gifts to us offered by our ancestors who believed to make Mauritius a Land of opportunities for all. He added: To honour their efforts and spirit of sacrifice, let us work towards the consolidation of a nation that recognises the potential of one and all irrespective of ethnic considerations. Posted on: October 31, 2018 7:54 AM A Christian mother of four who has been held in solitary confinement on death row since 2010 after being convicted of blasphemy has been acquitted by Pakistans Supreme Court. Asia Bibi was detained after a row with her co-workers in June 2009. She had drunk a glass of water but her co-workers said that, by drinking from a cup meant for Muslims, she had made it ritually unclean. They demanded she convert to Islam but she refused. It is alleged that she then made offensive remarks about the Islamic prophet Muhammad during an altercation. After years of delays, a panel of three senior judges - Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel finally heard Bibis much-delayed appeal earlier this month. Today, in Islamabad, they delivered a detailed verdict and demanded her immediate release. The Judges said that 25-30 ladies were present at the altercation but only two had made a complaint about Bibi, and that neither of them had appeared in court to testify. The prosecution relied on a confession that Bibi allegedly made after the altercation, when she was called to a public meeting held by Imam Qari Saalam, the complainant in the case. Bibis lawyers said that the confession was not voluntary but rather resulted out of coercion and undue pressure as the appellant was forcibly brought before the complainant in presence of a gathering, who were threatening to kill her; as such, it cannot be made the basis of a conviction. In reaching their decision, the judges also considered a delay of five days between the alleged confession and the report to the police; that the case was not investigated by an officer of the rank required by law; and that the prosecution was bought without the required consent of a government officer. The judges pointed to conflicts and contradictions in the Prosecution case and said that it is a well settled principle of law that one who makes an assertion has to prove it. Thus, the onus rests on the prosecution to prove guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt throughout the trial. Presumption of innocence remains throughout the case until such time the prosecution on the evidence satisfies the Court beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty of the offence alleged against him. There cannot be a fair trial, which is itself the primary purpose of criminal jurisprudence, if the judges have not been able to clearly elucidate the rudimentary concept of standard of proof that prosecution must meet in order to obtain a conviction. Two concepts ie, proof beyond reasonable doubt and presumption of innocence are so closely linked together that the same must be presented as one unit. If the presumption of innocence is a golden thread to criminal jurisprudence, then proof beyond reasonable doubt is silver, and these two threads are forever intertwined in the fabric of criminal justice system. As such, the expression proof beyond reasonable doubt is of fundamental importance to the criminal justice: it is one of the principles which seeks to ensure that no innocent person is convicted. Where there is any doubt in the prosecution story, benefit should be given to the accused, which is quite consistent with the safe administration of criminal justice. Further, suspicion howsoever grave or strong can never be a proper substitute for the standard of proof required in a criminal case, ie beyond reasonable doubt. In the presence of enmity between the accused and the complainant / witnesses, usually a strict standard of proof is applied for determining the innocence or guilt of the accused. If the [Prosecution Witnesses] are found inimical towards the accused, she deserves acquittal on the principle of the benefit of the doubt. Keeping in mind the evidence produced by the prosecution against the alleged blasphemy committed by the appellant, the prosecution has categorically failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. They added: Consequently, the conviction as also the sentence of death awarded to the appellant is set aside and she is acquitted of the charge. She be released from jail forthwith, if not required in any other criminal case. Pakistans strict blasphemy laws have become a source of tension in the country with clear examples that they are being used as a means of settling scores particularly against non-Christians. Asia Bibi had become the first woman to be sentenced to death for blasphemy. Although a number of men had been handed the sentence, it has never been carried out. However, people accused of blasphemy have often been attacked and murdered before or after coming to trial. The Anglican Consultative Council is amongst the many international bodies that had called for Asia Bibis release. Serving for the match at 5-1, Djokovic handed a towel to a man in the crowd who seemed unwell and who wiped his forehead with it. "I'll give it a go [on Wednesday]". Djokovic also commented on the status of the exhibition. "I wasn't", he said. Tsonga had 17 aces in the match. Djokovic next faces Damir Dzumhur. Dzumhur defeated rising Greek star and 14th seed Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-3, 6-3. He led 6-2, 2-0 against Matthew Ebden when the Australian retired. It will be the first non-Grand Slam event to feature Federer, Nadal and Djokovic since last year's Indian Wells Masters. On his last appearance in 2015 he was knocked out by American John Isner in the round of 16. There were doubts Federer would play after a grueling past week which saw him clinch his ninth victory at the Swiss Indoors and 99th overall. "I've already done enough practice this season, So I feel like if that helps me for London, that's a great thing". But I had a commitment since one year ago to play there. Now 37, he has committed himself to playing three out of four weeks, including the forthcoming ATP Finals at the O2 Arena. But the third-ranked Federer feels comfortable with it. "As long as I don't feel like I'm taking a chance on my health prior to London, that's the key as well". After some speculation about whether or not Roger Federer would actually compete in Paris, he confirmed his participation on Tuesday. "I was a bit bumpy". Pressed further for the reasons behind the decision he restricted himself to minimal detail, saying: 'Because I don't want to play. Federer moved within 10 titles of Jimmy Connors all-time singles record. Federer's only tournament victory in Bercy came in 2011. "I rarely play two or three tournaments in a row now". And ahead of the Paris Masters, Federer's diplomatic antennae were twitching when asked if he had been invited to play in the Saudi Arabia event. Gilles Simon was the only one of six Frenchmen to advance on Tuesday, defeating compatriot Lucas Pouille 6-3, 6-4, with Pierre-Hugues Herbert and qualifier Benoit Paire losing to Mikhail Kukushkin and Marton Fucsovics respectively. Bryan Thompson, Abu Dhabi Airports chief executive officer, said: The celebrations taking place across the nation this Flag Day on November 1 are a manifestation of the unity and cohesion among citizens and residents alike. The flag of the United Arab Emirates is a part of the national identity of the UAE; it represents tolerance, belonging, sacrifices made, and sovereignty. Coinciding with the anniversary of the accession of Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, Flag Day marks an important date for the country. It is an opportunity to reflect on the achievements and successes of the nation, and express our gratitude to the UAEs visionary leaders, both past and present. By raising the national flag at all of Abu Dhabi Airports premises, we are renewing our commitment to national initiatives and implementing the nations values on a daily basis. Abu Dhabi Airports has taken our commitment one step further as last month we adopted the values of the nations founding father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, May His Soul Rest In Peace, as our Corporate values. The values of Wisdom, Respect, Sustainability and Human Development have become our compass in everything we do. Thompson concluded: The fact that this initiative has been carried out simultaneously by offices throughout the country is a reflection of the UAEs sense of national unity. It also signifies the deep sense of national pride in the demonstrable achievements that have been realized by the UAE throughout its history. Abdulaziz Al Raisi, Oman Air chief executive officer, said: I am pleased to announce the addition of a new long-awaited route to our network. Russia is an increasingly important destination from Oman, and since we announced this route earlier in the year, we have seen strong interest, both from Oman travellers and from customers transitting through our Muscat hub from cities around the world. Connecting Muscat with Moscow, we expect this daily service to further stimulate economic, trade and business relations between the two friendly countries. Trade between Oman and Russia continues to rise and we are happy to be able to facilitate this further with the start of this service. Oman is turning into a very important regional logistics hub with world-class infrastructure and we are sure this is recognised by the business enterprises in Russia. Apart from strengthening and opening up new business opportunities between Russia and Oman, our flights will also open the gates for Russian tourists to come and enjoy our beautiful country. This new route will be serviced by Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, designed to offer exceptional performance, flexibility and efficiency. Configured with 162 seats in a two-class configuration: 12 in business and 150 in economy with significant enhancements across both cabins the MAX aircraft is an example of Oman Airs commitment to continually upgrading its products and services to deliver guest satisfaction. Paul Starrs, chief commercial officer at Oman Air said: Our new service will provide more choice and greater convenience as more travellers look to Russia for a holiday getaway. We have done a great deal of preparation before commencing this route through several niche events and agent meet-ups and I am confident that this new addition will be another successful destination for Oman Air. We are sure that there will be demand for both business and leisure traffic, allowing us to showcase our own beautiful country to Russian visitors. Our Russian guests will also be able to take advantage of our fantastic new passenger terminal in Muscat Airport which houses Oman Airs bespoke premium lounges, 6,000 square metres of Duty Free shopping, 96 check-in counters and a modern 90-room airside hotel. A fund managed by investment firm BlackRock recently sold the Optima Centre in Perth to two funds managed by Charter Hall, one of Australias leading property groups, for $125.2 million. BlackRock was advised by Allens in relation to this sale. The two funds, Charter Hall Long WALE Real Estate Investment Trust and the Charter Hall Direct PFA Fund, will split ownership of the office campus, which is located just outside Perths CBD. The complex is fully occupied, and current tenants include Canon Australia, the ABN Group, and the Government of Western Australia. We are delighted to have supported our client, a German fund managed by BlackRock, in the sale of the Optima Centre, which is a significant transaction in the WA market,' said Victoria Holthouse, lead partner of the team that advised BlackRock. We also enjoyed working closely with our alliance partner, Linklaters, to advise on the German aspects of the transaction. This transaction builds on Allens' experience and profile in the WA property market, which is now showing signs of recovery after a tough few years during the mining downturn. It has been a pleasure to work with the team at BlackRock. An innovative tech initiative has made it a lot easier for lawyers and researchers to access US court cases. Its called the Caselaw Access Project, and it gives the public free online access to 6.4 million digitally-scanned American court cases dating from 1658 to June 2018. The online database contains 40 million scanned pages for a total of 200 terabytes of information. The project is a partnership between Harvard Law Schools Library Innovation Lab and San Francisco-based legal research service Ravel Law. Over the past three years, the project team digitised court decisions from approximately 40,000 bound volumes maintained by the Harvard Law School Library. The result is the most comprehensive database of its kind outside the US Library of Congress, and includes all official, book-published court cases from every US state. It also includes cases from US federal courts, and the territorial courts of American Samoa, Dakota Territory, Guam, Navajo Nation, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Australian tech company Nura has raised $15 million in capital, with Blackbird Ventures leading the latest investment round by adding $10 million to its initial investment in 2017. Nura was advised on the capital raise by Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF). HSF partner Peter Dunne led the team that advised Nura, assisted by solicitor Claire Bamford. Blackbird Ventures follow-on investment in Nura highlights the strong interest that investors continue to have in Australian technology companies, said Dunne. We are pleased to have partnered with Nura at an important point in the companys expansion, following our work with the company in relation to its seed round. Melbourne-based Nura manufactures the award-winning nuraphone, a headphone that uses otoacoustic emissions generated by the inner ear to automatically adjust to a users hearing. The chief executive of Norton Rose Fulbright has made a personal pledge to accelerate gender equality and inclusion throughout the firm. Peter Martyr has become a Catalyst CEO Champion for Change, succeeding the firms Linda Addison who moves to the position of Honorary Champion, becoming the ninth business leader to be recognized in this manner by Catalyst. Norton Rose Fulbright values diversity and the benefits that diverse teams bring to our clients. We strive to create an inclusive culture where everyone can be themselves and thrive. This focus also helps us to attract the best people, Martyr said. nalabee said: I wonder how soon after the application is handed in do they start assessing it? I have a medical completed but might wait to do police checks. Do you know how much time they allow for the required info to be sent back in? Also, both myself and my partner (sponsor) would have to complete police checks correct? wow, great - thanks for thatI wonder how soon after the application is handed in do they start assessing it? I have a medical completed but might wait to do police checks. Do you know how much time they allow for the required info to be sent back in?Also, both myself and my partner (sponsor) would have to complete police checks correct? Click to expand... From what people here have posted (and what we have experienced), assessment of a case is different for everyone.From what I understand (and have read) you are given 28 days to return the information requested by a case officer. Sometimes it takes longer than that, in which case I believe you would upload evidence that you have undertaken the medical or police check and inform the department you are waiting for it to come back. I could be wrong on that, so don't quote me.I don't recall if it was mandatory that we both did, but we both did anyways. There was no harm in it.When you say you have your medical done, did you submit your application, upload your documentation and then get a HAP ID to undertake your medical exam? Like the police check, these need to be done through an approved panel physician. Cheezyfry said: The tourist visa was granted before the Partner visa. On VEVO it shows the Partner Visa info. But would that be because I used the partner visa TRN? Thanks Click to expand... VEVO will only show you the visa that is in effect, no matter which way you log in to the system.If the partner visa was granted while the tourist visa was in effect, it would have replaced the tourist visa, so nothing to worry about.Your wife will be able to enter Australia on the partner visa. Make sure to check initial and final entry dates etc. AWD SUV It's not on the main page, and we were quite taken aback by the price: 43,450. The Leon ST Cupra was only 40k when it came out, and it features the same 2-liter turbo,and a similar DSG gearbox. You can get an FR model to about 40,000, so it's not a big dea.Performance SUVs are always going to be a cash grab, not passion projects with pure performance. The initial reviews of the Cuprasay it's not the last word in engagement, but it is pretty fast. It's not going to give you the same feeling as a Civic Type R or a Focus RS.The Cupra isn't just a more expensive Ateca. Every aspect has been revised, starting with the looks. It features a unique body kit to feed the air-hungry turbo engine and reduce high-speed lift. Hot hatch fans will appreciate the quad exhaust and standard adaptive suspension.Right now, you could say the Cupra is a car without rivals since Performance SUVs are all either bigger or much smaller. With a 100 km/h sprint time of 5.2 seconds and a top speed of 247 km/h, it's almost as quick as an Audi SQ5, which suddenly makes it sound cheap.The options aren't too bad either. For example, the copper wheels are only 1,100, but we'd stick to the standard, free setup since it's the same size and shape. All colors except the base blue are 600 euros, while the seats can be ordered in either leather or Alcantara.You might be tempted to add the 540 Beats audio or a panoramic sunroof for 1,130. With Cupra models of the past, you could always get a huge discount from dealers if you bought existing stock. But only time will tell if the company is just going to pile up excessive numbers of 300 horsepower crossovers. Officials in Indonesia, where a nearly new Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed into the sea on Monday, killing all 189 on board, ordered on Tuesday that all Max 8 aircraft in the country operated by commercial airlines must be inspected. It was not clear if the aircraft are grounded pending the inspections, or precisely what the inspectors would be checking. A government official told CNN that Lion Air has 11 of the models in its fleet and national carrier Garuda Indonesia has one. The airplane that crashed had been worked on the day before, after another crew reported problems with unreliable airspeed readings, according to the BBC. The crew also reported the altitude readings differed on the captains and first officers instruments. Engineers checked and repaired the issue, and cleared the aircraft to return to service, Lion Air CEO Edward Sirait told local media. Meanwhile, searchers continue to retrieve remains and debris from the crash site. The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder have not yet been located. Lion Air director Daniel Putut told reporters his staff will meet with a Boeing team on Wednesday. We have many questions for them, he said. This was a new plane. The airline had acquired the airplane just two months ago, and it had logged 800 hours. Boeing released a statement on Monday stating they are deeply saddened by the loss of Lion Air Flight JT 610, and will provide technical assistance at the request and under the direction of government authorities investigating the accident. The accident investigation will be conducted by the National Transportation Safety Committee of Indonesia. An Ohio federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered the state to allow voters who have been previously purged from its voting rolls in the last six years be allowed to cast provisional ballots in next weeks midterm elections. Why it matters: The emergency ruling is a major victory for voting rights groups as, earlier this month, a lower court upheld the states aggressive efforts to purge its voter rolls. This is the latest partisan battle over access to the ballot box in a battleground state that features high-profile midterm races for governor, the U.S. Senate and a few key House seats. The context: The purging system, which disproportionately affects minorities and the poor, has kicked thousands of people off the rolls if they skipped voting in a few elections and failed to respond to a notice from election officials. The U.S. Supreme Court in June ruled in favor of Ohios practices, which officials said is intended to promote ballot integrity and keep voter registration lists up to date. But civil rights advocates are still challenging the practice. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled that the "plaintiffs have a reasonable, and perhaps even greater, likelihood of success on the merits of their claims that the [state] confirmation notice did not adequately advise registrants of the consequences of failure to respond, as the [National Voting Rights Act] requires." What they're saying: Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted said he wont challenge the temporary order "because that would serve as an unnecessary source of contention with an election only five days away." In a state where races have been called by narrow margins, attorney Stuart Naifeh of the Demos organization that is challenging the state's purging practices, said voter purge could change election outcome. Go deeper: Gen. Scott Miller, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told NBC News Courtney Kube that "now is the time to start working through" the political process of ending the war in Afghanistan. Why it matters: Gen. Miller says U.S. troops have been "more in an offensive mindset" since he took over two months ago, a change prompted by heavy casualties. But he says the U.S. acknowledges it can't win with force: "My assessment is the Taliban also realizes they cannot win militarily. So if you realize you can't win militarily at some point, fighting is just, people start asking why. So you do not necessarily wait us out, but I think now is the time to start working through the political piece of this conflict." Go deeper: 17 years later, Americans tend to consider Afghanistan a failure. German Chancellor Angela Merkels decisions to step down as leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party in December and to not run for re-election in 2021 will have repercussions for Germany, Europe and the transatlantic relationship. The big picture: Merkels leadership has been marked by her commitments to decency, multilateralism and diplomacy. Even in the face of the far-right-wing Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD), Germany's center will still hold, but her replacement will probably shift the CDU rightward. Domestic politics will dominate Germany in the coming months. The CDU has been thrown into a leadership struggle to be settled in December. Merkel herself will probably be spared criticism over her party leadership and her 2015 decision to allow 1 million refugees to enter Germany. But her successor will be charged with the difficult task of uniting the party, giving it some direction and winning back voters who defected to the anti-immigrant AfD. If a new leader shifts the CDU further to the right, the party will risk losing voters to the Greens, the center-left environmentalist party that currently opposes the federal parliament and has been attracting disappointed voters. Merkel has been a linchpin for the EU, keeping it united during the euro crisis and pushing all 28 member states to impose sanctions on Russia after its illegal 2014 annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine. Merkel will still hold sway after December, but her authority will no doubt diminish. Several EU leaders think its time to reconsider the sanctions. Finally, unless Merkel has a change of heart, French President Emmanuel Macron can forget about winning support from Berlin for his ambitious reforms to further economically and politically integrate the EU. Merkel has so far kept Macron and the EU in waiting mode. The transatlantic alliance will also be tested. There are two trends running throughout Europe: An anti-Trump sentiment that feeds into anti-Americanism, particularly from left-wing parties. A pro-Trump camp comprising populist and nationalist movements that embrace anti-immigrant and anti-globalist policies. Its not surprising they have sympathies with Trump, who criticized Merkels support of refugees, free trade and the Iran nuclear deal. Whats next: Unless Merkel feels liberated from the daily management of the CDU to make bold moves for Europes future, dont expect any major EU integration or security initiatives from Berlin at least not before European parliamentary elections are held next spring and a new European Commission has been chosen. Judy Dempsey is a nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and editor-in-chief of Strategic Europe. A number of political parties not represented in Armenias outgoing parliament have voiced their concern about the prospect of apolitical elections ahead after the former ruling party twice effectively blocked amendments to the electoral laws earlier this month. The current government led by popular leader Nikol Pashinian had drafted amendments to the Electoral Code envisaging the scrapping of a controversial system of so-called rating ballots that was first used in the 2017 parliamentary elections and is widely believed to have been instrumental in ensuring the victory of former President Serzh Sarkisians Republican Party of Armenia (HHK). Under that system, voters across Armenia cast their ballots not only for political parties and alliances as a whole but also for their individual candidates running in a dozen nationwide constituencies. Many political experts believe that such individual races degrade political competition and make financial resources and government connections more essential in securing votes. Thus, a few HHK candidates wielding considerable financial resources and connections provided the bulk of votes for the party in the 2017 polls. The Pashinian government twice brought amendments that also envisaged safeguards against vote rigging and other major changes such as lower vote thresholds for winning seats in parliament and recovering election deposits, but in both cases the bill failed to get the support of two-thirds of the lawmakers as required by the constitution. The HHK said it deemed it wrong to change the Electoral Code less than two months before expected general elections. It also accused the government of ignoring a number of alternative proposals. Now the prospect of holding snap elections in December under the current Electoral Code has raised concerns among a number of extra-parliamentary political parties. Deputy Chairman of the Armenian National Congress Party (HAK) Aram Manukian regretted the failure of the passage of election law amendments, noting that they would have created prerequisites for forming a political parliament. Under the current legislation, in his words, the vicious phenomena inherent in the former government are inevitable. It is already obvious that there will be no ideological competition, it is already obvious that there will be no competition of programs, but everything again will come down to a revolutionaries versus counterrevolutionaries struggle and the political component will be lost in the process, said Manukian, adding that the HAK, which is led by ex-president Levon Ter-Petrosian, still has not decided whether it will take part in the elections in such conditions. Discussions are continuing, but it is obvious that our trump card the presentation of a liberal economic program as a model for the development of Armenia will no longer be a serious factor in the upcoming campaign, the HAKs deputy chairman said. The failure of the parliament to adopt the new Electoral Code did not change the decision of another extra-parliamentary party Heritage, of former foreign minister Raffi Hovannisian to participate. The Heritage Party participated in elections in conditions of violence and intimidation, and we have no problems in terms of participation, said Chairman of the partys board Armen Martirosian. Martirosian, however, sees a certain opportunity for the former ruling party to use the current electoral legislation in order to regain some of its positions. Unfortunately, the existing Electoral Code is anti-political, anti-party and, I would even say, anti-state. In fact, the former government will have a very good opportunity to try to reanimate itself to a certain extent, and it is obvious that with such a multitude of loyal heads of rural communities it will be very difficult [for the authorities] to prevent vote buying in villages, he added. Varuzhan Avetisian, one of the leaders of the newly established Sasna Tsrer party, said that difficulties were expected, but he stressed that they rely on their supporters. I have some concerns that there will also be attempts to rig the election results, and some of this rigging will go undetected, since it is a very elaborate mechanism Some local kings will again have the opportunity to enter the parliament. And, unfortunately, the next parliament will not fully reflect the political will of the people, said Avetisian. The Armenian parliament is expected to be dissolved on November 1 after failing to elect a new prime minister in a vote scheduled for that day. Snap parliamentary elections then will be held in the first half of December. A local civil group, We Are Owners Of Our Country, has called a protest outside the parliament building on October 31 demanding that lawmakers amend the current Electoral Code before the holding of fresh general elections. Armenia has downplayed the significance of a declaration referring to Nagorno-Karabakh adopted by the foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran and Azerbaijan at their meeting in Istanbul earlier this week, reminding that the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) Minsk Group co-chairmanship is the only format with an international mandate to help settle the conflict. It is within this format that the principles of the conflict settlement are set forth as a whole. A selective treatment of those principles does not in any way contribute to the efforts towards a peaceful settlement, Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Anna Naghdalian said on Tuesday. Wordings made outside the framework of the Minsk Group co-chairmanship and contradicting it are artificial and have nothing to do with the settlement of the problem, she added. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was one of the issues on the agenda of a trilateral meeting of the foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran and Azerbaijan that was held in Istanbul on October 29. In the declaration adopted after the end of the negotiations Mevlut Cavusoglu, Mohammad JavadZarif and Elmar Mammedyarov called for a peaceful resolution of conflicts in the region based on the principle of territorial integrity. The three foreign ministers specifically highlighted the importance of solving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in accordance with this principle. Nagorno-Karabakh, populated mainly by ethnic Armenians, declared independence from Azerbaijan amid the collapse of the Soviet Union, triggering a war that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. A cease-fire was called in 1994, but decades of internationally mediated negotiations with the involvement of the OSCEs Minsk Group have failed to result in a resolution. The Minsk Group is co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France. The Armenian National Assembly on Wednesday voted to approve an amnesty bill timed to the 100th anniversary of the First Armenian Republic and the 2800th anniversary of the foundation of Yerevan marked this year. Seventy-two lawmakers of the 105-seat body voted in favor of the bill, with no one voting against the measure or abstaining from the vote. The second reading of the bill and its final adoption are expected on November 1. Acting Justice Minister Artak Zeynalian, who presented the draft legislation in parliament, said the proposed amnesty would in one way or another apply to an estimated 6,500 people, with 660 of 2,888 due to be released from prisons. Specifically, according to Zeynalian, convicts serving sentences of up to three years in prison are to be released and prosecutions of people, launched before October 1, 2018, on charges punishable by up to three years in prison are to be discontinued. Amnesty will also cover people who committed crimes by negligence and face up to five years in prison. First and second-group disabled convicts serving sentences of up to six years in prison as well as some other categories of convicts, including pregnant women, people aged above 60 or below 18 who meet specific criteria, are also to be covered by the amnesty. The current amnesty also applies to members of the Sasna Tsrer armed group that seized and held for two weeks a police compound in Yerevan in July 2016 and members of the radical opposition Founding Parliament movement who were tried and convicted of plotting a coup in 2015. The amnesty does not apply to people who committed heavy crimes, were engaged in trafficking, obstructed journalists professional work, committed high treason, terrorist acts, sabotages and other serious crimes. As for convicts serving life sentences, according to the acting justice minister, an individual approach will be shown in each case, as, he said, the Ministry is not entitled to revise sentences of such convicts. Families of a number of convicts serving life sentences have staged protests in front of the National Assembly building demanding that the current amnesty, which the government describes as the largest ever in Armenian history, be also somehow applied to their relatives. Armenian businesswoman Silva Hambardzumian claims that in 2008 she gave a $14 million bribe to the then environment minister and current lawmaker Aram Harutiunian to obtain a mine development license. I transferred $8 million to a bank account in Dubai that he mentioned to me and paid another $6 million by installments through a person whose name was Suren Avagian, Hambardzumian told RFE/RLs Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). I had contacts with Aram Harutiunian since 2007 and bought three organizations from him. Then, when I mentioned my intention to buy several mines, I was told that others had offered bribes for that. I asked to quote the amount I should pay and he said it was $14 million. He gave the bank account number of another person named Araks Dilanian and on February 2, 2008 I transferred that money, the entrepreneur claimed. Hambardzumian said that she received a license after allegedly giving the bribe, but soon afterwards that license was suspended. She said she demanded that Harutiunian return the money and he promised to provide real estate instead, but eventually did not keep his promise. He told me I could do anything, but would get nothing. After that meeting I went straight to the 6th police department [combating organized crime] and reported the crime, she said. Hambardzumian claimed that Araks Dilanian, to whom she paid the money by installments, transferred it to the Dubai bank accounts of three Armenian citizens. One of those citizens is Gagik Karapetian, the director of the Sevan Psychiatric Hospital, another is his worker Viktor Martirosian, and I didnt know the third one. After I received those papers it turned out that the third person was Armen Khachatrian, who is the director of property owned by Aram Harutiunian. The director of the Sevan Psychiatric Hospital, however, denied that he was involved in the case. I dont know such a person. Please do not call me over that matter, do not disturb me, he told RFE/RLs Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). Attempts by RFE/RLs Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) to contact MP Aram Harutiunian were not successful throughout the day. The lawmaker affiliated with the former ruling Republican Part of Armenia did not even attend the National Assembly session today. Last week acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian stated from the parliament tribune that one of the MPs was suspected of taking bribes. He did not give the name of the suspect, but local media began to circulate the name of former environment minister Harutiunian. Pashinian also said that the law-enforcement authorities expected a document from another countrys foreign ministry. Hambardzumian said that in order to finalize the legal case, they will soon receive official papers regarding the three citizens from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Our [Special] Investigative Service wants to clarify the passport data of those people. Soon they will send it, too, she said. Asked whether she acknowledged that giving a bribe is also a criminal offense, Hambardzumian said that it wasnt in 2008. I think and have always thought that giving a bribe should be punishable, but since there was no way of dealing with the former government otherwise, since it was impossible to do any business without giving a bribe, I guess many people like me had to do so, she said. The Special Investigative Service has not yet confirmed whether it is investigating the case. By Trend The use of digital technologies in tax administration, especially the advantages of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology, has become requirements, Azerbaijani Minister of Taxes Mikayil Jabbarov said. Jabbarov made the remarks at the session "Tax administration after 10-15 years: how to adapt to the changing pace" within the tax summit on the digital economy in Lisbon. As for the work carried out in the field of creating digital economy and digitalization of tax administration in Azerbaijan, Jabbarov stressed that e-tax declarations have been in use for many years, and e-invoices are used in the country. Also, he said, numerous e-services are rendered to taxpayers. The tax administration must be adapted to the changing economic sphere, he said. Today, the tax burden of entities of digital economy is less than the tax burden of participants of traditional economy and one of the main problems facing tax administrations over the next 10 years is the correct formulation of tax policy in this direction. The minister stressed that tax policy must be adapted to the pace of change in the digital economy. He also stressed the importance of raising public awareness on tax issues and added that this issue will be one of the priorities for the next years. The importance of rendering adequate services to taxpayers was emphasized. Jabbarov also answered participants questions during discussions. Responding to a question about whether digital economy participants are competitors or partners, the minister unequivocally stressed the importance of establishing partnership relations and spoke about the regulatory role of the tax authority as an important element of this process. Representatives of more than 76 tax bodies of the member-states of the Intra-European Organisation of Tax Administrations (IOTA), the Inter-American Center of Tax Administration (CIAT), as well as representatives of 26 different organizations attended the event. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Narmina Mammadova SIAL Paris, one of the largest food exhibitions in Europe, has ended in Paris. The national stand was popular and the exhibition brought Azerbaijan worthy contracts on the supply of local goods to foreign countries. Products of 23 Azerbaijani companies were represented at the Made in Azerbaijan stand, Azerbaijans Economy Ministry said in a message on October 30. National products attracted the attention of visitors and foreign companies by its quality and taste just like at previous exhibitions. As part of the exhibition, a preliminary agreement was reached on the export of wine and other alcoholic beverages of the Azerbaijani company A+Co to Norway, as well as export of the products of the Goygol Wine Factory to the U.S., Cambodia and China. Negotiations were held on the export of products of Azerbaijani companies Aznar and Agro-Azerinvest to Brazil, Ukraine and Germany. Tovuz Baltiya company conducted negotiations with companies from Japan, Italy, China, Romania and Cambodia to export its products. In addition, the Azerbaijani company Mars-FK reached an agreement on exporting 36 tons of nuts to France, 18 tons to Djibouti and also 18 tons of nuts per week to Poland. Meanwhile, Kaslar company has reached an agreement to export 40 tons of nuts to Poland. In the near future, the export of products to the mentioned countries will be launched. In addition, an agreement was reached between the Azerbaijani company Eco-Dry and Al-Camil company from Djibouti to sign an agreement on the export of apples. The company Azerstar, which produces fruits and vegetables, reached an agreement to export its products to Russia, Italy and France, while AZ-Granata company reached an agreement to export pomegranate juice to Israel, the U.S., and pomegranate wine to Spain. Balkhurma company continues negotiations with wholesale companies in France, Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Romania, as well as with Horeca chain of stores operating in Italy, Dubai, Egypt and Japan, for the export of its products. The exhibition in Paris was attended by 7,020 companies from 109 countries. Participation in the major food exhibitions is a valuable tool for promoting national products and increasing non-oil export. Export missions is another way of attracting interest of foreign companies to the local products. Earlier, the products of the Azerbaijani companies included in the export mission caused great interest among Mongolian companies too. Azerbaijani companies Absheron-Sharab, A+Co, Merit Brand, Sharg Ulduzu, Agro-Azerinvest, Aspi Agro, Azeri met with the largest distributor of wine products in Mongolia - World Wine LLC and Sansar chain stores. Primary agreements were reached on the export of Azerbaijani wines to Mongolia, as well as on the export of products between the Azerbaijani company Aspi Agro and the Mongolian company World Wine. An agreement on the sale of plant extract was also reached between the Azerbaijani company Herba Flora and the Mongolian company Vitalit Invest. The Azerbaijani company Konfirom and the Mongolian companies Shizhirzhin Group, Altan Jolo Impex, McN Export negotiated on the export of confectionery products, Gilan FMCG and the Mongolian Vertus Group and supermarket chain Sansar - on the export of fruit juices and canned products. The opening of trading houses is one of the significant events carried out within the framework of expanding the export of Azerbaijani products and promoting the Made in Azerbaijan brand. Earlier, agreements were reached with a Chinese company selling alcoholic beverages, as they liked Azerbaijani wines for their taste and prices. As a result, Azerbaijani pavilion was opened in the Chinese city of Luzhou in late September. Today, trading houses of Azerbaijan are open in Belarus, Latvia and Ukraine. Until the end of 2018, it is planned to open trade and wine houses in the UAE, Russia, Poland and Kazakhstan. ---- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend On October 30, 2018, Mr. Mauro Dell'Ambrogio, the State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation of the Swiss Confederation, visited Training & Consulting and Information Centre which is called as Holcim Academy in the framework of his visit to Azerbaijan. Along with the Swiss official, the Ambassador of Switzerland, board of directors of Holcim Azerbaijan, and other quests attended the meeting. The uniqueness of the centre is creating opportunity for masters in construction sector to increase their profits by increasing professionalism and by using of innovative technologies. Along with education, one of the main advantages of the academy is providing practical information about products application of new construction materials. In addition, people who want to become a plasterer, bricklayer occupation can participate in free trainings and seminars at the centre and gain a new profession that will have a positive impact to decrease unemployment rate. Most importantly, participants can choose from list of curriculum as well as offer a new topic that interests them. Alexander Potaenko, Head of the Holcim Academy, informed the guests about the activities of the centre. Our Academy's activity is at an early stage and we already developed program for the next five years, he said. Anyone who wants to engage in plaster and finished concrete materials can benefit from our centre regardless of their experience. The daily use of proposed technological equipment in cement application significantly increases the productivity and quality of the masons work. Frederic Guimbal, General Director of Holcim Azerbaijan said that the construction sector in Azerbaijan is developing rapidly but there is not due attention to the occupational health and safety and vocational education. Zero harm and zero incident are the foundation of Holcim's culture, and we are not tolerating any violation in this area, he said. For that reason OH&S is part of the master's curriculum. Building Together the Foundation of Tomorrow! -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Sara Israfilbayova One of the important directions of the Azerbaijani-Turkmen cooperation is communication in the field of transport and transit traffic. Azerbaijani Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev made the remarks during a meeting with a delegation led by Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Turkmenistan Mammetkhan Chakiyev on October 30. The minister underlined the significance of the declaration on strategic partnership in the development of cooperation signed in 2017 between the two countries. Mustafayev went on to say that at present, Azerbaijani-Turkmen relations are developing in various directions and one of the most important areas of this cooperation are relations in the field of transport and transit traffic, further adding that both countries have great transport and transit potential, and in this area a favorable infrastructure has been created. The minister shared his views on the development of cooperation in this field, the exchange of information, the expansion of direct and long-term relations between transport and logistics structures and noted that the Azerbaijani-Turkmen route is safe and favorable, and other countries can also use it. Chakiyev, in turn, noted that cooperation between the two countries is developing and the meeting will also be significant in terms of expanding ties, in particular, in the field of transport and transit traffic. Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Turkmenistan also spoke about the possibilities of cooperation. Being at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan fruitfully cooperate, representing their mutual interest in various fields: politics, economy, humanitarian and social spheres, as well as within international organizations. Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan created a powerful industrial and agricultural base, modern transport infrastructure, and now it is necessary to launch large-scale projects of industrial cooperation, interaction in the service sector and the agricultural complex. Petrochemical, gas chemical and electric power industries as well as communications and telecommunications spheres were specified among the priority spheres for cooperation. Earlier, it was reported that Turkmenistan plans to join Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway. The trade turnover between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan amounted to $164.1 million in 2017. Exports from Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan amounted to $54.1 million, imports of Turkmen goods to Azerbaijan amounted to $110 million. --- Sara Israfilbayova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Sara_999Is Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz "The Canadian summer swim trials were not well attended." Jason Walton was this week's winner. The winner's name will be put into a drawing for a free month subscription or extension. Look for a new photo Monday. By Trend The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in the first 8 months of 2018 amounted to $168.1 million, Kazakh Investment and Development Minister Zhenis Kassymbek said at a meeting with the Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov in Astana, Kazakh Investment and Development Ministry said in a statement. This is more than twice the figure for the same period last year ($81.5 million). During the meeting, the sides discussed issues of bilateral cooperation in such sectors as trade, investment, export operations, etc. Kassymbek noted the successful implementation of the agreements reached during the official visit of the Kazakh president to Azerbaijan in April 2017. Shahbazov, in turn, noted the importance of deepening relations through holding meetings of the intergovernmental commission, establishing relations between partners in various sectors and organizing meetings of business circles of the two countries. It is worth noting that exports from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan in January-August 2018 amounted to $134.6 million, which is 115.3 percent higher than in the same period of 2017 ($62.5 million). Imports to Kazakhstan from Azerbaijan in January-August 2018 amounted to $33.5 million, which is 75.7 percent more compared to the same period last year ($19.1 million). --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Narmina Mammadova Kazakh and Azerbaijani Energy Ministers Kanat Bozumbayev and Parviz Shahbazov noted an increase in trade turnover between the two countries, Kazinform reported on October 31. The trade turnover for eight months between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan increased by 2.1 times compared to last year. That is about $168 million. In 2017, an instruction was given to double the turnover in the next 2-3 years. But we assume that if such trends continue, then we will have to complete the task of doubling the turnover prematurely, before the end of the year. It is important that the Azerbaijani side, at our request, has resumed purchases of Kazakh grain. This also gave rise to a turnover, Bozumbayev said before the 15th meeting of the Kazakhstan-Azerbaijan Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation. Exports have more than doubled and imports have grown by about 75-76 percent for eight months, he stated. The Azerbaijani side supplies metal structures, ferrous metal products, pipes, and so on, which is used in the west of the country when conducting oil operations and upgrading the Tengiz field. We, in turn, supply agricultural, engineering and petroleum products. Now there is a discussion on the part of the railways about the supply of cars and locomotives, but with pre-export financing, the minister explained. Parviz Shahbazov also expressed his opinion on the results of cooperation for the current period. Over the past period of 2018 there was a serious increase in trade turnover. We have such a wide range of mutual cooperation covering a lot of areas - economics, culture, humanitarian issues, that it is very difficult to answer this question unequivocally. We have multilateral cooperation on almost all issues, he said. Today is the 15th meeting of our intergovernmental commission, where we will summarize the results of the past year. We have a very lengthy and informative draft document that we are going to sign today. And I believe that we will do even more work in continuation of our work last year within the framework of the roadmap, Parviz Shahbazov added. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are both Turkic countries and share close historical, religious and cultural ties. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan strive to strengthen partnerships and mutually beneficial relations for the benefit of their peoples and countries, to expand the potential of economic integration and development of the entire Eurasian region. Countires are interested in intensification of cooperation in many areas, particularly logistics and infrastructure today. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, being the Caspian littoral states, are a natural bridge connecting the West and the East. Thus, the new stage of the cooperation in the field of transport, energy and trade opens another door for Europe to the East. At the same time, the partnership between two states is not limited to trade issues. The accession of Kazakhstan to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline in 2006 opens up broad prospects for the states to strengthen their positions both at the regional level and in the international arena. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Sara Israfilbayova Export contracts worth $2.1 million were signed during January-September of this year. This was stated by acting president of the Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) Yusif Abdullayev at a press-conference. He added that the value of exported goods for nine months amounted to $1.9 million. Basically, the export of confectionery ($ 32,980), tomatoes ($1.67 million), hazelnuts ($241,850) and pomegranate juice ($35,000) prevailed. Exports of non-oil products increased by 13 percent year-on-year, he stressed. Earlier, Abdullayev noted that in 2019, Azerbaijan will open 10 more trading houses abroad, adding that several trading houses may open in China. He also noted that next year Azerbaijani entrepreneurs will participate in international exhibitions in China and South Korea. Abdullayev went on to say that in general, since the beginning of the year, Azerbaijani businessmen have taken part in eight international exhibitions, including Prodexpo, International Green Week 2018 and others. He further added that Azerbaijan took part in the International Green Week for the 10th time. Azerbaijan presented agricultural products at the exhibition, especially the products of companies from the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, he said. Abdullayev also spoke about the activities of AZPROMO, noting that in the first nine months of this year, the Foundation organized 180 events, 155 of which were held within the country and 25 were held abroad. AZPROMO is a joint public-private initiative, established by the Economy Ministry of Azerbaijan in 2003 with the aim to contribute to the economic development through attracting foreign investments and stimulating exports in the non-oil sector. As a unique one-stop shop body, AZPROMO assists foreign-based companies interested in investigating and utilizing investment opportunities in Azerbaijan. Meantime, it is a devoted partner of companies established in Azerbaijan looking to enter foreign markets. --- Sara Israfilbayova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Sara_999Is Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Narmina Mammadova Each summer since 2016, people gather in Sea Breeze Recreation Center, to share a universal love of music at the International Music Festival Zhara. The long-awaited summer event will take place on July 25-28 this time. "Friends, the dates of the festival Zhara are defined! On July 25, 26, 27 and 28, 2019, we are waiting for you on the coast of the Caspian Sea in Sea Breeze. Four days of hot hits, unforgettable emotions, sea, sun and star guests - in one word ZHARA!" the message on the official Instagram page of festival reads. The international music festival ZHARA-2019 will be the fourth in a row. The third festival ZHARA was held on July 26-29, 2018 at the beautiful resort of the country's capital Sea Breeze. Popular pop stars from Azerbaijan, Russia, Ukraine, Italy, U.S., Kazakhstan, Moldova and other countries took part in it. During the four days of the festival more than 250 artists performed on the stage. ZHARA is an international music festival that takes place every summer in Baku, on the coast of the Caspian Sea. Four days of concerts, painted in unique sunset colors, star parties and film premieres, as well as tens of thousands of spectators and millions of viewers. The festival venue accommodates 10,000 attendees at once. Specially for the festival, a stage is set right on the seashore, striking in its size and equipped with various video installations. Russian, Azerbaijani and foreign performers take part in the festival. The hours-long concert program is accompanied by original choreographic productions, light and video shows, powerful sound and bright decorations. Every year, more than 90 artists, showbiz stars and celebrities walk the red carpet, which is traditionally held before the beginning of the concert. The event is broadcast live on AzTV. The event organizers are Peoples Artist of Azerbaijan Emin Agalarov (EMIN), Honored Artist of Russia Grigory Leps, founder of the Russian Radio and Golden Gramophone Prize Sergey Kozhevnikov. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Laman Ismayilova Tajikistan has a very diverse culture attributed to its rich historical past. The culture of Tajikistan has developed over several thousand years. Tajiks are by right proud of their national cuisine, which boasts countless delicious recipes. It is known for dishes such as kabuli pulao, qabili palau, and samanu. The traditional dress of Tajikistan was developed as a part of the Central Asian costume. Its design differs from region to region in terms of color, embroideries, style. An event dedicated to Tajik culture was held in Baku on October 30, Trend Life reported. The event was organized by Tajikistans Embassy in Azerbaijan. Welcoming the guests, Ambassador of Tajikistan to Azerbaijan Rustam Soli stressed the diversity of rich Tajik culture and cuisine. The ambassador highlighted the role of President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon in the development of the countrys culture. National Tajik clothes were demonstrated as part of the event. The guests enjoyed delicious Tajik meals. Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, both post-Soviet republics, established diplomatic relations on May 29, 1992. The cooperation between the two countries reached a new level in 2008, when an intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation was launched. Today, cultural exchanges of national masters of classical music, symphonic orchestras of the two countries have become traditional. Creative teams of Tajikistan and Azerbaijan participate in international competitions held in both countries. In 2007, the Days of Culture of Tajikistan were successfully held in the cities of Baku and Ganja, while the Days of Azerbaijani culture were held in Dushanbe in 2008. Numerous events, including cinema weeks, international conference dedicated to the 600th anniversary of the great Tajik Persian poet, scholar and thinker Mavlono Abdurakhman Jami were held within the framework of the fruitful cooperation. --- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Laman Ismayilova A documentary film "Trip to Eternity" was screened at Tajikfilm studio in Dushanbe at the initiative of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tajikistan on October 30. The film was shot by joint work of the creative staff of Baku Media Center with the support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and the general production of Arzu Aliyeva, Trend reported. The presentation ceremony held within the framework of the events on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) was attended by well-known representatives of the local community, journalists, diplomats, teachers and students of the Tajik National University and the Russian-Tajik Slavic University, etc. Welcoming the guests, Azerbaijani Ambassador to Tajikistan Hasan Mammadzade informed about the documentary film "Trip to Eternity". The ambassador said that this film tells about dedication, difficult fate of the sons of Azerbaijan, who overcame many difficulties on their way but did not depart from their convictions. They have invaluable merits in the creation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, which is the first parliamentary republic in the Muslim East and the Turkic world. Their participation in the Paris Peace Conference in January 1919 was also touched upon. Mammadzade informed the event participants about the indelible trace left by the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in the history of the people and its great role in restoring traditions of national statehood and the birth of ideas of patriotism among the younger generation. The ambassador also noted that anyone who watches this film will have the opportunity to become familiar with another page in the history of Azerbaijans independence. The documentary was greeted by the audience with great interest. --- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Laman Ismayilova The Azerbaijani State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater will stage the ballet "Giselle" by Adolphe Adam on November 17. Leading soloists of the State Academic Bolshoi Theater of Russia, honored artists of Russia prima ballerina Anna Nikulina (Giselle) and Ruslan Skvortsov (Count Albert) will perform in the main parts of the ballet, Trend Life reported. Anna Nikulina successfully performed on the stages of many leading theaters in Europe, the U.S. and Japan. Along with the soloists of the Bolshoi Theater, the leading soloists of the ballet troupe of the Azerbaijani theater, Ayan Eyvazova (Mirta) and Timur Odushev ( Han) will also take part in the performance. The ballet will be conducted by Honored Artist of Azerbaijan, laureate of international competitions of conductors Eyyub Guliyev. "Giselle" ballet is about a peasant girl named Giselle, who dies of a broken heart after discovering her lover is betrothed to another. The Wilis, a group of supernatural women who dance men to death, summon Giselle from her grave. They target her lover for death, but Giselle's great love frees him from their grasp. The romantic ballet in two acts was first performed in 1841. The performance was an unqualified triumph. Giselle became hugely popular and was staged in Europe and the U.S. --- Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Matanat Nasibova - Trend: In the system of international relations and global politics, Azerbaijan is distinguished by its principled state strategy, which aims to support the foreign policy balance in the region and in the world. This is also recognized by the leading powers, with which Azerbaijan is building partnership relations and versatile cooperation. Such a policy of the Azerbaijani state gives positive results and, which is extremely important, shapes the correct picture of Azerbaijan in different parts of the world. The leading world powers perceive Azerbaijan as a reliable partner that is capable of long-term and mutually beneficial cooperation. This fact was also confirmed by the recent visit of US Presidents National Security Adviser John Bolton to Azerbaijan as part of his South Caucasus tour. The fact that the visit of a high-ranking representative of the US foreign policy started namely from Azerbaijan is a clear indicator of Washingtons priorities in this strategically important region. US priorities in Azerbaijan The first visit of John Bolton to Azerbaijan is primarily an indicator of bilateral interests in the economic, energy and many other areas of diverse cooperation. This includes the large-scale Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) project, joint efforts in the fight against international terrorism, as well as the security problem in the region, which is directly related to the unresolved Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The US is committed to the conflicts peaceful settlement through negotiations, and this position of the US was once again confirmed during the visit of John Bolton to Azerbaijan. This problem was discussed during Bolton's meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and was later touched upon at a briefing in Baku. The US believes that the conflicts successful resolution is important for both Azerbaijan and Armenia, and also has strategic consequences on a global scale, Bolton said, noting that the US takes its mediation role in the OSCE Minsk Group seriously. US interest in SGC As expected, John Bolton confirmed the support of the US for the Southern Gas Corridor. Bolton said the US considers this project extremely important and promising, and highly appreciates Azerbaijan's role as an alternative supplier of energy resources. The fact that the US is interested in creation of a route transporting Caspian gas to European markets is quite clear and explainable. The senior US officials, including President Donald Trump, have repeatedly stated this. This confirms the high status of the project in terms of ensuring the energy security of Europe and the desire to maintain stability in the South Caucasus region, which increases its geo-economic and geo-political significance. This is also logical, since 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas, with the prospect of bringing the volume to 31 billion cubic meters, will be transported to European markets and meet the domestic demand for gas in some countries of the Old World. Strategic Security Partnership The agenda of John Bolton's visit to Azerbaijan, in addition to cooperation in energy, included issues of combating international terrorism, human trafficking etc. This was also expected, because Azerbaijan was one of the first countries to express support for the US in the fight against international terrorism. For many years, Azerbaijan has been an active participant in various programs of international importance aimed at ensuring security in the region and the world. In this direction, cooperation between Azerbaijan and NATO, as well as Azerbaijans contribution to the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), participation in NATO operations K-4, ISAF, and Azerbaijans contribution to the Resolute Support Mission are of particular importance. Azerbaijan and Section 907 It is not surprising that the US politician also paid attention to respect for human rights and democracy, which are considered a part of US foreign policy. Attaching great importance to respect for human rights and foundations of democracy, the US is conducting an active dialogue with Azerbaijan on this issue, he said. Bolton said he sees many opportunities for cooperation and believes it is possible to learn a lot from each other. By this message, Bolton made it clear that in the issues of democracy and respect for human rights, the sides have an understanding and points of contact. The US diplomat did not ignore the issue related to Section 907, which limits US assistance to Azerbaijan. In an interview with Voice of America, Bolton stated that Section 907, restricting US assistance to Azerbaijan, is a law passed by Congress. This is not necessarily entirely the policy of the executive power, he said. He stressed that in accordance with the US constitution, it is the president who establishes foreign policy. In October 1992, the US Congress passed a law, called the Freedom Support Act, which regulates state assistance to the former Soviet republics. According to Section 907 of this law, the US government was forbidden to assist the Azerbaijani official structures. On the whole, Bolton's visit to Azerbaijan confirmed the US readiness to further develop cooperation in many areas. US interests in Georgia In neighboring Georgia, the outcome of John Boltons visit was regarded quite positively. According to the Georgian media, the sides spoke about the prospects for intensification of bilateral cooperation in the context of regional threats, as well as the reform of Georgias security sector. Reportedly, the US side reaffirmed its support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia and stressed Georgias contribution to the international mission in Afghanistan. It is not surprising as Tbilisi and Washington have been cooperating since 1992 in politics, economics, trade, and since the late 1990s in defense and security. In January 2009, a charter of strategic partnership of the two countries was issued in Washington, which provides for cooperation in security, defense, economy, trade, culture. Nevertheless, whatever the outcome of the visit of the American diplomat to Georgia, one should not ignore the fact that some well-known Georgian politicians favor Georgias pursuing a policy of non-alignment with the military-political blocs and distancing it from the United States. Yerevan once again resorts to policy of blackmail It seems that Bolton's visit to Armenia greatly impressed Yerevan. After the recent harsh statements by former US ambassador Robert Mills on Karabakh conflict (which are completely contrary to the interests of Armenia in this matter), they awaited the visit of the American diplomat in Yerevan warily and cautiously. Therefore, it is not surprising that immediately after the departure of Bolton, a curious version was voiced in Yerevan that the US is trying to pull Armenia into the American influence in order to annoy Russia. It is clear that the message from Yerevan is addressed to Russia - they say Armenia is in the zone of interests of the Americans. And this is a kind of PR stunt. But the unequivocal statements of the former ambassador Mills in Yerevan and Bolton in Baku about the US commitment to a peaceful resolution of the Karabakh conflict (in the context of supporting the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan) put Armenia to a nonplus. Yerevan is surely aware that the priority for Americans is cooperation with Azerbaijan, rather than with Armenia, and the fact that the US sees the solution to the Karabakh problem in the return of the Azerbaijani territories, occupied by Armenia, is, in essence, the failure of Armenian and the triumph of Azerbaijani politics and diplomacy. It also means that the Americans do not intend to support Armenia in maintaining the status quo, which for Yerevan is like a red rag for the bull. Therefore, it is possible that Bolton's visit to Yerevan only consolidated the vision of the American side on the Karabakh conflict's settlement. In this situation, when relations with Russia have noticeably deteriorated, Armenia traditionally tries to resort to a policy of blackmail in order to increase its importance in the region in fears that it is definitely losing. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The Azerbaijani parliament passed a bill on Psychological assistance in the first reading during the plenary meeting on Oct. 30. According to this bill, the legal basis for rendering psychological assistance in Azerbaijan, the rights and obligations of people receiving psychological assistance and psychologists, regulates relations in this field in accordance with the first paragraph of the first part of Article 94 of the Constitution. The bill was put to vote and passed. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend A delegation led by Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov has left for an official visit to Sofia, Bulgaria, Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry said in a message Oct. 30. The delegation includes representatives of the Azerbaijani parliament, the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies. As part of the visit, Mammadyarov will meet with high-ranking officials of Bulgaria, as well as the first meeting of strategic dialogue between Azerbaijan and Bulgaria will take place. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group will visit Azerbaijan on November 1, Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told reporters, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported. "They held meetings in Yerevan yesterday, and will visit Baku on November 1," he said. Minister added that he intends to meet with his Armenian counterpart before the end of 2018. 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 Online car auction will be launched in Azerbaijan for the first time, Head of Audatex Azerbaijan Zakir Kerimzade told Trend. The company will join the largest auction in Europe for the sale of vehicles Autoonline, which operates in 29 countries around the world, he noted. Kerimzade also stated that auction will be close and the site will feature cars of corporate clients or individuals who have a tax identification number. In particular, as he noted, it is planned to put on sale cars of insurance companies that have lost their value, banks, car rental services or companies that are updating their car fleet. Kerimzade went on to say that seller decides whether or not to sell the car, depending on the offer, because buyers will not be able to see the offers of other bidders. If the price is good and satisfies the sellers request, then he will contact the buyer at the end of the auction, and if the information about the car on the site, corresponds to the real state of the car, then they will make a deal. Speaking about the advantages of an online auction, Kerimzade noted that this is primarily transparency, there will be no auto dealers, and it will also save time for the seller. He believes that for people its more interesting to buy a car at a real price. If a corporate client wants to sell a car, then he doesnt have a benchmark for the price. In such situation, car ad sites come to help. Most often prices either overpriced or underpriced there. Moreover, as the head of Audatex noted, the pilot project begins with one client and for the first time 15 cars of different brands and types will be displayed. In particular, Mitsubishi, Fiat, Skoda, Toyota, etc. will be displayed on the site. Audatex is the only provider actively driving claims solutions to meet the global demand. The company focuses on optimizing customer satisfaction and on improving claims process efficiency by tailoring global best practices to local markets. As a technology innovator, consulting and shared services provider, Audatex improves performance and increases returns for clients and their trading partners. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Narmina Mammadova By 2030, there are plans to reduce the unemployment rate to 4 percent in Azerbaijan, as well as to bring the unemployment rate among women and youth to a minimum, according to the Employment Strategy of Azerbaijan for 2019-2030. The unemployment rate in Azerbaijan in 2017 was 5 percent, the unemployment among women was 5.9 percent, among young people aged 15-24 - 12.9 percent, among young people aged 15-29 - 9.2 percent. In addition, by 2030, it is planned to bring the share of the people officially working in Azerbaijan and not employed in agriculture to 80 percent. In 2017, the ratio of employees not engaged in the agriculture sphere was 48.1 percent. By 2030, there are plans to reduce the share of young people (aged 15-24) not enrolled in the labor market or without education to 15 percent, and also to achieve effective employment and decent work for all groups of the population (especially young people, women and the disabled) by 2025. In addition, until 2030, the level of employment of citizens who applied to the employment agencies will be brought to 70 percent. Also, the number of regional vocational training centers will increase to ten. According to the data of August 1 of this year, there are 5,120.8 economically active people in Azerbaijan, of which 4,869.2 were employed. As for August 1, 2018, the number of persons who received the status of unemployed by the country's employment agencies was 36,100, of which 37.1 percent were women. The average amount of unemployment benefits and unemployment insurance amounted to 273.9 manats. The "Employment Strategy of Azerbaijan for 2019-2030" notes that, according to the UN forecast, the population of Azerbaijan will continue to grow in the coming years and in 2030 will reach 10.7 million people. On the basis of projections for the age structure of the population, it has been established that in subsequent years the natural increase of the population of the country will decline relatively. This will lead to a decrease after 2025 of the proportion of persons up to 15 years. It is projected that the number of people who have reached retirement age will double by 2030 compared with 2015 (841,000 people), which may create a need for additional measures in the social security of the elderly. The document states that in 2017, the population at the age of 15-64 was more than seven million people. Projections suggest that this figure until 2025, one might say, will not change, but in the next five years will increase by 1.3 percent. It is predicted that in Azerbaijan until 2025, the tendency of a decrease in the number of people aged 15-24 will continue, but in the next five years their number will increase. Until 2025, the number of people aged 2025 will continue to decline, but in the next five years their number will also increase. Despite the fact that in 2017, the number of people aged 15-24 in Azerbaijan was about 1.5 million, in 2025 it will be less than 17 percent of the current number, in the following years this figure will increase and reach the level of 2015 year (1.6 million), the strategy says. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend On the sidelines of the official visit to Bulgaria the delegation led by Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov met with the Speaker of the National Assembly of Bulgaria Tsveta Karayancheva, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan said in a message on Oct. 31. At the meeting the sides expressed satisfaction on the development level of the relations between the two friendly countries which is based on the strategic partnership. In this regard, the importance of the Joint Statement on the strategic partnership between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Bulgaria signed in Sofia on March 4, 2015 during the official visit of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev was emphasized. The Speaker of the Bulgarian National Assembly recalled with pleasure her visit to Azerbaijan in September 2018, aimed at attending the ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Parliament. The sides highly appreciated the activities of the interparliamentary friendship groups in furthering the development of cooperation between the countries. The sides exchanged their views on the energy and transport projects implemented with the initiative and participation of Azerbaijan, as well as the involvement of the Bulgarian companies in these projects. Furthermore, the sides stressed that these projects have a huge potential from the point of view of development of economic ties between the two countries and underlined the necessity of continuation of the activities in this field. At the meeting the sides also exchanged views on other issues of mutual interest. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are discussing the possibility of building a plant for the production of liquefied natural gas in western Kazakhstan, Kazakh Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev told reporters, Interfax-Kazakhstan reported. We are considering the issue of construction of a liquefied gas production plant in Aktau for its further export to and transit through Azerbaijan. These issues are on the agenda, Bozumbayev said. In addition, he said, the possibility of creating a joint venture in Kazakhstan in the field of petroleum engineering is being discussed with Azerbaijan. "Azerbaijan has a developed petroleum engineering industry. We are now discussing the creation of such plants in Kazakhstan with the participation of Azerbaijani capital, and using their experience, skills, and technologies, in order to sell the products to oil companies in the future," the minister said. He stressed that since petroleum engineering products are imported by foreign companies in large quantities for the development of fields, the joint venture may start its activities with the assembly of oil and gas engineering equipment. Bozumbayev also said the railway administrations of the two countries are discussing the possibility of supplying railcars and locomotives to Azerbaijan on pre-export financing terms. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Acting Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is the only candidate to head the Cabinet of Ministers, Knyaz Saroyan, head of the information and public relations department of the parliament, told RIA Novosti. The deadline for nominations has expired, and there are no other candidates for the position, except for Pashinyan, said Saroyan. The voting is scheduled for Nov. 1. On Oct. 16, Pashinyan resigned for a snap parliamentary election in December. 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 Kazakhstan will additionally open 10 trade missions abroad in 2019, Kazakh media reports quoting the Deputy Minister for Investment and Development of Kazakhstan, Kairbek Uskenbayev. A trade office was opened at the Chamber of Foreign Trade of Kazakhstan as part of the provision of service measures to support exporters in Novosibirsk this year. In 2019, country plans to open in addition 10 representative offices in such countries as Russia (Kazan, Moscow, Yekaterinburg), Uzbekistan (Tashkent), UAE, Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek), Belarus (Minsk). Within the framework of the implementation of the head of states address to financial measures to support concessional lending, pre-export financing and provision of state guarantees over the next three years, 500 billion tenge ($1,36 billion) will be allocated, Uskenbayev said. "Over the next three years, Kazakhstan plans to increase the export potential of the non-primary sector of the economy by 1.5 times. Compared to 2016, in 2017, the country's export potential grew by 31 percent and amounted to $48.3 billion, of which non-primary component is $15.6 billion. This year, the positive trend continues, as the country records a growth of 28 percent for nine months of 2018. Total exports amounted to $44 billion," he added. The key markets are the EAEU countries and the EU countries. "Kazakhstan today represents more than 800 goods of the manufacturing sector in 113 countries of the world. In recent years, more than 46 new product items have been launched. According to the results of the first half of 2018, more than 50 investment projects were commissioned, including 9 export-oriented projects. In the second half of the year, it is planned to commission more than 25 export-oriented investment projects," Uskenbayev concluded. Kazakhstan became a World Trade Organization (WTO) member on November 30, 2015. The country officially entered into a Customs Union with Russia and Belarus on July 1, 2010. Since that time, Kazakhstans trade policy has been heavily influenced by regulations promulgated by the Customs Union and its governing body the Eurasian Economic Commission. On May 29, 2014, Kazakhstan and its Customs Union partners signed a treaty to create a common economic space known as the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). The EAEU is expected to further integrate their economies, and provide for the free movement of services, capital and labor within their common territory. The government of Kazakhstan has asserted that EAEU agreements comply with WTO standards. Kazakhstans government is optimistic that further integration within the EAEU will make Kazakhstan more attractive for foreign investment by expanding market access to those countries. Kazakhstan is a signatory of the Free Trade Agreement with CIS countries. In addition, as a member of the EAEU, Kazakhstan is party to the Free Trade Agreement between the EAEU and Vietnam. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend The Turkmen parliament has adopted a draft law on land melioration, the countrys ministry of agriculture said in a message, the Turkmenistan State News Agency reported. The document defines the legal, economic and organizational basis for land melioration and regulates the relations arising in this area. In the socio-economic strategy, special importance in Turkmenistan is attached to the rational use of land and water resources, increasing the manufacture of various agricultural products, environmental protection. Turkmenistan is mostly desert yet much much of its population is involved in irrigation farming, predominantly of cotton and wheat. About 48 percent of Turkmenistans labor force is in agriculture (compared to 2.5 percent in the U.S.). Some 3.7 percent of the land is classified as arable, and less than 0.2 percent is planted to permanent crops. About 17,500 square kilometers are irrigated, mainly for cotton production. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz By Trend Trade turnover and trade cooperation between Iran and Turkey are growing, Shata cited Iranian Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade Reza Rahmani as saying. Rahmani made the remarks at a meeting with Turkish ambassador to Tehran Reza Hakan Tekin at an event organized by the Turkish embassy in Tehran on the occasion of the 95th anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. He said the Islamic Republic of Iran considers comprehensive relations and cooperation with neighboring countries, Islamic countries, mainly Turkey, as one of the main foreign policy strategies. Rahmani added that the Iranian Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade seeks to create favorable conditions within a win-win strategy for development of cooperation and relations between Iranian and Turkish businessmen as part of a joint Iran-Turkey commission. The minister stressed that Iran does not see any restriction to development of relations with Turkey. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz King Mohammed VI said Morocco is looking forward to further foster ties with Brazil after the election of Jair Bolsonaro as new President. in a congratulatory message to the new President, the King highlighted the friendly ties of mutual esteem binding Morocco and Brazil, and underscored willingness to work together with Bolsonaro to reinforce the distinguished ties between the two countries. The sovereign also expressed resolve to promote coordination between Morocco and Brazil at the regional and international levels to the best interest of the two friendly peoples. Morocco was the first African country to recognize Brazils independence from Portugal in 1822. The north African kingdom was also the first African country with which Brazil has established diplomatic relations. In 1884, Brazil had already opened a consulate in Tangier, then an international centre of commerce. In 1906, Brazils Plenipotentiary Minister in Lisbon presented his credentials to Sultan Moulay Abdelaziz of Morocco. Full diplomatic relations were established when Brazil appointed an ambassador in Rabat in 1962. Five years later, in 1967, Morocco opened an embassy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazils former capital. The two countries signed in 1999 a Memorandum of Understanding on political consultations between their respective Ministries of Foreign Affairs. These relations received a boost following the visit of King Mohammed VI to Brazil in 2004, as part of a tour in Latin America. For Morocco, Brazil is relatively more important as a market for national exports, representing, in 2014, 4.6% of total exports and thus, placing itself as the third most important destination for Moroccan exports, after France and Spain. Morocco provides fertilizers, while Brazilian exports to Morocco concentrate mainly on agricultural products. Photo: 2038 In the year 2038, computers wont matter any more, Paul Ford says. Thats because theyll be everywhere small and cheap embedded in everything. And all the little rituals I do to get through my day will be unnecessary like swiping a MetroCard or buzzing into the office. I might still use a desktop computer, but mostly Ill ask my earbuds to play music, and those earbuds will also serve as a wallet. Or maybe I like carrying a wallet, thats fine, too itll have a little screen on it. My shoes will talk to my earbuds and the song will speed up if I walk faster. Ill be just a little walking cloud platform with lots of hard drive space, all talking to the internet. In the latest episode of 2038, Intelligencers podcast about the future, the author of What Is Code? talks with Max Read and David Wallace-Wells about the true meaning of the internet of things when everything is a computer, and everything is connected, everything is also being surveilled, constantly. Including you. How are we going be charging all of these computers? This is a wonderful question, because I think that actually the future is battery technology. I want to take my children aside and say, get into batteries! Its the plastics of 2018. This is why Elon Musk is actually interesting, when hes not losing his mind on Twitter. I really do think that this is a killer problem and nobody has solved it. As things get smaller and smaller, it gets more and more ridiculous to have these giant adapters that you have to plug into. So who knows? Maybe theyll be like a little basket and itll be like the smart-charging basket. Or nano drones come and plug in your ears for five minutes during the course of the day because you signal to them the batteries were low. But Im charging basically everything on my body at this point, right? Youre not going to have much choice. Your sweaters going to be smart. Your glasses are going to be smart. Your suppository will be need to talk to your buds. All that needs juice. Maybe therell be some biotech thing going on maybe that solves Americas obesity problem. Thatd be cool. If we could figure out a way to make fatties like me into battery sources, and then I could just hook myself up to a server, I could be the future of cloud platforms. If were already wearing sweaters and sneakers and jeans that are computers, were getting closer to putting them under our skin. You can see it happening with Apple already. Theyre super into your heartbeat. Every part of you that throbs, Apple would like to pay attention to. But if literally everything about your life down to your heartbeat is being sucked up by some corporate entity or government entity I mean, it does open a huge set of questions about surveillance and what gets watched and how that gets processed. I know. But my wife and I track each other now on Google maps, because its so convenient! We are a surveillance. Now the internet is everywhere, but our devices are kind of passports into it so we can kind of elect to be participating in the surveillance state. If the internet is everywhere and literally wired into you, theres no opting in and no opting out. Listen, I have nothing but bad news on this one. Machine learning is getting really smart. We all have faces. Those two facts alone are pretty bad. Theres going to be screens everywhere. Theyre going to be incredibly cheap. Theyre going to be connected to the internet and theres going to be live footage of everybodys face. And the minute one system can correlate one face to a token in a database, that face is kind of on record forever. Do you think therell be a hacker culture in some way? There already is. People have hairstyles and makeup that will block facial recognition. But the average human is already fully opted in. Its going to be total surveillance at all times. To hear more about a future of Apple razors that are so much better, shave so much cleaner, and last so much longer than those Android ones; about whether Facebook and Google can survive this internet of things; about the limits of speech recognition and the benefits of white-paper-to-write-on technology click above to listen to the episode in full. You can subscribe for free wherever you get podcasts. Bakersfield, CA (93308) Today Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low 48F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low 48F. Winds light and variable. Former director of mad science at Alphabets X research laboratory Richard DeVaul, who resigned from the company yesterday in the wake of an expose about sexual harassment in the New York Times. Photo: Alphabet Alphabet executive Richard DeVaul, who was accused of sexually harassing a female job applicant in a New York Times expose, has resigned from Alphabet, Googles holding company. DeVaul, the director of mad science at Alphabets moonshot research laboratory X, was one of three top Alphabet executives named in a Times report on Alphabets culture of sexual harassment. Hardware engineer Star Simpson told the Times that in 2013, she had interviewed for a position at Google in which she would have reported directly to DeVaul. During the interview, DeVaul told Simpson that he and his wife were polyamorous, and invited her to Burning Man. Simpson says, DeVaul then asked her to take her shirt off and allow him to give her a back rub. She refused, eventually allowing him to give her a neck rub. She was subsequently not offered the position. The news of DeVauls resignation came just one day before a planned Womens Walk, where hundreds of Google employees around the globe planned to walk out on the job in anger over the revelations in the Times article. DeVaul will leave with no exit package a marked difference from the treatment received by Android inventor Andy Rubin, who was accused of coercing an employee to perform oral sex on him in a hotel room while employed by Google. Rubin was quietly forced out of the company in 2014 when his behavior came to light internally, but was still given a $90 million severance and publicly praised by Googles co-founder Larry Page upon his departure. (Rubin has disputed some, but not all, of the allegations in the the Times article.) DeVauls resignation follows the familiar, depressing pattern that has held in many industries in the wake of the #MeToo movement: men are ousted from their positions not because their predatory behavior was discovered, but because it became public, and therefore an open liability. DeVauls behavior at Burning Man, after all, was known to Google HR, which told Simpson that her allegations were more likely than not true, and that action had been taken. What action the HR rep was referring to remains unclear. As CEO, its been personally important to me that we take a much harder line on inappropriate behavior, wrote Google CEO Sundar Pichai in an internal memo. We have taken many steps to do so, and know our work is still not done. Firing employees as soon as credible allegations of sexual harassment come to light and not just in the pages of the New York Times and after your company faces a massive walkout would be a good next step. An aerial view of Amazon rainforest deforestation, with trees being burned for farm management. Photo: Ricardo Funari/Brazil Photos/LightRocket via Getty Images How much damage can one person do to the planet? For that matter, how much can one do to help save it? Unless that person is Xi Jinping the autocrat-for-life in charge of the worlds most populous country and its rapidly industrializing, state-capitalist economy the answer is, usually, not very much. Even Donald Trumps contribution to climate catastrophe is relatively modest: Hes pulled the United States out of the Paris accords and slashed environmental regulations, but, thanks to forces beyond his control, American emissions are nevertheless down since hes been in office (making the U.S., which accounts for only fourteen percent of global emissions, the only major industrialized nation whose contributions to climate change are actually falling). The problem of global warming is just so big, and so diffuse, that the impact of any single actor, no matter how powerful, is relatively small. This is why global cooperation is so important, and why coordination is so difficult. But Brazils newly elected president just might test the proposition that no individual matters all that much to the climate. Often called the Trump of the Tropics, the cartoonish quasi-fascist Jair Bolsonaro is almost certain to be worse on global warming than Trump himself. So bad, in fact, that he is already a horrifying argument for a Great Man Theory of climate change. In between the elections first round and the runoff, Bolsonaro who has called having a daughter a weakness, told another legislator he wouldnt rape her because she was not worthy of it, said hed rather have his children be drug addicts than gay, and endorsed torture actually retreated from his promise to withdraw his country from the Paris accords. The international treaty isnt actually all that important to him; he only cares about what he can do domestically. Bolsonaro wants to do as hed like in the Amazon, 60 percent of which sits within Brazilian borders. There, he plans to open the rainforest to agricultural development, essentially putting a match to an entire rainforest of stored carbon by inviting rapid deforestation the industrial-scale felling of trees, which, in dying and decomposing, will release into the atmosphere all the CO2 they have stored inside them. How bad would that be? For starters, the plan to open up the Amazon would mean Brazil has absolutely no chance of meeting its Paris commitments. A group of Brazilian scientists has estimated that between 2021 and 2030, Bolsonaros deforestation would release the equivalent of 13.12 gigatons of carbon. Last year, the United States emitted about five gigatons. This means that this one policy would have between two and three times the annual carbon impact of the entire American economy, with all of its airplanes and automobiles and coal plants. The worlds worst emitter, by far, is China; the country was responsible for 9.1 gigatons of emissions in 2017. This means Bolsonaros policy is the equivalent of adding, if just for a year, a whole second China to the planets fossil-fuel problem and, on top of that, a whole second United States. This is not a climate that can tolerate another China; according to the U.N.s recent IPCC report, we may not even be able to tolerate the one we have for 12 more years. Bolsanaros single policy would fully eat up 20 percent of a stable climates total remaining carbon budget. As Emily Atkin put it at The New Republic, The livability of the entire planet is at stake. But the problem is bigger than that extra carbon, believe it or not. The Amazon, alone, produces 20 percent of the worlds oxygen. A smaller, degraded rainforest wont threaten our breathing air there is just way too much oxygen around for us to ever worry about that. But the figure does signal just how prolific the Amazon is as a photosynthesizing force, which is critical because it produces all that oxygen out of carbon, which it sucks out of the air. And not just a little: The trees of the Amazon take in a quarter of all the carbon absorbed by the planets land each year. This is what makes it what scientists call a carbon sink, taking in large stores of CO2 that would otherwise be warming the planet even more drastically. This is the forever problem of deforestation. Every tree cut in Bolsonaros denuded Amazon would release its carbon in a one-time burst, but the rainforest left behind would be smaller, which means it would be less capable of absorbing carbon. But the effect doesnt just zero out; ultimately, it reverses. For years, scientists have worried that the worlds forests would flip from carbon sinks to carbon sources become net producers of carbon rather than net absorbers. In fact, this is one of the feedback loops they most worry about: the planets not just losing one of its largest natural resources in mitigating the extreme possibilities of global warming, but having that resource turn against it, almost like a climate traitor, suddenly working on behalf of the most dire scenarios. The process is already quite far along, even before Bolsonaros stepping in. A major 2015 study showed that the rainforest was absorbing fully a third less carbon than it had three decades earlier. The deforestation already occurring is making the problem worse, as are droughts producing more than a quarter gigaton of carbon each year and threatening to turn the rainforest as a whole from a shrinking sink into a reliable source of carbon. More droughts in the rainforest also produce more wildfires, which delivered more than a gigaton of carbon between 2003 and 2015. Indeed, overall, the worlds tropical forests are already carbon sources, on net, responsible for almost half a gigaton of carbon each year. One paper from a few years ago suggested that, while many species in the Amazon have already gone extinct thanks to deforestation, 80 to 90 percent of extinctions are yet to come. These declines are, unfortunately, right in line with whats happening everywhere in the world in what is now indisputably underway: a mass extinction by human hands. A new study this week from the World Wildlife Federation found that, globally, wildlife populations have declined by 60 percent since just 1970, at rates 1,000 times faster than at any previous point in planetary history a discovery the WWF director general Marco Lambertini called mind-blowing. The UK chief executive put the news in somewhat more eye-opening perspective: We are the first generation to know we are destroying our planet and the last one that can do anything about it. Of course, the flip side of a Great Man Theory of climate villainy is that an individual might come forward with the opposite impulses. Bolsonaros predecessors, after all, directed a dramatic slowdown of deforestation cutting Brazils carbon emissions from land use by 63 percent from 2005 to 2012 but its unlikely that a similar climate-friendly approach to the rainforest will return to Brazil anytime soon. (Although Bolsonaros plans could be stalled, or at least slowed, by domestic politics.) At the moment, Chinas President Xi is the likeliest individual climate hero on the world stage, capable of dramatically reducing global emissions all on his own. In fact, though Xis motives are mixed and not entirely clear, he has made major commitments to green energy in recent years, and accelerated those commitments after Trumps election (when, presumably, he saw an opportunity to seize the mantle of World Climate Leader). Its not hard to dream of an even stronger two-person front, with Xi working in partnership with a future president Warren, or Harris, or Booker, one area of cooperation in a superpower relationship that seems otherwise destined for further conflict. But there is also the possibility of a rogue billionaire trying to save the world on his or her own, possibly wreaking environmental havoc along the way. As Dave Levitan wrote a few weeks ago, in the immediate aftermath of the IPCCs doomsday report, greening the economy may require a World War II-esque mobilization and the bill for carbon-capture technology may run into the many trillions of dollars, but solar geoengineering the process of suspending some dust in the atmosphere to reflect back the sun and cool the planet is absurdly cheap. The cost, in total, would be a few billion dollars a year. Nobodys yet sent any planes loaded with sulfur up into the atmosphere to seed the sky, but just a few years ago the American businessman Russ George defied several United Nations moratoria and unilaterally dumped 100 tons of iron sulphate into the Pacific ocean, in a different kind of geoengineering experiment, meant to spawn a massive bloom of carbon-sucking plankton in the ocean. By the time he was caught, the bloom had grown to several thousand square miles. A 2017 article in Nature concluded scientists have seen no evidence that the experiment worked. The Beaumont Housing Authority on Tuesday named a new executive director whose priorities will include a growing housing shortage a year after Tropical Storm Harvey flooded countless houses and left some families homeless. Allison Landrum, 42, now the agencys communications and grant development director, has brought in more than $70 million dollars in funding to build affordable housing in Beaumont. She begins her new post Dec. 3. Landrum said shes gearing up to tackle the agencys growing wait list for housing. Were having to direct families outside of Southeast Texas in order to find housing, she said. Of course, we would like to keep the population here. There needs to be more affordable living options, Landrum said, as potential apartments or homes are either damaged or have been eaten up by people who were displaced by Harvey. In October 2017, roughly 3,200 Southeast Texans sat on a waiting list for public housing. By Tuesday afternoon, that number had more than doubled to about 7,120, Landrum said. Applications are still open. Some families on the list are living with family while others are paying rents they cant afford and are possibly facing eviction, Landrum said. The Dayton native was praised by Robert L. Reyna, the agencys current leader who is retiring in December. Reyna and Landrum both left the Houston Housing Authority in 2003 to join the Beaumont agency at a time of turmoil. It was then embroiled in a tax abuse scandal that sent city officials, including a mayor and city councilman, to jail. Ms. Landrum played a vital role in repairing the reputation of the agency which was under intense negative scrutiny, Reyna said. She worked diligently in restoring relationships not just with the community, but with partners, vendors and local, state and federal governmental officials. Doug Landry, chairman of the mayor-appointed Board of Commissioners, said the group could not be more pleased with our selection. Landry said the agency interviewed two internal candidates and that Landrum was familiar with everything the Beaumont Housing Authoritys been doing for 15 years. Applications for Landrums current role will open this week. Landrum said that while the agency is in much better condition than when Reyna arrived, theres always progress to be made. We have a lot of exciting things on the horizon, she said. The Beaumont Housing Authority is working with local builder DRC Homes to construct 87 single family-homes near Concord Road and Martin Luther King Parkway. The homes, which start at $127,000, feature three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a two-car garage. The agency has also applied for Hurricane Harvey recovery funds to build two properties along Major Drive, one near Phelan Boulevard and another off Texas 105. Landrum said they are waiting on funding from the General Land Office, although housing authorities across the Harvey-hit region are competing for a share of the money. Landrum said the projects will stay on officials radar regardless of whether the funding comes through as the authority looks to accommodate the areas aging baby boom population. A number of residents on the waiting list are looking for affordable senior housing, she said. Still, she said, finding homes for those displaced by Harvey remains a huge challenge. Approximately 300 families have been issued Section 8 vouchers, allowing the authority to pay a portion of the familys rent, Landrum said. The problem is no homes are available. When Landrum graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University in 1998 with a bachelors degree in communications, she said she had no idea she would end up merging her passions for social work and journalism through her post at the housing authority. It was truly not a job for me, she said of her 20-year career thus far. Its a vocation, something I felt I was led to do. Reyna was a personal and professional mentor, she said. When Landrum was diagnosed with stage 2 uterine cancer in 2013, she said, Reyna and the agency staff rallied around her and allowed her to work from home as she underwent surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. It makes me doubly committed to making sure that his legacy lives on, Landrum said. She described the housing authority as a place where folks are helped in, up and out. Its hard to get through a crisis without your basic needs taken care of your four walls and roof, she said. We provide that stability to help you get through. phoebe.suy@beaumontenterprise.com twitter.com/PhoebeSuy A flip in either or both chambers of Congress with next week's midterm elections may reverberate into pig farms and soybean fields. At issue in the Nov. 6 vote is President Donald Trump's trade war with China as well as domestic entitlement programs. The world's second-largest economy slapped tariffs on U.S. agricultural products, including pork and soybeans. That prompted Trump to provide $12 billion in assistance to farmers. Domestically, farm programs began to expire Sept. 30 and Congress hasn't passed a new bill. Trump and the Republican-led House of Representatives have advocated for new work requirements for food-stamp recipients. A bill passed in that chamber in June without any Democratic votes. The Senate version, also passed in June, doesn't include the work rules. The farm legislation is a traditional vehicle for modifying the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps. A change in either or both chambers, or a slimmer majority, may mean more scrutiny toward Trump's handling of agricultural matters like the farm bill and the trade war, Jonathan Coppess, director of the Gardner Agriculture Policy Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said by telephone. "You can make an argument that" a Democrat-controlled House or Senate would be "more willing to stand up to the president," Coppess said. "A big question would be trade. Does a Congress less aligned with the president exert more checks and balances?" Trump has invoked national security as a rationale for tariffs and a change in Congress may increase scrutiny of the White House, he said. Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said on a call with reporters, that the Senate can't get the votes to pass a farm bill that has the Trump-endorsed tighter work requirements. A Democrat-led House wouldn't support the changes, either, and that could mean the 2014 version of the bill is extended into 2019. Speaking at an Oct. 24 event in Champaign, Illinois, with Rep. Rodney Davis, an Illinois Republican, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said there's a lot on the line for farmers with the upcoming election. Perdue pointed to earlier remarks Davis made in a forum with farmers about reducing food stamp rolls with job training. The secretary said tighter requirements would help make people less dependent on government support. "The farm bill is critical and we don't know what will happen," Perdue said. "We're going to be for production agriculture regardless." Leon Corzine, a fifth-generation farmer from Assumption, Illinois, who raises corn, soybeans and Angus cows with his son, says the farm bill appears "in limbo" and that it's weighing on his operational decisions for 2019. The bill affects everything from crop risk management, funding for conservation programs and market research, Corzine said. It's "darn near become a pawn in the political process and that's unfortunate," Corzine said. "That's unfair" to farmers. --Bloomberg's Shruti Date Singh contributed. Pagels with her first son, Mark. Photo: Courtesy of Elaine Pagels Elaine Pagels has made a career out of rewriting Christian history. Her first book, the 1979 best seller The Gnostic Gospels, reappraised Christian documents long considered heretical. In the books that followed, she took on the development of Satan, the apocalypse, and original sin, writing with academic rigor for a broad audience. Most of those books were informed by cataclysms in her personal life, as she outlines in her new memoir, Why Religion? In 1987, her 6-year-old son, Mark, died after a prolonged illness; the following year, her husband, the famous physicist Heinz Pagels, died after falling from a mountain in Colorado. Why Religion? evokes the depth of her grief, but it also contains a twist: The scholar is also a believer of sorts. In an increasingly pluralistic world, with the Catholic Church marred by scandals and Evangelicals compromising their values to support Trump, Pagels represents a religious contingent less doctrinaire and more self-guided thats likely to keep growing. We met recently at her office at Princeton University, where shes taught since 1982, to discuss how shes tried to shore up the fragments of a religious life. Youve always written about the social history of texts, but now youre doing that kind of excavation work on your own personal history. One friend whos a college professor said to me, If you write this, theyll think youre not a scholar anymore. That was a little unsettling, coming from someone I respect. But I can show you my CV. If people dont think Im a scholar, thats not my problem. Did it make you think about your work in a different way? No I was thinking about this all along. I just didnt know Id ever talk about it. The death of a child is one of the things that many people who have experienced it dont talk about. People would more easily talk about their sex lives. But it feels liberating to open about something that was such a hidden part of ones own experience. The title has two meanings, right? Youre asking both, Why does religion persist? and also, Why participate in religion? My late husband asked that question when we first met. He thought it was crazy that I was studying this. And he came to really enjoy the work and I came to really enjoy his work. I loved to hear about elementary particle physics. Its all analogies black holes and string and glue. They think in images, and I do, too. I think imagining is what religious tradition is. Its like poetry. A lot of it is poetry. But also, at first, as I wrote this, I was thinking, What hit me when I went through that evangelical thing as a teenager? Your parents werent religious. Well, sometimes my mother took me to a Methodist church. It was basically boring. And then my best friend going to her Catholic church was really scary. That was about it. I was much more engaged with poetry and music and dance. But then you ended up converting at one of Billy Grahams events not a service rich with poetry. It was about living in a universe where theres God and theres Satan, and youre part of this huge drama. I think that was very appealing in the early Christian movement, too. For me, it lasted for about a year and a half. When you first encountered the secret gospels in grad school, what did you find so appealing about them? I was told they were heresy, and that made them very attractive. The word heresy in Greek means choice. Also, no one had ever seen these books. So I opened up the Gospel of Thomas, and it said, If you bring forward what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. I thought, Hey, you dont have to believe that it just happens to be true. Its about creativity, or any kind of emotional or intellectual suppression. If more people were to read them, how do you think it would change their understanding of Christianity? What is known as Christianity today is a huge spectrum, from Russian Orthodox to Pentecostals, or Christian Scientists, or Quakers, or whoever. But its still a stream focused upon four particular views of Jesus and his message. Now we know it was once a much wider stream. Photo: Ecco Could you talk about the experience you had when your son was dying? I had always been brought up to think that when people die, as Steve Jobs once put it, Its lights out. I was habituated to thinking about it in a scientific way. The experience of my sons death was very different: I had a sense of other things happening that were mysterious, and I still dont know what to make of them. I wouldnt have even said it was his soul leaving the body, but there was like, an energy or something. I sensed that somehow he was glad to be out of the body. It had been such a stress for him to stay in a body that was so challenged. Things like that cant be scientifically verified, but they happen. At one time I would have thought that its projection. And then when my husband died, the following year, what came into my head was totally alien to what I was feeling then: It was him saying, This is fine with me. It was not my unconscious speaking. It didnt feel like it. It wasnt reassuring. It was not fine with me; its not fine with me now. But thats what came. I questioned whether to write about that stuff, because people may think Im going off the deep end. But why not? People have these experiences all the time. Was there a connection between your sons death and the book you wrote afterward, about original sin? I had read an article by some psychologist who said that whenever something is wrong with a child, the mother blames herself. The father does not. My husband was devastated, but he didnt feel guilty. I did. So I had to realize that guilt is a kind of facade in such a situation for the worst thing the sense that youre completely helpless about what matters to you more than your life. So then, I was looking at how the culture teaches that human beings get sick and die because we sinned. Its your fault. Its my fault. Were all guilty. This is a very peculiar point of view, but it is the way people have coped since the story of Adam and Eve. Then I was reading an opponent of Saint Augustine, who created original sin. This opponent said, Illness and death are just part of nature. Theyre not punishments at all and thats what I believe. My child had some illness. It happens all the time; its not about us. So these old stories became a kind of yoga, which let me play them out, explore them, turn them around, struggle with them, and come to different insights. How has your own spiritual life changed over the years? I didnt go to any church for a long time, and then I did start to go when my son was diagnosed. I was running around Central Park and I was very cold, so I went into this church to get warm. It was a big Episcopal church at Central Park West and 92nd Street. I was really moved by this incredible music. Theres something about engaging the spiritual dimension in life that, for me, is essential. I dont think it is for everybody. I mean, I have a close friend who does this in her work in theater. My husband was dealing with his way of understanding through physics and the natural world. But for me, theres something very powerful about that kind of music. Its not the only kind. I like the Grateful Dead. The memoir describes a beautiful friendship you developed with some Trappist monks Catholics living in Colorado. Yes, my husband and I were invited to go up to their monastery in Colorado, where we used to stay in the summers. They taught me how to meditate. I started going pretty much every week to a Thursday night Eucharist. They knew I was a heretic and a Protestant, but they always included me. Its a very powerful place. Theres an interesting contrast between their approach and yours. Yours is all about personal choice what your friend called Cafeteria Christianity. The monks are deeply grounded in one tradition. Do you see any advantage in their approach? I suppose if youre deeply grounded in it. You see this with Christian monks or Buddhist monks. In their presence, you feel it. Not for you? Not my style. Monasticism doesnt appeal. What do you believe? One thing I believe is that we need to have hope. I dont know what happens when we die, but I will hope that Ill see those people again. Do I think so? I kind of dont think so. But this is about how we live without being overwhelmed by depression. What Im talking about is not on the level of thought as much as it is about intuition. I enjoy some of the pictures of it, like Blakes paintings. There are wonderful spirituals that sing about it. Or the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. One of my teachers used to say, The minute after I read, The world is charged with the grandeur of God, Im in it for at least a minute. Its amazing that we go to churches and people bury people and say, I am the resurrection and the life. Whosoever believeth in me will never die. Its so counter to whats right there. But we do it. Do you think that kind of religious expression is headed toward extinction? Well, I was always told, Yes, of course, it will die out as soon as everybody gets smart enough to realize about science. And now I say, This is much deeper than that. I dont think church attendance is much of an index. Thats why, at the end of the book, I wrote about this text which speaks of Jesus as the healer of hearts. People have as much need of healing of the heart as we ever have. A campaign mailer sent out by a Republican candidate for a state Senate seat in Connecticut is being widely denounced for using anti-Semitic tropes in an illustration of his Democratic challenger, who is Jewish. The advertisement, which was sent out by Republican Ed Charamut's campaign, depicts his challenger, Democratic state Rep. Matthew Lesser, holding a wad of cash in front of him, with a crazed look in his eyes. The mailer drew wide outrage after its existence was reported on Tuesday, as concern about rising anti-Semitism runs high in the wake of the massacre of 11 Jewish congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue. The embrace of racially charged policies and rhetoric by Republicans, from President Donald Trump to candidates across the country, has emboldened white-supremacist groups, and, critics say, raised questions about the party's intent. Lesser told The Washington Post that he was incredulous when he first heard of the issue from some people in the district, which includes Middletown. "I did not believe them, because we live in America," he said. "I assumed it was some sort of mistake or misunderstanding." He said that his likeness had been photoshopped significantly in the mailer, raising further questions about his opponent's aim. In addition to the hands grabbing $100 bills that were added to the picture, Lesser's face has been altered with a smile and a crooked look in his eyes, he said. The ad was widely condemned by a broad range of commentators on Tuesday. "This is not a problem of individual monsters," wrote New America fellow Jill Filipovic. "It is a concerted effort to fan the flames of anti-semitism and stir up fear and hatred." Jewish groups also found the ad offensive. "We do know, though, the feelings that the flier is evoking - the juxtaposition of a Jewish candidate for office and money in this manner - suggests an age-old anti-Semitic trope," Steve Ginsburg, of the Anti-Defamation League's Connecticut office, told the Hartford Courant. "We can't and don't know the [motive] of the producer of the flier, but we do know its impact, and they should clarify what they meant." Stuart S. Miller, the academic director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut, told the newspaper that the ad was "reprehensible, deeply offensive and inexcusable." "I cannot believe that it is an innocent allusion to a supposedly money-spending Democrat," he said. "It just leaves me shaking my head as to the lengths some people will go to get elected or to stay in office, particularly in the present climate." Lesser said he was shocked by the ad the first time he saw it. "It uses imagery that's been used to vilify the Jewish people for hundreds of years, and grossly caricatured my face and has me clutching a pile of money," he said. "That's as explicitly anti-Semitic as anything can be." Charamut, 60, a Republican member of a local town council, defended his use of the image on Tuesday, claiming that it was intended to be a comment on tax policy. "Those wishing to portray a graphic illustration as something hateful are completely wrong," he said in a statement that continued to attack Lesser. "I reject hate speech in all its forms. The mailer draws a stark contrast between myself and Matt Lesser. Do you want to protect your wallets, or do you want to make Matt Lesser your new state Senator?" So did the state Republican Party when first contacted about it. "When I look at that, I don't see Jewish," J.R. Romano, the state party chairman, told the Hartford Courant. "The Democrats have false outrage all the time." But both changed their tone after media attention and outrage about the ad continued to grow on Wednesday. Charamut's campaign issued an apology to Lesser, the Jewish community and anyone else offended by the mailer, saying in a statement that the mailer was not intended to be anything more than a political statement about Lesser. "However, it is clear now that the imagery could be interpreted as anti-Semitic, and for that we deeply apologize as hate speech of any kind does not belong in our society and especially not in our politics," the statement said. "Up until election day we will continue to focus on the issues and it is our sincere hope that people will understand that we in no way ever intended for the mailer to be about Mr. Lesser's religious background." Romano too acknowledged the mailer's anti-Semitic undertones and said he would planned to meet with the ADL, in a statement sent to The Post. "I had the opportunity to discuss some of the context of the recent mailer," the statement said. "In a race with a Jewish candidate, this image should be recognized as offensive, raising classic anti-Semitic tropes. It cannot be justified." He also said that the party had not approved the ad. Republican officials and candidates around the country have raised eyebrows during the run-up to next week's midterm elections by using rhetoric and advertisements that critics have said play to racial prejudices. In New York, Republicans have continually assailed a Democratic congressional hopeful's decade-old rap career, despite his work as an attorney and a Rhodes Scholar. In Georgia, Republican Brian Kemp used an ad with a tap dancer to show his opponent in the governor's race, black Democrat Stacey Abrams, "dancing around the truth," that was also criticized as having a racist undertone. In Florida, a Republican official claimed that if black Democrat Andrew Gillum won the governor's race, "his people" would be getting paid back for slavery. Racist robo-calls have circulated in that race, as well. In California, Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, who was recently indicted on charges that he and his wife used more than $250,000 in campaign funds for personal expenses such as family vacations, has falsely accused his opponent, an American of Palestinian and Mexican descent, of trying to "infiltrate" the government and trying to "hide" family ties to terrorism. Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy recently accused three Democratic donors who are Jewish - Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer and George Soros - of trying to buy the midterm elections, just a day after Soros, a frequent target of anti-Semites and the far right, received a pipe bomb in the mail. In Iowa, Rep. Steve King, R, routinely makes the news for stunts such as retweeting a Nazi sympathizer and displaying a Confederate flag on his desk. Lesser said the campaign for the state Senate seat had been hard-fought but had yet to turn truly nasty and personal before the mailer, saying he had higher hopes for local election contests despite the bitter national climate. "It's in many ways very sad," he said. "Particularity at a moment in the nation that is so clearly fraught, I think you're doing your constituents a disservice. We know the divisiveness that the president is setting at the national level, but it's on those of us in the trenches working in state and local government to really make our society work." --- The Washington Post's Maura Judkis contributed to this report. ISTANBUL - Turkey's top prosecutor on Wednesday laid out the most detailed description yet of how the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed, saying Saudi agents strangled him to death almost immediately after he after entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and then dismembered him. But the new information did not address the question that has bedeviled investigators and been the subject of furious speculation: What happened to Khashoggi's remains? A senior Turkish official said in an interview that Turkish authorities are pursuing a theory that Khashoggi's dismembered body had been destroyed in acid on the grounds of the Saudi Consulate or at the nearby residence of the Saudi consul general. Biological evidence discovered in the consulate garden supports the theory that Khashoggi's body was disposed of near to where he was killed and dismembered, the official said. "Khashoggi's body was not in need of burying," said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive investigation. While Saudi officials now acknowledge that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate on Oct. 2, all they have said about his body is that the assailants gave it to a "local collaborator" for disposal. The senior Turkish official said Turkish investigators do not believe such a figure exists. A second senior Turkish official said that Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor, Saud al-Mojeb, who completed a three-day visit to Istanbul on Wednesday, did not provide the location of Khashoggi's body or identify any "local collaborator." Since Mojeb arrived in Turkey on Monday, "Saudi officials seemed primarily interested in finding out what evidence the Turkish authorities had against the perpetrators," the Turkish official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private law enforcement contacts. "We did not get the impression that they were keen on genuinely cooperating with the investigation." Turkish prosecutor Irfan Fidan issued his public description of the killing shortly after Mojeb left Istanbul, amid mounting Turkish complaints about a lack of Saudi cooperation. Fidan said Khashoggi was "strangled as soon as he entered the consulate" in line with "premeditated plans." The body, "after being strangled, was subsequently destroyed by being dismembered, once again confirming the planning of the murder," Fidan said. The Turkish statement used the word "bogulmak," which can also mean suffocation. Turkish officials say members of a 15-man hit team dispatched from Saudi Arabia killed Khashoggi inside the consulate before flying out of Turkey later the same day. The Turkish government says it has what it describes as an audio recording of what transpired inside the mission. Although Turkish officials have played the audio for CIA officials, including Director Gina Haspel, Turkish officials have not released the audio to the public. Saudi Arabia has provided shifting explanations about what happened to Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen, contributing columnist to The Washington Post and critic of the Saudi leadership, including the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. For more than two weeks, Saudi authorities repeatedly denied any knowledge of Khashoggi's whereabouts, then abruptly changed their account, blaming the killing on agents acting outside the Saudi government's authority. Turkish investigators initially focused their search for Khashoggi's body in two wooded areas outside Istanbul, guided in part by surveillance footage that Turkish authorities said showed Saudi diplomatic vehicles apparently scouting Belgrad Forest the night before the journalist was killed. Last week, investigators suspended the search, focusing instead on the consulate's grounds and the consul general's residence. The search focused in particular on a well on consular property, where the assailants could have disposed of Khashoggi's dissolved remains, the first senior Turkish official said. Investigators last week also inspected the sewer system near the consulate, according to Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency. Turkish officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have repeatedly complained that Saudi Arabia is hampering the investigation by refusing to provide critical pieces of information, including the location of Khashoggi's body. Turkey has also requested the extradition of 18 suspects who the Saudi government says have been arrested in the case. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said the suspects will be tried in domestic courts. On Wednesday, a Saudi official said the kingdom had not officially concluded that Khashoggi's death was premeditated. "The public prosecutor has acknowledged seeing that information from the Turkish side. We have not said if that is true or not true. We are waiting for the results of the investigation," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak to the media. The journalist's death and the inconsistent Saudi explanation of his killing have unleashed a storm of international criticism, placing President Trump in a difficult situation. In addition to being a major purchaser of American weapons, Saudi Arabia sits at the heart of the administration's strategy in the Middle East, in particular U.S. efforts to counter what Washington says are Iran's expansionist policies. Trump has said he is "not satisfied" with the Saudi explanations of Khashoggi's death. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has warned that the crisis could affect regional stability. But there are few indications that Khashoggi's death will fundamentally alter the relationship between the two nations. On Wednesday, a group of Republican senators called on Trump to suspend negotiations for a U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear agreement. They cited Khashoggi's death, as well as Riyadh's policies toward Lebanon and Yemen, as cause for "serious concerns about the transparency, accountability and judgment of current decision-makers." Although the Turkish announcement Wednesday appeared to partly illuminate what had happened to Khashoggi, several central questions remain, including who ordered his killing and whether the crown prince was aware of the operation. While Riyadh has painted the killing as a rogue plot, Western officials say it is unlikely that something this complex could have been carried out without Mohammed's knowledge. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Wednesday that his government would take "necessary measures" against those responsible for the journalist's death. "So long as those who are responsible and the circumstances around the killing are not made public, released and evaluated, we will go on demanding the truth," he said. - - - The Washington Post's Zeynep Karatas in Istanbul and Kevin Sullivan in Riyadh contributed to this report. Brazilian president-elect Jair Bolsonaro and U.S. president Donald Trump. Photo: Getty Images Here are some of the events that have transpired in the United States over the last week. The ruling party has portrayed the opposition as an unruly mob that would pose a threat to law and order if allowed to share power. The president has called independent news media the enemy of the people and asserted that its critical reporting is to blame for a wave of attempted bombings against it. He has portrayed a small caravan of refugees hundreds of miles from the border as an existential threat and deployed thousands of soldiers to the border. And he has floated a plan to alter the Constitution through executive order. The thinking persons rationalization is that this is all just so much hot air. Trump is a dictator on Twitter, a Dear Leader in his own mind, but in the real world there is no Trumpocracy because Trump cannot even rule himself, reasoned Ross Douthat earlier this year. This Pollyannaish account is not necessarily wrong, but it does assume that Trumps autocratic impulses can and will be stopped by something. Douthat credits the Republican Establishment for normalizing Trumps cabinet and judicial appointments and repeatedly, patiently talking the president out of his most disruptive or dangerous ideas. This, in turn, assumes that the Republican Party as a whole is committed to democratic values, and possesses both the desire and the ability to stop the president well before he crosses any threshold of autocracy. Hold that assumption in your head when you consider the jovial response in The Wall Street Journal to the election of right-wing authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency of Brazil. While not nearly as broad in its reach as Fox News, the Journal is the crown jewel of the Murdoch media empire, and its editorial page may be the most prestigious organ in the conservative movement. Earlier this month, the Journal likened Bolsonaro, not inaccurately, to Trump himself. Calling him the Brazilian Swamp Drainer, an excited editorial all but endorsed the Trumpy right-wing insurgent. The editorial does allow that Bolsonaro often says politically incorrect things about identity politics that inflame his opponents. (To wit, he has said it is better to be dead than gay, called a woman too ugly to be worth raping, and described the Afro-Brazilian minority as worthless.) Bolsonaro has long expressed contempt for democracy. I would perform a coup on the same day, he said in 1999. The Congress today is useless lets do the coup already. Lets go straight to the dictatorship. During his recent, successful campaign, he threatened his opponents: Either they go overseas, or they go to jail These red outlaws will be banished from our homeland. It will be a cleanup the likes of which has never been seen in Brazilian history. National Security Adviser John Bolton gave a speech welcoming Bolsonaro as a like-minded partner for commitment to free-market principles, and open, transparent, and accountable governance, a bizarre description for a figure whose commitment to democracy is at best unproven. In a new editorial celebrating Bolsonaros victory, the Journal savors the right-wing reforms it anticipates from his government. It breezily dismisses the fear that Bolsonaro will undermine democracy by insisting the voters didnt want it: Brazilians didnt vote for fascism or a military coup. They voted for hope and change, and they will throw Mr. Bolsonaro out if he fails to honor his promises. Well, then! Problem solved! But wait what if Bolsonaro acts on his long-standing, explicit goal of establishing a dictatorship even though the voters didnt want it? And then what if the voters try to throw him out, but cant because he has imposed a dictatorship? Nothing in the editorial considers such a possibility. This is a pretty large loophole to ignore when youre celebrating the handing of supreme executive authority to an avowed authoritarian. The truly chilling passage in the editorial is its casual observation that a good sign can be found in Bolsonaros University of Chicagotrained economic adviser, who might be counted on to usher in Chile-style privatization. Chile, of course, is the country where General Augusto Pinochet carried out a bloody coup, murdered his socialist opposition, and then imposed pro-market reforms with the advice of Chicago-trained economists and the general support of the American right. The not-very-subtle comparison suggests that, while the Journal hopes Bolsonaro steers clear of his threats of bloodshed and iron hand, its not a deal-breaker. The Journal and American conservatives would support him, dictatorship or not, as long as he keeps taxes on the rich low and regulation of business lax. Here in the United States, Trump is not yet halfway through his first term. Over the next two years, the system will either fully adjust to total Republican control of government or have to accommodate a power-sharing arrangement that Trump has depicted as a threat to the regime itself. Will Trump accept a Democratic House (or Senate) and its power to hold investigations and issue subpoenas? Will he accept the independent workings of a legal system, given his exposure to a wide array of legal charges ranging from collusion with Russia to defaming former subjects of sexual harassment to outright business fraud? (The news cycle has spun at such a manic pace that yesterdays news brought word of a new suit credibly charging Trump with racketeering and serial business fraud, and it hardly broke through.) At some point, Trump may deprive his defenders of the ability to dismiss his authoritarian instincts as just so much hot air, and force them either to stand behind their leader or repudiate him. It is hard to muster much confidence in the outcome of such a test. *This post has been updated. Town Hall in Manhattan. Photo: Jim.henderson /Wikimedia The election is on Tuesday, and like every election, it may be the most important election of our lifetimes. Once its over, youre probably going to need a debrief and a cocktail either celebratory or therapeutic. So will we. So come join us as we get our election-related feelings off our chests this Wednesday, November 7, at 8 p.m. at the Town Hall in midtown Manhattan. (Get tickets here!) Im really excited to be bringing together two of my employers Los Angeles public radio station KCRW and New York Magazines Intelligencer for a live taping of my KCRW podcast Left, Right & Center, featuring two of your favorite voices from Intelligencer, Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi and columnist Jonathan Chait. First, Ill break down the results of Tuesdays elections with liberal commentator Ana Marie Cox, conservative Rich Lowry, MSNBC election analyst Steve Kornacki, and New York Times political reporter Astead Herndon. Well look at who won, who lost, and why with Astead providing insights gleaned from his time on the campaign trail across the country. Then, Olivia and Jonathan will join Ana, Rich, and me to look ahead what do the new Congress and an intensifying special counsel investigation hold for President Trump? Jonathan will update his theory of mind-boggling collusion that he wrote about back in June. How do you even think about the small but real chance that the president of the United States has been influenced or compromised by a hostile foreign power for decades? he asked then. After this election, we may be about to see much more aggressive thinking about that question from Congress. And Olivia will bring her insights from inside a Trump White House, where she was recently the recipient of a one-person press conference. Shell tell us how Trump is preparing for a possible Democratic majority and if Republicans retain control, whether we should expect him to view that as a green light to stifle the Mueller probe. The new Intelligencer, which we launched earlier in October, is intended as your new home page to stay briefed on the days key developments in politics, business, and technology. Twitter has become exasperating; we hope to provide a similarly energetic but more curated and less stupid feed of news to keep you informed, but also sane. On Wednesday, Olivia, Jonathan, all our co-panelists, and I will offer an in-person version of the web experience we strive to provide every day: insightful, informative, civilized yet provocative, and fun! Wont you join us? Donald Trump speaks at a 2016 campaign rally. Photo: Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images In October of 2016, just four weeks before Donald Trump won the presidency, three Kansas men were charged for a heinous plot to kill Somali immigrants in their homes. Curtis Allen, Gavin Wright, and Patrick Stein called themselves the Crusaders, according to a criminal complaint, and in early 2016 their group was infiltrated by an FBI informant. Over the course of the next eight months, they hatched a plan to wake people up by creating a bloodbath that killed the people they referred to cockroaches. Now, two years since their arrest and six months after their convictions, the men are on the verge of being sentenced. And on Tuesday, one of their lawyers asked the court to consider Trump himself and the then-candidates hate-filled rhetoric when deciding how long Allen, Wright, and Stein should spend in prison. The court cannot ignore the circumstances of one of the most rhetorically mold-breaking, violent, awful, hateful and contentious presidential elections in modern history, driven in large measure by the rhetorical China shop bull who is now our president, the lawyers representing Stein wrote in a sentencing memo. The man was a complete and long-standing supporter of Trump, the lawyers said. They argued that Trumps surprise victory in November of 2016 would have disrupted the plot the men spent months concocting. Fox 4 Kansas City elaborates: Trumps win changed everything because the mens urgency for action and the feeling of a losing battle would be gone, they argued. Conspiracies among them that then-president Barack Obama would not relinquish power would be disproven. He contended the discussed attack likely would never have happened in the world that existed after Trumps election. Prosecutors, who say the planned attack has had a deep, lasting impact on the victims sense of security, are seeking life sentences. They want to prevent the would-be bombers from actually harming anyone and deter others who might contemplate similar crimes. But lawyers for Wright argued that a life sentence would have no deterrent effect as long as Trump continued to spew hate from the White House. They cited Trumps tweets that stoke racial division, including a recent claim that unknown Middle Easterners are moving toward the U.S. with the Central American migrant caravan. Sadly, it looks like Mexicos Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States. Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy. Must change laws! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2018 Wrights lawyer wrote, As long as the Executive Branch condemns Islam and commends and encourages violence against would-be enemies, then a sentence imposed by the Judicial Branch does little to deter people generally from engaging in such conduct if they believe they are protecting their countries from enemies identified by their own Commander-in-Chief. Here are 22 statistics on the cost of care and patient volume in ASCs compared to hospital outpatient departments collected from Avanza Healthcare and Health Services Insights. The number of Medicare-certified ASCs nearly doubled from 2000 to 2017, according to Avanza Healthcare Strategies' Outpatient Statistical Snapshot. Avanza gathered data from Advancing Surgical Care, Ambulatory Surgery Center Association, American Hospital Association, Blue Cross Blue Shield, CDC, Franklin Trust Ratings, Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, Moody's Investors Service and The New York Times to create the report. Medicare-certified ASCs 1. 2000: 3,028 2. 2017: 5,634 Total Medicare payments to ASCs 3. 2010: $3.3 billion 4. 2015: $4.1 billion Medicare payments to ASCs per fee-for-service beneficiary 5. 2010: $104 6. 2015: $122 Total Medicare outpatient FFS payments to hospitals 7. 2006: $29 billion 8. 2015: $58 billion Outpatient costs 9. Average net cost per hospital-based surgical procedure: $4,337 10. Average net cost per freestanding, ASC-based procedure: $2,429 Hospitals 11. 1981: 6,933 12. 2016: 5,534 Average hospital outpatient visits per 1,000 people 13. 1999: 1,817 visits 14. 2015: 2,251 visits Total community hospital outpatient visits 15. 1994: 383 million 16. 2014: 693 million A study published in Health Services Insights examined the difference in 7-day and 30-day hospitalization rates concerning outpatient surgical procedures at office-based surgery suites, ASCs and hospital outpatient departments. Robert Ohsfeldt, PhD, of College Station-based Texas A&M University, and colleagues conducted a multivariable logistic regression to compare risk-adjusted probability of hospitalization. Researchers examined 88 procedures performed between 2008 and 2012 in Florida. 17. Risk-adjusted hospitalization rates were higher for procedures performed at physician offices, compared to ASCs. 18. Across all 88 procedures, 7-day hospitalization rates were two times higher for procedures performed in an office-based center than in an ASC. 19. Thirty-day hospitalization rates for procedures performed in an office suite were 34 percent higher than when performed in an ASC. 20. When considering 30-days rates, hospitalization risk was greater for 27 of 71 individual CPT code models. 21. In an office setting, the 7-day post surgery hospitalization rate was 12 times greater than if the procedure was performed in an ASC. 22. Considering 30-day rates, the risk was 11 times higher in an office-based setting than when performed in an ASC. Here are the 12 ASCs that were opened or announced in October. Advanced Vision Surgery Center in Longmont, Colo., officially opened. Advanced Vision Surgery Center is a partnership by several eye physicians, including Joel S. Myers, MD. Quincy (Ill.) Medical Group filed an application with the state to build the Quincy Medical Group Surgery Center. Fort Worth-based Texas Health Orthopedic Surgery Center held a ribbon cutting ceremony for its new facility Oct. 16. Amherst, N.Y.-based UB Neurosurgery will construct an ASC estimated to cost $7.8 million, located behind its new medical facility currently under construction. After applying for a certificate of need to acquire and renovate an ASC in South Charleston, W.Va., for $277,740, Charleston (W.Va.) Area Medical Center has plans for two more ASCs. Baton Rouge (La.) General opened the Mid City Specialty Center in Baton Rouge. Dapper Holdings purchased 13.78 acres in Bossier City, La., and plans to build a 10-bed short-stay hospital and ASC on the property. Durham, N.C.-based Duke Health's plan for a medical campus expansion in Western Cary, N.C., involves building a multispecialty ASC. Worcester, Mass.-based Reliant Medical Group and Shields Health Care of Quincy (Mass.) and two orthopedic practices are planning to file a "determination of need" for a multispecialty ASC in Natick, Mass., before the end of the year. Advocate Aurora (Ill.) Health broke ground on a $130 million ASC and medical office building in Pleasant Prairie, Ill. Orthopedic Associates of Hartford (Conn.) is building a $30 million outpatient surgical center in Rocky Hill, Conn. Charleston-based Chesapeake Healthcare Center requested exemption from a CON to develop a medication-assisted treatment service for its ASC in Chesapeake, W.Va. The following healthcare layoffs were reported by Becker's Hospital Review in October. 1. Biopharma company Lonza to lay off 60 Biopharmaceutical company Lonza will lay off 60 people at its manufacturing plant in Maryland, beginning Dec. 1. 2. Mercy Medical Center in Massachusetts to lay off employees, close hearing center Mercy Medical Center in Springfield, Mass., told staff it will eliminate jobs and close its hearing center. 3. GlaxoSmithKline to lay off 99 in Tennessee Pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline will lay off 99 employees at its manufacturing facility in Memphis, Tenn. 4. 17 IT workers laid off at UMass Memorial Health Care Worcester, Mass.-based UMass Memorial Health Care laid off 17 IT workers Oct. 11 as it works to close a budget gap. 5. Bayer cuts 227 California jobs Drugmaker Bayer AG announced plans to lay off 227 employees at its manufacturing facility in Berkeley, Calif. 6. Momenta Pharmaceuticals guts leadership team, slashes 110 jobs As part of a restructuring and cost reduction effort, Cambridge, Mass.-based Momenta Pharmaceuticals announced plans to lay off 110 workers and gut most of its leadership team. 7. Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center cuts 50 jobs one month after hospital acquisition Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center cut 50 jobs systemwid The board of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Broward Health fired its general counsel amid a slew of leadership problems at the system in recent years, according to the Sun Sentinel. Here are five things to know: 1. A proposal introduced during the board's meeting Oct. 31 called for terminating Lynn Barrett as the five-hospital system's general counsel. The board voted 4-2 to oust Ms. Barrett from her position. The vote came after several physicians complained about Ms. Barrett's failure to get contracts through a move that was costing the system essential physicians, the report states. 2. Broward Health Board Chairman Andrew Klein, who introduced the proposal, said Ms. Barrett bears "significant responsibility" for the chaos surrounding the system's executive leadership. The system has had four CEOs in two years and has seen five leaders indicted during Ms. Barrett's tenure. Mr. Klein also claimed Ms. Barrett exercises too much power and has spent millions on outside legal counsel with little evidence of financial controls, according to a second report by the Sun Sentinel. 3. During one of several committee meetings that took place Oct. 30, Ms. Barrett brought in outside counsel to make the case against firing her. The lawyer's presentation centered on an investigation organized by Ms. Barrett about the possible improper hiring of consultants by Broward Health executives. The counsel also cautioned the board about interfering with Ms. Barrett's investigation, which is being handled by a Washington, D.C.-based law firm. "I think the critical thing is understanding here that [Broward Health is] being watched, as we sit here today, by OIG. And your actions over the next several days in terms of the way you deal with your senior management that has responsibilities for these areas will send messages about what you think," Ms. Barrett's legal counsel said Oct. 30. "I think if the message is we want the investigation to go forward, but we're going to terminate the employee who started it, that's not a great message." 4. A group called the Broward County African American Pastors Alliance also planned a news conference to take place before the board meeting Oct. 31, calling on the board to fire Ms. Barrett, who they allege created "divisive and toxic working conditions" by helping to remove Pauline Grant from her role as the health system's interim CEO in 2016. 5. After the board's decision, Beverly Capasso spoke about the "pervasive culture of fear" Ms. Barrett helped create. Ms. Capasso abruptly announced he resignation from the health system in October. "This is unfair, this is intimidation, this is harassment," Ms. Capasso said. "The extraordinary amounts paid to outside law firms are not available to serve the people of Broward County." Editor's note: This article was updated on Oct. 31 at 12:45 p.m. to include additional information. To access the full report, click here. Republican Idaho Gov. Butch Otter has endorsed a proposal to expand Medicaid coverage in his state, which residents will vote on Nov. 6, according to CNN. The expansion would extend coverage to 62,000 adults and draw $400 million in matching federal funds. An additional 29,000 Idaho residents will become eligible for Medicaid if the measure passes. "I strongly support expanding healthcare to folks who need it," said Mr. Otter. "It's good sense, and it's the right thing to do." Idaho is one of four states with Medicaid proposals on their ballots for the upcoming midterm elections. Tzipi Livni. Photo: NurPhoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images On a dreary Wednesday in late September, Tzipi Livni, the leader of the opposition in the Israeli government and a three-time near-miss candidate for prime minister, walked into a Jewish diner in midtown Manhattan with a sole publicist and no security detail, pursing her lips and raising her eyebrows as if to say, Nu, this is the dump Im stuck in? She was in town for a few days on a meeting spree with foreign dignitaries during the U.N. General Assembly. Id picked the location as a bit of an experiment. I wanted to see how one of the most prominent Jews in Israeli public life would react to an establishment that exemplified the sort of American Jewishness Ive grown up with. As it turned out, she was a little bewildered. She eschewed food in favor of a grapefruit juice (I told her that anything she ordered was on me, and she pointed to her gut and said, It stays on me, later, so.) and couldnt quite suss out why she was there. What makes this diner Jewish, by the way? she asked. I told her it was the ambience, but also the cuisine: bagels, lox, challah rolls. Okay, she replied, because what I see is the ketchup, so. I asked her if ketchup is definitionally non-Jewish. Its basically American, she said. I disagreed, and we moved on. The impasse may seem small, but its indicative of a larger disconnect that Livni and the rest of the Israeli opposition struggles with today. Even in the wake of last weekends mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, a stark political and cultural divide lingers between Israeli and American Jews. To Livnis political right stands someone who has, his critics argue, shown little to no interest in connecting with the vast majority of Jews in the United States: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, as Livni sat down with me, was just finishing up a conversation with Donald Trump. Netanyahu has made a close ally of Trump, whom American Jews generally loathe, and his governing coalition has taken a wide array of reactionary steps during its nine years in power. Netanyahu and his allies have denigrated the interests of Arabs within Israel, in the militarily occupied territory of the West Bank, and in the blockaded Gaza Strip; caved to the demands of the ultra-Orthodox religious Establishment; employed racist rhetoric; attacked the judiciary on political grounds; and embraced conservative American evangelicals at the expense of the liberal American Jewish masses. For all of this, Israeli voters have repeatedly rewarded Netanyahu in polls and at the ballot box. Livni, on the other hand, is a staunch defender of the shrinking Israeli center-left. She still believes peace can be made between Israeli Jews and the Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza. She wants greater respect for religious pluralism. She criticizes the much-debated recent Nation-State Law, which enshrines Jewish rights and, in the eyes of its detractors, demotes those of non-Jews. Most important, she wants to oust Netanyahu. Its an uphill battle, but she says she cant avoid it: I must say that, even after 20 years which is how long shes been in politics Im still angry. Her push would be made a lot easier if she could muster American support. Theres no chance shell get it from the GOP, so she must rely on the American left, especially American Jews. But its an open question whether she can establish a real connection with them, much less inspire them. A few minutes into our conversation, I asked Livni if she had any regrets about her career. She paused. Or do you just not think that way? I asked. Oh, she replied, I always think that way, unfortunately. If thats the case, she has much to torture herself with. In 2008, she could have become prime minister after the resignation of her partys leader, Ehud Olmert, but she refused to cave to the demands of a right-wing party whose support she needed in order to form a coalition government, and instead the country went to an election. In that election, her party won a plurality of the countrys votes, thus again positioning her to become Israels second female head of government.* However, Netanyahus Likud party had more potential coalition partners on the right than she could find for herself, and she was unable to form a government, leaving Netanyahu to take the crown. Hes held it ever since, serving as prime minister longer than anyone since the countrys primary founder and original leader, David Ben-Gurion. Livni had one more shot in 2015, when she and then-leader of the opposition Isaac Herzog ran on a joint ticket to be co-PMs. Advance polls favored them to win, but, in a preview of Brexit and Trump, the polling turned out to be erroneous. Livni and Herzog had underestimated the strength of Israeli right-wing populism. As the Yiddish expression goes, Keyner zet nit zayn eygenem hoyker: No one sees the hump on his own back. Herzog left politics this summer to head the Jewish Agency for Israel, an organization that manages Israel-Diaspora relations. With his absence, Livni is once again the last, best hope that left-leaning Israelis and Americans have for a Netanyahu-free future. She and her bete noire didnt start out as rivals. Livni, a lawyer by training, first entered the Israeli parliament in 1999 as a member of Netanyahus Likud. Her parents had been ardent members of the Irgun, the pre-state militia that is variously remembered as a band of Zionist freedom fighters and as a terrorist group. They raised her with a firmly conservative ideology. Ariel Sharon, that icon of the Israeli right, became prime minister in 2001 and took a liking to Livni, appointing her to an array of cabinet positions. But when Sharon shattered the Likud consensus by deciding to withdraw Israeli settlements and military bases from the occupied Gaza Strip in 2003 a profoundly unpopular move among pro-occupation conservatives Livni became one of his loudest advocates and helped form his coalition Kadima party in order to push their agenda forward. In the years that followed, through a succession of governments, Livni became a curious political creature. In some ways, she remained a staunch and outspoken hawk, advocating swift and brutal military actions in Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2008 and 2009. But she has also been a fervent advocate of a peace agreement with the Palestinians, negotiating with them when she was foreign minister from 2006 to 2009 and as official lead negotiator from 2013 to 2014. Neither stretch yielded a lasting accord, but Livni got farther than most have. Now, she finds herself raging against the Netanyahu coalition for not being, in her eyes, serious enough about pursuing peace. To explain the difference between her viewpoint on the peace process and Netanyahus, Livni used a slightly bizarre metaphor involving Waze, an Israeli-designed GPS driving app: My national Waze is keeping Israel as a Jewish, democratic state. I want to stop in a station and separate ourselves from the Palestinians, hopefully with a peace treaty with the Palestinians. What she was getting at is her desire to capture the near-mythical diplomatic beast known as the two-state solution. The Jewish, democratic bit of her metaphor is the key to understanding it. Right now, Israel occupies the West Bank but does not technically consider it part of Israel, nor does it extend voting rights to the millions of Palestinians there. Additionally, it blockades the Gaza Strip and has no presence inside it, leaving the Palestinians within it in a stateless limbo. If the occupation turns into de jure annexation of the West Bank, wed have a clash between Israel as a Jewish and a democratic state, because we are not going to have a Jewish majority, Livni says. And without a Jewish majority, we would need to choose between being Jewish or [being] a democracy. Its something thats completely against Zionism, the way I believe in it. So, instead, she wants to establish a Palestinian-majority state centered in the West Bank that can exist alongside a Jewish-majority Israel. That way, everyone in the region can be full-fledged citizens of democracies and Israel can retain its fundamentally Jewish character. Livni feels that Netanyahus coalition, if forced to choose between being Jewish and being democratic, would choose to be Jewish, and thus permanently disenfranchise the Palestinians of the West Bank. They want to give up democracy, she said. That summary, all too familiar to those, like me, who obsessively follow the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is the basis of the liberal Zionist consensus that has persisted since the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and Palestine, which relies on the two-state dream for legitimacy. After his meeting with Netanyahu, Trump seemed to endorse a two-state solution, though the president would muddy the waters hours later by saying he was okay with one state, two states, whatever. Trumps words may not matter, anyway, as Netanyahu has shown no willingness to pursue the creation of a true Palestinian state in recent years (and, to be fair, the Palestinian leadership recently said it would abandon discussions due to perceived American bias). Livni, on the other hand, has advocated for legitimate Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza, albeit within a demilitarized state, so as to ensure Israeli security. Tzipi Livni Photo: SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images The trouble with Livnis vision for a Palestinian state is this that it may no longer be feasible. Jewish settlers in the West Bank are a key constituency for the Netanyahu coalition, and since Netanyahus current term began in 2009, some 100,000 new settlers have moved in, by one estimate, bringing the total number to roughly 400,000. The establishment of a Palestinian state would require a massive uprooting of that population, something made all the more politically unpopular in Israel by the fact that, when Livni and Sharon evicted all of the settlers in Gaza, the Islamist militant group Hamas took control of the vacated territory. Less than half of Israelis favor a two-state solution, at this point. Likud is currently polling way ahead of Livnis Zionist Union party in predictions for next years elections. For Livni, its a grim picture. In person, Livnis tone is even, but her words occasionally betray a bit of political desperation. If she wants to take down Netanyahu, she may well need the support of those who back the large, six-year-old centrist Yesh Atid party, founded by former television personality Yair Lapid. When I asked her if she worries about Lapids rise, she responded, I am focused on, What is the best way to replace Netanyahu? What I am worried about is whether other leaders it can be Lapid, it can be others are willing to say that they are part of the bloc of the center-left and they are willing to work together. It can be in one party, it can be in different parties supporting the others, or supporting the one that would get most of the votes. Livnis voice gradually became sharper as she spoke and her eyes narrowed. This is my demand from any Israeli leader: Decide whether youre here, she said here meaning, potentially, with her, or against Netanyahu, or both. There are two different roads. There is no in-between. This idea of walking without getting wet while its raining? Forget it. This is the crossroads. You need to choose. And this is what I say to voters: Ask your leader where he stands or where she stands when it comes to the current governing coalition. She starts to pound the table with a karate chop. And if they cannot give a clear answer of, We are here, and we will support the biggest party in our bloc, dont vote for him or her. This is what worries me: new parties that will not take a stand. Thats not all that worries her. She also fears the widening gap between American Jews and Israel. American Jews voted overwhelmingly against Trump in 2016, but Israelis, like their top leaders, are hugely supportive of the man in the White House. Meanwhile, the ultra-Orthodox members of the Netanyahu coalition have snubbed the interests of the American Jewish non-Orthodox majority and young American Jews are increasingly vocal in their anger about the treatment of the Palestinians. Even reactions to the recent killings at a Pittsburgh synagogue demonstrated the stark differences of opinion between American Jews and Israeli ones. The rift shows no sign of shrinking. But Livni wants to refurbish the bridges. In the wake of the Pittsburgh massacre, she expressed concern about American Jewry, telling the Jerusalem Post, I have no doubt that the pain over the anti-Semitic murder in the Pittsburgh synagogue is shared by everyone. She even went so far as to use her platform in that moment to call for greater Israeli recognition of non-Orthodox Judaism, which is what the vast majority of religious American Jews practice: The Zionist answer to the synagogue massacre is the recognition by the State of Israel of the various streams of Judaism, which includes issues like conversion and prayer at the Western Wall, referring to the American Jewish push to open up egalitarian prayer space at that holiest of Jewish sites. (The matter is a bit complicated, but right now, the main plaza of the Wall is gender-segregated, and although there is a gender-mixed section, its a little dumpy and very hard to find American Jews have been fighting to spruce that latter space up and make it more accessible.)* This is all of a piece with Livnis approach to finding a balance between American respect for Israel and Israeli respect for America. Lets have a new dialogue between Israel and world Jewry, and the dialogue is not the old dialogue of saying, Okay, we are Israel, the safe shelter in case of anti-Semitism; you should support Israel, no matter what, Livni said. Its okay if you want to criticize any Israeli government, its fine. As long as we keep the common denominator: understanding that we need to defend the legitimacy of the state of Israel as a Jewish state, and the legitimacy of the state of Israel to defend itself. On top of this, we can argue. We have different opinions. Its fine. The question is, how much longer can American Jews who vehemently disagree with Israels policies, especially toward the Palestinians, loudly speak up in favor of Israels right to defend itself? When I asked her about what connection she feels to American Jewry, the best she could muster was pointing out that we celebrate the same holidays (which, of course, is actually only true for the shrinking percentage of religious American Jews) and citing her love of Barbra Streisands rendition of the hymn Avinu Malkeinu. It was clear that our common definitions of Jewishness werent calibrated in the same way, and perhaps thats the problem. In 2018, there is very little that binds a millennial American Jew in New York to a boomer-age Israeli Jew in Jerusalem other than the vaguest notions of ethnic identity. We have few common reference points, shared experiences, or political outlooks; only what political scientist Benedict Anderson called an imagined community. And if there is a gap between Livni and myself, theres an even greater one between her and non-Jewish liberals and progressives in America. Among the most vocal anti-Trumpists of the populist far left, Israel is often seen as an ethnonationalist pariah. Democrats are, in dribs and drabs, starting to break with the once-ironclad pro-Israel consensus. Livni is, in other words, more than a little out of place in America in 2018: too lefty for many of the Zionists, too Zionist for many of the lefties. Nevertheless, she wont countenance the idea of her natural allies abandoning the struggle. I asked her why anti-Trump, anti-Netanyahu Americans should have hope about Israel, and she responded swiftly: Because we are there, she said of herself and her political partners. Because, depression, saying, We have this government, Israel is changing and here she trailed off before restarting her argument. Israeli society is split, she said. So it is true that there is a coalition that is taking Israel in one direction, but Israel is a democracy. And we are working to keep Israel as a democracy. She smiled broadly. And as long as we are not giving up, dont give up on Israel. *An earlier version of this article mischaracterized the legal status of the prime ministership of Israel. The prime minister is the head of government, not the head of state. The previous version also erroneously stated that the egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall is controlled by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, when it is in fact controlled by the Israeli government. Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems became the largest for-profit hospital operator in the nation in 2014 when it acquired Naples, Fla.-based Health Management Associates. Now, the company is selling off hospitals to pay down its debt. As part of a turnaround plan put into place in 2016 to improve its finances and reduce its heavy debt load, CHS divested 30 hospitals in 2017. With the help of proceeds from the hospital sales, CHS brought down its long-term debt load from $14.8 billion at the end of 2016 to $13.9 billion at the end of 2017. To further reduce its debt, CHS intends to sell another group of hospitals with combined revenue of $2 billion. The company has made progress toward that goal this year. During 2018, CHS has completed nine hospital divestitures, entered into definitive agreements to sell five others, and brought its debt load down to $13.5 billion. Here's a breakdown of the hospitals CHS has divested in 2018: 1. On April 1, CHS completed the sale of 120-bed Bayfront Health Dade City (Fla.) to Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based Adventist Health System. The hospital, which is now part of Adventist's West Florida Division, was renamed Florida Hospital Dade City. 2. CHS sold 85-bed Tennova Healthcare-Jamestown (Tenn.) to West Palm Beach, Fla.-based Rennova Health on June 1. 3. On June 1, CHS completed the sale of 60-bed Byrd Regional Hospital in Leesville, La., to Allegiance Health Management in Shreveport, La. 4. CHS sold 76-bed Williamson (W.Va.) Memorial Hospital to Mingo Health Partners on June 1. 5. On June 1, CHS completed the sale of 100-bed Tennova Healthcare-Volunteer Martin (Tenn.) to Jackson-based West Tennessee Healthcare. 6. CHS sold 225-bed Tennova Healthcare-Dyersburg (Tenn.) Regional to West Tennessee Healthcare on June 1. 7. On June 1, CHS sold 150-bed Tennova Healthcare-Regional Jackson (Tenn.) to West Tennessee Healthcare. 8. On Aug. 1, CHS completed the sale of 425-bed Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala, Fla., to Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based Adventist Health System. Adventist renamed the facility Florida Hospital Ocala. 9. CHS sold 238-bed AllianceHealth Deaconess in Oklahoma City to a subsidiary of Oklahoma City-based Integris Health on Oct. 1. More articles on healthcare industry transactions: UC San Diego Health forms 2 joint ventures HCA, Cleveland Clinic battle intensifies for Florida market share Private equity firm completes $9.9B acquisition of Envision New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health has reached a three-year contract agreement with the union representing nurses and nurse practitioners. Members of the New York Professional Nurses Union ratified the agreement after nearly two months of negotiation, a strike authorization vote and rallying, the union announced Oct. 31. It includes wage increases for nurses, nurse practitioners and per diem workers at multiple Northwell Health facilities in New York City Lenox Hill Hospital, Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital and Lenox Health Greenwich Village. Annual raises for nurses will average more than 5.5 percent for most nurses over the life of the contract. NYPNU officials said the labor deal also addresses staffing by providing a process for nurses to start an arbitration process over staffing levels under the full, budgeted employee levels for each unit. "We are very proud of the contract that our members won through collective action and persistence," Kathleen Flynn, RN, president of the New York Professional Nurses Union, said in a statement. "All of our members will finally be compensated fairly for their hard work comparable to other nurses working in Manhattan a long overdue and much deserved change. Looking forward, when we go back to the bargaining table in three years, we will be in an even stronger position to continue our advocacy and the patients we serve." Northwell Health spokesperson Terry Lynam also spoke positively of the deal, telling Becker's: "The agreement is fair to Lenox Hill Hospital and our nurses, providing them with competitive salary increases 3 percent for each year of the contract and benefit enhancements that promote their health and wellness. It also reaffirms the hospital's ongoing commitment to appropriate staffing levels that ensure our patients will continue to receive safe, high quality care and enable the hospital to expand its clinical services to meet future community needs." More articles on human capital and risk: Johns Hopkins stifled unionizing efforts, federal labor board finds Mercy Health St. Vincent nurses, support staff to take strike votes University of California hospital workers end strike The Arkansas Department of Health confirmed 52 cancer patients at Arkansas Cancer Institute in Little Rock have contracted an unidentified bacterial infection health officials have not seen before, according to Kark 4 News. The ACI released a statement Oct. 26 indicating 52 patients contracted the bacterial infection, which the CDC is temporarily calling FVL 2018-32. Most of the infections occurred in cancer patients who had chemotherapy ports. Three of these patients died, although ACI said it is unclear whether their deaths were directly linked to the infection. In September, the center sent a letter to 155 patients who had chemotherapy ports used at the facility between March 22 and Sept. 11, notifying them they could be at risk for the bacterial infection. Dirk Haselow, MD, PhD, state epidemiologist at the Arkansas department of Health, explained the bacteria is so new, physicians don't know exactly know how it works or what symptoms it causes. "These lines weren't necessarily placed by the cancer institute. The common factor is that they are being treated at the cancer institute," Dr. Haselow told NBC.com. "This is an infection that no one has experience with. We have engaged experts in infectious disease at [University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock] as well as experts at CDC." The infection is "completely treatable" with a two-week course of antibiotics and removal of the chemotherapy port, according to a statement from ACI."So we don't believe this is a risk to the public. We don't believe there's any ongoing risk to patients newly seen at the ACI," Dr. Haselow told Kark 4 News. The ACI said it expects the 49 sickened patients to make a full recovery. More articles on clinical leadership and infection control: How TB treatment spurred modern architecture: 5 things to know New strategy linked to lower health facility-associated C. diff rates Sterilization issues prompt California hospital to reschedule surgeries Torrance (Calif.) Memorial Medical Center voluntarily rescheduled 17 operations after state public health surveyors expressed concern about the hospital's surgical equipment sterilization process during an unannounced audit, according to the Daily Breeze. Hospitals officials said there was no threat to patient safety. The hospital consulted with California Department of Public Health surveyors in September during the four-day audit. On Sept. 10, the hospital immediately reprocessed all instruments scheduled to be used for surgical procedures the next day, a hospital spokesperson told the Daily Breeze. "This act impacted the following day's surgical schedule, which resulted in 17 surgical cases being rescheduled," the spokesperson said. The hospital immediately submitted a plan of correction to the surveyors and they accepted the plans during the survey. "Out of an abundance of caution, Torrance Memorial proactively reprocessed all surgical instruments in the following days," the spokesperson added. "While the decision was made to reprocess all surgical instrumentation, we are confident that our current practices meet all regulatory requirements and standards and no threat to patient safety exists." Here are 13 orthopedic surgeons making headlines. Detroit-based Children's Hospital of Michigan orthopedic surgeon Ahmed Abdul-Hamid Bazzi, DO, helps ease patients' anxiety after undergoing surgery by creating custom art for their casts. The American Osteopathic Foundation honored J. Michael Wieting, DO, as the recipient of its 2018 W. Douglas Ward Educator of the Year Award. Harpal (Paul) Khanuja, MD, led Operation Walk Maryland's team of six orthopedic surgeons to complete 53 joint replacement surgeries during a four-day medical mission in Guyana. Spokane, Wash.-based Northwest Orthopaedic Specialists' orthopedic surgeon A. Kirk Reichard, MD, traveled to Panama this spring to provide joint replacement surgeries for those needing orthopedic care. The Tallahassee (Fla.) Orthopedic Clinic hired Ryan Price, DO, as its first pediatric orthopedic surgeon. Edwin Roeder, MD, joined West Plains, Mo.-based Ozarks Medical Center. Williamsport, Pa.-based UPMC Susquehanna Hospital orthopedic surgeon Patrick Carey, DO, was named to Irish America magazines annual Healthcare & Life Science 50. Matthew Massey, MD, joined Hendersonville, N.C.-based Pardee Hospital. Robert Korbyl, MD, of Red Deer-based Central Alberta Orthopedics in Canada, joined Alberta Medical Association's board of directors as its first orthopedic surgeon in 18 years. Clifford Jones, MD, treated a man who was trapped in a gold mine for three days at Banner University Medical Center in Tucson, Ariz. Louis Levitt, MD, vice president of The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics in Bethesda, Md., spoke with Becker's Spine Review about the trend toward value-based care and alternative payments in orthopedics, as well as where his practice will be headed in the future. Nicholas Grosso, MD, president of Bethesda, Md.-based The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics, discussed private practice as a preferred model for providing quality care at lower cost. Flatback furniture giant Ikea has teamed with two energy firms to offer a new electricity tariff in Northern Ireland. The Swedish multinational, which has one store here, has announced a new venture with Big Clean Switch and renewable electricity provider Click Energy. It said customers who switch will be signing up to Northern Ireland's first 100% renewable domestic electricity tariff. It follows a similar move by the furniture retailer in Britain. Ikea and its partners have claimed the tariff will be among the lowest offered on the local market. Managing director at Click Energy Damian Wilson said: "We are delighted to partner with Ikea UK to provide what is currently the only 100% renewable electricity tariff for households in Northern Ireland. "We are proud to be the first to pioneer this in Northern Ireland, as we make switching to renewable electricity easy and affordable." Jon Fletcher, managing director of Big Clean Switch, added: "Having worked closely with Ikea to help their customers across England, Scotland and Wales switch to renewable electricity earlier this year, we're really excited to be able to offer a solution to their Northern Ireland customers. "We take pride in working with ethical, customer-focused businesses, and the partnership with Click Energy and Ikea reflects that." Christie Gregg, manager at Ikea's store at Holywood Exchange in Belfast, said: "At Ikea, we're committed to having a positive impact on people and the planet. "We also want to support our customers with innovative solutions to help them live a more sustainable life at home. "By partnering with Big Clean Switch and Click Energy, our aim is to make switching to renewable electricity a simple and easy process for all of our customers." One of the Wrightbus vehicles taking to the roads in the Republic Co Antrim bus manufacturer Wrightbus has sold nearly 90 of its single deck buses to Transport for Ireland over the last 12 months in deals thought to be worth tens of millions of pounds, it has emerged. The Ballymena company manufactured 88 of its StreetLite vehicles for the Republic's public transport body and is one of its main suppliers of buses. Transport For Ireland said it had placed orders with Wrightbus over the last 12 months and the buses are now being delivered and put into service. Some of them are being used by Transport for Ireland under a contract with private operator Go-Ahead. A new Irish arm of the UK transport giant last year won a tender to operate around 10% of the bus network in Dublin and will also operate some services in Kildare. Go-Ahead vehicles made by Wrightbus started on the Dublin routes on October 21. Wrightbus has announced that a single-deck StreetLite bus, decked in Transport for Ireland livery, is on show at industry event Euro Bus Expo in Birmingham this week. A spokesman for Transport for Ireland said the 88 buses will be used in a range of locations. "The first single deck vehicles have gone into operation under Transport for Ireland's Go-Ahead contract, with a total of 40 Wrightbus single deck vehicles to be assigned to Go-Ahead operated services," he said. "An additional 17 single deck vehicles will commence service in operation in Waterford later this year under a tendered contract which has been awarded to Bus Eireann. "The remainder of the vehicles will go into service with Bus Eireann in various cities and towns next year." The StreetLite is described as having economical fuel consumption and features other advanced technologies developed by the Ballymena manufacturer. John McLeister, Wrights Group business development and product development director, said: "This StreetLite is part of a significant order for Transport for Ireland and it is great to see it on our stand at Euro Bus Expo before it goes into service. "With its outstanding fuel economy rating and low emissions, alongside the use of our Micro Hybrid technology, means it is one of the most environmentally-friendly vehicles available in the UK and Ireland market today. "We look forward to a continuation of our long and fruitful relationship with Transport for Ireland." Earlier this month, Wrightbus announced it had secured orders for more than 200 buses from Hong Kong. The Hong Kong orders came days after the group company Wrights Group revealed a collapse in pre-tax profits in 2017 from 10.7m to 1.5m. The accounts cover five UK subsidiaries and four overseas-based entities. The results for subsidiary Wrights Ltd were more positive. Although 181.3m turnover for 2017 was down on 214.6m in the previous 12 months, pre-tax profits held at 5m in 2017. In June, the company announced 95 redundancies, citing low levels of demand. The accounts state its workforce stood at 1,607 in 2017, down from 1,861. This week marked another significant milestone at Westminster as the Organ Donation Private Members' Bill, dubbed Max's law, took a step forward by passing its all-important third stage. When I heard the news I was packing for a Mediterranean cruise and was absolutely delighted to see how a Parliament united in a desire to save lives can coolly, calmly and objectively debate and support a bill aimed not at reducing or removing rights, but at saving and enhancing hundreds of lives each year. Packing all completed - there's always that last minute item, or 10 - we have just arrived in Barcelona to head off on the beautiful Celebrity Eclipse for a voyage during which we will drop anchor in Spain, France, Italy and Gibraltar. I've always been very relaxed around holiday packing, maybe too relaxed, as I remember mum saying that while we could always sort out any forgotten items like sunglasses, swimming shorts or aftershave, my tablets were the single most important items in our luggage. Without all my medications I wouldn't be getting the right anti-rejection and stabilising doses and would need to seek urgent medical help as my transplant would be in danger. My health professionals and medications keep my transplant alive, whether it was the kidney I received from a donor in 2009 or the kidney I received from my mum back in March this year - my experiences have made my priorities in life very clear indeed. This is why when I hear news about politicians supporting and backing a law which remains very close to my heart, I am thrilled. I remember well sitting in the little box in Stormont's Assembly chamber and listening to my mum presenting the reasons why Northern Ireland could and should grasp the opportunity to follow Wales in becoming the second region of the UK to adopt an Opt Out Organ Donation System. While support for her Private Members' Bill came from the smaller parties across the chamber, I will never forget the myriad of arguments thrown up against the Bill from those who opposed change, including, bizarrely, that emotion should not be brought into the Assembly chamber. Ultimately this week we saw that same proposal cruising along in Westminster with cool, calm debate, uniting parties and politicians. The Westminster Bill, which applies to England only, will bring forward a change in the consent system for organ donation to an opt out system designed to simplify the process through which people donate, increasing the number of potential donors and at the same time respecting the wishes of people who don't wish to donate. As the Bill was being debated, a very difficult yet necessary truth was being outlined to MPs. Of everyone who died last year around the country, one person in 100 died in circumstances where they had the potential to donate their organs. The truth is that even though we have hundreds of thousands of people registered as potential donors, only a very small number will ever actually be able to donate. That's why we need more people to think about organ donation and to have that all-important discussion with their family and loved ones because hundreds of people across the country, and on average 15 each year in Northern Ireland, continue to die because an organ is not available for them. We all have priorities and we all have dreams - my dream is to see a world where no one dies needlessly because they couldn't get the transplant which would save their lives. My tablets all safely stored away in my cabin, I'm going to make my priority for the days ahead to enjoy the cruise and to come back refreshed and renewed. I'm also going to take my first ever break from my column next week but I will be back again on November 14 to let you know how I got on and to continue to promote the life giving and life saving power of organ donation. We all have it within us to be a life saver. Residents in a west Belfast housing estate have spoken of their shock after two women escaped injury in an arson attack which destroyed a family home. The fire broke out at the house on Monagh Drive just before 5pm on Monday after petrol was poured around the property and set alight. A young mother and her four children living in the adjoining property also had to be evacuated from their home, which sustained serious smoke damage. Neighbours said the woman who owned the house is in her 50s and lived alone, but it is believed that one of her daughters was with her at the time. The Fire Service has been praised for stopping the blaze at the end terrace house from spreading to neighbouring homes. Firefighters were on the scene within four minutes of the call at 4.47pm and said the fire was "well developed". Three appliances, 14 firefighters and an officer worked to extinguish the blaze and stop it spreading. Group commander Mark Smyth said the two women had managed to get themselves out of the property before they had arrived on the scene. "Our priority was to stop the fire and stop it spreading and thankfully we managed that," he said. A neighbour, who did not want to be named, said she had returned home just as the fire had taken hold. She said: "Everyone was out on the street and there was a lot of commotion. "People were screaming - it was mad. It is a very random attack and people don't understand why this has happened." Another woman who lives on the estate said people had been left concerned. "It's frightening to think this could happen on your own doorstep," she said. "No one knows why this happened. "It's a very quiet area, so people are understandably shocked. It's really tragic, but things could have been a lot worse." She added: "If this had been in the middle of the night, there could have been serious injuries to people and especially with young children in the house next door." Sinn Fein MLA for West Belfast Pat Sheehan condemned the incident. He said: "This was a disgraceful attack on a family home and I would condemn it in the strongest possible terms. "It's lucky that nobody was seriously injured or even worse. I would urge anyone with information to bring it forward to the PSNI." Police say they are treating the incident at the home, which was "completely gutted", as arson. Detective Sergeant Doherty said: "It is extremely fortunate that the Fire Service were quickly on the scene, as the fire could have easily spread to adjoining properties, causing further damage and distress." Police have appealed to anyone who noticed any suspicious persons or vehicles in the area to contact detectives at Musgrave on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference 847 October 29. People with information on the incident can also ring Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. There are an awful lot of nail-biters on tap for November 6 and after. Photo: John Lund/Corbis via Getty Images Just two days from now the midterm elections of 2018 will finally be over for the most part. We may not know some results in California and Washington until late mail ballots are counted, and with an unusually high number of too-close-to-call races, there will likely be contests that go into overtime across the country. Heres the latest on the most consequential, and most contentious, races well be watching on November 6: The Big Picture At present the odds are good if not overwhelming that Democrats will regain control of the House and make significant gubernatorial and state legislative gains, while Republicans maintain control of the Senate (possibly even increasing their margin over Democrats there). Cook Political Reports David Wasserman calls the House landscape fairly stable, with Democrats poised to gain between 25 and 40 seats (they need a net gain of 23 for control). FiveThirtyEight gives Democrats six in seven odds of winning the House. Cook rates 71 House races as competitive, with all but four of those occurring in districts currently controlled by Republicans. FiveThirtyEight considers 111 races at least somewhat competitive, with 102 of them involving Republican-controlled seats. Democrats have an advantage in the generic congressional ballot an approximation of the national House popular vote of 7.0 percent according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, and of 8.1 percent according to FiveThirtyEight. Cook considers 13 Senate races eight in seats controlled by Democrats, five in seats controlled by Republicans competitive, which is obviously a far better landscape for the GOP than in the House. FiveThirtyEight suggests there is an equal probability (just 10 percent) that Republicans will pick up at least three net seats, or that Democrats will gain the two seats they need to flip the Senate Over half the 35 governors races on tap this year are rated as competitive by Cook, with an amazing 12 considered toss-ups. Because Republicans are defending 26 governorships, Democrats are almost certain to make gains. Turnout is likely to be high for a midterm nearly everywhere. Early voting has grown as a share of total voting for a good while now, but so far, this years numbers are especially impressive: 28 states + DC surpassed their 2014 total #earlyvote: AZ, DC, DE, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, LA, MA, ME, MD, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NJ, NM, OK, SC, TN, VA, WI, and WV 2 states surpassed their 2014 total vote (early + Election Day): NV and TX Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) November 4, 2018 Crazy Close House Races There are 29 House races that Cook rates as toss-ups, in all sorts of places a disproportionate number of which are suburban Romney-Clinton districts (carried by Mitt Romney in 2012, but by Hillary Clinton in 2016) where college-educated white voters distaste for Trump seems to be a crucial factor in making historically Republican seats suddenly vulnerable. There are five such districts in California, including the 39th District (covering Orange, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino counties), considered particularly hard to call. The incumbent is a Republican, Ed Royce, who is retiring. The district is trending blue, however, thanks to demographic changes; Clinton won it by nearly 9 percent. The candidates are interesting: Democrat Gil Cisneros is a Latino Navy vet who can largely self-fund thanks to a winning $266 million lottery ticket he held back in 2010. Republican Young Kim is a state legislator who has an angle on the districts large Asian-American population. Cisneros has been hit with a subsequently recanted sexual-harassment allegation. The two most recent polls have shown the race statistically tied. Another very close California race is in Orange Countys 48th District where Republican incumbent Dana Rohrabacher sometimes known as Putins favorite congressman thanks to his strongly pro-Russian outlook is a slight underdog to Democrat Harley Rouda. The most recent polls couldnt be much closer. The same is true of an Obama-Trump district (carried by Obama in 2012, Trump in 2016) in bellwether Iowa, the Des Moinesbased Third District. Like other Iowa Republicans, incumbent Representative David Young (who was elected and reelected in two of the best Republican cycles in the states recent history) has been on the defensive all year. However, Young was still favored over Democrat Cindy Axne until the general election race really got rolling. Polls have shown Axne with a statistically insignificant lead, and theres buzz about Republicans in Iowa generally making a late comeback with national cash infusions and Trump-generated right-wing enthusiasm. If Republicans hold Iowas Third District, or even more impressively, the states First District (where GOP incumbent Rod Blum has been in deep trouble the entire cycle), it could mean the Democratic wave wont meet high expectations. Theres a suburban/exurban district in central Virginia that was carried by both Romney and (more narrowly) Trump thats by most accounts too close to call as well: the Seventh, where incumbent Republican Dave Brat is running even in polls with Democrat and former CIA agent Abigail Spanberger. The hard-core conservative Brat is famous for having defeated then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a 2014 primary, but has at some points trailed Spanberger, despite GOP efforts to smear her for once teaching at an Islamic school before joining the Company. A New Mexico open seat (vacated by Republican Steve Pearce) in another historically Republican district (carried by 10.5 percent by Trump) is the site of a pick em race between Republican Yvette Herrell and Democrat Xochitl Torres Small, a water-rights lawyer who has managed a significant spending advantage. And still another race Democrats could win in a district carried by both Romney and Trump is in New Yorks Hudson Valley 19th District, where incumbent Republican John Faso has been trading the lead in polls with Democrat Antonio Delgado, a contest marred by racially tinged GOP attacks on the African-American challenger for a past career as a rapper. Races That Could Help the GOP Keep the House If Republicans pull off a few upsets in Donkey-held districts, they may be able to weather Democratic gains without losing the House. There is one sure GOP pickup in Pennsylvanias 14th District, where the court-ordered re-redistricting of the state overall benefited Democrats but made one pro-Republican flip certain. Republican Pete Stauber is the favorite in Minnesotas Eighth District, an open Democratic seat in the Iron Range, where Trump won by nearly 16 percent in 2016 (after Obama won it by 5 percent in 2012). And Republicans are optimistic about flipping another Obama-Trump seat in Minnesotas First District, whose incumbent, Tim Walz, is the Democratic nominee for governor. Republican Jim Hagedorn and Democrat Dan Feehan are in a close race where limited polling is inconclusive. There are two highly competitive open seats in Nevada in which Democrats are modestly favored; a win in either or both might signal a good night for Republicans. In the southern Nevada Third District being vacated by Democratic Senate nominee Jacky Rosen, Democratic philanthropist Susie Lee (who ran unsuccessfully for the nomination in the Fourth District in 2016) is facing semi-perennial candidate and basketball scion (hes the son of legendary UNLV coach Jerry Tark the Shark Tarkanian) Danny Tarkanian. The district went for Clinton by one point in 2016. In the central Nevada Fourth District, where freshman Democrat Ruben Kihuen declined to pursue reelection after being hit with multiple sexual harassment allegations, two former congressmen from the district, Democratic Steven Horsford and Republican Crescent Hardy (the latter beat the former in 2014, and then lost to Kihuen in 2016) are facing each other again. Clinton carried the district by five points in 2016. Possible Blue Wave Shockers Democrats fantasizing about the consequences of a larger-than-expected wave can now focus on two very famous House members, after Cook reclassified their races. A new Democratic poll showed nativist icon Steve King of Iowa barely leading his Democratic opponent J.D. Scholten. King has been getting some bad publicity of late for his enthusiasm for global white supremacists, and if his state does indeed show big-time buyers remorse for its big vote for Trump in 2016, King would be an especially appropriate victim. Cook now rates the race Lean Republican. In California, famous Trump-enabler Devin Nuness race is still Likely Republican, but his opponent Democrat Andrew Janz is extremely well-funded and theres talk of a Latino voter uprising against the incumbent. Two races in traditionally Republicans districts in Georgia could also provide signs of a blue wave if Democrats pull an upset on November 6. One is the north Atlanta suburban 6th district, site of the famous 2017 special election in which veteran Republican candidate Karen Handel defeated Democratic newcomer Jon Ossoff in the most expensive House races ever. National gun control advocate Lucy McBath is running a stronger-than-expected race against Handel this year; the single public poll in the race showed Handel up by four points. In the next-door 7th district, Democratic academic Carolyn Bordeaux is close enough to incumbent Rob Woodall to make Republicans a bit nervous. Both Democrats could benefit from gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abramss intense minority turnout efforts. Tight Races That Will Determine Senate Control While Cook still rates nine Senate races as toss-ups, several now look to be tilting one way or the other depending on last-minute developments and turnout patterns. New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez is maintaining a narrow but steady lead over Republican Bob Hugin in a race dominated by the challengers money and the incumbents ethics issues. And Ted Cruz seems to be holding onto his lead over the now-legendary fundraiser Beto ORourke. The latest poll, from Emerson, shows ORourke within the margin of error, trailing Cruz by three points. His best hope is a late enthusiasm-based surge. North Dakota Democrat Heidi Heitkamp is now regularly trailing Republican Representative Kevin Cramer in polls, though the state is notoriously difficult to survey. Another race that seems to have been trending Republican is in deep-red Tennessee where former Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen, who was looking very strong earlier in the cycle, has slipped behind Representative Marsha Blackburn in most recent polls (though a late online poll of registered voters showed them tied). But Democratic incumbents are still leading by varying margins in three other red states that Trump handily carried in 2016. The most secure is probably West Virginias Joe Manchin (who protected himself by voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh), though two late polls have shown his once-large lead over Republican attorney general Patrick Morrisey shrinking to five points.. Montanas Jon Tester has led state auditor Matt Rosendale by a steady but gradually shrinking margin. And Indianas Joe Donnelly appears to have dropped into a very close race with Republican businessman Mike Braun after leading the race for weeks. Two races for Republican-held seats that Democrats have been counting on in their drive for Senate control are now too close to call. In Arizona, recent polls have provided results ranging from a six-point margin for Democrat Kyrsten Sinema to a seven-point margin for Republican Martha McSally. But Republicans think negative attacks on Sinemas radical background and the latest Trump-fed immigration panic might tilt the race to McSally. FiveThirtyEight rates Sinema a very slight favorite. And in Nevada, Republican incumbent Dean Heller is in a very tight race with Democratic representative Jacky Rosen, though Heller was once thought to be an almost certain loser this year. Nevada is turning into a partisan slugfest across the board, with very close gubernatorial and House races taking place as well. Early voting in the state (which is also very close) represents a test of each partys well-oiled mobilization machine. And there are two other Senate races that have been too close to call all along, both in Trump 2016 states. In Florida incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson has overcome a slow start and is riding anti-Trump sentiment in his race against massively funded Governor Rick Scott. The governor is being helped by positive assessments of his role in dealing with Hurricane Michael, but may be hurt by very high African-American turnout stimulated by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum. This is another state with heavy early voting coming in at potentially historic levels. Most recent polls have given Nelson a slight edge, but the very latest, a large-sample survey from St. Pete Polls, has Scott up by a point. Meanwhile, in Missouri incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill has been in a back-and-forth race with Attorney General Josh Hawley. While it is clearly true that the states dynamics favor the challenger, McCaskill has by most accounts run the better campaign. High-Profile Gubernatorial Toss-ups There are some signs that the Floridas governors race between Andrew Gillum and Republican representative Ron DeSantis is tightening as well, with recent polls giving Gillum a lead within the margin of error. But the impressive turnout patterns that gave Gillum an upset win in the August Democratic primary may be his ace in the hole, and FiveThirtyEight gives him a three-in-four chance of winning at this point. Two other dead-even gubernatorial contests are raging in Nevada and Ohio (in Nevada, Republican Adam Laxalt faces Democrat Steve Sisolak, and in Ohio its Republican Mike DeWine versus Democrat Richard Cordray). And in Wisconsin and Kansas, there are very close gubernatorial races attracting especially intense national attention. In Wisconsin, Scott Walker is in the biggest peril of his political career, but the latest survey from the gold-standard Marquette Law School pollster showed Walker and Democrat Tony Evers dead-even. In Kansas, nativist/voter suppressor Kris Kobach is even with Democrat Laura Kelly, and independent Greg Orman may keep Kelly from consolidating the anti-Kobach vote. A real sleeper is in South Dakota, where out of nowhere conservative Democrat Billie Sutton, a paraplegic former rodeo professional, is in a tight race with U.S. Representative Kristi Noem. Contests That Could Head Into Overtime If the midterm cycle didnt satisfy your political appetite, there are two races that could extend the election season. In Mississippi, the nonpartisan special election to fill senator Thad Cochrans term (he resigned earlier this year) will be held on November 6, but appointed Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith is unlikely to win the required majority, and will almost certainly face former Democratic congressman and USDA Secretary Mike Espy in a November 27 runoff; a trial heat poll showed her leading Espy by a comfortable margin. And one of the closest and bitterest races in the country, the Georgia gubernatorial contest between Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams, could go to a runoff as well since state law requires a general election majority. If the main race is as close as polls currently indicate (neither candidate has held a polling lead larger than the margin of error since this contest began), then the customary 2 to 3 percent usually carried by the Libertarian candidate could be enough to send the contest to a December 4 runoff. Historically such runoffs have favored Georgia Republicans, but the unprecedented nature of Abramss candidacy (she is vying to become the nations first African-American woman to serve as governor) and her turnout-focused strategy could make this a nail-biter all the way into the heart of the holiday shopping season. You might recall that Democratic Senator Doug Jones won a similarly scheduled special election last year in next-door Alabama. These are unpredictable times. Residents of a Co Antrim town have said they have been discriminated against after a council decided not to provide funding for a Christmas tree. Antrim and Newtownabbey Council is funding Christmas trees and lights for Antrim, Glengormley, Randalstown and Ballyclare but Crumlin was left out because it did not gain the necessary level of support. A concerned parent from Crumlin told the Belfast Telegraph: "The ratepayers of Crumlin town are absolutely horrified to find out recently in September 2018, that we have completely been cast aside by our 'super council' Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council with regards to Christmas tree, lighting and insurance funding. "The council has systematically cut Crumlin out of the equation altogether, for no good reason. We are left with no other conclusion, than, we have been completely discriminated against." Campaigners in the town have lobbied the council and school pupils have sent artwork to councillors in a bid to overturn the decision. Alliance councillor Tom Campbell, speaking on the Frank Mitchell Show on U105, said: "What we have is a venomous campaign stirred up by Sinn Fein. What they have done is take a couple of lies and twisted them in to try and represent the truth. They are claiming they are not getting a Christmas tree and this amounts to discrimination. "The council is getting letters from individuals demanding copies of our equality policy and they have also got school children to unwittingly prepare artwork for councillors, sent round to councillors, with an anonymous letter. The anonymous letter tells blatant lies and one of the blatant lies is that the town is being denied Christmas lights." Mr Campbell said the town was entitled to apply for a grant for Christmas lights and had not done so. He said the council had encouraged community groups to find alternative sources of funding because of council budget constraints. He said community groups in the town had sourced 2,000 from Belfast International Airport towards Christmas activities, which Mr Campbell says includes provision for a Christmas tree. Sinn Fein councillor Anne Marie Logue, speaking on U105, disputed the claim that the Crumlin community had secured funding for a Christmas tree from Belfast International Airport. "Crumlin Festival Group is getting 2,000, apparently for a fun day, a festival," she said. "Nothing to do with the Christmas tree or the Christmas lights that are usually funded by council. This is totally separate." Expand Close Anne Marie Logue / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Anne Marie Logue The Sinn Fein councillor also denied that the party was "manipulating" school children by getting them to make artwork and send it to councillors. "If children want to get involved, if parents want to get involved, if schools want to get involved, then that is good," she said. "To actually give children the opportunity to express their feelings through art is good. It has nothing to do with Sinn Fein. This conspiracy theory that Alderman Campbell is very worrying indeed." An Alliance spokesman said the party had twice brought motions proposing Crumlin be included as one of the towns to receive funding around Christmas provisions. It is understood Belfast International Airport gave 2,000 to Crumlin Residents' Association towards Christmas festivities but the airport did not state how the money was to be spent. In a statement, Antrim and Newtownabey Borough Council said because of a lack of funding it was agreed that Christmas trees, festive lighting and switch on event locations would be reduced from 22 to four. The council offered, free of charge, existing Christmas tree lights and also made a budget of 18,000 available for community groups who wished to secure their own trees. To date 11 groups have applied and been approved a total of 8,445.75 towards their Christmas events. The council spokesperson said it received no request for Christmas lights from Crumlin to date. The spokesperson added: "Groups in Doagh, Straid, Parkgate, Templepatrick and Toome have also availed of the offer of Christmas lights. No request for Christmas lights has been received to date from Crumlin. In addition to the support from the Council, Belfast International Airport is also providing funding of 2,000 towards the costs of Crumlins Christmas programme." 'The PSNI said two burglaries in Loughbrickland may be linked, but have not confirmed a link between any of the other incidents' (stock photo) A man in his 80s was thrown to the floor by burglars in what police called a "despicable act". It was one of a spate of burglaries involving the elderly on Monday night, in Lurgan, Loughbrickland and Bessbrook. The PSNI said two burglaries in Loughbrickland may be linked, but have not confirmed a link between any of the other incidents. The force said "all lines of enquiry will be looked at". Commissioner for Older People, Eddie Lynch, said: "These violent attacks are appalling and older people will be frightened. Attacks like this are rare, but older people should not be afraid to call the PSNI for help if they are worried." In the Lurgan burglary, a man in his 80s was pushed to the ground. PSNI Superintendent Wendy Middleton said two men forced their way into a house in Trasna Way at between 8pm and 8.10pm. She said: "Once inside they assaulted one of two occupants, a man aged in his 80s, throwing him to the floor. The suspects then ransacked the house before fleeing. "While the man was not physically injured, he was left badly shaken. A woman in the house was untouched, but left very shocked. "Both suspects, who are described as having their faces covered and wore black woollen gloves, then fled. "It's not known at this time what, if anything, was taken." Police are also investigating a burglary and an attempted burglary at two addresses in Loughbrickland on Monday night, which they believe may be linked. Supt Middleton said officers received a report shortly after 7.40pm of an attempted burglary in Woodside Park, where the occupant, a man in his 50s, disturbed a number of males. She said: "When challenged by the occupant, one of the suspects threatened him. The suspect is described as being approximately 6ft tall, of medium build and wore a peaked cap and grey top, and wore a scarf to cover his face. "It was reported the suspects then fled in what was described as a silver-coloured, saloon vehicle. "A short time later, just before 8pm, we received a further report that when a female occupant of a house, in the nearby Woodvale area, answered the door at around 7.15pm three masked men pushed past her. "One of the suspects stayed with the woman, who is in her 90s, while the other two men ransacked rooms. The suspects fled with a sum of money. "While the woman was not physically injured, she was left traumatised by what must have been a terrifying ordeal in her own home, a place where she deserves to feel safe. "The suspects are described as being of slim build, tall and are reported to have worn dark clothing with scarves and hats covering their faces." And in another burglary, in Bessbrook's Millvale Park area, police said a man in his 80s was left "badly shaken" after a number of masked individuals forced entry at around 7.50pm and took a safe containing a sum of cash. Nine alleged victims have made complaints against a former GAA official accused of sexual abuse and voyeurism offences over a 30-year period, the High Court heard today. Prosecutors also claimed Thomas McKenna, 58, had stored more than 50,000 photos and video clips - many depicting young men and boys naked or partially clothed. Police are still trying to establish the identities of some of those in the images, a judge was told. Details emerged as the former club treasurer for Crossmaglen Rangers was refused bail. Mr Justice McAlinden said: "The allegations made against the applicant are of the most horrendous nature in terms of offending against young vulnerable children." McKenna, of Woodside Park in Bessbrook, Co Armagh, faces a total of 17 charges which cover a period between 1988 and his initial arrest in August this year. They include two counts of buggery against persons aged over 16 without consent, and two gross indecency offences, one of which was against a child. He is also charged with sexual assault, voyeurism and eight counts of indecent assault, along with making and possessing indecent photographs of children. The retired postman is further alleged to have interfered with mail during his time of employment. Crown lawyer Kate McKay said the charges relate to a "serious and complex investigation" into claims of historical sexual offences. "It involves, to date, nine injured parties," she told the court. Those complainants have come forward to speak to police and provided interviews about alleged incidents. Mrs McKay set out how they also claim McKenna took photos and videos of them at locations without their permission. Police searches led to the recovery of devices said to contain 43,000 still images and 8,000 short video clips - some allegedly taken covertly. According to the prosecution the haul included photos taken in recent times. Opposing bail due to the risk of re-offending, Mrs McKay revealed that a threat message has been served on McKenna. Kevin Magill, defending, responded that his client was merely advised of heightened tensions in Crossmaglen. He said the accused served as treasurer for Crossmaglen Rangers for many years. The club has issued a statement in which it assured members of its "robust child safeguarding procedures", encouraged anyone with information in relation to the investigation to co-operate with the authorities, and conformed the former officer has been excluded from all activities pending the outcome of police inquiries. Ruling that McKenna must remain in custody, Mr Justice McAlinden pointed out that not all the alleged offences are historic. He said: "The court would be remiss in its duty to protect the public if bail was granted in this case." ends Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, Faughanvale, were a mass was held to commemorate the eight people fatally shot in 1993 during the Greysteel massacre. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday October 30, 2018. See PA story ULSTER Greysteel . Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, Faughanvale, were a mass was held to commemorate the eight people fatally shot in 1993 during the Greysteel massacre. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday October 30, 2018. See PA story ULSTER Greysteel . Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire Flowers left on behalf of Rev Dr. David Clements, Alan McBride, whose wife Sarah was killed by the IRA in the Shankill bomb and the WAVE Trauma Centre, outside the Rising Sun pub, in Greysteel, Co Londonderry to commemorate the 25th anniversary of eight people being murdered on 30 October 1993 by loyalist gunmen who burst into the busy bar and opened fire. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday October 30, 2018. See PA story ULSTER Greysteel. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire The Rev Dr. David Clements (left) and Alan McBride, whose wife Sarah was killed by the IRA in the Shankill bomb, wait to lay a floral tribute outside the Rising Sun pub, in Greysteel, Co Londonderry to commemorate the 25th anniversary of eight people being murdered on 30 October 1993 by loyalist gunmen who burst into the busy bar and opened fire. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday October 30, 2018. See PA story ULSTER Greysteel. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire People attend a vigil outside the Rising Sun pub, in Greysteel, Co Londonderry to commemorate the 25th anniversary of eight people being murdered on 30 October 1993 by loyalist gunmen who burst into the busy bar and opened fire. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday October 30, 2018. See PA story ULSTER Greysteel. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire People attend a vigil outside the Rising Sun pub, in Greysteel, Co Londonderry to commemorate the 25th anniversary of eight people being murdered on 30 October 1993 by loyalist gunmen who burst into the busy bar and opened fire. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday October 30, 2018. See PA story ULSTER Greysteel. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire People attend a vigil outside the Rising Sun pub, in Greysteel, Co Londonderry to commemorate the 25th anniversary of eight people being murdered on 30 October 1993 by loyalist gunmen who burst into the busy bar and opened fire. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday October 30, 2018. See PA story ULSTER Greysteel. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire People attend a vigil outside the Rising Sun pub, in Greysteel, Co Londonderry to commemorate the 25th anniversary of eight people being murdered on 30 October 1993 by loyalist gunmen who burst into the busy bar and opened fire. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday October 30, 2018. See PA story ULSTER Greysteel. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire Daughter of John Burns, Gillian holding a wreath, as seven other members of the Greysteel massacre families look on during a vigil to commemorate the 25th anniversary of eight people being murdered on 30 October 1993 by members of the UFF. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday October 30, 2018. See PA story ULSTER Greysteel. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire Flowers laid at the memorial site of the Greysteel massacre after a vigil to commemorate the 25th anniversary of eight people being murdered on 30 October 1993 by members of the UFF. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday October 30, 2018. See PA story ULSTER Greysteel. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire Daughter of John Burns, Gillian laying a wreath, as seven other members of the Greysteel massacre families look on during a vigil to commemorate the 25th anniversary of eight people being murdered on 30 October 1993 by members of the UFF. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday October 30, 2018. See PA story ULSTER Greysteel. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire Alan McBride, whose wife Sarah was killed by the IRA in the Shankill bomb, lays a floral tribute during a vigil outside the Rising Sun pub, in Greysteel, Co Londonderry to commemorate the 25th anniversary of eight people being murdered on 30 October 1993 by loyalist gunmen who burst into the busy bar and opened fire. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday October 30, 2018. See PA story ULSTER Greysteel. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire People leave floral tributes during a vigil outside the Rising Sun pub, in Greysteel, Co Londonderry to commemorate the 25th anniversary of eight people being murdered on 30 October 1993 by loyalist gunmen who burst into the busy bar and opened fire. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday October 30, 2018. See PA story ULSTER Greysteel. Photo credit should read: Liam McBurney/PA Wire A woman lays a floral tribute during a vigil outside the Rising Sun pub in Greysteel. Liam McBurney/PA Wire The families of those killed in one of the most shocking attacks of Northern Irelands Troubles have urged politicians to make sure it never happens again. Hundreds of people gathered in Greysteel, Co Londonderry to mark the 25th anniversary of the night loyalist gunmen burst into a busy bar and opened fire. Wreaths and flowers were laid in memory of the victims at a plaque outside the Rising Sun pub, where the atrocity took place. The sons, daughters and loved ones of the eight people lost in the #Greysteel shootings lay a wreath and hold a minutes silence at the Rising Sun Bar were they were murdered 25 years ago this night pic.twitter.com/toVr2kWyds Leona O'Neill (@LeonaONeill1) October 30, 2018 Eight civilians, both Catholics and Protestants, were killed on October 30, 1993. The killers shouted trick or treat before pulling the trigger. Karen Thompson, 19, Steven Mullan, 20, Moira Duddy, 59, Joseph McDermott, 60, James Moore, 81, John Moyne, 50, John Burns, 54 and Victor Montgomery, 76 were remembered during a special Mass at the nearby Star of the Sea church. Monsignor Andrew Dolan paid tribute to the positive and dignified response of the Greysteel families over the years to such an evil deed. He told the service that during a recent meeting with the families, they noted we are living in shaky times, with people uncertain about how things are going to turn out. He said they asked him to relay the message to public representatives to do all you can to ensure this never happens again. I hope you are listening, he added to those gathered in the church which included a number of politicians. SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, his predecessor Mark Durkan, Alliance leader Naomi Long, Sinn Fein MLA Caoimhe Archibald and Ulster Unionist councillors Richard Holmes, Norman Hillis and William McCandless were among those present. A number of Protestant religious ministers were also there. Expand Close The scene where seven people were fatally shot (PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The scene where seven people were fatally shot (PA) The Northern Ireland Assembly has been collapsed since 2017. The powersharing government fell following disagreements between the leader parties, the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein. Following the service, hundreds of people gathered at the Rising Sun bar. The families of those killed laid wreaths and bouquets of flowers at the memorial plaque. The Greysteel shootings were claimed by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) who said the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) had carried out the attack in retaliation for the IRAs bombing of a fish shop on the Shankhill Road in Belfast the week before. Ten people, including one of the IRA bombers, died in that attack. In response, the UDA orchestrated a series of so-called revenge attacks against Catholic civilians. The horrifying series culminated in the Greysteel shootings. Expand Close (Liam McBurney/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (Liam McBurney/PA) Alan McBride, whose wife Sharon was amongst those killed in the Shankhill bomb, attended the memorial event in Greysteel. This is my first time in Greysteel, I wanted to be here on the 25th anniversary to show my support and solidarity with the families because we all suffered and the people that murdered my wife and the people that murdered in Greysteel were two sides of the one coin in terms of bringing terror, hurt and anguish to many families, he said. In February 1995, four men were convicted of carrying out the Greysteel shootings. Stephen Irwin, Jeffrey Deeney, Torrens Knight and Brian McNeill received life sentences for their involvement in the attack. However they were released early in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. Loyalist blogger Jamie Bryson was in court today seeking the return of property which police seized from him during an investigation into the illegal supply of door staff. Last August, he was arrested under the Private Security Industry Act 2001 as they investigated alleged criminality linked to the UVF in east Belfast. Working alongside the Security Industry Authority, searches were conducted at two residential addresses in Bangor and Donaghadee, as well as an office premises in Newtownards where they seized a number of items including a BB gun, laptops, and iPad, documents and camouflage clothing. Although arrested, Mr Bryson was later freed without charge and posted an online video lambasting his arrest as absurd. At Newtownards Magistrates Court on Wednesday, October 31, and representing himself, Mr Bryson formally lodged an application to have that property returned to him by the PSNI Chief Constable. He argued that despite the search being conducted under a PSNI warrant, I say that this is an SIA investigation, not the police, and they have no powers to hand the SIA the materials. He claimed that some items were seized by the SIA, despite them having no powers to do so, while other items taken by the PSNI were handed over to the SIA who took them to their offices at Canary Wharf in London. I say that they had no authority to take the property, Mr Bryson told the court adding that it is his assertion that they have pulled together a patchwork to pull together powers that statute does not give them. A lawyer for the PSNI said the legality of the warrants have not been challenged, the execution of the warrants have not been challenged and maintained that its a police investigation but Mr Brysons application had raised a number of issues aimed at the exercising of powers of the police and SIA. He told the court that some items had been given back but that at the moment, his instructions were to resist Mr Brysons application and that while the PSNI would be writing to Mr Bryson about the matter in the next two weeks, the issues to be resolved maybe a matter for a Judicial Review in the High Court. For the purposes of this case, the police seized the material, its supporting the SIA in its investigation, they have the material and they have that lawfully, the lawyer argued. He continued that the SIA are exploring with Mr Brysons solicitor what is legally professionally privileged material and what is journalist material. District Judge Mark Hamill told Mr Bryson and the PSNI lawyer however it was his view that you are both in the wrong Court - this should be in the Judicial Review Court. While Mr Bryson said he accepted its a matter for a JR, he was seeking an assurance the seized material should not be examined until the legal issues surrounding its seizure had been resolved. They should return the material to me, declared Mr Bryson, or at the very least...the court could seek an undertaking from the police and a third party undertaking from SIA that the material will not be interfered with until the matter is resolved. Adjourning the case to 28 November for review, Judge Hamill quipped to Mr Bryson that on this issue, you may know the law better than I do. An UUP peer has warned of "disillusionment with the political process in Northern Ireland" and said that people "deserve so much better." In a debate on laws to give civil servants more scope to make decisions in the absence of local ministers, Lord Rogan reminded peers it was the 20th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement. He said he felt angry about the situation in which Northern Ireland had found itself, adding that, at times, "it also leaves me feeling a little embarrassed". MPs, in a free Commons vote last week, passed an amendment to legislation which would require ministers to issue guidance to civil servants to ensure compliance with UK abortion and same-sex marriage legislation. While the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill is designed to partly address the governance vacuum created by the collapse of power-sharing, Labour MPs Stella Creasy and Conor McGinn wanted to use it as a vehicle to deliver wider social change. As the Bill arrived in the Lords for consideration, peers reacted with a mixture of approval and concern over the implications for the devolution settlement. Former Lib Dem leader David Steel, now Lord Steel of Aikwood, offered support for Ms Creasy's amendment and said the current situation in Northern Ireland was "untenable". He added: "The fact is that during the Brexit negotiations we've been told we cannot have a line down the middle of the Irish Sea, affecting trade from one part of the United Kingdom to the other, and yet we have a line down the middle of the Irish sea affecting human rights." Former Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay told peers that the government had no power to alter abortion law in the region. He said: "Abortion has been made a devolved subject and therefore the only statutory authority with authority to alter the statues and statutory instruments are the legislative Assembly of Northern Ireland." Later, DUP peer Lord Morrow warned against selecting issues for London to legislate on. He said: "We will strongly oppose any attempt to cherry pick and decide what should or should not happen in Northern Ireland." Lib Dem frontbencher Lord Bruce countered by saying there was a "huge amount of public support" for abortion reform in Northern Ireland as he told peers he supported the amendment. Northern Ireland minister Lord Duncan, opening the second reading debate of the Bill, told peers he wished "the Bill itself was not necessary", adding: "We will not be waiting until March to bring the Northern Ireland parties together." He said the Creasy amendment doesn't alter the law, adding: "These issues are devolved and should rightly be determined by an incoming Assembly, but as I stated this clause does change the law in respect of the wider legal framework in respect of either." The group of people who dressed as Ku Klux Klan members in Newtownards at the weekend Churches have united to condemn the actions of a group of men who posed as Ku Klux Klan members outside an Islamic prayer house in Co Down. Police are treating the incident in Newtownards at the weekend as a hate crime. Pictures emerged showing the group in white KKK garb and carrying wooden crosses at Greenwell Street, close to the Bangladesh Islamic Centre. Read More The Rev Norman McAuley of Greenwell Street Presbyterian Church, which is located next door to the centre, appealed to the men to identify themselves. "If it was just a Halloween prank then come forward and explain it, hold your hands up and say so," he said. Expand Close Sharon Mellor poses with one of the group in a bar / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sharon Mellor poses with one of the group in a bar "Just admit it was a joke that, in hindsight, was in very poor taste." The clergyman, who said the two faith groups enjoy very good relations and often socialise together, has already reached out to the small Muslim community since the disturbing images emerged. "We regard these members of the Islamic community as our neighbours and our Christian faith teaches us to love our neighbours," he added. "We have been in touch to reaffirm our support." Rev McAuley, who opens his church car park for the 60 or 70 Muslims who attend Friday prayers, said the incident had left him perplexed. "These men stood with wooden crosses, and from our point of view the cross is a symbol of the unconditional love of God," he said. "What we saw at the weekend was sacrilege." Expand Close Men dressed in KKK outfits in a pub in Newtownards / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Men dressed in KKK outfits in a pub in Newtownards A statement has been issued on behalf of Ards Churches Together, a group of leaders from various denominations calling on those responsible to come forward to police. "We also encourage them to talk to their local churches confidentially if they would like to find a way to leave hate and hurt behind," it read. It offered offered its full support to those in the Muslim community who feel intimidated after "symbols of hate" appeared outside their place of worship and "hurt a whole community". "We stand with you," it added. "Hate has no place in our town." The images, which have made headlines globally, have drawn widespread condemnation. Yesterday this newspaper revealed how one of the men was pictured on the same night in KKK garb embracing Sharon Meller, the girlfriend of National Front leader Tony Martin, in a Newtownards pub. Police have been cleared of failings over their investigation into the murder of a man outside a Belfast bar. Robert McCartney (33) was stabbed to death close to Magennis's pub in January 2005. No one has been convicted of the murder despite attempted prosecutions and a high-profile campaign by the McCartney family. The Police Ombudsman received a series of complaints about how the PSNI conducted the investigation, including that those responsible may have been informants shielded from justice. But a report by Police Ombudsman Michael Maguire today concludes no one was protected during the investigation. Mr Maguire said that while the McCartney family "may feel the justice system has failed them", there is no evidence police played any part in that failure. However, Mr McCartney's sister Catherine last night voiced anger at the findings. She said: "I never expected much anyway but I'm still disappointed. I don't accept the findings of the report. "My main complaint was that I did not feel the police pursued witnesses as rigorously and vigorously as I could. Nothing in this report has changed my mind on that." She said she was determined to continue the fight to secure justice for her brother. "There's an awful lot of information I'd like to pursue, but we don't know yet how to do that," she added. "The bottom line is that Robert hasn't got justice. The people and the evidence are still out there." The father-of-two from Short Strand was stabbed by IRA members. A second man, Brendan Devine, was badly wounded. With CCTV video tapes removed from the bar in the wake of the killing, and widespread reports of witness intimidation, the IRA was accused of a cover-up. Of 70 people in the bar that night, no one reported seeing the fracas. Dr Maguire said: The police investigation of events that night was complex, with what can best be described as some unique obstacles, including a reluctance by some witnesses to give evidence and concerns about the credibility of others. "The detectives sought to work around these problems. Their investigation was detailed and comprehensive and resulted in three people facing trial. "Having examined all the information carefully, I can assure them (the family) that the fact that no one has been convicted for the murder can in no way be attributed to the work of police in gathering evidence." One complaint asked how it was possible for the bar area to be cleaned prior to police arriving, leaving little forensics. The Ombudsman found that the police delay in going to the pub was not due to any inefficiency on their part. The victims had been discovered nearby and the priority for officers was the preservation of life. His investigators established that the equivalent of three industrial bins of material was recovered and extensive DNA testing was carried out on blood matter. They found that, despite allegations to the contrary, police interviewed the man alleged to have cleaned the bar. It was also alleged that people were allowed to leave the scene without their details recorded. Investigators confirmed that people left the bar prior to the arrival of police, who then ensured they got contact details for all those who were still present. Investigators found that police had gone to "considerable lengths" to identify those who had been in the bar earlier, including conducting door to door inquiries and media appeals. They did not find evidence to support a complaint that identification parades should have been held much sooner. The issue of police efforts to find the origins and whereabouts of the knife used to stab Mr McCartney was also raised. Investigators established that police interviewed several people and conducted an extensive search of drains, gulleys and roof tops over a wide area in their efforts to find the weapon. They found no records which would support an allegation that police had received information about shoes with blood on them hidden in the home of a named individual. Similarly, they did not find evidence which would support an allegation that one of the suspects was not interviewed properly, nor that two named individuals, nor anyone else, had been protected from prosecution because they may have been police informants. The Police Ombudsman had some criticism of the PSNI and said the proper resourcing of the investigation team was challenging from the outset. Dr Maguire added: "The work on telephone interrogations, for instance, was not as coordinated as it could have been. A designated telephone liasion officer should have been appointed, but all these officers were already assigned to the investigation of the Northern Bank robbery. "Evidential opportunities may have arisen if there had been a more consistent approach to telecommunication enquiries." 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. Messages of support have come flooding in for a pregnant Northern Ireland mother who hopes to carry her baby to term despite knowing the child won't survive outside the womb. Erin O'Hara declined to have an abortion and has recently reached 26 weeks of pregnancy with a baby girl whom she named Freya after the unborn infant was diagnosed with untreatable anencephaly. The 24-year-old, already mum to six-year-old son Josh, revealed that she and Jamie McCormick (23), her partner of almost four years, had planned on having a child together and couldn't bear to have a termination. Her heartbreaking story in yesterday's Belfast Telegraph prompted an outpouring of love and solidarity for the Limavady clerical officer, who is now preparing a baby shower for her unborn baby girl on November 10. Writing on Facebook, Belfast woman Chantelle Dougan (24) revealed that deciding not to continue her pregnancy with an unborn baby girl after receiving a similar diagnosis was one of the "hardest decisions" she has ever made. "Erin, I don't know if you will ever see this, but in June 2016, I had a little girl with the same condition," she said. "It broke my heart into a million pieces, but I couldn't continue my pregnancy knowing the outcome. I was five months gone and it was one of the hardest decisions of my life. I was only 22 and hadn't a clue what was for the best at the time. "I now have my beautiful little rainbow baby, but think of my little Riley every single day. "I beat myself up for so long thinking what if, but as you well know, this illness isn't compatible with life and therefore for my own health and well-being, I decided to terminate. This choice is yours and yours alone! Sending you loads of love xxxx." Erin replied: "Chantelle I am so, so sorry to hear about your loss. My decision obviously doesn't suit everyone and I understand that. "I'm glad you do what's best for you. Wishing you and your little rainbow all the love and hugs in the world xxxx." In response to Erin's story, Colleen Ellison wrote: "Huge respect to you Erin and to your family. You are loving and nurturing Freya to the very end. What a loving and beautiful way to treat your precious little daughter. "Praying for strength for you through the difficult times ahead. I am sure the time you have together will be heartbreaking, but your devotion to your terminally ill child is inspirational." In another post Rebecca Stewart added: "Erin, if you read this I just wanted to let you know how brave you both are and how much we are praying for you - even though we don't know you. From one mummy to another xx." The drugs which were seized by police / Credit: PSNI Craigavon Thousands of pounds worth of drugs have been seized in Lurgan after an alleged dealer left their door open. Drugs and drug paraphernalia were discovered by police after a search in the Taghnevan area on Tuesday evening. Posting to Facebook, PSNI Craigavon wrote said it had seized around 4,400 "worth of criminal gear". A police spokesperson said: "How many times do we have to say it? LOCK YOUR DOOR!! "DST [District Support Team] didn't even need to put this door up the hall way! They just walked in! Where's the fun in that?!" One individual was arrested during the raid for possession of class B drugs with an intent to supply. "If you know someone dealing in your area, where they're hiding it and how they're selling it, let us know by PM, by calling 101, or by speaking completely anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111," the spokesperson added. "For bonus points, tell us if their door is double locked, triple locked, or unlocked." School principals have given evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs committee. (PA/Ben Birchall) A primary school principal has urged Northern Irelands politicians to set aside petty squabbles and stand up for children. Graham Gault, head of Maghaberry Primary School in Moira, Co Armagh, said there is no more time for our politicians to play pathetic games. Mr Gault was one of four school principals who gave evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee at Westminster on Wednesday. The committee is carrying out an inquiry into education funding in Northern Ireland. Committee chairman Andrew Murrison said in the absence of a Northern Ireland Executive the committee was probing matters that would normally be devolved. The powersharing government at Stormont has been collapsed since January 2017 following a breakdown in relations between the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein. Expand Close Powersharing at Stormont has been suspended since January 2017 (Niall Carson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Powersharing at Stormont has been suspended since January 2017 (Niall Carson/PA) The evidence session came weeks after Northern Irelands Auditor General warned that the regions education system is coming close to a financial tipping point. Kieran Donnelly said the Department of Education and the Education Authority need to act as a matter of urgency. His report found that since the 2012/13 financial year, the number of schools in deficit has increased from 197 to 315. Mr Gault said the level of political discourse in Northern Ireland is something I wouldnt accept in my playground. My children beg for a field of politics that is based around integrity, honesty and authenticity and looks at their needs rather than the needs of party politics and petty squabbles, he told the committee. I would say to politicians, we have one chance for the children in my school, it is not an industry where we can fix a problem in five years time. My children have one goal, and my politicians are playing pathetic games, and I say to them, now is the time to be brave, to stand up and make some difficult decisions. Step up for our children. Expand Close Dr Graham Gault, principal of Maghaberry Primary School, Co Antrim said the funding situation in schools in Northern Ireland is ridiculous. (PA/Westminster) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Dr Graham Gault, principal of Maghaberry Primary School, Co Antrim said the funding situation in schools in Northern Ireland is ridiculous. (PA/Westminster) I dont mind what issues people are arguing about, but the past is not relevant to the children in my school who are dealing with complex learning needs and facing a system now which is almost Victorian in terms of the level of financial provision. There is no more time for our politicians to play pathetic games, my children need their help right now. Mr Gault said his school performs well in all of the six sustainable school priorities, apart from its financial position. He said its deficit at the end of this financial year will be around 130,000. My school isnt financially sustainable and I have actually found myself in the humiliating position of begging my parents to support the wellbeing of their children by providing Pritt Stick, reading books, tissues and soap, he said. This isnt a joke, I actually have parents who are donating toilet roll to my school. Its a disgrace. Jo McColgan, principal of Ashfield Boys High School in east Belfast, said the educational outcomes at his school have improved significantly, but the financial position has worsened. We have gone from a 4,000 surplus to a minus 136,000 deficit, he said. Mr McColgan argued there are other ways savings could be made, querying the central procurement system that controlled schools must go through. He said he could source ink cartridges for 6,000 less outside the system. Deirdre Gillespie, principal of St Marys Grammar in Magherafelt, Co Londonderry, said there are no more cuts the school can make, other than to staff. We need a transformation of the system which will release money back into the system to schools, she said. Nigel Frith, principal of Drumragh Integrated College in Omagh, Co Tyrone, said he does not want the old Stormont back. I want a new Stormont with a new will and a new vision to work together in the ways that they didnt, he told the committee. I didnt see a power-sharing executive, I saw a power-grabbing executive, and Im sorry if I have offended anyone listening, but I think that is the reality. Now if they cant agree to power-sharing properly, I would rather that the civil servants at the head of our government departments were given greater powers to make decisions for themselves and I daresay without any political bias. I dont think what we had before the executive collapsed was anywhere near good enough. A prisons watchdog has said it is alarming that new psychoactive substances are not being detected by drug dogs at Magilligan Prison. It also found that the dangerous drugs are changing so fast that it is extremely challenging for staff to tackle. The Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs), the independent oversight bodies for Northern Irelands three prisons, published their annual assessment of conditions at HMP Magilligan, HMP Maghaberry and HMP Hydebank Wood. Board members visit the prisons and report on the conditions of imprisonment and the treatment of inmates as well as considering their requests and complaints. Expand Close Maghaberry Prison. Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Maghaberry Prison. The report found the supply of drugs and illicit substances continue to get into Magilligan Prison, despite the observational skills and diligence of staff. The report said that efforts are being made to work towards a drug-free prison using incentives for prisoners who are not using drugs. It is alarming that the new psychoactive substances are not being detected by the drugs dogs at the point of entry, the report said. Prescription drugs and the misuse of same continues to create a problem as many of these fall into the wrong hands, acting as currency within the prison. It also found that most prisoners in Magilligan Prison, near Limavady, who are engaging in education and training find it rewarding and worthwhile with many saying that they feel more confident they will get a job after they are released. Expand Close Magilligan medium security prison near Limavady in Co Londonderry. PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Magilligan medium security prison near Limavady in Co Londonderry. One of the concerns raised included rising incidents of poor mental health which is exacerbated by long term sick leave staff. The one mental health nurse is completely overwhelmed by the volume of referrals made to him, greatly exacerbated by prisoners transferred from Maghaberry Prison with no mental health assessments, the report added. A report from Maghaberry Prison, which holds adult male long-term and short-term sentenced and remand prisoners, found that there is a high volume of drugs in the prison. Patrick McGonagle, chair of IMB at Maghaberry, said: While drugs continue to be a problem in Maghaberry, as in every other prison, we are pleased that the management continue to take robust action suspected with bringing unauthorised items into the prison. It found that prescription medication is the most common drug that has been showing up in tests adding that there is also a rise in cocaine and heroin. It is disturbing to note the high risks taken by prisoners in secreting large amounts of illegal substances on their person, the report continued. The board at Hydebank Prison, which houses young offenders (students) and female prisoners, said it was impressed by the range of subjects offered to inmates, adding that sheep rearing and husbandry has been introduced to an enthusiastic group of students. A Northern Ireland minister has agreed to discuss the idea of holding referendums on reforming the region's abortion and marriage laws. But the offer by Government frontbencher Lord Duncan of Springbank sparked immediate criticism at Westminster, with one peer branding it "most unhelpful". The controversy came towards the end of a lengthy debate in the House of Lords on emergency legislation linked to the continuing crisis at Stormont. The main aim of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill is to deal with the governance vacuum created by the collapse of powersharing, and provide breathing space for the region's rowing politicians to resume negotiations. But the proceedings were largely dominated by disagreement over an MP-backed move to extend certain human rights protections to Northern Ireland in the absence of a devolved administration. Elected members approved, in a free Commons vote last week, an amendment to the Bill which would require ministers to issue guidance to Northern Ireland civil servants to ensure compliance with UK abortion and same-sex marriage legislation. While there was support for the measure from some peers in the upper chamber, others raised concerns arguing that abortion was a devolved issue. During the debate, Liberal Democrat peer Lord Alderdice suggested the Northern Ireland Secretary consider holding referendums to gauge the views of the public on the disputed issues. He said: "What is much more likely to affect Northern Ireland politicians is when their own people start to say things to them." Lord Alderdice added: "I believe that dramatic changes are taking place in the views of the people of Northern Ireland on many issues and the only way for us to become clear about that is to put it to the people in a clear fashion." Responding, Lord Duncan agreed that "there has been an evolution in the public opinion within Northern Ireland." On the "novel idea of referendums", Lord Duncan said: "I cannot make any commitment on that but I would like to discuss that matter further and if he were amenable I would like to sit down in the future to explore that very thing. "It is of course not for this particular Bill to move that matter forward." But this led to a swift intervention from Baroness O'Loan, who said she had been given a ministerial assurance that the UK Parliament would make no decision on abortion so long as Stormont was "in devolution mode". The independent crossbencher, who served as Northern Ireland's police ombudsman from 1999 to 2007, said: "I do not think it's helpful for him to suggest there be a referendum on abortion in Northern Ireland at this time of night on this Bill. "Even to discuss it I think most unhelpful." Lord Duncan said he disagreed and added: "I don't think in opening up a discussion with Lord Alderdice we are doing anything other than recognising that there are challenges ahead of which this is but one opportunity to progress. "It is not my intention to state that we will do any more than discuss that, because it is far too great a discussion to have." Lady O'Loan earlier had spoken out against the Commons amendment to the Bill, arguing that abortion was not a human right. Given only the Northern Ireland legislature could make make law in this area, she argued "it must surely be illogical to ask the Secretary of State to issue guidance, which would be incompatible with that law". Tory former lord chancellor Lord Mackay of Clashfern told peers that the Government had no power to change abortion law in Northern Ireland. He said: "If the law is to be changed, that has to be done by the appropriate legislature. "It is the (Northern Ireland) legislative assembly that has the power to do this. There is no question of the Secretary of State being able to do it by guidance. That is out of the question." Former senior judge Baroness Butler-Sloss argued the change to the Bill agreed by MPs "means absolutely nothing on abortion". The independent crossbencher said: "There has been a very well-meaning attempt by members of the House of Commons to circumvent devolution by putting in a clause that I cannot believe they thought would mean anything or would do any good. "It is the expectation that has been raised that is so sad." Labour former Cabinet minister Lord Adonis said: "If Northern Ireland wishes to exercise the prerogatives of devolution, it must operate devolved institutions." He added: "If they do not sit and legislate, then we have a duty to legislate in their place, because there is no one else who can do it." Opposing the amendment, Democratic Unionist Party peer Lord Browne of Belmont said: "What we have here, I rather suspect, is an attempt to change the law through guidance. "It is proper for those matters to be dealt with by the devolved institutions." Highlighting the cross-party majority of MPs that had backed the amendment, Labour leader in the Lords, Baroness Smith of Basildon, said: "The House of Commons sought a way forward which is both proportionate and within the terms of this legislation." Lord Duncan said: "We can be fairly clear that this matter most correctly rests with an assembly in Northern Ireland." The Bill was approved by peers without amendment and is now set to become law. Homes in Omagh have been evacuated after the discovery of a suspicious object (stock photo) A security alert in Omagh has come to an end. Houses were earlier evacuated and the Riverview Road closed to traffic. Police earlier attended the scene and investigated a suspicious object. It was found not to pose a threat. A car in Lurgan has been left damaged after a number of shots were fired at it. It happened in the Maple Court are of the town at around 11.15pm on Tuesday. It was reported that seven shots were fired at the car. Five of these struck the windscreen with two of them hitting the passenger side front door. No one was inside the vehicle at the time of the incident. Another vehicle parked nearby was also damaged as a result of another shot fired. Detective Constable Armstrong said: Enquiries are continuing and we would appeal to anyone who witnessed the incident or saw anything suspicious in the area to contact detectives on 101, quoting reference number 1439 30/10/18." Alternatively the public can contact independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. Garda whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe is to retire from the force three weeks after being vindicated by an investigation into corruption. Sgt McCabe, who faced unfounded and false allegations of a sexual assault, was praised in the Charleton Tribunal report, published earlier this month. The Disclosures Tribunal found former Garda commissioner Martin Callinan was part of a campaign of calumny against Sgt McCabe, actively aided by his former press officer, Superintendent David Taylor. Expand Close Martin Callinan (Niall Carson/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Martin Callinan (Niall Carson/PA) The report also found Sgt McCabe had exemplified hard work and was repulsively denigrated for being no more than a good citizen and police officer. Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan said Sgt McCabes retirement was an opportunity to close that dark chapter in his life. Sgt McCabe officially handed in his retirement notice to Assistant Garda Commissioner Fintan Fanning over the weekend. His solicitor Sean Costello told RTE Radio One on Wednesday that Sgt McCabe had reached the decision after an awful lot of consideration. Mr Costello said: It is sad in many ways because obviously this is the job that he loved. He would have kept going but the impact of everything that has happened he wasnt able to go back. He couldnt go back to being a member of An Garda Siochana. Speaking on the same programme, Mr Flanagan said he had not had an opportunity to meet Sgt McCabe since the report was published, but he said he would do so in the next couple of weeks to convey to him, face-to-face, the deepest sense of gratitude the state has for the service he performed. Expand Close Charlie Flanagan (Brian Lawless/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Charlie Flanagan (Brian Lawless/PA) Mr Flanagan said Sgt McCabe leaves the police service knowing that, not only did he do the job well, but he leaves an important legacy. What is important is that the culture of change within An Garda Siochana is now accelerated and I believe that will be the great legacy of Sgt Maurice McCabe, he said. Mr Flanagan added the Garda needs to be a far more comfortable community for dealing with complaints or for whistleblowing. The Disclosures Tribunal investigated allegations that Garda chiefs orchestrated a smear campaign, including false sex abuse claims, against Sgt McCabe a scandal that almost brought down Irelands fragile minority government last year. The report found Sgt McCabe was a genuine person who at all times had the interests of the people of Ireland uppermost in his mind. It found he regarded those interests as superior to any loyalty to the police force of the state. Sgt McCabe accused the force of malpractice, including the quashing of penalty points, and later made a complaint against Mr Callinan. He joined the Garda in 1985 and had more than 30 years of service. He had been on leave from the service since May 2016. Daughter of John Burns, Gillian holding a wreath, as seven other members of the Greysteel massacre families look on during the vigil. Liam McBurney/PA Wire Flowers laid at the memorial site of the Greysteel massacre after a vigil to commemorate the 25th anniversary of eight people being murdered on 30 October 1993 by members of the UFF. Liam McBurney/PA Wire The families of those killed in one of the most shocking attacks of Northern Irelands Troubles have urged politicians to make sure it never happens again. Hundreds of people gathered in Greysteel, Co Londonderry to mark the 25th anniversary of the night loyalist gunmen burst into a busy bar and opened fire. Wreaths and flowers were laid in memory of the victims at a plaque outside the Rising Sun pub, where the atrocity took place. Expand Close Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, Faughanvale (Liam McBurney/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, Faughanvale (Liam McBurney/PA) Eight civilians, both Catholics and Protestants, died following the attack October 30, 1993. Seven were killed on the night of the attack, while the eighth died several months later from injuries. The killers shouted trick or treat before pulling the trigger. Karen Thompson, 19, Steven Mullan, 20, Moira Duddy, 59, Joseph McDermott, 60, James Moore, 81, John Moyne, 50, John Burns, 54 and Victor Montgomery, 76 were remembered during a special Mass at the nearby Star of the Sea church. Monsignor Andrew Dolan paid tribute to the positive and dignified response of the Greysteel families over the years to such an evil deed. Expand Close Flowers laid at the memorial site (Liam McBurney/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Flowers laid at the memorial site (Liam McBurney/PA) He told the service that during a recent meeting with the families, they noted we are living in shaky times, with people uncertain about how things are going to turn out. He said they asked him to relay the message to public representatives to do all you can to ensure this never happens again. I hope you are listening, he added to those gathered in the church which included a number of politicians. SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, his predecessor Mark Durkan, Alliance leader Naomi Long, Sinn Fein MLA Caoimhe Archibald and Ulster Unionist councillors Richard Holmes, Norman Hillis and William McCandless were among those present. A number of Protestant religious ministers were also there. Expand Close The scene where seven people were fatally shot (PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The scene where seven people were fatally shot (PA) The Northern Ireland Assembly has been collapsed since 2017. The powersharing government fell following disagreements between the leader parties, the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein. Following the service, hundreds of people gathered at the Rising Sun bar. The families of those killed laid wreaths and bouquets of flowers at the memorial plaque. The Greysteel shootings were claimed by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) who said the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) had carried out the attack in retaliation for the IRAs bombing of a fish shop on the Shankill Road in Belfast the week before. Ten people, including one of the IRA bombers, died in that attack. In response, the UDA orchestrated a series of so-called revenge attacks against Catholic civilians. The horrifying series culminated in the Greysteel shootings. Expand Close (Liam McBurney/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp (Liam McBurney/PA) Alan McBride, whose wife Sharon was amongst those killed in the Shankill bomb, attended the memorial event in Greysteel. This is my first time in Greysteel, I wanted to be here on the 25th anniversary to show my support and solidarity with the families because we all suffered and the people that murdered my wife and the people that murdered in Greysteel were two sides of the one coin in terms of bringing terror, hurt and anguish to many families, he said. In February 1995, four men were convicted of carrying out the Greysteel shootings. Stephen Irwin, Jeffrey Deeney, Torrens Knight and Brian McNeill received life sentences for their involvement in the attack. However they were released early in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. An effigy of Boris Johnson will be burned at an annual bonfire celebration. Edenbridge Bonfire Society revealed the identity of its celebrity Guy on Wednesday, saying the blundering ex-foreign secretary was the top choice owing to his continuing habit of hitting the headlines with never-ending gaffes. Every year the Kent society picks an infamous public figure to poke fun at during its celebrations, this year being held on Saturday. The 36ft effigy will go up in flames alongside a traditional figure of Guy Fawkes. The giant replica of Mr Johnson is wearing Hawaiian-style shorts with a tight-fitting blue jacket, mismatched socks and a cycle helmet. Expand Close The effigy is 36ft tall (Gareth Fuller/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The effigy is 36ft tall (Gareth Fuller/PA) He is holding a cake decorated in the style of the EU flag, from which he has taken a Union flag-coloured slice. In place of his feet are depictions of the red Brexit buses which claimed Britain sent 350 million a week to the EU which could be used to fund the NHS. He is also wearing a rosette symbolising 90 years since the society was founded. Expand Close Artist Andrea Dean adds the finishing touches (Gareth Fuller/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Artist Andrea Dean adds the finishing touches (Gareth Fuller/PA) Artist Andrea Deans, who painted the creation, said: As with last year there were many strong contenders for this years celebrity Guy, particularly in the political world. This year Boris was the obvious option, plus hes great to caricature and Ive wanted to paint him for a long time. Ms Deans said the possibilities were endless with the scruffy image he is known for. She added: He is a fun character and definitely provided us with lots of different ideas throughout the year. Because hes got so many things going for him the big hair, cycling, the association with Brexit, wearing shorts the possibilities were endless. Society chairman Bill Cummings said: Our message to Mr Johnson is that you cannot have your cake and eat it. We hope Mr Johnson will appreciate the humour contained in our caricature and take it in the good spirit with which it is intended. Last year Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein was the standout pick after a string of allegations of sexual assault on female employees and movie stars emerged. Expand Close Last years effigy was Harvey Weinstein (Gareth Fuller/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Last years effigy was Harvey Weinstein (Gareth Fuller/PA) In 2016 Donald Trump was the overwhelming choice for the steel-framed model, made days before the then Republican US presidential candidate went head-to-head with Democrat Hillary Clinton and won the election. In 2015 a model of scandal-hit former Fifa president Sepp Blatter was burned. Expand Close Donald Trump goes up in flames in 2016 (Gareth Fuller/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Donald Trump goes up in flames in 2016 (Gareth Fuller/PA) Other well-known figures to have the dubious honour of being the celebrity Guy include Katie Hopkins, Wayne Rooney, Jonathan Ross, Cherie Blair, Katie Price, Lance Armstrong, Gordon Brown, John Prescott, Anne Robinson, Saddam Hussein and Russell Brand. More than 10,000 people attend the annual event, with families visiting from London, Surrey, Sussex and Kent. Organised by a team of volunteers and raising money for charity, the evening begins at 6.30pm with a torch-lit carnival procession through Edenbridge High Street. This is led by the Bishop of the Bonfire, his choirboys and the societys effigies as well as visiting societies from Sussex. The evening ends with a firework display before the effigies are burnt. The society has been poking fun at the famous and infamous for more than 20 years. The identity of the effigy is picked a week before the event and is usually decided based on who is the most prominent figure in the news at the time. Constructing the frame and decorating it with emulsion paint takes four to five days. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex wear traditional Maori cloaks in Rotorua (Dominic Lipinski/PA) The Duke of Sussex was handed a carved weapon during a visit to Rotorua and warned he should not take it to Twickenham when England play New Zealand. Harry and Meghan entered into the Tamatekapua Meeting House both wearing a Korowai, a Maori cloak which is intended to be a protector. The duke was given a tewhatewha, a Maori weapon with a point at one end and an axe at the other. Trevor Maxwell, of the local district council, said: I am sure you are going to Twickenham when the All Blacks play England on November 11 make sure you dont take that. The ceremony was conducted in Maori as Harry and Meghan were being treated like one of their own with Monty Morrison, also from the council, only breaking into English once, when he looked at the duchess and said little bump to laughter. Expand Close People await the arrival of the Duke and Duchess at Tamatekapua Meeting House (Tamatekapua Meeting House/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp People await the arrival of the Duke and Duchess at Tamatekapua Meeting House (Tamatekapua Meeting House/PA) Inside the Tamatekapua Meeting House, a building named after the chief and captain of the Te Arawa canoe, which brought ancestors of Maori to New Zealand, the group took part in singing folk songs, or waiata, about their history. Mr Maxwell joked in Maori that the duchess was just like Pihanga a mountain in the region famed for its beauty. The mood of the ceremony was light and relaxed, and Mr Maxwell stumbled slightly when introducing the duke, accidentally referring to him as Prince Andrew before adding: It was in 2007 when we had Prince Andrew here! Expand Close The Duke and Duchess of Sussex wear traditional Maori cloaks (Dominic Lipinski/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Duke and Duchess of Sussex wear traditional Maori cloaks (Dominic Lipinski/PA) The duke spoke for around a minute in Maori with gasps of awe and smiles when he used the word whaiaipo, or sweetheart. He said: Thank you for the beautiful cloak you have so kindly gifted to myself and the duchess. We appreciate the skill of the weavers who made it, and the aroha (compassion) that has gone into its creation. This cloak is a taonga (possession) that will be cherished in our family. One of the joys of our visit to New Zealand has been the opportunity to meet so many young New Zealanders who are devoting their talents and energy to making a difference. There are creative, gifted and caring Te Arawa Rangatahi (young people) here, who are using their talents to preserve and promote the Maori language, to support mental wellbeing, and to achieve in areas that will benefit their communities, and their country. Expand Close The Duke of Sussex said the cloaks would be cherished (Dominic Lipinski/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Duke of Sussex said the cloaks would be cherished (Dominic Lipinski/PA) The Korowai which the duke and duchess wore were inspired by the coat of arms for the Sussexes, featuring silk in blue, gold, white and red. Artist Norma Sturley said: The taniko (weaving technique) represents the coming together of two people and cultures with each side representing their whakapapa (family and genealogy). The duchesss taniko pattern features three quills from the coat of arms representing the powers of words and communication, and the Californian sunshine is shown in the use of rays of gold. The blue speaks of the separation of Aotearoa (New Zealand) and England with the Pacific Ocean, as well as the duchesss links to the Pacific Ocean. The red symbolises royalty. The taniko weaving design also showcases manaakitanga (care) as (elder) Ngati Whakaue want to nurture the royal couple as a thank you for visiting Papaiouru. Almost half of those in receipt of Universal Credit chose the Scottish Governments alternative payment options when offered. Ministers have used their devolved welfare powers to enable people to receive their benefit payment more frequently and to have the housing element of it paid directly to their landlord. New figures show by the end of August 66,700 people had been offered one or both Scottish choices since October 2017, with 31,960 taking up the offer. A total of 26,910 chose to implement more frequent payments, 11,430 chose to have the housing element of UC paid direct to their landlords, and 6,380 chose both. An additional 4,000 also requested the choices outwith a formal offer being made, and took up one or both of the options. Universal Credit a six-in-one benefits payment was introduced as part of the UK Governments overhaul of the welfare system. However critics say cuts to payments, delays in receiving initial payments, and widespread problems with its implementation have led to many people falling into hardship or dropping out of the benefit system altogether. Social Security Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said: The Scottish Government will continue to call for a halt to Universal Credit until it is made fit for purpose. We have done what we can with our limited powers, providing people who receive Universal Credit with choices on the frequency of their payments and paying housing costs directly to their landlord. We have also committed to introduce split payments of the Universal Credit award in Scotland to ensure everyone has access to an independent income. The high take-up rate of our Universal Credit Scottish choices is evidence people want more flexibility and adaptability in how they receive the support that they are entitled to. Vladimir Putins Kremlin must question whether the Salisbury nerve agent attack was worth the huge diplomatic price Russia has paid, Jeremy Hunt said. The Foreign Secretary insisted Russia was not winning hands down in its effort to destabilise Western democracies, as he was challenged by MPs over the Governments response. Moscows GRU military intelligence agency has been blamed for the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, along with a series of cyber attacks aimed at targets in the US and Europe. Expand Close The GRU agents known as Alexander Petrov (left) and Ruslan Boshirov suspected of carrying out the Novichok attack (Metropolitan Police/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The GRU agents known as Alexander Petrov (left) and Ruslan Boshirov suspected of carrying out the Novichok attack (Metropolitan Police/PA) Russia has also been blamed for the death of 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess and the poisoning of her partner Charlie Rowley, who are believed to have come into contact with Novichok discarded by the Skripals attackers. At the Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr Hunt said the Western response, which involved the expulsion of dozens of diplomats identified as intelligence agents, ensured Moscow paid a high price. He identified the 2008 invasion of Georgia as the start of a decade-long shift by Russia into a country that is seeking to destabilise the international order. The Foreign Secretary told MPs: The frustrating thing is there doesnt seem to be Russian willingness to come back to being a supporter of the international order. I think in their quieter moments people in the Kremlin will look at this year and ask themselves whether it was actually worth going ahead with that Skripal attack because they have paid a huge diplomatic priceJeremy Hunt If you look at a map of Europe and you mark all the countries where there have been cyber attacks that originated from Russia, very often interference in referendum campaigns or election campaigns, there are lots of dots on the map. It is very hard to know what it would take to get the Russians to change their mind. He said the response to the Salisbury attack had been one of the great successes of British diplomacy. I think in their quieter moments people in the Kremlin will look at this year and ask themselves whether it was actually worth going ahead with that Skripal attack because they have paid a huge diplomatic price. While insisting that Russia was not winning hands down in its approach I wouldnt want to minimise the scale of their activities. But he stressed: Our argument is not with the Russian people, it is with a regime that behaves in a totally unacceptable, sometimes murderous, way. Expand Close Yulia Skripal, who was contaminated with the nerve agent Novichok along with her father Sergei (Dylan Martinez/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Yulia Skripal, who was contaminated with the nerve agent Novichok along with her father Sergei (Dylan Martinez/PA) The two suspects in the Salisbury case were originally identified by the UK authorities by the aliases Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov. The Bellingcat investigative website said their real names were Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin and that they were both highly-decorated officers in the GRU. The Duchess of Sussex was no stranger to the spotlight before heading to Oceania with her husband on their first royal tour together. Meghans debut trip outside the UK and Ireland as a duchess was headline news across the world and the interest rose further when Kensington Palace announced she was pregnant, on the eve of the 16-day visit to Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand. Expand Close Meghan in Sydney (Phil Noble/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Meghan in Sydney (Phil Noble/PA) Her previous life as an actress appeared to have equipped her with the means of dealing with the lines of adoring fans waiting to meet the couple from Sydney to Suva. But the royal visit also gave Meghan the chance to air some of the issues which are close to her heart: equality for women and the importance of education for girls. Her first speech of the tour came at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, where she spoke of the challenges of being able to afford university. Expand Close Meghan addresses the University of the South Pacific (Phil Noble/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Meghan addresses the University of the South Pacific (Phil Noble/PA) She told an audience of students: It was through scholarships, financial aid programmes and work-study where my earnings from a job on campus went directly towards my tuition that I was able to attend university. And, without question, it was worth every effort. Everyone should be afforded the opportunity to receive the education they want, but more importantly the education they have the right to receive. And for women and girls in developing countries, this is vital. Providing them with access to education is the key to economic and social development. Because when girls are given the right tools to succeed, they can create incredible futures, not only for themselves but also for those around them. Despite the gruelling tour 76 engagements in just over a fortnight Meghan was a near ever-present feature across the four countries, only missing parts of Fraser Island owing to the uneven terrain, and one appearance in Sydney after a late night. Expand Close Meghan and Harry meet Jacinda Ardern (Kirsty Wigglesworth/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Meghan and Harry meet Jacinda Ardern (Kirsty Wigglesworth/PA) Her efforts were singled out for praise by figures including New Zealands prime minster Jacinda Ardern, who said the duchesss pregnancy increased my respect for the role that shes playing at such an often tiring time. I have real empathy and I think shes incredible. Speaking in New Zealand, Meghan praised the efforts of Kiwi women who fought for the right to vote 125 years ago, saying they were universally admired. Expand Close Crowds gather in Wellington (Dominic Lipinski/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Crowds gather in Wellington (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Part of that admiration was reflected back summed up neatly by one sign held up outside a cafe in Wellington, which read: Meghan, carry on being a feminist icon for my girls. Jaguar Land Rover has unveiled a 2.5 billion turnaround plan that includes cost cutting after Brexit uncertainty and slowing demand in China left it nursing a hefty second-quarter loss. Britains biggest carmaker, owned by Indian conglomerate Tata, booked a 90 million pre-tax loss in the three months to September 30, which compares to a 385 million profit in the same period last year. Revenues were also down 10.9% year-on-year at 5.6 billion as retail sales declined 13.2% to 129,887 vehicles. In China, demand was adversely impacted by consumer uncertainty following import duty changes and escalating trade tensions with the US. While in the UK, continuing uncertainty related to Brexit persisted. These efforts will lay the foundations for long-term sustainable, profitable growthRalf Speth, JLR CEO JLRs figures were also dented by the introduction of European emissions standards known as WLTP, which have resulted in a fall in demand for diesel cars. Boss Ralf Speth said: In the latest quarterly period, we continued to see more challenging market conditions. Our results were undermined by slowing demand in China, along with continued uncertainty in Europe over diesel, Brexit and the WLTP changeover. As part of efforts to arrest the decline, Mr Speth will look to make 2.5 billion of profit, cost and cashflow improvements over the next 18 months. The company is also reducing planned spending by about 500 million to 4 billion per year this financial year and next. Given these challenges, Jaguar Land Rover has launched far-reaching programmes to deliver cost and cashflow improvements. Together with our ongoing product offensive and calibrated investment plans, these efforts will lay the foundations for long-term sustainable, profitable growth, Mr Speth added. In September Jaguar Land Rover announced a cut in production at Solihull due to continuing headwinds affecting the car industry. The firm said it was making temporary adjustments, with staff placed on a three-day week until Christmas. JLR also announced it will cease production at the plant for two weeks after demand for its vehicles slumped. It comes off the back of plans to shift all production of its Discovery model to Slovakia from the West Midlands site. The murder of Jamal Khashoggi will be met with a careful response, Jeremy Hunt said as fresh details of the journalists death emerged. A Turkish prosecutor said Mr Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing. The Foreign Secretary said the murder was incredibly shocking but he also highlighted Saudi Arabias importance for the UK arms industry and the risk of any unintended consequences a response may produce in the unstable Middle East. Expand Close Activists protesting the killing of Mr Khashoggi outside Saudi Arabias consulate in Istanbul (Lefteris Pitarakis/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Activists protesting the killing of Mr Khashoggi outside Saudi Arabias consulate in Istanbul (Lefteris Pitarakis/AP) The Foreign Secretarys comments came after chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan said that Mr Khashoggi was dismembered and his body disposed of after his death at the consulate. Mr Hunt told the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee: The Khashoggi murder is incredibly shocking. I have spoken more openly and more strongly about it than any Western foreign minister that I am aware of. I made it very clear that if the press stories were true and it appears increasingly likely that they are true then what happened would be completely contrary to our values. But he added: Our response has to be considered, for two reasons. Firstly, we do have a commercial relationship and there are jobs in the UK in the North West and the South West that are at stake. Expand Close Jeremy Hunt made his comments at the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (Parliamentlive.tv/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jeremy Hunt made his comments at the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (Parliamentlive.tv/PA) The process for granting licences for arms exports had been followed, he said. The second consideration was the risk of unintended consequences any response could have in the highly sensitive region, where Saudi Arabia is a key ally. There is a very challenging situation in the Middle East, there is a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Yemen, this has the potential to escalate into a much bigger and more dangerous conflict, he warned. There is always the risk of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. I just think in that context and looking at other interventions that we have made in that region in the last 20 years we just have to be very careful about any action we take that there arent unintended consequences. Thats why I do think it is important to be considered in this case. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called on people to resolve never to be bystanders in the face of hate on a visit to Auschwitz. She joined 200 students from schools across Scotland on the trip organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust. Around 1.1 million people, including one million Jews, were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Second World War Nazi concentration and death camp, as part of the Holocaust in which six million Jewish men, women and children were killed. Ms Sturgeon said the attack on a synagogue in the US on Saturday where 11 people died shows anti-Semitism is not confined to history. We must always remember those who suffered and died. But a visit to @AuschwitzMuseum is more than a history lesson - it is a powerful reminder that we must never be bystanders when confronted with hate and prejudice. #LessonsfromAuschwitz Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) October 30, 2018 She said: What happened here (at Auschwitz-Birkenau) was one of the darkest periods in human history and its really important that we remember all those who suffered and were murdered but it is equally important that we dont just see this as a history lesson. The Holocaust didnt start here, it started in the othering and stereotyping and dehumanising of Jews, it started in everyday discrimination and anti-Semitism. Although it was perpetrated by the Nazis, it was facilitated by hundreds of thousands of people who went along with it or turned a blind eye to it. Today as anti-Semitism, as intolerance and prejudice more generally starts to rear its head again in the world that we live in, I think its all the more important that we learn the lesson of this for our own lives and our own time and for all of us to resolve never to be bystanders in the face of hate. Expand Close She said seeing the camps for the first time brought home the scale of what happened (Holocaust Educational Trust/PA) Press Association Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp She said seeing the camps for the first time brought home the scale of what happened (Holocaust Educational Trust/PA) She said seeing the camps for the first time brought home the scale of the mass murder of people simply for who they were and that personal artefacts on display from victims, such as the huge piles of human hair, shoes and spectacles as well as photos of children and babies, gave an insight into the individual lives cut short. The trusts Lessons from Auschwitz programme gives pupils the chance to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau and pass on the lessons learned on their return. The group heard about the history of the camps as they viewed the belongings and the vast Book of Names listing victims at Auschwitz I, set up by the Nazis in 1940, before entering the camps gas chamber and crematorium. The First Minister signed the visitors book before they travelled to Birkenau, where they saw the remains of the four huge chambers which victims were told were showers before being gassed to death. Home from an emotional day at Auschwitz-Birkenau with @HolocaustUK. Its hard to put into words the impact. The sheer scale of the horror and the remnants of so many lives - the shoes, suitcases, photos - is hard to comprehend. For now, just a few images. #LessonsfromAuschwitz pic.twitter.com/0dJiuRbWMl Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) October 30, 2018 Rabbi Daniel Epstein held a memorial service at the end of the camps notorious railway track, where candles were placed in memory of the dead. Mollie Graham, 17, from Baldragon Academy in Dundee, urged people to visit the camps and witness what took place. She said: When we walked into the gas chambers, all you saw was this big empty space and the size of the furnaces. Seeing that there were capsules to put people into, that was pretty moving and a pretty horrible thing to see. Expand Close Nicola Sturgeon visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau (Beata Zawrzel/AP) AP / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Nicola Sturgeon visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau (Beata Zawrzel/AP) Navkiran Kooner, 17, of Craigholme School, Glasgow, said: Its made me a lot more appreciative of my life. To be able to see what people went through is so important because its more than just reading out a textbook, its real life. Holocaust Education Trust chief executive Karen Pollock thanked the First Minister for taking part in the visit. She said: Seeing this place and hearing some of the stories, its something you carry with you for their rest of your life. It will see 50 jobs brought to the new premises in Glasgow with a focus on programme commissioning (Jane Barlow/PA) Channel 4s decision to open a creative hub in Glasgow has been described as fantastic news for Scotland by the First Minister. The city was chosen alongside Bristol as a base for one of the two centres, while Leeds was chosen as the broadcasters new national HQ. It will see 50 jobs brought to the new premises in Glasgow with a focus on programme commissioning, but will bring in a broader talent base later on. Good news for Glasgow - well done to @Detroit67Book and the team. Congrats to Leeds and Bristol too. https://t.co/X9IVVOPPYh Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) October 31, 2018 Nicola Sturgeon said: Channel 4s announcement that Glasgow will host one of its new creative hubs is fantastic news for Scotlands screen sector and creative industries. The enthusiasm, excitement and support behind Glasgows successful bid for the hub is testament to the citys thriving creative community, as well as Stuart Cosgrove and Glasgow City Councils tireless work to attract this new investment from Channel 4 to Glasgow. As home to one of the most vibrant cultural scenes in Scotland, BBC Scotland, STV and more than 120 production companies I am pleased Channel 4 has recognised Glasgow is the ideal location for one of their new hubs. I look forward to seeing plans for the new base in Glasgow develop. The move will be part of the biggest change to the structure of the channel in its 35-year history, even though it will keep its base on Horseferry Road in London. Leeds fended off competition from Greater Manchester and Birmingham to host the new base, while Cardiff was also in contention to host a creative hub. Scottish Greens culture and media spokesman Ross Greer MSP added: This is excellent news and well deserved given Glasgows world famous creative economy. Along with investment in the new BBC Scotland channel, its clear that Scotland has an opportunity to build a reputation for high quality TV and film production. Delight Channel's 4's new HQ to locate in Leeds...having grown up a few miles further North I know the potential our moving there can unleash! Great to have new hubs too in Bristol and Glasgow! Jon Snow (@jonsnowC4) October 31, 2018 He added: The next step is the Scottish Government and their agencies stepping up to the plate to deliver the studio capacity and support the screen sector needs to take full advantage of these investments. Channel 4 announced its intention to move staff out of London to three new bases in the nations and regions after the UK Government said the broadcaster will remain publicly owned, but faced being relocated. Alex Mahon, chief executive of the broadcaster, said: Glasgow has a well-established production sector across multiple genres, and locating a creative hub in the city will give Channel 4 the opportunity to tap into the rich cultural diversity of Scotland and also allow us to exploit the citys strong connectivity with Belfast and the Northern Ireland production sector. Scottish Conservative shadow culture secretary Rachael Hamilton said: This is great news for Glasgow and the wider Scottish economy. Shadow Scotland Office Minister Paul Sweeney MP added: While it was disappointing that Glasgow was not ultimately successful in securing the new headquarters for Channel 4, losing out to Leeds in the end, I very much welcome this proposal for an additional presence in Glasgow for the channel, in the form of a new creative hub. The Austrian government has said it will not sign a global pact to promote safe and orderly migration. It cited concerns about national sovereignty as it joined neighbouring Hungary in shunning the agreement. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz took office last December in a coalition with the nationalist, anti-migration Freedom Party. Austria currently holds the European Unions rotating presidency, and Mr Kurz has made curbing unregulated migration a priority. The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which will not be legally binding, was finalised under UN auspices in July. It is due to be formally approved at a December 11-12 meeting in Marrakech, Morocco. Migration is not and cannot become a human rightAustria's vice chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache Mr Kurz and vice chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache said Austria will not sign the document or send an official representative to Marrakech. They cited, among other things, fears about a possible watering-down of the distinction between legal and illegal migration. There are some points that we view critically and where we fear a danger to our national sovereignty, Mr Kurz said, the Austria Press Agency reported. Migration is not and cannot become a human right, added Mr Strache, the Freedom Partys leader. It cannot be that someone receives a right to migration because of the climate or poverty. In September 2016, all 193 UN member states, including the United States under former president Barack Obama, adopted a declaration saying no country can manage international migration on its own, and agreed to launch a process leading to the adoption of a global compact in 2018. But last December, the United States said it was ending its participation in negotiations on the compact, stating that numerous provisions were inconsistent with US immigration and refugee policies under President Donald Trump. In July, Hungary said it would withdraw from the process. Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said then that the pact was contrary to his countrys interests because while it had some positive aims, like fighting human trafficking, overall it considered migration an unstoppable and positive phenomenon worthy of support. The compact has 23 objectives that seek to boost co-operation to manage migration and numerous actions ranging from technical issues like the portability of earnings by migrant workers to reducing the detention of migrants. In Brussels, Natasha Bertaud, a spokeswoman for the EUs executive Commission, said it regrets Austrias decision and is seeking more details from Vienna. We continue to believe that migration is a global challenge where only global solutions and global responsibility-sharing will bring results, she said at a regular briefing. EU heavyweight Germany reaffirmed its support for the pact, which foreign ministry spokesman Rainer Breul said is necessary and important. They won't be shedding any tears for American murderer and racketeer James 'Whitey' Bulger in the McIntyre household in Boston today. For they despised the monster of a mobster and IRA gunrunner with the same venom obviously harboured by the killer who ended 89-year-old's charmed life in a West Virginia prison yesterday. Eighteen years ago, at their neat home in a quiet suburb of that most Irish of US cities, Emily and Chris McIntyre told me that they cursed Bulger for killing their son and brother John. In September 1984 John had skippered a boat, The Valhalla, which was packed with seven tonnes of guns and ammunition across the Atlantic destined for the IRA. Bulger, a fanatical republican who sang rebel songs in the Irish bars of Boston, had financed the shipment and the plan was for McIntyre to rendezvous with five Provos who had sailed from Kerry to take their deadly weapons home in a fishing boat, The Marita Ann. But unknown to the terrorists led by Martin Ferris - now a Sinn Fein TD - the Irish Naval Service was also waiting off the Kerry coast and intercepted the Marita Ann. I was in Cobh that night with an ITN crew to film Ferris and his four fellow IRA men being frogmarched off an Irish naval vessel onto the quayside. The next morning An Garda Siochana put on show the awesome cache of 160 guns, dozens of rockets and grenades and more than 70,000 bullets valued at $1 million. Ruthless killer Bulger, the leader of Boston's notorious Winter Hill mob, and his IRA allies on both sides of the Atlantic were furious. They thought the mole who tipped off the authorities about the guns was McIntyre and their suspicions were reinforced by the fact that the British and the Irish were briefing journalists that the informer was in America. But that was a ploy to protect the real informant in Ireland -IRA leader and police agent Sean O'Callaghan, who later told me he was the mole and that John McIntyre had nothing to do with the smashing of the plot. However, McIntyre paid with his life, with Bulger ordering his execution and doing his own vile dirty work. He and his henchmen tried to strangle McIntyre before shooting him and pulling out his teeth to make any positive identification of his body almost impossible. The hapless fisherman's remains were found in a shallow grave in Boston in January 2000 after a tip-off. It was that discovery which took me to Massachusetts to investigate his killing for a UTV documentary The then-director of the FBI in Boston Barry Mawn told me that they, like the McIntyre family, believed Bulger ordered the hit on the fisherman. The FBI had Bulger second only to Osama Bin Laden on their 'most wanted' list and believed he had committed dozens of other offences. But he had been on the run for so long that, privately, officials admitted they might never catch the pensioner Pimpernel or his companion, long-term partner Catherine Greig. There were even rumours that the ageing fugitives were holed up in safe houses provided by the IRA in Ireland, or that death had caught up with them. But Bulger and Greig were very much alive when they were found in Santa Monica, California, in 2011. The notorious gangster, who it emerged was secretly working for the FBI, was eventually tried and convicted of 11 murders, including the slaying of John McIntyre. Lawyers who argued against the death penalty accepted that Bulger would die in prison. But they didn't foresee that one of his many enemies would murder him behind bars. It was an ending that wasn't even foreshadowed by Hollywood, which jumped on the Bulger bandwagon, telling the story of his savagery and corruption in the movie Black Mass. In one scene, where the practicalities of the IRA gunrunning plot were discussed, Bulger (Johnny Depp) was seen meeting Belfast IRA leader Joe Cahill (Billy Meleady) in a private room in a Boston bar called the Triple O's. Bulger's death came on the same day that he was transferred to the Hazelton penitentiary, which houses 1,385 inmates, according to reports. An inmate with Mafia ties is now under investigation for Bulger's killing. The details have not been announced, but a local union official for correctional workers at the prison told CBS that a "homicide" occurred. It is understood Bulger was savagely beaten to death. A Department of Corrections statement confirmed his death in custody, and said the FBI had launched an investigation. A lawyer who represented James Whitey Bulger is blaming the notorious Boston gangsters death on decisions made by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Attorney JW Carney Jr said in a statement that Bulger was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons say Bulger was found dead in his Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, prison cell Tuesday morning. He was 89. A prison union official says Bulgers death is being investigated as a homicide. Bulger had been serving two consecutive life sentences after his 2013 conviction for participating in 11 murders. A Turkish prosecutor says journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidans office added that Mr Khashoggis body was dismembered and disposed of. It also said that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no concrete results despite good-willed efforts by Turkey to uncover the truth. The statement is the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Mr Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered after he entered the Saudi Consulate on October 2 to collect paperwork needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. Expand Close Image purportedly showing Jamal Khashoggi entering the consulate (CCTV/TRT World via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Image purportedly showing Jamal Khashoggi entering the consulate (CCTV/TRT World via AP) The announcement came as Mr al-Mojeb ended a three-day visit to Istanbul during which he held talks with Mr Fidan and other Turkish officials. Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 Saudi suspects detained in Saudi Arabia over the killing of Mr Khashoggi. It is also pressing Saudi Arabia for information concerning Mr Khashoggis remains, which still have not been found, as well as who ordered the journalists killing. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also called on Riyadh to disclose the identity of an alleged local collaborator said to have been involved in disposing of Mr Khashoggis body. Mr Khashoggi, a 59-year-old columnist for The Washington Post, vanished after entering the consulate in Istanbul to pick up paperwork for his upcoming marriage to his fiancee, who was waiting for him outside. A critic of the Saudi royal family, Mr Khashoggi had been living in exile in the United States. Turkey alleges a Saudi hit squad from Saudi Arabia including a member of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans entourage during a trip to the United States travelled to Istanbul to kill the journalist and then tried to cover it up. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia changed its narrative about Mr Khashoggis killing several times, eventually admitting that Mr Khashoggi died inside the consulate and only recently acknowledging that Turkish evidence shows his killing was premeditated. Saudi Arabia has not commented on the prosecutors visit. Fotios Freddy Geas is said to be under suspicion (Don Treeger /The Republican via AP) A Mafia hitman who is said to hate rats is under suspicion in the killing of former Boston crime boss and long-time FBI informant James Whitey Bulger, a former investigator briefed on the matter said. Bulger was found dead just hours after he was transferred to a West Virginia prison. The official said that Fotios Freddy Geas and at least one other inmate are believed to have been involved in Bulgers killing. Authorities have not disclosed the cause of death for the 89-year-old Bulger. He was found dead on Tuesday. Geas, 51, and his brother were sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for their roles in several violent crimes, including the 2003 killing of Adolfo Big Al Bruno, a Genovese crime family boss who was gunned down in a Springfield, Massachusetts, car park. Expand Close James Whitey Bulger was found dead on Tuesday (AP Photo/U.S. Marshals Service, File) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp James Whitey Bulger was found dead on Tuesday (AP Photo/U.S. Marshals Service, File) Private investigator Ted McDonough, who knew Geas, told The Boston Globe: Freddy hated rats. Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. Its probably that simple, Mr McDonough told the newspaper, which first reported that Geas was under suspicion. An FBI spokeswoman in Pittsburgh declined to comment on Geas. Federal officials said only that they are investigating the death as a homicide. Bulger led South Bostons Irish mob for decades and became an FBI informant who supplied information on the New England Mafia, his gangs main rival, in an era when bringing down the Italian mob was a top national priority for the bureau. Tipped off that he was about to be indicted, Bulger became a fugitive and eluded authorities for nearly two decades before being captured in 2011. He was convicted in 2013 in 11 underworld killings and a host of other crimes and was sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars. He had just arrived on Monday at USP Hazelton, a high-security prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. He had previously been in a prison in Florida, with a stopover at a transfer facility in Oklahoma City. Bulgers lawyer, JW Carney Jr, blamed his death on prison officials, saying Bulger was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty. The Geas brothers were not made members of the Mafia because they were Greek, not Italian. But they were close associates of the mob and acted as enforcers. Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason is planning to tour North America next year to perform some of the bands classic songs. But fans expecting Comfortably Numb or Another Brick In The Wall will be disappointed because Mason will be digging deep into the Pink Floyd archives to offer tunes not heard live in America for a long time, if ever. Nick Masons Saucerful Of Secrets will be jamming to pre-Dark Side Of The Moon material. Mason said: I really wanted to find something different and a bit quirky. I think, for me, whats most interesting is to revisit the thinking behind some of these pieces. The band which includes Spandau Ballet guitarist Gary Kemp, long-time Pink Floyd touring bassist Guy Pratt, guitarist Lee Harris and keyboardist Dom Beken formed this year in the United Kingdom after bandmates nudged Mason to make music again. Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets thank everyone who came to see them this month - 21 shows in 28 days! The band had a great time, and hope you did too? Let us know what you thought... pic.twitter.com/GAfw3xQbxL Nick Mason (@nickmasondrums) September 30, 2018 The name of the new band comes from A Saucerful Of Secrets, released in June 1968. Some of the songs they play live include See Emily Play, Arnold Layne, The Nile Song, Bike, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun and Obscured By Clouds. US and Canadian audiences can expect those and more. Frankly, we feel theres still more to do and can be explored, Mason said. The set list that weve done in Europe will almost certainly be the basis for what we do, but we certainly intend to add a few more tracks. Mason said he is not worried that Floyd fans will turn up and expect to hear hits from such later albums as The Wall or Animals. He cites social media for making it clear what will be played, something he noticed after the bands first concert. Almost two hours after doing the very first pub gig, everything was all over the web and everyone had a pretty good idea of what they were going to get, he said. So if it wasnt what they wanted, they didnt turn up. The new 25-date tour will kick off on March 12, 2019, in Vancouver and take the band to Washington, California, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Washington DC. This is something a bit weird and a bit differentNick Mason Mason is the only member of Pink Floyd who has performed on all of the bands studio albums. He said he is not trying to compete with Floyd alumni Roger Waters and David Gilmour or any Floyd tribute bands. The world is absolutely stuffed with Pink Floyd tribute bands, let alone Roger and David. So I think its very important to say, This is not version No. 297. This is something a bit weird and a bit different.' The tour will mark Masons first performances in North America since Pink Floyd played Giants Stadium in New Jersey in 1994 as part of the Division Bell Tour. The 74-year-old musician said hes having more fun behind the drum kit than he initially expected. I had no idea how much I was going to enjoy it. This is not a grand scheme that I created. This is me being nudged into it by the rest of the band. Thats my entire career not leading so much as being gently prodded. First lady Melania Trump, accompanied by President Donald Trump, puts down a white flower at a memorial for those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh (Andrew Harnik/AP) US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump have paid solemn tributes to each of the 11 people slain in the worst instance of anti-Semitic violence in American history. As the Trumps placed their remembrances outside the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, protesters nearby shouted the president was not welcome. The Trumps first went inside the vestibule of the synagogue, where they lit candles for each victim before stepping outside. It revealed the political divisions troubling the nation in the aftermath of the Sabbath shooting as shouts of words matter and Trump, go home could be heard from demonstrators gathered not far from where a gunman had opened fire on Saturday. Expand Close From left to right: White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, First Daughter Ivanka Trump, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, President Donald Trump and Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers (Andrew Harnik/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp From left to right: White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, First Daughter Ivanka Trump, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, President Donald Trump and Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers (Andrew Harnik/AP) Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who was conducting services when the shots rang out, led the couple outside and gestured at white Jewish stars posted for each victim. At each, the president placed a stone, a Jewish burial tradition, while the First Lady added a flower. They were trailed by First Daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who are Jewish. Expand Close Donald Trump places a stone from the White House at a memorial for those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue (Andrew Harnik/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Donald Trump places a stone from the White House at a memorial for those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue (Andrew Harnik/AP) Flowers, candles and chalk drawings filled the nearby corner, including a small rock painted with the number 6,000,011, adding this weeks victims to the estimated number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. Squirrel Hill resident Paul Carberry, 55, said President Trump should not have visited until the dead were buried, and he decried the presidents divisive rhetoric. He didnt pull the trigger but his verbiage and actions dont help, Mr Carberry said. Expand Close Protesters demonstrate near Pittsburghs Tree of Life Synagogue (Matt Rourke/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Protesters demonstrate near Pittsburghs Tree of Life Synagogue (Matt Rourke/AP) Hundreds of protesters assembled to show their displeasure with Mr Trumps presence. When Air Force One touched down at the airport outside Pittsburgh, the Trumps were not greeted by the usual phalanx of local officials that typically welcomes a visiting president, a reflection of the controversy surrounding the visit. Local and religious leaders were divided on whether Mr Trump should have come. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, a Democrat, told reporters before the visit was announced the White House ought to consult with the families of the victims about their preferences and asked that the president not come during a funeral. Neither he nor Democratic Governor Tom Wolf planned to appear with Mr Trump. As his motorcade wound through downtown Pittsburgh, some onlookers saluted the president with upraised middle fingers and others with down-turned thumbs. The White House invited the top four congressional leaders to join Mr Trump in Pennsylvania but none accompanied him. Expand Close Donald Trump and wife Melania outside the synagogue (Matt Rourke/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Donald Trump and wife Melania outside the synagogue (Matt Rourke/AP) A spokesman for Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he already had events in his home state of Kentucky, pushing back on the suggestion he declined. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryans office said he could not attend on short notice. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also opted not to participate. Questions have long swirled about the presidents credibility as a unifier. Since his 2016 Republican campaign for the White House, Mr Trump has at times been slow to denounce white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other hate-filled individuals and groups that found common cause with his nationalistic political rhetoric. Mr Trump travelled to the historic hub of the citys Jewish community as the first funerals were held for the victims, who range in age from 54 to 97. The dead include a set of brothers, a husband and wife, professors, dentists and a physician. It was not immediately clear whether Mr Trump would meet any family members. His language has encouraged hatred and fear of immigrants, which is part of the reason why these people were killedMarianne Novy Those who live in the tight-knit community were uncertain about whether they wanted the presidential visit. To Marianne Novy, Mr Trump was not wanted unless he really changes his ways. For David Dvir, politics should take a pause for grief. He said: Its our president and we need to welcome him. Ms Novy, 73, a retired college English professor, said she signed an open letter asking Mr Trump not to come to Pittsburgh. His language has encouraged hatred and fear of immigrants, which is part of the reason why these people were killed, she said. Just minutes before the synagogue attack, the shooter apparently used social media to rage against HIAS, a Jewish organisation that resettles refugees under contract with the US government. Mr Dvir, 52, the owner of Murray Avenue Locksmith in Squirrel Hill, said of Mr Trump: I think he made some mistakes but he is a great president. He added it would be a shame if the community protested the presidents visit. The Trump administration is calling for an urgent halt to the Saudi-Iran proxy war in Yemen and the start of negotiations in November towards a political settlement. The renewed push for a political solution in Yemen comes amid growing criticism of US military support for Saudi Arabias Yemen air campaign in the aftermath of the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Turkey. US secretary of state Mike Pompeo urged a ceasefire, specifically citing missile and drone strikes into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. The Houthis are supported by Iran. He added the air strikes by the Arab coalition, backed by the US, must cease in all populated areas in Yemen. The time is now for a cessation of hostilities, Mr Pompeo said in a written statement shortly after US defence secretary James Mattis made similar statements in an appearance at the United States Institute of Peace. Expand Close US defense secretary James Mattis (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) AP/PA Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp US defense secretary James Mattis (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) Mr Mattis was more specific than Mr Pompeo in his call for urgent movement towards a political solution to the fighting. He said a ceasefire should take effect within 30 days. Were calling on all the parties, specifically the Houthis and the Arab coalition, to meet in Sweden in November and to come to a solution, Mr Mattis said. Swedens foreign minister said that the UNs special envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths has asked Sweden to host such talks. Mr Mattis called for demilitarisation of Yemens border with Saudi Arabia so that the Saudis and the Emirates do not have to worry about missiles coming into their homes and cities and airports. He also said measures should be taken to ensure that all Iranian-supplied missiles to the Houthis are put under international watch. Mr Mattis put primary blame on Iran. He said its proxies and surrogate forces are fuelling the conflict. They need to knock it off, he said. The conflict in Yemen, the Arab worlds poorest country, began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, by the Houthis, who toppled the internationally recognised government. The Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. Last night the eight victims of the Greysteel massacre were remembered in a solemn and dignified service. That horror, when loyalist terrorists entered the Rising Sun bar, shouted their infamous "trick or treat" and opened fire on people simply enjoying a night out, ended one of the worst, nightmarish weeks of the Troubles. In all, beginning with the Shankill bombing, 24 people were to die in that week in October 1993. It left bereaved families in Belfast and Greysteel, who never knew each other before, forever joined in the same sentence whenever mention is made of the killing frenzy that besmirched the name of Northern Ireland in the minds of all people with even a modicum of humanity in their make-up. Both massacres of the innocent were unjustifiable - as, of course, were all the other deaths that week - and should have put the organisations responsible beyond the pale. Sadly, that was not to be the case. The only difference between the two killing sprees was that the Shankill bombing came unexpectedly, out of a clear blue sky. It was something not anticipated. But the planners of that bombing knew fine well that, whatever the outcome, others, their fellow Catholics, would be sacrificed on the altar of revenge, as loyalist killers would retaliate. Those who lived in Greysteel perhaps imagined they were so far removed from the Shankill that other, closer targets were more likely than their little pub. It is ironic that in their bloodlust the loyalist killers murdered two Protestants at the Rising Sun. People of different persuasions who lived and socialised together, died together. If there was any good to come out of those murders it was that just over four years later the historic Good Friday Agreement was signed. The message had finally got through to the political classes that sharing life and power was the only alternative to sharing death. That agreement was massively endorsed in Northern Ireland and even more overwhelmingly accepted in the Republic of Ireland. It was not a perfect Agreement - which one ever is? But it heralded a period of hope, often dashed but never extinguished, and created a society largely at peace with itself. The gunmen and the bombers deserve no credit for anything that emerged from the Troubles. Indeed, events like Shankill and Greysteel should be their badges of shame. Homegrown cab aggregator Ola is in the midst of a funding round that could see its valuations rise to $5.5-6.5 billion. That's a jump of up to 51% in just a month. The company is reportedly finalising a $100 million (around Rs 735 crore) investment from existing investor Hong Kong-based hedge fund Steadview Capital. "Steadview is putting a large sum of capital as part of the round where Sachin Bansal is also investing. While a bunch of the transaction is in secondary sale of shares, the primary money is coming at a higher valuation," a person privy to the deal talks told The Economic Times. Eyebrows were raised earlier this month on reports that Bansal would be making one of the biggest personal investments in the Indian Internet space by pumping money into Ola. The thirty-something co-founder of Flipkart exited the company after selling his entire shareholding of 5.5% to Walmart. The buzz about Ola's latest funding round comes a little over a month after it raised $50 million at a valuation of $4.3 billion from Hong Kong-based Sailing Capital and the China-Eurasian Economic Cooperation Fund (CEECF). That investment gave both entities a stake of about 1.17% in ANI Technologies, Ola's parent. In October last year, Ola had raised $1.1 billion in fresh funds at a valuation of $3.4-4 billion from China's Tencent Holding Ltd and Japan's SoftBank Group Corp. It is then that Ola had indicated that it is in talks to raise another $1 billion. According to the daily, the company has been targeting a higher valuation of $6-7 billion for the additional capital. The Bengaluru-based company is striving to become profitable in its core taxi aggregation business even as it expands internationally and pushes its food delivery vertical under Foodpanda. "In the past year, there has been a palpable slowdown in the taxi business, along with supply constraints. In order to shore up demand among investors, Ola has to show growth in new categories, which is why they have decided to pump money in pushing Foodpanda," another source told the daily. Just last week the food delivery company announced the launch of its network in 30 additional cities across the country. (With PTI inputs; edited by Sushmita Choudhury Agarwal) The Queen and Prince Charles have played a key role in the peace process It is no surprise to learn that the Queen and Prince Charles are obsessed with the peace process as both have displayed an innate surefootedness when visiting either part of Ireland. The Queen's visit to Dublin in 2011 - which Charles believes was the crowning achievement of her reign - moved Anglo-Irish relationships onto a new level. Her handshake with Martin McGuinness in Belfast and Prince Charles' words at Mullaghmore, where his great uncle Louis Mountbatten was blown up by the IRA, showed a magnanimity mirrored by so many other bereaved families. They were magnificent confidence building gestures which showed what is possible given goodwill. Last Saturday the SDLP, in line with its very successful series of events to mark the 50th anniversary of civil rights, held an event in St Mary's University College, Belfast, to commemorate the political life and work of Paddy Devlin. It was an extraordinary event for a number of reasons - not least because Paddy, although a founding member of the party, was expelled from the SDLP after a huge public row in 1977. It was a belated rapprochement by the party with Paddy's large and colourful political persona. The event was also extraordinary because of the wide range of speakers, who spanned the political spectrum and who spoke candidly about a man with whom they worked in different political circumstances and whom they clearly admired. John Carson, who was an Ulster Unionist politician, was first elected as an anti-power-sharing MP for North Belfast in the crucial general election of February 1974. He spoke warmly of his time with Paddy on Belfast City Council, where they worked together across party and sectarian lines in the 1970s to bring jobs and economic development to the city. During the course of the 1970s on Belfast City Council - at a time of great violence and political turmoil - they tried to build greater political understanding and power-sharing of a sort. But, as Carson admitted, the-then majority Ulster Unionists, despite his encouragement and the cogent arguments of Paddy, rejected power-sharing (or, as Carson liked to term it, "responsibility-sharing") with the SDLP and others. Such short-sightedness did nothing to bring about better politics and peace to the people of Belfast. Like Paddy, Carson was fiercely independently minded and, although originally elected on an anti-power-sharing ticket, he gradually realised that only power-sharing similar to the Sunningdale Agreement offered the best way forward for the people of Belfast. Carson worked hard with Paddy and others to heal the wounds of a society in the grips of civil war and on the verge of total breakdown. Similarly, former councillor Seamus Lynch spoke admiringly and humorously about working with Paddy on the council and also in the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, in which they were both officials. Lynch also had an interesting and circuitous political journey, similar in some ways to Paddy's own remarkable journey. Seamus, like Paddy, was originally a member of the republican movement and, like Paddy, had been interned without trial; Paddy was interned in 1942 and Seamus in the early-1970s. Both supported the civil rights movement and both struggled to build non-sectarian politics; Paddy in the SDLP and, later, other political organisations, and Seamus in the Workers Party. Seamus ultimately became a well-known and effective spokesperson and advocate for the elderly. Paddy's own 'camino', from IRA activist to SDLP Minister for Health in the imaginative but short-lived power-sharing Executive in 1974 stands on its own as an example of how politics should develop after intensive self-inquiry and rigorous intellectual exploration. How could a rash and impatient republican youth like the young Paddy Devlin radically transform his politics? It was through reading avidly in prison that Paddy learnt much as a young internee. Although he had not had a lot of formal education, he hungrily educated himself and became exceedingly well-informed. Indeed, he was pleasantly surprised on one occasion during his time as minister when Brian Faulkner, the unionist leader, pointed out that Faulkner himself and Gerry Fitt and Paddy were the only ministers in the power-sharing Executive not to have university degrees. Paddy's lack of formal education increased his hunger to do better and to be better. There was a refreshing energy and power generated by this event and the memory of a fascinating and dynamic political figure in Belfast politics. At the meeting, the veteran labour activist and distinguished lawyer Brian Garrett raised the question as to what Paddy would think of our present situation. It was a most challenging question and, although one could divine a short answer in terms of "not much", it certainly challenged all there to think creatively about how we might move our politics from the dismal paralysis of the present stand-off between the two sectarian juggernauts that dominate Stormont to something more imaginative. As Connal Parr, a rising academic star and Paddy's grandson, observed: Paddy would not have approved the vetoing of the formation of an Executive for the sake of an Irish Language Act - important though he may have regarded that legislation (he had learnt Irish himself while in Crumlin Road Gaol). His vision was of a non-sectarian political dialogue, where working people would come together to create lasting peace and to develop political relations that would bind both communities firmly together. What a good idea. John McCain chose a political party but first and foremost he chose to be an American. In this nations Capital where people with differing opinions must break bread and come together for critical solutions, McCain was a champion. He demonstrated the ability to see contradictory opinions and various backgrounds as a part of a whole rather than the entire slice of this great country. There was not necessarily right and wrong but rather a variety of opinions, needs, situations, and crisis to tackle in order to keep this United States just that UNITED. John McCain was a patriot but most importantly he was an individual with a strong value system who truly valued others. Political affiliations aside, there is much to be learned by his work and a life genuinely well lived. 7 Things John McCain Taught Us About Relationships Foundation Relationships involve individuals (and individuality) but never lose sight first and foremost of being a part of a larger equation. If you focus on core foundation and values your relationships will remain centered. When push comes to shove you may differ in person and opinion but you will not sacrifice the wrong things nor lose sight of keeping the relationship grounded and whole. Resilience Relationships will be tested with great emotional wars. But its worth remaining rather than surrendering. Not every battle will be won nor should they be. Its the teamwork and resilience which ultimately stand the test of time and prove relationships stronger together than apart. Walking away from people is not a sign of strength. Resolving issues and conflict is. Honor Living outside of a persons four walls and standing for something greater leads to a selflessness which can only improve a relationship. It is a less self-absorbed version of the world. Standing for something which unites a couple far beyond their own personal gain and far more meaningful can only help a relationship gain perspective of whats important. Loyalty A dedication to one another is a quintessential relationship characteristic. The outside world will always bring challenges and adversity and therefore, its critical to have a devotion to one another which is unshakable. Exhibiting loyalty means you have the confidence to have someones back whether fair or foul weather. Tolerance The world is full of varying opinions and beliefs. They are not something to be fought but rather a celebration of individuality. There is no one right or wrong way. There are just different ways. Allowing each person to be who they are means they are fully apart of a relationship rather than fully controlled by another in a relationship. Diversity There is a beauty in diversity, not a threat. It isnt a forum for conflict but rather a forum for robust conversation and education. No one way is necessarily the right path. The goal is figuring out a way to bring all of the paths together and intersect. If one individual can show another the way to a new point of view it can be enlightening not frightening. Respect Every person should be allowed their own opinion rather than talked out of it. It is possible to disagree with passion rather than anger. Ultimate confidence without the presence of ego means allowing someone to be entirely who they are even if they have an entirely different worldview. John McCain was unbelievably passionate about his own beliefs but incredibly tolerant of those of others. One of the most notable examples was the woman who negatively commented about Barack Obama and McCain famously spoke the words now paraphrased Obama was a great man the two of them just had differing opinions. Ultimately what McCain demonstrated was the ability to possess great confidence minus any type of ego. The best relationships involve authentic confidence. An incredible ability to fully and passionately live ones own purpose while never needing to clip the wings of others. Follow me on Facebook @Colleen Orme National Columnist (Photo Courtesy of Pexels) Instagram @colleenorme Twitter @colleenorme E-mail: Colleen.Sheehy.Orme@gmail.com When I was in my twenties I would tell my uncle I wanted him to live with me one day. He would smile and laugh. No, I would say. I am serious. Promise me you will live with me. I remember my aunts asking him if he would come back to New York City to retire. He had lived in the Washington D.C. metro area for so long it had never occurred to me he might move back to his native New York. In a moment of genuinely love driven panic, I asked him if he would retire in NYC or DC. He said New York would forever be his home but he had built his entire adult life in Washington. What a relief. He wouldnt be leaving us. What I never told my uncle was not only did my love for him drive my hope to care for him but so did the debt I felt I urgently wanted to repay. As my mothers brother, he had far exceeded any average uncle duties. Quite the contrary, every time the five of us entered the room he lit up even if he had seen us moments before. He watched out for our mom and he watched out for us. Or what I should say is he showed his love for all of us. He was a constant in our lives. Quite a gift for children who would ultimately lose their dad in their day to day life and be raised by a single mom. When the day finally arrived I begged to be the one who housed my uncle. I think my aunts and other uncle felt it would be too much for me. I had my own family and young children. I truly believe they thought it would burden me. But this was a childhood promise I had made to myself. And I would fight for the right to care for him. I would fight for the privilege. My brother and sisters were incredibly supportive. They had cared for our mother. An emotional debt I will owe them the rest of my life. Because the debt we owe to the caregivers of our greatest loves is insurmountable. I had been young when our mother was sick and as the baby of the family, I found it overwhelming. My mom would come and stay with me for a few weeks and I would get her bathed and clothed and fed and then I would spend several hours crying myself to sleep. As older siblings, they seemed so much stronger and so much more capable. So my brother and sisters bared the day to day with our one sister ultimately gifting us taking on the entire responsibility. Something our brother never lost sight of. Each year he texts her on the anniversary of our hugely substantial loss to thank her for caring for our mom. When it came time to care for our uncle I believe we all knew on some level what one of our mothers best friends had once told me. I feared I had let my mother down. That the avalanche of disabling tears brought on by her decline made me far less equipped than my older siblings to watch out for her I should have done more. As I sat at my moms bedside the night she was called home, this dear family friend told me Every person steps up in the time they are called to. We cant feel guilt over who did this and who did that. We find our own demand for presence when it is most needed. So ultimately I got my wish. My beloved uncle, the one who had stepped into our lives when he didnt have to, who had made us feel so incredibly loved came to live with me. The first few weeks were tough. He was up three to four times a night and with the broken sleep, I struggled to care for him and my kids and get through the day. We made the decision to get an outside caregiver in to get him through the night so I could manage everything else. We settled comfortably into a routine. My boys understood this was a time for increased self-sufficiency and increased love. They made me incredibly proud as they managed their school work and other responsibilities and still coveted the time where we would all come together around the dinner table, a movie or more. At night after I got my uncle ready for bed they would come into his room for some prayer and a few songs as I sang him to sleep. On other nights, they would just listen to the sounds of a few Irish songs and Amazing Grace drift up and down the hallway while they were lulled into slumber. Being a caregiver is challenging and for many, it lasts far longer than the coveted months I was gifted with my uncle. Of course, having already lost my mom I viewed it somewhat differently. I had walked these steps before. Scratch that. I had traced these steps before after my heroic brother and sisters. Therefore, I eagerly awaited this incredible opportunity I had been far too emotionally ill-equipped for in my youth. I was now old enough to be tough enough to feed and care for one who had once extended the same loving tendencies towards me. And no longer cry but smile through it because I am one of the lucky ones who got to repay an enormous emotional debt. A few months before my uncle had to be moved to a nursing home he sat at my kitchen table. I made him the quintessential Irish feast. A cup of tea and a bit of sweets. In a moment never to be forgotten he gazed out the bay window and said Im happy here. And with those three incredible words I knew I was able to return just a bit of what he had spent a lifetime giving me. Follow me on Facebook @Colleen Orme National Columnist (Photo Mine) Instagram @colleenorme Twitter @colleenorme E-mail: Colleen.Sheehy.Orme@gmail.com After only a month of marriage, sources close to Justin Bieber are concerned that the star might be falling back into old habits. Prior to joining Hillsong Church in 2017, Bieber had gotten himself into an enormous amount of trouble. He visited a brothel in Rio de Janeiro, was sued for assault and emotional distress after kicking and punching a photography in Los Angeles while on a date with Selena Gomez, was caught urinating in a New York City restaurant kitchen and was busted for drug possession in Sweden all during 2013. Less than a year later, he was arrested for driving under the influence, assaulted a limousine driver in Toronto, was arrested again after an ATV wreck led to a physical altercation in Ontario and had to pay over $80,000 in damages after he vandalized his neighbors mansion. Bieber seemed to clean up his act after he began investing more time in his faith in 2017. He canceled his Purpose World Tour and began paying more attention to his health. Hes come a long way, said JonBoy, a friend of Biebers. Its amazing how much hes changed and how much God has done. Biebers recent actions, however, have made those close to him wonder if he is slipping back into bad habits. In August, he was found crying on the West Side Highway bike path and looked disoriented while shopping shirtless in Tribeca. A week after his wedding saw Bieber busking outside Buckingham Palace, and an even more recent video showed Bieber shaking and acting jittery while meeting fans in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A friend of Hailey Baldwin, Biebers newlywed wife, said that Biebers wide eyed and unsteady appearance was very reminiscent of his party days. You could tell he wasnt all there [at the parties], the friend said. He would be slurring his words or shaking. You could tell he was not normal. Bieber has also faced some scrutiny over who he apparently did not tell about his whirlwind romance with Baldwin or their short two month engagement. I wasnt told [about the engagement or marriage], said George Bieber, Justins grandfather. Hes old enough, I guess. I was young when I got married, 17 or 18, but that didnt last. Both Biebers team and his mentor, Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz, were also caught off guard by the sudden engagement and quick marriage. Lentz and Bieber had a falling out, and Lentz offered noticeably hesitant congratulations to the couple when he was informed of the engagement during an interview. One source close to Bieber suggested that the newlywed was having an ongoing identity crisis. One can only hope the star manages to overcome his crisis before it damages his young marriage or hurts his newlywed wife. In some situations, there is just no winning. That certainly seemed to be the case for the oxymoronic genre of Christian Rock. Secular audiences mocked and scorned it while many Christians disdained it. Martin Luther King, Jr. described Christianity as being totally incompatible with rock or rock n roll as such music so often plunges mens minds into degrading and immoral depths. The sense of a failed union of opposites permeated popular thinking about Christian rock both within and outside the church for decades. Books such as Religious Rock n Roll: A Wolf in Sheeps Clothing decried the practice, and the genre served as the punchline to jokes on popular television shows including Seinfeld. Christian rock, however, did not crumble in the face of scorn from both secular and faith-based audiences. If anything, the heaps of disdain leveled at their art convinced Christian rockers that they were righteous rebels who were challenging both elitist Christians and the dominant culture. As a result of that stubborn, defiant refusal to lie down and die in its early years, Christian rock has endured and become surprisingly popular. The story behind the classic Christian rock song, I Can Only Imagine, was made into a movie in March 2018 and grossed over $83 million. As Christians began to increasingly embrace Christian rock, questions still arose about whether the more visceral sound of guitars and drums would lead believers astray. Christian rockers insisted that Christian music of every genre was based on the lyrics of the song, not the actual notes played on the instruments used. The idea caught on and spawned a slew of new genres in Christian music including Christian punk and Christian metal. The best of the Christian rock genre, however, did not consider itself to be Christian rock. Instead, those artists cut their teeth on the more demanding, and consequently more talented, secular music industry but continued to write and perform songs that were imbued with their Christian faith and values. They were not Christian rockers as much as they were rockers who were Christian and as a result, they both produced higher quality music and enjoyed a wider reach than traditional Christian rockers. It may or may not be a good sign that Christian rockers are leaving behind what would once have been their traditional genre behind. One on hand, going mainstream allows Christian messages to reach more people. On the other hand, it is never good for a music scene when the best talent is abandoning said scene. What the recent movement of Christian rockers away from Christian rock will mean for the genre is unclear, but it is highly unlikely this stubborn movement is going anywhere. Theres something about Halloween that excites even the most hardened heart. When a holiday combines a nationwide street festival, frightening fun, delicious treats, and even the prospect of contact with the spiritual realm, it cant be ignored. And as one of the most ancient holidays in the world, it has grown to be celebrated in a variety of ways by a multitude of cultures. The first traces of Halloween can be found in the pagan festival of Samhain, pronounced sow-in. Samhain was celebrated annually, on the first day of November, by the ancient Celts over 2,000 years ago, and included bonfires, feasts, costumes, and offerings to the spirits. These ancient Celts believed that Samhain was the time when the barrier between the world of the material and spiritual worlds was at its thinnest, and so they set places at their tables for the spirits of deceased loved ones, and appeased other types of godlike spirits with food and drink to stave off ghostly mischief. Over the next centuries, the pagan rites of Samhain were absorbed into the Christian holy days, All Souls Day and All Saints Day, and evolved into a number of different celebrations as celebrants moved throughout the world, carrying their traditions with them and integrating them into other cultures. While these variations on Halloween are many, the core still remains the same: coming at the intersection between summer and winter, this is a day when life and death connect. Lets take a look at how a few different cultures around the world handle this Halloween theme. Ireland Ireland was once home to the pagan festivities of Samhain, and is considered by many to be the birthplace of Halloween. Today, the Irish celebrate by combining contemporary Halloween with ancient customs. Youll find many familiar Halloween practices in Ireland on October 31st, most notably costumed children, trick-or-treating, fireworks displays, and games. But here, youll also find older modes of celebration, such as the Spirits of Meath Halloween Festival, which is held in County Meath, a possible birthplace of Samhain. In festivals like these, there are bonfires, traditional food, and an emphasis on the trick in trick-or-treating, wherein kids knock on doors and dash away before the owner can catch them. China In China, youll find the hungry ghost festival, which is celebrated throughout both China and Hong Kong for an entire month, beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. While this is celebrated a month or two before Halloween occurs in the Western world, the themes are much the same. During this month, Chinese tradition holds that ghosts and spirits, including those of deceased ancestors may exit hell and enter the world of the living. These are the spirits of those who were never given the proper rituals after death, and so families make offerings of food and drink, as well as burning paper offerings. Feasts are held, and food is laid out for these spirits on offering tables to ward off bad luck for the year, and lotus-shaped lanterns are floated on rivers that head out into the sea. This symbolizes the guidance of lost souls into the afterlife. Germany In Germany, Halloween is observed as All Saints Day, which is the Christian holiday that the Catholic Church likely set in place to replace the pagan celebrations of Samhain, blending pagan and Christian celebrations. This day is spent attending church, giving honor and respect to martyred saints, as well as deceased friends and family members. Interestingly, Germans hide knives on this day so that wandering spirits wont be accidently harmed by the movements of a blade. Mexico There is no nation, perhaps, that puts on a bigger Halloween party than Mexico with its Dia de los MuertesDay of the Deadfestival. This event is celebrated from October 31st to November 2nd, and is actually rooted in All Souls Day rather than more contemporary and secular Halloween festivities. Make no mistakethis is a massive event. Revelers don colorful costumes, participating in parades and street parties. All of this is designed to honor the dead who are believed to return to their ancestral homes during this time, and many families build altars to honor these spirits, decorating it with candy, photos, and flowers, as well as the deceaseds favorite foods and drinks. Relatives also take this time to clean up their departed relatives grave sites, adorning them with flowers and streamers. In parades, people often dress as skeletons, painting their faces to look like bone, and fruit is tossed to the surrounding crowds. Special bread is prepared, known as Bread of the Dead, and within these loaves are placed skeletons made from sugar. Mexico celebrates Halloween as a festival of both life and death, honoring each with fervor. South Korea South Koreans celebrate Chuseok, which translates to Autumn eve. This holiday is a harvest festival celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, and falls around the autumn equinox. In an ancient memorial rite that has been performed in Korea for thousands of years, Koreans place food on a table in a special arrangement in an offering to their deceased ancestors, whom they believe are still alive, and will protect their descendants. Rice and soup are placed at the north end of the table, fruits and vegetables at the south, and at the west and middle lie meat dishes. On the eastern side of the table is placed rice cake and drinks. As weve seen in many other traditions, Chuseok is all about honoring and sustaining the dead as they pass into the world of the living. A Common Thread Nearly every nation in the world celebrates their dead in the transitional time between summer and winter. No matter if you believe that this is because of a real spiritual quality of this time, or simply because the end of the green season brings about thoughts of mortality and the coming of a perilous winter, this is a significant time for many. This Halloween, take some time from the commercialization to remember your ancestors and departed loved ones. While they remain in your heart and memory, they still have life, and your relationship to them remains real. And that realization is what this holiday is really all about. A Bangladesh court on Tuesday doubled a prison sentence being served by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to 10 years, as a senior government official said that her legal troubles may prevent her from participating in upcoming polls. In an unusual move, a High Court bench rejected Zias motion to dismiss the case and instead embraced a petition from the countrys Anti-Corruption Commission seeking to increase her punishment, lawyers said. A lawyer for the ailing 73-year-old said she would appeal the sentence to the Appellate Division of Bangladeshs Supreme Court. If the court suspends her punishment, then there will be no barrier to participate in elections for her, Zainul Abedin told BenarNews. But Bangladesh Attorney General Mahbubey Alam gave a different opinion. Even if the Appellate Division suspends her punishment, she will not qualify to participate in elections, because temporary suspension of punishment doesnt mean she is innocent, rather she will be considered convicted until acquitted by the court. She will be able to participate in elections only if the court cancels her punishment, Alam told BenarNews. The three-time former prime minister has been in prison since February, when a court convicted her on charges she had embezzled money meant for an orphanage. On Monday, her time in prison was extended by two years because of a conviction in a separate corruption case. Supporters have protested, claiming the verdicts are orchestrated to remove Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas chief rival from the political arena. Zias son and heir-apparent, Tarique Rahman, also has been convicted of corruption and lives in self-exile in London. Bangladeshs Election Commission is due to announce the date of the next general election on Sunday, according to officials. Zias Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies did not participate in 2014 elections, saying the contest would not be free and fair. As a result, Bangladeshs parliament has a friendly 34-member opposition bloc whose leader is an adviser to Hasina, and 250 seats representing the ruling Awami League and its allies. The remaining 16 elected seats are held by independent MPs. The BNP has not announced whether it will participate in the next election, but has joined forces with a new coalition headed by 81-year-old lawyer and politician Kamal Hossain who says his National Unity Front is not a political party but a movement to ensure free and fair elections. Hasina, who rejected repeated demands for a dialogue with the BNP, on Tuesday invited leaders of the new opposition coalition to her official residence for that purpose on Thursday evening. The prime minister invited them at Gono Bhaban at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Awami League Office Secretary Abdus Sobhan Golap told reporters, after handing the invitation to Hossain. The move appeared to be a change of strategy by the prime minister who had earlier accused Hossain, a longtime ally of her father, of shaking hands with killers and corrupt politicians in the BNP. The NUF has issued a list of demands, including that a neutral caretaker administration run the country during the electoral period, the army be deployed to safeguard the polls and Zia be freed from prison. Political observers welcomed the move toward dialogue, saying it was likely to reduce political tensions. The PM knows that the main opposite party BNP is also a part of the NUF, their leaders will also be in the dialogue, and they will raise their issues there. The PM invited them by keeping all these things in mind. It is a positive move, said Syed Abul Maksud, a prominent human rights activist and writer. Political analyst and historian Mohiuddin Ahmed told BenarNews, We should not expect that AL will accept all NUF demands, but if they agree with some points and move toward an acceptable election, then that will be good for all. Commenting on the upcoming meeting, Awami league Secretary General Obaidul Quader told reporters, We will discuss with open minds there. Dedicated to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, fondly known as the Iron Man of India, the Statue of Unity has been unveiled today by PM Narendra Modi on the statesman's 143rd birth anniversary. Constructed at a cost of Rs 2,989 crore by construction and engineering company Larsen & Toubro Ltd the statue stands in the midst of the Narmada River, on the islet of Sadhu Bet. Sardar Patel is credited for unifying all of the 562 princely states in pre-independence India to form what is today the Republic of India. Thus, the statue has been named 'Statue of Unity' as a tribute to his role. "The Statue will stand high, not just in meters and feet, but much more in terms of academic, historical, national and spiritual values. My vision is to develop the place as a source of inspiration for ages to come," PM Modi had said. Follow the LIVE updates here: 12:23 pm: PM Narendra Modi, BJP Chief Amit Shah, Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani and others visit museum & audio-visual gallery at 'Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Complex' near Statue Of Unity. Kevadiya: PM Narendra Modi, BJP Chief Amit Shah, Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani and others visit museum & audio-visual gallery at 'Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Complex' near #StatueOfUnitypic.twitter.com/HCWc2CrQ8z - ANI (@ANI) October 31, 2018 11:56 am: PM Modi inaugurates Wall of Unity in Kevadiya. Kevadiya: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates Wall of Unity on 143rd anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. #Gujaratpic.twitter.com/yW1hA95uqz - ANI (@ANI) October 31, 2018 11:32 am:Statue of Unity facts - At 182 metre, the mammoth replica of Sardar Patel is the world's tallest statue, leaving behind USA's Statue of Liberty (93 metre), Japan's Ushiku Daibutsu (120 metre) and even China's Spring Temple Buddha (153 metre) statues. The statue has been built to withstand winds of 180km/hour and earthquakes of up to 6.5 Richter scale. 11:29 am: The contribution of the tribals, farmers and villagers, who helped make this possible cannot be ignored, I thank them from the bottom of my heart. Without your help and contribution, this would not be possible today. With the Statue of Unity, you (tribals and farmers) have enshrined your names in history too: PM Modi. 11:21 am:I am amazed when some people of our own country dare to see this initiative from a political view & criticise us like we have committed a huge crime. Is remembering country's great personalities a crime?: PM Modi. 11:18 am: The big numbers that went into the making of the statue: 11: 09 am: PM Narendra Modi says, "If it was not for Sardar Sahab's resolve, then we Indians would have had to take visa to see the Gir lions, pray at Somnath, or to see Hyderabad's Charminar". 11:07 am:BJP's officical handle shares some images from the venue. 10: 59 am: This is a project that we had thought about during the time when I was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. To build the #StatueOfUnity, lakhs of farmers from all over India came together, gave their tools, portions of soil and thus, a mass movement started: PM Modi. 10:58 am: Events like today are very very important in a country's history and such events are difficult to erase. It is a historic and inspiring occasion for all Indians. I am fortunate to dedicate this statue of Sardar Sahab to the nation: PM Modi. 10:58 am: Sardar Patel's statue is unveiled. #WATCH: Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's #StatueOfUnity inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat's Kevadiya pic.twitter.com/APnxyFACFT - ANI (@ANI) October 31, 2018 10:58 am: Here are some visuals from the event Members of the Bangladesh-Myanmar Joint Working Group meet in Dhaka to discuss the repatriation of Rohingya refugees, Oct. 30, 2018. Bangladesh and Myanmar officials on Tuesday announced a plan to start repatriating as many as 2,300 Rohingya refugees in a couple of weeks, nearly a year after the neighbors signed a deal stipulating that the process would begin in early 2018. Tuesdays bilateral agreement in Dhaka came less than a week after a top U.N. investigator warned that a genocide against the ethnic minority was still happening in Rakhine, the home state of the Rohingya minority group in Myanmar. The nations foreign secretaries made the announcement at a joint press conference at the Meghna State Guest House, after the Bangladesh-Myanmar Joint Working Group (JWG) met for the third time. On Wednesday the 30-member JWG, led by Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque and Myanmar counterpart Myint Thu, will visit refugee camps in Ukhia, a sub-district of southeastern Coxs Bazar, to meet with potential returnees to encourage them to return to Rakhine. Today, we had a very fruitful constructive dialogue. We discussed the repatriation of the Rohingya staying here. We are looking forward to start the repatriation by mid-November, Haque told reporters. Myint Thu shook his head in agreement with Haque. We had a very candid and friendly meeting this morning. We came up with concrete results on the commencement of the repatriation, he said. As my colleagues mentioned, we have shown political will, flexibility and accommodation in order to commence repatriation at the earliest possible days. Responding to a question from BenarNews, the Myanmar diplomat discussed efforts to ensure a safe return for the Rohingya. First of all we have streamlined a lot of local directives in order to promote awareness on the repatriation among the returnees, he said. We are also promoting public policing, which includes police personnel together with the local communities to maintain and promote law and order. Addressing the issue of the safety of returning Rohingya, Myint Thu said that Myanmar was holding workshops to promote awareness among police and public officials so that they cannot discriminate [against] the people in the northern Rakhine state. We have put in place a number of measures to make sure that the returnees will have a secure environment for their return, he added. But returnees will not be returning to villages in Rakhine from which they were forced out during a violent crackdown last year by Myanmar security forces. They will be going to a so-called reception camp. Md. Afzal, a Rohingya refugee leader in Bangladesh, cast doubt on Myanmars sincerity in repatriating his people to their homeland. Myanmar has been under international pressure. They would take some of us as eyewash, he told BenarNews in a telephone interview. They will not allow us going to our original villages. They will confine us to a newly built fortified compound. But we do not want to go back this way. We must be given the right to movement and restore our citizenship, he said, adding that perpetrators of alleged atrocities against Rohingya must be tried in court before the refugees can return to Myanmar. Repatriation details Last November, Bangladesh and Myanmar signed an agreement calling for the process to begin by Jan. 22, 2018. The agreement declared that the repatriation must be voluntary, safe and dignified. But the repatriation stalled for months because Rohingya feared persecution if they were return to Rakhine. More than 700,000 fled to Bangladesh after Myanmar security forces launched a crackdown on Aug. 25, 2017 in retaliation for attacks blamed on Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army insurgents. The agreement requires Bangladesh officials to present a list of Rohingya to Myanmar officials, who would then determine if they had lived in Rakhine. After verification by Myanmar, Bangladesh is to present lists of people willing to return. On Feb. 26, Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal handed over a first list containing names and Myanmar residences of 8,032 Rohingya to Myanmar counterpart Kyaw Swe for verification. Mohammad Abul Kalam, the Bangladeshi refugee relief and repatriation commissioner who attended Tuesdays meeting, said the Myanmar government had cleared 4,600 Rohingya on the original list. Upon return to Rakhine, if their safety is not ensured, if their livelihood opportunities are not guaranteed, if they are not granted the right to movement, they would flee again, Kalam told BenarNews. Home Ministry Joint Secretary Munim Hasan, who also attended the meeting, said Bangladesh presented the names of 2,260 Rohingya belonging to 485 families from the list of 4,600 cleared by Myanmar. Today, we have handed over the second list containing information of 22,400 Rohingya for verification by Myanmar, Hasan told BenarNews. UN: Ongoing genocide Earlier this month, Marzuki Darusman, the Indonesian chairman of a U.N. fact-finding mission on Myanmar, said thousands of Rohingya continued to flee to Bangladesh and those who remained suffered severe repression. It is an ongoing genocide that is taking place at the moment, he told a news conference on Oct. 24 at the United Nations in New York. The Myanmar governments hardened positions are by far the greatest obstacle, Darusman told reporters. Myanmars U.N. ambassador, Hau Do Suan, repeated denials that Myanmar had offered since the beginning of the humanitarian crisis. This factfinding missions report is unconstructive and full of prejudice. We dont accept and condemn the calls for referring the Myanmar situation to the ICC (International Criminal Court) or an independent court, he said. Indonesian police officers look at recovered items belonging to passengers of Lion Air flight JT610 at Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta, Oct. 31, 2018. Search teams believe they pinpointed the location of the black box of a Lion Air jetliner that crashed off the West Java coast earlier this week with 189 people on board, Indonesian authorities said Wednesday. Searchers detected pings believed to be from the flight recorders of the Boeing 737 Max 8, which plunged into the Java Sea minutes after takeoff from Jakartas main international airport on Monday morning, officials said. But strong currents hampered efforts to deploy a remotely operated sub to get close to the black box, they said. Also on Wednesday, a navy ship equipped with sonar technology located an object on the seabed measuring 22 meters (72.1 feet) long and which could be the planes fuselage, according to authorities heading up search efforts involving hundreds of personnel. The large object was 32 meters (104.9 feet) underwater, officials said. Im sure it will be found soon and the big part of the aircraft will also be found not far from the area, Air Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto, the commander of the Indonesian Armed Forces, told a news conference in Jakarta. Separately, Lion Air chief CEO Edward Sirait told BenarNews that the airline had suspended the carriers director of technical operations, Muhammad Asif, on orders from Indonesias transport ministry. He gave no further details. On Tuesday, Siriat confirmed a news report that the same plane had developed technical problems with altitude and speed readings during a flight that immediately preceded Mondays crash, but, he told BenarNews, the problems were resolved that night. The black box, which consists of flight data and voice cockpit recorders, could help investigators shed light on what caused the new plane to crash after the pilot had radioed in a request to return to Soekarna-Hatta International Airport, according to officials. The aircraft had been in service since August and was built in 2018. Hadi said the recovery at sea of a mass of items belonging to passengers and crew, including clothes, indicated the fuselage was nearby and many bodies could be trapped inside the planes main section. We will lift the fuselage using a crane, which can lift up to 100 tons, he said. All 181 passengers and eight crew members aboard the doomed plane, flight JT 610, were presumably killed by the force of the crash, officials said. By late Wednesday, at least 53 bags containing dismembered body parts had been pulled from the sea, National Search and Rescue Agency chief Muhammad Syaugi said. Anthur Tampi, the director of the national polices health department, said the body of only person had been identified, although police took DNA samples from more than 170 relatives of the crash victims. The one who was identified based on fingerprints was Jannatun Cintya Dewi, a 24-year-old employee of Indonesias energy ministry, according to Reuters. Only two of the 189 people aboard the flight, which was bound from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang off Sumatra, were foreigners, an Italian passenger and Bhavye Suneja, the planes Indian captain. Suneja had logged at least 6,000 hours in the cockpit, LionAir said. A crew member aboard a rescue ship scans the sea with binoculars during a search operation for the Lion Air plane crash in waters off Tanjung Karawang, Indonesia, Oct. 31, 2018. [AP] Relieved of his duties Earlier on Wednesday, Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi told reporters that Asif, Lion Airs technical director, had been ordered suspended, pending an investigation into the crash. To facilitate the investigation, the technical director has been relieved of his duties so that the investigation can proceed well, Budi said. He said the countrys aviation authorities would intensify inspections on Indonesia-based airlines to ensure they complied with government safety standards. In the coming days, we will conduct ramp checks. Lion Air will be subjected to more ramp checks, about 40 percent of its fleet, randomly, Budi said, adding that other Indonesian carriers could expect random checks to 10 to 15 percent of their fleets. In addition, experts from U.S. aircraft maker Boeing were expected to arrive in Jakarta late Wednesday to assist with the investigation, said Soerjanto Tjahjono, head of the National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT). It is their obligation as the manufacturer of the aircraft to help KNKT in our investigation, he said. Meanwhile, the captain of a tug boat told a local TV news station that he saw the Lion Air plane plummet into the sea and disintegrate on impact. The aircraft crashed with a loud explosion, Rahmat Slamet told TVOne. I didnt see the body of the plane on the water but saw the tail as it was sinking. Rahmat said he was about a mile from the crash site and ordered his crew to put on life vests and rescue victims. He said he also radioed authorities at Jakartas Tanjung Priok port about the emergency. As we approached the location, debris such as seats, life vests, tubes and things belonging to passengers came to the surface, he said. Questions about air safety The accident has raised questions about Indonesias aviation safety, after the European Union lifted a ban on the countrys airlines. It was imposed in 2007 following a string of deadly air incidents. Mondays crash was the second deadly accident in 14 years involving a plane from budget carrier Lion Air. In 2004, an MD-82 from its fleet overshot the runway of the airport in Solo, Central Java. It crashed into a cemetery, killing 25 people. In 2013, a Lion Air Boeing 737 carrying more than 100 people crashed into the sea while trying to land on Bali island, nearly splitting the fuselage into two. There were no fatalities. Indonesia has experienced a boom in low cost-carriers following the deregulation of its aviation industry in the early 2000s. Last year, the International Civil Aviation Organization ranked Indonesias aviation safety as above global average, with a compliance rate of 81.15 percent. The crash was the first reported one involving a Max 8 since the upgrade of Boeings workhorse 737 entered commercial service starting in May 2017. Boeing said the 737 Max family was the fastest-selling plane in the company's history, and that it had received 4,700 orders for these models from more than 100 customers across the globe. Malaysia arrested five suspected militants in counter-terrorist raids since mid-October, including a former member of the South Asian extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and an ex-field operative of al-Qaeda, police said Wednesday. A 50-year-old Egyptian who had worked as an executive with a Kuala Lumpur-based advertising company was arrested on Oct.13 outside the countrys capital, national police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said. The suspect was a member of the al-Qaeda militant group during his stay in Afghanistan from 1988 to 1993, Fuzi said in a statement. He also met with Osama bin Laden, the former leader of al-Qaeda. The suspect, who entered Malaysia with his wife in May this year, told investigators he had been arrested previously in Canada and Egypt for using fake travel documents, which he also used to enter Azerbaijan and Pakistan in the past, Fuzi said. The Egyptian had also been imprisoned in his home country for terror activities, Fuzi said. He did not identify the suspect. The man was not cooperative with investigators at the moment, a high-ranking government source told BenarNews. Authorities have not seen evidence that the suspect had denounced his involvement with the global militant organization, the source said. We are afraid that Malaysia will become a terror organizations base. Al-Qaeda, unlike the IS, is good at making long-term plans, the source said, using the other acronym for Islamic State. He cited the meeting of al-Qaeda terrorists who met in 1999 in Kuala Lumpur as they plotted the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United States. The four coordinated terror attacks, which involved hijacked planes, killed almost 3,000 people and injured 6,000 others. In 2000, the source said, high-level al-Qaeda members also met in Kuala Lumpur to plan the bombing on that year of the U.S. Navy ship USS Cole in Yemen, killing 17 American sailors and injuring 39 others. Some of the attendees in that meeting were hijackers of the plane that was flown into the Pentagon in the 9/11 attacks, he said. That meeting was organized by Malaysian Yazid Sufaat, a former army captain, believed to be one of al-Qaeda's anthrax researchers. Malaysian authorities arrested Yazid in 2001, released him in 2008 and was rearrested in 2013 under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act for incitement of terrorist acts. Apart from the Egyptian, the counter-terror agents also arrested a 31 year-old Pakistani with suspected links to the South Asian militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Fuzi said. He said a 31-year-old man, who was only identified as a Middle Eastern, was arrested after he had allegedly posted Facebook comments threatening to kill a foreign ambassador. Two Malaysians, aged 32 and 40, were also arrested, he said. All of the suspects were detained separately in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Perak and the Borneo state Sabah between Oct. 13 and Oct. 26, the police chief said. Investigators said the Malaysians were believed to have channeled funds to slain Malaysian IS recruiter Muhammad Wanndy Mohamed Jedi and another top Malaysian militant, Muhamad Fudhail Omar, who was believed killed in Syria last year, and also to the Abu Sayyaf, a group of militants operating in the southern Philippines. Four of the suspects were detained under the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act 2012 while the Pakistani was arrested on charges of violating the countrys Immigration Act. Analyst: Its a residual effect A deradicalization expert told BenarNews that the presence of former al-Qaeda militants in nations outside of their home country was expected. Its a residual effect of the phenomenon of militants who were active somewhere else, like Afghanistan, said Ahmad el-Muhammady, a political science lecturer at the International Islamic University of Malaysia. After their early activities, Ahmad said, militants would want to seek safe sanctuaries. Muslim-majority Malaysia, being an open country with friendly citizens, fits the bill, he said. Stringent security measures at the border and stronger intelligence cooperation with countries in the region and others, such as the Middle East and Europe, are needed to prevent the entry of foreign militants, he said. First arrest of Lashkar-e-Taiba in Malaysia, analyst says A South Asian terrorism analyst told BenarNews the case involving the Pakistani could be unprecedented in Malaysia. I believe its the first such a case in Malaysia, said Faran Jeffery, deputy director of the Islamic Theology of Counter Terrorism, a London-based think tank. Lashkar-e-Taiba, which literally means the Army of the Righteous, is one of the largest and most active militant organizations in South Asia, operating mainly in Pakistan. India blames the Pakistan-based LeT for several attacks on its soil, including the 2001 assault on the Indian Parliament that claimed 14 lives and the 2008 Mumbai attack. LeT, formed in 1987 with funding from al-Qaeda, claims to be primarily fighting to liberate Muslims living in Indian Kashmir, where its cadres routinely target security forces. It has been designated by the Australian, U.S. and Indian governments as a terrorist organization. Suspected pirates accused of hijacking the Panama-flagged vessel Maximus are shown to the media in Lagos, Nigeria, Feb. 22, 2016. Pirates have freed seven Filipino seafarers who were among 12 hostages seized by pirates off the coast of Nigeria last month, a diplomat said Wednesday. The victims were released Sunday and have been flown to Switzerland, where they would take a flight back to Manila, the Philippine envoy to Nigeria, Shirley Ho-Vicario, said in a report to the foreign office. The Philippine Embassy in Abuja confirmed the release of the Filipino seafarers, Ho-Vicario said. She did not provide details related to the release. The seven sailors were among the 12 crew members of the Swiss-owned MV Glarus taken by armed men who boarded their vessel on Sept. 22 as their vessel was making its way from Lagos to Port Harcourt, the capital city of Rivers State in Nigeria, according to the Nigerian Tribune. Nigerian maritime authorities earlier told local reporters in the capital Abuja that the five other abducted crew members were from Slovenia, Romania, Ukraine, Croatia and Bosnia. The kidnapping was the fourth time that Filipino seafarers were taken from ships off Nigeria since 2007. In 2011, Filipino seafarer Farolito Vallega, 48, was aboard a German-owned ship, MV Beluga Navigation, when he was shot and killed by Somali pirates, Philippine officials said. Data from the World Shipping Council shows 12 ships with more than 170 seafarers from around the world are being held hostage by Somali pirates. Meanwhile, Philippine diplomats on Wednesday said they were still gathering information about reports that two Filipinos were among the 11 crew members who were seized by pirates from the container ship Pomerenia Sky off the coast of Nigeria on Saturday. Maersk Line, which chartered the container ship owned by Peter Dohle Schiffahrts, told the German News Agency DPA that the pirates did not take nine other crew members. The Danish shipping company said it could confirm, that the charter vessel Pomerenia Sky, which is managed and operated by the company Midocean Limited, has been attacked while approaching Onne, Nigeria. Typhoon Yutu carved a trail of destruction that killed at least nine people before blowing out of the Philippines on Wednesday, rescue officials said. The storm dumped heavy rains starting Tuesday, setting off landslides and forcing thousands to flee their homes in the mountainous north, as it crossed over the main island of Luzon. Police said authorities were verifying reports that 20 people were trapped when a landslide had buried a government building in the town of Natonin, in northern Mountain Province. Rescuers rushed supplies and heavy equipment to the area, but the winding highway leading to the site proved difficult to negotiate because of landslides, officials said. The area was difficult to reach, but rescuers managed to trudge through the debris, said Ruben Carandang, head of the local disaster response agency. Rescuers said 14 people had been pulled out alive from landslides in the province as of Wednesday afternoon. Five bodies had been recovered and at least nine others were missing, they said. In the nearby town of Banaue, which is known worldwide for its mountainside rice terraces, rescuers pulled out four survivors, two of them children, from a landslide that struck a small community. Two schools in the province of Kalinga were also flooded, although there were no reports of casualties. President Rodrigo Duterte was expected to visit a relief-and-search operations center in the Mountain Province on Thursday, when he is also scheduled to meet with local officials, the presidential palace said. More than 300 rescuers and volunteers were involved in rescue efforts, authorities said. The local Red Cross chapter had also deployed heavy equipment to help sift through the rubble, a mix of mud andboulders. Typhoon Yutu, locally named Rosita, packed winds of up to 150 km (93 miles) per hour when it slammed the Philippines, affecting about 40,000 people, weather forecasters said. It made a landfall shortly after devastating the Northern Mariana Islands a U.S. territory about 9,000 km (5,600 miles) west of the U.S. mainland. Yutu also obliterated the island of Tinian and parts of Saipan, the largest island, with 180 mph winds, late last week. The tropical cyclone hit the Philippines a month after Typhoon Mangkhut cut a similar path and killed at least 150 people when it dumped heavy rains and caused landslides across the northern and central parts of the country. The world's tallest statue has been inaugurated in Gujarat on Wednesday, October 31. Dedicated to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, fondly known as the Iron Man of India, the Statue of Unity has been unveiled by PM Narendra Modi on the statesman's 143rd birth anniversary. Constructed at a cost of Rs 2,989 crore by construction and engineering company Larsen & Toubro Ltd the statue stands in the midst of the Narmada River, on the islet of Sadhu Bet. Sardar Patel is credited for unifying all of the 562 princely states in pre-independence India to form what is today the Republic of India. Thus, the statue has been named 'Statue of Unity' as a tribute to his role. "The Statue will stand high, not just in meters and feet, but much more in terms of academic, historical, national and spiritual values. My vision is to develop the place as a source of inspiration for ages to come," PM Modi had said. Tickets to visit the statue will be rolled out from November 3 and can be booked online on soutickets.in. At 182 metre, the mammoth replica of Sardar Patel is the world's tallest statue, leaving behind USA's Statue of Liberty (93 metre), Japan's Ushiku Daibutsu (120 metre) and even China's Spring Temple Buddha (153 metre) statues. The statue has been built to withstand winds of 180km/hour and earthquakes of up to 6.5 Richter scale. The exterior of statue is coated with 1,850 tonne of bronze. For the interior, 1,80,000 cubic metre of concrete cement, 18,500 tonne of reinforced steel and 6,500 tonne of structured steel has been used. Around 135 metric tonne of iron was brought in from lakhs of villages in India. Around 3,000 workers and 250 engineers worked together to create this statue. Two elevators in the statue's core will take passengers up to the level of the statue's chest to a viewing gallery. The gallery can accommodate 200 visitors at one go and also offers stunning views of the river Narmada, its dam and the surrounding Satpura and Vindhyachal hills. There's also a selfie point for the shutterbugs. A three-star hotel, a museum and audio visual gallery are located near the statue. Sadhu Bet is connected to the mainland by a 320-metre-long bridge. The government is also building a 3.5 km long highway from Kevadia town. Patient safety is paramount for all healthcare institutions in the country and the role of nurses is key in achieving this. Putting the focus on safe infusion practices, Infusion Nurses Society (INS) organised their 7th National conference-"SIT-UP" (Standardise Infusion Therapy Upgrade Practices) recently. Held at St. John's Auditorium, the conference was a platform to throw light on the importance of adopting safe infusion practices to prevent nurses and patients from potential risks. The event witnessed the coming together of eminent industry experts, doctors and nurses from across India like Col. Binu Sharma (President, Infusion Nurses Society), Dr. Sunil Karanth (Chairman, Critical Care Unit and Infection Control, Manipal Hospital), Dr. Mustafa Afzal- Care Institute (Hyderabad), Davison P.K (CEO, Apollo Hospitals, Karnataka Region) and Pavan Mocherla (Managing Director, BDIndia & South Asia) to name a few. Think Safety, Insert Safely: Recommendations for Improving Safety Practices with Short Peripheral Catheters, Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter complications, Guidelines on BSI prevention, Advances in Infusion Practices, Patient Safety and Infusion Management: Rethinking the Role of Filtration were some of the topics which were discussed. Nurses are the foundation of any healthcare setting and are critical to the delivery of quality care and improved patient outcomes. Unfortunately, they are prone to a host of infectious and non- infectious adverse events due to unsafe infusion practices and thus, it is essential to ensure a safe work environment which can reduce the risk of harm. Commenting on the same, Col. Binu Sharma, (President, Infusion Nurses Society, India) said, Infusion Nurses Society is very proud to see the increasing awareness and implementation of Standard Infusion Practice among practicing nurses. We shall continue to focus on patient safety through continuous training and implementation of INS standards. Our collaboration with various training partners to upskill nurses shall remain the focus. On this occasion, Pavan Mocherla, (Managing Director, BD India & South Asia) said, Education and training are key factors for maintaining the safety of healthcare workers and we believe any improvements in clinical practices, combined with effective deployment and use of medical technology, can help to reduce risk to patients. We understand that the healthcare workers face numerous risks when carrying out their jobs, including accidental needlesticks and exposure to bloodborne pathogens. Our longstanding commitment to protecting healthcare workers is strengthened by collaborating with Infusion Nurses Society (INS) India that is at the forefront of standardising infusion therapy and upgrading practices. Educating nurses pertaining to use of hazardous chemicals and drugs like chemotherapy, use of only one hand for recapping needles, using gloves post injury and conducting training programs to prevent such injuries are some of the steps which can be taken. Mary Jose, Organizing Chairperson, INS 2018 said, As a leading professional organization for Infusion Nursing, the Infusion Nurses Society is the ultimate resource for the healthcare providers to expand their knowledge and expertise in infusion practices. The safety of healthcare workers contribute to patient outcomes. However, it is a sad fact that they are susceptible to potential hazards at the workplace which might hamper their ability to provide quality care. This then makes it necessary to train and educate them regarding the standards and protocols which can be adhered to for preventing risks. Patient safety is paramount for all healthcare institutions in the country and the role of nurses is key in achieving this. They are said to be the direct caregivers for patients and hence, play a major part in ensuring patient safety. Thus, emphasizing and ensuring the safety of the present and future nursing workforce is a significant factor for the future of the entire healthcare industry. Privacy aware breast cancer screening now available in Hyderabad, Mysore and Mumbai Artificial intelligence-based health-tech company Niramai is set for a national expansion with three breast cancer screening centres in Hyderabad, Mysore and Mumbai. In Hyderabad, Niramai offers exclusive breast cancer screening centre in Lumbini Jewel mall. While, in Mysore and Mumbai it has collaborated with Brindavan Hospital and Way2Health Diagnostics respectively. The breast health screening technology developed by Niramai is unique as it is non-touch, non-invasive and non-radiation based. Their privacy-aware test for preventive breast cancer screening that was available only in Bangalore, Pune and Dehradun is expanding its reach to multiple cities. The core technology developed by Niramai called Thermalytix, uses a high resolution thermal sensing device and a cloud hosted analytics solution for analyzing the thermal images. Their SaaS solution uses big data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning for reliable, early and accurate breast cancer screening. The innovative methods used in Niramais solution have led to multiple US patents and their novel algorithms have also been peer-reviewed in international scientific conferences. Niramais technology detects breast cancer at a much earlier stage than traditional methods or self-examination. Dr Geetha Manjunath, CEO & CTO, Niramai, said, Accessibility to high quality preventive care is critical to reduce breast cancer deaths in the country. We believe this can be achieved through partnership and collaboration. Our goal is to enable regular breast health check for all women in India in an affordable and accessible way. In Hyderabad, Niramai unveiled first of a kind exclusive breast cancer screening centre in partnership with Murata Business Engineering (India) Pvt Ltd (MBEI) and Big Edge Solutions & Technology India Pvt Ltd. This health centre, named UmAnG, is situated in Lumbini Jewel mall and will be a boon to women who want to be sure of their breast health in a friendly environment without having to visit a hospital for the same. Dr Karun Malhotra, Managing Director, MBEI, said, "We focus on healthcare solutions using electronics as a platform that are reliable, easy to use, affordable and digital. Niramais solution has all these advantages, and they have a great vision to transform the adoption of breast cancer screenings. Big Edge Solutions team has shown exemplary commitment towards execution of the vision of the first UmAnG center in Hyderabad. Dr Ravindranath K, Director, Brindavan Hospital, Mysore, said, We are happy to associate with Niramai. The cutting edge technology of Niramai gives accurate and fast screening reports and is privacy aware. Dr. Rachna Tardeja, Consultant Radiologist & Founder Director, Way2Health Diagnostics, Mumbai, said, We are excited to partner with Niramai to make breast cancer screening easily accessible to all women, since it is non-touch and non-invasive, who otherwise generally shy away from it. World's First to launch Integrated DNA testing for more accurate results & reduced false positives LifeCell International, Indias premier stem cell bank and mother & baby diagnostics company today announced the launch of RightStart - the worlds first Integrated DNA testing for Newborn Screening to detect over 50 medical conditions. This technology has been proven to be more accurate than current screening methods and has also been found to drastically reduce the false-positive reporting thereby avoiding unnecessary follow-up tests and anxiety of the parents. In current process of newborn screening, a few drops of blood are obtained through heel prick from the babys heel, usually 48 hours after childbirth, and is analysed by profiling a specific set of metabolites present in the blood. If an abnormal metabolic profile is found further testing is recommended for confirmation. The confirmatory test would need an additional sample to be taken once again from the child. Since most routine screening labs do not have DNA testing capabilities, the child is referred to specialised labs leading to further delays in diagnosis & treatment apart from causing further agony for the parents. The DNA based test is considered a gold standard and is most reliable for confirmation as it does not get impacted by interferences such as medications, nutrition, temperature, or preterm status. LifeCells RightStart Newborn screening, which adopts an integrated DNA testing approach, does not require an additional sample since a portion of the sample collected initially can be used. Also, no additional costs would need to be incurred by the parents. RightStart provides more accurate results and also saves time & effort enabling a speedy diagnosis to initiate treatment. More importantly, the parents are alerted to the risk only if the DNA tests are positive thereby reducing parental anxiety. Ishaan Khanna, CEO of Diagnostic & BioBank Divisions, LifeCell International said As a leader, we always bring the first and best to the country and RightStart is another milestone achievement. For the first time, over 50 conditions can be tested with RightStarts integrated DNA testing in the country with a faster throughput and higher accuracy of test results. Citing an example of a condition called Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) it was observed that less than 10% of alarms raised with current screening technologies are finally confirmed as being truly being affected by the condition with DNA testing. Hence with DNA testing, the predictive power increases to 100%1, thereby eliminating any false alarms. Commenting on the launch of RightStart Dr Vrajesh Udani, Consultant in Child Neurology and Epilepsy, Hinduja Hospital & Saifee Hospital, Mumbai said RightStart is an initiative by LifeCell where a positive report on newborn screening is automatically subjected to a confirmatory test. This will eliminate false positives, which is very welcome. False positive reports in newborn screening cause unwanted concerns and sometimes unwarranted treatments. Im happy RightStart will help to reduce such false alarms Dr Uday Pai, Paediatrician & Neonatologist, Former President, Indian Academy of Paediatrics (IAP) added, Launch of RightStart is a welcome initiative by LifeCell and Im sure this will surely help in better accuracy of results with integrated DNA testing and also drastically reduce the parental anxiety and delays arising due to false positives With LifeCell launching the new RightStart Newborn Screening program the laboratory facility at Chennai has been upgraded with complete capabilities to perform these specialized DNA testing in-house. LifeCell anticipates a substantial increase in the adoption of the RightStart Newborn Screening and is collaborating with PerkinElmer, a global market leader in newborn screening. LifeCell will use PerkinElmers fully automated and high throughput analyser - the Genetic Screening Processor (GSP) instrument, a first by a commercial lab in India. Also as another first-in-India, LifeCell will incorporate PerkinElmers next generation NeoBase 2 non-derivatized MS MS kit, which can screen for all the common amino acid, organic acid and fatty acid oxidation, as well as purine and peroxisomal metabolic disorders more than any other commercial kit available in the market today. Further LifeCell had tied up with Dr Mary Seeterlin, who has a decade of experience in newborn screening program at the Department of Public Health in Michigan and is the co-author of several guidelines and publications on the subject, as a consultant to the program. LifeCells mission is to improve outcomes for newborns in India, giving them the best start at birth. Towards that goal, weve made a major step forward by bringing in the worlds best partners, equipment, consumables, advisors, and testing programs. This centre-for-excellence will help bring together the power of metabolomics and genomics platforms to provide a holistic approach towards screening of rare disorders said Mayur Abhaya, Managing Director, LifeCell International. India is the worlds largest birthing country with over 25 million births a year and is, unfortunately, having the highest number of infant mortality ratio too. A large number of these deaths can be prevented by screening newborns at birth for a variety of inborn genetic and metabolic disorders, even before the symptoms start showing up so that they can be managed at an early stage to reduce or even eliminate the burden of disease. Globally millions of babies are screened through nationwide programs in over 60 countries every year. However, in India, the adoption of newborn screening has been weak largely due to low awareness and also due to the lack of reliability of the test results. India's largest automobile manufacturer on Wednesday said it has launched a turnaround program at its UK-based subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover as it posted its second straight quarterly loss at Rs 1,049 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2018. The turnaround program is aimed at achieving a 2.5 billion pound profit besides related cost and cash flow improvements over the next 18 months. It comes just as Tata had completed a similar exercise at its domestic operations in India that turned around as recently as the first quarter. Unfortunately for the company it coincided with JLR's profitability coming under pressure largely due to dampened sentiment at China, its largest market, and uncertainty regarding Brexit in the UK. JLR suffered a 13.2 per cent decline in retail sales in the second quarter at 129,887 units that resulted in a 11 percent fall in its net revenue at 5.6 billion pound. It had a net loss of 101 million pound and a negative free cash flow of 0.6 billion pounds. This more than offset the improved performance of Tata Motors in India. On a standalone basis, Tata Motors registered a 25 percent growth in unit sales at 190,283 units (29 per cent growth in commercial and 18 per cent growth in passenger vehicle sales). Its net revenue jumped 33 per cent at Rs 17,800 crore and a Rs 109 crore net profit. "The Tata Motors domestic business continued to deliver strong improvement in operational and financial performance by implementing the Turnaround 2.0 strategy effectively. We have improved our market shares whilst delivering robust improvement in profitability in both the Commercial Vehicles and Passenger Vehicles and generated positive Free Cash flows," said N Chandrasekaran, chairman, Tata Group. "This strong performance in the face of an intensely competitive market situation augurs well for the future. In JLR, market conditions, particularly in China, have deteriorated further. To weather this volatile external scenario, we have launched a comprehensive turnaround plan to significantly improve our free cash flows and profitability. The leadership team at JLR is in mission mode to achieve the deliverables under this plan. With these concerted actions we remain committed to deliver an improved all-round performance from H2 FY 19." One of the other major highlight during the quarter was the break even achieved in Tata Motors's passenger vehicle business in India. It marks a remarkable turnaround in fortunes for a division that at one point in time not long ago used to regularly draw the ire of the investor community. "Our solid, all-around performance in Q2FY19 has impressively demonstrated that Tata Motors 'Turnaround 2.0' is in full swing. The continued improvements were made possible due to a robust product and innovation pipeline, strong market activation, rigorous cost reductions and structural process improvements," said Guenter Butschek, CEO and MD, Tata Motors. "Most importantly the entire organisation is on its toes and working to embed the Turnaround culture as our new way of life. Therefore, despite near term market challenges, I am confident that Tata Motors will continue its journey of delivering Consistent, Competitive and Cash Accretive Growth in the coming quarters too." JLR's poor performance primarily reflected challenging market conditions in China, where demand was adversely impacted by consumer uncertainty following import duty changes and escalating trade tensions with the US. In North America, demand for SUVs remained strong, but overall sales were held back by slowing orders for passenger cars - in line with the market as a whole. In Europe, sales were also affected by continuing weakness in diesel demand and the introduction of new WLTP homologation rules on emissions. UK sales were adversely impacted by diesel taxation and regulations, alongside continuing uncertainty related to Brexit. "In the latest quarterly period, we continued to see more challenging market conditions. Our results were undermined by slowing demand in China, along with continued uncertainty in Europe over diesel, Brexit and the WLTP changeover," said Prof. Dr. Ralf Speth, Jaguar Land Rover Chief Executive. "Given these challenges, Jaguar Land Rover has launched far-reaching programs to deliver cost and cashflow improvements of 2.5B pounds over the next 18 months. Together with our ongoing product offensive and calibrated investment plans, these efforts will lay the foundations for long-term sustainable growth. We remain focused on delivering improved profitability and cashflow in the second half, while pressing ahead with our product offensive." PR Newswire BEIJING, Oct. 29, 2018 BEIJING, Oct. 29, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report by China.org.cn on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's China visit: From Oct. 25 to 27, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited China. It is the first official visit by a Japanese prime minister in seven years. During the visit, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with him. Abe also went to the prestigious Peking University to exchange views with its students, which has become almost a regular activity for foreign heads of state visiting China. Abe's China visit featured three "coincidences." First, this year marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship. Second, it is also the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up. Third, the visit took place at the very moment when trade tensions between China and the United States were escalating, bringing about new changes to the world landscape. Forty years ago, thanks to the extraordinary wisdom and profound vision of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Kakuei Tanaka and other members of the old generation of state leaders of the two countries, the confrontation and outright hostility between China and Japan came to an end, and bilateral ties returned to the normal track of peace and cooperation. The signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship not only ensured the maintenance of peace in Asia and the world, but also created a favorable external environment for China's reform and opening up. Over the past four decades, the bilateral trade volume increased from some US$4 billion in 1978 to over US$300 billion today. Meanwhile, two-way visits have risen from merely tens of thousands to more than 10 million in 2017. However, disturbed by historical and maritime territorial issues, the development of China-Japan relations has not always been a matter of plain sailing in the past decades. Instability has existed, especially since 2012. It is encouraging to note that bilateral ties have taken a turn for the better since the beginning of this year. This not only meets the shared desire of the two peoples for good-neighborliness and friendship, but also involves a correct adjustment and choice made by both nations facing a new international situation. Since the Trump administration came to power, the United States has been pursuing unilateralism and trade protectionism, with tremendous impact on the existing international economic order. To deepen reform and open its door wider to the outside world, China firmly opposes trade protectionism and unilateralism. For Japan, its economic structure, dominated by imports of raw materials, manufacturing and exports of high-tech products, has made trade protectionism and unilateralism totally unacceptable. Abe's visit to China can be regarded as "a key" to apply fresh heat to the thawing of relations between the two countries. Both sides should seize this rare opportunity to steer bilateral ties onto a path of sound cooperative development, and work together to make greater contributions to the development of Asia and the whole world. China Mosaic http://www.china.org.cn/video/node_7230027.htm 3 'coincidences' in Abe's China visithttp://www.china.org.cn/video/2018-10/29/content_68874077.htm About China.org.cn Founded in 2000, China Internet Information Center (China.org.cn/China.com.cn) is a key state news website under the auspices of the State Council Information Office, and is managed by China International Publishing Group. We provide round-the-clock news service in ten languages. With users from more than 200 countries and regions, we have become China's leading multi-lingual news outlet introducing the country to the outside world. We are one of the country's authoritative outlets for government press releases and are authorized to cover various major events. "Live Webcast" is our online webcasting service to present State Council Information Office press conferences in both Chinese and English languages. We are reputed for timely and accurate delivery of news and information, and wide interactions with audiences. In addition, we are authorized to publish and live broadcast major events and press conferences of ministries, local government agencies and institutions as well as enterprises. In the era of mobile internet, we endeavor to create an array of products for mobile devices headed by the multilingual WAP platform and the mobile APP. We also use Chinese and international social media to publish information for different user groups. In the future, CIIC will continue to offer authoritative information about China, tell China's stories, voice China's opinions, and introduce a vivid, panoramic and multicultural China to the world through multi-language, multi-media and multi-platforms. SOURCE China.org.cn 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 The ongoing confrontation between the government and RBI waded into uncharted territory on Wednesday. Refusing to back off, the government issued a press release stating that the functioning of central bank has to be "guided by public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy". The RBI Act empowers the government to give directions to the central bank on matters of public interest. According to Section 7, the central government may from time to time give such directions to the RBI as it may, after consultation with the Governor of the Bank, consider necessary in the public interest. However, without acknowledging the notices sent to central bank under Section 7 of the RBI Act, the Finance Ministry said, "For the purpose, extensive consultations on several issues take place between the government and the RBI from time to time. This is equally true of all other regulators... The Government, through these consultations, places its assessment on issues and suggests possible solutions. The Government will continue to do so." While the government and the RBI have had differences in the past, this is the first time in the Indian history when the executive has asserted itself by invoking Section 7. The government has reportedly used this provision of law to ask the RBI for resolution of various issues. Differences between the two cropped up over central bank's handling of NPA-laden public sector banks under the prompt corrective action (PCA) framework and ways to resolve bad loans in the power sector. The government also wants the RBI to ease the apparent liquidity squeeze gripping non-banking finance companies (NBFCs). The Finance Ministry has reportedly written three separate letters in the past few weeks to the RBI on issues ranging from Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) framework to liquidity management and sought consultation under Section 7 of the RBI Act. One of the letters pertained to use of the RBI's capital reserves for providing liquidity to the market and another was for relaxing constraints on banks for loans to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The government wants RBI to carve out exemption for power companies under the PCA framework that outlines triggers for declaring a loan account as stressed or NPA. Asked if the government has invoked the never-used provision under Section 7 of the RBI Act, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said communications and layers of consultations between the government and the RBI haven't ever been disclosed. "Final decisions arrived at are only communicated," he said. The chasm between the two has been widening ever since RBI issued circular in February which directed banks to acknowledge every loan delayed beyond the 90th day as a non-performing asset (NPA) and provision for it. This alone raised India's NPAs by nearly 25 per cent to over Rs 10 lakh crore. The turf war came out yet again when the RBI representative put out a dissent note to Inter-Ministerial Committee for finalisation of amendments to the Payment & Settlement Systems Act, 2007. The Committee recommended setting up an independent Payments Regulator outside the ambit of the RBI. RBI saw it as an attack on its powers and an attempt to shrink its authority over the banking space. The RBI too hasn't budged on the issue. In a fiery speech, RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya had warned last week that undermining the central bank's independence could be "potentially catastrophic". Acharya had said governments that did not respect their central banks' independence would sooner or later incur the wrath of financial markets. BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who has been vocal in his critique of the government, tweeted if RBI governor resigns then it is a direct consequence of FM blaming him publicly yesterday for NPAs. If RBI governor resigns then it is a direct consequence of FM blaming him publicly yesterday for NPAs. Patel is a self respecting scholar of economics(Ph.D in Banking from Yale). He should be persuaded to stay. - Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) October 31, 2018 Union finance minister P Chidambaram has alleged that the NDA dispensation is "hiding facts" about the economy and is "desperate". Slamming the Modi-led government in a series of tweets, the senior Congress leader said the governments he was a part of in the past had never used Section 7 of the Reserve Bank of India Act. "We did not invoke Section 7 in 1991 or 1997 or 2008 or 2013. What is the need to invoke the provision now? It shows that government is hiding facts about the economy and is desperate (sic)," he said. "Obviously, the government has concealed something. The buzz is that government has recently written one or more letters to the RBI. Will government say whether such letters have been written and whether the letters specifically refer to Section 7 of the RBI Act?" he asked. PR Newswire BOSTON, Oct. 30, 2018 BOSTON, Oct. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Orion Health (NZX:OHE/ASX:OHE) today announced the completion of its transaction with technology investor Hg for the acquisition of Rhapsody and a 24.9% stake in Orion Health's Population Health Management business. Orion Health retains a 24.9% investment in the Rhapsody business and remains a majority owner of its Population Health business at 75.1%. This is a significant milestone for Orion Health, signalling the next chapter for the company as a global technology leader in Population Health, while laying the foundations for precision medicine, which the company believes will transform the global healthcare sector. Orion Health's partnership with Hg, a specialist technology investor with deep healthcare expertise, delivers a combination of investment and a global network to Orion Health. It also provides a stronger platform for Orion Health to continue to deliver long-term value to customers, enabling the company to focus on its core business of Population Health and build on its global growth. "We have achieved a significant milestone today with Hg's acquisition of Rhapsody and an investment in Population Health. Hg is a deeply knowledgeable and globally connected investor in healthcare technology, which gives Orion Health enormous leverage in the healthcare technology market," said Ian McCrae, Founder and CEO of Orion Health. "We're shifting to a world where data is enabling clinicians to extract meaningful insights and make more accurate decisions. The injection of capital accelerates Orion Health's product roadmap to deliver innovation which will enable healthcare organizations to take advantage of their large data stores, using analytics and machine learning models. "We are immensely proud of the Rhapsody technology our engineers have built and supported over the years and couldn't be more excited for the team globally and the opportunity they will have to accelerate the growth of the business. We remain committed to the Rhapsody business, not only as an ongoing shareholder, but also as a partner and reseller, working closely together with Hg in the transition and its future growth," said McCrae. Orion Health's focus on its Population Health technology roadmap combined with its cloud capability will help healthcare organizations be part of a more secure and streamlined data journey toward precision medicine while delivering fast, secure data across their systems, exponentially increasing software quality and development times, and meeting compliance, privacy and regulatory requirements. "The greatest transformation of the healthcare sector will come from the use of technology and the collection and analysis of people's health data," said McCrae, adding, "The advancements in data analytics and machine learning will enable us to securely connect huge amounts of data and extract valuable insights so we can drive the shift to personalized healthcare." "Interoperability and data liquidity are major issues in healthcare technology worldwide," said David Issott, Partner at Hg. "Rhapsody has been built over the last 20 years to provide a solution. It is a world class product, used by over 460 clients in almost every major healthcare market in the world. By partnering with the Rhapsody team, we will accelerate its growth by investing in its products, capabilities and service levels. "In addition, we are delighted to be co-investing in Population Health, whose innovative products help health economies deliver high quality and targeted care within tight fiscal constraints," said Issott. Summary of Hg Transaction (Currency in New Zealand Dollars) About Orion Health Orion Health (NZX:OHE/ASX:OHE) is a global health technology company that provides solutions which enable healthcare to more than 100 million patients globally. Built on an open platform, Orion Health is a leading provider of interoperability, population health management and precision medicine solutions. The company employs more than 800 people around the world and is committed to continual innovation, investing substantially in research and development to cement its position at the forefront of precision medicine. For more information visit?www.orionhealth.com View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/orion-health-finalizes-investment-deal-with-hg-300740993.html SOURCE Orion Health Repsol Honda Team Head To Malaysia For The Last Stint Of The Tripleheader Posted by: newsla on Oct 31, 2018 - 06:40 AM Repsol Honda Team Head To Malaysia For The Last Stint Of The Tripleheader After a brief stop in Indonesia to meet his numerous local fans at a Pull&Bear store in Jakarta, Marc Marquez headed to Malaysia to join his team at the Sepang International Circuit, which will play host to the third and final back-to-back flyaway race this Sunday. Having been innocently involved in a racing contact at the Australian Grand Prix and forced to withdraw, Marc will be back on track to try and seal the Constructors title that is within Hondas reach, thanks to a 39-point advantage in the standings. With the Team Title also to defend, Dani Pedrosa is looking forward to racing at a track where he has been very successful in the past. As was the case for the Thai GP a few weeks ago, Marc and Dani will have to deal with the regions typical extreme tropical weather conditions, with very hot temperatures and physically demanding sessions. At the Malaysia Motorcycle Grand Prix Marc Marquez has 2 wins 1125 (2010), 1xMotoGP (2014) plus 1 podium and 4 pole positions. Dani Pedrosa has 5 wins 1125 (2003), 1250 (2004), 3xMotoGP (2012, 2013, 2015) plus an additional 5 podiums and 4 pole positions. Marc Marquez We had quite an eventful race in Australia and it was a pity we couldnt fight until the end, but thats gone now and we look forward to the next round in Malaysia with our usual spirit and positive mentality. We still have our target of two more titles to achieve, and we also want to try and win again if we have the chance to do so. Malaysia is a demanding round from a physical point of view but thats something were prepared to deal with, so well keep our concentration high and try to start strong beginning on Friday morning. Dani Pedrosa The Malaysian Grand Prix is a demanding venue due to both the extreme weather conditions and the track itself, which isnt an easy one, being wide and requiring precise lines and a good setup. That said, I like it very much, so I hope we can do good work and find a setting that allows me to feel good on the bike and to try to have a good weekend. PaddockTalk Perspective Aprilia Racing Team Gresini - Malaysia Preview Posted by: newsla on Oct 31, 2018 - 06:41 AM Aprilia Racing Team Gresini - Malaysia Preview THE PENULTIMATE ROUND OF THE 2018 MOTOGP SEASON TO BE HELD AT SEPANG IN MALAYSIA The Sepang International Circuit will host the penultimate round of the 2018 MotoGP season, the third intercontinental stop in a row after Japan and Australia. The modern Malaysian track, opened in 1999, offers extremely varied characteristics along its 5,543 metres: long straights, hairpin turns with hard braking sections and fast sweepers. The climate is particularly demanding for teams and riders, given the high temperatures, frequent rain showers and high humidity. Aleix Espargaro is coming from a good race on Phillip Island, finishing ninth after a comeback ride with a convincing pace. The Spanish rider, who has apparently suffered no injury after taking a blow to the hand on Sunday, will continue working on an evolution of the RS-GP in Malaysia. Getting back into the points will be extra motivation for Scott Redding who has been steadily improving his feeling over the last few races. ALEIX ESPARGARO' "In Malaysia it will be important to test the new advanced bike. Phillip Island is a particular track and we raced there in decidedly difficult conditions, so I want to put the new solutions to the test on a different circuit. My hand shouldn't give me any problems. The pain has gone down and I don't think it will condition me for the next race." SCOTT REDDING "At Sepang I'll be expecting a physically demanding race, in some ways similar to Thailand. We'll need to work on grip and tyre life. I want to take on my last to MotoGP races with peace of mind, trying to have fun and achieve the best possible result." PaddockTalk Perspective 2018 Texas II: Trevor Bayne NASCAR Sprint Cup Race Preview Posted by: newsla on Oct 31, 2018 - 06:45 AM 2018 Texas II: Trevor Bayne NASCAR Sprint Cup Race Preview ADVANCE NOTES Bayne at Texas Motor Speedway Bayne returns to Texas Motor Speedway for the 17th time in his Monster Energy NASCAR Series (MENCS) career this weekend, a track hes won at before in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and a place of recent success with three top-15s in his last five starts. His 17th start on Sunday will mark Texas the most run track on the circuit for Bayne, ahead of Daytona and Talladega, where he has 16 Cup starts each. Baynes Cup career began in Fort Worth back in 2010 when he made his debut with the Wood Brothers finishing 17th. Since, hes led 16 laps and recorded eight top-20 finishes at Texas. Despite an average result of 22.6, Bayne has tallied three finishes inside the top-15 in the last five events. He crossed the line 15th in the 2016 spring race, 13th last spring, and most recently 12th this spring after rolling off 13th. Texas is the site of Baynes first victory in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, which came on November 5, 2011, after he started 10th and held off Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards for the win. In nine starts at Texas in the Xfinity Series, Bayne has one victory, an average starting position of 9.3 and 25 laps led. Bayne was the race leader in his most recent start at Texas in Nov. 2014 before a flat-tire ended his afternoon early. Last Time at Texas Bayne was collected in two multi-car accidents in a wild spring race at Texas back in April, but was able to salvage a 12th-place finish, his second-best result of the 2018 season. Matt Puccia at Texas Motor Speedway Puccia will call his 15th MENCS event at Texas on Sunday afternoon. In 14 previous races in the Lone Star State, Puccia has recorded one victory, three top-five finishes and five top-10 finishes. Puccias victory came in the April 2012 event with former Roush Fenway driver Greg Biffle. Biffle started from the third position and led 90 laps en route to the win. QUOTE WORTHY Bayne on racing at Texas: Texas has always been a favorite of mine to go to, especially given the personal memories for me there. The Wood Brothers gave me my first start there back in 2010, and a year later we went to victory lane in the Xfinity Series, which was also a first. Despite a wild race in the spring, we came home 12th, one of our better performances of the year. Im looking forward to the weekend and getting on track in our AdvoCare Rehydrate Ford. Recapping Martinsville Matt Kenseth battled an ill-handling car last weekend, before finishing 23rd at Martinsville Speedway. 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 HAMIOTA A Kenton Second World War veteran is capturing his memories of the war on a canvas. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/10/2018 (1115 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Advertisement Advertise With Us In honour of Remembrance Day, Second World War veteran Jack Houston is painting a scene of the first casulty he encountered in Europe, on Monday at Birch Lodge in Hamiota. He has painted the background and has yet to add in the casualty. (Chelsea Kemp/The Brandon Sun) HAMIOTA A Kenton Second World War veteran is capturing his memories of the war on a canvas. Using a canvas, paint brush and acrylic water colour paint, Jack Houston, 95, is working to complete a painting that captures his experience of war as a fresh-faced farm boy. Second World War veteran Jack Houston looks to remember the war through the use of his art, posing for a picture on Monday at at Birch Lodge in Hamiota. (Chelsea Kemp/The Brandon Sun) "We are all made from boys to men overnight," Houston said, adding that most of the men he served with were around the ages of 20 or 21. Houston who typically paints pictures of horses and landscapes was inspired to capture the raw memory of war after a blank canvas was given to him by a caretaker at Birch Lodge Personal Care Home. Trying to explain what the war was like can be difficult, but 75 years later Houston remains steadfast in sharing his stories of the Second World War. His newly-created canvas is in honour of Remembrance Day and features the first casualty of the war he encountered in Cannes, France, two days into his active war service in 1943. Houston, an artist in his own right, has been painting for years and has also worked as a wood carver, but this is the first time he has set out to capture his wartime memories on canvas. Second World War veteran Jack Houston shares his only souvenir from his wartime service; a wood clog from a burnt house in Holland, on Monday at Birch Lodge in Hamiota. (Chelsea Kemp/The Brandon Sun) "They gave us rifles, and we went there just to guard that part of the river," Houston said. He never wants to see the wars forgotten because he fears if these memories are lost to history, the lessons of war will disappear as well. "The victory didnt come free, there were a lot of lives lost," Houston said, adding that remembering how freedom was won needs to be preserved. Citing the lead-up to the Second World War, Houston explained that everyone was working to forget the horrors of the First World War, all the while ignoring the inevitable. By continuing to have conversations about the war, Houston said we can learn from the mistakes of the past to hopefully prevent them from occurring again. Houston was born in Winnipeg in 1923 and moved to Kenton in 1940. Hearing radio broadcasts of the war in Europe, Houston was inspired to sign up for battle. He soon enlisted in the army, joining the troops in 1942 at the age of 18. An artist at heart, Second World War veteran Jack Houston paints capturing his memories of the war on Monday at Birch Lodge in Hamiota. (Chelsea Kemp/The Brandon Sun) "When I left home to sign up that was the last time I saw home for three and half years," Houston said. He had four brothers and a sister sign up for the war effort as well. Like Houston, all of them made it home safely. Spending his first three months at Fort Garry Barracks, followed by another three months of training in Winnipeg, Houston was soon deployed to Europe. He and his fellow troops spent four days on the ship as they set off for Glasgow, Scotland, before heading south to Woking, England. "We were all young men and it was quite an adventure to get on a big boat. We didnt really think too much on what was going to happen," Houston said. It was his first time leaving Canada. Within three months, the young soldier was drafted to the 12th Manitoba Dragoons in Brighton into a reconnaissance regiment. "We were the ones right in the front we were searching out where the enemy was situated," Houston said. Remaining jumpy to this day, Houston said, his training and experiences in Europe have never really left him, even as he has tried to forget. The 12th Manitoba Dragoons were a rag-tag mix of soldiers that included a potter, post office employee, ministers son and a collection of farm boys. They would end up leading troops into battle when they landed in France. While in the war, Houston survived a mine blowing up his vehicle and multiple bombings. "Every time you went out in the morning to the front line, you didnt know whether or not you were coming back," Houston said. The group worked their way north, marching from France, through Belgium and Holland, to Germany. The trek was difficult, with the soldiers exposed to the elements. "We slept on the ground, with the stars for our ceiling and the earth for our bed," Houston said. "We never slept in a house for a long, long time." Houston would have the stars as his roof for almost three years until he was stationed on the Moires River in Christmas 1944. Houstons only "souvenir" from the war is clog he found in a burnt-out house in Holland that had been hit by a bomb. Only two walls had been left standing. "I picked it up, otherwise it would have gone down into the garbage and been burnt," Houston said. The country had been devastated by the war, Houston said, and when the soldiers arrived, they found a starving nation happy to see the troops bringing liberation. Finding out the war was over while in Germany, Houston was relieved to see it come to an end. When he arrived back in Canada, he married his wife Gwent Marie Bucharest in 1947. The two had been set to be married before the war, but Houston wanted to wait because he did not know what future war would hold. Aside from the clog, Houstons only other item preserved from the war is a picture of himself a young army member. "We were just farm children back then we signed up to go wherever they wanted us to go." ckemp@brandonsun.com Twitter: @The_ChelseaKemp Five senior Taliban leaders joined political office in Qatar: Afghan Taliban ISLAMABAD: Afghan Taliban announced on Tuesday that five senior Taliban leaders had joined the political office in Qatar. This is seen as a significant step to move talks with the United States (US). Five Taliban leaders had been in Qatar since their release from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in May 2014 in exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was held hostage by the Taliban for nearly five years. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed to Daily Times that the former Guantanamo inmates were now a part of the political team. According to Taliban officials, Taliban political representatives held two meetings with the American officials in Qatar over the past three months and both sides agreed to continue talks. Official talks have not started yet. However, the inclusion of the influential Taliban leaders in the negotiation team is a major step toward the beginning of formal talks. The move could also raise the credibility of the peace process for the Taliban military commanders and foot soldiers as the former Guantanamo inmates were among the close confidants of Taliban leader Mullah Omar. The freed Taliban leaders are former interior minister Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa, Talibans former army chief Muhammad Fazil, former governor of Balkh and Laghman Noorullah Noori, deputy intelligence chief of the Taliban regime Abdul Haq Wasiq and Talibans communication chief Nabi Omari. Taliban sources said that the Americans had agreed to their call for the reopening of political office in Qatar that was closed days it was opened back in 2013. The Americans are of the view that the office is a requirement. We now understand that the U.S. is considering our proposal. This is an absolute necessity. We have told them that reopening of the office will enable them to interact with the media to share with them true picture of the development, a Taliban source said. The office was closed after former president Hamid Karzai objected to the use of Islamic Emirate and the display of Talibans white flag, both of which had been used during their 1996-2001 rule in Afghanistan. We have raised the office issue in meetings in Qatar and want a decision before the start of the formal talks. We also called for lifting of sanctions on our leaders and the release of prisoners in custody of the US and Afghan government. But one thing I should add here that these are not conditions. These are only suggestions before the beginning of the formal talks, the Taliban source said. He said that the Taliban were currently in initial phase of the talks and both sides were satisfied with the outcome so far. When asked if the release of Talibans former deputy chief Mullah Baradar by Pakistan was discussed in the Qatar meetings, the source said We had raised the issue of Baradar and other leaders in all previous meetings. The Islamic Emirate freed many prisoners on the eve of Eid but the Kabul administration did not honor its promise to release our prisoners despite giving them lists. Ann O'Loughlin An insurance company has settled its action against the operator of a Co Galway leisure centre and a loss assessment firm over an alleged fraudulent invoice used to claim money greatly in excess of the damages caused to the premises almost ten years ago. FBD Insurance Plc had brought proceedings against Claregalway Leisure Centre Ltd, which is a community organisation that runs a leisure centre in Claregalway. Claregalway Leisure Centre had the loss adjustor Frank McNabb Insurances Public Loss Assessors Ltd, which it claimed it used to deal with the various aspects of the claim, joined as a co-defendant. Both defendants denied the claims. The claims arose after the Co Galway-based centre's roof and its interior was damaged following a storm on January 17, 2009. FBD, which insured the premises, claimed an invoice from a flooring company contracted to carry out repairs to the centre was allegedly fraudulently altered to claim monies "greatly in excess of the true amount due." FBD, represented by Marcus F Daly SC sought the return of an interim payment of 32,800 by the insurer to cover the costs of the repairs to the centre, plus a loss adjusters fee of 6,000 and other expenses from the defendants. As the invoice was fraudulent the defendants were not entitled to retain any monies paid out to them, and the payment out should be returned to FBD, counsel said. Claregalway Leisure Centre denied the allegations, and in a counterclaim sought the payment out of monies it said it was entitled to under its policy of insurance it had obtained with FBD. It claimed it cost approximately 118,000 to repair the damage caused by the storm. It claimed under its policy of insurance it was entitled to 82,000 from the insurer, of which 32,800 was paid. However, the insurer, because of the alleged fraud refused to pay out the balance of what the Leisure Centre claimed it was owed. As well as seeking an order for judgment of more 49,200 against FBD the centre sought exemplary and punitive damages from FBD due to the insurer's conduct in the handling of the claim. The centre, represented by John Jordan SC, also said that it had relied on the expertise of a third party, Frank McNabb Insurances Public Loss Assessors Ltd, to negotiate with the insurers and with the suppliers whose invoices were allegedly doctored to inflate the price contained. It previously obtained an order from the court joining Frank McNabb Insurances Public Loss Assessors Ltd as a co-defendant in the proceedings and also seeking a full indemnity. That company with an address at Main Street, Clarinbridge, Co Galway also denied all claims of fraud made against it, or that it had retained any monies paid out by FBD. The case opened before Mr Justice Michael McGrath, but was adjourned to allow the parties to attempt to resolve matters. When the case resumed before the Judge this afternoon Mr Daly for FBD said the case had been settled and could be struck out. By Eamon Quinn Shares in Paddy Power barely flickered after the UK unveiled new gambling controls and higher tax on the view that the measures were less painful for industry players than they would have feared. Broker Davy said details in this weeks UK budget, which cut the top payout for fixed-odds betting terminals in UK shops from October next year to 2 (2.25) from 100, and the linked increase in the so-called Remote Gaming Duty to 21% for online gambling on games such as roulette, were less harmful to the sector than recent press speculation had suggested. Nonetheless, the broker said that concerns remain about the outlook for valuations across the industry. Paddy Power shares were little changed in the latest session but have lost 12.5% in the past year. The bookie is valued at over 6bn. William Hill shares were unchanged but have lost 14% in the past year giving it a value of 1.76bn, while GVC, which owns Ladbrokes and Coral, gained 1.3% to leave its shares 3% higher from a year ago. GVC is also valued at over 5.36bn (6bn). While the finer detail may bring some relief on a short-term basis, longer-term concerns regarding the sustainability of earnings and, as a consequence, sector valuation remain, wrote Davy analysts. In April, shares in many bookie firms fell sharply when the UK first announced plans to restrict the maximum payouts on fixed odds machines. And in Ireland, the budget earlier this month doubled the betting tax to 2% and increased the tax on betting exchanges to 25% from 15%. The industry in the UK and Ireland has also faced pressure from campaigners warning about gambling addictions. By Geoff Percival Europa Oil and Gas has ruled out any prospect of drilling in Irish waters next year, but has said it is making significant progress towards drilling activity in 2020, including on its flagship gas project adjacent to the Corrib field off the west coast. Ireland is a key region for the British explorer, with it sitting on about five billion barrels of oil and 2.5 trillion cubic feet of gas across six offshore licences here. Up until the beginning of this month Europa hadnt ruled out drilling off the Irish coast next year. It has been actively seeking a development partner for three licences in the Porcupine Basin off the south-west comprising half of its Irish assets since the summer. Speaking on the sidelines of the Atlantic Ireland exploration conference, in Dublin, Europas chief executive Hugh Mackay said there has been very very serious interest shown in the companys Porcupine assets and a farm-in partner may be sourced in the coming months. The farm-in process for Europas flagship Inishkea block of prospects, close to the Corrib gas field further up the west coast, will begin in January. Europa is confident of drilling work commencing on all assets during 2020. The company is also unlikely to seek funding partners, on top of farm-in partners, which had been considered. The Corrib field provides 60% of Irelands gas demand, but that will fall to 10% over the next seven years. Mr Mackay has said, previously, that the Inishkea project could significantly reduce Irelands reliance on gas imports. By Geoff Percival The Government has affirmed its support for offshore oil and gas exploration. In doing so, it has formally criticised a bill aimed at banning drilling, by saying it will do nothing to reduce Irelands greenhouse gas emissions. Addressing delegates at the Atlantic Ireland exploration conference in Dublin, yesterday, Sean Canney Rural Affairs and Natural Resources junior minister said while fossil fuel consumption will reduce over time, Ireland will continue to need oil and gas supplies for the foreseeable future. He said People Before Profits Petroleum and Other Minerals Development (Amendment) Climate Emergency Measures Bill 2018, which is currently at Oireachtas Committee stage, might be well-intentioned, but wont help Ireland lower its emissions or levels of imported energy. The bill will do nothing to reduce our use of oil or gas, it will do nothing to help us reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and it will do nothing to help us meet our 2020 and 2030 energy and climate targets. "Instead, it proposes simply to bind us to only importing our future oil or gas needs, he said. The minister of state said the Government continues to be committed to exploration in the Irish offshore by acting innovatively and complementing the work being undertaken by industry and the research community. The Government recognises that the realisation of Irelands offshore oil and gas resource potential can deliver significant benefits to the people of Ireland, in terms of security of supply, import substitution, and fiscal return, Mr Canney said. The bill remains purely a legislative proposal. "Government policies in respect of climate action, energy and offshore exploration, and the application of such policies, remain unchanged, he said, but added that the Government is committed to the transformation required to achieve a low carbon and climate resilient future. Speaking on the sidelines of the conference, Providence Resources chief executive Tony OReilly said it was a good thing to see a government minister affirming the relevance of oil and gas in Ireland in front of an audience of so many major industry players. Mr OReilly said the role played by oil and gas in the Irish economy is increasing not decreasing. Further afield, BP saw profits hit a five-year high and said production will increase further thanks to its $10.5bn (9.2bn) acquisition of BHP Billitons US shale business which it will now fund from available cash, rather than through a rights issue. Third-quarter underlying replacement cost profit, the companys definition of net income, rose to $3.8bn, far exceeding forecasts of $2.85bn. That compared with a profit of $1.86bn a year earlier and $2.8bn in the second quarter of 2018. Meanwhile, oil slid to a two-month low Brent Crude down $1.30 to just over $76 a barrel on escalating US-China trade tensions. Trade tensions with China have impacted demand, said Phil Streible, senior market strategist at RJ OBrien Associates in the US. Stephen Fry has reacted to his tweet ahead of Ireland's recent referendum on blasphemy law saying he was "very proud to have had a small part to play." Mr Fry told Ryan Tubridy that although he's not an Irish citizen, he did tweet his support for the repeal of the blasphemy law. "I'm not an Irish citizen and it's not necessarily my business to tell Irish people how to vote but I did tweet my support for it." After my previous run-in with Irelands blasphemy law, its encouraging to see that it could be repealed soon. Lots of fine Irish people will once again need to go #HomeToVote to help usher in the new, tolerant, liberal Ireland: https://t.co/ZYyV52IAGz Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) October 25, 2018 In the tweet, Mr Fry said: "After my previous run-in with Irelands blasphemy law, its encouraging to see that it could be repealed soon. "Lots of fine Irish people will once again need to go #HomeToVote to help usher in the new, tolerant, liberal Ireland." He also spoke to Ryan about his interview with Gay Byrne on 'The Meaning of Life' about what he would say to God when he would arrive at the gates of heaven. Listen to the full interview here: "He's a lovely man Gay, he's a national treasure in Ireland. "I had done the Late Late many times. When I heard he was doing this more intimate interview, I was very pleased to do it and he very sweetly suggested to do it at 1 Merrion Square which is where Oscar grew up and we chatted. Then he just threw in this last question 'Suppose you're wrong, suppose there is a God, what would you say to him?' And so, without getting all academic, it's called the argument from evil. "So I sort of said "I would be furious with God, what the hell have you been thinking about? If you are the all-powerful God, you needn't have created the world in which children get bone cancer. "There's no good from such a thing, there's nothing but pain and suffering. It makes no sense, how dare you treat us like that and how dare you make us fall on our knees and praise you everyday." "I hadn't meant of course to offend or upset individual people's faith because their faith is much stronger than anything I can say. I think it's an interesting one." The comedian, actor, author, television presenter and activist, to name but a few of his titles, is famous for his portrayal of Oscar Wilde, the comedy sketch show A bit of Fry and Laurie and major roles in the classic sit-com Blackadder. He has made appearances in the Hobbit, Sherlock Holmes, Alice in Wonderland and Gosford Park and has won awards for best game show host for his presenting of Q.I. for over ten years. His recent book entitled Heroes is the second of Greek Myths Britains favourite polymath. - Digital Desk Update 7.30PM: Simone O' Sullivan has been located safe and well, gardai have said. Gardai thanked the public for their assistance. Louise Roseingrave The mother of a baby with a congenital heart condition had to park in a housing estate and run to the hospital to attend a vital appointment, an inquest heard. Anne-Marie Lafferty travelled 230km from Lifford in Co Donegal but could not find parking at Our Ladys Childrens Hospital in Crumlin, Dublin. She ran with her baby to the hospital in a bid to attend an appointment with a heart specialist for her son, baby Cormac on September 6, 2016. Baby Cormac died in hospital four days later. The infant and his twin brother Callum were on June 16, 2016, at the National Maternity Hospital. Baby Cormac had been diagnosed with a congenital heart condition before he was born. His condition was diagnosed with Tetralogy of Fallot, a combination of four related anomalies that commonly occur together. He underwent open heart surgery one month prior to his unexpected admission to hospital on September 6, 2016. The infant was admitted the day of the appointment due to concerns over oxygen saturation levels. He died in hospital four days later, Dublin Coroners Court heard. His mother said he was smiling and happy the night before he died. "Cormac was laughing and smiling at me that night. He was a very alert baby, so full of life, always smiling. I fed him and went to bed. Before I left I saw he was sleeping peacefully, Mrs Lafferty said. She said she had no cause for concern leaving her baby. A nurse woke the infant to feed him at 4am on September 10. However, the baby didnt finish the feed and became unsettled and began crying inconsolably, the nurse said. Baby Cormac was found to be distressed by his own breathing efforts and morphine was administered to help him relax. However, the infants condition deteriorated again suddenly at 6.20am when his oxygen saturation levels dropped to 20%. An emergency arrest call was made and cardio-pulmonary compressions commenced. Efforts to save Baby Cormacs life failed and he died shortly before noon. Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane adjourned the inquest to hear further medical evidence from a number of medical witnesses on a date to be decided. Dublin Fire Brigade has been called out to hundreds of fire-related incidents tonight as Halloween celebrations take place across the city. Emergency services are experiencing a high volume of calls on one of the busiest nights of the year for responders. Gordon Deegan The five Irish charities that have received 30m from the estate of Laois woman, Mrs Elizabeth OKelly, are set to share an additional 1m from the estate. According to chief executive of one of the five chosen beneficiaries, the Irish Kidney Association (IKA), Mark Murphy, the executor of Mrs OKelly's estate has told us that another 200,000 is due to us before all affairs of the estate are wrapped up and that goes for the other charities as well. Mr Murphy said that the IKA has received 6.1m from the estate of Mrs OKelly and the additional 200,000 will bring to 6.3m or 31.5m for the five charities in total -the Irish Cancer Society (ICS), the Irish Heart Foundation, the Irish Society for Autism and the RNLI. The RNLI revealed yesterday that Mrs O'Kelly for many years volunteered her time to help out at an RNLI stall at the RDS in Dublin. Recalling opening the letter from the executor of Mrs OKellys estate in November 2017, Mr Murphy said that when he saw the 6m figure I had a long giggle of nervousness. I was in the room with our chairman and treasurer and it took us 15 minutes to get our breath back. Mr Murphy said that a former chair of the IKA and Mrs OKelly had a shared passion for archeology. Mr Murphy said: Mrs OKelly told our then chairman that she had willed us a substantial amount in her will. Never in our wildest dreams did I think the amount would be 6m as our previous largest bequest was 250,000." Mr Murphy said that he has suggested to the executor of the estate that the charities come together to create a memorial for Ms OKelly as a show of appreciation for the "incredible" donation. "This was immediately shot down and I was told that is not what she was about and would hate something like that, he said. Mr Murphy said as probably the smallest charity of the five, the bequest will have the biggest impact. He said that the bequest follows years of deficits at the IKA - accounts show that the IKA sustained a loss of 151,441 in 2016 and 125,000 in 2015. The bequest in 2017 resulted in a 6m surplus for the IKA. Mr Murphy said: The bequest could damage us as there is an expectation that people will not be as generous to us in the future, but the projects we have planned will demand continuing resources." This is massive for us - the 6m is four years of revenues for us. It takes the worry out of the air over fundraising. In recent years, we have had to cut back on things and now we can do more things. Mr Murphy said that the IKA has already spent 460,000 on a house in Cork that will be converted into a support centre. Mr Murphy said that the overall cost of the project will be 750,000. He said that Mrs OKelly had not made any direct contact with the IKA while alive and a spokeswoman for the Irish Cancer Society (ICS) also confirmed that there was no prior contact with Mrs OKelly. On October 25, 2017, the ICSs then ceo, John McCormack received the letter from the executor of Ms OKellys estate where it outlined the approximate 6m bequest. A spokeswoman for the ICS said on Wednesday: Mrs OKellys incredibly generous bequest has provided great hope and inspiration to our staff, volunteers and everyone who benefits from our services. With the number of cancer patients at an all-time high, we are experiencing unprecedented requests for help from cancer patients and their families. Prioritising day-to-day services has enabled us to meet this demand but the battle against cancer will only be won through much greater investment in research and transformational projects. Mrs OKellys legacy will be the seed for this investment, helping us deliver improvements that would be impossible otherwise. Her generosity will touch so many lives and enable more people to survive and thrive after a cancer diagnosis. CEO of the Irish Heart Foundation, Tim Collins said that the 6m bequest is the single biggest donation ever received by the Irish Heart Foundation in our 52 years of existence. He said: Mrs OKelly was a remarkable woman who with her will has gifted five Irish charities a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to invest in and transform Irish society. In order to ensure Mrs OKellys generous donation is put to best effect and has a long-lasting impact, the IHF has ringfenced the donation and spent the past number of months working on a large-scale innovative project in the area of childhood obesity. A spokeswoman for the IHF said Mrs OKelly had not made contact with the IHF before her death, but this is not unusual. Most of the bequests we receive are from people who have themselves or whose families have been impacted by heart disease or stroke and who want to see fewer people are similarly affected. The Irish Society for Autism also welcomed the 6m bequest. Deputy Executive Director of the Irish Society for Autism, Tara Matthews said, We are greatly appreciative of Mrs OKellys enormously generous donation. A contribution of this size will have a major impact on the societys work and help to progress the understanding of autism within Ireland. Equipped with knowledge and training, we can all make a significant impact in helping improve the lives of those with autism and their families. A spokeswoman for the RNLI said that it is "deeply grateful and humbled" by Mrs O'Kelly's generosity. She said: "Mrs OKelly asked that her legacy be used to support the RNLIs lifesaving work in Ireland. The impact of her incredible generosity will be directly felt by our volunteer crews and the people whose lives they save for many years to come." Update:The remains of a Kilkenny woman who was murdered in 1984 have been examined and re-interred. Marie Tierney's remains were exhumed early this morning as part of a cold case review into her violent death. Her body was exhumed at Conahy Graveyard, Kilkenny and taken for examination to Waterford University Hospital. Gardai say they have liaised closely with Maries family throughout this process. Ms Tierney was 34-years-old when she was reported missing on October 22, 1984 by her husband. She lived with her husband and their two children, aged 12 and 13, at Clintstown, Co Kilkenny where they ran a grocery store and petrol station. She had left their house on the evening of October 21 at approximately 10.30pm in the family car, a Renault 18 Estate, and had not returned. Gardai located the car at Newpark Fenn, Kilkenny later the following day. Statements from a number of witnesses said the car was abandoned in Newpark at approximately 11pm on October 21. Searches were conducted by Gardai and members of Marie Tierneys family and friends but she could not be located. On December 21, her body was located in a ditch by a man out walking on the Bleach Road, Kilkenny. A post-mortem examination was conducted and an investigation commenced. To date, over 500 lines of enquiry have been opened and over 200 witness statements have been recorded. There have been no arrests so far. Gardai are appealing to any member of the public who may have seen anyone walking or cycling at or near Newpark/Newpark Fenn, Kilkenny on the night of October 21,1984, or who may have seen the Renault 18 on or near the Bleach Road. They are appealing to people who have not yet made themselves known to gardai or who, for whatever reason, were unable to make themselves available at the time. Earlier: Gardai exhume body of Kilkenny mother murdered 34 years ago as new witnesses come forward The remains of a mother-of-two who was brutally murdered more than 30 years ago are being exhumed from a graveyard in Co Kilkenny this morning as detectives gather the final pieces of evidence in their investigation. The graveside exhumation of the remains of the murdered mother-of-two Marie Tierney is currently taking place at Conahy graveyard. Gardai began work at 6am and Ms Tierney's remains will be examined by forensic experts before they are re-interred. Advanced scientific developments will allow officers to gather together evidence that will be crucial to prosecuting the killer. New witnesses have also come forward during the cold case investigation, which started last December. The exhumation of bodies involves a complex application process and is only allowed in the rarest of circumstances. Investigating gardai had to apply to Kilkenny County Council for a licence for the process and a Ministerial Order was also required and granted by the Department of Justice. The law requires that the exhumation be carried out with due care and decency, and in such a manner as not to endanger public health. An environmental protection officer from the local council must be present to supervise the process. A special coffin, lined with zinc, known as a shell is then used to transport the remains. A forensic anthropologist, a state pathologist, gardai from the Technical Bureau and a forensic scientist from Forensic Ireland Limited all attended the exhumation. The exhumed body must then be reburied or cremated within 48 hours. As part of the investigation, more than 300 lines of enquiry have been examined and 200 people have been interviewed. House-to-house inquires have taken place in a number of areas including the Bleach Road, Conahy, the Ballyragget Road, Lovers Lane and Old Newpark and Newpark. Inspector Liam Connolly is heading the investigation and is continuing to liaise with the Tierney and Bourke families. Chief Superintendent Dominic Hayes has outlined how every necessary resource has been deployed in the investigation. It is incumbent on us that we put a huge effort into solving this murder for Maries family. I have no doubt that we will have a successful outcome, he said. Marie Tierney was reported missing by her husband Jim on October 22, 1984. He told gardai that she left her home at Clinstown, Jenkinstown at around 10.30pm on October 21, 1984, in the family car, a Renault 18. The car was located at Newpark Fen the following day. Imran Khan set two months deadline to ministers in Punjab LAHORE: Prime Minister Imran Khan has set a deadline of two months for provincial ministers in Punjab to improve performance and urged them to either perform or get ready to be sent home, according to provincial Housing Minister Mian Mehmoodur Rashid. Briefing the media on the prime ministers address to the PTIs parliamentary party here on Tuesday, Mr Rashid said Mr Khan warned the provincial ministers that if their performance did not improve the cabinet would not be reshuffled, instead the non-performing ministers would be sent home. PM Khan paid a short visit to the city on Tuesday during which he addressed the parliamentary party and held a meeting with Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar and Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi. He returned to Islamabad in the evening. Mr Rashid said PM Khan was monitoring performance of the provincial cabinet. He said the prime minister believed that 90 per cent bureaucrats considered themselves as employees of the state and followed the rules. The trouble is with the remaining 10pc who act more as personal servants of the rulers, he quoted the prime minister as saying. The provincial minister said the prime minister had made it clear that such bureaucrats would not and should not get active postings, he added. He said PM Khan had told the cabinet members that they should prioritise the development agenda for each district. Though every district might have its own peculiar development needs the entire province needs clean drinking water and it must be given priority over other needs. The entire planning should be for the good of common man. The common man must feel relieved, he quoted the prime minister as saying. He said during his address, PM Khan hailed the financial package from Saudi Arabia and informed the parliamentary party that he was going to China and the nation would get more good news soon. I would not be seeking loans in China, but investment and technology transfer. The Chinese are also keen to help Pakistan in both areas, PM Khan was quoted as saying. Mr Rashid said the prime minister expressed his seriousness about the Naya Pakistan Housing Programme and said he had already presided over half a dozen meetings in this regard. The minister said during his meeting with Mr Elahi, PM Khan discussed with him the oppositions boycott of the provincial assemblys proceedings. The speaker briefed the prime minister on how he was trying to run the house smoothly. The speaker informed the prime minister that the opposition was trying to create disruptions in the house. Latest: 11 out of 42 schools built by Western Building Systems will not need any works carried out, the Department of Education has said. In an update published this evening, the Department said these schools will open as normal next week. 14 other schools will re-open once external safety measures like fences and protective decking have been put in place. However, 13 schools are still undergoing structural assessment and analysis and the outcome of this will be released tomorrow. At Ardgillan Community College, which was closed due to structural issues in phase one of the building, the department says all students will be accommodated in phase two. Meanwhile, in Tyrrelstown Educate Together, St Luke's National School and Gaelscoil Eiscir Riada in Lucan, only the ground floor will stay open, and initial agreements are in place to accommodate many of the students elsewhere. Minister for Education Joe McHugh said: The outcomes of further structural assessments which we have received today are important in providing clarity to school authorities, students and parents. "The advice I have received is that no other building has presented the same severity of structural issues as those identified in Phase 1 of Ardgillan Community College, which was built in 2009. In a statement, Western Building Systems said that they noted the Department's update, but said no details of the assessments have been shared with them. "We do not know what any conclusions reached at this point are based on. So far, we have been invited to meet with the Departments inspectors and officials at 13 of the 42 schools. We had insufficient time on site to make structural evaluations," a spokesperson said. What is becoming clearer is that schools previously certified for completion as being free from defects by the Department, and described less than twelve months ago by the then Minister as being built to the highest standards, are now being deemed to require remedial works. "This includes schools where the Departments own appointed Clerk of Works had a full-time presence on site. The same projects were also inspected and approved as compliant in line with the new building regulation control process. That such a turnaround is now being reached is troubling on a wider scale. WBS said they are limited in what we can say given that assessments are ongoing, but they wished to reiterate their recognition of the impact on pupils, parents and teachers at the schools involved. "While it remains unclear as to why and how we have reached this point, we are not walking away. We honour our contracts. We continue to engage with the Department and remain keen to meet the Minister." Schools cleared to open in full, without any internal or external intervention Dublin Luttrellstown Community College Gaelscoil Shliabh Rua, Dublin 18 Broombridge Educate Together National School Scoil Choilm Community National School, Porterstown Gaelscoil na Giuise, Firhouse Scoil Aoife Community National School, Citywest Firhouse Educate Together National School Meath Gaelscoil Thulach na nOg, Dunboyne Laois Maryborough National School, Portlaoise Donegal Letterkenny Educate Together National School Wexford St. Joseph's Primary School, Gorey Schools will re-open once external safety measures have been implemented Dublin Scoil Chaitlin Maude,Tallaght Castlemills Education Centre, Balbriggan Lucan East Educate Together National School Meath St Paul's National School, Ratoath Colaiste De Lacy, Ashbourne Gaelscoil na Mi, Ashbourne Ashbourne Educate Together National School Laois Convent National School, Portarlington Gaelscoil Phortlaoise Portlaoise Educate Together National School Kildare Scoil Phadraig Naofa, Athy Athy Model School (GP Hall Extension only) Gaelscoil Atha I (GP Hall Extension only) Cork Scoil Phadraig Naofa, Rochestown Schools subject to ongoing structural assessment and analysis Dublin Lucan Community National School, Balgaddy Rd Griffeen Valley Educate Together National school St. Francis of Assisi Primary School, Belmayne Belmayne Educate Together National School Wicklow Gaelscoil na gCloch Liath Rush and Lusk Educate Together National School Laois Convent National School, Portarlington Gaelscoil Phortlaoise Portlaoise Educate Together National School Kildare Gaelscoil Mhic Aodha Cork Gaelscoil Mhichil Ui Choileain, Clonakilty Cara Junior (Special) School Carrigaline Educate Together National School St. Colman's Boys National School, Macroom Westmeath Mullingar Educate Together National School Galway Galway Educate Together National School Update: Only ten schools built by WBS affected by structural problems, sources say Only about a quarter of the schools built by Western Building Systems are affected by structural problems, it is understood. Sources suggest around ten will need remedial work, but they should all be able to re-open on Monday. 42 schools built by the company have been under the spotlight, after three in Dublin were forced to close. Engineers and Department of Education officials have spent the day analysing the reports from inspectors who carried out structural assessments of the schools built by the WBS. It is understood that most of the schools do not have structural issues to be addressed. In the roughly ten schools that do need work, engineers are on site putting scaffolding, supports and safety measures in place. The measures will be enough to ensure that all the schools can reopen, it is understood, although in some cases only ground floor classrooms will be accessible and some students will have to be accommodated at other nearby schools. In particular, efforts are being made to ensure that no special needs classes have to move with more senior classes likely to be the ones who will have to commute to other buildings. The final decision on reopening will be a matter for the boards of management of the affected schools. Sources suggest around ten will need remedial work, but they should all be able to re-open on Monday. Earlier: Parents and pupils wait as engineers review structural reports from schools Engineers and Department of Education officials are today reviewing structural reports from schools built by Western Building Systems. They will be advising if any work is needed to make the buildings safe. For parents, students and teachers around the country, the anxious wait continues today. Tests were completed yesterday on the dozens of schools nationwide that were built by Western Building Systems. The Education Minister, Joe McHugh, said any further problems will be quickly identified and communicated to schools by tomorrow. The review was ordered after three Dublin schools built by the company were forced to close due to structural faults. Parts of those schools will re-open on Monday, but some students will have to be accommodated at nearby schools until the buildings are completely safe. Digital Desk Former Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan has been appointed as the UN's Assistant Secretary-General for Safety and Security. Ms O'Sullivan retired from the gardai in September 2017 following a number of controversies in the force. David Raleigh A Co Offaly man who was contacted by Boston killer James Whitey Bulger, believing they were related, has spoken of his shock at the elderly gangsters murder in prison. John Deeley, 75, who now lives in Limerick, said he was always tempted to return correspondence with Bulger, who was convicted and jailed for life in 2013 for at least 11 murders. Bulger made contact with Deeley in 1992 after learning the Offaly man was in Boston making a documentary. Bulger telephoned Deeleys room at the Boston Harbour Hotel, telling him he had a gra for Ireland and that he believed they were related. Bulger said he believed he had family connections to an Evelyn Deeley. However, it wasnt until a few years later, when Deeley heard news reports of Bulger appearing on an FBI Most Wanted List, that he realised who he had been speaking to. "I couldn't believe it. I suddenly thought, Oh Sh**! That's the guy who's been on the run from the FBI, he said. Deeley, a former public relations executive and media copywriter, is still hoping to discover if he is in fact related to Bulger. Deeley, recalling his telephone conversation with the killer, said: "He said he was trying to track down his Irish ancestry. He went into a very complex litany of names and Irish connections and he mentioned he had a brother, a formidable man, who was President of an American University and a Massachusetts Senator. I told him I couldn't rule out the possibility that there could be a family link. Bulger reportedly had links with the IRA was believed to have been somewhat fixated with having an Irish ancestry. Reacting to the news of Bulgers murder in a West Virginian prison Tuesday, Deeley said: I think it's remarkable that an 89-year-old man in a very poor state of health would be murdered in a maximum security prison, one of the toughest prisons, apparently, in America. I was amazed the authorities would see fit to move him to such a dangerous environment, or, was it just an answer to their prayers that they just wanted to be shot of him, and that was effectively an unofficial way of carrying out the death sentence? he added. Deeley, 75, agreed he has felt a connection with Bulger, ever since that fateful phonecall in the Boston Harbour hotel. Deeley is an uncommon name, its not like OBrien or a Kelly. There are not too many around, he said. While acknowledging Bulgers crimes, Deeley said he was aware of reports of his sentimental side. Even though he was a notorious murderer and did a lot of scary and nasty things, and yet, in terms of Irish feelings and sentimentality towards the old country, he obviously had that, an old romantic feeling that a lot of Irish Americans have. I suppose he just wanted to discover his roots, but that would not excoriate him in anyones book. He said it was always there in the back of my mind to contact Bulger in prison. John Deeleys handwritten notes of his 1992 conversation with Whitey Bulger. Photo: Press 22 However, in the end, he had convinced himself Bulger may not have been as receptive as he was when made contact 26 years ago. I thought, where am I going to get with this, as he was in a very poor state of health (in prison), and the reports suggested at the time of his arrest that he was suffering from the early stages of dementia. I dont know if that was true but Id been led to believe that was the case. He probably wouldnt have even recalled having telephoned me at my hotel. Deeley added he would like to pursue the possible family link to Bulger and that the killers death has triggered off a new desire to try and get in touch with his (family) and see if I can make any headway. Louise Roseingrave A 12-day-old baby girl died after contracting the common cold sore virus in hospital days after birth, an inquest into her death heard. Baby Eibhlin Wills acquired the infection in the first five days of her life. Blood tests showed no sign of the infection three days after birth but the infection was present in samples taken when Eibhlin was five days old. Dublin Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane found the infant died due to a hospital-acquired infection. The family described the loss of their precious baby as an "unspeakable horror". For the past three years, we have had to live with the unspeakable horror of losing our baby girl to an entirely preventable disease. While it has been extremely painful to go through the details again...todays verdict gives us the opportunity to again warn the public and especially the families of newborns and those caring for them, of the potential danger of the common cold sore virus, baby Eibhlins father, John Wills, said. The coroner recommended that the Minister for Health include neonatal herpes as a formally notifiable disease and endorsed and commended the Wills familys efforts to raise awareness of the dangers of neonatal herpes. Parents John and Louise Wills from Boden Park, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16 welcomed baby Eibhlin, their first-born, into the world on November 19, 2015. She was born at the National Maternity Hospital where she was cared for until her discharge on November 24. "She was a babbly, amenable baby, goo-ing and gaa-ing and making noises. She was this tiny little person who was incredibly alert for her age, Mr Wills said, describing his baby after the inquest. He told Dublin Coroners Court how the couple cared for their newborn after bringing her home. We spent those first few days getting used to her. She was feeding well and sleeping well and settled into her little routine, he said. The public health nurse visited the family on November 27. The nurse was very happy with her. That weekend Eibhlin seemed to have picked up a cold. She was sniffling a little but she was still feeding, Mr Wills said. By Monday, the infant was feeding less and she seemed tired. John and Louise phoned the hospital and were told to bring the baby in if they remained concerned. They called Louises mother who arrived at their home at 11.30pm. Very suddenly Eibhlin went limp and her colour changed. We drove her straight to Tallaght Hospital, Mr Wills said. Resuscitation attempts failed and the baby was pronounced dead at 1.09am on December 1. John and Louise Wills with photos of their baby daughter Eibhlin Wills outside the Coroner's Court, Dublin. Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins A post-mortem conducted by Dr Michael McDermott gave the cause of death as disseminated neonatal herpes simplex virus type 1, the virus that causes the common cold sore. Dr McDermott found no other abnormalities or underlying vulnerabilities other than the infants age. This was an overwhelming primary infection and it was a recent infection, Dr McDermott said. 'A beautiful little girl who left us far too soon' The court heard details of ongoing training to prevent cross-contamination at the National Maternity Hospital (NMH). Staff with a visible cold sore are expected to cover it with a patch. Obstetrician Prof Mary Higgins said baby Eibhlin was "a beautiful little girl who left us far too soon". Baby Eibhlin at three days old. Photo: Collins She said the infant's death from the virus had an impact on NMH staff. "When you are looking after a person who is sick you have to be so careful not to pass it onto another person. Basic principals of hand hygiene are integrated into training as a student and again at induction days. Infection control staff give talks on hand hygiene and universal precautions. Before you approach someone you wash your hands so as not to pass on any bacteria," she said. Virologist Prof Cillian De Gascun performed laboratory tests on blood samples provided by the hospital following the autopsy. The challenge with herpes is you can actually transmit the virus without having a cold sore. In a significant proportion of cases, there wont be a cold sore and its passed on as it asymptomatic. Asked if the virus is more likely to be spread when a cold sore is present, Prof De Gascun said it was. Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane returned a verdict of death due to a healthcare-acquired infection and commended the couple on their efforts to raise awareness of the dangers of the HSV virus. I endorse the ongoing raising of awareness of this condition for the public and other maternity hospitals in order this can be prevented as much as possible, although it is never possible to entirely eliminate tragedies such as this. This is such an affecting inquest, you have been very active in the raising awareness and have to be commended on what youve done, the coroner said. By Ann O'Loughlin The President of the High Court has said he is "gravely concerned" about the "appalling" living conditions of an elderly woman with advanced dementia. Mr Justice Peter Kelly has directed an urgent inquiry into whether the woman, aged in her eighties, should be made a ward of court. A consultant geriatrician had reported the woman has become increasingly aggressive and refused to permit the doctor go beyond the hall of her home. The woman was described as appearing malnourished and very dirty with her hands and neck covered in faeces, the judge said. Her doctor had reported the woman had become increasingly aggressive to her carers in recent months, is doubly incontinent, is urinating and defecating on piles of clothes on the floors of her home and also urinating into bowls she later tried to drink from. The woman had also opened the front door wearing only a cardigan on one occasion and sometimes wandered out of the house looking for her late husband who died some years ago. She was unable to tell the doctor what age she is, the judge noted. He said he was raising the matter in court to draw the attention of the HSE and general solicitor for wards of court to the situation and to the need to have the woman removed form her "appalling" living conditions. Paul Brady BL said he had been contacted the previous night by a solicitor representing relatives of the woman who have initiated a petition to have her made a ward of court. On foot of that petition, the judge said he had directed an inquiry into whether the woman should be made a ward of court due to lack of capacity. A court-appointed medical visitor will visit the woman to assess her capacity. He had been provided with affidavits, including from the woman's GP, who has diagnosed her with advanced dementia of Alzheimer type and senile self-neglect syndrome, the judge also said. This month was the worst October on record for hospital overcrowding with 9,055 admitted patients forced to wait for a bed on trolleys and chairs. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said the number of patients waiting for a bed had been over twice as bad as when its Trolley Watch began in 2006. University Hospital Limerick had 1,045 patients on trolleys, the highest in the country. It was equivalent to Limericks total bed capacity twice over. Five hospitals had over 500 patients on trolleys during October. University Hospital Galway: 716. Cork University Hospital: 647. Letterkenny University Hospital: 572. Mater University Hospital, Dublin: 519. University Hospital Waterford: 512. The INMO said it was also worried about overcrowding in a number of smaller hospitals. South Tipperary General Hospital had 472 patients waiting on trolleys over the month almost three times the hospitals total bed capacity. The union blames much of the overcrowding on understaffing caused primarily by unattractively low nursing and midwifery pay levels. INMO general secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha said behind the figures was a lot of hardship endured by patients. The negative health impacts of this overcrowding are known, yet this is not addressed as a national priority, said Ms Ni Sheaghdha. The Government accept that we need additional beds but we do not have a plan to tackle this daily problem. Opening extra beds requires extra nurses but low pay means there is no immediate prospect of recruiting additional nurses or retaining current ones. Labours health spokesperson Alan Kelly called on the HSE and Health Minister Simon Harris to publish their plans to reduce the number of patients on trolleys during the winter months. Not only do sick patients deserve better, but hardworking frontline staff cannot endure another winter of discontent in our hospitals, he said. There were 412 admitted patients waiting for beds yesterday morning, according to the INMOs latest Trolley Watch. The worst-hit hospitals were: University Hospital Limerick: 48. Cork University Hospital: 41. Sligo University Hospital: 31. Every morning, INMO members count how many patients are waiting in hospital emergency departments for a bed and how many more are waiting in hospital wards. Patients are often treated on trolleys in corridors, but they may also be on chairs, in waiting rooms, or wherever space is available. The HSE counts only patients on trolleys in emergency departments. Its TrolleyGAR shows 312 were waiting for a bed yesterday with 100 waiting over nine hours and 29 waiting over 24 hours. By Gordon Deegan Chat show king, Graham Norton last year landed a bumper 40% pay increase to be paid 5.84m (5.19m) over a 17-month period. The pay is for presenting So Televisions popular primetime and multi-award winning show, The Graham Norton Show that is broadcast on BBC1 on Friday nights and on TV channels across the world. The popular and charismatic BBC presenter is in a league of his own as the 5.19m (5.84m) represents pay of 108,214 (122,067) per show or 2,164 (2,441) for every minute on screen from the 48 Graham Norton shows broadcast between August 2016 and the end of last year. The 5.19m (5.84m) in pay represents nearly double the 2.6m (2.93m) paid to Norton for the 12 months to the end of July 2016. However, on a pro-rata basis, Mr Nortons pay increased by 40% where his pay for the 17 months equated to a monthly pay packet of 305,547 (344,662) compared to the monthly pay of 217,799 (245,681) in the prior 12 month period to the end of July 2016. A note attached to the So Television Ltd accounts on Nortons pay states that the increase in payments is largely due to an 81% increase in turnover from 11.6m to 21m, which is due to the improved performance of the company and the financial statements covering a 17 month period. On a like-for-like basis, So Televisions revenues increased by 28% over the 17 months. Fifty-five-year-old Norton has shown over the past couple of years that his talents extend well beyond entertaining millions of TV viewers every week with the publication of two novels, his debut Holding in 2016 and A Keeper at the start of October. Nortons show is a must do for Hollywood 'A-listers' promoting their movies in the UK and Europe and already in the current run, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Jamie Dornan, Sir Michael Caine and Jude Law have been guests on Nortons couch. At the end of last December, Mr Norton was also owed 722,698 (815,216) by the production company. The overall fees received by Norton last year dwarfs the fees paid to RTEs top earners due to the size of the UK market and Nortons global appeal where the Graham Norton show is sold around the world. Norton and producer of the Graham Norton show, Graham Stuart sold So Television to ITV in 2012 with ITV agreeing to pay the two 10m (11.3m) up front while a further 7m (7.9m) was payable depending on its performance up to July 2016. ITV will also be happy with the deal in spite of the stellar fees that Norton commands as pre-tax profits at the firm last year increasing by 18% to 2.9m (3.2m) A breakdown in revenues show that last year revenues in the UK totalled 14.82m or 70.7% with revenues in the rest of world making up the remaining 29.3% or 6.15m (6.8m) According to the directors report, the Graham Norton show continued to perform very well, both in the UK and internationally, leading to increased distribution sales. In addition, So Television relaunched Blind Date for Channel 5. Born in Dublin and raised in Bandon, Co Cork, Norton first shot to prominence in 1996 for his part of Father Noel Furlong in 'Father Ted' before he moved to Channel 4 to host his own chat show. Awarded an honorary doctorate by UCC in June 2013, Norton established So Television Ltd with Graham Stuart in 2000. Numbers employed by So Television remained the same at 26 last year and staff costs totalled 2m (2.25m) Remuneration to the firms five directors that includes Norton and Stuart last year remained static at 354,167 (399,506)- with the unnamed highest earning director receiving 354,167 (399,506) in fees. The report states that the firm produced 65.5hrs of programming during the 17 months compared to 43.15 hours delivered in 2016. The directors report state that the directors expect the company to continue to grow through the development of productions for broadcasters and the companys objective is to maximise long-term growth. Accumulated profits at the group last December totalled 14.63m (16.5m) The firms cost of sales last year increased from 8.3m to 16.15m with the firms gross profit increased from 3.24m (3.65m) to 4.8m (5.4m). That was an event and a half :-) Thank you Cork, thank you @grahnort, thank you @CorkOperaHouse... pic.twitter.com/CNDbasSqHH Rick O'Shea (@rickoshea) October 14, 2018 Administrative expenses increased from 1.14m (1.28m) to 2.13m (2.4m) resulting in an operating profit of 2.9m (3.27m). Net interest receivable of 225,257 (254,094) resulted in the 2.9m (3.27m) profit. The firm paid only 2,834 (3,196) in corporation tax. Based on the UK corporate tax rate of, the firm would have liable to a tax bill of 566,814 (639,376). However, mainly as a result of group relief totalling 564,821 (637,128), the tax bill was only 2,834 (3,196). Iranian FM reached Islamabad ISLAMABAD: Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif reached here on Tuesday night on an unscheduled trip to follow up on the issue of abducted border guards and discuss certain regional developments, according to diplomatic sources. Mr Zarif, besides holding a meeting with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, is expected to call on Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chief of the Army Staff Gen Qamar Bajwa during his one-day trip. Iranian Ambassador Mehdi Honardoost met FM Qureshi on Tuesday to discuss the hurriedly planned trip of Mr Zarif. Foreign Office spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal tweeted: Iranian Ambassador in Pakistan called on FM at MoFA today #pakiranbrotherhood. A diplomatic source said the efforts for recovery of the abducted guards are on the top of Mr Zarifs agenda. About 12 Iranian border guards were kidnapped by militants a fortnight ago from a post in Mirjaveh region close to the border with Pakistans Balochistan province. Jaish al-Adl, a terrorist group operating in the region, had claimed responsibility for their kidnapping. Iranian leaders believe that the militants transferred the guards to Pakistan after taking them hostage. Mr Zarif and Mr Qureshi had earlier spoken over the phone regarding the matter immediately after the incident. During the conversation on that occasion, he had requested the Pakistani government to enhance security along the border by increasing troops deployment and other measures. The Iranian foreign minister had also urged the Pakistani authorities to act swiftly to recover the hostages and arrest the elements behind the terrorist incident in accordance with the previous understandings between the two countries. Similarly Irans top military commander Maj Gen Mohammad Hossein Bagheri had also after the incident called Gen Bajwa to urge intensification of efforts for search and rescue of kidnapped Iranian border guards. Donald Trump is facing criticism after indicating he wants to end citizenship rights to children born in the US to non-citizens and illegal immigrants. The US President has said he is willing to sign an executive order to give effect to his decision, but many lawmakers claim he does not have the power to do so. PTI govt not responsible for current financial crisis: Shah Mehmood ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi Tuesday told the Lower House that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government was not responsible for current financial crisis as Pakistans debt soared to Rs30,000 billion during Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) governments in the last 10 years. Repayment of this debt is not an easy task. However, our government is determined to put Pakistans economy on the right path, the foreign minister said, and called for evolving a charter of economy based on national consensus to steer the country out of the current economic crisis. Responding to the points raised by PPPs Khursheed Shah, Qureshi said the country is faced with chronic economic challenges, adding that it is the responsibility of both opposition and treasury to work together to pull the country out of the situation.He said the government will give due consideration to any suggestions by the opposition. Qureshi also refuted reports regarding landing of an Israeli aircraft in Islamabad, terming those baseless and fictitious. He maintained that the Saudi economic assistance for Pakistan carried no conditions, adding that Pakistan was not sending any troops to Yemen. We only want to play a positive role for promotion of unity amongst the Muslim Ummah, he said. Finance Minister Asad Umar said the government would be obtaining an IMF bailout package for the last time to steer the country out of the current financial crisis. He said Pakistan faced a trade deficit of $35 billion, causing depreciation of the rupee against US dollar. Assailing the PML-N, he said the budget deficit soared to 6.6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) during the previous governments term. He said the PTI government simultaneously approached friendly countries and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to fend off a looming economic crisis, adding that the government was seeking financial assistance from friendly countries to negotiate better terms with the Fund.He said while a delegation of the Fund has been already asked to visit Islamabad at the earliest for talks on a bailout package, the government has yet not decided to seek the bailout from the IMF. Speaking about a bailout from Saudi Arabia, Asad Umar said the kingdom agreed to provide $3 billion worth of oil on deferred payments in addition to another $3 billion to be deposited in the account of the State Bank of Pakistan. Agreements worth $9 billion were reached with the kingdom for a period of three years, he added. He said the government wanted to take the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to the next level by establishing special economic zones. He said a bilateral trade framework was being worked out to reduce the deficit of trade with China. Referring to speeches by members of the opposition, the minister said the begging bowl cannot be broken by just making emotional speeches as practical steps were required for the purpose. Later, the opposition parties staged walkout in protest against departure of Asad Umar. Khurshid Shah said the opposition would not take part in discussion on the economy until the minister returns. Taking part in the debate on poor economic situation, PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal said the government would have to show seriousness to take the country forward. Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari said the opposition parties should focus on the discussion instead of resorting to personal attacks. Sabir Hussain Qaimkhani said the government should formulate agriculture and industrial policies to ensure food security and bolster exports. The banking regulator concedes it must think about how it can play a more active role in dealing with misbehaviour in financial institutions, after it faced blunt criticism from the Hayne royal commission. In a submission responding to the commission's interim report, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority said its response to misconduct had been "broadly appropriate," given its main focus was the financial health of banks. However, it agreed there was "scope" for "further action" in how it and other regulators dealt with governance, culture and incentives. APRA's submission followed harsh criticism of the regulator over a lack of action in the interim report for the royal commission. APRA says it could give more attention to governance and risk culture in financial institutions. Credit:Photo: Patrick Cummins "While historically APRA's regulatory focus has largely been concentrated on prudential risk-taking and long-term financial soundness, the evidence before the royal commission highlights the need for APRA to examine the means by which it can more actively contribute to a regulatory framework that limits the potential for misconduct to occur in the future," the submission said. If your children received either of these lollipops for Halloween, throw them out. The My Little Pony and Avengers Giant Pops present a health hazard as the products potentially contain metal, Food Standards Australia said. My Little Pony and Avengers Giant Pops have been recalled. Credit:Food Standards Australia The lollipops, made in China, were distributed by Park Avenue Foods and were available at Priceline stores around the country. "Consumers should not eat these products and should return the products to the place of purchase for a full refund," Food Standards Australia said in the recall notice, first issued on October 29. Universities were blindsided on Wednesday by plans to introduce a "national interest test" for government-funded research, with some pointing out academics must already meet national benefit requirements. Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan made the announcement just hours after all 39 universities condemned a decision by his predecessor Simon Birmingham to veto $4.2 million in recommended research grants, the first time a minister has used such powers in more than a decade. Education Minister Dan Tehan says the test will help improve the public's confidence in taxpayer funded research. Credit:Lukas Coch Minister Tehan said the new test would improve public confidence in the $3 billion in taxpayer-funded grants the Australian Research Council would be handing out in the next four years. At a late-night Senate estimates hearing, it was revealed 11 arts and humanities projects approved for funding by the council were blocked by Senator Birmingham, now the Minister for Trade, last financial year, including a grant of almost $400,000 for Australian National University researcher Robert Wellington. Tremble, tremble: the witches are back. That was a popular feminist chant in Italy, says Luca Guadagnino, around the time Dario Argentos psychedelic horror Suspiria came out. Argentos Suspiria was released in 1977 and has been a cult film ever since. Set in a dance academy in Germany that is revealed to be home to an underground coven of witches, it is truly demented; the writhings and shriekings you would expect in an Italian occult film are enhanced by a score that sounds like an insistent childs piano and, instead of spooky gloom, a play of garish colours that make the Helena Markos Dance Academy look like a fun park. Guadagnino was 14 when he saw it. He loved it loved it so much, in fact, that he wanted to make his own fan-fic version. It struck me so strongly, it was like a shock, he says. It didnt bother him that it had already been done. In 1985, there wasnt the concept of remakes. I was just thinking I want to do this movie again. And now he has: a longer, more ruminative Suspiria, as witchy as ever but with references to psychoanalytic theory, the Holocaust, the Baader-Meinhof gang, the kidnapping of plutocrats, the bombing of planes. And to feminism, of course: the witches are back. One of the dance scenes from Suspiria. Credit:Transmission Films Guadanigno wrote the script with David Kajganich, his co-writer on A Bigger Splash. He knew that one criticism of Argentos pop-art horror was that it made no reference to the reality of its setting: Germany in 1977. We became more and more interested in what can be characterised as the German autumn, this severe conflict between generations, he says. An older generation bore a burden of guilt, largely in silence. And then there were the children of this generation, who were starting to have all the neuroses of this denial, and were challenging the fathers and the mothers. This anxiety was there; we didnt invent it. And we thought: how would we deal with this history in a very private, self-excluded community that transcends history or travels history, since the witches are there for ages? How do those evils interact with each other? A world-renowned coral reef research centre missed out on Federal funding to groups proposing the study of the "digital child", "creative aging" and the Enlightenment. The Townsville-based Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies failed to secure the grant money from the Australian Research Council (ARC), despite an external review describing its submission as as "revolutionary". Researchers on the Great Barrier Reef will have to search harder for funding after the Centre for Excellence in Coral Reef Studies missed on further grants. Credit:University of Wollongong "This work should be funded at all cost. It will be revolutionary," the review said, adding the assembled team of researchers and their program would change forever "how we go about ensuring sustainability and resilience in our changing world". It is understood the glowing assessment had no dissenting voices. After 14 months in custody accused of murdering the family matriarch, an artist mother and her two sons have been freed on bail - unopposed by the Crown and with the men to live at the scene of the alleged crime. Melissa Beowulf, 61, and her sons Thorsten Halley Beowulf, 32, and Bjorn Toren Beowulf, 31, were bailed in the ACT Supreme Court at a hearing on Wednesday ahead of their eight-week trial next year. From left, Melissa Beowulf, Bjorn Beowulf and Thorsten Beowulf were released on bail on Wednesday. Thorsten and Bjorn Beowulf were released to live at the scene of the alleged murder, a home in the south Canberra suburb of Red Hill. They have agreed to grant the Crown and police access to the property. Melissa Beowulf was bailed to a home in Deakin. A 19-year-old man has been charged with using his room at the University of Canberra as a clandestine drug lab, after an explosion at the student hall on Tuesday night. Canberra police say they found chemicals, as well as a notebook with the chemical formula of the drug MDMA, in a fourth-floor room at Cooper Lodge. The man was taken to the Canberra Hospital and students were evacuated for large parts of Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon. Police said the scene had been contained, and there was no ongoing threat to public safety. Australians with a rare genetic condition, that can kill sufferers in the most severe cases by the age of 50, will now have free access to a next-generation medication that usually costs hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Health Minister Greg Hunt will on Thursday announce Galafold (migalastat) has been added to the federal governments Life Saving Drugs Program (LSDP) for the treatment of Fabry disease. Lea Chant has been taking the drug Galafold to treat Fabry disease. Credit:Janie Barrett Lea Chant, 55, has taken Galafold as a clinical trial participant for the past eight years. She and her son Christopher were diagnosed with Fabry disease and the same mutation when Christopher was six-months-old. The owner of Queensland fish-and-chip shop The Battered Wife says she had to close the shop for the night after a barrage of prank calls and abuse left her fearing for the safety of her young staff. The furore came after a campaign against the Innisfail business erupted on social media, with The Red Heart Campaign calling for people to boycott the business, writing "there is nothing funny about domestic violence or violence against women". State politicians on Wednesday denounced the controversial name of the shop, which has the motto "The only battering anyone need know". But The Battered Wife owner Carolyn Kerr, a former police officer who had seen many examples of domestic violence before becoming a victim herself, said on Facebook the issue was not a joke. More than 200 Queensland council delegates have overwhelmingly rejected a request to change the date of future council elections so voters do not have to go the polls twice in the same year. The situation was triggered by the Queensland government shifting to fixed four-year election terms in 2017, following a referendum the year before. The government formally asked councils to consider a change after a review of the situation headed by former Brisbane lord mayor Jim Soorley. Former lord mayor Jim Soorley reviewed election timing in Queensland. Credit:Samantha Horton There will be no change at the 2020 elections, however changes were proposed for elections in 2024 and beyond. A Sydney man who kept another man prisoner for a night, slashed his face with a knife and held a gun to his head while demanding money will be eligible for parole next year. Fadi Chiha, 33, was on Wednesday sentenced in the Brisbane District Court to six-and-a-half years in jail for offences relating to the kidnapping of an associate, Mr Van, in 2012. Chiha told Judge Michael Burnett he was on methamphetamine and paranoid at the time he and an accomplice pulled Mr Van off the street, bundled him hooded and bound into the boot of his own car and took him to a Brisbane hotel room. It was there Chiha demanded $30,000 for Mr Van's release, a sum that was talked down to $10,000, and held a revolver to his head. The victim handed $3500 to his captives but was held for another 12 hours before being pushed out the door by Chiha who said: "See you later". Police at the crime scene on Snowy Avenue, Red Cliffs. Credit:Sunraysia Daily The property valuer is said to be deeply traumatised. "Investigations reveal that he'd been held against his will," Detective Superintendent Paul Smith said. "Obviously hes traumatised. Certainly hes in need of some protection at this time as far as [he is] emotionally." It is understood the brothers had been involved in disputes about finances. They are listed as joint directors of a number of businesses, mostly in roofing and construction. Ray Cohrs, who was allegedly shot and killed by his brother Paul Cohrs. A spokesman from the Victorian branch of the shooting association said they were deeply shocked and saddened by the events in Mildura. "We understand that SSAA president of Mildura was a hardworking member of the association and did a lot of good work for our Mildura members. Our condolences go to his extended family." Mr Cohrs, who was elected to the local council in 2012, resigned as deputy mayor in mid-2015 after ongoing tension between him and the mayor. He then announced he would run for mayor but was unsuccessful. He was a farmer and operator of tourist accommodation at Lake Victoria. A spokeswoman from the Wentworth Shire Council said: "Mayor Melisa Hederics and the councillors of the Wentworth Shire are both shocked and deeply saddened at the news of this tragedy. "At this time the matter is under investigation and we are unable to provide further comment. Our heartfelt condolences go to the family and the people in our community who have been impacted by this tragic event." NSW police have described the deaths as a "domestic violence-related shooting". One neighbour who lived alongside the Cohrs family for about 50 years, with their children attending school together in Mildura, said she was shocked by Tuesday's events. "I still feel in shock about it, I can't understand who would want to hurt her," the neighbour, who spoke to Fairfax Media on the condition of anonymity, said. The woman said Paul Cohrs had grown up in Red Cliffs and had moved to a house on the same street as his parents when he married. "He was always such a nice fellow. I just dont know, I didnt expect that," she said. "He was married and had two daughters but they are all grown up we had a shop in Red Cliffs and he would come in with his little girls and bought bikes off us. He used to catch the school bus with my son, and [my son] always spoke highly of him. He was a nice fellow." She said Bette and her first husband were well-known in the local construction industry after the set up a roofing business several decades ago. Ray had then worked closely with his father on the business, and became a director in the mid-1980s. "I know they were hard workers because the first husband was the one who started the roofing business and Ray worked with him," she said. Bette and her first husband had three sons and a daughter, she said. Her second husband, Kurt Schulz, passed away last year. Tragedy struck the family in 2016 when Ms Schulz's granddaughter and Ray's daughter Katie died in a car accident after returning to Mildura for Christmas. Red Cliffs has a population of about 5000 people. For the most part, our students do not have parents or guardians who have PhDs. They do not have parents who have completed tertiary education or, oftentimes, secondary schooling. In many cases, the parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and family friends with whom they live do not speak Standard Australian English fluently and most definitely werent reading books to their children at age four. Certainly, the geographies of systemic disadvantage are a glaring reality in schools such as this. However, this year, the creators of the exam paper have seemingly catered more towards a specific socio-geographic group which is certainly not, in any way, represented by the students at my college. Indeed, according to Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority statistics presented on the MySchool website, a significantly high percentage of students at schools like mine fall in the bottom quarter of socio-educational advantage. As you can imagine, closing the gap so that they can jump the bar into tertiary education is no mean feat. Its 10.30am and, at present, my year 12 students are sitting in the hall completing their VCE English examination. These are students who predominantly come from low socioeconomic families. At present, my students are being required to complete a rhetorical analysis that satirises and condemns the commercialisation of inner-urban, hipster culture a world away from their outer-suburban homes. The piece takes aim at the corporatisation of Melbournes grungy cafe culture in the many older main streets that grace the writers imaginary suburb. The fictional reviewer, Jonty Jenkins, then systematically undermines every feature of the intrusive cafe that has invaded their neighbourhood. To close, Jenkins claims that those of us who live within walking distance of the High Street would all agree that we are not Calmer Coffees target demographic". Talk about irony. Lets replace this with the voice of my year 12 students; with the voice of students living in rural communities who may never have travelled into Melbourne: Those of us who live in low socioeconomic areas that have not yet been gentrified would all agree that we are not this exams target demographic. As Ive said, geographies of social inequality are real. Lets consider a map of Melbourne. Which students walk past trendy, new cafes on their way to school? It is students in Brunswick, Fitzroy, Carlton, and Northcote who might grab a strong flat white from their local cafe before class. Looking at the right-hand side of the map in Melbournes affluent eastern suburbs, it is those who stroll down to the main precincts in Kew, Balwyn or Surrey Hills who witness streetscapes such as the one depicted in the image on the exam. These precincts are at the heart of the catchment zones for schools whose socio-educational indices are constituted by 70 per cent or more students in the top quarter. Meanwhile, out here on the outer rim of the galaxy, our kids stop at the 7-Eleven for a slushy to keep them awake in class. During the 2017 state election campaign, Perth MP John Carey received a text message accusing him of hanging out with paedophiles. Perth MP John Carey will be a judge at this weekend's Pride Fairday in Birdwood Square. Hes been called a faggot; bizarrely, his dog has been called a faggot. As a gay young man he experienced ridicule over his sexuality. But coming out at 29 was made that bit easier thanks to the local Pride movement. When I came out I found [Pride] empowering, he said. A group of about 15 Nationals members have resigned amid an investigation into their alleged ties to neo-Nazi and fascist groups. The party is investigating up to 35 NSW members for links to alt-right, white supremacist and other radical groups, in what federal leader Michael McCormack described as an intolerable situation. The cohort under investigation represents a sizeable chunk of the youth wing's membership in NSW, which is understood to number about 300. Clifford Jennings, who resigned from the National Party on Wednesday. Credit:Facebook In a letter to state director Ross Cadell, suspended Young Nationals executive member Clifford Jennings claimed the party had subjected him and others to "trial by media". Queenslanders will have protections for 23 human rights enshrined in law, such as freedom of expression, religion and privacy, and a right to education and health services. Australia does not have a national bill of rights like the US, but Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory have introduced human rights laws. Queensland Parliament looks set to pass its human rights bill. Credit:Robert Rough Attorney-General Yvette D'Ath on Wednesday introduced the long-awaited human rights bill into the Parliament. Ms D'Ath said it was about changing the culture of the public sector. Apple has thankfully moved to USB-C on the iPad, which not only provides faster connectivity and charging but allows for more uses. In one demo, I edited some video in iMovie on the iPad Pro, with the timeline on the iPad Screen and the footage showing on an external monitor. In another, I was able to quickly ingest footage from a DSLR. Hopefully updates to iOS 12 will open up this USB port to even more workflows. Two long forgotten Macs get an update Introducing the new MacBook Air, Apple CEO Tim Cook described the machine as the the most beloved notebook ever. Bizarre, then, that Apple totally abandoned the thing following its last update back in 2015. Every other laptop maker released Air-inspired designs borrowing the same wedge shape but improving the screen and speakers while Apple moved on to the more expensive Macbook and MacBook Pro. The new MacBook Air sits between the lowest-end MacBook Pro and the 12-inch MacBook, but seems set to replace both. Credit:Peter Wells The new Air features a Retina screen with 4 million pixels and a dynamic display with up to 48 per cent more colours than the previous model. It will be interesting to properly compare it to the Dell XPS 13 and Apples own MacBook Pro which have the best displays in the business but it looked fantastic during my brief hands on. The screen has a smaller bezel again I cant wait to compare it to the Dell but Apple is keeping the camera at the top of the screen, so your video calls will not be taken from the most unflattering up-the-nose angle. And finally, you can now buy an awesome Mac Laptop without a Touch Bar, while still getting the convenience and security of Touch ID. Look, no Touch Bar! Credit:Peter Wells The T2 Chip enhances the security of the MacBook, while passing off high-end video tasks to the lower-powered board. That allows Apple to boast the Air getting 13 hours video playback; as long as those videos are encoded in HEVC. Obviously I couldnt test that today, but the video playback was fantastic, thanks to that improved display and the much louder speakers on board. It turns the Air into a great little media playback machine, perfect for the dorm room, as Apple said, in case anyone was wondering who the target market is. Loading The Mac Mini hadnt seen an update since October 2014. So dead was the Mini, it was the butt of jokes in Mac circles, the prediction you would make before an event just for laughs. But the Mac Mini is back and more powerful than ever. It's the same size as ever, so it can easily replace an aging Mini in rack-mounts and other enterprise hardware installations, now comes with desktop class processors and RAM that will make it capable of video and audio editing. But I predict the majority of Minis will serve a more modest role, either as an entry level hot desk in corporate environments, a Computer Lab Mac in education, as a PC switchers first Mac, or as a geeks media centre. But its nice to know the Mini has power if you need it. The tiny, stackable Mac Mini finally has some guts. Credit:Peter Wells Australia tax strikes again As has become a trend with recent Apple events, the only sticking point here is price. If you look at these new models in US dollars, I would argue the iPad Pros are actually bargains for those that will use them to their full potential. The responsiveness of the screen and pencil, and the fact that real Photoshop is finally coming to the iPad Pro, should make Surface owners take notice and Wacom shareholders a little nervous. The MacBook Air gets a modest price bump over the model it replaces, but is so much better that its worth the price. But back home, the exchange rate maths have not been kind to Australian buyers. Here the iPad Pro starts at $1229, the MacBook Air $1849. But then Dells XPS 13 is similarly expensive, starting at $1784, with different trade-offs on display and SSD size. And in New York this morning, I spent the equivelent of $7.52 on tepid black liquid described by an American as coffee, so perhaps this is just our burden to bear. Vatican City: Workers have discovered human bones at the Holy See embassy to Italy and police are investigating the matter, the Vatican has said. Italian media said forensic scientists were assessing whether the remains might be those of Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee who vanished in 1983. Demonstrators hold pictures of Emanuela Orlandi in St. Peter's Square in 2012. Credit:AP The Vatican said in a statement that the bone fragments were discovered during restructuring work on an annex to the Holy See's imposing embassy compound near Rome's famous Villa Borghese museum. It said chief prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone was leading the investigation and had tasked forensic specialists with determining the "age, sex and date of death" of the body. Istanbul: Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and his body was dismembered before being disposed of, a top Turkish prosecutor said on Wednesday. Chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said in a statement that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb yielded no "concrete results" despite Turkey's "good intentions to uncover the truth". The statement was the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered after he entered the Saudi Consulate on October 2 to collect paperwork he needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. "In accordance with plans made in advance, the victim, Jamal Khashoggi, was strangled and killed immediately after entering the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia," the prosecutor's office said. - An executive order to revoke the right to citizenship for babies born to non-US citizens on American soil. - And the prolonged detention of anyone coming across the US-Mexico border, including those seeking asylum, in "tent cities" erected "all over the place." The administration on Monday also announced plans to deploy 5200 active duty troops - double the 2000 who are in Syria fighting the Islamic State group - to the border to help stave off the caravans. The main caravan, still in southern Mexico, was continuing to melt away - from the original 7000 to about 4000 - as a smaller group apparently hoped to join it. Trump insists his immigration moves have nothing to do with politics, even as he rails against the caravans at campaign rallies. US President Donald Trump. Credit:AP "I've been saying this long before the election. I've been saying this before I ever thought of running for office. We have to have strong borders," Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in an interview on Monday. Critics weren't buying it. "They're playing all of us," said David W. Leopold, an immigration attorney and counsel to the immigration advocacy group America's Voice. "This is not about locking people up. This is not about birthright citizenship. This is about winning an election next week." Trump's citizenship proposal would inevitably spark a long-shot legal battle over whether the president can alter the long-accepted understanding that the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to any child born on US soil, regardless of his parents' immigration status. A mother migrating from Honduras holds her 1-year-old child as she surrenders to US Border Patrol agents after illegally crossing the border. Credit:AP Omar Jadwat, director of the Immigrants' Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, said the Constitution is very clear. "If you are born in the United States, you're a citizen," he said. He called it "outrageous that the president can think he can override constitutional guarantees by issuing an executive order, James Ho, a conservative Trump-appointed federal appeals court judge, wrote in 2006, before his appointment, that birthright citizenship "is protected no less for children of undocumented persons than for descendants of Mayflower passengers." Even House Speaker Paul Ryan, typically a supporter of Trump proposals, said on WVLK radio in Kentucky: "Well you obviously cannot do that. You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order." Loading But Trump says he's been assured by his lawyers that the change could be made with "just with an executive order" - an argument he has been making since his early days as a candidate, when he dubbed birthright citizenship a "magnet for illegal immigration" and pledged to end it. "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States," he said in an Axios interview excerpt released on Tuesday. Not so, according to a 2010 study from the Centre for Immigration Studies, a group that supports immigration restrictions, that said at least 30 countries offered birthright citizenship. Vice President Mike Pence said the administration was "looking at action that would reconsider birthright citizenship." "We all know what the 14th Amendment says. We all cherish the language of the 14th Amendment. But the Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled on whether or not - whether the language of the 14th Amendment, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, applies specifically to the people who are in the country illegally," he said at a Politico event. The non-partisan Migration Policy Institute estimates that there are more than 4 million US-born children under the age of 18 who have an unauthorised immigrant parent. A person familiar with the internal White House debate said the topic of birthright citizenship has come up inside the West Wing at various times - and not without some detractors. However, White House lawyers expect to work with the Justice Department to develop a legal justification for the action. The person was not authorised to discuss the policy debate so spoke on condition of anonymity. In Trump's Monday interview with Fox, he said the US also plans to build tent cities to house migrants seeking asylum, who would be detained until their cases were completed. Right now, some asylum seekers, particularly families, are being released as their cases progress because there isn't enough detention space to house them. "We're going to put tents up all over the place," Trump said. "They're going to be very nice, and they're going to wait, and if they don't get asylum they get out." The country is facing a massive backlog of immigration cases - some 700,000 - and there are more and more families coming across the border from Central America - groups who cannot be simply returned over the border. But experts question the legality and practicality of what would amount to indefinite detention. The options are just two of many possibilities currently under discussion, including asylum law changes and simply barring members of the migrant caravans from entering the country using the same mechanism as the president's much-publicised travel ban for people from certain Muslim countries. Administration officials say decisions are unlikely until after the midterm elections, in part because of the synagogue shooting and pipe-bomb scare. But some supporters in Congress are rushing to cheer Trump on. Washington: So much for the "Kavanaugh Bump." Republicans now fear some of their voters are losing enthusiasm a week away from midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. Outrage amid the Republican electorate over Democrats' treatment of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's nomination has dissipated, Trump aides and Republican pollsters say. After last week's mail-bomb scare and synagogue shooting, President Donald Trump's approval rating fell, potentially jeopardising key Senate races that his allies thought had turned his party's way. Trump will head to Florida on Wednesday evening as he begins an eight-state, 11-rally final campaign swing to rev up his supporters before the November 6 vote. But he will spend valuable time in the final days of the campaign on defense, travelling to states he won handily to try to shore up support for Republican candidates who strategists believed to be well positioned for victory a few weeks ago. Trump advisers have all but given up on keeping Republican control of the House and are now focused on saving the Senate, which will be crucial to confirm Trump's judicial and Cabinet appointments. Latest News Effi launches solution that can get brokers paid their commission on the day of settlement New product can reduce the time it takes for commissions to get paid from 45-60 days to just one NAB throws weight behind e-lodgement disruptor Sympli Major mortgage lender signs deal with conveyancing start-up Following the announcement the major bank will demerge its wealth management and mortgage broking businesses, CBA has announced who will be leading the demerged businesses. Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) announced today former SocietyOne CEO Jason Yetton will be appointed chief executive officer and Andrew Morgan will be appointed chief financial officer of the new entity made up of CBAs wealth management and mortgage broking businesses, which is has termed 'NewCo'. These appointments follow CBAs announcement in June 2018 of the demerger of NewCo, which includes Colonial First State, Count Financial, Financial Wisdom, Aussie Home Loans and CBAs minority shareholdings in ASX-listed companies CountPlus and Mortgage Choice. Colonial First State Global Asset Management will no longer form part of NewCo, following another announcement today of an agreement to sell to Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation. Yetton will join after two years as CEO and managing director of SocietyOne. Before that he spent more than 20 years at Westpac and BT Financial Group, including as group executive Westpac retail and business banking. Morgan is currently chief financial officer, wealth management at CBA. Before this he was CFO for the business and private bank and Bankwest at CBA. He has more than 25 years experience in the financial services and property sectors, including at Lend Lease Corporation, National Australia Bank, Radian and Perpetual. CBA's CEO Matt Comyn said, The appointments bring an important mix of external and internal experience, as well as a deep understanding of wealth management and financial services, to lead the new entity. Jason is an accomplished leader, with deep wealth management and broad financial services experience. He is well positioned to lead NewCo and will be strongly supported by Andrew. These appointments, effective 1 December 2018, will help drive NewCos strategy and future potential. With todays announcement regarding the agreement to sell CFSGAM, the candidate non-executive directors that had been identified for NewCo will no longer continue in their positions. I thank John Mulcahy and the other candidate directors for their contributions during this time. Under Johns leadership, they have played an important role in achieving the successful sale outcome for CFSGAM. A new board for NewCo will be established in advance of the proposed demerger, Comyn said. The demerger of NewCo is subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals under a scheme of arrangement. If approved, the demerger is now expected to complete in late calendar year 2019. Yettons appointment is also subject to regulatory approvals, including any applicable APRA registration requirements. Latest News Effi launches solution that can get brokers paid their commission on the day of settlement New product can reduce the time it takes for commissions to get paid from 45-60 days to just one NAB throws weight behind e-lodgement disruptor Sympli Major mortgage lender signs deal with conveyancing start-up The number of residential brokers also offering commercial finance has more than doubled in the last two years. These figures come from the latest Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) industry report, which has also revealed a continuous drop in the proportion of female mortgage brokers since 2016. The report, which is the sixth one, covers the quarterly period of January to March 2018 as well as the six monthly period of October 2017 to March 2018. It also includes other figures such as broker remuneration, the number of brokers per person and the number and value of loans settled. A snapshot of areas included in the report are listed in sections below. Previous reports have used data from 14 aggregators, but only 13 participated in this most recent report. The market share has continued to grow, with brokers now accounting for more than 55% of all loans originated for the January to March 2018 quarter. In terms of submitting loans to lenders other than the four major banks or its affiliates, this market share rose to 30.2% for the six months to March. The total value of lending directed to these lenders also hit a record high of $15.1billion for the latest quarter. MFAA CEO Mike Felton said, Our IIS Reports are an important set of data for the industry, in order to quantifiably demonstrate the economic value of the services that brokers deliver. The latest findings reinforce the value proposition of mortgage brokers, creating choice and competition in the mortgage market by placing business with a wide set of lenders, many of which do not have a branch network." Felton also addressed the drop in female brokers. He said, Another key finding that needs highlighting, as it's an industry-wide issue, is that the proportion of female mortgage brokers has once again dropped, now at 27.1%. "We, as an association, are well progressed on an industry-wide initiative, in conjunction with our industry partners, to look at solutions to promote the broker profession as a career for women. This report will be released at the end of November,." Diversification Since the report in October 2015 to March 2016, the number of residential brokers selling commercial finance products increased by 124%, from 1,641 to 3,668. It grew by 25% just in this six month period alone and commercial loan settlements increased to just under $9billion during the six months to the end March 2018. The executive summary of the report said, This suggests that residential mortgage brokers appreciate the importance of diversification as a means of growing their business, or insulating their businesses from industry change or market corrections. At the state level, the number has grown across all major states. Since the 2015 2016 report, the number of diversified broker in Queensland has increased by 162% from 274 brokers to 719 brokers. In New South Wales, the number of brokers jumped from 461 to 1,121, an increase of 143%. Another big jump was the figures in Victoria, which saw residential brokers offering commercial finance rise from 532 to 1,028, an increase of 93%. Gender gap The proportion of female brokers to male brokers has dropped consistently since the report in April 2016 September 2016. While the number of female brokers has increased since 2016, the most recent period showed 92 fewer female brokers since the period before. The figures also show a decline in recruitment of women since 2016 and a decline in the proportion of women recruited. In April September 2016, 66% of those recruited were men (931) and 34% were women (476). Over the following year, the figures dipped to 68% men and 32% women. It dropped even further in the period Oct 16 to March 17, with 72% men (938) and 28% women (360). But in the period following recruitment saw its highest numbers yet, with a 3% increase for the proportion of women: 69% men (1168) and 31% women (523). Although recruitment figures have dropped in the most recent period, the proportion has stayed the same. Loans settled According to the report, the last twelve months was the strongest ever for home loan settlements in the sector, although the six months to March was slightly lower than the previous six months. Brokers settled $97.63 billion in loans between Oct 17 and March 18, down by 2.3% on the last reporting period. Looking at the year ending in March 2018, brokers settled $199.5b of home loans, the highest amount on record. It was a 4.4% increase over the results for the prior year-to-end of March 2017. The national average value of home loans settled per broker has continued to decline since April 2015. The net decline over the last five six-month periods has been 15.8%, from $6.9million to $5.8million per broker. The number of home loans applied for has decreased over the last three half-year periods, since April - Sept 2016. The number of home loans settled per state shows that Victoria has now overtaken NSW. New South Wales and ACT contributed most to the national decline in number of applications, down 2,529 applications, or nearly 3%, compared to last period. The conversion rate of applied for loans to settled loans declined slightly since last survey from 75.6% to 72.1%, having increased from the preceding survey. Potential factors contributing to this may include adjustments to lending assessment criteria and the ability for brokers to channel business to a wider range of lenders. Approximately 2,180 brokers did not settle a home loan during the reported six-month period. Broker population The number of brokers only decreased very slightly, but as this is the first time the numbers have gone down it is thought to be due to the lack of the missing aggregator's data. The MFAA estimated that if the data had been included there would have been an increase of 2%. Tasmania's broker population has grown the most, by 35%, followed by Victoria with 29% growth and then NSW and ACT with 24.8%. The only area to decrease broker population was the Northern Territory, with a drop of 9.8%. The report also shows the national average number of Australians per mortgage broker has increased compared with the last six months from 1,452 to 1,475 to one. The association puts this down to a plateauing number of brokers but a rising Australian population. Tasmania has the most number of Australians per broker, with 4,131 people for every one broker, followed by the Northern Territory, which has 3,334 people per broker. Western Australia has the least number of people per broker, with one broker per 880 people. Remuneration Nationally, there is little change in the estimated combined average upfront and trail remuneration compared to the previous report, from $132,800 in April-September 2017, to $132,793 in October 2017 - March 2018. Looking only at upfront commission, the average gross upfront remuneration per broker for this period, before costs, was $75,604, compared to $76,715 for the April-to-September 2017 period. While it has declined nationally, there are more specific state details. According to the report, NSW and ACTs average upfront commission declined by nearly $5,800, or 6.5%, from $88,570 in April-September 2017 to $82,787 this period. On the other hand, Victorias rose by just over $4,700, or 6.1%, from $77,855 the prior period, to $82,601 this period. Trail commission has risen nationally by 1.9% to an average $57,189 and state-by-state the averages have remained stable, apart from South Australia where averages dropped by $4000, but is now in line with the national average. Tasmania also saw a drop of 6.6%, from $40,659 to $43,354. Western Australias gross trail commission, at $68,165 is the nations largest. Latest News Effi launches solution that can get brokers paid their commission on the day of settlement New product can reduce the time it takes for commissions to get paid from 45-60 days to just one NAB throws weight behind e-lodgement disruptor Sympli Major mortgage lender signs deal with conveyancing start-up The new external dispute resolution scheme is ready to take complaints from consumers and small businesses from today (1 November). The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) consolidates the three predecessor EDR schemes, which were the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), Credit and Investment Ombudsman (CIO) and Superannuation Complaints Tribunal (SCT). The new scheme was given final approval by the minister for revenue and financial services back in May and has since received approval from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). According to a treasury statement, AFCA will provide free, fast and binding service for all financial complaints, whether they be related to banks, credit providers, insurance companies or superannuation funds. All financial firms required to hold membership of an EDR were required to be signed up by 21 September. AFCA will work with complainants and financial firms to reach fair outcomes, with a focus on delivering accessible services to meet diverse community needs, and a commitment to independent and impartial decision making. Launching AFCA today, independent chair, the Hon. Helen Coonan said, AFCA will play an important role in restoring trust in Australias financial institutions in the wake of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. We will influence reform in the financial services sector by raising standards and improving internal practices to reduce and resolve disputes. AFCA chief executive and chief ombudsman, David Locke added, AFCA will provide Australians with services that are easy to use, free and efficient. We will use a range of skills including conciliation and negotiation to find fair solutions for all the parties. Where matters cannot be settled then we will make timely and impartial determinations based upon the evidence. Any determinations of AFCA, if accepted by the consumer or small business, is binding on the financial services firm involved. The official opening of AFCAs doors is a significant milestone for the financial services sector and the consumers and small businesses who use these services every day. CEO of the Australian Banking Association, Anna Bligh, said banks are strong supporters of external dispute resolution and supported streamlining the process to better help customers understand where they need to go if they have a complaint. She added, A fast, free and binding service which deals with disputes outside of court is the best way for a customers issue to be heard and quickly resolved. The creation of AFCA as a one stop shop is an important next step for the industry as it provides customers an easy to access and easy to understand avenue for having disputes resolved quickly and fairly. Merging external dispute resolution schemes from insurance, banking and superannuation into one organisation will ensure there is a consistency for the customer in decision making on their issues. The Banking Code of Practice will be used by AFCA as the new benchmark for industry practice, considering in its investigations if a bank has breached the Code and therefore its contract with the customer." Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC Its a spook-tacular Fort Greene tradition! Furry, four-legged Brooklynites modeled a gamut of getups in Fort Greene Park on Sunday during the neighborhoods annual dog-costume contest, where one mutt had onlookers salivating with his breakfast-inspired disguise, according to an admirer. My favorite was probably a beagle that was covered in lox and cream cheese a cream-cheese-and-lox beagle, said Fort Greener Peter Adams, who brought his mutt George to sniff out the competition. The bagel-loving beagle wasnt the only pup whose outfit took inspiration from food Adams dressed George as a bunch of grapes, an ironic costume that he said called attention to what many say is a forbidden fruit for Fido. Grapes are dangerous for dogs, it was a meta thing, Adams said. Dozens of furballs came out to the green space for the 20th-annual Great Pupkin Dog Costume Contest, which drew canines dressed as politicians, athletes, and television and film characters. And the festivities werent just an opportunity for dressed-up pups to parade in front of Halloween-loving humans some of the dogs in attendance were looking for forever homes, according to one foster mom, who brought the Maltese-Yorkie mix Archie shes currently caring for to the costume party, and praised it as a wonderful way to come together. It was his first experience with a lot of other dogs since we got him, it was good for him to socialize, said Downtowner Fernanda Serpa, who dressed Archie, who is available for adoption through True North Rescue Mission, as Luke Skywalker for the occasion. Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC The citys top cop on Oct. 28 apologized to a woman raped in Prospect Park nearly 25 years ago, blasting the officers who doubted her account of the incident at the time, and the prominent New York Daily News writer who accused her of fabricating the crime in columns that used information from someone the womans allies allege is senior Police Department official. The survivor of the 1994 Prospect Park rape case suffered a terrible ordeal when she was brutally violated, Police Commissioner James ONeill wrote in an apology posted on the Police Departments website, and shared via his personal Twitter account. And there is zero justification for the additional trauma she endured when her word was doubted by authorities investigating her claim, and a writer for a major New York City daily newspaper, who citing unnamed NYPD sources predicted in print that she would soon be arrested for filing a false report. And although the Police Department took more than two decades to recognize its fault in the crimes aftermath, the victim accepted ONeills apology nonetheless. I appreciate this straightforward and unequivocal apology from Commissioner ONeill on behalf of the NYPD, the woman said in written a statement on Oct. 29. It represents a significant step forward, and stands in marked and welcome contrast to the current cultural climate where victims are denigrated and doubted. The woman, a lesbian who remains anonymous to this day, was attacked at 27-years-old in the park near Lookout Hill, days before she was to speak at a rally opposing anti-LGBTQ violence. Following the incident, Daily News scribe Mike McAlary argued in his columns that she made up the crime to promote the rally, and claimed police were going to arrest her a position he maintained even after cops said they found semen on her clothing. In January, cops linked DNA found at the rape scene to a 68-year-old man who is currently serving a 75-years-to-life sentence for 1998 sexual-assault convictions. But the statute of limitations ran out on the April 1994 attack, prohibiting prosecutors from charging the man, who is not eligible for a first parole hearing until 2070. McAlary, who died in 1998, discredited the victim in no less than three columns, which led her to sue him for libel. The journalist later admitted in depositions for that suit, which a judge dismissed in 1997, that his columns relied on a single source, the then head of the Police Departments press office, John Miller who consistently denied playing such a role other than initially telling reporters to be cautious in writing about the rape case, and now runs the Departments counterterrorism unit. Following the revelation of the rapists identity, however, Miller sent a written apology to the woman via the attorney who represented her in the libel suit. But the lawyer told our sister publication Gay City News that Millers words were far from apologetic. We received something from John Miller two weeks ago and I dont consider it an apology, attorney Martin Garbus said at the time. LGBTQ activists pushed for ONeill to publicly apologize to the woman shortly after police named the rapist, and he agreed to do so in May, according to a former head of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, who was among those demanding an apology. After the case was reopened and announced solved in January, a bunch of crime victims organizations got together and asked how can we use this to press forward for long needed reforms, said Matt Foreman. The activists also pushed ONeill to fire Miller, Foreman said, but the top cop stood behind his fellow Boy in Blue. ONeills apology came weeks after Mayor DeBlasio told NY1 anchor Errol Lewis that sexual-assault victims will be believed in New York City a promise his Police Department cast doubt on earlier this month, when a woman told officers in Williamsburg that she was raped, but the cops, citing dark and grainy surveillance footage, instead claimed she was the victim of an attempted rape. 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 Smash lout Some jerk smashed up a womans car she parked on Berkeley Place on Oct. 14. The victim told police she left her 2001 Dodge Caravan between Fifth and Sixth avenues in tip-top condition at 11:30 am, and returned two days later to find her rear windshield shattered and one of her tail lights busted. No arrests have been made in the case, which has been closed, cops said. Coughing fit Cops arrested a 21-year-old man accused of busting up a Sixth Street hospital on Oct. 20 and kicking an employee. The victim told police he was escorting the suspect out of the medical center between Seventh and Eighth avenues at 2:10 am when he smashed a door, before striking the worker with a swift kick to the ribs. Police cuffed the suspect that day, charging him with misdemeanor assault, cops said. Bike bandit A thief rode off with a womans bike she locked to a fence on Eighth Avenue on Oct. 18. The victim told police she chained her Critical Cycles bike near President Street at 10:30 pm, and returned the next morning to find her pedal-powered ride stolen. No arrests have been made in the case, which was been closed, cops said. Helter shelter Some crook made off with a mans pair of Gucci sunglasses he stashed in a locker at a Butler Street homeless shelter on Oct. 15. The victim told police he stowed his designer shades at the shelter between Nevins Street and Third Avenue before heading to work at 8 pm, and returned the next morning to find them stolen. No arrests have been made in the case, which has been closed, according to police. Import export A thief motored off with a mans German motorcycle he parked on Sixth Avenue on Oct. 14. The victim told police he left his 2017 BMW RGT between Third and Fourth streetsat 6:45 pm, and returned the next at around noon to find an empty space where his top-of-the-line German-import bike had been. No arrests have been made in the case, which has been closed, 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 On Friday, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) finally gave the nod to the proposed demerger of textile major Arvind Ltds different business divisions that were clubbed under the company for decades. The regulatory approvals pave the way for the company to go ahead with its plan to divvy up its three main businesses of fabrics, fashion and engineering and list them separately on the stock market by January 2019. Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor The new board of India's Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) submitted a plan to revive the debt-laden firm to a company law tribunal on Wednesday, paving the way to a potential resolution of the group's future. The government this month took control of IL&FS, a major infrastructure financing and development company, after it defaulted on some of its debt, triggering fears of contagion across India's financial system. "It is a dream and hope blueprint for revival," Sanjay Shorey, Director for Legal Prosecution in the Ministry of Corporate ... The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) Wednesday directed the camp to submit specific changes it wants in the Articles of Association (AoA) of Sons. A two-member bench headed by Justice S J Mukhopadhaya asked the Mistry camp to file within tow days the changes it was seeking in the AoA. Mistry, who was sacked as Chairman of Sons in 2016 is fighting against the company alleging oppression of minority shareholder. The bench has also directed Sons and others to file reply within two weeks and posted the matter on December 11, 12 and 13 for next hearing. During the proceedings, senior advocate C A Sundaram appearing for the Mistry camp said that he was fighting for the future of the company (Tata Sons) and was seeking relief in the interest of the company. "There are acts of mismanagement and oppression and I am not going open that today. I want to look into future," he said. Sundaram insisted that he wanted a directorship in Tata Sons as they hold 18 per cent shares of the company. The appellate tribunal was hearing a batch of petitions filed by ousted Chairman and two investment firms supporting him. The Mistry camp had challenged the July 9 order of the Mumbai bench of the NCLT which dismissed their pleas against his removal as Tata Sons chairman, as also the allegations of rampant misconduct on part of and the company's board. A special bench of the tribunal had held that the board of directors at Tata Sons was "competent" to remove the executive chairperson of the company. The NCLT bench had also said that Mistry was ousted as chairman because the Tata Sons' Board and its majority shareholders had "lost confidence in him". Under the Act 2013, an order of NCLT can be challenged before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT). Mistry, who was the sixth chairman of Tata Sons, was ousted from the position in October 2016. He had taken over as the chairman in 2012 after announced his retirement. Two months after his removal, Mistry's family-run firms Cyrus Investments Pvt Ltd and Sterling Investments Corp approached the NCLT as minority shareholders, against Tata Sons, Ratan Tata, and some other board members. Mistry in his pleas primarily argued that his removal was not in accordance with the Act and that there was rampant mismanagement of affairs across Tata Sons. He also alleged that Tata Trust chairperson and trustee N Soonawala interfered with the day-to-day operations of the group companies, they acted as shadow directors, and all of the above caused massive revenue loss for the group. About Me Scott Because prophetic scriptures are found throughout the bible, it is obvious that a comprehensive, systematic approach would be useful, if not necessary, for the understanding of prophecy. Past prophecies have been fulfilled in a literal manner, as confirmed by the dating of these writings and historical records of confirmation. These past prophecies also serve as a model of how to interpret future prophecies. A literal view of prophecy clearly indicates a certain sequence of events will occur within a single generation, concluding with the Tribulation and Second Advent and these events will be obvious. The prophetic signs appear to be present in this generation and we believe these signs are revealed in the news from around the world. View my complete profile For a brand that is just a year shy of its century, Nerolac has been spinning advertising and promotion wheels with the energy of a newborn. Be it on digital media or on television, the latest spate of ads with brand ambassador Ranveer Singh are hard to miss. And the ads are also unflinching in their examination of the brands journey thus far, acknowledging the fact that many consumers still do not think of the brand as a paint for their walls even though their refrigerators, cars and other appliances wear its colours. Time for change, the ads say, hinting to viewers that it is ... Tata Steel Ltd said on Wednesday it will continue talks with the European Commission after the body raised concerns over its planned steel joint venture with Thyssenkrupp. The European Commission (EC) on Tuesday opened a deeper investigation into the proposed steel joint venture over concerns that it could raise prices and harm competition. Thyssenkrupp and Tata Steel earlier this year unveiled plans to combine their steel activities in Germany, the Netherlands and Britain to become the continent's second-largest steelmaker after ArcelorMittal. "Tata Steel has noted ... Metals and mining conglomerate Ltd Wednesday reported a 34.32 per cent decline in its consolidated net profit to Rs 13.43 billion for the July-September quarter. The Anil Agarwal-led company had clocked a "Profit attributable to owners of Ltd" of Rs 20.45 billion during the corresponding quarter previous fiscal. Its total income during the quarter rose to Rs 232.97 billion as against Rs 225.09 billion in the corresponding period last fiscal. The total expenses also rose to Rs 209.99 billion during the quarter under review as against Rs 188.54 billion in the year-ago period. The company said in a statement that its balance sheet was strong and the net debt reduced by Rs 35.53 billion in Q2 FY2019. "I am pleased with the growth in volume this quarter at our businesses. The Company is uniquely poised to grow in commodities that have rising demand especially in India with an enviable growth pipeline which is systematically being brought to fruition. I am very excited to be part of the growth story and see a strong second half in both volumes and profitability across the businesses," Vedanta Chief Executive Officer Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan said. The on Wednesday sentenced 16 policemen to life imprisonment for killing 42 people of a minority community in the in Uttar Pradesh. A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel reversed the trial court's verdict which had acquitted the accused. The high court convicted 16 former Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel for murder and of kidnapping, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence under the Indian Penal Code. It termed the massacre "targeted killing" of unarmed and defenceless people by the police. The high court's verdict came on pleas challenging a trial court's decision to acquit 16 policemen of charges of murder and other crimes in the case. Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) chairman Bhure Lal on Tuesday said that private vehicles may not be allowed to ply on roads if continues to worsen in the capital. Speaking to ANI, Lal said, "We had a meeting with Delhi Lieutenant Governor (LG) Anil Baijal on Monday. He has directed all officials to take strict action if required. We might have to stop the functioning of private cars if increases in the city. I hope it does not, but if need be we will have to do this." He further said that the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) will be implemented from November 1. The action plan suggests measures to be taken based on the index in Delhi and Capital Region (NCR). In a meeting held on October 22, EPCA had earlier instructed the industrialists to stop burning rubber and plastic in Narela and Bawana industrial belt as it has escalated the level of toxic content in the air. Environment Pollution Control Authority is a committee constituted by the central government to check pollution in Delhi and NCR. The contribution of indoor is estimated to vary between 22 and 52 per cent, according to a UNEP study which said emissions from household cooking and heating will need to be reduced to greatly improve air quality. Amid an alarming rise in in the national capital, the United Nations Environment Programme has come out with 25 measures to combat it. Use of clean fuels, electricity, natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in cities, and LPG and advanced biomass cooking and heating stoves in rural areas, promoting the use of electric vehicles, encouraging a shift from private passenger vehicles to public transport are among the methods suggested by the UNEP in its report. The report was titled ' in Asia and the Pacific: Science-based Solutions'. Another source of pollution that was highlighted by the UNEP report was fugitive dust. "This fugitive dust can arise from unpaved roads and infrastructure development and is a serious air pollution problem in areas with expanding transport and construction networks," the report said. For example, some cities in India attribute more than half of their PM2.5 to this dust. Several technical options are available to policy makers to address these problems, including resurfacing unpaved surfaces and dust suppression using water and suitable chemicals. The report noted that in India the contribution of indoor air pollution to ambient air pollution is estimated to vary between 22 and 52 per cent. "A number of studies indicate that reducing emissions from household cooking and heating may be required to substantially improve ambient air quality in some parts of Asia and the Pacific," the report noted. It said every day around 93 per cent of the world's children under the age of 15 years breathe air that is so polluted it puts their health and development at serious risk. It said the 25 solutions can tackle air pollution in the Asia-Pacific region, where 92 per cent of the region's population is exposed to dirty air. In India, the government has taken a cross-sectoral approach, asking power companies to buy agricultural waste from farmers and convert it into biomass pellets that can be co-fired with coal. In addition, India is exploring the potential for biomass gasification, the use of seed drills that incorporate residues as a mulch (happy seeders), and bio-methanation processes that could put agricultural residues to productive use and make open burning bans more effective, the report said. The UNEP report clearly places emission reduction from industry and power sector on top of the list. Meanwhile, Greenpeace India said, "The UNEP report is another proof that we need to get our priorities right to tackle air pollution." "However, what we are witnessing in India for the past several years is quite contrary," it said in a statement. The draft National Clean Air Programme clearly failed to mention sector specific targets for reducing emissions from industry and coal power sector, it said. "More worse is the fact that MoEFCC and MoP have been diluting and extending deadlines of the implementation of emission standards from thermal power plants," it said. Sunil Dahiya, Senior Air Pollution Campaigner Greenpeace India said,"If we want to bring down the air pollution levels in the country, specifically in north india, then our top priority should be reducing emissions from fossil fuels, especially from coal thermal power plants, industries and vehicles and we come out with a NCAP with clear time bound sectoral targets. Mumbai's Economic Offences Wing administered the first-ever repayment of as much as Rs 300 million to investors of the now defunct National Spot Exchange (NSEL). The EOW is one of several agencies probing the Rs 56-billion default in 2013 to investors. There were 26 defaulting entities which, after having borrowed from investors, declared they were unable to repay. Around Rs 5 billion has been given back to the investors since the default but this tranche is the first to be routed through the EOW, which had attached the properties of the defaulters and promoters/directors ... The statue of Sardar Vallabhai Patel, the tallest in the world, is being given the finishing touches as senior officials descend on the town, tiny restaurants struggle to feed the multitudes, and schools and hostels double up as accommodation for police forces and officials on duty to oversee the inauguration on Wednesday by the Prime Minister. At 182 metres, the Statue of Unity, as it is called in honour of the role Sardar Patel played in unifying the princely states into the Union of India, is twice the height of the ... 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 India on Tuesday successfully conducted the night trial of the indigenously developed nuclear capable ballistic missile off the Odisha coast. The surface-to-surface was test-fired as part of a user-trial from the Abdul Kalam Island off Odisha coast. Defence sources said Strategic Forces Command of Indian Army test-fired the missile and the night trial of Agni missile was successful. The night trial of the ballistic missile with a strike range of 700 km was first conducted in April 2014, said sources. The missile with a strike range of beyond 700 km has a specialised navigation system. It has already been inducted in the Indian Army. "All is not well in Bihar", the Supreme Court said Wednesday and expressed displeasure over the failure of police in arresting former state minister Manju Verma -- who stepped down in the wake of the -- in a case of recovery of "illegal ammunition" from her. A bench comprising Justices Madan B Lokur, S Abdul Nazeer and Deepak Gupta, which had Tuesday pulled up the Bihar Police for not arresting the ex-minister, was informed by the state that Verma was in "hiding". "All the not well in Bihar. A former minister has gone hiding and the state does not know where its former cabinet minister has gone after her (anticipatory) bail plea was rejected," the bench said while terming it as "strange". Manju Verma had resigned as social welfare minister in Bihar government following the Muzaffarpur case, where several women at a shelter home were allegedly raped and sexually abused, after it came to light that her husband Chandrashekhar Verma had spoken to prime accused Brajesh Thakur several times between January and June. Her husband had surrendered before a Begusarai court in Bihar on Monday in connection with the case related to recovery of ammunition. The apex court was earlier informed that Manju Verma's anticipatory bail plea was dismissed by the Patna High Court on October 9. During the hearing on Wednesday, the bench was also informed that the CBI team probing the Muzaffarpur shelter home case has not been changed. Advocate Aparna Bhat, assisting the court as an amicus curiae in the case, had Tuesday told the bench that she has got information that one of the members of CBI team probing the Muzaffarpur case has been changed despite court's specific direction that composition of the investigating team be not changed without the leave of court. The court had also directed that Brajesh Thakur be shifted to Patiala high security jail in Punjab from Bihar's Bhagalpur jail. The order to shift Thakur out of Bihar was passed after the CBI had on October 25 told the court that he was an influential person and was found in possession of mobile phone inside the Bhagalpur jail. On September 20, the court had said it had come on record that Chandrashekhar Verma and his wife were in "possession of illegal ammunition of a fairly large quantity". It was not clear whether they were in possession of illegal arms as well. The court had observed that the CBI, in its status report filed earlier, had noted that an FIR has been lodged against Chandrashekhar and Manju Verma. "The affairs of these two need to be looked into, particularly with regard to their procurement and possession of illegal ammunition and availability of illegal weapons, if any. We request the local police in the state of Bihar to look into this aspect with some degree of seriousness," the bench had said in its order. Over 30 girls were allegedly raped and sexually abused at the shelter home in Muzaffarpur and the issue was first highlighted in an audit report submitted by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to the state's social welfare department. An FIR was lodged on May 31 against 11 people, including Thakur, who was running the shelter home. The probe was later taken over by CBI and so far 17 people have been arrested. The apex court had earlier termed as "horrible" and "scary" details placed before it by CBI about the investigation into the case. Respected Sardar Patelji, Namaskar! Wherever you may be, as our leader of the Freedom Movement, your soul, I know, rests here on the motherland whose beloved son you have always been. Your act of freeing India from the shackles of royal states and estates and of freeing the farmers from the oppressive tax laws of the British regime is unprecedented even to this day. As the first home minister of the first government of Independent India, your firm, non-communal and social approach to the unparalleled violence and the relief work thereafter, was appreciated by none else than ... Clearing the decks for the construction of an airport in Gautam Buddh Nagar's Jewar, the government on Tuesday issued a notification for the acquisition of land for the greenfield project. The district administration had on October 17 completed the proceedings at its level and sent a proposal to the government for the acquisition of 1,239 hectare of land from six villages in Jewar. Civil Aviation Special Secretary, Uttar Pradesh, Surya Pal Gangwar issued the notification. "Under sub-section (1) of section 11 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, the government of is satisfied that a total 1,239.1416 hectares of land is required in the villages Banwariwas, Dayanatpur Kishorpur, Parohi, Ranhera and Rohi in Jewar tehsil of district Gautamm Buddh Nagar for public purspose, namely, the development of the Noida Internation Greenfield Airport, Jewar throgh the Civil Aviation Department, Uttar Pradesh," an official document read. The proposed airport, second in the Capital Region (NCR) after Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport, would cost around Rs 150 billion to Rs 200 billion and is expected to be operational by 2022-23. "It's a big development. All stakeholders involved have worked really hard for this. The administration will continue to ensure that the necessary proceedings here on are completed on time and the work on the airport begins as scheduled," District Magistrate Brajesh Narain Singh told The autonomy of the central bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential and accepted government requirement, the Finance Ministry said on Wednesday amid a widening rift between the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). "Both the Government and the central bank, in their functioning, have to be guided by public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy," the Ministry said in a statement. The note said extensive consultations on several issues take place between the government and the RBI, details of which are never disclosed by the ... The Indo-French Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IFCCI), in association with the Embassy of France, is organising an Indo-French Investment Conclave in the city on November 2, which is expected to be attended by 30 French firms. French Ambassador Alexandre Ziegler will lead a delegation of around 112 representatives of Indo-French companies to the conclave, a release from IFCCI said. Union minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis are also expected to be present at the event, it added. Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, chief convener of the event Prassana Mohile said that the conclave will open many avenues for a multilateral trade partnership between India and France in the key areas of defence and aerospace, smart mobility and logistics, and infrastructure. Over 300 visitors and around 30 French companies are expected to participate in the discussions leading to an enabling environment for boosting the Indo-French partnership, the release said. Ziegler said French companies see great potential in the "They invest and innovate in India. Maharashtra is emerging as a very promising investment destination in India and I am confident that this conclave will prove to be very fruitful for the Indo-French trade relationship," he added. According to Guillaume Girard-Reydet, president, IFCCI, India is at the cusp of an unprecedented transformation powered by factors such as rapid urbanisation and increasing consumption driven by its young population. "At this juncture, France sees great opportunity in partnering with India's transformative economic programmes such as Make in India, Digital India, and Smart Cities and IFCCI is helping in facilitating this through this Indo-French Investment Conclave," he said. The event will bring together Indian national and state authorities, policymakers, top private sector players from India and France, multilateral agencies, and eminent industry experts, the release said. Nearly a century ago, the princely state of Travancore was convulsing with the question of entry of lower castes into the temple at Vaikom. As holy a sage as Sree Narayana Guru, the saint of the Ezhavas, had been prevented from using the roads around the Vaikom Shiva temple. Upon the request of some citizens of Travancore, Mahatma Gandhi had sent Congress workers, including EV Ramaswami Naicker (Periyar), to help in the Satyagraha, demanding equal entry to the temple. The Maharaja of Travancore at the time was Shri Chitra Thirunal then 12 years old. His step-mother and ... Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal. They do not reflect the view/s of Business Standard. The government has written to the RBI hinting it may invoke Section 7 of the Reserve Bank of India Act 1934 a provision that has never been used since the inception of the law to issue directions on relaxing prompt corrective action (PCA) norms, liquidity to non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), among others, sources said. What does Section 7 of the RBI Act say? According to ... 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 Bain Capital and CVC Capital Partners are among the private equity firms competing to acquire Papa John's International Inc , the world's third-largest pizza delivery company, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The buyout interest in Papa John's comes amid a battle for control with its founder John Schnatter, who owns about 30 per cent of the company. He resigned as chairman in July following reports that he had used a racial slur on a media training conference call. Since then, Schnatter has been seeking ways to regain influence, and asked Papa ... President Donald Trump's decision to bring an executive order to end the right to the for children born in the US to non-citizens has invited widespread criticism, even from his own party. In his latest hardline immigration rhetoric ahead of the midterm congressional elections, Trump, in an interview with Axios, has said birthright citizenship "has to end" and that it would "with an executive order." "You cannot end the birthright citizenship with an executive order," said Congressman Paul Ryan, Speaker of the US House of Representatives. "We didn't like it when (former President) Obama tried changing immigration laws via executive action, and obviously as conservatives, we believe in the Constitution," Ryan told a local radio station in Lexington, Kentucky. Under the current laws, anyone born in the US irrespective of the nationality of parents, automatically becomes an American citizen. "It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment, one amendment. You don't have to do it. Number one. Number two, you can definitely do it with an act of Congress. But now they are saying, I can do it just with an executive order," Trump told Axios in an interview. A portion of the interview was released Tuesday. The full interview "Axios on HBO" is scheduled to be aired on Sunday. Such a practice to give citizenship to anyone born in the US is "ridiculous", Trump said. He said that we are the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the US for 85 years with all of those benefits. "It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end". Trump said that the effort to end this practice was in the process. "We are in the process. It'll happen with an executive order. That's what you're talking about." According to Axios, Trump said that he has run the idea of ending birthright citizenship by his counsel and plans to proceed with the highly-controversial move, which certainly will face legal challenges. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, said it would require a constitutional amendment to make necessary changes on who all can acquire citizenship. "I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me it would take a constitutional amendment to change that as opposed to an executive order," Grassley told a local news channel in Iowa. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution affirms that, with very few exceptions, all persons born in the US are American citizens, regardless of the immigration status of their parents, said the American Immigration Council. The Supreme Court has upheld the principle of birthright citizenship for more than a century, it said. "Birthright citizenship defines who we are as a nation and is a core part of our American heritage and history. Eliminating birthright citizenship would do nothing to solve our immigration issues," said Beth Werlin, executive director of the American Immigration Council. "No president can change the Constitution with the stroke of a pen. The only way to eliminate birthright citizenship would be through a new Constitutional amendment," he said. Breitbart News, however, came out in support of Trump's move. Revoking birthright citizenship would have immediate and far-reaching consequences, it said. "It would mean the children of illegal aliens, even if born in the United States, would not be bestowed upon birth," it said. "It would also likely deter the practice of foreigners having 'anchor babies', where they aim to give birth to children on US soil so as to obtain for their children at birth," Breitbart said. Vice President Mike Pence also came out in Trump's defence, saying, "The President has made clear is that we are looking at action that would reconsider birthright citizenship." "We all know what the 14th Amendment says. We all cherish the language of the 14th Amendment. But the Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled on whether or not the language of the 14th Amendment, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, applies specifically to people who are in the country illegally. I think the President is looking at executive action. I know the Congress has looked at legislative action to reconsider that," Pence said in an interview. Another Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi slammed Trump for his move. "President Trump's new claim he can unilaterally end the Constitution's guarantee of citizenship shows Republicans' spiraling desperation to distract from their assault on Medicare, Medicaid and people with pre-existing conditions," she said. "The President does not have the power to erase parts of the Constitution, but he and the GOP Congress have spent two years trying to erase protections for people with pre-existing conditions," Pelosi said. Senator Lindsay Graham said that he intends to introduce a legislation in the Senate to bring a constitutional amendment in this regard. When it comes to buying Iranian oil, Donald Trump has laid down the law for the world: Dont do it. Starting next week, the US president will have to decide how to deal with violators. His unilateral sanctions on oil purchases take effect Nov 5, and theyre supposed to present the world with a stark choice. Do business in Iran or in the United States is how Brian Hook, the State Departments special representative for Iran policy, put it last month. But despite the hard-line approach, it looks like there will be plenty of countries - ... Afghanistan's parliamentary elections this month broke with international convention, stretching the ballot out over two weekends. Now Afghans are anxious to know whether lessons from three chaotic days of polling in different parts of the country will be learned in time for next year's nail-biter presidential vote. Kandahar was the last province but one to cast votes in an election that itself was overdue by three years. The cause of the delay there was a security panic triggered by the assassination of General Abdul Raziq whose personal guard was infiltrated by the ... Six people have been arrested and14 kilograms of opium were seized from their possession here on Tuesday. The estimated cost of the seizure is around Rs 5 lakh. The arrest was made in a joint operation by Anti-Terror Squad and Jharkhand Police. Sub-Divisional Police Officer Neeraj Kumar Singh told media, "The accused were on their way to the railway station when we caught them. They were going to Punjab to supply the drug. Total three men and three women are involved in this." All accused belong to Chattra district and have been taken to Ranchi by the Anti-Terror Squad for further investigation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An accountability court in Islamabad has prepared a questionnaire for former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in connection with the Al-Azizia reference case. On Tuesday, the court had directed the prosecution to record Sharif's statement during the next hearing of the case. This came after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) prosecutor Wasiq Malik informed accountability court judge, Arshad Malik, that the anti-graft watchdog had furnished evidence against the accused in the case, Geo News reported. The judge has also prepared a questionnaire and a copy of the same has been sent to special prosecutor Akram Qureshi. Sources said that the former Pakistan premier will have to answer around 100 questions and record his final statement in regards to the case. The trial against the Sharif family in multiple corruption cases had started on September 14 last year. They are accused of money laundering, tax evasion and hiding offshore assets. On July 6, Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz were convicted in absentia in the Avenfield reference case by the accountability court. Apart from jail sentences, fines of eight million pounds and two million pounds were slapped on the father-daughter duo, respectively. Sharif's son-in-law Captain (retd.) Muhammad Safdar was also given a one-year sentence but was exempted from paying fine. However, last month, the Islamabad High Court had ordered the release of the trio, owing to lack of evidence. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hours after the Pakistan Supreme Court acquitted Asiya Bibi in a blasphemy case, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, an Islamist political party has called for rebellion against the Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. TLP leader Azfal Qadri said, "The Muslim generals of the army, it is their responsibility to launch a rebellion against Bajwa. Even the judges (who delivered the verdict) should be sentenced to death. The Imran Khan government should be ousted and he should leave Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party." Earlier today, Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Mian Saqib Nisar read out the verdict and overturned a lower court's order which awarded a death sentence to Asiya. A three-judge special bench headed by Justice Nisar and comprising Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel heard Bibi's 2014 appeal against her conviction and death sentence. After the verdict was announced, scores of TLP supporters took to streets in several parts of Pakistan and launched massive protests opposing the verdict. According to Samaa TV, protestors, including workers of political parties, gathered outside the Punjab Assembly in Lahore after pronouncement of the verdict. As many as 21 roads including G.T. Road have been blocked by demonstrators. The roadblocks have led to traffic snarls in several parts of Pakistan, after which diversions have been put in place to ease the situation. The protests also witnessed violent outbursts as agitators burned tyres in several areas of Karachi. In the wake of widespread protests, the Punjab Home Department has imposed Section 144 in the province till November 10, barring gatherings in public places. Asiya a Christian woman, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2010 in connection to a blasphemy case for her alleged comments against Prophet Mohammed during an argument with three Muslim women. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Indian-French duo of Rohan Bopanna and Edouard Roger-Vasselin cruised into the pre-quarters round of the ongoing Paris Masters after defeating Dutch pair of Matwe Middelkoop and Robin Haase in the men's doubles event here on Wednesday. Bopanna and Vasselin registered a convincing 7-6, 5-7, 10-5 win over their Dutch opponents to advance further in the tournament. Hitting eight aces, while maintaining 86 percent win percentage in the match, the Indo-French pair battled hard to edge past the Dutch duo. The pair made a winning start to the match by clinching the opening set 7-6 but in the second set, they slumped to a 5-7 defeat. In a hard-fought third set, they managed to get back to the winning momentum as they ended with a 10-5 score in their favour. Bopanna and Vasselin will next take on Mate Pavic of Croatia and Australia's Oliver Marach to book a spot in the quarter-final of the tournament. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amid some media reports stating that Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel may consider resigning after an alleged rift with Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, the Finance Ministry on Wednesday clarified that the government holds "extensive consultations with the RBI from time to time". The Finance Ministry, in a statement released on Wednesday, said that autonomy of the central bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential and accepted governance requirement. It further asserted that both the government and the central bank, in their functioning, have to be guided by public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy. "The autonomy for the Central Bank, within the framework of the RBI Act is an essential and accepted governance requirement. Governments in India have nurtured and respected this. Both the Government and the Central Bank have to be guided by public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy," the statement read. "For the purpose, extensive consultations on several issues take place between government and RBI from time to time. This is equally true of all regulators. The government of India has never made public the subject matter of those consultations. Only final decisions are communicated. The Government, through these consultations, places its assessment on issues and suggests possible solutions. The Government will continue to do so," the statement added. The Centre issued a note amid reports that it had invoked Section 7 of the RBI Act, which allows the central government to issue directions to the central bank governor on matters of public interest. Earlier in the day, former finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram warned of "more bad news" if reports stating that the government has invoked Section 7 of the RBI Act were true. He added that it showed that the government was 'desperate' and was hiding facts about the economy. "If, as reported, Government has invoked Section 7 of the RBI Act and issued unprecedented 'directions' to the RBI, I am afraid there will be more bad news today. We did not invoke Section 7 in 1991 or 1997 or 2008 or 2013. What is the need to invoke the provision now? It shows that government is hiding facts about the economy and is desperate" Chidambaram said in a tweet. Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy voiced his support for Patel and said he must be persuaded to stay. "If RBI governor resigns then it is a direct consequence of FM blaming him publicly yesterday for NPAs. Patel is a self-respecting scholar of economics (Ph.D in Banking from Yale). He should be persuaded to stay," Swamy tweeted. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court Collegium, on, Wednesday recommended four judges namely - Chief Justice Hemant Gupta of Madhya Pradesh High Court, Chief Justice R Subhash Reddy of the Gujarat High Court, Chief Justice MR Shah of Patna High Court and Chief Justice Ajay Rastogi of Tripura High Court - to be elevated as judges of the apex court. The resolution of the Collegium stated, "The Supreme Court of India is presently functioning with 24 Judges against the sanctioned strength of 31 Judges, leaving seven clear vacancies. After extensive discussion, the Collegium unanimously resolves to fill up, for the present, four of these vacancies." The declaration revealed that the names of judges eligible for promotion were deliberated upon, and apart from merit and integrity, the seniority at all-India level has also been taken into consideration. "While recommending the names of Justices Hemant Gupta, R Subhash Reddy, Mukeshkumar Rasikbhai Shah, and Ajay Rastogi, the Collegium has taken into consideration combined seniority on all-India basis of Chief Justices and senior puisne Judges of High Courts. The Collegium has also kept in mind, while recommending the above names that the High Courts of Punjab and Haryana, Gujarat and Rajasthan have remained unrepresented in the Supreme Court since long," the statement of Collegium read. "The Collegium is of the view that at present the following persons are more deserving and suitable in all respects than other Chief Justices and senior puisne Judges of High Courts, for being appointed as Judges of the Supreme Court of India." Abiding by the Memorandum of Procedure, the Collegium also declared copies of letters of opinion of their colleagues received to adjudge the suitability of recommended judges. The Collegium comprises Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, and four senior-most judges of the apex court - Justices Madan B Lokur, Kurian Joseph, AK Sikri and SA Bobde. Justice Hemant Gupta, Justice R Subhash Reddy, Justice Mukeshkumar Rasikbhai Shah, and Justice Ajay Rastogi have been ranked at 4, 5, 17 and 25 respectively in the combined seniority of High Court Judges on all-India basis. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Wednesday accused the Congress party of not paying due respect to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the first Home Minister of independent India. "Congress never gave due respects to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. It forgot him, who unified India. I congratulate the Prime Minister that he unveiled the world's tallest statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel today. That is the true tribute to him," Chouhan said at an event here. The Chief Minister said that it was unfortunate that Sardar Patel could not become the Prime Minister of the country. He said, "Had he not been there, India wouldn't have been unified. Had Kashmir been in his hands instead of Jawaharlal Nehru, its one-third part wouldn't have been with Pakistan. It was unfortunate that Sardar Patel wasn't a Prime Minister. What Congress did to him, need not be said again." Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the 182-metre tall 'Statue of Unity' as a tribute to the iconic freedom fighter on his 143rd birth anniversary. The statue stands on a ground, which is spread on an area of over 20,000 square meters in Sadhu Bet Island near river Narmada in Gujarat. The vast land is surrounded by a 12 square kilometre long artificial lake. The cost of the total project is estimated to be Rs. 2,989 crore. The structure has the accolade of being the tallest statue in the world. The birthday of India's Iron Man is being observed as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas or Unity Day since the year 2014. The day is being marked by people taking a pledge to protect the unity and integrity of the nation and is also Run for Unity events across the country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Police constable Rakesh Kaushal, who was wounded in a Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada on Tuesday, has succumbed to injuries, taking the death toll in the deadly attack to four. On Tuesday, a cemeraperson of public broadcaster Doordarshan and two police officers were killed in an ambush in a poll-bound Dantewada district- a Maoist hotbed in the heavily forested central Indian state. The attack took place at around 11 am in the Aranpur jungle area near Nilawaya village. Special Inspector General of Police (Anti-Naxal Operations) DM Awasthi, on Tuesday, informed reporters that the ambush seemed to target the road construction work in the region. Awasthi also revealed that a lot of blood was found at the spot, suggesting that around two-three Naxals were smoked out in the fire exchange with security forces. The police maintain that the attack is not related to upcoming elections in the state, which are scheduled in two phases- November 12 and 20. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Rapper Kanye West has announced that he is "distancing" himself from after months of publicly supporting United States President Donald Trump. "My eyes are now wide open and now realize I've been used to spread messages I don't believe in. I am distancing myself from and completely focusing on being creative," West tweeted on Tuesday. In another tweet, West added, "I would like to thank my family, loved ones, and community for supporting my ACTUAL beliefs and my vision for a better world." West's social media post comes after he was rumoured to be involved with a political apparel line called "Blexit," created by conservative commentator Candace Owens, which encourages African-American voters to abandon the Democratic Party. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Months after Hollywood filmmaker James Gunn was fired from the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' franchise by Disney Studios, fans demanded his rehiring. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a digital billboard which read "Save the Galaxy: James Gunn for Vol. 3" popped up in California, near Disneyland, in support of the filmmaker. A group of Gunn's fans also created a website, RehireJamesGunn.com, and paid a sum of USD 4,000 (Approx INR 2.96 lakh) to run the digital billboard, which will display the message till November 25. An online campaign has also been started by a group of fans who vouched in favour of Gunn. 29-year-old Giuseppe Cincinnato, a chef by profession and the man behind the campaign said that such an initiative was undertaken to show that the outrage was not confined to the online space. Speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, he said that everyone loves Gunn as many have seen him mature over the years as a filmmaker. Disney studios fired Gunn on July 20 after the filmmaker's old tweets that joked about rape and paedophilia resurfaced. Following Gunn's firing, Dave Bautista, along with many other celebrities including Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, and other 'Guardians of the Galaxy' stars, came out in support of the director. They even signed an open letter to rehire the director for the project. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Swedish racing driver Marcus Ericsson has moved to Indycar for the 2019 season, ending his association with Sauber F1 team. Making the announcement, Indycar, in an official statement said, "Schmidt Peterson Motorsports announced today that Marcus Ericsson will pilot the No. 7 Honda for the 2019 IndyCar Series season. The current Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team driver will make the move to the North American open-wheel racing series following the conclusion of Formula One's season later this year in Abu Dhabi." The 28-year-old stated that it is a great honour to be picked up by Indycar, adding that it is a perfect step for his career. The Formula One driver further stated that he is looking forward to work hard with the team and is all up for the challenges ahead. "It's a great honour to be picked as one of the drivers at Schmidt Peterson Motorsports and IndyCar for the 2019 season. It feels like a perfect step for me and my career after five years in F1. I can't wait to start work with SPM and all the people in the team which I've heard a lot of good things about," IndyCar official website quoted Ericsson, as saying. "They've had some great success over the years, and I'm looking forward to work hard to continue and improve on that path. The racing in IndyCar looks great and I feel really excited to be part of it in the future. It will be a lot to learn including new tracks, oval racing, etc. I know it won't be easy, but it's a challenge I'm very much looking forward to and I can't wait to get started," he added. Ericsson joins series veteran James Hinchcliffe who will continue his appointment in the number 5 Arrow Electronics Honda, while Briton Jack Harvey will maintain his part-time ride through the collaboration with Meyer Shank Racing. The Number 6 Honda remains open for the 2018 IndyCar Series and Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year Robert Wickens when he wants to and is able to return. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bodies of two terrorists have been recovered in Pulwama's Tral town following an exchange of fire between terrorists and security personnel, Jammu and Kashmir Police said on Wednesday. The police further informed that they have recovered arms and ammunition, including M4 and AK 47 rifles and other incriminating materials from the site of the encounter. The dead terrorists have been identified as Showkat Ahmad, a resident of Tral, and Usman from Pakistan. In its statement, the state police said, "The terrorists were affiliated with proscribed terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the same group was involved in a series of attacks and firing on the security forces' camp from a distance, in recent times. They were also involved in many other civilian atrocities in the area. The police investigation has started." The Police have also cautioned citizens not to venture near the encounter zone as stray explosive materials can prove to be dangerous. "People are requested to cooperate with police till the area is completely sanitised and cleared of all the explosives materials if any," the police said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Actor Jennifer Lawrence is ready to go behind the camera as she launched her production house 'Excellent Cadaver'. Along with her business partner Justine Polsky, 'Excellent Cadaver' inked a deal with Brad Weston's production house Makeready, reported The Hollywood Reporter. According to the deal, Makeready will screen the film projects that Lawrence's Excellent Cadaver develops and produces. Furthermore, the deal also gives Makeready and Excellent Cadaver to produce and finance films both independently and as partners. The deal will take into consideration some of the films Lawrence will star in. Makeready's head of film, Pam Abdy, will oversee the projects, Excellent Cadaver plans to acquire in the future. Weston who was all praises the 'Hunger Games' star said that her "versatility and commitment" to work with the top filmmakers highlighted the shared ambition to create out of the box films. Lawrence and Polsky said that they are thrilled to have partnered with Makeready and that they look forward towards to an "exciting collaboration". Lawrence received an Oscar for her performance in 2013 film 'Silver Linings Playbook' which also starred Bradley Cooper. She is well known for starring in 'X-Men' movie series. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled to death soon after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, while his body was 'cut into pieces', chief Turkish prosecutor Ifran Fidan said. "In accordance with plans made in advance, the victim Jamal Khashoggi, was choked to death immediately after entering the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. The victim's body was dismembered and destroyed following his death by suffocation," CNN quoted a statement from Fidan as saying. Fidan's statement comes amid growing pressure upon Riyadh to extradite the 18 individuals held for their alleged role in Khashoggi's murder, with Turkey demanding answers from Saudi Arabia regarding the crime. A few weeks after the October 2 incident, Saudi had accepted the fact that the group of 15 Saudi agents were behind the murder of the former Washington Post journalist, leading to an international furore and complicating the already delicate relations between Saudi, Turkey and the US. Turkish authorities have repeatedly accused Riyadh of causing hindrance in the ongoing investigations into the case by denying key pieces of evidence, including the whereabouts of the body. On Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called upon the Gulf country to expose the people who sanctioned the murder. Often on the receiving end of Khashoggi's criticisms, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had earlier lauded the "unique" cooperation between Saudi and Turkey. In wake of the murder, Germany suspended export licenses to Saudi, while US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo invalidated visas of Saudi officials who are believed to be part of the plot to murder the journalist. United States President Donald Trump has also come under immense pressure for his support for Riyadh, which is a key cog to the US' interests in the Middle East. While Trump condemned the murder, calling it "one of the worst cover-ups in the history of cover-ups," he stated that the US should not criticise the Saudi regime owing to the impending multi-billion dollar arms agreement between the two counties. 18 officials who were linked to the plan to murder Khashoggi have been arrested by Saudi. Khashoggi went missing on October 2, after stepping into Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul, Turkey to collect documents that would allow him to get married to Hatice Cengiz, who was waiting outside the consulate for Khashoggi. Cengiz raised an alarm after Khashoggi failed to re-emerge from the Saudi consulate. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A case has been registered against 12 lawyers from Uttar Pradesh for allegedly beating a police official. A video which went viral over social media shows few lawyers beating a police officer with shoes and later abusing and threatening him. The lawyers had barged into the chambers of district judge Rajendra Prasad to assault the sub-inspector. The protests from the lawyers erupted after a building in Sitapur was sealed by the district administration, said Sitapur Superintendent of Police Prabhakar Chaudhary. There is a club in the building where the police officials found many cartons of unaccounted liquor. Two lawyers, who own the club jointly, were detained and brought to a local police station for questioning. Thereafter the lawyers got livid with the action taken by the police and later gathered outside Prasad's office and assaulted the policemen, Chaudhary stated. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) United States Defence Secretary James Mattis on Tuesday called for a ceasefire in Yemen as the nation is engulfed in a war between Houthi rebels and the Saudi Arabia-led coalition forces. "We have to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it sometime in the future. We need to be doing this in the next 30 days," Sputnik quoted Mattis as saying during an event at the United States Institute of Peace. The war between Houthi and the Yemen government started in September 2014, as the Houthi assaulted the capital city of Sanaa and controlled it along with of other northern cities, including the port city of Hodeidah, after they advanced from the northern stronghold of Saada. This provoked military action from Saudi Arabia, who led the coalition and launched an aerial assault on the country in March 2015 to restore exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's government. Mattis further stated that all parties involved must gather at a negotiation table, observe a ceasefire and halt the airstrikes being carried out in the country, Sputnik cited a Washington Post reporter as saying. "We want to see everybody around a peace table based on a ceasefire, based on a pullback from the border and then based on ceasing dropping of bombs. This has got to end, we have to replace combat with compromise. It's time to stop this," Mattis said. He also pinned the blame for the conflict on Iran, saying, it is them "who keeps fueling this conflict, and they have to knock it off." On Tuesday, an airstrike conducted by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition forces led to the death of at least 150 Houthi rebels in Yemen's coastal city of Hodeidah. The coalition army also deployed 10, 000 additional troops, including forces from Sudan, to secure Hodeidah, Al Jazeera reported. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court of India has expressed its displeasure over government's "failure" to arrest former Bihar minister Manju Verma in connection with the Muzaffarpur shelter home case. A bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Madan Bhinmrao Lokur, observed, "All is not well in Bihar. Former minister goes hiding and the government does not know and has failed to arrest her even after her bail plea was rejected." The Janata Dal (United) leader was to be arrested after her anticipatory bail in an Arms Act case filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was rejected by the Patna High Court on October 9. The apex court asked the state government as to why the former minister has not been arrested yet. Verma resigned as the Social Welfare Minister of Bihar in August after her husband came under fire for allegedly having links with Brajesh Thakur, the prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case. The shelter home rape case pertains to the alleged sexual harassment of 44 girls residing at the state-run shelter home. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered for Asiya Bibi's immediate release after acquitting her of blasphemy charges. The Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mian Saqib Nisar, read out the verdict and reversed the trial court's order which sentenced her to death. The said order was later upheld by the Lahore High Court. "The judgement of the high court and that of the trial court is reversed," read the Chief Justice. He further mentioned that Bibi should be released from prison, provided she is not wanted in any other case, reported Dawn. The bench, which pronounced the judgement on Wednesday, comprised Chief Justice Nisar, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel. The top court had previously reserved its judgement on Bibi's final appeal against her death penalty on October 8. The legal appeal had challenged Lahore High Court's October 2014 judgement that upheld a trial court's 2010 decision of sentencing Bibi to death on charges of blasphemy. Security was heightened in Islamabad a night before the judgement, with Rangers and Frontier Constabulary being deployed to deal with any untoward incident in the aftermath of the verdict. Along with paramilitary forces, around 300 police personnel have been stationed to guard the Supreme Court building, which is right next to Pakistan's Parliament House. Stringent measures were taken due to security threats, including those by religious groups like Khadim Hussain Rizvi, who threatened to "paralyse the country within hours if the Supreme Court sets Asiya Bibi free", according to Dawn. Asiya Bibi, a Christian woman, had been convicted for blasphemy by a trial court for the alleged comments made by her against the Prophet during an argument with three Muslim women. According to Al Jazeera, the argument broke out after the women refused to drink water from a cup that Bibi had touched. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Italian counterpart, Giuseppe Conte, on Tuesday strongly condemned terrorism and called upon all United Nations (UN) member countries to effectively implement the UN-Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy during their meeting here. The two leaders issued a joint statement following their bilateral meeting here, where they stressed on the need for strong measures against terrorists, terror organizations and all those who encourage, support and finance terrorism. Apart from implementing the UN-Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, the two leaders called for the enactment of UNSC Resolution 1267 and other relevant UNSC resolutions in connection with the prevention and suppression of terrorism and terrorist financing. Addressing the issue of climate change, the two leaders reaffirmed their strong commitment to the full and swift implementation of the Paris Agreement, adopted to enhance the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. They reiterated their commitment to strengthen mutual understanding and expand the range of bilateral engagement to promote peace, stability, economic progress and prosperity of the two countries. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte left for Italy earlier today following his day-long official visit to India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's 'Statue of Unity' on the occasion his 143rd birth anniversary on Wednesday. Located on Sadhu-Bet Island, Gujarat, the 182-metre tall statue occupies over 20,000 square meters, and is surrounded by a 12 square km artificial lake. The structure has the accolade of being the tallest statue in the world. The birthday of India's Iron Man is being observed as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas or Unity Day since the year 2014. The day is be marked by people taking a pledge to protect the unity and integrity of the nation and is also marked by Run for Unity events being organised across the country. Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel expressed hope that the landmark structure will boost tourism in the state. "The whole country is waiting for the inauguration of the statue. Tourists will feel good here in the natural environment. Tourism will increase here on a large scale which is good for our country," Patel told the gathering ahead of the inauguration. The total project cost is estimated to be Rs. 2,989 crore. Apart from Prime Minister Modi, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, Madhya Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel and Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah were also present at the event. Tamil Nadu Ministers Kadambur Raju and Ma Foi K. Pandiarajan are also present at the event. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday chaired a review meeting with the Director(s) General of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) and Commissioner of Delhi Police, Amulya Patnaik here. Also present at the meeting were Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Gangaram Ahir and the Union Home Secretary, read a statement. During the meeting, the vacancy position, various issues related to direct recruitment and promotion to different posts in CAPFs and Delhi Police were discussed. Taking stock of the vacancy position and recruitment procedure of the CAPFs, Singh called for initiation of special mechanisms for reducing the delays and fast-tracking the recruitment activities in a time bound manner. Singh also expressed his satisfaction on the progress made by the CAPFs in recruitment during the last two years and also desired that departmental promotion should be processed at the earliest within powers vested to respective Director(s) General of the CAPFs and Delhi Police. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Myanmar will be taking back hundreds and thousands of displaced Rohingya refugees beginning mid-November. Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque informed reporters about the repatriation following the third Joint Working Group (JWG) meeting between Bangladesh and Myanmar on Wednesday, reported the Daily Star. Led by Permanent Secretary of Myanmar foreign ministry Myint Thu, the Myanmar delegation at JWG included senior officials from Myanmar police, Rakhine state government, state counselor office and departments of border affairs, relief, resettlement, health, and immigrant and population as well as Myanmar's ambassador to Bangladesh Lwin Oo. The Myanmar JWG delegation will be visiting Rohingya refugee camps in Kutupalong today. The delegation is scheduled to observe the living conditions of the Rohingyas, and participate in group discussions with them. Talking about the repatriation process, Myint Thu said that the process will start next month and directives have been streamlined. "We have the political will for the repatriation. We will begin the process next month. We have streamlined a lot of directives. We are instructing the police to work with the local community in maintaining law and order. We have been conducting awareness workshops among the police so that they do not discriminate against the Rohingya people," he said. Myanmar and Bangladesh set up the JWG comprising 15 members from each side in December last year. Naypyidaw had signed an agreement with Dhaka to resettle around one million citizens of Rakhine State currently living as refugees in Bangladesh. The Rohingyas are a minority ethnic group in Myanmar and are considered to be illegal immigrants. More than 700,000 of them are languishing in Bangladeshi refugee camps, after fleeing a brutal Myanmar army campaign in August last year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) On the 143rd birth anniversary of freedom fighter Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Congress party said that Patel, the first Home Minister of independent India, strongly opposed the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The Congress wrote on its official twitter handle, "Had Sardar Patel been alive today, he would have taken another strong decision for the welfare of the country." In its post on the micro-blogging site, attaching an old newspaper clipping of 1948, the party wrote, "The RSS and its ideology has created a danger for the identity of the country." Congress president Rahul Gandhi tweeted, "Ironic that a statue of Sardar Patel is being inaugurated, but every institution he helped build is being smashed. The systematic destruction of India's institutions is nothing short of treason." Gandhi was referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiling the 182-metre-tall Statue of Unity in Gujarat as a tribute to the freedom fighter. The Congress president said, "Sardar Patel was a patriot, who fought for an independent, united and secular India. A man with a steely will, tempered by compassion, he was a Congressman to the core, who had no tolerance for bigotry or communalism. On his birth anniversary, I salute this great son of India." After inaugurating the colossal statue, towering over the river Narmada in Gujarat, Prime Minister tore into the Opposition, saying, "I am amazed when some people of our own country dare to see this initiative from a political view and criticise us as if we have committed a huge crime. Is remembering the country's great personalities a crime?" Sardar Patel was also India's first deputy prime minister and is known as the "Iron Man of India" for uniting the feuding states after independence. While Gandhi and his colleagues say that Sardar Patel was a leader of the Congress party, the Bharatiya Janata Party maintains that he belonged to everybody. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Hours after the Supreme Court sought pricing details of the Rafale fighter jets from the Centre, the Congress party on Wednesday said that apex court's order vindicated the party's stand on alleged irregularities in the multi-billion dollar deal. Addressing a presser here, Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari asked the central government to come clean on the pact. "We would like to ask the BJP government - What are you trying to hide? Why can't you make the Rafale pricing details public, when in the past every transaction entered into by the government with a foreign or domestic entity has been transparently put into public space," he said. Earlier in the day, the top court sought details from the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government on the pricing and strategies of the Rafale fighters jets in a sealed cover within ten days. "The Supreme Court has made certain significant observations in Rafale deal today. Those directions which are in the form of interim orders vindicate the stand of Congress party and other patriotic forces. The court has ostensibly directed that the information in the confidential report submitted by the government in the last hearing should be made public. On pricing, which is the most significant part, the court has said that the government need to file an affidavit to claim confidentiality," Tiwari said. He added that a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) should be constituted immediately so that "all facts will transparently come out in the public domain." A controversy over Rafale jet deal has been on the boil over the last few months with the Congress and other opposition parties alleging irregularities in the high-profile pact signed between India and France in 2016. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Garima Tyagi New Delhi [India], Oct 31 (ANI) The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked Assam government to apprise it about the timeline by when necessary facilities like gas, medical facilities can be provided in detention centers. A bench comprising Justice Madan B Lokur, Justice S Abdul Nazeer and Justice Deepak Gupta, while taking into consideration that detention centers lack basic facilities, told the Assam government that planning should have been done in advance before putting people in the detention center. "You (government) can't put a person in a detention center and say you will decide later what is to be done about them. It must have been planned out in advance. You are detaining people against their wish, you must provide them with certain basic facilities," observed the bench. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Assam government, apprised the court that tender has been floated for new detention homes in the state. The top court, while posting the matter for hearing on November 2, asked Mehta to give details about floating a tender for the construction of detention centers, medical facilities and cocking gas facilities in detention centers. The apex court also asked the state government to give a timeline by when family members of foreign nationals who have been put in different detention centers in the state can be united. "47 persons to be united with families. You know the persons, you just have to unite them," it added. It also asked the state government that how much time it would take to transfer families to the same detention center. Earlier, the top court had questioned government's move of putting families in different detention centers and asked Assam government to deal with the issue on an urgent basis so that "families are not broken up". "You cannot separate them from their families like this," the bench had said while hearing the plea relating to the condition of the detention center in Assam. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Wednesday reiterated that only green crackers will be sold in New Delhi and the capital region (NCR) in the run up to Diwali, the festival of lights. A division bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri, also said that pollution-causing firecrackers, which have already been manufactured, will not be allowed to be sold in Delhi and NCR. In view of the rising air pollution, which is aggravated by bursting of crackers, the Supreme Court, last week, said that burning of bangers will be allowed only between 8 pm and 10 pm on Diwali. A division bench of the apex court had further said that only the improvised fireworks with reduced emission as well as green crackers would be permitted to be manufactured and sold. In its judgement last week, the court had imposed a ban on the making and burning of joined firecrackers (series crackers or laris), saying they cause air, noise and solid waste problems. Some shopkeepers and customers in the capital had expressed inability to understand what the apex court meant by "green fireworks". Irked by the top court's verdict, the cracker sellers questioned that why such a decision was taken just a few days before the Diwali festival, adding that the ruling has directly hit their business and livelihood. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As Telangana assembly elections are inching closer, leaders of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) are leaving no stone unturned to woo voters in the state. TRS leader and former Speaker of the now-dissolved assembly Madhusudhana Chary was found shaving a person at a barber shop in Bhupalpalle from where he is seeking re-election. Another candidate of the party, Chinta Prabhakar, was seen cooking for the public in a house in Sangareddy town as part of the party's door-to-door campaign. Mahbubnagar candidate Srinivas Goud was seen knitting clothes on a sewing machine and taking part in construction activities with labourers, while former legislator from Bodhan Shakeel Ahmed was seen feeding voters while seeking re-election from the same seat. Meanwhile, another party leader Koram Kanakaiah from Yellandu constituency was seen helping a person take bath by pouring water on his head with a mug. The election to the 119-member assembly is scheduled to be held on December 7. The counting of votes will take place on December 11. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a move highlighting his anti-immigrant stance, United States President Donald Trump has stated that he will sanction an executive order to put an end to the practice of birthright citizenship. "It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't," Trump said during an interview with Axios released on Tuesday, reported The Hill. The move will, however, be contested in the Supreme Court as the 14th Amendment of the Constitution says that any all individuals "born or naturalized in the United States," are automatically "citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." In the Axios interview, Trump said that a change will be possible via an executive order and an act sanctioned by the Congress. "You can definitely do it with an act of Congress. But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order," Trump said, incorrectly adding, "We're the only country in the where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States, with all of those benefits." Apart from the US, Canada and several South and Central American nations also exercise the practice of granting citizenship to persons born to non-citizens in the country. "It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end. I didn't think anybody knew that but me. I thought I was the only one," Trump said. The slated move comes in line of the Trump administration's anti-immigrant stance that was highlighted in the sanctioning of over 5,000 active duty troops to the Mexican border to aid in ongoing efforts to prevent the entry of a caravan of thousands of Central American migrants in the United States. In a tweet on the migrant caravan, who are still around 1500 kilometres and weeks away from the US border, Trump said that there are "Many Gang Members" among the migrants. "Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border. Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process. This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!" Trump tweeted. Trump has also stressed on the dangers stemming from immigration during his campaigning for the Midterm Elections, terming migrants as "illegal aliens" on a number of occasions. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet on Tuesday called for international experts to participate in the investigation into the murder of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi. "For an investigation to be carried out free of any appearance of political considerations, the involvement of international experts, with full access to evidence and witnesses, would be highly desirable," Al Jazeera quoted a statement from Bachelet. The former President of Chile further urged the Gulf country to reveal the location of Khashoggi's body, citing autopsy and forensic evaluations of the body as crucial for the ongoing investigation in the "shockingly brazen crime." Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appealed to the chief prosecutor of Saudi Arabia to identify the person who authorised Khasshggi's murder in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Erdogan further urged him to not exempt "certain people" in his probe. "Who sent these 15 people? As Saudi public prosecutor, you have to ask that question, so you can reveal it," Erdogan said, adding, "Now we have to solve this case. No need to prevaricate, it makes no sense to try to protect certain people." A former Washington Post journalist, Khashoggi went missing on October 2, after stepping into Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul, Turkey to collect documents that would allow him to get married to Hatice Cengiz. Cengiz, who was waiting outside the consulate for Khashoggi, raised an alarm after he failed to re-emerge from the Saudi consulate. The Saudi authorities later confirmed that Khashoggi died inside the consular premises during a clash. However, Turkey claimed that the journalist was brutally tortured and killed inside Saudi consulate. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister Ramdas Athawale believes that it is not right to demand an ordinance for the construction Ram Temple and said that the unity between the Hindu and Muslim community should not be disturbed. "My party's stand is that unity between Hindus and Muslims shouldn't be disturbed. If the decision is taken for Temple then the decision should be taken for Mosque as well. I think the demand for an ordinance that is being done is not right," Athawale said. His statement comes after Swami Chakrapani, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat and a delegation of saints associated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) earlier asked the Central Government to bring an ordinance in this regard. The Supreme Court had on Monday adjourned the Ayodhya title suit till January 2019 to fix the date of hearing in the matter. The top court adjourned the matter which challenged the Allahabad High Court ruling of 2010, which had ordered division of the disputed land in Ayodhya into three parts for each of the parties -- the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The United States has called for the support of all parties in finding a peaceful solution to the conflict in Yemen. US Department of State Spokesperson Heather Nauert tweeted, "The US calls on all parties to support UN Special Envoy Griffiths in finding a peaceful solution to the conflict in #Yemen. It is time to end this conflict, replace conflict with compromise, and allow the Yemeni people to heal through peace and reconstruction," while outlining Secretary of State Michael Pompeo's statement on the matter. "The time is now for the cessation of hostilities, including missile and UAV strikes from Houthi-controlled areas into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Subsequently, Coalition air strikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen," Secretary Pompeo said in a statement released on Wednesday. He further mentioned, "Substantive consultations under the UN Special Envoy must commence this November in a third country to implement confidence-building measures to address the underlying issues of the conflict, the demilitarisation of borders, and the concentration of all large weapons under international observation." Bringing attention to the humanitarian crisis, Pompeo said, "A cessation of hostilities and vigorous resumption of a political track will help ease the humanitarian crisis as well. It is time to end this conflict, replace conflict with compromise, and allow the Yemeni people to heal through peace and reconstruction." US Defence Secretary James Mattis had earlier called for a ceasefire in Yemen while speaking at an event at the United States Institute of Peace. The war between Houthis and the Yemen government started in September 2014, after the former attacked the capital city of Sanaa and seized its control along with other northern cities, including the port of Hodeidah, after advancing from the northern stronghold of Sadaa. This provoked military action from Saudi Arabia, which led the coalition and launched an aerial strike on the country in March 2015 to restore exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's government. During the event, Mattis pinned the blame for the conflict on Iran, saying that it is them "who keep fueling this conflict and they have to knock it off. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Vice President Venkaiah Naidu embarked on a six-day visit to three African nations, namely Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, on Wednesday. "Towards greater engagement with Africa! VP @MVenkaiahNaidu departs for a three-nation visit to Botswana, Zimbabwe & Malawi to take forward our enhanced engagement with Africa on all fronts, at the highest level," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted. The Charge-de-Affairs of Botswana Embassy, Chenesani Asa, and Deputy Ambassador of Zimbabwe, Lovemore Bebe, came to see-off Naidu at the airport. "My visit underlines the high priority, the government of India accords to Africa and is in line with India's efforts to have a sustained and regular engagement. #VPVisitAfrica," a tweet posted on the Vice President's official Twitter account read. Naidu is expected to meet the Presidents of Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. Furthermore, he will attend bilateral meetings with his counterparts, delegation level talks, meetings with the speaker of the parliaments and hold interactions with business groups and Indian communities in the three countries. The Vice President will first visit Botswana, where he will officially inaugurate the "Global Expo Botswana 2018" along with his Botswanian counterpart at the event where 25 Indian companies and business houses covering a range of sectors will also participate. Naidu will next visit Zimbabwe from November 2 to 4, where he will meet with the Foreign Minister and lay the foundation stone of the Chancery project. He will also witness the signing of several Memoranda of Understandings (MoU) before emplaning for Malawi. In Malawi, the Vice President will stay from November 4 to 5, where he will inaugurate the Business Incubation Center, India-Africa Institute of Agriculture and Rural Development. He will also unveil a Mahatma Gandhi bust. Several MoUs and agreements will be signed and announcements will be made. Engagements between Indian and African nations have intensified as there have been 26 outgoing visits at the levels of President, Vice President and Prime Minister in the last four years. The visit of the Vice President to Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Malawi is expected to further strengthen relations with the African countries. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) leader V Vijayasai Reddy on Tuesday accused Andhra Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu of conspiring the attack on his party chief YSRCP chief Jaganmohan Reddy. The YSRCP leader also demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)-led inquiry into the matter. "The attacker could have chosen to attack Jagan Garu at the 'Padayatra' itself where there was minimum security, unlike the airport. This indicates that the attack was pre-planned. It was being planned for the last six months," Vijayasai Reddy told media here. "There is a suspicion that Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister was involved in this particular conspiracy. We have absolutely no confidence in the Andhra Pradesh government. Even the state police department is headed by a biased person. So, we demand an inquiry either by the CBI or judiciary to unearth the fact," he added. On October 25, a canteen boy working at the Visakhapatnam airport attacked Jaganmohan with a sharp object at the airport. The man was later taken into custody by the police. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The market reversed early trend and hit fresh intraday low in morning trade as a sudden selling pressure gripped shares. At 10:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 202.04 points or 0.60% at 33,689.09. The Nifty 50 index was down 68.40 points or 0.67% at 10,130. Trading sentiment was affected amid worsening relationship between the Reserve Bank of India and the government. The government has reportedly invoked never-before-used powers under the RBI Act allowing it to issue directions to the central bank governor on matters of public interest. Media reports suggested that Section 7 of the RBI Act empowers the government to consult and give instructions to the governor to act on certain issues that the government considers serious and in public interest. This Section had never been used in independent India till now, reports added. India's finance minister Arun Jaitley criticised the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for failing to prevent lending excess in a speech on Tuesday, 30 October 2018. The central bank looked the other way when banks gave loans indiscriminately during 2008 to 2014, Jaitley reportedly said while speaking at an event in New Delhi. According to media reports, tensions between the finance ministry and the RBI have risen since the bank's deputy governor said in a speech on Friday that undermining a central bank's independence could be "potentially catastrophic", in an indication that it is pushing back hard against government pressure to relax its policies and reduce its powers. Among secondary barometers, the BSE Mid-Cap index was down 0.37%. The BSE Small-Cap index was down 0.30%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex. The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, turned negative from positive. On BSE, 807 shares rose and 1082 shares fell. A total of 96 shares were unchanged. Tata Steel fell 4.37%. The steel major's joint venture with Thyssenkrupp AG to set up a European steel company with equal shares of ownership reportedly face an in-depth European Union probe over concerns that the deal could reduce competition in the supply of various high-end steels. Coal India was down 3.44%. The President of India is looking to sell up to 18,62,22,275 (3%) equity shares of Coal India on 31 October 2018 (for non-Retail Investors only) and on 1 November 2018 (for Retail Investors and non-Retail Investors who choose to carry forward their unallotted bids) with an option to additionally sell 37,24,44,550 (6%) equity shares of the company. The floor price for the offer shall be Rs 266 per share. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 30 October 2018. Bharti Airtel (down 3.6%), Power Grid Corporation of India (down 2.54%), NTPC (down 2.5%) and Maruti Suzuki India (down 2.09%), were the major Sensex losers. Dr. Reddy's Laboratories was down 3.38%. The company said that the audit of formulations manufacturing facility at Duvvada, Visakhapatnam, by the USFDA, has been completed. The company received Form-483 with eight observations which it is addressing, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories said. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 30 October 2018. Infosys (up 1.72%), HDFC (up 1.33%), Hero MotoCorp (up 0.56%) and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (up 0.42%), were the major Sensex gainers. Overseas, most stocks in Asia rose on Wednesday. Chinese official manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) was 50.2. The official manufacturing PMI had been 50.8 in September. China's official non-manufacturing purchasing managers index dropped to 53.9 from September's 54.9, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday. A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below that signals contraction. US stocks closed higher Tuesday as President Donald Trump signaled that the US is ready to reach a deal to ease trade tensions with China, giving the market some much-needed relief. Markets were also digesting a raft of quarterly corporate results with several big-name companies set to report earnings this week. On the US data front, home-price gains are slowing, as the Case-Shiller 10-city composite index showed a 0.6% increase from last month's reading, or a 5.5% annual increase. The 20-city composite index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.1% and was 5.5% higher compared to its level a year ago, the lowest annual increase in nearly two years. Consumer sentiment hit an 18-year high, according to the Conference Board's consumer confidence index, which rose to 137.9, from 135.3 in September. The residential vacancy rate fell 0.4% points from a year earlier to 7.1%, according to the Census Bureau report, which also showed that the US homeownership rate was virtually unchanged at 64.4%. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Mainland China equity market closed higher on Wednesday, 31 October 2018, as continued hunting for oversold stocks, with market sentiment bolstered by an announcement by China's securities regulator that it would guide more medium- and long-term capital into the market. Buying momentum amplified on expectations that Beijing will ease policy further to stabilise the economy after release of China's worse-than-expected reading for manufacturing activity for October. At closing bell, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index added 1.35%, or 34.74 points, to 2,602.78, meanwhile the Shenzhen Composite Index, which tracks stocks on China's second exchange, rose 1.39%, or 17.77 points, to 1,94.22. The blue-chip CSI300 index grew 1.4%, or 43.56 points, to 3,153.82. The China Securities Regulatory Commission said yesterday it would enhance the quality of listed companies, strengthen governance of listed firms, regulate information disclosure and improve transparency, encourage share buybacks and mergers and acquisitions by listed firms, according to a statement published on its official website. The commission also said that it will enhance market liquidity, reduce unnecessary interference in trading and provide investors with a fair chance to trade. ECONOMIC NEWS: China's official manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI)- produced by China's National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP) - was stood at 50.2 for October, down from 50.8 in September, and slightly above the 50-point mark that separates growth from contraction, as factory activity in the world's second largest economy slowed amid the ongoing US-China trade war. China's official PMI - produced by China's National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP) - is a better gauge of sentiment among larger, mostly state-owned enterprises, while the Caixin PMI to be released on Thursday is a better guide for smaller, mostly private sector firms. CURRENCY NEWS: China's yuan depreciated against the U. S. dollar on Wednesday, after soft mid-point fixing by central bank and on signs that a trade war with the U. S. may escalate. Prior to market open, the People's Bank of China set the midpoint rate at 6.9646 per dollar, weakened by 72 basis points from 6.9711 mid-point set previous day. Wednesday's fixing was the weakest since May 20, 2008. The onshore yuan opened at 6.9639 per dollar and was changing hands at 6.9663 at midday, 12 pips firmer than the previous late session close. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Dr. Reddy's Laboratories lost 5.61% to Rs 2,452.05 at 09:36 IST on BSE after the company received Form-483 with eight observations by the USFDA at the Vishakapatnam facility. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 30 October 2018. Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 27.58 points, or 0.08% to 33,863.55 On the BSE, 34,000 shares were traded in the counter so far compared with average daily volumes of 74,000 shares in the past two weeks. The stock had hit a high of Rs 2,468.90 and a low of Rs 2,425 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 2,687.45 on 28 September 2018. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 1,888 on 21 May 2018. Dr. Reddy's Laboratories said that the audit of formulations manufacturing facility at Duvvada, Visakhapatnam, by the USFDA, has been completed. The company received Form-483 with eight observations which it is addressing, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories said. Dr. Reddy's Laboratories is an integrated pharmaceutical company. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India and Italy can work together to conduct high-quality research that can help improve the lives of citizens and contribute to 'ease of living'. This was stated by Shri Narendra Modi, Hon'ble Prime Minister of India while addressing the Valedictory Session of the India - Italy Technology Summit which was organized by CII in cooperation with the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India in New Delhi today. According to the Prime Minister, technology, tourism and history could come together when India and Italy join hands to leverage technology to preserve historical monuments. In addition, the two countries can work together in areas such as renewable energy, neurosciences, environmental protection and Information Technology among others The Prime Minister stated that a CEOs' Forum was being formed between the two countries and a fast track mechanism was being put in place to promote two-way investments, and resolve issues, if any, confronted by the businesses in each other's country. The Prime Minister also stated that the two countries were exploring the feasibility of collaborating in the fields of Life Style Accessories Design (LAD) with special focus on the leather sector, and Transportation & Automobile Design (TAD). He also stated that the two countries would be working towards setting up Indo-Italian Centres of Excellence in selected areas of mutual strength such as cultural heritage preservation, renewable energy, life sciences, and geohazards. In his address, H E Prof Giuseppe Conte, Hon'ble Prime Minister of Italy stated that India and Italy were working together in areas such as energy, railways and healthcare. He was of the view that there were many new areas of cooperation which were opening up. These included sectors such as Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, among others. The Italian Prime Minister stated that Italy wanted to share the expertise that it has developed in areas such as conservation of heritage monuments in India. Another major focus area during this visit was cooperation in the design sector in India. Referring to the strengths of the two countries in science and technology, he noted that many projects were being conducted jointly by their scientists. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Indian Overseas Bank announced that ICRA has assigned a rating of I [ICRA] A+ (hyb) (Negative)' for the proposed issue of Rs.300 crore Basel III Compliant Tier II Bonds. The rating is identical with the rating outstanding on the Rs. 800 crore Basel III Compliant Tier II Bonds of the Bank. The ratings consider the majority Government of India ownership and the demonstrated sovereign support through capital infusion over the past few years. ICRA also takes note of the Bank's established retail franchise supporting its good deposit base and adequate liquidity profile. leRA has also withdrawn the rating of [ICRA] A+ on the Rs.300 crore lower Tier II Bonds and [ICRA] A- on the Rs. 655.30 crore Upper Tier II Bonds as these instruments have been redeemed in full with no amount outstanding against these instruments. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The market surged in mid-afternoon trade after the government clarified on tussle with the Reserve Bank of India and said that it respects and nurtures central bank's autonomy. At 14:21 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 343.12 points or 1.01% at 34,234.25. The Nifty 50 index was up 117.05 points or 1.15% at 10,315.45. Positive global cues also boosted sentiment. Among secondary barometers, the BSE Mid-Cap index was up 1.17%. The BSE Small-Cap index was up 1.04%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex. The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was positive. On BSE, 1428 shares rose and 992 shares fell. A total of 141 shares were unchanged. Housing finance stocks rallied after PNB Housing Finance announced raising Rs 2450 crore through commercial papers. Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (up 7.86%), Indiabulls Housing Finance (up 7.55%), HDFC (up 5.12%), Can Fin Homes (up 4.34%), GIC Housing Finance (up 3.16%), GRUH Finance (up 2.64%) and LIC Housing Finance (up 0.07%), edged higher. PNB Housing Finance was up 12.14%. The company announced during trading hours today, 31 October 2018, that it has successfully raised Rs 2450 crore through Commercial Papers (CP). This is in addition to Rs 1,775 crore raised earlier in October totalling to Rs 4,225 crore of CPs raised in October 2018. The CPs were placed with various mutual funds and banks. Auto shares were mixed. Maruti Suzuki India (down 1.87%), Ashok Leyland (down 1.69%), Hero MotoCorp (down 1.69%), Bajaj Auto (down 1.06%) and Tata Motors (down 0.73%), edged lower. Mahindra & Mahindra (up 0.31%), TVS Motor Company (up 0.76%), Escorts (up 1.75%) and Eicher Motors (up 2.25%), edged higher. Meanwhile, the government has invoked never-before-used powers under the RBI Act allowing it to issue directions to the central bank governor on matters of public interest. Media reports suggested that Section 7 of the RBI Act empowers the government to consult and give instructions to the governor to act on certain issues that the government considers serious and in public interest. This Section had never been used in independent India till now, reports added. The Ministry of Finance issued a clarification today, 31 October 2018, which said that the autonomy for the central bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential and accepted governance requirement. Governments in India have nurtured and respected this. Both the Government and the central bank, in their functioning, have to be guided by public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy. For the purpose, extensive consultations on several issues take place between the government and the RBI from time to time. This is equally true of all other regulators. Government of India has never made public the subject matter of those consultations. Only the final decisions taken are communicated. The Government, through these consultations, places its assessment on issues and suggests possible solutions. The Government will continue to do so, it added. India's finance minister Arun Jaitley criticised the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for failing to prevent lending excess in a speech on Tuesday, 30 October 2018. The central bank looked the other way when banks gave loans indiscriminately during 2008 to 2014, Jaitley reportedly said while speaking at an event in New Delhi. According to media reports, tensions between the finance ministry and the RBI have risen since the bank's deputy governor said in a speech on Friday that undermining a central bank's independence could be "potentially catastrophic", in an indication that it is pushing back hard against government pressure to relax its policies and reduce its powers. Overseas, stocks in Europe rallied on Wednesday as investors took note of a rebound on Wall Street and digested further corporate earnings. Most stocks in Asia rose on Wednesday. Chinese official manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) was 50.2. The official manufacturing PMI had been 50.8 in September. China's official non-manufacturing purchasing managers index dropped to 53.9 from September's 54.9, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday. A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below that signals contraction. US stocks closed higher Tuesday as President Donald Trump signaled that the US is ready to reach a deal to ease trade tensions with China, giving the market some much-needed relief. Markets were also digesting a raft of quarterly corporate results with several big-name companies set to report earnings this week. On the US data front, home-price gains are slowing, as the Case-Shiller 10-city composite index showed a 0.6% increase from last month's reading, or a 5.5% annual increase. The 20-city composite index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.1% and was 5.5% higher compared to its level a year ago, the lowest annual increase in nearly two years. Consumer sentiment hit an 18-year high, according to the Conference Board's consumer confidence index, which rose to 137.9, from 135.3 in September. The residential vacancy rate fell 0.4% points from a year earlier to 7.1%, according to the Census Bureau report, which also showed that the US homeownership rate was virtually unchanged at 64.4%. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sentenced to life imprisonment 16 former troopers of the Uttar Pradesh Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) for killing 38 people in 1987, calling it a targeted massacre of unarmed and innocent people from a community. Justices S. Muralidhar and Vinod Goel reversed a 2005 judgment of the trial court, which had acquitted the 16 men on charges of murder and other crimes, and held them responsible for criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, murder and disappearance of evidence. The High Court was hearing pleas challenging the trial court decision. "The present case is yet another instance of custodial killing where the legal system has been unable to effectively prosecute the perpetrators of gross human rights abuses," the court said. "The prolongation of the trial for over two decades, compounded by the endemic systemic delays, have frustrated the attempts at securing effective justice for the victims." The High Court held that this amounted to targeted killings by an armed force "of the unarmed, innocent and defenceless members of a particular community" and called it a disturbing aspect of the case. There were originally 19 accused but three died during the prolonged trial. All the 16 from the PAC are now retired. The High Court directed the convicts to surrender on or before November 22. If they failed, then the concerned Station House Officer (SHO) were ordered to take them into custody. Vibhuti Narain Rai, the then Superintendent of Police in Ghaziabad who registered the first FIR in the case on the night of May 22-23, 1987, told IANS: "This was the first and biggest custodial massacre in independent India. "There was a similar carnage in Nellie (Assam) but that was not in police custody unlike this." The Hashimpura victims, all Muslims, were picked up from the Hashimpura neighbourhood by the 41st Battalion of the PAC during a search operation, taken away in trucks, lined up and shot dead in cold blood. The bodies were dumped in a canal. The men shot at were said to be 42 but four of them escaped by pretending to be dead. The charge sheet was filed before the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Ghaziabad in 1996. The case was transferred to Delhi in September 2002 on the Supreme Court's orders following a petition by the families of the victims and the survivors. A sessions court here in July 2006 framed charges of murder, attempt to murder, tampering with evidence and conspiracy against all the accused. The Delhi High Court said: "...the relatives of the victims who died as a result of the brutal and bone-chilling action of the PAC remained in the dark about not only the fate of the victims themselves but also about the steps taken to investigate the case and unearth the truth. "Indeed, their 31 years of waiting for justice may have eroded their faith in the state machinery. "This case involves the killing of around 38 innocent persons in cold blood by members of an armed force, the PAC. The gravity of the crime is obvious. "We are conscious that for the families of those killed, this (punishment) is perhaps too little, too late," the court said, adding that they were reversing the acquittal by the trial court of the accused. Observing that compensation they have received cannot make up for the lives lost, the court recommended state legal services authority to address the needs of the victim families in the case of custodial killings or state excesses. The killings took place amid communal riots in Meerut. Former police officer Rai, who later brought out an investigative book on the massacre, recalled that it was one and a half hours after the killings that they got to know about the mass killings by the PAC. "We could rescue one person, Babudin. It was on his description of the massacre that we registered the FIR." He said the Muslim youngsters were randomly picked up from the Hashimpura locality, taken through Ghaziabad and thrown into water canals after being indiscriminately shot at. "It was a chilling, shocking massacre. Before I could launch my investigation, the case was handed over to the Crime Branch of the CID," said Rai, who retired as Director General of the Uttar Pradesh Police (Vigilance) and later served as Vice Chancellor of the Mahatma Gandhi Hindi Vishwavidyalaya at Wardha. --IANS akk-desai/mr/soni (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 20 people were killed on Wednesday when a military helicopter crashed in Afghanistan's Farah province. The dead included the region's deputy commander and local politicians. Military spokesman Noor Ulhaq Khaliqi said two helicopters were flying together in the rugged Anar Dara district where the Taliban are active but gave no other details, Tolo News reported. But Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yusuf said the insurgent group downed the helicopter in a "direct attack". Among the dead were Farid Bakhtiar, the head of the provincial council of Farah and the deputy commander of the Army in the western region, according to Shah Mahmoud Nayemi of Farah's provincial council, the report said. He said the helicopter hit a mountain side. The head of the Election Commission for the province was also killed, media reports said. Army spokesman Najibullah Najibi said there were more than 20 people were in the helicopter at the time of the crash and he believed there were no survivors. --IANS soni/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least 25 people, including senior government and Army officials, were killed when a military helicopter crashed due to bad weather in the region bordering Afghanistan's Farah and Herat provinces on Wednesday, authorities said. "The 25 people on board were martyred. Among them were Farah provincial council chief Farid Bakhtawar; Jamila Amini, the deputy chief of the Farah Provincial Council, and Deputy Commander of the 207 Zafar Corps Niamatullah Khalil," Farah Governor's spokesperson Nasir Mehri told Efe news. "Two choppers were going from Anardarah to Shindand district of neighbouring Herat province. But due to the bad weather one of the two choppers crashed in Dahani Jamal Ghazni area," he said. Herat Governor's spokesperson Jailani Farhad also confirmed the incident as well as the posts of the people travelling in the helicopter. The Taliban claimed to have shot down the helicopter. The group's spokesman Qari Mohammad Yusuf said the insurgent group downed the helicopter in a "direct attack". Around the middle of September, five officials of the Afghan Army died in a helicopter crash in Farah province caused by a technical fault. --IANS soni/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Grandparents and two children were killed while the parents were critically injured when a dumper lost control and rammed into a roadside house in Kaushambi district of Uttar Pradesh, police said. At dawn a loud bang in the Sadikpur Semraha village awakened the neighbourhood. People rushed out to find Shiv Pratap Lodhi's house on the Manjhanpur-Prayagraj road had been bulldozed to the ground. Not just the family, but even the cattle lay dead. Lodhi, his wife Shivkali and grand children Ajay and Parni died in their sleep mowed down by the vehicle, villagers told police, as they handed over the driver, who was badly beaten up. Villagers have jammed traffic on the highway. --IANS md/in (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) National flag carrier Air India on Wednesday announced an increase in its flight services to Israel, as the number of Indian tourists visiting the Jewish nation has been growing steadily. "With an increased demand on Air India's New Delhi-Tel Aviv flight services, India's national carrier has confirmed an increase in frequency on this sector, adding a fifth weekly flight starting November 26, 2018," Israel's Ministry of Tourism said in a statement. Air India will now operate the 256-seater Boeing 787 Dreamliner five days a week including Monday in addition to Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, it added. Israeli carrier El Al introduced a new Boeing aircraft on its Mumbai-Tel Aviv route. "The new airplane has a capacity of 279 seats in a four-class configuration and will cater to the rising demand from India," the statement said. El Al is the only airline currently servicing the direct Mumbai-Tel Aviv sector with three weekly non-stop flights. As many as 48,800 Indians visited Israel from January to September this year. --IANS sd/shs/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Wednesday said the contract of regional airline Air Odisha under the UDAN scheme is likely to be cancelled for discontinuing flight operations from Jharsuguda airport in Odisha. "Air Odisha is a sub-standard company. The Civil Aviation Ministry is reviewing its status. "If necessary, steps will be taken to cancel its flight contract and a fresh tender will be floated for a regular flight from the Jharsuguda," Pradhan told media persons here. He said Air Odisha got the tender for flight operation in the first round of bidding under the regional air connectivity scheme the Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN). Pradhan said they were in talks with other airline companies like Indian Airlines, SpiceJet and IndiGo for flight operations from that airport. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to restore the flight operations from the Jharsuguda Airport. Air Odisha has discontinued its flight operations from that airport since October 6 citing no valid reasons. State Tourism Minister Ashok Chandra Panda said Pradhan should first ask the Centre to name the airport after freedom fighter Veer Surendra Sai and added that the Chief Minister has already requested Modi to instruct Air India to start its operations from Bhubaneswar to New Delhi via Jharsuguda. --IANS cd/in/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court was on Wednesday told by forensic auditors that affairs of the real estate major Amrapali group of companies were being run by a "syndicate" and that group's former Chief Financial Officer and statutory auditor were part of it. "I don't have an iota of doubt that statutory auditors were very much part of the syndicate," forensic auditor Pawan Aggarwal told the bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit, also pointing out that the real estate group paid Rs 2 crore income tax of its former CFO and also gave him a BMW car costing about Rs 43 lakh. "It was a syndicate where CFO and statutory auditor were part of it", Aggarwal told the court. Forensic auditors are checking the accounts of Amrapali group of companies on the direction of the top court. Aggarwal also informed the court that every day they were stumbling on new set of companies which were used by the real estate major for channeling its transaction. Telling the court that "every day we are finding news companies", Aggarwal estimated that there may be a network of 200 to 225 such companies. Pointing to the gross involvement of statutory auditor Anil Mittal in these companies, Aggarwal told the court that the "relatives of statutory auditor, his wife and brother are grossly involved" in these companies. Mittal told the court that he received around Rs 50-60 crore from the group beyond his work and the money was put in these companies for routing transaction. In one instance the money was put in one such company for payment to Mauritius-based J.P. Morgan for the loan taken from it, Mittal told the court. He told the court that he got into it on the suggestion of former CFO Chander Wadhwa. Forensic auditors also informed the court that though in pursuance to its October 26 order, Amrapali has handed them computers and two laptops, but not the password. The court wanted to know if RBI rules were followed in making payments to J.P. Morgan in Mauritius. Counsel for J.P. Morgan - both for Mauritius and Singapore - told the court that they would furnish all the details as there was a mismatch in the amount that Amrapali said that they have to pay to Morgan and the amount that Morgan said it had to receive. The court directed Amrapalli to give the password of the computers to the forensic auditors, including information on the accounts of the companies in each computer. The next hearing is on November 13. --IANS pk/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) British extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh's 10th studio album, "A New Kind Of Horror", is unique and chaotic and manages to be extreme in every sense of the word. Anaal Nathrakh is a group which, throughout its career, has never really changed its sound too much. Their song structures and riffing style have relatively stayed the same -- though not to the point of being where one can't tell which song is which because they all sound exactly the same, much like it is with most of today's popular music and even a lot of rock and metal bands. And yet, their sound, which can best be described as a well-balanced mix of grindcore, industrial metal, black metal and death metal, combined with symphonic and ambient elements, has always seemed to somehow change. To put a specific label to describe the sound of the British duo, aside from "extreme metal", would be rather difficult -- though a viable term could be "industrial blackened" death metal. Focusing on themes such as the horrors of WWI and the letters of D.H. Lawrence, the record is truly able to trigger a certain amount of trepidation. Descending with a bunch of downtuned and extremely heavy riffs, mechanical blast beats and an audio book of demonic vocals with a flair of melody, the duo of Mick Kenney and Dave Hunt have yet again created an album which can best be described as sheer and utter chaos, madness and destruction. Atmospherically extremely bleak, there is nothing happy and uplifting about this album. This is just blood running through the streets, gore and mayhem, screams of despair, the murder of families, an apocalyptic nightmare. The cacophony of pure grating insanity might be the most appropriate way to describe the sonic picture this album creates. The tracks "Forward", "New Bethlehem/Mass Death Futures", "The Apocalypse Is About You" and "Vi Coactus" are probably the best. While they stand as a testament to the group's musical intensity, they also display the more melodic aspects of their music which is what prevents their records from becoming what would otherwise be just plain noise. Multi-instrumentalist Kenney gives us some very devastating riffs and his chaotic and spooky atmospheric arrangements are bone-chilling, while Hunt's vocals are particularly praiseworthy, for he is able to pull off some of the most intense screaming in metal such as in "The Apocalypse Is About You" and the closing track, "Are We Fit for Glory Yet? The War To End Of Nothing". The high-pitched King Diamond-like vocals displayed in tracks such as "Reek Of Fear" speaks volumes of Hunt's ability as a vocalist. Going with Anaal Nakhrath's style, the production, while not fully, is very much industrial inspired. Speaking purely in terms of music production, the American industrial metal band Fear Factory comes to mind in the sense it is very open and yet every note feels very tight. However, arrangement-wise there is also a hard rawness to this record which typically only black metal has. Musically, aside from the drumming and some of the fuzzy sounds reminiscent of industrial music, they don't have a whole lot in common with Fear Factory. It is no exaggeration, none whatsoever, to call this album the sound of chaos incarnate, for, as mentioned before, it is really just pure grinding and a brutal assault on the ears and your overall senses. So, don't go expecting anything too easily digestible, though to any person who likes extreme metal or just metal with brutal riffs and intense demonic screams, this album is just simply ear candy. (Anand Venkitachalam can be reached at jordanmetalhead@gmail.com) --IANS anand/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A second caravan of Salvadoran migrants set off en route to the US on Wednesday, less than a week after an initial caravan embarked on the northward journey, media reported. The most recent caravan is made up of two groups of 300 people each, including women and children. Those groups started out just over one hour apart on a trek from this capital to La Hachadura, on the border with Guatemala. The migrants are taking a similar route to the one thousands of Hondurans are now covering in their quest to reach the US, Efe reported. The groups are being accompanied by police, according to deputy inspector Otto Urrutia, and by paramedics who will be able to provide assistance if necessary. The second caravan has set off three days after an initial group of 500 people embarked from El Salvador on a journey of roughly 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) to the US-Mexico border. Of that first group, Guatemalan authorities on Monday reported the entry of at least 356 Salvadorans. It is unclear though whether they will be able to enter the US, since US President Donald Trump's administration has confirmed on Tuesday that it will deploy more than 5,000 troops to the US-Mexico border to prevent the entry of undocumented Central American migrants. Those soldiers will join more than 2,000 National Guard troops who already are providing assistance to Border Patrol agents. Irregular migration from El Salvador is motivated by the search for a better quality of life, a desire for family reunification and a fear of violence, among other reasons. --IANS vc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Antacids or acid suppressants and antibiotics may alter the type and volume of gut bacteria that have been associated with increased risk of obesity particularly if taken for longer periods in early childhood, warns a new study. The study explored that the structure of gut bacteria has been linked to various aspects of human health, including obesity. For the study, researchers from Walter Reed National Military Medical in the US examined 333,353 infants among which nearly 46,993 children became obese. The findings further revealed that antibiotics or acid suppressants was associated with a heightened risk of obesity by the age of 3 -- the average age at which obesity was first identified in these children. This is an observational study and as such cannot establish cause. According to the team from the varsity, whose study was published in the journal Gut, over prescription of both antibiotics and acid suppressants in young children is a significant problem. --IANS pb/ahm/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Facing criticism for invoking a hitherto unused section to issue instructions to the RBI, the government on Wednesday said that it respected the autonomy of the central bank but within the framework of the RBI Act. "The autonomy for the central bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential and accepted governance requirement. Governments in India have nurtured and respected this," a brief Finance Ministry statement said. The clarification comes amid reports that said the government has invoked Section 7 of the RBI Act that empowers the government to consult the RBI Governor and direct the RBI to act on issues that it considers necessary in public interest. The Finance Ministry said that both the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have to be guided by public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy, for which extensive consultations take place between them. "The government never makes public the subject matter of those consultations. Only the final decisions taken are communicated. "The government, through these consultations, places its assessment on issues and suggests possible solutions. The government will continue to do so," the Ministry said. While the statement was silent on whether the government actually used Section 7 for some of its issues with the central bank, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, too, refused to elaborate on the issue later in the day during the release of Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) ranking. "I would not say anything beyond the statement we gave out today. In the statement, it is said that there are communications between the government and the central bank and there are layers of consultation. At what level, how it happened and of what nature, it's never made public in history. You have the right to know the decisions (when they are taken)," he said. Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said the invocation of the section suggests the economy was in a bad shape and the government was trying to hide it. "We did not invoke Section 7 in 1991 or 1997 or 2008 or 2013. What is the need to invoke the provision now? It shows that the government is hiding facts about the economy and is desperate," he said in a tweet. "If, as reported, government has invoked Section 7 of the RBI Act and issued unprecedented 'directions' to the RBI, I am afraid there will be more bad news today," Chidambaram added. The tiff between the RBI and the government came into limelight after the bank's Deputy Governor Viral Acharya warned the government last week against interfering in the central bank's functioning. On Tuesday, Jaitley retaliated by alleging that the central bank looked the other way when indiscriminate lending happened between 2008 and 2014 leading to the bad loans crisis. --IANS mgu-vv/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.) Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro plans to create a "super ministry" of economy when he takes office in January, his economic adviser has said. The 63-year-old far-right leader, who previously suggested that Brazil could pull out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, plans to merge ministries agriculture and environment, an aide said. The move, part of the incoming government's push to cut spending, has drawn sharp criticism as it could endanger the Amazon region, the largest tropical rainforest in the world and home to plant and animal species that are still being discovered by scientists, the BBC reported. Hundreds of Brazilians, mostly students, on Tuesday protested in several cities against Bolsonaro's future plans and demanded that he respect democracy during his term in office. Following behind-closed-door talks on Tuesday, Bolsonaro's top economic adviser Paulo Guedes confirmed that an economic super-ministry would be formed combining finance, planning, industry and trade. Bolsonaro had already made it clear before the polls that the Paris climate pact requirements compromise the South American giant's sovereignty over the Amazon region. The goal is to reduce by half some 29 ministries by combining others, such as Agriculture and Environment, said Deputy Onyx Lorenzoni, who may become Bolsonaro's next chief of staff. In the run-up to the election, Bolsonaro, whose first foreign visits would be to Chile, Israel and the US -- that according to him "share our worldview" -- has said: "The future ministry will come from the productive sector." However he was "open to negotiation on that issue". Bolsonaro swept to victory in Sunday's election, easily beating his left-wing rival Fernando Haddad. The former paratrooper is a deeply polarising figure who has in the past defended the actions of the country's former military regime and said he is "in favour of dictatorship". His populist approach has led to some media dubbing him "Trump of the Tropics". He is supported by the agribusiness lobby. A former minister tweeted that the move was "tragic". "This disastrous decision will bring serious damage to Brazil and will pass on to consumers abroad the idea that all Brazilian agribusiness survives thanks to the destruction of forests," Marina Silva said. In the nation's most emblematic city, Rio de Janeiro, over 200 people marched up the stairs of the Municipal Chamber with banners such as "No More Torture" or "Not Him" and shouting slogans against Bolsonaro and his ideology, Efe news reported. However, these protests were much smaller than the Sunday celebrations that were witnessed on Bolsonaro's victory. He will assume Office on January 1. "There has been a deindustrialisation for more than 30 years. We are going to save Brazilian industry," Guedes said. Bolsonaro plans to be here on November 6 to meet with outgoing President Michel Temer. --IANS in/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The latest budget unveiled by British Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond saw him give away 20 billion pounds worth of extras, a decision which could lead to much higher borrowing in the future if there is an unfavorable Brexit, a leading expert warned. Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) in London, told a press conference: "Mr Hammond is willing to gamble on the public finances. Because yesterday's Budget was a bit of a gamble", Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday. Johnson outlined in a separate newspaper article for London's Evening Standard that the figures behind Hammond's Monday Budget, which saw him spend lavishly on healthcare, would "go out of the window" in the event of a British exit from the European Union (EU) with no deal over trade and tariffs. This so-called Chaotic Brexit would be triggered if the EU and Britain fail to make progress in talks on a separation treaty. The primary stumbling block is the nature of the trade and tariff border between EU member state Ireland and Britain's Northern Ireland, the only land border between the two sides. The prospect of a chaotic Brexit would have an immediate effect on the British economy, which would then be hit by increased costs from the hard border between Britain and the EU, which is Britain's largest single export market. This would damage government income. Johnson said: "Suppose the public finance forecasts deteriorate significantly next year. They might. There's perhaps a one in three chance of that. What will Hammond do then?" "The chances of getting sizeable tax rises through parliament are next to nil. It's surely borrowing that would take the strain. That's a judgment... that could see debt ratchet upwards." Hammond had used a windfall of 20 billion pounds (about $25.4 billion) revealed in new data and statistics from the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR), the independent government data body. The OBR's data is used as the basis for all income and expenditure figures and for all forecasts of economic performance and measures of the economy used in Hammond's Budget. Johnson said: "What does explain the improvements which allowed the Chancellor space for his largess? It mostly comes down to small scale improvements in a range of forecast tax revenues -- they keep coming in a bit better than expected." The flagship proposal in Hammond's Budget was the increase in spending on the government-funded National Health Service (NHS), set to increase by 20 billion pounds by 2023/24, the end of the Budget forecast period. Johnson dissected the government's increased spending plan to reveal that it is a reversal of the underfunding in historic terms that the NHS endured under the austerity policies of Hammond and his predecessor George Osborne as Chancellor of the Exchequer since 2010. Johnson said it was difficult to measure spending on the NHS but under several measures, the rise was what one is measuring between 2.6 per cent a year (an estimate of total health spending increases between 2017-18 and 2023-24) and 3.4 per cent a year (daily spending on the NHS over the same period). That compares with average increases of 3.7 per cent a year over the NHS's entire history, and a 6 percent a year between 1997 and 2010, said Johnson. Day-to-day spending on all other public services, such as education and police, is set to be "essentially flat", said Johnson, continuing a long-term trend. "Health spending will have risen from 23 per cent of public service spending in 2000 to 29 per cent in 2010, and is set to reach 38 per cent by 2023-24. That is a remarkable increase. Other public services have been paying the price. At some point, we will need to pay more tax if we are to continue to increase spending on the NHS like this," Johnson said. --IANS vc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram expressed concern on Wednesday on reports that the government had invoked a hitherto unused section of the RBI Act to direct the central bank to act at its bidding, saying it shows that the government is "desperate" and "hiding facts" about the economy. "If, as reported, government has invoked Section 7 of the RBI Act and issued unprecedented directions to the RBI, I am afraid there will be more bad news today," Chidambaram said in a series of tweets. He said that the Congress governments did not invoke Section 7 in 1991 or 1997 or 2008 or 2013. "What is the need to invoke the provision now? It shows that government is hiding facts about the economy and is desperate," Chidambaram maintained. Section 7 of the RBI Act, 1934 allows the government to issue directions to the RBI, after consultation with the Governor of the bank, on issues of public interest. Former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, who is also a critic of the Narendra Modi government attacked the government alleging it of hell bent of destroying all the institutions of the country. "After CBI it is the turn of RBI. The government is hell bent on destroying all the institutions of our country. High time the people woke up to these surgical strikes against our own institutions," the former BJP leader said in a series of tweet. "If indeed government has issued directives to the RBI, then its governor should resign forthwith," Sinha added. --IANS aks/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday approved release of Rs 229 crore to storm-hit Andhra Pradesh to provide relief to the affected people. Further assistance to the state will be provided from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) based on the report of Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT), according to an official statement. Two districts -- Srikakulam and Vizianagaram -- were severely affected due to cyclonic storm "Titli" on October 11. The central government has provided full support to Andhra Pradesh by mobilising logistics to supplement the efforts of the state government to deal with the situation effectively, the statement added. The logistics support provided included deployment of adequate teams of NDRF, Indian Air Force and Coast Guard helicopters, Navy and Coast Guard personnel along with necessary rescue equipment. --IANS spk/shs/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Asserting that implementing the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 will help stop influx of migrants from neighbouring states, the ruling BJP on Wednesday said not a single non-national, even if a Hindu, who came to India after December 31, 2014, will be allowed stay in the country. BJP spokesman and legislator Numal Momin said this on Wednesday while addressing a press conference. His statement came at a time when the state is witnessing state-wide protests against the bill. At least 60 organizations recently called an Assam bandh opposing the Bill, which drew a huge response. The organizations have also threatened to launch a mass movement from November 5. "The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 will help in arresting influx of migrants from the neighbouring country. Unnecessary controversy is created in the state as the proposed legislation, once it becomes law, will help in curbing illegal influx. Once the bill is passed, not a single person who entered India after December 31, 2014, will be allowed to stay in the country, either a Hindu or a Muslim," Numal Momin said. He said that the bill will end the Congress' vote-bank "If a single non-national is found in the state after the bill becomes a law, we will go for scrapping the law as it was done in the case of Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal ) IMDT Act in 2005," BJP state unit president Ranjit Kumar Dass stated to the media recently. BJP's ally Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) has also threatened to quit the alliance if the bill is passed by Parliament. The bill aimed at making minority communities such as Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan eligible for applying for Indian citizenship is under consideration of a joint parliamentary committee of both the Houses. --IANS ah/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress party should be ashamed for having ignored the legacy of independent India's first Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel despite being in power for so long, Union Minister and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Ram Vilas Paswan said on Wednesday. "Patel dedicated his whole life to the unity and integrity of the country. But his legacy certainly was ignored in the history of independent India," Paswan told reporters here. "Why did the Congress not honour Sardar Patel when it was in power for the majority of time? It should be ashamed for not doing what it should have done." Paswan thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for building the 182-metre high 'Statue of Unity' in honour of Patel. Modi on Wednesday unveiled the statue, the world's tallest, in Gujarat's Narmada district and dedicated it to the nation on Patel's birth anniversary. --IANS spk/shs/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Turning the ship before it hits the iceberg Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday paid rich tribute to "Congressman" Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his 143rd birth anniversary and said he was a man of "steel will" and had "no tolerance for bigotry or communalism". "Sardar Patel was a patriot, who fought for an independent, united and secular India. "A man with a steely will, tempered by compassion. He was a Congressman to the core, who had no tolerance for bigotry or communalism," Gandhi's tribute said. Patel, was born to Ladba and Jhaverbhai Patel in Gujarat's Nadiad on October 31, 1875. He was the first Deputy Prime Minister and the Home Minister of the country. He is also popularly known as the Iron Man of India. --IANS aks/in/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Delhi court on Wednesday granted bail to suspended Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Deputy Superintendent of Police Devender Kumar, who is accused of falsifying records of a corruption case involving the agency's Special Director Rakesh Asthana. Special Judge Santosh Snehi Mann granted the relief to Kumar and asked him to furnish a personal bond and a surety of Rs 50,000 each. The court observed that after registration of the FIR, nothing incriminating came up or surfaced during the investigation against Kumar. The court also directed Kumar to join investigation as and when called by the CBI, and not to contact the witnesses or tamper with evidence. Kumar, through his counsel Rahul Tyagi, told the court that there was no allegation in the FIR about demand of illegal gratification by him or about receiving any illegal gratification from the complainant. The defence counsel argued that registration of the FIR and arrest of Kumar had been done in violation of the standard procedures laid down in the CBI Manual for the investigation of cases involving complaints against CBI officials. The CBI countered these arguments, saying that prompt action was required due to the nature of allegations in the complaint. The CBI also told the court that there was no violation of any law or procedure with respect to registration of FIR and arrest of the accused. Kumar was arrested last week on charges of falsification of records while probing allegations against meat exporter Moin Qureshi and was remanded to CBI custody till October 30. Kumar was an Investigating Officer in a case against Qureshi, who is facing multiple cases of money laundering and corruption. The CBI alleged that bribes were taken at least five times between December 2017 and October this year. Asthana, a 1984-batch IPS officer of Gujarat cadre, is accused of accepting a bribe of Rs 2 crore from a Hyderabad-based businessman Sana Sathish Babu, who was under probe in the Qureshi case in a bid to "wreck" the investigation. The case was being examined by a special investigation team (SIT) headed by Asthana. --IANS akk/shs/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) On a day Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a 182-metre high statue of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel in Gujarat, the Congress reminded Modi that Patel, as the then Union Home Minister, had banned the RSS for inciting communal hatred. "Did Sardar Patel not ban your (BJP's) parent body, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), for indulging in anti-national activities? At least today you should repent," Congress spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala said in a series of tweets. The government banned the RSS on February 4, 1948, days after Nathuram Godse shot dead Mahatma Gandhi here. "Modiji, did Sardar Patel not hold the RSS ideology responsible for Mahatma Gandhi's assassination? Did not the comrades of your idol Syama Prasad Mookerjee want to publicly execute Sardar Patel and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru? "Did Patel in a letter dated September 11, 1948 not tell then RSS chief M.S. Golwalkar as to why RSS workers distributed sweets after Gandhiji's murder?" the spokesman added as he shared copies of official letters written by Patel to Golwalkar and Mookerjee. Trying to clear the air on the much talked about schism between Patel and Nehru, Surjewala quoted from a letter written by Patel to the then Prime Minister wherein on February 5, 1948 where in Patel said: "We have been comrades all our lives for one common objective. Our infinite love for our country binds us together and hence we work together for the Congress and the country." Prime Minister Modi unveiled the 'Statue of Unity' in honour of the country's first Home Minister Sardar Patel. The statue is touted to be the world's tallest. --IANS mak/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Filmmaker Hansal Mehta, who has made award-winning dramas says it is his observation that when a movie fails its ownership falls on the director, and when it's a success the actor walks away with the accolades. "(In) My experience of the last 22 years of making films, whether I like it or not, the director owns the failure and the actor owns the success," Mehta said at the &Prive Soiree here on Tuesday. The event brings award-winning movies to viewers in an exclusive setting. The format includes noted filmmakers and actors discussing each film before the screening and highlighting the various themes explored in each story. &Prive HD hosted a screening of "7 Days In Entebbe", and it was introduced by Mehta and Ram Madhvani, read a statement. Madhvani added to Mehta's point, and spoke about how people end up throwing tantrums and fighting when it comes to ownership. He said: "I think that ownership is not given, it's taken." Madhvani spoke about his struggle after his first film, saying: "I think you have to fight, scream and take it (ownership) because that's the only way they (high budget actors) will allow you to have ownership. You have to throw tantrums as ownership is not easy. When you work with smaller budgets, it's easier to get ownership, the bigger the budgets, the more difficult it gets to have ownership. "In the last 14-15 years after my first short film, 'Let's Talk', which we funded ourselves, it took me a long time to make my next film because of the idea of ownership." --IANS rb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) To provide timely medical attention to accident victims even before an ambulance can arrive, a leading private hospital chain on Wednesday launched the First Responder (FR) bikes in the tri-city area of Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali. "The burden of road accident victims across tri-city is rising, especially during night and early morning hours. So, Max Hospital, Mohali, has come up with a round-the-clock emergency medical & trauma care services," said Dr Ramesh Sen, Senior Director and Head-Max Institute of Orthopedics. He said Max-First Responder (FR) bikes, can be reached on an emergency number. These will save time in proving timely medical assistance to accident victims, Sen said. The bikes will be equipped with emergency medical and trauma care facilities for immediate medical attention backed by an advanced life support ambulance. "Provision of timely, effective and quality emergency care is vital to minimize fatalities," said Dr Sen, adding Max Hospital is the first private hospital network in the country to launch such bike responders along with ambulance. The bikes have been launched to provide faster medical help through traffic congestion. "The FR bikes will be operated by a trained Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and will reach in the shortest possible time. The bike responder is equipped to handle most traumas and health emergencies and will greatly save time during peak traffic hours while an ambulance is on way. Its paramedic will administer the desired first-aid followed by a fully equipped ambulance with doctor," Dr Sen said. Sandeep Dogra, Senior Vice President and Zonal Head-Max Hospitals, Punjab, said medical attention was important in the first few minutes of an accident. Dr. G.P. Malik, medical advisor and director-Internal Medicine, said new services will guarantee the highest levels of skill, expertise and infrastructure. --IANS js/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi Minister Kailash Gahlot on Wednesday slammed Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal for not intervening in the ongoing DTC contractual workers strike despite the imposition of the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA). "I have been trying to speak and meet Lieutenant Governor since the last two days over the DTC strike," the Tansport Minister tweeted. The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) contractual drivers and conductors have been on a sit-in for the last 10 days, despite the ESMA being imposed, the Minister said, requesting "the LG to spare some time". The Najafgarh legislator said those DTC employees who have been "doing their duties" were being threatened by the "goons". "Most of the contractual workers want to report and do their duties but unable to do (so) because of fear created by (the) goons. "By not taking action against the miscreants Delhi Police is encouraging the strike," Gahlot added. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also reacted to the Minister's tweet and said the "LG has constitutional duty to direct Delhi Police and ensure (proper) implementation of (the) ESMA". "Most workers want to attend work. They are being prevented by BJP goons. Police not taking action despite ESMA. LG refusing to meet. "Why is LG not meeting the minister? Why is LG not directing police to act? BJP misusing LG yet again and harassing Delhiites?" the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief tweeted. Terming the DTC bus services as an essential part of transport, the LG had, on Saturday, imposed the ESMA on the DTC contractual workers strike which prohibits any strike for a period of six months. Despite the ESMA being imposed and minimum wages being restored, the DTC contractual drivers and conductors continued their strike with five of them going on an indefinite hunger strike. --IANSA sd/in/nks/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi government on Wednesday denied receiving any "official communication" from the EPCA to ban private vehicles in the national capital in the midst of declining air quality levels. Delhi Transport Minister Kalish Gahlot's remarks came after the Supreme Court-appointed Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) on Tuesday indicated a possible ban on private vehicles on roads if air pollution continues to worsen. Gahlot, however, said that the Delhi government was ready to implement schemes under its Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) like "odd-even" if the need arises. "We can implement the odd-even scheme once again if air pollution in Delhi becomes worse," Gahlot told the media here. --IANS sd/mr (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Human remains were found by builders working in the Vatican's Embassy in Rome, the Vatican said in a statement on Wednesday, prompting Italian authorities to launch a homicide probe related to the unresolved disappearance of a teenager in the 1980s. The bone fragments were found under the basement of the Embassy to Italy during construction work, officials were cited as saying by Efe news. "The Chief Prosecutor of Rome, Giuseppe Pignatone, has asked the police and forensic experts to try and determine the age and sex of the remains and the date of death," a Vatican statement said. No further statements in relation to the findings were made. However, the Italian media have taken a keen interest in the investigation and have suggested the remains may bear some relation to the disappearance of 15-year-old girl Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican employee, who vanished June 22, 1983. Vatican spokesperson Greg Burke said that it would be important to establish the sex, age and time-frame of when the corpse was buried before reaching any conclusions. The Italian media have long speculated on Orlandi's disappearance, which has also been linked to organized crime and an attempt to force the release from prison of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish man who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981. It is not the first time that the discovery of human remains has renewed public interest in the Orlandi case. A similar reaction followed the 2012 discovery of human remains in the tomb of well-known mafioso Enrico Pedis. The investigation of the girl's disappearance led to Pedis, head of the mafia cell "Banda de la Magliana" after his girlfriend said she had put Orlandi in a car and taken her away under Pedis' orders. Amid myriad hypotheses as to what exactly happened to the 15-year-old, her family remain hopeful that Wednesday's findings may shed light on the case. --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India has climbed 23 places in the World Bank's (WB) latest Ease of Doing Business rankings in a near-repeat of its performance last year and now stands at 77 among 190 countries assessed by the multilateral lender. The World Bank's latest Doing Business Report 2019 released on Wednesday showed that various measures undertaken by the government had helped India improve its rank in six out of the ten parameters, helping it jump 23 places from its rank of 100 in 2017. The country had entered the top 100 last year with a bigger jump of 30 places. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said some reforms of the government were not fully taken into account in this year's report, which means there would be further improvement next year. "For example, the impact of the Goods and Services Tax is not taken fully into account as they have taken the cut-off date of December 31 (2017)," he said. Jaitley added there were also some obvious parameters where India ranked low -- like enforcing contracts where it ranked 163 and starting a business where it ranked 137 -- and where there was scope for improvement. "Ranking among the top 50 countries is no longer out of reach and if there is focused improvement in the obvious areas, then there might be possibility to even revise the top-50 target" set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jaitley told a press conference here. According to the World Bank's report, India improved its rank in six out of 10 indicators including those related to construction permits, trading across borders, starting a business, getting credit, getting electricity and enforcing contracts. However, the most dramatic improvements were registered in indicators related to construction permits and trading across borders. "In grant of construction permits, India's rank improved from 181 in 2017 to 52 in 2018, an improvement of 129 ranks in a single year. In 'Trading across Borders', India's rank improved by 66 positions, moving from 146 in 2017 to 80 in 2018," a statement from the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion said. Union Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu said it was an excellent news not only for the business community but for the whole nation. He said India's growth story was moving fast and the improvement in the ease of doing business rankings would drive entrepreneurship in the country to reach its true potential and would further increase the pace of economic growth. The government statement said that the World Bank report had recognised India as one of the top improver for the second consecutive year, the first BRICS and South Asian country to do so. "As a result of continued performance, India is now placed at first position among South Asian countries as against 6th in 2014," it said. --IANS vv/shs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With a view to explore synergies between community radios and community networks, Internet Society (ISOC), and Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), a non-profit organisation have emphasised the importance of community networks in the growth and development of Internet connectivity in India, especially in rural areas. Community Networks is the use of networking technologies by, and for, local communities providing a sustainable solution to address the connectivity gaps that exist in underserved urban, remote, and rural areas around the world. Virginia-headquartered ISOC is a global non-profit organisation dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet and DEF aims to eradicate information poverty through access to technology. Information poverty is a situation where individuals and communities do not have the requisite skills, abilities or material means to obtain efficient access to information, interpret it and apply it appropriately. "The Internet service sector is estimated to grow to $124 billion market by 2022, and it is imperative for policy makers and regulators in India to realise that supportive government policies and better infrastructure are key for the growth of the sector," said Rajnesh Singh, Regional Bureau Director-Asia Pacific, ISOC. "Policymakers and regulators can play a key role in ensuring innovative approaches to making spectrum available. By supporting initiatives like Community Networks, the government and the nation will be able to fulfill the vision of Digital India and help millions get online," added Singh. In India, where connectivity gaps are more prevalent, DEF started pilot programmes this year called 'Internet in a Box', which were deployed in Tain village of Haryana and Asoor village of Tamil Nadu. So far, DEF has established community networks at more than 140 locations across 15 regions, including Baran in Rajasthan, Guna in Madhya Pradesh, Nuh in Haryana, Asoor in Tamil Nadu, Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh and Nagaon in Assam. Further, DEF and ISOC jointly announced the launch of the Community Network Champions (CNC) which is a certificate programme for community network providers across the globe to gain hands-on experience in the operation and management of community networks. During CN Champion programme, intensive training on wireless networks and its operations and management will be provided to seven community networks -- from Haiti, Bahrain, Nigeria, Krygystan, Phillipines, Kenya and Indonesia. "As the world embraces greater access to information and services online, the excluded individuals are being further excluded -- almost to the level of being disenfranchised. Therefore, we cannot solely depend on telcos or their model of business to connect the 70 per cent of the population that is yet to access the Internet," said Osama Manzar, Founder-Director, DEF. Importantly, the entire process needs supportive policy framework such as availability of TV White Space and Liberalisation of Internet Service Providers License at Village Council level, which will help in providing internet access to rural masses.--IANS pb/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former head of Russia's South Cross Travel company challenges recovery of $26.6 million Fotolia/ Irochka 10:59 31/10/2018 MOSCOW, October 31 (RAPSI) The former head of Russia's South Cross Travel company Dmitry Fesik has filed an appeal against a ruling of the Moscow Commercial Court recovering 1.7 billion rubles ($26.6 million) in debt from him, the court documents read. The appeal has been filed with the Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals. The Moscow court has found that Fesik had not provide a temporary manager of the company with accounting information. Earlier, the court extended bankruptcy proceedings against the tourist company until December 5. In June 2015, the South Cross Travel was declared bankrupt with creditors demanding 607.3 million rubles ($9.2 million). The company announced cancellation of its business activity in September 2014. Actor James McAvoy claims he narrowly avoided getting scammed out of nearly $13,000 while attempting to plan a family vacation to Spain. The "Split" actor, 39, shared videos of himself on Instagram in which he explained the incident to his fans in an effort to warn them, reports people.com. "Hello, there! I'm James McAvoy. I have just avoided being scammed through a cyber scamming scheme online and I'm just making this video to draw your attention to it," McAvoy said. The actor explained he had attempted to book a trip to The Ritz-Carlton, Abama, in Spain through a website that was "actually better" than the real hotel's website -- something that nearly convinced him to spend 10,000 pounds (almost $13,000) on the trip. "It looks like that," the actor said while showing a picture of the website he visited. "Don't use them. They nearly took 10 grand off of me, which is a ton of money. Some guy called Joaquin emailing me back and forth, (I) nearly made a bank transfer. Very convincing." He added: "Their website is actually better than the Ritz-Carlton's website. It's extremely convincing, replete with a phone number, stuff like that. Just very, very convincing." McAvoy said he had alerted The Ritz-Carlton to the incident. "They know now," he added. --IANS sug/rb (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday paid tributes to Indira Gandhi on her 34th death anniversary and lauded the former Prime Minister's contribution to the nation's economic development. "Sincere tribute to former Prime Minister Indira ji on her death anniversary. We remember her great contribution to the nation and also her leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement, which she led by focussing on the relationship between disarmament and economic development," Banerjee wrote on Twitter. Bengal Congress leaders and activists also paid homage to the leader through various programmes and discussions in the party offices across the state. Senior leaders, including state Congress president Somen Mitra and leader of opposition Abdul Mannan garlanded the photograph of Gandhi at the party headquarters Vidhan Bhawan in central Kolkata and took part in a forum on the leader's contribution to the nation, party sources said. Similar programmes were held in the Congress party offices across the districts. Gandhi, India's first woman Prime Minister, was born on November 19, 1917. She was assassinated on this day in 1984 by two of her bodyguards-- Satwant Singh and Beant Singh -- at her official residence. --IANS mgr/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Congress on Wednesday targeted the Narendra Modi government over the Rafale deal saying its "boat of corruption" will sink after the Supreme Court asked for details of pricing and told the Centre to go public on the selection process of the Indian offset partner. "The BJP government, which is full of corruption, can no longer remain above investigations. "The accused can no longer run away from the JPC (Joint Parliamentary Committee) probe," Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said in a video message. He said India now knows that the effect of Rafale is failure of transparency, Make in India, government PSUs and failure to generate employment. The Congress' reaction came after the apex court sought more information from the government on the Rafale jet deal, including its pricing and deemed advantages. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi told the Centre it should state in an affidavit the "difficulty" in sharing the information on pricing after Attorney General K.K. Venugopal said "it might not be possible to disclose the cost". The bench also directed that the government to share with the petitioners the details that it has furnished before the court, relating to the decision-making process leading to the purchase of the 36 Rafale jets in a fly-away condition. It told the government to share "as far as possible" the selection process for the Indian offset partner in the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets with both the petitioners and the public. --IANS aks/in/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) South Korean President Moon Jae-in expressed his thanks to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday for sending him some "Modi jackets", a vest-like sleeveless jacket the leader usually dons. Moon uploaded photos of him wearing the jackets in a Twitter posting, saying they "fit great". "This is a Modi jacket modified from a traditional Indian outfit so that it can be worn with ease in South Korea too," Moon said in the message cited by Yonhap news agency. "During my visit to India, I told Prime Minister Modi that what he was wearing looked great and he sent me some exactly my size. I thank him for his great kindness." Moon made a state visit to India in July. In the message, Moon also congratulated Modi on his selection as winner of this year's Seoul Peace Prize in recognition of his contribution to world peace through his economic vision. Moon said he was impressed by the Korean language thank you message that Modi sent via Twitter after being selected as the prize winner. --IANS soni/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) NASA has launched an eight-episode podcast series that follows the InSight mission as the robotic explorer journeys to Mars for a November 26 landing. The first two episodes of the "On a Mission" series are now available for download, the US space agency said in a statemenet late Tuesday. The eight-episode series follows the InSight lander as it travels hundreds of millions of miles and attempts to land on Mars on November 26. "On a Mission" will be the first NASA podcast to track a mission during flight, through interviews with the InSight team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Episode One lays out the odds of reaching the surface safely -- fewer than half of Mars missions make it. "When things go beautifully it looks easy, but it's really not easy," said Sue Smrekar, Deputy Principal Investigator for the InSight mission. "Any kind of exploration is just not easy or guaranteed - ever." Narrated by host and science journalist Leslie Mullen and InSight team members, each episode blends humour and captivating storytelling to dig into the journey of the lander and the people who have spent years working on it. New episodes will be released weekly as InSight gets closer to Mars. The final episode will cover what happens when the team tries to land InSight on the Red Planet. If successful, the lander will be the first robotic explorer to study the planet's "inner space" -- its crust, mantle and core -- to better understand the early formation of rocky planets in our inner solar system and rocky exoplanets. --IANS na/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday dedicated the world's tallest Statue of Unity to the nation calling it India's reply to those who questioned its unity, a silent protest took place by thousands of tribals who call the project a harbinger of their devastation. Unveiling the 182-metre Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel statue, Modi hit out at his critics for politicising the mission for erecting the tallest monument and asked all citizens to remain united in countering efforts made by divisive forces. "Statue of Unity is to remind all those who question India's existence and its integrity. This country was, is and will always be eternal," Modi said. He said the height of the statue is to remind the youth that the future of the country is in their aspirations and is as huge as this statue. "The only mantra to fulfil these aspirations are 'Ek Bharat-Shresth Bharat' (One India, Best India). Statue of Unity is also symbolic of our engineering and technological affordability," he added. When Modi was unveiling the statue, twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty, thousands of tribals across the eastern tribal belt of Gujarat, including the Narmada district where the massive structure is located, were observing a pin-drop bandh. Kitchen fires in homes of an estimated 75,000 Adivasis in 72 villages were cold, and in keeping with the convention of not cooking when mourning the dead. The bandh was in protest against acquisition of their land without adequate compensation for the statue project, the Sardar Sarovar Narmada dam and the Garudeswar weir, which is a part of the dam. Tribal leader Praful Vasava, who has been leading the protest ever since the project was declared by Narendra Modi as a chief minister in 2013, said, "We are all for giving honour to Sardar Patel, but this is something which is at the cost of our very existence." Sardar Patel would never have agreed to this, he said. Around 72 villages are estimated to be affected by the statue project. There are 32 where their rehabilitation has been left half way, there are six villages where the Kevadia Colony housing the staff of the Sardar Sarovar Narmada dam project is situated and seven villages are in Garudeshwar block, where only cash compensation was given, but other commitments like land for land or jobs have not been fulfilled. The Prime Minister said that keeping the nation's unity, diversity and sovereignty intact was a responsibility which Patel gave to the countrymen. The Prime Minister also launched an attack on those opposing his mission of reviving contributions of historical figures such as Sardar Patel, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Bhimrao Ambedkar and others. "I am amazed that our efforts are seen with political glasses. Praising great icons has also brought us criticism. It seems we have committed a big crime," he said. Modi said Sardar disproved of all those who stated that a diverse country like India could remain united after Independence. It was because of Patel that the country now meets the world on its own terms and is moving towards becoming an economic and military superpower. "They considered our diversity our biggest weakness, but Sardar Patel converted this into our biggest strength. India is moving ahead on the path shown by him," he said. "If today we are connected from Rajasthan's Kutch to Nagaland's Kohima and Jammu and Kashmir's Kargil to Tamil Nadu's Kanyakumari, it is because of Patel's strong resolve and determination. "Had Sardar Patel not done it, the country would have needed visas for offering prayers at Somnath and visiting Charminar in Hyderabad," he said recalling Patel's effort in integrating over 550 princely states into the Indian Union after the Partition of 1947. Modi called the statue built on Sadhu Bet Island on the Narmada river at a cost of Rs 2,989 crore as the world's tallest -- surpassing China's Spring Temple Buddha that stands at 153 metres by 29 metres and nearly double of the 93-metre Statue of Liberty in New York. Three Indian Air Force planes flew past the statue and created the Tricolour in the sky following the inauguration. The Gujarat government expects the statue to boost tourism, with one estimate putting the daily numbers at 15,000. Apart from the Patel's bronze figure, other major attractions include a 17-km-long Valley of Flowers, a Tent City for tourists near the statue and a museum dedicated to the life and times of Patel. The Tent City, located around 4 km from the Statue of Unity can house more than 500 tourists at a time. A viewing gallery at a height of 153 metres has been created inside the statue to enable tourists to have a view of the 1,210 metre-long concrete Sardar Sarovar Dam, 3.2 km upstream as well as the nearby Satpura and Vindhya mountain ranges. According to a government statement, the statue has been built using over 70,000 tonne of cement, 18,500 tonne of reinforced steel, 6,000 tonne of structural steel and 1,700 tonne of bronze, which was used for the outer cladding of the structure. Gujarat Governor O.P. Kohli, Madhya Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel and BJP President Amit Shah were also present. --IANS desai/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Low investment in upskilling the current workforce has led most businesses to miss out on the true benefits of automation globally, a new report said on Wednesday. In the majority of companies (58 per cent), automation is not yet meeting executives' desired goals of increased productivity, said the report by the Capgemini Research Institute, a think-tank of French technology services major Capgemini. The research, based on a survey of 800 executives and 1,200 employees globally from over 400 large organisations, suggested that enterprises with a 50,000 strong workforce or more can expect to save about $90 million more per year than companies that do not upskill or are yet to upskill their employees. "Automation offers significant benefits to large organisations, but only if the implementation of technology is matched by the upskilling of people. "Too many big companies are lagging in developing training programmes and, as this research shows, are not realising full productivity benefits as a result," said Claudia Crummenerl, Managing Director, People and Organisation practice at Capgemini Invent. When asked to name their main reasons for undertaking automation initiatives, 37 per cent of the respondents said it was to improve workforce productivity, the most popular motivation after improving quality (43 per cent). Yet, 58 per cent of executives and 54 per cent of employees said automation had not yet improved productivity in their organisation. This was especially marked in Sweden, the US and China, where 66 per cent, 64 per cent and 61 per cent of executives respectively said automation had failed to enhance employee productivity. "Moreover, employees in most countries agree with the opinions of executives on this point, with the exception of India, China and France," said the report. Among organisations that combine automation efforts with a clear upskilling programme, there is more optimism about the impact of automation. "In these cases, most employees (52 per cent) and a high proportion of executives (46 per cent) said automation was improving productivity. Moreover, in organisations midway through an upskilling programme, employees were more positive than those in the initial phase of upskilling, about career progression, boosted morale and carrying out new responsibilities. "There is no question that automation is going to transform the workforce and existing job roles, but the crucial factor is that companies make faster progress to prepare themselves, and their employees, to realise the benefits of automation," said Crummenerl. --IANS na/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Radical Islamist groups protested on Wednesday in a number of Pakistan cities against the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the death sentence of Christian woman Asia Bibi, who had been convicted in 2010 of blasphemy. The top court acquitted Asia Bibi, a mother of five from Pakistan's Punjab province, earlier in the day and overturned her death sentence, Geo News reported. She was accused in 2009 of defiling the name of Prophet Muhammed during an argument with her neighbours. Bibi maintained her innocence, but spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement. The landmark ruling set off violent protests by hardliners who support strong blasphemy laws. Demonstrations against the verdict were being held in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Multan. Clashes with the police were also reported, the BBC said. "The protest for the sanctity of the Prophet has started. We will die (for the sanctity). We are not going to step back," radical Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) -- which had threatened the judges with dire consequences if Asia Bibi was acquitted -- said in a statement. The TLP statement cited by Efe news warned that train stations and airports would be blocked. The Red Zone in Islamabad, where the Supreme Court is located, was sealed off by the police. Paramilitary forces were deployed to keep protesters away from the court. Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, who read out the ruling, said Asia Bibi could walk free from jail in Sheikupura, near Lahore, immediately if not wanted in connection with any other case. "The appeal is allowed. Sentence of death set aside. Asia Bibi acquitted of charges," said Justice Nisar. Asia Bibi's lawyer, closely flanked by a policeman, told the BBC that he was "happy" with the verdict, but also afraid for his and his client's safety. A police spokesperson in Lahore said that around 500 protesters had gathered outside the provincial Assembly and blocked roads in the area. "They are committing vandalism," he said. Protests with up to 300 participants, most of them supporters of the TLP, were going ahead in many other places in Lahore. In Karachi, demonstrations were organized in at least five places, city spokesperson Abid Hussain said. Around 300 people blocked the main entrance to Islamabad, which connects it to neighbouring Rawalpindi. Under the Pakistan penal code, the offence of blasphemy is punishable by death or life imprisonment. Bibi's case has attracted widespread outrage and support from Christians worldwide and condemnation from conservative Islamist groups in Pakistan, who have demanded the death penalty for her. In 2011, senior politician Salman Taseer was shot dead by his own bodyguard for voicing support for Bibi. Also in 2011, a Christian minority minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, was shot dead at his home for defending Bibi and opposing anti-blasphemy legislation. --IANS soni/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two Manipur outfits with diametrically opposite views on Wednesday hit the streets in Imphal, with United Committee Manipur (NCM) demanding preservation of Manipur's unity while United Naga Council (UNC) calling for immediate solution to the long-pending Naga issues. The NCM took out a big rally in Imphal city demanding protection of integrity and unity of the border state. On the other hand, normal life was disrupted in the hill districts as a result of the 12-hour shutdown by the UNC which awaits implementation of the framework agreement that the Centre signed with the NSCN(M) in 2015, but its larger contours are not known. L.M. Khaute, Director General of Police, said the state remained incident-free. Security measures had been tightened in all trouble-prone areas, he said. Attendance was thin in the government offices. Though educational institutes were open, the students did not turn up, sources said. Sunil Karam, UCM President, said the rally was not directed against any community. "We have been living in harmony for generations. Nothing should be done to drive a wedge among the communities." UCM activists said the Centre has assured them that Manipur's territory will not be affected as the framework agreement with the NSCN(M) is finalized. Official sources said the Wednesday rally could be second largest to the one in June, 2001 when Manipur activists had protested extension of the ceasefire agreement with the NSCN(IM) "without territorial limits." --IANS il/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday led Uttar Pradesh in paying tributes to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his 143rd birth anniversary. After paying floral tributes at a statue of the first Home Minister of India, Governor Naik said that if B.R. Ambedkar was called the Architect of the Indian Constitution, Patel should be called the architect of the Indian republic. Chief Minister Adityanath said the great services rendered by the Iron Man would be remembered for ages, as it was he who unified India and ensured that independent states were assimilated as one nation. "It was Sardar Patel who saw to it that the nation remains one and when he decided that this shall happen, be it the Nizam of Hyderabad or the Nawab of Junagarh, all fell in line," the Chief Minister said in his speech. He also flagged off the "Run of Unity", in which hundreds of people, including enthusiastic school children, took part. Later, the Governor also administered the oath of unity to all those present, including state ministers, senior police officials, bureaucrats and Mayor Sanyukta Bhatia, among other dignitaries. --IANS md/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) VKontakte sued for providing users personal data to police RIA Novosti 14:43 31/10/2018 MOSCOW, October 31 (RAPSI) Russias largest social network VKontakte became a defendant in a lawsuit over provision of a users personal data to the law enforcement, attorney of the International human rights organization Agora Dmitry Gerasimov told RAPSI on Wednesday. The lawsuit was filed with the Smolninsky District Court of St. Petersburg by Lilia Chanysheva. According to available information, the plaintiff asks the court to declare the social networks actions unlawful and recover 100,000 rubles ($1,500) in moral damages. According to the case documents, in January, a high-ranking police officer of Bashkortostans anti-extremist center asked administration of Vkontakte to disclose information about Chanysheva. He was interested in time and date of the accounts creation as well as personal data used during registration. After the information was provided to the police, Chanysheva became a defendant in an administrative case. Former Union Minister M.J. Akbar on Wednesday told a Delhi court that journalist Priya Ramani's allegations of sexual harassment levelled against him were defamatory in nature. Akbar told Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal that the allegations were false and defamatory, tarnishing his reputation. "My reputation has been tarnished in the eyes of the general public and those who are near and dear and known to me. I affirm that my complaint is correct and allegations made against me by Ramani are false and defamatory," Akbar said, citing his credentials and professional background. He told the court that he had worked for four decades to acquire and build a stellar reputation and a good name. Contending that his reputation had been lowered because of Ramani's "false, baseless and defamatory" accusations, Akbar said: "There was immediate damage because of the scurrilous nature of these concocted and false allegations. I was attacked in a personal capacity about fabricated non-events allegedly done two decades ago." The court was recording Akbar's statement as a complainant witness in a criminal defamation suit filed by him against Ramani. Ramani was the first in a long list of female journalists to have accused Akbar of sexual harassment. A Rajya Sabha member, Akbar has denied all the charges made against him as "false, wild and baseless". He said that it was apparent that a false narrative against him was being circulated in a motivated manner and with an agenda. Akbar told the court that he chose to seek justice in personal capacity and therefore he resigned as the Minister of State for External Affairs. The BJP leader told the court that Ramani's defamatory tweets were picked up by various publications and social media. Ramani's tweet carried a link to an article published in Vogue India magazine in October 2017. "The opening sentence of the tweet explained one anomaly. When the article was published in Vogue India in 2017, it did not include my name. Priya Ramani stated as to why my name was not included earlier. She said it was because I had done nothing. This is mentioned in the tweet dated October 8 as well," Akbar said in the statement. After concluding Akbar's statement, the court listed the matter for November 12 for recording statements of other witnesses. Akbar has listed names of two senior woman journalists -- The Sunday Guardian's Editor Joyeeta Basu and journalist Veenu Sandal -- and four others as his witnesses to prove his defamation charges against Ramani. --IANS akk/shs/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.) At a time when India has taken a tough stand towards maintaining data privacy and data localisation, industry stakeholders here on Wednesday discussed an urgent need for a robust data protection regime architected on global principles. With data becoming one of the key features of innovation, transactions, governance and policy discourse, the experts deliberated on the broadening impact of data at the "India Data Leadership Summit 2018" organised by the Data Security Council of India (DSCI) -- a premier industry body on data protection in India by Nasscom. "In the last one year, data and contours of data economy have shaped the conversations of business leaders, global think tanks, and governments across the world. In India, our members have been partnering with government to support India's digitisation Journey," said Rama Vedashree, CEO, DSCI. "We will continue to engage with government to have a data protection regime architected on the global principles, best practices, legislation and enforcement that will fuel our digital economy,' she added. The one-day summit centred around global data flows, data-driven public governance, data diplomacy, transparency and freedom reconciliation with individual's right, privacy governance and more. "Data privacy emanates from fundamental right, a justiciable right for citizens," said Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). Over 150 leaders from across the key government departments, industry, academia, think tanks and civil society participated in the event. --IANS na/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought more information from the government on the Rafale combat jet deal, including its pricing and deemed advantages. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi told the Centre it should state in an affidavit the "difficulty" in sharing the information on pricing after Attorney General K.K. Venugopal said it might not be possible to disclose the cost. The bench also directed that the government must share with the petitioners the details that it has furnished before the court, relating to the decision-making process leading to the purchase of the 36 Rafale jets in a fly-away condition. With the petitioners and public, it must also share as far as possible the selection process for the Indian offset partner in the defence deal, the bench said. As counsel Prashant Bhushan pressed for a court-monitored CBI probe, the Chief Justice told him to wait apparently, indicating the current turmoil in the investigating agency. --IANS pk-aks/in/vm (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought more information from the government on the Rafale jet deal, including details of its pricing and deemed advantages. "The court would also like to be apprised of the details with regard to the pricing/cost, particularly, the advantage thereof, if any, which again will be submitted to the court in a sealed cover," the bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice K.M. Joseph said. While the Congress termed the Supreme Court's move "extremely critical", Aam Aadmi Party said it "is a big shock" to the Modi government. The court told the Centre that it should state in an affidavit the "difficulty" in sharing the information on pricing, after Attorney General K.K. Venugopal said it might not be possible to disclose the cost. Besides pricing, the court said, the further details that could "legitimately come in the public domain with regard to the induction of the Indian offset partner (if any) be also furnished to the...counsels for the parties, as well as the petitioners in person." However, the court clarified that details which the government may, at this stage, consider to be "strategic and confidential" be submitted to the court without sharing it with the counsel for the petitioners. Wednesday's order asking the government to disclose the pricing of Rafale deal is significant, as in its October 10 order, the court had specifically said: "We also make it clear that the steps in the decision making process that we would like to be apprised of would not cover the issue of pricing." While seeking information on the pricing/ cost of the deal, the court noted that "in none of the public interest litigations..., the suitability of the equipment (fighter jets) and its utility to the Indian Air Force have been questioned". However, what has been questioned is the "bona fides of the decision making process and the price/ cost of the equipment at which the same is to be procured", the court noted in its order. Saying that at this stage, it would not record any "finding or views" on the details of the steps in the decision making process, the court, however, ordered the government to share with the petitioners details of the decision making process that can be "legitimately" shared with them. "We are of the opinion that such of the core information conveyed to the court in the...confidential report which can legitimately be brought into the public domain be made available to the learned counsels for the petitioners in all the cases, as well as the petitioners in person," the court order said. As counsel Prashant Bhushan drew the attention of the court towards their prayer for direction to the CBI to register an FIR on the complaint made by them and carry out investigation, the Chief Justice told him to "wait", apparently indicating the current turmoil in the investigating agency. Former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, former Minister and rebel BJP leader Arun Shourie and Prashant Bhushan had on October 4 made a complaint seeking registration of FIR and probe into the Rafale deal. Congress leader Manish Tewari told reporters'that the apex court's move to seek more information from the Modi government about the pricing and deemed advantages in the Rafale deal was "extremely critical" and asked what the Centre was hiding. "The Supreme Court has made certain very significant observations in the Rafale matter. The Supreme Court has sought to pierce the veil of secrecy," he said. He said that there are 18 articles in the Indo-French defence agreement. "Would the Prime Minister, Finance Minister (Arun Jaitley) and Defence Minister (Nirmala Sitharaman) enlighten the nation which one of the 18 articles highlights secrecy?" AAP leader Sanjay Singh said the Supreme Court move "is a big shock to the Narendra Modi government." Prashant Bhushan later said in a tweet that the apex court has asked government to file details of the process adopted, selection "of offset partner and "how the price was arrived at, in response to our PIL." "We sought a court-monitored CBI Investigation on precisely these issues. On status report from CBI, CJI said, "let CBI be sorted out first," he said. --IANS ps/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday accused Rahul Gandhi of repeatedly lying, saying the Congress President is left with no options because the BJP government has been successful in bringing about positive changes in people's life through its pro-poor schemes. Without naming the Congress President, he asked him to stop "fooling" people and said the people do not accept such "childish" things and they make joke out of them. Modi's attack came during his video interaction with BJP workers from Machhlishahr, Rajsamand, Mahasamund, Satna and Betul parliamentary constituencies. Responding to a query of a BJP worker from Betul over Rahul Gandhi's claim to establish mobile factories in every district of Madhya Pradesh in his election rallies, the Prime Minister told the workers: "Don't worry, enjoy what he says". "If he comes to Betul, then he will say the same. Earlier there used to be gramophone records. Sometimes a pin gets stuck in the gramophone and only one word was heard repeatedly. There are people whose pin gets stuck. And they keep repeating the same things. You should enjoy such things at election time. He (Rahul Gandhi) does not know that the time has changed. Stop fooling the public. They donot accept such childish things. People make joke out of tehm," Modi said. He said it is not that mobiles were invented after 2014. "Mobiles existed before 2014, but let me ask this question to those that ruled this country for so long: why did India have just two mobile manufacturing units during their rule?" he said, asserting that India is now among the leading mobile manufacturers in the world. Continuing his attack on the Congress leader, he said those who ruled the country for so long did nothing about OROP (one rank, one pension). "They did not even hear them. Now, we have done it. They are worried that even people from armed forces are with us. They love Modi. So they have nothing to say except spreading lies," he said. Asked how BJP workers should respond when opposition leaders use foul language, Modi said one can give it to you what one has. "If I have stones, then I will give stone. If there are diamonds and gems, then I will give diamond and gems. They have only abuses, so if they do not abuse me, then whom will they abuse? "I feel happy that at least I am of some use to them. If their anger goes out to me, then at least in the evening they can happily enjoy their time with family members. They are giving what they have. We have love. We are worried about the poor and changing the society," he said. The Prime Minister said that one should not forget that 'Lotus' (BJP's election symbol) blooms in sluch and mud. "They give what they have, we will give what we have. We will not blame or will not lie, we will not accuse them," he added. When a party worker from Mahasamund in Chhattisgarh inquired about the political agenda of the BJP for the upcoming elections, Modi replied, "We have three, the first is development, the second is faster development and the third is development for all. These are our only agenda." Interacting with workers from Machhlishahar in Uttar Pradesh, Modi said that he was a strong believer in making positive changes in the lives of people. "Technological initiatives like Digital India have been developed to fulfil this very dream of improving the lives of our people." The video interaction concluded at Satna in Madhya Pradesh where Modi was asked about the poverty alleviation efforts of his government. Modi said poverty was rapidly declining in India due to a different approaches adopted by his government. --IANS bns/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) No sex crime charges will be filed against Hollywood star Sylvester Stallone for a rape claim that dates back to 1990. The County District Attorney's office here declined on Tuesday to file rape charges against Stallone, reported variety.com. According to a release, a woman recently reported to Santa Monica police that Stallone assaulted her in 1987 and 1990. The woman said she and Stallone had a consensual relationship in 1987. The woman also provided witnesses who she said she told of the assaults at the time. However, according to the District Attorney's office, those witnesses did not corroborate the woman's account. Investigators were not able to find any other corroboration for her claims. The case was rejected due to insufficient evidence, and because it falls well outside the statute of limitations, variety.com reported. Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey established a task force to review Hollywood sex crimes allegations a year ago. So far, the task force has not filed any charges, with most of the allegations being too old to bring a case. --IANS rb/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Intensifying his efforts to build opposition alliance to take on the BJP, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu will meet Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday. In his second visit to New Delhi in less than a week, Naidu will call on Gandhi as part of his efforts to bring all opposition parties on a common platform. Addressing a party programme in Amaravati on Wednesday night, Naidu said he would meet Gandhi in the national capital on Thursday. This will be Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief's first meeting with Congress president, though the two had shared dais at the swearing-in of Karnataka Chief Minister H. D. Kumaraswamy in May. The TDP chief had called on Aam Admi Party leader and Delhi Chief Minister Aravind Kejriwal, Loktantrik Janata Dal chief Sharad Yadav and BSP leader Mayawati on Saturday. He is likely to meet NCP leader Sharad Pawar and leaders of the Left parties on Thursday. He said he was trying to bring all like-minded opposition parties together to form an alliance as an alternative to BJP. Naidu, who had pulled out of BJP-led NDA in March, said the policies pursued by BJP posed a threat democracy in the country. "I have taken the responsibility to save the country from this threat. It is the duty of all to save the country," he said. Naidu claimed that he was offered the post of prime minister twice, but he refused. He said time had come again for TDP to play a key role in national He reiterated that Modi betrayed people of Andhra Pradesh by going back on the promise to undo injustice done to them with the bifurcation of the state. --IANS ms/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Tea Board of India has set deadlines for plucking of green tea leafs and processing of the same by the factories in order to ensure quality control in the seven northeastern states including Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Manipur. While the Board has set December 10, 2018 as last date for plucking and receiving of green leaves for all the tea factories the seven states, December 11 was set as deadline for processing of the green leaf. All the factories must intimate to the Board about the closure of manufacturing by December 12 this year. The move by the Board has elated the producers as it is believed that the move will help ensure quality of the Assam tea. "We have observed over the years that some tea manufacturers reprocess teas from pruning litters etc. from the mid-December and these reprocessed teas are not fit for human consumption. Moreover these teas create an oversupply situation which also impacts the price of new season teas. This step by the Tea Board will help in overcoming these problems to a great extent," said Bidyananda Barkakoty, Adviser North Eastern Tea Association (NETA). "We will also appeal to the Tea Board to allow the teas to be stored in the respective factories beyond December 20 so that the manufacturers do not have to bear extra cost for storing of teas at warehouse and do not have to bear unnecessary transportation cost etc," he said. In another development, Estonian Ambassador to India Riho Kruuv called on Assam Governor Prof. Jagdish Mukhi in Raj Bhavan on Wednesday and said that the Assam tea should directly be exported to Estonia. He also said that bilateral relations between Estonia and Assam can be expanded in the areas of information technology and said that Estonia can put its expertise for the promotion and expansion of IT and IT-enabled services in Assam. --IANS ah/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two persons were killed and two others injured when a man opened fire at them at a mall here on Wednesday evening, police said. The assailant fled the crime scene as frightened people ran for cover. The deceased have been identified as 26-year-old Gopi Kanaujia (salesman) of a showroom in the JHV Mall where the incident took place and Sunil Gaur (tailor), 45. Their bodies have been sent for post-mortem examination. According to eyewitness accounts, the assailant was a student named Alok Upadhyaya from a local educational institution and he was drunk. He, along with two of his friends, had first gone to a Pizza outlet in the mall and then to a shoe store brandishing a pistol. He warned the showroom manager about some Prashant and threatened to kill him if he did not mend his ways. The shopkeepers around tried to overpower him as he was waving a pistol and there were hundreds of people in the mall. In the melee, his pistol was snatched by shopkeepers but he whipped out the pistol of another friend and opened fire, which killed the two persons. The police have started a probe and are checking CCTV footage of the mall located in the Cantonment area of city. They got the mall immediately vacated and sealed the main entry and exit points in the locality. The police also raided the student's hostel room but it was locked. The injured persons have been identified as Vishal Singh, 28, and Chandan, 31. They have been admitted to a medical facility where their condition is stated to be serious. "A probe is underway on how weapons found their way inside the mall despite frisking at the entry point... Certainly, the security was lax," Varanasi Inspector General of Police Vijay Singh Meena said. Based on details provided by the people present at the mall, the police are trying to track down the assailant, Meena added. --IANS md/nir (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have called on all parties in the Yemen civil war to agree to a truce "in the next 30 days" amid criticism of Washington's support for the Saudi-led coalition in the conflict. "Thirty days from now we want to see everybody around a peace table based on a ceasefire, based on a pullback from the border and then based on ceasing dropping of bombs that will permit the (UN) special envoy Martin Griffiths to get them together in Sweden and end this war," Mattis said at an event at the US Institute of Peace here on Tuesday. A similar call was later made by Pompeo, who said: "The US calls on all parties to support Griffiths in finding a peaceful solution to the conflict in Yemen." Mattis and Pompeo both insisted that the US-backed Saudi-led coalition and the Iranian-aligned Houthis stop their respective aerial and missile attacks, CNN reported. The Trump administration has been criticized by activists and some members of the Congress for its support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen. UN human rights experts say coalition forces may have committed war crimes in Yemen and humanitarian organisations say their partial blockade of the country had helped push 14 million people to the brink of famine. The murder of the US-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the kingdom agents in Istanbul earlier this month also strained ties between Washington and Riyadh. David Miliband, the President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, called Pompeo's statement "the most significant breakthrough in the war in Yemen for four years". The US military provides the Saudi coalition with training meant to help minimize civilian casualties as well as aerial refuelling of coalition warplanes. Mattis said the "goal right now was to achieve a level of capability by those forces fighting against the Houthis, that they were not killing innocent people". --IANS soni/bg (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Infamous Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger who was convicted in 2013 of 11 murders and had inspired several films, has been found dead in a US federal prison in West Virginia. The 89-year-old was discovered unresponsive at the maximum security facility shortly after being transferred from a Florida jail. The BBC quoted a prison official saying it was being probed as a homicide. Bulger was captured in California in 2011 after a 16-year manhunt and sentenced to life in prison. His death occurred after he was transferred to the Hazelton penitentiary that houses 1,385 inmates, according to reports. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is handling the probe into Bulger's death, which occurred a day after his transfer to the West Virginia facility, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Bulger was found unresponsive at 8.20 a.m. on Tuesday, according to a statement from the prisons bureau. He was pronounced dead by the Preston County medical examiner after failed lifesaving measures. No staff or other inmates were injured, it added. An inmate with mafia ties was under investigation for the killing, three sources briefed on the incident told the Boston Globe. The slain mob boss was severely beaten up by one or more of his fellow inmates only hours after his arrival, law enforcement sources told CBS. Boston-based WFXT-TV, a Fox affiliate, reported that Bulger was killed after being admitted to the general inmate population. The circumstances of this week's transfer of Bulger to Hazelton, after being housed at federal penitentiaries in Oklahoma and Tucson, Arizona, "remain unclear", the CNN said. "He lived violently and he apparently died violently," CNN quoted Dick Lehr, author of "Whitey: The Life of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss" as saying. "It marks the full circle of a terrible life," Lehr said. "Hopefully the seven years he spent in prison as well as his recent death brings some closure to the families of his many victims," Brian Kelly, one of the former federal prosecutors who tried Bulger, said in a statement. The former leader of South Boston's Winter Hill gang inspired the film "Black Mass" featuring Johnny Depp, and "The Departed", which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2007. --IANS in/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday said that the US will not rely on other sides regarding the investigation of the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as the Turkish side revealed details of his death on the same day. Speaking in an interview with The Brian Kilmeade Show via teleconference, Pompeo said that the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the consulate in Turkey violated "the norms of international law", reports Xinhua news agency. "What we've asked the Saudis to do and the Turks to do, the place which the murder took place, is to help us continue to develop the facts, that there are still many unanswered questions about precisely how this came to be," he said. However, he added that "we are working diligently, our team, to get the facts, the facts that the Americans can learn. We won't rely on others; we'll take their information, we'll make sure and develop our fact pattern." The US top diplomat also noted that US military and commercial ties with the kingdom are "very important," which should be kept in mind "as we continue to ensure that accountability is had for all those who were involved in committing this murder." "The Saudis... understand that they've got to get these facts out, and that time is not on their side in doing so," Pompeo added. Also on Wednesday, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office said that Khashoggi was choked to death immediately after entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in the city and his body was dismembered after he was strangled to death. The prosecutor reiterated a call for the extradition of the suspects arrested in Saudi Arabia, saying "Turkish courts have jurisdiction over the case in line with Turkish law and principles of international law, provided that Jamal Khashoggi was killed in Turkey." Khashoggi, journalist and columnist for The Washington Post, has been missing since he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. After releasing the results of its initial investigations, the Saudi Public Prosecution announced that 18 people were arrested over their alleged connections to the killing. US President Donald Trump on October 23 denounced Saudi handling of the death of Khashoggi, calling it the "worst cover-up ever" and "a total fiasco." Pompeo has also announced that the US is revoking visas of 21 Saudi officials who were suspected of involvement in the case, in the first concrete step of punishment taken by the Trump administration after the disclosure of Khashoggi's death. --IANS vc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US Defense Department on Wednesday promised South Korea that it would maintain bilateral military cooperation, adding that it will also continue with the program of joint military maneuvers to confront "the security challenges" in the region. The defense departments of both countries confirmed that the alliance between Washington and Seoul will continue, according to the text of the agreement reached between the two parties and released by the Pentagon, Efe reported. The pact comes after Defense Secretary James Mattis welcomed his South Korean counterpart, Song Young-moo, to the Pentagon on Wednesday. According to the document, the commitment reached between the two countries will respect the "spirit" of the current bilateral mutual defense treaty, the objective of which is to prevent "armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula and (promote) peace and stability in Northeast Asia." Both officials expressed their support for continuing with the joint military maneuvers which are held regularly by the armed forces of the US, South Korea and Japan, although they did not mention whether military exercises could be cancelled in the future in a gesture toward North Korea. In recent months, the US government ordered the suspension of two important military exercises so as not to derail negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang about the possible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The Pentagon also committed itself to maintaining the US troop presence in South Korea. A few months ago, US President Donald Trump said he would support withdrawing US troops stationed in South Korea, alleging that maintaining them there cost too much. Currently, Washington has some 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, a deployment that costs about $1.6 billion annually, although that amount is shared equally between the two countries. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview with Fox that next week he will speak with his North Korean counterpart, Ri Yong-ho, about the possibility of international inspectors examining the regime's nuclear testing sites. The White House has not yet said whether Pompeo will travel to North Korea in person or speak with Ri on the telephone. --IANS vc (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The walled city of Jaipur has a distinguished story to share with the visitors; its beautiful heritage sites and world-class museums along with its rich heritage and culture bespeak a unified tone to ensure its entry into the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites, says Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) chief Maj. Gen. L.K. Gupta. "Jaipur has all reasons to mark its presence among the World Heritage sites and even we are awaiting the good news of its declaration," Gupta told IANS. In 2015, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) submitted a proposal to UNESCO demanding World Heritage City status for Jaipur city. Since then, the city has been in the tentative list while Ahmedabad became India's first World Heritage City. Thereafter, ICOMOS, one among three advisory bodies to the World Heritage Committee which is constituted by UNESCO, communicated to the ASI about an inspection tour to the Walled City to study its potential for being a declared a World Heritage City. A team visited the city in September 2017 and thereafter, there were hush hush whispers doing the rounds about its heritage status. Since then, there has been no movement on the issue. Gupta felt that attempts should be made to convert heritage buildings into economic assets. "Economic benefits need to be derived from these properties as an alternative to paying for their maintenance and upkeep," he added. On its part, INTACH is working earnestly for the protection of natural heritage, geo-heritage, waterbodies, stepwells, sacred groves, wall paintings as well as rock paintings. "We are also engaged in mapping of natural heritage in the Thar Desert area. Since local communities understand their natural resources better, there is need to document and implement their techniques into modern planning, he said. Furthermore, the Thar Desert region needs to be preserved as a 'hot sp't' and not further greened for meteorological reasons. (Archana Sharma can be contacted at archana.s@ians.in) --IANS arc/vm/tb (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal government hopes to utilise the resources of the Deocha Pachami coal block, which was allotted to the state-owned power producer, saying it may explore "merchant mining" in the long run only after its own requirement is met, a state minister said on Wednesday. In June this year, the state government-owned thermal power producer West Bengal Power Development Corporation (WBPDCL) was allocated the Deocha Pachami Harinsingha Dewanganj Coal Mines in Birbhum district for generating power from its five plants having an aggregate capacity of 5500 mega watt. The coal block has an estimated reserve of 2,102 million tonnes of coal. "When the PDCL's own requirement of coal is enough, then, one can look at the possibility of merchant mining," said state Finance Minister Amit Mitra. Mitra, who is also in charge of Industry, Commerce and Enterprise, MSME and Textiles, said, "Since it has the world's second largest reserve, it has the potential for huge extraction. Depending on the exploration outcome and MDO's lifting capacity, if it appears in the long run that the reserve is large enough for the state is for its own requirement, then it may approach the Centre for merchant mining, but not now." He said investments worth at least Rs 60,000 crore would be required for the project, adding, depending on the coal block exploitation, the investment may go up to Rs 1 lakh crore. The project is expected to provide 1.10 lakh of direct and indirect employment, he added. "The state remains optimistic about the project and utilising the resources. PDCL would also explore advanced technology for MDOs to work on," he said. "The process of exploration has been planned," he said. Notably, the Deocha Pachami coal block was earlier offered jointly to West Bengal, Bihar, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Sutlej Jal Vidyut Nigam. But subsequently, others backed out of the asset allegedly citing cost and complexities in extracting the resources. The state has about 228 mines, mainly coal, and also has a reserve of 35 billion tonnes, which is low ash and sulphur content coal, he said at the Global Mining Summit 2018, organised by CII in Kolkata. Mitra said the state government has the vision of creating a mining equipment manufacturing and precision technology hub. he pointed out while India's mining sector is growing at 7.3 per cent, the expenditure on exploration is extremely low, amounting to 0.3 per cent of the total global spends on exploration. --IANS bdc/prs (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The UN World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday said that it needs more funds to continue assisting the hundreds of thousands Rohingya refugees, who have been living in Bangladesh camps after fleeing an offensive by the Myanmar military last year. The WFP said it had spent around $20 million to assist the refugees in Bangladesh following the crackdown in Myanmar in August 2017. "We are here to highlight the plight of families of Rohingyas so that governments around the world do not forget about their needs. The international community stepped up in a successful way... but pretty soon we will need more money," said WFP Executive Director David Beasley in a press conference. Beasley said the shortage of funds was owing to the fact that "in the last two years the number of civilian hungry people in the word rose from 80 million to 224 million, primarily driven by man-made conflict whether we talk about Syria, Iraq, Yemen, South Sudan, Nigeria or North East Nigeria", Efe news reported. The WFP usually imports emergency supplies from outside the country but in the case of Bangladesh, the agency has been trying to integrate into the local economy, said Beasley, adding that the WFP has been buying around $10 million worth of products monthly from Bangladesh. Beasley also said that the situation had improved in the refugee camps since his visit last year. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Bangladesh announced that it will begin to repatriate the Rohingyas to Myanmar around the middle of November. The announcement came nearly a year after both the countries signed a repatriation agreement in November 2017. The Rohingya exodus had began after the Myanmar military launched the August offensive in Rakhine state following attacks on multiple government posts by Rohingya rebels. The offensive was globally condemned for its rights abuses including loot, torture, rapes and torching of entire Rohingya villages. The UN called it "ethnic cleansing". --IANS soni/ (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A further $250 billion could suffer similar or worse treatment, if China does not take steps to rectify unfair practices in its trade and intellectual property regimes. Another blow is the USAs recent renegotiation of its free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico (USMCA) which contains a significant clause that any party to that treaty can pull out of it if one of them signs a free trade ... 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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 Post the disqulification of 18 legislators, their rooms at the MLAs' Hostel in Chennai have been sealed and the individuals asked to settle pending dues. A notice from Assembly Secretary K Srinivasan put up on their rooms has also asked them to take their belongings in the presence of an Under Secretary (Hostel Administration) after intimating the official. The action comes in the wake of the October 25 order upholding the disqualification of the 18 MLAs by Speaker P Dhanapal last year for 'defection.' The High Court had upheld the June 14 order of the then disqualifying the 18 rebel MLAs, in a huge relief to the K Palaniswami government. Earlier on June 14, a bench of then Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar had given a split verdict on the case on. According to the notice, they were "not entitled to any facilities provided to the Members of Legislative Assembly including the MLAs' residential quarters", pursuant to their disqualification by the Speaker last year "on grounds of Defection." "Despite the orders of disqualification, you had not vacated the MLAs' residential quarters. Therefore, under the direction of the Hon'ble Speaker, the quarters allotted to you is locked and sealed by this Secretariat," it said. It asked them to take their belongings and vacate the premises. "You are also called upon to settle the pending rental dues immediately," the notice said. All the 18 were disqualified as MLAs in September 2017, days after they met then Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao and expressed no confidence in Palaniswami. The move of the 18 MLAs, loyal to sidelined TTV Dhinakaran and the party's deposed VK Sasikala, had come after Palaniswami merged his faction with that of then rebel O Panneerselvam, now state Deputy Chief Minister. Two men were arrested for allegedly duping people on the pretext of providing them government jobs, police said Wednesday. The accused were identified as Khushi Mohammad alias Amit Yadav (25), a resident of Kota in Rajasthan and Arjun Singh (36), resident of Kalyanpuri in Delhi. The Delhi Police's Crime Branch received information about a fake job recruitment racket running at Tri Nagar. "They also had a website where they used to publish fake information about thousands of jobs," Additional Commissioner of Police (crime) Ajit Kumar Singla said. "The Ministry of Agriculture ruled out any such website being run by it. Thereafter, a raid was conducted and Mohammad and Singh were arrested," he added. During interrogation, Mohammad said he had prepared forged documents of an NGO called 'Pandit Deendayal Kirshi Vikas Anusandhaan Sansthan' and Arjun was made the president of that NGO. They had opened a bank in the name of the NGO, Singla said, adding that Mohammad had also purchased some fake SIM cards. Through the fake website, the two men used to invite applications for various posts on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, he said. The duo then asked applicants to remit Rs 200 to Rs 400 as processing fee. Seventeen mobile phones, 11 SIM cards, five laptops, 50 stamps, 14 pan cards, one hard disk and several application forms were seized from their possession, the officer said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two persons were killed and as many others were injured in an explosion at an illegal firecracker godown in Shivpur Bazar here, police said Wednesday. The incident took place Tuesday night when the fire crackers stored behind an electronics shop in the market exploded, Superintendent of Police Gaurav Grover said. The four injured were rushed to a hospital where Nafees (18) died. Two others were referred to the Lucknow Medical College Hospital with serious injuries where Saddam (17) succumbed to injuries, he said. A case has been lodged in this connection and further action is being initiated, the SP said. District Magistrate Mala Srivastava said a meeting of departments concerned has been convened for putting an effective check on illegal trade of fire crackers. She warned that stern action will be taken against those found involved in such trade. Last week, eight people had died in an explosion at a licensed firecracker factory in Rasulpur village in Badaun district. Following the incident, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had ordered the district magistrates and Superintendents of Police to inspect firecracker factories, transportation of firecrackers and their sale. He had also directed them to take adequate steps to prevent accidents due to firecrackers. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Army has apprehended four overground workers of the separatist outfit NDFB (Songbijit) in Baksa and Chirang districts of Assam for alleged possession and supply of arms and ammunition, a defence spokesman said. Troops of Red Horns Division and Baksa district police personnel carried out a two-day long operation from Tuesday to track down the suspects, the spokesman said. At a mobile check-post, three people travelling in a vehicle were apprehended on Tuesday. A .303 rifle, nine live rounds and four mobile phones were seized from them, he said. Following their interrogation, their accomplice was arrested in Chirang district. An AK-56 assault rifle and a US-made M2 carbine were seized from him. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The AAP has thrown a challenge to the state's BJP government - it will give Rs 1 lakh to any minister who reads out the party's 2014 election manifesto in public. The Aam Aadmi Party seemed to suggest Wednesday that the ministers will be too embarrassed to remind people of the promises made in the BJP manifesto. We know they cannot read out their election manifesto in public because they have not fulfilled any promise, AAP's Haryana convener Naveen Jaihind told reporters here. If the chief minister, his ministers or any BJP leader can muster the courage to read out their party's poll manifesto while being amongst the public, we will give them a cash award of Rs 1 lakh, he said. The state's Bharatiya Janata Party government led by Manohar Lal Khattar completed four years in office four days ago. Jaihind claimed AAP national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's recent visit to Haryana exposed the bad shape of the schools and primary health centres in the state. Mr Khattar has turned out to be the weakest chief minister in the state's history, he said. While Chief Minister Khattar spends crores of rupees on his air travel, he seems to have lost touch with the situation on the ground, Jaihind said. He has failed to control the worsening law and order situation including the growing crime against women. Employees are on roads today, but the CM seems to care less about the situation, he said. Every section is fed up with this government, the AAP leader claimed. Jaihind presented a report card for various ministers, claiming they had failed to deliver results. Taking a dig at Health Minister Anil Vij, Jaihind said, While the state of primary health centres in state is bad, the minister finds ample time to tweet on every other issue. He also criticised Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma. Jaihind said ministers, MLAs and MPs from the ruling party should get their children admitted to government schools and get treatment from its health centres to understand the people's sufferings. He also criticised the state government for failing to accept the genuine demands of the roadways employees, who have been on strike since October 16 to protest against state government's decision to run 700 private buses. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pitching for building a Ram temple in Ayodhya at the earliest, the RSS Wednesday said the government should enact a law to acquire the land for the construction, just like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had rebuilt the Somnath temple in Gujarat. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) also urged the Centre to fulfil the "promise" made in 1994 by the then Congress government in the Supreme Court, saying it had agreed at that time to side with the Hindu community if an evidence was found of a pre-existing temple, before it was razed to build the Babri Masjid. Talking to reporters, RSS sah sarkaryavah (joint general secretary) Manmohan Vaidya said the issue of building a Ram temple at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh was not just limited to the Hindu and Muslim communities. He was addressing the media after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat inaugurated the Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal Baithak of the organisation at Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini in Bhayander. "The Ram temple is a matter of self-respect and pride. Like Sardar Patel had rebuilt the Somnath temple...the government should acquire the land for the construction of the Ram Temple and hand it over for its construction. The government should enact a law for this," Vaidya said, replying to a question. His comments came two days after the Supreme Court delayed the hearings in the Ayodhya land dispute case by setting the first week of January for the hearing dates to be decided. The Supreme Court Monday said an appropriate bench would start hearing the matters related to the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute from January next year, triggering demands within the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the RSS for a law for an early construction of the temple on the disputed site. The Congress has said all parties should abide by the court verdict. "The court has said a mosque is not mandatory for namaz and the prayers can be performed on the streets as well. Besides, namaz is not accepted if it is performed on a forcibly acquired land. The court has also said that this (acquiring of land) was not a religious deed," Vaidya said. He claimed that in 1994, during the Congress rule, the solicitor general had submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court, stating that the government would side with the sentiments of the Hindu community if an evidence was found of a razed temple, where the mosque was built. "Now, we have the evidence...Also, this issue has long been pending in the court without a decision. The issue is now only that of acquiring the land and handing it over for the construction of the temple," Vaidya said. The RSS leader said the issue was no more limited to Hindus and Muslims or a temple or a mosque, but about the restoration of the pride of the country. "The government should now fulfil the promise made in 1994," he added. The Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute is a centuries-old point of a tussle between Hindus and Muslims. The mosque was demolished by Hindu karsevaks on December 6, 1992 in Ayodhya, following which the country witnessed massive riots in which over 2,000 people were killed. On the unveiling of Sardar Patel's statue -- the tallest in the world -- by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat earlier in the day, Vaidya took a dig at the Congress, saying politics should not be played over it. The country was proud of Patel's achievements, he said, adding, "The Congress has the habit of criticising everything, but they cannot prove anything. This is an issue of national pride. Sardar Patel had played a big role in uniting the country after Independence and therefore, he was known as the Iron Man." Patel's statue would inspire the youth, Vaidya said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tourism Minister K J Alphons is leading the Indian delegation at the 109th session of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Executive Council in Manama, Bahrain, according to a statement from the ministry on Wednesday. The three-day session of the UNWTO Executive Council began on October 30. The Executive Council will discuss several topics on the agenda that are related to the development of global tourism sector. During the opening day of the Executive Council meeting, Alphons chaired the 'programme and budget committee' meeting of the UNWTO. In his opening remarks, the minister highlighted the role of tourism in socio-economic development through job creation, enterprise and environment development and foreign exchange earnings. As the chair of the committee, the minister informed the session that for the first time, UNWTO had a surplus budget and most of the arrears due have been paid. India will be the chair of the programme and budget committee of UNWTO Executive Council till 2021. On the sidelines of the event, Alphons met the Secretary-General of UNWTO, Zurab Pololikashvili, and discussed on involving UNWTO in developing tourism as a strong agent for the better future of the world and establishing the global public private partnerships. UNWTO is the United Nations agency responsible for the promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Donald Trump said Tuesday he wants to end a constitutional right that automatically grants citizenship to any baby born in the United States. Trump, in an interview with "Axios on HBO," said his goal is halting guaranteed citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants. through birth comes via the 14th Amendment , which was ratified after the Civil War to secure for newly freed black slaves. It later was used to guarantee citizenship to all babies born on US soil after court challenges. Here is a look at the citizenship clause and how citizens worked to be included in it throughout US history: The 14th Amendment. In the aftermath of the Civil War, radical Republicans in Congress sought to push through a series of constitutional protections for newly emancipated black slaves. The 13th Amendment, which was ratified in December 1865, outlawed slavery. The 14th Amendment, ratified in July 1868, assured citizenship for all, including blacks. And the 15th Amendment, ratified in February 1870, awarded voting rights to black men, stating those rights should not be denied based on "race, color or previous condition of servitude." "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside," the 14th Amendment says. "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." During a debate over the 14th Amendment, US Sen. Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania said birthright citizenship could result in "a flood of immigration of the Mongol race." He was referring to immigrants from Mongolia and China. By extending citizenship to those born in the US, the amendment nullified the Supreme Court's 1857 decision in Dred Scott vs Sandford, which held that those descended from slaves could not be citizens. Dred Scott and his wife Harriet were slaves who sued for their freedom after they were taken from the slave state of Missouri to the non-slave territories of Wisconsin and Illinois where slavery had been prohibited by the Missouri Compromise. Despite the citizenship clause and equal protections afforded under the 14th Amendment, Native Americans were consistently denied the benefits of US birthright citizenship and it took decades for them to receive full citizenship, according to the nonpartisan National Constitution Center. Native Americans who remained under tribal structures were not considered in determining the number of representatives for states in Congress. And if Native Americans left tribal structures, they weren't eligible for naturalization under the general naturalization laws because only whites could become naturalized citizens, Rutgers University School of Law professor Earl M. Maltz told the National Constitution Center in a conversation about citizenship. Congress finally granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the US in 1924. The idea that the children of immigrants born in the US were automatically US citizens remained unclear until 1898. That's when the US Supreme Court ruled that San Francisco-born Wong Kim Ark was a US citizen because he was born in the US. The federal government had tried to deny the son of Chinese immigrants re-entry in the US after a trip abroad on grounds he wasn't a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act. Still, US-born Mexican-Americans in the 1930s were denied citizenship protections when authorities in California and Texas deported them to Mexico during the Great Depression. US-born Japanese-Americans were denied citizenship protections when they were forced into Japanese internment camps during World War II. Geoffrey Hoffman, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Houston Law Center, says some proponents of immigration restrictions have argued the words "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in the 14th Amendment allows the US to deny citizenship to babies born to those in the country illegally. However, Hoffman said those arguments are false since any person in the US, besides diplomats, would be subject to US laws regardless of immigration status. Any executive order by Trump or any president could be subjected to a judicial challenge and there are many articles in the Constitution that would make a fight against the citizenship clause difficult. Besides the 14th Amendment itself, Hoffman said an executive order banning the citizenship clause would violate Article 2 of the Constitution, which states the president "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Hoffman said such an executive order would violate laws of denaturalization and would attempt to strip citizenship retroactively another violation of the Constitution. With an aim to "enhance mutual trust" and promote border peace and tranquillity, the armies of India and China held a meeting at Bumla Pass in Tawang, the Army said on Wednesday. The Border Personnel Meeting (BPM) is a common exercise between the two armies that facilitates interaction between the forces and helps in defusing tension, especially when there is no agreement on border demarcation. The armies of the two countries were engaged in a 73-day stand-off in Doklam last year that had led to escalation of tensions between India and China. "A Border Personnel Meeting (BPM) between #IndianArmy & People's Liberation Army was hosted by Chinese side at Bumla Pass in Tawang. The meet took place in an atmosphere of warmth and friendship, with an aim of enhancing mutual trust and promoting border peace and tranquillity," the Additional Directorate General of Public Information, Army tweeted. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As many as 48 bike enthusiasts from different parts of the country Wednesday embarked on a motorcycle rally, organised by authorities here as part of their effort to promote tourism in Jammu and Kashmir's Chenab Valley. The rally was flagged off by Tourism Officer Zaheer-ud-din Naik from TRC Dandi. After traversing through several markets of the town and rural locations of Bhadarwah via famous Chattar Galla pass in Doda district, the participants, including three women bikers, will leave for Kishtwar district where they will enter the Paddar Valley via Gulab Garh on Thursday. "The Chenab Valley has a lot of potential, especially for adventure tourism, and this rally was planned to highlight the virgin spots to attract potential tourists and promote tourism in this region in a big way," Naik said. He said the Tourism Department is trying to make Bhadarwah a hub of adventure tourism. "I have been a biker since long but this is the best ever ride of my life. They (Tourism Department) have given us this wonderful opportunity to explore the Bhadarwah valley," 27-year-old Preeti Choudhary of the Biker Brotherhood Motorcycle Club told PTI. Praising the beauty of the region, she said people should visit the place at least once in his or her lifetime. "We are having a wonderful experience and every biker will love to explore this kind of locale. This place is heaven for riders and I think every adventure lover should come to this part as well," she said. Parul Jasrotia, a local 25-year-old biker from Travel Days India, said it was heartwarming to see the participation of bikers, especially the women. "This will go a long way to build a positive image of our state and will surely attract tourists, especially adventure enthusiasts, as this part of the state is a safe haven," Jasrotia said. The bikers reached Bhadarwah town on Tuesday night after starting from Jammu, officials at the Tourism Department said, adding that the rally will culminate at Patnitop in Udhampur district on November 2. Chief Executive Officer of the Bhadarwah Development Authority Rajinder Kumar Khajuria said the town with its picturesque surroundings, high altitude meadows and snow filled glaciers has of late become a major tourist attraction. "Every day hundreds of visitors, including domestic and foreign tourists, visit Bhadarwah," he said, adding that more than 5.6 lakh tourists, including pilgrims, have visited Bhadarwah since May this year. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The BJP and the JD(U) might contest 17 seats each in Bihar in the Lok Sabha elections, with allies the Lok Janshakti Party and the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party fighting on four and two seats respectively, sources said Wednesday. They said talks with the Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan-led LJP and the Union minister Upendra Kushwaha-led RLSP were still on to seal a seat-sharing arrangement. If the LJP, which had contested seven seats in 2014 and won six, agrees to the formula, then one of its leaders may be elected to the Rajya Sabha with the BJP's support, the sources said. There is speculation that Paswan might not contest the Lok Sabha polls due to health reasons and may be brought to the Upper House. In such a scenario, his MP son Chirag Paswan will fight from his father's pocket borough of Hajipur, they added. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), LJP and RLSP had contested 30, seven and three seats of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar in 2014 and won 22, six and three of them respectively. However, the entry of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) into the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) last year meant that a new arrangement is being worked out for the Lok Sabha polls due in 2019. Shah had announced last week that the BJP and JD(U) will fight on equal number of seats in the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The ruling Congress in Mizoram Wednesday urged people of the Christian-dominated state to support the party in the assembly election next month, alleging that the entry of BJP might hurt their religious freedom. Countering the charge, the BJP said it was a propaganda of the Congress to tarnish the image of the party. "The Congress should win with a comfortable margin as a fractured mandate would pave way for the BJP to go for a post-poll alliance with the Mizo National Front (MNF)," state Congress spokesperson Lallianchhunga said. "The BJP can cause damage to the soul, spirit and body of the Christians in Mizoram," Lallianchhunga, also the party's media cell chairperson, said in a statement. People should support the Congress, church leaders and civil societies in protecting the state from such dangers and for protecting religious freedom, he said. Mizoram is the only state in the northeastern region under the Congress which is in power since 2008. The election to the 40-member state assembly will be held on November 28. Rev L R Colney, one of the two Christian priests to contest the polls on a BJP ticket, said the party was not a religious group but a political party. Branding the BJP as "anti-Christian" and "pro-Hindu" was baseless as it has never been proved, he said, adding that it is a propaganda of the Congress to tarnish its image. Persecution of Christians has occurred in many places during the regimes of the Congress, Janata Dal and the BJP, Colney said. In a recent report, Tripura BJP general secretary Pratima Bhowmik had indicated that in a fractured post-poll scenario, the opposition MNF might form a coalition with the BJP to form government in Mizoram. The MNF, however, has maintained that it would not form an alliance with the BJP or any other party in the upcoming election. "The MNF leadership cannot afford to be seen as being close to the saffron party as the BJP has been a political pariah in the state," Lallianchhunga said. But the post-poll scenario could be different as the MNF would not hesitate to overrule public opinion after the poll process, he claimed. MNF vice president R Lalthangliana said, "We will contest the elections alone and do not need the help of other parties. We will win". State BJP president Prof John V Hluna told PTI that the party would go it alone in the election. Though both the MNF and the National People's Party are members of the North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), the BJP would be contesting against the two just like any other party, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Two groups of BJP workers clashed at a 'Run for Unity' event in South Delhi on Wednesday with a group alleging "misbehaviour and assault" by supporters of the party's local MP Ramesh Bidhuri, a charge denied by him as a "political conspiracy". Eyewitnesses claimed that two groups of BJP workers -- one led by Chandan Chaudhary and the other allegedly supporters of Bihduri -- clashed over sharing the dais in Sangam Vihar. "The supporters of Bidhuri humiliated us and shoved us off the stage," said Chaudhary. Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari said that a committee has been formed to probe the incident and will give its report in two days. The groups reached the Delhi BJP office and raised slogans. Tiwari was at the office to attend a meeting. Bidhuri said that he was not present at the spot when the incident occurred. "The whole thing is a political conspiracy against me. I had already made complaints against Chaudhary to the party over some property-related matter he was involved with as a builder," Bidhuri told PTI. Chaudhary, however, alleged that Bidhuri and his supporters humiliated and assaulted him. "The programme was going on and the district president was giving speech when Bidhuri and his men came and started abusing those present on the stage. When I protested they abused me and assaulted me," he told PTI. Chaudhary said he would file a complaint against the South Delhi BJP MP and his men at Sangam Vihar police station. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) latched onto the incident and took a jibe at the BJP, saying how would it look after Purvanchalis in Delhi when its leaders are not respecting them within the party. "It seems the BJP MP does not consider people from UP and Bihar as Indians," said AAP spokesperson and Purvanchali face of the party Dilip Pandey. The Purvanchalis were assaulted and chased away from the BJP-ruled Gujarat and now a party MP is doing it in Delhi, he alleged. Chaudhary, who is a native of Khagaria in Bihar, had contested on BJP ticket in the municipal elections from Sangam Vihar last year. 'Run for Unity' events were organised across the country on Wednesday to mark the 143rd birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Britain's Brexit minister believes there could be a divorce deal with the European Union by November 21, it emerged Wednesday, although Downing Street was more cautious. Dominic Raab made the comment in a letter to the House of Commons Brexit scrutiny committee, dated October 24 but only now made public. "I would be happy to give evidence to the committee when a deal is finalised, and currently expect 21 November to be suitable," he wrote. Both Raab and Oliver Robbins, Prime Minister Theresa May's chief Brexit advisor, have been invited to address the committee on that date. Most of the divorce deal with Brussels is agreed but talks remain stuck on how to avoid new checks on Britain's land border with EU member Ireland after it leaves the bloc's single market and customs union. Raab will visit the UK province of Northern Ireland on Friday on a "fact-finding trip", which will include meetings with local businesses and politicians, an official in his ministry told AFP. EU leaders had mooted a special summit in mid-November to seal the Brexit deal, but warned earlier this month that this would not happen without more progress on the Irish issue. Raab wrote: "The end is now firmly in sight and, while obstacles remain, it cannot be beyond us to navigate them." However, May's spokesman refused to repeat the date of November 21, only repeating that "we wish to conclude the deal as quickly as possible". Previously, he had said the government was pressing for a deal this autumn. British officials are keen to avoid the negotiations dragging on, with Brexit day scheduled for March 29. Separately, Raab's predecessor David Davis, who quit over the government's approach to Brexit in July, said the final deal will likely pass when it comes to a vote in the House of Commons. Davis is among a large minority of May's Conservative MPs who strongly oppose her strategy, raising fears the deal will be rejected. "The fear of no deal, I think.... that will win and there will be a deal," Davis told an event on Tuesday evening, according to Sky television. Davis on Wednesday retracted his reported remarks saying that any deal similar to May's current plan of close economic ties with the EU "will not pass the Commons". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday said she would join a number of other members of the Parliament in wearing the khadi poppy in honour of the Indian soldiers killed during World War I. The Poppy Appeal is an annual fundraising campaign for war veterans held in the lead up to Armistice Day on November 11, 1918 when the war came to an end and politicians and members of the public across the country wear a cloth-based poppy on their lapels as a sign of respect for the war dead. A khadi version of the poppy was launched by Indian-origin peer Lord Jitesh Gadhia and the Royal British Legion for the first time this year as an "evocative symbol" of undivided India's contribution to the war effort. "Over 74,000 soldiers came from undivided India and lost of their lives; 11 of them won the Victoria Cross for their outstanding bravery and played a crucial role in the war across multiple continents," said May, during her weekly Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) in the House of Commons on Wednesday. The British PM was addressing a question by Conservative Party MP Tom Tugendhat, himself a former Army officer, if she would join him in wearing a khadi poppy. "I would like to congratulate the Royal British Legion and Lord Gadhia for recognising this special contribution with the khadi poppy and I will certainly be interested in wearing a khadi poppy as we lead up to Armistice Day," May said. She agreed that the gesture would recognise the "vital contribution" made by soldiers from around the Commonwealth, including India. Tugendhat, chair of the Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee which is currently conducting a "Global Britain and India" inquiry into India-UK ties, told Parliament that the "home-spun cotton remembers Gandhi's and India's contribution to the war effort" and is a vital reminder of the UK's links to India. The MPwill be on a tour of India this weekend, during which he said he would lay a wreath in New Delhi to pay "tribute not only to our own war dead from this country but to those 3 million who came from the Commonwealth to serve in the cause of freedom". Earlier this year, the Royal British Legion had announced that the massive contribution of Commonwealth forces 100 years ago, particularly from undivided India, would be a key focus during this year's 100th anniversary of Armistice Day. More than 1.3 million Indian soldiers served in the war across continents andIndians also made a generous financial contribution of over 20 billion pounds in today's money, as well as providing 3.7 million tonnes of supplies, over 10,000 nurses and 170,000 animals to the war effort. "But figures alone don't do justice to the human dimension. These were predominantly young men, who had travelled thousands of miles by ship from their homeland to fight a distant war," the charity notes. "Thekhadipoppyis a hugely symbolic and highly appropriate gesture to recognise the outsized contribution of Indian soldiers during World War I," adds Lord Gadhia. Armistice Day, which refers to thearmisticetreaty signed by the Allies and Germany in France on November 11, 1918, is marked annually in an elaborate wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph in central London led by Queen Elizabeth II, as well as other smaller events around the country. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An octogenarian British woman was found dead in a hotel here, police said Wednesday. Alford Elizabeth, 80, was found dead in a room of the Cecil Oberoi hotel on Tuesday evening, Superintendent of Police, Shimla, Omapati Jamwal said. She had checked into the hotel on October 27 along with her companion Nancy Hall, but they were staying in different rooms, he said. Jamwal said Elizabeth's her body has been kept in the mortuary of the Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital (IGMC). The autopsy would be conducted Thursday, he added. Ruling out possibility of any foul play prima facie, the SP said Elizabeth was suffering from arthritis. The British High Commission in Delhi has been informed about her death, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "Mummy, I love you. I may be killed in this attack." This was the message video recorded by Doordarshan staffer Mormukut Sharma for his mother during an attack by the naxals in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district on Tuesday. Sharma, a 35-year-old Lighting Assistant of DD News, and journalist Dhiraj Kumar survived miracously in the attack which lasted for nearly an hour, but their colleague Achyutanand Sahu, a camera person, was not as lucky and fell to the bullets. The three-member crew from Delhi was in the state for coverage of next month's Assembly polls. "There is a terror attack. We are in Dantewada for election coverage. While on the way, accompanied by the army, we were suddenly ambushed by naxals," Sharma says in the message while lying on the ground. Amidst the sound of gunfire, he is heard saying, "we are surrounded from all sides. It is difficult to survive in this situation. There are six to seven jawans." In the message, he also says, "Mummy, If I survive, I will be thankful. Mummy,I love you. I may be killed in this attack. The situation is not good. Don't know why, despite staring at death, I feel no fear."The attack took place near Nilawaya village, around 450 km from state capital Raipur. The crew was proceeding to Nilawaya where people haven't voted from the past 20 years, according to the police. The crew was heading to the village along with police personnel on around eight motorcycles. Kumar said on Tuesday that ahead of Nilawaya village, Sahu was recording visuals at around 10 am and suddenly fell on the ground. The crew saw their colleague was bleeding. They realised that there was heavy firing from the forest side on left side of the road, Kumar said, adding he dived on to the road and rolled into a ditch by the roadside. Sharma also crawled towards him. Sahu and two policemen, Sub-Inspector Rudra Pratap Singh and Assistant Constable Manglu, were killed and two other security personnel were injured in the attack. One of the injured policeman succumbed to his injuries Wedneday. The naxals have called upon voters to boycott the Assembly polls in the state, which has 90 seats. The first phase of polls covering 18 constituencies of eight Naxal-affected districts Bastar, Kanker Sukma, Bijapur, Dantewada, Narayanpur, Kondagaon and Rajnandgaon will be held on November 12. The remaining 72 constituencies will have polling on November 20. Counting of votes will be held on December 11. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) "Mummy, I love you. I may be killed in this attack ... I feel no fear." Doordarshan staffer Mormukut Sharma recorded the poignant message lying flat in a ditch, his stoic face inches away from the lens of a television camera capturing the drama around him -- bullets flying above him, making sharp hissing sounds intermittently as Naxals and policemen exchanged gunfire for nearly an hour. Sharma, a 35-year-old lighting assistant of DD News, and journalist Dhiraj Kumar survived the gunfire after a Naxal ambush on a police convoy in Chattisgarh's Dantewada district on Tuesday. But their colleague, cameraman Achyutanand Sahu, tragically died in the early minutes of the ambush when he was hit by a bullet while riding pillion with a policeman on a motorcycle. The three-member crew from New Delhi was in the state for coverage of next month's Assembly polls and had joined the police party travelling on eight motorcycles through a desolate and forested area on their way to Nilawaya village, about 450 kilometres from the state capital, Raipur. "There is a terror attack. We are in Dantewada for election coverage. While on the way, accompanied by the army (sic), we were suddenly ambushed by Naxals," Sharma says in the message to his mother while lying on the ground. Amidst the sound of gunfire, he is heard saying, "we are surrounded from all sides. It is difficult to survive in this situation. There are six to seven jawans." In the message, he also says, "Mummy, If I survive, I will be thankful. Mummy,I love you. I may be killed in this attack. The situation is not good. Dont know why, despite staring at death, I feel no fear."The recording was posted by Doordarshan on Twitter. The crew was planning to interview villagers in Nilawaya where people haven't voted from the past 20 years, according to the police. Kumar is heard saying in the video that Sahu was recording visuals at around 10 am and suddenly fell on the ground, bleeding. They realised that there was heavy firing from the forest on left side of the road, Kumar said, adding he dived on to the road and rolled into a ditch by the roadside. Sharma also crawled towards him. Sahu and two policemen, Sub-Inspector Rudra Pratap Singh and Assistant Constable Manglu, were killed and two other security personnel were injured in the attack. One of the injured policeman succumbed to his injuries Wednesday. The Naxals have called on voters to boycott the Assembly polls in the state, which has 90 seats. The first phase of polls covering 18 constituencies of eight Naxal-affected districts Bastar, Kanker Sukma, Bijapur, Dantewada, Narayanpur, Kondagaon and Rajnandgaon will be held on November 12. The remaining 72 constituencies will have polling on November 20. Counting of votes will be held on December 11. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Forceful land acquisition and government brutalities define Jharkhandas Adani power-plant project With much fanfare, Jharkhand government signed an MoU with Adani groups in 2016 to setup a powerplant in Godda district. A recent fact-finding visit of members of Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, an umbrella network of more than 30 peopleas organisations, found that this project has gathered several accolades in the last two years - forceful acquisition of land, severe violation of processes set by land acquisition act 2013, bulldozing standing crops of farmers, lying to people about the potential benefits, intimidating affected people with police brutalities, lawsuits and so on. According to the social impact assessment report of the company, 1364 acres of land, spread across 10 villages of two blocks of Godda, are to be acquired for the thermal power plant. The plant is to produce 1600 MW of electricity. The government and the company claim that this plant is a public-purpose project with azeroa displacement that will lead to generation of employment and economic development. 25 percent of total power produced will be made available to Jharkhand. The ground realities are far from these claims. According to the acquisition act, consent of at least 80 percent of affected families and permission of the concerned Gram Sabhas are required for acquisition of land for private projects. But most of the adivasi and several non-adivasi landowners are opposed to the project from the beginning. In 2016 and 2017, public hearings for social impact assessment (SIA) and environment impact assessment (EIA) were organised. Several landowners who were opposed to the plant were not allowed by Adani functionaries and local administration to participate in the hearings. The affected villagers also claim that people of non-affected areas were made to sit in the hearings. In one of these meetings, when affected families had protested against not being allowed to express their views, the police had misbehaved with several women and lathi charged at them. The social impact assessment report of the company has several factual and constitutional errors such as no technically skilled person in the affected villages, zero displacement, marking all villagers of affected villages as Hindus and so on. It also does not take into account the impact on the sharecroppers. The report does not mention the other alternatives for the proposed project site. The report is silent on the number of jobs that would be created by this project. Also, neither the video recording of landowners giving their consent for the acquisition nor the signed consent forms are available. It must be mentioned that the act clearly specifies that affected families do not only include the land owners but also the workers and sharecroppers. The government has acquired around 500 acres of land in four villages. This includes forceful acquisition of 50 acres of land of 40 families against their wishes. In its attempt to forcefully acquire land, the company with the support of the local police, bulldozed standing crops, several trees, burial ground and pond across 15 acres of land of Manager Hembram and five other adivasi families of Mali village. While forcefully acquiring land of Motiya villageas Ramjeevan Paswan, Adani functionaries threatened him that he would be buried in his land if he refused to give it to the company (azameen nahi di to zameen mein gaad dengea ). The police refused to lodge his complaint against the functionaries. When the people of Mali complained to the Deputy Commissioner (DC) against the forceful acquisition of their land without their consent, the DC refused to take any action and instead told the people that since their lands had been acquired, they should just take the compensation. People of the affected villages claim that more than 1000 families will be displaced if land is acquired in all the ten villages. It will have a direct impact on their livelihoods and survival. Also, for adivasis families, the land is associated with their culture, history and identity, which they do not want to lose at any cost. It must be mentioned that according to section 20 of the Santhal Paragana Tenancy Act, agricultural land in Santhal Pargana area cannot be transferred or acquired for any government or private projects, barring a few exceptions. According to the environment impact assessment report, 14-18 MT coal will be used by the plant every year. There is little doubt that this will severely affect the local ecosystem. The plant will need 36 MCM water per year which is supposed to be sourced from the local rainfed lifeline, Chir river. This will drain up the limited source in the water-deprived district of Godda. The power produced in the plant will be supplied to Bangladesh. Even though Adani company is to provide at least 25 percent of total power to Jharkhand, its SIA report does not clearly mention the source from where the company will provide power to the state. A recent newsreport also exposed how Jharkhand government changed its energy policy in 2016 to buy power from the Adani company at a higher rate which might cost the exchequer more than Rs. 7000 crores in the next 25 years. It is clear from the inquiry that several laws have been grossly violated by this project till now. The Adani project is yet another example of government prioritising corporate interests at the cost of blatant exploitation of people and their resources. It is not surprising that most of the documents related to the acquisition for this project are not available on the district administrationas website, as mandated by the act. Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, on behalf of all the constituent organisations and activists, demands the following: Implementation of the illegal project be immediately stopped, acquisition of land for the plant be stopped and illegally acquired land be given back. Since this project has violated several constitutional provisions and laws, a judicial inquiry of the project be undertaken and legal action be taken against the Adani company and responsible officials for the exploitation of people All affected families to be compensated for the loss in crops and livelihoods Factfinding report and introductory statement of Mahasabha attached. All documents mentioned in the release are available on https://drive.google.com/open?id=11QS2oCRSXhQX6BQneAn6WjJVwBldeZl3 . Video testimonies of affected families available on the youtube channel of them Mahasabha a https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqeFZJtRLHq4LBrE5l5FkJA?view_as=subscriber . For more details, please contact Vivek (8873341415), Kumar Chand Mardi (9934165214), Chintamani Sahu (8226961999) or Siraj (9939819763) or write at Jharkhand.janadhikar.mahasabha@gmail.com CBI Additional SP S S Gurm told the Delhi High Court on Wednesday there was "reasonable" apprehension that the agency would not effectively contest the petition filed by Special Director Rakesh Asthana seeking the quashing of an FIR against him in a bribery case. Gurm has also dragged the name of RAW Special Director Samant Goel in the bribery case involving Asthana, CBI DSP Devender Kumar and Dubai-based businessmen -- Manoj Prasad and Somesh Prasad, who are brothers. He has alleged that Asthana was misleading the court by placing "selective" facts before it. Gurm, who was transferred along with other CBI officials in the feud between CBI Director Alok Verma and Asthana, has sought to be made a party in the petition filed by Asthana. The officer, who was transferred from Delhi to Jabalpur, has sought an opportunity to be heard in the case. In an application before the high court, the additional SP gave the sequence of events in the case in which he was in the team probing the complaint filed by Hyderabad-based businessman Sathish Babu Sana who has accused Asthana and others of taking bribe to settle case relating meat exporter Moin Qureshi. He said Asthana was canvassing several contentions in support of his quashing petition and sought to place relevant materials and important facts which would enable to effectively adjudicate the matter. "It is submitted that Asthana is seeking to mislead the court by selectively placing relevant facts for the kind consideration of the court. "The applicant (Gurm) bears a reasonable apprehension that the CBI is seeking to protect and support Asthana and may not effectively contest his petition," he said. Gurm stated that he has gone through the complaint filed by Sana which appeared to be genuine and the matter was processed as per lawful procedure for registration of regular case against Asthana and others. He submitted that Sana had submitted a complaint to the CBI regarding harassment and extortion by certain private persons, besides Asthana and Kumar. Gurm said that as per Sana's complaint he was repeatedly summoned by the CBI in relation to the Moin Qureshi case and came across a couple of middle men -Somesh Prasad and Manoj Prasad during his visit to Dubai, who claimed that they have very good connections in the CBI and they would "help" him for an amount of Rs 5 crores payable to a "CBI Officer" through them. "Sana stated that the Prasad Brothers disclosed the identity of the aforementioned CBI Officer as Asthana," he said. Referring to Sana's complaint, the officer said the investigation conducted till date had revealed that the act of demand and acceptance of illegal gratification pertain to two specific periods i.e. December 2017 and October 2018. He claimed that an amount of Rs 2.95 crore in December 2017 and Rs 36 Lacs in October this year was paid as illegal gratification in the name Asthana. "The investigation further revealed that several summons were issued to Sana prior to the date of payment of illegal gratification and these summons mysteriously stopped getting issued immediately from the date of payment of illegal gratification to Asthana," the petition claimed. He said there was incriminating evidence which establishes "clear, cogent and an unmistakable" link between Sana to the Prasad Brothers to Goel and culminating at Asthana. The petition said that investigations further revealed that the co-accused CBI DSP Kumar sought to implicate the Director CBI and Rajya Sabha MP C M Ramesh in order to shield Asthana. "It is highly unfortunate that before the investigation could be concluded and the entire guilt could be unravelled, the Investigation Officer of the said case was transferred over night from Delhi to Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands," he said. The officer said that he has dutifully followed the guidelines of the Supreme Court while registering the FIR against Asthana and is extremely "anguished at "misrepresentation" of the facts. Justifying registration of FIR, Gurm said the CBI had sought an opinion from Additional Solicitor General P S Narasimha on the issue whether Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act shall be retrospectively applicable and whether prior approval of the Competent Authority is required before registration of the FIR. "Vide his written opinion, the ASG has opined that there is no requirement of obtaining sanction of the competent authority under Section 17A if an enquiry/ inquiry or investigation has already commenced on the date of coming into force of Section 17A of the P.C. Act. "Further, the ASG has advised that whenever a cognizable offence comes to the notice of law enforcement agency, the FIR/PE must be registered and it should not await the previous approval under Section 17A," Gurm said. He has also sought dismissal of Asthana's petition. The separate petitions of Asthana, Deputy Superintendent of Police Devender Kumar and alleged middleman Manoj Prasad seeking to quash the FIR against them are scheduled to be heard by Justice Najmi Waziri on Thursday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) There is "incriminating evidence" that establishes a "clear, cogent and an unmistakable link" among a Hyderabad-based businessman who is a complainant in a case against CBI special director Rakesh Asthana, two Dubai-based middlemen and a top R&AW official, says an application submitted by an agency officer in the Delhi High Court on Wednesday. S S Gurm, who is posted as additional superintendent of police in the agency, approached the high court with a plea for impleadment in a writ petition filed by Asthana seeking quashing of an FIR against him and others filed on October 16. However, after this, the war between Asthana and CBI chief Alok Verma came out in the open prompting the government to send both officers on leave. Asthana had approached the high court for quashing of the FIR along with Deputy Superintendent of Police Devender Kumar, who was arrested and subsequently given bail on Wednesday. However, Gurm moved the high court against Asthana and claimed that he had been misleading the court by placing "selective" facts before it. In his application, the additional SP said he has "reasonable" apprehension that the CBI is seeking to protect and support Asthana and may not effectively contest the petition. Gurm, who has been transferred after both Verma and Asthana were sent on leave, informed the court that he was part of the investigation team that was probing the case against Asthana. The case was registered on a complaint of Sathish Babu Sana, the Hyderabad-based businessman who was being probed for his links with controversial meat exporter Moin Qureshi. The officer, who was transferred from Delhi to Jabalpur, has sought an opportunity to be heard in the case. "... It is respectfully submitted that there are several cogent evidences collected during the course of investigation which would prima-facie establish the guilt of the petitioner (Asthana) herein, disentitling him to any relief from this Court," he said in his petition and urged that the court should take notice of statement made by Sana in front of a magistrate of Saket court. "A perusal of these two statements made under Section 164 Cr.P.C under oath by Sathish Babu Sana would unequivocally and unambiguously demonstrate that the version pleaded by Rakesh Asthana is factually incorrect and that the prosecution story is factually correct," the CBI officer said. Gurm also mentioned in his affidavit that investigation had shown that "Kumar, DySP CBI sought to implicate the Director CBI and C.M. Ramesh, Member of Parliament Rajya Sabha, in order to shield Rakesh Asthana". "There were incriminating evidences that establishes a clear, cogent and an unmistakable link between Sathish Babu Sana to the Prasad Brothers to Shri Samant Goel (Special Director RAW), and culminating at Rakesh Asthana," it said. Gurm said that according to Sana's complaint, he was repeatedly summoned by the CBI in relation to the Moin Qureshi case and came across middle men Somesh Prasad and Manoj Prasad during his visit to Dubai, who claimed that they have very good connections in the CBI and they would "help" him for an amount of Rs 5 crore payable to a "CBI Officer" through them. "Sana stated that the Prasad brothers disclosed the identity of the aforementioned CBI Officer as Asthana," he said. On Monday, A K Bassi had submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying that when they arrested Manoj Prasad, the accused called Goel who in turn had called Asthana to stop the arrest. Another fact came to light in Gurm's petition as he informed the High Court that an opinion of Additional Solicitor General of India P S Narasimha had been taken before registering a case against Asthana. "....the Ld. ASG has opined that there is no requirement of obtaining sanction of the competent authority under Section 17A if an enquiry / inquiry or investigation has already commenced on the date of coming into force of Section 17A of the P.C. Act. Further, the Ld. ASG has advised that whenever a cognizable offence comes to the notice of law enforcement agency, the FIR / PE must be registered and it should not await the previous approval under Section 17A. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Competition watchdog CCI has approved Malaysia-based IHH Healthcare's proposed acquisition of Fortis Healthcare and Fortis Malar Hospital. In August, Fortis Healthcare shareholders gave their nod for the deal. Competition Commission of India (CCI) has approved "acquisition of Fortis Healthcare Ltd and Fortis Malar Hospital Ltd by Northern TK Venture Pte Ltd," the regulator said in a tweet Wednesday. In July, the board of Fortis Healthcare approved a Rs 4,000-crore offer from IHH Healthcare for buying 31.1 per cent stake in it. The proposal had valued the cash-strapped firm at Rs 8,880 crore. Shareholders had also approved reclassifying members of promoter/promoter group to public shareholder category and classification of Northern TK Venture Pvt Ltd as a promoter. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court Wednesday dismissed a petition filed by 14 accused in the Ayanavaram child rape case, seeking transfer of the probe to the CBI. Rejecting the petition, Justice A D Jagadish Chandira said, "No specific material fact has been averted in the petition regarding mala fide exercise of power by the Inspector of Police who is the investigated the case. "The petitioners have not made out any extraordinary or special grounds for transfer of investigation or for further investigation." The matter relates to the rape of an 11-year-old hearing-impaired girl by a group of 17 people working at an apartment complex in Ayanavaram locality here, as plumbers, housekeepers, security guards and lift operators. The girl was allegedly sexually assaulted several times by the accused over seven months. All 17 were first arrested, and then detained under Goondas Act. Recently, the Goondas Advisory Board also confirmed the detention of the 17 under the Act. Claiming that the allegations against them were false, the petitioners said it was very strange that the minor girl was still alive despite the claim of her having been "raped" on multiple occasions. Noting that they had no bad antecedents, the petitioners alleged that all of them have lost their jobs and were forced to vacate their house by the landlords. Adverse media reports had prejudiced the minds of police and others, they claimed. The horrific incident had led to shock and outrage and the arrested had been attacked by some lawyers in the court when they were produced on July 17. According to police, the girl was sedated with injections, drug-laced soft drinks and made to sniff a powder by the accused before sexually assaulting her repeatedly. The incident had come to light after the victim, a class seven student, narrated her ordeal to her elder sister, who then informed their parents. Following this a police complaint was lodged on July 15. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Four Naxals who were allegedly involved in the recent killing of a villager in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Narayanpur district were arrested Wednesday, police said. The rebels were apprehended by a team of police's District Reserve Guard from a weekly market at Sonpur village under Narayanpur police station limits, district Superintendent of Police Jitendra Shukla told PTI. Those arrested were identified as Masiya Ram Hichami (21), Modda Hichami (20), Sonaru Hichami (20) and Hadam Usendi. They were allegedly involved in the killing of Sukhlal Nureti, resident of Sonpur, on October 6, the SP said. Nureti was killed by Naxals on suspicion that he was a police informer, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The following is the chronology of events relating to 1987 Hashimpura Massacre case leading up to the Delhi High Court on Wednesday sentencing 16 ex-policemen to life imprisonment for killing 42 people of a minority community in Uttar Pradesh. - May 22, 1987: 50 Muslims picked up allegedly by Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel from Hashimpura village in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. - Victims later shot and bodies thrown into canal. 42 persons declared dead. - 1988: UP government orders CB-CID probe in the case. - February 1994: CB-CID submits inquiry report indicting over 60 PAC and police personnel of all ranks. - May 20, 1996: Charge sheet filed against 19 accused before Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ghaziabad by CB-CID of Uttar Pradesh police. 161 people listed as witnesses. - September 2002: Case transferred to Delhi by the Supreme Court on petition by the families of victims and survivors. - July 2006: Delhi court frames charges of murder, attempt to murder, tampering with evidence and conspiracy under the IPC against 17 accused. - March 8, 2013: Trial court dismisses Subramanian Swamy's plea seeking probe into the alleged role of P Chidambaram, then Minister of State for Home, in the matter. - January 22, 2015: Trial court reserves judgement. - March 21: Court acquits 16 surviving accused giving them benefit of doubt regarding their identity. - May 18: Trial court decision challenged in the Delhi HC by the victims' families and eyewitnesses who survived the incident. - May 29: HC issues notice to the 16 PAC personnel on Uttar Pradesh government's appeal against the trial court verdict. - December: National Human Rights Commission is impleaded in the matter. NHRC also seeks further probe in to the massacre. - February 17, 2016: HC tags Swamy's appeal with the other petitions in the matter. - September 6, 2018: Delhi HC reserves verdict in the case. - October 31: Delhi HC convicts 16 former PAC personnel for life after finding them guilty of murder of 42 people. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Industry body CII Wednesday suggested a host of measures for the revival of the stressed financial sector to prevent any adverse impact on India's growth story. The financial sector is going through a phase of stress, which needs interventions in appropriate measure to ensure that the sector continues to play the financing role that it has been for the India growth story to remain uninhibited, CII said in a statement. The industry chamber suggested that the Reserve Bank must encourage NBFCs to securitise their assets which can be purchased by banks. It further said considering the inherent risk profile of NBFCs and Housing Finance Companies (HFCs), current investment norms are increasing the risk exposure of mutual funds. Therefore, CII has recommendation that the RBI and SEBI should come out with a road-map to reduce the exposure of mutual funds to NBFCs and HFCs from 40 per cent to 25 per cent in graded tranches. It also pointed out that NBFCs and HFCs are suffering from Asset-Liability Mismatches (ALM) as they had borrowed short but are having to lend long. "This could set off a chain of problems, since NBFCs have borrowed from MFs and Banks. In a worst-case scenario, this could lead to a run on mutual funds and defaults in the NBFC sector," it said. It further said redemption pressure on mutual funds has increased and credit to NBFCs is drying out. The RBI is required to intervene in the interest of the entire financial sector, CII said. The chamber further said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may also revisit the lending restrictions of public sector banks under promot corrective action (PCA) framework and consider allowing them lending to National Housing Bank which in turn can use it to finance housing projects. It also suggested that RBI intervention should be there in the rupee market in such a manner that bond yields do not go out of control. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Class 1 girl student was allegedly raped by an unidentified man while she was returning home from school here, police said Wednesday. The six-year-old girl's mother reported the matter to police when she saw her weeping and bleeding on Tuesday, Station House Officer (SHO) Inspector Jatinderjit Singh said. He said the minor girl was returning home from school when she was raped by an unidentified man. The victim was medically examined, the SHO said. A case under Section 376 (punishment for rape) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was registered against the unknown accused, he said. He said police was leaving no stone unturned to trace the culprit. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The (DoT) has constituted committees to work on objectives set by National Digital Communications Policy, especially around concerns raised by service providers, a top government official said. "We have constituted several committees. We need to enlarge some committees... to bring inter-ministerial participation for views of Department of Finance, Department of Space and Department of IT. Most of the committees have been constituted, and now we will get down to work," Telecom Secretary told PTI in an interview. She was responding to a question on the action plan of DoT to achieve targets set by the government under (NDCP) 2018. When asked about the roadmap for rationalisation of levies and spectrum prices, Sundararajan said "committees will start working immediately." Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, at the India Mobile Congress (IMC), had said that the telecom sector remains highly taxed just like the tobacco industry. "In India, for every Rs 100 that mobile operators earn, nearly Rs 37 goes towards one form of levy or the other," Mittal had said. "I cannot see how this contradiction can exist...where on one hand we have PM's vision of digitally enabled India ...which requires tremendous amount of investment, on the other hand we keep the spectrum prices and our licence fee very high...and of course the GST is at 18 per cent which almost at the highest tax bracket," he had stated. The telecom secretary said that most of the issues were expected to be resolved in a year, and for some work will have to go on till 2022 as per the target date set under NDCP. "We do accept two things. You need lot more spectrum for 5G to happen. Second, revenue maximisation cannot be the only objective," Sundararajan said. She said that taking concerns of telecom sector players, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has already proposed up to 46 per cent reduction in price of spectrum. "If anything more needs to be done, then we will have to look at it after committee gives its recommendations," Sundararajan said. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) Monday recommended auction of about 8,644 MHz of telecom frequencies at an estimated total base price of Rs 4.9 lakh crore, which includes radiowaves for 5G services. Sundararajan said that telecom companies have showed huge enthusiasm for 5G services at the IMC. "They (telecom companies) need spectrum for the trials. We will make available all global bands for trial. They need simply right of way mechanism. We will set up official mechanism to set up trials. We have also told them we do not want showcasing of what has already been done. We want something new," Sundararajan said. The IMC that was held during October 25-27. Sundararajan said that government had plans to conduct spectrum auction for 5G services in the second of 2019. A couple was arrested Wednesday for allegedly strangulating a girl to death at their residence in northeast Delhi's Welcome and then dumping her body at north Delhi's Timarpur, police said. The girl, aged around 11-12, used to go for tuition classes to her neighbour Ruksar's (32) residence, they added. On October 22, she went for the tuition classes at around 11 am, but did not return home, the police said, adding that the girl also used to help in the household chores at Ruksar's residence. On October 22, while the girl was trying to fetch an object from an upper shelf, it slipped and hit her on the face and she started crying, the police said. Irked by her wailing, Ruksar's husband Rajab (34) slapped her hard and she lost consciousness, they said, adding that Rajab was scared that after gaining consciousness, she might inform her parents. The couple kept the girl confined and on October 27, strangulated her, the police said. Rajab then put the body in a trolley bag, took it on his scooter and dumped it at the roadside near the Yamuna Biodiversity Park, they added. The police were informed about an unclaimed bag lying at the spot Sunday morning. A police team reached the spot and found the girl's body. Ruksar and Rajab were called for questioning and they claimed that the girl had left their house after the tuition classes on October 22, the police said. They were again thoroughly interrogated Wednesday, during which they confessed to killing the girl, the police said. The accused were frequently changing their statements, they added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Bhumi Adhikar Andolan submitted Memorandum signed by representatives of 12 major political parties to JICA, reiterates gross violations in Bullet Train Project Farmers, Adivasis and other affected communities demanded scrapping of the project, alleged coercion and impingement on their democratic rights Major political parties extended their support and solidarity to the people fighting against the project New Delhi | October 30, 2018: While PM Modi have gone on to visit Japan and will be discussing various strategic projects with the Prime Minister of Japan including the controversial Bullet Train project, the farmers, adivasis and other affected communities of proposed Bullet Train project reiterates demand for scrapping the project and submitted the memorandum to JICA with details of gross violations of their guidelines. Bullet Train project is an ambitious project where PM Modi is believed to be taking personal interest and promoting it falsely as a developmental project for people of the country. The socio-economic angle of the project has been much debated in public forums by various academicians and activists. The impact will be irreversible for Indian economy as well as the environment. The farmers are losing land not only in Bullet Train Project but various other highway projects when there is already an Indian Railway line going parallel to the alignment of Bullet Train. aIn the name of infrastructure development, the government is attracting foreign investment. But the question remains that at the cost of whom are these projects being initiated?a , rightly pointed out by Ulka Mahajan of Sarvahara Jan Andolan. She also articulated the peoplesa frustrations while stating that the itas the common people, the farmers of the country who carry the brunt of such adevelopmenta projects. She stated that the need of the hour is to remove fear, hunger, poverty and the divisive politics from the country instead of such pointless, so called, development projects. The Modi Govt. diluted the law to acquire land denying the consent and social impact assessment provisions which are laid out in the central land acquisition act of 2013. Even after being tagged as a national project, the state laws are being used to subvert the democratic rights of people of Gujarat and Maharashtra state using powers of majority in Gujarat assembly. The public consultations cannot be more farcical than ever. In the name of public consultations, officials intentionally put out notifications just 24 hours before the consultations to prevent the peopleas voices and critics of the project. The people were deliberately classified as authorized and unauthorized for the consultations and were prevent with the use of police forces. Over 12 major political parties have extended their full support and solidarity with the people of both the States against the project. Earlier during the Jan Manch in Delhi held this month, political parties termed the project anti-people, anti-farmer, and anti-worker in nature. The project is only facilitating few rich conglomerates. The need of the hour is to invest in the Indian Railways which actually caters to the larger public unlike the Bullet Train. When the fundamental infrastructure is not yet in place, a project like this for a small distance is unjustified and is a distortion of people-centered development. The Japan Govt. and JICA must listen to the people of India and stop funding the project to protect the environment, and democratic rights of the people. The impact of the said project will be irreversible and the people of India strongly believes a country like Japan which is already facing the wrath of nuclear warfare will not want destruction of such massive scale to be written under their name. Copy of the memorandum is attached hereby mentioned below Date: 15-10-2018 To, 1. Shri Shinichi Kitaoka The President Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) 1-6th floor, Nibancho Center Building, 5-25 Niban-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-8012, Japan 2. Junichi Yamada Board Member, JICA & Incharge of South Asia Department 1-6th floor, Nibancho Center Building, 5-25 Niban-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-8012, Japan 3. The JICA representative (India) 16th Floor, Hindustan Times House, 18-20, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi - 110001. INDIA Subject: Bullet Train affected farmers from Maharashtra and Gujarat adopt resolution in presence of representatives from various political parties, Farmers organisations, and other Human rights organizations. Sirs, The affected farmers, adivasis (indigenous people) and other affected persons came together today in Delhi at a Jan Manch (peoplesa forum) jointly organised with Bhoomi Adhikar Andolan (a group of organisations working on land and livelihood rights of people) at Mavlankar Hall, Constitution Club, Rafi Marg, New Delhi. Political parties viz. a Indian National Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Samajwadi Party, Janta Dal (Secular), Rashtriya Janata Dal, Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India(M), Communist Party of India (ML), Aam Aadmi Party, Janata Dal (Loktantrik), SUCI, Swabhiman Shetkari Sanghatana, Rshtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan, were represented by their senior members. During the Jan Manch affected people presented their concerns and experiences regarding implementation of the Mumbai a Ahmedabad High Speed Railway project (popularly known as Bullet Train). The major issues highlighted during the Jan Manch were that the JICA guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations are being consistently flouted by the project implementers. As per the said Guidelines, JICA is to assure fairness to the socially vulnerable, reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, reduce the gap among various regions, ensure democratic decision making and information transparency and most importantly, respect for human rights. However, all these are being violated as listed below: 1. The acquisition of land for the Project is taking place forcibly and thus by disregarding the Human rights of the affected population. The excessive use of police force at all levels a during consultations, during land measurement surveys, discussions etc. vitiates the atmosphere and puts tremendous pressure on the affected population. 2. In Maharashtra, despite the stated position that land will be obtained only through a process of mutual negotiation and that joint measurement of land will take place only after the affected person assents in writing, in reality, a process of forcible take-over is taking place. In Village Kotbi (Palghar district), Notices for Joint Survey of land were issued to people on 5/10/2018 despite the fact that most of them had not given their consent in writing for the same. 3. The JICA guidelines with respect to Indigenous Peoples are being violated. The JICA guidelines specifically mention that the rights of the Indigenous People in relation to land and resources in accordance with the spirit of the UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples shall be respected. Art 10 of the Declaration states that Indigenous People shall not be forcibly removed from their land. Whatever be the reason, no relocation shall take place without the free, prior and informed consent of the Indigenous People concerned. Also, viable Alternatives are to be explored. However, all these safeguards are being violated in the Scheduled Area (predominantly inhabited by indigenous people) through which the Bullet Train passes. India may not be a signatory to the UN Declaration, but for JICA, failing to fulfill the provisions of the UN Declaration is a non-negotiable. 4. Environmental and Social Consultations as mandated by the JICA guidelines are carried out in a manner as to ensure that people are unable to participate in an informed manner: a. The consultations are announced at a very short notice to the concerned stakeholders. The advance notice period has varied from 24 hours (1 day) to a few weeks. b. There is no coherent approach to announcement of stakeholder consultations. At times they are announced for district level and sometimes they are conducted at Taluka levels. c. There is no clarification to the stakeholders invited to the consultation whether they should represent on Social concerns or on Environmental issues. In fact, purposely confusions are created. Different public advertisements are published by NHRSCL at same venue and same timing, but for different purpose. d. In case of Environmental Consultations the Supplementary EIA copies are kept for public viewing at different places which are hundreds of kms away at offices of NHRSCL. The nearest place is the District Collector office, which in some cases is about 30 kms away. Even these were not made available during consultations in most districts of Gujarat. e. Most of the reports are available in the English language, while they should be made available in the local vernacular language for the public to be able to read through and understand, and subsequently participate through an informed representation. f. Farmers/ affected indigenous population (who are mostly illiterate or semi-literate) are disallowed to raise questions/queries. g. Environmental activists/experts are deliberately shunned out of the consultation venue with use of police force. This is violation of basic human rights of the people. And stakeholders are left with no choice to consult or assist during the consultation. h. Even farmers and local civil society organisations and other social/environment groups are kept out of the process. i. Elected representatives who can potentially raise uncomfortable queries regarding the project are man-handled and taken away before the start of consultations. The Surat consultation is one such example. j. The queries raised during the consultations are very casually addressed and there is no written response to the submissions or oral queries raised at the consultations. k. The minutes of the consultations are yet to be made public. Neither has the video documentation been made public. These are necessary for a transparent process. Letters seeking copies of the minutes are yet to be responded to. l. In Maharashtra the consultations on 2/5/2018 and 2/6/2018 in Palghar district were organised but cancelled by the district administration itself due to lack of proper organising and non-availability of necessary information/documents respectively NO consultation has been held subsequently. However, the district administration has sent a report to the concerned authorities that the Public Hearing has been completed. This is a blatant lie and misrepresentation of facts. m. As if it was not enough the recent announcement for the Stakeholder consultations for districts of Navsari and Valsad (both in the state of Gujarat), went one step further. They published invitation in local newspapers for the Consultations specifically mentions that aunauthorized people would not be allowed at the consultationa. We fail to understand what criteria are prescribed under JICA guidelines to segregate attending stakeholders into authorized and unauthorized categories n. From the manner in which the stakeholder consultations are conducted it appears that these are just paper arrangements, with no serious concern to the society and environment seems that in the case of these consultations for the proposed Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail project, Participation, Transparency, Respect for basic Human Rights of people etc. are just words to be bandied around, but not seriously considered o. Trampling of basic Human Rights through police force seems to be a part and parcel of the conducting of stakeholder consultations. p. It be noted that at several places due to the apprehensions of affected people arising out of the high-handed and opaque functioning for the consultation the atmosphere was vitiated, and the consultations had to be postponed/rescheduled. 5. JICAas guidelines also lay down that the intervention must reduce the gap between rich and poor and among various regions. We fail to understand how this is being addressed through this Project. The Bullet train will be accessed by only a miniscule percentage of the entire population. The needs of the poor and the middle class will not be met by the bullet train. In fact, the opportunity cost of the expense incurred on the Bullet Train, will impact the availability of funds for social sector spending in the field of health, education etc. The transportation needs of the poor and the middle class will be met if the large outlay on the Bullet Train will be used for the modernization of the present rail system including increasing safety standards and improving facilities. Regional imbalances are not being reduced by the Bullet Train either. 6. The JICA guidelines state that JICA will actively support projects that promote environmental conservation and to projects that contribute to global environment eg. attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, the claim that the Bullet train will be aclean and greena has also not been substantiated in the light of aembedded emissionsa of CO2 and other pollutants, energy-intensive machinery and construction, per-passenger-Km energy consumption etc. The Jan Manch today resolved to continue its opposition to the proposed Bullet Train project. All the attending political parties who came to show their support and solidarity with farmers, indigenous people and other project affected people have endorsed their support to the affected population. We request a personal hearing from the JICA team at the earliest. Thanking you, Yours faithfully, Endorsed by: D P Tripathi, Nationalist Congress Party Danish Ali, Janta Dal (Secular) Somnath Bharti, Aam Aadmi Party Manishankar Aiyar, Indian National Congress Nawalkishore, Rashtriya Janta Dal Javed Ali, Samajwadi Party Raagesh, Communist Party of India (Marxist) D. Raja, Communist Party of India Raju Shetty, Shetkari Swabhiman Sangathana V. M. Singh, Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan Prem Singh, Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) Dr. Suraj Yadav, Loktantrik Janata Dal A court here on Wednesday issued arrest warrant against former Bihar minister Manju Verma, who has been booked in an Arms Act case following the recovery of a huge cache of ammunition from her residence during a CBI raid in connection with the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Prabhat Trivedi issued the warrant against Verma, who stepped down as the social welfare minister in August following reports suggesting "close links" between her husband Chandrashekhar Verma and the prime accused in the shelter home scandal, Brajesh Thakur. According to Begusarai Superintendent of Police Avakash Kumar, the court also granted two days' police remand for Chandrashekhar Verma who had surrendered before the court on Monday. His surrender had come a few days after the Supreme Court had rapped the Bihar government for failing to secure his arrest. The warrant against Manju Verma comes a day after the Bihar government faced flak from the apex court upon its submission that the former minister was "untraceable". The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up Bihar Police for not arresting Manju Verma. The anticipatory bail plea of Manju Verma, an MLA of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U), was rejected by a court here and subsequently by the Patna High Court. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a bid to counter BJP chief Amit Shah's 'rath yatras' in Bengal ahead of next year's Lok Sabha polls, opposition Congress and the CPI(M) have decided to take up mass contact programmes and 'padayatras' (foot marches) in the state. The ruling TMC, however, refused to attach any importance to either Shah's rath yatras or events organised by the opposition, saying people of the state were firmly with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The BJP, which is trying to make inroads in Bengal, stood second to the Trinamool Congress in the local body polls held recently. The saffron party has emerged as the principle challenger to TMC, leaving its two traditional rivals -- the Congress and CPI(M) -- fuming. The state Congress, on its part, has decided to launch 'Jan Samparak Abhiyan' (mass contact) programme across the state, as part of a nationwide initiative, likely from the end of next month, party sources said. The CPI(M) leadership under the banner of its farmer wing - Kisan Sabha - has announced three foot marches from Singur in Hoogly district, Coochbehar district and Farakka in Murshidabad district, sources in the party said. According to the sources in both parties, these programmes will clash with the timing of the three rath yatras of Shah in the state from December 5-9, and are aimed at countering it. West Bengal Congress president Somen Mitra said the 'Jan Samparak Abhiyan' is targeted at reaching out to the masses with the objectives of the party and highlight the "corruption, communal and misrule" of the Narendra Modi government. "In every district, blocks and booths of the state, our party workers will reach out to the masses and communicate our vision. We will also raise a donation of Rs 2 to Rs 5 from every household for the party. Through these activities, we will strengthen our party organisation," Mitra told PTI. Asked whether the outreach programmes are aimed at countering Shah's rath yatras, Mitra said, "Our programme is part of a nationwide campaign of AICC. We are not competing with anyone, but yes, the Congress will oppose any sort of communal or divisive of the BJP and during our mass contact programme, we will speak out against it". CPI(M) politburo member and Kisan Sabha general secretary Hannan Mollah said apart from various issues related to farmers, including the land policy of the TMC government, the party will propagate against the communal of the BJP. "It is obvious that when the CPI(M) is organising a programme, we will speak out against communal politics and will advocate in favour of unity of masses to defeat the BJP and divisive forces. During our padayatras too, we will do the same," Mollah told PTI. "It is also obvious that Amit Shah during his rath yatras will try to create communal polarisation in the state in order to reap benefits in the Lok Sabha polls. We will fight tooth and nail against it," he said, adding, the first foot march will start from Singur on November 28. CPI(M) state committee member and state secretary, Kisan Sabha, Amal Haldar said the party will emphasise on issues relating to farmers. "We will highlight the anti-farmer policies of the state and central governments. Farmers' distress, agricultural loans and lies of the TMC government regarding the issue of Singur and its land policy will be raised during our programmes," Haldar said, and claimed that the campaigns are not aimed at the rath yatras of the BJP. Reacting to the proposed mass contact programmes, BJP Bengal president Dilip Ghosh said both the parties were "spent force" in state politics, and people were looking up to the saffron party to fight against the misrule of the TMC government. "We are not bothered about what the Congress and the CPI(M) are planning. In the last panchayat polls and several by-elections, it has been proved that the BJP is the only alternative to the TMC in Bengal," Ghosh told PTI. TMC secretary-general Partha Chatterjee said neither the rath yatras of the BJP nor the outreach programmes of the Congress and the CPI(M) would yield any result, as the people of Bengal stand together with the CM. The BJP chief will kick-off his rath yatra in Bengal, starting December 5, from the temple town of Tarapith in Birbhum district. The yatras will cover all the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies of the state. The second and third rath yatras will start from Coochbehar district in north Bengal and Gangasagar in south Bengal on December 7 and 9, respectively. Each rath yatra will cover 14 Lok Sabha constituencies. The tableau of these rath yatras will stop at various places for public meetings and interactions. The three yatras will span across 40 days, and will be followed by a massive rally in Kolkata at the end of January or the beginning of February. Shah has set a target of winning 22 seats from Bengal in the next Lok Sabha polls. The party presently has two Lok Sabha seats -- Asansol and Darjeeling. The CPI(M) and the Congress at present have two and four Lok Sabha seats, respectively, in the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A joint delegation of CPI-ML, CPI(M) and AISA leaders met a senior Delhi Police official Wednesday in connection with the death of an eight-year-old madrassa student in a scuffle between two groups in south Delhi last week. The leaders met Devesh Srivastava, Joint Commissioner of Police (Southern range), and submitted a letter addressed to Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik. The delegation alleged that inaction by some officials on the complaints by the madrassa residents regarding harassment and intimidation allowed the atmosphere of hostility to grow. "We have demanded that action must be taken against responsible police officials and an inquiry must start on the complaints by the madrassa residents," it said. A CPI(M)-CPI-ML team had visited the madrassa on October 26. "Through our conversation with the residents of the madrassa and the documents shown by the Imam, we have come to know that the incident of October 25 was preceded by several instances of harassment of the madrassa residents," the letter said. "Despite several complaints by the madrassa residents, Delhi Police continued to ignore such complaints," it added. "It is of grave concern that Delhi Police continued to ignore complaints of the madrassa residents when mob lynching and hate-mongering against people of the minority community has become a daily affair in the country," the letter said. An eight-year-old student of a madrassa in Malviya Nagar here died after he sustained a head injury in a scuffle between two groups of minor boys on October 25. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Delhi court on Wednesday reserved its verdict on the bail plea of CBI DSP Devender Kumar arrested in connection with bribery allegations involving the agency's Special Director Rakesh Asthana. Special CBI Judge Santosh Snehi Mann said he would pass order later during the day after both sides complete their arguments. During the hearing, the lawyer appearing for Kumar told the court that every rule has been violated by CBI in this case against him and the "irony" is that the person who followed the rule is in jail. The CBI did not oppose his bail petition. In his bail application, Kumar had termed his custody "illegal" and urged the court to set him free. The application also said Kumar was ready to abide by the conditions imposed by the court while granting him bail. It claimed that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sleuths did not have valid search warrants when they raided Kumar's office and residence. His eight mobile phones, an iPad and his son's laptop were seized, the plea said, seeking a direction to the agency to release these articles. Kumar and Asthana have already challenged the legality of the FIR filed against them. Besides them, two alleged middlemen -- Manoj Prasad and Somesh Prasad -- have also been named as accused in the case. The agency had earlier told the court that Kumar had tried to fabricate evidence during the investigation in another case. Kumar had claimed that he was falsely implicated in the case and that he was a victim of rivalry among the senior officers of the central probe agency. He had said he was investigating a case against meat exporter Moin Qureshi, in which the complainant in the present case -- Sathish Babu Sana -- was a suspect and the names of some past and present senior CBI officers had surfaced. Kumar had claimed that his arrest in the present case was motivated to stall the investigation in the case against Qureshi and that there was no direct allegation against him. If convicted, the accused may get a maximum 10-year jail term in the case. The FIR in the current case was lodged on the basis of a written complaint from Sana on October 15, wherein it was alleged that Kumar, being the IO in the case against Qureshi, was repeatedly calling the complainant to the CBI office to harass him and compel him to pay a bribe of Rs 5 crore for getting a clean chit in the case. The complaint had also said a part of the bribe was paid by Sana. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Delhi government Wednesday said it is "fully prepared" to combat the deteriorating air quality in the city with an emergency plan and implement the odd-even scheme when needed. Delhi's air quality turned 'severe' on Tuesday for the first time this season with stubble burning intensifying in neighbouring states, prompting authorities to adopt measures like ban on construction activities and closure of some industries for the first ten days on November when the air quality is expected to deteriorate further. Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot, while addressing reporters here, said the government is fully prepared to combat the rising pollution. "The Delhi government is fully prepared to take measures as per Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), including the odd-even scheme are concerned. We will take them when needed," Kailash Gahlot, Delhi Transport Minister said. The GRAP is an emergency plan implemented to combat pollution from October 15. The plan includes measures depending upon the air quality of the city. The minister said they have received no official communication from the Supreme Court-appointed Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) regarding regulation of private vehicles. There are a total of 35 lakh private vehicles in the Delhi-NCR. In 2016, the odd-even scheme was enforced twice - January 1-15 and April 15-30 -in the city when vehicles having odd and even numbers were allowed to ply on alternate days. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ahead of polls in BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh, the party's think-tank released a study Wednesday, claiming the Modi government's "bold decision" of note-ban broke the "backbone of left wing extremists" in the state and "unmasked urban naxals". Elections in will be held in two phases on November 12 and November 20. The Public Policy Research Centre (PPRC) in its research study titled 'Demonetisation: Impact on combating naxalism' said, "The Prime Minister Narendra Modi government's decision broke the backbone of the left wing extremists." For carrying out this study, a research team visited the naxal-affected districts of -- Sukma, Bijapur, Rajnandgaon and Narayanpur -- and spoke to tribals and surrendered naxals, the PPRC claimed. Releasing the study BJP's vice-president and PPRC's director said as per the study, there was a 55 per cent rise in naxal arrests and surrenders in 2017 after demonetisation, compared to 2015. On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Modi had announced the of all Rs 500 and Rs 1000 banknotes and also announced the issuance of new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 banknotes in exchange for the scrapped banknotes. "A political will was always required to resolve the problem of naxalism by nullifying it and not utilising it, which was shown by the Narendra "Whereas, in the past some political parties either promoted naxals or used them for their interests," Sahasrabuddhe said. The governments at the Centre and in incentivised the mainstreaming of naxals. There is no premium on being rebellious, he said. The think-tank in its study described as a "bold step which broke the back bone of left wing extremists by curbing its finance." "Inputs received from naxals leaders as well as police officials give enough evidence to state that demonetisation choked the financial reserves of naxalities," it said, adding that due to cash crunch they were not able to implement their strategies to ambush security forces. Talking specifically about Chhattisgarh, the study stated that the number of naxal offences decreased by 20 per cent in 2017 compared to 2015. "Demonetisation unmasked urban naxals", the PPRC said, adding various organisations, which were also recently in news, were used by naxals post-demonetisation to launder invalidated currency. From launching a special assistance scheme for all the naxal-hit states and the bold measure of demonetisation, the central government has taken all necessary steps to curb this problem, the study noted. Domestic steel and metal producers underscored their contribution to the construction of -- the world's largest statue dedicated to the nation by Prime Minister Wednesday. Steel giant SAIL outlined it supplied more than 50 per cent steel for the construction of the world's tallest statue. "Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) has yet again proudly partnered in erection of an iconic structure by supplying more than 50 percent steel for construction of 'The Statue of Unity',the world's tallest statue," SAIL said in a statement. "Out of the total 24000 metric tonnes steel required for construction of this 182 metres tall statue, SAIL has supplied approximately 12000 metric tonnes of steel. The total quantity of steel supplied by SAIL include reinforced steel like TMT bars as well as structurals and plates," it said. Vedanta Group firm Hindustan Zinc on Wednesday said it is proud to have contributed 200 tonnes of Zinc for the mega statue. "Hindustan Zinc is also proud to have contributed towards the - Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel," Hindustan Zinc said in a statement. Three parties have together supplied about 3,300 tonnes of galvanised structural steel to give everlasting strength to this tallest statue in the world and have used about 200 tonnes of Zinc produced by Hindustan Zinc for galvanisation," it said. Former Union minister Yashwant Sinha on Wednesday said people should not "forgive" Prime Minister Narendra Modi and "uproot" his government in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He was addressing a farmers' gathering at Vanthali in Gujarat's Junagadh district, around 300 km from here. "This government has failed on all fronts. Everyone is suffering, be it farmers, youth, women or Dalits. Only new slogans are being given. The only solution is to uproot this government in the next (Lok Sabha) polls," Sinha said. "I want to apologise because I was also part of the BJP when promises were made ahead of 2014 (general) elections. But I do not want you to forgive him (Modi) in the next polls," he said. The former finance minister has been a vocal critic of the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government and resigned from the party in April this year. Sinha was invited by Patidar leader Hardik Patel to address the farmers. Commenting on the unveiling of a 182-metre statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Narmada district earlier on Wednesday, Sinha said Modi should have announced a pro-farmer scheme on the occasion. "He did not announce any scheme for farmers because he has forgotten them," he said. Disgruntled BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha was also present at the gathering. The actor-turned-politician said he will not complain if the BJP sacked him. "I did not come into for any personal gain. I will not complain if my party sacks me tomorrow. I love the people of this country more than my party," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Dyal Singh College Principal I S Bakshi, who is being probed for alleged financial and administrative irregularities, on Wednesday alleged he was not allowed to enter the campus to take classes. The governing body of the Delhi University college had initiated a probe against the principal last month and directed him to proceed on an indefinite leave. Bakshi said he takes botany classes at the college on Monday and Wednesday. He said he took classes in the designated room on Monday after his office was sealed last week. "But on Wednesday, when I went to the college the guards stopped me and showed me a notice that read I am not allowed to enter the college. I told them I can discharge my duties as a teacher but they did not allow," he alleged. He called his students outside the college gate and conducted his class in a lawn outside the campus, Bakshi said. He said he will move court to resolve the issue and will go to the college next week for taking his classes. Governing Body chairman Amitabh Sinha alleged Bakshi tried to disrupt an event that was going on in the college. "I S Bakshi was denied entry to the college on Wednesday but he created a fuss and called students outside. There was an event happening in the college and he attempted to disrupt it," he said. He said Bakshi should wait for a "free and fair investigation". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A fake call centre was busted here and 18 men were arrested for allegedly duping several people on the pretext of getting them jobs, police said Wednesday. The action comes close on the heels of the busting of at least three similar bogus call centres in a fortnight -- two of them duping US, Canadian citizens and other foreigners with "tax benefit" schemes while the third offered people "cheap holiday packages" across India. A joint team of the Noida Cyber Cell and the Sector 20 police station Tuesday raided the fake call centre operating from the third floor of a private building in Sector 6 of the city. "As many as 18 men working there were arrested. All of them worked as callers. Eight of them belonged to Bihar, seven from Uttar Pradesh, two from Delhi while one from Odisha. Five others, including the owner, the manager and three assistants, are absconding," Superintendent of Police (Crime) Ashok Kumar Singh told reporters. The owner, identified as Chandan Jha, had established a schematic system of duping people through this call centre, which had been in operation here for last four months, he said. "During this period, they have duped several people of crores of rupees. The specifics of the money earned fraudulently are being worked out," the SP said. Explaining their modus operandi, Singh said, the accused would call up job seekers, whose data they had collected from website, and assure them of jobs in banking sector or with investment firms. "They would send their targets an email with fake job offer letters from big and popular companies and then ask them to remit Rs 1,500 to Rs 15,000 in the name of processing fee," he said. "They had six account numbers of different banks and also used Paytm wallet to get the money transferred from a target," he said. Later, they would withdraw the money using ATM cards and stop taking calls from the victim. The accused frequently kept changing their phone numbers in order to evade being tracked, the SP said. Police have seized five computers, 30 mobile phones, among others from the fake call centre, he said. A case was registered at the Sector 20 police station and those arrested were booked under Indian Penal Code sections 420 (cheating and dishonesty), 467 (forgery) and related offences. Charges have also been pressed against them under the Information Technology Act sections 66 (computer related offences), 66c (identity theft), 66d (cheating by impersonation), Singh added. According to police, the call centre, which was not registered and had no document or paper work done regarding its operation as one, had no international connection. Those absconding include the owner Jha, manager Ankur Singh and three assistants Chintu alias Shekhar, Deepak and Salauddin, and police have launched a search operation to nab them, they said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Oregon Teen Plots to Kill Parents The investigation is ongoing and anyone with additional information should call Benton County Sheriffs Office at 541-766-6858. (CORVALLIS, Ore. ) - A concerned father contacted the Benton County Sheriff's Office on October 25th. He had received information that his son wanted to give him and his wife sleeping pills and light the house on fire to kill them. Several additional friends were reportedly aware of the sons plot. The son, a 14-year-old male from Albany, was taken into custody Saturday by Benton County Deputies on two charges of Attempted Aggravated Murder and Attempted Arson in the First Degree. Two days later, a 13-year-old male was also taken into custody on two counts of Attempted Aggravated Murder, for the substantial steps he took toward aiding his friend in the crime, as his accomplice. Neither of the juveniles have criminal histories. The 14-year-old was booked and lodged at the Linn-Benton Detention Center in Linn County on Saturday night. The 13-year-old was interviewed on Monday afternoon. He admitted to giving his friend the sleep aid medication to kill his parents, and was subsequently taken into custody lodged at the same detention center. Officials are asking juveniles to report suspicious activity, anonymously, to Safe Oregon at 844-472-3367 or tip@safeoregon.com. The community also should remember that if they see something, say something. The investigation is ongoing and anyone with additional information is asked to contact Benton County Sheriffs Office at 541-766-6858. Source: Benton County Sheriffs Office _________________________________________ : Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan handed over keys of 192 flats, built for families of fishermen, whose homes were destroyed due to sea erosion in various villages in Thiruvananthapuram district. The 'Prathiksha' (Hope) apartment complex, built at nearby Muttathara, will rehabilitate the families who were rendered homeless by ea erosion and rough seas in Valiyathura, Cheriyathura and other fishing villages here. The first-of-its-kind project has been constructed by the state government under Mission LIFE (Livelihood Inclusion and Financial Empowerment) which envisages a comprehensive housing scheme for all the landless and homeless in the state. Each flat has two bedrooms, a hall, a kitchen and a lavatory. The complex also has amenities like a library, community hall and sanitation facilities, constructed at a cost of rs 2.5 Crore. It will also help relocate fishing families living in areas close to the sea. Situated on 3.5 acres, these 24 units of eight flats each were constructed at a cost of rs 20 Crore. "The apartment complex in Muttathara is the best flat complex so far constructed for fisherfolk", Vijayan said in a tweet. The fishing families rendered homeless in the 2016 sea erosion at Veliyathur and those who had lost their homes in rough seas since 2012 and were forced to live in schools turned into relief camps are beneficiaries of the project. The foundation stone for the complex was laid by the chief minister last year. Fisheries minister J Mercykutty, presided over the function. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the to disclose the names of all the companies with which it had any kind of transactions after forensic auditors pointed out that there may be a web of more than 200-250 such firms where home buyers money was transferred. The two forensic auditors, appointed by the court to look into the affairs of said besides 47 sister companies, they stumbled upon 31 companies whose names were never disclosed by the embattled real estate firm. The court was also told that there may be a case of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), as large amount of money was transferred to a multinational company based in Mauritius. It questioned Amarapali Group CFO Chander Wadhwa as to how a group company paid his Income Tax amounting to Rs 2 crore, when he was earning only Rs 50,000 per month. A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and U U Lalit said money of innocent buyers could not be misused like this and asked the Mauritius-based JP Morgan company to file its account statement with regard to the transaction with the The counsel for J P Morgan said they had invested more than Rs 100 crore in the real estate business of Amrapali Group and they had a claim of Rs 168 crore from the reality firm. At the outset, forensic auditors Pawan Kumar Agarwal and Ravi Bhatia said besides the 47 sister companies declared by the Amrapali Group, they have initially found 23 companies and now another eight companies with which the reality firm had transactions. "We have no iota of doubt that not only promoters, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and the internal auditors of the Amrapali Group were part of the syndicate. Prima facie, we have found the relatives of promoters, CFO and internal auditors were directors in these companies, where the money was transferred," Agarwal said. "Initially, we found 23 companies where transaction had taken place and now we have found eight more companies. We anticipate that there are more than 200-250 such companies, where the money was transferred, but their names have not been disclosed by the Amrapali Group till now," he said. The court-appointed forensic auditor pointed out that in compliance with the earlier order of the court, the Amrapali Group had handed over 117 computers used by it, but 36 of them were not working and many were password-protected, which were not given to them. The bench directed the group to disclose the passwords of these computers given to the forensic auditors within three days and mark which computer belonged to which company. "We understand everything what is happening. We are not saying anything at present but waiting for the proofs and disclosure of details. They may hide the information for say seven days but on the eighth day we will have the information, no matter what," the bench said. The bench also asked the Amrapali Group to disclose the details of luxury cars owned by the company and their registration numbers after the forensic auditors flagged that a luxury car was given to the CFO. "It appears that they were not only in construction business, but into something else also," the bench said and questioned the CFO about the benefits he took from the Amrapali Group. It also asked the CFO to disclose by Thursday the details of the companies he had incorporated, the home buyers money which was transferred to these companies, on whose authorisation the funds were transferred and the benefits he took from the Amrapali Group. The court warned that any wrong information found at a later stage would lead to consequences and he may be sent behind bars. The bench then questioned internal auditor Anil Mittal, who told the court that the company had transferred around Rs 50 to Rs 60 crore to the companies he had incorporated on the direction of Wadhwa. The court asked Mittal to file an affidavit by Thursday, giving each and every detail of such companies and their transactions. "You all were chartered accounts and were supposed to be a watchdog. You were to render services to the society. People rely on you. Being in the know-how of things you incorporated these companies which acted as conduit for transferring the money which Amrapali legally cannot do. This is nothing but an effervescence. There is a tall building but with no foundation," the bench said. The apex court also refused to allow CMD Anil Kumar Sharma and two directors, Shiv Priya and Ajay Kumar, currently residing under police surveillance at a hotel in Noida to visit home on the occasion of Diwali. On October 26, the apex court had grilled the CFO and internal auditors of Amrapali Group over diversion of home buyers money and ordered that the company's CMD as also its two other directors would remain under police surveillance at a hotel in Noida. It had also initiated contempt proceedings against the group's Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) Anil Kumar Sharma and its directors for prima facie violating court's order and thwarting the course of justice. The court is seized of a batch of petitions filed by home buyers who are seeking possession of around 42,000 flats booked in projects of the Amrapali Group. BJP MLA and Goa's former deputy chief minister Francis D'Souza returned to the state Wednesday after undergoing medical treatment in the United States for nearly two months. D'Souza, 63, is suffering from an undisclosed ailment. He had been admitted to a private hospital in the US. The Mapusa MLA was accompanied by his family members as his flight landed at Goa airport Wednesday evening. "I don't know the details of the political situation in the state. Let me take a stock of the situation and get back to you in two days," he told reporters, when asked about the political uncertainly in the state due to Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar's illness. D'Souza and Pandurang Madkaikar were dropped from the cabinet by Parrikar on account of the two leaders' ill-health in the last week of September. D'Souza had expressed unhappiness over this, saying he was not consulted before he was dropped. Parrikar inducted Milind Naik and Nilesh Cabral in the cabinet after dropping D'Souza and Madkaikar. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Former UP minister and senior Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) leader Kawkab Hameed Khan died Wednesday evening after prolonged illness, a senior party leader said. Khan was 66. RLD western UP in-charge Rajkumar Sangwan said Khan had been keeping ill for five years and was undergoing treatment at a hospital in Delhi. "Yesterday, he was discharged from the hospital and brought home," Sangwan said. Kawkab Hameed Khan was a five-time MLA and three-time minister. Following of his death, leaders from different political parties and his supporters started reaching Khan's home. Kawkab Hameed Khan became an MLA for the first time in 1985 when he won the Baghpat seat on a Congress ticket. He contested his last election in 2012 on an RLD ticket from Baghpat but lost to BSP's Hemlata Chaudhary. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Goa's government plans to bring around 30 per cent of the fallow lands, out of the existing 13,193 hectares across the state, under cultivation by next year. Agriculture Minister Vijai Sardesai told this to a gathering of agriculturists and government officers in Panaji on Tuesday. He said the quantum of fallow land from the current 13,193 hectares to 10,000 hectares would be brought under cultivation within a year. He was speaking after publishing a report on 'Agriculture Land Use Planning of Goa State' prepared by ICAR-National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Nagpur. The report that was prepared after a detailed study of Goa's fallow lands, has said that 13,193 hectares of land is fallow, which amounts to 3.6 per cent of Goa's total area. "Fallow land in Goa is equal to its 10.1 per cent area used for food crops, 8.4 per cent of total area sown for other field crops, 31.4 per cent of the gross area under rice, 122 per cent of the area under other cereals, pulses and other oil seed crops, 22.1 per cent of the total area under different cash crops of the state," the report says. The study indicates that there is more fallow land in north Goa to the tune of 9,638 hectares as against 3,510 hectares in south Goa. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government Wednesday said the RBI's autonomy is "essential" and will be "nurtured", as it sought to calm investors worried by the central bank reportedly being forced to resolve differences with the Centre which has cited powers never used before. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley refused to be drawn into the row saying discussions and consultations with the RBI have never been disclosed publicly. The row was sparked off on Friday when RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya in a hard-hitting speech warned that undermining central bank's independence could be "potentially catastrophic", possible indication of the RBI being pushed to relax its policies ahead of general elections next year. Sources privy to development said the government has sent at least three letters on different issues under Section 7 of the RBI Act that gives it powers to issue any direction to the central bank governor on matters of public interest. The standoff was in relation to RBI's handling of weak public sector banks, tight liquidity in the market and ways of resolving bad loans in the power sector. Unconfirmed reports claimed Governor Urjit Patel was considering stepping down if the government were to issue an unprecedented direction. Without acknowledging that the notices have been sent to the RBI, the Finance Ministry in a statement said that the "autonomy for the central bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential and accepted governance requirement. Governments in India have nurtured and respected this". Later, when asked to comment on the issue at a press conference called to highlight India's jump on ease of doing business ranking, Jaitley said he did not have anything more to say beyond his ministry's statement. "That statement also says that the communication between the government and the RBI and layers of consultations (happening) at what level, how it happened and the nature have never in the history been disclosed publicy," he said. Only a final decision arrived is communicated, he added. A senior Finance Ministry official said that the RBI has not been able to contain liquidity crisis and push credit growth. The central bank has not taken adequate steps to address liquidity crunch, which has impacted auto and real estate sectors, he said. Sources said the government has not taken any action of issuing any specific direction and has only initiated consultations with the central bank on unresolved issues. Without making any reference to the letters, the ministry statement said, "both the government and the central bank, in their functioning, have to be guided by public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy." "For the purpose, extensive consultations on several issues take place between the government and the RBI from time to time. This is equally true of all other regulators," it said. The government, it said, has never made public the subject matter of those consultations. "Only the final decisions taken are communicated. The government, through these consultations, places its assessment on issues and suggests possible solutions. The government will continue to do so," it added. Sources said the Finance Ministry wrote three separate letters in the past few weeks to the RBI on issues ranging from Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) framework to liquidity management and sought consultation under Section 7 of the RBI Act. The government wants RBI to carve out exemption for power companies under the PCA framework that outlines triggers for declaring a loan account as stressed or NPA, sources said citing one of the letters. A second letter pertained to use of RBI's capital reserves for providing liquidity to the market and a third letter was for relaxing constraints on banks for loans to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Section 7 of the RBI Act empowers the government to issue directions to the central bank, after consultation with the RBI Governor, on issues that it considers serious and of public interest. This section has never been invoked before. Sources said Section 7 has two parts -- consultation and then issuing a direction to RBI for taking some action in public interest. Right now only consultations are on, which may or may not result in any direction being issued, sources said. Former finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram warned of "more bad news" if indeed the government were to invoke Section 7 of the RBI Act. If the move was indeed true, it showed that the government was 'desperate' and was hiding facts about the economy, he said adding that the previous UPA government did not invoke Section 7 prior to liberalisation of the economy in 1991, the Asian financial crisis of 1997 or the period after the recession in 2008. "If, as reported, the government has invoked Section 7 of the RBI Act and issued unprecedented 'directions' to the RBI, I am afraid there will be more bad today. We did not invoke Section 7 in 1991 or 1997 or 2008 or 2013. What is the need to invoke the provision now? It shows that the government is hiding facts about the economy and is desperate," he tweeted. Sources said never in the history of RBI has a direction under Section 7 of RBI Act been issued to the central bank. The letters seeking consultation under Section 7 apparently prompted Acharya's hard-hitting speech on Friday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Amid a tussle between the government and the RBI, opposition parties on Wednesday accused the NDA regime of trying to damage every institution in the country by interfering in their autonomy and alleged the central bank was being forced to "open bank funding" to defaulting corporates. While the Congress asked Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to spell out the "overriding emergency" to make the government "take recourse ostensibly" to a never-used provision of the RBI Act for issuing directions to the central bank, the party chief Rahul Gandhi said "the systematic destruction of India's institutions is nothing short of treason". Without directly mentioning the RBI, Gandhi said, "Ironic that a statue of Sardar Patel is being inaugurated, but every institution he helped build is being smashed." The Opposition attack followed the government citing a never-used-before power of issuing directions to the RBI, amid mounting differences between the finance ministry and the RBI over the central bank's handling of weak public sector banks, tight liquidity in the market and ways of resolving bad loans in the power sector. While the RBI went public last week on the need to maintain its autonomy, the Finance Ministry maintained that the autonomy of the central bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is essential and accepted governance requirement. Sources in the ministry insisted that the government has not yet taken any action of issuing any specific direction and has only initiated consultations with the central bank on unresolved issues. Slamming the government, former Union finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram alleged that the NDA dispensation is "hiding facts" about the economy and is "desperate". His party colleague and Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari alleged that the NDA-BJP government is hell-bent upon "destroying" every institution on which India stands. "We have seen this in case of CBI and now the prime minister and the finance minister have trained their guns on the RBI," he alleged. The CPI-M said the RBI crisis is a brazen move to "force the RBI to open bank funding to desperate defaulting corporates". CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said after judiciary, Parliament, CBI, the Modi government was trying to damage the RBI. The government's attempt to blame institutions was nothing but hide its failures, he said. AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi said if RBI Governor Urjit Patel steps down, then it would be the "consistent policy" of Modi government to "pull down" independent organisations in their four years of rule. "If he resigns, it'll be interference in autonomy of RBI. Like they destroyed CBI autonomy,now it's RBI's turn," Owaisi tweeted. NCP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Majeed Memon said the Modi government was "depriving institutions of autonomy and authority to work independent of the government". He said the latest face-off between the government and the RBI was a continuation of how "institutions were being destroyed", starting from the unprecedented "revolt" by the Supreme Court judges early this year for "interfering in judicial proceedings", followed by the rumblings in the CBI. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Governments around the world are failing to investigate the murders of journalists with Mexico and India having the maximum number of recent such cases pending investigation, the International Press Institute (IPI) said in a report on Wednesday. The Vienna-based global organisation of editors, journalists and media executives in its 'Death Watch' said as many as 100 journalists lost their lives around the world in connection with their work over the past year. Of these, at least 32 were killed in retaliation for their work, frequently in response to reports exposing corruption or the activities of crime syndicates. The Death Watch includes an additional 41 journalists whose killings are suspected of being linked to their work but for which there remains insufficient evidence due to poor or lacking investigations. IPI's Death Watch lists journalists and media staff whose deaths have been linked to journalism. The Death Watch includes names of journalists who were deliberately targeted because of their profession as well as those who lost their lives while on assignment. The IPI said 13 journalists lost their lives covering armed conflict, a majority of them in Afghanistan. Analysis of the data collected since September 2017 shows that in many cases of targeted killings of journalists, investigations are slow, and the perpetrators have not been brought to justice. "Mexico and India have emerged as two countries where investigations into journalist killings have been particularly tardy," it said. In Mexico, 14 journalists were murdered and in India 12 died in targeted killings in the last one year, it said. "So far, arrests have been made in only two cases in Mexico and six in India. Most of these arrests are controversial," the IPI said. "Police in India have nabbed the alleged killers of woman journalist Gauri Lankesh, who was gunned down outside her house in Bengaluru in September last year. However, media reports have cast doubt on the reliability of some of the arrests," the IPI said in a statement. In the case of Syed Shujaat Bukhari, the editor-in-chief of Rising Kashmir, who was killed on June 14 outside his office, suspects have been identified but not yet brought to justice, it said. "The impunity with which journalists have been murdered and the slow pace of investigations raise the question whether the deaths of journalists are probed thoroughly and urgently as they should be to protect press freedom," IPI Head of Advocacy Ravi R Prasad said. Journalist killings in Slovakia, Malta, Brazil, Guatemala, The Philippines, Afghanistan, El Salvador and Pakistan also await further investigation. The IPI Executive Board will gather in Bratislava, Slovakia to mark International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists on November 2. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) At least five labourers were killed and two others critically injured on Wednesday in a targeted attack carried out by two motorcycle-borne gunmen at a construction site in Pakistan's restive Baluchistan province. Police officials said that two men riding on a motorcycle had come to the construction site in the Jiwani area on the outskirts of Gwadar and opened indiscriminate firing. "There were a dozen or more labourers working at the time and most of them rushed to safety but five of them were killed on the spot," Mohtashim Chengazi, a senior police official said. He said two other labourers were injured and had been rushed to a hospital as they were in critical condition. "The casualties could rise," he added. The official said the killed labourers belonged to Karachi, Multan and Sukkur. So far no militant, sectarian or separatist group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but in the past separatists have targeted labourers from other provinces working on the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor projects in the province. In May, unknown gunmen had killed six labourers in the remote area of Lajjey in the province. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Hashimpura episode is a "sordid saga of the relations between the Indian State and minorities, the amoral attitude of the police and a frustratingly sluggish judicial system", according to the then superintendent of police of Ghaziabad Vibhuti Narain Rai who conducted initial probe into the killings. In 2016, Rai had come out with a book titled "Hashimpura May 22: The Forgotten Story of India's Biggest Custodial Killings" on the gunning down of 42 Muslims by jawans of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) in 1987. The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sentenced the 16 former PAC jawans to life imprisonment, terming the massacre "targeted killing" of unarmed and defenceless people. A bench of justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel reversed a trial court's verdict which had acquitted the accused in 2015. The high court verdict came on pleas challenging a trial court's decision to acquit 16 policemen of charges of murder and other crimes in the case. Rai says that horrifying night of May 22 in the humid summer of 1987 still weighs heavy on his conscience. "And the subsequent days, similarly, are etched in my memory like as if on stone - it was something that overpowered the cop in me. The Hashimpura experience continues to torment me," he says. Translated by Darshan Desai from the Hindi version, the book is published by Penguin Random House India. "It was around 10.30 p.m. and I had just returned from Hapur. After dropping the district magistrate, Nasim Zaidi, at his official residence, I reached the residence of the superintendent of police. "Just as I reached its gates, the headlights of my car fell on the frightened and nervous sub-inspector, V.B. Singh, who was then in charge of the Link Road police station. I could guess something terrible had happened in his jurisdiction. I asked the driver to halt the car and got out," Rai recalls. According to him, Singh seemed too scared to explain coherently what had happened exactly. "Even then, his string of broken words was enough to shock anyone. I could make out that the jawans of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) had killed some people, most likely Muslims, near the canal crossing the road leading to Makanpur," he writes. Why were they killed? How many were killed? From where were they picked up? All these questions came to Rai's mind. "After several attempts of trying to get Singh to be more coherent about the details, this is what I gathered about the incident: It was around 9.00 p.m. when V.B. Singh and his colleagues sitting at the police station heard gunshots from near Makanpur and they thought there were some dacoits in the village," he says. "Singh turned his motorcycle towards that track, with another sub-inspector and a constable sentry riding pillion. They had barely travelled a few metres down the road when they spotted a truck driving towards them at breakneck speed. "If Singh had not swerved his motorcycle off the road, the truck would have knocked them down. Just as he was trying to control his vehicle, Singh looked behind at the yellow coloured truck with '41' written on it and some men in khaki uniform sitting at the rear. It was not difficult for professional policemen to figure out that the vehicle was from the 41st Battalion of the PAC," Rai goes on to add. Wondering why a PAC truck was on that road at that hour of the night and if it had any connection to the gunshots they had heard, they proceeded towards Makanpur. "They must have driven just a kilometre further when Singh and his colleagues saw something very scary. Just short of Makanpur, there were bodies strewn in a pool of blood in the ravines around the canal. The blood was still oozing out of the bodies and was slowly seeping into the ground. "From what Singh could see from the glow of his motorcycle's headlights, there were bodies lying in the bushes, on the canal banks and floating in the water as well. It did not take the sub-inspector and his colleagues long to link the speeding PAC truck with the gunshots and the bodies in the canal," Rai writes. He says the story is a "sordid saga of the relations between the Indian state and minorities, the amoral attitude of the police and a frustratingly sluggish judicial system". What triggered there killings? Rai attributes these to the horrifying period when this incident occurred. "It was nearly a decade since the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation had hopelessly divided the entire nation. The agitation that started in the late 1970s, and was getting more aggressive each day, had driven the Hindu middle-class towards communalism. "The maximum number of inter-community riots post Partition took place during this phase. It was obvious that the PAC and the police could not have remained insulated from this social chasm for long." Rai says that just a few days after the Hashimpura massacre, he decided to write about it and bring its details out to the open but his writing began at a slow pace because of his busy schedule. "But when the National Police Academy, Hyderabad, granted me a research fellowship in 1994, my prospects brightened. My subject was related to the image of the police among Hindus and Muslims during communal riots, and I deliberately chose this topic in order to work on the book; it also provided me with a year-long relief from regular routine," he says. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The families of the 1987 Hashimpura massacre victims could not hold back tears on Wednesday after the Delhi High Court sentenced 16 ex-policemen to life imprisonment for killing 38 people from the Muslim community. The high court verdict, which reversed the acquittal of the men from Uttar Pradesh's PAC, brought relief to some. But others felt that the life term awarded to them was not enough. A PTI-Bhasha correspondent spoke to the victims' families and eyewitnesses in the city's Hashimpura locality hours after the verdict was pronounced. Zulfikar, an eyewitness in the case, alleged that after the massacre, they were harassed not just by the police but also the state government. "The police and the government always tried to weaken this case, but we were not deterred and continued fighting. Finally, justice has been done today," he said. "It would have given us more relief if the accused had been sentenced to death," Zulfikar added. He said they will fight the case even if it goes to the Supreme Court. The killings took place 31 years ago. A little over a month after communal riots broke out in Meerut on April 14, 1987, the PAC and Army personnel carried out searches in Hashimpura and some other Meerut localities. The PAC personnel allegedly shot dead 38 men from Hashimpura and dumped their bodies into Muradnagar Gang nahar and the Hindon river. Zulfikar, Babbudin, Mujib-ur-Rehman, Mohammed Usman and Nayeem survived the massacre on May 22, Hashimpura residents said. Usman said people were picked up by the military from their homes on the pretext of a search operation and handed over to the PAC. "We were six brothers and our father. Fifty men were picked up in the evening, the children were spared, and were taken away in a PAC truck," he said, showing a bullet mark on his back. Expressing some disappointment over the court's verdict, he said, "It would have been far better if those evil people were sentenced to death." Zarina lost her husband Zahir Ahmed and son Javed. "I have counted the days since the massacre. My husband and son were killed by police personnel. I had a four-day-old son in my lap then. The accused should have been awarded death sentence," she said. Jamaluddin, who lost his son Kamruddin in the massacre said, "Never before have I seen or heard of such a long fight for justice. We got justice after a long fight. The trial court's order, which acquitted the accused, only rubbed salt on our wounds." Nasim Bano and Amir Fatima shudder when they recall the day when their brother, Siraj, was killed. They said their family was ruined. Their father died of grief, their mother became mentally unstable and though she was cured, she too died soon after. With the family's breadwinners taken away, the four sisters survive on whatever little they earn by stitching clothes. Nineteen people were named as accused in the case and charges were framed against 17 of them for offences of murder, attempt to murder, tampering with evidence and conspiracy, by the court here in 2006. Of the 17 accused, 16 were acquitted while one died during the trial. The trial court acquitted the 16 surviving accused in March 2015 giving them benefit of the doubt regarding their identities. This decision was challenged in the high court by the victims' families and eyewitnesses who survived the incident. The high court termed the massacre "targeted killing" of unarmed people by the police. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Over three decades after the Hashimpura massacre in Uttar Pradesh in which 38 Muslims were shot dead in cold blood, the Delhi High Court Wednesday sentenced 16 former policemen to life imprisonment, holding it was a "targeted killing" of "unarmed, innocent and defenceless" persons. Reversing an order of the trial court in 2015 that acquitted the 16 personnel, who were with the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC), a bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel termed the case as an instance of custodial killing where the legal system was unable to effectively prosecute the perpetrators of gross human rights abuses. The court also said it was conscious that for the families of those killed, this was perhaps "too little, too late" as they have had to wait for 31 years for justice. Zulfikar Nasir, an eyewitness to the massacre, alleged that the police and government always tried to weaken this case but said the families of the victims were not deterred and continued fighting. "Finally justice has been done today. It would have given us more relief if the accused had been sentenced to death," he told PTI in Meerut. Around 42 to 45 Muslim men, old and young, were rounded up by the PAC from Hashimpura area in Meerut city on May 22, 1987 and taken away into the armed force's truck, the court noted. The victims were shot at two different locations by the PAC personnel with .303 rifles and the bodies were thrown into two canals -- Gang nahar and Hindon river, it said. During the hearings, it was stated by the counsels before the high court that in all 42 persons were killed. But the court in its 73-page judgement concluded that 38 were killed while five survived to recount the horrific tale. The dead bodies of just 11 of them were able to be identified later by their relatives while the remaining bodies were not recovered, it said. "This was a case of a targeted killing revealing an institutional bias within the law enforcement agents in this case," it said, lamenting the manner in which the law enforcement officials have "frustrated" the cause of justice by weeding out important records. "The prolongation of the trial for over two decades, compounded by the endemic systemic delays, have frustrated the attempts at securing effective justice for the victims," the court said and directed the convicts to surrender by November 22, failing which the SHO concerned will immediately take them into custody. It said a "disturbing" aspect of the case was the targeted killings of persons belonging to one minority community and it involved the abduction of 42 to 45 persons and killing of 38 of them soon after the incident of riots in which two rifles of the PAC were allegedly taken away by the rioters. "It points to the disproportionate reaction by the PAC in targeting the members of the minority community. The court is therefore unable to accept the submission on behalf of the accused that the motive for the commission of the crime was not proved," it added. The 16 former cops were held guilty for the offences of murder, kidnapping, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence under the IPC and the life terms effectively means they will be behind bars for the remainder of their natural life. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 30,000 each on the 16 convicts who all have retired from service. The verdict came on the appeals filed by the UP government, National Human Rights Commission, survivors and victims' families against the trial court verdict on March 21, 2015. The case was transferred to Delhi on a Supreme Court direction in September 2002 following a petition by the families of the massacre victims and survivors. "In arriving at this conclusion, we have also relied on the additional evidence recorded, which was not available to the trial court. We hold that this was targeted killing by armed forces of the unarmed, innocent and defenceless members of a particular community," the bench said in its verdict. The court further said the monetary compensation the families of the victims have received cannot make up for the lives lost and this case pointed to the systemic failure that results, not infrequently, in a miscarriage of justice. Senior advocate Rebecca John, representing the victims, said they have received over Rs 1 lakh each in compensation. Holding that the deaths of the victims were "custodial deaths", the court said although they were not taken to an enclosed place by the PAC, they were unlawfully detained, kept in a PAC truck and taken to two places and asked to keep their heads down and not allowed to move. "This leads this court to conclude that they were kept in unlawful custody by the accused purporting to discharge their official functions when in fact they were clearly acting illegally," it said. According to the then superintendent of police of Ghaziabad, Vibhuti Narain Rai, who conducted initial probe into the killings, the Hashimpura episode is a "sordid saga of the relations between the Indian State and minorities, the amoral attitude of the police and a frustratingly sluggish judicial system" Rai said that horrifying night of May 22 in the humid summer of 1987 still weighs heavy on his conscience. "And the subsequent days, similarly, are etched in my memory like as if on stone - it was something that overpowered the cop in me. The Hashimpura experience continues to torment me," he says. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) After years of delay, including lengthy court battles and passionate protests from those willing to be arrested for blocking construction crews, builders of a giant telescope plan to move forward with constructing the USD 1.4 billion instrument on a Hawaii mountain that is considered sacred. The state Supreme Court's 4-1 ruling Tuesday is a victory for the contentious Thirty Meter Telescope planned for Hawaii's tallest mountain, Mauna Kea. Opponents say the telescope will desecrate sacred land on the Big Island. Supporters say it will bring educational and economic opportunities to the state. "Astronomy and Native Hawaiian uses on Mauna Kea have co-existed for many years and the TMT Project will not curtail or restrict Native Hawaiian uses," the ruling said. The advanced telescope will answer some of the most fundamental questions of the universe, and Native Hawaiians will also benefit from it, the ruling added. Associate Justice Michael Wilson dissented but didn't immediately release his opinion. A group of universities in California and Canada make up the telescope company, with partners from China, India and Japan. There don't appear to be any other avenues for the opponents to pursue. But Kealoha Pisciotta, one of the main leaders against the telescope, encouraged other telescope foes not to be disheartened. "The court is the last bastion in democracy," she said. "The only other option is to take to the streets. If we lose the integrity of the court, then you're losing normal law and order, and the only other option is people have to rise up." When asked if that meant protests will resume, she said: "I'm encouraging people to stay close to their heart and aloha." Opponents and supporters have been awaiting the ruling because it was expected to help determine whether the project is built in Hawaii or moves to a backup location in Spain's Canary Islands that's less desirable to scientists hoping to use the instrument for groundbreaking discoveries. Henry Yang, chair of the TMT International Observatory Board of Governors, said in a statement they are grateful the ruling will allow the telescope to be built on Mauna Kea. When construction will resume depends on working out timing issues including conditions of the permit and re-mobilizing construction crews and equipment, said Scott Ishikawa, a spokesman for the project. "We hope to have the state's and county's assurance in providing safe passage for our workers," he said. Gov. David Ige and other officials planned a conference later in the day. Plans for the project date to 2009, when scientists selected Mauna Kea after a five-year, around-the-world campaign to find the ideal site for what telescope officials said "will likely revolutionize our understanding of the universe." The project won a series of approvals from Hawaii, including a permit to build on conservation land in 2011. Protests disrupted a groundbreaking and Hawaiian blessing ceremony at the site in 2014. After that, the protests intensified and divided the community, with some Native Hawaiians saying they were afraid to publicly support the project. Construction stopped in April 2015 after 31 protesters were arrested for blocking the work. A second attempt to restart construction a few months later ended with more arrests and crews retreating when they encountered large boulders in the road. Scientists revere the mountain for its summit above the clouds that provides a clear view of the sky with very little air and light pollution. The telescope will allow astronomers to reach back 13 billion years to answer fundamental questions about the advent of the universe, touts a website for the project. "In the nearby universe, with TMT, astronomers will be able to discover and characterise, in detail, planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. There is the potential to examine these planets for signs of life beyond the Earth: this would be one of the most important discoveries of all time," the website says. Opponents appealed and in December 2015, the state Supreme Court revoked the permit, ruling the land board's approval process was flawed. That meant the application process needed to be redone, requiring a new hearing. After oftentimes emotional testimony for the hearing that spanned 44 days, the retired judge presiding over the proceeding recommended granting the permit. The judge set conditions that employees attend mandatory cultural and natural resources training and that employment opportunities be filled locally "to the greatest extent possible." Opponents appealed again after the land board approved the permit. They complained about various due process issues, including that the hearings officer had a conflict of interest because she was a member of a Big Island astronomy center. The connection was "too attenuated," and membership doesn't lead to supporting the telescope project, Tuesday's Supreme Court ruling said. The instrument's primary mirror would measure 98 feet (30 meters) in diameter. Compared with the largest existing visible-light telescope in the world, it would be three times as wide, with nine times more area. Telescope parts have been built in California and partner countries while construction on Mauna Kea was halted. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday deferred the hearing of a PIL challenging a recent Uttar Pradesh government notification renaming Allahabad as Prayagraj till November 13. In the PIL filed by lawyer Sunita Sharma, chief minister Yogi Adityanath and Urban Development Minister Suresh Khanna have been made respondents. The other respondents include the chief secretary, advocate general, chairman of the Board of Revenue and chief secretary (revenue). A division bench of Justice AP Shahi and Justice Ajit Kumar directed the counsels appearing for the petitioner and the additional advocate general, appearing for the state government, to prepare the case. The court observed that changing of name of a district is no res-integra (not without precedent). The changing of names of Kolkata, Bengaluru and Mumbai was challenged in different high courts. In the PIL, Sharma has contended that changing the name of Allahabad, which has been used for hundreds of years, to Prayagraj is neither in interest of the public nor the government. According to the counsel of the petitioner, Vijay Srivastava, other ground taken in the PIL is that a huge amount of public money would be spent in renaming the district. The PIL also objects to the declaration of Kumbh, 2019. Srivastava says it has wrongly been declared as Kumbh. The Kumbh has already taken place in 2013, therefore, Ardh Kumbh will be held in 2019. Changing the name of such a huge religious gathering is not proper, he said. On the basis of all these grounds, the petitioner has requested the court to declare the notification of the state government dated October 18, 2018, whereby the name of Allahabad district was changed to Prayagraj, as unconstitutional. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Madras High Court Bench here Wedneday ordered shifting of the ailing elephant of famous Sri Mariamman temple at Samayapuram in Tiruchirappalli district to the Mudumalai Theppakadu camp for the jumbos. The elephant Masini, donated to the temple by then chief minister late J Jayalaithaa in 2016, is now undergoing treatment at the Veterinary College and Research Institute in Orathandu in Thanjavur district. Justices M M Sundaresh and N Satishkumar gave the direction on a PIL, filed by Clymont, seeking to restrain the temple officials from using the elephant for temple rituals. Earlier, the Dean of the veterinary college informed the court that the elephant was recovering and could be sent to the camp. The Judges also ordered that a veterinarian should check the health of the elephant. The elephanthad run amok and trampled to death its mahout Rajendran and injured eight others in the temple some months ago. It was firstnoticed in 2007 as an abandoned calf in a forest area and was sheltered at the Mudumalai. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) These are the top stories from the northern region at 4.40 pm NEWDELHI LGD26 DL-HC-2NDLD HASHIMPURA New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sentenced 16 former policemen to life imprisonment for killing 42 people of a minority community in Hashimpura locality of Uttar Pradesh's Meerut in 1987. LUCKNOW DEL29 UP-STATUE-MAYAWATI Lucknow: Hours after the inauguration of a Rs 3,000-crore statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat, BSP president Mayawati demanded an apology from those who had flayed her over the statues of Dalit leaders her government had installed in Uttar Pradesh. DEHRADUN NRG6 UKD-BJP-CIVIC POLLS Dehradun: Seeking people's mandate for the first time after coming to power in Uttarakhand with a massive win in the assembly elections, the BJP faces a tough challenge of matching its own performance at the urban local bodies polls on November 18. DHARMSHALA NRG7 HP-DIWALI-TOURIST Dharamshala (HP): Hoteliers in this popular hill station of Himachal Pradesh are trying to attract tourist by reducing tariffs and offering special discounts during Diwali in order to revive their business that has suffered hugely after the high court shut around 80 illegally built hotels here. NEWDELHI DES4 DL-METRO-OPENING New Delhi: The 17.8-km Shiv Vihar-Trilokpuri Sanjay Lake section of the Pink Line was opened to public Wednesday, putting Delhi among a select group of cities such as London and Shanghai that have an operational metro network of over 300 km. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In the fifth such incident in Gujarat in the last one and a half months, a farmer allegedly ended his life in Surendranagar district of the state as he was staring at losses due to scanty rains, police said. Pitambar Zala (36) allegedly committed suicide by drinking pesticide at Sadla village in Muli tehsil, around 150 km from here, late Tuesday night, police said. His relative Mukesh Zala told police that Pitambar was worried due to the less-than-expected crop of cotton this season due to a weak monsoon. "Pitambar had sown cotton in partnership with another farmer. But the crop yield was less than expected due to the scanty rainfall. He was worried thinking he will not be able to pay his debts," said police sub-inspector A A Jadeja. This is the fifth suicide by a farmer in Gujarat since September 24. On October 25, Rana Gaagia (41), a farmer from Vavdi in Jamnagar district, allegedly committed suicide over a crop failure and cash crunch. On October 12, Viram Odedara (54), a farmer from Porbandar district, allegedly committed suicide due to a crop failure and mounting debts. On October 7, 40-year-old Kalu Chauhan from Botad district allegedly committed suicide, worried that he would lose his crop due to the weak monsoon. On September 24, Anak Jebalia (35), resident of Dhari taluka of Amreli district, allegedly committed suicide for the same reason. The state government has said that Gujarat could be facing water scarcity in coming months as it received only 76.72 per cent of the average rainfall this monsoon. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's assertion notwithstanding, oil refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) continues not to recognise ONGC, its majority owner, as its promoter company. In a filing to stock exchanges on the company's shareholding pattern as of the end of September, HPCL continues to list "President of India" as its promoter with "zero" per cent shareholding. Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), which earlier this year bought the government's entire 51.11 per cent stake in HPCL for Rs 36,915 crore, is listed a "public shareholder", owning "77.88 crores" shares or "51.11 per cent" shareholding of the company. Calls made to HPCL Chairman and Managing Director M K Surana for comments went answered. ONGC, which had to borrow Rs 24,876 crore for the acquisition that helped the government meet its disinvestment target for the 2017-18 fiscal, had made its displeasure clear about not being recognised as a promoter of HPCL. In a strongly worded letter to HPCL, it a couple of months back had warned of regulatory consequences of not recognising the majority shareholder as the promoter, sources privy to the development said. HPCL, however, has stuck to its gun and has refused to recognise ONGC as its promoter. When the issue first arose in August, Pradhan had clearly stated that ONGC is the new promoter of HPCL. ONGC, he had said, had invested in acquiring a majority stake in the company and so it is the promoter. "ONGC is the promoter of HPCL," he had said. Pradhan's comments followed Surana rejecting ONGC's demand for being recognised as the promoter of the company. "Whatever we are doing, whatever we have done and whatever we will be doing will be as per our understanding of the statute and the guidelines and Companies Act and the SEBI guidelines... Beyond that who is interpreting whatever, it is his understanding of the situation. We need not subscribe to that," he said. After ONGC bought out government stake, HPCL became its subsidiary. Since ONGC takeover in January, HPCL has made three stock exchange filings about the shareholding pattern of the company -- the first on April 20, then on July 12 and finally on October 19. In all three, ONGC is shown as the public shareholder and President of India listed as the promoter. Sources said ONGC feels the HPCL management is bound to take corrective action to reflect the true picture. According to the Securities and Exchange Board of India's rules, the entity that owns the controlling stake should be listed as promoter even if it was not the original promoter of the company. When Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) had bought the government's stake in fuel retailer IBP Co Ltd, it was listed as the latter's promoter in every instance after the deal. The same was the case when IOC acquired a majority stake in Chennai Petroleum Corp Ltd (CPCL). Surana has retained the title of Chairman and Managing Director despite corporate governance structure require a group having just one chairman and subsidiaries being run by managing directors and CEOs. ONGC's overseas subsidiary, ONGC Videsh Ltd, is headed by a Managing Director and CEO. Its refinery subsidiary Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), which is listed on BSE, too is led by a Managing Director and CEO. ONGC Chairman is the head of boards of both the companies. Since acquiring a majority stake in HPCL, ONGC has only been able to appoint one director to that firm's board. ONGC has appointed its Director (Finance) Subhash Kumar to HPCL board. He has replaced Sushma Taishete Rath, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Prior to this, HPCL had two government nominee directors -- Rath and Sandeep Poundrik, Joint Secretary (Refineries) of the Oil Ministry. After the appointment of Kumar, there remains only one government nominee director on HPCL board. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Wednesday announced to launch a special campaign from next month to fight against the menace of drugs in the state. Khattar said recently the northern states had decided to set up a joint secretariat at Panchkula for data and information sharing to effectively fight the issue. He was speaking on the sidelines of a 'Run for Unity' programme, organised on the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. "In order to save the youth from drugs and to put a check on network of drug peddlers, a joint secretariat for states of Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh is beingestablished at Panchkula," Khattar was quoted as saying in an official release. The chief minister said a special campaign would be launched under 'Ek Aur Sudhar' programme under which the state government would roll out one reform every month after public consultations. He appreciated the efforts made by the district and police administrations which have encouraged more than 90,000 people of 328 villages of the district to fight against drug abuse. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Underlining the need for adequate faculty strength at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Information and Broadcasting Ministry Secretary Amit Khare said the institute should seek approval for creating the entire range of posts that are mandated for such institutions. Chairing the 139th Meeting of the Executive Council of the IIMC, Delhi, he said as the institute moves towards a 'Deemed to be University' status, it was imperative that it ensures an adequate faculty strength, according to an official statement. This means that the existing faculty are given proper avenues of career advancement. Positions which then continue to remain vacant should be filled through recruitment, he said. At the meeting, the IIMC Executive Committee also approved permanent faculty positions for all regional IIMCs. Khare underlined the requirement of IIMC to seek approval for creating the entire range of posts that UGC mandates for such institutions, which can then be filled as an when the need arises. He also directed that a proposal of filling up of vacancies of the non teaching staff also be put up to the ministry at the earliest. The committee also approved new faculty positions for the IIMC campuses at Dhenkanal, Aizawl, Amravati, Jammu and Kottayam. Khare emphasised that IIMC must look at international partnership as a means of spreading India's soft power. He concurred with suggestions of the executive committee members that IIMC should look at fruitful working relationships in ASEAN countries and also with the Central Asian region, the statement said. Members raised their concern about the need for greater education on fake news, it said. The committee also agreed to name the main road within the IIMC after former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who passed away this year. Khare said an annual lecture be also instituted in the memory of the former Prime Minister. It could be slotted around his birth anniversary, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Enthused by 23 notches jump in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley exuded confidence that India can now hope to achieve the target of breaking into top 50 rank in the coming years. Narendra Modi led government when came to power had set target of reaching 50th rank in the Ease of Doing Business Index. The target points for improvement are registering property, starting a business, Insolvency, taxation and enforcement of contract, he said. "Legislation is already in place with regard to Enforcement of Contract, Taxation and Insolvency...starting business, central government and state governments have to work together... "If we work in focussed manner in these areas, then coming below the 50th rank target is not out of reach. Therefore, it can be achieved. Ultimately, Ease of Doing Business is to maximise the governance with minimum government and procedure," Jaitley said. The impact of this would be visible on investment environment in the long term, he added. The BJP-led government, since coming to the power, has reduced red-tape and corruption, and its reforms have ensured India jumps ranks from 142 to 77, the minister said. Improvements have already done on enforcement of contracts, taxation and insolvency laws and would be reflected in future rankings, he said. India was ranked 100th in the World Bank's Doing Business report last year. The ranking comes as a shot in the arm for the Narendra Modi government which faces strong dissenting voices from opposition parties ahead of the general elections next year. In its annual 'Doing Business' 2019 report, World Bank said India improved its rank on six out of the 10 parameters relating to starting and doing business in a country. As per this year's ranking, India's position has declined in four parameters -- protecting minority rights (7), paying taxes (121), registering property (166), and resolving insolvency (108). These parameters include ease of starting a business, construction permits, getting electricity, getting credit, paying taxes, trade across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. India was ranked at the 142nd position among 190 nations when the Modi government came to power in 2014. It rose to the 100th spot in the last ranking from 131st rank in the previous year. New Zealand tops the list of 190 countries in ease of doing business, followed by Singapore, Denmark, and Hong Kong. The United States is placed eight and China has been ranked 46th. Neighbouring Pakistan is placed at 136. The World Bank put India among the top 10 economies to make the most improvements. Expressing hope of further improvement Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu said: "We will continue to improve more. The structural reforms which have not yet captured fully will be reflected. There are many other measures which will result into improvement of rank...you will see gain in 2019 and ultimate objective is to go into the top bracket within top 50". Observing that the two economies with the largest populations, China and India, demonstrated impressive reform agendas, the World Bank said India also focused on streamlining business processes. India, it said, made starting a business easier by integrating multiple application forms into a general incorporation form. "India also replaced the value-added tax with the GST (Goods and Services Tax) for which the registration process is faster". Also, "India made paying taxes easier by replacing many indirect taxes with a single indirect tax, the GST, for the entire country. India also made paying taxes less costly by reducing the corporate income tax rate and the employees' provident funds scheme rate paid by the employer," the World Bank said. The Finance Ministry in a statement said the rank in Trading Across Borders has taken a quantum leap from 146 to 80 in the Doing Business report released by World Bank. Among the 10 parameters based on which the rankings are determined and which include indices like Starting a Business, Getting Electricity and Resolving Insolvency, the improvement in India's overall ranking this year can be mainly attributed to an exceptional performance in Trading across Borders where India's rank improved from 146 to 80 since last year, the statement said. This positive jump is due to a series of reforms undertaken by Customs in conjunction with Ministry of Shipping and all stakeholders such as importers, exporters, Customs Brokers, CFS operators, Shipping lines and Terminal Operators, it added. Customs has undertaken several initiatives, which included enhanced coordination with other ministries and stakeholders, extensive use of digitisation and new technologies and business process re-engineering to facilitate trade. Appreciating work on trade across borders front, Prabhu said "there is already a proposal which is under implementation where one will be able to import, export, any international transaction through your mobile..the full impact of reforms is yet to be seen...you will see great improvement". The government is working on promoting Ease of Doing Business in districts and many measures you will see happening, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The does not agree with US President Donald Trump's claim that India is a "tariff king" and feels that the Indian taxation system and economy is much more liberalised than it was a few decades ago, a top official of the international financial institution said Wednesday. Earlier this month, Trump described India as a "tariff king" as he reiterated his allegations that New Delhi has a high tariff rate on various American goods. "That (India being a tariff king) certainly is not what we find in our data," Shanta Devarajan, the World Bank's Senior Director for Development Economics and Acting Chief Economist, told PTI in an interview when asked about Trump's statement. "India has some tariffs, but by no means it's not (tariff) king," said Devarajan, who earlier was chief economist for South Asia at the Even in South Asia India did not have the highest tariffs, he said referring to the experience he had in his previous capacity in the "And they (tariffs in India) have come down quite a bit since then," he said. Liberalisation of the Indian economy is showing results, he said. "Tariffs were very high in 1991, when they liberalised and they found that actually the economy boomed. That has helped to build political support for further reforms, Devarajan said. India has jumped 23 places to the 77th position in the World Bank's 'ease of doing business' ranking released Wednesday, a development that could help the country attract more foreign investments. India was ranked 100th in the World Bank's Doing Business Report last year. The ranking comes as a shot in the arm for the Narendra Modi government which faces strong dissenting voices from opposition parties ahead of the general elections next year. In its annual report 'Doing Business' 2019 report, World Bank said India improved on six of the 10 parameters relating to starting and doing business in a country. These parameters include ease of starting a business, construction permits, getting electricity, getting credit, paying taxes, trade across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. India was ranked at the 142nd position among 190 nations when the Modi government came to power in 2014. It rose to 100th spot in the last ranking from the 131st rank in the previous year. New Zealand topped the list of 190 countries in ease of doing business, followed by Singapore, Denmark, and Hong Kong. The United States is placed eight and China has been ranked 46th. Neighbouring Pakistan is placed at 136. World Bank put India among the top 10 economies to make the most improvements. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India Wednesday said it has lodged strong protests with China and Pakistan over a proposed bus service between the two countries through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said on Wednesday the bus service will be a violation of India's sovereignty and territorial integrity. According to reports, the new bus service will be launched between Lahore in Pakistan and Kashgar in China via Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on November 13. Kumar said it has been India's consistent and well-known position that the "so-called China-Pakistan 'Boundary Agreement' of 1963 is illegal and invalid, and has never been recognised by the Government of India." "Therefore, any such bus service through Pakistan Occupied Jammu & Kashmir will be a violation of India's sovereignty and territorial integrity," he added. The MEA spokesperson was responding to media queries regarding the proposed bus service. The USD 50-billion CPEC, launched in 2015, is a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking China's resource-rich Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with Pakistan's strategic Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India needs to expand international partnerships to expedite the development of its nuclear plants and meet the target of 63 GWe nuclear power capacity by 2032, the head of the World Nuclear Association (WNA) said on Wednesday. The world average for building a nuclear plant is five to six years but India takes a longer period than that, WNA Director General Agneta Rising said. However, India is running its nuclear plants at 80 per cent of the installed capacity, matching the world average, Rising told PTI at the ongoing five-day Singapore International Energy Week which began on Monday. The Narendra Modi government has set an ambitious 63 GWe nuclear power capacity addition target by the year 2031-32. "Capacity-wise India has not built so much. India has to pick-up and build more and expand nuclear energy," she said. Though India is in partnership with Russia to develop its nuclear plants, the country must expand its international partnerships, Rising said. India and Russia have signed contracts for priority design works and supply of main equipment for units 5 and 6 of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu. Three main contracts were signed between state-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) and Russia's JSC Atomstroyexport for priority design works, working design and supply of the main equipment for stage III of Kudankulam NPP. The NPCIL has also signed an agreement with France's EDF to build six European Pressurized Reactors (EPRs). Rising also said, "Every country in the world need a direction and policy support to nuclear energy development...If a government lends policy support and set direction, you will get financing, training and easily find good people." Shah Nawaz Ahmad, WNA's Senior Advisor for India, Middle East and South East Asia, said India has not fully exploited the opportunities for developing nuclear plants and international cooperation on a larger scale would be good for the country's nuclear programme. Early implementation of the 63 GWe target should make nuclear a significant low-carbon part of India's total energy requirements, he pointed out. India has seven reactors with a combined capacity of 4.8 GWe under construction. The reactors include the country's indigenously designed 700 MWe units. India has also approved construction of 10 indigenous nuclear reactors with a total capacity of about 7,000 MWe, the WNA noted in a press release. The WNA is the international organisation that promotes nuclear power and supports the companies that comprise the global nuclear industry. Together, WNA members are responsible for 70 per cent of the world's nuclear power as well as the vast majority of world uranium, conversion and enrichment production. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) / -- A workshop on 'Andhra Pradesh: Building the Nation's First Justice City' was organised at Constitution Club of India, New Delhi by Centre for Strategy and Leadership (CSL) in association with APCRDA Government of Andhra Pradesh. (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/777560/CSL_First_Justice_City.jpg ) Andhra Pradesh is building a world-class and India's first 'Justice City' within its new capital Amaravati with the vision to provide a state-of-the-art ecosystem built on latest technology for supporting the judicial system in the state. "Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has taken up this task upon himself to ensure that state-of-the-art complexes and facilities are developed which are needed to support quick and efficient court system. Once the Justice City is ready, Amaravati will be the first city in India to be home to the nation's first dedicated city on Justice," said Sreedhar Cherukuri, Commissioner, Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA). APCRDA is the nodal agency which is developing Amaravati. "We are developing Justice City in Amaravati which will comprise integrated judicial hub spread across 3,309 acres with an estimated population of 2.5 lacs. The Justice City is expected to generate employment for more than 1.3 lac people," said Mr. Cherukuri. "A symbol of sustainable and inclusive growth, the capital city of Amaravati under the leadership of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu is poised to become a world-class city to fulfill the aspirations and motivations of the people of the state. There is a big opportunity that lies in the Justice city for legal firms and offices, law institutes and colleges, resource centres, legal process outsourcing unites, legal think-tanks and research centres, NGOs, as well as for the para legal and allied industries," said Praveen Prakash, Resident Commissioner, Andhra Pradesh Government. According to Centre for Strategy and Leadership's Chief Executive and Director Vikas Sharma: "Andhra Pradesh has always been a forward-looking state. It has set-up a legal services committee to provide free and competent legal services to the needy. It is also among the first in the country to set up an integrated criminal justice system for faster and better prosecution of legal cases. Now, the state is breaking new ground by building an entire city with Justice at its core." Calling for investments in the Justice City, Ms. Bhavna Saxena, IPS, OSD, Economic Development Board, Government of Andhra Pradesh, underlined the state governments seriousness in engaging with serious investors and promised to extend full support to those interested in investing in the state. Supreme Court of India judges Justice N. V. Ramana, Justice L. Nageswara Rao, Justice Vineet Saran and, Justice Mohan Shantanagoudar; Delhi High Court Judge Justice S. Ravindra Bhat, Justice Suresh Kait, and, Justice Pratibha Singh were also present at the workshop. The workshop was attended by representatives from tribunals and legal bodies, leading law firms, Judges, law institutes, legal start-ups and infrastructure developers, among others. About Centre for Strategy and Leadership (CSL) Centre for Strategy and Leadership (CSL) is a special initiative focused on Sustainable Social and Economic Development of people of India. CSL believes in developing synergies through close cooperation and collaboration of key stakeholder partners in Government, Public and Private Enterprises, and, Citizen Groups. CSL is registered under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013 and works with its partners to drive Sustainable Social and Economic Development by conducting research and carrying out specialised programmes and initiatives... For more information, visit https://www.cslonline. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Indian-American couple has been honoured in the US for making significant contributions to the areas of literacy, education and healthcare in India. Marie and Vijay Goradia received the Roy M Hiffington Award here recently. The Houston couple has made significant contributions in the areas of healthcare, literacy and education in India for decades now. "We are pleased to announce that Goradias are being recognized by Asia Society Texas Center (ASTC) as the recipients of the 2018 Huffington Award," Asia Society said in a statement. "Named after our co-founder Roy M Huffington, the award is symbolic of outstanding contributions that have furthered international understanding and diplomacy on a global scale," it said. The Huffington Award is the highest honor granted by ASTC, and past award recipients include former Exxon CEO and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former president George W Bush and Kevin Rudd, Australia's ex prime minister. Vijay Goradia, 67, the founder and chairman of Vinmar International, that has been in business for 35 years with a record of continued growth and profitability. In 1998, Vijay, who is originally from Mumbai, began seriously mulling ways to help the country he left behind, along with the American charities he supports as well. He has since become one of the major fundraisers for Pratham, an education nonprofit organisation in India, and founded the first American chapter. Through their noble act Pratham has affected the lives of more than 50 million underprivileged children in the past two decades. Pratham USA is listed as one of the top ten charities in Houston by Charity Navigator. Marie, also from Mumbai, received a Master's degree in biochemistry and a PhD in molecular biology from Bombay University. One of four women to be selected by the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) for their training school, Marie was later appointed as a research officer there. She did her postdoctoral studies at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Columbia University in New York. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Indian-origin man has been ordered to pay USD 8.6 million in restitution and serve six months of home incarceration for launching a series of cyber-attacks on the computer network of a leading US university. Paras Jha, 22, of New Jersey had previously pleaded guilty before US District Judge Michael Shipp to violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He also took part in creating click fraud botnets, infecting hundreds of thousands of devices with malicious software. Shipp, who imposed the sentence last week in Trenton federal court, also sentenced Jha to five years of supervised release and ordered him to perform 2,500 hours of community service. According to documents filed in this and other cases and statements made in court, between November 2014 and September 2016, Jha executed a series of "distributed denial of service" (DDOS) attacks on the networks of the New Jersey-based Rutgers University - during which multiple computers acting in unison flood the Internet connection of a targeted computer or computers. Jha's attacks effectively shut down the varsity's central authentication server, which maintained, among other things, the gateway portal through which staff, faculty, and students delivered assignments and assessments. At times, he succeeded in taking the portal offline for multiple consecutive periods, causing damage to the university, its faculty, and its students. In December last year, Jha along with Josiah White, 21, of Pennsylvania and Dalton Norman, 22, of Louisiana had pleaded guilty to criminal information in the District of Alaska charging them each with conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act in operating the Mirai Botnet. In the summer and fall of 2016, White, Jha, and Norman created a powerful botnet a collection of computers infected with malicious software and controlled as a group without the knowledge or permission of the owners of the computers. The Mirai Botnet, targeted Internet of Things devices such as wireless cameras, routers, and digital video recorders. The defendants attempted to discover both known and previously undisclosed vulnerabilities that allowed them to surreptitiously attain administrative or high-level access to victim devices for the purpose of forcing the devices to participate in the Mirai Botnet. At its peak, Mirai consisted of hundreds of thousands of compromised devices. The defendants used the botnet to conduct a number of other cyber attacks. Further, from December 2016 to February 2017, the defendants successfully infected more than 100,000 primarily US-based Internet-connected computing devices, such as home Internet routers, with malicious software. Last month, all three defendants were separately sentenced in federal court in Alaska to serve a five-year period of probation, 2,500 hours of community service, ordered to pay restitution in the amount of USD127,000, and have voluntarily abandoned significant amounts of cryptocurrency seized during the course of the investigation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Jammu and Kashmir State Administrative Council (SAC) Wednesday approved honorarium for sarpanchs and panchs to be elected in the ensuing panchayat election. The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik, an official spokesman said. To compensate sarpanchs and panchs for the onerous responsibilities to be discharged by them under the new Panchayati Raj System being put in place in the state, the SAC decided to pay them honorarium as a token of encouragement, he said. The spokesman said the sarpanchs will be paid a monthly honorarium of Rs 2,500 and the panchs Rs 1,000. The meeting was attended by advisors to governor B B Vyas, K Vijay Kumar, Khurshid Ahmed Ganai and Chief Secretary B V R Subrahmanyam, he said. Panchayat election would be held in the state between November 17 and December 11 in nine phases on non-party basis. Around 4,500 panchayat halqas in over 35,000 panchayat constituencies will be elected by over 58 lakh electors. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A section of students of Jamia Millia Islamia University has submitted a memorandum to the varsity's vice-chancellor demanding reinstatement of students' union and declaration of the date of elections. The union elections were banned in the varsity in 2006 after its administration alleged that the union had started meddling in issues related to administrative work. "We the students of JMI have suffered immensely in the past 13 years after scrapping of students' union in 2006. We have no representation in the decision making bodies in the university and no mechanism to ensure the accountability of the decision making bodies of the university towards the students," the students said in a letter. The students feel powerless in the face of such administrative decisions as scrapping of papers, marksheets, fee hike or administrative inefficiencies such as delay and errors in examination results in absence of any mechanisms to make the students voice matter, the letter said. They said since JMI is a minority institution where students come from the remotest corners of the country and most vulnerable backgrounds, the students need to have a collective voice even more. The students said that "if the date of students' union elections is not announced right till end of November, we will be compelled to resort to all democratic non-violent means to seek our rights". According to an official from the varsity, since the matter is sub-judice, the varsity cannot comment on it. Jamia had in 2012 assured the Delhi High Court that there is no discomfort and objection to elections as well as an elected student body. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Tamil Nadu government Wednesday informed the Madras High Court that the decision to construct a memorial for late chief minister Jayalalithaa was a policy decision and there was no conviction against her as of date. In a counter affidavit to a petition opposing the memorial on various grounds, the Principal Tamil Development and Information Secretary said the government was well within its powers to build the memorial. Making it clear that the state Coastal Zone Management Authority had given its clearance and the requisite planning and building permissions had been obtained from the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority and the city corporation, the counter urged the court to dismiss the petition filed by M L Ravi, the president of Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi. Referring to the averments by the petitioner that Jayalalithaa was convicted in the disproportionate wealth case, it submitted that the Supreme Court in its February 14, 2017 judgement had abated charges against her as she had died during the pendency of the appeal against her acquittal. The counter also referred to similar memorials built by the government for former chief ministers of the state. It is to come up at the Marina Beach within the existing memorial for late chief minister and Jayalalithaa's mentor M G Ramachandran. Jayalalithaa died on December 5, 2016 after prolonged illness. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das Wednesday paid tributes to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his 143rd birth anniversary and recalled his effort in persuading over 550 princely states to join India. "Even today Sardar Patel is pertinent, an example of countrys unity. Now forces of breaking the nation are more active than earlier----some in the name of caste, some in the name of communalism...There is a necessity to give a fitting reply to such forces," Das told a run-for-unity programme here. Das claimed only Prime Minister Narendra Modi honoured Sardar Patel after 70 years of Independence by unveiling the 182-metre statue of Patel. The chief minister also paid tribute to former prime minister Indira Gandhi on her death anniversary. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Journalist bodies Wednesday urged the government to probe the killing of a scribe in a Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district and take adequate measures to prevent such incidents in the future. One mediaperson and two policemen were killed in the attack which took place in Dantewada's Aranpur area Tuesday. Two other security personnel were also injured in the attack. The mediaperson who died was Achyutananda Sahu, a cameraman with state-run broadcaster Doordarshan. Condemning the attack, the Indian Women's Press Corps and the Press Association in a joint statement said it was deplorable that journalists and innocent persons continued to be collateral victims in conflict areas and situations. "Not long back, the media fraternity lost another of its colleagues, Shujaat Bukhari, who was shot dead in Srinagar. We demand that the Union and the state government concerned investigate the killing and take adequate measures to prevent such incidents that have devastating consequences," the statement said. "We hope that the Union and state government will provide financial compensation and employment to the bereaved family of Sahu that has suffered not only a great emotional loss but also lost an earning member of the family," it added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) BJP president Wednesday described India's jump in the World Bank's ranking as a matter of pride for every Indian, and also took a dig at the Congress saying under its "economist" prime minister Manmohan Singh, the country had slipped to 142nd rank. In a series of tweets, Shah congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his "reformist zeal" that has led to this jump. "It is a matter of pride for every Indian that India has made yet another phenomenal jump in the World Bank's rankings! We are now placed 77th compared to 100th last year," Shah said. He attributed the "phenomenal jump" in the ranking to a series of policy reforms undertaken by the that had contributed towards the creation of an environment that encourages industry, innovation and entrepreneurship. Shah further said when doing business becomes easier, many more youngsters get the opportunity and support to showcase their entrepreneurial skills. "Glad that this has been happening in India over the last four years. More power to our budding young and self-made entrepreneurs," he said. Comparing ranking during the current NDA government with that during the previous Congress-led UPA government, Shah said it is worth noting that under "an economist" Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, India's ease of doing business ranking plummeted from 132 to 142 between 2011 and 2014. "Corruption, cronyism and policy paralysis of the UPA adversely impacted the nation," Shah said. The has simplified processes, quickened clearances and decision making, come down heavily on corruption and middlemen. All of this augurs well for the growth trajectory of the nation, he said. A Kashmiri boy, beaten up in a case of mistaken identity at a Greater Noida private university earlier this month, has gone missing for the last four days, and police here claim that he is in Kashmir's militancy-hit Pulwama district, officials said Wednesday. The first-year graduation student, identified as Ahtesham Bilal Sofi, a resident of downtown Srinagar, had gone missing on Sunday, prompting police to launch a thorough probe. The 17-year-old was beaten up in a case of mistaken identity at the Sharda University in October when a scuffle broke out between Indian and Afghan students on its campus. The Uttar Pradesh Police claimed that he took a flight to Srinagar and his phone was on till 4.30 pm Sunday. His last location was in Pulwama, it said. However, the Jammu and Kashmir Police, with whom inputs have been shared, could not establish his present location. Following his first semester examinations, Ahtesham had sought permission from the university's officials to go to Delhi on Sunday, but he has not returned since then, police here said. "He had last spoken to his father, who lives in Srinagar, at 4.30 pm on Sunday and told him that he was returning from Delhi to the university while a search of his mobile phone location revealed he was in Pulwama at that time and his phone went off after that," a police official here told PTI. "The Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) has confirmed that the student took a flight to Srinagar on Sunday. He had booked a GoAir ticket to Srinagar on October 26 for the October 28 1.30 pm flight. A video footage from the airport has confirmed his presence in the airport on Sunday," the official said. The student's father Bilal Ahmed Sofi, 43, said the family in Srinagar has also approached the local Khanyar police station with a missing complaint. "His mother is ill and I was returning from the hospital when I talked to him on Sunday. When I asked him which places he visited in Delhi, he told me that he would send me the pictures. "But when I called him up again at 6.30 pm his phone was switched off," Bilal Ahmed, who runs a sanitary hardware shop in Srinagar, told PTI over phone. Ahtesham is the elder son of Bilal Ahmed , who also has a daughter who is studying in Class 6. He had joined the university in September and had got beaten up during the scuffle between Indian and Afghan students on the campus early October. "When I got to know of the incident, I went to his university. I was told by some to get an FIR lodged but at the time I thought it was a small matter between students which could be resolved by them so I did not approach the police," Bilal Ahmed said. Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti tweeted, "Cause of grave concern that Ehtishaam Bilal, a student at Sharda University who was assaulted is reportedly missing. Request @rajnathsingh ji to take note of it and direct the authorities to track him at the earliest." The Jammu and Kashmir Police said they were working on the case and there was no immediate confirmation about his presence in the Valley. Station House Officer, Knowledge Park police station, Arvind Pathak said the police were probing the case and were in contact with their counterparts in Srinagar as well as in touch with Ahtesham's family. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Wednesday met traders of Connaught Place to hear out their issues. During the meeting, the traders raised the issue of CP, which is one of the biggest markets, not been given representation in the Town Vending Committees (TVCs). New Delhi Traders Association's president Atul Bhargava said a delegation of traders had met the chief minister 10 days back pertaining to their issues. "Today, they (CM and his team) visited us and discussed the issues with traders. "While CP being one of the biggest market has not been granted representation in the Delhi government's town vending committee, there is no identified place for hawkers which results in them illegally occupying certain areas," said Bhargava. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A personal security officer of Kerala Irrigation minister Mathew T Thomas, allegedly shot himself to death, using his service revolver early Wednesday, police said. The deceased, Sujith (28), who was attached to the armed reserve camp here, was found with gunshot wound on the head at his home at Kadakal in Kollam district, they said adding he had also cut veins in both hands. Though the officer was rushed to the hospital, his life could not be saved. Sujith, a bachelor, has left a suicide note, police said. Meanwhile, the Minister's office said Sujith has been working as Thomas' personal security officer for the past three months and was on leave yesterday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Petra Kvitova and Karolina Pliskova will lead the Czech Republic against defending champions the United States in the Fed Cup final in Prague on November 10-11, the team captain said Wednesday. The world number seven and eight, respectively, will team up with 31st-ranked Katerina Siniakova, the world number one in doubles, and 33rd-ranked Barbora Strycova, who is fifth in doubles. "I'm really excited, I appreciate having the strongest team I could put together," said captain Petr Pala, quoted by the CTK agency. The final pitting the two most successful nations in Fed Cup history -- the USA with 18 trophies and the Czech Republic with 10 including five as the former Czechoslovakia -- will be played on the hardcourt of the sold-out 15,000-capacity O2 Arena. Holders the USA beat Belarus in Minsk last year after seeing off the Czechs in the semi-final. Led by Kvitova and Pliskova, the Czechs have won five of the last seven editions including all three finals they have played on Prague's hardcourt. "We are good at the finals, we are not so good against the Americans. We have never lost in the O2 Arena, but we have never beaten the Americans (in the final)," Pala said. In this year's semi-finals, the Czechs beat Germany in Stuttgart while the United States edged France in Aix-en-Provence. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sri Lanka's Attorney General Jayantha Jayasuriya Wednesday refused to give an opinion to parliamentary speaker Karu Jayasuriya on the current political impasse over the sacking of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, saying it would be "deemed inappropriate". The speaker, seeking the AG's opinion, asked five questions including the one on the validity of President Maithripala Sirisena dismissing Wickremesinghe as the premier. The Attorney General (AG) wrote to the speaker: "Having regard to the role of the Attorney General under the Constitution, I am of the view that expressing an opinion on the said questions would be deemed inappropriate". President Sirisena replaced Wickremesinghe with former president Mahinda Rajapaksa in a dramatic turn of events last Friday. Sirisena also suspended Parliament until November 16, which experts said was meant to buy time to engineer crossovers from Wickremesinghe's side to Rajapaksa in the 225 member parliament to reach the 113 working majority mark. Rajapaksa has so far managed to rope in five more lawmakers to bolster his strength to 101. More leaders may to join Rajapaksa's side, Udaya Gammanpila, a Rajapaksa loyalist, said, adding that "we are keeping ministerial positions vacant for them". So far only 12 of the Cabinet positions out of 30 have been filled. On Tuesday, angry protests rocked Sri Lanka's capital as thousands of demonstrators gathered for a rally organised by deposed prime minister Wickremesinghe's party against what it said was a "coup" by President Sirisena, even as the opposing sides were engaged in efforts to secure their numbers in Parliament to end the country's political crisis. Wickremesinghe's position was bolstered by a statement in the British House of Parliament where Hugo Swire, a former deputy foreign minister in charge of South Asia, said they continue to treat him as the legitimate prime minister. New prime minister Rajapaksa assumed duties Wednesday as the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs. "When I left office in 2015, our growth was six per cent plus, but during the last three years and 10 months, the growth rate has reduced to three per cent. "We have to protect our local industries and stop foreign influence on the economy," Rajapaksa said as he called for simplifying taxes, echoing the criticism of high taxes during the Wickremesinghe government. The country's main Tamil party Tamil National Alliance (TNA), after a meeting with Rajapaksa, said they were not treating Rajapaksa as the lawfully-elected prime minister. "We met him on his request as a fellow member of Parliament and his title of (former) president," senior TNA leader M A Sumanthiran said. Sirisena is under increasing political and diplomatic pressure to reconvene Parliament and resolve the Constitutional crisis. Wickramasinghe, who is refusing to accept his dismissal, argues that he cannot legally be dismissed until he loses the support of Parliament. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Lawyers across Odisha burnt effigies of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday in front of the offices of their respective bar associations accusing the state government of having "failed" to resolve the two-month old advocate-police row. The lawyers have been agitating since August 29 demanding arrest of two policemen, who had allegedly assaulted a Cuttack-based lawyer on August 28 Alleging that the state government had not taken any initiative to settle the lawyers-police ugly bickering, the High Court Bar Association, which is agitating for over two months now, on Tuesday had given the call to burn the effigies of the chief minister. Lawyers of different bar associations burnt effigies of the chief minister and also raised slogans against Patnaik, his government, BJD Legal Front and the police. Lawyers of the High Court Bar Association in Cuttack took out a procession and burnt the effigy of the chief minister in front of the office of the bar association. On the other hand, addressing the media persons here BJD Legal Front advisor and senior advocate Asim Amitav Dash alleged that the ongoing strike by the High Court Bar Association is politically motivated and those who are leading it from the front, have "ulterior motives". "The state government, had in fact, taken several measures to resolve the face off between lawyers and police," Dash said adding the BJD Legal Front has distanced itself from the ongoing strike. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) For the second consecutive quarter, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), due to an "unprecedented" plunge in china volumes, continued to roil the finances of Tata Motors, which Wednesday reported a net loss of Rs 1,009 crore for the September quarter. The company had reported a net profit of Rs 2,501.7 crore in the year-ago period. Total revenue from operations, however, rose 3.3 per cent to Rs 72,112.08 crore, thanks to the robust show by the domestic business and despite an 11 per cent decline in JLR revenue to 5.6 billion pounds, Tata Motors said. On a sequential basis, the net loss has been narrowed from Rs 1,902.4 crore in the June quarter, which again was led by JLR, which since its turnaround from 2010 has been keeping the group afloat. The hugely underwhelming set of numbers, driven by an all-round poor show by JLR, its till-recently its cash-cow and the profit centre, has forced the company to announce massive cost savings to the tune of 2.5 billion pounds over the next 18 months. JLR, which the Tatas had bought form Ford Motor in the thick of the global financial crisis for USD 2.2 billion, on a standalone logged in a net loss of 101 million pounds. "While 500 million pounds of the announced 2.5 billion pounds of capex reduction for JLR will come this fiscal, a similar amount will be saved next fiscal as well. The rest of the savings will come from other cost recalibrations," group chief financial officer PB Balaji told reporters here. But Balaji, who joined the company 11 months ago from HUL, was quick to underline that the capex re-calibration "does not in any which way will see the company cutting down on its products investments". "We are a product-driven company, which thrives on cutting-edge technologies. We've around 16 nameplates in the pipeline by 2024 and none of them will be subjected to this capex reduction. But that does not mean won't rationalise out inventories. We have already announced plant shutdowns in a phased manner to rationalise cost, inventory among others," he said. The company described the situation in China, the largest profit and volume centres for many years now for the marquee British arm of Tata Motors, as "grave and very, very unprecedented", where its volume plunged 43.8 per cent against an industry decline of 7.7 per cent. On a standalone basis, the domestic arm and the parent Tata Motors reported a net profit of Rs 109.14 crore on the back of an industry leading volume growth of over 31 per cent against the industry growth of a little over 3 per cent in the quarter. It had reported a net loss of Rs 283.37 crore in the second quarter of fiscal 2018. But the bottomline pales sequentially as in the June quarter it had posted a whopping Rs 1,187.65 crore, which is down by 91 per cent now. Balaji said over 50 per cent of the net loss of Rs 1,009 crore came in from a one-time charge of Rs 530 crore, most of which arose from the shuttering of its Thailand operations, and over one million pounds in forex losses due to the continuing plunge in the rupee. The domestic revenue grew to Rs 17,758.69 crore during the quarter from Rs 13,310.37 crore as standalone volume rose 25 per cent to 1,90,283 units driven by robust sales of commercial and passenger vehicles. Tata Group chairman N Chandrasekaran said the domestic business continued to deliver strong improvement in operational and financial performance by implementing the 'Turnaround 2.0' strategy effectively. "We've improved our market shares whilst delivering robust improvement in profitability in both the commercial vehicles and passenger vehicles and generated positive free cash flows," he said, adding this strong performance in the face of a competitive market augurs well for the future. "Our solid, all-around performance in Q2 has demonstrated that our 'Turnaround 2.0' is in full swing. This was possible due to a robust product and innovation pipeline, strong market activation, rigorous cost cuts and structural process improvements," chief executive Guenter Butschek said. The JLR leadership team is in mission mode to achieve the deliverables under this plan. "With these concerted actions, we remain committed to deliver an improved all-round performance from the H2 of FY19," Chandrasekaran added. Provision for impairment of capital work-in-progress and intangibles stood at Rs 93.21 crore and provisions for closure of operations of the Thailand subsidiary stood at Rs 537.08 crore, hitting the bottomline, the company said. Operating margin fell by 130 bps to 9.9 per cent and pre-tax margin contracted 310 bps to 1.7 per cent in the reporting quarter. JLR chief executive Ralf Speth described the China as a "very, very difficult situation", where consumers are just holding back from buying. Its sales plunged a whopping 43.8 per cent against overall luxe car market fall of 7.7 per cent. But he did not offer a clear answer to the plight of his sales, except saying there has been a very large inventory pile up and dealers have been facing margin troubles. "As the situation came in our face, we decided to cut back inventory at the same time not to follow a push strategy as other have been doing. As a premium luxury car maker we believe in pull strategy and not a push strategy," Speth said, implying that the company has not been and will not be offering discounts as the rivals are doing to push volumes. JLR revenue degrew 11 per cent to 5.63 billion pounds as retail sales dropped 13.2 per cent to 1.29 lakh units and wholesales plunged 14.7 per cent to 1.3 lakh units. This has its operating margin dropping 270 bps to 9.1 per cent. But China still remains its single largest market in volume terms with around 20 per cent market pie, which is down by over 200 bps. Speth also said there is no certainty about the Brexit outcome, which as of now will be effective March 29, 2019. "We ship 25 million parts annually from Britain and we wish the transition does not affect this. The just opened 1.2 billion pounds Slovakian plant with an annual capacity of 1.5 lakh units should be able to help. Slovakia will rollout Discovery initially and then the Defender in the second phase," he said. Tata Motors shares rose 0.76 per cent at Rs 178.65 on BSE, whose benchmark Sensex jumped over 551 points. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Wednesday sought Lt Governor Anil Baijal's direction to the Delhi Police to ensure implementation of the ESMA in the wake of the strike by DTC workers, saying he has the "constitutional duty" to do this. Launching an attack on the BJP, Kejriwal alleged that most contractual workers of the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) wanted to attend work, but they are being prevented by the "goons" of the saffron party in the city. Several contractual employees of the state-owned transport agency have been boycotting work since October 22 to press for their demands. Baijal has imposed the Essential Services Maintenance Act, 1974, on the DTC for six months banning all strikes by its employees. "Most workers want to attend work. They r being prevented by BJP goons. Police not taking action despite ESMA. LG refusing to meet. Why is LG not meeting the minister? Why is LG not directing police to act? BJP misusing LG yet again n harassing Delhiites? (sic)," Kejriwal tweeted. In another tweet, the chief minister said, "LG has constitutional duty to direct Del police and ensure implementation of ESMA (sic)". Calling the strike of the DTC contractual workers as "illegal", Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot said despite the imposition of the ESMA, the workers continue to protest and slammed the Delhi police for not taking any action against them. "Despite the imposition of the ESMA, the DTC contractual employees continue to strike, which is illegal and an offence. And the workers who are going to duty are being beaten up and threatened. What action has the Lieutenant Governor or the Delhi Police taken in this regard?" he said. Gahlot claimed that 96 per cent of the DTC buses were plying normally Wednesday despite the strike called by contractual workers. "Wages related demands of contractual employees were accepted already. We are open to holding talks with them and discuss their issues," he said. On Sunday, the DTC had said the Delhi government has restored the minimum wage rates prevailing before August 4, 2018, of contractual employees and withdrew the orders for reducing the wages. The deduction in wages made for the intervening period from August 4 till October 31 will be credited to the accounts of the personnel by the end of this month, it said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) industrialist Lord Swraj Paul has been honoured by a non-profit NGO for his outstanding efforts to highlight the profile of Non-Resident Indians and their contributions to India. A spokesman of the Institute said on Wednesday that it honoured Paul, Chairman of the Caparo group of industries, here on Monday at an event held to celebrate its 30 years. Receiving the plaque, Paul, 87, said "Mahatma Gandhi Honour - to be associated with Mahatma Gandhi's name makes me very proud of being Indian and British. I am pleased to make Indians realise what service has done for India." Paul was Knighted by the British Queen in 1978 and became the Lord Paul of Marylebone and a member of the House of Lords. The CISF cover for the Madras High Court complex here was Wednesday extended by the court for a period of one year from November 16. A first bench comprising Chief Justice Vijaya Kamlesh Tahilramani and Justice M Duraiswamy passed the order extending the Central Industry Security Force (CISF) protection to the court complex for a further period of one year. The security of the high court complex was taken over by the CISF from the Tamil Nadu Police on November 16, 2015, for a period of one year following an order of the court. The court had issued the order on a PIL initiated by itself after lawyers created a ruckus in the complex while agitating for declaration of Tamil as an official language of the court and over contempt of court proceedings against two Madurai-based bar association leaders. Since then, the court has extended the CISF cover twice. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Maharashtra government Wednesday declared drought in 151 talukas in 26 of total 36 districts in the state. As per a government order, 112 talukas are facing severe drought and 39 talukas a moderate drought. The 26 districts comprise eight districts each in the Vidarbha and the Marathwada regions, five districts in North Maharashtra, four districts in western Maharashtra and Palghar district in the coastal Konkan region. Among all 26 districts, the moderate and severe drought overlap in many talukas. Jalgaon district in the north Maharashtra consists of 13 talukas that are reeling under severe drought, followed by Ahmednagar and Beed (11 talukas each), Solapur and Aurangabad districts (9 talukas each). Other districts are: Pune, Sangli, Satara, Palghar, Dhule, Nandurbar, Nashik, Jalna, Nanded, Parbhani, Osmanabad, Hingoli, Latur, Akola, Amravati, Buldhana, Washim, Yavatmal, Chandrapur, Nagpur and Wardha. On October 23, the state government had declared that 180 talukas were facing drought-like conditions. "The ground truthing/verification was done and based on indicators of rainfall deficit, reservoir storage, ground water index, soil moisture, the drought was declared," a Revenue department official said. The opposition Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had accused the BJP-led government of shirking its responsibility by not declaring drought in the state and hiding behind vague terminology such as "drought-like" or "scarcity-like" conditions. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam Wednesday attacked the BJP-led Maharashtra government over its "failure" on various fronts, on a day the ruling dispensation completed four years in office. Nirupam alleged that "unfulfilled electoral promises, rising unemployment and lack of investment" were among the "biggest failures" of the Devendra Fadnavis-led government. He attacked the chief minister, who also heads Home ministry, over the "rising rate of crime" in Mumbai. "How does the Chief Minister plan to curb crime rates? Simply by installing 5000 more CCTV cameras across Mumbai? The conviction rate is falling miserable. Neither women nor children are safe in the city or the state," he alleged. Nirupam claimed that a total of 4,356 women were raped across Maharashtra in 2017 and that 20 per cent of them are residents of Mumbai. The Congress chief also said the state is witnessing a "farm crisis", as the government has "failed" to cover 80 lakh farmers through the Rs 34,000 crore loan waiver. "While one crore farmers had applied for the loan waiver, the government has only been able to benefit 39.78 lakh farmers so far with a waiver of Rs 16,498 Crore. He alleged that 10,000 farmers have committed suicide in Maharashtra under the watch of the BJP government in the last four years. He alleged that the real estate business in Mumbai has suffered a body blow due to demonetisation and faulty implementation of the Goods and Services tax (GST). The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) defeated the Congress-led UPA dispensation in the assembly elections held in October 2014. The UPA government had ruled the state for three consecutive terms--from 1999 to 2014, before it lost to the saffron party. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Maharashtra irrigation department will Thursday release water from two dams in Nashik district and one dam in Ahmednagar district for the Jayakwadi dam in the Marathwada region. The decision to release the water from Darna and Gangapur dams in Nashik district and Mukane dam in Ahmedbagar district was taken at a meeting held in Aurangabad, following the directions of the supreme court, an official said. "The irrigation department will release 2.04 TMC water from Darna and Mukane dams and 0.60 TMC water from Gangapur dam," said R R Shinde, Executive Engineer, Nashik Irrigation department. Jayakwadi dam is located on Godavari river in Paithan taluka of Aurangabad district. The decision was taken in view of drought in the Marathwada region. Farmers in Nashik and Ahmednagar district had opposed the release of the water from dams to Jayakwadi claiming that their crops will suffer due to less availability of water. The state water resource department has appealed to farmers not to obstruct flow of water or resort to protests in view of the SC order. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a bid to curb practice of adulteration of food and give more teeth to agencies, the Maharashtra government will amend anti-adulteration law sections to prescribe life imprisonment for the violators, state FDA Minister Girish Bapat said here Wednesday. The minister said President Ramnath Kovind has recently given his assent to amendments made by other states to their respective laws prescribing life term for the violators. "The Maharashtra government will bring amendments to sections 272 to 276 of the Prevention of Food Adulteration (Maharashtra Amendment) Act, 1969 to provide life imprisonment for the accused," he told reporters. The minister said the state government intends to strengthen the Act on the lines of the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Slumlords, Bootleggers, Drug-Offenders and Dangerous Persons Act, 1981. Commenting upon the recent Supreme Court verdict on the applicability of section 328 (Causing hurt by means of poison, etc., with intent to commit an offence) of the IPC for violators of Gutkha ban, he said the state government had moved the apex court challenging the high court judgement in the matter. "With the apex court clearing the way for the applicability of the section, the offence will now become non-bailable," he said. Commenting upon the delay in conviction under the said section, Bapat said the government intends to try these cases in fast track courts so that at least in some cases accused are sent to jail. He added that between 2012 to 2019 gutkha worth Rs 171 crore was seized and 3,727 FIRs were filed in 4,600 cases. Responding to a query, Bapat said the vigilance squads of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) department are kept on alert ahead of Diwali festival to check import of adulterated khawa, mawa, milk, edible oils and sweets from neighbouring states. He said the FDA department has seized adulterated stocks of a special sweet imported from Gujarat. "Keeping in mind the festive season, the government has decided to release channa dal, udad dal to be distributed through Fair Price Shops. People can buy 2 Kgs of these dals on ration cards at the rate of Rs 35 and Rs 44 per Kg respectively," he said. "The government, keeping in line with the Center's Swasth Bharat mission, has decided to distribute 1 Kg iodized salt packets through the Public Distribution System (PDS)," Bapat said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Campaigners in Malawi won an injunction on Wednesday to temporarily halt work on a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the commercial capital as part of a USD 10 million construction deal with India. They argued in the high court that the statue, part of a deal to build a convention centre in Blantyre, celebrated Gandhi who they accused of using racial slurs in his lifetime. "Being black people ourselves, such remarks have invited a sense of loathing and detestation of Gandhi," said the "Gandhi Must Fall" group in their application which gave 18 grounds against the construction. Judge Michael Tembo ordered that work be suspended on the statue "until the hearing of the substantive matter" or a court order to the contrary. The site was deserted by Wednesday afternoon, an AFP correspondent saw, and a police officer said workers had been ordered home after the injunction was issued. Over 3,000 Malawians have signed a petition opposing the statue, saying the Indian independence hero had done nothing for the southern African country. Though Gandhi is more commonly remembered for his peaceful resistance to British rule in his native India, his legacy in Africa is more mixed. Foreign ministry official Isaac Munlo previously defended the statue, saying "Gandhi promoted values of simplicity, fight against social evils". "Gandhi is a role model of a human rights campaigner for both Africa and India," he said. Malawi and India established diplomatic ties in 1964 and New Delhi is one of the country's leading aid donors. Statues have sparked charged debates in Africa in recent years as the continent wrestles with the legacy of colonialism and history of racism. In 2016 Ghana's government said it wanted to relocate a statue of Gandhi on a university campus after professors launched a petition claiming he was racist. Students in South Africa successfully campaigned in 2015 for the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, a notoriously racist mining magnate who died in 1902, from the University of Cape Town campus. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A man was arrested for allegedly withdrawing money from another person's bank account after fraudulently getting possession of his ATM card in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district, police said Wednesday. Liyaqat Hussain of Kanuvyian village in the district was arrested within 12 hours of receiving a complaint in connection with the incident, a police official said. Mohammad Aslam of Mamankote village of Chasana-Mahore lodged a written complaint Tuesday that while withdrawing money at an ATM in Poonch town, Hussain came there and managed to exchange his ATM card. He withdrew Rs 38,000 from his account, the official said. Taking cognizance of the matter, he said a case was registered and Hussain arrested with the help of CCTV camera footage of the incident. The accused confessed the crime and the ATM card of the complainant along with the money was recovered from his possession, he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A man was arrested for allegedly using derogatory language against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and some BJP leaders in a video posted on social media, police said Wednesday. Jenish Rajkumar was arrested at Saravilai near here, they said. According to police, he recorded the video in April when he was in Qatar and had used derogatory terms against the prime minister while commenting on the Kathua rape and death of a minor girl. Based on a complaint lodged by BJP district general secretary C Thangappan, Rajkumar was arrested, police added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A 22-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly killing an eight-year-old boy by smothering, police said here Wednesday. The accused, identified as Pappu Kumar, was arrested Tuesday based on a tip-off, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Vaibhav Krishna said. The minor boy had gone missing on October 26 following which his father had lodged an FIR at the Kavi Nagar police station here, he said. The body of the missing boy was found in a forested area of Bamheta village two days later, the SSP said, adding that police had been searching for the accused since then. He was arrested after an informer tipped police off about a suspect matching the description put out by them, he said. During interrogation, Kumar admitted that he killed the minor, Krishna said. The victim had apparently walked into Kumar's house and saw him sodomising another boy, following which the accused lured the eight-year-old to an isolated spot and killed him over fears that he might tell his father about the incident, the SSP said. Kumar used to work for the victim's father as a mason, he added. Following Pappu's confession, police have booked him under the POCSO Act and sections 302, 201, and 377 of the IPC, Krishna added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis called Tuesday for a ceasefire in Yemen and for parties to come to the negotiating table within the next 30 days. The Pentagon chief said the US had been watching the conflict "for long enough" and said he believes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are in a US-backed coalition fighting Shiite Huthi rebels, are ready for talks. "We have got to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it some time in the future," Mattis said at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. "We need to be doing this in the next 30 days." He said the US is calling for all warring parties to meet with United Nations special envoy Martin Griffiths in Sweden in November and "come to a solution." Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the conflict between embattled Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, whose government is recognized by the United Nations, and the Huthis in 2015. Nearly 10,000 people have since been killed and the country now stands at the brink of famine. The United States has faced fierce international criticism for its role in supporting the Saudi-led coalition, especially after a series of strikes killed scores of civilians. Mattis said US support is based primarily on teaching the Saudi air force to improve targeting and to not drop bombs when there is any doubt about what they might hit. "Our goal right now is to achieve a level of capability by those forces fighting against the Huthis that they are not killing innocent people," he said. "The longer term solution, and by longer term I mean 30 days from now, we want to see everybody around a peace table based on a ceasefire, based on a pull back (of Huthis) from the border and then based on a ceasing dropping of bombs that will permit the special envoy Martin Griffiths... to get them together in Sweden and end this war. That is the only way we are going to really solve this." Last month, UN-led peace talks failed to take off after Huthi rebels refused to fly to Geneva over what they said was the UN's failure to guarantee a safe return to the capital Sanaa, which the group has controlled since 2014. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Mining baron G Janardhana Reddy has found himself at the centre of a row over his purported remarks about the death of former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah's son with the BJP asking him to tender an apology, even as it drew Congress' ire. In an interview to a local channel recently, Reddy purportedly referred to the death of Siddaramaiah's son as "God's punishment", as he accused the Congress leader of keeping him away from his children by sending him to jail for four years, by "misusing" the chief minister's office. "For keeping me away from my children, God has punished him," Reddy reportedly said. Siddaramaiah's son, Rakesh Siddaramaiah had died of multi-organ failure at a hospital in Belgium in July 2016. Condemning the remarks, BJP state unit chief B S Yeddyurappa demanded that Reddy apologise. "Janardhana Reddy's comment about the death of Siddaramaiah's son is something that does not give grace to him. I condemn it. I also demand that Janardhana Reddy should apologise," he told reporters at Shivamogga Wednesday. Siddaramaiah hit out at Reddy's remarks and said, "The former minister lacks culture and humanity". "In politics we may criticise each other, that is different, but bringing family into it is not good. People will not accept it," he said. In a tweet Tuesday, Siddaramaiah had said, "Janardhana Reddy has said my son's death is god's punishment to me. I pray to god, not to punish your children for your sins". Reddy's remarks drew sharp reaction from several Congress leaders and ministers, including D K Shivakumar and R V Deshpande. BJP leaders-- former deputy chief minister R Ashoka and former minister Suresh Kumar, both MLAs, said it was wrong to make personal comments about someone's death. The saffron party has kept itself away from Reddy who has, however, been making remarks in favour of the party. BJP national president Amit Shah had, ahead of the state assembly polls, maintained that Reddy, an accused in an illegal mining case, has nothing do with the party. The tainted mining baron's confidant and state senior BJP leader B Sriramulu's sister J Shantha is contesting the November 3 by-polls from Reddy's home turf of Ballari Lok Sabha constituency. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Wednesday used the occasion of the unveiling of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's statue in Gujarat to hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the nationalist leader never wanted to divide people, but always worked for their unity. Modi unveiled a 182-metre-tall statue of Patel, considered to be the tallest in the world, at Kevadiya in Narmada district of Gujarat Wednesday to mark the 143rd birth anniversary of the first home minister of Independent India. "Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel never indulged either in caste politics or politics based on religion. The great leader never wanted to divide the people, rather he always worked for their unity," Banerjee said. "Sardar Patel also asked all leaders to look upon all the people equally, without any discrimination," she said, while accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of dividing people on the basis of religion and caste, instead of working for their welfare. "On Sardar Patel's birthday, we hope the country remains united," the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief said. Blaming the BJP-led governments in Assam and at the Centre for leaving out the names of 40 lakh people from the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), she alleged that the saffron party was practising a similar "politics of discrimination" in different parts of the country. "In Assam, they (BJP) are trying to drive out 40 lakh people, including Bengalis, by omitting their names from the NRC draft," Banerjee, a strident critic of the BJP, said. She had hit out at the Centre on Tuesday too at Coochbehar by drawing parallels between the NRC exercise in Assam and the exodus of Bihari migrants from Gujarat. Banerjee had alleged that both the BJP-ruled states were trying to divide people on the basis of caste, creed, race and religion. Addressing a public gathering after an administrative meeting here, Banerjee Wednesday said an all-round development of north Bengal was her government's priority for bringing the region into the mainstream. She said infrastructure development in the region would bolster trade and help promote cultural exchanges with neighbouring Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. The chief minister inaugurated or laid the foundations stones for different projects Wednesday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Modi government's "boat of corruption" will no longer sail, the Congress said on Wednesday after the Supreme Court asked the Centre for pricing details of the 36 Rafale jets India is buying from France. A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked for the pricing details in a sealed cover within 10 days, but agreed that "strategic and confidential" information need not be disclosed. "The Modi government's boat of corruption will no longer sail because the Supreme Courts wants to know the truth of Rafale. The corruption-loaded BJP government can no longer remain investigation free, the accused can no longer run away from a JPC (joint parliamentary committee)," Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told reporters. "Dear PM, Please explain to the 'court of people', why are you now shying away from JPC investigation? Rafale Scam is now fully ripe for an investigation-no more excuses!" Surjewala added in a tweet. The Congress has been alleging massive irregularities in the Rafale deal, saying the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government when it was negotiating a deal for procurement of 126 Rafale fighter jets. The Congress has also been targeting the government over selection of Reliance Defence as an offset partner for Dassault. The government has vehemently rejected the allegations and asserted that it did not have any role in the selection of Reliance Defence. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A top Myanmar official said Wednesday that his country would take back a first group of 2,000 Rohingya refugees from camps in Bangladesh in November despite widespread doubts over the proposal. Officials from the two countries announced on Tuesday that some of the 720,000 Muslim Rohingya who fled a deadly military clampdown in the Buddhist-majority country last year would start returning next month. Myanmar foreign secretary Myint Thu visited the camps in Cox's Bazar on Wednesday to discuss the repatriations with refugees. Most repeated demands that they be given Myanmar nationality with full rights before they return. Thu said Myanmar has verified 5,000 names on a list of 8,032 Rohingya that Bangladesh authorities sent in February. "From that 5,000, the first batch will be about 2,000 people. And then a second batch will follow. So in mid-November we will receive the first batch," Thu told reporters. Bangladesh officials said a new list of 24,342 Rohingya names was handed over in talks this week. But Rohingya representatives expressed strong doubts about going back despite the announcement. "We would rather die in the camp in Bangladesh. We will not return without any guarantee of citizenship or fully restored rights," Abdul Hakim, one refugee from Myanmar's Rakhine state, told AFP. The United Nations, aid groups and even Bangladesh authorities have said any repatriation must be voluntary. Oxfam spokesperson Rachael Reilly said the refugees "want to see justice served and an end to the violence and discrimination that have caused this crisis". "It is deeply concerning that Rohingya people may be sent back to Myanmar to face the same persecution they fled," she said. The 720,000 joined about 300,000 who fled earlier violence in Myanmar, where the Rohingya are refused citizenship and rights. Many brought harrowing tales of rape, murder and burning of villages. Investigators have said senior Myanmar military officials should be prosecuted for genocide, but Myanmar has rejected the calls, insisting it only targeted militants. The two neighbours first announced a large-scale repatriation plan in November 2017. But it has failed to advance, with each government blaming the other. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Myanmar will take back 2,000 Rohingya Muslims from Bagladesh next month which will be followed by a second batch, a top official said Wednesday, a day after the two countries held talks here on repatriation of over 700,000 displaced refugees who fled to the neighbouring country following a military crackdown. A group of 12 Myanmar officials, including foreign secretary Myint Thu, visited the crammed Rohingya camps in Bangladesh's southeastern Cox's Bazar where they met the minority community leaders in the largest makeshift camp at Kutupalang in an effort to start the reparation process. The visit followed after Myanmar and Bangladesh reached a deal on the repatriation in line with an earlier agreed modality. Bangladeshi officials said they had provided Myanmar a list of 32,000 Rohingyas in two phases, while Myanmar said they verified 5,000 of them. According to media reports, Myanmar has suggested they could take back 2,000 refugees initially. "From that 5,000, the first batch will be about 2,000 people. And then a second batch will follow. So in mid-November we will receive the first batch," Thu told reporters. "We are looking forward to starting the repatriation by mid-November," Bangladesh's foreign secretary Shahidul Haque told newsmen Tuesday after the talks in Dhaka. Thu said both sides agreed to a "very concrete" plan to start the process next month. "We have shown our political will, flexibility and accommodation in order to commence the repatriation at the earliest possible date," Thu told reporters. Myanmar earlier announced a large-scale repatriation plan in November 2017 but Dhaka alleged the country took little steps to keep their promise while Naypyidaw blamed Bangladesh for lacking the preparedness on its part for their return. The development came amid repeated speculation about Myanmar's sincerity over the Rohingya repatriation. A Bangladeshi official familiar with the meeting in Cox's Bazar said the Myanmar delegation handed the Rohingyas a pamphlet encouraging them to accept verification cards called NVC, saying it would guarantee their "socio-economic development" once they returned to their homeland of Rakhine state in Myanmar. According to the pamphlets, those who do not have the card would eventually become "stateless" while the NVCs would pave ways for them to be "Myanmar citizens". More than 700,000 Rohingya refugees have crossed into Bangladesh from Rakhine since August last year when Myanmar launched a brutal military crackdown, dubbed by UN as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing" and "genocide" by international rights watchdogs, sparking a global uproar. UN investigators said Myanmar's top military officials should be prosecuted for genocide but the country has rejected the calls, insisting it was defending itself against armed fighters. The UN refugee agency and other international aid agencies, however, said conditions in Rakhine state were "not yet conducive" for the Rohingyas return as they could be exposed to further reprisals on return. Bangladesh has demanded the UN put pressure on Myanmar for the safe and dignified return of Rohingyas and their security once they return. Rohingyas say their movement was restricted in their homeland ahead of the cleansing campaign while "fear and mistrust" had exposed them to hardship and economic vulnerability. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after the Maoist attack in Dantewada district which claimed four lives, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh Wednesday convened an emergency meeting of officials and asked them to intensify operations against the ultras. Singh held the meeting with senior bureaucrats and police officials at his official residence, where he reviewed the law and order situation. He directed them to intensify operations against the naxals, a government public relation official told PTI. Maoists on Tuesday attacked a police patrol party accompanying a three-member team of national broadcaster Doordarshan for election related coverage, near Nilawaya village under Aranapur police station limits of Dantewada at around 11 am. Two policemen- Sub Inspector Rudra Pratap Singh, assistant constable Manglu and the cameraman of Doordarshan Achyutanand Sahu were killed on the spot. Of the two injured policemen, an assistant constable Rakesh Kaushal died here at a private hospital on Wednesday morning. During the meeting, the chief minister condemned the attack and expressed his condolences to the bereaved families of the martyred personnel and the media person, the official said. Chief Secretary Ajay Singh, Principal Secretary (Home) Amitabh Jain, Principal Secretary to the CM Aman Singh, Director General of Police (DGP) A N Upadhyay, Special DG (anti-naxal operations) D M Awasthi and states Additional Director General (Intelligence) Ashok Juneja were present at the meeting. Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh are scheduled to held next month in two phases- on November 12 and 20. The counting of votes will be held on December 11. Naxals have called upon voters to boycott the polls in the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) About 65,000 troops from various central and state police forces will be deployed for the first-phase of the assembly polls in naxal-hit Chhattisgarh, officials said Wednesday. Elections to the 90-member Chhattisgarh assembly will be held in two phases on November 12 and November 20. In two recent Maoist attacks in Bijapur and Sukma districts, nine security personnel and a DD cameraman were killed, prompting security officials to direct personnel to "maintain a very high state of alert till the polls process is completed". The officials said contingents from central forces such as the CRPF, BSF, ITBP, SSB, CISF and RPF, and a few from state police forces have reached capital Raipur. These will be in position at their designated locations and polling booths by this week, they said. "About 650 companies of central and state police forces will be deployed for the first phase of polls in the state.The (personnel of) Chhattisgarh Police is in addition to this," a senior official said. There are about 100 personnel in a state police or Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) company. Considering the threat perception in 18 constituencies that go to polls in the first phase, the number of on-ground security personnel has been kept high, the officials said. The assembly segments are spread in eight Naxal-affected districts of Bastar, Kanker, Sukma, Bijapur, Dantewada, Narayanpur, Kondagaon and Rajnandgaon, they said. Also, a number of new polling booths are being opened this time so it was required to have more Central Armed police Forces (CAPFs) units for ensuring safe polls during the first phase of the Chhattisgarh elections. Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) units that are already deployed in the Bastar area for regular anti-Naxal operations will add to the strength of these forces, the officials said. The Bijapur and Sukma naxal attacks, prompted security officials to state that they are "not taking any chances and the security units have been asked to maintain a very high state of alert till the polls process is completed." For the forces being sent to the central Indian state, the Union Home Ministry had issued specific directions that they should "carry their own night vision devices, communication equipments like satellite phones, bullet proof jackets, GPS systems and armoured vehicles as far as possible for safety and other operational requirements" in view of the Naxal threat. The second phase of polls for remaining 72 constituencies in the state will be held on November 20. The counting of votes is slated for December 11. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ron Maloney is the former senior writer for The Seguin Gazette who wrote about Karm on multiple occasions and previously worked with him on how his final story should be covered. The CPI-M Wednesday accused the BJP-led NDA government of "destroying" institutions in the country and demanded that government stop "interfering" in the Reserve Bank of India's functioning. CPI-(M) also flayed the Centre for the current state of affairs in the countrys premier investigative agency--CBI. "NDA government is hell-bent upon destroying every institution of India.The latest example is CBI. The Prime Minister himself intervened and removed officials," CPI(M) politburo member B V Raghavulu told reporters here. The Left leader alleged that the independence of RBI is now being destroyed because of the NDA government. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's statements show that they have scant respect for autonomous institutions, Raghavulu said. "That's why the continuation of NDA government further will destroy our democracy and destroy ourinstitutions and it will lead to fascistic method of functioning in future," he said. "Thats why CPI-M demands immediate removal of the NDA government." He said the central bank's independence should be restored and government should not iinterfere in the proceedings of the RBI. Raghavulu demanded that a SIT be constituted to inquire into what he termed "corruption charges" against CBI official Rakesh Asthana and certain allegations against the interim CBI chief in a time bound manner. Slamming BJP and RSS over their comments and anti-Sabarimala verdict protests, Raghavulu said they should go for a review petition in the Supreme Court rather than creating trouble and vandalise properties in Kerala. "It is the Supreme Court which allowed entry of women of every age to Sabarimala temple and the Left front government is duty bound to implement that," Raghavulu said. "If BJP, RSS or somebody else who is not accepting the judgment, they can go for review petition. Instead of doing that, they are creating trouble and they are vandalising the properties and obstructing women (devotees)," he said. He condemned BJP president Amit Shah's recent remark that party workers "would not hesitate to pull down the left government" if Ayyappa devotees were attacked. "This is sheer autocracy and authoritarianism... BJP and NDAs real nature is exposed now," Raghavulu said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Nepali Congress on Wednesday protested the death of one of its party cadres in a political clash and warned that they will not claim the body unless the person behind the killing was arrested. The main opposition party's cadre Ram Bilash Mahato, 55, was shot dead in a clash between the members of the NC and the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) on Tuesday at Ramnagar area in Sarlahi district, bordering Raxaul town in Bihar. The NC also demanded that Mahato be declared a martyr. During the protest, NC party cadres picketed District Administration Office and District Police Office in Sarlahi and handed over a protest letter to the District Administrator, the party's provincial lawmaker Amresh Singh said. Singh also said the party will not accept Mahato's body till the guilty were arrested. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As Air Deccan and Air Odisha grapple with turbulent times, their new owner and Sharjah-based NRI Zahid Hussein plans to invest USD 10 million initially as well as restructure the two airlines. Currently, the two scheduled commuter airlines -- which began services on 30 routes under the regional connectivity scheme -- have suspended operations temporarily due to technical reasons, according to an official. Hussein, who is a Director of Sharjah-based Ghalia Petrol LLC, said immediate fund infusion is required for the two airlines. "We are a majority stakeholder in GSec Monarch Private Ltd, which owns Air Deccan and Air Odisha... The investment is through family-owned enterprises. An Indian company (is) investing into it," he told PTI in an interview. Both the airlines are scheduled commuter airlines under the government's Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS). In the first round of RCS bidding, Air Deccan and Air Odisha bagged 34 and 50 routes, respectively. "In the first phase, we are looking at an investment of around USD 10 million to clean up the slate and restart operations... We need fund infusion on an immediate basis," Hussein said. At current exchange rates, USD 10 million would be around Rs 74 crore. This investment would be made over a period of around 90 days, probably by mid-January or February. "In the short term, we are looking at restarting operations as soon as possible. We ourselves want the airlines to fly with a clear vision. We want to give a better experience," he said. Noting that both the airlines have their own set of liabilities, he said there would be restructuring and then reach a stable level before expanding their current aircraft fleet of 19-seater Beechcraft 1900 Ds. Air Odisha has one aircraft and Air Deccan has three aircraft. All are on lease. About future expansion plans for the airlines, Hussein said inducting ATR aircraft could be looked at in the second quarter of 2019. "We are looking at expansion in the second quarter (April-June 2019). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Scientists have discovered four new techniques to expose internet users' browsing histories, which could be used by hackers to learn which websites they have visited. The techniques fall into the category of "history sniffing" attacks, a concept dating back to the early 2000s. However, the attacks demonstrated by the researchers from the University of California - San Diego in the US can profile or 'fingerprint' a user's online activity in a matter of seconds, and work across recent versions of major web browsers. All of the attacks the researchers developed worked on Google Chrome. Two of the attacks also worked on a range of other browsers, from Mozilla Firefox to Microsoft Edge, as well various security-focused research browsers. The only browser which proved immune to all of the attacks is the Tor Browser, which doesn't keep a record of browsing history in the first place, researchers said. "My hope is that the severity of some of our published attacks will push browser vendors to revisit how they handle history data, and I'm happy to see folks from Mozilla, Google, and the broader World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) community already engage in this," said Deian Stefan, an assistant professor at UC San Diego. Most internet users are by now familiar with "phishing;" cyber-criminals build fake websites which mimic, say, banks, to trick them into entering their login details, researchers said. The more the phisher can learn about their potential victim, the more likely the con is to succeed, they said. After conducting an effective history sniffing attack, a criminal could carry out a smart phishing scheme, which automatically matches each victim to a faked page corresponding to their actual bank. The phisher preloads the attack code with their list of target banking websites, and conceals it in, for example, an ordinary-looking advertisement. When a victim navigates to a page containing the attack, the code runs through this list, testing or 'sniffing' the victim's browser for signs that it's been used to visit each target site. When one of these sites tests positive, the phisher could then redirect their victim to the corresponding faked version. The faster the attack, the longer the list of target sites an attacker can 'sniff' in a reasonable amount of time. The fastest history sniffing attacks have reached rates of thousands of URLs tested per second, allowing attackers to quickly put together detailed profiles of web surfers' online activity. Criminals could put this sensitive data to work in a number of ways besides phishing: for example, by blackmailing users with embarrassing or compromising details of their browsing histories. History sniffing can also be deployed by legitimate, yet unscrupulous, companies, for purposes like marketing and advertising, researchers said. The attacks the researchers developed, in the form of JavaScript code, cause web browsers to behave differently based on whether a website had been visited or not. The code can observe these differences -- for example, the time an operation takes to execute or the way a certain graphic element is handled -- to collect the computer's browsing history. To design the attacks, researchers exploited features that allow programmers to customise the appearance of their web page -- controlling fonts, colours, backgrounds, and so forth -- using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), as well as a cache meant to improve to performance of web code. The researchers propose a bold fix to these issues: they believe browsers should set explicit boundaries controlling how users' browsing histories are used to display web pages from different sites. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Wednesday flagged off the 'Run for Unity,' an event organised to mark the birth anniversary of freedom fighter and India's first Home Minister, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, here. Sitharaman, besides Tamil Nadu Ministers D Jayakumar and SP Velumani, participated in the event. Later, the Defence Minister recalled the contributions of Patel in uniting India and pointed out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scheduled to dedicate to the nation, the freedom fighter's statue in Gujarat. Titled the 'Statue of Unity," the 182 metre tall Patel statue is touted to be the "tallest" in the world. "We are attending the Run for Unity to mark that (dedication of Patel statue). Youngsters have turned up in good numbers today. They have to play an active role in the country remaining united," she said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi had extended an invitation to US President Donald Trump to visit India at his convenience but no formal or written invite was sent to him, official sources said Wednesday. The clarification by the sources came two days after a White House spokesperson said Trump was honoured by Modi's invitation to be Chief Guest of India's Republic Day but is unable to participate due to scheduling constraints. "We have noted the statement made by the White House about the visit of US President Donald Trump to India. It may be recalled that during the visit of Prime Minister to the US in June 2017, he had extended an invitation to President Trump to visit India at his convenience," said a source. The source further said "no formal or written invitation was extended as it is a normal practice between two countries to make informal enquiries before extending a formal invitation." The source said high-level exchanges are important element of India-US strategic partnership and both sides continue to be engaged with each other to find a mutually convenient date and occasion for the visit. Modi had invited Trump for a bilateral visit to India during their talks in Washington last year. They are scheduled to attend the G-20 Summit in Argentina on November 30 and December 1. It is possible that the two leaders might meet and discuss bilateral relationship there. Every year, India invites world leaders to attend its Republic Day celebrations. In 2015, the then US president Barack Obama had attended it as the chief guest which was his second visit to India as American president. This year, leaders from 10 ASEAN countries had attended the Republic Day celebrations. In 2016, the then French president Francois Hollande was the chief guest of the parade while Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was the chief guest at the celebrations in 2014. The heads of state and government who have attended the Republic Day celebrations include Nicolas Sarkozy, Vladimir Putin, Nelson Mandela, John Major, Mohammed Khatami and Jacques Chirac. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A fact-finding committee of the Delhi Minorities Commission (DMC) did not find any evidence showing that terrorist organisation's money was used in the construction of a mosque in Haryana's Palwal, according to its report released Wednesday. The four-member panel, led by human rights activist and DMC advisor Ovais Sultan, was formed to look into media reports quoting anonymous sources in the National Investigation Agency (NIA) claiming that money routed from Pakistan-based terrorist Hafiz Saeed's Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation could have been used in the construction of the mosque. "The committee did not come across any evidence to state that the terror funding was received for the construction of the Khulafa-e-Rashideen mosque in Uttawar in Palwal, as was alleged in media reports quoting anonymous NIA sources," Ovais said. The panel had visited the village, where the mosque is located, on October 20. In July, the NIA had filed a case to probe the terror funding module linked to Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation -- a front organisation of the banned terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). According to the FIR, some Delhi-based individuals were receiving funds from FIF operatives based abroad and were using it for terror activities. During investigation, it emerged that Mohammad Salman, a resident of the Nizamuddin area in New Delhi, was in regular touch with a Dubai-based Pakistani national, who in turn is connected to the Deputy Chief of Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation. The NIA had on September 25 conducted searches at the premises of Mohammad Salman in Nizamuddin, Daryaganj-resident Mohd Salim (hawala operator) and Rajaram in Kucha Ghasiram in New Delhi, and seized Rs 1.56 crore in cash, Rs 43,000 in Nepali currency, 14 mobiles phones, five pen drives and several incriminating documents. Following the seizure of incriminating material, the NIA had arrested from Delhi FIF member Mohammad Salman (52), and Hawala operators Mohd Salim alias Mama (62) and Sajjad Abdul Wani (34), a resident of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, according to an official release issued then. FIF is placed on the list of terrorist organisations here and it was also designated as a terrorist entity by the USA in 2010. As per the report of the DMC, local Muslims and Hindus have together donated 10 acres of land for the construction of the mosque and a madrassa. Accused Salman also donated some money for it after selling his ancestral land in the village, Ovais said. He said that the mosque belongs to Tablighi Jamaat whereas, LeT and FIF belong to Salafi school of thought and the two do not agree with each others' teachings and practices. "So, there is no question of collaboration between them or funds being given to the mosque," Ovais said. The committee has recommended the chairman of Delhi Minorities Commission to write to the Union Home Secretary about "procedural lapses" in the case being probed by the NIA and issue an advisory to all media houses and agencies to be careful in reporting the alleged terror-related cases. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The government Wednesday said it is not seeking decryption of messages on WhatsApp but rather the location and identity of those spreading misinformation that provokes violence and heinous offences. After meeting with WhatsApp Vice President Chris Daniels, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said: "On the issue of traceability, I emphasised that when we talk of traceability, we don't talk of decrypting messages". "We insist rather on location and identification of the sender of WhatsApp messages when such messages lead to provocation of violence, heinous offences and other serious crimes," he said. Prasad added that he has been assured by the WhatsApp team that they will look into the matter and revert. The Facebook-owned company has been under pressure for months now to put in place a mechanism to clamp down on fake messages on its platform. "I met Chris Daniels, along with his team, and discussed various issues of the past. They have assured us that they have appointed a grievance officer for India. I have suggested that we will appreciate if grievance officer is also located in India," Prasad said. The minister said during the meeting, he also emphasised that WhatsApp is an important instrument of message circulation, especially during elections. "...it is appropriate and desirable that the institutional integrity of this platform is maintained, so that abusers cannot abuse it. They (WhatsApp) have also assured that they will work with my department in preventing circulation of spam farms," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) One person was killed and three injured when an explosive device went off Wednesday inside a building housing the FSB security service in Arkhangelsk in northern Russia, an official said. "An explosive device went off," a spokesman for the regional governor told AFP. "One person was killed and three others were hospitalised. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Wednesday said the opposition parties are very eager to come to power but lack the courage to debate on the development works undertaken by the BJP-led government in 48 months, compared to their 48 years. He was speaking at 'Jan Vishwas Rally' in Bhuna town here. He announced development projects worth Rs 127 crore for Ratia, Bhuna and Fatehabad at the rally. "They are very eager to come to power, but they do not have the courage to debate on development works undertaken by our government in 48 months as compared to their 48 years' tenure," Khattar said. Haryana was carved out of erstwhile Punjab on November 1, 1966. "They try to mislead people, but they do not have the guts to debate on issues," he said. Khattar said equitable development has been carried out in all 90 assembly constituencies of Haryana during the last four years, but the opposition was unable to bear it. He claimed that the BJP will return to power in Haryana after next year's assembly polls and the pace of development will be further accelerated. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the world's tallest statue to celebrate Vallabhbhai Patel, opposition parties Wednesday questioned the BJP as to why there was no bigger statue for Mahatma Gandhi and also accused the ruling party of trying to "hijack" the legacy of Independence heroes like Sardar Patel. Congress president Rahul Gandhi took a swipe at Modi, saying it is "ironic" that a statue of Sardar Patel is being inaugurated, but every institution he helped build is being destgroyed while BSP chief Mayawati demanded an apology from the BJP and the RSS who flayed her over the statues of Dalit leaders her government had installed in Uttar Pradesh. Gandhi also alleged that the "systematic destruction" of India's institutions is nothing short of "treason". Modi after unveiling the 182-metre structure in his home state of Gujarat on Patel's 143rd birth anniversary addressed the criticism of the decision to build the monument, questioning whether any crime had been committed by constructing such memorials for national heroes like Patel. "We are criticized for praising the contributions of national heroes like Sardar Patel. We are made to feel as if we have committed a serious crime," he said. He then posed a question to the audience, "You tell me, is it a crime to remember our national heroes?". To this, the audience replied in the negative. Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said there was no such gigantic statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the country and wanted to know why BJP had not built a bigger statue for him. "The biggest one is in Parliament..But this is a 182-metre statue for his disciple. Why is there such a big statue for a disciple of Gandhiji in the country where there is no statue of that size for the Mahatma?" he asked while addressing a function at the district congress committee office in Thiruvananthapuram. CPI general secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy also echoed Tharoor's sentiments. "Patel, a very simple person, was known as the disciple of Gandhiji," Tharoor said. "I am asking a question...Is it right to erect such an imposing statue of Patel, a man of simplicity and a true Gandhian, who moved along with poor peasants," he said. Tharoor said BJP had no answer to the query why they did not erect a bigger statue of the Mahatma. The reason is that they do not believe in Mahatma Gandhi's principles of non-violence, he alleged. He also alleged that BJP was trying to "hijack" the legacy of freedom fighters and national heroes like Patel as they have no leaders of their own in history to celebrate. He said Patel was a Congress leader and BJP should not be allowed to adopt him. Gandhi said Patel was a patriot, who fought for a independent, united and secular India. "A man with a steely will, tempered by compassion, he was a Congressman to the core, who had no tolerance for bigotry or communalism...," he tweeted. Mayawati accused the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) and its government at the Centre of confining Patel to a region, saying this is an example of BJP's narrow-mindedness. "All those in the BJP, the RSS and company need to apologise, especially to the people of the Bahujan Samaj, for terming the statues installed by the then BSP government to honour icons like Baba Saheb Ambedkar and others as wasteful expenditure," she said in a statement released in Lucknow. "The people of the country are also wondering if all this is not politics, and if the BJP really had this love for Patel why had they not put up such a massive statue earlier in Gujarat where they are in power for a long time," the chief of Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) said. Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge slammed BJP for using the statue of Sardar Patel for their "vested interests." BJP remembering Patel was an "election gimmick", Kharge told reporters at Hubballi in Karnataka. The Congress leader said, "Every year BJP remembers a different freedom fighter--sometimes they remember Patel, sometimes Gandhi for Swachch Bharat Abhiyan and sometimes they remember Dr B R Ambedkar and Subhas Chandra Bose. These are all their election stunts. They never had respect for those who fought for the freedom of India." "Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister while Patel was Home Minister. Naturally credit goes to the prime minister. It is not good to project somebody to undermine somebody else," Kharge said. Reddy, the CPI chief, demanded to know why a bigger statue of Mahatma Gandhi was not built by the BJP. He said while there was no objection over the monument built for Patel, what was surprising was why a bigger statue for the father of the nation, who was also born in Gujarat, was not thought of. "They (BJP) do not like his (Gandhi's) secularism, that is why they have not taken up (build his statue). Instead, they have gone for Patel, who had rightist ideas," the CPI general secretary alleged. Reddy also charged the BJP with trying to "appropriate" the legacy of Patel. "We have no objection to Sardar Patel's statue. With all due respect to him (Patel), we feel Mahatma Gandhi is the tallest leader of Indian ..Indian people...he is the father of the nation," he told PTI in Hyderabad. "Mahatma Gandhi's statue should have been bigger, he is leader of the highest stature than anybody else," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ahead of Prime Minister Imran Khan's first visit to China, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Wednesday said the relations between the two nations is a "model of state-to-state ties" and the CPEC projects have given an important socio-economic development dimension to their friendship. Khan, accompanied by Qureshi, will lead a delegation from November 2-5 to China for talks with President Xi Jinping amid anxieties in Beijing over his government's approach to deal with the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) following reports about Islamabad downsizing certain projects. Khan's trip to Beijing comes ahead of a visit to Islamabad by International Monetary Fund officials on November 7 for formal discussions on a bailout package for the cash-strapped country. Qureshi chaired a preparatory meeting for Khan's visit via video conference with the Ambassador of Pakistan in Beijing, Masood Khalid. "The two countries are close friends, good neighbours and development partners. The bilateral relationship has withstood the test of times. Regardless of domestic or international changes, this close friendship has served as a model of state-to-state relations for other countries," he said. Highlighting that Pakistan and China are "all-weather strategic cooperative partners", the foreign minister said the bilateral ties have been further strengthened, particularly in the economic field, by the launch of the CPEC. Underscoring that the ambitious infrastructure project has added another important socio-economic development dimension to the bilateral relationship, Qureshi said, "The leadership of both countries has expressed strong desire and commitment to the successful implementation of the CPEC." Beijing touts CPEC as the flagship infrastructure programme in its vast Belt and Road (BRI) Initiative. The CPEC connects China's Xinjiang province with Gwadar, a port city in Balochistan, through a rail, road and pipeline network. India is opposed to the CPEC as it traverses through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Qureshi said, "Pakistan considers the CPEC as an engine for growth; a catalyst for economic development, and a platform for socio-economic uplift of the people of Pakistan." The IMF had said it would closely scrutinise the CPEC projects and the US is opposed to the use of IMF money to service the Chinese loans. An assessment by the State Bank of Pakistan and the Finance Ministry showed that Pakistan needed USD 11.7 billion to service its external debt in the current fiscal year 2018-19. The US has said the debts accrued on the CPEC projects were to blame for Pakistan's current economic crisis, a statement which was rejected by both Beijing and Islamabad. On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang had told the media in Beijing that Khan's first visit will provide an opportunity for two countries to "open a new chapter of development of bilateral relations under the new circumstances". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's Supreme Court Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Christian woman who was on death row for eight years for blasphemy, a landmark verdict that sparked nationwide protests, death threats from hardline groups and cheers from human rights advocates. Asia Bibi, a 47-year-old mother of four, was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. She always maintained her innocence, but has spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement. The apex court, in a three-member bench led by chief justice Saqib Nisar, issued the verdict on Wednesday morning, three weeks after they had reached the decision. The delay followed threats by blasphemy campaigners to hold protests. "Keeping in mind the evidence produced by the prosecution against the alleged blasphemy committed by the appellant, the prosecution has categorically failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt," Nisar said. He said Bibi could walk free from jail in Sheikupura, near Lahore, immediately if not wanted in connection with any other case. Bibi was the first woman who was given death sentence under the blasphemy laws. According to officials, Bibi might be flown out of Pakistan due to threat to her life. It is not clear where she will go as several countries, including Canada, have offered asylum to her. The timing of her release has not been shared due to security reasons. She was kept in Sheikhupura jail near Lahore. Her case has been deeply divisive in Pakistan where there is strong support for the controversial blasphemy laws. The blasphemy laws were promulgated by former military dictator Ziaul Haq in 1980s. A person convicted under these laws is given death sentence. "Her conviction is set aside and she is to be relieved forthwith if not required in other charges," said Nisar while reading out the judgement. "Tolerance is the basic principle of Islam," the top judge read out, noting that the religion condemns injustice and oppression. There was tight security in the capital, Islamabad. Angry Protests erupted in Pakistan following the verdict. The protestors blocked a highway linking the capital Islamabad with garrison city of Rawalpindi and the old airport, Islamabad police said. The Red Zone in the capital Islamabad, where the Supreme Court is located, has been sealed off by police, and paramilitary forces have been deployed to keep protesters away from the court. Punjab, the country's most populous province, was on high alert and its Home Department banned all kinds of public gatherings until November 10, according to police. Tahreek-i-Labaik Pakistan, an Islamic political party, was leading the protest in Lahore where a large number of its activists gathered on the Mall Road. Security officials said protests were also being held in Karachi and other cities by groups linked with religious parties. "Many parts of Karachi are paralysed due to the protests and most of the main roads have been shut down by the protesters who are burning tyres and pelting stones at vehicles," a senior police official said. Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal chief Fazlur Rehman denounced the verdict and alleged that it was influenced by unnamed "foreign powers". There were reports that mosques at different places asked the people to take to the streets against Bibi's acquittal. Despite protests by extremists, the verdict was hailed on social media. Bibi's lawyer Saiful Mulook also told media that it was the "happiest day" of his life. Kelsey Zorzi of ADF International, which promotes religious freedom, said: "Blasphemy laws criminalise the exercise of fundamental human rights, including freedom of speech and freedom of religion. "Blasphemy laws directly violate international law. All people have the right to freely choose, and live out, their faith. We, therefore, urge all governments to uphold this right by ceasing enforcement and initiating repeal of their blasphemy laws," she said. Bibi was accused of committing blasphemy in 2009. She was convicted in 2010 by the trial court and her death sentence was maintained by the Lahore High Court in 2014. She appealed against the conviction in the Supreme Court, which for the first time heard the case in July 2015. Bibi's case gained prominence when former governor of Pakistan's Punjab province Salman Taseer was killed in 2011 for supporting her and criticising the blasphemy laws. A month after Taseer was killed, Pakistan's religious minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who spoke out against the blasphemy law, was shot dead in Islamabad. Critics say strict blasphemy laws have often been used to get revenge after personal disputes, and that convictions are based on thin evidence. Dozens of people have been charged under the laws. Though, Bibi is being released but there are fears that she might be at risk of being attacked by militants. In 2012, around 14 people were killed and scores injured when violent protests broke out over an anti-Islam and blasphemous videos circulated on YouTube. There are fewer than 4 million Christians in Pakistan out of a total population of 197 million. The vast majority of the population is Muslim, with Hindus being the biggest religious minority. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a landmark verdict, Pakistan's Supreme Court Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Christian woman facing execution for blasphemy. Asia Bibi was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. She always maintained her innocence, but has spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement. Her case has been deeply divisive in Pakistan where there is strong support for the blasphemy laws. The apex court, in a three-member bench led by chief justice Saqib Nisar, issued the verdict on Wednesday morning, three weeks after they had reached a decision. The delay followed threats by blasphemy campaigners to hold protests. "Her conviction is set aside and she is to be relieved forthwith if not required in other charges," said Nisar, reading out the judgment. There was tight security in the capital, Islamabad, amid fears of violence. Bibi was accused of committing blasphemy in 2009. She was convicted in 2010 by the trial court and her death sentence was maintained by the Lahore High Court in 2014. She appealed against the conviction to the Supreme Court, which for the first time heard the case in July 2015. Bibi's case gained prominence when when former governor of Pakistan's Punjab province Salman Taseer was killed in 2011 for supporting her and criticising the blasphemy laws. The blasphemy laws were promulgated by former military dictator Ziaul Haq in 1980s. A person convicted under these laws is given death sentence. Critics say strict blasphemy laws have often been used to get revenge after personal disputes, and that convictions are based on thin evidence. Dozens of people have been charged under the laws. Though, Bibi is being released but there are fears that she might be at risk of being attacked by militants. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pakistan's Supreme Court in a landmark verdict Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Christian woman facing execution for blasphemy, sparking protests in the Islamic nation. Asia Bibi, a 47-year-old mother of four, was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. She always maintained her innocence, but has spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement. Her case has been deeply divisive in Pakistan where there is strong support for the controversial blasphemy laws. The blasphemy laws were promulgated by former military dictator Ziaul Haq in 1980s. A person convicted under these laws is given death sentence. The apex court, in a three-member bench led by chief justice Saqib Nisar, issued the verdict on Wednesday morning, three weeks after they had reached a decision. The delay followed threats by blasphemy campaigners to hold protests. "Keeping in mind the evidence produced by the prosecution against the alleged blasphemy committed by the appellant, the prosecution has categorically failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt," Nisar said. He said Bibi could walk free from jail in Sheikupura, near Lahore, immediately if not wanted in connection with any other case. "Her conviction is set aside and she is to be relieved forthwith if not required in other charges," said Nisar, reading out the judgment. "Tolerance is the basic principle of Islam," the top judge read out, noting that the religion condemns injustice and oppression. There was tight security in the capital, Islamabad. Protests broke in Pakistan following the verdict. Protestors blocked a highway linking the capital, Islamabad with garrison city of Rawalpindi and the old airport, Islamabad police said. The Red Zone in the capital Islamabad, where the Supreme Court is located, has been sealed off by police, and paramilitary forces have been deployed to keep protesters away from the court. Punjab, the country's most populous province, was on high alert and its Home Department banned all kinds of public gatherings until November 10, according to police. Tahreek-i-Labaik Pakistan, an Islamic political party, was leading the protest in Lahore where a large number of its activists gathered on the Mall Road. Security officials said protests were also being held in Karachi and other cities by groups linked with religious parties. "Many parts of Karachi are paralysed due to the protests and most of the main roads have been shut down by the protesters who are burning tyres and pelting stones at vehicles," a senior police official said. Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal chief Fazlur Rehman denounced the verdict and alleged that it was influenced by unnamed "foreign powers". There were reports that mosques at different places asked the people to take to the streets against Bibi's acquittal. Despite protests by extremists, the verdict was hailed on social media. Bibi's lawyer Saiful Mulook also told media that it was the "happiest day" of his life. Kelsey Zorzi of ADF International, which promotes religious freedom, said: "Blasphemy laws criminalise the exercise of fundamental human rights, including freedom of speech and freedom of religion. "Blasphemy laws directly violate international law. All people have the right to freely choose, and live out, their faith. We, therefore, urge all governments to uphold this right by ceasing enforcement and initiating repeal of their blasphemy laws," she said. Bibi was accused of committing blasphemy in 2009. She was convicted in 2010 by the trial court and her death sentence was maintained by the Lahore High Court in 2014. She appealed against the conviction to the Supreme Court, which for the first time heard the case in July 2015. Bibi's case gained prominence when former governor of Pakistan's Punjab province Salman Taseer was killed in 2011 for supporting her and criticising the blasphemy laws. A month after Taseer was killed, Pakistan's religious minorities minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who spoke out against the blasphemy law, was shot dead in Islamabad. Critics say strict blasphemy laws have often been used to get revenge after personal disputes, and that convictions are based on thin evidence. Dozens of people have been charged under the laws. Though, Bibi is being released but there are fears that she might be at risk of being attacked by militants. In 2012, around 14 people were killed and scores injured when violent protests broke out over an anti-Islam and blasphemous videos circulated on YouTube. There are fewer than 4 million Christians in Pakistan out of a total population of 197 million. The vast majority of the population is Muslim, with Hindus the biggest religious minority. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) India should negotiate with the on getting concession deals rather than retaliate by imposing import tariffs on steel in the face of the ongoing China- trade war, former Vice-Chairman said Wednesday. Though India is not directly involved in the trade war between the and China, but there is a possibility that it can retaliate on steel tariffs. "So far, the stand of India has been good, the government has not resorted to any such measure as of now. Negotiations are on with the US. In-principle I think we can retaliate, but it will not fetch anything of worth to India. "So, we should rather use the threat of retaliation and can barter on other useful negotiations (on trade) with the US. Like those concessions which are easier for the US to give and are beneficial for India," Panagariya said on the sidelines of a lecture on BR Ambedkar Lecture Series by the of India (CAG). While, delivering the lecture, he said the trade war that has ensued between the US and presents a good opportunity for India in the sense that multi-nationals will look to relocate to those locations with cheaper labour. Panagariya said India should keep its market open and the recent tariff hike on various items was not a good idea. Over the rising petrol prices and its impact on the Indian economy, he said though lower prices are beneficial but there are benefits on exports front when there is a rise. "I think India has dealt with petrol prices earlier also During 2003-04 to 2011-12, we grew at over 8 per cent and during that time also there were instances when petroleum prices went up considerably, but we were able to overcome that," he said. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ailing Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar chaired a cabinet meeting on Wednesday after a gap of almost three months. Parrikar, 62, is currently recuperating at his private residence near Panaji after being discharged from the in New Delhi on October 14. He is suffering from a pancreatic ailment. Senior cabinet minister Vijai Sardesai said the cabinet decided to extend the debt relief scheme for the mining-affected people till March 2019. BJP MLA and Panchayat Minister Mauvin Godinho said that Parrikar was "fully fit". "CM was fully fit. He participated in the discussions. He gave valuable suggestions," Godinho said. "Except that the meeting did not take place at the secretariat, everything was like a normal cabinet meeting," he added. "He will be resting for some more time. But he has told the ministers that whenever there are any issues, he will be calling each one individually," the minister said. Parrikar would be meeting BJP office-bearers Thursday at his house, Godinho added. UN peacekeeping operations serve primarily as a tool to support a viable political process and should not be used as a substitute for addressing the root causes of the conflict, India has said. Speaking at a thematic debate on peacekeeping operations in the Special Political and Decolonization (Fourth) Committee of the General Assembly, First Secretary in the Permanent Mission of India to the UN Sandeep Kumar Bayyapu said increasingly, the focus of peacekeeping is on a 'robust' approach and technological aspects. It often appears to lose focus on the ultimate goal of seeking a political solution to the conflict, he said. "We need to keep in mind the lessons that we have learnt over last half century of peacekeeping activities in order to face the challenges of 21st Century," he said on Tuesday. "Peacekeeping serves primarily as a tool to support a viable political process. The peacekeeping operations should not be used as a substitute for addressing the root causes of conflict," Bayyapu said Tuesday. India, one of the largest troop contributing countries to UN peacekeeping operations, also reiterated the impact of caveats on performance. "The insistence by some on caveats in deployment is unfair and places peacekeepers at different levels. Caveats, whether declared or undeclared, are against the basic principle of equality," Bayyapu said. He said that caveats also have a direct impact on the fulfilment of missions' mandate as they limit the Force Commander's ability to employ forces in an optimal manner. "We need to do away with all caveats as it is not possible to fairly assess the performance of peacekeepers operating at different levels," he said. Stressing that incidents of sexual exploitation and abuse not only scar the victims but also impact the UN's credibility, Bayyapu said India is a strong supporter of the UN's zero tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse and remains committed to contributing through all means possible for this cause. India was the first contributor to the Secretary General's Trust Fund set up in support of victims of sexual exploitation and abuse. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a member of the UN Chief's Circle of Leadership, endorsing the collective statement to reaffirm continued personal commitment on the issue. Last week, India announced its contribution of $300,000 for the 'Pipeline to Peacekeeping Command Programme' with a specific focus on issues of conduct and discipline. Bayyapu also emphasised the need to address the issue of how to materialize the pending pledges related to deployment of women peacekeepers made by the Member States. "The Secretariat should take stock of all such pending pledges and explore ways to absorb them on priority basis. The women peacekeepers need to be incentivised to encourage their much greater participation," he said. There is also need to look at ways to address the availability of adequate resources to fulfil the prioritized mandate components, he said adding that it would be useful if the views of troop/police contributing countries on implementing the mandates are adequately reflected in relevant reports of the Secretary-General. On the issue of improving safety and security of UN peacekeeping personnel, he said an analysis of the fatal casualties in the last four years indicate that at least a quarter of them were due to Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks. "To begin with, we should have dedicated counter-IED resources for missions facing such threats. There should also be concerted efforts to upgrade the security infrastructure of camps," he said. Nations are in the midst of implementing various reform proposals at the UN, including on peace and security architecture of the Secretariat. India expects that the reforms, whose implementation would begin from next year, will cut bureaucratic delays and improve logistics for peacekeepers on the ground, he said. A public interest litigation (PIL) was moved in the Delhi High Court Wednesday, seeking a direction to ensure that women of all ages and religions were allowed to enter and pray at temples, mosques and zoroastrian fire temples, as allowed by the apex court in the case of the Sabarimala shrine in Kerala. The plea filed by a lawyer also seeks that women be ordained as "pujari", imam or priest of their respective temples, mosques or churches to lead the prayers. Advocate Sanjiv Kumar, in his petition, has sought that women of menstruating or non-menstruating age from every religion be allowed to enter and pray at all times at all the temples in India. A similar order has been sought in favour of men, where their entry into women-only temples such as Attukal, Chakkulathukavu, Santoshi Maa "Vrat", Lord Brahma, Bhagwati Maa Temple and Kamrup Kamakhya is prohibited. The petition, which according to the lawyer is yet to be listed for hearing, also seeks similar directions with regard to entry into mosques as well. It seeks orders declaring as unconstitutional the prevalent practice of denying Muslim women the right to observe fast and offer prayers during menstruation. The petition has also urged the court to direct the Centre to put in place norms allowing menstruating Hindu women to enter the kitchen as well as observe fast, offer prayers and go to any place, and that denial of the same shall be deemed as "unconstitutional". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The suspect in Pittsburgh synagogue massacre was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday on 44 counts, including hate crimes and murder, for the shooting in which 11 people were gunned down, the deadliest attack on Jews in American history. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions after announcing the indictment said hatred and violence on the basis of religion can have no place in the American society. Every American has the right to attend their house of worship in safety, he said. Robert Bowers, 46, who killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue, faces a possible death sentence, or life without parole. These alleged crimes are incomprehensibly evil and utterly repugnant to the values of this nation. Therefore this case is not only important to the victims and their loved ones, but to the city of Pittsburgh and the entire nation, Sessions said. According to the indictment, Bowers on October 27 drove to the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, where members of the Tree of Life, Dor Hadash, and New Light Jewish congregations gathered to engage in religious worship. Bowers entered the building armed with multiple firearms, including Glock .357 handguns and a Colt AR-15 rifle. The indictment alleges that while inside the Tree of Life Synagogue, Bowers opened fire, killing and injuring members of the three congregations, as well as injuring multiple responding public safety officers. While inside the Tree of Life Synagogue, Bowers made statements indicating his desire to kill Jews. The indictment charges Bowers of 11 counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death; 11 counts of use and discharge of a firearm to commit murder during and in relation to a crime of violence; 11 counts of use and discharge of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence; and eight counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs involving an attempt to kill and use of a dangerous weapon, and resulting in bodily injury to a public safety officer. President Donald Trump travelled to Pittsburgh to meet with the victims of the deadly shooting, the worst for the Jewish community in the US in years. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) SINGAPORE 60's: ANDY's POP MUSIC INFLUENCE IS A PERSONAL MUSIC, MEMORY TRAIL. BLOGGER DOES NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO VIDEOS, AUDIO TRACKS AND IMAGES. THEY ARE UPLOADED FOR FUN, EDUCATIONAL, ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES AND HAVE BEEN CREDITED. BLOG IS NOT SPONSORED IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER. INFORM BLOGGER OF COPYRIGHT ISSUES AND POST WILL BE DELETED IMMEDIATELY. ANDY LIM LA (NOVEMBER, 2008) - () In a special gesture, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has gifted some meticulously tailored "Modi jackets" to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who expressed his liking for them during his first state visit to the country in July. "Modi jackets" are basically a vest-like sleeveless jacket the leader (Modi) usually dons, state-run Yonhap agency reported. President Moon expressed thanks to Prime Minister Modi on Wednesday for sending him the jackets. Moon also uploaded photos of him wearing the jackets in a Twitter posting, saying they "fit great." "Prime Minister @narendramodi of India sent me some gorgeous garments. These are modernised versions of traditional Indian costume, known as the 'Modi Vest', that can also be worn easily in Korea. They fit perfectly," Moon tweeted. "During my visit to India, I had told the Prime Minister @narendramodi that he looked great in those vests, and he duly sent them over, all meticulously tailored to my size. I would like to thank him for this kind gesture," he tweeted. In a second photograph posted on Moon's Twitter account, four Modi jackets of different shades were displayed. In July, Moon made his first state visit to India during which he held talks with Modi on key issues such as the situation on the Korean peninsula, and ways to boost bilateral trade and defence cooperation. Moon also congratulated Modi on his selection as winner of this year's Seoul Peace Prize in recognition of his contribution to world peace through his economic vision. "I have read Prime Minister Modi's tweets upon winning the Seoul Peace Prize. They were written in Korean, and I was moved by his thoughtfulness. I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to Prime Minister Modi," Moon tweeted. Last week, Modi was conferred with the Seoul Peace Prize for 2018 for his contribution to international cooperation and fostering global economic growth. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday suggested building a "virtual museum" near the Statue of Unity in Gujarat in the memory of the erstwhile royals, who had "sacrificed" their princely states for the unity of India under Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. While unveiling the 182-metre-tall statue of the country's first home minister here in Narmada district of Gujarat, Modi said, "A virtual museum should be constructed near the statue to honour the sacrifice of the former rulers of over 550 princely states that were annexed to India." The giant Statue of Unity, built on an islet -- Sadhu Bet -- near the Sardar Sarovar Dam, is twice the height of the Statue of Liberty in the US and taller than the 153-metre Spring Temple Buddha in China. "We should not forget the sacrifice made by the then rulers of these princely states, who agreed to merge their states with India by honouring a call given by Sardar Patel for the unification of the country. "I dream that a virtual museum of the then rulers of over 550 princely states be set up near this statue. They had taken an initiative for the country's unity. This (museum) will help the next generation understand (their sacrifice). These rulers gave all their assets to the nation. We should also remember them," Modi said. Hailing the "sacrifice" made by the royals, he added that even a democratically elected president of a tehsil was reluctant nowadays to step down before the completion of his term and such a demand resulted into a "political storm". "Today, if you ask a democratically elected president of a tehsil to step down a year before the end of his tenure, there will be a huge (political) storm. On the other hand, these rulers gave away their ancestral assets that had been accumulated over centuries to the nation," Modi said. Former Gujarat chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela had written a letter to the prime minister, suggesting a dedicated museum for the former rulers of the princely states, "who had sacrificed their kingdoms for the unity of India", near the Statue of Unity. Vaghela thanked Modi for "accepting" his proposal. The former Congress leader had also suggested that a ceremony should be held in Delhi to felicitate the surviving family members of the rulers of the erstwhile princely states. "Thank you very much PM Narendra Modi for accepting the proposal from my letter to you regarding the museum of Rajwadas who strengthened the dream of united India by giving their kingdom and I wish that you may invite them to Delhi and have reception for honouring their families there," Vaghela said in a tweet. Vallabhbhai Patel, the first home minister of Independent India, is credited with merging 550 princely states with the Union of India. He had used force to annex the princely states of Junagadh, ruled by the Nawab, and Hyderabad, ruled by the Nizam, both of whom did not want their states to merge with India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Police have foiled a bid to smuggle bovines and rescued 25 animals in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district on Wednesday, an official said. During checking at Banyari village, police apprehended one person, Hassan Mir of Pathankot in Punjab, and rescued 25 animals, he said. A case was registered in the matter, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Trump administration is calling for an urgent halt to the Saudi-Iran proxy war in Yemen and the start of negotiations in November toward a political settlement of a conflict that has pushed millions to the brink of starvation in the Arab world's poorest country. The renewed push for a political solution in Yemen comes amid growing criticism of US military support for Saudi Arabia's Yemen air campaign and American arms sales to the Saudis, in the aftermath of the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Turkey. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged a cease-fire, specifically citing missile and drone strikes into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. The Houthis are supported by Iran. He added the airstrikes by the Arab coalition, backed by the US, "must cease in all populated areas in Yemen." "The time is now for a cessation of hostilities," Pompeo said in a written statement Tuesday evening shortly after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis made similar statements in an appearance at the United States Institute of Peace. He urged the implementation of "confidence-building measures" to address the underlying issues of the conflict. Mattis was more specific than Pompeo in his call for urgent movement toward a political solution to the fighting, under peace talks being urged by UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths. Mattis said a cease-fire should take effect within 30 days. "We're calling on all the parties, specifically the Houthis and the Arab coalition, to meet in Sweden in November and to come to a solution," Mattis said. Sweden's foreign minister said Wednesday that Griffiths has asked Sweden to host such talks. Griffiths on Wednesday welcomed the US calls for immediate resumption of the political process and said the United Nations remains committed "to bring the Yemeni parties to the negotiations table within a month." "I urge all concerned parties to seize this opportunity to engage constructively with our current efforts to swiftly resume political consultations to agree on a framework for political negotiations, and confidence-building measures, in particular enhancing the capacities of the Central Bank of Yemen, the exchange of prisoners and the re-opening of Sanaa airport," Griffiths said in a statement. He stressed that there can be no military solution and "dialogue remains the only path to reach an inclusive agreement." Mattis called for demilitarization of Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia "so that the Saudis and the Emirates do not have to worry about missiles coming into their homes and cities and airports." He also said measures should be taken to "ensure that all Iranian-supplied missiles to the Houthis" are put under "international watch." "This has got to end. We've got to replace combat with compromise," Mattis said. Mattis put primary blame on Iran. He said its proxies and surrogate forces are fueling the conflict. "They need to knock it off," he said. Mattis said the political process should "set the conditions for a return to traditional areas inside Yemen and a government that allows for this amount of local autonomy that Houthis or that southerners want." The administration's new push for peace comes amid mounting fears of a fresh Arab coalition assault on the Red Sea port of Hodeida, a city that has been the lifeline for international aid deliveries to Yemen. The city's port is helping keep millions of starving Yemenis alive by serving as the entry point for 70 per cent of food imports and international aid. A protracted siege of Hodeida by the coalition could imperil that support. The conflict in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, by the Houthis, who toppled the internationally recognized government. The Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. An estimated 10,000 people have been killed so far and the conflict has devastated Yemen and pushed it to the brink of famine. The war has also left around two-thirds of Yemen's population of 27 million relying on aid, and over 8 million at risk of starvation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy Wednesday extended greetings to the people on the eve of the 64th Liberation Day (De Facto merger day) of the Union Territory. Recalling the history of struggle for liberation of the former French establishments and their merger with Indian Union, he said on November 1, 1954 Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam became free and together emerged as a Union Territory. "The liberation was largely due to the joint fight of the people against the foreign rule and Puducherry has demonstrated to the world that no obstacles would prevent the zeal of the people to become successful in their efforts," he said. He appealed to the people to continue their support to the government so that Puducherry could make still greater progress. It was on November 1 1954 Puducherry and outlying regions became free de facto as a direct sequel to the referendum held in the Kizhoor village near Puducherry on October 18 that year. PWD Minister and PCC leader A Namassivayam and Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) R Radhakrishnan also greeted the people on the eve of the liberation day. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Preseident Ram Nath Kovind, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and a host of dignitaries Wednesday offered floral tributes to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his birthday anniversary. At a special function held at the capital's Patel Chowk, the President and others paid floral tributes at the statue of India's first Home Minister on his 143rd birthday anniversary, which is observed as 'Rashtriya Ekta Divas'. Those who were present on the occasion include Union urban development minister Hardeep Puri, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal besides others. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : Public Sector Unit Kerala Feeds' district level 'Snehasparsham' project that provides 100 bags of cattle feed free of cost to flood-affected dairy farmers was inaugurated here Wednesday. Ernakulam District Collector K Mohammed Y Safirulla inaugurated the project to help the flood-hit dairy farmers. In eligible cases, more cattle feed would be provided without charging money, Kerala Feeds Managing Director B Sreekumar said in his keynote address. The August deluge and landslides had left Ernakulam district with a property loss of Rs 8,000 crore, Safirulla said, quoting the estimate of a UN team that made a study. If the initial focus was rescue operations, it was now on rehabilitation by giving means of livelihood to the flood affected, he added, hailing the efforts of Kerala Feeds as "exemplary". Noting that rehabilitation was a long-term mission, the Collector said Kerala Feeds can help authorities provide dairy farmers updated technology and new guidelines. The function was attended by Dairy Development Department Director Jose Jacob, Angamaly block panchayat member T P George, Kerala Feeds Deputy Manager P P Francis and the PSU's veterinarian Anuraj K S. Sreekumar said the PSU is initiating a scheme in association with the State Bank of India to help flood affected farmers take loans. The company, headquartered in Kallettumkara of Thrissur district, would also arrange SBI loans for aspiring dairy farmers, he added. Kerala Feeds has, since the floods, distributed cattle feed worth Rs 22 lakh for dairy farmers in Ernakulam district. The 1995-founded PSU had also sold the product at a discount of Rs 100 per bag, thereby making a sale of Rs 31 lakh, the Managing Director said. The function was preceded by a familiarisation session where dairy farmers were informed about the insurance schemes for cattle. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A Turkish prosecutor says Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and his body was dismembered and disposed of. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said Wednesday that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth. The statement is the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered after he entered the Saudi Consulate on October 2 to collect paperwork needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Punjab Police Wednesday bagged the Union Home Ministry's Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) award for the development of the Digital Criminal Intelligence Gazette and the generation of the State Crime Record Bureau (SCRB) reports. CCTNS was launched in the state earlier this year to keep digitised records of FIRs and information on crimes and criminals. Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, Director Intelligence Bureau Rajiv Jain, Director National Crime Records Bureau Ish Kumar and Joint Secretary in the Home Ministry Punya Srivastava conferred the award to DGP IT&T, Punjab, V K Bhawra, according to an official release issued here. DGP Suresh Arora said this was a proud moment for the Punjab Police. Bhawra also received an individual award for his immense contribution in the CCTNS implementation in Punjab, Arora said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court's concern over the ongoing crisis in CBI was apparent on Wednesday when it observed that a plea for a court-monitored probe by the agency into Rafale fighter jet deal would be considered once the premier investigating agency sets its "house in order". "Let CBI put its house in order first," a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi told advocate Prashant Bhushan. The court's remarks came when Bhushan, who along with former Union ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha has filed a plea in the Rafale case, said they were seeking a court-monitored CBI probe into the deal. The observation from a bench, also comprising Justices U U Lalit and K M Joseph, assumes significance as the CBI top brass, including its Director Alok Kumar Verma and Special Director Rakesh Ashtana, are embroiled in an internal feud over the allegations of corruption against each other. The apex court is also seized of petitions in the CBI matter, including those filed by Verma and Asthana. Both have been sent on leave by the government. When Bhushan referred to the prayer made in their plea for a court-monitored CBI probe into the Rafale deal, the CJI said, "That you will have to wait." The Supreme Court asked the Centre to place before it in a sealed cover, within 10 days, the pricing details of 36 Rafale fighter jets India is buying from France. The apex court also observed that in none of the public interest litigations (PILs) filed before it in the matter, the "suitability" of Rafale fighter jets and its "utility" to the Indian Air Force have been questioned. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang's Regular Press Conference on October 30, 2018 2018/10/30 As agreed by all relevant parties, Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council will hold the third Round Table Dialogue in Beijing on November 6 with President of the World Bank Group Jim Yong Kim, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde, Director-General of the World Trade Organization Roberto Azevedo, Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Angel Gurria, Chairman of the Financial Stability Board Mark Carney and Deputy Director-General of the International Labor Organization Deborah Greenfield. They will hold discussions on the global economic trends, the preservation of the multilateral trading system, China's economy and reform and opening up and other topics. Q: According to reports, the Australian state of Victoria reached an agreement with China on the Belt and Road Initiative, becoming the first Australian state to support the initiative in an official way. What's your comment? A: China commends the choice made by the government of the Australian state of Victoria to take an active part in building the Belt and Road Initiative. The government of the Victoria state has seized the opportunity to deepen practical cooperation with the Chinese side, which will surely bring more opportunities and benefits to the local communities. We have full confidence in the broad prospects our mutually beneficial cooperation enjoys under new circumstances. Q: The China-ASEAN Military Exercise-2018 was officially concluded. How do you comment on China holding the first kind of this joint drill with ASEAN? A: As for the China-ASEAN Maritime Exercise-2018, the relevant information has already been released. As agreed by the leaders of the defense departments of China and ASEAN countries, the China-ASEAN Maritime Exercise-2018 was held in Zhanjiang, Guangdong and in the airspace and waters east of Zhanjiang on October 22 to 28. More than 1,200 officers and soldiers from China and ten ASEAN countries joined the exercise. All participants spoke highly of the exercise and look forward to more maritime practical cooperation between China and ASEAN in the future. This exercise was the first joint drill by China and ASEAN. It was also the first joint drill that ASEAN held with another single country. This testifies to the fact that China-ASEAN strategic coordination has reached a new level and meaningful defense and security cooperation has achieved new outcomes. The basis for practical cooperation between all countries has been consolidated and a new starting point has been set for China and ASEAN countries in the joint efforts to address security threats and uphold regional peace and stability. The joint military exercise was held as China and ASEAN mark the 15th anniversary of the establishment of strategic partnership. China would like to work with ASEAN countries to enhance mutual trust, expand cooperation, and elevate China-ASEAN relations to a new level. Q: The Trump administration yesterday put restrictions on a Chinese semiconductor company called Fujian Jinhua, banning it from buying any products in the United States. What is your comment on this? A: I have noted relevant reports. I want to stress that the Chinese government always asks the Chinese enterprises to observe market rules and local laws and regulations when carrying out investment and cooperation overseas. We also ask foreign governments to accord equal and reasonable treatments to Chinese enterprises and offer a sound investment and cooperation environment for Chinese enterprises operating in their countries and regions. We hope that the US could do more to enhance mutual trust and cooperation with China, instead of doing the opposite. As for your specific issue, the Commerce Ministry which is the competent authority on this issue will make clear its position. You may keep following that. Q: According to reports, the central banks of China and Japan have signed a bilateral currency swap deal during Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to China. Do you have more information on that? A: During Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to China, the two countries signed a dozen of inter-governmental agreements, including a bilateral currency swap agreement inked by the People's Bank of China and the Bank of Japan on October 26. The deal is worth 200 billion RMB and valid for three years, which is renewable upon mutual consent, as you may already know from the media reports. This agreement is designed to maintain the financial stability of the two countries and boost bilateral economic and financial activities. Just as the two state leaders pointed out, under the new circumstances, China and Japan need to conduct practical cooperation at a higher level to fully unleash cooperation potentials. The Chinese side stands ready to work with the Japanese side to implement the consensus of the two leaders to expand fiscal, financial and other mutually beneficial practical cooperation and deepen China-Japan economic relations. Q: Yesterday you announced Cuban President of the Council of State Diaz-Canel's upcoming visit to China. Can you give us more information on this visit? Is he going to hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping? A: I already talked about his visit yesterday. China welcomes President Diaz-Canel's visit to China. According to what I have at hand at this point, during the visit, President Xi Jinping will hold talks with President Diaz-Canel, and other Chinese leaders will meet with him separately. In addition, President Diaz-Canel will also attend the first China International Import Expo in Shanghai. Cuba is the first country in Latin America and the Caribbean to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. The China-Cuba relationship enjoys a solid foundation, rich dimensions and great vitality, which is running at a high standard and continuously making new progress. China attaches high importance to China-Cuba relations and stands ready to maintain close high-level interactions and enhance across-the-board exchanges and cooperation with Cuba. We believe that President Diaz-Canel's visit will further consolidate and strengthen the traditional friendship between China and Cuba and promote new progress in bilateral ties under new historical conditions. Q: Yesterday, Australia's intelligence agency warned about the security risks of using Chinese technologies such as 5G from China Telecoms. Do you have any comment on that? A: We have noted relevant reports. The Chinese government always encourages the Chinese enterprises to observe international rules and local laws when carrying out economic cooperation overseas. Cooperation between Chinese and Australian enterprises is to realize mutual benefit and win-win outcomes. The Australian side should facilitate such cooperation between the two sides, instead of finding all kinds of excuses to obstruct cooperation and taking discriminatory measures. We urge the Australian side to discard its ideological bias and offer a level playing field for Chinese enterprises to compete in Australia. We hope that the Australian side could approach this issue prudently. Q: According to reports, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused China of engaging in "predatory economic activity" in Latin America during his visits to Panama and Mexico. We noted that in an interview with local media later on, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said the US was just sowing discord and should be ashamed of its policies and actions in the region. He added that the Caribbean region would not have enjoyed such a bright prospect for development if there were no assistance from China. What's your comment? A: I noted those reports about what the US side said. I also took note of the remarks by Prime Minister Gaston Browne and the Antigua and Barbuda media's comments that they hope the US will provide tangible assistance to countries in the Caribbean as China has done. It is not the first time that the US was given a stark reminder by relevant developing countries immediately after it tried to disintegrate solidarity and cooperation between China and other developing countries by spreading false stories. When taking similar questions before, I once said that the public can always tell the right from the wrong. I would like to add something today. If the US could truly care for the needs of the developing countries and offer some real help with no political strings attached, as developing countries wish them to do, then it will also hear more praises and receive less cautions. Q: Bloomberg reported earlier today that the US may announce by early December tariffs on all remaining Chinese imports if talks next month between President Trump and President Xi Jinping make no progress. Can I ask for your reaction to that and how China would be likely to respond? A: China and the US are indeed in communication on the meeting of the two leaders during the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires. As for additional tariffs on China by the US, I want to reiterate that if the US truly wants to resolve the economic and trade issues with China, then it should adopt a serious attitude and have equal-footed talks with us in good faith, instead of letting out this or that kind of remarks every now and then to try to intimidate China, because no intimidation will work on us. The economic and trade relationship between China and the US is for mutual benefit and win-win results in its nature. Such a relationship has brought tangible benefits to the business communities and consumers on the two sides over many years. If the other side does not want to maintain or expand such cooperation on the basis of equality and mutual benefit, then China is fully confident in walking steadily on our own path of development and adhering to our basic state policy of reform and opening-up. Q: Recently, after Canada legalized the use of marijuana for recreational use, the Chinese Consulate General in Canada issued a warning to Chinese citizens not to buy any of those substances. Can you tell us what was said in the warning? Secondly, environmental groups have warned that China's reputation will suffer because of the decision to allow trade in tiger bones and rhino horns. Do you have any comment on that? A: I need to check on your first question. On your second question, we have checked the situation with the State Forestry and Grassland Administration. I can give you some information on that. It is China's consistent position to strengthen protection for rhinos and tigers and all other endangered species in accordance with law. The State Council of China published a notice in 1993 on strictly controlling sales and usages of rhinos, tigers and their derived products. But part of that notice conflicts with existing law and fails to accommodate the practical and reasonable needs of scientific research, education, law enforcement and appraisal, medical healing and cultural relics protection and exchanges. Besides, it lacks specified and strict regulations on other rhino and tiger products except for rhino horns and tiger bones, thus leaving loopholes for cracking down on bad behaviors like eating tiger meat and manufacturing and selling tiger skin-made clothes. In response to these problems, China adjusted its policies while upholding the legal principle of "protection first, standard use, and strict supervision". The adjustment has taken into account the pros and cons it may have on the global cause of protecting rhinos and tigers. It strictly specifies the special circumstances under which relevant permits will be granted, formulates a series of strict regulation measures, and improves inter-agency coordination mechanism on law enforcement. This will strengthen law enforcement effectiveness, raise the awareness of the public to resist illegal behaviors, and contribute to the global endeavor to protect rhinos and tigers. We have noted the concerns made by relevant parties of the international community. We would like to have adequate communication and exchanges with them to improve mutual understanding. Q: The wife of the former Interpol President Meng Hongwei issued a statement yesterday, saying that she has retained the services of two international lawyers to try to seek answers from the Chinese government about where he is. Has the Chinese government already been contacted by these lawyers? If so, what has the Chinese government told them? Can you give us any information on where Meng Hongwei currently is? A: I already briefed you on that. Meng Hongwei took bribes and is suspected of violating the law. He is now being investigated by the National Supervisory Commission. Regarding the allegation by Meng Hongwei's wife that his present whereabouts is unknown, I could tell you responsibly that China safeguards the legal rights of all its citizens in accordance with the law, regardless of their current status. The relevant department has told Meng Hongwei's wife that if she wants to contact him by telephone, that can be arranged at any time. But she on the one hand says she doesn't know where he is, and on the other hand refuses to contact him by telephone. You may need to ask herself for why is that. The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to place before it in a sealed cover within 10 days the pricing details of 36 Rafale fighter jets India is buying from France. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi also said that details, including the steps in the decision making process for the procurement of jets, which could "legitimately" be brought into public domain, be made available to the parties who have filed petitions before it in the matter. After the court dictated the order, Attorney General K K Venugopal told the bench that pricing details of these jets were not even shared with Parliament. The bench, which also comprised Justices U U Lalit and K M Joseph, told the Attorney General that if the pricing detail was "exclusive" and it could not be shared with the court then the Centre should file an affidavit in this regard and say so. "If pricing is something exclusive and you are not sharing it with us, please file an affidavit and say so," the bench told Venugopal in its oral observations. The bench made it clear that at this stage, details which might be considered to be "strategic and confidential" by the government be placed before the court and might not be given to the advocates appearing for the petitioners. The court noted in its order that pursuant to its October 10 direction, the government has placed before it in a sealed cover a note giving the "details of the steps in the decision making process leading to the award of 36 Rafale jet-fighters/fighter aircrafts". "At this stage, we would not like to record any finding or views with regard to the contents of the said report. Rather, we are of the opinion that such of the core information conveyed to the court in the aforesaid confidential report which can legitimately be brought into the public domain be made available to the counsels for the petitioners in all the cases, as well as, the petitioners-in-person," the bench said. It said further details that could legitimately come in public domain with regard to induction of Indian offset partner, if any, be also furnished to the petitioners. "Such of the details in this regard which may be considered to be strategic and confidential may, at this stage, be placed before the court and may not be furnished to the counsels for the parties or the petitioners-in-person," the court said. "The court would also like to be apprised of the details with regard to the pricing/cost, particularly, the advantage thereof, if any, which again will be submitted to the court in a sealed cover," the bench said in its order. When Venugopal told the bench that report which the Centre has already placed before the court was covered under the Official Secrets Act and could not be shared, the bench made it clear that confidential and strategic information need not be shared. The apex court also observed that in none of the public interest litigations (PILs) filed before it in the matter, the "suitability" of Rafale fighter jets and its "utility" to the Indian Air Force have been questioned. "What has been questioned is the bona fides of the decision making process and the price/cost of the equipment at which the same is to be procured," it said. The bench said that necessary details be communicated to the advocates for the parties before it and the petitioners-in-person. It also said that "the rest of the details in terms of the present order be submitted to the court in a sealed cover in the next ten days. The parties may file their response to the information that would be conveyed". The bench has posted the matter for further hearing on November 14. During the brief hearing, advocate Prashant Bhushan, who along with former Union ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha has filed a petition in the matter, said they were seeking a court-monitored CBI probe into the Rafale jets deal. "That you will have to wait," the CJI said, adding, "Let CBI put its house in order first." Shourie was present in the court during the hearing of the four PILs filed by lawyers M L Sharma and Vineet Dhanda, one by Sinha, Shourie and Bhushan and another by AAP leader Sanjay Singh. Advocate Dheeraj Kumar Singh, appearing for AAP MP Sanjay Singh, said he has also filed a plea seeking setting up of an special investigation team under the court's supervision to probe the Rafale deal. "What is his (Sanjay Singh) interest? We do not have to entertain so many petitions," the bench said and asked the counsel if the petitioner was aware of the pricing. When the lawyer said Sanjay Singh knows the price, the bench said, "You keep it to yourself. You are one of the fortunate who know the price". Advocate M L Sharma, also a petitioner, said he has filed an application seeking hearing on his plea after upcoming assembly elections in five states -- Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Mizoram and Telangana. "Which elections?," the bench asked, adding, "Business of this court cannot be stopped for elections". When Sharma again referred to the elections, the bench said, "How are you concerned with elections?". The bench then told Venugopal and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, "We are proposing to pass some order. Please listen to it very carefully". India signed an agreement with France for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in a fly-away condition as part of the upgrading process of the Indian Air Force equipment. The Rafale fighter is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) manufactured by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Prime Minister Wednesday mocked president Rahul Gandhi, saying he keeps repeating things like a stuck gramophone but people would not accept his "childish" claims and "lies" against the government as they make "fun" of such remarks. With campaign for assembly elections in five states under way and the Lok Sabha polls less than six months away, he stressed on his development plank during a video interaction with workers, asking them to go to people with a three-point agenda -- development, fast development and development for all. To a question from a worker as to how they should respond to opposition leaders' "abuses" like calling him a scorpion -- an apparent reference to leader Shashi Tharoor's recent remarks, Modi said they were offering him what they had. He was glad, the prime minister said, that he was of any use to them as it allows them to vent their anger and spend their time "happily" with their family members in evening. Citing an anonymous RSS functionary's comments to a journalist, Tharoor had said that Modi was like a scorpion sitting on a Shivlinga which can neither be removed from hand nor hit with a chappal. Modi, however, made fun of Gandhi when a party worker asked him as to how they should respond to the president's comments in his rallies that there should be mobile manufacturing factories in those areas. "There used to be gramophone records earlier. At times, it would get stuck and play same words again and again. There are some people like it. One thing occupies their mind and they keep repeating it. You should enjoy it. Don't get tensed," he told workers. These people don't know that time had changed and it was no longer easy to fool people, Modi said, adding that nobody accepts such childish remarks. People make fun of it, he said. India had become a leading manufacturer of mobiles with over 100 factories producing them now under his government compared to only two that existed when he came to power in 2014, Modi said. He wondered if mobile was invented after he became prime minister as he attacked the previous government. Modi also targeted Gandhi without naming him over his recent criticism of the central government on the issue of (One Rank One Pension) for ex-servicemen. Congress governments were in power for decades and soldiers kept demanding OROP, he said, adding that they were not even heard. Since his government has implemented it so his rivals were concerned over ex-servicemen's "love" for him and repeating "lies after lies", he said. Modi claimed that "lies" of Congress leaders against the and its governments on certain issues indicated his dispensation's success as he referred to his "digital India" campaign which, he added, had made lives easier for crores of people by letting them avail of government benefits sitting at home. While opposition parties treated the poor like a vote bank, the BJP believed in empowering them so that they can pull themselves out of poverty. The RBI Governor should work in sync with the government or otherwise he can resign, the RSS-affiliated Swadeshi Jagran Manch said Wednesday. The comments come against the backdrop of escalating tension between the government and the RBI over various issues. "The Reserve Bank of India Governor should work in sync with the government or otherwise resign," Swadeshi Jagran Manch's (SJM) co-convener Ashwani Mahajan told PTI. He also said that Deputy Governors as well as RBI office bearers should restrain from speaking in the public about any disagreements with the government. If there is any disagreement with the government, then it should be expressed at the bank's board meeting and not publicly, Mahajan said. He was referring to RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya's hard-hitting speech on Friday in which he had warned that undermining central bank's independence could be "potentially catastrophic", possible indication of the RBI being pushed to relax its policies ahead of general elections next year. "This entire talk of central bank's independence is a western concept. It is not acceptable and feasible here. India is a developing country our main priority is employment and growth of small scale industries. RBI should stand with government on these issues," Mahajan said. The RBI's main role is about monetary policy, which deals with stability of the economy and not its growth, he said, and claimed that the RBI does not have expertise of fiscal management. SJM's senior leader S Gurumurthy is a member of the RBI board. Earlier in the day, the Finance Ministry said the RBI's autonomy is "essential" and will be "nurtured", as it sought to calm investors worried by the central bank reportedly being forced to resolve differences with the Centre which has cited powers never used before. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Turkish media reports say Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor, who is in Istanbul for discussions on the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, has met with Turkish intelligence officials. Private DHA agency said Wednesday the prosecutor, Saud al-Mojeb, paid a midnight visit to the Turkish intelligence agency's Istanbul headquarters. Officials were not immediately available to comment. Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 Saudi suspects detained in Saudi Arabia over the killing of Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate after he entered the building on October 2. It is also pressing Saudi Arabia for information concerning Khashoggi's remains, which still haven't been found, as well as who ordered the journalist's slaying. Saudi officials have said the kingdom will try the 18 and bring them to justice after the investigation is complete. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The HRD Ministry Wednesday forwarded the resignation of Mahatma Gandhi Central University (MGCU) vice-chancellor and sent it to the President for approval. President Ram Nath Kovind, who is the visitor to the university will take a final call on Vice Chancellor Arvind Agarwal's resignation, sources in the ministry said. The V-C of the Bihar-based central university had tendered his resignation over allegations of he fudging his academic credentials to get the post. Agarwal has been under the government's radar for allegedly giving false information in his application. The ministry has received complaints that Agarwal lied about a foreign to get the job and he did not pursue his Ph.D at a German institute as claimed, and actually got the degree from the University of Rajasthan. When contacted, Agarwal refused to comment on the issue. He was appointed as the first V-C of MGCU in Motihari by the incumbent government in February 2016 from a panel of three names submitted by the search-cum-selection committee. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Haryana Roadways employees who are on a strike were lathicharged Wednesday by police as they tried to block the route from where a motorcade of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar was passing, officials said. The protesters also pelted stones at policemen deployed in the area, injuring a few of them, SHO at the Bhuna police station Inspector Ramesh Kumar said. The workers of the roadways and other government department claimed that several of them were also injured. Notably, to express solidarity with agitating state roadways workers, government staffers across various departments had gone on a two-day strike Tuesday. The Haryana Roadways employees have been protesting for the last 16 days against the state government's decision to run 700 private buses. On Monday, they extended their strike till November 2. While union leaders have claimed that work in various government departments was badly affected for the second day on Wednesday, a government spokesman, however, said, "Work in various Haryana government departments remained normal. As many as 1.23 lakh employees marked their attendance using the biometric systems". Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar Tuesday reiterated that the state roadways was not being privatised. The Opposition Congress on Wednesday submitted a memorandum to Governor Satyadev Narayan Arya and sought his intervention to end the strike. Former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda led a delegation that also included party MLAs Kuldeep Sharma, Geeta Bhukkal and Karan Singh Dalal. The Congress members, through their memorandum, alleged that administrative machinery in the state has "collapsed" after government employees from other departments too have joined the strike, affecting commuters. The Congress leaders said the government was adamant on running 700 odd private buses "because it wanted to extend benefit to its favourites. If an independent enquiry is conducted, a big scam will be unearthed..." Transport Minister Krishan Lal Panwar reiterated on Wednesday that if the roadways union leaders agree the government was ready to order a probe by the State Vigilance Department into allegations that it was extending benefits to its favourites. Panwar also said that the Transport Department has decided to implement "No work no pay", under which no salary will be released till further orders for the period of the strike and unauthorised absence of the roadways employees from duty. The stir has hit public transport services despite the state government making alternate arrangements, including appointing drivers and conductors and hiring buses. The Haryana Roadways employees had last week decided to extend their strike till October 29 as their fresh round of talks with the government failed to make headway. The strike was later extended till November 2. The employees are on strike since October 16 against the government's decision to hire 700 buses from private owners. There are about 19,000 employees in the Haryana Roadways. The roadways, having a fleet of 4,100 buses, cater to about 12 lakh passengers daily. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Hassan Rouhani warned Iranians on Wednesday they may face more difficulties in the months ahead, after the United States imposes new sanctions on the country next week, Iran's state TV reported Wednesday. "The situation was hard for people in the recent months, and it may be hard in the next several months too," said Rouhani, speaking during a televised Cabinet meeting. "The government will utilize its entire capabilities to alleviate the problems." The US has been re-imposing sanctions on Iran since President Donald Trump withdrew America from the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers in May. On Monday, the US is imposing sanctions on Iran's oil and gas industry. According to Rouhani, Washington is trying to make Iranians angry at their government. "People are in fact angry, but ... they are mad at America and its crimes not at their government and its ruling system," he said. Iran is already in the grip of an economic crisis, and has seen sporadic protests in recent months though Iranian officials have generally tried to downplay the sanctions and their effects. The government, meanwhile, has been trying to find ways to get around the new US sanctions and expand financial ties with other countries, aiming mainly for the European Union, China and India. One such attempt is a development from Sunday, when Iran began offering 1 million barrels of oil for sale through its stock exchange for a period of one week in theory, giving oil dealers, including those from foreign countries, a chance to get their hands on Iranian crude. Previously, Iran has exported its crude to refineries only. Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said 280,000 barrels were sold on the IRENEX exchange so far and 720,000 barrels will be provided later. It's unclear how the stock market offering will affect Iranian sales as it's far below the 1.85 million barrels a day that Iran has sold in October, according to the semi-official ISNA agency. Trump pledged last week to do whatever it takes to pressure Iran to halt what he refers to as its "malign conduct" such as nuclear and missile development and support for terror and militant groups that destabilize the Mideast. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal Wednesday asked the Congress-led Punjab government to immediately hike state-advised price (SAP) for sugarcane to Rs 360 per quintal. The party alleged that the state government was "hell bent" upon driving sugarcane farmers to suicide by refusing to come to their aid in the time of dire crisis. In a statement here, the SAD president said it was shocking that the government had not announced the SAP for this year as was the standard practice during the 10-year tenure of the SAD-BJP government. He said the SAD-BJP government used to not only ensure remunerative price to sugarcane growers but also offset the loss suffered by private mills due to increased SAP vis-a-vis the fair and remunerative price (FRP) fixed by the central government. He said the SAD-BJP government had given an additional SAP amount of Rs 50 per quintal in 2015-16. "Private sugar mills were also facilitated soft loans of Rs 200 crore during the SAD-BJP tenure with the government taking on the burden of the interest quotient," he added. Badal said the Congress government's apathy towards farmers could be seen from the fact that instead of announcing an enhanced SAP above Rs 310 per quintal, the government had failed to announce any SAP at all. "This has resulted in private sugar mills, which crush 70 per cent of the total sugarcane in the state, getting together and announcing through advertisements that they will pay farmers as per the FRP of Rs 275 per quintal only. This is a catastrophic development for sugarcane farmers," Badal said. "We are with the farmers and will agitate alongside them to demand an enhanced SAP," he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre for pricing details of the 36 Rafale fighter jets India is buying from France in a sealed cover within 10 days but agreed that "strategic and confidential" information need not be disclosed. In its order, a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, gave some more leeway to the government which has been arguing that pricing details are so sensitive that they have not even been shared with Parliament. The Centre must bring details of the decision making process of the deal into the public domain, except those that are confidential and have strategic importance, the court said. The bench said the information must be shared by the government within 10 days and the petitioners could respond to it in the next seven days. It posted the matter for the next hearing on November 14. "If pricing is something exclusive and you are not sharing it with us, please file an affidavit and say so," the bench told Attorney General K K Venugopal in its oral observations. It was hearing four petitions, including one by advocate Prashant Bhushan and former ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha who are seeking a court monitored CBI investigation in the procurement of the fighter jets. "That you will have to wait," the CJI said, adding, "Let CBI put its house in order first." The attorney general had expressed reservations about disclosing the details of pricing of the jets and said its cost was not even disclosed in Parliament. He also said the documents placed by the Centre before the court are covered by the Official Secrets Act. The bench, also comprising Justices U U Lalit and K M Joseph, said the "core of information" that can be brought in the public domain should be shared with the "petitioner and petitioners in person". In its order, the bench observed that none of the petitioners have questioned the suitability of the Rafale jets, their equipment and their utility to the Indian Air Force. "What has been questioned is the bonafide of the decision making process and the price/cost at which the same is to be procured," the bench said. The bench also noted that following its October 10 order the government has placed before it a note giving details of the steps taken in the decision making process leading to the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets. At this stage, the bench said, the court did not want to record any finding or view on the documents placed before it. It also observed that information regarding induction of the Indian offset partner be given to the court and the petitioners. When a counsel appearing for AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh told the bench he has also filed a petition in this matter, the court asked, "What is his interest? We don't have to entertain so many petitions." Shourie was present in the court during the hearing. India signed an agreement with France for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft in a fly-away condition as part of the upgrading process of the Indian Air Force equipment. The Rafale fighter is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) manufactured by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation. Indian Air Force had advanced a proposal to buy 126 fighter aircraft in August 2007 and floated a tender. Following this, an invitation was sent to various aviation companies to participate in the bidding process. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Section 7 of the RBI Act, hogging headlines following reported differences between the North Block and the Mint Street, empowers the central government to issue directions to the Reserve Bank in public interest. The Section 7 (1) of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, however has never been invoked by the government so far. The Finance Ministry, located in the North Block here, has cited the never-before-used power of issuing directions to RBI Governor to seek a resolution to differences with the central bank, sources with knowledge of the development said. Section 7 pertains to management. "The Central Government may from time to time give such directions to the Bank as it may, after consultation with the Governor of the Bank, consider necessary in the public interest," says Section 7(1) of the RBI Act, 1934. Further, Section 7 (2) gives the government powers to entrust the running of the RBI to its Central Board of Directors. "Subject to any such directions, the general superintendence and direction of the affairs and business of the Bank shall be entrusted to a Central Board of Directors which may exercise all powers and do all acts and things which may be exercised or done by the Bank," it says. Sources said the Finance Ministry wrote three separate letters in the past few weeks to the RBI on issues ranging from Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) framework to liquidity management and sought consultation under Section 7 of the RBI Act. However, sources insisted that the government has not taken any action of issuing any specific direction and has only initiated consultations with the central bank on unresolved issues. Differences between the government and the RBI have cropped up over various issues, including the central bank's handling of weak public sector banks under the PCA framework and ways to resolve bad loans in the power sector. There are also apparent differences between them over tight liquidity and setting up of an independent payments regulator. The government wants RBI to carve out exemption for power companies under the PCA framework that outlines triggers for declaring a loan account as stressed or NPA, sources said. One of the letters pertained to use of the RBI's capital reserves for providing liquidity to the market and another was for relaxing constraints on banks for loans to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Last year, former RBI Governor D Subbarao had stated that Section 7 has never been used in more than 80 years history of the central bank. The RBI Act also empowers the central government to remove Governor, Deputy Governor or any other Director. The RBI Governor and the four Deputy Governors are appointed by Prime Minister headed Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC). The ACC also appoints independent directors on the RBI's Central Board. It had recently named RSS ideologue S Gurumurthy and cooperative movement veteran S K Marathe. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless. The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well. By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism. Tapping into the huge potential of Malabar as a major tourist destination, the Kerala Tourism Department has brought out a high-tech digital facility that provides visitors all details about experiential and service packages offered in the region in north Kerala. A 'SMiLE Virtual Tour Guide' links tourists with their places of attraction and providers of experiential services. The package has got its acronym SMiLE from Small and Medium Industries Leveraging Experiential Tourism. Conceived and executed by Bekal Resorts Development Corporation (BRDC) that focuses on eco-friendly and experiential tourism, the SMiLE guide renders information on 40 Malabar attractions, ways to reach them, plan tours and fix reminder alarm notification, besides means to share portal material, find accommodation and book rooms. The site has also helpline numbers for women and ambulance service, according to the BRDC. BRDC is primarily into developing North Malabar and focusing on developing a beach tourist destination around northern-most Kasargod district's seaside Bekal, known for its 1650AD-built fort spread over 40 acres that makes it the biggest in the state. Kerala Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran described the SMiLE VTG as Malabar's pioneering comprehensive package for travellers. "It comes at a time when the state government is envisaging projects that give northern Kerala its deserving attention on the tourism map," he added. The minister said Malabar was largely unaffected by the recent floods and landslides. "It now becomes imperative to implement ways to boost tourism in northern Kerala," he said. Kerala Tourism Secretary Rani George said, "The SMiLE VTG seeks to increase tourist arrivals and generate jobs in the sector. The government provided Rs 50 lakhs to the 1995-established BRDC to come up with such a tour guide under its new-age means of tourism promotion." The SMiLE VTG, endowed with latest IT-enabled services, has a mobile app that offers location-based information alongside a three-minute video that plays on visiting any attraction in Malabar. The audio-videos go by the latest trend of storytelling when it comes to providing information on the history, culture and specialties of every tourist location. Textual material co-exists along with details of accommodation and related facilities rendered by SMiLE entrepreneurs. The VTG provides not just the distance and routes to the spots, but also tour plans that are supported by GPS trackers which ensures travel along easiest roads. Among the 40 Malabar destinations the VTG covers are Arakkal Palace (near Kannur city), Bekal fort, the 1862 AD-founded Brennen College (Thalassery), Neeleswaram Palace, the Madayipara flat-topped hillock (Kannur district), the 1505-built Kannur fort and Dharmadom Island (Thalassery). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Around 1,500 people took to the streets of Pittsburgh Tuesday to demonstrate peacefully in song against a visit by US President Donald Trump and to mourn 11 Jewish worshipers killed in a synagogue. The crowd of all ages and faiths, including many young families, children and the elderly, marched for six blocks holding signs that read "President Hate, Leave Our State!" and "Trump's Lies Kill." They marched through leafy Squirrel Hill, the tolerant and diverse neighbourhood that has been a beating heart of Pittsburgh's Jewish community, home to the synagogue where Saturday's carnage took place. Trump flew into the city with wife Melania to pay his respects at the Tree of Life synagogue, but many in the largely Democratic city say his rhetoric and vitriolic tweets have fanned white supremacy and are fueling a spike in anti-Semitism across the United States. The rally began with an organizer reading aloud from an open letter written by a group of Pittsburgh Jewish leaders to Trump, telling him he bears responsibility for the shooting and asking him not to come. "President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully renounce white nationalism," she read. The crowd broke into soft a-capella song, which they continued as they marched through the neighborhood, watched by residents and shop workers who poured out of their homes and businesses in solidarity. "I just think it's important to show solidarity in this time of unimaginable tragedy," said Patricia Calderone, 62, a retiree and a photographer, who made a "Trump's Lies Kill" sign. The Steel City is "stronger than the hate," she said. "It's a very diverse city, it's a small city but people are close, people are united and we're not going to let this happen here and hurt us." "I can't know what the president is thinking and I cannot know his motivations, but I can know his words," said Gabriel McMorland, 36, who used to live in Squirrel Hill. "They line up so closely with the words of white nationalist terrorists and racist right-wing conspiracy theories," he added. "What he's saying are the kinds of thing that a Nazi sympathizer would say and I don't think I'm exaggerating at all to say that." Toward the end, a short prayer was said in Hebrew, the protesters held their arms up to the sky and tore a piece of black paper in ritual, before observing a moment of silence punctuated only by birdsong. As they marched on, past a fire station and standing police officers, they applauded loudly and chanted "thank you" in tribute to the first responders who were called out to the massacre on Saturday. Many in the crowd were too emotional to speak to the press. The organization was disciplined and determinedly peaceful. A police officer at the scene confirmed there had been no incidents even as the president was in the area mourning the victims. "I think it's more divisive than uniting," librarian Nonie Heystek, 57, said of Trump's arrival. Friends of friends were among those killed, she said. "Pittsburgh is a very small place and there's really only two degrees of separation, especially in this neighbourhood. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Congress president Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi have cancelled their two-day visit to their constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, sources close to them said. The Congress chief and Sonia Gandhi were slated to attend a few programmes in their respective Lok Sabha constituencies of Amethi and Rae Bareli on Thursday and Friday. Sources said the scheduled meetings of the Central Election Committee (CEC) for Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have forced the cancellation of the two-day visit. While Sonia Gandhi had to chair a meeting of the District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committee (DISHA) in her Rae Bareli constituency and address a workers at a sammelan, Rahul Gandhi also had some meetings and programmes planned out in his Amethi constituency. Sources said the party has written to the district authorities regarding the cancellation of their visit. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) First Lady of South Korea Kim Jung-sook will visit India from November 4-7 during which she will participate in festivities in the religious city of Ayodhya. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said she will be the chief guest at the 'Deepotsav' event being organised by the Uttar Pradesh government on November 6. The Korean First Lady, to be accompanied by a high-level delegation, will also attend the ground-breaking ceremony of the Queen Suriratna (Heo Hwang-ok) memorial in Ayodhya. "The First Lady's participation in the festivities in Ayodhya will showcase our close civilisational links as well as the ongoing deepening engagement between our two countries," an MEA statement said. According to Korean legends, Princess Suriratna from Ayodhya had travelled to Korea and married King Kim Suro and became Queen Heo Hwang-ok some 2000 years ago. "India and Republic of Korea share a special strategic partnership. Moon Jae-in, President of Republic of Korea had visited India in July 2018. His visit had imparted new strength to our evolving partnership," the MEA said. An MoU regarding the Queen Suriratna Memorial Project was signed to facilitate upgrade and expansion of the existing monument commemorating Princess Suriratna (Queen Hur Hwang-ok). The legendary Princess of Ayodhya went to Korea in 48 AD and married King Kim-Suro. A large number of Koreans trace their ancestry to this legendary princess. Preeti Saran, Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs, said there are also plans to build a monument commemorating the princess. "Since last year, the Uttar Pradesh government started organising Deepotsav. The UP government also invited the Korean government to participate as a partner country. President Moon said that he will send a high-level cultural delegation to participate in the Deepotsav," Saran said. In July, the two countries signed an agreement for expansion of the Suriratna memorial project. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar returned to the capital Juba for the first time in more than two years Wednesday for a ceremony to welcome the latest peace accord for the war-ravaged country. Machar, who under the terms of the September deal is to be reinstated as vice president, had not set foot in the city since he fled in July 2016 under a hail of gunfire when an earlier peace agreement collapsed. The latest deal was signed in September to try to end a civil war that erupted in the world's youngest country in December 2013 and uprooted about four million people -- roughly a third of the population. The rebel chief was welcomed by President Salva Kiir, Machar's former ally turned bitter enemy, on his arrival at Juba's airport from Khartoum. The two rivals are to join regional leaders at the ceremony to publicly welcome the most recent agreement, signed in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. It was not immediately clear how long Machar would remain in Juba, as his aides have expressed concerns over his safety in the city. Lam Paul Gabriel, a spokesman for Machar's SPLM-IO rebel group, had said on Tuesday that he would be accompanied by around 30 political figures. "We are worried for his security in Juba, but the truth is here: we are for peace, and what we are trying to do is build trust. So that is why he is able to leave his forces behind and just go with politicians," Gabriel said. Several thousand people had already gathered for the ceremony at the John Garang Mausoleum, built in honour of the independence hero who was killed in a helicopter crash in 2005. Among regional leaders in Juba for the ceremony were Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Ethiopia's newly appointed President Sahle-Work Zewde and Somalia's head of state Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was also expected to attend. Machar fled Juba in July 2016 after fierce fighting erupted between government forces and his rebels, leaving several hundred people dead. He first headed on foot to the Democratic Republic of Congo before finally going into exile in South Africa. South Sudan's civil war erupted when Kiir, a member of the Dinka tribe, accused his then deputy Machar, a Nuer, of plotting a coup. The conflict split the country along ethnic lines and has seen mass rape, the forced recruitment of child soldiers and attacks on civilians. It has caused one of the world's greatest humanitarian crises and wrecked the economy in a country which relies on oil production for the vast bulk of its revenues. The United Nations and the African Union earlier this month appealed to the country's warring parties to make concrete steps to implement the latest accord. South Sudan gained independence from its northern neighbour Sudan in 2011 after a 22-year civil war pitting rebel groups against Khartoum. Several ceasefires and peace agreements have so far failed to end the fighting in South Sudan that has killed an estimated 380,000 people, uprooted a third of the population, forced nearly two-and-a-half million into exile as refugees and triggered bouts of deadly famine. Sudan earlier this month appointed a peace envoy to South Sudan following the signing of the September accord in Addis. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Ahead of the Central team's visit to cyclone Titli and subsequent floods hit area in the state, Odisha government Wednesday announced a special package for the affected people. The package was decided at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. The package has been given to different sectors as the twin calamities have caused extensive damage to the standing crops and plantations and affected the farmers, officials said. The animal husbandry, fisheries, handloom and sericulture sectors have also been severely affected, chief secretary A P Padhi said adding that the special package aims to ameliorate the suffering of the affected people. To give relief to the farmers who have taken credit from different banks, the state government decided to convert short term kharif loans in the affected areas during kharif 2018 having crop loss of 33 per cent into medium term loan, he said. The government has also decided that 100 per cent remission in respect of cess on land revenue and compulsory basic water rate will be given to farmers where the crop loss is 33 per cent or more. Similarly, it has been decided that school fees and school examination fees up to high school level in government schools shall be waived in the affected areas, Padhi said. Two pairs of school uniforms and textbooks will be provided to the children up to elementary school level in the affected areas, the chief secretary informed. In the agriculture sector, agriculture input subsidy will be provided to small and marginal farmers who have suffered crop loss of 33 per cent and above Rs 6,800 per hectare of land in rainfed/non irrigated areas, Rs 13,500 per hectare of land in areas under assured irrigation and Rs 18,000 per hectare for all types of perennial crops. Perennial crops will include mango, cashew, coconut, kewra, betel vine and others, Padhi said adding that the assistance will be provided to the actual cultivators. He made it clear that the agricultural input subsidy to any affected farmer will not be less than Rs 2000 for perennial crops and Rs 1000 for other crops. This apart, it has been decided to distribute 1,20,000 of pulses, 30,000 oilseed minikits, and 50,000 vegetable seed kits totaling to 2,00,000 of special minikits to the Titili affected farmers during Rabi 2018-19. It was also decided that 20,000 hectares of demonstration programmes of different crops will be taken up in Titili affected districts in the ensuing Rabi season. Padhi said incentive will be provided to 2,000 farmers at Rs 7,000 per unit for cultivating root and tuber crops. Similarly, incentive of Rs 10,000 per unit will also be provided for repair and renovation of shednet and thatched structure for restoration of mushroom units to 500 farmers. One thousand pump sets shall be provided with 50 per cent subsidy limited to a maximum of Rs 15,000, Padhi said adding that 1000 solar pump sets (0.5 HP) will be made available to affected farmers at 90 per cent subsidy limited to Rs 54000 per pump set under "Saura Jalanidhi". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Standing on Sadhu Bet, an islet near Sardar Sarovar Dam, the 'Statue Of Unity' in Narmada district of Gujarat is expected to be a major tourist attraction. It was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday. Believed to be the world's tallest monument, it is expected to attract around 10,000 tourists daily, a state government official said. At 182 metres, the statue of India's first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty in the US. Built with cement, steel and an outer bronze cladding, the statue, which has cost Rs 2,989 crore, has several attractions for tourists. The nearest major town is Vadodara, 100 km away. A visitor can take a lift installed inside the statue which runs at a speed of 4 metres per second to reach a viewers gallery at a height of 135 metres. The gallery will offer scenic vistas of the river Narmada, the dam and the surrounding Satpura range of hills, a state tourism department official said. A museum and exhibition hall have been constructed inside the gigantic structure, depicting the life and times of India's 'Iron Man'. The tourism department has also constructed a guest house, 'Sreshtha Bharat Bhavan', where tourists can stay. There will be charges for visitors: Rs 120 per person for viewing the statue from outside, Rs 350 for visiting the viewers gallery at 135 metres. Two Tent Cities with a total of 250 tents along two lakes near the dam, equipped with modern facilities, are also being touted as a major attraction, where one can camp in a natural environment. Spread across 70,000 square metres, the Tent Cities will run on green energy, said the official. A 17-kilometre long 'Valley of Flowers' is being developed along the banks of the river near the statue. An area of 240 hectares has already been developed in the first phase of Valley of Flowers project, the official said. It will feature five nature trails for tourists. A 'Wall of Unity' has also been constructed using the soil collected from across the country under a campaign launched by Modi in 2013. A release from Gujarat chief minister's office said the monument will be open for tourists from tomorrow. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) This year's annual conference of directors general and inspectors general of police will be held at the site of the 182-metre statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat, officials said Wednesday. The 'Statue of Unity' of Patel, the tallest in the world, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the state's Narmada district. Taller than the Statue of Liberty in the US, it has been built on islet Sadhu Bet near the Sardar Sarovar Dam. The officials said though the final dates for the three-day conference of directors general and inspectors general of police from all state and central forces has not been decided, the Union Home Ministry has given an 'in-principle' approval for the event to be held at this venue. The conference is expected to be organised in the second half of December after the results of the five poll-bound states -- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram-- are declared on the 11th of that month. The Sardar Patel 'Statute of Unity' has been chosen as the venue as the alma mater of the top police leadership of the country, the Indian Police Service (IPS), has a close association with the leader as their training academy in Hyderabad is named after him, they said. The IPS academy is named Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel National Police Academy. Patel was country's first home minister and the Home Ministry is the cadre controlling authority of the IPS. Officials said the directors general and inspectors general will be hosted in the 'tent village' that has been set up near the statue in Kevadiya village. The conference is an annual affair where senior police officials of the states and the Centre meet and discuss issues related to internal security, crimes and related challenges. The Modi government has been organising this meeting outside the national capital since it came to power in 2014. The last four such conferences have been held in Guwahati, Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, Hyderabad and Tekanpur in Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior district. "The agenda and various issues for discussion during the conference are under preparation," a senior official said. The 'Statue of Unity' was first conceptualised by Modi during his tenure as Gujarat Chief Minister and he had laid the foundation stone for it in 2013. Wednesday's ceremony coincided with the 143rd birth anniversary of Patel, also known as the 'Iron man of India'. Patel, India's first deputy prime minister, is also credited with merging of over 500 princely states into the Union of India. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Eleven goldsmiths from West Bengal, who had been stranded in Iran for the past several months, returned on Wednesday following intervention of the Centre. The youths from Hooghly, Cooch Behar, Howrah and Burdwan districts had gone to Iran in February but their travel documents were allegedly seized by their employer, a member of an NGO National Anti-trafficking Committee (NATC) said. The NGO had been trying to bring back the youths since mid-October. "We had informed the ministry of external affairs, Prime Ministers Office, West Bengal Chief Minister's office, ADG CID and Embassy of Islamic Republic of Iran, New Delhi. Finally, their return was possible with the effort of all concerned as the company which had taken them to Iran agreed to pay their air fare following the intervention of MEA," the NATC member said. "After reaching Iran in February 2018, things were fine in the initial months. But after two months, our salaries were stopped and we had no money to fend for ourselves," Sheikh Moinuddin, a returnee, said. The goldsmiths did not receive salaries for almost five months and had to do with little food, the NATC official said adding even their passports were taken away by the owner of the firm, where they worked. "We have been waiting for this moment. Thanks to the MEA and other authorities to come to our aid," Sheikh Salim, brother-in-law of Sheikh Mounuddin said. Saheed Ali Sheikh of Pandua in Hooghly district, whose son Enamul was among the 11 members who returned, said it was a great relief to see his youngest son back. The 12 goldsmiths were rescued from Chabahar in Iran. While 11 of them returned, one is still stuck due to visa problems. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sweden's foreign minister says her country could host talks between Yemen's warring parties after efforts by the UN special envoy failed to bring the sides together. Margot Wallstrom says the United Nations has asked Sweden "if we could be a place for the UN envoy to gather the parties in this conflict" the internationally recognised government, supported by a Saudi-led coalition, and Yemen's Iran-backed Shiite rebels known as Houthis. Wallstrom told Sweden's agency TT on Wednesday that Sweden would be "happy about it" but that nothing's definite. The conflict in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, by the Houthis who toppled the internationally recognised government. A Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan Wednesday said talks are on with major airlines for flight operations from the Jharsuguda Airport, a day after chief minister Naveen Patnaik requested the prime minister for introduction of new flights from the airport. Talks are on with major airlines - Air India, IndiGo and SpiceJet - for operations from the Jharsuguda Airport, the Petroleum minister, who hails from the state, told reporters here. Patnaik on Tuesday in a letter to the PM had also drawn his attention to Air Odisha "abruptly suspending" its flight operation from Jharsuguda Airport since October 6. Air Odisha got the tender for flight operation from Jharsuguda Aiport after the first round of bidding under the regional air connectivity scheme the Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN). "If necessary, steps will be taken to cancel its flight contract and a fresh tender will be floated for a regular flight from the Jharsuguda," Pradhan said. The Union minister said the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) is reviewing the contract with Air Odisha and will come up with a decision soon. He said under UDAN Phase III, fresh tenders will be floated and other carriers are expected to participate in the bidding process. Meanwhile, Odisha Tourism minister, Ashok Chandra Panda said: "Pradhan should ask the Centre to issue a notification to rename the Jharsuguda airport as Veer Surendra Sai Airport. He should ensure flights from Bhubaneswar to New Delhi via Jharsuguda ... (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) / -- Tanla Solutions Ltd. (BSE: 532790) (NSE: TANLA) is pleased to announce that Mr. Sanjay Kapoor has been retained by the Company as a 'Senior Advisor and Mentor', with the primary objective of providing strategic insights on Business growth, Brand building, Diversification and Technical inputs in corporate decision making. Tanla recently acquired Karix Mobile from GSO for Rs. 340 Cr. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/627459/Tanla_Solutions_Logo.jpg ) (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/775432/Sanjay_Kapoor_Joins_Tanla.jpg )Sanjay is an established telecom leader globally, and was the Chief Executive Officer of India & South Asia operations at Bharti Airtel between 2010 and 2013, and has spent nearly 20 years as a business leader in Indian telecom market. After Airtel, Kapoor assumed the role of the Chairman at Indian handset maker Micromax in 2014, for nearly a year. He currently pursues plural career which includes Entrepreneurship, Consulting, and board memberships for companies in India and overseas. He was recently appointed as a Board member of Saudi Telecom, and also advises multiple early stage companies on Strategy. "We are absolutely thrilled to have Sanjay advising us. His strong domain expertise, coupled with extensive industry knowledge, will be valuable to the company in moving forward. Through his vast experience and network of contacts in the industry, we believe he will be instrumental in our strategic directions as we advance our foray into new domains and technologies," said Uday Reddy, CMD, Tanla Solutions. Sanjay Kapoor said, "Tanla is a high potential telecom solutions company led by an ingenious entrepreneur, Uday Reddy. Their transformation is evident with their moves to build and scale global leadership both organically and inorganically. Their vision to build futuristic cloud-based solutions with cutting-edge technologies will set them apart from current peers. I am pleased to assist Uday and team to develop Tanla as an undisputed leader in Cloud Communication space." About Tanla Tanla is a Hyderabad, India-based company, established in 1999. It is a global leader in its domain as one of the largest Cloud Communication providers, handling over 120 bn business communications annually. Tanla is innovating the way the world communicates, continuously raising the bar through enhanced speed, ease, and simplicity of Cloud Communication solutions, adopting cutting-edge technologies to meet the discerning needs of a diverse clientele, from enterprises to carriers across geographies. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tata Motors owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) on Wednesday posted a pre-tax loss of 90 million pounds as the sales of the luxury car brands declined 13.2 per cent year-on-year, primarily because of the challenging market conditions in China. The company reported revenues of 5.6 billion pounds and a pre-tax loss of 90 million pounds, mainly reflecting lower sales. Earnings before interest, tax and depreciation (EBITDA) were 511 million pounds, equivalent to a margin of 9.1 per cent. Retail sales declined 13.2 per cent year-on-year, to 129,887 vehicles, for the financial quarter ending September 30, according to the financial results posted by the Tata Group company. JLR said that the fall in sales primarily reflected challenging market conditions in China, where demand was adversely impacted by consumer uncertainty following import duty changes and escalating trade tensions with the US. Ongoing uncertainty over the future of diesel vehicles in Europe and around Brexit negotiations also contributed to the loss-making quarter for the UK-based company. "In the latest quarterly period, we continued to see more challenging market conditions. Our results were undermined by slowing demand in China, along with continued uncertainty in Europe over diesel, Brexit and the WLTP (Worldwide harmonised Light vehicles Test Procedure) changeover," said JLR CEO Dr Ralf Speth. "Given these challenges, Jaguar Land Rover has launched far-reaching programmes to deliver cost and cashflow improvements. Together with our ongoing product offensive and calibrated investment plans, these efforts will lay the foundations for long-term sustainable, profitable growth," he said. In North America, JLR said demand for SUVs remained strong, but overall sales were held back by slowing orders for passenger cars in line with the market as a whole. In Europe, sales were also affected by continuing weakness in diesel demand and the introduction of new WLTP homologation rules and UK sales were adversely impacted by diesel taxation and regulations, alongside continuing uncertainty related to Brexit. JLR began a two-week shut-down at its Solihull plant in the West Midlands region last week, a move it had attributed to achieving "operational efficiencies" as a result of fluctuating global demand. The move came weeks after the company moved staff at its Jaguar factory in Castle Bromwich to a three-day week. As part of its focus on improving profitability and cashflow, JLR said it has launched two initiatives, called "Charge" and "Accelerate", to identify short-term cost and cashflow improvements as well as longer-term operating efficiencies. "Total profit, cost, and cashflow improvements of 2.5 billion pounds over the next 18 months are targeted. As part of this, the company has taken action to reduce planned spending by about 500 million pounds to 4 billion pounds per year this financial year and next," the company said. According to further financial details released on Wednesday, total investment spending in the second quarter was 1 billion pounds and cashflow after this investment was negative 624 million pounds for the three-month period. Jaguar Land Rover strengthened its financial resources in the period by issuing a 500-million euro seven-year bond in September. The company ended the quarter with 2.6 billion pounds of cash and a 1.9 billion pounds undrawn credit facility. A USD 1-billion loan with a final maturity in 2025 was also completed in October. In terms of new product introductions, Jaguar Land Rover is currently launching the Jaguar I-PACE in North America, China and other overseas markets and the Jaguar E-PACE has recently joined the line-up in China. Further model introductions will include the next-generation Defender. "We remain focused on delivering improved profitability and cashflow in the second half, while pressing ahead with our product offensive. In the latest reporting period, we introduced important new models including the Jaguar E-PACE and the revolutionary electric I-PACE. Production has begun at our new plant at Nitra, in Slovakia," said Speth. "We have also continued our development of autonomous, connected and electrified products and services, which will shape our strategy for the future," he added. The company said it expects it financial performance to improve in the second half, and now anticipates pre-tax profits to be about break-even for the full financial year ending March 31, 2019, impacted by the weaker than planned first half. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The dramatic sacking of Cyrus Mistry as chairman and director of Tata Sons and TCS violated provisions of Companies Act, RBI rules and more importantly, Tatas' own articles of association, RoC, Mumbai said in an RTI reply, a charge that the Tatas have vehemently denied. Citing the NCLT order of August, which dismissed Mistry's petition challenging his removal, Tata Sons said all the requisite processes under the Companies Act were followed in removing Mistry as the group chairman and also from the board of group crown jewel Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). "The respective board of directors acted as per the provision of the Companies Act as well as in compliance of the articles of association of the company. This was subsequently approved by both the shareholders of Tata Sons and TCS the NCLT has also confirmed that the process followed for removal of Mistry was valid and accordance with law," a Tata Sons spokesman told PTI. The statement further said, "All requisite processes were followed in line with the Companies Act in case of Mistry's removal from the board of TCS as also as the chairman of TCS and Tata Sons." The denial by the Tatas comes after PTI reported earlier in the day quoting an RTI (right to information) reply from Uday Khomane, the assistant registrar of companies (RoC), Mumbai to the Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry Group. The Tatas also denied a reference in the RTI reply that said repeated reminders from the RoC did not elicit the desired response from the Tatas in getting all the documentary evidence for their action of sacking Mistry. "Neither TCS nor Tata Sons had received any communication from the RoC, Mumbai, regarding any non-compliance of their demand in this regard," the statement from Tatas said. The Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry Group, which owns 18.4 per cent in Tata Sons, had filed an RTI query with the Mumbai RoC on August 31, and the reply was given on October 3, 2018. The RTI reply said the way Mistry was removed from the chairmanship of Tats Sons and also as the director of TCS, violated the relevant legal provisions under the Companies Act, 2013; the Reserve Bank rules governing NBFCs; and more importantly the rule 118 of the articles of association (AoA) of Tata Sons, the parent of the diversified Tata group, which is registered as an NBFC with the monetary authority. PTI has seen a copy of the RTI reply from RoC which is based on the assessment of the documents furnished by the Tatas in the aftermath of the boardroom coup on October 24, 2016 dismissing Mistry as the group chairman. The report offers an internal view of the RoC, which interestingly is totally opposite of the view taken by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Mumbai in August, when it dismissed the Mistry petition challenging his dismissal. In a boardroom coup, Mistry was sacked as the chairman of Tata Sons on October 24, 2016, two months short of four years in the company, after being nudged to take over the reins of the USD 103-billion group as the second non-Tata chairman, after Nowroji Saklatwala(1934-38), in December 2012, after Ratan Tata retired. Mistry was removed as TCS director with 93.11 per cent votes at the EGM held on December 13, 2016, as per its company secretaries Parikh & Associates, which cited section 169(2) of the Companies Act 2013 read with section 115 and 100 (2)(a) for his removal. But TCS did not send out the complete representation of Mistry to all shareholders, which violates section 169 (4)(b) of the Companies Act, noted the RoC reply. The RTI reply is based on the queries posed by SP Kumar, western regional director, RoC, Mumbai which has found that Tata Sons violated rule 118 of its articles of its AoA, when it removed Mistry. The RTI reply, exclusively available with PTI, states that "article 118 of the AoA of Tata Sons prescribes that its chairman can be removed in the same process as specified for his appointment i.e. by the selection committee consisting of four persons and based on such recommendation of the removal committee only the board is empowered to remove its chairman". It goes on to add that Tata Sons "being an NBFC duly registered with RBI, any management change requires prior approval of the RBI", which was also not complied with. The reply also cited several irregularities pertaining to the December 13, 2016 EGM convened by TCS to remove Mistry as a director from its board. TCS had adopted a letter written by the company secretary and chief operating officer of Tata Sons on November 9, 2016 as a special resolution notice to sack Mistry. The reply noted that this letter from Tata Sons was sent to TCS without any proof of a board resolution authorising the issuance of such a letter. The reply also states that "it appears prima facie that there was no proper 'special notice' received" by TCS. The RoC also said that the TCS' company secretary thereafter "on his own" forwarded the purported special notice from Tata Sons dated November 9, 2016 to Mistry. "The letter dated November 11, 2016 written by the VP & CS of TCS is against the provisions of section 169(3) of the Companies Act of 2013 as the power to send such a letter is vested with the board of the company," noted the RoC report. The RoC further noted that "since there was no TCS board meeting between November 9 and 11, 2016, and in the absence of any board resolution authorising the actions of the TCS' company secretary, such a letter and the resulting actions would be void ab-initio". Additionally, TCS had also failed to send out the complete shareholder representation of Mistry to all shareholders, "in violation of section 169(4)(b) of the Companies Act", and hence "the consequential resolution of EGM dated December 13, 2016 for the removal of Mistry would also be void". The RoC, Mumbai in a letter dated January 25, 2017 had written to the regional director of the corporate affairs ministry highlighting these concerns. "As the verification of the relevant documents further finds that the company has violated the provisions of the Companies Act, and rules there under, I am referring the matter to the regional director to verify the findings in terms of rule 11 (2) of the Companies (registration offices and fees) rules of 2014," the letter read. The RTI reply quotes SP Kumar, RoC Mumbai who in a February 17, 2017 letter had said that "RoC having come to the conclusion that transactions are void [Annexure C point (1) to (4)] has to express in unequivocal words whether the e-form is to be rejected or e-form or document as the case may be, as invalid in the electronic record in terms of rule 10(4) of Companies (Registration Offices and Fees) Rules, 2014." However, it is unclear what further action the ministry took on these observations, it noted. Mistry has challenged the NCLT Mumbai order that dismissed his petition, in the NCLAT, New Delhi, which will begin hearing the case from December. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tata Steel Wednesday said it will continue discussions with the European Union (EU) on proposed joint venture with Thyssenkrupp. The statement comes a day after the EU launched an in-depth investigation to assess if Tata Steel's proposed joint venture (JV) with German steel giant ThyssenKrupp would breach the bloc's merger regulations and reduce competition. The European Commission Tuesday launched an in-depth investigation to assess the proposed creation of a joint venture by Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp. "Tata Steel to continue discussions with the European commission on proposed joint venture with Thyssenkrupp," Tata Steel said in a statement issued Wednesday. In June, Tata Steel had confirmed that it has agreed to the terms of a 50-50 joint venture with ThyssenKrupp to create Europe's second-largest steel company after Lakshmi Mittal's ArcelorMittal. "The proposed joint venture is subject to merger control clearance in several jurisdictions, including the European Union, and until the completion of the JV process, Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe and Tata Steel in Europe will operate as separate companies and as competitors," Tata Steel said. Over the last few months, Tata Steel said it along with thyssenkrupp has engaged in parallel with the European Commission (EC) to provide information in relation to the businesses, which would be part of this joint venture. Following pre-notification engagement with the EC, both parties notified the proposed joint venture to the EC on 25th September. "On October 30 (Tuesday), in line with the expected timelines of the merger review process, the EC announced that it will undertake a Phase II review of the merger proposal and will investigate certain areas of preliminary competition concern. "Tata Steel has noted the EC's concerns and will continue its discussions with the EC, including providing further information and analysis, especially in relation to sectors they have identified, to secure approval for the proposed joint venture," the statement said. At this stage, the commission said it is concerned that the merger between the two steel majors may reduce competition in the supply of various high-end steels. "Steel is a crucial input for many of the goods we use in our everyday life, and competitive steel prices are vital for the European economy. "Industries dependent on steel employ over 30 million people in Europe and we must be able to compete in global markets. This is why we will carefully investigate the impact of the planned combination of Tata Steel's and ThyssenKrupp's steel businesses on effective competition in the steel markets," Margrethe Vestager, Commissioner in charge of the EU's competition policy has said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The abrupt sacking of as the chairman and director, respectively, of Sons and its crown jewel violated provisions of the Act, RBI rules and more importantly, Tatas' own articles of association, RoC, Mumbai said in an RTI reply. The right to information (RTI) reply, given by Uday Khomane, the assistant registrar of (RoC), Mumbai on October 3, is in response to a RTI request filed by the investment arms of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group on August 31. The reply said the way Mistry was removed from the chairmanship of Tats Sons and also as the director of Consultancy Services (TCS), violated the relevant legal provisions under the Act, 2013; the Reserve Bank rules governing NBFCs; and more importantly the rule 118 of the articles of association (AoA) of Sons, the parent of the diversified Tata group, which is registered as an NBFC with the monetary authority. PTI has seen a copy of the RTI reply which is based on the assessment of the documents furnished by the Tatas in the aftermath of the boardroom coup on October 24, 2016 dismissing Mistry as the group chairman. The report offers an internal view of the RoC, which interestingly is totally opposite of the view taken by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Mumbai earlier this year while dismissing the petition filed by Mistry challenging his dismissal from the group. All requisite processes were followed in line with the Companies Act in case of Mr Mistrys removal from the board of as well as the chairman of and Tata Sons. The respective board of directors acted as per the provision of the Companies Act as well as in compliance of the articles of association of the company. This was subsequently approved by both the shareholders of Tata Sons and TCS, said a Tata Sons spokesperson. The spokesperson added: Neither TCS nor Tata Sons had received any communication from the RoC, Mumbai, regarding any non-compliance in this regard. The NCLT has confirmed that the process followed for removal of Mr Mistry was valid and accordance with law. In a boardroom coup, Mistry was sacked as the chairman of Tata Sons on October 24, 2016, two months short of four years in the corner room of the Bombay House, the global headquarters of the 150-old conglomerate that nets over 65 per cent of its income from outside the country. Mistry, whose family is the single largest non-Tata shareholder with 18.4 per cent stake in Tata Sons, was nudged to take over the reins of the USD 103-billion group as the second non-Tata chairman, after Nowroji Saklatwala(1934-38), in December 2012, after group patriarch retired. Mistry was removed as TCS director with 93.11 per cent votes at the EGM held on December 13, 2016, as per its company secretaries Parikh & Associates which cited section 169(2) of the Companies Act 2013 read with section 115 and 100 (2)(a) for his removal. But TCS did not send out the complete representation of Mistry to all shareholders, which violates section 169 (4)(b) of the Companies Act, noted the RoC reply. The RTI reply is based on the queries posed by SP Kumar, western regional director, RoC, Mumbai which has found that Tata Sons violated rule 118 of its articles of its AoA, when it removed Mistry. The report, exclusively available with PTI, states that "article 118 of the AoA of Tata Sons prescribes that its chairman can be removed in the same process as specified for his appointment i.e. by the selection committee consisting of four persons and based on such recommendation of the removal committee only the board is empowered to remove its chairman". It goes on to add that Tata Sons "being an NBFC duly registered with RBI, any management change requires prior approval of the RBI", which was also not complied with. The reply also cited several irregularities pertaining to the December 13, 2016 EGM convened by TCS to remove Mistry as a director from its board. TCS had adopted a letter written by the company secretary and chief operating officer of Tata Sons on November 9, 2016 as a special resolution notice to sack Mistry. The reply noted that this letter from Tata Sons was sent to TCS without any proof of a board resolution authorising the issuance of such a letter. The report also states that "it appears prima facie that there was no proper 'special notice' received" by TCS. The RoC also said that the TCS' company secretary thereafter "on his own" forwarded the purported special notice from Tata Sons dated November 9, 2016 to Mistry. "The letter dated November 11, 2016 written by the VP & CS of TCS is against the provisions of section 169(3) of the Companies Act of 2013 as the power to send such a letter is vested with the board of the company," noted the RoC report. The RoC further noted that "since there was no TCS board meeting between November 9 and 11, 2016, and in the absence of any board resolution authorising the actions of the TCS' company secretary, such a letter and the resulting actions would be void ab-initio". Additionally, TCS had also failed to send out the complete shareholder representation of Mistry to all shareholders, "in violation of section 169(4)(b) of the Companies Act", and hence "the consequential resolution of EGM dated December 13, 2016 for the removal of Mistry would also be void". The RoC, Mumbai in a letter dated January 25, 2017 had written to the regional director of the corporate affairs ministry highlighting these concerns. "As the verification of the relevant documents further finds that the company has violated the provisions of the Companies Act, and rules there under, I am referring the matter to the regional director to verify the findings in terms of rule 11(2) of the Companies (registration offices and fees) rules of 2014," the letter read. In the reply, SP Kumar, RoC Mumbai, in a letter dated February 17, 2017, stated, "RoC having come to the conclusion that transactions are void [Annexure C point (1) to (4)] has to express in unequivocal words whether the e-form is to be rejected or e-form or document as the case may be, as invalid in the electronic record in terms of rule 10(4) of Companies (Registration Offices and Fees) Rules, 2014." However, it is unclear what further action the ministry took on these observations, it noted. Mistry and his elder brother Shapoor Mistry, through their investment companies, are the single largest non-Tata shareholder in Tata Sons with 18.4 per cent stake. The group's investment companies are currently waging a legal battle against Tata Sons in the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal alleging oppression of the minority shareholders and mismanagement at Tata Sons. The tribunal began hearing the case Wednesday in New Delhi. Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik Wednesday said terrorism in Kashmir cannot be wiped out by killing militants but by bringing them back to the mainstream. Talking of Pakistan's role in fanning terrorism in the state, the governor said the neighbouring country wants Jammuand Kashmir to remain disturbed, but its designs keep failing as they did recently during the recent municipal polls. "Terrorism cannot be wiped out by killing militants. More of them will keep joining terror groups. They will keep attacking police and security forces which will, in turn, fire bullets, not bouquets. And they will die in the process," he said. "We do not want them to die. We want them to leave the gun culture and come back to the mainstream," he added. Malik made the remarks while talking to reporters on the sidelines of a Power Department function. "Our aim is not to hunt them down but to eradicate terrorism. We want the people in the Valley to understand that nothing is to be achieved from terrorism," he said. Terming terror attacks on the security personnel as "unfortunate", Malik said, "The police are fighting bravely and will take care of the situation." On radicalisation of youths in Kashmir, he said, "Those who are being radicalised need to know that it will not benefit them. We cannot settle an issue by taking up arms. We can do it through talks." Pakistan, he said, has a "big role" in fomenting trouble in Kashmir. "It wants the state to remain disturbed. But its designs keep failing as it failed recently. It could do nothing to disrupt the municipal polls in the state," he said. "Pakistan is frustrated with its own problems as it is having to sell its household items to run the country," he added. The governor hoped that unlike the recent urban body polls, the voter turnout would improve in the upcoming panchayat elections. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) : With just three days left for by-polls in Karnataka, former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda Wednesday conceded there are issues over unitingCongress and JD(S) workers at the grass root level, consideredas arch rivals, in some constituencies. "In Mandya there is not much harmony (among workersof both parties), because we took a decision in just one or two weeks (to go for by-polls together)," Gowda said. Speaking to reporters in Shivamogga, the JD(S)supremo said "still to an extent at the grass root level,there are issues with regard to uniting workers. I'm nothiding anything from you," he said. Congress legislature party leaderSiddaramaiah had also recently spoken about "initial hitches" betweenworkers of both parties. By-polls for three Lok Sabha constituencies-Shivamogga, Ballari and Mandya and two assembly segments- Ramanagara and Jamkhandi, will take place on November 3. The counting of votes will be on November 6. The Congress and JD(S), the ruling coalition partnersin Karnataka, have decided to fight the by-polls unitedly against the BJP. Congress has fielded its candidates in Jamkhandi and Ballari and the JD(S), in Shivamogga, Ramanagara and Mandya. Gowda said he would visit Mandya and Ramanagarato try and sort out the issues and added that Congress MP K D Suresh was working for the victory of the JD(S) candidate in Ramanagara. The two parties which had bitterly fought againsteach other in the assembly polls, especially in the old Mysuru region, decided to join hands to form a government as the May 12 assembly polls threw up a hung verdict. The ruling coalition's decision to fight the election unitedly is facing stiff opposition in Mandya and Ramanagara, as most of the party workers and local leaders are opposed to the party ceding to JD(S) by not fielding its candidate. The Mandya Lok Sabha constituency and Ramanagara assembly constituency that come under old Mysuru region aredominated by Vokkaligas, a community considered a strong votebase for the JD(S). Congress is supporting JDS candidate Shivarame Gowda in Mandya and Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy's wife Anita Kumaraswamy in Ramanagara by not fielding its candidate. As Congress too has a considerable vote base in the region, a large section of local party leaders and workers have expressed strong opposition to support the JD(S) candidate at several party meetings recently. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three absconders, wanted in two separate cases, were arrested Wednesday in Doda and Samba districts of Jammu and Kashmir, police said. Mohammad Farooq and Farooq Ahmed, both residents of Bhaderwah, were arrested by a special police team from Bhalra village of Doda, a police spokesman said. He said the duo was wanted in a case registered at Bari Brahmana police station in Samba district in 2011 and are accused of theft and receiving stolen property. Bashir Ahmad, a resident of Agra Chak village of R S Pura, was arrested from the Ghagwal area of Samba district, the spokesman said. He was on the run for the last four years and is facing charges of disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant and prevention of cruelty to animals act, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad (TMCP), the student wing of the party, will not allow outsiders to meddle into the affairs of any colleges, its president of West Bengal unit Trinankur Bhattacharya said Wednesday. "No outsider will enter the college and only students are kept in the union," Bhattacharya told a press meet after announcing 17 district committees and the state committee of TMCP here. To a question about media reports of some leaders and members of TMCP accepting money during college admission earlier this year, Bhattacharya said, "We have launched an internal probe and we haven't received any proof of anyone receiving graft". He added that strong action would be taken if such cases were proved. He said the Cooch Behar TMCP committee has been disbanded following infighting that dogged the unit since the panchayat polls leading to clashes and even deaths. "We are examining the situation there and I will personally visit the district as part of my tour to North Bengal colleges and talk to everyone," he said. On the 17 new district committees and new state committee announced Wednesday, Bhattacharya said 80 per cent members of all the committees were students. The tenure of the committees will continue till August 30. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) This article discusses three meetings. First, it reports on the September 27 meeting of the HIV Planning Council (HIV-PC). Second, it discusses the October 5 Enhancing Prevention in Communities (EPIC) Conference. Third, it reports on the October 12 meeting of the South Florida AIDS Network (SFAN). The Broward HIV Planning Council (HIVPC) oversees the Ryan White Care (RWC) Program of Broward (RWC-Broward). The EPIC Conference focused on developments in bio-medical prevention of HIV. The South Florida AIDS Network (SFAN) advises the RWC program of the Florida Department of Health in Broward (RWC-FL DOH Broward). The HIV Planning Council Meeting RWC-Broward contracts with agencies to deliver services to people living with HIV. Twice a year RWC-Broward adjusts the amounts in these contracts. When an agency looks like it will not deliver all its contracted services, the HIV Planning Council will move some of its funds to other agencies. Agencies had requested $2 million in transfers, but only roughly $726,000 was available. At this meeting, the HIV-PC voted to move that $726,000 between agencies. Unlike previous years, almost all agencies were operating at or above capacity. According to Leonard Jones, RWC-Broward, this results from clients staying in care for longer periods of time. This may result, in part, from the success of the Test and Treat program. The EPIC Conference Treatment as Prevention refers to how an undetectable viral load impacts HIV transmission. It eliminates the possibility of the sexual transmission of HIV. At present, no one knows its effect on needle sharing or breast feeding. The phrase Undetectable Equals Untransmissible or U=U has begun to replace Treatment as Prevention. In 2017, the CDC, NIH, WHO, and Lancet, all announced their public support for the U=U campaign. Two people spoke about U=U. Dr. Howard Grossman is the Medical Director for Midland Medical. Diane Jones is on the faculty of San Francisco AIDS Education and Training Center. Grossman and Jones stressed that this requires a change in how people talk about HIV risk. They also cautioned against an unintended consequence of the U=U campaign. It could stigmatize people with detectable viral loads. Sonia Boyne, University of Miamis Comprehensive AIDS program, spoke about stigma. Boyne reported that HIV stigma has more of an impact on who drops out of care than who stays in care. Stigma can result in depression, a disinclination to disclose, and a lower quality of life. Boyne described three types of stigma. Internalized stigma refers to negative beliefs about the self that a person holds. Perceived stigma refers to actively held beliefs that cause someone to stigmatize someone else. Enacted stigma refers to behaviors based on perceived stigma. Enacted stigma consists of actions such as discrimination, criminalization, or harassment. SFAN Meeting Wimsley Cruz, RWC-DOH Broward, reported that about one-third of all ADAP clients in Florida live in Broward. Among all Broward ADAP clients, 694 are eligible for the 90 day supply. Of these 694 people, slightly more than a third have already enrolled. Eligibility requires clients to meet three criteria. First clients would have to have picked up their meds 11 times out of the last 12 scheduled pick-ups. Second, clients would have to have at least one viral load test in the last 24 months. Third, all viral load tests would have to show less than 200 copies of HIV. People can apply for exceptions to these eligibility rules. Next HIVPC meeting: Thursday October 25, at 9:30 a.m. at Broward Government Center, Room GC430, 115 S. Andrews Ave. Next SFAN Meeting: Tuesday, November 13, at 6:00 p.m., at Mills Pond Park, 2201 NW 9th Avenue, Fort Lauderdale. SFAN welcomes newcomers. Follow Sean McShee on Twitter @SeanMcShee Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami Wednesday launched various initiatives completed at an estimated cost of a little over Rs 620 crore in the Energy, Home and Highways departments. The chief minister, through video conferencing, inaugurated sub-stations established in various parts of the state like Theni, Erode and Ariyalur districts, an official release here said. The sub-stations were set up to address issues including transmission losses and meeting peak power demand in the respective areas, it said. He inaugurated police stations, fire stations and accommodation for the uniformed personnel, all constructed at an estimated Rs 38.23 crore in different parts of the state, it said. Palaniswami also launched various initiatives in the Highways department, a portfolio held by him. This included the Rs 295 crore upgraded Malliakarai-Rasipuram-Tiruchengode-Erode Road, it said. He also inaugurated flyovers and bridges in Dharmapuri, Coimbatore, Villupuram and Dindigul districts, constructed at an estimated Rs 93.50 crore. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) How a young Indian techie couple, who regularly shared their travel adventures with thousands of social media followers, plunged to their deaths from a cliff in California's Yosemite National Park may take several weeks and it was "too early to speculate," a park official said. Vishnu Viswanath, 29, and his wife, Meenakshi Moorthy, 30, living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area, were the two who died last week in a fall from Taft Point, a scenic overlook located 3,500 feet above the Yosemite Valley. Some US media reports said the couple, both IT professionals, from Kerala may have plunged to their deaths while taking selfies at the dangerous spot. But Jamie Richards, a spokeswoman for Yosemite National Park, said investigators still do not know how they plunged to their deaths last Wednesday from the iconic overlook high above Yosemite Valley. She said the investigation is expected to take several weeks, The Mercury reported. "We still don't have any clear idea exactly what happened," Richards said. "We are still trying to piece it together." Two people who knew the couple, however, believe they may have been trying to take a photo, The Washington Post reported. "It's clearly a very tragic circumstance and as the investigation progresses we will have a better idea of possibly what happened," Richards told KFSN television station, noting that it is too early to speculate. "We do not know any of the circumstances of what may have happened up there." Taft Point has been one of Yosemite's iconic tourist spots for more than 100 years. Named for former US President William Howard Taft, who visited it in 1909, the point has been a site of countless photos over the decades, proposals and even some weddings. The bodies of the couple, who had been married for four years, were found about 800 feet down the side of a steep cliff from Taft Point, which is located near the end of Glacier Point Road and has sweeping views of Yosemite Valley, El Capitan and Yosemite Falls. Authorities said that park visitors first spotted the couple late Wednesday. On Thursday, rangers hiked and rappelled down the cliff to recover their bodies, with the help of a helicopter from the California Highway Patrol. Richards said that investigators notified the victims' families, who live in India, over the weekend. The metal railing at Taft Point was undamaged, and Richards said that park officials do not plan to install any additional railings along the high cliffs overlooking Yosemite Valley. "We are continuing to investigate what happened in this tragic incident," she said. "When you come to a place like Yosemite National Park and you go to places with majestic, scenic views, there is an inherent level of personal risk." Viswanath had been a software engineer at Cisco since July. The company issued a statement late Monday saying: "It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of a Cisco employee, Vishnu Viswanath." "As always, we will pull together to extend our support to the employee's family and our fellow colleagues during this difficult time," The Mercury quoted the statement as saying. Ten people have died in the Yosmite Park this year, and six of those park visitors fell to their deaths. In May, Asish Penugonda, a 29-year-old Indian national, fell to his death while ascending the park's famous Half Dome trail. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Top Congress leaders held a meeting on Wednesday to select the party's candidates for assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. However, the party did not announce the name of any candidate. The party's central election committee, headed by Congress president Rahul Gandhi, held separate discussions for selecting candidates for Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Top Congress leaders, including Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, were part of the deliberations. State Congress presidents and senior leaders were also present during the discussions. While the meeting for selecting candidate for Rajasthan was held in the morning, that for Madhya Pradesh was held in the evening and continued till late night. Sources said another round of meeting will be held Thursday to finalise candidates for Rajasthan polls, amid differences between state leaders over candidates for various seats. While the Madhya Pradesh assembly election will be held on November 28, that in Rajasthan would be held on December 7. The results would be announced on December 11. The Congress is seeking to dislodge the BJP-led governments in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the number of military troops deployed to the US-Mexican border could go as high as 15,000 as he draws a hard line on immigration in the lead-up to the midterm elections. With his eyes squarely on next Tuesday's contests, Trump has rushed a series of immigration declarations, promises and actions as he tries to mobilize supporters to retain Republican control of Congress. His own Republican campaign in 2016 concentrated on border fears, and that's his focus in the final week of the midterm fight. "As far as the caravan is concerned, our military is out," Trump said Wednesday. "We have about 5,800. We'll go up to anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 military personnel on top of Border Patrol, ICE and everybody else at the border." Trump rejected the idea he was "fearmongering" or using the issue for political purposes, but his escalating rhetoric in the waning days of the campaign season call into question the denial. Trump has railed against illegal immigration, including several caravans of migrants from Central America slowly moving toward the US border. The caravan is still nearly 1,600 kilometres from the border. He's also promised to end so-called catch-and-release policies by erecting tent cities to hold those crossing illegally. And this week he is asserting he could act by executive order to unilaterally end birthright citizenship for the children of non-US citizens. Trump's comments on Wednesday appeared to catch the Pentagon off guard. The Pentagon on Monday directed 5,239 active-duty troops to deploy to the border to assist Customs and Border Protection agents in Texas, Arizona and California. That is in addition to 2,092 National Guard troops who have been along the border for several months on a separate, but related, mission. On Tuesday, Air Force Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, commander of US Northern Command, which is supervising the new troop operation, disputed a report that the active-duty total could reach 14,000. "I honestly don't even know where that came from," he said. "That is not in line with what we've been planning." O'Shaughnessy said the 5,239 number will increase, but he would not say by how much or when. Other officials have said that 2,000 to 3,000 additional active-duty troops are on standby for possible deployment to the border. A deployment of 15,000 would bring the military commitment on the border to roughly the same level as in war-torn Afghanistan. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Parliamentary committees in Britain and Canada are urging Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before a joint hearing of international lawmakers examining fake and the internet. Damian Collins, the head of the UK parliament's media committee, is joining forces with his Canadian counterpart to pressure Zuckerberg to personally take part in hearings, as he did before the US Congress and the European Parliament. Describing the November 27 session as being hosted by an "international grand committee," he said Wednesday it was likely that other parliaments would be represented. Collins and Zimmer told Zuckerberg that they "understand that it is not possible to make yourself available to all parliaments. However, we believe that your users in other countries need a line of accountability to your organization directly, via yourself. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The human rights chief pressed on Tuesday for an impartial investigation into the "shockingly brazen" murder of dissident and asked the Saudi authorities to reveal the whereabouts of his body without further delay or prevarication. was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, The Saudis, under intense pressure to explain Khashoggi's whereabouts, have offered conflicting accounts. They initially said he had left the consulate on October 2, but later admitted that he had been killed in a fight. This claim met widespread scepticism. Turkish officials believe Khashoggi, a prominent critic of the Saudi government, was murdered by a team of Saudi agents inside the building and say they have evidence to prove it. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet stressed that a full examination of, and accountability for, human rights violations committed against be conducted. Bachelet welcomed the steps taken by Turkish and Saudi authorities to investigate and prosecute the alleged perpetrators, but added that "given the information that high-level officials in were apparently involved, and it took place in the Consulate of Saudi Arabia, the bar must be set very high to ensure meaningful accountability and justice for such a shockingly brazen crime against a and government critic. "For an investigation to be carried out free of any appearance of political considerations, the involvement of experts, with full access to evidence and witnesses, would be highly desirable," she said. Bachelet said it is important to determine whether serious human rights violations such as torture, summary execution or enforced disappearance were committed and to identify those implicated, "irrespective of their official capacity". She called on Turkish and Saudi authorities to cooperate in ensuring that the truth be revealed. Noting that forensic examination, including an autopsy on the victim's body is crucial in any murder investigation, Bachelet urged the Saudi authorities to reveal the whereabouts of Khashoggi's body without further delay or prevarication." Since the murder was discovered, a chorus of UN officials have demanded a probe into Khashoggi's case, including Secretary-General Antnio Guterres, who stressed the need for a prompt, thorough and transparent investigation into the circumstances of Khashoggi's death and full accountability for those responsible." The Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression David Kaye said he was "very disappointed" that Member States have so far failed to back calls for an independent investigation into the murder. (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.) The UN Security Council has approved a resolution welcoming stepped up efforts to try to restart negotiations to end the 42-year conflict over the mineral-rich Western Sahara between Morocco and the Polisario Front. Morocco annexed Western Sahara in 1975 and fought the Polisario Front until the UN brokered a cease-fire in 1991. A peacekeeping mission established to monitor it was also mandated to help prepare a referendum on the territory's future that has never taken place. Wednesday's vote on the US-sponsored resolution extending the mission's mandate until April 30, 2019, was 12-0 with Russia, Ethiopia and Bolivia abstaining. Bolivia's UN Ambassador Sasha Llorentty Soliz welcomed an upcoming roundtable of key parties but complained that the resolution neglected the crucial issue of self-determination of the people of Western Sahara. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Several Union ministers and thousands of people participated in the 'Run for Unity' organised by the Delhi BJP at several places here to celebrate the 143rd birth anniversary of India's first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. According to the BJP, the 'Rashtriya Ekta Daud' was organised in Pitampura, Shakti Nagar, Bhajan Pura, Gokalpur, Mayur Vihar, Anand Vihar, Dwarka, Vasant Kunj and Sangam Vihar among other areas. Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Vijay Goel, Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari and several party leaders and workers participated in the event. Taking part in the run at Gokalpur in northeast Delhi alongside Tiwari, Prasad said, "Sardar Patel was a great leader who united the princely states." "It is (Patel's birth anniversary) a national festival which is being celebrated across the country," he said, alleging that it took 41 years to honour the first home minister of India with Bharat Ratna as the Congress was concerned with only one family. Sardar Patel was bestowed the country's highest civilian award posthumously in 1991, 41 years after his death in 1950. "We do not oppose Nehru. But we protest the idea that everything was done by the Nehru family and nothing by Sardar Patel," Prasad said. Tiwari said people would not have been able to move freely across the country had Sardar Patel not united the princely states. Vardhan and Goel joined the participants of the 'Rashtriya Ekta Daud' in Keshavpuram and Chandni Chowk respectively. Later, Goel tweeted about his participation in the 'Run for Unity'. BJP general secretary (organisation) Ramlal took part in the run at Mehrauli, while his colleague Bhupendra Yadav attended it in New Delhi district. Meanwhile, two groups of BJP workers clashed with each other during the 'Run for Unity' organised in south Delhi. Local BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri said he was not present at the spot when the incident occurred. On the birth anniversary of Patel on Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the 'Statue of Unity' in Gujarat's Narmada district. The 182-metre-high structure of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is touted the world's tallest. It is twice the height of the Statue of Liberty in the US and is built on Sadhu Bet, an islet near the Sardar Sarovar Dam. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US has called on Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena to reconvene parliament and allow the democratically elected representatives to determine the leadership of their government to end the political crisis sparked by the sudden sacking of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Sirisena on Friday sacked Wickremesinghe and appointed former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa in his place, triggering political chaos in the Indian Ocean island nation. Next day, he suspended Parliament after Wickremesinghe, who had termed his sacking as illegal and unconstitutional, sought an emergency session to prove his majority. "We call on the president of Sri Lanka to reconvene his parliament and to allow the democratically elected representatives of the Sri Lankan people to fulfill their responsibility in accordance with Sri Lankan law and due process to determine the leadership of their government," State Department Deputy Spokesperson Robert Palladino told reporters on Tuesday. The US, he said, believes "the determination" who is the legitimate prime minister, should be made in accordance with the Sri Lankan law and due process. "We are following developments in Sri Lanka with concern, and urge all sides to respect due process," he added. The US also expects the Government of Sri Lanka to uphold its commitment to human rights, rule of law, reform, accountability, justice and reconciliation regardless of who occupies that leadership position, he said. Paladino refused to entertain questions related to the reported allegations that China was behind the political uncertainty in the country. "I don't have anything specific for you on that today," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Any attempt to determine Taiwan's future by "other than peaceful means" is a threat to regional security and a matter of "grave concern" to the United States, Washington's de facto ambassador to Taipei said Wednesday, in a nod to Chinese military intimidation against the island. Brent Christensen also said Washington would continue military sales to Taiwan while promoting its participation in the international community that Beijing increasingly seeks to restrict. China considers Taiwan its own territory to be absorbed using force if necessary. It has lately stepped up its threats in an attempt to undermine President Tsai Ing-wen, who has refused to bow to Beijing's demand that she recognize Taiwan as a part of China. The US cut formal ties with Taiwan in 1979 to recognize Beijing but the two maintain robust unofficial military and diplomatic ties. Those relations are underpinned by the Taiwan Relations Act, which requires the US to ensure that Taiwan has the ability to defend itself and US policy "has not changed" in the 40 years since its passage, Christensen said at a conference. "Any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means represents a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and is of grave concern to the United States," said Christensen, who heads the American Institute in Taiwan, which functions as an embassy in all but name. "We are opposed to unilateral attempts to change the status quo." Christensen pointed to a recent $330 million arms sale to Taiwan as evidence of Washington's fulfilling its obligation to support Taiwan in "maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability against coercion." "Promoting security cooperation and improving Taiwan's self-defense capability go hand in hand," he said. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman on Wednesday reiterated Beijing's strong opposition to arms sales and "any kind of official exchanges and military interactions between the US and Taiwan." "We hope the US will deal with Taiwan-related issues with caution so as to avoid the impacts on China-US relations and peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait," Lu Kang said at a daily briefing. While the US encourages dialogue between China and Taiwan, it will at the same time cooperate to promote shared democratic values and improve economic relations with the island, Christensen said. That includes ensuring Taiwan has a voice in international organizations from which Taiwan has been excluded. China has used its economic might and diplomatic clout to keep Taiwan out of the United Nations, and has increased the pressure by blocking Taipei's representatives from attending international meetings such as the World Health Assembly, while pressuring multinational companies ranging from fashion brands to airlines to describe Taiwan as part of China. Alarmed by the deteriorating situation, the US in September recalled its envoys to the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Panama after decisions by those nations to cut ties with Taiwan in favor of diplomatic relations with China. Taiwan now has just 17 diplomatic allies as China ratchets up pressure on the island's government to endorse its "One-China" principle. "The United States has long been a vocal supporter of Taiwan's meaningful participation in international organisations, and we continue our informal consultations and engagement to allow Taiwan to have a more substantive role in the international community," Christensen said. Taiwan, a former Japanese colony, split from the mainland in 1949 after Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled there following defeat by Mao Zedong's Communist army. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Department of Health is considering redefining gender to male or female at the time of birth, according to The New York Times. But what about those born with both male and female sex characteristics? The report doesnt mention anything about intersex people, and some individuals are afraid the Trump administration will erase their group, according to The Guardian. Every single thing I fought for would be taken away from me. People with power and control are dictating and stigmatizing you with labels that arent true, Anunnaki Ray Marquez, who was born intersex, told The Guardian. This would affect their ability to get correct documents. It could also encourage the genital surgeries that cause physical and emotional scarring for decades. The World Health Organization has formally condemned unnecessary, non-consensual surgeries. I was born with an intersex body, and it caused so much alarm and disgust that they tried to put me in one box, and it failed, Sean Saifa Wall said. Doctors are literally every day attempting to erase intersex bodies. US forces have been handing over suspected jihadists captured in Syria to the authorities in Iraq, where they face torture and botched trials, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday. The New York-based watchdog said the United States had transferred suspected members of the Islamic State group for trials in Baghdad. "The US should not be transferring IS suspects from Syria to Iraq or elsewhere if they will be at risk of torture or an unfair trial," HRW's Nadim Houry said. The rights group said independent observers told them that several foreign defendants -- including from France, Australia, and Lebanon -- were tried in Baghdad recently and reported being captured in Syria. In some cases, the defendants said they had never been to Iraq before. "Faced with the refusal by many countries to take back their nationals, the US seems to have taken the easy way out by transferring some to Iraq and be done with it," Houry said. The fate of hundreds of foreign suspected IS members detained by the Kurdish forces in the semi-autonomous northeastern region of Syria has become something of an international political and legal hot potato. Most of their governments have refused to repatriate them for trials at home and the Kurdish administration holding them has signalled it did not intend to try them locally. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb Wednesday paid tributes to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his 143rd birth anniversary by saying that he unified the country without any battle. Deb also took part in the 'Run for Unity' held on the occasion of Rashtriya Ekta Diwas (National Unity Day) which is observed every year on the day. "Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel unified entire India with all his might and ensured our unity. The most important thing is that he did this without any battle, not even an exchange of barb with anyone. I remember him and congratulate Prime Minister for observing his birth day as Rashtriya Ekta Divas on behalf of people of Tripura," Deb said. Patel, the first Home Minister of Independent India, is credited with merging 550 princely states into the Union of India. (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 embarked on a three-nation visit to Botswana, Zimbabwe and Malawi, during which he will hold talks with the top leaders of these African countries, meet business groups and interact with the Indian diaspora. Naidu is being accompanied by a high-level delegation for the six-day visit, the Ministry of External Affairs said Tuesday. The delegation includes Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Krishan Pal Gurjar, two MPs and senior officers of the Union government, it said. Naidu's official engagements includes meeting presidents of the countries; holding bilateral meetings with his counterparts and delegation level talks; and interacting with business groups and Indian communities, the ministry said in a release. In Botswana, the vice president will inaugurate the Global Expo Botswana 2018 together with his counterpart in that country. The expo will see participation of 25 big Indian companies and business houses covering a range of sectors, it said. In Zimbabwe, Naidu will meet the nation's foreign minister and lay the foundation stone of the Chancery project. He will witness signing of MoUs on mining, information and communication technology, and culture, the ministry said. The vice president, in Malawi, is expected to inaugurate the Business Incubation Centre and India-Africa Institute of Agriculture and Rural Development and unveil a bust of Mahatma Gandhi, it said. Several MoUs and agreements, including an extradition treaty, and pacts on agriculture and training will be signed during the visit, the External Affairs Ministry said. From India, there have been 26 outgoing visits to Africa at the level of president, vice president and prime minister in the last four years, it said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij Wednesday inaugurated the Family Planning Logistics Management Information System (FP-LMIS) here which will ensure availability, supply and monitoring of family planning services from the state level to the Accredited Social Health Activists' (ASHA) level. Speaking at the inauguration ceremony here, Vij said the system would provide online information about medicines and family planning services, including injectable contraceptives, condoms, oral contraceptive pills, intrauterine contraceptive devices, emergency contraceptive pills, tubal rings and pregnancy testing kits. He said the national percentage in modern family planning methods is 47.8 per cent while it was 59.4 per cent in Haryana. Vij added that the health parameters in Haryana laid proved the amount of work done by the state government in the health sector. In Haryana, as compared to 2014, the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) has reduced from 41 to 33 and the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) has reduced from 125 to 101, he said. Criticising the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government in Delhi, Vij told reporters that "OPDs in Haryana have increased by 20 per cent and In-Patient Departments by 21 per cent, while Delhi government has not done any work in the health sector." "Kejriwal has opened mohalla clinics in Delhi where animals and humans could be seen together," he alleged. He also said Kejriwal must prove his claims that pollution from the burning of crop residue in Haryana and Punjab reaches Delhi. "Kejriwal always hides his mistakes by blaming others. He should also pay attention to health centres and schools in Delhi," Vij said, hitting out at Kejriwal, who had criticised the "bad shape" of primary health centres in Haryana during his recent visits to the state. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union said Wednesday they have met Delhi Jal Board officials to find a solution to the water crisis in the varsity. The JNUSU alleged that there is "complete mismanagement of water supply in the university by the JNU administration". "There is a requirement for new tanks, but they are not being sanctioned or are being delayed by the JNU administration. "Mehrauli MLA Naresh Yadav has assured us to provide funds for construction of tanks. However, he too has expressed his inability to get an NOC from the administration," it said. There is a clear and complete breakdown of the JNU administration, the JNUSU alleged. Neither are they constructing new storage tanks nor are they allowing the local representative to build them, the students' union said. "Delhi Jal Board (DJB) officials promised to provide permission for tube wells where there is a necessity, especially in the JNU's school areas. "However, even this proposal has to come from the JNU administration, which they have not sent," it said. The JNUSU told the DJB that they will carry out a survey and send a detailed letter for permission of tube wells in the school areas and for storage tanks. "DJB officials assured us that they will educate JNU administration to properly distribute and manage water supplied to JNU," they said. DJB officials did not respond to repeated calls and messages. An official from the varsity said they are making efforts to resolve the issue. "For the last four-five months, the varsity has not been receiving adequate water supply. The engineering department is working with the DJB to resolve the issue. "Several letters have been sent to the DJB about the issue and we are trying to find a solution," he said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Nair Service Society (NSS), an outfit of Kerala's influential Nair community, Wednesday said it stood firmly with the devoteess opposing entry of women in the menstrual age group into the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala. NSS, which has filed a petition seeking review of the Supreme Court verdict over women's entry, held protests with its members chanting Ayyappa mantra across the state to mark its Flag Day. NSS General Secretary G Sukumaran Nair said the outfit would organise 'namapjapa yajna' (chanting of Ayyappa mantra) on November 13, the day the Supreme Court will consider the review petitions filed against its order lifting the age-old ban on entry of women in the age group of 10-50 into the hill temple. He expressed hope that the apex court would take a decision to alleviate concerns of the devotees of Lord Ayyappa when it considers the review petitions. Nair said in Changanassery that NSS would discuss with other organisations and arrive at a decision, if the court decision was not favourable to them. Leaders of various rightwing Hindu outfits will meet here Thursday to discuss the plan for the second phase of agitation against the Supreme Court verdict. Organisers said leaders of VHP, Hindu Aikyavedi and Ayyappa devotee organisations and spiritual leaders will meet under the banner of "Sabarimala Karma Samiti." Kerala had witnessed widespread protests by devotees after the state government made it clear that it was bound to implement the top court's verdict on entry of women of all ages into the hill shrine. Meanwhile, BJP Wednesday criticised the state government's decision to provide online registration facility for Ayyappa darshan, saying it was being done to collect the personal details of devotees who wanted to visit the shrine. The government was treating devotees as criminals, BJP state general secretary A N Radhakrishnan alleged. The BJP had announced it would take out a 'Rath Yatra' from Kasaragod to Pathnamthitta, where the Sabarimala temple is located, from November 8 to 13 to "save the customs and traditions" of the hill shrine. The temple had witnessed high drama after around a dozen women in the 10-50 age group were prevented by protesting devotees from entering it after the temple doors were opened for monthly pujas between October 17 and 22. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Nagaland government on Wednesday gave an undertaking before the Supreme Court that it would appoint the state Lokayukta within three months. A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, which was hearing a PIL seeking appointment of an anti-graft ombudsman in every state, took note of the affidavit of the Nagaland chief secretary that the ombudsman under the Nagaland Lokayukta Act, 2017 would be selected and appointed within three months. "Further, it has been stated by the Chief Secretary that the state of Nagaland undertakes to ensure that the appointments to the office of the Lokayukta will be completed within three months from today," the bench, also comprising justices U U Lalit and K M Joseph, noted in its order. In view of the statements made in the affidavit, "we leave it to the authority concerned to effect necessary amendments and to complete the process of appointment in the office of Lokayukta within the time undertaken that is three months from today," it said. Earlier, the apex court was not impressed with the Nagaland government's submissions in support of amendments to a local law to ensure the chief minister's role in selection and appointment of Lokayukta. It had also summoned the Nagaland chief secretary to interact on the issue of change in the local law governing selection and appointment of Lokayukta in the state. The court is hearing a petition, filed by BJP leader and lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay, which has sought appointment of Lokayukta in every state. It has also sought a direction to states to provide adequate budgetary allocation and essential infrastructure for effective functioning of the Lokayuktas. According to the PIL, the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act 2013 had received presidential assent on January 1, 2014, and came into force from January 16, 2014, but the executive has not established a Lokpal yet. The petitioner has alleged that many state governments were "deliberately weakening" the Lokayukta by not providing adequate infrastructure, sufficient budget and workforce. The apex court has been also dealing with the issue of appointment of Lokayuktas or the anti-graft ombudsmen in 11 other states, including West Bengal, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Odisha. The top court had earlier asked the chief secretaries of 11 states to specify the reasons for not appointing the anti-corruption ombudsman in the respective states even after the law was enacted in 2013. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Marathas in Maharashtra are set to intensify their demand for quota with the launch of a ten-day community outreach programme beginning November 16, a Maratha Kranti Morcha (MKM) leader announced here Wednesday. The politically influential Marathas, who constitute around 30 per cent of the state's population, have been demanding 16 per cent reservation in government jobs and education under Other Backward Class (OBC) category. Against the backdrop of the violent protests, the Maharashtra government had in September this year told the Bombay High Court that the State Backward Class Commission is likely to finalise its report on the socio-economic status of the Maratha community by November 15. The upcoming Sanvaad Yatra, which is aimed at intensifying the demand for quota as well as to spread awareness in the Maratha community about the cause, would be taken out in each revenue division of the state in a "democratic manner". The MKM's core committee Wednesday accused the government of adopting a "divide and rule" policy to thwart the campaign of the Morcha. "The Maratha Kranti Morcha's agitation is taking shape in a decisive direction over its demands including that of the quota (in jobs and education) for the community," Sanjiv Bhor-Patil, a member of the core committee, told reporters. The Yatra is also aimed at communicating with the members of the Maratha community and to dissuade youths from taking extreme steps such as suicide, he said. The community had in July this year launched an agitation that had witnessed violence at several places in the state. Around eight people had committed suicide in the months of July and August this year, linking their extreme decision to the Maratha quota demand. Bhor-Patil said the yatra with vehicles would culminate at the state legislature building in Mumbai on November 26 when the state assembly and council will be in session. In a departure from convention, the winter session of the state legislature will be held in Mumbai instead of Nagpur, the second capital of Maharashtra, this year. Responding to a query, Bhor-Patil dismissed reports of factionalism in the MKM saying they are "very much united". Bhor-Patil, who was accompanied by other members of the committee, accused the state government of using "divide and rule policy" to thwart the campaign. He said the Morcha has formed a state-level core committee and the co-ordination committees to "foil" such division attempts. When asked about a pro-Maratha group planning to form a political party in the name of the Morcha, Bhor-Patil said, "nobody has the right to float any organisation or a political party named after Morcha". "We are opposed to anyone who, unilaterally, misuses the Morcha's name to engage in such acts," he added. According to media reports, convener of Sakal Maratha Samaj and chief of Maratha Kranti Sanghatan, Suresh Patil, is planning to launch a new party to represent the cause of the community. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) / -- It was a lucky day not only for the students of AAFT School of Fashion And Design but for every one who was audience to the address by the great International designer Stefano Ricci at Marwah Studios. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/655519/AAFT_Logo.jpg ) "We are fortunate enough that an international celebrity Stefano Ricci accepted our invitation to be the guest of AAFT School of Fashion And Design and share his life time experience with the students of design," said Sandeep Marwah President of Asian Group. "I am pleased to be the guest of AAFT; I grabbed the invitation extended to me by Sandeep Marwah as I am keen to know about the Indian fashion and design schools and what they are offering. I am amazed to know the kind of work students are doing here in AAFT campus," said Stefano Ricci congratulating students on their presentation. "We are opening a new showroom of Stefano Ricci at the Oberoi Hotels which is a contribution to the fashion world. You all must visit to see the latest collection by the great designer," added Jackie Manglani President India Stefano Ricci Brand. "My job is to design the showroom and see to it that international setup is maintained in the show room. These shops have to be customer-friendly," said Michele De Vena Store Planning Director. Present on the occasion, the renowned Bollywood star and Director of Asian Group Mohit Marwah thanked all the dignitaries for their gracious presence. "I am busy with the opening of the showroom and would love to visit AAFT School of Fashion and Design next time for sure," said Niccolo Ricci Chief Executive Officer of Stefano Ricci. There were lots of questions by the excited and charged students and young fashion designers which were answered by Stefano Ricci. He announced two full time scholarships to the students of AAFT to learn fashion business at his centre at Florence, Italy. Later Sandeep Marwah honored all the distinguished guests with the life membership of International Film And Television Club of Asian Academy of Film And Television as a mark of respect. Stefano Ricci is a private family-owned Italian luxury lifestyle brand with headquarters located in Fiesole with 60 mono brand boutiques worldwide, the brand produces menswear and accessories. About AAFT AAFT is the premiere film & television institute of India. AAFT- Asian Academy of Film and Television is one-of-the-first ten best film schools of the World. For more information, visit: http://www.aaft.com . (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Vitaly Milonov is known for Russias ban on gay propaganda. The latest event he deemed as a violation of the law was the opening night of Russias only LGBT film festival, called Side By Side. State Deputy Milonov, joined by six other men, attempted to shut down the festival last Wednesday, according to Fontanka news. Dear citizens, you know yourselves that you are perverts; you need to disperse, Milonov said in a video posted online. Milonov reportedly called the police about a hostage crisis inside the cinema, according to the festivals organization, though he denies this was the case. When the police evacuated the place, the estimated 400 guests who bought tickets were barred from attending the screenings of the first night. The gay propaganda law, which Milonov said the festival broke, bans promoting LGBT values among minors, according to the Moscow Times. But minors werent allowed at the festival. Despite the rocky start, the festival continued as planned for the rest of the week. The Youth Congress in Maharashtra Wednesday mocked the BJP-led government on completion of four years in office by performing various Yoga postures which they named after raging issues like Rafale deal. The protests titled "Nishedhasan" were held in various parts of the state to highlight the "betrayal" of the people by the Central and state governments, a senior leader said. Targetting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, the Congress members named the "asanas" (Yoga poses) after controversial "Rafale deal" which the party claims is a "scam" in the purchase of fighter jets from France, and issues like "lack of jobs" and "unfulfilled promises". "The Central and state governments of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) seem to understand only the language of Yoga, thus we protested by doing 'Nishedhasan' across various districts in Maharashtra," said state Youth Congress president Satyajeet Tambe. He accused the state government of "failing" to honour the electoral promises made in the run-up to the assembly elections held in 2014. Tambe said they chose "Yogasanas" as a mode of protest because the government is only busy in doing show-off. "Price rise, unemployment, distress amongst farmers, declining growth rate of the Maharashtra economy were amongst the major issues we tried to bring to the notice of the government through the protests," he said. The protests were held in Aurangabad, Nashik, Jalgaon, Kolhapur, Solapur, Nagpur and in extended suburbs of Mumbai like Navi Mumbai, Kalyan and Dombivli. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) For Hyundai, the South Korean conglomerate, North Korea has been a story of lost opportunities - and tragedy. In 2003, months before Hyundai was set to open an industrial complex in North Korea, the executive behind the project committed suicide amid accusations his company had made a secret $500 million payment to the North. Five years later, a Hyundai-run resort in the North was closed after a North Korean soldier shot a South Korean tourist. Both projects have long been shuttered, symbolising the difficulties South Korean companies have had doing business across the ... By Cate Cadell and Jane Lanhee LeeBEIJING/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Chinese search engine operator Baidu Inc on Wednesday forecast fourth-quarter sales below analyst estimates, saying new regulations and uncertainty surrounding a Sino-U.S. trade spat has prompted clients to cut back on advertising.U.S.-listed Baidu, often compared to Alphabet Inc's Google, also reported a sharp decline in its operating profit margin in the third quarter, as the firm invests heavily in autonomous driving and artificial intelligence (AI).The figures come as Chinese technology companies weather the impact of new ... By Mark Bendeich and Francesca LandiniMILAN (Reuters) - Riccardo Illy, whose family owns one of Italy's most renowned coffee brands, would rather discuss the finer points of tea and cellared wine these days than the perfect espresso.A grandson of the Illy founder, he left the main coffee business two years ago to spearhead a diversification into tea, wine and chocolate and reduce the family's reliance on the intensely competitive coffee business.He is now searching for an investment partner to help make the non-coffee business as big as 85-year-old illycaffe - which has annual sales of almost ... By Henning GloysteinSINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil product margins have been tossed around on a wild rollercoaster ride in October, as factors like impending Iran sanctions, the China-U.S. trade war and upcoming shipping regulations yank fuel profits up, down and back again.Some profit margins, known as crack spreads in the industry, including for Asian fuel oil and gasoil have boomed, while others, such as Asian and European gasoline cracks, have plunged.Crack spreads are the difference between the price of crude oil and the price of the products such as diesel and gasoline refined from it. The ... By Noah Barkin BERLIN (Reuters) - German firms should cut their dependence on the Chinese market, a leading industry group says in a strategy paper that underscores rising concern over Beijing's state-driven economic model, according to a draft seen by Reuters.The 25-page China position paper from the Federation of German Industries (BDI), due to be published in January, argues that a long-promised opening of the Chinese market is unlikely to take place and voices concern about rising Communist party control over society and the economy.Entitled "Partner and Systemic Competitor - How to cope ... By Noah Barkin BERLIN (Reuters) - A new strategy paper from Germany's influential BDI industry federation calls on firms to reduce their dependence on the Chinese market, according to a draft seen by Reuters, in a sign of rising concern over Beijing's state-driven economic model.The 25-page China position paper from the Federation of German Industries (BDI), which is due to be published in January, argues that a long-promised opening of the Chinese market is unlikely to take place and voices concern about rising Communist party control over society and the economy.Entitled "Partner and ... NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The government will soon issue a statement to address the growing differences between the finance ministry and the country's central bank, Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg said on Wednesday.Earlier in the day, television channels reported that Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel may consider resigning from his post given a breakdown in relations with the government, sparking a sell-off in the rupee and government bonds.The government has invoked never-before-used powers under the RBI Act that allow it to issue directions to the central bank governor ... By Ben Klayman and Joseph WhiteDETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co on Wednesday stepped up efforts to cut costs in response to tariff and market pressures, even as it reported third-quarter profit that blew past Wall Street expectations.The No. 1 U.S. automaker said on Wednesday it is offering buyouts to salaried employees with 12 or more years of service, as Chief Executive Mary Barra told them in an email: "Our structural costs are not aligned with the market realities." GM shares jumped more than 8 percent to $36.34, their highest in almost six weeks. The Detroit automaker had ... By Eileen Soreng(Reuters) - Oil is likely to stay above $75 a barrel, fuelled by supply disruptions exacerbated by U.S. sanctions on Iran, but further gains could be limited as economists and analysts see demand growth slowing next year due to trade wars and economic weakness. A survey of 46 economists and analysts forecast Brent crude to average $76.88 a barrel in 2019, up from the $73.75 forecast in September. The price is expected to average $74.48 in 2018, versus the $73.57 average so far this year.Analysts who spoke to Reuters said demand is expected to decelerate in 2019, if concern ... The growing influence of the gay community in Malaysia prompted opposition leader Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to blame a devastating earthquake and tsunami on them. The 7.5 magnitude quake had an estimated death toll of over 2,000 as of Oct. 22, according to the Globe Post. In Palu, where there was recently an earthquake and tsunami, it was said that there were more than 1,000 [people] involved in such [LGBT] activities. As a result, the whole area was crushed. This is punishment from Allah, Zahid Hamidi said on Tuesday, Oct. 23. LGBT activists have been criticizing Zahid Hamidis comments, especially since the former deputy premier was hit with a $26 million corruption suit last week, according to the Globe Post. Next time you hear a politician say that LGBT people are causing natural disaster[s], please remember that its because his career is about to be swallowed up by the earth, Pang Khee Teik, a gay rights activist, told AFP. By Ahmed Rasheed and John DavisonBAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's new oil minister Thamer Ghadhban said on Wednesday the current price of crude was "fair" and that the country, OPEC's second-largest producer, would act responsibly in providing ample supplies to the market.Ghadhban also said the oil ministry aimed to increase output capacity and support foreign energy companies by helping them overcome any bureaucratic hurdles.OPEC agreed in June to pump more oil after pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to curb rising prices and to make up for an expected shortfall in Iranian exports. Oil hit ... By Byron Kaye and Taiga UranakaSYDNEY/TOKYO (Reuters) - Commonwealth Bank of Australia will sell its asset management arm to Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group for $2.9 billion in a surprise sale, the latest business to be sold by an Australian financial giant amid unprecedented regulatory scrutiny.Australia's biggest lender said it was cancelling plans to list Colonial First State Global Asset Management in favour of a sale to create "a simpler, better bank". For MUFG, Japan's biggest financial group, the acquisition is the first in a grand plan to expand aggressively into overseas asset ... By Aaron SheldrickTOKYO (Reuters) - Oil prices climbed for the first time in three days on Wednesday, but rising supply and fears over the outlook for demand amid the U.S.-China trade war kept pressure on the market.Brent crude futures had gained 52 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $76.43 a barrel by 0310 GMT. They fell 1.8 percent on Tuesday, at one point touching their lowest since Aug. 24 at$75.09 a barrel.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures advanced 29 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $66.47 a barrel on Wednesday. They dropped 1.3 percent the day before, after hitting their weakest since ... TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Panasonic Corp on Wednesday reported a 15 percent fall in second-quarter operating profit, missing analyst estimates, weighed down by investment in Tesla Inc's battery plant in Nevada.Panasonic, the exclusive battery cell supplier for new electric vehicles (EVs) made by Tesla, posted profit of 95.2 billion yen ($840.92 million) for the July-September period, versus 112.7 billion yen a year prior.The result compared with the 112.60 billion yen average of 7 analyst estimates compiled by Refinitiv.Panasonic's factory automation business also slowed as an escalating ... The rift between India's central bank and the government has widened and could lead to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor considering resignation, CNBC TV18 reported on Wednesday, citing sources. There has been an irreversible breakdown between the RBI Governor Urjit Patel and the government, the media said, adding that all options were on the table. The RBI was not immediately available for comment. By Chris Thomas(Reuters) - Indian shares fell on Wednesday and were set for their worst month since February 2016, as the rupee weakened on speculation that the central bank governor might resign due to a widening rift with the government.The broader NSE Nifty was down 0.59 percent at10,138.55 as of 0502 GMT, while the benchmark BSE Sensex was 0.55 percent lower at 33,704.05. The indexes are set to finish October 7-8 percent lower, their biggest monthly fall since February 2016."The market saw some strong gains on Monday, and what we are seeing today could be some consolidation," said Vinod ... By John RevillZURICH (Reuters) - Siemens went back to its Berlin roots on Wednesday as it announced plans to invest up to 600 million euros ($681 million) to create an industrial and technology hub in the German capital.The investment will help to create a new Siemensstadt, or Siemens city, in the part of Berlin where the engineering group's predecessor company set up factories at the end of the 19th century.The new project in Spandau, which covers an area of 70 hectares, aims to transform the large industrial area into a modern, urban district of the future, to promote innovation and ... By Rajendra JadhavMUMBAI (Reuters) - Natural rubber prices are unlikely to recover in 2019 from their lowest level in more than two years as demand growth is faltering in top consumer China amid rising supplies, the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) said."The demand-supply situation and currency movements are not favourable. Potential growth in supplies is also weighing on sentiment," Jom Jacob, senior economist at the Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based ANRPC, told Reuters in a telephone interview on Wednesday. Benchmark Tokyo rubber futures hit a 25-month low on Tuesday as ... Investors will keep an eye on the rupee, which depreciated by 23 paise to close at 73.68 against the US dollar on Tuesday in line with fall in equities amid steady capital outflows and the strengthening of the American unit against major rivals overseas. Around 150 companies including Larsen & Toubro, Tata Motors, Lupin, Vedanta, Canara Bank, United Spirits, Dabur India and Adani Power are likely to announce their September quarter earnings later in the day. Amid stock specifc action, Tech Mahindra will be in focus after company's September quarter earnings beat Street estimates at Rs 10.64 billion up 27.3 per cent over Rs. 8.9 billion in Q2 FY18 and 18.5 per cent sequentially (Rs 8.3 billion). On the macroeconomic front, investors will be looking forward to eight Infrastructure Industries Index and fiscal deficit data for September due later in the day, and Nikkei PMI manufacturing data due on Thursday. GLOBAL MARKETS Asian stocks pulled away from 20-month lows to eke out small gains on Wednesday, thanks to a rebound on Wall Street though investors remained cautious after a torrid October month that saw trillions of dollars wiped out of global equity markets. MSCIs broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.05 per cent, but it was still on track to fall roughly 11 per cent this month. Australian stocks edged up 0.1 per cent, South Korea's KOSPI rose 0.35 per cent and Japan's Nikkei advanced 0.5 per cent. Wall Streets three stock indexes jumped more than 1 per cent on Tuesday, helped by strong gains for chip and transport stocks as investors took advantage of cheaper prices following the steep recent pullback for equities. The proposed merger between the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) is unlikely to see the light of day in the near future. According to sources in the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), it is not in favour of a merger at this point in time because of pending investigation in the co-location matter involving the NSE. Both the exchanges had prepared an initial merger proposal and had even appointed the investment bankers for the transaction. Sebi on Tuesday cautioned investors against dealing with foreign trading portals or platforms. The regulator said domestic investors are being drawn into online trading by overseas websites and platforms. Sebi said as these websites are not being supervised by any regulatory body in India, investors need to be cautious when it comes to dealing with them. The inherent complexity of the products offered by such firms, web-portals, platforms may not suit the risk profile of the investors and their excessive leverage can result in significant losses to investors, Sebi said. Dabur India Ltd, in its quarterly results declared on Wednesday, reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 377 crore, up 4.1 per cent from Rs 362 crore a year earlier. The company's consolidated revenue for the quarter ending September 30 stood at Rs 2,125 crore, which is a growth of around 8.5 per cent from Rs 1,959 crore a year earlier. Dabur India Ltd, one of the leading FMCG companies in the country, has five flagship brands, including Dabur, Vatika, Hajmola, Real, and Fem. "Despite the higher competitive intensity, we have sustained a good growth momentum in the domestic FMCG business with our key brands reporting strong market share gains during the quarter," said Sunil Duggal, Dabur India Chief Executive Officer. The company's performance, however, was muted in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), mainly due to currency devaluation and geopolitical headwinds. The overseas business of the company posted 8.9 per cent quarterly growth on the back of strong demand from Egypt (27 per cent) and Turkey (16 per cent). "The performance in our international business was relatively muted due to the weakness in the MENA region and currency devaluation in the markets like Turkey. While global macroeconomic environment continues to be challenging and competitive intensity remains high, we have delivered a steady performance during the quarter by efficiently managing the risks and challenges," said the Dabur CEO. The Dabur board has declared an interim dividend of 125 per cent for 2018-19. "The board has declared an interim dividend of Rs 1.25 per share, aggregating to a total payout of Rs 266.17 crore, including tax," Anand Burman, Dabur India Chairman, said. In terms of category growths numbers, the company's shampoo business reported strong gains with a 49 per cent surge during Q2 of 2018-19. The health supplements business reported 12.3 per cent growth while skincare and salon category posted around 12 per cent growth. 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. Sustained business reforms over the past several years helped India jump 23 places to move to 77th position in this year's global ease of doing business rankings. India carried out six business reforms during the past year, earning the credentials of being a top global improver for a second consecutive year, says the World Bank Group's Doing Business 2019: Training for Reform report, released on Wednesday. Last year India was ranked 100 in the list. "The improvement is the result of a combination of measures taken by the government in the last four years," Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu said. "The ultimate objective is to go to the top of the list," he added. The latest reforms were in the areas of Starting a Business, Dealing with Construction Permits, Getting Electricity, Getting Credit, Paying Taxes, and Trading Across Borders. On the measure of absolute progress towards best practice, India significantly improved its Doing Business score to 67.23, from 60.76 last year. This is the second consecutive year that India has been recognised as a top improver. India is the only South Asian country to achieve this distinction two years in a row, and only nine other countries have accomplished this since 2011. "India's strong reform agenda to improve the business climate for small and medium enterprises is bearing fruit. It is also reflected in the government's strong commitment to broaden the business reforms agenda at the state and now even at the district level," said Junaid Ahmad, World Bank Country Director in India. "Going forward, a continuation of this effort will help India maintain its goal of strong and sustained economic growth and we look forward to recording these successes in the years ahead," he added. During the past year, India made starting a business easier by fully integrating multiple application forms into a general incorporation form. India also replaced the value added tax with the Goods and Services Tax (GST) for which the registration process is faster in both Delhi and Mumbai, the two cities measured by the 'Doing Business' report. In addition, Mumbai abolished the practice of site inspections for registering companies under the Shops and Establishments Act. As a result, the time to start a business has been halved to 16 days, from 30 days. With streamlining of processes, India made it faster and less expensive to obtain a construction permit. It also improved building quality control by introducing decennial liability and insurance. The cost for completing all procedures to build a warehouse has been slashed to 5.4 per cent of the warehouse value, from 23.2 per cent earlier, while the total time needed for obtaining a permit has been reduced to 95 days, from 144 days. India's continued effort to make Dealing with Construction Permits easier has this year catapulted the country to a global rank of 52, from 181 last year. While there has been substantial progress, India still lags in areas such as Enforcing Contracts (ranked 163 globally) and Registering Property (166). It takes 69 days and costs about 8 per cent of the property value to register a property, compared to 20 days and 4.2 per cent among high income OECD economies. And, it takes 1,445 for a company to resolve a commercial dispute through a local first-instance court, almost 3 times more than the 582 days needed in high income OECD economies. "The five areas that need more improvement are in registering property, starting a business, insolvency and taxation and enforcement of contracts. We have done some legislation already and if we focus on these areas, touching 50th rank is achievable. After all ease of doing business is all about minimum governance and your investment process is guided by it. In the last four years we have achieved a 67 point jump and if we concentrate on the five areas that need more focus, we can improve the ranking in the next two to three years," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said. Getting Electricity was made cheaper and faster in Delhi with the cost for low voltage connections reduced by more than 30 per cent of the income per capita, while the time needed was reduced to 31 days, from 39 days. India made Paying Taxes easier by merging diverse sales taxes into a single General Sales Tax (GST). This is another area in which reforms have been carried out for a third consecutive year. And, importing and exporting was made more efficient for a third consecutive year. The latest reform initiatives included electronic submission of documents and upgrading of port infrastructure. As a result, the time needed for exporters to comply with documentation requirements was reduced to 14 hours, from 38 hours. India performs well in the area of Getting Credit. This year, the country further strengthened access to credit by amending its insolvency law to give secured creditors absolute priority over other claims in insolvency proceedings. The country's global rank in getting Credit improved to 22 this year. India also performs particularly well in the area of Protecting Minority Investors, with a global rank of 7, and scoring a perfect 10 in the index measuring shareholders' rights and role in major corporate decisions. This year, Doing Business collected data training of customs clearance officials and brokers and finds that training results in lower border and documentary compliance times, easing the movement of goods across borders. The report notes that India has supported its ambitious reform agenda by providing regular training to both customs officials and private sector agents, as well as by establishing Customs Clearance Facilitation Committees which bring together actors involved in international trade at regular meetings. Taking note of the over 55,000 vacancies in the country's six paramilitary forces, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday ordered that the recruitment process to fill the posts be expedited, officials said. Of the total vacancies, 21,000 posts are lying vacant in the country's largest paramilitary force CRPF while there are 16,000 vacant posts in the border guarding force BSF. Taking stock of the vacancies and recruitment procedure for the paramilitary forces and the Delhi Police during a high-level meeting, the home minister directed initiation of special mechanisms for reducing the delays and fast-tracking the recruitment activities in a time-bound manner, a ministry official said. Nearly 1.35 lakh youths have been recruited in the paramilitary forces in the last two years. Among the vacancies, 233 posts are of DSPs and 140 of commandants and DIGs. The vacancies in the paramilitary forces arise due to retirement, resignation, death, creation of new posts or raising of new battalions, another official said. The vacancies are filled through various modes, including direct recruitment, promotion and by deputation as per the extant provisions of recruitment rules. Other forces where there are sizeable vacancies include the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and the Assam Rifles. The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is primarily deployed for the assistance of state police forces in internal security, fighting militants in Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast, and in anti-Naxal operations in Maoist-hit areas. The Border Security Force (BSF) guards the Indo-Pak and Indo-Bangladesh borders, while the SSB protects the Indo-Nepal and Indo-Bhutan borders, and the ITBP is deployed along the Sino-Indian border. The CISF guards the airports, nuclear and industrial installations, sensitive government buildings, Delhi Metro besides others. The Assam Rifles is deployed for guarding the Indo-Myanmar border and fighting insurgency in the Northeast. The combined strength of the paramilitary forces is around 10 lakh. Union Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, director generals of the paramilitary forces and commissioner of the Delhi Police were also present in the meeting. Recently, the income tax department released a set of data pointing towards improved income tax collection and increase in the number of return filers. Since the data released were for assessment and financial year 2017-18, there would certainly be questions raised if this improvement is a result of demonetisation, a move that has been widely criticised for inconvenience it caused to people and stunting the GDP growth. The government has been defending it for many reasons -- popularisation of digital money, formalisation of the economy and casting the tax net wider. So, let us try to figure out if demonetisation indeed helped in any significant way in increasing the tax net. The data released by the department says that the number of return filers increased 65 per cent from 3.31 crore in 2013-14 to 5.44 crore in 2017-18. In 2016-17, the number of filers grew by 14.5 per cent to 4.47 crore and in 2017-18 the growth was 21.7 per cent to 5.44 crore. The number of individual filers also increased sharply by 22 per cent to 5.08 crore in 2017-18 from 4.15 crore in the previous year. Since demonetisation was implemented in November 2016, cash returned to the bank accounts only by 31 December. The rest of the processes like calculation of the cash, etc. also took time. So, the tax department could have got any data on demonetisation-related return filings only in 2017-18. Can we then attribute the 21.7 per cent jump in number of return filers (and 22 per cent in individual return filers) during the year, if not fully but partially, to demonetisation? Tax experts believe the increase in number of returns filed in the last few years is mainly due to sustained follow up by tax department with potential non-filers. Steps like Non-filers Monitoring System (NMS), under which data collated through reporting of high value transactions, tax collected at source and tax deducted at source are used to nab non-filers, have been helping the government in widening the tax net. The government has also implemented Project Insight to effectively utilise the large volumes of data collected through different sources. Project Insight has been developed to 'strengthen the non-intrusive information driven approach for improving tax compliance and effective utilisation of information in tax administration'. But what role did demonetisation play in increasing the number of non-filers? In response to a question in Rajya Sabha, the minister of state, finance, Shiv Pratap Shukla, informed the house in August this year: "A dedicated campaign was launched to take focused action against non-filers who had deposited large value of cash during demonetisation period. Notices were issued to 3.04 lakh persons who had deposited cash of more than Rs 10 lakh but had not filed their return of income till the due date of filing. As a result, returns were filed by 2.09 lakh of such identified non-filers, who have paid self-assessment tax of Rs 6,416 crore." But tax experts believe such cases where the cash deposits were more than Rs 10 lakh would be few and far between. "In most cases deposits were less than Rs 10 lakh, and in many cases they were up to Rs 2.5 lakh. Those people who made deposits of less than Rs 2.5 lakh did not even need to file a return. But many who deposited Rs 2.5-10 lakh had to file their returns, and that number could be much higher," says a tax expert on the condition of anonymity. In the Economic Survey report 2017-18, the then Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian had estimated 5.4 lakh additional taxpayers due to demonetisation and Rs 10,587 crore additional collections in 2016-17. These returns would have been filed only in 2017-18. Even if 5.4 lakh additional returns filed were due to demonetisation, it is too insignificant a number, given that almost 97 lakh new tax filers were added in 2017-18. The number of effective taxpayers in assessment year 2017-18 has grown 7 per cent from 6.93 crore to 7.41 crore. This is very much in line with the normal growth rate. However, there was a spurt in growth rate in assessment year 2016-17. During that year, the growth in the number of effective taxpayers was 12.6 per cent. Since the income in 2015-16 is assessed in assessment year 2016-17, this spurt AY2016-17 cannot be attributed to demonetisation. The sustained growth in income tax returns over the years looks more as a result of better tracking of high value transactions, data collation and use of data analytical tools than anything else. Demonetisation it doesn't seem resulted in 'significant' growth in number of taxpayers. In light of the recent accusations by HDFC Bank against a consultancy firm, Adeco, for allegedly using falsified information to place applicants in the bank, a different agency with a similar name, 'The Adecco Group', seems to have landed in the soup for no fault. The Adecco Group apparently is being questioned about the accusations levelled against a different company due to the identical name. The Adecco Group has clarified that the group does not have any association whatsoever with 'Adeco Consultancy', which has been accused of forging documents of 68 people to get jobs at the HDFC bank. 'The Adecco Group' said in a statement that its three brands in India - Adecco, Lee Hecht Harrison and Pontoon - do not have any association with the consultancy named 'Adeco'. Meanwhile, HDFC Bank has registered an FIR against Adeco consultancy firm at Gurgaon after learning that 68 staffers assisted by Adeco Consultancy, submitted fake documents to get the jobs. Some records reveal that Adeco also used other names including Lotus Consultancy and Aspire Consultancy. HDFC Bank has lodged an FIR against Amit Choudhary, who managed the consultancy, his wife and other bank employees, Vishal Pandey and Komal Kushwaha. HDFC Bank in its complaint to police said Adeco allegedly purchased nearly 360 domain names to create false email IDs to evade reference checks. The applicants allegedly paid around Rs 25,000-Rs 1.5 lakh, as per the package they received, to get jobs at the bank. (Edited by Vivek Dubey) Cummins India, ICICI Bank, Apollo Hospitals, Dr. Reddy's Labs and Cyient are among the top Diwali picks by HDFC Securities for Samvat 2075. The brokerage is concerned about patchy monsoon, election season, rising twin deficits, high crude prices, weak INR, slowing Chinese economy, trade wars, etc. It wonders whether the market will recover at all or whether a bear market is the next phase? On the other hand, steady GDP growth (5.5-8% under most circumstances), a huge consuming population with rising aspirations/incomes, improving infrastructure and business conditions, rising urbanization, formalisation, job creation and tax compliance unleashed via pragmatic policy mix can take India to the next level of economic prosperity, the report noted. In its report, HDFC Securities said, "Retail investors should learn from market moves, and may also want to upskill themselves regarding the ways of the markets, and individual stocks' financials/valuations. A staggered investment in direct equities/mutual funds may result in lowering their risks in an era when the world is witnessing a paradigm shift in business models and the valuations assigned to them." Here's a look at the brokerage's top picks for Samvat 2075 this year. The time horizon of the below stock picks is till next Diwali. Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Target price: Rs 1368 A leadership position and multi-pronged healthcare delivery model make Apollo one of the stronger healthcare stocks. The new hospital cluster has begun to contribute positively, led by an improvement in the Navi Mumbai unit. Post a phase of weak earnings, consolidated profitability could improve led by (a) continuing growth in existing hospitals (b) contribution from new hospitals (c) continuing growth in ASAP (d) reduction in AHLL's operating losses We expect gradual improvement in the average length of stay (ALOS) and ARPOB, along with improving return ratios. We feel investors could buy the stock at the last traded price (LTP), and add on dips to Rs 974 - 982 (14 times FY20E Enterprise value (EV) to earnings before interest, tax depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for a target of Rs 1,368 (18.5 times FY20E EV/EBITDA). Cummins India Target price : Rs 817 Cummins India is well placed to capture the broad revival in industrial and infrastructure capex in India, with its best in-class product portfolio, wide distribution reach, and technological leadership. Despite a 7% decline witnessed in domestic revenues in Q1FY19, the company maintains a domestic sales growth target of 8-10%, indicating a 13-14% growth in the remaining part of the current fiscal in domestic business. Exports, which have witnessed an upward trajectory in Q1FY19, may continue and help it improve its OPM on an overall basis. A number of cost optimisation measures, combined with increasing capacity utilisation and newer products, are expected to add to the operating profit margins by 150 bps over the next two fiscals. With the kind of technological leadership CIL has in the Indian market, along with a healthy balance sheet and strong parentage, it deserves a premium over its peers in terms of valuation. We feel investors could buy the stock at LTP and add on dips to Rs 597 - 605 (19.5x FY20E EPS) for a target of Rs 817 (26.5x FY20E EPS). Dr Reddy's Laboratories Target price: Rs 2952 DRL has a promising complex generics pipeline. A key factor for is the resolution of the Duvvada plant and approvals of generics of Suboxone, Nuvaring and Copaxone. The management indicated FY19 as a challenging year, with price erosion prevailing in the US generic business. Strong growth in the domestic market and other non-US markets should lend support to revenue growth. The company plans to capitalise on the first-mover advantage in China, increase the filing tempo, and break into the Top-10 (from No 16) in the Indian branded market. The stock price could reverse the underperformance witnessed in the last three years. We feel investors could buy the stock at the LTP and add on dips to Rs 2210-2230 (21x FY20E EPS) for a target of Rs 2952 (28x FY20E EPS). ICICI Bank Target price: Rs 411 Now that the pressure regarding leadership has mitigated, asset quality concerns are being addressed, various measures to improve retail asset growth and return ratios are being taken, the stock looks attractive. With the return of long-term visibility, the bank, with its segment-leading subsidiaries may undergo a gradual rerating. Return ratios could witness an improvement over the next two years (mainly led by falling credit costs), pushing analysts/investors to take a relook at the stock. We feel investors could buy the stock at the LTP and add on dips to Rs 290-295 (based on 1.2 times Sept20E Core ABV) for target of Rs 411 (based on 1.95 times Sept20E Core ABV). Cyient Ltd Target price: Rs 748 Cyient's niche engineering services, strong client relationships, timely acquisitions to support its product solutions profile, strong financial profile with minimal debt, and healthy debt protection metrics and liquidity makes a case for investment in its stock. It has some deals in the negotiation phase, and the overall deal pipeline remains good. We feel investors could buy the stock at the LTP and add on dips to Rs 545 - 555 (11x FY20E EPS) for a target of Rs 748 (15x FY20E EPS). Sun Pharmaceuticals Target price: Rs 690 We believe that FY19 may witness a gradual comeback for large-cap pharma companies, driven by (1) actual and likely regulatory resolutions, (2) moderating price erosion and (3) several product launches across generic and specialty categories in the medium term. Sun Pharma trades at 22x FY20E earnings, which is compelling given strong earnings growth of 84% expected over the next two years. We estimate 15.5% revenue CAGR and 39% PAT CAGR over FY18-20E. We recommend Buy on Sun Pharma at Rs 573 and add on dips to Rs 520 for Target Price of Rs 690 till the next Diwali. Parag Milk Foods Target price: Rs 329 In FY18, Parag Milk Foods registered 12.9% revenue growth. Consumer products revenues registered 15.7% growth. Value-added products comprised the maximum share with 65.6%, followed by fresh milk at 19.9%. EBITDA margin stood at 9.9%, while PAT margin 4.5%. PMF has the vast range of value-added products, which constituted 66% to its sales. Parag Milk is popular in the branded dairy theme. We expect robust growth from value-added products in the coming years. We estimate 19% revenue CAGR, led by 18% growth from value-added products. We assume 80 bps margin expansion over FY18-20E. Strong revenues and better operating profit would lead to 33% PAT CAGR over the same period. The stock trades at 13.9x FY20E earnings and 8x EV/EBITDA. We recommend BUY on Parag Milk at Rs 258, and add on dips to Rs 227 with TP of Rs 329 till next Diwali. Exide Industries Target price: Rs 304 We have valued Exide on a SOTP basis. Standalone EPS for FY20E is Rs 13, and giving 20x multiple the value per share came in at Rs 267, and valuing the insurance business at 2 times the book value came in at Rs 37 per share. We recommend a BUY for Exide Industries at LTP of Rs 254, and add on dips to Rs. 228 for the Target Price of Rs 304 till next Diwali. Everest Industries Target price: Rs 558 Over the time frame of FY18-20E, sale is expected to post 12% CAGR, while PAT is expected to grow at 24% CAGR. Currently, the stock is trading at the 8.9x P/E of FY20. We recommend a BUY for Everest Industries at LTP of Rs 465, and add on declines to Rs 410 for the target price of Rs 558 till next Diwali. Hindustan Oil Exploration Target price: Rs 177 The company is debt free, with net cash balances of Rs 35 crore and Rs 53 crore invested in its subsidiary. Over the next two years, company expects significant ramp up in volumes which would ensure growth visibility going ahead. Company had done capex of Rs 60 crore last year. In the current year, it is expected to be Rs 60-70 crore. In H1 FY19, company has posted stellar numbers, with Rs 99 crore revenues and PAT at Rs 66 crore. In FY18, revenues were at Rs 49 crore and PAT at Rs 38 crore. We expect growth momentum to continue in the second half of FY19 as well. We estimate that the company will post Rs 208 crore revenues and Rs 133 crore PAT in FY20. It trades at 12.7x FY20 earnings and 10x EV/EBITDA. Given strong management, a robust balance sheet and stellar growth expected over the next two-three years, we recommend BUY on Hindustan Oil Exploration (HOEC) at Rs 130, and add on dips to Rs 108 with TP of Rs 177 till next Diwali. 31 Oct 2018, 2:39 PM Apple launch event: New MacBook Air, iPad Pro and iMac Mini launched Apple Inc unveiled three new hardware offerings at its latest launch event on Tuesday. The event in Brooklyn, New York saw the new iterations of the MacBook Air, the iPad Pro and the iMac Mini being launched. Among today's launches, Apple MacBook Air now gets the Retina Display, slimmer bezels, USB Type-C ports, and even a 3.5mm audio jack. The iPad Pro has also been refreshed with slimmer bezels and reduced footprint, FaceID and USB Type-C ports added to the mix. And lastly, the iMac Mini got the update it needed, featuring Intel processors with up to six cores in the familiar compact chassis. Vistara bets on passengers to pick high fares for superior service In the highly price-sensitive Indian aviation market, Vistara, a full-service carrier backed by local conglomerate Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines Ltd, is betting it can convince passengers to buy higher fares in return for superior service. Though all airlines in India are feeling the pinch - with debt-laden Air India and Jet Airways struggling to pay staff salaries on time - Vistara says its upmarket strategy is starting to bear some fruit. The carrier has narrowed its losses and seen average fares rise this year as customers take to its product offering, including a domestic premium economy class, even though ticket prices at most rivals are falling. China factory activity slows in October amid trade war woes Chinese factory activity slowed in October, official data showed Wednesday, adding to a growing list of bad news for the Asian giant as it struggles to maintain economic momentum in the face of American tariffs and a weakening yuan. The Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), a key gauge of factory conditions, came in at 50.2 for the month, down from 50.8 in September, the National Bureau of Statistics said. The figures are the latest sign that the world's second-largest economy is losing momentum as it faces challenges at both home and abroad -- from a trade war with the US to a massive debt buildup. Delhi air quality nosedives to severe; Authorities ban construction, look to regulate pvt vehicles As Delhi's air quality turned 'severe' for the first time this season on Tuesday, authorities have banned construction activities along with halting operations of industries using coal and biomass as fuel between November 1 and 10, and are considering regulating use of private vehicles. The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) issued the directions, which also included intensifying patrolling in 'hot spots' with "no tolerance for visibly polluting vehicles", to government agencies following the orders from the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA). Delhi's air quality turned 'severe' on Tuesday for the first time this season with stubble burning intensifying in neighbouring states. More than 55,000 vacancies in paramilitary forces; Rajnath Singh orders immediate hiring Taking note of the over 55,000 vacancies in the country's six paramilitary forces, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday ordered that the recruitment process to fill the posts be expedited, officials said. Of the total vacancies, 21,000 posts are lying vacant in the country's largest paramilitary force CRPF while there are 16,000 vacant posts in the border guarding force BSF. Taking stock of the vacancies and recruitment procedure for the paramilitary forces and the Delhi Police during a high-level meeting, the home minister directed initiation of special mechanisms for reducing the delays and fast-tracking the recruitment activities. SBI halves daily ATM withdrawal to Rs 20,000 for certain card holders The country's largest lender SBI has halved the daily cash withdrawal limit from ATMs for certain debit-card holders to Rs 20,000 from Wednesday. The withdrawal limit has been curtailed on Classic and Maestro debit cards, held by a large number of the bank customers. However, customers with other variants of SBI debit card can continue to enjoy higher daily withdrawal from ATMs. As per a senior SBI official, the average cash withdrawal from ATMs per card is less than Rs 20,000 and the move will help in checking frauds and promote digital transaction. Amazon's Jeff Bezos loses $19.2 billion in two days Guess how much of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' wealth vaporised over the past two trading days? A whopping $19.2 billion, the most ever in that time according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Although he remains the world's richest person, his net worth is now a lot closer to Microsoft's Bill Gates, who ranks second on the Forbes World's Billionaires. Just four months ago, the wealth gap between them had stood at $49 billion. First Tata Harrier rolls out of Pune manufacturing plant, deliveries to begin next year Tata Motors rolled out the first unit of its new SUV, the Harrier, off its new manufacturing facility in Pune today. The Indian auto manufacturer announced that deliveries for the Tata Harrier will begin early next year. Tata Motors dealerships began accepting registrations for the Harrier earlier this month. Tata Motors' Pune facility has been equipped with manufacturing practices from Land Rover to adapt to the new product development and manufacturing approaches for this design. The manufacturing plant has been built in a record time of six months with 90 per cent automation levels. After Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's scathing remarks on the Reserve Bank of India's "lending spree", Governor Urjit Patel may consider stepping down from the role, a CNBC-TV18 report said. "RBI governor may even consider resigning. All options on the table," the report mentioned. Quoting a source, the report said that there has been an "irreversible breakdown between the RBI governor and the government". The news site has reached out to the RBI and the PMO but hasn't received any response as of now. This development comes after RBI deputy governor Viral Acharya's fiery speech. In his speech, he warned that undermining the central bank's independence could be "potentially catastrophic". Government officials were left unhappy with Archarya's speech. Following this, the finance minister blamed the RBI for its lending spree between 2008 and 2014 that left banks with huge debts. His remark only inflamed the ongoing row between the RBI and the government. As mentioned in the report, Acharya's speech was only a strike in the long-running tug of war between the government and the RBI on whether the bank should part with some of its Rs 3.6 lakh crore reserves to fund the country's fiscal deficit. Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy showed his support for Patel and tweeted: "If RBI governor resigns then it is a direct consequence of FM blaming him publicly yesterday for NPAs. Patel is a self respecting scholar of economics (Ph.D in Banking from Yale). He should be persuaded to stay." Adding another layer to this conflict, RBI board member S Gurumurthy wrote a letter to Urjit Patel complaining about Viral Acharya's speech. While refusing to divulge the contents of the letter, Gurumurthy told The Economic Times that he had objected to "Acharya going public on issues not discussed in or disclosed to the board which met just two days earlier". Even as reports of RBI Governor considering to quit are doing the rounds following a week-long spat between the Reserve Bank and the Centre, the government today said the functioning of central bank has to be "guided by public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy". Although the government did not mention invoking Section 7 of the RBI Act, which empowers it to issue directions to the RBI, but the usage of words 'public interest' in a press release issued by Finance Ministry points that the ongoing tug of war between the two is far from over. Under Section 7, which has never been invoked in the Indian history, the government can give directions to the RBI after consultation with the RBI Governor, considered necessary in the 'public interest'. The release said the autonomy for the central bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential and accepted governance requirement. "Governments in India have nurtured and respected this," it said. "For the purpose, extensive consultations on several issues take place between the Government and the RBI from time to time. This is equally true of all other regulators. Government of India has never made public the subject matter of those consultations. Only the final decisions taken are communicated. The Government, through these consultations, places its assessment on issues and suggests possible solutions. The Government will continue to do so," it added. The development comes after RBI deputy governor Viral Acharya's fiery speech. Acharya had warned that undermining the central bank's independence could be "potentially catastrophic". Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had criticised the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for failing to prevent lending excess. "The central bank looked the other way when banks gave loans indiscriminately during 2008 to 2014," Jaitley said. The RBI and Centre have been at loggerheads over a few issues for quite some time. The government wants the RBI to help ease the liquidity squeeze gripping non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), relax the prompt corrective action regime for stressed banks, and draw further upon the central bank's reserves to help close the fiscal gap. The quarter ended September was a great one where IT companies were concerned, at least in terms of net employee hiring. In fact, it was the best since September 2015, when the industry was at its peak. Courtesy factors like good business wins, high employee utilisation and low bench strength, the top three Indian IT companies, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro, collectively added 28,748 employees to their rolls, a nearly 130% jump against the hiring figures for Q1FY19. TCS added 10,227 employees in Q2 FY19, which is its highest in the last dozen quarter, the tech major mentioned in its financial results for the quarter. The second largest Indian player, Infosys, added 7,834 employees while Wipro posted the highest net employee addition during the same period at 10,687. Cognizant and HCL Technologies, too, saw good hiring during the period, but their figures were comparatively much lower at 5,300 and 3,754 net additions, respectively. Together the top 5 IT services firms in the country hired over 37,800 people in Q2 of this fiscal. In comparison, the past couple of years these companies had reportedly seen a decline in the growth rate of new jobs. "These firms are showing stronger growth in their digital practices, which require new skills and are, therefore, adding workers. Each of the firms has been experiencing high levels of attrition - 15-20% - and had to hire afresh. Digital requires a mix shift in skills, which cannot be accomplished only by retraining, and hence there is increased hiring," Peter Bendor-Samuel, CEO, Everest Group, told The Hindu BusinessLine. Furthermore, some of the players, including TCS and Infosys, have signed multi-year large-scale outsourcing deals, requiring additional resources to support their execution. Besides, average employee utilisation onsite reportedly reached a peak of around 90%, and offshore around 85% (excluding trainees). Bozhidar Hristov, senior analyst at Technology Business Research, US, told the daily that cyclical changes - driven by rising attrition, demand for professionals with skills in new technologies that can not only execute on traditional outsourcing projects but can also drive design-led opportunities - are compelling Indian vendors to hire again. Apolong, the worlds first Level-4 self-driving bus, is unveiled at Baidu Inc.s artificial-intellegence developer conference in Beijing on July 4. Photo: VCG Search giant Baidu Inc. is ready to test its first batch of self-driving taxis in Central Chinas Hunan province, as it races toward commercializing autonomous technology the next big thing in the tech world. A fleet of self-driving cabs, or robo-taxis, will soon be tested in a pilot zone in the provincial capital of Changsha, and will open to the public for rides in the future, the company announced after signing an agreement with the city government on Monday. The statement (link in Chinese) didnt name the manufacturer of the taxis or when the public rides will be officially launched. The trial cabs will still need a safety driver on board, and Baidu said it plans to expand the fleet to about 100 vehicles next year. The move is the latest for Baidu, one of Chinas aggressive tech pursuers of autonomous-car solutions, to play catch-up with global peers, such as Google LLCs parent Alphabet Inc., which commercialized driverless services in the U.S. earlier this year. Baidu dabbled into driverless technology in 2013 after its main revenue source of online advertising took a downturn. It opened up its proprietary platform, Apollo, early last year for third parties. More than 100 partners have joined its platform to develop autonomous cars, including luxury-auto maker BMW. Early this year, Beijing rolled out a national policy that allows companies to test their driverless cars in the countrys public road. This came after years of lobbying by industry executives, who argued that strict regulations would hinder the sectors development. Still, the policy stipulates that the tested cars will need a safety driver on board, making China less open than the U.S., where some states, including California, have allowed testing without drivers. In Changsha, Baidu said the local government will provide much-needed infrastructure support for its robo-taxi project, such as connecting its car fleet to a cloud-based transportation system to help it better navigate traffic. Other technology rivals, such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., have also recently ramped up effort into the fledgling sector. In April, Tencent set up an autonomous vehicle joint venture with state-owned Chongqing Changan Automobile Co. Ltd. Earlier this month, Beijing-based self-driving solutions provider Momenta said it netted an undisclosed amount of funding, making it the countrys first startup in the sector with a valuation of over $1 billion. Contact reporter Mo Yelin (yelinmo@caixin.com) Leading search engine Baidu Inc. reported slowing revenue growth in its latest reporting quarter and predicted further slowdowns toward the end of the year, as the market anticipated a return of global leader Google LLC to the worlds largest internet market. Baidu reported the numbers as its margins contracted noticeably in the quarter, often a sign of growing competition. The company currently has few serious local competitors, though it has been overhauling its core search business following a scandal involving misleading search results two years ago. Google is also planning a return to the China search market, which its CEO publicly discussed earlier this month. Baidu reported its revenue rose 27% in the third quarter to 28.2 billion yuan ($4 billion), down from 32% revenue growth in the previous quarter, according to its latest results announced on Tuesday. It forecast its revenue growth would drop to between 15% and 20% in the current quarter. Its profit for the quarter rose 56% to 12.4 billion yuan. Baidu also announced that between June and September it bought back $487 million worth of its shares to support the stock during a recent sell-off. Shares of most major Chinese internet companies have come under similar pressure due to Chinas slowing economy, and Baidus own shares have lost nearly a third of their value from a peak in early July. You've accessed an article available only to subscribers Subscribe today for just $.99. VIEW OPTIONS (geyang@caixin.com) * The president-elect has long been an advocate of a strong state presence in strategic industries, which could spell trouble for Chinese investment * Bolsonaros campaign rhetoric indicates that he might not uphold an agreement to support the multilateral global trade system, such as the one signed by the leaders of the five BRICS countries last year (Beijing) Jair Bolsonaros victory in Brazils presidential elections on Sunday sent political tremors across the world as the climate-change doubting, authoritarianism-admiring, self-professed homophobe moved from the fringe to center-stage of the worlds fourth-biggest democracy. The victory of the far-right military veteran is likely to be viewed with some trepidation in Beijing, analysts told Caixin. Bolsonaro has been a vocal critic of China, accusing it of wanting to buy Brazil," rather than buy in Brazil. This will worry Chinese investors in the country, particularly after Malaysias Mahathir Mohamad moved to cancel $22 billion-worth of planned Chinese projects after becoming the countrys prime minister in May. Bolsonaro has also voiced his desire to withdraw from multilateral organizations and increase political ties with the global north, especially the United States, breaking from the policies of his predecessors. Our way is different from what the previous government did, friendly and loyal to communist regimes, he wrote in a tweet last March. Caixin spoke to several analysts to explore what Bolsonaros victory means for China-Brazil relations and Chinese investment in the country. While major questions remain, the consensus view appeared to be that Bolsonaro the president will be more pragmatic and less provocative toward China than Bolsonaro the candidate. Economic ties China has long been a major source of investment in Brazil, pouring at least $63 billion into the country over the last five years, with almost half flowing into the countrys abundant energy sector, according to data from the American Enterprise Institute. Brazil is also Chinas second biggest target of lending in South America, behind crisis-ridden Venezuela. Yet the president-elect has been a long-time advocate of a strong state presence in strategic industries, which could spell trouble for the influx of Chinese investment that has accompanied the previous administrations efforts to encourage the privatization of state-owned assets, said Jimena Blanco, head of Latin America at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. For example, state-owned behemoth China National Petroleum Corp. announced it was forming a joint venture with Brazilian state-owned peer Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) just two weeks ago that would help to kickstart construction of the latters stalled $16 billion refinery near Rio de Janeiro. Deals with China could provide a lifeline to Petrobras, said Lucia Caamano, head of intelligence at AKE International, as the government looks to lighten the crippling debt burden of the company that played a prominent role in the corruption scandal that led to the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff. Yet unanswered questions remain over how much Bolsonaro will countenance allowing China to play a role in critical infrastructure, analysts told Caixin, particularly as right-wing nationalism and a strong state presence have long been hallmarks of Bolsonaros pro-military faction. Contract reviews or making life just a little more difficult for Chinese companies trying to get hold of mining or hydro or even oil interests could be part of Brazils new reality, Caamano said. Bolsonaros basic tendency seems to be in line with that of the Brazilian military, which has always had a nationalist and state-led view of the economy and heavy industry in particular, said Jill Hedges of Oxford Analytica. But it isnt very clear yet whether the finance minister or military advisers will have greater influence, she added. Blanco agrees, while noting that investors will take it as a positive sign that Bolsonaro has taken on the pro-foreign investment Paulo Guedes as his main economic advisor. Another bugbear for Bolsonaro has been Chinese efforts to gain a foothold in mining Brazils niobium, a metal used in the production of strong, heat-resistant superalloys, of which Brazil holds about 85% of the global supply, said Verisk Maplecrofts Blanco. He was highly critical of the previous governments decision to allow state-owned China Molybdenum Co. Ltd. to buy a niobium mine for $1.7 billion in 2016, which Bolsonaro argued would substantially boost the national economy if kept in Brazilian hands. No analyst mentioned the looming specter of nationalization, however. Taiwan tensions Analysts largely agree that Bolsonaro is likely to be far more pragmatic once in office. Theres a possibility of a shift to seeking foreign domestic investment (FDI) from elsewhere, said Hedges. However, such a shift might be limited by necessity in any case Brazil has significant needs in terms of infrastructure investment, and that might not be forthcoming from preferred sources, and its own state resources are under considerable strain, she added, noting that Argentinas president Mauricio Macri also said he would shift away from China without doing so in practice. Bolsonaro will also have to manage the expectations of the farm lobby, one of his largest backers, members of which have benefited from increased trade with China in light of the U.S.-China trade war. Brazils soybean exports to China leapt 20% year-on year between January and August, according to Brazils agriculture ministry. The incoming president is unlikely to antagonize this base by taking action that threatens Brazils exports to China, Hedges reckons. A potential flashpoint in relations is Bolsonaros previous support of Taiwan, which China views as a renegade province. While extending his congratulations at a daily press briefing on Monday, Chinas foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang reminded the president-elect that Chinas international relations are based on the One-China Principle, which prevents countries from establishing diplomatic ties with both Taiwan and China. This was perhaps a direct nod to Bolsonaros visit to Taiwan during the election campaign, becoming the first Brazilian presidential candidate to do so since Brazil established formal ties with the Peoples Republic of China in the 1970s. Many experts who spoke with Caixin agreed that Bolsonaros anti-China rhetoric could cause the political relationship to cool somewhat, especially if the president-elect follows through on promises to scale back Brazils involvement in multilaterals. China is looking to Brazil for support as a major player in the BRICS group of emerging economies, with Brazil set to host next years presidential summit. However, Bolsonaros campaign rhetoric does not indicate that he would uphold an agreement to support the multilateral global trade system, such as the one signed by the leaders of the five countries last year. However, analysts also expect that the strength and depth of economic relations will ultimately prevail. These are ties that bind despite the political environment, said Margaret Myers, director of the Asia and Latin America program at the Inter-American Dialogue. Certainly, it can have an impact on bigger projects, that are government-backed or would have a political dimension. But the commercial and investment-related activity would continue. The Global Times, a nationalistic state-backed Chinese tabloid, maintained through multiple articles that ultimately Brazil would not turn its back on China. In an editorial, the outlet referred to Bolsonaro as someone who does not really understand China and emphasized that partnership with China is mutually beneficial. Sun Shaolong of state-funded think tank Institute for Contemporary China and the World echoed a similar sentiment. Bolsonaro is not Trump, and we must not overanalyze his election, he wrote in an opinion piece on China News. In the long run, China-Brazil relations will still have a stable foundation. Myers noted that China has no interest in losing Brazil as a strategic partner. I dont think they would give up in the case of Brazil either given the strength of the economic ties and the importance of Brazil as an anchor for Chinese engagement in the region, she said. Contact reporters Ke Dawei (daweike@caixin.com) and Ren Qiuyu (qiuyuren@caixin.com) A model of a train is displayed at a CRRC booth at an exhibition in Fuzhou, Fujian province on June 20. Photo: VCG State-owned train-car manufacturer CRRC Corp. has announced that its overseas assets ballooned more than tenfold to 34 billion yuan ($4.9 billion) from 2013 to 2017. The company touted the increase in its assets abroad as a sign that it has made major strides in its expansion abroad since 2013, when it had about 3 billion yuan in overseas assets. That was the year that President Xi Jinping first proposed the Belt and Road Initiative. The initiative is an ambitious project to forge trade and investment links with other parts of the world through overseas investment. At a media event on Tuesday, CRRC also announced it had hired 5,700 people outside China by the end of last year, including 4,700 local employees, a figure that was up from 509 in 2013. The announcement came days after Chinas largest maker of train cars said it had secured two overseas deals in Turkey and Chile. On Friday, a CRRC subsidiary signed a contract worth $500 million with the government of Istanbul. Also on the same day, another CRRC unit won a bid in Chile to sell 36 train cars to local rail operators for an undisclosed amount. The agreements show that the company has had success with its overseas expansion at a time when rising trade tensions between Washington and Beijing have cast doubt upon Chinese companies abilities to close deals abroad. Lou Qiliang, vice president of CRRCs overseas operations, attributed its success in Turkey to what he called the companys localization strategy. CRRC has been hiring local citizens, setting up local facilities and procuring components from Turkish companies since 2013, he said. Without this long-term cooperation, Lou said it would not have been possible for CRRC to win the bid against such stiff competition as Frances Alstom SA and Spains CAF. For the nine months through September, CRRCs profits rose 11% to 7.5 billion yuan on revenue of 135 billion yuan, according to its latest financial report. Contact reporter Mo Yelin (yelinmo@caixin.com) news, latest-news What's the Halloween equivalent of a Christmas Grinch? Whatever it is, we know there are only a handful across Canberra who just don't buy into "another American excuse to spend money". But we've done our research and can confirm Canberrans are definitely into Halloween. In fact, some of us are downright obsessed with the spookiest day of the year. Halloween, known formally as All Hallow's Eve, begins the three-day observance of Allhallowtide, a time in the Christian calendar dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs and all the faithful departed. While it's believed to have originated in the United Kingdom, Halloween is becoming more and more popular in Australia each year - and Canberra's no exception. The Facebook group 'ACT and surrounding areas Trick or Treat locations list' has 1800 people eagerly awaiting the release of the best places to trick or treat across Canberra's suburbs. The list is due to be released at 5pm on Wednesday, October 31 and is basically the creepy equivalent of where to find Christmas lights in Canberra. Jerrabomberra and parts of Queanbeyan get involved in Halloween in a big way, with entire streets decorated in cobwebs, skeletons and ghouls. Newer Canberra suburbs like Amaroo welcome trick or treaters, as do established suburbs like Watson. In O'Connor, residents place pumpkin stickers on their letterboxes to let kids know it's OK to knock. The Crace Community Group and Googong Residents Association go above and beyond, releasing maps of their suburbs with the participating homes highlighted. But there are three Canberra destinations sure to scare the life out of the families who dare to knock this Wednesday night. One is Shawna Ward Rando's house on Paterson Street in Ainslie. Shawna, a California native, already has kids from right across her suburb visiting and admiring her frightening display. The Haunted Chop Shop, on Benduluk Street in Ngunnawal, is home to all the gore your stomach can handle. With a Wolf Creek meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre theme, it's packed with body parts hanging from chains, fake axes and bloodied aprons. But the prize has to go to Wanniassa, home of the Canberra Halloween House, where owners Connie and Ian Warburton and their family have spent 20 years on a collection of decorations to, ahem, die for. The small brick home is surrounded by a Madame Tussaud's-style gallery of life-sized animatronic figures, including evil clowns, a dead butler, witches and more than a few demons. Step too close and they'll start talking to you; some warning you to stay away and many offering a "Happy Halloween". Spiders the size of small cars lie in wait on the side of the Warburtons' house, while a temporary graveyard takes pride of place on the front lawn. "Children left unattended will be used for medical experiments", a sign screams. The family even builds a 7m x 2m haunted house in the driveway each year for kids to explore. Connie Warburton estimates her Halloween collection to be worth $10,000, sourced mostly from the UK, the US and the local Costco. "We do Christmas lights each year but it's nothing like the scale of our Halloween display," Connie said. "I love the spooky, mystical element of Halloween and it's great for kids. "Kids love it - on the night there are so many giggles, laughing and jumping and squealing with delight. "That makes it all worthwhile." /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/c904120e-0a96-432e-a55a-9f1f2b8dcbcb/r0_226_4256_2631_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, latest-news The redevelopment of the Australian War Memorial to be unveiled on Thursday will include demolishing and rebuilding Anzac Hall, the memorial's director Brendan Nelson has confirmed. Visitors to the Australian War Memorial will be able to watch soldiers at work in real time, as part of a half-a-billion-dollar redevelopment of the Canberra institution. Dr Nelson will on Thursday outline plans to significantly expand its exhibition and public space. The ambitious project will cost $498 million and be completed in discrete stages over nine years. The plans are expected to include a complete redesign of the memorial's lower ground floor and a new underground exhibition hall to display large items such as helicopters and jet fighters. The redevelopment will include a live feed of current defence activities, an area for quiet reflection and a display of the nation's cenotaphs and memorial. In July The Canberra Times revealed details of the draft plan, which show the expansion would cater for more visitors and make the memorial relevant to future generations. Talking to ABC Canberra on Thursday morning, Dr Nelson said Anzac Hall would be rebuilt to include two levels. "By the time it goes down we will have had 19 wonderful years out of it. We are going to rebuild Anzac Hall, deeper, wider. It will be on two levels. Everything thats in there now will be replicated on one level and the modern operations ... will be done on another level." "We are then going to build an atrium, like the British Museum between the new Anzac Hall and the back of the existing memorial. That will enclose the HMAS Brisbane bridge, well be able to put large objects in there to tell the stories of the men and women who used and supported those. Well have a coffee shop area in there," Dr Nelson said. "We'll build a new building behind Poppies [cafe] and take all the back-end operations out of the memorial proper to redevelop them for exhibition space and a new exhibition hall will go underground at the front, with an underground entrance from the underground carpark and two discreet pedestrian entrances east and west and new parking out the back." Dr Nelson said the National Capital Authority was comfortable with the design proposed. The original architects of Anzac Hall had written to the memorial and asked for alternatives to demolition to be considered, as the hall was built in 2001 at a cost of $17 million, Fairfax Media reported this week. On ABC Canberra on Thursday Dr Nelson said the cost of the original hall was $14 million. Former principal historian at the war memorial Professor Peter Stanley said the suggestion that Anzac Hall would be demolished was a scandalous waste of money. "It is only 17 years old and is perfectly fit-for-purpose," Professor Stanley said. "I do think that the proposed redevelopment is unjustified, especially given the money spent on the memorial during the Great War centenary and the poverty inflicted on comparable national cultural institutions." Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the redevelopment initiative is about "the practical recognition and support our service men and women deserve". "We're going to make the Australian War Memorial's vision a reality so they can tell new stories in new ways," he said in a statement. "As well as being able to display more of their collection, we want the Australian War Memorial to be able to proudly tell the stories from recent years in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Solomon Islands and East Timor." Dr Nelson said the revamped memorial would more substantially tell the stories of current conflicts, operations, peacekeeping and humanitarian missions and those over the past 40 years. The range and duration of contemporary conflicts is said to have stretched the memorial's current gallery space. However the expansion will increase visitor areas by more than 80 per cent. With AAP /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/80bdadba-76f1-4945-96fe-840143e9b69d/r177_0_4000_2160_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, crime Three men will stand trial accused of killing Canberra man Bobby Stuart Allan. Graeme Vickerstaff, 46, Dean Phillip Welsh, 49, and Colin Maxwell Booth, 33, maintained pleas of not guilty in the ACT Magistrates Court to charges of murder. Magistrate Beth Campbell committed the defendants to the ACT Supreme Court to stand trial. Mr Allan, 48, died in the front yard of a Goodenia Street home early on December 17 after being assaulted by an unknown number of assailants. Police have previously said Mr Allan may have gone to the home for help about 5.25am after he suffered critical injuries in the alleged attack. He died at the scene. The matter will next appear in court in November. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/59b0b033-b172-4aaa-b4f3-495de82c56b7/r0_118_2000_1248_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, crime A 19-year-old man has been charged with using his room at the University of Canberra as a clandestine drug lab, after an explosion at the student hall on Tuesday night. Canberra police say they found chemicals, as well as a notebook with the chemical formula of the drug MDMA, in a fourth-floor room at Cooper Lodge. The man was taken to the Canberra Hospital and students were evacuated for large parts of Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon. Police said the scene had been contained, and there was no ongoing threat to public safety. The man, who was arrested in hospital, faced the ACT Magistrate's Court on Thursday morning. On Wednesday, film student Aditya Jain was cooking his dinner on the sixth floor of Cooper Lodge when an alarm sounded to evacuate after 7pm. Others described running out the door without their shoes, or with few belongings, as the alarm system advised them to "avoid the fourth floor". Students were put up in the nearby refectory with pizza and movies until about midnight, when most were allowed back in, save for those on the fourth floor. But late on Wednesday morning students were evacuated again and more emergency crews with hazmat gear descended on the campus. By 8pm mostly police remained on scene. Third-year law student Mudit Bhandari said he thought the initial evacuation was a hoax at first. The next morning when he returned to the lodge after class about 11.30am he found even more police and fire trucks outside. "They wouldn't let us back in, it was all a big quarantine zone," he said. While level three and four of Cooper Lodge, as well as commercial buildings nearby, were evacuated again on Wednesday afternoon, by the evening a university spokeswoman confirmed just parts of the fourth floor remained cordoned off. A small number of affected students had been relocated to different rooms for the night, she said. Melodie van Wyk said she and her friends had remained inside the lodge during the evacuation as they were worried if they left they would be locked out. "We're kind of trapped here until they tell us what's happening, we need to study," she said. Mr Bhandari said the university had been looking after students well as they waited it out. Theyve said theyll give us extensions on work and theres free food and counselling, there's support," he said. Third-year student Harrison Thiele, who lives on campus nearby, said fire alarms had often gone off in Cooper Lodge but he hadn't heard of anything like Tuesday night's incident before. "My friend was on the first floor, he didn't even have time to get his shoes on." Students travelled to neighbouring halls or pulled out sleeping bags in the Refectory to wait out the initial evening evacuation, he said. The university's director of student life, Scott Pearsall, thanked students for their patience in an email on Thursday morning. "We understand that disruptions can be particularly difficult at this time of the year," Mr Pearsall's email read. "Our student welfare and medical and counselling teams are available for support." The university's student representative council postponed its Halloween event on Wednesday night due to the partial closure of Cooper Lodge. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/5bf3e893-dd95-4477-8ad0-96c70c64177f/r0_148_1600_1052_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg news, act-politics Unions ACT boss Alex White has accused Access Canberra chief Dave Peffer of "almost maladministration" after a damning review of WorkSafe ACT found problems with its approach to policing workplace safety. The Barr government announced on Tuesday the watchdog will be restructured to become more independent, after an external review found the current governance model gave it a low degree of autonomy. It recommended WorkSafe be overhauled and a single commissioner instilled with the statutory authority to regulate workplace health and safety in the ACT. At the moment Work Safety Commissioner Greg Jones is not the regulatory decision-maker - Mr Peffer as the head of Access Canberra is. It also found the use of improvement notices had dropped by 75 per cent since WorkSafe became part of Access Canberra and inspectors were confused about its educate and engage approach to compliance. Mr White told ABC Radio on Wednesday morning the leadership of Access Canberra had been "called into question" by the review. "The ACT is the second-most dangerous place in Australia to work. Weve got 3500 serious injuries every year," Mr White said. Mr White went further, saying Access Canberra should have provided more information to ACT ministers Rachel Stephen-Smith and Gordon Ramsay, who've both overseen the regulatory agency at different points. It really is almost maladministration in our view, what the review shows," Mr White said. Ms Stephen-Smith confirmed that she was provided with sufficient information and rejected the suggestion there should be a leadership cleanout at Access Canberra. "I dont think this report goes to the leadership of Access Canberra at all," she told ABC Radio. Ms Stephen-Smith said Mr Peffer was entitled to make decisions about work safety as he was the regulator. She acknowledged there had been "teething issues" with applying Access Canberra's 70:20:10 engage, educate and enforce model to WorkSafe ACT. "Oh look I think ... weve learnt quite a lot over the last year around whether or not the compliance framework that Access Canberra has adopted ... is the right one for WorkSafe ACT," Ms Stephen-Smith said. "Its always been the case that WorkSafe ACT had the capacity to adjust that and inspectors had the capacity to do that but that was not clear to inspectors and that was very clear in the report and it has become clear over the last 12 to 18 months within the structure of Access Canberra and within WorkSafe ACT and that has been accepted even prior to these recommendations and thats coming down via Access Canberra." Mr Peffer did not respond to a Canberra Times interview request. An ACT government spokeswoman said: "We will not be commenting in response to Mr Whites comments made this morning." She pointed out there had been an improvement in workplace safety in recent years. "Since 2010-11 there has been a 20 per cent reduction in lost-time injuries in the ACT, including a reduction of 8 per cent in the last two years. This means hundreds more Canberrans are returning home safely each day," the spokeswoman said. The Nous group review was commissioned in May by Regulatory Services Minister Gordon Ramsay and Employment Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith, after unions last year said folding the agency into Access Canberra in 2015 had softened its approach to work safety. Ms Stephen-Smith said the government had agreed in-principle to all the recommendations, but was required under the enterprise agreement to consult staff about any restructure. She also said creating the new commissioner role with statutory authority would require legislative change. /images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/1a0b8cf6-a1ff-4ed9-9abb-1d87ca668e45/r0_113_2000_1243_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg Modified On Dec 18, 2018 11:43 AM By Dinesh for Toyota Camry The new Camry is longer and wider than its predecessor and will be based on the TNGA platform Toyota has launched the eighth-gen Camry in Thailand after it went on sale in Japan, Australia and North America last year. First showcased at the 2017 Detroit Motor Show, the eighth-gen Camry is expected to come to India by 2019. Platform And Dimensions The new Camry is based on the Toyota New Global Architecture (TNGA) platform which also underpins the seventh-gen Lexus ES300h that was introduced in India earlier this year. As a result, the new Camry is 35mm longer and 15mm wider than its predecessor, which measures 4850mm X 1825mm X 1480mm (LxWxH). The new Camry also gets a 50mm longer wheelbase, which should make the cabin a lot more roomier than before. Design The Thai-spec sedan, which is the one thats expected to be launched here, differs ever so slightly from the international-spec model as far as the design is concerned. The changes are limited to the front fascia as the Thai-spec sedan features a different front bumper with fog lamps. The rear profile remains untouched. Unlike the exterior, the interior looks identical to the international-spec version save for a different dashboard trim, which differs as per market requirements. It features a cockpit-style layout, which means that all the gauges are angled towards the driver. The new Camry also features Toyotas latest Human Machine Interface that integrates a variety of information through three interlinked displays - a 10-inch colour head-up Display (HUD); a 7-inch multi-information display within the instrument cluster as well as an 8-inch audio/navigation display and climate control panel that sits flush in the centre console. Also Read: Toyota Rush May Not Come To India, And The Reason Is Engine The Thailand-spec Camry is available with two engine options - a 2.0-litre 167PS/199Nm petrol engine mated to a 6-speed AT and a 2.5-litre 209PS/250Nm petrol engine coupled with an 8-speed AT. Apart from these, the new Camry is also available with a hybrid powertrain. The Camry Hybrid gets a 2.5-litre petrol engine coupled with an electric motor for a combined output of 211PS. Like the outgoing Camry Hybrid, power is sent to the front wheels via an e-CVT gearbox. In India, the eighth-gen Camry is expected to be available with the hybrid powertrain only. The outgoing India-spec Camry is also powered by a combination of a 2.5-litre petrol engine and an electric motor with a combined power output of 205PS. Features The Thai-spec Camry is loaded with features. It gets nine airbags, lane departure alert, traction control, ABS with EBD, blind spot monitoring, pre-collision system, rear cross-traffic alert, hill launch assist and a radar-based cruise control. Other features on offer include automatic LED headlamps, LED tail lamps, LED daytime running lamps (DRLs), 8-way adjustable ventilated front seats, a three-zone climate control, a wireless mobile charging pad, a head-up display, reclining rear seats and a 9-speaker JBL sound system. Apart from the radar-based cruise control system, all the above-mentioned features are expected to make their way into the India-spec model as well. Price And Rivals The new Camry, when launched in India, is likely to attract a slight premium over the outgoing model which is priced at Rs 37.22 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). In Thailand, the new Camry is offered in four variants which are priced between 14,45,000 Baht to 17,99,000 Baht (Rs 32 lakh to Rs 39.8 lakh approx.). It will continue to rival the likes of the Honda Accord Hybrid, Skoda Superb and the Volkswagen Passat. Also Read: Skoda Superb Sportline Launched At Rs 28.99 Lakh Read More on : Toyota Camry Automatic The richest finals ever offered in the Massachusetts Sire Stakes (MASS) were contested at Plainridge Park on Tuesday, Oct. 30 with eight divisions of horses competing for their share of the $800,000 up for grabs. Highlights of the day include 2017 2-year-old titleholders Delco Dusty and Im A Clown became two-time champions as they also took sophomore honors, a total of five horses remained undefeated in MASS competition this year, trainers George Ducharme and Domenico Cecere each started two divisional winners and drivers Scott Zeron and Shawn Gray each won two races during the series finals. The following is a summary of all eight MASS divisional finals. $100,000 Three-Year-Old Pacing Filly Champion Delco Dusty (Jeremes Jet-Gypsys Good Girl) Time: 1:55 Owner: Jesse De Long Trainer: Jimmy Nickerson Driver: Shawn Gray Breeder: Jesse De Long Mutuel: $5.20 Gonna Hear Me Rohr got away quick and led fellow co-favourites Rock Me Threetimes and Delco Dusty to the quarter in :28.3. It was at that station that Gray pulled Delco Dusty and brushed past Gonna Hear Me Rohr to take the lead by the time the race went into the second turn. Delco Dusty looked strong on the front rolling past three-quarters in 1:26.1 and at the top of the stretch he held a two-length lead. But Campbell was not done and he started working Gonna Hear Me Rohr hard as she ducked into the pylon lane. Campbell kept rocking while Gray leaned still in the bike as Delco Dusty held on to win by a head in 1:55. It was the fourth win in the last five starts for Delco Dusty who is showing $111,193 on her card this year. $100,000 Three-Year-Old Pacing Colt and Gelding Champion Im A Clown (Im Gorgeous-Lordy Miss Scarlet) Time: 1:54.4 Owner: Nelson Malin III Trainer: Kevin Switzer Driver: Mitchel Cushing Breeders: KDK Standardbreds and Nelson Malin III Mutuel: $2.20 Im A Clown was as dominant today as hes been in the three preliminary legs. After grabbing an easy lead, Cushing held tight lines on Im A Clown as he cut fractions of :27.2, :57 and 1:25.3. At that last station Cushing popped the plugs, gave a little leather slack and Im A Clown exploded into the last turn and opened up four lengths immediately. When he turned for home there was no one to challenge and Im A Clown won by six in 1:54.4. Im a Clown has now won four in a row, all in MASS competition and has boosted his annual income to $83,391 as a result. $100,000 Three-Year-Old Trotting Filly Champion Ithinkthatsmine (RC Royalty-Super Starlet) Time: 1:58 Owner: Ray Campbell Jr. Trainer: George Ducharme Driver: Shawn Gray Breeder: Ray Campbell Jr. Mutuel: No betting Ithinkthatsmine watched as stablemate Bag O Chips took command. She followed along for almost a quarter mile before Gray pulled her to take the lead at that first marker. After getting to the half in :57.4 and the three-quarters in 1:27.4 Ithinkthatsmine was on top by four and cruising. But Gray took his foot off the pedal at the head of the lane and Ithinkthatsmine trotted home handily and two lengths ahead of Bag O Chips in 1:58. It was the 10th win of the year for Ithinkthatsmine who went four-for-four in the 2018 MASS and now has $162,280 in earnings this year. $100,000 Two-Year-Old Trotting Filly Champion Taylor Swiftly (Trixton-True Diva) Time: 1:58.1 Owner: Lindy Farms of Connecticut Trainer: Domenico Cecere Driver: Scott Zeron Breeder: Lindy Farms of Connecticut Mutuel: $2.10 Just Enuf Sass left sharply and took the lead as Taylor Swiftly settled in second going into the turn. Sensing the tepid quarter rating, Zeron tipped Taylor Swiftly before hitting the front straight and took over the lead as they passed the grandstand. Taylor Swiftly tended to her business while Just Enuf Sass and Crystalline tracked her from behind second and third. But coming out of the final turn, Just Enuf Sass made a break and Taylor Swiftly strode out to a nine-length advantage and hit the wire the easiest of winners in 1:58.1. Taylor Swiftly has now earned $151,175 on the strength of five wins this year, two of which came in the MASS races. $100,000 Two-Year-Old Trotting Colt and Gelding Champion Simple Kaos (RC Royalty-Ksenia) Time: 1:58.4 Owners: George Ducharme Stable and Michelle Larson Trainer: George Ducharme Driver: Jimmy Whittemore Breeder: Michelle Larson Mutuel: $2.20 Simple Kaos floated out fourth while Precision and The Fixer moved for the top. After The Fixer finally took the lead, Whittemore brought Simple Kaos out, brushed to the front and then proceeded to demolish the field. Simple Kaos was on top at the half by five, extended that to seven at the three-quarters and flew down the lane by as many as he wanted to be a wrapped-up winner in 1:58.4. Simple Kaos has now won four in a row, all in MASS competition and has earned $123,750 as a result. $100,000 Two-Year-Old Pacing Colt and Gelding Champion Victorias Maverick (Western Maverick-Perfect Launch) Time: 1:56.1 Owners: Leighton Property and Bruce Plouffe Trainer: Valerie Grondin Driver: Heath Campbell Breeder: Lynn-Marie Plouffe Mutuel: $2.60 Victorias Maverick kept the same strategy that has worked so well in his three previous MASS wins and went to the front. After a decent :27.3 first quarter Victorias Maverick didnt have to work too hard from there, getting to the half in :56.2 and three-quarters in 1:26.2. With Levi following him close the whole mile, Campbell took no chances and chased Victorias Maverick in the lane to keep him interested and responded to win by three in 1:56.1. Victorias Maverick now has a total six wins this year after sweeping his MASS legs with $133,973 in earnings. $100,000 Three-Year-Old Trotting Colt and Gelding Champion Kinda Lucky Lindy (Lucky Chucky-Kinda Crazy Lindy) Time: 1:57.4 Owner: Lindy Farms of Connecticut Trainer: Domenico Cecere Driver: Scott Zeron Breeder: Lindy Farms of Connecticut Mutuel: $3.40 Hashtagmadeyalook got the first call in the race but Kinda Lucky Lindy soon took over and put on a clinic when he did. With the whip under his arm and nothing more than a line-drive from there, Zeron sat the passenger while Kinda Lucky Lindy did all the work himself. After cutting fractions of :28.2, :58.2 and 1:28.4, Kinda Lucky Lindy turned for home with the rest of the field unable to keep up. He dug in and opened up a three-length lead under the wire and won in 1:58.4. It was the fifth win of the year and second in MASS competition for Kinda Lucky Lindy who has now earned $114,284 in purses. $100,000 Two-Year-Old Pacing Filly Champion Karans Choice (Sportswriter-Denverlove) Time: 2:00 Owner: Al Ross Trainer: Jim Hardy Driver: Jim Hardy Breeder: Al Ross Mutuel: NB Karans Choice dropped in second behind A Gal Named Harry and was content to sit in tow for the first part of the mile. After getting to the half in :59.3, A Gal Named Harry started to fatigue and Hardy tipped Karans Choice at the five-eighths and rolled to the top. From the three-quarter pole on, Hardy was sitting chilly and line-driving Karans Choice who kept a consistent two-length advantage all the way to the wire where she won in 2:00. Karans Choice went undefeated in the MASS and now has $124,344 made for the year. (Plainridge Park) Darren McDonald from Tullow, Carlow, has been named Lions Club European Young Ambassdor 2018 at an international competition in Skopje, Macedonia. The 19 year old former student of Tullow Community School, was chosen by an international jury from among contestants from UK, Germany, Macedonia, Belgium, Italy, Ireland and Romania for the Young Ambassador title. He receives a bursary of 3,500 which he plans to invest in providing access for teenagers with special needs to Cafe JamRock at his local Tullow Club. Among the young people who will benefit from the project are students of St. Laserians Special School in Carlow, where Darrens two brothers, who both have Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), have been students. Darren has been a mentor to his brothers from an early age and has raised more than 6,000 to help buy a specially-designed minibus for the students of St. Laserians. He has promoted positive mental health awareness through the Youth Club and headed a Generation Connection project in which senior citizens and teenagers talk, sing and dance together with the teenagers sharing their IT know-how while the senior impart knowledge of local history and heritage. Darren has raised funds for HOPE Foundation in Kolkata, India, has won Gaisce and John Paul II awards for volunteering and has recently joined the Irish Army Reserve. He also owns and cares for more than 170 animals. Darren was nominated for the Young Ambassador Award by Carlow Lions Club and was accompanied at the competition by Lions Clubs District Youth Officer Brian OKeefe, who said: "We are tremendously proud of Darren, who is a wonderful ambassador and a role model for young people in Ireland and throughout Europe". Photo: The Canadian Press This undated photo provided by Don Williams shows Charles Wesco, his wife Stephanie and their children. Charles Wesco, an American missionary, died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, after being shot in the head amid fighting between armed separatists and soldiers in northwestern Cameroon, the director of the regional hospital said. (Don Williams via AP) An American missionary died Tuesday after being shot in the head amid fighting between armed separatists and soldiers in northwestern Cameroon, the director of the regional hospital said. Charles Trumann Wesco, a missionary from the U.S. state of Indiana who had been in the region for two weeks, was rushed to the hospital in Bamenda after he was gravely wounded while in his car, hospital director Kingue Thomson Njie said. "He died in our hospital after all attempts to save his life," Njie told The Associated Press. Wesco's wife, Stephanie, and eight children were still in Bamenda, he said. Dave Halyman, assistant pastor at Believers Baptist Church in Warsaw, Indiana, where Stephanie Wesco's father, Don Williams, is the senior pastor, said that Williams had spoken by phone with his daughter after the shooting. Reporting Williams' account, Halyman said the shooting happened as Charles and Stephanie Wesco were in a car being driven by another missionary to the town of Bamnui from the Bamenda suburb of Bambili, where the family has been living. He said Charles Wesco was in the front seat, and two shots hit the windshield and struck him in the head. No one else was hurt, Halyman said. The family had been in Cameroon for just 12 days before the shooting, Halyman said. He said they had raised financial support for two years and had been to Cameroon two years ago on a survey trip. "We're shocked and grieving at what's occurred. We're trying to get over the shock of losing someone as wonderful as Charles was," Halyman said. "While we don't like this, we understand that God has a great purpose." The missionary's brother is Indiana state Rep. Tim Wesco, who confirmed that his older brother had been killed. "He loved the Lord. He loved people. The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord," he said. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb issued a statement saying that he and his wife, Janet, "are thinking of Rep. Tim Wesco and his family as they grieve the death of his brother Charles. We ask that all Hoosiers join us in offering prayers and condolences to the Wesco family." Bamenda is in Cameroon's Northwest Region, the restive English-speaking area where armed separatists have been fighting with the military while attempting to create an independent state. Regional Gov. Deben Tchoffo said armed groups staged attacks to stop the reopening of the University of Bamenda, and the military fought back Tuesday. He said Wesco might have been caught in crossfire. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, has stressed boosting the development of the country's new generation of artificial intelligence (AI). Presiding over a group study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on Wednesday, Xi spoke of the need to strengthen leadership, make good plans, clearly define tasks and consolidate the foundation to promote deep integration of AI with economic and social development. A robot arm is on display at the stand of Zhejiang Qianjiang Robot Co., Ltd. (QJAR) during the 20th China International Industry Fair (CIIF 2018) in Shanghai on September 19, 2018. [File photo: IC] Xi said accelerating the development of new-generation AI is a strategic issue, key for China to seize the opportunities in the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation. Accelerating the development of new-generation AI is a key strategic resource for China to boost leapfrogging development in science and technology, industrial upgrading and overall productivity increase, he said. Xi spoke of the need to prioritize enhancing ability for original innovations and focus on key core technologies. He said China supports scientists venturing into unknown AI frontiers to achieve breakthroughs. He said key core AI technologies should be "securely kept in our own hands." Xi said China has a pressing need for major innovations in fields such as new-generation AI, as the country is in a pivotal stage for transforming its growth model, improving economic structure and creating new drivers of growth. A deeper integration of AI and industrial development can provide new power for high quality growth, he said. Xi highlighted the need for fostering leading AI enterprises and sectors. He called for integration of AI with primary, secondary, and tertiary industries to create new growth drivers in medium-high end consumption, innovation-driven development, the green and low-carbon economy, the sharing economy, modern supply chains, and human capital services. Xi said it was necessary to combine AI with improving living standards. He said AI should be used in areas such as education, health, sports, housing, transport, disabled and old-age care, and housekeeping. Xi said risk analysis in AI development should be strengthened and precautions stepped up to secure the people's interests and national security. It must be made sure that AI is safe, reliable and controllable, he said. Xi also stressed the need to establish and improve laws, regulations, institutions, and ethics to ensure healthy development of AI. He urged officials at all levels to work to learn cutting-edge science and technology, strengthen coordination and increase policy support. Occupying the pocket as Rubis Prescott and Cenalta Call Girl contested for the lead, Sodwana Bay edged out of the pocket into the stretch to nab a three-quarter length victory in the $8,500 Fillies and Mares Preferred 3 Pace on Tuesday, Oct. 30 at The Raceway at Western Fair District. Driver Alfie Carroll launched the Victor Puddy trainee from post seven for the pocket spot while Rubis Prescott secured the lead from the rail. By the quarter in :28.1, Rubis Prescott soon braced for a first-over challenge from Cenalta Call Girl past a :58.2 half and briefly forfeited the lead past a 1:27.1 third-quarter. Rubis Prescott reclaimed control with her inside advantage on Cenalta Call Girl rounding the final turn. A seam opened in the stretch for Sodwana Bay to split past her competition and the five-year-old No Pan Intended mare crossed the wire in 1:56.3 ahead of Cenalta Call Girl taking second from Rubis Prescott. Sodwana Bay competes for owners Wayne Mac Rae and Howmac Farms Limited. She won her 13th race from 36 starts this season and her 19th from 74 overall, earning $140,447, and returned $10.80 to win. To view Tuesday's harness racing results, click on the following link: Tuesday Results - Western Fair Raceway. The publicity department for the Grand Circuit has sent out its weekly recap and preview of Grand Circuit races. This Week: Carl Erskine Trot, Monument Circle, the USS Indianapolis and the Crossroads of America, Harrahs Hoosier Park, Anderson, Ind.; and Kindergarten finals, Meadowlands Racetrack, East Rutherford, N.J. Schedule of events: The Grand Circuit remains at Hoosier Park this weekend as the track will have four stakes races on the Friday (Nov. 2) card. Leading the way is the $256,000 Carl Erskine Trot for three-year-old male trotters. Also on tap will be the $190,000 Monument Circle for three-year-old male pacers, the $137,000 Crossroads of America for three-year-old filly trotters and the $113,000 USS Indianapolis for three-year-old filly pacers. On Saturday (Nov. 3), Meadowlands Racetrack will card the four Kindergarten Series finals for two-year-old pacers and trotters. The two-year-old colt trot carries a purse of $221,540, the two-year-old filly trotters will race for $236,060, the purse for the two-year-old colt pace is $173,800 and the two-year-old filly pacers will race for $148,700. Last time: The Downs at Mohegan Sun Pocono was in the Grand Circuit spotlight last weekend as the Pennsylvania oval hosted 12 Breeders Crown finals. Favoured McWicked ($3.80) moved to the lead at the five-eighths pole, easily putting away Lazarus N, and then opened up to win by more than three lengths in 1:49.3 in the $430,000 Breeders Crown Open Pace. Brian Sears drove McWicked for trainer Casie Coleman, as he won his third Breeders Crown trophy on the night. Early leader Filibuster Hanover rallied for second, while Donttellmeagain finished third. Mcwicked has now earned more than $3.7 million in his career after posting his 32nd lifetime win. Hes real easy to drive and he does everything you want. Its great to have the opportunity to drive such nice horses, said Sears. I always think hes gonna be good, said trainer Casie Coleman, but to think he is going to do what he did this yearI think he is better now than he was at three. He is a big team effort no doubt. Filibuster Hanover took the field to the quarter in :26.1, but Lazarus N was immediately out and winging, taking the field past the half in :55.2. McWicked pulled up the backside and easily disposed of his challenger, rolling past three-quarters in 1:22.2 before Sears took his foot off the gas in the stretch. McWicked is a seven-year-old bay horse by McArdle, out of the Western Ideal mare Western Sahara. He was bred by Andray Farm of Pennsylvania. Emoticon Hanover (Daniel Dube) won back-to-back Breeders Crown trophies after capturing the $250,000 Breeders Crown Mare Trot. Caprice Hill (Brian Sears) was on the lead at the first :27.1 quarter, before being quickly overtaken by Ariana G (Yannick Gingras) just past that marker. Ariana G held the lead to the :56.4 half, trailed by Emoticon Hanover and Broadway Donna. Broadway Donna was up to engage her on the outside just past the half, but Ariana G held that lead to the 1:25.2 three-quarters before Ice Attraction came up on the outside to make a try for the lead. While those two were looking for the finish line, Emoticon Hanover came charging on the outside to pass them both for the win in 1:54.1. The winner is trained by Luc Blais and owned by Determination. Shes nice right now, shes good, said winning driver Daniel Dube. We went to the passing lane last week, we went to the outside today. She does everything right, she is more relaxed. She is a special mare. Ive known Luc (Blais) a long time, but mostly to see him in the paddock. Now we have got to know each other, which is good. Ice Attraction (Ake Svanstedt) was second after a sweeping last to first bid and Caprice Hill was third. Grand Circuit Standings: In 2018, the Grand Circuit leaders in three categories (driver, trainer and owner) will once again be tracked on a points system (20-10-5 for the top three finishers in divisions/finals and 10-5-2 for the top three finishers in eliminations/legs). Winbak Farms is the sponsor for the 2018 Grand Circuit awards. Here are the leaders following the past weekend. Drivers: 1. Tim Tetrick 1,432.5; 2. Yannick Gingras 1,370; 3. David Miller 1,132.5; 4. Scott Zeron 704; 5. Andrew McCarthy 618.5. Trainers: 1. Ron Burke 1,274.5; 2. Jimmy Takter 1,128; 3. Tony Alagna 671.5; 4. Julie Miller 451; 5. Jim Campbell 437. Owners: 1. Fashion Farms 325; 2. Diamond Creek Racing 274.6; 3. Burke Racing Stable 273; 4. Weaver Bruscemi 256.5; 5. Marvin Katz 229.1. Looking ahead: Grand Circuit action will take place next week at Dover Downs as the Delaware track will host the Matron Stakes for two-year-olds of both sexes and gaits on the Thursday (Nov. 8) program. (Grand Circuit) Jindal Steel and Power to enter cement market 31 October 2018 Jindal Steel and Power (JSP) plans to establish a 2Mta cement plant near its Angul steel plant in Odisha, India. The company has already purchased the land for the plant, which will be established in an industrial park. JSP is now awaiting for the government to hand over the use of the land. The plant is estimated to cost INR5bn (US$67.7m). JSP will use granulated blastfurnace slag to produce blended cement at the new factory. "With the expansion of the steel making capability to 6Mta, we are now producing enough granulated slag to sustain a cement unit of 2Mta," said a company official. Published under Post Time with Mike and Mike, presented by Bet America, is excited to announce its line-up for Thursday morning (Oct. 31) at 10:30 a.m. The duo will be joined by Matt Kakaley, Tim Tetrick, Ryan Clements and Derrick Giwner. Kakaley, who scored his first ever Breeders Crown win, will join to discuss the emotions of winning his first Crown. Kakaley, who recorded two victories (Percy Bluechip and Dorsoduro Hanover), will discuss both trips and what the wins meant to him following a serious injury earlier in 2018. Tetrick, regular driver of Shartin N, will join to discuss the storied pacing mare that dominated her Breeders Crown final. Shartin N, who is trained by Jim Kng Jr., scored her 18th win in what was her 23rd start since coming to the United States. Clements, who created Catch Driver, will join to discuss his experience at EGLX, the largest gaming expo in Canada. He will discuss his experience and some of the new ideas he learned from the expo. Giwner, from the Daily Racing Form, will appear to discuss some of the highlights from the great weekend of racing and help interact some fan questions following an eventful Breeders Crown. Also, Mike and Mike have a big announcement on Thursday regarding the 2018 Post Time with Mike and Mike Awards. Post Time with Mike and Mike, presented by BetAmerica, can be heard live every Thursday at 10:30 a.m. via posttimewithmikeandmike.com or on the archive at betamerica.com/BARN. (With files from Post Time with Mike and Mike) Peninsula will look to win its third consecutive CIF-SS Open Division title Friday when it takes on Westlake, which beat the Panthers twice during the regular season. I once heard a neighbor, well-acquainted with prayer, introduce a happy answer from her past petitioning in a rather compelling way. Now y'all, this was a stupid request. But I was 20, you have to understand.... She had apparently been engaged to the wrong man, headed into a vocation and life into which she could not follow, and was desperately asking God for some form of escape hatch. The stupid request was obliged. During her soon to be terminated engagement to the wrong fella, she fortuitously met the young lad whod soon become her adoring spouse for the next 40+ years. Stupid Requests Reveal Daring Trust While I was heartened by the story, I was even more captivated by her lead-in. What resonated within and was so instructive to me was her daring to place such a stupid request before the Sovereign Lord: I was 20. You have to understand.... In other words, she reflected, I know I shouldnt have asked what I did. But I was just a kid. A fool. Immature. Scared. Unsure. Notice what she didnt say? Now y'all, I made this wise and sterling request, being, as I was, uncannily mature for a young woman of my age.... nor Now y'all, since I had proven my character so sterling and my heart so unified in devotion to Christ, I felt bold to make a case for why God should answer what I was worthy to have him do for me, and what he actually owed me at this point. nor Now y'all, formerly I had sinned in some embarrassing ways, but I just looked God right in the eye and I swore to him, plain as day, that Id never, ever, ever, ever do that again, and you better believe that I didnt, so then I knew, just knew, God was going to answer my prayer. Ridiculous Requests from Cheese Nope. None of that. Just a stupid request. One she apparently felt embarrassed to mention. But one she now feels giddy to report after 4 decades, perhaps because the statute of limitations has expired on reprisals from foolishness uttered at the end of adolescence. Of course, her confession was our formative instruction, compelling us not to conclude she ought to be ashamed for her stupidity, but that she and our Master should be lauded. It reminded me of another young womans audacious prayer. A 20-year-old Flannery OConnor in her Prayer Journal, which I dont suppose she ever intended would be published, (consider yourself warned budding journallers who might one day be heralded writers!), offered this outlandish and lovely prayer to a God who mattered to her so dearly and whom she wanted to have matter even more: What I am asking for is really very ridiculous. Oh Lord, I am saying, at present I am a cheese, make me a mystic, immediately. But then God can do thatmake a mystic out of cheeses. But why should He do it for an ingrate, slothful & dirty creature like me....But I would like to be a mystic and immediately. But dear God please give me some place, no matter how small, but let me know it and keep it. If I am the one to wash the second step everyday, let me know it and let me wash it and let my heart overflow with love washing it...So then take it (my soul) dear God because it knows that You are all it should want and if it were wise You would be all it would want...You are all it does want, and it wants more and more to want You. Its demands are absurd. Its a moth who would be king, a stupid slothful thing, a foolish thing, who wants God, who made the earth, to be its Lover. Immediately. Stupid requests are never knowingly made by the proud. Theres too much at stake. No one posing, mindful of their own branding, or image-managing finds themselves eager to ask for help, clarity, or renewal unless it be done with polished decorum. To ask stupidly might make them look, well, stupid. Being Thoroughly UN-Impressed with Ourselves Only those acquainted with embarrassing deficits in themselves grow skilled in making absurd requests of Christ, or of anyone. When youve been privileged to have grown so thoroughly unimpressed with yourself that you simply cant keep up the charade of impressing others, making the foolish ask or the audacious request makes more sense than guzzling a Gatorade after a balmy summer 10k. Incomplete in ourselves, asking to receive from Another, becomes a desperate logical necessity. Charles Spurgeon clearly intuited this dynamic of relief when he perceptively asserted a comprehensive yet succinct proverb for slothful ingrates who are learning to trust a patient King: The rule of the kingdom is asking. You cant hike through many trails in the Scriptures without stubbing your toe on another invitation to develop into habitual askers or an example of some troubled someone who has taken the advice to make what can feel like awfully stupid requests to heart. Asking Others Too NY Times Bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell, was once queried to disclose how he had developed such a keen capacity for asking questions of others. He promptly credited his dad. I paraphrase: My father..., though he has so many gifts, perhaps his finest of all is that he has zero intellectual insecurities, so he is never afraid to ask questions. He is always asking the obvious question, the dumb question, and does not care one whit whether anyone thinks he is idiotic or appears foolish. Hes not into that game... Gladwells father, a PhD in Mathematics, for instance, would gather frequently with his neighbors who were farmers in Canada...men who hadnt finished high school but whom he admired and from whom he was constantly interested to learn what they knew. They possessed potent knowledge and useful wisdom. And he was wise enough to know what he didnt know. He remedied his deficits with a posture of humility that asked questions every place he went. And never wearied of saying, Im sorry, I dont understand. Can you explain it to me? A Divine Absurdity Of course, to ask stupid questions or to make audacious requests of God or others, we must possess some solid sense of belonging. We have to, at least partially, believe that we have been known, clear through, absurdities, slothfulness, and filth and all, and yet accepted by Another any way. Christianity assures that it is a divine absurdity called the sacrifice of Christ that reassures those who trust Him that they have a permanent place to stand before God with nary a fear of being rebuffed. And by listening and leaning into Jesus insistence that we cant be clean unless he washes us, we get the courage to insist, ask, and request in the most audacious and friendly ways, just like Dr. Glidewell in his encounter of others, or my neighbor and Flannery OConnor in the college-aged versions of themselves as they approached God. For the Sake of YOUR Name Our audacity is bolstered because we know that any movement on his part in response to us is going to be generated by the kind of Lord he is, not because of the brand of beautiful wisdom and shiny righteousness we emit. So we can abandon all pretense and plead away for healing mercies. Thats why the psalmist can say, Show me the way I should go, for to YOU, O LORD, I lift up my soul. It is Gods nature to serve as divine Clorox to the heart-mildew of sin. It is our Saviors inclination to act in ways that absurd pray-ers, and stupid ask-ers crave. The Most Absurd Truth of All We make audacious request and bold petitions, because we trust Him to respond. We do so knowing that as we ask, we become more convinced he is listening and that He is serving his world with a heart that weeps and is moved by the plight of his often stupid little ones and even his enemies. Those little ones are those who have permitted him to wash them clean in one absurd act of sacrifice that occurred at the hands of foolish men making stupid accusations: He saved others, they raved in unwitting satirical confidence, but he cant save himself. And that, during the first holy week, was the most absurd truth of all. He saved others, but he couldnt save himself. It was hauntingly true that he couldnt save himself, because he was too intent on saving others. Sacrifice is a fools errand in a world where God isnt. But in the world that God steps into, it is the way for turning everything on its head, a sort of stupid, senseless, absurd, self-donation that yields brilliant, needful, exuberant hope for folks with the humility and sense to embrace it. Such folks fill their mouths and heavens ears with all sorts of audacious, ridiculous, and stupid requests, because they talk to the Sovereign King who can turn brutality to beauty, moths to kings, cheese to mystics, and the God-allergic to the God-cravers. ------ Contact Eric Youngblood, pastor of Rock Creek Fellowship on Lookout Mountain, at eric@rockcreekfellowship.org A Pittsburgh FBI agent, part of the phalanx guarding mass murderer Robert Bowers in Allegheny General Hospital, watched in silence as a gentle Jewish doctor checked to make sure the man who just killed 11 of his most-beloved friends all members of his own Jewish congregation -- was alright, Are you in any pain? the doctor asked. Is there anything I can do for you anything you need? At that, the man who entered the emergency room screaming All Jews must die! asked this doctor his name. I am Dr. (Jeff) Cohen . I am the president of this hospital, was the reply, and, as the doctor instantly became one of Americas greatest role models, the FBI agent could stand the sheer gravity of the moment no longer. I dont know if I could have done that, he said in the hallway, his voice emotional. Im sure if you were in my shoes, Im sure you could of,'" Cohen answered the agent, confirming anew that it is in the worst of times some of our everyday giants give us their best. "I thought it was important to at least talk to him and meet him," Cohen explained. "You cant on one hand say we should talk to each other, and then I dont talk to him. So you lead by example and Im the leader of the hospital and I have a powerful voice in the community." In another interview, Dr. Cohen explained, I wanted to try and understand why did he do this. And I have no answers, Cohen told Fox network, adding that the suspect listens to the noise and is completely confused. My job isn't to judge him... my job is to care for him," said Dr. Cohen, a noted urologist before he accepted his administrative job two years ago. He had a mother once, or maybe still does. He was loved by a family, Cohen said, How do you get from here to there? Sadly, there are the others who you wonder if they will ever get it. When Donald Trump was hurriedly making arrangements to get there, to be there as a mourning representative for all of the American people, the Pittsburgh Jewish community brazenly fanned the very flames of hate within 24 hours of the worst Jewish massacre in our history. One of the greatest axioms we cherish is, You can fake you care, but you cant fake showing up. Our President told Fox News, I'm just going to pay my respects," Trump said. I would have done it even sooner, but I didnt want to disrupt any more than they already had disruption." The White House officials called Rabbi Jeffery Myers, in whose synagogue 11 members of the Tree Of LifeOr LSimcha synagogue -- Congregation were slaughtered during Shabbat services Saturday morning. Im a citizen. Hes my president. He is certainly welcome, Myers said at the time. When I first said that the president was welcome, Ive received a lot of emails, too numerous to count, Ive received many that are not happy with those words. Those emails also contain hate. It just continues in this vicious cycle. We need to be better than this," he said The President invited our Congressional leaders to accompany him. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi - declined for whatever reasons. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said he would be too busy attending the funerals, Neither he nor Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Tom Wolf appeared with the President Tuesday, all of which seemed to fly in the face of our nations third hate crime in the last week. Yet the unbelievable reaction from the Jewish community was to protest. An open letter from Jewish leaders informed Trump, You are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully denounce white nationalism." According to one new account: More than 74,500 people have signed the letter, organized and posted online by the Pittsburgh chapter of Bend the Arc, a Jewish organization opposed to what it calls "the immoral agenda of the Trump administration and the Republican Party." Forget the tear-stained sign that is still standing at the synagogue door and reads, Hate has no home here. My gracious, it was less than a day before my shame was added to my sorrow. This isnt how Americans should act in the very face of a horrific tragedy. Instead, we should focus on the Catholic Rosary draped atop a flag of Israel with a scribbled note: We Christians Love The Jews. What our people must see are the faces of at least four Jewish doctors and nurses tending to one of our most despicable. Hospital president Cohen got it right: "We have a very simple mission at (Allegheny General Hospital) and I imagine its exactly the same at the other hospitals in the area: were here to take care sick people. Were not here to judge you," Cohen said. "Were not here to ask do you have insurance, or do you not have insurance. Were here to take care of people that need our help." One reporter asked Dr. Cohen where he gets such strength. I honestly dont know. I think some of it comes from the actions of the people around me," he was candid. "It comes from my mother-in-law, who (is a member of the Tree of Life synagogue and) sat with (the victims who were killed) every day. It came from being part of a community. It came from taking care of people for a long period of time." At a Monday vigil attended by over 3,000 in Pittsburgh, Rabbi Myers told the mourners: I want to address for a moment some of our political leaders who were here. Ladies and gentlemen, it has to start with you as our leaders. Stop the words of hate. If it comes from you, Americans will listen. You dont have to follow the prone to evil path. We can also be prone to good, the Rabbi added. If you decide to take that path, it starts with speech. Words of hate are unwelcome in Pittsburgh. Yet if the obviously embattled rabbi were to check in with many of the citys Tribe of Israel, theyve got 75,000 signatures of those unable to grasp Dr. Jeff Cohens bedside manner, much less his love and belief in The King of the Jews. * * * At one point during Mondays vigil, an unfamiliar man stepped to the podium. Wasi Mohamed, executive director of the Islamic Institute of Pittsburgh, took the stage. With tears in his eyes, he announced that the local Muslim community had raised over $70,000 for the victims and their families. The crowd responded with a standing ovation. When I look back at this day, Im not going to remember one individual filled with darkness, Mohamed told the crowd. Im going to remember the light. Im going to remember the thousands of people who showed up today or who are supporting us from all around the country. Thousands of people filled with love and hope. royexum@aol.com Students across the state in a "mock election" sided with two Republican candidates. In the race for governor, Bill Lee received 36,458 (65 percent) votes. Karl Dean received 20,012 (35 percent) votes. In the race for U.S. Senate, Marsha Blackburn received 31,507 (57 percent) votes. Phil Bredesen received 23,819 (43 percent) votes. Senate, Marsha Blackburn received 31,507 (57 percent) votes. Phil Bredesen received 23,819 (43 percent) votes. For the second time, the Tennessee Secretary of States office sponsored the Student Mock Election. Students from all three grand divisions of the state have cast their votes in the statewide races for Governor and U.S. Senate. These votes reflect who students would have elected as the next Governor and United States Senator of Tennessee if they were old enough to vote in the real election. Over 56,000 students from across the state participated in the 2018 Student Mock Election. Secretary of State Tre Hargett, along with Senator Brian Kelsey, and Rep. Mark White participated in announcing the winners of the statewide Student Mock Election at an event hosted by Germantown Middle School in Shelby County. The Student Mock Election is a fun and engaging exercise for students to participate in the election process, said Secretary of State Hargett. This is part of a larger effort to encourage civic involvement by students so it will be a natural progression for them to be involved when they become adults. I am very pleased with the participation from across the state and appreciate the teachers who worked hard to make this possible in the schools. The Mock Election is open to students in preschool through high school in public and private schools, as well as home school associations. Mock ballots allow students to choose between candidates from both the Republican and Democrat parties for the Gubernatorial and United States Senate races. Schools are also provided with I Voted stickers for students that cast a vote in their mock election. Let's think long and hard about Darrin Ledford and Jerry Mitchell's desires to slow development in hot areas. On the surface, it is easy to agree with big developers pulling their fair share of the weight while they are developing empty properties. They come in with millions of dollars of bank loans in order to build apartments, town homes or retail shops. Why wouldn't they have the money to spend a couple hundred thousand more on runoff control measures? The city already has a storm water review process, which requires developers to submit engineered plans. The city engineers dig through them and a resolution is met. Only after this process is completed will a building permit be issued. So why are we having this problem? Ask the residents in Black Creek who are dealing with excessive water run off. Ask the ones in North Chatt who are dealing with the same. Ask the folks who live along the creeks near Hamilton Place about how their streets and houses flood a little more every time a parking lot is added. Ask the First Tennessee Bank on East Brainerd Road that utilizes sand bags every time we get heavy rain. The answer can be found somewhere between our elected officials who make higher and higher barriers to entry and the developers who have deep pockets. You see, these developers do the dance of getting the engineers to design the half million dollar water run off system and then go down and put pressure on the Land Disturbance and Water Quality office to lower the requirements. The city employees are stuck in the middle, often delaying a response for fear of getting a call from the ivory tower. Eventually the call comes and they approve the development and building permits "with conditions." These often turn a blind eye to the expensive infrastructure that storm water wants. Sometimes, they merely require an appearance of run off control. In the end, the biggest developers waltz through the process without adhering to the rules or paying for the infrastructure. So why are we amping up the conversation? It's easy to see when you look at the parties in play. The developers will nod along, knowing that a campaign contribution is cheaper than doing the required infrastructure and it will keep the little guys from competing with the big developers. The elected officials make sure that the developers remember them every election season and they can tell the electorate that they are "fighting the good fight." Who loses? The property owners. The residents with homes flooded. The retired couple who want to develop their former business location because that was their nest egg (a one time developer). It only hurts the little guys. You and me. Darrin and Jerry, I only ask that you enforce the requirements already on the books. Mr. Bridger, let's partner up with the city's stormwater guys and get a good idea on how many developments adhered to the rules in the last five, 10 or 15 years. Prepare that information for the next council meeting before we add more useless words to the books. I'm for smart and fair development before crooked development Tim Giordano The staff of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park will host a two-hour car caravan tour on Sunday, Nov. 11 at 2 p.m. exploring the role of Chickamauga Battlefield and Fort Oglethorpe during the First and Second World Wars. This program begins inside the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center. "Just a few months after the Battle of Chickamauga, President Abraham Lincoln said, during the cemetery dedication in Pennsylvania, 'It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.' Even after the Civil War ended, future generations of Americans continued the work of securing and promoting democracy and Americas ideals at Chickamauga Battlefield. During the World Wars, large numbers of soldiers trained and served at Chickamauga and the growing nearby military post of Fort Oglethorpe," officials said. For more information about programs at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, contact the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center at 706-866-9241 or the Lookout Mountain Battlefield Visitor Center at 423-821-7786. State suspends Pueblo VitalPoint Urgent Care from vaccination program VitalPoint Urgent Care was suspended from administering COVID-19 vaccinations after an unannounced site inspection found "several irregularities." By Delana Isles AN ONLINE petition has been drafted to appeal to the Government to reconsider a residential part of Long Bay as the proposed site of a new primary school in Providenciales. The petition, titled Protect our homes and safeguard our childrens future in the TCI is seeking 1,000 signatures. So far 25 people have signed it, and there is no indication who started the petition. However, elected member for the Leeward and Long Bay constituency, Akierra Missick has spoken out on social media about the proposed construction on behalf of residents of the Long Bay area. She stated: "TCIG has selected a residential area to construct the school and as you can see it is a beautiful facility but the wrong area. "This can be accommodated on the 25 plus acres next to the Long Bay High School and not down a narrow road surrounded by Islanders whove invested significantly in their properties to capture the villa market rentals so that they can have a piece of the tourism pie like the developers. She added that the petition is not an objection to the development of a new primary school, but a request for consultation with residents and for consideration to be given to their concerns. She further stated: "This reminds me of when the juvenile home was proposed to be built on the Ridge in Grand Turk. The residents got together across party lines and spoke up. As a government, we the PNP listened and found another location. "This Government has refused to listen to the residents and that is very sad. "Have a review and lend your support so that the Government can be forced to sit at the table with my constituents and hear their concerns. In its executive summary, the petition outlines that the proposed project is for parcel number 61113/268 in Long Bay, Providenciales. It states: "Whilst the desire to see a modern primary school built on the island of Providenciales is encouraged, this petition is a strong objection to the chosen site on the basis that the site would not only adversely affect the safety and character of the residential area, but that the site also defeats the purpose for which the school should be built and for which the funding provided for its construction has been secured. It further states that nearby land is already zoned for the construction of educational facilities and that the proposed site is much smaller than the land already zoned. Further, the proposed site is merely a leased site, whereas the Ministry of Education currently owns alternative sites large enough to build the project and to allow for future modifications. The petition adds that the proposed site is difficult to access and will cause unnecessary traffic congestion causing problems not only for students but also for residents within the area as access is about one mile from the main road. It states that the land does not meet the environmental standards of a site which should house an educational institution as there is a nearby swamp and the site has proven to be susceptible to adverse impact following storms. "No environmental impact assessment has been reported to the public concerning the proposed site. "There is an urgent demand for a primary school elsewhere on Providenciales. "In the aftermath of the 2017 hurricanes, heavily populated areas such as Blue Hills remain without a primary school, while others such as Five Cays and The Bight struggle to cope with dilapidated buildings and overcrowding. "A more responsible use of Crown land and financial resources would focus on the construction of a school within one of these districts which currently scream for attention and investment by the Government. The petition clearly states that anyone who signs it would not be objecting to the building of a new primary school on the island, rather, they would be signifying a wish to encourage construction of such a school on a suitable site that meets current needs. "By signing this petition you request the TCI Government to conduct consultation exercise in good faith with the community most likely to be affected by the proposed development. Asia Bibi Acquitted, Christian Mother Speaks Out After 8 Years on Death Row: 'I Can't Believe It' Christian Post Contributor | 31 October, 2018 by Stoyan Zaimov Asia Bibi, the Christian mother of five who has been on death row for blasphemy since 2010, has been acquitted by Pakistan's Supreme Court. Although the decision was made back on October 8, it was held hidden from the public until its announcement on Wednesday. "The appeal is allowed. She has been acquitted. The judgement of high court as well as trial court is reversed. Her conviction is set aside," Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar declared in the 56-page judgment. "Her conviction is set aside and she is to be relieved forthwith if not required in other charges," he added. The ruling related to a 2015 appeal against the death sentence for Bibi, who in 2009 was accused by a group of Muslim coworkers of having insulted the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The court document explained that it is the onus of the prosecution to prove her guilt beyond reasonable doubt, something which the judges found it had failed to accomplish. "Keeping in mind the evidence produced by the prosecution against the alleged blasphemy committed by the appellant, the prosecution has categorically failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt," the justices found. Bibi, who has been the subject of campaigns by Islamic radicals in Pakistan calling for her death, could hardly believe that after nearly a decade in prison, she is to be set free. "I can't believe what I am hearing, will I go out now? Will they let me out, really?" Bibi told AFP by phone from prison. "I just don't know what to say, I am very happy, I can't believe it." Her lawyer, Saiful Mulook, spoke of the magnitude of the decision: "The verdict has shown that the poor, the minorities and the lowest segments of society can get justice in this country despite its shortcomings. This is the biggest and happiest day of my life." Bibi's husband, Ashiq Masih, pointed out that the family knew all these years that the wife and mother was innocent. "I am very happy. My children are very happy. We are grateful to God. We are grateful to the judges for giving us justice. We knew that she is innocent," Masih declared. "My wife spent so many years in jail and we hope that we will soon be together in a peaceful place." Major persecution watchdog groups, such as Open Doors USA, who have been campaigning for Bibi's freedom for years, hailed the verdict. "We are breathing a sigh of relief today after learning the Pakistani Supreme Court has dropped charges against Asia Bibi, as these charges stemmed from her Christian identity as well as false accusations against her," Open Doors CEO David Curry said in a statement shared with The Christian Post. "We are hopeful that Pakistan will now take additional steps to offer religious freedom and basic human rights throughout the country," he added. The British Pakistani Christian Association said that Christians in the country have been warned of the high risk of revenge attacks, however. Read more about Asia Bibi on The Christian Post. Christians have historically stood against an official state religion, especially those of the Baptist tradition, which is my denominational home. Leaving aside the obvious Constitutional issues with this, Christians should oppose the idea of a state religion because it is at odds with what the New Testament teaches about conversion and the nature of the church. NAIROBI, Kenya, October 31, 2018 (Morning Star News) Radical Muslims in eastern Uganda left a 12-year-old Christian boy unconscious on Thursday (Oct. 25) after threatening to strangle him to death unless he converted to Islam, sources said. Emmanuel Nyaiti was on his way to pick up some plates from his grandmothers house 200 meters from his home in Moru village, Kiryolo parish in Kaderuna Sub-County, Budaka District, when four area extremists ambushed him shortly after 9 p.m. and took him to a cassava plantation less than a mile away, his father said. The boy said he was able to identify one attacker as Ali Lukuman and another as Abdul. Ali Lukuman tried to persuade me to become a Muslim, which I refused, and he slapped me and I started screaming, Emmanuel told Morning Star News last week from his bed at Budaka Health Centre, his speech made difficult from strangulation and possible chloroform the assailants used on him. They continued threatening me that they will kill me if I will not convert to Islam. His father, Kauta Yokosofat, said there was a smell around his mouth that a doctor suspected was a kind of chloroform. Doctors also identified strangulation marks. My sons words could not be constructed well, as he looked confused and could not turn his neck with the strangulation marks, Yokosofat told Morning Star News. Lukuman had previously sent Yokosofat threatening messages, both by phone texts and face-to-face, Yokosofat said. If you want to stay with us in our village, then you have to become a Muslim, but if not then you have to leave, Lukuman would tell him, according to Yokosofat, a member of Kiryolo Church of Uganda. He and neighbors had formed a search team and were looking for the missing boy when they heard a loud cry from the cassava plantation, he said. The assailants had already fled when they found the boy unconscious and half-dead, he said. The attack has instilled fear in Christians in predominantly Muslim Kaderuna Sub-County. Yokosofat has reported the case to Budaka police, who say they are investigating while the assailants have yet to be found. I know the perpetrators will be caught and punished in the courts of law, Yokosofat told Morning Star News. The assault was the latest of many in eastern Uganda that Morning Star News has documented in the past six years. Ugandas constitution and other laws provide for religious freedom, including the right to propagate ones faith and convert from one faith to another. Muslims make up no more than 12 percent of Ugandas population. Superstar actor Mark Wahlberg recently visited New York City, but instead of going to a Broadway play in his free time, the actor chose to go to church. In an interview with The Christian Post, Wahlberg said he prefers going to church on a Saturday night, to seeing a Broadway show. "That's what it's all about. You know, for me, it's just the way I love to start my day, finish my day," Wahlberg told the Christian news outlet. "I've been very blessed and very fortunate. And it's because of the focus that I put on my faith and on my family that have allowed me to accomplish so many things. Also, with the failure and disappointment and loss, life is not easy," he added. Wahlberg is preparing for the release of his new film "Instant Family" which tells the story of a couple who become parents overnight after they decide to foster 3 kids, including one troubled teen. The films story is based on the real-life events of Sean Anders the films director and his wife. While talking about the film Wahlberg said, "Just like this movie, this couple brings in three beautiful kids. And there is this kind of honeymoon period. And then there's this very difficult time when reality sets in. But ultimately, they fall madly in love with each other. And they want to fight for these kids. He stressed, "There's nothing more important than faith and family." Though "Instant Family" is not a faith-based film, it certainly evokes emotion and highlights the difficulties the foster care system regualrly faces. "Things that matter are hard," Wahlbergs character says in the film, and when asked to reflect on this line the actor said, "Doing the work, it's rewarding; doing the right thing, it's rewarding. You always feel, even if things don't go the way you want, you feel good knowing you did everything you could to accomplish your goal no matter what that is. "It's when you don't give it your all and then you have this regret and this, 'What if?' kind of sort of thing going on. Things are difficult. It's so much better when it's earned. So for people to come together to work through hard times, all those things," he continued. "Instant Family" comes out in theaters on Nov. 16. Photo courtesy: Getty Images/Alberto E. Rodriguez/Staff Video courtesy: Paramount Pictures A town has changed its name to Hauntington at the urging of a seven-year-old. Second grader Angelica Dee Cunningham wrote to the town council of Huntington, New York, suggesting that they make the switch for Halloween. To her surprise, they agreed. Their decision may be a parable for our culture today. Americans are not unique in celebrating Halloween. Romania has a Day of Dracula; Japan stages a giant parade; children in the Philippines go door to door to ask for prayers for those in Purgatory. Nor do we devote more time and money to Halloween than other holidays. We will spend $9 billion this year on costumes, candy, and decorations. However, our Halloween spending pales in comparison to our spending on Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Easter, and Christmas. Nonetheless, I believe Halloween may reveal more about American culture than any other holiday. Heres why. How many Americans will participate in Halloween? Halloween is a contraction of All Hallows Eve, the evening before All Saints Day. Tomorrow, the Catholic Church will focus on the saints of the Church. This tradition began in AD 609 and encourages participants to remember and emulate the heroes of the faith. Tonight, by contrast, the focus will be strikingly different. Fifteen million American adults will dress in costumes; witches are most popular, followed by vampires, zombies, and pirates. If your neighborhood is anything like mine, youve been haunted by ghosts, skeletons, and dragons for weeks. Some 69 percent of Americans plan to participate in Halloween today. Since that is three times the percentage of Catholics in America, it is clear that far more people will observe Halloween than All Saints Day. What two mistakes do we make about the devil? My point transcends popularity, however. How much time do Americans really focus on being thankful at Thanksgiving? How much attention do we really give Jesus on Christmas Day? By contrast, fascination with the figures of Halloween is clearly on the rise in America. Witches made national headlines when they gathered to hex Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The US witch population has seen an astronomical rise, according to one report. Recent studies indicate that Wicca is now the fastest growing religion in America. Satanism is growing in our culture as well. Satanist students at Clemson University recently held a Bible torching ceremony. A member of the so-called Satanic Temple was allowed to make an opening prayer to Lucifer at a local council meeting in Alaska. C. S. Lewis: There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. What is the lure of the occult? Dressing our children in innocuous costumes and taking them to the neighbors to collect candy is a fun tradition. Participating in occult practices, today or any other day of the year, is both sinful and perilous. The lure of the occult is simple: power. It is another version of Satans first temptation: You will be like God (Genesis 3:5). Horoscopes and fortune-tellers promise the ability to predict and control the future. Occult rituals claim to offer an empowering connection with spiritual forces. The explosion of fascination with astrology and the occult is not surprising. Researchers connect such interest directly to stress, noting that we search for comfort and coherence in times of chaos and confusion. And the power and pleasure offered by occult practitioners appeal to our existentialist, consumeristic culture. But Satan is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44) who disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). His resume is simple: he comes only to steal and kill and destroy (John 10:10). He wants to attack God but cannot (Revelation 12:9), so he attacks those God loves as a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). All he offers costs far more than it pays. Ive quoted many times the maxim, Sin will always take you further than you wanted to go, keep you longer than you wanted to stay, and cost you more than you wanted to pay. If you think youre the exception, youre being deceived. Thats why Gods word forbids all occult practices (cf. Leviticus 19:31; 20:6; Deuteronomy 18:10; Isaiah 8:19; Micah 2:5; Revelation 21:8). And its why our Father calls us to give no opportunity to the devil (Ephesians 4:27). What causes the devil to flee from us? Lets redeem Halloween by using today as an opportunity for ministry. In a time when it can be hard to know our neighbors, this is one day when they come to us. Pray about ways you can use this day to build relationships with them. A smile, a kind word, a God bless you, perhaps an introduction and conversation can build bridges for the gospel in months to come. Lets also use this day to remember that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness (Ephesians 6:12). In this battle, we have two jobs: Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you (James 4:7). When we submit to God, only then can we resist the devil. And only then will he flee from us. Will Satan flee from you today? For more from the Denison Forum, please visit www.denisonforum.org. The Daily Article Podcast is Here! Click to Listen Publication Date: October 31, 2018 Photo Courtesy: Unsplash/Rawpixel A 44-year-old Baptist missionary was shot and killed in the war-torn nation of Cameroon Tuesday, about two weeks after he, his wife and their eight children arrived there. Charles Wesco was shot in the head while traveling in a region where the military has been fighting separatists, according to Reuters . His wife, Stephanie Wesco, had posted on Twitter after he was shot, Im sharing what is worse than a nightmare. My precious husband was shot in the head on our way to town today. He is fighting for his life. Please pray. Hours later, she posted an update, announcing his death. My Precious husband, Charles, is now with the Savior he adored and faithfully served for many years, she wrote . His life focus was seeking to cause others to love Jesus and serve him. My prayer is that somehow someway Jesus will be glorified through my Precious Charles' death and that God will not let his death have been in vain. He is receiving the Martyrs crown from his Lord. My heart is broken. I want to wake up from a horrific nightmare. Please pray for us." The Wescos were sent to Cameroon through First Light Baptist Mission in Oshkosh, Wis. His brother, Timothy Wesco, is pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Elkhart, Ind. Hes also a state representative. He loved the Lord. He loved family, Timothy Wesco said . The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. A GoFundMe campaign was set up for the family Tuesday. Visit it here . Michael Foust is a freelance writer. Visit his blog, MichaelFoust.com Photo courtesy: GoFundMe A Chicagoland megachurch pastor has sued a Christian media personality and two former church-members-turned-potential-whistleblowers for defamation. According to Harvest Bible Chapel pastor James McDonald, former Moody Radio host Julie Roys and bloggers Ryan Mahoney and Scott Bryant published and helped publicize false and damaging financial information about the congregation. (Read CTs story.) But should Christians so at odds actually be taking each other to court? In many cases, no, says Ken Sande, the founder of Peacemaker Ministries and the current president of Relational Wisdom 360. Typically, conflict between Christians involves some foundation of sin, said Sande. Lawyers can dress that up in legal terms, but what it really comes down to in 99 percent of the cases is sin. Keeping ones word. Slandering. False representation. Bitterness. Anger. Unforgiveness. Those are all spiritual issues that the church has jurisdiction over and a judge cant touch. Sande joined associate digital media producer Morgan Lee and editor in chief Mark Galli to discuss conflict resolutionor lack thereofwhen it comes to Christians, the power of seeing people confess sin to one another, and how these processes play out in a #MeToo era. This episode of Quick to Listen is sponsored in part by Men Unplugged, a Christ-centered talk show. Its host, Jeff Jerina and well-known Christian leaders offer practical solutions for the issues facing men and their families today. For more information, go to www.MenUnplugged.net. This podcast is brought to you in part by Christianbook.com, a huge selection of Christian books, Bibles, gifts, music, and more. What is Quick to Listen? Read more Subscribe to Quick to Listen on Apple Podcasts Follow the podcast on Twitter Follow our host on Twitter: Morgan Lee Learn more about the Relational Wisdom 360 app, hotline, and online course. Subscribe to Marks newsletter: The Galli Report Music by Sweeps Quick to Listen is produced by Morgan Lee, Richard Clark, and Cray Allred Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment I was greeted this morning with yet another example of what can only be described as "Frankenscience" the latest attempt to engineer and/or redefine biological reality. The story was of a lesbian couple who, according to the article in the New York Post, supposedly made history by carrying the same baby. Would it be rude to ask which woman produced the sperm for this procedure? Is it really an example of two women overturning biological reality? As it turns out, it was merely an example of in vitro fertilization, and as a colleague of mine noted, "just one more case of a child being denied the right to a mother and a father." Well, why not? This new field of Frankenscience is already creating a host of "chimeras" in the lab combining human-pig embryos, for example perfect for Halloween, wouldn't you say? Or perhaps a troubling sequel to "Back to the Future"? It reminds me of the headline sent 'round the world in 2017: "Man Gives Birth to a Boy!" As it turned out, it was actually a woman who gave birth to the boy, as always. The fact that she "identified herself" as a man could never change that reality. It makes one wonder, though, why the couple referred to the child as a boy? Isn't that taboo these days? Shouldn't they have announced the birth of a "child yet unidentified"? And the beat goes on. This game of "Let's Pretend" is much more dangerous than it appears. This flaunting of sin and rebellion against the created order brings real consequences, not only in the judgment of God, but also in the lives of real people people like that baby, who is being raised by two people who are not only very confused about their own identity, but who will model and teach that same confusion to their child. What we have been witnessing these past 40 years or more is a well strategized attempt by homosexual and transgender activists to normalize aberrant lifestyles that are not only harmful to themselves but to others as well. This scheme is part of a larger propaganda ploy designed and implemented in the 1980s by cultural engineers like Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, who began instructing the gay community in how to overturn the existing Judeo-Christian moral ethic. Via numerous articles and books, they suggested that a well-designed scheme of propaganda (their word) be implemented that would trick the public into changing biblical values that had been held as sacrosanct. In their manifesto, they suggested that the public be told that the homosexual lifestyle was healthy and normal (CDC, APA and even gay studies show that it is not). They suggested that conservative Christians be shown as hateful and deranged and that the moral waters be "muddied" by pushing forward their own "expert" theologians. They suggested that gays insinuate themselves into power positions in the media and political arenas "as a Trojan Horse" wherein they could posture themselves as victims. In that way, they suggested, the straight world would be compelled to protect them out of a sense of guilt and shame. To enhance this deception, they were told to embed themselves into the power structures of Hollywood, politics, the church and the media at large. These are only a few of the deceptive schemes of the modern "gay agenda" and they have worked like a charm. The newest line of deception today is a challenge to what is called the "gender binary" a similar scheme to muddy the waters of biological reality in order to further the destruction of biblical morality. For example, Brown University professor, Anne Fausto-Sterling, suggests that sexes be classified into 23 variations and that the "binary" classification of male and female be jettisoned. Friends, we have now entered the "Twilight Zone" a wormhole that can only lead to outermost darkness. Let us pray and fast that God will reveal His love and glory to the world in a much-needed 3rd Great Awakening, lest it collapse around us from the weight of its own insanity and rebellion. Maranatha! Dr. David Kyle Foster is the author of Transformed Into His Image, Love Hunger and Sexual Healing and is the founder/director of Mastering Life Ministries (www.MasteringLife.org). A major revision and expansion of Sexual Healing (The Sexual Healing Reference Edition) is slated for publication in November of 2018. By Olivia Rose THE TCI has finally completed its first climate change policy as the effects of the phenomenon are already being felt across the globe. Ronlee James, Director of the Premiers Office and Chairman of the Climate Change Committee, conformed the news following a press conference at the Premiers Office on October 19. He told media operatives that the policy was recently approved by Cabinet and will be unveiled to the public during Environmental Awareness Month which is observed in November. James disclosed that the policy will stipulate how climate change adaptation will be integrated in all Government strategies, spending and investment decisions. A green paper, which will accompany the policy to ensure that climate change adaptation provisions are included in all national policies, programmes, strategies and action plans, was also approved by Cabinet. The director stressed that addressing climate change and ensuring sustainable development are integral to the Governments overall development agenda. He noted that the policy aims to educate the wider public on the potential impacts of climate change and the recommended adaptation strategies. "To ensure the protection and wise use of carbon sinks, and to enhance and protect human health. "To conserve and guarantee a sustainable supply of fresh water, to increase resilience by adapting to the adverse impacts of climate change. "To achieve the objectives set in the TCI energy conservation policy and implementation strategy, as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "To achieve greater food security through sustainable agriculture production, while encouraging the use of green technology. And lastly, to advocate sustainable tourism at all levels. He further revealed that during Environmental Awareness Month a concerted effort will be made to sensitise the public on the importance of mitigating the impact of climate change locally. Climate change threatens to reverse a country of territorys development progress, unless concerted efforts are made to make development climate resilient. As such, it is essential for small island territories such as the TCI to build adaptive capacity, resilience to change and effective solutions. Governor John Freeman recently highlighted this fact at a press conference where he reflected on the catastrophic impact of hurricanes Irma and Maria on the TCI. Speaking to the need for the policy, Governor Freeman said: "Though the Turks and Caicos Islands is not a major contributor to the practices that significantly impact climate change, we have experienced and will remain vulnerable to its effects if we do not take aggressive action and a firm stance on the global political stage and challenge the international community to partner with us in implementing strategies to mitigates its effects. He stressed that in facing hurricanes Irma and Maria, ignorance cannot be feigned when it comes to the significant impact that climate change will present to the Islands in the future. The climate change policy will not be a static document, he said, but a dynamic work plan that is not only efficiently and effectively executed but updated every five years to ensure that the TCI remains proactive and responsive to the ever-evolving threat. Chile March for Jesus stoned by 'anarchists' A March for Jesus in Chile has been broken up by protesters throwing stones, according to Evangelical Focus. The march in the capital Santiago was held on Saturday as part of the official National Day of Evangelical and Protestant Churches celebrations, one of around 30 similar events across the country. Four marches converged on Citizenship Square in front of La Moneda Palace, the seat of Chile's government. Some marchers protested against draft laws regarded by many Christians as threats to life and family values, such as legislation to further liberalise abortion. Evangelical Focus quotes local police as saying, 'a group of 150 antifascists and anarchists gathered in the place, and started to throw blunt objects' against marchers and the police. Pastor Carol Espinaza, who attended the march, told Latin American site Evangelico Digital that children were among the marchers stoned by the attackers. 'People started to run, there were babies in their prams, children crying, it was a chaos,' he said. March for Jesus organisers said on Twitter in a statement: 'We feel deeply affected because acts of violence such as those that occurred have impaired our celebration. 'We want to announce also that many brothers who marched peacefully were wounded and violated. That is why we call on the authorities, so that the pertinent measures are taken and so these things do not happen again.' Oxford diocese issues clergy guide for 'welcoming and honouring' LGBTI+ people Four bishops from one of the largest dioceses in the Church of England have issued a pastoral letter warning clergy against 'instrusive questioning' about sexual practices and saying it is 'unacceptable' to tell people sexual orientation can be changed by faith. The letter from the Diocese of Oxford to 1,500 ministers is signed by the Bishops of Oxford, Dorchester, Buckingham and Reading. It also announces a new chaplaincy team for LGBTI+ people, aimed at providing 'insights and advice to clergy and bishops about being church together'. The letter refers to the call by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York for a 'radical new Christian inclusion in the Church founded in scripture, in reason, in tradition, in theology and the Christian faith as the Church of England has received it' and to the CofE's continuing conversations about the issue. However, it says, 'Whilst this work is going on, attitudes to LGBTI+ people in Church and society continue to change and evolve and other churches in the United Kingdom and the Anglican Communion engage in similar conversations.' It continues: 'LGBTI+ Christians have always been, and remain, actively involved as clergy and laity in all areas of church life, and at all levels. How open and authentically themselves they may be in this is the issue at stake.' It says the CofE has 'continually failed our sisters and brothers in Christ'. Debates about sexuality and gender, it says, should be conducted 'with attention to people's experiences and in a spirit of love, mutual care and respect'. It commends the five principles commended recently to the Diocese of Lichfield by Bishop Michael Ipgrave for 'welcoming and honouring LGBTI+ people'. Priests should ensure thatLGBTI+ people 'know that there is a place at the table for them, it says; they should not tell people their orientation or gender identity could be changed by faith, or that 'homosexuality or gender difference is a sign of immaturity or a lack of faith', and they should not discourage LGBTI+ people from receiving the Lord's Suppoer. The letter also affirms that LGBTI+ people are calls to roles of leadership in the Church. It acknowledges 'the great contribution that LGBTI+ Christians are making, and have made, to the Church in this diocese' and highlights 'the need for mission within the LGBTI+ community more broadly'. The bishops acknowledge that there is no public authorised liturgy for marking same-sex marriages and that while clergy are encouraged to respond 'pastorally and sensitively' to requests. the House of Bishops Guidelines on Same Sex Marriage are clear that services of blessing should not be provided. However, the letter says: 'This is, of course, one of the key areas under review in the Pastoral Advisory Group. Depending on the timetable of the national group's work, we may look to draw the fruits of our own conversations and reflections together in the short term for the benefit of this Diocese.' Pakistan Supreme Court acquits Asia Bibi: Islamists call for judges' death Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam and ordered her freed, a ruling that set off protests by hardline Islamists but was welcomed by human rights advocates. Asia Bibi, a mother of four, has been living on death row since 2010 when she became the first woman to be sentenced to death by hanging under Pakistan's draconian blasphemy laws. She was condemned for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbours objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim. She has always denied blaspheming. News agency AFP said Asia Bibi could scarcely believe the news: 'I can't believe what I am hearing,' she said. 'Will they let me out, really? I just don't know what to say, I am very happy, I can't believe it.' Her husband Ashiq told AFP: 'I am very happy. My children are very happy. We are grateful to God. We are grateful to the judges for giving us justice. We knew that she is innocent.' Her case has outraged Christians worldwide and been a source of division within Pakistan, where two politicians who sought to help her were assassinated. Release International, which supports persecuted Christians around the world, describes the ruling as a triumph, and is now calling for Asia, her family and her lawyer to be protected from vigilantes who may try to take the law into their own hands. 'We welcome this verdict,' said Release chief executive Paul Robinson. 'Finally humanity and common sense have triumphed over extremism. Asia was falsely accused because she was a Christian. Pakistan must act to protect the lives of this mother, her family and her lawyer. And Pakistan must take immediate action to repeal these notorious blasphemy laws, which are being used as an instrument of persecution against the country's Christian minority.' The British Pakistani Christian Association's officer in Pakistan, Mehwish Bhatti, said: 'We are so happy and thankful to God for this big day! All glory goes to Him. The decision was tough; God has strengthened the resolve of the Justices and has made it possible. I pray for the peace of minorities, let God be their guardian.' BCPA chairman Wilson Chowdhry said: 'Asia Bibi has endured almost 10 years of brutal incarceration in isolation. The world has watched her suffer but today thanks to the grace of God today the world rejoices. 'Her freedom can hardly be called justice and nothing will ever compensate her for her lost years. 'For now we can only pray that she is given the counselling and support she needs to recover and restore her place in society this will of course be in a nation far away from Pakistan where it is untenable for her to remain.' He added: 'Pakistan is increasingly exhibiting an intolerance to non-Muslims that has to be tackled by it's government. That extremists can induce riots and bring the country to a standstill is bewildering. 'We call on the Government of Pakistan to assure Christians of their safety during these tumultuous times, moreover we call for people to pray for a restoration of peace in a nation that is riven by fundamentalism.' Supporters of Islamist political party Tehreek-e-Labaik (TLP), which was founded to support Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws, immediately condemned the ruling and blocked roads in Karachi, the country's largest city, and in the city of Lahore. It called for the death of the chief justice of the Supreme Court and two other judges who overturned the death sentence and for the ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khan's government over the case. 'The patron in chief of TLP, Muhammad Afzal Qadri, has issued the edict that says the chief justice and all those who ordered the release of Asia deserve death,' said party spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi. Chief Justice Saqib Nasir, who headed a special three-person bench set up for the appeal, cited the Quran in his ruling, writing 'Tolerance is the basic principle of Islam' and noting the religion condemns injustice and oppression. 'It is great news for Pakistan and rest of the world,' Asia Bibi's lawyer Saiful Mulook told Reuters. 'Asia Bibi has finally been served justice. ...Pakistan's Supreme Court must be appreciated that it upheld the law of the land and didn't succumb to any pressure.' The case has been high on the agenda of religious hardliners in Pakistan, many of whom are fiercely opposed to her release. In November, TLP staged a crippling blockade of the capital, Islamabad, after small changes to a religious oath, which it claims was tantamount to blasphemy. Seven people were killed and more than 200 wounded in clashes with the police and TLP's supporters only dispersed after striking a deal with the military. Insulting Islam's prophet is punishable by death under Pakistani law, and blasphemy accusations stir such emotions that they are almost impossible to defend against. Dozens have been killed following blasphemy claims, sometimes by mobs of men. Rights groups say the blasphemy law is exploited by religious extremists as well as ordinary Pakistanis to settle personal scores. The law does not clearly define blasphemy and evidence might not be reproduced in court for fear of committing a fresh offence. Asia Bibi's representatives have claimed she was involved in a dispute with her neighbours and that her accusers had contradicted themselves. In February, her husband Ashiq Masih and one of her daughters met with Pope Francis shortly before Rome's ancient Colosseum was lit in red one evening in solidarity with persecuted Christians, and Asia Bibi in particular. Pope Francis told her daughter: 'I think often of your mother and I pray for her.' Christians make up only about two per cent of Pakistan's population face severe discrimination. 'This is a landmark verdict. For the past eight years, Asia Bibi's life languished in limbo,' said Omar Waraich, deputy South Asia director for Amnesty International. 'The message must go out that the blasphemy laws will no longer be used to persecute the country's most vulnerable minorities.' Asia Bibi has been offered asylum in several countries and was expected to leave the country if acquitted. Additional reporting by Reuters. Pakistan's blasphemy law and Asia Bibi: Why does religion go bad? All the world at least all the right-thinking part of it rejoices at the acquittal of Asia Bibi by Pakistan's Supreme Court. It has been a long nine years since she was arrested on charges of blasphemy. Her eventual death sentence the first ever handed down to a woman on this charge galvanised world opinion against Pakistan's infamous blasphemy laws. Revised and sharpened under the Islamist military dictatorship of General Zia ul-Haq, these mandated punishments ranging from prison terms of up to 10 years for 'Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs', through life imprisonment for defiling the Quran, to capital punishment for derogatory remarks, written or spoken, against Mohammad or other prophets. In fact, the death penalty for blasphemy has never been carried out, and Asia Bibi as a Christian and a woman who was the focus of huge international sympathy was at less risk of it than others who have been found guilty. Her risk of death, however, was and is very great. It is no longer from the state, but from vigilantes who think the judiciary has gone soft. Dozens of people have been murdered on suspicion of blasphemy or while on remand. Her lawyers are at risk too, as are the judges who acquitted her, and those who've supported her publicly, and Christians in general. Already there have been violent demonstrations against the verdict and supporters of Islamist political party Tehreek-e-Labaik have called for assassinations. But why do they hate her so? Or to put it another way, since she's been found not guilty of what they believe her to have done why are they so set on killing anyone at all for what they say about their prophet? It's very tempting, since they are so adamantine in their certainty, to take them at their word: they just think that's what their religion requires. That's bad enough: what sort of religion requires that of its devotees? And isn't it evidence of the fundamental irrationality and intolerance of religion, that it could breed such rage and spite? Dig a little deeper, however, and it's not so simple. The vast majority of Muslims would say Islam doesn't require the death penalty for blasphemy. Before 1986, when Zia's 'reforms' took hold, there were only 14 cases of blasphemy reported; there have been more than 1,000 since. What has driven this vast upsurge, which has claimed victims from every community though disproportionately from minorities? What's clear is that it isn't good enough to blame 'religion' and specifically, it isn't good enough to blame Islam. There is intolerance and discrimination in other Muslim-majority countries, yes, but Pakistan is an outlier in the way it has entrenched religious violence in its legal system. Two things have happened during the last three decades. One is that people have been given permission to hate by a flawed system. And the other is that they have been given reasons to hate. They are not good reasons, but human nature being what it is they are sufficient. By coincidence, a report from the Journal for Artificial Societies and Social Stimulation published today (and reported by the BBC) sheds some light on Pakistan's problems with blasphemy. Snappily titled A Generative Model of the Mutual Escalation of Anxiety Between Religious Groups, it uses artificial intelligence algorithms to work out why religious people turn violence. It happens, in fact, surprisingly rarely, but when it does it's because groups encounter other groups that challenge the beliefs that are fundamental to their identity as in Northern Ireland during the Troubles or the 2002 Gujurat riots in India, where up to 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, died. It's particularly when groups are perceived to be roughly the same size that the perception of threat escalates and violence results and, significantly, this can be through conventional and social media, not just face to face. The Christian population of Pakistan is tiny, at only around 1.6 per cent of the population. But it represents a cultural identity that is dominant in much of the rest of the world. It isn't that Pakistani Christians are perceived as a threat, but Christianity a Western religion, standing for Western values most definitely is. Throw that into the already volatile mix of Pakistani life political and military instability, anger at corruption, widespread under-education, government via a medieval feudal system and it's not surprising that any challenge to the one rock-solid foundation conservative Islam meets with an extreme reaction. Asia Bibi, and Faraz Badar, killed in an acid attack, and Asma Masih, burned alive for refusing to marry a Muslim man, and Azhar Masih and Rohail Masih, shot dead outside a church the list goes on and on were made victims because of their faith. But behind that simple fact there's a whole hinterland of other causes. It's not religion that's to blame; it's religion that's been twisted by fear, frustration and anger, and manipulated to provide an imaginary distraction from real problems. For who now really believes God requires his followers to take up arms to defend him, or is remotely put out when someone says something disparaging about him? 'I have no need of a bull from your stall, or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills... If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it' (Psalm 50: 9-12). It's believers who have a problem with blasphemy, not God and it's believers who need to be challenged to rise above their feelings of outrage when they feel their treasured beliefs are under attack. In countries where a religious and legal establishment approves and validates a violent response to blasphemy, this is a hard ask. It requires leadership of the sort Pakistan's prime minister Imram Khan has conspicuously failed to provide. It is not just about repealing a law though that would be a good first step but about changing a mindset. And until that happens, there will be more Asia Bibis, because religion has been weaponised as a tool of repression and hate. Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods Seafarers in crisis: How a Christian ministry is dealing with the fallout from piracy and abandonment Sailors' Society's Crisis Response Network (CRN) provided support to its 100th case this week, with piracy, death at sea and abandonment accounting for almost two-thirds (59 per cent) of those supported. More than a quarter (26 per cent) of seafarers seeking crisis response were affected by piracy. The international Christian charity, based in Southampton, set up its rapid response team in South Africa in 2015 to provide trauma care and counselling to survivors of piracy attacks, natural disasters and crises at sea. The CRN has since expanded to Europe and Asia to keep up with the need for its service and now has 52 chaplains trained to offer crisis support to seafarers around the world. The high level of piracy cases reflects the rise in piracy reported by the International Maritime Bureau for the first six months of this year, which saw 107 actual or attempted attacks, up from 87 in the same period of last year, with Nigeria and Indonesia the main piracy hotspots. Just this week, 11 seafarers were seized by pirates off the coast of Nigeria. The charity has reached out to the shipping company to offer support. Sailors' Society's CEO Stuart Rivers said: 'Piracy, and the fear of piracy, is a massive issue for seafarers. 'Survivors of piracy and kidnappings are exposed to violence and terror, which can have a devastating impact on them and their families for years to come. 'That such a high number of those seeking support from our Crisis Response Network have been affected by the trauma of piracy is sadly not surprising.' Indonesian fisherman Adi Manurung is one of those to receive support from the CRN. Adi had been held captive by Somali pirates for almost five years, before being released in October 2016. He was supported by Sailors' Society chaplains, who accompanied him on visits to the psychiatrist, provided counselling to him and his family and provided financial support. Adi said: 'I thought that I would die. There was no hope.' The CRN also supports seafarers who have been imprisoned, often through no fault of their own. After he was held hostage by pirates for 10 months, Ukrainian captain Valentin Dudnik decided to help the fight against piracy by leading the crew of the Seaman Guard Ohio, carrying security guards to protect ships in pirate-infested waters. But the CRN had to come to his help instead when he and his 34 crew members were sentenced to five years in jail in India for allegedly transporting arms without the correct paperwork and illegally obtaining fuel. While in prison, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He said: 'After four months in jail, I fell ill. The pain was terrible. The doctors wanted to operate on me. I had lost 35kg of weight, I couldn't eat and could only drink water.' In hospital, Dudnik underwent multiple bouts of radiation and chemotherapy. 'This was the most horrible period of my life. Time passed and we were still in prison and then I fell ill. My health was affected by the prolonged stress, it was the cause of this disease,' he said. Back home in Ukraine, his family suffered a great deal. The crew were acquitted in November 2017, tragically too late for him to see his dying mother. He said: 'Three months after returning home I gradually began to walk, but the nightmares continue.' Rivers added: 'By coming alongside these survivors and their families, we can work with other agencies to help them come to terms with what has happened and give them financial, physical and psychological support to help them pick up the pieces of their lives.' Emergency contact details for the CRN are available here. US missionary shot dead in Cameroon A Christian missionary from Indiana was killed in Cameroon on Tuesday when he was shot while traveling in a region where the military and separatists have been fighting. Charles Wesco, a 44-year-old Baptist missionary, had been in Cameroon for less than two weeks when he was killed, his sister-in-law, Joy Williams, said. He was shot in a region of northwest Cameroon where the military has been fighting English-speaking separatists who want to break away from the predominantly Francophone central government and create an independent state called Ambazonia. The conflict has killed hundreds of people since last year and has emerged as Cameroon President Paul Biya's greatest security problem in nearly four decades in power. Biya won election to a seventh term earlier this month. The American missionary was traveling in a vehicle with his wife Stephanie, one of his children and another missionary, Ben Sinclair, heading toward the town of Bamenda, when he was shot in the head. Another Cameroon missionary, Rebecca Sykes Sinclair, posted on Facebook that Wesco was travelling with her husband Ben, who rushed him to hospital. She said: 'Please pray for the Wesco family as they grieve the loss of their husband/father.' She said: 'Pray for wisdom in the many decisions that need to be made. Pray ultimately that Charles' death will have an eternal impact here in Cameroon especially. Oh how this country needs Christ!' Wesco, who lived in Warsaw, Indiana, and belonged to a local Baptist church there, had been a piano tuner before becoming a missionary, said Joy Williams. He is survived by eight children. The Wesco family had originally planned to move to Cameroon in August but had delayed their mission because of the unrest, she said, adding that 'They were aware of the danger.' On his Cameroon4God website, Wesco had written about his growing sense of call to the region. 'In the Fall of 2014, the Lord began to intensify in our hearts a burden and calling to the Continent of Africa,' he said. 'I had been on several previous missions trips to Africa before we were married, and already had left a part of my heart there. My wife also had always felt a strong burden for missions. As we prayed and sought as to where the Lord would have us to serve Him next, He began to open many doors for the country of Cameroon. During our survey trip in the Spring of 2015, the Lord deepened our love and burden for the people of Cameroon, who are so needy and so open to the Gospel of Jesus Christ!' Wesco's brother Tim serves in the Indiana House of Representatives. Indiana's Governor Eric Holcomb said in a statement: 'Janet and I are thinking of Rep. Tim Wesco and his family as they grieve the death of his brother Charles. We ask that all Hoosiers join us in offering prayers and condolences to the Wesco family.' Additional reporting by Reuters. An off-duty undercover Houston police officer has been relieved of his duties after being charged with driving while intoxicated charge after authorities said he caused a four-car crash north of downtown. Houston police confirmed Wednesday that Officer Bobby Lee Jennings, 50, who joined the police departments narcotics division in 1995, caused Tuesdays multi-vehicle accident in the 1200 block of Houston Avenue. Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said that the officer had been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation into the incident. Meanwhile misdemeanor charges against him were filed in a Harris County court-at-law, and he is free after posting a $500 personal bond, court records show. TRAGEDY: Deputy killed during crash in bad weather identified Ive made it very clear that were not going to tolerate drinking and driving or committing DWI, Acevedo said. Unlike the private sector in this department, you will not survive if you commit DWI, you just wont. Because ultimately I believe we will save careers, we will save lives, and we will save limbs by having a zero tolerance for DWI. The officer was driving along Houston Avenue when he sideswiped two vehicles and crashed into the back of another, Lt. Larry Crowson said. He was driving a city of Houston vehicle during the crash, but was not on duty but instead on call as an undercover officer, Crowson said. As officers were investigating, they noticed the officer showed signs of intoxication and asked for a special DWI investigator to look into the situation. Texas is No. 1 for a lot of great things, Acevedo said. But were also No. 1 for injuries and deaths as it relates to DWI. And the city of Houston and Harris County is No. 1 in Texas for injuries and deaths involving DWI. RELATED: Houston is 'ground zero' for drunken and drugged driving Acevedo discussed the imperfect condition of humans, but said he has zero tolerance for driving while intoxicated. He added that the department offers their officers psychological services, a peer support program, employee assistance, and a taxi ride program. So there is absolutely no excuse for getting intoxicated and driving while intoxicated, he said. I know a lot of my employees and that most of them it doesnt mean theyre a bad person, but they made a bad choice, and theyre going to have to pay the consequences. On Thursday, Houston Police Officers' Union President Joe Gamaldi said the union would not be representing Jennings in his criminal case. "We do represent him administratively when that times comes," Gamaldi said. "However ... it just needs to be said: We encourage everyone to make responsible choices if they've had too much to drink and to make sure they get a safe ride home." St. John Barned-Smith covers public safety and major breaking news for the Houston Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Send tips to st.john.smith@chron.com. A man in his 60s was found dead in a house fire in southeast Houston Wednesday morning. The Houston Fire Department received a call reporting a warehouse fire at 10:50 a.m. at 10410 Mykawa Rd., officials said. Firefighters on the scene said it is possible the man was a squatter. "Instead the fire was at a three-bedroom home," spokeswoman Sheldra Brigham wrote in a statement. "According to the owner the home was supposed to be abandoned." The fire was tapped out just after 11 a.m., but officials say there are still 10 units on the scene. The cause of the fire and death are still under investigation. Police are looking for a man who shot a woman point-blank in a homeless encampment tent Tuesday night across the parking lot from Minute Maid Park in downtown Houston, police said. The gunman was last seen running away from the encampment tucked under the Eastex Freeway around 9 p.m. in the 1900 block of Commerce after the fatal attack, Houston police Lt. Larry Crowson said. Leave it to Beyonce to come up with a super creative Halloween costume. In past years, she's paid homage to legends like Janet Jackson and the late artist Frida Khalo. This year, the Houston native superstar dressed up like R&B songstress Toni Braxton. Well, Bey, calls it "Phoni Braxton," but her die-hard fans, known as the "Beyhive," claim Bey does a better Toni Braxton than Toni herself. By Olivia Rose MINISTER of Education Hon. Karen Malcom has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the University of the West Indies (UWI). The signing of this MoU concretes plans for the establishment of an open campus in Providenciales. It is expected to strengthen tertiary learning in the territory and aid the increasing number of TCI residents that are enrolled in the UWIs online programmes. The signing, which took place on Tuesday, October 16, at the Shore Club Resort, coincided with the launch of a JAGS McCartney lecture series. Speaking at the event, Minister Malcom said this symbolic gesture demonstrates the Governments commitment to the strengthening of the relationship with the UWI. She stressed that the campus when complete will help to stimulate and provide tools for the pathway forward for national development. Professor Dencil Williams signed on behalf of the University of the West Indies and Malcolm signed on behalf of the Turks and Caicos Islands Government in the presence of Governor John Freeman, Premier Sharlene Cartwright Robinson and other distinguished guests. In September Dr Phyllis Fleming-Banks, manager of UWIs British Overseas Territories Open Campus, conducted a site inspection and met with education officials to further discuss the project. During that visit Malcom said the universitys reintroduction will allow for ease of access to the programmes as well as its continuing and professional education programmes. She pointed out that the initiative forms part of the TCI Governments plan to ensure that Turks and Caicos Islanders, who may be constrained by economic or social responsibilities, can access tertiary education within the borders of the territory. "While education has inherent value beyond the economic function, it is essential for an individual to have a productive and meaningful career, she said. "This depends on the opportunities created in the economy. The more vibrant and sophisticated the economy, the more individuals can fulfil their aspirations and the more governments will have the resources to invest further in education. She underscored that the partnership between the TCI Government and the UWI Open Campus will help many "realise their dreams and allow everyone an opportunity to obtain a degree at tertiary level. "Given that most people would love the opportunity to obtain their degree but do not have the time, they now have access to online studies in the comfort of their own home, the minister added. Dr Luz Longsworth, pro vice-chancellor and principal of the UWI Open Campus, said the university is excited to collaborate with the TCI Government to relaunch the local site. He said: "This initiative is particularly significant because it comes during the universitys 70th anniversary celebrations and at a time when the university is expanding its operations around the globe. "As the fourth campus of the UWI we are charged with meeting the needs of the non-campus territories of the region. "We are therefore delighted to re-establish our physical presence in the Turks and Caicos Islands to meet the growing needs of our TCI current and potential students, as well as the society at large. The UWI has broken into the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the first time. The 2019 Times Higher Education World University Rankings has ranked The UWI among the worlds top institutions. The rankings show that the UWI is located among the 1,258 top universities in world for 2019. This puts the UWI in the elite band of the top five percent of universities worldwide based on data showing that there are over 25,000 recognised universities, globally. The UWI is the only Caribbean institution on the worldwide list. GREENWICH As the world grappled with the aftermath of the most deadly attack on Jews in U.S. history, a crowd gathered Monday night at Temple Sholom in Greenwich to hear a story of a family overcoming anti-Semitism and immigration policies that kept them apart. We need to be together, Bizu Riki Mullu, an Ethiopian Jewish activist, told the group. This is the time the Jewish community needs to support each other and learn from each other. Mullu is part of a group known as Beta Israel, a community of dark-skinned Jews who developed 500 small villages in Northern Ethiopia. For years, the ethnic group lived between two worlds, unable to fully feel a part of their physical home in Ethiopia, where they werent allowed to own land, and distanced by the Israeli government, which previously did not recognize them as part of the Jewish community. In the small close-knit Jewish village of Mauri where they grew up, Mullu said she and her eight siblings felt safe. But when they left the village, Mullu said they faced anti-Semitism. Ethiopians genuinely believed Jews turned into hyenas at night and that they could make someone sick by looking at them, she said. It was frightening to think what would happen if someone would know Im a Jew, said Mullu. The Israeli government officially recognized Beta Israel people as Jewish in 1973 and began allowing their long-awaited exodus to Jerusalem in 1977. But Ethiopia banned their immigration to Israel in the early 1980s for political reasons. In the last group of 24 children allowed to immigrate, one of the children was me, Mullu said. She left behind her family and was placed in a boarding school is Israel. As the months passed, Mullu began to worry about her family when she heard about Ethiopian Jews dying as they walked to Sudan, where they were allowed to immigrate to Israel. I started to worry about my parents, maybe they would walk and wed never see them again, Mullu said. Three of Mullus sisters survived the dangerous trek. About 4,000 Ethiopian Jews died on the same journey. Mullu became involved with nonprofits to raise funds to support her mission to return to Ethiopia and retrieve her parents and remaining siblings. After a decade apart, Mulu was finally reunited with her parents. We didnt know what to do, to cry, to laugh, to hug, she said. We did it all. But the battle to bring them to Israel had just begun. For six months, Mullu said she went to the Ethiopian immigration office to try to work out a deal. The government eventually told Mullu her parents could leave. But her nephews who were 10, 12, and 14 had to stay and join the army. Mullus parents made the difficult decision to leave. But Mullu stayed behind to fight for her nephews. After eight months, government officials told Mullu they wouldnt renew her visa. They told her to send the boys back to the village, where they would be raised until it was time to join the army. It took another two years for the boys to make it out, Mullu said. In 1990, all of her remaining family was allowed to fly to Tel Aviv. Twelve years after I came to Israel, all of my family were free Jews in Israel, she said. This is everything I dreamed. But in 1991, the Israeli government began to worry about the safety of Ethiopian Jews as political and economic stability deteriorated during rebel attacks. Israel and private activist groups flew 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel over 36 hours in a mission known as Operation Solomon. Only Israel can do a miracle like this, Mullu said. When they needed to rescue the Jews, everybody worked together. While many believed the work was done after the rescue, Mullu said it had just begun. To rescue was the easy part, she said. Ethiopia is still in the 14th century, in a different world. The challenges helping (Ethiopian Jews acclimate to Israel) were big. Our job is to make sure there is not any Jew left behind. Mullu worked with young Ethiopian Jews who immigrated without their families. She also founded Chassida Shmella, an organization that works to empower Ethiopian Israelis living in North America. She speaks nationally on behalf of the organization and for the Israelis Consulate, the Jewish Federations of North America and more. She now works as a jewelry designer, splitting her time between New York and Jerusalem. Her mother, eight siblings and 45 nieces and nephews live in Jerusalem. What makes the Jewish community resilient, Mullu said, is its ability to come together and support each other. When one of us is doing well, we take care of the other, she said. Thats whats special about the Jewish community. Friendships last forever in The Dixie Swim Club, a heartwarming comedy about five coeds from the 1960s who reunite each year for a long weekend at a beach cottage in North Carolina. In the play, we see four of those weekends over 45 years, said Julie Owen, a Clear Lake thespian who plays Sheree Hollinger. Her character was the spunky captain of their college swim team, who continues to lead the pack, in the Nov. 9-18 production at Bay Area Harbour Playhouse in Dickinson. You can bet there will be lots of wigs, said Owen, including some for the role of Jeri Neal, who went into the convent after college but experiences motherhood later in life. You know, it was so much easier to dress when I was a nun, says Neal, who is played by Coleen Reyes. A Harvey interruption The shows director, Kaira Jackson of League City, portrayed the Neal character in last years production of the show, whose opening at BAHP was scuttled by Harvey Hurricane. Intended to open the weekend the hurricane hit, Jackson and her fellow actors also sat out the next weekend before finally getting to perform two weeks later. We played three sold-out shows, said Jackson, who turned 31 in October. I played Jeri Neal as a very naive, innocent woman, she added. Coleen plays her with more of a sarcastic twist, which I really like. She becomes more assertive as the play goes on. Last years cast also included Susan Hamel as Dina Grayson, a wisecracking overachiever, and Joanna Alexander as docile Vernadette Simms, the most fashion-challenged of the lot. Both actresses returned in the same roles this year. Bonnie Richeil portrays Lexie Richards, a pampered and outspoken Southern belle who gets married three times during the years covered in the play. The play was written by the popular team of Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten, whose 2016 redneck comedy Doublewide, Texas, was performed last summer at BAHP, starring Owen as Big Ethel Satterwhite. Jackson described Owens performance in that show as outstanding. I ran tech for that show, and she just blew me away with her versatility, said Jackson. I was so excited for her to audition for Dixie Swim Club. She read for three characters. I cast her as Sheree, and she brings so much fun and passion to the role. The play, which has been described as The Golden Girls meets Designing Women, also throws in a true-to-life dramatic plotline. In the second act, when fate throws a wrench into one of their lives, Jackson said, the longtime friends rally round their own with strength and love that takes the comedy in a poignant and surprising direction. Performances will be upstairs in the Top Side Theater at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and at 2:30 p.m. Sundays at the theater, 3803 Highway 3 in Dickinson. For more information, call 281-337-7469 or visit www.harbourtheater.com. Don Maines is a freelance writer who can be reached at donmaines@att.net. Moody's Investors Service on Wednesday gave its stamp of approval to a proposed 70-mile-long coastal barrier that could cost as much as $31 billion, saying the barrier system could help protect an economic powerhouse region that contributes 24 percent of the state's GDP and 2.5 percent of the national economy. This news follows the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' announcement that it supports a modified version of the "Ike Dike" proposal made by researchers at Texas A&M University in Galveston after Hurricane Ike devastated southeast Texas in 2008. Moody's report noted that the state's economic cost from tropical storms and hurricanes is rising, thanks to a growing coastal population and thriving energy and petrochemical industries. The biggest storms to hit Texas in the past 20 years hurricanes Rita, Ike and Harvey caused an estimated $167 billion in damage, and the damage could have been greater if they had struck the region as Category 5 storms. At HoustonChronicle.com: Army Corps gives nod to $31B 'Ike Dike' plan to protect Texas coast "Absent efforts to mitigate Texas' coastal exposure, the damage from future storms could be worse as the population and economy located there grows," the report said. The Corps developed the coastal barrier plan in partnership with the Texas General Land Office. The two agencies are three years into a 5-year, $20 million study. The report released on Friday marks the first phase of the study, along with a draft environmental impact statement, in which four alternatives for coastal protection were evaluated. The coastal barrier selected as the preferred choice of protection would be a system of levees and sea gates. The plan also includes beach and dune restoration along the lower Texas coast, and nine ecosystem restoration projects to increase resilience. Moody's reported that Texas has lost nearly 14,600 acres to shoreline erosion since the 1930s. The project is estimated to cost between $23 billion and $31 billion, with 65 percent of the funds coming from federal sources and 35 percent from state, local or other sources. That level of funding from the federal government is not unheard of, Moody's reported, and is proportionate to the U.S. government's funding for similar projects in New York City. RELATED: Army Corps, Harris County to study reservoirs "Although funding has yet to be determined and construction of the Ike Dike and the rest of a Texas 'coastal spine' is years away, the planning needs as much intensity as we and all of our government partners can give to a project to protect the Houston area from the ravages of future hurricanes," Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a statement. "Many lives could depend on it. So I am glad to see that a prominent financial ratings service is looking over the horizon and seeing that this is a wise quest." The final feasibility report and environmental impact study is expected in 2021. Once a final report is issued, it would be sent to Congress to consider funding the project. "It's very positive that people realize that the largest manufacturing center in the United States is here on the Houston Ship Channel," said Capt. Bill Diehl, president of the Greater Houston Port Bureau trade organization, "and they're willing to protect that." Chronicle reporter Nick Powell contributed to this article. Oils set for its biggest monthly drop since 2016 as a looming slowdown in the global economy haunts the market while U.S. inventories grow and producers relay mixed signals. Futures in New York are poised for a drop of more than 9 percent in October, following two months of gains. A global equity rout and an escalating U.S.-China trade war are weighing on the outlook for growth and energy demand, dragging down prices that only weeks earlier surged to a four-year high. Concerns of a supply squeeze due to impending American sanctions on Iran eased after some other OPEC nations pledged to pump more. There are fears that China is about to become embroiled in a trade war with the U.S., which could push China into the biggest slowdown since the financial crisis and cripple oil demand, said Neil Beveridge, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. While Saudi Arabias Energy Minister said the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is in a produce as much as you can mode, an OPEC committee said it could cut supplies next year, spurring uncertainty in the market. In the U.S., inventories are forecast to climb for a sixth consecutive week. After breaching $76 a barrel earlier this month for the first time since 2014, New Yorks West Texas Intermediate has lost over 10 percent. WTI for December delivery traded at $66.45 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 27 cents, at 10:59 a.m. in London. The contract had declined more than 2 percent in the past two sessions. Total volume traded was about 8 percent below the 100-day average. Brent for December settlement, which expires Wednesday, added 39 cents to $76.30 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Prices are on course for a 7.9 percent drop this month, the biggest monthly loss since July 2016. The global benchmark crude traded at a $9.88 premium to WTI. See also: U.S. Oil Output Likely to Exceed EIAs Forecast, Rystad Says In the U.S., the industry-funded American Petroleum Institute was said to report crude inventories expanded by 5.69 million barrels last week. If its confirmed by the Energy Information Administration data on Wednesday, it will be a sixth consecutive week of gains, the longest streak of increases since March 2017. Meanwhile, both Russia and Saudi Arabia have been raising production to ease shortages and to meet demands from U.S. President Donald Trump to lower prices. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said he sees no grounds for reducing output and that theres the risk of a deficit in crude markets, while the Saudis have already boosted supplies to 10.7 million barrels a day, near an all-time high. To contact the reporters on this story: Heesu Lee in Seoul at hlee425@bloomberg.net;Grant Smith in London at gsmith52@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pratish Narayanan at pnarayanan9@bloomberg.net, ;James Herron at jherron9@bloomberg.net, Helen Robertson 2018 Bloomberg L.P. CVS Pharmacy has opened four Houston-area stores designed to attract Hispanic customers. The CVS Pharmacy y mas stores feature Spanish and English signs, bilingual staff and more than 1,500 products from Hispanic brands, such as El Mexicano, Fiesta Spices, Jarritos, Pinalen, Picot, Foca and Ricitos de Oro. RELATED: Houston Hispanics' economic power is on the rise The Rhode Island-based retailer has opened 130 CVS Pharmacy y mas stores in 67 cities across California, Florida, Nevada, Texas and Puerto Rico. In Texas, there are 15 CVS Pharmacy y mas stores in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. CVS Pharmacy plans to expand the brand in Texas, which has a large Hispanic population that the company said requires a more personalized shopping experience that meets their needs. Hispanics represent about 44 percent of the 2.3 million residents in the city of Houston, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Here are the CVS Pharmacy y mas stores in the Houston area: No, it's not a phantom apparition you're seeing in EaDo. The first of Agricole Hospitality's long-awaited triple-header debut on the east side of town really is open a Halloween debut sweeter than a big bag of Snickers. Vinny's, a pizza shop at 1201 Saint Emanuel, opened Wednesday, setting up what promises to be Agricole's prominent stamp on the neighborhood already a dining and drinking hot spot. Vinny's opening will be followed by the Nov. 6 rollout of Indianola restaurant and a Nov. 8 spin on Miss Carousel cocktail bar. When they're all up and running, the Agricole Hospitality partners (Ryan Pera, Morgan Weber and Vincent Huynh) working with executive chef Paul Lewis will have a huge stake in the growing culinary and cocktail scene in EaDo. Here's what you need to know about each concept: Vinny's: Think big pizza pies. No, really big rectangular bruisers that don't owe their style to any particular regional pizza tradition. The pizza dough is the same as Coltivare's blistered perfections but the proportions and toppings account for a different pizza experience. The pies (also available by the slice) will be sauced with crushed San Marzano tomatoes bolstered by a bit of parmesan, fresh herbs, garlic and olive oil. The important cheese mantel will be a blend of Wisconsin Brick cheese and parmesan. Some of the pizza combinations available: M/C. Ham'R'D (Benton's country ham, caramelized onions and mushroom); Time Out (chicken, bacon, red peppers); Green Machine (kale, red onion, caramelized onion and feta on sweet onion puree); The Nicky P (Italian sausage, provolone, sweet onion puree, shallots, charred broccoli, Fresno chile); El Primo (Wagyu beef, pepperonata, provolone, chile flakes and ricotta); and The B Side (roasted mushrooms, potatoes, onion puree and truffle salt). The menu also will include a few salads and sandwiches. Beer and wine will be served. Vinny's is small with only 30 seats inside and 20 on the patio. Delivery will eventually be available. Indianola: Named for a historic Texas port of entry, the restaurant (also at 1201 St. Emanuel) will celebrate the foods of immigrant cultures arriving in Texas. Although labeled a modern American restaurant, the partners have created a menu that includes shakshukah, Chinese porridge and huevos rancheros for breakfast; sandwiches, salads and dishes such as ricotta gnudi and trout with salasa Veracruz for lunch; and dinner that features Thai salad, wood-grilled steak with tomatillo escabeche and Basque cheesecake for dessert. Other desserts from pastry chef Natasha Douglas will include chocolate semifreddo and passion fruit pot de creme. Wines will lean heavily on North America but also include Germany, Austria and Southern Hemisphere countries. Cocktails selections will come from the Miss Carousel menu. Indianola will open for dinner only with lunch coming in about two to four weeks and then adding breakfast at a later date. Miss Carousel: Weber has been collecting furniture and design pieces for this very personal bar for nearly two years. He worked with Garza Marfa, a furniture designer in Marfa, to create living room vignettes with classic mid-century pieces set on Moroccan rugs and lit with large-scale brass light fixtures from Paris. The bar's focal point is a two-sided fire place. There will be a food menu snacks such as crispy duck wings and larger options like a Wagyu burger. But mostly Miss Carousel will be about spirits, Weber's passion. The drinks list will have about 25 to 30 cocktails broken into categories such as highballs, Collins and swizzles, sours, cobblers, bitter drinks and others. Most of the menu will be original cocktails while classics also will have their place. Miss Carousel, also at 1201 St. Emanuel, will be open daily from 4 p.m. to 2 p.m. Greg Morago writes about food for the Houston Chronicle. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter. Send him news tips at greg.morago@chron.com. Hear him on our BBQ State of Mind podcast to learn about Houston and Texas barbecue culture. In a press release this week Montrose's 1308 El Tiempo Cantina said it will close after service ends on Sunday, Nov. 11 at 9 p.m. For years now the location has operated with some uncertainty as its landlord made plans for the property it sits on at 1308 Montrose to be redeveloped. The closure of this particular Montrose location will reduce the number of El Tiempo habitats in the Houston area to seven. WAY BACK WHEN: Vintage Houston Tex-Mex menus show how time (and prices) have changed "We received word from our landlord today that we must vacate the space on Wednesday, November 14th, to make way for the apartment project. We will be relocating all staff to current locations as soon as possible," owner Roland Laurenzo said in a statement. There will be no fiesta going away party, according to the statement which means that it just might be real this time instead of a last-minute reprieve keeping its doors open. A similar statement was made at the end of July, and lo and behold there was a delay in construction and El Tiempo lived to serve queso and chips another day. Houston developer Sunset Luxury Living has been planning to build apartments at the site since at least 2015 when it submitted documents to the city's planning department for an 8-story complex. The developer plans to build five levels of apartments on top of three levels of parking on the 1.84-acre site at Montrose and West Clay. TAMALES AND KETCHUP ANYONE?: Heated Texas food debates that will never die El Tiempo is best-known for its potent margaritas and fajitas, which were introduced to the world by the family matriarch, the late Ninfa Laurenzo. The 1308 location is also a popular neighborhood hot spot with numerous bars and clubs nearby. It's 322 Westheimer location will have to suffice in Montrose for now. The area will not be deficient in El Tiempo locations, with nearby restaurants off Richmond, Washington, and Navigation. That hasn't stopped the waits at some locations from being up to two hours during peak times. Craig Hlavaty covers Houston history and pop-culture. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | craig.hlavaty@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message One of the biggest issues facing residents of The Woodlands in the past year has been the ongoing incorporation studies project being conducted by The Woodlands Township. The more than year-long effort to analyze and study all aspects and issues related to potentially becoming a city has drawn curiosity, confusion and lots of questions from local residents. We asked each candidate to provide some feedback on the issue of incorporation, answering questions about the topic and discussing their feelings about the issue that has generated concerns, questions and opposition from many residents. Position 4 Candidates: Dargavage and Rieser Francis Frank Dargavage has made it clear in both interviews with The Villager as well as during public comments he has made at several township meetings that he is not in favor of incorporation, even claiming that the word incorporation is not the correct term for the process and elected leaders should stop using the term he called inaccurate. The Villager asked Dargavage to explain his opposition to incorporation during a recent interview, hoping to clarify some of his comments for voters. Dargavage reiterated that under the circumstances that have been presented, he is against incorporation of The Woodlands. I really want to just stop using the word incorporation, and let the residents know what the real word is, that is general law city, he said. That is our pathway into a general law city. All the regulations and what the state requires of us and the conditions versus the enabling legislation. If the board would take a leadership position on this and start using the term general law city, I think that would help the residents understand what theyre getting themselves into. The use of the word incorporation, Dargavage claimed, is merely a scare tactic that he alleges was created by township board Chairman Gordy Bunch, who is seeking re-election for a fourth term but is not being challenged by an opponent. A general law city, what follows that based on numbers is a home rule city, where you have your own charter. And a charter is nothing more than what we have right now in enabling legislation, Dargavage noted. Its kind of a misnomer and I think it is a scare tactic the leader of the pack (Bunch) is presenting to the residents. Dargavage also contradicted claims by other candidates that continuity on the board was needed in regard to the incorporation process. Dargavage said any claims that he, or fellow challenger Treva Taglieri who is running against incumbent Brian Boniface could not understand the complex issues involved with incorporation are misguided. There probably is some value in continuity in certain situations. Unfortunately, the continuity of operations in this particular instance is not necessary. It is nice, but not necessary, Dargavage added. You have two candidates, that I think, and Im talking about myself now, that are sharp and up to speed on issues and we could easily assimilate into the issues, whatever it is. Rieser, the incumbent seeking his second term on the board, said he was surprised Dargavage was not in favor of using the word incorporation in regard to the process currently underway examining what becoming a city would entail. Rieser also countered some of the claims made by Dargavage in relation to incorporation are not accurate. In regard to the claims of the importance of continuity of the board members, as well as an endorsement he received from Bunch, Rieser said he is still studying the issue of incorporation and has not made a final decision about the possibility of putting the issue on the ballot in the future. (Continuity) Is not a bad concept, from what Gordy (Bunch) is talking about. It took me close to a year to really get schooled up on all the nuances that the township encompasses, Rieser said. Im not saying a newly elected board member wouldnt be capable of that. As far as my opponent is concerned, it sounds like he has made up his mind before he has seen all the facts. What I said at the debate was, I prefer to wait and see all the facts before I make up my mind. In the end, it is not up to me to incorporate or not, it is up to the citizens to decide that. As far as Dargavages claims that using the word incorporation is inaccurate, Rieser said that is simply not true. Maybe (Dargavage) should read the Texas Constitution where it talks about transitioning to a general law city, they specifically used the word incorporation. We did not make this up, Rieser said. Incorporation is a standard term, this board certainly did not invent it. If you go back to the race of 2016, (incorporation) was plastered everywhere. Bunch, Brown respond to comments Bunch, who had previously stated he is endorsing fellow incumbents Rieser, John Anthony Brown and Boniface, said anyone who claims the use of the word incorporate is inaccurate is ill-informed and wrong. Incorporation is the actual term used in Texas State Code and our enabling legislation. To call it anything else would be misleading, Bunch wrote in an email to The Villager in response to Dargavages claims. As for his comments citing what he believes are the benefits of continuity of board members in relation to the incorporation process, Bunch said it is possible for a newly elected board member to learn about the issue, but it will take a lot of work. His main issue with Taglieri and Dargavage, he added, is that the two challenging candidates have, from what he knows, indicated they are already against incorporation. I believe anyone who is willing to commit the time required to learn the details of The Woodlands Township operations and review the incorporation planning session meeting will be able to catch up, Bunch said. How quickly would depend on the effort put into catching up. My larger concern has been with both candidates (Taglieri and Dargavage) claiming they do not support incorporation even when it has yet to be proposed nor had the incorporation study been completed. Bunch did note that to his knowledge, neither Taglieri nor Dargavage have been present or involved in any manner in the boards incorporation planning sessions, which have been held about twice-a-month since January 2018. This past year we held twice the normal level of board meetings and planning sessions due to incorporation planning, Bunch explained. Being halfway through the incorporation planning will have new members behind as neither of the challengers have attended all of our workshops or board meetings. After Bunchs claims about Dargavages and Taglieris lack of attendance at incorporation planning sessions there have been 19 meetings with some connection to the incorporation process since January as well as at the three-hour incorporation forum held at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott on Sept. 25, The Villager asked both candidates about their attendance at the meetings in question. Dargavage initially told The Villager he had attended three different incorporation planning sessions, however he clarified his attendance after revisiting his schedule and admitted he had only attended one of the 19 incorporation-related sessions held to date. He did not attend the Sept. 25 forum at the hotel because he was a pre-planned ocean cruise. It was only one (incorporation) meeting, Dargavage said, noting he attended two township regular board meetings where he made public comment about incorporation. It is all very difficult to follow, the speakers are hard to follow, the slides are difficult to read with small type. In a sense, I havent been participating in the incorporation meetings. Taglieri was present at the three-hour incorporation forum on Sept. 25, and she said she has been involved in both helping organize and attend several presentations about the incorporation study at various village association meetings. Taglieri also said that she has made a Texa Public Information Act request to the township for copies of all incorporation study documents available. Brown, who is running uncontested for a second term on the board, said he believes a newly-elected board member could learn about the ins and outs of incorporation, but that the task would require a lot of time and diligence due to the large amount of data and information that has been reviewed so far. By no means someone couldnt step up and hit the ground running, however, there is a true learning curve when elected, due to the plethora of past information, discussions, and township processes, Brown said of a possibly new board member joining the process one-year into it. I have spent over six months reading over thousands of sheets of information, been part of hundreds of hours of presentations, and spoken with over a dozen of very knowledgeable people during that time. You cant just show up and think youre going to learn all this stuff over night. However, yes, in time and with a lot of reading and participation any new member of the board could eventually get up to speed. Position 2 Candidates: Boniface and Taglieri In regard to incorporation, the two candidates competing for the Position 2 seat on the township board of directors have different viewpoints on the issue. Boniface, who is nearing the end of his first term and seeking re-election for another two years, has indicated in past meetings and interviews that he has not made up his mind when it comes to whether or not he would support putting the incorporation question on the November 2019 ballot. At the Sept. 25 incorporation forum, Boniface told the more than 300 attendees that he has not made up his mind about incorporation yet. This enormous undertaking were doing now is a blueprint for future generations, he said at the time. During a Oct. 26 interview with The Villager, Boniface said he appreciated the endorsement for a second term in office from Bunch, and he said that there is merit to the claims that continuity of the board is important to the incorporation process. The continuity, in that respect, for the board is very important. We have been studying this issue going on for over a year now, and getting consultants feedback. For someone new to come in and try to pick up from scratch, and not being in all those conversations, I can see (Bunchs) point there, Boniface said. It would be difficult (for a new board member). I dont want to marginalize anyones ability. It it very in-depth, weve learned a lot and answered a lot of questions along the way. So, that experience factor is not going to be there (for a newly elected board memebr) in a lot of questions. In response to Dargavages desire to not use the word incorporation and claims it is an inaccurate term, Boniface said he preferred not to address the claims other to say he denies that viewpoint and feels the word incorporation is the correct terminology. Ill let him speak for himself on that one, Boniface said of Dargavages opposition to the word. Taglieri, who is challenging Boniface for the Position 2 seat, said any claims or statements that she would not be as prepared to enter the incorporation process if elected are false and she is more than capable of picking up on the information and data that has been discussed in the past 10 months. I would respectfully disagree (with Bunch). I think a fresh set of eyes would be a good idea. As far as coming up to speed, I have no doubt my technical skills are up to task, Taglieri said. I understand continuity, everybody (on the board) has been through (the incorporation) process. Although currently a self-described stay-at-home mother, Taglieri worked for many years as a systems engineer in the aerospace industry in Southern California, a job she said was filled with intensive and copious amounts of complex information. In all of my technical projects, they have been detailed and complex, and I have the ability to process a lot of information in a short period of time, Taglieri said of her ability to learn quickly. As for whether or not she is in favor of incorporation, Taglieri said at this time, more information is needed on the proposal. She did say that she is against any immediate attempts to place the issue on the November 2019 ballot for residents to vote on, citing the need for more data, analysis and information for what she said are confused residents. I do not believe that The Woodlands should vote on incorporation in the near future, and I come to that conclusion because of my background in systems engineering, Taglieri said. I know seven principles of creative problem solving when you develop an optimal solution, and I myself have not seen all of those elements fulfilled. I think they are doing a great job in collecting information but Ive spoken to many residents that are not clear about how they are moving forward with it and until I am able to explain that to them or even understand it myself I dont think that we are ready. The township Board of Directors election is Tuesday, Nov. 6. Early voting began on Oct. 22 and continues through Nov. 2. Township directors serve two-year terms and are not paid or compensated in any manner for their time serving the township. jeff.forward@chron.com After Saturdays mass shooting at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh, Penn., local Jewish communities around Montgomery County are shaken up as well. At Chabad of The Woodlands along Budde Road, Rabbi Mendel Blecher said that the slaying of 11 Jewish worshippers was undoubtedly the most horrific anti-Semitic attack in America to date. Blecher hosted a memorial service for the victims this past Sunday night at their congregation. I encouraged everyone who came to the memorial service to add in acts of goodness and kindness, to seek and spread light and do away with darkness by showing an extra degree of care and sensitivity to others, Blecher said. Jewish history, Blecher added, teaches the congregation to look forward and become stronger to not let evil dictate their lives. In response to the act of domestic terrorism in Pittsburghs heavily populated Jewish neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, Blecher said his synagogue is evaluating security vulnerabilities and protocols. He also taught a class this week on how tragedies affect their faith, one that he said many people attended. The other synagogue in The Woodlands, Congregation Beth Shalom along Shadowbend Place, has also felt ripple effects of the tragedy. Ellen Karas, immediate past president Congregation Beth Shalom, said that neighbors and other faith groups have expressed their condolences to their Jewish community with flowers and hugs. We are all shocked when violence occurs in places of peace. It greatly affects people. Im very touched by the outreach of so many who have expressed their concerns, Karas said. Their congregation is planning to host a service called Solidarity Shabbat at 7:30 p.m. this Friday, Nov. 2. Its a service of mourning and healing in the wake of Saturdays shooting. Karas said the service is also for neighbors and members of other faiths who want to show their support for Jewish congregations. Similar services have been happening across the country in remembrance of those who were killed and wounded in the attack. Were happy to join, and to open up our congregation to Jews and non-Jews to honor that idea, Karas said. jane.stueckemann@chron.com A guest on a network TV program floats a conspiracy theory so distasteful that the network takes the extraordinary step of publicly rebuking the guest's comment while vowing never to re-air the program. It happened last week after commentator Christopher J. Farrell told Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs that a "Soros-occupied State Department" was funding a large caravan of migrants who are traveling through Latin America on their way to the United States border. His reference was to George Soros, a Jewish billionaire philanthropist and political activist who is frequently the target of far-right, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Farrell's comment - which has no basis in fact - elicited outrage on social media on Sunday, a day after the mass shooting of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue and less than a week after Soros himself was the target of a bomb scare. But Farrell isn't an ordinary TV provocateur. He is a journalism educator at a major university and a member in good standing of two mainstream journalism organizations. Farrell is an adjunct instructor in the communications department at George Mason University in Fairfax County, Virginia. According to his department listing, he specializes in "journalism, Transparency & Accountability in Government, Law, National Security." He also teaches a course in journalism law. The chair of George Mason's communications department, Anne Nicotera, declined to talk about Farrell when contacted on Tuesday. "It's a personnel matter," she said, referring a reporter to a university spokesman. She then hung up the phone. Farrell's connection to George Mason wasn't mentioned on Dobbs' program. Instead, he was identified by his main job: director of investigations for Judicial Watch, a government watchdog organization. Contacted on Tuesday, Farrell said he had no comment. He referred a reporter to comments made by his boss, Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, who told The Washington Post in a brief interview on Sunday that Farrell's comment "isn't anti-Semitic and Chris isn't anti-Semitic. To suggest that is absurd. We are concerned about government funding of Mr. Soros, not his religion." Fitton didn't explain the funding to which he was referring or what his concern about it was. Fox Business said, however, that the outrage over Farrell had some justification. In a statement released on Sunday, the network's senior vice president of programming, Gary Schreier, said, "We condemn the rhetoric." He said FBN wouldn't repeat the Dobbs program, which had already been repeated once. Fox said it will no longer invite Farrell to appear on Fox Business or the Fox News Channel. It has removed references to the Thursday program from its website and social-media feeds. Farrell's TV comments also caused a ripple of controversy at George Mason. A university spokesman, Michael Sandler, said the school had received about a dozen complaints about it, about equally split between people who work at the university and those outside of it. "The general thrust was that they read into the comments that they were anti-Semitic," he said. But Sandler called the comments "an issue of academic freedom," and said no disciplinary action is planned. "His comments do not reflect the views of the university," added Sandler. "They are his own. We value inclusivity and diversity. When our faculty speaks to the media, our expectation is that they will elevate the conversation and inform the public. In this case, Mr. Farrell did neither." Farrell has been frequently quoted by conservative media outlets on a variety of subjects and has appeared many times on "Lou Dobbs Tonight," Fox Business' signature prime-time program. On Thursday, Dobbs asked him about "leftist groups" that have allegedly organized and financed the migrant caravan, which President Donald Trump and various Fox hosts have referred to as a would-be "invasion" of the United States. Farrell replied that "a lot of these folks also have affiliates or (are) getting money from the Soros-occupied State Department and that is a great, great concern. We need to start cutting money - start cutting money there." He didn't explain further, and Dobbs let it go without following up. The comment came two days after police disarmed an apparent bomb sent to a home owned by Soros, part of a wave of suspicious packages sent to prominent Democrats and to CNN. A Florida man, Cesar Sayoc, was arrested on Friday as a suspect. The Farrell-Dobbs segment aired live without apparent controversy Thursday night, but criticism began after Fox Business re-aired it on Saturday night - several hours after news broke about the massacre of 11 people in Pittsburgh by a gunman spouting anti-Jewish rhetoric. Farrell remains a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and of Investigative Reporters and Editors, which are composed of working journalists and journalism educators. ABC/Randy HolmesAfter Kanye West tweeted that his name had been used without permission to promote the anti-Democrat organization Blexit, the groups communications director Candace Owens is apologizing. It was reported that Kanye designed shirts for the organization, but he clarified that he does not support Blexit, which is short for "black exit from Democratic Party." He insisted that he'd merely "introduced Candace to the person who made the logo and they didnt want their name on it so she used mine. I never wanted any association with Blexit. I have nothing to do with it." He added, My eyes are now wide open and now realize Ive been used to spread messages I dont believe in. I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative !!! In a personal blog, Owens wrote, If I had to imagine what it would feel like to have a bullet pierce my heart, it would be exactly like the moment I learned Kanye told the world he felt I had used himKanye was completely right to feel used in that regard " Owens stated, I never once said that Kanye designed the t-shirts for BLEXIT. I would like to publicly apologize to him for any undue stress or pain the effort to correct that rumor has caused him, his business relationships, or his family, she continued. He simply never designed them. According to its website, Blexit "is a frequency for those who have released themselves from the political orthodoxy. It is a rebellion led by Americans wishing to disrupt the simulation of fear. Blexit is a renaissance. It is our formal declaration of independence." Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Pakistani Christians Call for Prayer, Christian Service in Midst of Violence After Asia Bibi Acquittal 'As a Praying People, Let Us Trust God,' Say Christians Bracing for Violence in 5th-Most Dangerous Country Contact: Christine Cape, 770-813-0000 SANTA ANA, Calif., Oct. 31, 2018 /Christian Newswire/ -- Christians on the ground in Pakistan tell Open Doors USA partners that they are calling on their fellow Christians across Pakistan to pray and offer themselves for public service as violent protests break out in the wake of the Pakistan Supreme Court's astounding acquittal of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman wrongly imprisoned there for more than eight years on Islamic charges of blasphemy: "We call on Christians across the country [Pakistan] and around the world to pray and proclaim, to demand our right to justice but to do so in a manner befitting Christians committed to being imitators of Christ. Do not destroy property, do not violate people, do not fall into the trap of violent and aggressive behavior. In response to this verdict, please hold back from making any comments that could be used against you. These [hardline Islamic] groups are on high alert and will be watching for any way to increase the pressure against Aasiya [Asia Bibi], Christians and the Church. Let us strive to demonstrate restraint, [as] no use of aggression or physical violence can make up for our loss as a nation and a community. ...As a praying people, let us trust God and ensure that we demonstrate Him and His Good News at this time. "Let us be compassionate to those who mourn and suffer at this time, and let us be prepared with our resources to serve this nation [Pakistan] at a time when a blood bath could easily occur. Be willing to become a public care servant, to demonstrate God's desire for justice, mercy and humility. If you are a Pakistani and have medical skills or social work skills, be willing to use them. Be watchful, vigilant and calm. God be with us all. To Him be all the Glory." David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors USA, an organization that has supported persecuted Christian minorities for more than 60 years, offered additional context to the tenuous situation: "Pakistan is a highly tense climate for religious minorities, especially Christians who live in fear of persecution and attacks to themselves and their property. As this verdict is released, it is imperative that the government of Pakistan and its Supreme Court be on alert to protect against violence threatened by Khadim Hussain Rizvi and his followers. We call upon law enforcement agencies to beef up security and deploy military troops as needed to safeguard the lives and property of all religious minorities. Now is the time for Pakistan to send a message that the hate speech and threatening actions of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan and all similar extremist groups will not be tolerated. Religion should never be used as a tool to promote violence in society." Pakistan is No. 5 on the 2018 Open Doors World Watch List of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to live as a Christian. Much of the Christian persecution in Pakistan comes from radical Islamic groups that flourish under the favor of political parties, the army and the government. These radical Islamic groups run thousands of Islamic education centers where youth are taught and encouraged to persecute religious minorities like Christians. About Open Doors USA For more than 60 years, Open Doors USA has worked in the world's most oppressive and restrictive countries for Christians. Open Doors works to equip and encourage Christians living in dangerous circumstances with the threat of persecution and equips the Western church to advocate for the persecuted. Christians are one of the most persecuted religious groups in the world and are oppressed in at least 60 countries. For more information, visit OpenDoorsUSA.org. Share Tweet By Olivia Rose RESIDENTS and visitors to the TCI are no longer at risk of catching the mosquito borne zika virus, according to an international health body. Premier Sharlene Cartwright Robinson made the announcement on Friday (October 19) at a press conference held at the Hilly Ewing building in Providenciales. She explained that that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has removed its zika virus classification scheme. The scheme had categorised most of the Caribbean countries and territories as having active zika virus transmission since the vicious outbreak in 2015. The WHO became satisfied with the evidence that the zika virus transmission in the Caribbean had been interrupted for over 12 months or was at undetectable levels thereby posing very little risk to residents and visitors to the region. The body removed the classification that has adversely affected tourism in many countries including the TCI. The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) recently said in a statement: "This was matched by data shared with CARPHA by Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States of America, which showed that no zika had been detected for over 12 months in travellers returning from the Caribbean to their countries. This evidence was used by the Caribbean Community to pen a letter to the WHO director general calling for the immediate reclassification of CARPHA member states from category one - having active zika transmission, to category three - having no zika transmission. It argued that the classification system had outlived its useful purpose. According to CARPHAs executive director Dr C James Hospedales, the zika classification was not only having an adverse impact on the Caribbean, but it was also against the tenets of the International Health Regulations. "This adverse impact was confirmed by the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) and the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO), who made a formal request to CARPHA for the agencys intervention, he said in his letter to the WHO. "The Caribbean is the most tourism-dependent region in the world. It is also one of the most popular honeymoon destinations worldwide and ongoing cancellations due to the classification of most Caribbean countries as category one is hurting the industry unnecessarily. "Therefore, CARPHA felt compelled to provide the evidence and to advocate for the removal of this WHO zika classification system, Hospedales added. Health officials in the TCI have been lobbying for the territory to be removed from the high risk zika alert which has been in effect for a long time. Premier Cartwright Robinson said: "Over the past year, there has been an effort by my Government to have Turks and Caicos Islands removed having had no new transmissions recorded and having seen other countries removed. "We are grateful to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the US consulate who were helpful in our efforts but are thrilled at the positive results of the advocacy led by CARPHA and Caricom which resulted in the removal the entire classification. "Last year I had the opportunity to engage with travel agents around the world and was told of the importance in having TCI removed from the list especially as my Government has committed through the Change Document to market TCI as a wedding destination. "We know that the travel agents that sell TCI and tourism sector welcomes this development and we are elated as a Government. The number of reported cases of zika, which was first detected in the Caribbean in 2015, peaked in 2016 and began to fall off by December of that year. ALBANY - A city teen wanted in connection with an investigation of a South Carolina killing surrendered to authorities on Wednesday, police said. Dashawn Muldrow, 17, walked into Center Station at about 7 a.m. and surrendered to officers, Albany police said. An Indiana woman is accused of writing a racist note targeting a black child who was moving into a new neighborhood with his family, using a racial slur and telling them, "THIS IS A WHITE NEIGHBORHOOD." Authorities said 63-year-old Deborah Cantwell, who is white, penned the letter and placed it on the new neighbors' front door this month near Greentown, Indiana. It warned the parents that one of their children, who authorities said is black, was "not welcome" in the community, according to court documents. It's unclear whether his parents are also black; police declined to comment further. A photo posted on GoFundMe, which appears to show the letter, revealed that a racial slur was used to describe the child. "We moved here to a WHITE TOWN, ALL WHITE NEIGHBORHOOD - FOR HEALTH REASONS AMONG OTHER THINGS. THIS IS OUR FOREVER HOME, WE CANNOT AFFORD TO MOVE - BESIDES THIS IS MY DREAM HOME AND WE HAVE BEEN HERE FOR A VERY LONG TIME," it read. It added that the family "SHOULD HAVE CONSIDERED THE NEIGHBORS" before bringing the child into the area. The letter continued, stating that "just the sight of the child reminds me of all the things I live in this town to forget." Authorities have not confirmed whether the photo shows the letter, but the text matches quotes found in the court records. Cantwell was arrested late last week on charges of intimidation and criminal mischief. She has since been released on bond. Officials with the Howard County Sheriff's Department said in a statement that deputies responded to the family's new home Oct. 13 about a letter that was found on the front door leading up to their move-in date. "The letter contained erroneous information concerning the property and also made derogatory racial comments towards a juvenile family member," according to the statement. Court records show that a family member told authorities that his family had not yet moved into the house but that he had stopped by the home about midnight and discovered that the trees had been toilet-papered. The "lengthy note" was attached to the door. In her letter, Cantwell said she has had "negative" experiences with black people, and seeing the child would cause stress. She urged them not to move into the house. Cantwell wrote in the letter that "YOU CAN SELL YOUR HOUSE AND MAKE MONEY ON IT RIGHT NOW," and added, "BY THE WAY HOPE YOU HAVE DEEP POCKETS," according to the court records. Authorities suspected Cantwell after the home's seller said Cantwell did not want the new family to buy the home, the records said. When investigators questioned Cantwell on Oct. 18, she admitted that she had written the letter because she was angry, suggesting that, throughout the years, black people held her father at gunpoint, stabbed an uncle and beat her sister. Cantwell told police that she delivered the note and toilet-papered the house out of "rage" and that "I was trying to vent," according to court documents. When asked whether she regretted her actions, Cantwell told police, "yes and no." "I am sorry that it caused so much ruckus, but I feel like I released some anger writing that letter," she said, according to the court documents. She added that had she received such a letter, "I'd want to get out of the neighborhood." It's unclear whether Cantwell has an attorney. She is due in court Nov. 19. In the years leading up to his death, notorious Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger wrote about his regrets in life. Bulger, imprisoned for life for his role in 11 murders, penned a letter to three teenage girls in 2015, telling them that he was "a 9th grade dropout" who "took the wrong road." The former mobster said he was among "society's lower, best forgotten" members. He told the students, who had first written to him for a project for National History Day, not to spend their time on him. "My life was wasted and spent foolishly, brought shame and suffering on my parents and siblings and will end soon," he wrote, according to the Boston Globe. The Bureau of Prisons confirmed that Bulger, 89, died Tuesday after he was found unresponsive at a penitentiary in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, though details about his death are not immediately known. The three high school students - Michaela Arguin, Mollykate Rodenbush and Brittany Tainsh, then juniors in Lakeville, Massachusetts - decided to build their project around Bulger, the former boss of Boston's notorious Winter Hill Gang. Arguin said that the theme was leadership and that, rather than choosing a positive leader, they chose a negative one, asking Bulger what he thought about his own legacy. Bulger, no doubt, had a troubled life. As The Washington Post reported, Bulger, from a poor family in Boston, started stealing when he was young. By the 1950s, he was robbing banks. By the 1970s and 1980s, he was heading his infamous gang, known for fixing horse races, among other crimes. The Post continued: "Although notorious in Boston, Mr. Bulger was largely unknown to the wider world until after he disappeared in 1994. In his absence, his darkest secrets, including his corrupt ties with FBI agents, were gradually laid bare in court hearings, media exposes and a congressional inquiry. He became a nationwide curiosity, sharing space with Osama bin Laden on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. "Captured in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2011, Mr. Bulger was sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus five years after a Boston jury convicted him of 31 racketeering offenses. The indictment against him catalogued 19 alleged murders, and he was found guilty of ordering or carrying out 11 of them. "The verdicts, in 2013, climaxed a gangland opera of fealty and betrayal that spanned half a century and combined two of Boston's abiding fixations: ethnic crime and politics." But on Feb. 24, 2015, Bulger replied to the students' letter from federal prison in Sumterville, Florida, declining to participate and urging the teenagers to find a "more deserving" subject, such as a wounded service member. "Good men isolated from society due to war wounds - life for some in pain and loneliness - hearing from school girls that care would do wonders for their morale and recovery," he wrote. Bulger also talked about his brother, William Bulger, whom he called "A Better Man than I." His brother was a former president of the Massachusetts Senate as well as the University of Massachusetts - but was pressured by then-Gov. Mitt Romney to resign from the university in 2003. Arguin, one of the students who wrote to Bulger, said in 2015 that his response was "shocking." "It was a completely different side to what he shows to everyone else," she told the Boston Globe at the time. "It was kind of weird we kind of had an impact on him, three high school girls. You wouldn't expect that." But more than three years later, Arguin said she feels the same way. "Looking back now, we honestly, truly reached out to try to gain a primary source for our project and never thought he would respond, let alone the broader implications this response has had about the historical understanding of Whitey today," she told The Post on Tuesday after the news that Bulger had died in prison. Arguin, 20, a double-major in political science and Islamic civilization and societies at Boston College, said the fact that Bulger expressed his views to the students was "unique" but what she found interesting was the way that he characterized his remorse. "He felt badly about how he affected his family's reputation," she said, "but not for the families of the victims whose lives he took." Still, Arguin said, she was most stuck by his advice. Bulger had told the students, "Advice is a cheap commodity some seek it from me about crime - I know only thing for sure - If you want to make crime pay - 'Go to Law School.' " "It's something you wouldn't think a mob boss would say," Arguin said. Arguin, who said she is a pre-law student, said she has taken Bulger's suggestion and plans to go to law school - perhaps to study criminal law. --- Part of a continuing series about events of the past that remain relevant. Joe Gerth was strolling through the aisles of the National Gun Day show at the Kentucky Exposition Center on Saturday afternoon when he did a double take. Gerth, a metro columnist with the Louisville Courier-Journal, had stopped by the show to do research for his next piece: Earlier that week, a gunman had gone to a Kroger grocery store in nearby Jeffersontown, Kentucky, and fatally shot two black customers. Gerth was hoping to interview gun dealers at the expo about whether they feared the firearms they sold could end up in the wrong hands. But now, visible above the hundreds of vendor tables, Gerth spotted what appeared to be an old Ku Klux Klan robe being sold - for $695 - among the firearms and gun accessories. He snapped a photo and posted it on social media. "Here's a nice little item you can pick up at the gun show," Gerth tweeted before moving on. Before long, however, he had come across other troubling items: "Original Christmas ornaments" painted silver, red and black, adorned with swastikas. At another booth was a red and white tank top, also emblazoned with a swastika. Gerth tweeted that he was "appalled" at the KKK and Nazi paraphernalia being sold at the show, especially given the Kroger shooting just days before - and the shooting that killed 11 in a Pittsburgh synagogue, the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history, that very morning. The Kroger shooting is being investigated as a potential hate crime. Kentucky events and convention officials quickly agreed with Gerth, saying they were also "horrified" to learn vendors had been selling such items on state convention center grounds, as the Courier-Journal first reported. "Once we found out [those items] were there, it was really super shock and disbelief," Mark Lynn, the chairman of the Kentucky State Fair Board, told The Washington Post. "Personally, I find these things exceptionally offensive." Lynn said he and others on the state fair board, which oversees Kentucky Venues, are planning to propose a new policy that would prohibit vendors from selling items of "known hate" at future expo and convention center events. "I'm going to stand up and defend your rights to your freedom as much as humanly possible, but with every right to freedom comes a responsibility," Lynn said. "If you want to wear it on your shirt or put it on your car or truck or tattoo it on your head or whatever, that's up to you. But if you want to sell articles such as this [on our property] . . . then we have the rights to say yes you can, no you can't." Lynn said the state board in 2016 drafted a similar policy prohibiting the sale, handout or display of anything including the Confederate flag. He added it is still working on how to word such a policy to exclude things like KKK and Nazi paraphernalia. "I don't want to blanket say 'any or all hate items' because that's too broad," Lynn said. "I'm not even sure what that will mean in 12 months." The next state fair board meeting is scheduled for Nov. 15, and a new policy could apply to shows occurring after that date. However, he said it was too late to do anything about the vendors who sold KKK and Nazi items at the National Gun Show, which only lasted the weekend. Gerth said he only picked up the vendor name for the booth with the "original Christmas ornaments" - Walter Kanzler Guns and Militaria based in Key Largo, Florida. When reached by email, Kanzler said he did not wish to comment, other than to write "Banning History is not the answer." In an interview with the Courier-Journal, Kanzler defended the items he sells as having historical value. "I don't want to suppress history," Kanzler told the newspaper. "I have no interest in political statements. I'm not into hate or anything like that. These things are a part of history." Gerth has since written a follow-up column in which he denies that it's a matter of free speech. "This is a matter of commercialism and what can be sold on state property and whether people should be able to peddle this sort of intimidation and hate in a building we all own," Gerth wrote. The day after a gunman killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue, American neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin took to the extremist website he founded - where there is already an entire tab devoted to the "Jewish Problem" - and started complaining. It's not that Anglin was upset by the slaughter of innocent people. He was upset that such a radical and overt act of hate - straight-up killing - in 2018 America would make it much more difficult for white supremacists and neo-Nazis to gain more supporters and eventually rise to political power. "These Jewish corpses are going to be used for years to come as clubs to beat our freedom of speech rights," he wrote Sunday. "Nothing was gained in this event." "Look, kids: you're not going to fight the Jews and overthrow the system with random terrorist attacks," he added. Among neo-Nazis and white supremacists, Anglin was not alone in that view, which experts on extremism say underscores their prevailing long-term strategy. Gone are the days of defeating one's declared enemies through vigilante violence such as public lynchings or even Nazi death camps - at least not right now. Today's goal is first to escape the political fringe and the dark corners of the Internet. The kind of "change" they seek can occur, they argue, only when they are in control. Hence the problem Pittsburgh shooting suspect Robert Bowers presents to those extremist groups - the negative optics of a massacre allegedly at the hands of someone with whom they agree. Bowers, in his online posts, referred to conspiracy theories about white people being targeted by "globalists," and he aimed his hatred at Jews. Shortly before the massacre in Pittsburgh, Bowers apparently posted his final screed on the social media site Gab: "I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I'm going in." Keegan Hankes, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center's intelligence project who tracks neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, said most have an explicit goal of building political power. "So when they see someone who espouses their exact ideology and then goes and shoots a bunch of people, that essentially makes their politics that much harder and basically kills any chance of them generating mainstream support for their positions," Hankes said. "To them, it makes their brand so toxic that no one is going to listen to them no matter what they say." Richard Spencer, a white nationalist best known for coining the term "alt-right," frequently spouts anti-Semitic beliefs. But he insisted after the Pittsburgh slayings that he doesn't believe violence is the way to fight Jews in American society. "Everything I do, I'm trying to reach the mainstream. That's why I'm talking to you. That's why I use my name. I'm not trying to be part of a subculture. I'm trying to reach mainstream people," he said. "To be associated with someone like [Bowers] is truly disappointing and demoralizing, and to know that something like that can be used to censor us further, to suppress our speech, that is again quite demoralizing." Civil rights groups say public expressions of racism - with its disparate multitude of targets and actions - have risen sharply in the United States since President Donald Trump's 2016 election. It's a trend Trump's critics attribute to his frequent use of false statements and conspiracy theories that can incite anger toward Democrats, women, minorities and other political opponents and critics. The rainbow of American racists includes the fringe neo-Nazis like Anglin, who make Jews the prime target of their hatred. But only some among that crowd found it fit to rejoice publicly after the massacre. On the social media site 4chan, anonymous commenters expressed excitement about the possibility that the media attention to Bowers' views was "accidentally redpilling" the public to their cause. Redpilling, on the Internet, is a reference to the movie "The Matrix" and is commonly used by racist groups to describe a conversion to extreme views. But for many others, there were the political costs and further censorship to consider. Some chose outright denial, saying it could have been a "false flag" - an attack carried out by Jews themselves to garner public sympathy. And then there were others who lamented that at the very least, the killings were not strategic - if such an attack were to yield benefits, the targets would need to be important Jews. "I think this was, overall, a big negative," said Matthew Heimbach, co-founder of a now-defunct white nationalist group. "My first knee jerk response on social media, VK and Facebook was: Don't [expletive] do this. It's only going to turn people away from us when we've got to be winning hearts and minds." "It's not like these were executives from Halliburton or financial executives from the 2008 crash," Heimbach added. "They were just senior citizens." Described as a loner, Bowers was not previously known to law enforcement. But Hankes said his comments were a perfect echo of the ideology espoused on neo-Nazi websites. Bowers told police after the attack that he just wanted "to kill Jews," according to a federal criminal complaint. "They're committing genocide to my people," he said. Hankes said the idea of a white genocide aligns with the ideology neo-Nazis present to the public. "This is the heart of white nationalism," Hankes said. "This is the absolute core of their ideology - this idea of replacement and that there is a war of attrition in this country." The online platform where Bowers posted his messages - Gab - in the hours after the massacre issued a defiant message promising that the site would only grow stronger: "You have all just made Gab a nationally recognized brand as the home of free speech online at a time when Silicon Valley is stifling political speech they disagree with to interfere in a U.S. election." When Election Day rolled around in colonial America, it was cause for celebration. Voting was done in the spring back then. People gathered for all-day town meetings, to cast their votes, and to enjoy each others company along with food and drink. An election cake was the much-anticipated centerpiece of the occasion. Voting was a lot more fun then than it is now. We squeeze in our vote early in the morning, after work but before dinner, or even later if we vote at all looking forward to the end of the political message barrage, hoping for our candidate to prevail. If we put the fun back in, perhaps voting would be less of a chore. With the help of Mary Oster at the Norwalk League of Women Voters, I sliced into the Election Cake tradition at their City Hall candidate forum Oct. 25. She encouraged me to bring a cake to see what the reaction would be. Election cakes are made with ingredients typically available in early America. Its a yeast-based cake, since commercially made baking powder was not available. Loaded with dried fruit, nuts, and spices, its also seasoned with a healthy jolt of rum. Like any recipe thats been around for centuries, there are countless variations. I baked a Hartford election cake from afamilyfeast.com. The cake became a Hartford tradition in the early 19th century, when Election Day was one of the most important dates on the calendar. An early recipe appeared in American Cookery by Amelia Simmons in the first decades of the 1800s. It called for 30 quarts of flour, 10 pounds of butter, 14 pounds of sugar, 12 pounds of raisins, 3 dozen eggs and more. It would have fed a crowd. Election cakes are flavored with the spices associated with the New England spice trade. Cinnamon and allspice, of course, along with coriander, cloves and mace. Nutmeg is a must, since Connecticut is the Nutmeg State. Knobs of nutmeg, looking a little like acorns, were common in the larders of the era ready to be freshly grated when needed. Dried fruits, another kitchen staple, were also a product of New England seafaring traders. Raisins and currants are the most commonly mentioned options in the recipes I checked. Dried cranberries were included in my cake to add a tart native fruit to my raisins and sultanas. Dates, apricots, or cherries would work as well. The sailors also brought home plenty of rum from their voyages. The rich flavor of dark rum is good in election cakes, but any spirit of the time would do. Madeira, sherry, or port would all work. Because its a yeast cake, making an election cake takes half a day. Most of the time is spent waiting for the cake to rise. After combining the ingredients into a wet dough, a two-hour proof is needed. When the yeast has worked its magic, the dough is shaped into the pan and rested for another hour to double in size. The final bake takes about 40 minutes. Back then, there would have been a yeast starter in the kitchen, not the packaged yeast we have today. Everyone had their own slightly different starter that they fed daily. These days, wild yeast and sourdough starters are coming back with dedicated home bakers. (Im not there yet.) The aroma of fruit and spice drifts through the house as it bakes. Open the oven door and you get a blast of toasty cake and bread as well. Turn it out and brush a blend of butter and rum over the golden brown surface, and the aroma gets even better. The candidates at the LWV forum were all enthusiastic about the cake and encouraged the revival of the tradition. Republicans and Democrats, incumbents and challengers, all joined me in an encouraging bipartisan slice of Hartford election cake. All elections are important, but this one seems particularly urgent to me. We need to elect a team with vision, ability, and smarts to lead our state through the tough problems at hand and position Connecticut for a successful future. Be sure to get out and vote! Every vote counts with or without election cake. Frank Whitman can be reached at NotBreadAloneFW@gmail.com. There was good news in an August letter to The Associated Press: The Illinois attorney generals public access counselor had ruled in favor of the APs Freedom of Information Act request for records that the Department of Human Services had refused to disclose. The bad news: The AP requested them in 2011. The agency complied in October, handing over the names of teenagers and young adults hired for taxpayer-financed summer jobs a decade and more ago. But the lengthy wait for a decision by the public records arbiter points to problems that have dogged it since its introduction workload and backlogs which both candidates for attorney general in the Nov. 6 election pledge to fix. The counselor has 2,330 unresolved appeals of FOIA requests denied by government agencies, according to attorney generals records. State Sen. Kwame Raoul, a Chicago Democrat who wrote legislation that created the current system in 2010, and Republican Erika Harold, a civil litigator from Urbana, suggest increased staffing, issuing more opinions with the force of law, and tightening the types of exceptions public bodies use to deny disclosure are suggestions Raoul and Harold make. The 7 -year delay in disclosure of the summer jobs records, a request prompted by a federal investigation into the program under the now-imprisoned Gov. Rod Blagojevich, is an extreme example. But 56 percent of the unresolved appeals are at least two years old, according to an AP analysis of the records. If public bodies know that there is not likely to be a resolution in a timely manner, then that decreases the incentive to comply, Harold said. Its why the issue of fighting public corruption resonates. So many people want to see government reformed and operate in a more transparent and accountable manner. Arising from Blagojevich-era corruption, the PAC referees disputes between taxpayers and public bodies on alleged violations of the Open Meetings Act as well as records requests denied under FOIA . Prior to the PAC, a denied FOIA could only be appealed to the head of the public body hardly a sympathetic jurist or through a potentially costly lawsuit. The referee role proved popular, to the tune of 26,417 requests for review in less than nine years, an annual average of 3,300. The 1,744 requests submitted to the PAC in 2010 have more than doubled. Its not operating as we designed it to operate, Raoul said. To the extent that were going to have one (PAC), we need to resource it appropriately to deal with the volume of claims. While often associated with journalists, FOIA is far more widely used. Private citizens the attorney general will not release names of individuals submitting appeals filed 82 percent of the 26,400 requests for review. Of the 2,330 outstanding requests for review, 70 percent were filed by citizens. Current Attorney General Lisa Madigan, a Democrat who assisted with the PAC legislation, is not seeking a fifth term. Her spokeswoman did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Raoul said he would review the laws exemptions to disclosure and whether theyre employed legitimately. The best way to reduce volume is not to have referrals in the first place and release the information that ought to be released, Raoul said. I cant say exactly what tweaks or what changes in law may be needed, or clarifying language with regard to exemptions, but I will do such an analysis. Harold noted that the PAC could sharpen its teeth by issuing more binding opinions, or rulings that have the force of law. The binding opinions would build up the body of law and provide more clarity on more complicated issues and hopefully provide public bodies with additional guidance, Harold said. The PAC has only issued 119 binding opinions since 2010, largely because the law requires them to be delivered within 60 days. The backlog has changed little since The Associated Press first highlighted the problem in early 2015 . At the time, the AP found that the PAC had 2,800 open files. Some 1,200, or about 43 percent of them, had been waiting for resolution for two years or more. DAYLIGHT Savings Time will end on Sunday, November 4 at 2am, the Government has advised. At that time, Eastern Standard Time will begin and will continue until Sunday, March 10, 2019, at 2am. A one-hour time change will take place at 2am on Sunday, November 4, when clocks will go back to 1am. A group of Republican senators is urging a halt to talks on selling U.S. nuclear power equipment to Saudi Arabia in response to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, adding to doubts about the stalled deal. "I would not be investing heavily on the prospects of any deal being finalized soon," Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Washington-based Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said in an interview. "It's at least on the back burner and almost certainly on ice." The nuclear technology sharing agreement, which could benefit companies including Westinghouse Electric Co. and Exelon Corp., was facing blowback in Congress amid concern the deal wouldn't prohibit the Saudis from enriching nuclear fuel into weapons-grade materials. Personnel changes in the White House have also brought to power skeptics of the arrangement, which is opposed by Israel. Then the Oct. 2 death of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey inflamed opposition. Istanbul's chief prosecutor said in a statement Oct. 31 that Khashoggi's killing was a pre-meditated murder by strangulation as soon as he entered the consulate. Khashoggi's body was then dismembered and destroyed in yet another sign his killing was planned in advance, the prosecutor's office said. "The ongoing revelations about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as certain Saudi actions related to Yemen and Lebanon, have raised further serious concerns about the transparency, accountability, and judgment of current decisionmakers in Saudi Arabia," said the letter. Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Todd Young of Indiana, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Dean Heller of Nevada signed the letter. Rubio is considering introducing legislation to block a U.S.-Saudi nuclear pact through a legally binding joint resolution of disapproval, a spokeswoman for the senator said. A House bill introduced by Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in March would require congressional approval for so-called 123 agreements if they don't maintain the "gold standard" barring enrichment and reprocessing of uranium. The killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of the Saudi government, has prompted dozens of finance and business leaders to distance themselves from the kingdom and placed Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman under political strain. The Saudi government has said it wants to build as many as 16 new reactors in the kingdom, a project that could extend a lifeline to U.S. companies hit by a domestic downturn in nuclear power plant construction. During the first half of 2018, a number of events conspired to put the negotiations on a back burner. The Saudis' ambitious plan for an initial public offering of state oil giant Aramco was called off, raising questions about related growth activities, including its nuclear energy plans. Saudi plans to move the bidding process forward by reducing the five contenders to two or three never occurred. In addition, the change in secretary of state from Rex Tillerson to Mike Pompeo and in national security adviser from H.R. McMaster to John Bolton brought to positions of influence two skeptics of nuclear energy proliferation in the volatile Middle East. Pompeo insisted that the Saudis would need to sign an agreement barring uranium enrichment for the deal to proceed, a condition the Saudis rejected. And on Capitol Hill, where a nuclear deal faces ratification, a growing number of senators seemed to share Pompeo's view, bolstered by Israel's publicly stated concern that nuclear proliferation in the Arab world, even with a budding ally like Saudi Arabia, was a threat to its security. When he stepped inside the Pantheon during a trip to Rome in the early 1950s, William Murtagh began to reconsider all he had been taught. He had just graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with an architecture degree, but his studies were almost entirely concentrated on the austere Bauhaus school of 20th-century design. "I stood there most of the day wondering what was wrong with the past five years of my life," Murtagh later recalled, "because you couldn't call this a bad building." On his return to the United States, he immersed himself in the field of historic preservation, taking up the banner of a budding campaign to save the country's colonial farmhouses, Civil War battlefields, Victorian mansions and Old West saloons from the crush of development. As entire city blocks were razed in urban renewal projects, interstate highways were paved across the countryside and architectural marvels such as New York's Penn Station were demolished to make way for bigger, newer structures, Murtagh helped lead a growing resistance effort that culminated in the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. In its aftermath, he was appointed the first "keeper" of the National Register of Historic Places - a job that made him the curator of America's now-sprawling catalog of significant districts, objects, buildings, sites and structures. Murtagh, who was described in a 2005 presidential citation from the American Institute of Architects as "the beloved pied piper of preservation" and a champion of "the continually nourishing presence of the past," was 95 when he died Oct. 28 at a retirement community in Sarasota, Florida. The cause was complications from congestive heart failure, said his nephew Dean F. Murtagh. In a more than half-century career, Murtagh served as a vice president at the National Trust for Historic Preservation; helped establish preservation programs as a professor at Columbia University, the University of Maryland and the University of Hawaii; and wrote what is widely considered the first major textbook in his field, "Keeping Time: The History and Theory of Preservation in America," originally published in 1988 and now in its third edition. "Quite simply, historic preservation in America would not be what it is today without the vision, leadership, and extraordinary contributions of William J. Murtagh," Stephanie Meeks, president and chief executive of the National Trust, said in a statement. "In many ways," she added, "Murtagh gave preservation in America itself a history. His thinking and scholarship informed the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 . . . and, with a steady hand and a deep appreciation for international approaches to saving places, he continued to lead the preservation movement in more than five decades since." Murtagh was best known for his 13 years as keeper of the National Register, where beginning in 1967 he determined which sites would join a list that now numbers more than 92,000 individual properties and 1.4 million total entries. The designation qualifies sites for federal grants and tax provisions, but does not entirely prevent properties from being destroyed or altered. Instead, the register's creation offered preservationists a new tool in the face of the bulldozer, mandating that federal projects affecting a registered site undergo a review from the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which may criticize but not altogether halt a project that is funded or licensed by the U.S. government. "This is definitely a way to combat visual and cultural pollution, which can be as depressing as air and water pollution," Murtagh told The New York Times in 1971. Indeed, the Times reported that after the French Quarter of New Orleans was listed in the register, the Transportation Department was persuaded to alter the route of a proposed elevated highway through the neighborhood. Under the National Historic Preservation Act, which created the register, it was the responsibility of state preservation programs to submit potential historic sites for Murtagh to review. But as thousands of houses, districts and other miscellanea of the American landscape poured in, it became clear that Murtagh approached his job not so much as a judge or critic but as a cheerleader for local communities. By all accounts, nearly every submission was accepted by Murtagh, so long as a state provided evidence that a place was somehow, to some degree, significant, no matter how provincial it might seem to outsiders. The criteria for historic significance was broad enough to encompass the cable cars of San Francisco, the first U.S. street to be paved with concrete (in Bellefontaine, Ohio), one of the first brooder houses for broiler chickens (in Georgetown, Delaware), and a prairie-style Frank Lloyd Wright home in Chicago. "He set the tone for the register, demonstrating an openness to what people and communities around the nation value," said Carol Shull, who worked alongside Murtagh and later served as the third official keeper of the register. "I think we all followed that precept, of not thinking that we were bureaucrats in Washington telling the people, 'We don't really value this; why'd you send this up here?' " In frequent trips across the country to meet with state and local officials, Native American tribal leaders and everyday citizens, Murtagh resisted efforts to pin down exactly what deserved to be included in the register - or, on one occasion, exactly how many of Oregon's 16 coastal lighthouses deserved to be nominated. "Well, I'm not going to tell you. I don't live in Oregon. I don't see your lighthouses. How important are they to you as an Oregonian?" Murtagh was said to have replied, according to a 2010 article by Shull, published in Preservation magazine. "If they're not that important, don't submit any of them. If only one of them is important, submit one. If you feel they're all important, submit all of them," he said. "How many do you think you need to keep Oregon's sense of locality, and place, and identity?" William John Murtagh was born in Philadelphia on May 2, 1923. His father owned butcher shops, and his mother was a homemaker. Murtagh received a bachelor's degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania in 1950, and worked under preservationist Charles Peterson to help develop Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. Yet after an automobile accident kept him away from the drafting table for a year, he decided to return to graduate school at Penn, where he received a master's degree in art history in 1953 and a doctorate in architectural history in 1963, while embarking on the European travels that ignited his interest in preservation. His early focus was on Moravian architecture, studying the Colonial-era buildings built by German immigrants in cities such as Bethlehem, Pa., where he directed the Kemerer Museum of Decorative Arts and oversaw the organization Historic Bethlehem. His work there attracted the attention of Richard Hubbard Howland, first president of the National Trust, a nonprofit organization that was founded by congressional charter in 1949 to acquire and preserve historic sites across the country. Murtagh was hired as Howland's assistant in 1958 and soon promoted to serve as the organization's director of education, and then of programs. He also sat on a committee that produced "A Report on Principles and Guidelines for Historic Preservation in the United States," a 1964 document credited with outlining the principles enshrined in the National Historic Preservation Act, and was a founding member of the U.S. Committee of the International Council of Monuments and Sites. After retiring from the National Register, Murtagh worked as a professor and returned for several years to the National Trust as vice president of preservation services. He received the organization's highest honor, as well as the Interior Department's Distinguished Service Award. His marriage to Mary Louise Morton ended in divorce, and he leaves no immediate survivors. At his request, Murtagh will be buried near his summer home in Penobscot, Maine. His ties to the area stretched back to the first grant he awarded as keeper of the National Register, which enabled the town of Castine to rescue a historic home, according to his friend Walter Smalling, a former photographer with the National Park Service. When Murtagh visited Castine to examine the home, Smalling said, he fell in love with the town - "he said it was so quiet you could hear the ice melt in your martini" - and came across a 19th-century schoolhouse, the Abbott School building, that was going to be altered and turned into a garage. To save the structure, Murtagh bought it, and then lived there for about 15 years before moving to a small home in Penobscot. The schoolhouse has since changed hands and now houses the Castine Historical Society. It is listed, naturally, on the National Register of Historic Places. THE TCI Tourist Board has received the honour of being awarded Island Destinations 2019 Ultimate Partner. Island Destinations is a world leader in luxury vacation travel and a preferred supplier to Virtuoso, Signature, Affluent Traveller and Travel Leaders Networks. The Ultimate Partner award winner was declared on October 11 at the ID Travel Group Travellers Collection brochure launch event at the St Regis Hotel in New York. It was presented by owner of Island Destinations Maurice Bonham-Carter to Pamela Ewing, regional marketing manager of the TCI Tourist Board. Director of Tourism Ramon Andrews said: "The Turks and Caicos Islands Tourist Board team is elated to be awarded Island Destinations 2019 Ultimate Partner and be recognised for our persistence in fulfilling our mandate. "We are proud of our efforts to market the Turks and Caicos Islands as the premier luxury Caribbean destination. "This could only be achieved with the assistance of our industry partners. "This endorsement, by our valued partner Islands Destinations, further emboldens our commitment to excellence. The Tourist Board is acknowledged within the international travel and tourism sector as the territorys official destination marketing agency. Its promotional efforts are continuously recognised as evidenced by the 2018 World Travel Award nomination for Caribbeans Leading Tourist Board. This newest accomplishment, was achieved as a result of the development of key industry alliances and a comprehensive marketing strategy, a board statement said on Tuesday (October 23). Laurie Palumbo, chief operating officer at Island Destinations, said: "Were thrilled this year to present our Ultimate Partner Award to the Turks and Caicos Tourist Board. "This destination partner continuously goes above and beyond for Island Destinations with their support in educating advisors and engaging in marketing opportunities to drive business. "With their help, in June 2018 we brought our entire team to the island to experience the destination in depth and enhance their expertise on the luxury hotels and villas. Houston ISDs chief technology officer has returned to work after an investigation cleared him of the most serious charges that led to his placement on temporary leave earlier this summer, his lawyer said this week. Lenny Schad, the districts CTO since 2012, was cleared of allegations that he discriminated against and harassed an employee who raised concerns about a now-discarded information system, as well as claims that he made racially insensitive and sexist remarks about colleagues, said Schads lawyer, Christopher Tritico. HISD officials did issue a finding in connection with an allegation that Schad improperly communicated with a district employee during the investigation, Tritico said. He declined to elaborate on the finding or whether any sanctions were issued, other than to note Schad was not suspended, demoted or docked pay. (Lenny) is certainly pleased that he was cleared of all substantive issues, because he didnt do anything wrong, Tritico said. Hes happy to be back at work and to have this whole thing behind him. HISD officials did not respond to requests for details about the investigations findings and did not dispute any of Triticos comments. The district has addressed this matter appropriately and I have confidence in Mr. Schads ability as HISDs Chief Technology Information Officer, Interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan said in a statement. The resolution ends yet another chapter in the tumult among HISDs administrative ranks, beginning with the unexpected departure of then-superintendent Richard Carranza in March. In subsequent months, four of the districts highest-ranking officials the deputy superintendent, chief of staff, chief human resources officer and chief student support officer all retired or took other jobs. Earlier this month, a slim majority of HISDs board of trustees voted to oust Lathan but reversed course days later when her named replacement, former HISD superintendent Abelardo Saavedra, backed out of the job. Schad, whose $219,680 annual salary ranks fourth-highest in HISD, initially faced allegations in July when a colleague filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Complaint against him. The colleague reported that Schad made derogatory statements about her to other HISD employees after she disagreed with him about the readiness of a new student information system purchased through the vendor Infinite Campus, according to the EEOC complaint. HISD trustees voted in 2016 to approve a $3.7-million deal with the Minnesota-based company, but they terminated the agreement in August following complaints about the systems performance. Schads colleague said she raised concerns about the systems efficacy while Schad pushed forward with implementing it, leading to friction. The colleague also said Schad commented that his black male colleagues all look the same to me, made insensitive statements about employees of Indian heritage and repeatedly called her pejorative terms for women over several years. The complaint did not include attachments or witness statements that corroborate the allegations, though the complainant provided three names of potential witnesses. HISD officials refused a request from the Houston Chronicle to release documents detailing evidence obtained and findings reached by the outside investigator. Lathan notified Schad in mid-July that an outside investigator would review the claims against him. Three weeks later, HISD officials received a report that Schad spoke with a district employee about the complaint against him, which made the employee feel intimidated. Lathan then placed Schad on temporary leave pending the outcome of the investigation based on the seriousness of these allegations. Tritico said Schads intent was not to intimidate that individual, adding that the finding was made and Lenny has moved on. Schad joined Houston ISD after serving as Katy ISDs chief technology officer for nine years. jacob.carpenter@chron.com Ask the Fool Reorganizing the S&P 500 Q: I heard that the S&P 500 recently reorganized itself. What does that mean? -- A.B., Winona, Minn. A: The Standard & Poor's 500 index of 500 big companies is adjusted regularly, with some companies being removed from the index while others are added to replace them. For example, Twitter was added to the index in June to replace Monsanto, as Monsanto was being acquired by the German company Bayer and would no longer be a stand-alone company or stock. The index recently underwent a bigger transformation than usual, though, as it changed how it classifies and groups certain companies. Gone is the Telecoms sector, replaced by a new Communications Services sector. The new sector will contain not only companies that provide various communication platforms but also companies offering media content. Some of its components will be Comcast, AT&T, Verizon Communications, Walt Disney, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix and Google's parent, Alphabet. The change was made to better classify companies with operations that span both communication channels and content. The reorganization won't really affect those invested in the overall S&P 500 index, but if you've invested in any funds specializing in various sectors, the holdings in them may well have changed. Foolish Trivia Name that company I trace my roots back to 1968, when I was formed as one of the first hospital management companies in the United States. Over many years, I built and acquired lots of hospitals. In 1994, I merged with Columbia Healthcare, which had previously acquired Humana's hospital operations. I recently boasted 178 hospitals, plus 119 surgery centers, in 20 states and the United Kingdom. I've been taken public and private several times in my life, and I am currently publicly traded, with a recent market value north of $46 billion. I have 249,000 employees and more than 28 million patient encounters each year. Who am I? Last week's trivia answer: Kellogg Co. The Take Profitable storage If you're looking for solid stocks with dividend yields over 3 percent, real estate investment trusts, or REITs, are an excellent option. They're required to pay out 90 percent of their taxable income to shareholders, and many pay 100 percent. One REIT for investors to consider is Public Storage (NYSE: PSA), which has a dividend yield recently over 4 percent. Public Storage primarily acquires, develops and operates self-storage facilities, and it boasts more than 2,400 facilities in 38 states and 228 facilities in western Europe. It generates revenue through rental income from tenants, and it can boost that by raising prices in supply-constrained markets or via higher occupancy rates. On the downside, tenant leases tend to be short-term in nature, which can lead to a more cyclical business. Public Storage offers a lot of stability. Over the past few quarters, its occupancy rate has easily topped 90 percent and it's even stronger in the supply-constrained West Coast regions. It also has more market share than the next three largest publicly traded self-storage companies combined. Investors can enjoy its dominant market-share position, thanks to its early acquisition strategy that gobbled up facilities in a highly fragmented industry. People will always need a place to store extra stuff; that demand isn't going away anytime soon. That makes Public Storage well worth considering for long-term investors seeking income. Andrews McMeel Syndication Outspoken Houston attorney and prolific political fundraiser Tony Buzbee has announced his candidacy for mayor of Houston, vowing to fund his own campaign even if it takes $5 million and saying the city lacks the international standing it deserves because of lack of leadership. Buzbee promised to "liven things up a bit," lamenting in a Wednesday interview with the Houston Chronicle that the 2015 mayor's race that placed Mayor Sylvester Turner in office was "the most boring thing you've ever seen" among a group of "mediocre" candidates. Among Buzbee's pledges: The wealthy trial attorney would donate the mayor's roughly $236,000 annual salary to a "random person that I select" each year. "My No. 1 thing is the pay-to-play is going to end. I'm not taking any money from anybody," Buzbee said. "Am I accusing the current mayor of that? No, that's just the way it works. But we're going to change that dramatically." Crime, infrastructure and homelessness should be the focus of the city's leaders, he said, not "who's going to get me my next $5,000 so I can run for the next election cycle." Buzbee said the city must grow the police force a goal Turner also campaigned on and often speaks about but otherwise deferred discussion of policy issues to a later date. Turner, asked for his reaction to Buzbee's announcement after Wednesday's regularly scheduled city council meeting, said, "I don't even know who he is. Next question," then laughed. THROWBACK: Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner's University of Houston yearbook photo pops up on Reddit Buzbee, a former Marine who was appointed to the Texas A&M University System board of regents in 2013 by former Gov. Rick Perry, has amassed a fortune through lawsuits against corporate giants, and also helped defend Perry against a 2014 abuse-of-power charge. He has become a fundraising powerhouse for candidates and causes he backs, hosting a fundraiser for President Trump at his River Oaks mansion, as well as a 2014 gathering in support of Adrian Garcia's 2015 mayoral bid. Garcia, a Democrat, now is running to unseat Harris County Commissioner Jack Morman. After Garcia was eliminated in the mayor's race, Buzbee hosted a fundraiser for Turner ahead of his December runoff election that year against Bill King. He said Turner's tenure has disappointed him, however. "I'm not suggesting he's done a horrific job," Buzbee said, "I'm just saying, my goodness, we can do a lot better than what we're doing." Buzbee said he held a formal role in the Galveston County Democratic Party years ago but has long viewed partisan labels as "baloney." Buzbee recently has been in the news for parking a tank in front of his home, for having $300,000 in artwork destroyed by a house guest, and, in 2016, for having a drunk-driving charge that year dismissed personally by then-District Attorney Devon Anderson. Buzbee hinted at a few campaign-trail critiques in his comments, referencing the time Turner has spent traveling to other countries at taxpayer expense and saying he recently saw Houston on a list of cities with high crime. He also vowed not to accept any campaign donations and to donate the mayors roughly $236,000 annual salary to a voter he would select at random each year. "The worst thing that could happen in my life is to be the mayor because I'll have to roll up my sleeves and do that work because it's a grind, but I know I'll do it better because I don't fail at anything," Buzbee said. "I love the city of Houston. We don't get the credit we deserve nationally and internationally, and if I'm the mayor we'll get it." Houston municipal elections will be held in November 2019, with runoff elections, if necessary, the following month. mike.morris@chron.com By Olivia Rose MARANATHA Academy in Providenciales was briefly locked down on Tuesday morning (October 23) after an anonymous caller phoned in a bomb threat. According to a teacher at the Millennium Highway school, the call was made shortly before 8am. When the teachers were notified they immediately evacuated the students to the front of the compound as a precaution. Parents were subsequently told of the evacuation and many arrived to collect their children. However, they had to wait as members of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force took several hours to respond and conduct a sweep of the building. One student commenting on the traumatic experience said that some of her classmates were petrified and they were hoping that the police or bomb squad would come quickly to access the situation and put their fears to rest. She said: "Some of my classmates were so scared they started crying. I really wish the police came when we called them, because who knows if it would have actually been serious. Another student pointed out that eerie graffiti was inscribed on the walls of the school. One inscription read: "23.10.18 a bomb is coming and the other said: "Dear Maranatha you are dead. Students who were not picked up by parents were eventually sent home. According to police, a bomb threat was initially reported on Monday afternoon (October 22) to which they responded. A brief release from the force said: "The public is advised that there was indeed police response to the initial report made by the Maranatha High School yesterday, October 22, 2018 in reference to a bomb threat. "A report was made at 3.36pm, the police responded and cleared the scene. "We are currently reviewing our response to a request to clear the building today, October 23, 2018. When faculty members and students showed up for school on the Tuesday another call was made suggesting that there was still a bomb in the building. The contention came when students, teachers and concerned parents waited outside the school for an all clear from police who reportedly did not show up the second time around. The Justice Department rejected a plea offer and will continue to pursue the death penalty against a San Jacinto County man accused of killing a postal worker and burning her body, a prosecutor told a federal judge Wednesday in Houston. This was welcome news for the 52-year-old victims husband and two adult sons who are both mail carriers. In the five years since Eddie Marie Youngbloods death, suspect James Wayne Ham has repeatedly offered to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. But Attorney General Jeff Sessions has no plans to back down from the determination made by his predecessors under President Barack Obama, the prosecutor said. The Houston procedural hearing on the 2013 case came after Trump and Sessions indicated this week they planned to seek the federal death penalty against the suspect in a mass shooting inside a Pittsburgh synagogue Saturday. Ham, 43, wearing a dark green jail jumpsuit, sat silently at the defense table during the two-hour hearing in a case the government contends was motivated by his belief the post worker was delivering his mail to his estranged wife. Taking snipes at Justice officials for their sluggish pace and lack of preparation, U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes questioned Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharad S. Khandelwal about the utility of spending time and money to seek the death penalty when Ham would spend the rest of his life behind bars as a result of a guilty plea. To the United States this is not a question of money but of justice, Khandelwal said. The prosecutor explained that the government believes Ham has no remorse for his actions, based on intercepted calls from the facility where Ham is being detained in which he apparently boasted about killing Youngblood. Its not your money, its everybody elses money, the judge said. Either way hes incapacitated. Hell either be dead or in prison. But Youngbloods surviving husband, sons and daughter-in-law, who sat in the first row seats in Hughes courtroom, said they hoped Ham will be convicted and sentenced to death. Mark Youngblood, 33, and his brother George Youngblood Jr., 36, both are postal workers and share a deep love for their mother. Seeing Ham for the first time in court Wednesday, Mark said, gave him chills because he had been talking on the phone with his mother at the time she was killed. It completely changed my life, he said softly. I want justice. The government previously noted as part of its rationale for the death penalty that Ham specifically presented a danger to Youngbloods sons in the postal service. Typically, when a prosecutor turns down a plea offer its because they believe a crime is so serious, no other disposition is appropriate, said Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. He said people think the federal death penalty comes into play only when a defendant is accused of multiple slayings, like the Dylann Roof prosecution for the Charleston church killings or Timothy McVeighs trial for the Oklahoma City bombing. Most people are under the impression that the federal death penalty is reserved for the worst of the worst crimes against the United States, but the fact is for the most part people who are sentenced to death under the capital system look no different from the people who you would see prosecuted by the state, Dunham said. He said a disproportionate number of federal death sentences come from courts in Texas, Missouri and Virginia and defendants are disproportionately people of color. This case is atypical, he said, in that Ham is white and his victim was black. Youngblood was killed while working her rural postal route in Coldspring, about 60 miles north of Houston. Ham is charged with murdering a federal employee and possessing a weapon in a crime resulting in death. He allegedly fired at least two gunshots at Youngblood and set fire to her Jeep Cherokee and his own clothes to conceal evidence of the crime. Ham thought Youngblood was in cahoots with his estranged wife, another rural mail carrier, according to court documents. He thought Youngblood intended to reroute his mail to his ex-wifes home. The government has contended in court filings that Ham was eligible for the death penalty because he was previously charged with raping a female relative and sexually assaulting a woman he met at a bar. He had threatened to kill his wife, shot and killed his estranged wifes goats, fired at a pair of dogs that belonged to another family and stole guns, prosecutors said. He also had a propensity to set things on fire when he feels he has been wronged, they noted. Ham had set puppies on fire, started a blaze in a national forest and lit up a mobile home, according to the documents. The case was prosecuted in federal court because Youngblood was a federal employee. However, federal prosecutors rarely seek the death penalty and in southeast Texas it has been sought in only a handful of cases. In all 13 people have been sentenced to death by Texas federal courts. In the past quarter century, three other defendants have been sentenced to death in federal courts in Southeast Texas. Drug kingpin Juan Raul Garza was condemned to death in 1993 for killing three drug traffickers in Brownsville and was executed in 2001. Alfred Bourgeois remains on death row after a Corpus Christi jury returned a 2004 capital conviction against him in the shaking death of his 2-year-old daughter. Tyrone Williams, a truck driver, was given a death sentence after his conviction in a 2003 smuggling attempt that left 19 undocumented immigrants dead in a tractor trailer near Victoria. Williams was retried in 2007 and sentenced to life. Hams current defense lawyers, who have had the case only since June, told the judge Wednesday they needed two years to prepare for trial. The government asked for the trial to be held in February. Hughes said he would review the trial plans and aim to make a determination later this month. gabrielle.banks@chron.com Houstons police chief on Wednesday questioned an FBI agents account about how a kidnapping victim died during a failed rescue attempt in January, saying that the agents statements were not supported by the totality of the evidence uncovered by department investigators. Ulises Valladares, 47, was shot and killed in January during an early morning attempted rescue operation the day after he had been kidnapped from his Conroe home by several individuals who then tried to hold him for ransom. Houston police investigated the shooting, which occurred during the raid of the Trinity Gardens home where Valladares was being held. After Valladares death, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said, the FBI agent who shot him told police that as he used his M-4 submachine gun to break through a window at the rear of the home where Valladares was being held, an unknown occupant grabbed the gun. The agent, who reported that he was worried he would lose control of the gun and that it would be used on other agents entering the front of the house, fired two shots, killing the person who he said had grabbed the gun later identified as Valladares. RELATED: Mystery shrouds rare FBI shooting that left kidnapping victim dead in Houston Our investigative findings do not support the description of how this incident occurred provided by the shooting agent, Acevedo said. Our forensic evidence, witness evidence, and other evidence does not support the statement that he made. Acevedo said that hed felt compelled to hold the news conference because of the length of time that had passed since the shooting, and to clarify the initial description of the events he provided to the public. We felt very strongly that it was time for us after so many months, because the process was moving slower than where it would at our level, that we let the community know the initial sequence of events as it was reported to us and as reported to the community by me, is not supported by our investigation, Acevedo said, who declined to offer any specifics. On HoustonChronicle.com: FBI agent who shot kidnap victim feared losing control of weapon, police say Reached in Honduras, Consuelo Valladares said her brothers death has devastated her family and are still seeking answers. Theyve heard nothing from the FBI, and she said she appreciated Acevedos words. We want justice for this - this never should have happened - never, she said, of her brothers death. As a family, we are all destroyed. Although FBI officials would not discuss Acevedos contentions, former federal officials voiced support for the agent and puzzled over the purpose of his comments. Acevedos move Wednesday was not the first time local law enforcement have clashed with their federal counterparts over the investigation into Valladares death. In April, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg publicly queried U.S. Attorney Ryan Patrick over whether his staff would review the shooting, after confusion and delays over whether his office would exercise its jurisdiction in reviewing the death case. Patricks office subsequently recused itself, and it is now under review by the U.S. Attorneys Office in the neighboring Western District of Texas and the Department of Justices Office of Inspector General. RELATED: Kidnapping victim's family sues FBI While raising significant doubts about the shadowy January events, Acevedo did not provide any additional details into what discrepancies his investigators had uncovered citing an ongoing federal investigation. Valladares death marked the first time in more than a decade that an FBI agent in Houston had shot someone in the line of duty. After Valladares death, three people were subsequently arrested and charged for their alleged involvement in the crime: Nicholas Chase Cunningham, 42, and Jimmy Tony Sanchez, 38, were charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery. Sophia Perez Heath, 35, was charged with one count of aggravated kidnapping. However, few details have emerged about the agent who shot Valladares and he has never been publicly identified. The FBIs Houston office declined to discuss the case, citing the continuing investigation into the shooting, as did a spokesman for the FBI Agents Association. A spokesman for the Western District could not be reached Wednesday. Randall Kallinen, who represents Valladares family in a civil lawsuit against the FBI, said Acevedos comments underscored serious questions about the shooting. Somebody is not telling the truth, Kallinen said, whose lawsuit claims illegal search and seizure by the FBI and wrongful death. Since the Houston police is not an interested party, it wasnt their department, their rendition of the story is more reliable than the people interested in the outcome the FBI and the particular FBI agent. On HoustonChronicle.com: Harris County District Attorney Ogg pushes for probe in FBI shooting of kidnapping victim He also questioned why Acevedo waited months to share the information publicly. If a person, even a law enforcement officer has lied about how an innocent person got killed, the public should know right away, not wait six months, he said. Retired law enforcement defended the agent who shot Valladares, noting he was an employee with more than 10 years in the FBI, a dedicated SWAT operator and a very experienced case agent. Hes a person of the highest character and integrity, said Michael E. Anderson, a retired FBI agent and former Assistant-Special Agent In Charge of the Houston Field Office. He criticized Acevedos comments Wednesday, saying his statements risked inflaming the community. Why call this press conference, and do this, when really, somebody else is prosecuting the case, he asked. For now the Justice Departments OIG review and the Western Districts investigation continues, although there is little clarity on how they will proceed. Simply because it doesnt add up doesnt necessarily mean its lying on purpose, said Kenneth Magidson, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas and Patricks predecessor. Its up to the appropriate authorities to determine whether or not its going to go forward (for prosecution) . The widow of a 24-year-old man who died after being strangled in a chokehold last year at a Crosby-area Dennys restaurant sobbed as she told a jury how she begged the murder defendant to release his grip on her common-law husband. He said, I cant breathe, said widow Maria Toral, tearfully recalling her husbands words before she implored he be released. I told him, He cant breathe, let him go! Toral was one of three witnesses called by the defense attorneys Tuesday to testify in the retrial of Terry Thompson, who is accused of deadly conduct at the popular diner on May 28, 2017, the Sunday night before Memorial Day. Defense attorney Scot Courtney has said the prosecution did not give the full picture of what happened that night, so he expects to call as many as a dozen witnesses including some that may seem adversarial. Thompson, a burly 42-year-old railroad worker married to a former Harris County sheriffs deputy, faces life in prison if convicted of the murder of John Hernandez His defense attorneys have argued that Thompson restrained an intoxicated Hernandez because the 24-year-old started to fight him outside of the restaurant. Thompson and his wife, Chauna Thompson, were charged with murder after cell phone video surfaced of the late-night incident. She was fired from the sheriffs office and Terry Thompson went on trial in June, but a mistrial was declared after jurors deadlocked over whether Thompson was acting in self-defense or was criminally liable for Hernandez death. Thompson has maintained that shortly after he arrived in the parking lot of the restaurant with his teenage daughter and her friends, he called out to Hernandez to quit urinating in public. Lawyers for Thompson have said Hernandez approached and threw the first punch, giving Thompson a black eye. Hernandez ended up being punched and held down by Thompson, and his wife assisted. The case attracted international attention after the cell phone was released showing Thompson on Hernandezs back, holding him in a chokehold, as the young father sputtered for breath. The video spurred a massive protest in downtown Houston over police brutality that led to the Thompsons being indicted. On Monday, prosecutors rested their case after almost a week of testimony without calling Hernandezs widow, but the defense made her the first witness in their case. On Tuesday, the defense also called a Channelview man who testified that minutes before Thompson arrived, he and Hernandez almost got in to a fight. The confrontation ended when Hernandez shouted across the parking lot that he had a gun. Jurors later heard from 61-year-old James Leon Keith, who acknowledged he intervened to keep observers, bystanders and the person who filmed the cell phone video away from the struggle between Thompson and Hernandez. Im just trying to keep everybody away from it, so they could resolve the issue, testified Keith, a motorcycle enthusiast. He can be seen and heard on the cell phone video wearing a black bikers vest and black gloves. He also acknowledged that he advised Thompson, while he was choking Hernandez, that, he had made his point. He had got John Hernandez subdued, correct, he said as prosecutor John Jordan cross-examined him. Keith was argumentative on the stand, and was forced to acknowledge that some things he testified to earlier in the day were different than what he had said in the past. On Tuesday, he told jurors he heard Hernandez tell Thompson he had a gun, but he never said that during police interviews at the scene. He also testified that he saw Hernandez punch Thompson in the head, but told police at the scene that he had not actually seen any contact. Dont try to make me look like the bad guy in this, Keith told the prosecutor during cross-examination. The trial, in its second week in state District Kelli Johnsons court, could last the rest of the week. brian.rogers@chron.com It wouldn't be Halloween without a tale from beyond. And Amethyst Realm has a doozy. When the spirit moved the 30-year-old British woman, she decided to marry it. Yeah, you read that right. Next summer, Realm intends to marry a ghost, whom she met while in Australia in early 2018, according to The Sun. Realm recently appeared on ITV's "This Morning" show to share her story. RELATED: Trick-or-treaters could face severe weather this Halloween Realm is not stranger to relationships with the paranormal. The spiritual counselor notes that she dated 20 apparitions before finally finding her kindred spirit. We're pretty sure it wasn't love at first site. "I'd not had a phantom fling for a while and as I was away on business, starting a new relationship was the last thing on my mind," Realm tells The Sun. "From experience, I knew spirits tend to stay in one place, but something amazing happened." RELATED: 'Headless' girl' viral Halloween costume looks frightfully real As she settled in for the flight home to Bristol, England, Realm felt the presence of her supernatural beau still with her. "I was happy and excited so excited that we had to do something about it," she says. Wait for it ... "So we headed to the plane loo and, well, I am now a member of the Mile High Club. "Sex goes beyond physical ...sometimes I get the feeling that I'm being moved. Orgasms I have with my spirit lovers have been way more satisfying than any I've had with ordinary men." Nine months later, Realm's ghostly lover proposed to her at England's Wookey Hole caves while the pair were on vacation. The shadow figure didn't go down on one knee, seeing as he has none, but he did speak aloud for the first time. His first words? "Will you marry me?" Realm says her family and friends have given their blessing and embraced her phantom fiance, figuratively if not literally. "We're soulmates, meant for each other, and that'll never change. The fact that he's a spirit is by the by." Realm and her intended are planning a Pagan wedding in the English countryside. "We haven't discussed the details yet but I think it will be quite a big do." Here's hoping the decision doesn't come back to haunt her. Marcy de Luna is a digital reporter specializing in social media, the famous, and food. You can follow her on Twitter @MarcydeLuna. Read her stories on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | Marcy.deLuna@chron.com | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message Joe Gamaldi, president of the Houston Police Officers' Union, promised to maintain his composure. The union leader stood at a wooden lectern in True Light Missionary Baptist Church last Friday morning, flanked by pastors, union leaders and Mayor Sylvester Turner as he prepared to make the case against Proposition B. Gamaldi, however, could not hide his irritation over the ballot measure that, if approved, would grant Houston firefighters pay parity with police officers of corresponding rank and seniority. We are already talking about laying off cadets and laying off police officers in order to pay for this. That is unacceptable, Gamaldi said. And we will not sit idly by and watch our people get laid off because the firefighters are demanding an unreasonable raise. With a week left in what has become a bitter and prolonged feud, both sides of the Prop B campaign are pulling out all stops ahead of Election Day, running radio and TV ads, plastering the city with yard signs and billboards, and working the lines at early voting locations. Turner, who has put personal campaign funds into opposing Prop B, held events last week with business, clergy and labor leaders intended to show broad opposition to the ballot item, which the fire union has dismissed as ploys. "The vindictiveness of the mayor knows no bounds. He has pitted Houston police and municipal employees against firefighters with threats to their job and retirement security, Marty Lancton, the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association President, said in a statement. Now, hes strong-arming his political patrons and pay-for-play friends to attack firefighter families. Hes willing to destabilize public safety in Houston just to settle a political score. Meanwhile, dueling political action committees, boosted on one side by Turner and on the other by fire union members and fire union PACs from other cities, have raised more than $2.5 million combined for the campaign. That includes Proposition A, which would affirm a pay-as-you-go fund for the citys ReBuild Houston drainage program. Turner has adopted the slogan A is good, B is bad to simplify his position, with two PACs one supporting Prop A, one opposing Prop B splitting the cost of ads that feature the dual message. This is about our city. It is more important than any personality, quite frankly, Turner said Friday. It doesn't matter who would be the mayor this time. These two issues would be important to any mayor that's representing the city of Houston. From Sept. 28 through Oct. 27 the period covered by the latest campaign finance reports the anti-Prop B Protect Houston PAC raised more than $930,000, with $355,000 coming from Turners campaign in the form of ad buys. The pro-Prop A and anti-Prop B PACs together took in about $1.8 million and spent more than $1.1 million from the end of September to October. Meanwhile, the pro-Prop B Support Our Firefighters PAC took in about $508,000 during the same period and spent more than $468,000. So far, Turner has spent about $486,000 in campaign funds on Propositions A and B, while Houston Police Officers Union has further contributed more than $91,000 to oppose B. About $16,000 has come in from fire unions in other cities to support Prop B, including some from California. "Were grateful for the support of firefighters, teachers and friends around the nation, Lancton said. We do not have the resources of the mayor and his cronies to run misleading negative ads, but we have the support of working people and the communities we serve. Spending by the three main political action committees totaled almost $1.7 million through Oct. 27, the latest day covered by campaign finance reports. Both sides also are sending workers to polls in Houston to campaign for and against Prop B, though the firefighters have been far more visible, sporting bright yellow t-shirts and, in some cases, firefighter helmets. During the Friday event, Gamaldi took issue with information cards being distributed by firefighters at polls, which say, NOTE: The politicians purposefully made the ballot language long and confusing in an attempt to trick voters. The card then instructs voters to simply vote FOR on Prop B at the very end of your ballot. If the ballot language looks cumbersome, that is because it includes exact wording from the fire unions petitions to get the parity measure on the ballot, said Sue Davis, Turners consultant who is running the committees for Prop A and against Prop B. If the ballot had included shortened language, Davis said, the union would have found something else to accuse politicians of. Turner urged people not to be swayed by the firefighters at polling locations. You're going to have to walk through a lot, and I know it's hard to say no to firefighters because they're at every polling place, Turner said. But I'm going to ask people to vote in what is in the best interest of the city. Regardless of how things play out on Election Day, the result likely will not be the final word on pay parity. If the measure passes, as many observers are predicting, the city will have to figure out how to fund the raises a scenario that Turner and his administration say will result in hundreds of city layoffs. The union has disputed that, calling it a scare tactic by the mayor. Both Turner and City Controller Chris Brown have said Prop B will cost more than $100 million in its first full year of implementation. The union has disputed that, too, but has not provided its own figure. The union argues firefighters remain far underpaid compared to those in other Texas cities, while Turner has said the union turned down raises that would have made their salaries competitive. Early voting ends Friday. Election Day is Nov. 6. jasper.scherer@chron.com twitter.com/jaspscherer An employee at one Houston restaurant continued packaging bread they dropped on the floor last week, one of several health violations observed at Houston restaurants from Oct. 22 to Oct. 29. In another restaurant, health inspectors found fish "from a fishing trip" inside a cooler. The deafening cheers of University of Houston students and their marching band as U.S. Senate hopeful Rep. Beto ORourke stepped on stage Tuesday quickly hushed for the first televised Hardball question of the night. To kick off his Hardball College Tour, MSNBC host Chris Matthews looked to a weeks worth of news reports, including the latest headline that President Trump wants to ditch the birth right of children born to immigrant parents on U.S. soil. Based on the timing of the report, the El Paso Democrat suggested it may have been an attempt to sway his heated bid to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz even as a majority of polls have placed the Republican incumbent ahead of ORourke. RIO GRANDE VALLEY: Ted Cruz stresses that hes Hispanic and Beto ORourke is not Interesting that (Trump) drops this proposal with a week to go until the Nov. 6 election, ORourke told Matthews during the broadcast from Cullen Performance Hall. Interesting that he tries to stoke paranoia and fear about a group of migrants who are still hundreds of miles, weeks away from the border, even if they make it this far. He then slammed Trumps earlier pitch to send droves of soldiers south after a student asked how he planned the address border militarization. This idea that we can send 5,000 U.S. service members to the border and somehow stop migrants, refugees, asylum seekers fleeing the most dangerous countries in the hemisphere its ridiculous, ORourke said. He characterized Trumps campaign promise to build a border wall in the same manner. The congressman warned that the policies would mean we can be governed by our fear. And then we are a very small people, ORourke said. Students treated the Democrat politician as a celebrity, excitedly screaming at the chance to take selfies with him during commercial breaks. Hey, Beto, lets go to Whataburger after, one student screamed from the audience, with an estimated 1,200 people. Despite the fanfare, it was important to theater production major Brittany Puente, 20, to see the three-term congressman at her school discussing immigration and repeating his answer in Spanish. Sometimes we feel as though our voice doesnt matter and that were secondary to this whole process, Puente said. Some people, especially older people, dont think we know what were saying or that we have an opinion in this matter. But change starts with the younger generation. Before the broadcast, Camila Castro, 23, and her sister, Daniela, 27, both from Bogota, Colombia, snagged a seat in the front row hoping to ask the congressman about the treatment of immigrant parents, like their own. Both women lack the citizenship to vote. We dont really have voice right now so were trying to convince everyone else to vote, said Castro, who studied architecture and graduated in May from the university. nicole.hensley@chron.com @nkhensley The launch to the International Space Station earlier this month was aborted after a malfunctioning sensor triggered the rocket's first and second stages to crash into each other, Russian officials said Wednesday. The rocket's first stage "during the separation did not take the right distance and hit the second stage fuel tank, which caused the second stage to break," Sergey Krikalev, Russian state space corporation Roscosmos' executive director for manned programs, told state-run news agency TASS. Earlier this month, American astronaut Nick Hague, 43, and his crew mate, Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, were aboard Russia's Soyuz spacecraft rocketing to the space station when the launch was aborted, forcing an emergency landing. It was the first aborted launch of a Soyuz spacecraft in 35 years. Both Hague and Ovchinin were safe and in good condition after the landing. Russia is taking steps to ensure this kind of malfunction doesn't happen again, Krikalev said, and officials still think they can move up the next flight to the space station, currently scheduled for Dec. 20. WORK DELAYED: NASA spacewalks to upgrade space station power still on hold after aborted launch NASA could not immediately be reached for comment. Since NASA's space shuttle program was shuttered in 2011, the agency has relied on Russia to ferry American astronauts to the station. NASA has spent billions of dollars on the space station in its 20-year lifetime, but the agency has no other way to reach it and, therefore, is grounded until Russia sorts out what caused the aborted launch. NASA's Serena Aunon-Chancellor, who is currently living on the space station after arriving in June, said in an interview Wednesday with the Houston Chronicle that having two fewer crew members on board hasn't impacted their schedule at all. "It's interesting, we talked about how we almost immediately went from six [crewmembers] down to three and I'm used to having two other Americans with us all the time," Aunon-Chancellor said. "It definitely was a change, but it hasn't impacted our schedule at all." Krikalev said Wednesday that the Dec. 20 flight -- transporting NASA's Ann McClain, and two others -- could be moved up to Dec. 3, according to TASS. That means the current crew on station -- including Aunon-Chancellor -- could return around Dec. 20, he added. Aunon-Chancellor said the crew is always prepared to stay longer on station or leave early. Spaceflight is hard, she added, and they have to be ready for anything. "We were well aware of launch abort systems, we trained to fix holes in case we do have a leak," she said. "For us, when we're in training, we practice like we play." SEEKING INPUT: NASA asks companies to evaluate commercial viability of International Space Station The failed mission earlier this month would have been Hague's first spaceflight since being tapped as an astronaut in 2013. NASA officials aren't sure when he will get to fly again, but Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Roscosmos, has said he and Ovchinin would get to fly again in spring 2019. How that would work still is unclear. The Soyuz' April 2019 launch already has an assigned crew and NASA has yet to offer insight into the development. Russian officials still are investigating another Soyuz-related problem that occurred in August, when astronauts discovered an air leak-causing hole in a different Soyuz attached to the station. The hole was plugged, but Russia continues to investigate how it happened. NASA expects that investigation to conclude in December. As Aunon-Chancellor and her crewmates wait for more direction from NASA and the Russians, she said it's business as usual in low Earth orbit, where the space station flies. "We're already looking forward to the next crew flying up here," she said. "We learn to trust [the countries'] investigations ... we rely on the countries to sort it out." Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey. The Florida man accused of sending pipe bombs to former President Barack Obama and at least 13 others also threatened Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Beto ORourke earlier this year, according to ORourkes campaign. Cesar Sayoc, 56, sent threatening messages to ORourke via Facebook in April, ORourkes campaign spokesman Chris Evans said. Evans said he reported the messages to the Capitol Hill police immediately and turned them over to the FBI in July. The messages, first reported Wednesday by the Dallas Morning News, included pictures of ORourkes wife and children, and a warning that Sayoc would see him soon. A spokeswoman with the local FBI field office referred all questions related to Sayoc to the national office, which did not respond to a request for comment. ORourke, an El Paso congressman, did not receive pipe bombs like the other people Sayoc is accused of targeting. Sayoc sent explosive devices containing "shards of glass that could only have been intended to maximize harm to the defendant's victims," federal prosecutors say. Related: Suspect lived in a fantasy world, those who know him say Sayoc sent pipe bombs meant for Obama, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and former Vice President Joe Biden, among others, prosecutors say. A vocal Donald Trump supporter, Sayoc kept a list of more than 100 potential targets, according to federal authorities. It is unclear whether ORourke was on that list. The New York Times reported Wednesday that Sayoc had been planning his campaign for at least three months, and his laptop and cellphone are now providing investigators with a trove of fresh evidence, according to new court papers. Calling the bomb spree a domestic terrorist attack, prosecutors gave a glimpse into its origins, describing in the court papers how Sayocs laptop had been used, as early as July, to draft a list of targets and scour the internet for information on them, the Times reported. In Austin on Wednesday, ORourke said little when asked about the messages he received. We just got to continue to do our best to be good to one another, ORourke said. ORourke, 46, is a three term congressman challenging U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican, for re-election. jeremy.wallace@chron.com HARLINGEN Campaigning in the Rio Grande Valley, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz made sure audiences were clear that he is Hispanic and Democrat Beto ORourke is not. During events in Laredo, Mission and Harlingen on Monday, Cruz told largely Hispanic audiences that he understands the immigrant experience and is proud of his heritage. I am the son of a Cuban immigrant who came here with nothing, Cruz told more than 1,300 in the Christian Fellowship Church in Harlingen. Im the first Hispanic senator ever to represent Texas. Now Playing: During a speech in Harlingen on Monday, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz noted that he is the first Hispanic Senator from Texas and pointed out that O'Rourke is of Irish heritage. Cruz later said in an interview that O'Rourke's campaign wants people to believe he's Hispanic when he is not. Video: Jeremy Wallace, Houston Chronicle Cruz, 47, got a big laugh when he recounted a reporter asking him whether electing ORourke would be good for diversity in the U.S. Senate. Cruzs retort: Is there a shortage of Irishmen in the Senate? In other parts of the state, Cruz is typically less blunt about being the states first Hispanic Senator in Texas. But amid record early voting turnout in the Democrat-heavy Rio Grande Valley, Cruz made an exception during his three campaign stops there on Monday. Listen, the ORourke campaign clearly hopes voters think hes Hispanic, Cruz said in an interview later. Hes not. ORourke, who speaks fluent Spanish, has faced criticism from Republicans because of his nickname. Born Robert Francis ORourke, he said a lot of boys in El Paso and border communities with the name Robert or Roberto or Alberto end up being called Beto for short. He said its a nickname hes had ever since he can remember. On the Late Show With Stephen Colbert, he showed pictures of himself as a 4-year-old in a sweater that had the nickname Beto sewed on it. Cruz has been jabbing at ORourkes nickname since early in the campaign. Polls show that ORourke is doing substantially better with Hispanic voters in Texas than Cruz with election day just a week away. A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday shows 60 percent of Hispanics saying they plan to vote for ORourke versus 36 percent for Cruz. Still, that same poll showed Cruz beating ORourke by 4 percentage points. While Texas has been a solid Republican state for the last 20 years, the Rio Grande Valley has been tough territory for most in the GOP, including Cruz. Although Cruz easily won his 2012 campaign in Texas, he lost the five counties from Laredo to Brownsville to Democrat Paul Sadler by anywhere from 19 percentage points to 61 percentage points. ORourke has been in the Valley more than Cruz during the campaign, but Cruz has made several stops there, too, including one in April. Voters are already showing up in record numbers in the Rio Grande Valley this year. In Cameron County where Harlingen is located almost 38,000 people cast ballots in the first 8 days of early voting. That is double the number of voters from four years ago during the last midterm elections in a county where almost 90 percent of the people are Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census. In Hidalgo County, where Cruz later spoke in Mission later, almost 80,000 people had already voted. That is also double the 2014 turnout. About 92 percent of the people there are Hispanic. In Laredo, Cruz stressed that Hispanic communities are conservative communities that put great importance on faith, family, life and patriotism. Cruz brushed away any suggestion that he made more of his ethnicity to appeal to voters in the Rio Grande Valley. Ive told my fathers story in practically every city in Texas, Cruz said. The immigrant journey, coming from nothing and risking everything for freedom is an enormous part of who I am. Rafael Cruz, now a pastor, fled Cuba in 1957 when he was a teenager. Cruz also talked tough on immigration at each stop. He declared his support for building the border wall President Donald Trump has called for, and for requiring local law enforcement officials to delay the release of inmates suspected of being in the country illegally so that federal authorities can investigate. He stressed his support for the U.S. Border Patrol and talked about going out on patrol with them and seeing firsthand the dangers they encounter on the job. The National Border Patrol Council, a union for border patrol agents, endorsed Cruz early in the campaign. Cruz contrasted his positions on immigration with those of ORourke, telling the crowds ORourke opposes the wall, which drew loud boos everywhere he went. Where is Beto on immigration? Cruz said. It is bad, bad news. So hes against the wall. But not only is he against the wall, he says we should tear down the border walls and fences that we have already. Cruz supporters like Nic DeLeon, 18, said people who dont live along the border dont understand how much they need the border wall built. Every day we see the crime that comes from across the border. We see the damage illegal immigrants do to our communities, DeLeon said. jeremy.wallace@chron.com AUSTIN Attorneys with the group that helped exonerate Texan Michael Morton two decades after he was wrongly convicted of killing his wife were back at the Texas Supreme Court on Wednesday. But this time, instead of uncovering prosecutorial misconduct, they were sticking up for a former prosecuting attorney who they say should be a model for how to do the job. Eric Hillman was an assistant district attorney in Nueces County who was fired in 2014 after refusing to follow a supervisors order to hide evidence that was favorable to a defendant in a felony intoxication assault case. The New York-based Innocence Project took on Hillmans case in March after lower courts dismissed his wrongful termination lawsuit, citing Texas sovereign immunity laws that protect government agencies from lawsuits in the interest of saving taxpayers money. Hillmans attorneys, Chris Gale and Philip Durst, a lawyer with the Innocence Project, argued that his firing goes against a state law designed to prevent wrongful convictions. They also asked the court to amend a 1985 ruling to give prosecutors and district attorneys additional protection if they are fired for refusing to break the law. The state has had more exonerations than any other, and has taken remarkable steps to prevent wrongful convictions by passing a series of laws to correct the systems flaws, said Nina Morrison, an attorney with the Innocence Project, in a statement. But these new laws can only work if the prosecutors who enforce them are also protected. The Innocence Project helped argue the case before the Supreme Court, the first time in the organizations 27-year history that its lawyers appeared in court on behalf of a prosecutor. The nonprofit legal group is best known for helping exonerate 350 wrongfully convicted individuals. Among these exonerations is Michael Morton, a Williamson County resident whose case has been at the forefront of Hillmans argument. Morton spent 25 years in prison for the 1986 murder of his wife, a crime which he did not commit. After he was freed in 2011, a post-conviction investigation found that the former prosecutor on the case intentionally hid evidence that would have pointed to Mortons innocence. In response, the Texas Legislature created the Michael Morton Act in 2013, which legally requires prosecutors to turn over all evidence to the defense in a criminal case, whether they believe that informatoin could impact the outcome or not. In a brief filed in late March, the Innocence Project called Hillmans case a critical test of the fundamental principles of the Morton Act. The projects lawyers said allowing Hillman to be fired for following the requirements of the law would leave the door open for future retaliation against conscientious prosecutors like Hillman. Lawyers for Nueces County and the state argued Wednesday that other laws provide avenues for Hillman to seek redress. The class of people that the Michael Morton act is designed to protect is criminal defendants, said Jeffrey Pruitt, a lawyer for Nueces County. The plain language of the statute is designed to protect that class of people. It imposes a duty on prosecutors, but doesnt give them any rights. Several justices asked Hillmans attorneys if he could have sued under the federal Whistleblower Act, which protects public employees who report violations of the law. Gale said whistleblower protections dont apply to Hillman. How does he become a whistleblower after hes terminated? He cant. Jason LaFond, a lawyer for the state, said Hillmans case should not be an exception to the Supreme Courts 1985 ruling, which protects workers who are fired for refusing to break the law, but does not apply to government employees. The high court has declined to alter the ruling in three previous cases. What the court has said is that theyre not going to tinker with it, theyre not going to extend it, and that its competent to address the issues, LaFond said. The same reasoning applies here. Justice Jeff Brown pressed the states attorneys to show how tax dollars are put to risk by allowing prosecutors and district attorneys to sue if they are fired for refusing to break the law. Jeffrey Pruitt, a lawyer for Nueces County, said creating any exception is a slippery slope. What youre inviting courts to do is decidewhat is a serious enough crime that the government shouldn't be protected from immunity, Pruitt said. With a view to explore synergies between community radios and community networks, Internet Society (ISOC), a global non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet and Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), a non-profit organization with a mission to eradicate information poverty through access to technology, have highlighted the importance of Community Networks in the growth and development of Internet connectivity in India, especially in rural areas. This needs supportive policy framework such as availability of TV White Space and Liberalisation of Internet Service Providers License at Village Council level, which will help in providing internet access to rural masses. Community Networks are communications infrastructure built, managed and used by local communities. They provide a sustainable solution to address the connectivity gaps that exist in underserved urban, remote, and rural areas around the world. In India, where these gaps are more prevalent, DEF started pilot programs six months back called Internet in a Box which were deployed in Tain village of Haryana and Asoor village of Tamil Nadu. While the primary access points were established in these two hub villages, access nodes were made available in nine more villages per hub, directly reaching out to at least 200 individuals per hub, with the potential to reach out to 4,000 households indirectly over the next two years. So far, DEF has established community networks at more than 140 locations across 15 regions, including Baran in Rajasthan, Guna in Madhya Pradesh, Nuh in Haryana, Asoor in Tamil Nadu, Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh and Nagaon in Assam. Further, DEF and ISOC jointly announced the launch of the Community Network Champions (CNC). CNC is a certificate programme for community network providers across the globe to gain hands-on experience in the operation and management of community networks. During CN Champion programme which will take place at DEFs Wireless Training Centre in Guna, Madhya Pradesh from November 2-10, 2018, intensive training on wireless networks and its operations and management will be provided to seven community networksfrom Haiti, Bahrain, Nigeria, Krygystan, Phillipines, Kenya and Indonesiawho will be given a certificate upon completion of the programme. Commenting on the success of Community Networks, Mr. Rajnesh Singh, Regional Director, Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau, Internet Society said, The Internet service sector is estimated to grow to $124 billion market by 2022, and it is imperative for policy makers and regulators in India to realize that supportive government policies and better infrastructure are key for the growth of the sector. As per a report by Internet Society, there is no specific spectrum allocated for Community Networks and access to spectrum is critical. Policymakers and regulators can play a key role in ensuring innovative approaches to making spectrum available. By supporting initiatives like Community Networks, the government and the nation will be able to fulfill the vision of Digital India and help millions get online. As the world embraces greater access to information and services online, the excluded individuals are being further excludedalmost to the level of being disenfranchised. Therefore, we cannot solely depend on telcos or their model of business to connect the 70 per cent of the population that is yet to access the Internet, says DEF Founder-Director Osama Manzar, advocating for policy changes in favour of community networks. ISOC and DEF today concluded the 2nd edition of the Community Network Xchange (CNX) event in New Delhi. This years event theme was Synergies Between Community Networks and Community Radios in Promoting Public Wi-Fi Access in Asia Pacific Countries and saw representation from nine countries in Asia Pacific, and more than 30 community network providers, community radio stations and practitioners across India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Argentina, and South Africa. The Community Network Exchange event served as a platform to promote the creation and growth of Community Networks, increase collaboration between community network operators in the region, and to provide an opportunity for them to engage with other stakeholders including content producers, regulators and policymakers. Technuter.com News Service Regarding GOP should be judicious before questioning election integrity (City/State, Sunday): What columnist Erica Grieder obscures in her column is that the Harris County voter roll integrity is at risk due to the actions or inactions of Harris County Voter Registrar Ann Bennett. Grieder stated they would be wrong to air such concerns as Bettencourt and Stanart did on Friday without evidence, and without regard for context. Lets review both: First, in the Oct. 26 editions (Baytown ballot error caught as voting surges, Page A4), the Chronicle reported that 294 Baytown residents were excluded from the vote roll because the voter registration department failed to process an annexation sent to them in July. Second, the Texas Secretary of State's office issued its first opinion in five years which concludes both Registrar Bennett and the County Attorney's Office erred in the handling of a 4,000-voter residency challenge by constituent Al Vera. He found over 40 voters are registered at one UPS store, 11152 Westheimer, which clearly is a commercial address. Bennett inappropriately suspended 1,790 voters, then reinstated them but refused to do her mandatory duty to process the challenge legally. The result is these voters are still registered at commercial addresses around the county. Third, Bennett, represented by the country attorneys office, is fighting against an open records request in federal court which would release the names of self-identified noncitizens from the jury wheel in Harris County. Bennett refuses to release the list and will not confirm these noncitizens have been removed from the voter roll. An elected voter registrar has the duty to transparently respond. Where is Bennetts statement? Mistakes, not following the law, and a lack of transparency factually support our statement that the integrity of the voter roll is at risk. Texas Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston Get your Labour Market Impact Assessment applications in or face further delays, government warns employers Get your Labour Market Impact Assessment applications in or face further delays, government warns employers Processing delays for foreign worker LMIA applications have skyrocketed in recent months, sparking government advisory Get your Labour Market Impact Assessment applications in or face further delays, government warns employers Processing delays for foreign worker LMIA applications have skyrocketed in recent months, sparking government advisory Get your Labour Market Impact Assessment applications in or face further delays, government warns employers Processing delays for foreign worker LMIA applications have skyrocketed in recent months, sparking government advisory CIC News Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif Sans Font Size A A Employers who require a Labour Market Impact Assessment under Canadas Temporary Foreign Worker Program should submit their application as soon as possible in order to avoid worsening delays, the government says. A notice published October 29 by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) says Canadas Temporary Foreign Worker Program is currently experiencing an increased volume of Labour Market Impact Assessment applications and processing times are expected to increase in the coming months. We are making all necessary efforts to minimize the impact on employers seeking to hire temporary foreign workers, it reads. We therefore suggest that employers submit their application as soon as possible to avoid any additional delays. A Labour Market Impact Assessment, or LMIA, confirms that an employer has followed the required steps to recruit a Canadian worker for the position they are looking to fill with foreign labour. LMIA processing times have increased dramatically in recent months for Temporary Foreign Worker Programs other than the Global Talent Stream, which fast tracks work permits for skilled workers in specialized occupations and has a processing standard of 10 business days. ESDC, which is responsible for Canadas Temporary Foreign Worker Program, has attributed the delays to technical issues associated with its transition to a new platform for assessing LMIA applications. Need assistance navigating the complicated LMIA application process? Contact wp@canadavisa.com. Its been a horrible, violent month. In case you missed it, heres a brief synopsis: White men decided to make America great again by assaulting protesters; killing black people in a grocery store, shooting up yet another school, sending pipe bombs to a number of prominent Democrats, slaughtering worshippers in a synagogue. And thats just on an individual level; Im not even mentioning what went on at the governmental level. Id never even heard of Gab until last weekend, and only then because of its sudden notoriety as the last place synagogue shooter Robert Bowers posted before he committed his heinous, anti-Semitic slaughter in Pittsburgh. But, in case youre wondering, its apparently like Facebook for white supremacists. Or, it was Its since been shut down by its hosting provider, cut off from funding platforms and told to find a new domain by GoDaddy.com. Meanwhile Facebook and Instagram finally took action against white supremacist gang Proud Boys by banning some regional groups (but not all). Facebook now says the group meets its definition of a hate group and can therefore be removed; all that took was a real-life, violent assault on unarmed antifascist protestors. Now we come to Twitter, which, once again offered a weak response to its role in one of the other awful events that has taken place over the last week. In mid-October, Rochelle Ritchie, a political commentator fresh off a Fox News appearance, received a number of threats via Twitter. She reported them. Twitter, as per usual, did nothing. Turns out, the threats were made by none other than Cesar Sayoc, the alleged so-called MAGA bomber. Its not the first time Twitter has refused to take seriously the harassment of black women on its platform: see actress Leslie Jones versus Milo Yiannopoulos a year ago. Whats changed? Not much, right down to the weak-ass apology. Heres the thing. As a journalist, I am 100% in favor of free speech. But hate speech is not free speech. The very act of allowing these terrible ideas into the mainstream gives them unwarranted legitimacy, a subtle admission that these ideas are worthy of debate. They arent. Not only that, as weve seen clearly in the last month, hate speech leads directly to violence and acts of terror against oppressed groups meaning their freedoms are being curtailed. Its the old you cant yell Fire in a crowded theater argument, yes, but I believe its valid. We have access to more information than ever before, and that also means hate speech has a much wider and more powerful reach. The current presidential administration is one of its main mouthpieces; President Trump is legitimizing these ideas and fueling the rise of groups ready to act on the hatred he spews. Social media companies must do more to proactively police hate speech to help prevent more atrocities from happening. Democrats have tried a variety of strategies in recent years to win the 11th Congressional District, which includes all of Staten Island and a slice of Southern Brooklyn. In 2012, they nominated a lackluster political newcomer whose only notable accomplishment was being the son of a former congressman. Next, they tried a gaffe-prone former New York City councilman who lost by double digits to the scandal-plagued and indicted Rep. Michael Grimm. Then the party did even worse in the special election to replace him. In 2016, Richard Reinhard ran as a billionaire-bashing liberal and lost by more than 30 points to Rep. Dan Donovan, the only Republican in Congress from New York City. Despite the litany of failures in recent years, Max Rose could be the first Democrat in a decade to win, in part by improving his partys performance in the forgotten borough. Although the few polls in the race have shown Donovan with leads in the single digits, the $4.1 million that Rose has raised is nearly twice as much as Donovans total fundraising, according to federal campaign disclosures. A robust field operation has regularly mobilized 200 Rose volunteers to plant thousands of lawn signs on behalf of his campaign, which has also received significant attention from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee through its Red to Blue program. However, despite the importance of the race to Democrats efforts to retake the House and the sizeable voter registration advantage the party has in the district, Rose is running a campaign that downplays his party affiliation. Instead, he is presenting himself as an independent-minded veteran down to the Army green that adorns his campaigns website, logo and literature. And hes trying to underscore his dedication to serving constituents with a focus on local, nonideological issues. You wont find typical Democratic talking points like holding President Donald Trump accountable, expanding access to health care, protecting the environment or civil rights, or combating economic inequality in his campaign ads. His enemies, he says, are current officeholders in both parties, and the causes he cares about are traffic and subway delays. Roses political identity depends on his military experience, which he says shows a moral center that would direct his work in Congress. People putting their differences aside and trying to get the job done, is how Rose characterized in an interview on his time as a platoon leader in Afghanistan. An instance where a Stryker combat vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device provides his segue into suggesting that Congress work could easily be as bipartisan as many defense appropriations have been if only elected leaders were to possess enough courage. You do not see that in Washington, D.C. You do not see people working together. You do not see people putting country first one of the few instances of it was an instance where they voted to put armor under my vehicle, which is exactly why I am sitting in front of you today as a congressional candidate. Max Rose for Congress While he has a compelling life story with his military experience, the first-time candidates ties to the community may be less impressive to Staten Islanders. He is a Brooklyn native who grew up near, but outside, the district and spent years away at school and in the Army before he moved to Bay Ridge three years ago. He worked as an aide to then-Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson where Rose was involved in an initiative called Begin Again, which helped people with outstanding warrants for minor offenses get on the right side of the law. The following year, Rose moved to St. George, Staten Island, with fellow native Brooklynite Leigh Byrne, a fashion stylist whom he married six months ago. Rose worked for one year as chief of staff at Brightpoint Health in the borough before turning toward politics. He hasnt been in the borough nearly as long as Donovan, who served as deputy borough president and Richmond County district attorney. That has not stopped Rose from claiming an understanding of the boroughs concerns. Roses appeals to an element of borough-based nationalism will determine whether he can win where other Democrats have failed for the past 10 years. Thats why Roses campaign ads decry bridge traffic at 7 a.m. and needles in the gutter a reference to how the borough has been hit especially hard by the opioid epidemic. Rose also criticizes New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who lost Staten Island by 45 percentage points in his re-election campaign last year, for allegedly ignoring the borough. In pledging to focus on local needs, Rose draws a contrast with Donovan who he argues has been a sellout for taking $10,000 in campaign contributions from former executives at Purdue Pharma, the maker of the painkiller OxyContin, while failing to address rising opioid abuse on Staten Island. Donovan has since donated that money to charity and fired back at Rose by saying that it is Rose who is beholden to outside interests because of the large amount of money people outside the district have donated to his campaign. Rose avoids discussing his campaigns connections to national Democratic figures, despite the endorsements of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Rep. Joe Crowley and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer. While he is just one of a group of military veterans running for Congress as Democrats, Rose has received more than $130,000 in campaign contributions from the Serve America Victory Fund, founded by Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, according to federal campaign filings. While he acknowledged that he participates in an associated Slack channel where military veteran candidates swap advice and discuss their campaigns, Rose said he has not taken parts in other activities sponsored by the group, such as debate preparations hosted by former Obama campaign officials. These connections to political figures outside the district is not in line with the message of his centrist campaign, which focuses on nonpartisan, middle-class concerns. Trump carried Staten Island by 15 points in 2016. Recognizing the boroughs conservatism, Rose has said that he would not vote for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to be speaker of the House. Trumps popularity in the district also means that Rose has to highlight his opposition to impeaching Trump. At times, Rose has even embraced the drain the swamp messaging that helped propel Trump to victory, from decrying the influence of corporate and lobbyist money in elections to bashing Democrats for protecting the carried interest tax loophole. Donald Trump ran on making our roads and our bridges great again, Rose said in an interview with HuffPost earlier this year. He ran on draining the swamp. He ran on doing something about the opioid epidemic. He ran on fair taxation. We have not seen hardly anything being done on these very important issues. Democratic candidates have traditionally done relatively well in the Brooklyn area of the district, even outright winning that area in 2012, 2014, and the 2015 special election. In order to win, Rose would likely have to beat Donovan by large margins in that area and other parts of the district where Hillary Clinton won in 2016, like the North Shore of Staten Island. He also needs to get as many votes as he can in the swing neighborhoods of central Staten Island to offset Republican strength on the white, suburban South Shore. I think their playbook has been smart, said Richard Flanagan, a political science professor at the College of Staten Island. (Staten Islanders) dont like that traditional urban liberal under any guise. The voter registration advantage that Democrats have in the district roughly 5 to 3 doesnt translate into reliable electoral support for the partys candidates. The borough president, three members of the state Legislature and two out of its three City Council members are Republicans. State Sen. Marty Golden, a Republican, represents the Brooklyn side of the district. Union membership is relatively high in the district, but its mostly from relatively conservative blue-collar professions, such as cops, firemen and construction workers than, liberal unions like the service workers in 1199SEIU, who often dont make as much money as firemen and police. They march to a different beat than 1199, Flanagan said. So the stuff thats playing well nationally in Democratic districts, like Medicare, it wouldnt play well here. Add to that key votes that Donovan has taken in Congress that have made him politically immune to some of the Republican Partys more controversial legislation, such as the law that capped federal tax deductions for state and local taxes effectively forcing residents of areas with high property values and tax rates to pay more in federal taxes and unpopular efforts to repeal Obamacare. Max Rose for Congress Rose also has to contend with Donovans long record in the district as a native son, and Donovan is working his Staten Island roots to maximum advantage: He suggested in an interview with City & State that Roses campaigning on the sixth anniversary of Superstorm Sandy showed that the Democrat is out of step with the sensitivities of longtime residents. The community knows me. They voted for me in the past, Donovan said. Hes a carpetbagger. Although hes low-key, that experience he has has been an added bonus for us because he just has knowledge in-depth of a lot issue areas, Brooklyn Conservative Party Chairman Gerry Kassar said about Donovan. In a district where recent history shows native Staten Islanders do better in its congressional races, Rose lacks the longtime community ties held by Michael McMahon, the last Democrat to represent the borough in Congress. That he only moved to Staten Island two years ago has become a political liability in the race, including during a recent debate on NY1 where Rose reacted angrily to suggestions by Donovan that the Army veteran was a carpetbagger who only moved to the district to run for Congress. Rose impressively turned the criticism around on Donovan. Noting that he couldnt move to Staten Island while he was on active duty status in the Army until late 2014, he framed Donovans line as an attack on troops who cannot put down roots back home while they serve overseas. I would have come here sooner, Rose said with visible indignation. I was too busy defending my country in Afghanistan and Im tired of you disrespecting our soldiers. Rose likes to highlight how a veteran can relate to the sense of service embodied by police and firemen, and to say that nowhere is more welcoming to a veteran than Staten Island, which census data shows has just slightly more veterans than the city at large. In just over a week, Rose will find out whether that is a winning strategy for a Democrat in NY-11. News highlights Cancer Research UK has been targeted by Russian hackers, according to reports by the Daily Telegraph and then by the Daily Mail. The papers said that members of Magecart, an anonymous Russian group of cybercriminals, targeted the customers of CRUK's online shop in 2016. Read the full story. British Heart Foundation has become the first UK charity to accept donations via Amazons virtual assistant, Alexa. People can also arrange to have their old furniture and electrical items collected using Alexa-enabled devices such as the Amazon Echo. BHF has also launched an Alexa skill a function that can be downloaded from an app store that will allow people to arrange for the collection of unwanted furniture or make a direct donation. Read the full story. Charities reported 137 data security incidents to the Information Commissioners Office in the first quarter of 2018/19, according to recently published data a more than sixfold increase from the previous year. The ICO recently published the latest statistics for how many data breaches had been reported to it between April and June 2018. The data showed charities reported 137 seperate data breaches up 21 for the same period in 2017. This is likely because of change in data protection rules. Read the full story. Charity umbrella bodies have launched a social media campaign urging charities to share bitesize snippets highlighting the difference they have made and to thank supporters for making it happen. Umbrella bodies such as NCVO, CharityComms, the Small Charities Coalition, FSI, the Institute of Fundrasing and Acevo are all urging charities to use the hastag #YouMadeItHappen on 19 November to thank supporters and raise awareness of the impact charities make. Read the full story. Latest partnerships Deafblind UK and Morse-Brown Deafblind UK has worked with the web design agency Morse-Brown to revamp its website. The charity is hoping to raise its profile and make better use of technology. It has said it also plans to invest more in digital technology in the future. Rethink Mental Illness and DAM Digital Rethink Mental Illness has appointed DAM Digital to improve its online presence. The agency was appointed after a competitive pitch and will work with the charity to develop a new digital strategy and create a new website. Lara King, head of communications at Rethink Mental Illness, said: We want a new website that will, above all, make all our expert advice and information on mental illness more easily accessible to those who need it. We are confident DAM Digital can help us do this and we are pleased to be working with them. National Trust for Scotland and Bank of Scotland and Visa Two Scottish artefacts have been recreated to include contactless donation technology as part of the Tap to Preserve the Future campaign being run by the National Trust for Scotland; the Bank of Scotland and Visa. A bust of Robert Burns and a 1766 painting of Colonel William Gordon at Fyvie Castle are bespoke creations that took weeks to make using 3D scanning technology. The charity hopes that they will help to raise money because the volume of traditional cash donations is falling. Simon Skinner, chief executive at the National Trust for Scotland, said: Like all charities, we face a significant fundraising challenge as cash donations have fallen sharply in recent years. This initiative could not come at a more crucial time and will enable us to accept contactless donations at our sites for the first time. Its only through the support of our visitors, members and donors, that our charity can help to protect Scotlands natural and national treasures, like The Robert Burns Birthplace Museum and Fyvie Castle, for everyone to enjoy." Unicef UK and Giveclarity International aid agency, Unicef UK has launched a new supporter management platform with Giveclarity to improve peoples experience. The charity hopes that the new cloud-based system will give it a single view of the different ways each supporter interacts with it. Giveclarity is backed by Salesforce, the global customer-relationship management platform, and integrates all supporter communications and fundraising into a single multi-channel solution that takes account of both online and offline activity. Mark Devlin, chief operating officer at Unicef UK, said: This is a major project for Unicef UK that will transform our supporters experience. A fuller view of every interaction will provide a deeper appreciation of what most interests our supporters about Unicefs work and, most importantly, how they prefer to receive communications from us. This will help us to communicate more effectively and relevantly with them. As our committed supporter base continues to grow, this directly enables Unicef to increase the impact of our protection, education, hygiene, nutrition and vaccination programmes for the worlds most vulnerable children. Therefore, it is vital we ensure that all our supporters feel valued, understood and informed about the work they are enabling. British Heart Foundation and Yext The British Heart Foundation has chosen Yext, a digital knowledge management system, to raise awareness of its furniture stores online and increase footfall. It works by creating a Facebook place-page for each store which can be used to join discussions about what is happening in the local community. The charity hopes this will increase engagement with local people online, so they can share information about their local shop. Frankie Dewar, senior digital marketing executive at British Heart Foundation, said: We offer a fantastic free furniture collections service, as well as great products in each store, and we want to ensure we stay top of mind for the community the more we collect, the more we sell, the more people we help, the more money we raise for our life saving heart research. Insight Lord Gus O'Donnell, chair of Pro Bono Economics, discusses the importance of data to charities. Read his article. The Charity Technology Conference takes place on 7 November. For more information, and to book, click here The government and the Charity Commission are likely to explore options for charging charities, following the publication of the regulators new strategic vision, a senior government official said yesterday. Ben Harrison, policy manager at the Office for Civil Society in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, was discussing the government's new Civil Society Strategy at the Westminster Social Policy Forum event in London yesterday. As the Charity Commission has now published its statement of strategic intent, Harrison said the next step was to look at securing a sustainable financial future for the regulator. He said this would likely include a consultation on charging. The Charity Commission has set out its statement of strategic intent, he said. Its purpose being to ensure that charity can thrive and inspire trust so that people can improve lives and strengthen society. We also need to work with the Charity Commission to explore options for a sustainable financial future for it. And that is likely to include exploring options around charging. The Charity Commission has been talking about the possibility of charities contributing towards its costs for a number of years, but plans to launch a full consultation were delayed when a general election was called last year. Earlier this month the Commission set out its strategic vision for the next five years, which include an aspiration to provide more targeted help and support for charities. Government to review Fundraising Regulator Harrison also confirmed that part of the government's new strategy would involve conducting a review of the Fundraising Regulator. Although he said that, so far, it appears that independent self-regulation is working. The Fundraising Regulator has shown that independent non-statutory regulation by consent can protect public interest, he said. Although the government has reserve powers to introduced statutory regulation, Harrison said this was a last resort because non-statutory regulation is more flexible and less costly than the statutory approach. But he said the government would review the operation and impact of the Fundraising Regulator as part of the strategy. We will need to consider whether it is meeting its objectives that were set out when it was established, two years ago now, and whether the model is fair and sustainable, he said. We live in a moment of extraordinary tension between the press and the public. Donald Trumps knee-jerk retort of Fake news is now a particular favorite of dictators and authoritarians around the world. The prevailing anti-press animosity at the national level has trickled down to local reporters, the Associated Press reports. And its not just threats. In June, a man opened fire with a shotgun inside the offices of the Capital Gazette, in Annapolis, Maryland, killing five newspaper employees and injuring two others. In October, a Bulgarian journalist was raped and murdered, a Saudi journalist was assassinated and dismembered inside his own governments consulate, and mail bombs were sent to the New York offices of CNN. Ive written previously about some things journalists and news organizations can do to try strengthen audience trust at a time like this. But thats only half the equation. Its also a good time for a refresher for citizens on what constitutes a healthy, constructive conversation about the work we produce. For some, what follows may be obvious; to others, it may seem laughably naive. But journalists dont like to let important things go unsaid. And, if these points feels achingly obvious, surely you know someone who could use a reminder, or a young person who never learned them in the first place. Here are a few dos and donts for how to respond to the press. ICYMI: The tweet that derailed a news cycle Sign up for CJR 's daily email DONT commit or condone violence against journalists. Violence against journalists is unacceptable under any circumstances, no matter what the President tweets and says at his rallies. Sadly, we live in an era where this long-unsaid truth needs to be stated clearly, frequently, and unequivocally. Freedom of the press not only appears at the top of our nations Bill of Rights, its enshrined in Article 19 of the UNs 1948s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. And so if you commit an act of violence against a journalist youre not only breaking the law, youre committing a breach of values shared (in theory, at least) by Americans and people around the world. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more than 1,300 journalists have been killed worldwide since 1992, and a newly released CPJ report notes that impunity for killers of journalists is entrenched in 14 nations. Meanwhile, 40 journalists have been physically attacks in the United States so far this year, according to the US Press Freedom Tracker. DONT make it personal. Nonviolence may be the lowest bar to clear when responding to a work of journalism. But its also not productive to personally criticize the journalist who produced it. This means refusing to comment on a journalists age, appearance, gender, race, class, religion, sexual orientation, education, outfit, or anything else about them, when responding to their work. In all cases, stick to the work, not the person. This, of course, is Human Decency 101, but it applies especially to journalists, who conduct their work in public about sensitive subjects. And, if youre responding with any trace of good faith (a big if, I know), staying focused on the work will actually help get your message across. Washington Post media columnist and former New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan tells me she makes a point to respond to reader emails. But I do not answer the ones that attack me, she says. As soon as they get personally insulting, I tune out. To that Ill add: many journalists are perfectionists who take great pride in their work, so if your goal is to cause emotional pain, pointing to flaws in what we wrote is often more upsetting than any ad hominem jab, anyway. DO know that feedback is essential to journalism. Listening to our audience isnt some optional, take-it-or-leave-it aspect of journalism; its a vital part of what we do. This is both ideologicalyoull find calls for audience feedback throughout the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics and the American Press Institutes What Is Journalism digital librarybut its also practical. While we strive for accuracy and excellence, journalists are often assigned topics cold, and trying to establish expertise quickly. Or were simply working on extremely tight deadlines. Slip-ups are inevitable, and we need your help spotting and correcting them. So, if we got something factually wrong, tell us so we can fix it quickly. And if there was something wrong in the bigger sensein the way a piece was framed or presented, or if there are subjects or stories we continue to misstell us so we dont make the same mistake twice. Journalists are overworked, and it may take us a moment to respond. But an upside to our workload is that we rarely run out of opportunities to try to do better next time. As Sullivan explains, For the most part, were idealistic still, and we want to be improving, growth-oriented, [and] constructive. DO read/watch/listen to the full article before responding. This one is pretty self explanatory: if you didnt complete (or even begin!) the piece, youre really in no position to give a constructive response. At least give it a skim? DO be as specific as possible. The least helpful criticism simply makes sweeping claims about the media, a term that, as the Washington Posts Paul Farhi has skillfully explained, is so imprecise and generic that it has lost any meaning. One notch better (but still essentially useless) are blanket statements about an entire news outlet or a particular reporter. In contrast, the best feedback zeroes in not just on a specific article, but the specific place that was incorrect or ill advised, and, when possible, backs up its claims with evidence or a detailed explanation. Once you toss some of these specifics on the table, we can begin to have a productive conversation, which is what NPRs Steve Inskeep was getting at when he recently tweeted to the president: Thanks for writing. If a specific NPR story concerns you, feel free to name it and we can go to the transcript. All work is public at https://npr.org . If there is no specific story of concern, that is its own answer. Ill continue doing my job as a citizen. DO remember that journalists are human beings acting in good faith. In a world in which reporters are called scum, disgusting, enemies and much worse, its worth statingand restatingthat journalists are human beings. We are flesh-and-blood people with spouses, friends, parents, children, pets, memories, hobbies, and mortgages. We like pizza. We pay taxes. We go to the gym and take out the trash. And if youre inclined to leave an angry voicemail or slide your thumb across your throat at us, its important to remember: thats someones brother or sister. Thats a human being, with a heartbeat, a birthday, a favorite song. Dont believe those who tell you otherwise. And, beyond our basic humanity, the vast majority of us are trying to do as fair and accurate of a job as possible. Northeastern University journalism professor and longtime media reporter and critic Dan Kennedy tells me that, of the hundreds of journalists he knows or has written about, he can probably count the number of bad apples hes encounteredpeople who plagiarize or fabricateon one hand. The rest are absolutely trying to do the best job that they can, oftentimes under very difficult circumstances, he says. You can take Kennedys word. Or you can look at what happens when people run afoul of the expectations of the industry and its employers. Listen to the This American Life episode Retraction exposing Mike Daiseys narrative corner-cutting in an earlier episode of the show. Check out the 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair stories on serial fabulist Stephen Glass, or the New York Times deep-dive on Jayson Blairs low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper. Read the lengthy report from this publication about Rolling Stones disastrous UVA campus rape story. Each of these stories reflects an industry that holds accountability, accuracy, and reputation as its highest principles. DO support us, if you appreciate our work. Im sure Im far from the only journalist who, years later, can quote verbatim lines from positive reader feedback. (One email included the unforgettable phrase, Please keep writing.) These words fill our emotional gas tanks and remind us why we do this work. It certainly isnt the pay. So, if you learned something from a piece of journalism, or you were moved or challenged or entertained by it, take a moment to mention that to the person who created it. Dont assume that someone else has said something. Somehow, thanks to the wonders of the human mind, notes like this can cancel out the memory of a thousand nasty comments. And if youre feeling grateful, words arent the only useful form of praise. Subscribe. Donate. Defend us in conversations. Support organizations like CPJ or Freedom of the Press Foundation. (Or CJR.) Journalism is hard work that, though often accessed for free, costs enormous time, labor, energy, and money to produce. If you appreciate what we do, well gladly take whatever support you can offer in return. Even pizza. Especially pizza. ICYMI: The aggressive campaign that has extinguished 90 percent of Breitbarts advertisers Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Philip Eil is a freelance journalist based in Providence, Rhode Island. He sued the Drug Enforcement Administration under the FOIA, with help from the Rhode Island ACLU and two pro-bono attorneys, Neal McNamara and Jessica Jewell. Follow him on Twitter: @phileil. A Massachusetts Appeals Court has ruled in favor of an insurer in a case involving an automobile accident in which the injured plaintiff sought to obtain underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage under a policy held by the mother and stepfather of his long-term partner, with whom he has a child. The court upheld a Superior Courts ruling that the plaintiff could not be considered a household member under the policy, as he is not related by blood to either policyholder. This comes after July 18, 2014, when plaintiff Derrick Martins Oliveira was injured in a single-automobile accident as a passenger in a vehicle owned and operated by a third party. He sustained fractures to his spine and ribs, tore ligaments in his knee and suffered lacerations and scarring on his scalp. He was hospitalized for four days, required long-term disability and incurred medical bills of more than $40,000. The driver of the vehicle involved in the accident was insured under her own policy, and Oliveira accepted a settlement with the driver and the drivers insurer to the full extent of that policy, which was $100,000. Since 2012, Oliveira has lived with his long-term partner in a single-family unit with her mother and stepfather. He is not married to his partner, but they have a minor son together. The Commerce Insurance Company provided coverage for the two vehicles used by the residents of Oliveiras home neither of which was involved in the accident under a policy issued to his partners mother and stepfather. The Commerce insurance policy provided $250,000 of coverage per person in underinsured motorist coverage for damages for bodily injury to people injured or killed as a result of certain accidents caused by someone who does not have enough insurance. Oliveira claimed coverage under the policy as a household member of the policyholders. The insurer denied the claim, however, contending that he was not eligible for coverage because he did not meet the definition of a household member under the policy. In the policy, the term household member is defined as anyone living in your household who is related to you by blood, marriage or adoption. This includes wards, step-children or foster children. In response to the insurers denial of his claim, Oliveira filed a complaint in Superior Court, alleging breach of contract and seeking a judgment declaring that he was a household member under the policy and was eligible for coverage. Oliveira argued that he was related by blood to the policyholders through his biological son and entitled to coverage. After a hearing, a Superior Court judge denied his motion and granted Commerces motion. Oliveira then appealed. Appeals Court Decision Although in the lawsuit, Oliveira requested an expanded definition of related by blood, the Appeals Court found that the policy language was not suited to further expansion beyond its usual and ordinary meaning. The plaintiffs construction of related by blood is breathtaking in its breadth and yet remarkably disconnected to the asserted policy goal of covering a broad range of family relationships, Associate Justice Joseph M. Ditkoff wrote in his opinion. Under the plaintiffs theory, any two persons with a common blood relative are themselves related by blood. Thus, a person with a niece is a blood relative of his or her brother-in-laws parents (and grandparents and, for that matter, any genetic relatives). Indeed, a couple with a biological child would be surprised to find themselves to be blood relatives. With this in mind, Ditkoff determined the words related by blood represent a genetic relationship. He stated in his decision that Oliveira does not have a genetic relationship with either of the policyholders, and the Superior Court judge properly granted summary judgment to the insurer. In his opinion, Ditkoff added a warning that individuals need to know whether they are covered by another individuals policy to determine whether they should obtain their own insurance, and insurance companies need to know who is covered to determine the proper premium and how to process claims. In the insurance context, waiting until an accident and subsequent case-by-case determination of coverage by a judge is not an adequate solution, he wrote in his opinion. Dissenting Opinion Associate Justice Edward McDonough, however, offered a dissenting opinion, stating that in Massachusetts, automobile insurance is both statutory and policy driven. In terms of who is eligible for UIM coverage, the statute does not use the phrase household member like the policy does, he wrote. Instead, the statute states that someone in Oliveiras position is eligible for UIM coverage from the policy of a resident relative, McDonough added, stating that the word relative is commonly understood to refer to a person related by blood or marriage. It is simply wrong to suggest, as the majority effectively does, thatthe court is required to view the usual and ordinary sense of the phrase related by blood in a vacuum, without considering the underlying statute and its purpose, he wrote. To these changing realities of the modern American family, the majority turns a blind eye, thereby limiting UIM coverage to accident victims belonging to conventional familiesto the exclusion of Oliveira, an unmarried parent and household member victimized by an underinsured intoxicated driver. He stated that because modern society presents an almost infinite variety of possible domestic situations and living arrangements, the term household member can have no precise meaning and analysis needs to proceed on a case-by-case basis. Although he agreed that the phrase related by blood seems to imply two people that share a common bloodline and are descended from a common ancestor, he added there is also a commonsense appeal to the idea that the biological father of a child is related to the maternal biological grandmother of the child, even if the father is not married to the biological mother of the child. He stated that it can be assumed the severe injuries Oliveira suffered in the accident have had a significant impact on his family and his child. It would seem anomalous, therefore, that coverage for the childs loss also could be denied merely because his father and mother did yet not marry as recently as a day or hours before the accident, he said. With this in mind, McDonough called for a reversal of the appeals courts judgment in which Oliveiras motion for summary judgment is allowed, Commerces motion for summary judgment is denied and Oliveira is found to qualify as a household member under the policy issued by Commerce to the grandmother and stepgrandfather. The case is Derrick Martins Oliveira vs. The Commerce Insurance Company. The operator of a gas well that exploded in southeastern Oklahoma used a cheaper and quicker drilling plan than experts advised, the latest court filings in two lawsuits allege. Amendments filed earlier this month to the wrongful death lawsuits filed by Cody Risks estate and Josh Rays family allege Red Mountain used a lighter drilling fluid mixture, which posed a greater risk in order to save money, despite recommendations from six engineering consultants, The Tulsa World reported. Drilling fluid serves as the primary defense against well blowouts and must be dense enough to keep underground fluids from entering the well bore. Red Mountain President Tony Say said the lawsuits show a lack of knowledge in well-site operations. The amended lawsuit filed earlier this month against our company contains many false allegations and unproven assertions, Say said. We categorically deny any claim our company put profits over people. The January explosion near Quinton killed five workers: Matt Smith of McAlester; Parker Waldridge of Crescent; Roger Cunningham from Seminole; Ray of Fort Worth, Texas; and Risk of Wellington, Colorado. Each family or estate has filed a wrongful death lawsuit. Kevin Carrillo, who survived the explosion but suffered serious injuries, has also filed a lawsuit. The lawsuits filed by the families of Risk and Ray also allege that a drone was used to capture footage of flares of escaping gas in order to create a video to attract investors to other pending drilling projects. Videos were taken of 40 to 50 flares capturing what they viewed as a good gas show versus a giant red flag waiving from an uncontrolled well, the lawsuits contend. Crescent Consulting, an engineering firm which was contracted to oversee the drilling operation, and Patterson-UTI, which was contracted to perform the drilling, also denied wrongdoing. The federal investigation into the blast is ongoing. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Injury rates have more than doubled at five West Virginia coal mines acquired by Murray Energy Corp. in 2013, according to a Reuters review of federal data, as the firm sharply increased the amount of coal produced per manhour. Although injuries and productivity rates rose over the same period, the causes of the increase in injuries remain unknown and could include a host of factors in the complex business of underground coal mining. Murray the nations largest underground coal mining company with about 6,000 employees producing more than 60 million tonnes of coal annually bought the mines from rival CONSOL Energy. Those mines now account for more than half the firms production. The injury rate at the five mines averaged 6.35 per 200,000 work hours last year, up from 2.79 in 2013, the last year CONSOL operated them, according to data from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration. Thats the highest injury rate for the group in a decade and 70 percent above the national average for underground mines, the data show. At the same time, coal output per manhour at the five mines rose nearly 50 percent since 2013 to 5.7 tons in 2017, according to MSHA figures. By comparison, the industry average in 2015 the last year for which industry-wide data is available was 3.4 tons per manhour. Murray spokesman Cody Nett said that productivity has no correlation to injury rates. Strategies that Murray has used to increase output at the mines such as continuing production through the overnight maintenance shift and keeping machinery and vehicles running during shift changes are standard practices widely utilized throughout the industry, Nett said. Nett said the injury rate at the former CONSOL mines was inflated by false claims from workers who took time off for other reasons. He also attributed the doubling of injury rates since Murray acquired the mines to under-reporting by the previous owner during the preceding years an assertion disputed by the Department of Labor and its Mines Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), which collects the data. Regulators did cite CONSOL for under-reporting in a 2013 audit. But MSHA later revised the companys data to include injuries that CONSOL initially failed to properly report, said MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere. Asked about the agencys adjustments, Nett said it was flat out incorrect that the mine safety agency had corrected CONSOLs data. CONSOL spokesman Zach Smith declined to comment on the companys 2013 reporting violations. The injury rate at the five mines translated to about 200 injuries requiring days off work in 2017. Workers at the five sites have suffered 159 injuries so far in 2018, according to the MSHA data. Murray controls six other mines in Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, and Utah and each has an injury rate below the national average, according to the data. The company has won numerous safety awards in recent years, including from the U.S. governments National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in 2015. Davitt McAteer, a mine safety expert in West Virginia who had directed MSHA under former President Bill Clinton, said that many factors could have played into the increased injury rates at the Murray mines in West Virginia. Those particular mines are decades old, meaning miners are having to work deeper, more complicated coal seams, with aging equipment and infrastructure, he said, adding that such conditions are more dangerous for workers. The companys CEO, Robert Murray, is among the coal sectors most vocal advocates for rollbacks of environmental and safety oversight, frequently arguing that government regulation is unnecessarily onerous and costly for companies. Murray Energy has also sued the government to invalidate an Obama-era rule called the Pattern of Violations rule, intended to beef up enforcement of safety standards against repeat offenders. That case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, is now in settlement negotiations with the Trump administration. (Reporting by Richard Valdmanis and Valerie Volcovici Editing by Brian Thevenot) MGM Resorts International wants to negotiate a possible settlement with the victims of the Oct. 1, 2017, shooting at the Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, in which 58 people were killed and hundreds were wounded. The company and a group of lawyers representing the victims said in a filing Thursday in federal court in Las Vegas that they are scheduling a mediation and they asked the judge to put the lawsuit there on hold. They will make the same requests in other courts around the U.S. where MGM Resorts filed lawsuits to block potential claims over the shooting. Earlier this month, MGM lost a bid to have all the litigation consolidated before one federal judge. While we continue to believe ultimately courts would find in MGMs favor, we hope that entering into mediation will allow the parties to work together toward a fair and timely resolution, Debra DeShong, a spokeswoman for MGM, said in a statement. Years of protracted litigation is in no ones best interest. We look forward to continuing discussions and hope for a positive resolution so the victims, first responders and the entire community can look forward to the future and continue on the path toward healing. The victims argue that MGM is liable for the deaths, injuries and other damages because it failed to prevent the shooter, Stephen Paddock, from bringing an arsenal of weapons to his suite at MGMs Mandalay Bay resort. He opened fire from his suite on the concert attendees below. Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. Super Typhoon Yutu crossed over the U.S. commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands early Thursday as the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane, making it the strongest storm to hit any part of the U.S. this year, the National Weather Service said. Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marina Islands delegate to U.S. Congress, said the territory will need significant help to recover from the storm, which he said injured several people. In a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Saipan, Sablan said he has heard reports of injuries and that people are waiting at the islands hospital to be treated. He could not provide further details or official estimates of casualties. Theres a lot of damage and destruction, Sablan said. Its like a small war just passed through. Sablan said the entire island sustained damage, but there are areas that are worse than others. He has not been able to reach officials on the territorys neighbor islands of Tinian and Rota because phones and electricity are out. Its going to take weeks probably to get electricity back to everybody, he said. Sablan says colleagues in Congress have reached out to offer help. He expects there will be a presidential disaster declaration put in place. `Were surviving, well get through this we are a resilient people but its just huge, he said. We need Americas prayers, and we need help, and I dont doubt that we will get help. Thank you, America, for always being there for us. Nearly 200 federal emergency workers were in the Marianas to assist, Sablan said. Maximum sustained winds of 180 mph (290 kph) were recorded around the eye of the storm, which passed over Tinian and Saipan early Thursday local time, said Brandon Aydlett, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Tinian suffered a direct hit. Saipan and Tinian will be unrecognizable, Aydlett said, adding that the weather service received reports that Yutus catastrophic winds ripped roofs from homes and blew out windows. Any debris becomes shrapnel and deadly, he said. Fallen trees could isolate residents, and power and water outages could last weeks, the weather service warned. At its peak, the wind was constant and the sound horrifying, Glen Hunter wrote in a Facebook message to The Associated Press. Hunter lives on Saipan, the largest island in the commonwealth, which is a U.S. territory about 3,800 miles (6,115 kilometers) west of Hawaii. Gonna be quite a scene when the sun comes up, Hunter wrote to the AP early Thursday. It was still quite dark when he peeked outside and saw his neighbors house, made of wood and tin, completely gone. A palm tree was uprooted. Hunter, 45, has lived on Saipan since childhood and is accustomed to strong storms. We are in typhoon alley, he wrote, but added this is the worst he has experienced. Power went out the previous afternoon, and Hunter was bracing for months without electricity or running water. All government offices and schools shut down two days ago. A few gas stations ran out of gas by Tuesday evening, he said. We knew it was going to be big, he said, but wow. The roof flew off the second floor of Del Bensons Saipan home. We didnt sleep much, he wrote to the AP in a Facebook message. I went upstairs and the skylight blew out. Then the roof started to go. We got the kids downstairs. Recovery efforts on Saipan and Tinian will be slow, Aydlett said. This is the worst-case scenario. This is why the building codes in the Marianas are so tough, he said. This is going to be the storm which sets the scale for which future storms are compared to. Six of Saipans 10 shelters were full, he wrote, and Tinians shelter was full. All ports were closed, and flights into the Northern Marianas were canceled, he wrote. The Tinian Medical Center sustained extensive damage. Fortunately no patients were present, he wrote in a post that also said the Commonwealth Healthcare Center and Rota Medical Center were running on generator power. The emergency operations center was having phone connectivity issues, Sablan tweeted later in the day. Cellphone and landline service was spotty in Saipan. Dean Sensui, vice chair for Hawaii on the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, was in Saipan for a council meeting. He hunkered down in his hotel room, where guests were told to remain indoors because winds were still strong Thursday morning. From around midnight the wind could be heard whipping by, he said in a Facebook message. Down at the restaurant it sounded like a Hollywood soundtrack with the intense rain and howling wind. Because hes in a solid hotel, it wasnt as scary as living through Hurricane Iniki in 1992, which left the Hawaiian island of Kauai badly damaged, he said. The fact that we still have Internet access proves how solid their infrastructure is, he said. Hawaii and others should study the Marianas to understand how to design and build communication grids that can withstand a storm. The Northern Marianas have a population of about 55,000 people. Waves of 25 to 40 feet (6 to 12 meters) were expected around the eye of the storm, and flooding is likely, forecasters said. A typhoon warning was in effect for Saipan, Tinian and Rota. A tropical storm warning was in place for Guam and other southern islands. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. AKRON, Ohio An Akron couple was sentenced to prison on a slew of human trafficking charges, prosecutors said. Darren Townsend, 38, and Pearl Coffey, 35, were charged with multiple (how many?) counts of compelling prostitution, trafficking in persons, promoting prostitution and corrupting another with drugs, according to the Summit County Prosecutors Office. Townsend plead guilty to the charges Oct. 3 and Summit County Common Pleas Court Judge Amy Corrigall Jones immediately sentenced him to 14 years in prison. The couple preyed on women and girls and used them to have sex with men at several locations, including a home, officials said. Coffey plead guilty to the charges in January and agreed to testify against Townsend. She admitted to authorities that she preyed on young girls and women and provided them with shelter, drugs. In exchange, they agreed to prostitute themselves, prosecutors said. Judge Jones sentenced Coffey to six years in prison. Coffey and Townsend both must register as a sex offenders every 180 days for 25 years after they are released from prison, prosecutors said. The Akron couple are the first in Summit County to be charged with trafficking in persons, which became a chargeable offense in 2011. Since the law was passed, the majority of Ohios trafficking cases have been investigated and prosecuted at the federal level, prosecutors said. There have been fewer than two-dozen trafficking in persons trials since 2011, officials said. If you would like to comment on this story, please visit Tuesdays crime and courts comments section. BEACHWOOD, Ohio -- Heroin trafficking, Cedar Road: At 5:30 p.m. Oct. 27, an Eastlake man, 33, was arrested for heroin trafficking when an officer spotted suspicious activity occurring at Dillard's at Beachwood Place, 26300 Cedar Road. Also arrested as part of the same incident and charged with heroin possession was a Cleveland man, 31. Forgery, Chagrin Boulevard: At 1:25 p.m. Oct. 25, police arrested a Cleveland man, 43, for writing a forged check in the amount of $4,880 at People's Bank, 24400 Chagrin Blvd. Marijuana possession, Cedar Road: At 6:50 p.m. Oct. 25, a Cleveland Heights man, 18, was cited at Beachwood Place for marijuana paraphernalia possession and for having an open container of alcohol in public. With the man was a Cleveland Heights woman, 18, who was cited for marijuana possession. Theft, East Silsby Road: At 4:10 p.m. Oct. 25, a woman reported that jewelry had been stolen from her home sometime during the previous month. The jewelry's estimated value is $4,500. Police are investigating. Driving under suspension, Interstate 271: At 2:15 a.m. Oct. 26, after a traffic violation had been committed, an officer conducted a stop and learned that the driver, a Euclid man, 29, was driving with a suspended license. The driver was also charged with having an open container of alcohol in his car. Also charged with possession of drug paraphernalia was a passenger in the car, a Garfield Heights man, 28. Drug trafficking, Cedar Road: At 2:45 a.m. Oct. 26, police arrested a Cleveland man, 28, for drug trafficking at Beachwood Place, and another man with him, 18, of Cleveland, for drug possession. Theft, Chagrin Boulevard: At 4:30 p.m. Oct. 26, police arrested a Lakewood woman, 26, for stealing merchandise worth $41 from Giant Eagle, 24601 Chagrin Blvd. Driving under suspension, Richmond Road: At 6:50 p.m. Oct. 26, police stopped a car that was being driven with altered temporary plates. The driver, a Cleveland woman, 33, was also found to be driving with a suspended license. OVI, Green Road: At 12:40 a.m. Oct. 28, an officer stopped a car after a driver failed to maintain his lane of travel. It was subsequently learned that the driver, a Shaker Heights man, 44, was intoxicated. The man was charged with OVI and cited for the marked lanes violation. If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page. CLEVELAND, Ohio Two top city officials could face hefty fines or prosecution for their roles in a security breach last Thursday at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. The penalties could be imposed on Assistant Airport Director Fred Szabo and Chief of Operations Darnell Brown by the Transportation Security Administration based on the findings of a still ongoing investigation. TSA documents show fines could range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. More serious violations also could prompt criminal prosecution, according to the documents. Mayor Frank Jacksons administration disclosed on Friday that two city employees had been involved in a security "incident at the city-run airport but did not identify the employees. On Tuesday, the administration identified the employees as Brown and Szabo, and reported that both men had been suspended with pay pending the outcome of the TSA and airport investigation. Findings from that investigation will determine whether Brown, Szabo and the airport will be fined, and if so, how much they will have to pay. The TSA and city have declined to discuss specifics of the incident. But sources who have been briefed on the matter told cleveland.com that the breach involved bypassing a TSA checkpoint. The sources said Brown, a member of Jacksons cabinet, had cleared security to catch a flight and then realized that he had left a laptop computer in a car. After the laptop was retrieved, Szabo helped Brown return to his flight area more quickly by bypassing security, the sources said. As a result, Browns laptop was not checked by TSA before he boarded his plane. Access to restricted areas of the airport is highly controlled. Travelers are granted access to the concourses only after clearing a TSA security check. TSA spokesman Mark Howell declined to discuss the scenario provided by the sources but recited for cleveland.com what TSA rules require for boarding a flight. Anybody thats flying has to go through TSA screening with their person and their personal property, Howell said. Any time you leave the sterile area and you want to go back inside, you have to be rescreened. Sanctions against airports when security guidelines are violated can range from $1,300 for a minimum-level infraction to more than $13,000 for a maximum-level infraction, according to TSA. TSA considers any corrective action taken after a violation. If Hopkins self-reported the security breach to TSA, for instance, that could be a mitigating factor. Fines for individuals range from just over $100 to several thousand dollars, depending on the violations, according to TSAs schedule of fines. For example, entering a controlled area without complying with security procedures could result in a fine of more than $3,900. Failing to submit to screening could yield a similar fine. Actively circumventing a security system could bring a fine of more than $7,800. If violations are deemed by TSA to be severe enough, Howell said, local or federal law enforcement would get involved to consider criminal prosecution, Howell said. You can see TSAs enforcement policy below. Mobile users can read it via this link. CLEVELAND, Ohio A federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered boards of election in Ohio to count provisional election ballots for the 2018 midterm elections that are cast by certain people previously purged from the states voter rolls. A three-judge panel from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that votes cast by people purged from the rolls between 2011 and 2015 must be counted if they still live in the same county of their last registration and if they are not disqualified from voting because of a felony conviction, mental incapacity or death. (You can read the ruling here or at the bottom of this story.) The panels injunction comes as progressive advocacy groups appeal Senior U.S. District Judge George Smiths decision to dismiss a lawsuit against Secretary of State Jon Husted that said notices the state sent to inactive voters were inadequate under federal law. Should the groups be successful on appeal, some voters may be wrongly denied the ability to vote unless the injunction is in place, the panel wrote. It comes six days before the Nov. 6 election date and well into the period where Ohio residents can vote early. Naila Awan, an attorney for the legal group Demos representing two groups that sued Husted over the voter purge, said the injunction could affect a few thousand voters whose ballots would otherwise not be counted. More than 7,500 voters had their provisional ballots counted under the aforementioned guidelines in the 2016 presidential election, the 6th Circuit judges wrote. She said all people who think they are eligible to vote should cast provisional ballots, in the chance the ballots may be counted. She also noted that many races in Ohio have been decided by slim margins. Husted, a Republican running for lieutenant governor on a ticket with Attorney General Mike DeWine, said Wednesday that he disagreed with the ruling but that it is temporary and narrow in scope. He said he will not appeal to avoid an unnecessary source of contention with an election only five days away. Ohio is, and will remain, a leader in elections administration because of our commitment to making it easy to vote and hard to cheat, Husted said. Kathleen Clyde, a Kent Democrat vying to be secretary of state, issued a statement applauding the ruling. I am happy Ohioans who were wrongly purged from the rolls will be allowed to cast a ballot and have that ballot counted, she said in a statement issued by her campaign. The Ohio A. Philip Randolph Institute and the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, which sued in 2016, claimed the states voter purge processes were illegal under federal laws that bar states from using voter inactivity to spark removal from the rolls, and contended it amounted to voter suppression. A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that Ohios voter purging processes were constitutional. The latest legal dispute focuses on the forms the state sent to inactive voters. The groups said all voters the state deleted from its rolls from 1995 through 2016 through a disputed process were actually removed unlawfully because the state's notices to inactive voters didn't comply with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. Smith disagreed in an opinion issued earlier this month and said the forms complied with federal law. The 6th Circuit panel did not fully rule on Smiths decision but said the advocacy groups have a good chance of winning at the appellate level. The groups argue that inactive voters werent definitively told that their registrations would be cancelled if they didnt respond to the notice or vote within a four-year period. Federal law says such notices must say a voter will be removed, or something to that effect, if they do not confirm their current information or vote, the judges wrote. Ohios notices say that a voters name may be removed or their registration may be cancelled if they do not respond or vote, the order states. While Smith ruled against this argument, the appellate judges wrote that they were less sure that the district court came to the correct legal conclusions. The panel rejected another request from the groups to bar the state from purging any voters who received notices prior to August 2016, reasoning that it will not affect next weeks election. CLEVELAND, Ohio A Bedford Heights man is accused of attacking and beating another man, seemingly for no reason, at Clevelands Public Square. Marvel Collins III, 25, is charged with felonious assault in the Friday attack at the corner of South Roadway and Ontario Street, according to court records. Collins demanded a preliminary hearing during his arraignment Monday in Cleveland Municipal Court. His next court appearance is scheduled Nov. 5. He remains in custody at the Cuyahoga County Jail on $50,000 bond, court records say. A 24-year-old man suffered a swollen left eye in the attack. Cleveland paramedics took him to MetroHealth for treatment. Witnesses said the man was standing near a bus stop shortly after 2 a.m. when Collins walked up to him and punched him in the face, seemingly for no reason, police reports say. The man fell, and Collins repeatedly kicked him in the head while he was on the ground, the police report says. Collins then walked away toward Jakes Deli. Cleveland police officers found Collins standing near the deli and took him into custody. The man identified Collins as his attacker, police reports say. Collins criminal history includes prior conviction for forgery and attempted theft, according to Cuyahoga County court records. To comment on this story, visit Wednesdays crime and courts comments page. CLEVELAND, Ohio In their first and only public debate, Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish and his Republican challenger, Peter Corrigan, clashed over issues of transparency and the ongoing public corruption investigation at the county. The testy face off at the City Club of Cleveland came in contrast to a race that otherwise has been relatively low key. Corrigan, a retired businessman, accused the Budish administration of not being transparent about the investigation, an assertion that Budish vehemently disputed. We are probably the most transparent administration ever, Budish argued, listing off the county government meetings and documents that are readily available online. All you have to do is look at cleveland.com every week and you can see whenever there is a new subpoena out, because we release them, Budish said. I embrace transparency. I think its critical to the function of government, so that people have trust in government. Corrigan disagreed. He accused Budishs administration of failing to be transparent several times throughout the debate. In one case, Corrigan cited a report critical of the countys Division of Children and Family Services and pointed to the Budishs administration heavy redactions of that document. I have a totally different idea of transparency, Corrigan said, drawing laughter from the crowd. Here are takeaways on what the candidates said about six issues during the debate. It was moderated by Ideastreams Nick Castele. On an ongoing public corruption investigation focusing on the countys troubled IT Department: Corrigan questioned the transparency of Budishs administration and said Budish should release information related to the 14 subpoenas served on the county. He said he backs a proposed charter amendment that would grant subpoena power to the inspector general (Budish initially opposed the amendment, and later said he supports it). Budish noted that his administration has released information about the subpoenas and is cooperating with investigators. He said it was the countys own internal protections the work of the countys inspector general and internal auditor that prompted the investigation. Corruption is something that Budish will not accept, he said. On how to sustain public transit in the county for the long term: Budish said RTA needs to analyze its operations and keep in mind the changing transit landscape, which has been impacted by Uber and other ride-sharing services. He believes state and federal dollars exist that could be tapped to help fund RTA. He could not say whether raising the sales tax is the right solution until the RTAs analysis is complete. Corrigan said he does not support a sales tax increase to help fund the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority because Cuyahoga County already has an 8 percent sales tax. Corrigan said RTA does need transit routes that allow employees to reach their jobs around the county. But he added that increasing the sales tax to fund those routes would drive employers away. On what to do about the outdated Justice Center, which includes courtrooms and the jail: Budish said the Justice Center is structured inefficiently and is unacceptable as it stands today, so it must be built anew or completely renovated. He said he will work with judges, the prosecutors office and public defenders to determine the best path forward. He hopes that a consultant hired by the county will begin evaluating the options for the Justice Center in the next few weeks. Corrigan said the county does not have the money to build a new Justice Center, so the existing complex must be upgraded. Neither candidate said how they would pay for an upgrade or a new complex. On the accusations that the countys Department of Children and Family Services failed to adequately investigate abuse complaints against a 4-year-old girl who later died: Budish said he appointed an expert panel to review Children and Family Services operations and recommend changes to the department. He said that the county has adopted those changes. Corrigan said the agency needs to be entirely reorganized. He also said that case workers are not held accountable and dont know their cases or who they are working for. He also said management needs to be structured in a way that lets leaders know what is happening in the department as fast as possible. On employers saying they have trouble finding qualified employees. Corrigan said he supports the workforce programs already underway in the county and wants to expand them. He wants the county to target four to seven specific industries (such as aerospace, aviation or energy) and help feed those industries potential employees. Budish noted that thousands of open jobs exist in the county and employers say they cant find skilled employees to fill them. To that end, Budish listed several of his initiatives that aim to bridge that workforce gap. That list includes SkillUp, a program in which the county trains low-skilled employees for higher positions, a partnership with Cuyahoga Community College that will train people on public benefits and a summer job program-turned internship program aimed at cultivating careers for young people. On the six people who have died in the countys crowded jail: Budish asked the U.S. Marshals to review jail operations after the deaths occurred and said the county will be taking more action once that review is done. He said his administration is hiring more corrections officers and nurses, as well as opening more space at the countys three jail facilities to help alleviate overcrowding. He said he is working with MetroHealth to help improve healthcare in the jail. CLEVELAND, Ohio - While both sides work hard to get their voters to the polls, history tells us that Ohio Democrats do better in electing governors when more people vote. With early voting under way for the 2018 gubernatorial election - a race between Republican Mike DeWine and Democrat Richard Cordray that polling indicates will be tight - heres a look at recent patterns: Since 1982, Republicans are 5-0 in Ohio gubernatorial elections when the turnout is lower than 50 percent. When the turnout is higher than 50 percent during the same time period, Democrats have a winning 3-1 record. In more recent times, the only Democrat win in a governors race - Ted Strickland in 2006 - came with the turnout at its highest level in an off-year election in the last quarter-century. Fifty-three percent of Ohios voting-age citizen population cast votes in that election, the Census Bureau estimates. Republican John Kasichs crushing 31-point win over Ed FitzGerald came in 2014 with a historically low turnout of just 39.7 percent. This chart shows the turnout for each gubernatorial election since 1982, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which based the turnouts on the estimated voting-age citizen population. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, based on percent of voting-age citizens. Presidential election years Turnouts are much higher during presidential election years, ranging from 59.2 percent in 2000 to 69.1 percent in 1992. Ohio turnout hasnt tracked party success in presidential elections like it has for gubernatorial elections. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, based on estimates for voting-age citizens. Early voting Election Day was effectively moved up for a lot of Ohio voters beginning in 2006, after state law was revised to permit people to cast absentee ballots without providing a reason for not voting in person on Election Day. Incrementally, more people are casting their ballots in advance, though the practice is more popular when presidential candidates are on the ballot. In presidential election years, absentee ballots accounted for 29.7 percent of the Ohio voters in 2008, 33.1 percent in 2012 and 33.5 percent in 2016. In the three gubernatorial elections since the law change, the share of ballots cast absentee were 15.3 percent in 2006, 25.7 percent in 2010 and 27.1 percent in 2014. Reports indicate early voting is up across the state. Source: Ohio Secretary of State Why off-year elections Ohio began electing governors to four-year terms in 1958. A cleveland.com review of news stories in The Plain Dealer leading up to the 1954 constitutional vote that changed Ohios gubernatorial terms from two years to four years found little discussion of the proposal favoring one party over the other. But weeks before the election, Plain Dealer columnist Alvin Silverman questioned why the change would be delayed until 1958 rather than take effect in 1956 - a presidential election year. It is [during] the presidential years that the Ohio Democratic vote reaches its peak, wrote Silverman. Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, writes about numbers on a variety of topics. Follow on Twitter @RichExner. Ohio governor vote history: statewide and by county . LYNDHURST, Ohio -- Suspicion, Landerbrook Drive: At 9:35 p.m. Oct. 27, a woman reported that she had been at dinner with her husband at Lyndhurst Grill, 5845 Landerbrook Drive, when the man slipped away from the table and could not be located. The woman requested police help in finding her husband. Mentor police went to the couple's home, but found it to be dark. Lyndhurst police checked the area around the restaurant, but were unable to locate the man, 49. Speaking with the couple's son, police were told it was not unusual for his father or mother to suddenly disappear for a while. The woman called Lyndhurst police from her home at 10:50 p.m. and said that her husband had just arrived at their house in a taxi cab. The man was unharmed. He had been missing for about three hours. The police report did not state where the man had been. Drug abuse, Richmond Road: At 11:20 p.m. Oct. 27, police investigated a car crash and found that one of the involved drivers, a Euclid man, 27, was in possession of oxycodone, Adderall, marijuana and a scale. The man has yet to be charged as police further investigate. Unwanted guest, Cedar Road: At 12:25 a.m. Oct. 26, management at the Hyatt Place hotel, 24665 Cedar Road, reported that a man staying in a room and playing his music too loud refused to comply after being asked to leave the hotel. There were other people in the room when police spoke with the man, 20, of Beachwood. Police found the man to be intoxicated and took him to the hospital. He was not charged. Disturbance, Harleston Drive: At 2:10 a.m. Oct. 25, a caller reported that an intoxicated man was attempting to break into her home. The caller said that the man was her ex-boyfriend. When officers arrived, the man, 31, of Chagrin Falls, was no longer at the home. Officers searched the area for him and located him in a driveway on Kilbourne Drive. The man's mother drove to the former girlfriend's house and took her son home. Police did not charge the man. If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page. BEDFORD, Ohio A Bedford City Schools staff member accused of carrying on an inappropriate relationship with a student was placed on leave Tuesday, district officials said. Bedford City School District Superintendent Andrea Celico released a statement to parents after district officials received information about an alleged inappropriate relationship between a staff member and a student." Celico did not name the staff member. The Bedford City School District takes these types of allegations extremely seriously and does everything possible to protect the safety and well-being of its students, the news release said. Bedford police and Cuyahoga County Department and Children and Family Services were both contacted about the allegations. Deputy Chief Rick Suts said the department is investigating the allegations but no criminal charges have been filed against the staff member. To comment on this story, please visit Wednesdays crime and courts comments page. CLEVELAND, Ohio Euclid Avenue between East Fourth and East Sixth streets will be closed to traffic beginning Monday for up to six days to allow for removal of a construction crane. Motorists will be detoured around the closure via East Ninth Street, Superior Avenue and the roadways around Public Square, according to a news release from the city. Pedestrians will not be allowed to walk along the north side of Eucild. The closure will allow for the dismantling and removal of a tower crane from atop the parking garage at 515 Euclid Ave. Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority has posted a schedule to divert bus traffic around Euclid from East 9th to Public Square during the temporary closure as well. ELYRIA, Ohio -- A man was shot Tuesday night by Elyria police after confronting officers with a handgun during a domestic incident at an apartment complex near downtown. The 27-year-old suspect was in unknown condition Wednesday morning after undergoing surgery at University Hospital in Cleveland. Officers were called to Riverside Court Apartments at 120 Riverside Court at 8:26 p.m., Lorain County Sheriff's Department spokesman Det. Capt. Donald Barker says. When police arrived, they could hear yelling and items being thrown and broken in an apartment on the second floor, Barker says. Police banged on the door of the apartment but got no answer. While waiting for a pass key, the suspect walked out of the apartment holding a handgun and threatened officers, Barker says. Police fired an unknown number of shots at the suspect, hitting him once. The man continued to resist and police also had to use a Taser, Barker says. No one else was in the apartment and there were no other injuries. The sheriff's department and the Lorain Police Department will investigate the shooting. Investigators are not identifying the officer who shot the suspect at this time. To comment on this story, please visit Tuesday's crime and courts comments page. Rotunda Rumblings Early voting surge: Early in-person and mail voting is up in Ohio by 55 percent, writes cleveland.coms Laura Hancock. The numbers are compared to 2014, the last time there was a non-presidential election with a governors race. On the home front: Wet Hot American Summer director and Shaker Heights native David Wain has cut a couple of Twitter videos endorsing Democratic legislative candidates in Northeast Ohio. Wains videos on behalf of Cassimir Svigelj in House District 16 and Phil Robinson in House District 6 (the latter of which also features ex-Saturday Night Live performer and fellow Shakerite Molly Shannon) were done as a part of theHometown Project, which encourages cultural leaders to get involved with local candidates and issues in their hometowns. Everything youve wanted to know: If you need information about congressional candidates before the election, cleveland.coms Olivia Shackleton has compiled profiles of 10 federal races that will affect Ohioans. Wrong Troy: President Donald Trump encouraged voters on Twitter to vote for U.S. Rep. Troy Balderson but he referenced the wrong Balderson. This is the second time hes mistaken Balderson for another person, cleveland.coms Sabrina Eaton writes. Rally plans: As reported earlier, Trump is coming to the state one last time before Election Day. The rally is scheduled for 3 p.m. Monday at the IX Center in Cleveland, according to details released by the Trump campaign. It is the first of three scheduled campaign events in three different states for Trump that day. The rally is aimed at boosting Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike DeWine as opposed to the GOPs Senate nominee, Jim Renacci, a person familiar with the presidents thinking told cleveland.com. Two times: Trump apparently felt the need to endorse DeWine a second time (he did so the first time after the primary) while also slamming Democratic governor hopeful Richard Cordray. In a tweet, Trump accused Cordray of ruining the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and called him a Clone of Pocahontas his derogatory name for Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Cordray responded by saying Trump thinks fighting for working people by putting $12 billion back in their pockets is destroying a government agency. And, right on cue... Later Tuesday, Cordrays campaign announced that Warren will headline rallies for Cordray and running mate Betty Sutton on Thursday at Ohio State University in Columbus and Ohio University in Athens. Racino revenue: The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Ohio Tax Appeals Board was wrong in not considering Warrensville Heights City School Districts $44.5 million appraisal of the Jack Thistledown Racinio. Instead the board just considered the owners valuation, which was about half, Hancock reports. Sentenced: Martha Buendia-Chavarria of Marion was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in federal prison for creating and selling fake IDs and documents to suspected illegal immigrants, cleveland.coms Eric Heisig writes. Investigation of her case led to immigration raids in Sandusky and Castalia in June. Bill says: Cleveland.coms Joey Morona recently caught up with Cincinnati native Bill Hemmer, who will man Fox News electronic Bill Board on Election night, as he has in the past. Hemmer, known to be less partisan than others at his network, said he began planning for his coverage in June. Localized: From Gov. John Kasich to U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, the Enquirers Jessie Balmert and Jackie Borchardt have gathered a handful of Ohio politicians reactions to President Trumps latest immigration policy. The president wants to eliminate birthright citizenship. Get it done: Eaton reports that Portman, in the wake of the killing of 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue, is urging Senate leaders to pass a bill to fund security improvements at synagogues and other nonprofit institutions. Ad central: The Columbus Dispatch analyzed three political ads. Pat Tiberi, who quit Congress last year, is appearing in radio ads for his replacement, U.S. Rep. Troy Balderson. Gov. John Kasich tells viewers during an internet-only ad that Mike DeWine promised him he would protect people with pre-existing conditions, but curiously it will not air on TV. A spot for Democratic treasurer nominee Rob Richardson ties his opponent, Robert Sprague, to Butler County Sheriff Rick Jones, who prohibits his deputies from carrying Narcan to help overdose victims. Data breach? The Ohio Republican Party is upping the ante in its accusations against Jack Dohrenwend, who was either a worker or volunteer for Democratic congressional hopeful Aftab Pureval. They say Dohrenwend, when he was pretending to volunteer the campaign of Purevals opponent, Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, illegally accessed a sensitive voter database, the Enquirer reports. Full Disclosure Five things we learned from Rep. Kristin Boggs April 9 financial disclosure statement. Boggs, a Democrat from Columbus, is running for re-election in House District 18. 1. She made $10,000 to $24,999 from a rental property in a Columbus suburb and $66,843.93 from the General Assembly last year. 2. She is investing in a pension with the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and a 457 plan with Ohio Deferred Compensation. 3. At some point last year she owed over $1,000 each to ACS Student Loan Company, PNC Bank, the U.S. Department of Education, SunTrust Mortgage Co. and EdFinancial. 4. She reported travel expenses of $138.01 in connection with the Ohio Chamber of Commerces Policy Conference at Salt Fork. 5. She reported receiving a gift valued at over $25 from the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission. On the Move Gov. John Kasich appointed Renee M. DiSalvo to the Youngstown Municipal Court. Her term begins Nov. 5. She replaces Judge Elizabeth A. Kobly, who resigned. DiSalvo must win in November 2019 to retain the seat for the full term beginning Jan. 2, 2020. Straight From The Source NO ONE ASKED YOU @DispatchAlerts! MIND YOUR BUSINESS. -Amanda Wurst, who had been spokeswoman for Gov. Ted Strickland and now works for the Remington Road Group. She was responding to a Columbus Dispatch Halloween-related tweet about the calorie and fat content of Reeses Minis. 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. COLUMBUS, Ohio - As Ohio employers decide whether their policies should accommodate workers who need medical marijuana, a new study shows adolescents and young adults who abstain from cannabis for a month have improved memory. The Massachusetts General Hospital study, published in the latest issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, will likely be referenced among Ohio employers and educators as medical marijuana hits the market, which could be soon. Its a good study, said Gary Wenk, an Ohio State University Behavioral Neuroscience professor. " It contributes a small amount of information." And its conclusions are consistent with previous research that shows young peoples brains are developing and they should not consume marijuana, said Wenk, who is a member of the Ohio Medical Marijuana Advisory Committee, which receives updates on the states program. What the study doesnt show, Wenk said, is differences in the amount of marijuana consumed and memory when the user stopped. A person who smokes one joint a week could have different results from someone who smokes three a day, he said. I have students who come to class every day high and do pretty well in their classes," he said. "They could probably do better. But they have a lot of tolerance. Does it interfere with cognitive function of any kind? The answer has always been yes. Study Massachusetts General Hospital researchers studied participants ages 16 to 25 who said they used cannabis at least once a week. They compared weekly cognitive performance between a group that agreed to stop using marijuana for 30 days with a group that did not. Urine tests confirmed people in each group were abstinent or using. Researchers randomized the two groups to control for factors such as differences in learning, mood, cognition and motivation, and frequency and intensity of marijuana use. Cognitive testing found memory specifically the ability to learn and recall new information improved only among those who stopped using cannabis. The study improvement largely occurred during the first week of abstinence. A month of cannabis abstinence was not associated with improvements in attention, and no aspect of cognitive functioning improved among those who continued cannabis use. Ohio law only permits medical marijuana Michael Gonidakis, a lobbyist in Ohios medical marijuana industry, reads the study as proof that Ohios rejection of recreational marijuana was wise. The medical marijuana program is more regulated than any recreational program would be. For instance, there are rules about what ailments people must have to legally possess it. The science and the medical community have proven with this study that recreational marijuana has a negative impact on a person, he said. The good news is that a person who quits smoking marijuana has a great likelihood of regaining cognitive function and living a healthy and normal life." Wenk, the Ohio State University professor, who teaches psychopharmacology and does preclinical research, said research shows that small amounts of marijuana - the equivalent to one puff a day -- in older adults actually decreases pain and increases cognitive ability. In fact, research has shown Baby Boomers widely considered old hippies have lower rates of Alzheimers Disease. If you start smoking a low dose, like one puff a day, after 50 or 55, there is a significant reduction in the incidence of Alzheimers, he said. Employers worry about safety Michael E. Stanek also sits on the Ohio Medical Marijuana Advisory Committee. He thought the study was interesting, but he noted that there havent been a whole lot of double-blind studies about marijuana to understand all of its effects since its illegal federally and hard for researchers to obtain. Still, the company he co-owns, Hunt Imaging, a toning manufacturer in Berea, will prohibit it. One of the biggest concerns from employers, and I speak from my background as a manufacturer, is having employees who are in safety sensitive positions who dont have full faculties about them -- whether it be from marijuana or any other pain killer that could cause their faculties to not be at 100 percent. Stanek sits on the board of the Greater Cleveland Partnership. He said his experience has mostly come from discussing medical marijuana with manufacturers in Northeast Ohio. Other industries such as those with office jobs that dont require operating heavy machinery may have different policies, he said. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Heading into the final days before the Nov. 6 election, Sen. Sherrod Brown plans to share his fundraising largesse with the rest of the Democratic ticket. Through his campaign and an affiliated committee, Brown later this week will transfer $300,000 to the Ohio Democratic Party's federal account, according to his campaign manager, Justin Barasky. He also has cut checks for maximum contributions of $12,707 each to the five Democrats -- Rich Cordray for governor, Kathleen Clyde for secretary of state, Steve Dettelbach for attorney general, Rob Richardson for treasurer and Zack Space for auditor -- running for Ohio's five statewide executive offices. The contributions suggest Brown -- who has raised a record $27.1 million as of Oct. 17 -- feels confident enough in his re-election chances that he is comfortable sharing his resources with other candidates. Asked about this, Barasky said: "It's a sign of Sherrod's confidence in the ticket, and a sign of Sherrod's confidence that the stronger everyone's campaign is, the better we're all going to do." Most of Ohio's statewide races are considered to be close. But barring a 2016-style upset, Brown widely is expected to defeat his Republican challenger, Rep. Jim Renacci. A major part of that is his fundraising strength. Renacci has struggled with fundraising and spent only $3.8 million, compared to $19.1 million spent by Brown, as of Oct. 17, the most recent campaign finance deadline. Barasky said Brown's overall support for the rest of the Democratic ticket is the highest from any candidate in Ohio history. Including the $1.8 million Brown's campaign has raised for the Ohio Grassroots Victory Fund, a joint venture with the Ohio Democratic Party that funds state Democrats' voter-mobilization program, Brown has given nearly $2 million to other Ohio Democrats during the current two-year election period, Barasky said. But it's not without precedent. A week before the November 2010 election, during which he ended up winning his U.S. Senate race by 17 points, Republican Rob Portman similarly gave maximum contributions to the five Republican statewide candidates. He also transferred $250,000 to the state Republican Party. Republicans ended up sweeping the statewide races that year. Matt Borges, a former state GOP chairman who ran Republican Dave Yost's state auditor campaign that year, has said Portman's contribution helped push Yost over the top in the final week of a tough election. Casey Weinstein A key GOP-held Ohio House seat is opening up in northeastern Summit County because term-limited Kristina Roegner of Hudson is ineligible to run again (she's aiming for the state Senate instead). Trying to hold the 37th District seat for the GOP is Stow Councilman Mike Rasor, a lawyer. Opposing him is Democratic Hudson Councilman Casey Weinstein, who works in sales, business development and marketing as a managing client director for Gartner Inc., a research and advisory firm. The district includes all or parts of Cuyahoga Falls, Hudson, Macedonia, Stow and Twinsburg, among other communities. Rasor handily won the three-way GOP primary in May. Weinstein had to battle to get on the ballot, where he was unopposed in the Democratic primary, because his petitions erroneously said "2017" instead of 2018. Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, broke the 2-2 partisan tie at the Summit County Board of Elections to allow Weinstein on the ballot. Both Rasor, 33, and Weinstein, 36, agree on many key issues, from the imperatives of new approaches to the opioid epidemic and improved school and local funding to the need to elect a new generation of leaders who can prompt more bipartisanship and fresh ideas in Columbus. After the endorsement interview last month, a federal court judge ordered six-figure sanctions each against Rasor, his law firm and two other lawyers in a civil case involving a medical device dispute. Rasor, who is appealing the order, has said he and his colleagues acted appropriately in the case and that the sanctions are without merit. Both candidates are articulate and well-informed. In a close call, we urge 37th District voters to elect Casey Weinstein as their next representative to the Ohio House. Editor's note: This editorial was updated at 10:27 a.m. to correct the occupation of Casey Weinstein. Early in-person and absentee voting for the Nov. 6 election has begun. For more resources, consult the League of Women Voters' voters' guide. Read all endorsements issued by our editorial board for the November elections in our endorsement roundup. Stow Councilman Mike Rasor, a Republican, and Hudson Councilman Casey Weinstein, a Democrat, both want to represent northeastern Summit County's Ohio House 37th District, a seat being vacated by term-limited Kristina Roegner. Rasor and Weinstein were interviewed by the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer on Sept. 5, 2018 as part of its endorsement process. Listen to audio of the interview below: About our editorials: Editorials express the view of the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer -- the senior leadership and editorial-writing staff. As is traditional, editorials are unsigned and intended to be seen as the voice of the news organization. Have something to say about this topic? * Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication. * Email general questions about our editorial board or comments on this editorial to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com. * Use the comments to share your thoughts. Then, stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the "Follow" option at the top of the comments, & look for updates via the small blue bell in the lower right as you look at more stories on cleveland.com Ask any Ohioan who has eyes and a nose: Lake Erie's toxic algal pollution is a threat to the lake. It's a threat to the health of the millions of Ohioans whose drinking water comes from the lake and it's a threat to the millions of dollars Ohio gets annually from fishing and other recreation in western Lake Erie. None of that is a mystery. What is a mystery is the inaction and futility of state officials who stall rather than protect the lake. That's why, when the Ohio Soil and Water Conservation Commission meets tomorrow, it faces a choice: to live up to its name, and uphold the public interest, or to stand by, indifferently, as eight tributaries to the Maumee River continue to pour tons of phosphorus into Lake Erie, feeding toxic algal blooms. For months, the commission has shamefully stalled on its simple duty: to approve Gov. John Kasich's July 11 order designating the watersheds of eight Maumee River tributaries as distressed. Those eight streams drain a combined watershed of about 2 million acres. If the panel is true to its mission, rather than a captive of agribusiness lobbies, its members will approve Kasich's order in the morning. In the teeth of opposition from key Statehouse interests within his own party, Kasich is doing the right thing by Lake Erie and by all Ohioans in issuing the order and fighting to get it approved. In a dramatic move Oct. 19, Kasich fired his agriculture director, David T. Daniels, a member of his cabinet since 2012, after learning Daniels had privately opposed Kasich's distressed-watersheds order rather than strive to win its approval by the Soil and Water Conservation Commission. (The Agriculture Department's interim director is Tim Derickson, of Oxford, a former Ohio House member who has been the department's assistant director.) The fear-mongering among farmers over the distressed-watershed order doesn't even make sense, given success of a similar approach to cleaning up the toxic algae that's impaired Ohio's largest inland lake, Grand Lake St Marys. That cleanup is being carried out in a highly collaborative way with agricultural interests. There's no reason to think the Maumee watershed cleanup would be any different. If downstate lawmakers are trying to stoke a stall until after Kasich leaves office in January, there's a simple remedy: clear statements from the Republican and Democratic candidates for governor that they would pursue the impairment designation themselves. Asked for their positions on Kasich's order, a spokesman for Democrat Richard Cordray said Cordray agreed with the impaired-watershed designation and with Kasich "that action needs to be taken" and about the urgency of addressing Lake Erie's toxic algal blooms. The campaign of Republican Mike DeWine did not immediately respond. Approving Kasich's order designating the eight watersheds as distressed would give the state more power to require compliance with agricultural runoff limits. The area to be regulated includes an estimated 7,000 farms, including megafarms and big livestock feeding operations. According to the University of Michigan's Water Center, "about 85 percent of the phosphorus entering Lake Erie from the Maumee River comes from farm fertilizers and manure." The Maumee's watershed is the largest drainage basin in the Great Lakes, according to Ohio Department of Natural Resources data, with "more than 16,000 miles of drainage ditches and 3,942 miles of streams." All those watercourses sluice agricultural runoff into Lake Erie. The Ohio Environmental Council reported in 2017 that "64 [Concentrated Animal Feeding Facilities] in the western Lake Erie watershed produce 24 percent (215,098 tons) of all the solid manure and 42 percent (658,030,505 gallons) of all the liquid manure in the state of Ohio. These amounts are greater than the fecal waste produced daily by the entire metro areas of Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Cincinnati combined." (Emphasis added.) Despite those startling data, Kasich's bid to protect the lake - to do what a governor is supposed to do, be the public-interest trustee of a resource belonging to all Ohioans - has met mulish resistance, and not just from agribusiness and farm chemical lobbyists. If the Ohio Soil and Water Conservation Commission fails to approve Kasich's distressed-watershed order Thursday - or dilutes it, or further stalls it - the peril to Ohioans' health is clear. So is the threat to the Lake Erie fishery and to the countless recreational opportunities that Lake Erie offers Ohioans: Ohio's Lake Erie shoreline is about 312 miles long - more than one-third of Erie's overall 871-mile shoreline. The public interest in a clean, healthy Lake Erie demands that the Soil and Water Conservation Commission do Thursday what it should have done in July - approve John Kasich's order. And DeWine needs to add his voice to the chorus pledging to support this action to protect Lake Erie. 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. Phil Robinson A newcomer -- Solon Democrat Phil Robinson -- and a veteran -- Independence Republican Jim Trakas -- want to be the next state representative for the 6th Ohio House District. The seat, representing parts of eastern and southeastern Cuyahoga County, is now held by former Walton Hills Mayor Marlene Anielski, a Republican who is term-limited. In 2016, district voters supported Democrat Hillary Clinton for president. Robinson, 37, senior vice president for regional and site operations of City Year Inc. and former executive director of City Year Cleveland, aims to reverse the state's inadequate funding of public schools and lax oversight of charter schools, such as the now-closed Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT). Robinson also wants to restore cuts to the Local Government Fund that the General Assembly made at Republican Gov. John Kasich's behest. Trakas, 53, an Independence City Council member who served in the Ohio House from 1999 through 2006 and formerly headed the Cuyahoga County Republican Party, is CEO of American Online Learning Center. In 2013, Trakas resigned as executive director of what's now the State Cosmetology and Barber Board after Ohio's inspector general reported Trakas had improperly involved himself in a disciplinary action. Trakas, who defeated former Bentleyville Mayor Michael Canty in the May Republican primary, has a thorough knowledge of state government, a plus in a term-limited legislature. But he makes no apologies for having worked for and lobbied for ECOT, saying Ohio officials unfairly changed attendance and participation rules ECOT had been expected to follow. The state Supreme Court essentially rejected that argument in a 4-2 August ruling. Robinson has never held public office but his perspectives, including a pledge to address ethics and lobbying reform in Columbus, are better attuned to the district's priorities and needs than Trakas' are. Among other communities, the district includes Brecksville, Broadview Heights, Chagrin Falls, Independence, Mayfield and Solon. The 6th House District's voters should elect Phil Robinson as their next state representative. Early in-person and absentee voting for the Nov. 6 election has begun. For more resources, consult the League of Women Voters' voters' guide. Read all endorsements issued by our editorial board for the November elections in our endorsement roundup. Competing for outgoing State Rep. Marlene Anielski's 6th District House seat in some of the eastern and southern parts of Cuyahoga County are former county GOP chairman and ex-state Rep. Jim Trakas, who won the Republican primary, and Democrat Phil Robinson, a national executive of City Year who lives in Solon and who is a former legislative aide to Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Trakas and Robinson were interviewed Sept. 13, 2018 by the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer as part of its endorsement process. Listen to 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 (CNN) The United States is restricting exports to a state-backed Chinese company that makes semiconductors, the latest escalation in Washington's trade fight with Beijing. On Monday, the US Commerce Department said Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Company would not be able to buy components from American companies without a special license. The export ban was put in place because Fujian Jinhua "poses a significant risk of becoming involved in activities that are contrary to the national security interests of the United States," the agency said. "When a foreign company engages in activity contrary to our national security interests, we will take strong action to protect our national security," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement. Ross said the ban will limit the company's ability to "threaten the supply chain for essential components in our military systems." The move comes as the United States and China are locked in a standoff over trade, market access and the transfer of technology secrets. It could add strain to an already tense bilateral relationship. Negotiations have reportedly stalled ahead of a planned meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the upcoming G20 summit in Argentina. Earlier this year, the Trump administration put an export ban on ZTE, one of China's biggest tech companies. The agency said that ZTE (ZTCOF) lied to American officials about punishing employees who violated US sanctions against North Korea and Iran. The ban, which became a flashpoint between the two nations, was lifted in July after ZTE paid a $1 billion fine and agreed to oversight measures. The Commerce Department action comes after Micron Technology, a memory chip maker in Idaho, accused Fujian Jinhua of stealing its trade secrets in a federal lawsuit last December. Fujian Jinhua filed a countersuit against Micron in Chinese court in January. Fujian Jinhua, based in East China's Fujian province, was founded in 2016 and has financial backing from the provincial government, according to Chinese state media. It's building a $5.7 billion chip factory in the region. This story was first published on CNN.com, "US restricts Chinese chipmaker from buying American parts." Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Google Inc., speaks during the Google I/O Developers Conference in Mountain View, California, U.S., on Tuesday, May 8, 2018. Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent an internal email on Tuesday condoning an employee protest planned for Thursday in the wake of a bombshell New York Times' report about sexual misconduct at the company, a source tells CNBC. Pichai's note, previously obtained by Axios, follows a memo he sent staff last week saying the company had made changes in recent years to take "an increasingly hard line" on inappropriate conduct at work and had fired 48 people, including 13 senior managers, in the last two years, without exit packages. In his latest memo, Pichai clarifies that the company also had not provided exit packages to employees who resigned while the company was investigating claims of sexual harassment. The original Times report alleged that Google gave former Android leader Andy Rubin a $90 million exit package despite finding sexual misconduct claims against him credible (Rubin denied misconduct through a spokesperson and on Twitter). Richard DeVaul, another one of the employees named by the Times' as having exhibited inappropriate behavior, resigned earlier on Tuesday. DeVaul did not deny the Times' allegations, but instead apologized for an "error of judgement." In light of the Times' reporting on how Google shielded some of its executives, some employees are organizing a walkout for Thursday. Pichai said in his latest note that Google's head of people operations, Eileen Naughton, would make sure that managers "were aware of the activities planned for Thursday" and that employees would have the "support" they needed. Pichai also said in his memo that he'd heard from many employees, some of whom raised "constructive ideas" to improve Google's processes and policies around sexual misconduct, and that the company would take action on some of them. He also said it was clear that the apology from a previous all-hands meeting wasn't enough, and he reiterated that he was "deeply sorry" that past actions had "caused pain." Google confirmed the legitimacy of the email. Few families can cover the skyrocketing cost of college outright. Luckily, there are more than 7 million scholarships available to help. But wading through the options can be overwhelming. Enter free search sites, like Tuition Funding Sources, which help students find the most desirable kind of assistance money that does not have to be paid back. "Schools have made it so easy to borrow money, but the free money is the ticket," said Richard Sorensen, the president of Tuition Funding Sources, a search site for higher education funding. Some students and parents are catching on. This year, scholarships were the single most-used resource to pay for an undergraduate's college bill, according to the 11th annual "How America Pays for College" report from student loan corporation Sallie Mae. "In most cases, the reason students don't get scholarships is because they don't try heard enough," Sorensen said. To maximize your chance at scoring free money, answer all of the profile questions even optional ones, such as your height, for example, Sorensen said. You just might find that you qualify for an award. Robert Franek, The Princeton Review's editor-in-chief and author of "Colleges That Pay You Back," advises students to look for scholarships locally, particularly from organizations in their community, where the odds of nabbing an award are better than national competitions. "But, above all, we say never let a scholarship search cost you the time you need to spend doing your homework, getting good grades in school and prepping to score your best on college admission exams," he added. "These efforts are far more likely to pay off." For those that want to reach for the stars, here are a few of the more obscure awards currently available: 1. Stuck at Prom Scholarship Contest Application Deadline: June 3, 2019 Award Amount: $10,000 High school students must create and wear promwear made from Duck Brand duct tape and/or crafting tape, then upload a photo in their creation during prom season and vote online for the best dressed. Winners in best dress and best tux each receive $10,000. Stocks in Asia mostly posted positive results on Wednesday, pointing to a positive conclusion to what's been a brutal October for shares. The mainland China markets, which have been hard hit, saw gains by the trading day's end: The rose 1.35 percent to close at around 2,602.78 and the Shenzhen composite advanced by 1.392 percent to finish at about 1,294.22. Despite the day's rises, both indexes still saw losses for the month of October. Since the end of September, the Shanghai index has shed almost 7.5 percent and Shenzhen stocks have lost about 10.2 percent. Meanwhile, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index also increased by 1.12 percent in afternoon trade. Lower-than-expected manufacturing growth in China The moves higher in mainland China came despite the country reporting lower-than-expected manufacturing growth in October. Chinese official manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) was 50.2 lower than the 50.6 that analysts expected in a poll. The official manufacturing PMI had been 50.8 in September. A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below that signals contraction. Japan gains as central bank keeps rates on hold Japan's rose 2.16 percent to close at 21,920.46 and the Topix gained 2.15 percent to finish at 1,646.12. Shares of Sony jumped 4.74 percent after the company lifted its annual profit forecast by 30 percent after a strong second-quarter. The Bank of Japan kept monetary policy steady and cut its price forecasts on Wednesday. In a widely expected move, the Japanese central bank kept its short-term interest rate target at minus 0.1 percent and a pledge to guide 10-year government bond yields around zero percent. Australia's benchmark ASX 200 gained 0.43 percent to close at 5,830.3 as the energy sector advanced 1.39 percent and materials gained 0.19 percent. The heavily weighted financial subindex rose 0.93 percent with the shares of Australia's so-called Big Four banks seeing gains. Among those, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) rose 1.05 percent despite earlier reporting a 5 percent decline in full-year cash profit. "In general the market is just more cautious," ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Wednesday following the earnings release. "It's also a lot more competitive." South Korea's Kospi rose 0.74 percent to close at 2,029.69, with shares of heavyweight Samsung Electronics rising 0.12 percent. The stock's move came following the release of a record quarterly profit. Currency moves The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 97.028 following a rally from the 96.6. handle yesterday. The Japanese yen traded at 113.19 against the dollar after weakening from levels around 112.3 in the previous session. The Australian dollar was at $0.7093, strengthening from levels just below $0.706 seen yesterday. Wall Street sees a bounce The co-founder and CEO of Middle Eastern taxi app Careem told CNBC that bad press surrounding Saudi Arabia won't quell investor appetite for the region. The Dubai-based ride-sharing service was founded in 2012 and has successfully launched in more than 100 cities in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. Earlier this month the firm announced it had secured $200 million in fresh funds from existing investors, including Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. The cash was the first close of a funding round in which it expects to raise more than $500 million, Careem said in a statement. Speaking to CNBC's Hadley Gamble on Tuesday, Careem's CEO and co-founder Mudassir Sheikha, said he is not concerned about investment from Saudi Arabia, which has been the target of sharp criticism over the last month. "There is opportunity and there is a platform like Careem that is realizing this opportunity, and funding and investment will not be an issue, whether from regional sources or global sources," he said before adding: "Money will chase opportunity, and this is a lot of opportunity." Saudi Arabia has fallen under criticism since the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey early in October. Salvador Rodriguez Workplace by Facebook, the company's enterprise business, is moving onto a website domain separate from Facebook.com in an effort to build trust with customers and build its brand. The Workplace by Facebook unit informed Walmart, a top customer, of the domain change the day Facebook disclosed a security breach that impacted millions of consumers. Workplace by Facebook expects to begin using the new domain for its customers in 2019. On September 28, the day that Facebook disclosed a security breachimpacting millions of its users, the head of the company's upstart enterprise business reached out to Walmart, a top customer, to assure it that its data had not been exposed. Walmart is a customer of Workplace by Facebook, a work version of the social network that companies pay for so their employees can communicate using Facebook-style features, such as private messaging, news feed posts and live streams. The service, which competes with Slack and other enterprise communications services, is used by 30,000 organizations, including Starbucks and Chevron, according to the most figures Facebook shared in October 2017. In the September 28 communication, Julien Codorniou, the head of Workplace by Facebook, assured Clay Johnson, the enterprise chief information officer of Walmart, that steps were being taken to further separate Facebook's enterprise business from its consumer services. Facebook told the company it was soon giving the Workplace by Facebook service its own web domain, according to Walmart vice president Joe Park. "The assurances we got were that data resides outside the consumer version of Facebook, and it's starting from the top to bottom, where they'll even change the domain name to reflect that," Park said. The new domain, Workplace.com, is now live as a marketing website. It is expected to go into use as a landing page for Workplace by Facebook customers sometime in 2019, Luke Taylor, product manager for Workplace by Facebook, told CNBC on Wednesday. The domain change comes as some Workplace by Facebook customers have previously expressed concern about the fact that the enterprise tool is hosted on the same domain as Facebook's consumer business, Taylor said. The company has been informing clients about the domain shift one-on-one. "We have been in a position where even though we are separate from them, it's a bit difficult to have that story when we are hosted on the Facebook.com domain," Taylor told CNBC. "This is something that we want to do from a brand point of view but also something that I think gives our customers more trust in the product itself." The company expects to start using the domain with new customers at first and then help existing clients migrate over, Taylor said. "We'll be working with our customers to make sure that they migrate at a pace that makes sense for them," Taylor said. "When you look at the Oculuses, Instagrams and even the Facebooks of the world, they all have their own domains and their own brand identity," Taylor said. "As we've seen our growth increase so rapidly and our traction in the market increase, we just felt it was exactly the right time to step forward with our own brand." 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For more information about NBCUniversal, please visit http://www.NBCUniversal.com. Sometimes, CNBC's Jim Cramer wishes FANG, the acronym he uses to talk about the stocks of Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google, now Alphabet, had never been created. "I never thought I'd say this, but I rue the day we created this silly thing," the "Mad Money" host said one day after Facebook's third-quarter earnings report. "Now, there are 10 FANG ETFs that link them all together. Shameless." The social media giant's mixed results sent the other FANG stocks on a roller-coaster ride as the exchange-traded funds that package them all together forced them to trade "practically in lockstep" with shares of Facebook, Cramer said. "It's the power of the ETFs. When one FANG stock gets wrecked, they all get whacked. When one rallies, they all rally, as we saw today, with Facebook ultimately gaining 4 percent and the rest of FANG following suit," he said. Calling this kind of action "monumentally stupid," Cramer stressed how different each FANG company is from the others, adding that "it's a mistake to write them off" because of their distinct prospects and massive end markets. "Sure, they each have some sort of overlap, but you know, really, what they have in common? The fact that ... they used to spell the word FANG, which is why we on 'Mad Money' coined the ... acronym five years ago," he said. Even so, "FANG is by no means out of the woods" because of the weight these FANG-laden ETFs carry, the "Mad Money" host warned. He noted that many of them include the stock of Apple, and that any weakness in the iPhone maker's Thursday earnings report could bring trouble. "It's entirely possible Apple talks about a Chinese slowdown. They might even have a miss in service revenue," he said. "Unlike the core FANG names, Apple's stock is barely down from its highs. So get ready for more short-term volatility, which, of course, is code for vicious, exaggerated declines by ETFs." And while FANG's stock charts "remain terrible" and each company, especially Facebook, still faces challenges, Cramer wasn't comfortable writing them off entirely because of momentary, market-driven and possibly mechanical pain. "The bottom line here is that there's a reason these four companies have been able to disrupt entire industries over and over again, and that reason is the fundamentals," he said. "Even when the FANGs screw up, they're still incredible companies." Republicans need every House seat they can win next week but that doesn't mean Iowa Rep. Steve King, who has been accused of racism, will be getting any last-minute help from the main GOP group responsible for electing party members to Congress. The National Republican Congressional Committee says it will not help out King, who has supported far-right causes and white supremacists, in the remaining days of his bid to win re-election to his Iowa 4th District seat against Democratic challenger J.D. Scholten. The NRCC cited King's "words and actions" for its decision to sit out the race, despite the fact that Republicans in Tuesday's congressional elections will be hard-pressed to retain their relatively slim majority in the House of Representatives. On Wednesday, one of King's Republican colleagues in the House, Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, in an MSNBC interview said, "I would never cast a ballot for someone like Steve King," even if it meant the loss of GOP control of the House. "My principles are more important than any of that," Curbelo said. "His comments and his actions are disgusting." King for years has engaged in language viewed as racist. He once described former President Barack Obama, who is black, as "very, very urban." He has displayed a Confederate flag on his desk, and once predicted "that Hispanics and the blacks will be fighting each other before" their combined population exceeded the number of whites in the United States. Earlier this month, King tweeted an endorsement of far-right Toronto mayoral candidate Faith Goldy, who has appeared on a neo-Nazi podcast. Nonpartisan analysis site Cook Political Report recently shifted its outlook on the 4th District to "lean Republican," a notch down from "likely Republican," after a Democratic poll found King's opponent trailing by just 1 percentage point. King also has been massively outfundraised by Scholten, who has garnered more than $1.7 million in contributions against the incumbent's nearly $740,000. And King will be getting less money from now on. The political newsletter Popular Information, on Sunday revealed that after it highlighted King's rhetoric, Intel informed employees that it would no longer donate to King. "We looked into the congressman's public statements and determined that they conflict with Intel values," Dawn Jones, the company's director of policy and external partnerships, wrote in an email obtained by Popular Information. The mass murder Saturday of 11 Jewish worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue by a gunman, who allegedly told police "I just want to kill Jews," ramped up pressure on King's backers to drop him. Two other companies followed Intel's lead Tuesday. The political action committees of dairy products giant Land O'Lake and Purina, the pet-food subsidiary of Nestle, bowed to online pressure and announced they would not longer support King. Tweet Tweet Amid those moves, GOP Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio, chairman of the NRCC, in a tweet Tuesday said he "strongly condemned" King's conduct. Tweet Later Tuesday night, Matt Gorman, spokesman for the NRCC, told Fox News that the group was joining the boycott of King. "The NRCC and Congressman Stivers haven't been afraid to show moral leadership when the time calls for it," Gorman said. "We believe Congressman King's words and actions are completely inappropriate and we strongly condemn them. We will not play in his race," he added. King fired back at the NRCC in a tweet Tuesday that said "Establishments Never Trumpers" are complicit with enemies of President Donald Trump in the effort to "flip the House" and impeach the president. Tweet Vice News reported Wednesday that AT&T's PAC, which has already made its contributions for 2018 campaigns, "will take all concerns" about King "very seriously" when it decides who to give money to in future years, according to an email from an AT&T spokesman. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) Getty Images Five Republican senators have asked the Trump administration to suspend talks to transfer U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia following the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom's consulate in Turkey. The lawmakers, led by Senator Marco Rubio, threatened to block any agreement to export civilian nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, potentially setting up a showdown with the White House. The Trump administration has courted the Saudis as they seek to build 16 nuclear power reactors over the next 25 years, an endeavor that would generate tens of billions of dollars in economic activity. In a letter to President Donald Trump, the senators say the slaying of Khashoggi, as well as other foreign policy issues, raise questions about whether the Saudi leadership should be entrusted with U.S. nuclear technology and know-how. "The ongoing revelations about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as certain Saudi actions related to Yemen and Lebanon, have raised further serious concerns about the transparency, accountability, and judgment of current decisionmakers in Saudi Arabia," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Trump. "We therefore request that you suspend any related negotiations for a U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear agreement for the foreseeable future." The letter was also signed by Cory Gardner of Colorado, Dean Heller of Nevada, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Todd Young of Indiana. Rubio, Young, and Gardner were part of a bipartisan group of senators that earlier asked the administration to start an investigation into Khashoggi's death and determine whether the United States should impose human rights sanctions on Saudi individuals. A Saudi prosecutor said for the first time last week that agents of the kingdom planned Khashoggi's killing, after initially determining the Washington Post columnist and U.S. resident died during a physical altercation with the operatives. Prior to that, the Saudi government claimed Khashoggi left the consulate in Istanbul unharmed. Prominent Republican lawmakers have stated publicly that they think Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman the nation's king-in-waiting and a close ally of the Trump administration orchestrated the killing. U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe Prince Mohammed is culpable in Khashoggi's death. In the letter to Trump, the five senators say they have long had reservations about selling nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia. They note the Saudis have balked at a provision in U.S. nuclear cooperation agreements aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. The Undead Archives I have finally salvaged my pre-Blogger TDR archives and added them into Blogger. They are almost totally in the form of one giant post for each month. And the formatting strayed from the originals. Sorry. But historians everywhere can rejoice that this treasure trove of my thoughts is restored to the world. Hyundai and Kia have unveiled plans to install "solar roof" charging on a number of Hyundai Motor Group vehicles. In an announcement Wednesday, the Hyundai Motor Group said that electricity generating solar panels would be "incorporated" onto either the roof or hood of vehicles. The plan is for the panels to supplement hybrid, internal combustion engine and battery electric vehicles with extra electrical power. This will, Hyundai said, help to increase both range and fuel efficiency and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Three kinds of solar roof charging systems are being developed. The first-generation system, which is set to be launched from 2019, is being developed for hybrid vehicles. The second-generation system is for internal combustion engine vehicles and will feature a semi-transparent solar roof. Hyundai said the third-generation system was undergoing testing. The idea is for it to be added to the hood and roof of battery electric vehicles. "In the future, we expect to see many different types of electricity-generating technologies integrated into our vehicles," Jeong-Gil Park, the Hyundai Motor Group's executive vice president of its Engineering and Design Division, said in a statement Wednesday. "The solar roof is the first of these technologies, and will mean that automobiles no longer passively consume energy, but will begin to produce it actively," Park added. WATCH: Tesla is building the largest battery system in the world Online food delivery business Just Eat said Tuesday it had expanded its trial of seaweed-based sauce sachets. Earlier this year, Just Eat collaborated with sustainable packaging business Skipping Rocks Lab to trial the fully compostable sachets at a restaurant in Southend, Essex. Lasting six weeks over the summer, the pilot resulted in over 6,000 servings of ketchup using the seaweed-based sachets. The plant based sachets are biodegradable and decompose in around six weeks. The new trial will involve 10 restaurants in London and last eight weeks. The sachets will again be filled with ketchup. Just Eat said the trial was expected to prevent roughly 40,000 plastic sauce sachets from being used in London. Just Eat's U.K. Managing Director, Graham Corfield, said in a statement that the business was committed to tackling plastic pollution in the takeaway industry. Corfield added that the seaweed based sachets were "fast emerging as an alternative to the traditional plastic packaging." Just Eat is among a number of big businesses trying to tackle the issue of plastic pollution. Starbucks, for example, has laid out plans to get rid of single-use plastic straws from all its stores by 2020, while Evian has said it will produce all its plastic bottles from 100 percent recycled plastic by 2025. In the House battle, Florida's toss-up 26th District has drawn an influx of recent cash. Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo, who has cast himself as a centrist, is trying to defend a South Florida district that Hillary Clinton won in 2016 amid a challenge from Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. She outraised the GOP representative by more than $100,000 from Oct. 1 to Oct. 17, although Curbelo has taken in about $1 million more throughout the campaign. In another toss-up, the 15th District, Democrat Kristen Carlson took in about $400,000 from Oct. 1 to Oct. 17, compared with roughly $150,000 for Republican Ross Spano. They are vying to succeed retiring Republican Rep. Dennis Ross in the district east of Tampa. The competitive Miami-area 27th District race has also seen a stream of cash in the midterms' final days as the parties push to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Democrats saw the district, which Clinton won by more than 20 percentage points, as one of their best pickup opportunities. But Democratic former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala has faced challenges in the district against the Republican candidate, popular Cuban-American former news anchor Maria Elvira Salazar. Shalala's campaign took in more than $700,000 from Oct. 1 to Oct. 17, versus about $350,000 for Salazar's campaign. Watch: The midterm ballot initiative that could swing Florida in 2020 Chamath Palihapitaya speaking at the 23rd Annual Sohn Investment Conference in New York City on April 23, 2018. Chamath Palihapitiya, one of Silicon Valley's most outspoken tech investors, doubled down on calling the venture capital and tech start-up economy a Ponzi scheme on Wednesday. In a letter released by Social Capital, his venture firm, Palihapitiya wrote that "the dynamics we've entered is, in many ways, creating a dangerous, high stakes Ponzi scheme" and a "bizarre Ponzi balloon." Palihapitiya argues that "start-up valuations are massively inflated" as venture firms invest in each others' companies, push start-ups to use their funds to pay for user acquisition, and then raise investments from more firms. All the while, the venture firms can profit from management fees long before any of the start-ups they bet on are successful. "These markups, and the paper returns that they suggest, allow VCs to raise subsequent, larger funds, and to enjoy the management fees that those funds generate," he wrote. Ruth E. Carter, who designed costumes for Marvel's "Black Panther," made a one-of-a-kind, mermaid Halloween costume that is worth $25,000. Brittany Reid, 30, who works in communications at a healthcare company in Atlanta, Georgia, won the costume as part of a contest with SpikedSeltzer, a natural hard seltzer brand. "I first had to figure out how the ... costume would move since mermaids swim and don't walk," Carter tells CNBC Make It. That's because the most memorable costumes are "the ones that go into detail of the imagination," says Carter. The mermaid costume made by Ruth E. Carter at a production partner's studio. Photo: SpikedSeltzer "I envisioned the mermaid in the sea. What would she encounter?" explains Carter. "I thought this mermaid would have great wealth because she knows where to find all of the lost treasures. So I designed the costume to have many jewels and adornments. The tail is glamorous, made of jeweled pieces." The costume is worth five figures, according to SpikedSeltzer, because of the embellishments and craftsmanship. The neck and waist pieces are hand beaded with fresh water pearls and coral, for example. Contestant winner Brittany Reid wearing the costume at Hulaween, a music festival in Suwannee, Florida. Photo: SpikedSeltzer The prize also included a consultation with Carter to personalize and style the look, and Reid's customized request was a blue headpiece. "The blue headpiece would be a true headdress," Carter says. "I wanted her to feel beautiful in her costume." Carter used some of the artisans she worked with on "Black Panther" to bead the mermaid costume, and "the jewels on the headpiece were handcrafted by the same jewelry designer that made the jewelry in 'Black Panther,'" she says. Costume designer Ruth E. Carter at the Los Angeles World Premiere of Marvel Studios' "Black Panther" Jesse Grant | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images Contest-winner Reid says her favorite part of the costume is the tail. "The tail is what makes each mermaid unique," Reid tells CNBC Make It. "The costume made me feel like I was on the set of a movie." Reid already wore the costume to Hulaween, a music festival in Suwannee, Florida, and she plans on wearing it on Halloween eve to a nightclub in Atlanta. After Halloween, she says she'll continue to wear the costume to visit hospitals, like the Children's Hospital of Atlanta, or to a fundraiser like Relay For Life (hosted by American Cancer Society, ACS) or Light The Night (hosted by Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, LLS) to take pictures with kids. "This would be a fun way to give back to organizations that give so much to the community," she says. Banco Santander reported earnings in line with expectations on Wednesday, supported by a solid performance in Brazil and Spain. The euro zone's largest bank by market value posted attributable net profit of 1.99 billion euros ($2.256 billion) for the three-month period ending Sept. 30. Analysts at data firm Refinitiv had been expecting third-quarter net profit to come in at around 1.98 billion euros. In the third quarter of 2017, Santander reported net profit of 1.461 billion euros. "We had a very strong quarter And our goal going forward is keep the trend that we have seen in this quarter," Jose Garcia Cantera, Chief Financial Officer at Santander, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Wednesday. Here are the key takeaways: Third-quarter net profit: 1.99 billion euros vs. 1.98 billion euros expected by analysts at Refinitiv. Santander's net profit rose roughly 36 percent compared to the same period a year earlier, when a number of one-off charges capped net profit to 1.461 billion euros. The bank reported its core capital ratio stood at 11.11% at the end of September. When asked whether he was concerned about weaker-than-anticipated euro zone GDP figures, Cantera replied: "There are some ups and downs but in the markets that we operate, basically Spain, Portugal and consumer lending in Europe, we see quite positive trends." "So, yes the economy is not really recovering strongly but it is keeping a relatively good pace and starting to spur good growth in credit." On Tuesday, the president said that he was preparing an executive order that would eliminate birthright citizenship for children of noncitizens and undocumented immigrants. The comments, which represent a legal view at odds with mainstream scholars , drew rebukes from the right and left. Earlier Wednesday, the president said the matter would be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court. "Paul Ryan should be focusing on holding the Majority rather than giving his opinions on Birthright Citizenship, something he knows nothing about!" the president said. "Our new Republican Majority will work on this, Closing the Immigration Loopholes and Securing our Border!" President Donald Trump on Wednesday ripped Speaker of the House Paul Ryan , R-Wis., a day after Ryan said the president could not eliminate birthright citizenship with an executive order. The comments come just six days before the midterm elections. "You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order," Ryan said in an interview with a Kentucky radio station Tuesday. "We didn't like it when Obama tried changing immigration laws via executive action, and obviously as conservatives, we believe in the Constitution." Ryan, who has raised north of $70 million for Republican candidates this cycle, made the comments while campaigning for Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., who is facing a tough re-election challenge from Democrat Amy McGrath. The president's comments come as the GOP faces down long odds of retaining its majority in the House of Representatives. Democrats need to net 23 Republican-held seats in order to flip the chamber. It's a prospect that pollsters say is likely to happen. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the top-ranking Democrat in the chamber, in recent days has expressed increasing confidence that her party could net as many as 30 seats next week. "What now I'm saying is, we will win. We will win," Pelosi said Tuesday night in an appearance on the CBS program "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." The president has, at different times, claimed varying levels of responsibility for how his party will do in the first midterms of his presidency. At campaign rallies, he has told supporters that voting for Republicans on Tuesday means "you're voting for me." In an interview with The Associated Press earlier this month, however, the president said he would not be responsible for a GOP defeat. In that interview he emphasized the importance of the Republican majority to his legislative successes. "I like the Republicans that support me in Congress," the president said. "We've had tremendous support. I mean, we've got the taxes with 100 percent Republican votes and we don't really have much of a majority." "People have no idea," Trump said, about how well he got along with Republicans in Congress. CNBC's Brian Schwartz and Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report. The sun sets behind a C-17 Globemaster as soldiers wait in line to board the aircraft. WASHINGTON President Donald Trump said Wednesday he may deploy as many as 15,000 troops to the southwest border ahead of a caravan of Central American migrants. "As far as the caravan is concerned, our military is out... we'll go up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel, on top of Border Patrol, ICE and everybody else at the border," Trump told reporters before traveling to Florida. A day prior, the four-star general overseeing the deployment, said the Department of Homeland Security requested 5,239 troops and that the figure was poised to rise. "We do know that the 5,239 is going forward and I will what I can confirm is that there will be additional force over and above the 5,239," U.S. Air Force Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday. O'Shaughnessy, however, noted that he had yet to hear of a figure as high as what the president described. "The numbers, for example, I heard 14,000 [troops] out there. I honestly don't even know where that came from. That is not in line with what we've been planning," he said. The Department of Defense estimates that more than 7,000 troops will be positioned in California, Arizona and Texas in support of the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection. The border mission, dubbed Operation Faithful Patriot, will have a larger U.S. military footprint than the combined efforts in Iraq and Syria. In mid-October, a caravan of at least 3,500 Central American migrants left Honduras for the United States border. The caravan is currently in southern Mexico. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary James Mattis downplayed criticisms Wednesday that the active-duty troop deployment to the border was a political stunt motivated by the midterm elections. "The support that we provide to the secretary for homeland security is practical support based on the request from the commissioner of customs and border police. We don't do stunts in this department," Mattis said. Earlier in the week, Trump told Axios that he would terminate birthright citizenship for non citizens and undocumented immigrants. "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States ... with all of those benefits," Trump said Monday. "It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end." "It's in the process. It'll happen ... with an executive order," Trump added. Despite Trump's claim, Canada and many other countries grant birthright citizenship. WATCH: The economic cost of immigration detention Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg answers questions about the improper use of millions of users' data by a political consultancy, at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, in this still image taken from Reuters TV May 22, 2018 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been asked to speak before a U.K. parliamentary committee again, and this time Canadian lawmakers are joining in on the request. British Member of Parliament Damian Collins and Canadian MP Bob Zimmer sent Zuckerberg a joint letter Wednesday requesting Zuckerberg's appearance, according to a tweet from Collins. The letter, and first-time inclusion of Canada, suggests Facebook's challenges are far from over and potentially broadening. @DamianCollins: Together with @bobzimmermp, I have today written to Mark Zuckerberg inviting him to give evidence to an international committee to be held in London on 27th November Zuckerberg addressed U.S. Congress and a committee of the European Union in the months following the Cambridge Analytica data scandal and widespread reports of misuse of Facebook's platform. He's been invited by U.K. lawmakers before, but has yet to appear. Zuckerberg sent Facebook's chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer to speak to Parliament instead. "The hearing of your evidence is now overdue, and urgent," Collins and Zimmer wrote in the letter. The proposed hearing would take place on Nov. 27, the letter says. Facebook did not immediately return a request for comment on whether Zuckerberg would attend. The letter comes just a day after Facebook reported its third-quarter earnings and another decline in European users. October 24, 2018: Thai sailors visiting Chinese guided missile destroyer Guangzhou during the ASEAN-China Maritime Exercise at a military port in Zhanjiang. STR/AFP/Getty Images Washington's plans to withdraw from a Cold War-era agreement with Moscow could have reverberating consequences around Asia, potentially escalating rivalry among nuclear-armed powers such as China and India. President Donald Trump threatened on Oct. 20 to pull his country from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia a bilateral deal that prohibits both nations from possessing, producing or test-flying a certain category of cruise missiles. The pact, signed in 1987, was instrumental to easing Cold War tensions. Trump claims Russian President Vladimir Putin has been violating the accord, but provided no details. If the treaty is abandoned, Washington and Moscow will be free to develop and deploy more missiles a risky scenario for the European Union given its geographical proximity to Russia. Less discussed, however, is the impact of Trump's decision on Asia. The China factor China, a major supplier and importer of weapons, is a major element in Trump's desire to leave the INF, strategists said. The White House has long been concerned about Beijing's massive rocket inventory and its militarization of the South China Sea. Chinese missiles threaten American naval ships in the Western Pacific and neighboring U.S. military bases but because of the treaty, U.S. missile forces in Asia are limited, C. Raja Mohan, nonresident senior fellow at Carnegie India, wrote in a note. That's why U.S. defense hawks, such as National Security Advisor John Bolton, support withdrawal from the INF, Mohan said. To them, the treaty "was a bad idea since it left China and North Korea free to undermine the security of the U.S. and its allies in Asia." Beijing's arsenal of ballistic missiles estimated to be over 2,000 in number is a threat to countries like Taiwan, Japan and U.S. military forces in the region, said Amit Bhandari, fellow of energy and environment studies at Mumbai-based think-tank Gateway House. Trump has expressed his wish for Beijing to join the INF but Chinese President Xi Jinping's government has indicated it isn't interested. If the U.S. leaves the treaty, it will be free to develop and install weapons on its military bases around Asia, according to Bhandari. It's possible Washington may deploy more ground-based systems in the Western Pacific or ramp up forces in Okinawa, echoed political intelligence firm Stratfor. But Xi's administration may view those moves as a threat. In the past, Beijing has often introduced new missiles to its weapons arsenal in order to catch up with U.S. military advancements. "China may now find itself at the receiving end of an asymmetrical threat that it was earlier posing to other powers in the region," Bhandari said. U.S. efforts to ramp up its security presence in the region from installing an anti-ballistic missile defense system in South Korea to undertaking freedom of navigation operations near Taiwan have already been met with stern criticism from Beijing. 'Arms racing is a cascading phenomenon' Any reaction from China to U.S. provocation, however, could spill over into India and Pakistan. "Arms racing is a cascading phenomenon," Rajesh Basrur, professor of international relations at Singapore-based Nanyang Technological University, said in a note. "When China competes with the U.S., it arouses insecurity and a competitive drive in India, which in turn does the same in Pakistan." Steve Bannon, former White House Chief Strategist to U.S. President Donald Trump, attends a debate with Lanny Davis, former special counsel to Bill Clinton, at Zofin Palace on May 22, 2018 in Prague, Czech Republic. The Senate Intelligence Committee is pursuing a wide-ranging investigation into former White House adviser Steve Bannon's activities during the 2016 presidential campaign, three sources familiar with the inquiry told Reuters. The committee is looking into what Bannon might know about any contacts during the campaign between Moscow and two advisers to the campaign, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, they said. Papadopoulos, a consultant, initially advised the presidential campaign of Republican hopeful Ben Carson before joining the Trump campaign. Page is also a consultant, who had business contacts in Russia. On Sept. 7, Papadopoulos was sentenced to 14 days in prison. He had pleaded guilty last year to lying to FBI agents about the timing and significance of his contacts with Russians, including a professor who told him the Russians had "dirt" on Trump's Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton. No charges have been filed against Page. The panel also will examine Bannon's role with Cambridge Analytica, a former data analysis company that the Trump campaign hired to help identify and target messages to potentially sympathetic voters, the sources said. The Senate committee is working with Bannon's advisers to set a date for him to be interviewed by staff investigators in late November, two of the sources said. Neither Bannon nor his spokesperson immediately responded to requests for comment. Bannon recently met for the second time with investigators working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating allegations of Russian interference on Trump's behalf in the 2016 presidential election, one of the sources said. Russia has denied interfering in the election and Trump denies any collusion, frequently describing the Mueller investigation as a political witch hunt. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Bannon was questioned last week by Mueller's team. The newspaper said the interview focused on Trump supporter Roger Stone. In emails to Reuters, Stone has said he did not know about or have access to WikiLeaks materials related to Democrats. In the run-up to the 2016 election, WikiLeaks published hundreds of emails hacked from the Democratic Party and the personal account of top Hillary Clinton campaign adviser John Podesta. One of the sources familiar with the Bannon-related Senate panel investigations said Mueller's team does not consider Bannon to be a potential subject of their investigation. Bannon served as a vice president of Cambridge Analytica from June 2014 to August 2016, at which point he joined Trump's presidential campaign as a senior strategist. Sources said the Senate Intelligence committee has sought to interview other witnesses about the role played by Cambridge Analytica and affiliated companies in the 2016 election. WATCH: Trump's quotes on Putin, the Fed and Russian meddling One of President Donald Trump's potential 2020 rivals is criticizing the administration for how it grants exemptions from tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., reviewed a sample of more than 900 steel exemption decisions made by the Department of Commerce in the first 30 days of the process and found the overwhelming majority of requests went to U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies. "You appear to be implementing the tariff exemption program in a way that undermines American steel producers - by allowing large tariff-free imports of foreign steel and harms American-owned steel-dependent companies instead of improving their competitive advantage over companies headquartered in China and other foreign countries," Warren wrote in a letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross dated Tuesday. In a written response, the Commerce Department said Warren's analysis "betrays a lack of understanding of the exclusion process, which was put in place to supply domestic consumers with steel that could not or would not be produced here in the United States or in an exempted country." Warren's letter comes as it increasingly looks like she is gearing up for a run at the White House. The Massachusetts Democrat is one of Trump's biggest critics and targets. The president often insults her as "Pocahontas," since Warren has claimed some Native American ancestry. She came under fire from some Native Americans and some liberals for announcing that a DNA test did indeed show small traces of Native American lineage. Trump also continued his attacks. With the letter criticizing Trump's tariff exemptions, Warren is seeking to shift the subject back to her focus on economic policy. The tariffs were implemented under a trade law provision protecting U.S. national security. Trump hailed the move as a way to protect U.S. companies from unfair trade practices by foreign countries, especially China. As of Oct. 29th, 43,634 steel and 5,667 aluminum exclusion requests have been filed. Overall, 15,662 steel exclusion decisions have been posted (11,281 were approved), while 905 aluminum decisions have been posted (763 approved). Warren's staff analyzed 909 decisions posted by the Commerce Department in the first 30 days that the responses were made available. Among the findings, foreign-headquartered companies received more than 80 percent of all exemption requests in the first 30 days. The majority of waivers, almost 52 percent went to Japanese-owned companies, and overall 84 percent of their requests were approved. The largest recipient of tariff exclusions was DS Containers, a subsidiary of Daiwa Can. Chinese-owned companies received 27 percent of all waiver approvals through their U.S. subsidiaries, with 94 percent of their requests getting approval. ARC Automotive, a subsidiary of a China-based real estate firm owned by a Chinese investment holding company received tariffs exemptions it sought to import from Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal. Greenfield Industries, a subsidiary of TDC Cutting Tools, a company-based in China, also received exclusions. By comparison, requests from American companies were granted about 25 percent of the time. "This is utterly inexplicable and you owe the American people an answer for why, after President Trump promised that his tariff program would help American companies, the process appears to be favoring foreign-owned firms with U.S. subsidiaries over American firms by allowing them to import foreign steel," Warren wrote. The Commerce Department said exclusions are only granted when U.S. producers do not make the product in sufficient quantity or quality. If U.S. suppliers do not object to exclusion requests, the granting of an exclusion should not hurt domestic steel production. The exemption process has been under fire almost since its inception. In August, the Commerce Department reversed its decision to grant Russia-owned aluminum giant Rusal, which was under U.S. sanctions, an exemption after congressional Democrats flagged the grant. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are calling for transparency in the process. Commerce says it has set up a fair and transparent administrative process which determines the timing of decisions. It points to announcements of new and restarted steel and aluminum production facilities in the U.S. as evidence the tariffs are protecting national security interests "Senator Warren should share our concern that dwindling steel and aluminum industries were a threat to our National Security as well as the communities that have relied on those industries for decades," the Commerce Department said in a statement. WATCH: Trump's tariffs could lead to unintended consequences Bazaar Corporate Radar | Feb 22, 2021, 12:00 AM IST Bazaar Corporate Radar Bazaar Corporate Radar is your window into the minds of top CEOs, Boardrooms, global economists, fund managers and sector analysts. If it?s making news, you?ll find it on Bazaar Corporate Radar. Here's how you could be paid to drink beer Singapore tops Asia in English skills after Malaysia, Philippines, India Singapore tops in Asia with 68.43 score in English skills. Graphics courtesy: EF EPI Singaporeans possess the highest degree of English skills in Asia, followed by people from Malaysia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and India, according to a new study. Globally, among the non-English countries, Singapore is third after Sweden and Netherlands on "Very High" English proficiency Index that lists ten countries from Europe, besides Singapore and South Africa, according to a ranking released by EF EPI. The EF English Proficiency Index attempts to rank countries by the average level of English language skills amongst those adults who took the EF test. Singapore ranks 3rd among 12 countries in "Very High" English proficiency band Graphics courtesy: EF EPI "With rapid growth in trade and technology, Asian countries with strong English proficiency are thriving. Singapore, which has consistently scored in the top 10 of the EF EPI, has had a trade to GDP ratio of over 300% since 1960. Although India is better-known for offshore services, it is the Philippines, with less than 10% of Indias population, which has the larger number of call centers," it says. The ranking for the year 2018 was released after collating results from 1.3 million people spread over 88 countries and regions who took the test on its online proficiency testing portal. The proficiency is divided in five bands: Very High, High, Moderate, Low, and Very Low. The study has thrown up some interesting results such as societies that speak English are "more open, less hierarchical and fairer to women." But it hastens to add that English per se cannot be said cause these societal improvements. "The correlation makes sense. English breaks down barriers, fosters international exchange, and exposes individuals to the wider world," it says. Women are found to speak better English than men. Though last year the men did narrow the gap, this time women are again in a clear lead. But despite that "women speak less in meetings and negotiations than men and are interrupted more when they do speak." "Research into how boys and girls learn foreign languages has shown that female students are more motivated, use a wider variety of strategies to retain new information, and are more willing to make mistakes. Women, on the whole, are also more likely than men to finish secondary school and attend university. Unfortunately, businesses are not benefitting as much as they could from womens English skills," it points out. Asia straddles all five proficiency bands with three countries in the upper quartile of the index and four in the bottom ten per cent. But English proficiency did not improve despite high level of investment in Asia. "Singapore improved from an already strong base, moving into the third position in the overall ranking. China and Japan did not experience significant changes, and both remain in the Low Proficiency band. The lack of English skills in Central Asia became clearer this year with the addition of Uzbekistan to the index, which, along with Kazakhstan, falls in the Very Low Proficiency band," it notes. Level of English proficiency vis a vis tasks that one can perform Graphics courtesy: EF EPI India missed High Proficiency band with one notch, thus sits at 28th global position atop Moderate proficiency band. The study points to inability of a very large, but poor workforce that can not afford decent education. Multiple ethnicity speaking 22 native languages also seems to have made English compete for space in India which made a head start in global IT outsourcing business because of its clear advantage of a large English speaking population. Its perceived rival in offshore business hiring, China, still sits in Low proficiency band despite major policy initiatives by the government ahead of Beijing Olympics. EP EFI finds a high correlation between English proficiency and ability of a country to attract, develop, and retain skilled workers. "English proficiency allows local talent to participate in global conversations and is also critical in attracting talent from abroad. A 2017 HSBC survey ranked Singapore, Norway, Germany, and the Netherlands, all very high English proficiency countries, in the top five for their appeal to internationally mobile professionals. While attracting expats is not every regions priority, nurturing local talent certainly should be." it says. Billboard in Shanghai proding the Chinese to learn English ahead of Beijing Olympics Photo: Connected to India The eighteen countries listed in Asia are evenly divided between nine that improved and nine that did not. Singapore and Cambodia posted significant increases in their scores this year, while Bangladesh experienced a significant decrease. Only Sri Lanka and Macau SAR moved from a lower proficiency band to a higher one. The study also claims English and innovation go hand in hand. "More scientific journals are published in English than in any other language, and weve found consistent correlations between English and investment in R&D. This relationship is particularly interesting in light of recent research showing that companies with managers from many countries earn more of their revenue from innovation than less diverse competitors. English is changing the way that ideas flow from one place to another." However, while EF EPI insists on numbers it is silent on the qualitative aspect of research and innovation as some of the revolutionary innovations have indeed come from countries that never use English as medium. SP launches blockchain-based green cert for companies, to be extended to households next year SP Group (SP) launched one of the worlds first blockchain-powered renewable energy certificate (REC) marketplace on Monday, October 29. In conjunction with the launch held at ASEAN Energy Business Forum (AEBF), screenshots of the first purchases by buyers City Developments (CDL) and DBS Bank (DBS) were shown. The platform was designed and built in-house by SPs team of digital energy experts. It will enable local and international organisations regardless of size, business or location in the world to trade in RECs. Currently only available to businesses, the marketplace will be extended to households by mid-2019. The unique attributes of blockchain technology will ensure the security, integrity and traceability of each REC transaction, SP said in a press statement. This will drive the greater integration of renewable energy sources on the electricity grid. Photo courtesy: Asia Chang, unsplash.com Through blockchain technology, we enable companies to trade in renewable energy certificates conveniently, seamlessly and securely, helping them achieve greener business operations and meet their sustainability targets," said SPs Chief Digital Officer, Samuel Tan. Solar developers with local and regional solar assets, such as Cleantech Solar Asia and LYS Energy Solutions, have signed a collaboration with SP to place their solar assets on the marketplace for sale of RECs. Katoen Natie Singapore, a global chemical logistics company who will be launching Singapores largest single unit rooftop solar facility at a warehouse, has also come onboard as a REC seller. When companies purchase RECs, they are consuming electricity from renewable sources, sold to them by other companies that produce green energy. With SPs blockchain-powered marketplace, buyers are automatically matched with sellers, around the globe, according to their preferences. This helps big and small organisations to achieve their green targets and strengthens cross-border sustainability efforts with SPs international reach. It also contributes to Singapores low carbon targets, as part of its Paris COP-21 agreement. After Labours landslide election defeat in 1983, some in the Party were discouraged by the response to the Bennite programme they had put forward. A more robust perspective was offered by Cllr Ted Knight, the Leader of Lambeth Council: There can be no compromise with the electorate. Knight is making a comeback as the Chairman of Labours Gipsy Hill branch in Lambeth. Many felt that Jeremy Corbyns leadership of the Labour Party would mean a revival of Knights sentiments with the consequence that the Labour Party would find its hostility to the electorate fully reciprocated. The truth has been a bit more complicated. At the General Election last year Labours manifesto was certainly left wing. It is estimated that its spending pledges amounted to a trillion pounds (using the American definition of a thousand billion.) So perhaps Labours claim that the manifesto was fully costed could have been more vigorously rebutted by the number crunching chaps at CCHQ. Much of this spending spree would have been on renationalisation. Those proposals might be extreme: they would surely have a disastrous impact that would cause widespread dismay were they to ever take place. But proposals for renationalisation are popular. Those under the age of 25 will have never tasted a British Rail sandwich. Tax increases are also sometimes claimed to be popular. At least for the rich usually defined as somebody earning more than I am or when it is specified by an opinion pollster that the money would improve public services. This weeks Budget saw pretty modest tax cuts perhaps reflecting a mood of political defensiveness in Conservative circles prompted by such polling. Still the personal allowances for income tax are being raised. The threshold goes up to 12,500 for the basic rate the level of earnings above which paying income tax starts. Also the threshold at which the top rate of income tax is applied is rising to 50,000. These changes will be introduced in April a year earlier than planned. It is the second one that is the most controversial as it only benefits the richest ten per cent. Yet John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor, has declared that Labour will not oppose the change: Were not going to take money out of peoples pockets. Simple as that. His allies point out that Labours Manifesto last year only contemplated higher taxes for the richest five per cent. So what are we to make of this? One simple explanation is that Labour is chaotic. That while collective responsibility in the Cabinet might be strained, in the Shadow Cabinet it is not even attempted. Jeremy Corbyn does not provide clarity and so the rest of them make it up as they go along. Thus, for instance, we had the tweet below from Emily Thornberry opposing the tax cuts that McDonnell endorses. We have also had other Shadow Cabinet Ministers, including Jon Trickett and Angela Rayner, taking the same line as Thornberry. Even Corbyn took a swipe at ideological tax cuts in his Budget response. Theresa May took the chance at Prime Minister Question Time this afternoon to highlight this division. McDonnell has come up with statements at odds with his colleagues on other matters for instance saying that Labour would abolish Universal Credit and that any second referendum on the EU would not include the option of continued membership. These discrepancies in different interviews usually pass most people by. The difficulty for Labour is that voting in the Commons is something tangible. Shadow Ministers really need to vote the same way. It even tends to get noticed if the Labour backbenchers defy the Whip. What if the SNP or the Lib Dems propose an amendment opposing raising the threshold for the higher rate? But shouldnt the Conservatives also take note of the underlying challenge? McDonnell is a Marxist who has openly declared his ambition to destroy capitalism. Yet he is also clearly willing to compromise with the electorate in order to achieve power. Quite how compromising they would find a Corbyn Government should such a thing materialise is another matter but by then it would be a bit late. Another reflection should be that if the Shadow Chancellor is afraid to oppose tax cuts then surely the Government should give a higher priority to finding room for some more of them. Cllr Andrew Wood is the Leader of the Opposition on Tower Hamlets Council. We all claim to be believe in democracy but it is a system of government that requires no sacrifice of its citizens. We are not even required in this country to occasionally spend a few minutes in a polling station. Well, four brave people have and continue to pay a much higher price to ensure the safety of our democracy. They stepped in when those institutions meant to protect us failed, they exhibited in the words of Judge Richard Mawrey enormous courage But their courage has not been repaid by this country. They are Andy Erlam, Debbie Simone, Azmail Hussain and Angela Moffat. They challenged the May 2014 election of Lutfur Rahman and on the 23rd April 2015, Richard Mawrey, an Electoral Commissioner, voided Rahmans election under the Representation of the People Act 1983 on the grounds of corrupt and illegal practices by him and his agents. My colleague Peter Golds has written extensively in these pages for the last few years of what happened in Tower Hamlets. But three years later the costs of that legal action are still expected to be borne by ordinary citizens. Rahman has declared bankruptcy and they are left to foot the bill of around 1.1 million. Their barrister, Francis Hoar, also remains largely unpaid. Earlier this month the government lifted its final restrictions on Tower Hamlets Council imposed as a result of the mismanagement of Rahman, we had made sufficient progress (even if there is a lot still to do). But the speed of that process was critically dependent on the removal of Rahman in April 2015 and the subsequent election of a new Mayor, John Biggs, in 2015. Tower Hamlets is the third most important borough in the country in economic terms. It is the fastest growing borough in the country and leads London for the most new jobs and homes. That Tower Hamlets quickly became a more normal council could not have happened without the actions of the four petitioners, they saved the country substantial sums of money by making Tower Hamlets a more normal place and shortening the period of time that it required supervision. Given that Tower Hamlets generates approximately 12 billion a year in taxes, the 1.1 million cost of the legal action is chicken feed by comparison. So, the state has benefited financially from their bravery and yet the state has done nothing to help them. Not even Tower Hamlets Council will do it, my attempt to have the four petitioners given the Freedom of the Borough was rejected. Now the Cabinet Office has also declined to help with the fees. This is a mistake. It sends a clear signal to other citizens not to undertake such risks themselves in the future. If the Cabinet Office wont help defend democracy, why should ordinary citizens do it? Only the truly rich or the really mad will challenge electoral malpractice in the future. As Judge Mawrey said in his judgement The Petition system is obsolete and unfit for purpose. It is wholly unreasonable to leave it to defeated candidates or concerned electors, like the present Petitioners, to undertake the arduous and extremely expensive task of bringing proceedings and pursuing them to a conclusion entirely at their own expense and with the risk of bankruptcy if they fail to surmount the Grand National sized fences placed in the path of Petitioners. If the Cabinet Office wont help them then an urgent reform of our electoral system is required whereby another authority takes over the responsibility for prosecuting electoral malpractice. Again, to quote the judge: First and foremost, this case highlights to an even greater extent than previous election cases I have tried, the unsatisfactory nature of the election petition as a way of protecting democracy. If we do not do something expect more Rahmans in future (and he himself could stand again for Mayor of Tower Hamlets after 2020). If we do not fix this, we send a signal to our enemies, we preach democracy, we criticise its absence elsewhere, but we are unwilling to fund its defence in our own country. We lack the courage shown by the four petitioners to defend democracy. Theres a lot of conversation at the moment about Norway-to-Canada: we believe that the Government should be mulling it. But it hasnt taken off among Party members, at least if our survey is anything to go by. One in ten respondents back it. Only one in six support any form of EEA membership at all. Fewer than one in ten line up behind the Prime Ministers Chequers Plan. Thats 22 per cent for a softer Brexit of some kind. Six per cent want no Brexit at all. Meanwhile, one in five are for the WTO minimum that No Deal would bring with it, at least at first. And almost half the replies favour a Canada Plus Plus Plus scheme we assume in the form proposed by David Davis, Boris Johnson and the European Research Group, inter alia. The EU has offered a Canada option for Great Britain, but with Northern Ireland hived off. Hence the backstop. There is certainly no evidence of backing for it. Almost a third of survey replies support trading off a longer transition against the backstop in a compromised form. Two-thirds are opposed to any transition extension whatsoever. But theres no reason to think that this implies support for the backstop. Finally, please note: were aware that there have been issues in relation to survey responses, and these have been dealt with appropriately. 10/31/2018 Somehow, the semi-empty building in a suburb of Dallas called Texas General Hospital was still considered a legitimate hospital, offering something like treatment to the patients who dared enter its doors. Over the past year, hospital personnel had become fearful of using the expired IV tubing and ventilators. The ABG machine, used to check lung function, also stopped working. The sinks in the cafeteria no longer delivered hot water. Much of the nursing staff stopped showing up to work because they hadnt been paid. So did the radiology and respiratory teams, after their checks bounced. For a brief period in May, there was no physician overseeing emergency care in the ER. The ER patients treated at the hospital over the course of 2018 -- a total of 4,083 people -- were directed by the hospital, in state-mandated patient rights notices, to report complaints to an incorrect telephone number. It's unclear if that was by design. One such patient, referred to only as Patient #24, showed up early on June 6, 2018. A nurse working in the ER paged five on-call nurses, as the hospital no longer could afford to keep them in the building full-time. All but one of the nurses refused to come to work. The fate of Patient #24 and other details about his or her case remain a mystery; the incident is only public record because inspectors with the Center for Medicaid Services (CMS) happened to show up that same day for an unannounced inspection. They made a note of Patient #24s predicament and the other troubling conditions at the hospital. (CMS has provided a copy of the inspection report to ConsumerAffairs, from which the above account is based). It has been getting harder to get nurses to come in when they are on-call and called in to take care of a patient that is admitted, a hospital staffer explained to the CMS investigators that day. Still, the hospital kept its doors open. Two months later, another patient was brought to the hospital. This particular person was suffering a hemorrhagic stroke. Texas General Hospital has never been outfitted with a traditional stroke unit or a dedicated maternity ward, which isnt a requirement under state or federal laws. But in order to get the patient transferred elsewhere, the nurse on duty needed a read on the patients CT scan. No one was there to read the scan that day in early August. The hospital breaks all kinds of laws, the nurse who had treated the stroke patient said, in an interview with CMS investigators who returned to the facility in August. I have had a hospital decline a transfer because I did not have a read on an X-Ray, the nurse added. The fate of that patient was also not detailed in the CMS reports. Astronomical bills For six years, Texas General Hospital has been a bizarre fixture in north Texas, a facility known as the most expensive hospital in the state despite numerous patient reports of minimal care. It had only opened several years prior, when, in 2015, patients reported receiving astronomical hospital bills in the mail. Some ranged between a quarter-million and half-million dollars. The patients said that they received no warning beforehand that the hospital was out-of-network, for-profit, and rejected by nearly all insurance plans other than Medicare and Medicaid. Staffing issues and safety issues have also plagued the hospital, though those issues received less attention than the billing did. An earlier inspection by the state found that Texas General Hospital had no policy for investigating patient deaths. The hospital also failed to investigate five surgeries that potentially injured the patients, including one gastric sleeve operation resulting in a person dying. Elective surgeries such as gastric operations have been advertised as among the hospitals few specialties. Overall, state investigators in 2015 determined that Texas General Hospital failed to ensure the quality of the medical care provided to patients. But it would be another three years until the hospital lost its Medicare and Medicaid funding. Patients at the mercy of hospital prices It may come as a surprise that losing the government contracts took that long. Then again, the workings of the American hospital industry have never exactly made sense to outsiders. A state lawmaker and others who have vowed to do something about Texas General Hospitals fraudulent and abusive billing practices, as one health insurer described them, reached the same impasse that has afflicted American consumers for years; the hospital industry enjoys broad freedom to charge patients whatever price they deem fit, regardless of the quality of their care. While Medicare and Medicaid care is regulated by strict price controls, patients on private insurance or who are uninsured are often at a hospitals mercy when it comes to billing. "The most vulnerable, or the people without power, they have to pay whatever the hospital asks, Dr. Ge Bai, an accountant and economics professor at Johns Hopkins University, tells ConsumerAffairs. Bai, an immigrant from China, had never seen an American hospital bill before. Then she moved to the States, and in 2009, gave birth. The bill that she received afterward was completely dumbfounding. Then I asked myself, if I am a certified public accountant, and I cannot figure out a hospital bill... Bai has since become an expert in United States healthcare costs. In one study, she partnered with researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to calculate hospital bills and found that the average American hospital charges consumers 3.4 times its Medicare-allowable costs. Hospital bills are very high for people that do not have negotiating power, Bai says, adding that there are virtually no regulations in most states to help those patients. Some hospitals have taken that regulatory freedom to new extremes. The paper authored by Bai and colleagues found that the fifty most expensive hospitals in the United States charge an average of ten times the Medicare-allowable cost of services, or markups of more than 1,000 percent. Based on data from 2012, Texas General Hospital charged 10.8 times the Medicare-allowable and ranks #11 on Bais list.The listing gave Texas General Hospital the distinct honor of being the worst price-gouger in the state, despite only having been open at the time for one year. Since then, prices have climbed even higher. In 2015, the most recent year for which Bais data is available, Texas General Hospitals billing ratio reached 15.4 times Medicare-allowed costs. As her paper notes, extreme billing affects all consumers because it drives up the price of premiums and other associated costs. A rural hospital crisis allows for-profit institutions to flourish As a recent report in Politico details, the company behind Texas General Hospital has been able to thrive across Texas thanks in large part to a rural hospital crisis in the state. Eighteen hospitals in rural parts of Texas, serving people who are largely uninsured, have shut their doors since 2013. The tiny town of Bowie, population 5,000, lost its publicly-owned hospital in 2015 after residents rejected a tax increase following a drop in oil and gas production. The next nearest hospital was nearly 30 miles away until the Hashmi Group, a company run by heart surgeon Dr. Hasan Hashmi and his sons, stepped in the following year. I know they use a different billing model, Bowie Fire Chief Doug Page tells ConsumerAffairs, referring to the private, out-of-network model Still, the facility in Bowie is the first line of defense when people in town are having an emergency. Many of the employees at the original Bowie hospital were able to keep their jobs and continue working at the facility under the Hashmi Group, Page says. A similar story played out in the rural Texas town of Grand Saline, after the Hashmi Group purchased a hospital that otherwise would have shuttered. But making the case for the Hashmi Groups purchase of Texas General Hospital, the troubled facility near Dallas, is more difficult. The original hospital in its place had been abandonced since 2002 and sits in the town of Grand Prairie, a suburb situated between Fort Worth and Dallas. The metro area has plenty of hospitals, though Hashmi and his sons pitched the new hospital as a much-needed service when they re-opened the facility in 2012. Patients like Autumn McCool Heisler say that they were given no advance warning that Texas General Hospital was private under the new owners. Heisler drove there in 2016 after breaking her knee cap; it seemed easier to go to a hospital only a few miles away than deal with long waits at the larger facilities in the metro area. Heisler remembers being the only patient in the emergency room that day, something that she says should have given her pause. A doctor in the ER told her that her knee wasnt broken and initially refused to give her an X-Ray, she says. She remembers arguing with him to force him to change his mind. After finally getting the X-Ray, a knee immobilizer, and a pain shot, Heisler went home. Then she received a bill in the mail for $17,000, she tells ConsumerAffairs. She called the hospital to ask if it was a typo. It wasnt. I broke out in hysterical laughter and am like, Im not paying this bill, Heisler says. The hospital sent her the bill a few more times. Eventually, the notices stopped coming. It all seemed like a half-hearted attempt to collect her debt. In previous interviews, the Hashmi group has claimed that they do not aggressively pursue the bills of patients who refuse to pay. "Ive never seen anything like it, Heisler adds. Why not just charge reasonable rates and actually put more efforts into collecting their bills? The Hashmi group could not be reached by ConsumerAffairs to answer that question; attempts to reach the company through a former executive, an attorney who is registered as the hospital's agent in the state, and a phone number listed as belonging to the company were unsuccessful. Funding cut and facility closed I initially met and interviewed Dr. Hasan Hashmi and two other hospital executives in 2016 for a story about a patient who was charged $330,000 for foot surgery. During a tour that the hospital gave me at the time, I also noticed that the hospital seemed to be missing some key staffers on an afternoon weekday. No patients were there, either. Hashmi, comparing his facility to a Walmart that often gets robbed, told me at the time that the bills grew so high because most patients and insurance providers refused to pay them, so the hospital's business model relied on recovering costs from the rare bills that did get paid. It's a model that apparently shouldnt be tried again. On October 3, after the series of disastrous state inspections that occurred in May, June, and August, CMS sent Texas General Hospital a letter stating that its Medicare and Medicaid funding would be terminated at the Grand Prairie facility by the end of the month. After six years of government contracts, Texas General Hospitals support from Medicare and Medicaid is finally coming to an end. The cause for Medicare/Medicaid termination is Texas General Hospital's failure to meet the minimum health and safety standards required for Medicare program participation, a letter that CMS sent to the hospital explains. A recorded voicemail at the Texas General Hospital phone number now says that the facility is closed. We are analyzing the site. Please wait a few seconds.. While cruise capacity dips in China in 2018 and 2019, Royal Caribbean International continues to be among the leading players in the market with new hardware and a long-term vision. We've been really pleased with the performance of the China market this year, and as you know, it's a long-term strategy, said Michael Bayley, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean International, speaking on the companys third quarter earnings call earlier this month. We've been in the market for 10 years. So we're excited about Spectrum coming into Shanghai in 2019, said Bayley. The Chinese market is expected to shed 13.5 percent of its capacity year-over-year in 2019, according to the 2019 China Market Report by Cruise Industry News, driven by the withdrawals of SkySea and Norwegian Cruise Line from the market. The new Spectrum will debut the Quantum-ultra class for the Chinese market when she arrives in Shanghai following a 53-day transit next summer. The company will debut the SkyPad in the market, as well as a new suite class aboard the ship, and multiple new dining options designed for the local market. The Spectrum will take the place of the Ovation, which is heading to Alaska. In addition, the Quantum will move to Singapore for the 2019-2020 winter season, leaving the Spectrum as the companys sole year-round Chinese vessel. And so our capacity overall next year in China is fundamentally flat, said Bayley. We've had a lot of enthusiasm in terms of forward bookings for Spectrum, and we're very pleased with where the ship sits already in terms of forward bookings, he added. Notoriously a very close-in booking market, the trends are positive, according to Jason Liberty, CFO. We also saw, similar to Q2, we saw accelerated trends from our close-in bookings, Liberty said. I think the only thing that was probably a little bit different is we saw some further strength in Asia Pac, specifically China and the close-in environment in Q3 versus in the second quarter. In 2019, Disney Cruise Line guests will be the first to meet Captain Marvel when she makes her debut during Marvel Day at Sea, the company said. She will be part of what Disney said is an action-packed, day-long celebration aboard select Disney Magic sailings departing Jan. 6 through March 8 from Miami. Captain Marvel joins the events line-up of Super Heroes and villains, including Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Thor, Loki, Spider-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange and more. In addition to these heroic encounters, Marvel Day at Sea features a deck show spectacular, themed youth activities, special merchandise, and unique food and beverage offerings. Virgin Voyages has announced that its first ship, the Scarlet Lady, will feature Cuba as one of her voyage destinations during her inaugural season in 2020. Virgin said its decision to sail to Cuba was influenced by customer and travel partner research it conducted in North America and the United Kingdom. Both groups were said to consistently rank the Caribbean island as one of the most desired and interesting destinations to visit on a voyage. Virgin Atlantic has been visiting Cuba for 13 years, and I cannot wait to see our Scarlet Lady gleaming in the Havana Harbor, said Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson in a prepared statement. Havana is the perfect place for our sailors to go and experience a city that exudes an irresistible energy and passion. We cant wait to take our sailors to Havana, which is without doubt, one of the Caribbeans most authentic and enriching destinations, added Virgin Voyages President and CEO Tom McAlpin. All sailings to Cuba from Miami feature an overnight stay. Virgins destination announcement was made at the Havana International Fair, FIHAV, with remarks from Virgin Voyages executives, government representatives and local tourism leadership. We have a long-standing relationship with Sir Richard Branson and the Virgin Group and are pleased to announce this new partnership with Virgin Voyages, said Manuel Marrero Cruz, Minister of Tourism for Cuba. Specific sailing dates relating to Virgin Voyages visits to Cuba will be released when the company opens up bookings for sale next year. There has been a dramatic decline of Connecticuts bat population because of white-nose syndrome, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said. Several species of bats that call Connecticut home have been devastated by white-nose syndrome, so much so that in 2015 three species were listed as endangered on Connecticuts List of Endangered, Threatened and Special Concern Species, DEEP said. The species added to the states endangered list are the little brown bat, the northern long-eared bat (which is also federally threatened) and the tricolored bat. The disease affects hibernating bats and is caused by a fungus. The fungus looks like white fuzz on a bats face and grows in cold, dark and damp places. It attacks bare skin while bats hibernate. As it grows, bats become more active and burn up the fat they need to survive the winter. Bats with white-nose syndrome might exhibit strange behavior, including flying outside in the daytime in winter. White-nose syndrome has been found in 33 states in the U.S., including Connecticut, and in seven Canadian provinces. The first widespread signs of white-nose syndrome appeared in caves near Albany, N.Y., in 2007. But photographs from cave explorers in 2006 showed what might have been the first unofficially documented cases of it in North America. The disease was unknown to science until it was discovered in North American bats. It continues to spread rapidly throughout the nation and Canada, mainly through bat-to-bat contact. A map with confirmed locations of the disease can be found at whitenosesyndrome.org/static-page/wns-spread-maps. In some areas of North America, white-nose syndrome has killed 90 to 100 percent of bats; millions of bats across the country have been killed by the disease. The hardest hit species seems to be the northern long-eared bat, the little brown bat and the tricolored bat. Currently, there is no cure for white-nose syndrome. Scientists from across the globe are working to study the disease, how its spreads and infects bats and how to control it. Several experimental treatments, including a vaccine and changing bat habitats, are in progress and are expected to lead to increased survival rates of bats from the disease. Any sightings of bats during the winter should be reported to the Connecticut Wildlife Division to help them monitor white-nose syndrome. More information can be found at https://go.usa.gov/xPmDn. Bats are crucial for healthy ecosystems. Bats provide economic benefits to agriculture and forestry by controlling insects. BRIDGEPORT A City Council committee wants developer Eleanor Guedes, longtime chairman of the Civil Service Commission, ousted from that position for violating the citys residency rules. I think she needs to be removed off the board, Councilwoman Eneida Martinez, a co-chairman of the Ordinance Committee, told her fellow members this week. We have enough probable cause. That probable cause includes a copy of a voter registration card, signed by Guedes, which calls into question Guedes claim that she had initially been unaware her voting address changed from Bridgeport to Trumbull. Last month, Hearst Connecticut Media reported that Guedes was registered to vote in Trumbull from late last June until February while continuing to run the Civil Service Commission, which deals with municipal personnel issues. Elected officials and appointees to municipal boards and commissions must live in Bridgeport. Guedes, who owns properties in the city and surrounding towns, Trumbull included, had been accused of not living at her Bridgeport address 1425 Noble Ave., also the location of her familys construction company, Primrose, in the past. But when questions about Guedes residency first arose in 2009, Mark Anastasi, a lawyer for the city, concluded she was allowed multiple addresses. Councilman Peter Spain in September complained that Guedes, by registering to vote in Trumbull, forfeited her appointment to the Bridgeport Civil Service Commission. Spain submitted the ordinance approved Tuesday that Guedes violated the city ordinances and the charter. Guedes did not attend the Ordinance Committee meeting. Guedes, after Hearst in September found out that she had changed her voter registration, did not deny it. But she said the issue of her residency was settled in 2009. Guedes also told Hearst that Bridgeport is her home base, she is a taxpayer in the city and never voted anywhere else. But on Tuesday, council members heard a different explanation for her address change: Guedes blamed the Trumbull Registrar of Voters. The Ordinance Committee received a memorandum about Guedes from Anastasi, who is still an attorney for Bridgeport. According to Anastasi, the Trumbull Registrar of Voters registered her on-line when she signed her son up for a summer program. Anastasi noted Guedes had not taken affirmative action to change voting addresses. He also wrote, In February 2018 when Ms. Guedes discovered she had been registered erroneously in Trumbull, she had her name stricken from the Trumbull voter registration. But Spain on Tuesday night passed out copies of a voter registration card signed by Guedes changing her voting address from 1425 Noble Ave. to 48 Teller Road in Trumbull. I dont know what else to say, Spain said. Councilman Marcus Brown, the Ordinance Committees co-chair, called Guedes story blaming the Trumbull Registrar of Voters BS and crazy. She signed and dated this form, Brown said. Councilwoman Maria Valle was also skeptical about Guedes explanation: Why would a Registrar sign or fill out a card for somebody? Anastasi was not present for Tuesdays meeting. Deputy City Attorney John Bohannon told the Ordinance Committee that Anastasi may not have been aware of the evidence provided by Spain: That card may be a revelation. Spains proposal now heads to the full council to vote on Monday, though Guedes fate on the Civil Service Commission is unclear. According to Anastasis memorandum, it would be up to Mayor Joe Ganim to decide to oust Guedes. While typically the council votes on mayoral appointments to commissions and boards, Anastasi wrote, the City Council does not have charter authority to approve the mayors appointments to the Civil Service Commission. Ganims administration recently chose Guedes and Primrose Construction to develop new downtown apartments. Councilman Ernie Newton on Tuesday told the Ordinance Committee that in light of the issues surrounding Guedes status on the Civil Service Commission, the council should closely scrutinize the Primrose deal. Jeffrey Stokarski faces 25 years in jail after pleading guilty to an armed robbery spree across western Connecticut. John H. Durham, U.S. Attorney for Connecticut, said Stokarski, of Waterbury, waived his right to be indicted and pleaded guilty Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer in New Haven to federal robbery and firearm charges stemming from a violent armed robbery spree in late 2017 and early 2018. Stokarski pleaded guilty to one count of Hobbs Act Robbery, an offense that carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years, and one count of using or carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, and offense that carries a mandatory consecutive term of imprisonment of five years. If he serves the full term, Stokarski will be 69 when he is released. According to court documents and statements made in court Stokarski was linked to a dozen robberies, sometimes committing as many as three in a single day. The following are the robberies: Dec. 27, 2017 Stokarski entered the Henny Penny located at 273 Meriden Waterbury Turnpike in Southington, pushed the sales clerk into the counter and verbally instructed her not to touch or say anything. Stokarski opened the cash register with a screwdriver and stole approximately $289 in cash. Stokarski approached a vehicle in the parking lot of the Country Cloverleaf Shell at 237 Route 81 in Killingworth, opened the drivers door and punched the driver repeatedly in the face while demanding the drivers wallet. During the robbery, Stokarski took from the driver an electronic cigarette worth approximately $110, a cell phone worth approximately $50, and the drivers wallet containing approximately $90 in cash and gift cards. Stokarski entered the Krauszers Food Store located at 459 Madison Road in Durham, placed the store clerk in a headlock, pulled out a knife and placed it on the clerks back, dragged the clerk over to the register and then stole approximately $3,264 in cash and store items. Dec. 31, 2017 Stokarski again entered the Henny Penny located at 273 Meriden Waterbury Turnpike in Southington, and demanded cash from the register. The clerk complied and gave Stokarski approximately $161 in cash from the register. Jan. 1, 2018 Stokarski entered the Citgo Gas Station at 199 West Street in Litchfield, grabbed the clerk, pulled out a knife and placed the knife across the clerks neck area while demanding that the clerk give up all the money. The clerk complied and provided Stokarski with approximately $2,084 in cash. Stokarski also stole several store items worth approximately $49. Stokarski entered the Dunkin Donuts located at 220 Main St.in New Hartford, pulled out a knife, jumped over the counter and while grabbing the clerk, yelled for the clerk to open the registers. The clerk complied and gave Stokarski all of the cash from within the registers. Jan. 3, 2018 Stokarski entered the Rayon Market located at 214 Edgewood Avenue in New Haven, and stole $1,400 in cash and a handgun from the clerk at knifepoint. Stokarski entered the Cumberland Farms gas station located at 69 Rubber Avenue in Naugatuck, walked behind the counter and demanded money. He then pulled the stolen handgun from his waist area to show the clerk that he had a gun. The clerk complied with Stokarskis demand and opened the registers. Stokarski then stole approximately $132 in cash and approximately $536 worth of cigarettes and fled in a vehicle driven by Stacy Borowy. Jan. 6, 2018 Stokarski entered the Food Land grocery store located at 250 South Colon Road in Wallingford, pulled out a knife, dragged the clerk to the register and ultimately stole approximately $2,254 in cash, while injuring the clerk in the process. Stokarski and another man entered the Mobil gas station located at 385 Watertown Ave.in Waterbury and approached the register. Stokarski went behind the register, pulled out a knife and told the cashier to get back while Stokarski pried open the register, ultimately stealing approximately $727 in cash and several cartons of cigarettes. Jan. 7, 2018 Stokarski entered the Valero Fas Mart gas station located at 384 Main St.in Durham, grabbed the clerks arm, and demanded that she open the register. He then pulled out a knife in an attempt to pry open the register himself. The clerk ultimately complied with Stokarskis demand to open the register and Stokarski removed approximately $130 in cash. Jan. 9, 2018 Stokarski entered Food Bag located at 960 Meriden Waterbury Turnpike in Southington, approached the register, pulled out a knife and began to pry open the register. He then removed approximately $100 from the register and about $500 in cigarettes. He had been detained since his arrest on Jan. 9. Judge Meyer scheduled sentencing for Jan. 24. Borowy pleaded guilty on Sept. 20 to aiding and abetting an armed robbery. She awaits sentencing. This matter is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Connecticut State Police, and the Naugatuck, Southington, New Hartford, New Haven, Wallingford and Waterbury Police Departments. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Anthony E. Kaplan and Lauren C. Clark. Remember Robert Mueller? The special counsel may have been quiet - respecting the traditional protocol that prosecutors don't take public steps affecting a campaign in the final weeks before an election - but he hasn't stopped working. And once the election is over, the Russia scandal is likely to heat up again. We were reminded of that by the exposure of what was apparently a ludicrous scheme on the part of some fringe right-wingers to falsely accuse Mueller of sexual misconduct. Meanwhile, a team of Post reporters reveals that Mueller is aggressively pursuing longtime Trump associate and political dirty trickster Roger Stone regarding his contacts with WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign. The question is whether Stone - who is, among other things, the former business partner of onetime Trump campaign chairman and convicted felon Paul Manafort - coordinated WikiLeaks's release of Democratic emails stolen by Russia, which were timed to inflict maximum damage on the Clinton campaign. Stone claims that his contacts with WikiLeaks were meaningless and he didn't coordinate its activities. But if he did (and let's just say nobody in politics would take Stone's word on anything), and if he was in communication with his old buddy and client Donald Trump, his old buddy and partner Paul Manafort, or anyone else in the Trump campaign, then what you've got there is the magic word: collusion. That's a lot of ifs, of course. But the truth is we already know there was collusion. We have to keep reminding ourselves that the president's campaign chairman, son and son-in-law/chief adviser took a meeting with a group of Russians for the specific purpose of colluding, and then afterward the president lied about it. But to return to Mueller, there's another intriguing story line, one that has to do with the still-unresolved question of whether the president will answer his questions and whether he will be forced to issue a subpoena to get that cooperation. Nelson Cunningham, a former prosecutor and Clinton administration official, examines a series of recent, unusual legal filings related to a conflict between Mueller and Trump's attorneys over a grand jury subpoena, in which the person being subpoenaed is not identified. Cunningham makes a good case that the pattern of filings and rulings suggests that the question being argued over is whether the president will have to appear before the grand jury, which would mean that Mueller has already subpoenaed Trump. It's a little complicated, but here's the summary: "We cannot know, from the brief docket entries that are available to us in this sealed case, that the matter involves President Donadld Trump. But we do know from Politico's reporting that it involves the special counsel and that the action here was filed the day after [Trump lawyer Rudy] Giuliani noted publicly, "[W]e're pretty much finished with our memorandum opposing a subpoena." We know that the district court had ruled in favor of the special counsel and against the witness; that the losing witness has moved with alacrity and with authority; and that the judges have responded with accelerated rulings and briefing schedules. We know that Judge [Gregory] Katsas, Trump's former counsel and nominee, has recused himself. And we know that this sealed legal matter will come to a head in the weeks just after the midterm elections." If this really is about whether Trump will testify, it would mean that one of the biggest and most important questions in the entire investigation is on its way to being answered. All along, Trump's lawyers have been utterly horrified at the prospect of the president testifying under oath, because they are certain he'd commit perjury. "Why do you want to get him under oath? Do you think we're fools?" Giuliani has said. "You want to get him under oath because you want to trap him into perjury. Well, we're not going to let you do that." But the thing about a perjury trap is that you can't fall into it unless you're willing to commit perjury. A perjury trap usually occurs when the witness doesn't realize everything the prosecutor knows, so he thinks he can lie and get away with it. Then when the prosecutor asks the right questions, the witness lies and he's caught in the trap. But that's not what Trump's lawyers are afraid of. They worry that Trump will commit perjury almost no matter what he gets asked about, because that's just what Trump does. Or at the very least, he'll be confronted about previous lies, get evasive and disingenuous, and wind up looking guilty as sin. If Cunningham's interpretation is correct, it would mean we're beyond where Kenneth Starr and President Bill Clinton ended up. Clinton rebuffed Starr's requests for an interview, Starr got fed up and issued the subpoena, and instead of fighting it the courts, Clinton's lawyers negotiated for a long interview not before the grand jury but in the White House. The result was that the question of whether the president had to answer an independent counsel's subpoena was never definitively resolved. If Trump is willing to take a chance with the courts, he has good reason to think they'll protect him. After all, one way or another a case will end up at the Supreme Court - where there are five conservative justices who have shown time and again that serving the interests of Republican presidents and the Republican Party is high on their list of priorities. In any case, it's looking as though the special counsel's investigation is approaching its climax. Even if Trump doesn't have to answer questions, we'll learn what Mueller has discovered about what he and his aides did in 2016. Even if Trump gets a new attorney general after the midterms and orders that person to fire Mueller, it will probably be too late. And then it'll be up to the political system - Congress and the voters - to decide what to do about it. Uh-oh! It could be you, or it could be us, but there's no page here. Often faced with hostile boardrooms and panels that are 95 percent to 100 percent white male, it's fair to say that as a female visible minority, I've not had the easiest of rides while looking for investment since I founded my company in 2013. Numerous recent studies have found that men are able to get funding easier, despite female headed businesses generating more revenue. In fact, 38 percent of all businesses in the U.S. are owned by female entrepreneurs, yet only 2 percent of all of them receive venture financing. Related: How to Get Male Venture Capitalists to Invest in Your Female-Targeted Product Not only this, but minorities in entrepreneurship face an ongoing hostile investment environment too. A recent report from the Center for Global Policy Solutions found America is losing out on over 1.1 million minority-owned businesses due to discriminatory financing practices, resulting in foregoing over 9 million potential jobs and $300 billion in collective national income. After being forced to face questions from male panels asking me if I had read any books on "how to be an entrepreneur" or "how to grow a business," I followed alternative funding channels to grow my completely bootstrapped business to what it has become today. In this article, I'll share my personal insight into the struggles faced for women minorities in the tech world, and how to gain investment and overcome barriers for anyone who is not white and male that's trying to make it in tech. 1. Leverage contacts. Utilize whom you know: friends, family, former colleagues, college alumni, especially if you've remained in the same industry. I come from a tech background after working in the hardware, software and cloud industry prior to founding my company, and found engaging my multiple networks not only helpful for customers and partnerships, but also for providing further connections and valuable feedback. Ties built through connections made at conferences, business and alumni events can lead to great sources of new ideas and information. Valuable referrals and connections can also be provided this way. Nowadays, with an increase in coworking spaces, startup community organizations and accelerator ran startup events, it's becoming easier for founders to meet more people in the industry in their day-to-day life. Related: 'We Built This Company List By List,' Says the Co-Founder of This At-Home Fertility Testing Startup 2. Be creative with alternative ways to access funding. Apply for government grants. My company received funding from Business Development Canada -- options in the U.S. include the Small Business Investment Company Program (SBIC), Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and State and Local Business Assistance. We also received a grant to work with students from a local college on developing data analytic solutions and artificial intelligence for innovative mobile and software applications, from the Ontario Centres of Excellence and the Natural Sciences and the Engineering Council of Canada. Financial institutions have more faith than investors. Banks will provide financial backing on loans to startups that approach them with a solid business plan. Don't forget to consider the numerous funds that have been designed to democratize the funding landscape, such as HACK Fund, or equity crowdfunding platforms like Bloomio. There are a number of VC funds that focus on women run companies in tech. Funds such as Backstage Capital invest specifically in women and POC, and Halogen Ventures invests in female founded consumer technology. Related: My Female-Led Company Raised $6.25 Million in 2.5 Years. Here's How We Did It. 3. Make sure you have a solid business plan that can face the scrutiny of any potential funding body. Unfortunately, gaining $5 million in investment off the bat for a concept alone is unforeseeable for a non-white female in tech. However, by building a solid brand and broad client base, female minority led startups can prove themselves to alternative sources of funding that aren't VC. Include hard data like revenue, facts, numbers and metrics in your pitch -- this way your legitimacy as a successful investment opportunity is less likely to be disputed. You always have to be prepared for raising funding, but as a woman or person from a minority group you have to be 100 times as prepared. Cover all bases, have more information than they want, and show any doubters that you are the real deal. Related: How to Get Funded as a Female Minority-Led Tech Startup 3 Female-Friendly Fundraising Options You Should Know 98 Percent of VC Funding Goes to Men. Can Women Entrepreneurs Change a Sexist System? Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved This appears in Thursday's Washington Post: The fact that Maryland Sen. Benjamin Cardin has held public office since 1967, when Lyndon B. Johnson was president, is being used against him, predictably, in his campaign for a third term in the U.S. Senate. Unfortunately for his rivals, none of them particularly qualified for high elective office, longevity has dimmed neither his energy nor his abilities. Maryland's senior senator remains, as he has been for decades, a conscientious, substantive and ethical public servant. He deserves re-election. Cardin, who served 40 years as a state lawmaker and then in the House of Representatives before being elected to the Senate in 2006, is a resolute Democrat; he has been equally resolute in seizing opportunities at bipartisanship. In the Senate, he has joined forces with Republicans to advance legislation to assist retirement savers; impose sanctions on Russia for human rights abuses; and, most recently, promote a healthy Chesapeake Bay. Detail-oriented, no-nonsense and far less prone to grandstanding than most of his Senate colleagues, Cardin works well across the aisle because he is what he appears to be: Deeply committed to the hard work of legislation and oversight based on the values he cherishes. Those values are animated by, among other things, Cardin's abiding commitment to human rights at home and abroad. He has served as a co-chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, which promotes democracy in former Soviet bloc countries, and remains a commissioner of that organization. With Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Cardin led a drive to punish Russian officials involved in the death of a Russian lawyer who had exposed high-ranking government corruption. He is now pushing to use that same legislation to hold Saudi Arabia's royal family to account for the death of journalist and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi. Few sitting senators have been as effective in advancing the cause of aligning American values and policies in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. At the same time, he has tended to shy away from knee-jerk partisanship and sloganeering, declining, for instance, to call for disbanding Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency whose deportation zeal and excesses, as Cardin understood, are exercised at the Trump administration's behest. That has left his opponents scrambling for traction and unable to make a compelling case for their candidacies in the current race. They include a Republican, Tony Campbell, a lecturer at Towson University who has sought to blame Cardin for problems in Baltimore's school system - notwithstanding the fact that public schools are mainly a local and state responsibility, not a federal one. An independent candidate, Neal Simon, a financial services executive, seeks to capitalize on Cardin's long service by saying he is "part of the problem" in Washington. In fact, it strains credulity to think Campbell or Simon would be remotely effective in the Senate, given their inexperience. By contrast, Cardin - deeply knowledgeable, thoughtful and effective - is a credit to Maryland. "I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris," President Donald Trump said last year, when he explained why he was withdrawing from a global climate change accord. Eleven Pittsburgh citizens were murdered four days ago because they were Jewish, and the president traveled to their city on Tuesday, his wife and children in tow, to pay his respects. He visited despite the fact that leaders of both political parties declined to join him on the trip, and despite requests from many local Jewish residents and community leaders that he stay away. "The gunman who tore apart our neighborhood believed your lies about the immigrant caravan in Mexico," said a statement from one Jewish group. "He believed anti-Semitic lies that Jews were funding the caravan." A cluster of Pittsburgh residents gathered Tuesday near the synagogue where the murders occurred, awaiting Trump's arrival. "Words have meaning," they shouted. Of course they do. And in the slow, torturous weeks leading up to the midterm elections the president has unleashed a torrent of words. He has packaged them to appeal to his political base, he's crafted them to smack of the racism, vitriol and division he's trafficked in for decades, and he's deployed them in increasingly desperate measures reflecting his frustration and recognition that events - and perhaps the electorate - are conspiring against him. "Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this 'Bomb' stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows - news not talking politics," he tweeted recently. "Very unfortunate, what is going on." Let's parse that tweet. The president - referring to a series of pipe bombs sent last week to a media organization he purports to loathe, CNN, and a handful of Democratic political opponents and critics he has routinely slagged - calls it "this 'Bomb' stuff." He regrets the bomb stuff, but not because lives were at risk. He regrets it because he felt he had favorable political momentum and life - via the actions of an unhinged bomber enamored of Trump's noxious sloganeering - got in the way and changed the discussion. "Very unfortunate." The bomb threats gave the media a subject to cover that evoked the more virulent contours of the American landscape. They also reminded voters of the political violence Trump has often stoked while also distracting them from two bits of demagoguery he already had been unspooling. The first of those efforts involved describing a caravan of Central American migrants thousands of miles from the U.S. border as the latest threat to national security ("an invasion of our Country"). Trump, without any evidence, described the migrants in mid-October as populated by "criminals and unknown Middle Easterners." This wasn't his first attempt to sensationalize that threat, either. He warned of a different caravan threat back in April. Although that group eventually dissipated, chatter about it among Trump supporters and friendly media pundits set in motion a new myth that the president never bothered to dispel: The caravan was funded by a wealthy Jewish financier, George Soros. As attention turned away from Trump's manufactured caravan threat, he recently heightened the drama by ordering more than 5,000 soldiers to the southern border to intercept the "invasion." Operation Faithful Patriot, as the mission is reportedly to be named, promises to be tricky: It's clearly a political ploy (raising the question of why taxpayers rather than, say, the Republican Party, should shoulder the cost of deploying the troops) and the military is largely forbidden from getting involved in domestic law enforcement anyhow. Trump's second effort to stir up the white voting bloc that shares his fear of outsiders and people of color came early last week when he let it be known that he was a "nationalist." Trump, who once kept a volume of Hitler's speeches by his bedside and has invoked Nazi and Stalinist phrases to smear his critics, surely understands the Aryan echoes that come with labeling himself a "nationalist." But whatever mojo he hoped to gain with voters from mucking about in Nazism ran up against the unexpected specter of bomb threats and, most searingly, a neo-Nazi's murder spree in Pittsburgh. Trump hasn't been one to let tragedy force him to put self-aggrandizement or politics aside. In the wake of the international outcry that greeted the recent murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Trump was more eager to defend Saudi Arabia against critics wondering about the kingdom's role in the journalist's death than he was about getting to the bottom of the affair. Whatever sense of goodwill or national unity Trump may have been trying to create on Tuesday by visiting Pittsburgh was tempered by statements that Axios published the same day in which the president said he planned to end birthright citizenship in the U.S. via an executive order. (Because the 14th Amendment deems anyone born in the U.S. a citizen, and Congress is in charge of granting citizenship, the president has no hope of meeting his goal through an executive order; on the other hand, he successfully used the media to telegraph to his supporters that he was still trying to make America a home for his kind of Americans.) Amid all of this, it appears that Trump advisers don't believe Republicans will keep control of the House of Representatives and are instead targeting their efforts on shoring up vulnerable Senate seats ahead of next week's midterms. That's a scenario the president himself certainly recognizes even if he's unlikely to fully embrace it until election results are in. In the meantime, expect the Nationalist-in-Chief to continue to traffic in the campaign tactics he knows best: Fear, bigotry and exclusion. - - - O'Brien is the executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion. He has been an editor and writer for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, HuffPost and Talk magazine. His books include "TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald." Kevin Lembo and Kurt Miller agree the state comptroller must be Connecticuts chief fiscal guardian. What they dont agree about is whether Lembo has done a good job in that role over the past eight years. Lembo, a Guilford Democrat, touts a record of reforms that have forced state government to save more than $1 billion in the past year alone, made budget, payroll and pension data easily accessible online, saved millions of dollars in prescription benefit costs, and provided checks and balances on Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and legislators from both parties. Miller, the Republican nominee and Seymours first selectman, counters that Lembo has failed where it counts the most: using his bully pulpit to speak out against irresponsible policies that only exacerbate the legacy of debt this generation will leave Connecticuts children. Disagreeing with Malloy The comptroller has to be an independent voice inside state government, Lembo told the CT Mirror. You have to have a track record of standing up and speaking the truth, even at a potential loss to yourself. As evidence, Lembo points to Malloy, a fellow Democrat with whom he has bumped heads on several occasions during their respective tenures, both of which date back to January 2011. When Malloy vetoed a bill to implement a Lembo plan for an online system to track the effectiveness of economic development grants to businesses, the comptroller wouldnt let the issue go. That eventually led to a Malloy executive order creating an economic development transparency program still under development. They sparred in January 2016 over the best way to smooth out spiking state employee pension costs in future years. And while Malloy was the first official to recommend shifting billions of dollars in state pension contributions until after 2032, Lembo first revealed how much that deferral would increase costs over the long haul. And though Lembo never referenced the governor in his report, the comptrollers Powerpoint presentation wrapped with a quote from famous statistician W. Edwards Deming that read: Without data, youre just another person with an opinion. Miller conceded Lembo has challenged the governor and legislature but not often enough, he charged, and not at the right times. And the pension deal was a mistake, he added. That deal, ratified by the legislature and state employee unions in early 2017, will try to keep annual pension contributions which stand at $1.2 billion from exceeding $2.3 billion between now and 2032. One report warned the cost otherwise could skyrocket beyond $6.2 billion by 2032. To get that relief, though, it will shift an estimated $14 billion to $21 billion in costs onto taxpayers between 2033 and 2047. If people understood the impact of that, I dont think they would be eager to send the same people back into state office, Miller said. Lembo and Malloy would clash again when the comptroller voted at the May 2016 State Bond Commission meeting against the governors proposal to award $22 million to help the nations largest hedge fund expand its operations in Fairfield County. Bridgewater Associates of Westport managed more than $151 billion in assets at that time. If you have the guts to speak out, you can get a lot done, Lembo says in a campaign television ad. So when the governor tried to give the worlds largest hedge fund millions of taxpayer dollars while working families struggle, I spoke out to stop him. Miller: CT needs a strategic fiscal plan But Miller asked why Lembo didnt voteno more often at commission meetings over the past eight years as Connecticut has borrowed millions of dollars for community-based projects that it cant afford. Hell cherry pick things. Hell push back when he thinks its fiscally prudent, Miller said. Where was no vote on (funding for) splash pads and grocery stores. But Lembo said that while he has a track record of challenging both parties, Miller has none. When asked by CT Mirror when he publicly challenged a fellow Republican on Seymours Board of Selectman or Board of Finance on a local budgetary matter, Miller said there was nothing of major significance. We dont have a lot of fiscal fights in Seymour. But the four-term first selectman pledged to set a bipartisan tone of fiscal accountability on Day One. Were kind of a rudderless ship in Connecticut, he said, adding his office would immediately develop a long-term fiscal strategy for the state, rather than simply react to legislators and the governors fiscal proposals. We cant just bounce from idea to idea. We need to put together a sound plan that moves this state forward. The comptroller needs to help with that vision. Miller said he is worried about Connecticuts fiscal future regardless of the outcome on Election Day. Even if Republicans take control of the governors office and the legislature, there will be a temptation to add programs. Youre going to have a group that hasnt been in control for a long time, he said. Youre going to need a lot of fiscal discipline. House Minority Leader Themis Klarides is like a big sister to me, but weve had that conversation. Im probably going to be her biggest critic. But Miller quickly added that neither Klarides nor any other Republicans should take that personally. He plans to be the Democrats biggest critic as well. Miller added he also is prepared, if necessary, to vote against major school construction financing packages on the bond commission hundreds of millions of dollars borrowed at once to finance dozens of local projects. Whether he votes no would hinge on whether the legislature prioritizes projects that ensure student safety, and rejects those that duplicate services and discourage regionalization. We keep chasing deficit after deficit after deficit because were making decisions in the short-term, Miller said, adding that without a radical change in thinking, Connecticuts top priorities health care, education, vibrant communities are in jeopardy. Miller added he would develop a legislative scorecard and rank all lawmakers on nonpartisan principles of fiscal responsibility. But Lembo said hes already reached across the political aisle and had success. He challenged lawmakers throughout much of his tenure to recognize the roller-coaster nature of the states tax system, and to do a better job saving. A new volatility cap enacted in 2017 requires the state to save more when income tax receipts tied to investment earnings surges beyond a threshold level. That didnt happen by magic. It took a lot of collaborative work, Lembo said. The muzzle is lifted The Democratic comptroller takes pride that at Republican lawmakers insistence the bipartisan compromise budget of 2017 removed a 26-year-old gag order, empowering Lembos office. The 1991 legislature in an accommodation to then-Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. stripped the comptrollers ability to modify the governors monthly budget forecast. This forecast is shared with bond investors, Wall Street credit-rating agencies and others that review the official financial statements of state government. This change had huge ramifications because it removed the comptrollers ability to force the governor to craft a deficit-mitigation plan if the comptroller believes a significant budget problem exists and the governor does not. Since last November, the comptroller again has the last word on Connecticuts fiscal condition. Miller countered he also would have no hesitation forcing the next governor to craft a deficit-mitigation plan if the comptrollers office were convinced a significant budget shortfall existed. Lembo also points to his experience running an office with about 280 employees. In addition to serving as a fiscal watchdog, the comptroller pays the states bills, administers state employee pension benefits, and purchases more than $1 billion annually in health care for public-sector workers, retirees and their dependents. To help residents follow this more closely, Lembo launched OpenConnecticut! a website that provides visitors with data - updated daily - on state spending and revenues. It has been expanded considerably during his tenure to include data on bills paid, pension and payroll data, and a do-it-yourself revenue calculator that lets visitors experiment with different options to fund state operations. Ultimately, both candidates said they anticipate the next four years will be among the most challenging for the comptrollers office. Meet Tucker. Tucker is an English Cream Golden Retriever and the latest addition to our household. Tuck is the culmination of a year-long campaign perpetrated by my 13 year-old-son, Robert, who was on a mission to get a big dog. In the past when he asked, our response was always, No, we already have a dog. We have a miniature dachshund named Daphne who if could speak would say let me in I have to pee. Robert was relentless in his pursuit, and we finally gave in last Christmas when he said Mom, Dad, if I am allowed to have my big dog, could I at least have him by the time Im 13? That way, Ill have 5 years with him before I leave for college (cue the violins). He also showed me a Mark Twain quote that said, Every boy needs two things: a dog and a mother who will let him have one. I was proud of his persistence and thrilled that I was able to get meI mean Robert, his big dog. After a search for the perfect dog, we settled on an English Cream Golden Retriever and found a breeder in our town in North Carolina. English Cream Goldens are basically Golden Retrievers with lighter colored hair, a blockier head, and double the price tag. After Tucker was born, we had a couple of months to prepare for his arrival. I read up on proper training techniques and had Robert prepare a one week, one month, and three-month plan for caring for and training Tucker. I grew up around the rub his nose in it, rolled up newspaper mentality, but everything I read emphasized positive reinforcement and reward vs. punishment. When Tucker arrived, it was like having a new baby in the house. I spent most nights on the couch making sure he went out to pee every two hours, and when he went in the house, I didnt scold him, but rather took him outside to try again. When he peed outside, I gave him a treat and did a happy dance that mortified my children and made my wife question her vows. I discovered quickly that liver treats and a happy dance are a powerful motivator to influence Tuckers behavior, so I now carry a pocketful of treats and am ready to reward if the situation calls for it. If praise vs. punishment can influence positive action in Tucker, then how about in people? I speak to credit unions across the country, and although most people I meet are thrilled with where they work, the biggest struggle that managers seem to have is talent management. How do you build and maintain an engaged workforce? Im a firm believer that if you want to drive business through your doors, there has to be a smile waiting on the other side, and the best way to ensure that is by building a culture of reward and praise. Genuine praise has tremendous value for employees: a national survey of over 2,000 people shows that more than two-thirds of the workers said that praise and recognition from their boss was more motivating than money. This Gallup Poll indicated that 80 percent of workers reported that praise and recognition motivated them to do a better job. 5 SIMPLE WAYS TO REWARD AND PRAISE YOUR TEAM: THANK YOU NOTE. Growing up in Alabama, my mother always made me write a thank you note, because it makes people feel good about what theyve done for you. Thanking employees with a hand-written note reinforces their value to the credit union as well as giving them a physical reminder that they can revisit. A hand-written note stands out in our digital world. Growing up in Alabama, my mother always made me write a thank you note, because it makes people feel good about what theyve done for you. Thanking employees with a hand-written note reinforces their value to the credit union as well as giving them a physical reminder that they can revisit. A hand-written note stands out in our digital world. PUBLIC PRAISE. Public recognition not only makes us feel important, but inspires others to elevate their performance. Public recognition not only makes us feel important, but inspires others to elevate their performance. BE SPECIFIC IN YOUR PRAISE. Good job is not as effective as I like the way you communicated with that irate member. You not only solved his problem, but also changed his attitude. You have a real talent for resolving conflict. Good job is not as effective as I like the way you communicated with that irate member. You not only solved his problem, but also changed his attitude. You have a real talent for resolving conflict. SINCERETY. The only thing worse than no praise is insincere praise. The only thing worse than no praise is insincere praise. UNEXPECTED REWARD. When I waited tables, servers who were complimented by a guest received a friendly five from management (actually, after taxes it was a friendly $4.27). Although not a lot of money, it was powerful affirmation for a job well done and it created excitement and enthusiasm among the staff. Managers who look for unique and clever ways to praise and reward employees with build and maintain a culture of enthusiasm and appreciation. Just dont give them a liver treat. Credit unions have a clear map to success in the marketplace and it involves one simple idea: work together. Its not new. Its even in the Rochdale Principles the bedrock of the cooperative movement where principle 6 said this: Cooperation among cooperatives. By working together through local, national, regional, and international structures, cooperatives improve services, bolster local economies, and deal more effectively with social and community needs. The belief is spreading among credit union people. Jay Murray, CEO of Vizo, the corporate credit union headquartered in North Carolina with some 1200 member credit unions, leagues, and CUSOs. Murray said, More than ever, in order to compete credit unions need to cooperate. No credit union will make it alone. Murray pointed to the ever more treacherous competitive landscape populated with megabanks intent on growing ever bigger, fintechs determined to grab highly profitable pieces of business, and of course many thousands of community banks and said, Mass collaboration is critical, to gain the scale needed to compete in this environment. Jack M. Antonini, CEO of NACUSO, sharply added that cooperation is a unique credit union skill. Banks do not have the ability to collaborate as do credit unions. As a case in point, Antonini pointed to the fee-free ATM networks found in the credit union world Culiance is a for instance which show how credit unions can and do cooperate to produce a result that benefits all participating credit unions and also their members. No bank can match the number of ATMs in the surcharge-free Culiance network. Not even close. And that success is a product of the cooperative spirit. Cooperation takes different forms. Sometimes it is formal such as the Culiance ATM network sometimes very informal. Jennifer Oliver, CEO of a $100 million credit union in Southern California, South Bay Credit Union, told how she and three other credit unions in the region all had the same problem: they had trouble hiring and retaining competent collection staff. So they did a radical thing: the four joined together to hire one collections specialist. And its producing terrific results for all four, said Oliver. Just that way of sharing is catching on in credit unions, with a number of institutions sharing the same CEO and some share a Chief Technology Officer. As the discipline grows in complexity credit unions are joining to share a skilled Bank Secrecy Act/Anti Money Laundering professional. At NACUSO, Antonini sees more sharing in the movement. He elaborated: CUSOs bring economies of scale. CUSOs continue to grow. CUSOs are critical to the success of the industry. And, again, CUSOs are an advantage that are on the side of credit unions. Murray said that, in his view, the backend functions certainly a BSA specialist, a CTO, and a collections expert are not integral to a credit unions identity. He said credit unions could join together to share many functions typically enjoying lower costs and possibly attracting more experienced staff and have no negative impact on the communitys perception of the credit union. Murray added, Your member doesnt ask how we process checks. It just happens. He went on: We are at an inflection point. We are re-energizing the movement with principles This is a movement, not an industry. Cooperation even goes beyond working with other credit unions. Other types of organizations say they are finding success through cooperation, sometimes involving credit unions. Cabot Cheese, the large Vermont based dairy co-operative, said that its success has been greatly helped by support from credit unions and rural electric co-ops, both of which it, in turn, has sought to assist. Roberta Macdonald, a senior vice president at Cabot, said this: Not every cooperative will welcome your suggestion that you work together I can tell you that from bruised experiences but many will. Its a win-win. A member of a food co-op probably wants to use a credit union, they want to buy co-op produced food, and so on. The more they learn about this ecosystem the more they will use it because it is a style of doing business they support. Spread the word. Cooperatives credit unions included are a different, better way of doing business that put people first. As Murray said, You cant separate yourself from the cooperative principles. But he also said that a credit union that wants to be better different will find the way there is through those principles. Which just may be the credit union shortcut to success. Oral arguments concluded Tuesday in the case against the Department of Labor Federal Credit Union (DOLFCU) regarding unclear website accessibility standards under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). NAFCU attended the arguments, held by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit; NAFCU has also filed an amicus brief in support of the credit union in this case, and also stood by DOLFCU during its first hearing earlier this year. NAFCU and our member credit unions are awaiting a decision at the appellate level, which could set a heavier precedent than those weve already seen from lower court cases, said Carrie Hunt, NAFCUs executive vice president of government affairs and general counsel. Credit unions strongly support ADA protections, but they have been targeted by meritless lawsuits because of unclear guidance on website applicability standards. Hunt and Vice President of Regulatory Compliance Brandy Bruyere attended Tuesdays arguments, in which the panel of judges was engaged and well versed on the issue. NAFCU expects a decision to be issued in the upcoming month; the association will keep credit unions updated. Kazakhstans vulnerable iconic snow leopards have been put under the spotlight in key research by University of Cumbria academics. The countrys national symbol, Panthera uncia has been investigated in an assessment of the big cats, alongside their prey populations using environmental data and computer modelling techniques. Based on a corridor area between Kazakhstans southern and eastern borders, the study concentrated on Almaty, where the normally elusive snow leopards venture nearer to inhabited areas. Department of Science, Natural Resources and Outdoor Studies research and teaching associate, Dr Claire Holt, said the species had declined because of habitat loss and human persecution. Under increasing pressure from farmers for plundering their livestock, it was vital to evaluate the availability and distribution of their natural prey animals, explained Dr Holt. She added: We looked at both predator and four main prey species to highlight sensitive areas of overlap for future protection. The environmental space for both is similar. Pictured: Dr Claire Holt These areas and species need protection. Predators will follow prey to different altitudes so it isnt just snow leopards that need help. To conserve a predator, we also need to evaluate whether they have enough prey. University of Cumbrias Professor Ian Convery and Professor Owen Nevin, from University of Central Queensland, have been studying snow leopards in Almaty Nature Reserve for some time, linking with Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. However, because there was limited data on populations, this was an ideal opportunity to provide research that will be useful for conservation efforts on the ground, said Dr Holt. A separate Natural Environmental Research Council funded project will be looking at microsatellites in snow leopards DNA. This will help with population estimates and assess what they have been feeding on. Kyle Rittenhouse found not guilty on all charges The Illinois teen took the stand in his own defense during a tense and emotional trial, telling the jury last week: I didnt do anything wrong." I honestly believe (as would any rational person) that the editor of Waitrose Food Magazine was joking when he wrote he'd like to run a feature about 'killing vegans one by one'. William Sitwell was responding to a dreary email from a freelance journalist who had suggested a series about 'plant-based meals'. Mr Sitwell's brisk response was 'how about a column called The Honest Vegan, a millennial's diary of earnest endeavour and bacon sandwiches' Selene Nelson was mightily offended and so were the bosses at Waitrose, who said his words were 'extremely inappropriate and insensitive'. As a result, Mr Sitwell has had to resign and fellow food writers and chefs have expressed outrage that a joke (albeit in poor taste) has left him without a job. He issued a grovelling statement claiming to 'love and respect people of all appetites, be they vegan, vegetarian or meat eaters'. William Sitwell (pictured) was responding to a dreary email from a freelance journalist who had suggested a series about 'plant-based meals' Pass the sick bag! William Sitwell was guilty of attempting to be IRONIC - a quality that's lost on modern snowflakes who queue every day for the joy of eating a nut burger or tofu wrap on a recycled uncomfortable bench. The devotees who shun almonds and fret about avocados are joyless people for whom every meal is a political statement. Sadly for Mr Sitwell, these are difficult times for anyone who has a black sense of humour. I don't even know if that expression passes the politically correct test any more - perhaps I should say 'darker' humour. If irony is your bag, nowadays you could be guilty of hate speech - make fun of gender fluidity, vegans (and cyclists) at your peril. Most have had a humour bypass. William Sitwell had already stated his growing irritation with the onslaught of propaganda emanating from non-meat eaters - in January he wrote in a newspaper 'vegans are parking their tanks on all of our lawns. And their instruction manuals are coming like propaganda pamphlets dropping from the sky'. In other words, it's war out there in foodie world, and meat eaters had better be scared. I am sure that Mr Sitwell did not want to end of life of a vegan, but in politically-correct 2018, one person's savage retort is another's insult, the source of deep hurt and potential legal action. Once, we regarded people who swore and trashed others publicly as excitingly outspoken - in the 1970's comedians like Richard Pryor sprinkled his act with the n-word, Dennis Lehry- launched his career 25 years ago with No Cure For Cancer - ('it's great having throat cancer because a tracheotomy means you can puff two cigarettes at once') and Larry Amaros joked he knew gay burglars had been round because they re-arranged the cushions. Much of that stuff wouldn't be acceptable today. Especially on university campuses, with their 'safe spaces'. Gays would feel stereotyped. The gender fluid people would feel left out. Cancer victims would be offended and the opioid crisis in the USA means drugs are no longer comedy material. Our use of language and our ability to trade insults is becoming pitifully safe as we strive not to upset each other. It takes a big old beast from another generation to cause maximum offence these days - and his name is Donald Trump. I am sure that Mr Sitwell did not want to end of life of a vegan, but in politically-correct 2018, one person's savage retort is another's insult, the source of deep hurt and potential legal action, writes Janet Street-Porter Commentators in the liberal press and even the Financial Times accuse the President of using over-the- top language in his tweets to stir up his followers and goad them into aggressive acts. But is there really a link between calling the President of North Korea 'rocket man' and the threat of nuclear war? A couple of months later they announced they were in love with each other. It's all posturing and puppetry. When Trump rants in block capitals about migrants being DEALT WITH, he's inadvertently revealing his inability to do anything to stop the thousands of people arriving on the Mexican border from Guatemala, people who are legally entitled to claim asylum in the USA. The more abusive and shouty Trump is, the less powerful he seems. The President is old school, a man who would talk about women as if they were plastic shop display models rather than living breathing humans. Perhaps because attractive women threaten him, maybe because (if we believe Stormy Daniels) a sexual encounter-rather than a brief social interaction in public view - might reveal him to be a less than inpressive specimen. Who feels powerful in their pants? No wonder he's calling her 'horseface'. Only the other week Trump belittled a female reporter from ABC News, saying 'she never thinks' before asking a question. He called Senator Elizabeth Warren 'Pocahontas' because she claimed Native American Indian ancestry - a claim which turned out to be (just about) true. He routinely calls women of a certain age ugly. But most savvy females don't find Trump upsetting - he's typical of white men of his generation in positions of power. Clothing multimillionaire Sir Phillip Green is another posturing ranter of a certain age - accused by several members of staff of racist and sexist remarks and bullying tactics, Green has spent over 500,000 trying to keep details of his behaviour out of the press and god knows how much on legally binding gagging settlements for his victims He is alleged to have told one woman he'd like to chuck her out of the window, but she was so fat 'she'd probably bounce back'. He says he's being 'used as a target' and was just indulging in 'banter.' In my opinion, Sir Phillip is more dislikeable for his appalling treatment of the pensioners who worked at BHS and who faced poverty in their retirement because of his mismanagement. I can't get that worked up about insults in the workplace - because men of that generation (and women too) frequently lost their temper when things weren't going according to plan. I certainly did. Millennials need to grow thicker skins and chill because nowadays most bullies are frightened men of a certain age. Dinosaurs. About 700 years ago, when I was an eager young newbie working on a tabloid newspaper, I occasionally had to visit the compositors' floor in the basement of our Fleet Street building. This was a wild and smoke-filled place, dominated by bearded blokes whose skills with 'hot metal' are long since forgotten. They were known as the 'beer monsters' both on account of their thirst and their terrifying reputation for 'monstering' hapless emissaries from upper floors. It was something of a rite of passage to be sent down there, into the inky bowels of the building. The language was blue and crude and no one was spared. But, nerve-racking as that was, I can honestly say I never felt threatened by those men. Yes, they were rough and rude and smelled like badgers but sexually intimidating? Not a chance. They would have been utterly bemused by the notion. I was reminded my earlier days in journalism when Philip Green (pictured in Los Angeles) who is accused of committing various acts of brutish behaviour by anonymous former employees attempted to disentangle himself from the web of public outrage by claiming that many of the things he'd said were only 'banter', writes SARAH VINE I was reminded of those days when Philip Green who is accused of committing various acts of brutish behaviour by anonymous former employees attempted to disentangle himself from the web of public outrage by claiming that many of the things he'd said were only 'banter'. 'I've been in business for more than 40 years,' he told the Mail on Sunday. 'There has obviously from time to time been some banter, but as far as I'm concerned that's never been offensive.' Naturally, his protests fell on deaf ears. If anything, he provoked further outrage from feminists who claimed he was belittling the experiences of his 'victims': a crime known as 'second abuse' (even before the first has been proven). But, whatever the precise details behind those non-disclosure agreements, I do feel some small shred of sympathy, even for an ogre like Green. Banter of any kind is now seen as 'abuse'. Banter of the kind I learnt to deal with in my 20s; banter of the kind that so many women of my generation grew up with. A bit risque, a bit naughty, a little daring or close to the bone. Funny, even, provided you have the same sense of humour. The problem here is that, clearly, some of Sir Philip's employees did not. Hence the complaints. Yet, unless or until he is exposed as something more villainous, I am tempted to conclude that Green's chief error was in employing one too many snowflakes. I should say, at this point, that I am by no means an admirer. I thought the way he behaved over the closure of BHS was utterly vile and rapacious. The fact that he shamelessly flaunts his wealth in the most crass and ostentatious of ways does not help, either. He is vulgar, brash, rude and intensely obnoxious. But is he a career sex pest? I'd wager he's more likely just a socially awkward man of a certain age and a certain generation who struggles to communicate with women, especially young ones. Sir Philip Green is pictured with his wife Lady Christina Green in London in November last year He's also clearly a bully with an abrasive style of doing business and is as petulant as he's childish. All very unpleasant traits. But not the same as being a new Weinstein. He is, like those 'beer monsters' of my youth, a relic of a bygone age. Someone whose past behaviour now leaves him exposed in a fast-evolving post #MeToo climate. A piece of rotting, low-hanging fruit ripe for revenge-seeking feminists too wrapped up in their own mission to tackle the real villains. Of which, as we saw again this week with the revelation of yet more grooming gangs targeting underage girls, there are plenty. When we're living in our sanitised utopia mentally cleansed of all impure thoughts, sipping our vegan chai lattes and looking forward to another thrilling weekend of meditation we may even find ourselves missing the days when we could have a bit of banter. Or, at least, I will. Kick off your heels, Victoria I know Mrs Beckham has a fashion label to promote, but surely the one place even she might let down her fashion guard is beachside in Sydney. But no: here Victoria is in bright-red stilettos, snapping stony-faced selfies, while her youngest children, Harper and Cruz, frolic in the waves. If only she'd kick off those heels occasionally and feel the sand real and metaphorical between her toes, who knows . . . she might even enjoy herself. Here Victoria Beckham is in bright-red stilettos, snapping stony-faced selfies, while her youngest children, Harper and Cruz, frolic in the waves, writes SARAH VINE One of our resident teenagers had her phone confiscated for a week by the school. Honestly, it was as though they'd removed a limb: howls of anguish, tears, trying to hack into my iPad. But then, the shock abated and she began to regain the use of her faculties. We have had more meaningful conversations in the past 72 hours than in the past three years. Turns out she's actually quite interesting when she's not glued to Snapchat. Memo to her long-suffering teachers: I wonder, might you consider making it a permanent arrangement? Remember to wait The MP and former soldier Johnny Mercer is right about white poppies: they are the ultimate in misguided virtue signalling. But perhaps just as annoying are the people mostly celebrities who wear the red poppy weeks ahead of Remembrance Sunday. At least have the decency to wait until summer time is over. The MP and former soldier Johnny Mercer (pictured at the Cheltenham Literature Festival earlier this month) is right about white poppies: they are the ultimate in misguided virtue signalling, writes SARAH VINE Dog's dinner Zamira Zamira Hajiyeva, the wife of a convicted fraudster, was spotted wearing 8,500-worth of designer clobber to walk her dog. What's so astonishing is not the cost of her outfit after all, this is a woman who managed to spend 16.3 million in Harrods over the course of a decade. No, it's that having splashed all that cash, she still looks like she got dressed in the dark. Proof not only that money can't buy style, but also that the so-called 'sports luxe' look is just a complete con. Zamira Hajiyeva (pictured) the wife of a convicted fraudster, was spotted wearing 8,500-worth of designer clobber to walk her dog, writes SARAH VINE I enjoyed watching hysterical Momentum supporters round on their former hero John McDonnell for failing to say he would reverse the Chancellor's new tax cuts. It was almost as entertaining as Jeremy Corbyn's team trying to claim that the 32 million people who stand to benefit from those tax breaks somehow fall into the category of 'rich'. Are we to infer from this that by 'rich', the Labour Party means 'employed'? I enjoyed watching hysterical Momentum supporters round on their former hero John McDonnell (pictured in the House of Commons for failing to say he would reverse the Chancellor's new tax cuts, writes SARAH VINE Och he's a wee insult Now that Hindu shopkeeper Apu has been expunged from TV's The Simpsons after complaints of cultural stereotyping, surely the days of Willie, the intemperate, oft-inebriated, shack-dwelling Scots groundsman, are numbered. Or perhaps it doesn't count when the stereotype is white. Now that Hindu shopkeeper Apu has been expunged from TV's The Simpsons after complaints of cultural stereotyping, surely the days of Willie (pictured) are numbered, writes SARAH VINE Scientists have urged parents to wait at least a year between pregnancies. Apparently, a gap of less than 12 months increases the risk of premature birth, stillbirth and maternal death. I can't speak for the medical rationale but, as someone whose second child was conceived when the first one was just eight months old, I can say that having two under the age of two did indeed almost kill me. The Duchess of Cambridge is famous for many things - but taking fashion risks isn't one of them. In her seven years as a Duchess, Kate's faithful nude LK Bennett heels and prim pastel dresses have become as familiar a feature of royal outings as the Queen's Launer handbags - until now, that is. Since returning from maternity leave, a noticeably confident Kate has worn what's been widely dubbed the most fashion-forward dress of her career - a clinging off-the-shoulder Erdem midi from the SS19 collection - and been seen for the first time ever sporting the Royal Family Order of Elizabeth II, pinned carefully to a showstopping fishtail gown at a state dinner. And while the Alexander McQueen frock and matching heels she wore to Princess Eugenie's wedding on October 12 were classic Kate, the head-turning shade of hot pink was a far cry from the low-key palette of pastels she's previously stuck to. Royal-watchers claim it's merely the first sign of a sea change for William's wife, 36, who they say is declaring herself 'back with a bang' after her time off as she settles comfortably into the role of future Queen consort - while her new sister-in-law Meghan takes over as 'princess in training'. 'After that long break, she has certainly come back with a bang,' Kaitlin Menza, co-host of the Royally Obsessed podcast, told Vanity Fair. 'She seems like she's in a more take-charge position. I'm beginning to see the person who's going to be the queen emerging.' According to royal watchers, the Duchess of Cambridge's uncharacteristic fashion risks of late are signs of a sea change for the mother-of-three, who is said to be asserting herself in the role of future Queen consort, while her brother-in-law Prince Harry's wife Meghan takes over as 'princess in training'. She is seen in a dazzling off-the-shoulder Erdem number with deep berry heels at the V&A photography centre opening on October 10th Kate also wowed at a state dinner held in honour of the Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima last week, wearing custom Alexander McQueen, the Cambridge Lover's Knot tiara, and - for the first time in her seven years as a Duchess - the Royal Family Order of Queen Elizabeth II Susan E. Kelley, editor of the What Kate Wore website, agreed it marks a 'huge turning point'. 'I think this is where Kate gets to make her mark,' she told the magazine. Celebrity stylist Rochelle White told FEMAIL Kate's changing wardrobe is a sign she's more 'relaxed and confident' than ever following years in the spotlight - in particular the 'regal' Alexander McQueen fishtail gown she wore to a state banquet at Buckingham Palace last week in honour of the Dutch royals, Queen Maxima and King Willem-Alexander. 'I can't say that this was one of my favourite looks,' Rochelle said, 'however she carries it off well. 'She has been "princess in training" for a while now, and now that Meghan has taken over the role, she is really starting to embrace her changing position. She looks relaxed and confident rocking this style of dress, which is very princess-esque, and shows off her silhouette post-baby.' Rochelle said Kate is taking risks with colours and cuts - as with the relatively daring tweed Erdem dress and deep plum heels she wore to open a photography exhibit at the V&A on October 10th - that are a clear sign of her 'stepping up her fashion game'. Following her six month maternity leave after having her third child, Prince Louis, in April, the Duchess of Cambridge made a relaxed return to royal duties with a visit to Sayers Croft Forest School in Paddington, London, where she joked and laughed with little ones At Princess Eugenie's wedding on October 12th at Windsor Castle, Kate opted for a dress by her go-to fashion house Alexander McQueen, but in an unusually bold shade of deep pink The role of royal newcomer has been firmly passed to the Duchess of Sussex, who has spent the past 16 days touring the Commonwealth with Harry, as they prepare to welcome their first child next spring 'She's known for wearing nudes and natural tones,' the stylist said, 'so it's nice to see her experimenting with shades we aren't used to seeing her in.' But for Rochelle, the look that revealed most about Kate's new confidence was the one chosen for her first post-maternity leave appearance on October 2nd, a visit to Sayers Croft Forest School in Paddington. A glowing Kate swapped her once-signature voluminous blow-dry for more relaxed waves, teamed with a pair of 30 Zara jeans and a 175 khaki jacket from trendy Swedish outdoor brand Fjallraven. 'I feel that is true style and more about her and her personality,' Rochelle said. 'Kate is settled in her role and feels confident enough wearing the styles and looks that suit her. After years of properly trying to find her feet, and post three babies, she's in a place where she knows what works.' Conservative Kate of old: Just last year, the Duchess was still rarely separated from her trusty nude heels - seen here touching down at Berlin's Tegel Airport during the Cambridge family's official visit to Poland and Germany last summer Earlier on the trip she was seen in another formal coat dress, in a pale taupe shade, teamed once again with nude heels Royal correspondent Katie Nicholl also told Vanity Fair how mother-of-three Kate is now ready to focus on what she's truly passionate about - helping children - having worked hard at carving out her area of interest over her years as a Duchess. While her own children will be her priority, Katie said, the Duchess has already been 'very instrumental' in putting early intervention with young children in primary schools on the royals' agenda. ABC News royal commentator Omid Scobie predicted we will now see the Duchess 'really focusing... on working to help support disadvantaged children in the UK.' When we think of islands, images of endless white sand beaches, lilting guitar melodies and turquoise tropical ocean spring to mind. But not all isles are a slice of paradise, as global travel site Booking.com recently proved with their list of the world's spookiest paranormal peninsulas just in time for Halloween enthusiasts to book a spook-tacular getaway. Home to horrifying historical events and spine-tingling spectaculars, the site shared the top five haunted islands ideal for a truly thrilling experience beyond the usual trick-or-treating and bobbing for apples. From former prisons to abandoned asylums and even the site of deranged dolls, FEMAIL takes a look at the most dark and disturbing destinations on earth. The Kingston Hospital (pictured) on Norfolk Island off the coast of Australia is a World Heritage Site who's ruins are reputedly haunted by the spirits of its former patients 1. NORFOLK ISLAND - AUSTRALIA Sitting 1,400km off Australia's east coast in the Pacific Ocean, Norfolk Island has often been called one of the most beautiful places on earth. With a population of just over 1,300 and only 600 tourists allowed on the isle at any one time, the isolation, solitude and green rolling hills of this destination makes it truly unique. But the natural beauty hides a troubled past which includes deaths, shipwrecks and many decades of use as a remote home for prisoners and violent criminals. Norfolk Island is rumoured to be haunted by its dark history. According to Richard Davies, author of the Ghost Guide to Australia, at least 50 per cent of the present day population claim to have had an encounter with a ghost. The Kingston Hospital, built in 1835, is a World Heritage Site reputedly haunted by the spirits of its former patients. The Convict Store, now a tourist museum, is said to be haunted by the ghosts of soldiers and convicts who drowned on the island. Where to stay: Endeavour Lodge offers luxurious self-catering apartments overlooking the Pacific ocean. After a busy day exploring the island and searching for spectres, you can relax and enjoy the sunset over the rocky shoreline from your spacious verandah. Endeavour Lodge (pictured) offers luxurious self-catering apartments overlooking the Pacific ocean 2. POVEGLIA ISLAND - VENICE, ITALY While Venice is high on the bucket list of many romance-loving wanderers, a dilapidated island near the city of canals is certain to give you a frightful chill this hallowed season. Poveglia Island in northern Italy was used as a quarantine station for sufferers of the bubonic plague during the 20th century, more commonly known as the Black Death. In more recent times, the islet operated as a psychiatric asylum and is now rumoured to be haunted by the screaming souls of its previous inhabitants. According to Ranker, more than 50 per cent of the soil on Poveglia is made up of human ash. While the island is not technically open to the public, some tour operators run expeditions to the abandoned asylum. Where to stay: Given it's illegal (or at least heavily frowned upon) to step foot on Poveglia, Booking.com recommend basing yourself near Venice's famed Rialto Bridge at the Palazzo Morosini Degli Spezieri. The hotel offers fully equipped apartments with modern furnishings set against the backdrop of beautiful historic architecture. In more recent times, Poveglia Island operated as a psychiatric asylum (pictured) and is now rumoured to be haunted by the screaming souls of its previous inhabitants Booking.com recommend basing yourself near Venice's famed Rialto Bridge at the Palazzo Morosini Degli Spezieri (pictured) 3. ALCATRAZ ISLAND - SAN FRANCISCO, USA San Francisco is a thriving city renowned for its colourful Victorian houses, charming cable cars and the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. In the centre of the bay lies the infamous Alcatraz Island, notorious for the criminals once incarcerated there. Unlike Poveglia, travellers can take a guided tour of Alcatraz to learn about the prison's bone-chilling past, and for the truly brave, night tours are also available. Widely considered one of the most haunted locations in the USA, six prisoners were shot and killed while two drowned in escape attempts from the island. Where to stay: The eco-friendly four star Argonaut Hotel offers nautically-themed rooms and a traditional seafood restaurant just a two minute walk from the beach on the world famous Fisherman's Wharf. The venue boasts spectacular views across the bay, as well as a beautiful panorama of the bridge and Alcatraz itself. Widely considered one of the most haunted locations in the USA, six prisoners were shot and killed while two drowned in escape attempts from Alcatraz island (pictured) Eco-friendly four star Argonaut Hotel (pictured) offers nautically-themed rooms and a traditional seafood restaurant just a two minute walk from the beach 4. ISLAND OF DOLLS - MEXICO CITY, MEXICO One of the largest cities in the world, Mexico City provides something for everyone when it comes to tourism, from the Chapultepec Parks and the chic district of Polanco to the cultural centre of Coyoacan. This bustling metropolis has thousands of stories and secrets to be discovered, including the mysterious 'Isla de la Munecas' the Island of Dolls. Just south of Mexico City, the area has been featured in numerous television series about haunted locations and is home to an army of terrifying dolls with decapitated heads and blank eyes hanging from trees. According to the official website of the attraction, Isla de las Munecas was never intended to be a tourist destination, and is dedicated to the lost soul of a young girl who drowned in suspicious circumstances. Where to stay: If an island teeming with creepy toy heads is not your cup of tea, exploring the vibrant city itself might be a safer idea. Set a short walk from the world famous Frida Kahlo House Museum, Casa Jacinta Guest House features traditionally decorated bedrooms and a beautiful terrace to relax on after a busy day of sightseeing. Isla de las Munecas has been featured in numerous television series about haunted locations and is home to an army of terrifying dolls with decapitated heads and blank eyes hanging from trees (pictured) Casa Jacinta Guest House (pictured) features traditionally decorated bedrooms and a beautiful terrace to relax on after a busy day of sightseeing around Mexico City The Isle of Wight (pictured) is reportedly the most haunted island in the world Ryde Castle (pictured) is a majestic Victorian era manor a short walk from the catamaran ferry services which link the Isle of Wight to mainland Portsmouth and Southsea 5. ISLE OF WIGHT - ENGLAND, UK The Isle of Wight on England's south coast offers stunning scenery peppered with dramatic cliffs and unspoiled countryside. But this stunning destination is also full of supernatural activity, which attracts thousands of professional 'ghost hunters' every year. According to Red Funnel, the Isle of Wight is the most haunted island in the world. Travellers interested in meeting one of Wight's residents spooks should take a 'frightful' walk along one of the island's many haunted trails (preferably after dark). One of the more shudder-inducing apparitions is that of Michael Morey, hanged for killing his own grandson in 1737. Morey's restless spirit is said to roam Gallows Hill wielding a large axe. Where to stay: Ryde Castle is a majestic Victorian era manor overlooking the Ryde marina. The building is a short walk from the catamaran ferry services which link the Isle of Wight to mainland Portsmouth and Southsea (just in case you need to made a speedy exit). Pret a Manger has been left red-faced after a customer spotted a rather embarrassing spelling mistake on one of its windows. Adam Howden, an actor from London, took to Twitter to share a snap of a job advert printed on its Euston train station branch, complete with a glaring typo. Pret a Manger was quick to pick up on the tweet and assured Adam it would be rectified - but not before Twitter users made jokes at the brand's expense. Adam Howden, an actor from London, took to his Twitter page to share a snap of the job advert printed on the Pret a Manger Euston train station branch, complete with a glaring typo The actor flagged the error to the company in a tweet simply reading 'haha', pictured, accompanied by a photo. The issue was quickly picked up by the chain's social media team The job notice, printed in white on the glass-fronted store, reads: 'People at Pret work hard, have fnn, wear jeans, learn a lot and really grow [sic].' Adam posted a snapshot of the error writing 'Haha' and tagged the company's official Twitter account. One follower despaired at the simple error, writing 'oh dear'. But others saw the funny side and relished in poking fun. One user posted: 'What's the problem? I love having fnn!'. Followers thought the error was funny and replied saying people love having 'fnn' [sic] The team at Pret picked up on the tweet, replying: 'Oops! Where did you spot this, Adam?' When the customer responded to say Euston station the team at Pret were quick to assure him it would be rectified immediately. The social media worker also explained how the error occurred, writing: ' It looks like the "u" has been put on upside down. We'll get our Marketing Team onto this!' It is not known if the mistake has been fixed. Sofia Richie modeled in a sparkly blazer with nothing else as she starred alongside her brother, Miles, in a festive fashion campaign. The 20-year-old kept her face in her signature model pout as she lounged in front of a table filled with decadent MCM bags and other pieces while posing for the designer campaign. Grasped in her left hand was an MCM black handbag covered in bling to match Sofia's blush-colored blazer. Stunning: Sofia, 20, and Miles Richie, 24, starred together in MCM's holiday campaign Luxurious: The siblings were joined with other influencers and celebrities in a campaign shot at Alder Manor penthouse in New York City Hey, good looking: Miles relaxed against a dining room table while modeling a leather jacket, deep-V silver shirt and a shimmery scarf The MCM 2018 Festive Campaign entitled A Feast For Your Eyes was unveiled on Tuesday and shot in the lavish Alder Manor penthouse in New York City. Sofia paired her blazer with shimmery heels as her hair was curled and swept towards the left side of her face. She starred along her brother, Miles Richie, both of whom should be used to a lavish backdrop as the youngest children of musician Lionel Richie and god children to Michael Jackson. Fitting with the luxurious venue was Miles, 24, dressed in a black leather jacket, silver deep-V shirt and shimmery scarf as he also lounged against the long dinning room table. According to the campaign, the photos depict the Richie siblings entertaining an over-the-top holiday feast while clad in MCM apparel and bags. The pictures also included models and influencers Poster Boy, Milk and Galaxia Lorenzo as they 'attended' the Richie's festive event. Spirit: The MCM 2018 Festive Campaign entitled A Feast For Your Eyes was unveiled Tuesday Festive: The new collection will officially launch for the public on November 1 Designer: According to the campaign, the photos depict the Richie siblings entertaining an over-the-top holiday feast while clad in MCM apparel and bags. Hot stuff in Sydney: The release of the campaign comes as Sofia lounges in Sydney, Australia, with her beau of one year, Scott Disick Clothing and bags pictured in the campaign photos, which were shot by celebrity photographer Hannah Sider, will be available to the public on November 1 ahead of the holiday shopping. The launch of the campaign comes as Sofia flaunts pictures abroad in Sydney, Australia, while on a romantic vacation with her boyfriend of one year, Scott Disick. During the visit, the two have been staying on a luxury yacht, and Sofia showed off the five-star accommodations in her most recent Instagram post in front of the Sydney Opera House. 'I love the Opera,' Sofia wrote while lounging in a sultry cheetah-print bikini on what appears to be the front of the yacht. Julie Bishop doesn't mince her words when it comes to talking about the importance of women in the workplace. The 62-year-old, who resigned as Foreign Minister and deputy leader of the Liberal Party after a dramatic leadership spill in August, spoke at the Future Women event in Sydney on Tuesday event. The sold-out summit had 360 people in the audience who listened to Ms Bishop reflect on her time in office, and they weren't disappointed with her uplifting speech. Scroll down for video Julie Bishop (pictured) doesn't mince her words when it comes to talking about the importance of women in the workplace Without wanting to generalise, she said there was a key difference between men and women, and how they lead. She said females tended to be 'transformational' in their style, while males had a more 'transactional' framework. 'What I mean by that, and what the research shows, is that women are more likely to be emotionally engaged with the individuals, they are more likely to be empathetic and sensitive to the needs of those individuals, to pursue professional development to achieve the goals of their team,' Ms Bishop said. 'Men are more likely to be driven empirically, to set team goals. They're less likely to focus on the individual, it's much more punitive, less sensitive, and they set goals and judge the team and call them to account at every step.' She said females tended to be 'transformational' in their style, while males lended themselves to a 'transactional' framework What are Julie Bishop's four pieces of sage advice to female workers? 1. Be true to yourself 2. Trust your instincts 3. Back other women 4. Enjoy the work you're doing Advertisement The transformational style lends itself to boosting morale in the workplace and generally 'elevating productivity' more so than the transactional method, she said. It helped Ms Bishop form a powerful perception: 'If you are trying to be a man, it's a waste of a woman.' Throughout her time on stage, the established politician peppered her words with encouragement and hope for the future, offering pearls of wisdom to those currently seeking work-related guidance in their own life. She was adamant that no matter what role a woman was given she must always be true to herself and her own values (pictured with The Block winner Elyse Knowles) She was adamant that no matter what role a woman was given she must always be true to herself and her own values. When senior male members of staff told her to stop wearing power suits because she was the Minister for Aged Care (in 2003), she protested it, namely because it meant going against what she felt comfortable with. In a similar way she trusted her instincts when she sensed the Trump administration would win the 2016 election, and it helped her country engage 'very early on' with him - so she argued women should follow their intuition. Ms Bishop's last two pieces of advice were to back other women and enjoy the work that you're doing every day. In recent times, the booming health and wellness craze has sparked growing interest in unusual exercise regimes and intense workout programmes designed to burn fat like never before. From high intensity interval training (HITT) to the Australian fitness cults Orange Theory and F45, people of all ages are willing to try anything in pursuit of a flawless physique. The latest trend for working up a serious sweat is the assault bike, a high-resistance piece of equipment that pushes users to the limit for a full body session claiming to burn a staggering 5,200 calories - in just one hour. Investing in an assault bike for personal use will set you back a cool $799. Scroll down for video The assault bike is a $799 piece of resistance equipment (pictured) designed for a full body workout Chris Reid, Manager of Australian gym chain Fitness First, spoke to Body and Soul about the new piece of equipment, saying: 'The best thing about the assault bike is that it works your entire body.' According to assault bike retailers Rogue Fitness, the equipment 'reinvents and retools nearly every component of the traditional fan exercise bike', from the frame to the crank, pedals and monitors. Using gravitational resistance from the air, the assault bike automatically determines how hard you work in other words, the harder you pedal, the greater the resistance. WHAT IS RESISTANCE TRAINING? Resistance or weight training is a type of physical exercise which works against force to induce muscular contractions that build the strength, endurance and size of human muscles. Different forms of resistance training include free weights, weighted machines, resistance bands and your own body weight. Source: Better Health Advertisement 'Combining power from both upper and lower body creates an extremely challenging workout, but it also rewards you with an unprecedented level of calories burned on a piece of cardio equipment,' Mr Reid said. According to experts, 60 seconds on an assault bike burns up to 87 calories which means a total of 5,200 burned every hour. This figure is astonishing given the average woman should consume roughly 2,000 calories per day while an adult man is advised to eat 2,500 to maintain the same weight. Fitness First recently installed a number of assault bikes in their conditioning area at their Sydney CBD location. Resistance training has become the exercise du jour in recent years (pictured, social media fitness sensation Laura Henshaw who regularly documents her resistance sessions online) Resistance training has become the exercise du jour in recent years. Australian fitness instructor Kristy Curtis previously told FEMAIL the key to a healthy mind and toned body is a workout routine which includes resistance training at least three times a week. 'Having muscle on your frame is important as it supports your bones which decreases [the risk of] osteoporosis and heart disease while also helping to maintain a healthy weight,' she said. A recent study from Ireland's University of Limerick also discovered a link between lifting weights and a significant reduction in the symptoms of depression. A mother has warned Australian parents about a popular water toy being sold ahead of the Christmas season. The $8 Fizz 'n' Surprise is an egg-shaped creation that is dissolved in warm water to reveal either a dinosaur or mermaid toy inside. And while the toy is designed to be used in water, the package does state that it must not be dissolved in the bath - especially while children are in it. The $8 Fizz 'n' Surprise is an egg-shaped creation that is dissolved in warm water to reveal either a dinosaur or mermaid toy inside A woman in an Australian shopping Facebook group warned parents about the toy as she believed many could mistake the egg as a bath bomb (pictured) A woman in an Australian shopping Facebook group warned parents about the toy as she believed many could mistake the egg as a bath bomb. 'I want to share this information with everyone. These fizzy toys are being sold in many stores and are targeted towards kids,' the woman wrote. 'They look like a bath bomb and packaging leads one to believe it is for the bath tub. THIS IS NOT A FOR THE BATH contrary to what the packaging leads you to believe. 'I want to share this information with everyone. These fizzy toys are being sold in many stores and are targeted towards kids,' the woman wrote 'They look like a bath bomb and packaging leads one to believe it is for the bath tub,' she explained - pointing to the images at the bottom of the fizzing toy 'If you look at the last photo I underlined the only place on this package where it states 'do not dissolve in bath tub'. It also states to discard water after it dissolves and wash hands and toy before play.' The woman said the toy had a 'strong chemical smell' and 'released a cloudy vapour' when she used it. 'There are no ingredients listed and I have no idea if this vapour is harmful to breathe,' the mother continued. The woman said the toy had a 'strong chemical smell' and 'released a cloudy vapour' when she used it 'If you look at the last photo I underlined the only place on this package where it states 'do not dissolve in bath tub,'' she said. 'Shop safely this holiday season.' Moose Toys, who manufacture the product, have placed the warning label on the back of the product, while the front reads: 'Drop in water - Fizz n' Find!' When contacted by FEMAIL, the company said they wanted to 'apologise' to the woman who had a negative experience with the product. 'We intentionally add a bittering agent to the fizz (which can have a strong smell), which adds a bitter flavour. This is used to deter children from directly consuming the fizzer, or the toy that is hidden inside,' they said. 'It is for this reason that Fizz 'n' Surprise is not a bath toy and we do not market it as such. It is referenced twice on the external packaging that it is not a bath toy and not to be dissolved in a bath. There is also reference to this fact in the brand section of our website. 'In terms of the ingredients, the fizzer material has been independently tested, and assured safe and non-toxic by a certified toxicologist. Rest assured, even if a child were to consume a large quantity of the fizzer there is no health risk.' Meghan borrowed Prince Harry's puffer jacket as they visited a forest in New Zealand today, two days after he was first spotted wearing it. The Duchess of Sussex, 37, wore the Norrna Oslo Lightweight Down850 jacket, priced at 399, as the couple visited the Redwoods Tree Walk in Rotorua today on the last day of the royal tour. She wore the black oversized jacket, which comes from the Norwegian brand's menswear collection, over her bespoke navy jumped from Givenchy and Mother Denim skinny jeans. Harry, 34, previously wore the puffer jacket when they visited Abel Tasman National Park, on South Island, earlier this week. Meghan borrowed Prince Harry's puffer jacket as the couple visited the Redwoods Tree Walk in Rotorua today on the last day of the royal tour Harry, 34, previously wore the puffer jacket when they visited Abel Tasman National Park, on South Island, earlier this week (above) The Duke paired his puffer jacket with grey chinos and tan desert boots, while the Duchess wore a blue raincoat by Cornish brand Seasalt on Monday. For the forest visit today, the Duchess - who is expecting her first child in the Spring - covered up in Harry's Norrna jacket after changing out of the Givenchy pleated skirt she wore for a walkabout Rotorua. She finished off the causal look with a pair of black flats from Californian brand Birdies, as well as Boh Runga gold earrings gifted to her by New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Meghan and Harry looked in high spirits as they held hands while visiting to Redwoods Tree Walk and Mountain Biking Showcase in Rotorua. Meghan, 37, wore the black oversized jacket over her bespoke navy jumped from Givenchy and Mother Denim skinny jeans The black jacket comes from Norwegian brand Norrna's menswear collection. Pictured left is Meghan wearing it in Rotorua today, and right Harry at the Abel Tasman National Park, on South Island The Norrna Oslo Lightweight Down850 jacket, priced at 399, is available both in black (above) and navy As they left the forest, Harry told reporters 'Its been great - thanks guys', to conclude the last engagement of the royal tour. The couple will now fly back to London tomorrow, following their 16-day tour of Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand. The last day of the royal tour proved to be a treat for fans, who quickly took to social media to comment on Meghan borrowing Harry's jacket for the forest walk today. Instagram fan account harry_meghan_updates wrote: 'Youre only married, when you shared jackets.. So sweet' Another fan commented: 'I love how its a tiny bit too big for her! so cute!!' Referring to Meghan's now defunct lifestyle blog, one social media posted: 'She always said on the Tig that you could take your boyfriend's shirt and style it as your own. This is so adorable.' Meghan is a fan of the oversized or 'borrowed' look, having previously worn the 'Husband' shirt by her designer friend Misha Nonoo during her first public appearance with Harry at the Invictus Games in Toronto last year. Both Meghan and Harry looked in high spirits as they walked hand-in-hand while visiting the Redwoods Tree Walk in Rotorua As they left the forest, Harry told reporters 'Its been great - thanks guys', to conclude the last engagement of the royal tour The Duchess of Sussex dressed down in a Prince Harry's padded jacket and a favourite pair of jeans as the couple explored a New Zealand forest in their final royal tour engagement. Pregnant Meghan, 37, threw the 399 ($702 AUD) coat from Norwegian label Norrna over a bespoke Givenchy jumper for the outing to Whakarewarewa Forest, near the city of Rotorua. She finished the look with her go-to 140 black jeans from Australian brand Outland and a pair of Blackbird slippers from Birdies. The Duchess of Sussex dressed down in a padded jacket and a favourite pair of jeans as she explored a New Zealand forest with husband Prince Harry in their final royal tour engagement Pregnant Meghan, 37, threw the 399 ($702 AUD) coat from Norwegian label Norrna over a bespoke Givenchy jumper for the outing to Whakarewarewa Forest, pictured Strolling hand-in-hand, the couple looked up in wonder at 117-year-old redwood trees as they made their way along a 700m-long walkway of suspension bridges. The couple also admired a natural spring and met with members of a local mounting biking club, who make use of the rugged paths through the forest. The engagement rounded off a busy final day of the royal tour for Harry and Meghan, who have spent the last 16 days touring Australia, Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand. Their last stop on the tour was Rotorua on New Zealand's North Island, a town known for its geothermal activity and Maori culture. The day started with the pair being given Maori cloaks - or Korowai - during a visit to the village of Ohinemutu. Meghan's Korowai was custom created for her visit by Norma Sturley, 66, an elder of the Ngati Whakaue tribe. Strolling hand-in-hand, the couple appeared in awe of the 117-year-old redwood trees in Whakarewarewa Forest as they explored the area on the final day of their 16-day royal tour The couple made their way along a 700m-long walkway of suspension bridges through the trees. Meghan appeared comfortable up in the air, but Harry appeared much more tense The couple looked engaged as a guide told them more about the trees of the forest, pictured. They saw the trees up close from the walkway suspended high in the air She learnt to weave as a child - picking up the skill from her mother and grandmother - and has had her work included in national exhibitions. Having worked on it for two months whenever she has had time, she was up all of Tuesday night to complete the last-minute touches. The pair then headed into the Tamatekapua Meeting House after a traditional welcome known as the powhiri in the courtyard, where the duke was handed a carved weapon. The soon-to-be parents paused to take in the stunning scenery of the New Zealand forest The Duke and Duchess stopped to hear about the importance of mountain biking to the Rotorua and national economy from local residents who make use of the forest's trails In front of a natural spring, the royal couple spoke to local mountain bikers who use the beautiful forest trails The ceremony was conducted in Maori - as Harry and Meghan were being treated like 'one of their own' - with Monty Morrison, also from the council, only breaking into English once, when he looked at the duchess and said 'little bump' to laughter. The duke spoke for around a minute in Maori - with gasps of awe and smiles when he used the word 'whaiaipo', or sweetheart. The couple then headed to a kiwi breeding programme where they had the chance to name two chicks, opting for tihei, meaning sneeze of life, and koha, meaning gift. The couple looked delighted to meet a girl who enjoys mountain biking through the forest with her family The confident youngster, her hands clad in mountain biking gloves, presented the royals with a gift Harry showed off his paternal nature as he played with a young boy in the arms of his father The walk nearly brought to a close a 16-day visit, which has seen the royal couple welcomed in Australia, New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji. They will fly back to London from Auckland tomorrow From there, the couple took part in their last walkabout of the tour in Rotorua with hundreds of people heading out to see the couple before they headed to redwoods Tree Walk. As they left, one reporter shouted out: 'Have you enjoyed your trip duchess, duke?' The pair did not reply, waving to well-wishers before getting in their car. Harry and Meghan will return to Auckland this evening, before departing for London tomorrow. Prince Charles couldn't resist showing off a family portrait featuring his grandchildren in a new clip of the royal at Clarence House. The Prince of Wales was filming a message about his upcoming tour of West Africa with the photo of the latest generation of royals in clear view behind him. The adorable image includes Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis and is given pride of place in a side table in his living room. The snap, which also features his sons Prince William and Prince Harry as well as their wives the Duchess of Cambridge and the Duchess of Sussex, was taken at Prince Louis' christening in July. Charles, 69, has been very open about how much he enjoys being a grandfather in the past - and revealed his excitement over the news that his younger son, Harry, is expecting his first child next spring with his wife of six months Meghan. New generation: Prince Charles keeps a photograph of his three grandchildren George, Charlotte, and Louis in pride of place in his living room, a new clip from Clarence House has revealed The picture, which also features his sons Prince William and Prince Harry as well as their wives the Duchess of Cambridge and the Duchess of Sussex, was taken at Prince Louis' christening in July Earlier this month Charles revealed he had already toasted Harry and Meghan's pregnancy news 'several times' He was quizzed about Harry and Meghan's happy news the day after their announcement while visiting the Royal Lochnagar Distillery in Crathie. Asked if he had toasted the couple, Charles laughingly replied: 'Oh yes, absolutely. Several times.' The future King expressed his delight at becoming a grandfather for the third time after Prince Louis was born earlier this year. In a statement, he said: 'We are both so pleased at the news. It is a great joy to have another grandchild, the only trouble is I dont know how I am going to keep up with them.' Speaking about being a grandparent previously, he said: 'It's a different part of your life. The great thing is to encourage them. Show them things to take their interest. My grandmother did that, she was wonderful. 'It is very important to create a bond when they are very young,' he added. Pictured: Prince Charles with Prince George and Prince William at the Trooping the Colour ceremony in 2015 Earlier this year it was revealed that the Queen's eldest son has a close relationship with Prince George, having planted dozens of tree varieties when he was born five years ago. He said in the new BBC documentary, Prince, Son and Heir: Charles at 70, that 'I hope it will be quite amusing for George, as they grow up, and he grows up'. Prince Charles shared the picture of his grandchildren in his living room while discussing his upcoming tour of the Gambia, Ghana, and Nigeria. The visit will coincide with the Gambia rejoining the Commonwealth earlier this year. Charles confessed that he and Camilla have both never visited the country, but looked forward to enjoying the beauty of its natural environment. When Prince Louis was born, Prince Charles said in a statement: 'It is a great joy to have another grandchild, the only trouble is I dont know how I am going to keep up with them.' Pictured: Prince Charles at the royal wedding in May In the clip, Charles said: 'On this occasion I'm so pleased to be introducing my wife to some of the places that I remember so well.' He also spoke about the ties between the two countries and the contribution of British Gambians, Ghananians and Nigerians to the UK. The tour will begin today and will last nine days before the couple's return to London just in time for Prince Charles' landmark 70th birthday on November 14. Scott Furssedonn-Wood, Charles' deputy private secretary, said the couple were visiting the three countries at the request of the British Government. He added: 'Their Royal Highnesses' visit will celebrate the UK's historic ties with these three Commonwealth nations, and also our dynamic contemporary partnerships with each of them in areas ranging from business to the arts, defence co-operation to medical research. 'The tour will also highlight the people-to-people links between our countries and the invaluable contribution they make to our shared prosperity and security.' The Duchess of Sussex appeared to have a 'Diana moment' in New Zealand today - as she looked to have flashed her legs through her Givenchy skirt. Meghan, 37, seemed to show off more than she bargained for in photographs taken during a walkabout in Rotorua today on the final day of the royal tour. However, it was in fact simply an optical illusion created by the skirt's heavy woven fabric 'strobing on camera'. Meanwhile, the stripe design of the skirt also created the illusion of Meghan's underwear - at the point where the lighter stripes become darker again. The images recall the famous photograph taken of the late Princess of Wales in 1980, in which her legs were revealed through her sheer lace skirt. The Duchess of Sussex appeared to have a 'Diana moment' in New Zealand today - as she looked to have flashed her legs through her semi-sheer Givenchy skirt. However, it was just an optical illusion created by the skirt's heavy woven fabric The images recall the famous photograph taken of the late Princess of Wales in 1980, in which her legs were revealed through her sheer lace skirt. She was pictured with two children at the nursery she worked at in London Explaining what had caused the optical illusion, stylist Lucas Armitage told FEMAIL: 'Certain fabrics with a heavy woven effect can strobe on camera. Strobing is something you may have noticed on TV when someone is wearing stripes or check patterns and this causes an optical illusion which creates a moving flickering look. 'I suspect this is what is happening here and the fabric is thick heavily woven piece creating a camera strobe and the illusion its sheer.' Meghan, who is expecting her first child in the Spring, teamed her bespoke Givenchy pleated skirt, which featured thick royal blue stripes and thinner white stripes, with a co-coordinating jumper, also by the French fashion house. She finished off her chic look with a pair of navy Manolo Blahnik BB heels, priced at 556, while wearing her locks in a messy bun. Stylist Lucas Armitage explained how the optical illusion, which made the skirt appear to be sheer, was created by the skirt's heavy woven fabric 'strobing on camera' The striped pattern of the skirt also created the illusion of Meghan's underwear, due to the line created by the lighter stripes become darker again (above) Meghan teamed the bespoke pleated skirt by Givenchy with a coordinating navy jumper, also by the French fashion house Meghan's pleated skirt featured blue and black stripes, as well as finer white stripes at the top The Duchess looked in high spirits as she greeted crowds in Rotorua, on one of her final engagements of the royal tour. Following the walkabout, she and Harry visited the Redwoods Tree Walk in Rotorua for the final engagement of their 16-day long tour. The couple will now fly back to London tomorrow, following their 16-day tour of Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand. Meghan's apparent fashion mishap today came after she opted for a daring striped dress by US brand Reformation on Fraser Island last week, which featured a thigh-high split. Some compared Meghan's frock to Diana's white lace skirt, with the Duchess displaying her legs through the semi-sheer fabric. The heir to the Spanish throne has delivered her first public address at the age of 13. Princess Leonor joined her father King Felipe on stage at an event marking the 40th anniversary of the constitution in Madrid on Wednesday. After King Felipe read the law's preamble, he was joined on stage by his eldest daughter who confidently read the first of the 169 articles of Spain's Carta Magna. Public debut: Princess Leonor of Spain, 13, who is heir to the Spanish throne, was watched by proud father King Felipe, 50, as she delivered her first public speech at an event marking the 40th anniversary of the constitution in Madrid on Wednesday Biggest fans: Princess Leonor, right, was also supported by her mother Queen Letizia, 46, and her younger sister Princess Sofia, 11, left, for her speech at the Cervantes Institute The monarch, 50, was also 13 when he spoke publicly for the first time in 1981. Princess Leonor, who is at school in Madrid, was supported by her mother Queen Letizia, 46, and her younger sister Princess Sofia, 11, for her speech at the city's Cervantes Institute. Queen Letizia looked typically chic in a blue tweed jacket and matching skirt with pretty floral embroidery. She finished the ensemble with navy suede heels. Princess Leonor wore a blue dress with a Peter Pan collar and teal suede Mary Janes. Her sister Sofia wore a pale pink dress under a red coat and a pair of matching Mary Janes but in red. Confident: The teenage princess appeared perfectly composed as she stood behind the lectern to read the first of the 169 articles of Spain's Carta Magna Proud father: King Felipe applauded his daughter as she finished speaking at the event. The Spanish king was also 13 when he spoke publicly for the first time in 1981 Delighted: King Felipe beamed down at his daughter as he looked up at him for his approval Touching moment: The father-of-two pulled his eldest daughter in for a brief embrace on stage King Felipe looked dapper in a pin striped suit and added a splash of colour with a vibrant purple and pink patterned tie. The teenage princess appeared perfectly composed as she stood behind the lectern to read the article, which states that Spain follows the political system of a parliamentary monarchy. Those present said she spoke in a 'firm voice'. Her proud father stood just feet away and pulled his daughter into a hug once she finished. Family photo: After the event, King Felipe and Queen Letizia posed with daughters Princess Leonor, right, and Princess Sofia, left. The young royals are currently at school in Madrid The constitution was approved by the Spanish Parliament on 31 October 1978. The young princesses have made a number of recent public appearances with their parents, most recently at Spain's National Day celebrations this month. The day commemorates when Christopher Columbus first set foot in the Americas in 1492. The Palace revealed over the summer that the couple's Leonor and Sofia had travelled to America during the holiday to join an educational camp in a bid to give them 'new knowledge and experiences'. Three pre-teens have become firm friends, united by the difficult journey that lies ahead for them - transitioning from male to female while still only children. Though they have not yet even begun high school, Lily, Fiana and Zuri have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and will soon undergo medical intervention to prevent their bodies changing from that of boys to men. The three youngsters, who are all under the age of 12, say that their friendship has helped them to better embrace their true genders, and enabled them to see that they are not alone in their experiences. Bond: Lily Maerz, 11, Fiana Jefferson, 10, and Zuri Jones, 11, are all transgender girls living in the same area of Texas, and they have formed a close friendship through their gender dysphoria Support: All of the three girls - and their parents - say that their friendship has helped them to better embrace their true genders, without feeling like they are alone, or 'wrong' Trust: Lily (right), Fiana (center), and Zuri (left), were all born male, but each told their parents at a young age that the felt they were really female Lily, 11, from the Austin area of Texas, has already begun taking hormone blockers to prevent her going through male puberty - a decision her parents wrestled with before undertaking. 'Around the age of two, Lily started asking for different types of toys, and then after that, the first big thing that we noticed was that she wanted to dress as Cinderella for Halloween,' Lily's mom Julie Maerz told Barcroft TV. 'Right before her eighth birthday, she came out from her room one morning and she said 'I'm Lily all the time now, only use girl pronouns. I'm not gonna be Jack anymore'.' Julie and her family had a lot of negative responses not only from strangers, but also from their family and friends. 'People come out of the wood work to let you know that you are harming your child by allowing her to be trans gender and it's something that we've just come to expect and something that we really just rolls off our back at this point,' Julie said. 'Once you start to read the medical background of what gender dysphoria is and that it is a medical condition, it is not just a mental state. 'It is not something that is made up, when an eight year old tells you she is in the wrong body, she means it.' Moving on: Lily is the only one of her friends who has begun taking hormone blockers In the past: The tween was born as a boy named Jack, but shortly before her eighth birthday she told her parents she would only go by the name Lily Signs: Lily's mother Julie said that her child, pictured as Jack, before she began using female pronouns, had started playing with 'different types of toys' at age two Stacey Jefferson, 10-year-old Fiana's mom, said she believed she just had a boy who liked girls toys until one evening when she was putting her then-son to bed. 'The stand out moment for me when I knew I really couldn't spend another day with Fiana not transitioning was when we were getting ready for bed and she said, "Mama, I need to tell you that I think I was supposed to be born a girl,"' Stacey said. 'I said, "Honey, why do you think that?" and she said, "Well, I have a girl brain and a girl heart. All my toys are girl things and all my friends are girls. I don't really understand the things that boys like to do."' 'I knew right from that moment that I needed to raise her differently.' Kimberly Jones, whose daughter Zuri, 11, is also entering puberty as a transgender girl recalls the moment she knew she should allow her to transition. 'The first time we let her go shopping in a skirt, she was delighted. She was dancing around so happy, but also really nervous about what people would think or say.' 'Now it's like she has filled out with this whole persona of who she really is.' Confidence: Kimberly, Zuri's mother, says her daughter was overjoyed the first time she went out shopping in a skirt, but admits she was also 'really nervous' about what people might think Key moment: Fiana's mother Stacey says her daughter turned to her one bed time and said, 'I have a girl brain and a girl heart' Relaxing: The three girls were brought together by their gender dysmorphia, but they have since bonded over other things, and enjoy spending time just hanging out together Bonding: The girls, pictured with two friends, Ruby (center), and Vivienne (right), who are not trans, are all at different stages of their transition While the three kids are well supported by their families, all three have encountered bullying outside of the home, especially from children at school. Lily said: 'From first to third grade is when I was bullied a lot. I was really sad going to school sometimes because I knew I would be teased or bullied.' To fully transition during their teenage years, the three girls will take hormone blockers, then begin hormone replacement therapy around the age of 14 to 16, then have gender reassignment surgery when they are 18. The youngsters describe how profound an effect having friends experiencing the same things together has had on their young lives so far. 'I'm glad that I have friends that actually understand what I am going through,' Fiana said. 'We immediately became friends, like, this person understands what I am going through, like, 'Oh, my gosh! She is so nice and sweet and kind', and I wanted to be her friend.' Lily added: 'I realized I'm not the only person who's transgender. There are people out there who are like me.' The Scottish designers behind Meghan's favourite Strathberry bags have revealed they're 'obsessive' Suits fans - and wrote to her before she joined the royal family. Guy and Leeanne Hundleby, who are based in Edinburgh, are now set to open their first London store thanks to the 'phenomenal' impact of the Meghan effect. The Duchess of Sussex, 37, first carried one of the brand's bags during her first ever engagement with Prince Harry in Nottingham last year. The 495 Tricolour Midi-Tote sold out within 24 hours of her stepping out with it, with the couple explaining how Meghan's endorsement has 'driven' their business ever since. The Scottish designers behind Meghan's favourite Strathberry bags have revealed they're 'obsessive' Suits fans - and wrote to her before she joined the royal family. Meghan, 37, sported the brand's Midi-Tote in tan as she and Harry arrived in Dublin in July (above) The Strathberry designers described the 'phenomenal' impact the Duchess's endorsement has had on their brand. Meghan is pictured here in Edinburgh in February with Strathberry's East-West Mini-Tote Speaking about the impact of the Duchess stepping out with their tote bag for the first time, Guy told The Telegraph: 'We suddenly had interview requests from around the world. 'We're a pretty private family so the interest in us was scary. But for the brand it was phenomenal and it has driven our business.' Leeanne revealed that she had been a fan of Meghan even before her relationship with Harry began, and had long-hoped to get her endorsement. 'I had watched Suits obsessively, and always thought she was stylish,' admits Leeanne. 'I wrote to her agent and stylist routinely, then we sent a few pieces.' Guy and Leeanne Hundleby (above), who are based in Edinburgh, explained how Meghan sporting their bags has 'driven' their business. Leeanne, 46, described how she had written to Meghan's agent and stylist while she was in Suits (above, Meghan as her character Rachel Zane) The couple will now open their first store in London's exclusive Burlington Arcade this week, next to the likes of Chanel, Mulberry, and Manolo Blahnik. Meghan showed off the 495 burgundy Midi-Tote by Strathberry in Nottingham in December last year, shortly after she and Harry announced their engagement. The bag completely sold out within 24 hours, with the midi-tote now the Strathberry's best-seller. Just two months later, Meghan had Strathberry's East-West Mini-Tote slung over her shoulder for her engagement in Edinburgh. The Duchess also carried Stratberry's Midi-Tote in tan as she and Harry arrived in Dublin in July, sparking headlines when she left the plastic on the bottom of the bag. Meghan showed off the 495 burgundy Midi-Tote by Strathberry in Nottingham in December last year, shortly after she and Harry announced their engagement An unnamed Rwandan woman has gone into excruciating detail about living through the 1994 genocide that claimed the lives of an estimated 800,000 people in her country including every other member of her family. The woman opened up about her grisly and heartbreaking past for a photo series by Humans of New York, and shared the horrific and gut-wrenching details of running for her life, hiding, and watching frozen as her father was cut to pieces before her eyes. Yet despite everything she experienced, the woman said she doesn't know how she can expect sympathy from others, when so many other Rwandans faced similar or worse. Horror: An unnamed woman was profiled in a photo series for Humans of New York. Her entire family was slaughtered by the country's Hutu government in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis The woman posed for several photos for Brandon Stanton, the photographer behind Humans of New York. Though Stanton typically profiles New Yorkers and shares their interesting stories, he also travels to photograph people around the world. He is currently making his way around Africa, having visited Egypt, South Africa, and Rwanda. In Butare, Rwanda, he recorded the story of a woman who recounted her experience with the 1994 genocide, in which the Hutu-led government killed an estimated 800,000 Tutis in just 100 days. By the end, they'd wiped out about 70 per cent of the Tutsi people who had already faced a winnowing three decades before in the 1963 massacre. This woman was just 18 during the genocide, when her world was turned upside-down. She said that her father was well-respected in the community as a university lecturer and choir member. Her mother, Consolee, was a care-giver. Consolee had experienced the 1963 massacre when over 21,000 Tutsis Rwandans were killed on Christmas Day and was an orphan as a result. Tragic: Her parents and nine brothers and sisters were killed when soldiers came through and murdered Tutsis 'Whenever we asked her to tell the story of our grandparents, shed just say: "Give it time. Soon youll see for yourself,"' she recalled. The woman had six younger sisters and two younger brothers whom she helped raise. When the genocide happened, her mother was 48; her sister Francine was 16, Olivia was 14, Noella was 11, Augtavienne was seven, Claudette was four, and her baby brother Bebe was almost two. She explained that she knew something bad was coming before the killings actually started; President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, died when his plane was shot down over Kigali Airport on April 6, 1994. After his death, people 'began to gossip about the impending genocide', she said. Many stayed inside and didn't travel, and the woman recalls that they would hear stories about violence in other regions. One day, the woman's father came home and told them about a janitor at the university, a Tutsi, who was 'tortured to death with his own iron'. On April 21, the genocide came to her town with the militia gathered all the town's Tutsis that they could find, 200 in all, and brought them to a stadium. Other townspeople were then invited into sit and watch as they executed each one. Disgusting: She said the killing kicked off in this stadium, when 200 Tutsis were slaughtered in front of spectators They finished by killing the governor, who was half Tutsi. 'His body was paraded through the streets. The killers were screaming into an intercom: "We've killed the governor! Anything is possible! Now let the hunt begin."' The best hiding places are always the most dangerous ones... Id say fifty percent of the people who hid in the swamps were eaten by crocodiles The woman recalls in great detail what it was like to be hunted how people would run, where they would hide. One of the 'best' hiding spots was a thorny bush, which one could get under by crawling on one's stomach. 'The best hiding places are always the most dangerous ones,' she said. 'Farms were no good. Everyone who tried to hide on a farm was discovered. Toilets were no good either. Because thats where they dumped the bodies.' 'You wanted to find a place where the killers were afraid to go. The higher the risk, the less chance of getting caught.' Swamps were popular because they were so dangerous you could get stuck and die, drown, get bitten by a snake, get bitten by a crocodile, or contract malaria from a mosquito. 'Id say fifty per cent of the people who hid in the swamps were eaten by crocodiles,' she said. Terrifying: She recalled that the best places to hide while being hunted were often dangerous. Thorny bushes like these were a good choice One of her brothers hid in a swamp, and made it all the way across before fuel was dropped on it, setting it on fire. 'Our family was a top target because my father was so prominent. So when the genocide officially commenced, the killing squads came straight to our home,' she said. A neighbor warned them, so they were able to all run off in different directions. She, her mother, and her sisters hid on a plantation for a while, before she decided it was unsafe and tried to go back to their house alone. Early in the morning a crowd of people came marching over the hill. My father was in the center... I saw everything. They finished him off with machetes 'I was looking for our father. I crouched down in a nearby bush and waited for him to return,' she recalled. 'Early in the morning a crowd of people came marching over the hill. My father was in the center. He was so tall that I could see his face. They marched him to this very spot, because hed asked to be killed at his own home. I could see everything from the bush. 'I saw everything,' she said. 'They finished him off with machetes. When they finally left, I walked over to look at his body. He was seconds away from death. But he was still moving his head back and forth.' She said after watching him die, she was like a zombie, and walked to another house. She tried to hide there but there was another Tutsi inside who kicked her out. Memories: The woman holds up the skirt she wore as she watched her father murdered with machetes while she hid nearby She then watched as killers turned up, dragged him outside, and murdered him in front of her. 'They were about to kill me too, but the team leader said he had "other plans for me,"' she said, before adding that nobody around her dared to argue because 'he had a gun'. He led her by gunpoint to a plantation where he forced her to lie down and tried to rape her. She said she escaped by squeezing his testicles and twisting until he writhed in pain and fainted, giving her the opportunity to run off. 'Then I began running through the dark,' she recounted. 'I couldnt see a thing. I fell into a latrine full of s**t, and I remained there all night because I was too tired to move.' The next morning, too exhausted to resist, she went along with a group rounding up women and children. She was told they'd been pardoned, and went with the group including her mother and sisters to another plantation. 'All of us who believed the rumor were taken to this place the house of a Tutsi widow,' she said, while posing for a photo in front of the property. 'I found my mother and sisters when I arrived. They were still alive, but were so weak and depressed that they could barely move. We stayed in this house for two weeks. There were sixteen of us here.' Then one night, a soldier turned up and told them they were to be executed. Her mother urged them to run, but most didn't want to leave their mother. The woman's teen sister, Francine, was too tired after having been raped days earlier. Awful: After the rest of her family was killed, a soldier was about to finish her off when this woman, Mary, saved her, telling the solider he could come back and have her for his bride 'She told me she was ready for death,' she said. Soldiers came and began grabbing them. The woman ran, but her family didn't make it. She listened as her mother, six sisters, and baby brother were killed. 'I listened to their screams until I fainted,' she said. Another solider discovered her and was pointing his gun at her, ready to kill her, when a neighbor named Mary ran out and begged for her life. Truly heartbreaking: The woman explained that she hadn't told her story for decades because she's 'in a nation of one million victims' where many suffered the same or worse so, she wondered, 'Who am I? Why should I ask for sympathy?' Mary told the soldier that if he spared her, he could come back and marry her later. 'And thats what finally convinced him. He handed me over,' she said. Mary cared for her until the genocide ended, and she credits her with her survival. 'There were twelve people in my family before the genocide. Im the only one who survived,' she said. 'We recovered eight of the bodies. And we buried the bones we were able to find. I didnt trust anyone after the genocide.' She was still numb and quiet after being rescued by the Rwandan Patriotic Front. 'They knew my family was dead, and didnt want to ask me questions. So I held it all in for decades,' she said. 'Who could I talk to anyway? In a nation of one million victims, how do I begin to tell my story? Theres been too much tragedy for everyone. Some people lost their arms and legs. 'Other people were raped and given HIV. What makes my story worth telling? Who am I? Why should I ask for sympathy? And who would I even ask? Before the genocide, she said her father was friends with Hutus (pictured), some of whom then participated in killing him and his family 'So I never asked anyone. Ive never asked anyone for a thing. I dont want anyone to take care of me. I dont want people to celebrate my birthday. Or cook for me. Or tell me sweet words. Im fine with giving love. But I cant accept it. Because I dont want anything that can ever be taken away.' Now, years later, she says Tutsis are being asked to forgive, 'because our president tells us that reconciliation is the only path forward as a nation.' How can I possibly forgive on behalf of those who can no longer speak for themselves? Its just not possible. But I will certainly pretend. Because Ive seen where vengeance leads 'And I know that hes right. So Im trying my best. Im spending time with Hutu people,' she said. But it's hard. Before the genocide, Hutus and Tutsis were friends. Her dad had Hutu friends and many of them would later help kill his family. 'So how am I supposed to trust anyone? Before the genocide, there were doctors taking care of their patients. Priests were taking care of their followers. Neighbors were taking care of each other. But none of that stopped them from killing each other,' she said. Still, she is trying. She wants her own son to see that Hutus have 'good hearts'. 'Christianity has helped me a great deal. But true forgiveness is impossible,' she said. 'My entire family was murdered. How can I possibly forgive on behalf of those who can no longer speak for themselves? Its just not possible. But I will certainly pretend. Because Ive seen where vengeance leads.' It was a somber 37th birthday for Ivanka Trump, who traveled to Pittsburgh on Tuesday to mourn the 11 victims who were killed in last week's synagogue shooting. But the next morning, the first daughter took to Instagram to acknowledge her birthday and thank everyone who sent her well-wishes the day before. To show her gratitude, she posted a snapshot of herself laughing in the Oval Office with her husband, Jared Kushner, and her father, President Donald Trump, who has what looks like a tray of muffins in front of him. Beltated: Ivanka Trump took to Instagram on Wednesday, the day after her 37th birthday, to share a photo of herself laughing with her father and husband in the Oval Office Gratitude: The first daughter thanked her fans who sent her birthday wishes on Tuesday Keeping a low profile: Ivanka was seen leaving her Washington, D.C. home from the garage on Wednesday afternoon Halloween spirit: Ivanka's husband, Jared Kushner, had a smile on his face as he stepped out of the lower gate of their home around 8 a.m. on Wednesday 'Thank you all for yesterdays warm birthday wishes!' she captioned the image, appears to have been taken on Tuesday, before they flew to Pennsylvania. In the photo, Ivanka is giving an open-mouth smile while standing alongside her father, who is sitting at his desk. The White House senior adviser is donning a black long-sleeve dress featuring a mock neck, which she has worn before. Back in February, Ivanka wore the simple yet elegant frock with a pair of $1,340 knee-length lace-up boots by Italian designer Gianvito Rossi. However, on Tuesday, she opted for a pair of classic pumps. Jared, 37, is standing to his father-in-law's right, and both he and the president have on the same suits and ties they were seen wearing on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Ivanka was seen leaving her home in D.C. in the back of a blacked-out SUV, while her husband chose to exit from the front of the property, walking past the family's impressive Halloween display before heading to the office. The first daughter later joined her father and the Director of the National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, in the State Dining Room at the White House at an event held for American workers. Working hard: Later in the day on Wednesday, Ivanka joined her father and the Director of the National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, at an event for American Workers Business chic: The first daughter wore an all-black suit for the event, which took place in the State Dining Room of the White House Sleek: Ivanka wore her hair in a straight style around her shoulders Happy as can be: She had a huge smile on her face as she arrived at the event on Wednesday Ivanka dressed in a Halloween-appropriate all-black ensemble, opting to don a chic belted suit, along with a pair of black heeled pumps. The day before, she and Jared joined Trump and his wife, Melania, in Pittsburgh to pay their respects and offer condolences to the grieving community. Robert Bowers, the man accused of killing 11 people and wounding dozens when he opened fire at the Tree of Life Congregation during Saturday's services, was charged with 29 felony counts during his first court appearance on Monday. Ivanka converted to Judaism in 2009 to marry Jared, who is an Orthodox Jew, and they are raising their three children in the Jewish faith. The New York Times reported earlier this week that Ivanka and Jared were the ones who urged the president to make plans to visit Pittsburgh after the mass shooting at the synagogue. For the trip, Ivanka donned a $4,990 midnight blue coat by Carolina Herrera and classic pointed-toe pumps. Jared, a senior adviser to the president, wore a navy blue wool coat over his navy suit and gray tie. Ivanka and Jared held hands as they made their way to Marine One before departing from the South Lawn of the White House. The president and first lady were also holding hands as they walked across the South Lawn together. Mourning: Ivanka and Jared traveled to Pittsburgh with the president and first lady on Tuesday in the wake of the synagogue shooting that left 11 worshippers dead Support: The couple held hands as they stepped off Air Force One at Pittsburgh International Airport Showing respect: President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania looked somber as they walked off Air Force One together After their short flight to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, the family was seen boarding Air Force One for the second half of their trip. Ivanka and Jared continued to hold hand during the short walk across the tarmac to Air Force One. During the flight, Trump took to Instagram to share a black and white photo of his eldest daughter while wishing her a happy birthday. 'Happy Birthday @ivankatrump, so proud of you!' he wrote. The first family arrived in Pittsburgh on Tuesday afternoon, not long after the first funerals for the 11 victims of the mass shooting. Critics of Trump have accused him of inciting hate and extremism with his rhetoric, and the president was greeted by protesters after they landed in Pennsylvania. More than 1,400 people signed up for a Facebook event to denounce Trump's visit. 'The Presidents visit on Tuesday, much like his ideas and his presidency, is unwelcome in our city and in our country. It is up to us to let this be known,' wrote the event's creator. After the first family's arrival in Pittsburgh, they visited the Tree of Life synagogue, where the mass shooting took place. Paying tribute: Trump took to Instagram on Tuesday to share a black and white photo of his eldest daughter while wishing her a happy birthday On the go: Jared and Ivanka were seen making their way into a Secret Service vehicle after arriving at Pittsburgh International Airport Tragedy: Jared greeted Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers upon their arrival of the synagogue where the shooting took place Reflection: Ivanka and Jared were the reportedly the ones who urged the president to make plans to visit Pittsburgh after the mass shooting Keeping with their Jewish faith, Ivanka wore a fascinator on her head and Jared donned a yarmulke to enter the synagogue. Jared was seen greeting Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers upon their arrival at the synagogue, and he held his hand to the man's back as they walked alongside each other. The senior adviser and his wife somberly held hands as they stood at a makeshift memorial to the victims of massacre outside of the Tree of Life Congregation. Plans for the trip were announced just hours after Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto explicitly asked the president to delay his visit until after the city buried its dead. The mayor also called for the White House to consult with the victims' families before setting up a trip. Top congressional leaders from both parties declined to join President Trump in Pittsburgh on Tuesday. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell all stated they would not be in attendance, CNN reported. Message: Huge numbers of protesters gathered close to the Tree of Life synagogue to demonstrate against the president's presence and previous actions Pointing the finger: Protesters linking Trump's rhetoric to the massacre carried out on Saturday at the synagogue McConnell and Ryan both said they were unable to attend due to scheduling conflicts. Republican Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey also declined to join the president on the visit, citing a previous commitment, while Democratic Senator Bob Casey was not invited, his office said. Despite the controversy surrounding the trip, Trump said on Monday that he was looking forward to it. 'Well, Im just going to pay my respects,' he told Fox News Channels Laura Ingraham. 'Im also going to the hospital to see the officers and some of the people that were so badly hurt.' Trump offered to meet with the family of Daniel Stein a 71-year-old who had just become a grandfather when he was killed in the massacre but they declined, according to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Steins nephew, Stephen Halle, told the publication that the family's refusal was in part because of Trump's comments after the shooting in which he suggested the synagogue should have had an armed guard. 'Everybody feels that they were inappropriate,' Halle said Tuesday, the day of his uncle's funeral. 'He was blaming the community.' Ghosts, ghouls, and pumpkins will be out in force this evening as children across the world prepare to scare their neighbours in return for sweets as part of their annual 'trick or treat' celebrations. But for people with a visible difference, Halloween can be scary for much more sinister reasons. People who have an unusual appearance are more likely to feel isolated or even target as a result of the annual event, according to Changing Faces, a charity that supports and represents people with conditions, marks or scars. Marcus Powell, 14, from Herefordshire, who was left with scars following surgery on his facial cleft, told FEMAIL how cruel bullies have told him he 'didn't need a mask' on past Halloweens, while face equality campaigner Dr Amanda Bates, who was born with a cleft lip and palate, said she recalls feeling 'uncomfortable' at Halloween as a child, but being unable to articulate why. Other than the notable exception of the heroic wizard, Harry Potter, characters with scars are often portrayed as the 'baddie' - just think of The Lion King's 'Scar', the Joker in Batman, or infamous serial killer Freddy Krueger. Marcus Powell, 14, was born with a rare type of facial cleft, and has a scar as a result of 20 operations he underwent when he was younger Marcus told FEMAIL he doesn't go trick or treating himself, because he's been told by bullies he doesn't need a Halloween mask as his face is 'scary enough' As a result, people who look different can often be subjected to bullying around this time of year: while their friends or classmates buy make up or masks to make their appearance more terrifying, children with scars are often trying to do the opposite. Marcus Powell, 14, from Herefordshire, was born with a rare type of facial cleft and has a scar on his face as a result of the 20 corrective operations he needed. He says part of the reason he doesn't go trick-or-treating at this time of year is because of the way he looks, with fellow pupils teasing him and suggesting he didn't need a Halloween mask as his face was scary enough. 'Classmates would call me names, like scar face, two-face and Joker,' he said. 'I was really upset and although I would try to ignore them it was really hard.' 'I find the costumes that are made to look like conditions or scars that people might have the most upsetting. It really upsets me when I see films with characters who have scars to show they're evil. People with scars or who look 'different' are NOT baddies or villains. We are everyday people like everyone else and we have feelings. We are good people and good comes from within us, not what you look like. 'The stereotypes that are out there need challenging because its not right and its not fair. What kind of society will we have if we are teaching children that scars on caricatures make them evil? Why cant the 'goodie' have a scar, mark or condition that makes them look 'different'? 'Feel free to wear the vampire costume, cat, pumpkin, skeleton, spider, wizard, or witch. But why would they need a scar, mark or something to make their costume scarier or gory in their eyes? It doesn't make costumes any scarier. It just cause upset and distress and bullying to people who may have a similar scar or appearance.' Face equality campaigner Dr Amanda Bates, who is also a psychologist, said she remembers feeling uncomfortable around Halloween as a child, but being unable to articulate why Dr Bates said some costumes can appear to make light of people's 'really raw experiences' Dr Amanda Bates, Public Engagement Officer at the University of Kent, is a Chartered Psychologist and face equality campaigner. Like Marcus, she was also born with a visible difference affecting her face - a cleft lip and palate - as well as missing fingers. 'Halloween wasn't so much of a thing when I was growing up, not as much as it is now anyway,' she told FEMAIL. 'I didn't really dress up for it or notice it happening when I was at school: what I do remember is feeling uncomfortable around Halloween and never really articulating why. 'I get trick-or-treaters these days and I often think, "How would I react if a kid pitched up with a big scar as part of their costume?" Do I stand there and try to talk to them about the fact they're mimicking people's conditions? Or do I just give them a pack of Haribo and send them on their way? 'Freddy Krueger was a big thing when I was little, and that made an impact: I remember lots of people dressing up as him. When people make themselves up to have burns, with all the scarring, and lots of blood, I just don't understand: what's amusing and entertaining about all that? These are people's conditions, and they're making light of people's really raw experiences.' In 2014, following action from Changing Faces, Tesco removed a Freddy Krueger Halloween costume from sale as a result of its offensive description: With his burned face and dishevelled appearance it is no surprise that a Freddy Elm Street costume makes a unique Halloween outfit idea,' it read. Despite campaigning against costumes, the charity is clear it does not want to cancel Halloween or stop children from having fun: 'Halloween is an important annual event, and one that excites and engages millions of children and young people and many adults, too,' they explain. 'Changing Faces encourages this, and does not want to see an end to Halloween, or genuine, good-natured ghoulish costumes, events and themes.' Instead of abandoning the dressing up box, facial disfigurement campaigners encourage shoppers to take a closer look at the product they are buying, and asking themselves if it mimics a condition, mark or scar that another person could have before purchasing, to avoid causing any upset to others. Bates too has advice for anyone looking not to offend the 1.3 million people in the UK living with a visible difference on Halloween this year: 'If you approach it right, Halloween can be a bit of fun, but try and stay on the fun side of it! Think about the people who you might be upsetting before dressing up.' She's navigating her first pregnancy and her debut royal tour, taking in 76 engagements in 16 days, so it's all the more remarkable that the Duchess of Sussex has done most of it in heels. The mother-to-be has only been seen in flats seven times throughout her 41 outfit changes, preferring to stick to her sky high stilettos - but it seems as though she may be paying the price. An eagle-eyed royal watcher spotted what looked to be a scar on Meghan's foot as she went barefoot during a powhiri welcome ceremony at Te Papaiouru Marae - a Maori meeting house - in Rotorua, New Zealand. Meghan, 37, took her shoes off when she stepped inside the meeting house, as is customary in Maori culture, revealing what seemed to be a bunion on her right foot and a possible scar from previous surgery on her left. Podiatrist Robert Duff told Femail: 'On the right foot, there appears to be a bunion and some exostosis, or bony growth. 'Wearing heels excessively can definitely lead to the development of bunions. This may be the cause in Meghans case. Meghan went barefoot during a powhiri welcome ceremony at Te Papaiouru Marae - a Maori meeting house - in Rotorua, New Zealand, revealing the impact her love of heels has had on her feet Meghan appears to have what looks to be a scar running down the side of her left foot, which could be a result of previous bunion removal surgery The Duchess of Sussex appears to have a bunion and some exostosis, or bony growth on the side of her right foot 'On the inside of her left foot, there is a potential scar which may be from a bunion removal but its difficult to say for sure without a closer look.' As well as bunions, a sign of excessive wearing of heels appears on the sole of the foot where an expert would look for callus build up on the ball. 'Wearing heels can lead to calluses and bunions as it places too much pressure on the ball of the foot,' Robert explained. 'It can cause issues at the big toe joint due to the hyperextension of the joint from the unnatural toe position in these kinds of shoes. An eagle-eyed royal blogger Jersey Deanne noted what looks like a scar on Meghan's foot, speculating that it could be from surgery to remove a bunion Pregnant Meghan in her trusty Stuart Weitzman Legend stilettos during a walkabout in Auckland's Viaduct earlier this week 'Another sign would be shortening of the Achilles tendon and/or calf muscle, due to the elevated foot position, which can lead to pain and discomfort when flat-footed.' The Duke and Duchess are now heading home to London to earn a well earned rest from duties - and high heel wearing - after visiting four countries in 16 days. Meghan' love of heels has been a feature of her wardrobe since she started carrying out engagements with Prince Harry. What is a bunion? A bunion is a swelling on the side of the joint where the big toe meets the foot. It commonly develops as a result of wearing ill-fitting shoes or those which cramp the feet. High heels, which push the weight of the body on to the front of the foot, or extreme points, which squeeze the toes together, are major offenders. The shoe rubs against the joint, thickening skin and tissues which gradually swell up into a bunion.Women tend to develop bunions more often than men because of the shoes they wear, and because their ligaments are softer. A normal foot will have the big toe in line with the long bone leading up to it. However many people inherit a foot deformity called Hallux vagus, in which the big toe is angled inwards, causing the joint at the base of the big toe to stick out slightly. This increases the risk of bunions. Those with jobs involving stress on the feet, such as dancers, waitresses and athletes, face a higher risk. Surgery is the only way to totally remove a bunion. The growth is removed and the bones are realigned. Recovery can take up to six weeks and involves wearing special supports. Advertisement Before the royal tour, she was never seen in flats during royal engagements - even on a sporty occasion such as visiting Dublin's Croke Park. It's previously been suggested that the Duchess who stands at 5ft 6in tries to minimise the height difference with her husband who is a towering 6ft 1in. This is because the canny former actress knows how a height discrepancy between two people can create an 'unbalanced' look in pictures. Rare sighting! Meghan wore flats for a stroll through the Redwoods Tree Walk in Rotorua, New Zealand with Prince Harry earlier today. But she's more likely to be seen in a pair of towering heels such as the Manolo Blahnik pumps she wore during a walkabout earlier in the day (right) Celebrity photographer Glenn Gratton told Femail: 'Couples with a big height difference look slightly unbalanced in pictures, and often the smaller of the two ends up looking even smaller and is constantly looking up at their partner. 'Rod Stewart and his wife penny have a large gap but this is minimised by rod wearing Cuban heels and penny not wearing super high heels. 'In the case of Harry and Meghan she will be wearing high heels to maximise her height and shorten the gap if possible.' My mothers dyed blonde hair slid across the pillow her beautiful straight nose was bent to one side by the adhesive tape holding the breathing tube in her mouth. She had always been an attractive woman. People warmed to her vivacious, fun-loving personality and found her enthusiasm contagious. Aged 76, she was in a hospital bed, deep in septic shock, unconscious and with her organs failing. Liquid pearled along her arms and the back of her hands, forced out through her skin as her kidneys stopped working. The shape of her hands, their curving thumbs slack against the hospital sheet, was deeply familiar. I could picture those hands scrubbing a kitchen counter, bringing a cigarette to her red-slicked lips, slapping my face . . . Harriet Brown (pictured back with her mother, sister and father on her wedding day) shared how she became estranged from her mother who she hadn't spoken to in three years at her time of death It was the first time I had seen my mother in four years. At the time of her death we hadnt communicated at all, not by phone or email, for three years: we were estranged. When the time came to say that last goodbye, no one was more surprised than me when I burst into tears and sobbed: Now Ill never have a chance to have a relationship with her. But do I regret cutting off contact? No. It was the best thing I ever did. I would make the same choice in a heartbeat. She might have charmed strangers but my mothers relationship with me was very different. I grew up convinced there was something wrong with me because she repeatedly told me so, a constant drip, drip, drip of criticism. When I brought home straight As she scolded me for thinking I was better than other people. When she found me reading in bed after lights out she punished me for being sneaky and deceitful. When I woke with nightmares she advised me to think about someone other than myself and Id have better dreams. And I believed her. Our relationship turned me into a person who never felt good enough, kind enough, or pretty enough. Who would lie awake at 2am feeling ugly and worthless. My mother, needless to say, would have told a different story. In her eyes I was the cold and ungrateful daughter who rebuffed her love and her repeated attempts to heal our rift. And mostly, my wider family agreed with her. My problems and they were always MY problems, never OUR problems were the subject of countless conversations among disapproving aunts and uncles, many of which happened in front of me. To them I was selfish, ungrateful and stubborn. In our Jewish family culture it was unthinkable that a daughter might reject her mother it was my role to get along with her. Family dysfunction is the stuff of myth and literature. Consider Cain and Abel, or basically every family in Shakespeare. Dysfunction means conflict, and conflict makes for a compelling narrative. Harriet (pictured as a baby with her mum) claims her mother viewed her as conceited, selfish, and incapable of affection The most recent studies suggest somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent of parents are estranged from at least one adult child. Some experts think family estrangement is on the rise, a silent epidemic. They point to trends like blended families and divorce that cause or exacerbate family tensions. And we tend to think of estrangement as a bad thing after all, the bond between parent and child has roots in our very cells, and cutting ties, especially with a mother, is one of our most primal taboos. But thats not my experience of it. Yes, it was a last resort, but being estranged from my mother probably saved my sanity. While researching my book on the subject I was struck by the number of people who felt liberated by cutting themselves off from a family member. Lucy Blake, a psychologist at Edge Hill University in Lancashire, surveyed about 800 people who said they were estranged from family and published the findings in conjunction with Stand Alone, a charity that supports estranged adults. Eighty per cent said estrangement had led to positive changes for them. It saved my life, wrote one. Another responded, I feel like it has made me a stronger, more independent person. I dont recall feeling safe in my mothers arms. Only when I had my own daughters did I realise her behaviour was abuse As Sarah, a 50-year-old publishing executive who is estranged from her mother, explains, Its not like I bailed at the first drama, and its not like I didnt leave the door open. But there comes a time when your health and wellbeing is more important, and my family today is better off without my mother in our lives. Becca Bland, who founded Stand Alone, cut off contact with her parents at 25 because of her difficult relationship with her mother. For a lot of people estrangement is not a problem, she acknowledges. Its actually a healthier way. Increasingly, its accepted that some family relationships are so toxic they cannot be resolved. Dr Kristina Scharp, of the University of Washington, has extensively researched family estrangement. Participants in her studies list parental abuse, neglect, and toxic behaviour both past and continuing into the present as the driving forces behind their decisions. Comments suggest they dont simply walk away after one or two incidents, but because the relationship as a whole causes great pain. One child explained, I needed to cut off my mother. I need to protect myself and allow myself to one day have a healthy family of my own. I could have written those words myself. Harriet (pictured with her mother and her own daughter) says having her own daughter made her realise its not a childs job to turn herself into what her parents want her to be Yes, theres likely to be shame and guilt and grief. But for those of us who have chosen estrangement, its a solution to a problem that cant be solved in any other way. For us, the physical and emotional costs of staying connected are far, far higher than the social costs of estrangement. My own family looked good on paper: two parents and two daughters, a house in the suburbs, food and clothes and books, dinner out once a week. My father worked as an accountant and my mother was 23 when I was born. In her sleeveless blouses and pedal pushers, her hair curled and her lipstick dark against her pale skin, she looks like a teenager in photos from that time. They show her holding me as an infant, smiling at me. I wish I could remember feeling safe in her arms. One of the few stories she ever told about me as a young child took place in hospital when I was four. Id had my tonsils removed and the way my mother told it, I was the only child on the ward who wouldnt let her mother sleep next to her in the hospital bed. I had to sleep in a chair by your bed, she said. I still dont know if it was true. Much later I wondered why a mother would tell a story that painted her four-year-old as selfish and cold. What had to happen for a tiny child not to want her mother in the hospital? My sister, three years younger, was the affectionate one who brought out my mothers maternal instincts. Other people might tell me I was smart or funny or kind, but according to my mother I was conceited, selfish, incapable of affection and lucky she put up with me at all. I was the aloof, self-contained child, who was always reading, who worried silently, who wrote poetry and could not sleep. Neither my mother nor I had the capacity to understand the other, and it wasnt until I had my own daughters that I realised its not a childs job to turn herself into what her parents want her to be. Its a parents role to accept children for who they are. My mother was never able or willing to do this. She often brought out a photograph that showed me aged six and my sister aged three. In it my sister sits on a tricycle, smiling tentatively up at me. I have one hand on her shoulder, scowling into the camera. To my mother this was evidence of my meanness. All she wanted was your attention, and you were too selfish to give it to her, she would tell me. I had often preferred my own company, irritated by having a little sister trailing me. It was only years later that another interpretation occurred to me that I might have been squinting into the sun rather than scowling. While my sister had her own fiery relationship with my mother, she never felt unloved as I did. Yet I always loved my sister. We worked hard over the years not to let the issues between my mother and me get in the way of our own relationship. Other people might tell me I was smart or funny or kind, but according to my mother I was conceited, selfish, incapable of affection and lucky she put up with me at all. She said I was a monster incapable of loving anyone but myself, and I accepted that as fact. Harriet (pictured as a child) claims it took years after her mother's death to forgive her father for not intervening Then there were her almost nightly rages. Shed storm from the dinner table, for reasons I never understood, and while her explosions might start as nothing to do with me, she would always end up in my bedroom, with mascara streaked down her face, wailing Why dont you love me? What have I ever done to you thats so terrible? Id be left wondering why I felt nothing, not impatience or sadness and certainly not love. At 16, I endured her fury when I applied to go to college early, in large part to escape her. Four years later at my graduation my parents, sister, paternal grandparents and I, drove to a fancy French restaurant, supposedly to celebrate. Suddenly I heard my mother loudly tell the table, including my appalled grandparents, how ashamed shed been when shed found birth control pills in my bag when I was just 14. It was bad enough she divulged this story on my night, but worse still that she had twisted the facts. Because I could have sworn Id been 16 when this happened. In fact, because I recalled in great detail which house wed lived in at the time, I was sure of it. If Id been sitting with the Queen herself I could have corrected the mistake, but because it was my mother whod got it wrong, intentionally or not, I stayed mute and red-faced. Disputing her story would just have caused a scene and made things worse. How common are families with estranged members? Half of people estranged from a relative say it is common among other family members, a Cambridge study found in 2015 Advertisement She was an expert at this kind of gaslighting (making someone question their own reality) and it still haunts me. My first instinct has always been to discount my own observations, to assume Im misremembering. To gaslight myself, in a way. I cant think of a more potent example of emotional abuse than this: to teach a child not to trust herself. And what of my father? Where was he throughout all this? I got along better with him; we were both introverts with a tendency toward the philosophical. But he chose the path of appeasement, telling me frankly in my 20s that my mother would leave him if he didnt take her side. While I never stopped loving him, it was only years after her death that I could forgive him for not intervening. As for my sister, our deep affection for each other managed to bridge the family schism. I know she often felt unfairly caught between my mother and me. After university, my mother and I saw each other every few months for family get-togethers and the occasional weekend visit, which often ended in arguments that led to frosty silences. When I moved further away, contact grew more sporadic, and only at large family events. But we still fought by phone and, later, by email and text. At different times we both took breaks from the relationship, always assuming it was temporary. I married when I was 28. My husband unswervingly took my side and his mother became like a surrogate mother to me. For many years I never planned to have children, terrified I would inadvertently do to them what my mother had done to me. Then my grandmother died, my fathers mother who I had always been close to, and the need to have a child bloomed in me suddenly. I was pregnant two weeks later. Harriet (pictured centre with her grandparents) didn't go to her mother's funeral but recalls feeling sorrow for her after she died Still, night after night over the next nine months my husband listened to me fret with anxiety, sure I would be a terrible mother because of everything my own mother had told me. Over and over he reassured me: I know you. You are a good person and you will love this child. The last time I stayed at my parents house was when my elder daughter was three months old. My mother offered to look after her while I had a nap. Maybe, I thought, she would be the loving grandmother I wanted for my child. I put my daughter into her arms and climbed the stairs. Yet almost immediately my daughter began to howl. I waited for her cries to slow, but all I heard was my baby sobbing. When I could take it no longer I went downstairs to find her lying alone in the middle of the living room floor. Even though Id explained that my daughter needed to be held constantly because she was colicky, my mother was in the kitchen, humming to herself. When I confronted her she turned to me, a wooden spoon in one hand, and laughed. This little girls got to learn she cant get everything she wants, she said. What had been just the way it was or my fault in our family suddenly felt like abuse when it was directed at my child. From then on, I tried to keep a distance from my mother, but I could never completely break off contact. I still held out a hope wed somehow magically develop the relationship I craved. The last straw didnt break until my elder daughter was 18 and had a major relapse of the anorexia she had first developed four years earlier. Needless to say, my husband and I were out of our minds with worry. Only when my mother was dead had I finally allowed myself to feel love and sorrow for her In the midst of this my mother started emailing, offering support. You can turn to your parents, you know, she wrote, and I felt the old tug of longing. Maybe, just maybe, something would be different this time. So I wrote and asked for suggestions for high-calorie, low-volume meals we could cook for our daughter. Perhaps my mother would enjoy giving practical help, I thought. Less than an hour later I received a reply, a diatribe about how my career as a writer who covered food and body image was to blame for my daughters illness, that my daughter was rebelling against me as I had rebelled against my mother. I felt suddenly dizzy, as if the room had tilted. I thought I heard the crack of something breaking and wondered if I was having a stroke. Blood rushed to my head and then away. And then it was over, and I was done with my mother. I felt no regret or confusion, no rage or longing or resentment or anything, really. A great clarity settled over me. I knew our connection was broken in a way that couldnt be healed because I no longer wanted it to be healed. And it never was. I didnt go to her funeral. Instead, I was 5,000 miles away on the island of Maui, on a long-planned holiday with my husband and daughters. After nearly 50 years of conflict, I thought I had no feelings left for my mother. Yet as we hiked a beautiful mountain trail that day all of a sudden I started to choke, and my lips and tongue went numb. I had to sit down. A sentence popped into my head: my mother was buried today. My mother was dead and I would never hear her say: Youre a good person. My mother was dead and I would never, now, get her blessing. Id spent so much of my adult life walling off my feelings for her and finally the walls were coming down. I felt a pain in my chest. This was not hearts and flowers love, not happy family love. This was brutal love, the kind that brings on a cold sweat and makes it hard to breathe. I sat in the dirt for a long time, until the sweat cooled on my neck and my heartbeat slowed. Only when my mother was dead had I finally allowed myself to feel love and sorrow for her. It was an irony she would not have appreciated. Adapted by Clare Goldwin from Shadow Daughter by Harriet Brown, published by Da Capo Lifelong on November 6th at 20. Harriet Brown 2018. To order a copy for 16 (offer valid to 10/11/18; p&p free), call 0844 571 0640 or visit mailshop.co.uk/books. 50 YEARS OF FEMAIL Well soon be celebrating Femails 50th birthday. Is there a story weve featured thats helped change your life? Or have you even appeared in the paper yourself? Wed love to hear your memories at femailreaders@dailymail.co.uk Lara Trump celebrated her sister-in-law Ivanka's birthday by sharing a sweet photo of the first daughter kissing her nephew's foot. The 36-year-old wife of Eric Trump took to Instagram Stories on Tuesday to post a snapshot of herself holding her one-year-old son Luke while posing alongside Ivanka, 37, and her sister Tiffany, 25. 'Happy Birthday Aunt @IvankaTrump!!!' she captioned the black and white image, which she topped off with a birthday cake GIF as an added touch. Scroll down for video Family: Lara Trump took to Instagram Stories on Tuesday to share a photo of herself with her son Luke and her sisters-in-law Tiffany (left) and Ivanka (right) in honor of Ivanka's birthday Beltated: Ivanka shared this photo on Wednesday, the day after her 37th birthday, to thank everyone for their well-wishes on her big day Mourning: Ivanka and Jared Kushner traveled to Pittsburgh with the president and first lady on Tuesday in the wake of the synagogue shooting that left 11 worshippers dead The picture appears to have been taken after Lara gave Luke a bath, as the tot is wrapped up in a towel while surrounded by his aunts. Tiffany, Donald Trump's only child with his second ex-wife Marla Maples, is holding on to her nephew's hand, while Ivanka has the little boy's foot close to her mouth as she makes a kissy face for the camera. It was a somber 37th birthday for Ivanka, who traveled to Pittsburgh on Tuesday to mourn the 11 victims who were killed in the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue on Saturday. The first daughter and her husband, Jared Kushner, joined her father, President Trump, and her stepmother, First Lady Melania Trump, as they visited the synagogue and the memorials of the victims that were set up outside. Tribute: President Donald Trump took to Instagram on Tuesday while on his way to Pittsburgh to share a black and white photo of his eldest daughter to wish her a happy birthday Getting big: Lara celebrated Halloween on Wednesday by sharing a sweet video of one-year-old Luke walking around the house in his Batman cape During the flight to Pennsylvania, the president took to Instagram to share a black and white photo of his eldest daughter to wish her a happy birthday. 'Happy Birthday @ivankatrump, so proud of you!' he wrote. Ivanka acknowledged her birthday on Instagram the following day, sharing a photo of herself laughing in the Oval Office with her husband and father, who appears to be sitting in front of a tray of muffins. Lara posted her birthday tribute to her sister-in-law while she was in Georgia, campaigning in Cobb County for Brian Kemp, the Republican nominee for governor. She was in Nevada with her husband, Eric, 34, on Monday, and she filmed a Fox and Friends interview in New York before flying down to Georgia or the day. Missing Luke: Lara was campaigning for Republican candidates in Georgia in Tuesday, and she posted this snapshot of herself FaceTiming Luke Away: Lara's husband Eric Trump (front row, far left) was stumping for Republican candidates in Wisconsin on Tuesday Trying to rock the vote: The couple (pictured in Nevada on Monday) have been crisscrossing the country ahead of the election on November 6 Lara and Eric have been crisscrossing the country to campaign for Republican candidates ahead of the election on November 6. While she was in Georgia, he was stumping for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Leah Vukmir and U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy at G3 Industries in Kronenwetter, Wisconsin. On Tuesday evening, Lara posted an Instagram photo of herself FaceTiming her only child while he is in the bathtub. 'So Ive turned into this lady,' she wrote, using the hashtags #ThankGodForFaceTime #MyKidThinksImCrazy.' The next morning, in honor of Halloween, she posted a sweet Instagram Stories video of little Luke racing through the house, wearing a Batman cape. The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall have touched down in The Gambia to begin their nine-day tour of Africa. Charles and Camilla arrived at Banjul International Airport on Wednesday evening where they were greeted with a ceremonial welcome from dancers in colourful dress and a long line of dignitaries. The couple were met on the red carpet by President of The Gambia, Adama Barrow, and one of his wives; Mr Barrow practices polygamy and has four living children with his two partners. Camilla, 71, looked smart in a white kaftan embellished with gold embroidery and matching wide-leg trousers, matching her glamorous Gambian counterpart, Her Excellency Mrs. Fatou Bah-Barrow. Welcome to The Gambia! Charles and Camilla arrived at Banjul International Airport on Wednesday evening to kick off their major nine-day tour of Africa Duchess on tour: Camilla, 71, looked smart in a white kaftan embellished with gold embroidery and matching wide-leg trousers, matching the President's wife, Mrs. Fatou Bah-Barrow What a welcome! A man wearing a giant lion costume was among the performers who helped to welcome Charles and Camilla to Gambia on Wednesday evening The royal couple were greeted with a colourful ceremonial welcome from dancers in traditional dress, pictured, after touching down in Banjul on Wednesday evening Later, the couple were officially welcomed to the country by the President at a ceremony in McCarthy Square in the Capital City of Banjul, and enjoyed a cultural performance at the Coco Ocean Hotel. The prince and duchess will tour the Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria on behalf of the British government on their tour, Clarence House announced last month. The couple will return to London just in time for Prince Charles' landmark 70th birthday on November 14. However the Palace has indicated that the various birthday celebrations for the heir to the throne will take place throughout the year. They set off for The Gambia on the day the Duke and Duchess of Sussex travelled back from their two-week tour of Australia, Fiji, the Kingdom of Tonga and New Zealand - meaning the two couples will have just missed each other. Key events in the tour include a visit to the Medical Research Council, which is a faculty of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The centre has undertaken pioneering research into malaria and other diseases which affect millions of people across Africa. Guests of honour: After arriving in the Gambia, the couple were officially welcomed to the country by the President at a ceremony in McCarthy Square in the Capital City of Banjul The Prince of Wales attends a cultural performance at the Coco Ocean Hotel, The Gambia, at the start of his trip to west Africa with Camilla, focusing on Commonwealth ties The Prince of Wales looked fascinated as he watched musicians perform at the Coco Ocean Hotel. Charles and Camilla will also visit Ghana and Nigeria on the nine-day trip Charles and Camilla were treated to a spectacular sunset on their first evening in The Gambia (pictured: the Duchess of Cornwall at a cultural performance at the Coco Ocean Hotel) Charles' Gambia visit will highlight the key role the centre plays in the global fight to eliminate malaria, Clarence House said. The Prince will also visit the Gambian Armed Forces Training Centre, where troops are trained for their role with the United Nations - African Union Hybrid Operation in Darfur. Meanwhile, Camilla's programme will include a visit to a school to meet young people aspiring to enter the Queen's Commonwealth Essay Competition, which is the worlds oldest schools international writing competition, managed by The Royal Commonwealth Society since 1883. For the past few years the Duchess has presented certificates to winners and runners up of the Commonwealth Essay Prize, on behalf of the Queen, at a formal awards ceremony that takes place at Buckingham Palace in November. On Friday 2 November, Charles and Camilla l will start their tour of Ghana, which in 1957 became the first majority-ruled African country to join the Commonwealth. Charles and Camilla are led off the plane by their hosts on Wednesday evening, where a long red carpet was rolled out ahead of the guests' official welcome ceremony The Duchess of Cornwall is greeted on arrival at Banjul tonight by one of the President's two spouses, Her Excellency Mrs. Fatou Bah-Barrow Welcome party: The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall were met by a long line of colourfully-dressed dignitaries after arriving at Banjul International Airport tonight After disembarking the plane, Charles was invited to join the President of The Gambia, Adama Barrow, on a dais as part of their official welcome ceremony at Banjul airport Warn welcome: A billboard showing the portrait of Charles and Camilla is pictured ahead of their visit to Banjul, Gambia on Wednesday Their visit to Ghana will highlight the U.K.s warm and enduring relationship with Ghana and the breadth of our dynamic contemporary partnership, the Palace said. Charles and Camilla are following in the footsteps of Prime Minister Theresa May, who recently made a three-nation trade mission to Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria during August and September, in an attempt to bolster Britain's post-Brexit fortunes. Scott Furssedonn-Wood, Charles' deputy private secretary, said the couple were visiting the three countries at the request of the British Government. He added: 'Their Royal Highnesses' visit will celebrate the UK's historic ties with these three Commonwealth nations, and also our dynamic contemporary partnerships with each of them in areas ranging from business to the arts, defence co-operation to medical research. 'The tour will also highlight the people-to-people links between our countries and the invaluable contribution they make to our shared prosperity and security.' Not all witches ride broomsticks. Some, it turns out, prefer to get around via paddleboard and leave their cleaning supplies at home. On Saturday, October 27, just days before Halloween, a whole coven of witches took to the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, drifting down the water on their paddleboards while outfitted in their witchiest attire. I'll get you my pretty! On Saturday, October 27, men and women participated in the the second-annual Stand Up Paddleboard Witch Paddle Look ma, no broomsticks! They dressed in traditional witch costumes and traveled six miles down the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon on paddleboards Casting a spell: Most wore capes and topped their outfits off with pointed witch caps, and a few committed to painting their faces green The witches were caught on camera by both professional photographers and surprised locals who snapped away and posted on social media. The group was made up of both women and men so, a few warlocks in the mix who dressed nearly all in black. Most also wore capes and topped their outfits off with pointed witch caps. A few committed to makeup, too, painting their faces a perfectly Elphaba-approved shade of green. Before the full moon... Organizer Ginny Kauffman had the idea after seeing pictures of a similar event held in California Good witches: Participants donated new underwear, shirts, and socks to the nonprofit Our House of Portland They all stood on their own paddleboards and drifted six miles down the river. According to the Oregonian, the magical stunt was part of the second-annual Stand Up Paddleboard Witch Paddle, and hundreds of people showed up. Organizer Ginny Kauffman had the idea after seeing pictures of a similar event held in California. And while it's certainly a fun event, it also benefits a good cause: participants donated new underwear, shirts, and socks to the nonprofit Our House of Portland, as well as coats to Sunshine Division. Great British Bake Off winner Rahul has urged more men to take up baking and assured them it is 'a science'. The Rotherham-based scientific researcher was crowned Bake Off champion on Tuesday night after a dramatic final which saw a jar shatter, spraying shards of glass across his workbench. Rahul Mandal, 30, overcame the setback to claim victory, and has urged young men and boys to follow in his footsteps and believe in their ability to bake. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Rahul said: 'I keep my baking quite sciency. I think baking is a science. It's physics, chemistry, everything. Bake Off champion Rahul appeared on BBC Radio 4's Today programme is urging more men to take up baking comparing it to science 'I just wanted to spread this word to people, especially quite a lot of students. They don't take things up, they might not do home science, they think maybe it's not for them. 'Quite a lot of guys and boys at school, they think they can't bake. Anybody can do it.' He added that his family in India are 'happy but in shock and surprise that I went for a show like this'. More than seven million people tuned in to watch Rahul be crowned the winner, overnight ratings have shown. The nail-biting finale of the baking series drew an average of 7.5 million viewers when it aired at 8pm on Tuesday. The broadcast, which lasted for one hour and 20 minutes, peaked with 8.6 million viewers. The figures have remained steady year-on-year, as last year's final - the first time it aired on Channel 4 after the show moved from BBC One - drew an average of 7.7 million viewers in the overnight ratings. Overnight figures include those watching the episode on Channel 4+1. The winner said that 'quite a lot of boys' think that they can't bake but insists that anybody is capable of doing it However, Channel 4's Bake Off has yet to reach the heady heights of the programme's days on BBC One. The last series that aired on the channel in 2016 ended with an overnight average of 14 million viewers, the highest the baking competition has ever had. Numbers for the latest Bake Off final are expected to grow when consolidated data is taken into account. The overall ratings for last year's final, which saw Sophie Faldo crowned the winner, were 10 million. The number includes people who recorded the show and watched up to seven days later, and was Channel 4's fourth biggest audience of all time. Bookmaker Coral has offered odds of 2-1 that Rahul will take on another show, and enter the jungle in I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! He has said he has a rigorous approach to baking, and that his technique is all about measurement and proportion. Last night saw 7.5 million people tune in to see the Indian-born baker scoop the crown in the final of GBBO Rahul described Ruby (seen with fellow finalist Kim-Joy) as an 'elder sister' and said that everyone in the tent 'looked after him' Speaking to Talkradio, he said: 'I took Bake Off as an exam. That was an exam to me. I just wanted to concentrate and just finish it. I just wanted to try and do my best.' Rahul, who moved to the UK from India eight years ago, had struggled with confidence throughout the hit series. But the researcher, who received several Paul Hollywood handshakes, beat Ruby Bhogal and Kim-Joy to triumph in the final. Rahul has described Ruby as 'like an elder sister', and said that 'everyone looked after me'. Kim-Joy wrote on Twitter: 'I didn't win - but I'm the happiest I've ever been. 'I've learnt so much about baking and have become so much more confident. And I've made 11 amazing new friends!' Rahul had to restart his final showstopper after the 32C heat in the tent caused a storage jar on his workbench to shatter, sending glass everywhere. He began recreating his dessert from scratch after throwing away anything that might have shards in. Judges Prue Leith and Hollywood ultimately gave him extra time at the end of challenge to make up for the 15 minutes he lost. After discovering he had won, he said: 'I just feel I need to talk with my mum. Kolkata-born research scientist Rahul beat off stiff competition from finalists Ruby Bhogal and Kim-Joy Hewlett to win the coveted crown 'What's next for me? I am going to start learning how not to say sorry so much... sorry about that.' He later admitted he thought the glass breaking signalled the end of the road for him in the competition. 'It broke into a thousand pieces and went in everything so it all had to be chucked, it almost broke me and I really thought that was it for me,' he said. 'Fortunately I was able to prove that I could finish it.' Earlier in the episode Rahul impressed the judges with his doughnuts in the signature challenge, despite never having eaten one before the competition. After crowning Rahul the overall winner, Leith said: 'I think the amazing thing about Rahul and why I am so proud of him is that he came in unconfident, but he just kept going, and he never reined in his ambition, he always tried to do a bit more than everybody else, and it paid off.' Hollywood added: 'He is one of those characters that you will miss when you are not with him. 'You know his intensity sometimes is amazing, and he is so good at what he does, but I don't think he realises still how good he actually is and I think that's what's magic about Rahul.' Gender inequality could be driving the deaths of millions of girls under five years old worldwide, research suggests. Young girls are more at risk of death in countries where women have insufficient healthcare, poor education, few seats in parliament and little role in the workplace, a study found. Out of 195 countries, Yemen is the worst with a gender inequality score of 0.767 out of a possible one, compared to just 0.04 in Switzerland. 'The more unequal a society, the more girls are penalised in terms of their survival chances, particularly in lower-middle income countries,' lead author Dr Valentina Gallo, of Queen Mary University, said. In countries where women are valued less than men, young girls may be more at risk of death due to maternal malnutrition during pregnancy, exposure to domestic violence in the womb and even infanticide. Out of 195 countries, Yemen is the worst with a gender inequality score of 0.767 out of a possible one, compared to just 0.04 in Switzerland. Gender inequality could be driving the deaths of millions of girls under five worldwide (stock) WHAT ARE THE 10 COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD WITH THE LOWEST GENDER INEQUALITY? Switzerland Denmark Netherlands Sweden Iceland Norway Slovenia Finland Germany North Korea 0.040 0.041 0.044 0.048 0.051 0.053 0.053 0.056 0.066 0.067 Advertisement WHAT ARE THE 10 COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD WITH THE HIGHEST GENDER INEQUALITY? Yemen Niger Chad Mali Ivory Coast Afghanistan DR Congo Tonga Sierra Leone Liberia 0.767 0.695 0.695 0.689 0.672 0.667 0.663 0.659 0.650 0.649 Advertisement The London researchers analysed the under-five mortality rates of nearly two Dr hundred countries based on information from the UNICEF database. This was then compared against the countries' Gender Inequality Indexes, which account for reproductive health, 'empowerment' and economic status. Empowerment is measured by the share of parliamentary seats held by each sex, as well as the difference between the number of men and women in secondary and higher education. Economic status measures women's participation in the workforce. Overall, boys are more likely to die young than girls due to a 'biological and genetic disadvantage'. Dr Gallo told MailOnline: 'Contrary to what one would expect child mortality is not the same among boys and girls under natural conditions. 'Boys die relatively more and boys are born more often than girls.' However, in countries with gender inequality, a girl's innate biological advantage diminishes. 'We are looking at the relative change,' Dr Gallo told MailOnline. 'The higher the gender inequality, even though more boys still die than girls, a girls risk of death is higher than it would naturally be.' In Yemen, 59.2 boys under five die per 1,000 live births compared to 51.1 girls. On the other end of the spectrum in Switzerland, 4.5 boys die per 1,000 versus 3.8 girls. The UK is not far behind with a male childhood mortality rate of 4.9 compared to 3.9 in girls. It has a gender inequality index of 0.131. And in the US, which has a gender inequality index of 1.21, 7.2 boys die per 1,000 live births versus six girls. Although some may be surprised to see North Korea in the top 10 of the world's lowest gender inequality rates, Dr Gallo believes it may come down to how the data was collected. She told MailOnline: 'When you use these indicators at country level there is always the risk of bias at collection level. 'It clearly relies on what a country reports.' The study was published in BMJ Global Health. 'Gender inequality perpetuates itself through the generations via these unfair odds of survival,' Dr Gallo said. 'Because of a sexist ideology which values boys over girls, young girls are often at greater risk of mortality through diminished access to health resources, as well as through heightened exposure to health risks. 'These girls are also further exposed to this risk via their mothers, who may themselves be penalised and valued less than mothers of sons, and less able to provide for their daughters.' In countries like India, girls are less likely to be vaccinated and are more at risk of circumcision, which can cause infections and bleeding. Higher STI rates among women may also affect their unborn babies. The researchers believe global policies should work to reduce gender inequality across healthcare, politics, education and work. They add further studies are also required to determine how gender inequality leads to childhood death. In 2015, 5.9 million children under five died worldwide. More than half of these deaths were deemed to be preventable and a result of barriers to simple, affordable healthcare. And 45 per cent of these fatalities were linked to malnutrition. Youngsters are more at risk of an early death if they are born in rural areas, live in poor households or have mothers without a basic education, the study found. We've all been there. You're watching a horror movie with your friends and yet you spend a significant amount of time hiding your face behind your hands. We know that we're watching a film and that what is happening on the screen isn't real, and yet our hearts are left racing as we watch a character get murdered or the ghost chase its victim. So what is it about horror films that elicit this response from us every single time? Media expert Dr Michael Grabowski and sociologist Margee Kerr reveal to Daily Mail Online how simple, yet clever tricks - such as screeching violins, candlelight and an isolated cabin - leave us quivering in our chairs. Media expert Dr Michael Grabowski and sociologist Margee Kerr reveal the clever tricks that horror filmmakers use to leave us scared. Pictured: Norman Bates prepares to stab Marion Crane in 1960's Psycho DARKNESS PLAYS ON OUR FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN When movies have very dim or poor lighting, this is a technique that is meant to scare. 'When a scene is extremely dark, it conveys the absence of information so you think "What is going on?",' said Dr Grabowski, an associate professor of communication at Manhattan College and author of the textbook Neuroscience and Media: New Understandings and Representations. One way is through flashlights at night, such as any scene from a movie where someone is telling a story around a campfire with a flashlight under them. Dr Grabowksi explained that in our natural environment, we're used to being illuminated by the sun with shadows formed under the eyes, nose and chin. Kerr explains that candlelight brings attention to how dark our world was before electricity and reminds us of our vulnerability. Pictured: A scene from 2015's The Witch 'So when horror movies use flashlights, the shadows are inversed,' he said. 'The tip of the eye socket has a shadow and the top of the nose. It tells us that something is wrong.' Candlelight can do the same thing, said Margee Kerr, a sociologist at the University of Pittsburgh who specializes in the study of fear. One scene she points to as an example is from the 2015 movie The Witch, where a family in 1630s New England is eating dinner by candlelight. 'There's just one candle, which makes sense back then, but it brings attention to how dark our world was before electricity,' Kerr said. 'It was very dark and this darkness reminds us of our vulnerability.' DISCORDANT SOUNDS UNNERVE US It's not just what you see that triggers you. Dr Grabowski explained that when we hear discordant chords, this does not sit well with us. 'We like melodic structure in our music. We are used to experiencing music with natural progression in the chords, in complete octaves,' he said. 'So two notes played next to each other at same time, the auditory system reacts as if it's unnatural, it doesn't sound right.' One example of this is from Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 thriller Psycho, in the scene where Janet Leigh's character Marion Crane is being murdered in the shower. The screeching violins, violas and cellos that play as Janet Leigh's character in Psycho is murdered (pictured) sound like screams, which scare us What we hear as Norman Bates stabs her to death is a soundtrack of screeching violins, violas and cellos. 'Music imitates our life, so the screeches of the violin sound like the screams of Marion as she's being stabbed,' Dr Grabowski said. Using sounds that are in opposition to what is being presented on screen like a clown clapping despite a supernatural attack also scares us. Pictured: A scene from 1982's Poltergeist 'Again, we hear the screeching discordant cords and that's how we know something is wrong.' Kerr says another way movies can use music to scare us is by using sounds that are in opposition to what is being presented on screen. One example is in the 1982 supernatural horror film Poltergeist, in which an eight-year-old boy is attacked by the clown doll is in his room. 'We see the clown clapping and hear the sound of clapping but we know an evil spirit is around,' Kerr said. 'They're taking sounds we associate with familiarity - like the bell of an ice cream truck - and putting them in a scene where we're seeing horror, which increases that dissonance.' CAMERA ANGLES CAN MAKE US FEEL LIKE WE'RE THE VICTIM Cinematographers can also use camera angles to make you feel uneasy during a scary movie. By looking at something that's tilted or shaky when the camera is off balance, you also feel off balance. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is 1999's The Blair Witch Project. The movie is about three student filmmakers who disappear after going to Maryland to film a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair Witch. Their 'found footage' is the film the viewer watches. By having the actors film the scenes, along with shaky movements, you feel as if you are the victim being chased by a supernatural being. Having camera angles that are tilted or shaky, when the camera is off balance, can also make viewers feel off balance like in 1999's The Blair Witch Project (pictured) 'Sometimes if you're the victim, it can feel a little too real and you might need some distance to enjoy the film you're watching,' said Kerr. Another way to build up anticipation in the viewer is to film scenes with wide camera angles. In 1981's Halloween II, there is a scene in which a character is standing at the top of the stairs but the camera is at a wide angle. Kerr explains that you believe something will appear in the space, even if stays dead, which makes you anxious. And in Psycho, during the shower scene, there is a shot where Janet Leigh is in the bottom right corner while the rest of the screen is dead white space. By doing this, Hitchcock lets the viewers subconsciously know something or someone is going to appear, but they don't know when or how. ISOLATED SETTINGS CAN TRIGGER OUR FEAR OF BEING ALONE Often, the setting of a movie can be just as much a character in a scary movie as the monster or the victim. A recent example of this is 2012's The Cabin in the Woods, whose title gives away its plot setting. Dr Grabowski said the movie, about a group of college students who spend a weekend at a remote forest cabin where they fall victim to backwoods zombies and scientists manipulating the events, is a whole subgenre of horror. 'The Cabin in the Woods is the classic "there is a killer on the loose and there is no way to get away" movie,' he said. 'The fact that you're away from civilization is also scary.' In today's world, where we are hyper-connected via our phones and social media, the experts explain that the idea of being isolated is horrifying. The isolated cabin in 2012's The Cabin in the Woods (pictured) can trigger fear itself. In our hyper-connected via our phones and social media, the idea of being isolated is horrifying Seeing the isolated cabin could trigger our fear that if we were in that situation, no one would be able to help us. 'Set and costumes are what complete our sense of emersion,' said Kerr. 'Trying to convince the viewer that this is a real cabin, where supernatural things are going on, is taken away if there is no effort to complete the scene.' There is also the fear of the unknown in the fact that a remote cabin is likely quite dark and without much light. 'Nighttime in scary and all you can tell of what is happening is sounds you're hearing in the world, like a wolf or an owl,' said Dr Grabowski. 'You're trying to make guesses in place of your vision.' HOW CAN YOU GET OVER YOUR FEAR OF SCARY MOVIES? It may seem as if you're the only one of your friends destined to be afraid during scary movies, but our experts say there are ways to make it easier. 'If you're with your friends and they convince you to go see horror movies, I would resist closing the eyes completely,' said Dr Grabowski. This is because the imagined terror might be scarier than what is actually being portrayed on screen. 'Your auditory responses are saying: "What is possibly happening?" and trying to put things together,' he added. 'So there might be more imagined terror than what is actually happening.' Another suggestion Dr Grabowski offers is looking at the corner of the screen rather than at the center where the action is happening. Kerr suggests that watching with friends that supports you, having comfort food like chocolate and even a cozy blanket can help. But, most importantly, she says it's okay to be scared by scary movies. 'It's okay to not like scary things,' Kerr said. 'That's important to know and for someone to push themselves shouldn't try to beat it if it's not their thing.' Babies and toddlers given antibiotics are much more likely to become obese, a major study suggests. A review of more than 300,000 children found that those prescribed antibiotics during their first two years of life had a 26 per cent higher risk of obesity. The longer that children had been taking the drugs and the more classes of antibiotics they had taken, the greater the risk. Girls given four or more types of the drugs were 50 per cent more likely to become obese. A review of more than 300,000 children found that those prescribed antibiotics during their first two years of life had a 26 per cent higher risk of obesity (stock image) Almost three-quarters of all the children studied had been given antibiotics before their second birthday. But of the 47,000 who went on to become obese, nearly 90 per cent had been prescribed either antibiotics or antacids. Researchers say that these powerful drugs can kill off important bacteria in the gut which help to regulate body weight. Dr Cade Nylund from the University of the Health Sciences in Maryland, senior author of the study, said: There are too many unnecessary antibiotics being prescribed to infants who may not need them, for things like common colds. We have to be careful about medications which might risk obesity because people who are obese in childhood typically increase their weight in adulthood, putting them in danger of high blood pressure, diabetes and heart problems. Antibiotics have long been linked to obesity and farmers give them to cattle with the express purpose of bulking them up. The study examined antibiotic and antacid prescriptions for 333,353 children in their first two years and followed their medical records up to the age of eight. The average risk factor for obesity rose by 26 per cent for antibiotic prescriptions, but by only 1 or 2 per cent with antacids. This is thought to be because antibiotics kill off gut bacteria more quickly. The survey showed there was a particular risk for boys and for children born by caesarean section, who are believed to miss out on important gut bacteria transferred through the birth canal. Almost three-quarters of all the children studied had been given antibiotics before their second birthday. But of the 47,000 who went on to become obese, nearly 90 per cent had been prescribed either antibiotics or antacids (stock image) Researchers say there is mounting evidence of unanticipated consequences for the particular antibiotics and the antacids they studied, namely proton pump inhibitors (PPI) and histamine 2 receptor antagonists (H2RA). However, British experts remain sceptical about the study, which is published in the journal Gut. Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard of the Royal College of GPs said it was extremely interesting but did not categorically prove that antibiotics caused obesity. It is very important that more research is conducted in this area, she said. There had been a significant reduction in the use of antibiotics in recent years due to increasing human resistance and the fact that they did not help with viral illnesses, the professor added. Dr Max Davie of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said the US research did not take into account other causes of child obesity such as their home environment or mothers weight. He added: That said, childhood obesity levels in the UK are at crisis point with one in three children overweight or obese by the time they leave primary school. Online porn has been blamed for a record rise in men seeking penis fillers to make their manhood bigger. Clinics in the UK have reported up to a 70-fold boost in queries about the injections over the past three years. One 36-year-old man spoke of his delight after having the procedure, which took the girth of his manhood from 4.9 inches (12.5cm) to 5.9 inches (15cm). Hilarious video footage shows his excited girlfriend putting her thumb up when she hears her boyfriend's penis has grown in size. The footage, aired on the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme, comes as porn has been blamed for a record rise in men seeking penis fillers. Scroll down for video In the amusing clip, the camera angles pans out to a view of Stuart Price's girlfriend Carys (pictured with her thumb up), who has just overheard her boyfriend's penis has grown in size Mr Price, from Caerphilly, was told by doctors the girth of his manhood had grown from 12.5cm to 15cm after being given penis fillers in a clinic Figures also reveal 130 men, such as Mr Price, are undergoing the procedure each month - a 20-fold increase over the same time frame. Mr Price, 36, from Caerphilly, claimed he was originally looking for a hair transplant when he saw the advert for penis fillers, which can cost in the region of 3,000. Before the procedure, he said would feel a lot better if his penis was 'a bit bigger'. Afterwards, he revealed he felt 'happier' because of his extended girth. Dr Asif Muneer, from the British Association of Urological Surgeons, spoke of his concerns over the injections of a chemical usually used to smooth out wrinkles. He said he would 'discourage' men from the procedure and warned, 'if anything, it might lead to complications that will impair their sexual function later on'. Dr Muneer told the BBC: 'Some men may be driven by unrealistic expectations partly driven by online pornography. Greater girth and length: Stuart Price has praised the trend in penis-expanding treatments Did you know? The average length of a flaccid penis is 3.6 inches (9.16 cm) and 5.2 inches (13.24 cm) when flaccid but stretched WHAT IS THE AVERAGE PENIS SIZE? For years, men the world over want to know if their manhood measures up compared to others. So, a team of researchers in 2015 sought to find out the global average for penis size. Their work revealed the mean length of an erect penis is 5.2 inches (13.12 cm), scientists found. Meanwhile, the average length of a flaccid penis is 3.6 inches (9.16 cm) and 5.2 inches (13.24 cm) when flaccid but stretched. And when it comes to girth, the average erect circumference was 4.6 inches (11.66 cm) and 3.7 inches (9.31 cm) when flaccid. The research, carried out by King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, also found there was a small correlation between the erect length of a penis and a man's height. The team looked at 17 studies of 15,521 men worldwide who underwent penis size measurements by health professionals using a standard procedure. The paper was published in the British Journal of Urology International. Advertisement 'All these augmentation procedures are mainly to increase your flaccid girth, and it will have no benefit on your erect length.' Two of the UK's largest cosmetic surgery groups told the BBC programme about their increase in enquiries for penis fillers. Moorgate Aesthetics and Androfill say they now receive around 700 calls from men each month - up from the 10 they used to get. And the two firms also revealed they now carry out around 130 of the penis filler procedures, which cost in the region of 3,000. It involves injecting a liquid, usually used to smooth out wrinkles, into the soft tissue of the penis to increase its flaccid girth. However, the effects of the injection lasts for only around 18 months and only boosts size by up to 2cm in circumference. Moorgate Aesthetics promotes the penis procedure on its website, by saying 'only nine per cent of women want less than 6.5 inches erect'. However, the average erect penis is less than this - at just 5.2 inches (13.12cm), according to a major global study carried out three years ago. Meanwhile, the average length of a flaccid penis is 3.6 inches (9.16 cm) and 5.2 inches (13.24 cm) when flaccid but stretched. In terms of girth, the average penis is 3.66 inches (9.3cm) wide when flaccid and 4.59 inches (11.66cm) wide when erect. In comparison, the average girth of a water bottle is in the region of 9.05 inches (23cm). Dr Asif Muneer, from the British Association of Urological Surgeons, said some men may be driven to undergo the procedure because of 'unrealistic expectations' - partly driven by porn Loria Medical, a clinic in the US which offers similar penile injections to boost length, claimed side effects can include the death of penis tissue, a change in shape, excessive scarring and 'erectile function'. Impotence is defined as the inability to get or keep an erection. A 25-year-old lorry driver who underwent a similar procedure to extend his penis told another BBC programme two in 2016 about how he was delighted with his 'porno size'. Known only as Leon, from the South of England, he boasted that he asked for a 'monster' and was given a 'monster' that was 1.3 inches longer. In the programme, he joked that he struggled to get his hand around it and showed it off to his friends like it was a brand new car. That procedure, which cost twice as much, involved cutting a ligament to extend the length of the penis and then adding fat to increase the girth. MailOnline reported on a bizarre trend last February that has seen men have their unwanted body fat injected into their penis to make it bigger. London Centre for Aesthetic Surgery said at the time 20 men were undergoing the procedure each week. It costs roughly 5,100. The treatment helped one man, whose identity was withheld, boost the length of his penis by less than an inch and the girth by nearly two inches. In the same year, a New York surgeon announced a 10-minute Botox-style procedure - that involves injecting one's own blood into their genitals. Dr Norman Rowe, the board-certified surgeon behind the 'bulge booster', claimed patients could gain 1.5 inches in circumference during their lunch break. Julie Watts had the controversial sterilisation device Essure fitted in 2009 after the mother-of-one wanted a permanent birth control A mother claims her uterus was pierced by the controversial contraceptive Essure and has even accused the implant of giving her breast cancer. Julie Watts, 50, had the sterilisation device implanted into her fallopian tubes in 2009 after looking for a reliable and permanent birth control. The mother-of-one, from Canberra, Australia, claims her life then became a 'living hell' with the device making her feel 'poisoned' every day. After being 'healthy as a horse', Ms Watts endured more than a decade-long health battle, which included severe bleeding, chronic pelvic and back pain, excruciating cramps, fatigue, depression and anxiety. These complications set her back at work, which Ms Watts claims ruined her career as a project manager and even caused the break down of her marriage. In a desperate attempt to rid herself of her agonising symptoms, Ms Watts had a total hysterectomy last week to remove the implant and claims she instantly felt better. 'I feel like a new woman. I'm rejuvenated and have my mojo back,' she said. 'I wanted a permanent birth control solution, and the Essure implant sounded perfect to me at the time, as the recovery period was far shorter than a tubal ligation,' Ms Watts said. The Essure implant is a permanent contraceptive device comprised of a metal nickel coil that is inserted into the fallopian tubes. This generates scar tissue, which blocks sperm from reaching the egg. Tubal ligation, known as having one's 'tubes tied', involves clamping, blocking and sealing the oviducts to prevent eggs reaching the uterus. After enduring more than decade-long health battle, which she puts down to the implant, Ms Watts had a total hysterectomy last week to remove the device. Pictured in hospital after the procedure, Ms Watts claims she instantly felt better and has her 'mojo back' 'I kept asking whether it was safe, but my doctor at the time assured me it was FDA and TGA [Therapeutic Goods Association] approved,' Ms Watts said. 'I had faith that everything would be fine, otherwise why would they use it.' After enduring symptoms for more than 10 years, Ms Watts only made the connection between her implant and her ill health while watching the 2018 documentary The Bleeding Edge. 'I totally forgot I even had it until a month ago, when I saw this documentary that details all the horrific side effects of Essure,' she said. 'I recognised the name straight away and my jaw dropped to the floor. 'I went to my gynecologist with this new information.' While visiting the medic, Ms Watts was told the implant had migrated from her fallopian tubes and pierced both sides of her uterus. 'We were both horrified. He explained that my uterus would have been trying to expel the toxic implant by contracting, which explains my cramps,' she said. 'But in turn, this caused the device to pierce through. 'I was lucky it was discovered before it perforated my bowel. That could have been disastrous.' Ms Watts claims her life became a 'living hell' after she had the device implanted, with her feeling 'poisoned' every day. After being 'healthy as a horse', she then developed severe bleeding, chronic pelvic and back pain, excruciating cramps, fatigue, depression and anxiety Now aware of the risks associated with the Essure implant, Ms Watts claims the onset of her symptoms has become much clearer. 'Looking back, it explains so many things. I'd always been healthy as a horse, but after getting the Essure implant, my health rapidly declined,' she said. 'I felt sick all the time and it was like I had been poisoned. I couldn't understand it.' Ms Watts even believes the implant caused her to develop breast cancer in 2011, which resulted in her undergoing a mastectomy on her left breast. Speaking of her diagnosis, she said: 'It didn't make sense to me, because nobody on either side of my family had ever had it. 'There was absolutely no history and my genes tested negative for the breast cancer gene. 'Then I discovered there are PET [polyethylene terephthalate] fibres in the implant that cause inflammation in the body and raise oestrogen levels. 'My breast cancer was oestrogen-positive, meaning high levels likely caused it. 'Although no doctors can confirm it, I look at the timeline and my lack of family history and I can see a link.' Symptoms caused Ms Watts to fall behind at work, which she says ruined her career as a project manager. She even blames the controversial implant for the break up of her marriage Since having the device removed last week in a total hysterectomy, Ms Watts claims she feels 'healthier and more alive' than she has in years. 'The Essure implant has stolen my career, it destroyed my health and my marriage and ruined my life,' she said. 'I felt so hopeless and had no joy. I was fatigued all the time and was just always sick. 'But I felt a difference straight away after it was removed from my body. 'This never should have happened with a device that was given to women everywhere under the pretence that is safe and won't do any harm.' Ms Watts believes the implant caused her breast cancer diagnosis in 2011. Although not medically confirmed, she claims the device contained fibres that raise oestrogen levels. 'My breast cancer was oestrogen-positive, meaning high levels likely caused it,' she said Ms Watts' gynecologist Dr Stephen Robson claims he had never seen a contraceptive device pierce through the uterus before. Her ordeal has added to his increasing concerns about the dangers of Essure. 'When I was training as a specialist back in the 1990s in Adelaide, I worked with the inventor of the Essure device, Professor John Kerin,' Dr Robson said. 'I was his assistant when he was developing the devices. However, I never really used them because of concerns I had. 'I placed a few sets of Essures back in the very early 2000s but have not used them since. 'I have to say now I have increasing concerns about longer-term adverse effects of the devices, including pain. He added: 'As we saw with transvaginal mesh, there is no central register of women who have had Essure devices, so it is very hard to provide an exact estimate of the number of women who might have had a long-term adverse outcome. 'I now have seen a number of women with possible adverse outcomes, so I certainly believe more detailed research needs to be undertaken as a priority.' The Essure implant has come under fire in recent months after the Australian law firm Slater and Gordon announced a proposed class action against the device's manufacturer Bayer in August - which would follow similar lawsuits in the US, Canada and Scotland. Slater and Gordon claimed the action comes following an onslaught of complaints from hundreds of Australian women who allege to have experienced adverse side effects from the implant. A spokesperson for Bayer said: 'At Bayer we take our social and corporate responsibilities very seriously and we make the health and wellbeing of our patients, and the integrity of all of our products, an absolute priority. 'Patient safety is of the utmost importance to Bayer, and we are always saddened to hear of anyone experiencing an adverse event with any medical device. 'Essure was developed by Conceptus Inc. and placed on the Australian market in compliance with the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) requirements. 'While it was on the market Essure was maintained and updated in accordance with all Health Authority requirements to ensure the label reflected all current safety information and that information was distributed to healthcare professionals in a timely manner. 'Essure is supported by an extensive body of research, including more than 40 published studies involving more than 200,000 patients worldwide over the past 20 years. 'Women who currently have Essure in place may continue to use the device, and Bayer will continue to support healthcare providers in their management of these patients.' A nine-year-old boy who bravely endured years of gruelling treatment battling a rare form of a childhood cancer is now free of the disease. Henry Hallam was just three when he was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, the same cancer that killed Bradley Lowery. It affects around 100 children each year in the UK and has one of the lowest survival rates of all childhood cancers. People took the little boy to heart and hundreds of thousands of pounds were raised in his name through the charity Hugs from Henry. Henry Hallam was just three when he was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, the same cancer that killed Bradley Lowery (pictured recently smiling after being told he is cancer-free) The smiling soldier before and after: Henry, from Plymouth pictured having treatment (left) People took the little boy to heart and hundreds of thousands of pounds were raised in his name through the charity Hugs from Henry His mother, Elsbeth, from Plymouth, Devon said: 'He went through such aggressive treatment and he'd already been through so much. 'It was just very, very tough. Even though we do have a lot of hospital appointments he has a relatively normal life. 'We go out, we ride our bikes and we enjoy family life together.' Despite the immense challenges the family has faced, Mrs Hallam wants to spread the message to others that children who battle the disease can live a normal life. Henry continues to suffer from the side effects of his treatment and will still have medical tests until he is 16 but five years after treatment is finally cancer-free. The all-clear was reached after Henry's tumours remained the same for the period since his cancer treatment started. Boy power! People took the little boy to heart and hundreds of thousands of pounds were raised in his name through the charity Hugs from Henry Always smiling: 'He's done amazingly well,' said mum Elsbeth. 'Neuroblastoma has one of the lowest survival rates in children - just one in five.' Mrs Hallam added she was extremely proud of Henry for battling the disease for six years. 'He's done amazingly well,' she said. 'Neuroblastoma has one of the lowest survival rates in children - just one in five. 'Whereas something like leukaemia has a four in five survival rate. Neuroblastoma is very aggressive. 'We're very lucky - and incredibly proud of Henry.' Henry underwent nearly three months of chemotherapy to begin with, before having major surgery, stronger chemo, a stem cell transplant, radiotherapy and antibody treatment as part of a medical trial, according to the Hugs from Henry charity. He was first diagnosed aged three but the proceeding years have seen hundreds of thousands of pounds raised in his name through the charity Hugs from Henry. Mrs Hallam, who is a qualified nurse, runs the charity full time. She said: 'We went to see Henry's oncologist and they are happy that he has reached five years post treatment, his tumours have remained the same and at this point they feel this is scarring/old cells that won't spread. 'He is cancer free! He will always have an oncologist but will now be part of the long term follow up team until he is 16. 'We will still have many appointments for all of his side effects caused by the treatment but no more scans no more oncology unless we need it. 'Our oncologists last words to us were "Get on with your life and try and move forward". 'We now await a call from Bristol where Henry will ring the end of treatment bell.' Family strength: Henry pictured with his 'super sibling' Georgie, plus parents Elsbeth and father, Michael, who remained a defiant team Hugs From Henry was set up in 2015 by Henrys parents after closing previous charity Hugs for Henry. That was due to not needing an active appeal for Henry and wanting to support other families affected by neuroblastoma, whether that be emotional or financial support, and provides them with a place to turn. Speaking of her emotion at the latest news about Henry, Mrs Hallam said: 'So many tears of relief and also a feeling of numbness, has this really happened? 'Is Henry really cancer free?! This journey has shaped us into the people we are today and Im so proud of Henry and his super sibling Georgie. 'Thank you to each and every person who has supported us along the way and continue too as those closest to us will know it doesn't end when treatment stops. 'Henry, you are a legend.' France has launched a nationwide inquiry after a spate of babies have been born with deformities across the country. Over the past 15 years, 25 infants have been delivered in three regions, including Brittany, with missing or malformed arms. The defects have sparked a public health scare, with authorities admitting the rate of disabilities is 'excessive'. Although unclear what the cause is, some are blaming pesticides due to cases being clustered in rural areas and calves being born in the same regions without tails. France has launched a nationwide inquiry after a spate of babies have been born with deformities across the country. Around 25 infants were delivered with missing or malformed limbs in the past 15 years in the regions of Brittany, Loire-Atlantique and Ain Francois Bourdillon, head of the agency Public Health France, confirmed a national investigation is 'underway' and the results will be released in around three months. 'Nothing is being hidden from you,' he assured listeners of RTL radio. 'We will look at all suspected cases.' Confidence in the state's handling of the issue took a blow on Monday night when health authorities reported 11 cases that took place between 2000 and 2014. These occurred in the Ain area near the Swiss border and were identified via hospital records. They had not previously been made public. In total, around 25 cases have been detected in the past 15 years in Brittany; Loire-Atlantique, which is south of Brittany; and Ain in eastern France. Seven of these babies were born between 2009 and 2014 within 10 miles (17km) of the village Druillat, Ain. And three were born in 2007 or 2008 in the western part of Loire-Atlantique. Guidel, a town in Brittany, was identified as another problem area after the mother of one of three babies born with limb defects in the region between 2011 and 2013 alerted authorities. Although a relatively small number of cases, the defects have caused public alarm after being widely reported by French media. The issue was made public by a scientist at the Remera public health body, which was created after the thalidomide scandal and is responsible for tracking birth defects. The scientist, Emmanuelle Amar, has been hailed as a whistleblower by ecologists and campaigners, but has also been accused of scare-mongering by fellow researchers. MOTHER OF SEVEN-YEAR-OLD WHO WAS BORN WITH HIS LEFT HAND MISSING WAS TOLD 'IT HAPPENS. WE WON'T HAVE EXPLANATIONS' Melinda Mostini's seven-year-old son Leo was born without a left hand and his arm partially missing. The youngster was delivered at the Lorient hospital, Morbihannaise, in western France in October 2011. Ms Mostini, who is also mother to 10-year-old Eva, discovered Leo had the defect during an ultrasound scan in June. After she asked why, doctors reportedly told her: 'It happens. These are accidents. We do not have explanations.' And seven years on, medics are still clueless as to what caused Leo's birth defect. Melinda Mostini's seven-year-old son Leo, from western France, was born without a left hand and his arm partially missing (both pictured with her daughter Eva, 10) Ms Mostini told Le Telegramme: 'I wish I could give Leo a real answer, just to explain why he has only one hand.' But the youngster refuses to let his condition hold him back and simply tells friends his hand did not develop in his mother's womb. 'Leo has known how to tie his laces since kindergarten. He spent hours on the couch practicing!' Ms Mostini added. The youngster, who his mother calls a 'little fighter', has been horse riding since he was just four years old, and is a keen cyclist, swimmer and rugby player. Despite his confidence, cruel strangers still sometimes make nasty comments. 'Children have the right to be curious but they are sometimes hard,' Ms Mostini said. Leo refuses to let his defect hold him back and started horse riding at just four years old. But the keen cyclist, swimmer and rugby player still endures cruel comments Leo has had his first consultation to have a prosthetic fitted after he did not take to one he was given as a toddler. As part of the initial investigation into the problem, Ms Mostini was questioned by doctors as to her eating habits during pregnancy and what drugs she took. However, no common thread was found between her and other affected families. 'The question arises as to whether it could be environmental', she told FranceInfo. Referencing 'fertilisers, pesticides', Ms Mostini wonders whether something 'happened at this time on the commune'. Advertisement Speaking on why these incidents may have occurred, Health Minister Agnes Buzyn told the TV channel BFM yesterday: 'We don't want to exclude anything. 'I want to know, I think all of France wants to know. Maybe it is due to what these women ate, drank or breathed in.' An initial inquiry earlier this month declared limb defects are no worse in these regions of France than elsewhere in the country. Public Health France put out a statement saying 'the statistical analysis does not highlight an excess of cases compared to the national average'. But Ms Buzyn said it was 'unacceptable' that the investigation did not get to the bottom of the problem. 'We are definitely facing an excess of cases,' Remera's director Emmanuelle Amar added. 'We have the scientific and moral obligation to go further.' WHAT WAS THE THALIDOMIDE SCANDAL? Thalidomide was the medication given to pregnant women to combat morning sickness between 1958 and 1961. It was withdrawn after doctors noticed an increase in the number of deformed babies born to mothers who had been on the drug. After a long battle, the families affected received total of 28 million in compensation, paid out by the drug manufacturer during the 1970s. Advertisement Even without the newly-discovered 11 cases, scientists have said the number of birth defects in Ain was 58 times the normal amount, The Local reported. The probe has therefore been widened and will be jointly run by the health agency and the sanitation, food and environment agency, WHBL reported. Ms Buzyn said investigators will try to determine if the affected families have anything in common. 'It is very complicated, we need to investigate the history of families in cases which sometimes date back ten years or more,' she said. Remera has already tested mothers of the affected for numerous substances they may have been exposed to during pregnancy, including drugs and excessive amounts of alcohol. No clear explanation has been found. 'We interviewed all the mothers with a very extensive questionnaire on their lifestyle,' Mr Amar said. 'The only thing they have in common is they all live in a very rural area.' Doctors at Remera have pointed the finger at pesticides, noting several calves were born without tails or missing ribs in Ain at the same time as the affected babies. Others believe the defects could be genetic. Public Health France has previously said the abnormalities were 'probably down to chance'. 'We listened to their parents and their grandparents, visited the places where they live,' Anne Gallay, a director at the body, said. 'No environmental factors - pesticides, for example - could be questioned.' However, Remera has dismissed the likelihood of the defects being down to chance as 'more than infinitesimal'. According to Public Health France, around 150 babies are born each year with limb defects. However, this data is based on just a few regional registers, which only takes into account 19 per cent of the country. There is no national register measuring limb defects at birth throughout France. This comes after thousands of babies around the world were born with missing or stunted limbs in the 1950s and 1960s, which was linked to the drug thalidomide. Thalidomide used to treat nausea in pregnant women and was banned in the 1960s. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 31) The Philippines fell eleven spots this year in World Bank's ease of doing business ranking from 113th last year to 124th out of 190 countries. The World Bank yearly releases a "Doing Business" report, which compares "business regulation for domestic firms in 190 economies." In the "Doing Business 2019: Training for Reform" report, the Philippines, with a score of 57.68, also had the second lowest rank in the East Asia and Pacific Region. The average score for the region is 63.41 points, with Malaysia having the highest rank in the region at the 15th spot. Laos, at 154th place, had the lowest rank. New Zealand kept its top spot in the rankings, while Somalia placed 190th. The report considers the following indicators in assessing how easy it is to conduct business in a nation: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, property registration, getting electricity, getting credit, paying taxes, resolving insolvency, enforcing contracts, protecting minority investors, and trading across borders. The World Bank noted that the Philippines improved in terms of starting a business, dealing with construction permits and protecting minority investors. The nation did not do well when it comes to trading across borders. "The Philippines made trading across borders more difficult by increasing the number of inspections for importing, thereby increasing the average time for border compliance," the report read. Rankings aside, the Philippines' score improved by 1.36 points compared to last year's, which was 56.32 points. Still, the Department of Finance (DOF) and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) contested these findings, and claimed that the Philippines' score for getting credit should have improved. The World Bank gave the Philippines a score of five out of 100 for getting credit, the same score as that of last year after revisions were made from the first release of the 2018 report. In a joint statement, the DOF and DTI demanded that the World Bank issue a correction. "The correction should be done soon as the Report could unduly compromise the Philippines' standing among the investment community and negatively impact the country's development," the joint statement read. Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez wrote to Mara Warwick, World Bank Country Director for Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand on the matter. Dominguez argued that the World Bank should not have based its credit data from the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) Credit Bureau, and should have gathered data from credit bureaus that have a larger database of borrower-entrepreneurs. A 13-year-old girl has become a local 'hero' after she hand-made superhero capes for babies spending Halloween in a neonatal intensive care unit. Rachel Maretsky, of Orlando, Florida crafted more than 100 capes featuring emblems from Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman and The Incredibles. This is the second time the middle schooler has made the costumes for the infants at Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Children, but it's the first time she's been able to hand them out herself. Moms at the hospital say they are incredibly moved by the gesture and say that it's made the difficult births a bit easier for them. Rachel Maretsky, of Orlando, Florida, made 125 capes for babies in the neonatal intensive care unit at Winnie Palmer Hospital (left and right). This is the second time the 13-year-old has made the costumes Rachel, her parents, and some of her friends hand-made the capes featuring emblems from Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman and The Incredibles Rachel said she was inspired by a segment she watched on NBC's TODAY show in 2016 about nurses at St Luke's Hospital of Kansas City who made capes for the babies. 'We emailed the nurses of the hospital and they sent us some of the patterns they used,' she told Daily Mail Online. The patterns the nurses sent over were of Superman, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Batman and Batgirl. This year, Rachel added an Incredibles cape to the mix, with a pattern she cut out herself. Rachel's parents and some of her friends offered to help make the tiny capes, which were created by pasting felt with hot glue in a clean space to avoid germs. Premature babies, who have weaker immune systems than full-term babies, are at a greater risk when it comes to infections. During the last stages of pregnancy, antibodies from the mother's body travel through the placenta and umbilical cord to the baby. But a premature baby may be born before this stage and, therefore, is born without any protective antibodies. For the first round of capes, Rachel's crew made 110 that were passed out over the weekend. Last year, the staff handed out the capes but, this year, Rachel got to pass them out. One baby that she dressed herself was 'feisty' like he was 'flying' so she gave him a Superman cape (pictured) When the middle schooler found out that more babies had arrived at the NICU, she and her mother Abby made 15 more on Tuesday and passed them out on Halloween. Alayna Curry, a media relations manager for Orlando Health, told Daily Mail Online that last year Rachel got the costumes to the hospital a bit late so staff members passed them out. 'This year, we wanted to make it special for her, so we had her pass out some of them and she got to meet some of the families,' Curry said. Stephanie Casaceli, a Volunteer Coordinator for Orlando Health added: 'A lot of [the parents'] were not expecting their babies to be here for Halloween so may have not had time to get a Halloween costume. 'It brings normalcy to the situation and makes things a bit easier for the parents.' 'And the moms love it and say they've been incredibly moved by the gesture.' In fact, Rachel got to put one of the capes on a baby. 'It was really special,' she said. 'But he was active and feisty like he was already "flying" so we put a Superman cape on him. 'But it was such a great experience and it really made me happy to make them really happy.' Rachel said the project has special meaning to her because her best friend was born prematurely. Her mother, Abby, told Daily Mail Online that it made her very proud to see her daughter take on such a large project. 'It was a pretty amazing experience and it makes you so happy to see your child wanted to make others happy,' she said. 'Halloween is one of our favorite holidays. Rachel loves decorating the house and going trick-or-treating and she knows [the families] won't be able to do that so she wanted to do something special for them.' Rachel said the project has special meaning to her because her best friend was born prematurely. Pictured: Batman, Batgirl, Superman, Wonder Woman and The Incredibles capes Rachel said that she's already gearing up to do the project again next year, because she considers the babies to be 'superheroes'. 'I think they're superheroes because some of them are born earlier than expected and even though they're attached to all these tubes, they're just coming out and able to survive and thrive,' she said. Despite all the capes, Rachel said she's not planning on dressing up as a superhero this year. For Halloween, she's going to be dressed as Winnie the Pooh and her friend is dressing up as Tigger. Doctors, Drug Enforcement Agencies and health officials are warning parents to check their kids trick-or-treat hauls for drug-laced candies this Halloween. With marijuana now legal for medical use in 30 US states and for recreation in nine, more people are finding more clever ways to consume the drug - like in gummies, chocolates and suckers. At least one California doctor has issued a warning to parents there that pot candies could easily end up in their kids trick-or-treat baskets. Meanwhile, the St Louis Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is cautioning parents about look-alike marijuana and meth candies - with names like 'Rasta Reese's' - that have been spotted in Missouri, Kansas and Illinois. The St Louis DEA is warning parents to check their kids' Halloween candy as weed- and meth-laced sweets with deceiving names (pictured) have surged in the Midwest Dispensaries and the marijuana industry insist that the problem is being blown far out of proportion - but health officials say its better to be safe than sorry. Adults can now enjoy weed in any form they want, in any time they want, for recreational use in nine states and Washington, DC. That's meant an explosion of the cannabis industry at large, and edibles in particular. In California alone, edible marijuana was a $180 billion business last year, and sales of treats have tripled and doubled in other states where the drug has been legalized. But as business has boomed for marijuana growers and retailers, related accidents and emergency room visits have too. There has been a particularly alarming rise in teenagers and children winding up in the hospital after consuming some form of weed - whether intentionally or not. Nationally, the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data suggests that marijuana-related ER visits increased by more than 60 percent between 2005 and 2011. EDIBLE MARIJUANA IS SAFER BUT COULD GIVE YOU A LONGER, STRONGER HIGH THAN SMOKING IT Though they come from the same plant, each marijuana product reacts differently in the body based on how it is heated. Smoking marijuana heats it to nearly 1,500 degrees Farenheit. At this temperature, the burning plant releases carcinogens (though far fewer than come from a cigarette) and smoke that constricts blood vessels and can damage the lungs. The heat also changes the psychoactive component of the plant, THC, from THCA to Delta-9THC. This new form of THC makes its way to receptors in the brain within five to 10 minutes, typically. The effects fade within 60 to 120 minutes. Weed edibles are made by dissolving THC into a fatty substance, typically oil or butter, and cooking the snack at about 300 degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature, both Delta-9THC and another psychoactive compound are released. The result is a less carcinogenic, but more potent drug. The food has to be processed by the liver, an extra step that delays the onset of a high, which makes it hard to control. Edibles' second psychotropic compound, 11-OH-THC is strong and slips easily through the blood-brain barrier. The body also keeps metabolizing the edible, making the effects of THC last far longer - sometimes as long as 10 hours. Advertisement Data from Colorado is perhaps the most telling (and certainly most studied, thus far) measure of how many young people are visiting the ER after cannabis consumption. There, nearly 40 percent more people between 13- and 20-years-old had to go to the ER for marijuana-related concerns in 2015 than had a decade prior. And in California, there has been an increase in ER visits specific to edibles among adults, teens and toddlers alike. In light of these concerns, Dr Roneet Lev, who heads up the Scripps Mercy Hospital emergency department told the San Diego Tribune that she sees accidental marijuana consumption cases in her ER 'on a regular basis.' 'It would be hard to tell [if candy was marijuana-infused]. Some of the advertisements and packaging are very deceiving,' she said. That's exactly the problem facing parents and law enforcement officials in parts of the US - particularly the Midwest. Special Agent in Charge of the St Louis division of the DEA (which covers Kansas, Missouri and Illionois) issued a warning about an uptick in meth- and marijuana-laced candies in his jurisdiction. The treats are disguised with wrappers and names that closely and comically mimic real sweets. With names like 'Twixed,' 'KeefKat,' and 'Munchy Way,' the candies could easily be mistaken for kids' treats. Eating them accidentally could lead to sudden heart rate increases, feelings of panic and other complications, depending on what drugs were in the candies, and in what concentrations. 'Marijuana-laced or Methamphetamine-laced candies can go undetected, but have harmful effects on our children if ingested,' Callahan told KSDK. 'Halloween is a time for kids to be kids and have fun with family and friends. We dont want anyone falling prey to an avoidable tragedy. Please check your candy closely. If you come across any suspicious treats that have unusual wrapping or misspelled candy labels give it to your local police department.' At least 40 people with profound learning disabilities or autism have died in 'barbaric' secure hospitals. Nine were under 35 when they passed away at the controversial treatment centres, which the Government has been vowing to close since 2015. 'There are deaths of people in these institutions, some of them unexplained,' said Sir Stephen Bubb, who has authored progress reports on secure hospitals. 'The idea that in the 21st century you lock people up, you restrain them, you hold them down, I think is disgusting, it is barbaric and it is unacceptable, and it needs to be made unlawful.' At least 40 people with profound learning disabilities or autism have died in 'barbaric' secure hospitals. Nine were under 35 when they passed away at the controversial centres (stock) Secure hospitals treat some of the most vulnerable people in society who are deemed to be a danger to themselves due to mental health problems. They are intended to treat patients for a maximum of just 18 months, by which time people should theoretically be stable enough to go into community-based care. But most stay an average of five-and-a-half years, with 16 per cent staying more than 12 months and 60 per cent over two years, a Sky News investigation revealed. A man known only as Tony, who has autism and a severe learning disability, has even been confined to a secure hospital for the past 18 years - 100 miles from his parent's home. Put into residential care aged 20, he was only meant to be there for nine months. His parents Roy and Pam claim there is a 'big hole in their family' after Tony was not discharged into community care. They were also told their son would be allowed home to celebrate Christmas with them for the first time in nearly two decades. WHAT ARE SECURE HOSPITALS? Secure hospitals treat some of the most vulnerable people in society who are deemed to be a danger to themselves due to mental health problems. They are intended to treat patients for a maximum of just 18 months, by which time people should theoretically be stable enough to go into community-based care. More than 2,000 patients are currently being treated at a secure hospital, the Sky News investigation found. Numbers have not changed much in the past five years, with 2,395 patients in March 2015 and just 80 less at 2,315 last month. The investigation also found patients had to be restrained a total of 16,660 times in 2016, which rose to 28,880 last year. A Freedom of Information request revealed staff resort to medication, patient seclusion and even 'prone restraint'. This involves pinning a patient to a surface they cannot move from, and can cause compression of the chest and airways. NHS England put the increase in restraint cases down to better reporting of incidents. Advertisement However, they have since been informed this will not be the case. More than 2,000 patients are currently being treated at a secure hospital, the investigation found. Numbers have not changed much in the past five years, with 2,395 patients in March 2015 and just 80 less at 2,315 last month. The investigation also found patients had to be restrained a total of 16,660 times in 2016, which rose to 28,880 last year. A Freedom of Information request revealed staff resort to medication, patient seclusion and even 'prone restraint'. This involves pinning a patient to a surface they cannot move from, and can cause compression of the chest and airways. NHS England put the increase in restraint cases down to better reporting of incidents. Speaking of the investigation, Matt Hancock said: 'I've been following this since I became health secretary and I think it's absolutely heartbreaking.' Mr Hancock added he is 'actively working' on reducing the number of people in secure hospitals, with the aim to decrease patients by a third within the next few years. He hopes this week's announcement of a 2 billion cash injection into mental health services will be 'part of the answer but by no means the whole answer'. This comes after the Government pledged to empty half of beds in secure hospitals by March. Ray James, NHS England's national director for learning disabilities, said improving the lives of those with mental-health conditions is a priority for the health service. He claims there are 20 per cent fewer people with a learning disability in hospital than in March 2016. But Mr James added more must be done, which is why NHS England is investing 75 million to provide community support to people as they are discharged from hospital. This comes after Mr Hancock pledged a crackdown on violent patients and relatives amid a surge in attacks on NHS staff. A shocking 15 per cent of employees one in seven have been attacked or threatened in the past 12 months, the highest rate in five years. Mr Hancock will today roll out the health services first violence reduction strategy to protect vulnerable staff. A 27-year-old mother-of-four died of heart failure during an emergency C-section in which doctors saved her baby but couldn't stem the internal bleeding. Charlene Castro Flores, of Fresno, California, had planned to give birth to her fourth daughter with husband Elesandro naturally, due to her history of heart issues which could be aggravated by a Caesarean. However, she started to suffer severely painful contractions last Tuesday night, and scans revealed she had internal bleeding. Doctors said the only way to save her baby was to undergo a C-section, and Charlene agreed. Elesandro said doctors came out of the procedure with their thumbs up, saying his daughter, Quinn Nevaeh, was being 'worked on' but Charlene was stable and asleep. But moments later, someone shouted 'code blue', which is the code for cardiopulmonary arrest, and within 20 minutes Elesandro, barely digesting the joy and relief, received the devastating news, on the morning of Wednesday 24 October, that Charlene had died. Now, family and friends are rallying around him and his four girls, paying tribute to Charlene, 'a beloved mother, wife, daughter, relative, and friend'. Tragic: Charlene Castro Flores, 27, (center) died after doctors saved her fourth daughter in an emergency C-section. She is pictured here with husband Elesandro and their other daughters Elesandro said doctors came out of the procedure with their thumbs up, saying his daughter, Quinn Nevaeh, was being 'worked on' but Charlene stable and asleep. But moments later, someone shouted 'code blue' Painful ordeal: Elesandro with newborn Quinn Nevaeh, who is still recovering in the NICU. He was at first told both Quinn and Charlene survived. Shortly after Charlene had a heart attack Tribute have flooded in for Charlene, 'a beloved mother, wife, daughter, relative, and friend' 'I told my kids, you're (an) extension of your mother,' Elesandro Flores told ABC30. 'You guys are women, and you guys are going to be my life, you guys are going to take that role, you guys are going to take care of me, and I know you will, and they have.' Heart conditions are increasingly common in reproductive-age mothers in the US, and yet there is still no clear research on the best mode of delivery to lower the risk. One recent study suggested that for women with a history of cardiac disease or other heart-related issues, planned C-sections are often deemed the safest option to avoid the risk of an emergency C-section, which carries the highest mortality risk. However, in America - home to one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world - progress is slow to build on the few papers that have explored the issue. Twenty-five per 100,000 women die in childbirth in the US every year - more than double the rate in western Europe. The rate is highest for women of color. 'I told my kids, you're (an) extension of your mother,' Elesandro Flores told ABC30 . 'You guys are women, and you guys are going to be my life' Charlene had a history of heart issues, so the emergency C-section was life-threatening Having given birth three times before, Charlene was well-versed on the risks, and understood what symptoms to look out for, Elesandro said. During the night she and Elesandro agreed that her contractions were too severe to be normal, so he drove her to Community Regional Medical Center. Doctors checked her, determined everything was fine, but admitted her to the ward to keep an eye. Once she was settled in, Charlene told Elesandro she felt fine, and that she'd rather he go home to get some rest and to make sure their three daughters got to school. Not long after he got home, however, he received a call from Charlene. 'She FaceTimes me and says I need you here right now,' Elesandro told ABC. 'So the doctors come back to me in the room saying your baby's being worked on, your wife's asleep,' he said. 'And then [I] heard code blue. This lady comes to our door area and says, "We need you doctor," and the doctor rushes back there. And then 20 minutes later the rest of the doctors and nurses flow in the room and tell me that my wife didn't make it but my daughter's in an incubator getting her treatment.' Historically, like in most countries, that was largely due to delivery complications including hemorrhages and infections. As of last year that had shifted in America: traditional issues are now rare, but chronic underlying issues - such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease - are to blame for the majority of maternal deaths and complications in childbirth. Dr Lindsay Admon, the University of Michigan researcher who documented that shift in a research paper last November, warns the issue will continue to grow unless more women have healthcare through their lifetime to treat underlying conditions before pregnancy - particularly low-income women. Their community has rallied round them, hosting barbecues and events to raise money and celebrate Charlene's life She also warns that this seems to be the start of a global trend due to lifestyle factors. We will likely see an increased rate of chronic underlying health issues in pregnant women all over the world. 'In the US, we have passed the "obstetric transition" - fewer women are dying from traditional causes of death but more have pre-existing conditions, which they are dying from,' Dr Admon told DailyMail.com. 'I suspect that we have already started to see in developing nations a similar trend: improvements in maternal mortality from hemorrhage and infections but more and more facing pre-existing conditions.' However, the rates are rising faster than research - and much faster than policy changes. The Flores family is a snapshot of the devastation of what that lack of progress leads to. Little Quinn is still recovering in the NICU - a stressful and emotional prospect for any family, even without losing their mother. In a GoFundMe created to support Elesandro and the girls, a friend thanks well-wishers for their prayers and thoughts, and asks for any help to support the family in paying for the funeral and beyond. Insect repellents used to deter mosquitoes could actually lead to an increase in their numbers - and the killer diseases they carry. Researchers now fear a commonly-used ingredient in over-the-counter products is altering the food chain. They believe sprays and lotions containing picaridin can kill spotted salamanders, which feed on a mosquito's offspring. In turn, their absence allows the fly's population to boom, subsequently raising the risk of Zika and dengue fever infections. On the increase? Insect repellents used to deter mosquitoes could actually lead to an increase in their numbers - and the diseases they carry The findings, made by experts at New York's Cornell University, were published in the Biology Letters journal. Dr Rafael Almeida, lead author, said the effects of repellents containing DEET and picaridin need to be studied further. However, writing in the journal he specualted it could 'potentially increase mosquito-borne disease risk worldwide.' Dr Almeida said: 'The amount of repellents entering waterways peaks seasonally. 'If amphibians are exposed during a sensitive life stage, entire cohorts could perish. The population would not have a chance to recover until the following year. 'Meanwhile, mosquitoes would continue to reproduce. It suggests a negative feedback loop.' Spotted salamanders: The lizard-like predators begin life in the water where they provide natural mosquito control, foraging on the insects' larvae Researchers tested the effects of two of the most popular insect repellents - DEET and picaridin - on both larval salamanders and mosquitoes. They exposed them to three different concentrations of these chemicals in a lab, as well as a control treatment. The mosquito larvae were not affected by any of the treatments when they matured. Conversely, the salamanders of all three treatment groups began showing signs of impaired development, such as tail deformities. These occured just four days after they were exposed to the repellent containing picaridin. Dangers: Last week, pregnant women in Britain were told to not travel to a region of India amid fears they could be struck down with Zika More than three weeks after the experiment, up to 65 per cent of the salamander larvae that were exposed to picaridin died. Dr Barbara Han, study co-author and a disease ecologist at Cary Institute, said: 'The expediency of salamander mortality was disconcerting. 'When studying the effects of a chemical on an amphibian, we usually look for a suite of abnormalities. 'We couldn't collect these data because the salamanders died so quickly.' An eight-year-old boy was misdiagnosed with ADHD when he actually had sleep apnea, and now his mother is warning others about how the symptoms can resemble each other. Melody Yazdani, of Vienna, Virginia, was left frustrated when her son Kian started acting up in school and at home. He was irritable, would go into meltdowns, and had trouble concentrating, leaving doctors to conclude that he had ADHD. But what Yazdani discovered through her own research was that her son was actually suffering from a sleep disorder and his 'ADHD symptoms' were just a result of a lack of sleep and struggling to breathe. Since correcting his breathing - which included removing his tonsils and his adenoids - Yazdani says her Kian's behavior has immensely improved and he no longer has tantrums or meltdowns. It comes on the heels of a growing amount of research that suggests some kids are misdiagnosed and do not get enough sleep, resulting in behaviors that mimic ADHD. Kian Yazdani, eight, from Vienna, Virginia, began having behavioral issues in the first grade. He was irritable, would have tantrums and throw things. Pictured: Kian with his mother, photo undated Doctors diagnosed Kian (pictured) with ADHD, until Melody found an article that suggested some kids are misdiagnosed and are not getting enough sleep, resulting in behaviors that are similar to ADHD Yazdani wrote in a Facebook post on October 24 that Kian's behavioral issues began when he was in first grade. Parent-teacher conferences and new reward systems seemed to help in school, but not at home. 'When Kian gets angry, he gets ANGRY,' Yazadni wrote. 'He gets fixated on little things...his fuse gets shorter and shorter, and he's a picky eater who barely eats.' She recalled one incident when her son found a hair in the shower and started yelling, 'It's gross! I can't shower in there' before proceeding to have a meltdown. The next year, in second grade, Yazdani said Kian's tantrums continued to intensify and that behavioral reports from his teachers were coming in almost daily '[They said]: "Kian is pushing", "Kian can't control his impulses", "Kian is having a hard time staying in his seat",' she wrote. 'And it is going on and on. Almost daily. And I'm mortified.' Yazdani said her son would start screaming, hitting and throwing things almost every day starting at 5am, leaving her bewildered by his behavior. At the recommendation of his pediatrician, Kian started seeing a therapist, who recommended ADHD testing. Yazdani said at the time, she took Kian to see a pulmonologist and an allergist for a persistent cough he was having. 'Each doctor is recommending more and more medications - two inhalers for the cough, an antibiotic (four different rounds) for the postnasal drip, a steroid, and it goes on and on,' she wrote. WHAT IS SLEEP APNEA? Sleep apnoea is a serious sleep disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts. It occurs when the muscles and soft tissues in the throat relax, which blocks the airways. The resulting lack of oxygen in the brain causes sufferers to wake regularly through the night. Signs and symptoms: Snoring Gasping for air during sleep Having a dry mouth in the morning Insomnia Excessive daytime sleepiness (hypersomnia) Difficulty paying attention Irritability Although snoring is a symptom of sleep apnea, not all those that snore have the disorder. The condition has serious physical health consequences, including an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. It is estimated that about 22 million Americans suffer from sleep apnea and that 80 percent of moderate or severe cases go undiagnosed. manage their symptoms by wearing an oxygen mask at night or an oral device to keep their airways open. Source: Mayo Clinic Advertisement Also around this time, Kian's dentist told Yazdani that Kian's teeth were ground almost halfway down - a sign he was grinding them at night. Still bewildered by her son's behavior, Yazdani said she came upon an September 2017 article from The Washington Post that 'changed our life'. The article discussed the prevalence of children with impulsive behavior over the last two decades. While scientists and policymakers have turned to ADHD as the answer, a growing number of researchers actually believe that many kids are not getting enough sleep every night, resulting in behaviors that are similar to ADHD. A number of studies have suggested that some children are misdiagnosed with ADHD and are actually suffering from insomnia, sleep apnea or other sleep disorders. 'The connection - it was really a lot of luck,' Yazdani told Yahoo Lifestyle. 'I had suspicions that something was not right with Kian. In addition to the escalating behavior problems, he had dark under-eye circles, despite a strict bedtime of 7.30pm every night.' She immediately scheduled appointments with a pediatric ear, nose, and throat specialist, an orthodontist, and a sleep center 'All of the doctors were skeptical at first glance - here's a mom with no medical degree who thinks she's figured out what is wrong with her child,' she said. A sinus imaging scan revealed that Kian's sinuses were almost completely block and inflamed - meaning he was sleeping with his mouth open at night. Why is this bad? Not only are children not getting enough oxygen to the brain, which can led to fatigue, but studies have shown kids who mouth-breathe have slower growth and perform worse in school because of fatigue and inattention. Next, the doctors followed up with a sleep study. Results showed that Kian had exactly zero minutes of rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep. This is one of the five stages of sleep, characterized by the eyes moving rapidly in various directions and when most dreaming occurs. Doctors also measured the levels of oxygen in his blood. Values under 90 percent are considered low - and Kian's was in the low 80s. A sleep study found that Kian actually had sleep apnea. Since correcting his breathing, Melody says Kian no longer has tantrums and his behavior has improved. Pictured: Melody with Melody with Kian and two of her three daughters What Kian was suffering from was not, in fact, ADHD but sleep apnea, a serious sleep disorder where breathing repeatedly stops and starts throughout the night. In addition to loud snoring and difficulty breathing, symptoms can include being sleepy during the day, difficult paying attention and irritability - all things Kian was experiencing. Kian had surgery to remove his tonsil and adenoids, glands located in the roof of the mouth, which Yazdani said 'immensely' improved his breathing. Yazdani said her son's behavior has completely changed with the correct diagnosis. There are no more tantrums or an OCD-type of fixation on little things. In the latest sleep study conducted, Kian had 360 minutes of REM sleep, and oxygen saturation above the minimum threshold. 'No behavior reports in school. His appetite has exploded, he's no longer a picky eater, and he had a huge growth spurt two weeks after the surgery,' she wrote. 'Please share this, you may help someone - I wish I had learned this information years ago! The original Facebook has more than 32,900 reactions and has been shared more than 237,600 times. A mother has revealed her child's heartbreaking words after contracting a rare polio-like illness that may leave him paralyzed forever. Two years ago, Sebastian Bottomley, seven, came down with a common cold. But soon he developed muscle weakness, and eventually was left completely paralyzed. After running numerous tests, doctors in York, Pennsylvania, diagnosed him with acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), an infection that causes sudden paralysis. This year, at least 72 children in 22 states have been diagnosed with AFM and another 83 are being investigated. Despite undergoing more than 2,000 hours of physical and occupational therapy, Sebastian remains stuck in a wheelchair and unable to walk - a situation that has frustrated and exhausted him. 'Occasionally he says things like: "Mom, why can't I just walk like everybody else does without all this work?",' his mother, Christa, told CBS News. Two years ago, Sebastian Bottomley, seven (pictured), of York, Pennsylvania, also had symptoms resembling a cold and was diagnosed with AFM Camdyn Carr, four (pictured), of Roanoke, Virginia, came down with a cold in August. Within two weeks, he was paralyzed and was diagnosed with acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) Her words come as another mother of a child diagnosed with AFM reveals that his ordeal with the condition has left him crying in his hospital bed. Soon after Sebastian began sniffling in August 2016, he started displaying muscle weakness. Then, he couldn't move any body part below his neck. After a battery of tests, doctors finally diagnosed him with AFM. AFM is a rare, but serious condition that affects the nervous system. Specifically it attacks the area of the spinal cord called gray matter, which causes the body's muscles and reflexes to weaken. Symptoms often develop after a viral infection, such as enterovirus or West Nile virus, but often no clear cause is found. Patients start off having flu-like symptoms including sneezing and coughing. This slowly turns into muscle weakness, difficulty moving the eyes and then polio-like symptoms including facial drooping and difficulty swallowing. In rare cases, AFM can cause neurological complications that could lead to death. Sebastian has had to undergo numerous surgeries and he's been hospitalized more than 200 times in the last two years. However, after 2,000 hours of physical and occupational therapy, Sebastian is finally able to dress himself, feed himself, stand up and use the restroom 'I can walk, I can move my arm and I can like, kneel, and I can scooch on the floor up and down stairs,' Sebastian told WJZ13. Sebastian has undergone three surgeries and 2,000 hours of physical and occupational therapy. Pictured: Sebastian relearning how to walk He is finally able to dress himself, feed himself, stand up and use the restroom. However, he has been left confined to a wheelchair (left and right) since his diagnosis After 2,000 hours of physical and occupational therapy, Sebastian is finally able to dress himself, feed himself, stand up and use the restroom 'He's been hospitalized almost 200 days in the past two and a half years,' Christa told the newspaper. However, he still gets around in a wheelchair and relearning to walk has been a difficult journey. Camdyn Carr, four, of Roanoake, Virginia, has also been left frustrated by his slow progress that often leaves him crying in his hospital bed. For Camdyn, it started out as a common sinus infection. However, just two weeks later, the entire right side of his body was paralyzed. Just 24 hours after that, he was completely unable to move or speak. Doctors at the University of Virginia Health System told Camdyn's parents, Chris Carr and Brittany Hoff, that he had AFM. 'There's no answers for why he got it,' Hoff told WSET. 'The doctors said there's nothing that we could have prevented, there's nothing that we could have done.' Camdyn (before AFM, left, and after AFM, right) is unable to breathe on his own and has had a trach inserted. He is undergoing intense therapy but is unable to speak and is only able to wiggle his fingers and toes, and move only one leg At least 72 children in 22 states have been diagnosed with AFM and another 83 are being investigated. Pictured: Camdyn in the hospital No specific treatment is available for AFM and interventions are generally recommended on a case-by-case basis. Children with weakness in their arms or legs may attend physical or occupational therapy. However, physicians admit they are unaware of the long-term outcomes for those with AFM. Currently, Camdyn is at the Kennedy Kreiger Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, where he is undergoing intense physical therapy and he is expected to remain there until December 18. '[Doctors] said that he will never recover. For the rest of his life - paralyzed,' said Hoff. Currently, he is unable to speak and is only able to wiggle his fingers and toes, and move only one leg. 'He seems okay sometimes, but there are a lot of times where he's crying,' Chris Carr told WSET. 'And I know it's because he can't speak.' A GoFundMe page has been set by Camdyn's family to help cover expenses once he goes home. So far, more than $3,200 of an initial $3,000 goal. Utah patients may soon be prescribed a free trip to Mexico rather than to their local pharmacy. The controversial move launched on Tuesday by insurer PEHP Health and Benefits is designed to help patients with MS, arthritis, psoriasis, Crohn's and other chronic diseases get hold of cheaper prescription drugs. The company, which provides insurance to 170,000 Utahns, plans to pay for patients to fly to San Diego and drive across the border to get their medications from Tijuana, where manufacturers offer more affordable deals for 13 commonly-prescribed drugs. On top of the free trip, patients are being offered a $500 cash hand-out as an incentive. Many of the drugs require four prescriptions a year - which could mean four trips and a $2,000 dollar reward for patients who choose the voluntary offer. Chet Loftis, managing director of PEHP, says medical tourism is hardly new - the company is simply jumping on a well-oiled bandwagon. Pharmacies in Tijuana, Mexico, have been marketing to US customers for years (such as this one pictured in 2006). Now, a Utah insurance company is offering patients a free trip to take them up on those offers While a one-month supply for the MS drug Avonex costs $6,700 in the US, it is around $2,200 in Tijuana. 'According to our calculations, the drugs we are looking at cost about $13,500 for a ninety-day supply,' Loftis said. 'We can fly a health plan member to San Diego, have them picked up by private transport, receive the same drug as they would in the US from a hospital in Tijuana that meets US standards, give them a cash back incentive of $500, and still save between 40 to 60 percent for the employer.' The new program, dubbed the Pharmacy Tourism Program, is one option in a broader cash-back incentive scheme launched on Tuesday. It comes after a bill passed in the 2018 Legislative Session ordered insurance companies to offer state employees lower cost options and share the savings in the form of cash. For around a dozen drugs, a trip to Mexico qualifies as a lower cost option. Though Loftis expects the list of qualified drugs to 'evolve' over time, it is currently limited to these: Ampyra (for multiple sclerosis) Aubagio 14mg (for multiple sclerosis) Avonex (for multiple sclerosis) Copaxone 40mg (for multiple sclerosis) Enbrel 25mg, 50mg (for arthritis and psoriasis) Forteo (for osteoporosis) Gilenya (for multiple sclerosis) Humira 40mg maintenance pack (for arthritis, psoriasis, ankylosing spondylitis, Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis) Orencia (for rheumatoid arthritis) Otezla (for psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis) Stelara 45mg/0.5ml (for plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis) Tecfidera (for psoriasis and multiple sclerosis) Zytiga 250mg (a hormone based chemotherapy for prostate cancer) According to Loftis, members who want to make the trip will be screened to make sure that travel is appropriate. 'We have seen some interest but no one has gone yet,' he said. 'We look at this as a small way to help reduce costs for members and employer groups that is part of larger effort of sharing savings back with members in concert with HB 19. 'We have a number of drugs that qualify for Cash Back that are available here in Utah and do not require a trip to Mexico.' PEHP Clinical Services Director Travis Tolley added: 'The prescription drugs received in Mexico are the same quality and from the same manufacturer as those sold in the US.' Patisserie Valerie chairman Luke Johnson's has a noted aversion to the press Patisserie Valerie wasn't allowing journalists to attend today's emergency meeting until a U-turn late yesterday evening. This was the result of a 'misunderstanding', we are assured, rather than chairman Luke Johnson's noted aversion to the press. Journalists in the embattled entrepreneur's company are about as welcome as Sir Philip Green at a #MeToo gathering, which is odd. Until recently, Johnson penned a jaunty newspaper column which took frequent pot-shots at other businesses. Several of his close family, including father Paul and brother Daniel, are also prominent proponents of our trade. Theresa May is right not to back knee-jerk demands for Sir Philip Green to be stripped of his knighthood. David Cameron came to regret bowing to the mob over ex-Royal Bank of Scotland chief Fred Goodwin's defrocking. Green's ill-deserved gong, awarded by Tony Blair needless to say, serves as a future reminder of how impressionable prime ministers can become spellbound by flashy billionaires. It's best left in place pour encourager les autres. Bob Diamond is to be welcomed as keynote speaker at the Financial Times's US banking forum in New York next week. Since being ousted from Barclays six years ago, Bob, 67, refuses to hide his light under a bushel. His African investment vehicle Atlas Mara is showing steady growth, while last year's acquisition of brokers Panmure Gordon gives him a foothold once more in London. 'There are no second acts in American lives,' F Scott Fitzgerald opined. But then he never met beaming Bob Diamond. Former investment banker Ian Blackford, now the SNP's ample Westminster chief, humbly referred to himself as a 'simple crofter' in the Commons while attacking Philip Hammond's budget. The Conservatives' Greg Hands retorted: 'I had a career in the City and I don't recall him being a simple crofter at that time. 'Maybe that was his codename on his Bloomberg terminal as he was buying and selling financial assets.' Blackford squirmed like a constipated Dowager. The enduring success of British noodle chain Wagamama, which is being bought by The Restaurant Group for 559million, continues to baffle the Japanese. Out east, Wagamama translates as 'spoiled brat'. I booked short stay parking with Heathrow's Official Airport Car Parking for 106. However, on the way to the airport, we were involved in a road accident, for which I wasn't to blame. Our car was written off and we ended up back home. British Airways moved us on to a later flight with no charge and we paid 60 for bus tickets to and from the airport. But, when I contacted Heathrow to ask for a refund of the car park booking, I was advised to ask my insurer, as they didn't think they could help. My insurer, Post Office, said it could help only with the bus tickets, not the parking. After the excess is taken off, we'll get just 10 back. I still feel Heathrow could have been more helpful. G. W., Oxford. Heathrow refused to refund a couple who were unable to use the car parking slot they had booked after they were involved in a car crash on the way to the airport I totally agree I, too, found Heathrow Parking unhelpful. In a statement, it said: 'Unfortunately, we were not made aware of this issue until the passenger returned from holiday, so we were unable to offer a refund in this instance. 'We encourage all passengers to get in touch with us immediately and we will do everything we can to cancel or amend a booking.' It referred me to its terms and conditions, which say: 'You can cancel a car parking booking up to 24 hours before your time of arrival to the car park using the online booking feature. 'You will qualify for a full refund, as long we receive notification of your cancellation in time.' If there are problems on the day, it adds: 'It depends on the particular circumstances, but you should call LHR Airports on 0344 335 1000 and we'll do everything we can to help.' Other terms and conditions say the airport must receive notice of your cancellation at least two hours before car park entry. But when were you supposed to go online or call Heathrow? When you were at the roadside, in shock, straight after the accident? You had enough to worry about sorting out your car, alternative travel to the airport and a new flight time so it's hardly surprising if it slipped your mind. I think, in these circumstances, phoning when you got back from holiday was reasonable, however Heathrow Parking disagrees. Clearly, it has an inflated sense of its own importance. I was also surprised Post Office turned down your insurance claim. It confirmed your policy covered your travel to the airport following the accident and that, if you had needed to rebook the flight, the insurance would have also covered this. But there is good news. A spokesman says: 'Although we were surprised to hear the car park will not be refunding our customer, we have reviewed this case and are happy to cover this irrecoverable cost as a gesture of goodwill, especially given the unfortunate and stressful circumstances.' So, full marks to Post Office for coming up trumps and zero to Heathrow for its thoroughly intransigent attitude. You have YOUR say Every week, Money Mail receives hundreds of your letters about our stories. Here are some from our article on customers of the car rental giant Goldcar being forced to buy insurance they don't want or need... When I hire a car in Europe, I dig out small, local firms. They meet me promptly at the airport and don't leave me sitting like a lemon at their desks. No insurance sales, just honest businessmen who know about car hire. W. S., Bradford, West Yorks. This happened to me in Murcia this year. An agent from a different firm told me I had paid only my deposit, even though I knew that I had bought insurance. I've sent numerous emails, but am getting nowhere. I think the small claims court is the next place to go. J. M., Oxford. I used another firm in Barcelona recently. I had no problem with the insurance, but it charged me a 30 refuelling fee, even though I'd filled up the car at the airport. M. O., Lancashire. Insuring a hire car can be a complete nightmare in Spain. In my experience, you not only have to insure the car, but also insure the insurance, or else be liable for about 1,500 of excess damage costs. It is excess gone mad. S. Y., Derby. I felt I should write in defence of Goldcar. I have used it for the past five years and found it's a great company to deal with, from the reservation process through to returning the car. H. C., by email. I received a letter from my phone company, saying it was sorry to hear that I was leaving. When I queried this, it said there was nothing it could do, as another provider had requested a transfer of my services. I then lost telephone and broadband for a short period and was surprised to receive a TalkTalk router. I have contacted TalkTalk nine times, only to be told no record can be found because it has no customer number for me. I have now been reconnected with my original provider, but TalkTalk has gone into overdrive, sending letters saying that I owe it a 21.84 set-up fee. M. R., Arbroath, Angus. This is strange. On February 15, TalkTalk received an order via a store. Then, on February 26, you contacted it saying you hadn't made the order and your mobile phone had been hacked. You were advised to contact your bank to be sure your details were safe. The services were disconnected on March 26, but TalkTalk wrongly left charges outstanding on your account, which then prompted the debt collection activity. On May 24, you faced further frustration when you contacted TalkTalk, but could not pass data protection checks obviously, this was because you hadn't set up the account in the first place. On July 12, the case moved to its fraud team. Finally, you contacted me. Now, the balance has been cleared and the negative mark removed from your credit file. A TalkTalk spokesman says: 'We apologise for the problems Mr R experienced. We removed the charges and negative markers and he is satisfied with the outcome.' Straight to the point My neighbour moved into a care home after falling ill. I paid her Virgin Media telephone bill up to the time she moved into the home and then asked the firm to cancel her account. She has now died, but Virgin is still sending bills. I don't know what to do. R. B., Chingford, East London. Virgin Media says it was unable to close the account because you had not sent a power of attorney notice to prove you have permission to act on your neighbour's behalf. It finally closed the account in September, when it was notified your neighbour had died, but it did not clear the outstanding balance, which is why you continued to receive bills. Virgin apologises and has now cancelled the debt. *** In 2015, I had a will written by a self-employed solicitor. He recently phoned me to say that he is no longer practising. Will the document still be valid? L. S., East Sussex. Emily Deane, of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, says you shouldn't encounter any problems unless your solicitor is also the executor of your will and thus in charge of administering the estate. If this is the case, you may want to update your will with the name of a different executor. This can be done by another solicitor. *** Someone used my credit card last month to make what appears to be a hotel booking. Should I report this matter to the police? E. L., by email. You should first report the fraudulent transaction to your bank, which will take steps to ensure your account is safe. Banks will usually refund such unauthorised transactions, as long as you have not been careless with your personal details. You can also report the incident to Action Fraud by calling 0300 123 2040 or online at actionfraud.police.uk Carpeting company Victoria, a rug supplier to the Queen, has plummeted for the second day in a row. The 123-year-old firm, which is listed on London's junior market AIM, fell another 14.3 per cent yesterday, closing down another 65p at 390p, taking loss so far this week to more than 35 per cent. The rout, which has wiped 268.4million off the value of the company, came after a bleak warning on Monday that it was not making as much profit on each sale as expected. It was a sharp turn of fortunes for Victoria, which has delivered some of the best returns for investors of any listed UK company this decade. Rug supplier Victoria, which is listed on London's junior market AIM, fell another 14.3% yesterday, closing down another 65p at 390p, taking loss so far this week to more than 35% In the ten years leading up to August 2018, its shares had soared a massive 4708.5 per cent. The recent slump will be bad news for executive chairman Geoff Wilding, who owns 21.4m shares. His stake would have been worth 177million just three months ago but has fallen to 83.4million today, and 2.8m of his shares are still being held as security against a personal loan he took out with JP Morgan in June. Wilding's bank balance should still be looking relatively healthy, however. He made the canny move of selling 5m shares in August to a mysterious US investor called Spruce House Capital, following what the company called excess investor demand for its shares. He made 41.4million from the sale at the time, and Spruce House which is also a top-ten shareholder in Metro Bank has since scooped up more shares. As Victoria crashed on Monday, the shady New York firm increased its stake from 7.9 per cent to 9.6 per cent. Stock Watch - Rainbow Rare Earths Shares in miner Rainbow Rare Earths took a dive after chief executive Martin Eales warned of a challenging geological environment. The Burundi-focused rare earth specialist, which mines elements used in electric cars and mobile phones, said positive progress had been made in the first quarter. But partly because of smaller quantities of concentrate at its new mine than expected, its target production rate would be delayed into 2019. Shares slid 48.2 per cent, or 4.65p, to 5p. It was a better day for the FTSE 100. The blue-chip index climbed 0.1 per cent, or 9.5 points, to 7035.9 points as strength at the major housebuilders after the Government renewed its Help to Buy scheme helped to draw investors in. Philip Hammond's Budget also boosted Kier Group, which could see multiple benefits from the policies announced by the Chancellor. Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, explained: 'Extra funding for high-speed broadband in rural areas could give a boost to Kier's infrastructure business where it is a major supplier to Virgin Media. Kier is also a key partner to local authorities across the UK with pothole repairs.' The FTSE 250 firm's shares jumped 4.7 per cent, or 40p, to 895p. Oil-well engineer Hunting was the weakest performer on the mid-sized index, as the company warned 'geopolitical tensions' were weighing on sentiment and causing companies to slow their investment. The firm, which relies on oil firms wanting to build and service wells, said its trading was still in line with expectations, but investors took a wary stance as shares slipped 5.2 per cent or 36.5p to 661p. Back on AIM, oil and gas exploration company Ascent Resources plunged as it threatened to take the Slovenian government to court in the EU. Ascent has been seeking an environmental permit to launch its Petisovci project for five years, and said it had received repeated private assurances from senior officials at Slovenia's environment agency saying the permits would be confirmed. But more recently, it had failed to get 'any meaningful comment' from the agency or Slovenia's new environment minister Jure Leben. Chief executive Colin Hutchinson said the company was exploring options to challenge both Leben and Slovenia in the EU courts. Shareholders seemed unconvinced that this would produce any positive results and shares fell by 33.3 per cent, or 0.25p, to 0.5p. Stem cell firm Widecells, on the other hand, shot up by 50 per cent, or 0.15p, to 0.45p, as it said it would save 400,000 per year from slimming down its GP education unit. High Street stalwart Next saw its shares slide by 4 per cent in early trading today after it came clean on a ghoulish Autumn trading period. Over the last three months the fashion giant's sales slumped by 8 per cent across its 530 UK retail stores - worse than the 6.9 per cent decline Next revealed at the half-year mark. Sales even lost momentum at its thriving online division. Next's in-store sales declined by 8 per cent over the Autumn, but grew 12.7 per cent online Next said its digital channels generated a 12.7 per cent rise in sales during the period, but this marks a slowdown from the 16.8 per cent growth witnessed earlier in the year. As trading eased back both in stores and online, full-price sales nudged up just at 1.3 per cent - a steep drop from the 4.5 per cent half-year rise that sent Next's share price soaring just five weeks ago. Today's results, which missed analyst forecasts and triggered Next's shares to fall to 50.58p, come amid a frosty period for many High Street retailers. According to the latest figures from The Confederation of British Industry (CBI), retail sales slowed more than expected in October as consumers reined in their spending following a summer shopping spree. Non-the-less, Next kept its full-year forecast unchanged, with the group pencilling in annual sales growth of 3 per cent and a 0.1 per cent rise in profits to 727million. Next, the fashion and homewares firm, enjoyed a strong summer triggered by the heatwave Today's update has fuelled speculation that the retailer may seek to exit some of its High Street leases as they expire over the next five years. Patrick O'Brien, UK research director at GlobalData Retail, tweets about Next's stores Last month, Next said that as customers migrate online, and the digital part of the business comes to represent more than half of Next's total income, it would continue to assess its store portfolio and focus on the 'integral' role it plays as part of its delivery and returns network. Boss Lord Wolfson (above) warned about the impact of a no-deal Brexit Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com, said that Next is being punished by investors today for slower online growth as well as a 'worsening performance on the high street'. 'Online made up for continued weakness in stores,' he said. 'This has been the trend for some time now and as ever raises the question about when management seeks to rationalise its store estate in recognition of the shift in where revenues and profits are being generated.' Next's share slump also hurt its rival M&S, where shares have slipped 1 per cent. Last month, Next boss Lord Simon Wolfson - a vocal Brexiteer - warned of possible gridlock at ports and price hikes in the event of a no-deal Brexit. He also said there could be another sharp fall in the value of the pound. The devil is in the detail: We pick out the important Budget facts The biggest rabbit out the hat in Monday's Budget was a tax cut for more than 30 million workers. The Chancellor, Philip Hammond, claimed the move would save basic rate taxpayers 130 a year and higher earners a whopping 860. However as ever the devil is in the detail and changes to National Insurance Contributions buried in the small print mean that not everyone will save this much. So what does the Budget announcement really mean for you? THE GOOD NEWS ON TAX We can earn up to 11,850 the so-called personal allowance before we begin to pay basic rate tax at 20 per cent. Those in England and Wales start paying the higher rate 40 per cent income tax at 46,351. Scotland sets its own income tax rates. The Tories had pledged to increase how much we can earn tax-free to 12,500 by 2020. Ministers had also promised to raise the threshold at which we begin paying the higher 40 per cent rate of tax to 50,000. On Monday, Mr Hammond announced that he would be introducing these rises a year earlier than planned. He said the move would save basic 20 per cent rate taxpayers 130 a year, and higher earners 860. At the moment, we can earn up to 11,850 before we begin to pay tax, and we start paying the higher rate at 46,351. The tax savings come because we will be able to earn more money without paying tax and an extra 3,650 before we start paying tax at 40 per cent instead of 20 per cent. AND WHAT WASN'T MENTIONED IN THE BUDGET? In his speech, Philip Hammond failed to mention that our National Insurance contributions will also be going up which will eat into some of those savings for higher earners. Anyone over 16 who is employed and earning more than 162 a week has to pay National Insurance Contributions (Nics). Most employed workers pay Class 1 Nics which, like income tax, come directly out of your salary. Class 1 Nics are currently paid at a rate of 12 per cent on earnings between 8,424 and 46,350. You then pay 2 per cent on anything above this. However, in April these thresholds will change and the 12 per cent rate will be applied to earnings between 8,632 and 50,024. It means that anyone who earns over 46,350 will see their Nics payments increase from 2 per cent to 12 per cent on a chunk of their income. 'These upcoming changes are an example of how Mr Hammond has given with one hand but taken with the other,' says Nick Onslow, chartered financial planner at Russell Ulyatt. Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss (left) and Prime Minister Theresa May (right) congratulate Philip Hammond as he finishes making his Budget statement HOW MUCH WILL I REALLY SAVE? It all depends on your income and whether you're employed, self-employed or retired. Basic rate taxpayers, for example, will get 130 plus a small Nics saving of 24 because the starting level for paying it is rising according to Blick Rothenberg, the accountancy firm. Employed higher-rate taxpayers will save up to 520 a year. How much you get depends on how much you earn, but someone earning between 50,000 and 100,000 would get a boost of 520 a year. Those with a salary of more than 125,000 will be 260 better off, according to Blick Rothenberg. This is because those with an annual income of 100,000 or more see their personal allowance drop by 1 for every 2 of income above the 100,000 limit. Well-off pensioners will be the only higher earners to get the full 860 a year saving promised by the Chancellor. This is because once you reach state pension age which will be 66 for both men and women by October 2020 you no longer have to pay Nics. So pensioners over this age with an income between 50,000 and 100,000 will be 860 a year better off from next April. Pensioners on more than this will make annual savings of 600, because, as with those in work, their personal allowance is gradually withdrawn. Has the budget perked up your pay How the Budget tax changes affect different workers. Click to enlarge WHAT ABOUT MY PENSION? Pension savers escaped a major tax-grab in this year's Budget. However, changes to earnings thresholds will have a knock-on effect on how much they can afford to set aside for retirement. Those who earn just over the higher rate threshold of 46,350 and under the new 50,000 threshold will now be basic rate taxpayers, meaning they will pay just 20 per cent tax on their income instead of it rising to 40 per cent. As a result they will lose the 40 per cent tax relief they currently receive on their pensions contributions and will get the basic rate relief of just 20 per cent instead. So if you are in this earnings bracket and want to put 1,000 into your pension pot, it currently costs you only 600. From April next year, however, the same 1,000 contribution will effectively cost you 800. Changes to earnings thresholds will have a knock-on effect on how much pension savers can afford to set aside for retirement Lower earners who don't pay income tax because their salaries are within the personal allowance may also lose an important pension perk. Anyone earning 10,000 or more is automatically enrolled into a workplace pension. And while they do not currently have to pay income tax until they earn 11,850, the Government still gives them a 25 per cent top-up on their pension contributions as a reward for saving. However, whether or not they actually receive this benefit depends on the type of pension scheme that their employer uses. In some schemes, employees' pension contributions are taken out of their earnings after they have already had their income tax deducted. In this case, the scheme automatically claims back the tax relief for all savers and adds it to the pension so the lowest paid workers benefit. In other schemes, pension contributions are taken before tax is charged. While this works out exactly the same for taxpayers, it means that non-taxpayers don't get the extra top-up. Already, around a million workers miss out on tax relief because of this anomoly, and after the personal allowance increase, hundreds of thousands more will fall into this category and get less paid into their pension. Steve Webb, director of policy at Royal London, says: 'As a result of this lottery, one worker on less than 12,500 a year may receive tax relief, while another working for a different firm on the same salary may miss out.' Next April, there will also be an increase in pension contributions taken under auto-enrolment from 3 per cent to 5 per cent of salary which will also eat into that extra tax-free money. Baroness Ros Altmann, the former pensions minister, says: 'The doubling of pension contributions would reduce someone's take-home pay, but this will now largely be offset by the giant increase in the personal tax threshold, making it less likely that people will opt out of paying into their pension.' The Chancellor also promised to consult on retirement saving for self-employed workers, to find a way of automatically enrolling them into pension schemes alongside employees. ...AND MARRIAGE ALLOWANCE? Married couples and those in civil partnerships will get an extra boost from the rising personal tax allowance next year. The marriage allowance allows a non-taxpayer to transfer 10 per cent of their personal allowance to their civil partner or spouse so long as they are not a higher-rate taxpayer. Under the current rules, a transfer of 1,190 would be permitted. When the personal allowance rises to 12,500, the marriage allowance will rise to 1,250. This could save up to 250 a year tax. As the rule is that the higher earner must be a basic rate taxpayer, they will, from next April, be able to earn up to 50,000 a year. Married couples and those in civil partnerships will get an extra boost from the rising personal tax allowance next year DO SELF-EMPLOYED WORKERS GAIN? Self-employed people must pay two types of Nics. There is a basic 153.40 a year in Class 2 contributions when they earn more than 6,205. Then, when their profits exceed 8,424, they start to pay 9 per cent in Class 4 contributions. For earnings above the 'upper profits limit' of 46,350 the Class 4 rate drops to 2 per cent. From next April, the threshold at which Class 2 contributions are due is rising to 6,365 and the threshold at which Class 4 contributions kick in will increase to 8,632. The upper profits limit for Class 4 is also increasing to 50,000. Just like employees who are on payroll, basic rate self-employed workers will be 130 a year better off from the personal allowance increasing to 12,500. They'll also save 16 a year on their NI bill. Taking the tax and NI changes together, their total saving will be 146 next year, according to accountants Deloitte, although those who earn less than 12,500 will not benefit by quite as much. Higher rate earners making up to 100,000 will save 860 next year in tax but will pay 239 more in NI so reducing their annual saving to 621. Those earning between 100,000 and 125,000 a year the bracket in which the personal allowance gradually tapers down to nothing will save between 600 and 860 in tax. But they will have to pay 239 more in National Insurance from April, so their total saving will be between 361 and 621. Those earning more than 125,000 will save just 361 as they have no personal allowance. Meanwhile, self-employed workers who are paid as though they are companies face a clampdown from April 2020. The taxman is looking to recoup up to 700 million a year from private sector companies who pay workers in this way to avoid having to make NI contributions on their behalf and from the contractors themselves, too, who also don't pay National Insurance. The Government took similar action against employers in the public sector in 2017 through 'IR35' rules designed to root out 'false employees'. The nation's smallest 1.5 million businesses will not be caught by the private sector changes and the Government has promised not to apply reforms retrospectively to claw back tax for previous years. John Taylor, head of RSM's employer solutions team, says: 'While it is good news that the Government appears to have listened to responses to its consultation by pushing back these changes to April 2020, and excluding small businesses, this will nevertheless be an unwelcome development for the private sector.' > Read our guide to the IR35 crackdown on self-employed contractors The threshold at which workers begin to pay the higher rate of tax has been brought in line with the 50,000 threshold at which child benefit begins to be reduced CAN I STILL CLAIM CHILD BENEFIT? No official changes were announced to the child benefit system. However, the threshold at which workers begin to pay the higher rate of tax has been brought in line with the 50,000 threshold at which child benefit begins to be reduced. This means that if your earnings jump from 49,000 to 51,000, you will feel the difference all the more. Under current child benefit rules, a family with one child receives 20.70 a week. Then, for every additional child, they get a further 13.70 a week. This means that a family of four would receive a total of 34.40 a week in benefits. However, if one parent earns more than 50,000, then the amount they can claim is tapered off. Under the rules, they have to repay 1 per cent of the total child benefit for every 100 above the 50,000 threshold. Once they hit 60,000, they lose the lot. Under the new rules, it means a 1,000 salary rise from 50,000 to 51,000 will now come with both a tax rate rise on the extra 1,000 and a 10 per cent reduction in child benefit. Tom Evennett, private client tax partner at Ernst & Young, says: 'The changes will affect people earning just a little more than 50,000 because they will be hit with the child benefit reduction and the higher tax rate at the same time.' Why we are campaigning to help parents who lost out on pensions Child benefit and state pension - Its not the most obvious link. Unfortunately, some mums or dads who stopped work to look after children are now finding theyve missed building up their state pension. It should be easy to fix, but HMRC and the government have been stalling parents affected. Thats why This is Money has started a campaign to get this child benefit mess fixed, before it gets any worse. Listen to the podcast below to find out why we are campaigning. Press play to listen on the player above, or listen (and please subscribe and review us if you like the podcast) at Apple Podcasts, Acast, Audioboom and Spotify or visit our This is Money Podcast page. WHAT IF I LIVE IN SCOTLAND? Middle-earners in Scotland face a 'double whammy' as a result of the Budget losing out on a tax cut and having to pay more in National Insurance. From April, their counterparts elsewhere in the UK will be taken out of paying the higher 40 per cent rate of tax until they earn 50,000 up from 46,350. Scots, whose income tax is set by Holyrood, will continue to pay the slightly higher 41 per cent rate of tax from 44,300. But changes to the National Insurance rate will apply UK-wide, meaning people will pay 12 per cent on income between 8,632 and 50,000. Currently, National Insurance is levied at the 12 per cent rate on earnings between 8,424 and 46,350, and 2 per cent on further earnings. So while the rest of the country gets a tax cut, higher rate taxpayers in Scotland face a 340 a year Nics rise. Together with the lower threshold for higher rate tax, it will leave some Scottish taxpayers paying hundreds of pounds, or, in some cases, over 1,000 more than those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Steven Cameron, pensions director at Aegon, says: 'It's a double whammy for people in Scotland. 'Not only will they pay more in income tax than those elsewhere, the increased National Insurance rate also applies, so they will have more money taken off them.' However, the decision to increase the personal allowance threshold at which people start to pay income tax to 12,500 from April does also apply in Scotland. The Scottish income tax rates will be announced in the Scottish Budget in December. Mr Cameron says: 'We will have to wait until December 12 to find out if the higher rate will again be frozen, which would mean people in Scotland start paying higher rate tax on earnings 7,000 sooner than their English counterparts. They also pay income tax at a higher rate of 41 per cent. 'If the Scottish higher rate threshold is frozen at 43,000, someone earning 50,000 in England would pay 7,500 in income tax from the 2019/20 tax year, while someone earning the same figure in Scotland would pay 9,047, which is nearly 1,550 a year more, or 129 a month. 'To make matters worse, Scots face a double whammy because the earnings limit when employee NI rates fall from 12 per cent to 2 per cent is also going up across the whole of the UK in line with the higher rate tax threshold outside Scotland. 'So from next April, a Scottish resident earning 50,000 or above will see their take-home pay drop by 30.41 per month because of extra National Insurance. 'While this will also be the case across the UK, someone earning 50,000 in the rest of the UK is saving 60.83 a month in income tax, giving them a boost to take-home pay of 30.41 a month.' moneymail@dailymail.co.uk A mother-of-three was today starting a 15 months jail sentence after leaving her children home alone in appalling conditions while she enjoyed a sunshine break in Malta. The 29-year-old woman left her three young children in a house with no food, clothes or heating, while she basked on a beach abroad. The youngsters, aged between five and 10-years-old, did not even have a toothbrush between them during their mother's week-long holiday. Newcastle Crown Court heard that the woman from the north east, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was struggling to cope as a single mother and was on the verge of a breakdown when she selfishly fled the country. She sold her child benefit book for 130 after withdrawing 105 in benefits to fund her trip. The Recorder of Newcastle-upon-Tyne Mr David Hodson sent a stark message to parents nationwide that the courts would not tolerate behaviour which put young children at risk. Sentencing her to prison yesterday, he said: "Anyone who behaves in the way you have with such callous disregard for the welfare of their own children can only expect punishment." The court heard that the young woman had tried to dump her children on her mother who she described as a "vindictive cow". But when her mother refused to take responsibility for the youngsters the defendant went ahead with her holiday in July last year. A friend of the family contacted the grandmother on July 11 last year to say that the children had been left to fend for themselves and could she collect them from school. The grandmother picked them up and cared for them for a couple of days before phoning social services to inform them of the situation. Social workers arriving at the house discovered a death-trap home with exposed wires dangling beside the children's bunk-beds where there should have been light fittings. The youngsters only had the school clothes they were left in for the week their mother was abroad and the gas meter was removed just days before she left the country. Paul Sloan QC, defending, said: "There is no escaping that she herself had left that house in a truly disgusting state." The judge interrupted, saying: "Dangerous and also disgusting." The court heard that the mother, who pleaded guilty to three charges of child cruelty on the grounds of neglect, was already known to social services and the children were placed on the "At Risk" register in 1995. Mr Sloan said that his client confessed to police on her return from holiday that she struggled to cope with her children. "She was to tell the police by that stage she had simply given up. It is apparent that the defendant has had her own very real problems. "She genuinely feared that unless she had a period of respite that she would physically harm (her son)." The court heard the woman had been kept on a "suicide watch" while in custody for seven weeks prior to her court appearance. She denied three counts of abandonment at an earlier court appearance - the not guilty pleas were accepted, but the charges were left on file. Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to be ready to attack Iran within 15 days back in 2011, according to the former head of the country's spy agency. Tamir Pardo, who served as Mossad chief from 2011 to 2016, told Israeli TV that he and then-chief of staff Benny Gantz had been told to bolster Israel's defences in preparation for a response to the attack. Pardo added that the order was not a drill and he was convinced at the time that it would result in open war. The former spy chief spoke out as tensions between Israel and Iran run high amid a shadow-war between the nations being fought in Syria. Tamir Pardo, the former head of Israel's spy agency, said that in 2011 he was ordered to bolster Israel's defences so the country could attack Iran within 15 days Pardo said Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Ehud Barak were planning direct strikes on Iran for fear the country was about to develop nuclear weapons In an interview due to be broadcast on Keshet TV on Thursday, Pardo said: 'Such a plan is not something that you just order for practice. 'If this is ordered, it is done for one of two reasons: either because you really intend for such a thing to take place or because you want to send a signal to someone.' Netanyahu gave the order at a time when then-defence minister Ehud Barak was convinced that Iran was close to producing a nuclear weapon, theTimes of Israel reports. The military was convinced that the opportunity to strike Iran's nuclear bases was slipping away and they would soon be so well protected any bombing campaign would be ineffective. Mossad was thought to have been behind two blasts at an Iranian nuclear site and missile base that year which killed at least 17 Revolutionary Guards and several high-ranking missile experts. The order was called off after Pardo and Gantz opposed it, J-Post says. Barak, who later served as prime minister, has previously claimed Netanyahu sought to bomb Iran in 2010 and 2011, but was opposed by senior Israeli officials. Pardo said that upon receiving the command, he sought 'clarifications about everything I could, I checked with legal advisers, I consulted with everyone I could to understand who is authorized to give the order concerning launching a war.' According to the excerpts, Pardo said he wanted 'to be certain that if, heaven forbid, something incorrect happened, even if the mission failed, that there won't be a situation where I carried out an illegal operation.' There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu's office on Pardo's claim. Pardo spoke out as Israel and Iran fight a shadow-conflict in Syria. Pictured are Israeli missiles in Syrian airspace, which the Jewish state said were fired at Iranian targets Multiple missile strikes have hit the Israel-occupied Golan Heights (pictured) in recent weeks, which Netanyahu has blamed on Iranian forces inside Syria The interview, which will be broadcast in full on Thursday night, comes as tensions between Israel and Iran threaten to boil over into war. The arch-rivals have been fighting a shadow conflict inside Syria with Israel carrying out frequent bombing runs against what it says are Iranian military bases. Israel also claims that rocket attacks on its positions in the Golan Heights are being carried out by Iran. The Jewish state has also accused Iran of building missile factories and moving medium-range ICBMs capable of striking the country into Syria. Both Iran and Syria have refused to acknowledge Tehran's presence in the country. In February, Israel shot down what it said was an armed Iranian drone that entered Israeli airspace. Israel responded by attacking anti-aircraft positions in Syria, and an Israeli warplane was shot down during the battle. Israel has increasingly warned that it sees Iranian influence in Syria as a threat, pointing to Iran's military presence inside the country as well as that of Iranian-backed militiamen. On Wednesday, Netanyahu said Israel 'will not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons. 'We will continue to act against its intentions to establish itself militarily in Syria besides us, not just opposite the Golan Heights, but any place in Syria.' Netanyahu has long been a strident critic of Iran and has accused Tehran of attempting to develop nuclear weapons and long range ballistic missiles. Netanyahu has recently intensified his criticism of the nuclear agreement reached between world powers and Iran in 2015. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from that deal earlier this month. There is also a concerted effort by Netanyahu's administration to convince Russia to pressure Iran to withdraw its forces from war-torn Syria. Theres a good reason you may be seeing a lot more mustaches in November. Movember will soon be held for the entire month, encouraging men to grow out mustaches to raise awareness of critical issues impacting mens health worldwide. Heres all you need to know about Movember. The Distinguished Gentleman's Ride in the UK raises funds for the Movember Foundation What is Movember? Movember is an annual event that encourages men to grow mustaches in November in order to raise awareness of mens health issues, particularly testicular cancer, prostate cancer and suicide. The worldwide event, run by the Movember Foundation, aims to encourage early cancer detection in men, improve mens mental health, promote healthy living among men and to ultimately cut the mortality rate among men worldwide. The term Movember was believed to be coined in 1999 by a group of young men in Adelaide, Australia who grew out their mustaches for charitable causes. In 2004, a separate group in Melbourne, Australia organized a similar event that involved growing out mustaches to promote awareness of prostate cancer and depression, ultimately going on to form the Movember Foundation. The event soon expanded from Australia and New Zealand into North America, Europe, Taiwan, Israel, Canada and South Africa in 2007 and today is observed by millions of men worldwide, with the Movember Foundation being named as one of the worlds top 100 non-government organizations in 2012 by the Global Journal. When is Movember? Movember is held annually during the month of November. Movember meaning The term Movember is actually a portmanteau of November and mo, a slang term for mustache in Australian English. Movember activities Those interested in participating can do so by growing out mustaches or facial hair during the month of November to raise awareness, hosting or donating to charitable fundraisers for cancer research and suicide prevention, educating themselves about mens health, committing to walking or running 60 miles over the course of the month to mark the 60 men lost to suicide each hour and more. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis pushed back Wednesday on suggestions that the move to send thousands of active-duty troops to the Southwest border is a political stunt ahead of the midterm elections next week. Mattis told reporters Wednesday at the Pentagon that the deployment of more than 5,200 troops is based on a request from the Department of Homeland Security. He says, 'We don't do stunts in this department.' But the active-duty troops being sent by President Donald Trump to the U.S.-Mexico border will be limited in what they can do under a federal law that restricts the military from engaging in law enforcement on American soil. That means the troops will not be allowed to detain immigrants, seize drugs from smugglers or have any direct involvement in stopping a migrant caravan that is still about 1,000 miles from the nearest border crossing. Instead, their role will largely mirror that of the existing National Guard troops - about 2,000 in all - deployed to the border over the past six months, including providing helicopter support for border missions, installing concrete barriers and repairing and maintaining vehicles. The new troops will include military police, combat engineers and helicopter companies equipped with advanced technology to help detect people at night. Brushed aside: At the Pentagon Jim Mattis, the Defense Secretary, bristled when asked about the deployment saying: 'We don't do stunts at this department.' Allowed: National Guard personnel - including these in Ajo, Arizona - are already maintaining CBP vehicles. Active duty troops will do the same Not allowed: This car was stopped by CBP agents near Blythe Station, California, with 40 pounds of heroin, valued at more than $688,000, and nearly 25 pounds of cocaine worth close to $280,000. The military will not be allowed to carry out such stops Not allowed: Soldiers and Marines deployed by the president for Operation Faithful Patriot will not be allowed to stop and detain migrants crossing the border. U.S. forces are forbidden from carrying out law enforcement on U.S. soil Allowed: U.S. Army National Guardsman Sgt. Oscar Escobar was deployed in 2011 to help carry out surveillance on the border. This new deployment will see regular troops used for the same duties The extraordinary military operation comes a week before the Nov. 6 midterm elections as Trump has sought to transform fears about the caravan and immigration into electoral gains. On Tuesday, he stepped up his dire warnings, calling the band of migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central America an 'invasion.' 'Our Military is waiting for you!' he tweeted. R. Gil Kerlikowske, Customs and Border Protection commissioner from 2014 to 2017, said the military cannot stop asylum seekers who show up at border crossings to seek protection, and that Border Patrol agents have had no trouble apprehending people who cross illegally. 'I see it as a political stunt and a waste of military resources and waste of tax dollars,' said Kerlikowske, who was at the helm during a major surge of Central Americans migrants in 2014. 'To use active-duty military and put them in that role, I think is a huge mistake. I see it as nothing more than pandering to the midterm elections by the president.' Traveling mostly on foot, the caravan of some 4,000 migrants and a much smaller group of hundreds more are still weeks, if not months, before reaching the U.S. border. Thousands have already dropped out, applying for refugee status in Mexico or taking the Mexican government up on free bus rides back home, and the group is likely to dwindle even more during the arduous journey ahead. Another smaller caravan earlier this year numbered only a couple hundred by the time it arrived at the Tijuana-San Diego crossing. And despite the heightened rhetoric, the number of immigrants apprehended at the border is dramatically lower than past years. Border Patrol agents this year made only a quarter of the arrests they made in 2000 at the height of illegal immigration, when the agency had half of the staffing it does today. The demographics have also drastically changed, from mostly Mexican men traveling alone, to Central American families with children. Migrants arriving at the border will now see a sizable U.S. military presence - more than double the 2,000 who are in Syria fighting the Islamic State group - even though their mission will be largely a support role. That's because the military is bound by the Posse Comitatus Act, a 19th- century federal law that restricts participation in law enforcement activities. Unless Congress specifically authorizes it, military personnel can't have direct contact with civilians, including immigrants, said Scott R. Anderson of The Brookings Institution. Air Force Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, head of U.S. Northern Command, said Tuesday that at least 5,239 troops were being sent to the Southwest border as the Pentagon works to meet requests from the Department of Homeland Security. 'The 5,239 are going forward and there will be additional forces over and above the 5,239,' he said, adding that number 'is not the top line.' Asked about the use of weapons, O'Shaughnessy said the active-duty troops have been given clear guidance on the use of force and there will be unit and individual training to make sure they know what they can and can't do. Generally, U.S. troops are authorized to use force in self-defense. Still, the large troop deployment will be limited to performing similar support functions as the National Guard troops Trump has already sent to the border. These include 1,500 flight hours logged by about 600 National Guard troops in Arizona since they were deployed this spring. Members of the guard have also repaired more than 1,000 Border Patrol vehicles and completed 1,000 hours of supply and inventory, according to Customs and Border Protection. In one case, a group of Border Patrol agents tracking drug smugglers in the remote Arizona desert in August called on a National Guard helicopter to keep an eye on the suspects and guide agents on the ground until they had them in custody. That operation resulted in several arrests and the seizure of 465 pounds of marijuana. O'Shaughnessy said there were about 1,000 troops already in Texas and that will grow to at least 1,800, likely by Wednesday. On their way: Members of Headquarters Company, 89th Military Police Brigade, Task Force Griffin get ready to board a C-130J Super Hercules from Little Rock, Arkansas, at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in support of Operation Faithful Patriot On its way: A Humvee is loaded into a C-130J Super Hercules plane at Fort Knox, Kentucky, en route to the border The deployments to Arizona and California will follow. All are going to staging bases in the states, and there are none at the border yet, he said. It remains unclear why the administration was choosing to send active-duty troops given that they will be limited to performing the support functions the Guard already is doing. The California National Guard has pledged up to 400 troops to the president's border mission through March 31. Jerry Brown, the only Democratic governor in the four states bordering Mexico and a frequent Trump critic, conditioned his support on the troops having nothing to do with immigration enforcement or building border barriers. Brown said the California troops would help fight transnational criminal gangs and drug and firearms smugglers. In New Mexico, 118 Guard troops have been helping with vehicle maintenance and repair, cargo inspection operations, surveillance and communications. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott pledged 400 troops to the border in April. Maj. Gen. John Nichols, the head of the Texas National Guard, told Congress in July that his troops served in a 'variety of support roles,' including driving vehicles, security monitoring, and administration. The man who built the electric chair has expressed concerns that the device may malfunction if it is used in a death-row electrocution in Tennessee this week for the first time in over a decade. Self-taught electrocution expert Fred Leuchter rebuilt Tennessee's chair, which is scheduled to be used in the electrocution of convicted murdered Edmund Zagorski on Thursday, in 1988. Leutcher's reputation was later tainted when he made the claim that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz, a comment that led to the discovery that he had neither an engineering degree nor a license, even though he promoted himself as an engineer. Leuchter stands behind the electric chair he rebuilt in 1988, but he is concerned that it may fail because of changes others made to it after he was no longer allowed to service it. 'What I'm worried about now is Tennessee's got an electric chair that's going to hurt someone or cause problems. And it's got my name on it,' Leuchter said. 'I don't think it's going to be humane.' The man who built Tennessee's electric chair, Fred Leuchter, has expressed concerns that the device may malfunction if it is used in a death-row electrocution this week for the first time since 2007. Leuchter, center, stands by the control panel of the device he built for the state in 1988 in this undated photograph Gov Bill Haslam said he is confident the execution can be carried out without problems. 'I have a great deal of confidence in our Department of Correction folks. We've spoken with them regularly and they've assured us' the chair is ready. Leuchter said he was familiar with prisons because he accompanied his father to his job as superintendent of transportation in the Massachusetts state prison in the 1940s and 50s, from about age four to age 16. Leuchter said he fears Thursday's electrocution of death row inmate Edmund Zagorski (above), a convicted murderer, will not be humane if the chair malfunctions As a teenager, Leuchter helped his father move the state's old electric chair when the prison relocated, and he remembers they had to do it on a Sunday because the warden didn't want the news media to know. 'I helped put the chair in the truck. We covered it up with canvas,' he said. Years later, when it looked as though Massachusetts might restart capital punishment after a long hiatus, a prison steward who knew Leuchter's father asked Leuchter to come in and see whether the old chair was still usable. From there, 'my name was given to other states,' Leuchter said. He said many of their electric chairs were 'decrepit, defunct, didn't work properly - if they ever had in the first place.' Denno, a law professor at Fordham who has studied execution methods for more than 25 years, said Leuchter filled a void. Often 'the most qualified people don't want to be involved' in executions, she said. Tennessee's chair is just one of many execution devices Leuchter worked on between 1979 and 1990, relying on skills picked up designing navigational and surveillance equipment and a careful study of documents describing early executions. In addition to electric chairs, Leuchter built, refurbished and consulted on gas chambers, lethal injection machines and a gallows for at least 27 states. Leuchter, whose reputation as an electrocution expert was tainted after he made a claim that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz, refurbished the chair for the state of Tennessee in 1988. Pictured: Ricky Bell, the warden at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, gives a tour of the prison's execution chamber with the newly-refurbished chair in 1999 Even after he was no longer welcome as a prison contractor, Denno said prison officials continued to contact Leuchter for help 'because they literally had no one else to go to.' Tennessee asked Leuchter to refurbish its chair in 1988, when it was facing the possibility of its first execution in decades. 'It looked like it was made for a midget or something,' Leuchter said. TENNESSEE'S LAST ELECTROCUTION IN 2007 The last time Tennessee put someone to death by electrocution was Daryl Holton in 2007. Holton, of Shelbyville, was convicted in 1999 for killing his three young sons and stepdaughter, Stephen Holton, 12; Brent Holton, 10; Eric Holton, 6; and 4-year-old Kayla Holton, in November 1997. He was given four death sentences and became the first death-row inmate to die in the electric chair in Tennessee since 1960. An Associated Press reporter who witnessed Holton's execution wrote that a black shroud was placed over his head before a 20-second shock was administered. The shock caused Holton to straighten his back and move his hips up out of the chair before he slumped back. There was a 15-second pause before he was given a second shock that lasted 15 seconds. A report from the state medical examiner later found that Holton had suffered minor burns to his head and legs but there were no signs of the severe burning and other major injuries that had been seen in some past electrocutions. Advertisement So he built a new chair that incorporated wood from the original, which he was told was from the old gallows, and replaced the chair's electrodes. He also replaced the old leather straps that tether prisoners to the chair with quick-release nylon belts, to aid guards tasked with removing bodies after executions. He trained prison workers and gave them certificates as 'electrocution technicians.' Leuchter said he sold the original chair. A collector of 'murderabilia' listed it on eBay in 2000. It now resides in the Alcatraz East Crime Museum in the Smoky Mountains. Denno said electric chairs have 'a history of botches that has only gotten worse.' In two Florida executions in the 1990s, smoke and flames shot from the condemned inmates' heads. In 1999, blood spilled from under an inmate's mask. Shortly afterward, the US Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the electric chair violates the 8th Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. But the case was dropped after Florida switched to lethal injection. Tennessee has executed only one person in Leuchter's electric chair. Daryl Holton died that way in 2007. In preparation, an electrical engineer reduced the voltage from 2,640 to 1,750 and raised the amperage from five to seven. The timing was also changed, from two, one-minute jolts with a 10-second pause between, to a 20-second and 15-second jolt with a 15-second pause between. The execution was successful. The chair was inspected on October 10 of this year and found to meet the criteria for an execution, state documents show. But Leuchter said he feels the chair now is 'defective and shouldn't be used.' 'It worked the first time, but I think they were lucky,' he said. A faux German billionaire heiress charged with defrauding hotels, banks and friends out of hundreds of thousands of dollars was almost unrecognizable from her days on the New York social scene when she appeared in court on Tuesday. Anna Sorokin, 27, donned an all-beige ensemble courtesy of Rikers Island and wore her hair in a messy bun as she faced the New York State Supreme Court in shackles for the prescheduled hearing. The former fashion magazine intern who pleaded not guilty to grand larceny charges in August, looked furious during the appearance, glaring across the courtroom as she peered over her thick-framed glasses. Anna Sorokin, 27, an alleged grifter charged with defrauding hotels, banks and friends out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, looked dramatically different than she had while playing the part of Manhattan socialite when she appeared in New York State Supreme Court on Tuesday Sorokin posed as the daughter of a German billionaire under the name Anna Delvey, using the persona to dupe elite circles in New York's high society from 2013 until January 2017 During Sorokin's last court appearance on August 21, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Catherine McCaw asked a judge for a protective order preventing the defendant from having physical custody of witness emails and documents. 'One of the witnesses was concerned that the records might be leaked to the media,' McCaw said. Sorokin's lawyer Todd Spodek responded by requesting that the defense team at least be able to see those documents so it will be able to adequately build her case. The attorneys came to an agreement wherein Spodek would be able to discuss the documents with his client, but identifying information for the witnesses would be redacted. The defense attempted to make a deal for Sorokin to be sentenced to up to three years in prison back in June, but that proposal was rejected by Judge Diane Kiesel, who said of the defendant: 'I see no remorse.' 'She seems more concerned about who is going to play her in the movie than what she's done to the people she allegedly took advantage of.' Kiesel added that a sentence of just three years behind bars would serve as a 'mere a slap on the wrist for a crime this serious.' A counter-offer of three to nine years in prison was itself turned down by her defense team, and she now faces 15 years in prison if convicted on all counts. Sorokin pleaded not guilty to grand larceny in August. The 27-year-old, pictured in court Tuesday with attorney Todd Spodek, could face 15 years in prison if convicted on all charges Netflix signed a deal to acquire the rights to Sorokin's story in June, and Scandal producer Shonda Rhimes has been tapped to write it. Sorokin posed as Anna Delvey, the heiress daughter of a fictitious billionaire Russian magnate and used the persona to dupe elite circles in Manhattan from 2013 until January 2017. She talked banks into lending her money to start the 'Anna Delvey Foundation' and skipped out on bills at the end of a weeks-long stays in some of New York's finest hotels. She also targeted individuals who she believed would serve her well and got them to pay for things with the promise that she would eventually give them the money back. Among them was a Vanity Fair picture researcher whom she convinced to pay $62,000 for a trip to Morocco after her own card was rejected. Sorokin denies the charges and insists she was always trying to be seen as a businesswoman. Sorokin is pictured with Giudo Cacciatori, Gro Curtis and Giorgia Tordini at the 2014 Tumblr Fashion Honor. At the time she was going by the name Anna Delvey and posing as an heiress She claims the dinners, at extravagant restaurants like Le Coucou were business meetings and that it was all going towards the Anna Delvey Foundation, an arts-focused members club she planned to open and still speaks about. In an interview with New York Magazine earlier this year, she said: 'I had what I thought was a great team around me, and I was having fun.' She said that while she had done some things wrong, it 'doesnt diminish the hundred things I did right'. Prosecutors say Sorokin (pictured in an Instagram post) facilitated her lavish lifestyle by check-kiting - a practice whereby a person deposits bad checks into a bank account then withdraws a cash amount before they bounce Prosecutors say she facilitated her lifestyle by check-kiting - a practice whereby a person deposits bad checks into a bank account then withdraws a cash amount before they bounce. In May, Sorokin spoke from Rikers' Island to say it was 'not that bad'. She said she had learned not how 'easy' it was to steal other people's identities by watching financial criminals behind bars. 'This place is not that bad at all actually. People seem to think its horrible, but I see it as like, this sociological experiment. 'There are couple of girls who are here for financial crimes as well. 'This one girl, shes been stealing other peoples identities. I didnt realize it was so easy,' she told New York Magazine. Sorokin's case received notoriety from two lengthy articles in Vanity Fair and New York Magazine. Among those who have spoken out about it are some of her alleged victims including staff at the hotel where she stayed. They told how she tipped with $100 bills and gave off an air of extreme wealth. One, who was the receptionist at 11 Howard where Sorokin stayed for a month, told how she once attended a dinner she organized for a large group at Le Coucou which included MaCaulay Culkin. Others described how restaurants began calling them after seeing pictures of them with Sorokin on Instagram and asking to be put in touch with her because she had skipped out on her bills. Sorokin marketed herself as a businesswoman and got people in high society to pay for things such as expensive dinners and vacations while promising that she would pay them back The truth is that she was born in Russia and grew up in Germany as the daughter of a truck driver. She left Germany in 2011 to move to London where she attended Central St Martin's College as a fashion student. Her father told New York Magazine that they had supplemented her rent and schooling at first and that he was stunned by the news she had been arrested. 'We always paid for her accommodations, her rent, and other matters. 'She assured us these costs were the best investment. If ever she needed something more at one point or another, it didnt matter. 'The future was always bright,' her parents, who did not want to be identified, said in an email. From a creepy old anatomy building which once housed Phar Lap's heart and a manor known for the unexplained deaths of murdered caretakers and maids, to an infamous swimming hole called 'Devil's pool' that has claimed 17 lives, Australia undoubtedly has its fair share of haunted locations. This Halloween we take a look at the country's most spine-tingling sites, so sit back and enjoy the ghost train ride to Australia's most haunted places... Monte Cristo Homestead, NSW Just 220km north-west of Canberra is Australia's very own House of Horrors - a haunted Victorian-era mansion known as the Monte Cristo Homestead. Monte Cristo Homestead is Australia's very own House of Horrors, situated just 220km north-west of Canberra The heritage-listed red-brick manor has been known for its creepy and unexplained deaths over the years, from a stable boy burning to death and a baby falling down the stairs, to a maid pushed off a balcony and a murdered caretaker. Even today, locals believe that their ghosts still lurk and wander around the manor's eerie candlelit rooms. The owner of the Monte Cristo Homestead runs a combined ghost tour and bed and breakfast package for $195 for those who want to see and experience it for themselves. Previous guests have said they felt difficulty breathing, dizziness and a sudden need to vomit during the tour. Cockatoo Island, NSW Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour is a diverse site that has housed everything from a convict jail and reform school for girls to a shipbuilding yard. It is has been known as one of Sydneys most haunted locations ever since the killing of a soldier dating back to 1857. Cockatoo Island (pictured) has been known as one of Sydneys most haunted locations ever since the killing of a soldier dating back to 1857 Samuel Bryant was stabbed in the heart with a bayonet by another soldier named Edward Cook. Later in the mid-19th century a rising problem with orphaned children being involved in street gangs led to the establishment of a reformatory for girls, which was named Biloela, the Aboriginal word for black cockatoo. Head of the school George Lucas was known to brutally punish the girls for misbehaving by making them give up their beds and sleep on the cold stone. Samuel Bryant was stabbed in the heart with a bayonet by another soldier named Edward Cook Cockatoo Island is also a camping ground that's especially popular in warmer months and some visitors have claimed to see 'Minnie's ghost walk around at night Later in 1858, Gother Mann was superintendent of the school and her daughter Mary Caroline 'Minnie' Mann is said to still roam the halls of the old reformatory. In recent years visitors have claimed a little girl in a white dress eerily featured in their photos with some believing the girl pictured is Minnie. Cockatoo Island is also a camping ground that's especially popular in warmer months. Ross Downie, tour organiser, previously told the SMH two students who camped there one night complained they werent able to sleep. They said they saw a little girl in a white dress, matching Minnie's description, entering their tent and asking them to play with her in the middle of the night. Devil's Pool, Queensland In the middle of a lush Queensland rainforest sits a haunted swimming hole aptly named Devil's Pool which has claimed at least 17 lives. Located in Babinda, north Queensland, the pool is a popular destination for Australian hikers and backpackers travelling up to Cairns. 'Devil's Pool' sits in picturesque Queensland rainforest, but the haunted swimming hole has claimed at least 17 lives A sign in front of Devil's Pool gives explicit warnings to people venturing in the area. It reads: 'This creek has claimed many lives.' According to Aboriginal folklore, a young runaway bride who fell and drowned at the swimming hole while calling for her forbidden lover to join her is believed to be linked to the deaths. The legend begins with a young woman named Oolana who married an elder from her own Yidinji tribe. Yet shortly after they married she fell in love with another man named Dyga from a touring tribe. According to Aboriginal folklore, a young runaway bride who fell and drowned at the swimming hole while calling for her forbidden lover to join her is believed to be linked to the deaths Daily Mail Australia has been told 16 of the pool's 17 victims were male backpackers and tourists, reflecting the Aboriginal legend Rosanna Brown, post office manager from Babinda, previously told Daily Mail Australia that the two lovers ran away from their tribes and fled to what is now known as Devil's Pool where they were captured by elders. Yet Oolana broke free and leapt into the creek waters calling for Dyga to follow, Ms Brown said. Ms Brown said 16 of the 17 victims were male backpackers and tourists, which matches the legend. 'Like Dyga, they were passing through,' she said. The dangerous rock pool waters are more familiarly known to locals as 'washing machine'. Former Babinda emergency services member Don Lawie can't forget the day he was searching for a young man's body, James Bennett, 23, in 2008. Mr Lawie previously told the Townsville Bulletin, 'Its always brave young men, good young men, who die doing these silly things. 'They call it the Washing Machine where he went in because it goes around and around. Its all bubbles so there is no buoyancy. Its dangerous water. It sucks you under,' he said. The owner of a local pub named Boulders Tavern previously told Daily Mail Australia that although he has never visited the site he is aware that many lives have been taken in Devil's pool. 'Local legend is that the aboriginal woman Oolana's image appears in the water. And some people who enter the water are never seen again,' he said. Coroner's findings after the death of James Bennett in 2008 I find that James Andrew Bennett died on 30 November 2008 at the Boulders Reserve near Babinda due to drowning After seeing several local, unaccompanied children swimming and playing in the vicinity of the Devils Pool, Mr Bennett and three friends climbed over or around the safety rail and ventured onto the granite formations through which Babinda Creek runs Members of the group either did not see the warning signs or chose to ignore them or minimised the nature and extent of the dangers about which they were warned After watching the children for a period of about 10 minutes, the group decided to return to the car park. On making their way upstream, the group came upon a calm pool adjacent to the Viewing Platform and decided to have a swim Mr Bennett entered a pool known as the washing machine and shortly afterwards, he was drawn underwater and out of view from his friends. He drowned due to prolonged immersion, presumably entrapped within the rapids and pools Delivered by Coroner Kevin Priestly on 10 December 2010 Source: Coroner report, Queensland Courts Advertisement National Film and Sound Archive, ACT The National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) in Canberra was a former anatomy institute for 50 years. The building housed ghoulish items until the 1970s, including the infamous bushranger Ned Kelly's skull and champion thoroughbred racehorse Phar Lap's heart. The racehorse's heart was taken for testing after his sudden death in America in 1932 before it was exhibited in the Australian Institute of Anatomy. Horrorfest (pictured) is being held at NFSA in November, featuring mini ghost tours of the haunted building The building housed ghoulish items until the 1970s including the infamous bushranger (pictured, right) Ned Kelly's skull and champion thoroughbred racehorse Phar Lap's heart (pictured, left) Phar Lap's heart was found to weigh a staggering 6.45 kilograms, which is 1.5 times more than an average thoroughbred's heart. It was donated to the Australian Institute of Anatomy, where it was on show for many years. This November, Horrorfest is being held at NFSA which will include ghost tours of the haunted building. The National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) in Canberra was a former anatomy institute for 50 years Princess Theatre, Victoria While a beautiful heritage theatre seems like an odd addition to Australia's most haunted places list, people believe the ghost of a former actor still wanders around the stage and dark halls of the establishment. In 1888, actor Frederick Federici suddenly died onstage before the curtains closed. Federici had been performing on the opening night of an opera. While he died mid-performance, the show still went on and spectators said they swore they saw him reappear and bow with the rest of the cast at the end of the show. In 1888, actor Frederick Federici suddenly died onstage before the curtains closed at Princess Theatre (pictured) - and the audience said they saw him take a bow after the performance Russell Hotel, NSW In 2015, a Daily Mail Australia reporter stayed the night at one of Australias haunted hotels, The Russell Hotel in The Rocks, Sydney. When the reporter entered the hotel she was a skeptic of ghosts and spirits, but she admitted that her experience that night left her 'rattled'. It is believed a ghost of a murdered sailor appears at the end of a bed in room eight of the spooky hotel, but only when a single female guest is present. The Russell Hotel in The Rocks, Sydney is known as one of Australia's most haunted hotels At the time, the reporter said she sat in the creepy room and waited two hours for any signs of a ghost. She said: 'I put myself in every cliched scary movie scenario the type that has you yelling dont! Stop, you idiot! Its right behind you but still no sailor. 'I reasoned it was just an old building which becomes noisy at night with guests that snore and pipes that make banging noises.' After a ghost no-show, the reporter went to bed but said she woke up in a panic in the early hours of the morning. It is believed that a ghost of a murdered sailor appears at the end of a bed in room eight (pictured, the reporter outside room eight) of the spooky hotel, but only when a single female guest is present She said: 'I woke in a panic at around 4am, feeling like something had jolted me out of my sleep. Even before I could work out where I was, I instinctively felt something wasnt right.' She added: 'Between the hours of 4am and 5.30am there was a completely different feeling in the room which hadnt been there before.' The Russell hotel was formerly a hostel for sailors that docked in Sydney Harbour, then a hospital during the bubonic plague (pictured) The reporter said she found it hard to breathe and felt like someone was pressing down on her forehead. Yet at about 5.30 she said everything returned back to normal. 'It was as if something had lifted out of the room and the entire mood changed,' she said. The hotel is one of the oldest buildings in Australia, first built in 1790 but has had several renovations since. It first served as a hostel for the sailors that docked in Sydney Harbour, then a hospital during the bubonic plague, before it was restored as a boutique hotel. Picton, NSW Just 80km south-west of Sydney in the middle of regional NSW sits Picton. Redbank Range railway tunnel in the town's centre claimed the lives of many locals over the years when it was still active but now it is a popular tourist destination site. Some believe Picton is Australia's most haunted town The death of Emily Bollard is the most well-known. The 51-year-old was believed to be taking a short cut through the tunnel to her old home to see her brother. Yet she never made it back and her body was found in the early hours of December 13, 1916. Locals believe Emily's spirit still wanders around the spooky old railway tunnel. Macquarie Fields Station, NSW An unsuspecting train station in Sydney's south-west is believed to be haunted by the ghost of a teenage girl covered in blood. Ghost hunters have reported hearing a 'faint crying' at the station before the apparition appears clutching her bloodied chest and shrieking in terror. The phantom figure is shrouded in mystery, however ghost hunters report she only appears late at night when the station is empty. To commemorate the centenary of the armistice that ended the First World War, the Royal Australian Mint has released a new $2 coin. The coin, by designer Tony Dean, is created as a physical reminder of the Australians killed in military service for our nation. The gold coin features a red poppy stamped in the centre, and the date of 11/11/11 marking the time of 11am on November 11, 1918 when the Armistice of Compiegne began. The commemorative gold coin features a red poppy stamped in the centre, and the date 11/11/11 to commemorates the centenary of the end of World War I The coin was unveiled at the Australian War Memorial (AWM) in Canberra, alongside a display featuring 62,000 handmade poppies. The flower is a symbolic reminder of 62,000 service people who lost their lives during the four year conflict of World War 1. Dr Brendan Nelson, the AWM's director, told Nine that the coin is an important symbol of the sacrifice made by Australian military personnel. 'The coin will serve as a tangible and visible reminder to all Australians day-to-day, of the centenary period and the lasting legacy of the fight for our nation's freedom and the price that was paid for that freedom,' he said. The Australian Mint marked the centenary of the end of WWI with this $2 remembrance coin The Royal Australian Mint is also giving collectors the opportunity to buy a special edition of the coin for $15. A limited number (40,000) of these commemorative coins have been minted, with coin swap days scheduled to be held in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra on Thursday, November 1. A repeat child sex offender has made a bid for freedom and wants to live near a school, a court has heard. James William Rao, 67, was first convicted of serious sex offences in 1977. He was jailed for more than six years in 2011 for assaulting young girls who he employed as 'chamois girls' at Perth car wash. Repeat child sex offender James William Rao, 67, (pictured) is eligible for parole and wants to live next to a school He hired girls as young as 14, who he made wear skimpy uniforms and would touch, kiss and hug them. Rao raped one 15-year-old girl twice on a mattress he had placed on the roof of his office. He was jailed for six years for these offences in 2011. When he was released on parole he volunteered at an animal shelter in 2016. Despite being banned from any contact with girls under 18, he befriended a vulnerable 16-year-old, who worked there. He was jailed for 10 months this year after touching the girl's breast. Rao is now eligible for parole again but the State is attempting to have the him locked up indefinitely. At a Supreme Court Hearing on Tuesday it was revealed that Rao's proposed address was just 500m from a high school. However his lawyer admitted that it was unlikely Rao would end up living there. Rao served a 10 month sentence earlier this year for touching a 16-year-old's breast while on parole Forensic psychiatrist Gosia Wojnarowska told the court that Rao is dangerous and likely to re-offend. 'He seemed determined to continue his deviant lifestyle,' Dr Wojnarowska said. '(He) wanted to meet and have a relationship with an underage woman. My major problem ... is the proximity to the high school. 'There is a really imminent risk of reoffending.' The hearing has been adjourned until 2019. An ex-director at Seven West Media believes she was overlooked for a promotion because she was six months pregnant. Lisa Squillace, director of program partnerships, is locked in a bitter dispute with Seven about when she can start her new job at Network Ten. Seven have claimed that Ms Squillace's start date at the rival network is in breach of a non-compete clause in her contract. Ms Squillace has now claimed that she was overlooked for a promotion because she was pregnant and this snub caused her to seek employment elsewhere. Lisa Squillace (pictured), former director of program partnerships at Seven West Media, is locked in a bitter dispute with Seven about when she can start her new job at Network Ten Network director of sales Adam Elliott had resigned and Ms Squillance claims she was not invited to apply for the role. A scathing letter to Seven by Ms Squillace's lawyers at Laxon Lex says she sought out a workplace that 'provided genuinely equal opportunity to women, including pregnant women'. The Laxon Lex letter read: 'Our client reasonably believed that she would be considered for, and quite possibly appointed to that role, having regard to her experience and long-term commitment to Seven. 'However, our client was not even invited to apply for the Director of Sales role, with Ms Natalie Harvey being appointed to the role. 'Our client's view was and is that she was overlooked for the role solely because she was, at that time, approximately six months pregnant. Our client now wishes to make that view very clear to Seven.' Ms Squillace's pregnancy discrimination claim, however, is not part of any legal proceedings. A Seven West Media spokesman told Daily Mail Australia that 'Harvey was appointed to the role of Network Director of Sales because of her media agency background, history of running a full market sales team and proven transformation skills and success, which were skills deemed critical for this role'. Ms Squillace is due to take up a new position at Network Ten, but is still locked in a legal battle with her old employer It is thought that the legal battle could cost Ten upwards of $100,000, but this would be recouped in the case of a win. Laxon Lex have said that Ms Squillace's non-compete clause is invalid. The Seven spokesman said that they initially offered Ms Squillace a 'generous' settlement', reducing her non-compete period to two months, meaning she could start at Network Ten in February 2019. However, Ms Squillace allegedly refused this offer, causing Seven to revert to her original contract and enforce a six month constraint. 'Lisa Squillace was a well-liked and respected member of the Seven team for many years and we were sorry when she told us she was leaving to join Ten,' the spokesman said. He also stressed that Ms Squillace was informed of Ms Harvey's appointment before it was announced. 'The fact that Lisa did not raise any concerns she may have had about any potential unlawful discrimination then or at any time since March 2018 (until 8 October 2018) indicates that this claim has been manufactured for ulterior purposes, in particular to attempt to avoid contractual obligations,' the spokesman said. It is understood that the case has been adjourned until December. A hawk ended up causing traffic chaos in New York City on Tuesday afternoon. The bird of prey landed on a car in Manhattan's East Village, forcing it to stop and bringing traffic in the area to a complete standstill. The NYPD wildlife division were called out to try and capture the bird but they had limited success. A hawk ended up landing on top of a car in New York's East Village on Tuesday afternoon The sight was so unusual that the bird began to draw quite the crowd from passersby The road ended up having to be closed while members of a specialist NYPD unit attended The New York City Police Department Emergency Service Unit were also called out to assist. The rescue attempt attracted a small crowd, as an officer attempted to sneak up on the bird of prey with a sheet. But video, captured by a local news team, shows all their attempts were in vain. As he clambered up onto the roof of the car and edged towards the bird, it suddenly flew off. It landed on a nearby fire escape of a building on East 25th street between 2nd and 3rd Avenue, allowing the street to be reopened and traffic to finally start moving once again. The officer circled the hawk before making an attempt to rescue it from the top of the car The officer climbed onto the back of the minivan while the driver remained inside on his phone The officer's hopes of capturing the bird of prey were dashed as it simply flew away. Onlookers from a nearby building site took a break to watch the action on the street down below A spike in the price of crude oil combined with the tumbling value of the Australian dollar is pushing the cost of petrol to near decade high levels. Both the Prime Minister and major petrol retailers claimed they are not responsible for the petrol price hike, and instead pointed the finger at the current market. Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned retailers on Monday the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) would be 'watching them', and dismissed calls to reduce fuel excise. But ACCC CEO Rod Sims told The Australian major oil-exporting countries in OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) were to blame and claimed they were acting like a 'cartel'. Blame for the most expensive petrol in more than a decade has been aimed at the simultaneous surging price of crude oil and falling value of the Australian dollar The ACCC said it was powerless in forcing down prices but threatened to use the 'big stick' on retailers if they failed to ease the burden on their customers. 'You can understand people's anger and frustration. Petrol is the ultimate grudge purchase. Everyone has got to buy it and it is causing real pain out there,' he said. While he shifted responsibility to petrol companies to 'do the right thing', Caltex CEO Julian Segal reminded customers 'a significant portion' from sales went 'into Scott Morrison's pocket'. 'There are real reasons why these prices have gone up and that simply is crude prices have gone up significantly and the Aussie dollar has gone down,' he told The Australian Financial Review. 'You should also remember a significant portion of every dollar that the customer pays is going into Scott Morrison's pocket in the form of excise, for example,' Mr Segal said. Meanwhile, Liberal MP Craig Kelly called on the Government to slash its excise and drive the cost of petrol down 10 cents per litre. Scott Morrison (pictured) warned retailers on Monday the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission would be 'watching them', and dismissed calls to reduce fuel excise The $12 billion a year fuel excise adds an extra 40 cents to the cost of every litre and is levied by the government and used to repair roads and fund infrastructure The $12 billion a year fuel excise adds an extra 40 cents to the cost of every litre and is levied by the government and used to repair roads and fund infrastructure. Petrol costs have skyrocketed across the nation, with prices in Sydney hitting an eye-watering $1.75 a litre on Monday, Melbourne hitting a 10-year high last month, and Adelaide motorists forking out an average of $1.67 a litre. Queensland MP Luke Howarth accused retailers of profiting from the price, arguing 'most of the price is going to retailers at the moment'. Caltex however suffered a $20million blow to its retail earnings in the September quarter relative to its run rate in the first half. Mr Sims welcomed the ACCC's scrutiny and said he doubted it would be successful in finding anything of a damning nature. More than 160,000 Australians pledged to boycott petrol stations in a day-long strike on Friday October 26 protesting against rising fuel prices. While many people took part, it was discovered the movement made little difference, prompting the development of a plan to boycott BP and Shell service stations for the rest of the year. Toyah Cordingley's (right) sister, Leynah Gardiner (left), has hit back at 'disrespectful' trolls Online trolls have targeted the family of murdered Toyah Cordingley, saying she should not have been walking alone in 'secluded places', and asking: 'Is she dead yet?' Ms Cordingley was first believed to be missing, before her body was found the next day with 'violent and visible' injuries in the sand dunes of quiet Wangetti Beach on Monday October 22. The pharmacy worker disappeared while walking her boyfriend's dog on the beach about 2pm, and is believed to have been killed in broad daylight. A post from her sister, Leynah Gardiner, shared when she first disappeared and begging for help to find her, has attracted hundreds of condolence messages since Ms Cordingley's death was announced. But among the kind and heartfelt messages were some of a more spiteful nature. 'Young women please do not walk alone in secluded places. I know you should be able to but it is not safe. A very sad outcome for this poor girl and her family,' an online troll wrote. Ms Gardiner immediately hit back, telling the woman: 'People walking alone in broad daylight isnt the issue, murderers is'. Ms Gardiner shared a desperate plea for help when Ms Cordingley first went missing, and the post has since attracted trolls, one of who said the 24-year-old 'shouldn't have been walking alone' Ms Cordingley's family have been trolled online by people who have tried to blame Ms Cordingley for her own death, and others who asked insensitive questions Toyah Cordingley's body was found on Wangetti beach on October 22, about 800 metres from where she had left her car in the southern car park. She was reported missing the night before after failing to return from where she had been walking her boyfriend's dog Toyah Cordingley's father Troy (pictured together) was the one to find her body, when a search party had gone to look for her The troll did not give up there, and continued to respond. 'So true,' she wrote. 'You seem to have the answers to the issue of young women walking alone and being murdered so we will give you the job of stopping the carnage.' Ms Gardiner angrily explained disallowing women from going anywhere alone could not be the right answer, and when she was fobbed off, supporters gathered around her. Earlier in the investigation, shortly after Ms Cordingley's death was publicised, one man wrote: 'Is she dead yet?' sparking furious responses from the young woman's family and friends. Despite the quick onslaught of furious responses, the man posted a second time, writing: 'Thay [sic] are still looking'. Another man spammed Ms Cordingley with incessant and passionate messages about how he would find her killer. The online trolling appears to be rare, with much of the Cairns and Wangetti Beach community rallying around Ms Cordingley's family, with online appeals for information, fundraisers, and general messages of support. Police received more than 500 tips about the murder of Toyah Cordingley in just a week, but still have no suspects An overhead road billboard has also called for those with information to help the murder investigation in the sleepy Queensland town In fact, many have echoed Ms Gardiner's thoughts about who is to blame for the 24-year-old's murder, which police believe was 'sexually motivated', and likely committed by a man. A tree nearby the spot Ms Cordingley's body was found has become an unofficial memorial to the beloved young woman. Flowers have been laid around the base of the tree, while a succinct sign tied to its trunk reflects the anger of locals. In large, bolded, capital letters, it reads: 'Hey men! Stop killing us! From women'. Nearby, a whiteboard asks for anyone with dashcam footage from the beach or its surrounds to come forward to police. Family friends have been fundraising to help ease the family's sudden costs (pictured is a family fun day, where some proceeds were donated to Ms Cordingley's family) Detectives pieced together Ms Cordingley's movements on the day she died and released CCTV footage of her just two hours before her murder A police roadside whiteboard urged drivers with dashcam cameras to hand the footage in to police Investigators have also placed electronic message boards and fixed billboards asking for witnesses or anyone with relevant information to come forward at a number of locations within a 15km radius of the beach. Police have asked locals and those in surrounding suburbs to keep an eye out for anyone with unexplained injuries or missing/damaged clothing. A family who were picnicking nearby on the afternoon Ms Cordingley was killed have been asked repeatedly to come forward, and officers are also looking for 'two agitated men' who asked for help after getting a flat tyre nearby the exit. But in spite of multiple public appeals, both from authorities and Ms Cordingley's family, and hundreds of tips to CrimeStoppers, her murder remains unsolved - leaving her killer to roam free. Timeline of Toyah Cordingley's murder at Wangetti beach 12-1pm, October 21: Toyah Cordingley goes shopping at Rusty's Markets in downtown Cairns, the city in which she lives 12.40pm: She is filmed on CCTV crossing Sheridan Street near the markets 1pm: Ms Cordingley goes to her home in Cairns briefly where she may have changed her clothes, before driving out at 1.30pm 1.20pm: A family of four is seen having a picnic at Wangetti beach and police want to see if they saw anything that could help the case 2pm: Ms Cordingley's 2009 blue Mistubishi Lancer with the number plate 'TOY 146' is seen in Clifton Beach, about half way to Wangetti 2-2.30pm: Ms Cordingley arrives at Wangetti beach and parks in the southern car park. She goes for a walk on the beach with her boyfriend's dog Jersey and is not seen alive again 10.50pm: Her family report her missing after she doesn't return home to Cairns form Wangetti 7.45am, October 22: Ms Cordingley's father Troy finds her body dumped in sand dunes 800m from her car while looking for her with a search party Advertisement An image of the victim's 2009 blue Mistubishi Lancer, which was parked in the southern car park at Wangetti Beach, south of Cairns, when Ms Cordingley's body was found, has been released by police Underworld figure Mick Gatto's son, Justin, had reportedly been suffering from personal problems before he was found dead next to an apartment building in Melbourne's CBD. Justin Gatto had been holidaying in Bali in the lead up to his death, Herald Sun reported. The 34-year-old from Docklands is believed to have died near an apartment on Spencer Street just after midnight on Tuesday. What Mr Gatto was doing near the building on the night of his death remains unknown. Scroll down for video Justin Gatto (pictured) had been holidaying in Bali in the lead up to his death Underworld figure Mick Gatto's son, Justin Gatto (pictured), has been found dead next to an apartment building in Melbourne 's CBD In a statement, police said he fell from an apartment building balcony on Spencer Street in Melbourne (pictured) overnight Justin Gatto has in the past posted cryptic messages on Facebook revealing that he may have been struggling to cope. A picture posted by Mr Gatto in 2013 reads: 'Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.' In a statement Victoria Police told Daily Mail Australia: 'Police will prepare a report for the Coroner after a man fell from an apartment building balcony on Spencer Street overnight. 'The incident happened just after midnight with the 34-year-old man dying at the scene. 'The death is not being treated as suspicious.' It's unclear what Mr Gatto was doing near the building, but his brother owns a construction company nearby, The Herald Sun reported. Investigators are preparing a report for the coroner. Justin Gattohe had previously posted cryptic posts suggesting that he may have been struggling (above, from 2013) This is the last photo Justin Gatto (left) posted on Facebook on October 22 The apartment block near where Justin Gatto was believed to have died Close friends of the Gatto family declined to comment on the circumstances of his death, The Australian reported. Another family friend requested privacy and respect for the Gatto family during this difficult time while another one man who knows the family told The Herald Sun they would be 'shattered'. Friends took to social media on Tuesday afternoon to express their condolences. 'R.I.P brother so sad. You will be missed my friend,' one wrote. Justin Gatto (pictured, centre) with his friends at the races. In a statement Victoria Police said: 'Police will prepare a report for the Coroner after a man fell from an apartment building balcony on Spencer Street over night' Justin worked at his father's crane company as a rigger. In 2008, he narrowly escaped death in a horror car crash which saw him end up intensive care. A court heard he lost control of his BMW and crashed head-on into an oncoming four-wheel-drive following a long day at work. His licence was suspended for a month. Justin was the youngest of Mick and wife Cheryle's four children. His father had written an autobiography I, Mick Gatto, where he wrote that he would always be grateful for the work of the Royal Children's Hospital, where Justin was born two months premature. Justin Gatto, pictured with sister-in-law Fiona, has been found dead in Melbourne Back in 2008, Justin (pictured) narrowly escaped death in a horror car crash Mick Gatto was the leader of the infamous 'Carlton Crew.' In 2004 he was acquitted of the murder of suspected hitman Andrew 'Benji' Veniamin, with a jury ruling Gatto had acted in self-defence when he shot Veniamin, who had threatened to kill him. Later in 2016, Gatto pleaded guilty to two charges over keeping an unregistered shotgun and ammunition in his home. They were found in a cavity behind a cabinet in an ensuite of his Lower Plenty home in Melbourne. Justin (right) was the youngest child of Mick Gatto (left) and his wife Cheryle Justin's father, Mick Gatto (pictured) was the leader of the infamous 'Carlton Crew' At the time, the court heard Gatto was given the gun in 2005 from another underworld figure Mario Condello after he was acquitted over the death of Andrew Veniamin. Magistrates Carolene Gwynn accepted Gatto had a genuine fear for his safety, but said it wasn't an excuse. A former boxer and debt collector, Gatto now works professionally as a mediator in the building sector. (Australia) LIFELINE: 13 11 14 www.lifeline.org.au . Suicide Call Back Service: 1300 659 467 (UK) For confidential support, call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local branch. See www.samaritans.org for details. Dramatic new video has captured the moment a kayaker paddled off a 110-foot waterfall inCanada. German kayaker Adrian Mattern filmed himself paddling toward the Alexandra Falls on the Hay River, in the Northwest Territories in August. Above him, a second camera attached to a drone, captured a bird's eye view of the dangerous stunt. The video shows the 23-year-old's small blue kayak as it approached the edge of the 110ft drop. Video captured German kayaker Adrian Mattern paddling over the Alexandra Falls on the Hay River in the Northwest Canadian Territories As the white water lead him to edge, Mattern prepared to take the 110ft drop In a matter of moments, Mattern disappeared under water, but he emerged unharmed In a matter of moments, Mattern disappeared under water following the drop. Though its difficult to spot from the drone angle, footage from his helmet shows the daredevil emerging unharmed and excited about his achievement. Mattern is a professional whitewater kayaker who has won multiple kayaking competitions and been the first to take the plunge from daring heights. Another kayaker was waiting for him at the bottom of the waterfall and the man is seen paddling over to Mattern followed by the men sharing a high-five. Footage from his helmet showed Mattern paddling toward the Alexandra Falls on the Hay River As the white water led Mattern to the edge, he prepared to take the plunge Mattern travels the world competing and has said his favorite spots for kayaking are in Ch White Salmon, USA and Norway. In July, Mattern was kayaking in India along the Paithalmala river. He asys his lifetime goal is to 'push kayaking to its boundaries and expand them.' Needless to say, he's done just that. A friend was seen paddling over to Mattern and they shared a high-five Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators have met with former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon as the probe continues to sniff out information about longtime trickster and informal Trump advisor Roger Stone. Questions have focused on whether Stone coordinated with WikiLeaks in advance of the release of a trove of Democratic emails during the campaign, something Stone ardently denies. Investigators quizzed Bannon about Stone's made in private about WikiLeaks, the Washington Post reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the session. Former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon met with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators Friday Investigators are zeroing in on the Oct. 7, 2016 release of the infamous 'p****' tape, where Donald Trump got caught on a hot mic bragging about grabbing women by their genitals. Within an hour after the release, WikiLeaks, a site run by Julian Assange, dumped thousands of Democratic emails that were embarrassing and damaging to the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Investigators are focused on Trump informal advisor Roger Stone and his connections to and any communications with WikiLeaks Special counsel Robert Mueller's probers have been interviewing people who were in contact with Roger Stone during the campaign about his statements regarding WikiLeaks Investigators are also combing through conference calls organized by Stone, the Wall Street Journal reported. The calls were advertised online, and touted Stone as the 'ultimate political insider.' Jason Sullivan, who organized the calls, said investigators have obtained documents of the calls and conducted interviews about them. Stone states in an August 4, 2016 call: 'In the background of this entire race going forward is the fact that Julian Assange...is going to continue to drop information on the American voters that is going to roil this race, according to the Journal, which heard audio. He has made that very clear, Stone said on the tape. Stone famously and cryptically tweeted on August 21, 2016: 'It will soon Podesta's time in the barrel.' In October, weeks before the presidential election, WikiLeaks published a trove of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's emails. The U.S. intelligence community said Russian military intelligence was behind the email hack that led to the release of Podesta's and Democratic Party emails. Meanwhile, Stone has expanded his legal team, ABC reported, hiring Florida attorney Bruce Rogow. Matt Hancock will today roll out the health services first violence reduction strategy to protect vulnerable staff The Health Secretary has pledged a crackdown on violent patients and relatives amid a surge in attacks on NHS staff. A shocking 15 per cent of employees one in seven have been attacked or threatened in the past 12 months, the highest rate in five years. Matt Hancock will today roll out the health services first violence reduction strategy to protect vulnerable staff. Nurses and other employees who work in high-risk areas including paramedics, frontline A&E employees and mental health nurses will be trained in specialist techniques to diffuse hostile situations. Health trusts will be obliged to report all attacks to the police so they can be properly investigated and the offenders prosecuted. The rise in attacks has been partly blamed on longer waiting times coupled with staffing shortages, which has led to patients and relatives becoming increasingly frustrated. Growing numbers of patients with mental health problems and dementia which causes outbursts of aggression are also thought to be behind the increase. Mr Hancock, who will launch the strategy at a violence reduction summit in Central London, said: It is hard to understand how anyone could think of attacking nurses, doctors, paramedics and emergency services personnel as they go about their jobs of caring for us. Yet the sad truth is that it is something experienced by many NHS staff. For those in the most unpredictable, frontline settings paramedics, accident and emergency staff and mental health professionals dealing with violent or abusive patients happens all too often. The rise in attacks has been partly blamed people becoming frustrated at longer waiting times, coupled with staffing shortages 'NHS staff dedicate their lives to protecting and caring for us in our times of greatest need and for any one of them to be subject to aggression or violence is completely unacceptable. I have made it my personal mission to ensure NHS staff feel safe and secure at work. The strategy will involve employees who are most at risk of violence sent on conflict resolution training. Officials will look at the existing data to identify violence hotspots in departments where staff are particularly vulnerable. Hospitals will be obliged to report all attacks to the police and ensure they are recorded on a central database, to be compared with other hospitals. There is currently no centralised system to record assaults on NHS staff and hospitals are left to collect their own data. Nurses and other employees who work in high-risk areas will be trained in specialist techniques to diffuse hostile situations Where staff have been attacked, health trusts will be encouraged to work with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure offenders are prosecuted quickly. The Care Quality Commission will also begin looking at hospitals violence reduction plans and if they are deemed deficient the trust will be marked down on inspection reports. Mr Hancock added: We want to empower staff and give them greater confidence to report violence, knowing that they will see meaningful action from trusts and a consistent prosecution approach from the judicial system. Figures from the latest 2017 NHS staff survey, which involved 465,558 employees, showed that 15.2 per cent had experienced violence at work in the past 12 months the highest rate in five years. Kim Sunley, national officer at the Royal College of Nursing, said: Nurses and health care workers understand their roles arent risk-free but, to many, it still seems as if the threat of physical violence is a daily reality. Victims of assault at work have their lives turned upside down and it affects their wellbeing, their families and their livelihood and theres always more we can do to support them. Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act in April showed there were 56,435 assaults on hospital staff in 2016/17, a ten per cent increase on 2015/16. But the true figure is likely to be nearer 75,000 as a quarter of hospitals failed to respond to an investigation by the Health Service Journal and Unison. The data also showed that among the 35 hospitals with the worst waiting times for routine operations, there was a 36 per cent increase in attacks in 12 months. A new law came into force last month that doubled the maximum prison sentence for members of the public who assault NHS staff or emergency service workers from six months to a year, although many believe that still isnt long enough. 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. Sylvester Stallone will not face rape charges stemming from an alleged encounter in 1990 after two witnesses contradicted claims made by an unnamed woman. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office has determined that there is insufficient evidence to arrest the Rocky star, TMZ reported. Last December, an unnamed woman alleged that Stallone raped her 28 years ago. The actor has denied the claims. Prosecutors said that no witnesses were able to corroborate the woman's claims against Stallone. The woman filed a report last year with Santa Monica police about the incident which she says occurred during a 1990 meeting at Stallone's office. Although the 10-year statute of limitations has expired, authorities investigated her claim. Stallone, in turn, filed a complaint accusing the woman of submitting a false report against him. Sylvester Stallone (seen above in August) won't be charged with rape by a woman who alleged the incident took place in 1990 Stallone admitted that he spent three days with the woman in 1987 in Israel (where he filmed part of Rambo III in the same year, above) but says he never sexually assaulted her Stallone, 72, (pictured with his wife Jennifer Flavin in April 2017) has accused the woman of filing a false report against him Stallone admitted he knew the unnamed woman and said they spent three days together in Israel while working on a movie in 1987, three years before the alleged rape. The film he referred to was likely Rambo III which was filmed in part in Jaffa, near Tel Aviv. He denied raping her but did not indicate what the nature of their relationship was. No record matching the woman's alleged claims - namely that she met with Stallone at his office in 1990 - has yet been found. Last November, DailyMail.com revealed a 1986 police report that was made by a separate woman against Stallone. She claimed Stallone raped her when she was 16 in a room at Las Vegas's Hilton hotel and that the star's bodyguard, Michael 'Mike' De Luca, forced her into performing oral sex on him. The girl told police in Las Vegas about it at the time but ultimately declined to press charges. De Luca died in 2013 after being shot by California police during a traffic stop. At the time of the alleged rape, he was 27 and Stallone was 40. The teenage girl said she met the pair while staying in Las Vegas with friends. Stallone was there filming the movie Over The Top. The unnamed woman alleges that Stallone raped her in Santa Monica in 1990. He is pictured in the same year in Beverly Hills At the time, Stallone's marriage to Brigitte Nielsen had crumbled and he was single. He is pictured with Nielsen in 1987 TIMELINE OF CLAIMS 1985: Stallone marries Brigitte Nielsen, his second wife 1986: Teenager says Stallone raped her with his bodyguard in Las Vegas, she reports her claims to police 1987: Stallone films Rambo III. He says he spent three days with his second accuser in Israel In the same year, his marriage to Nielsen falls apart and he is sued by his half-sister Toni-Ann Filiti who he pays $2million over allegations he abused her 1988: Rambo III is released 1990: Second accuser claims Stallone rapes her in Santa Monica 2013: Toni-Ann dies, details of settlement she received emerge November 2017: 1986 rape claim is unearthed December 2017: Second accuser threatens to go to the police and Stallone fights back Advertisement She claimed that she willingly had sex with Stallone in his hotel room while De Luca was in the bathroom but that it ended briefly and without either of them climaxing. After allegedly remarking that she was 'tight', she said Stallone told her to perform oral sex on De Luca and that he forced her head onto his penis. After the alleged assault, she claims the star told her they 'would have to beat her head in' if she told anyone about it because they were both married men. The girl chose not to pursue charges because she was 'ashamed', she said. Stallone's representative vehemently denied her accusations on his behalf. 'This is a ridiculous, categorically false story. No one was ever aware of this story until it was published today, including Mr. Stallone. 'At no time was Mr. Stallone ever contacted by any authorities or anyone else regarding this matter,' she said. In 1987, Stallone's two-year marriage to fellow star Brigitte Nielsen was coming to an end. He was at the height of his fame having starred in two Rocky films and two Rambo installments. It was also the year in which he was sued by his half-sister Toni-Ann Filiti who claimed he abused her when they were children. Another woman claims Stallone raped her when she was a teenager in 1986. She said his bodyguard Michael 'Mike' De Luca (above together in 1987) was there and that they both forced her into performing oral sex then threatened to beat her if she spoke about it. Stallone denied her claims last November The teenager was 16 at the time of the alleged attack at Las Vegas's Hilton hotel Stallone settled her claims with a $2million lump sum and a promise to give her monthly installments of thousands of dollars. Filiti's claims were made public in 2013 shortly after her death. They were undermined by her and Stallone's mother Jackie who amounted them to a 'shakedown'. Jackie, now 96, said Toni-Ann was a drug addict who had lied to extort her famous half-brother. She was Jackie's only child with her husband Anthony Filiti. Stallone has been married to his current wife Jennifer Flavin since 1997. The pair have three daughters together. He has two sons from his first marriage to Sasha Czack. He and Nielsen do not have any children together. Until 2017, the Statute of Limitations in California gave sexual assault accusers 10 years to report their claims to police from the date of the offense. Governor Jerry Brown did away with it in 2016 as a growing number of women came forward to allege they had been assaulted by Bill Cosby. It went into effect in January but only applies to crimes committed after that date. A simple hack could give you a ten day holiday while only using three days of annual leave. Australians and New Zealanders looking for a well-earned break can make use of the Easter long weekend and ANZAC Day when lodging requests for their annual leave. The tip, shared to The Hits' Facebook page, is a revelation for those working 9-5 Monday to Friday jobs. Australians and New Zealanders looking for a well-earned break can make use of the Easter long weekend and ANZAC Day when lodging requests for their annual leave At the conclusion of the Easter long weekend, savvy workers could request leave for April 23 and 24. Anzac Day falls on April 25, which means that a third annual leave day could be taken on Friday 26, leading into another weekend. The dates also coincide with school holidays in New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania. We recommend you book your leave before someone else beats you to it! The dates also coincide with school holidays in New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania Dramatic amateur video shows the flaming wreckage of a helicopter which crashed into electrical lines in upstate New York, killing two people and leaving two others injured. The video was filmed by a passerby in Beekmantown, not far from the Canadian border, at around 4:15pm on Tuesday. It shows what remains of a French-made Aerospatiale AS355F2 helicopter which was carrying four people when it struck power lines during repair work, according to local authorities. The pilot of the helicopter, Robert T. Hoban Jr, 56, and a passenger, Jeremy P. Kearns, 30, died in the crash, New York State Police announced. Two other passengers - Benjamin L. McAllister, 30, and Scott E. Fabia, 34 - were taken to a local hospital and treated for injuries. They were released later the same evening. Dramatic amateur video shows the flaming wreckage of a helicopter which crashed into electrical lines in upstate New York, killing two people and leaving two others injured The helicopter was owned by Catalyst Aviation, LLC - a New Jersey-based company that specializes in power line inspection, according to investigators. The video begins moments after the chopper hit the power lines and crashed, erupting in a fireball. Burning metal is seen melting away and falling piece by piece from the electrical lines. Some power lines in the area caught fire as a result of the crash, though these flames were quickly extinguished by the emergency services. Nobody on the ground was injured, according to WPTZ-TV. Jeremy P. Kearns, 30, was identified as one of the fatalities in the crash Two other passengers - Benjamin L. McAllister (above), 30, and Scott E. Fabia, 34 - were taken to a local hospital and treated for injuries. They were released later the same evening The coroner is expected to perform autopsies on the deceased by Thursday. Clinton County sheriff's deputies were actually first on scene, Clinton County Emergency Services Director Eric Day said. A couple of the deputies started immediately performing lifesaving measures on two of the individuals. They dragged them away from the fire, away from the crash scene and actually initiated CPR on one of the individuals. Hoban, a father of two daughter, was an employee of Catalyst Aviation. He was once married to the company's owner and founder, according to the New York Post. The video was filmed by a passerby in Beekmantown, not far from the Canadian border, at around 4:15pm on Tuesday In the video, the burning metal begins to disintegrate and fall piece by piece from the electrical lines The helicopter was owned by Catalyst Aviation, LLC - a New Jersey-based company that specializes in power line inspection, according to investigators The above image is a stock photo showing an Aerospatiale AS355F2 helicopter similar to the one that crashed in upstate New York on Tuesday 'I had the privilege to once be married to one of the men that lost their life today,' Maria Palmer told the Post. 'He was the father of our children and one of my dearest friends. 'Finally, and tragically, Robert was not the only loss of life. Maria Palmer, the owner and founder of Catalyst Aviation, was once married to the pilot who died, Robert Hoban 'I never met this man and I know his family is as ours, suffering and hoping to wake up tomorrow knowing it was a nightmare and hug their beloved Jeremy. 'My heart is breaking for each of you.' Catalyst was contracted by Northline Utilities LLC, a company based in Au Sable Forks, New York that supplies construction and other services to the electric utilities industry, according to state investigators. The crash resulted in 2,900 customers of Vermont Electric Co-op losing power for a couple hours. The New York Power Authority has been working with the Electric Power Research Institute to investigate automated inspection technology using drones, with the goal of making transmission system maintenance safer, more efficient and less expensive. State, local, and federal agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, said they would investigate the crash. Kearns (left and right) was part of a team that was hired to inspect power lines in Beekmantown, New York Transmission line inspection and maintenance is traditionally carried out by workers who climb tall line towers or use a helicopter with a four-person crew. Both methods are very risky. In January, two contractors died when their helicopter crashed while they were doing transmission line inspection work in northwest Ohio. A helicopter crashed near Caledonia, Michigan in May 2015 during high-voltage line inspections but the two crewmen escaped injury. In 2014, three men died in a helicopter crash while doing routine power line inspections in Silt, Colorado. A heavily tattooed former Bandidos Motorcycle Club president has been boasting about his lavish lifestyle on social media. Brett 'Kaos' Pechey, 33, split with fiancee and Instagram model Rikki Louise Jones earlier this year, but now seems keen to show off his new assets. Posted to his Instagram stories on Monday, Mr Pechey uploaded an image showing a receipt for the purchase of a $160,000 Range Rover Sport. Scroll down for video Former Bandidos Motorcycle Club president Brett 'Kaos' Pechey (pictured) has been boasting about his lavish lifestyle on social media He captioned it 'New Car feels' and accompanied it with the middle-finger emoji as well as a winky-face. Mr Pechey then posted a video outside of a car showroom with the caption: 'Sunday run around??' Posted to his Instagram stories on Monday, Mr Pechey, 33, uploaded a video of himself at a car showroom for Aston Martin, Maserati and Ferrari, as well as images of expensive gifts to himself from Gucci and Louis Vuitton Mr Pechey uploaded an image of a receipt for the purchase of a $160,000 Range Rover Sport He focused first on a bright red Ferrarri, before spanning the camera around to show signs also advertising Maserati and Aston Martin cars. The ex-bikie boss then appeared to continue his shopping spree with a trip to Gucci and Louis Vuitton. A further Instagram story showed a white box emblazoned with the word 'Gucci' and a bigger, upright brown box bearing the words 'Louis Vuitton'. Mr Pechey seems keen to show off his new assets following his split from his fiancee, Instagram model Rikki Louise Jones (pictured, left), earlier this year The heavily tattooed Mr Pechey is due to reappear in court for charges of assault against a police officer during a three-hour stand-off in April 'Got to spoil yourself from time to time,' he wrote. Mr Pechey broke up with his fiancee after just a few months of engagement and it was shortly after this that he was accused of assaulting a police officer. He was granted bail by Southport Magistrates Court after facing charges of assaulting police, willful damage and public nuisance and will appear again later. The court heard that Pechey was suffering a mental health battle. Mr Pechey broke up with his fiancee after just a few months of engagement earlier this year The grieving fiancee of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi is demanding to know where his body is so she can bury him a month after he was murdered. Hatice Cengiz was waiting outside the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul on October 2 when Khashoggi went inside to pick up paperwork needed for their upcoming marriage. Cengiz, who never saw her fiancee again, told ABC News that she tried to believe he was still alive until the end. Weeks after the Washington Post columnist entered the consulate, Saudi officials finally acknowledge his death and claimed that he had died during an 'altercation'. Hatice Cengiz is demanding to know where her fiancee Jamal Khashoggi's body is so she can bury him a month after he was murdered in the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul Under mounting international pressure, Saudi Arabia has changed its narrative about Khashoggi's killing several times, and has recently acknowledging that Turkish evidence shows it was premeditated. Cengiz is demanding to know who ordered the killing of her fiancee. 'We still don't know where Jamal's body is,' Cengiz said. 'There is no explanation about this. He did not have a funeral yet. This is not acceptable in Islamic rules. This is our last duty to fulfill.' Cengiz said she is still coming to terms with Khashoggi's murder and that she only believed it when the Saudis publicly stated that he had died. 'I didn't want to believe,' she said. 'That was the first day I said to myself perhaps there could be a tragedy. I wanted to believe that he was alive until the end. 'When Saudi officials accepted the responsibility, then I believed it happened.' Cengiz said Khashoggi was apprehensive about going to the consulate because he feared he might be detained given his prior criticism of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. 'He did not want to go to the consulate. He thought it was a risk to go,' she said. 'He thought of the possibility of them capturing him. He didn't want to face the consequences of his political views.' Cengiz, who never saw her fiancee again, said she tried to believe he was still alive right up until Saudi officials acknowledge that he had died in what they claimed was an 'altercation' This image taken from CCTV video shows Khashoggi talking to his fiancee Hatice Cengiz before entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 But Khashoggi said he was surprised by the pleasant way he was treated and was more relaxed when he had to go back in four days later to pickup paperwork. 'Naturally, after the first positive visit we had no reasons to think that there would be any sort of danger,' Cengiz said. 'Our second visit was full of hope and it was the last step to our union. We were going to get the official paper and we were going to get married and continue rest of our lives together.' Meanwhile, Cengiz spoke at a memorial in London on Monday as she called on U.S. President Donald Trump and other leaders to ensure that his death in Istanbul is not covered up. Cengiz expressed disappointment in the 'leadership of many countries'. Singling out Trump, she urged him to 'help reveal the truth and ensure justice be served.' 'He should not pave the way for a cover-up of my fiance's murder. Let's not let money taint our conscience and compromise our values,' she said. Cengiz also said she wished she had entered the consulate instead of Khashoggi. She said in reference to an alleged Saudi hit squad sent to kill Khashoggi: 'If only I knew that would be the last time I would see my Jamal, his smile, hear his laughter, I would have stood in front of that murderous team myself.' Cengiz last week declined an invitation by the White House, criticizing Trump's statements on Khashoggi's killing. Cengiz spoke at a memorial in London on Monday (above) as she called on U.S. President Donald Trump and other leaders to ensure that his death in Istanbul is not covered up This CCTV image shows Khashoggi and his fiancee at an apartment building just hours before he was killed at the Saudi consulate Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor, Saud al-Mojeb, arrived at Istanbul's main courthouse on Tuesday for more talks with Istanbul's chief public prosecutor, Irfan Fidan, on the investigation into the killing. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday the investigation needs to be completed swiftly. 'This needs to be solved now; there is no point in excuses,' Erdogan told journalists. Erdogan said the prosecutor repeated to his Saudi counterpart Turkey's extradition request for 18 suspects detained in Saudi Arabia for the Oct. 2 killing to be put on trial in Istanbul. Fidan asked al-Mojeb to reveal who sent this group, according to the president. The country is also asking Saudi Arabia to help locate Khashoggi's body, which still has not been found. Erdogan said Riyadh must disclose the identity of an alleged local collaborator said to have been involved in disposing Khashoggi's body. The U.N. human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, also urged Saudi Arabia to reveal the location of the writer's remains. In her strongest public comments yet on the subject, she said international experts should have complete access to evidence and witnesses. She added: 'I urge the Saudi authorities to reveal the whereabouts of his body without further delay or prevarication.' Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has said the kingdom will try the perpetrators and bring them to justice after the investigation is completed. A disabled man says he is lucky to be alive after a cruel hit-and-run motorist left him for dead. Judeland Antony, who is in a wheelchair, was seriously injured when he was hit by a speeding blue Ford hatchback on Bourke Street, in Docklands, Melbourne. Mr Antony told 3AW that he suffered a broken pelvis, broken hand and a broken back in the collision. Police are looking for a man of Caucasian appearance following a cruel hit-and-run which left a disabled man with serious injures Police are appealing for witnesses of the incident He was hit near the intersection of Cumberland Street and Seafarers Lane at around 1.20pm, on Tuesday. 'Running away doesn't solve the problem,' Mr Anthony said. 'I'm lucky I had so many people there wanting to help, holding my hand. I really need to thank them.' The vehicle was later found abandoned on Latrobe Street, near the intersection of King Street. Judeland Antony tragically incurred serious injuries when he was hit by a speeding blue ford hatch on Bourke Street in Docklands Police are appealing for witnesses. The driver is believed to be Caucasian, 180cm tall, with short brown hair and blonde tips. He was unshaven, wearing a grey t-shirt, dark blue denim jeans and white runners. Anyone who saw the collision or the offending driver fleeing from the vehicle is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. Queen Elizabeth II, as we all know, is a devout High Church Anglican. Charles, on the other hand, has taken a great interest in other religions, studying both the Koran and Judaism in depth. In 1993, for instance, he said: 'Islam can teach us today a way of understanding and living in the world which Christianity itself is poorer for having lost.' This was widely quoted as proof that he had abandoned Christianity, though he remains a practising Anglican. Clearly, however, our next Supreme Governor of the Church of England plans to do the job a little differently. Prince Charles (pictured with wife Camilla at a Sikh temple in Lahore, Pakistan) has taken a great interest in other religions, studying both the Koran and Judaism in depth. 'He is an individual who wants to chart new territory, and that will be very interesting indeed,' says Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. 'He is very outspoken.' The Prince certainly caused a furore when he told Jonathan Dimbleby that he wants to be seen as a 'Defender of Faith' when he ascends the throne, rather than 'Defender of the Faith'. Since then, Charles's position on the wording to be used at his coronation has categorically changed. It has been made clear to me that Charles will 'absolutely 100 per cent' be named as 'Defender of the Faith' when he is crowned king. But he will also demonstrate in his reign that he believes wholeheartedly in the importance of his connecting with all faiths of the subjects he will reign over. A former councillor is accused of tying up a real estate agent before allegedly shooting his own mother and brother dead in a failed murder-suicide. Paul Cohrs, the former deputy mayor of Wentworth and acting president of a local gun club, allegedly drove to his brother Ray's property in Rufus, in far-west NSW, with a real estate agent on Tuesday. Police will allege he tied up the real estate agent, 55, before shooting his brother dead and then driving 120km to his mother's home in Red Cliffs, south of Mildura, in regional Victoria. It was there that he allegedly shot and killed his 82-year-old mother Bette, in front of her four-year-old grandson, before returning to his brother's property to free the real estate agent. Mr Cohrs was found suffering from a suspected self-inflicted wound at 3pm and was rushed to Mildura Hospital in a critical condition, under police guard. Paul Cohrs (pictured at a gun range) allegedly shot his mother and brother dead over a long-running legal dispute about a property and family businesses Cohrs, 58, allegedly drove to his 82-year-old mother Bette's (pictured) house in Red Cliffs and shot her. Her four-year-old grandson was in the house at the time of the alleged shooting Victoria Police discovered Bette's body at her property at 12.30pm. Police have confirmed a four-year-old child was also inside Bette's home at the time of the shooting. The child was unharmed. NSW police drove to the Rufus property an hour later, where they found the body of the man's brother, whose age is unknown. A NSW Police spokeswoman confirmed the three parties are related to each other and said officers were not looking for anyone else in relation to the incidents. The tragic alleged double murder is understood to have been over a long-running money dispute and legal battle within the Cohrs family. Police sources told the Herald Sun Mr Cohrs had been in a legal dispute with his family over a property and a number of family businesses. 'The whole family situation is a mess,' one man, who asked not to be identified, told the Herald Sun. 'I was told they were going to sell a property without him knowing.' It was revealed on Wednesday that Mr Cohrs was the former deputy mayor of Wentworth and acting president of a local gun club The alleged domestic violence-related shootings occurred on either side of the Victoria-NSW border Mr Cohrs' condition has since stabilised and he was later transferred to a hospital in Melbourne where he remains. On Wednesday, the Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia (SSAA) in Victoria posted a tribute to Mr Cohrs who is the president of the club. 'We have received unofficial confirmation that the shooting tragedy in Mildura involves SSAA Mildura president Paul Cohrs,' the Facebook post read. 'We are deeply shocked and saddened by this news and our thoughts are with the Cohrs family.' The club then edited their post and saying this could become an anti-gun issue. 'We respect that those closest to the Cohrs family would want to keep this within their circle, however, the media have identified the Presdient of SSAA Mildura and this will undoubtedly became an anti-gun issue. On Wednesday, the Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia (SSAA) in Victoria posted a tribute to Mr Cohrs who is the president of the club Neil Mitchell, 3AW radio presenter, has slammed the SSAA club for politicising the alleged murder that involved their president. 'We do not want to allow anti-gun groups and the media to control the narrative that will come from this tragedy, which is why we have chosen to communicate in this way,' the end of the post read. Mr Mitchell called the post 'poor taste and hypocritical' because the club was 'politicising the tragedy'. It's not the first tragedy that has devastated the family in recent years. The elderly woman's granddaughter was killed in an accident in 2016 after returning to Mildura to spend Christmas with family, according to the neighbour. She also lost her second husband last year. 'It was devastating for the whole family and now this tragedy, it's just so sad,' the neighbour said. Homicide Squad detectives from both Victoria and NSW continue to investigate. Anyone with information is urged to call Crime Stoppers. Lifeline 13 11 14, Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467, Mensline 1300 789 978, KidsHelpline 1800 551 800 A woman has been left distressed by an anonymous note criticising her use of a disability parking permit. It read: 'Shame on you parking in a handicap car park grhh.' Unfortunately, the self-appointed parking warrior appears to have jumped to premature conclusions, with the woman, from Canterbury, New Zealand, genuinely entitled to use of the permit. The anonymous note shamed the New Zealand woman for parking in a disabled spot, despite being genuinely entitled to do so The incident, which occurred at the Gables Arcade in the town of Rangiora, unfolded when local cafe owner Karl Horwarth, said he found the woman, who was almost in tears, leaving his coffee shop last week. Speaking to Stuff NZ, Karl said: 'I had a quick chat to her and told her not to get upset as I get notes like that all the time.' Drawing on his own experience, the Reality Bites cafe owner, who himself uses a wheelchair, appealed to people to avoid making assumptions about a person's disability. 'My car is a big four-wheel-drive and I don't look like I'm disabled, whatever that means, until I get out of the car.' Local cafe owner Karl Horwarth cautioned parking warriors against premature judgement, 'especially when you don't know the whole story,' he said While the problem of people parking without suitable permits is cause for concern, Karl cautioned against judgemental behaviour. 'Be nice, support each other, if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all, especially when you don't know the whole story.' A similar incident occurred in Rangiora in August this year, when local father Paul Francis returned to find an almost-identical note left on the windscreen of his family vehicle. Unbeknownst to the note-writer, Paul was actually at a family outing at the public pool, which included his nine-year-old son Jack, who has cerebral palsy. A similar situation with a similar note also occurred in the area in August this year After taking to social media to share his views on the 'cowardly attack', the Francis family received a written apology. But, perhaps more importantly, Paul also took the opportunity to challenge public perceptions of disability. 'Please educate everyone that the driver is not always the disabled one or even have to have a wheelchair to be entitled to use these spots. They are for everyone that has a badge,' he said at the time. Wildlife rangers have hauled in an enormous saltwater crocodile after spotting locals ignoring warning signs and swimming in the same creek. Rangers captured the 4.72m crocodile in Borroloola, a small town in remote Northern Territory, on Tuesday, ABC News reported. The crocodile is the largest trapped in Australia so far this year, narrowly beating the capture of a 600-kilogram, 4.71-metre crocodile caught near Katherine in July. That crocodile had evaded rangers for over a decade. Wildlife rangers have hauled in the biggest salt water crocodile capture of 2018 (pictured) just metres from tourists who were swimming in the same creek After the crocodile was subdued rangers took it to a local school to give students a first hand look at what lurks in their waterways. Senior District Ranger for the Gulf Region Andrew Peckham was one of the rangers who helped trap the predator. Mr Peckham said the crocodile's poor condition meant it had to be euthanised rather than relocated. Mr Peckham told ABC News the crocodile measured 4.72m and said tourists were swimming just 50 metres away. 'Despite all the signs and all the Crocwise campaigns we have throughout communities, people still don't seem to heed warning signs,' he said. 'What happened with this one, when it was removed it was taken up to the school to reinforce that these animals, they are real, you know.' 'You're living in crocodile country.' The largest saltwater crocodile ever caught in Australia was found in the Mary River and measured a staggering 6.4metres. Despite being 89-years-old, Whitey Bulger feared he would ultimately be murdered in prison. Bulger's greatest fear was that he might be assaulted and then killed. 'He was always concerned about someone in prison beating him up or killing him,' a friend told RadarOnline. Bulger, was found dead at a maximum security West Virginia federal prison, Hazelton Penitentiary in Bruceton Mill this morning just hours after he was transferred there. Catherine Greig, 67, is the longtime girlfriend and confidante of Boston mob boss James 'Whitey' Bulger who was killed behind bars at the age of 89 overnight on Tuesday. She's currently detained in a prison in Waseca, Minnesota The entrance to USP Hazelton in West Virginia is seen in a file photo. Bulger had recently been transferred to the facility when he was killed The transfer would have been a risky one for the elderly mobster after numerous 'attempts' on his life in recent years. A prisoner looking to make a name for themselves would have had no hesitation in delivering 'justice'. Police believe he was murdered by a fellow inmate with 'mafia ties.' Bulger hadn't even been processed at Hazelton when he was killed, according to sources. Someone reportedly knew he was being transferred and put the word out. Law enforcement sources tell DailyMail.com that Whitey had been talking about outing people in the FBI who were part of the informant program. 'Life-saving measures were initiated immediately by responding staff. Mr. Bulger was subsequently pronounced dead by the Preston County Medical Examiner,' the Bureau of Prisons agency said. The BOP said that no other staff or inmates were injured and that an investigation was underway. In a statement, Bulger's lawyer J.W. Carney Jr blasted the prison system over the mobster's death. 'He was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty,' the statement read. Bulger poses for a mugshot on his arrival at the Federal Penitentiary at Alcatraz on November 16, 1959 in San Francisco, California. Reports have emerged the gangster was slain in prison Bulger was one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives for 16 years until his 2011 arrest in Santa Monica, California. He is pictured here in a 1953 booking photo Prison letters obtained by Radar detail how the mafia boss accused prison guards of torturing him in the form of 'sleep deprivation.' Radar's source went onto insist that Bulger's longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig, who is also serving time for her role in helping the mafia boss evade capture during 16 years on the run, will be 'shocked' and saddened when she finally finds out about the death. Greig, now 67, helped Bulger evade the FBI for 16 years and was arrested with her lover in Santa Monica, California, on June 22, 2011. Greig started dating the kingpin in the 1970s and they lived together in Boston. In 1995 they went on the run together until they were found in Santa Monica, California in June 2011 and both arrested. They were posing as married retirees from Chicago, the couple pictured above in June 1998 In June 2012, Greig was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to harbor a fugitive, identity fraud, and conspiracy to commit identity fraud. In her plea deal she admitted she used aliases, unlawfully obtained identification documents and repeatedly helped Bulger obtain prescription medication from a pharmacy by claiming to be his wife. While she was given eight years behind bars, Bulger was sentenced to life in prison. He was convicted in 2013 for his participation in the murder of 11 people. During his life of crime, Bulger led a largely Irish mob that ran loan-sharking, gambling and drug rackets in the Boston area. He became one of the nation's most-wanted fugitives after fleeing Boston in late 1994. After more than 16 years on the run, Bulger was finally captured at age 81. James 'Whitey' Bulger, right, is seen after a hearing in 2011 as he is escorted from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter to a waiting vehicle at an airport in Plymouth, Massachusetts Whitey Bulger: Life and crimes of a mob kingpin Sept. 3, 1929: James Bulger is born to Irish immigrant parents living in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. He is the second of six children. His shock of platinum blonde hair earns him the nickname 'Whitey.' 1956: Whitey Bulger is sentenced to federal prison for bank robbery. After he's suspected of plotting an escape from one prison, he's transferred to Alcatraz. 1960: Bulger's younger brother, William, is elected to the state House of Representatives. John Connolly, a childhood friend from South Boston, works on the campaign. 1965: Bulger is released from prison and returns to Boston. He becomes a top underling to local mobster Howie Winter, boss of the Winter Hill Gang. 1970: William Bulger is elected to the state Senate. 1975: Bulger cuts a deal with Connolly - now a Boston-based FBI agent - to provide information on the Italian Mafia in exchange for protection. 1978: William Bulger becomes president of the state Senate. 1981: Roger Wheeler, owner of World Jai Alai, a gambling enterprise from which Bulger was skimming money, is shot between the eyes in the parking lot of his country club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 1982: Bulger and Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi gun down a former henchman in broad daylight on a South Boston street to silence him over the Wheeler murder. Connolly files a report with the FBI saying rival gangsters made the hit. July 1982: Flemmi and Bulger order a hit on John Callahan, the former president of World Jai Alai. January 1995: Bulger disappears on the eve of his indictment on racketeering charges. 1997: The FBI, under court order, admits that Bulger was a 'top echelon' informant launching a federal probe into the agency's corrupt ties to its mob informants. June 22, 2011: Bulger is arrested in Santa Monica, CA, with girlfriend Catherine Grieg. Aug 12, 2013: Bulger is found guilty of a raft of racketeering charges, including his role in 11 murders. Nov 13 2013: Bulger, aged 84 , is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus five years. Before announcing her sentence, the judge tells Bulger that the 'scope, callousness and depravity of your crimes are almost unfathomable.' She says they are made 'all the more heinous because they were all about money.' Oct. 30, 2018: Bulger is found dead inside USP Hazelton at 8.20am, the day after he was transferred to the federal prison in West Virginia. Advertisement Greig and Bulger started dating in the 1970s and lived together in Boston. She was 24 when they met, 22 years younger than Bulger, according to Boston.com. They went on the run in early 1995 and the two maintained their romance even as they were both placed behind bars. Bulger would pen notes on his lawyer's legal pad at his cell in Massachusetts back in 2014 and have them delivered via his lawyer to Greig who was detained at a Rhode Island Jail at the time. The couple would sob as they read the other's notes, according to the Boston Globe. Bulger had told his attorney J.W. Carney that he regretted never marrying Greig, who abandoned her old life to join the FBI-wanted mobster in hiding. In one of those heartfelt letters, Bulger wrote: 'My 16 years on the run were the happiest years of my life and hers. Memories sustain me.' 'If I met Catherine at a younger age I would have had a better life. She was the best thing that ever happened to me,' he added. The organized crime boss (pictured above in undated photos) had been convicted in 2013 of killing at least 11 people and was serving a life sentence at the time of his death Tuesday. He and Greig exchanged love letters while they were detained in separate prisons The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday that another massive flu outbreak similar to one which killed 50 million people 100 years ago is 'very possible.' Dr. Robert Redfield, the CDC director, was asked about the possibility that another crisis similar to the Spanish flu pandemic from 1918 would take place. 'You know, people ask me what keeps me up at night,' Redfield told CBS News. 'And the thing that keeps me up at night is just what you brought up, pandemic flu. 'So I think it's very possible. 'And we're at risk for another pandemic. Our best preparation for that pandemic is to optimize our response to seasonal fluBut...I think that...remains a serious possibility.' Dr Robert Redfield (pictured) said on Tuesday that another massive flu outbreak similar to one which killed 50 million people 100 years ago is 'very possible' Last winter, 80,000 Americans died of the influenza virus, according to official U.S. government statistics. That is the highest number of American deaths from flu in four decades. The Spanish flu infected 500 million people worldwide - 50 million of whom died. In total, 500,000 Americans perished from the Spanish flu. Redfield said that the key to minimize the risk of flu is vaccination. 'We lost more children last year from flu deaths than any year before since we started recordingthe majority of those children that died were not vaccinated,' Redfield said. 'I want to come back and argue that immunization is one of the most critical tools we have to eliminate diseasesin this case, it's the most important tool we have to minimize flu.' Flu season has yet to arrive, but at least one American life has been claimed. Officials in Florida said earlier this month that a young girl who was not vaccinated died of the illness. In 1918, the Spanish flu infected 500 million people worldwide - 50 million of whom died. In total, 500,000 Americans perished from the Spanish flu. Red Cross members are seen above wearing masks and carrying a flu patient into an ambulance in St. Louis in October 1918 Vaccinations have been shown to reduce a child's likelihood of dying from the flu by 60 per cent, health department officials said. Vaccines are recommended for anyone at least six months old. President Donald Trump is an 'anti-vaxxer' who has repeated the unfounded claim that vaccines cause autism. But Redfield says this is not true. 'The most powerful tool we have to eliminate disease is vaccinationWe're on the verge of eliminating polio from the world,' he said. 'There's 22 cases of polio right now. How did we get on the verge? Vaccination.' The CDC also said on Tuesday that it has confirmed 10 more cases of an extremely rare, polio-like condition, across 24 states. That brings the total number of cases of acute flaccid myelitis to 72, up from 62 earlier this month, mostly in kids under 18. However, health officials still do not know what is driving the outbreak, which affects the spinal cord, causing the muscles and reflexes in the body to become weak. AFM is not new, but cases have been on the rise since 2014. Though the condition remains very rare - affecting only one in a million people in the United States - Redfield, who took the job in March this year, says it is the agency's top priority. Scientists are investigating a number of causes, including viruses, environmental toxins and genetic disorders. But today Redfield urged Americans not to fear the rare polio-like illness sweeping the US as he believes it is not transmissible from human to human. He told CBS This Morning that he is certain AFM is caused by a specific virus, rather than inter-personal contact. 'I've recently asked again to put together a task force to really try to look at where we're at, and what else could we do to try to solve this problem,' Dr Redfield said. 'The good news is that it doesn't appear to be transmissible from human to human. We don't see clustering in families.' The CDC has confirmed 386 cases of acute flaccid myelitis since an outbreak in Colorado in August 2014, almost all of them in children He added: 'I do think that this is a new occurrence in the United States, the AFM. Our our suspicion is it's caused by a single agent. That's the dominant disease that we're confronting right now.' The average age of those affected is four years old and more than 90 percent of cases overall are in children under 18. The condition, caused by a viral infection, appears to start off as a common cold, before progressing to paralysis. Ominously, data show there seems to be a spike in cases every two years, which has also left the agency baffled. 'CDC's been working very hard on this, since 2014, to try to understand causation and etiology,' Dr Redfield said in the interview, which will be aired on Tuesday. 'As we sit here today, we don't have understanding of the cause. We are, you know, continuing to strengthen our efforts, working in partnership with state and territorial health departments, and academic experts to try to figure this out.' The CDC says it is investigating 155 cases of acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), up from 127 last week. Of that number, 62 cases have been confirmed in 22 states, including five-year-old Elizabeth Storrie (pictured) from Willow Park, Texas AFM affects the nervous system and most resembles the polio virus. Health officials have determined it is caused by a virus, but have been unable to pinpoint an exact cause. Orville Young, four (pictured), of Minnesota, was likely the earliest confirmed case in the state WHAT IS AFM? AFM is a rare, but serious condition that affects the nervous system. Specifically it attacks the area of the spinal cord called gray matter, which causes the body's muscles and reflexes to weaken. Symptoms often develop after a viral infection, such as enterovirus or West Nile virus, but often no clear cause is found. Patients start off having flu-like symptoms including sneezing and coughing. This slowly turns into muscle weakness, difficulty moving the eyes and then polio-like symptoms including facial drooping and difficulty swallowing. 'If [AFM affects gray matter] lower in the spinal cord [paralysis will] be more in the legs and if it's higher up, it'll be more in the arms,' Dr Fernando Acosta, a pediatric neurologist at Cook Children's Medical Center, in Fort Worth, Texas, told Daily Mail Online in an interview last week. 'Or if it's closer to the neck, they can't move head, neck and shoulders. We had one case of that and that was just awful.' In the most severe cases, respiratory failure can occur when the muscles that support breathing become weak. In rare cases, AFM can cause neurological complications that could lead to death. 'It's a pretty dramatic disease; children have a sudden onset of weakness,' said Dr Messonier. No specific treatment is available for AFM and interventions are generally recommended on a case-by-case basis. Children with weakness in their arms or legs may attend physical or occupational therapy. The average age of those affected is four years and more than 90 percent of cases are in children aged 18 and younger. Among them is Julia Payne, two (pictured) from Chicago, Illinois However, physicians admit they are unaware of the long-term outcomes for those with AFM. WHO HAS BEEN AFFECTED BY AFM? The CDC does not track AFM in terms of its prevalence, but rather in outbreaks. The agency has confirmed 386 cases since an outbreak in Colorado in August 2014, almost all of them in children. The CDC confirmed 33 AFM cases in 2017, 149 cases in 2016, 22 cases in 2015, and 120 cases in August to December 2014. Of the 62 cases diagnosed this year, it known that 24 have been in three states: 10 in Illinois, eight in Texas and six in Minnesota. 'We have not been able to find the cause of the majority of AFM cases...and we're frustrated that we haven't been able to identify the cause of illness,' Dr Messonnier told reporters in a media call last week. The states Daily Mail Online is currently aware of with confirmed cases includes: Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas and Washington. A press officer for the CDC told Daily Mail Online last week that the agency would not be naming the additional states where cases have been confirmed due to 'privacy issues'. While the pattern of AFM most resembles an infectious disease, much remains unknown about the condition. Among the children infected is two-year-old Julia Payne from Chicago. She remained in the pediatric intensive care unit at Lurie Children's Hospital for weeks on a respirator and using a feeding tube because she was unable to swallow. She has since been discharged and transferred to Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, a rehabilitation center where she will face several weeks of physical therapy to regain strength and movement. In Minnesota, four-year-old Orville Young was likely the earliest confirmed case in the state, according to the Star Tribune. Orville has been in physical therapy for the last month-and-a-half. His mobility and gait have not returned to normal, but his legs are mostly functional now. His right arm, thus far, is still paralyzed. Fortunately many make a full or nearly full recovery of their movement as did five-year-old Elizabeth Storrie of Willow Park, Texas. She spent a month at Cook Children's Hospital, in Fort Worth, on IV fluids and a feeding tube until her condition improved. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST POLIO? AFM has been called a polio-like illness due to its resemblance to the viral infection that impacted hundreds of thousands, particularly between the late 1940s and early 1950s. The CDC even states on its website that symptoms 'have been most similar to complications of infection with certain viruses, including poliovirus, non-polio enteroviruses, adenoviruses, and West Nile virus'. Poliovirus is not the cause of any of the cases, but some cases have been linked to the enteroviruses EV-A71 and EV-D68, both of which are distant relatives of polio. Some cases have also been linked to rhinovirus. 'I'm not old enough to have seen a case of polio during my time in practice, but my colleagues who have say [AFM] is similar to what they saw back then,' Dr Acosta said. 'Is this a variant? Potentially, but we don't know.' In 1957, the US government approved the polio vaccine. After a nationwide campaign to get children immunized began, the numbers began falling drastically and, in 1979, polio was declared to be eradicated in the US. This year, Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only two countries where cases of wild poliovirus have been confirmed - largely due to poor sanitation and low levels of vaccination coverage. However, global eradication is now at risk due to vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) in five countries in Africa this year. Health experts say that this could result in silent transmission of both polio and AFM, because both can lead to paralysis if left undetected. Anti-vaxxers have blamed childhood polio vaccines for the outbreak, despite physicians saying there is no evidence to suggest this is the case. 'There is no evidence vaccines are causing this,' said Dr Acosta. 'And if we identify the agent that is causing it, the next step would be to develop a vaccine. It's the same reason, we developed flu vaccines - to lessen the burden of disease. 'The reason why you see lower rates of polio, whooping cough and other diseases is because we have vaccines that have made them very rare.' HOW CAN YOU PROTECT YOURSELF? The CDC advises getting vaccinated against Poliovirus and West Nile Virus due to both being potential causes of AFM. Health experts say this does not simply mean just staying up-to-date with vaccinations, but also minimizing exposure to mosquitoes. Additionally, you can use warm water and soap to avoid getting sick and spreading germs. 'It's a one-in-million chance to get this so it's extremely unlikely your child will get this,' said Dr Acosta. 'Even if they have sudden onset of weakness, AFM is unlikely to have caused it. It's more likely to be a stroke. However, if your child develops it, bring them in and this gives them the best chance of survival.' Lion Air's doomed Boeing 737 Max 8 'roared', 'overheated' and left passengers vomiting the day before it plunged into the ocean and killed 189 people on board. Indonesian television presenter Conchita Caroline was a passenger on its second last flight and recalled having to wait in the cabin for 30 minutes listening to an 'unusual' roar in searing heat before take-off. She said the flight had already been delayed an hour and when it was finally boarded some passengers vomited due to the heat, with flight crew eventually allowing people to disembark while they waited for the engine to be checked. Conchita Caroline (pictured) was a passenger on its second last flight and recalled having to wait in the cabin for 30 minutes listening to an 'unusual' roar in searing heat Sonar equipment, drones and helicopters have all been brought in to help search for the wreck and its black box recorders, which will help reveal what caused the crash Workers sifted through the wreckage after it was pulled from the ocean Commuters then waited an additional 30 minutes on the tarmac before re-boarding the plane, but issues reportedly ensued for the duration of the flight. Ms Caroline said at one point she asked a flight attendant about the situation but was treated like a 'passenger full of disturbing dramas'. 'He just showed me the flight permit that he had signed and he said the problem had been settled,' she said. 'He treated me like a passenger full of disturbing dramas even though what I was asking represented friends and confused tourists who didn't understand Indonesian.' Another passenger likened the experience to riding a rollercoaster, saying the flight continued to rise and fall through its duration. Ms Caroline said the flight had already been delayed an hour and when it was finally boarded some passengers vomited due to the heat She said flight crew eventually allowed people to disembark while they waited for the engine to be checked Ms Caroline (pictured) said at one point she asked a flight attendant about the situation but was treated like a 'passenger full of disturbing dramas' 'About three to eight minutes after it took off, I felt like the plane was losing power and unable to rise. That happened several times during the flight. We felt like in a roller coaster. Some passengers began to panic and vomit,' Alon Soetanto told TVOne. Tracking data from the flight told the same story, showing erratic speed, altitude and direction in the minutes following take-off. The same pattern was also detected in early investigations into Monday's JT610 flight, however further black box data was yet to be examined. Officials have revealed they were confident they would be able to recover the black box from the wreckage. On Tuesday Indonesian officials ordered full inspections of every Boeing 737-MAX 8 airliner. The Lion Air jet which crashed on Monday killing 189 (pictured) had suffered engine trouble on another flight the day before and seemed to be losing power on take off, passengers said Travellers on board a flight from Bali to Jakarta on Sunday described hearing an 'unusual roar' from one of the jet's engines, hours before the fatal crash (passenger's belongings pictured) Indonesian authorities are still searching for the wreckage of the doomed plane and the majority its passengers, but have said it is highly unlikely there will be any survivors The remains of one passenger inside a body bag is recovered by search teams, along with debris from the plane itself Officials stopped short of grounding the fleet, but their decision will no doubt prompt nervous conversations among pilots and crew around the world. The Boeing 737 Max 8 became the fastest selling passenger aircraft ever after its release in 2011 and is the most-commonly used in the world. The Lion Air flight took off shortly after 6am on Monday before the pilot asked to turn back and air traffic control lost contact Passengers on Sunday's flight described the jet losing power during takeoff, which needs to be confirmed by information stored on the plane's computers (pictured, the search area) A helicopter flies above the Tanjung Priok Harbour, carrying bodies of victims that were found floating among debris from the plane In order to confirm it, investigators will have to match it against data stored in the plane's black box flight recorders, which are yet to be found. Lion Air has confirmed that the plane suffered a technical issue on Sunday, but it was 'resolved according to procedure'. An airline spokesman refused to go into detail about the fault but said none of its other planes had suffered the same problem. Divers, drones and sonar technology was brought in on Monday to help search for the wreckage of the aircraft, which remains missing. 'Hopefully this morning we can find the wreckage or fuselage,' Soerjanto Tjahjono, the head of a national transport safety panel, told Reuters. He added that underwater 'pinger locators', including equipment from Singapore, were being deployed to help find the aircraft's black boxes. A relative of one of the passengers weeps as she waits for news of her loved one at Bhayangkara R. Said Sukanto hospital in Jakarta While the majority of the plane's passengers have not yet been accounted for, the Indonesian government has said it does not expect to find survivors Relatives hold a prayer at the house of one of passengers of the Lion Air flight The priority is finding the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder to help determine the cause of the disaster, safety experts said. Although divers stopped searching overnight, sonar vessels and an underwater drone kept up the hunt for the wreckage, where many victims were feared trapped, officials said. Only debris and body parts have been found off the shore of Karawang, east of Jakarta. A Reuters witness on a boat at the crash site, saw teams of divers in black rubber suits enter the slightly choppy water from six inflatable boats. 'The visibility is not good as it's very overcast,a a special forces officer said, noting the dive team had started just after dawn and been down to a depth of 35 metres. Underwater footage released by the national search and rescue agency showed relatively poor visibility. In all, 35 vessels are helping to search. Yusuf Latif, the spokesman of the search and rescue agency, had said on Monday finding survivors 'would be a miracle', judging by the condition of the recovered debris and body parts. A large debris field was found floating in the ocean after the plane crashed, though the wreckage of the aircraft itself has not been found Police officers look through personal belongings recovered from the debris field in an attempt to identify passengers Indonesian forensic team members examine parts of airplane recovered from the ocean Lion Air said human remains were collected in 24 body bags after sweeps of the site, in waters about 30 to 35 metres (98 to 115 ft) deep roughly 15 km (nine miles) off the coast. Officers at Jakarta's port picked through personal belongings retrieved from the sea, including wallets, backpacks and papers, in a bid to help identify their owners. Dozens of relatives gathered at a police hospital where body bags were brought for forensic doctors to try to identify victims. Police were taking saliva swabs from family members of the missing for DNA tests and also seeking details on body markings like tattoos or birthmarks on the passengers. A tent has been set up next to the hospital building and a middle age woman and a teenager sat together, sobbing and comforting each other. The pilot of flight JT610 had asked to return to base shortly after take-off about 6.20 a.m. Investigators are trying to determine why the pilot issued the request, which was granted. No distress signal was received from the aircraft's emergency transmitter. On Monday, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Boeing Co said they were providing assistance in the crash investigation. Wallets, passports and identity cards were among items recovered from the water The accident is the first to be reported involving the widely sold Boeing 737 MAX, an updated, more fuel-efficient version of the manufacturer's workhorse single-aisle jet. Two witnesses described the plane as swaying or rocking as it came down, adding that the nose hit the water first and there was a tall column of smoke afterwards. The aircraft did not make a noise when it came down, they said. 'From a long way off, it was already leaning,' said Gauk, a fisherman who uses one name. Privately owned Lion Air, founded in 1999, said the aircraft, which had been in operation since August, was airworthy, with its pilot and co-pilot together having amassed 11,000 hours of flying time. Indonesia's worst air disaster was in 1997, when a Garuda Indonesia A300 crashed in the city of Medan, killing 234 people. Scientists at one of Britain's leading universities have been accused of 'covering up' the deaths of two women during experimental treatment. Keziah Shorten, 20, was left fighting for her life after a undergoing a clinical trial for a stem cell-engineered larynx transplant in 2010 to treat her failing windpipe. Shorten remained in intensive care for six months after having the operation and later died. UCL researchers were said to have applied for government funding soon after Shorten's death to try and get the first ever full-scale trial of the experimental transplants off the ground. Keziah Shorten, 20, (left) and Shauna Davidson, 15, (right) both died after clinical trials for a stem cell-engineered larynx transplant But they failed to mention in their application the deaths of either Shorten or Shauna Davidson, 15, who died after a similar procedure in 2012. The scientists were said to have cited a 'successful operation' in their report and argued that Davidson died of 'non-graft related causes'. The Daily Telegraph reports that Davidson died two weeks after her operation when her new trachea collapsed, suffocating her and causing fatal brain damage. Brochures for the transplant trials were said to have claimed she died of 'unknown causes' and 'unrelated problems'. Davidson's family were also reportedly not told of Shorten's death before they agreed to the risky procedure. Almost 5million worth of taxpayer funding which had been allocated for the trials has now been withdrawn amid the allegations. While another trial paid for by 6million of EU cash is unlikely to go ahead. The controversial trials had been aimed at helping the 19,000 people in Europe and North America with structural airway disease. The General Medical Council said it was reviewing allegations Davidson's family was not told about Shorten's death. A spokesperson for the GMC said: 'We have been made aware of these concerns and are reviewing this information.' UCL also denied any allegations of a cover-up. UCL (pictured) denied allegations of a cover-up and said 'any research undertaken at the university has to conform to its standards' A spokesperson for the university said: 'UCL has held an independent special inquiry into regenerative medicine research at UCL which was published in full in September 2017. 'The panel, chaired by Professor Stephen Wigmore from the University of Edinburgh, carried out a thorough investigation of the involvement of UCL and its personnel in regenerative medicine research but with particular focus on the field of tracheal and large airway tissue engineering. The inquiry made a series of recommendations and UCL is acting upon all of them. 'As a world-leading university, UCL takes the integrity of its research very seriously, and we are always seeking to improve our processes and raise our standards. Any research undertaken at UCL is required to conform to the highest legal, ethical and regulatory standards, and we will not hesitate take the necessary action, if and when this falls short. 'We are committed to supporting our staff as they continue a wide range of excellent research into regenerative medicine, which has tremendous potential to improve patient outcomes with proper support and governance. 'Many of our scientists are leading ground-breaking projects, helping develop new cancer therapies, using artificial intelligence to better predict diseases and innovating new surgical techniques, all of which is transforming the lives of millions of people around the world.' Speaker John Bercow today said he will consider stripping the Parliamentary pass from a Labour frontbencher's son who was convicted of drugs offences. Ishmael Osamor, 29, was caught with ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine, and cannabis worth 2,500 at Dorset's Bestival music festival in September last year. The son of Labour's international development spokesman, Kate Osamor, was convicted at Bournemouth Crown Court and sentenced to 200 hours of unpaid work. Osamor bowed to pressure and quit his post as a councillor in Haringey, north London, last night. But he is still thought to be in his job as communications officer to Ms Osamor. Raising a point of order in the Commons today, Tory MP Simon Hoare asked Mr Bercow what could be done about a 'passholder who has been found guilty of a drug-related offence'. He said holding a pass was 'an honour not a right' and the response of the authorities was important for 'public confidence'. The Speaker replied: 'If that matter is brought to my attention ... I will discharge my responsibilities on the subject.' He added: 'I will deal with it sensibly.' Ishmael Osamor, 29, (pictured) was caught with ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine, and cannabis worth 2,500 at Dorset's Bestival music festival in September last year. Labour MP Kate Osamor, pictured right, and her son Ishmael Osamor, who works for her as a spin doctor. After the case was raised in the Commons, Speaker John Bercow said he would look at it Sir Alistair Graham, the former chairman of the committee on standards in public life, called on Ms Osamor to fire her son. 'He is clearly not the kind of person who should be working in parliament,' he told The Times. 'These particular circumstances bring parliament into disrepute. I would have thought that the MP would move quickly to take her son off the payroll. Kate Osamor, Shadow Secretary of State for International Development, is a key ally of Jeremy Corbyn 'Parliament is not a rehabilitation process, it is a use of taxpayers' money and that cannot be forgotten.' He added: 'I would have thought that he might want to drop out of the job but the responsibility clearly lies with the MP.' Osamor attended Bestival with a group of friends and was found by security staff with 30.89g of ecstasy, 7.5g of cocaine, 5.7g of ketamine and 182mg of cannabis. He pleaded guilty to charges of possessing the drugs with intent to supply on the basis they were for him and his friends and not to be sold for profit. He was told by a judge he was lucky not to receive a four year jail sentence. At Bournemouth Crown Court, Judge Stephen Climie sentenced Osamor to a two-year community order with 200 hours of unpaid work and up to 20 rehabilitation activity days, as well as 400 prosecution costs. His mother is a member of Jeremy Corbyn's inner circle, and has criticised the Government's 'failed war on drugs'. Osamor confirmed last night that he had resigned from Haringey Council. 'With great regret I have resigned. I sincerely regret... not informing my family and colleagues of the court case,' he said. Last night a spokesman for Ms Osamor told the BBC: 'Ishmael has admitted what he did was wrong and apologised. He is committed to carrying on his work with vulnerable families and the community in north London to help improve their lives.' A solicitor has been charged over his alleged involvement in the murder of a 15-year-old boy. Brayden Dillon was fatally shot in the head while he slept in his home in Glenfield, Sydneys south-west, on the morning of Friday 14, April 2017. The teenager was transported to The Childrens Hospital at Westmead in a critical condition where he later died. Sydney criminal lawyer Ali Abbas was charged as an accessory to murder on at Surry Hills Police Station on Wednesday morning and was denied bail. Sydney criminal lawyer Ali Abbas was charged as an accessory to murder on Wednesday morning at Surry Hills Police Station and was denied bail The arrest comes after officers raided the 38-year-old's home (pictured) and office in Sydney's CBD Six people have previously been charged by investigators in relation to the murder. The arrest comes after officers raided the 38-year-old's home and office in Sydney's CBD. Strike Force Wongala investigators attended the Monterey home at about 2pm on Tuesday where they approached Abbas who drove from the location. The investigators then executed search warrants at the home, his office on Castlereagh Street, and a storage unit at Bexley. Investigators seized stun devices, more than $30,000 cash, mobile phones, laptops and computers, documentation, and other items relevant to the investigation. Abbas, who has acted for slain bikie boss Mick Hawi and killer cop Glen McNamara, was charged with accessory after the fact to murder, knowingly participate in criminal group assist crime, and do act with intent to pervert the course of justice. Brayden Dillon (pictured) was fatally shot in the head while he slept in his home in Glenfield, Sydneys south-west, on the morning of Friday 14 April 2017 Police will allege that Abbas coordinated and facilitated of the provision of false affidavits on behalf of others and passed information relating to the murder between various people. Abbas was also charged with unlawfully bringing anything into place of detention after he allegedly took a mobile phone into a correctional facility to be used by an inmate. Brayden was allegedly murdered in a revenge attack for the death of 18-year-old Adam Abu-Mahmoud, who died during a brawl in Sydney's south-west in 2016. Brayden's older brother, Joshua, allegedly stabbed Abu-Mahmoud during the fight. Brayden (pictured) was allegedly murdered in a revenge attack for the death of 18-year-old Adam Abu-Mahmoud, who died during a brawl in Sydney's south-west in 2016 Police allege the teenager's alleged killer, Conrad Craig, may have been hired by Abu-Mahmoud's uncle, Abdul Abu-Mahmoud. He was arrested after he returned from a holiday in Thailand in October, as was his brother Mohamed Abu-Mahmoud, the father of the deceased. Mohamed's arrest was in relation to perverting the course of justice. Prosecution allege the 54-year-old coordinated a series of false affidavits vouching for the location and alibi of several people at the time of Brayden's death. Abbas is expected to appear at Central Local Court on Wednesday. China's economy has weakened faster than expected amid an escalating trade war with the United States, with analysts warning 'the worse is yet to come'. The latest numbers show that China's manufacturing sector had barely expanded in October and missed expectations, as both domestic and external demand ebbed. Analysts believe business conditions will get worse before getting better, fuelling concerns about a slowdown in the world's second-biggest economy. October is the first full month after the latest US tariffs went into effect. Washington and Beijing slapped additional tariffs on each other's goods on September 24, and US President Donald Trump has threatened to hit China with more duties. The latest numbers show that China's manufacturing sector had barely expanded in October and missed expectations, as both domestic and external demand ebbed US President Donald Trump chats with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in 2017. The ongoing trade war has sunk relations between the world's two largest economies The official Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), released on Wednesday, fell to 50.2 in October, the lowest since July 2016 and down from 50.8 in September. The figure, released by the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, is a closely-watched gauge of where manufacturing activity is heading. Unlike GDP numbers, which are a snapshot of the past, the PMI, taking account of production, new orders, new export orders and inventory, is an indicator of where the economy is headed. A number above 50 shows expansion, while below 50 indicates a decline in the sector. Analysts surveyed by Reuters had forecast the official gauge, which also gives global investors their first look at business conditions in China at the start of the last quarter of the year, would dip slightly to 50.6 for the month. Workers inspecting shoes at a factory in Qingdao in China's eastern Shandong province. The official Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), released on Wednesday, fell to 50.2 in October The latest PMI reading suggests a further slowing in the world's second-biggest economy and could prompt more policy support from Beijing on top of a raft of recent initiatives The latest reading suggests a further slowing in the world's second-biggest economy and could prompt more policy support from Beijing on top of a raft of recent initiatives. A production sub-index fell to 52 in October from 53.0 in September, while a new orders sub-index declined to 50.8 from 52.0. New export orders, an indicator of future activity, contracted for a fifth straight month and at the fastest pace in at least a year. The sub-index fell to 46.9 from 48.0 in September. China's exports unexpectedly kicked into higher gear in September, largely as firms front-loaded shipments to dodge stiffer US duties, though analysts see pressure building in coming months. The continued slump in export orders may be bearing that scenario out. Chinese flag flies over the Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group shipyard. Latest numbers show that the China's economy is slowing down faster than expected amid an escalating trade war Containers at a port in Lianyungang city, east China. New export orders, an indicator of future activity, contracted for a fifth straight month and at the fastest pace in at least a year Production and unemployment among export manufacturers are at risk of falling sharply from January due to lack of orders to fill, analysts said, according to South China Morning Post. China's economy grew at its weakest pace since the global financial crisis in the third quarter, as manufacturing output and infrastructure investment slowed. Analysts believe business conditions will get worse before getting better. Firms are already facing pressure on earnings. A survey over the weekend showed profit growth at the country's industrial powerhouses cooled for the fifth consecutive month in September on the back of a greater slowdown in production and sales. China's manufacturing sector has been squeezed by a reduction in sources of credit amid Beijing's multi-year crackdown on corporate debt and risky lending practices, with smaller firms especially under strain. Premier Li Keqiang said last month that the country's economy faces increasing downward pressure, and pledged to take targeted measures to prevent large fluctuations in growth China's manufacturing sector has been squeezed by a reduction in sources of credit amid Beijing's multi-year crackdown on corporate debt and risky lending practices Premier Li Keqiang said last month that the country's economy faces increasing downward pressure, and pledged to take targeted measures to prevent large fluctuations in growth. Policymakers have already shifted their priorities to reducing risks to growth. Earlier this month China's central bank announced the fourth reserve requirement ratio (RRR) cut for this year, and is expected to ease monetary policy further. It is also stepping up moves to lower financing costs and pledged more support to private firms, a key source of jobs. On the fiscal side the government is also stepping up stimulus through infrastructure projects, and has also pledged more tax cuts next year to support growth. Another sister survey released by the NBS on Wednesday showed growth in China's service sector moderated in September, with the official non-manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) dipping to 53.9 from 54.2 the previous month. An Iraqi refugee living in the US built two homemade bombs in a Las Vegas condominium which he planned to use in a deadly terror attack, DailyMail.com can reveal. But Ahmad Suhad Ahmad was thwarted by the FBI because the bureau had set up the whole thing as an elaborate sting operation, according to bombshell court documents. Ahmad is accused of showing undercover FBI agents how to connect the blasting caps and where to place the C-4 on the bombs intended to hit a target in Mexico. According to the paperwork filed at the US District Court in Tuscon, Arizona, Ahmad, is also accused of teaching the making and use of an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass destruction, to another person between March and April, 2017. Ahmad Suhad Ahmad (pictured with his children) was thwarted by the FBI because the bureau had set up the whole thing as an elaborate sting operation, according to bombshell court documents He allegedly provided an undercover FBI operative with homemade bomb recipes and taught them how to construct remote-detonating bombs. Ahmad told a confidential FBI source how to detonate a bomb using a cell phone with a removable battery a trick he said he learned during the war in Iraq, the papers allege. Ahmad said the bombs were easy to make, it states. FBI operatives say they met with Ahmad at his apartment in Tucson and asked him to show them how to make a car bomb to hit a target in Mexico - to which Ahmad agreed. During April 4 and April 26, 2017 Ahmad met on numerous occasions with multiple undercover FBI agents in Tucson to discuss the plans for building the bomb. DailyMail.com has exclusively obtained the court documents and learned that Ahmad was arrested at his home in Tucson on Monday in an FBI swoop. The Iraqi refugee living in the US built two homemade bombs in a Las Vegas condominium (pictured) which he planned to use in a deadly terror attack, DailyMail.com can reveal FBI operatives say they met with Ahmad at his apartment in Tucson and asked him to show them how to make a car bomb to hit a target in Mexico - to which Ahmad agreed (pictured is his Tuscon apartment) Ahmad is accused of showing undercover FBI agents how to connect the blasting caps and where to place the C-4 on the bombs intended to hit a target in Mexico (pictured The Palms' apartment and condo rental complex in Tucson, AZ where he was arrested) He was arraigned at the US District Court in Tuscon Monday afternoon and has been taken to a federal facility. According to the documents Ahmad first told the FBI confidential source he knew how to detonate a bomb in December, 2016 and showed the source an image of explosive materials and instructions on his cellphone. Ahmad, it states, explained the instructions in Arabic, not in English. But it wasnt until April the following year that the plans for a potential terror attack or assassination swung in to play. On April 13, 2017 Ahmad showed CS3 (Confidential Source 3) homemade bomb instructions on his cell phone and promised to translate them, the paperwork states. Ahmad then met CS3 three days later in his car outside an apartment complex in Tucson. Ahmad explained some of the equipment he would need to build the bomb and that he had been studying up on how to build the explosive, the papers state. Ahmad sent CS3 a text message with a bomb recipe written in Arabic. The recipe consisted of a multi-step process to make a landmine or improvised explosive device (IED). Ahmad (left and right) is accused of showing undercover FBI agents how to connect the blasting caps and where to place the C-4 on the bombs intended to hit a target in Mexico The documents state that as part of the plan Ahmad agreed to travel to Las Vegas to make the bomb. He traveled to Sin City with two confidential FBI sources and two undercover agents on April 26, 2017. The Iraqi national brought with him a number of his own items to make the bomb, including a circuit tester, electrical tape, and tubes of Permatex Epoxy a strong adhesive. 'The undercover agents brought the other items required to build the bomb, which were obtained by a list provided by Ahmad, the documents state. The group all went to a condominium in Vegas and over the course of several hours Ahmad built the bomb, while describing what he was doing to undercover agents. After constructing the first device the document claims, Ahmad then guided an undercover agent on how to make a second device. Once both devices were completed, Ahmad explained how they operated, the paperwork ended. DailyMail.com has learned Ahmad, who ran a mechanic shop in Tuscon, was a refugee who arrived in the US from Iraq more than ten years ago. On his Facebook he posted a photo of himself with three children, with the graphic, 'I stand with Refugees'. A hearing in Ahmads case is expected to take place Wednesday at the US District Court in Tucson. The development comes amid the devastating aftermath of the 'MAGAbomber' threat to the US. DailyMail.com exclusively obtained the court documents revealing Ahmad had been arrested for making the bombs Although the bomb threat wasn't to Las Vegas, the fact the devices were constructed in the party city which attracts around 40 million visitors a year - will strike fear among its residents. On October 1 last year lone-wolf gunman Stephen Paddock, 65, did expose security lapses in the city, long deemed a 'soft target'. He used automatic weapons he had smuggled into his room to rain down gunfire on a crowd of 22,000 people attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival Sunday night. He was found with 23 guns in his room and thousands of rounds of ammunition in the Mandalay Bay hotel, across the street from the festival. Paddock had carried the weapons into the hotel in ten bags and he set up two rifles on tripods in his make-shift sniper's nest overlooking the crowds. Thousands of rounds of ammunition were also found in the suite, enabling him to fire repeatedly over the course of 72 minutes. His car had traces of a fertilizer used in bomb-making. When police finally got to him and burst into the hotel suite they discovered Paddock had taken his own life. DailyMail.com has repeatedly reached out to the US Assistant Attorneys office in Tucson handling the Ahmad case and received a no comment statement. A business group has proposed plans to build a $600 million outback prison, dubbed as the 'Australian Alcatraz' for terrorists. The Alice Springs Major Business Group (ASMBG) is lobbying to build a private prison for criminals who have broken Australian terrorism rules in the middle of Central Australia, Northern Territory - 15 hours from the nearest capital city. David Batic, who chairs the business group, said the detention centre would be a 'centralised USA-style federal penitentiary', built at the standard of a high security prison. The proposed building of a prison in the Northern Territory was dubbed as the 'Australian Alcatraz' Mr Batic wrote a letter to the Northern Territory's Chief Minister Michael Gunner about ASMBG's awareness of problems managing locked-up terrorists in Australia. In the letter, he said building the prison in Central Australia would be the appropriate solution. The building would cost between $450-600 million and could be eligible for funds from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund - the Federal Government's loan scheme. Mr Gunner told the Northern Territory Parliament on Tuesday a prison for terrorists was not part of the government's initial plan to develop Alice Springs but said there will be no interference with private proposals. The development is expected to cost $450-600 million to be built in Central Australia Mr Higgins from the Opposition also compared the proposal to Guantanamo Bay, which is a United States military prison in Cuba Opposition Leader Gary Higgins compared the project to notorious prisons in the United States used to detain suspected terrorists, and said the proposal would affect the state's tourism. 'How can the government even consider building the equivalent to Guantanamo Bay just down the road from some of the country's most important cultural and tourism locations?' he said. 'The Opposition supports initiatives to grow the Territory economy, but does not support prison pursuits that seek to attract terrorists, not tourists, to Central Australia.' The proposed development was likened to the infamous Alcatraz island prison in San Francisco Bay, California, built with the requirements of a high security prison, which prison workers believe is escape-proof. Advertisement Chancellor Philip Hammond was pictured sipping from his personalised tea cup by designer Emma Bridgewater in official pictures released before he announced his Budget He's riding the crest of a wave following his bumper Budget but that might not be enough to protect Philip Hammond from the curse of the Cabinet mugs. Were the Chancellor a superstitious man, he might be less inclined to drink from a Commons mug with his title emblazoned across it, given the fate of former Cabinet colleagues. Ex-foreign secretary Boris Johnson, former home secretary Amber Rudd and one-time international development secretary Justine Greening were also pictured drinking from the personalised Emma Bridgewater mugs. Unfortunately, all of them subsequently left office. Will Tanner, a former No10 aide, claims all Cabinet ministers receive one of the mugs when they are appointed. But as our mug shots show, they often turn out to be poisoned chalices. Former International Development Secretary Justine Greening in her office in central London before she left the role in July 2016 Boris Johnson left his role as Foreign Secretary in July claiming concerns over Prime Minister Theresa May's handling of the Brexit negotiations I photographed a few frames of Nimika Thapa in Washington Square Park a few weeks ago, and followed through with her on Instagram as to wh... Former Vice President Joe Biden says he is 'sick and tired' of Trump's administration as he condemned the President's rhetoric against the media and his political adversaries. Biden also bemoaned the surge in hate-fueled violence in recent days as he rallied young voters in both Wisconsin and Iowa on Tuesday ahead of next week's midterms. During a stop in Madison, Wisconsin, the Democrat said 'words matter' as he lashed out at the President for his rhetoric and bemoaned the tone of Trump-era politics. 'I am sick and tired of this administration,' Biden told the crowd. 'I am sick and tired of what's going on. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I hope you are, too.' Former Vice President Joe Biden says he is 'sick and tired' of Trump's administration as he lashed out at the President during a rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday Later, Biden traveled to Cedar Rapids in Iowa where he delivered a similar message. 'It's our leaders who need to set the tone and dial down the temperature and restore some dignity to our national dialogue,' Biden said. Biden is currently on a trip across the Midwest as he campaigns for Democrats in states that Trump carried in 2016. The Iowa stop had special significance as Biden weighs a bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Other rising national Democrats eyeing 2020 have visited the early testing ground in recent weeks. Biden entered the hall to cheers from the crowd of more than 1,000. 'Hello, Iowa. Hello, Cedar Rapids. It's been a long time,' he said. The pleasantries didn't last long with Biden quickly pivoting to attack Trump's moral leadership, indirectly charging him with accommodating intolerance as president. He said moral leadership was particularly important after the slayings of 11 people on Saturday at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. Biden also traveled to Cedar Rapids in Iowa on Tuesday where he delivered a similar message as he attacked Trump's moral leadership, indirectly charging him with accommodating intolerance as president It came as President Trump and First Lady Melania visited PIttsburgh as the first funerals were held for those killed in a weekend synagogue shooting that killed 11 people Biden also noted the two African-Americans shot dead at a Kentucky grocery store and the wave of pipe bombs addressed to prominent Trump critics, including Biden himself. 'Three times this past week the forces of hate have terrorized our fellow Americans for their political beliefs, the color of their skin or their religion,' Biden noted. 'What the hell is happening to us?' Biden yelled. 'Our children are listening!' It came as President Trump and First Lady Melania sought to console a community shattered by anti-Semitic violence just hours after he unveiled a divisive immigration proposal that raised new questions about the definition of American citizenship. The Trumps visited PIttsburgh as the first funerals were held for those killed in a weekend synagogue shooting that killed 11 people. With Election Day one week away, however, neither the president nor his adversaries took a pause from politics. Before consoling those rattled by the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history, Trump lashed out at Democrats on social media as he endorsed vulnerable GOP House candidates. He also unveiled a plan to end the constitutional right to citizenship for babies of noncitizens and unauthorized immigrants born in the United States, injecting new energy into his hard-line conservative base. The fatal attack on notorious Boston mob boss and longtime FBI informant James 'Whitey' Bulger reportedly included a gruesome attempt to cut out his tongue - and a Mafia hitman who hated snitches is the prime suspect. Fotios 'Freddy' Geas, 51, is under investigation for allegedly instigating a group of men to beat wheelchair-bound Bulger to death with a lock wrapped in a sock and partially gouge his eyes inside USP Hazelton on Tuesday. The attack also included an attempt to cut out Bulger's tongue - the signature mob punishment for informants - but the amount of blood made it unclear whether his tongue was fully cut out, sources at the West Virginia prison tell TMZ. At least two men, including Geas, are being investigated for the attack after being caught on CCTV entering Bulger's cell around 6am, the Boston Globe reported, without naming the second suspect. Two hours later, Bulger was found dead. 'Freddy hated rats,' private investigator Ted McDonough said of Geas, who is serving a life sentence after he was ratted on for the murders of former Genovese crime family mob boss Adolfo 'Big Al' Bruno and associate Gary D Westerman in 2003. Bulger had cut a sweet deal to serve as an FBI informant as far back as 1975, giving him virtual impunity to commit any crime he wanted for decades - except for murder. The former head of south Boston's Winter Hill Gang was convicted in 2013 of killing at least 11 people and was serving two life sentences at the time of his death. Fotios 'Freddy' Geas, 51, ( left, pictured in 2007) is suspected of leading the killing of James 'Whitey' Bulger (right) Tuesday in a federal prison in West Virginia James 'Whitey' Bulger, right, is seen after a hearing in 2011 as he is escorted from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter to a waiting vehicle at an airport in Plymouth, Massachusetts 'Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It's probably that simple,' McDonough, who became friendly with Geas while working for him as an investigator. Bulger was found dead by guards on Tuesday morning at USP Hazelton, a high-security federal prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. He was 89. He had just been moved to Hazelton Monday from a prison in Florida after a stint in a transfer facility in Oklahoma City. Bureau of Prisons officials and his attorney declined last week to comment on why he was being moved. Bulger was in general population when three inmates rolled his wheelchair to a corner out of view of surveillance cameras, beat him in the head with a lock wrapped in a sock, and attempted to gouge his eyes out with a shiv, according to reports. Law enforcement sources tell DailyMail.com that Whitey had been talking about outing people in the top echelon of the controversial FBI informant program. The sources said he hadn't even been processed at the West Virginia facility when he was killed. But someone who knew he was being transferred put the word out - the killer or killers had to know he was coming. A private investigator said 'Freddy hated rats' and suspects Geas, pictured in a 2010 mugshot, would have killed Bulger because of his role as an informant Geas has not disputed his role in the killings, local media claims, and has refused to identify his accomplices. The lawyer who represented him when he was jailed for murder said he was not surprised that Geas was refusing to cooperate. 'He wouldn't rat on anybody,' said attorney David Hoose. 'And he had no respect for anyone who did.' Geas was also no stranger to violence. When he killed Westerman in 2003, he shot the mobster twice in the head, but somehow he survived. When Westerham broke free of Geas and his brother Ty and tried to flee, the pair dragged him back to the pit they had dug and beat him to death with shovels. Afterward, Geas praised his brother for completing some 'good teamwork'. In Big Al's case, Geas did not perpetrate the killing himself, but hired another hitman to carry out the murder for him. He was caught after both the hitman - a former cellmate named Frankie Roche - and the man who ordered the killing - a Mafia boss and ally of Geas called Anthony Arillotta - turned on him and agreed to testify. Prison officials have not said who else may have been involved in Bulger's murder, but mobster Paul Weadick, 63, was sent to Hazelton this summer after his murder conviction alongside Francis 'Cadillac Frank' Salemme - Bulger's co-defendant in a sweeping federal racketeering indictment in 1999. Salamme and Weadick were convicted in June of the 1993 murder of Steven DiSarro, a nightclub owner in South Boston. Bulger's right-hand man, Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi, was the star witness in the prosecution of Salamme and Weadick - though Flemmi also testified against Bulger himself in 2013. Salamme, 85, is currently incarcerated in Brooklyn MDC. Freddy is serving a life sentence for the murders of former Genovese crime family mob boss Adolfo 'Big Al' Bruno (left) and associate Gary D Westerman (right) in 2003 These 1980s FBI handout file photos show Massachusetts mobster James 'Whitey' Bulger Boston mobster Paul Weadick, 63, (left) was sent to Hazelton this summer after his murder conviction alongside Francis 'Cadillac Frank' Salemme (right). Bulger's former right-hand man Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi was a star witness against both men Bulger lieutenant Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi is seen testifying in 1998 to how FBI agents recruited him as an informant and protected him from being indicted for 25 years It's possible that Bulger was set to open up to someone on Lynch's team with claims of abuses in the program. Bulger was one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives for 16 years until his 2011 arrest in Santa Monica, California. His 2013 trial, which featured 72 witnesses and 840 exhibits, produced chilling testimony worthy of a pulp novel. It heard harrowing tales of teeth being pulled from the mouths of murder victims to foil identification and the strangulation of a mobster's girlfriend who 'knew too much.' GENOVESE CLAN KNOWN AS ROLLS ROYCE OF ORGANISED CRIME The Genovese crime family has been nicknamed the Ivy League and the Rolls Royce of organised crime. They are one of the 'Five Families' that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the Mafia. They found new ways to make money in the past few years by using the housing spike to conduct a number of mortgage frauds. The group was founded by Lucky Luciano in the 1930s but in 1957 it was renamed after Vito Genovese - he was extradited from Italy to New York and acquitted of the 1936 murder that drove him into exile. The family was run for years by the 'Oddfather' Vincent 'the Chin' Gigante who pretended he was insane and walked disheveled around Greenwich Village wearing a bathrobe and talking to himself. When Gigante died in 2005, power went to Daniel 'Danny The Lion' Leo. The FBI convinced Genovese mobsters Anthony Arillotta and Felix Tranghese to become government witnesses. Advertisement The Federal Bureau of Prisons said in a statement Tuesday: 'Life-saving measures were initiated immediately by responding staff. Mr. Bulger was subsequently pronounced dead by the Preston County Medical Examiner.' The BOP said that no other staff or inmates were injured and that an investigation was underway. In a statement, Bulger's lawyer J.W. Carney Jr blasted the prison system over the mobster's death. 'He was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty,' the statement read. In the past seven months, there have been three homicides at Hazelton - dubbed Misery Mountain - with the officers' union blaming chronic under-staffing. 'This facility is severely understaffed,' the union president told the Globe. Bulger was born in Boston on September 3, 1929, the son of a longshoreman and his first-generation Irish immigrant wife. The young crook was arrested at age 14, in 1943, when he began running with a street gang called the Shamrocks and was charged with larceny. Police gave young Bulger the nickname 'Whitey' early in his criminal career, a reference to his blond hair. Bulger is said to have hated the moniker, but it stuck. Following a stint in the Air Force, Bulger served his first federal prison sentence starting in 1956 on armed robbery and truck hijacking charges. Bulger went on to rule the Boston underworld with an iron fist for nearly 30 years while also working as an informant for the FBI. His deal with the FBI gave him virtual impunity to commit crimes - FBI agents later testified that Bulger had been allowed to commit any crime except for murder in exchange for information. The entrance to USP Hazelton in West Virginia is seen in a file photo. Bulger had been transferred to the facility Monday when he was killed These 1953 Boston police booking photos shows James 'Whitey' Bulger after an arrest A police evidence photo shows a car riddled with bullet holes in connection with one of the 19 murders Bulger was charged with. He was convicted of 11 murders Bulger poses for a mugshot on his arrival at the Federal Penitentiary at Alcatraz on November 16, 1959 in San Francisco, California. Reports have emerged the gangster was slain in prison INSIDE 'MISERY MOUNTAIN': Whitey was the THIRD inmate murdered just this year at the troubled West Virginia prison Whitey Bulger is the third inmate to be killed in USP Hazelton just this year. In April a 48-year-old inmate named Ian Thorne was killed after he got into a fight with another prisoner. Both used homemade weapons during the altercation. Five months after Thorne was killed, another inmate was murdered. Demario Porter, 27, was killed in September during a fight with another prisoner. He had only arrived at Hazelton days beforehand. USP Hazelton is seen in an aerial shot. Bulger was found dead there on Tuesday Richard Heldreth, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 420, blamed the deaths on understaffing at the prison. He called it part of a 'very disturbing trend with increases in drugs and weapons being found at the complex'. Since January 2018, there have been more than 60 documented violent incidents at the prison, which has also been locked down nine times this year 'due to violence', Heldreth told the Preston County News & Journal. An interior is seen of FCI Hazelton, the minimum security camp attached to USP Hazelton. Bulger was found bludgeoned to death in the higher security facility on Tuesday 'It has become an every day occurrence,' he added. 'For example, there have been at least 11 weapons confiscated at the facility in the last two days that I have seen documentation of.' Heldreth argued that the prison had become far less safe since the Trump administration announced a federal hiring freeze in January 2017 and the Bureau of Prisons was asked to eliminate 6,000 unfilled jobs - including 127 at Hazelton. Advertisement The deal has astounded those close to th Bulger case ever since and continues to inspire legislation to this day. Just last year US Rep. Stephen Lynch introduced the Confidential Informant Accountability Act - which calls for congressional oversight into the selection and use of confidential informants. It is perhaps no coincidence that Lynch is from Southie, Bulger's old turf. Kevin Weeks, Bulger's former right-hand man, told the Mirror how the pair made millions from gambling, drugs, robberies and extortion. Bulger (above) ruled the South Boston underworld for 30 years with an iron fist He recalled watching Bulger murder three people in 1984, including fisherman John McIntyre who was shot in the back of the head after he admitted talking to the cops about a plot to smuggle guns to the IRA. Weeks said McIntyre was beaten for an hour before Bulger tried to strangle him with a rope. When the rope proved to be too thick, Whitey asked him if he wanted to be shot instead - and offer he accepted gladly, Weeks said. By 1995, his FBI coverage wasn't enough to protect him from a sweeping federal indictment on obstruction of justice, racketeering, drug dealing and extortion charges. After his FBI handler John Connolly tipped him off that the indictment was about to drop, Bulger went on the run with his girlfriend Catherine Grieg. The pair ended up in Santa Monica, California, where they posed as married retirees from Chicago. After al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan in 2011, Bulger succeeded him as No. 1 wanted fugitive on the FBI's 'Ten Most Wanted' list. One of the many aliases Bulger used while on the run was that of James Lawlor, a man who Bulger found living on the street in the Los Angeles area. The two men resembled each other so much that Bulger could use Lawlor's driver's license and other identity papers. In return, he paid Lawlor's rent, according to the Boston Globe. Miss Iceland of 1974 was responsible for Bulger's capture. Anna Bjornsdottir, who had acted in US television shows and commercials under the name Anna Bjorn, had lived near Bulger and girlfriend Catherine Greig in Santa Monica, California. While she was visiting Iceland, she saw a news report about the authorities' hunt for Bulger. She recognized him as the quiet retiree she knew from Santa Monica and called the FBI, which arrested him in June 2011. Bjornsdottir later claimed a $2 million reward. When police raided his Santa Monica apartment, they found several fiction and non-fiction books about criminals, including 'Escape From Alcatraz.' Bulger refused to testify at his trial claiming he had been given immunity from prosecution by federal agents. He steadfastly denied being an FBI informant, but close links between some FBI agents in Boston and Bulger's Winter Hill Gang in the 1970s and 1980s have been well documented. When Bulger was captured, Weeks was among those to testify against him. Catherine Greig and Whitey Bulger are seen in June 1998. They were on the run for 16 years, and posed as a retired couple from Chicago in Santa Monica Weeks insists he is not a snitch, but said seeing Bulger's FBI file - proving he had spent years as an informant - 'broke' him. 'I didn't want to give evidence. He was like an older brother to me. I liked him. He treated me well. He was protective. 'We made millions together but he broke me when I was shown his FBI file after my arrest showing he was a rat. 'If I spoke to him now I'd only have one question to ask: 'Why?'.' Bulger's incredible story has provided inspiration to writers down the years, including for the mob boss played by Jack Nicholson in Martin Scorsese's 2006 film, The Departed. In 2015 Whitey's story was made into a film itself, called Black Mass, starring Johnny Depp as Bulger. While Whitey himself never expressed an opinion on the film, Weeks said it was so inaccurate that he is considering legal action. Among his many bug-bears with the movie are the fact that it linked him with a murder in Miami, a place he says he never visited. He also objects to the portrayal of him as dim-witted, saying: 'I was smart.' As for Depp's portrayal of Bulger, he says the actor swore too much for the role - something the real Bulger did not do day-to-day - and 'got nothing right' about him except for his hair. Charles Trumann Wesco, a missionary from Indiana, was shot in the head amid fighting between armed separatists and soldiers in northwestern Cameroon on Tuesday. He is pictured above with his wife Stephanie, who said her 'heart is broken' following his death A missionary from Indiana was shot in the head amid fighting between armed separatists and soldiers in northwestern Cameroon on Tuesday. Charles Trumann Wesco, who had been in the region for two weeks, was rushed to the hospital in Bamenda after he was gravely wounded while in his car, hospital director Kingue Thomson Njie said. 'He died in our hospital after all attempts to save his life,' Njie told AP. Wesco's wife, Stephanie, and their eight children were still in Bamenda, he said. 'My heart is broken,' the missionary's widow wrote on Twitter. 'I want to wake up from a horrific nightmare.' The violence, which erupted last year between French and English-speaking factions, has claimed the lives of at least 420 civilians, 175 members of the security forces and an unknown number of separatists, according to the International Crisis Group think-tank. It was impossible to determine on Tuesday which side of the conflict was responsible for the attack that killed Wesco. Charles, Stephanie and their eight children young children (pictured above in an undated photo) had been in Cameroon for 12 days before the shooting Dave Halyman, assistant pastor at Believers Baptist Church in Warsaw, Indiana, where Stephanie Wesco's father, Don Williams, is the senior pastor, said that Williams had spoken by phone with his daughter after the shooting. Reporting Williams' account, Halyman said the shooting happened as Charles and Stephanie Wesco were in a car being driven by another missionary to the town of Bamnui from the Bamenda suburb of Bambili, where the family has been living. He said Charles Wesco was in the front seat, and two shots hit the windshield and struck him in the head. No one else was hurt, Halyman said. The family had been in Cameroon for just 12 days before the shooting, Halyman said. He said they had raised financial support for two years and had been to Cameroon two years ago on a survey trip. 'We're shocked and grieving at what's occurred. We're trying to get over the shock of losing someone as wonderful as Charles was,' Halyman said. 'While we don't like this, we understand that God has a great purpose.' The missionary's brother is Indiana state Rep Tim Wesco, who confirmed that his older brother had been killed. 'He loved the Lord. He loved people. The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord,' he said. Indiana Gov Eric Holcomb issued a statement saying that he and his wife, Janet, 'are thinking of Rep Tim Wesco and his family as they grieve the death of his brother Charles. We ask that all Hoosiers join us in offering prayers and condolences to the Wesco family.' The Wesco family spent two years raising money for their mission trip to war-torn Cameroon Bamenda is in Cameroon's Northwest Region, the restive English-speaking area where armed separatists have been fighting with the military while attempting to create an independent state. Regional Gov Deben Tchoffo said armed groups staged attacks to stop the reopening of the University of Bamenda, and the military fought back Tuesday. He said Wesco might have been caught in crossfire. A military spokesman, Col Didier Badjeck, told AP that the military killed at least four suspects in Wesco's death and arrested many others. He did not specify if the people detained were military personnel or separatists. Cameroon's military said last week after launching attacks on suspected separatist training grounds that 'many have been killed.' The attacks happened the day after President Paul Biya was declared the winner of a seventh term. The increased violence began after the government clamped down on demonstrations by English-speaking teachers and lawyers protesting what they called their marginalization by Cameroon's French-speaking majority. Armed factions emerged after the government crackdown and have been using violence to push for an independent state they call 'Ambazonia.' Protests against the 85-year-old Biya's October 7 re-election have been ongoing. An amazing escape has been caught on CCTV after a man managed to dodge an out-of-control bus that had just hit another man before it slammed into a classroom. The New Zealand metro bus in Auckland had already struck a father of two, off camera, before it continued to lose control and careen toward the innocent bystander on October 12. Police told Stuff the hero father was struck by the bus after he managed to push his children out of its path. An amazing escape has been caught on CCTV after a man managed to dodge an out of control bus that had just hit another man before it slammed into a classroom 'Their dad was just lying in the road the public all helped bring the kids out of the way and help the family until an ambulance arrived,' a bystander told Stuff. Thankfully the man only suffered moderate injuries and was transported to the North Shore Hospital. After striking the father of two the bus then clipped a plumbing van, which sent it toward the lone man on the bench. The CCTV footage shows citizens on a pedestrian crossing rush to get out of the way as the bus turns sharply towards the man. The man in the video is sitting outside Unitec's free computing facility in the North Shore of Auckland. The man in the video is sitting outside Unitec's free computing facility in the North Shore of Auckland The man is able to get out of the way just before the bus slams into the classroom As the bus jumps the footpath the man jumps from the bench and runs to his right, the bus heading in roughly the same direction. However, the man is able to get out of the way just before the bus slams into the classroom. A number of uninjured students and staff are then seen climbing out of the broken entrance and into the street. Auckland Transport spokesman James Ireland told Stuff the female bus driver was tested for alcohol and drugs but returned negative samples. Auckland Police will continue to investigate the incident. At the age of 11 Sebastian Aguiar relies on a permanent ventilator to breathe, is clinically depressed, wheelchair-bound, can barely make it outside and weighs 110 kilograms. The once happy boy, from Bonnyrigg, west of Sydney, was diagnosed with rapid-onset obesity with hypothalamic dysfunction, hypoventilation, and autonomic dysregulation syndrome when he was just seven. Now, his family face the grueling and heartbreaking challenge of giving him the best quality of life possible for the time he has left - a task that has proven very expensive. At the age of 11 Sebastian Aguiar (aged five left, 11 right) relies on a permanent ventilator to breathe, is clinically depressed, wheelchair bound and barely makes it outside A friend of the family has appealed to the public to help raise money so they can afford ongoing bills, home modifications and a car suitable for transporting a wheelchair. Pablo Munox has established a GoFundMe account for the family which has already raised $13,435 of it's $50,000 goal. 'Living with ROHHAD is an uphill battle coping with the costs, physical demands and the emotional toll this illness has taken on the family,' Mr Munox wrote. 'Sebastian sits home, clinically depressed because we are unable to get him in the family car with his electric wheelchair and the life support equipment he needs to travel.' The once happy boy (pictured currently) was diagnosed with rapid-onset obesity with hypothalamic dysfunction, hypoventilation, and autonomic dysregulation syndrome Mr Munox said Sebastian needed to experience life outside the confines of his room in the house and hospital, but the family were struggling to grapple with the costs. 'Living with ROHHAD is an uphill battle coping with the costs, physical demands and the emotional toll this illness has taken on the family,' he said. Sebastian is one of just 100 people in the world to suffer from the terminal illness and the only known child in Australia. 'This family desperately needs some financial help to cope with daily expenses. Their home is also in need of work, ideally an extension that will better allow Sebastian to move about, be bathed and eventually toileted as his condition progressively deteriorates. Mr Munox said Sebastian (pictured) needed to experience life outside the confines of his room in the house and hospital, but the family were struggling to grapple with the costs 'He would also very much benefit from a larger bedroom in which he can fit the lifesaving equipment he needs to survive each and every night.' ROHHAD affects respiratory control and autonomic nervous system regulation, and the portion of the nervous system that controls or regulates body functions; including heart rate, blood pressure, moods, appetite, body temperature, bowel and bladder control. Sebastian began to gain weight rapidly aged five and two years later the devastating diagnosis of ROHHAD was made - he went from 25 to 45 kilos in three months. 'The family are grieving the loss of the child that Sebastian was and are finding it almost impossible to live their reality every day,' Mr Munox said. Advertisement President Trump's administration was reportedly told that 'only a small percentage' of migrants would end up making it to the U.S. border as part of the ongoing caravan making its way through Mexico. Documents related to the operation, which were obtained by Newsweek, showed that the information was handed over to officials before Trump hardened his stance on immigration by deploying more than 5,200 troops to the Mexico-U.S. border. The operational documents indicate that Trump's administration forged ahead with plans to send troops even though historic trends showed 'only a small percentage of migrants will likely reach the border'. A similar caravan this past spring ultimately fizzled to just about 200 people who reached the U.S. border at San Diego. It comes as the top U.S. general overseeing the deployment of more than 5,200 troops to the border with Mexico said on Tuesday that troop levels were expected to rise further. Members of the Central American caravan are pictured in Juchitan, de Zaragoza, Mexico on Tuesday as they resumed their march towards the United States border Migrants walk along a road as part of a thousands-strong caravan of Central Americans continuing its slow journey toward the U.S. border, between Niltepec and Juchitan, Oaxaca state, Mexico on Tuesday General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, the head of U.S. Northern Command, declined to say how high or estimate what the operation will cost. Many basic questions remained unanswered a day after the Pentagon announced the open-ended deployment of over 5,200 active-duty troops to the border, including the scope of the mission as well as the Pentagon's assessment of any threat posed by arriving migrants. President Donald Trump has hardened his stance on immigration ahead of the Nov. 6 congressional elections. He has drawn attention to a caravan of migrants that is trekking through Mexico toward the United States as he seeks to fire up support for his Republican party, which is facing some tough battles as Democrats seek to wrest control of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Republican lawmakers and other Trump supporters have applauded the deployment. But critics say Trump is politicizing the military, deploying them as a stunt to drive Republican voters to the polls without any real national security threat. O'Shaughnessy defended the operation at a briefing on Tuesday as he echoed Trump administration concerns about the caravan and compared the border support mission to other domestic military missions, like hurricane relief. 'I firmly believe that border security is national security,' O'Shaughnessy said. The Pentagon announced it will deploy 5,200 troops to the Southwest border in an extraordinary military operation, and Trump has continued to tweet and speak about the migrants Soldiers from Task Force Griffin receive a legal briefing as they prepare to deploy to support and enable Customs and Border Protection and other supporting interagency partners to secure the Southwest Border A man holds up a stroller as hundreds of migrants hitching a ride accommodate themselves on the back of truck, between Niltepec and Juchitan, Mexico on Tuesday Migrants, travelling with a caravan of thousands from Central America en route to the United States, walk to Juchitan from Santiago Niltipec, Mexico Central American migrants heading to the United States arrive to the municipality of Juchitan, in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, on Tuesday The U.S. military still had no firm idea of what the operation would cost, he added. Pentagon officials have said the Defense Department will need to find a way to pay for the operation, suggesting money may need to be taken from other national security programs. O'Shaughnessy said that just over 1,000 troops had deployed to Texas as of Tuesday, where they will carry out tasks like building barriers, erecting tents, and flying government personnel by helicopter to and from different locations along the border. He said the troops now slated to go to Texas, Arizona and California were only the start of a larger deployment and that eventually troops would go to New Mexico as well. 'What I can confirm is there will be additional force over and above the 5,239. The magnitude of that difference, I don't have the answer for now,' he said. The projected U.S. deployment is already roughly the same size as the U.S. military contingent in Iraq. Trump railed against illegal immigration to win the 2016 presidential election and has seized on the caravan of Central American migrants at campaign rallies in the run-up to next week's vote. Trump has characterized the migrants as an 'invasion' and falsely stated they harbor terrorists and are financed in part by Democrats. Migrants sing and pray at a public square in Tapachula, Mexico on Tuesday en route to the U.S. border A migrant pushes a child in a stroller along a highway in Mexico as a thousands-strong caravan of Central Americans continues its slow journey toward the U.S. border Central American migrants, part of a caravan trying to reach the U.S., rest at a public square in Tapachula A Honduran migrant extinguishes a fire at a camp set up by a caravan of thousands of Central American migrants, in Juchitan, Mexico, after sunset Tuesday More than 1,000 people in a second migrant caravan that forged its way across the river from Guatemala began walking through southern Mexico on Tuesday and reached the city of Tapachula - some 250 miles behind a larger group and more than 1,000 miles from the closest U.S. border. Members of the latest caravan say they aren't trying to catch up with the first because they believe it has been too passive and they don't want to be controlled. The first, larger caravan of about 4,000 mainly Honduran migrants passed through Tapachula about 10 days ago and set up camp Tuesday in the Oaxaca state city of Juchitan. The two groups combined represent just a few days' worth of the average flow of migrants to the United States. Similar caravans also have occurred regularly over the years, passing largely unnoticed, but the new ones have become a hot-button political issue amid an unprecedented push-back from Trump. On Monday Trump said he wanted to build tent cities to house asylum seekers and on Tuesday he floated the possibility of ending the constitutional right to U.S. citizenship for babies born in the country to noncitizens. The first caravan was still about 900 miles from the nearest U.S. crossing at McAllen, Texas, and possibly much farther if it heads elsewhere. Worn down from long miles of walking and frustrated by the slow progress, many have been dropping out and returning home or applying for protected status in Mexico. The group is already significantly diminished from its estimated peak at over 7,000-strong. Representatives have demanded 'safe and dignified' transportation to Mexico City, but the Mexican government has shown no inclination to assist - with the exception of its migrant protection agency that gave some stragglers rides to the next town over the weekend. A truck carrying mostly Honduran migrants from the first caravan heading to the US drives from Santiago Niltepec to Juchitan, near the town of La Blanca in Oaxaca State, Mexico, on October 30 Migrants along the highway on Tuesday have been stuffing themselves into truck beds and hitching rides so they wouldn't have to walk A local Albuquerque actor who is best known for making an appearance on the hit AMC show Better Call Saul says he lied about being a wounded veteran to help his career. Todd Latourette appeared in an episode during the fourth season of the hit series. He played Skell in the episode titled Quite a Ride, according to IMDb. His other credits include the Hollywood film The Men Who Stare at Goats and TV series Manhattan and The Messengers. Todd Latourette, a local Albuquerque actor who is best known for making an appearance on the hit AMC show Better Call Saul, says he lied about being a wounded veteran to help his career Latourette is now coming clean and admitting that he lied all these years by making people think he had lost his hand in a war I severed my hand with a skill saw, said Latourette. The state of my mind was a psychotic episode But Latourette is now coming clean and admitting that he lied all these years by making people think he had lost his hand in a war. Instead, Latourette says that he lost his hand after sawing it off during a psychotic episode, according to KOB-TV. I severed my hand with a skill saw, said Latourette. The state of my mind was a psychotic episode. Latourette said he is bipolar. Seventeen years ago, he stopped taking his medication. He says this drove him to cut off and cauterize his own arm. Cauterize is the practice of burning a part of the body in order to close a wound and prevent infection. The film industry obviously took a different angle [when they saw me with one arm], he said. That I was different. And so they liked that. After telling Hollywood producers that he suffered his injury overseas, Latourette now says that he is looking to rid himself of the guilt brought on by his lying. He says he is admitting his lie even if it means destroying his chances of landing another role. Latourette appeared in an episode of Better Call Saul (above) during the fourth season of the hit series. He played Skell in the episode titled Quite a Ride, according to IMDb I was dishonorable, Latourette said. I'm killing my career by doing this, if anyone thinks this was for personal edification, that's not the case. I'm ousting myself from the New Mexico Film Industry. And gladly so, just to say what I've said. Latourette hopes that anyone suffering from mental illness will heed his warning and take their medication. The power is in your hands to take your medication in the morning, or at night, he said. So that, this, this discourse of my life doesn't need to necessarily be yours. Because, it happens quick... it happens quick. A woman grieving the loss of her husband to suicide was warned against seeking mental health treatment by her insurer. After Tania Wenn's husband Barry died in 2015 she was a 'mess'. Medication and speaking to a counsellor helped her cope with the trauma. The Perth mother was shocked to discover her life insurance policy, which she took out after her husband's death, would be void simply for asking for mental health assistance, ABC reported. A Perth mother was shocked to discover her life insurance policy, which she took out after her husband's death, would be void simply for asking for mental health assistance (stock image) Treatment for a number of mental health-related conditions, including stress and anxiety, would exclude her from cover, she was told by her insurance company. 'I was ropeable, absolutely ropeable,' she said. 'I thought, "If I fall into a dark hole and I actually need help, you're almost encouraging me to take the option that I wouldn't want to take and put more risk to my kids".' When she disputed the company's decision, she was told her policy would be reviewed in two years, so long as she agreed not to seek mental health treatment in that period. Mental health advocacy group SANE Australia's deputy chief executive Michelle Blanchard said the insurance industry seemed out of step with the rest of society. She said context around a person's mental health issues should be considered, rather than a blanket ban. The Financial Services Council is currently revising its code of practice, which should take individual circumstances into account, spokesman Nick Kirwan said. He said different insurers have different appetites for risk and not all providers exclude people who had undergone mental health treatment. A billionaire tech boss has slammed Scott Morrison's energy plan - saying it doesn't do enough to keep power prices down and protect the environment. Mike Cannon-Brookes, a co-founder of software company Atlassian and one of Australia's richest people, criticised the Prime Minister in response to his plan for lowering electricity prices. 'Argh! Bulls**t mate. You've made me mad and inspired me,' Mr Cannon-Brookes - who is worth a staggering $7billion - posted on Twitter. A billionaire tech boss has slammed Scott Morrison's energy plan - saying it doesn't do enough to keep power prices down and protect the environment Mike Cannon-Brookes (pictured), a co-founder of software company Atlassian and one of Australia's richest people, criticised the Prime Minister 'Argh! Bulls**t mate. You've made me mad and inspired me,' Mr Cannon-Brookes posted on Twitter 'I'm not sure you know what fair dinkum means. It means fair to Aussies, to our wallets and to the planet. (Power) can be reliable, renewable and cheap. 'We need a brand for Australia's energy future. We need a rallying cry for Australians who believe in (solar), (wind), and (hydroelectric dams).' Mr Morrison had posted a video to Twitter in which he promised 'fair dinkum' electricity prices, using power that 'works when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow'. In response, Mr Cannon-Brookes had registered the Twitter username 'Fair Dinkum Power' and said he would 'get back to (Mr Morrison) with some logo concepts'. In October, Energy Minister Angus Taylor announced a 'price safety net' wuld be worked on by the Australian Energy Regulator. Mr Morrison had posted a video to Twitter in which he promised 'fair dinkum' electricity prices In response, Mr Cannon-Brookes had registered the Twitter username 'Fair Dinkum Power' and said he would 'get back to (Mr Morrison) with some logo concepts' The plan promised to stop big power companies from ripping off customers. Mr Cannon-Brookes and his wife Annie purchased the $100million Point Piper property named Fairwater in September, which was formerly owned by Lady Mary Fairfax. His business partner Scott Farquhar purchased the neighbouring home for $71million in 2017 - reportedly paying for it entirely in cash. A massive search effort has identified the possible seabed location of the crashed Lion Air jet, Indonesia's military chief said on Wednesday. The Indonesian transport minister then intervened to sack Lion Air's technical director and order the removal of several of his staff, citing government authority over the aviation sector. 'Today we will remove Lion's technical director from his duties to be replaced by someone else, as well as technical staff' who cleared the flight to depart, Budi Karya Sumadi told reporters. The two-month-old Boeing plane plunged into the Java Sea on Monday just minutes after takeoff from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. Rescuers conduct a search operation for the victims of the crashed Lion Air plane in the waters of Tanjung Karawang, Indonesia A rescuer inspects a part of Lion Air plane flight JT 610 retrieved from the waters where it's believed to have crashed at Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta Rescuers remove a bag containing debris retrieved from the waters where Lion Air flight JT 610 is believed to have crashed Locating the fuselage will bring the search effort closer to finding the airplane's flight recorders, which are crucial to the accident investigation. Experts are currently carrying out the grim task of identifying dozens of body parts recovered from a 15 nautical mile search area. 'This morning I've been briefed by the head of Search and Rescue Agency about the strong possibility of the location coordinates' of Flight 610, said armed forces chief Hadi Tjahjanto. 'We're going to see it ourselves on location. And hopefully that is the main body of the plane that we've been looking for.' The disaster has reignited concerns about safety in Indonesia's fast-growing aviation industry, which was recently removed from European Union and U.S. blacklists, and also raised doubts about the safety of Boeing's new generation 737 MAX 8 plane. Boeing Co. experts are expected to arrive in Indonesia on Wednesday and Lion Air has said an 'intense' internal investigation is underway in addition to the probe by safety regulators. Data from flight-tracking sites show the plane had erratic speed and altitude in the early minutes of a flight on Sunday and on its fatal flight Monday. Safety experts caution, however, that the data must be checked for accuracy against the plane's 'black boxes,' which officials are confident will be recovered. Rescuers carry a body bag containing the remains of victims retrieved from the waters where Lion Air flight JT 610 is believed to have crashed Passengers on the Sunday flight from Bali to Jakarta have recounted problems that included a long-delayed takeoff for an engine check and terrifying descents in the first 10 minutes in the air. Lion Air has said maintenance was carried out on the aircraft after the Sunday flight and a problem, which it didn't specify, was fixed. Officials said the non-stop search effort has sent 48 body bags containing human remains to police identification experts. Anguished family members have been providing samples for DNA tests and police say results are expected within 4-8 days. A relative holds a photo of a passenger of the crashed Lion Air plane at the police hospital in Jakarta A family member of passengers of the crashed Lion Air plane is assisted by others upon arrival at the police hospital Musyafak, the head of Said Sukanto Police Hospital, said nearly 150 samples for testing have been collected but more are still needed, especially from parents and children of victims. Lion Air's president Edward Sirait told The Associated Press that timing of a meeting with Boeing experts is still uncertain. Daniel Putut, a Lion Air managing director, said Tuesday evening the airline hopes to meet with Boeing officials on Wednesday afternoon. 'Of course there are lots of things we will ask them, we all have question marks here, 'Why? What's the matter with this new plane,'' Putut said. A relative of a passenger of the crashed Lion Air plane cries at the police hospital in Jakarta Indonesia's Transport Ministry has ordered all Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes operated by Lion Air and national carrier Garuda to be inspected. Lion has ordered 50 of the jets, worth an estimated $6.2 billion, and currently operates nine. Boeing declined to comment about potential inspections globally. The aircraft manufacturer told airlines in a bulletin, 'Boeing has no recommended operator action at this time,' according to two people familiar with the matter. The crash is the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea in December 2014, killing all 162 on board. Indonesian airlines were barred in 2007 from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, though several were allowed to resume services in the following decade. The ban was completely lifted in June. The U.S. lifted a decadelong ban in 2016. Lion Air, a discount carrier, is one of Indonesia's youngest and biggest airlines, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations. It has been expanding aggressively in Southeast Asia, a fast-growing region of more than 600 million people. A man who stabbed a dad-of-eight in a frenzied and lethal attack has been found non-guilty due to mental illness. Vincenzo Carlo Marotta, 56, viciously stabbed his victim Van Phan Nguyen 28 times on November 23, 1989 in east Perth. Justice Lindy Jenkins ruled that Mr Marotta was not guilty of willful murder due to being of unsound mind, Perth Now reported. Vincenzo Carlo Marotta (pictured) viciously stabbed his victim Van Phan Nguyen 28 times on November 23, 1989 His victim was a Vietnamese immigrant who moved to Australia with his family in 1982. During the judge-alone trial Justice Jenkins heard that Marotta had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in the mid-1980s. Justice Jenkins heard that he was probably in a psychotic episode when he stabbed his victim. Marotta claimed in a recorded interview that he saw a devil on the top of a building and heard voices in his head telling him to kill. The attacker was interviewed in 1990, however police did not charge him until November 2016 after launching a fresh inquiry into the cold murder case. His victim was a Vietnamese immigrant Van Phan Nguyen (pictured) who moved to Australia with his family in 1982 Five days after stabbing Mr Nguyen, Marotta headed to Queensland where he attempted to murder a further five people in February 1990. For that crime he was given a life sentence but he was transferred back to WA in 1994. Marotta will be held at a secure psychiatric facility indefinitely. Four million Australians are set to be fined thousands of dollars for missing the deadline to file their tax return. Taxpayers were given until the 31 October to lodge their tax return before being hit with a penalty of $210 for every four weeks they are overdue. The maximum fine for missing the deadline is $1050. October 31 is the last day Australians can lodge their tax return or could face fines up to $1050 About four million taxpayers have not lodged returns from the 2017-2018 financial year. 'We are expecting at least 100,000 people will lodge via myTax today,' Australian Tax Office assistant commissioner Kath Anderson told news.com.au on Wednesday. The Australian Taxation Office expects a majority of tax returns to be lodged by tax agents in the next few months. Some taxpayers may be delaying their tax return because they are expecting a small refund and don't see the task as a priority. Others may be deliberately postponing their lodge to avoid paying a large debt such as capital gains tax after selling a property. A majority of taxpayers did their tax return online via myTax, which took less than half an hour A majority of taxpayers have lodged their returns through an online form called myTax, accessed through myGov - a website that allows access to online government services. Taxpayers who lodge on myTax can receive their refund generally in about two weeks. Those who lodged online took less than half an hour to make their lodge. The average tax return of Australians is $2500. 'Get your return in as quickly as you can or contact us if you are having difficulties,' said Ms Anderson. An eerie photo from a gold mining town in Queensland over 100 years ago has emerged, proving that Halloween in Australia isn't just some 'crass Americanism'. The black and white photo shows the town of Ravenswood in 1908, which was hosting a cycle race. A large banner is strung up above the street with the word 'Halloween' clearly visible. An eerie photo from the gold mining town of Ravenswood in Queensland over 100 years ago has emerged, proving that Halloween in Australia isn't just some 'crass Americanism' Local historian Ray Holyoak, told the ABC that he believes the spooky celebration goes back even further than 1908. Ravenswood holds an annual Halloween ball and Mr Holyoak said that the ball itself has 'probably been going since at least the mid-1870s'. 'There is a very long heritage in the town not of some crass Americanism, but from the Anglo-Celtic Welsh miners of having this Halloween ball,' he said. It is understood that Welsh Halloween celebrations likely combined Christian festivals like All Souls Day with traditional harvest festivals. The black and white photo shows the town of Ravenswood in 1908 during a cycle race along Macrossan Street. A large banner is strung up above the street with the word 'Halloween' clearly visible 'There is a very long heritage in the town not of some crass Americanism, but from the Anglo-Celtic Welsh miners of having this Halloween ball,' said local historian Ray Holyoak (pictured) The Halloween ball sees the town nearly double in size for the occasion, and Dianne Schluter, owner of Ravenswood's Imperial Hotel, said the hotel is always fully occupied at this time of year. Diane Scluter (pictured) - local hotel owner - said Ravenswood is 'a spooky place' She added that although there's nothing in the town that can hurt anyone, it 'just looks spooky'. 'It is a very spooky place, there's many times I've stood on the veranda at the top of the hotel and looked out and can see the mist,' she said. Mr Holyoak said that Ravenswood's connection with historic Halloween tradition puts them 'on the map'. 'A lot of people still regard this town as a ghost town, it's certainly not,' he said. 'It's got an operating mine here I remember the place from 30 years ago and it's really gone ahead.' The annual Halloween ball is run by Ravenswood State School who use the event as a fundraiser. A young Indigenous activist has pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer for the fourth time in less than 12 months. Leilani Clarke, 20, spat on a police officer as they attended a domestic disturbance in Sydney's inner-west in June. Police allege she was high on an illicit substance at the time, though she claims she was having a mental health episode related to self-diagnosed 'trauma brain'. Indigenous activist Leilani Clarke (pictured) has been charged for spitting on a male police constable She will face the Downing Centre Local Court on Friday for sentencing over the June assault, which came only two days after committing another offence. In that incident, Clarke kneed an officer in the genitals after she and two males were caught stealing food from a 7-Eleven store. Police described her behaviour at the time as 'highly erratic and unpredictable'. Two months prior, Clarke pleaded guilty to a court in Queensland for public nuisance, assaulting and obstructing police, and drug possession. And in March, Clarke spat at another police officer and assaulted a paramedic who had been trying to take her to hospital. She is said to have screamed: 'F**k you white dogs. I'm smart not dumb. I got three more degrees than you'll ever have.' In defence of her actions in the past, Clarke claims she suffers from 'transgenerational trauma' because of her Indigenous heritage. 'I've been battling with this thing I'm going to start calling trauma brain,' she recently wrote on Instagram. It is the fourth time in 2018 Clarke will face court for assaulting a police officer In regards to the domestic disturbance, officers were called to a home in Forest Lodge, where they reported they heard an argument and smashing furniture. They say they found Clarke and others in front of the terrace house, which was in a 'state of disarray', according to police documents seen by News Corp. Police were informed by others out the front of the house that an ambulance had been called and the young woman was suffering from a mental health episode. Clarke claims to suffer from 'intergenerational trauma' due to her Aboriginal heritage In their report, police say that Clarke 'could not give a coherent account' of the night's events and appeared to be intoxicated. When she was placed on an ambulance stretcher, she spat at a male constable. The incident happened just two days after she had 'kneed an officer in the testicles', a charge she pleaded guilty to. Clarke was previously been found guilty for spitting on police, calling officers 'white dogs' and a female officer a 'sl**'. Dozens of Chinese buyers desperate to get their hands on crates of baby formula have flooded a Woolworths' stockroom. The buying frenzy began just minutes after the store in Box Hill, Melbourne, opened its doors in the morning last week, according to witnesses. Customers queued almost to end of an aisle, prompting staff to simply stack the boxes on a pallet in the stock room's doorway in preparation of the mad rush. Bulk baby formula buyers weren't heading for the checkout of the Box Hill Woolworths, but directly to the door to the stock room where they were handed a box a several tins (pictured) Customers are filmed hustling through the otherwise empty store to be some of the first to collect the tins, which can sell for hundreds of dollars online. After grabbing a box from the pallet, which was piled as high as their heads, customers jogged towards the checkout - aware they were being filmed. The boxes had arrived directly from suppliers and hadn't even been opened when the impatient buyers formed a queue snaking through the store. A man filming the stunning sight berated the line for buying so many tins of the sought-after formula just to make huge profits selling them online. 'Look at all these people... this should be illegal,' he said, as buyers covered their faces with their hands or hooded jumpers. Shoppers were shocked to see a huge line of impatient customers almost the whole way down an aisle of a Woolworths in Box Hill, Melbourne, last week (pictured) In response to the outcry, the supermarket was forced to reinstate a two tins per customer policy from next week For several years, Australian parents have been outraged at the practice by Asian 'daigous', as few tins are left for their own children. The video prompted a barrage of complaints to Woolworths after it was posted online over the weekend. In response to the outcry, and to a similar video recently filmed in another Melbourne suburb, the supermarket was forced to reinstate a two tins per customer policy as of next week. 'We can confirm from next week the baby formula limit will revert to two tins per transaction,' it said. 'We'll closely monitor our on-shelf availability and feedback from customers as we make this adjustment. 'We encourage parents who find their chosen baby formula is not on the shelf to speak directly with the store manager for assistance.' A second video (pictured) was shot at a Woolworths in Chadstone and posted online last Sunday to the shock of many who viewed it The second video was shot at a Woolworths in Chadstone and posted online last Sunday. Woolworths raised the tin per customer limit from two to eight in August, boasting it was keeping up with supply. Baby formula is lucrative market, with some people earning in excess of $100,000 per year after shipping off the tins to willing buyers in China. Australia's tough regulations mean the formula is of higher quality and well-off parents are willing to pay more than five times the supermarket price. Topshop has been forced to cancel the launch party for its latest collection after a designer quit over Sir Philip Green's sexual harassment claims, it has been reported. Michael Halpern is said to have withdrawn after Sir Philip, the chain's billionaire boss, was unmasked as the businessman who gagged the press over claims of racism and sexual harassment. It was announced in August that London-based Halpern would work with Topshop on the 28-item collection, which is due in stores next month. Michael Halpern (left, with Mary Katrantzou Harper's Bazaar Women of the Year Awards on October 30) is said to have withdrawn after Sir Philip, the chain's billionaire boss, (right, yesterday) was unmasked as the businessman who gagged the press But a fashion source told The Daily Telegraph: 'His brand is about female empowerment. That's his ethos. He couldn't go ahead with this it wouldn't be a good look.' MailOnline has contacted Arcadia group, Topshop's parent company, for comment. Who is Michael Halpern? He is a London-based designer who launched the Halpern label in 2016, which has gone on to achieve significant commercial success. New York-born Halpern had his break that same year when his MA graduate collection at Central Saint Martins was noticed by Donatella Versace, who recruited him as an advisor. Halpern at the Royal Albert Hall on December 4, 2017 'When I saw Michael's work, I immediately picked up the phone to get in touch with him,' Versace told T magazine. 'I never saw anything like it before. His sense of colour is brilliant; his craftsmanship is incredible.' In 2017, Halpern picked up the British Emerging Talent award at The Fashion Awards for his disco-inspired minidresses, jumpsuits and flared trousers. Advertisement Sir Philip has been spending time in a luxury spa in sunny Arizona this week, but looks to be heading back to Britain to face the music. The 66-year-old- who is fighting for his reputation and battling to keep hold of his knighthood - was pictured yesterday striding towards the plane with his phone glued to his ear, deep in conversation. As he climbed the steps to his private jet he was given a welcoming smile from the air stewardess, who he promptly hugged and kissed on the cheek. When he lands on British soil, Sir Philip will have to face the fallout from the allegations made against him. Among some of the serious claims put to him include Sir Philip allegedly creeping up behind women in the corridors and touching staff members awkwardly. He is also alleged to have gone into meeting and asked if there were any 'naughty girls' that 'needed their bottoms slapped' and cut a female executive's hair during a meeting. Sir Philip, whose daughter has a son with American 'hot felon' Jeremy Meeks, was named after a court gag order was blown apart when former government minister Lord Peter Hain used parliamentary privilege rules to name Sir Philip in defiance of the legal restrictions. In a bombshell statement in the House of Lords, Labour party peer Lord Hain said it was 'clearly in the public interest' that the allegations were aired. He said the case involved 'substantial payments to conceal the truth about serious and repeated sexual harassment, racist abuse and bullying which is compulsively continuing'. Earlier this week in Arizona the businessman launched a furious rant at reporters who found his hideaway. He hit out at the journalists over their 'manners' and said their behaviour would lead to a 'very ugly place'. A Christian Pakistani woman sentenced to death for blasphemy, after allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammed during an argument over a cup of water, has had her conviction overturned. Asia Bibi, 53, who has been on death row since 2010, would have become the first person executed for blasphemy in Pakistan, and her case has incited deadly violence in the Muslim-majority country. Moments after the Supreme Court overturned the conviction, protests erupted in several major cities across Pakistan, where thousands of Islamists demanded that Ms Bibi be hanged. Free woman: Asia Bibi, 53, has been on death row since 2010, after being accused of insulting Islam during an argument over a water bowl with a group of Muslim women in Punjab Protest: Supporters of a hardline Islamist party held a protest in Lahore after Ms Bibi's conviction was overturned on Wednesday The leader of the hard-line Tehreek-e-Labaik (TLP) party also called for the death of the Supreme Court judges who overturned the conviction, and for the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan to be ousted. 'The patron in chief of TLP, Muhammad Afzal Qadri, has issued the edict that says the chief justice and all those who ordered the release of Asia deserve death,' said party spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi. Imran Khan hit back at the hardliners and appealed for calm after the extremists called for the killing of the Supreme Court justices. 'They are inciting you for their own political gain, you should not get trapped by them for the sake of the country, they are doing no service to Islam,' Khan said in a televised broadcast. Supporters of the TLP gathered in Lahore staged a protest chanting slogans including 'Hang Asia'. Approximately a thousand club-wielding demonstrators have been blocking Islamabad's main highway, as several roads in the port city of Karachi were barricaded by protesters sparking chaotic traffic jams. Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) supporters chant slogans during a protest against the court decision to overturn the conviction Shocking: A young boy takes part in the protests by Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) supporters in Karachi Across the nation: TLP supporters block the road carrying placards demanding that Asia Bibi should be hanged in Faisalabad on Wednesday Threats: A poster carried at a protest in Karachi shows Ms Bibi's burning head in a noose A TLP holds a placard reading 'The only punishment for prophet's blasphemer is to sever the head' during a protest in Islamabad Pakistan protesters and religious students listen to their leaders during a rally in Islamabad Spreading hatred: TLP supporters block the road during a protest against the Supreme Court decision to overturn Ms Bibi's conviction in Karachi 'The appeal is allowed. She has been acquitted. The judgement of high court as well as trial court is reversed. Her conviction is set aside,' said Pakistan's Chief Justice Saqib Nisar in the ruling. Ms Bibi appeared to be in state of disbelief after hearing the decision from her lawyer. 'I can't believe what I am hearing, will I go out now? Will they let me out, really?' Ms Bibi told AFP by phone from prison after the ruling. 'I just don't know what to say, I am very happy, I can't believe it.' Ms Bibi was set to be released immediately according to the court, although there has been no word if any security arrangements were being made for her protection. As the good news reached Ms Bibi's family, her daughter, Eisham Ashiq, 18, said: 'I can't wait to hug my mother. I am so happy.' Speaking through an interpreter to Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, Ms Bibi's husband Ashiq Masih, added 'We are very happy. This is wonderful news. 'We thank God very much that he's heard our prayers and the prayers of so many people who have longed for Asia Bibi's release over all these years of suffering and anguish.' What is next: Ms Bibi is set to be freed from prison, but the family has said it is going to be too dangerous for them to stay in Pakistan Her legal team celebrated the court's decision amid beefed-up security in Islamabad. FREE BUT IN DANGER: ASIA BIBI'S FAMILY SAY THEY NEED TO FLEE Asia Bibi may now be a free woman, but her family has said they will have to leave Pakistan for their own safety. Blasphemy is a charge so sensitive in Pakistan that anyone even accused of insulting Islam risks a violent and bloody death at the hands of vigilantes. Ms Bibi's family and their supporters fear that she would be targeted by Islamists unless she gets protection from the moment she leaves prison. Her husband Ashiq Masih said:'The circumstances are such that she would be unable to live in Pakistan as a free woman. She would not survive.' 'Living in Pakistan for us is very difficult. We don't go out of our home and if we go, we come out very carefully.' Speaking to MailOnline via an interpreter earlier this month, the family expressed hope that they might be able to go to a safe country such as the UK. Advertisement 'The verdict has shown that the poor, the minorities and the lowest segments of society can get justice in this country despite its shortcomings,' Bibi's lawyer Saif-ul-Mulook told AFP. 'This is the biggest and happiest day of my life.' During the appeal hearing on October 8, a three-member panel of Supreme Court justices appeared to question the case against her, with Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, considered Pakistan's top expert in criminal law, listing flaws in the proceedings. 'I don't see any derogatory remarks vis-a-vis the holy Koran as per the FIR,' added Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, referring to the initial complaint filed in the case. Ms Bibi's case outraged Christians worldwide and has been a source of division within Pakistan, where two politicians who sought to help her were assassinated, including Punjab governor Salman Taseer, who was shot by his own bodyguard. The allegations against Ms Bibi date back to 2009, when she was working in a field near her home village in Sheikhupura, Punjab and was asked to fetch water. The Muslim women she was labouring with objected, saying that as a non-Muslim Ms Bibi was unfit to drink from the same water bowl as them. Happier times: Asia Bibi is seen with her two youngest children Eisham, left, and her sister Esha, right, who has learning difficulties - now aged 18 and 17 Finally: Ms Bibi's husband Ashiq Masih and their daughter Eisham are pictured in the UK this month, during a tour of the UK speaking about her plight Ms Bibi would later say that the women insulted her religion, to which she responded: 'I believe in my religion and in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for the sins of mankind. What did your Prophet Mohammed ever do to save mankind?' This prompted the Muslim women to go to a local imam and accuse Ms Bibi of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed. Before Ms Bibi could be arrested on any official charges, a violent mob descended on their family home, and beat Ms Bibi up in front of her children. The abuse was so violent, police were called to the scene, but after rescuing the mother-of-five, they arrested her and threw her in jail - and a year later she was convicted of blasphemy. She has been held in solitary confinement since her arrest and was told to remain so following her conviction in 2010 for her own safety due to the risk of Muslim prisoners attacking her. Blasphemy is a charge so sensitive in Pakistan that anyone even accused of insulting Islam risks a violent and bloody death at the hands of vigilantes. The charge is punishable by a maximum penalty of death under legislation that rights groups say is routinely abused by religious extremists as well as ordinary Pakistanis to settle personal scores. The law does not define what blasphemy constitutes, and evidence is often not reproduced in court for fear of committing a fresh offence. Despite this, calls for reform of the blasphemy law have regularly been met with violence and rejected. Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan launched a wholehearted defence of the laws during his election campaign earlier this year, vowing his party 'fully' supports the legislation and 'will defend it'. A question on a high school English exam has landed a trendy cafe in Melbourne in controversy. The Calmer Cafe in Aberfeldie, the city's northwest, has been bombarded with bad reviews on social media after more than 43,000 year 12 students across Victoria were asked to analyse a scathing review of a fictional 'hipster' cafe with the same name in the VCE English exam on Wednesday. Coincidently, the fictional reviewer featured in the question, Jonty Jenkins, has the same surname as the real cafe's manager. Melbourne's Calmer Cafe (pictured) found itself in the headlines after VCE students were asked to analyse a scathing review about a fictional cafe of the same name in their English exam 'Calmer Coffee is another example of an ever-creeping shift towards soulless franchises that can be found at airports around the world,' the fictional reviewer writes about the cafe in 'Benmore Village'. After students discovered a cafe with the same name actually exists, they flooded its social media platforms with complaints and scathing comments. The cafe's excellent Google review rating plummeted from five stars to 3.5 within hours. 'It sucks! Bad services! Classic Jonty told me all about it during VCE,' one student wrote on the cafe's Facebook page. Another wrote: 'Absolutely revolting. There was skin on the top of the coffee.' 'I'm shocked, people are writing things that aren't true,' manager Elise Jenkins (pictured) said Manager Elise Jenkins describes the Melbourne cafe as more vintage retro than hipster Calmer Cafe manager Elise Jenkins said the sudden surge in negative reviews have had a devastating affect on the business, which she described as more vintage retro than hipster. 'I'm shocked, people are writing things that aren't true,' she told 9 News. 'It's not funny. We're a small business and we do our best. Can you please stop doing it.' Ms Jenkins pleaded for the negative reviews to stop and has offered a free coffee to year 12 students as a peace offering. Calmer Cafe staff urged year 12 students to try their cafe by shouting them a free coffee 'We know exam period is a stressful time... so all year 12 students that mention THAT exam question and show their student ID card will receive 1 free small coffee. #sharingthelove #2018exams,' the cafe posted on Wednesday afternoon. Regular customers have since come to the cafe's defence and posted positive reviews. 'Don't listen to Jonty Jenkins, this is what Benmore needs,' one responded to a critical review. The VCE English exam (pictured) that sparked hundreds of negative online reviews for a cafe A Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority spokesman claims it checked and found no registered business with the name 'Calmer Coffee' prior to Wednesday's exam. 'The VCAA has been in contact with Calmer Cafe management and understands the posts have caused the business considerable effort and inconvenience,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'The VCAA has apologised for the inadvertent similarity in business names that led to the surge of social media and web posts, and has offered its assistance to have these posts removed as soon as possible.' A poster calling for information on Emanuela Orlandi, who disappeared aged 15 from a Rome street in 1983 Human bones found on Tuesday during renovations near the Vatican's embassy to Italy have reignited speculation about Emanuela Orlandi, who mysteriously disappeared aged 15 in 1983. The case has bedevilled investigators for 35 years, and the Vatican said Rome's chief prosecutor had been called in and forensic investigators are working to determine the age and gender of the bones as well as the date of death. The Vatican statement didn't mention Emanuela, but Italian media immediately linked her unsolved disappearance to the discovery of the bones. The Vatican said merely that 'during restoration works in a space annexed to the Apostolic Nunciature of Italy... fragments of human bone were found.' The Rome embassy is in the upscale residential neighborhood of Parioli, near the city's famous Villa Borghese museum. Emanuela disappeared after leaving her family's Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a member of the Holy See police force. Rome police will be looking in particular at whether the bones are a DNA match for Emanuela Orlandi or Mirella Gregori, both of whom were aged 15 when they went missing separately in Rome within the space of 40 days in 1983. The disappearance has been linked to Cold War power struggles, the attempted murder of a pope, Vatican connections to Mob money-laundering, a mobster's tomb in a prestigious Catholic church and claims of satanic orgies by prelates. Shortly after she disappeared - she was last seen on a Rome street - the police received anonymous calls, which said Emanuela would be freed if Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981, was released. Agca was eventually released in 2010. Another theory suggested that Emanuela had been abducted at the behest of American archbishop, Paul Marcinkus, a former president of the Vatican bank who was linked to a major scandal and died in 2006. Protesters in St Peter's Square, in the Vatican hold posters with Emanuela Orlandi's image calling for 'truth and justice for Emanuela Orlandi', during then-Pope Benedict's Regina Coeli prayer in May 2012. Emanuela Orlandi (left) was the daughter of a Vatican employee, whose June 1983 disappearance has been linked to anything from Cold War rivalries to an assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II The last major twist in the case came in 2012, when forensic police exhumed the body of a reputed mobster from the crypt of a Roman basilica in hopes of finding Emanuela's remains too. However, that search turned up no link. More recently, a leading Italian investigative journalist caused a sensation when he published a five-page document last year that had been stolen from a locked Vatican cabinet that suggested the Holy See had been involved in Orlandi's disappearance. The Vatican immediately branded the document a fake, though it never explained what it was doing in the Vatican cabinet. The document was purportedly written by a cardinal and listed supposed expenses used for Orlandi's upkeep after she disappeared. The Vatican has repeatedly maintained that it has co-operated fully with police investigating the Orlandi case. A 14-year-old girl on her way to school has made a lucky escape after a man wearing all black and a mask attempted to lure her into his car on Wednesday morning. The girl was walking in the eastern Melbourne suburb of Mooroolbark at 9am when a man driving a black Holden Commodore with no number plates and a large dent approached her on the corner of Diane Crescent and Manchester Road. 'He tried to get her into the car,' a family friend told 3AW radio. A 14-year-old girl on her way to school has made a lucky escape after a man wearing all black and a mask attempted to lure her into his car on Wednesday morning (stock image only) The girl was in the Melbourne suburb of Mooroolbark about 9am when a man driving a black Holden Commodore approached her on the corner of Diane Crescent and Manchester Road (pictured) Victoria Police have confirmed the incident, saying they were called to a report of a suspicious loiterer in Mooroolbark on Wednesday morning. The girl declined the lift and the man left in his vehicle. Police conducted a patrol of the area, but could not locate the man or his car. The girl's school has also been informed. Anyone who witnessed a suspicious man or black vehicle in the area is urged to contact Crime Stoppers. By Azernews By Sara Israfilbayova One of the important directions of the Azerbaijani-Turkmen cooperation is communication in the field of transport and transit traffic. Azerbaijani Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev made the remarks during a meeting with a delegation led by Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Turkmenistan Mammetkhan Chakiyev on October 30. The minister underlined the significance of the declaration on strategic partnership in the development of cooperation signed in 2017 between the two countries. Mustafayev went on to say that at present, Azerbaijani-Turkmen relations are developing in various directions and one of the most important areas of this cooperation are relations in the field of transport and transit traffic, further adding that both countries have great transport and transit potential, and in this area a favorable infrastructure has been created. The minister shared his views on the development of cooperation in this field, the exchange of information, the expansion of direct and long-term relations between transport and logistics structures and noted that the Azerbaijani-Turkmen route is safe and favorable, and other countries can also use it. Chakiyev, in turn, noted that cooperation between the two countries is developing and the meeting will also be significant in terms of expanding ties, in particular, in the field of transport and transit traffic. Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Turkmenistan also spoke about the possibilities of cooperation. Being at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan fruitfully cooperate, representing their mutual interest in various fields: politics, economy, humanitarian and social spheres, as well as within international organizations. Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan created a powerful industrial and agricultural base, modern transport infrastructure, and now it is necessary to launch large-scale projects of industrial cooperation, interaction in the service sector and the agricultural complex. Petrochemical, gas chemical and electric power industries as well as communications and telecommunications spheres were specified among the priority spheres for cooperation. Earlier, it was reported that Turkmenistan plans to join Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway. The trade turnover between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan amounted to $164.1 million in 2017. Exports from Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan amounted to $54.1 million, imports of Turkmen goods to Azerbaijan amounted to $110 million. Wilkinson slashed her victim's face because she believed her to be sleeping with her boyfriend A jealous blonde who slashed the face of a woman she wrongly suspected of sleeping with her boyfriend has been jailed for six years. Nicole Wilkinson, 39, who publicly boasted of being 'Your worst nightmare wrapped in a bow', ambushed Yvonne Gelder on her own doorstep in the belief the victim was having an illicit affair. Miss Gelder, 36, answered the door to Wilkinson only for the attacker to lunge at her with a knife traditionally used by sommeliers to open bottles of wine. Wilkinson left the victim with a long cut to the face and two stab wounds to the chest before being pulled away by neighbours. Miss Gelder fled for her life on a bicycle but collapsed further up the street. She later had to be treated in hospital for serious injuries including a collapsed lung and a zig-zag cut down her left breast. Wilkinson of Lancaster was arrested later on suspicion of attempted murder but claimed the victim had come at her with the blade. At Preston Crown Court, she admitted wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm after she initially denied wrongdoing. She made her boast of being 'your worst nightmare' on her Facebook status in which she added: 'If it wasn't for bull****, no-one in this town would have a conversation.' The 7pm incident occurred on August 17 this year after Wilkinson suspected her partner had been having a fling with Miss Gelder. Mr Frances McEntee prosecuting, said: 'The case has a background which is long-standing. The defendant believed Miss Gelder was having a relationship with her partner. 'The complainant says that she heard banging on the door and she knew it would be the defendant because of their past difficulties. 'She opened her front door and immediately saw the defendant with her hand clenched and she was holding what the defendant described as a Swiss-Army knife. 'The complainant said "what are you doing, you crazy b****?" and the defendant is then said to have lunged at her with the knife. The complainant felt a number of blows to the face and body. Wilkinson (pictured) was jailed at Preston Crown Court for unleashing the attack on the victim's doorstep 'She tried to defect the blows of the defendant and then they both fell to the ground. The complainant was then top of the defendant, who still had hold of the knife. 'The defendant was then dragged away from the complainant. On lookers said that the complainant was bleeding heavily at this point. The complainant went back into the house and then set off on her bicycle while still bleeding heavily. A delivery man saw her pass out on the floor. 'She was immediately taken to the hospital and she had sustained some serious injuries. She sustained a number of cuts. Down the left side of her face, there is a long superficial cut. The attacker admitted wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm at Preston Crown Court 'There's a puncture wound to her chest which has caused a zig-zag cut down the complainant's left breast. There is an injury to the underneath of her arm which is believed to have caused Pnuemothorax. 'This was a sustained assault with repeated blows delivered by a knife. It appears to be a Sommeliers knife, similar to a Swiss Army knife. 'When the defendant was arrested, her account was that the complainant had come at her with a knife. When the defendant was interviewed, she provided a statement which said that Yvonne Gelder came at her with a knife, but made no comment throughout. 'This is a high culpability offence because of the use of a knife and the puncture of the chest.' In mitigation defence lawyer Christopher Evans, said: 'There were various falling outs and she is remorseful with what happened - the remorse is complete, it's extensive and it's genuine. She had a difficult childhood, particularly in her teenage years.' But sentencing Judge Andrew Woolman told Wilkinsond: 'Make no mistake, this could have been a lot worse - the consequences could have been fatal. 'You have long-standing problems with the victim, maybe to do with your suspicions that she was having sexual relations with your partner. On August 17, you went to the complainant's house with what I suspect was the first sharp object you found, which was this Swiss Army Knife. 'You banged on the door and when she answered, you attacked her with it. She sustained injuries to her head and body and, fortunately, the slash on her face appeared to miss her eye. 'There were a number of other wounds; one to her chest and one to the side of her chest which has caused Pnuemothorax which could have been fatal. Initially, you tried to say that she attacked you, which wasn't true, but you did plead guilty on the second occasion. 'I have read your letter, which is thoughtful and articulate and I accept that you say you are remorseful.' A motorcyclist filmed the moment he was allegedly shot in the spine by an off-duty cop in a near-fatal road rage attack in Brazil. Detectives released footage of the incident yesterday after confirming they have charged a police officer with the attempted murder of Gabriel Rego. Doctors reported the bullet lodged in the spine of the 38-year-old and he is at risk of becoming a paraplegic. The micro-camera recording shows Mr Rego riding his bike late at night in Manaus, north Brazil. Scroll down for video The pair engage in a heated exchange of profanities in the middle of the road Manaus police released this photograph of the .38 calibre revolver which is undergoing ballistics testing after being seized As he reaches a crossroads, a silver car apparently fails to give way and narrowly avoids running into him. Turning left and riding on for a few metres, the biker angrily swears to himself about the driver's apparent error. He seems to become more riled up and decides to turn back to confront the motorist. Drawing level with the vehicle, which has stopped in the middle of the road, the motorcyclist appears to start the argument with the driver who has his window wound down. Both exchange profanities while repeatedly asking each other 'Do you know me?'. The moment the off-duty policeman's car is perceived to have not given way by Mr Rega Mr Rega initially motors on while clearly looking back at the silver car in frustration The biker has turned around and heads back towards the vehicle to have words with its driver Mr Rega lashes out with his foot at the driver's wing mirror before accelerating off Seconds later the shot rings out and Mr Rega slows on the motorbike before slumping to the road Mr Rega's head is pointed to the sky as he lies helpless in agony after the bullet struck him Suddenly the rider appears to kick and break the wing mirror on the car and tires to speed off. A split second later a single gunshot rings out and the biker films himself crashing to the ground and records his harrowing cries for help as he realises he has just been shot in his back. The camera registers the distressing moment he lies injured and flails around with one arm, unable to move while begging someone to call his brother. Witnesses rush to his aid with one local taking off his helmet while others try to calm him down, run to bring blankets to cover him and ring emergency services. 'I'm going to die,' cried the distraught victim as he falls to the ground. He is unable to feel any sensation in his legs and wails that he's paralysed. A bystander comes to his aid as he cries out, 'I'm going to die', before he was rushed to hospital Mr Rega poses for a selfie, he underwent emergency surgery to have the bullet removed at Joao Lucio Hospital, Manaus The seriously injured man was taken to Joao Lucio Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery to remove the bullet. Investigators used the recording of the confrontation, which happened on October 10, to get the registration number, make and model of the car. Armed with this information they soon identified and arrested the driver of the Astra. A .38 calibre revolver allegedly used in the crime was seized and sent to the Expertise Institute for Ballistic testing. The cop has not been named for security reasons. During his testimony, the accused claimed he acted in self-defence. Gabriel Rego, 38, poses next to his bike and his helmet can be seen on the seat with the camera attached Another weapon seized by Manaus police, although a different calibre to what they say caused Mr Rega's injuries Detective Pablo Giovani said: 'He alleged he felt threatened because the victim had shown him the handle of a pistol which worried him and he shot to defend himself.' However, the detective claimed the version given by the military police officer did not match the footage shot by the camera on the victim's crash helmet. 'His reasons do not appear to add up,' he said. 'It's possible to see in the film that the victim is holding the motorcycle handlebars with both hands throughout the exchange. We do not believe he took one hand off at any point to reach for the handle of a weapon.' The medical team caring for the patient said it is still early days to determine whether Mr Rego will regain full use of his legs. For now, they are working on trying to stimulate limited movement. Advertisement A London skyscraper has become the city's latest 'ghost tower' after the developer gave up selling its luxury flats via estate agents because offers were becoming 'detached from reality'. Apartments in Centre Point tower are up for sale from between 1.8million to 55million but property firm Almacantar said too many offers are coming in 'well below' the asking price. The company converted the 33-storey former office block, near Tottenham Court Road, into homes in 2015 in a 350million refit and have so far sold around half of the 82 apartments, which range from small one-bed flats to a 7,223 sq ft five-bedroom penthouse. It becomes the latest London tower to struggle to shift its living space, with 10 apartments worth up to 50million sitting empty at the top of The Shard since it was completed six years ago because offers have not been high enough. Meanwhile, Riverwalk in Westminster still has six percent of its apartments for sale from 1.25million upwards despite opening in 2016. As many as 500 more towers are in the pipeline for London despite thousands of high end flats still on the market, raising questions over the need for the behemoths. London's Centre Point tower, pictured, has sold only half of its luxury flats and property firm Almacantar said it was halting any future deals after receiving too many offers 'well below' the asking price Luxury apartments in the building, pictured, range from 1.8m to 55m and around half of the 82 flats have been sold, but Almacantar's chief executive Mike Hussey said recent offers were 'detached from reality' and said uncertainty around Brexit was affecting the market The tower, pictured, which is near Tottenham Court Road, was formerly an office block that was converted into homes in 2015. The apartments offer amazing views of the city Former City of London planner Peter Rees told the Daily Mail earlier this year he had pleaded for new towers in the City to be made as offices and not homes so 'at least they would be occupied during the day'. The development contains 744sq ft one-bedroom flats and 1,278sq ft two-bed properties and both come with combined kitchen and living rooms. Three-bedroom flats, which were on sale for 7.65million, are around 2,133 sq ft and come with separate kitchens and living rooms. The Duplex penthouse includes five bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms, a reception area, a kitchen, a study, and living and dining rooms with 16-foot-high ceilings. Almacantar said it is still building apartments at the tower, with only around 20 per cent currently completed, and will continue to sell the properties via its internal team. Owners can take advantage of an exclusive bar in the building, a spa with a 30m swimming pool, a remote-controlled environment that allows the resident to check lighting, heating, ventilation and security cameras while out and about and a specially designed app to enable them to contact a concierge whenever necessary. Centre Point: At a glance Built: 1966 Height: 383ft (33 storeys) No. of flats: 82 Worth: Bought for around 120m by Almacantar in 2011 Flat sizes: 744sq ft one-beds, 1,278sq ft two-beds, 2,133 sq ft three-beds and a 7,233 sq ft penthouse with a separate study, living and dining rooms, kitchen and reception area Prices: One-bed flat: 1.8m, two-bed flat: 3m, three-bed flat: 7.65m, penthouse: 55m Amenities: Private club; spa with 30m swimming pool; remote control heating, lighting, ventilation and security cameras; specially-designed app to contact concierge Advertisement Mike Hussey, chief executive of Almacantar,said lack of sales was down to uncertainty over Brexit and the prospect of tax increases on foreign investors. He said: 'We can confirm that the Board have considered the wider macro political position and concluded that whilst there is significant interest from buyers in the residences, offers are now reflecting uncertainty on potential changes to stamp duty; taxation of overseas investors; and other fiscal policy proposals. 'Having sold 50 per cent of the apartments, cleared the construction debt and fully leased the retail component, we see no point in chasing a market that is increasingly detached from reality. 'We have already achieved our asking prices and when buyers feel more confident about the wider macro situation, they will also feel more confident about paying these prices again.' The company has now halted formal sales because it has paid off its construction debts through the previous apartment sales and has also leased retail space at the bottom of the tower. But Gary Hersham, managing director and founder of Mayfair-based Beauchamp Estates, which markets luxury properties in areas including London, New York and Monaco, said Centre Point was an exception to the rule in a strong housing market in the UK capital. He said: 'Centre Point is on the corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. That is not prime location. 'It's all to do with location. We just sold properties for 40million, 31million, a penthouse for 55million, we sold one in Mayfair for 28million. 'People might not necessarily live in them all year round, but I don't think there's a problem with the luxury housing market here.' He added: 'Most of them are houses. Some of the bigger families want their own space and they don't want to share but some do want to live in very, very modern buildings like towers.' Urban spaces and planning expert Professor Rowland Atkinson, of the University of Sheffield, found in research on the London property market that 89 per cent of new builds in London between 2014 and 2016 were apartments, of which 13 per cent, or one-in-six, were sold to overseas buyers. Meanwhile he found 39 of homes worth 1m to 5m are underused, rising to 64 per cent of homes worth more than 5m. Of the homes owned by foreign investors, 42% are empty. Writing for theconversation.com, he said: 'In a time of austerity, many local authorities appear to be seeking to reduce the cost and presence of low-income housing. In this context, expanding the role of private sector development may seem appealing. 'But it's increasingly clear that allowing markets and profit motives to trump social concerns could lead to growing anger, given the failure to address the housing needs of low and moderate income groups.' Almacantar bought Centre Point in 2011 for an undisclosed sum, reported to be around 120million. The firm was set up by Mr Hussey and co-founder Neil Jones in 2010 and owns luxury developments in Marble Arch, St John's Wood and has more under construction on the Southbank. Shares are split between owners including Exor, the development wing of the billionaire Agnelli family, which runs Fiat and has a controlling stake in Juventus Football Club. Centre point, pictured left shortly after it was completed in 1966 and right in 1970, risks becoming another of London's 'ghost towers' Almacantar also said the potential of tax increases on foreign buyers was also putting off interest in the flats, pictured According to New London Architecture, the only body keeping a record on London's burgeoning towerscape, there are planned to be 511 more towers of 20 storeys or more added to the London horizon. At the turn of the century, there were 30 while two years ago, 115 were planned or under construction. Around half of London's near 2,000 new luxury flats failed to sell last year despite having amenities including private gyms, cinemas and swimming pools. Many that do sell are bought by foreign owners who do not live in them most of the year. And according to the 2011 census, there were more bedrooms in London than people, a surplus that is accelerating. Property data firm Molior said only 900 of 1,900 luxury new build flats priced at more than 1,500 per sq ft sold last year, with another 14,000 on the market priced between 1,000 and 1,500 per sq ft. The company said it would take three years to sell all the remaining properties at the current rate of trade without the introduction of more new builds into the market. Other 'ghost towers' in London include the Shard, left, where 10 apartments worth up to 50million have been empty since it was built six years ago. Meanwhile, The Riverwalk in Westminster (right) was finished in 2016 but still has six per cent of its apartments up for sale Centre Point has struggled to sell space before when it was an office block, and stood empty for around a decade after it was completed in 1966, becoming known as the city's 'empty tower'. It even inspired the CentrePoint homeless charity name after campaigners occupied the tower over a weekend in 1974 to highlight the issue. Two men gained entry pretending to be security guards, before throwing the doors open to another 100 protesters. Critics have again hit out at the number of empty homes in London while thousands of families live in temporary accommodation. Referring to the 1974 demonstration at Centre Point, Chris Bailey of Action on Empty Homes said: 'Now it's happening all over again Centre Point's redevelopers have taken fright at Brexit jitters and decided many of its luxury apartments must remain empty again.' It is estimated around 60 per cent of the luxury flats in London go to foreign buyers, but the prospect of a wealth tax should Labour come to power that would introduce a 50p rate for those earning more than 123,000 per year is putting outside buyers off. Rules around towers in London have been relaxed over the years, including regulations that stated there could be no high rises around royal parks or that they had to be 'clustered' together. One bizarre rule that does remain is that towers cannot get in the way of selected views of St Paul's Cathedral, including from Hampstead, the Thames or Richmond Park. Boris Johnson favoured towers so much that in 2014 he went to Malaysia and tried to promote the gigantic Battersea power station development as an 'inward investment'. One of the apartments inside Riverwalk in Westminster, where the remaining units available to buy start at 1.25million Centre Point was described by the owners as one of London's 'great works of modern architecture' but it was previously occupied by campaigners for the homeless in 1974 when it was still an empty office block to highlight the problem. Activists are again criticising the tower for the same reasons more than 40 years on But fears grow these towers will remain empty for years to come, particularly given the lack of activity at The Shard - of which 95 per cent is owned by the billionaire Qatari Royal Family who are under little pressure to sell. Meanwhile Riverwalk is part of the portfolio of property firm Ronson Capital Partners, founded by property billionaire Gerald Ronson. Almacantar had been marketing the properties with estate agents Knight Frank and CBRE. The firm advertised the building as 'one of the great works of modern architecture capturing the adventurous spirit of London'. Mr Hussey added he expected buyers to return after a Brexit deal was agreed and there was more 'confidence' in the market. The playboy ex-con on trial for murder refused to look at horrific images showing the charred corpse of his alleged victim in court. James Rackover, 27, is accused of stabbing Joey Comunale to death after an argument at his ritzy apartment on New York's Upper East Side before burning and dumping his body in November 2016. The 26-year-old's body was found in a shallow grave in Oceanport, New Jersey, after his father reported him missing when he didn't come home to Stamford, Connecticut, after his trip to the city. Rackover - an ex-con who is the 'surrogate son' of celebrity jeweler Jeffrey Rackover covered his face with a white handkerchief to avoid looking at autopsy photographs of Comunale's body in court on Tuesday, the New York Post reports. James Rackover (right, in court last year) refused to look at horrific images showing the charred corpse of his alleged victim in court Rackover (left) is accused of stabbing Joey Comunale (right) to death after an argument at his ritzy apartment on New York's Upper East Side Assistant Medical Examiner Alex Zhang was describing the injuries Comunale sustained using the images as a visual aide for jurors. One that was flashed up on screen showed Comunale's severely charred body his eyebrows singed and skin mottled lying on a table in the medical examiner's office. Jurors expressed shock at the images, some glancing at Rackover who hid his face with the handkerchief or scribbled notes in a bid to avoid the screen, according to the Post. They were so gruesome that Comunale's father, who has attended every day of the trial so far, left the room. Prosecutors allege Rackover and his friend Lawrence Dilione (left), of Jersey City, tried to dismember Comunale before dumping his body. Dilione will be tried separately Zhang said Comunale had sustained at least 14 stab wounds that cut through several major arteries as well as a collapsed lung. Prosecutors also flashed up an image showing a five-inch wound on Comunale's upper right arm. They allege Rackover and his friend Lawrence Dilione, of Jersey City, tried to sever the limb after killing Comunale. Dilione will be tried separately. The pair allegedly got into a fight with Comunale over cigarettes during an alcohol and drug-fueled party at Rackover's apartment on East 59th Street. The 26-year-old's (pictured) body was found in a shallow grave in Oceanport, New Jersey, after his father reported him missing when he didn't come home Jurors heard they ordered $78.82 of food from Bareburger on Seamless - including buffalo chicken bites and a beef burger, cooked medium rare, according to an invoice read out in court. At the time, Comunales body was allegedly in the bathtub. Prosecutors say they later wrapped his body in blankets and drove to Oceanport, where they doused Comunale in gasoline and set him on fire before burying his remains. Tuesday's evidence ended with a recorded call Rackover made to a woman from jail. 'They're going to be like, yo, this kid just f****** beat this sh** like Rocky and he's home,' Rackover said during the call, the Post reports. On Monday, Louis Ruggiero (pictured) testified that Rackover told him he killed a man in his apartment the day after it occurred On Monday, Louis Ruggiero testified that Rackover told him he killed a man in his apartment the day after it occurred. 'I slit his throat and I stabbed him and we wrapped the body up in a comforter and threw it out the window so the cameras wouldn't see,' Ruggiero recalled Rackover saying. Ruggiero, the son of Fox 5 'Good Day NY' host Rosanna Scotto, testified that Rackover made the admission inside an Equinox gym locker room. Rackover is charged of second-degree murder, hindering prosecution, tampering with evidence and concealing a human corpse. The trial continues. A teenager set off a bomb at the entrance of a Russian federal security service building, injuring three security officials and killing himself, authorities said. The man entered the local branch of the FSB intelligence agency in Akhangelsk, northern Russia, and removed the improvised explosive device from a bag, causing it to detonate, the National Anti-Terrorist Committee said. The explosion killed the man and injured three FSB officers. It was not immediately clear if the teen had meant to just leave the bomb or had also intended to die. Russian investigators later identified the attacker as a local 17-year-old man and said they are treating the attack as an act of terrorism. Caught on camera: This footage reportedly shows Mikhail Zhlobitskiy aka Valeryan Panov as he entered the FSB building before the blast Pictures show damage from the blast in the large FSB building. Blood is seen on the walls The FSB and other security have been targeted in the past in another region, the North Caucasus, mostly by Islamist insurgents. An 'anarchist' named Valeryan Panov claimed responsibility for the attack in a web posting, but FSB were checking various theories as to the perpetrator. The man claimed in a message ahead of the blast that the FSB 'fabricates cases and tortures people'. He warned: 'A terrorist attack will now be conducted in the building of the FSB in Arkhangelsk that I am taking responsibility for.' He wrote: 'Most likely I will die because of the explosion because explosive device will go off with me pushing the button installed on top of the bomb.' Panevs real name is believed to be Mikhail Zhlobitskiy, and images show a man believed to be him entering the FSB building minutes before the explosion. Suspect: A document belonging to Mikhail Zhlobitskiy, which was reportedly found at the scene of the bombing on Wednesday morning The explosive device went off at the entrance of the FSB building on Wednesday morning, an FSB spokesperson confirmed Regional governor Igor Orlov said: 'An unidentified explosive device went off. 'Three people have been taken to hospital. 'One person has died, his identity is being established. The crime happened inside the building.' Two FSB staff were wounded - a 32 year old man with explosive wounds to his face and arms is in intensive care, and a woman was being checked by doctors. A source said: 'A man walked into the FSB building, pulled something out of his bag and some minutes later this exploded in his hands. 'He received fatal wounds. Three FSB staff were injuired.' An eyewitness called Maria said: 'One man was taken out on stretches, his head was covered in blood. It all looked and felt really scary.' One person was killed and three injured when an explosive device went off Wednesday inside a building housing the FSB security service in Arkhangelsk in northern Russia, an official said Local reports said there was a 'loud clap' and a 'flash' at the entrance to the former KGB security service. A report by Mash Telegram news outlet said: 'The first information is that the explosive detonated between the first and second doors right next to metal detector.' The FSB building was immediately evacuated. The FSB was formerly headed by Vladimir Putin. Arkhangelsk, also known as Archangel, is a strategically important sub-Arctic port and naval base on the White Sea in northern Russia. A Masters student battling depression was found hanged at her university halls after she feared taking anti-depressant tablets would be seen as 'the ultimate shame' for her family, an inquest heard. Xinyu Wang, 23, believed mental illness would be regarded as 'culturally inappropriate' in her native China and hid her illness from her parents while refusing medication. Last January, Miss Wang, an accountancy student at Lancaster University was admitted to hospital after she cut her wrists in a suicide attempt in her college accommodation. But due to her own wishes and confidentially and privacy laws, her parents who live in Shanghai were not made aware. She later told healthcare professionals that she did not need help and 'did not understand why they were bothered about her'. Last March, 22 two months after the suicide attempt, Miss Wang was found hanged after staff became alarmed when she missed several of her lectures and security guards forced entry into her bedroom room. It emerged she was her parents' only child under Chinese population control 'one-child' policies introduced in 1979. It is thought Miss Wang enrolled at the university in 2017 and was studying accounting and financial management. Psychiatrist Dr Charlotte Busby told the Lancaster inquest: 'She had negative thoughts and said she did not want to be here. We looked at therapeutic work and we talked about different types of antidepressants and how they work. Xinyu Wang, a Masters student battling depression hanged herself at her university halls. She was her parents' only child 'She did not have an insight into what mental illness was, she did not believe in depression and mental illness and believed it was not culturally appropriate to be depressed. She would have seen going to hospital or using medication to be the ultimate shame for her and her family. 'The intent was there with the suicidal attempt but I think she changed her mind last minute because of the people around her. We talked about seeing psychologists but although she was cooperative she did not really engage on a psychological level. 'We tried to help her understand what we we meant when we say depression. But she just did not want to know and did not want to know this was a mental health problem - she was just jumping through hoops because she had to really.' Mental health nurse Helen Black said: 'We would see her everyday at university on campus. Sometimes staff would go for a walk with her and we would meet up somewhere. We wanted to monitor her because we were worried for her. We wanted her to understand that there was help available and explained how medication could benefit her. She said she was very sensitive to medication. 'She was very polite and she thought it was nice that people were bothered about her - but she didn't understand why people were bothered about her. She found it hard to understand why people would care about her. 'In the end she asked us not to come and see her anymore. She was really worried about being thrown out of university, she did not want to get sent back home. 'The impression she was that she wanted to complete her course but also the impression she did not really want to be doing that course, she wanted other things for her life. She thought she was doing badly but she was reassured by the university that she was actually doing well. She thought she was bottom of the class and not doing well. 'When she did she not want to see me or the team anymore, she agreed to see the university counsellor on a monthly basis. 'She consistently said that she would not try and harm herself again because a lot of fuss was made about it. She was really keen that her family did not know some of the things she was telling us. We did encourage her to speak to her mother who she seemed to have some bond with. The family dynamics were quite complicated and she talked a lot about family issues and how she was feeling.' Hilary Simmons, Head of Colleges and Student Life at Lancaster University said: 'We had consideration about talking to parents and in some cases we would have to break confidentiality and make the decision. In this case, staff from mental health and counselling were involved in assessing whether we should be doing that. 'We got messages back that she was engaging with the home treatment team, at least on some level and she really did not want her family to be told - although we did encourage her to. Miss Wang was a student at Lancaster University when she struggled with her mental health but she refused to take medication 'My understanding was that she would not tell her family because of the shame around what had happened. Her counsellor continued to meet with her and actually we thought she was doing better, she was getting more involved with friends. She mentioned that she'd been to a Chinese students association dinner, she was talking about assignments she had to do, her counsellor really thought that she had made progress. 'She had just moved accommodation at the point from one flat where the January incident had happened. We felt that had given her a new start but perhaps looking back on it it was a new group of students who did not know her.' Dennis Zuo, who attended the inquest on behalf of Miss Wang's family, said: 'The parents feel like they should have known what happened. In China, families can only have one child, like this family. 'Her father can hardly deal with this and this has completely broken this family. Her parents still want to know why they did not know until her death.' Recording a conclusion of suicide, coroner Richard Taylor said: 'Miss Wang was a troubled young lady and the authorities became aware of her difficulties. 'As a parent, I find this difficult to understand but the authorities were encouraged also by the fact she seemed to be getting better. The university have a responsibility towards each and every one of their students. The university kept an eye on her, watched her, encouraged her and talked her. 'The university encouraged her to contact family and the decision was discussed, the decision was made that her wishes should be listened to. As a parent, we all agree that if it was our child, of course we want to know, but the responsibility of that was really put on her, whether right or wrong that was made. 'She said she wanted to end her life - but in the future, not now. Maybe doctors hoped she would grow older and gain more insight into the problem.' For confidential support in the UK, call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch. See samaritans.org for details. LIFELINE: 13 11 14 www.lifeline.org.au. Suicide Call Back Service: 1300 659 467 If you or anyone you know needs to talk, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) George Osborne last night said David Cameron's government fuelled Brexit by imposing immigration targets it never hit and lobbing constant jibes at the EU. The former Chancellor also warned Theresa May not to try to 'out Corbyn Corbyn' after the Treasury announced an end to austerity in the Budget. Mr Osborne vigorously defended his policy of austerity while in No11 - insisting that Britain had to tighten its belt in the wake of the financial meltdown. But while he defended his economic policies, he admitted his government got many things wrong which in the end led to the vote to the leave the Brussels bloc. Mr Osborne and Mr Cameron both spearheaded the campaign against Brexit, and both quit politics in the wake of losing the historic vote. Speaking on BBC's Newsnight last night, he said their decision to announce a policy of trying to get net immigration down to the tens of thousands fuelled Brexit. Scroll down for video George Osborne (pictured on BBC's Newsnight last night) said David Cameron's government fuelled Brexit by imposing immigration targets it never hit and lobbing constant jibes at the EU. The former Chancellor also warned Theresa May not to try to 'out Corbyn Corbyn' after the Treasury announced an end to austerity in the Budget. The target - announced by the Tories in 2010 but never hit - is a policy Mrs May has stuck with. Spelling out his regrets, he said: 'I think we did get things wrong. First of all, we didn't spot the shift in politics. What was announced in Philip Hammond's Budget? Here are some of the spending pledges announced in Philip Hammond's 2018 Budget: Health: An extra 25billion-a -year will be pumped into the NHS by 2023. It includes a 2bn a year mental health fund to pay for every A&E and school to get a mental health unit. Brexit: An extra 500million will be pumped into planning for a no deal Brexit - rising the total from 1.5bn to 2bn. Mr Hammond also said the Spring Statement next year could be turned into a full Budget if there is a no deal Brexit. Broadband: A 250million fund to install super-fast broadband across Britain's countryside Business: Business rates will be cut by nearly a third for half a million small retailers ans ministers try to save Britain's high streets. Transport: England's roads will get an extra 28.8billion, while a pothole fund of 420 million will be set up and fuel duty will be frozen for the ninth year in a row. PFI The Chancellor announced that PFI will be scrapped as he puts an end to Labour 's legacy Schools: The Treasury is giving a one off 400m payment to schools to help them buy equipment. This amounts to 10,000 for every primary and 50,000 for every secondary. Defence: The MoD will get an extra 1bn to help Britain's Armed Forces following dire warnings over a 20bn blackhole in their finances over the next decade. The Environment: Britain will splash out 60million on planting 10 million trees across England. Tax: The self-employed will have to pay national insurance contributions for the first time. The tax raid will prove unpopular with white van men, but could bring in 1.2bn year by 2023. Cutting red tape: Weddings will be allowed to take place in pubs, hotels and restaurants as Philip Hammond slashes red rape. Advertisement 'There are things we could have done to fix the banking system more quickly than we did. 'I think we were wrong to play into the debate that everything that Brussels did was a challenge and a battle and was wrong. 'We were too late in the day trying to explain some of the benefits of European Union membership.' He added: 'On immigration, we were promising targets that we couldn't deliver, and that then led to a debate about how you might deliver those targets not that I see any evidence that they're going to be delivered in the future but, you know, we definitely contributed to that argument. 'We didn't make enough of the value of immigration.' He said the focus on immigration allowed the Brexit campaign to get a head of steam and popular support among the country. Mr Osborne, who became editor of the Evening Standard after leaving politics, was grilled about his time in office and legacy of austerity. It came after this successor as Chancellor, Philip Hammond, announced on Monday that he was finally ending austerity after eight years and turning the spending taps on. Billions of pounds will be pumped into the NHS, social care, mental health and defence, while the troubled Universal Credit benefits reforms will be bailed out with another 1billion of 'transitional' protections and 1.7billion in improved work allowances - effectively reversing cuts previously imposed by George Osborne. Increases to tax thresholds will be raised faster than previously promised - saving around 32 million workers up to 860 a year each. Mr Hammond said the giveaways were possible due to the 'tough decisions' the government had made over the past eight years - which had brought better growth forecasts and lower borrowing. 'Their hard work is finally paying off and the era of austerity is finally coming to an end,' he insisted. Mr Osborne said this week's Budget was a 'natural end point to the repair job on the public finances'. But he warned the Tories will only get a majority if they stick to prudent spending, and he blasted Mrs May for waging an election campaign which tried to 'out Ukip Ukip'. He said: 'The conservatism that I think works is socially progressive and fiscally conservative. 'We lost in the election that I wasnt involved in, in 2017, because we tried to out-Ukip Ukip. We aint going to win the next election by trying to out-Corbyn Corbyn.' The number of flea-born Typhus cases in Los Angeles has hit 107. So far this year 72 patients have been recorded by Los Angeles County Department of Public Health with a further 15 in Long Beach and 20 in Pasadena. In the 2000s there were around 20 cases recorded per year and analysts are putting the dramatic rise down to a 47 per cent increase in homelessness since 2012. One official in Long Beach told NBC News that almost half a million potential cases are 'under investigation.' Pasedena and Long Beach have separate health boards to LA which is why cases are counted separately In the 2000s there were around 20 cases recorded per year and analysts are putting the dramatic rise down to a 47 per cent increase in homelessness since 2012 (stock image) At the start of this month, Pasadena, a city in the north of the county and home to around 135,000 people, reported epidemic levels of typhus fever. But no new cases have been reported there since October 5. Flea-borne typhus occurs when faeces from an infected insect come into contact with a person's cut or gets rubbed into their eyes. These fleas often live on feral cats and rats who are attracted to areas with trash on the streets. Most sufferers endure headache, fever and rash, however, in severe cases, typhus can lead to life-threatening hepatitis and internal bleeding. WHAT IS TYPHUS? Typhus is a bacterial disease that causes fever, headache, rash, muscle ache, and fever and chills. In severe cases, patients can require hospitalisation due to hepatitis or internal bleeding. It is caused by the bacteria Rickettsia typhi and possibly Rickettsia felis, which are carried by fleas, lice, mites or ticks. The pests live on animals, particularly feral and stray cats, rats and opossums, but do not make their host animals unwell. Flea-borne typhus is endemic in parts of LA and Orange County. The disease also often occurs in Texas and Hawaii. Around 200 cases occur every year throughout the US, particularly in coastal regions. Bacteria spread when faeces from an infected insect contaminate a person's cut or graze while the insect is sucking their blood. If the person scratches the bite area, the bacteria from the faeces can enter their bloodstream. Bacteria can also be rubbed into a person's eyes, or, in rare cases, inhaled. Symptoms then appear six-to-14 days later. Typhus can be treated via antibiotics, with most people recovering within a few days. Between two and four per cent of people who do not receive treatment die worldwide. Typhus can be prevented by avoiding contact with fleas, mites, ticks and lice via: Discouraging wild animals around the home Keeping rubbish covered Using flea control on pets Advertisement Dr Ying-Ying Goh, Pasadena's health officer, said: 'Typhus fever is a disease that can cause serious complications requiring lengthy hospitalization, and rarely, death.' She encouraged all residents in the city to take precautions in order to prevent fleas in and around their homes, CNN reports. Dr Anne Rimoin, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of California, told CNN: 'Right now, it's hard to speculate on why we are seeing more cases. 'There is an ongoing investigation by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health that seeks to answer this question.' Earlier this month it was reported that a dozen cases of the disease appeared in a residential neighbourhood of LA. All of the sufferers lived or worked in the immediate area, with some being homeless. The infection usually takes two weeks to cause symptoms. Typhus usually affects around 200 people across the US every year, according to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH). Health officials were alerted to the outbreak when a cluster of nine cases occurred in downtown LA between July and August. The infection is endemic in parts of LA and Orange County, Southern California. Fleas carrying the infection can live on cats, rats or opossums, however, the animals themselves do not suffer symptoms. Typhus often spreads in areas where there is an accumulation of trash that attracts wild animals. The infection cannot be transmitted from person-to-person and is treatable with antibiotics. There is no vaccine in the US. Up to four per cent of people worldwide who are untreated die, the CDPH claims. To prevent infection, LA's public health department recommends residents use flea control on pets, tuck their pants into their socks or boots when outside and avoid wild or stray animals. Texas experienced a flea-borne typhus outbreak around this time last year. More than 400 cases occurred from the start of 2017 to the end of November - the highest number for 16 years. This is the hilarious moment a young girl thought her tongue fell out when a gauze pad dropped from her mouth. The youngster, who was a little disorientated after having her wisdom teeth removed, panicked and started to cry when she mistook the bloodied dressing for her tongue. She started screaming 'my tongue fell out' while rummaging about in her mouth with her fingers trying to check if it was still there. A young girl thought her tongue fell out when a gauze pad dropped from her mouth - much to the amusement of her family The youngster, from somewhere in the US, was a little disorientated after having her wisdom teeth removed Her family couldn't help but laugh as the girl started to panic in garbled English with her mouth still numb from the injection of anaesthetic. In the footage, filmed somewhere in the US, the girl can be seen inspecting her mouth in her phone camera while sitting in the backseat of a car. But as she sticks her tongue out - to try and see the holes where her wisdom teeth used to be - one of the gauze pads falls from her mouth. Because it was red and soaked in blood, the young girl mistakes it for her tongue and starts to panic. The girl inspects her mouth in her phone camera (left). After panicking, her family hand her a new gauze pad and reassure her that her tongue is still firmly in her mouth She starts weeping and poking inside her mouth with her fingers, but because her mouth is still numb she can't feel a thing. Her family try to reassure her that her tongue is still intact but the dazed youngster doesn't believe them. Eventually one of the family members hands her a new bandage and the girl places it in her mouth and drifts off to sleep. Panic over! The dazed girl contently drifts off to sleep after realising her tongue was still intact Wisdom teeth grow at the back of your jaw and are usually the last set to come through, often arriving when people are in their late teens or early twenties. Due to their late arrival there is not a lot of space for the teeth to develop which means they grow at an angle or only partially emerge - causing pain or discomfort. To relieve pain during surgery patients can choose from intravenous sedation from a drip or injections of local anaesthetic. Horrific footage shows the shocking moment a father is held in a choke-hold in front of his three-year-old daughter by a masked gang so they could steal his 80,000 Audi. The four thugs are seen hanging around the address in Cheadle Hulme, Manchester, before one of them kicks in the front door and the others burst in. Ali Gill is seen desperately trying to fight off the raiders in front of his horrified family. At one point during the struggle one of the raiders loses his mask and his face is clearly seen on camera. Despite bravely trying to fend-off the thieves, Mr Gill is overwhelmed and they are able to steal his luxury Audi RS. The raiders also stole Louis Vuitton handbags and wallets from the family. The footage was uploaded to Facebook by Mr Gill's wife, Zoara in an effort to try and track down the thieves. She wrote: 'URGENT Please Share. 'Last night Monday 29th October 2018 at 6.45pm in the Cheadle Hulme area..we were broken into by 4 masked men while we were home including our 3 year old daughter. 'They violently attacked my husband and had him in a choke hold. 'As you can see they stole an Nado Grey Audi RS6, LV handbags wallets!! 'Let's circulate this and get them caught ASAP! 'One of them loses his balaclava and we have a good shot of his face...!! Police and forensics are also on the case!' The post was met with a flood of supportive responses from Zoara's friends. Carra Hart said: 'Oh my god Zoara. Im so sorry. What a hero Ali is for standing up to them and not giving in right up until the end. So awful to watch. I hope you are all ok xx' The four thugs are seen hanging around the address in Cheadle Hulme, Manchester The thugs then kick in Ali Gill's door before dragging him outside and one of them holds him in a choke-hold Mr Gill desperately tries to fight off the raiders as his family watches in horror Mr Gill's Audi is then stolen by one of the group as he is still be held down by the others Greater Manchester Police have now recovered the Audi and are appealing for information about the incident. A police spokesman said: 'A black Audi RS6 which has now been recovered was taken from the address and a man in his 40s went to hospital with minor injuries. 'Enquiries are ongoing and anyone with information should contact police on 101 quoting reference number 1594 of 29/10/18 or the independent charity Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.' By Trend Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry is studying the issue of the illegal visit of Belgian MPs to Azerbaijans occupied territories, the ministry told Trend Oct. 31. After that, a decision will be made to include their names in the list of undesirable persons due to the illegal visit, the ministry said. On Oct. 30, Jean-Jacques Flahaux, a member of the Belgian Federal Parliament, chairman of the Reformist Movement for international relations, and his deputy made an illegal visit to the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia. 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. The devastated community of a 24-year-old pharmacy worker murdered on a secluded beach say they are struggling to accept the girl they all loved is gone. Toyah Cordingley was killed in broad daylight on a beach in far north Queensland on October 21 while she was taking her dog for an afternoon walk. Her body was found the next day by her father. The young woman's distraught family and friends are now pleading for her killer to come forward. Scroll down for video Ms Cordingley was remembered as 'the purest soul', whose happy personality 'lit up every room' Flowers have been laid by grieving friends and family at the beach (pictured) Family friend Prong Trimble told the Nine Network's A Current Affair everyone in the beachside community knew Toyah as 'one of a kind'. 'Everyone knew her because she was so friendly, so bright and beautiful,' he says. But while the distraught community reels from the tragedy, Mr Trimble says some anger is starting to brew. 'There's anger there. The way we figure it is that shouldn't happen in our own backyard.' The 24-year-old's family are struggling to come to terms with her passing, Mr Trimble said. During a recent visit to their home, Mr Trimble said he felt like he was 'walking into hell'. Toyah Cordingley, 24, was found murdered on Wangetti Beach, north of Cairns, on Monday morning after she disappeared while walking her boyfriend's dog in the area on Sunday afternoon Ms Cordingley's killer is still on the run, and residents are being DNA tested as police widen their search Earlier in the week, her devastated family begged the public to help catch Toyah's killer. Rachelle Foss, the cousin of Toyah Cordingley, shared a photograph of the young woman surrounded by sunflowers, alongside a post remembering her 'pure, free spirited and kind' family member. 'This photo is how I will always remember you. You radiated sunshine wherever you went and lit up every room,' Ms Foss wrote. 'If I could just hold you one last time and tell you how much I love you. My heart is broken into a million pieces. How could anyone ever want to hurt you. 'You were the purest soul, free spirited and kind.' Police have spent days combing the far north Queensland beach (pictured) and surrounding areas for any clues as to who took Ms Cordingley's life The 24-year-old was found in a sand dune area (pictured), between the foreshore and the point where bushland began Ms Foss said she and Ms Cordingley, who was found dead on Wangetti Beach, about 40km north of Cairns, had grown up together and the pair shared a bond like sisterhood. 'We spent most of our childhood exploring, building forts and performing crazy dances for our families. We spent so much time together, pretty much living at each other's houses and I've always thought of you as my sister,' she wrote. 'I'm so sorry that someone took you from this world, so young and having so much to give. You were always an inspiration to me with how selfless you were and the amazing volunteer work you did. 'I'm so glad the last time I saw you we were dancing the night away and sitting on your kitchen floor eating vegan sausage rolls and reminiscing about when we were kids and how much your dad scared [a friend] pretending to be Voldemort in your cubby house.' Ms Cordingley was a fierce animal lover and beloved member of her beachside community. She disappeared on Sunday afternoon, after driving to Wangetti Beach to walk her boyfriend's dog, Jersey, and was reported missing that night. On Monday morning, her body was found, with 'violent and visible' injuries, and police told reporters on Monday they believed the crime was 'sexually motivated'. The dog was found nearby, unharmed. Police and search workers have flown in from across the state to help, with SES volunteers helping to comb the sand area and the bush (pictured) Another cousin, Neika Sparkes, said Ms Cordingley's sudden and brutal death had left her 'shocked and horrified'. 'I will always remember you as a bright, bubbly smiley girl with the heart of gold,' she wrote, alongside a picture of the cousins as children. 'I will keep our childhood memories close, as each Christmas we would reunite was filled with so much joy. 'To your mum, dad, brother and sister.. I am so so sorry. Rest in peace beautiful soul.' Cairns is about 40km north of Cairns, and is considered to be a fairly quiet area. Locals revealed her body had been found in a reception black spot, which is frequented by 'odd bods' and vagrants Despite the huge police response, no person of interest has been named and it is not believed any arrests have been made Locals told the Courier Mail the sand dune area where she was found, about 800m from the southern entrance of the beach, where she had parked her car, was a hot spot for 'odd bods' and vagrants. The area is also known as a reception black spot, and police have spent days combing the beach looking for Ms Cordingley's personal items, especially her phone, to try and piece together what had happened. Police have also combed the area for suspects, and have taken DNA swabs from residents and illegal campers. 'DNA testing and swabbing of people by consent in the local area was routine in serious investigations,' a police spokesperson told the paper. 'If you've got nothing to hide, most people are fine,' he said. Police are continuing to comb the area for clues and 'missing personal items', including her phone, and have taken DNA swabs from residents and illegal campers Authorities have also brought in technical equipment to help with the search The search is part of a full-scale homicide investigation that has seen police from all over the state come in to help comb the sand, the water, and speak with residents. One man told the Courier Mail he and a group of 15 friends had been at the northern end of the beach with other families the afternoon Ms Cordingley disappeared. They were driving back to Cairns near the southern car park, where Ms Cordingley's car was found, when they were waved down by two scruffily dressed men 'in a highly agitated state' on the side of the highway in a white 4WD ute with a flat tyre. 'We stopped to help, and they were in a really stressed state,' he told the publication. 'It might be nothing, but they were really strange, and in a real panic to get out of there.' On Wednesday, the two 'agitated' men were cleared of any wrongdoing by police, saying their story 'checks out'. Ms Cordingley, 24, had been walking her boyfriend's dog when she disappeared on Sunday Mr Heidenreich (right) is believed to have been dating Ms Cordingley (left) for nearly three years. The pair share a deep love of animals Friends of Ms Cordingley are sharing fond memories of the animal advocate to social media. 'I'll never forget all the great times we spent together. My heart is broken beyond words,' friend Mark Righton said. 'You brought me out of my shell and taught me that quirky and different was not a bad thing.' A woman travelling on a domestic plane in China had refused to take her bare feet off the tray table despite repeated requests from flight attendants. The woman and another female passenger were travelling on a China Southern Airlines flight from Nanning to Harbin on Sunday when they decided to rest their feet on the tables, to the disgust of their fellow passengers. A man who filmed the incident said they argued with other travellers and the cabin crew, claiming that they could not put their legs down because they 'had injured their feet during ballet practice'. A woman travelling on a China Southern Airlines flight from Nanning to Harbin on Sunday had refused to take her bare feet off the tray table despite repeated requests from flight attendants Net user Haidelan_BH posted a video showing the woman sitting next to the aisle sleeping while resting her bare feet on the table, while the woman in the middle seat was seen putting up her socked feet as well. 'After the people in front of the two aunties complained, they had the audacity to put their feet on their armrests!' the man said in his Weibo post on Monday. He added that flight attendants had tried to offer them to different seats but they refused, saying they could not move and must put their feet up as they had injured themselves during ballet practice. 'They even accused other passengers of lacking empathy and compassion!' he said, while other passengers continued to get whiffs of their stinky feet. 'The plane is a public place, you can't do whatever you want and cause suffering to other people,' the man added. The women claimed they could not put their legs down because they 'had injured their feet during ballet practice', ignoring the complaints of other passengers The witness said that flight attendants had tried to offer them to different seats but they refused, saying they could not move and must put their feet up as they had injured themselves China Southern Airlines told Beijing Youth Daily that the company is investigating the incident. The video of the incident went viral on Weibo, where net users slammed the 'uncivilised' women. 'I feel so embarrassed for the two women!' Zhangyian said. 'I can smell their stinky feet through the screen!' Yunshangmulan said. 'They should be blacklisted from flying!' Liyaling said. 'The table is for placing food and drinks, not your feet!' There were calls for the two women to be punished by lowering their scores on the social credit system. The nationwide credit system, implemented in 2014, keeps a running score based on Chinese people's day to day behaviour. Those with poor credit are penalised, including being banned from borrowing loans, purchasing real estate and travelling on flights. As of April this year, a total of 11.14 million Chinese people have been blacklisted from buying flight tickets and 4.25 million have been banned from buying high-speed train tickets - instead they would have to opt for the slow trains. The Austrian government said Wednesday that it won't sign a global pact to promote safe and orderly migration, citing concerns about national sovereignty as it joined neighboring Hungary and the U.S in backing out of the agreement. The UN's Global Compact for Safety, Orderly and Regular Migration, which isn't legally binding, was finalized in July and is due to be formally approved at a meeting in Morocco from December 11-12. Austrian's conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz took office last December in a coalition with the nationalist, anti-migration Freedom Party. Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and Austrian President Alexander Van Der Bellen. Austria announced today that it will no longer sign the UN's Global Compact for Safety, Orderly and Regular Migration Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache came to power on an anti-immigrant platform and say that the UN agreement blurs the lines between refugees and labour migration The country currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency, and Kurz has made curbing unregulated migration a priority. The Austria Press Agency reported that Kurz and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache said Austria won't sign the document or send an official representative to the meeting in Marrakech. They cited fears about a possible watering-down of the distinction between legal and illegal migration. 'There are some points that we view critically and where we fear a danger to our national sovereignty,' Kurz said '...such as the mixing up of seeking protection with labour migration.' US President Donald Trump took his country out of the agreement last December, saying it was not consistent with his immigration and refugee policies Kurz's position is that migrants rescued in the Mediterranean should not be allowed entry into Europe. Austria took in roughly 1 per cent of its population in asylum seekers in 2015 during a migration crisis in which more than a million people travelled to Europe, many of them fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere. Concerns linked to those arrivals dominated last year's parliamentary election and helped propel Kurz's conservatives to power. He has said he will prevent any repeat of that influx and implemented policies that include restricting benefits for new immigrants. 'Some of the contents go diametrically against our position,' added Strache, the Freedom Party's leader. 'Migration is not and cannot become a human right,' Strache said. 'It cannot be that someone receives a right to migration because of the climate or poverty.' Spain's Maritime Rescue Service in the Strait of Gibraltar saved 520 people trying to cross from Africa to Spain's shores on Saturday. Austria's position is that those rescued in the Mediterranean should not be allowed entry into Europe In September 2016, all 193 U.N. member states, including the United States under President Barack Obama, adopted a declaration saying no country can manage international migration on its own and agreeing to launch a process leading to the adoption of a global compact in 2018. But last December, the U.S said it was ending its participation in negotiations on the compact, stating that numerous provisions were 'inconsistent with U.S. immigration and refugee policies' under President Donald Trump. Trump prefers to act unilaterally and has withdrawn the U.S from a number of international agreements - most notably the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Agreement on Climate change. Hungary said it would withdraw from the process in July, when Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that the pact was contrary to Hungary's interests. Szijarto said that while it had some positive aims, like fighting human trafficking, overall the pact considered migration an unstoppable and positive phenomenon worthy of support. A child is carried by a member of Spain's Maritime Rescue Service. Over 1,960 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe this year, according to the United Nations Poland, which has also clashed with Brussels by resisting national quotas for asylum seekers, has said it is considering the same step. The compact has 23 objectives that seek to boost cooperation to manage migration. It contains numerous actions ranging from technical issues like the portability of earnings by migrant workers to reducing their detention, as well as how to protect and integrate them. Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who wrote critically of the kingdom's policies and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Turkish officials say a 15-men team tortured, killed and dismembered the writer, while Saudi Arabia says he died in a 'fistfight.' Here are some key moments in the slaying of the Washington Post columnist: BEFORE HIS DISAPPEARANCE September 2017: The Post publishes the first column by Khashoggi in its newspaper, in which the former royal court insider and longtime journalist writes about going into a self-imposed exile in the U.S. over the rise of Prince Mohammed. His following columns criticize the prince and the kingdom's direction. September 28, 2018: Over a year after the Post published his first column, Khashoggi visits the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, seeking documents in order to get married. He's later told to return October 2, his fiancee Hatice Cengiz says. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says a plan or a 'road map' to kill Khashoggi was devised in Saudi Arabia during this time. September 29: Khashoggi travels to London and speaks at a conference. October 1: Khashoggi returns to Istanbul. At around 4.30pm, a three-person Saudi team arrives in Istanbul on a scheduled flight, checks in to their hotels then visits the consulate, according to Erdogan. The Turkish president says another group of officials from the consulate travel to a forest in Istanbul's outskirts and to the nearby city of Yalova on a 'reconnaissance' trip. Jamal Khashoggi (right) arriving at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on October 2 THE DAY OF HIS DISAPPEARANCE 3.28am, October 2: A private jet arrives at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport carrying some members of what Turkish media will refer to as a 15-member Saudi 'assassination squad.' Other members of the team arrive by two commercial flights in the afternoon. Erdogan says the team includes Saudi security and intelligence officials and a forensics expert. They meet at the Saudi Consulate. One of the first things they do is to dismantle a hard disk connected to the consulate's camera system, the president says. 11.50am: Khashoggi is called to confirm his appointment at the consulate later that day, Erdogan says. 1.14pm: Surveillance footage later leaked to Turkish media shows Khashoggi walking into the main entrance of the Saudi Consulate. No footage made public ever shows him leaving. His fiancee waits outside, pacing for hours. 3.07pm: Surveillance footage shows vehicles with diplomatic license plates leaving the Saudi Consulate for the consul general's home some 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) away. 5.50pm: Khashoggi's fiancee alerts authorities, saying he may have been forcibly detained inside the consulate or that something bad may have happened to him, according to Erdogan. 7pm: A private plane from Saudi Arabia carries six members of the alleged Saudi squad from Istanbul to Cairo, the next day returning to Riyadh. 11pm: Seven members of the alleged Saudi squad leave on another private jet to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, which the next day returns to Riyadh. Two others leave by commercial flights. Erdogan confirms reports that a 'body double' - a man wearing Khashoggi's clothes, glasses and a beard - leaves the consulate building for Riyadh with another person on a scheduled flight later that day. CCTV images showed a a private jet alleged to have been used by a group of Saudi men suspected of being involved in Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi's death INITIAL REACTION October 3: Khashoggi's fiancee and the Post go public with his disappearance. Saudi Arabia says Khashoggi visited the consulate and exited shortly thereafter. Turkish officials suggest Khashoggi might still be in the consulate. Prince Mohammed tells Bloomberg: 'We have nothing to hide.' October 4: Saudi Arabia says on its state-run news agency that the consulate is carrying out 'follow-up procedures and coordination with the Turkish local authorities to uncover the circumstances of the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi after he left the consulate building.' October 5: The Post prints a blank column in its newspaper in solidarity with Khashoggi, headlined: 'A missing voice.' October 6: The Post, citing anonymous Turkish officials, reports Khashoggi may have been killed in the consulate in a 'preplanned murder' by a Saudi team. October 7: A friend of Khashoggi tells the AP that officials told him the writer was killed at the consulate. The consulate rejects what it calls 'baseless allegations.' October 8: Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Turkey is summoned over Khashoggi's disappearance and alleged killing. LEAKED FOOTAGE October 9: Turkey says it will search the Saudi Consulate as a picture of Khashoggi walking into the diplomatic post surfaces. October 10: Surveillance footage is leaked of Khashoggi and the alleged Saudi squad that killed him. Khashoggi's fiancee asks President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump for help. October 11: Turkish media describes Saudi squad as including royal guards, intelligence officers, soldiers and an autopsy expert. Trump calls Khashoggi's disappearance a 'bad situation' and promises to get to the bottom of it. October 12: Trump again pledges to find out what happened to Khashoggi. October 13: A pro-government newspaper reports that Turkish officials have an audio recording of Khashoggi's alleged killing from his Apple Watch, but details in the report come into question. INTERNATIONAL UPROAR October 14: Trump says that 'we're going to get to the bottom of it, and there will be severe punishment' if Saudi Arabia is involved. The kingdom responds with a blistering attack against those who threaten it, as the manager of a Saudi-owned satellite news channel suggests the country could retaliate through its oil exports. The Saudi stock exchange plunges as much as 7 percent at one point. Khashoggi (pictured), went missing after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul October 15: A Turkish forensics team enters and searches the Saudi Consulate, an extraordinary development as such diplomatic posts are considered sovereign soil. Trump suggests after a call with Saudi King Salman that 'rogue killers' could be responsible for Khashoggi's alleged slaying. Trump says Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to the Mideast over the case. Meanwhile, business leaders say they won't attend an economic summit in the kingdom that's the brainchild of Prince Mohammed. October 16: A high-level Turkish official tells the AP that 'certain evidence' was found in the Saudi Consulate proving Khashoggi was killed there. Pompeo arrives for meetings in Saudi Arabia with King Salman and Prince Mohammed. Meanwhile, Trump compares the case to the appointment of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing, saying: 'Here we go again with you're guilty until proven innocent.' October 17: Pompeo meets with Turkey's president and foreign minister in the Turkish capital, Ankara. Turkish police search the official residence of Saudi Arabia's consul general in Istanbul and conduct a second sweep of the consulate. October 18: A leaked surveillance photograph shows a member of Prince Mohammed's entourage walked into the consulate just before Khashoggi vanished there. October 20: Saudi Arabia for the first time acknowledges Khashoggi was killed in the consulate, claiming he was slain in a 'fistfight.' The claim draws immediate skepticism from the kingdom's Western allies, particularly in the U.S. Congress. October 22: A report says a member of Prince Mohammed's entourage made four calls to the royal's office around the time Khashoggi was killed. Police search a vehicle belonging to the Saudi consulate parked at an underground garage in Istanbul. CCTV emerges showing a Saudi intelligence officer dressed in a fake beard and Jamal Khashoggi's clothes and glasses on the day he went missing. October 23: Erdogan says Saudi officials murdered Khashoggi after plotting his death for days, demanding that Saudi Arabia reveal the identities of all involved. October 25: Changing their story again, Saudi prosecutors say Khashoggi's killing was a premeditated crime. November 2: Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claims the order to kill Khashoggi came from the highest levels of the Saudi government. Earlier the same day, Yasin Aktay, a ruling party adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said he believed the body had to have been dissolved in acid. November 4: Khashoggi's sons Salah and Abdullah Khashoggi issue appeal for his remains to be returned so that he may be buried in Saudi Arabia. November 10: President Erdogan says Turkey gave the audio recordings linked to the murder to 'Saudi Arabia, to Washington, to the Germans, to the French, to the British'. November 13: Turkish media reports that the luggage carried by the Saudi 'hit squad' included scissors, defibrillators and syringes that may have been used against Khashoggi. November 15: Saudi Arabia's public prosecutor announces that he is seeking the death penalty for five out of 11 suspects charged in the murder. Shalaan al-Shalaan said the person who had ordered the killing was the head of the negotiating team sent to repatriate him, and exonerated Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. On the same day, the U.S. Treasury announces sanctions against 17 Saudi officials, including the Consul General in Turkey, Mohammed Alotaibi. November 16: A CIA assessment reported in the Washington Post finds that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination. November 18: Germany bans 18 Saudi nationals believed to be connected to the murder from entering Europe's border-free Schengen zone. Berlin also announces it has as halted previously approved arms exports to Saudi Arabia amid the fallout. The father of Claudia Lawrence who battled to change the laws around missing people after his daughter disappeared in 2009 has spoken of how he is desperately looking for answers, as he was made an OBE. Peter Lawrence received the honour at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday after he campaigned for the Guardianship (Missing Persons) Bill, known as Claudia's Law. The law, which was passed in April 2017, applies to England and Wales and allows families of people missing for more than 90 days to deal with their affairs. Miss Lawrence was last seen walking to her workplace at York University in March 2009 and despite being reported missing the next day has never been found. Officers received more than 1,000 calls about Miss Lawrence after her father Peter Lawrence appealed for information. Although nothing came of this, Mr Lawrence is still holding out for closure - by finding out what happened to his daughter who was aged 35 when she went missing. Peter Lawrence, the father of Claudia Lawrence, after receiving an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) medal for his work to support the relatives of missing people Peter Lawrence from York was made an OBE by Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, at Buckingham Palace Claudia Lawrence with her father Peter who has been made an OBE nine years after her disappearance Claudia Lawrence was 35-years-old when she went missing as she made her way to work in March 2009 Reflecting on the period of almost 10 years since his daughter went missing, Mr Lawrence told the Press Association: 'It's one of these peculiar things that sometimes it feels like yesterday, and sometimes it feels much more like 10 years. 'She was relatively young. She was 35 when she went missing. So she would now be a completely different person anyway, so we've missed all that time.' He added: 'Whatever that closure is, you always hope for closure. Good or bad. You need closure.' He said he is hopeful he will get closure in some form. 'The police are absolutely convinced that Claudia was murdered... and if she was, we just need to know. We need to know where she is. Because it's this closure, good or bad, you've got to have it.' Mr Lawrence said he used to see his daughter regularly, going for drinks and meals. 'That suddenly is missing from your life,' he said. (left to right) Kevin Hollinrake MP, Peter Lawrence and Baroness Hamwee holding a copy of Claudia's Law Claudia Lawrence with her mother. Claudia went missing in 2009 as she walked to work in York Her mother, Joan Lawrence, 75, says she refuses to give up hope of seeing her daughter again one day but admits her absence has taken its toll. The tenth anniversary of Miss Lawrence going missing from her home falls on March 18 next year and Joan said it represented another opportunity to keep the case in the public eye. A number of arrests were made after Claudia went missing but no charges have ever been brought. Miss Lawrence's family will not give up hope they could see her again one day and have campaigned in her name Also receiving an honour on Wednesday was Flight Lieutenant Ben Wallis, of the RAF, who was bestowed with the Air Force Cross for saving his aircraft and crew following engine failure on a helicopter. The 36-year-old averted disaster at about 120ft above a forest in Denmark when he was in the role of instructor on exchange with the Royal Danish Air Force. Flt Lt Wallis said he knew 'something very bad' had happened when he heard a loud bang, at which point he took control. He said there was silence when the helicopter landed safely in a clearing. Flt Lt Wallis said: 'Initially we were silent for a good minute I think, because we just couldn't believe that we were alive. 'And then one of the crewmen, he said 'Nice landing, Sir'.' Flight Lieutenant Ben Wallis, Royal Air Force, is decorated with the Air Force Cross by the Duke of Cambridge during an Investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace Flight Lieutenant Ben Wallis after The Air Force Cross Investitures at Buckingham Palace Flt Lt Wallis said he was well trained for the scenario that unfolded. He was named in this year's Operational Honours and Awards List. Video gaming entrepreneur David Banner received an MBE for his services to the video games industry, and director Marianne Elliott received an OBE for her services to theatre. Also receiving an OBE at Wednesday's ceremony was director Marianne Elliot for her services to theatre. Video gaming entrepreneur David Banner was also made an OBE at the ceremony in Buckingham Palace Retired firefighter Alistair Boyle, also received the honour for his services to charity. A carer has been accused of repeatedly molesting a teenager in his care over the course of several years. The 31-year-old man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was arrested and charged with multiple child sex offences on Tuesday. The arrest is the culmination of a police investigation into the alleged assaults in Sydney's west between 2014 and 2018. A carer was arrested and taken to Burwood Police Station (pictured) following years of alleged sexual abuse on a teenage foster child in his care Police began investigating the alleged abuse of the 15-year-old boy in foster care earlier this year. The teenager was immediately taken into alternate care. The boy was only 11 or 12-years-old when the alleged abuse began. On one occasion, police allege the man tied the boy up and put him in a cupboard, Nine News reports. On another, he is accused of duct-taping the boy to a bed. The alleged sexual assaults started four years ago when the boy was only 11 or 12 years old The man was charged with persistent sexual abuse of a child and multiple counts of aggravated sexual intercourse with a person aged between 10-14 and 14-16. Wednesday's trial was brief and the man didn't speak during the proceedings, but he did wave to his supporters as he was led back into custody. His lawyer indicated he will apply for bail when he faces Penrith Local Court on Thursday. A care home worker tried to force a 101-year-old dementia sufferer to eat biscuits from the floor 'like a dog' after the elderly woman had accidentally spilled them, a court heard yesterday. Poorooshotum Avi Seedany, 26, is said to have attempted to humiliate the pensioner by forcing her to the ground and eat the spilled biscuits at a care home earlier this year. Seeedany, known as Avi, is also alleged to have attacked an elderly male resident by twisting his nipples and pulling his ears. It is also claimed Seedany, from Edinburgh, slapped a third resident to the head and pushed her so she fell and banged her head off a chair at the capital's Braid Hills Care Home earlier this year. Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told the care worker had been at the home for five years without incident but he had carried out the catalogue of abuse at the home's Swanson Unit over an eight-week period. Care worker Shirelle Cairns told the court on Tuesday that she worked shifts with Seedany on many occasions and that the abuse she witnessed had left her in tears. Miss Cairns said she saw the 101-year-old female resident being abused by Seedany when the woman spilled a plate of biscuits on her bedroom floor. She said: 'The resident had pushed biscuits off a table and Avi wanted her to eat the biscuits off the floor. 'Avi said 'if you want to act like a dog then you can eat like a dog'. 'Her dementia was really bad so she didn't really know what's was going on.' Miss Cairns said she was so shocked the incident left her in tears. She added: 'I called him a few names - I think I called him a horrible, vile pig. I then had to go into the toilet to have a wee greet to myself. 'I'd had enough and couldn't take anymore. I said a few things to him and then left the room.' The court heard Seedany, from Edinburgh, also slapped a third resident to the head and pushed her so she fell at Braid Hills Care Home (pictured) Miss Cairns, 25, told the court of another occasion when a 74-year-old male resident was lying in bed when she saw Seedany assault the man by twisting his nipples. She said: 'The abuse happened every time I was on shift with Avi. The resident had no top on and Avi twisted his nipples with his hands. '[On another occasion] we were raising the resident's bed and as we did it Avi just pulled him up by the ears to make him higher.' The care worker added on a third occasion she saw Seedany hurt the pensioner by leaning on a wound after the man had recently had a hip replacement operation. She said: ' Avi pulled a fist and leaned on the resident's wound until his feet were off the ground. Avid just didn't have the patience for a resident like that.' Miss Cairns also told the court Seedany placed his hands over an 81-year-old female resident's mouth for around 20 seconds to stop her from screaming out during a separate incident. She said: ' He placed his hand over her mouth when she was screaming for help - she shouts every day, it is just something she does. 'She then started coughing and there was vomit on his gloves - the resident's lips were blue.' Seedany is also facing a charge of pushing an 87-year-old female resident into a room and turning the lights off and closing the door after she had caused a small disturbance during dinner serving at the care home. The trial in front of Sheriff Frank Crowe continues. Seedany denies a total of eight allegations of assaulting four elderly residents at Braid Hills Care Home, Edinburgh, between March 5 and May 2 this year. MPs will approve Theresa May's Brexit deal because they are 'terrified' of crashing out of the EU, David Davis has admitted. The former Brexit secretary said 'irrational fear' would win out in Parliament if the PM manages to get any kind of agreement with Brussels. Mr Davis tried to backpedal today by insisting no package based on Mrs May's Chequers plan would get passed. But the comments, from a vehement critics of Mrs May's stance, will encourage Downing Street. The premier is engaged in a desperate scramble to break the deadlock with the EU, with a 'backstop' for the Irish border still the main sticking point. Former Brexit secretary David Davis (pictured at Tory conference earlier this month) said 'irrational fear' would win out in Parliament if the PM manages to get any kind of agreement with Brussels Theresa May (pictured in Norway yesterday) has been struggling to thrash out a divorce deal with the EU Mr Davis tried to backpedal on his remarks today - insisting a deal would not pass if it was based on Chequers Negotiating teams are working in Brussels as the clocks tick down and concerns mount about the consequences of Britain crashing out of the bloc. If there is a settlement, No10 is planning to force a crunch vote in the Commons within weeks - and effectively dare MPs to risk a no-deal outcome. But the outcome could be on a knife edge, as Labour has vowed that it will not back any proposals that do not pass its six tests. Surge in Irish passport applications amid fears of no-deal Brexit Almost as many applications for Irish passports were received in the first half of 2018 as in the whole year before the referendum Demand for Irish passports has surged amid mounting fears over the prospect of a no-deal Brexit, it emerged today. Almost as many applications were received in the first half of 2018 as in the whole year before the referendum. According to figures released to the Brexit committee in the Irish senate, almost 45,000 passport applications were lodged with the Republic's UK embassy in the first half of 2018. Fine Gael's Neale Richmond suggested that the 'looming disaster of Brexit' was prompting eligible Britons to reconnect with their Irish heritage. He said: 'Since the people of the UK voted, narrowly, to leave the EU in 2016, we have seen a continuing rise in the number of applications for Irish passports in the UK. 'Current rules entitle those born to Irish parents or grandparents to apply for an Irish passport through a claim to citizenship. 'At least 10 per cent of the UK's population, not including Northern Ireland, are estimated to qualify for an Irish passport and in light of Brexit, many including a number of my own family members are staking their claim to an Irish passport. Advertisement The Opposition could form an alliance with Tory Brexiteers who have promised to try to kill off the PM's Chequers blueprint for future trade with the EU. Mr Davis, along with Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg , are among the senior Conservatives leading the push for the UK to seek a looser Canada-style pact with Brussels. But speaking at a discussion event in Westminister last night, Mr Davis conceded that he thought Downing Street would eventually be able to force its will through Parliament. 'Terror will win, the fear of no deal,' he said. 'I think the irrational fear of no deal, a WTO deal that will win and there will be a deal. 'It may take two passes it may be a deal that's agreed in Brussels and fails in Westminster and comes back again, it may take two passes.' In a Tweet this morning, Mr Davis tried to walk his remarks back. 'For the avoidance of doubt I believe the PM will get a deal with the EU but anything based on the Chequers plan or one that keeps us in the Customs Union will not pass the Commons. Time to revert to free trade deal suggested by EU?' he said. There have been chilling warnings that failure to reach an agreement in the coming weeks could throw businesses, migrants and tourists into turmoil. The latest prediction from ratings agency Standard & Poor's says Britain could slump into recession for a year and see house prices crash. Meanwhile, it emerged that demand forIrish passports has surged amid mounting fears over the prospect of a no-deal Brexit. Almost as many applications were received in the first half of 2018 as in the whole year before the referendum. According to figures released to the Brexit committee in the Irish senate, almost 45,000 passport applications were lodged with the Republic's UK embassy in the first half of 2018. Fine Gael's Neale Richmond suggested that the 'looming disaster of Brexit' was prompting eligible Britons to reconnect with their Irish heritage. Mr Davis and Boris Johnson (pictured in the Commons last week) are among the senior Conservatives leading the push for the UK to seek a looser Canada-style pact with Brussels People who believe in God find it more difficult to accept death than those with no religion according to new research. A survey of 30,000 Britons by Co-Op Funeral care found that those who have religious belief find it more difficult to discus their own demise. According to the research, more than one in two Hindus are uncomfortable discussing their inevitable demise. Britons who are religious are more reluctant to discuss their death than those without faith Almost half of Muslims are also reluctant to discuss death even though they start considering their own mortality, according to the survey, once they hit 19. Researchers found that Christians do not start thinking about death until they hit 30. However, three quarters of humanists, who do not believe in God, are happy to discuss their death. Only one in ten of those who do not believe in some form of deity are reluctant to discuss their demise. Almost one third British Jews said they will not discuss their death because they do not wish to worry their loved ones, along with 29 per cent of Hindus. Some 15 per cent of Hindus do not wish to discuss death as it is 'a long way off'. Almost 15 per cent of Christians insist they are too busy living to talk about dying. British Christians claim they are too busy living to contemplate dying. (Pictured Rowan Atkinson playing a vicar in the 1994 comedy Four Weddings And A Funeral) Almost one in five Muslims do not want to upset their loved ones by discussing death, while a similar amount feel no need to talk about their mortality. One fifth of British Muslims will not discuss their death as they are afraid of dying. Despite the reluctance of those with some faith to discuss their inevitable demise, the survey suggested religious people knew how they wanted their funeral handled. British Jews are twice as likely as any other faith group to plan financially for their death. Unsurprisingly, those who identify with a particular religion would like to have a 'traditional' funeral ceremony. One in two Muslims, who responded to the survey, said they would want a religious ceremony, which was higher than any other faith group. David Collingwood, Director of Funerals at the Co-op, who deal with 100,000 funerals a year, said: 'Whether we identify as part of a religious group or we don't, death is something that is fearful for many people and is resulting in many not talking about it. 'We see the impact that not having those important conversations has on those left behind with families left wondering whether they should choose a cremation or a burial for their loved one. 'Our advice is to talk about it, even if it's during your favourite soap character's funeral. Broach those conversations to avoid loved ones feeling the burden later down the line.' A male model on the run from justice for dealing steroids has taunted police by posting pictures of his luxury lifestyle on the paradise island of Bali. Terrence Murrell, 30, fled Britain to the Indonesian island before he was due in court to be sentenced for dealing illegal steroids imported from China. But instead of keeping a low profile in Indonesia Murrell has mocked police with constant updates on social media, updating his Facebook and Instagram pages with smirking pictures in the sunshine. Murrell, who is believed to have made more than 220,000 as part of a 2million drugs ring, captioned one picture with friends: 'The baddest men in Bali.' Terrence Murrell (pictured in one of his holiday snaps), 30, fled Britain to the Indonesian island before he was due in court to be sentenced for dealing illegal steroids imported from China He also posed for pictures in a luxurious swimming pool, working out in a gym and using his laptop in a four-poster bed. Many of the snaps were captioned: 'Boss life.' Sentencing him to 37 months in jail in his absence, Judge Huw Rees said Murrell was 'living in the lap of luxury'. A court in Wales heard Murrell was a leading member of a 2million steroid gang who shipped drugs from China to the UK to sell. He claimed to police he bought the drugs for himself as he 'wanted to look his best as a male model'. But prosecutor Sarah Badrawy said bank accounts showed Murrell had pocketed more than 220,000. He later admitted supplying class C drugs in North Wales through websites but failed to turn up for a sentencing hearing at Caernarfon Crown Court. John Lyons, defending, said: 'He has been prevaricating about his pleas for some time. He was always going to admit the offences but kept putting off the evil day.' Tattooed Murrell, from London, was jailed for 37 months in his absence and the court heard he was on the run in Indonesia. Judge Rees said Murrell was part of 'a very extensive criminal operation' which imported the drugs from Hong Kong and China. He added: 'It is well known that anabolic steroids have been widely abused in sport, especially where an increase in muscle mass is required. Murrell, 30, relaxes in a Bali swimming pool after fleeing the UK to avoid his sentencing date The heavily tattooed male model has posted constant updates on Facebook and Instagram Murrell relaxes in a four-poster bed with his laptop as he escapes justice on the island The 30-year-old has posted frequent updates since fleeing the UK to escape his sentencing Murrell poses for a picture working out in a gym in one of the taunting snaps from Indonesia A police mugshot of Murrell who was jailed for 37 months in his absence for his role in a drugs ring importing steroids from China 'The administration of steroids often produces unwanted side effects, mood swings, over confidence, aggression, loss of libido and liver toxicity.' Some 15 defendants were revealed to be part of the drugs gang, according to the Crown Prosecution Service. Lisa McCarthy, from the CPS, said: 'These defendants were involved in the importation, manufacture and sale of drugs in their local areas and via online websites, utilising false aliases and business addresses in an attempt to avoid detection. 'The prosecution proved that the gang had been in contact with both suppliers from abroad who could provide them with the raw materials needed to produce the drugs and also with people wanting to buy the steroids. They had created professional websites to sell the drugs around the world.' Murrell was convicted of of conspiracy to supply a Class C drug and possession with intent to supply a Class C drug. The drugs ring was stopped after customs officials intercepted a number of parcels that were addressed to the defendants or bogus business addresses they were using to hide the conspiracy. The parcels were found to contain raw steroids and other items used in the manufacture and distribution of the drugs. North Wales Police said Murrell 'has a London accent, is of muscly build and has numerous tattoos on his arms and chest'. He is said to have links to Didcot, Taunton and east and south-east London and anyone who knows where he is has been urged to tell police or Crimewatch. Murrell, who is believed to have made more than 220,000 dealing drugs, poses with friends (standing far right) and under a waterfall. He captioned one picture: 'The baddest men in Bali' Murrell, pictured in one of his social media snaps, was convicted of of conspiracy to supply a Class C drug and possession with intent to supply a Class C drug By Trend On the instructions of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Ilham Aliyev, Minister of Defense Colonel General Zakir Hasanov visited the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic to participate in joint tactical-special exercises of the formations and military units of the troops of Nakhchivan. Hasanov also visited the territories liberated from the Armenian occupation, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan said in a message on Oct. 31. The Minister of Defense got acquainted with a reliable defense system created at the positions in the village of Gunnut and in the surrounding territories, including at the height of Gyzylgaya, as well as engineering work carried out here and army household facilities built there. Buildings constructed in accordance with the terrain features of the location of military units and climatic conditions are equipped with necessary equipment, as well as permanent electricity and heating system. Colonel General Hasanov also met with soldiers and officers on the front line, inquired about the organization of the military service and presented valuable gifts to a group of servicemen who distinguished themselves in the service. Advertisement German forces shot 160 British soldiers dead while they tried to dig a trench just yards from enemy lines, harrowing First World War letters reveal. The operation to advance the British frontline under cover of darkness during the First Battle of Ypres in 1915 turned into a bloody massacre when the Germans mistook their shovels for bayonets. The soldiers first faced problems when their position was given away by a lightning storm, prompting the enemy to open fire from just 85 yards away while they dug. So two nights later British guns bombarded the enemy before the Army deployed diggers across No Man's Land to finish the trench. Spr Winter, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, was a member of the West Riding 456th Field Company Royal Engineers (pictured) and his letters expose the harsh reality of war as he tells how 160 soldiers were killed during a botched attempt to dig a trench close to German enemy lines during the First World War Spr Winter (pictured) was one of those to survive the massacre, which occurred when the Germans mistook British shovels for bayonets. It came after a lightning storm gave away their position on the first night, which was followed by a second attempt to dig a trench after bombarding the German fighters. But when they saw Brits charging at them they opened fire His letters described a 'thundering bombardment' as Spr Winter says he is safe and sound and tells how the engineers sent to finish the trench were targeted after the British fired on the Germans in an attempt to provide protection for the diggers before they were deployed close to enemy lines But fearing the Tommies were charging at them with guns rather than spades, the enemy opened rapid fire and cut them down in a hail storm of bullets. They suffered 160 casualties out of about 500 men in a mixture of bad luck and the sort of poor strategy which led to the frontline being called lions led by donkeys. One of the survivors was Royal Engineer Sapper Thomas Winter, whose letters home to his sister Mary have now emerged for sale. They also include an incredible account of how the British and Germans conversed by shouting at each other over No Mans Land. These fascinating letters of a young soldier from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, tell of life fighting on the frontline in the First World War and are going on sale as the centenary of the conflict, which devastated both sides, approaches in coming days Spr Winter described how one enemy soldier asked the English who had won the FA cup final before the same German revealed he actually lived in Birmingham with his wife and three children who were still there. He told how he was nearly blown to pieces by German shells twice and said he hoped the war would finish soon. Spr Winter died aged 21 after he was killed at the Third Battle of Ypres in November 1917. His letters are now being sold by Henry Aldridge and Son Auctioneers of Devizes, Wiltshire, for a pre-sale estimate of between 3,000 to 5,000. Mr Aldridge said: 'The value is these letters is in the content of them. So many letters home from the trenches were censored and as a result were quite vanilla in content. 'They are interesting but often there is no great detail with regards to the authors feelings on how things are going. 'That is why these letters are particularly interesting because they do go into quite graphic detail about the horrors of war. The letters show the soldier - who died aged 21 on the battlefield - describing the brutality of frontline life during the First World War while he also reassures his loved one that he is safe despite the onslaught that he witnessed as the Germans responded to a botched attempt to dig a trench 'Here was a man aged 21 describing at having to go forward under a hail of fire from German machine guns aimed at them form all angles. It is quite astonishing what these young men had to go through.' Spr Winter, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, was a member of the West Riding 456th Field Company Royal Engineers. His letters home were written over an 18-month period, from May 1915 to October 1916. One of them, dated June 1, 1915, documents in detail the costly operation to dig a new trench in No Mans Land. True to his duty, the soldier even ends this letter by saying that it should remain secret so that sensitive information does not make it into the media. His letters offer firsthand insight into the daily horror of serving on the frontline in the devastating Great War, the centenary of which falls this year 'The last weeks have been a very hard time for the engineers as they have had to superintend a big move made by the Territorials in this part of the line. It was a five-day job and cost 160 casualties. 'On the first night six of our men went out and marked off an advance trench 85 yards off the German line. On the second night 500 infantry and more RE (Royal Engineers) rushed over the parapet and preceded to dig the trench but were given away by a lightning storm and the Germans opened fire and they had to abandon the job. British troops are pictured during the push along the road to Ypres in the First World War in November 1914 (file photo). The image shows soldiers gathered in a trench, which enabled the forces to advance their position closer to enemy lines The soldier describes how he lay on the floor for six hours as he feared being 'blown to pieces' but still took the time to write reassuring statements such as 'I'm still safe and sound' when he was writing from the frontline of the First World War Pictured: Allied troops rest following the First Battle of Ypres in the Great War. The battle saw German forces kill 160 British soldiers who were attempting to dig a trench that would have allowed them to advance their position 'He next night we found the enemy was in our new trench and some men with two machine guns were sent out to drive them out which they did successfully. On the fourth night a new idea was tried. 'All the infantry and REs layed in the trench while our guns bombarded the German trench then paused and all the working party jumped over the parapet to dig themselves in but they had to lay flat as the Germans thinking we were charging with fixed bayonets opened rapid fire and it was like a hail storm of fire.' In an earlier letter he described how he was nearly killed by German shells, saying: 'Im still safe and sound but I must admit Ive been a bit lucky. We went into action on Saturday and a thundering bombardment started. I was laid flat for 6 hours and darent get up for fear of being blown to pieces with shell fire.' Spr Winter also wrote in May 1915 of rumours sweeping through the British trenches of the sinking of the ship the Mauretania. In fact he was referring to her sister ship the Lusitania that had been torpedoed days before with the loss of 1,198 lives. The letters are being sold on November 10. A child was thought to have sustained 'scratches' after being mauled for several minutes by a circus lion but is fighting for her life in a coma. Four-year-old Ksenia Mityukova was savaged after the lioness broke through the safety netting at the circus in Uspenskoye village in the Krasnodar region of Russia. Shocking new details of the attack - seen on footage that went viral around the world - includes eyewitness testimony that the lioness clasped the girl's neck and head in its jaws after pulling her from the spectators' seats. First reports said Ksenia had 'scratches' but in fact her wounds are life threatening, revealed her desperate father Denis Mityukov. Scroll down for video Denis Mityukov, 33, pictured with his 4-year-old daughter, Ksenia, who is fighting for her life in a coma at the Central Republican Hospital in Krasnodar Horrifying footage shows the moment a circus lioness savaged a four-year-old girl after breaking through a safety net during a show in Russia The big cat pulled the girl (circled) into the ring and mauled her during a performance in Uspenskoye village in the Krasnodar region of Russia The girl, named as Ksenia, survived the attack but doctors say she will be 'scarred for life' after suffering serious face and chest injuries Her distraught father, 33, told East2West News: 'My child has undergone surgery and she's kept in coma. 'She was in coma when she was delivered to hospital and they are keeping her in a coma. 'They say she is in a very grave state and it is not clear what will happen next. 'We can't think about it yet. 'Doctors are not making any forecasts on her state.' She was rushed to the Central Republican Hospital in Krasnodar. Mr Mityukov holding his eldest daughter (left) who is said to be 'traumatised' by the attack on her younger sister (right) The victim's grandmother Elena Mityukova told TV reporters that the girl's mother, Maria, had tired to undo the zip of her daughter's coat as the lioness pounced Far from holding her for only a few seconds - as earlier reported - the lioness clutched the girl for 'several minutes' with panic-stricken circus staff unable to free her. The wild animal 'sank its teeth' into her while trainers used metal rods to beat the beast into submission, finally freeing the terrified child. Local Kuban TV in Krasnodar reported: 'Doctors are fighting for the life of the little girl who remains in a coma.' She suffered brain, neck and spinal injuries as well as losing 'a lot of blood' when the lioness suddenly pounced on her and pulled her into the circus ring. Her father, a driver at a concrete factory, said she had sustained 'huge injuries' with her face torn by the beast as it broke through a hole in the safety net. Her facial nerves were torn and doctors fear she will suffer facial paralysis if she recovers. 'Her blood vessels were fixed during the surgery but her nerves - she might have half of her face paralysed,' he said. The girl's mother Maria, 33, was helping her undo the zip of on her coat, said the child's grandmother Elena Mityukova. The lioness called Katty faces being moved to a zoo or being put down, the use of powerful predators like lions and bears is common in Russia Circus owner Andrey Manucharyan, 51, has been put under house arrest pending investigation by police that could see him caged for six years An image from local TV which shows circus owner Mr Manucharyan held while police investigate whether he was abiding by regulations 'At this moment this lioness pounced and got under the safety net,' she said. Ksenia's elder sister is 'traumatised' and 'in tears' over the attack, she added. 'She just remains stunned.' Circus owner Andrey Manucharyan, 51, has been put under house arrest pending a criminal investigation that could see him jailed for up to six years. The lioness called Katty is expected to be moved to a zoo - or put down. The travelling circus has been closed pending the investigation. Natalia Trifanova, an official with Krasnodar Regional Investigation Committee, said checks were underway on 'all the paperwork of the (owner) to establish if he had all the necessary permissions to provide such services'. Wild cat expert Daria Timchenko thinks that the circus should have had better safety measures in place. 'The organisers of the performance are to blame,' she said. 'They are working with predators and must foresee such satiations. 'The lioness did nothing unexpected. 'She saw a bright spot and rushed at it. 'It is a normal behaviour for any kind of cat.' According to local reports, the child (circled) had been waving a small flag during the circus act. The lioness can be seen rushing from its trainer - despite being on a leash - and springing on the child The four-year-old girl (pictured) is being treated in intensive care after her horrific ordeal at the circus The circus owner's practices face intense scrutiny as the four-year-old girl was not protected by a 'flimsy' netting The lioness can be seen rushing from its trainer - despite being on a leash - and springing on the child. Lions continue to be used for performances in Russian circuses, including many touring troupes that travel from place to place. The latest incident is likely to lead to increase calls to ban the use of performing predators like lions and bears. Koalas could no longer exist in New South Wales by 2050, according to experts with the World Wildlife Fund Australia conservation. The rapid decrease of koalas within the state can be attributed to deforestation, habitat loss, land clearing, pollution and climate change, according to scientist Dr Martin Taylor. The latest WWF Living Planet report has revealed more than 4,000 species across the country have decreased by an alarming 60 per cent since 1970. The koala population in Australia's east coast has also decreased at an estimated rate of 21 per cent every decade. Koalas could be extinct in New South Wales by 2050, according to a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Australia conservation expert (stock image) Eastern Australia was one of the top 11 deforestation hotspots in the world, along with East Africa, the Congo Basin, New Guinea, Borneo and Sumatra, among others. Given the worsening environmental conditions, Dr Taylor said the mammal could be totally wiped out by 2050. 'It verges on the criminal that what is a common species, a national icon, the basis of a multi-billion dollar tourism industry, faces extinction,' he told 9 News. 'Last year, New South Wales scrapped laws protecting koala forests. And we just discovered a tripling of clearing of koala habitats in north-west New South Wales. It means the situation could be much worse than we imagined'. Land clearing for agricultural and urban development has led to habitat loss among koalas, which makes them vulnerable to getting attacked by dogs or getting hit by vehicles, according to WWF. WWF research showed climate change has severely affected koalas. Evidence also suggests there is a reduced nutrient levels in Eucalyptus leaves, which koalas feed on. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex meet Ruby, a mother koala that gave birth to koala joeys Meghan and Harry, named after His and Her Royal Highness in a visit to Sydney's Taronga Zoo (pictured) Despite this, the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage say they have made huge commitments in the preservation of koalas and their habitats. 'The NSW Koala Strategy commits $44.7 million towards securing the future of koalas in the wild. Over 24,000 hectares of state forest will be set aside for koalas as koala parks and reserves,' a NSW Office of Environment and Heritage spokesperson told 9 News. The Australian government also launched a Senate inquiry into fauna extinction last June in an effort to address the ecological impact brought about by biodiversity loss. However, the WWF is targeting bigger commitments towards conservation. 'In Australia, we need stronger legislation to stop the destruction of our natural environment because it's going to bite us back. We are a species at risk of extinction because of what we're doing to our planet,' Dr Taylor said. A couple have been left devastated after their annual Halloween decorations were stolen by thieves in the middle of the night. CCTV footage captured the moment thieves brazenly raided the display in the front yard of the Salisbury Downs home in Adelaide at 4am on Wednesday. Owners Angela and Adrian Webb, who have been putting on the spooky spectacle for eight years, told 9News they were 'disgusted' someone could do such a thing. Scroll down for video Angela and Adrian Webb (left and right) have been left devastated after their annual Halloween decorations were stolen by thieves in the middle of the night CCTV footage captured the moment thieves (pictured) brazenly raided the display in the front yard of the Salisbury Downs home in Adelaide at 4am on Wednesday In the video, the thieves (pictured) were captured dodging tombstones and coffins as they helped themselves to various items 'You feel sick knowing someone has actually come in and jumped over your little fences and destroyed the night,' Ms Webb said. In the video, the thieves were captured dodging tombstones and coffins as they helped themselves to various items. The pair then took off with a selection of spooky skeletons and skulls before later returning for more props, completing the Halloween heist. The creepy display took the couple almost three weeks to set up, and over the years, has attracted a loyal following of Halloween fans who bring their families to enjoy the decorations. Mr Webb said the theft not only affected his family, but also the local community. 'You're not just hurting us, you're not hurting our display - you're hurting all these little kids,' he said. The creepy display took the couple almost three weeks to set up, and over the years, has attracted a loyal following of Halloween fans who bring their families to enjoy the decorations The robbery has left the couple wondering whether or not to take part in the spooky spectacular next year, which attracts many neighbours from the local area When news of the theft broke, many devastated neighbours showed their support for the couple, saying the annual display was a rarity. One local woman told 9News the robbery was a real shame because there aren't many Australian families that put on a display like the Webbs. Another woman said it was sad to see the Webbs hurting as a result of the heist. While the couple said the robbery has left them questioning whether to continue the tradition next year, for the time being the show must go on - minus a few skeletons. 'It might not look as good as it did last time, but we're going to do the best we can,' Mrs Webb said. Philip Hammond is locked in a Halloween horrorshow today as teachers lash him for saying Budget cash will mean they can buy 'little extras' like whiteboards and computers. The Chancellor was mercilessly mocked on social media after he clumsily defended a 400million pot for schools. Mr Hammond said the one-off sum - equivalent to 10,000 for each primary and 50,000 for secondaries - was 'a nice gesture' that they could spend on 'a whiteboard' or 'a couple of computers'. However, his comments prompted fury from teachers, who ridiculed him online with suggestions they would 'splash out' on glitter glue, toilet paper and pens. The Budget row fuelled the running war over funding as schools claim they are having to cut staff and courses just to make ends meet - with some sending begging letters for donations to parents. The Chancellor (pictured on visit to Gainsborough yesterday) has been mercilessly mocked on social media after he clumsily defended a 400million pot for schools Teachers flooded to social media to vent their fury at Mr Hammond's patronising tone in his post-Budget interviews They say that because it now costs more to run a school, budgets are being squeezed in real terms. Making his announcement, Mr Hammond said investment in schools was actually at 'record level' and standards were improving across the country. But he added that school budgets 'often do not stretch to that extra bit of kit' so he was providing a 'bonus' for 'little extras'. When challenged yesterday, Mr Hammond said those complaining had 'misunderstood' the announcement, and that overall school spending will be looked at in next year's Spending Review. He told Good Morning Britain: 'We put 1.3 billion of additional money into schools funding last year to protect per pupil spending in our schools and all of these things will be dealt with in the Spending Review. 'What I did yesterday was nothing to do with that process. 'It was simply giving back a little bit of the money that we have saved this year so that schools can buy the odd little piece of kit that they need. 'I think that's a nice gesture. Many of the schools that I know will be very happy to have 50,000 or even 10,000 to buy a whiteboard, buy a couple of computers - whatever it is that they want to buy.' Yesterday, his comments went viral on Twitter with teachers using the hashtag #littleextras to mock him. One geography teacher wrote: 'Had my eye on these glitter glue sticks for quite some time... What a treat. #littleextras' Secondary school teacher Richard Cahill added: 'I'm starting by treating you all to some toilet paper! You deserve it. #littleextras' Former teacher Gaynor Austin said: 'Sorry I ever left teaching, now! Looking at vacancies; I need that bottle of Tippex I was never allowed to order. Thanks, Phil!' It comes after analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies this year found per pupil spending in England's schools has fallen by 8 per cent since 2010 when all the cost pressures are considered. Separate IFS analysis, however, has found that in the long term, schools are still much better off than they were in 1997. The Department for Education has confirmed that funding will be at an all-time high at 43.5 billion by 2020. Many of the posts on Twitter focused on the potential for buying new glue sticks British and Canadian MPs today demanded Mark Zuckerberg give evidence to a joint 'grand committee' about data breaches and Kremlin propaganda on Facebook. Damian Collins, chairman of the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee and his Canadian counterpart Bob Zimmer sent a joint letter to the Facebook boss renewing demands for a hearing. Mr Zuckerberg has given evidence to the US Congress and the European Parliament but declined invites from other country's politicians. Damian Collins told Sky News today (pictured) he would demand to know the 'true scale' of the data breaches at Facebook and who knew Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has been resisting demands from British politicians to give evidence since March Mr Collins told Sky News today he would demand to know the 'true scale' of the data breaches at Facebook and who knew. He said: 'We need to know what went wrong and was it decisions of the directors of the company, including himself, that made the data vulnerable.' The letter to Mr Zuckerberg announces the creation of an 'international grand committee' on 'disinformation and fake news' to be held at the end of November. Parliamentarians from other countries have been invited to attend in what the DCMS is calling an 'unprecedented' joint hearing and Mr Zuckerberg has been given until Wednesday November 7 to respond. 'Over the past year, our committees have both sought evidence from a Facebook executive with sufficient authority to give an accurate account of recent failures of process, including the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal and subsequent data breaches. Damian Collins, chairman of the DCMS Committee and his Canadian counterpart Bob Zimmer sent a joint letter (pictured) to the Facebook boss renewing demands for a hearing 'You have chosen instead to send less senior representatives, and have not yourself appeared, despite having taken up invitations from the US Congress and Senate, and the European Parliament,' they said in the letter. Mr Zuckerberg has been resisting demands from British politicians to give evidence since March. It is the third time Mr Collins has called on Mr Zuckerberg to give evidence before the DCMS committee's inquiry into disinformation and 'fake news'. Facebook has grappled with a string of scandals in recent years as evidence has emerged of political actors using the network to influence voters around the world. The social media giant was fined 500,000 by the Information Commissioner's Office in July, the maximum fine possible, for failing to protect millions of users' personal information which ended up in the hands of controversial election consultants Cambridge Analytica. A week later the Electoral Commission fined Brexit campaign groups Vote Leave and BeLeave, and referred them to the police for breaches in campaign spending centred around political advertising on Facebook. This year, the company also released details of 'inauthentic co-ordinated activity' on the platform originating from Russia and Iran which targeted British and American politics. Mr Zuckerberg has repeatedly pledged to 'fix Facebook' in public announcements since criticism of political operations on the network began in 2016. 'We call on you to take up this historic opportunity to tell parliamentarians from both sides of the Atlantic and beyond about the measures Facebook is taking to halt the spread of disinformation on your platform, and to protect user data,' added Mr Collins and Mr Zimmer. Police waited 13 days to apprehend a man who is accused of the brutal gang-rape of an 18-year-old girl during that time, despite there being a warrant out for his arrest which specifically warned he was dangerous. The suspect, identified only as 21-year-old Majd H., allegedly orchestrated the rape of a teenage girl by at least 8 men in a wooded area outside a Freiburg nightclub on October 14. German newspaper BILD reported that an arrest warrant for the suspect, who was known to police and had a prior conviction for assault, had been issued on October 10. Alleged chief suspect Majd H., 21, poses in his homeland with a large machine gun, his father told local media his son became 'more aggressive' after they fled the Syrian civil war The picturesque university town of Freiburg in southwest Germany which has been shaken by the violent crime According to BILD, the warrant clearly noted how dangerous Majd H is and categorized him as a multiple offender. It went on to say that there was a high probability he might commit other significant, similar offenses, including grievous bodily harm, sexual coercion and exhibitionism. Finally, it issued a stark warning: To prevent worse, arrest him urgently. The police waited 13 days until October 23 to arrest Majd H. along with other criminals, at first citing investigative tactics as the reason. Now it is said that they were unsure about the whereabouts of the alleged chief offender. The nightclub in Freiburg where the victim was sold drugs before being gang-raped nearby by at least 8 men On the night of October 14, Majd H, who is originally from Syria, allegedly gave the victim drops of a date-rape drug before inviting at least seven friends (though it could be as many as 14) aged 19-30, to take turns to rape her. The attack, in the shrubbery outside the nightclub, lasted four hours. After the incident, Freiburg's Police Commissioner Bernhard Rotzinger, 62, Interior Minister Strobl's State Secretary Julian Wurtenberger, 61, and Mayor Martin Horn, 33, met for crisis talks in the town hall. They discussed how to improve the security situation in the southwestern town in the Baden-Wurttemberg region of Germany. According to BILD, Majd H. came to Germany in 2014. He is a Syrian Kurd, and his family including parents, brother and uncle also live in Freiburg. His father told BILD: 'Majd was always aggressive after our escape, had trouble with the police, was even previously sentenced because he had hurt someone.' AfD supporters and counter-protesters clash with police in the centre of Freiburg, Germany, as the mayor calls for 'peace' The front of the 500-strong AfD protest holding a sign which says, 'Protect borders - save lives,' last night in Freiburg Counter-protesters hold signs denouncing AfD for using the Syrians' gang-rape of an 18-year-old girl to stir up racial hatred The refugee quickly became a profession criminal who never worked, and is said to have traded drugs. He has lived since January last year in a 16-square-meter room with bathroom and kitchen, is paid by the district council. His landlord said he filed an eviction action against him some time ago after he left the place filthy and was constaly visited by police. 'The police were always here,' said his landlord Bernd V. 'Again and again he threw furniture out of his room. 'He was violent, beating up his neighbors and even a disabled person.' Stefan Raepple an AfD member of parliament speaks at the demonstration last night at which hundreds gathered by his side Tempers flared as the counter-protesters, said to have numbered 1,500, clashed with police who separated the groups Another counter-protester holds a sign which says 'Racism is always sh*t' yesterday in the city centre Police speak to an anti-AfD demonstrator who sits in the road to obstruct their peaceful protest Majd H. has been in custody since last week. If convicted, he faces up to ten years jail. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in protest against the gang-rape on Sunday. Freiburg's Mayor, Martin Horn, urged the AfD-organized protesters to remain 'peaceful' and refrain from 'further violence.' 'I hope the demonstrations will be peaceful and will not lead to further violence and hatred,' Freiburg's Mayor told DPA news agency. 'In Freiburg, there is no room for criminals and such terrible crimes.' Around 1,500 counter-protesters turned out to demonstrate against the AfD who they accuse of exploiting the tragedy, according to DW. Angela Merkel meets with Greek prime minister Alexi Tsipras after previous Freiburg rape Lord Mayour Martin Horn has asked the people of Freiburg to be 'peaceful' as they took to the streets of Freiburg last night Bild identified some of Majd H's accomplices as 19-year-old Ahmed Al H., 24-year-old Muhammad Al H., and 20-year-old Muhanad M. According to local media, the other suspects lived mostly in asylum centres and were known to the police for other alleged criminal offences. The horrific story will bolster Angela Merkel's critics, as support for her coalition has wavered in the face of the migrant crisis. Merkel who has held the Chancellorship since 2005 is stepping down at the end of her term in 2021. A former Sinn Fein MP who quit after posing with a Kingsmill-branded loaf on his head on the anniversary of the Kingsmill massacre will not be prosecuted. Barry McElduff, 52, who was MP for West Tyrone, resigned in January after he posted the video on social media which sparked political outrage. But today Northern Ireland's Public Prosecution Service said there was insufficient evidence to provide a reasonable prospect of convicting him. The PPS also announced it will also not be taking action against Sinn Fein Assembly member and former Stormont finance minister Mairtin O Muilleoir, 58, who shared Mr McElduff's video on Twitter. The MP posted a video of himself with a Kingsmill-branded loaf on his head (left) on the 42nd anniversary of the Kingsmill massacre. Pictured right at the count for his West Tyrone seat Again, the PPS said there was insufficient evidence. It is understood the PPS was unable to establish that either man deliberately intended to cause offence - a requirement if a prosecution was to have been successful. Mr McElduff resigned as West Tyrone MP in January after families of some of the 10 Protestant workmen shot dead by republican paramilitaries in 1976 expressed outrage at the video. The sole survivor, clergyman Barrie Halliday, said after the video went viral that the West Tyrone MP's position was 'untenable'. Kingsmill village in South Armagh witnessed one of the most notorious incidents of The Troubles, when gunmen lined up and shot a group of textile workers on their way home. Pictured: the aftermath of the massacre showing a minibus peppered with bullet holes The Sinn Fein veteran has always maintained he had not meant the video as a reference to the sectarian murders of 10 Protestant workmen near the south Armagh village of Kingsmill. He said he was unaware he had posted it on the 42nd anniversary of the attack. However, Mr McElduff, who had already been suspended by Sinn Fein for three months when he announced his resignation, acknowledged the post had caused unintentional hurt to the Kingsmill families. He said staying in the job would have impeded efforts to forge reconciliation in Northern Ireland. Mr McElduff was interviewed by detectives in April and questioned over alleged improper use of a public electronic communications network under the Communications Act 2003, and two alleged public order offences under the Public Order Order 1989. Mr O Muilleoir, who was questioned by police over an alleged breach of the Communications Act 2003, insisted he had not meant an offence by retweeting what at the time he thought was a 'wholly apolitical' post. PPS assistant director Martin Hardy said: 'We have given detailed consideration to the evidence provided by police in respect of the two men reported and have concluded that it is insufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of obtaining a conviction against either for any offence. 'The PPS acknowledges the content of the video posted on the anniversary of the Kingsmill murders caused a great deal of hurt to those directly affected by the atrocity and many others in the wider community. The Kingsmill Massacre: How ten Protestants were gunned down by the IRA Eleven Protestant textile workers were travelling home from work in a minibus on January 5 1976. The vehicle was flagged down in the darkness outside the village of Kingsmill in South Armagh. It was ambushed by an IRA gang of at least 11 members, who ordered the men to line up alongside the minibus. They let one Catholic among them run away. The remaining men were then shot multiple times by automatic rifles. One of the men, Alan Black, survived the attack despite being hit 18 times. A group calling itself the South Armagh Republican Action Force claimed responsibility for the massacre. Victims: L-R top - Robert Chambers, John Bryans, Joseph Lemon and Joseph McWhirter. L-R bottom - Walter Chapman, John McConville, Kenneth Wharton and Reggie Chapman, who all died in the massacre It was in response to another bout of sectarian killings the previous day when the Ulster Volunteer Force shot dead six Catholics in two separate incidents. In 2011 a Historical Enquiries Team investigation, found that the Provisional IRA was responsible. Ballistic studies found that guns used in the Kingsmill attack were linked to 37 murders, 22 attempted murders, 19 non-fatal shootings and 11 finds of spent cartridges between 1974 and 1989. The victims were John Bryans (46), Robert Chambers (19), Reginald Chapman (25), Walter Chapman (23), Robert Freeburn (50), Joseph Lemmon (46), John McConville (20), James McWhirter (58), Robert Walker (46) and Kenneth Worton (24). Advertisement 'We have written to the next of kin of the Kingsmill victims, and the attack's survivor, to explain in detail the rationale for the decision. 'Whilst we recognise the outcome is disappointing to those offended by the content and timing of the video, we can offer assurance that these decisions were reached only after the most careful examination of all evidence and information available.' Kingsmill is a well-known brand of bread in Northern Ireland. It shares a name with the village that witnessed one of the most notorious incidents of the Troubles, when gunmen stopped a van carrying textile workers on their way home, identified the Protestant occupants, lined them up at the side of the road and shot them. Only one of the 11 men gunned down survived the attack. In the video Mr McElduff, who had been known for his lighthearted social media contributions, is at one point filmed walking around a shop with a Kingsmill loaf on his head asking where the store kept the bread. Sinn Fein easily held on to the West Tyrone seat in May's by-election, with solicitor Orfhlaith Begley succeeding Mr McElduff. A pharmaceutical company has been charged following the deaths of three children in hospitals thought to have been given contaminated drips. Scotland Yard launched an investigation in 2014 after two babies died at London's St Thomas' Hospital and another passed away at the Rosie Maternity Hospital in Cambridge. The investigation centred on the London-based company ITH Pharma and intravenous feeds designed to be given to premature babies too weak to eat on their own. Police launched an investigation in 2014 after two babies died at St Thomas' Hospital, pictured Police looked into the case after three babies died and another 20 needed treatment when they contracted septicaemia in 2014. The charges announced today are linked to seven babies, including three who died, who were given the fluid as nutrition between May and June of that year. Detectives announced today that ITH Pharma Ltd has been charged with multiple counts of supplying a medicinal product which was not of the nature or quality specified in the prescription, and with failing to take all reasonably practicable steps to ensure that patients were not infected by contaminants. A Met Police spokesman said: 'Police investigating the deaths and illnesses of babies at a number of hospitals have charged a pharmaceutical company with offences. 'ITH Pharma Ltd, based at Premier Park, NW10, has been charged with seven counts of supplying a medicinal product which was not of the nature or quality specified in the prescription on 27 May 2014. 'It has also been charged with failing to take all reasonably practicable steps to ensure that patients were not infected by contaminants, in breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act, between 1 August 2009 and 1 June 2014.' ITH Pharma CEO Karen Hamling and her husband Adam Bloom made a statement following the children's deaths at their Park Royal production plant in west London Parents' pain at death of nine-day-old son The parents of Yousef Al-Kharboush, who died at nine days old on June 1 2014 after receiving the contaminated feed at St Thomas', said they will never recover from what happened. He and his twin brother Abdulilah were born by emergency Caesarean section in May 2014. While in intensive care they were both fed intravenously, and while Abdulilah was not affected, Yousef contracted lethal blood poisoning from the feed which was contaminated with the bacteria bacillus cereus. Their father Raaid Sakkijha said: 'It has been like living with an open wound that will not close. We have found it impossible to move on while the case is ongoing, I am not sure that we will ever come to terms with what happened. 'We never celebrate events such as Yousef's brother's birthday because it is too painful a reminder of what we've lost.' Their lawyer Arti Shah, from Fieldfisher, said: 'It has been incredibly hard for Yousef's parents to have to wait so long for a charging decision while the company has simply been allowed to continue to trade. 'Yousef's family has suffered the worst grief imaginable, knowing that Yousef's death was avoidable.' Advertisement ITH Pharma was set up by pharmacist Karen Hamling and her husband Adam Bloom in 2008. The company said in a statement today: 'As founders of ITH we have every sympathy for all the families affected, regardless of the cause. 'However, we are disappointed by the decision to charge the company and will vigorously defend this case. It would not be appropriate to comment further at this stage.' 'Since 2008, ITH has manufactured more than 1.4-million components of total parenteral nutrition and is the sole commercial supplier of reactive feeding solutions to the NHS. 'This product has helped thousands of extremely vulnerable infants survive premature and complex births. ITH imposes rigorous environmental monitoring on its manufacturing process. 'The company has always had a strong relationship with the MHRA and continues to receive exemplary ratings for quality and safety.' Speaking after the death of the boy at St Thomas', Ms Hamling said: 'We are doing everything possible to help the regulators, the MHRA, to establish exactly what has happened.' The company is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Monday, 17 December. Relatives of the victims of the Lion Air plane crash have gathered at an Indonesian harbour today to begin the terrible task of sifting through piles of recovered belongings in search of their loved ones' possessions. The passenger jet crashed moments after taking off from the Indonesian capital Jakarta on Monday, and its wreckage was discovered on the bed of the Java Sea by search and rescue teams today. Crews in inflatable boats are retrieving human remains, aircraft debris and personal belongings from the site of the crash, which killed all 189 people on board. Distraught family members arrived at the collection point at Tanjung Priok Harbour in Jakarta and, still struggling to comprehend the loss of their loved ones, began to search through piles of shoes, clothes and rucksacks to retrieve their relatives' belongings. Shoes of Lion Air flight JT-610 plane crash victims at the collection point at Tanjung Priok Harbour, Jakarta, Indonesia, 31 October 2018 Wife (3-R) of Lion Air flight JT-610 plane crash victim Indonesian policeman Mito looks for her husband's belongings at the collection point Relatives of Lion Air flight JT-610 plane crash victims look for their family's belongings. Lion Air flight JT-610 lost contact with air traffic controllers soon after takeoff on Monday then crashed into the sea with 189 people on board A relative (C) of Lion Air flight JT-610 plane crash victim looks for his loved one's belongings at Tanjung Priok Harbour, Jakarta The Boeing jet was just two months old, and Indonesia's President has ordered an investigation to determine how it could have gone down with experienced pilots in fine weather. Although family members will wait for the official DNA results, a top search official said there are not thought to be any survivors, citing the condition of the remains found in the sea. President Joko Widodo has urged Indonesians to 'keep on praying.' Meanwhile Her Majesty The Queen sent a message of condolence to the Mr Widodo: 'Prince Philip and I were saddened by the news of the plane crash near Jakarta this morning. We send our sincere condolences to you, the families and friends of those who have died, and to the Indonesian people. Elizabeth R' The Indonesian transport minister intervened meanwhile to sack Lion Air's technical director and order the removal of several of his staff, citing government authority over the aviation sector. 'Today we will remove Lion's technical director from his duties to be replaced by someone else, as well as technical staff' who cleared the flight to depart, Budi Karya Sumadi told reporters. The Lion Air jet wasfound in the Java Sea after a search and rescue effort identified the seabed location Wife (2-R) of Lion Air flight JT-610 plane crash victim Indonesian policeman Mito looks for his belongings with friends Indonesian President Joko Widodo (L) Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi (C) and Chief of National Search and Rescue Agency Muhammad Syaugi (R) inspect debris and passengers' belongings retrieved from the waters where Lion Air flight JT 610 crashed Indonesian President Joko Widodo (L) Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi (C) and Chief of National Search and Rescue Agency Muhammad Syaugi (R) look over people's belongings and debris from the deadly plane crash that killed 189 people on Monday The disaster has reignited concerns about safety in Indonesia's fast-growing aviation industry, which was recently removed from European Union and U.S. blacklists, and also raised doubts about the safety of Boeing's new generation 737 MAX 8 plane. Boeing Co. experts are expected to arrive in Indonesia on Wednesday and Lion Air has said an 'intense' internal investigation is underway in addition to the probe by safety regulators. Data from flight-tracking sites show the plane had erratic speed and altitude in the early minutes of a flight on Sunday and on its fatal flight Monday. Rescuers inspect a body bag containing the remains of one of the victims of Monday's Lion Air plane crash Relatives of Paul Ferdinand, a passanger on the crashed Lion Air JT-610 pray as they wait for the news of the forensics inspection at the Police Hospital, Jakarta Ningsih Ayorbaba, a relative of the plane crash victims, cries as people wait for the news of the forensics inspection A pile of recovered debris from Lion Air flight JT 610 is displayed at the Tanjung Priok port on October 30, 2018 Safety experts caution, however, that the data must be checked for accuracy against the plane's 'black boxes,' which officials are confident will be recovered. Passengers on the Sunday flight from Bali to Jakarta have recounted problems that included a long-delayed takeoff for an engine check and terrifying descents in the first 10 minutes in the air. Lion Air has said maintenance was carried out on the aircraft after the Sunday flight and a problem, which it didn't specify, was fixed. Officials said the non-stop search effort has sent 48 body bags containing human remains to police identification experts. Anguished family members have been providing samples for DNA tests and police say results are expected within 4-8 days. Rescuers have recovered bodies, body parts, and personal items in the wreckage of the plane crash which claimed the lives of all 189 passengers and crew Officers examine the debris Lion Air at the Evacuation Command Post located in Tanjung Priok Port, Jakarta Rescuers conduct a search operation for the victims of the crashed Lion Air plane in the waters of Tanjung Karawang, Indonesia A rescuer inspects a part of Lion Air plane flight JT 610 retrieved from the waters where it's believed to have crashed at Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta Rescuers remove a bag containing debris retrieved from the waters where Lion Air flight JT 610 is believed to have crashed Rescuers carry a body bag containing the remains of victims retrieved from the waters where Lion Air flight JT 610 is believed to have crashed Musyafak, the head of Said Sukanto Police Hospital, said nearly 150 samples for testing have been collected but more are still needed, especially from parents and children of victims. Lion Air's president Edward Sirait told The Associated Press that timing of a meeting with Boeing experts is still uncertain. Daniel Putut, a Lion Air managing director, said Tuesday evening the airline hopes to meet with Boeing officials on Wednesday afternoon. 'Of course there are lots of things we will ask them, we all have question marks here, 'Why? What's the matter with this new plane,'' Putut said. Indonesia's Transport Ministry has ordered all Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes operated by Lion Air and national carrier Garuda to be inspected. Lion has ordered 50 of the jets, worth an estimated $6.2 billion, and currently operates nine. Boeing declined to comment about potential inspections globally. The aircraft manufacturer told airlines in a bulletin, 'Boeing has no recommended operator action at this time,' according to two people familiar with the matter. A relative holds a photo of a passenger of the crashed Lion Air plane at the police hospital in Jakarta A family member of passengers of the crashed Lion Air plane is assisted by others upon arrival at the police hospital A relative of a passenger of the crashed Lion Air plane cries at the police hospital in Jakarta The crash is the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea in December 2014, killing all 162 on board. Indonesian airlines were barred in 2007 from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, though several were allowed to resume services in the following decade. The ban was completely lifted in June. The U.S. lifted a decadelong ban in 2016. Lion Air, a discount carrier, is one of Indonesia's youngest and biggest airlines, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations. It has been expanding aggressively in Southeast Asia, a fast-growing region of more than 600 million people. Manila (CNN Philippines Life) Of the many commendable directorial choices made by Luca Guadagnino in his critically acclaimed film, Call Me By Your Name, the soundtrack is one of the most talked about. The coming of age film, set in rural Italy during a summer in the 1980s, is the story of how two young men fall in love, and at a time and place where this love cannot be made public, it is through the films music indie folk artist Sufjan Stevens three tracks and various classical pieces that we experience the thoughts and feelings of Elio and Oliver, acting as a narrator of sorts. As Guadagnino states in an interview with Pitchfork, [In the film,] we have extensive usage of piano because those notes, in a way, are the interior and exterior dialogue between Elio and himself, and Elio and Oliver. This is what makes Call Me By Your Name in Concert such an exciting concept. The world premiere, which happened last Sunday, Oct. 28, at the Samsung Hall in SM Aura Premier, presented for the first time ever a live scoring of the films music by the Manila Symphony Orchestra (MSO). Maestro Arturo Molina of the MSO lead the orchestra. Photo by KAREN DE LA FUENTE The orchestra played through the entire film, staying true to the classical pieces in the soundtrack while also providing accompaniment with the MSOs own unique touch to the Europop songs heard through the radio and in certain club scenes. An interesting choice made was the addition of scoring to a few scenes that were devoid of music in the original film, such as peppering John Adams Hallelujah Junction the films opening track throughout some moments after Elio and Oliver officially meet. Of note also was the orchestras restraint, especially in scenes that thrived in silence, such as in the heartbreaking conversation between Elio and his father near the end. With the orchestra in full view, their spotlights dimmed (whereas they were usually a warm yellow as they played) and their instruments lowered, it was as if they were telling the audience to listen intently to Mr. Perlmans words; this was a choice appreciated by some viewers I spoke to after the show. Is it better to speak or to die? Elio's mother reads a passage from The Heptameron. Photo by KAREN DE LA FUENTE From left to right: Banjo player Lester Demetillo, maestro Arturo Molina, concertmaster Gina Perez-Medina, pianist Jaydee De Ocampo-Lalic, and violinist Alfie Encina. Photo by KAREN DE LA FUENTE In an interview before the show, members of the orchestra shared that pulling off this feat proved to be technically challenging, even though they had rehearsed days prior to the show. You have to be synchronized with the movie, and that's really a challenging job for the conductor because he really has to be in time with the movements, said concertmaster Gina Perez-Medina. Maestro Arturo Medina explained that he was equipped with gadgets to help him keep in time, like a tablet that would indicate when the music had to come in. Maybe that's the real conductor, he jokes. It says there like, you have a minute to go, so it goes 60, 59, 58... zero! Though the orchestra had rehearsed days prior to the show, they revealed how live scoring proved to be technically challenging, as there was a need to be constantly synchronized with the film. Photo by KAREN DE LA FUENTE To help him keep in time, the conductor had a tablet that would indicate when the music had to come in. Photo by KAREN DE LA FUENTE As such, the orchestra did experience a few minor hiccups, including playing slightly out of synch with Sufjan Stevens vocals during Mystery of Love, wherein Elio and Oliver embark on a trip together to Bergamo before the latter has to return home to the U.S. The orchestra eventually caught on, punctuating the pivotal sequence with the same poignancy and tenderness evoked by Stevens vocals. With so much pressure put on the orchestra to get things right, it also came as no surprise that the show had an intermission midway. And though it initially felt to some like an odd and potentially jarring choice to put a break in the rhythm set by the films director and editor, inserting the intermission after Stevens Futile Devices, which plays over scenes wherein Elio is overcome with his overthinking and his seemingly unrequited desire, honors that sense of torturous waiting for an answer. Seeing the film's closing scene scored live evokes a feeling that can only be summoned by such a unique experience. Photo by KAREN DE LA FUENTE For fans of the film, the concert adds another layer to the experience of enjoying the story of Oliver and Elio in its many forms, from Andre Aciman's novel to the full soundtrack out on vinyl and on streaming services like Spotify. Think of it as the ultimate immersion into Oliver and Elio's brief summer of love. And so watching the orchestra play Visions of Gideon as a heartbroken Elio sat motionless, grappling with the news of Olivers engagement up on the big screen behind them, I was awash with a feeling I couldnt place a feeling that I think could only be summoned by hearing Stevens haunting closing song live with the piano notes punching through the air as the fireplace's crackling reflected on Elio's tear-soaked face. By Trend The President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree on measures to further liberalize trade and promote rivalry in commodity markets, Uzbek media reported. By the decree of the Uzbek president, the licensing of wholesale activities and the special procedure of taxation of trade enterprises, as well as a special procedure of recording revenue from the sale of certain types of excisable goods (cars, vegetable oil, etc.) will be abolished starting from January 1, 2019. Starting from the new year, the requirements for obtaining a permit for exit trade and sanctions for overdue receivables arising in relations of organizations with a state share in the authorized capital of less than 50 percent with counterparties will also be canceled. Also, the requirement of a 15-percent prepayment at the domestic market for transactions of organizations with a state share of less than 50 percent, and restrictions on the export of certain types of goods will be canceled. Footage shows a huge crane crashing to the ground at Barcelona Port after being hit by an out-of-control ferry. The vessel called Excellent operated by Italian firm Grandi Navi Veloci which was carrying 420 passengers, hit the the crane at speed after being pushed off course by high winds. The collision caused a blaze which led to firefighters evacuating the area. Authorities confirmed no injuries, although two people are said to have been treated by medics after suffering a panic attack. The choppy waters are visible as the out-of-control hulk is sped into the crane by high winds The fire is thought to have ignited after the crane smashed into fuel deposits beneath it on the dock Sixty were due to leave the vessel at port and another 115 were due to board the ship bound for Tangier, Morocco. The fire was brought under control around 11am local time. A local port workers' union tweeted: 'The ship Excellent, operated by GNV Traghetti, has had to abort its docking manouevre because of the bad weather conditions. 'As it was trying to leave the port the wind has pushed it against a crane which has fallen to the ground.' The fire is thought to have started after the crane hit a fuel deposit behind it as it crashed to the ground. It affected several containers by the port-side, forcing local authorities to activate an emergency response plan because two of the containers contained dangerous chemicals. Black smoke rising from the scene of the collision, which happened just after 8am this morning could be seen across Barcelona. Black smoke billowing from the fire cause by the crane's collapse could be seen across the horizon in Bareclona In January a huge ferry hit a cruise liner in the same port after apparent engine failure. The collision between the roll-on roll-off Fantastic ferry belonging to the Italian shipping company Grandi Navi Veloci and the Viking Star cruise ship sparked initial fears a major rescue operation would have to be launched. Fortunately no-one was injured in the incident on January 13. Footage of the collision taken by a dock worker showed the Fantastic ferry's stern rammed against the side of the Viking Star as both vessels blasted their sirens. The Italian ferry had reportedly lost engine power while docking in the port's B Terminal, from Tangier in Morocco. The Fantastic ferry is said to have dropped an anchor to try to stop its drift without success before it hit the left side of the 750-foot-long Viking Star, which is operated by Norwegian-owned Viking Ocean Cruises and had docked in Barcelona from Valencia with 820 passengers on board ahead of a stop in Marseilles. A severed fox tail was dumped on the car bonnet of a vegan animal activist warning him to stay away from hunters - or more 'will die'. A note was left under the windscreen of Ray Williams' car appearing to be from aggressive hunters. After an animal rights demo at Hogwood Farm in Warwickshire Mr Williams returned to his vehicle to find a bloodied envelope under the windscreen wiper along with a fox's tail. The accompanying note said: 'Every time you abuse a hunter on social media. Another fox will die.' The vile note had a smiley face drawn on it. Mr Williams found the threat on his car at a farm after a protest over pork meat The foxes tail was found on the bonnet of Mr Williams' car warning him not to 'abuse hunters on social media' Mr Williams was attending a demo at a pork supplier for Tesco - on September 30 and took to social media to share the unsettling discovery. He said: 'Inside was the tail of a fox and a note telling me every time I'm nasty to a poor hunter another fox will be killed. 'What kind of sad, pathetic little coward would do a thing like that? 'Well done, yes it did upset us, and yes, it upset a nine-year old little girl who has been brought up vegan from birth by her amazing mother. 'Will it stop us and put us off standing up to animal abusers? Naa that's not gonna happen.' The police logged the incident at the end of last month and undertook forensics analysis. Warwickshire Police were unable to find any DNA with which to pursue an offender. Mr Williams said of the incident: 'I'd like to say that myself and every other activist at Hogwood has been treated with fairness, dignity and respect at all times by police liaison officers when attending vigils at Hogwood. Mr Williams found the dismembered tail of a fox and a hostile note left in a bloodied envelope under the windscreen wiper of his car Mr Williams said he was treated with dignity by police and said the threat would not stop their protests The envelope had spots of blood on it from the severed fox tail after the cruel note was left 'I didn't expect anything to be found and these are the pics of the tail and note that was left. 'I'd like to add the pathetic attempt by a member of the little willy brigade to put us off attending vigils and trying to stop myself personally from saying horrible things about sad little hunters on social media has failed miserably. 'Fox hunters really are pathetic, sad cowards. 'I'd like to wish every hunt sab a safe and successful weekend, you really are heroes for what you do.' Hogwood Farm came under fire earlier this year after footage of cannibal pigs supposedly eating each other alive hit headlines. The farm, a pork supplier for Tesco, was found to have been surveyed by officials one year previously and had made no breach of animal welfare standards. Warwickshire Police and Shipston Safer Neighbourhood team have been contacted for comment. A letter Neil Armstrong sent to his father about how he almost died in the Korea War is set to fetch $20,000 at auction tomorrow. The first man on the moon was piloting a US Air Force F9F Panther plane on a reconnaissance mission in September 1951 when it was hit by anti-aircraft fire. While trying to regain control, he collided with a pole which sliced off 3ft of the Panther's right wing. Armstrong, 21, ejected over water and wanted to await rescue by Navy helicopters but his parachute blew him back over land and he was eventually rescued in a Jeep. He sent a hand-written letter telling his father about the close shave - and asking him to not tell his mother because she would worry. The Korean War: F9F-2 Panthers over Korea, with Neil Armstrong piloting S-116 (left) Armstrong sent a hand-written letter (pictured) telling his father about the close shave which has been unearthed by his children 67 years later. This photograph of Neil Armstrong was taken in February 1952 for his Navy Bio File The letter, uncovered 67 years later, is now being sold the Armstrong family. Part of the proceeds will go to charity. In his letter to his father, Stephen, Armstrong wrote: 'The day after I wrote my last letter I was hit by enemy fire and almost lost my aircraft in a dive about 100 miles behind enemy lines. 'I managed to nurse the plane back to friendly territory & bailed out safely. 'The next day, two of our boys in the squadron were shot down. It was pretty grim.' Armstrong also enclosed a copy of his last will and testament, adding that the original was in the Navy files. Also on sale is one of the pioneering astronaut's spacesuits and a US flag he took into space. An early spacesuit warn by Armstrong around the time of project Mercury. It could sell for $13,000 A copy of Armstrong's last will and testament that he sent home from Korea to his father with the original letter A copy of Armstrong's last will and testament that he sent home from Korea to his father with the original letter Michael Riley, a space memorabilia expert with the auction house Heritage, said: 'I didn't know about the existence of this letter and outside of the family, neither did anyone else. 'I'd expect it to have a huge market, not just to fans of Armstrong the astronaut but also to military enthusiasts and museums. 'The letter is fantastic because it offers a personal take on one of the scariest and most dramatic incidents of his life. 'What's nice about it is how he didn't want to upset his mother and only spoke about what happened in a letter to his father.' He added: 'The letter itself is in fantastic condition and has been well looked after throughout its life. An American flag which Neil Armstong kept from Apollo 11 as a souvenir. It could fetch $75,000 'It has been folded into three parts at some point and one side has been more exposed to the light, but other than that it's absolutely fantastic. 'It will come with a certificate of authenticity from the current owner and I'd be very surprised if it didn't sell for a huge amount.' The letter estimated to sell for $20,000 while the copy of his will is valued at $10,000. The US flag he kept from the Apollo 11 moon landing mission is due to sell for over $75,000 and his spacesuit could reach over $13,000. The sale takes place tomorrow. Police have released the first photographs of Saudi Arabian sisters who were found drowned and duct taped together in the Hudson River last week in a plea for information about their mysterious lives and murky deaths. Tala Farea, 16, and Rotana Farea, 22, were found washed up on October 24. The sisters were living together in New York City where Rotana was studying Computer and Information Technology after recently dropping out of George Mason University in Virginia. Their parents, Wafa'a and Abdulsalam, live in Virginia with their brothers who are 18 and 11. Abdulsalam often traveled back to Saudi Arabia for work but no information about his job has emerged. In August, the family reported 16-year-old Tala missing after she disappeared from Virginia but the search was called off when they learned she had gone to stay with her sister in New York City. She had recently been awarded a spot at a top private school in Saudi Arabia with a full scholarship but was desperate not to go. It was the second time they broke off from the family. In December last year, the pair fled to a shelter in Fairfax. The family reported them both missing. When officers tracked them down, the sisters begged them not to tell the family where they were. What led to them returning home remains a mystery but police are focusing their investigation on the circumstances surrounding it. Despite their repeated attempts to live independently from their parents, the family was described as 'happy' by Arab media outlets and were the 'apples of their father's eye'. Tala Farea, 16, (left) and Rotana Farea, 22, (right) were found washed up on October 24. Police released these photographs of the sisters on Wednesday. These are the passport images they likely used when entering the US in 2015 These are the sketches that were issued when the girls bodies' were found last week 'They were just like any one of us, they were a happy family. They were comfortable and at ease with everyone, and so the rumors that they ran away from home were beyond us. Its impossible. They were a happy family... they were the apple of their father's eye Saudi Arabian relative 'Their mother was naturally protective, but in no way was their household problematic for them to run away,' they told Arab News. They said the family was happy with Tala living with her sister who she missed dearl when she left Virginia. 'Tala was upset for quite some time after her sister decided to continue her studies in NYC. Yes, it did cause a problem for the family as the mother had to file a missing case report to the police over her daughters disappearance, but the search was called off later when they found Tala was with her sister, Rotana. 'The police told their mother that since her younger daughter was safe with an adult, its safe to call off the search.' The girls only ever used Snapchat, they said, and communicated with their relatives in Saudi Arabia through it. 'They were private and kept to themselves most of the time, but we communicated mostly via Snapchat and it wasnt a surprise to any of us that they wouldnt have any accounts on other social media apps,' the unnamed family member said. 'They were calm and always polite. All families have problems. What kind of sibling relationship would it be without fights every now and then? TIMELINE OF SAUDI SISTERS' LIVES AND DEATH 2015: Family moves to Fairfax, Virginia from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia December 2017: Sisters run away and beg police not to tell mom where they were. They return back to Virginia at some stage afterwards May 2018: Oldest sister attends final classes at George Mason August 2018: Tala is reported missing. The search is called off when police learn she is with her sister in New York City. October 17: Mother's last known contact with the sisters, according to relatives October 23: Mother receives call from Saudi Consulate ordering the family home because the girls have applied for political asylum October 24: The girls bodies are found washed up in the Hudson River Advertisement 'But that didnt push them to the edge as the Western media is portraying,' they added. The NYPD has not ruled anything out. Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said yesterday: 'We are looking at all clues in their past life.' The family in Virginia is yet to speak out about their disappearance despite DailyMail.com's repeated attempts to contact their representative. On October 23, the girls' mother Wafa'a received a phone call from an official at the Saudi Arabian consulate who ordered the entire family to return to their home country. It was in response to an application by the two sisters for political asylum in the United States. Police have ruled out that the pair jumped from the George Washington Bridge in a suicide pact, a theory that was initially pushed out by police, because neither body had visible signs of trauma. It is not known how long they were dead before they were found but police struggled to identify them for days. Rotana dropped out of George Mason in May this year after two years of studies. George Mason, a public university with 35,000 students has close ties to Saudi Arabia. We are looking at all clues in their past life, NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea The Saudi Arabia Cultural Mission has gifted the college $63 million and has paid for the education of 270 of its 370 Saudi students. Rather than live on campus like many of her classmates, Rotana traveled back to her home in Falls Church, Virginia where she lived with her mother, brother and Tala. Rotana attended classes at the Volgenau School of Engineering and sources say she planned to major in bio-engineering when she returned this fall. But the University told DailyMail.com that Rotana never returned in August to complete her education. Problems arose for Rotana when she learned her whole family would have to return to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Rotana Farea dropped out of the University's engineering college in Fairfax, Virginia, before she could begin a major in bioengineering in August A source at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, DC told DailyMail.com Rotana's sister Tala had won a full scholarship to study at Dar Al-Fikr, a top private school in Jeddah. Tala had briefly studied in 2017 at Fairfax High School, close to George Mason University. Rotana and Tala's mother contacted The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on August 24 after Tala went missing from home. She then called off the search after learning Tala was with Rotana in New York. She also told authorities the pair were applying for asylum in the US to avoid returning to Jeddah. Family members told Arab News that the two sisters had only lost contact with their mother a week ago. They are insisting that the pair did not commit suicide and are waiting to find out the cause of death from the Chief Medical Examiner, which has not yet released findings from the autopsies. The family lived here at the Skyline Apartments in Falls Church, Virginia. The girls are however thought to have been in New York City since late August The bodies of the two women that were bound together by duct tape washed up from New York's Hudson River on Wednesday. Police are seen here removing one of the bodies The bodies were laying on rocks near the river when authorities arrived on the scene In a statement released today, the Saudi Arabian Consulate General in New York said the Farea sisters were 'citizens accompanying their brother in Washington' and it had 'appointed an attorney to follow the case closely'. Rotana and Tala were found fully clothed, wearing black jackets with fur trim and black leggings, when their bodies washed up near Riverside Park last week. Their bodies were bound together with duct tape that was tied around their feet and waists. The pair were found facing each other. A passerby called 911 at 2.40pm on Wednesday after spotting the two bodies, which were found laying on rocks by the river when police arrived at the scene. The sisters' father has since arrived in New York following news of their death. It remains unclear what he did for a living but he frequently traveled between the US and Saudi Arabia for work. The family moved to Virginia in 2015. It is not known why this was where they chose to settle. Authorities received a 911 call at 2.40pm from a passerby who spotted the two bodies floating in the water off the city's Upper West Side neighborhood A sheriff's office in Georgia has put signs in the yards of sex offenders urging children not to trick or treat at those houses. Butts County Sheriff's Office announced the move in a Facebook post on Saturday, which noted that the signs were placed in accordance with Georgia law. Georgia law says that sheriffs are responsible for informing the public about the presence of sex offenders. A sign saying 'Warning! No trick-or-treat at this address!!' was placed in the yard of each of the county's 54 registered sex offenders, Sheriff Gary Long told CBS News. A sheriff's office in Georgia has put signs in the yards of sex offenders urging children not to trick or treat at those houses They also show a graphic of stop signs and a Halloween bag with a caution sign over it. Long said he and his deputies placed the signs on the edges of offenders' yards on Saturday and they would be removed on Thursday morning. Previously, they would visit offenders and complete mandatory compliance check which includes not having Halloween decorations on their property a few weeks before Halloween. Back then, a sign would be placed on their doors to warn children away. But this year, Long wanted to increase visibility because he is especially concerned for the safety of the children in the community after a popular annual Halloween event was canceled. Sheriff Gary Long (above) said he and his deputies placed the signs on the edges of offenders' yards and they would be removed on Thursday morning In previous years, local businesses, police and the fire department would hand out candy to kids at the Halloween event in the town's square. Without it, he expects more children trick-or-treating on the streets on Wednesday night. 'There are some sex offenders that are not happy,' Long said, according to USA Today. 'But I'm not in the business of making them happy. I'm in the business of keeping safe communities and making sure that our children are protected.' Police in Munich have arrested five Afghan asylum seekers after a 15-year-old girl claims she was raped in Munich, days after a similar report in Freiburg. According to Bild the men aged between 20 and 25 preyed on the 'socially challenged' girl after she was groomed by one of their number. She is said to have told officers that one man repeatedly raped her and that she had been assaulted by five of his friends last month. The attacks were spread out across several apartments in Munich. On Monday night protesters clashed with police as they reacted to nationalist demonstrations against Angela Merkel's liberal border policy The chancellor has announced she will be stepping down at the end of her current term after voters turned against her 'Willkommenskultur' which brought in almost a million migrants in 2015 The girl said she was afraid to defend herself because she thought they would beat her. The Bavarian police are hunting one of their number who is still on the run. The chief suspect denies any wrongdoing, claiming that all sex was consensual - the age of consent in Germany is 14. News of the assault comes as Angela Merkel's Germany reels from the horrific story of seven Syrian migrants gang-raping an 18-year-old girl on October 14. Majd H., 21, the alleged chief suspect of the Freiburg gang-rape case is seen here posing in his homeland with a large machine gun The Syrians between the ages of 19 and 29, along with a 25-year-old German, were arrested in Freiburg in the south-western German state of Baden-Wuerttebmberg. One of their number is alleged to have provided her with ecstasy before raping her in bushes outside a nightclub and inviting others to join in. The four hour ordeal led to 500 marching through the streets on Monday night as nationalist groups criticised Merkel's liberal border policy. Merkel who has held the Chancellorship since 2005 is stepping down at the end of her term in 2021. Her coalition faced collapse after permitting the inflow of nearly a million refugees and asylum seekers as part of her 'Willkommenskultur' - welcoming culture, in 2015. A pregnant woman who went to the supermarket for groceries gave birth to a baby at the checkouts 25 minutes later. The Russian woman, 28, was seen on CCTV cradling her bump and calmly explaining to the cashier that she was about to give birth before clutching the side of the counter. Seconds later she was on the floor by the till in the Nazyvaevsk store in Omsk region and baby boy Ivan arrived 11 minutes later. The pregnant woman is seen at the checkouts (left) ready to pay for her shopping items before she went into labour The cashier and other shoppers helped deliver the baby, before a paramedic brought in a stretcher and carried the baby in a blanket (pictured) Paramedics and other shoppers helped load the new mother into the stretcher before carrying her to an ambulance Cashier Elena Barsukova, 35, became the impromptu midwife aided by a colleague and two shoppers. 'There was no time to think,' admitted Elena who briefly panicked after realising the baby really was on the way - covering her face in her hands but also seeking to use her phone to summon help. Quickly she took charge of the delivery - as some shoppers looked on while others just continued making their purchases. A shopper helped lower the woman onto the floor. Manager of Nizkotsen supermarket, Anna Tsybulskaya, 40, explained: 'Everything happened so quickly. 'An employee came running from the supermarket floor and said that a girl was giving birth there, so I called an ambulance and then went to see what was happening. 'By then the child was already on the mother's tummy. The baby was born before the ambulance arrived.' Cashier Elena Barsukova (left), 35, became an impromptu midwife and helped deliver the baby. Store manager Anna Tsybulskaya (right), 40, called an ambulance, but the baby was born by the time it arrived A video shows paramedics arriving - and they soon took the woman to hospital. The incident happened earlier this month. She was only in the shop 25 minutes, and the birth itself took 11 minutes from the moment she told Elena she could wait no longer. The manager praised her checkout staff and shoppers for the successful delivery - 'none of them had a medical education'. 'The most important thing is that everything ended well,' she said. The baby weighed in at 8lbs and has been named Ivan. 'The baby is healthy, and we know that they are already at home,' she said. 'He was named Ivan'. The mother has not been named. Reports say this was her sixth child. Bernie Sanders branded Donald Trump the most 'racist, homophobic, sexist and bigoted president in history' as he spoke at a political rally in Maryland on Tuesday. The former Presidential candidate pledged that Democrats would work to thwart Trump's agenda if they win back control of the House and Senate in November. Sanders made the remarks while stumping for Ben Jealous, one of his staunchest supporters during the 2016 election who is now running for Maryland governor. Bernie Sanders lashed out at Trump as he stumped for Ben Jealous in the Maryland governor's race on Tuesday night (pictured together) Speaking in Bethesda on Tuesday night, Sanders said: 'We are working to make certain that the agenda of the most racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted president in history will go nowhere because Democrats will control the House and the Senate. 'All across this country, Republicans are working overtime to suppress the vote. They are scared to death of what happens when working people and young people and people of color come out to vote,' he said in remarks carried by ABC. 'They wanna suppress the vote. We wanna have a 'huge' voter turnout.' Jealous was a relative unknown in Maryland, especially in political circles, until he agreed to help run Sanders' election campaign in the state in 2016. The following year he decided to become a candidate himself, and is now attempting to unseat one of the country's most-popular governors - Larry Hogan. Jealous helped run Sander's election campaign in Maryland in 2016 before deciding to become a candidate himself, but is trailing badly in the polls Republican Larry Hogan is running for a second term as governor, putting himself forward as a pro-business candidate who has slashed taxes and red tape Polls published late last month by the Washington Post had Jealous trailing Hogan by 20 points, 54 per cent to 32 per cent. Hogan, who is running for a second four-year term, has put himself forward as a pro-business candidate who has cut taxes and 'job-killing' red tape. 'I stood on the steps of our historic State House four years ago and I said that we're going to put Maryland on a new path,' Hogan said, according to the Baltimore Sun. 'We're gonna try to grow our private sector, put more people to work and turn our economy around. And guess what? 'You know, I might be new to this politics thing, I don't really know how it works, I'm just doing exactly what I said I was gonna do.' The women are young and old, clad in black or a burst of color, work as actors and as operating room technicians but they all have one thing in common: they are witches. A new photograph collection, Major Arcana: Witches in America, explores the idea of who identifies as a witch today and there are no pointy hats, warts or green skin anywhere to be seen. Brooklyn-based photographer Frances F. Denny set off on a quest in early 2016, which would take her around the country, to document what the word witch means today and found manifold practices and identities. Some women shared their coming out of the broom closet the communitys parlance for telling people you are a witch stories with Denny, who has traced one ancestor to a central judge during the Salem witch trials and another who was accused of witchcraft around twenty years before. The portrait portfolio comes amid the backdrop of the one year anniversary of the #MeToo movement's rise, anger on the left over the recent Brett Kavanaugh hearings where the then-Supreme Court nominee was accused of sexual assault, and an uptick in mass hexing that has targeted convicted rapist Brock Turner and President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, some younger women have turned to witchcraft or parts of it as a means of self-care that is Insta-ready. DailyMail.com interviewed four witches who took part in Dennys project, and all spoke about a political element to their identities and practice. The witch is a figure of subversion and rebellion, Pam Grossman, who identifies as a Pagan witch, explained. It represents a real diametric opposition to patriarchal thinking. After researching her family tree and learning she had one ancestor who was a central judge during the Salem witch trials, Brooklyn-based photographer Frances F. Denny decided to explore what it means to be a witch today and took portraits of women across the country who identify as witches. Maja (pictured), who was dubbed the white witch of LA, stands next to a tree in a park in her namesake city. Denny said she felt it was very appropriate Maja 'showed up in head to toe white. Image: Frances F. Denny, 'Maja (Los Angeles, CA),' 2017, archival pigment print, courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York City Denny started photographing in early 2016 and discovered that there were many different ways to practice and to inhabit the witch identity. Dia Dynasty (pictured), is an alpha witch, shamanatrix, and female supremacist, according to her Twitter bio, and she brought crystals and whips to the photo shoot. Dia Dynasty and her partner Lucy Sweetkill run La Maison du Rouge, focused on expanding the BDSM experience by discussing, educating, and informing our audiences about the intersections of kink, wellness, sexuality, spirituality, and social activism, according to their website. Image: Frances F. Denny, 'Dia (New York, NY),' 2017, archival pigment print, courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York City Before each shoot, Denny asked participants to choose where they wanted to be photographed and many selected the outdoors as a setting. Each woman dressed themselves and Denny asked them to bring along an object that felt relevant to their identity as a witch or to their practice. For her photo, Meredith brought a staff, which has been layered over time with material found or given to her, such as a snakeskin and a bear claw, Denny said. Image: Frances F. Denny, 'Meredith (Moretown, VT),' 2017, archival pigment print, courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York City Grossman said she appreciated how Denny approached the project - some of the portraits are now being exhibited at ClampArt through November 24 - from an anthropological standpoint and that it reflects the diversity of the modern witchcraft community. For so long people have thought that witches could only look a certain a way or behave a certain a way, but, in fact, there is such a vast multiplicity of backgrounds and approaches to witchcraft, said Grossman, an author who also launched the podcast The Witch Wave' and WitchEmoji. I was delighted that there really was not only diversity in backgrounds but also diversity in styles, certainly a lot of us do wear black, she laughed, but thats not the only way to move in the world as a witch we have every kind of job you can imagine, being a witch is one facet, albeit a bright facet and so I really appreciated the fact that you get different peoples personalities (shining) through. Photographer Denny told DailyMail.com that the seed for the project was planted four years ago when she looked into her familys ancestry a project that ended up becoming the book called Let Virtue Be Your Guide. While going through documents, Denny discovered that her tenth great-grandfather was one of the central judges in the Salem witch trials and her eighth great-great grandmother was an accused witch about 20 years prior to the trials. But this coincidence stuck with me and at the moment I remember kind of filing it away in my brain to sort of come back to at another point, she recalled. Denny, who grew up in Massachusetts not far from Salem, said she then started reading Stacy Schiffs book The Witches: Salem, 1692. I just started thinking about that time and thinking about what that word witch meant back then and then started thinking about, well, you know, I had some vague awareness that there people who practiced so-called witchcraft and saw themselves as witches. So I started thinking, well, what does that word mean now, who is a witch, who claims that word as part of their identity now. And that was my jumping off point, she said. Denny next faced the task of finding subjects and started asking around - talking to people about the idea of doing portraits of people who identify as witches. She said she found a small but critical mass of five to ten people, and through them networked and found more practitioners. Its kind of surprising. I was sort of prepared to have people to be like, who the hell do you think you are and absolutely not. Nothing like that, she said. A seminal book for many witches is Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. That was the case for Wolf (pictured) who told Denny books were her entree into witchcraft and that she began identifying as a witch at a young age. Wolf is an eclectic witch and does not adhere to one label for her beliefs, Denny said. Image: Frances F. Denny, 'Wolf (Brooklyn, NY),' 2017, archival pigment print, courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York City For Deborah (pictured), witch work is about including and embracing the dark sides of ourselves, Denny said. A filmmaker and master acting instructor, Deborah works with actors that she is directing to integrate those emotions and aspects, such as grief, rage or sexuality, Denny said. Image: Frances F. Denny, 'Deborah (Nyack, NY),' 2017, archival pigment print, courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York City The witch is a figure of subversion and rebellion, Pam Grossman, who identifies as a Pagan witch, told DailyMail.com. Grossman said she has been doing magic since she was a child, and after discovering spell books as a teenager, started experimenting with them. Grossman, who launched the podcast The Witch Wave' and WitchEmoji, is the author of 'Waking the Witch,' which will be out next year. She said talking about witches is complex because there is no one set of dogma or specific leader, and it is very open to interpretation. Image: Frances F. Denny, 'Pam (Brooklyn, NY),' 2017, archival pigment print, courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York City Judika Illes, a well-known metaphysical author who told DailyMail.com she gets recognized on the subway, said she was grateful to see the diversity and not just 'stereotypical witches in Dennys portrait project. Illes, whose books include the Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, said that terms people use to describe what type of witch they are, such as a green witch, are not written in stone and that people's definition of the craft is often 'fluid' and 'personal.' Image: Frances F. Denny, 'Judika (Brooklyn, NY),' 2017, archival pigment print, courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York City Denny noted that she is grateful that people agreed to be photographed because even now there is something at stake for people to be publicly identified as a witch. In parts of this country and parts of the world you can get in really hot water for claiming to be a witch, she said. One of my subjects told me that she had been scared for a long time to do what she called and what is commonly in the witchcraft community called coming out of the broom closet. She had been afraid to because she was scared that her ex-husband would try to take her kids away. Denny said it is something that could be an accusation leveled against someone, and she decided to include peoples first names only and the place where she photographed them for the project. (DailyMail.com asked each woman interviewed to use their full name for this article.) Author Lilith Dorsey said that she wanted to participate in Dennys project because it is important for her to have positive images of witches, particularly those that are women of color. Its really nice that we can do these things now literally in the light of day and show people who we are and that were not scary or ugly or any of that, she told DailyMail.com. When Dorseys daughter, now 28, was a child, she said there was a real danger that we might have been investigated by people for our practices and what we were doing. Dorsey said she considers herself a Pagan in the sense of I practice an Earth-centered religion. Denny photographed around 70 people for the project, and there are 20 portraits and six found still lives in the exhibition at ClampArt. Before each photo shoot, Denny asked participants to choose where they wanted to be photographed and many selected the outdoors as a setting. Each woman dressed themselves and Denny asked them to bring along an object that felt relevant to their identity as a witch or to their practice. For instance, Dorsey explained in her photograph, which is not part of the exhibition, she is wearing elekes, which are the ritual necklaces in Regla Lucumi, more commonly known as Santeria. Its one of the first levels of initiation that you get in that practice and it basically means that you carry the gods and goddess with you, as represented in the necklaces, she said. When Denny first started the project, she faced the task of finding subjects, and said she is grateful that people agreed to be photographed because even now there is something at stake for people to be publicly identified as a witch. Shine (pictured) told Denny she come to witchcraft at an early age and that she sees herself as a witch shaman, infusing Yoruba, Egyptian, and shamanic drumming and trance into her practice. She is not part of a coven, but rather practices alone, Denny said. Image: Frances F. Denny, 'Shine (New York, NY),' 2017, archival pigment print, courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York City Karen (pictured) is an urban herbalist, it is her kids, Denny said, that call her a witch. She has practiced herbalism, which she calls her religion, for 20 years and believes that integrated holistic healing isnt just physical, but its also emotional and psychological symptoms that people have, according to Denny. Karen, who owns and operates an apothecary, told Denny local healers were integral to her community in Guyana, where she grew up. Image: Frances F. Denny, 'Karen (Brooklyn, NY),' 2017, archival pigment print, courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York City Starhawk (pictured) is a well-known figure within the witch community. She is an activist and the author or co-author of several books including 'The Spiral Dance' - a book many mentioned to Denny - and the co-founder of Reclaiming, which she calls 'an activist branch of modern Pagan religion' on her website. She told Denny shes been arrested over 20 times due to her activism. Image: Frances F. Denny, 'Starhawk (San Francisco, CA),' 2017, archival pigment print, courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York City Other women also wore or held necklaces that had other meanings and significance. For example, Denny explained that in one photo, Randy an older woman with white hair wearing a violet dress stands in an untamed field with pockets of wildflowers in Plainfield, Vermont, holding what looks to be a necklace but is actually a crystal object on a chain that is used for divination. A person can ask it a question and depending on whether the object turns clockwise or counterclockwise, its a yes or no answer, Denny said. One woman is photographed with a cat, another with oranges, many with what looks like a knife, which Denny said is called an athame and that it is used for rituals. In another photo, taken in Esopus, New York, Denny described a woman who is reclining on a large rock outside with a snake wrapped around her neck thats kind of traveling down her body, her name is Serpentessa and shes a snake priestess. So she uses snakes as a healing experience for people so she actually places snakes on your body. For her photo, Meredith, photographed in Moretown, Vermont, brought a staff, which has been layered over time with material found or given to her, such as a snakeskin and a bear claw, Denny said. Wearing a brown catsuit, Dias lipstick is as red as the carpet she is lying on. Photographed in New York City, Dia Dynasty, an alpha witch, shamanatrix, and female supremacist, according to her Twitter bio, brought crystals and whips. Dia Dynasty and her partner Lucy Sweetkill run La Maison du Rouge, focused on expanding the BDSM experience by discussing, educating, and informing our audiences about the intersections of kink, wellness, sexuality, spirituality, and social activism, according to their website. Denny said Dia has studied metaphysics, esoterica, astrology, crystals, the British occultist Aleister Crowley, botany and herbalism, and all of that is layered in her practice. Judika Illes, a well-known metaphysical author who she says she gets recognized on the subway, said she was grateful to see the diversity, you know, not just stereotypical witches in Dennys project. I think Hansel and Gretel is a horrifying story because of what happens to the witch, not because of what happens to the children Illes said that she didnt have a moment of epiphany about being a witch but was really born this way. Ever since I could wear a Halloween costume, I have picked a witches costume. I just came into the world wired this way, she told DailyMail.com. I think Hansel and Gretel is a horrifying story because of what happens to the witch, not because of what happens to the children. Illes has written several books on witchcraft, and her first one, Earth Mother Magic, a book of spells, was published in 2001. It did not cross her mind to use a pseudonym. I honestly didnt think it would sell any copies, she recalled, noting that the book did sell. I was happy to do it but I didnt think anybody was going to read it and it didnt occur to me not to use my real name. Illes added: I did not intentionally come out of the closet, I just found myself there. Its very paradoxical because if you had warned me of this, Im a private person I probably would have come up with an alias for myself but in some ways it has been very beneficial. I am who I am, I have no secrets in the closet. As Denny, the photographer, discovered, there is no singular definition for witch or even for its categories, which, to name a few, include green, hedge, kitchen, and white witches. People use these terms and its not written in stone, explained Illes, who wrote the Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and The Weiser Field Guide to Witches. Everyone is so sure that their definition of witchcraft is shared by everyone else, in fact, its very very fluid and often very very personal. Illes explained a green witch is someone who loves to work with plants, and Denny said that they are typically herbalists who have a deep knowledge of medical and holistic healing. The concept of the hedge, Illes said, is something that divides the wild world from the civilized world, very traditionally. A hedge witch would ride that threshold, and are mediums or the channel between the mundane world and the world of mysteries, she said. Denny said that like green witches, there is an herbalist element to their practice for hedge witches, who also do psychological work and have a shamanistic component in how they work with people. A lot of witches that Ive met, there is an element of being a healer in that identity whether its healing other people or healing yourself, Denny said. Different Witch Types The word 'witch' can mean diverse things to different practitioners and the categories of witches are no exception. Below are descriptions of some types of witches, which include green, hedge, kitchen, and white witches, according to author Judika Illes and photographer Frances F. Denny. A green witch is typically a herbalist who loves to work with plants. A hedge witch is a medium or 'a channel between the mundane world and the world of mysteries.' Illes said the hedge was traditionally thought of as the divide between the wild and civilized worlds and a hedge witch rides that threshold. A kitchen witch is often home based, practicing a real everyday kind of magic, and using food to heal. A white witch is interested in healing and helping others with the connotation being that she only uses her power for good. Illes took issue with the term, saying, Thats to me, like, you know, I love cats but only if they dont have claws and they dont bite.' Advertisement For her part, Illes said that her practice is private and a lot of her spiritual devotion is done through her writing, calling it a magical art. If you had to categorize me, and Im Aquarius rising and I dont like categories, but if you had to categorize me, I would describe myself probably as a shamanic witch. I like hedge witch. I dont have a problem with hedge witch. Kitchen witches are often home based, Illes said, with an eye toward protecting loved ones, family and the community. Its a real everyday kind of magic, she said. A lot of people casting spells without anybody realizing theyre doing it because its so so subtle and homely. Denny said kitchen witches use food to heal and help people. A white witch is one that is more interested in healing and helping other people, explained Denny. It connotes someone who uses her power only for good. For her photo, which was taken in Los Angeles, Maja is dressed in a white dress, leaning on a tree. Maja has been dubbed the white witch of LA, but her website states she is a practicing Witch who performs public rituals and gives educational lectures. She is also an author, and a Broadly profile noted that her background in is biochemistry. Illes said that she has an issue with the term white witch and what most people mean is Glinda in The Wizard of Oz, and someone who wouldnt do anything that might make you nervous or could cause harm. Thats to me like, you know, I love cats but only if they dont have claws and they dont bite, she said. The assumption that black magic is harmful and a white witch is good I think that gets into some very dangerous territory when you start to associate colors with moral qualities and I think history bares that out, Illes said, adding that she says it with all respect to women who describe themselves as white witches. The term white witch is not the only contentious point in the community, which like any other has its fault lines. Some take issue with mass hexing, which have been focused on convicted rapist Brock Turner, Trump and Kavanaugh. That is actually very controversial in the witch community because its like an accumulation of negative energy, Denny said. Another flash point is that witchcraft is trendy among young women. While talking with the women who took part in the project, Denny said that some felt its popularity is a good thing, making it something that is less taboo. Leonore Tjia, who is 29 and turning 30 soon, told DailyMail.com that sometimes she feels salty about something so important to her that has been commodified into something thats so recognizable from Instagram ads. However, she ultimately see it as mostly a good thing as entry points are becoming more accessible. Tjia, who is a sexuality educator, said, My identity as a witch is part of my personal spiritual practice and that definitely precedes my working in the field of sexuality. Like the three other women DailyMail.com interviewed, Tija was interested in witchcraft at an early age. She had a fascination about learning about the world before Christianity was the norm, she said, and at around aged 12, she read feminist fiction like The Mists of Avalon and The Red Tent. A friend of her mom saw that Tija was interested and told her about a full moon circle gathering. With her parents support, she went to the ritual that honored the goddess and many of her different manifestations, she said. While her spiritual practice has its root in Dianic Wiccan structure, Tija said that it has evolved over time. She said she is drawn to groups like Reclaiming, which has a political and expressly feminist mission that is tied to ecological work. Tijas said Dennys project is timely in the age of #MeToo and the recent Kavanaugh hearings. It holds enormous inspiration for women who are waking up from their own silencing and seeing a path into their own vitality and into finding their voice. A convicted gun-for-hire killer jumped out of his seat, kicked a chair, and tripped over his ankle shackles as he tried to leave a Dallas courtroom on Tuesday during his sister's emotional testimony at his sentencing hearing. Kristopher Love, 34, has been quiet in jail and in his hearings so far. The outburst was his first sign of emotion as his sister Meisha Beasley cried as she took the stand. He was found guilty of capital murder last week for shooting dentist Kendra Hatcher, 35, in the head in September 2015. He was allegedly recruited by jilted woman Brenda Delgado, who wanted revenge after Hatcher began dating her ex Ricardo Panigua. 'He was never distant but you could tell a piece of him was gone every time, every time it chipped a piece of us away,' Beasley said describing how her parents' repeated break ups affected her brother, leading Love to stand up and walk away. Kristopher Love, 34, jumped out of his seat and kicked his chair during his sentencing hearing on Tuesday in Dallas, Texas Love has been quiet in his hearings so far but broke down as his sister Meisha Beasley tearfully took the stand and described how 'a piece of him was gone' at the hearing on Tuesday 'He was never distant but you could tell a piece of him was gone every time, every time it chipped a piece of us away,' Beasley said Video from the sentencing hearing shows Beasley cut off mid sentence as there's a clatter of chains and a series of loud thumping noises from the corner of the court room. Beasley looks over towards where Love is sitting and gasps through her tears. The clatter of keys and handcuffs can be heard and the jury are told to rise and take a recess as Love is taken away. Love tried to walk several paces to the courtroom door that leads to the hold-over cells where inmates are kept on trial as Beasley spoke, but tripped on his shackles, according to Dallas News. She spoke highly of Love, saying his name was her children's first word. At the hearing two of his brothers, his sister, his mother, father, stepmother and ex-girlfriend testified on his behalf and described him as loving father of three children. Defense attorneys argued he is a model inmate and valued family member. Hitman Kristopher Love, 34, (left) was found guilty of capital murder last week for shooting Kendra Hatcher (right) in Dallas in 2015 Hatcher (left) was killed after she began dating Ricardo Paniagua (right) as part of a revenge plot allegedly cooked up by his ex-girlfriend Prosecutors on the other hand painted him as a career criminal that first got into trouble at 17 for stealing a car. Love was found guilty of murder on Friday and his sentencing hearings began on Monday, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty. The jurors who convicted Love will decide his sentence and he could be the first man sent to death row from Dallas County since 2013. Hatcher was found dead suffering a gunshot to the head on September 2, 2015 in the parking garage of her apartment building in Dallas. Love was allegedly hired by Brenda Delgado, 36, to carry out the deed. She dated Paniagua in 2012 and they were together for two years and a half until he decided to break it off. But Delgado 'could not let go', prosecutors said, and began following Paniagua around. Ex Brenda Delgado (left) is now facing her own capital murder trial. Friend Crystal Cortes (right), who acted as the getaway driver, has already pleaded guilty to murder with 35 years in jail after agreeing to testify against Love and Delgado CCTV images show a black Jeep containing Love and Cortes which pulled into the parking lot of Hatcher's apartment building before she was killed 'I would go running at the Katy Trail and sometimes when I was running she would be running the opposite direction,' Paniagua claimed. When Hatcher came on the scene in May 2015, Delgado's attentions focused on her instead. Paniagua told the court that their relationship progressed quickly and the pair had set up a wedding fund by August that year. That convinced Delgado that she had to kill her love rival, prosecutors argued. Evidence shows that Delgado shopped around for a hitman to kill Hatcher and landed on Love and her friend Crystal Cortes who was the getaway driver. Cortes was paid $500 and Love was paid in 'drugs and money' for the hit. Love's lawyers argued he only robbed Hatcher of her purse and Cortes pulled the trigger, but he was nonetheless found guilty. Delgado's capital murder trial is yet to be scheduled and she cannot face the death penalty as a part of an extradition deal with Mexico, where she fled after Hatcher's murder. The Ministers of Tourism, Culture and Economy and Trade in Lebanon discussed bilateral economic relations and cooperation in the field of tourism Greeces Alternate Foreign Minister Giorgos Katrougalos met with Lebanese Deputy Prime Minister Saad Hariri as well as the Ministers of Economy, Culture and Tourism during his two day visit to Lebanon. Katrougalos and his Lebanese counterparts discussed the need for tighter strategic economic cooperation between the two countries, with emphasis on the participation of Greek companies in the Lebanon governments development programme and the prospects for investment in Greece, as well as the further deepening of bilateral economic relations at all levels. The Ministers of Tourism, Culture and Economy and Trade in Lebanon also discussed bilateral economic relations, cooperation in the field of tourism, cultural exchanges, bilateral trade, transfer of know-how and strategic cooperation between the two countries with third countries and especially with Cyprus. Read more at greekcitytimes.com RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Democratic attorney Michael Avenatti said Tuesday that federal law enforcement told him he was among the public figures who an accused mail-bomber intended to harm before he was caught last week. Avenatti, who owes his fame to representing pornographic actress Stormy Daniels in her lawsuit against President Donald Trump, is assembling a team of political advisers as he mulls a 2020 presidential bid. 'I was informed this afternoon by the FBI that I was targeted by Cesar Sayoc,' Avenatti tweeted, without revealing any details. 'I applaud the hard working men and women of the FBI for his arrest and their continuing investigation.' A list of about 100 potential targets was found in Sayoc's van. In an email Wednesday to DailyMail.com, Avenatti revealed that federal law enforcement discovered Sayoc was digging for information specifically about him. 'It was beyond being included on a list,' he said. 'I was informed that he had conducted extensive research into me and my family as part of targeting me.' He also suggested he might still be in danger. 'I was also informed that they do not yet know if a bomb was actually sent,' Avenatti wrote, 'and one may still be in transit so I need to be diligent and take precautions.' Avenatti showed DailyMail.com a document that confirms he was contacted by an FBI field agent in California. 'I'm really offended by these f***ing people who claim I fabricated this, which I would never do,' he said in a phone call. Attorney Michael Avenatti says the FBI told him accused serial mail-bomber Cesar Sayoc coducted 'extensive research' into him and his family, and may have send him an explosive device Sayoc was arrested last Friday in Florida; he's charged with sending at least 14 bombs through the mail to political and media opponents of President Donald Trump Avenatti tweeted about the threat on Tuesday night and provided details to DailyMail.com on Wednesday He underscored his political ambitions in Tuesday night's tweet, writing that '[a]t some point, Trump will be held accountable for his role in the events of the last few weeks.' Avenatti didn't identify the events he referred to. But the van where Sayoc was living until his arrest was covered with pro-Trump decals, and video has emerged of him enjoying a Trump rally in Florida. That has led Democrats to claim the president's fiery rhetoric contributed to the accused bomber's attitude and actions. Some Democratic officials are taking Avenatti seriously as a 2020 candidate. 'He's absolutely the person I'm supporting in the 2020 primary, should he decide to run,' Adam Parkhomenko, who founded the Ready for Hillary super PAC, told Politico. 'I think he is 90 [percent] to 95 percent leaning toward doing it.' Avenatti, who came to fame as the attorney for porn actress Stormy Daniels, is assembling a team of political advisers as he mulls a 2020 presidential bid Parkhomenko is acting as a liaison between Avenatti and Democratic National Committee members, superdelegates and state party leaders. He is part of a team the attorney has put together to help arrange meetings with donors and party officials, craft a message, and build out a digital fundraising operation. But Avenatti's ambitions suffered from a double whammy last week when he told Time magazine the Democrats' 2020 nominee had 'better be a white male,' and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley referred him and client Julie Swetnick to the Justice Department for an investigation over accusations she brought against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Avenatti is still fighting back. Avenatti has visited early voting states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina 'I think a lot of people underestimate me,' he told Politico. 'I'm battle-tested, unlike some of the other likely candidates. They're not tough enough. If you put them in a kinder, gentler time; or against someone else? They'd be great. They'd be better than me. But they don't have a chance in hell against Donald Trump.' He said he'll make a decision on whether to pursue the Democratic nomination by Jan. 1. A recent CNN poll gave him a scant 1 percent from Democrats when asked who they wanted to for their 2020 standard bearer against Trump. But Avenatti sees himself standing out in a potential field of former and current political officials such as former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Kamala Harris. In addition to lining up staff and implementing a fundraising operation, Avenatti has visited several important early voting states in the presidential process, including Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He's lining up some big names to advise him, including John Robinson, who worked as a chief operating officer for Sanders' 2016 campaign. Roger Salazar, a Sacramento-based former Hillary Clinton operative, is handling his media. Tracy Austin, a Los Angeles consultant, is helping with fundraising and Amy Wills Gray, who was Ready for Hillary committee treasurer, is acting in the same role for Avenatti's The Fight PAC, the fundraising arm he established to pay for his presidential exploration. Sayoc's van (pictured) was covered with decals and signs supporting Trumpand blasting his enemies Sayoc, 56, can be seen at the rally holding a 'CNN sucks' sign and wearing a tank top that featured the same pro-Trump stickers he stuck to his van Among the other big Democratic names giving Avenatti advice is Jack Quinn, a former White House counsel under Bill Clinton, who says he's talking to the attorney like he would any other possible candidate. 'If he chooses to run, Michael would bring some clear assets, most specifically, some pretty decent name recognition, clearly, an abundance of intellectual talent and lastly, a pugnaciousness that would serve him well in a race against Donald Trump,' Quinn told Politico. 'Would he be the only one who has some or all of those assets? That remains to be seen.' Quinn noted he has no plans to sign on to Avenatti's campaign or anyone else's. 'I know Michael, I like him. I consider him a friend,' Quinn said. 'But I have a lot of other friends who also want to be president.' Avenatti also has issues in his personal life that could bubble up should he decide to pursue the White House. Last week the Daily Beast reported on multiple legal entanglements facing Avenatti, including tax liens, a failing coffee business, unpaid rent and eviction proceedings. And it also reported on his messy divorce from his second wife that included details of the lavish Avenatti life style - multimillion-dollar homes, expensive cars and a personal pilot. Avenatti told Politico he hasn't lived his life as if he were running for president. 'There's all kinds of things I would not have done. Do I think any of them are disqualifying? No. Do I think any of them are disqualifying in the age of Donald Trump? Absolutely not,' he said. 'But look, I'm a real guy. I'm a genuine guy. But if I decide to do it and some of these things come out, I'm going to own them.' Meenakshi Moorthy, 29, (left) blogged about depression and spoke about mental health on her social media accounts The woman who fatally fell with her husband at Yosemite used her social media accounts to talk about her severe 'tentacles of depression' and mental health issues. Meenakshi Moorthy, 29, blogged about depression. In a post from April, Moorthy apologized to readers for going silent and 'disappearing for more than a year.' 'Between battling the tightening tentacles of depression and blustering in the tempest of moving madness, I am afraid social media is taking a back seat??' she wrote. In a May Instagram post, Moorthy shared her mental health woes and shared that she had been 'buried in a blanket for weeks', 'hurting in a whirl of hopeless dark thoughts.' She added that she was 'paralyzed with anxiety', questioning whether her existence was 'helping my loved ones or harming' and said 'no one can figure out what is wrong with me.' Moorthy and her husband, Vishnu Viswanath, 29, who were Indian expats living in California, fell to their deaths in Yosemite National Park last week while taking a selfie, the man's brother said Tuesday. Moorthy described her and her husband as 'travel obsessed' on their blog, 'Holidays & Happily Ever Afters,' which was taken down Tuesday. It was filled with photos of the couple in front of snowy peaks and on romantic trips across Europe, where they took selfies from a gondola in Venice, at the Leaning Tower of Pisa and at the Vatican. Moorthy and her husband, Vishnu Viswanath, 29, who were Indian expats living in California, fell to their deaths in Yosemite National Park last week while taking a selfie, the man's brother said Tuesday Moorthy wanted to work full time as a travel blogger, her brother-in-law said. She described herself in the blog as a 'quirky free spirit' and 'an ardent adrenaline junkie - roller coasters and skydiving does not scare me.' She posed at the edge of the Grand Canyon wearing a Wonder Woman costume, writing, 'A lot of us including yours truly is a fan of daredevilry attempts of standing at the edge of cliffs - and skyscrapers. But did you know that wind gust can be FATAL??? Is our life just worth one photo?'. Her husband's Facebook cover photo shows the couple smiling, with arms around each other standing at a Grand Canyon precipice. 'Living life on the edge,' he wrote. In a post from July 2017, the couple celebrated their wedding anniversary by skydiving in Santa Barbara, California. Moorthy posted a video on Instagram that shows her in a T-shirt saying, 'Gimme Danger,' and flashing a thumbs-up as she jumps from the plane. Last shot: Drea Rose Laguillo and her fiance Sean Matteson were at Taft Point in Yosemite National Park on Sunday night when they snapped a selfie just after 5pm (above) Pictured: Meenakshi Moorthy (above), whose body was discovered after plunging over the 800-foot drop of Taft Point with her husband Vishnu Viswanath was in the photo 'I believe I can flyyy. I believe i can touch the skyyy,' she wrote in the post. 'Aaaand touch the sky I did from an effin' 18000 feet thanks to the unconditional love-ninja in my life, Vishnu, who literally took this year's anniversary surprise a notch 'higher' than last year's hot air ballooning adventure, by gifting this adrenaline junkie with one of the highest tandem skydives in the world!'. The deaths of the couple have been clouded in mystery but at least one pressing question was answered thanks to a selfie snapped by another pair. Drea Rose Laguillo and her fiance Sean Matteson were at Taft Point on Sunday just after 5pm and realized they may have taken the final photo of the pair. Laguillo posted the DailyMail.com story about the couple's tragic death to her Facebook page on Monday and revealed that she had a rough idea of when the pair likely went over the edge of the 800-foot cliff because she unknowingly captured one of them in her photo. It was an image taken at 5:11pm that clearly shows the pink-haired Moorthy in the background of their photo at Taft Point. Tragic fall: Laguillo shared the photo and DailyMail.com's story (above) about the tragedy, revealing that she could estimate the time of death to be around 5:11pm That photo made it very clear that Moorthy and Viswanath were perilously close to the edge of the drop where there were no guards or rails to protect visitors. Viswanath's brother, Jishnu Viswanath, told the AP that they had set up their tripod near the ledge when they plummeted to their deaths. Park visitors the next morning saw the camera and alerted rangers, who 'used high-powered binoculars to find them and used helicopters to airlift the bodies,' he said. The funeral will take place in the U.S. since the bodies were not in a condition to be flown back to India, Jishnu Viswanath said. On the move: The engineering students had traveled to This year alone they had traveled to Vermont, Arizona, New Mexico, San Francisco, New Orleans, Brooklyn, Big Sur, Baltimore, Manhattan, Holland and India Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to 'claw back' tax cut money from top earners if he wins power today. The Labour leader's spokesman said the 5 per cent of workers with highest incomes - those on 80,000 and above - would be stripped of any benefits from the income tax threshold changes. The declaration came amid a day of chaos in Labour's ranks as Mr Corbyn insisted the party would not vote for the Budget tax cuts just a day after shadow chancellor John McDonnell insisted it would. Philip Hammond's giveaway to 32 million workers - by raising the personal allowance to 12,500 and the higher rate threshold to 50,000 - has torn Labour in two. The 9billion package of income tax cuts was unveiled by the Chancellor on Monday. Jeremy Corbyn (pictured) tore into Theresa May over the handouts for higher-rate taxpayers in a stormy PMQs session Speaking after PMQs, Mr Corbyn's spokesman was asked directly if he will reverse the Budget measures. He said: 'We will claw back in the sense that we will raise taxation to that 5 per cent group, and exactly how that is done, we spelled out how we would do it in the last election about obviously deepening on when the next election is held that will need to be assessed at the time. 'But obviously in relation to any benefit they get form this measure, that will be clawed back and more by the measures we have set out already and however we develop them.' He added: 'We have said, in terms of income tax, tha the income tax increases will only affect the top 5 per cent.' Labour is set to abstain when the plan is voted on in the Commons tomorrow as it cannot vote against moving the higher rate threshold without also voting down tax cuts for the low paid. At PMQs this afternoon, Mr Corbyn asked Mrs May (pictured) why the government had chosen 'not to end the benefit freeze for 10million households Basic-rate taxpayers will gain 130 a year from next April as the personal allowance rises to 12,500, while an increase in the higher rate to 50,000 will put hundreds of pounds more in the pockets of the better off. The morning after the Budget, Mr McDonnell said: 'We will support the tax cuts at the moment on the basis that it will inject some demand into the economy.' Labour chaos as Corbyn condemns Budget tax cuts for the better-off at PMQs - a day after McDonnell backed them Labour was plunged into chaos today as Jeremy Corbyn condemned Budget tax cuts for the better off - the day after his shadow chancellor backed them. Mr Corbyn tore into Theresa May over the handouts for higher-rate taxpayers in a stormy PMQs session. The leader's spokesman also made clear after the clashes that he is determined to 'claw back' the money from top earners if Labour wins power. But he was derided by Tory MPs in the chamber as John McDonnell had previously endorsed the increase in the tax threshold. The shambolic scenes came as Labour signalled it will abstain on the tax changes in crucial Budget votes, to avoid the threat of a mass revolt by MPs. The 9billion package of income tax cuts was unveiled by Chancellor Philip Hammond on Monday. Advertisement He added: 'We're not going to take funding away from people. Some are middle earners headteachers and people like that who've had a rough time.' But at PMQs this afternoon, Mr Corbyn asked Mrs May why the government had chosen 'not to end the benefit freeze for 10million households but instead field a tax cut for higher earners'. Mrs May shot back: 'On Monday he said that cutting taxes for 32m people was 'frittering money away on ideological tax cuts'. 'Yesterday, his shadow chancellor said what we've always known, that the tax cuts were for 'middle earners, head teachers and people like that'. 'So when he stands up, perhaps he can tell the House whether he will back the tax cuts and vote for the Budget?' Mr Corbyn's official spokesman said after PMQs: 'Our commitment is that there will only be income tax increases on the top 5 per cent of earners.' Asked directly if he will reverse Mr Hammond's income tax cuts for the top 5 per cent of earners roughly equating to those earning 80,00 or more a year - the spokesman said: 'We will claw back in the sense that we will raise taxation to that 5 per cent group, and exactly how that is done, we spelled out how we would do it in the last election about obviously deepening on when the next election is held that will need to be assessed at the time. 'But obviously in relation to any benefit they get form this measure, that will be clawed back and more by the measures we have set out already and however we develop them.' He added: 'We have said, in terms of income tax, tha the income tax increases will only affect the top 5 per cent.' Senior Labour have been queuing up to condemn Mr McDonnell's decision to back the tax cuts. Labour MP Jess Phillips said: 'When Philip Green gets more from the budget than a midwife might I suggest we are on shitty ground.' Former Labour Cabinet minister Andy Burnham described them as 'morally indefensible when some people are struggling to feed and clothe their children'. Mr Burnham, now the Labour mayor of Manchester, said he was 'at a loss to understand' why Labour was backing the package. He suggested Labour leaders were 'spooked' by polls showing the Tories ahead, adding: 'I honestly can't see how Labour's position will hold. 'It is not just that the distribution is so unfair. I can't see how tax cuts for the wealthiest can be the priority when police are so stretched and people dying on British streets for want of a roof over their head.' Education spokesman Angela Rayner said tax cuts for those on higher incomes were 'the wrong priority', while shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry described them as 'tax cuts for the rich'. Mr Hammond (pictured on a visit to Gainsborough yesterday) announced that he was bringing forward a Tory pledge to raise the thresholds for both basic-rate and 40p rate taxpayers to next year Former minister Yvette Cooper said: 'People on 90,000 to 100,000 a year will get tax cuts worth 860 in April, those on 125,000 will get 600 far more than low-paid workers, at a time when child poverty is going up, benefits are being cut, vital council services are being cut, and the police are badly overstretched. This is wrong I cannot support it.' Ex-minister David Lammy said: 'We should not be supporting tax cuts that disproportionately help the wealthy. Tory cuts will benefit rich families 14 times more than the poor.' Mr Hammond announced on Monday that he was bringing forward a Tory pledge to raise the thresholds for both basic-rate and 40p rate taxpayers to next year. The Chancellor said it was 'right and moral' for the Government to deliver on its manifesto tax pledges. He said many middle-income workers in schools, hospitals and the police had been dragged into the higher rate of tax, adding: 'It's important to raise all of these thresholds.' Labour misgivings were fuelled by analysis by the centre-Left Resolution Foundation think-tank, which claimed the cuts would 'overwhelmingly benefit richer households', with 45 per cent set to go to the top 10 per cent of households alone. Advertisement Three more funerals for victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue attack took place on Wednesday, marking a second day of mourning for the city. Joyce Fienstein, 74, Melvin Wax, 88, and Irving Younger, 69, were laid to rest in separate ceremonies across the city. They are just three of the 11 people who were slaughtered by gunman Robert Bowers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill on Saturday. Brothers David and Cecil Rosenthal, aged 54 and 59, were buried on Tuesday as was Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66. Hundreds of people piled into the Beth Shalom synagogue for Fienberg's funeral. Among those who spoke was her brother Robert Libman who said: 'Sometimes I feel I can't bear it to think of this beautiful soul gone from this world. Scroll down for video The casket of Irving Young is wheeled out of the Rodef Shalom synagogue on Wednesday after his funeral Mr. Young's casket is loaded into the hearse as police officers guard it outside the synagogue on Wednesday Mourners line round the block to get into the funeral of Melvin Wax, 88, on Wednesday morning. He was one of 11 people killed on Saturday Joyce Fienberg, 75, Irving Wax, 88, and Irving Younger, 69, were be buried on Wednesday in Pittsburgh 'Evil tried to shut out a light, but the light refuses to be dimmed. 'The light shines in our hearts, even in our broken hearts.' Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who survived the attack, also spoke. 'She frequently opened the building, prepared food and just volunteered to help. No one asked her to do it. Sometimes I feel I can't bear it to think of this beautiful soul gone from this world. Joyce Fienberg's brother Robert Libman 'She just did it. She was a pure soul,' he said. He read a martyr prayer and said all 11 of the victims fit the description. 'It's a prayer "for a martyr who's died to sanctify God's name." All 11 were there to worship God. 'They're martyrs in that sense. It's an appropriate use of the phrase. 'In the Jewish community we haven't seen martyrs like that, not in America,' he said. The woman's sons and nieces also gave moving eulogies. Both she and her late husband Stephen were academics and were celebrated for their research. At Wax's funeral, friends remembered him as a friendly and mischievous man who was kind and gentle. Hugh Casper, a childhood friend, told The Post Gazette that his jokes were 'so bad you had to laugh at them.' The pair attended school together as youngsters. Casper said Wax was 'the same guy he was in the 40s.' Younger was also remembered fondly for his volunteer work. He would often show up early and was always one of the last people to leave. Children from the Yeshiva School in Squirrel Hill cry as they stand outside the Beth Shalom synagogue after attending the funeral of Joyce Fienberg on Wednesday Joyce Fienberg's body is carried out of the Joyce Fienberg's body is carried out of the Beth Shalom Synagogue (left) after her funeral service. Mourners embrace one another (right) afterwards Mourners outside the funeral home where Melvin Wax was laid to rest on Wednesday Mourners arrive at Melvin Wax's funeral on Wednesday afternoon after lining up in the street to get inside 'He was a joy. When you saw him in the neighborhood, hed give you a smile and shake your hand,' city councilman Corey OConnor, 34, who represents Squirrel Hill, said at his funeral service. The funeral of Sylvan and Bernice Simon - who had been married for 62 years and had their wedding in the same temple where they were executed - will take place on Thursday as will that of Richard Gottfried. Rose Mallinger, 97, the oldest victim, will be laid to rest on Friday. The family of 71-year-old Daniel Stein, the 11th victim, has chosen to hold a private service. As they were remembered fondly by friends and family, the haunted first responders who found their bodies described the unimaginable scene at the synagogue after Bowers' rampage. 'When this first went down, we didnt know the full deal. We just know that shots were fired, with multiple victims. Everyone went police, EMT, everyone. The bomb squad went. Children from the Park East Day School attend an inter-faith service on Wednesday in Pittsburgh in a show of unity after Saturday's attack Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York (left) joined UN Secretary General Antonio Guteres and Rabbi Arthur Schneier at the ceremony Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, places a stone near one of the Stars of David left outside the Tree of Life in memory of the victims Kathleen Fuller, holding her young son Garrick, leaves a stone on one of the Rosenthal brothers' Stars of David on Wednesday The sea of tributes left outside the synagogue where the horrifying attack took place has been steadily growing since Saturday 'When we got there, we knew it was bad. These people didnt have a chance,' one of the EMTs told People on Wednesday. Fighting back tears, he continued: 'This was bad. All tragedies are bad. 'But when a little old lady an old man They cant run away. Some cant even duck down to hide. What chance did they have? None.' 'We couldnt save everyone. I wish we could have saved everyone.' The gunman brought four weapons with him into the synagogue; an AR-15 rifle and three handguns. Police recovered a shotgun in his car and an additional two rifles and three handguns in his home in Baldwin, Pennsylvania. President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visited the Tree of Life synagogue on Tuesday. They were met there by Rabbi Jeffrey Myers who survived the attack Trump's visit sparked protest in the city and divided opinion across the country. Many said he was not welcome there until he denounced white supremacy Pall bearers weep as they carry the casket of one of the Rosenthal brothers out of their funeral on Tuesday at the Rodef Shalom Congregation in Pittsburgh Students from the Yeshiva School in Squirrel Hill line the streets to pay their respects to Dr. Rabinowitz on Tuesday Gunman Robert Bowers, 46, is in custody awaiting his next court date In total, he had 21 weapons registered to his name. All 10 of his firearms were owned legally. Bowers was a long-haul trucker who lived quietly alone in a 1-bedroom apartment. He lived out his angry antisemitism online, on the controversial social media website Gab, where he frequently ranted about what he called the 'infestation of Jews' and complained obsessively about an organization which helps Jewish migrants settle in the US. He loathed President Trump because he believed he was 'controlled' by Jews. Bowers remains in custody at the Butler County Prison. He is next due in court on Thursday. He was charged with 29 counts, including 22 which carry the death penalty. President Trump, whose reaction to the tragedy had divided opinion and sparked protests, has called The beleaguered co-owner of a Kansas water park who was previously charged with murder in the decapitation death of a 10-year-old boy is now facing additional counts of drug possession and hiring someone for sex. Schlitterbahn co-owner Jeff Henry surrendered to authorities in Kansas on Monday and was released on $100,000 bond, but has to remain under house arrest with an ankle monitor pending his next court appearance in that case on November 7. The Johnson County District Attorney charged Henry on October 23 with a felony count of possessing methamphetamine with the intent to distribute, possessing drug paraphernalia and Xanax, along with two misdemeanor counts of buying sex back in July. Scroll down for video Schlitterbahn co-owner Jeff Henry is pictured left in an October 29 booking photo after his arrest for drug possession and hiring someone for sex. Henry is already facing a second-degree murder in the decapitation death of 10-year-old Caleb Schwab (right) Crews began dismantling the Verruckt waterslide at Henry's Schlitterbahn waterpark in Kansas on Tuesday A crane is seen taking apart the 17-story attraction that claimed Caleb's life in 2016 Henry is already facing second-degree murder and other charges in the August 2016 death of Caleb Schwab, to which he has pleaded not guilty. He is expected to go on trial sometime next year, reported Kansas City Star. Henry is accused of rushing into service the 17-story Verruckt waterslide - which was billed as the world's largest - that Caleb was riding when his raft became airborne and struck an overhead loop, beheading him. Federal authorities in April arrested the designer of the waterpark slide, John Timothy Schooley, also charging him with second-degree murder. The indictment alleged Schooley lacked technical or engineering expertise in amusement park rides, and that Henry rushed the slide into service in order to attract the attention of a Travel Channel show. The indictment also said the two concealed the fact that the ride was causing serious injuries in its six months in service. Before Schwab's death, 13 people were injured riding the slide, including two people who were concussed and a 15-year-old who went temporarily blind. The indictment claimed that the Verruckt's design 'violated nearly all aspects of the longstanding industry safety standards. Henry (pictured in an April mugshot) is accused of rushing into service the water slide, on which the son of Republican Kansas state Rep. Scott Schwab (pictured together, right), was beheaded in August 2016 'In fact, the design and operation of the Verruckt complied with few, if any, of the industry safety standards,' the indictment added. Schwab was the son of Republican Kansas state Rep. Scott Schwab, who is now running for Kansas Secretary of State. Schwab's family have reached a settlement with the waterpark and various companies connected to the slide for $20million. Deconstruction of the slide began Tuesday, and Henry was due back in court in Wyandotte County on Wednesday for a bond revocation hearing in the Schwab case. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi confidently predicted on Tuesday night that the Democratic Party would return to power after next week's mid-term elections. 'We will win. We own the ground,' Pelsoi, the former speaker of the House who's looking to make a comeback, told 'Late Night' host Stephen Colbert. Colbert warned her against measuring the drapes too soon and reminded viewers of Hillary Clinton's surprise defeat in 2016 to Donald Trump. 'Do you want to say that on Hillary's fireworks barge that she canceled?' he asked her. But Pelosi insisted, 'Democrats will carry the House. If we have a bigger victory, the senate, the governorships. It's going to be a great night for America.' House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi confidently predicted on Tuesday night that the Democratic Party would return to power after next week's mid-term elections Political prognosticators like Pelosi believe that Democrats will win enough seats on Nov. 6 to ascend to power in the House. The Sabato Crystal Ball projects that Republicans will lose 38 seats in the election next week. Democrats need only win 23 of them to get back the power they lost in the 2010 election. In the Senate, the president's party is better off. Their likely to retain their 51-seat majority and possibly add to it in the 10 states that voted for Trump in 2016. Still, the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato, says that Trump shouldn't count on holding the upper, chamber, either. 'Even if the Republicans hold the Senate given the very pro-Republican math that exists, President Trump is in trouble in some of these states,' Sabato told MSNBC this month. 'He's fallen considerably as a whole.' Republicans retirements in the lower chamber have also created openings for the minority party. The Cook Political Report gives Democrats a 'solid' chance of winning 182 seats in the House to Republicans' 140. An additional 10 seats are likely to go to Democrats with 55 in the likely Republican column. Just three seats that are currently held by Democrats are in the 'toss-up or worse' column. For Republicans, a daunting 45 seats are in danger. Colbert warned her against measuring the drapes too soon and invoked Hillary Clinton 's surprise defeat against Donald Trump in 2016. But Pelosi insisted, 'Democrats will carry the House. If we have a bigger victory, the senate, the governorships' All told, if Cook's predictions are accurate, Democrats would end up with a minimum of 192 lawmakers when the new Congress convenes in January. Republicans would have a minimum of 195. With so many Republican seats in the toss-up column, though, compared the three that Democrats are defending, it will be an uphill climb for the president's party to keep control of the House. The president is predicting a history-defying 'red wave' across the country, nonetheless, as he barnstorms the country. But Sabato and others are saying that it's very unlikely that Trump's party will have the kind of success at the ballot box that Trump is claiming. 'I'm with you if you're saying that a red wave ain't going to happen,' he said. 'It's just a question about how big the blue wave is. It could be a tsunami. It could be a middle-sized wave. It could be a small wave. But there's going to be a blue wave.' Trump has been spending his time on the trail in states in which he believes that Republicans have the best chance of picking up Senate seats like Florida, Indiana and Montana. He has been calling it the election of Brett Kavanaugh, the caravan of migrants and GOP tax cuts at fiery campaign rallies where he bashes Pelosi, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and other national Democrats. Trump doesn't have to run himself again until 2020 but his agenda will be stymied if Democrats have the edge in either chamber. His allies have warned that they could move toward impeachment if they win a majority in both legislative bodies. 'The president's not on the ballot,' campaign manager Brad Parscale told 'CBS This Morning' on Monday. 'This is about his agenda.' A Chinese firm has claimed to successfully developed a quantum radar which could detect stealth fighter jets from great distances. The mobile quantum radar is able to spot and track targets more than 100 kilometres (62 miles) away in the daylight and over the sea, according to Chinese media. The cutting-edge equipment is expected to be a powerful weapon against U.S. stealth warplanes, such as the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning. Chinese researchers claim they have developed a quantum radar and carried out long-range experiment. Pictured, mobile Chinese radar equipment is on display in Beijing in 2013 The radar is expected to be a powerful weapon against U.S. stealth F-22 Raptor (pictured) It is claimed that the quantum radar could spot and track stealth fighter jets, such as F-35 Lightning (pictured), from more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) away, but experts are skeptical Stealth craft are equipped with systems to 'jam' detectors with artificial noise, in addition to using special paint and designs to thwart detection by radio waves. A quantum radar can spot objects that are invisible to traditional radio wave-based systems by a principle called quantum entanglement, in which two photons form a connected pair even over great distances. The system would send out one of the photons, while the other in the pair would stay behind. According to the researchers, it could vastly improve the accuracy in environments with a lot of background noise. A prototype of the radar (not the one pictured, file photo) was built in 2016 by China Electronics Technology Group Corporation and researchers have been running tests China's quantum radar is based on the single-photon detecting technology and is developed by the 14th Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation based in Nanjing. A prototype was built in 2016 and researchers have been running experiments with it in the past two years. According to China's Science and Technology Daily, the research team recently completed a long-range experiment with the radar prototype on a plateau in north-west China, marking a major breakthrough of the project. The radar is undergoing further tests and will have better anti-stealth features in the future, Sun Jun, a senior engineer at the research institute, told China Daily. Sun said in the interview that the quantum radar was highly reliable, accurate and viable in 'sophisticated electromagnetic environments'. It can also be mounted onto different kinds of carriers, according to Sun. A quantum radar can spot objects invisible to radio wave-based systems by entangled photons Some experts have in the past cast doubt on China's quantum radar project. Commenting on the subject to South China Morning Post, Chinese physicist Ma Xiaosong voiced skepticism over the claim that the quantum radar would be able to detect stealth planes as far as 100 kilometers away. The physicist also questioned whether the quantum radar would function in non-laboratory, real-life environments. Just in April, Canada announced it would develop a quantum radar system. The project is funded by Canada's Department of National Defence and is expected to cost $2.7 million (2.1 million). With less than a week until Election Day, President Donald Trump warned that the immigrant caravan proceeding on foot through Mexico includes 'very tough fighters' who have fought 'viciously.' The president faulted Mexican authorities for failing to stop the caravan, after ordering the Pentagon to dispatch troops to the border, once again claiming there were 'bad thugs and gang members' among the group. 'The Caravans are made up of some very tough fighters and people. Fought back hard and viciously against Mexico at Northern Border before breaking through,' Trump tweeted Wednesday. President Donald Trump issued his latest dire warning about the immigrant caravan, saying it included 'very tough fighters and people' 'Mexican soldiers hurt, were unable, or unwilling to stop Caravan. Should stop them before they reach our Border, but wont!' he added. The president fired off a second tweet on the topic, for any who might doubt that combatting illegal immigration was central to the closing argument he wanted to stress in the final days before elections which could reshape the balance of power in Washington. 'Our military is being mobilized at the Southern Border. Many more troops coming. We will NOT let these Caravans, which are also made up of some very bad thugs and gang members, into the U.S. Our Border is sacred, must come in legally. TURN AROUND!' he wrote. Honduran migrants taking part in a caravan heading to the US, rest at a temporary shelter in Juchitan de Zaragoza, Oaxaca state, Mexico on October 30, 2018. - The number of active-duty troops the Pentagon is sending to the US border with Mexico will swell beyond the figure of more than 5,000 announced this week, a top general said Tuesday Trump called Mexican authorities 'unwilling' or unable to stop the caravan The president said 'many more' troops would be coming This week the Pentagon announced 5,200 troops would be dispatched to the border to confront the caravan. The force will include Blackhawk helicopters, surveillance drones, engineers, and military police. The president's warning comes after it was revealed his administration was reportedly told that 'only a small percentage' of migrants would end up making it to the U.S. border as part of the ongoing caravan making its way through Mexico. Documents related to the operation, which were obtained by Newsweek, showed that the information was handed over to officials before Trump hardened his stance on immigration by deploying more than 5,200 troops to the Mexico-U.S. border. The caravan now consists of about 4,000 people near Oaxaca. It includes men, women, and children who to reach the border must trek hundreds of miles on foot. According to a CNN analysis, it could take weeks for them to reach the border, depending on what route the caravan takes. Brownsville, Texas is about 1,000 miles away, but that would take the caravan on a more dangeorus route. A previous caravan in the spring dwindled to about a 200 people who made it to the San Diego border. The president issued similar warnings Monday. 'Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border,' Trump wrote on twitter, moving away from last week's claim that the caravan contained 'Middle Easterners.' 'Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border,' Trump wrote as it was revealed the military was dispatching 5,000 troops to the border This map shows the progress of the migrants as of Sunday, when a new caravan also departed from San Salvador Trump's earlier claim drew skepticism, and he was forced days later to back down. 'There's no proof of anything. There's no proof of anything. But there could very well be,' Trump said. Trump spoke directly to the mostly Honduran members of the caravan in the tweet, saying: 'Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process. This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!' Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Mattis said on Sunday that military equipment is already moving to the southern US border. Pictured above are mounted border patrol agents at a newly constructed section of border wall in California on Friday Oprah Winfrey will lend her star power to Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams' quest to become the United States' first black woman governor by campaigning in the state on Thursday. Abrams' campaign confirmed that the billionaire media mogul will appear with Abrams, who is vying to become the country's first black female governor. The Atlanta Voice and BuzzFeed News first reported Winfrey's plans. Oprah will knock on doors, host two town halls - one in Marietta, and one in Decatur - and has formally endorsed Abrams. The last time Oprah made such an endorsement was for Barack Obama when he was running for president in 2006. Abrams told the Atlanta Voice: 'Oprah Winfrey has inspired so many of us though the years with her unparalleled ability to form real connections and strengthen the bonds of family and community. I am honored to have Oprah join me for uplifting and honest conversations with voters about the clear choice before us in this election and the boundless potential of Georgians.' Winfrey is part of a caravan of high-profile figures marking the final days of Abrams' tight race with Republican Brian Kemp. Vice President Mike Pence has multiple stops scheduled with Kemp. Former President Barack Obama will campaign Friday for Abrams, and President Donald Trump is slated to be in Georgia on Sunday. Ultimate celebrity backing: Oprah Winfrey is to appear with Stacey Abrams and knock doors for her campaign in Georgia, where she is the Democratic candidate for governor After a brief flirtation earlier this year with a run for the White House in 2020, the media mogul, who has long associated herself with Democratic Party causes, has instead thrown her influence into a race that has become a flash point for accusations of voter suppression. Abrams' Republican rival serves as Georgia secretary of state, a role in which he oversees state elections. Earlier this month, a coalition of state civil rights groups sued Kemp, accusing him of trying to depress minority voter turnout to improve his chances of winning. On Monday, former U.S. President and former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter asked Kemp to step down as secretary of state since he was running for governor. Abrams' campaign said she would appear with Winfrey in Cobb and DeKalb counties for a discussion on 'the critical value of women in leadership and what is at stake for our communities in the election.' Winfrey, 63, stole the show at January's Golden Globes awards ceremony with a speech against sexual harassment and assault. It sparked an online campaign to persuade her to run against Republican U.S. President Donald Trump in the next election cycle. 'It's not something that interests me,' Winfrey told InStyle magazine in January. 'I met with someone the other day who said that they would help me with a campaign. That's not for me.' Earlier this week former President Jimmy Carter waded into the contentious race with a personal appeal to Kemp to resign as secretary of state to avoid damaging public confidence in the outcome. The 94-year-old Carter's request, made in an Oct. 22 letter obtained by The Associated Press, was the latest turn in a campaign whose closing month is being defined by charges of attempted voter suppression and countercharges of attempted voter fraud. Kemp has thus far dismissed Democratic demands that he step aside as Georgia's chief elections officer. But Carter attempted to approach the matter less as a partisan who has endorsed Abrams and more as the former president who's spent the decades since he left the Oval Office monitoring elections around the world. 'One of the key requirements for a fair and trusted process is that there be a nonbiased supervision of the electoral process,' Carter wrote, adding that stepping aside 'would be a sign that you recognize the importance of this key democratic principle and want to ensure the confidence of our citizens in the outcome.' Tight race: Stacey Abrams is locked in a closely-fought battle with Republican opponent and Georgia Secretary of State - Brian Kemp. If she wins she would be the nation's first black female govenor Addressing calls for his resignation during a recent debate with Abrams, Kemp noted that bipartisan panels of local officials run much of the elections process. He also noted that one of his Democratic predecessors ran for governor without resigning, although Cathy Cox failed to win the Democratic nomination in 2006. Kemp is under scrutiny from multiple fronts, chief among them 53,000 voter registrations being held up by Kemp's office. Under the state's strict election laws, mail-in registrations must match exactly a voter's records on file with the Social Security Administration or Georgia's driver's license agency. Kemp insists he's fairly applying Georgia law and that those would-be voters can cast ballots if they present acceptable identification - like any other Georgia voter - that clears up any questions. But Abrams and voting rights advocates have assailed the move - and sued - as part of a pattern Democrats say is intended to make it harder for minorities and other Democratic constituencies to vote. Republicans have returned fire, with Kemp alleging that Abrams and her backers want to give ballots to immigrants who are in the country illegally. That attack also is featured in a Republican ad being broadcast statewide. A Greens candidate has been forced to pull out of the upcoming Victoria state election after online posts bragging about shoplifting and hangovers were exposed. Joanna Nilson resigned on Wednesday night after The Herald Sun published a series of online posts from 2015, which the now former Upper House contender has claimed were a joke. The revelations are a massive blow for the Greens with just three weeks to go before Victorian voters head to the polls on November 24. Greens candidate Joanna Nilson (pictured) has pulled out of the Victoria state election Ms Nilson resigned after a series of online posts (pictured) were publicly exposed The publication claimed Ms Nilson posted a series of comments to a Facebook group called the 'Bad Gals Club', where she bragged she was 'the baddest shoplifter there is' and revealed her tips on how to steal groceries. 'Take a plastic bag full of other stuff put it in your basket and then load all the expensive stuff in that take it out and go through the checkout with that on your arm pop through a soda water,' the post states. In another post, Ms Nilson wrote: 'Hungover as s***, late for work, wearing no underpants and I stink of the weed in my bag'. 'F*** how good are nangs,' she later said, appearing to reference small canisters of nitrous oxide gas often misused as a recreational drug. She also compared women in the Liberal party to 'Jews in the Nazi party', and referred to Liberal MP Michaelia Cash as a 'f***ing disgusting smug parrot'. Joanna Nilson (pictured) has since claimed the online posts were a joke and are from several years ago The comments (one pictured) were posted to a Facebook group called the 'Bad Gals Club' The Herald Sun claimed Ms Nilson initially denied any knowledge of the Facebook posts when contacted late Wednesday afternoon. But she swiftly deactivated her social media accounts and within two hours, announced she had stepped down as a candidate. Joanna Nilson's (right) preselection was only announced last week and she was due to run on state Greens leader Samantha Ratnam's (left) ticket 'I regret making these comments, and while they were made several years ago, in jest online, and are in no way reflective of my beliefs or actions, I don't want them to be a distraction,' Ms Nilson said, according to the publication. A party spokesperson added the Greens had accepted her resignation and that she had 'done the right thing'. Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Victoria Greens for comment. Ms Nilson was due to run behind Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam on the party's ticket for the Northern Metropolitan Upper House region. Her preselection was announced just last week. 'I am very excited to announce I have won my preselection and will be appearing on a ballot near you,' Ms Nilson posted on Instagram. Bahrain Association of Banks (BAB) has announced a high level line of speakers for its Annual Banking Forum, which this year focuses on FinTech: Opportunities & Challenges in Bahrains banking industry. Being held under the patronage of the Central Bank of Bahrain, the Forum will take place on October 31 at the Gulf Hotel and expects to attract more than 500 senior representatives from among BABs 52 members, regulators and executives of monetary funds from Bahrain & internationally. With the events aim to tackle the rapid development of FinTech and its impact on Bahraini banks, the Forum will be kicked off by BAB Chairman Adnan Ahmed Yousif and two on-stage keynote interviews with senior industry leaders conducted by Nuha Al Ali, the prominent CNBC Anchor. The first will feature his Rasheed Al Maraj, Governor of the Central Bank of Bahrain, and the second with Meliksah Utku, general manager and CEO of Albaraka Turk, which has made significant inroads in FinTech innovation. The agenda follows with four plenary sessions addressing pressing issues for the industry covering: The Relationship Between Banks and FinTechs, Fostering a Better FinTech Ecosystem, Addressing the Human Capital Gap and Legal & Regulatory Considerations. Taking part in the discussions are banking leaders and FinTech experts from a diverse group of organizations including American Express, Bahrain FinTech Bay, Bahrain Chamber of Commerce &Industry, Bahrain Chamber for Dispute Resolution, BEEHIVE, Bahrain Islamic Bank, Central Bank of Bahrain, Economic Development Board, Gateway, Gulf International Bank, Islamic Finance News, National Bank of Bahrain, Netiks International, Tamkeen, THSA Technology Bahrain and University of Bahrain. Dr Waheed Al Qassim, CEO at BAB, said: We are delighted to announce the participation of such a notable group of industry leaders and experts at BABs upcoming Forum. We look forward to welcoming Rasheed Al Maraj, Governor of the Central Bank, and Meliksah Utku, general manager and CEO of Albaraka Turk, a bank that has been an early mover, adopter and supporter of FinTech development. Participants will also hear from numerous other senior experts and pioneers on how FinTech is impacting Bahrains banking sector and the opportunities and challenges that will face the industry as it moves forward with further development and adoption. The Forum is supported by strategic partners Al Baraka Banking Group, Gulf International Bank, National Bank of Bahrain and Venture Capital Bank and Media Partners IFN and CNBC. - TradeArabia News Service Flagship British museums could be forced to cancel major exhibitions in a no deal Brexit, secret memos have revealed today. Museums fear huge new import taxes for exhibits, collapsing research budgets and a plunge in visitor numbers hitting donations. Many of the nation's biggest museums also rely heavily on EU staff - many of whom could have an unverified right to work in the UK after a no deal Brexit. V&A boss Tristram Hunt (pictured at the museum last year) warned a no deal Brexit could hit the ability to host and tour major exhibitions The fears were revealed following a Freedom of Information request by the People's Vote campaign for a second referendum. . A memo from the Victoria and Albert Museum written on September 4 by its head of Brexit and international strategy, said that in a worst-case scenario 'we will struggle to keep the museum open to the public in the immediate short term'. A Natural History Museum document, also written in September, said it was planning for the risk of a reduction in EU visitors and funding. The document says: 'Uncertainty as to what any scenario would result in makes planning very difficult.' Papers from the Royal Museums Greenwich fear the doubling of shipment costs and a loss of 70 staff while National Museums Liverpool warned of its commercial operation being undermined. V&A director Tristram Hunt told the Evening Standard: 'The big one for us is how a no-deal Brexit would affect putting on exhibitions and taking our exhibitions around the world. A Natural History Museum (pictured is the Blue Whale in the museum's main entrance hall) document, written in September, revealed the landmark museum was planning for the risk of a reduction in EU visitors and funding 'Our ability to hold blockbuster exhibitions while having to pay import duties would be really problematic. 'Our ability to promote British soft power and influence through exhibitions like David Bowie Is and Pink Floyd would be seriously compromised. 'That's bad for the London visitor economy. Four in five visitors to London come for the culture, and they are drawn by great museums and world class exhibitions. It is also potentially damaging for British influence abroad.' People's Vote campaigner Ben Bradshaw said: 'The mess created by the Brexit elite in Westminster is now casting a long shadow over the future of our great museums,' he said. 'Millions of people every year visit them to discover and enjoy some of the most extraordinary collections assembled on this planet. Now, because of the ideological and half-baked way Brexit has been pursued, our museums face new costs, staff shortages, and may even have to close to the public. 'Our museums are brilliant because they reflect an open outward-looking vision of the world where Britain has always thrived.' Mexicans that call Tijuana home have been preparing for this year's eventful Halloween festivities, or 'Noche de Brujas' [Night of Witches'], trying to find the right outfit and outdo their close friends and family members. But once again, on Wednesday night adult residents will be forced to scale back on some of their costumes ahead of the border city's annual parade. For starters, any adult caught wearing a costume mask in a public setting will be arrested and could spend up to 36 hours behind bars or face a fine of $2,000 pesos [US$100]. Only minors will be allowed to cover their faces. Adult Halloween revelers in Tijuana, Mexico have been warned they will be arrested or fined $100 if they wear masks during public festivities. Those that are arrested could face up to 36 hours in a jail cell Since 2008, authorities have banned adults from wearing masks as a measure to deter criminal organizations and vandals from committing crimes while hiding their identities. In 2017, over 450 people were arrested for disobeying the local law, pelting cars with eggs and committing other crimes The practice dates back to as early as 2008 at the height of the Arellano Felix cartel's reign in a town that's forever been a hotspot for young American tourists flocking across the border. At the time the law was put into place by the local government, Tijuana had been engulfed with 530 murders through the aforementioned year. It's quadrupled since then as 2,028 Mexicans have been murdered in the year through October 24, 2018 in a city that lies just south of San Diego. Mexico's lawlessness, which has included 21,283 assassinations through the first seven months of the year, left the Municipal Police no other option but to impose the ban once again. Only children are allowed to wear masks as part of the Halloween festivities, according to the local government law that was put into place as early as 2008 at a time when the Arellano Felix cartel was unleashing its terror in the border city located south of San Diego, California During the 2017 Halloween festivities, police in Tijuana arrested 447 adults for disobeying the ordinance as well as for pelting passing cars with eggs and for partaking in public disturbances. This year, there will be 350 police agents patrolling the celebrations, according to Mexican outlet Tijuana Informativo. The law enforcement officers will remain in place for the festivities which will once again extend out to November 1 and 2 as revelers will hit the streets to celebrate the Day of the Dead. Questions are mounting about the prison murder of notorious Boston mob boss James 'Whitey' Bulger, who was savagely beaten and had his tongue cut out less than 24 hours after his transfer to a federal prison accused having a 'culture of violence'. 'He was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty,' said Bulger's lawyer J.W. Carney Jr in a statement, adding that he had no further comment. Mafia hitman Fotios 'Freddy' Geas, 51, is under investigation for allegedly instigating a group of men to beat wheelchair-bound Bulger, 89, to death with a lock wrapped in a sock and partially gouge his eyes inside USP Hazelton in West Virginia on Tuesday. The attack at 6am inside Bulger's cell also included an attempt to cut out Bulger's tongue, sources at the prison told TMZ. It was a gruesome end for the brutal killer Bulger, who was serving two life sentences for participating in 11 murders while running South Boston's Winter Hill Gang. But it may have come as no surprise to Bulger, a longtime FBI informant who constantly feared attacks in prison. 'I have to defend myself or they'll kill me,' Bulger once wrote from behind bars after being shanked by other inmates in Arizona, recalled pen pal Enrique Sanchez, 70, in an interview with the Boston Globe. Fotios 'Freddy' Geas, 51, ( left, pictured in 2007) is suspected of leading the killing of James 'Whitey' Bulger (right) Tuesday in a federal prison in West Virginia James 'Whitey' Bulger, right, is seen after a hearing in 2011 as he is escorted from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter to a waiting vehicle at an airport in Plymouth, Massachusetts 'I told him to take care of himself because there is not a lack of people who want to kill you,' said Sanchez, who was the maintenance supervisor at the Santa Monica apartment complex where Bulger lived for years with girlfriend Catherine Grieg while in hiding from the FBI. Meanwhile, questions are mounting about the reason for Bulger's transfer to USP Hazelton, a high-security facility where he arrived on Monday. Bulger had been moved within the federal prison system several times since his conviction in 2013, but prison officials have yet to explain his transfer to Hazelton. 'We do not disclose the reasons a specific inmate transfers from one institution to another,' the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement to DailyMail.com. The agency said that prisoners could be transferred due to issues including security, population, and medical needs. In 2013, Bulger was initially sent to a high-security penitentiary in Arizona, where he got in trouble over an inappropriate relationship with a female psychologist who was counseling him. In 2014, Bulger was moved to USP Coleman II in Florida, where he remained until a series of transfers began last week, ending in his move to Hazelton on Monday. Sources differ as to why Bulger was moved from Florida. One person told the Globe that he had health problems, another that he had disciplinary issues in Florida. Hazelton in West Virginia is not a medical facility, and there is no reason to transfer a prisoner there for health issues. Adding to the mystery is the fact that 89-year-old Bulger, a high-profile inmate with many enemies, and who was also reportedly in a wheelchair, was placed in general population at Hazelton, according to head of the union who represents prison employees there. Inmates with threats against them are typically placed in protective units. There are also typically medical units for prisoners with health issues. The entrance to USP Hazelton in West Virginia is seen in a file photo. Bulger had been transferred to the facility Monday when he was killed These 1980s FBI handout file photos show Massachusetts mobster James 'Whitey' Bulger INSIDE 'MISERY MOUNTAIN': Whitey was the THIRD inmate murdered just this year at the troubled West Virginia prison Whitey Bulger is the third inmate to be killed in USP Hazelton just this year. In April a 48-year-old inmate named Ian Thorne was killed after he got into a fight with another prisoner. Both used homemade weapons during the altercation. Five months after Thorne was killed, another inmate was murdered. Demario Porter, 27, was killed in September during a fight with another prisoner. He had only arrived at Hazelton days beforehand. USP Hazelton is seen in an aerial shot. Bulger was found dead there on Tuesday Richard Heldreth, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 420, blamed the deaths on understaffing at the prison. He called it part of a 'very disturbing trend with increases in drugs and weapons being found at the complex'. Since January 2018, there have been more than 60 documented violent incidents at the prison, which has also been locked down nine times this year 'due to violence', Heldreth told the Preston County News & Journal. An interior is seen of FCI Hazelton, the minimum security camp attached to USP Hazelton. Bulger was found bludgeoned to death in the higher security facility on Tuesday 'It has become an every day occurrence,' he added. 'For example, there have been at least 11 weapons confiscated at the facility in the last two days that I have seen documentation of.' Heldreth argued that the prison had become far less safe since the Trump administration announced a federal hiring freeze in January 2017 and the Bureau of Prisons was asked to eliminate 6,000 unfilled jobs - including 127 at Hazelton. Advertisement Law enforcement sources have told DailyMail.com that Bulger had discussed speaking out about allegations of misconduct within the FBI's informant program - possibly with Congressional investigators with the Oversight Committee. Bulger (above) ruled the South Boston underworld for 30 years with an iron fist Bulger's murder at Hazelton came just weeks after a Congresswoman wrote a letter to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz demanding an investigation into 'the alleged appalling conditions inmates are facing' at the prison. 'Serious allegations have been raised concerning brutal treatment of inmates housed in the Special Housing Unit,' wrote DC Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. In the past seven months, there have been three homicides at Hazelton - dubbed Misery Mountain - with the officers' union blaming chronic under-staffing. Norton echoed that sentiment in a statement on Tuesday, saying 'there appears to be a serious shortage of staffing and other resources, leaving prisoners and guards vulnerable to attacks.' 'James 'Whitey' Bulger's death, which occurred one day after he was transferred to Hazelton, underscores reports of a culture of violence at Hazelton and the need for the Inspector General to begin an investigation immediately,' Norton said. Full letter of DC Delegate to DOJ Inspector General demanding investigation into USP Hazelton October 18, 2018 Dear Inspector General Horowitz: I write regarding the appalling conditions inmates are facing at the Federal Bureau of Prisons' (BOP) Hazelton facility in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, and ask that you investigate and report your findings. Two inmates from the District of Columbia have died at Hazelton during violent altercations during this past year alone, and serious allegations have been raised concerning brutal treatment of inmates housed in the Special Housing Unit. I urgently ask that you open an immediate investigation into the operations at Hazelton. We recently learned from the family of my constituent that he had been, in their words, 'beaten badly by prison guards to the point they fractured his ribs.' His family also reports that he told them that three weeks prior to this incident, guards went to his cell three times, taunted him and eventually handcuffed and beat him. They further claim that '[d]uring the incident he blacked out and woke up chained, [hand]cuffed and left in a dry cell with a half mattress for 17 HOURS with NO medical assistance.' His family says a padlock was used to tighten a chain around his waist, causing the lock to dig into his pelvic area for 17 hours. His family further claims that his food arrives with pubic hairs, his property has been stolen and he is taunted to elicit a reaction, allowing BOP guards to beat him with alleged justification. Another of my constituents at Hazelton claims he was attacked by guards and left in solitary confinement for several days, where he was unable to receive medical attention. He has indicated that the chain wrapped around his stomach made it difficult for him to breathe. I understand that this matter was referred to the Office of Internal Affairs, but, given its serious nature, I believe it merits an investigation by your office as well. Even worse, two District residents have been killed at Hazelton in violent altercations just this year alone. On April 2, 2018, Ian Thorne was killed in an altercation with another inmate in which homemade weapons were used, and on September 17, 2018, Demario Porter was killed in another violent altercation with a fellow inmate. I am concerned that these examples may be indicative of larger, ongoing problems at the facility. For example, I was informed by the D.C. Corrections Information Council that in a recent survey of 58 inmates at the facility, only 29% said they felt safe at Hazelton. These inmates also indicated there were staff who had been performing duties outside the scope of their work, which may account for some of these issues. Based on the evidence presented to my office, I believe that the federal employees serving in this facility have likely received inadequate training, are under-supported, and are being compelled to perform duties outside the scope of their positions and their training, which is leading to these horrific and entirely unacceptable outcomes. I ask that you open a formal investigation into these incidents and conditions at Hazelton. I appreciate your attention to these serious issues. Sincerely, Eleanor Holmes Norton Advertisement The questions come as investigators begin to focus their scrutiny on Geas, the former mob hitman who is suspected of leading the attack on Bulger. Northern West Virginia U.S. Attorney Bill Powell and the FBI will lead the investigation into Bulger's murder. At least two men including Geas are being investigated for the attack after being caught on CCTV entering Bulger's cell around 6am, the Globe reported, without naming the second suspect. Two hours later, Bulger was found dead. 'Freddy hated rats,' private investigator Ted McDonough said of Geas, who is serving a life sentence after he was ratted on for the murders of former Genovese crime family mob boss Adolfo 'Big Al' Bruno and associate Gary D Westerman in 2003. A private investigator said 'Freddy hated rats' and suspects Geas, pictured in a 2010 mugshot, would have killed Bulger because of his role as an informant Bulger had cut a sweet deal to serve as an FBI informant as far back as 1975, giving him virtual impunity to commit any crime he wanted for decades - except for murder. 'Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It's probably that simple,' McDonough, who became friendly with Geas while working for him as an investigator. Geas has not disputed his role in the killings, local media claims, and has refused to identify his accomplices. The lawyer who represented him when he was jailed for murder said he was not surprised that Geas was refusing to cooperate. 'He wouldn't rat on anybody,' said attorney David Hoose. 'And he had no respect for anyone who did.' Geas was also no stranger to violence. When he killed Westerman in 2003, he shot the mobster twice in the head, but somehow he survived. When Westerham broke free of Geas and his brother Ty and tried to flee, the pair dragged him back to the pit they had dug and beat him to death with shovels. Afterward, Geas praised his brother for completing some 'good teamwork'. These 1953 Boston police booking photos shows James 'Whitey' Bulger after an arrest A police evidence photo shows a car riddled with bullet holes in connection with one of the 19 murders Bulger was charged with. He was convicted of 11 murders In Big Al's case, Geas did not perpetrate the killing himself, but hired another hitman to carry out the murder for him. He was caught after both the hitman - a former cellmate named Frankie Roche - and the man who ordered the killing - a Mafia boss and ally of Geas called Anthony Arillotta - turned on him and agreed to testify. Prison officials have not said who else may have been involved in Bulger's murder, but mobster Paul Weadick, 63, was sent to Hazelton this summer after his murder conviction alongside Francis 'Cadillac Frank' Salemme - Bulger's co-defendant in a sweeping federal racketeering indictment in 1999. Salamme and Weadick were convicted in June of the 1993 murder of Steven DiSarro, a nightclub owner in South Boston. Bulger's right-hand man, Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi, was the star witness in the prosecution of Salamme and Weadick - though Flemmi also testified against Bulger himself in 2013. Salamme, 85, is currently incarcerated in Brooklyn MDC. Bulger poses for a mugshot on his arrival at the Federal Penitentiary at Alcatraz on November 16, 1959 in San Francisco, California. Reports have emerged the gangster was slain in prison Catherine Greig and Whitey Bulger are seen in June 1998. They were on the run for 16 years, and posed as a retired couple from Chicago in Santa Monica Bulger was one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives for 16 years until his 2011 arrest in Santa Monica, California. His 2013 trial, which featured 72 witnesses and 840 exhibits, produced chilling testimony worthy of a pulp novel. It heard harrowing tales of teeth being pulled from the mouths of murder victims to foil identification and the strangulation of a mobster's girlfriend who 'knew too much.' Bulger was born in Boston on September 3, 1929, the son of a longshoreman and his first-generation Irish immigrant wife. The young crook was arrested at age 14, in 1943, when he began running with a street gang called the Shamrocks and was charged with larceny. Police gave young Bulger the nickname 'Whitey' early in his criminal career, a reference to his blond hair. Bulger is said to have hated the moniker, but it stuck. Following a stint in the Air Force, Bulger served his first federal prison sentence starting in 1956 on armed robbery and truck hijacking charges. Bulger went on to rule the Boston underworld with an iron fist for nearly 30 years while also working as an informant for the FBI. His deal with the FBI gave him virtual impunity to commit crimes - FBI agents later testified that Bulger had been allowed to commit any crime except for murder in exchange for information. A nonpartisan candidate for city council in Southern California has been accused of dropping off his elderly, wheelchair-bound mother to panhandle for the last decade, even though they're not homeless. David Chey has been caught on camera leaving Soon Chey, 86, in her wheelchair in the downtown district of Laguna Beach with a sign that reads, 'please, help me.' 'They have a brand new car, live in a condo in Irvine, yet beg for our help,' local business owner Heidi Miller told DailyMail.com. 'And Adult Protective Services have gone out there and can't do anything, because she says she enjoys begging. He's pretty much brainwashed her.' DailyMail.com was unable to immediately reach Chey for comment. 'We have a tremendous homeless problem in Laguna Beach, as every place does,' Miller said. 'And what the Cheys have been doing for 12 years is taking money from Laguna residents and tourists and going back to a cozy apartment in Irvine in a brand new car and taking money away from homeless people.' Chey allegedly leaves his mom stranded for hours at a time, either along the upscale Forest Avenue in Laguna or at the University Town Center shopping complex in Irvine, according to a piece written by local resident David Hansen and published in the Los Angeles Times. David Chey, a candidate for city council in Irvine, California has been accused of dropping off his wheelchair-bound mother, Soon Chey, 86 (pictured), to panhandle, even though they're not homeless; Soon Chey is shown here along the 200 block of Laguna's upscale Forest Avenue Miller, who has been living in Laguna Beach for 40 years, estimated that once while she was watching Soon Chey, she collected over $200 in one hour. She said she caught Chey dropping off his mother just two weeks ago, and parking at an 'obscure underground parking structure' near the Laguna Chamber of Commerce to do it. 'He drops her off at about 8:30pm and leaves her there until about midnight,' Miller said. 'I've see her sitting outside by herself in drizzle. She even defecated on one of the benches before because she had to go to the bathroom. There's so many things wrong with it.' Miller said she caught David Chey (pictured) dropping off his mother just two weeks ago, and parking at an 'obscure underground parking structure' near the Laguna Chamber of Commerce to do it; Miller said this photo was taken off Gleneyri Street in Laguna Beach This is the vehicle that Miller said the Cheys got out of just two weeks ago in Laguna Beach Heidi Miller (pictured) created a sign which she has placed beside Chey's mother that reads, 'Do not give this woman money. Her son drops her off to beg for money she doesn't need;' Miller is shown here in front of one of her businesses, a World Newsstand, in Laguna Beach Miller created a sign which she has placed beside Chey's mother that reads, 'Do not give this woman money. Her son drops her off to beg for money she doesn't need.' She told DailyMail.com that neighbors of David and Soon Chey confirmed to her that the two live together in a unit on Orange Blossom in Irvine. Evidence of the Cheys' panhandling scheme dates back at least six years, including a video of Chey picking up his mother at around 2.00am Pacific from the town center in Irvine. The clip was titled 'Elder Abuse at UCI Town Center' and was posted on YouTube on December 5, 2012. A man can be heard from behind the camera asking Chey, 'Is this your mother?' and accusing him of exploiting her, as Chey starts filming with his own camera and his mom waves the other person off, seemingly unbothered by the events of that day. As the video continues, Chey becomes increasingly agitated, with his voice growing louder as he calls the man recording him 'a paid stooge,' a 'paid harasser' who was 'hired by Wells Fargo bank' and a 'stalker.' Miller told DailyMail.com that neighbors of David and Soon Chey confirmed to her that the two live together in a unit on Orange Blossom in Irvine; That street is shown here Evidence of the Cheys' panhandling scheme dates back at least six years, including a 2012 video of Chey picking up his mother at around 2.00am Pacific from the town center in Irvine Chey starts filming with his own camera in the clip, titled 'Elder Abuse at UCI Town Center,' which was posted to YouTube on December 5, 2012 In the video, Chey says his mother's 'house was stolen by Wells Fargo bank.' The Cheys lost their family home in 2007 during bankruptcy proceedings after Chey's father and Soon's husband died, the Times reported in a separate opinion piece by Hansen, published in 2012. Hansen wrote that the mother and son due were compensated for the loss of their home, based on housing and court records. Chey's 2018 candidate statement for City of Irivine council member describes him as a self-employed entrepreneur. Chey earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from the University of Southern California, and graduated from the school's entrepreneurship program, according to the statement as published on Irvine Watchdog. His stated purpose for running for city council is to implement 'an ordinance that requires voter approval on development projects.' Chey's 2018 candidate statement for City of Irivine councilmember describes him as a self-employed entrepreneur with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from the University of Southern California He added that he's running 'to help residents achieve the American Dream. To be better than your parents. And to have high education. To be able to contribute positively to society,' during a public forum, according to Hansen's piece published by the Los Angeles Times. Chey faces 10 opponents for one of two seats available on Irvine's city council. His fellow candidates are named John Park, Kev Abazajian, Farrah N Khan, Lee Sun, Gang Chen, Carrie O Malley, Frank McGill, Jaci Woods and Mark Newgent. Both Chey and Newgent were absent from a meet-the-candidates forum hosted by the Irvine Chinese School at the South Coast Chinese Cultural Center on October 8. City of Irvine voters will cast their ballots to fill the two roles during next week's general election on November 6. The twin brother of an Iraqi refugee who allegedly built two homemade bombs in a Las Vegas condominium has told DailyMail.com: Yes my brother was in Vegas, but he was on vacation with two chicks. Ahmad Suhad Ahmad, 29, was arrested at his home in Tuscon, Arizona on Monday and charged with distribution of information related to explosives and destructive devices. Mohammed Ahmad, the brother of arrested Ahmad, said he was shocked his sibling had been accused of building two explosive devices which he planned to use in a deadly terror attack or assassination attempt. Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com outside an auto repair shop where he works in Tuscon, Arizona, he said: Its a shock. I dont know why he was arrested, something about making bombs, its not him, we are refugees from Iraq, we love America. I never think my brother would do that. Yes I remember he went to Las Vegas last year, but he was on vacation with two chicks and a guy. Mohammed spoke after federal court documents, exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, revealed Ahmad had been arrested on Monday in connection with a bomb-making plot last year. Mohammed Ahmad (left), the brother of arrested Ahmad Suhad Ahmad (right), said he was shocked his sibling had been accused of building two explosive devices which he planned to use in a deadly terror attack or assassination attempt And we can reveal a series of shocking details about the alleged bomb plot and the elaborate FBI sting that stopped it in its tracks. According to a source close to the FBI investigation the primary device Ahmad built was hidden inside a suitcase while the Iraqi also helped the agents construct a second device inside a laptop computer. Both devices, for which Ahmad was paid around $4,000, were designed to be detonated using a cell phone trigger. Its also believed Ahmad who is now a US citizen along with his brother, both aged 29 was flown from Tucson to Vegas on a private jet, all on the FBIs expense. The Iraqi, who works as a mechanic, then secretly constructed the two bombs while staying in a $2.4million two-bed apartment at the luxury Mandarin Oriental near the Vegas strip in April, 2017. The five star hotel and residences was this summer rebranded this summer as the Waldorf Astoria Las Vegas Hotel & Residences. Two bed apartments in the high rise rent for $10,000 a month. Ahmad (left and right) is accused of showing undercover FBI agents how to connect the blasting caps and where to place the C-4 on the bombs intended to hit a target in Mexico The Iraqi refugee living in the US built two homemade bombs in a Las Vegas condominium (pictured) which he planned to use in a deadly terror attack, DailyMail.com can reveal The Iraqi refugee, who works as a mechanic in Tuscon, secretly constructed the two bombs while staying in a $2.4million two-bed apartment at the luxury Mandarin Oriental near the Vegas strip in April, 2017, it is claimed Its believed that Ahmad who is now a US citizen along with his brother, both aged 29 was flown from Tucson to Vegas on a private jet, all on the FBIs expense According to the source Ahmad is alleged to have built the devices in apartment 2809 in the building - using fake C-4 plastic explosive supplied to him by FBI agents. In court docs it states he brought several items of his own to help in constructing the devices, including a circuit tester, electrical tape, and tubes of Permatex Epoxy a strong adhesive. Its believed the agents told Ahmad that the bombs were for a Mexican cartel boss who wanted to target law enforcement in Mexico, the source claims. The source said: 'Ahmad thought it was real C-4 and was extremely nervous building the bomb. 'Before he started he knelt down in the apartment and prayed to Allah. The device was basic and comprised of a car alarm bought from Fry's Electronics in Vegas. Ahmad Ahmad Charges According to the federal complaint filed at the US District Court in Tucson, Arizona Ahmad Ahmad is charged with Title 18 U.S.C. Section 842 (p)(2)(b) - Distribution of information Relating to Explosives, Destructive Devices and Weapons. Essentially this covers anyone who teaches or demonstrates to any person how to make or use an explosive device or weapon of mass destruction or gives them material to teach them how to use such a device - knowing they intend to use the info for a crime of violence. Because the FBI supplied Ahmad with some of the components to construct the two bombs, including fake C-4 explosive, it would be difficult for the authorities to charge him with building a device. But Ahmad shared his bomb-making knowledge with undercover operatives, according to court documents, showing a confidential FBI source homemade bomb instructions on his cell phone and sending the source a text message with a bomb recipe written in Arabic, which he promised to translate. He also had several meetings with undercover FBI agents during which he discussed the construction of a bomb. After constructing the first device in Las Vegas Ahmad then allegedly guided an undercover agent on how to make a second device and explained how to operate it. Advertisement Ahmad and all the FBI guys went there to buy the car alarm, they were literally driving up the strip with a bomb in the car. 'After he built it he asked the FBI operative, who had been posing as a Mexican cartel drug dealer, for a glass of milk, it was a bizarre moment.' In court documents Ahmad is accused of showing undercover FBI agents how to connect the blasting caps and where to place the C-4 on the bombs intended to hit a target in Mexico. According to the paperwork filed at the US District Court in Tuscon, Arizona, Ahmad, is also accused of teaching the making and use of an explosive, destructive device, or weapon of mass desturction, to another person between March and April, 2017. He allegedly provided an undercover FBI operative with homemade bomb recipes and taught them how to construct remote-detonating bombs. Ahmad told a confidential FBI source how to detonate a bomb using a cell phone with a removable battery a trick he said he learned during the war in Iraq, the papers allege. Ahmad said the bombs were easy to make, it states. FBI operatives met with Ahmad at his apartment in Tucson and asked him to show them how to make a car bomb to hit a target in Mexico, to which Ahmad agreed. According to the documents Ahmad first told the FBI confidential source he knew how to detonate a bomb in December, 2016 and showed the source an image of explosive materials and instructions on his cellphone. Ahmad, it states, explained the instructions in Arabic, not in English. But it wasnt until April the following year that the plans for a potential terror attack or assassination swung in to play. The paperwork Ahmad studied bomb making before constructing the devices. FBI operatives say they met with Ahmad at his apartment in Tucson and asked him to show them how to make a car bomb to hit a target in Mexico - to which Ahmad agreed (pictured is his Tuscon apartment) Ahmad is accused of showing undercover FBI agents how to connect the blasting caps and where to place the C-4 on the bombs intended to hit a target in Mexico (pictured The Palms' apartment and condo rental complex in Tucson, AZ where he was arrested) Law Enforcement officers swopped on an address in Tucson Monday morning and arrested Ahmad, he was arraigned later the same day and taken to a federal facility. Ahmads brother Mohammed told DailyMail.com that he and his twin left their home in Baghdad, Iraq in 2006 as young men and fled to Syria. Two years later in 2008 the pair arrived in the US claiming asylum as refugees which was granted. Its understood after a decade in America both are now US citizens. On Ahmads Facebook he posted a photo of himself with three children, with the graphic: 'I stand with Refugees'. Mohammed's Facebook profile is a little less sympathetic with photos of the mechanics wearing a gas mask and one of him carrying a rifle and a pistol. But Mohammed blames his brothers current predicament on him talking too much. He love people, he love doing job and he talk. And probably someone hear him saying what he saying. Its messed up. For real we left our country, we came here as refugees. We was young, 2006 we left Iraq and stayed in Syria two years, it was hell. We tried to go back to Iraq but we ended up in America. On the bomb-making allegations Mohammed (above in a gas mask) added: If we like to do that we stay in our country and do the same thing in our country, why would we do it here' Mohammed, who says his brothers ex-wife is American, said he and Ahmad and an older brother came to the US to live a life of peace, but he acknowledged that his twin was different and does his own thing Mohammed, who says his brothers ex-wife is American, said he and Ahmad and an older brother came to the US to live a life of peace, but he acknowledged that his twin was different and does his own thing. On the bomb-making allegations he added: If we like to do that we stay in our country and do the same thing in our country, why would we do it here. But I never think my brother would do that. But he have to be careful its not a game. Mohammed said the authorities had taken Ahmad to Florence State Prison, a maximum-security facility in Florence, Arizona. A hearing in Ahmads case is expected to take place Wednesday at the US District Court in Tucson. DailyMail.com has repeatedly reached out to the US Assistant Attorney handling the case and received a no comment statement. The development comes amid the devastating aftermath of the 'MAGAbomber' threat, which shocked America. And although Vegas was never under threat of bomb attack, the news will strike fear among its residents. The party city which attracts around 40 million visitors a year - has long been seen as a soft target for terrorists. And October 1 last year lone-wolf gunman Stephen Paddock, 65, did exposed security lapses in the city. He used automatic weapons he had smuggled into his room to rain down gunfire on a crowd of 22,000 people attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival Sunday night. He was found with 23 guns in his room and thousands of rounds of ammunition in the Mandalay Bay hotel, across the street from the festival. Paddock had carried the weapons into the hotel in ten bags and he set up two rifles on tripods in his make-shift sniper's nest overlooking the crowds. Thousands of rounds of ammunition were also found in the suite, enabling him to fire repeatedly over the course of 72 minutes. His car had traces of a fertilizer used in bomb-making. When police finally got to him and burst into the hotel suite they discovered Paddock had taken his own life. National Police Chiefs' Council chairwoman Sara Thornton has said police should be concentrating on burglaries and violent attacks rather 'incidents which are not crime' Police should focus on catching burglars and violent thugs rather than recording incidents that are not crimes, one of the country's most senior officers has said. National Police Chiefs' Council chairwoman Sara Thornton warned forces are too stretched to take on all 'desirable and deserving' issues, such as logging misogyny reports even when no offence has been committed. Calling for a 'refocus on core policing', she also said she is 'unconvinced' it is appropriate to commit significant resources investigating allegations against the dead. Opening a joint conference hosted by the NPCC and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, Ms Thornton said core policing is 'seriously stretched'. She said: 'We are asked to provide more and more bespoke services that are all desirable - but the simple fact is there are too many desirable and deserving issues. 'For example, treating misogyny as a hate crime is a concern for some well-organised campaigning organisations.' In July, chief constables debated whether such allegations should be logged even when no crime is committed. Home Secretary Sajid Javid told the police conference he knew forces were 'feeling stretched' Ms Thornton said: 'I want us to solve more burglaries and bear down on violence before we make more records of incidents that are not crimes.' She cited historical investigations as 'another example of issues that matter very much to some but they undoubtedly take resources away from dealing with today's crime today'. The former Thames Valley chief constable said: 'While I understand those who have been harmed seek answers, I remain unconvinced that it is appropriate to commit significant resources investigating allegations against those who have died.' She told the conference in central London that investigating gender-based hate incidents and allegations against those who have died are not 'bad things to do', but added: 'They just cannot be priorities for a service that is over-stretched.' Addressing the summit, Home Secretary Sajid Javid said crime has 'changed faster than we could ever have imagined'. He acknowledged forces are 'feeling stretched' and pledged to ensure they have the resources they need in 2019/20. While noting that extra investment will help, he also called for greater focus on crime prevention. Yudy Pineda's original calling was to serve God as she entered a convent as a 10-year-old girl dreaming of becoming a nun. Today, the 28-year-old mother-of-two stands in front of a camera satisfying the sexual fantasies of strangers across the world. The Colombian-born porn star decided to quit the convent eight years in after she fell in love with a man who was working at the nunnery as a catechism instructor. Colombian-born porn star Yudy Pineda was originally destined to become a nun before she fell in love with a catechism instructor The porn star entered the convent as a 10-year-old girl but quit at the age of 18 after the confessed to the nuns that she could no longer be faithfully immersed in that lifestyle Yudy Pineda is a Colombian porn actress and mother of two children. It is unknown who the father of her two kids is and if she stayed with the catechism instructor Pineda was quick to own up to the change in lifestyle which the then-18-year-old was experiencing and approached the sisters at the catholic convent with the sudden news that she would be separating herself. 'I talked to the sister and told her that it was not right what I was doing, I had fallen in love, and I left the convent,' the porn actress said in an interview with Colombian outlet Caracol Radio. Pineda moved to Medellin and later found employment with the Nestle company as a vendor where a co-worker repeatedly approached her about about giving the erotic webcam business a go. She finally did so two years ago but after six months Pineda gave up as the earnings barely allowed her to keep up a sustainable living while caring for her two children. But Pineda decided to give the internet porn business another try when she met a man in Medellin who had a better understanding of how to run the business. Pineda says she works 40 hours during a 15-day stretch making over $2,500 for her erotic internet services The porn actress still maintains her faith in the catholic church, attending mass every Sunday Yudy Pineda confesses with the same priest every day because she believes she is committing a sin each time she masturbates in front of the web cameras The gamble paid off. The single mother now makes a little over $2,500 working 40 hours every 15 days as she dances, models and performs a range of sexual acts on herself in front of her fans. Nevertheless, she hasn't forgotten of her old roots that nearly led her to becoming a nun. She attends the weekly Sunday mass and participates in a weekly Friday night bible study class. A Colombian woman ditched her childhood dream of becoming a nun and now fulfills the fantasies of strangers as a porn actress in front of a web camera in Medellin The famous porn star captions her photo by stating, 'I enjoy being how I am with my errors and my success. I am always completely learning' Colombian porn actress Yeny Pineda says she remains a devout catholic and attends a weekly bible studies class on Fridays But she has warded off the fatherly advice of the only priest who she visits for a daily confession because she knows she is sinning each time she masturbates in front of the camera. 'He is a person who is very, very much on my side and does not judge me. He says that only he who judges me is God, not him,' Pineda said. 'The first time I confessed to him, he told me not to do it again, to change my life, and I said, 'No, I can not change my life, because for me this is a decent and artistic job.' It's unknown who the father of her two is and if she stayed with the catechism instructor A South African police pilot is being investigated after allegedly landing a helicopter outside a shopping centre in order to visit a fast food restaurant. According to a witness, the police helicopter landed in the car park outside a local KFC franchise, after which the pilot jumped out to grab some lunch, before flying off again. The incident took place in Komani, formerly Queenstown, in the Eastern Cape Province, southern South Africa. The police helicopter allegedly landed in the car park outside a KFC in Komani, South Africa, after which the pilot jumped out to grab some lunch, before taking off, a witness claimed Photographs of the white South African Police Service (SAPS) helicopter and CCTV of a man inside the KFC restaurant - which is said to be the pilot - were posted on social media alongside the claims. Bill Harrington, a local right-wing politician, shared the images and claimed that the pilot had landed in the car park before 'nonchalantly' walking about 100 feet into the fast food restaurant. Mr Harrington said he had seen the pilot purchase a takeaway meal before returning to the chopper and taking off. This CCTV footage has been shared on Facebook, with a user claiming that this is the police helicopter pilot The unnamed pilot's origin and destination is currently undisclosed, and local authorities have called it 'an internal matter'. Police spokesperson Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo told local media that the helicopter was patrolling areas in Eastern Cape, but the controversial landing is currently being investigated. In 2017, South African police commissioner Risimati Shivuri also made the headlines when he reportedly used a chopper to fly 2.5 miles to order a Wimpy Breakfast. The uncle of the three Indiana siblings who were tragically killed on Tuesday while boarding on their school bus, said that his niece was a 'bada**' even in her final moments. Elgin Ingle, the victim's uncle, said nine-year-old Alivia Stahl often acted like a mother to her brothers - Xzavier and Mason Ingle. 'She held their hand to the school bus and onto the bus every day,' Ingle said to WRTV. 'She was holding their hand when they were hit and it looks like she tried to shield them a little bit.' 'She had a split second to think of what to do, she chose to shield her brothers with that split second.' Elgin Ingle, the victim's uncle, said nine-year-old Alivia Stahl often acted like a mom to her brothers - Xzavier and Mason Ingle, pictured Ingle said that his brother is still coming to terms with the tragedy. 'He didn't just lose one kid, he lost all of them,' Elgin explained to WPTA. 'All the prayers we can get, that's all you can ask for. You can't bring back the kids.' One sibling has been left behind. At the time of the accident, she stayed home from school so that she could go to the doctor's office, Elgin revealed. A family friend launched a GoFundMe for the Ingles that has raised more than $36,097 of its $100,000 goal. Police confirmed the children were boarding the bus, and the stop-arm was out at the time Authorities said the children were at the bus stop on the west side of the road and the stop-arm on the bus was out when a pickup truck hit and killed the kids The horrific car crash took place at 7.30am on Tuesday in rural Rochester, Indiana on a two-lane road near 4600 N. State Road 25. The children were boarding their yellow school bus that had its stop-arm activated while temporarily parked when a truck traveling in the opposite direction hit the group, Indiana State Police say. The fourth victim an 11-year-old, identified as Maverik Lowe, was airlifted to Fort Wayne Hospital after suffering multiple broken bones and injuries. A GoFundMe has been launched for Maverik Lowe - who was thrown over 30ft - to accommodate his medical bills and assist his family A GoFundMe has been launched for Lowe - who was thrown over 30ft - to accommodate his medical bills and assist his family. 'He suffered broken ribs, busted knee cap, fractures in his arm and wrist,' said Jocelynne Lowe on the post. 'His leg is in pins and rods holding it together. He had plastic surgery already to put his face back together. He has slipped disks in his spine by his neck.' It has raised just under $16,000 of its 45,000 goal. The driver of the pickup truck, mother-of-two, 24-year-old Alyssa Shepherd has been arrested and charged with three counts of reckless homicide and one count of passing a school bus and resulting in bodily injury. Alyssa Shepherd, 24, was charged with three counts of reckless homicide and one count of passing a school bus and resulting in bodily injury It's not known was caused Alyssa Shepherd to ignore the stop sign on the school bus. She is pictured here with husband, Neil The children all attended Mentone Elementary School. Sgt. Tony Slocum called the accident a 'terrible tragedy'. 'They were standing on the west side of the road getting onto the bus, which did have a stop arm activated as required by law and unfortunately, for whatever reason, the person failed to stop and caused three fatalities and at least one injury at this time,' he said to NBC. 'I haven't seen first responders and troopers cry in a long time,' Slocum said on the fatalities. 'When the children's father had to make identification of his children, that was just gut-wrenching. We saw tears today and our hearts just go out to them because most of us have children and we can't imagine the pain that he felt today. It was heartbreaking It's still heartbreaking.' 'We all have a responsibility to make sure our children get to and from school safely,' Slocum said. 'When we're traveling in the early morning hours and early evening hours we've got to anticipate school buses are going to be out. When those stop arms are extended, by law, you are required to stop. This is the exact reason why. We don't want another family to have to go through this.' The kids were hit by a pickup truck (pictured above) passing in the opposite direction. The damage that has been done to the hood of the car shows just how fast the vehicle was going Three Rochester, Indiana, children have been killed and a fourth injured while boarding their bus to school at 7.30am on Tuesday Aerial footage taken by ABC at the scene showed the pick-up truck suffered heavy damage to its front and hood. Shepherd, who is the mother to two young girls herself, works at the Faith Outreach Center in Rochester, Indiana where she has a role as the Children's director. Locals say that people frequently drive over the limit along the rural road in that area. The bus was heading northbound and the truck was heading southbound. Sgt. Slocum said it's not clear if that truck was speeding. The bus driver has been named as Robert Reid. Police confirmed that three other children were on board the bus at the time. The Tippecanoe Valley School Corporation, which runs the area where the crash took place, released a statement following the incident. The truck driver has been identified as 24-year-old Alyssa Shepherd and was cooperating with police Three children who were from the same family died at the scene - twin six-year-old boys and their nine-year-old sister. The fourth child - an 11-year-old boy - was airlifted to a hospital in Fort Wayne 'Our school corporation has suffered a tragedy this morning. We have learned of three student fatalities and one student seriously injured and airlifted to a Fort Wayne hospital as they were hit by a vehicle while boarding their bus. 'We have deployed all school counselors to meet the emotional needs of our staff, students and parents. We are awaiting to learn more confirmed details but wish to ask the community to come together to pray for the families, our students and our staff.' Indiana Governor Eric J. Holcomb released a statement Tuesday afternoon. 'Words cannot express the depth of sorrow Janet and I feel, which only pales in comparison to what family, friends, teachers, classmates and community are feeling right now. Today, and for many more to come, we mourn their loss. I ask Hoosiers around the state to join us by sending your deepest prayers for the strength needed to endure such a time,' he said. This was the worst U.S. school bus accident since November 21, 2016, when six children were killed in Tennessee as a bus driver was going 50mph on a narrow road and lost control of the wheel. The Trump administration is calling for an urgent halt to the Saudi-Iran proxy war in Yemen and the start of negotiations in November toward a political settlement. The renewed push for a political solution in Yemen comes amid growing criticism of U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia's Yemen air campaign in the aftermath of the killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Turkey. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged a cease-fire, specifically citing missile and drone strikes into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. The Houthis are supported by Iran. He added the airstrikes by the Arab coalition, backed by the U.S., 'must cease in all populated areas in Yemen.' Brutal fight: Saudi-backed forces including these troops in Aden are part of a three-year long civil war in Yemen between its government and Iran-backed Houthi rebels 'Knock it off': Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said attacks on the UAE and Saudi Arabia from Houthi-held territory needed to end as part of the peace talks which he and Mike Pompeo want in November 'The time is now for a cessation of hostilities,' Pompeo said in a written statement Tuesday evening shortly after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis made similar statements in an appearance at the United States Institute of Peace. Mattis was more specific than Pompeo in his call for urgent movement toward a political solution to the fighting. He said a cease-fire should take effect within 30 days. 'We're calling on all the parties, specifically the Houthis and the Arab coalition, to meet in Sweden in November and to come to a solution,' Mattis said. Sweden's foreign minister said Wednesday that Griffiths has asked Sweden to host such talks. Mattis called for demilitarization of Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia 'so that the Saudis and the Emirates do not have to worry about missiles coming into their homes and cities and airports.' He also said measures should be taken to 'ensure that all Iranian-supplied missiles to the Houthis' are put under 'international watch.' Mattis put primary blame on Iran. He said its proxies and surrogate forces are fueling the conflict. 'They need to knock it off,' he said. The conflict in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, by the Houthis, who toppled the internationally recognized government. The Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. Honeywell UOP and the Gulf Downstream Association (GDA) are planning to deliver a series of industry courses, catering to entry-level chemical engineers, as well as engineers from various disciplines moving into the refining and petrochemicals industry. These courses are being delivered at a time when regional governments in the Middle East are striving to address a growing industrial skills gap. The first course on refinery process fundamentals was held in two batches in the Kingdom of Bahrain during August and September of this year. A total of 45 delegates from Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO), Saudi Aramco, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company(KIPIC) benefitted from the course. The refinery process course provides a broad overview of the fundamentals of refinery operation and production, said Jim Moshi, regional general manager, Honeywell UOP, Middle East. Using the refinery schematic, key processes are examined as individual units and in the context of the whole refinery. This course is part of Honeywells investment in building up engineering talent in the Middle East, he added. By working with GDA we aim to reduce the industrial skills gap prevalent within the Middle East so younger talent can continue to improve the productivity and efficiency of the oil and gas industry. The three-day course illustrates how downstream units function, the effect of temperature and pressure parameters on unit performance, and the impact each unit has on the refinerys profitability. At the Gulf Downstream Association (GDA), we are committed to developing young talent in the Middle East and giving them the chance to explore specialist fields such as the refining and petrochemicals industry, said Audah Al Ahmadi, secretary general, Gulf Downstream Association. We are delighted to collaborate with Honeywell UOP, a company that has been a trusted advisor to the Middle East oil and gas industry for many years. This collaboration offers an academic experience to the younger generation of engineers looking to advance their careers in the oil and gas industry and supports GDAs mission to provide a platform for sharing knowledge, experience and best practices, he added. We are delighted to host participants from across the wider Middle East region and mentoring them to harness their interest and abilities within the industry. Honeywell UOP is a leading international supplier and licensor of process technology, catalysts, adsorbents, equipment, and consulting services to the petroleum refining, petrochemical, and gas processing industries. The Gulf Downstream Association (GDA) was founded as a non-profit organisation that aims at exchanging information, experiences, and outstanding technical practices, and raising the efficiency of employees in the sector of refining, distribution and associated facilities. TradeArabia News Service President Donald Trump has denied receiving a subpoena from Special Counsel Robert Mueller after a former federal prosecutor made the case the president may already be fighting a quiet battle to resist a demand for grand jury testimony. 'No,' Trump responded Wednesday when DailyMail.com asked him if he had been subpoenaed at all by Mueller, as the president addressed reporters at the White House before leaving for a Florida campaign rally. Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow also denied a subpoena existed, after Politico published an essay from former federal prosecutor Nelson Cunningham arguing that telltale signs may indicate the beginnings of a court fight over the issue. 'The report in Politico is completely false,' Sekulow told DailyMail.com. 'There has been no subpoena issued and there is no litigation.' Cunningham was previously a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York under Rudy Giuliani, who is also a member of the president's legal team. IT'LL BE GRAND: A former federal prosecutor is making the case that President Trump may already have a received a grand jury subpoena and his lawyers are likely fighting it in a sealed legal battle In his essay, Cunningham weaves together a scenario based upon what is and is not known about a secret case making it through a high-level appeals court. 'Since mid-August, [Mueller] may have been locked in proceedings with Trump and his lawyers over a grand jury subpoena,' Cunningham wrote in Politico Wednesday. Docket entries reveal that a secret grand jury case was opened August 16th. Just a day earlier, Giuliani had said Trump's team was 'pretty much finished with our memorandum opposing a subpoena.' A judge issued a ruling on on Sept. 19, and the losing party promptly appealed the matter to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the powerful court that would handle inter branch disputes. A Politico reporter overheard a conversation in the clerk's office that indicated Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office was involved, according to the account. A man requested a copy of the most recent filing from the special counsel in order to produce a response, but declined to identify himself when he was approached. Just hours later, the D.C. Circuit received a sealed response in the legal dispute. Arguments are set for Dec. 14th in the case surrounding the unknown person who is fighting the subpoena. The shrouded legal battle comes as Mueller's team has generally laid low in the final weeks before the elections, as expected given Justice Department guidelines meant to discourage actions which could have a political flavor. A reporter overheard a man requesting a file relating to Special Counsel Robert Mueller just hours before a filing in a sealed dispute was presented to the court Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani spoke of a memorandum opposing a subpoena Nevertheless, Mueller's office issued a statement Tuesday announcing it had forwarded a matter to the FBI regarding an alleged attempt to smear Mueller with a fabricated claim of sexual harassment. Nelson W. Cunningham On Oct. 19 it was revealed that theJustice Department has charged a Russian woman with a conspiracy to 'sow division and discord' in the U.S. elections including the upcoming midterms. Trump has at times said he was eager to talk to Mueller's team, however his lawyers have fought a prolonged battle to prevent him from facing questioning. The sides have haggled over those questions could be conducted in writing, and what their scope would be Russian election interference or also inquiries into alleged obstruction of justice. There are other clues that point to a vigorous battle over the witness who may or may not be the president. Giuliani has long telegraphed that Trump would fight a subpoena When the Circuit Court ruled against the witness, the person's attorneys immediately sought an en banc appeal one that could go before the entire D.C. Court of Appeals. Of note is that Judge Gregory Katsas who was appointed by Trump recused himself from the matter. Judges often recuse if they have a personal or professional issue with a party in the case. Katsas, having worked in the White House counsel's office and been appointed by Trump, might well have had to recuse, notes Cunningham. If the witness were Trump, 'then Judge Katsas would certainly feel obliged to recuse himself from any official role,' Cunningham writes. There is also the matter of the dispatch the court has shown to move the matter quickly through the process a potential sign of its urgent importance. After an Oct. 10 ruling, the parties filed a motion to have it handled in an expedited fashion. Judges granted the motion in just two days. The witness got only 11 days to file briefs on the matter, and the other party (in this scenario, potentially the special counsel) got only two weeks to respond. There is another deadline Nov. 14, and oral arguments are set for a month later, Dec. 14th. 'At every level, this matter has commanded the immediate and close attention of the judges involved suggesting that no ordinary witness and no ordinary issue is involved,' writes Cunningham. Giuliani has long argued that Trump would fight a subpoena. 'If Mueller tries to subpoena us, we're going to court,' the president's lawyer told ABC News in June. Trump's legal team also argued in writing that the president couldn't obstruct justice because this would amount to 'obstructing himself.' 'It remains our position that the President's actions here, by virtue of his position as the chief law enforcement officer, could neither constitutionally nor legally constitute obstruction because that would amount to him obstructing himself, and that he could if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon if he so desired,' his lawyers argued in a letter obtained by the New York Times this summer. Eryn Jean Norvill says other actors helped enable Geoffrey Rush's alleged sexual harassment during a Sydney Theatre Company production, against a backdrop of 'normalised' bullying and harassment throughout the industry. Norvill was questioned in the NSW Federal Court by Rush's lawyer on Wednesday about her earlier comment that the King Lear rehearsal room was 'complicit' in the Oscar winner's alleged inappropriate behaviour toward her. She'd told the court no one 'seemed to have a problem with it' when Rush allegedly made groping gestures and sexual innuendo toward her, and it made her feel quashed in terms of her 'ability to find allies'. Eryn Jean Norvill (centre) says other actors helped enable Geoffrey Rush's alleged sexual harassment during a Sydney Theatre Production Norvill was in the witness box for a second day as Geoffrey Rush (pictured) sues Daily Telegraph publisher Nationwide News and journalist Jonathon Moran for defamation On Wednesday, when Norvill was pressed specifically for her thoughts on industry veteran Robyn Nevin, the young actor said she and 'everyone in that room' had enabled Rush. 'There was a culture of bullying and harassment in that room and in my industry, and it was accepted and normalised,' Norvill said. Norvill was in the witness box for a second day as Rush, 67, sues Daily Telegraph publisher Nationwide News and journalist Jonathon Moran for defamation. The Telegraph in 2017 published articles about an allegation Rush behaved inappropriately toward a co-star, later revealed to be Norvill, during the production in 2015 and 2016. Rush denies the claims against him and argues the newspaper portrayed him as a pervert and sexual predator. The Telegraph is pleading a defence of truth after Norvill - who didn't speak with the journalist before his articles - agreed in July to testify. Norvill was on Wednesday asked by Rush's barrister Bruce McClintock SC why she didn't tell Nevin she was 'complicit' in messages they exchanged after the Telegraph story broke. She said she didn't have 'any hardship' toward Nevin, and they could still be friends. Norvill (centre) was questioned in the NSW Federal Court by Rush's lawyer on Wednesday Norvill told the court no one 'seemed to have a problem with it' when Rush allegedly made groping gestures toward her 'Ms Nevin has always been kind to me. Whether she enabled Geoffrey's behaviour is a different matter,' Norvill told the court. She said she and Nevin were from different generations and may have different ideas about what was appropriate in the workplace. The culture of bullying and harassment in the rehearsal room and industry was perpetuated by fear and silence, Norvill said. When Justice Michael Wigney asked if she thought an actor of Nevin's esteem was frightened, Norvill said she wouldn't have been. Nevin told the court last week said she hadn't seen anything during King Lear to justify Norvill's complaint and she believed it to be baseless. She said she didn't confront or question Norvill about it after the Telegraph articles were published as the 'damage was done', and denied it was because she thought the allegations could be true. Mr McClintock also questioned Norvill on Wednesday about details she'd shared in court which weren't included in an earlier statement she'd made about the alleged harassment. The Telegraph in 2017 published articles about an allegation Rush (centre) behaved inappropriately toward a co-star, later revealed to be Norvill, during the production in 2015 and 2016 Rush denies the claims against him and argues the newspaper portrayed him as a pervert and sexual predator She denied she made them up in the witness box, and she didn't agree with the lawyer's suggestion Rush had never behaved inappropriately toward her. 'Your honour, I am not lying,' Norvill said. Mr McClintock asked about inconsistencies between her evidence and an STC employee's account of a meeting with Norvill about the harassment allegations during in 2016. Norvill denied she'd told company manager Annelies Crowe 'a whole pack of disgusting lies'. The judge-alone trial continues. Alan Bohrer, 64, from Colindale, north London, pictured outside Harrow Crown Court was jailed for four-and-a-half years for defrauding Susan Franks, 59 A ruthless love-rat has been jailed for defrauding his model girlfriend in a 82,500 forged cheques scam - even forging her disabled blue badge for free parking. Alan Bohrer, 64, ripped-off Susan Franks, 59, by forging her signature on 42 cheques, continuing the scam when she dumped him for seeing a younger woman. Speaking after the case, Ms Franks said she was shocked by the betrayal. She said: 'I didn't think he would steal off me. He still had the keys to my house even when we finished.' Bohrer from Colindale, north west London was jailed for four-and-a-half years following a hearing at Harrow Crown Court. He was found guilty of two counts of fraud and two counts of forgery between April 27, 2012 and June 6, 2016. The model, who is also a property developer and an actress said: 'I am very, very sad it has come to this. He is an ex-boyfriend and we had some really, really good times together. 'We use'd to go on cruises all the time and I paid because I did not want to go on my own and he would be in the casino morning, noon and night. 'He loved the casino and I would have to go to the shows on my own. Ms Franks said she even secured Bohrer some film work. The couple had dated as youngsters until Bohrer married Ms Frank's best friend then they got back together again in 1999 when they bumped into each other on holiday just before his divorce. He managed her financial affairs, which included a generous inheritance from her late father that financed her lucrative property portfolio. Susan Franks, 59, trusted ex-boyfriend Bohrer to manage her property portfolio Ms Franks contacted police after Bohrer asked her to lie to officers who were investigating him over allegations that he had forged a blue disabled parking badge Prosecutor Mr. Nicholas Alexander told the jury: 'She placed complete trust in him. He knew all her finances and assets and had the key to her house and the alarm code.' However, this ended on June 12, 2016. 'Bohrer telephoned Susan and asked her to lie to the police that she had been with her when he used her blue badge without her permission. 'She had not given him permission to use the badge and contacted the police because she was concerned. 'This caused her to lose trust and faith in Bohrer and she took back her keys.' When one of her freeholders claimed they were owed money Ms Franks began checking her bank records and discovered cheques were missing. She added: 'Loads of cheque stubs had been removed beautifully with a knife. He had taken out blank cheques. 'When the bank told me the signatures on the cheques did not look quite right and I had to check them, my heart sank. 'It is so sad. What he did to me was such a terrible thing. To steal off an ex-girlfriend and a friend. 'It is unbelievable that someone I trusted has done that to me. I am so shocked. 'I was with him when he had two heart attacks. I was very, very good to him. 'I was with him for fifteen years, but the last three went down because he went to private card clubs four to five days a week and met a young girl there and would go to dinner with her sometimes. 'He was spending his money on her, making out he was going to the club.' In her video-recorded statement to the police Susan said: 'I trusted him. It was as if he was trying to help me. 'He must have had an ulterior motive, he was so keen. My dad could see it, he called him a 'conman', but I couldn't see it.' The prosecutor added: 'A large number of her cheques have been forged and the beneficiary was Bohrer. 'He offered to help her regarding book keeping with her investments and properties.' The arrangement continued when they split as a couple in 2014. When arrested on July 13, 2016 Bohrer denied the cheque forgery allegations, but a handwriting expert proved he was the author. President Donald Trump doubled down Wednesday on his claim that the U.S. Constitution doesn't grant automatic citizenship to every child born inside the country's borders. He predicted the Supreme Court will ultimately decide the question, reintroduced the controversial term 'anchor baby' into the national debate and cited a retired Democratic Senate leader to support his argument. 'So-called Birthright Citizenship, which costs our Country billions of dollars and is very unfair to our citizens, will be ended one way or the other,' Trump tweeted. 'It is not covered by the 14th Amendment because of the words "subject to the jurisdiction thereof", the president added, before cutting his message off in mid-sentence and pausing for nearly an hour before continuing. 'Harry Reid was right in 1993, before he and the Democrats went insane,' Trump claimed, referring to a now-infamous Senate floor speech in which Reid, a Nevada Democrat and future Senate majority leader, blasted the practice of birthright citizenship. President Donald Trump says he wants to end the tradition of conferring U.S. citizenship on babies born inside the country's borders regardless of whether their parents are Americans Trump tweeted Wednesday that the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment only applies to people who aren't 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the U.S. meaning in his view that babies born to people in the country illegally don't enjoy its benefits The president cited Democrat Harry Reid, who was a Nevada senator in 1993 when he said 'no sane country' would grant automatic citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrant mothers Hundreds of thousands of babies are born each year to illegal immigrants parents in the United States, and the conventional reading of the 14th Amendment gives them all citizenship rights something Canada is the only other First World country to offer 'If making it easy to be an illegal immigrant isn't enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again,' Reid said in 1993. 'If you break our laws by entering our country without permission to give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship and guarantee a full access to all public and social services this society provides, and that's a lot of services. Is it any wonder that two-thirds of the babies born at taxpayer expense in county-run hospitals in Los Angeles are born to illegal alien mothers?' Trump on Wednesday posted a video clip of the moment, along with the caption: 'Harry Reid, when he was sane, agreed with us on Birthright Citizenship!' In a typical year about 250,000 illegal immigrants give birth in the U.S., driving conservative Republicans to stoke controversy about their long-term impacts on welfare systems, education costs and other drivers of the national debt. Current national policy stems from an 1898 Supreme Court ruling, but the high court has never spoken on the question of whether the 14th Amendment covers children born to people inside the U.S. illegally. On Wednesday Trump suggested Democrats' conversion away from Reid's 1993 positon is tied to the party's acceptance of an 'open borders' philosophy 'which brings massive Crime.' 'Dont forget the nasty term Anchor Babies,' he added. 'I will keep our Country safe. This case will be settled by the United States Supreme Court!' Reid, now retired, fired back at Trump hours after his tweet, saying he was wrong to advocate against illegal immigration a quarter-century ago. 'In 1993, around the time Donald Trump was gobbling up tax-free inheritance money from his wealthy father and driving several companies into bankruptcy, I made a mistake,' he said in a statement. 'After I proposed that awful bill, my wife Landra immediately sat me down and said, "Harry, what are you doing, dont you know that my father is an immigrant?" She set me straight.' Trump, he said, 'wants to destroy not build, to stoke hatred instead of unify. He can tweet whatever he wants while he sits around watching TV, but he is profoundly wrong.' 'If making it easy to be an illegal immigrant isn't enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again,' Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid said in 1993, years before he became the Senate majority leader. A quarter-century later, he says he was wrong back then Trump is unusual among American politicians for refusing to dance around the term 'anchor babies,' which refers to the practice of using an infant birth to establish a generations-long link to the U.S. one that can later bring more family members in. During one 2015 press conference in New Hampshire, he mocked a Hispanic reporter who challenged him to stop using what amounts to 'an offensive term.' Trump asked what he should say instead, and was told: 'The American born child of undocumented immigrants.' 'You want me to say that every time?' the future president mocked, dismissing the request as 'politically correct.' 'I'll use the term "anchor babies",' he insisted. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution, written in 1868, states that '[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,' are U.S. citizens.' Debate has raged for 150 years about whether citizens of foreign countries are 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States. Some legal scholars believe that phrase only refers to hostile occupying armies and foreign diplomatic officials. Republican leaders are split on whether Trump can end the tradition of birthright citizenship with an executive order, as he said in an interview Monday that he intends to do. The vice president and the speaker of the House took opposite sides of the debate on Tuesday. House Speaker Paul Ryan insisted Tuesday that the White House can't use an executive order to change the government's interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution Trump, shown leaving the White House on Tuesday with first lady Melania Trump, has given his anti-illegal-immigrant base some new red meat with the proposal, just a week before the midterm elections Speaker Paul Ryan told a Kentucky radio interviewer that the White House would have to change the Constitution, which requires working with Congress, and couldn't act on its own. In 1993, around the time Donald Trump was gobbling up tax-free inheritance money from his wealthy father and driving several companies into bankruptcy, I made a mistake. After I proposed that awful bill, my wife Landra immediately sat me down and said, "Harry, what are you doing, dont you know that my father is an immigrant?" She set me straight. And in my 36 years in Washington, there is no more valuable lesson I learned than the strength and power of immigrants and no issue I worked harder on than fixing our broken immigration system. Immigrants are the lifeblood of our nation. They are our power and our strength. This president wants to destroy not build, to stoke hatred instead of unify. He can tweet whatever he wants while he sits around watching TV, but he is profoundly wrong. Former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada 'You obviously cannot do that. You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order,' Ryan said. And in a sour look back at the 2012 beginnings of the DACA program, which spared hundreds of thousands of 'Dreamers' from deportation, Ryan noted that 'we didnt like it when Obama tried changing immigration laws via executive action, and obviously as conservatives we believe in the Constitution.' 'As a conservative, I'm a believer in following the plain text of the Constitution, and I think in this case the 14th Amendment is pretty clear, and that would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process,' he added. 'But where we obviously totally agree with the president is getting at the root issue here, which is unchecked illegal immigration.' Vice President Mike Pence insisted Tuesday that there's nothing unconstitutional about Trump declaring that an babies born to illegal immigrants in the U.S. will no longer automatically become American citizens. 'We all know what the 14th Amendment says,' Pence told Politico during an on-stage interview. 'We all cherish the language of the 14th Amendment.' 'But the Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled on whether or not the language of the 14th Amendment, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," applies specifically to people who are in the country illegally,' Pence argued. Trump said in an interview with Axios that he wants to sign an order ending the practice of awarding citizenship to children who conservatives have long termed 'anchor babies.' Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that the Supreme Court has never ruled on whether the 14th Amendment applies to illegal immigrants; South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted that he'll introduce legislation mirroring Trump's executive order Graham sent a flurry of tweets agreeing with Trump's approach and offering to ingtroduce a bill that would codify it into law Trump, who has long been critical of the practice, said: 'We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States... with all of those benefits. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end.' South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally on most issues but not always immigration questions, said in a series of tweets that he welcomes a change. 'Finally, a president willing to take on this absurd policy of birthright citizenship,' he said on Twitter. 'Ive always supported comprehensive immigration reform and at the same time the elimination of birthright citizenship.' 'The United States is one of two developed countries in the world who grant citizenship based on location of birth. This policy is a magnet for illegal immigration, out of the mainstream of the developed world, and needs to come to an end,' he added. Greham also tweeted that he will 'introduce legislation along the same lines as the proposed executive order from President.' Trump insists he can change the way the 14th Amendment is interpreted by the federal government without amending the Constitution itself, and can do it through an executive order. Several Republicans running for president in 2016, including Trump and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, argued at the time that the phrase 'subject to the jurisdiction' refers only to people with a legal right to be in the country. In a preview of an HBO documentary scheduled to air on Sunday, Trump reveals that 'it was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't.' Trump's move came a week before midterm elections and after a second migrant caravan (pictured) crossed into Mexico on Monday 'You can definitely do it with an Act of Congress. But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order,' he adds. 'It's in the process. It'll happen ... with an executive order.' The president first articulated his position in August 2015, painting a mental picture for a Fox News Channel audience. 'What happens is, they're in Mexico, they're going to have a baby, they move over here for a couple of days, they have the baby,' he said then, adding: 'I don't think they have American citizenship, and if you speak to some very, very good lawyers, some would disagree. But many of them agree with me: You're going to find they do not have American citizenship.' Some attorneys, he insisted, had advised him that 'Its not going to hold up in court, its going to have to be tested.' By then the draw of birthright citizenship had become so powerful that an entire industry -- 'birth tourism' -- had spring up to take advantage. The Washington Post reported that for between $40,000 and $80,000, some Asian women were flying to New York or California to stay at specialized 'hotels' outfitted like labor & delivery wards. The cost is worth it, they said, because their own application for legal residence would sail through because their babies would have U.S. citizenship. Poorer women often just sneak across the border, dropping what critics call familial 'anchors.' BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP AND WHY IT'S IN THE CONSTITUTION President Trump says he wants to order the end of automatic citizenship for babies of illegal immigrants born in the United States. The U.S. government has traditionally held that section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which contains the Citizenship Clause, guarantees that right for all children born on American soil. WHAT DOES THE CITIZENSHIP CLAUSE SAY? 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.' The sentence that follows specifies citizen rights: 'No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.' HOW DID IT GET IN THE CONSTITUTION? Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866. It was ratified on July 9, 1868 by three-fourths of the states. The amendment effectively nullified an 1857 Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford which had held that people descended from slaves could not be citizens. The amendment's opening sentence, which served to define its vocabulary, has become among the most controversial clauses in the entire Constitution. WHAT WAS THE GOAL OF REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS? The Fourteenth Amendment was proposed and ratified to help blacks, especially emancipated former slaves, have a chance to integrate into society after the American Civil War. Congress wanted to prevent the U.S. states where they lived from sidestepping the efforts of Abraham Lincoln and other Republicans to guarantee their rights to 'life, liberty and property.' By 1868, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had freed slaves in southern U.S. states, but they still didn't have the same constitutional rights as citizens. That legal limbo led to the formation of 'Colonization Societies' that sought to remove them from the country and send them either to Caribbean islands or to Africa. Some southern states also enacted 'Black Code' laws in a bid to preserve the rights of slave-owners by calling their slaves 'apprentices' who couldn't be removed from their 'service.' Ohio Republican Rep. John A. Bingham, a friend of President Lincoln, proposed the amendment to remedy these problems, writing specific language to guarantee that any slave born on American soil would retroactively be declared a citizen. Bingham wrote at the time that his text wasn't intended to create any new legal rights, but was 'simply a proposition to arm the Congress with the power to enforce the Bill of Rights as it stands in the Constitution today. It hath that extent no more.' COULD IT EXCLUDE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS' BABIES? While the amendment was being debated, Michigan Republican Senator Jacob Howard, who drafted the amendment along with Bingham, said that was never his intention. 'This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons,' he said. 'It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States,' Howard added. But it did not; the legislation made no mention of that, and at the time there was no concept of illegal immigration. WAS THERE ANOTHER SIDE? California Republican Sen. John Conness was concerned that U.S.-born children of the large number of Chinese immigrants in his state would end up without American citizenship. Conness declared in a debate that the amendment 'proposed to declare that they shall be citizens,' adding that 'I am in favor of doing so.' That point wasn't debated, but Howard also didn't object to Conness's interpretation, which twenty-first century immigration advocates often cite as proof that birthright citizenship is constitutional. WHAT HAS THE SUPREME COURT SAID? In 1873 the Supreme Court ruled that the phrase 'subject to its jurisdiction' was intended to exclude children of non-citizen immigrants. That decision answered a narrow question, establishing that the 14th Amendment only guaranteed rights to people who were U.S. citizens, and didn't cover anyone who was only granted 'citizenship' by an individual U.S. state. The majority opinion includes a note that 'the phrase 'subject to its jurisdiction' was intended to 'exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.' Two years later the high court ruled that immigrants can only have automatic citizenship for their children when they the adults owe 'allegiance' to the U.S. and not to a foreign nation. The concept of allegiance means little today but most people at the time were born in monarchies and were subjects, not citizens. The meaning of jurisdiction to some simply meant the ordinary modern meaning - an obligation to follow the law of the land in which you are present - but to others meant the allegiance you owe to the monarch of whom you are a subject, regardless of whether you are in their country or not. Snother senator involved in the 14th Amendment, Lyman Trumbull, interpreted it that way - but once again, that is not in the legislation. In 1898 the Supreme Court ruled that a specific Chinese immigrant's child was a citizen of the United States, citing the 14th Amendment's text. That decision has stood for 120 years, but it was decided decades before the concept of 'illegal aliens' was part of Americans' vocabulary; quite simply there was no concept of lawful or unlawful entry into the country. As a complication, American Indians were excluded from citizenship until 1924 on the basis that their primary allegiance was to their tribe. But that was never challenged in court, it was altered by an act which did not address whether the 14th Amendment should have been taken to cover them. More recently, at a dinner party in 2010, then-Justice Antonin Scalia said he believed Howard's original view was right but for an unrelated reason. He told his fellow guests that purposely including the words 'and subject to the jurisdiction thereof' suggested that people born in the U.S. weren't automatically citizens, especially if they were 'subject to the jurisdiction' of some other nation. He thought the words were included with the intention of ruling out a large number of people. But Scalia, who died in 2016, allowed at the time that the way the modern U.S. interprets dual citizenships could also mean many people are 'subject to the jurisdiction of' more than one country. WHAT COULD HAPPEN IF TRUMP SIGNS AN EXECUTIVE ORDER? If the president orders that the federal government must treat children of illegal immigrants born in the U.S. as non-citizens, two things would likely happen. States where Democrats control the legislatures and that have Democratic governors would quickly enact laws doing the opposite. And civil rights groups would sue U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in federal court. Whichever reaches a full boil first the lawsuits or the question of the federal government's 'supremacy' over state laws the whole thing will likely end up at the Supreme Court. Trump has already appointed two justices, creating what some observers believe will be a 5-4 conservative majority. If that holds - and they rule in his favor - Trump will win the debate and his order will stand. In that scenario, a future Democratic president, however, could undo it with an executive order of their own. Advertisement Former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services chief counsel Lynden Melmed told Axios that very few experts believe the President has the power to change birthright citizenship. Some scholars agree that the 14th Amendment was never intended to give illegal immigrants' children citizenship and has been misapplied for decades. Trump could change the application with an executive order, they say, limiting birthright citizenship only to the children born of legal permanent residents. Michael Anton, a former national security official for Trump, wrote in The Washington Post that an executive order could 'specify to federal agencies that the children of non-citizens are not citizens.' But others, such as Judge James Ho, who was appointed by Trump to Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, insist that changing how the 14th Amendment is applied would be 'unconstitutional.' Only about 30 countries, including Canada, guarantee some sort of birthright citizenship, known as 'jus soli' (right of the soil). Others grant citizenship based on the principle of 'jus sanguinis' (right of the blood) where children can only inherit citizenship from their parents, not their birthplace. India abolished jus soli in 2004 when thousands of illegal immigrants entered the country from Bangladesh. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that approximately 7.5 per cent of all births in the U.S. (about 300,000 per year) are to illegal immigrants. The Center says around 4.5 million American citizens under age 18 were born to illegals. A man banned from owning firearms is accused of shooting of a man twice in a fight over a watch. Dennis William Childs, 42, has been charged with the attempted murder of an Adelaide man after he was allegedly shot in the neck and arm in his home on Tuesday. Childs and his 22-year-old co-accused, Hannah Ruth Ivens, made a dramatic appearance in Christies Beach Magistrates Court on Wednesday, interrupting the trial several times and calling the victim a 'junkie', The Advertiser reports. Dennis William Childs (pictured) has been charged with attempted murder of an Adelaide man His 22-year-old co-accused Hannah Ruth Ivens (pictured) allegedly drove the couple to and from the victim's home in Morphett Vale, south of Adelaide The victim was warned the couple were on their way to his home, the court heard. Ivers allegedly drove the couple to his home, where an argument between the two men broke out over a watch. The police prosecutor said the victim opened his screen door and yelled something out to the accused regarding his mother's watch. 'He (Childs) saw him holding what he thought was a Taser he raised his hand and fired a shot,' she said. Police believe it was a gun, but no weapon has been found. The alleged gunshot hit the victim in the neck, who went to close the door. Childs then ran, allegedly firing a second shot that hit the victim in his right arm, before getting in their car as Ivens drove off. The prosecutor said the couple were arrested less than an hour later in a Hackham home. The victim was allegedly shot twice by Childs, once in the neck and once in the arm Childs has been charged with attempted murder and refused bail. Ivens is on home-detention bail. Appearing before the court on Wednesday, Childs interjected several times, pleading his innocence. Before leaving, he shouted: 'Dead-set innocent, just 'cause a junkie says I've done it.' At the conclusion of the hearing, he called Magistrate David Whittle a 'dog'. The defence counsel for the couple told the court the charges will be contested. Childs will be remanded in custody until he reappears in court in March 2019. A bail decision will be made for Ivens next week. An apparent bizarre plot to smear Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel in charge of the Trump-Russia collusion inquiry has shone a light on Jacob Wohl, a 20-year-old pro-Trump supporter and conspiracy theorist. According to NBC News, the self-styled financier and political commentator was involved in the alleged plot to smear Mueller as a rapist that involved paying women to come forward. Wohl denied at the time that he was involved in the plot. He tweeted on October 19 that there are several women who are prepared to make credible allegations against Dirty Cop Robert Mueller and later tweeted that a scandalous story about Mueller would break on Wednesday, October 31. Here is all you need to know about who Jacob Wohl is and his role in the alleged plot to smear Robert Mueller. Trump supporter Jacob Wohl has been linked to the campaign to smear Robert Mueller Who is Jacob Wohl? Jacob Wohl first rose to prominence at 18 as a self-described Wohl of Wall Street and claimed to be the youngest hedge-fund manager in the world. Much like the real-life Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort, Wohl quickly ran into regulatory troubles after the National Futures Association regulation investigated him and subsequently banned him. A website for his early investment firm NeX Management stated that Wohl had 10 Years [sic] Trading Experience, meaning Wohl would have been eight-years-old when he started investing. He was also given a cease and desist order in 2016 by the Arizona Corporation Commission who accused him of violating the Securities Act. Wohl agreed to a consent decree and ended up paying $32,000 in fines and restitution. In 2017, Wohl emerged as a fervent Trump supporter and conservative conspiracy theorist when he launched a new conservative news site called Offended America, which later rebranded as The Washington Reporter. Listed as the Editor, the site puts out content under headlines such as Jacob Wohl: The Mueller Probe Will Go Down in History as Gods Gift to Republicans and Jacob Wohl: The Iraq War Was Moral, Just and Successful. Until the alleged Mueller plot, Wohl was most famous for his Twitter activity. He frequently tweets to his 177,000 followers that he has just left a hipster coffee shop that was packed with liberals whispering among each other about how much they really like President Trump. I just a left a hipster coffee shop. It was packed with liberals, whispering amongst each other about what a commendable job President Trump did with Vladimir Putin this morning in Helsinki America is PROUD! He also frequently tweets out posts in line with Trumps outlook, including one about the birthright citizenship scandal. Following the breaking story about the pipe bombs, Wohl dismissed the domestic act of terrorism as a false flag that was carefully planned for midterms. Wohls support for Trump is reflected by his father, David Wohl, an attorney who frequently appears as a guest on Fox News. Wohls role in the alleged Robert Mueller smear campaign Wohls name appears to be connected to the the peculiar, alleged plot to smear Robert Mueller through a private investigations company called Surefire Intelligence, which came up after a man purporting to be from the firm threatened some of the journalists chasing up the initial email that set the ball rolling. Surefire Intelligence is apparently the firm that is investigating the claims about Robert Mueller. 8. I'm headed to a hipster coffee shop...I'm bringing some to notch spy equipment so I can pick up all the whispering. Yashar Ali (@yashar) October 30, 2018 Jack Burkman, the conservative lobbyist and conspiracy theorist who appears to be at the heart of the alleged plot and who said that he would reveal the first of Mueller's sex assault victims, told The Hill Reporter that Surefire Intelligence is a real company run by Jacob Wohl. Subsequent investigations revealed that Surefires official phone number goes through to Wohls mothers voicemail; his email is listed in the domain records of the companys website; the photo of Surefires managing partner appears to be one of Wohl himself. The open-source intelligence site Bellingcat investigated further to reveal that the whole company is a sham on LinkedIn that used pictures of actor Christoph Waltz and model Bar Refaeli. Mueller's team was alerted about the plot and it subsequently contacted the FBI to lead an investigation into it. 'When we learned last week of allegations that women were offered money to make false claims about the Special Counsel, we immediately referred the matter to the FBI for investigation,' Mueller spokesman Peter Carr told The Atlantic when it broke the story. The president of Germany's parliament has insisted Angela Merkel will not be ousted before she resigns in three years. Merkel, 64, announced on Monday she will step down as leader of her centre-right party in December this year and as chancellor in 2021. Critics said this makes her a lame duck and that she may be ousted before the end of her term if a rival takes charge of her party. But Bundestag President Wolfgang Schaeuble today said the veteran leader was safe in her job. Bundestag President Wolfgang Schaeuble (pictured earlier this month) today said Merkle was safe in her job Merkel (pictured today), 64, announced on Monday she will step down as leader of her centre-right party in December this year and as chancellor in 2021 He told Deutsche Welle's Conflict Zone: 'Once elected as chancellor, you can only be thrown out without your own agreement if there is a majority in parliament who elects another chancellor.' 'That's unthinkable in this parliament. So her position is constitutionally strong.' Merkel resigned after her party, the Christian Democratic Union, took a hammering in a local election on Sunday. Schaeuble said: 'She's wounded, and she's strong - both together. We agree in my party that we will do what we can to avoid the impression of her being a lame duck.' Talking about the Merkel's decision to continue as chancellor without leading a political party, he said: 'The party enjoys having the chancellor as a member instead of as a member of another party. I think the party will be fine with this.' Angela Merkel (centre) receives applause by her predeccessor Wolfgang Schaeuble (left) after being elected as leader of her party in 2000 German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomes Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi outside the Chancellery in Berlin today Schaeuble defended Merkel's decision to welcome one million migrants into Germany in 2015 and described her tenure as 'extraordinarily successful'. He said that 'Germany will never ever relapse into nationalism' despite the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany party which is polling around 13 per cent. Schaeuble, who led the CDU before Merkel took charge in 2000, said he could not explain Merkel's sudden decline. He said it should be seen in the context of a broader struggle facing western parliamentary democracy and the rule of law. Using the UK as an example, he said it was 'crazy' that a something so important as Brexit was decided by a referendum and not by Parliament. 'Look what happened in the UK, the (point of) origin of modern parliamentarianism. The most important decision of this century moved from Westminster to a referendum. Crazy.' Merkel welcomes Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo ahead of the G20 Compact with Africa summit at the Chancellery in Berlin today Merkel and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi walk to a joint press conference at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany today WHO WILL REPLACE MERKEL? Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer The current secretary general of the CDU and a close ally of Merkel. She previously served as the Minister President for the state of Saarland, increasing the CDU's vote there in 2017 even as it fell nationally. Jens Spahn Spahn currently serves as the Health Minister and has advocated pulling the CDU further to the right from Merkel's centrist approach. He has sparred with Merkel in the past and has taken a hard line over immigration, which has become a losing issue for his party. Friedrich Merz Merz, a fierce and longtime critic of Merkel, was the first name to emerge as her possible replacement. A former member of the European Parliament, Merz also previously served as the chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group until he was replaced by Merkel in 2002. He left the Bundestag in 2009 and now sit on the board of several prominent companies, including the German arm of BlackRock. Advertisement On Monday Merkel said she will not stand to be chancellor if a snap election were called before 2021. This led to speculation the Merkel era will end sooner than expected. 'Whether Merkel will really govern as chancellor until 2021 and then leave politics as promised, or whether the events would suddenly become uncontrollable for her, that's no longer up to her alone,' wrote newspaper Der Spiegel. Merkel's socialist predecessor Gerhard Schroder stepped down as head of his party in 2004 but remained chancellor until 2005. Merkel said at the time he lost authority and the move spelled 'the beginning of his end'. Whether or not Merkel will be ousted depends largely on who ends up taking over her party, the Christian Democratic Union. She has been in power for 13 years and at the helm of her party for 18. Three candidates are CDU general secretary Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, health minister Jens Spahn and former chief of the party's parliamentary group Friedrich Merz. Another name touted by German media is Armin Laschet, who is also the state premier of Germany's most populous region North Rhine-Westphalia. Laschet said Monday he has not declared his candidacy as it was 'more important at this time to reflect, to see what (Merkel's departure) means for the party and how the party can be kept united'. 'If Merkel's favourite Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer wins in December, then Merkel's chances at staying in power are good,' wrote Der Spiegel. But if a critic like Spahn or Merz gets the top job, 'then Merkel's chancellorship will likely be over more quickly.' According to Bild, five CDU heavyweights have already for weeks been plotting against Merkel. The group had planned to hold talks to get Merkel to leave if she failed to do so at her own initiative after the regional vote in the state of Hesse, reported Bild. Merkel announced her decision to leave the political stage a day after the CDU was given a hammering during Sunday's Hesse vote. She has said she would not back any candidate, adding that she 'will accept any democratic decision taken by my party.' Merkel had enjoyed the support of Germans as a guarantor of stability and prosperity, having steered the country through financial crises and keeping Europe's biggest economy humming with unemployment striking post-reunification record lows month after month. But her power has been on the wane since her 2015 decision to keep Germany's borders open at the height of Europe's migrant crisis, ultimately allowing in more than one million asylum seekers. Merkel speaks during a joint press conference with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi today The mass arrivals left a deep rift in German society, and fuelled the rise of the far-right AfD, fundamentally redrawing the political map. Besides the CDU internal power struggle that could determine her future, her departure could also be precipitated if her junior coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party, pulls the plug prematurely. Plummeting support for the SPD has left the party torn internally over whether to stay in the government. After a drubbing at two regional polls in as many weeks, the SPD has signalled it may walk away if Merkel's centre-right alliance of CDU and Bavarian allies CSU fails to meet its demands. By September 2019, the party 'will be able to see whether this government is still the right place for us', SPD chief Andrea Nahles said. President Donald Trump slammed the coverage of his and Melania Trump's visit to Pittsburgh as video footage surfaced of the first family visiting UPMC Presbyterian hospital with staff telling first daughter Ivanka' 'we love you.' The press was banned from covering the president's visit with recovering first responders and the video appears to have been taken by hospital staff who called out to the Trumps as they walked by. 'There they come,' a person said as President Trump, Melania Trump, Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner walked down a hospital hallway. 'Thank you,' the staff called out. The first family backed up and came over to thank the staff for their work. Video footage emerged of the Trump family visit to a Pittsburgh hospital 'Great job,' the president told hospital staff 'We love you Ivanka,' they told the first daughter, who stood back behind the president and first lady 'Thank you for coming,' a person told Trump as he approached the group. 'Thank you. Great job,' the president said as he shook hands. 'Thank you,' Melania said as she shook hands. Jared and Ivanka stood back while the first couple expressed their gratitude. When the party was departing, one person called out 'we love you Ivanka.' President Trump stopped, pointed to his daughter, and said: 'Nobody ever heard of her' as people laughed at his response. 'Great choice,' Jared Kushner said, giving them a thumbs up and putting his arm around his wife. 'Thank you all very much,' Ivanka Trump said. Earlier in the day, the president was complaining the protest surrounding their stop was 'small' and 'far away' and blamed one of his favorite enemies - the 'fake news' - for its inclusion. The president took to Twitter Wednesday morning to complain about the stories regarding the first couple's Tuesday visit to the Tree of Life synagogue, where 11 people were massacred, and to the UPMC Presbyterian hospital, where the wounded including four police officers are recovering. 'Melania and I were treated very nicely yesterday in Pittsburgh. The Office of the President was shown great respect on a very sad & solemn day. We were treated so warmly. Small protest was not seen by us, staged far away. The Fake News stories were just the opposite-Disgraceful!,' he wrote. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump placed stones and white flowers Tuesday on memorials to 11 members of the Tree of Life Synagogue who a Pittsburgh gunman mowed down on Saturday; Rabbi Jeffrey Myers accompanied them President Trump complained about the media coverage of the Trumps' visit to Pittsburgh Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were with the president her father on Air Force One. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders highlighted the couple's Orthodox Jewish faith on Monday An estimated 4000 people gathered to march for solidarity in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood while President Donald Trump was visiting on Tuesday Protests took place in the same Pittsburgh neighborhood as the synagogue where the Trumps visited, a fact noted in the news coverage from the day and in TV correspondents live reports from the scene. Images of the first couple meeting with Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who was leading the Saturday service where the shooting took place, were interspersed with scenes of protestors marching, singing and waving signs. The president's complaints about the coverage came in the wake of suggestions the Trumps should have visited Steel City at a different time as the first funerals for the victims took place on Tuesday. Congressional leaders declined to join the first couple in paying their respects. The Trumps were joined by Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer. First daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, both of whom are Orthodox Jews and serve as senior presidential advisers, were also on the trip. Protesters had gathered in the same Squirrel City neighborhood as the Trumps' visit. They could be heard shouting as the Trumps paid homage to each of the 11 people slain in the most deadly episode of anti-Semitic violence in American history. The Trumps and Dermer went with Rabbi Myers into the vestibule of the synagogue to light candles in the martyrs' memory when they arrived. They then laid stones and white flowers at each of the 11 memorial sites outside. Myers said earlier in the day that the interior of the synagogue, still an active crime scene, was too bullet-riddled to be used for worship. The emotional, dissonant scene reflected the increasingly divided nation that Trump leads, one gripped by a week of political violence and hate and hurtling toward contentious midterm elections that could alter the path of a presidency. A crowd estimated at 2,000 people gathered to counter the president's presence. With police trying to clear them from city streets, they marched behind a banner urging the president to 'fully renounce white nationalism' and sang hymns. The larger of two protest marches was organized by a group called IfNotNow Pittsburgh, along with a coalition that included local branches of Democratic Socialists of America and the International Socialist Organization, according to The Forward. 'We certainly don't want Trump to feel welcome,' IfNotNow activist Ella Mason told the paper. As the presidential motorcade snaked eastward through the city, a few Pittsburghers offered 'the thumbs down, or a middle finger up.' One man shouted: 'We didn't invite you here!' Another held a sign that read 'Trump Nazis.' President Trump brought Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer (2nd right) for the afternoon; they went with Tree of Life Synagogue Rabbi Jeffrey Myers into the vestibule of the temple and then laid stones at the 11 memorial sites outside Pointing the finger: Protesters linking Donald Trump's rhetoric to the massacre carried out on Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue gathered in Pittsburgh Senate and House members from both sides of the political aisle declined to join the president and first lady, while the mayor questioned the timing of the first couple's visit honoring the 11 victims of Saturday's mass-shooting. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi all declined invitations to join the Trumps on Tuesday. Mayor Bill Peduto told CNN Monday evening that he tried to tell the White House the city's first priority on Tuesday will be the funerals not the first couple's visit. 'I do believe that it would be best to put the attention on the families this week and if he were to visit choose a different time to be able to do it,' Peduto said. 'Our focus as a city will be on the families and the outreach they will need this week and the support they'll need to get through it.' Peduto said 'all attention [Tuesday] should be on the victims.' White House senior advisers Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump spoke with Rabbi Myers (left) as the president and first lady paid their respects outside the synagogue Message: Huge numbers of protesters gathered close to the Tree of Life synagogue to demonstrate against the president's presence and actions He also pointed to the logistical problems brought on by a presidential visit, which requires heavy security. 'We do not have enough public safety officials to provide enough protection at the funerals and to be able at the same time draw attention to a potential presidential visit,' Peduto said Monday. But the president begins a heavy campaign schedule on Wednesday 11 rallies in six days in the lead up to next Tuesday's election - and his advisers didn't want to mix a national tragedy with politics. Funerals will continue to take place through Friday. Kellyanne Conway's husband, George, slammed President Trump's proposal to end birthright citizenship as unconstitutional in an op-ed the same evening his wife appeared on national television to defend it. 'Such a move would be unconstitutional and would certainly be challenged. And the challengers would undoubtedly win,' he argued in the Washington Post alongside Neal Katyal, former acting U.S. solicitor general to Obama. The high-profile attorneys asserted that citizenship is a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to everyone born inside the United States of America. 'Our Constitution is a bipartisan document, designed to endure for ages. Its words have meaning that cannot be wished away,' they wrote. Kellyanne Conway's husband, George, slammed President Trump's proposal to end birthright citizenship as unconstitutional in an op-ed the same evening his wife appeared on national television to defend it Conway's wife, Kellyanne, a counselor to Trump, had taken the exact opposite stance in a television appearance on Tuesday evening Conway's wife had taken the exact opposite stance on Fox News on Tuesday evening. 'Many other constitutional scholars say that the 14th Amendment has been misinterpreted or misused in this way,' she claimed. The counselor to Trump who served as his general election campaign manager in 2016 said: 'Theres no question that there have been news reports about for some birth tourism, where women pay a lot of money, maybe money that they really dont have, to make sure that their children are born here. 'So the idea that this isnt happening, the idea that this isnt going on in the thousands, the idea that its not unique to the U.S. and to Canada in the developed world is just false.' President Trump also said claimed that the policy is 'not covered' by the the Constitution in a series of tweets on Wednesday morning, 'So-called Birthright Citizenship, which costs our Country billions of dollars and is very unfair to our citizens, will be ended one way or the other. It is not covered by the 14th Amendment because of the words subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Many legal scholars agree,' he claimed. President Trump also said claimed that the policy is 'not covered' by the the Constitution in a series of tweets on Wednesday morning Trump claimed once again that Democrats want 'open borders' that will be accompanied by a wave of crime as he reminded the opposing party that they once agreed with him. 'Dont forget the nasty term Anchor Babies. I will keep our Country safe. This case will be settled by the United States Supreme Court!' he said. He mentioned Harry Reid, specifically, and the former Democratic leader's 1993 speech decrying birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. 'If making it easy to be an illegal immigrant isn't enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again,' Reid said in 1993. 'If you break our laws by entering our country without permission to give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship and guarantee a full access to all public and social services this society provides, and that's a lot of services. Is it any wonder that two-thirds of the babies born at taxpayer expense in county-run hospitals in Los Angeles are born to illegal alien mothers?' In a typical year, about 250,000 illegal immigrants give birth in the U.S. Conservatives have long complained about their births' long-term impacts on welfare systems, education costs and other drivers of the national debt. Legal scholars argue that like it or not, the 14th Amendment protects the rights of anyone born in the United States under the law. The policy stems from an 1898 Supreme Court ruling, however, the high court has never ruled directly on the whether the amendment covers children born to people living in the U.S. illegally. Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University and a fixture on cable news, said in a Wednesday tweet that Conway's husband and Katyl are correct on the law and all reputable legal scholars agree - Trump cannot highhandedly end birthright citizenship for a class of people. 'Its an understatement to say theres a consensus among experts that Trumps promise to end birthright citizenship for babies born in the USA to undocumented mothers is a legally untenable political stunt. No respected currently active scholar disagrees,' he asserted. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan also said on Tuesday that Trump does not have the power to end birthright citizenship. 'You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order,' he said on a radio show. 'As a conservative, Im a believer in following the plain text of the Constitution, and I think in this case the 14th Amendment is pretty clear, and that would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process. 'But where we obviously totally agree with the president is getting at the root issue here, which is unchecked illegal immigration,' he added. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, announced Tuesday that he would introduce legislation that mirrors Trump's proposed directive. A Constitutional amendment would require a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate to pass. Sabic, a Saudi diversified manufacturing company, reported net profits of SR18.3 billion ($4.87 billion) for the first three-quarters of the year, as against SR14.73 billion in the same period in 2017 an increase of 24.2 per cent. Gross profits reached SR44.95 billion as against SR37.44 billion in the same period last year an increase of 20.058 per cent. Announcing the results at a press conference in Riyadh, Yousef Al-Benyan, Sabic vice chairman and CEO, attributed the company's strong performance this quarter to higher levels of reliability in operations and cost efficiency. "Our business transformation program, initiated in 2015, continues to yield results as we drive toward realization of our 2025 strategy, he said. Sabic is optimistic about the state of the global and Saudi economies, with the outlook for growth in each being strong. Al-Benyan acclaimed the valuable contributions made by the employees in the company's new phase of growth especially their efforts to increase the companys rate of reliability. "Our dedicated employees are our strongest asset, he said. Thanks to their focused efforts, we have improved reliability to the point that we are able to absorb the higher feedstock and product costs we have been experiencing this year. Al-Benyan pointed to Sabics moving from fourth to third on Forbes annual ranking of the worlds largest chemical companies. Also, Moodys has given Sabic an A rating, due to its strong global position in petrochemicals and fertilizers and access to competitively priced raw materials. "We are humbled by these distinctions from Forbes and Moodys see them as a major recognition of the progress we are making toward becoming the worlds preferred provider of chemicals by 2025, Al-Benyan said. He also said Sabic would be establishing a new company to promote the development of small-to-medium-sized enterprises and local content creation in Saudi Arabia on which more details will be forthcoming. Operational profits for the first three quarters reached SR29.73 billion as against SR22.42 billion for the corresponding period the previous year, an increase of 32.604 per cent. Sales for the first three quarters reached SR128.86 billion as compared to SR109.44 billion for the same period last year, an increase of 17.744 per cent. Sales for the current quarter reached SR43.71 billion as compared to SR38.68 billion for the same quarter last year an increase of 13.004 per cent and SR43.28 billion in the previous quarter an increase of 0.993 per cent. TradeArabia News Service Indonesian maid Tuti Tursilawati was executed by Saudi Arabia after she killed her boss who was raping her. Jakarata has demanded to know why Saudi Arabia didn't give prior notice of the execution Saudi Arabia has executed an Indonesian maid who killed her employer during a rape attack, sparking outrage in Jakarta. Ms Tursilawati, who was working in the city of Ta'if, was found guilty of killing her employer in June 2011. Indonesian President President Joko Widodo called Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, demanding to know why Jakarta had not been informed about Monday's execution of mother-of one Tuti Tursilawati. It was the fourth time in three years that Saudi Arabia had failed to notify Jakarta before executing an Indonesian migrant worker. 'We have called Saudi Arabia's foreign minister and conveyed our protest,' Mr Widodo was quoted as saying by the office of his cabinet secretary. Indonesian advocacy group Migrant Care said in September that Ms Tuti Tursilawati had been defending herself from being raped. The office of the cabinet secretary cited the Migrant Care assertion. The Saudi ambassador to Indonesia had been summoned to discuss the matter, the president said. Indonesian President Joko Widodo (right) greets Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir in his Bogor presidential palace on October 22, 2018, only a week before Tuti Tursilawati was executed. The execution was the fourth of an Indonesian worker in three years where the Saudis failed to give prior notice to Jakarta The Saudi embassy in Jakarta did not answer calls seeking comment. 'The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has ignored principles of human rights, including a right for everyone to live,' said Abidin Fikri, a member of Indonesia's parliament. Ms Tursilawati was executed just a week after al-Jubeir, met his Indonesian counterpart, Retno Marsudi, and Mr Widodo in Jakarta to discuss migrant workers' rights. During the meeting, Mr Marsudi emphasised the importance of having a mandatory consular notification before carrying out death penalties. Indonesia's Government has also called for a thorough probe into the death of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and a critic of Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Indonesian journalists protest on October 19 against Saudi Arabia's murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The Indonesian government has demanded that there be a thorough investigation of Mr Khashoggi's death in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul Saudi Arabia is the world's biggest destination for Indonesian maids and earlier this month the two countries signed a new agreement to jointly 'supervise, monitor, and evaluate' the workers. After the execution, the executive director at Indonesia's Migrant Care advocacy group, Wahyu Susilo, called on Indonesia's government to cancel the agreement. 'It turned out that Indonesia's request [to protect the rights of migrant workers] was ignored by executing Tuti.' Mr Susilo condemned the execution and urged the President to take 'serious' diplomatic steps to prevent future uninformed executions. There are currently 18 Indonesian migrant workers on death row in Saudi Arabia. An Indonesian migrant worker, Muhammad Zaini Misrin, was executed in March this year for killing his employer, and two Indonesian female domestic workers, Siti Zaenab and Karni, were beheaded in April 2015. The Queen honoured a pervert vicar who had been convicted of abusing a child by offering him a place in her Chapel Royal, it has been revealed. Reverend Mark Kiddle was given a 15-month suspended sentence in 1985 after admitting two offences of indecent assault. His victim claimed he abused him up to twenty times. But instead of being defrocked for abusing the 15-year-old boy he was instead moved to another parish. Just eight years later, in 1993, Kiddle was reportedly offered the chance to be 'promoted' by the Queen to be part of her Chapel Royal. A public notice in the London Gazette announced: 'The Queen has been graciously pleased to appoint the Reverend Mark Brydges Kiddle, to be a Deputy Priest in Ordinary to Her Majesty.' Now, for the first time, the vicar's victim has spoken out about the culture of 'protecting and promoting' convicted child abusers in the church. Mark Kiddle was handed a suspended sentence for the abuse of a 15-year-old boy but was later given an honour by the Queen The man, now in his 50s, said: 'I think the Queen would be disgusted to find out about his past.' 'The church has protected the guilty and let the innocent be abused. I'm angry that the person who did this to me was just moved to another diocese. 'He was protected and promoted and I don't think the church even now acts equitably.' The abuse happened when Kiddle was vicar at St Andrew's in Kirton-in-Lindsey in Lincolnshire. His victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, says he was groomed by Kiddle who molested him '18-20 times over a two-year period' including when he was at his most vulnerable, following the death of a close family member. He said: 'I suppose when I was younger I was naive, I thought he was just being kind. 'He would take me on trips, he would give me alcohol and it got to the stage where I would stay over at the vicarage quite regularly. 'We always slept in the same room and he would always sleep naked. It was a big old building and he said it was haunted but that ghosts couldn't see you if you had nothing on. 'I can't say exactly when the abuse started. I completely blocked it out. I never told anyone, not even my parents.' The abuse continued for two years but eventually a parishioner who suspected Kiddle of inappropriate behaviour tipped off police. He was prosecuted at Grimsby Crown Court and in his defence the then Bishop of Lincoln, Simon Phipps, described Kiddle in court as an 'extremely diligent, imaginative and energetic priest'. Kiddle received two 15-month sentences to run concurrently, suspended for two years and was moved to another parish. He was eventually posted to St Clement's Church, Eastcheap in the City of London. The 84-year-old, who is now retired from the church, is understood to have later declined the Queen's honorary role in the Chapel Royal His victim has launched legal action against the Church of England over the abuse he suffered. The abuse happened when Kiddle was vicar at St Andrew's in Kirton-in-Lindsey (pictured) His solicitor, Richard Scorer, at Slater and Gordon, said: 'Kiddle waged a calculated campaign of abuse against a vulnerable young boy and even exploited tragic family circumstances to his own advantage so he could continue to satiate his own sick desires. 'It is reprehensible that someone who was convicted of such a crime should be allowed to continue working in the church and in a role which presumably gave him unfettered access to other youngsters.' A spokesman for the Diocese of London said Kiddle was not paid by the Church of England and had a limited at two churches. He said: 'From 2002, he was barred from all ministry. Under today's procedures, anyone convicted of such offence would immediately be removed from their role and barred from ministry. 'The Church has made significant changes in its approach to safeguarding since the 1980s, but we recognise that more needs to be done to ensure a safe culture, where abuse has no place, and where survivors of abuse can flourish.' A Palace spokesperson said Kiddle never took up the honorary position and was never active in the Royal household. Two rising Florida rappers have been fatally gunned down and were pronounced dead upon arriving at a hospital, according to the local police department. Christopher Thomas Jr, 19, and 21-year-old Anthony Williams were taken to the Memorial Hospital Miramar around 4.35am on Friday, according to the Miramar Police Department. 'They arrived with multiple gunshot wounds. They were dead already,' Miramar police spokeswoman Tania Rues explained to the Treasure Coast Palm. Christopher Thomas Jr, 19 (left), and 21-year-old Anthony Williams (right) were taken to the Memorial Hospital Miramar around 4.35am on Friday The pair were an associated act with YNW Melly, 19-year-old Jamell Demons, a prominent rapper in the area It is unknown where the shooting occurred, the police stated. The pair were last seen in Fort Lauderdale about 3.20am on Friday. The identity of the driver who dropped them off at the hospital has not been released. Thomas went by the stage name YNW Juvy and Williams went by YNW Sakchaser. 'They arrived with multiple gunshot wounds. They were dead already,' Miramar police spokeswoman Tania Rues explained about Thomas (left) and Williams (right) The pair were an associated act with YNW Melly, 19-year-old Jamell Demons, a prominent rapper in the area. Both he and Thomas hailed from Gifford. Williams was from Fort Pierce. They were all featured in the 2017 song 'Youngins' which had just under 2million views. The video shows various folks showing off an assortment of handguns. Most recently in August, YNW Melly appeared in YNW Juvy's video for 'Tissue' and the song has more than 26,000 views. The video shows the rapper galavanting around a house with a machine gun. A few hours after their deaths, YNW Melly took to Instagram to share his thoughts and claimed that the pair were taken from him out of 'jealousy' (all three pictured) A few hours after their deaths, YNW Melly took to Instagram to share his thoughts and claimed that the pair were taken from him out of 'jealousy.' He added: 'They wanna see me break down and stop or in jail or a box but my n****s still need me they parents need me they family need me till we meet again my twins my slimes.' YNW Melly, who has just over 468,000 followers on Instagram, posted another photo that showed him appearing to pray with another group of men outside of what appears to be a prison or jail. Most recently in August, YNW Melly appeared in YNW Juvy's video for 'Tissue' and the song has more than 26,000 views. The video shows the rapper galavanting around a house with a machine gun Send a prayer for my brothers they mama crying right now but i got them 4 Life they my mama,' said the rapper on Instagram (center in orange) 'Send a prayer for my brothers they mama crying right now but i got them 4 Life they my mama,' said the rapper. YNW Melly would post on his Instagram story that he was tired of people hitting him up to check to see if he was ok. 'Leave me the f**k alone, period!' he exclaimed while seated in a car. YNW Melly's most famous song 'Murder on my Mind' has more than 42million views on YouTube. Broward Crime Stoppers is accepting any tips connected to the shooting and can be contacted at 954-493-TIPS (8477). Tips can be anonymous and may be eligible for reward. An NHS nurse bought a shoe collection to rival Imelda Marcos and enjoyed shopping sprees at Harrods on the proceeds of a 10 million banking scam, a court has heard. Businessman Andrew Chukwu, 35, and his wife Grace Chukwu, 38, are said to have led a lavish lifestyle from the proceeds of the swindle and spent 90,000 on private education for their three children. They were allegedly part of a gang who targeted Liberal peer Lord Wrigglesworth who lost 88,000. Grace Chukwu, 38, is said to have gone on shopping sprees at Harrods (pictured) in London with money raised from the scam. The court heard that when police searched her home there were receipts for high end shopping in stores such as Harrods When arrested at his 860,000 home in Essex, Chukwu, claimed he ran a legitimate business with a yearly turn-over of 16,840, Blackfriars Crown Court heard. But investigators found Rolex and Cartier watches alongside Grace Chukwus vast collection of designer shoes. John Hardy, QC, prosecuting outlined some their alleged spending - including shopping sprees at Harrods. He said: When their home address was searched, aside from the paperwork relating to school fees, expensive watches including Rolexes and Cartiers were found. 'A large collection of shoes almost enough to rival that of the late Imelda Marcos was also found, some with receipts showing they cost over 500. 'There were also receipts for high end shopping in stores such as Harrods.' Mr Hardy also noted that Mr Chukwu claimed Rolex watches found at his home were inherited, and his income was legitimately derived from his business. Messages recovered from phones he says relate to that legitimate business, said Mr Hardy. We say that is a breathtaking assertion - as is his assertion that the school fees he and his wife pay for their three childrens private education requires them to, and I quote, go without everything other than basic household items. Lord Wrigglesworth was targeted by a gang of which Andrew Chukwu and his wife Grace were allegedly members. Wrigglesworth is said to have lost 88,000 as a result. The Liberal Democrat peer held the post of treasurer of the party from 2012 until December 2015 The prosecutor said Andrew Chukwus business wasnt particularly profitable. His tax returns for the tax years 2014-2015 and 2016-2017 show a self-employed turnover of 16,840 and 16,684. Of course, there was extra income, since his wife, Grace Chukwu, the tenth defendant worked full time as an NHS hospital nurse. You do not need me to tell you that working as a nurse in the NHS is an admirable occupation. But nor do you need me to tell you it is not, never has been, and cannot be the road to wealth and riches. And these meagre incomes come nowhere near to explaining the lavish lifestyle which Andrew Chukwu and his wife enjoyed.' Andrew Chukwu denies conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and conspiracy to conceal criminal property. His wife, an NHS nurse, denies possessing 100,000 criminal property. They are on trial alongside brothers, Emmanuel Chukwuka, 26, Christian Chukwuka, 38, and Bonaventure Chukwuka, 41, who each deny conspiracy to defraud by false representation and conspiracy to conceal criminal property. Grace Chukwu is said to have been found with a shoe collection to 'rival Imelda Marcos' (pictured). She denies possessing 100,000 criminal property Bonaventure denies a further charge of possessing a mobile telephone in prison. His wife Queen Chukwuka, 32, denies possessing 350,000 in criminal property. Bonaventure allegedly stored 587,566 of his dirty money in his Nigerian bank account while his wife drove their children to private school in her Mercedes. DC Christopher Collins told the court a series of WhatsApp messages from accused ringleader Bonaventure linked him to other members of the gang. This is a WhatsApp message being sent between, what we say, are two of his devices, he told the court. It shows the number being sent to that number and that number is stored under the contact Bonaventure in the phone. Mr Bonaventure had a large number of telephone numbers that he used. DC Collins explained that some of the WhatsApp accounts could not be accessed by investigators because there were security measures protecting the data. The case brought by the prosecution relies on a plethora of social media and banking data evidence. Mohammed Taleb, 29, a Bangladeshi immigrant found with a Portuguese passport on his arrest, allegedly opened two bank accounts to launder cash from the fraud. He came to the UK in 2009 on a student visa and began calling himself Joeshep de Souza, said John Hardy, QC, prosecuting. Nadeem Abbasi, 48, and Mansoor Zaman, 27, allegedly used a Metro Bank account in one of the scams. Ten are facing charges at Blackfriars Crown Court (pictured) in London. Among them are Andrew Chukwu, 35, and his wife Grace Chukwu, 38 Both were arrested on their return from Pakistan at Heathrow Airport earlier this year and interviewed. Mohammad Rahman, 30, was used by the gang to provide bank accounts to disperse cash from the frauds. Mr Hardy said: This case concerns a large-scale series of frauds upon banks and their customers, as a result of which they sustained losses totalling well in excess of 10 million. Although the mechanics of the frauds vary in their details, the means by which they were committed are all more or less the same. Those means involve the use of a large number of mobile telephones and lap-top computers and similar devices. Put another way, these are frauds which could not have been carried out in the way that they were before the age of the internet, and in particular, before the age of internet banking. The money laundering charges relate to mule accounts used in order for the fraudster to make off with the money. Mr Hardy said fraudsters identified people and companies to send emails containing computer viruses. When opened up the virus infects the computer allowing criminals to steal their passwords and banking data. Jurors heard fraudsters also carried out so-called romance scams targeting people using dating websites to find love. Mr Hardy said Queen Chukwukas highest annual income, shown on her tax return form, was just 2,590.41 in the tax year 2014/15. But she recently earned 21,000 a year working for a company called Bon Concept LTD, and is listed as a director of that company, it was said. Bonaventure Chukwuka earned 2,449.17 in that same tax year from his company, according to his tax returns, said Mr Hardy. Yet between January 2015 and December 2017, Queen Chukwuka, received cash deposits into her Barclays current account totalling 134,097.10 She also received transfers from Bonaventure Chukwuka, for example, 12,000 in February 2017. That comes as no surprise, since, between December 2017 and his on 26 January this year, Bonaventure Chukwuka received in his Nigerian bank accounts an eye-watering 587,566.28 some of which he transferred further to Queen Chukwuka. In her defence statement Queen Chukwuka says that she believed that Bonaventure Chukwuka operated a money transfer business. There is a rather sad ambiguity to this - too right he did. The trouble is, no one could have sensibly thought it legitimate, nor sufficient to support their lavish style, which included amongst other things, a hire purchase deal for a Mercedes for which she was paying, and private school fees for their children. Andrew Chukwu, of Loughton, Essex denies conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and conspiracy to conceal criminal property. Grace Chukwu, of the same address, denies possessing criminal property. Emmanuel Chukwuka and Christian Chukwuka, of Gingswood, Basildon both deny conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and conspiracy to conceal criminal property. Their brother Bonaventure Chukwuka, of Loughton, Essex, denies conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation, conspiracy to conceal criminal property and possessing a mobile telephone in prison. Queen Chukwuka, of the same address, denies possessing criminal property. Mohammed Taleb, of Southwark, denies conspiracy to conceal criminal property and money laundering. Nadeem Abbasi, of Wembley, denies conspiracy to conceal criminal property. Mohammad Rahman, of the same address, denies conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and conspiracy to conceal criminal property. Mansoor Zaman, of Charlton, southeast London, denies conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and conspiracy to conceal criminal property. The trial continues. Bar Refaeli has sparked outcry in the latest advert for her Israeli clothing brand by pulling off a niqab and saying, 'Freedom is basic.' The commercial for Hoodies' winter collection was launched on Monday on YouTube and was shared on Bar Refaeli's Instagram. She has since deleted the post which was visible to her 2.7m followers, but it remains on the clothing brand's YouTube account. Scroll down for video The advert shows Bar Refaeli, 33, looking seriously at the camera before tearing the veil from her face The video closes with the caption, 'Freedom is basic' as the model stands in a crop top and all denim ensemble Ms Refaeli tousles her hair and dances to the music, as the lyrics say: 'It's all about freedom, finally breaking the chains, costing my freedom.' The video received mixed reactions on Twitter with one user writing: 'This has to be the most ignorant and racist ad Ive ever seen and I cant believe a whole company approved this.. Im disgusted and at a loss of words.' But another user replied, 'Iranian women have been defying the morality/Sharia police in public by dancing on the streets and not wearing the hijab. 'In my opinion they probably adore Bar Refaeli right now. More non-hijabi wearing muslims or secular middle eastern women should come to their defense though.' Ms Refaeli, who is married to Israeli businessman Adi Ezra with whom she has two daughters, at Vogue's 30th anniversary celebration in Madrid in July this year The Jerusalem Post reported that Ms Refaeli's niqab-covered face had appeared all across the city on billboards and on newspapers before the advert aired on TV. According to the paper she is a part-owner of the Hoodies clothing company and their campaign is scheduled to include further Israeli celebrities. They say that the commercial is designed to 'call out racism and bigotry and support freedom.' One Twitter user received a lot of attention after she said the advert was 'the most ignorant and racist' she had ever seen Another replied that they thought the video would be popular with those experiencing Sharia law Ms Refaeli gazes into the camera as the caption, 'Is it Iran here' appears on the screen Leonardo di Caprio's former girlfriend whips the veil off to reveal her blonde locks She tousles her hair and looks suggestively at the camera as she reveals the colourful Hoodies clothing Ms Refaeli sways to the music, as the lyrics say: 'It's all about freedom, finally breaking the chains, costing my freedom.' She throws her arms out in a defiant pose as the lights flash in the musical video The UK's richest man claimed today negotiating Brexit should not be 'the world's biggest challenge' and that it should be possible to reach a deal in a 'sensible' way. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, 66, chief executive of petrochemical giant Ineos, said he did not like the 'drama' surrounding Britain's exit from the EU. Sir Jim, who topped the Sunday Times Rich List earlier this year with a fortune of 21 billion, was knighted at Buckingham Palace today. He denied reports he was about to move to Monaco, insisting he would be living in Brexit Britain. The UK's richest man Sir Jim Ratcliffe (pictured today at Buckingham Palace) caimed today negotiating Brexit should not be 'the world's biggest challenge' and that it should be possible to reach a deal in a 'sensible' way He said: 'I don't think it should have been the world's biggest challenge to negotiate Brexit really because you're just taking sovereignty back. 'You're trying to organise a sensible trade deal ... and, you know, we've got the old relationships. 'We stepped in in the war and sacrificed a lot of people and a lot of our economy, on our own behalf, but also on other people's behalf in Europe. 'I don't see why reaching an agreement with our European colleagues should be so difficult. 'We ought to just be able to get there in a sensible way.' Sir Jim, who topped the Sunday Times Rich List earlier this year with a fortune of 21 billion, was knighted at Buckingham Palace today (pictured) He added: 'There's a lot of drama around, which I don't like.' Asked if he thinks the wrong people have been sent to negotiate on behalf of the UK, he said: 'I don't want to say that. I'm not close enough to the detail to be honest.' Sir Jim said there must be something that can be done 'reasonably sensibly together', adding: 'All we're doing is saying 'Germany you can sell your products in England and we'd like to sell our products in Germany'. 'Mercedes want to sell Mercedes over here. And we might want to sell Savile Row suits in Germany.' Sir Jim added: 'I've always been of the view that I was always in favour of the common market, which is where it all began, which is free trade amongst our European colleagues. 'But I don't believe in the UK sovereignty being handed over to Brussels. 'I think we should run our own outfit.' Asked about reports he is going to move to Monaco, he said: 'No, I'll be back in the UK. 'But I just want to see the UK being in a good place.' Dominic Raab (pictured in Downing Street this week) delivered the optimistic assessment about the prospects of ending the bitter standoff with Brussels in a letter to senior MPs Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab raised hopes of a breakthrough in talks with the EU today as he said he 'expects' a deal to be done within three weeks, Mr Raab delivered the optimistic assessment about the prospects of ending the bitter standoff with Brussels in a letter to senior MPs. The two sides have been at loggerheads over the issue of the Irish border backstop and future trade arrangements - with fears mounting that the UK could crash out of the bloc. But Mr Raab wrote in a letter to the Brexit committee: 'The end is now firmly in sight and, while obstacles remain, it cannot be beyond us to navigate them. 'We have resolved most of the issues and we are building up together what the future relationship should look like and making real progress.' Responding to a request to come and give evidence to the cross-party group, he said: 'I would be happy to give evidence to the committee when a deal is finalised, and currently expect 21 November to be suitable.' Sources close to Mr Raab played down the significance of the remark, saying it was an 'ambition' rather than any shift. The letter was written on October 24, but has just been published by the committee. Downing Street also tried to pour cold water on speculation about dramatic movement in the talks. Theresa May (pictured in the House of Commons today) has been struggling to thrash out a divorce deal with the EU Aides have tried to play down speculation about a breakthrough, and the letter was dated October 24 Mrs Mays official spokesman said: We want to get a deal as soon as possible. He would not confirm whether Mrs May had presented her promised new proposals on the Irish backstop, but added the PM had told MPs the EU was engaging with Britains ideas. Ministers are engaged in a desperate scramble to reach a settlement with the EU, as the clock ticks down to Brexit day. If there is no movement next month the government needs to trigger large-scale contingency plans to try to reduce the impact of a no-deal outcome. In a glimmer of light for Theresa May, David Davis has admitted that he expectsMPs to approve any Brexit deal she does secure because they are 'terrified' of crashing out of the EU. Former Brexit secretary David Davis (pictured at Tory conference earlier this month) said 'irrational fear' would win out in Parliament if the PM manages to get any kind of agreement with Brussels Surge in Irish passport applications amid fears of no-deal Brexit Almost as many applications for Irish passports were received in the first half of 2018 as in the whole year before the referendum Demand for Irish passports has surged amid mounting fears over the prospect of a no-deal Brexit, it emerged today. Almost as many applications were received in the first half of 2018 as in the whole year before the referendum. According to figures released to the Brexit committee in the Irish senate, almost 45,000 passport applications were lodged with the Republic's UK embassy in the first half of 2018. Fine Gael's Neale Richmond suggested that the 'looming disaster of Brexit' was prompting eligible Britons to reconnect with their Irish heritage. He said: 'Since the people of the UK voted, narrowly, to leave the EU in 2016, we have seen a continuing rise in the number of applications for Irish passports in the UK. 'Current rules entitle those born to Irish parents or grandparents to apply for an Irish passport through a claim to citizenship. 'At least 10 per cent of the UK's population, not including Northern Ireland, are estimated to qualify for an Irish passport and in light of Brexit, many including a number of my own family members are staking their claim to an Irish passport. Advertisement The former Brexit secretary said 'irrational fear' would win out in Parliament if the PM manages to get any kind of agreement with Brussels. Mr Davis tried to backpedal today by insisting no package based on Mrs May's Chequers plan would get passed. But the comments, from a vehement critic of Mrs May's stance, will encourage Downing Street. Negotiating teams are working in Brussels as the clocks tick down and concerns mount about the consequences of Britain crashing out of the bloc. If there is a settlement, No10 is planning to force a crunch vote in the Commons within weeks - and effectively dare MPs to risk a no-deal outcome. But the outcome could be on a knife edge, as Labour has vowed that it will not back any proposals that do not pass its six tests. The Opposition could form an alliance with Tory Brexiteers who have promised to try to kill off the PM's Chequers blueprint for future trade with the EU. Mr Davis, along with Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg , are among the senior Conservatives leading the push for the UK to seek a looser Canada-style pact with Brussels. But speaking at a discussion event in Westminister last night, Mr Davis conceded that he thought Downing Street would eventually be able to force its will through Parliament. 'Terror will win, the fear of no deal,' he said. 'I think the irrational fear of no deal, a WTO deal that will win and there will be a deal. 'It may take two passes it may be a deal that's agreed in Brussels and fails in Westminster and comes back again, it may take two passes.' Mr Davis and Boris Johnson (pictured in the Commons last week) are among the senior Conservatives leading the push for the UK to seek a looser Canada-style pact with Brussels Osborne admits immigration target fuelled Brexit vote George Osborne (pictured on BBC's Newsnight last night) said David Cameron's government fuelled Brexit George Osborne last night said David Cameron's government fuelled Brexit by imposing immigration targets it never hit and lobbing constant jibes at the EU. The former Chancellor also warned Theresa May not to try to 'out Corbyn Corbyn' after the Treasury announced an end to austerity in the Budget. Mr Osborne vigorously defended his policy of austerity while in No11 - insisting that Britain had to tighten its belt in the wake of the financial meltdown. But while he defended his economic policies, he admitted his government got many things wrong which in the end led to the vote to the leave the Brussels bloc. Advertisement In a Tweet this morning, Mr Davis tried to walk his remarks back. 'For the avoidance of doubt I believe the PM will get a deal with the EU but anything based on the Chequers plan or one that keeps us in the Customs Union will not pass the Commons. Time to revert to free trade deal suggested by EU?' he said. There have been chilling warnings that failure to reach an agreement in the coming weeks could throw businesses, migrants and tourists into turmoil. The latest prediction from ratings agency Standard & Poor's says Britain could slump into recession for a year and see house prices crash. Meanwhile, it emerged that demand forIrish passports has surged amid mounting fears over the prospect of a no-deal Brexit. Almost as many applications were received in the first half of 2018 as in the whole year before the referendum. According to figures released to the Brexit committee in the Irish senate, almost 45,000 passport applications were lodged with the Republic's UK embassy in the first half of 2018. Fine Gael's Neale Richmond suggested that the 'looming disaster of Brexit' was prompting eligible Britons to reconnect with their Irish heritage. Amber Lynn Reeves, 24, of Michigan has been charged with manslaughter and child abuse on Monday in connection with the death of 14-month-old Tracy Logan (pictured), the son of a man she was dating A Michigan woman was charged with manslaughter and child abuse on Monday in connection with the death of a 14-month-old boy. Amber Lynn Reeves, 24, is accused of beating Logan John Lee Tracy which led to his eventual death on October 11, because she was frustrated about babysitting him for his father, who she was dating at the time. 'Based on her statements in particular that she was angry and frustrated that she was left to care for these children and that's what led to this, we don't think she should be taking care of any children, even her own, at this time,' Kelsey McKinnie, assistant prosecutor, said at Reeves' arraignment in Jackson County on Monday. Reeves, who has children of her own, previously pleaded guilty to fourth-degree child abuse but those charges were later dismissed after she completed probation, WILX reported. Judge Michael Klaeren ordered on Monday that she not have any contact with children under 14 years old at this time. If Reeves is convicted for the death of Logan, she faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in the Department of Corrections on the manslaughter charge, and a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on a second-degree child abuse charge. Prosecutors said Logan died on October 11 of blunt force trauma to his abdomen, allegedly inflicted by Reeves because she was upset with his father who had left the child in her care Logan's obituary described him as a 'little angel' who 'will be missed so much by his parents, siblings and grandparents.' 'He loved to crawl in Memaw's lap and cuddle just as much as she loved to cuddle with him,' it read. 'Logan's favorite color was orange. He loved to dance to music and had an infectious smile while splashing water in the bath tub.' Logan's (pictured) obituary described him as a 'little angel' who 'will be missed so much by his parents, siblings and grandparents' Reeves (left), who has children of her own, previously pleaded guilty to fourth-degree child abuse but those charges were later dismissed after she completed probation; Logan's (right) life was cut short following injuries he sustained on October 9, which resulted in his death two days later, allegedly inflicted by Reeves The child's life was cut short following injuries he sustained on October 9, which resulted in his death two days later. Prosecutors said Logan died of blunt force trauma to his abdomen, inflicted by Reeves because she was upset with his father, who she was involved with romantically at the time, and had left Logan in her care. A post from the Facebook account belonging to Reeves was shared in a group called, 'Michigan FIGHT CPS [Child Protective Services] AND WIN' on July 18. 'He loved to crawl in Memaw's lap and cuddle just as much as she loved to cuddle with him,' Logan's obituary read Logan is survived by his father, Mac Tracy, mother, Raellynn Russell (pictured here with Logan) In that post, Reeves wrote that her children were wrongfully taken away from her on June 28 and then returned to her on July 17. After nine comments congratulating Reeves on getting her children back, the grandmother of the Logan posted a comment on Monday letting people know of Reeves' current charges. 'She's currently in jail charged with homicide on my 14 month grandson,' Barb Hunter wrote. Barb Hunter (right), the grandmother of Logan (left), updated users in a Facebook group called 'Michigan FIGHT CPS [Child Protective Services] AND WIN' that Reeves was in jail charged with the manslaughter of her grandson Logan's life was cut short following injuries he sustained on October 9, which resulted in his death two days later; He is shown here with his mother, Raellynn Russell Reeves, who will turn 25 on December 23, remains in custody on a $300,000 bond. If convicted, she also faces a fine of up to $7,500. A probable cause conference in Reeves' case is set for November 9, and a preliminary examination is scheduled for November 14 at 9.30am with District Court Judge Klaeren. Logan is survived by his father, Mac Tracy, mother, Raellynn Russell, sister, Malanna Russell, brothers, Bentley Cook and Benjamin Tracy, and several extended family members. A ghastly gaggle of ghouls, monsters and witches will soon take to the streets of New York City, but dont be alarmed its all in fun and for the annual NYC Village Halloween Parade. The parade, held since 1973, attracts thousands of revelers and viewers each year and celebrates the spooky holiday with an unforgettable procession of costumed parade goers marching along one of the citys main streets. Heres all you need to know about the 2018 NYC Village Halloween Parade. The parade features a wide array of costumed revelers marching up Sixth Avenue in the city When is the NYC Village Halloween Parade? The parade will be held on Wednesday, October 31 from 7pm EST until around 10:30pm EST. Where is the Village Halloween Parade? The NYC Village Halloween Parade will take place in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, primarily in the historic Greenwich Village neighborhood. NYC Village Halloween Parade route The parade will run along Sixth Avenue from Spring Street northward until ending at 16th Street. The lineup for participants will stretch from Spring Street to Canal Street a few blocks to the south. NYC Village Halloween Parade street closures The New York Police Department has recently announced the following street closures for the parade effective from 7pm EST until 11pm EST: Formation: 6th Avenue between Spring Street and Canal Street Dominick Street between Varick Street and 6th Avenue Sullivan Street between Broome Street and Spring Street Broome Street between Sullivan Street and Varick Street Spring Street between Sullivan Street and Varick Street Dispersal: 16th Street between 5th Avenue and 7th Avenue 17th Street between 5th Avenue and 7th Avenue 18th Street between 5th Avenue and 7th Avenue Miscellaneous: 10th Street between 6th Avenue and Greenwich Avenue Van Dam Street between Varick Street and 6th Avenue How to participate in NYC Village Halloween Parade As per tradition, anyone wearing a Halloween costume can participate in the NYC Village Halloween Parade. The procession will start at Sixth Avenue and Canal Street and roll out from about 6:30pm EST until 8:30pm EST. I AM A ROBOT will be the theme for the 2018 parade. How to watch NYC Village Halloween Parade In addition to watching along the parades route along Sixth Avenue, viewers can also watch it on NY1 starting at 7pm EST. A livestream on NY1 will also be available for those with Spectrum while a live webcam at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 14th Street will also offer a chance to watch the parade here. US Marshals are on the hunt for a transgender mother accused of keeping her two young daughters in deplorable conditions at their home in Texas. Aria Young, 31, who was born a man named Jacob O'Donnell but now identifies as a woman, faces charges of injury to a child. He fathered the children while still a man. According to the US Marshals Service, Young kept her children, ages five and six, locked in a closet for hours at a time. Neither girl knew how to talk. The Lone Star Task Force is looking for Aria Young (left), a 31-year-old transgender woman born Jacob O'Donnell (right). She is facing charges of injury to a child involving her daughters The case against the woman began unfolding in May when police responded to an apartment in the 2000 block of South Lakeline Boulevard in Cedar Park and found Young's daughters wearing dirty diapers and living in filth. The kids can't even communicate verbally, Supervisor Deputy US Marshal Darren Sartin told CBS Austin. They communicate with each other by making noises or sounds. The girls biological mother told police her children did not have any disabilities but never attended school. Both children are currently in protective custody. Records indicate that in 2011, Young, who still went by O'Donnell and identified as a male at the time, was convicted of misdemeanor criminal trespass. In 2009, O'Donnell was arrested for running a stop sign (left). In 2011, he was convicted of misdemeanor criminal trespass (right) Two years prior, the 6-foot tall, 185-pound suspect was arrested and fined for running a stop sign. DailyMail,com on Wednesday reached out to the US Marshals Service and the local police department seeking additional information on the suspect. The Cedar Park Police Department declined to comment, citing an active investigation, and a spokesperson for the US Marshals Service stated that the agency currently has 'no solid leads' in the case. Anyone with information on Young's whereabouts is being asked to contact the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force at 512-800-4213. More than 3,000 attendees are hearing from a distinguished panel of industry experts and visionary leaders discuss ideas to leverage the Islamic economy to boost social integration and promote innovation and technology at the fourth edition of the Global Islamic Economy Summit (GIES). HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, attended the GIES which kicked-off yesterday (October 30) in Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai. Themed A Shared Future, the summit covers topics such as social impact entrepreneurship, responsible finance, skilling up for the fourth industrial revolution, and harnessing blockchain for the Islamic economy, reported state news agency Wam. Majid Saif Al Ghurair, chairman of Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: The fourth edition of GIES comes at a pivotal time for Dubai and the global Islamic economy, which is entering its next phase of growth as it embraces the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Through this summit, Dubai aims to unify the global efforts to promote the Islamic economy and to create an environment in which everyone will work to develop an integrated Islamic economic model, in which the Islamic economy will be able to expand its product base and move towards new horizons, he added. Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Economy, highlighted the importance of the summit, and the Shariah based economy. President of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, delivered a keynote speech highlighting the importance of Islamic economy for his country. Sheikh Hamdan also honoured winners of the 6th edition of the Islamic Economy Award, which included seven categories. As the world's largest and most comprehensive forum dedicated to all aspects of the Islamic economy, the Global Islamic Economy Summit (GIES) in Dubai has become an important platform for industry leaders and stakeholders to collaborate, share knowledge, and explore new areas of opportunity that are emerging within halal industries. With a high calibre of participants who include heads of state, ministers, policymakers and prominent CEOs, GIES 2018 is addressing important matters and trends that are having a major impact on the sector, added the report. A man in south China who was desperate for a son has been detained for throwing his newborn girl off a cliff. He took the baby, who had only been born for about six hours, from a hospital in Gaozhou, Guangdong province last Friday and placed her in a nylon bag before flinging her into the woods, Chinese media reported. However, the girl miraculously survived for 12 hours after landing on some tree branches and was saved by rescuers. A baby girl was taken from a hospital in Gaozhou, south China's Guangdong and thrown off a cliff by her father. She survived for 12 hours after landing on some branches and was saved The rescue team were able to locate the baby about 30 metres down from the edge of the cliff Police were alerted to the incident after a doctor at Magui Health Centre called to report that a newborn girl had gone missing from the hospital, according to Gaozhou Television. Following an investigation, officers began to suspect the girl's father, surnamed Li. The man finally admitted to placing his daughter into a large nylon bag and throwing her off a cliff in a rural area because he had hoped for a son instead, according to the report citing Magui district police. Officers immediately led a team of rescuers and volunteers down the steep cliff to search for the baby girl. Suddenly, the team heard the faint cries of the baby and were able to locate her about 30 metres (100 feet) down from the edge of the cliff, much to the relief of the rescuers. Police were alerted to the incident after a doctor at Magui Health Centre called to report that a newborn girl had gone missing from the hospital, according to reports Rescuers told reporters that the baby was found perched on top of several tree branches They told reporters that she was found perched on top of several tree branches, which protected her from fatal injuries. Viral video footage of the incident shows a nurse and a doctor removing the baby from the nylon bag and examining her before taking her to hospital. Fortunately, she did not suffer any serious injuries. She is now in good health and under the care of her mother, according to the report. Li told officers he was disappointed that his fourth child turned out to be a daughter, having had two girls and a boy. The father said the family was poor and he felt under a lot of financial pressure. Li has been detained amid ongoing police investigations. The incident saw the cruel father widely criticised on Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo. 'What a brute! This is attempted murder!' one user said. 'This man does not deserve to be a father.' 'Such a strong baby girl. I hope she can be happy and healthy for the rest of her life!' another said. 'The cruel father should be thrown off the cliff instead!' another said. Residents of a seaside village are furious after a US Congressional candidate used a picture of one of its 'rundown' streets to warn voters of the 'dangers' of not backing President Trump. An advert backing Republican Dr Nick Stella used a picture of a road in Jaywick Sands, near Clacton, Essex, showing a row of houses on a pothole-strewn road. The image was shared on Dr Stella's Facebook page - which has since been taken down - and aims to help him beat Democrat Bill Foster in the 11th Illinois district for November's midterm elections while also taking aim at the party's congressional leader Nancy Pelosi. It says: 'Help President Trump keep America on track and thriving. A vote for Foster is a vote for a Speaker Pelosi. We can't go back to foreclosures, unemployment and economic recession!' An advert for Republican congressional candidate Dr Nick Stella used a picture of Jaywick Sands, pictured, which has previously been named the most deprived neighbourhood in England, to warn voters against supporting the Democrats The town is one of the UK's most deprived, despite being just a few miles down the road from the affluent retirement area of Frinton-on-Sea Across the top of the image, next to a picture of Congresswoman Pelosi, it reads: 'Only YOU can stop this from becoming a REALITY!' But officials in Jaywick Sands, which was the most deprived neighbourhood in England in 2010 and 2015, have reacted with fury. Paul Honeywood, who is responsible for Jaywick on Tendring District Council, described the use of the image as 'appalling'. He said: 'For starters, Dr Stella is very out of date Essex County Council completed a two-year 6.5million programme to improve the roads and drainage in Jaywick Sands in 2017. 'Since the old image used in this campaign poster was taken support from Government, Essex County Council and other bodies has helped to build upon the work we as a council were already doing to improve the quality of life for residents. 'Now we have new roads, new high quality council homes for local people being built alongside approved plans for top quality apartments overlooking the sea. All supported by a Government-backed project group looking at financing investment in the area. Positive plans for Jaywick Sands, a community that's on the up. 'I know that many Jaywick Sands residents will be outraged at being smeared in this way and rightly so. 'Perhaps Dr Stella would like to come down and visit Jaywick Sands to learn about how we really get things done, rather than engaging in this sort of negative campaigning?' There was a mixed reaction in Jaywick last night. Shocking images show enormous piles of rubbish springing up near people's homes in the town One resident said: 'Jaywick is a good place. People tell you the truth down here and they don't stab you in the back. We're good people.' An employee behind the counter of the Jaywick post office blamed the UK media for the negative image of the seaside village. Kevin Watson, who represents Jaywick on Tendring council, said progress was being made in the area. He was stunned to hear the Republican party had been using the one-time resort in such a controversial manner. 'I am astounded that the country the size of America and everything that goes on there, that they even know about Jaywick. 'When I heard about this I thought it was a joke. Things are very much on the up here.' Filmmaker Penelope Read, who made a documentary called Jaywick: A Diamond in the Rough, added she would 'happily show Dr Stella the 'real village' and praised the council for improvements. She told the broadcaster: 'Jaywick is starting to really go forward and it makes me really cross when it gets this bad publicity. 'Of course there are things that are wrong currently but they are being improved.' Raquel Mitchell, campaign director for Dr Stella, said there was no intention to 'smear' the town and it was not named in the advert. She added the village was 'charming' and suggested a visit by Dr Stella to 'exchange ideas between the areas'. The image was shared on Dr Stella's (pictured) Facebook page, which has since been taken down. His staff have also said there was no intention to 'smear' the village With an overall total of 32,844 it came the second-worst place for employment, 17th-worst for income, 5th-worst for education, and 16th-most crime-ridden Many of the houses in the town are extremely dilapidated with cracked render and peeling paintwork Earlier this year shocking pictures showed huge piles of rubbish in the village which residents demanded be cleaned up after describing it as a 'Third World tip'. The sprawling waste pile spreads out across a residential area of over 50ft and even included a stripped down car, sofas, fridge freezers and a boat. It came after the village had been boosted by a 5million investment in the past two years with major improvements to local roads. New surfaces have been laid with better drainage to help reduce the risk of flooding in the streets. In 2015 the small seaside town got the worst score in a nationwide Government assessment of deprivation, income, poverty and crime. With an overall total of 32,844 it came the second-worst place for employment, 17th-worst for income, 5th-worst for education, and 16th-most crime-ridden. It is mainly home to temporary chalets built by businessman Frank Stedman, who bought marshes there in 1928 originally hoping to create a holiday village. Paul Honeywood, Tendring District Council Cabinet Member with special responsibility for Jaywick Sands, said it was appalling to use the image for political gain in this way. 'For starters, Dr Stella is very out of date Essex County Council completed a two-year 6.5million programme to improve the roads and drainage in Jaywick Sands in 2017,' Cllr Honeywood said. 'Since the old image used in this campaign poster was taken support from Government, Essex County Council and other bodies has helped to build upon the work we as a council were already doing to improve the quality of life for residents. 'Now we have new roads, new high quality council homes for local people being built alongside approved plans for top quality apartments overlooking the sea. All supported by a Government-backed project group looking at financing investment in the area. Positive plans for Jaywick Sands, a community that's on the up. 'I know that many Jaywick Sands residents will be outraged at being smeared in this way and rightly so. 'Perhaps Dr Stella would like to come down and visit Jaywick Sands to learn about how we really get things done, rather than engaging in this sort of negative campaigning?' Raquel Mitchell, a spokesperson for Stella, said in a statement: 'Our intent was never to smear the town in the photo, now known to us as Jaywick Sands in Essex. 'We never used the name. For us it was an example of a town overburdened by poor governance, which is exactly what we in our district are seeking to prevent at every level.' The image attacks Mr Stella's Democrat opponent, and also had a caption reading: 'Help President Trump keep America on Track and Thriving. 'We can't go back to foreclosures, unemployment and economic recession!' This is the moment four bears savagely killed a wolf in their shared enclosure in a Dutch zoo. The footage, filmed by a shocked visitor, shows the brown bears tearing the she-wolf apart in a pool of water at Dierenrijk zoo in Mierlo on Monday. Onlookers are heard gasping as the bears let out ferocious growls. This is the moment four bears savagely killed a wolf in their shared enclosure in a Dutch zoo Shocking video shows the brown bears tearing the she-wolf apart in a pool of water at Dierenrijk zoo in Mierlo on Monday Two other wolves desperately tried to distract the bears but were powerless to stop the killing. Stunned zookeepers say they have no idea why the bears attacked. Bears and wolves share the same habitat in the wild and several zoos across Europe, including Woburn Safari Park in Bedfordshire, have housed them together without any problems. Dierenrijk zoo said this is the first time anything like this has happened and it will not separate the animals which have lived together for more than a year. The visitor who filmed the shocking killing said: 'I did not notice what was happening until I started filming. 'Fifteen minutes before we had been looking at the bears and took a nice picture of one sitting on the bench right in front of the window. 'Then we saw the wolves running wildly towards the water. The bears were already in there with one of the wolves. 'At first we thought they were playing until we saw the wolf's head. Then we took our baby away. 'There were several children who were screaming. 'After about four or five minutes the caretakers came and told us that they were trying to lure away the bears. 'Then we left because the wolf was just in front of the window with his guts out.' Two other wolves desperately tried to distract the bears and stop the killing but were kept at bay by one of the bears Dierenrijk zoo said this is the first time anything like this has happened and it will not separate the animals A spokesman said: 'The animals are put together to challenge them like this to play with each other. 'It's a piece of enrichment for the animal kingdom. What happened Monday is really a one-time incident. The animals have always lived in good harmony with each other. 'It's always gone well. We decided years ago to put the wolves and brown bears together. That's good for the animals and we also see no reason to break them up now.' Facebook has banned the alt-right group Proud Boys after its members clashed with Antifa protesters earlier this month. The social network took down the group's numerous pages and has also stopped it from using Instagram. Its founder Gavin McInnes has been blocked as have other members of the organization. The decision comes after several of its members were filmed brawling with Antifa protesters in New York City earlier this month. The Proud Boys yelled homophobic slurs during it. Members of the group complained about it on Twitter where they said it proved a 'war on free speech'. The alt-right group Proud Boys (whose members are shown at a January event) have been banned from Facebook and Instagram The group's leader Gavin McInnes was also banned from having personal accounts on the social network On Wednesday, a Facebook spokesman told DailyMail.com: 'Our team continues to study trends in organized hate and hate speech and works with partners to better understand hate organizations as they evolve. 'We ban these organizations and individuals from our platforms and also remove all praise and support when we become aware of it. One of the group's logos is shown above. It has been scrubbed from Facebook 'We will continue to review content, Pages, and people that violate our policies, take action against hate speech and hate organizations to help keep our community safe.' They would not go into how they planned to stop the group from opening up new groups. DailyMail.com understands that the company is working on technology to identify hate speech and root it out to avoid others popping up. They have recruited designated staff to handle it and those employees are specifically trained to not only search for the vitriol but to also look for common misspellings which users resort to try to trick the system. These are two of the many Facebook pages the group is affiliated with that have now been removed This was what appeared when on the two pages shown above on Wednesday after Facebook's interference The group's supporters complained about the move on Wednesday and labeled it proof of 'the war on free speech'. There has been no official comment from McInnes or the group On October 12, nine members of the group were filmed brawling with Antifa protesters in New York City and hurling homophobic slurs The brawl was captured on cell phone footage and circulated online. It came after a speech by McInnes Members of the group were proud of the attack and posed for a photograph afterwards Facebook did not say whether the decision to ban Proud Boys this week was in response to the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday by an antisemitic gunman. The gunman used the social network Gab which bills itself as one of the last places where free speech is protected. It has been criticized for not reporting his antisemitic remarks before Saturday's incident. McInnes, who is one of the founders of Vice and was pushed out of the media company in 2008, and the group has tried to separate itself from other alt-right groups like Unite the Right and insist that their focus is on promoting 'Western Values' instead of intensifying racial tensions. Maxwell Hare, 26, and John Kinsman, were charged for their role in the brawl Geoffrey Young and Douglas Lennan, two more members who were charged Twitter banned the group and its founder months ago. On October 12, members of the group were filmed beating Antifa protesters outside a New York City nightclub. There were nine of them and they had been spurred on, according to prosecutors, by a speech given by McInnes earlier in the night. Five of the nine members were filmed in cell phone footage have been arrested. Police also wanted to track down three of the protesters on the other side of the fight. One of them was filmed hurling a plastic bottle at the Proud Boys protesters. The ex-convict charged with allegedly stalking a 23-year-old Ohio girl in a chilling 'cat and mouse' game before finally murdering her appeared in court on Wednesday. Michael Strouse, who has an extensive criminal record, was granted a delay in court after his lawyers requested more time to go through the 'voluminous' evidence the prosecution has prepared. Butler County Judge Greg Howard scheduled for the case to continue on December 12, when an official trial date will be set. Strouse, 29, was arrested on August 25 and was charged with killing 23-year-old Ellen 'Ellie' Weik of West Chester, Ohio by strangling her to death then dumping her body at a nearby field. Michael Strouse, 29, appeared in court in an orange prison uniform on Wednesday in Butler County, Ohio where a Judge granted a delay, scheduling a new plea or trial setting date for December 12 Strouse was arrested on August 25 and was charged with killing 23-year-old Ellen 'Ellie' Weik of West Chester, Ohio by strangling her to death then dumping her body at a nearby field She was reported missing by her mother on August 1 and her body was found in a Liberty Township field three weeks later. Strouse was subsequently arrested and held on $4million bond at Butler County Jail. The prosecution against Strouse has prepared evidence spanning 600 pages of police reports, 32 search warrants and 88 'documents and tangible evidence', according to the Journal-News. Butler County Prosecutor Michael Gmoser said the prosecution's witness list is extensive including 54 law enforcement officers, 24 lay persons, and 20 people from companies who oversee the records kept in cellphone devices. The evidence will include Facebook, Snapchat, Textnow and Instagram data records of Weik, Strouse, and friends, as well as cell phone reports and records from banks, Amazon, and Lyft. According to court records Weik was stalked from the start of 2018 to when she was killed. Strouse's attorneys requested more time to review the extensive evidence prepared by the prosecution spanning 600 pages of police reports and extensive phone records. Ellen Weik of West Chester was killed on July 29. Her body hidden in a field and discovered three weeks later Her friends said Weik was 'terrified' and that the harassment was nonstop. On April 11, Weik's mother called police reporting that someone outside of the home had taken a photo of Weik while she was sitting at her dining room table and sent it to her to frighten her. Before she was killed she told her friends she was 'terrified' and incessantly harassed and stalked by a stranger 'It was like a very sick game of cat and mouse. It was serious, you could tell,' a close friend of Weik's named Hannah said to Fox19. 'She even had other friends come over and stay the night with her because she was so scared,' she added. The stalking and fear got so bad that police patrolled Weik's house two more times that week. On April 14 Weik told a friend 'I don't know if I'm safe' and said someone recorded videos of her inside her home then sent it to her. She was home alone and didn't realize anyone was taping her. The stalking videos continued. 'That's not the only thing that's been recorded or sent to her. She kept asking who it was and they would reply, "You know who it is,"' Hannah said. 'That's what is so scary about all of this and so heartbreaking is she did what you're told to do. She did all of the right things, and it still happened. Where is the closure in that?' she said. Police have not specified if they questioned or suspected Strouse was Weik's stalker back in April. Police Weik's body dumped in this Ohio field in Liberty Township in August three weeks after she went missing Strouse was indicted in September for aggravated murder, murder, three counts of tampering with evidence, menacing by stalking, petty theft, abuse of a corpse and gross abuse of a corpse, according to WCPO. If convicted, he could spent life in prison. 'On or about Jan. 1, 2018 through July 29, 2018 Michael Strouse did by engaging in a pattern of conduct knowingly cause Ellen Christine Weik to believe the offender will cause physical harm or cause mental distress,' the indictment said. He lived on Bluffs Drive not far from where Weik's body was found. She died by asphyxiation. The Butler County Coronoer's preliminary autopsy report said she was strangled and died on July 29. Strouse had a long rap sheet going back a decade including charges of identity fraud, theft, burglary, public indecency, possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, reported Cincinnati.com. Advertisement Just weeks before being assassinated in Texas, President John F. Kennedy celebrated what would be his final Halloween at the White House in 1963 with his two adorable young children sporting colorful costumes. Captivating photos from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum show a then-six-year-old Caroline and then-three-year-old John F. Kennedy Jr. eagerly showing off their capes and masks for the president while inside the Oval Office. The cheerful images show the president in a different role as a doting father enjoying the time with his children. Caroline wore a witch's mask over her face while sporting a black cape and yellow and black checked skirt. Just weeks before being assassinated in Texas, President John F. Kennedy celebrated what would be his final Halloween at the White House in 1963 with his two adorable young children, Caroline and John F. Kennedy Jr., sporting colorful costumes Captivating photos from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum show a then-six-year-old Caroline and then-three-year-old John Jr. eagerly showing off their capes and masks for the president while inside the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk The cheerful images show the president in a different role as a doting father enjoying the time with his children. Caroline is pictured above picking up the telephone at the Resolute Desk and holding it to her ear while her cousin Maria Shriver stands nearby appearing to chat with her uncle, the president The young first daughter carried a red handled broom stick and wore red rain boots, which her younger brother also had on with his fright costume and long cone hat. In one photo, the president beams with a bright smile from ear-to-ear while his two children come behind the Resolute Desk to show off their costumes. Another image shows Caroline picking up the telephone at the desk and holding it to her ear while her cousin Maria Shriver stands nearby appearing to chat with her uncle, the president. Caroline was also captured sitting on a bed inside the Lincoln Bedroom with her cousin, Steve Smith Jr., her mother, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and aunt Jean Kennedy Smith - both of whom wore matching costumes. Jean Kennedy Smith (far left), Steve Smith, Jr. (second left), Caroline Kennedy (second right), and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (far right) pose in their Halloween costumes inside the Lincoln Bedroom Caroline wore a witch's mask over her face while sporting a black cape and yellow and black checkered skirt. The young first daughter carried a red handled broom stick and wore matching red rain boots. Pictured above Jean Kennedy Smith (far left), Steve Smith, Jr. (bottom left), Caroline Kennedy (bottom right), First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (center) and the president (far right) standing in the West Wing Colonnade Jean and Jacqueline are pictured above walking with their children, Caroline and Steve, in the second-floor Center Hall of the White House all wearing costumes on Halloween Caroline is pictured above left while holding a small black cat as her older cousin, Maria Shriver, smiles for the camera inside the Oval Office Another image shows Caroline, Steve, Jacqueline and Jean with their costumes standing in the West Wing Colonnade alongside the president, who didn't dress for the occasion and wore a standard suit and tie. A few other photos also show the young children happily playing with a black cat inside the White House. Caroline was also captured in a few photos with other children in the White House School attending a Halloween party. Roughly three weeks after the collection of images were captured, the 35th president was assassinated while in downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963. A young John Jr. is pictured above walking into the Oval Office sporting his Halloween costume as his father's personal secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, stands in the doorway smiling Caroline Kennedy is pictured out of her costume on Halloween above holding the black cat in the office of President John F. Kennedys Personal Secretary, Evelyn Lincoln Her cousin, Maria Shriver, is pictured above smiling for the camera while holding the black cat. Caroline can be seen playing in the background as John Jr.'s back is towards the camera. The Kennedy family dog, Wolf, can also be seen in the background while inside the office of President John F. Kennedys Personal Secretary, Evelyn Lincoln Nicholas Churton, 67, was killed by Jordan Davidson (pictured) in March 2017 at his home in Wrexham A pensioner who told police he had been robbed and threatened with a hammer by a thug was asked to find out the criminal's name himself- four days later the attacker returned and killed him. Nicholas Churton, 67, was killed by Jordan Davidson, 25, in March 2017 at his home in Wrexham. He was bludgeoned to death with a hammer and hacked with a machete by Davidson, who was in court twice in the week before the murder - and let go on both occasions. Davidson who referred to himself as 'the devil' was sentenced to at least 23 years in prison in December last year. An Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigation found that when a policeman visited Mr Churton after Davidson had tried to steal his TV and taken his house keys, the crime was recorded as theft rather than robbery. Three senior officers also reviewed the incident and failed to see the seriousness of the crime. And the inquiry found that when Mr Churton later gave the police the name 'Jordan', he was asked by an officer to ask his friends to find out more about the criminal. Mr Churton got back in touch with police on March 23 to tell them the full name, Jordan Davidson, but four days later he was found brutally murdered. Nicholas Churton, pictured here, was a popular businessman who owned Churtons wine bar. He was attacked in his one-bedroom flat by Nicholas Churton with a hammer and 24-inch machete The IOPC has now said the officer involved has a case to answer for misconduct over the events that lead to Mr Churton's death. Davidson, a convicted burglar, was caught with a knife while on parole days before the murder. He was released on bail over the knife charge, and while plans were made to send him back to prison, he killed Mr Churton. As the retired businessman's body lay undiscovered, a notice to recall Davidson to jail was issued. IOPC Director for Wales Catrin Evans said: 'This was a horrific murder and the responsibility for Mr Churton's death lies squarely with Jordan Davidson. 'My thoughts remain with Mr Churton's family and friends. 'Our first investigation found there were areas for improvement in police recognising Mr Churton's vulnerability and ensuring all available information was recorded accurately. 'Police requesting a vulnerable victim of crime to carry out a line of enquiry themselves to find out who the offender was, has, in my view, the potential to increase the risk to the victim. 'I am discussing the learning identified during the course of this investigation with North Wales Police. Police at the scene of the murder in March 2017. The IOPC has now said the officer involved has a case to answer for misconduct over the events that lead to Mr Churton's death 'We are progressing our further enquiries into how the force handled Davidson after his release from prison and their liaison with other agencies.' The IOPC added that while not amounting to misconduct, performance issues were identified for another police sergeant and an acting inspector over their supervision, and they are being dealt with by the force by way of management action. A call handler who took the initial call on 14 March 2017 left their role in August 2018. North Wales Police Detective Superintendent Dan Tipton said: 'I recognise that this is a difficult time for Mr Churton's family and I know how important it is for the family to fully understand the circumstances leading up to his tragic death. 'Since Mr Churton's murder we have reviewed our policies and procedures in relation to risk assessment following calls made to our control room and the deployment of officers. 'We will now be holding a number of formal disciplinary proceedings in line with the IOPC recommendations.' A Roman Catholic diocese acknowledged Wednesday that it concealed for decades a priest's admission that he sexually abused dozens of Iowa boys - a silence that may have put other children in danger. The Rev. Jerome Coyle, now 85, was stripped of his parish assignments in the 1980s but never defrocked. And it was not until this week, after The Associated Press inquired about him, that he was publicly identified by the church as an admitted pedophile, even though the Diocese of Sioux City had been aware of his conduct for 32 years. The diocese recently helped Coyle move into a retirement home in Fort Dodge, Iowa, without informing administrators at the Catholic school across the street. In 1986, Coyle reported his 'history of sexual attraction to and contact with boys' to Sioux City's bishop, revealing that he had victimized approximately 50 youngsters over a 20-year period while serving in several Iowa parishes, according to a private letter written in February by the diocese vicar general and obtained by the AP. The diocese told the AP on Wednesday that it never contacted police or informed the public after Coyle's admission. 'The diocese admits it could have been handled better,' diocese spokeswoman Susan O'Brien said. But she said the policies in place at the time did not call for notifying police or the public. Retired Catholic priest Jerome Coyle is pictured. An Associated Press investigation shows that the diocese based in Sioux City, Iowa, quietly transferred Coyle to New Mexico for treatment after he acknowledged in 1986 that he had sexually abused roughly 50 Iowa boys over a 20-year period This August 2010 photo provided by Reuben Ortiz, shows retired Catholic priest Coyle in Albuquerque, N.M. Rev. Coyle, now 85, was stripped of his parish assignments in the 1980s but never defrocked Instead, the diocese at the time announced without explanation that Coyle was taking a six-month medical leave of absence. Church officials transferred him to a treatment center in New Mexico, the Servants of the Paraclete, where other accused priests nationwide were once commonly sent. Coyle was stripped of his ability to lead Mass and otherwise function as a priest. But he never faced further punishment and lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, until recently, retaining the title 'father' and collecting financial assistance from the diocese. In 1986, the diocese was aware of one complaint against Coyle from a college student but did not have that man's name, O'Brien said. That individual and another now-adult victim have come forward in recent weeks, and their allegations against Coyle will be reported to police, she said. His total number of victims could be higher than 50 because the diocese remains 'uncertain of an accurate number,' O'Brien said. Coyle is unlikely to be prosecuted for any of his long-ago offenses because the statute of limitation has run out. He has not been named in any civil suits, and O'Brien said the diocese has never paid a settlement related to him. He has not been publicly accused of molesting any minors in the past three decades, but lawyers and detectives are looking into what he has been up to since 1986. Reuben Ortiz is seen Tuesday holding a photo of the Rev. Coyle. Ortiz says he was angered to learn that Coyle, who had been living at his home until recently, admitted in 1986 that he sexually abused 50 Iowa boys Fort Dodge police interviewed Coyle and searched his apartment last month after being tipped off that he was living near a school. Coyle declined to comment Friday after answering the door at his apartment. The bishop to whom Coyle reported his abuse, Lawrence Soens, retired in 1998. A review board later found that Soens himself had abused students when he was a priest and parochial school principal. As a member of the clergy, Soens was not a mandatory reporter - someone obligated to tell police about child abuse allegations - under Iowa law. But critics said he still should have called authorities, sought to have Coyle defrocked, alerted the public and asked victims to come forward. Soen's whereabouts are unknown. Unlike other dioceses, Sioux City has never released a list of priests who have been credibly accused, despite calls from victims to do so. 'The Sioux City diocese covers everything up,' said attorney Scott Rhinehart, who has represented dozens of victims and calls the diocese a 'haven for pedophile priests.' The case has come to light amid a push by prosecutors around the country to hold the church accountable, not just for the sexual abuse of youngsters but for efforts to shield accused priests. In recent months, authorities in at least a dozen states have opened investigations, and federal prosecutors have launched an unprecedented statewide probe in Pennsylvania. The diocese privately revealed Coyle's past in a letter to a Catholic couple who had been allowing Coyle to live at their Albuquerque home after he was injured in a 2017 car accident. The letter warned the couple, Reuben and Tania Ortiz, that the diocese 'cannot condone the risk you take' in allowing Coyle to live with their three teenage children. 'The letter was very scary for us as parents,' said Reuben Ortiz, who had been friends with Coyle for years and was unaware of the extent of his abuse. He said that he confronted Coyle and that the priest could not guarantee that he would be able to refrain from fondling his son. But Coyle had nowhere to go and continued living there until June, when deacons from Sioux City moved him back to Iowa. 'I was up day and night for days sometimes, patrolling my own house,' Reuben Ortiz said. In the letter to Ortiz, and a similar one to Coyle, Vicar General Bradley Pelzel tried to discourage the priest from moving back to Iowa. He said the boys Coyle molested would now be men between the ages of 45 and 70, and they 'could potentially encounter him and be retraumatized by the memories that would surface.' In 1986, Coyle reported his 'history of sexual attraction to and contact with boys' to Sioux City's bishop, revealing that he had victimized approximately 50 youngsters over a 20-year period while serving in several Iowa parishes The diocese offered to increase Coyle's monthly retirement assistance by $575 so that he could afford an assisted living home in New Mexico. But that idea didn't work out, and the church instead helped him move to Fort Dodge, into a care facility adjacent to Saint Edmonds Catholic School, whose students routinely visit. Lawyers for the Ortiz family said the case illustrates how the church's secrecy poses a continuing risk to children. They urged Coyle's victims to share their stories, saying they have been 'suffering in silence.' 'This is the time for Father Coyle's victims to seek justice, and the time for the church to account for its cover-up,' said attorney Levi Monagle. Experts called the Sioux City letter extraordinary for its written acknowledgment of abuse and continuing concealment. 'The letter shows in black and white that the system of covering up continues to this day, even after everything that's occurred,' said attorney Craig Levien, who has represented dozens of abuse victims. Two people have been killed and another person on the ground injured after an experimental gyrocopter crashed into a mobile home. Pilot Christopher Lord, 45, and passenger Christopher Brugger, 52, died in the crash just before 2.50pm on Tuesday in a trailer park in Sebring, Florida. Both men were killed on impact, according to the Highlands County Sheriff's office. Though the mobile home was empty when it was struck, a man working on a neighboring home suffered burns to his arm and leg and was transported to the hospital. Police said the crash occurred while Lord was flying Brugger to an airport in Manatee County after taking off from the Sebring Regional Airport. Pilot Christopher Lord, 45, (left) and passenger Christopher Brugger, 52, (right) died in the crash just before 2.50pm on Tuesday in a trailer park in Sebring, Florida One of Lord's gyrocopters is seen above. They use an unpowered rotor in free spin to generate lift. Forward thrust is usually supplied by a powered propeller Witnesses told investigators that they saw the aircraft was in some kind of distress before it clipped a power line. The gyrocopter then went down and crashed into a mobile home on the 2000 block of Caribbean Road in the Sebring Falls Retirement Subdivision. A massive fireball quickly engulfed the home. The first unit, an ambulance, arrived on scene three minutes after being dispatched. A DeSoto City Volunteer Fire Department truck was on scene two minutes after that, but by then the home was engulfed in heavy flames. One of the adjacent homes suffered heavy damage to one side, while the home on the other side had cosmetic damage. Other than the workman who was burned, both of the adjacent homes were unoccupied at the time of the crash. The gyrocopter then went down and crashed into a mobile home on the 2000 block of Caribbean Road in the Sebring Falls Retirement Subdivision A massive fireball quickly engulfed the home. A DeSoto City Volunteer Fire Department truck was on scene five minutes after dispatch, but by then the home was engulfed in heavy flames. According to his company website, Lord was a 'pilot, instructor, examiner, test pilot' who had flown thousands of hours in over 34 models of gyrocopter. Gyrocopters, also known as autogyros, use an unpowered rotor in free spin to generate lift. Forward thrust is usually supplied by a powered propeller. Lord had trained and examined hundreds of students and flown to nearly every state in the country, the website said. He was the the CEO of mobile scanning LiDAR company Pictaio, Inc, director of gyroplane training firm Pictaio Aerospace, LLC, and CEO of Gyroplaneguy Inc. Brugger, a chiropractor in Bradenton, Florida, was also a licensed gyroplane pilot. Records show he received his sport pilot license in October 2017. Lord was licensed as a commercial gyroplane pilot in 2014. Brugger was also a licensed gyrocopter pilot. He is seen above piloting one of the crafts Lord owned several companies that did gyroplane sales and training, and called himself the 'gyroplane guy'. Several of his gyroplanes are seen above. The deaths sparked an outpouring of shock and grief from his friends on Facebook. 'Chris not only was a very experienced pilot - he was an outstanding human being who cared deeply about his family, his friends and the people he worked and interacted with,' Markus Hess wrote of Lord. 'He combined all the characteristics of someone you want to have as a friend, husband and father. He was caring, passionate, creative, intelligent, charming - someone who could fix things just with his smile. We will miss you, Chris!' The Highlands County Sheriff's Office will handle the death investigations, while the investigation of the crash will be conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board. Both federal agencies were due to arrive at the scene on Wednesday. The crash in Florida comes in the same 24-hour period two separate gyrocopter crashes in New South Wales, Australia, which both killed two people. Donald Trump put the Republican speaker of the House on blast on Wednesday morning after the outgoing congressman said the president does not have the legal authority to end birthright citizenship. Trump directed Rep. Paul Ryan, who's retiring this year regardless of what happens next Tuesday, to butt out of the citizenship debate and worry instead about defending Republican territory. 'Paul Ryan should be focusing on holding the Majority rather than giving his opinions on Birthright Citizenship, something he knows nothing about! ' Trump proclaimed in a tweet. 'Our new Republican Majority will work on this, Closing the Immigration Loopholes and Securing our Border!' Donald Trump put the Republican speaker of the House on blast on Wednesday morning after the outgoing congressman said the president does not have the legal authority to end birthright citizenship Trump directed Rep. Paul Ryan, who's retiring this year regardless of what happens next Tuesday, to butt out of the citizenship debate and worry instead about defending Republican territory After Trump claimed in a Tuesday interview that he would end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants, Ryan told a Kentucky radio station that the White House would have to change the Constitution, which requires the consent of Congress, to revoke the right that's extended to all United States citizens. 'You obviously cannot do that. You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order,' Ryan said. The Wisconsin congressman also noted that Republicans 'didnt like it when Obama tried changing immigration laws via executive action, and obviously as conservatives we believe in the Constitution,' as he revisited the controversy that led to the creation of the now-defunct Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Trump's administration declared the immigration policy unconstitutional, because it originated from the executive branch and not Congress and declined to defend it in court. Lawmakers agree broadly that illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children should be allowed to stay, but they never reached an compromise that crystallizes the policy and implements the president's immigration priorities. With the mid-term election that will decide the make-up of the House and the Senate a week out, Trump claimed Tuesday that he could get rid of birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants who are born in the U.S. 'It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't,' Trump told Axios during an interview that will air in full on Sunday evening. Legal scholars, including top aide Kellyanne Conway's husband George and Laurence Tribe, immediately sided against him. So did Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who has clashed in the past with Trump over his bombastic rhetoric. 'As a conservative, I'm a believer in following the plain text of the Constitution, and I think in this case the 14th Amendment is pretty clear, and that would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process,' Ryan said. 'But where we obviously totally agree with the president is getting at the root issue here, which is unchecked illegal immigration.' On Tuesday evening after Trump's declaration, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi giddily predicted that her party would win the lower chamber during a conversation with 'Late Show' host Stephen Colbert. 'Let me say this. Up until today, I would've said, "If the election were held today, we would win," ' Pelosi said. 'What now I'm saying is, "We will win." ' Pelosi told Colbert that the founders would be shocked to see Trump 'abuse' the Constitution after taking an oath to protect it. She framed the upcoming election as 'a check and balance on this president.' Trump refused to climb down from his position on Wednesday morning. He insisted on Twitter that the U.S. Constitution doesn't grant automatic citizenship to every child born inside the country's borders. He predicted the Supreme Court will ultimately decide the question, reintroduced the controversial term 'anchor baby' into the national debate and cited a retired Democratic Senate leader to support his argument. 'So-called Birthright Citizenship, which costs our Country billions of dollars and is very unfair to our citizens, will be ended one way or the other,' Trump tweeted. 'It is not covered by the 14th Amendment because of the words "subject to the jurisdiction thereof", the president added, before cutting his message off in mid-sentence and pausing for nearly an hour before continuing. 'Harry Reid was right in 1993, before he and the Democrats went insane,' Trump claimed, referring to a now-infamous Senate floor speech in which Reid, a Nevada Democrat and future Senate majority leader, blasted the practice of birthright citizenship. Trump tweeted Wednesday that the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment only applies to people who aren't 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the U.S. meaning in his view that babies born to people in the country illegally don't enjoy its benefits The president cited Democrat Harry Reid, who was a Nevada senator in 1993 when he said 'no sane country' would grant automatic citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrant mothers Hundreds of thousands of babies are born each year to illegal immigrants parents in the United States, and the conventional reading of the 14th Amendment gives them all citizenship rights something Canada is the only other First World country to offer The senator who retired after the last election said in a 1993 speech: 'If making it easy to be an illegal immigrant isn't enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again.' 'If you break our laws by entering our country without permission to give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship and guarantee a full access to all public and social services this society provides, and that's a lot of services. Is it any wonder that two-thirds of the babies born at taxpayer expense in county-run hospitals in Los Angeles are born to illegal alien mothers?' In a typical year, about 250,000 illegal immigrants give birth in the U.S. Conservatives have long complained about their births' long-term impacts on welfare systems, education costs and other drivers of the national debt. Legal scholars argue that like it or not, the 14th Amendment protects the rights of anyone born in the United States under the law. The policy stems from an 1898 Supreme Court ruling, however, the high court has never ruled directly on the whether the amendment covers children born to people living in the U.S. illegally. Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University and a fixture on cable news, said in a Wednesday tweet that Conway's husband and Katyl are correct on the law and all reputable legal scholars agree - Trump cannot highhandedly end birthright citizenship for a class of people. 'Its an understatement to say theres a consensus among experts that Trumps promise to end birthright citizenship for babies born in the USA to undocumented mothers is a legally untenable political stunt. No respected currently active scholar disagrees,' he asserted. Trump said he'll take his case all the way to the nation's highest court in his tweets on Wednesday. 'Dont forget the nasty term Anchor Babies,' he added. 'I will keep our Country safe. This case will be settled by the United States Supreme Court!' 'If making it easy to be an illegal immigrant isn't enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again,' Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid said in 1993, years before he became the Senate majority leader The 14th Amendment of the Constitution, written in 1868, states that '[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,' are U.S. citizens. Debate has raged for 150 years about whether citizens of foreign countries are 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States. Some legal scholars believe that phrase only refers to hostile occupying armies and foreign diplomatic officials. Republican leaders are split on whether Trump can end the tradition of birthright citizenship with an executive order, as he said in an interview Monday that he intends to do. The vice president backed Trump up on Tuesday while the speaker of the House took the opposite side of the debate. House Speaker Paul Ryan insisted Tuesday that the White House can't use an executive order to change the government's interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution Trump, shown leaving the White House on Tuesday with first lady Melania Trump, has given his anti-illegal-immigrant base some new red meat with the proposal, just a week before the midterm elections Vice President Mike Pence insisted Tuesday that there's nothing unconstitutional about Trump declaring that an babies born to illegal immigrants in the U.S. will no longer automatically become American citizens. 'We all know what the 14th Amendment says,' Pence told Politico during an on-stage interview. 'We all cherish the language of the 14th Amendment.' 'But the Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled on whether or not the language of the 14th Amendment, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," applies specifically to people who are in the country illegally,' Pence argued. Trump, who has long been critical of the practice, told Axios in an interview on Monday: 'We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States... with all of those benefits. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end.' South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally on most issues but not always immigration questions, said in a series of tweets that he welcomes a change. 'Finally, a president willing to take on this absurd policy of birthright citizenship,' he said on Twitter. 'Ive always supported comprehensive immigration reform and at the same time the elimination of birthright citizenship.' 'The United States is one of two developed countries in the world who grant citizenship based on location of birth. This policy is a magnet for illegal immigration, out of the mainstream of the developed world, and needs to come to an end,' he stated. Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that the Supreme Court has never ruled on whether the 14th Amendment applies to illegal immigrants; South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted that he'll introduce legislation mirroring Trump's executive order Graham sent a flurry of tweets agreeing with Trump's approach and offering to ingtroduce a bill that would codify it into law Graham also said he would 'introduce legislation along the same lines as the proposed executive order from President.' Trump insists he can change the way the 14th Amendment is interpreted by the federal government without amending the Constitution itself, and can do it through an executive order. Several Republicans running for president in 2016, including Trump, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, argued at the time that the phrase 'subject to the jurisdiction' refers only to people with a legal right to be in the country. In a preview of an HBO documentary with Axios scheduled to air on Sunday, Trump says, 'You can definitely do it with an Act of Congress. But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order.' 'It's in the process. It'll happen ... with an executive order.' The president first articulated his position in August 2015, painting a mental picture for a Fox News Channel audience. 'What happens is, they're in Mexico, they're going to have a baby, they move over here for a couple of days, they have the baby,' he said then, adding: 'I don't think they have American citizenship, and if you speak to some very, very good lawyers, some would disagree. But many of them agree with me: You're going to find they do not have American citizenship.' Trump's move came a week before midterm elections and after a second migrant caravan (pictured) crossed into Mexico on Monday Some attorneys, he insisted, had advised him that 'Its not going to hold up in court, its going to have to be tested.' In the 2016 race the president also denied that 'anchor babies' is a derogatory term and said he'd keep using it to describe the the children of illegal immigrants who are born in the United States. Some scholars agree that the 14th Amendment was never intended to give illegal immigrants' children citizenship and has been misapplied for decades. Trump could change the application with an executive order, they say, limiting birthright citizenship only to the children born of legal permanent residents. Michael Anton, a former national security official for Trump, wrote in The Washington Post that an executive order could 'specify to federal agencies that the children of non-citizens are not citizens.' But others, such as Judge James Ho, who was appointed by Trump to Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, insist that changing how the 14th Amendment is applied would be 'unconstitutional.' Only about 30 countries, including Canada, guarantee some sort of birthright citizenship, known as 'jus soli' (right of the soil). Others grant citizenship based on the principle of 'jus sanguinis' (right of the blood) where children can only inherit citizenship from their parents, not their birthplace. India abolished jus soli in 2004 when thousands of illegal immigrants entered the country from Bangladesh. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that approximately 7.5 per cent of all births in the U.S. - about 300,000 per year- are to illegal immigrants. The Center says around 4.5 million American citizens under age 18 were born to illegals residents. Clarksons Platou, a leading global in maritime brokerage and investment banking, led a seminar discussing the future of Middle East shipping and offshore operations during the ongoing UAE Maritime Week 2018, in Dubai, UAE. The UAE Maritime Week 2018 is being organised by the Dubai Maritime City Authority (DMCA). The session witnessed participation from a wide range of local, regional and international maritime sector leaders. The seminar reviewed the current reality and the future of the operations of tankers, dry bulk carriers, offshore sectors and maritime projects in the region and presented an in-depth analysis by international experts from Clarksons Platous global network, said a statement. The Middle East Shipping and Offshore Seminar was held in the presence of Essam Bella, managing director of Clarksons Platou Dubai. The session included a series of panel discussions on issues affecting maritime shipping and offshore operations in the Middle East, including the development of the tanker market, the development of specialised products market and the future of dry bulk and offshore shipping markets, highlighting the success of the Suez Canal in attracting business despite the prevailing challenges in the international markets. Amer Ali, executive director, Dubai Maritime City Authority, said: We are delighted to host the Clarksons Platou Seminar once again on the sidelines of the ongoing UAE Maritime Week 2018. The hosting of the event underscores the growing international confidence in Dubai as an incubator for international events that are capable of driving the growth of the maritime industry. Ali highlighted the importance of the seminar as a forum that featured leading personalities within the maritime sector locally, regionally and globally to take advantage of the Clarksons Platou's maritime analysis. The latest regional developments in maritime shipping and offshore sectors are indicative of the growth, sustainability and prosperity of maritime clusters in the world, he added. Ali added: We are glad to see Clarksons Platous active participation in the UAE Maritime Week 2018. It adds value to our growing portfolio of participating companies from the public and private sectors, through which, we look forward to providing the maritime community with the latest knowledge, expertise and best practices. This supports the development of a secure and sustainable maritime sector characterised by inclusiveness and renewal and the ability to support the economic diversification process pursued by the Emirate of Dubai and the UAE, he said. The success of the seminar will inspire us to continue our fruitful collaboration with leading entities in the global maritime landscape to host similar events in the coming years, with the aim to enrich knowledge and innovation, research and development and to enhance the competitiveness, comprehensiveness and attractiveness of Dubai as a world-class maritime capital, he added. The Middle East Shipping and Offshore Seminar was held in the presence of Essam Bella, managing director of Clarksons Platou Dubai. The session included a series of panel discussions on issues affecting maritime shipping and offshore operations in the Middle East, including the development of the tanker market, the development of specialised products market and the future of dry bulk and offshore shipping markets, highlighting the success of the Suez Canal in attracting business despite the prevailing challenges in the international markets. UAE Maritime Week 2018 will run until November 1, with the participation of a host of decision makers, policy makers, governmental figures, experts and maritime industry leaders in the world. They will discuss the latest developments and review the most important solutions and opportunities of the maritime sector in Dubai. The event's agenda is packed with high-profile events, including the Dubai Maritime Summit, the Maritime Future Leaders Seminar, the evolution of maritime regulations and arbitration in the GCC, the Seatrade Maritime Middle East exhibition and conference (SMME), the largest maritime exhibition in the Middle East, Seatrade Maritime Middle East Awards, it stated. TradeArabia News Service Shocking footage shows an angry elephant charge at a car full of tourists. The group were exploring Etosha National Park in Namibia when the creature stormed towards their SUV. As it advances, the panicked driver frantically reverses - avoiding being trampled by seconds. The tense clip was recorded on a mobile phone by one of the passengers in the back seats, who claimed the elephant was twice the size of their car. It begins by slowly approaching the vehicle, which is parked up in the middle of a dirt track. Suddenly, it aggressively heads for the bonnet and breaks into a jog. After the tourists reverse, it spins around and makes off in the opposite direction. The elephant charges at the SUV carrying tourists on safari in Etosha National Park, Namibia Advertisement U.S. immigration levels reached a record high in 2016, tying with 1999 for the most arrivals combined legal and illegal in a single year, according to a new report out Wednesday. A total of 1.75 million immigrants entered the U.S. in 2016, the most recent year for which data is available. The latest numbers reflect an increase from 2015, when 1.62 million immigrants entered the country, according to an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies. Steven Camarota, director of research for the right-leaning Washington D.C.-based think tank, said that the peaks of 1999 and 2016 were driven by different factors. 'In 1999, the big number was almost certainly caused by legal immigration slowly growing since the 1980s,' he told DailyMail.com. 'There were new temporary migrant programs, student programs that had been increasing and finally, illegal immigration was reaching a crescendo.' The number of (combined, legal and illegal) migrant arrivals in 2016 tied a 1999 record for the highest influx of immigrants in a single year. This chart illustrates the trend in arrivals since 2000 More recently, Camarota said that illegal immigration is less of a driver in growth and that legal long-term and temporary immigration were greater factors in the 2016 numbers. 'The impact of immigration on the United States continues to be enormous,' Camarota said. 'The fact that it continues to roil American politics makes sense. Whatever you think about it, it's going to continue to be an extraordinarily explosive issue simply because of its scale.' Overall, Mexico and India were the top countries of origin in 2016, with 196,000 and 194,000 migrants arriving from those nations, respectively. While arrivals from Mexico were up nearly 50 percent since 2011, the overall number in 2016 was lower than it was more than 10 years ago when as many as 500,000 people from that country were arriving (legally and illegally) each year. For the first time since 2010, Latin America was the top region of origin for new arrivals in 2016; it had been Asia for the prior six years. In fact, new arrivals coming from Latin America have doubled since 2011, rising to 668,000 in 2016, compared to 335,000 five years prior. Arrivals from Central America alone have nearly tripled from 46,000 in 2011 to 133,000 in 2016. South America arrivals have also increased, rising 250 percent since 2011 to reach 171,000 in 2016. The rate of new arrivals from the Caribbean doubled to reach 168,000 during the same period. In addition, arrivals from South Asia rose 54 percent to 244,000 in 2016; arrivals from East Asia rose 30 percent to 355,000, and; arrivals from the Middle East rose 78 percent to 137,000. This chart illustrates the number of of migrants that arrived from each major region around the globe each year, 2000-2016. A small number of migrants from other regions (Australia, for example) were excluded Randy Capps, director of research at the pro-immigration Migration Policy Institute, said that much of that legal immigration has been driven by an increase in people coming to the U.S. to join family members already living here. 'If you think our current policy around reuniting families a good thing, then it would make sense that the numbers would increase, particularly in a year when the economy was strong,' Capps told DailyMail.com. 'A lot of this is growth in high skilled immigration which most economic studies have shown benefits the economy and compliments U.S. workers,' he added. 'We have a healthy economy, we have a demand for workers, we have an aging work force and we've had a low birth rate since 2008 - so there's going to be more demand for immigrant workers of all skill levels.' Data for the first half of 2017 reveals some clues for how immigration shifted after President Donald Trump took office, with 930,000 new immigrants arriving in the country less than the first six months of 2016. Researchers suggested that the falloff in the first half of 2017 could be due to increased enforcement and a dramatic decrease in refugee admissions to the U.S., as well as tougher vetting standards for applicants seeking to enter the country. The think tank analyzed newly released U.S. Census data on foreign-born new arrivals to reach the figures, which didn't allow researchers to break out the number of legal versus illegal arrivals. A woman spent six days in the Arizona desert after her car veered off a highway, surviving injuries from the crash and getting rescued after someone noticed a broken fence, authorities said Wednesday. The Department of Public Safety said two state transportation workers and a rancher were corralling a cow along a highway on October 18 when they saw a break in a fence outside the historic Western town of Wickenburg, about an hour's drive northwest of Phoenix. As they inspected the damaged fence, they spotted a mangled car entangled in a mesquite tree. A DPS trooper responded but did not find anyone in the vehicle. The group followed human tracks to a riverbed for about 500 yards and found a 53-year-old woman severely dehydrated and with serious injuries. According to the trooper, the woman recounted how she was driving on U.S. 60 on Oct. 12 when she lost control of her car. The vehicle went through the fence and dropped 50 feet, landing in the tree. She stayed inside her car for several days before trying to walk toward some railroad tracks to find help, but she was too weak to make it, authorities said. She was airlifted to a hospital. DPS spokesman Quentin Mehr said the woman is declining all media requests and did not give any details about her current condition. In this Oct. 18, 2018, photo provided by the Arizona Department of Public Safety is the scene where authorities say they rescued a seriously injured woman who spent six days in the desert after crashing her car near Wickenburg, Ariz. The Department of Public Safety said Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, that rescuers found the severely dehydrated 53-year-old woman on Oct. 18 after following the vehicle's tracks. A maintenance crew and a rancher spotted the car while working along a highway several miles from the historic Western town of Wickenburg. (Arizona Department of Public Safety via AP) DPS Director Col. Frank Milstead commended the transportation workers and the rancher. "Due to their outstanding efforts, this woman's life was saved," he said in a statement. Georgia construction workers got an early - and spooky - Halloween surprise when they discovered 1,000 teeth buried inside a wall. A commercial space known as the TB Converse Building in Valdosta was being renovated when workers made the grisly discovery on Tuesday. The teeth were buried in a wall on the second floor. A picture, which has since gone viral, shows them scattered among plaster. Video courtesy WCTV Around 1,000 teeth (pictured) were found inside a wall by construction workers in Valdosta, Georgia on Tuesday Workers were renovating a commercial space known as the TB Converse Building (pictured) when they made the grisly discovery It remains unknown exactly how the teeth ended up in the wall, although the space was occupied by two different dentists in the past. Dr Clarence Whittington was the very first tenant of the Converse Building, which was constructed in 1900, Harry Evans, researcher for the Lowndes County Historical Society and Museum, told the Valodsta Daily Times. By 1911 the floor was occupied by Dr Lester G Youmans, another dentist who remained in the building until at least 1930. It has since been discovered that the first floor of the building was a drug store, the second floor was an office space, and the third floor was a lodging space. And a receipt, recently discovered in a local antique shop, proves that Youmans was seeing patients on the second floor in 1928. The receipt was for a tooth extraction. The teeth were buried behind a wall on the second floor, a space that has been occupied by two dentists in the past The Lowndes County Historical Society and Museum is set to receive some of the teeth discovered in Valdosta this week. The rest have been disposed of This isn't the first time teeth have been found buried behind walls in Georgia. Similar discoveries were made in both Greensboro and Carrolton, inside buildings that had also once been used for dental offices as well. And, just a few months ago in Melbourne, Australia, 1,000 rotting teeth were found below the city's business district. They were discovered below the former office of an Australian dentist, who is believed to have flushed his patients' teeth down toilets or the sink. Disposing of items in a wall was actually common in the early 20th century. Many houses that date back to the late 1870s had a metal slot in the wall next to the sink, where people often threw out razor blades, according to the Chicago Tribune. But before the teeth go off to the museum, the city has decided to have a little fun with them for the local community's 'First Friday Giveaway' The Lowndes County Historical Society and Museum is set to receive some of the teeth discovered in Valdosta this week. The rest have been disposed of. Donald Davis, the museum's executive director, said the discovery will add to the city's 'dental history'. But before the teeth go off to the museum, the city has decided to have a little fun with them for the local community. The city is hosting a 'First Friday Giveaway', awarding $100 to the resident who can guess the correct number of discovered teeth they have since placed in a jar. The Anti Defamation League is asking Speaker Paul Ryan to discipline Republican Congressman Steve King after the conservative lawmaker from Iowa met with members of an Austrian political party founded by an SS officer while on a trip funded by a Holocaust Memorial group. The international Jewish non-governmental organization made its plea after King was denounced by a prominent member of his party's leadership - the Republican head of the House campaign arm, who criticized the conservative congressman for appearing to sympathize with white supremacism. The group asked Ryan to take formal disciplinary action to censure King and to remove him from his position as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice. King has been in the spotlight since his meeting in Austria was first reported and the light become brighter in the wake of Saturday's massacre at a synagogue in Pittsburgh where 11 people were killed. Speaker Paul Ryan is being urged to formally discipline Rep. Steve King Rep. Steve King has been in the spotlight since the Pittsburgh shooting for a meeting he had with an Austria political party with historic ties to Nazis 'We urge you, as Speaker of the House of Representatives, to strip Rep. King from his chairmanships, and to take formal disciplinary action to censure Rep. King and condemn his actions,' Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO and National Director wrote in a letter dated Tuesday. Ryan's office did not respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment. Censure is a way in which the House of Representatives may vote to express formal disapproval of a member's conduct. Only a simple majority vote is required. Members who are censured must stand in the well of the House chamber to hear a reading of the censure resolution against them. The last member of the House to be censured was Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel in 2010 after it was revealed he had filed inaccurate financial statements and failed to properly pay his taxes. The Anti Defamation League specifically sited King's ties to Austria's Freedom Party, which was founded by a former Nazi SS officer and is headed by Heinz-Christian Strache, who was active in neo-Nazi circles as a youth. 'After years of offensive statements, over the past weeks, Rep. King has met with outright anti-Semitic organizations and individuals, giving them the imprimatur of legitimacy that comes with meeting with a Member of Congress,' Greenblatt wrote. King met with the group in August during a visit to Austria. That meeting, ironically, came a day after he wrapped up a five-day tip to Jewish and Holocaust historical sites in Poland, including the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, that was paid for by From the Depths, an international nonprofit group that educates lawmakers about the Holocaust. King said the trip to Austria was paid from personal funds, but his airfare to and from Europe was covered by From the Depths. Greenblatt appealed to Ryan, in the wake of Saturday's mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, to take action. He wrote that what that moment 'demands is our country's leaders, from all sectors of society, to make it crystal clear that anti-Semitism and hate have no place in the United States. As the Speaker of the House, one of the most powerful elected officials in our nation, we believe you have an obligation to act and an opportunity to make a difference.' 'Rep. King has brought dishonor onto the House of Representatives. We strongly urge you and the congressional leadership to demonstrate your revulsion with Rep. King's actions by stripping him of his subcommittee chairmanship and initiating proceedings to formally censure or otherwise discipline him. By doing so, you will make clear that his actions were deeply offensive, wrong, and that the U.S. House of Representatives will not tolerate anti-Semitism or bigotry in any form,' he added. In speaking with members of Austria's Freedom Party, King claimed 'Western civilization is on the decline' because of immigrants and he also criticized Jewish financier George Soros, who supports Democratic causes. 'What does this diversity bring that we don't already have?' he said at the time. Also during his trip, King gave a controversial interview to Caroline Sommerfield of the Austrian far-right publication Unzensuriert (which means 'uncensored' in English). Republican Congressman Steve King has said he is not anti-semitic Congressman Steve Stivers, the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, tweeted his criticism of King His tweet comes as King is facing a tough battle for reelection although he is favored to win King's previous comments have come under a microscope since Saturday's shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh Their conversation included a discussion of the Great Replacement - a theory on the right that white Europeans are being replaced by minorities. 'The U.S. subtracts from its population a million of our babies in the form of abortion,' King said. 'We add to our population approximately 1.8 million of 'somebody else's babies' who are raised in another culture before they get to us.' Sommerfeld said in response: 'That's what we call the Great Replacement.' King went on to discuss how he believes Soros could be funding the Great Replacement. Soros was one of several prominent Democrats who received a home made pipe bombing in the mail last week. But King told The Washington Post in an interview this weekend he was not anti-Semitic. He pointed to his strong support for Israel and insisting there's 'a special place in hell' for anyone who perpetrates religious or race-based violence. 'How do you call Steve King anti-Semitic?' he asked. He defended his meeting in Austria, calling the Freedom Party as a 'far right' organization. 'If they were in America pushing the platform that they push, they would be Republicans,' King told The Post. Jewish leaders in King's Iowa House district have also denounced the congressman. The presidents of the Adas Israel congregation in Mason City and the Ames Jewish Congregation denounced King's white supremacy statements and his Austria meeting. And, on Tuesday, Congressman Steve Stivers, the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, denounced King, who faces a tough re-election challenge in next week's midterm. 'Congressman Steve King's recent comments, actions, and retweets are completely inappropriate,' Stivers tweeted. 'We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn this behavior.' Stivers' wasn't pointing out a specific comment by King but, instead a series of actions and statements. And King responded by echoing one of President Donald Trump's favorite attack lines - blaming the 'fake news.' 'These attacks are orchestrated by nasty, desperate and dishonest fake news. Their ultimate goal is to flip the House and impeach Donald Trump. Establishment Never Trumpers are complicit,' King posted on Twitter in response. He noted: 'Americans, all created equal by God, with all our races, ethnicities, and national origins legal immigrants & natural born citizens, make up the Shining City on the Hill.' King's district tilts red but faces a tough challenge from Democrat J.D. Scholten, who has outraised him and ran an aggressive in-person campaign across the district. And, on Friday, the Sioux City Journal endorsed Scholten, in an abrupt reversal after supporting King for years. Additionally two major corporate donors, Intel and Land O'Lakes, dropped their support of King. But King won with 61 percent in 2016 and remains popular in his district. The non-partisan Cook Political Report on Tuesday down graded King's chances from 'likely Republican' to 'lean Republican,' citing attack ads aired by Scholten. A former Topshop brand director has claimed that Sir Philip Green 'was a bully worse than most bosses' and she was forced to protect her staff from him. Jane Sheperdson was one of the high street chain's most senior employees between 2002 and 2006, and says the billionaire, 66, 'knew very little about fashion' when she worked there. She claims the retail tycoon did not bully her, but he would often get 'very aggressive and shout a lot' at other members of staff. Ms Sheperdson left Topshop in 2007, one week after supermodel Kate Moss was first recruited by Sir Philip to design a collection for the shop. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph at a women's business summit today, she said: 'He was a dealer, he wasn't a great retailer in any sense, and knew very little about fashion. 'He did bully people. He didn't bully me, he would try to he would get very angry and shout a lot. And then I would get very angry and shout a lot.' Former Topshop brand director Jane Sheperdson has claimed Sir Philip Green (pictured together in 2006 in London) 'was a bully worst than most bosses' and she was forced to protect her staff from him She said that she felt it was her 'duty' to protect her colleagues from Sir Philip's outbursts and that there was 'no way I would have exposed them to the way he ran his business'. The fashion empress added: 'There was an awful lot of bullying and I think there still is. I think it's become acceptable in the fashion industry in a way it shouldn't be. But I think his behaviour was worse than most.' The retail mogul clashed with Ms Sheperdson in November 2003 when Drapers magazine ranked her higher than him in a list of the most influential people in the fashion industry. Ms Sheperdson left Topshop in 2007, one week after supermodel Kate Moss was first recruited by Sir Philip to design a collection for the shop (three are pictured together in September 2006) The Sun reported that Sir Philip rang editor Eric Musgrave and said: 'You've caused me a lot of f****** problems. Her head'll be even f****** bigger than it is already.' The former brand director quit Topshop just a week after the chain signed supermodel Kate Moss in 2007. There were claims at the time that Ms Sheperdson hadn't been consulted over Moss being brought on board, which she denied. Her relationship with Sir Philip was described as 'sparky', but she said it was 'her time to go'. She bought shares in Whistles in 2008 and was appointed chief executive. Ms Sheperdson (pictured left) claims the retail tycoon (right) did not bully her, but he would often get 'very aggressive and shout a lot' at other members of staff Jane Sheperdson is pictured at an event for Whistles in April 2012, where she has been chief executive since 2008 Ms Sheperdson's claims come after Topshop designer Michael Halpern quit over the sexual harassment and racist allegations made against Sir Philip this month. The billionaire Arcadia group owner bagged a High Court injunction and got complainants to sign controversial Non Disclosure Agreements (NDAS) in a bid to silence their claims - but he was outed in the House of Lords by peer Peter Hain. Michael Halpern is said to have withdrawn, abandoning the launch of the latest collection, after Sir Philip was unmasked as the businessman who gagged the press over claims of racism and sexual harassment. It was announced in August that London-based Halpern would work with Topshop on the 28-item collection, which is due in stores next month. But a fashion source told The Daily Telegraph: 'His brand is about female empowerment. That's his ethos. He couldn't go ahead with this it wouldn't be a good look.' The collection launch party has now been cancelled, it emerged today. MailOnline has contacted Arcadia group, Topshop's parent company, for comment. Michael Halpern (left, with Mary Katrantzou Harper's Bazaar Women of the Year Awards on October 30) is said to have withdrawn after Sir Philip, the chain's billionaire boss, (right, yesterday) was unmasked as the businessman who gagged the press Sir Philip has been spending time in a luxury spa in sunny Arizona this week, but looks to be heading back to Britain to face the music. The 66-year-old, who is fighting for his reputation and battling to keep hold of his knighthood - was pictured yesterday striding towards the plane with his phone glued to his ear, deep in conversation. As he climbed the steps to his private jet he was given a welcoming smile from the air stewardess, who he promptly hugged and kissed on the cheek. When he lands on British soil, Sir Philip will have to face the fallout from the allegations made against him. Among some of the most serious claims put to him are that he allegedly crept up behind women in the corridors and touched staff members awkwardly. He is also alleged to have gone into meeting and asked if there were any 'naughty girls' that 'needed their bottoms slapped' and cut a female executive's hair during a meeting. A mistrial was declared on Wednesday in the second-degree murder trial against former Michigan state trooper Mark Bessner, for the death of a 15-year-old black teenager, Damon Grimes (pictured), in August 2017 A mistrial was declared on Wednesday in the second-degree murder trial against former Michigan state trooper Mark Bessner, for the death of a 15-year-old black teen. Bessner, who is white, shot Damon Grimes with a Taser from a moving patrol car in 2017. He told jurors that he feared the teenager had a gun, but he was wrong. After being Tased, Grimes crashed into a pickup truck and died. Judge Margaret Van Houten entered the order on the third day of deliberations after the jury reported another impasse. Jurors also had the option of convicting Bessner of involuntary manslaughter, but they couldn't reach a unanimous decision to convict or acquit. Bessner quit the force following the incident, and has been sued for wrongful death. Former State Trooper Mark Bessner (pictured) told jurors that he feared Grimes had a gun, but he was wrong; Grimes died after Bessner Tasered him from the window of a moving patrol while he was riding at ATV on a city street in Detroit; Bessner is shown testifying on Thursday The teen was fleeing from Michigan State Police after popping a 'wheelie' on a Detroit street in August of 2017 when his ATV hit a parked truck and flipped over, killing him. Then-trooper Bessner was charged with second-degree murder after firing his Taser at Grimes through the window of his vehicle during the pursuit. Bessner testified in his own defense at the trial. He told jurors on Thursday that he 'absolutely' believed the teen was armed and was 'shocked' to learn there was no gun. He insisted that he believed Grimes was reaching for a gun in his waist while he and a state police partner pursued the boy. State Police policy prohibits firing a Taser from a moving vehicle. After being Tased, Grimes crashed the ATV into a parked pickup truck, it flipped over on him, and he died of blunt force trauma to the head; Bessner is shown here (circled left) in the initial aftermath of the ATV crash that killed Grimes The crash scene is shown here; The ATV struck the rear bumper of a parked pickup truck Grimes crashed the ATV he was driving and died after he was twice struck by Bessner's Taser, which is fired like a gun and is intended to immobilize people. 'It was a terrible tragedy,' Bessner said on Thursday, his voice breaking, 'and all I could think of was that this family had lost their son. All I could think of was my daughter, and what they must be going through.' Grimes' only offense appeared to be driving the ATV on a city street. Bessner's partner made a U-turn and began pursuing him when the ATV veered toward their car. 'He had slowed down and he had looked back several times,' Bessner testified. 'There was one very, very crystallizing moment where his left hand reached down towards his waist.' He later said he 'absolutely' believed Grimes had a gun and that his life was in jeopardy. 'It was a deadly force situation, is what I thought, and I used the tool I had available to me,' Bessner said. After Grimes crashed the ATV, Bessner said he and his partner tried to help the teen. He also searched the victim for a gun. 'I was shocked that he didn't have a weapon. I was shocked at the magnitude of what had happened,' Bessner testified. Prosecutors said Bessner, who quit the state police after the incident, created a very high risk of death with the Taser. State police officials supported the second-degree murder charge, saying Grimes' death was a crime. Bodycam video released in April revealed harsh remarks Detroit officers made in response to Grimes' condition, leading up to his death. The footage, which does not include dashcam video from the pursuit vehicle that Bessner was riding in, shows local cops arriving on the scene within 30 seconds. 'He's got a pulse, and he's breathing. He's unconscious,' Bessner said into his police radio as he hunches over Grimes on the pavement. 'He slowed down. We tased him, and he crashed out,' Bessner added over the radio later. 'His pulse is weakening, what's our ETA on EMS,' says one officer over the radio as Detroit Police officer Kimberly Buckner pulled up in her patrol car. 'His pulse is weakening because he was on that f**kin' thing, and you chased his a**,' Buckner muttered to herself as she stepped out of her vehicle, her body camera recording. 'Don't run from the State Police, you'll get f**ked up,' another unidentified officer on the scene comments. An ambulance arrives about seven minutes after the crash, one minute faster than the city average for life-threatening incidents. Grimes is seen on an ATV that appears to be the same one he died on while fleeing cops As the ambulance leaves Detroit Police officer Aubrey Wade (far right) dismisses the idea of providing a police escort to the hospital. 'Hell no. For him?' says Wade Wade (far right) said he had 'no patience for bulls**t' in a conversation after Grimes was transported; Wade was reassigned to non-patrol duty after for his harsh remarks Officer Emily Stephenson's body cam shows her approaching fellow Detroit Police officer Aubrey Wade to ask if they should give the ambulance an escort to the hospital. 'Hell no. For him?' Wade responded, noting the ambulance has lights and sirens, and escorts are reserved for police. 'If an officer was shot, we'll do that.' As the ambulance departed, Buckner approached Wade and commented that Grimes' mother needed to be at the hospital. 'That's a grown-ass man,' he said of Grimes, a 6-foot-1, 234-pound teenager. 'No, he's 15,' she replied. 'He's 15 years old.' 'He's a bad-ass 15,' Wade said, later adding: 'No sympathy at all for bulls**t. Motherf**ker wanna be grown, ya act grown, you gotta f**kin' deal with it.' Bessner is seen center in court in December, when he was charged with second-degree murder; A spokesperson for the prosecutor's office says Bessner will be retried, with the next hearing scheduled in the case for November 7 Wade, a 22-year veteran, was pulled from his position of neighborhood resource officer after the Detroit Free Press reported his remarks on April 13. He was reassigned to a non-patrol duty. Grimes was transported to St. Johns Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. An autopsy concluded Grimes died of blunt force head trauma. He was about to begin ninth grade at Michigan Collegiate in Warren. Grimes' family has filed a wrongful death suit. A spokesperson for the prosecutor's office says Bessner will be retried, with the next hearing scheduled in the case for November 7. Advertisement Haunting photos give an inside peek at the crumbing 190-year-old remains of one of the first lunatic asylums established in the United States. The chilling tales of experiments and patients of the past seem to echo in the creaky halls of the South Carolina State Hospital with its wallpaper ripped, floor boards broken, and random bits of furniture strewn about. The hospital was founded in 1821 as the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum - one of the first public mental heath institutions in the country. In 1896 the hospital changed its name to the South Carolina State Hospital for the Insane. With an extensive and creepy history, the remnants of the once bustling hospital offers a spooky look at what once was. Urban explorer Abandoned Southeast ventured in to the historic South Carolina State Hospital, an abandoned national landmark that was founded in 1821 The corridors inside the ancient 190-year-old building reveal doors that are still open and the cracked paint on the walls Patient beds were abandoned in severely decaying rooms that once housed over 1,000 mental patients over the years A dusty piano with displaced and scattered keys, creepy rocking chair, and a sprawling white corridor with doors still flung open are just some of the items left behind in the ancient building. Urban explorer Abandoned Southeast ventured in to the old building to snap photos of its decaying state. 'After reading about the asylum online, I decided I wanted to visit and see it in person,' he said. 'This is an abandoned state hospital that predates the Civil War, I love the historic aspect as well as the architecture in these old asylums,' he added. But his exploration was no easy feat as he had to watch every step to avoid broken floorboards and rotten wood. The hospital was founded in 1821 as the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum and was one of the first public mental heath institutions in the country Random bits of dusty furniture still remain in the creepy building including this dismantled wooden piano A single rocking chair missing half its side is a haunting image from inside the mental hospital dubbed the 'Lunatic Asylum' Windows are broken, grass and vegetation overgrown, and some walls covered in graffiti in the abandoned building A view of the staircases reveal how many floors the massive hospital had before it was emptied out in the 1990s 'There were no real issues whilst shooting other than watching where you step. The wooden floors were extremely rotten in some areas,' he said. The hospital has a long history and was once one of the most esteemed for mental health care in the nation. During the American Civil War the hospital in Columbia, South Carolina housed traumatized veterans from 1861 to 1865. Broken windows reveal a view at the Columbia, South Carolina scenery from the crumbling hospital Vandals have managed to break into t he building that's severely decaying with loose floorboards and rotten wood This bench overgrown with weeds is where patients would have sat outside to enjoy the fresh air during their stay 'This is an abandoned state hospital that predates the Civil War, I love the historic aspect as well as the architecture in these old asylums,' urban explorer Abandoned Southeast said An aerial view shows a glimpse of how massive the South Carolina State Hospital campus was until it was left to rot in the 90s Now a fence surrounds the national landmark warning trespassers to stay away from the creepy building By 1870 there were so many patients that the hospital was more of a dormitory for the mentally ill rather than a place to treat them and by 1900 had more than 1,000 patients in its doors. As medicine, science, and facilities for mental illness patients expanded, the hospital beds were quickly emptied out. The discovery of phenothiazine in the 1950s allowed many patients to roam freely and the launch of social welfare programmes in the sixties saw patients relocated to community based mental health centres. By the 1990s, the wards were slowly being closed as patients were discharged to homes or placed in local care facilities. Police have arrested a woman they believe slit throat of a 70-year-old Manhattan copywriter who was found dead in her apartment earlier this month, in what cops speculate was a neighbor dispute turned deadly. Anya Johnston, 24, was arrested Wednesday on charges of murder and burglary for killing Susan Trott, 70, who lived in the unit just one floor below her in a luxury Upper West Side apartment. She is currently hospitalized at Mount Siani St. Lukes and has to undergo psychiatric evaluation prior to being questioned, according to ABC. The motive for the killing is still under investigation. But according to locals, Trott got into many spats with her neighbors who tried to boot her out of the co-op, complaining about her love for animals and how she rented out a vacant apartment next to hers. Victim: Police announced they arrested Anya Johnston, 24, on Wednesday as the suspected killer of Upper West Side woman Susan Trott, 70, (pictured above) who was found with her throat slit in her luxury apartment on October 21 Cops believe Trott and Johnston may have had arguments in the past, although it's unclear what their conflicts were. Susan Trott was found with her throat slashed inside her bedroom on the morning of Sunday October 21. Cops began to search for a female neighbor at the luxury apartment located at West End Avenue near 95th Street. Authorities reported no signs of forced entry, no murder weapon at the scene, and the apartment was not ransacked. The apartment also has a doorman. NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said after Trott's murder NYPD believed 'all the pieces of that puzzle are within that building'. Trott was a successful copy writer and major player in the advertising industry for decades, working for firms including BBDO, J Walter Thompson, McCann-Erickson, Satchi & Satchi and Y&R and for brands like Levi's, Nickelodeon, Ambien, Virgin Atlantic, and Air Canada. She was running her own ad company out of her apartment. NYPD suspected a neighbor may have been behind the slaying as the apartment has a doorman and there was no sign of forced entry in the apartment. Johnston lives in the unit directly above Trott's in the Upper West Side luxury apartment (above) She was married twice but single at the time of her death and had no children according to her records. She split her time between London and New York and owned an apartment in Manhattan as well as a home upstate. Trott's friend said that she had gotten into altercations - at times physical - with with neighbors over the past decade. She was attacked her over her apartment and love of animals, her longtime business partner and friend Eric Boscia, who is based in London, said to the New York Post. 'I said it would be someone in the building. I said if anything looks foul, it was someone in the building...the people that abused her most were her neighbors,' he said. Trott had told friends that her co-op board was trying to boot her out. The first fight ensued when she purchased a vacant apartment next to her own and would have friends stay there. Some neighbors complained that she was illegally renting the apartment out, spurring the board's anger. 'She would say, "Theyre my friends, theyre from Australia, theyre from Japan, theyre staying for like three to four weeks. [The board] were giving her issues with that,' Boscia said. Another fight ensured over her rescue dogs who were both near death. Johnston faces charges of murder and burglary and is currently hospitalized at Mount Siani St. Lukes to undergo psychiatric evaluation prior to being questioned 'She was taking them out in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. And when they couldnt walk anymore because they were so sick, she would carry them,' he said. Yet neighbors complained she didn't use leashes and that the dogs were aggressive. Yet another fight was over how she carried a loaf of bread or a bag of birdseed around to feed pigeons on the corner of West End Avenue and in Riverside Park. Residents complained that the birds attracted rats. To others, she was just a kind local bird lady. 'She was very prominent person, who in retirement was going around the neighborhood, feeding the birds and the squirrels,' a local retiree named Stefan told the Post. 'She was just trying to do good in her later days. Whenever she was in my presence, she was very respectable. Ive seen her do nothing but good,' he added. Despite the fights, she refused to move. Boscia said residents were writing anonymous letters to the board about her and neighbors started harassing her. In one instance her clothes were strewn about the laundry room after she put them in the machine. 'She had neighbors harassing her. Ive witnessed it. Theyd be outside yelling at her for things, for feeding the birds. They would say something to her about the dog, like, "Get your dog back!"' Boscia said. 'And I think it got very serious this summer. A lot of times, she wouldnt want to leave the apartment,' he added. Her death shocked the Upper West Side. Police conducted a welfare check after a friend and colleague notified authorities after she failed to show up to work and hadn't been heard from in days. Once police entered the resident they found a trail of blood leading into the bedroom. Upon arrival police observed an unconscious and unresponsive 70 year-old female with a laceration to her neck,' an NYPD officer told DailyMail.com. There was initially no suspect and police believed Trott may have been dead for 24 hours by the time her body was discovered. Her last correspondence was four days before she went missing. Mayor Bill de Blasio was forced to apologize to the victims of eight people killed in a terrorist attack last Halloween after failing to mention their names during a 12-minute speech at a memorial service to mark one year since their deaths on Wednesday. On October 31, 2017, eight people, including six foreign visitors, were murdered when Uzbekistan terrorist Sayfullo Saipov plowed into them with a truck on a bicycle path on the West Side Highway in Tribeca. The victims were Nicholas Cleeves, 23, Darren Drake, 32, Ann-Laure Decadt, 31, and friends Diego Enrique Angelini, Ariel Erlij, Hernan Ferruchi, Hernan Diego Mendoza and Alejandro Damian Pagrucco. During his speech on Wednesday, de Blasio mentioned none of them but managed to cite 13 separate police officers and elected officials by name, repeatedly gush over the 'resiliency' of New Yorkers and even praise the school children who witnessed the attack from their building and went back to class the next day. The friends and family of some of the victims of the attack were seated in the front row. Hugh Hales-Tooke (center) refused to shake the mayor's hand afterwards After his speech, he was approached by an angry loved one of one of those who died and was chastised for the glaring omission. He then returned to the podium and apologized for not doing so early and read the names but was angrily corrected when he mispronounced Cleeves' name. The victims' families were not told about the event until 4pm yesterday. It means that the mother of Cleeves, the only New Yorker among them, could not even attend. She had already planned to be out of town to try to escape the harrowing reminders of the traumatic day and could not rearrange her plans to get back in time to attend. De Blassio spoke for 12 minutes without mentioning any of the victims' names. He did mention 13 officials and cops and spoke repeatedly about New Yorkers' 'resiliency' Nicholas Cleeves, 23, was the only New Yorker killed. His mother could not attend because she was only told about the service by the mayor's office at 4pm yesterday. When de Blasio eventually read his name, he mispronounced it and was corrected by one of Cleeves' friends who attended New Jersey resident Darren Drake, 32, and Belgian tourist Ann-Laure Decadt, 31, were killed Five members of this group of Argentinian friends were also killed. They are Hernan Diego Mendoza (far left), Alejandro Damian Pagnucco (second from left), Ariel Erlij (third from left), Diego Enrique Angelini (second from right) and Hernan Ferruchi (third from right) It is unlikely that any of the relatives of the victims from Belgium or Argentina had time to get to New York for it. A spokesman for the mayor's office conceded in a statement to DailyMail.com that his speech and the organization of the event did not go as smoothly as planned. 'The program didnt originally include a reading of the names. When the families raised the issue, the Mayor agreed and read the names. 'And while the event came together very recently, these families should have been invited earlier,' they said. This was the rented Home Depot truck Saipov used to mow down the cyclists and pedestrians on the cycle path While de Blasio thanked the family and friends of loved ones who attended, it is not clear exactly whose relatives out of those that were killed were able to get there. Only two of the eight people killed were America. Ann-Laure Decadt was visiting from Belgium and friends Diego Enrique Angelini, Ariel Erlij, Hernan Ferruchi, Hernan Diego Mendoza and Alejandro Damian Pagrucco were all visiting from Argentina. Sayfullo Saipov remains in custody The mayor's office would not clarify whether any of their relatives attended the event. Despite it being unclear whether any of their families or friends went, de Blasio read a portion of his speech in Spanish for the Argentinian victims. Hugh Hales-Tooke is a friend of Cleeves' mother. He attended in her absence because she could not arrange to be there with the short notice given by the mayor's office. 'It is so traumatic for her to be in the city today that she is in the Boston area and wasnt told about this memorial service until 4 p.m. yesterday. 'Shes very hurt. She was very hurt,' he told The New York Post. He was outraged by the mayor's speech, saying: 'I didnt hear a thing about the lives, the people. Nicholas Cleves was born and bred in New York. 'He loved this city. His mothers destroyed by this. 'I thought that was what this was about, that this is a moment where we would say, "You know, we care, we really do care," but I didnt get the feeling. [The mayor] said this attack has been in our hearts for a year... Really, do you believe that?' he said. He refused to shake the mayor's hand afterwards and was who shouted out the correct pronunciation of Cleeves' name when de Blasio got it wrong. Saipov remains in custody. Teams participating in the first Solar Decathlon - Middle East (SDME) 2018 have started to construct the houses they designed for the competition at Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, said Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) in an introductory meeting for the teams. Teams were briefed about health and safety, logistics, and other organisational issues. Teams have to build and operate cost-effective and energy-efficient sustainable solar-powered homes, with a focus on protecting the environment, taking into consideration the regional climate. The participating teams will take part in 10 contests: architecture; engineering and building; energy management; energy efficiency; comfort conditions; house functioning; sustainable transport; sustainability; communications, and innovation. A total of 15 teams representing 28 universities from 11 countries are taking part in the first SDME, which Dewa is organising in partnership with the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, and the US Department of Energy. The second SDME will be held in 2020 to coincide with Expo 2020 Dubai. The total prizes for the first and second completions exceed Dh20 million ($5.4 million). Dewa has dedicated over 60,000 sq m for the competition at the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in Seih Al Dahl in Dubai. Dewa has invited the public to visit SDME to view the houses and meet the teams from November 14 to 29. This Solar Decathlon is especially important as it is being organised in the Year of Zayed, which marks 100 years since the birth of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, may his soul rest in peace, who consolidated the principles of sustainable development in the UAE. I am pleased to welcome you to the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, the largest single-site solar park in the world, said Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, vice chairman of the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy and managing director and CEO of Dewa. This has been selected as the site of the competition due to its importance as a pioneer for a new phase of green economy. This is part of the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 to provide 75 per cent of Dubai's total power output from clean energy, and make Dubai the city with the lowest carbon footprint in the world, added Al Tayer. When I met some of you in the workshops we organised, I experienced your determination to make a difference, and I was impressed by the innovative designs I saw. Im confident that your model homes will be important additions that can be implemented in smart homes. This will contribute to the conservation and sustainability of natural resources, for generations to come. Your designs and models will also encourage your colleagues at your universities and other universities around the world to participate in the second Solar Decathlon Middle East. We will organise this in conjunction with Expo 2020 Dubai, whose theme Connecting Minds Creating the Future, fits well with this leading international competition, said Al Tayer, addressing the students. TradeArabia News Service CNN host Don Lemon is facing criticism over recent remarks suggesting that white men are 'the biggest terror threat in this country'. Lemon, the host of CNN Tonight, made the remarks on Monday in a guest appearance on fellow CNN host Chris Cuomo's show, Cuomo Prime Time. Cuomo and Lemon were discussing the fatal shooting of two black shoppers in Kentucky last week, in what has been classified a hate crime. 'I keep trying to point out to people not to demonize any one group or any one ethnicity, but we keep thinking that the biggest terror threat is something else,' Lemon said, beginning his remarks. CNN's Don Lemon: "We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them." pic.twitter.com/OFu9fL3eHn Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) October 31, 2018 Cuomo (left) and Lemon (right) were discussing the fatal shooting of two black shoppers by a white gunman in Kentucky last week when Lemon called white men 'the biggest terror threat' 'Some people who are marching towards the border like it's imminent. And the last time they did this, a couple of hundred people came and they, you know, most of them didn't get into the country. Most of them got tuckered out before they even made it to the border,' Lemon told Cuomo. 'So we have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them,' Lemon continued. Cuomo, a white man who is the son of one Democratic governor of New York and brother to another, looked on impassively as Lemon carried on. 'There is no travel ban on them,' Lemon said. 'There is no ban on you know, they had the Muslim ban. There is no 'white guy ban.' So what do we do about that?' Cuomo told Lemon he was 'making the right point.' A spokesperson for Lemon declined to comment on the remarks to DailyMail.com. 'So we have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right,' said Lemon (right) Lemon's comments were not widely noticed until Ryan Saavedra, a reporter for the conservative news outlet Daily Wire, posted a clip of the exchange on Twitter on Tuesday night. The remarks quickly drew backlash from the right. 'Disgusting! Imagine the outrage if you changed 'white men' with any other demographic?' tweeted Don Trump Jr, the President's son. 'I too cant understand why traditional media continues to lose credibility, when Megyn Kelly is fired over questionable references to Halloween costumes, but Don Lemon is given a national platform to spew overt racism to an audience of literally dozens on his low rated show,' joked Steve Deace, a conservative host for CRTV and The Blaze. Other Twitter users pointed out that Lemon's own boyfriend is a white man. In a column, Federalist Senior Editor David Harsanyi lamented that Lemon's remarks were 'unsurprising' in the age of 'identity politics'. 'The notion that a persons race predisposes him to act violently is unequivocally racist,' Harsanyi wrote. 'Its also easily debunked by a cursory reading of history.' Some commentators pointed out that Tim Malone, Lemon's boyfriend, is a white man. They are seen together above at the Hamptons premier of BLACKkKLANSMAN in August However, Lemon's supporters also took to Twitter to defend his remarks. 'Maybe @donlemon has a point!!!!! What IS lunatic is ALL of the massacres created by the White man against Native Americans and Blacks,' tweeted user @independusa. 'People of color STILL fear for their lives walking down the streets in 2018! Its an American tragedy! Reprehensible!' Lemon did not address the conversation with Cuomo in his show on Tuesday night, which did however deal extensively with racial issues. At one point in the show, Lemon called President Donald Trump's use of the word 'nationalist' at a recent rally 'a wink and a nod to white nationalism'. A source familiar with Lemon's thinking told DailyMail.com that he had no plans to apologize or back off from the comment that 'the biggest terror threat in this country is white men'. The comment came in the midst of a conversation between Lemon and Cuomo about recent tragedies that have been classified as hate crimes. Maurice Stallard, 69, and Vickie Jones, 67, were shot dead in a grocery store last Wednesday in a Jeffersonton, Kentucky. Lemon was discussing the murders of Maurice Stallard, 69, (left) and Vickie Jones, 67, (right) who were shot dead in a grocery store last Wednesday in a Jeffersonton, Kentucky Both victims were black. Police say the suspected shooter, 51-year-old Gregory Bush, who is white, attempted and failed to get into a black church before shooting up the supermarket. The murders are being charged as a hate crime. The story received little coverage, as it was overshadowed by the spate of suspicious packages targeting critics of President Donald Trump. The suspect in that case, 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc, is half Filipino and half Italian, and falsely proclaimed himself to be a Native American and member of the Seminole tribe. Sayoc, an apparent ardent fan of Trump who had a van plastered with stickers supporting the President, was quickly labeled a 'white supremacist' after his former employer at a pizza shop, Debra Gureghian, told CNN that he was 'anti-gay, anti-black, anti-Jewish.' Gureghian claimed that Sayoc subjected her to abuse for being Jewish and a lesbian, but that she was unable to fire him because it was too difficult to find good delivery drivers. Finally, on Saturday, the country was shocked by the shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Robert Bowers, a 46-year-old truck driver, is accused of raging through the Tree of Life synagogue as he gunned down 11 and wounded six. Bowers was charged on Wednesday in a 44-count indictment with murder, hate crimes and other offenses that could bring the death penalty. Donald Trump warned on Halloween that investors would 'lose a lot of money,' if Democrats win control of Congress next week. The Dow was up 400 points on Tuesday after a tumultuous start to the week. Still, with hours left to to go before the markets closed for the final time in October, the index was down by 5.9 percent for the month, CNBC reported. 'I will say this, they're waiting for the results of the midterms,'Trump declared at a White House event on Wednesday. 'And if the midterms for some reason don't do so well for Republicans, I think you're all going to lose a lot of money.' Donald Trump warned on Halloween that investors would 'lose a lot of money,' if Democrats win control of Congress next week The president has warned previously that Democrats would reverse his corporate and personal tax cuts if voters put them in charge of the legislative branch. He's also claimed that their leadership would be bad for job creation and would result in policies that would hurt American workers. Trump said the stock market would suffer, too, on Wednesday as he celebrated the week's gains. 'We have an economy that's the hottest economy right now in the world, and I guess the stock market is up to, getting close to 50 per cent - if you think about it, that's incredible - since the election,' Trump told his CNBC host turned economic adviser Larry Kudlow during an interview. 'It's up another 400 points. It was up 450 or so points yesterday and it's just doing well.' If Republicans keep control of the House and Senate, the president predicted the market would see improvements. It's currently at it's lowest point since August of 2015 even with GDP growth that topped 4 percent over the summer. 'I hate to say that. I think you're going to lose a lot of money. People are waiting on your 401(k)s and everything else. They're waiting to see what happens with the midterms,' Trump asserted. Still talking about the federal elections on Nov. 6, Trump predicted: 'If it comes out good, I think the market's going to continue to go through a period like we've never seen before.' Trump made a similar argument on Twitter on Tuesday about the market This morning, the president optimistically pointed to stock market in a tweet that said. 'Today looks to be another good one. Companies earnings are great!' As the markets were about to close, the Dow was up 282 points, or 1.13 percent. At the event with Kudlow at the White House that the president's daughter, Ivanka, also spoke at the president trumpeted his protectionist trade policies as another reason the economy is improving. 'One of the things I'm very proud of is the steel industry. The steel industry was dead. It was as dead as a doornail. We weren't going to have a steel industry in two years,' he said. The real estate tycoon asserted that there are 'certain industries' the United States can do without, but steel isn't one of them. 'If you don't have steel, you don't have defense,' he contended. The president also talked about his successful run on 'The Apprentice' at the event after Kudlow brought the television show up that transformed Trump into a household name, which helped him win the presidency. 'I did The Apprentice, which became a great show, a very, very successful show. Tremendously successful. I did it for 14 seasons, 12 years. So successful they put it on twice sometimes,' he asserted. 'And as soon as I left, that show went down the tubes. So you know? Just one of those things, right?' Trump has claimed that NBC wanted to re-sign him for the show that it cancelled amid poor ratings after it replaced the president with actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's gleefully mocked his rival in the past for the bad showing. He seemed to be having second thoughts about the cancellation of the long-running program on Wednesday, however, as he mused to his audience, 'I don't know if I feel happy about that or sad. I've never figured that out.' A violent child sex offender who was jailed in Bermuda for attacking a five-year-old girl has been sent to the UK for treatment on the NHS. Merrick Seaman was transferred to a secure hospital for mental health treatment paid for by the British taxpayer after a court ruled he was still a danger to the community. The Supreme Court in the British overseas territory ruled the 33-year-old should be transferred to the hospital in Northampton after it was decided he would 'likely' cause harm to the community if no action was taken. He had been held under the Mental Health Act at the Corrections Department's Co-Educational Facility at Ferry Reach, St George's, in the Caribbean island for three months after he was moved from the high-security Westgate Correctional Facility at Ireland Island North. Seaman, who suffers from schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, lured the girl into a laundry area in a residential block and subjected her to a sex attack. Merrick Seaman was transferred from Bermuda to a secure hospital for treatment in the UK after a court ruled he was a danger to the community if no action was taken he told doctors he would go on a killing spree if he was ever freed He was jailed for eight years in 2011 after he was convicted of a serious sexual assault on the five-year-old girl. Wayne Caines, the Bermudan Minister of National Security, revealed yesterday that Seaman is now in a UK high-security hospital called St Andrew's. He said: 'I can confirm that on September 4, Mr Seaman was transferred to a suitable clinical location in the UK for the necessary treatment. 'He is no longer under the care or supervision of the Bermuda Department of Corrections.' A judge in Bermuda said he needed to be treated in the UK to protect the public as he reached the end of his jail term. Seaman was eligible for parole in April 2013 but it was recommended that his release should be delayed until the risk of him committing further offences was reduced. He was given another psychiatric review the following year after he said: 'I intend to go on a killing spree when I get out of jail.' Then Chief Justice Richard Ground ruled the offender should serve his sentence at Westgate rather than be detained under a Mental Health Act order. Seaman was convicted of wounding another inmate in 2016, which earned him an extra nine months on his sentence. His earliest possible release date was June 15 but the Government moved him to the CoEd two days earlier. St Andrew's Healthcare in Northampton will house Seaman after the Supreme Court in Bermuda ruled he needed mental health treatment A Supreme Court judgment published in August showed the Ministry of Health and Bermuda Hospitals Board sought a hospital detention order to allow Seaman to be moved to a UK hospital. Emcee Chekwas, a British psychologist, carried out a risk assessment and recommended that Seaman get further treatment as there was a 'high risk' of further offences. The expert said: 'The services likely to help him are currently unavailable in Bermuda and, even where intervention abroad could be secured, he will require long-term care.' The problem of how to deal with prisoners with psychiatric illness has been discussed for years because of the island's lack of high-security accommodation in a hospital. Seaman was jailed for eight years in 2011 after he was convicted of a serious sexual assault on the five-year-old girl The Bermuda Government signed an agreement for the transfer of prisoners to the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust in Britain in 2010. An agreement with St Andrews Healthcare in Northampton was signed in 2017, but the Bermuda Hospitals Board (BHB) said at the time 'complex legal considerations' still had to be resolved. Parliament passed legislation in June to help those who need psychiatric treatment in a 'medium or high-security unit not available in Bermuda'. Kim Wilson, the Minister of Health, said prisoners sent to Britain would be treated free of charge under the National Health Service. Katina Anagnostakis, a forensic psychiatrist at St Andrew's Healthcare, in Northampton, England, said it was likely Seaman's condition would deteriorate without further treatment. She said the facility would admit him if the courts in Bermuda and the UK approved the move. Puisne Judge Shade Subair ruled Seaman could be sent overseas for care and treatment. She said in a written judgment: 'The wider purpose is to protect the community from further harm, which Seaman would likely cause if not further detained and treated.' The judge said he should be detained at St Andrew's. Mrs Justice Subair added: 'It would be irresponsible for this court to impose an artificial time limit on the period of Seaman's hospital detainment overseas merely for the sake of defining his term of detention. 'However, this court will review and monitor his progress by receipt of progress reports from the applicants at six-month intervals. A court hearing review on Seaman's mental health prognosis shall also be held one year from now.' Island courts are also expected to get progress reports on Seaman every six months. Child asylum seekers living in the Nauru detention centre will all be relocated to Australia by the end of this year. The federal government has confirmed plans to move the children off the tiny Pacific Island nation, according to The Australian. As of Monday, 40 children of asylum seekers remain on Nauru and an unofficial timeline has been set to have them brought to Australia. A total of 46 infants have been born to asylum seekers since Nauru was reopened for processing in 2012, an average of about eight a year. The federal government has confirmed plans to move all child asylum seekers off Nauru (pictured) by the end of 2018 As of Monday, 40 children of asylum seekers remain on Nauru, down from 244 when the detention centre was opened in 2012 (pictured) In the past several years, 244 minors have been taken to Australia from offshore detention centres. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has confirmed the government has been 'quietly' removing children from Nauru 'in accordance with our policies'. Three children have already been taken to Australian hospitals for medical treatment or assessment in the past few days. Former Attorney-General George Brandis, now Australia's high commissioner to the UK, told London radio station LBC there were 'hardly any children' left on Nauru, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. A total of 46 infants have been born to asylum seekers since Nauru was reopened for processing in 2012 'This is a problem that has largely gone away. There are hardly any children in Nauru and in New Guinea and we expect that by the end of this year there'll be none,' Mr Brandis said. 'We are very strict on illegal entrants, we are very generous towards refugees and we are very embracing of, and very proud of, having a large intake of migrants every year.' The issue of asylum seekers on Nauru has shot to prominence in the past few weeks, with Mr Morrison under immense pressure to relocate children and their families. A YouGov Galaxy poll commissioned by The Sunday Telegraph revealed 79 per cent of people wanted children and their families transferred off the island. Last weekend, thousands of refugee supporters rallied in Sydney and Melbourne calling for the asylum seekers to be moved from the Nauru detention centre. Accused murder James Rackover, 27, is said to have filmed Louis Ruggiero (pictured), the son of Good Day New York host Rosanna Scotto, having paid sex and then used it to extort him into paying joint gambling debts A playboy ex-convict on trial for murder is also accused of filming the son of Good Day New York host Rosanna Scotto having sex with a sex worker and using that video to extort him into having his mother pay off their joint gambling debts. James Rackover, 27, is on trial for allegedly stabbing Joey Comunale, 26, to death after an argument at his ritzy apartment on New York's Upper East Side before burning and dumping his body in November of 2016. Prosecutors said on Tuesday that Louis Ruggiero, son of Scotto, was filmed while having paid sex in the bedroom of Rackover's 'surrogate father' and jeweler-to-the-stars Jeffrey Rackover. Assistant District Attorney Antoinette Carter asserted that Rackover said he'd show 'all of the prostitution photographs and video of the two of them engaging in sexual activity with prostitutes' to Ruggiero's girlfriend if he didn't claim full liability over a $20,000 gambling book the two had allegedly purchased together and taken a loss on, the New York Post reported. 'Mr. Rackover basically tried to threaten Mr. Ruggiero if he did not tell his mother that he was the sole reason for the losses,' Carter said in Manhattan Supreme Court. Carter made the argument outside the presence of the jury and without Ruggiero in the room. Justice James Burke denied Carters request to question Ruggiero with regard to the alleged threat in front of jurors. Prosecutors wanted to question Ruggiero (right) about the alleged threat to show the footage to Ruggiero's girlfriend if he didn't comply with having his mother, Good Day New York host Rosanna Scotto (left), pay the full liability off, but the judge denied the request During Ruggiero's cross-examination on Monday, he was forced to admit to his past with drug addiction including the use of cocaine, Xanax, OxyContin and marijuana, a habit that at times cost him $1,200 a day. Communale's body was found in a shallow grave in Oceanport, New Jersey, after his father reported him missing when he didn't come home to Stamford, Connecticut, after his trip to the city on 2016. On Monday, Ruggiero testified that Rackover told him he killed a man in his apartment the day after it occurred. Ruggiero recalled Rackover saying: 'I slit his throat and I stabbed him and we wrapped the body up in a comforter and threw it out the window so the cameras wouldn't see.' Ruggiero testified that Rackover made the admission inside an Equinox gym locker room. Rackover covered his face with a white handkerchief to avoid looking at autopsy photographs of Comunale's body in court on Tuesday, the New York Post reported. James Rackover (left, in court last year, and right) refused to look at horrific images showing the charred corpse of his alleged victim, Joey Comunale, 26, in court Rackover (left) is accused of stabbing Joey Comunale (right) to death after an argument at his ritzy apartment on New York's Upper East Side Assistant Medical Examiner Alex Zhang was describing the injuries Comunale sustained using the images as a visual aide for jurors. One that was flashed up on screen showed Comunale's severely charred body his eyebrows singed and skin mottled lying on a table in the medical examiner's office. Jurors expressed shock at the images, some glancing at Rackover who hid his face with the handkerchief or scribbled notes in a bid to avoid the screen, according to the Post. They were so gruesome that Comunale's father, who has attended every day of the trial so far, left the room. Prosecutors allege Rackover and his friend Lawrence Dilione (left), of Jersey City, tried to dismember Comunale before dumping his body. Dilione will be tried separately Zhang said Comunale had sustained at least 14 stab wounds that cut through several major arteries as well as a collapsed lung. Prosecutors also flashed up an image showing a five-inch wound on Comunale's upper right arm. They allege Rackover and his friend Lawrence Dilione, of Jersey City, tried to sever the limb after killing Comunale. Dilione will be tried separately. The pair allegedly got into a fight with Comunale over cigarettes during an alcohol and drug-fueled party at Rackover's apartment on East 59th Street. The 26-year-old's (pictured) body was found in a shallow grave in Oceanport, New Jersey, after his father reported him missing when he didn't come home to Connecticut Jurors heard they ordered $78.82 of food from Bareburger on Seamless - including buffalo chicken bites and a beef burger, cooked medium rare, according to an invoice read out in court. At the time, Comunales body was allegedly in the bathtub. Prosecutors say they later wrapped his body in blankets and drove to Oceanport, where they doused Comunale in gasoline and set him on fire before burying his remains. Tuesday's evidence ended with a recorded call Rackover made to a woman from jail. 'They're going to be like, yo, this kid just f****** beat this sh** like Rocky and he's home,' Rackover said during the call, the Post reports. Rackover is charged with second-degree murder, hindering prosecution, tampering with evidence and concealing a human corpse. The trial continues. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his proposal for an executive order ending America's tradition of birthright citizenship should be no more controversial than his predecessor's similar creation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program six years ago. Barack Obama instituted DACA with the stroke of his pen, forbidding the deportation of more than 1 million people who came to the U.S. as minors, brought across the border by deportable illegal immigrants. Trump wants to attack a different facet of what he calls a 'broken' immigration policy, declaring on his own that when a woman who is illegally on U.S. soil gives birth, her child is not automatically an American citizen. Obama, Trump told reporters outside the White House, 'actually said' of DACA, '"well, this isn't legal," or "this i can't do, but i'll do it anyway," and then he gets a judge to approve it.' 'Certainly if he can do DACA, we can do this by executive order,' Trump declared. President Donald Trump wants to sign an executive order ending birthright citizenship, and claims the idea isn't so different from Obama's order creating DACA Obama signed an order in 2012 exempting from deportation more than 1 milion people who had been brought illegally into the U.S. when they were under age 18 Trump spoke to reporters outside the White House on Wednesday as Marine One, his military helicopter, idled on the South Lawn He said he hopes the fate of the DACA program, which he formally ended but a federal judge required the Department of Homeland Security to continue, is ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. His own attack on birthright citizenship could also end up before America's nine most senior jurists and quickly because it would run counter to how legal scholars have interpreted the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment for the last 120 years. The amendment, written in 1868 and last touched by the Supreme Court thirty years later, states that '[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,' are U.S. citizens.' Debate has raged since then about whether citizens of foreign countries are 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the United States. Some legal scholars believe that phrase only refers to hostile occupying armies and foreign diplomatic officials. Trump said Wednesday that the subject is 'much less complex than people think,' and he doesn't anticipate needing a Constitutional Amendment to get what he wants. 'I believe that you can have a simple vote in Congress, or it's even possible, in my opinion this is after meeting with some very talented, legal scholars that you can do it through an executive order,' he explained as the rotors from a waiting Marine One chopper whipped leaves through the air on the White House's South lawn. 'Id rather do it through Congress, because thats permanent,' he said, adding that 'I may very well do it by executive order.' Obama declared in 2012 that his administration would stop deporting a broad category of illegal immigrants, and used an executive order to do it Trump wants to end the tradition of conferring U.S. citizenship on babies born inside the country's borders regardless of whether their parents are Americans Hundreds of thousands of babies are born each year to illegal immigrants parents in the United States, and the conventional reading of the 14th Amendment gives them all citizenship rights something Canada is the only other First World country to offer (stock photo) Trump tweeted Wednesday that the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment only applies to people who aren't 'subject to the jurisdiction' of the U.S. meaning in his view that babies born to people in the country illegally don't enjoy its benefits The president cited Democrat Harry Reid, who was a Nevada senator in 1993 when he said 'no sane country' would grant automatic citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrant mothers Trump has spent much of the past 48 hours explaining his statement in a televised interview that the Constitution doesn't grant automatic citizenship to every child born inside the country's borders. On Wednesday morning he reintroduced the controversial term 'anchor baby' into the national debate and cited a retired Democratic Senate leader to support his argument. 'So-called Birthright Citizenship, which costs our Country billions of dollars and is very unfair to our citizens, will be ended one way or the other,' Trump tweeted. 'It is not covered by the 14th Amendment because of the words "subject to the jurisdiction thereof", the president added, before cutting his message off in mid-sentence and pausing for nearly an hour before continuing. 'Harry Reid was right in 1993, before he and the Democrats went insane,' Trump claimed, referring to a now-infamous Senate floor speech in which Reid, a Nevada Democrat and future Senate majority leader, blasted the practice of birthright citizenship. 'If making it easy to be an illegal immigrant isn't enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again,' Reid said in 1993. 'If you break our laws by entering our country without permission to give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship and guarantee a full access to all public and social services this society provides, and that's a lot of services. Is it any wonder that two-thirds of the babies born at taxpayer expense in county-run hospitals in Los Angeles are born to illegal alien mothers?' 'If making it easy to be an illegal immigrant isn't enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again,' Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid said in 1993, years before he became the Senate majority leader. A quarter-century later, he says he was wrong back then Trump on Wednesday posted a video clip of the moment, along with the caption: 'Harry Reid, when he was sane, agreed with us on Birthright Citizenship!' Hours later during his seven-minute gaggle with reporters, he snarked: 'All you have to do is take a look at what Harry Reid said in 1993. And guess what? Before he went insane, he got it right.' In a typical year about 250,000 illegal immigrants give birth in the U.S., driving conservative Republicans to stoke controversy about their long-term impacts on welfare systems, education costs and other drivers of the national debt. Current national policy stems from an 1898 Supreme Court ruling, but the high court has never spoken on the question of whether the 14th Amendment covers children born to people inside the U.S. illegally. On Wednesday Trump suggested Democrats' conversion away from Reid's 1993 positon is tied to the party's acceptance of an 'open borders' philosophy 'which brings massive Crime.' 'Dont forget the nasty term Anchor Babies,' he added. 'I will keep our Country safe. This case will be settled by the United States Supreme Court!' Reid, now retired, fired back at Trump hours after his tweet, saying he was wrong to advocate against illegal immigration a quarter-century ago. 'In 1993, around the time Donald Trump was gobbling up tax-free inheritance money from his wealthy father and driving several companies into bankruptcy, I made a mistake,' he said in a statement. 'After I proposed that awful bill, my wife Landra immediately sat me down and said, "Harry, what are you doing, dont you know that my father is an immigrant?" She set me straight.' Trump, he said, 'wants to destroy not build, to stoke hatred instead of unify. He can tweet whatever he wants while he sits around watching TV, but he is profoundly wrong.' Trump is unusual among American politicians for refusing to dance around the term 'anchor babies,' which refers to the practice of using an infant birth to establish a generations-long link to the U.S. one that can later bring more family members in. During one 2015 press conference in New Hampshire, he mocked a Hispanic reporter who challenged him to stop using what amounts to 'an offensive term.' Trump asked what he should say instead, and was told: 'The American born child of undocumented immigrants.' 'You want me to say that every time?' the future president mocked, dismissing the request as 'politically correct.' 'I'll use the term "anchor babies",' he insisted. Republican leaders are split on whether Trump can end the tradition of birthright citizenship with an executive order, as he said in an interview Monday that he intends to do. The vice president and the speaker of the House took opposite sides of the debate on Tuesday. House Speaker Paul Ryan insisted Tuesday that the White House can't use an executive order to change the government's interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution Trump, shown leaving the White House on Tuesday with first lady Melania Trump, has given his anti-illegal-immigrant base some new red meat with the proposal, just a week before the midterm elections Speaker Paul Ryan told a Kentucky radio interviewer that the White House would have to change the Constitution, which requires working with Congress, and couldn't act on its own. In 1993, around the time Donald Trump was gobbling up tax-free inheritance money from his wealthy father and driving several companies into bankruptcy, I made a mistake. After I proposed that awful bill, my wife Landra immediately sat me down and said, "Harry, what are you doing, dont you know that my father is an immigrant?" She set me straight. And in my 36 years in Washington, there is no more valuable lesson I learned than the strength and power of immigrants and no issue I worked harder on than fixing our broken immigration system. Immigrants are the lifeblood of our nation. They are our power and our strength. This president wants to destroy not build, to stoke hatred instead of unify. He can tweet whatever he wants while he sits around watching TV, but he is profoundly wrong. Former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada 'You obviously cannot do that. You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order,' Ryan said. And in a sour look back at the 2012 beginnings of the DACA program, which spared hundreds of thousands of 'Dreamers' from deportation, Ryan noted that 'we didnt like it when Obama tried changing immigration laws via executive action, and obviously as conservatives we believe in the Constitution.' 'As a conservative, I'm a believer in following the plain text of the Constitution, and I think in this case the 14th Amendment is pretty clear, and that would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process,' he added. 'But where we obviously totally agree with the president is getting at the root issue here, which is unchecked illegal immigration.' Vice President Mike Pence insisted Tuesday that there's nothing unconstitutional about Trump declaring that an babies born to illegal immigrants in the U.S. will no longer automatically become American citizens. 'We all know what the 14th Amendment says,' Pence told Politico during an on-stage interview. 'We all cherish the language of the 14th Amendment.' 'But the Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled on whether or not the language of the 14th Amendment, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," applies specifically to people who are in the country illegally,' Pence argued. Trump said in an interview with Axios that he wants to sign an order ending the practice of awarding citizenship to children who conservatives have long termed 'anchor babies.' Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that the Supreme Court has never ruled on whether the 14th Amendment applies to illegal immigrants; South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted that he'll introduce legislation mirroring Trump's executive order Graham sent a flurry of tweets agreeing with Trump's approach and offering to ingtroduce a bill that would codify it into law Trump's move came a week before midterm elections and after a second migrant caravan (pictured) crossed into Mexico on Monday Trump, who has long been critical of the practice, said: 'We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States... with all of those benefits. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end.' South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally on most issues but not always immigration questions, said in a series of tweets that he welcomes a change. 'Finally, a president willing to take on this absurd policy of birthright citizenship,' he said on Twitter. 'Ive always supported comprehensive immigration reform and at the same time the elimination of birthright citizenship.' 'The United States is one of two developed countries in the world who grant citizenship based on location of birth. This policy is a magnet for illegal immigration, out of the mainstream of the developed world, and needs to come to an end,' he added. Greham also tweeted that he will 'introduce legislation along the same lines as the proposed executive order from President.' A man has been photographed unloading a trolley full of baby formula into his car as desperate parents wait for an end to the chronic powder shortage. Radio personality Emily Jade O'Keeffe uploaded the photo to her Instagram account after she spotted the man at a shopping plaza in the Gold Coast suburb of Ashmore on Tuesday morning. 'Ive seen on TV that it happens in Sydney and Melbourne but I have never seen it on the Coast,' Ms O'Keefe told the Courier Mail. Scroll down for video Radio personality Emily Jade O'Keeffe uploaded the photo to her Instagram account, after she spotted the man at a shopping plaza in the Gold Coast suburb of Ashmore on Tuesday morning Young mothers took to the post on social media to air their struggles with trying to find the popular product. Ms O'Keeffe is a mother to a four-month-old boy and she said the comments from other parents were grounding. 'I have to get my baby formula on prescription and its behind the counter, so I didnt know there was such a struggle to get formula,' she wrote. While the shopper in the photo was lifting the baby formula out of a Woolworths-branded trolley, the supermarket denies selling the man the boxes. 'We have a two-tin limit per customer in place and receive our product orders in much smaller volumes at this store, a spokesperson for the store said. Ms O'Keefe said a chemist in the area could have sold the customer the baby formula. A spokesperson from the chemist told Daily Mail Australia a customer had placed an order with them. However, the store said it rarely sold baby formula in such large quantities and it had to order in the stock on request. The photo comes just days after vision emerged of a crush of customers storming a Woolworths store in Box Hill, a suburb in Melbourne's east. The buying frenzy began just minutes after the store opened its doors in the morning last week, according to witnesses. Customers queued almost to the end of an aisle, prompting staff to simply stack the boxes on a pallet in the stock room's doorway in preparation for the mad rush. Shoppers are filmed hustling through the otherwise empty store to be some of the first to collect the tins, which can sell for hundreds of dollars online. Shoppers were shocked to see a huge line of impatient customers almost the whole way down an aisle at a Woolworths in Box Hill, Melbourne, last week (pictured) After grabbing a box from the pallet, which was piled as high as their heads, customers jogged towards the checkout, aware they were being filmed. The boxes had arrived directly from suppliers and hadn't even been opened when the impatient buyers formed a queue snaking through the store. A man filming the stunning sight berated the line for buying so many tins of the sought-after formula just to make huge profits selling them online. 'Look at all these people... this should be illegal,' he said, as buyers covered their faces with their hands or hooded jumpers. For several years, Australian parents have been outraged at the practice by Asian 'daigous' - overseas shoppers who send products back to China - as few tins are left for their own children. The video prompted a barrage of complaints to Woolworths after it was posted online over the weekend. In response to the outcry, and uproar over a similar video recently filmed in another Melbourne suburb, the supermarket was forced to reinstate a two-tins-per-customer policy as of next week. Customers queued almost to the end of an aisle, prompting staff to simply stack the boxes on a pallet in the stock room's doorway in preparation for the mad rush 'We can confirm from next week the baby formula limit will revert to two tins per transaction,' it said. 'We'll closely monitor our on-shelf availability and feedback from customers as we make this adjustment. 'We encourage parents who find their chosen baby formula is not on the shelf to speak directly with the store manager for assistance.' The second video was shot at a Woolworths the Melbourne suburb of Chadstone and posted online last Sunday. Woolworths raised the tin per customer limit from two to eight in August, boasting it was keeping up with supply. Baby formula is lucrative market, with some people earning in excess of $100,000 per year by shipping the tins to willing buyers in China. Australia's tough regulations mean the formula is of higher quality and well-off parents are willing to pay more than five times the supermarket price. Julie Bishop has opened up about the tumultuous leadership spill which saw her relegated to parliament's back benches. The former Liberal deputy leader, 62, made an unsuccessful run at the party's leadership before WhatsApp messages revealed her colleagues had conspired against her. In an interview with Who Magazine's 2018 Sexiest People List issue, Ms Bishop refused to rule out a return to the upper echelon of politics and said she was 'considering her options' after quitting as foreign affairs minister. 'I don't focus on regrets. I'm very optimistic. I focus on what can be, rather than what should have been,' she told the publication. Julie Bishop (pictured with boyfriend David Panton) has opened up about the tumultuous leadership spill which saw her relegated to parliament's back benches Ms Bishop said was 'considering her options' after quitting her role as foreign affairs minister, saying her 'life changed dramatically in a matter of days' The former Liberal deputy leader, 62, made an unsuccessful run at the party's leadership before leaked WhatsApp messages (pictured) revealed her colleagues conspired against her She also appeared to make a joke about the pregnancy scandal involving former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce and his press secretary Vikki Campion. 'Politicians and sexiness is often not associated... Politicians and sex - that's often in the same sentence!' Leaked messages showed a coordinated betrayal against Ms Bishop as she attempted to succeed Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister. Ms Bishop was knocked out in the first round of voting. 'I wasn't aware of the WhatsApp messages and no-one told me of them. That was disappointing. But I'm comfortable with decisions I took. It was a very intense, high-pressure environment and I had to make a number of decisions without my usual deep analysis of the consequences of those decisions,' she said. Leaked messages showed a coordinated betrayal against Ms Bishop as she attempted to succeed Malcolm Turnbull (right) as Liberal Party leader and prime minister Ms Bishop has been named as one of Who magazine's sexiest people in Australia She said people had told her they were puzzled and frustrated with politicians after the leadership spill, saying they disapproved of the 'self-interest' shown by MPs in Canberra. There has been speculation she could succeed Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove when his five-year term finishes in March next year. Ms Bishop admitted her life had 'obviously changed dramatically in a matter of days' but remained tight-lipped when pressed about her plans for the next ten years. A heartless thief stole a Leicester City shirt from outside the Thai embassy in London - left as a tribute to the club's owner who died in a tragic helicopter crash. Footage shows the man loitering around the entrance before snatching the shirt and stuffing it into his rucksack just after 3pm on Monday. It had been placed there just three hours earlier along with a club scarf and handwritten note in memory of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha. The note read: 'R.I.P Vichai, you made every Leicester fans dream a reality', the Sun report. The Thai billionaire was killed after the helicopter which picked him up from King Power Stadium on Saturday night crashed in a car park just seconds after taking off. Pilots Eric Swaffer and Izabela Lechowicz, and Srivaddhanaprabha's employees Nusara Suknamai and Kaveporn Punpare, also died. The black box recorder from the helicopter has been found and investigators are still carrying out forensic work on the wreckage. Footage shows the man loitering around the entrance before snatching the shirt just after 3pm on Monday The heartless thief stuff the shirt into his rucksack as he walks away from the Thai embassy in London Tribute: A fan had left the club shirt and scarf outside the embassy with a handwritten note on top Srivaddhanaprabha led Leicester City to become Premier League champions in 2016. The unprecedented victory sealed him tremendous popularity among fans and players. Tributes have continued to grow outside the club's North Stand while a group of Buddhist monks held a service yesterday. Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who died along with the two pilots and two of his staff members Conservative peer Lord Faulks QC told the House of Lords that a new law should be drawn up on treason A former justice minister has called for Anjem Choudary and other hate preachers to be jailed for treason. Conservative peer Lord Faulks QC told the House of Lords that a new law should be drawn up to deal with terrorism from the likes of Choudary and dozens of Jihadi brides. He said he wanted to add the new offence during a debate on new counter-terrorism measures. Lord Faulks said: 'Those who live and benefit from life in the UK and yet involve themselves in attacks against the UK, either here or abroad, are surely guilty of treason. 'Are we too timid to call it that? Is it because allegiance to our country is considered unfashionable? If so, that seems to verge on the decadent or at the very least it shows a country lacking in self-confidence. 'Those who reject the values of his country have the option to relinquish their citizenship, but while they remain here or regard it as their home, surely they owe a duty to other citizens, who have their own human rights. 'This new definition of treason is a way of underlining that duty.' Lord Faulks also spoke of treason prosecutions for Jihadi brides. Right now, Jihadi brides face arrest, questioning by police and de-radicalisation courses. He said: 'Prosecution it's said will be difficult, particularly against the many women involved - the so-called Brides of Jihad - who will claim duress or in other ways try to distance themselves from what others may have done.' He believes that the law would help tackle people who are 'guilty of treason' like hate preacher Anjem Choudary (pictured) and Jihadi brides The Tory peer also spoke against the 'inadequate sentence' for Anjem Choudary, who was convicted and jailed for encouraging support for Isis. The peer believes the state should not have to pay to monitor Choudary after his release. He said: 'What he did was undoubtedly a betrayal of his country. 'He acted as a recruiting agent for groups that intended to and have caused attacks on the UK. 'He should be guilty of treason.' However, Labour justice spokesman Lord Kennedy of Southwark said he was 'not persuaded' a new offence of treason was necessary. 'I think there is ample opportunity to prosecute terrorists,' he said. Home Office Minister Baroness Williams of Trafford said there was ongoing work in the department 'to examine whether there are further gaps in our law to help us to counter hostile state activity'. The Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (Apicorp), a multilateral development bank, participated in the Algeria Future Energy summit, which was held this week. Apicorps senior economist for energy research, Mustafa Ansari, moderated a panel discussion, which focused on driving growth and efficiencies across the natural gas value chain. The panel members were Ahmed Mazighi, VP of marketing at Sonatrach; Stefano Cao, chief executive officer of Saipem; Adolfo Heeren, chief executive officer of TGP; and Jerome Fitzgerald, senior executive at BP. The panel discussed a range of issues, including forecasting future demand trends for natural gas, both in Algeria and internationally; Sonatrachs role in the European market, how new technology and infrastructure will increase efficiencies in production; the role of trading as gas transitions into a global commodity and the rise of LNG trade; the role of gas in the future energy mix; geopolitics and its impact on investment in the sector; and the impact of growing demand in Asia. Ansari commented: Apicorp is delighted to support the Algeria Future Energy summit, a key event in the industry calendar. Algeria is a member country, and as part of our mandate, we are confident that we can play a crucial role in supporting the development of the energy sector and in financing critical projects in the country. We enjoyed a fascinating discussion on a range of important and relevant issues and the panellists offered some very valuable insight based on their various expertise and experience. The subjects we covered are areas in which Apicorps research team covers in great depth, so it was useful to compare our own analysis with executives who are at the cutting edge of gas investment and production. - TradeArabia News Service Boris Johnson went on a lavish all-expenses-paid trip to Saudi Arabia just days before the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, it emerged last night. The 14,000 three-day junket which came more than two months after he quit as Foreign Secretary was bankrolled by the despotic kingdoms ministry of foreign affairs. The cost included flights, hotels and dinners. Controversial: Boris Johnson and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during an earlier meeting in Riyadh in 2016 Mr Johnson flew to Jeddah on September 19 only two weeks before the dissident journalist was killed in Istanbul on October 2 and met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the countrys controversial ruler. Mr Johnson told the parliamentary authorities that he had gone on the trip for a meeting with regional figures to promote education for women and girls. Details of the controversial trip emerged yesterday when the updated Commons register of members interests was published. The register also reveals Mr Johnson received a 50,000 donation from Jon Wood, founder of controversial hedge fund SRM, to pay for his office and staffing costs since stepping down as Foreign Secretary. Critics will accuse Mr Johnson of using his beefed-up office larger than usual for a backbench MP to bolster a leadership campaign. Khashoggi strangled and dismembered Jamal Khashoggi was strangled to death as soon as he set foot in the Saudi Arabian embassy in Istanbul, Turkish officials have said. The countrys chief prosecutor said the dissident journalist was then dismembered and his body disposed of as part of a premeditated plan. Attorney-general Irfan Fidan added: Despite our well-intentioned efforts to reveal the truth, no concrete results have come out of those meetings. In a further development, a senior Turkish official said Saudi Arabian officials have appeared unwilling to genuinely co-operate with Turkeys investigation. The Saudi officials seemed primarily interested in finding out what evidence the Turkish authorities had against the perpetrators, the anonymous source said. We did not get the impression that they were keen on genuinely co-operating with the investigation. After weeks of shifting official narratives, Saudi Arabia has said Mr Khashoggi, 59, was killed by a rogue operation and arrested 18 people allegedly connected to his death. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly called on Riyadh to reveal the location of the journalists body. Advertisement Senior British politicians have suggested that Mr Khashoggis murder must have been authorised at the highest level. But even as late as last week long after Mr Khashoggi had been killed Mr Johnson was praising the crown prince as a potential reformer. News of Mr Johnsons trip comes just days after the Mail revealed that a string of MPs had accepted hospitality from Saudi Arabia worth tens of thousands of pounds. A total of 38 MPs have received freebies from the regime over the past five years. Last night Mr Johnson was accused of a total misjudgment for accepting such an expensive trip despite controversy over human rights abuses in the desert kingdom. Alistair Graham, former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, told the Mail that his acceptance of the hospitality was shocking. It takes away from his main job as an MP, and of course he already has his other journalistic responsibilities which limit the time he can give to his constituents, he said. Saudi Arabia has been involved in humanitarian crises in Yemen, and it is shocking if he is accepting freebie junkets from such a regime. 'Education is not a specialism of Mr Johnson so it does not sound very credible that his visit was for that purpose. 'We would expect much better leadership from ex-foreign secretaries. A source close to the MP said: Mr Johnson visited Saudi Arabia to discuss his long-standing campaign of improving education for women and girls. 'He has denounced the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and continues to believe that the UK must hold Saudi Arabia to account for this barbaric act. Mr Johnsons spokesman would not say whether he travelled to Saudi Arabia in first class, or in a private jet, or which hotels he stayed in while he was there. Jamal Khashoggi was strangled to death as soon as he set foot in the Saudi Arabian embassy in Istanbul, Turkish officials have said Mr Johnson wrote in his Daily Telegraph column last week that he had visited the country but did not say who had paid for it. He said he had met the crown prince, and used the visit to ask why Saudi Arabia had not expelled diplomats in the wake of the Salisbury nerve agent attack. Even though the matter has been raised repeatedly then and since indeed I raised it myself, again, during a recent visit to see the crown prince we have got nowhere, he said. The former Foreign Secretary praised Prince Mohammed, saying: It is still true that the crown prince has the potential to reform his country the custodian of the two holiest shrines of Islam in a way that could be of huge benefit to the Muslim world. Mr Johnson used his article to urge Saudi Arabia to come clean over the sick and bizarre murder of Mr Khashoggi, despite the importance of Britains crucial commercial and security partnerships with Saudi Arabia. The UK and the US must lead other countries in holding Saudi Arabia properly to account, he said. The body must be produced. The audio tape of the killing said to be held by the Turkish authorities if it exists should be made public. 'There can be no suggestion of a stitch-up, or of denying justice to Mr Khashoggi and his family out of deference to Saudi sensibilities. Last night Kate Allen, from Amnesty International UK, said: Boris Johnsons trip was right in the middle of a vicious human rights crackdown in Saudi Arabia. Mr Johnsons support for women and girls education in the Middle East is welcome, but he and others must speak out publicly about how Saudi Arabia systematically denies women their basic human rights. 'Mr Johnson has lavished praise on the Saudi crown prince as a supposed reformer, which is a total misjudgment. It is just weeks since the Army signalled that it is considering relaxing its ban on beards to prevent putting off potential recruits. Now military top brass are looking at easing prohibitions on male soldiers sporting long hair and earrings. They could also change the rules on tattoos on troops' necks and hands. A senior officer has confirmed that the Army is reviewing its rules on hairstyles, jewellery and tattoos so that soldiers are treated the same regardless of gender, race or religion. A senior officer has confirmed that the British Army is reviewing its rules on hairstyles, jewellery and tattoos. File image used It came after an anonymous member of the military raised the issue in a letter to the Army's Soldier magazine. The letter said: 'The move to open the infantry to women is a good thing but the rules are changing for some, not all, and there is no consistency. 'Male soldiers must wear their hair short but women and men of certain religions are exempt. 'Women can wear studs in their ears but men cannot. Wearing respirators for countering chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats is cited as the reason men should shave every day, but Sikh and Muslim troops are allowed facial hair.' The correspondent added: 'We should be entitled to wear any of the above unless a specific threat is identified, as well as being allowed to have tattoos on necks and hands. 'We should also forget all race, religious and sexual orientation and gender identification. 'It's time to ditch the labels that separate us. They are a negative not a plus for our Armed Forces.' Replying to the letter, Colonel Steve Davies, the Army's assistant head for workforce policy, said: 'Your underlying observation that inclusion across the Army is important is well recognised as being central to the generation of operational effectiveness. 'Change is an incremental process that requires consultation, communication and education. 'We therefore consider every single alteration very carefully, including all the second and third-order consequences. 'Operational effectiveness is the key output for the Army and must be safeguarded. The Army's current rules on tattoos state that they are not acceptable on the head and face and generally considered un-acceptable if they would be visible on a passport photo. FIle image used 'This approach to date has been successful, for example, opening all roles to female personnel by the end of the year. 'The question of beards was considered in the October issue [of Soldier magazine] in which Lt Col Rachel Emmerson highlighted that the regulations are regularly reviewed. 'The same applies to the wider stipulations on appearance to which you refer. 'Such policies seek to recognise soldiers' diversity while maintaining a professional standard.' The Army's current rules on tattoos state that they are not acceptable on the head and face and generally considered un-acceptable if they would be visible on a passport photo. At the moment soldiers can sport a beard only if their commanding officer gives permission normally on religious or medical grounds. Prince Harry raised eyebrows when he had a full beard on his wedding day while wearing the frockcoat uniform of the Blues and Royals. Weeks later the Army's top brass revealed that they were thinking about whether to relax their ban on beards as it could put off potential recruits. The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee is pursuing a wide-ranging examination of former White House adviser Steve Bannon's activities during the 2016 presidential campaign, three sources familiar with the inquiry told Reuters. The committee is looking into what Bannon might know about any contacts during the campaign between Moscow and two advisers to the campaign, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, they said. William Burck, a lawyer for Bannon, told Reuters: 'The Senate Intelligence Committee has expressed an interest in interviewing Mr. Bannon as a witness, just as they have many other people involved in the Trump Campaign. 'But the Committee has never suggested that he's under investigation himself and to claim otherwise is recklessly false.' Papadopoulos, a consultant, initially advised the presidential campaign of Republican hopeful Ben Carson before joining the Trump campaign. Page is also a consultant, who had business contacts in Russia. Ex-aide: Steve Bannon was at Trump's side during his campaign and the start of the presidency but now faces his work being examined by the Senate Intelligence Committee Questions: The Senate Intelligence Committee will look into what Bannon might know about any contacts during the campaign between Moscow and two advisers to the campaign, George Papadopoulos (left) and Carter Page (right) On Sept. 7, Papadopoulos was sentenced to 14 days in prison. He had pleaded guilty last year to lying to FBI agents about the timing and significance of his contacts with Russians, including a professor who told him the Russians had 'dirt' on Trump's Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton. No charges have been filed against Page. The panel also will examine Bannon's role with Cambridge Analytica, a former data analysis company that the Trump campaign hired to help identify and target messages to potentially sympathetic voters, the sources said. The Senate committee is working with Bannon's advisers to set a date for him to be interviewed by staff investigators in late November, two of the sources said. Bannon recently met for the second time with investigators working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating allegations of Russian interference on Trump's behalf in the 2016 presidential election, one of the sources said. Russia has denied interfering in the election and Trump denies any collusion, frequently describing the Mueller investigation as a political witch hunt. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Bannon was questioned last week by Mueller's team. The newspaper said the interview focused on Trump supporter Roger Stone. In emails to Reuters, Stone has said he did not know about or have access to WikiLeaks materials related to Democrats. Question time: Roger Stone, the notorious dirty trickster and one-time Trump adviser, has been questioned by Robert Mueller's investigators In the run-up to the 2016 election, WikiLeaks published hundreds of emails hacked from the Democratic Party and the personal account of top Hillary Clinton campaign adviser John Podesta. One of the sources familiar with the Bannon-related Senate panel investigations said Mueller's team does not consider Bannon to be a potential subject of their investigation. Bannon served as a vice president of Cambridge Analytica from June 2014 to August 2016, at which point he joined Trump's presidential campaign as a senior strategist. Sources said the Senate Intelligence committee has sought to interview other witnesses about the role played by Cambridge Analytica and affiliated companies in the 2016 election. Earlier this year it was reported that Cambridge Analytica had collected the personal data of millions of people's Facebook profiles without their consent and used it for political purposes. Facebook later apologized to users for the data breach. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is facing a Justice Department investigation amid allegations the oil company Halliburton planned to offer him a microbrewery as part of a commercial development deal it was pursuing near his hometown of Whitefish, Montana. The inspector general's office at the Interior Department has been investigating the member of President Donald Trump's cabinet on at least three different matters, including the land deal involving Halliburton, a decision not to grant two tribes approval to operate a casino in Connecticut, and whether the boundaries for Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument were redrawn to benefit a state lawmaker. At least one of those probes was referred to the Justice Department for further review, The Washington Post reported, but it's unknown which one. The New York Times reported it's 'highly likely,' the Justice Department is looking into the Montana land deal. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is facing multiple probes from his actions at the agency; here he leaves Air Force One asPresident Donald Trump arrives in Salt Lake City in December 2017 Zinke is one of several members of Trump's administration being questioned over his handling of his department The referral means prosecutors at Justice will examine whether a criminal investigation is necessary. Investigations are only referred to DoJ if there is a concern there could be criminal activity involved. A White House official told The Post the investigation is looking into whether Zinke 'used his office to help himself.' Zinke's personal lawyer, Stephen Ryan, told The Times the interior secretary was not aware of any Department of Justice action in the matter. 'The Secretary has not been contacted or notified of any D.O.J. investigation or Inspector General referral,' Ryan said. 'It is disappointing that unsubstantiated and anonymous sources have described an I.G. office referral to members of the media, as this violates D.O.J. and I.G. policy direction. The Secretary has done nothing wrong.' The Montana land deal involves a business and commercial retail park, known as 95 Karrow, in Whitefish - an increasingly popular resort town - that would include several businesses near land owned by Zinke and his wife Lola. A group funded by David Lesar, the chairman of Halliburton, is planning the development. There is a possible professional conflict of interest for Zinke as Halliburton would benefit from any of the Interior Department's decisions to open public lands for oil exploration or change standards for drilling. But the land development deal has to do with a foundation established by Zinke and his wife before he joined the Trump administration. The development Lesar's group proposed would include a hotel and retail shops along with a microbrewery a business first proposed in 2012 by Zinke, when he had retired as a Navy Seal and was in the state Senate. He ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2014. He joined the administration after Trump was elected president. Whitefish city planner David Taylor told Politico in June that the project's developer suggested the microbrewery would be set aside for Ryan and Lola Zinke to own and operate. The developer told the news website that no final decisions had been made. But, leaving the microbrewery out of the equation, the Zinke's will likely benefit from an increased value to their land once the project is completed. It was a foundation set up by the Zinkes that was proving crucial assistance, it appears. Lola Zinke, who took over leading the Great Northern Veterans Peace Park Foundation when her husband joined the Trump administration, pledged in writing to allow Lesar's development group to build a parking lot for the project on land that was donated to the foundation to create a Veterans Peace Park. Zinke is said to be considering leaving the administration after next week's midterm election President Donald Trump, front left, gestures as former boys scouts, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, left, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, right, watch at the 2017 National Boy Scout Jamboree Zinke told Politico in a statement: 'The mission remains to provide a children's sledding park and community open space in a setting that recognizes the contributions of the railroad and the veterans to the community. ... The subject LLC you mention has been in contact with Lola with the intent of expanding their parking requirements on park property. I understand a concept was provided but no formal proposal or documents have been submitted or agreed upon. I also understand by reading the paper is their proposal is supported by the City Council.' Since taking office in March 2017, Zinke also has come under scrutiny for his travel practices and other aspects of his job performance. He is seen as likely to depart the administration after next week's midterm elections. And he is one of several Trump Cabinet officials to come under scrutiny for how they run their department, including former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, and former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. The Interior Department Inspector General is also examining Zinke's involvement in his department's refusal to sign off on a proposed casino deal involving the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes in Connecticut. Career staff at the department recommended approval of the casino, which would have competed with an MGM Resorts International casino nearby in Massachusetts. MGM and Nevada's two senators lobbied against the permit and Zinke did not grant it. Finally, the IG is said to be examining Zinke's role last year in reducing the amount of land that makes up the Grand StaircaseEscalante National Monument, a 1.9-million-acre stretch of land in Utah, and whether the boundary lines were redrawn to benefit a state lawmaker, CNN reported. The Western Values Project, a group that has opposed several of Zinke's decisions, pointed out that the re-drawn boundaries of the Grand StaircaseEscalante wrap around a parcel of land owned by a local lawmaker. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke appeared alongside his wife Lolita Zinke at the 146th NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits in April 2017 A development group in Montana allegedly was prepared to offer Zinke and his wife a microbrewery as part of their building project Mike Noel, a Republican state lawmaker and an avid supporter of President Trump, had 40 acres within the original boundaries. But that land was left out of the national park when the lines were redrawn under Zinke. House Democrats are ready to pounce should they win control of the chamber in next week's election. 'If Democrats are given the opportunity to hold a congressional majority next year, Secretary Zinke will be called to testify in February on why his conduct in office merited referral to the Justice Department, whether that referral was related to the recent attempted firing of his inspector general, and his many other failures and scandals,' Democratic lawmaker Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who would become chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement to Politico. 'He has abused the people's trust and lost any presumption of innocence or good faith.' The owner of a fish and chip shop has hit back at 'abusive' anti-domestic violence campaigners who criticised her for calling her business The Battered Wife. Ex-police officer Carolyn Kerr owns the shop in Wangan, a small town in far north Queensland, which carries the slogan 'The only battering anyone need know' on its window. Ms Kerr has defended her business from critics, saying she is raising awareness of domestic violence by using the name. The owner of a fish and chip shop has hit back at 'abusive' anti-domestic violence campaigners who criticised her for using the name The Battered Wife Ex-police officer Carolyn Kerr (pictured) owns the shop in Wangan, a small town in far north Queensland, which carries the slogan 'The only battering anyone need know' on its window Ms Kerr has defended her business from critics, saying she is raising awareness of domestic violence 'Originally it was suggested to me as a little bit of a joke, but it seemed like an interesting option with a bit of spark, something that could provoke questions, could provoke curiosity, but also the play on words for the shop itself, being a fish and chip shop,' she told The Today Show. 'I knew through my history there's a lot of things wrong with the system so to create such a controversial thing especially in today's sensitive world... I'm surprised it's got so much attention at all, that it's taken 15 months, really.' Poll Do you think the name 'The Battered Wife' is offensive? Yes No I don't know Do you think the name 'The Battered Wife' is offensive? Yes 76 votes No 318 votes I don't know 22 votes Now share your opinion Ms Kerr said in her former job she had dealt with the effects of domestic violence firsthand, and it was not something she condoned. 'There's a lot of beautiful, intelligent women out there in really bad situations, and to assume that I was making light of the subject, that I was promoting it... the way that it's been misconstrued, it's actually quite offensive.' The shopowner said she has been subjected to threats and abuse since a photo of her business was shared 'like wildfire' on social media. She refused to cave in to the pressure to change the shop's name. 'It's a fish and chip shop first and foremost, and I make good batter, and I'm married to my business ... (domestic violence) is a serious problem in our society and it needs help, no-one seems to be standing up for it, and this is my little way of digging my heels in and saying enough is enough.' A domestic violence survivor left a 'scathing' review on The Battered Wife's Facebook page The business is popular with locals but now its name has sparked a fierce social media row, with some users attacking the owner and encouraging others to do the same. The storm started when one woman left a scathing review on The Battered Wife's Facebook page and urged others to follow suit. 'Shameful owners naming this mediocre shop The Battered Wife,' the review stated. '67 women, 18 children murdered this year due to male violence and you think this is humorous'. Ms Kerr responded in a lengthy post pointing to the irony of defending domestic violence victims while abusing her online. 'What I don't understand is why people, who say they are passionately against domestic violence, so freely and unashamedly abuse and attack me on social media because of the name of my shop,' she wrote. Ms Kerr responded in a lengthy post pointing to the irony of defending domestic violence victims while abusing her online The woman said she was forced to close the store on Tuesday evening to ensure the safety of her junior team, following 'relentless prank calls/yukky messages and all of the terrible reviews' 'I batter fish, I'm married to my business and I want to make a difference...! Obviously it got your attention!' The post was attached to a close-up image of the Ms Kerr's bruised and swollen eye. 'I recently got this black eye for stepping over the line and protecting a beautiful, intelligent, woman in a bad situation. How many of you can honestly say that you have stood up, no matter the cost??' the businesswoman wrote. She added that she was forced to close the store on Tuesday evening to ensure the safety of her junior team, following 'relentless prank calls/yukky messages and all of the terrible reviews'. Located in Wagan, Queensland, the local takeaway store specialises in Australian and New Zealand wild caught cooked seafood, house made burgers, salads and takeaway items The Battered Wife Facebook page has been flooded with with a mixture of positive and negative reviews. 'Trying to destroy someone's lively hood because you don't agree with their business name is f**king disgusting. Awesome food. Awesome service 10/10,' one supporter wrote with a five-star rating. Another wrote: '5 stars for delicious fish and chips. Good to see Australian family businesses doing so well in 2018's PC culture.' The Battered Wife Facebook page has been flooded with with a mixture of positive and negative reviews 'Trying to destroy someone's lively hood because you don't agree with their business name is f**king disgusting. Awesome food. Awesome service 10/10,' one supporter wrote with a five-star rating Other people left negative reviews for the takeaway shop, drawing attention to the choice of name. 'The name is utterly appalling and tasteless. It demonstrates a complete disregard for DV survivors. It's not funny,' a critic wrote on the page. 'The owners of this business think domestic violence is funny. They think violence against women is funny. Maybe they should attend the funerals of murdered women and kids and see how funny being a battered wife really is,' wrote another. When my son Oli was killed in the September 11 attacks, my husband and I flew straight to the US. It was a beautiful sunny day when we arrived in New York and that bothered me. The fine weather jarred with our despair. Its been like that ever since. Every beautiful thing in life even the arrival of a grandchild is tainted. Life goes on, but it is never the same. I regard it as a life sentence. There is no parole. No hope of early release. Even my name Joy conflicted with how I felt. Joy Bennett, pictured left, with her son Oliver Bennett, 29, who died in the World Trade Centre in the September 11 terrorist attacks This week, we discovered that Mounir el-Motassedeq, who acted as the treasurer for the heartless terrorists who killed my son, has just been released from prison after being sentenced to 15 years. Its hard to put into words how it felt to look at how this man received a heros welcome in Marrakesh. My first reaction was one of shock when I saw how young he was. I hadnt realised that el-Motassedeq was only 27 when he became involved. Here was a man who is now 44, a man with a life that can be rebuilt. I will never know what Oli would have looked like at the same age. Of course we had known that this day was coming. At the time of el-Motassedeqs trial in 2003, 15 years seemed a small punishment for someone who had spent time in an Al Qaeda training camp and directly organised the killers finances. But at least somebody was being charged. The pilots who flew into the Twin Towers, where Oli was attending a conference on global finance, were dead, and there seemed little hope of anyone being brought to justice. Naively, perhaps, we were just relieved that someone was being held to account. Though I still dont know how the judges thought 15 years was enough. All I can say is that we, Olis family, got this life sentence, and are reminded of it every single day. The parallels between this mans future, and Olis lack thereof are painful. Mounir el-Motassedeq, who acted as the treasurer for the heartless terrorists who killed my son, has just been released from prison after being sentenced to 15 years This mans children were thrilled to have him home. Oli never got the chance to have children. I am not a vengeful person, but it is hard to read about el-Motassedeqs home-coming, when Oli will never come home. My concerns arent just about our familys loss and pain, though. El-Motassedeq is now a free man. Free to do what, though? As the Mail reported yesterday, there seems to be a neglible amount of surveillance being carried out on him now. Who has responsibility for him? What moves have been made to address his radicalism? While the Germans may be glad to see the back of him, no doubt it would have been safer if hed remained in Germany under strict surveillance. I have found myself wondering what Oli would say about this situation. We could not have been prouder of our son and all he achieved. Hed studied psychology and economics at the University of St Andrews, and ended up moving to New York to write about complex financial markets. More importantly, hed turned into a wonderful young man caring, warm-hearted, fun to be around. I have no doubt he would have done remarkable things. We didnt know immediately that he had been caught up in the attacks. I was in a shop when I saw the footage, and it wasnt until I got home that the phones started ringing... He would not have wanted a knee-jerk reaction when it comes to justice. In the months immediately after 9/11, I was horrified by the response of the authorities. I saw the then prime minister Tony Blair and told him never to say he was waging the Iraq war in my sons name. He wouldnt have wanted any one else more innocent victims to be killed. I like to think I have had a measured response to his death. I certainly dont hate Muslims. My anger is directed at the authorities who were aware of these sorts of extremists operating and failed to take robust action. The true perpetrators have never been brought to justice. And with el-Motassedeq being released, can we really know he has put an end to his life of terrorism? I do not know what I would say if I were in the room with el-Motassedeq. I suppose I would ask him what was he possibly hoping to gain by the slaughter of so many innocent people? Maybe he will be sitting down and explaining himself and his actions to his own children now, leading a peaceful and productive life. I hope for all our sakes that whatever he is saying isnt simply fuelling another generation with murderous hatred. If it is, his relatively short prison sentence will be dangerous for us all. A woman has been rescued from the Arizona desert six days after a car crash that left her vehicle suspended in a tree. The 53-year-old, who has not yet been named, was driving on U.S. Route 60, near Wickenburg, on October 12, when she lost control of her car. The vehicle crashed through a fence and plunged almost 50ft before it got caught in a tree. The driver said she spent the first couple of days inside the car, before she was finally forced to leave and seek help. She was discovered six days after the crash, severely dehydrated and badly wounded, by roadway workers who spotted the broken fence and went to investigate. This October 18, 2018 photo provided by the Arizona Department of Public Safety shows the scene where authorities say they rescued a seriously injured woman who spent six days in the desert after crashing her car near Wickenburg, Arizona The Department of Public Safety said Wednesday that rescuers found the severely dehydrated 53-year-old woman October 18 after following the vehicle's tracks The Department of Public Safety said two state transportation workers and a rancher were corralling a bull on the other side of a fence along a highway on October 18 in the town of Wickenburg, about an hour's drive northwest of Phoenix, when they saw the fence was unusually damaged. 'I said, "There's tracks right off the edge of the road through the fence,"' Zach Moralez, a highway operations technician, told The Associated Press. 'Hop over that hill, I bet you there's a car down there.' The three saw a mangled car entangled in a mesquite tree, made their way to the bottom of the hill and checked the car. It was empty. Nobody answered their hollering, Moralez said. A DPS trooper arrived, and by then, other members of a maintenance crew showed up. They all fanned out. Moralez said his brother, the rancher, spotted a footprint. The group followed the tracks for about 500 yards and found a 53-year-old woman severely dehydrated and with serious injuries in a dry riverbed. Zach Moralez, a highway operations technician, (pictured) was one of the men who rescued the woman 'She was in the fetal position, and there was no movement,' Moralez said. 'We started asking her a bunch of questions: 'How long have you been here? Do you have any pain?'' Despite being somewhat lethargic and in pain, she was alert enough to open her eyes and answer questions. Moralez said she was dirty from sleeping on the ground for a couple of days and had facial trauma - likely from the accident. She was airlifted to a hospital about 15 minutes later. The woman recounted how she was driving on U.S. 60 on October 12 when she lost control of her car, according to the trooper. The vehicle went through the fence and dropped 50 feet, landing in the tree. She stayed inside her car for several days before trying to walk toward some railroad tracks to find help, but she was too weak to make it, authorities said. DPS Director Col. Frank Milstead (pictured at the podium) said due to the efforts of transportation workers and the rancher, the 'woman's life was saved.' A maintenance crew and a rancher spotted the car while working along a highway several miles from the historic Western town of Wickenburg DPS spokesman Quentin Mehr said the woman is declining all media requests and did not give any details about her current condition. DPS Director Col. Frank Milstead commended the transportation workers and the rancher. 'Due to their outstanding efforts, this woman's life was saved,' he said in a statement. Moralez said it's a good feeling to know that he helped make the difference between life and death for someone. 'I believe people are put in the right place in the right time,' he said. A 25-year-old Irish man who allegedly approached a cockpit mid-flight and assaulted a flight attendant has appeared in court. Leroy Hyland, who lives in Australia on a temporary working visa, allegedly caused the disturbance on Sydney-bound Delta Airways flight DL41 from Los Angeles on October 10. Hyland allegedly refused to obey cabin crew instructions to return to his seat and began behaving in a disruptive manner before assaulting one of the flight attendants. Leroy Hyland (pictured), who lives in Australia on a temporary working visa, allegedly caused a disturbance on a Sydney-bound flight from Los Angeles on October 10 The 25-year-old Irish man allegedly refused to obey cabin crew instructions to return to his seat and began behaving in a disruptive manner before assaulting one of the flight attendants Cabin crew were allegedly forced to restrain Hyland for the remainder of the flight. His offending behaviour allegedly occurred between 10.26pm on October 9 and 6.50am on October 10. He was arrested by Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers at 7.20am when he arrived at Sydney International Airport and was charged at Botany Bay police station. Hyland, from Randwick, was charged with assaulting a cabin crew member and committing an act of violence against a flight aviation enforcement officer on board an aircraft. He was also charged with behaving in an offensive and disorderly manner on an aircraft when he appeared briefly at the Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday. Hyland, who was represented by lawyer David Newham, declined to comment outside court after his case was adjourned until next month. Cabin crew were allegedly forced to restrain Hyland for the remainder of the flight He was arrested by Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers when he arrived at Sydney International Airport AFP Airport Police Commander, Detective Acting Superintendent Simone O'Mahony, said she hoped the incident reminded passengers about the importance of public order and safety while on a flight. 'The safe travel of passengers through our airports is a key priority for the AFP,' Detective Acting Superintendent O'Mahony said. 'This alleged behaviour has no place in our aviation system and, while there was no significant delay or personal harm caused on this occasion, it should still serve as a warning to others.' 'If you risk the safety of your fellow passengers, you risk facing significant penalties.' The Genovese crime family has been nicknamed the Ivy League and the Rolls Royce of organised crime. They are one of the 'Five Families' that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the Mafia. They found new ways to make money in the past few years by using the housing spike to conduct a number of mortgage frauds. The group was founded by Lucky Luciano in the 1930s but in 1957 it was renamed after Vito Genovese - he was extradited from Italy to New York and acquitted of the 1936 murder that drove him into exile. The family was run for years by the 'Oddfather' Vincent 'the Chin' Gigante who pretended he was insane and walked disheveled around Greenwich Village wearing a bathrobe and talking to himself. When Gigante died in 2005, power went to Daniel 'Danny The Lion' Leo. The FBI convinced Genovese mobsters Anthony Arillotta and Felix Tranghese to become government witnesses. Bonfire Night - formally known as Guy Fawkes Night - marks the failed gunpowder plot to blow up Parliament. It takes its name from Guy Fawkes - the ringleader of the Catholic plot designed to assassinate the Protestant King James I and replace him with a Catholic. The plot failed, the conspirators were discovered and they were all hanged, drawn and quartered. Londoners celebrated James I surviving the murder attempt by lighting bonfires around the city, and within months Guy Fawkes Night was established. It has been celebrated each year ever since, with communities marking it with fireworks and lighting bonfires which they burn a Guy on. Many local societies now pick public figures to be celebrity guys which they burn on giant fires. Politicians are often selected for the dubious honour. Donald Trump, Cherie Blair and Nigel Farage have all been burnt at public Bonfire ceremonies in recent years. A powerful line-up of the GCCs leading hospitality experts will address the challenges facing the regions highly-competitive industry at this months GulfHost Restaurant Development Conference in Dubai, with rumoured oversupply, sustainability and the impact of VAT and digital technologies high on the agenda. The conference, which will run at the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) from October 30 to November 1, will look at ways in which regional hospitality industry players can address the hottest issues facing the GCC sector, which is predicted by Mena Research Partners to grow 7.1 per cent annually to reach $196 billion by 2021. Laying out the GCCs market realities in an insightful opening keynote will be Duncan Fraser-Smith, director global food and beverage (F&B) for hospitality developer The First Group. There are challenges in the market, no doubt, but weve also had some great successes and wins. I will be highlighting those who have addressed challenges to move forward, the winners that have come out of this and are now leading the market in success. Fraser-Smith said his spotlight will also fall on the growing mid-market, four-star sector which, he believes, holds particular potential. I believe right now we are looking at rampant development of the still niche mid-market concept. This is an area people are looking for, places that they can go to on a regular basis which are affordable, approachable and create unique experiences. And the UAEs much-vaunted F&B oversupply will get a public airing at the conference with Emma Banks, managing director of Jumeirah Restaurant Group, joining a panel to discuss the issue, which she insists is not Dubai specific. Dubai is open for business. Dubai has every restaurant brand, every retail brand and there are more and more hotels opening. In the area of hospitality, yes, there is an argument for oversupply but theres also an argument for Dubai building a destination for the future. We have the 2020 target of 20 million visitors and the 2025 stretch target of 25 million, so the market is growing, said Banks. Operators are finding it very tough, its very competitive, but if you have the right product at the right price, if you offer value, quality and service the customer wants, you will own your share of the market. Its very tough, its very hard work and you have to be top of your game but in reality, its just rectification of the market. If you look at other parts of the world, such as the UK high street, exactly the same is happening - its not unique to Dubai. In addition to the oversupply-driven panel discussion, Banks will also take part in two further panels on the second day of the conference (October 31): Successful Women Restauranteurs and F&B Business Owners, and Talking Sustainability & Food Waste. Additional speakers among the 70-strong talent line-up the GulfHost Restaurant Development Conference include David Macadam, CEO, Middle East Council of Shopping Centers; Ramzi Sohl, CEO Commercial Development, King Abdullah Economic City; Anoop Gopal, director Real Estate & Property, Kuwait Food Co. (Americana); Andreas L Borgmann, founder and co-CEO Kcal, and many more. The GulfHost Restaurant Development Conference is part of the extended programme of GulfHost, the complete hospitality equipment sourcing expo for the Middle East, Africa and Asia, which runs at DWTC from October 30 to November 1. The second edition of the annual event is twice as large as its debut run in 2017 and counts 2,500 brands and over 8,000 products across six core sectors, including the new Gelato & Bakery, Cafe & Bar and Horeca zones. GulfHost 2018, which is co-located with DWTCs annual trio of niche food shows, is set to draw upwards of 25,000 buyers. The conference will be opened by Vishal Panadej, director of the Middle East Food Forum and Sunjeh Raja, CEO of the International Centre for Culinary Arts Dubai. The two organisations have jointly organised the master programme, which will also feature an Investor Pitch. The live pitches will be made by five promising F&B concepts with at least five years operational experience. The pitchers will seek to win over the potential investors Abdul Kader Saadi, founder, Glee Hospitality; George Kunnappally, managing director, Nandos UAE LLC; Akshay Oberai Dosaj, managing director, Purple Honey Group and Manu Mahdi, founder and CEO, Organic&Real.com. The pitch session will give delegates insights into the dreams behind these hand-picked initiatives and in what it takes to inspire financial confidence in todays crowded market, explained Trixie Lohmirmand, senior vice president, Exhibitions and Events Management, DWTC. GulfHost 2018 is a trade event open strictly to business and trade visitors. The show is open 10 am 5 pm from October 30 - 31 and 10 am 4 pm on November 1. For the full list of features, showcases, industry trends and the full GulfHost Restaurant Development Conference agenda visit the event website - TradeArabia News Service Never-before-seen footage offers fresh evidence that a supermassive black hole lurks at the centre of the Milky Way. Telescopes have captured plumes of hot gas circling the celestial object at 30 per cent the speed of light, or around 201 million mph (320 million kph). The material is 'as close as you can get to a black hole without being consumed by it', scientists said. Astronomers have long pondered whether the centre of our galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole - a mysterious region ten billion times larger than the sun. Because the area absorbs all surrounding light, it is incredibly difficult to observe, and scientists have spent decades searching for hints of black hole activity. The new images mark the first time material has been spotted passing close to the 'point of no return', and the most detailed observations yet of material orbiting this close to a black hole, scientists say. Researchers at the European Southern Observatory used specialist equipment to observe Sagittarius A*, the massive object at the heart of the Milky Way. They spotted clumps of gas swirling around at about 30 per cent of the speed of light on a circular orbit just outside the region's event horizon. The speed of the gas was enough to trigger three powerful bursts of radiation from the clouds. Researchers detected these flares from Earth using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) array in Chile. Specialist equipment was used to take a close look at the infrared radiation coming from the accretion disc around Sagittarius A*. 'Astronomers have observed material as close as you can get to a black hole without being consumed by it,' Dr Josephine Peters, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford who wasn't involved in the study, told Business Insider. ESO's exquisitely sensitive GRAVITY instrument has added further evidence to the long-standing assumption that a supermassive black hole lurks in the centre of the Milky Way Researchers at the European Southern Observatory used specialist equipment to observe Sagittarius A* (pictured), the massive object at the heart of the Milky Way 'Even though [Sagittarius A*] is our closest supermassive black hole, it is still incredibly mysterious. 'This marks the beginning of understanding more about our nearby astronomical monster.' The ESO said the observed flares provide long-awaited confirmation that the object in the centre of the galaxy is, as has long been assumed, a supermassive black hole. BLACK HOLES HAVE A GRAVITATIONAL PULL SO STRONG NOT EVEN LIGHT CAN ESCAPE Black holes are so dense and their gravitational pull is so strong that no form of radiation can escape them - not even light. They act as intense sources of gravity which hoover up dust and gas around them. Their intense gravitational pull is thought to be what stars in galaxies orbit around. How they are formed is still poorly understood. Astronomers believe they may form when a large cloud of gas up to 100,000 times bigger than the sun, collapses into a black hole. Many of these black hole seeds then merge to form much larger supermassive black holes, which are found at the centre of every known massive galaxy. Alternatively, a supermassive black hole seed could come from a giant star, about 100 times the sun's mass, that ultimately forms into a black hole after it runs out of fuel and collapses. When these giant stars die, they also go 'supernova', a huge explosion that expels the matter from the outer layers of the star into deep space. Advertisement This wide-field image shows the rich star clouds in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer) in the direction of the centre of our Milky Way galaxy A supermassive black hole is a larger version of the black holes which form when the centres of giant stars collapse in upon themselves. The flares originate from material orbiting very close to the black hole's event horizon making these the most detailed observations yet of material orbiting this close to a black hole. Reinhard Genzel, of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, who led the study, said: 'This always was one of our dream projects but we did not dare to hope that it would become possible so soon.' This chart shows the location of the field of view within which Sagittarius A* resides. The black hole is marked with a red circle within the constellation of Sagittarius (centre right) Astronomers have long pondered whether the centre of the Milky Way (artist's impression) hosts a supermassive black hole - a mysterious region ten billion times larger than the sun The first manned mission to the International Space Station since a Russian rocket failed to launch earlier this month may take off on Dec. 3, space agency Roscosmos said on Wednesday. A Russian cosmonaut and U.S. astronaut were forced to abort their mission on Oct. 11 and perform an emergency landing after a launch accident. Roscomos says the problem was caused by a faulty sensor. Scroll down for video FILE PHOTO: The Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft carrying the crew of astronaut Nick Hague of the U.S. and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of Russia blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan October 11, 2018. It was aborted soon after The accident was the first serious launch problem experienced by a manned Soyuz space mission since 1983, when a crew narrowly escaped before a launch pad explosion. Sergei Krikalyov, a senior Roscosmos official, was quoted by state news agency TASS as saying the next manned launch had been planned for mid-December, but that Russia was trying to bring the date forward so that the ISS is not briefly left without a crew. The three-person crew may return home on Dec. 20, he was quoted as saying. 'The industry is making significant efforts to move the launch to Dec. 3 so that the station does not switch to autopilot mode, and landing is expected around Dec. 20,' he said. The Soyuz rocket was due to dock at the orbiting outpost of the International Space Station six hours later, but the booster suffered a failure minutes after the launch. NASA and Russian Roscosmos space agency said the astronauts were in good condition after their capsule landed about 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of the city of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan. Former military pilots Ovchinin and Hague were set to join Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency, NASA's Serena Aunon-Chancellor and Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos following a six-hour flight. The International Space Station - a rare point of cooperation between Moscow and Washington - has been orbiting the Earth at roughly 28,000 kilometres per hour since 1998 and will mark its 20th birthday in November. Over the past few years the Russian space industry has suffered a series of problems including the loss of a number of satellites and other spacecraft. Russia has continued to rely on Soviet-designed booster rockets for launching commercial satellites, as well as crews and cargo to the International Space Station. The Soyuz launch failure took place less than a month and a half after the ISS crew discovered a small hole in the orbital module of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft currently docked there. The cause of that hole remains under investigation - and has been the source on tension between Russia and America. Ferocious cave lions that once roamed Britain may have had spots. This is according to a top Russian scientist who says a cub that has been preserved in the Siberian permafrost for 43,500 years has leopard-style markings. The European or Eurasian cave lion is an extinct species, known from fossils and prehistoric art. It's most closely related to the modern lion and ranged from Europe to Alaska over the Bering land bridge until the late Pleistocene, around 10,000 years ago. Scroll down for video Ferocious cave lions that once roamed Britain may have been spotted, say scientists. This is according to a top Russian scientist who says a cub (pictured) that has been preserved in the Siberian permafrost for 43,500 years has leopard-style markings SIBERIAN CAVE LIONS The European or Eurasian cave lion is an extinct species, known from fossils and prehistoric art. It's most closely related to the modern lion and ranged from Europe to Alaska over the Bering land bridge until the late Pleistocene, around 10,000 years ago. An adult European cave lion is thought to have measured 3.9ft (1.2metres) tall and 6.9ft (2.1metres) in length without its tail, based on a skeleton found in Germany. This means it was a similar size to a modern lion. It's thought the lions probably hunted larger herbivorous animals of their time, including horses, deer, reindeer, bison and even injured old or young mammoths. No-one knows why the lions became extinct, but one suggestion is the population of cave bears and deer - one source of prey - caused them to die out. Advertisement Spartak is the latest of a number of cubs to be dug from the permafrost in the vast Yakutia region in Russia and is one of the most perfectly preserved, scientists say. The extraordinary find raises hopes of cloning the long-gone species back to life in a Jurassic Park-style experiment. Dr Alexei Tikhonov, a senior scientist at the Laboratory of Mammals at the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believes prehistoric cave artists may have been correct in sometimes depicting the predators with spots. However, he says we will only have a definitive answer if and when the species is cloned back to life. Dr Tikhonov said: 'We see that this lion cub is spotted. Spartak definitely has spots on his back. They are few, but still visible', he said. In ancient cave drawings 'some ancient lions were depicted with spots', he said. 'It used to be thought that the Palaeolithic artists decided to simply put on these spots. 'Now it can be argued that, at least in the fur of cubs, they really were spotted.' An adult European cave lion is thought to have measured 3.9ft (1.2m) tall and 6.9ft (2.1m) in length without its tail, based on a skeleton found in Germany. This means it was a similar size to a modern lion. It's thought the lions probably hunted larger herbivorous animals of their time, including horses, deer, reindeer, bison and even injured old or young mammoths. This cub is believed to be a sibling of Boris found earlier some 50 ft (15m) away - although tests still have to be carried out to prove they were related. Unlike Spartak, Boris appears well fed and did not have spots. Boris has been dated by Japanese experts as living 43,500 years ago, it was announced this week in regional capital Yakutsk. Dr Tikhonov said scientists assume the death of Boris was unexpected, he told The Siberian Times. This cub was 'chubby' whereas Spartak shows signs of being completely exhausted. The little cub may well have perished from starvation, perhaps abandoned by its mother. A tomogram analysis showed its gastrointestinal tract was completely empty, and the carcass itself was much smaller than Boris, scientists found. Dr Alexei Tikhonov, a senior scientist at the Laboratory of Mammals at the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believes prehistoric cave artists may have been correct in sometimes depicting the predators with spots Dr Tikhonov said: 'We see that this lion cub is spotted. Spartak definitely has spots on his back. They are few, but still visible', he said Unlike Spartak (pictured), Boris appears well fed and did not have spots. Boris has been dated by Japanese experts as living 43,500 years ago, it was announced this week in regional capital Yakutsk Dr Tikhonov said: 'Unlike Boris, Spartak has a fully preserved tail. But there is a strange cut or gap on it. We need to sort out how it happened.' He concluded: 'We suggest that the mother lioness dumped Spartak from the very beginning. 'We think that the poor thing was abandoned soon after birth and never got mother's milk. 'Boris was well-fed, but something happened rather soon after his birth and he also died.' Spartak is the latest of a number of cubs to be dug from the permafrost in the vast Yakutia region and is one of the most perfectly preserved, scientists say An adult European cave lion is thought to have measured 3.9ft (1.2metres) tall and 6.9ft (2.1metres) in length without its tail, based on a skeleton found in Germany= Despite this, Japanese professor Naoki Suzuki - who has examined all the cubs - said Spartak's insides are 'truly amazing'. 'Not only are bones preserved, but also the brain and other organs,' he added. 'I have already worked with the previously found lion cubs Uyan, Dina and Boris, but Spartak has so far been the best sample for anatomical research.' The report stated: 'There are hopes that the finds of these cubs may lead to the species being successfully cloned back to life. 'If so, this may resolve whether the cave lions were spotted or not.' Glaciers in both the North and South Poles are melting at an 'unprecedented' rate as global warming tightens its grip on the planet's coldest regions. An enormous iceberg about five times the size of Manhattan broke off Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier this week only a month after a crack first appeared. On the other side of the planet, glaciers in Canada's Yukon territory are retreating at an alarming pace, triggering dust storms and drastic shifts to local water sources. The studies highlight the rising instability of the planet's poles as the effects of global climate change take their toll. Scroll down for video An enormous iceberg about five times the size of Manhattan broke off Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier this week only a month after a crack first appeared. Pictured is the iceberg's progress from September 28 to October 29 Two teams working in the North and South Poles have reported startling glacier shrinkage this week. The first investigated ice loss at the Yukon's 43-mile-long (70 km) Kaskawulsh glacier - which is under threat from both global warming and diminishing snow coverage. Radar scans performed by the team showed the glacier is thinning by more than one and a half feet (0.5m) each year. The researchers, from Canada's Simon Fraser University, warned the glacier cannot compensate for the volume of ice it is losing. The Yukon's glacial melt is already causing problems for local fishermen, where shoreline retreat is blocking access to traditional fishing spots. 'What the glaciers and ice sheets do makes a big difference to global sea levels, and makes a big difference to local environments where they form a water source,' glaciologist Dr Gwenn Flowers, lead author of the study, told the CBC. Glaciers in Canada's Yukon territory are retreating at an alarming pace, bringing dust storms and drastic shifts to local water sources. This file photo shows the Yukon's Alsek Glacier Along the Alaska Highway, one of the great northern routes from Yukon to Alaska, dust storms born from dried lake beds are wreaking havoc with drivers. The riverbed is normally covered in water, but glacial retreat has left it almost completely drained. Parks Canada is monitoring the 'unprecedented' changes. 'We're seeing a 20 per cent difference in area coverage of the glaciers in Kluane National Park and Reserve and the rest of the UNESCO World Heritage site [over a 60-year period],' says Diane Wilson, a field unit superintendent at Parks Canada. 'We've never seen that. It's outside the scope of normal.' Dramatic changes to the Yukon glaciers are an early warning of what climate change could mean for the rest of the planet, Dr Flowers said. Glacial melting has also hit the South Pole this week, where researchers reported the loss of an enormous chunk of ice from Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier The rate of warming in the north is double that of the average global temperature increase, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Glacial melting has also hit the South Pole this week, where researchers reported the loss of an enormous chunk of ice from Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier. A huge crack was spotted in the glacier last month by Sentinel-1, a satellite run by the European Space Agency. Just weeks later a 115 square mile (300 sq km) block of ice that calved off the glacier's ice shelf. It splintered into smaller pieces within 24 hours, with the largest shard measuring 87 square miles (226 square km) before it later broke apart even more. Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier (left) and Canada's Kaskawulsh Glacier have both been hit by significant melting Dr Stef Lhermitte, a scientist at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, said he was 'quite surprised' the chunk broke off so quickly. The quick split may be the result of a rapid retreat by the ice sheet that has seen it shift 3.1 miles (5 km) inland since 2015. Pine Island Glacier is calving more glaciers than it used to, spawning four since 2013 - an alarming jump from its average rate of one every six years. Warm waters triggered by unusual wind patterns and climate change are believed to be responsible. 'The retreat we see now is outside of what we have observed [in modern times],' Dr Lhermitte told Live Science. The world's last wilderness may vanish sooner rather than later, new research has warned. Scientists say the last wild areas left on the planet are rapidly disappearing, with explicit international conservation targets 'critically needed' to protect them. A team of experts recently mapped intact ocean ecosystems, complementing a 2016 project charting remaining terrestrial wilderness. It found that 77 per cent of land and 87 per cent of the ocean has already been damaged by human activities. Scroll down for video The world's last wilderness may vanish sooner rather than later, warns new research. Scientists say the last wild areas left on the planet are rapidly disappearing, with explicit international conservation targets 'critically needed.' This image shows Torres Del Paine, Chile The research was led by the University of Queensland in Australia. Professor James Watson said the two studies provided the first full global picture of how little wilderness remains and he was 'alarmed' by the results. He added: 'A century ago, only 15 per cent of the Earth's surface was used by humans to grow crops and raise livestock. 'Today, more than 77 per cent of land - excluding Antarctica - and 87 per cent of the ocean has been modified by the direct effects of human activities. 'It might be hard to believe, but between 1993 and 2009, an area of terrestrial wilderness larger than India - a staggering 1.2 million square miles (3.3m sq km) - was lost to human settlement, farming, mining and other pressures. 'And in the ocean, the only regions that are free of industrial fishing, pollution and shipping are almost completely confined to the polar regions.' James Allan, a postdoctoral research fellow at Queensland University, said the world's remaining wilderness could only be protected if its importance was recognised in international policy. 'Some wilderness areas are protected under national legislation, but in most nations, these areas are not formally defined, mapped or protected,' he said. 'There is nothing to hold nations, industry, society or communities to account for long-term conservation. 'We need the immediate establishment of bold wilderness targets - specifically those aimed at conserving biodiversity, avoiding dangerous climate change and achieving sustainable development.' A team of experts recently mapped intact ocean ecosystems, complementing a 2016 project charting remaining terrestrial wilderness. It found that 77 per cent of land and 87 per cent of the ocean has already been damaged by human activities. This image shows the Amazon The researchers insist that global policy needs to be translated into local action. Professor Watson added: 'One obvious intervention these nations can prioritise is establishing protected areas in ways that would slow the impacts of industrial activity on the larger landscape or seascape. 'But we must also stop industrial development to protect indigenous livelihoods, create mechanisms that enable the private sector to protect wilderness, and push the expansion of regional fisheries management organisations. 'We have lost so much already, so we must grasp this opportunity to secure the last remaining wilderness before it disappears forever.' The findings were published in the journal Nature. Incredible footage shows a rare display of lightening and lava spewing out of the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa. The volcano, which annihilated 36,000 people in an eruption in 1883, has been seen hurtling molten ash into the sky once again. The strange phenomenon of volcanic lightning only happens when a specific mix of ash, gas and lava bubble up at the same time. Towering 1,200ft above the tropical stillness of the Sunda Strait in Indonesia, Krakatoa is one of the most terrifying volcanoes the world has ever known. With an explosive force 13,000 times the power of the atomic bomb that annihilated Hiroshima, the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa killed more than 36,000 people and radically altered global weather and temperatures for years afterwards. The eruption was so violent and catastrophic that no active volcano in modern times has come close to rivalling it, not even the spectacular eruption of Mount St Helens in the US in 1980. Now volcanic lightning, which has only been observed some 150 times in the past few centuries, has been spotted coming out of Krakatoa by vulcanologist Dr Richard Roscoe. The lightening forms in plumes of ash rather than thunder clouds and is followed by terrifying thunder. The lightning follows chaotic paths and will often travel sideways or even upwards through an ash cloud and tend to be more chaotic than those seen in thunderstorms. For a long time, scientists had no idea how this happened. Incredible footage shows a rare display of lightening spewing out of the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa. The volcano, which annihilated 36,000 people in an eruption in 1883, hurled glowing rocks into the sky This strange phenomenon of volcanic lightning only happens when a specific mix of ash, gas and lava bubble up WHAT IS KRAKATOA? Towering 1,200ft above the tropical stillness of the Sunda Strait in Indonesia, Krakatoa is one of the most terrifying volcanoes the world has ever known. With an explosive force 13,000 times the power of the atomic bomb that annihilated Hiroshima, the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa killed more than 36,000 people and radically altered global weather and temperatures for years afterwards. Official records of the time show that the 1883 eruption, together with an enormous tsunami it generated, destroyed 165 villages and towns, seriously damaged a further 132 and killed 36,417 people outright. The eruption was so violent and catastrophic that no active volcano in modern times has come close to rivalling it, not even the spectacular eruption of Mount St Helens in the U.S. in 1980. Advertisement In 2016, a study found that friction created by ash particles ejected at high pressure from the crater led to a build-up of static electricity. This led to chaotic low level lightning bolts. These often do not discharge downwards towards the ground as seen in traditional thunderstorms, but can travel sideways and even upwards. A second study by a separate group also showed that when ash clouds extend high enough into the atmosphere, ice particles can build up within it and lead to a different sort of electrical discharge. In this case the ice particles generate the electrical charge as they rub together and the resulting lightning follows the path of the ice particles through the ash cloud. Together the 2016 findings suggest that volcanic lightning can form in even relatively small eruptions as the charge begins to build up as soon as ash is flung into the air. But in very large eruptions when ash clouds reach high into the atmosphere, the development of ice can enhance these storms to produce some of the most dramatic lightning. The event, which has only been observed some 150 times in the past few centuries, was captured by vulcanologist Dr Richard Roscoe The lightening forms in plumes of ash rather than thunder clouds, and it is followed by terrifying thunder Dr Corrado Cimarelli, a volcanologist at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany, who led the first study, said these differences could help to predict the amount of ash being discharged by an eruption and so give warnings to nearby aircraft about the potential risks. He said: 'Regardless of the size of the eruption, any ash emissions are associated with electrical discharges. 'This we could measure and use to estimate the amount and distribution of the ejected ash - and from a safe distance of several kilometers and even in poor visibility. 'So we could estimate the ash distribution in the atmosphere early on and warn the aviation authorities.' Russia's space agency said on Wednesday that an investigation has found that a rocket carrying a crew to the International Space Station failed three weeks ago because of a technical malfunction of a sensor. The Soyuz-FG rocket carrying a NASA astronaut and a Roscosmos cosmonaut failed two minutes into the Oct. 11 flight, sending their emergency capsule into a sharp fall back to Earth. They landed safely on a steppe in Kazakhstan, but the aborted mission dealt another blow to the troubled Russian space program that serves as the only way to deliver astronauts to the orbiting outpost. Scroll down for video FILE - In this Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018 file photo, the Soyuz-FG rocket booster with Soyuz MS-10 space ship carrying a new crew to the International Space Station, ISS, flies in the sky at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. Russia's space agency says an investigation has found that a rocket carrying a crew to the International Space Station failed recently because of a technical malfunction of a sensor. The Soyuz-FG rocket carrying a NASA astronaut and a Roscosmos cosmonaut failed two minutes into the Oct. 11 flight, sending their emergency capsule into a sharp fall back to Earth.(AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky) Roscosmos' executive director Sergei Krikalyov said Wednesday the probe found that a malfunction of a sensor which signals the jettisoning one of the rocket's four side boosters caused the booster to collide with the second stage of the rocket. Krikalyov stopped short of saying why the sensor had malfunctioned but said the space agency is working to ensure such incidents do not happen again. Russian space officials plan to conduct one more unmanned Soyuz launch from Russia and one abroad before launching a crew to the space station. Krikalyov said they hope to send the new crew to the orbiting lab on Dec. 3. That would also mean that the current crew will have to stay there for at least an extra week or two to ensure a smooth carry-over. Sergei Krikalyov, a senior Roscosmos official, was quoted by state news agency TASS as saying the next manned launch had been planned for mid-December, but that Russia was trying to bring the date forward so that the ISS is not briefly left without a crew. The three-person crew may return home on Dec. 20, he was quoted as saying. 'The industry is making significant efforts to move the launch to Dec. 3 so that the station does not switch to autopilot mode, and landing is expected around Dec. 20,' he said. The Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft carrying the crew of astronaut Nick Hague of the U.S. and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of Russia blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan October 11, 2018 seconds before the mission was aborted Deadly summer heatwaves are going to get worse over the next three decades, warns new research. Carbon emissions from transport and industry are slowing down the jet stream - the ribbon of wind high up in the atmosphere that drives our weather patterns. Scientists say that it means extreme conditions linger for longer, explaining the area of high pressure that built and built over the UK in 2018. The joint hottest summer on record claimed around 1,000 lives in England and Wales alone during June and July. Heat and drought in California over the same period also led to the worst wildfire season ever recorded. Climate models have not taken the phenomenon into account and underestimate the the future number of droughts and floods, experts have claimed. Scroll down for video Deadly summer heatwaves are going to get worse over the next three decades, as burning fossil fuels continues to impact the activity of the jet stream. This image shows the jet stream on July 12, 2018, showing large undulations that lead to freak weather conditions An international research team found warming in the Arctic caused by the burning of fossil fuels has put the brakes on the jet stream, leading to the freak weather. This has increased the frequency of heatwaves that last for weeks or months, which climatologists call Quasi-Resonant Amplification (QRA) events. Professor Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Centre at Penn State University in the US, said: 'Most stationary jet stream disturbances will dissipate over time. 'However under certain circumstances the wave disturbance is effectively constrained by an atmospheric wave guide - something similar to the way a coaxial cable guides a television signal. 'Disturbances then cannot easily dissipate and very large amplitude swings in the jet stream north and south can remain in place as it rounds the globe.' The jet stream is the core of strong winds some five to seven miles above the Earth's surface that blow west to east and move weather around the globe. In 2018 it brought flooding in Japan, record heatwaves in North America, Europe and Asia, wildfires in Greece - and even parts of the Arctic. These underlined the impact climate change is having on extreme weather - which is no longer subtle, said Professor Mann. He said: 'It played out in real time on our television screens and newspaper headlines in the form of an unprecedented hemisphere-wide pattern of extreme floods, droughts, heat waves and wildfires. ' Alarmingly, the devastating natural disasters will become more persistent, say the researchers. The joint hottest summer on record claimed around 1,000 lives in England and Wales alone during June and July. Heat and drought in California over the same period also led to the worst wildfire season ever recorded (stock image) Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany, said: 'If the same weather persists for weeks on end in one region, then sunny days can turn into a serious heat wave and drought, and lasting rains can lead to flooding.' The study found those happen when the jet stream becomes stationary - with peaks and troughs locked in place. Climate models capture temperature change very well - but cannot accurately identify QRAs, said the researchers. Professor Mann said: 'QRA events have been shown to have a well-defined signature in terms of the latitudinal variation in temperature in the lower atmosphere. 'The change in temperature with latitude and how it responds to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations depends on physics that are well understood and well represented by the climate models.' The researchers found the pattern of Arctic warming - called 'Arctic Amplification' - that slows down the jet stream also increases the frequency of floods, droughts and heatwaves. WHAT IS A JET STREAM? Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow currents of air that carry warm and cold air across the planet, much like the currents of a river. They cover thousands of miles as they meander near the tropopause layer of our atmosphere. They are found in the atmosphere's upper levels and are narrow bands of wind that blow west to east. The strongest jet streams are the polar jets, found 30,000 to 39,000 ft (5.7 to 7.4 miles/ 9 to 12 km) above sea level at the north and south pole. In the case of the Arctic polar jet this fast moving band of air sits between the cold Arctic air to the north and the warm, tropical air to the south. When uneven masses of hot and cold meet, the resulting pressure difference causes winds to form. During winter, the jet stream tends to be at its strongest because of the marked temperature contrast between the warm and cold air. The bigger the temperature difference between the Arctic and tropical air mass, the stronger the winds of the jet stream become. Sometimes the flow changes direction and goes north and south. Jet streams are strongest - in both the southern and northern hemispheres - during winters. This is because boundaries between cold and hot air are the most pronounced during the winter, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). The direction the air travels is linked to its momentum as it pushes away from the earth's equator. 'The reason has to do with momentum and how fast a location on or above the earth moves relative to earth's axis,' NWS explains. The complex interactions of many factors, including low and high pressure systems, seasonal changes and cold and warm air - affect jet streams. Advertisement Co-author Dr Dim Coumou, of PIK, said we do not trust climate models enough yet to predict them because they are too coarse. As climate models are unable to capture the phenomenon of QRA they are likely underestimating how global warming will lead to them being more frequent. If carbon dioxide continues to be added to the atmosphere they will continue to increase at the same rate they have over the past decades, said the researchers. But if China and other countries switch to 'cleaner' coal-burning methods that remove pollutants from the air - like the US and Europe have - warming of the Arctic will diminish. It will occur because the damaging particles - especially in the mid-latitudes where there is abundant sun - cool the Earth by reflecting heat away from the planet. Without them that area will warm - mitigating any further increase in QRAs as the difference with the Arctic drops. The jet stream is the core of strong winds some five to seven miles above the Earth's surface that blow west to east and move weather around the globe. In 2018 it brought flooding in Japan (stock image) By mid-century greenhouse warming once more dominates climate. Curtailing the burning of fossil fuels can prevent an increase in persistent summer weather extremes. But the current rate of occurrence of summers like 2018 will likely persist, said the researchers. Prof Mann added: 'The future is still very much in our hands when it comes to dangerous and damaging summer weather extremes. 'It's simply a matter of our willpower to transition quickly from fossil fuels to renewable energy.' Among all the climate-related disasters that are confronting cities, heat waves are the deadliest. They now cause more deaths in US cities than all other weather events combined - meaning summer death tolls will rise. The full findings of the study were published in the journal Science Advances. Astronomers have simulated the massive collision between two galaxies roughly ten billion years ago that gave rise to the Milky Ways halo and shaped its inflated disk. Recent observations from the Gaia satellite mission revealed many of the stars in the Milky Ways halo are invaders or remnants of another, younger galaxy. In the latest work, researchers have traced these stars to a galaxy called Gaia-Enceladus, showing how a mega-merger between the Milky Way and the smaller galaxy helped to shape our own during its early days. Scroll down for video Researchers have simulated a merger between the early Milky WAy and a smaller galaxy called Gaia-Enceladus (named for the Giant Enceladus and Gaia ,the Earth goddess, of Greek mythology). An artist's impression is pictured An international team led by an astronomer from the University of Groningen used data from the second data release of the Gaia satellite mission last April to spot signs of an ancient merger in the Milky Ways halo. The latest Gaia observations allowed for a glimpse at roughly 1.7 billion stars. We expected stars from fused satellites in the halo, said University of Groningen's Professor of Astronomy, Amina Helmi. What we didnt expect to find was that most halo stars actually have a shared origin in one very large merger. The researchers found that the chemical signatures of many halo stars in the Milky Way were not the same as its native stars. And they are a fairly homogenous group, which indicates they share a common origin, Helmi said. The team plotted the trajectory and chemical signature of these invading stars, revealing them to originate from the merger of the Milky Way and a smaller galaxy not much bigger than the Small Magellanic Cloud. According to the team, this huge collision took place around 10 billion years ago. Recent observations from the Gaia satellite mission revealed many of the stars in the Milky Ways halo are invaders or remnants of another, younger galaxy. File photo THE MILKY WAY'S OLDEST STAR A newly discovered star is thought to be one of the oldest in the Milky Way. Scientists at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) in Spain believe that it might have formed about 300 million years after the 'Big Bang'. IAC researcher Jonay Gonzalez Hernandez said: 'Theory predicts that these stars could form just after, and using material from, the first supernovae, whose progenitors were the first massive stars in the Galaxy.' Researchers hope the star, known as J0815+4729, which is in line with the Lynx constellation, will help them learn more about the Big Bang, the popular theory about the galaxy's evolution. IAC director Rafael Rebolo said: 'Detecting lithium gives us crucial information related to Big Bang nucleosynthesis. We are working on a spectrograph of high resolution and wide spectral range in order to be able to measure (among other things) the detailed chemical composition of stars with unique properties such as J0815+4729.' Advertisement This long-ago mega-merger was likely responsible for shaping the Milky Ways thick disk during its early years, and gave it many of the stars that exist in its halo today. The youngest stars from the Gaia-Enceladus are actually younger than the native Milky Way stars in what is now the thick disk region, Helmi says. This means that the progenitor of this thick disk was already present when the fusion happened, and Gaia-Enceladus, because of its large size, shook it and puffed it up. An IT employee at a hospital discovered a bizarre phenomenon that temporarily turns iPhones and Apple Watches into very expensive paperweights. Erik Woolridge, a systems specialist at Morris Hospital near Chicago, initially thought the issue stemmed from an electromagnetic pulse, but later found it was the result of something more peculiar - a helium gas leak. The incident began on October 8th when Woolridge began receiving several calls that cellphones weren't working in the building. Scroll down for video A hospital IT employee discovered a bizarre phenomenon that temporarily turns iPhones and Apple Watches into very expensive paperweights. The source was found to be a helium leak A new GE MRI machine was being installed, so he figured it was emitting an electromagnetic pulse that was interfering with nearby devices. However, Android devices appeared to be working just fine, so it appeared to be limited only to Apple devices, like iPhones and Apple Watches. In total, about 40 users were impacted by the issue, he wrote in a Reddit post. 'The behavior of the devices was pretty odd. Most of them were completely dead,' Woolridge told iFixit, a device repair company. 'I plugged them in to the wall and had no indication that the device was charging. 'The other devices that were powering on seemed to have issues with the cellular radio. 'The wifi connection was consistent and fast, but cellular was very hit or miss,' he added. Not long after he published the Reddit post, users began replying suggesting that the issue actually could have something to do with the helium used to cool the newly-installed MRI machine. Erik Woolridge, a systems specialist, initially thought the issue, which rendered Apple devices useless, was due to electromagnetic pulses from an MRI machine (pictured) Woolridge discovered that a leak had caused about 120 liters of liquid helium to be vented into the building over the course of five hours, iFixit said. 'There was a vent in place that was functioning, but there must have been a leak,' Woolridge explained. 'The MRI room is not on an isolated HVAC loop, so it shares air with most or all of the facility. We do not know how much of the 120 liters ended up going outdoors and how much ended up inside.' Of the 40 reports he received, it included models of the iPhone 6 and higher, as well as the Apple Watch Series 0 and higher. He began to look into why helium was rendering these devices virtually useless. At first, he theorized that helium molecules may be interfering with the devices' microelectromechincal silicon (MEMS), a component that helps power a device's gyroscope and accelerometers. Gyroscopes are used for things like the iPhone's Compass app, to help determine whether the phone is pointed up, down, sideways, etc. Still, Android devices also use gyroscopes, so it had to be something else that was wigging out from the helium, Woolridge said. As it turns out, Apple recently made the switch from using quartz oscillator clocks to MEMS-based clocks. Clocks are one of the most critical components of many devices, powering essential things like the CPU. They're 'literally the heartbeat of a modern device,' iFixit noted. Woolridge discovered that helium had in fact infiltrated the iPhones and Apple Watches, causing the internal clock to malfunction. He tested the theory in a video where he put an iPhone 8 Plus in a sealed bag and filled it with helium. Around 8 minutes and 20 seconds into the video, the phone locks up completely. iFixit repeated the experiment and found that their iPhone 8 turned off after about four minutes. As it turns out, Apple addresses this issue in their user guide. Woolridge theorized that helium molecules may be interfering with the devices' microelectromechincal silicon, which helps power a device's gyroscope and accelerometers WHAT IS AN ACCELEROMETER? Many devices rely on a component called MEMS accelerometers. They measure the rate of change in an object's speed in three dimensions. They are used in everything from phones and fitness trackers to cars and drones. All accelerometers have an analog corea mass suspended on springs. When the object the accelerometer is embedded in changes speed or direction, the mass moves accordingly. The digital components in the accelerometer process the signal and ferry it to other circuits. Advertisement 'Exposing iPhone to environments having high concentrations of industrial chemicals, including near evaporating liquified gasses such as helium, may damage or impair iPhone functionality,' the guide states. 'If your device has been affected and shows signs of not powering on, the device can typically be recovered. 'Leave the unit unconnected from a charging cable and let it air out for approximately one week. 'The helium must fully dissipate from the device, and the device battery should fully discharge in the process,' it continues. Apple goes on to recommend that users plug their device into a power adapter and let it charge for about an hour. After that, the device can be turned on and operated as usual. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 31) The Philippines ranked fifth among the countries with the worst records of prosecuting killers of journalists, a report from a non-profit organization for press freedom showed Thursday. The 2018 Global Impunity Index from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) showed the Philippines had the fifth highest impunity rating -- beating Afghanistan, Mexico, Colombia, Pakistan, Brazil, Russia, Bangladesh, Nigeria and India. War-torn Somalia topped the list for the fourth time in a row, followed by Syria, Iraq, and South Sudan. But the CPJ report said the Philippines' impunity rating has improved, a fact celebrated by the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFoMS). "In an interesting development, we note with optimism that the Philippines, while remaining at its 2017 ranking as fifth, was noted to have improved its status," PTFoMS Executive Director, Undersecretary Joel Egco said in a press briefing in Malacanang Tuesday. Egco said the results of the index were expected, as it calculates the number of unsolved media-related murders over a 10-year period. "It includes the 32 media workers killed in the Maguindanao massacre," he said. "And then unsolved cases are defined by CPJ as cases where no convictions are obtained." The November 2009 massacre which has been tagged as the world's deadliest single attack on media workers left 58 people dead. The casualties included journalists, civilians, and members of the Mangudadatu family, were political rivals of the Ampatuan clan. EXCLUSIVE: Justice Secretary says Maguindanao massacre trial to be wrapped up this year Over 190 have been accused, but no one has been convicted of the crime. Egco added that there were 102 cases of media killings, which include both unresolved and solved ones. "We continue to monitor each case," he said. The CPJ noted that at least 324 journalists worldwide have been silenced through murder -- and 85 percent of those cases have no perpetrators convicted for the crime. "It is an emboldening message to those who seek to censor and control the media through violence. More than three quarters (82 percent) of these cases took place in the 14 countries that CPJ included on the index this year," Elisabeth Witchel, CPJ Impunity Campaign Consultant said. The index is an annual publication to mark the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists on November 2. Armani Hotel Dubai has won the Worlds Best Hotel Spa laurel at the fourth World Spa Awards 2018, underlining the hotels commitment to provide guests with an array of luxurious spa experiences, exceptional facilities, and impeccable services. Launched in 2015 as a sister programme by the World Travel Awards, World Spa Awards recognises and celebrates excellence across all sectors of the spa and wellness industry. This awards programme serves as the definitive benchmark of industry excellence globally and helps in fostering a new era of growth in spa tourism. This years gala ceremony was held in Maldives and winners from all around the globe were rewarded for delivering exceptional service and world-class lifestyle experiences both regionally and locally. Armani/Spa was also recognised as the best in the regional categories Dubais Best Hotel Spa 2018 and Middle Easts Best Hotel Spa 2018. Armani/Spa offers luxury connoisseurs and discerning travellers a truly distinctive and enchanting environment that reflect Armanis design and lifestyle philosophy. It is an oasis of peace and tranquillity in the heart of a bustling city a perfect place to unwind and reinvigorate both body and mind with exclusive personalised treatments delivered by experienced therapists. Armani Hotel Dubai continues to showcase excellence through its unrivalled luxury facilities, spectacular spa and wellness offers. - TradeArabia News Service Scientists have shed new light on how the ingredients for life formed on Mars, and it could guide our search for aliens on other distant worlds. A study of Martian meteorites shows that salt water and volcanic rock were all that was needed to form organic carbon on Mars - one of the key buildings blocks of life. A similar process could have spawned the chemical at any spot in the solar system where igneous rocks are surrounded by salty brines, researchers said. This includes the mysterious subsurface oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus - icy worlds that some scientists believe host alien life. Scroll down for video Pictured is a high-resolution microscopic image of a grain from a Martian meteorite. Organic carbon - one of the key building blocks for life - was found between the intact 'prongs' Scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC, studied a trio of Martian meteorites that fell to Earth: Nakhla, Tissint and NWA 1950. Nakhla crashed into Egypt in 1911, while both Tissint and NWA 1950 were found in Morocco in 2011 and 2001 respectively. Experts showed the rocks contained organic carbon that is consistent with organic carbon compounds detected by the Mars Science Laboratory's rover missions. This proved the chemicals came from Martian soil, rather than from Earth after they landed. State-of-the-art microscope imaging revealed the compounds likely formed when Martian rocks were broken down by a surrounding salty liquid brine. Minerals within the rocks likely corroded when they came into contact with the brine, forming organic carbon. Researchers say the process that formed organic carbon on Mars could have spawned the chemical anywhere in the solar system where igneous rocks are surrounded by salty brines. This includes the mysterious subsurface oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa (pictured) Organic carbon is a key building block of life as we know it alongside water and an oxygen and nitrogen-rich atmosphere. The chemical needs to be present for life to grow, and the new study opens up several spots across the solar system to the possibility of alien life. These include Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus, which are both believed to house igneous rock surrounded by a salty subsurface ocean. 'Revealing the processes by which organic carbon compounds form on Mars has been a matter of tremendous interest for understanding its potential for habitability,' study coauthor Dr Andrew Steele said. 'The discovery that natural systems can essentially form a small corrosion-powered battery that drives electrochemical reactions between minerals and surrounding liquid has major implications for the astrobiology field.' State-of-the-art microscope imaging revealed organic carbon likely formed on Mars when minerals in Martian rocks were broken down by a surrounding salty liquid brine Advertisement The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning image of the massive shadow cast by a planet-forming disk 1,300 light-years away. This feature, nicknamed the Bat Shadow, was spotted in a stellar nursery known as the Serpens Nebula. And, its truly enormous. According to NASA, the distant Bat Shadow as Hubble viewed it stretched roughly 200 times the length of our solar system. Scroll down for video The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning image of the massive shadow cast by a planet-forming disk 1,300 light-years away. The so-called Bat Shadow, which stretches 200 times the length of our solar system, can be seen in the upper right portion of the picture The effect shown in the new Hubble photo is much like a fly that wanders into a flashlights beam, the space agency explains. It was captured using Hubbles near-infrared camera. The latest image release follows a three-week shutdown that halted Hubbles operations after its pointing system was compromised. The problem was the result of an aging gyroscope and a failed backup. Eventually, however, the Hubble team was able to coax the backup gyroscope into operations, allowing the telescope to come back on. Hubble requires three working gyroscopes for peak performance, according to NASA. In addition to the Bat Shadow, the space agency shared another Halloween-themed Hubble photo earlier this month, showing a glimpse at the spooky Ghost Nebula. About 550 light-years away in the constellation of Cassiopeia lies IC 63 - and Hubble has just revealed the best ever look at it. Also known as the ghost of Cassiopeia, IC 63 is being shaped by radiation from a nearby unpredictably variable star, Gamma Cassiopeiae, which is slowly eroding away the ghostly cloud of dust and gas This object sits about 550 light-years away in the constellation of Cassiopeia. The nebula, known as IC 63 or the ghost of Cassiopeia, is being shaped by radiation from a nearby unpredictably variable star, Gamma Cassiopeiae, which is slowly eroding away the ghostly cloud of dust and gas, according to NASA. 'This celestial ghost makes the perfect backdrop for the upcoming feast of All Hallow's Eve -- better known as Halloween,' said the Hubble team, who released the image. NASAs Hubble Space Telescope is still working and has made more than 1.3 million observations since its mission began in 1990 The Hubble telescope was launched on April 24, 1990, via the space shuttle Discovery from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. It is named after famed astronomer Edwin Hubble who was born in Missouri in 1889. He is arguably most famous for discovering that the universe is expanding and the rate at which is does so - now coined the Hubble constant. The Hubble telescope is named after famed astronomer Edwin Hubble who was born in Missouri in 1889 (pictured) Hubble has made more than 1.3 million observations since its mission began in 1990 and helped publish more than 15,000 scientific papers. It orbits Earth at a speed of about 17,000mph (27,300kph) in low Earth orbit at about 340 miles in altitude. Hubble has the pointing accuracy of .007 arc seconds, which is like being able to shine a laser beam focused on Franklin D. Roosevelt's head on a dime roughly 200 miles (320km) away. The Hubble telescope is named after Edwin Hubble who was responsible for coming up with the Hubble constant and is one of the greatest astronomers of all-time Hubble's primary mirror is 2.4 meters (7 feet, 10.5 inches) across and in total is 13.3 meters (43.5 feet) long - the length of a large school bus. Hubble's launch and deployment in April 1990 marked the most significant advance in astronomy since Galileo's telescope. Thanks to five servicing missions and more than 25 years of operation, our view of the universe and our place within it has never been the same. Advertisement The constellation of Cassiopeia, named after a vain queen in Greek mythology, forms the easily recognisable 'W' shape in the night sky. The central point of the W is marked by a dramatic star named Gamma Cassiopeiae. The remarkable Gamma Cassiopeiae is a blue-white subgiant that is surrounded by a gaseous disc. This star is 19 times more massive and 65 000 times brighter than our Sun. It also rotates at the incredible speed of 1.6 million kilometres per hour -- more than 200 times faster than our parent star. A 10 foot tall bird that lived in Madagascar until just 500 years ago was the Earth was barely able to see, and only flew at night, researchers have found. Researchers reconstructed the brain of the bird to find out more about it. They were shocked to discover it was barely able to see. Scroll down for video An artist's interpretation of giant, nocturnal elephant birds foraging in the ancient forests of Madagascar at night Elephant birds were large, flightless and lived in what is now Madagascar until a mixture of habitat loss and potential human meddling led to their demise between 500 and 1,000 years ago. 'Humans lived alongside, and even hunted, elephant birds for thousands of years,' Christopher Torres, a Ph.D. candidate who led the research at the The University of Texas at Austin, said. 'But we still know practically nothing about their lives. 'We don't even really know exactly when or why they went extinct.' Scientists had previously assumed that elephant birds were similar to other big, flightless birds, like emus and ostriches both of which are active during the day and have good eyesight. A digital brain reconstruction of the recently extinct elephant bird revealed that its optic lobe was virtually absent, a trait that indicates it was nocturnal and possibly blind. The kiwi, the closest living relative of the elephant bird, also has an absent optic lobe, nocturnal behavior and very poor eyesight. In contrast, the tinamous, a distant elephant bird relative, has good eyesight and a prominent optic lobe But the new research revealed that elephant birds had distinctly different lifestyles through reconstructions of their brains. The findings were published Oct. 31 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The researchers studied the skulls of two species of elephant birds. By using CT-imaging data of the two elephant bird skulls, the researchers were able to create digital brain reconstructions called endocasts. In addition to the elephant bird skulls, the researchers also created endocasts for close relatives of the elephant bird, both living and extinct. In both elephant bird skulls, the optic lobe a bundle of brain nerves that controls eyesight was very small, with the structure almost absent in the larger species. The lobe had the most in common with that of a kiwi, which Torres said came as a 'total shock' because of the kiwi's poor vision and nocturnal behavior. 'No one has ever suspected that elephant birds were nocturnal,' Torres said. Left: bones from the giant bird Vorombe titan, which was previously believed to be an extremely large member of a different species but has now been classified as a genus in its own right. Right: an artist's impression of the bird 'The few studies that speculated on what their behavior was like explicitly assumed they were active during the day.' In addition to vision, the endocasts rendering of the olfactory bulb - the part of the brain that processes the sense of smell - helped shed light on the habitats where elephant birds lived. The larger of the two species of elephant bird had a large olfactory bulb, a trait associated with forest dwelling. In contrast, the smaller elephant bird species had a smaller olfactory bulb, possibly indicating that it lived in grasslands. The smaller species also appears to have somewhat keener vision, which means it may have been more active at dusk than during the pitch black of night. , said Christopher Torres, a Ph.D. candidate who led the research. 'Discoveries like these give us tremendous insights into the lives of these bizarre and poorly understood birds.' Julia Clarke, a professor at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences and Torres' Ph.D. adviser, co-authored the study. Torres is a student in UT's Department of Integrative Biology in the College of Natural Sciences. Elephant birds were large, flightless and lived in what is now Madagascar until a mixture of habitat loss and potential human meddling led to their demise between 500 and 1,000 years ago. 'Humans lived alongside, and even hunted, elephant birds for thousands of years,' Torres said. 'But we still know practically nothing about their lives. We don't even really know exactly when or why they went extinct.' Scientists had previously assumed that elephant birds were similar to other big, flightless birds, like emus and ostriches both of which are active during the day and have good eyesight. But Torres and Clarke revealed that elephant birds had distinctly different lifestyles through reconstructions of their brains. Bird skulls wrap tightly around their brains, with the turns and curves of the bone corresponding to brain structures. Andrew Iwaniuk, an associate professor at the University of Lethbridge and an expert on brain evolution in birds who was not involved with the research, said that he had a similar reaction to the findings. 'I was surprised that the visual system is so small in a bird this big,' he said. 'For a bird this large to evolve a nocturnal lifestyle is truly bizarre and speaks to an ecology unlike that of their closest relatives or any other bird species that we know of.' 'Details like these not only tell us about what the lives of elephant birds were like, but also what life in general was like on Madagascar in the distant past,' Clarke said. 'As recently as 500 years ago, very nearly blind, giant flightless birds were crashing around the forests of Madagascar in the dark. No one ever expected that.' This work was funded by a National Science Foundation grant and the Jackson School of Geosciences. Advertisement An eerie abandoned ship has been given a new lease of life as the venue for a terrifying zombie experience. The Duke of Lancaster has been rusting away in the Dee Estuary in north-east Wales for over 30 years. But from January itll be the setting for an apocalyptic game in which participants have to shoot infected scientists. An eerie abandoned ship, the Duke of Lancaster (pictured), has been given a new lease of life as the venue for a terrifying zombie experience. It lies six nautical miles from the Irish Sea in Flintshire, north-east Wales Zombie apocalypse: Infected scientists will board the Duke of Lancaster for an exhilarating survival game The company behind the experience - Zombie Infection - promises an immersive theatre production and movie realistic zombies'. Pictured is the interior of the ship Its clearly suited for this purpose because it looks like its been in the apocalypse. Granted, it has recently been given a fresh lick of paint, but its still an unnerving location. The company behind the experience - Zombie Infection - promises an immersive theatre production and movie realistic zombies. It said: The 2.5-hour experience places guests at the centre of a zombie apocalypse. Once armed up with an upgradable weapon guests will be invited on board to uncover the secrets the ship holds whilst facing movie realistic zombies round every corner. Explore the cabins, engine rooms, captain's deck, bars and restaurants in hope of finding the answers to the virus and its strength. Nowhere is safe. It added: 'The events are fast, intense and require you to be on your toes at all times. Make sure you bring sustenance as the apocalypse can be demanding!' The colossal Duke of Lancaster was built in 1956 at Harland and Wolff shipyard, Belfast, where the Titanic was made She began life as passenger steamer for British Railways, ferrying passengers between Heysham and Belfast The ship has been given a lick of paint ahead of her new role as a location for the splatting of zombie hordes The colossal Duke of Lancaster was built in 1956 at Harland and Wolff shipyard, Belfast, where the Titanic was made. She began life as passenger steamer for British Railways, ferrying passengers between Heysham and Belfast. But she was no ordinary passenger steamer. Her facilities were so refined that she sometimes moonlighted as a cruise liner around Scotland and the Mediterranean. She was converted into a car ferry in 1970 running the Heysham-Belfast route but was withdrawn in 1975. Until November 1978 she had a brief stint as the regular relief vessel on the HolyheadDun Laoghaire service before being abandoned in Barrow, Cumbria, in 1979. The 350ft vessel was then moved to her current location - near Mostyn Docks in Flintshire - by entrepreneur John Rowley, who converted her into a Fun Ship leisure complex, complete with a coffee lounge, bars, a restaurant, and an amusement arcade. Visitors could also tour the engine room. However, legal disputes with the local council put paid to the fun. From the mid-eighties onwards she became a disused landmark. In 2012 plans to turn her into an open air art gallery partially came into fruition, with various graffiti artists brought in to paint striking murals on her hull. But now the zombie hordes are on the horizon. John Rowley turned the Duke of Lancaster into a leisure complex 'Fun Ship' in 1979. He said of this image, taken on the ship's bridge: 'We probably went a bit overboard (no pun intended) to try to give our customers value for money' In 2012 plans to turn the ship into an open air art gallery partially came into fruition, with various graffiti artists brought in to paint striking murals on her hull Sea sick: The Duke of Lancaster was beached 39 years ago and became an intriguing disused landmark Ashley Gardner, 54, who is a member of the Duke of Lancaster Appreciation Society, said: 'I think I can safely say the appreciation society is excited that things seem to be moving forward at last for the ship. 'It will be a huge milestone reached after not being able to do anything for the past 30-plus years. 'On the whole it's brilliant she is now possibly going to have a future. 'Zombies today but there are many different events the dock and the ship are available for... parties, celebrations, festivals, water sports, meetings, glamping (eventually) and anything else you can think of.' A seagull's perspective: The deck of the Duke of Lancaster is 350ft long. In her heyday she operated as a cruise liner around Scotland and the Mediterranean Rocky road: The Duke of Lancaster was a rusting wreck until Zombie Infection gave it a paint job Ms Gardner took an interest in the ship 11 years ago when she worked nearby at Abakhan Fabrics. She tweeted about restoring the ship and said: 'The following day it seemed to go crazy. 'That was that really. I was hooked.' Tickets for the Duke of Lancaster zombie experience can be bought from www.zombieinfection.co.uk . To find out more about the ship and its history read The Duke of Lancaster: Trapped In A Pirate Republic? by John Rowley. Advertisement If your photograph is commended or a winner in the Siena International Photo Awards its certainly significant because its enormously popular. This year a staggering 48,000 people entered. And the standard is very high - the competition attracts entries from photographers who are at the peak of their powers. The images that wowed the jury this year include a leopard seal on the brink of eating a penguin, lightning ripping through a huge volcanic eruption in Chile, a car lost in a sea of sheep on a Polish road and a chameleon's tongue en route to an unsuspecting dragonfly. The eye-catching image declared the overall winner was snapped by Bangladeshi photographer K M Asad and shows a tearful, traumatized young refugee who fled violence in Myanmar. If you want to enter the competition in 2019 visit sipacontest.com. Meanwhile, for some inspiration, scroll down to see the very best of this year's entries... The winning image in the 'animals in their environment' category is this incredible shot of a leopard seal trying to eat a penguin. It was snapped by American photographer Amos Nachoum off Pleneau Island in the Antarctic peninsula. He said: 'The seal was hiding, waiting to ambush young penguins as they got closer. When a penguin got close enough, the seal moved extremely fast and caught the penguin by its feet dragging it to the open water. I was following parallel to the action. The seal released the penguin twice and the terrified penguin succeeded in escaping, but the seal continued chasing after it, and on the third attempt, drowned the penguin and devoured it' Polish photographer Bartlomiej Jurecki captured this image of traditional sheep grazing called 'Redyk', which takes place in Mizerna in southern Poland and involves more than 1,500 animals. He said: 'From the Low Beskid Mountains, shepherds bring back the animals to the city of Nowy Targ, where the owners will take care of them during the winter. The animals will go back to the mountains in spring.' The image was highly commended by the judges This jaw-dropping photo of a group of sperm whales was snapped by Tony Wu while in Sri Lanka. He said: 'The sperm whales pictured here had just emerged from milling around in a gigantic cluster, with many of the whales defecating to such an extent that the water was opaque with secretions. This scene was part of a large, multi-day aggregation comprising hundreds, perhaps thousands of whales.' Mr Wu won third place in the animals in their environment category for this image The winning image in the 'beauty of nature' category shows lightning ripping through a volcanic eruption. It was snapped by Francisco Negroni from Chile. He said: 'This photograph was taken during a violent night eruption of the Calbuco volcano in the Lagos region, Chile. An incredible dirt storm wraps the fumarole of the erupting volcano' The overall winning image of the competition is this emotive shot taken in 2017 by photographer KM Asad in Bangladesh. It shows Asmat Ara, a refugee from Myanmar who looks traumatised after witnessing the violence that had taken place there. The previous night she had entered Tenkhali Rohingya refugee camp with her family from Kumar Khali in Rohingya state. According to the UNHCR, more than 646,000 Rohingya refugees have fled from Myanmar since August 2017, most of them trying to cross the border to reach Bangladesh American photographer Mariusz Potocki captured this charming image of chinstrap penguins resting on an iceberg in the Bransfield Strait in Antarctica. He said: 'When sailing Antarctic waters you will often see different types of icebergs. Some of these floating islands are great resting places for hunting penguins who can travel many kilometers, before jumping back into the icy water' Photographer Mohd Nazri Sulaiman won a Remarkable Award in the 'fascinating faces and characters' category for this shot showing a young boy cradling a cow in Malaysia This dramatic image shows a chameleon whipping out its tongue to capture a dragonfly. It was snapped in Netanya Forest in Israel by photographer Daniel Danilov, who earned an honourable mention in the 'beauty of nature category'. He said: 'I was hiding behind a bush in order not to disturb the scene. Its tongue is longer than its body, and its tip is sticky and thick' This heartwarming image of a pair of hoopoe birds was snapped by Jacopo Rigotti in Trentino, Italy. He said: 'Looking, as usual, for the nests of the most beautiful bird species in Trentino, I unexpectedly saw this hoopoe and I immediately grasped the opportunity to photograph it.' The image bestowed upon Mr Rigotti an 'honourable mention' in the animals in their environment category A pair of vultures and a jackal on the hunt for their prey inside Kruger National Park in South Africa. The shot, taken by Willem Kruger, won a Remarkable Award in the photo contest A pair of leopards keep their kill high up in a tree away from scavengers in Kenya. The shot by Hetal Teeku Petal won a Remarkable Award in the contest French photographer Lorraine Turci won third place in the 'journeys and adventure' category for this dramatic image of a boat being battered with 40ft waves in the South of Drake Passage between Cape Horn and Antarctica Photographer Md Zakirul Mazed Konok gained an honourable mention for this shot showing a frog trying to eat ants in Bangladesh. He said: 'Unity is the strength, as with teamwork and collaboration with which wonderful things can be achieved. Here this frog wanted to eat the ants, but its own life is at risk in the face of their unity' Indian photographer Shivang Mehta won second place in the animals in their environment category for this image showing a tiger cub pouncing on a deer in Ranthambore National Park in India. He said: 'I captured the moment when the tiger cub was struggling to get the prey down, as his siblings and mother were watching from a distance' German photographer Thomas Kalak shot this striking image showing the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. This shot earned Mr Kalak a Remarkable Award in the architecture and urban spaces category Photographer Zakaria Abdelkafi snapped this dramatic image of an anti-riot police officer engulfed in flames after being hit by a Molotov cocktail during violence in Paris. Mr Abdelkafi said he had no idea that the riot would end with the police officer being badly burned Photogrpaher Giovanni Allievi shot this stunning image of a crashing wave off Varigotti beach in northern Italy. It won a Remarkable Award in the beauty of nature category Winning a Remarkable Award in the architecture and urban spaces category for this shot is German photographer Klaus Bittner. He captured the image on the island of Sylt off the northern coast of Germany Photographer Timothy Moon shot this image of a mountain in the Snfellsnes region of Iceland. The stunning picture earned him a honourable mention in the beauty of nature category. He explained: 'The coarse volcanic mountain has taken human form covered with a cloak of moss and heather in vivid autumn colours' She's experienced a year of personal ups and professional downs, which saw her tie the knot with the love of her life just months after seeing her fashion line go bust. And Millie Mackintosh reflected on a 2018 of the 'highest highs and lowest lows' as she opened up on newlywed life, losing her business and moving on from rapper ex-husband Professor Green in an interview with the December issue of Red magazine. The former Made In Chelsea star, 29, admitted she 'cried every day for two months' after seeing her eponymous fashion line crumble at the start of the year, owing 548,000 and personally costing her 178,000. Frank: Millie Mackintosh reflected on a 2018 of the 'highest highs and lowest lows' in an interview with the December issue of Red magazine The socialite said seeing her business go into liquidation was 'painful, horrible and anxiety inducing', adding the worst part was feeling like she had 'let down everyone involved'. Millie reflected: 'Its been an up-and-down year. I've had the highest highs and the lowest lows. When the business went under it was upsetting and not just for me. 'The worst part was feeling like I'd let down everyone involved. I sat people down and let them know what was happening. 'It was upsetting, anxiety inducing, tearful I cried every day for two months. It was painful. Horrible.' Tough: The former Made In Chelsea star, 29, admitted she 'cried every day for two months' after seeing her eponymous fashion line crumble at the start of the year Emotional: The socialite said seeing her business go into liquidation was 'painful, horrible and anxiety inducing', adding the worst part was feeling like she had 'let down everyone involved' The reality TV personality said time has been the biggest healer as she overcomes her professional loss and explained she now thinks she was 'completely crazy' to start her own business. Millie added: 'I was trying to save it, trying to get investment. I self-invested, then left it too late to get outside investment. Its hard when you're paying to make stock before moneys come in. 'In the end, the fun, creative part that I really loved got lost under the strain of trying to keep it together. 'Time heals. I'm still proud of myself for attempting to start my own thing and I still have clothes in my wardrobe, but now I think Was I completely crazy? I must have been! Highs and lows: Millie has experienced a year of personal ups and professional downs, which saw her tie the knot with the love of her life just months after seeing her fashion line go bust 'But I've learnt so much from seeing the business inside out, every job. Although it didnt work out, its taught me useful lessons for the future. Im looking at it as something I can learn from.' In spite of her professional upset, 2018 saw Millie tie the knot with former Made In Chelsea co-star Hugo Taylor, 32, in a stunning countryside wedding in June. The couple married at Hugo's uncle's country estate, Whithurst Park, in West Sussex on June 22, followed by a romantic Greek honeymoon to the islands of Crete and Kefalonia. Millie and Hugo first dated back in 2011 when they co-starred on Made In Chelsea, but split when it emerged the sunglasses entrepreneur had cheated on her with their mutual friend Rosie Fortescue. Newlyweds: In spite of her professional upset, 2018 saw Millie tie the knot with former Made In Chelsea co-star Hugo Taylor, 32, in a stunning countryside wedding in June Happiness: The couple married at Hugo's uncle's country estate, Whithurst Park, in West Sussex on June 22, followed by a romantic honeymoon to the islands of Crete and Kefalonia The pair reunited in May 2016 shortly after Millie's split from first husband, rapper Professor Green, 34. Millie was married to the musician, real name Stephen Manderson, for two-and-a-half years before they announced their split in February 2016. The former fashion designer declared married life 'amazing' and said romance blossomed between the pair when Hugo was a 'supportive friend' to her after her split from first husband Stephen. Of life as a newlywed, she said: 'Its amazing! Marital bliss: The designer declared married life 'amazing' and said romance blossomed when Hugo was a 'supportive friend' after her split from Professor Green (pictured in June) 'I can't stop re-living our wedding day, and looking at the photos and videos. It was the happiest day of my life.' Speaking about friendship turning to love, Millie told Red: 'I had been through a lot, it was an emotional time. 'At the beginning Hugo was a supportive friend, thats really what it was and it was nice. Then it developed. I was like, "Oh... okay!" It just felt right. 'We've been friends for a long time and have many mutual friends, but ultimately, we needed to be apart, to have our own journeys and figure stuff out before coming back together.' The ex factor: Millie was married to first husband, real name Stephen Manderson, 34, for two-and-a-half years before announcing their split in February 2016 (pictured September 2015) The full interview and shoot with Millie Mackintosh appears in the December issue of Red, on sale October 31 Although Millie and Hugo are loving life as newlyweds after moving into a new marital home in central London, the beauty insisted children are a few years off because she wants to wait for her friends to catch up. She said: 'It's [children] not on my mind at the moment, but its in the future. I want to enjoy being married then think about it in my thirties. 'I want to do it the same time as my besties so we can all be mums together Im like, "Guys, give me a heads up!"' The full interview and shoot with Millie Mackintosh appears in the December issue of Red, on sale October 31. For further exclusive content, please go to www.redonline.co.uk. A new trailer for the upcoming motion picture Boy Erased has been released. The second promotional clip comes just days before the movie is expected to hit theaters on Friday. Jared Eamons (Lucas Hedges) is forced to attend a gay conversion therapy program in Arkansas by his Baptist parents after being outed at the age of 19. New clip: A new trailer for the upcoming film Boy Erased has been released His mother Nancy Eamons (Nicole Kidman) and father Marshall Eamons (Russell Crowe) push their son into the therapy program because their religious belief do not condone same-sex relationships. Jared is threatened with the thought that if he does not partake in the curriculum, he will be shunned by the people closest to him including his friends, family, and his own church. 'It's a choice. You cannot be born gay,' its leader Victor Sykes (Joel Edgerton) is heard telling a group of people as Nancy accompanies her son to the therapy class. Religious beliefs: Jared's father Marshall refuses to keep him under his roof unless he seeks help from a conversion therapist Therapeutic: A class that's expected to 'cure' homosexual thoughts and feelings is taught As the trailer progresses, it becomes rather apparent that neither one of Jared's parents will even consider the idea of having their son remain in their house until he dedicates his time to 'curing' himself. 'Mother and I, we cannot see a way that you can live under this roof if you're fundamentally going to go against God,' Marshall tells Jared at the dinner table in a low tone. A montage shows the events occurring in Jared's life as he takes on the hardest challenge of all; being somebody he wasn't. I don't want to be here: Jared's body language made it clear he did not want to partake in the curriculum arranged by his parents Too much; While he's not the only one, Jared is one of the few who refuses letting the idea of others get the better of him An overwhelming experienced: The idea of having to change himself for the sake of being accepted by his family, friends, and church all becomes overwhelming Further on, Jared continues to struggle at the camp, and in an overwhelmed and desperate manner he reaches out to his mother for support. In a follow-up cut, Nancy is heard saying: 'A mother knows when something isn't right What are your actual qualifications, Mr. Sykes? It becomes rather apparent that Nancy is in disagreement with the idea of the program after having come to terms on how miserable it made Jared. Feeling sadness: Jared's mother Nancy eventually comes around and stresses to Dr. Victor Sykes that her song is better off away from the conversion therapy clinic Confrontation: The blonde puts on a brave face as she confronts Dr. Sykes on how his treatment is supposed to work, before going on to question his actual qualifications The film's lead star Lucas Hedges talked highly about working on the project earlier this week, stressing how being part of the movie made him feel more comfortable talking about his own sexuality. 'It's exciting that I have the opportunity, through this film, to speak more truthfully about my own sexuality and to not be ashamed of it,' he told The Hollywood Reporter at an early screening on Monday. 'The more honest I am, the more openly I speak, the more support I get. It reminds me of the kind of people I actually want to spend my life with and the people who reach out I really feel the love.' Coming soon: Boy Erased is expected to hit theaters on Friday, 2 November Hedges made headlines in September for his interview with Vulture, telling the news outlet that he would describe himself as 'not totally straight, but also not gay and not necessarily bisexual.' 'The only reason I'll ever take apart is if I feel like it can heal something in me and give me an opportunity to really explore and take a look at the darkest corners of my own psychology and life and history and trauma,' he continued to tell THR. Meanwhile, the film is expected to enter theaters November 2. Riverdale's KJ Apa was something of a third wheel Tuesday as he joined co-stars Camila Mendes and Charles Melton in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where the trio are filming the CW's modern Archie Comics adaptation. Apa, a 21-year-old native of Auckland, New Zealand, wore a cloud grey beanie with a smoke grey sweater and a yellow T-shirt. He seemed to enjoy hanging out with his co-stars, whose romance was confirmed publicly by Camila via Instagram earlier this month. Hunky: Riverdale's KJ Apa, 21, was something of a third wheel Tuesday as he joined co-stars Camila Mendes, 24, and Charles Melton, 27, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where the trio are filming the CW's modern Archie Comics adaptation KJ rounded out his ensemble with dark grey pants and light grey hi-top sneakers, wearing a pair of sunglasses on the crisp autumn day. The actor, who plays heartthrob Archie Andrews, chatted on a phone call as he hung out with his co-stars. Mendes, 24, wore a red coat, blue jeans and black boots with a black leather backpack as she chatted with her new beau. The Charlottesville, Virginia-born stunner, who plays the role of plays Veronica Lodge, flashed a peace sign at photographers. Melton, 27, who plays Reggie Mantle, wore an all-black ensemble of a jacket over a T-shirt with black pants and grey sneakers as he was seated on the bed of a truck. The shaggy-haired Juneau, Alaska native wore a pair of clear-frame glasses. Good mood: Camila who plays the role of plays Veronica Lodge, flashed a peace sign at photographers while next to her hunky beau Melton Say cheese: The stunning actress appeared to be taking a shot of her handsome co-stars The on-set romance was doubly confirmed this month when Charles posted a shot of the pair all over one another while seated in a booth. The new relationship came as something of a surprise after Mendes told Nylon in July that she tried to avoid dating actors because they're 'really emotionally complicated.' 'You would think they would be more in tune with their emotions, but sometimes they're just not,' said Mendes, who was previously dating a Florida man named Victor Houston. 'I just really need to get out of this industry with someone who is in a stable environment.' The stars were out amid a new report from Variety that revealed Apa and Mendes - as well as co-stars Cole Sprouse and Lili Reinhart - were pulling in $40,000 per show for their work on the popular series. Riverdale airs on The CW Wednesdays at 8/7c. She is preparing to give birth to her second child with husband Sean McEwen. And ahead of the big arrival, Australian actress Tammin Sursok is enjoying some quality time with her first born, five-year-old daughter Phoenix. The Pretty Little Liars star and her family are currently enjoying a stay-cation at Calamigos Ranch in Malibu, California. Scroll down for video Not long to go now! Tammin Sursok's daughter Phoenix kisses her huge baby bump as actress enjoys a getaway in Malibu before welcoming her second child On Tuesday, the 35-year-old star posted a sweet picture of little Phoenix kissing her baby bump as they relaxed by the pool. Tammin showed off her gorgeous pregnancy figure in a striped bikini with a pretty bohemian robe over the top. She had her naturals curls out and tumbling over her shoulders, and showed off her pregnancy glow by wearing no makeup. 'Just cruised into the third trimester!' Tammin has reached the third trimester of her pregnancy and celebrated by sharing a mirror selfie of her figure earlier this week Tammin has reached the third trimester of her pregnancy and celebrated by sharing a mirror selfie of her figure earlier this week. She took to her Instagram Story on Monday to post a snap of herself in a bikini proudly flaunting her bulging baby bump. She wrote in the caption, 'Just cruised into the final trimester.' The brunette beauty also shared a Boomerang Edited clip of herself doing a gentle workout. Tammin can be seen doing a slight squat while doing bicep curls with dumb bells. Keeping it simple: The brunette beauty also shared a Boomerang Edited clip of herself doing a gentle workout. Tammin can be seen doing a slight squat while doing bicep curls with dumb bells The former Young and the Restless star has been documenting her pregnancy on social media. She shared a snap of herself with her bulging baby bump posing in front of her mirror after reaching the halfway point of her pregnancy. The actress has previously admitted to having jitters about being pregnant the second time around. 'Can't believe we will be here again in a few short months. Excited and petrified!' she wrote. Sharing her journey: The former Young and the Restless star has been documenting her pregnancy on social media. She shared a snap of herself with her her bulging baby bump posing in front of her mirror after reaching the half way point of her pregnancy 'Any second time mums out there feel the same?!' she continued. In the caption she added a series of shocked-face emojis and two hashtags, which read '6monthspregnant' and '25weekspregnant'. Tammin announced in early September that she was expecting her second child with husband Sean McEwen. The couple share five-year-old daughter Phoenix. They starred alongside each other in the BBC drama Cutting It in the early noughties. And 13 years later Amanda Holden and Angela Griffin reunited as the pair attended fellow actress Lisa Faulkner's Guest Chef Supper Club at J Sheekey Atlantic Bar on Tuesday. The Britain's Got Talent judge, 47, proudly flaunted her toned physique in a trendy checkered dress. Fun times: Cutting It stars Amanda Holden and Angela Griffin have been reunited as the pair attended fellow actress Lisa Faulkner's Guest Chef Supper Club at J Sheekey Atlantic Bar The black and white ensemble showcased her enviably-lean legs with an elegant side split. She styled her blonde hair in a sleek middle-parting and highlighted her age-defying beauty with make-up in neutral tones. Letting her statement dress do all the talking, Holden added height with a classic pair of black court heels. Cutting It: The pair were in the drama series about two rival hairdressers in Manchester, which ran for four series between 2002 and 2005 Stunner: The Britain's Got Talent judge, 47, proudly flaunted every inch of her toned physique in a trendy checkered dress Wow! The black and white ensemble showcased her enviably-lean legs with an elegant side split as she posed with Angela as well as Nicola Stephenson (M) Her former co-star, Angela, 42, went for a similarly stylish black and white dress for the occasion. She added a pop of colour to her sophisticated attire with gorgeous plum heels and a vibrant lipstick. Cutting It was a drama series about two rival hairdressers in Manchester, which ran for four series between 2002 and 2005. Pals: Amanda posed with (L-R) Kate Thornton, Nicola Stephenson, Lisa Faulkner and Angela Griffin whilst she styled her blonde hair in a sleek middle-parting Friends: Letting her statement dress do all the talking, Holden added height with a classic pair of black court heels Meanwhile, Amanda recently laid bare the heartbreaking details of her stillborn son Theo. The TV judge fought back the tears when she re accounted the harrowing day she lost her baby while she spoke on ITV's This Morning. She explained: 'There was no reason for Theos stillbirth and so I was partly relieved, because I thought, "Good, we can have another baby." 'Part of me was like, "Oh god, what have I done? Is it something I have done? Was it because I ate those McDonalds fries the day before?"' VFS Global has signed contracts with eight European client governments to extend their visa service network in August and September 2018, including with the Government of Slovenia in the UAE. In a statement, VFS Global said two new Slovenia Visa Application Centres will be opened in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. As per the new contracts, VFS Global will now provide visa services for: Slovenia in 13 countries (Australia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Canada, Iran, Kosovo, Mexico, New Zealand, Serbia, South Korea, Taiwan, UAE, UK, USA); Belgium in Rwanda; Estonia in China, India, Belarus, Turkey, and Russia; Germany in China and 13 other countries in South East Asia; Hungary in India, Belarus, Kazakhstan; Italy in Bahrain and Ecuador; Lithuania in Ukraine; and, The Czech Republic in Vietnam, Mongolia and Uzbekistan VFS Global plans to open an additional 97 Visa Application Centres to meet the requirements of the new contracts and offers applicants a convenient and easy visa application process in these additional countries. The rollout of all new operations is expected to be completed by mid-2019. Zubin Karkaria, chief executive officer, VFS Global Group: VFS Global is grateful for the trust and goodwill the European member states have placed in us over the years. With the recent renewal/extension of our relationship with eight European governments across multiple regions, we are pleased to offer our high quality visa services to many more visa applicants. Chris Dix, head business development, VFS Global, said: This has been a great quarter for VFS Global. Today, VFS Global is the trusted partner of 61 client governments globally, of which 33 are served in the UAE. We remain committed to using technology as a key business driver to expand our operations, and constantly innovating so that visa applicants continue to enjoy streamlined and convenient visa services the world over. - TradeArabia News Service Jasmine Yarbrough has revealed she and Karl Stefanovic have taken the first step towards starting a family. The 34-year-old Mara & Mine designer told Daily Mail Australia the couple recently bought a dog together, a German Shepherd named 'Chance the Yapper'. 'We are so excited to bring our new little puppy home this weekend,' she said on Wednesday. Scroll down for video EXCLUSIVE: 'We are so excited!' Jasmine Yarbrough (right) has revealed she and fiance Karl Stefanovic (left) 'can't wait to welcome the newest member of their family', a German Shepherd puppy named 'Chance the Yapper' Jasmine added: 'Both Karl and I have grown up with German Shepherds and can't wait to welcome our newest member of the family, Chance the Yapper.' The businesswoman also shared a photo of the puppy with his brothers and sisters. On Wednesday's Today show, Karl said that becoming a dog owner was 'a big responsibility'. 'I wasn't going to [get another dog] because I had a bit of an emotional experience when I was a kid,' he explained. 'We're bringing our little puppy home this weekend': The businesswoman also shared this photo of Chance the Yapper with his brothers and sisters 'We had this German Shepherd for 15 years, Rocky, and he passed away and it was very said. I vowed that I would never ever get another dog.' Karl went on to explain he had chosen adopt one of the puppies from his brother Tom Stefanovic's dog litter. Nuptials: It comes at a busy time for Karl and Jasmine, who are set to get married in Mexico in the coming weeks. Pictured in April 2018 'It's a big responsibility and I'm worrying about the emotions tied up with that,' he added. It comes at a busy time for Karl and Jasmine, who are expected to get married in Mexico in the coming weeks. They will tie the knot in a picturesque chapel at the One&Only Palmilla Resort, in the seaside town of San Jose del Cabo. Karl is believed to have proposed to Jasmine at the Kokomo Island Resort in Fiji at the start of the year. In March, they exchanged vows at a 'commitment ceremony' in Palm Beach, Sydney. However it was not legally binding. The Channel Nine star previously said of his relationship: 'When Jasmine came into my life, I had no thoughts of new love or the future, but we are happy and grateful we found each other.' Before meeting Jasmine, Karl was married to former journalist Cassandra Thorburn for 21 years. They separated in mid-2016. Supermodel Candice Swanepoel showed off her stunningly long legs in a teeny pair of shorts on Tuesday evening. The blonde bombshell strutted her spectacular physique for the cameras after leaving a fitting for the annual Victoria's Secret fashion show. Fans swarmed the 30-year-old beauty as she stepped out onto the sidewalk. Stunning: Supermodel Candice Swanepoel smiled in a pair of short-shorts as she left a fitting for the Victoria's Secret fashion show in New York on Tuesday She's got legs: The tall beauty showed off her slim legs in leather Candice graciously flashed her megawatt smile as she snapped dozens of selfies with the adoring crowd. The South African supermodel was dressed in a pair of black leather highwaisted short-shorts that were cuffed at her slim upper thigh. She paired the hot pants with some metallic tipped patent leather pointy toe booties. The mother of two was ready for the fall weather with a chunky silver knit sweater with an open stitched cross detail across the bodice. Smiles! Candice flashed her megawatt smile for the waiting paparazzi Hair goals! the mother of two rocked an enviable high ponytail as she left the fitting Pose! The model has been strutting her stuff in front of a camera for over a decade Coming soon: The annual fashion show will tape next month in New York City Candice struck a few poses as she sauntered down the sidewalk smiling for the paparazzi. The runway vet looked ultra glam with bold brushed up eyebrows and glowing makeup. Her long blonde tresses were slicked back perfectly into a high, sleek ponytail. Selfie time! The 30-year-old graciously took photos with fans The star carried a silky blazer in one hand as she turned for the cameras. Candice had just wrapped up some fittings for the star-studded Victoria's Secret fashion show and shared some behind the scenes footage on social media. She officially became an Angel for the brand in 2010. In November, this year's show will return to New York City, after two years in Paris and Shanghai, respectively. Model milestones: Swanepoel officially became an Angel for the brand in 2010 2017: Last year's show was in China and several models couldn't get their visas to enter the country for work A first: This year will mark the first show in 17 years without Alessandra Ambrosio who recently retired At the 2017 show in China, several models, including Gigi Hadid, were denied visas and couldn't make it. Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner will both be returning to the catwalk for the show but no word on Bella Hadid. Behati Prinsloo will also return after taking two years off to have babies with husband Adam Levine. And, it will mark the first show in 17 years without Alessandra Ambrosio, who retired this year. What's to come: Candice shared some behind the scenes footage during her VS fitting It's all about the drama but The Real Housewives of New Jersey will not be airing its biggest storyline yet. Teresa Giudice has confirmed to ET cameras were NOT rolling the moment husband Joe was ordered out of the country. 'We weren't filming when this just happened,' she told ET, referring to the moment Judge John Ellington ordered the 46-year-old be be deported back to Italy at the end of his prison sentence. Cut: Teresa Giudice has confirmed the moment husband Joe was ordered out of the country will NOT feature on RHONJ In 2014, both Teresa and Joe Giudice plead guilty to 41 counts of fraud and struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors. Teresa served 15 months, which she has already served in 2015, with Joe serving 41 months, with his sentence up next year. Teresa has already indicated she plans on apealing the order; when asked if the outcome of this will be shown on the show, she replied: 'I can't predict the future.' Despite her options being slim, the reality star has discounted two of them: moving back to Italy herself, and divorce. Fighting first: As for what will happen if the deportation order goes ahead, the mom of Gia, 17, Gabriella, 14, Milania, 12, and Audriana, nine, said she didn't even want to think about it 'We're going to be a family and we're going to fight this and get through this,' she insisted. As for what will happen if the deportation order goes ahead, the mom of Gia, 17, Gabriella, 14, Milania, 12, and Audriana, nine, said she didn't even want to think about it. 'We're not even thinking about that right now. What comes first is our daughters and we're going to fight this,' she said. 'I'm focusing 110 per cent on my daughters. This show is my job. I'm putting food on the table for them.' Joe is scheduled for release from prison next year; the couple currently have less than 30 days to appeal the deportation order. Saving the world all the time certainly must get tiring even for a Kryptonian. And thus Melissa Benoist allowed herself a little yawn as she got to work filming scenes for Supergirl on Tuesday. The 30-year-old actress was decked out in her iconic Kara Danvers alter ego costume of red blue and gold. Tiring work: Melissa Benoist allowed herself a little yawn as she got to work filming scenes for Supergirl on Tuesday Between takes the Texan beauty slipped on a grey zip-up hoodie and smiled as the make-up department applied some finishing touches. As soon as cameras were rolling though it was all seriousness, as she faced her cousin Kal El, a.k.a. Superman. Played by Tyler Hoechlin, he once again held a mysterious spell book which has featured heavily in the Vancouver shoot. Super: The 30-year-old actress was decked out in her iconic Kara Danvers alter ego costume of red blue and gold Action! As soon as cameras were rolling though it was all seriousness Family maters: She faced her cousin Kal El, a.k.a. Superman Bookworm: Played by Tyler Hoechlin, he once again held a mysterious spell book which has featured heavily in the Vancouver shoot The tome is bound to be a major MacGuffin in the upcoming Arrowverse crossover arc. Hoechlin has recently been filmed reading from the book wearing an all-black Superman suit, leading fans to believe he may turn evil, or be killed and resurrected. The CW confirmed in August that Ruby Rose is playing Kate Kane, a.k.a. Batwoman, who will make her debut in the crossover before getting her own stand-alone series in 2019. Chilly: Between takes the Texan beauty slipped on a grey zip-up hoodie Squad: She smiled as the make-up department applied some finishing touches Popular: Season four of Supergirl, which kicked off earlier this month The Colorado-born 30-year-old was later spotted chatting up her co-star Grant Gustin, who plays The Flash/Barry Allen. The Virginia-born 28-year-old appeared to be having a laugh in between takes. Perhaps the Glee alum was warming his pipes to sing to Melissa. Grant's stunt worked and Benoist threw her head back laughing. Super-meeting: The Colorado-born 30-year-old was later spotted chatting up her co-star Grant Gustin, who plays The Flash/Barry Allen Goofing around: The Virginia-born 28-year-old appeared to be having a laugh in between takes Having a laugh: Perhaps the Glee alum was warming his pipes to sing to Melissa Hilarious: Grant's stunt worked and Benoist threw her head back laughing Excited? The crossover airs over three nights, starting with The Flash on December 9, continuing with Arrow on December 10 and concluding with Supergirl on December 11 The crossover will take place in Gotham City, and air over three nights, starting with The Flash on Sunday, December 9, continuing with Arrow Monday, December 10 and concluding with Supergirl on Tuesday, December 11. The CW's other two DC Comics superhero shows, DCs Legends of Tomorrow and Black Lightning, will not be part of the crossover. Season four of Supergirl, which kicked off earlier this month, introduced TV's first transgender superhero Dreamer, played by 21-year-old Nicole Maines. She's been soaking up the sun during her scenic Barbados getaway. And Coleen Rooney looked every inch the siren as she frolicked around the Sandy Lane Hotel on the Caribbean island earlier this week. The WAG, 32, proved to be in good company as she was joined by her eldest son Kai, eight, who delighted on a jet-ski ride along the clear blue sea. Sleek: Coleen Rooney looked every inch the siren as she frolicked around the Sandy Lane Hotel on the Caribbean island earlier this week Former OK! magazine columnist Coleen cut an effortlessly glamorous figure as she slipped into a monochrome striped halterneck bikini top and matching briefs. Maintaining her chic display, the mother-of-four flashed her lean legs as she rocked a sheer kaftan with crochet embroidery. Coleen tied her tresses into a sleek bun to reveal her naturally radiant complexion while protecting her eyes from the sun in a pair of oversized cat-eye sunglasses. Having fun: The WAG, 32, proved to be in good company as she was joined by her eldest son Kai, eight, who delighted on a jet-ski ride along the clear blue sea Wow-factor! Former OK! magazine columnist Coleen cut an effortlessly glamorous figure as she slipped into a monochrome striped halterneck bikini top and matching briefs Glowing: Maintaining her chic display, the mother-of-four flashed her lean legs as she rocked a sheer kaftan with crochet embroidery Coleen and Kai have been enjoying the family holiday with mum Coleen, as well as his three younger brothers, Klay, seven, Kit, two, and Cass, eight months. Their trip to Barbados is Coleen's fourth holiday this year. She enjoyed a break on the Caribbean island in May, before heading to Disneyland Paris in June and Portugal in July. Meanwhile, she's been settling into life in the States after husband Wayne signed a three-and-a-half-year deal with with D.C. United in June. Beaming: Kai appeared in high spirits as he returned from a fishing trip A good catch! The eldest son of the Rooney clan beamed with delight as he showed off his fishing net Playing around: Kit, two, looked as if he was having a whale of a time as he relished on the sandy shores The Liverpudlian beauty embraced more US customs as she got into the Halloween spirit by sharing a snap of her three eldest sons perched upon a pumpkin at the Six Flags America theme park in Maryland on Tuesday. Kai wore a comfortable grey tracksuit as he cuddled his younger brothers Kit and Klay. Coleen confirmed her family's move Stateside in July and fans have since seen the Rooney clan touch down across the pond and settle into their new home. The Halloween snap comes as Coleen is said to be loving her new life across the Atlantic. A source recently told The Mirror: 'Coleen looks to be loving life in the States. Back at home she gets recognised everywhere, but here she goes about her business without being stopped. Its like she has a normal life back.' Rami Malek plays legendary rocker Freddie Mercury in his new movie Bohemian Rhapsody. And the Mr. Robot actor appears to have gotten the seal of approval from Mercury's camp, as Queen guitarist Brian May was just one of the stars to celebrate the film in New York on Tuesday. Rami, 37, looked slick in a well-fitted grey plaid suit while veteran rocker May, 71, turned heads in a shiny purple suit. Rock and roll: Bohemian Rhapsody actor Rami Malek appeared like he had the support of Freddie Mercury's own Queen bandmates, pictured with guitarist Brian May and wife Anita Dobson above The leading man layered a black button-up under his suit, rounding out his look with shiny black shoes and back-swept hair. He cozied up with May and his actress wife Anita Dobson for a few photos. The rocking couple looked out of this world, with the lady donning a sequined purple number while her other half looked cool in his purple suit and laid-back Adidas sneakers. Also at the affair was Queen drummer Roger Meddows Taylor. Well suited: Lead actor Rami layered a black button-up under his suit, rounding out his look with shiny black shoes and backswept hair Music to my ears: Brian May, Roger Taylor, Allen Leech, Gwilym Lee, Rami Malek, Joe Mazzello, Kira Goldberg, Graham King, and Mike Myers (left to right) all teamed up for a photo Acting chops: The blue eyed charmer is already getting great reviews for his portrayal Purple reign: Brian May and Anita Dobson were the perfect pair in their bright purple looks Fun and games: Mike Meyers joked around with Queen rocker Brian May A quick scene: Meyers has a cameo as EMI Executive Ray Foster in the movie Turn up the volume: Rami posed up with Mike, who famously rocked out to Bohemian Rhapsody as his character from Wayne's World Family time: Rami took along sister Yasmine to the red carpet affair Rhythm section: Also at the affair was Queen drummer Roger Meddows Taylor, who appeared with his wife Sarina Potgieter He took a casual approach to red carpet classics, donning a tuxedo jacket with slim trousers and a wiry white beard. He brought along Sarina Potgieter, who cut a rocker chic figure in leather and heeled boots. Samantha Mathis looked lovely in a red-caped number with sassy peplum. Scarlet fever: Samantha Mathis looked lovely in a red-caped number with sassy peplum Silver slippers: She added sparkling silver stilettos for footwear She added sparkling silver stilettos and styled her shoulder-length blonde locks straight. American Idol alum Adam Lambert made quite the appearance. He turned heads in a magenta suit worn with an indigo top and sassy scarf. Glittering: Jessica Pimentel wowed in a black sequined jumpsuit with alluring bodice that revealed her center. Bright idea: Adam Lambert turned heads in a magenta suit worn with an indigo top and sassy scarf Blue velvet shoes added the perfect finishing touch to his outfit. Jessica Pimentel of Orange Is The New Black wowed in a black sequined jumpsuit with alluring bodice that revealed her center. Makeup artist Jay Manuel looked chic in Gucci and some statement shoes. Bohemian Rhapsody arrives in US theaters November 2 and is in UK cinemas now. Glam: Makeup artist Jay Manuel looked chic in Gucci and some statement shoes She is using her public profile for good, after recently joining forces with an anti-bullying and youth suicide prevention organisation. But Tammy Hembrow set tongues wagging for a different reason last week, after she was seen repeatedly touching her stomach during a charity presentation. In a video shared to Instagram, the 24-year-old fitness entrepreneur appeared to cover her tummy with both hands while addressing the audience. Why is Tammy Hembrow touching her stomach? The Instagram model repeatedly covered her tummy with both hands while speaking at an anti-bullying event last week Speaking alongside ICANIWILL founder Conan Visser at the event, she kept placing her hands over her mid-section. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Tammy Hembrow for comment. The mother-of-two was dressed for comfort in grey leggings and a matching sleeveless hoodie as she spoke about 'important issues' affecting young people. Something to tell us? Speaking alongside ICANIWILL founder Conan Visser (right) at the event, Tammy kept placing her hands over her mid-section 'Had SO much fun the other day with @icaniwillaustralia,' she wrote on Instagram earlier this week. 'We played a fun game and spoke about some really important issues. 'They are all about raising awareness for bullying and youth suicide and I was so happy to be a part of it.' Motherhood: The fitness entrepreneur shares two children with her ex-fiance Reece Hawkins, two-year-old daughter Saskia and son Wolf, three The sighting comes four months after Tammy broke off her engagement to the father of her two children, Reece Hawkins. They share a daughter Saskia, two, and son Wolf, three. 'You have a picture of what you think your life is going to be like and then circumstances change and people change too,' she recently told Jute magazine. Case of the ex: The sighting comes four months after Tammy broke off her engagement to the father of her two children, Reece Hawkins She added: 'We were young when we got together and still figuring things out. I think when people are weighing in on your personal life while you're trying to understand things yourself it can feel like a lot of pressure.' 'I share so much of my life, so I understand that my followers online wanted to know what was going on. People were wanting to know what happened before we even knew what was going on.' Following the break-up, Reece has started dating American model London Goheen. She's regularly spotted doing the rounds at glitzy events and parties. And Donna Air put on another stylish display as she attended the Fitzdares' Darts at the Arts at The Arts Club on Tuesday in London. The former Dancing On Ice star, 39, cut a glamorous figure at the event in the capital as she stepped out sporting a contrast of patterns. Radiant: Donna Air put on another stylish display as she attended the Fitzdares' Darts at the Arts at The Arts Club on Tuesday in London Having a go: The former Dancing On Ice star, 39, cut a glamorous figure at the event in the capital as she stepped out sporting a contrast of patterns Oozing confidence, the TV personality donned black and white geometric trousers by The Fold as well as a similarly quirky patterned blouse. She left her blonde tresses down in a middle-parting as they grazed her shoulders in soft curls. The mother-of-one opted for a minimal make-up look, favouring rosy cheeks and kohl-lined eyes. Pals: English television presenter and former professional darts player Bobby George helped Donna with her game The mane attraction: She left her blonde tresses down in a middle-parting as they grazed her shoulders in soft curls Glam: The mother-of-one opted for a minimal make-up look, favouring rosy cheeks and kohl-lined eyes Giving her statuesque frame some added height, the presenter wore black heels which featured yellow statement lines. While appearing solo at the event, earlier this year, she sparked up a new romance with property developer Ben Carrington. Donna and Ben went public with their romance in February after the TV presenter split from James Middleton, 31, the younger brother of the Duchess of Cambridge, in 2017. Casual: Countdown star Rachel Riley nailed her trendy low-key vibe for the outing Beaming: She posed with a friend while opting for a baby pink long-sleeved jumper The couple dated on and off for four years, before reports emerged in October that they had quietly parted ways. Donna is mum to daughter Freya Aspinall, 15, who she raises with her former partner of six years, multi-millionaire businessman and conservationist Damian Aspinall, 58. Freya is tipped to be the next big thing in the fashion industry and is the youngest model on the books of Storm, the agency that launched the career of Kate Moss. Earlier this year, a source told MailOnline: 'She wants to use this as a platform to highlight her family's conservation work by working only with ethical brands.' Check him out! Former Made In Chelsea star Hugo Taylor looked smart in a checked blazer Here he is: Radio presenter Jamie Theakston donned a wool bomber jacket and leather boots Mark Wahlberg was spotted on set in Boston on Tuesday. The 47-year-old actor continued production on his new movie Wonderland as he donned a police officer uniform. The Lone Survivor star looked every inch the law enforcer as he made his way up a set of snowy stairs. Busy actor: Mark Wahlberg was spotted on set of Wonderland in Boston on Tuesday In another shot, Mark was spotted speaking with the film's director Peter Berg between takes. Wonderland is an upcoming crime mystery drama film directed by Berg and written by Sean O'Keefe. It is based on the novel of same name by Ace Atkins based on the Robert B. Parker's characters. Mark has been updating Instagram followers on life on the set of Wonderland. Creative minds:In another shot, Mark was spotted speaking with the film's director Peter Berg between takes Snowy set: The Lone Survivor star looked every inch the law enforcer as he made his way up a set of snowy stairs Last week, he posted a video of himself looking scraped-up from as he sat inside a car with his team. 'We all know that faith and family are the most important things in this world,' he began. 'And I've been truly blessed with a beautiful family and extended family, you know what? Look at this extended family,' he said, before panning the camera to those sitting in the car with him. The actor assured his fans that the facial injuries were all just for the movie. '(NOTE: cuts on my face are fake for the movie I'm currently filming and Lawrence is not actually marrying my mother LOL.),' he wrote in the caption. Mark stars opposite Winston Duke, Marc Maron, and Post Malone in Wonderland, which sees the Mile 22 actor play an ex-felon who sets out to unravel a murder conspiracy in Boston's criminal underworld. Kate Hudson is a big fan of Wild Wild Country, so big she even dedicated her Halloween costume to the followers of Indian guru Bhagwan Rajneesh. But the mother-of-three found herself in quite the controversy when she posed as one of the new age movement's followers along with friends, with many calling her out to say she was 'glorifying the cult.' Even still, it seems Kate Hudson has all the approval from Wild Wild Country's star Philip Toelkes, who opened up to TMZ about the costume on Monday. Controversy: Kate Hudson apparently offended people for wearing a Halloween ensemble inspired by the followers of Indian guru Bhagwan Rajneesh The Netflix documentary series Wild Wild Country has lead to a resurgence of interest in the group, known as Rajneeshees or sannyasins. In the photos Kate and crew appear in all shades of red, mirroring the chosen uniform of the religious followers. And people called out the star for 'glorifying' the new age religion, which is considered a cult by many. But former Rajneeshee Philip Toelkes said he saw nothing wrong with the costume. Having previously gone by the name Swami Prem Nirens, Philip was known as one of the top attorneys for the Rajneeshpuram in the 1980s. Speaking about Kate and her clique's costumes: 'There were both joyous and respectful of the tradition,' the TV star told TMZ Getting Wild: The Netflix documentary series Wild Wild Country has lead to a resurgence of interest in the group, pictured above in 1979 His story: Having previously gone by the name Swami Prem Nirens, Philip was known as one of the top attorneys for the Rajneeshpuram in the 1980s 'I thought they were more like adopting it as a way of being in a fun thing rather than in any way demeaning the practice or the approach.' He concluded with the message: 'I thought it was sweet.' Among other complaints about the costumes was the gun featured in Kate's photo with friends. Toelkes didn't take offense to that either. Toelkes continued to add: 'He says the Rajneeshees were well-armed and ready to protect themselves in those days' 'Phil says it's not far off from the truth,' the publication revealed. 'He says the Rajneeshees were well-armed and ready to protect themselves in those days,' making the piece of accessory all the more realistic. His positive remarks were quite the contrast from comments made by outraged social media users, who didn't shy away from letting their opinions known. One Twitter user wrote: 'How is this even acceptable? She is pretty much trying to be funny wearing this outfit and she's not.' A Netflix special: The six part series to Wild Wild Country premiered on the platform in March Another person wrote: 'Can kinda see how it's offensive given that she's glorifying the cult, but honestly I've seen much worse than this.' Kate has yet to respond to the backlash she received for her Wild Wild Country inspired Halloween outfit. The Almost Famous star had kept a relatively low profile in Hollywood since giving birth to her baby daughter Rani Rose on October 2. She is, however, currently in the midst of gearing up for her upcoming role in the fantasy film Blood Moon starring Zac Efron and Craig Robinson. Royal Jordanian (RJ) has posted a net profit JD10.2 million ($14.3 million) for the first nine months of the year, boosted by the increase in the number of passengers and the seat load factor in the third quarter of 2018. Net profit for the period January-September went up 87 per cent compared to the JD5.4 million ($7.6 million) in the first nine months of 2017. The results were announced during a session held on October 29, chaired by Said Darwazeh, in the presence of RJ president/CEO Stefan Pichler. Royal Jordanian has dealt with the huge rise in fuel prices during the current year by increasing the number of passengers and the seat load factor on all its route network by offering continuous sales promos, which contributed to increased demand all year round from travellers who care to invest in the attractive fares and are now planning their journeys early, said Pichler. The paid fuel bill in the first nine months of this year increased by 32 per cent over 2017, amounting to JD122 million ($172 million) in 2018 compared to JD92 million ($129.7 million) paid in 2017. Therefore, operating costs of the company grew from JD406 million ($572.6 million) in the first nine months of 2017 to JD430 million ($606.4 million) this year, a 6 per cent growth. The company's operating revenues increased from JD472 million ($665.7 million) in the first nine months of 2017 to JD510 million ($719.3 million) in the comparison period of 2018, an 8 per cent growth rate; it recorded a 22 per cent higher gross profit, which increased from JD65.7 million ($92.6 million) in the first nine months of 2017 to JD80 million ($112.8 million) in the same period this year. In the first nine months, the number of passengers grew by 4 per cent and the seat load factor grew by 6 per cent, increasing from 71 per cent in the first nine months of 2017 to 74 per cent in the corresponding period of 2018. In terms of air cargo, Pichler said the sector is also witnessing positive operating and financial results. The uplifted cargo carried by the company increased by 16 per cent in the third quarter of this year and as a result, cargo revenues increased by 10 per cent. In the first nine months of this year the uplifted cargo increased by 14 per cent and the cargo revenue by 12 per cent over to the same period of 2017," he said. In Q3, RJ's net profit was registered at JD22.9 million ($32.2 million), down 28 per cent compared to the JD31.8 million ($44.8 million) recorded for the same period of 2017, primarily due to the significant increase in fuel prices. The fuel bill paid by the company between July and September of this year went up 43 per cent, reaching JD47.3 million ($66.7 million); during the same months last year the cost reached JD33 million ($46.5 million). The airline revenues in the third quarter increased by 2 per cent, to JD198 million ($279.2 million), against JD194 million ($273.6 million) for the comparison period of 2017, while operating costs increased by 9 per cent, from JD140 million ($197.4 million) in the third quarter of last year to JD153 million ($215.7 million) for the same period this year. As a result, the gross profit recorded by the company in this period declined 16 per cent, from JD53.8 million ($75.8 million) in the third quarter of 2017 to JD45 million ($63.4 million) in the same period of 2018. Commenting on the financial and operating results of the company, Pichler said: The total number of passengers carried on board RJ increased by 7 per cent in the third quarter of this year, bringing the seat load factor from 75 per cent in the third quarter of 2017 to 77 per cent in the same period of this year, a 2 per cent increase." Pichler stressed that the airlines turnaround plan, launched in the last quarter of 2017, is being followed and has been successfully achieving the set goals. - TradeArabia News Service She's known for her sartorial prowess displays on E4's Made In Chelsea. And Sophie Hermann shunned her typical glamour in favour of a daring Halloween get-up as she attended the UNICEF Halloween Ball in London on Tuesday evening. The TV personality, 31, took a step back into the 17th century as she transformed into Queen of France Marie Antoinette for the festive occasion. Dare to be bold: Sophie Hermann shunned her typical glamour in favour of a daring Halloween get-up as she attended the UNICEF Halloween Ball in London on Tuesday evening Ensuring she channeled Marie down to a tee, the reality star slipped into a corset-style dress, complete with the royal's wide pannier hips. Sophie intensified her look with a curly grey bouffant 'do, which was decorated with elaborate features and flowers. Taking her costume to the next level, the German beauty wore deep pink lipstick with matching blush and false lashes. Different look: The TV personality, 31, took a step back into the 17th century as she transformed into Queen of France Marie Antoinette for the festive occasion Inspiration: Ensuring she channeled Marie down to a tee, the reality star slipped into a corset-style dress, complete with the royal's wide pannier hips (Marie Antoinette, pictured right) In good company: Sophie appeared in high spirits as she joined her pal, who looked every inch the French Emperor Napoleon on their night out Sophie appeared in high spirits as she joined her pal, who looked every inch the French Emperor Napoleon on their night out. Elsewhere, former MIC star Proudlock recently enjoyed a scenic holiday with his fiancee Emma Louise Connolly in Switzerland. Before the couple embarked on a hike, model Emma, 26, shared a cosy snap with her man, with the help of new phone accessory Serge DeNimes x PopSockets. Smitten: Elsewhere, former MIC star Proudlock recently enjoyed a scenic holiday with his fiancee Emma Louise Connolly in Switzerland Having fun: Before the couple embarked on a hike, model Emma, 26, shared a cosy snap with her man, with the help of new phone accessory Serge DeNimes x PopSockets Meanwhile, the pair shocked fans as they announced their engagement in August. Proudlock has been focusing on his fashion business Serge DeNimes in recent times, dipping in and out of the E4 reality show. Joining MIC in series two, he appeared on ten series before quitting and returning in 2016. He famously had flings with the likes of Caggie Dunlop and Lucy Waston, who is now happily dating James Dunmore, during his early days on MIC, but his relationship with fitness fan Emma has played out off camera. She's one of the wealthiest women in Hollywood. And on Tuesday, Oprah Winfrey was all about running her errands in New York City, as she braved the cold temperatures in quite the lovely outfit. The former talk show host, 64, looked sensational in her navy cashmere cape scarf while donning chunky platform heels in a similar shade. What a stylish ensemble: Oprah Winfrey looked wonderful while running errands in New York City on Tuesday Winfrey appeared ever-so-stylish while sporting a pair of black sunglasses and dangling earrings as she strolled through the streets of the Big Apple with plenty of security in tow. Before her New York outing, though, the 64-year-old had taken to her official Instagram page reminding her 15 million followers to vote during the midterm elections on November 6. In the posted video, Winfrey is joined by longtime friend Mariah Shriver, who echoes similar words to what the Mississippi native mentions in the lengthy clip. Her attire: The former talk show host looked sensational in her navy cashmere cape scarf while donning chunky platform heels in a similar shade Winfrey captioned the post saying: 'We are all equal in the voting booth. Make your voice heard Nov. 6! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!' 'We're both independents. I don't think a lot of people know that,' she proudly said while conversing with her pal. 'We know that we've lived long enough to understand that this is a really important moment in our country. Shriver continued to follow suit, explaining how important it is for people get involved and do their part as citizens of the United States. Mark your calendar! the 64-year-old had taken to her official Instagram page to remind her 15 million followers to make their voices heard by heading to the polls for the midterm elections Winfrey then continued by talking in a rather serious manner. 'It's more than a civic duty, it's like your responsibility as a human being,' the self-made billionaire gushed. 'Not only democracy depends on it, our country depends upon it. So vote, vote, vote!' The media executive had caused headlines earlier this year when it was claimed that she was quietly preparing to run for president in 2020. Support: Shriver continued to follow suit, explaining how important it is for people get involved and do their part as citizens of the United States Fans were quick to believe the rumor up until the TV personality commented on her chances of taking up the position at the White House. 'I don't have the DNA for it,' she told InStyle magazine in January. President Trump was clearly amused by the thought of having to compete against the Bee Movie star. 'Wouldn't we love to run against Oprah. I would love it,' Trump said at a Pennsylvania campaign rally in March. 'That would be a painful experience for her.' Winfrey did not respond to the not-so-nice remarks made by Trump. Comedian Nazeem Hussain expects to face backlash when his Channel Seven sketch show launches next week. The 32-year-old's new comedy show, Orange Is The New Brown, is set to premiere on November 8 and it appears nothing is off limits. Segments will feature cultural stereotyping, including a skit about an Indian Bachelor with an overbearing mother, which the former I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! star admits could ruffle feathers. 'Comedy is hard to get right': Nazeem Hussain has revealed his new Channel Seven sketch show featuring cultural stereotypes could attract a backlash 'Comedy is hard to get right. It is very subjective,' he told The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday. 'People don't watch drama the same way they watch comedy.' He continued: 'When they watch comedy, they either love it or hate it. So I am ready my Twitter thumbs are ready to go and I am going to reply to everyone. I should probably have an auto reply though linking to the next episode.' Cultural stereotypes: One skit features an Indian Bachelor with an overbearing mother Earlier this year, it was revealed that Nazeem would take part in a global comedy special for Netflix - which is set for release in 2019. It comes five years after his Legally Brown sketch series aired on SBS. Nazeem, who grew up in a Muslim household with parents from Sri Lanka, is known to tackle issues like racism and Islamophobia in his sketches. Going global: Earlier this year, it was revealed that Nazeem would take part in a global comedy special for Netflix - which is set for release in 2019 In 2014, he told News.com.au that he encounters racism on a daily basis. 'For me, it happens in subtle ways, older ladies grabbing their handbags,' he said. 'But for people who are more visibly Muslim, like my sister who wears a hijab, she has people yelling things at her all the time. "Terrorist", "Osama". Even though she's a woman.' He added: 'You can laugh it off, but that hurts, I think, being a Muslim in a society that doesn't really celebrate being Muslim.' They began dating in 2015 and got engaged June 7 of this year. But it has been a sad time over the last couple days for Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright, who are grieving over the loss of Brittany's family dog. Jax was his most supportive, sharing an Instagram of his fiance petting her beloved dog with the touching caption: 'My baby lost her baby yesterday... Brittanys little girl Maci Grace was sent to heaven yesterday after a long 17 years with her momma.' Family loss: Jax Taylor asked fans to show show their love and support following the passing of her dog: 'Please let Britt know you are thinking of her, we all know how much she loves animals' The Vanderpump Rules star went on to ask his 809,000 followers for a show of support. 'Please let Britt know you are thinking of her, we all know how much she loves animals/especially her own and will do anything for them, so this has been really tough for her.' The 39-year old TV personality ended the touching message by offering some words of comfort directly to his co-star and longtime lady. 'I love you baby and so did Maci, you will see her again one day I promise.' The 29-year old Vanderpump Rules star shared the news of her dog's passing on her Instagram: 'This little girl is family not just our pet, and I am so so lucky I got to be her momma for all of these amazing years,' she captioned in the photo on Sunday Lovebirds: Brittany and Jax started dating in 2015, and got engaged June 7, 2018 Brittany wrote an emotional tribute in honor of her longtime companion and shared it on her Instagram on Sunday. 'After being my best friend and getting me through some of the toughest times we had to say goodbye to Maci today after 17 AMAZING years,' she confessed. 'This little girl is family not just our pet, and I am so so lucky I got to be her momma for all of these amazing years. Today is very hard, I wish I could have been there to say goodbye but I will see my baby girl again one day on that gorgeous rainbow bridge.' Brittany and Jax couldn't be there for one last final goodbye because they have been on holiday in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The couple announced their wedding will be held at The Kentucky Castle in Versailles, Kentucky, which is about 45 minutes from Brittany's hometown of Winchester, Kentucky. She is known for her lavish lifestyle and impeccable taste in style. And on Wednesday, Roxy Jacenko wore a whopping $1.1 million dollars worth of diamonds to her book launch in Sydney. Ahead of the event, the 38-year-old PR queen flaunted her stunning Chopard diamond-encrusted watch and enormous heart-shaped ring. That's a whole lotta bling! PR queen Roxy Jacenko enlists a security guard as she wears $1.1 million worth of Chopard jewellery to her book launch... including a diamond-encrusted watch and sparkling ring The jewels weighed a whopping 7.5 carats of diamonds combined. Her stunning timepiece featured a lotus-style design surrounded by large diamonds and fixed on a black leather band. Her heart-shaped ring had a giant a rock in the center surrounded by smaller glittering stones. Lover of luxury: Roxy's jewellery was by Chopard - and the Swiss jewellery brand's pieces are often worn by other A-list celebrities '7.5ct of beauty,' Roxy wrote in the caption of the post, tagging Swiss jewellers Chopard. The brand's decadent pieces are often worn by other A-list celebrities, including Lady Gaga, Rihanna, actress Julianne Moore and Cate Blanchett. The snap was taken moments before a celebratory lunch at French restaurant Bistro Moncur for the PR maven's new novel, Roxy's Little Black Book of Tips and Tricks. At the event she took the extraordinary step of enlisting two security guards to stand outside the venue to guard her and her jewels. Big fan: Roxy has worn diamond jewels by Chopard in the past Roxy and her husband Oliver Curtis recently splashed out $6.5million on a new home in Sydney's Vaucluse. The sprawling, six-bedroom property boasts harbour views, an outdoor pool and a steam room, and cost them an eye-watering $6,515,000. Roxy told Daily Mail Australia last month she planned to make several additions to the house, including installing a gym for herself and Oliver. The mother-of-two also wants to build a playroom for her two children - Pixie, seven, and Hunter, four - and a storage room dedicated to her collection of handbags. Splashing the cash! Roxy (right) and her husband, Oliver Curtis (left) also recently splashed out $6.5 million on a new home in Sydney's Vaucluse As a Victoria's Secret Angel since 2015, she's one of the brand's foremost ambassadors. And Lais Ribeiro showed why on Tuesday, when the Brazilian beauty stepped out of her fitting for the 2018 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in a blouse with a plunging neckline. The 28-year-old smiled broadly as she left her Midtown appointment in New York City. Off duty beauty: Lais Ribeiro stepped out of her fitting for the 2018 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in a blouse with a plunging neckline on Tuesday Over the revealing garment, Ribeiro slipped on a multicolor blazer. Black pants showed off the statuesque beauty's long, lean legs and heeled boots added inches to her 6ft frame. Lais wore her raven tresses loose for the occasion. She was loaded up with bags from the fitting, including several bearing the Victoria's Secret name. Winners are grinners: The 28-year-old smiled broadly as she left her Midtown appointment in New York City Blazing up: Over the revealing garment, Ribeiro slipped on a multicolor blazer At work: Lais on the catwalk at the Shanghai VS show in November 2017 Lais became a VS Angel in 2015, but started working for the company five years earlier. She was in the 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 Victoria's Secret Fashion Shows. Lais was supposed to walk the 2012 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, but sprained her ankle during rehearsals. Her outfit for that year was given to Behati Prinsloo. In 2013, she was the star of the Birds of Paradise segment. She's had a two-year hiatus from the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show as she started a family with rocker husband Adam Levine. But now Behati Prinsloo is back and ready to hit the runway just eight months after giving birth to a second daughter. The Namibian model, 30, was spotted attending a fitting session at the lingerie brand's headquarters in New York City on Tuesday. Back: She's had a two-year hiatus from the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. But Behati Prinsloo is ready to hit the runway again just eight months after giving birth to a second daughter Behati showcased her incredible figure both coming and going in skintight trousers and figure-hugging tops. She was seen leaving the session in a pair of blue jeans and black tank top after arriving earlier in hot pink skinny pants and a white tee. Both times she stepped out in high-heeled black boots and added a black bomber jacket and wore her long blonde hair loose. Angel: The model, 30, showed off her stunning figure as she left the lingerie brand's New York headquarters Tuesday. She stepped out in blue jeans and skintight black tank top after a fitting Upbeat: The Namibian beauty, 30, seemed excited to be back as she arrived for the fitting session earlier in the day and posed for photographers in front of the company logo Prinsloo walked her first Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in 2007 and became an Angel two years later. She walked in every annual show from 2007 to 2015. In 2016, she stayed away from the runway following the birth of her and Levine's first child, Dusty Rose. The couple had wed two years earlier. In 2017, her second pregnancy also kept her from appearing on the show. Second daughter Gio Grace was born this past February. Leggy look: She'd arrived in hot pink skinny pants and a tight white tee, along with a black bomber jacket, and stepped out in shiny black boots with stiletto heels Mom: Behati gave birth to her daughter Dusty Rose in September 2016 and welcomed second daughter Gio Grace this past February. She married Maroon 5 rocker Adam Levine in 2014 The 2019 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show will be taking place in New York City. This year's extravaganza features a collaboration with British designer Mary Katrantzou but it's not yet known which artists will perform. The fashion show has previously been held in Los Angeles, London, Paris and Shanghai and performers have included Harry Styles, Rihanna, The Weeknd, Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. They previously confirmed their romance when they shared a passionate kiss in the street in July. And Suki Waterhouse and Robert Pattinson are clearly still going strong since they were spotted leaving a London nightclub together in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The 26-year-old model bundled up in a red and blue striped coat while leaving the The Chiltern Firehouse about 2:30am with the 32-year-old actor. Late night: Suki Waterhouse was spotted leaving a London nightclub early on Wednesday with Robert Pattinson, continuing to fuel romance rumours Suki wore a lime green T-shirt underneath her coat along with black trousers, accessorising with a black purse. She wore her hair down loose in a bedhead style and let her fresh-faced beauty shine without any makeup. Robert emerged from the club wearing an olive green V-neck shirt along with a black leather jacket with white stripes along the sleeves. Taking off: Robert and Suki were spotted about 2:30am as they were leaving The Chiltern Firehouse Bundled up: The model bundled up in a thick red and blue striped coat Late night: Suki wore a lime green shirt underneath her coat He completed his outfit with black pants and blue Vans sneakers and accessorized with a plain black cap. Robert and Suki both beamed as they settled into the backseat of a vehicle after leaving the club. The pair first confirmed their romance when they shared a passionate kiss in the streets in August. Headed home: Robert headed home wearing a black leather jacket with striped sleeves London club: The pair left The Chiltern Firehouse looking a bit tired Bright coat: Suki stood out in her vibrant red and blue coat An eyewitness told MailOnline at the time that the pair remained at exclusive celebrity haunt Soho House until 1:10am, when they walked arm-in-arm back to Suki's abode, with Robert sharing another smooch with her before they entered her apartment The actor - who split from his former fiancee FKA Twigs late last year - was rumoured to be dating the Insurgent actress after the pair were spotted cosying up to one another after a night out. While the pair are not in any kind of 'serious' relationship right now, they are spending time together are 'definitely into each other'. Natural beauty: The English model let her natural beauty shine without makeup Backseat passengers: Robert and Suki climbed into the back of a car Plain cap: The Twilight star accessorized with a plain black cap A source told E! News: 'Rob is having fun right now and has definitely moved on from his relationship with FKA Twigs.' Suki recently starred in the black comedy thriller Assassination Nation that also featured Odessa Young, Hari Nef, Colman Domingo and Bella Thorne. Assassination Nation premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival and was released on September 21. Facial stubble: Robert sported a thin layer of facial stubble while out in London Black outfit: The actor wore a black jacket with matching trousers She next can be seen in the science fiction movie Jonathan also starring Ansel Elgort and Patricia Clarkson. Jonathan premiered in April at the Tribeca Film Festival and is scheduled for release on November 16. Suki also has a role in the upcoming Woody Allen romantic comedy A Rainy Day In New York. Casual footwear: Robert sported blue Vans as he left the club with Suki Cute smiles: Suki and Robert both smiled as they left the club Busy stars: Robert and Suki both have multiple film projects in the works Coming soon: Robert can next be seen in the sci-fi movieHigh Life The film stars Timothee Chalamet, Selena Gomez, Elle Fanning, Jude Law, Diego Luna and Liev Schreiber. Principal photography wrapped in October 2017 and a release date has not yet been announced. Robert can next be seen in the sci-fi film High Life that premiered in September at the Toronto International Film Festival. Model actress: Suki has made the transition from model to actress Next year: The English model can be seen next year in the Woody Allen movie A Rainy Day In New York High Life is scheduled to be released in theaters in France on November 7 and A24 has acquired rights to distribute the film in the US. It tells the story of a group of criminals tricked into participating in a deep space mission to find an alternative energy source, in the believe they will be freed as a reward. While aboard the spaceship, they are subjected to being sexually experimented on by scientists. Sci-fi movie: Robert can be seen in High Life due out on November 7 in France According to Deadline, the collaboration between Robert and director Claire Denis only came about because the English actor took it in his own hands to get in contact with the influential French filmmaker. 'I'd been pursuing Claire for ages,' Robert admitted. 'We met in LA, and I just really liked her in the meeting. [But] it was just one of those really long processesI think it was four years later or something when we did the movie, and it's probably been an eight-year process [in all].' It's been a long uncontested fact that Hugh Jackman is the hardest working man in show business. And it appears that even work must come before one of the most important events in his life - his birthday. The Greatest Showman actor's wife Deborra- lee Furness was reportedly forced to cancel his big 5-0 bash when it became apparent that Hugh was going to be staying back late shooting his new film. Oh no! Hugh Jackman forced wife Deborra-lee Furness to postpone his 50th birthday party due to his hectic work schedule Hugh was on set of his new New York-set film Bad Education until 3am, forcing Deborra-lee to reschedule the party until the following weekend, Rob Shuter's 'Straight Shuter' podcast reports. While Deborra-lee was left to blow out his candles on her own, the decision to postpone was likely to be amicable. Opening up to Who magazine recently, he said that he and Deborra-lee had a 'secret pact' that helped keep their relationship on track. 'When Deb and I got married, we made a pact that we would look at each other at every turning point in our lives and ask ourselves if this is good or bad for our family,' he explained. In Bad Education, Hugh stars as disgraced former school superintendent Frank Tassone, responsible for scamming at least $8 million from the Roslyn, Long Island, school district in the early 2000s. On Thursday, Hugh was spotted being encircled by bodyguards as they continued shooting for the film. Cutting a handsome figure in an olive grey suit pants and comfortable overcoat, the Wolverine star appeared pensive while flanked by his churlish looking entourage. It isn't all work and no play for Hugh however, with the star spotted attending the New York premiere of his new film The Frontrunner with wife Deborra-lee in toe on Tuesday night. Advertisement He's reportedly being paid at least six figures to attend the Melbourne Cup next month. So it was no surprise to see Kourtney Kardashian's ex-boyfriend, Scott Disick, 35, splashing out on a room in one of Australia's most expensive hotels. The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star arrived at Sydney Airport on Monday with his younger girlfriend, Sofia Richie, 20, subsequently checking into the luxurious Park Hyatt hotel. Luxury living: Scott Disick and Sofia Richie are staying at the Grand Hyatt in Sydney, which features a rooftop swimming pool, private spa, and spectacular views of the Sydney Opera House. The presidential Sydney Suite boasts rooms with rates in excess of $16,000-a-night The five-star hotel features spacious suites, a private spa, fine dining, a gym, rooftop swimming pool and a guesthouse. Located northwest of the Sydney CBD at The Rocks, rooms boast views of the Opera house, Sydney Harbour Bridge and nearby attractions including the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. It's unclear whether Scott splashed for the presidential Sydney Suite - boasting 950 square metres of pure luxury, and rates in excess of '$16,000-a-night'. The interior includes custom furnishings and fittings, contemporary designs, plush carpets and state-of-the-art appliances. Impressive: Guests can dine outdoors on the spacious balconies, which overlook the harbour Low-key: Keeping Up With The Kardashians star Scott and socialite Sofia were pictured basking in the sun on their hotel balcony on Wednesday On the more affordable end is the 75 square metre Opera suite, which includes a huge king bed, floor to ceiling glass doors, immaculate bathroom and two private balconies. Scott and Sofia can relax together in private at the luxurious spa, which offers high-end treatments such as $390 caviar facials, and a body scrub for $290. Guests can feast on 5-star meals that include wagyu beef, Pan seared Cone Bay barramundi, tiger prawns and expensive champagne. Stunning: The 950 square metre Sydney Suite is nice, but it's more likely the pair opted for the 75 square metre Opera suite, which includes a huge King bed, floor to ceiling glass doors, immaculate bathroom and two private balconies Reality star Scott was invited to the Melbourne Cup, to be held next week, as a guest of the official champagne partner Maison Mumm. The Daily Telegraph reported last month that he is being paid six figures for the gig. On Wednesday, he is expected to host a Halloween dance party at Sydney's Marquee nightclub. Fine dining: Guests can feast on 5-star meals that include wagyu beef, Pan seared cone bay barramundi, tiger prawns and expensive champagne Outdoor fun: Guests have access to a luxury swimming pool and spa as well as tanning beds on the roof Each year, the prestigious brand hosts an extravagant marquee with celebrity guests. Sofia recently told The Sydney Morning Herald that she and Scott are very happy together. 'We are very happy, very lovey dovey,' she said. 'We are best friends and that is mainly the strongest connection we have. We have always had that best friend connection and from there it has really worked out. I am so happy.' By Saiyed Danish, TwoCircles.net In the narrow bylanes of Uttam Nagar in West Delhi, two Rohingya youths-Sabin and Ali-run the office of the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative (RHRI), from the fourth floor of one of the poorly-constructed apartments. This is both our house and office since we have a very limited budget. This is possible through the contributions of the people who understand our plight, says Sabir, who heads the organisation. On one side of the house, I live with my wife and kids and on the other side, I run the office. Support TwoCircles RHRI documents the atrocities currently faced by the Rohingya Muslims from the Arakan region of Myanmar and disseminates the information around the world asking the global community for help and support. Sabir hails from the town of Buthidaung, which means the hill where gourd is grown. Talking about his experiences, Sabir says, I left Burma in 2003. Before that let me tell you that the violence in Burma started way back in 1942. After that, we saw much genocide between 1942 and 2012. We have had genocides at least 21 times in the past 75 years. For the past few years, the RHRI has been trying to share some basic information regarding atrocities committed to Rohingya people with the world outside so that the international community could do something to help Burmese refugees with a political solution. But there hardly seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. On October 4, India deported seven Rohingya refugees to Myanmar. They had been living in Assam. Since 2012, this was the first time when an official decision was taken by the Indian government to deport the refugees back to their country. Even the Supreme Court ruled against their stay saying they are living in India as illegal immigrants, thus giving a green light to their deportation. Even as this piece is being written, preparations are still afoot to deport 23 more Rohingyas from Assam back to Myanmar as being considered by the Home Ministry for two weeks. When TwoCircles.net spoke to RHRI convener Sabir about the latest developments he feared for their lives. Since 1942, our learned youths, scholars, politicians and businessmen have been targeted by the Burmese authorities. The army there could arrest or kill anyone on their whims. In 1978, over 3,00,000 refugees in Bangladesh were provided shelter by the United Nations Organization. We still have two camps from that settlement there accommodate roughly 20,000 refugees there. Sabir recounts the arduous journey from Burma to India as a refugee. I had to pay a good sum of money to border patrol at Burmese-Bangladeshi border. But that wasnt enough. Even the Bangladeshi soldiers asked us for money and we paid. Then we entered India through Kolkata after bribing BSF personnel. Sabir came to India with his sister who lives with him in the same house. I went to Mumbai in search of jobs. I worked as a waiter in restaurants and help in hotels and guest houses and also a travel agent, he smiles. Sabir also worked as an interpreter for foreign tourists. Initially I worked as a freelance interpreter for Burmese tourists. But soon I started working with UNHCR as an interpreter for Rohingya refugees when international media began covering us by the beginning of 2010. It was Sabirs exposure as an interpreter that gave him enough confidence to start an initiative which would help Rohingya refugees. I worked in the UNHCR before leaving to join the Rohingya Youth Union India as its director. My job was to reach out to people and administration to secure any kind of help possible for Rohingya. But the scope was limited there. I wanted to reach out to the world as I had always wanted. As a result, in 2017, the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative was established to achieve larger goals in the interest of Rohingya refugees. Our prime goal is to be able to tell the world of the atrocities committed by the Myanmar government in order to wipe our community off. For this, we have organised seminars and conferences to represent the voice of the Rohingya community. We have also tied up with other human rights organisations like Salaam from Hyderabad. At RHRI, we have chalked out a roadmap to protect our culture and identities by letting the world know who we are. We have been living there for centuries. People do not even know that Arakan was a separate kingdom. We had our separate rule, flags, currency and emblem among other things distinguishing us from the rest of Burma. But gradually our culture was destroyed by Myanmar rulers by the mid-twentieth century. We have been suffering since that time. This is what we want the world to know through this platform. Through RHRI, we also confront the allegations of terrorism and other misconceptions and disinformation propaganda against us by sharing with the world and the international media as much updates as possible to make them aware of the real situation at hand since media persons are not allowed to go there where people are still being mercilessly killed. So our goal here is to publish reports on all such developments and keep the international community informed. Apart from that, we aim to have ties with the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) and other legal bodies to ensure the safe release of the Rohingya youths under detention in India, Sabir elaborates on the role of his organisation. On the walls of his office, there is a poster of Aung San Suu Kyi quoting her with the words, Please use your liberty to promote ours. Below that there is another quote by Rohingyas asking Suu Kyi to do her bit with the following words, Now use your liberty to promote ours. Earlier we supported Aug sang Suu Kyi in 2010 democratic elections hoping that she would finally speak on our behalf and take up our matter with the United Nations. But after she came to power she turns her back on us. We still hope that she raises our concerns on international platform someday but that hope is diminishing now. Every time Sabir mentions the loss of Rohingya legacy in Myanmar, he points towards an informative calendar hanging in the office which has pictures of places, people and a dying script of their language. He passionately points out at each picture and briefs about them. When people ask who the Rohingyas are, I feel like showing them these places, he says while pointing at the picture of an ancient mosque. Look how rich and vibrant our culture was which they are determined to leave no trace of. We have always had a great potential for tourism. Look at these places. Our elders had worked hard to contribute to the growth of Arakan region, he points at a picture of Maungdaw Beach, Saing Din waterfall, an ancient tunnel and paddy fields situated in Arakan. Sabir also hints at discriminatory behaviour he received from the local police while trying to run his organisation. They would enter my house and abuse me. They would call me to the police station often and apart from asking the usual questions, they would take the usual jibe at me. But as our work and my recognition progressed, their treatment has been less harsh towards us, he says. His visiting book index has the name of several international journalists. Sabir is a known face among many national and international media organisations now. He along with his friend Ali has built the reputation of an organisation dedicated to the Rohingya cause and thus earned trust and support of eminent lawyers like Colin Gonsalvez and Prashant Bhushan. Colin Sir has always been our pillar strength through our darkest times, besides aiding us on legal matters. If it hadnt been for people like him, we would have given up already, Sabir says with a smile. Ali works with Sabir at the RHRI and looks after communication with the mainstream media on all issues regarding Rohingya crisis. His family hails from Maungdaw and Buthidaung. I was a high school student in Bangladesh when violence broke out in 2012 in Myanmar. I used to ride an e-rickshaw there. One day, some of the passengers started talking about the news of violence in Myanmar. Then the influx of refugees into Bangladesh increased so I came to Delhi to pursue higher studies and get away from the effects of violence, Ali recollects. Even when he came to Delhi, Ali ran a hostel near Zakir Nagar for poor Rohingya children. He also ran a makeshift school for them in the Shaheen Bagh area of Delhi but had to close the school due to a scarcity of funds. Those children need someone who promises them a future of their own. The crisis can be solved by providing education to the refugee kids here. My dream is to ensure scholarships for 250 Rohingya kids so that they can afford school at a primary level. We have been able to collect some funds for that by crowdsourcing, which helps us to get the kids school dresses and stationary but at the end of the day, those funds are not enough. If the international community genuinely wants to help us, they can do so by funding 250 kids for school. I dont think it will cost them a lot, says Ali. Like Sabir, Ali is also optimistic about a political solution in the long run but feels that the international community is not doing enough to ensure a safe and dignified return of Rohingyas to Myanmar. The solution has to be a political one. We have been demanding foreign countries to cut their trade ties with my countrys government so that at least the latter feels some international pressure and stop the genocide of Rohingyas. Despite the disappointments, both Sabir and Ali maintain that they keep finding rays of hope, for instance, the announcements by a few countries to cut off their ties with the Myanmar military as bold steps to force Myanmar to respectfully take back Rohingyas in the country. In September 2017, the UK suspended aid for Myanmar military and Maldives severed its ties with Myanmar. In October of the same year, EU announced severing its ties with Myanmar. In June 2018, Amnesty International urged the Australian government to cut off all trade relations with Myanmar military and to take steps towards trying 13 military generals of Myanmar at International Criminal Court for the alleged genocide of Rohingya people. Sometimes, little developments in the direction of our goals matter the most to us. I see these developments in this way, Sabir concludes with a hopeful grin on his face. When you do clownery, the clown comes back to bite. That's what Nicki Minaj, 35, told Steve Madden on Tuesday, after he denied the female rapper's claims on having once offered her an endorsement deal in the midst of her feud with rival Cardi B, 26. Following Nicki's explosive rant on her Queen Radio show on Monday, the Bodak Yellow hitmaker embarked on a lengthy rant with her nemesis over social media for hours. Feisty: Nicki Minaj called Steve Madden a 'clown' for lying about never having offered the female rapper an endorsement deal During that time, commercial deals that both artists had turned down were the topic of discussion at one given point. 'Same thing with Steve Madden. Irv Gotti asked me to do that deal several times,' the Trinidadian shared with her followers on Twitter. 'I passed. You never hear me talking bout things like this. she rlly thought she was doing smthn talking about turning down deals.' Plenty of deals: The self-proclaimed Queen couldn't figure out why Cardi had boasted about deals she had turned down amid their social media feud Weighing in his opinion: Madden simply tweeted he had never offered the A-list star an offer of any sort to collaborate on a project with his brand In response to the comment made by the Come See About Me hitmaker, Madden made quite the attempt to discredit Nicki's words. '@NICKIMINAJ you can't turn down an offer that was never made. #StopLying,' the fashion mogul tweeted. And, of course, given she's not someone who is quick to back down, the Super Bass star made sure to not only bash the 60-year-old on her social media page but also show evidence that there was an offer made by the New Yorker himself. Journalist Adelle Platon, who interviewed Madden for an interview in 2015, had also made her voice heard during the commotion. Uh-oh: It turns out, thanks to the help of journalist Adelle Platon, who had interviewed Madden in 2015, where he clearly mentions wanting to have done a collaboration with Nicki Platon mentioned how a deal between the rapper definitely seemed to have been in the works, especially after the father-of-three admitted to having regrets of not working with Nicki in the past. 'I was gonna do a collaboration with Nicki Minaj and we got into a fight the first minute we met,' he said in the 2015 interview, according to Platon. 'And then we patched it up. We were cool. We text each other, we became sort of buddies. We were thinking of doing something, and I would've, but I was with Iggy and I thought, 'Coke and Pepsi.' It was a mistake. I made a mistake and I wish that I could go back in time and work with Nicki instead of Iggy.' Not so fast: the Super Bass star made sure to not only bash the 60-year-old on her social media page but also show evidence that there was an offer made by the New Yorker himself Female support: Nicki thanked Iggy Azalea for shedding light on Madden's character It's on again: Following Queen Radio's 10th episode on Monday, Nicki reignited her feud with rival Cardi B, which eventually led to her feud with Steve Madden In response to being brought up in the topic of discussion, Iggy Azalea had shared the tweet with her fans. In the midst of eventually having heard about Madden's attempt to discredit claims she had an endorsement deal in line with his brand, Nicki made sure she was the last one laughing. She took to her Twitter handle again, thanking the Fancy rapper for shedding light on Madden's character. 'Thank you @IGGYAZALEA for confirming the truth about h*e n**** Steve Madden. ya see when ya do clownery? The clown comes back to bite.' She's busy promoting season four of the Starz series Outlander. And on Tuesday, Caitriona Balfe, 39, headed to the ABC studio in Hollywood for an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! The Irish actress looked stylish in a black jumpsuit belted at the waist. Outlander star: Caitriona Balfe, 39, headed to the ABC studio in Hollywood for an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Tuesday looking stylish in a black jumpsuit belted at the waist The long-sleeved number had a plunging neckline and the trouser legs had stripes down the side and fell to just above her ankles. She stepped out in a pair of shiny black heels. Balfe tied her hair back from her face and accessorized with dangly diamond earrings. Late night show appearance: The Irish actress, 39, is busy promoting the fourth season of her Starz series Outlander Stylish: The long-sleeved number had a plunging neckline and the trouser legs had stripes down the side and fell to just above her ankles. She added shiny black heels Balfe stars as Claire Fraser in the period drama opposite Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser. Her character is an English combat nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously transported back in time to 1743 where she marries a Scottish warrior. In a recent interview with TV Insider, Balfe and Heughan teased the upcoming storyline. 'The couple are more settled and more together in their union than in prior seasons,' Balfe explained. 'It's quite nice to enjoy them being together without all the external forces pulling them apart.' Hit series: Balfe stars as Claire Fraser in the period drama Outlander opposite Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser Also arriving at Kimmel was This Is Us star Milo Ventimiglia. The actor, 41, paired a short-sleeved blue shirt, that was left unbuttoned at the collar, with black trousers and shoes. He sported sunglasses as he made his way to the studio, pausing to greet and pose for selfies with fans. Popular: Also arriving at Kimmel was This Is Us star Milo Ventimiglia. The actor, 41, paired a short-sleeved blue shirt, that was left unbuttoned at the collar, with black trousers and shoes After an undoubtedly rough 2017, things are finally looking up for Roxy Jacenko and her family. Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail at the launch of her new book, Roxy's Little Black Book of Tips and Tricks, in Sydney on Wednesday, the 38-year-old publicity queen revealed her seven-year-old daughter Pixie Curtis is much happier after having been bullied last year. Roxy said the imprisonment of her husband, Oliver Curtis, for conspiracy to commit insider trading made Pixie a target at school. Doing better: Roxy Jacenko revealed her seven-year-old daughter Pixie Curtis is much happier after having been bullied at school last year Roxy admitted it was something the mum-of-two felt helpless to stop. 'It was a very hard time for them, 2016, 2017, being so young. They were obviously exposed to something kids of that age are not normally exposed to. It was my duty to protect them as much as I can but I couldnt be with them 24/7 at school,' she explained. Roxy said the bullying has since stopped, following Oliver's release from prison in June last year, and Pixie is now in a much better place. 'Pixies loving school. Shes ready to go out the door every morning, which is really refreshing, because she went from being someone who did not want to go to school and would cry because shed be worried shed end up having something said to her in the playground, to being really enthused to go. So its good,' she continued. The whole ordeal inspired Roxy to pen a children's book, Penelope's Playground, which is due for release in February next year. Family matters: Roxy said the imprisonment of her husband, Oliver Curtis, for conspiracy to commit insider trading made Pixie a target at school 'Its basically an anti-bullying picture book Pixie and I have done together, because I think theres not really anything out there on the market which is nicely illustrated and tells the story of how important it is to be kind to one another and accept each others differences,' she said. Roxy hopes the book will 'educate' both kids and parents to prevent other children from experiencing what Pixie went through. 'The importance of watching what you say in front of your kids. Its important, because kids just replay what you say. And thats what was happening to Pixie,' she said. Taking inspiration: The whole ordeal inspired Roxy to pen a children's book, Penelope's Playground, which is due for release in February next year 'It wasnt the kids who had an opinion, its what they would hear in their home.' Roxy previously spoke about Pixie having been bullied in an interview with The Daily Telegraph in January, describing it as a 'hard time'. 'She was very upset and hearing that "your dad broke out of jail and is a bad person" was something I would never have wanted her to hear, but she did, and we worked through it,' she said at the time. She is the stunner who models, acts and runs her own skincare brand. And on Tuesday, Jessica Gomes stormed the runway to showcase the latest looks from Australian luxury label Jets Swimwear. The 34-year-old strutted her stuff at the David Jones store, in Sydney, in a range of stylish bathers as part of the brand's 20th anniversary. Taking the plunge! Jessica Gomes has showcased her fabulous figure in a skimpy one-piece on the runway for Jets Swimwear's 20h anniversary, on Tuesday She turned heads in an eye-catching one-piece with a plunging neckline that drew attention to her ample assets. The suit featured gold and silver detailing on the bodice, a fringe trimming across her hips and cut-outs on her waist. Her next look was a similar black bodysuit that hugged her trim and toned physique. All in the details: She turned heads in an eye-catching one-piece with a plunging neckline that drew attention to her ample assets. The suit featured gold and silver detailing on the bodice, a fringe trimming across her hips and cut outs on her waist One-piece wonder: Her next look was a similar black bodysuit that hugged her trim and toned physique Elegant: It also featured a plunging neckline that accentuated her busty display and an infinite-like trinket that held the cups in place. The raven-haired beauty's look was accessorised with heart-shaped sunglasses and a gold bracelet Babe in burgundy: She then modelled a simple and elegant burgundy bathing suit It also featured a plunging neckline that accentuated her busty display and a trinket that held the cups in place. The raven-haired beauty's look was accessorised with heart-shaped sunglasses and a gold bracelet. She then modelled a simple and elegant burgundy bathing suit, teamed with a waist belt and a pair of vintage-inspired shades. Trendy: Her look was teamed with a waist belt and a pair of vintage-inspired shades Another swimsuit the beauty paraded was a daring black and white one-piece with cut-outs down the cleavage and on either side of the suit. Jessica's saucy swimsuit displays comes after she proudly revealed that she has not had any cosmetic procedures. She told The Daily Telegraph, 'I'm proud that I don't have those things in my face'. Monochrome magic: Another swimsuit the beauty paraded was a daring black and white one-piece with cut outs down the cleavage and on either side of the suit 'I feel it's important for me to state that because now within the industry and social media I'm seeing a lot of plastic surgery,' she noted. The Perth-born beauty hopes to be a good example for other women to be comfortable and celebrate their own unique looks. 'I want women to know that they can embrace their own unique self and not feel like they have to change themselves or be pressured to do that.' Brooke Blurton and Cassandra Wood will join season two of Bachelor In Paradise. Channel 10 took to Twitter, on Wednesday, to confirm the Bachelor beauties are taking part in the romance reality show for a second shot at love. 'Well, the Cass is out of the bag now! Fan faves Brooke and Cass are heading to Paradise! #10TVWithATwist #BachelorInParadise,' the tweet read. Second chance at love! Channel Ten confirm Brooke Blurton (left) and Cassandra Wood (right) will join season two of Bachelor In Paradise The revelation of the single stunners joining the dating show is the first official confirmation of the contestants for the highly anticipated second season. The rest of the cast is yet to be announced. According to Woman's Day, Keira Maguire and Sam Cochrane are rumoured to be joining the 2019 cast after their respective relationships with Jarrod Woodgate and Tara Pavlovic ended. Ready for love... again: According to Woman's Day, Keira Maguire (left) and Sam Cochrane (right) are rumoured to be joining the 2019 cast after their respective relationships with Jarrod Woodgate and Tara Pavlovic ended Reunion: The magazine also reported the trio of 'mean girls' from the sixth season of The Bachelor, 'Cat Henesy, Romy Poulier and Alisha Aitken-Radburn are set to star on the upcoming Channel 10 series' The magazine also reported the trio of 'mean girls' from the sixth season of The Bachelor, 'Cat Henesy, Romy Poulier and Alisha Aitken-Radburn are set to star on the upcoming Channel 10 series.' Meanwhile NW reported earlier this year Rachel Gouvignon will return along with newcomer James Trethewie from Sophie Monk's season of The Bachelorette. Single and ready to mingle: Meanwhile NW reported earlier this year Rachel Gouvignon (left) will return along with newcomer James Trethewie (right) from Sophie Monk's season of The Bachelorette 'I don't know if I can say that yet': Luke McLeod, who starred in The Bachelorette and Bachelor In Paradise, confirmed to Daily Mail Australia back in September that he had been approached by producers of the dating show Luke McLeod, who starred in The Bachelorette and Bachelor In Paradise, all but confirmed to Daily Mail Australia back in September that he had been approached by producers of the dating show. 'It's been a rollercoaster of a ride for me with ups and downs,' he admitted about his Bachelor In Paradise experience. When asked he'd be back for the second season, Luke hesitated before stating: 'I don't know if I can say that yet. I don't know if we can talk about this.' Just friends: Australia fell in love with Cass on season six of The Bachelor with Nick Cummins. Unfortunately for the blonde beauty, the curly haired hunk decided they could only be friends Australia fell in love with Cass and Brooke as on their journeys to finding love with former rugby union star Nick Cummins on season six of The Bachelor. Unfortunately for the blonde beauty, the curly haired hunk decided they could only be friends. While in Brooke, who he was infatuated with, surprised the nation when she decided to walk out on him before the finale. She is no stranger to red carpet glamour. And Gemma Arterton looked simply stunning as she attended the Harper's Bazaar Women of the Year Awards on Tuesday, held at the Claridge's Hotel in London. The actress, 32, slipped into a dazzling sequinned gown for the occasion, that saw her scoop up the prize for Outstanding Performance. All eyes on her: Gemma Arterton looked simply stunning as she attended the Harper's Bazaar Women of the Year Awards on Tuesday, held at the Claridge's Hotel in London Gemma looked sensational in her floor-length number that came entirely embellished in two tone sequins and sat off of one shoulder. The metallic design perfectly highlighted the star's slender frame and ensured all eyes were on Gemma throughout the star-studded evening. Letting her gown take centre stage, the beauty kept her accessories to a minimum and sported a Tiffany & Co. diamond wrist cuff and stud earrings. She wore her brunette locks styled into tousled curls and swept over to one side, finishing off her red carpet look with flawless make-up. She favoured perfectly defined brows, a subtle smokey eye and a glossy lip. Delight! The actress, 32, slipped into a dazzling sequinned gown for the occasion, that saw her scoop up the prize for Outstanding Performance and rub shoulders with the likes of Dame Kristin Scott Thomas (above) So chic: Gemma looked sensational in her floor-length number that came entirely embellished in two tone sequins and sat off of one shoulder Gemma was seen rubbing shoulders with a slew of famous faces at the bash, including fellow actresses Dame Kristin Scott Thomas, 58, and fellow actress Lily James, 29. She had been honoured at the awards with the Outstanding Performance award for her role in The Escape. In the movie, Gemma plays the role of a mother-of-two, Tara, struggling with depression. She also served as a co-producer on the movie, in which the dialogue has been mostly improvised. Smile! Gemma was seen catching up with fellow actress Lily James, 29, at the awards bash Gorgeous: The actresses favoured contrasting make-up looks, with Gemma opting for neutral tones and Lily choosing a statement red lip Chuffed: Gemma couldn't hide her delight as she clutched onto her award for her role in The Escape - she posed alongside the 2017 movie's director Dominic Savage at the bash Gemma stars alongside her close friend Dominic Cooper in The Escape, who plays her husband. Gemma also stars in Vita and Virginia, where she stars as Virginia Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West in the biographical romance drama that documents the love affair between the two writers, despite them both being married to men. Discussing the role and the art of lesbian seduction onscreen, Gemma revealed in the December issue of Harper's Bazaar: 'Language was everything. 'Vita and Virginia's way of seducing, of getting to the nitty-gritty, of pretending to be somebody else.' New role: Gemma also stars in Vita and Virginia, where she stars as Virginia Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West in the biographical romance drama Gemma explained she was drawn to the role because of the character of Vita and its ability to test her as an actress, she added: 'It is all about the complexities of a character. 'Every time I do a project now, it's a creative adventure, an experiment in seeing what I can do.' The Prince of Persia star is an active supporter of ERA (Equal Representation for Actresses). Speaking about her involvement, she said: '[It is] what we are all striving for: making great parts for women and giving women directors and writers more voice.' Ferne McCann and Sam Faiers were formerly locked in a bitter feud. But the ladies proved things were truly behind them on Wednesday as they threw their support behind Sam's sister Billie's new babywear collection exclusive to George at Asda at a lavish lunch in London. The former TOWIE stars united for the event as they posed together peacefully after reconciling their differences ahead of Billie's wedding to Greg Shepherd, who was also in attendance with their son Arthur. Happy days: Ferne McCann and Sam Faiers proved things were truly behind them on Wednesday as they threw their support behind Sam's sister Billie's new babywear collection exclusive to George at Asda at a lavish lunch in London Ferne looked sensational for the outing as she slipped into a loose-fitting white mini dress with thigh-high boots in a bang-on-trend snakeskin pattern. She scraped her hair into a high ponytail while her make-up was flawlessly applied. Joining her at the bash was her daughter Sunday, who she shares with acid attacker ex-beau Arthur Collins, with the outing marking two days till her first birthday. Sam meanwhile, who shares son Paul, two, and daughter Rosie, 11 month, with her partner Paul Knightley, went for a covered-up ensemble complete with a suedette jacket, jeans and ankle boots with a white shirt underneath. Billie looked breathtaking for the launch as she sported a thigh-skimming mini skirt with a crew-neck pink jumper paired with staggering heels. Here come the girls! The former TOWIE stars united for the event as they posed together peacefully after reconciling their differences ahead of Billie's wedding to Greg Shepherd, who was also in attendance with their son Arthur Stunner: Ferne looked sensational for the outing as she slipped into a loose-fitting white mini dress with thigh-high boots in a bang-on-trend snakeskin pattern. She scraped her hair into a high ponytail while her make-up was flawlessly applied Snaking around! Ferne's racy boots added an edgy feel to the look Proving she and Sam have contrasting styles, while Sam was covered-up, Billie opted for a more flesh-flashing look for the launch of her sweet new collection. Greg ensured he looked smart for the outing as he sported a crew-neck jumper with a white shirt underneath while little Arthur was clad in the collection. Ferne and Sam's initial fall-out was plagued with contrasting reports as Sam reportedly alleged she warned her pal off ex Arthur Collins, while Ferne insists her decision to take on her rival mummy show was the reason for the row. Wrapped up: Proving she and Sam have contrasting styles, while Sam was covered-up, Billie opted for a more flesh-flashing look for the launch of her sweet new collection Look! Billie looked breathtaking for the launch as she sported a thigh-skimming mini skirt with a crew-neck pink jumper paired with staggering heels Sweet: The new range had Billie's personal stylish touches in place Speaking to MailOnline in May, Ferne revealed the reasons for the feud as she said: 'The reason as far as I'm concerned is that she fell out with me is because I decided to take First Time Mum as a show... 'We had like 15 years of friendship, my first baby is one week apart from her baby and it can still be lovely and all I'll say is it's a terrible shame.' Now however, the hatchet has been buried since the group went away for Billie's hen do in Ibiza last month, during which they appeared to get on famously. Checking things out: Sam was helping plan the event with her sister The Spanish actress has embraced the relaxed vibes of Byron Bay since relocating to the Australian coastal town with her actor husband Chris Hemsworth in 2014. And Elsa Pataky, 42, paraded her signature bohemian style in a campaign for a Byron Bay-based clothing label during a recent holiday back to Madrid. The mother-of-three flaunted her enviable physique in a variety of stunning Spell & The Gypsy ensembles during the breathtaking photo shoot. Bohemian abroad! Elsa Pataky flaunts toned legs and flat stomach as she models for Byron Bay's Spell & The Gypsy during Madrid getaway The modern bohemian fashion brand was founded in Byron Bay by two sisters, who claim to have met and formed a close bond with Elsa three years ago. Elsa looked carefree and playful in a colourful wrap dress, as she stood atop a building's roof with the city visible behind her. The frock was tied around her svelte waist, enhancing her lithe frame as she posed up a storm. Happy to be home? Elsa, 42, paraded her signature bohemian style in a campaign for a Byron Bay-based clothing label during a recent holiday back to Madrid Work it! The frock was tied around her svelte waist, enhancing her lithe frame as she posed up a storm on the rooftop Her blonde locks were worn down, as she accessorised with multiple necklaces and bracelets. In a series of other location shoots, she wore maxi dresses, flares trousers and a matching shorts and top combination with thigh-high suede boots. In a blog post on the brand's website, Elsa shared her must-dos while visiting Madrid to complement the imagery. 'When the opportunity came for our team to meet Elsa in Spain, we were thrilled to have her show us her fave haunts in the amazing city of Madrid,' the brand wrote. Thigh's the limit! Elsa showed off her toned legs in a pair of shorts and thigh-high suede boots Natural beauty! Elsa placed her blonde locks up in a messy bun, as her makeup was applied in neutral tones That's cheeky! Elsa's pert posterior was seen in the very short shorts Elsa claimed 1862 Dry Bar, El Museo Chicote, and Del Diego Cocktail Bar were her top three favourite places to dine or have a cocktail at. The Fast And The Furious actress suggested tourists visiting for the first time should head to La Plaza Mayor, and visit The Royal Palace for the best Instagram snaps. Elsa reminisced on her childhood, saying that spending Sundays in El Retiro were some of her fondest memories. 'We just adore her and have always loved how she styles our clothes so eclectically with the pieces she finds on her travels,' the brand said of Elsa's unique sartorial choices. Bloomin' beauty! Elsa wore a floral maxi dress in another photoshoot location All smiles! Elsa reminisced on her childhood, saying that spending Sundays in Madrid's El Retiro were some of her fondest memories Of her favourite places to shop in Madrid, Elsa raved about the boutiques on Serrano and Fuencarral. The brand shared the story of how they met Elsa some years ago. 'We were meant to be meeting about fashion, but instead we ended up chatting about Byron, travelling, kids, and not wearing shoes! She walked out barefoot and left her shoes behind (not kidding!!!)' they wrote. 'She walked out barefoot and left her shoes behind': Proving Elsa is a bohemian at heart, the Byron Bay-based brand founders claimed the Hollywood stars left ther store barefoot after a meeting three years ago Flare for fashion! Elsa was playful throughout the campaign, as she showed off her toned legs, taut stomach and slender frame in various ensembles Pretty in pink! Elsa walked the streets in a matching top and skirt, in which she accessorised with necklaces, bracelets and a designer bag Elsa moved to Byron Bay in 2014 with actor husband Chris and their three children - twin sons Tristan and Sasha, and daughter India Rose. The pair are currently in the middle of building a sprawling 'mega mansion' in the idyllic coastal region, with the renovations estimated at approximately $8 million. While they live primarily in Australia, the Hollywood couple still have a portfolio of properties overseas. She revealed she 'cried every day for two months' when her eponymous fashion line went bust earlier this year. But Millie Mackintosh looked happy and relaxed as she continued her wellness break in Thailand on Wednesday. The reality star, 29, slipped into a retro-style leopard print bikini while enjoying a day of exploring the Phi Phi Islands and Maya Bay, the picturesque location Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Beach was shot in back in 2000. Fun in the sun: Millie Mackintosh slipped into a retro-style leopard print bikini while enjoying a day of exploring the Phi Phi Islands and Maya Bay in Thailand on Wednesday The former fashion designer looked incredible as she spent the day on a boat trip, while keeping her Instagram followers updated with her holiday. Alongside her bikini shot, Millie wrote: 'Leopard print is my new favourite colour. The newlywed posed up a storm in a series of swimwear shots as she enjoyed a relaxing weekend of yoga, Thai cookery lessons and sight-seeing at the Wat Chalong temple while staying at the Rosewood Hotel in Phuket. The fashion designer showed off her gym-honed figure as she slipped into an eye-catching red and white patterned bikini and matching kaftan from her socialite friend Alicia Rountree's new collection. Life's a beach: The reality star, 29, looked incredible as she spent the day on a boat trip, while keeping her Instagram followers updated with her holiday Soaking up the sun: The newlywed enjoyed a relaxing weekend of yoga, Thai cookery lessons and sight-seeing at the Wat Chalong temple while staying at the Rosewood Hotel in Phuket Exploring: Millie visited the picturesque location Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Beach was shot in back in 2000 Millie looked every inch the style queen as she treated fans to a glimpse of her lavish champagne breakfast, teaming her swimwear with a chic matching kaftan and retro-style shades. The former Made In Chelsea star took to Instagram once again on Monday morning as she posed in front of her hotel mirror, wearing a plunging rust-coloured swimsuit by Melissa Obadash and a matching cover-up. Joined for her girls' break by her manager, Millie told her followers how much she was enjoying her weekend of rest and relaxation. Using the Thai greeting sawadee ka, she wrote alongside a snap: 'Sawadee Ka. Ive only been here 2 days but already I am in love with this island and the kindness of the Thai people I have met.' Elegant: Millie posed in a patterned bikini and matching turban and kaftan as she treated fans to a glimpse of her lavish champagne breakfast on Sunday Chic: The reality star posed up a storm in a series of slinky swimwear shots Millie's sun-soaked girls' break came after she reflected on a year of personal ups and professional downs in an interview with the December issue of Red magazine. The former MIC star admitted she 'cried every day for two months' after seeing her eponymous fashion line crumble at the start of the year, owing 548,000 and personally costing her 178,000. Millie reflected: 'Its been an up-and-down year. I've had the highest highs and the lowest lows. When the business went under it was upsetting and not just for me. 'The worst part was feeling like I'd let down everyone involved. I sat people down and let them know what was happening. 'It was upsetting, anxiety inducing, tearful I cried every day for two months. It was painful. Horrible.' Let me take a selfie: The former Made In Chelsea star took to Instagram on Monday morning as she posed in a plunging rust-coloured swimsuit by Melissa Obadash and a matching cover-up While Millie seemed to be having a blast her husband Hugo Taylor, 32, was pining for his wife, telling his Instagram followers he spent Sunday afternoon looking at photographs from the couple's stunning countryside wedding in June. Posting a snap of the pair on their special day, the sunglasses entrepreneur wrote: 'One Love... Ive just spent a great Sunday afternoon looking over pictures from our wedding this summer and it feels like an out of body experience. 'The joy, wonder and happiness lasts forever. I love being a husband to the most incredible and beautiful wife.' The couple tied the knot at Hugo's uncle's country estate, Whithurst Park, in West Sussex on June 22, followed by a romantic Greek honeymoon to the islands of Crete and Kefalonia. Exploring: Joined for her girls' break by her manager, Millie told her followers how much she was enjoying her weekend of rest and relaxation Missing you: While Millie seemed to be having a blast, husband Hugo Taylor, 32, was pining for his wife, telling his followers he spent Sunday afternoon looking at wedding photographs Millie and Hugo first dated back in 2011 when they co-starred on Made In Chelsea, but split when it emerged Hugo had cheated on her with her friend Rosie Fortescue. They reunited in May 2016 shortly after Millie's split from first husband, rapper Professor Green, 34. Millie was married to the musician, real name Stephen Manderson, for two-and-a-half years before they announced their split in February 2016. The couple finalised their divorce in May 2016, the same week that Millie went public with Hugo on a trip to the Monaco Grand Prix to celebrate Hugo's 30th birthday. Yoga bunny: The fashion designer slipped into a tie-dye crop top and matching leggings as she worked up a sweat during an outdoor yoga session Newlyweds: The couple tied the knot at Hugo's uncle's country estate, Whithurst Park, in West Sussex on June 22, followed by a romantic Greek honeymoon to Crete and Kefalonia Hugo then popped the question a year later during a holiday in Mykonos, Greece, in July 2017. Talking about his bride, Hugo told Hello! magazine at the wedding: 'I knew she was The One within about five minutes of us getting back together.' Millie concurred: 'But if we'd stayed together when we were younger, we wouldn't be together now. 'We had to go away, do our separate things and grow as people. We needed that time apart.' The Kardashian sisters joined forces for a sun-drenched family getaway to Bali. And Scott Disick proved he was still very much on friendly terms with his ex Kourtney Kardashian as he took to Instagram with a sweet snap on Tuesday, dubbing it 'Crew Love.' Standing on an idyllic beach with the sun setting, the reality star was joined by son Mason, 8, daughter Penelope, 6, and Kim's eldest North, 5. 'Crew love': Scott Disick posed with son Mason, 8, daughter Penelope, 6, and Kim Kardashian's eldest North, 5, from their family getaway to Bali Clad in a button down white shirt and floral swimshorts, Scott looked happy and relaxed as he swung one arm around Mason and held North with his other hand. North in return ensured she held onto her cousin Penelope's hand as they posed for the photo. The sweet snap comes after Kim backtracked on her feud with her sister, after taking to social media on Wednesday to share picture of the pair together, captioned, 'I lied. She really is the most interesting to look at... @kourtneykardash'. Kim's comment triggered thousands of delighted comments from fans, who were thrilled the pair had made up. The feud's over! The sweet snap comes after Kim backtracked on her feud with her sister, after taking to social media on Wednesday to share picture of the pair together, captioned, 'I lied. She really is the most interesting to look at... @kourtneykardash' 'Sister love after all', one follower enthused, while another shared, 'I'm so happy you made up'. The image sees Kim and Kourtney posing in front of a clothing rail, pouting up a storm. Kourtney is in the foreground, showcasing her incredible figure in a white crop top and high-waisted jeans. The star had urged Kim to be 'positive' following their recently televised feud. Reconciled: 'Sister love after all', one follower enthused, while another shared, 'I'm so happy you made up' While it has since been claimed there's no bad blood between the siblings, the pair are still exchanging jibes on social media. Kim, 37, recently took to Twitter to poke fun at the way her older sister says certain words, when she wrote: 'I hate how @kourtneykardash says issues. She like drags it.' And Kourtney - who has Mason, eight, Penelope, six, and Reign, three, with former partner Scott Disick - hit back, urging Kim to be kinder. She quoted the original tweet and wrote: 'Oh wow hate is a strong word. Let's be positive today shall we?!' Out for blood: Kourtney had urged Kim to be 'positive' following their recently televised feud MEAN! Kim, 37, took to Twitter to poke fun at the way her older sister says certain words, prompting Kourtney to hit back Their comments come after sources from People claimed the Kardashian siblings, including 34-year-old Khloe, 'get in tiffs all the time', and aren't really at one another's throats. An insider said: 'Kim, Khloe and Kourtney get in tiffs all the time. 'This is nothing new. Kim has been on the outs with Kourtney and Khloe before, but right now, Khloe and Kim are on the same wavelength. On the go: The 37-year-old went to an event in LA on Monday for daughter North 'They both have new babies and they have a lot in common and a lot to share.' The insiders believe Kim - who welcomed her daughter Chicago, who was born via surrogate mother, into the world in January - and Khloe, who is now mother to five-month-old daughter True, have become much closer now they have children who are close in age, which often leaves Kourtney out of the picture. They added: '[She] is much more private than they are and sometimes removes herself from the family stuff. 'But this is isn't some major feud. These sisters have always been able to dish it out and take it. And yes, of course they know the arguments and fights make for good TV. But they're fine!' 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. She's the devout Christian who believes sex before marriage is a sin and has been shaking things up during Geordie Shore's 18th season. And Faith Mullen caused a stir on Tuesday, as she slipped her curves into a perilously plunging swimsuit during a spa outing in Darlington, County Durham. The 19-year-old series newbie certainly turned heads in her scanty one-piece as she joined her busty bikini-clad co-star Abbie Holborn, 21, at Rockliffe Hall Spa. Making a splash: Geordie Shore newbie Faith Mullen caused a stir on Tuesday, as she slipped her curves into a perilously plunging swimsuit during a spa outing in Darlington, County Durham Faith drew attention to her curves in the swimwear, which featured a high cut and cinched in her waist with a diamante belt. Sweeping her hair back into a ponytail, she wore heavy eye make-up and nude lipstick as she stepped into the hot tub with a cocktail in hand. Meanwhile, Abbie didn't seem bothered by the freezing temperatures, posing up a storm in a mint green two-piece as she made the best of some rest and relaxation. Never one to shy away from glamour, the Newcastle-born bombshell styled her hair in glossy waves as she took a dip in the pool. Catching up: The 19-year-old series newbie certainly turned heads in her scanty one-piece as she joined her busty bikini-clad co-star Abbie Holborn, 21, at Rockliffe Hall Spa Pretty in pink: Abbie, who joined the reality show last year, sizzled in a skimpy hot-pink bikini Abbie, who has had 'lip fillers, Botox jaw filler, chin filler, veneers and her eyebrows tattooed', ensured she wore a full face of make-up including false lashes. Faith joined the cast of Geordie Shore for wild nights out in Tyneside for the show's eighteenth series. The brunette star says her religious beliefs won't stop her from partying and has already been spotted on raucous nights out with Chloe Ferry, Nathan Henry and Abbie Holborn. While she describes herself as 'friends with Jesus' and quotes scripture in her Instagram bio, the bubbly babe doesn't describe herself as being traditional. Turning heads: She didn't seem bothered by the freezing temperatures, posing up a storm in a mint green two-piece as she made the best of some rest and relaxation Glam: Never one to shy away from glamour, the Newcastle-born bombshell styled her hair in glossy waves as she took a dip in the pool Preened: Abbie, who has had 'lip fillers, Botox jaw filler, chin filler, veneers and her eyebrows tattooed', ensured she wore a full face of make-up including false lashes In an interview with the Sun, she said 'I've always wanted to show that being a young Christian girl, you don't have to be boring and do nothing, you can party as much as much as possible. 'I mean Jesus' first miracle was turning water into wine, so that was something I wanted to do. 'I wanted to be a voice for the young Christian community and show this whole new generation. It's not boring religious, sitting in a church falling asleep anymore.' Geordie Shore: Faith has been shaking things up in the sex-filled Geordie Shore house as she joins the cast on wild nights out, despite being a devout Christian No sex before marriage: Faith won't be joining the likes of many previous Geordie Shore stars by having sex in the always filmed house The reality TV personality says she believes sex before marriage is a sin - although admits she has engaged in pre-marital relations herself. She added she has no judgement for her housemates, and that 'we're all Jesus's children' and no one is perfect. The raven-haired stunner, who often flaunts her curves on Instagram added she had kissed 'random guys' on nights out and 'loves a cheeky snog'. Kerry Katona showed off her rippling abs in a bold yellow strapless bikini while on holiday in Thailand. The 38-year-old looked incredible as she stepped out into the sunshine, showing off the results of her health and fitness overhaul. She piled her lilac locks in an up-do high up on her head, helping to hold them in place with a pair of designer sunglasses. Bright and beautiful: Kerry Katona showed off her ripped abs as she modelled a bold yellow strapless bikini while on holiday in Thailand The mother-of-five showed off a variety of inkings in her bright two-piece as she walked around the resort. Kerry had been away on a romantic holiday with her personal trainer Ryan Mahoney at their luxury Ammatara Pura Pool Villas resort. But since returning home, they have both decided to go their separate ways. Looking good: She piled her lilac locks in an up-do high up on her head, helping to hold them in place with a pair of designer sunglasses Mellow in yellow: Kerry appeared body confident as she stepped out into the sunshine But it had seemed as though they were rather into one another during their sunshine break as they kissed and cuddled throughout the day. While taking a dip in the pool, Kerry couldn't resist throwing her arms around her man and showering him with yet more smooches. Sources said of their split:'Kerry and Ryan decided to end their relationship after they landed back in the UK from Thailand. Happier times: Kerry had been away on a romantic holiday with her personal trainer Ryan Mahoney at their luxury Ammatara Pura Pool Villas resort Sources said of their split: 'Kerry and Ryan decided to end their relationship after they landed back in the UK from Thailand' Adding: 'It was a make or break holiday. They looked happy in the pictures, but that wasn't a true reflection of what was really going on between them' 'It was a make or break holiday and they wanted to get away to discuss their future and whether they wanted to be together. 'They looked happy in the pictures, but that wasn't a true reflection of what was really going on between them.' The TV personality first confirmed her romance with Ryan in the summer. She coyly spoke about her romance during a candid interview with Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield on This Morning in September. Kerry revealed: 'Yes, I am seeing someone it's really new and I'd like to keep it just for me this time,' she told the presenters, prompting Phil to quip: 'I hope you've picked carefully!' Kerry replied: 'It's still early days. I'm enjoying it for what it is, I'm not getting married and I'm not having more babies, saying that, it depends how much a magazine offers me first - I'm joking!' Marnie Simpson has been accused of having a bum lift after sharing shots of her perfectly rounded bottom with Instagram followers on Tuesday evening. The Geordie Shore star prompted a mixed response from fans while promoting a muscle stimulator on social media, with two of the stick on devices firmly attached to her buttocks. Wearing only a white gym vest and lacy black thong, Marnie, 26, revealed a perfectly formed behind as she stood with her back to camera while testing the device. Divided opinion: Marnie Simpson has been accused of having a bum lift after sharing shots of her perfectly rounded bottom with Instagram followers on Tuesday evening Expressing her delight with it, she raved: 'As you may know I have been using it for a few months now, such an amazing device, not only does it stimulate abs, arms and legs! it also works for your buttocks! Loving my results!' But the posts led to scepticism from followers, with some accusing her of splashing out on cosmetic enhancement surgery rather than rigorous gym sessions and muscle stimulators in order to achieve the best results. 'Nice Brazilian butt lift made by whoever, but theres no need to advertise and promote false products,' remarked one unimpressed fan. While another fumed: 'Please, it's not fair to promote a brand like this when this isn't muscle.' Debate: The Geordie Shore star prompted a mixed response while promoting a muscle stimulator on social media, with some fans claiming the perfectly rounded bottom on the rigth had been achieved through cosmetic surgery, rather than the device she was promoting Previously: Marnie has a rich history when it comes to sharing shots of her exposed bottom on social media The backlash came after Marnie confessed to regretting her long list of surgical procedures, which includes liposuction, a nose job, lip fillers and a boob job, and is terrified to go 'under the knife' again. The MTV star, who has been diagnosed with body dysmorphia, has said that she's 'learned a big lesson' from her numerous cosmetic procedures. The brunette beauty told Closer in a new interview: 'I regret my lips. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't have touched them. I haven't had lip fillers in a long time - I got them all removed. Surgery: The backlash came after Marnie confessed to regretting her long list of surgical procedures, which includes liposuction, a nose job, lip fillers and a boob job, and is terrified to go 'under the knife' again 'A doctor told me I've destroyed my natural lip line from the constant fillers, so I'll never be completely happy with my lips. Obviously, I've learned a big lesson and it's tough.' As well as accepting the pitfalls to her plethora of procedures, Marnie admitted that the idea of going under the knife again terrifies her after learning of British mother-of-three Leah Cambridge death following her bum lift in Turkey in August. She said: 'It really affected me, hearing about the things that have happened to young girls, so I'm scared to ever do it again myself. Surgery is just too risky.' Candid: The MTV star, who has been diagnosed with body dysmorphia, has said that she's 'learned a big lesson' from her numerous cosmetic procedures (Pictured in 2013) Difference: She has gone through a major cosmetic transformation since joining the cast of Geordie Shore in 2013 (Marnie pictured in 2013, left, and earlier this month, right) Marnie's made numerous dramatic changes to her look since joining Geordie Shore in 2013 and despite her recent comments she told The Sun in 2017 that she would never stop going under the knife. She told The Sun: 'Once you go down that route you can't stop it. You want to perfect everything which is impossible. 'So if people were to come to me and ask about plastic surgery I always say, "don't do it because it's a road that you'll never come back from". Regret: The brunette beauty told Closer in a new interview: 'I regret my lips. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't have touched them. I haven't had lip fillers in a long time - I got them all removed' Fear: As well as accepting the pitfalls to her plethora of procedures, she admitted that the idea of going under the knife again terrifies her 'But if you've got something you really hate then get it fixed. Otherwise you'll never ever be happy with it.' During the summer, she ran into difficulty when she struggled to make it through an automatic face recognition machine due to the difference between her passport picture and current look. As she returned from a trip to Ayia Napa with Ex On The Beach star Helen Briggs, who is dating Marnie's boyfriend's brother, in July, the star took to Instagram to share a hilarious video showing Marnie's struggles. Dramatic: Marnie's made numerous dramatic changes to her look since joining Geordie Shore in 2013 After enjoying their girls' holiday, Marnie and Helen travelled back together and as they arrived at passport control the latter was feeling snap happy. The reality TV star was using her ePassport, which use facial recognition technology to match a face to the photo recorded on the chip inside the passport. Written over the top of the video of an extremely sheepish Marnie standing at the gates, she wrote: 'When you don't match your passport picture anymore'. She recently staved off bankruptcy for another month, amid fears that she could lose her 2million West Sussex mansion. But Katie Price took her mind off her financial woes on Wednesday, as she got back in the saddle and went horse-riding - despite suffering a bad fall last year. The glamour model, 40, who is known for her love of horses, seemed to be in good spirits as she cantered around a stables in Brighton. Horsing around: Katie Price got back in the saddle for a horse-riding session after her rehab stint and postponing bankruptcy by a month Katie looked every inch the keen equestrian in a skintight red top teamed with white jodhpurs. The mother-of-five completed the sporty look with patent scarlet riding boots and black gloves. Sweeping her dark hair back into a high ponytail, the former Page 3 girl framed her features with bronzer, nude lipstick and a sweep of mascara. Perhaps keen for some quality time alone, Katie left her her five children - Junior, 13, Princess, 11, Harvey, 16, Jett, five, and Bunny, four - at home for the horse riding session. Loving life: The glamour model, 40, who is known for her love of horses, seemed to be in good spirits as she cantered around a stables in Brighton Neigh bother: Katie looked every inch the keen equestrian in a skintight red top teamed with white jodhpurs Animal lover: The reality star appeared to be in her element as she stroked the horse Katie's outing comes after she had a horse riding accident last December. She revealed on Instagram at the time: 'After having a bad fall off my horse earlier nothing better than cuddles with Bunny on the sofa fire on. The reality star has been keeping busy amid fears she could lose her 2million West Sussex mansion and all of its contents should she be declared bankrupt in a court hearing on Tuesday morning. Ready for action: The mother-of-five completed the sporty look with patent scarlet riding boots and black gloves Glam: Sweeping her dark hair back into a high ponytail, the former Page 3 girl framed her features with bronzer, nude lipstick and a sweep of mascara Solo outing: Perhaps keen for some quality time alone, Katie left her her five children - Junior, 13, Princess, 11, Harvey, 16, Jett, five, and Bunny, four - at home for the horse riding session Bad experience: Katie's outing comes after she had a horse riding accident last December The embattled star, who was once worth an estimated 45million, is due in court over an unpaid tax bill, for which she's had three months to to find a way to repay her debts. Over the past three months, she has had the deadline to come up with an individual voluntary agreement (IVA), which would detail how she proposed to pay back the tax she owes. Her lawyers came back to London's High Court earlier this week for a fresh hearing over how she will clear up a 22,000 debt with the taxman. Tough: She revealed on Instagram at the time: 'After having a bad fall off my horse earlier nothing better than cuddles with Bunny on the sofa fire on' Financial woes: The reality star has been keeping busy amid fears she could lose her 2million West Sussex mansion and all of its contents should she be declared bankrupt in a court hearing on Tuesday morning Oh dear: The embattled star, who was once worth an estimated 45million, is due in court over an unpaid tax bill, for which she's had three months to to find a way to repay her debts Nightmare: Estimates over the Loose Women panellist's total debts have ranged from 250,000 to 500,000 Estimates over the Loose Women panellist's total debts have ranged from 250,000 to 500,000. The case was again put off on Tuesday, with her legal team saying she has a meeting planned with tax officials for November 16. It is thought she will attempt to be enter into an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA), a formal alternative for indebted people wishing to avoid bankruptcy. The TV star fears she could be forced to sell her West Sussex mansion if a trustee is brought in to sell off her possessions. Postponed: The case was again put off on Tuesday, with her legal team saying she has a meeting planned with tax officials for November 16 Professional help: It comes after Katie recently completed a 28-day stint at The Priory, where she was treated for post-traumatic stress disorder Tumultuous: Sources claimed Katie's loved ones encouraged her to seek help after she was filmed rapping about 'loving coke' during a boozy hen do in Mallorca over the summer It comes after Katie recently completed a 28-day stint at The Priory, where she was treated for post-traumatic stress disorder. Sources claimed Katie's loved ones encouraged her to seek help after she was filmed rapping about 'loving coke' during a boozy hen do in Mallorca over the summer. She broke down after an intervention and admitted she needed help to get over her chaotic behaviour - which has been blamed on her PTSD. Loved ones: She broke down after an intervention and admitted she needed help to get over her chaotic behaviour - which has been blamed on her PTSD Split: The former Page 3 girl is also newly single after breaking things off with her toyboy businessman ex Alex Adderson, 25, earlier this month The former Page 3 girl is also newly single after breaking things off with her toyboy businessman ex Alex Adderson, 25, earlier this month. This comes amid reports that Katie fled to her ex Kris Boyson's birthday bash after a furious row with Alex over text, with sources telling The Sun they clashed over his ex-girlfriend. She began texting Kris about his 30th birthday bash in Woolwich, and after fearing he would be surrounded by pretty female admirers jumped in her car and headed over there, according to The Sun. Katie, who recently regained use of her license following a six-month ban for speeding violations - apparently crashed her pink Range Rover after gatecrashing Kris' 30th birthday celebrations. Love life: This comes amid reports that Katie fled to her ex Kris Boyson's birthday bash after a furious row with Alex over text, with sources telling The Sun they clashed over his ex-girlfriend Claims: She began texting Kris about his 30th birthday bash in Woolwich, and after fearing he would be surrounded by pretty female admirers jumped in her car and headed over there, according to The Sun She is getting set to walk her sixth Victoria's Secret Fashion Show catwalk. And Sara Sampaio is already on the prowl. The 27-year-old model looked absolutely fantastic in a leopard mini dress as she arrived for Victoria's Secret fittings in New York City on Wednesday. On the prowl: Sara Sampaio looked absolutely fantastic in a leopard mini dress as she arrived for Victoria's Secret fittings in New York City on Wednesday The Portuguese beauty put on white the leggy display in the long-sleeve frock teamed with a chic pair of leather booties. She accessorized with a large leather belt featuring a huge gold buckle as she gripped onto two bags: one small black leather purse and another Victoria's Secret duffel featuring a wing design embroidered on the side. Her brunette tresses were worn down as they flowed over her shoulders. Stunner: The 27-year-old Portuguese beauty put on white the leggy display in the long-sleeve frock teamed with a chic pair of leather booties Going hell for leather: She accessorized with a large leather belt featuring a huge gold buckle as she gripped onto two bags Sara accentuated her natural beauty with complementary make-up topped off with a swipe of pink lip. This will be her sixth consecutive Victoria's Secret Fashion Show as she debuted in 2013. Taylor Hill showed some edge in a black leather biker jacket over a graphic shirt cropped to show off her stomach. Brand loyal: She also gripped onto a Victoria's Secret duffel featuring a wing design embroidered on the side Gorgeous: Her brunette tresses were worn down as they flowed over her shoulders The 22-year-old American model showed off her legs in a blue, green and red plaid skirt along with black leather boots with black leggings above the knee. She kept her edgy look going with gold-rimmed shades while carrying along a beige tote. Her brunette tresses were put up in a messy bun as she put her natural looks show with minimal make-up. American beauty: Taylor Hill showed some edge in a black leather biker jacket over a graphic shirt cropped to show off her stomach Edgy: The 22-year-old American model showed off her legs in a blue, green and red plaid skirt along with black leather boots with black leggings above the knee Making moves: Her brunette tresses were put up in a messy bun as she put her natural looks show with minimal make-up. The 2019 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show will be taking place in New York City. Previous years have seen the runway extravaganza take place in Los Angeles, London, Paris and Shanghai. Models confirmed for the show include Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner and veteran Angels Behati Prinsloo, who will be returning after a three-year hiatus, as well as Adriana Lima, Elsa Hosk and Romme Strijd. Flaunting it: Cindy Bruna certainly turned heads on the way to the fitting Fab figure: She showed off her toned stomach in a black cropped long-sleeve top with matching trousers and suede booties All eyes on her: The 24-year-old French model had the attention of everyone on the Big Apple sidewalk Winnie Harlow and Duckie Thot will be making their Victoria's secret debut. Winnie will be the first model with skin condition vitiligo to walk for the lingerie brand. This year's show sees a collaboration with british designer Mary Katrantzou so it's expected there will be plenty of colorful floral designs. Performers are yet to be announced but in previous years Harry Styles, Rihanna, The Weeknd, Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran have hopped on the catwalk to provide the soundtrack to the visual spectacular. She is the undisputed Queen of Christmas. And Mariah Carey is in the running to rule Halloween too with the scorching couples costume she posted on Wednesday. The 49-year-old diva looked ravishing as a sexy nurse, while 35-year-old boyfriend Bryan Tanaka made an equally sexy doctor. Holiday Queen: Mariah Carey is in the running to rule Halloween with the scorching couples costume she posted on Wednesday The songstress showed off her killer bosom in silver lingerie beneath a plunging white nurses tunic, accessorizing with a racy red stethoscope. She donned a bubblegum pink wig, giving the ensemble a Nurse Joy from Pokemon vibe. Her handsome dancer beau meanwhile left his white doctor's coat open to show off his ripped torso, adding a headlamp, syringes and a stethoscope of his own. 'Keeping it festive in Tokyo! #HappyHalloween,' wrote Mariah, who is currently on tour in Asia. Hot stuff: Ellen DeGeneres shared her costume early as she was dressed up as a Bachelor contestant named Kelllly complete with blonde wig and fake chest She was not, of course, the only star to dress up for the day that was in it. Ellen DeGeneres shared her costume on Instagram as she was dressed up as a Bachelor contestant named Kelllly complete with blonde wig and fake chest. And the man who played the dashing Bachelor in a dark suit was This Is Us star Milo Ventimiglia. Kylie Jenner, Khloe Kardashian, Heidi Klum and Nicole Kidman also had fun in costimes. Her co-star for the day: And the man who played the dashing Bachelor in a dark suit was This Is Us star Milo Ventimiglia Kelllly is from the 'most dramatic and most drunk episode of'The Bachelor,' said Ellen. 'There are six other Kelly's on the show so this season you can call me Kelllly D,' Ellen said. 'That's not my initial, that's breast size. 'My dress is from Versace and my boobs are from Mattel.' Her big guest: Rebel Wilson was dresses as Wilson from the Tom Hanks movie Castaway Not an easy hug: DeGeneres tried to get close to Rebel but it was not working She then leaned on Milo and said: 'Tonights show is brought to you by the word "legs." Maybe we can go up to the fantasy suite and spread the word!' Then Kelllly brought out Bachelo" Nick Viall who liked Kiiieeeeerrsstennnn better. Her guest was Rebel Wilson who dressed up as Wilson the ball from the Tom Hanks movie Castaway. Baby's first Halloween: Khloe Kardashian wore a pink onesie as she posed with her daughter True who was in a unicorn outfit Another look: True was also wearing a panda outfit that was simply adorable Khloe Kardashian wore a pink onesie as she posed with her daughter True who was in a unicorn outfit. Kylie Jenner was dressed up as a Barbie. The 21-year-old TV star had on a one piece swimsuit with a blonde wig and pink makeup in an image shared to Instagram. And she was seen in a large Barbie box complete with plastic holder around her waist. The caption read 'life in plastic, its fantastic.' Doll: Kylie Jenner was dressed up as a Barbie. The 21-year-old TV star had on a one piece swimsuit with a blonde wig and pink makeup in an image shared to Instagram Fun couple: Nicole Kidman dressed up in face paint and a black coat as she posed with Keith Urban who seemed to be a Ninja warrior Here it goes: Heidi Klum started to reveal her outfit which is supposed to be a surprise Fun look: Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka posed with their kids Kim Kardashian shared a bikini photo on Halloween morning. She was on vacation in Bali when the image was taken. The 38-year-old reality TV star said, 'Trick Or Treat.' And the wife of Kanye West added, 'Dont worry I will post Halloween pics tonight. Still into some Bali vibes.' Nicole Kidman dressed up in face paint and a black coat as she posed with Keith Urban who seemed to be a Ninja warrior. Heidi Klum started to reveal her outfit which is supposed to be a surprise. Kim time: Kim Kardashian shared a bikini photo on Halloween morning. She was on vacation in Bali when the image was taken. The 38-year-old reality TV star said, 'Trick Or Treat' She is known to pull out all the stops when it comes to her outfits. And Amanda Holden didn't disappoint fans as she transformed into Janine from the Handmaid's Tale for Halloween. Taking to Instagram on Wednesday, the television personality, 47, showed off her originality as the troubled Handmaid, causing a stir by placing a nipple cover over her eye to recreate the iconic look. Amanda Holden pulled out all the stops for her Halloween costume as she transformed into Janine from the Handmaid's Tale Amanda looked the spitting image of Janine, donning her famous red cape and signature white 'wings'. Clearly impressed with her efforts, the Britain's Got Talent judge marveled in her makeshift bloody prosthetic complete with a false eyelash, as she wrote: 'Under his eye #handmaids #halloween #mu by #me! Amazing what you can do with a nipple cover!' She also shared a spooky clip of her turning her head, channelling Janine's solemn character as she gave a deathly stare to the camera, as well as posing in front of a deserted building. Inspired: Taking to Instagram on Wednesday, the 47-year-old television personality (L) showed off her originality as the troubled Handmaid Janine (R) Transformation: Amanda looked the spitting image of Janine, donning her famous red cape and signature white 'wings' as she posed in front of a deserted building Janine is a supporting character in the dystopian drama. As a former waitress, she is brought to the Red Centre at the same time as June (Elisabeth Moss). While June remains compliant, Janine confronts the Aunts in front of everyone and consequently has her right eye removed as a punishment. With her spirit almost entirely broken in the aftermath of the disturbing penalty, Janine hallucinates and babbles in her dormitory- and its up to Moira (Samira Wiley) to slap her to get her to come back to reality, as the Aunts would show her no mercy. Festivities: The star is expected to turn up to Jonathan Ross' annual Halloween bash, with Jimmy Carr, Alan Carr and Stacey Solomon all tipped to attend Fans praised her look, with one writing: 'This has to be the best costume Ive seen!!,' while another added: 'Oh My God! I love this. Well done u. This is fabulous.' The star has gone all out for Halloween, decorating her lavish Surrey mansion with pumpkins. Earlier in the day, she shared a snap of her posing on her doorstep, with three pumpkins carved by her two daughters, Hollie, six and Alexa, 12. In keeping with the theme, she was dressed in black and orange gym-wear. She captioned the snap: '#Halloween #run before a busy day.' The star is expected to turn up to Jonathan Ross' annual Halloween bash, with Jimmy Carr, Alan Carr and Stacey Solomon all tipped to attend. Is The Bachelorette's Ali Oetjen being trolled by her own network? That was the question being asked on Thursday's Kyle and Jackie O Show after the team recalled an unfortunate incident at the previous night's Upfronts presentation. Producers Peter Deppeler and Sonia Jahshan attended the industry event and revealed that Ali, 32, was positioned onstage in awkward proximity to a staircase. Is Ali Oetjen being trolled by her own network? The Bachelorette star awkwardly posed by a staircase at Ten's Upfronts event on Wednesday night after THAT cheating scandal Fans of The Bachelorette will of course recall that Ali was previously accused of cheating on her ex-boyfriend Grant Kemp on his staircase. 'I actually saw her last night at the Channel 10 event... she was on the staircase at the presentation!' Pete said, adding that he took a photo of the embarrassing moment. Sonia continued: 'She was singing with Osher [Gunsberg, the show's host], they did this big number. Me and Pete were cracking up because she was on a staircase.' How unfortunate! Fans of The Bachelorette will of course recall that Ali (left) was previously accused of cheating on her ex-boyfriend Grant Kemp (right) on his staircase. Pictured on Bachelor In Paradise Host Jackie 'O' Henderson sounded gobsmacked, asking: 'What are they doing?' The program's guest, journalist James Weir, even suggested that Ali was being 'trolled by her own network'. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Network Ten for comment. Oops! Kyle and Jackie O producers Peter Deppeler and Sonia Jahshan attended the industry event and revealed that Ali, 32, was positioned onstage in awkward proximity to a staircase. Pictured: Ali (left) attending the Ten Upfronts with a friend It's not the first time Channel 10 has been accused of subtly mocking Ali over her cheating scandal. In September, the first trailer for The Bachelorette was released and it seemingly contained several references to her past. Embarrassingly, a staircase was featured prominently in the set design and a male dancer was also shown carrying a 'Mr Cheater' sign. Mr Cheater? It's not the first time Channel 10 has been accused of subtly mocking Ali over her cheating scandal. In September, the first trailer for The Bachelorette was released and it seemingly contained several references to her past Ali allegedly cheated on her ex-boyfriend Grant Kemp - who she met on Bachelor in Paradise - while she was visiting him in Los Angeles in March. The American firefighter later recalled the incident in graphic detail on KIIS FM. 'I had left to go and find my friends. I came back inside and [a man] was going down on her on my stairs. So I kicked her out of my house that night,' he said in May. Ali has described Grant's accusations as 'horrible' but has never denied them. 'No excuses': Ali allegedly cheated on her ex-boyfriend Grant Kemp while she was visiting him in LA in March. Hours before The Bachelorette premiere last month, Daily Mail Australia published a series of bombshell texts (above) that seemingly proved Grant's version of events Hours before The Bachelorette premiere last month, Daily Mail Australia published a series of bombshell texts that seemingly proved Grant's version of events. In the texts, Ali apologised for her behaviour and begged for forgiveness. Grant wrote: 'I can't even walk up those f**king stairs again without thinking of that. So f**k no, not seeing u'. Ali replied: 'I wasn't even functioning babe, there's no excuses! And I understand we're over but we should talk'. English comedian Stephen Fry was promoting his new book on Greek mythology on The Project on Wednesday. But the interview went downhill when the connection dropped between the program's Melbourne studio and London, where Stephen was based. Tommy Little jokingly accusingly the 61-year-old of 'being bored' and 'pretending he couldn't hear' during the technical issues. 'Are you there?' Watch the awkward moment Tommy Little accused Stephen Fry (pictured) of being 'bored' during his interview on The Project on Wednesday Carrie Bickmore had just praised the actor for changing the names of mythological figures to versions that are easier to pronounce. Tommy then said: 'Stephen, did you ever think about making the names accessible to an Aussie audience? Changing it to something like "Kyle the Lightening Guy"?' Stephen laughed, before replying: 'So instead of Perseus it's Shane, you mean?' 'I thought you may be getting bored so you're pretending you can't hear us': Tommy Little (pictured) jokingly accusingly the 61-year-old of 'being bored' and 'pretending he couldn't hear' while the show experienced technical issues But when Tommy continued with his joke, Stephen sat in awkward silence. He appeared to adjust his earpiece as Carrie asked if he could hear them. 'Oh dear. Have I offended you?' Stephen replied as Tommy repeated Carrie's question. 'I thought Carrie may have had her baby or something!' Stephen laughed off the technical issue, joking that his interview had been cancelled because Carrie Bickmore (pictured) went into labour 'I thought you may be getting bored so you're pretending you can't hear us!' Tommy said. The silence continued as The Project team asked again Stephen if he could hear them. After a lengthy pause, Stephen laughed off the technical issue by saying: 'Oops, there you are! I thought Carrie may have had her baby or something.' An invitation to inspect Joan Collinss legs, the horror of Michael Winner leaving the Queen standing in the rain, Muhammad Ali going AWOL in Yorkshire These were among the highs and lows of Jeremy Robsons long career as a poet and publisher to the stars. Here, in an extract from his delightful memoirs, Under Cover, he recalls some memorable celebrity encounters... The greatest... at practical jokes Muhammad Ali In September 1991, we were due to bring Muhammad Ali to Britain for the launch of a remarkable book about his life by the American author Thomas Hauser, written with his full co-operation. We were warned that his speech was impaired by Parkinsons disease, so the once-loquacious sporting legend couldnt appear on television, give live interviews or make speeches. How then, we wondered, could we get publicity? The answer came back: Just take him to places and youll see. On the day Ali was due to arrive at Heathrow, there was no sign of him. He was, we learned, in Abu Dhabi with his former manager, Herbert Muhammad, helping to raise money for a mosque near his home in Chicago. Herbert undertook to get Ali to London in time for the book tour but never kept that promise because, according to Hauser, he didnt like the way he was portrayed in the book. In September 1991, we were due to bring Muhammad Ali to Britain for the launch of a remarkable book about his life by the American author Thomas Hauser, written with his full co-operation This was a nightmare. We had arranged a whole series of book signings and although the biography appeared in the bestseller list for a week and had fabulous reviews, it quickly vanished. Fortunately, Muhammad Ali was a man of surprises, and the following spring his wife Lonnie phoned to say he would be in England to open a restaurant in Manchester, and was willing to stay on and promote the book so we set everything up again. We got an inkling of what was to come as a long queue of taxis formed outside his Manchester hotel, their drivers loitering in the lobby and vying for the privilege of driving him to the signing at Waterstones. We had been advised by one of his people that there will be a large crowd outside the shop, so get him inside as quickly as possible. But had anyone ever been able to control the great Ali (except perhaps Herbert Muhammad)? There certainly was a crowd in the square a very, very large crowd chanting Ali, Ali as he stepped out of the taxi that had won the honour of transporting him... but instead of going into the shop, he turned and walked straight into the throng, raising his arms to silence them. Now, Ali loved magic tricks, and one of his own was to levitate and this he did as the crowd applauded, believing he actually was defying gravity. It was something I saw him do on several occasions, and you had to watch those famous flashing feet very carefully to see how he did it. Finishing off by performing the famous Ali shuffle with remarkable agility, he smiled, waved and finally went into the bookshop as the crowd cheered. It had been showtime, one of his favourite words. He was in that shop for several hours. Everyone wanted a photo with him and we sold some 600 books that Sunday afternoon, a pattern which continued. Now we knew why wed been told to just take him to places. After another signing, in Leeds, we were supposed to go on to Nottingham but somebody invited him to pray at a local mosque and he suddenly disappeared with a group of people. Nobody knew where he had been taken and we eventually drove on to Nottingham, hoping that someone with him had details of where he was supposed to be. Wed only been at the shop there for a few minutes when a smart Mercedes drew up and out stepped a smiling Ali, as cool as anything as he greeted crowds, so dense that after the signing we needed a police escort out of town. Ali was both generous and caring. During one signing in Oxford, he handed me a note from a man who ran his fan club in England, apologising for not being there and explaining that his mother had just died. Where is this? asked Ali, pointing to the address on the note, and I told him it was about eight miles away. Well go there when weve finished here, he responded. I pointed out that we were expected in Birmingham that night. Well go there and then we go to Birmingham, he said firmly. When we arrived outside the modest house on the estate where Alis friend lived, we were greeted like royalty: one felt that if theyd had warning there would have been flags and balloons. Following Ali inside, we offered our condolences and then left the two men alone to talk. After about 20 minutes or so, Ali emerged. Thank you, he said. Now we go to Birmingham. That was very kind, I told him. Youve made someone feel a lot better. No, he said, pointing to his heart. I feel better, and off we drove. What a drive it was. Once we got onto the motorway, Ali fell asleep in the passenger seat next to me. Suddenly his fists began pounding the dashboard as he cried Joe Frazier, Joe Frazier, louder and louder, his punches landing with increasing ferocity. I tensed, and someone in the back said hold the wheel tightly, it could get worse and it did. Slowing down and moving to the inside lane, I clasped the wheel as tightly as I could as the punches and cries of Joe Frazier, Joe Frazier continued. Slowing still more, I took a deep breath and snatched a glance at Ali and he looked back at me and winked! Hed been wide awake and having me on all the time. All I could do was laugh and resolve to get someone else to do the driving next time. I couldnt imagine what it must have been like to be in the ring with him when those fists were landing real blows! PETS, JETS AND A soggy monarch Michael Winner There were three Michael Winners: one rude, one very rude and one impossible. The first I met in 2003 after we had signed a deal for my company, Robson Books, to publish a collection of the restaurant reviews he wrote for the Sunday Times. His literary agent called to say Winner was refusing to be published by someone he hadnt met and wanted me to phone him, so I did as commanded. Come to my house at 12.30 on Wednesday, he barked. Ill take you to lunch. He hung up. The driver, Chris, was delayed picking me up, so we arrived about ten minutes late and when I was shown up to Winners study he handed me a sheet of paper. There were three Michael Winners: one rude, one very rude and one impossible Ive just written you this note, he said. Glancing at it, I saw the unambiguous message: F*** the contract, forget the book, have gone to lunch. Id weathered enough crises by then to know that you have to stand up to bullies (and Winner was the arch-bully), so I shrugged my shoulders and told him he could tear up the contract or the note. He chose the latter. My subsequent involvement with him lasted until his death in 2013 and his book launches generally took place at The Belvedere in West London, the restaurant then owned by his mate Marco Pierre White. So close were they that Michael gave Marco and his fiancee their honeymoon as a wedding present and went with them, which only goes to show theres no such thing as a free honeymoon. Later, Michael fell out with Marco for some reason (at one time or another he fell out with most people). It didnt take much to upset him but I suspect he was far more sensitive than he cared to admit even shy. He was obviously annoyed by the fact that my wife Carole and I were invited to Joan Collinss wedding and he wasnt (and the reason for that, Joan told me, was because he had offended her by failing to go to a play she was in). When promoting a book outside London, Michael always chartered a private jet even to Birmingham and Manchester which he paid for himself, charging us the equivalent of a first-class rail ticket. This was fair enough until he presented me with a bill for 6,000 for an overnight stay in a Dublin hotel. When I refused to pay it, Michael said he would sue. But I pointed out (having checked) that you could get a suite in the hotel hed stayed at for 1,000, and thats all I would stump up. Eventually, he accepted that but said he would never deal with me again. Some months later he was on the phone as if nothing had happened, asking: What are we going to publish for Christmas? But Michael, I responded, I thought we werent talking to each other, let alone doing another book together! Lifes too short, Jeremy, he replied. And away we went again. On a visit to Harrogate, he became irritable when our driver stopped the car at the entrance to the shopping mall where we had arranged a signing, explaining that he couldnt drive right up to the bookshop, even though it was raining. Michael certainly wasnt going to get wet, and grumpily ordered the driver to escort him to the bookshop under a large umbrella, leaving me and Geraldine, his partner and future wife, to fend for ourselves. As we struggled stoically under my pocket umbrella, I thought back to the previous year when, at Michaels invitation, the Queen had unveiled the National Police Memorial in the Mall, a triumphant day for him after ten years of campaigning. It was raining that day, too, and next morning all the newspapers appeared to show Michael safe and dry under the Queens umbrella while she stood unsheltered in the rain. This caused much mirth in the Winner household, if not in the Palace. If Michael wasnt bothered about the Queen getting wet, he certainly wasnt going to bother about Geraldine and me! A diva with the dynasty factor Joan Collins When I learned that Joan Collins was looking for a new publisher, I approached her agent Jonathan Lloyd, who arranged a meeting for the three of us at her London flat. Jonathan and I arrived a little early and he wisely suggested that we wait a few minutes before ringing (later, Joan told me she thought arriving early was ruder than being late). At the appointed hour, Joan swept into her sitting room and her first words to us were look at my legs! Surprised but quick to obey, we at once realised it was not a flirtatious invitation as she pointed to the bruises she had sustained the night before at the theatre she was appearing at, having stumbled down the narrow stairs leading to her dressing room. We chatted for a while and I obviously passed my audition with flying colours because we not only struck a deal but Joan later invited Carole and me to her forthcoming wedding to the theatre producer Percy Gibson, who is 32 years her junior. When I learned that Joan Collins was looking for a new publisher, I approached her agent Jonathan Lloyd, who arranged a meeting for the three of us at her London flat Held at Claridges, with silver chairs for the guests and enormous vases of lilac and lilies everywhere, the wedding appeared to us like a scene from Dynasty, with the tireless Joan seemingly dancing all night. Fortunately she still had enough energy to promote her book Star Quality in the coming weeks and we were happy to ride the wave of wedding publicity, with Joan ever able to command a headline. On one occasion, she was asked how she felt about marrying a man so much younger. Well, she quipped. If he dies, he dies! Moody by name, moody by nature Ron Moody Every Christmas, Carole and I enjoyed watching the film Oliver! on television with our twin daughters Deborah and Manuela, and years later I published two books by Ron Moody, who, of course, played Fagin. We grew close enough that Carole and I became godparents to Rons first-born, Catherine, who was conceived while we were all on holiday together, and when our daughter Deborah got married he offered to sing for her as a surprise. When he stood up and performed Reviewing The Situation, she was both amazed and deeply moved. Hes doing this for me? was all she could stammer. Such kindness notwithstanding, Ron could be very difficult. Shortly after his second book was published, I drove him to a Yorkshire Post literary lunch in Leeds, and for most of the journey he ignored my attempts at conversation. Every Christmas, Carole and I enjoyed watching the film Oliver! on television with our twin daughters Deborah and Manuela, and years later I published two books by Ron Moody, who, of course, played Fagin What was wrong, I wondered, until eventually he passed me a flyer for the lunch which listed previous distinguished speakers but not him, though he had been there the year before. He was deeply offended, and when the editor introduced him to the packed hall with the words and now Ron Moody, who needs no introduction, Ron handed him back the microphone and told him to introduce him properly, as he had the other speakers. Only when he had done so did Ron leap to his feet, stealing the show with a bravura performance that brought the house down . . . and sold a great many books. Under Cover: A Poets Life in Publishing, by Jeremy Robson, is published by Biteback, 25. Jeremy Robson 2018. To order a copy for 20 (20% discount) visit www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640. P&P free on orders over 15. Spend 30 on books and get FREE premium delivery. Offer valid until November 15, 2018. TV legend Carl Reiner, 96, wants to live to see Donald Trump voted out of office. The creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show explained how it was his 'personal goal' to 'stick around until 2020' while urging citizens to vote in the upcoming midterm elections in a video posted Wednesday. 'On Nov. 6, we can vote for elected officials who will hold this president accountable,' he told the camera, 'And after we've done that, my personal goal will be to stick around until 2020 and vote to make sure we have a decent, moral, law-abiding citizen in Washington who will make us all proud again to live in America.' Vote for change! Carl Reiner made an impassioned plea for people to vote on his social media Wednesday, telling citizens his 'personal goal' is to stick around to see Trump's defeat in 2020 The video was shared in a tweet that read: 'What is on my mind will be coming out of my mouth as you watch this.' The Trump opponent began, saying: 'I've seen a lot of things in my lifetime. I lived through the Great Depression. I served in World War II in our fight to defeat fascism. I've seen the invention of television and performed on television even before my family owned one.' He challenged Trump's honesty, saying: 'But what I've never seen is the American people being lied to every single day about everything. Lies about climate change. Lies about protecting Medicare and Social Security. Lies about Russia attacking our elections. Lies about protecting people with preexisting conditions.' 'In my 96 and a half years, Ive seen a lot of things,' he concluded. 'But the one thing I cannot bear to see is America being destroyed by racism, fear-mongering and lies. Fortunately, there is something we can do about that. On November 6, we can vote for elected officials who will hold this president accountable,' What is on my mind will be coming out of my mouth as you watch this: pic.twitter.com/fZkyGg8rlU carl reiner (@carlreiner) October 30, 2018 Do something: 'In my 96 and a half years, Ive seen a lot of things,' he concluded. 'But the one thing I cannot bear to see is America being destroyed by racism, fear-mongering and lies' People seemed to agree with his message, retweeting the post over 32k times. Carl has been vocal about his disapproval of Trump. Back on October 17, he tweeted: 'At 96 and 6 months I have an incentive to hang around [until] Im 98 so I can vote for whoever runs against our fake President Trump.' People were heartened by his message. In response, he wrote back: 'Your reaction to my desire to live at least until I can vote for someone who will put the Trumpser in the dumpster, has caused me to smile the widest smile my lips are capable of...-the one that broke out when I first looked into rhe faces of my 3 infant children.' Carl is the father of filmmaker Rob Reiner, who is also a staunch Trump critic. Police are desperately trying to contact a family that was seen leaving a north Queensland beach where a young woman was found dead the next day. Toyah Cordingley, 24, went missing while walking her dog on Wangetti beach, north of Cairns, on Sunday, October 2, with her body found in dunes a day later. Police have re-issued an appeal for a family comprising of a man, a woman and two children who were seen leaving the beach car park about 2.30pm on October 21 to contact them as their investigations into Ms Cordingley's murder continue. Soon-to-be independent federal MP Kerryn Phelps says she's "hitting the ground running" as she waits to be officially declared winner of the Wentworth by-election. Dr Phelps holds a 1783-vote lead over the Liberals' Dave Sharma but the Australian Electoral Commission is yet to finalise the count. It's unlikely the result will be confirmed before Friday, the deadline for late-arriving postal votes. "The AEC will advise this week when a count of new postal votes is undertaken," the AEC tweeted on Monday. Dr Phelps said in the meantime she will "roll up my sleeves" and "do the job" until she can take her seat in parliament, which doesn't sit until the last week of November. She came out swinging on Monday, criticising the government's promise to resolve the plight of children and families on Nauru during the election campaign as "false hope". A weekend Newspoll revealed 80 per cent of Australians want children removed from the camps. "There's no question the tide has turned in public sentiment around the children and their families on Nauru," she told reporters. "We need to bring them to Australia for urgent medical and psychological treatment, the Australian people are demanding it and the government must act." Dr Phelps confirmed she wants to remain a councillor for the City of Sydney, arguing that quitting the post would spark another "expensive by-election". "We've just had an expensive by-election in Wentworth because a sitting prime minister was removed and he then left as the local member," she said. "I have a financial responsibility to the ratepayers of Sydney so if I stay in the position until April then we will be able to avoid an expensive by-election and then we will no doubt have a federal general election at some point around then I will reassess the situation then." SEATS UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT AT VICTORIA'S NOVEMBER 24 ELECTION -- PRAHAN - Melbourne Incumbent: Sam Hibbins, Greens, 0.4% margin A three-way battle between the Greens, Labor's Neil Pharaoh and the Liberals' Katie Allen. Prahan came down to just a few votes in 2014: Hibbins won by preferences; the Liberals got 45 per cent of first preferences; and Pharaoh got a higher percentage of first preferences. -- MORWELL - Latrobe Valley Incumbent: Russell Northe, independent, 1.8% margin Nationals-turned-independent Northe left the party last year amid personal issues and a dispute over party cash. If he runs again, he'll be up against Liberal Dale Harriman, Nationals' Sheridan Bond, Labor's Mark Richards and former senator Ricky Muir who is running for the Shooters Fishers and Farmers. -- BRUNSWICK - Melbourne Incumbent: Jane Garrett, Labor, 2.2% margin The Greens have been making increasing headway in Melbourne's inner city seats, including Brunswick. Garrett is seeking sanctuary in the upper house, leaving union organiser Cindy O'Connor to defend the seat for Labor against the Greens' Tim Read. Adding to the fireworks will be writer Catherine Deveny for Fiona Patten's Reason Party. -- SHEPPARTON - Goulburn Valley Incumbent: Suzanna Sheed, indepedent, 2.6% margin The Liberal-Nationals coalition will be hoping to claw back Shepparton in a three-horse race between Sheed, the Nationals' Peter Schwarz and Liberal Cheryl Hammer. -- RIPON - Western Victoria Incumbent: Louise Staley, Liberal, 0.8% margin Staley won the seat thanks to preferences on a tiny margin and will defend it against Labor's Sarah DeSantis. The Greens' Serge Simic and Animal Justice Party's Anna Hills are also running. -- FRANKSTON - Southeast Melbourne Incumbent: Paul Edbrooke, Labor, 0.5% margin First-time MP and former firefighter Edbrooke is up against police officer Michael Lamb in a battle highlighting two issues which have dominated Victorian politics - crime and the firefighters pay dispute. -- CARRUM - Southeast Melbourne Incumbent: Sonya Kilkenny, Labor, 0.7% Former Liberal MP Donna Bauer has her sights set on reclaiming her old district in a rematch of 2014. -- BENTLEIGH - Southeast Melbourne Incumbent: Nick Staikos, Labor, 0.8% margin A marginal sandbelt seat, Staikos is up against Liberal candidate Asher Judah in a seat which has regularly changed hands. -- GEELONG - Southwest Victoria Incumbent: Christine Couzens, Labor, 6% margin While Couzens has a fairly comfortable margin, former Geelong mayor, paparazzi king and colourful man-about-town Darryn Lyons is challenging as an independent. Touring in a hot-pink truck and with an axe to grind after his council was sacked by the Andrews government, Lyons will be a noisy combatant. He is Victoria's first-term premier and if the polls can be believed Daniel Andrews won't be a one-term wonder. After sweeping to power in 2014, Labor wasted no time putting its plans into action. The party's signature policy of removing rail level crossings has been bolstered by starting the Metro tunnel and overhauling TAFE to pump out skilled workers needed to keep pace with an onslaught of infrastructure builds. After successfully holding Australia's first royal commission into family violence, he's promising another into mental health. Backflips? There have been a few. After initially opposing voluntary assisted dying, Victoria in November became Australia's only state to legalise a controversial scheme, after Mr Andrews watched his beloved father die of cancer. There's also a safe injecting room trial designed to combat the drug-riddled streets of Richmond, following in the footsteps of Sydney's successful Kings Cross experiment. It hasn't all been smooth sailing. Mr Andrews' administration has weathered self-inflicted scandals ranging from misusing parliamentary entitlements, to seemingly endless negotiations over a firefighters pay deal. But as a long-time Labor man (he joined the party in 1993, was elected to office in 2002) Mr Andrews is seasoned at soldiering through political storms. "We won't take anything for granted in the campaign," he told AAP. "Just as we've worked hard over the last four years ... we'll continue to work hard over the next few weeks as we make the case that there is still so much more to do." Mr Andrews envisions a Victoria "where no-one gets left behind - a state where you can find a good secure job". "Campaigns are always tough - as they should be - but what focuses me is that there are so many Victorians doing it tougher, and without a government that's on their side, they won't get the life opportunities others take for granted," he said. The 46-year-old grew up in regional Victoria, finished high school at Wangaratta, then moved to Melbourne to attend Monash University. By the mid-1990s he was working in politics, first as an electorate officer, then in the Australian Labor Party as an organiser and assistant state secretary. Once elected in 2002, Mr Andrews spent his first term as a parliamentary secretary before entering the ministry from 2006, responsible for gaming, consumer affairs, multicultural affairs and health. He spent four years as opposition leader before claiming the state's top political job in 2014. Standing beside him the whole time has been wife Cath and three children, Noah, Grace and Joseph. "They help keep me grounded and I can't wait to have them as part of the campaign," Mr Andrews said. "Family time is always special, and more than ever during the campaign, I will make sure that no matter how hectic it gets, we make time for that." Victorians go to the polls on November 24. -- WHO IS DANIEL MICHAEL ANDREWS? Age: 46 Electorate: Mulgrave, southeast Melbourne Education: Galen College, Monash University Career before parliament: Electorate officer and Australian Labor Party official Political career: First elected in 2002, spent first term as parliamentary secretary for health before being promoted to the ministry in 2006. Minister for health from 2007-2010 and then opposition leader after the 2010 election loss before becoming premier in 2014 Family: Met wife Catherine at Monash University's Mannix College and they married in 1998. They have three children, Noah, Grace and Joseph. Victoria's major political parties are promising to make Melbourne safer, get commuters to work faster, cheapen bills and give kids the education they deserve. Whether the November 24 election hands a second term to Daniel Andrews' Labor government or favours the Matthew Guy-led Liberal-Nationals opposition, both teams are promising to make life better. "There's very little difference between them," Monash University political scientist Nick Economou told AAP. "Both sides are falling over each other promising Victorians infrastructure until it's coming out of their ears. Both of them are promising to be so hard on law and order we might be going back to the convict times." The main difference? Labor has runs on the board. The first-term Andrews government has set a cracking pace removing rail level crossings - a signature policy from its 2014 election campaign - and building the Metro rail tunnel, both with no help from Canberra. It's also been busy constructing schools. The government's social reforms have included Australia's only family violence royal commission, legalised assisted dying, a safe injecting room trial and the groundwork for treaty with Aboriginal Victorians. However the Labor administration has not been without controversy. Government MPs have been caught taking advantage of parliamentary allowances, factional infighting became public, a troublesome firefighters pay deal won't go away, and now police are conducting a fraud investigation into the party's 2014 election campaign. Polls have consistently favoured the government and economist David Hayward thinks the government will hold power because it's been making progress. "The economy's doing well, the budget's doing well, so they look like they are able to deliver on policies," the director of RMIT's Future Social Service Institute told AAP. But Opposition Leader Matthew Guy should be pleased with how tight the polls have been, the latest in October showing a 52-48 split in favour of Labor, Prof. Hayward said. "He's got them back into a position where it's potentially winnable and that's a pretty fair effort." While the major parties are battling for power over bread-and-butter issues, jostling to win marginal seats in Melbourne's southeast and in parts of regional Victoria, the battle for balance-of-power is happening closer to parliament house. The Greens have been waging an insurgency on inner-Melbourne seats for years, claiming Melbourne and Prahan in 2014 then snatching Northcote in November's by-election sparked by the death of Labor's long-serving Fiona Richardson. They need to hold the seats they have and could pose a threat in Brunswick, Richmond and Albert Park. Retain three seats and it's business as usual for the Greens, but if they claim all six, the balance-of-power comes into the equation. The coalition needs a uniform swing of three per cent to get majority government, including clawing back Morwell which turned independent when Russell Northe left the Nationals. If it comes down to one seat, another independent, Shepparton's Suzanna Sheed, could also be king-maker. "It's going to be a fascinating contest," Dr Economou says. The grandson of Ukrainian immigrants, Matthew Guy partly credits his family's belief in hard work for his political determination, as he hopes to become premier of Victoria. Remembering a much-cherished childhood spent in suburban northeast Melbourne, the now-44-year-old wants his three sons and other Victorian kids to have the same opportunities afforded to him. "You're going to have to work in life for what you get," he told the party faithful at the Liberal party campaign launch on Sunday. "That's a good value to have." He's concerned out-of-control population growth means those opportunities might be missed and wants Victoria to have a say in where migrants and refugees settle with the state to have input on visa conditions. "(It) will give us more control in managing skills shortages right across Victoria and directing migration growth to the areas that need it the most," Mr Guy said. There would be a 50-50 split between federal and state governments to better manage population growth under his government. To encourage people to move outside Melbourne and start businesses, he plans to cut payroll tax to just one per cent in regional Victoria. There are also promises to address traffic congestion, cut energy costs and improve rail transport in the state including introducing high speed trains. That pledge is particularly close to his heart because his father's love of trains and memories of being driven around the state to see the latest models. "I've had 40 years of lectures from my father about trains and how important they are," he said. Mr Guy worked part-time to pay for his tertiary education at La Trobe University, which is where he first got interested in politics. But before he was elected in 2006 he worked in a variety of jobs including at the Victorian Farmers Federation and as a manager in the Australian Securities and Investment Commission. He was appointed planning minister in 2010 under Liberal premier Ted Baillieu but has faced heavy criticism for decisions during his tenure. This included a slew of controversial high-rise building approvals in the city, the rezoning of a 250-hectare industrial area for development and the botched rezoning of farmland at Ventnor in Phillip Island. The latter decision sparked an Ombudsman investigation and ended with an out-of-court settlement totalling $3.5 million, including costs. Mr Guy was also slammed over a 2017 dinner meeting at the lavish Lobster Cave restaurant with alleged Melbourne mafia boss, Tony Madafferi. He has insisted it was not linked to political donations. There have also been difficulties with the flow of funds to the party from major sponsor, the Cormack Foundation. Through all the difficulties his family and particularly wife Renae, a former journalist, have been supportive. "I am so proud and happy she had chosen me," Mr Guy said of their wedding day. Victorians go to the polls on November 24. WHO IS MATTHEW JASON GUY? Age: 44 Electorate: Bulleen, eastern suburbs of Melbourne Education: Montmorency High School, LaTrobe University, Monash University (Masters) Career before parliament: Worked at the Victorian Farmers Federation and was a manager at the Australian Securities and Investment Commission Political career: First elected to parliament in 2006 and was appointed planning minister in 2010, then as minister for multicultural affairs and citizenship in 2014. Won a seat representing Bulleen in 2014 and appointed as leader a month later. Family: Met wife Renae while she was working for former Liberal MP Gary Rowe, but she used to work as a journalist for Leader newspapers. They have three sons: Joseph, Samuel and Alex. Grandparents are Ukrainian. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has angrily dismissed claims money meant for the National Disability Insurance Scheme will be redirected to a drought fund. The federal government will inject $3.9 billion into the Future Drought Fund from 2020, with the total kitty expected to rise to $5 billion by 2028. The initial investment comes from money earmarked for the NDIS, but Mr Morrison insists the move won't leave the scheme short. "This lie that somehow the NDIS is being taken from to support our farmers is rubbish," Mr Morrison told reporters in Geelong on Monday. "I think it has created needless anxiety amongst parents of families with children and with others who live with children with disabilities." The prime minister said the government's strong economy and budget management allowed the drought fund, which will release $100 million a year from its start date, to be created. "The NDIS is 100 per cent fully funded. Every last dollar, every last cent," Mr Morrison said. "The suggestion that somehow we're taking from disabled children to support our farmers is shameful." The $3.9 billion was originally set down for the Building Australia Fund, an infrastructure program created by the Rudd government a decade ago. Alyssa Healy has ensured Australia will head to the Caribbean for next month's women's World Twenty20 with nine straight wins in the format following a crushing victory over Pakistan in Kuala Lumpur on Monday. After Pakistan were kept to 8-97 from their 20 overs, Healy whacked an unbeaten 67 from just 41 balls to help Australia to victory with just under 10 overs and nine wickets to spare. The knock was the wicketkeeper-batter's second half-century of the three-match series against Pakistan in Malaysia, as she finished with an average of 66 and strike rate of 155.29. Beth Mooney also hit 21 from 16 before she became the only Australian to be dismissed, as Australia wrapped up the series 3-0. Earlier, the Aussies claimed four wickets in Pakistan's innings while Healy also took a stumping off the back of a miserly bowling effort Quick Megan Schutt took 2-15 off her four overs, while Delissa Kimmince went for just 1-12 off her four. Australia will arrive in the West Indies this week having not been beaten in any format in since March, a run that includes six one-dayers and nine T20s. They are aiming to reclaim their trophy, which they dropped for the first time in four tournaments in the final against the West Indies in 2016. They play warm-up matches against England and South Africa, before their first group match against Pakistan in Guyanna on November 10 (AEDT). Sydney has made it on to a list of global air pollution "hotspots" in a study that uses new satellite data to measure nitrogen dioxide levels in the atmosphere. The Greenpeace East Asia analysis, published on Monday, suggests the Sydney hotspot is ranked 40th globally. The world's biggest hotspot is Mpumalanga in South Africa which is home to a dozen coal-fired power plants. The list includes areas with power plants in India, South Africa and Germany; industrial clusters in China; and so-called megacities with high transport-related emissions including Dubai, London and Paris. Vehicles, especially those that run on diesel, and coal-fired power stations are the main source of Australia's NO2 emissions. The data, collected by the European Space Agency's Sentinel satellite, has been available since June and tracks emissions from the ground up through several kilometres of the atmosphere. The satellite data isn't directly comparable to ground-level pollution. World Health Organization figures show Australia generally has good air quality. But Newcastle GP and clean-air campaigner Ben Ewald says high NO2 emissions are linked to ozone formation which can cause asthma attacks in sensitive people and chronic lung disease. The Greenpeace analysis suggests levels of the hazardous gas averaged 0.25 parts per million in parts of Sydney over the three-month study period. Nitrogen dioxide levels also averaged 0.25ppm over the three months near the Hunter Valley's Liddell Power Station and Bayswater Power Station. Pollutant levels averaged 0.15ppm in Victoria's La Trobe Valley and Gladstone and Biloela in Queensland - all of which are home to coal-fired power stations. Greenpeace air pollution campaigner Lauri Myllyvirta says governments need to act. "This new satellite is our 'eye in the sky' from which the culprits - coal-burning industry and oil guzzling transport - cannot escape," Ms Myllyvirta said in a statement on Monday. NO2 is formed whenever fuel is burned at a high temperature or if the fuel itself contains nitrogen. Coal, oil, gas and biomass burning all contribute to NO2 emissions. A fleet of 92, including five proven quality supermaxis, is delighting organisers of this year's Sydney to Hobart race. Record eight-time line honours winner Wild Oats XI is returning for another crack after it reached Hobart first last year only to be demoted to second after a successful protest by rival supermaxi Comanche. That boat, which also holds the record for the fastest passage, is also back in 2019 looking for a third line honours win. Two other Australian supermaxis, InfoTrack and Black Jack, both of which took line honours under different names, and Hong Kong's Scallywag, round out the big boat contingent. Back in the race is Ichi Ban, which is bidding to become the first boat to take overall honours in successive teams since Freya in 1964. Matt Allen's boat, which has notched several other handicap wins since last year's race, will be one of 10 TP52s in the fleet. "I am delighted at the size and quality of the fleet," Cruising Yacht Club of Australia commodore Paul Billingham said. "Talking to several owners, it''s clear that a number are seeing this year's race as part of a two-year campaign taking us into the 75th anniversary race in 2019. "We expect five supermaxis but it's when you look at the full list of entries that there is a real feeling of depth and quality. "A number of yachts new to the race will make appearances. "Among them, I'm keen to see how Sean Langman goes with the RP65 Naval Group." Entries were received from NSW, Tasmania, Queensland, Western Australia, Victoria and South Australia. The international contingent includes three from the United States and two from Russia and Hong Kong. Other overseas areas represented are Poland, the United Kingdom, Germany France and the race's first Hungarian entry, the TP52, M3 Team Hungary. Clipper round the world-winning skipper Wendy Tuck, the 2018 Australian female Sailor of the Year and inaugural Offshore Sailor of the Year, will be aboard Grace O'Malley. Ousted prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has issued a warning to his successor that moving the Australian embassy in Israel to Jerusalem could prompt a "very negative reaction". Speaking after a meeting in Bali with Indonesia President Joko Widodo, Mr Turnbull said Australia shouldn't toy with the idea of moving the embassy, given the reaction it would stir from it's Muslim majority northern neighbour. "The president expressed to me, as he has done to Prime Minister Morrison, the very serious concern held in Indonesia about the prospect of the Australian embassy in Israel being moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem," Mr Turnbull said, according to Fairfax Media. Prime Minister Scott Morrison floated the idea of shifting the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in the dying days of the Wentworth by-election campaign, where more than 12 per cent of voters are Jewish. Mr Turnbull said Australia must first look at how its closest neighbours would react to such a dramatic foreign policy change. "There is no question, were that move to occur, it would be met with a very negative reaction in Indonesia. This is after all the largest Muslim-majority country in the world," he said. "We have to be very clear-eyed about that, and we have to take into account Australia's national interests, and our interests in the region, when we consider a decision like this." He said the Indonesian President had expressed "serious concern" over the plan. The West Australian woman who accused former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce of sexual harassment will deliver her first public speech on the issue. Former West Australian Rural Woman of the Year Catherine Marriott made the complaint confidentially to the National Party in February but the allegations soon leaked. Last month, Ms Marriott said she was extremely disappointed that after an eight-month investigation, the NSW branch had been unable to make a determination about her complaint. "While dismayed at the finding, I am not surprised as the party never had the external processes in place to deal with a complaint of sexual harassment by a member of parliament," she said in a statement. "While it has come at enormous personal expense, I was not prepared to walk past this kind of behaviour any longer. "I am pleased I stood up for what I believed was right and I'm proud I found the courage to make a difference for other people who want to create influence through political circles in future." Ms Marriott will speak at a Rural, Regional, Remote Women's Network of WA lunch in Perth on Wednesday. "Eight months on she has put aside personal distress to effect real change for women who find themselves in similar situations," the network said. "#UsToo will be the first address Catherine gives on this subject." Mr Joyce has described the allegations as defamatory. A bill to enshrine human rights in law will be introduced to Queensland parliament on Wednesday. Australia has no national law that guarantees rights for citizens, like the Bill of Rights in the United States. Victoria and the ACT have their own versions and Queensland's government wants to follow suit, basing its proposed laws on the Victorian model. The right to privacy and reputation; the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly; and protection from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment would become legally enforceable under the proposed laws. Emma Bull from Amnesty International said if done correctly it would ensure Queensland was a fairer community. "We hope this Act will enshrine in law enforceable legal rights and obligations and help balance competing human rights through a comprehensive legislative framework," she said. The introduction of a bill of rights for Queensland was flagged by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk following the 2016 Labor state conference. Former independent Speaker Peter Wellington also strongly advocated for one, making it one of his key conditions for supporting the Palaszczuk government during their previous term in office from 2015 to 2017. Victoria's red-hot crime issue is poised to bubble to the surface on Wednesday with the major parties taking part in an election debate on law and order. The Melbourne Press Club will host Attorney-General Martin Pakula and opposition counterpart John Pesutto among a panel to debate the administration of justice. The pair will be joined by retired judge Lex Lasry and Law Institute of Victoria president Belinda Wilson to discuss whether Victoria is becoming safer or more dangerous and whether police and the courts can do more. The Liberal-Nationals opposition has declared law-and-order one of its major policy platforms ahead of the November 24 election, campaigning for which began in earnest this week. Youth riots, carjackings, home invasions and two car attacks on Melbourne CBD pedestrians are among the incidents which have made crime a hot-button issue. The Labor government has pointed to overall improving crime statistics. Premier Daniel Andrews and Opposition Leader Matthew Guy have spent the past two days on their respective campaign buses. The latter on Tuesday promised $1 billion for a 10-year country roadworks program. Ex-North Queensland star Tim Brasher has tipped Ben Barba to not only gain NRL redemption in 2019 but also wear the Cowboys No.1 jersey for years to come. Former Dally M Medallist Barba will officially launch his NRL comeback with his first pre-season session in Townsville on Monday after the Cowboys threw the livewire fullback a 2019 lifeline. Barba, 29, is preparing to return to the NRL for the first time since copping a 12-game ban for testing positive to cocaine following Cronulla's 2016 premiership win. All eyes will be on Barba when he plays for his NRL future on a one-year Cowboys deal in 2019 after securing a release from UK Super League club St Helens. Brasher had no doubt Barba's NRL homecoming would be a success, saying the flyer was just what the Cowboys needed as they began life in 2019 without their retired co-captain Johnathan Thurston. Pre-season title favourites North Queensland are still smarting from finishing 13th in 2018 with just eight wins in Thurston's swansong season. "Barba will be out for a bit of redemption and I think he will get it," Brasher told AAP. "He's only 29, in the prime of his life. If he is fit and healthy and got his head screwed on he will be a great acquisition." Brasher believed the ex-Sharks matchwinner would nail down the Cowboys No.1 jersey for up to five years, forming a dangerous combination with new-look halves Michael Morgan and Jake Clifford. Former NSW and Test speedster Brasher said the stage was now set for Barba to finish his NRL career "the right way" at North Queensland after his Cronulla controversy. "Every club he has played at, if he is going great the club has done well - Benny is certainly someone who can help turn the Cowboys around," former North Queensland No.1 Brasher said. "And a one-year contract is a good way of doing it, it makes him perform. "It's up to him if he gets an extension on his contract. 'From what I have heard he is really switched on and wants to come back and finish the right way. "He's probably got four or five years at his best where he can do that and what better way to do it than lead a team off the bottom of the ladder." A man and a woman have been charged over an attempted shooting murder at a home in southern Adelaide. Police and ambulance officers found a man with apparent gunshot wounds after being called to home on Rialto Street, Morphett Vale, just before 4.30pm on Tuesday. He was taken to Flinders Medical Centre with injuries that didn't appear life threatening. Officers later arrested and charged a 42-year-old local man, who's believed to have known the victim, and a 22-year-old Hackham West woman with attempted murder. They were refused police bail and are due to appear in the Christies Beach Magistrates Court on Wednesday. A critically injured man is in a Victorian hospital under police guard after an 82-year-old woman in Victoria and a man in NSW were shot dead in a domestic violence-related attack. The man's body was discovered in the far-western NSW town of Rufus on Tuesday afternoon, which police say was connected to the shooting death of the woman at Red Cliffs, south of Mildura earlier in the day. A 58-year-man was subsequently found at a property near Lake Victoria in NSW with what police believe are self-inflicted injuries. The exact circumstances are yet to be determined, but all parties are believed to be known to each other as homicide squad detectives from both sides of the border continue the investigation. 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) Lifeline 13 11 14 A solicitor has been arrested over his alleged connection to the murder of Sydney teenager Brayden Dillon. Intruders forced their way into the boy's home and shot the 15-year-old in the head as he lay in bed in Glenfield, in the city's southwest, in April 2017. Six people have so far been charged over the killing and remain before the courts. Police on Tuesday raided a 38-year-old man's home in Monterey in southern Sydney, as well as his CBD office and a storage unit in Bexley. Officers allegedly found electronic stun devices, more than $300,000 cash, mobile phones, laptops and documentation during the searches. The man, who is a solicitor, was arrested after handing himself in to police on Wednesday morning. A Sydney man is accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting his foster child over several years. The 31-year-old man was arrested and charged on Tuesday following an investigation into claims a 15-year-old boy had been abused by his carer. Police say he assaulted the boy on numerous occasions while he was in his care in Sydney's west between 2014 and 2018. He has been charged with persistent sexual abuse of a child and multiple counts of aggravated sexual intercourse with a person aged between 10-14 and 14-16. The man was refused bail and will appear at Burwood Local Court on Wednesday. Rabbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers, who helped pull people out of the sanctuary after shots rang out, fought back tears as he addressed the vigil Mourners held an emotional vigil Sunday for victims of a fatal shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, an assault that saw a gunman who said he "wanted all Jews to die" open fire on a mostly elderly group. Americans had earlier learned the identities of the 11 people killed in the brutal assault at the Tree of Life synagogue, including 97-year-old Rose Mallinger and couple Sylvan and Bernice Simon, both in their 80s. Nine of the victims were 65 or older. The auditorium of downtown Pittsburgh's Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum was packed for the 90-minute vigil, which began with music from an African-American choir. Speakers said thousands more had gathered in the cold rain outside, listening in via loudspeaker. The assault on the 150-year-old congregation was the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in recent US history A female cleric led an a capella rendition of the national anthem and a male cantor read the Hatikvah -- a Jewish poem and Israel's national anthem. "Words of hate are unwelcome in Pittsburgh," said Rabbi Jeffrey Myers to a standing ovation, which he followed with a message to political leaders. "Ladies and gentlemen, it has to start with you, our leaders," he said. "My words are not intended as political fodder." "Stop the words of hate." Hundreds of people packed a massive Pittsburgh auditorium for a vigil remembering the victims of a synagogue shooting The rabbi, who had helped pull people out of the synagogue after the attack, chanted a memorial prayer in Hebrew, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. Similar events took place nationwide, with words of solace pouring in from the US Jewish community -- the largest outside Israel -- as well as the pope and European leaders. Federal officials said Sunday that 46-year-old suspect Robert Bowers -- arrested at the synagogue after a firefight with police -- faces 29 federal charges, many carrying the death penalty. He has been hospitalized with multiple gunshot wounds but will appear before a federal magistrate Monday. - 'Heartbroken' - The assault on the 150-year-old congregation was the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in recent US history. Squirrel Hill, the close-knit neighborhood and heart of Pittsburgh's Jewish community where the shooting occurred, was in shock. Words of solace have poured in from the US Jewish community -- the largest outside Israel -- as well as from around "Heartbroken," said Aylia Paulding, 37, her voice breaking as she summed up the mood. Authorities said the gunman burst into the building early Saturday and opened fire with an AR-15 rifle and Glock handguns in a 20-minute rampage. Four police officers or SWAT team members were injured, one critically. E. Joseph Charny, 90, was worshipping in a room with a half-dozen people when he saw a man appear in the doorway and heard shots ring out, he told The Washington Post. "I looked up and there were all these dead bodies," said Charny, a retired psychiatrist who has attended services at Tree of Life since 1955. - 'Fake news to blame' - Donald Trump on Saturday denounced the attack, saying, "the scourge of anti-Semitism cannot be ignored, cannot be tolerated and cannot be allowed to continue." But on Sunday he blamed the media for stoking tensions: "The Fake News is doing everything in their power to blame Republicans, Conservatives and me for the division and hatred that has been going on for so long in our Country." Children hold thank-you notes to authorities outside the Tree of Life Synagogue after the shooting, which left 11 people dead in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh "Actually, it is their Fake & Dishonest reporting which is causing problems far greater than they understand!" he said. He earlier said one answer to apparent hate crimes was to provide guards at places of worship, not to tighten gun laws. However, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto told journalists: "The approach that we need to be looking at is how we take the guns, which is the common denominator of every mass shooting in America, out of the hands of those that are looking to express hatred through murder." Trump said he would travel to Pittsburgh to express his condolences. Pittsburgh But some victims' families reportedly have little desire to see a president blamed by many for fanning hatred, and a group of Jewish leaders from the city released an open letter Sunday telling Trump he bears responsibility for the shooting. "For the past three years your words and your policies have emboldened a growing white nationalist movement. You yourself called the murderer evil, but yesterday's violence is the direct culmination of your influence," the letter said. Jonathan Greenblatt, director of the Anti-Defamation League, said he was encouraged by Trump's words after the shooting but also sounded a note of caution. "It isn't what you say after the tragedy that only matters," Greenblatt said. "It's the environment that you create with your rhetoric." Anti-Semitic acts in the United States have risen sharply in recent years, ADL figures show. Saturday's attack came a day after a Trump supporter from Florida was arrested for mailing explosive devices to Democrats and liberals, setting the country on edge ahead of close-fought elections on November 6. Bowers lived in the Baldwin Borough suburb of Pittsburgh, less than half an hour's drive south of Tree of Life. He reportedly worked as a trucker, and has been linked to a rash of anti-Semitic online posts, notably on Gab.com, a site frequented by white nationalists. According to a criminal complaint filed Saturday, he told police he "wanted all Jews to die and that they (Jews) were committing genocide to his people." Lion Air, a low-cost Indonesian airline, has been involved in a number of incidents in recent years. An Indonesian Lion Air plane carrying 188 passengers and crew crashed into the sea Monday, officials said, moments after it had asked to be allowed to return to Jakarta. The jet vanished from radar just 13 minutes after taking off from the Indonesian capital, plunging into the ocean. Search and Rescue Agency spokesman Yusuf Latif said authorities were still searching for the remains of the plane, which lost contact with air traffic control around 6.30 am (2330 GMT), en route to Pangkal Pinang on the island of Bangka. "The plane crashed into water about 30 to 40 metres deep," he told AFP. Sindu Rahayu, directorate general of Civil Aviation at the transport ministry, said the aircraft was carrying 178 adult passengers, one child and two babies, with two pilots and five flight attendants. "The plane had requested to return to base before finally disappearing from the radar," he added in a statement. The Flightradar website tracked the plane -- which it said was a Boeing 737 -- and showed it looping south on take-off and then heading north before the flight path ended abruptly over the Java Sea, not far from the coast. - Poor safety record - Indonesia relies heavily on air transport to connect its thousands of islands but has a poor aviation safety record and has suffered several fatal crashes in recent years. A 12-year-old boy was the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed eight people in mountainous eastern Indonesia in August. In August 2015, a commercial passenger aircraft operated by Indonesian carrier Trigana crashed in Papua due to bad weather, killing all 54 people on board. In 2014, an AirAsia plane crashed with the loss of 162 lives. Indonesian investigators' final report showed a chronically faulty component in a rudder control system, poor maintenance and the pilots' inadequate response were major factors in what was supposed to be a routine flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore. Indonesia plane missing Lion Air, a low-cost airline, has been involved in a number of incidents. Last year one of its Boeing jets collided with a Wings Air plane as it landed at Kualanamu airport on the island of Sumatra, although no one was injured. In May 2016, two Lion Air planes collided at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta airport, while a month earlier a plane operated by Batik Air -- part of the Lion Group -- clipped a TransNusa plane. In 2013 a Lion Air jet with a rookie pilot at the controls undershot the runway and crashed into the sea in Bali, splitting the plane in two. Several people were injured in the crash, although no one was killed. Indonesia's air travel industry is booming, with the number of domestic passengers growing significantly over the past decade, but it has acquired a reputation for poor regulation. Last year the Indonesian air traffic controllers association revealed that the rate of take-off and landings in Jakarta allowed by state-run air navigation company AirNav was more than the airport could handle, increasing the chance of accidents. The country's carriers have in the past faced years-long bans from entering European Union and US airspace over their safety records. A Syrian boy walks past a graffiti reading 'Brotherhood has no limits' flanked by Turkish and Syrian rebel flags in the northern city of Azaz in the rebel-held region of Aleppo province, near the border with Turkey "Brotherhood has no limits." The phrase is painted in Arabic and Turkish on a wall in Azaz, the town at the heart of Turkey's de facto protectorate in northern Syria. From Turkish-language classes for Syrian children to the state-owned Turk Telekom company erecting its first cell towers on Syrian soil, Ankara's role in the rebel-held region around Azaz has been expanding. "All the support we receive is Turkish -- education, services, and so on," said Mohammad Hamdan Keno, 64, head of the Azaz Local Council (ALC), which governs the town. "Everything here is from our Turkish brothers." Like the rest of his hometown, his desk in the ALC's headquarters is adorned with both the three-star flag of the Syrian uprising and Ankara's red-and-white crescent emblem. Turkey began providing humanitarian, political and military backing to Syria's opposition soon after anti-regime protests began in 2011, and it has remained a steady ally ever since. But its influence became more explicit in 2016, when Turkish troops and allied Syrian rebels launched a military operation against both the Islamic State group and Kurdish fighters. They cleared the Sunni extremists from the towns of Jarabulus, Al-Rai and other areas, and this year overran the adjacent Kurdish-controlled enclave of Afrin. Ankara keeps Turkish troops and intelligence forces in the area, and still backs the local police forces. But Turkish state institutions and private companies have also put down roots in this relatively stable pocket, becoming an integral part of everyday life. Walls of the main hospital in Jarabulus are now adorned with portraits of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the town is lit by an electricity grid set up by Ankara. - 'State sponsor' - A similar deal is in its first stages in Azaz, Keno told AFP. "A private Turkish company will implement an electricity project in Azaz, and Turkey is the guarantor," he said. The town's main market and several neighbourhoods have already been linked to the grid over the past week under an initial $3-million deal with AK Energy, he added. The firm opened an Azaz satellite office in a former Syrian regime building. Keno said Turkey has also helped the council pave roads, renovate mosques and repair classrooms damaged by fighting. "They fixed up the schools, gave us desks, books, schoolbags, computers and printers," he listed off. Labourers and rebel fighters stand outside a PTT office, Turkey's state-owned postal service, in the northern Syrian city of Azaz in a rebel-held region of Aleppo province As class started up again this year, the council decided to introduce something new for the area's estimated 18,000 students: Turkish courses. "We used to have two foreign languages in our curriculum: English and French. Because of the rapprochement between us and Turkey, all the teachers and administrators decided to switch" from French to Turkish, said Keno. "Since Turkey is this area's state sponsor, of course learning the Turkish language guarantees a Syrian child's future." Most of the signs around Azaz itself are already bilingual, and to phone each other and surf the web, residents have replaced their Syrian SIM cards with Turkish ones. "The demand is remarkable," said Ahmad Hadbeh, Turk Telekom's 24-year-old representative in Syria. "We put up towers in Al-Bab, Azaz and Jarabulus. The signal became stronger than before, and made up for a lot of the Syrian network coverage." - Turkish 'mandate' - The Turk Telekom store is set up in the centre of Azaz's market, teeming with people shopping for sweets, rice, clothes and even cleaning supplies imported from Turkey. Salim Horani, a 37-year-old trader in Azaz, ships everything from fabric and shoes to industrial equipment from Turkey. "Turkey's markets are huge -- we can import from Istanbul, Meric, Gaziantep and Mersin," he told AFP. It's cheaper for shoppers in rebel territory to buy Turkish-imported goods than products from government-held zones in Syria, he said. "Prices in Turkey are more affordable by a really huge margin compared to regime areas." Traders in Azaz say it's cheaper for shoppers in rebel territory to buy Turkish-imported goods than products from government-held zones in Syria Some Syrians even get clothes and other products shipped directly from Turkish cities into Azaz through the PTT, Turkey's state-owned postal service. At PTT's Azaz branch, Turkish and Syrian employees only accept the Turkish lira, whose value plummeted to record lows in August. Turkey's President Erdogan has repeatedly threatened to launch another offensive east of Azaz on swathes of Syrian territory held by US-backed Kurdish forces it views as "terrorists". On Sunday, the Turkish military fired artillery shells at "shelters" of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in the Kobane region. Around Azaz, Turkey appears to be putting down roots for the long term, said Ahmet Yayla, assistant professor at DeSales University in the United States. "All those administrations in those cities are directed by Turkey. It's a kind of mandate," he said. "The areas will not be part of Turkey officially, but Turkey will de facto keep ruling over those areas." The bombing at the Independent Election Commission comes as thousands of ballot boxes from around the war-torn country are delivered for counting A suicide bomber targeting the headquarters of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Monday killed at least one person and wounded six, officials said, in the latest violence to strike the controversial poll. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which comes as thousands of ballot boxes from around the war-torn country are delivered to the IEC's heavily fortified compound in Kabul following chaotic and deadly legislative elections. One police officer was killed when the militant, who was on foot, blew up near a vehicle carrying IEC employees as it entered the base at 8:00 am (0330 GMT). Four election workers and two other police officers were also wounded in the blast. The attacker was "identified and gunned down by police before reaching his target", Kabul police spokesman Basir Mujahid told reporters. "The wounded were taken to hospital and are in a stable condition." Millions of Afghans risked their lives to vote in the long-delayed elections that were held over two weekends. The ballot, which the Taliban had vowed to attack, was marred by lengthy delays at polling centres, allegations of fraud, and deadly violence, with hundreds killed or wounded in scores of attacks. IEC figures show roughly 4.2 million out of the nearly nine million people registered to vote actually cast a ballot. Many suspect a significant number of those on the voter roll were based on fake identification documents that fraudsters planned to use to stuff ballot boxes. The parliamentary election, which was more than three years late and the third since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, is seen as a dry run for next year's presidential vote. It is also considered an important milestone ahead of a UN meeting in Geneva next month where Afghanistan is under pressure to show progress on "democratic processes". - Ballot complaints - More than 2,500 candidates, including mullahs, journalists and sons of warlords, are competing for 249 seats in the lower house. The IEC is scheduled to release preliminary results on November 10. But problems with untested biometric verification devices that were introduced at the eleventh hour and missing or incomplete voter rolls are likely to trigger debate over which votes are valid. The IEC previously said votes not biometrically verified would be rejected. The Electoral Complaints Commission has received thousands of complaints following three days of voting in 33 out of 34 provinces. On Saturday voters in Kandahar -- the southern birthplace of the Taliban and a province notorious for ballot stuffing -- went to the polls. While preparations had been "better" in Kandahar compared with the previous weekend, hiccups with biometric devices and voter lists persisted. Voting in the province bordering Pakistan was postponed following the October 18 assassination of General Abdul Raziq, an anti-Taliban strongman seen as a bulwark against the insurgency in the south, amid fears of violence flaring up. Raziq was among three people killed in a brazen insider attack on a high-level security meeting in Kandahar city that was attended by General Scott Miller, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan. Miller escaped unhurt, but US Brigadier General Jeffrey Smiley was among 13 people wounded in the shooting claimed by the Taliban. Khashoggi vanished after entering the Saudi consulate on October 2 to obtain paperwork for his marriage to his Turkish fiancee Saudi Arabia's chief prosecutor has arrived in Istanbul as part of an investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported Monday. Prosecutor Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb landed at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport on a private plane overnight, Anadolu added. He is expected to meet with Istanbul chief prosecutor Irfan Fidan and visit the Saudi consulate where Khashoggi was killed. The case has brought near unprecedented international scrutiny on Saudi Arabia, which is seeking to draw a line under the crisis after offering a series of differing narratives in the weeks following Khashoggi's murder. The 59-year-old Washington Post contributor, who had criticised Saudi Arabia's powerful Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, vanished after entering the Saudi consulate on October 2 to obtain paperwork for his marriage to his Turkish fiancee. Gruesome reports in the Turkish media have alleged he was killed and dismembered by a team sent from Saudi Arabia to silence him. The Saudi prosecutor travelled to Istanbul after acknowledging last week that the killing was "premeditated", based on the evidence of a Turkish investigation. US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said Sunday that Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir had vowed Riyadh would conduct a "full" investigation. "We discussed it... the need of transparency, full and complete investigation. Full agreement from FM Jubeir, no reservations at all," Mattis said following talks in Bahrain. He added he was confident that the Saudi investigation would include Turkey's findings. "Certainly Turkey with the evidence that they have compiled will ensure that there is more than one review of what is going on there and I am certain the investigation will include the evidence that Turkey has put forward so far," Mattis said. Saudi authorities have arrested 18 men over the murder and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has requested they be extradited for trial in Turkey. Riyadh has dismissed the request, saying they will be prosecuted in Saudi Arabia. The body of Khashoggi, who was once an insider in Saudi royal circles, remains missing. Erdogan, who has stopped short of directly blaming the Saudi government, has called on Riyadh to reveal the location of the body, indicating that his country had more evidence to reveal about the killing. Prince Mohammad, the kingdom's de facto ruler, has denounced the murder as "repulsive" and denied any involvement, while the Saudi leadership has pushed responsibility down the chain of command. People stand in front of a memorial bearing the names of the victims of a deadly shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue Among the 11 people slain at a synagogue in Pittsburgh were beloved pillars of their community whose loss is being mourned by many. Authorities have now released the identities of the victims of the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue, the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in recent US history. Here are names and details about the victims, and how they have been remembered: - Rose Mallinger - The oldest victim of the shooting was Rose Mallinger, 97, a former secretary who was a "lovely lady," Robin Friedman told CNN. She was "full of life" and had "so much energy," Brian Schreiber, a member of the Tree of Life synagogue, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Her daughter Andrea Wedner was also at the synagogue during the attack and was wounded, Schreiber said. - Bernice and Sylvan Simon - Bernice Simon, 84, and Sylvan Simon, 86, were a married couple killed in the shooting. Their neighbor Jo Stepaniak told CNN they were "the sweetest people you could imagine" and "were loving and giving and kind." "They wanted to give back to people and be kind," said Stepaniak. - Melvin Wax - Melvin Wax was a retired accountant who was reported to have been either 87 or 88 years old. "Mel was a quiet, simple, honest, religious, kind, generous man," Bill Cartiff told People. "He was just a quiet man, and he was hard of hearing and soft-spoken, so he couldnt hear you well and it was hard to hear him. He was sweet and you maybe had to have a little bit of tolerance for his awful jokes, which he incessantly told." -Irving Younger - Irving Younger, 69, was remembered as a regular at Tree of Life services and a "consistent volunteer," the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. "I wouldnt be surprised if he saw this gunman walk into the room where the services were and his first thought was 'Can I help this stranger get settled?' -- until he saw what the stranger was doing -- because thats the kind of thought that he would have," former Tree of Life president Barton Schacter told the Post-Gazette. - Jerry Rabinowitz - Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, was a doctor who "was more than just a physician for me and my family; for over three decades he was truly a trusted confidant and healer," Lawrence Claus told People. "He had a truly uplifting demeanor, and as a practicing physician he was among the very best," Claus said. Rabinowitz was Susan Blackman's family doctor, and "he was like a member of the family, and a member of the extended family," she told CNN. - Joyce Fienberg - Joyce Fienberg, 75, was a native of Toronto, Canada and a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh. "She was a very petite woman but lit up a room with her huge personality. We weren't just welcome in the classroom, but into their home," Jason Connor, one of her former students, told CNN. "Everyone says this, but she really was an enormously caring person." - Daniel Stein - Daniel Stein, 71, was retired and was a frequent attendee at the Tree of Life synagogue, CNN reported. "My dad was a simple man and did not require much," his son Joe wrote on his Facebook page. "My mom, sister and I are absolutely devastated and crushed! Our lives now are going to have to take a different path, one that we thought would not happen for a long time," he wrote. "We love you dad more than you'll ever know!" - Richard Gottfried - Richard Gottfried, 65 was a dentist and part of an interfaith couple. He and his wife Margaret Durachko "embraced one another and our families in faith," an employee at the Catholic church she attended told People. "It was impressive how supportive they were of one another in practicing their faiths," his cousin Judy Weitzman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. - David and Cecil Rosenthal - Brothers David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59, were the youngest people killed in the Tree of Life attack. "Cecil and David had a love for life and for those around them. They loved their community. They spent a lot of time at the Tree of Life, never missing a Saturday," Chris Schopf, who managed the home where they lived, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. They would sit in the back of the Tree of Life and greet people as they came in, Suzan Hauptman told CNN. Former Bangladesh leader Khaleda Zia has been jailed for a string of charges she says are politically motivated Bangladesh's imprisoned opposition leader Khaleda Zia was handed another seven years in prison Monday on corruption charges her supporters say are politically motivated to prevent her running in a general election. Zia, arch-rival of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, is already behind bars after being handed a five-year term in February on separate embezzlement charges. That verdict triggered clashes between police and thousands of loyalists from the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which Zia still leads from prison. There was a small demonstration outside BNP headquarters Monday in the capital Dhaka, but the opposition vowed nationwide marches on Tuesday to protest against the verdict. In Zia's latest trial, Judge Mohammad Akhtaruzzman found the 73-year-old guilty of abuse of power and embezzling 31.5 million taka ($375,000) destined for a charitable fund. The verdict was handed down in a temporary courtroom inside Dhaka Central Jail where Zia -- who has been hospitalised for poor health -- is the only inmate. Her lawyers, who were also absent during the verdict, have consistently described the fast-track trial as "political vengeance" by Hasina, who has been accused of stifling her opponents. "The people will never accept this judgement," BNP secretary general Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told reporters. The latest conviction is expected to further impede Zia's chances of challenging her erstwhile ally Hasina in polls slated for December. Zia boycotted the 2014 general election which saw Hasina returned to power. The BNP had been hoping a higher court would overturn Zia's earlier sentence, setting her free and paving the way for the veteran opposition leader to run against Hasina. But the latest verdict throws up more hurdles for the opposition, which says 4,000 of its supporters have been arrested since September in a pre-election crackdown. "This judgement is to keep her out of the election," said Alamgir. - Family feud - Prosecutor Khurshid A. Khan said the latest charges against Zia dated back to 2005, during her second term as prime minister of the Muslim-majority democracy of 160 million. "We finally got justice, despite some delay," he told AFP. Zia entered politics in the mid-1980s after her husband, a former military dictator, was assassinated in an abortive coup. She faces dozens of separate charges related to violence and corruption that her lawyers insist are baseless. Zia says the charges are designed to keep her family out of politics. In recent months, her health has deteriorated inside the abandoned 19th-century jail, with a physician saying that arthritis has rendered Zia's left hand useless. Her lawyers have accused the government of putting her health at risk by refusing her specialised care in prison. Zia's sentencing is yet another blow for her political dynasty with her son and heir apparent Tarique Rahman jailed for life in absentia this month. Rahman, who was charged over a 2004 grenade attack on one of Hasina's political rallies, lives in exile in London. The guilty verdict also comes at a time when the independence of Bangladesh's judiciary is under question. In a recently-published memoir, a former chief justice alleged he was forced into exile last year after disagreeing with Bangladesh's powerful intelligence services over a case. Another judge, who also lives in exile in Malaysia, made similar remarks in a television interview, alleging he was threatened to hand down a guilty verdict against Rahman. President Donald Trump campaigned for the White House on a platform of 'America First' World War I sparked America's emergence as a global power, when it flexed its muscles to end the bloody stalemate in the trenches in Europe. A century after the November 11, 1918 armistice, debate still rages over the US role in the world and the country is led by a president whose credo -- "America First" -- harkens back to that of post-World War I isolationists. "The debate that comes at the end of the First World War is 'Are America's interests best served by joining international organizations like the League of Nations?','" said Michael Neiberg, a history professor at the US Army War College. Henry Cabot Lodge saw the League of Nations as a threat to US sovereignty post WWI "Or is America best served by staying away from these organizations and pursuing its interests alone?" added Neiberg, author of "The Path to War: How the First World War Created Modern America." For Geoffrey Wawro, professor of military history at the University of North Texas, "World War I puts the United States into the mainstream of world affairs in a leadership position." In the conflict's immediate aftermath, President Woodrow Wilson championed the League of Nations designed to keep the peace. But Henry Cabot Lodge, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, saw the world body as a threat to US sovereignty and engineered a rejection of US membership by the Senate. "Even though we retreated into isolationism, the lingering impact of US intervention is never erased because we're just such a strong power," said Wawro, author of "The Mad Catastrophe," a book about the outbreak of World War I. Echoes of that Wilson-Lodge dispute can still be heard today as Trump steers a foreign policy course unlike those followed by recent occupants of the Oval Office. - 'A 1920s argument' - Trump has made his disdain for global institutions clear along with his antipathy to multilateral trade agreements such as NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trump has withdrawn or announced plans to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, Iran nuclear deal, UN Human Rights Council and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. A famous WWI poster showing Uncle Sam as army recruiter "We will never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable global bureaucracy," he told the UN General Assembly last month. "America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism. And we embrace the doctrine of patriotism." For Neiberg, "what he's arguing is that the United States, being a great power, a great economy, a great nation, shouldn't be involved in any of these organizations unless it makes sense for the United States. "That's a 1920s argument," he said, championed by Lodge and others who "argued that the League of Nations -- which was one nation, one vote -- was a bad idea for Americans because it meant the United States and say, Ecuador, would have the same power in international organizations. "And that made no sense for a great power like the United States." - 'Leading others' - Trump's stance also represents a departure from US engagement with what is known as the rules-based international order which the United States helped create after World War II. "The lesson that American leaders in World War II took from World War I, the inter-war years, is that if America thought it could make itself more secure, more prosperous by distancing itself from Europe and the rest of the world it was flatly wrong," said James Lindsay of the Council on Foreign Relations. "For 70 years, the underpinning of American foreign policy was the importance of the United States leading its friends and allies in pursuit of common solutions to common problems," said Lindsay, co-author with Ivo Daalder of the newly published book "The Empty Throne: America's Abdication of Global Leadership." American presidents from Harry Truman to Barack Obama may have had differences over priorities and tactics "but all of them spoke about leading others," he said. "They spoke positively about alliances, about opening up markets, promoting democracy, human rights and the rule of law," Lindsay said. Trump, on the other hand, is "deeply skeptical of multilateralism" and has "turned his back on that world that America made," he said. "In his first 20 months in office he's questioned America's commitment to our allies, pursued protectionist economic policies and embraced strongmen who explicitly oppose our values," Lindsay said. - 'Political vacuum' - While Trump has been described as an isolationist, the scholars said that depiction is not quite accurate. "He's rejecting all the structures that were built to give us a leadership hand in the world," said Wawro, and seeking to carve out bilateral deals. "What Trump is arguing," Wawro said, is that the United States can "re-engage on our terms rather than these sort of historically sanctified terms that he thinks are a bad deal. "There may be something to that," he said, but it risks "throwing away the whole architecture which was designed to unite democratic peoples against threats." "That's not the same as isolationism but it's this kind of vulgarization of international relations that will lead to a loss of leadership and a loss of influence," Wawro said. Lindsay warned that the US risks creating a "political vacuum on the geo-political level" if it abandons its global leadership role. "Either of two things can happen," he said. "One is somebody will try to fill it. Right now the Chinese are trying to do that. "Another possibility is that you get no leader," he said. "A return to an era of great power geo-political competition. "That's what you see throughout most of history." Khashoggi vanished after entering the Saudi consulate on October 2 to obtain paperwork for his marriage to his Turkish fiancee Turkey on Monday called for the investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi to be completed "as soon as possible", after state media reported Saudi Arabia's chief prosecutor met with the head of the Turkish probe. "We naturally see an advantage in our prosecutors sharing information and working together," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a press conference in Istanbul. "The cooperation must continue, but it must not be drawn out or turn into a diversion. The investigation must be completed as soon as possible, so that the whole truth is revealed," he added. His comments came after Saudi Attorney General Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb met with Istanbul chief prosecutor Irfan Fidan in the Turkish city's main Caglayan court for around 75 minutes, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported. Mojeb, who last week acknowledged that the killing was "premeditated" based on Turkish evidence, arrived in Istanbul early Monday and is expected to inspect the Saudi consulate where Khashoggi was killed. The case has brought near unprecedented international scrutiny on Saudi Arabia, which is seeking to draw a line under the crisis after offering a series of differing narratives in the weeks following Khashoggi's murder. The 59-year-old Washington Post contributor, who had criticised Saudi Arabia's powerful Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, vanished after entering the consulate on October 2 to obtain paperwork for his marriage to his Turkish fiancee. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that a 15-person team came from Riyadh to kill Khashoggi. Gruesome reports in the Turkish media have alleged that Khashoggi's body, which has still not been found, was cut up into multiple pieces. Saudi authorities have arrested 18 men over the murder and Erdogan has requested they be extradited for trial in Turkey. Riyadh has rejected the request. Asked about the body's location, Cavusoglu said that "as those who committed the murder are in Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia has a very large responsibility". The killing has tainted the image of Prince Mohammed, who has positioned himself as a Saudi reformer, and tested ties between Washington and Riyadh as Western powers demand answers over Khashoggi's death. The crown prince has denounced the murder as "repulsive" and denied any involvement. Myanmar journalist Wa Lone, pictured, and Kyaw Soe Oo were last month sentenced to seven years in prison Two Myanmar Reuters journalists will file an appeal this week against a seven-year prison sentence linked to reporting on the Rohingya crisis, their defence lawyer said Monday. Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were sentenced early September under a hardline state secrets act while investigating the massacre of 10 Rohingya Muslims during the military's bloody crackdown last year. Condemnation echoed around the world after what was widely regarded as a sham trial and an effort to silence media scrutiny of the army's campaign against the Rohingya. Defence lawyer Khin Maung Zaw told AFP that "everything is ready" for an appeal to be filed before the deadline on Saturday. Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi refused to intervene during the trial even though her government had the power to drop the charges. But Myanmar's president - a Suu Kyi proxy - could now pardon the pair. The appeal process should not affect the request for a presidential pardon, lawyer Khin Maung Zaw added. However, the High Court is likely to take up to five or six months to rule on the appeal, leaving the reporters in jail. "I'm quite confident," Khin Maung Zaw said. "But in our country, nothing is certain. Anything can happen." If the High Court upholds the verdict, the reporters will appeal to the country's Supreme Court in a process that would take at least another six months. President Win Myint has issued pardons in the past and also intervened in the recent case of three reporters arrested over an article accusing the Yangon government of financial mismanagement. But Win Myint has so far refrained from commenting on the Reuters case. Pardoning Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo could antagonise the still-mighty military and stoke resentment from a public that is largely apathetic - if not hostile - towards the duo's plight. Many in Myanmar regard the Rohingya as illegal immigrants and have little sympathy for their cause. The military-led crackdown that started in August last year forced more than 720,000 Rohingya into sprawling camps in Bangladesh with refugees bringing horrific testimony of murder, rape and arson. UN investigators are urging for the prosecution of Myanmar's top generals for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Myanmar and its military vehemently reject the court's jurisdiction over the country and deny nearly all allegations of wrongdoing. They insist the campaign was a legitimate response to attacks by Rohingya militants. Posters adorn a bridge and a billboard in Jerusalem ahead of municipal elections that are routinely boycotted by the vast majority of Palestinians in the east of the city Israelis voted in local elections Tuesday that saw an ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vie for Jerusalem mayor and controversial first-time polls in part of the occupied Golan Heights draw protests. Polling stations opened as scheduled at 7:00 am (0500 GMT) and closed at 10:00 pm in cities and towns, although small rural communities ended voting earlier. Main results were not expected until Wednesday. For the first time, voting day was declared a national holiday, in an effort to boost attendance. Average turnout nationwide posted at 10:30 pm was 54 percent, compared to a final figure of 50.9 percent in 2013 during the last round of local polls. In Jerusalem there was a 0.1 percent rise to 34 percent, the interior ministry website said. Elections for mayors and councils, held every five years, are seen as largely local affairs with few national implications, though they have served as a springboard for politicians harbouring national ambitions. One significant new element to Tuesday's vote saw minority Druze cast ballots in the Golan Heights for the first time since Israel seized the strategic region from Syria in 1967. The vote was controversial since many Druze who feel connected to Syria fear it will help Israel legitimise its control over the occupied plateau. Several hundred protesters in the village of Majdal Shams, some carrying Syrian flags, temporarily blocked a polling centre as police sought to maintain calm, an AFP correspondent reported. There had been calls to boycott the election during campaigning and a string of candidates pulled out. Druze men protest against municipal elections in front of a polling centre in the village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on October 30, 2018 Polling was to occur in four Druze villages in the Golan, though it was called off in two because there were no candidates. The elections followed a court challenge by a group of Druze who pressed for the right to hold the vote. Israel has previously appointed local leaders in the villages. The international community has never recognised Israel's annexation of the Golan. In Yarka, a separate Druze village in northern Israel outside of the Golan, police said two polling stations were closed after a stun grenade was thrown at one of them, lightly wounding 10 people. - Possible run-off - There is similar controversy in east Jerusalem, which Israel also occupied in 1967 and later annexed, though there were no reports of incidents there. Unlike in national elections, Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem who have not taken Israeli citizenship are eligible to vote in local polls. A Palestinian from Jerusalem prepares to cast her vote during local elections on October 30, 2018, in Shuafat, in the Israeli annexed east Jerusalem But the vast majority stay away, refusing to recognise Israel's control over the sector of the city they see as the capital of their future state. Some 300,000 Palestinians live in east Jerusalem. Israel sees the entire city as its capital, a claim buoyed by US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December. Among the few Palestinians in the race is Ramadan Dabash, who heads a list of 12 Arab candidates running for seats on the city council. He has Israeli citizenship -- rare among Jerusalem Palestinians -- and is a former member of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party. Candidates running for municipal polls often do not have formal links to national parties, instead campaigning with locally formed alliances. "What matters most is to improve the daily lives of residents," said Emmanuel Attia, 45, who was voting in the Israeli settlement of Elazar near Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. The Jerusalem mayoral race features six candidates, increasing the likelihood of a second-round runoff on November 13 if no one receives at least 40 percent of the vote. An Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man walks in a street littered with campaign posters for municipal elections in Jerusalem on October 28, 2018 They are vying to replace Mayor Nir Barkat, who is leaving after two terms to pursue national office as part of Netanyahu's Likud. Netanyahu is backing his minister for Jerusalem affairs, Ze'ev Elkin, though he faces a tough race. The premier cast his ballot in Jerusalem and called on residents to "go and vote!" Other Jerusalem mayoral candidates include Moshe Leon, backed by Jewish ultra-Orthodox factions, and secular candidate Ofer Berkovitch, both city council members. Ultra-Orthodox candidate Yossi Deitch is also in the race. The ultra-Orthodox, who make up some 10 percent of Israel's population, wield particular influence in Jerusalem and the city has previously had an ultra-Orthodox mayor. But any mayor must deal with the various factions represented on Jerusalem's 31-seat council. Around 16,000 police and volunteers were deployed for the vote, a police spokesman said. Sri Lanka's newly appointed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse has given four legislators from his political rival's party ministerial portfolios Tens of thousands of supporters of sacked prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe blocked roads in Sri Lanka's capital on Tuesday, stepping up a showdown with a former strongman accused of rights abuses -- who also claims to head the country's government. Wickremesinghe left his official residence for the first time since Friday to condemn President Maithripala Sirisena for dismissing him and appointing Mahinda Rajapakse, a former president accused of grave human rights violations and corruption. Wickremesinghe's party said about 100,000 people flooded the streets, while police sources estimated 25,000 even as scores of buses brought more demonstrators to the biggest rally since the constitutional crisis erupted. The army of followers chanted "Down With the Rogue PM" as they targeted Rajapakse, who Sirisena has brought back into frontline politics as his prime minister. Effigies of Sirisena were torn up in a symbolic protest against the president, who has faced international calls to end a suspension of parliament so it can hold a vote on the rival prime ministers. "We are against the sacking, the people did not vote for Sirisena to act in this manner," Wickremesinghe told supporters from a makeshift stage. "We will resist what the president has done." Parliament speaker Karu Jayasuriya has warned that the crisis could lead to a "bloodbath" on the streets if the assembly does not hold a vote. But the rally remained peaceful, watched by more than 2,600 police and special task force commandos, before it dispersed. Sri Lanka's ousted prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has convinced two lawmakers to join his party as the constitutional crisis continues Behind the scenes, the rivals battled to tempt lawmakers from opposing sides to bolster their numbers if a vote is held. Rajapakse, 72, gave four legislators from Wickremesinghe's party ministerial portfolios in his cabinet after persuading them to defect on Monday. Another defected on Tuesday and was made a state minister but Rajapakse was unable to name a full cabinet. Wickremesinghe has also convinced at least two lawmakers from Sirisena's camp to join his United National Party. Following the latest defection, Wickremesinghe has 104 MPs in the 225-seat chamber while Rajapakse and Sirisena together have 99. A majority of the 22 remaining MPs are expected to back Wickremesinghe in any vote but the horse-trading is sure to intensify, observers said. A deputy minister in Wickremesinghe's administration, Ranjan Ramanayake, accused China of paying for Rajapakse -- who favoured a pro-Beijing policy during his decade-long tenure as president -- to buy legislators. "I am telling China not to spend their millions to buy MPs in Sri Lanka. They want to buy the country wholesale," he said. - China denies interference - The Chinese embassy in Colombo denied the claims in a statement to AFP. "Recent allegations about China by MP Ranjan Ramanayake are groundless and irresponsible," the statement said, adding that Beijing follows "the principle of non-interference in other country's internal affairs." The Parliament speaker has warned of a "bloodbath" if parliament is not reconvened to end the crisis With Sirisena showing no sign of lifting the parliamentary suspension which runs until November 16, Wickremesinghe's finance minister Mangala Samaraweera said the president was trying to buy time to secure votes for Rajapakse. Speaker Jayasuriya followed up his "bloodbath" warning by officially calling on Sirisena to recall parliament or risk unrest. "If you do not, we will not be able to stop people taking alternate action to protect their democratic rights," Jayasuriya said in the letter seen by AFP. Tensions have been heightened by the killing of one activist in the capital on Sunday. The army has insisted however that it will let politicians solve the crisis. Sri Lanka's army chief Mahesh Senanayake told AFP the military expected politicians to "constitutionally and legally" end the dispute. "The army will not get involved," he said, responding to queries on the role of security forces as the constitutional crisis drags on. "The police are responsible for maintaining law and order and only if they require our assistance, we will help." Sirisena appointed a 12-member cabinet late Monday, giving the powerful finance portfolio to Rajapakse. Rajapakse -- whose rule was marked by allegations of rights abuses and authoritarianism -- said Monday he was given the job because his predecessor's party "engaged in a quest to sell off valuable state assets and enterprises to foreign companies". "I was aware that at this moment of national peril, the people expected our leadership and protection," Rajapakse said. "Hence, I accepted the invitation." German Chancellor Angela Merkel with Rwanda President Paul Kagame (left) and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa (right) Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday pledged a billion euros to incite businesses to invest in Africa, as she urged the private sector to take a closer look at the continent's "huge" economic opportunities. The creation of the fund, announced during an investment forum in Berlin, is aimed at getting small and medium-sized companies to grow their presence in Africa. Germany has been seeking to help boost economic development in Africa, as it hopes that better work prospects and living standards on the continent would help curb illegal migration to Europe. For Merkel, economic development requires not just government support but also private investment. "This is modern development policy," she told the forum. The new fund would go towards offering loan and equity financing to European and German SMEs seeking to invest in Africa, equity financing for African SMEs as well as the establishment of a network offering advice to potential investors. Stressing Africa's "huge potential for growth", Merkel noted that "for many years we have been very focused on Asia. I think that in future we should turn our sights more on Africa." The gathering, attended by leaders from around a dozen African countries, is part of Merkel's so-called "Compact with Africa" initiative launched last year during Germany's stint as G20 president. The ambitious scheme aims to help African countries attract private investment along with technical and financial assistance, in return for reforms that improve the business climate, such as fighting corruption or improving the rule of law. "It is of great interest to Europeans that African states have good economic prospects," Merkel told the audience, which included Rwandan President Paul Kagame and South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa. - 'Not aimed at poorest' - Merkel has placed a strong emphasis on African diplomacy in recent months, backing efforts to boost prosperity on the continent in order to dissuade its people, especially the young, from setting off for Europe. The veteran chancellor has come under intense pressure at home to stem the flow of migrants after the arrival of more than a million asylum seekers since 2015 deeply polarised Germany. Most of the migrants came from conflict-torn Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq but many thousands also arrived from impoverished African countries -- even though their chances of winning political asylum are slim. Addressing the conference, Rwandan leader Kagame welcomed investments by the likes of Volkswagen and Siemens in his country, which he said had spurred interest from other foreign companies as well. Ghana, Tunisia and Ivory Coast have together already received 365 million euros ($414 million) in financial assistance under the "Compact with Africa" initiative, mainly in the form of low-interest loans. Critics however complain that the project is not aimed at helping Africa's poorest nations, focusing instead on countries whose living standards are already improving -- and are a more interesting destination for export champions like Germany. Der Spiegel weekly also slammed the conference for putting business above politics by inviting autocratic leaders such as Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi "who has thrown thousands of regime critics in jail and suppressed civil society". Troubled US industrial giant GE reports a $22.8 billion third quarter loss as it writes down assets as part of a turn-around bid General Electric slashed its stock dividend to just a penny on Tuesday amid continued losses, and disclosed that US authorities have broadened an investigation into the company's accounting. GE reported a third-quarter loss of $22.8 billion following a massive downgrade in the value of key assets held by the ailing industrial giant, a move that sparked new scrutiny by US officials. Chief Executive H. Lawrence Culp, who was tapped earlier this month to try to lead a recovery, also announced a plan to split up the troubled power division and signaled that a turnaround would take time. Investors have been hopeful that Culp, an outsider to GE as the former chief executive of the conglomerate Danaher, will change the company's fortunes and the share price initially rose in pre-market trading after the results were released. But the stock price retreated after Chief Financial Officer Jamie Miller disclosed on the conference call that the US Securities and Exchange Commission had expanded an ongoing investigation into the company's accounting. That includes the latest $22 billion charge, the bulk of which concerns GE's 2015 purchase of power assets from French company Alstom. The Justice Department also is probing the matter, Miller said. GE slashed the quarterly dividend to just a penny from 12 cents previously. It had been 24 cents prior to a November 2017 cut. - 'Strong company' - The loss in the latest quarter compares with profits of $1.3 billion in the year-ago period and is due to a $22 billion write-down announced when Culp's surprise appointment was unveiled on October 1. GE's new CEO Lawrence Culp is trying to lead a turnaround at the ailing industrial giant Culp said the latest steps were key to his effort to get a grip on the century-old company's struggles. "This is a strong company," Culp said on a conference call with analysts. "We can do better but this is an important company and I'm pleased to be on the team." "Everything is on the table" with respect to the power business, he added. Revenues fell 3.6 percent $29.6 billion, due in part to a big drop in power, although sales were higher in most of GE's other segments. Aviation and health care, two businesses that have held up well in recent years, posted gains. And revenues also increased in oil and gas, a division that had sputtered until recently. Culp said one of his objectives is "wring out the undo optimism" around the power business "so we can establish a baseline we can build on." Shares of GE, which was bumped from the prestigious Dow index earlier this year, slumped to nine-year low and finished at $10.18, a single-day loss of 8.8 percent. CFRA Research analyst Jim Corridore said the drop was due to an exodus of shareholders who had held onto GE stock because of the dividend, and because of concerns over the federal probes. "Anytime you see an investigation like that by both the SEC and the DOJ it starts to make you wonder, what's going on in their accounting? Are their books clean?" Corridore said. - Power woes continue - GE's big problem continues to be the power division, which has been beset by overcapacity due in part to the growth of renewable energy sources that has dented demand for GE's turbines. GE has described the weak market conditions in power as a multi-year issue and signaled again on Tuesday that demand remained poor. Restructuring GE's power division by breaking into two units is a key part of Culp's plan Adding to those woes in September was a technical glitch that temporarily shuttered new plants installed in Texas. Worries about the problem sent shares to multi-year lows that only began to turn around when GE announced Culp's surprise appointment on October 1. GE, under former CEO John Flannery, eliminated more than 12,000 jobs, replaced top executives and sold some assets. Culp now plans to split the power business into two units, one focusing on gas and industrial services and the other comprising steam, grid solutions, nuclear and power conversion. GE must "materially" change its power organization, Culp said. "It has become clear to us that we must simplify power." Flannery also announced plans in June to shed its oil services and health businesses. Some analysts had questioned the wisdom of exiting health care, a reliable cash cow. But Culp said the previously announced plan on health was "probably" the best course. During the hour-long conference call, Culp repeatedly endorsed the broad outlines of the June plan. SABC posted losses of 622 million rand ($45 million) in the financial year ending March 2018 South Africa's cash-strapped public broadcaster SABC is considering laying off nearly 1,000 people, or about one third of its full-time staff, in a bid to turn around its "dire" finances, according to a document seen on Tuesday. The South African Broadcasting Corporation sent a memo to workers informing them of its intention to cut jobs at all levels and in all departments in a bid to save around $30 million a year. In the note seen by AFP, SABC said the broadcaster is in "dire financial straits" and was unable to borrow from either the government or banks. As a result of corruption and maladministration scandals, parliament has dissolved SABC's board several times in recent years. The company's financial distress deepened during the tenure of its former chief operating officer, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, an ally of ex-president Jacob Zuma who falsely claimed to have finished high school. The SABC, which is the primary news source for millions of people, was accused of banning footage of violent protests, blocking opposition campaign adverts and avoiding criticism of the government during Zuma's reign. The memo warned that unless "drastic measures are taken" the broadcaster would not be financially viable. While it said SABC intends to correct "many instances of unlawful and irregular promotions and increases afforded to employees", its main focus was on belt-tightening. The SABC said it was "overstaffed", currently employing more than 3,370 staff as well as 2,400 freelancers. "Should retrenchments be necessary, it is envisaged that 981 employees may possibly be retrenched as a result of the restructuring," it said, adding that notices to terminate contracts would be issued starting in February. The corporation said it hoped to save around 440 million rand ($30 million) a year if it proceeds with the plan. SABC posted losses of 622 million rand ($45 million) in the financial year ending March 2018 after a record loss of nearly one billion rand the year before. - 'Not well thought out' - The country's auditor-general Kimi Makwetu last month said the broadcaster, which has in recent years relied on government loans for its survival, was commercially insolvent. The SABC was formed 77 years ago. Headquartered in Johannesburg, it has three free-to-air television channels and 18 stations broadcasting in all the country's 11 official languages. News of the planned redundancies came as South Africa's unemployment rate grew to 27.5 percent in the third quarter of this year, up from 26.7 percent in the first quarter, according to official statistics. Unions have vowed to fight the planned lay-offs in the courts and with industrial action. "It is concerning that such a big number of people have been targeted. This is not a well thought through process," said Hannes du Buisson, president of the Broadcasting, Electronic, Media and Allied Workers Union (BEMAWU). "It is because of political interference with the SABC editorial content by deploying African National Congress (supporters) inside the SABC that has caused the SABC to collapse," Du Buisson told AFP, adding that viewers had abandoned the broadcaster over its diminished impartiality. "A lot of viewers are no longer interested in the SABC and that is being followed by advertisers." The main opposition Democratic Alliance urged an independent staff and salaries audit, describing the management rescue plan as "haphazard and illogical". Two men embrace as they arrive at the Rodef Shalom Congregation for the funeral of Cecil and David Rosenthal, brothers who were among the 11 victims of a mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Much loved brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, inseparable in life as in death, were treasured members of the Pittsburgh Jewish community, remembered as the sweetest souls and devoted to the synagogue where they were killed. The city on Tuesday bid farewell to the pair, who had developmental disabilites and reportedly lived together, in the first funerals for those killed in the worst anti-Semitic attack in US history. Aged 59 and 54 respectively, Cecil and David, were the youngest of the 11 worshippers killed. "That really crushes me, they were such sweet men," remembered teacher Arlene Wolk who knew them both from synagogue. "I still can't believe that someone could be that hateful to walk into a house of worship and just kill people." The brothers lived in Squirrel Hill, the heart of the Jewish community in the former steel-making town, where they were constant fixtures, meeting and greeting neighbors, and never missed a service at Tree of Life synagogue, where they were brutally killed at Shabbat services. On Tuesday, their funeral was being held at the Rodef Shalom temple, just a six-minute drive from where they were killed, on a crisp fall day with bright blue skies and leaves turning a deep yellow and russet. A man arrives at the Rodef Shalom Congregation where the funeral for Tree of Life Congregation mass shooting victims Cecil Rosenthal and David Rosenthal who are brothers was held October 30, 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Jeff Izenson, one of the mourners attending the private visitation and service, knew the family and worked with the mother. "They were the nicest kids and they wouldn't hurt a flea," he told AFP while walking to the service with his wife. "Words don't capture how horrendous and cowardly this whole thing was." - 'They were Tree of Life' - "They were a big part of the Jewish community." Detective Donald Pasquarelli remembers the brothers as sweet, genuine and very chatty, always looking out for each other and devoted attendees of Tree of Life, where he used to provide security. "There wasn't an ill thought in their body," he told AFP outside the temple. "When we worked events there, they were there always. They were the Tree of Life." They loved talking to police and were "pretty much always upbeat," he said. "Maybe one brother would say, 'Hey keep an eye on the other brother.' They'd want to know if we'd be back the next day." A funeral for Cecil and David Rosenthal, beloved members of the Tree of Life Synagogue who were gunned down in a mass shooting, drew large crowds of mourners Earlier in his career, he remembers one of the brothers stopping by the police station every day just to chat. "The sergeants, the desk people loved him," he said. "To me they didn't have any disabilities at all, they were just great guys." It was when photographs of the dead were released alongside the names that Pasquarelli was most choked up. "It affected me, it affected my other partners. This is professional and personal," he said. Deborah Brower, who worked for years at ACHIEVA, an organization that provided residential and vocational support to the brothers, mourned a pair she said "could not have been sweeter souls." Cecil would regularly stop by the office to deliver mail and visit. "Let's just say he had quite a gift for schmoozing, kindness and humor -- the likes of which bring to mind a good politician. Cecil didn't just bring mail, he brought light," she said in a statement. - 'An angel' - A memorial to the victims of a mass shooting at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue Once trying to get to work on public transport and struggling, she was overjoyed to bump into Cecil who lent a helping hand. "He smoothly took charge and helped me safely navigate the streets and multiple buses," she wrote. "I was in the hands of an angel." Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of Tree of Life, who will preside over the brothers' funeral, said the service would celebrate the lives of "two wonderful human beings." "They were the sweetest, most wonderful people you could know -- not an ounce of hate in them whatsoever," Myers told CNN late Monday. There could be no answers, he said, for their senseless death nor the senseless murders of the nine other Jewish congregants gathered for prayers, shot dead at point blank range last Saturday. "We need to just turn to what was good about them," Myers said, "and gratitude they were in our lives." ACHIEVA said the two brothers "loved life" and "loved their community," remembering Cecil for his infectious laugh, and David for his kindness and gentle spirit. The brothers never missed a Saturday service. It was that devotion that cost them their lives. The New York skyline above the Hudson River, seen from New Jersey: police are still searching for clues to shed light on the deaths of two sisters found duct-taped together on the Manhattan side of the river Police in New York searched Tuesday for clues to what, or who, killed two sisters whose bodies were found duct-taped together on the banks of the Hudson River in Manhattan. The two young women, identified as Rotana Farea, 22, and her sister Tala, 16, were found on the banks of the Hudson last week with no visible signs of trauma, dressed all in black, with fur-trimmed coat collars, and bound together at the ankles and waist by duct tape. New York and Arab media said the sisters, who had run away from home before, were of Saudi origin but their family was living in Fairfax, Virginia. The Saudi embassy in Washington declined to comment on the reports. The young women's bodies were being held by the New York medical examiner pending an autopsy. Tala had been reported missing to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on August 24, the New York Daily News said. But the missing child report was withdrawn after it was claimed she was living with her elder sister in New York City. Police are considering whether the sisters died as part of a suicide pact, possibly jumping from the George Washington bridge some six miles (10 kilometers) north of where their bodies were found. But investigators have not ruled out that the sisters were murdered. The Hudson River separates New York from New Jersey, and police were scouring the river banks to see if they can establish where the sisters entered the water. People arrive at the Rodef Shalom temple for the funeral for Tree of Life synagogue shooting victims, brothers Cecil Rosenthal and David Rosenthal, October 30, 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The first two victims of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in recent US history will be laid to rest in Pittsburgh on Tuesday as the grieving city awaits a controversial visit by President Donald Trump and his wife Melania. The funeral for Cecil and David Rosenthal -- brothers aged 59 and 54 who were among 11 people gunned down during prayers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Saturday -- was to be held at the Rodef Shalom temple. Trump's visit to the city has been contentious, coming amid a mounting row over whether his fierce rhetoric at campaign rallies and on Twitter has been partly responsible for stoking extremism ahead of November 6 midterm elections, and a protest in Pittsburgh against the president has been called for Tuesday afternoon. People arrive outside the Rodef Shalom synagogue, where the funeral for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal was due to be held "It's just enraging that this type of hate crime could occur here and that the leadership of our country does not denounce anti-Semitism and does not denounce white nationalism and does not denounce neo-Nazism. And that is the problem," Joanna Izenson told AFP on her way to the visitation for the Rosenthals. "There's always going to be anti-Semitism, there always has been, but never have we had a president of this country who does not fight hard against it, verbally and in every way. And he needs those supporters and that's why he doesn't," she said. There was a huge turnout at Rodef Shalom, a 25-minute walk from the Tree of Life. Large pictures of the Rosenthal brothers were on display inside the lobby. - 'Purveyor of hate speech' - President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, seen here in August 2018 at the White House, will travel to Pittsburgh to support the city after 11 people were shot dead in the worst anti-Semitic attack in recent US history "There wasn't an ill thought in their body," Pittsburgh police detective Donald Pasquarelli, who provided security at Tree of Life events, told AFP outside the temple. "When we worked events there, they were there always. They were the Tree of Life," he said. The shooting spree allegedly carried out by Robert Bowers came in the same week that authorities arrested a Florida man -- an ardent Trump supporter -- on suspicion of mailing more than a dozen homemade bombs to opponents and critics of the president. The two incidents have led to accusations that Trump has fanned violence through his almost daily tweets and speeches lambasting illegal immigrants, political opponents and journalists in divisive and hardline language. Bowers had reportedly claimed on social media that Jews were helping transport caravans of refugees from Central America into the US, repeatedly calling the migrants "invaders." The caravans are a favorite target of the president's anti-immigrant rhetoric, and he has called a group of several thousand impoverished mainly Honduran migrants currently attempting to walk north to the United States "an invasion." Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of the Tree of Life synagogue says US President Donald Trump would be welcome if he visits, but other Jewish leaders have urged him to stay away Jeffrey Myers, a Tree of Life rabbi who was present when the attack started, told CNN that "the president of the United States is always welcome." But a former president of the synagogue, Lynette Lederman, spoke out on the network on Monday to tell Trump to stay away, calling him a "purveyor of hate speech." And a group of Pittsburgh Jewish leaders wrote an open letter to Trump Sunday telling him he bears responsibility for the shooting and saying he was not welcome in the city unless he took steps including denouncing white nationalism and ending "your assault on immigrants and refugees." - 'Christian rabbi' - Trump has struck back in typically robust fashion, arguing that critical journalists were in fact the ones feeding extremism across the country. "There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news," Trump tweeted. A woman walks past a makeshift memorial outside the Tree of Life synagogue, where 11 people were gunned down in the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in recent US history "The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly. That will do much to put out the flame of Anger and Outrage." Trump's visit to Pittsburgh is not the only element of the administration's response to the massacre that has been a source of controversy. On Monday, Vice President Mike Pence attended a campaign rally in Michigan at which a so-called "Christian rabbi" was invited to speak on behalf of the area's Jewish community. Instead of opening up with prayers for the 11 victims of the Tree of Life shooting, Loren Jacobs praised Jesus Christ and then offered prayers for four Republican candidates. At the end of the rally Pence, a devout Christian and hero of evangelicals, invited Jacobs back to say a prayer for the victims as "a leader of the Jewish community here in Michigan." Jacobs then offered words for the dead in the form of a prayer to Jesus Christ, without naming any of them. Jews expressed outrage over social media, describing Jacobs' appearance as an "insulting political stunt" and blasting Pence as a "Christian supremacist." Guinean police dispersed demonstrators at a banne opposition rally in Conakry on October 23 A young protester in Guinea was killed Tuesday in clashes with police who broke up an anti-government march and prevented the opposition leader from leaving his home. "My brother was killed by a policeman who shot him in cold blood," Mariama Dalanda, in tears, told AFP. The death of the 30-year-old man was confirmed by the head of the opposition and former prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo, adding that 15 other protesters were injured. "As of today 98 members of the opposition have been killed by police gunfire at peaceful demonstrations since (President) Alpha Conde came to power in December 2010," Diallo said. Police had surrounded his home, blocking him from joining the protest march in the capital Conakry. At least five of Diallo's supporters were injured earlier Tuesday in confrontations with police near his home, an AFP correspondent at the scene reported. "We are here to prevent Mr Dalein Diallo from leaving his home and going to an unauthorised march," a police official who requested anonymity told AFP. Later a national police chief, Colonel Ansoumane Camara, said the authorities were seeking to protect Diallo. "He is at his home... protected and secure," Camara said, adding that police wanted to avoid last week's scenario. "Cellou said someone tried to take his life. We are ensuring his security this time," he said. Guinean opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo (R), seen here in April speaking with President Alpha Conde whom he accuses of violating the constitution by banning demonstrations Rivals of Conde had called for Tuesday's march a week after a banned demonstration during which Diallo alleged that police had tried to assassinate him -- a claim police have denied. An inquiry has been opened into the incident. "It's sad for my country," Diallo, standing outside his home Tuesday, told journalists, calling the police action a violation of freedom and the constitution by Conde. The political opposition has been protesting against what it considers a violation by the authorities of an agreement reached in August over the appointment of local government officials, elected in a hotly disputed vote on February 4. On Monday a "dead city" strike gripped Conakry over another issue that has plagued the West African country; the failure to resolve a pay dispute with teachers who began an unlimited walkout on October 3. Palestinian paramedics mourn the death of their colleague Razan al-Najjar outside Khan Yunis hospital in the southern Gaza Strip on June 1, 2018 Israel's army said Tuesday it has opened a military police investigation into the killing of a Palestinian medical volunteer along the Gaza border in June. Razan al-Najjar, 21, was fatally shot on June 1 near the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis during protests and clashes along the border. The Palestinian Medical Relief Society said at the time she was hit "as she was attempting to provide first aid to an injured protester", adding that three other first responders were also hit by live fire on the same day. Israel's army said in the days after her death that its troops did not deliberately shoot her, but the incident was further reviewed by the military advocate general. "A military police investigation has been opened regarding the death of the volunteer medic Razan al-Najjar," the army said in Tuesday's statement, noting the probe was ordered following the advocate general's review. At least 218 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the months of demonstrations and clashes. One Israeli soldier has been killed along the border since the protests began on March 30. Israel says its actions are necessary to defend the border and stop infiltrations and attacks, which it accuses Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip, of seeking to orchestrate. Palestinians and rights groups say protesters have been shot while posing little threat. Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008. Vice President Mike Pence is heavily criticized by Jews for hosting an election rally with a 'Christian rabbi' just days after 11 Jews were murdered by an anti-Semitic man at a Pittsburgh synagogue American Jews, in shock over the massacre of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue, voiced outrage Tuesday after Vice President Mike Pence hosted an election event with a so-called "Christian rabbi." Pence took part late Monday in a campaign rally for Lena Epstein, a Jewish Republican running for the House of Representatives, in suburban Detroit, Michigan. At the rally Loren Jacobs, who uses the title "rabbi" but espouses Christianity, was invited to speak on behalf of the area's Jewish community. Instead of opening up with prayers for the 11 Jews shot dead Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue, Jacobs praised Jesus Christ and then offered prayers for four Republican candidates. "I pray that you will enable Vice President Pence to fulfill his many and important responsibilities with excellence," he added. At the end of the rally, Pence, a devout Christian and hero of evangelicals, invited Jacobs back to say a prayer for the victims as "a leader of the Jewish community here in Michigan." Jacobs then offered words for the dead in the form of a prayer to Jesus Christ, without naming any of them. Jews expressed outrage over social media, noting Jacobs appearance came just days after the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue by a man who later told police "I just want to kill Jews." The attack was believed to be the deadliest anti-Semitic act of violence in recent US history. "Messianic 'Judaism' is a branch of Christianity & offensive to the Jewish community. Lena Epstein knew this & so did Pence & his team. This wasn't ecumenical; it was an insulting political stunt," said Jason Miller, a Detroit rabbi, noting that there are more than 60 official rabbis in Michigan. The "Messianic Judaism" movement promotes the conversion of Jews to Christianity. One group in the movement goes by the title "Jews for Jesus." The movement has the strong support of evangelical Christians, a corner stone of President Donald Trump's and Republicans' voter base. Trump's lawyer Jay Sekulow is a senior figure in the Messianic Jew movement. Criticizing Jacobs' involvement in the rally, Danya Ruttenberg, a prominent young rabbi, blasted Pence as a "Christian supremacist." "Stop pretending and appropriating my people," she wrote online. The White House said Epstein was responsible for inviting Jacobs to the event, and that the vice president "invited him back on stage to deliver a message of unity." In her own statement, Epstein made no mention of Jacobs but defended her own Jewishness. "My family's history as Jews and my commitment to my Jewish faith are beyond question," she said. "I invited the prayer because we must unite as a nation while embracing our religious differences -- in the aftermath of Pennsylvania." Furniture, mattresses and bicycles are among the hundreds of products from China targeted by US tariffs Are you looking for big, big savings? How about a "pre-tariff sale" -- the latest gimmick US stores have deployed to sell anything from carpet to furniture to bicycles. Caught in the crossfire of President Donald Trump's trade wars that imposed steep tariffs on thousands of products, many US businesses rushed to import material and goods before the tariffs and now have a glut in inventory. Flooring America in Grand Rapids, Michigan -- a state that helped elected Trump -- sent out a flyer touting the "Pre-Tariff SALE!" "We buy Big to pass on the savings!" Carpet, flooring, furniture, mattresses, and thousands of other products are the targets of 10 percent punitive tariffs that took effect in late September. But the rate is set to more than double to 25 percent on January 1. A Flooring America employee contacted by AFP did not want to be identified or quoted but confirmed the store was offering a 10 percent discount on goods stocked before the new duties took effect. But he said most customers did not seem to care about the special offer. Meanwhile, chain of furniture stores in New England is running a television commercial warning consumers that prices will be going up starting in 2019 due to the tariffs and encouraging to buy before the hike. Eliot Tatelman, CEO of Jordan's Furniture -- "The official furniture store of the Boston Red Sox," according to their telephone message -- said he took no position on whether the tariffs were good or bad. "I'm just saying that if it happens, it's going to cost more money, so buy now," the ponytailed face of the company told the Business Journal in a report on Tuesday. The company which is known for its many charitable causes, and stores that feature IMAX theaters, ice cream and a ropes course, has received some blowback for the advertisement. "Did Jordan's furniture just use politics to drive up their sales in the short term?" Twitter user Henry David said. Online bicycle sellers are touting the import tariffs in their promotions But the store denies it is getting involved in politics. "Thank you all for your recent tweets. We appreciate the feedback on our recent commercial about tariffs. Our intentions are not political," the store tweeted. "We are simply stating that all furniture prices, domestic or overseas might soon go up should a tariff be imposed. Thanks for understanding!" Twitter user Rob Burgundy in San Francisco said multiple furniture stores were offering a 25 percent discount. Online bicycle seller Wiggle is advertising no duties or tariffs on orders under $800. A casket is carried outside the Rodef Shalom temple where the funeral for Tree of Life massacre victims Cecil and David Rosenthal was held on October 30, 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "This American carnage stops right here, and stops right now," President Donald Trump said at his inauguration, describing a fractured society. Twenty-one months later, voters brace for midterm elections darkened by the specter of domestic terrorism. Last weekend's murder of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue, days after an unabashed Trump fan allegedly sent pipe bombs to several of the president's critics, has brought a painful new wrinkle to the election. But while the week of deadly outrage, which included a white supremacist charged with the murder of two African Americans at a Kentucky supermarket, could motivate more voters to head to the polls, it is unlikely to shift many positions, experts and voters said. "It's not going to change how I'm voting, but I do hope it does open some eyes to people that you need to stand up to the bigotry and hatred wherever it is," Gary Schermer, a retired teacher, told AFP as he visited a memorial for Tree of Life Synagogue shooting victims. "You've got to call out people who encourage that, whether they encourage it directly or indirectly," the 67-year-old Democratic Party supporter added, alluding to Trump and other politicians accused of contributing to the noxious atmosphere. At a moment of deep national division, with the political temperature soaring, the upcoming November 6 poll is unquestionably a referendum on Trump. Opposition Democrats, seeking to regain majorities in the US House and Senate, are highlighting what they see as his toxicity, while many Republicans embrace the president's leadership style and conspiracy-mongering. Even as the deadliest attack on Jews in recent US history, and the alarming act of politically motivated pipe bombs sent to figures like Barack Obama and Joe Biden, put American beliefs to the test, voters remain entrenched. The violence "won't move the needle either way," said professor G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College, in Pennsylvania. "My sense is that those events will have a reinforcing effect, not a transforming one." - 'Fever pitch' - The current anxious and divisive political era could be traced back to Trump's trash-talking presidential campaign, which kicked off in 2015 with his call for the death of political correctness and his accusation that some Mexican immigrants were "rapists" and drug dealers. He kept the bombast at full tilt, calling for a ban on Muslims entering the country, branding his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton "the most corrupt person" ever to seek the presidency, and bragging he could shoot people on Fifth Avenue and not lose votes. Horrified observers said Trump was fueling bigotry, and predicted his campaign would self-implode. Instead, his caustic talk helped him win the White House. Today Trump's raging rhetoric remains front and center, and in recent weeks he has sought to delegitimize the opposition, accusing Democrats of turning into an angry "mob." Several Democrats blame him for encouraging extremism. Even as mourners gathered for vigils Saturday, Trump maintained his political schedule, attending a campaign rally in Illinois where he condemned anti-Semitism, then attacked his critics as "very stupid" people. The White House, facing questions about Trump's tone, insisted his political attacks are fair game, especially in a heated midterm season. Several recent concerns have caught the electorate's attention in addition to the violence, including the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, and a US-bound caravan of Central American migrants that Trump allies say is promoted by liberals. "Kavanaugh and the caravan activated Republicans and the violence and bombs activated Democrats," University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato said. "We are going to have a high turnout, with people from both parties now at a fever pitch." Some Democrats, like strategist Doctor Dena Grayson, warn that the increasing normalization of hateful rhetoric has led Americans to "become immunized to these acts of violence, which is extremely disturbing." But there is also a call from within the party to not merely point fingers at Trump, but hammer home their core messages of improving health care and education, and providing opportunities for all Americans. "Those are the issues that at the end of the day really matter to the voters," Grayson said. The US Supreme Court ruled in 1898 that the US-born son of Chinese immigrants was a US citizen under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution; President Donald Trump now appears intent on challenging that precedent The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution grants US citizenship to persons born on US soil. It was passed by Congress in 1866 after the bloody Civil War between the North and pro-slavery South and ratified by three-fourths of the US states two years later. The 14th Amendment overturned the infamous 1857 US Supreme Court ruling in the "Dred Scott v. Sandford" case which held that African-Americans could not be US citizens. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside," the amendment reads. President Donald Trump, in an interview released Tuesday, said he is considering using an executive order to abolish "birthright" citizenship for children of non-citizens and illegal immigrants. "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States," Trump said. "It's ridiculous. And it has to end." Constitutional scholars questioned whether the president can make such a move through an executive order but Trump said he believes he can. "It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment," he told Axios. "Guess what? You don't." "You can definitely do it with an Act of Congress," the president said. "But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order." The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) denounced Trump's statements as unconstitutional and a political maneuver ahead of November elections. "This is a blatantly unconstitutional attempt to fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms," the ACLU said in a tweet. "The 14th Amendment's citizenship guarantee is clear. You can't erase the Constitution with an executive order @realDonaldTrump." - Wong Kim Ark case - The issue of birthright citizenship has come before the Supreme Court previously, most notably in an 1898 case "United States v. Wong Kim Ark." Wong Kim Ark was born in California in 1873 to parents who had come to the United States from China. After a visit to China, Wong Kim Ark was denied reentry into the United States in 1895 under the Chinese Exclusion Acts. The Supreme Court ruled, however, that the acts did not apply to Wong Kim Ark and that he was a US citizen by virtue of being born in the United States. Historian Martha Jones, author of "Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America," said the White House may craft an argument to try to get around the ruling and the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment does not apply to persons who are not subject to US jurisdiction -- foreign diplomats, for example, and Native Americans. "(The Supreme Court) could distinguish from Wong Kim Ark on the facts," Jones said in a thread on Twitter. "Wong's parents were authorized or we might say legal immigrants. Their presence in the US was authorized," she said. "Wong Kim Ark did not directly address the status of children born to unauthorized immigrants. "The President proposes to interpret that part of the 14th Amendment which excludes persons not subject to US jurisdiction from Birthright Citizenship," Jones said. "His view as I take it is that children born to unauthorized immigrants are excluded from Birthright under this exception," she said. "Could (the Supreme Court) revisit its own precedent in Wong Kim Ark and rule that children of noncitizens are not Birthright citizens," Jones asked. "It would be a departure from precedent, but it is possible." Vice President Mike Pence appeared to make just this case during a forum with Politico on Tuesday. "We all cherish the language of the 14th Amendment, but the Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled on whether or not the language of the 14th Amendment 'subject to the jurisdiction thereof' applies specifically to people who are in the country illegally," Pence said. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump ally, said he planned to introduce legislation in Congress "along the same lines as the proposed executive order." "Finally, a president willing to take on this absurd policy of birthright citizenship," Graham tweeted. "This policy is a magnet for illegal immigration, out of the mainstream of the developed world, and needs to come to an end," he said. About 30 countries around the world apply some form of birthright citizenship, according to various reports. According to a Pew Research Center study, about 275,000 babies were born to the parents of unauthorized immigrants in the United States in 2014 -- around seven percent of the four million births in the country that year. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said it is important to determine whether "serious human rights violations" ocurred during the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul The UN rights chief called Tuesday for "international experts" to help investigate the murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and called on Riyadh to reveal the whereabouts of his body. "For an investigation to be carried out free of any appearance of political considerations, the involvement of international experts, with full access to evidence and witnesses, would be highly desirable," Michelle Bachelet said in a statement. Khashoggi, a 59-year-old Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributor, was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 to obtain paperwork ahead of his upcoming wedding. His body has not yet been found. His death has brought near unprecedented international scrutiny on Saudi Arabia and its powerful Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. The journalist's fiancee has accused the regime of a massive cover-up. Bachelet stressed the importance of ensuring the murder be investigated in an independent and impartial manner. "I welcome the steps taken by Turkish and Saudi authorities to investigate and prosecute the alleged perpetrators of Mr. Khashoggis murder," the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said. "But given the information that high-level officials in Saudi Arabia were apparently involved, and it took place in the Consulate of Saudi Arabia, the bar must be set very high to ensure meaningful accountability and justice for such a shockingly brazen crime against a journalist and government critic," she insisted. Bachelet added that it was important to determine whether "serious human rights violations such as torture, summary execution or enforced disappearance were committed and to identify all those implicated in this crime, irrespective of their official capacity." She called on authorities in both Turkey and Saudi Arabia to cooperate in ensuring that the full truth about Khashoggi's murder comes to light. "Forensic examination, including an autopsy on the body of the victim is a crucial element in any investigation into a killing, and I urge the Saudi authorities to reveal the whereabouts of his body without further delay or prevarication," she said. Bachelet's statement marks the third time she has commented on Khashoggi's disappearance and murder. It comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Saudi Arabia's chief prosecutor, who visited the consulate in Istanbul Tuesday, to find out who ordered the journalist's murder, and not spare "certain people" in his investigation. Saudi Arabia is seeking to draw a line under the crisis after offering a series of differing narratives following the journalist's disappearance. Since admitting the murder was premeditated, the Saudi leadership has blamed a "rogue operation" for the killing of Khashoggi, who was once an insider in Saudi royal circles and had lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 2017. Notorious gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger, seen her in a 2011 mugshot, has been found dead at a West Virginia prison Notorious Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger was found dead on Tuesday at a prison in West Virginia, one day after he was transferred to the high-security facility to serve the remainder of his life sentence, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said. According to press reports, Bulger, 89, was murdered but there was no immediate confirmation from the authorities. The prisons bureau said Bulger was found "unresponsive" Tuesday morning at the facility in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. "The Federal Bureau of Investigation was notified and an investigation has been initiated," it said in a statement. Bulger was serving a life sentence in prison for murder, racketeering, extortion, money laundering, possession of firearms and other crimes. Arrested in 2011 after 16 years on the run, Bulger's life of crime has been the subject of several movies and books. Bulger was arrested in Santa Monica, California, where he had been living under an assumed name with his longtime girlfriend Catherine Greig. She was sentenced separately to eight years for aiding and abetting him. "The scope, the callousness, the depravity of your crimes, is almost unfathomable," Judge Denise Casper said at Bulger's sentencing in a Boston court in 2013. A 12-person jury found the Irish-American octogenarian guilty of 31 separate charges that included 11 murders. Protesters denounced US President Donald Trump's visit to the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, where 11 people were shot dead during Shabbat services Donald Trump visited Tuesday the Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 people were gunned down at the weekend in an anti-Semitic attack, as more than 1,500 protesters gathered nearby to make it clear the US president was unwelcome. Carrying signs that read "President Hate, Leave Our State!" and "Trump, Renounce White Nationalism Now," the protesters gathered near the Tree of Life synagogue where the carnage unfolded Saturday. Trump -- accompanied by his wife Melania, arrived in the late afternoon, and placed a white flower and a small stone on each star erected in memory of the dead at a makeshift memorial outside the Tree of Life. Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, who are Jewish, followed at a short distance, also pausing at each star. The first couple then entered the synagogue and lit candles in honor of each of those killed, the occasion punctuated by the still audible cries of protesters outside. The controversial visit came after mourners crowded into nearby synagogues and joined street processions at the first funerals for some of the victims of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in modern US history. The service for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, both in their 50s, was the first in honor of those killed in what was an apparent hate crime. Services for 66-year-old doctor Jerry Rabinowitz and 71-year-old Daniel Stein followed in Pittsburgh, where scores of residents protested Trump's visit. Trump and his wife Melania arrived in Pittsburgh to pay their respects to the shooting victims, but not everyone is happy about it The president's trip to Pennsylvania came amid a mounting row over whether his fierce rhetoric at campaign rallies and on Twitter has helped stoke extremism ahead of next week's midterm elections. "It's just enraging that this type of hate crime could occur here and that the leadership of our country does not denounce anti-Semitism and does not denounce white nationalism and does not denounce neo-Nazism," mourner Joanna Izenson told AFP. Suspect Robert Bowers is facing more than two dozen charges related to the bloodshed at the Tree of Life, which is located in the city's traditionally Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood. The 46-six-year-old reportedly told police after his capture, "I just want to kill Jews," having claimed on social media that Jews were helping transport caravans of refugees from Central America into the United States, calling the migrants "invaders." The caravans are a favorite target of the president, and he has called a group of several thousand impoverished mainly Honduran migrants currently attempting to walk north to the United States "an invasion." - 'Beautiful tribute' - Mourners embrace outside the Rodef Shalom synagogue in Pittsburgh Friends and strangers alike packed the Rodef Shalom temple, a 25-minute walk from the Tree of Life, for the Rosenthals' funeral, which took place under tight security. After the service, mourners spilled out onto the street, some of them sobbing and clasping each other. The brothers' caskets were placed in two hearses and driven away, with a sheriff's car leading the procession. "It was tragic, it was sad -- it was a beautiful tribute to two wonderful, loving, innocent men," said Paul Taylor, a Catholic priest who attended the service, which he said was "standing room only." Another mourner, a retired teacher who only gave her first name Nancy, said: "I was finally able to cry." Nearby, dozens of mourners walked behind the hearse carrying the remains of Rabinowitz in Squirrel Hill, according to footage posted on social media. Protesters angry over the visit of US President Donald Trump to Pittsburgh gathered near the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh where the shooting took place Meanwhile, protesters gathered near the Tree of Life synagogue to vent their anger. "President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully renounce white nationalism." Jeffrey Myers, a rabbi who was present when the attack started, told CNN: "The president of the United States is always welcome." But protesters disagreed. "I think it's more divisive than uniting," 57-year-old librarian Nonie Heystek said of Trump's visit. - 'Christian rabbi' - Protesters vented their anger at Trump The Pittsburgh shooting spree came in the same week that authorities arrested an ardent Trump supporter from Florida on suspicion of mailing more than a dozen homemade bombs to opponents and critics of the president. The incidents have led to accusations that Trump has fanned violence through almost daily tweets and speeches lambasting illegal immigrants, political opponents and journalists in divisive language. Trump has struck back in typical fashion, arguing that critical journalists were in fact the ones feeding extremism across the country. Trump's Pittsburgh visit is not the only element of the administration's response to the massacre that has been a source of controversy. Map of Pittsburgh locating the Tree of Life Synagogue where the shooting took place On Monday, Vice President Mike Pence attended a campaign rally in Michigan at which a so-called "Christian rabbi" was invited to speak on behalf of the area's Jewish community. Instead of opening with prayers for the 11 victims of the Tree of Life shooting, Loren Jacobs praised Jesus Christ and then offered prayers for four Republican candidates. Jews expressed outrage over social media, describing Jacobs' appearance as an "insulting political stunt" and blasting Pence as a "Christian supremacist." Denmark has recalled its ambassador to Iran following an alleged assassination plot foiled in late September that forced the shut down of bridges and ferries to Sweden Denmark on Tuesday recalled its ambassador to Iran after it accused Tehran of plotting a foiled "attack" against three Iranians living in the Scandinavian country. "I have decided to recall Denmark's ambassador in Tehran for consultations... Denmark can in no way accept that people with ties to Iran's intelligence service plot attacks against people in Denmark," Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen told reporters. "It is the Iranian government, it is the Iranian state that is behind" the plot, Samuelsen said. He added that he was consulting with "partners and allies", including the EU, about possible sanctions. Earlier Tuesday, the head of Denmark's intelligence service PET, Finn Borch Andersen, said his agency believed the Iranian intelligence service "was planning an attack in Denmark" against three Iranians suspected of belonging to the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz. A Norwegian of Iranian origin was arrested on October 21 for allegedly planning the attack and spying for Iran. The suspect was detained in the southwestern Swedish city of Goteborg, according to the Swedish security service Sapo. Iran has denied the Danish allegations, with foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi saying they were part of a European conspiracy against Iran. In late September, Tehran accused Denmark, the Netherlands and Britain of "hosting several members of the terrorist group" that Iran holds responsible for an attack in the mainly ethnic Arab city of Ahvaz in southwestern Iran. The September 22 attack, during which five commandos opened fire on a military parade, left 24 people dead. The so-called Islamic State group and a separatist Arab group claimed responsibility, and Iran staged several operations in Iraq and Syria in response. - 'Will stand up to Iran' - Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen echoed Samuelsen's comments, writing on Twitter: "It is totally unacceptable that Iran or any other foreign state plans assassinations on Danish soil. Further actions against Iran will be discussed in the EU." In Oslo, where he was meeting other Northern European leaders, Rasmussen spoke with British counterpart Theresa May, whom he said expressed "support" for Denmark. "In close collaboration with UK and other countries we will stand up to Iran," he added. Iran's ambassador to Denmark was summoned to the foreign ministry Tuesday for an explanation. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US also stood behind Denmark. "We congratulate the government of Denmark on its arrest of an Iranian regime assassin. For nearly 40 years, Europe has been the target of Iran-sponsored terrorist attacks. We call on our allies and partners to confront the full range of Iran's threats to peace and security," Pompeo wrote on Twitter. The US and European countries nonetheless have different approaches to engagement with Iran. Danish shipping group Maersk Tankers said in May that it would cease activities in Iran due to a US decision to reimpose sanctions against Tehran In May, the US pulled out of a 2015 international accord on Iran's nuclear programme and in August it reimposed sanctions against Tehran. A second wave of sanctions is to take effect on November 5. EU countries, China and Russia want to preserve the 2015 agreement and maintain trade ties with Iran however. PET's announcement ended weeks of speculation about why Denmark shut down bridges and ferries to Sweden on September 28 during a manhunt that mobilised hundreds of police and the military. The shutdown was aimed at foiling the Iranian operation, PET acknowledged on Tuesday. The mother of a woman who blew herself up in the Tunisian capital on October 29, 2018 mourns mourns a day later at their family home in Zorda The family of an unemployed Tunisian graduate who blew herself up in the capital struggled Tuesday to come to terms with what pushed her to carry out the country's first female suicide attack. Mna Guebla on Monday detonated explosives near a gathering of police cars on the busy upmarket Avenue Habib Gourguiba in central Tunis, wounding 20 people including at least 15 officers. Surrounded by neighbours, the 30-year-old attacker's mother Dhahbia sat in shock at her home in Zorda, a marginalised rural area in the eastern Mahdia region. "Why did you do this to us? What did we do to make you suffer this disaster?" she cried, bitterly addressing her lost child. "My daughter is a victim. She fell prey to terrorism." The attack, the first to rock the Tunisian capital since 2015, has "destroyed her entire family, especially her sister and two brothers", Dhahbia sobbed. Guebla's parents, both illiterate, have been left grappling with what could have drawn their daughter, often glued to the computer, away from their modest family home to carry out such an assault. "They (terrorists) trapped her because she was naive and fragile, even though we did everything to help her finish her studies... she was very spoiled," said Dhahbia. "I even sold olive trees to buy her, at her request, a laptop four years ago," she added. - 'Isolated act' - Guebla had been busy "preparing for her doctorate, which is why she often isolated herself in her room -- to concentrate on her studies or to send job applications", her mother said. And despite her seclusion, there were no signs that she was being radicalised. "There was no change in her character... nothing showed that she had extremist ideas," her mother said. Neighbours and relatives gather in front of Mna Guebla's family home on October 30, 2018, a day after she blew herself up on a busy street in Tunisia's capital "Even her headscarf, she wore it since university and she prayed like everyone else," she said, adding that her daughter was not particularly pious. Guebla had earned an English-language master's degree in business, but she had failed to find a job afterwards and remained at home, often taking care of the family's livestock. On Friday, she informed her mother and aunt, who also lives with them, that she planned to leave the next morning to spend a few days looking for work in the eastern city of Sousse. Her uncle told AFP that when she left the house early Saturday he offered to take her to the bus station, but she refused, claiming instead she was going to the doctor in a nearby town. Guebla died around midday on Monday when the bomb she was carrying exploded. Those hurt in the blast were only lightly injured, according to authorities. According to the interior ministry, the attack was an "isolated act" and the suicide bomber "was not known for her track record or religious affiliation". - 'Marginalisation' - The family was informed of Guebla's death by the police, who brought her two younger brothers in for questioning. Her father Mohamed, frail since suffering a stroke over the summer, said his daughter had "never hurt anyone... she was surely manipulated". She was a "model girl, the flower of the family and the most likeable", he said. Tunisian forensic inspectors examine the site where 30-year-old Mna Guebla blew herself up in the capital Tunis on October 29, 2018 He blamed his daughter's "sad fate" on Tunisia's leaders because of their "nepotism and their marginalisation of youth". Almost eight years since a revolution that toppled Tunisia's longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the country's economy is stagnant and around a third of young graduates are unemployed. For political scientist Selim Kharrat, the young bomber "has the typical profile of radicalised youth -- often from disadvantaged rural areas, disillusioned and without horizons despite their studies". For Guebla's aunt Saida, living with the tragedy will be the hardest. "If this was to be her end, I would have preferred she was never born," she said. "She left but now it is us, and only us, who will pay the price... who will continue to live in pain." Sally Lane (R) and John Letts, parents of Jack Letts who has been held in Syria for 18 months, are seen in September 2018 The father of a British-Canadian dual national held by Kurds in Syria pleaded Tuesday for Ottawa's help to rescue him and at least 18 other Canadians, amid concerns that some of them pose a security risk. Jack Letts, 23, has been held in Syria for 18 months, his father John told reporters in Ottawa. "I need your help to save my son's life," said Letts, who appeared at a press conference with Alexandra Bain, director of Families Against Violent Extremism. They said nine Canadians, including the younger Letts, as well as at least 10 of their children -- some taken to Syria, some born in the war zone -- are currently being held by Kurdish authorities on Syrian soil. Bain said they face a cold winter ahead, are given little to eat, are not provided an education and tuberculosis has started to spread in the camps. "These people need to be brought home to Canada and they need to be brought home now," Bain said. The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said it will not risk sending officials to Syria to negotiate for their release, citing security concerns. Ottawa has also raised concerns about the collection of evidence in conflict zones to prosecute returnees under Canadian terrorism laws. "We are aware of Canadian citizens being detained in Syria," foreign ministry spokesman Stefano Maron told AFP. "Given the security situation on the ground, the government of Canada's ability to provide consular assistance in any part of Syria is extremely limited," he said. "Canada is engaged in these cases and is providing assistance, to the limited extent possible," including verifying their "whereabouts and well-being," Maron added. The families of detainees and their supporters were to meet later Tuesday with senior Canadian foreign ministry officials to pitch their proposal for a brokered return. Letts and Bain said the human rights organization Reprieve would travel to camps in northern Syria to help facilitate their return, but only if Canada agrees to supply the returnees with travel documents. To alleviate public concerns about repatriating Canadians with possible terror links, Bain said returnees would agree to "voluntary security arrangements," without elaborating on the terms. Reprieve has previously helped repatriate an American from Syria under similar circumstances, Bain noted. The reason for Letts' presence in Syria is somewhat unclear. British media have suggested he is fighting for extremist groups, but his father said he was "not a violent jihadist" though he might have been "naive and wrong" to go to Syria. Canadian officials had been trying to secure Letts' return home but suddenly halted their efforts in May, the father said. "They just said there's nothing we can do because it's too dangerous," he told reporters, holding back tears. The father suggested pressure on Canada from Britain, which has refused to take Jack back, or the upcoming Canadian election in 2019 may have factored into the decision. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 31) Airport authorities are proposing to raise terminal fees for domestic and international flights at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Under the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) proposal, they want to increase the terminal fee for international flights at the NAIA from P550 to P750. For domestic flights, they are looking at making the terminal fee at P300 from P200. MIAA General Manager Ed Monreal on Tuesday said this is necessary to maintain and improve the facilities. He said the last time they increased terminal fees was a decade ago already. The MIAA is set to conduct public hearings to discuss their proposal. Notorious gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger, seen here in a 2011 mugshot, has been found dead at a West Virginia prison Notorious Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger was found dead on Tuesday at a prison in West Virginia, one day after he was transferred to the high-security facility to serve the remainder of two life sentences for a string of brutal crimes, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said. According to The New York Times, the 89-year-old Bulger, who was an FBI informant in addition to being a crime boss, had been beaten "unrecognizable" by fellow inmates. There was no immediate confirmation from the authorities that Bulger had been murdered. The prisons bureau said the former head of south Boston's "Winter Hill Gang" was found "unresponsive" Tuesday morning at the Hazelton penitentiary in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. "Life-saving measures were initiated immediately by responding staff," the bureau said in a statement, but "Mr. Bulger was subsequently pronounced dead." "The Federal Bureau of Investigation was notified and an investigation has been initiated," it said. The prisons bureau said Bulger, who had previously been incarcerated in Oklahoma and Florida, had been in custody at the Hazelton facility since Monday. Bulger was serving two life sentences for 11 murders, racketeering, extortion, money laundering, possession of firearms and other crimes. Arrested in 2011 after 16 years on the run, Bulger's life of crime has been the subject of several books and movies including "Black Mass," a biopic featuring Johnny Depp as the Irish-American mobster. Bulger also provided the inspiration for Jack Nicholson's mob boss character in Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning 2006 gangster film "The Departed." - Ruled Boston underworld - The subject of a years-long manhunt, Bulger was finally arrested in Santa Monica, California, where he had been living quietly under an assumed name with his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig. FBI agents announce the arrest of notorious Boston gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger in this 2011 file photo She was sentenced separately to eight years in prison for aiding and abetting him. Police found some $800,000 in cash and an arsenal of weapons in the modest apartment where Bulger and Greig had lived for years as Charles and Carol Gasko. A $2 million reward for Bulger's capture was doled out to a former Icelandic beauty queen who tipped off the police to their whereabouts. A 12-person jury found Bulger guilty in Boston in 2013 of 31 separate charges. "The scope, the callousness, the depravity of your crimes, is almost unfathomable," Judge Denise Casper said at his sentencing. Bulger ruled the Boston underworld with an iron fist for nearly 30 years while also working as an informant for the FBI. His trial, which featured 72 witnesses and 840 exhibits, produced chilling testimony worthy of a pulp novel. It heard harrowing tales of teeth being pulled from the mouths of murder victims to foil identification and the strangulation of a mobster's girlfriend who "knew too much." Bulger refused to testify at his trial claiming he had been given immunity from prosecution by federal agents. He steadfastly denied being an FBI informant, but close links between some FBI agents in Boston and Bulger's Winter Hill Gang in the 1970s and 1980s have been well documented. Former FBI agent John Connolly was sentenced to prison after being convicted in 2002 of effectively becoming a member of the gang. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared to indirectly confirm reports that the Turkish military fired artillery shells at YPG positions in northern Syria on Sunday Turkey has completed preparations for a new operation in northern Syria to "destroy" a US-backed Kurdish militia that Ankara considers a terrorist group, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday. The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) holds territory east of the Euphrates River, where Turkey has repeatedly threatened to launch a fresh offensive against the militia. "We are going to destroy the terrorist structure in the east of the Euphrates. We have completed our preparations, plans, programmes regarding this issue," Erdogan told lawmakers from his ruling party in parliament. Erdogan appeared to indirectly confirm Turkish state media reports that Turkey's military fired artillery shells at YPG positions east of the Euphrates in the Kobane region of northern Syria on Sunday. The YPG has held the area since 2015. "In fact, in the past few days, we have begun real interventions against the terror organisation," Erdogan said, without giving further details. "We are going to breathe down the necks of the terror organisation with comprehensive and effective operations soon. As I have always said, we can come suddenly one night." Erdogan has previously made similar threats and on Friday gave the YPG a "final warning". YPG spokesman Nuri Mahmud told AFP: "Each time Turkey sees the situation in Syria moving towards stability and a political solution, it threatens areas east of the Euphrates and regions in northern Syria. "The People's Protection Units will respond to any threat or attack," he warned, calling such a response "legitimate defense". The YPG has worked closely with the United States in the fight against the Islamic State jihadists in Syria, straining relations between Washington and Ankara, which says the militia is a "terrorist offshoot" of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The PKK has waged a deadly insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and is blacklisted as a terror group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. - Joint US-Turkey patrols - In a bid to lower tensions, the United States and Turkey in June agreed to work together in Manbij, west of the Euphrates, after Ankara repeatedly threatened to attack the city. The YPG holds swathes of territory in Syria's north and northeast. Manbij is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an umbrella group dominated by the YPG. Turkey and the US agreed to conduct independent, coordinated patrols while troops from both countries began training together earlier this month. Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said Tuesday that training had been completed and joint patrols would begin. Akar added that Turkey's next target would be east of the Euphrates. Earlier this year, Turkish military forces supported Syrian opposition fighters in retaking the western Afrin region from the YPG during a two-month air and ground offensive dubbed "Olive Branch". Ankara previously launched an offensive between 2016 and 2017 against IS on its border with Syria, as well as stopping areas under YPG control from linking up. Following several years of tension, there were signs of relations easing between Washington and Ankara after an American pastor, who had been detained in Turkey for two years, was released on October 12. Members of the Arizona National Guard at the Papago Park Military Reservation in Phoenix this year The number of active-duty troops the Pentagon is sending to the US border with Mexico will swell beyond the figure of more than 5,000 announced this week, a top general said Tuesday. US authorities on Monday said more than 5,200 troops would head south to bolster border security, in a bid to prevent a caravan of Central American migrants from illegally crossing. General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, head of the US military's Northern Command, told Pentagon reporters Tuesday that the precise number is currently 5,239 troops -- and that the figure would grow. "What I can confirm is there will be additional force over and above the 5,239. The magnitude of that difference, I don't have an answer for it now," he said. President Donald Trump in recent weeks has repeatedly said more troops are needed to tighten border security, and he has made political capital of the caravan ahead of crucial midterm congressional elections that could see the Democrats regain some degree of power. In April, Trump ordered up to 4,000 National Guardsmen to head to the border as a different migrant caravan wound its way north. About 2,100 have deployed. Algerian-Irish jihadist Ali Charaf Damache was arrested in Spain in 2015 on suspicion of plotting the murder of Lars Vilks (C), a Swedish cartoonish who had drawn caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed Algerian-Irish jihadist Ali Charaf Damache, who pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in July, was sentenced to 15 years in jail on Tuesday, prosecutors in Philadelphia said. Damache, 53, known by the pseudonym "The black flag," was arrested in Spain in 2015, where he was suspected of plotting the murder of a Swedish cartoonist who had lampooned the Prophet Mohammed. He was extradited to the United States in 2017, accused of being the ringleader of a jihadist cell that was plotting attacks in Europe and southern Asia. "Todays sentencing marks the end of a long and arduous prosecution that has spanned more than nine years, involved four defendants and five unnamed co-conspirators, and required multiple coordinated international arrests and two extradition applications," said US Attorney William McSwain in a statement. "Damache and his co-conspirators were motivated by hate and prejudice, and their criminal activities presented a very real danger to our country and the world," he said. In negotiations over his agreement to plead guilty, Damache had accepted a 15-year prison sentence and renounced any appeals. He also agreed to extradition to either Ireland or Algeria once his US sentence has been served. Spanish officials said that when he was arrested in Barcelona in December 2015, Damache was plotting the murder of Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonish who had drawn caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. Another member of his cell, US citizen Colleen LaRose -- dubbed "Jihad Jane" - was sentenced in 2014 in Philadelphia to 10 years in jail for terrorism-related crimes. Maurice Stallard and Vickie Lee Jones will be laid to rest in Louisville, Kentucky, after they were gunned down at a store in the suburb of Jeffersontown The first of two African American grocery shoppers shot dead by a white gunman in an attack described by police as racially-motivated was to be laid to rest Tuesday. Maurice Stallard, 69, and Vickie Lee Jones, 67, were gunned down on Wednesday last week at a suburban store in Louisville, Kentucky. Their deaths came days before an anti-Semitic massacre in Pittsburgh and as a spate of mail bombs sent to high-profile liberals was fueling a national reckoning over deepening political and racial divisions. Stallard's funeral was due to take place at a church in southeast Louisville while Jones will be laid to rest in the city on Saturday. The suspected gunman, 51-year-old Gregory Bush, allegedly tried but failed to get into the predominantly black First Baptist Church in the suburb of Jeffersontown. He is then alleged to have headed to a nearby grocery store and opened fire multiple times on Stallard and Jones. Jeffersontown police chief Sam Rogers told a Sunday service at the First Baptist Church the attack was "racist in nature." "I'm angered that we as a society continue to have issues of racism and violence," he said. Bush -- who allegedly told a bystander that "whites don't kill whites" -- is in custody, charged with two counts of murder and 10 counts of wanton endangerment. On Saturday a gunman killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania -- the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in recent US history. Meanwhile a man accused of sending 15 mail bombs -- none of which exploded -- to prominent Democrats and critics of President Donald Trump appeared Monday in Miami federal court. There have been questions raised over the role the president's heated rhetoric has played in fostering a toxic atmosphere that has encouraged the alleged attackers -- a possibility the White House has rejected. The first two victims in the Pittsburgh attack also were laid to rest Tuesday. The funeral for Cecil and David Rosenthal -- brothers aged 59 and 54 -- was held at Rodef Shalom temple and attended by hundreds of mourners. Cate Blanchett joins other Hollywood A-listers who have made the jump to television in recent years Two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett has become the latest Hollywood celebrity to switch to TV, signing on to star in the new FX limited series "Mrs America." Created and written by "Mad Men" co-producer Dahvi Waller, the nine-episode series will feature Blanchett as conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, who led the fight against the movement to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The ERA is a proposed amendment to the US Constitution stating that equal rights may not be denied on the basis of one's sex. The amendment was passed by the US Congress in 1972 but failed to win the backing of enough states. "Through the eyes of the women of that era -- both Schlafly and second wave feminists Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug and Jill Ruckelshaus -- the series explores how one of the toughest battlegrounds in the culture wars of the 70s helped give rise to the Moral Majority and forever shifted our political landscape," FX said in a statement. "Mrs America," which will begin production next year, will mark Blanchett's first role in an American television program. "I feel privileged to have this opportunity to collaborate with Dahvi, Stacey (Sher) and Coco (Francini) under the robust and fearless FX umbrella," Blanchett said in a statement. "I am extremely excited about delving into the material as there couldn't be a more appropriate time to peel back the layers of this recent period of history, which couldn't be more relevant today." Blanchett joins other Hollywood A-listers who have made the jump to television in recent years, including Meryl Streep, Tom Hardy and Julia Roberts. The Australian actress most recently starred on the big screen in "Thor: Ragnarok," "Ocean's 8" and "The House with a Clock in Its Walls." Maurice Stallard and Vickie Lee Jones will be laid to rest in Louisville, Kentucky, after they were gunned down at a store in the suburb of Jeffersontown The first of two African American grocery shoppers shot dead by a white gunman in an attack described by police as racially-motivated was to be laid to rest Tuesday. Maurice Stallard, 69, and Vickie Lee Jones, 67, were gunned down on Wednesday last week at a suburban store in Louisville, Kentucky. Their deaths came days before an anti-Semitic massacre in Pittsburgh and as a spate of mail bombs sent to high-profile liberals was fueling a national reckoning over deepening political and racial divisions. Stallard's funeral was due to take place at a church in southeast Louisville while Jones will be laid to rest in the city on Saturday. The suspected gunman, 51-year-old Gregory Bush, allegedly tried but failed to get into the predominantly black First Baptist Church in the suburb of Jeffersontown. He is then alleged to have headed to a nearby grocery store and opened fire multiple times on Stallard inside the story and Jones in the parking lot. Jeffersontown police chief Sam Rogers told a Sunday service at the First Baptist Church the attack was "racist in nature." "I'm angered that we as a society continue to have issues of racism and violence," he said. Bush -- who allegedly told a bystander that "whites don't kill whites" -- is in custody, charged with two counts of murder and 10 counts of wanton endangerment. Stallard was remembered by friends as a central figure in their community. He was the father of a high-ranking official in Louisville's city government. "He's just well-loved by many people," friend Phil Fletcher told NBC-affiliated local television station WAVE. - 'The city is mourning' - Jones was remembered as a devoted daughter and a breast cancer survivor. She was at the grocery store to buy food to take to her ailing mother, community activist Sadiqa Reynolds told radio station WBUR. "She was the person going over, checking on her mother, taking care of her," said Reynolds, of the Louisville Urban League. The shooting "has been devastating for both families. It is numbing. And the city is mourning," she added. Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, who has called for toughening hate crime and gun laws, said he will joint interfaith leaders for a "moment of unity" Wednesday to remember Stallard and Jones. "Please, wherever you are, take a moment to reflect on these tragedies and the actions we must take to end violence," Fischer said on Twitter. On Saturday a gunman killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania -- the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in recent US history. Meanwhile a man accused of sending 15 mail bombs -- none of which exploded -- to prominent Democrats and critics of President Donald Trump appeared Monday in Miami federal court. There have been questions raised over the role the president's heated rhetoric has played in fostering a toxic atmosphere that has encouraged the alleged attackers -- a possibility the White House has rejected. The first two victims in the Pittsburgh attack also were laid to rest Tuesday. The funeral for Cecil and David Rosenthal -- brothers aged 59 and 54 -- was held at Rodef Shalom temple and attended by hundreds of mourners. The US is calling for all Yemen warring parties to meet in Sweden in November and "come to a solution" US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis called Tuesday for a ceasefire in Yemen and for parties to come to the negotiating table within the next 30 days. The Pentagon chief said the US had been watching the conflict "for long enough" and said he believes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are in a US-backed coalition fighting Shiite Huthi rebels, are ready for talks. "We have got to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it some time in the future," Mattis said at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. "We need to be doing this in the next 30 days." He said the US is calling for all warring parties to meet with United Nations special envoy Martin Griffiths in Sweden in November and "come to a solution." Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the conflict between embattled Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, whose government is recognized by the United Nations, and the Huthis in 2015. Nearly 10,000 people have since been killed and the country now stands at the brink of famine. The United States has faced fierce international criticism for its role in supporting the Saudi-led coalition, especially after a series of strikes killed scores of civilians. Mattis said US support is based primarily on teaching the Saudi air force to improve targeting and to not drop bombs when there is any doubt about what they might hit. "Our goal right now is to achieve a level of capability by those forces fighting against the Huthis that they are not killing innocent people," he said. "The longer term solution, and by longer term I mean 30 days from now, we want to see everybody around a peace table based on a ceasefire, based on a pull back (of Huthis) from the border and then based on a ceasing dropping of bombs that will permit the special envoy Martin Griffiths... to get them together in Sweden and end this war. That is the only way we are going to really solve this." Last month, UN-led peace talks failed to take off after Huthi rebels refused to fly to Geneva over what they said was the UN's failure to guarantee a safe return to the capital Sanaa, which the group has controlled since 2014. A soldier loyal to Saudi-led coalition forces stands guard near ships docked in the southern Yemeni port of Aden The United States called Tuesday for a ceasefire and peace talks in Yemen, as the Saudi-led military coalition sent more than 10,000 new troops toward a vital rebel-held port city ahead of a new assault. Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said the US had been watching the conflict "for long enough," adding that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are in a US-backed coalition fighting Shiite Huthi rebels, are ready for talks. "We have got to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it some time in the future," Mattis said at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. "We need to be doing this in the next 30 days." He said the US is calling for all warring parties to meet with United Nations special envoy Martin Griffiths in Sweden in November and "come to a solution." US-Saudi ties have cooled in recent weeks after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent critic of the conservative kingdom, that has also tarnished the image of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the conflict between embattled Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, whose government is recognized by the United Nations, and the Huthis in 2015. Nearly 10,000 people have since been killed and the country now stands at the brink of famine, with more than 22 million Yemenis -- three quarters of the population -- in need of humanitarian assistance. The pro-government coalition deployed its reinforcements to the Red Sea coast ahead of a new offensive on Hodeida "within days," a military official told AFP earlier. He said they would also "secure areas liberated" from the Iran-linked Huthi rebels, and that forces from Sudan, part of the coalition, had moved in to "secure" areas around the city. Huthi rebels have for the past 10 days been stationing fighters on rooftops of buildings in Hodeida city, government military officials told AFP. The adjacent port is the entry point for more than 70 percent of imports to the impoverished country. - Peace is 'the only way' - Yemen is teetering on the edge of famine, with more than 22 million Yemenis -- three quarters of the population -- in need of humanitarian assistance The United States has faced fierce international criticism for its role in supporting the Saudi-led coalition, especially after a series of strikes killed scores of civilians. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for an end to all coalition air strikes in Yemen's populated areas. "The time is now for the cessation of hostilities, including missile and UAV (drone) strikes from Huthi-controlled areas into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates," Pompeo said in a statement. "Subsequently, coalition air strikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen." Mattis said US support is based primarily on teaching the Saudi air force to improve targeting and to not drop bombs when there is any doubt about what they might hit. "Our goal right now is to achieve a level of capability by those forces fighting against the Huthis that they are not killing innocent people," he said. Mattis said the ceasefire should be based on a pullback of Huthi rebels from the border and a ceasefire, and the parties must come together to end the war. "That will permit the special envoy Martin Griffiths... to get them together in Sweden and end this war. That is the only way we are going to really solve this," he added. Last month, UN-led peace talks failed to take off after Huthi rebels refused to fly to Geneva over what they said was the UN's failure to guarantee a safe return to the capital Sanaa, which the group has controlled since 2014. Pompeo said the peace talks would aim to "implement confidence-building measures to address the underlying issues of the conflict, the demilitarization of borders and the concentration of all large weapons under international observation." "A cessation of hostilities and vigorous resumption of a political track will help ease the humanitarian crisis as well," he added. "It is time to end this conflict, replace conflict with compromise and allow the Yemeni people to heal through peace and reconstruction." Omar Qudrat, who is running as a Republican for Congress in California's 52nd district, is a Muslim who sees no contradiction with US President Donald Trump rhetoric Omar Qudrat denies any contradiction in his being both a Muslim and a Republican in the era of President Donald Trump. In fact, he is so convinced that his party is still one of diversity, despite the president's rhetoric, that he is running for Congress in California's 52nd District on a Republican ticket. "I'm American period. I was born and raised in this country," Qudrat, whose parent were immigrants from Afghanistan, told AFP. "We have a very diverse party. We just don't talk about it and make it like the number one talking point about us," he said. "I was endorsed by numerous sitting senior members of Congress and it had nothing to do with my ethnicity and religion." The reality is, however, that if he wins his race, the 37-year-old would be the first Muslim Republican to take a seat in Congress. There are currently two Muslims in the House of Representatives -- Keith Ellison and Andre Carson. Both are Democrats. But the label barely matters for Qudrat. "My run for Congress has to do with reality. And real issues," he said, dismissing what he called "identity politics." "I don't think that ethnicity is a qualification," he said. That is why he did not rush to denounce Trump's ban on people from a number of Muslim-majority countries from entering the country, instead arguing that as former Defense Department worker, he was aware of national security issues. At the same time, he avoids talking about scandal-plagued fellow California Republican Duncan Hunter, who is running against a Democrat of mixed Palestinian and Mexican heritage and who has warned that "radical Muslims are trying to infiltrate the US government," even though his opponent is a Christian. "I've got to talk about the issues in my district and that's it," Qudrat said. - 'False promises' - Qudrat would the first Muslim Republican to take a seat in Congress if he wins Qudrat grew up in a violent neighborhood of Los Angeles, where gangs ruled the streets and shoot-outs were common. He was in the fifth grade when a gang tried to recruit him for the first time, and a year later he was offered a gun for sale: a 25mm pistol for $25. "I'll tell you why I am Republican," he recently told a gathering of students organized by the University of San Diego. "I don't believe in government, I believe in people." He blames the Democrats for "not delivering" and making "false promises," something he attributes to his Democrat rival Scott Peters, whom he is currently trailing in polls. Qudrat learned from his parents -- big supporters of Ronald Reagan, who armed Afghanistan's mujahedin to fight the Soviet occupation -- to have "belief in yourself and self determination." "And that matched more with the Republican political philosophy," said the young candidate, who says he has never felt discriminated against in the United States. Ten years after the 9/11 terror attacks, Qudrat, who speaks fluent Dari and has degrees in law and international relations, worked for the Department of Defense in Afghanistan, trying to improve the country's judicial system. He then worked for the military prosecutor's office processing detainees in the Guantanamo Bay prison. He thinks the United States has to "end the war in Afghanistan and do so in a responsible manner that will ensure Afghanistan does not again become a safe haven for terrorist networks that can plot and attack us with impunity." If he does win his seat, he hopes to use his experience in Congress's committees on the armed forces and foreign relations. - 'We have laws' - Qudrat says US President Donald Trump could do more to unite Americans but that voting Democrat would derail the "progress" underway Qudrat -- who is pro-life and favors tax cuts for the middle classes -- said Trump could do more to unite Americans, but at the same time he defends his economic record. "President Trump evokes feelings among some people that really caused them to oppose him," he said. "Do you want to derail the progress that's being made right now?" he argues, citing low unemployment, especially among minority groups, and rising wages among blue collar workers. "There are real lives that are improving," he said. "I have to support that." He agrees with the president on the need to improve border security, but has avoided commenting on whether he supports his plan for a wall on the Mexico border. He also supports a legislative solution for the so-called "dreamers," children of migrant parents who entered the country without documentation and who now may face deportation themselves, despite having lived in the United States their whole lives. "I do not believe a two-year-old or a three-year-old could have had criminal intent when they were brought involuntarily into our country," he said. Qudrat is the son of Afghan immigrants who is running for Congress "Therefore we should not treat them as criminals," he said. "They are otherwise American in every way except for their legal status." "America is the most generous, compassionate nation on earth," he said. But, he noted, "we have laws." Geir Pedersen (L), seen here with former Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora in Beirut in 2008, has been appointed as the UN's special envoy to Syria A seasoned Norwegian diplomat who helped oversee talks leading to the Oslo peace accords has been named as the next special envoy to Syria. In a letter seen Tuesday by AFP, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council that he wishes to give the job to Geir Pedersen. Pedersen is a veteran diplomat, who in 1993 was a member of the Norwegian team to the secret negotiations that led to the signing of the Oslo accords between Israel and the Palestinians. He has held several posts in the region, including as UN envoy to south Lebanon in 2005 and then as special coordinator for the whole of Lebanon from 2007 to 2008. Pedersen also spent several years as Norway's representative to the Palestinian Authority. He is currently Norway's ambassador to China and has previously served as its envoy to the UN. - No more 'cajoling' - The Syria conflict, which began with anti-government street protests in 2011, has claimed more than 360,000 lives and drawn in foreign powers and various jihadist groups. "I am pleased to inform you of my intention to announce the appointment of Mr Geir O Pedersen as my Special Envoy for Syria. In taking this decision, I have consulted broadly, including with the government of the Syrian Arab Republic," Guterres said in the letter. "Mr Pedersen will support the Syrian parties by facilitating an inclusive and credible political solution that meets the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people." He also thanked Staffan de Mistura, the outgoing envoy, "for his more than four years of concerted efforts and contributions to search for peace in Syria." Yahya Aridi, the spokesman for Syrias main opposition negotiating body, said the change of envoys would have little impact on the fate of his country if no international will and consensus emerged about a political roadmap. "This man has experience, ranging from Iraq to Lebanon and the United Nations," he told AFP. "We hope he will be more decisive, and immediately call things by their names - more cajoling and soothing is not what the Syria file needs right now." "But regardless of the name of the envoy, there needs to be international will and determination to reach a political solution," said Aridi. The leaders of Turkey, Russia, France and Germany met in Istanbul at the weekend and called for a political solution to the war and a permanent truce in the last major rebel-held bastion of Idlib. Their joint statement called for a committee to be established to draft Syria's post-war constitution before the end of the year, "paving the way for free and fair elections" in the war-torn country. The blast near the Pul-e-Charkhi prison in Kabul, seen here in a file picture, killed at least seven people A suicide bomber targeting a bus carrying employees of Afghanistan's biggest prison killed at least seven people on Wednesday, officials said, in the latest militant attack in the war-torn country. Another eight were wounded in the blast at the entrance to the facility in Kabul, which police spokesman Basir Mujahid said hit a vehicle ferrying Pul-e-Charkhi prison staff. Among the casualties were police officers guarding the main gate and prison staff. The attacker was on foot, interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said. He struck as the bus was entering the jail in the east of the Afghan capital. The Islamic State group (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack via its Amaq propaganda agency, SITE Intelligence Group said. IS has claimed most suicide attacks in Kabul in recent months. The attack comes days after a suicide bomber blew himself up near the entrance of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission in Kabul, killing at least one person and wounding six. A wave of election-related violence has killed or wounded hundreds across the country in recent months as the Taliban and IS step up attacks on Afghan security forces and government workers. Afghanistan's long-delayed parliamentary election, which was held over three days this month, was marred by chaos and deadly attacks. Two days before voting began on October 20, a Taliban-claimed shooting killed a powerful police chief in the southern province of Kandahar. General Abdul Raziq was among three people killed in the brazen insider attack on a high-level security meeting in the provincial capital that was attended by General Scott Miller, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan. Miller escaped unhurt, but US Brigadier General Jeffrey Smiley was among 13 people wounded in the shooting, which the Taliban said had targeted Miller and Raziq. US officials and NATO's Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan were adamant that Miller had not been a target. Several days later another Taliban-claimed assault killed a NATO soldier and and wounded two others -- all from the Czech Republic -- in the western province of Herat. The attacks came amid a flurry of US-led diplomatic activity to convince the Taliban, Afghanistan's largest militant group, to negotiate an end to the 17-year war. Earlier this month, newly appointed US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met with Taliban representatives in Qatar. Less than two weeks later a top Taliban commander held in Pakistani detention for more than eight years was freed. A senior Taliban leader told AFP the group had requested the release of Abdul Ghani Baradar and several others at the meeting with Khalilzad. The group confirmed Wednesday it had appointed five former Guantanamo Bay detainees to its political office in Doha who have authority to "talk about peace". Yu (C) wept uncontrollably as he knelt and apologised at the memorial The driver of a train that derailed and killed 18 people this month apologised to victims' families at an emotional memorial service in southern Taiwan Wednesday after being accused of "professional negligence" by a court. It was the first time driver Yu Cheng-chung had spoken in public since the Puyuma Express derailed on October 21. He wept uncontrollably as he knelt and apologised at the memorial in Taitung county, home to 15 of the dead. "I'm sorry, this will be forever a pain in my heart," he said in footage aired on local television. The crash on the popular east coast line also injured over 200 people and left the carriages lying zig-zagged across the tracks in the island's deadliest rail accident for a quarter century. Flags at government buildings in Taitung flew at half-mast in memory of the victims while Premier William Lai also attended the memorial service to pay his respects. Relatives at the service appeared forgiving. "Please don't be like this, we don't blame you," one woman identified by local media by her family name Tung told Yu. She had lost eight family members in the crash. "Let's find out the truth together," she said. Yu is suspected of negligence for switching off the Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system used to monitor speed before the train flipped off the tracks, according to initial findings by a local district court. As the train approached Xinma station, the site of the crash, it was travelling at 140 kilometres per hour (87 miles per hour) instead of the 80 kph speed limit imposed due to a curve in the track, said the Yilan district court which questioned Yu as part of his bail hearing last week. A special cabinet task force has said its initial probe also showed that the ATP system was turned off at the time the train derailed and it was travelling at excessive speed. The crash was the worst rail accident in Taiwan since 1991, when 30 passengers were killed and 112 injured after two trains collided in Miaoli in western Taiwan. Denmark has recalled its ambassador to Iran following an alleged assassination plot foiled in late September that forced the shut down of bridges and ferries to Sweden Iran's foreign ministry summoned the Danish ambassador on Wednesday over the arrest of an Iranian-Norwegian national for allegedly plotting an attack in Denmark. "The Danish ambassador arrived at the foreign ministry this morning," foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said in a statement, saying he met with a senior official for European affairs. "In this meeting the official strongly denied the biased reports on a foiled attack plot on an Iranian dissident in Denmark and its attribution to the Islamic republic of Iran," Ghasemi added. The official also warned against "hasty and controversial actions". The Danish ambassador is being recalled by Copenhagen over the alleged plot to kill three Iranians living in the Scandinavian country. In September, Tehran accused Denmark, along with the Netherlands and Britain, of "hosting several members of the terrorist group" that Iran holds responsible for an attack in the city of Ahvaz in southwestern Iran that killed 24 people. Ghasemi earlier called the Danish allegations "a continuation of conspiracies by the enemies of good and developing relations between Iran and Europe." Popular Resistance Committees fighters, supporting forces loyal to Yemen's Saudi-backed government, take part in a graduation ceremony in Taez, on October 27, 2018 The United Nations said Wednesday it aims to re-launch Yemen peace talks "within a month", shortly after the United States called for the warring parties to come to the negotiating table. UN envoy Martin Griffiths welcomed calls for an immediate resumption of talks and a ceasefire in Yemen. "I urge all concerned parties to seize this opportunity to engage constructively with our current efforts to swiftly resume political consultations to agree on a framework for political negotiations," he said in a statement. "We remain committed to bring the Yemeni parties to the negotiations table within a month." Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said on Tuesday that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are in a US-backed coalition fighting Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen, are ready for talks. "We have got to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it some time in the future," Mattis said at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. "We need to be doing this in the next 30 days," he added. Mattis said that the US is calling for the warring sides to meet with Griffiths in Sweden in November. British Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed the US position on Wednesday and said Griffiths had spoken with Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt the previous evening. "They agreed that the UK will continue to encourage all parties to agree to deescalation, and to that lasting political deal, which will ensure that any ceasefire will hold in the long-term," May told parliament. - New coalition air strikes - The UN's Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths gives a press conference in Geneva on September 5, 2018 Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the conflict between embattled Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, whose government is recognised by the United Nations, and the Huthis in 2015. The coalition has been waging an aerial bombing campaign in Yemen aimed at pushing the Huthis back, but the rebels still hold the key port city of Hodeida and the capital Sanaa. After UN-backed talks collapsed in September, the coalition announced it was relaunching an assault on Hodeida, whose port serves as an entry point for more than 70 percent of imports into the impoverished country. Yemeni government officials said Tuesday that the coalition has deployed 10,000 new troops to the Red Sea coast, ahead of a new offensive on Hodeida "within days". Some 110 rebels have been killed in air strikes in Hodeida province in the past three days, including 23 killed on Wednesday, three medics from different hospitals in the area said. Two military officials with pro-government forces said three air strikes were conducted Wednesday, after the US call for negotiations, while 15 have been carried out since Monday. Nearly 10,000 people have been killed since 2015 and the country now stands at the brink of famine, with more than 22 million Yemenis -- three quarters of the population -- in need of humanitarian assistance. Geir Pedersen (L), pictured on March 02, 2007 while serving as UN special coordinator for Lebanon, walks alongside Hezbollah deputy Hassan Fadlallah (2nd L) and other officials during a tour of the devastated town of Bint Jbeil in south Lebanon Norwegian diplomat Geir Pedersen has been appointed to be the UN envoy for Syria, a UN spokesman said Wednesday, becoming the fourth emissary to take up one of the most difficult peacemaking jobs at the world body. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sent a letter to the Security Council on Tuesday announcing his intention to appoint Pedersen, 63, currently Norway's ambassador to China. A seasoned diplomat, Pedersen was a member of the Norwegian team to the secret negotiations that led to the signing of the 1993 Oslo accords between Israel and the Palestinians. He will succeed Italian-Swedish diplomat Staffan de Mistura, who announced he was stepping down to spend more time with his family after four years in the demanding post. De Mistura was appointed in July 2014 after veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi resigned following two years in the position. Brahimi stepped in after former UN chief Kofi Annan quit just six months into the role. Annan described the Syria envoy's job as "mission impossible". UN spokesman Farhan Haq announced the appointment and said Pedersen is expected to begin work at the end of November. Pedersen will take over at a time when Syrian government forces have made major territorial gains in the seven-year war, with the military backing of Russia and Iran. UN diplomatic efforts to end the war have stalled but the world body leads a massive humanitarian effort to help millions uprooted and in need of medical and food aid. More than 360,000 people have been killed in the 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, many of whom are foreign-backed. - UN sidelined - New UN envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen is taking on one of the toughest peacemaking jobs. He will be the fourth UN envoy to Syria since 2012. Reporting on his latest efforts, De Mistura told the council last week that the Syrian government had rejected a UN list of members to a proposed committee tasked with drawing up a post-war constitution for Syria. The committee is to be comprised of three groups of members, one proposed by the Syrian government, the second presented by the opposition and the third by the United Nations to include civil society representatives, religious leaders and others. 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 peace process that De Mistura was shepherding in Geneva. Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soreide welcomed Guterres' decision to appoint one of her country's "foremost diplomats" and stressed that "finding a political solution to the conflict in Syria is one of the most difficult tasks facing the UN." Pedersen has some knowledge of Arabic and is considered a skilled negotiator who can "find solutions and compromises in difficult issues," a Norwegian diplomat said. The father of five served as Norway's UN ambassador from 2012 to 2017 before becoming his country's envoy to China last year. He was special coordinator for Lebanon from 2007 to 2008 and UN envoy for southern Lebanon from 2005 to 2007. He also worked as director of the Asia and Pacific division in the UN political affairs department. Pedersen also served as Norwegian representative to the Palestinian Authority between 1998 and 2003. PITTSBURGH (AP) - In a story Oct. 28 about victims of the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, The Associated Press erroneously reported the professional position of Cecil and David Rosenthal's sister. She is state Rep. Dan Frankel's former chief of staff, not his current chief of staff. A corrected version of the story is below: Shooting victims remembered: 'The loss is incalculable' Shooting victims remembered: 'The loss is incalculable' By CLAUDIA LAUER, JENNIFER PELTZ and MARYCLAIRE DALE Associated Press PITTSBURGH (AP) - They were professors and accountants, dentists and beloved doctors serving their local community. A day after the shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 dead, officials released the names of the victims. The oldest of them was 97. The youngest was 54. They included a pair of brothers and a husband and wife. Said Stephen Cohen, co-president of New Light Congregation: "The loss is incalculable." CECIL AND DAVID ROSENTHAL: 'SWEET, GENTLE, CARING MEN' Cecil and David Rosenthal went through life together with help from a disability-services organization. And an important part of the brothers' lives was the Tree of Life Synagogue, where they never missed a Saturday service, people who knew them say. "If they were here, they would tell you that is where they were supposed to be," Chris Schopf, a vice president of the organization ACHIEVA, said in a statement. Achieva provides help with daily living, employment and other needs, and the organization had worked for years with Cecil, 59, and David, 54, who were among the 11 killed in Saturday's deadly shooting. They lived semi-independently. Cecil was a person who was up for all sorts of activities: a concert, lunch at Eat 'n Park - a regional restaurant chain known for its smiley-face cookies - even a trip to the Duquesne University dining hall, recalls David DeFelice, a Duquesne senior who was paired with him in a buddies program three years ago. The two became friends, DeFelice said. "He was a very gregarious person - loved being social, loved people. ... You could put him any situation, and he'd make it work," chatting about the weather or asking students about their parents and talking about his own, said DeFelice. And when DeFelice recognized Hebrew letters on Cecil's calendar, the elder man was delighted to learn that his buddy was also Jewish and soon invited him to Tree of Life. DeFelice joined him on a couple of occasions and could see that Cecil cherished his faith and the sense of community he found at temple. "He was such a strong practitioner of his faith," DeFelice said. Emeritus Rabbi Alvin Berkun saw that, too, in Cecil, who according to his obituary was known as "the honorary mayor of Squirrel Hill," and David, who worked at Goodwill Industries. "They really found a home at the synagogue, and people reciprocated," he said. Cecil carried a photo in his wallet of David, whom Schopf remembers as a man with "such a gentle spirit." "Together, they looked out for each other," she said. "Most of all, they were kind, good people with a strong faith and respect for everyone around." The two left an impression on state Rep. Dan Frankel, who sometimes attends services at Tree of Life and whose former chief of staff is the Rosenthals' sister. "They were very sweet, gentle, caring men," Frankel said. "... I know that this community will really mourn their loss because they were such special people." BERNICE AND SYLVAN SIMON: HELPING OTHERS AS A TEAM Bernice and Sylvan Simon were always ready to help other people, longtime friend and neighbor Jo Stepaniak says, and "they always did it with a smile and always did it with graciousness." "Anything that they could do, and they did it as a team," she said. The Simons, who were among those massacred Saturday, were fixtures in in the townhome community on the outskirts of Pittsburgh where they had lived for decades. She'd served on the board, and he was a familiar face from his walks around the neighborhood, with the couple's dog in years past. Sylvan, 86, was a retired accountant with a good sense of humor - the kind of person his former rabbi felt comfortable joking with after Sylvan broke his arm a couple of weeks ago. (The rabbi emeritus, Alvin Berkun, quipped that Sylvan had to get better so he could once again lift the Torah, the Jewish holy scripture.) Bernice, 84, a former nurse, loved classical music and devoted time to charitable work, according to Stepaniak and neighbor Inez Miller. And both Simons cared deeply about Tree of Life Synagogue. "(They) were very devoted, an active, steady presence," Berkun said. The Simons had married there in a candlelight ceremony nearly 62 years earlier, according to the Tribune-Review. Tragedy has struck their family before: One of the couple's sons died in a 2010 motorcycle accident in California. And now the Simons' deaths are reverberating through their family and community. "Bernice and Sylvan were very good, good-hearted, upstanding, honest, gracious, generous people. They were very dignified and compassionate," Stepaniak said, her voice breaking. "Best neighbors that you could ask for." MELVIN WAX: 'A SWEET, SWEET GUY' Melvin Wax was always the first to arrive at New Light Congregation in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood - and the last to leave. Wax, who was in his late 80s, was among those killed when a gunman entered the synagogue Saturday and opened fire a few minutes after Sabbath services began. Fellow members of the congregation, which rented space in the lower level of the Tree of Life Synagogue, said Wax was a kind man and a pillar of the congregation, filling just about every role except cantor. "He was a gem. He was a gentleman," recalled fellow congregant Barry Werber on Sunday. "There was always a smile on his face." Myron Snider spoke late Saturday about his friend who would stay late to tell jokes with him. He said "Mel," a retired accountant, was unfailingly generous and a pillar of the congregation. "If somebody didn't come that was supposed to lead services, he could lead the services and do everything. He knew how to do everything at the synagogue. He was really a very learned person," said Snider, a retired pharmacist and chairman of the congregation's cemetery committee. "He and I used to, at the end of services, try to tell a joke or two to each other. Most of the time they were clean jokes. Most of the time. I won't say all the time. But most of the time." New Light moved to the Tree of Life building about a year ago, when the congregation of about 100 mostly older members could no longer afford its own space, said administrative assistant Marilyn Honigsberg. She said Wax, who lost his wife Sandra in 2016, was always there when services began at 9:45 a.m. "I know a few of the people who are always there that early, and he is one of them," she said. Snider had just been released from a six-week hospital stay for pneumonia and was not at Saturday's services. "He called my wife to get my phone number in the hospital so he could talk to me," Snider said. "Just a sweet, sweet guy." JERRY RABINOWITZ: 'TRUSTED CONFIDANT, HEALER' Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz and his partner in his medical practice were seemingly destined to spend their professional lives together. He and Dr. Kenneth Ciesielka had been friends for more than 30 years, since they lived on the same floor at the University of Pennsylvania. Ciesielka was a few years behind Rabinowitz, but whether by fate or design, the two always ended up together. They went to the same college, the same medical school and even had the same residency at UPMC a few years apart. "He is one of the finest people I've ever met. We've been in practice together for 30 years and friends longer than that," Ciesielka said. "His patients are going to miss him terribly. His family is going to miss him terribly and I am going to miss him. He was just one of the kindest, finest people." Former Allegheny County Deputy District Attorney Law Claus remembered Rabinowitz, a 66-year-old personal physician and victim in Saturday's shooting, as more than a physician for him and his family for the last three decades. "He was truly a trusted confidant and healer," he wrote in an email to his former co-workers on Sunday. "Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz ... could always be counted upon to provide sage advice whenever he was consulted on medical matters, usually providing that advice with a touch of genuine humor. He had a truly uplifting demeanor, and as a practicing physician he was among the very best." Rabinowitz, a family practitioner at UPMC Shadyside, was remembered by UPMC as one of its "kindest physicians." The hospital said in a statement that "the UPMC family, in particular UPMC Shadyside, cannot even begin to express the sadness and grief we feel over the loss." "Those of us who worked with him respected and admired his devotion to his work and faith. His loss is devastating," Tami Minnier, UPMC chief quality officer, wrote in a statement on Twitter. JOYCE FIENBERG: 'MAGNIFICENT, GENEROUS, CARING' Joyce Fienberg and her late husband, Stephen, were intellectual powerhouses, but those who knew them say they were the kind of people who used that intellect to help others. Joyce Fienberg, 75, who was among the victims in Saturday's shooting, spent most of her career at the University of Pittsburgh's Learning Research and Development Center, retiring in 2008 from her job as a researcher looking at learning in the classroom and in museums. She worked on several projects including studying the practices of highly effective teachers. Dr. Gaea Leinhardt, who was Fienberg's research partner for decades, said she is devastated by the death of her colleague and friend. "Joyce was a magnificent, generous, caring, and profoundly thoughtful human being," she said. The research center's current director, Charles Perfetti, said Fienberg earned her bachelor's degree in social psychology from the University of Toronto, in her native Canada. She brought a keen mind, engaging personality and "a certain elegance and dignity" to the center, Perfetti said. "One could have elevated conversations with her that were very interesting," even if they were brief, he said. "I was always impressed with her." Stephen, who died in 2016 after a battle with cancer, was a renowned professor of statistics and social science at Carnegie Mellon University. His work was used in shaping national policies in forensic science, education and criminal justice. The couple married in 1965 and had moved to Pittsburgh in the early 1980s. Joyce began her work at the center in 1983. The couple had two sons and several grandchildren. DANIEL STEIN: 'PASSIONATE ABOUT THE COMMUNITY AND ISRAEL' Daniel Stein was a visible member of Pittsburgh's Jewish community, where he was a leader in the New Light Congregation and his wife, Sharyn, is the membership vice president of the area's Hadassah chapter. "Their Judaism is very important to them, and to him," said chapter co-president Nancy Shuman. "Both of them were very passionate about the community and Israel." Stein, 71, was president of the Men's Club at Tree of Life. He also was among a corps of the New Light members who, along with Wax and Richard Gottfried, 65, made up "the religious heart" of the congregation, said Cohen, the congregation co-president. Stein's nephew Steven Halle told the Tribune-Review that his uncle "was always willing to help anybody." With his generous spirit and dry sense of humor, "he was somebody that everybody liked," Halle said. ROSE MALLINGER: SHOOTER'S OLDEST VICTIM Former Tree of Life Rabbi Chuck Diamond said he worried about Rose Mallinger as soon as he heard about the deadly shooting at the synagogue. The 97-year-old had almost unfailingly attended services for decades, he told The Washington Post, and was among the first to walk in. "I feel a part of me died in that building," Diamond said. The oldest of those killed in Saturday's shooting at Tree of Life, Brian Schreiber told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he regularly saw her at services. "Rose was really a fixture of the congregation," Schreiber, president and CEO of the Jewish Community Center of Pittsburgh, told the Post-Gazette. Her daughter, Andrea Wedner, 61, was among the wounded, a family member said. She remains hospitalized. RICHARD GOTTFRIED: READYING FOR RETIREMENT Richard Gottfried was preparing for a new chapter in his life. Gottfried ran a dental office with his wife and practice partner Margaret "Peg" Durachko Gottfried. He and his wife met at the University of Pittsburgh as dental students, according to the Washington Post, and opened their practice together in 1984. Gottfried, who often did charity work seeing patients who could not otherwise afford dental care, was preparing to retire in the next few months. He, along with Wax and Stein, "led the service, they maintained the Torah, they did what needed to be done with the rabbi to make services happen," Cohen said. "He died doing what he liked to do most," said Don Salvin, Gottfried's brother-in-law, told the Washington Post. IRVING YOUNGER: 'NEVER HAD AN UNKIND WORD' A neighbor in Pittsburgh's Mount Washington neighborhood on Sunday remembered victim Irving Younger as "a really nice guy." Jonathan Voye told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Younger, 69, was personable and occasionally spoke with him about family or the weather. "I'm scared for my kids' future," Mr. Voye told the Post-Gazette. "How can you have that much hate for your fellow neighbor?" Tina Prizner, who told the Tribune-Review she's lived next door to Younger for several years, said he was a "wonderful" father and grandfather. The one-time real estate company owner "talked about his daughter and his grandson, always, and he never had an unkind word to say about anybody,' Prizner told the Tribune-Review. ___ Lauer reported from Philadelphia, Peltz reported from New York and Dale reported from Pittsburgh. Associated Press reporters Allen G. Breed in Raleigh, North Carolina and Robert Bumsted in Pittsburgh and researcher Monika Mathur in Washington contributed to this report. ___ This story corrects Joyce Fienberg's age from 74 to 75. KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Malaysia's government launched a one-month auction Monday for a luxury yacht bought with money stolen from the multibillion-dollar looting of a state investment fund. The sale came nearly three months after Indonesia returned the $250 million yacht, Equanimity, after it seized off Bali in February in cooperation with the U.S. FBI. The U.S. Justice Department, one of several foreign agencies investigating a massive graft scandal at the 1MDB fund, had listed the yacht among the assets it could seize and sell to recover stolen funds. U.S. investigators said Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, who the Justice Department alleges was a key figure in the theft and international laundering of $4.5 billion from 1MDB, bought the yacht with proceeds diverted from 1MDB. Ong Chee Kwan, a lawyer for 1MDB, says the government opened bids for the 300 foot (91.5 meter) yacht following a lengthy court process. Low, who has so far evaded investigators, has through statements issued by his U.S. lawyers slammed the handover of the yacht to Malaysia as illegal but didn't claim ownership of the vessel in the Malaysian court. The court awarded ownership of the yacht to 1MDB and the government as no one challenged their claim. Ong said advertisements were placed in international and local media on the yacht sale that will be handled by London-based brokerage Burgess Yachts. He said interested parties must put in a $1 million deposit to bid for the vessel. FILE - In this Feb. 28, 2018, file photo, the luxury yacht Equanimity is seen in the Benoa harbor in Bali, Indonesia. Malaysia's government launched a one-month auction for the luxury yacht bought with money stolen from the multibillion-dollar looting of a state investment fund. The sale that began Monday, Oct. 29, 2018, came nearly three months after Indonesia returned the $250 million yacht after seizing it off Bali in February in cooperation with the U.S. FBI. (AP Photo/Ambros Boli Berani, File) Once the auction ends Nov. 28, he said the government could make a decision on the sale within a week. Burgess said on its website that the "judicial sale will provide the buyer with an internationally recognized ownership title free of mortgage, attachment and all encumbrances." Former Prime Minister Najib Razak set up 1MDB when he took power in 2009 but it accumulated billions in debts. The 1MDB fiasco led to Najib's electoral defeat in May's general elections and ushered in the country's first change of power since independence from Britain in 1957. Najib and his wife have been charged with multiple counts of corruption and money-laundering over the 1MDB case. Both have pleaded not guilty and their trials will start next year. The new government has said corruption by Najib's administration caused national debt to pile up. The yacht, currently docked at Port Klang outside Kuala Lumpur, is being sold to recover as much money as possible. The Equanimity's lavish amenities include a helicopter landing pad, plunge pool, gymnasium and a cinema. It was built in 2014 by the Dutch yacht manufacturer Oceano, which received detailed instructions from Low about its outfitting, according to the Justice Department's asset recovery case. MANILA, Philippines (AP) - The Philippine president put the Bureau of Customs temporarily under military control after two large shipments of illegal drugs slipped past the agency through the port of Manila. President Rodrigo Duterte made the announcement late Sunday in an expletives-laden speech in southern Davao city before an audience that included visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. At one point, Duterte made a rude finger gesture and uttered a profanity. Duterte cited "a state of lawlessness" that he declared following a deadly 2016 bombing to justify putting the military in control of the customs bureau. The agency's officials will be put on a "floating status" and be required to conduct their work in a gymnasium in the presidential palace complex, he said. The agency, which collects import duties and taxes for the Department of Finance, has more than 3,000 officials, customs police and employees nationwide. "Part of the lawless elements are there inside the Bureau of Customs," Duterte said. "With this kind of game that they are playing, dirty games, I am forced now to ask the armed forces to take over." Military chief of staff Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr. ordered a contingent "of unquestionable integrity" from the army, air force, navy and marines to be organized to comply with the order by Duterte, who also named a retired military chief to lead the customs bureau. But opposition politicians questioned the legality of the president's move, citing the constitutional principle of the supremacy of civilian authority over the military. FILE - In this July 23, 2018, file photo, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures during his third State of the Nation Address at the House of Representatives in Quezon city, Philippines. Duterte put the corruption-plagued Bureau of Customs temporarily under military control amid a scandal after two huge shipments of illegal drugs reportedly slipped past through the port of Manila. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File) "This is backdoor dictatorship," Sen. Risa Hontiveros said. "He should stop treating the military as his personal troubleshooting department. ... His order is not a demonstration of political will, it is a pathetic display of weak leadership." Duterte replaced two of his most trusted men he had appointed to head the customs bureau after large shipments of suspected methamphetamine slipped through the agency last year and in July this year. Congress is investigating how the drugs, which were declared as kitchenware and magnetic lifters, were smuggled out of the government's most tightly watched ports. Under a temporary setup, military personnel will be tasked to inspect and clear container vans in Manila and other Philippine ports. Some will be trained to operate X-ray machines used to screen cargos. Customs officials and personnel who have been implicated in corruption, meanwhile, will be investigated and face criminal charges. Duterte insisted his trusted appointees, Nicanor Faeldon and Isidro Lapena, were honest but said they failed to prevent the entry of the drug shipments due to long-entrenched corruption in the customs bureau. Lapena and Faeldon both denied any involvement in the drug shipments and pledged to cooperate in congressional inquiries. Other customs officials and employees have not commented on Duterte's actions. The drugs in the shipment last year were later traced to a warehouse in metropolitan Manila, and the July shipment was later found in Cavite province. Duterte said he has become exasperated with combating corruption in many government agencies. The two shipments were made despite an unprecedentedly massive crackdown against illegal drugs he launched after taking office in June 2016. Nearly 5,000 drug suspects have been killed in alleged clashes with law enforcers in the anti-crime campaign, which has alarmed Western governments and U.N. human rights experts. Human rights watchdogs have reported much higher death tolls and have accused police of killing suspects unlawfully and making it appear the suspects fought back. Duterte and police officials have denied condoning unlawful killings, although he has openly and repeatedly threatened drug suspects with death. "Do not listen to the human rights (groups). They cannot help us when we go down the drain, don't believe them because it's not true," Duterte said. RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) - Far-right congressman Jair Bolsonaro won Brazil's presidency Sunday on promises to overhaul several aspects of Latin America's largest nation. A glance at the top issues that could change in a Bolsonaro administration: ___ ENVIRONMENT More than half of the Amazon rainforest is in Brazil, and environmentalists worry Bolsonaro's presidency will open it up to increased deforestation and mining. He has also called for a halt to recognizing indigenous land in a way that protects it from various kinds of exploitation, saying that "not a centimeter will be demarcated for indigenous reserves." Bolsonaro vowed to follow in U.S. President Donald Trump's footsteps and leave the Paris climate accord, though he recently backpedaled on that stance. He said the country would stay in the agreement - as long as it did not have to give up jurisdiction of the Brazilian Amazon. The accord makes no mention of this possibility. Many observers believe Bolsonaro's strong ties to agribusiness leaders in Congress, part of the powerful "ruralist caucus," will lead to a reduction in environmental protections as farming interests win out. Jair Bolsonaro, presidential candidate with the Social Liberal Party, looks on as he arrives to cast his vote in the presidential runoff election in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018. Bolsonaro is running against leftist candidate Fernando Haddad of the Workers' Party. (Ricardo Moraes/Pool Photo via AP) One example is his promise to combine the agriculture and environment ministries into one - a move environmentalists worry would result in more land being opened up to farming. In a recent Facebook Live session, Bolsonaro said he would consider keeping them separate, though he said he is still discussing the idea with agribusiness leaders. ___ SECURITY At the heart of Bolsonaro's campaign was his promise to crack down on Brazil's soaring crime, including allowing police more leeway in the use of force. He has promised more legal protections for police who kill on the job, going so far as to say an officer who kills a "bum" should be "celebrated, not prosecuted." Human rights activists worry that in a country where police violence is already rampant, officers could kill more innocent people with impunity. Bolsonaro has argued that the current law is too restrictive and that police should be allowed more room to defend themselves. Bolsonaro, famous for posing with his fingers in the shape of a gun, also wants to make it easier for citizens to own firearms. Throughout his campaign, he has said that "good citizens" should be able to defend themselves and their property. He has also promised to reduce the age at which defendants can be tried as adults to 16. Criminal justice experts warn that will lead to even higher rates of incarceration. Some analysts have said Bolsonaro's policies could unleash even more violence, and others have questioned whether he will quickly be able to reduce crime, since state governments are largely responsible for security. ___ ECONOMY Brazil is recovering from its worst recession in decades, and investors and members of the business community are hoping Bolsonaro will jumpstart growth. He has said he does not understand much about economic matters and has instead promised to follow the lead of adviser Paulo Guedes, a banker and University of Chicago-trained economist. Under Bolsonaro, Latin America's largest economy could see a reduction in the size of government, including a halving of the number of ministries, the privatization of many state-owned companies and the opening up of a closed economy through new trade agreements and lower import tariffs. These proposals have cheered markets about Brazil's future, but many remain vague, and it's unclear how much sway Guedes will have. ___ PENSION CHANGES After lame-duck President Michel Temer failed to pass his pension overhaul, all eyes are on Bolsonaro to see how he will try to save country's failing pension system - and right the government's finances. By international standards, the Brazilian system allows workers to retire too early and get overly generous pensions, significantly contributing to the government's unsustainable budget deficit. But any move to reduce benefits will be unpopular, so Bolsonaro will have to build a broad coalition in Congress to get his proposal through. And he will probably have only a brief window when he first takes office to do so. Bolsonaro's principal proposal on pensions is to create a system of private accounts, in which people save for their own retirement. It's not clear how or how quickly he would transition to this new system. ___ FOREIGN POLICY In foreign policy, Bolsonaro has also pledged to emulate Trump. He has said he will favor bilateral trade deals over multilateral ones, transfer Brazil's embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and take a tougher line on neighboring Venezuela. He said frequently that Brazil could suffer an economic collapse similar to Venezuela's if voters elected his left-wing rival. He has also suggested putting Venezuelans fleeing their country's chaos in refugee camps. Bolsonaro has talked tough on China, Brazil's biggest trade partner. In February, he visited Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory, and he has resisted talk of Chinese investment in strategic Brazilian state companies. He told a radio station that Brazil cannot "allow China or any other country to come and buy Brazil, instead of buying in Brazil." ___ MILITARY As a retired army captain, Bolsonaro spent much of his 27 years in Congress prioritizing the military's interests, and he promises to continue doing so as president. He vowed to fill his Cabinet with military officers, already announcing former Gen. Augusto Heleno as his minister of defense. "The nation is looking to the armed forces as a guarantee against barbarity," he wrote in his government plan. Presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, of the far-right Social Liberal Party waves to supporters after voting at a polling station in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018. Bolsonaro is running against leftist candidate Fernando Haddad of the Workers' Party. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) A supporter of presidential front-runner Jair Bolsonaro wears a headband supporting his candidate as he waits with others for election results outside the National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018. Brazilian voters decide who will next lead the world's fifth-largest country, the left-leaning Fernando Haddad of the Workers' Party, or far-right rival Bolsonaro of the Social Liberal Party. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) A supporter wearing a T-shirt of Jair Bolsonaro, presidential candidate with the Social Liberal Party, is checked by an army police at a polling station in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo) The visit of National Security Advisor to the President of the United States, John Bolton, to the South Caucasus was remembered, first of all, by his frank anti-Russian statements made by a high-ranking U.S. official in Armenia. Moreover, Bolton started to offer Yerevan discourteous advises on how it should set its foreign policy agenda. It is noteworthy that the Armenian leadership, including Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, did not respond to Bolton's words about the need to get rid of the "historical cliche", which was a frank call to reconsider relations with Russia. The only thing that Pashinyan "snarled" at was the National Security Advisor's statement about the initiative steps to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which should be taken by the Pashinyan government after the parliamentary election. On the other hand, the Russian Foreign Ministry reacted rather sharply: "At a recent briefing, the Russian Foreign Ministrys spokesperson commented on the farewell speech made by former U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard M. Mills before he left Yerevan. He publicly instructed the leaders of the receiving country on economic policy matters and promised lavish funding to local NGOs for controlling the government. It appears that there can be no greater impudence that cannot be discerned from direct interference in domestic affairs. But this is not so. U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton, who visited Yerevan the other day, demanded openly that Armenia renounce historical cliches in its international relations (and hardly bothered to conceal the fact that this implied Armenias traditional friendship with Russia). He also said that he expected Nikol Pashinyan to voice initiatives on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement after the national parliamentary elections. Naturally, he did not forget to advertise U.S. weapons that Armenia should buy instead of Russian weapons." Meanwhile, during Bolton's visit Nikol Pashinyan said that "there is a real opportunity to bring Armenia-U.S. relations to a new level." According to Pashinyan, Yerevan is ready to take this opportunity. Almost immediately upon completion of Bolton's visit, the pro-Western Armenian media, which traditionally support Pashinyan, were full of headlines about the new milestone in the Armenian-U.S. relations, and analysts of all kinds started talking about a "fundamentally new situation" which, according to them, would allow Yerevan to take Russia, which is losing influence in the region, down a peg. Against this background, the vague position of Pashinyan, who did not stand up to defend Armenian-Russian relations in the context of Boltons statements, is disappointing. Can you imagine what kind of hysteria would arise among our 'pro-Western experts' if someone from Russian officials made such statements? Bolton, in fact, decides who we can have for friends and who we cannot. This is absurd," the leader of the Democratic Party of Armenia, Aram Sargsyan, told Sputnik. It is difficult to disagree with Sargsyan that, if such statements came from Moscow, Armenians would have accused it of all sorts of evils, starting with disrespect for Armenia's sovereignty, ending with 'betrayal of Armenian interests.' And even though that Armenia, in principle, can afford to continue controlling Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding seven regions only thanks to the military-economic support from Russia. What do we see in the case of John Bolton's statements? The silence of the government and the absolutely uncritical attitude of the pro-government experts against the background of barely concealed euphoria regarding the possibility of buying American weapons, which economically weak Armenia is not able to afford. In fact, besides individual deputies of the broken and disorganized Republican Party of Armenia, not a single serious political force dared to criticize Boltons anti-Russian comments in Yerevan. In general, once-unthinkable things happen in "new Armenia": the CSTO secretary general was arrested at the prime ministers direction, the Russian Railways subsidiary in Armenia was raided, the Sasna Tsrer terrorists, who killed three police officers and opposing 'Russian colonialism' were released with the prime minister's support. At the same time, the American emissaries speak with the new government using the language of instructions, without receiving a clear response from Pashinyan and his team. The visit of John Bolton to Armenia again actualized the issue of the nature of the new Armenian government and Yerevan's new foreign policy vector. One may repeat the populist mantra about the new government's "pro-Armenian" policy, but it is time for Pashinyan to give concrete answers to the question of how the country sees itself in the geopolitical system. PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The idea for a juvenile justice hub started with a handful of Philadelphia police officers who knew the way they interacted with juveniles had to change. The judges of the Bloomberg Philanthropies U.S. Mayors Challenge are willing to bet their idea will work. Bloomberg announced the nine winners Monday of the challenge that tasked cities to develop innovative solutions to their biggest problems that other cities might copy if they are successful. Each winner will receive $1 million in prize money to implement the ideas. Los Angeles plans to develop a program where people build homes on their property and rent them to the homeless. Georgetown, Texas, plans to become the first energy independent community in the country by installing solar panels and battery storage on its buildings. With its prize, Philadelphia plans to build a juvenile justice hub, where youth will be taken upon arrest instead of being taken to the police districts that are built to process adults. The juveniles can spend up to six hours in the small, cold, dank and antiquated cells, with minimal contact even with police- partially to prevent them from incriminating themselves accidentally. The hub will be designed to make juvenile contact with police less traumatic, but police and a host of other partners are hoping the center also can keep more children out of the criminal justice system with faster connections to diversion programs and referrals for at-risk juveniles to intervention services for housing, food, mental health counseling and other areas of need. Captain Stephen Clark oversees the city's 24th police district, based in the Port Richmond neighborhood near the epicenter of the city's opioid epidemic. He was one of the police officers who came up with the seed idea to address how juveniles are arrested, and he has told everyone on the planning team for months that Philadelphia's idea would be chosen. In this Friday, Oct. 26, 2018, photo, Philadelphia Police Sgt. John Ross discusses the Police 9th District's juvenile holding cell in Philadelphia. Bloomberg Philanthropies announced the winners Monday of the U.S. Mayors Challenge that asked cities to develop innovative solutions to their biggest problems that other cities could copy. Philadelphia plans to build a juvenile justice hub designed to make contact with police less traumatic, keep more children out of the criminal justice system and connect at-risk juveniles with intervention services at a crisis point that could change their lives. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) "Where I work now, there's a lot of violent crime. Our shooting victims tend to have significant arrest records dating back to their youth, so ideally also we can intervene sooner so they don't become that statistic of a shooting victim," he said. "I didn't join the department to watch people die." City officials including the mayor, who ultimately chose the idea to submit, recognized the potential impact of the hub as well. "You only need to see a 10- or 12-year old, sitting alone and scared in a dank jail cell because he did something dumb like shoplifting, to understand that a child's first contact with the justice system is crucial, that this Juvenile Justice Hub is needed," said Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney. Sgt. John Ross with the department's office of strategic planning also helped develop the hub idea. He said Philadelphia police arrest nearly 4,000 juveniles a year, and of those, about 2,300 are charged and end up in the criminal justice system. For others, charges are either dropped or they are eventually sent to a diversion program through the court that can include substance abuse treatment, anger management or other interventions. Ross said the hub and the services it will help connect children and families to will hopefully drive down both numbers. Officials said finding a way to connect kids and parents with intervention and diversionary services without going to court will save those juveniles the added trauma and stigma of being in the system. For the Bloomberg judges, Philadelphia's commitment to other criminal justice reforms - reducing its jail population, revamping its bail process, increasing diversion programs- signaled the city would work to make the idea of a juvenile justice hub work. "There are so many issues we are increasingly putting on the shoulders of mayors, whether it's climate change or addressing opioids or providing for affordable housing," said James Anderson, head of government innovations programs at Bloomberg Philanthropies. "An aspect of Philadelphia's idea that I think spoke to the selection committee is that this originated with frontline police officers who recognized the need to do something different with their interactions with these young people at these critical life-changing moments. The fact that the city could hear that from the frontline and turn into a winning solutions is commendable." The other prizes were awarded to Denver to place air quality sensors around schools: Durham, N.C., to create incentive programs to get drivers into public transportation; Fort Collins, Colorado, to help landlords make low-income housing safer and more energy-efficient; Huntington, West Virginia, to embed metal health professions with first responders to address the needs of opioids users; New Rochelle, New York, to implement virtual reality technology during public planning processes; and South Bend, Indiana, which will help low-income and part-time workers find reliable commuter transportation through ride shares. In this Friday, Oct. 26, 2018, photo, Philadelphia Police Sgt. John Ross discusses the Police 9th District's juvenile holding cell in Philadelphia. Bloomberg Philanthropies announced the winners Monday of the U.S. Mayors Challenge that asked cities to develop innovative solutions to their biggest problems that other cities could copy. Philadelphia plans to build a juvenile justice hub designed to make contact with police less traumatic, keep more children out of the criminal justice system and connect at-risk juveniles with intervention services at a crisis point that could change their lives. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) In this Friday, Oct. 26, 2018, photo, Philadelphia Police Sgt. John Ross discusses the Police 9th District's juvenile holding cells in Philadelphia. Bloomberg Philanthropies announced the winners Monday of the U.S. Mayors Challenge that asked cities to develop innovative solutions to their biggest problems that other cities could copy. Philadelphia plans to build a juvenile justice hub designed to make contact with police less traumatic, keep more children out of the criminal justice system and connect at-risk juveniles with intervention services at a crisis point that could change their lives. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) This Friday, Oct. 26, 2018, photo shows a sign on a door at one of Police 9th District's juvenile holding cells in Philadelphia. Bloomberg Philanthropies announced the winners Monday of the U.S. Mayors Challenge that asked cities to develop innovative solutions to their biggest problems that other cities could copy. Philadelphia plans to build a juvenile justice hub designed to make contact with police less traumatic, keep more children out of the criminal justice system and connect at-risk juveniles with intervention services at a crisis point that could change their lives. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) This Friday, Oct. 26, 2018, photo shows a conference room used as an overflow juvenile holding area in the event of mass arrest at Police 9th District in Philadelphia. Bloomberg Philanthropies announced the winners Monday of the U.S. Mayors Challenge that asked cities to develop innovative solutions to their biggest problems that other cities could copy. Philadelphia plans to build a juvenile justice hub designed to make contact with police less traumatic, keep more children out of the criminal justice system and connect at-risk juveniles with intervention services at a crisis point that could change their lives. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) WASHINGTON (AP) - Just days ahead of a midterm election they hope will deliver them a majority, House Democrats are promising to prioritize anti-discrimination legislation that would for the first time establish widespread equal rights protections for LGBTQ individuals. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi recently said she would introduce the Equality Act as one of her first orders of business if Democrats retake the House in November. Pelosi made the announcement at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, telling the crowd the issue of equal rights for the LGBTQ community is "personal." The 1964 Civil Rights Act already bars discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. The Equality Act, if passed, would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the law and expand those protections beyond the workplace. It would outlaw gender discrimination in places like restaurants and retail shops, in seeking housing, using health care and social services, applying for a loan or participating in the jury selection process. About 20 states and the District of Columbia currently have local gender and sex non-discrimination laws on the books. The House bill has 198 co-sponsors, including two Republicans. But no Senate Republicans have signed on, and social conservatives oppose the legislation. And even if the bill cleared Congress, it would still have to be signed by President Donald Trump, who has aligned himself closely with religious conservatives. Still, Democrats plan to move forward with the bill if they win the House majority, teeing up a test of the GOP's willingness to block it. FILE - In this Sept. 6, 2018, file photo. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., speaks during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Just ahead of a midterm election they hope will deliver them a majority, House Democrats are promising to prioritize anti-discrimination legislation that would for the first time establish widespread equal rights protections for LGBTQ individuals. Pelosi says she will introduce the Equality Act as one of her first orders of business if Democrats retake the House in November. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File) Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said the legislation will be given a low bill number, meaning it would be among the first pieces of legislation to be introduced. Hammill described such a designation as "a place of honor." The Equality Act is a far-reaching piece of legislation, decades in the works, that would safeguard the LGBTQ community against discrimination and bias. It was introduced in both chambers of Congress in 2015, where it died in committee, and reintroduced in 2017, but has not been voted on. "This is a very simple proposition," said Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., the lead sponsor of the bill in the House. "We have a long history in our country of prohibiting discrimination and promoting equality. It's the founding principle of our country, and I believe the vast majority of people in our country think discrimination is wrong. In many ways Congress has to catch up to where the American people are." A narrower bill to bar gender discrimination in the workplace, called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, passed the Senate in 2013 with 64 votes, including 10 Republicans. But then-House Speaker John Boehner, a vocal opponent, opted not to bring it to a floor vote. Even if the Equality Act were to pass a Democratic House, its future in the Senate - where 60 votes are typically needed to advance legislation - would be uncertain. Some of the Republican senators who supported ENDA are out of office or will be come January. Five remain in Congress now: Sens. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Rob Portman of Ohio, Dean Heller of Nevada, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who recently bucked her party to become the only Republican to vote against the controversial confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., the main sponsor of the Equality Act in the Senate, said he's optimistic that shifting public attitudes on gay rights will propel the bill forward. He noted that in 2015, two years after ENDA stalled in Congress, the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide. "This is what we need to accomplish. It is way past time to end discrimination across the board," Merkley said. "I find it astounding that here we are in a situation where you can now take your marriage certificate from state to state, but if you travel with your partner, in one you're treated as a citizen with full rights, and in the next, you're treated as a second-class citizen." Merkley said soon after the midterm election he'll begin reaching out to Republican senators to discuss the legislation. But so far they've been hard to convince: All 47 sponsors of the Senate bill are Democrats. He sees one big sticking point for gaining Republican support: A provision in the bill forbids any employer or retailer from using the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed in 1993, to justify withholding services based on gender or sexual orientation. The law, which received bipartisan support, barred the government from interfering with the rights of religious practitioners. But more recently the law has been used to protect the rights of business owners to refuse service based on religious beliefs. In one 2014 case, the Supreme Court found that chain craft store Hobby Lobby, founded by religious evangelicals, didn't have to provide its employees with contraception coverage for religious reasons. The Trump administration has pursued policies in line with that law when taking steps to roll back protections for LGBTQ individuals, including rescinding guidance for schools on how to treat transgender students and attempting to bar transgender individuals from serving in the military. The administration is also considering a proposal to limit the definition of gender to include only one's sex at birth, according to The New York Times, prompting outrage from LGBTQ advocates. Religious and conservative organizations have been vocal in their opposition to the Equality Act. Mary Beth Waddell, senior legislative assistant for conservative group Family Research Council, likened it to government-sanctioned discrimination against religious people. "The current law in civil rights and the protected classes are inborn and unchangeable characteristics like race, ethnicity, national origin, age, sex, etc., and religion, which is expressly protected under the constitution," Waddell said. "What the Equality Act does is it turns it on its head and allow the government to impose a belief system about sexual decisions and sexual behaviors on the nation." Waddell said if the bill comes up for a vote, the group will "certainly be part of the opposition." One advantage for supporters of the Equality Act is that it has overwhelming support from the business community. Since it was first introduced, major corporations including Apple, Dow Chemical Company, Amazon, General Electric Co. and more than 100 others have signed on to endorse its passage. "Unlike virtually any other omnibus civil rights bill, the Equality Act had corporate support from the day of introduction," said Deena Fidas, director of the Human Rights Campaign's Workplace Equality Program. COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena dissolved his Cabinet, replacing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe with former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa and plunging the South Asia island nation into a constitutional crisis. Rajapaksa, whose government was accused of atrocities and corruption in the final years of Sri Lanka's civil war, maintains popularity among Sri Lanka's Sinhalese ethnic majority group, who credit him with ending the 25-year conflict with the ethnic minority Tamil rebels. Here are some events in Sri Lanka's recent political history leading up to the current crisis: ___ 2005 November: Then-Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa wins presidential elections. A Sri Lankan woman walks past a notice board covered with posters carrying portraits of President Maithripala Sirisena and newly appointed Prime Minster Mahinda Rajapaksa at a street in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018. Sri Lanka's president suspended Parliament even as the prime minister he fired the previous day claimed he has majority support, adding to a growing political crisis in the South Asian island nation. Posters read " Our respect for the decision took on behalf of the country." (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena) ___ 2009 May: Government troops defeat the Tamil Tiger rebels, ending a 25-year civil war. October: Seizing on the military success, Rajapaksa's ruling coalition moves up presidential elections. ___ 2010 January: Rajapaksa is re-elected president in landslide victory, defeating his ex-army chief Gen. Sarath Fonseka, who led the military campaign against the Tamil Tigers. February: Fonseka is arrested on corruption charges. April: Rajapaksa's ruling coalition wins landslide victory in parliamentary elections. September: Parliament passes constitutional amendments to remove two-term limits and enable Rajapaksa to seek an unlimited number of terms. ___ 2014 November: Sirisena, then the health minister, defects from Rajapaksa's government to run as the opposition candidate in a presidential election called two years ahead of schedule. Sirisena is stripped of his duties. December: Sirisena signs a memorandum-of-understanding with dozens of political parties and civil rights groups to abolish the executive presidency, hold parliamentary elections, form an all-party national government and carry out various democratic reforms. ___ 2015 January: Sirisena secures a surprise victory in the presidential elections, defeating Rajapaksa's bid for a third term. April: Parliament passes constitutional amendment restoring a two-term limit for the presidency and creating independent commissions for police, judiciary and public service. August: Neither major party gets a clear majority in parliamentary elections. Sirisena's party signs an agreement with Ranil Wickremesinghe's party to form a unity government. ___ 2016 November: Loyalists to Rajapaksa form a party with Rajapaksa considered its proxy leader. ___ 2017 February: Government implements Right to Information Act to curb corruption. October: Sri Lanka's foreign minister resigns amid accusations of possessing a luxury apartment paid for by a businessman investigated for shady Treasury bond transactions. ___ 2018 January: Sri Lankan lawmakers exchange blows in Parliament during a debate over alleged corruption over a bond issue that had marred the reputation of the coalition government elected on an anti-corruption platform. February: Rajapaksa's party sweeps local elections in a major blow to Sirisena's 3-year-old government. April: Wickremesinghe comfortably overcomes a no-confidence vote, strengthening his hand within the unity government. October: Sirisena sacks Wickremesinghe, dissolves his Cabinet and suspends Parliament, and invites Rajapaksa to form a government as the new premier. WASHINGTON (AP) - Sensing that Jeff Sessions' days at the Justice Department may be numbered, some of his supporters want the White House to allow for a graceful exit for an attorney general they believe has dutifully carried out the administration's agenda even while enduring the president's fury. It seems unlikely that efforts to soften a possible dismissal after the Nov. 6 midterm election would find sympathy in the White House, where President Donald Trump's rage remains unabated over the attorney general's recusal from the Russia investigation. A hand-picked successor could theoretically oversee the rest of the probe in place of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. But some supporters say they hope that if and when Sessions is replaced, his record as senator and attorney general will be recognized and not overwhelmed by Trump's attacks, or that the administration will at least respect the Justice Department by guaranteeing a smooth transition. A scenario advocated by at least one Sessions ally, former Cincinnati Mayor Ken Blackwell, would allow him to remain on the job until January and be permitted to resign on his own then rather than be fired immediately after the midterms. Blackwell said allies have made their case to administration officials that Sessions has successfully pushed the president's core priorities, including on illegal immigration, and deserves some sort of recognition from the White House that "he has more than a passing grade." "It is not unknown, from anyone from John Kelly to Jared Kushner, that there is a base of support," said Blackwell, referring to Trump's chief of staff and son-in-law. "A portion of that base is ready to continue advocacy for his service." Newt Gingrich, a former Republican House speaker who is close to the White House and calls himself a longtime "admirer" of Sessions, said he would be open to serving as an intermediary if asked between the White House and Sessions supporters. Attorney General Jeff Sessions pauses before speaking about the arrest of Cesar Sayoc, 56, of Aventura, Fla., in the package bomb case, during a news conference at the Department of Justice, Friday, Oct. 26, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) "He deserves a graceful exit. His career deserves a strong conclusion," said Gingrich, who called Sessions "a strong conservative who has done strong work at the Department of Justice." Sessions, who has publicly acknowledged the president's displeasure, has plowed forward with the conventional duties of the job, including a regular calendar of events and announcements. On Friday, he spoke first at the Justice Department news conference announcing the arrest of a mail-bomb suspect in Florida. The president, though mindful that Sessions remains popular among much of his base, would seem unlikely to sign off on a plan to extend Sessions' time in office, according to a White House official and an outside adviser familiar with Trump's thinking but not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations. Trump has repeatedly had to be talked out of firing Sessions before November and has signaled to allies that he wants to make sweeping changes at the Justice Department once the midterms have concluded. He told The Associated Press this month that he was "not thrilled" with Sessions but made no commitment to dismiss him. If Trump were to wait, it would not be out of deference to Sessions, but rather because the White House would be managing the fallout from the midterms and preparing for a pair of presidential overseas trips in November, according to the official. Sessions' decision to recuse remains his original sin in Trump's eyes. Trump has fumed that Sessions has not done more to protect his personal interests and has vented about what he sees as Sessions' failure to get a handle on immigration and his lack of emphasis on combating transnational criminal organizations. Cameron Smith, a former Sessions Senate aide, said, "The idea that this gets better - they stand next to each other and sing common praises - I just don't see anybody looking at that seriously." After being berated by Trump over the recusal decision last year, Sessions offered his resignation, but it was rejected. He has been widely viewed as determined to stay in the job because he believes in Trump's agenda, which largely mirrors his own interests, and reluctant to leave a job for which he gave up a Senate seat. For more than a year, Trump has repeatedly polled advisers as to whether he should fire Sessions. Some of his closest aides, including attorney Rudy Giuliani, have counseled him not to do so, at least not yet. The case that Sessions' protectors outlined to Trump largely consists of three components: - Firing Sessions, a witness in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of obstruction of justice, would add legal peril to his standing in the Russia probe. - Doing so would anger the president's political base, which Trump cares deeply about, especially before the midterms. - A number of Republican senators would rebel against the treatment of a longtime colleague and potentially not hold confirmation hearings for a replacement if the GOP holds onto the Senate. Blackwell, the Sessions friend, said conservatives are divided between those who support firing him immediately and those who regard him as loyal to their cause, protective of their ideals and propelling Trump's agenda. Gingrich, for instance, calls the recusal "inexcusable" even as he professes admiration for Sessions. The ground appears to have softened recently after some influential Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, suggested Trump would have the right, after the elections, to select a replacement he trusted. Smith said one way Trump could enable a respectful exit would be for the White House to craft a smooth succession plan and allow Sessions to be part of the process. Ed Meese, a Reagan administration attorney general and Sessions friend, said he wasn't thinking about Sessions' departure because "I don't want to see him fired at all." "I think he's taken it with grace," Meese said of Sessions' response to Trump's anger. "What he is recused from is less than 1 percent of the department and he has done an outstanding job in everything he's done in the department." ___ On Twitter follow Eric Tucker at https://twitter.com/etuckerAP and Jonathan Lemire at https://twitter.com/JonLemire . PITTSBURGH (AP) - In a city known for its Jewish population, the neighborhood was the faith's spiritual heart and the synagogue a cornerstone of the community. For generations, Squirrel Hill has been known as one of Pittsburgh's most special enclaves, where the Tree of Life temple stood as a welcoming landmark. Residents marveled over their good fortune to live in a place that seemed open, accepting and secure. "People always felt safe here," said Jules Stein, a lifelong resident of Squirrel Hill who until recently belonged to Tree of Life. "In one day, that changed." A gunman opened fire Saturday at the synagogue, killing 11 people. It was the type of violence that seemed impossible to many who called the neighborhood home. Tanya Cohen, who emigrated from Russia and lives near Tree of Life, always knew anti-Semitism existed but never thought it would strike so close. "It seemed like here, those things were really far away and really removed from our reality," said Cohen, whose 12-year-old daughter was shaken by the sight of rifle-carrying men in fatigues passing by their home. "Those are the things that we read in on a newspaper or in a book or watch in a movie." Personnel from Chesed Shel Emes Emergency Services and Recovery Unit gather near the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018. Robert Bowers, the suspect in the mass shooting at the synagogue, expressed hatred of Jews during the rampage and told officers afterward that Jews were committing genocide and he wanted them all to die, according to charging documents made public Sunday. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) The former leader of Tree of Life, Rabbi Alvin Berkun, was dressed and ready to head to the synagogue on Saturday when his wife asked him to stay home because she didn't feel well. He said the congregation only posted security officers on the High Holidays, but even so never felt unsafe there. "The community is very resilient and we will rebound," he said, "but it will leave a scar forever." Others, though grateful for the seeming bubble in which they lived, always feared such hatred could visit them. A 2017 report on Pittsburgh's Jewish community by Brandeis University researchers found 70 percent of area Jews were a little or somewhat concerned about anti-Semitism. Older Jews expressed the most fear: One-third of those 65 and older said they were very concerned, versus 10 percent of those 18 to 34. The report estimated about 50,000 Jews call Greater Pittsburgh home. About 1 in 6 respondents said they had directly experienced anti-Semitism in the preceding year, mostly involving comments, insults, jokes and stereotypes. One person quoted in the report said, while walking to a synagogue, a motorist yelled "dumb Jew" and spat at them, before warning them to "go back to Squirrel Hill." Another told of a campaign sign for Donald Trump being put in their yard with a note saying it was from their "neighborhood youth Hitler." "I have never been a person to say this could never happen here," said Aviva Lubowsky, a lifelong resident of Squirrel Hill who attended Hebrew school at Tree of Life as a child. "Ever since 9/11, sitting in synagogue for the High Holidays, I feel like we're sitting ducks." Ren Finkel, who moved to Pittsburgh from San Diego six years ago, echoed that sentiment. "I wouldn't say I was expecting it," Finkel said while attending a small vigil. "But I don't know that surprise is necessarily what I was feeling either." There have been scattered incidents of anti-Semitism in the area over the years that have occasionally drawn concern, including spray-painted swastikas. In 1986, a rabbinical student from Toronto visiting his in-laws was shot on the street in a killing many believed was motivated by the victim's appearance. He was bearded and wore a yarmulke with a long black coat, black suit and black hat - hallmarks of Orthodox Judaism. As jarring and violent as that killing was, though, it came nowhere close to the impact of Saturday's attack. "It was unsettling, but somehow I don't recall that there was a sense that it was part of a larger phenomenon, that it was going to reflect a wave," said Barbara Burstin, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who teaches about Judaism and has authored books including "Steel City Jews: A History of Pittsburgh and its Jewish Community." ''It didn't seem to be representative of a larger phenomenon, but now it definitely does." German Jews began arriving in Pittsburgh in the 1840s, followed later by Eastern European Jews. Tree of Life broke off from a reform congregation in 1865, moving to the Oakland neighborhood before building its current Squirrel Hill home after World War II. Today, some 20 synagogues are clustered in the leafy, well-kept area. Sarah Elbling Straus, a 41-year-old who grew up in Squirrel Hill, said she felt so secure in the neighborhood that she never experienced anti-Semitism until she left for college. She now lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and has been active in her new congregation, including on security issues. "You never think it would happen here," she said, "until it happens." ___ Sedensky reported from Philadelphia. AP National Writer Allen Breed contributed reporting from Pittsburgh. DAVAO, Philippines (AP) - The U.S. Navy will continue patrolling the disputed South China Sea, a top Navy official said Monday, after a Chinese destroyer came dangerously close to an American Navy ship during a "freedom of navigation" sail-by near a Chinese-occupied reef. Admiral John Richardson, who heads U.S. naval operations, said in a news conference with Philippine military officials in Manila on Monday that such patrols highlight the U.S. position against "illegitimate maritime claims." "We will continue to progress this program of freedom of navigation operations," Richardson said. "We do dozens of these operations around the world to indicate our position for ... illegitimate claims, maritime claims." While Washington has no claims to the strategic waterway, it has declared that freedom of navigation and the peaceful resolution of the disputes are in the U.S. national interest. The U.S. has also questioned China's expansive claims, bringing it into a collision course with Beijing as the countries' ties deteriorate. A Chinese destroyer came close to the USS Decatur in late September in an "unsafe and unprofessional maneuver" near Gaven Reef in the South China Sea, forcing it to maneuver to prevent a collision, according to the U.S. Pacific Fleet. U.S. Pacific Fleet spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Tim Gorman said the Chinese destroyer approached within 45 yards (41 meters) of the Decatur's bow. China said the Luoyang, a Chinese missile destroyer, was deployed to identify the U.S. warship and drive it away near Chinese territory. Philippine Armed Forces Chief Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr., left, and Adm. John Richardson, chief of Naval Operations of the U.S. Navy, shake hands prior to a news conference following their meeting Monday, Oct. 29, 2018 at Camp Aguinaldo in suburban Quezon city, northeast of Manila, Philippines. The U.S. Navy will continue patrolling the disputed South China Sea even after a Chinese destroyer came dangerously close to one of its ships during a "freedom of navigation" sail-by near a contested reef. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez) Gaven is claimed by China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan. Malaysia and Brunei also have claims in the South China Sea. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is on a visit to southern Davao city in the Philippines, said in a separate news conference that some "non-regional countries" were stirring up trouble in the disputed waters and "have been showing off their force." Wang said China and Southeast Asian nations should guard against foreign interference. China has repeatedly criticized what it says is U.S. meddling in an Asian territorial dispute. "We shall work together to be vigilant against and prevent interferences and disruptions coming from the outside as China and the Philippines and other littoral states of the South China Sea are cooperating to uphold peace and cooperation," Wang said. The Chinese and Philippine coast guards have set up telephone hotlines to allow them to communicate rapidly to prevent any conflict from getting out of control in the disputed waters. Other possible arrangements are being discussed for ships and aircraft, he said. "Mechanisms of this kind can effectively avoid misjudgment, prevent unexpected incidents," Wang said. "China is also willing to build similar mechanisms with other claimant states so as to enhance communication and timely handle the emergencies should they happen." WASHINGTON (AP) - A graduate student in the nation's capital set out to raise $500 for the victims of a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Now he's increased the goal to $1 million. Shay Khatiri's fundraiser had raised nearly $545,000 as of Monday morning. The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies student says the funds will go directly to the Tree of Life congregation, where a gunman killed 11 people on Saturday. WJLA-TV reports that the 29-year-old Khatiri isn't Jewish, but says he's a political refugee from Iran who has received generosity from the Jewish community. He says the fundraiser took "only two minutes of my life," so the credit for the act should go to those who have donated. ___ Information from: WJLA-TV, http://www.wjla.com COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - Sri Lanka is in a constitutional stalemate, torn between two leaders who both claim to be its legitimate prime minister. President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and dissolved his Cabinet on Friday, abruptly ending a strained coalition government between two traditionally opposed political parties. Former strongman President Mahinda Rajapaksa was sworn in as the new prime minister and Parliament was suspended, sowing economic and political uncertainty in the South Asian island nation. A look at Sri Lanka and the origins of its ongoing political crisis: ___ ALLEGED ASSASSINATION PLOT Sirisena said in a national address Sunday that he sacked his prime minister mainly because of the alleged involvement of a Cabinet minister in a plot to assassinate him. Sirisena's supporters have talked for weeks of an alleged assassination plot against him, but Sunday was the first time Sirisena had commented publicly on it. A police informant named Namal Kumara who first spoke of the alleged plot told reporters Sunday that Wickremesinghe and his Cabinet colleague, former army commander Sarath Fonseka, were behind it. Kumara has said he has a taped conversation with a senior police officer who allegedly discussed assassinating Sirisena and the former defense secretary, Rajapaksa's brother. Sri Lanka's newly appointed prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, center, hands over inaugural documents to an official during his duties assuming ceremony in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, Oct. 29, 2018. (AP Photo/Lahiru Harshana) There was no immediate comment from Wickremesinghe or Fonseka on the allegation. The alleged plot has been under police investigation, but no arrests have been made. Wickremesinghe has so far refused to leave his post, and both he and Rajapaksa say they have the majority needed in Parliament to successfully govern. Sirisena suspended Parliament in an apparent move to give Rajapaksa time to muster support. ___ RAJAPAKSA'S CHECKERED LEGACY During Rajapaksa's two terms as president, his government was credited with defeating the rebel Tamil Tigers and ending a 25-year civil conflict that pitted Sri Lanka's ethnic Sinhalese majority against its Tamil minority. After winning the war, Rajapaksa rode on his popularity to change the constitution by scrapping a two-term limit for the presidency, enabling him to stay in power for life. He also took over the powers of appointing election and bribery commission officials, as well as judges. His ruthlessness with dissenters, the lavish lifestyles of his three sons and nepotism that saw his brothers holding sway in many key institutions gradually eroded Rajapaksa's popularity, resulting in his defeat in his bid for a third term in 2015. Rajapaksa's government also came under fire for taking out billions of dollars in loans from China to build a scantly used port. ___ UNEASY COALITION Sirisena was health minister in Rajapaksa's Cabinet and the second-in-command of his party before defecting to run as the opposition candidate in a presidential election called two years ahead of schedule. After winning the presidency as a neutral candidate in 2015, Sirisena accepted an offer from Rajapaksa to take over his Sri Lanka Freedom Party. Since then, party rivalries have simmered within the government, with Rajapaksa leading a splinter Freedom Party group. Under Sirisena, Sri Lanka's Parliament passed a constitutional amendment restoring a two-term limit for the presidency and creating independent commissions for police, judiciary and public service. When neither major party received a clear majority in parliamentary elections, Sirisena's party signed an agreement with Ranil Wickremesinghe's party to form a unity government. Tensions grew between the two parties, with lawmakers sharply disagreeing on everything from economic reforms to ways of upholding pledges to the United Nations to investigate alleged war crimes. Wickremesinghe's popularity began to wane after his government signed an agreement giving a Chinese company an 80 percent stake and a 99-year lease of the failing port, seeing it as a way to avoid defaulting on Chinese loans. In early 2017, Wickremesinghe inaugurated the zone over the protests of villagers and monks demanding their residential and farmlands be spared. Wickremesinghe survived a no-confidence motion in Parliament in April brought by Rajapaksa supporters over allegations involving his appointment of a Singaporean as the central bank governor who is now accused of leaking inside information to benefit his son-in-law in a treasury bond sale. ___ WHAT'S AT STAKE Investigations into alleged crimes and corruption by Rajapaksa's family members, his former Cabinet members and political officials could be dropped by the new Rajapaksa-led government, political watchdogs said. The Sirisena government's plan with the U.N. Human Rights Council to investigate soldiers accused in the deaths, kidnappings and forced disappearance of civilians and journalists could be shelved because of a hard-line element in Rajapaksa's government that considers prosecuting soldiers engaged in the civil war unpatriotic. The billions China loaned Sri Lanka to develop the port and airport - a sign of Rajapaksa's pro-China leanings - worried neighboring India, which is competing with the world's second-largest economy for influence in South Asia. Rajapaksa's return to power could increase China's clout in Sri Lanka. China's envoy to Sri Lanka was among the first to congratulate Rajapaksa on his appointment. ___ Schmall reported from New Delhi. Sri Lanka's sacked prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe holds a copy of the constitution of Sri Lanka as he attends a media briefing at his official residence in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Monday, Oct. 29, 2018. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena) BOSTON (AP) - Authorities say 11 people were injured and dozens of people were displaced by a fire at a Boston apartment building that housed mostly college students. The fire in the five-story building the city's Fenway neighborhood was reported just after 3 p.m. Saturday. Seven residents were treated for smoke inhalation and four firefighters were injured, including two who were brought to the hospital with injuries not considered life-threatening. Many of the residents were students at Northeastern University, Emerson College and the Berklee College of Music. Mayor Marty Walsh says his administration is working with the colleges to make sure the students have alternate housing. The cause remains under investigation, but Fire Commissioner Joe Finn says it appears to have started on the second floor and is not considered suspicious. DETROIT (AP) - During their eight years in control of Michigan's government, Republicans have had one achievement that stands out: successfully taking the city of Detroit through federal bankruptcy to make way for its economic revival. Now that feat may bring a bittersweet reward. As the midterm election approaches, GOP leaders are bracing for the worst as Democrats appear poised to win the governor's office and other statewide posts and to make gains in the Legislature. And one factor in the GOP's predicament could be a resurgent Detroit. For more than a half-century, the state's largest city and manufacturing hub was a Democratic stronghold, with working-class black and white voters reliably offsetting Republicans' domination of rural areas. But as Detroit lost jobs and 25 percent of its population in one decade alone, its political clout weakened. The GOP has controlled all major statewide offices and both houses of the Legislature since 2011. In this Friday, Oct. 26, 2018, photo, Gretchen Whitmer, Democratic gubernatorial candidate, cheers before a rally in Detroit. As the midterm election approaches, GOP leaders are bracing for the worst as Democrats appear poised to win the governor's office and other statewide posts and to make gains in the Legislature. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Now the city's downtown and some urban neighborhoods are attracting thousands of young, likely left-leaning professionals to an expanding job market. Detroit's political scene has perked up. In August's primary election, about 100,000 people voted, up 14,000 from 2010, and turnout increased from 15.2 percent to 21.6 percent. Eager to capitalize, Gretchen Whitmer, the Democrat running to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, has opened four offices across Detroit and has campaigned heavily there after turnout was down in the 2014 and 2010 gubernatorial races. Last week former President Barack Obama appeared in Midtown , one of the neighborhoods on the rise, to rally support for Whitmer, U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow and other party candidates. For Republicans, the irony is hard to overlook. Snyder "deserves all the credit, or at least a good chunk of the credit" for Detroit's rebound, said GOP consultant Tom Shields. The immediate political impact of Detroit's improvement is uncertain because other factors are shaping the midterm election. But the possibilities are being watched closely because of Michigan's importance to both parties. It was Donald Trump's hair-breadth victory here in 2016 that helped secure his presidential win, and a handful of closely fought congressional races in the state this year will help determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the U.S. House. Detroit's turnaround got a boost when, with the debt-saddled city struggling to provide basic services, a Snyder-appointed emergency financial manager filed for bankruptcy in 2013 even though many argued a municipality couldn't do so. Snyder pushed the Legislature for a $195 million bailout to help make the final debt settlement work. The intervention was "extraordinary," said Joshua Sapotichne, a Michigan State University urban policy expert, who said it was but one of several factors in Detroit's upturn and noted that the tougher GOP-backed emergency management law contributed to Flint's water crisis around the same time. Since the intervention in Detroit, improvements have been noticeable though limited to certain pockets of the city. Many neighborhoods remain dotted with vacant houses, and Detroit still has a high crime rate and unemployment double the state rate. But a surge of private investment is generating jobs, highlighted by a $740 million project by the Ford Motor Co. for the Corktown neighborhood - projected for 5,000 jobs eventually - and artists are settling on once-abandoned blocks. Demographers expect the city of 673,000 to begin growing again soon. The white population is up more than 15,000, or 28 percent, since 2010 while the majority-black population is stabilizing after a long decline. The city's rebirth has been a "collective effort" by both parties, said resident W.E. Da'Cruz, 28, who moved here two years ago from New Jersey to run her home-based technology firm. However, she said, "my vote is going to go to the person (whose) intentions (are) pure and is committed to the common good of everybody." She said she will likely vote for Democrats in November. Republicans say they have not given up politically on the city. U.S. Senate candidate John James, a 37-year-old black combat veteran who runs a family automotive logistics company in Detroit, has billboards up around town and is going to black churches that his campaign says GOP candidates rarely visit. He will face the third-term Stabenow on the ballot and launched a statewide ad Friday urging black voters "to wake up" and not "outsource our vote" to Democrats. "We harbor no illusions that we might win the city, but we are strategically reaching out in areas that we think are receptive to our messaging," said state GOP deputy chief of staff Sarah Anderson. The broader political impact of the city's resurgence depends on how many of those in the new influx vote. Young people and minorities tend to have lower turnout. Elizabeth Friend, 24, a dental student who moved here three years ago, said she is voting because of human rights issues. "Gay, lesbian, transgender rights are a huge thing - (and) especially now with the current climate that we're in, it's just very important to me," said Friend, who favors Democrats. Demographer Kurt Metzger said the political impact of the inflow may grow larger if gradually fewer workers commute from the suburbs. "The more that Detroit can build and attract more young people, the more our central cities can redevelop," he said. If that occurs, "I can only the see the state becoming bluer." ___ Associated Press writer Corey Williams contributed to this report. ___ Follow David Eggert on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00 . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/David%20Eggert . In this Friday, Oct. 26, 2018, photo, Gretchen Whitmer, Democratic gubernatorial candidate, meets members of the audience before a rally in Detroit. As the midterm election approaches, GOP leaders are bracing for the worst as Democrats appear poised to win the governor's office and other statewide posts and to make gains in the Legislature. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Part of the expert community regarded holding the second round of the presidential election in Georgia as a complete failure of the pro-government candidate Salome Zurabishvili and the catastrophe of oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili and his Georgian Dream party. If there is anything in these assessments, then it's not accuracy. The failure of ex-foreign minister Zurabishvili as an independent politician was predictable. Well, it's fact that most of Georgian society doesnt like her from the moment when she appeared on Georgia's political stage, or more precisely, after she joined the opposition to then-President Mikhail Saakashvili. Her attempts to establish her party own ended in nothing. People say that she is a difficult person, that she is too capricious and arrogant. The Georgian society, sympathetic to any attempts by foreigners to learn the Georgian language, good-naturedly encouraging the most nightmarish and harsh to the ear attempts by foreigners to speak Georgian, did not forgive Zurabishvili her bloomers in a formally native language, and did not accept excuses that she was born, grew up and lived in France most of her life. Her every lapsus linguae or misspelling was immediately replicated and mocked. But it would not be the worst part, if not for her initial assessment of the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, which drove the society mad. It looked like that Zurabishvili's subsequent explanations and clarifications on this topic no longer played any role. Maybe they only made it worse. What ultimately affected the October 28 election. It turns out that those who cautioned Bidzina Ivanishvili not to get involved with Zurabishvili were right. Some representatives of the Georgian dream ruling party directly said that if Ivanishvili was disappointed in President Georgy Margvelashvili, supported by him, because he was extremely independent, then Zurabishvili would be a total nightmare for the same reason. But Ivanishvili chose to follow his own path, going against the team, and supported the ex-foreign minister's campaign not just financially, but also joining the campaign process. Was he wrong? Maybe. But he is not a seer, and no one is immune from mistakes. More alarming for Ivanishvili was the population's record passivity on election day, despite appeals - the turnout was barely 40%. Thus, the majority of the Georgian population, having the right to vote, did not use it. Under these conditions, the opposition mobilized all of its resources and supporters, and this was enough for its protege, another former foreign minister Grigol Vashadze to concede to pro-government candidate Salome Zurabishvili just a little bit. But at the same time, together with other presidential candidates, he prevent her from getting 50% of votes she needed to win the first round. The second round will take place on December 2. In comparison with the first round, Vashadze can get some more votes. Third place winner, former parliamentary speaker David Bakradze, has already called on his supporters to vote for the representative of the National Movement, in whose ranks he was, before his current party, European Georgia, separated from it. Leader of the party 'Girchi' Zurab Japarilze, another former UNM member, intends to do the same. What will the ruling party Georgian Dream do? There are two possible scenarios. The first one. Ivanishvili supports Zurabishvili to the end, even having already realized that she is unpopular. He mobilizes the very 60% of voters who ignored the first round, and gets what he wants, appointing her to a pedestal, i.e. presidential post. In this case, the Georgian Dream will surely be hit by a flurry of opposition criticism in falsifying the election, the country will enter the rally phase again, and the task of the authorities will be reduced to settling dissatisfaction with non-forceful peaceful methods. Second. Ivanishvili "remembers" his own statement, made upon returning to politics in a lengthy TV interview to the Public Broadcaster. Then he said that he did not attach much importance to the presidential election, since the Georgian Dream has all the power in the country, the president with reduced by the Constitution powers is not a game-changer, and therefore he will not be upset if the opposition wins the elections. After that, he starts serious intraparty work, achieves a noticeable increase in the government's efficiency, debugs the broken communication with society and takes part in the 2020 parliamentary election with a renewed party. Which are extremely important for all political forces and, of course, for the population. Which will define Georgia's fate in the near future. It's up to Ivanishvili. And, of course, he is well aware that, after making peace with Vashadze's victory, after his inauguration, he will be opposed by former prime minister and former interior minister Vano Merabishvili, former defense minister Bacho Akhalai, as well as Mikhail Saakashvili with the charges dropped and restored Georgian citizenship. The pardon issues under the new Constitution remained in the president's power, and Vashadze, of course, would not miss the opportunity to help his fellow party members. That is why the first option seems more realistic - Ivanishvili mobilizes all the forces and resources for his candidate to win in the second round. It does not mean that the second option will be rejected - before the 2020 parliamentary elections, he needs to noticeably increase the efficiency of the executive branch, establish communication with the society and update the tarnished Georgian Dream. He needs to implement such a plan of action so that the wake-up call, heard during the first round of the presidential election on October 28, does not become a death knell of a political bell. NEW YORK (AP) - Apple's new iPads will more closely resemble its latest iPhones as they ditch a home button and fingerprint sensor to make more room for the screen. As with the latest iPhone models - the XR and XS -the new iPad Pro will use facial-recognition technology to unlock the device and to authorize app and Apple Pay purchases. Apple also unveiled new Mac computers, including an overdue refresh of the MacBook Air laptop, now with a high-resolution screen. Better screens come with price increases for both iPads and Macs. Tuesday's announcements took place at an opera house in New York, where the company emphasized its products' ability to create music, video and sketches. Neither the Mac nor the iPad generates as much revenue for Apple as iPhones. Tablet sales have been declining overall, though Apple saw a 3 percent increase in iPad sales last year to nearly 44 million, commanding a 27 percent market share, according to research firm IDC. Apple has been promoting its high-end iPad Pro as ideal for artists, photographers and other creators. Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during an event to announce new products Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) D.A. Davidson Co. analyst Tom Forte said Apple did "a nice job of rolling out next-generation devices with features customers want to sustain momentum" in iPad sales growth. The smaller of the two new Pros will have a wider display than before when held horizontally. Its screen is 11 inches rather than 10.5 inches, measured diagonally. It starts at about $800, or $150 more than the 10.5-inch version. For the larger, 12.9-inch model, Apple is fitting the same-size display into a smaller device - about the size of a standard sheet of paper. That starts at about $1,000, a price hike of $200. The new iPads will have an LCD screen similar to the iPhone XR rather than the more vibrant one found in the top-of-the-line iPhone XS models. The displays on the new iPads don't run to the edges as much as they do on iPhones. An updated pencil, still at $99, will attach magnetically to the iPad for storage and charging. Apple is bringing a high-resolution display to its low-end MacBook Air, something until now limited to pricier models such as the MacBook Pro products. But the starting price goes up $200 to about $1,200. The Air also joins higher-end Pros in sporting a fingerprint sensor, something the iPad just lost. Apple also announced an updated desktop computer, the Mac Mini, starting at about $800. The company said both Macs will use aluminum left over from producing iPads and other products. The new MacBook Air and iPad Pros will now use a standard, oval-shaped connector called USB-C. That means accessories using the iPad's old Lightning port will need adapters, sold separately. The change will allow people to charge their iPhones through the iPad. The Air also loses the slot for camera memory cards. An adapter costs $39. Patrick Moorhead, founder of Moor Insights & Strategy, said the refreshed products are likely to please Apple fans and users. "The company hadn't updated the Mac Mini for years, and the MacBook Air for a while, so these are very welcome changes," he said. But he said the new Mac features aren't significant enough to draw many people away from Windows computers. "Overall some nice improvements, but I don't think these are game changers," he said. All the new products come out Nov. 7. Apple also is releasing a free software update for iPhones and iPads on Tuesday with previously announced features such as group video chats on FaceTime. ___ This story corrects release date for software update to Tuesday. Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during an event to announce new products Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during an event to announce new products Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during an event to announce new products Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) John Ternus, Apple's V.P. of Hardware Engineering, discuss the latest development for the iPad Pro during an event to announce new products Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) Apple CEO Tim Cook during an event to announce new products Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) An iPad Pro is reviewed after an event announcing new products Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) An iPad Pro is reviewed after an event announcing new products Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) The new iPad Pro with its accessory keyboard and pencil is tested during a pre-release showcase after an event announcing new products Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) The new iPad Pro with its accessory keyboard and pencil is tested during a pre-release showcase after an event announcing new products Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) Apple iPad Pros are displayed after an event announcing new products Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) BEIRUT (AP) - Tens of thousands of Syrians stranded in a desert camp near the Jordanian border are at risk of starvation amid dwindling supplies and the approach of winter, while regional powers trade blame over who is responsible for this latest humanitarian catastrophe in Syria's civil war. Desperately needed aid deliveries to the besieged Rukban camp have repeatedly failed or been postponed, including a U.N. convoy which was supposed to go in on Thursday but has now been indefinitely delayed. The camp is home to around 45,000 people, many of them women and children, who are camped out in the open desert. At least four people have died in the past month, due to malnutrition and lack of medical care. Sand storms and heavy rains in recent weeks have left Rukban's tattered tents and clay houses in even worse shape. Imad Ghali, a camp resident, said this isn't the first time Rukban has been promised aid and not received it. "It's like telling someone dying of thirst to wait for the rain," said Ghali. "How long are we going to wait?" People started gathering in Rukban three years ago, fleeing Islamic State militants and airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition, Russia and Syria. Jordan sealed its border and stopped regular aid deliveries in 2016 after a cross-border IS attack that killed seven Jordanian soldiers. FILE - In this Feb. 14, 2017 file photo, a Syrian child from the informal Rukban camp for displaced Syrians, between the Jordan and Syria borders, receives treatment in a clinic run by UNICEF inside Jordan. Tens of thousands of Syrians stranded in a desert camp near the Jordanian border are at risk of malnutrition amid dwindling humanitarian supplies. The Rukban camp is home to some 45,000 people, many of them women and children, who are living in miserable conditions in the open desert area. A U.N. convoy was supposed to go in on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018, but has now been indefinitely delayed. (AP Photo/Raad Adayleh, File) The last aid delivery from Jordan was in January, leaving the camp's residents dependent on goods largely smuggled from government-held areas. The situation sharply deteriorated after the Syrian government blocked supply routes last month following a botched reconciliation deal with rebel groups in the area, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Russia, a close ally of the Syrian government, has blamed the U.S. for the deterioration of the situation in Rukban, which is within a 55 square kilometer (20 sq. mile) "deconfliction zone" set up by U.S. forces in the nearby Tanf military base. "The inability of the US side to live up to its commitment to provide security in the 55-kilometer area around its base in Tanf stopped the convoy from going," Lt. Gen. Vladimir Savchenko said last week, adding that the area around Tanf has "a large number of armed and uncontrolled militants who can stage any manner of provocation" and endanger aid workers. The U.S.-led coalition has denied such allegations. "Any talk of the coalition holding up the process is simply misinformation and others deflecting off themselves," U.S. military spokesman Col. Sean Ryan said in an email. On Saturday, the White House envoy to the coalition, Brett McGurk, said the Syrian government and Russia are using Rukban as an excuse to question the U.S. presence in the area. "The question is for the regime and Russians. Do they really want to help these people or use them as something to come after us?" he asked, after stressing the U.S. was going to stay in the Tanf base. He spoke at a security conference in Bahrain last week. Jordan, which at one point used cranes to drop aid for Syrians struck in Rukban, said it will not shoulder responsibility for this latest episode. "Rukban is Syrian people on Syrian territory, so it is the responsibility of the Syrian government and the U.N. and the international community," Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Saturday. "We are not going to own Rukban." He added, however, that Jordan will continue to provide water to Rukban and access to a Jordanian clinic for those in need. "The camp's location has pushed the warring sides to use it as a way to pressure each other, while simultaneously neglecting the camp," said Rami Abdulrahman, who heads the Observatory. Conditions will only worsen as the winter approaches, the U.N. children's agency warned earlier this month. The Syrian government authorized the U.N. to deliver aid to Rukban two weeks ago, which would have been the first U.N. delivery to the camp made through Syria. However, the joint U.N. and Syrian Arab Red Crescent convoy did not arrive Thursday as promised, and has been indefinitely delayed. The U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Syria, Ali Al-Za'tari, said the aid was delayed "based on available information of a real security threat against the convoy." In a statement Tuesday, he said discussions were ongoing to find a way to deliver the assistance while ensuring the safety of humanitarian workers. Meanwhile, the camp's residents are running out of food and medicine, the majority surviving off one small meal a day, said Abdul-Fattah al-Khaled, the director of a school in Rukban. Local merchants have hiked up the cost of supplies. "There is no one organizing, observing or holding anyone accountable in the camp," said al-Khaled. "Our biggest problem is that we are not registered with the U.N. as a refugee camp and are instead just labeled as 'stuck on the border.'" Rukban's residents staged a five-day sit-in earlier this month after a series of deaths in September due to malnutrition and lack of medical care. Among the dead were a 5-day-old boy and a 4-month-old girl. A handful of nurses run a few poorly equipped clinics in the camp, al-Khaled said, and a medical center supported by the U.N. children's agency across the border takes urgent, life-threatening cases. Earlier this month, a young woman died from anemia and chronic acute diarrhea. Rukban's bare-bones medical center was unable to treat Bassma Zaarour, and asked for her to be sent to a Jordanian hospital, but she died almost immediately after her appointment. Jordan is in talks with Russia to find a permanent solution through voluntary returns and reconciliation agreements. Rukban is "a desert and no community can be sustained there," said Safadi, the Jordanian foreign minister. "Russia, Jordan and the U.S. are in agreement that we need to de-establish Rukban for people to go back, and we're working on that." The camp's residents are exhausted, al-Khaled said, but fear leaving without safe passage, either to government-held areas or parts of the north controlled by Turkish-backed rebels. FILE - In this Feb. 14, 2017 file photo, a Jordanian soldier stands at the north eastern border with Syria, close to the informal Rukban camp. Tens of thousands of Syrians stranded in a desert camp near the Jordanian border are at risk of malnutrition amid dwindling humanitarian supplies. The Rukban camp is home to some 45,000 people, many of them women and children, who are living in miserable conditions in the open desert area. A U.N. convoy was supposed to go in on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018, but has now been indefinitely delayed. (AP Photo/ Raad Adayleh, File) FILE - In this Sept. 10, 2015 file photo, Syrian refugees covered in dust arrive at the Trabeel border after crossing into Jordanian territory from Syria, near Ruwaished, Jordan. Tens of thousands of Syrians stranded in a desert camp near the Jordanian border are at risk of malnutrition amid dwindling humanitarian supplies. A U.N. convoy which was supposed to go in on Thursday, Oct.25, 2018, but has now been indefinitely delayed. (AP Photo/Raad Adayleh, File) SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - She was a self-described "adrenaline junkie," and he took "wow-worthy photos" of the couple posing at the edge of cliffs and jumping from planes that appeared on social media and a travel blog that attracted thousands of followers. In one post at the Grand Canyon this spring, 30-year-old Meenakshi Moorthy even warned daredevils who try to snap selfies from dangerous heights: "Did you know that wind gusts can be FATAL???" The caption accompanies a photo of Moorthy sitting on the edge of the canyon's North Rim. The couple's latest trip turned out to be their last. Moorthy and her husband, Vishnu Viswanath, 29, who were Indian expats living in California, fell to their deaths in Yosemite National Park last week while taking a selfie, the man's brother said Tuesday. They set up their tripod near a ledge at a scenic overlook in the California park, Viswanath's brother, Jishnu Viswanath, told The Associated Press. Visitors saw the camera the next morning and alerted park rangers, who "used high-powered binoculars to find them and used helicopters to airlift the bodies," he said. Rangers found their bodies about 800 feet (245 meters) below Taft Point, where visitors can walk to the edge of a vertigo-inducing granite ledge that offers spectacular views of the Yosemite Valley below. Their thrill-seeking social media posts foreshadow the couple's link to the growing problem of selfie deaths. This photo obtained from Facebook posted on June 26, 2017, shows a selfie of Vishnu Viswanath, right, and his wife Meenakshi Moorthy at Skydive Santa Barbara in Lompoc, Calif. The Indian husband and wife who fell to their deaths from Taft Point, a popular overlook at Yosemite National Park, were apparently taking a selfie, the man's brother said Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (Vishnu Viswanath/Facebook via AP) A study published this month in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care said 259 people had died taking selfies between October 2011 and November 2017. The report, based on findings from researchers in India who scoured worldwide media reports, said the main causes of selfie deaths were drowning, usually involving people being washed away by waves or falling from a boat, followed by people killed while posing in front of a moving train, deaths involving falls from high places or while taking pictures with dangerous animals. More than 10 people have died at Yosemite this year, some from natural causes and others from falls, park spokesman Scott Gediman said. Moorthy and Viswanath were born in India and had lived in the United States for a few years, most recently in the San Francisco Bay Area. Cisco India said Viswanath was a software engineer at the company's San Jose, California, headquarters in Silicon Valley. They graduated in 2010 from the College of Engineering, Chengannur, in the Alapuzha district of India's Kerala state, one of their professors, Nisha Kuruvilla, told AP. She said Moorthy and Viswanath were both good students who were fond of traveling and had married at a Hindu temple in Kerala in southern India four years ago. Moorthy described her and her husband as "travel obsessed" on their blog, "Holidays & Happily Ever Afters," which was taken down Tuesday. It was filled with photos of the couple in front of snowy peaks and on romantic trips across Europe, where they took selfies from a gondola in Venice, at the Leaning Tower of Pisa and at the Vatican. Moorthy wanted to work full time as a travel blogger, her brother-in-law said. She described herself in the blog as a "quirky free spirit" and "an ardent adrenaline junkie - roller coasters and skydiving does not scare me." She posed at the edge of the Grand Canyon wearing a Wonder Woman costume, writing, "A lot of us including yours truly is a fan of daredevilry attempts of standing at the edge of cliffs - and skyscrapers. But did you know that wind gust can be FATAL??? Is our life just worth one photo?" Her husband's Facebook cover photo shows the couple smiling, with arms around each other standing at a Grand Canyon precipice. "Living life on the edge," he wrote. In a post from July 2017, the couple celebrated their wedding anniversary by skydiving in Santa Barbara, California. Moorthy posted a video on Instagram that shows her in a T-shirt saying, "Gimme Danger," and flashing a thumbs-up as she jumps from the plane. "I believe I can flyyy. I believe i can touch the skyyy," she wrote in the post. "Aaaand touch the sky I did from an effin' 18000 feet thanks to the unconditional love-ninja in my life, Vishnu, who literally took this year's anniversary surprise a notch 'higher' than last year's hot air ballooning adventure, by gifting this adrenaline junkie with one of the highest tandem skydives in the world!" She also blogged about depression. In a post from April, Moorthy apologized to readers for going silent and "disappearing for more than a year." "Between battling the tightening tentacles of depression and blustering in the tempest of moving madness, I am afraid social media is taking a back seat??" she wrote. The couple's pictures indicated they liked to pose in scenic spots at sunset, which was the last time they were seen alive. In an eerie coincidence, another couple who hiked to Taft Point captured pictures of Moorthy prior to her fall, saying she appears in the background of two of their selfies. Sean Matteson said Moorthy stood out from the crowd enjoying sunset at the overlook because her hair was dyed bright pink. He said she made him a little nervous because she was close to the edge. "She was very close to the edge, but it looked like she was enjoying herself," said Matteson of Oakland, California. "She gave me the willies. There aren't any railings. I was not about to get that close to the edge. But she seemed comfortable. She didn't seem like she was in distress or anything." The travel advice website MyYosemitePark.com posted a photo of Taft Point to illustrate its "bad selfies" list, warning tourists: "Don't pose on top of a huge granite drop-off." It added, "It would only take a loose rock or bad footing to plummet." Yosemite spokeswoman Jamie Richards said officials were investigating the deaths, which could take several days. In India, after a rash of selfie-related deaths, the Tourism Ministry in April asked state government officials to safeguard tourists by installing signs in areas where accidents had occurred declaring them "no-selfie zones." ___ Associated Press writers Ashok Sharma and Chonchui Ngashangva contributed to this report from New Delhi. ___ This story has been corrected to fix spellings of Meenakshi and Viswanath. FILE - In this Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018 file photo, an unidentified couple gets married at Taft Point in California's Yosemite National Park. The viewpoint overlooks Yosemite Valley, including El Capitan, a popular vertical ascent for rock climbers across the globe. Yosemite National Park officials have identified two people who died after falling from a popular overlook as a man and a woman from India who were living and working in the United States. Park officials said Monday, Oct. 29, 2018 they were 29-year-old Vishnu Viswanath and his 30-year-old female companion, Meenakshi Moorthy. Park officials recovered their bodies about 800 feet (245 meters) below Taft Point last week. (AP Photo/Amanda Lee Myers, File) EUREKA, Utah (AP) - An Arizona man's fall into an old mine shaft this month put a spotlight on the hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines that pepper the landscape of the American West. They're a legacy of the region's prospecting past, when almost anyone could dig a mine and then walk away with little cleanup required when it stopped producing. Work is underway to seal old mines in places like Utah, where people have died or been hurt after falling into them. Earlier this year, two missing teens were found dead in a Utah mine shaft after authorities say a man killed them and dumped their bodies. In Arizona, prospector John Waddell plunged to the rocky bottom of a mine shaft Oct. 15 after the rigging he used to lower himself broke. He spent nearly three days there, injured and hungry, before a friend heard his cries for help. Still, some adventurers would prefer old mines stay open. For years, a dedicated subculture of well-prepared explorers has been slipping into the West's abandoned mines - many more than a century old - to see their tunnels lined with sparkling quartz, deserted rail cars and caverns that open in the earth like hidden ballrooms. ___ In this Aug. 11, 2018, photo, Bill Powell travels in to a mine near Eureka, Utah. He searched similar mines for months before his 18-year-old son Riley and girlfriend Brelynne Otteson were found dead in a shaft in March. During the search, he formed friendships with mine explorers who volunteered to help. Despite his painful memories, Powell decided to see what draws them there. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) AP Images on Twitter: http://apne.ws/CIFADGp More AP photo galleries: http://apne.ws/WZn4cJ4 In this Aug. 11, 2018, photo, Bill Powell travels in to a mine near Eureka, Utah. He searched similar mines for months before his 18-year-old son Riley and girlfriend Brelynne Otteson were found dead in a shaft in March. During the search, he formed friendships with mine explorers who volunteered to help. Despite his painful memories, Powell decided to see what draws them there. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) In this Aug. 11, 2018, photo, Bill Powell travels in to a mine near Eureka, Utah. He searched similar mines for months before his 18-year-old son Riley and girlfriend Brelynne Otteson were found dead in a shaft in March. During the search, he formed friendships with mine explorers who volunteered to help. Despite his painful memories, Powell decided to see what draws them there. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) This Sept. 7, 2018, photo shows Nick Castleton looking down a shaft, near Eureka, Utah. Underneath the landscape of the U.S. West lie hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines, an underground world that can hold serious danger and unexpected wonder. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) In this May 16, 2018, photo, a mine shaft is covered near Eureka, Utah. In Utah alone, the state is trying to seal more than 10,000 open mines with cinderblocks and metal grates after people have died in rock falls and all-terrain-vehicle crashes and from poisonous air over the past three decades. For the state, the message is as clear as its skull-and-crossbones signs: Stay out and stay alive. The program has been around more than 30 years, and the division has sealed some 6,000 abandoned mines. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) In this June 6, 2018, photo, Chris Rohrer, with the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, peers in to a cave before its sealed off near Gold Hill, Utah. In Utah alone, the state is trying to seal more than 10,000 open mines with cinderblocks and metal grates after people have died in rock falls and all-terrain-vehicle crashes and from poisonous air over the past three decades. For the state, the message is clear: Stay out and stay alive. The program has been around more than 30 years, and the division has sealed some 6,000 abandoned mines. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) In this June 6, 2018, photo, Chris Rohrer, with the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, climbs in to a cave before its sealed off near Gold Hill, Utah. In Utah alone, the state is trying to seal more than 10,000 open mines with cinderblocks and metal grates after people have died in rock falls and all-terrain-vehicle crashes and from poisonous air over the past three decades. For the state, the message is clear: Stay out and stay alive. The program has been around more than 30 years, and the division has sealed some 6,000 abandoned mines. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) This June 6, 2018, photo shows a contractor hired by the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining sealing off a abandoned mine near Gold Hill, Utah. In Utah alone, the state is trying to seal more than 10,000 open mines with cinderblocks and metal grates after people have died in rock falls and all-terrain-vehicle crashes and from poisonous air over the past three decades. For the state, the message is clear: Stay out and stay alive. The program has been around more than 30 years, and the division has sealed some 6,000 abandoned mines. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) In this Aug. 14, 2018, photo, Jeremy MacLee walks through a mine near Eureka, Utah. Underneath the mountains and deserts of the U.S. West lie hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines. Still, not everyone wants to see the mines closed. "Nobody has walked the path you're walking for 100 years," said MacLee, who uses old mining documents and high-tech safety equipment to find and explore forgotten holes, mostly in Utah. He also lends his expertise to searches for missing people. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) In this Aug. 14, 2018, photo, Jeremy MacLee walks through a mine near Eureka, Utah. Underneath the mountains and deserts of the U.S. West lie hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines. Still, not everyone wants to see the mines closed. "Nobody has walked the path you're walking for 100 years," said MacLee, who uses old mining documents and high-tech safety equipment to find and explore forgotten holes, mostly in Utah. He also lends his expertise to searches for missing people. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) In this Aug. 14, 2018, photo, Jeremy MacLee walks through a mine near Eureka, Utah. Underneath the mountains and deserts of the U.S. West lie hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines. Still, not everyone wants to see the mines closed. "Nobody has walked the path you're walking for 100 years," said MacLee, who uses old mining documents and high-tech safety equipment to find and explore forgotten holes, mostly in Utah. He also lends his expertise to searches for missing people. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) In this Aug. 26, 2018, photo, Jeremy MacLee explores a mine near Eureka, Utah. Underneath the mountains and deserts of the U.S. West lie hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines. Still, not everyone wants to see the mines closed. "Nobody has walked the path you're walking for 100 years," said MacLee, who uses old mining documents and high-tech safety equipment to find and explore forgotten holes, mostly in Utah. He also lends his expertise to searches for missing people. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) In this Aug. 14, 2018, photo, Jeremy MacLee looks at a timbers in a mine near Eureka, Utah. Underneath the mountains and deserts of the U.S. West lie hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines. Still, not everyone wants to see the mines closed. "Nobody has walked the path you're walking for 100 years," said MacLee, who uses old mining documents and high-tech safety equipment to find and explore forgotten holes, mostly in Utah. He also lends his expertise to searches for missing people. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) In this Aug. 14, 2018, photo, an explorer maneuvers around rocks in a mine near Eureka, Utah. A Utah agency is working to seal thousands of old mines across the state after people have died in rock falls and all-terrain-vehicle crashes and from poisonous air in the past few decades. Not everyone wants to see the mines closed. For years, a dedicated subculture of explorers has been slipping underground to see tunnels lined with sparkling quartz, century-old rail cars and caverns that open in the earth like buried ballrooms. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) This Aug. 28, 2018, photo shows a rail car at an abandoned mine in Hiawatha, Utah. Many mines are like a time capsule, complete with rail cars and tools, and lined with intricately shaped stones. In ghost towns like Hiawatha in eastern Utah, it's as if history is holding its breath. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) This Aug. 28, 2018, photo shows the entrance of an abandoned mine in Hiawatha, Utah. Underneath the mountains and deserts of the U.S. West lie hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines, an underground world that can hold both serious danger and unexpected wonder. Abandoned mines are a legacy of the region's prospecting past, when almost anyone could dig a mine and then walk away, with little cleanup required, when it stopped producing. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) BERLIN (AP) - A former nurse accused of killing 100 patients at two hospitals in Germany over a decade ago told a court as his trial opened Tuesday that the charges against him are largely accurate. Niels Hoegel, 41, is already serving a life sentence for murder. His trial in the northwestern city of Oldenburg began with a minute of silence for the patients. Asked by presiding judge Sebastian Buehrmann whether the charges against him are largely true, Hoegel replied "yes," news agency dpa reported. There are no formal pleas in the German legal system. The murder charges stem from Hoegel's time at a hospital in Oldenburg between 1999 and 2002 and at another hospital in nearby Delmenhorst from 2003 to 2005. The alleged victims were aged between 34 and 96. Hoegel was convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders. He said then that he intentionally brought about cardiac crises in some 90 patients in Delmenhorst because he enjoyed the feeling of being able to resuscitate them. He later told investigators that he also killed patients in Oldenburg. Authorities subsequently investigated hundreds of deaths, exhuming bodies of former patients. The defandant covers his face with a folder as he arrives at the temporay Oldenburg district court at the Weser Ems halls in Oldenburg, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. The nurse serving a life sentence for two murders is going on trial on charges that he killed a further 100 patients at two hospitals in Germany. (Julian Stratenschulte/dpa via AP, Pool) The Oldenburg state court is conducting the trial at a courtroom set up in a conference center, a venue chosen to accommodate a large number of co-plaintiffs and public interest in the proceedings. Judge Buehrmann opened the proceedings by asking everyone present to stand for a minute of silence for the deceased patients. "All of their relatives deserve that their memory be honored," independently of whether or not Hoegel had anything to do with their deaths, Buehrmann said. "We will make every effort to seek the truth." He promised Hoegel a fair trial. Hoegel told the court that he had a "protected" childhood, free of violence. He said his grandmother and his father, who were both nurses, had been his role models for going into the profession. An additional conviction could affect Hoegel's possibility of parole, but there are no consecutive sentences in Germany. In general, people serving life sentences are considered for parole after 15 years. "We have fought for four years for this trial and expect Hoegel to be convicted of another 100 killings," said Christian Marbach, a representative of the patients' relatives. "The aim is for Hoegel to stay in custody as long as possible." The trial is scheduled to last until May. Police have said that, if local health officials hadn't hesitated in alerting authorities, Hoegel could have been stopped earlier. Authorities are pursuing criminal cases against former staff at the two medical facilities. The defandant covers his face with a folder as he and his lawyer Ulrike Baumann, left, arrive at the temporay Oldenburg district court at the Weser Ems halls in Oldenburg, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. The nurse serving a life sentence for two murders is going on trial on charges that he killed a further 100 patients at two hospitals in Germany. (Julian Stratenschulte/dpa via AP, Pool) Police officers stay in front of the temporay Oldenburg district court at the Weser Ems halls in Oldenburg, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. A nurse serving a life sentence for two murders is going on trial on charges that he killed a further 100 patients at two hospitals in Germany. (Julian Stratenschulte/dpa via AP) The defandant covers his face with a folder as he arrives at the temporay Oldenburg district court at the Weser Ems halls in Oldenburg, Germany, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. The nurse serving a life sentence for two murders is going on trial on charges that he killed a further 100 patients at two hospitals in Germany. (Julian Stratenschulte/dpa via AP, Pool) ISTANBUL (AP) - The Turkish fiancee of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi has called on President Donald Trump and other leaders to ensure that his death in Istanbul is not covered up, while Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor on Tuesday visited the Saudi Consulate where officials from his government killed the writer. Speaking at a memorial in London on Monday, Hatice Cengiz expressed disappointment in the "leadership of many countries." Singling out Trump, she urged him to "help reveal the truth and ensure justice be served." "He should not pave the way for a cover-up of my fiance's murder. Let's not let money taint our conscience and compromise our values," she said. Cengiz also told the memorial that she wishes she had entered the consulate instead of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who had written critically of Saudi Arabia's crown prince. Khashoggi vanished after entering the consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 to pick up paperwork for his upcoming marriage with Cengiz, who was waiting for him outside. Turkey alleges a Saudi hit squad from Saudi Arabia traveled to Istanbul to kill the journalist and then tried to cover it up. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia changed its narrative about Khashoggi's killing several times, eventually admitting that Khashoggi died inside the consulate and only recently acknowledging that Turkish evidence shows his killing was premeditated. Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of the killed Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, reacts as she speaks during a memorial event for her fiancee at the Mechanical Engineers Institute in London, Monday Oct. 29, 2018. The Al Sharq Forum think tank and Middle East Monitor have organised the event in honour of the murdered journalist Khashoggi who died in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. (John Stillwell/PA via AP) In an interview with ABC News, Cengiz said Khashoggi had been worried about being spirited back to Saudi Arabia the first time he went to the consulate unannounced on Sept. 28, but was pleasantly surprised when he received a warm reception. "Naturally, after the first positive visit we had no reasons to think that there would be any sort of danger," Cengiz told ABC. "Our second visit was full of hope and it was the last step to our union." She said during the memorial: "If only I knew that would be the last time I would see my Jamal, his smile, hear his laughter, I would have stood in front of that murderous team myself." Cengiz last week declined an invitation by the White House, criticizing Trump's statements on Khashoggi's killing. Saudi Arabia's top prosecutor, Saud al-Mojeb, arrived at Istanbul's main courthouse Tuesday for more talks with Istanbul's chief public prosecutor, Irfan Fidan, on the investigation into the killing, Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency reported. The two had met for an hour and 15 minutes on Monday as part of an agreement between Riyadh and Ankara for cooperation over the investigation. Al-Mojeb then went to the consulate and left after spending a little over an hour there. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the investigation needs to be completed swiftly. "This needs to be solved now; there is no point in excuses," Erdogan told journalists. Erdogan said the prosecutor repeated to his Saudi counterpart Turkey's extradition request for 18 suspects detained in Saudi Arabia for the killing to be put on trial in Istanbul. Fidan asked al-Mojeb to reveal who sent this group, according to the president. The country is also asking Saudi Arabia to help locate Khashoggi's body, which still has not been found. Erdogan said Riyadh must disclose the identity of an alleged local collaborator said to have been involved in disposing Khashoggi's body. The U.N. human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, also urged Saudi Arabia to reveal the location of the writer's remains. In her strongest public comments yet on the subject, she said international experts should have complete access to evidence and witnesses. She added: "I urge the Saudi authorities to reveal the whereabouts of his body without further delay or prevarication." Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has said the kingdom will try the perpetrators and bring them to justice after the investigation is completed. __ Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Mehmet Guzel in Istanbul contributed. Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of the killed Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, reacts during a memorial event for her fiancee at the Mechanical Engineers Institute in London, Monday Oct. 29, 2018. The Al Sharq Forum think tank and Middle East Monitor have organised the event in honour of the murdered journalist Khashoggi who died in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. (John Stillwell/PA via AP) People attend a memorial event for killed Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, seen on screen, at the Mechanical Engineers Institute in London, Monday Oct. 29, 2018. The Al Sharq Forum think tank and Middle East Monitor have organised the event in honour of the murdered journalist Khashoggi who died in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. (John Stillwell/PA via AP) Hatice Cengiz, the fiancee of the killed Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, speaks during a memorial event for her fiancee at the Mechanical Engineers Institute in London, Monday Oct. 29, 2018. The Al Sharq Forum think tank and Middle East Monitor have organised the event in honour of the murdered journalist Khashoggi who died in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. (John Stillwell/PA via AP) BOSTON (AP) - U.S. colleges and universities have received more than $350 million from the Saudi government this decade, yet some are rethinking their arrangements in the wake of the killing of a journalist that has ignited a global uproar against the oil-rich nation. The Associated Press analyzed federal data and found that at least $354 million from the Saudi government or institutions it controls has flowed to 37 American schools since 2011. Much of the money was provided through a scholarship program that covers tuition for Saudis studying in the U.S., but at least $62 million came through contracts or gifts from the kingdom's nationally owned companies and research institutes, the AP found. Those benefiting the most from Saudi contracts include Northwestern University, which has received $14 million from a top Saudi research center since 2011, and the University of California, Los Angeles, which accepted $6 million from the same institute, known as the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's national oil company, Saudi Aramco, has channeled $20 million to American universities, including $9 million to Texas A&M University and $4 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A national chemical company known as SABIC steered another $8 million to U.S. schools. Although some of the contracts halted before last year, questions surrounding Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi's death at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul have spurred some schools to reconsider current or future deals. On Oct. 22, MIT announced it will undertake a "swift, thorough reassessment" of the institute's partnerships with Saudi Arabia, calling Khashoggi's disappearance a "grave concern." Richard Lester, an associate provost, said faculty who work with the kingdom can "make their own determinations as to the best path forward." In this March 24, 2018, photo, Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman tours an innovation gallery of Saudi Arabian technology, including an exhibit by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, during a visit to Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. While some U.S. colleges rethink their ties to Saudi Arabia, many more have shown no signs of backing away. An Associated Press analysis of federal data finds that 38 schools received at least $359 million from the Saudi government from 2011 through 2017. (Josh Reynolds/AP Images for KAUST) The institute pairs with Saudi universities on numerous research projects and has a long history working with Saudi Aramco. In March, the oil company pledged $25 million to MIT for research in areas including renewable energy and artificial intelligence. Officials at the Saudi Embassy in Washington could not immediately be reached for comment by telephone on Tuesday. At Babson College near Boston, which has received $2.5 million through a contract with the SABIC chemical company, officials told the AP they are "monitoring events closely and gathering input from our community regarding potential paths forward." The school's deal provides leadership training to Saudi business managers, and it joins several other research and training partnerships between Babson and Saudi universities. But many other schools have given no indications they're reconsidering ties. Officials at the University of California, Berkeley, said they are not reviewing their Saudi funding, which includes a $6 million contract to develop nanomaterials that can be used to support renewable energy. Spokesman Roqua Montez said the kingdom's support represents only a small fraction of the contracts and grants that go to campus researchers. Northwestern University refused to say whether any of its funding is under review. Spokesman Bob Rowley said only that the "vast majority" of the $14 million is for science grants but did not respond to further questions. Tufts University spokesman Patrick Collins said school officials are closely following the "deeply concerning news" but remain committed to global engagement. The school has received about $42 million from the Saudi government, including $2.9 million from Saudi Aramco, records show. Others, including the University of Michigan, did not provide details about their Saudi funding. The AP analysis examined data from the Education Department's Foreign Gift and Contracts Report, which details foreign funding to any U.S. university that received $250,000 or more in a given year. The self-reported data covers funding from 2011 through 2017. Besides money directly from the Saudi government or entities controlled by it, U.S. universities received a combined $140 million from private Saudi sources, universities and hospitals. Another $114 million could not be accounted for because schools did not report the specific source of the funding within Saudi Arabia. That included about $40 million at Johns Hopkins University and $28 million at Harvard University. Officials at Johns Hopkins and Harvard did not provide further details. The largest sums of money came through a Saudi scholarship program that sends thousands of students to U.S. schools every year. George Washington University received $73 million from the program, followed by George Mason University, with $63 million. Those schools said they won't refuse the scholarship money because it would force them to reject the students it covers. "Refusing payment would result in us denying an educational opportunity to otherwise qualified students. This would run counter to our mission of serving students," Michael Sandler, a spokesman for George Mason, said in a statement. The public school in Virginia hosts about 250 Saudi students through the program each fall and spring term. America's ties with Saudi Arabia have come under intense scrutiny in the wake of Khashoggi's killing in Turkey, which President Donald Trump called "the worst cover-up ever." Activists and some politicians have called on the U.S. and its industries to break with the nation, and some have. Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 Saudi suspects detained in Saudi Arabia for the Oct. 2 killing of Khashoggi, who had written critically of Saudi Arabia's crown prince in columns for The Washington Post. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has said the kingdom will try the perpetrators and bring them to justice after an investigation is completed. Three Washington lobbying firms recently canceled contracts hiring them to represent Saudi interests, and several other businesses have suspended work in the kingdom, including those owned by billionaire investor Richard Branson. More recently, the pressure to break ties has expanded to college campuses, including at the University of New Haven in Connecticut, which partners with a Saudi police college to provide a degree in security studies in Riyadh. Despite protests from a human rights group in New Haven, the university says it plans to continue the program. In a statement, the school said its work in the kingdom "is something we believe should be supported and fostered." The turmoil has rippled through campuses in other ways, too. At Columbia University, for example, officials recently canceled a planned lecture with Saudi artist Ahmed Mater. Columbia separately received a $1.1 million grant from the Saudi agriculture ministry in 2016, records show, but officials said the school has no further funding scheduled from the kingdom. In some ways, the ties between American colleges and the kingdom were created to ease tensions between the nations. The scholarship program was created in 2005 after leaders of both countries met to lighten the diplomatic strain following the Sept. 11 attacks. Since then, the program has sent tens of thousands of Saudis to study in the U.S. It reached its height in 2015, when more than 120,000 Saudis came to study in the U.S., but numbers have fallen sharply since 2016, when the kingdom scaled back the program amid a budget shortfall tied to falling oil prices. ___ Day reported from Washington. ___ Follow Collin Binkley on Twitter at https://twitter.com/cbinkley and Chad Day at http://twitter.com/ChadSDay COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - NATO's secretary general said Tuesday he is confident the Western military alliance and Russia "will act in a respectable way" as both hold training exercises in the same area off Norway's coast. "This is not a Cold War situation," Jens Stoltenberg said as he attended the Trident Juncture war games NATO is holding with around 50,000 personnel and a goal that is "purely to prevent, not to provoke." The alliance is conducting its largest military exercise since the end of the Cold War in central and eastern Norway, the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea until Nov. 7. Russia has said its navy plans to test missiles Nov. 1-3 in international waters off western Norway. Russia was briefed by NATO in advance and invited to monitor the exercises, but the West's military display angered Moscow, which thinks the alliance is behaving provocatively near its borders. The maneuvers that started Thursday come amid persistent tensions between NATO and Russia. "This is a necessary exercise" to "send a strong signal of unity," Stoltenberg told reporters as he visited the NATO maneuvers involving military personnel from all 29 NATO members, plus partners Finland and Sweden. There are 65 ships, 250 aircraft and 10,000 vehicles responding to a hypothetical scenario that involves restoring Norway's sovereignty after an attack by a "fictitious aggressor." Military action during the NATO led military exercise in Trondheim, Norway, Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018. The NATO exercises include some 3000 troops, 20 ships, several tanks, and about 50 aircraft, from various nations are taking part in the exercise. (Gorm Kallestad / NTB scanpix via AP) The U.S. Navy admiral commanding the war games said Russia has been monitoring the maneuvers with "curiosity," judging from recent regional movements of Russian troops in the air and at sea. He did not elaborate. "I have no issue with that as long as it doesn't interfere with what we do," Adm. James Foggo told reporters in Finland on Friday, adding that he expected Moscow to take a "professional" stance and to dispatch military observers. Hundreds of Finnish and Swedish air, infantry and naval troops were participating in Trident Juncture. The countries have been alarmed by neighboring Russia's substantially increased military maneuvers in the region during the past few years. The Russian Foreign Ministry told the Sweden and Finland last week that NATO's drill "fits within the policy of the United States toward making Europe less secure." In conjunction with Trident Juncture, the USS Harry S. Truman, a massive aircraft carrier, was leading a U.S. strike carrier group conducting air, surface and underwater exercises in the rough Arctic seas, Foggo said. It was the first time since the end of the Cold War that a U.S. aircraft carrier sailed so far above the Arctic Circle, he said. ___ Tanner reported from Tallinn, Estonia. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, left, and leader of the exercise James G. Foggo, pose together to take a selfie during a visit to the NATO-led military exercise in Trondheim, Norway, Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018. (Gorm Kallestad / NTB scanpix via AP) NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg visits the NATO-led military exercise Trident Juncture on Distinguished Visitors Day in Trondheim, Norway, Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018. (Gorm Kallestad/NTB Scanpix via AP) NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during the NATO-led military exercise Trident Juncture, in Trondheim, Norway, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. Stoltenberg says he is "confident" both Russia and NATO "will act in a respectable way" as both sides will be carrying drills in the same area in waters off Norway's coast. (Gorm Kallestad/NTB scanpix via AP) NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, center, visits the NATO-led military exercise Trident Juncture on Distinguished Visitors Day in Trondheim, Norway, Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018. (Gorm Kallestad/NTB Scanpix via AP) NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg poses for a photo, on the bridge of the Danish support ship HDMS Esbern Snare during his visit to the NATO exercise, in Trondheim, Norway, Monday Oct. 29. 2018. (Gorm Kallestad / NTB scanpix via AP) Commander of Standing NATO Maritime Group One, Anders Friis, left, talks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, on the Danish support ship HDMS Esbern Snare during his visit to the NATO exercise, in Trondheim, Norway, Monday Oct. 29. 2018. (Gorm Kallestad / NTB scanpix via AP) PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) - The American chief prosecutor of an international court investigating war crimes in Kosovo on Tuesday visited the country for the first time since he took the post. U.S. Specialist Prosecutor Jack Smith is expected to meet with international organizations, European Union and Kosovo justice ministry officials. Smith succeeded David Schwendiman in September as the chief prosecutor of the Hague-based Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor's Office. The court is tasked with investigating allegations made by the Council of Europe's 2011 report about war crimes committed by Kosovo independence fighters during and after the country's bloody 1998-1999 war for independence. The conflict ended with a 78-day NATO air campaign in June 1999, stopping a Serbian crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists. Kosovo's 2008 independence is recognized by more than 100 states but not by Serbia. Kosovo agreed to the court's establishment in 2015 following U.S. and European pressure. Justice Minister Abelard Tahiri assured Smith of his country's commitment to "comply with all the obligations." The court has yet to hear any cases. WASHINGTON (AP) - Thousands of U.S. troops to stop an "invasion" of migrants. Tent cities for asylum seekers. An end for the Constitution's guarantee of birthright citizenship. With his eyes squarely on next Tuesday's elections, President Donald Trump is rushing out hardline immigration declarations, promises and actions as he tries to mobilize supporters to retain Republican control of Congress. His own campaign in 2016 concentrated on border fears, and that's his final-week focus in the midterm fight. "This has nothing to do with elections," the president insists. But his timing is striking. Trump says he will send more than 5,000 military troops to the Mexican border to help defend against caravans of Central American migrants who are on foot hundreds of miles away. Tent cities would not resolve the massive U.S. backlog of asylum seekers. And most legal scholars say it would take a new constitutional amendment to alter the current one granting citizenship to anyone born in America. Still, Trump plunges ahead with daily alarms and proclamations about immigration in tweets, interviews and policy announcements in the days leading up to elections that Democrats hope will give them at least partial control of Congress. Trump and many top aides have long seen the immigration issue as the most effective rallying cry for his base of supporters. The president had been expected to make an announcement about new actions at the border on Tuesday, but that was scrapped so he could travel instead to Pittsburgh, where 11 people were massacred in a synagogue on Saturday. President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, to travel to Pittsburgh following last weekends shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Between the shootings, the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history, and the mail bomb scare targeting Democrats and a media organization, the caravan of migrants slowly trudging north had faded from front pages and cable TV. But with well-timed interviews on Fox and "Axios on HBO," Trump revived some of his hardest-line immigration ideas: - An executive order to revoke the right to citizenship for babies born to non-U.S. citizens on American soil. - And the prolonged detention of anyone coming across the U.S.-Mexico border, including those seeking asylum, in "tent cities" erected "all over the place." The administration on Monday also announced plans to deploy 5,200 active duty troops - double the 2,000 who are in Syria fighting the Islamic State group - to the border to help stave off the caravans. The main caravan, still in southern Mexico, was continuing to melt away - from the original 7,000 to about 4,000 - as a smaller group apparently hoped to join it. Trump insists his immigration moves have nothing to do with politics, even as he rails against the caravans at campaign rallies. "I've been saying this long before the election. I've been saying this before I ever thought of running for office. We have to have strong borders," Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham in an interview Monday. Critics weren't buying it. "They're playing all of us," said David W. Leopold, an immigration attorney and counsel to the immigration advocacy group America's Voice. "This is not about locking people up. This is not about birthright citizenship. This is about winning an election next week." Trump's citizenship proposal would inevitably spark a long-shot legal battle over whether the president can alter the long-accepted understanding that the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to any child born on U.S. soil, regardless of his parents' immigration status. Omar Jadwat, director of the Immigrants' Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, said the Constitution is very clear. "If you are born in the United States, you're a citizen," he said. He called it "outrageous that the president can think he can override constitutional guarantees by issuing an executive order, James Ho, a conservative Trump-appointed federal appeals court judge, wrote in 2006, before his appointment, that birthright citizenship "is protected no less for children of undocumented persons than for descendants of Mayflower passengers." Even House Speaker Paul Ryan, typically a supporter of Trump proposals, said on WVLK radio in Kentucky: "Well you obviously cannot do that. You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order." But Trump says he's been assured by his lawyers that the change could be made with "just with an executive order" - an argument he has been making since his early days as a candidate, when he dubbed birthright citizenship a "magnet for illegal immigration" and pledged to end it. "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States," he said in an Axios interview excerpt released Tuesday. Not so, according to a 2010 study from the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that supports immigration restrictions, that said at least 30 countries offered birthright citizenship. Vice President Mike Pence said the administration was "looking at action that would reconsider birthright citizenship." "We all know what the 14th Amendment says. We all cherish the language of the 14th Amendment. But the Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled on whether or not - whether the language of the 14th Amendment, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, applies specifically to the people who are in the country illegally," he said at a Politico event. The non-partisan Migration Policy Institute estimates that there are more than 4 million U.S.-born children under the age of 18 who have an unauthorized immigrant parent. A person familiar with the internal White House debate said the topic of birthright citizenship has come up inside the West Wing at various times - and not without some detractors. However, White House lawyers expect to work with the Justice Department to develop a legal justification for the action. The person was not authorized to discuss the policy debate so spoke on condition of anonymity. In Trump's Monday interview with Fox, he said the U.S. also plans to build tent cities to house migrants seeking asylum, who would be detained until their cases were completed. Right now, some asylum seekers, particularly families, are being released as their cases progress because there isn't enough detention space to house them. "We're going to put tents up all over the place," Trump said. "They're going to be very nice, and they're going to wait, and if they don't get asylum they get out." The country is facing a massive backlog of immigration cases - some 700,000 - and there are more and more families coming across the border from Central America - groups who cannot be simply returned over the border. But experts question the legality and practicality of what would amount to indefinite detention. The options are just two of many possibilities currently under discussion, including asylum law changes and simply barring members of the migrant caravans from entering the country using the same mechanism as the president's much-publicized travel ban for people from certain Muslim countries. Administration officials say decisions are unlikely until after the midterm elections, in part because of the synagogue shooting and pipe-bomb scare. But some supporters in Congress are rushing to cheer Trump on. GOP Rep. Steve King of Iowa, who has introduced legislation to end birthright citizenship, said Trump was deftly seizing on an issue that was sure to help in the midterms. "That ability to move on instinct without hesitation, that's why he's president," King said. ___ Associated Press Writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, California, and Deb Riechmann, Lisa Mascaro, Zeke Miller, Mark Sherman and Eileen Putman in Washington contributed. For AP's complete coverage of the U.S. midterm elections: http://apne.ws/APPolitics This Oct. 29, 2018 photo provided by the U.S. Air Force shows Airman 1st Class Trevor Pearce helping guide a military vehicle into the cargo compartment of a C-17 Globemaster III at Fort Knox, Kentucky. The aircrews provided strategic airlift to Headquarters Company, 89th Military Police Brigade, Task Force Griffin, which is deploying to the Southwest border region to support law enforcement agencies as they conduct coordinated efforts to secure the border. (Airman 1st Class Zoe M. Wockenfuss/U.S. Air Force via AP) FILE - In this March 23, 2016 photo, the Constitution is held by a member of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Donald Trump says he wants to order the end of the constitutional right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born in the United States. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2018, file photo, President Donald Trump pauses while speaking at a rally at Southern Illinois Airport in Murphysboro, Ill. Trump says he wants to order the end of the constitutional right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born in the United States. The president's comments to "Axios on HBO" come amid a renewed push for hardline immigration policies in the lead-up to the midterm elections. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) In this Oct. 27, 2018, photo, President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Southern Illinois Airport in Murphysboro, Ill. Eager to focus voters on immigration in the lead-up to the midterm elections, Trump on Oct. 29 escalated his threats against a migrant caravan trudging slowly toward the U.S. border as the Pentagon prepared to deploy thousands of U.S. troops to support the border patrol. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson) The Azerbaijani delegation led by foreign minister Elmar Mammadyarov has left for an official visit to Sofia, Bulgaria, Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry said. The delegation includes representatives of the Azerbaijani parliament, the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies. As part of the visit, the top diplomat will meet with high-ranking officials of Bulgaria, as well as the first meeting of strategic dialogue between Azerbaijan and Bulgaria will take place. PARKVILLE, Md. (AP) - Authorities say a man who was shot in the chest after striking an off-duty police officer with an SUV has died. A Baltimore County police statement Tuesday says 28-year-old Derrick Sellman of Baltimore died at a hospital; the officer was treated and released. Police say the officer was working security at a strip mall in Parkville, Maryland, Monday night when he got a report of an SUV being driven erratically. The officer stopped to speak to the driver, identified as Sellman, when police say Sellman accelerated, striking or dragging the officer and causing him to be hit by an oncoming car. Police say the officer fired at Sellman, who then crashed into another car. PEORIA, Ill. (AP) - Two bodies found in a river in central Illinois were identified as those of a Bradley professor and her husband, authorities announced Tuesday night. Peoria County Coroner Jamie Harwood said the bodies of Susan Brill de Ramirez and Antonio Ramirez Barron were recovered Tuesday from the Spoon River. The bodies, Harwood said, were found in the water and resting up against a river bank. The Peoria County Sheriff's Office began its search after charging the couple's 21-year-old son, Jose Ramirez, in their deaths. Crews focused on streams near the Henry County community of Annawan, where Ramirez told investigators he dumped the bodies from a bridge, Peoria County Sheriff Brian Asbell said. Ramirez was arrested Monday on first-degree murder charges after police said he confessed to killing his parents. Late Sunday, Asbell said a relative called authorities to the couple's home near Peoria, where deputies found blood and signs of a struggle. The couple, both 63, last reported to work Thursday at Bradley University in Peoria, where Brill de Ramirez was an English professor and Ramirez Barron worked in the school's information technology department. The search area was broad because Jose Ramirez was unfamiliar with the area about 40 miles (65 kilometers) northwest of his parents' home and couldn't give investigators an exact spot where he took the bodies, Asbell said. These undated photos released by the Peoria County Sheriff's Office show Susan Brill de Ramirez, left, and Antonio Ramirez Barron. A central Illinois sheriff says a search is underway for Brill de Ramirez, a Bradley University professor, and her husband who are missing after a possible violent struggle in their home. (Peoria County Sheriff's Office via AP) Peoria County Assistant State's Attorney Dave Kenny alleged Tuesday during a bond hearing that Ramirez told friends he was "sick of his parents" and killed them on Friday. Prosecutors alleged that Ramirez waited until his parents were sleeping and then went into their bedroom. He used pepper spray as a distraction and then stabbed his father in the stomach and neck, Kenny said. He stabbed his mother when she woke up, Kenny said. Ramirez then wrapped the bodies in a tarp and a tent, put them in his father's SUV and dumped them in a waterway. Judge Sean Donahue set bond for Ramirez at $3 million and a preliminary hearing date of Nov. 29. Matthew Roberts, 21, is charged with obstruction of justice and concealment of a homicidal death. Asbell said investigators didn't have evidence that Roberts was involved in the killings or dumping of the bodies, but believed he knew his friend, Ramirez, had done so. Court records on Tuesday didn't list defense attorneys for either Ramirez or Roberts. This Monday, Oct. 29, 2018, booking photo provided by the Peoria County Jail in Illinois shows Jose Ramirez, who was charged Monday with first-degree murder after he confessed to killing his parents, Susan Brill de Ramirez and Antonio Ramirez Barron, who have been missing since the weekend. (Peoria County Jail via AP) This Oct. 29, 2018, booking photo provided by the Peoria County Jail in Illinois shows Matthew Roberts, who is charged with obstruction and concealment of a homicidal death in the killings of Susan Brill de Ramirez and Antonio Ramirez Barron of Princeville, Ill. The couple's son, Jose Ramirez, has been charged with first-degree murder in their deaths. (Peoria County Jail via AP) WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump says he wants to order the end of the constitutional right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born in the United States. Section 1, which contains the Citizenship Clause, of the 14th Amendment guarantees that right for all children born in the U.S. A look at the 14th Amendment: WHAT CITIZENSHIP CLAUSE SAYS: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." The second sentence contains two of the most important clauses in the Constitution, the due process and equal protection clauses. They apply to everyone in the U.S., not just citizens: FILE - In this March 23, 2016 photo, the Constitution is held by a member of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Donald Trump says he wants to order the end of the constitutional right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born in the United States. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." __ HISTORY: The 14th Amendment was passed by Congress in 1866 after the Civil War and during the period of Reconstruction. The amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868 by three-fourths of the states. By extending citizenship to those born in the U.S., the amendment nullified an 1857 Supreme Court decision (Dred Scott v. Sandford), which had held that those descended from slaves could not be citizens. Dred Scott and his wife Harriet were slaves who sued for their freedom after they were taken from the slave state of Missouri to the non-slave territories of Wisconsin and Illinois where slavery had been prohibited by the Missouri Compromise. Scott argued that because he had lived in a free part of the country, he should be declared free. The Supreme Court disagreed on March 6, 1857, with Supreme Court Justice Roger Brooke Taney writing that slaves were property that could not be taken away from their owners. He reasoned that when the Constitution was framed, educated whites generally regarded "negroes" as "beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race." However, Scott's owner had died and his widow's new husband, an abolitionist, emancipated Scott and his family in May 1857. Scott lived the last year of his life as a free man. MADRID (AP) - The Spanish government announced Tuesday it will use legal means to prevent the remains of Gen. Francisco Franco from being reburied under Madrid's cathedral, a move that could undermine efforts to rid the country of the late dictator's long shadow. But in a sign of how sensitive the issue has become, the Spanish government and the Vatican issued conflicting statements on what's the best way to proceed after exhuming Franco's embalmed body from a self-aggrandizing mausoleum outside of the Spanish capital. Franco was interred upon his death in 1975 in a prominent space at the Valley of the Fallen, where the remains of some 34,000 fighters from both sides of the Spanish Civil War lie. Spain's center-left government decided earlier this year to exhume Franco's remains, but it has struggled to find an appropriate new burial place. The Socialist government is trying to persuade the Franco family to bury him in the El Pardo cemetery just outside of Madrid where his wife lies, but his nine grandchildren have agreed to receive the body only if he can be re-interred in a family sepulcher under central Madrid's Almudena Cathedral. The move has angered those who fear that the presence of Franco's remains could turn the Spanish capital into a pilgrimage destination for extreme right groups and others nostalgic for Franco's authoritarian rule. On Tuesday, Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said the Holy See's State Secretary, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, had agreed to prevent such an outcome during their Monday meeting in the Vatican. Calvo told reporters they had agreed to "jointly find a solution that obviously can't be the Almudena" cathedral, which belongs to the Madrid Archdiocese. A person walks by the Franco family burial space adorned with flowers in the Almudena Crypt, a cavernous late-19th century Catholic temple under Madrid's Almudena cathedral, in central Madrid, Spain, Thursday Oct. 25, 2018.Hundreds of protesters in Madrid are urging government and Catholic church authorities to prevent the remains of the country's 20th century dictator from ending in the city's cathedral. Spain's center-left government has promised to exhume this year Gen. Francisco Franco from a glorifying mausoleum, but the late dictator's heirs have defied the plans by proposing for his remains to be relocated to a family crypt under the cathedral. (AP Photo/Paul White) But the Holy See's press office later released a statement clarifying that while not opposing the exhumation of Franco, the cardinal had left it up for the Spanish government and Franco's heirs to agree to a reburial place. The Vatican said Parolin only expressed that he saw "appropriate" Calvo's "desire to explore other alternatives, also through dialogue with the family." It added that the cardinal "does not oppose the exhumation of Francisco Franco if competent authorities have decided in favor, but will at no time comment regarding the place of burial." Catholic Church authorities in Spain had previously said they couldn't oppose the heirs' desire because the burial space in the Almudena Crypt is owned by the family, which bought it from the church for 30,000 euros ($34,000) more than two decades ago. The government had also acknowledged that it couldn't stop the reburial, but on Tuesday Calvo suggested a new approach when she said the government would use the recently amended Historic Memory Law to "guarantee that Franco is not praised in any place of the Spanish territory." Calvo said the law will apply to the Almudena Cathedral. The church has also been under pressure from a small number of supporters of Franco's dictatorship, who have rallied support from far-right politicians to halt his removal from the Valley of the Fallen. During a recent interview with The Associated Press, the head of the foundation self-appointed to preserve the dictator's legacy warned that any intervention by Catholic hierarchy on the issue would be seen as "treason." Franco Foundation's Juan Chicharro said such efforts would be seen as "an attempt to humiliate somebody to whom the Catholic Church in Spain owes its own existence." MILAN (AP) - Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said Tuesday its third-quarter profits dropped nearly 40 percent due to a one-off charge to cover possible payments in a U.S. diesel probe involving SUVs and light-duty pickups. The Italian-American car company reported a net profit of 564 million euros ($641 million), compared with 910 million euros in the same period last year. The lower profits took into account a 700-million-euro charge to deal with any future settlement over alleged illegal emissions devices in 104,000 U.S.-built Ram pickups and Jeep Grand Cherokees from 2014-2016. It also covers the costs of a software update to bring the vehicles into compliance. The U.S. Justice Department sued Fiat Chrysler in May 2017 alleging that so-called "defeat device" software in the vehicles allowed them to emit fewer pollutants in lab tests than during normal driving. In the lawsuit, the government sought civil fines that could total over $4 billion, as well as court orders stopping the company from making or selling vehicles with undisclosed software. The company has denied deliberate cheating and said the charge was not an admission of liability. Settlement talks continue. Fiat Chrysler has said it would vigorously defend itself against claims and said the devices are legal to protect engines from damage. Excluding the charge, Fiat said its adjusted earnings before interest and taxes were a record 1.99 billion euros, while the profit margins in North America reached an all-time high of 10.2 percent, hitting double digits for the first time. The higher margins reflected the company's transition from building less profitable passenger cars to trucks and SUVs in its U.S. plants. Overall revenues rose 9 percent, to 28.7 billion euros, on higher combined shipments of 1.12 million vehicles, up from just over 1 million last year, including its joint venture in China. North American profits counted for the lion's share of earnings, while Asia Pacific and Europe posted losses. The company said it saw lower sales and increased competition in China. In Europe, lower sales of the Fiat brand and pricing pressure due to the transition to a new emission and fuel consumption testing regime took a toll, Fiat said. CEO Mike Manley said action had already been taken to address the weaknesses in China and Europe. He said the new chief operating officer for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Pietro Gorlier, was bringing a more disciplined approach to the region. "We expect to see positive developments in our brand and improved margins in the coming quarters, even if this comes at the shorter-term reduction in volumes," Manley said. Fiat Chrysler's luxury carmaker Maserati also slumped 87 percent to 15 million euros in the period on lower volumes. That was due largely to China, which is responsible for 50 percent of the brand's profits. Manley said the premium marquee brand was hurt by its alignment with Alfa Romeo, which made it appear like a mass market brand. "This is not a product issue, but a management and focus issue," he said, adding that they will be addressed by Maserati's new boss, Harald Wester "as we get into 2019." The earnings took into account higher contributions by components maker Magnetti Marelli, which Fiat Chrysler announced this month would be sold to Japanese car parts maker CK Holdings Co. Ltd for 6.2 billion euros. The deal is expected to close next year, with a portion of the proceeds going to an extraordinary dividend of 2 billion euros. That is in addition to the carmaker's first ordinary dividend of 20 percent of earnings to be paid next spring. "We feel we have a very loyal bunch of shareholders, and they haven't been remunerated in the past," Manley said, adding that the Magnetti Marelli sale significantly improves the carmaker's balance sheet. "We will for the first time be on level with our peers." ____ Tom Krisher contributed from Detroit. PITTSBURGH (AP) - The Latest on the first funerals from the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre (all times local): 4:45 p.m. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump have arrived in Pittsburgh to pay tribute to 11 people who were gunned down at a synagogue Saturday. It is an uneasy visit for the president. The Democratic governor of Pennsylvania and the Democratic mayor of Pittsburgh didn't want Trump to visit while people were mourning the victims' deaths. The shooting was the worst attack on Jews in the nation's history. The Trumps were joined Tuesday by his daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner. Mourners hug outside Rodef Shalom Congregation during the funeral services for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in Pittsburgh. The brothers were killed in the mass shooting Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) One of their stops will include laying white roses and a stone from the White House for each of the victims at a makeshift memorial outside the Tree of Life Synagogue. ___ 4:10 p.m. Pennsylvania is deferring at this time to federal authorities on the prosecution of the suspected Pittsburgh synagogue gunman. District Attorney Stephen Zappala Jr. had asked the U.S. Marshals Service Tuesday to relinquish custody of Robert Bowers so he could be arraigned on state charges filed last Saturday. But the request was denied. Zappala says it is "prudent" to let Bowers be prosecuted "at the federal level at this time." Federal prosecutors are seeking approval from Attorney General Jeff Sessions to pursue the death penalty. Bowers did not enter a plea in court Monday. ___ 2 p.m. More than 1,000 people have poured into one of Pittsburgh's largest synagogues to mourn the two intellectually disabled brothers who were killed in Saturday's massacre. Rabbi Jeffrey Myers says Cecil and David Rosenthal were the very definition of "beautiful souls" at their joint funeral Tuesday at Rodef Shalom. Myers also survived the attack and is officiating at five other victims' funerals. He says their absence will be deeply felt at Tree of Life, the Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 people were gunned down Saturday in the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. Their family asked for donations to be sent to Tree of Life or Achieva in lieu of flowers. Services for Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz were also being held Tuesday. ___ 12:30 p.m. Pennsylvania's governor and Pittsburgh's mayor both say they will not join President Donald Trump during his scheduled trip to Pittsburgh. Trump faces an uneasy welcome Tuesday afternoon in the anguished community of Squirrel Hill, home to the Tree of Life synagogue where 11 people were gunned down during Sabbath services on Saturday. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's campaign spokeswoman, Beth Melena, says the governor based his decision on input from the victims' families who told him they did not want the president to be there on the day their loved ones were being buried. Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto says he also won't greet Trump. Peduto earlier said the White House ought to consult with the families of the victims about their preferences and asked that the president not come during a funeral. ___ 11:35 a.m. Hundreds of mourners dressed mostly in black are lined up, ringing the perimeter of Pittsburgh's city's oldest and largest synagogue, Rodef Shalom, to pay respect for two intellectually disabled brothers who were gunned down on Saturday. A funeral was set to begin at noon Tuesday for Cecil and David Rosenthal, who were both in their 50s. They were among 11 people who died in the massacre inside the Tree of Life Synagogue. The mourners include Dr. Abe Friedman, who said the Rosenthal family is well known in Pittsburgh for their philanthropy and kindness. Friedman would sit in the back row of Tree of Life each week along with the brothers, and would have been killed along with them had he not run late Saturday. Services for Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz were also being held Tuesday. ___ 10:25 a.m. The casket of Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz has arrived at the Jewish Community Center in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood for the first of the funerals following the massacre that left 11 people dead at the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday. Rabinowitz' funeral was to begin at 11 a.m. Tuesday, and the funeral for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal at noon. All but one of the other funerals are scheduled through the rest of the week, ending on Friday. Gunman Robert Bowers is due back in federal court for a hearing Thursday. ___ 12:17 a.m. Two brothers who were killed in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting will be mourned at one of the first funerals to follow the massacre. Funerals are set Tuesday for Cecil and David Rosenthal and two of the other 11 victims, Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz and Daniel Stein. Other victims' funerals have been scheduled through Friday in a week of mourning, anguish and questions about the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump plan to visit Pittsburgh on Tuesday. The suspect in Saturday's massacre, Robert Gregory Bowers, appeared Monday in a federal court. He didn't enter a plea and was ordered held without bail for a court date Thursday. Authorities say the 46-year-old truck driver expressed hatred of Jews during and after the rampage. WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. consumer confidence rose again this month, hitting a new 18-year high. The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index climbed to 137.9 in October from 135.3 in September. Both readings are the highest since September 2000. The index measures consumers' assessment of current economic conditions and their outlook for the next six months. Both improved in October. "Consumers do not foresee the economy losing steam anytime soon," said Conference Board economist Lynn Franco. "Rather, they expect the strong pace of growth to carry over into early 2019." The share of respondents saying that jobs are "plentiful" rose this month to 45.9 percent, highest since January 2001. Consumers' spirits have been lifted by a strong labor market. Unemployment has dropped to 3.7 percent, lowest since 1969. The government reported Friday that consumer spending from July through September was the strongest in nearly four years. FILE- In this Sept. 27, 2018, file photo shoppers browse the items on display at the Amazon 4-star store in the Soho neighborhood of New York. On Tuesday, Oct. 30, the Conference Board releases its October index on U.S. consumer confidence. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File) In a research note, Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, called the October uptick in confidence "pretty impressive, given the wild swings in the stock market this month ... At the end of the day, it is the job market, or the security of having a job with a regular paycheck, that supports confidence and spending. So far, so good." Economists monitor confidence because consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic output. PITTSBURGH (AP) - Pittsburgh's Jewish community began burying its dead Tuesday after the synagogue massacre, holding funerals for a beloved family doctor, a pillar of the congregation, and two 50-something brothers known as the Rosenthal "boys." President Donald Trump, meanwhile, arrived in Pittsburgh to pay his respects and encountered hundreds of shouting, chanting protesters with signs such as "It's your fault" and "Words matter," a reference to allegations his bellicose language has emboldened bigots. Pennsylvania's governor and the mayor of Pittsburgh declined to join him during the visit. Earlier in the day, thousands of mourners jammed a synagogue, a Jewish community center and a third, undisclosed site for the first in a weeklong series of funerals for victims of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, Daniel Stein and Cecil and David Rosenthal were among 11 people killed in the shooting rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday. Robert Gregory Bowers, a 46-year-old truck driver who authorities say raged against Jews, was arrested on federal hate-crime charges that could bring the death penalty. With Tree of Life still cordoned off as a crime scene, more than 1,000 people poured into Rodef Shalom, one of the city's oldest and largest synagogues, to mourn the Rosenthal brothers, ages 59 and 54. The two intellectually disabled men were "beautiful souls" who had "not an ounce of hate in them - something we're terribly missing today," Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, a survivor of the massacre, said at their funeral. Students from the Yeshiva School in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, pay their respects as the funeral procession for Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz passes their school en route to Homewood Cemetery following a funeral service at the Jewish Community Center, Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018. Rabinowitz was one of people killed while worshipping at the Tree of Life synagogue on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) Myers, his voice quivering, told the Rosenthals' parents and other family members: "The entire world is sharing its grief with you, so you don't walk alone." The brothers were widely known as "the boys," the Rosenthals' sister, Diane Hirt, noted. "They were innocent like boys, not hardened like men," she said. She said Cecil - a gregarious man with a booming voice who was lightheartedly known as the mayor of Squirrel Hall and the "town crier" for the gossip he managed to gather - would have especially enjoyed the media attention this week, a thought that brought laughter from the congregation. Rabinowitz's funeral was held at the Jewish Community Center in the city's Squirrel Hill section, the historic Jewish neighborhood where the rampage took place. Two police vehicles were posted at a side door and two at the main entrance. A line stretched around the block as mourners - some in white medical coats, some wearing yarmulkes, black hats or head scarves - passed beneath the blue Romanesque arches into the brick building. The 66-year-old Rabinowitz was a go-to doctor for HIV patients in the epidemic's early and desperate days, a physician who always hugged his patients as they left his office. "A lot of people are feeling really angry about this. A lot of rage built up inside about this, because of it being a hate crime. Don't get me wrong; I do. But I'm so overwhelmed with sadness right now that I can't even be angry right now," said Robin Faulkner, whose family had seen Rabinowitz for 30 years and counted him as a dear friend. "It's just such a loss. Just tragic." A private funeral was also held for Stein, the 71-year-old men's club president at Tree of Life. The other victims' funerals have been scheduled through Friday. Trump and first lady Melania Trump landed in Pittsburgh after the day's services and lit candles at Tree of Life for the victims. Outside, they laid white roses as well as stones for each of the dead, a Jewish burial tradition. The president and first lady later went to a hospital to visit with survivors. They were joined by Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, as well as Myers, the Tree of Life rabbi, and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer. Hundreds of protesters gathered near the synagogue and the hospital. "He didn't pull the trigger, but his verbiage and actions don't help," said Squirrel Hill resident Paul Carberry, 55, wearing anti-Trump patches on his hat and jacket. Another Squirrel Hill resident, Shayna Marcus, who had hoped to catch the presidential motorcade with her young sons but just missed it, said the anger at Trump is misplaced. "I don't think focusing on Trump is the answer, or on politics," said Marcus, a 34-year-old nurse and Trump supporter. Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto had asked Trump not to come while the city was burying its dead. He and Gov. Tom Wolf, a fellow Democrat, said they would skip the president's visit. "Community leaders expressed to the governor that they did not feel it was appropriate for Trump to come, so the governor made a decision not to join him on his visit out of respect for the families and the community," said Beth Melena, Wolf's campaign spokeswoman. Among the mourners at the Rosenthal brothers' funeral was Dr. Abe Friedman, who typically sat in the back row of Tree of Life with the two men but was late to synagogue on Saturday and was not there when the gunman opened fire. As he stood in line at the funeral, Friedman wondered why he had been spared. "Why did things fall into place for me?" he asked. "I usually sit in the back row. In the last row, everyone got killed." ___ This story has been corrected to show that one of the funerals was held in a Jewish community center, not a synagogue. ___ Associated Press reporter Claudia Lauer reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press journalists Robert Bumsted, Adam Geller and Mark Scolforo in Pittsburgh and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed. Mourners hug outside Rodef Shalom Congregation during the funeral services for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in Pittsburgh. The brothers were killed in the mass shooting Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) A casket is carried out of Rodef Shalom Congregation after the funeral services for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in Pittsburgh. The brothers were killed in the mass shooting Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) A mourner reacts outside Rodef Shalom Congregation during the funeral services for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in Pittsburgh. The brothers were killed in the mass shooting Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Mourners gather outside Rodef Shalom Congregation before the funeral services for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in Pittsburgh. The brothers were killed in the mass shooting Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) A casket is carried out of Rodef Shalom Congregation after the funeral services for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in Pittsburgh. The brothers were killed in the mass shooting last week at the Tree of Life Synagogue. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Mourners hug outside Rodef Shalom Congregation during the funeral services for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in Pittsburgh. The brothers were killed in the mass shooting Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) A casket is carried out of Rodef Shalom Congregation after the funeral services for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in Pittsburgh. The brothers were killed in the mass shooting last week at the Tree of Life Synagogue. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Mourners gather outside Rodef Shalom Congregation during the funeral services for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in Pittsburgh. The brothers were killed in the mass shooting Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Mourners gather outside Rodef Shalom Congregation before the funeral services for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in Pittsburgh. The brothers were killed in the mass shooting Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Mourners gather outside Rodef Shalom Congregation during the funeral services for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in Pittsburgh. The brothers were killed in the mass shooting Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Mourners embrace after the hearse carrying the casket of Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, one of 11 people killed while worshipping at the Tree of Life synagogue on Saturday, arrives outside the Jewish Community Center in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) A mourner reacts outside Rodef Shalom Congregation before the funeral services for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in Pittsburgh. The brothers were killed in the mass shooting Saturday at the Tree of Life Synagogue. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Mourners arrive for the funeral of Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, one of 11 people killed while worshipping at the Tree of Life Synagogue last Saturday, at the Jewish Community Center in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018.(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) Mourners gather outside Rodef Shalom Congregation before the funeral services for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in Pittsburgh. The brothers were killed in the mass shooting Saturday at the Tree of Life Synagogue. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) HONG KONG (AP) - Louis Cha, a Hong Kong journalist and best-selling Chinese martial arts novelist, has died at age 94 after a long illness. The Hong Kong newspaper founded by Cha, Ming Pao Daily News, said he passed away Tuesday at a Hong Kong hospital. Cha's novels about ancient Chinese swordsmen have sold millions and are among the most widely read in the Chinese-speaking world. They inspired film adaptations, TV and radio dramas, comic books and videogames, and greatly influenced Hong Kong popular culture. They include "The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Saber," about a kindhearted hero who is indecisive but uses his kung fu skills to unify a divided gang and is elected its leader, and "The Eagle-Shooting Heroes," about a tragic hero who sacrifices his life in guarding the country against invading Mongolians. Cha was born in 1924 in Hangzhou in mainland China and graduated from the Law School of Suzhou in 1948, the South China Morning Post said. He had planned to become a diplomat, but began work as a journalist in 1947 to support his studies. The communist revolution in 1949 closed off his opportunities to enter diplomacy. Cha's first novel, "The Book and the Sword," was published in 1955 and became an instant hit. He went on to write 14 martial arts novels, often under the pen name Jin Yong. In this June 18, 2007, photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, Louis Cha smiles during a speech at Peking University in Beijing. Cha, a Hong Kong journalist and best-selling Chinese martial arts novelist, has died on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018 at a Hong Kong hospital at age 94 after a long illness. (Luo Xiaoguang/Xinhua via AP) PITTSBURGH (AP) - Sitting in the handicapped lane outside Tree of Life synagogue, Judah Samet watched as a plainclothes officer traded gunfire with the man at the temple door. He was caught in a crossfire and, yet, instead of ducking down, he craned his neck to get a glimpse of the gunman. "The guy was very focused," he said, pointing his finger like the barrel of a gun and mimicking the staccato clacking of semiautomatic fire. "I saw the smoke coming out of his (muzzle)." The 80-year-old Hungarian native had come face to face with evil once before, in a Nazi concentration camp. He had cheated death then, and on this Sabbath morning, he had a feeling that God was not finished with him just yet. When the shooting stopped Saturday, 11 people lay dead inside the bunker-like concrete synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood, the heart of the city's Jewish community. In the days since, many have expressed shock that a place that seemed so safe for 150 years could become the scene of the worst attack on Jews in the nation's history. But Samet is surprised that something like this hadn't happened sooner. "I didn't lose the faith in humanity," he said. "I know not to depend on humanity." In this Monday, Oct. 29, 2018 photo, Holocaust survivor Judah Samet, 80, sits in his living room in Pittsburgh. Samet survived the infamous Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as a boy, and he was in the parking lot at Tree of Life synagogue Saturday as a gunman rampaged through the halls, killing Samet's fellow congregants. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed) Samet was just 6 years old in the spring of 1944 when the Nazis came to his house around the noontime meals and told them to pack. They were given 15 minutes to be outside "with our valuables and one change of underwear." Sitting in his sunny apartment in a jade-green building a few blocks from the synagogue, the retired jeweler recalled the long march to the trains. "What bothered me most is that there were Hungarians walking both sides, to and fro on the sidewalks," he said, curling his mouth into a grimace and shaking his head. "Nobody paid attention. Nobody cared. They were as bad as the Nazis." At one point, he watched in horror as a Gestapo sergeant put a pistol to his mother's head - for daring to ask for better treatment for the weary travelers. She was spared only because she spoke fluent German, and the commander wanted to use her as an interpreter. They were supposed to be going to Auschwitz, but partisans had destroyed the rail lines. After several months of wandering, they arrived at Bergen-Belsen, the northern German camp where Anne Frank died. "First thing we saw at the gate, there were about almost two stories of corpses, lying on top of each other," he said. "They'd clear them away. Next day, again, they have the same." Weakened by starvation, the population was ravaged by disease. "People were actually lying down and dying," he said, "because they lost hope." Samet did not lie down. His father died of typhus two days after being liberated. But by some miracle, the rest of his family survived. After the war, Samet went to Israel, where he served as a paratrooper. He later relocated to Pittsburgh. He has been a member of the Tree of Life synagogue for 54 years. Samet tries to go to "shul" - a synagogue - every day, and prides himself on his punctuality. But on Saturday, he was running late. "My housekeeper kept me for four minutes," he said. He began pulling into the lot when somebody knocked on his window. In a gentle, hushed voice, the man said: "You can't go in the synagogue. There's a shooting going on." Samet tried to back out, but there were too many other cars trying to do the same. Suddenly, out the passenger window, he saw what he later realized was a detective. "He was shooting at the fellow," he said. "And the fellow was shooting back with a rapid fire. Da-da-da-da. Da-da-da-da." Samet would later be able to identify Robert Bowers to the FBI, so close was he to the action. Following his surrender, the wounded Bowers reportedly told officers he wanted to "kill all the Jews." In online posts, Bowers hurled Jewish slurs and raged at synagogues like Tree of Life for supporting refugees, calling them "hostile invaders." "I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered," Bowers allegedly posted online shortly before entering the synagogue. "Screw your optics, I'm going in." Like many, Lauren Bairnsfather thought Pittsburgh was immune from such violence. She's the director of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, located in Squirrel Hill. "I was shocked. But I also thought, 'Why not here?' It's happening everywhere. Why wouldn't it happen here?'" Bairnsfather said the center's mission is to show the relevance of the Holocaust today. Saturday's massacre was a "stark, concrete example" of how important that work is. "It's not just Jewish history," she said. "It's human history. And it's still happening obviously. It happened here." Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor Magda Brown, of Skokie, Illinois, was scheduled to speak at the Pittsburgh center Monday. As she watched news of the tragedy unfold, she turned to her daughter and said she wouldn't dream of canceling. "Now they need to hear our story even more," she said. "Let's go." Brown's speech to a large group of high school students also included a live webcast. On Brown's 17th birthday, she and her family were loaded on cattle cars and shipped to the dreaded camp, located in present-day Poland. Of an extended family of 70, only eight survived. The Hungarian woman, now a sprightly 91, believes that anti-Semitism never dies, it just goes "dormant," until a leader like Hitler comes along to reawaken it. But unlike Samet, she is counting on humanity. And that is why she shares her story. "I still believe there are more good people than bad," she said. "So I'm hoping that the good people are listening." Denmark has recalled its ambassador from Iran and called for fresh EU sanctions against Tehran after its security services accused Iranian intelligence service of plotting an assassination on Danish soil. The Danish intelligence chief, Finn Borch Andersen, said yesterday that the alleged murder plot had targeted the exiled leader of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA), a separatist group that has a history of carrying out attacks in Iran. "We are dealing with an Iranian intelligence agency planning an attack on Danish soil. Obviously, we cant and wont accept that," the Guardian cited Andersen as saying. A Norwegian national of Iranian background has been arrested in Sweden and since extradited to Denmark in connection with the foiled attack, according to officials. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi dismissed the allegation and said that the timing of the accusations was suspicious. "This is a continuation of enemies plots to damage Iranian relations with Europe at this critical time," Tasnim cited him as saying. LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - Nigeria's main Shiite Muslim movement says Nigerian troops shot and killed at least 27 of its members during a procession to the capital of Abuja. Islamic Movement of Nigeria spokesman Ibrahim Musa said six people were killed on Saturday and another 21 on Monday. Nigeria's military said it killed six people and that the Shiite protesters fired first at soldiers. Musa said Tuesday that many members were taking part in a religious procession, which coincided with a protest calling for the release of their movement's pro-Iran leader, Ibrahim Zakzaky. Zakzaky has been jailed since December 2015, when the military killed hundreds in a major attack on Shiites in the northern Nigerian city of Zaria. Nigerian Muslims are predominantly Sunnis. The Shiite Muslim minorities say they are suffer religious persecution. HOUSTON (AP) - A prisoner on Texas death row for dragging a black man to death behind a pickup truck more than two decades ago is one step closer to execution after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down his appeal. The high court on Monday denied without comment 43-year-old John William King's appeal. He claimed he had ineffective lawyers at trial. King was sentenced to death for the June 1998 slaying of James Byrd Jr., who prosecutors say was targeted because of his race. Byrd was chained to the back of the truck and dragged along a road outside Jasper in East Texas. One of two other white men convicted has been executed. The third is serving life. Former Jasper County Sheriff Billy Rowles tells KFDM-TV the case is "nearing an end." NILTEPEC, Mexico (AP) - The Latest on the caravan of migrants moving across southern Mexico (all times local): 11:05 a.m. More than 1,000 migrants in a second caravan that forced its way across the river from Guatemala have now begun arriving in the southern Mexico city of Tapachula. The first contingents began arriving to camp out in Tapachula's main plaza on Tuesday. Fifty-four-year-old Gerbert Hinestrosa of Santa Barbara in Honduras is traveling with his wife and teenage son. He says he realizes how hard it will be to make it to the U.S. border. He says that: "Right now I feel good." And he adds: "We have barely started, but I think it is going to be very difficult." Honduran migrant Geovany Pajuense takes a break from walking to Tapachula from Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. He is part of a second caravan of more than 1,000 that forced its way across the river from Guatemala on Monday. Some have begun arriving in the southern Mexico city of Tapachula. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) The first, larger caravan also passed through Tapachula about 10 days ago, and now is about 250 miles (400 kilometers) ahead, in the Oaxaca state city of Juchitan. ___ 9:45 a.m. A caravan of thousands of migrants is continuing its slow advance, setting off through Mexico's narrow, windy isthmus for the Oaxaca state city of Juchitan, which was devastated by an earthquake in September last year. Migrants along the highway on Tuesday have been stuffing themselves into truck beds and sprinting alongside semi-trailer rigs, trying to grab hold and pull themselves up. Twenty-three-year-old Levin Guillen of Corinto in Honduras said he's been getting threats from the same people who killed his father 18 years ago, and he hopes to reach an aunt who lives in Los Angeles. The farmer says he wants a chance to work and live in peace. In his words, "We just want to a way to get to our final goal, which is the border." When told that U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered 5,200 troops to the border, he replied: "According to what they say, we are not going to be very welcome at the border, but we're going to try." Honduran migrants take a break from walking in Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. The migrants are part of a second caravan of more than 1,000 that forced its way across the river from Guatemala. Some have begun arriving in the southern Mexico city of Tapachula. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) Migrants line up to receive food handouts in front of the backside of a church heavily damaged in a Sept. 7, 2017 earthquake, as a thousands-strong caravan of Central Americans hoping to reach the U.S. border stops for the night in Niltepec, Oaxaca state, Mexico, Monday, Oct. 29, 2018. As the caravan resumed its slow advance Monday, still at least 1000 miles or farther from the U.S., the Pentagon announced it would send 5,200 active-duty troops to "harden" the border. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell) UPPER MARLBORO, Md. (AP) - A police officer who mistakenly shot and killed an undercover detective has testified that he thought he was firing at a gunman who opened fire on a Maryland police station. Taylor Krauss's testimony on Monday marks his first public account of his shooting of his colleague Jacai Colson, who had worked with him in the same police unit, sitting at an adjoining desk. Michael Ford is charged with murder in the March 2016 shooting death of the Prince George's County police detective, who responded in plain clothes to the attack on the station. Ford fired up to 23 shots but didn't hit anyone as his two brothers recorded him on their cellphones, in what his lawyer calls a failed attempt to provoke police into killing him. Colson was black, like the suspects, and Krauss is white. Colson's family says in a civil suit that he was carrying his badge and screaming, "Police, police!" But The Washington Post reports Krauss said he never saw Colson hold up a badge or heard him identify himself as a police officer before shooting him once in the chest. "Had I known it was a police officer, I never would have taken a shot," Krauss said. "I believed he was a shooter." Prosecutors argue Ford is legally responsible for Colson's death even though he didn't fire the fatal shot. Ford's attorney, Antoini Jones, told jurors last week at the start of the trial that his client didn't intend to harm anybody else. One of the videos recorded by the brothers shows Ford screaming obscenities and shouting, "Do something!" in between shots. A police detective testified in 2016 that Ford's brothers agreed to record the shooting so the video could be sent to WorldstarHipHop.com, a website known for posting users' violent videos. Prince George's County State's Attorney Angela Alsobrooks has said the cellphone videos were an attempt to gain fame. Ford is charged with second-degree murder, attempted murder, assault and other offenses. His two younger brothers, Malik and Elijah, pleaded guilty to related charges and await their sentencings. A grand jury declined to indict Krauss on any charges related to Colson's shooting. Colson, a four-year veteran of the department, drove up to the station, exited his vehicle and exchanged gunfire with Ford before the other officer shot him, police said. Krauss, 37, said he had "tunnel vision" when he saw the man he thought was opening fire on the station, then became panicked and upset when he realized he had shot a fellow officer. Krauss said he heard instructions through the police radio after Colson was shot: "Stop shooting toward the community center," the voice said. "That's a police officer." Colson's parents sued Krauss and Prince George's County over their son's killing. Their wrongful death lawsuit says Krauss recklessly fired a rifle despite "visual obstructions." Krauss shot twice through a wooden privacy fence before firing the shot that killed Colson, shooting from behind a wall at a distance of approximately 95 yards (85 meters), the family's suit says. Jones told jurors that evidence will show Colson didn't match the gunman's description, apart from their race, and was shot "because he was black." ___ Information from: The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com NEW DELHI (AP) - The Latest on Indian couple that fell to their deaths at Yosemite National Park (all times local): 9:30 p.m. A Northern California machinist and his girlfriend say the pink-haired woman who fell to her death in Yosemite National Park accidentally appears in two of their selfie photos taken shortly before the 30-year-old woman and her husband plummeted from a popular overlook. Sean Matteson said Meenakshi Moorthy and her pink hair stood out from the crowd enjoying the sunset atop Taft Point last week. He said the woman made him a little nervous because he felt she was standing too close to the edge. But he said she appeared comfortable. Park rangers recovered the bodies of Moorthy and 29-year-old Vishnu Viswanath on Thursday about 800 feet (245 meters) below Taft Point. Matteson said Moorthy's pink-haired visage appears in the corner of two photos he snapped of himself and his girlfriend Drea Rose Laguillo. He said Laguillo noticed the photos on Monday after photos of the two victims were published. In this Oct. 21, 2018 photo provided by Sean Matteson, Matteson poses for a selfie with his girlfriend Drea Rose Laguillo, in Yosemite National Park, Calif. The couple said Meenakshi Moorthy, seen in background at left, the pink-haired woman who fell to her death in Yosemite Park accidentally appeared in two of their selfie photos taken shortly before the 30-year-old old fell from a popular overlook. Park rangers recovered the bodies of Moorthy and Vishnu Viswanath on Thursday, Oct. 25. (Sean Matteson via AP) Matteson said he doesn't recall noticing Viswanath. ___ 12 p.m. Two people who fell to their deaths from a popular overlook at Yosemite National Park in the western U.S. were an Indian couple who studied engineering together. Dr. Nisha Kuruvilla, a professor at the College of Engineering, Chengannur in Alapuzha district in Kerala state, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that 29-year-old Vishnu Viswanath and 30-year-old Meekakshi Moorthy were her students and had married at a Hindu temple in Kerala four years ago. Kuruvilla described them as "very good students" and "fond of traveling." Park rangers recovered their bodies Thursday from about 800 feet (245 meters) below Taft Point, a vertigo-inducing granite ledge that doesn't have a railing. Yosemite spokeswoman Jamie Richards said in a statement that park officials were investigating the deaths and that could take several days. PITTSBURGH (AP) - One stone and one white rosebud for each victim. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump paid homage Tuesday to each of the 11 people slain in the worst instance of anti-Semitic violence in American history. As the Trumps placed their tributes outside the Tree of Life synagogue, protesters nearby shouted that the president was not welcome. The emotional, dissonant scene reflected the increasingly divided nation that Trump leads, one gripped by a week of political violence and hate and hurtling toward contentious midterm elections that could alter the path of a presidency. On their arrival in Pittsburgh, the Trumps entered the vestibule of the synagogue, where they lit candles for each victim before stepping outside. Shouts of "Words matter!" and "Trump, go home!" could be heard from demonstrators gathered not far from where a gunman had opened fire on Saturday. Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who had been conducting services when the shots rang out, gestured at the white Star of David posted for each victim. At each, the president placed a stone, a Jewish burial tradition, while the first lady added a flower. They were trailed by first daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, who are Jewish. Near the synagogue, flowers, candles and chalk drawings filled the corner, including a small rock painted with the number "6,000,011," adding the victims this week to the estimated number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. First lady Melania Trump, accompanied by President Donald Trump, and Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, right, puts down a white flower at a memorial for those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) The Trumps later spent more than an hour at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where some of the victims are recovering. The couple's motorcade passed several hundred protesters on the street and a sign that said "It's your fault." Inside, Trump visited with wounded police officers and spent an hour with the widow of victim Dr. Richard Gottfried, according to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Trump stepped into the role of national consoler, a title he wears uncomfortably, with his visit to the Squirrel Hill neighborhood. More at home waging partisan warfare than assuaging America's grief, Trump has shied away from public displays of unity in the wake of other tragedies. Sanders said Trump did not speak publicly Tuesday to denounce anti-Semitism because he has spoken about it before. "He wanted today to be about showing respect for the families and the friends of the victims as well as for Jewish Americans," Sanders said. Questions have long swirled about the president's credibility as a unifier. Since his 2016 Republican campaign for the White House, Trump has at times been slow to denounce white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other hate-filled individuals and groups that found common cause with his nationalistic political rhetoric. Trump traveled to the historic hub of the city's Jewish community as the first funerals were held for the victims, who range in age from 54 to 97. The dead include a set of brothers, a husband and wife, professors, dentists and a physician. Hundreds of protesters assembled to show their displeasure with Trump's presence, some carrying signs that said "Hate has No Home in Squirrel Hill" and "Trump Loves Nazis." Squirrel Hill resident Paul Carberry said Trump should not have visited until the dead were buried. "He didn't pull the trigger, but his verbiage and actions don't help," Carberry said. But Shayna Marcus, a nurse who rushed to the synagogue on Saturday to help with the wounded, said she felt that the president was taking an unfair portion of the blame. "I don't think focusing on Trump is the answer - or on politics," said Marcus, whose four yarmulke-wearing boys carried signs in support of the president. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, back in Washington, told reporters: "If people are there to protest, that's their right. For the president, it was not a moment for politics." When Air Force One touched down at the airport outside Pittsburgh, the Trumps were not greeted by the usual phalanx of local officials that typically welcomes a visiting president, a reflection of controversy surrounding the visit. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, a Democrat, told reporters before the visit was announced that the White House ought to consult with the families of the victims about their preferences and asked that the president not come during a funeral. Neither he nor Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf appeared with Trump. Beth Melena, campaign spokeswoman for Wolf, said the governor based his decision to stay away on input from the victims' families, who told him they did not want the president to be there on the day their loved ones were being buried. As Trump's motorcade wound through downtown Pittsburgh, some onlookers saluted the president with upraised middle fingers and others with downturned thumbs. The White House had invited the top four congressional leaders to join Trump in Pennsylvania, but none accompanied him. A spokesman for Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he already had events in his home state of Kentucky, pushing back on the suggestion that he declined. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan's office said he could not attend on short notice. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also opted not to participate. ___ Lemire reported from New York. Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed and Maryclaire Dale in Pittsburgh and Jill Colvin in Washington contributed to this report. ___ For AP's complete coverage of the Pittsburgh synagogue shootings: https://apnews.com/Pittsburghsynagoguemassacre President Donald Trump, accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, left, and Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, right, places a stone from the White House at a memorial for those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Stones and white flowers, left by President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, are visible as they visit a memorial for those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) From left, President Donald Trump, accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, and Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, puts down a stone from the White House at a memorial for those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner visit a memorial outside Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018.The Trumps came to Pittsburgh to honor the victims of a mass shooting at the synagogue last week. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) First lady Melania Trump, accompanied by President Donald Trump, puts down a white flower at a memorial for those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump visit a memorial outside Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018.The Trumps came to Pittsburgh to honor the victims of a mass shooting at the synagogue last week. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) President Donald Trump, accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, puts down a stone from the White House at a memorial for those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin walks past a memorial outside for those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk past a memorial outside Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Jared Kushner, center, and Ivanka Trump, left, greet Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, right, as they arrive with President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump outside Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Ivanka Trump, the daughter of President Donald Trump, kneels at a memorial outside for those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Members of the crowd hold up signs as President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump visit the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Protesters demonstrate near Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue where President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump were visiting a memorial in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. The Trumps came to Pittsburgh to honor the victims of a mass shooting at the synagogue last week. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Protesters demonstrate near Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue where President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump were visiting a memorial in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. The Trumps came to Pittsburgh to honor the victims of a mass shooting at the synagogue last week. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Protesters stand down the street from the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, as President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump along with Ivanka Trump, the daughter of President Donald Trump, and President Donald Trump's White House senior adviser Jared Kushner visit following Saturday's shooting at the synagogue. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) A man holds a sign outside the University of Pittsburgh's Presbyterian Hospital before the arrival of President Donald Trump's motorcade in Pittsburgh, Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018. President Trump is paying a visit to the people who were wounded Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018, when a gunman interrupted worship services at the Tree of Life Synagogue, killing 11, and wounding six. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) ATLANTA (AP) - In a story Oct. 30 about concerns over mailed ballots being rejected by election officials for various reasons, The Associated Press reported erroneously where a New Hampshire woman dropped off her absentee ballot. It was at her town clerk's office, not her county office. A corrected version of the story is below: Rejection of mail-in ballots raises alarm ahead of election Mailed-in ballots provide convenience and are intended to boost turnout, but it's also easy for voters who use them to miss a step By CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) - Drawing on her years of military experience, Maureen Heard was careful to follow all the rules when she filled out an absentee ballot in 2016. She read the instructions thoroughly, signed where she was supposed to, put the ballot in its envelope and dropped it off at the clerk's office in her New Hampshire town. She then left so she could return to a temporary federal work assignment in Washington, D.C. "I have learned over the years, many years in the military of filling out forms, how to fill out forms - and I was very intimidated by the process," said Heard, who served in the Air Force and was a lieutenant in the U.S. Coast Guard. "I was like, 'Oh my gosh, I have to make sure I get it absolutely right.' And then it didn't count." Heard, 57, discovered last year that she was among roughly 319,000 voters across the country whose absentee ballots were rejected during the last presidential election. The reasons varied, ranging from missed deadlines to failure to sign the return envelope. Heard's ballot was tossed out because her signature did not match the one on file at her local election office. More people than ever are returning their ballots by mail or dropping them off at a local election location rather than voting in a booth on Election Day. Those developments make it easier to cast ballots and are designed to boost turnout. The trend also is raising concerns about whether voters can be assured their ballots will count or be notified in time if there is a problem. Voting rights activists want to ensure that voters are given a reasonable chance to fix any problems. Earlier this month, the ACLU and other groups filed lawsuits in Georgia after an Atlanta-area county reported a comparatively high rate of rejected absentee ballots during the start of early voting. Those actions followed similar lawsuits in New Hampshire and California. "It's hard to see what is missing," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, which advocated for changes to California law. "People are all focused on what is the vote count. They are not focused on what ballots weren't counted." Nearly one of every four ballots cast in 2016 came through the mail or was handed in at a drop-off location, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. The commission's data show that 99 percent of completed absentee and mailed ballots are eventually counted. Election officials use signature matching to verify a person's identity, but advocates say many election offices lack training and standards. Matching signatures is particularly fraught because a person's handwriting can change over time and be affected by age or disability. In August, a federal judge ruled that New Hampshire's signature-matching process was "fundamentally flawed" because voters are not given notice if it's the reason a ballot was rejected. She also said the election office workers inspecting the signatures did not receive training in handwriting analysis or signature comparisons. "For the most part, signature variations are of little consequence in a person's life," U.S. District Judge Landya McCafferty wrote. "But in the context of absentee voting, these variations become profoundly consequential." A judge in California sided with the ACLU in a similar lawsuit in March. Last month, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law the "Every Vote Counts Act," which requires local election officials to notify voters of mismatched signatures at least eight days before election results become certified. Voters then have several days to resolve the issue. In Georgia, the ballot rejections in Gwinnett County were running well ahead of the other large counties ringing Atlanta. Gwinnett County had rejected 9.6 percent of all absentee mail ballots as of Oct. 12, while DeKalb County had rejected 1.9 percent and Fulton County had rejected none, according to court filings. Candice Broce, spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office, said state officials were aware of the concerns and opened an investigation. Georgia law requires voters to be told "promptly" of a problem, but does not specify a time period. In Gwinnett County, this means sending a voter notice in the mail within three days, according to county officials. Voters who are notified of a problem can request a new ballot or vote in person, but the law does not provide time after the election to resolve the problems. That potentially affects voters who drop off their ballots on or near Election Day. A federal judge ruled last week that Georgia election officials cannot reject ballots for a signature mismatch without providing voters an opportunity to verify their identity; they would have almost a week to do so under the ruling. The state plans to appeal. "We're not attacking signature-matching as a way to do something, as a tool for confirming identity," said Sophia Lakin, a staff attorney with the ACLU. "We are concerned about making sure that it's not something that prevents someone from voting. It all depends on how it's being implemented." Three states - Colorado, Oregon and Washington - send ballots in the mail to all registered voters. Oregon allows voters 14 days after an election to resolve a signature mismatch and provides training to local election officials about how to verify signatures. Part of the training includes an acknowledgement that signatures can change over time, said Nancy Blankenship, clerk of Deschutes County in Bend, Oregon. Any time voters correspond with her office, their signatures are added to their file so election workers have a history of signatures to use for comparison. ___ Associated Press writer Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report. ___ Follow Christina Almeida Cassidy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AP_Christina PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - He's a Democrat, a liberal senator who wants to make Medicare available for all Americans, has pushed bills to stem climate change and is a sharp critic of President Donald Trump. And he's seriously considering a run for the White House. It's not Vermont's Bernie Sanders. It's Jeff Merkley, a senator from Oregon whose national profile rose this year when he led opposition to the Trump administration's immigration policy that saw parents forcibly separated from their children. Merkley, in trying to gauge voter interest in a run for the presidency, has already visited Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, states that have early primaries and caucuses in the presidential sweepstakes. He didn't have much name recognition nationally until last June, when he tried to enter a federal facility in Texas where immigrant children were being held. An aide videotaped the scene as he was refused entry and police were called. The video quickly went viral with over 1 million views in a day, and was repeated in newscasts across the country. In October, Merkley introduced legislation to prevent the Trump administration from forcing asylum seekers into internment camps. "It's just a simple question of human decency and justice," Merkley said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We're a nation of immigrants. The vast bulk of us have, somewhere in our ancestry, people who fled religious persecution, or famine, or war." Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., speaks during a rally in Portland, Ore., Oct. 17, 2018. Merkley, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, is seriously considering a run for the White House. (AP Photo/Don Ryan) Merkley said immigrants fleeing persecution were being treated as criminals and are being traumatized. He described the forced separation of children from their parents as "an obscenely dark and evil act." The administration says the crackdown is necessary to stop illegal immigration. In his trips to other states Merkley has spoken with people "in their living rooms, their porches their backyards, nearby parks." "You get together with a bunch of people and you talk about the state of the world," he explained. He discussed with them issues he has led on, including ending predatory home mortgages; battling "climate chaos" - as he calls climate change; fighting for equality for the LGBT community; and opposing trade agreements that ship Americans' jobs overseas. "The feedback's been very positive," Merkley said, though a beat later he added that maybe the people were just being polite. His father was a millwright maintaining machines in a plywood mill and in the forest then did other jobs. Merkley lives in a one-story house in the same blue-collar neighborhood of Portland where he grew up, giving him a humble Jimmy Carter quality. Carter lives in the same house in Plains, Georgia, he built in 1961. He too was a little-known Democrat on the national stage before being elected president in 1976. Merkley, 62, attributed his success to "serendipity." "If I lived a thousand lifetimes I would probably never have been in the U.S. Senate," he said. As a kid, Merkley excelled in math and science. He applied for college at almost the last minute, being unfamiliar with the process, and was accepted at Stanford and Yale. He chose Stanford for the financial aid. He was shocked to learn that all the other students in his dorm had visited the campus before. It had never occurred to his family to do so, and they lacked the money anyway. "It was a stressful couple of years (but) I wanted to prove that the blue-collar kid could keep up with the kids from prep schools, so I had to work a little harder," he said. His first exposure to national politics began when he interned in Washington, D.C., for Sen. Mark Hatfield, a moderate Republican. He was elected to the Oregon Legislature and then won Hatfield's former Senate seat, in 2008, narrowly defeating the Republican incumbent. He handily won re-election six years later. Merkley is busy these days boosting, with appearances and donations, 18 Democratic candidates in key states via his Blue Wave political action committee. He's also hiring field staff in states like Iowa and New Hampshire to back some of those candidates, workers who could assist in laying the groundwork for his presidential run. If he decides to run, Merkley must find a niche in a potentially crowded field, said Travis Ridout, a professor of government and public policy at Washington State University. The key is finding appeal from at least one segment of the party, whether liberal progressives, racial and ethnic minorities, labor unions or others, Ridout said. "Trying to distinguish yourself with so many potential candidates is a difficult task," Ridout said. However, Democrats seem to be looking for someone new who they feel can win, a potential plus for Merkley, Ridout said. Merkley has been compared to Sanders, who lost the Democratic nomination in 2016 to Hillary Clinton. Politico Magazine said Merkley, the only senator to endorse Sanders in 2016, "could inherit Bernie Sanders' progressive mantle in 2020." Sanders' supporters complained that the party machinery was skewed against his candidacy, but Merkley believes the machinery isn't going to be that important in 2018. "I think it's going to be people in these states who get excited about one candidate or another," Merkley said. "And you know, some kind of magic happens along the way, but you don't really know how that's going to unfold." Merkley said he'll decide whether to run after next week's midterm election. ___ Follow Andrew Selsky on Twitter at https://twitter.com/andrewselsky Sen Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., is shown during an interview in his office in Portland, Ore., Sept. 7, 2018. Merkley, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, is seriously considering a run for the White House. (AP Photo/Andrew Selskey) Sen Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., poses for a photo in his office in Portland, Ore., Sept. 7, 2018. Merkley, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, is seriously considering a run for the White House. (AP Photo/Andrew Selskey) Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., speaks during a rally in Portland, Ore., Oct. 17, 2018. Merkley, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, is seriously considering a run for the White House. (AP Photo/Don Ryan) Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., speaks during a rally in Portland, Ore., Oct. 17, 2018. Merkley, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, is seriously considering a run for the White House. (AP Photo/Don Ryan) FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2018 file photo Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., talks with reporters about the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill, in Washington. Merkley, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, is seriously considering a run for the White House (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) DETROIT (AP) - Jurors say they don't believe they can reach a verdict in the murder trial of a former Michigan trooper who shot his Taser at a Detroit teen before the boy crashed an all-terrain vehicle and died. But Wayne County Judge Margaret Van Houten told jurors to eat lunch, clear their heads and return to court to resume deliberations Tuesday. She urged them to talk "in a spirit of fairness and frankness." Mark Bessner is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Damon (Da-MAHN') Grimes on a Detroit street in August 2017. Bessner shot Grimes with a Taser and the 15-year-old crashed his ATV. Bessner says he believed the boy was armed, although he was wrong. The jury also could choose the lesser offense of involuntary manslaughter. Deliberations began Monday. Former Michigan State Police trooper Mark Bessner testifies, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018 at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice in Detroit. Bessner whose use of a Taser preceded the death of a 15-year-old Detroit boy says he "absolutely" believed the teen was armed and was "shocked" to learn there was no gun. . (John T. Greilick/Detroit News via AP) BOSTON (AP) - James "Whitey" Bulger, the murderous Boston gangster who benefited from a corrupt relationship with the FBI before spending 16 years as one of America's most wanted men, was slain in federal prison. He was 89. Bulger was found unresponsive Tuesday morning at the U.S. penitentiary in West Virginia where he'd just been transferred, and a medical examiner declared him dead shortly afterward, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Authorities did not immediately release a cause of death, but Justin Tarovisky, a prison union official, told The Associated Press it was being investigated as a homicide. Bulger, the model for Jack Nicholson's ruthless crime boss in the 2006 Martin Scorsese movie, "The Departed," led a largely Irish mob that ran loan-sharking, gambling and drug rackets. He also was an FBI informant who ratted on the New England mob, his gang's main rival, in an era when bringing down the Mafia was a top national priority for the FBI. Bulger's rap sheet started as a juvenile, and he spent three years in Alcatraz, the infamous island prison off San Francisco. Bulger fled Boston in late 1994 after his FBI handler, John Connolly Jr., warned him he was about to be indicted. With a $2 million reward on his head, Bulger became one of the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" criminals, with a place just below Osama bin Laden. There was no love lost for Bulger on the Boston streets he once ruled. FILE - This June 23, 2011, file booking photo provided by the U.S. Marshals Service shows James "Whitey" Bulger. Bulger died in federal custody after being sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons say he died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (U.S. Marshals Service via AP, File) Patricia Donahue's husband, Michael, was killed in 1982 when he offered a ride home to a man allegedly targeted for death by Bulger because he was talking to the FBI. "I'd like to open up a champagne bottle and celebrate," she told WBZ-TV on Tuesday. Tom Duffy, a retired state police detective who searched for Bulger and was a consultant on "The Departed," called word of Bulger's death "celebratory news." When the extent of his crimes and the FBI's role in overlooking them became public in the late 1990s, Bulger became a source of embarrassment for the FBI. During the years he was a fugitive, the FBI battled a public perception that it had not tried very hard to find him. After more than 16 years on the run, Bulger was captured at age 81 in Santa Monica, California, where he had been living in a rent-controlled apartment near the beach with his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig. In 2013, he was convicted in the slayings, as well as extortion, and money-laundering after a sensational racketeering trial that included graphic testimony from three former Bulger cohorts: a hit man, a protege and a partner. He was sentenced nearly five years ago to two consecutive life sentences plus five years. Bulger had just been moved to USP Hazelton, a high-security prison with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. He had been in a prison in Florida before a stopover at a transfer facility in Oklahoma City. Federal Bureau of Prisons officials and his attorney had declined to comment on why he was being moved. A lawyer who represented Bulger blamed the gangster's death on decisions made by the Bureau of Prisons. "He was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty," attorney J.W. Carney Jr. said in a statement. Bulger, nicknamed "Whitey" for his bright platinum hair, grew up in a gritty South Boston housing project and became known as one of the most ruthless gangsters in Boston. His younger brother, William Bulger, became one of the most powerful politicians in Massachusetts, leading the state Senate for 17 years. In working-class "Southie," Bulger was known for helping old ladies across the street and giving turkey dinners to his neighbors at Thanksgiving. He had a kind of Robin Hood-like image among some locals, but authorities said he would put a bullet in the brain of anyone who he even suspected of double-crossing him. "You could go back in the annals of criminal history and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone as diabolical as Bulger," said Duffy. "Killing people was his first option. They don't get any colder than him," Duffy said after Bulger was finally captured in June 2011. Bulger was accused of strangling Debra Davis, the 26-year-old girlfriend of his partner, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, and Deborah Hussey, also 26, the daughter of Flemmi's common-law wife. In both cases, Bulger insisted on pulling out the women's teeth so they would be difficult to identify, Flemmi testified. During a search of his Santa Monica apartment, agents found over $800,000 in cash and more than 30 guns, many hidden in holes in the walls. A property manager at the building said Bulger and Greig, who used the names Charles and Carol Gasko, had lived there for 15 years and always paid the rent-controlled rate of $1,145 a month in cash. They were caught days after the FBI began a new publicity campaign focusing on Greig. The daytime TV announcements showed photos of Greig and noted that she was known to frequent beauty salons and have her teeth cleaned once a month. A woman from Iceland who knew Bulger and Greig in Santa Monica saw a report on CNN about the latest publicity campaign and called in the tip that led agents to them. The Boston Globe identified the tipster as a former Miss Iceland, a former actress who starred in Noxzema shaving cream commercials in the 1970s. Greig is still serving her sentence at a federal prison in Minnesota. Bulger, a physical fitness buff, had been taken to a Boston hospital from his jail cell at least three times, complaining of chest pains, since being brought back to Boston to stand trial. ___ Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington, John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, and William J. Kole in Boston contributed to this report. FILE - These 1980s FBI handout file photos show Massachusetts mobster James "Whitey" Bulger. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison. (FBI via AP, File) FILE - These 1953 file Boston police booking photos provided by The Boston Globe shows James "Whitey" Bulger after an arrest. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison. (Boston Police/The Boston Globe via AP) FILE - In this June 30, 2011 file photo, James "Whitey" Bulger, right, is escorted from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter to a waiting vehicle at an airport in Plymouth, Mass., after attending hearings in federal court in Boston. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison. (Stuart Cahill/The Boston Herald via AP, File) FILE - In this Nov. 13, 2013, file courtroom sketch, James "Whitey" Bulger sits at his sentencing hearing in federal court in Boston. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison. (AP Photo/Jane Flavell Collins, File) FILE - This undated file FBI photo found in Boston during an evidence search and released Dec. 30, 1998, shows James "Whitey" Bulger. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison. (FBI via AP, File) An event dedicated to Tajik culture, organized by Tajikistans embassy in Azerbaijan, was held in Baku on October 30. Welcoming the guests, Ambassador of Tajikistan to Azerbaijan Rustam Soli stressed the diversity of rich Tajik culture and cuisine. He also highlighted the role of President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon in the development of the countrys culture. During the event, the national Tajik clothes were demonstrated. Afterwards, the guests tasted Tajik meals. PANAMA CITY, Fla. (AP) - The family of a baby who spent his first night out of the hospital in a Walmart parking lot after Hurricane Michael just got a surprise baby shower. The happy event happened at a Walmart near the store where the family hunkered down in those dark days following the Category 4 storm. Wilmer Capps, his wife Lorrainda Smith and their baby Luke were surprised on Tuesday after they were told to show up at the Walmart for a hurricane recovery meeting. The family's home was damaged during the storm, so the baby shower was the best news they've had in a while: They got a year's supply of diapers, a food voucher and a cake with rubber duckies on it saying "Walmart loves Luke." Lorrainda Smith, feeds her two-day-old son Luke out of the back of her pickup truck while preparing to spend the first night out of the hospital with her newborn and husband Wilmer Capps in a parking lot in Panama City, Fla., Monday, Oct. 15, 2018, as their home was badly damaged from Hurricane Michael. "One day we had it all, the next we had nothing," added Smith. "This is not what I thought I'd be bringing him back to." (AP Photo/David Goldman) FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 15, 2018 file photo,Lorrainda Smith, sits with her two-day-old son, Luke, as she contemplates with her husband Wilmer Capps, right, sleeping in their truck in a parking lot after their home was damaged from Hurricane Michael and they were told a nearby shelter was closed, in Panama City, Fla. The tropical weather that turned into monster Hurricane Michael began as a relatively humble storm before rapidly blossoming into the most powerful cyclone ever to hit the Florida Panhandle, causing wrenching scenes of widespread destruction. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File) Lorrainda Smith, right, and husband Wilmer Capps prepare to spend the first night out of the hospital with their two-day-old son Luke in a parking lot in Panama City, Fla., Monday, Oct. 15, 2018. Capps says he and wife had no choice but to camp out the night their son was released from an Alabama hospital because their home in Panama City was badly damaged by Hurricane Michael. (AP Photo/David Goldman) PEORIA, Ill. (AP) - The Latest on the deaths of a Bradley University professor and her husband (all times local): 6:20 p.m. Authorities in central Illinois say they believe the bodies of a missing Bradley University professor and her husband have been found. Peoria County Sheriff Brian Asbell says a tarp and a tent believed to contain the bodies of Susan Brill de Ramirez and Antonio Ramirez Barron were discovered Tuesday near the Spoon River Bridge. The couple's son, 21-year-old Jose Ramirez, has been charged with first-degree murder. Authorities say Ramirez indicated he dumped his parents' bodies from a bridge above a body of water after killing them Friday. Asbell says there are multiple creeks and waterways in that area, and Ramirez told police he could not pinpoint the site. Peoria County Assistant State's Attorney Dave Kenny alleged Tuesday during a bond hearing that Ramirez told friends he was "sick of his parents." A judge set bond for Ramirez at $3 million and a preliminary hearing date of Nov. 29. These undated photos released by the Peoria County Sheriff's Office show Susan Brill de Ramirez, left, and Antonio Ramirez Barron. A central Illinois sheriff says a search is underway for Brill de Ramirez, a Bradley University professor, and her husband who are missing after a possible violent struggle in their home. (Peoria County Sheriff's Office via AP) ___ 4:30 p.m. Prosecutors say a central Illinois man waited until his parents were asleep to use pepper spray on them and then stab them to death. Jose G. Ramirez is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of his parents, Bradley University professor Susan Brill de Ramirez and her husband, Antonio Ramirez Barron. Peoria County Assistant State's Attorney Dave Kenny alleged Tuesday during a bond hearing that the 21-year-old Jose Ramirez told friends he was "sick of his parents" and killed them Friday. He then wrapped the bodies in a tarp and a tent, put them in his father's SUV and dumped them in a waterway. The bodies have not yet been recovered. A judge set bond for Ramirez at $3 million and a preliminary hearing date of Nov. 29. ___ 12:40 p.m. A central Illinois sheriff says officers are searching waterways for the bodies of a college professor and her husband a day after charging their 21-year-old son with murder in their deaths. Peoria County Sheriff Brian Asbell said Tuesday that crews are focused on streams in rural Henry County, where Jose Ramirez told investigators he dumped the bodies from a bridge. Asbell says the search is broad because Ramirez is unfamiliar with the area about 40 miles (65 kilometers) from his parents' home near Peoria. The sheriff says weekend rains could have swept the bodies far downstream. Susan Brill de Ramirez and Antonio Ramirez Barron last reported to work Thursday at Bradley University in Peoria. Brill de Ramirez was an English professor and Ramirez Barron worked in the school's information technology department. ___ 6:40 a.m. Authorities say a 21-year-old Illinois man has confessed to killing his parents who have been missing since the weekend. Peoria County Sheriff Brian Asbell said Monday that Jose Ramirez is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Susan Brill de Ramirez and Antonio Ramirez Barron. Asbell says a relative called authorities late Sunday to the couple's Princeville home, where deputies found blood. He believes the 63-year-olds were killed Friday. Twenty-one-year-old Matthew Roberts is charged with obstruction and concealment of a homicidal death in the killings. Asbell says Ramirez confessed, and that the victims' bodies are somewhere in rural Henry County. The couple last reported to work Thursday at Bradley University in Peoria. Brill de Ramirez is an English professor and Ramirez Barron works in the school's information technology department. BOSTON (AP) - The Latest on the death of Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger (all times local): 5:20 p.m. A lawyer who represented James "Whitey" Bulger is blaming the notorious Boston gangster's death on decisions made by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Attorney J.W. Carney Jr. said in a statement Tuesday that Bulger "was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty." Carney said he had no further comment. The prison bureau declined to comment on Carney's statement. FILE - These 1953 file Boston police booking photos provided by The Boston Globe shows James "Whitey" Bulger after an arrest. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison. (Boston Police/The Boston Globe via AP) Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons say Bulger was found dead in his Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, prison cell Tuesday morning. He was 89. A prison union official says Bulger's death is being investigated as a homicide. Bulger had been serving two consecutive life sentences after his 2013 conviction of participating in 11 murders. ___ 4:30 p.m. A prison union official says the death of notorious Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger is being investigated as a homicide. Justin Tarovisky is the executive vice president of The American Federation of Government Employees Local 420. He tells The Associated Press that Bulger would be the prison's third homicide this year. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger was found dead Tuesday morning in his Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, prison cell. He was 89. Authorities did not immediately release a cause of death. The FBI earlier said they were investigating. Bulger led a largely Irish mob that ran loan-sharking, gambling and drug rackets in the Boston area. He also served as an FBI informant who ratted on his gang's main rival. ___ 2:10 p.m. The widow of one of James "Whitey" Bulger's (BUHL'-jur) victims says she'd like to celebrate the crime boss' death with champagne. Patricia Donahue tells WBZ-TV she and her family are "very happy that the man is not here any longer" and they don't ever have to hear his name again. Michael Donahue was killed in 1982 when he offered a ride home to a man allegedly targeted for death by Bulger because he was talking to the FBI. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons say Bulger was found dead in his Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, prison cell Tuesday morning. He was 89. He had been serving two consecutive life sentences after his 2013 conviction of participating in 11 murders. Authorities did not immediately release a cause of death. The FBI said they are investigating. ___ 1:25 p.m. Notorious Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger has died in federal custody nearly five years after being sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons say he died Tuesday in West Virginia. He was 89. Bulger led a largely Irish mob that ran loan-sharking, gambling and drug rackets in the Boston area. He also served as an FBI informant who ratted on his gang's main rival. He became one of the nation's most-wanted fugitives after fleeing Boston in late 1994. After more than 16 years on the run, Bulger was captured at age 81 in Santa Monica, California, where he had been living with his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig. In 2013, Bulger was convicted of participating in 11 murders in the 1970s and 1980s and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Oil and natural gas giant Chesapeake Energy Corp. plans to acquire Houston-based WildHorse Resource Development Corp. in a nearly $4 billion deal. The companies announced the agreement Tuesday. The boards of both companies have approved the sale. WildHorse is an oil and gas company operating in the Eagle Ford Shale and Austin Chalk formations in Texas. Doug Lawler, the president and CEO of Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake, says the addition of WildHorse plus Chesapeake's substantial growth profile in the Powder River Basin should help the company's expansion in the oil sector. Also Tuesday, Chesapeake reported third-quarter net income of $84 million, after reporting a loss in the same period a year ago. ___ FILE - In this Sept. 29, 2015, file photo, two people walk past one of the entrances to the Chesapeake Energy Corporation campus in Oklahoma City. Chesapeake Energy Corp. plans to acquire Houston-based WildHorse Resource Development Corp. in a nearly $4 billion deal. The agreement was announced Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, by Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake and WildHorse, an oil and gas company operating in the Eagle Ford Shale and Austin Chalk formations in Texas. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File) This story has been updated to correct the name of the company to WildHorse Resource, not WildHorse Research. WASHINGTON (AP) - Robert Mueller's office has referred to the FBI allegations that women were "offered money to make false claims" about the special counsel, according to Mueller's spokesman. In a statement, spokesman Peter Carr says that once the office learned of the allegations, it immediately referred the matter to the FBI for investigation. The statement didn't specify what the claims were, but the referral to the FBI - and a rare public statement about it from the special counsel's office - suggests that Mueller's office believed there was a potential crime for federal law enforcement to investigate. The attempt to spread what Mueller's office says are false claims about him also appears to be an effort to discredit the former FBI director as his team enters a critical stage of its investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia and whether the president attempted to obstruct justice. Mueller's office has charged 32 people so far, with four former associates of the president pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with investigators. A grand jury in recent weeks has heard testimony centered on another former Trump aide, Roger Stone. WASHINGTON (AP) - A rabbi invited to pray at a Michigan campaign stop with Vice President Mike Pence for the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre referenced "Jesus the Messiah" at the event. Rabbi Loren Jacobs of Messianic congregation Shema Yisrael on Monday offered prayers for the 11 shooting victims. Messianic Jews follow Jewish law but believe that Jesus is the Messiah, a tenet of Christianity. The major Jewish denominations reject Messianic Judaism as a form of Judaism, and Jacobs' participation was condemned by Jews on social media. A Pence aide told The Associated Press that Jacobs was invited to pray at the event in suburban Detroit's Waterford Township by GOP congressional candidate Lena Epstein. The aide said Pence did not know who Jacobs was when he invited the rabbi back onstage to offer another a prayer for the victims, their families and the nation. The aide was not authorized to discuss the situation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. At the event, Pence called Jacobs a "leader of the Jewish community here in Michigan." Jacobs, while standing next to Pence, then prayed and ended by saying, "in the name of Jesus." Vice President Mike Pence, right, prays with Rabbi Loren Jacobs, of Bloomfield Hills' Congregation Shema Yisrael, for the victims and families of those killed in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, at a rally for Republicans in Oakland County, Monday, Oct. 29, 2018, at the Oakland County Airport in Waterford, Mich. (Tanya Moutzalias/Ann Arbor News-MLive.com via AP) Epstein, who is Jewish, said in a statement that she invited Jacobs' prayer "because we must unite as a nation - while embracing our religious differences - in the aftermath of Pennsylvania." She said anyone attacking her or Pence over the prayer is "guilty of nothing short of religious intolerance and should be ashamed. "This was an effort at unity, yet some are trying to create needless division to suit their political goals," Epstein said. Detroit-area Rabbi Jason Miller said on Facebook that there are at least 60 rabbis in a directory of Michigan rabbis and "yet the only rabbi they could find to offer a prayer for the 11 Jewish victims in Pittsburgh at the Mike Pence rally was a local Jews for Jesus rabbi? That's pathetic!" Jordan Acker, a Jewish lawyer who is running for the University of Michigan Board of Regents as a Democrat, criticized Epstein on Twitter. He said she was "deeply insensitive for bringing a group on stage whose entire mission is to convert Jews," days after the worst instance of anti-Semitic violence in American history. Epstein is running against Democrat Haley Stevens for a House seat opening with the retirement of Republican Rep. Dave Trott. At the same rally, Pence also campaigned for candidates such as Rep. Mike Bishop, who is facing a challenge from Democrat Elissa Slotkin. ___ Eggert reported from Lansing, Michigan. BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - Hungary's highest court has acquitted a camerawoman who was filmed kicking and trying to trip migrants on the border with Serbia in 2015. The decision announced Tuesday revised the rulings of two lower courts that had sentenced Petra Laszlo to three years' probation for disorderly conduct. The Hungarian supreme court, the Kuria, said Laszlo should have been charged with a misdemeanor instead of a criminal offense. It said the case had to be terminated now since the statute of limitations had expired. In September 2015, Laszlo was filming migrants passing through Hungary on their way west when several broke through a police cordon and jostled her as they ran by. She responded by kicking two people, including a young girl. Someone else with a camera recorded her actions. PHILADELPHIA (AP) - An al-Qaida suspect linked to a plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in federal prison. Ali Charaf Damache was sentenced in federal court in Philadelphia after pleading guilty in July to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. The Algerian-born Irish citizen had been extradited from Spain last year after authorities said they were able to track his online efforts to recruit American and European citizens to join a jihadist movement. The 53-year-old, whose online handle was Theblackflag, was accused of being involved in a terror cell that wanted to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilk, who depicted the Prophet Muhammad as a dog. The plot never materialized, authorities said. Authorities issued an indictment for Damache in 2011 and worked with multiple entities to extradite him to face charges in a civilian court, a move that was counter to President Donald Trump's promise to send terror suspects to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Part of the change of plea deal included dropping a charge of attempted identity theft to facilitate an act of international terrorism. Damashe read a brief statement in court in soft, heavily-accented English, requesting to be assigned to serve his time in a prison in the Northeast where an organization that serves Irish citizens incarcerated overseas had been sending visitors and where he has been taking English classes. "I am a strong believer of democracy," he said. "Freedom must be earned through struggle." He said he had not practiced jihad in any country and said he urges others to struggle against Arab dictators. His attorney declined to elaborate after court. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams told the judge that the maximum sentence of 15 years was appropriate, saying it had taken nine years to extradite and prosecute Damache. "He preyed on vulnerable Americans, people who were lonely, people who were looking to belong," she said, noting the three conspirators he had recruited were a person taking care of an elderly parent, a single mom and a teenager who didn't feel like he belonged. Prosecutors said Damache sought to recruit light-skinned women and others who did not fit the traditional terrorist profile to wage jihad. His targets included Colleen LaRose, a Pennsylvania woman who called herself "Jihad Jane," online; Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, a single mother from Colorado; and Mohammad Hassan Khalid, who at the time was a high school honors student from Maryland. They were all eventually arrested. Damache married Paulin-Ramirez the day she traveled to Ireland to meet him in 2009. Paulin-Ramirez eventually helped the FBI investigate the terror cell. U.S. District Court Judge Petrese Tucker said she agreed with the maximum sentence for Damache finding him "more culpable" than the others as the person who recruited them and noting that he has trained a child who was only 5 years old in the ways of violent jihad. The child was Paulin-Ramirez's son, whom she had brought with her when she went to Ireland. LaRose is serving a 10-year prison term. Paulin-Ramirez was sentenced to eight years, and Khalid was sentenced to five years. Both have been released after serving their sentences. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) - Former Vice President Joe Biden bemoaned the tone of Trump-era politics at a campaign stop in Iowa on Tuesday, previewing on his first trip to the leadoff caucus state how he might take on the Republican president should he seek the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. "It's our leaders who need to set the tone and dial down the temperature and restore some dignity to our national dialogue," Biden said in Cedar Rapids while stumping for Iowa's Democratic gubernatorial candidate and a House candidate from northeast Iowa. Biden was on a trip across the Midwest campaigning for Democrats in states that President Donald Trump carried in 2016. But the Iowa stop had special significance as Biden weighs a third bid for the presidency. Other rising national Democrats eyeing 2020 have visited the early testing ground in recent weeks. Biden entered the hall to cheers from the crowd of more than 1,000. "Hello, Iowa. Hello, Cedar Rapids. It's been a long time," said Biden, a former Delaware senator who has been making trips to Iowa since his early campaign for the 1988 Democratic nomination. Biden quickly pivoted from pleasantries to attacking Trump's moral leadership, indirectly charging him with accommodating intolerance as president. He said moral leadership was particularly important after the slayings of 11 people on Saturday at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. Former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a rally with Wisconsin Democrats on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Campus, Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in Madison Wis. Biden called for more civility and dignity in politics during a rally, offering a sharp rebuke of President Donald Trump while telling the students they can "own" next week's election if they vote. (Steve Apps/Wisconsin State Journal via AP) Biden also noted the two African-Americans shot dead at a Kentucky grocery store and the wave of pipe bombs addressed to prominent Trump critics, including Biden himself. "Three times this past week the forces of hate have terrorized our fellow Americans for their political beliefs, the color of their skin or their religion," Biden noted. "What the hell is happening to us?" Biden thundered. "Our children are listening!" Josh Murphy, a Cedar Rapids teacher, said he liked Biden's forcefulness and hoped Biden runs. Biden says he'll decide by early next year. "He'll take on Trump word for word," Murphy said. Mary Charipar, a retired Cedar Rapids teacher, has mixed feelings. "In one sense, I feel he could unite the country because everybody loves Joe," Charipar said. "But I also feel we need a change." Biden began the day in Wisconsin campaigning for Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers, who is trying to unseat Republican Gov. Scott Walker. He was in Ohio on Monday and was scheduled to campaign in Missouri on Wednesday. Both have competitive Senate races. Some Democratic activists say Biden's message denouncing hate could resonate, especially amid heightened concerns about the nation's heated political rhetoric. "If I had to say what I want in the next president, it's personal integrity, character and a moral compass," said longtime Biden supporter Teri Goodman of Dubuque, Iowa. "Does Joe Biden fit many of those? He does, in my opinion." For months, he has been an unsparing critic of Trump's moral leadership. Campaigning in Nevada this month, he said American values are "being shredded by a president who is all about himself." But Biden's criticism has taken on a new resonance following the synagogue shootings. "Hate is on the march in America," he said Saturday. Trump, who struggled at first to condemn the white supremacists who clashed with protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year in a deadly confrontation, immediately condemned the synagogue shooting as an "evil, anti-Semitic attack." The president visited Pittsburgh on Tuesday to offer his condolences and meet with some of the survivors of the attack. Former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden and Tammy Baldwin wave during a rally with Wisconsin Democrats on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Campus, Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in Madison Wis. Biden called for more civility and dignity in politics during a rally, offering a sharp rebuke of President Donald Trump while telling the students they can "own" next week's election if they vote. (Steve Apps/Wisconsin State Journal via AP) Former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden and Tammy Baldwin embrace during a rally with Wisconsin Democrats on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Campus, Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in Madison Wis. Biden called for more civility and dignity in politics during a rally, offering a sharp rebuke of President Donald Trump while telling the students they can "own" next week's election if they vote. (Steve Apps/Wisconsin State Journal via AP) Former Vice President Joe Biden takes a selfie with students during a rally with Wisconsin Democrats on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Campus, Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in Madison Wis. Biden called for more civility and dignity in politics during a rally, offering a sharp rebuke of President Donald Trump while telling the students they can "own" next week's election if they vote. (Steve Apps/Wisconsin State Journal via AP) Former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden greets supporters during a rally with Wisconsin Democrats on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Campus, Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in Madison Wis. Biden called for more civility and dignity in politics during a rally, offering a sharp rebuke of President Donald Trump while telling the students they can "own" next week's election if they vote. (Steve Apps/Wisconsin State Journal via AP) Former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a rally with Wisconsin Democrats on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Campus, Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in Madison Wis. Biden called for more civility and dignity in politics during a rally, offering a sharp rebuke of President Donald Trump while telling the students they can "own" next week's election if they vote. (Steve Apps/Wisconsin State Journal via AP) GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) - A jury has acquitted a former assistant prosecutor of a felony in a November 2016 crash that led to the firing of a police lieutenant and suspension of two other Grand Rapids officers accused of covering up the man's intoxication. The Kent County Circuit Court jury found 44-year-old Josh Kuiper not guilty Tuesday of reckless driving causing serious impairment of a bodily function. It found him guilty of misdemeanor reckless driving, a charge the defense already had stipulated to. Kuiper injured Dan Empson when he hit Empson's parked car while driving the wrong way down a one-way street. Telephone recordings released last year revealed Officer Adam Ickes told then-Lt. Matthew Janiskee that Kuiper appeared intoxicated. But Kuiper wasn't asked to take a Breathalyzer test and wasn't charged with drunken driving. Ickes was later suspended, while Janiskee was fired. The Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned Denmark's envoy in Teheran, who lodged a formal protest regarding announcements about an Iranian Secret Service operation in the Nordic state, the ministry's official representative Bahram Ghasemi said. "This morning, Denmark's envoy to Tehran had a meeting with the head of the First Department for Northern Europe, during which the ambassador has heard a protest regarding precipitated political reaction of several Danish politicians and media in connection to the detention of a person with Norwegian and Iranian citizenships on suspicion of plotting a manslaughter in Denmark," Sputik cited Ghasemi as saying. Yesterday, Danish media reported, citing the country's Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen, that Copenhagen had recalled the Danish ambassador to Iran for consultations following the accusations. Earlier, Danish police announced the arrest of a Norwegian citizen with an Iranian background in connection with an alleged Iranian Intelligence attack on an individual in Denmark. At the same time, Norwegian police confirmed they were assisting Danish law enforcement on the issue. Tehran, in its turn, rejected statements made by the head of the PET about the illegal activities of Iranian intelligence services in Denmark. AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Democratic Texas Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke suggested Tuesday night that President Donald Trump floated the idea of using an executive order to end birthright U.S. citizenship to sway next week's midterm elections, saying the White House wants to play on the country's "worst impulses." A three-term congressman from El Paso, O'Rourke is challenging Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in a race that was supposed to be a cakewalk for the incumbent but has tightened considerably. Addressing a loud crowd at the University of Houston during a town hall broadcast for a national audience on MSNBC, O'Rourke was pressed by moderator Chris Matthews about whether Trump is capable of being a calming influence in times of turmoil like past leaders including Robert Kennedy. "I don't think he's capable of it, but that doesn't have to limit who we are as a people," said O'Rourke who has campaigned in the past throughout Texas with Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III, Robert Kennedy's grandson. "We're more than the president of the United States, the current occupant of the White House." Trump says he will send 5,000-plus troops to the Mexican border to defend against caravans of Central American migrants who are slowly trekking through Mexico toward U.S. soil. He also floated the idea of ending automatically granting citizenship to any baby born in the U.S. - a right granted by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Asked about Trump's suggestion, O'Rourke replied: "Interesting that he drops this proposal with a week to go until the Nov. 6 election." Beto O'Rourke, the 2018 Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas, speaks before a crowd of supporters at a get out the vote event on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018 in Houston. (AP Photo/John L. Mone) "Interesting that he tries to stoke paranoia and fear about a group of migrants who are still hundreds of miles away, weeks away, from the U.S.-Mexico border, if they even make it this far," O'Rourke added. "I think he's trying to play upon the worst impulses of this country instead of speaking to our ambitions, our hopes our dreams, those things that we can achieve if we all come together." Earlier Tuesday, Cruz said he's long supported ending birthright citizenship but suggested it could take a constitutional amendment to do so, meaning Trump may not have the authority to pull it off unilaterally. The president was in Houston last week for a rally with Cruz and has tweeted that O'Rourke is a "total lightweight." The congressman, who often jogs with supporters, joked when Matthews asked about that, "I have lost about 20 pounds over the course of this campaign." "I don't see any benefit in engaging with him," O'Rourke said about Trump's name-calling. But he added, "I'll work with him and I have." When Matthews demanded "name one" issue where O'Rourke and Trump agree, the congressman said both would like to see health care expanded for veterans. A onetime member of a punk rock band, O'Rourke has become a national Democratic star, shattering Senate campaign fundraising records - including raising $38-plus million for the three-month period between July and September - despite shunning donations from outside political groups. He's trying to become Texas' first Democrat to win statewide office since 1994, but polls that once showed him closing in now have Cruz with a consistent, if modest, lead. After two debates with Cruz, O'Rourke also appeared solo on a CNN town hall two weeks ago. He drew sustained applause Tuesday by praising Houston's diversity and for speaking a bit of fluent Spanish. Other questions, many from students, ranged from how much sleep he's getting per night (four to six hours) to what he thought about celebrities endorsing key candidates. "I'm not as concerned about what the celebrities think," O'Rourke said, noting that it's more important to appeal to all types of voters. "I'm really concerned about what YOU think." FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - As a child, Andy Barr watched his sister battle juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. She spent her childhood in and out of hospitals, undergoing at least 25 surgeries while his parents struggled to find affordable insurance coverage. Beginning in high school, Amy McGrath watched her parents battle cancer. Her mother had a mastectomy and her father had disfiguring surgery. She said her mother's background as a doctor is the only thing that kept insurance companies from fleecing them. Now Barr and McGrath are running for Congress against each other in Kentucky in one of the most competitive and expensive races in the country. But their families' struggles with insurance companies has led them to different places. Whoever wins could help determine which party controls Congress for the final two years of President Donald Trump's term and shape health policy for millions of Americans. "It's the No. 1 issue," said McGrath, a Democrat and retired Marine fighter pilot. "People are worried." Barr, a Republican first elected in 2012, wants to end Kentucky's expanded Medicaid coverage for low-income adults and instead give them refundable tax credits to help them pay for private insurance plans. McGrath wants to keep the Medicaid expansion while broadening other health programs. She'd like to let people buy into Medicare before they turn 65 and wants the government to offer health plans to the public, which she says would keep prices down by competing with private insurers and giving people more options. The public option did not make it into the Affordable Care Act. But it did include nonprofit health care cooperatives to compete with private insurers. But many of those co-ops, including one in Kentucky, failed despite millions of dollars in loans from taxpayers. And Barr says the Medicare buy in plan would just add to the debt of a program already near insolvency. FILE- In this Aug. 25, 2018, file photo Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., addresses the audience during the Republican Party's Lincoln Dinner in Lexington, Ky. Republican and Democratic candidates in Kentucky's competitive 6th Congressional district race say their families' medical histories have profoundly affected their health care policy positions. Barr says he wants to repeal former President Barack Obama's health care law and replace it. Democrat Amy McGrath, a retired Marine fighter pilot, says she wants to keep the law but with some changes. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File) The debate gives voters in the state's 6th congressional district a fresh chance to weigh in on what has been a deep partisan divide over how effective the Medicaid expansion has been in Kentucky. More than 400,000 people have gotten coverage through the program, reducing Kentucky's uninsured rate and paying for drug treatment programs amid a devastating opioid epidemic. But it's been expensive, and the state still lags other states in key health indicators. Amy McGrath's mother, Marianne McGrath, was diagnosed with breast cancer in her 50s when Amy was in high school. She had a mastectomy and has been cancer free for 25 years. But Amy's father, Donald McGrath, had a tumor in his face that required surgery, disfiguring him and preventing him from eating or talking. He struggled with health issues for 14 years before his death earlier this year. Amy McGrath said watching her mother battle insurance companies over the years convinced her "the system is really broken." But she says the Affordable Care Act is "a step in the right direction." "I can't tell you how many people have come up to me and said, 'Hey, the Affordable Care Act saved my life'," she said. "The answer is to fix it, not to throw it away and basically throw people with pre-existing conditions under the bus to make it too hard for them." Barr's older sister was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis as a child, which led to extensive surgeries and treatment. His father was an accountant, and most of his clients were doctors. He said his parents got insurance with a small group plan through his father's business, but "it wasn't cheap." The experience in hospitals led his mother to become an Episcopal deacon and hospital chaplain. Barr's sister is an Episcopal priest now living in the northeast United States. Through his campaign, she declined to be interviewed for this story and asked that her name not be used. But Barr has described her situation publicly, including touting his membership in the Congressional Arthritis Caucus. "Our family, personally, knows how difficult it is to obtain affordable insurance when you have a problem like that," he said. But he says expanding Medicaid is not the answer, even though many of the 400,000 people included in Kentucky's expanded Medicaid program live in his district. Barr said it's "a good thing" that more people have coverage but questioned the quality of that coverage. Medicaid, he said, "is a waiting line." "Medicaid is terrible. Medicaid is the worst kind of coverage you can get. I want less people on Medicaid and more people on private commercial insurance with a subsidy to buy it or a tax credit to buy it," he said. Critics, including the Kaiser Family Foundation, say the tax credits offered in the Republican plan would be smaller than what's currently available. Barr noted the plan he voted for in the House would have protected people with pre-existing conditions, like his sister, from losing their coverage. That's true, but it would have also allowed health insurance companies to charge older adults five times more than younger adults instead of three times as much under the Affordable Care Act, according to Dustin Pugel, a research and policy associate for the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. "The older you get, the more likely it is you were going to have a pre-existing condition," he said. "You've lived more life." NEW YORK (AP) - With Election Day looming, President Donald Trump on Tuesday sought to console a community shattered by anti-Semitic violence just hours after he unveiled a divisive immigration proposal that raised new questions about the definition of American citizenship. Trump and first lady Melania Trump visited PIttsburgh as the first funerals were held for those killed in a weekend synagogue shooting that killed 11 people. With Election Day one week away, however, neither the president nor his adversaries took a pause from politics. Before consoling those rattled by the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history, Trump lashed out at Democrats on social media as he endorsed vulnerable GOP House candidates. He also unveiled a plan to end the constitutional right to citizenship for babies of noncitizens and unauthorized immigrants born in the United States, injecting new energy into his hard-line conservative base. Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden condemned the surge in hate-fueled violence in recent days as he rallied young voters in Wisconsin. The Democrat said "words matter" as he condemned Trump's rhetoric against the media and his political adversaries. "I am sick and tired of this administration," Biden said. "I am sick and tired of what's going on. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I hope you are, too." President Donald Trump, accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, left, and Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, right, places a stone from the White House at a memorial for those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) A look at other midterm campaign developments Tuesday: TRUMP IMMIGRATION A day after deciding to deploy 5,200 troops to the southern border to stave off what he calls "an invasion" of Latin American immigrants, Trump disclosed a plan to end what is commonly referred to as "birthright citizenship." It's unclear whether he has the constitutional authority to do so single-handedly, but that may not be the point. The plan, revealed in an interview with "Axios on HBO," was immediately cheered by his hard-line conservative base. The president needs his most passionate supporters to vote in great numbers to preserve the GOP's House and Senate majorities next week. Any surge in enthusiasm may help Republican Senate candidates running in GOP-leaning states, however, as opposed to his party's many House candidates fighting for re-election in the suburbs. "This is yet another unconstitutional power-grab from a man who is desperate to whip Republicans into an anti-immigrant frenzy in advance of the midterm elections," said Heidi Hess of the pro-immigration group CREDO Action. "Trump's racist attempt to attack birthright citizenship is especially vile after a week filled with right-wing, white nationalist violence that he himself fomented." Trump justified his plan by saying, falsely: "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States." A 2010 study showed that 30 countries offered birthright citizenship. ___ GREEN WAVE The super PAC allied with House Speaker Paul Ryan says the fight for the House majority will come down to 20 races that remain too close to call. But in those races, it's warning that Republican candidates' overall financial situation "remains alarming." Democrats have outraised Republicans in 90 percent of the competitive House races, writes super PAC executive director Corry Bliss in a memo obtained by The Associated Press. He notes that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who recently changed his party affiliation from independent to Democrat ahead of a possible presidential run, is giving tens of millions of dollars to Democrats' midterm efforts. Bloomberg is spending $110 million this midterm season, according to a spokesman. The biggest portion is going to the House, including $10 million for a national advertising campaign. He's also given $20 million to the Democratic-allied Senate Majority PAC. "Even in this environment, we can win the close races," Bliss writes. "Despite the Democrats' fundraising advantage and the additional outside money being spent by Mayor Bloomberg, the races that will determine control of the House are too close to call." ___ BOMB THREAT? Some Republican candidates are downplaying the threat from improvised explosive devices mailed to several Trump adversaries in recent days. Republican Senate candidate Corey Stewart of Virginia retweeted a post questioning the authenticity of pro-Trump stickers on the suspect's van. He later deleted the tweet. Several prominent conservatives, including radio host Rush Limbaugh, have raised similar questions recently. Virginia House candidate Denver Riggleman, a Republican, told a radio host that the devices "don't much look like pipe bombs to me." He called the explosives, sent to former President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and CNN, among others, "an evil sort of hideous prank." New Jersey House candidate Seth Grossman, another Republican, openly questioned whether the explosives were part of a liberal conspiracy. "I have to ask, 'What was the purpose of sending those packages? To act to hurt somebody or influence the election? Who benefits, Republicans or Democrats?' Look at the motive," he said in a recent debate, according to the Press of Atlantic City. Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel addressed the issue directly in an Associated Press interview. "No, I do not think this is part of a liberal conspiracy," she said. But she took issue with Democrats who have increasingly confronted Republican leaders in public places. "I have differences of opinion with many Democrats, but I am not calling for mobs or attacking people at restaurants or escalating vitriol," McDaniel said. "It's incumbent on all leaders - and the president has called for unity - all leaders to try to tamp down the tensions we're feeling in this country." ___ BIDEN: 'WORDS MATTER' The former vice president lashed out at the rise of hate-fueled violence as he rallied Democrats in Wisconsin. In addition to the bombs and the synagogue shooting, authorities are investigating the shooting of two African-Americans at a Kentucky supermarket last week as a hate crime. Biden didn't blame Trump directly for the unprecedented violence, but he suggested that the president's divisive rhetoric may have played a role. "Folks, this is not who we are. We need to recognize that words matter," he said. He added: "Our political opponents are not my enemy. The press is not the enemy of the people. ... We're all Americans." Later, Biden said both sides need to do more to stop the surge of hate in America. "It's up to our leaders to change the tone in both parties - to dial the temperature down," he said. ___ YOUTH VOTE? There are new signs that young voters are taking an unprecedented level of interest in this year's midterms, compared to off-year elections of the past. NextGen America, the group founded by billionaire Tom Steyer, has registered more than 250,000 young voters over 11 states, including more than 50,000 new young voters in Florida and more than 20,000 in Arizona, spokeswoman Olivia Bercow said Tuesday. At the early voting site on the campus of Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, 503 people showed up to vote on the first day of early voting, Bercow said. The school's enrollment is only 1,600 students. At Iowa State University, one of the state's largest colleges, more than 1,800 have already voted, Bercow said, nearly double the number who voted in 2014. Democratic groups have spent heavily to urge younger voters to turn out on Election Day and in early voting, as their presence could determine whether Democrats make gains this fall. Addressing college students in Wisconsin, Biden offered young people a simple message: "You can own this election." ___ Summers reported from Washington. ___ This story has been corrected to show that the former New York City mayor's last name is spelled Bloomberg, not Blomberg. PITTSBURGH (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump's visit to Pittsburgh (all times local): 8:25 p.m. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says the president's visit to the Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 people were slain in the worst act of anti-Semitic violence in American history was "very humbling" and "very sad." Sanders told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday that President Donald Trump had "wanted today to be about showing respect for the families and the friends of the victims as well as for Jewish Americans." She says Trump was "incredibly impressed" by Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who had been conducting services when the shots rang out. And she says Trump's visit to a local hospital included time in the intensive care unit, where he visited one of the injured first responders. She says Trump "was incredibly moved" by how supportive the law enforcement members were of one another. President Donald Trump, accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, left, and Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, right, places a stone from the White House at a memorial for those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) ___ 5:20 p.m. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump are at a hospital visiting with victims of a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 people dead. As the presidential motorcade rolled up to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, it passed several hundred protesters on the street and a sign that said, "It's your fault." Some people in Pittsburgh have welcomed the presidential visit, while others have used it as an opportunity to criticize his partisan rhetoric, which they claim is leading to violence. ___ 5:15 p.m. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump have placed white roses and stones from the White House on each of the 11 stars representing a victim of Saturday's synagogue shooting. The memorial is set up outside Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue - the site of the worst attack on Jews in U.S. history. The name of each victim is written in black on a white-painted Jewish star. There also are red hearts on them. ___ 5 p.m. President Donald Trump has been greeted by some protests as he visits Pittsburgh to pay respects to the 11 people killed by a gunman Saturday during services at a local synagogue. Protesters were shouting "Leave Pittsburgh, leave Pennsylvania" about a block and a half from the Tree of Life Synagogue where Trump and first lady Melania Trump were visiting. There also were signs that read "Trump Go Home" and "Words matter," a reference to critics who have accused the president of using rhetoric that has widened the partisan divide in the country. As Trump drove away, protesters chanted, "Make America peaceful again." ___ 4:40 p.m. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump are at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, where a gunman opened fire Saturday on worshippers, killing 11 during Sabbath services. It was the worst attack on Jews in the nation's history. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders says the Trumps are lighting candles for each of the victims in the synagogue vestibule. They are joined by Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, as well as Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers and Ron Dermer, Israel's ambassador to the United States. At a makeshift memorial of Jewish stars outside the synagogue, the Trumps are placing lay white roses and a stone from the White House for each of the dead. ___ 4 p.m. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump are in Pittsburgh to pay tribute to 11 people who were gunned down at a synagogue Saturday. It is an uneasy visit for the president. The Democratic governor of Pennsylvania and the Democratic mayor of Pittsburgh didn't want him to visit while people were mourning the deaths. It was the worst attack on Jews in the nation's history. ___ 1:40 p.m. President Donald Trump is set to travel to the historic hub of Pittsburgh's Jewish community as the first funerals are to be held for the 11 victims of the weekend's synagogue shooting. Trump is expected to meet with first responders and community leaders. The White House says the purpose of Trump's visit on Tuesday is to "express the support of the American people and to grieve with the Pittsburgh community." Local and religious leaders are divided on whether he should visit. Trump's trip is set against the backdrop of national unease over incidents of political violence and hate, and questions about his credibility as unifier. Stones and white flowers, left by President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, are visible as they visit a memorial for those killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump put down stones from the White House and flowers at a memorial outside for those killed at the Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive outside Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, and talk with Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, back to camera, and Ron Dermer, Israel's ambassador to the United States. At left is Jared Kushner. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) DETROIT (AP) - The Latest in the murder trial of a former Michigan state trooper who shot a Detroit boy with a Taser (all times local): 3:50 p.m. Jurors have gone home for the day, a few hours after telling a judge that they don't believe they can reach a verdict in the murder trial of a former Michigan state trooper. The trial isn't over. Jurors met again after lunch Tuesday, after getting a pep talk from a judge, and will return Wednesday. Judge Margaret Van Houten got another note from them before they went home, but she didn't publicly disclose the contents. Mark Bessner shot Damon (Da-MAHN') Grimes with a Taser from a moving patrol car. He told jurors that he feared the 15-year-old had a gun, but he was wrong. Grimes, who was black, crashed the ATV into a pickup truck and died in August 2017. Bessner, who is white, was charged with second-degree murder. Jurors also could consider involuntary manslaughter. Deliberations began Monday. Former Michigan State Police trooper Mark Bessner testifies, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018 at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice in Detroit. Bessner whose use of a Taser preceded the death of a 15-year-old Detroit boy says he "absolutely" believed the teen was armed and was "shocked" to learn there was no gun. . (John T. Greilick/Detroit News via AP) ___ 1:01 p.m. Jurors say they don't believe they can reach a verdict in the murder trial of a former Michigan trooper who shot his Taser at a Detroit teen before the boy crashed an all-terrain vehicle and died. But Wayne County Judge Margaret Van Houten told jurors to eat lunch, clear their heads and return to court to resume deliberations Tuesday. She urged them to talk "in a spirit of fairness and frankness." Mark Bessner is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Damon (Da-MAHN') Grimes on a Detroit street in August 2017. Bessner shot Grimes with a Taser and the 15-year-old crashed his ATV. Bessner says he believed the boy was armed, although he was wrong. The jury also could choose the lesser offense of involuntary manslaughter. Deliberations began Monday. NEW YORK (AP) - For many Jewish journalists in the U.S., persistent online anti-Semitic harassment has become part of the job. The phenomenon became pervasive during the 2016 presidential campaign, and there's been a resurgence in recent months ahead of next week's midterm election, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Targeted journalists have found different ways of responding. CNN commentator Sally Kohn reaches out kindly to some of her online harassers. Michael Duke, an editor at the Houston-based Jewish Herald-Voice, has reduced his use of social media. Yair Rosenberg, a writer with Tablet Magazine, developed a method of tracking down and disrupting anti-Semitic accounts on Twitter. Rosenberg has written in detail about the vitriol directed at him, including a doctored photo showing him a gas chamber. When the ADL reported that he received the second-most abuse of any Jewish journalist on Twitter during the 2016 campaign, Rosenberg wrote, "My parents didn't raise me to be No. 2; fortunately, there's always 2020." Twitter, over the past two years, has become more effective at removing certain types of virulent anti-Semitism from its feeds, according to Rosenberg. But he said the company is less effective at blocking the spread of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories in tweets that avoid certain phrases and hashtags that would catch the eye of Twitter monitors. Rosenberg said he has grown hardened to the constant flow of anti-Semitic material. In this 2017 photo made available by Sally Kohn, she poses for a portrait. For a book she published in 2018, "The Opposite of Hate," she reached out to several of her own Twitter trolls, conversing with them about the reasons for their vitriol and in some cases receiving apologies. (Paul Takeuchi/Sally Kohn via AP) "I don't feel like a victim," he said by telephone from Pittsburgh, where and he and his Tablet colleagues are covering the aftermath of the synagogue shooting Saturday that killed 11 Jews. "What some people deal with in real life is worse than what I deal with online," he said. "There's life-and-death stuff, and there's me getting mean tweets." A few spots below Rosenberg on the ADL's 2016 "Top 10" list was Kohn, a liberal political commentator who appears regularly on CNN. For a book she published earlier this year, "The Opposite of Hate," she reached out to several of her own Twitter trolls, conversing with them about the reasons for their vitriol and in some cases receiving apologies. In an interview Tuesday, Kohn said she is now less tempted to engage with her harassers. "It's all just so negative," she said. "I've stopped paying as much attention to my trolls." Also on the 2016 Top 10 list was Jonah Goldberg, a senior editor of the conservative National Review. He began receiving a torrent of online anti-Semitic invective in the second half of 2015, after Donald Trump declared his presidential candidacy and Goldberg was among the conservative commentators who expressed misgivings. "You had endless photoshopped images - Trump in an SS outfit putting me in a gas chamber," he said. "You don't see that stuff very much anymore." However, he said there was a new surge of anti-Semitic material - much of it generated by bots - after the Pittsburgh massacre. "They flood the zone in the wake of these kind of controversies ... sowing discord and distrust," he said. Like Rosenberg and Kohn, Goldberg tries to take the harassment in stride, though he took notice when photos of his dog became vehicles for further anti-Semitic abuse. One specific episode still stands out: Goldberg said that at one point he made public reference to the death of his brother, and was "pelted with jokes asking if he'd been turned into soap or a lampshade." "I have a pretty thick skin," he said. "The sheer inhumanity of it - that's stuck with me." At The Forward, a New York-based Jewish magazine, editor-in-chief Jane Eisner said anti-Semitic harassment directed at her staff surged in 2016, prompting new procedures for reporting particularly menacing threats to the police. "There's no doubt we've gotten used to this, which in some ways is a tragedy, but we have to do our job," Eisner said. "Just because you accept it and move on doesn't mean it doesn't affect you." At the ADL, one of the experts tracking anti-Semitic harassment is Daniel Kelley, associate director of the ADL's Center for Technology and Society. Even if some prominent Jewish journalists are able persevere in the face of such harassment, he worries that some Jews might be deterred from pursing a journalism career for fear of becoming a target. In Houston, Duke, a Jewish Herald-Voice associate editor, was targeted with anti-Semitic abuse after the paper reported on a 2016 visit by white nationalist leader Richard Spencer to Texas A&M University. Duke was called a "Zionist Nazi" and was emailed a photo of Auschwitz with the tag, "We're on the march." But there's been an upside to Duke's subsequent decision to reduce his engagement on social media. "It's made me a little better as a journalist," he said. "With social media, you can be a little lazy. This puts me back in touch with people we write about." SOUTH DAYTONA, Fla. (AP) - Bullets that were fired into the windows of a county Republican Party office in Florida have been sent to a lab for testing. Capt. Mark Cheatham of the South Daytona Police Department said Tuesday detectives hope there are latent fingerprints on the bullets that can help them figure out who shot into the office of the Republican Executive Committee of Volusia County. No one was inside when the shooting took place sometime late Sunday or early Monday. But it represents the latest escalation of tensions with a week remaining until the election. Cheatham says extra patrols will monitor the local GOP office as well as the local Democratic Party office until the election. The office is in a strip mall in South Daytona, near Daytona Beach on Florida's Atlantic Coast. YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) - An American missionary died Tuesday after being shot in the head amid fighting between armed separatists and soldiers in northwestern Cameroon, the director of the regional hospital said. Charles Trumann Wesco, a missionary from the U.S. state of Indiana who had been in the region for two weeks, was rushed to the hospital in Bamenda after he was gravely wounded while in his car, hospital director Kingue Thomson Njie said. "He died in our hospital after all attempts to save his life," Njie told The Associated Press. Wesco's wife, Stephanie, and eight children were still in Bamenda, he said. Dave Halyman, assistant pastor at Believers Baptist Church in Warsaw, Indiana, where Stephanie Wesco's father, Don Williams, is the senior pastor, said that Williams had spoken by phone with his daughter after the shooting. Reporting Williams' account, Halyman said the shooting happened as Charles and Stephanie Wesco were in a car being driven by another missionary to the town of Bamnui from the Bamenda suburb of Bambili, where the family has been living. He said Charles Wesco was in the front seat, and two shots hit the windshield and struck him in the head. No one else was hurt, Halyman said. This undated photo provided by Don Williams shows Charles Wesco and his wife Stephanie. Charles Wesco, an American missionary, died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, after being shot in the head amid fighting between armed separatists and soldiers in northwestern Cameroon, the director of the regional hospital said. (Don Williams via AP) The family had been in Cameroon for just 12 days before the shooting, Halyman said. He said they had raised financial support for two years and had been to Cameroon two years ago on a survey trip. "We're shocked and grieving at what's occurred. We're trying to get over the shock of losing someone as wonderful as Charles was," Halyman said. "While we don't like this, we understand that God has a great purpose." The missionary's brother is Indiana state Rep. Tim Wesco, who confirmed that his older brother had been killed. "He loved the Lord. He loved people. The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord," he said. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb issued a statement saying that he and his wife, Janet, "are thinking of Rep. Tim Wesco and his family as they grieve the death of his brother Charles. We ask that all Hoosiers join us in offering prayers and condolences to the Wesco family." Bamenda is in Cameroon's Northwest Region, the restive English-speaking area where armed separatists have been fighting with the military while attempting to create an independent state. Regional Gov. Deben Tchoffo said armed groups staged attacks to stop the reopening of the University of Bamenda, and the military fought back Tuesday. He said Wesco might have been caught in crossfire. A military spokesman, Col. Didier Badjeck, told AP that the military killed at least four suspects in Wesco's death and arrested many others. He did not specify if the people detained were military personnel or separatists. Cameroon's military said last week after launching attacks on suspected separatist training grounds that "many have been killed." The attacks happened the day after President Paul Biya was declared the winner of a seventh term. The increased violence began after the government clamped down on demonstrations by English-speaking teachers and lawyers protesting what they called their marginalization by Cameroon's French-speaking majority. Armed factions emerged after the government crackdown and have been using violence to push for an independent state they call "Ambazonia." Protests against the 85-year-old Biya's Oct. 7 re-election have been ongoing. ___ Associated Press reporter Ken Kusmer in Indianapolis contributed to this report. ___ This story has been corrected to show that the victim's wife spoke with her father rather than the assistant pastor. NEW YORK (AP) - CNN's management has taken an aggressive stance against attacks from President Donald Trump after the network was sent explosive devices from a man who allegedly targeted Trump's perceived enemies. In a statement, CNN chief executive Jeff Zucker was critical of the White House's "complete lack of understanding about the seriousness" of its attacks against the media, and it was followed up by another statement this week calling on Press Secretary Sarah Sanders to understand that "words matter." The network has responded to specific provocations in the past. Yet it's still considered unusual for a news organization, as opposed to an individual commentator or columnist, to take on a president. It's the first time Zucker has done so this year. Two of its former leaders applauded the approach on Tuesday. "When it happens to you, it's difficult to maintain a veneer of objectivity and restraint," said Jonathan Klein, CNN president from 2004 to 2010. "It wouldn't make sense for them not to respond in this way. The bomber had 'CNN sucks' stickers on his van and it's clear who has been pushing that idea." Zucker's statement was justifiable, and handling it any other way "would come off as false or a bit odd," he said. President Donald Trump, right, salutes as he departs Air Force One as he arrives with first lady Melania Trump on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018 in Coraopolis, Pa. The Trumps came to Pittsburgh honor the victims of the deadly shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood on Saturday. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic) Zucker spoke on the day that Florida resident Cesar Sayoc allegedly sent the first of three devices to CNN offices. Another statement on Monday, issued through the network's public relations Twitter feed, addressed Sanders in saying CNN did not suggest that Trump was responsible for the device sent to its office "by his ardent and emboldened supporter. "We did say that he, and you, should understand that your words matter," CNN said. "Every single one of them. But so far, you don't seem to get that." The statement followed an exchange in Monday's White House press briefing between Sanders and CNN's Jim Acosta, who tried to get Sanders to say specifically who the president meant when he made comments about "fake news" and declared the media "the enemy of the people." Sanders had said it was irresponsible of any news organization, like CNN, to blame the president for Sayoc's actions. "There are a lot of reasons to hold your fire. One of which is you hope people mature," said Rick Kaplan, CNN's president from 1997 to 2000. But at some point when you realize that nothing's going to change, it can make you look wimpy not to respond, he said. "They've been patient and professional," Kaplan said. "I'm proud of Jeff." CNN, which declined comment on Tuesday, generally responds through its Twitter feed when it has specific points to make. In recent months, for example, CNN issued statements when Trump criticized CNN reporter Carl Bernstein and barred CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins from a White House event. "Jeff has been pretty circumspect about his public statements," Klein said. "They've been few and far between. I would expect that he would continue to keep his counsel and not make any further statements unless there were other extreme provocations." CNN's best bet is to catch its breath and continue to cover the administration objectively, and "I have no doubt they will do that," he said. CNN's coverage also contains plenty of on-air commentary - journalists like Jeff Greenfield have criticized the network for being too Trump-centric - and the commentary is most likely what has gotten on the president's nerves. Trump's biggest supporter in the media, Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity, has kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism of CNN. "CNN fake news president Jeff Zucker is lecturing the president on civility?" Hannity said on his show Monday night. He said that a weekend discussion between CNN's Brian Stelter and Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post about the impact of Hannity's words is "crossing lines into slander." "If you call out lies, call fake news for what it is, if you point out a political agenda under the guise of so-called news, that is not a call for violence," Hannity said. "It is a simple, fundamental truth the media doesn't want to hear." CNN hasn't officially taken on Fox News Channel, although some of its commentators and show hosts have. For Zucker to do so, like he has with the president, would not be wise, said both Kaplan and Klein. "If you attack them back, you're just getting down in the mud with them," Kaplan said. "You should just hold your ground. It's one thing to have an exchange of views with the president and another to do it with a group of would-be journalists." Meanwhile on Tuesday, Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy, hosts of Trump's favorite morning show "Fox & Friends," suggested the president should cool it with his criticisms of the press as enemies of the people. "It doesn't help anybody," Kilmeade said. "Too many people get shrapnel with that statement." Key events in the life of James "Whitey" Bulger, the mob boss who was killed Tuesday in a federal prison in West Virginia: - Sept. 3, 1929: James Bulger is born the second of six children to Irish immigrant parents in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. His platinum hair earns him the nickname "Whitey." - 1956: Bulger is sentenced to federal prison for bank robbery and is transferred to Alcatraz after being suspected of plotting an escape. - 1960: Bulger's younger brother, William, is elected to the state House of Representatives with campaign help from John Connolly, a childhood friend. - 1965: Whitey Bulger is released from prison and becomes a top lieutenant to Howie Winter, head of the Winter Hill Gang. - Mid-1960s: Gangster Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi develops a relationship with a Boston FBI agent and informs on members of the Providence, Rhode Island-based New England Mafia. FILE - These 1953 file Boston police booking photos provided by The Boston Globe shows James "Whitey" Bulger after an arrest. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison. (Boston Police/The Boston Globe via AP) - 1969: Flemmi is indicted in the murder of a mobster, and with childhood friend "Cadillac" Frank Salemme, for a car bombing. The two flee Boston after a tip from the agent. - 1970: William Bulger is elected to the state Senate. - 1972: Connolly, now an FBI agent, recognizes Salemme on the street in New York City and arrests him, earning Connolly a transfer back to Boston. - 1974: Flemmi returns to Boston after several key witnesses recant. - June 1975: Flemmi kills Edward Connors to prevent him from telling authorities about a murder by the Winter Hill Gang. - September 1975: Bulger cuts a deal with Connolly to provide information on the Italian Mafia in exchange for protection from the FBI, according to testimony from Flemmi. (Bulger during the trial strongly denied being an informant.) - 1977: Agent John Morris is appointed to oversee Connolly and his underworld informants. - 1978: William Bulger becomes president of the state Senate and goes on to serve in the post longer than anyone in its history. - 1979: A former associate implicates Whitey Bulger and Flemmi in a horse race-fixing scheme; FBI agents Connolly and Morris persuade federal prosecutors to leave the two out of the indictment. Twenty-one people are charged, including Winter, whose conviction paves the way for Bulger and Flemmi to assume control of the Winter Hill Gang. - November 1980: Bulger and Flemmi help the FBI plant a surveillance bug in the North End headquarters of Boston Mafia boss Gennaro Angiulo. - May 1981: Roger Wheeler, the owner of World Jai Alai, a gambling enterprise from which Bulger and Flemmi have been skimming money, is shot outside his country club in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by Winter Hill hit man John Martorano. - Spring 1982: Bulger and Flemmi allegedly gun down a former henchman in broad daylight in Boston to prevent him from talking about the Wheeler murder. Connolly tells the FBI rival gangsters made the hit. - July 1982: Flemmi and Bulger allegedly order Martorano to kill John Callahan, the former president of World Jai Alai, to prevent him from telling investigators about the jai alai scheme. - December 1994: Bulger disappears just before his indictment on racketeering charges. Indictment comes down the next month. - 1997: The FBI, under court order, acknowledges Bulger and Flemmi were "top echelon" informants as a federal probe into corrupt ties to mob informants begins. - May 2002: Connolly is convicted of racketeering for warning Bulger, Salemme and Flemmi they were about to be indicted. - June 2003: William Bulger testifies before a congressional committee investigating the FBI's ties to mobster informants such as his brother. After receiving immunity, he acknowledges receiving a call from Whitey Bulger shortly after he fled but says he has not heard from him since and has no idea where he is. - August 2003: William Bulger resigns as president of the University of Massachusetts system amid growing pressure. - 2005: Federal and state law enforcement officials investigate leads and Whitey Bulger lookalikes in at least 19 countries. - 2006: Authorities release 26-year-old surveillance video of Bulger in the hope that someone will recognize his mannerisms. - 2007: The FBI releases video of a couple resembling Bulger and his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig, in Italy. - 2008: Connolly is convicted of second-degree murder in the hit on Callahan as prosecutors argue the information he provided the mobsters was critical. - 2010: The FBI appeals to plastic surgeons in the effort to locate Bulger and Greig. - June 20, 2011: The FBI announces an effort to target Greig in the hopes of reaching Bulger. - June 22, 2011: Bulger is arrested in Santa Monica, California, with Greig. - March 14, 2012: Greig pleads guilty to helping Bulger evade capture during 16 years on the run. - June 12, 2012: Greig is sentenced to eight years in prison. Her attorney says she still loves Bulger and doesn't regret helping him stay on the run. - Nov. 4, 2012: Bulger is taken from jail to a hospital where he is treated after complaining of chest pains, then back to jail. - March 4, 2013: A judge rules that Bulger can't present evidence at his trial about his claim that a now-deceased federal prosecutor gave him immunity for future crimes, including murder. - June 12, 2013: Opening statements in Bulger's trial begin. - Aug. 12, 2013: Bulger is convicted of racketeering and other crimes, including extortion, conspiracy, money-laundering and drug dealing. The jury believed he took part in 11 of 19 killings. - Nov. 14, 2013: Bulger is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus five years and imprisoned in Arizona. - Dec. 17, 2013: Bulger is moved to a federal prison in Oklahoma. - 2014: Bulger is transferred to a federal prison in Florida. - Oct. 29, 2018: Bulger is moved to USP Hazelton, a high-security prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. - Oct. 30, 2018: Bulger is slain in prison at age 89. FILE - This undated file FBI photo found in Boston during an evidence search and released Dec. 30, 1998, shows James "Whitey" Bulger. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison. (FBI via AP, File) FILE - These 1980s FBI handout file photos show Massachusetts mobster James "Whitey" Bulger. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison. (FBI via AP, File) FILE - This 1986 FBI file photos show New England mobster James "Whitey" Bulger. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison. (FBI via AP, File) FILE - In this June 30, 2011 file photo, James "Whitey" Bulger, right, is escorted from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter to a waiting vehicle at an airport in Plymouth, Mass., after attending hearings in federal court in Boston. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison. (Stuart Cahill/The Boston Herald via AP, File) FILE - In this Nov. 13, 2013, file courtroom sketch, James "Whitey" Bulger sits at his sentencing hearing in federal court in Boston. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest of his life in prison. (AP Photo/Jane Flavell Collins, File) Russia will strongly protect the rights and interests of compatriots living abroad amid growing global tensions, the country's President Vladimir Putin said, addressing the 6th World Congress of Compatriots . "The global situation is difficult, tensions are rising, unpredictability is growing, the foundations of international law are being undermined, years-long agreements between countries are collapsing - and unfortunately, hatred against Russia and other forms of radical nationalism are being used," the Russian leader added. "We will strongly protect your rights and interests, taking advantage of all existing bilateral and international mechanisms, we will also continue to provide support to the Fund for the Support and Protection of the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad," Putin said. The head of state particularly mentioned countries where the rights of Russian compatriots were violated. "Lets be honest, we know that in Ukraine, the Baltic states and some other countries, history is being re-written, the fight against monuments and the Russian language is on," TASS cited him as saying. The Russian leader commended the activities of the Fund for the Support and Protection of the Rights of Compatriots. According to Putin, the organization has participated in the establishment of 26 legal assistance centers in 20 countries, provided grant support to 200 projects and carried out more than 50 activities, particularly arranging trainings for human rights activists. Over 70,000 people, including those living in countries such as Syria, Yemen and Libya, have received legal assistance. He added that preserving and promoting the Russian language and providing support to Russian language teachers remained among the countrys priorities. Putin stressed that educational literature and fiction books are supplied to educational facilities in other countries, and support is provided to winners of Russian language competitions. MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - St. Louis County Commissioner Pete Stauber used his official county email account to request opposition research from the National Republican Congressional Committee as he geared up his campaign for the U.S. House seat from northeastern Minnesota, emails released under court order Tuesday show. The county released the 22 emails after the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party sued for access to them, arguing that they were public data under the state's open records law. District Judge Stoney Hiljus signed an order Monday for the county to turn them over. Stauber faces Democrat Joe Radinovich and Independence Party candidate Skip Sandman in a race that's considered one of the GOP's best chances in the country to flip a House seat now held by a Democrat. The race has already attracted over $8.6 million in outside spending. The emails show that Stauber requested opposition research on Democratic U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan in August 2017, ahead of a congressional field hearing in Duluth on veterans' health care issues. Stauber wrote that he needed "Nolan's anti-Veteran votes" so he could get people to attend. Stauber made that request before Nolan announced in February that he would drop out of the race and retire. He also traded messages last December with the NRCC's regional press secretary, Maddie Anderson, discussing how they might use Nolan's support for internet neutrality against him. Stauber pointed out an item in Nolan's weekly email newsletter to constituents denouncing the Federal Communications Commission's decision last December to end net neutrality. Anderson replied that the outrage "has really faded away" and that it "might be a plus" if Nolan made it an issue. Stauber agreed. FILE - In this June 20, 2018 file photo, Republican Pete Stauber speaks during a Trump rally in Duluth, Minn. Stauber faces Democrat Joe Radinovich in Minnesota's 8th District congressional race. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File) Several other emails, from before Stauber officially announced his candidacy in July 2017, dealt with setting up meetings with lawmakers about an Obama administration decision to block mineral prospecting near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which the Trump administration has since rescinded. Stauber said he attended one on the Iron Range that included Nolan and GOP U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, and two other congressmen involved in natural resources issues, even though Stauber wasn't invited. The messages didn't indicate what transpired at those meetings. Several others dealt with setting up an interview with the Fox News Channel. DFL Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement that the emails show that Stauber used taxpayer resources even before he was officially a candidate, and as recently as April, to advance his candidacy. "It's outrageous that it took a court order for Pete Stauber to do the right thing and release these unlawful emails," Martin said. "Beyond abusing the public trust, Stauber disregarded state law and violated St. Louis County ethics policy by using county resources to advance his political ambitions." The Stauber campaign issued a short statement that did not address the content of the emails. "Pete respects the court's decision and the process just as he did when the county looked into this matter and found no wrongdoing," spokeswoman Caroline Tarwid said. St. Louis County Administrator Kevin Gray defended the decision to fight to keep the emails private. "Our priority has always been to follow the law," he said in a statement. "Although we interpreted the language of the statute differently; we will comply with the Court's order. " ___ For AP's complete coverage of the U.S. midterm elections: http://apne.ws/APPolitics ___ This version of the story corrects the transposition in the name National Republican Congressional Committee. SAO PAULO (AP) - The judge at the center of Brazil's sprawling investigation into kickbacks to politicians said Tuesday he would consider joining the Cabinet of President-elect Jair Bolsonaro if invited. Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain who will take office Jan. 1, said during an interview after his Sunday election that he would ask federal judge Sergio Moro to be his justice minister or fill a future vacancy on the supreme court. In a statement, Moro said he would be "honored" by such an invitation, and added that it "would be the object of careful discussion and reflection." Moro leads the "Operation Car Wash" corruption probe, which was launched in 2014 and has led to the jailing of many business executives and politicians, including former President Luiz Inacio da Silva of the left-leaning Workers' Party. His supporters have accused the judge of bias against their leaders. Bolsonaro ran on an anti-corruption, pro-gun and tough-on-crime platform. In the interview with TV Record, he noted he held off on mentioning a role for Moro during the presidential race. A federal police officer stands guard outside the location of a meeting by President-elect Jair Bolsonaro with members of his party and campaign, to discuss his presidential transition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) "If I had said that during the campaign that would be opportunistic," he said. "But now I can say I want to (invite Moro). Not only to the supreme court, but maybe to the justice ministry. I want to talk to him. For sure he will be a person of extreme importance." Rosangela Wolff Moro, a lawyer married to the judge, has repeatedly suggested in her Instagram profile that she supported Bolsonaro against left-leaning Fernando Haddad, who was named the Workers' Party candidate after da Silva was barred by electoral authorities over his imprisonment. Bolsonaro appeared in public Tuesday for the first time as president-elect. He visited a church led by ultraconservative pastor Silas Malafaia and spoke briefly to the faithful on stage. "I am sure that I am not the most capable, but God capacitates the chosen ones," he said. Bolsonaro's future chief-of-staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, said earlier that several current Cabinet positions will be merged into a single economy ministry, which will be led by economist Paulo Guedes. "The minister of industry and commerce will be with economy. So, the minister of economy will include (fusion of) the finance, the planning and the industry and commerce ministry," Lorenzoni said. Brazil's national industry confederation criticized the idea. "We need a minister with a specific role, not linked to the economy ministry, which worries more about revenues and public finances," it said. Most Brazilian business leaders endorsed Bolsonaro's candidacy. The incoming administration also plans to merge the agriculture and environment ministries, a move that some farmers and many environmentalists oppose. The nonprofit group Observatorio do Clima said the move aims to end any environmental regulation. "Bolsonarism is showing his face: an ideological regime of violence and looting of natural resources, bending to the oldest forces of the producing sector," its statement said. "This undermines the competitivity of Brazilian agribusiness, which depends on strong environmental governance, and makes Brazil a pariah in the international scene." Also on Tuesday, a few thousand people rallied in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to protest against the president-elect. Flavio Bolsonaro, son of President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, leaves after a meeting with his father, members of his party and campaign, to discuss the presidential transition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) Paulo Guedes, center, the head economic adviser for President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, and lawmaker Onyx Lorenzoni, far right, talk to the press after a meeting with Bolsonaro and members of his party and members of his campaign, to discuss his presidential transition in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) Vice President-elect, Army Reserve Gen. Hamilton Mourao arrives for a meeting with President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) Students protest against president-elect Jair Bolsonaro at Cinelandia square, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. Bolsonaro was elected Sunday and will take office Jan. 1. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo) HONOLULU (AP) - The Latest on Hawaii Supreme Court's decision upholding a construction permit for a giant telescope (all times local): 3:50 p.m. A Native Hawaiian who opposes a giant telescope planned for a mountain he and others consider sacred say opponents need to be ready to stop construction now that the state Supreme Court has upheld the project's permit. Kahookahi Kanuha says they need to resist with non-violent protests. He says it's not clear what that will look like, but protesters will likely return to Mauna Kea when construction crews return. His message to Hawaiians: "hoomakaukau," get ready. Richard Ha, a Native Hawaiian who supports the project, says he wants to "talk story" with opponents to figure out a common ground. He says he believes the long process that led to the ruling in favor of the Thirty Meter Telescope was "pono," or righteous. FILE - This Aug. 31, 2015, file photo shows telescopes on the summit of Mauna Kea on Hawaii's Big Island. Hawaii's Supreme Court upheld a decision to grant a construction permit for an embattled, international giant telescope project planned for a mountain Native Hawaiians consider sacred. The court ruling Tuesday, Oct.. 30, 2018, is a victory for the contentious Thirty Meter Telescope planned for Hawaii's tallest mountain, Mauna Kea. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones, File) ___ 1:30 p.m. Hawaii's attorney general says there are further legal actions possible in the long saga over whether a giant telescope can be built atop the state's tallest mountain. Attorney General Russell Suzuki says there can be a motion for reconsideration filed 10 days after Tuesday's state Supreme Court ruling that upholds the Thirty Meter Telescope's construction permit. Suzuki says those who challenge the ruling could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review it. Kealoha Pisciotta, one of the main telescope opponents, says she's not sure what their next steps will be. She says she doesn't hold out much hope for the legal system. Gov. David Ige says he's pleased the decision will allow Hawaii to lead the world in astronomy. State Department of Land and Natural Resources Chairwoman Suzanne Case says the next steps involving telescope builders submitting construction plans. The department will review plans before issuing permission to proceed. ___ 11:55 a.m. The nonprofit company that wants to build a giant telescope on a Hawaii mountain says it is excited to proceed now that the state Supreme Court has upheld the project's construction permit. TMT International Observatory Board of Governors Chairman Henry Yang says in a statement they are grateful Tuesday's ruling will allow the Thirty Meter Telescope to be built on Mauna Kea. Thirty Meter Telescope spokesman Scott Ishikawa says they need to work out details about when construction can resume. Ishikawa says they hope state and county officials can assure safe passage for workers. Protesters blocked the road to the mountain during previous construction attempts. The court invalidated the project's first permit in 2015, ruling that the approval process was flawed and ordering the parties to go through the steps again. ___ 11:30 a.m. One of the main Native Hawaiian leaders in the fight against a giant telescope says she's bewildered by a state Supreme Court ruling upholding the project's construction permit. Kealoha Pisciotta is among those who consider the mountain where the telescope is planned to be built to be sacred. Pisciotta says she hasn't fully read Tuesday's decision. She says she's shocked. The ruling says astronomy and Native Hawaiian uses on Mauna Kea have co-existed for many years. The ruling says the Thirty Meter Telescope will not curtail or restrict Native Hawaiian uses. Kealoha says the people of Hawaii shouldn't be disheartened by the ruling because it doesn't change that Mauna Kea on the Big Island is a sacred place. A spokesman for the Thirty Meter Telescope didn't immediately comment. The project has become one of Hawaii's most divisive issues. ___ 11:10 a.m. The Hawaii Supreme Court has ruled that the state land board was correct in approving a construction permit to build a giant telescope on a mountain Hawaiians consider sacred. The ruling issued Tuesday is a victory for the Thirty Meter Telescope planned for Mauna Kea on the Big Island. Telescope opponents appealed after a hearings officer recommended granting the permit and the land board approved it. Opponents complained about various due process issues, including that the hearings officer had a conflict of interest because she was a member of a Big Island astronomy center. The project has been one of Hawaii's most divisive issues. The court invalidated the project's first permit in 2015, ruling that the approval process was flawed and ordering the parties to go through the steps again. Hawaii Gov. David Ige speaks at a news conference on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018 in Honolulu regarding a Hawaii Supreme Court ruling upholding a decision to grant a permit for the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea. The state Supreme Court's 4-1 ruling is a victory for the contentious Thirty Meter Telescope planned for Hawaii's tallest mountain. (AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy) SAO PAULO (AP) - A Brazilian congressman has caused uproar in Argentina for saying Boca Juniors' stadium La Bombonera "smells bad." Eduardo Bolsonaro was re-elected with 2 million votes on Sunday and is the son of far-right Brazilian president-elect Jair Bolsonaro. He insulted Boca's stadium in an interview with Argentine website MDZ on Tuesday. Bolsonaro's Palmeiras will play against Boca on Wednesday for a place in the prestigious Copa Libertadores final. Boca beat Palmeiras 2-0 in their first leg at La Bombonera last week. Argentine fans were split on social media, some supporting Bolsonaro's comments and Boca fans criticizing him for raising tensions. Later on Tuesday defending champions Gremio of Brazil will face Boca's archrival River Plate for another spot in the final. Gremio beat River 1-0 in their first leg last week. VATICAN CITY (AP) - The Vatican said Tuesday that human bones were found during renovation work near its embassy to Italy, reviving talk about one of the Holy See's most enduring mysteries - the fate of the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee who disappeared in 1983. In the latest twist in a case that has bedeviled investigators for 35 years, the Vatican said Rome's chief prosecutor had been called in and forensic investigators are working to determine the age and gender of the bones as well as the date of death. The Vatican statement didn't mention the girl, Emanuela Orlandi, but Italian media immediately linked her unsolved disappearance to the discovery of the bones. The Vatican said merely that the bones were found during work near its Rome embassy in the upscale residential neighborhood of Parioli. Orlandi disappeared after leaving her family's Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See. Over the years, her case has been linked to everything from the plot to kill St. John Paul II to the financial scandal of the Vatican bank and Rome's criminal underworld. The last major twist in the case came in 2012, when forensic police exhumed the body of a reputed mobster from the crypt of a Roman basilica in hopes of finding Orlandi's remains as well. The search turned up no link. FILE - In this May 27, 2012, file photo, demonstrators hold pictures of Emanuela Orlandi reading "march for truth and justice for Emanuela" during Pope Benedict XVI's Regina Coeli prayer in St. Peter's square, at the Vatican. The Vatican says human bones were found during renovation work near its embassy to Italy, reviving speculation once again about the fate of Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee who disappeared in 1983. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File) More recently, a leading Italian investigative journalist caused a sensation when he published a five-page document last year that had been stolen from a locked Vatican cabinet that suggested the Holy See had been involved in Orlandi's disappearance. The Vatican immediately branded the document a fake, though it never explained what it was doing in the Vatican cabinet. The document was purportedly written by a cardinal and listed supposed expenses used for Orlandi's upkeep after she disappeared. NEW YORK (AP) - With the pressure of the lead role on him for the first time, Lucas Hedges was hearing voices. Vivid movie-critic voices. "I would hear reviews in my head that were like: 'It appears as if Hedges has nothing going on in his inner life. In what should be a very rich...'" says Hedges, writing the imaginary hatchet job in his head. "It was like: I'm never going to work again. The stakes felt very high." The reviews, like just about everything the 21-year-old actor has done, including his Oscar-nominated breakthrough role in "Manchester by Sea," have turned out quite the opposite for Hedges in his first starring role. The acclaimed gay conversion therapy drama "Boy Erased," out Friday, is the latest in a string of disarmingly natural performances by Hedges, even if during the film's shoot, he felt like he was drowning. Hedges ultimately found that the self-doubt could be beneficial. He could channel it into his performance as Garrard Conley, who chronicled his anguished insecurity as the gay son of Baptist parents (Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe) sent to a conversion camp in a 2016 memoir, the basis for Joel Edgerton's film. "There's always a parallel journey going on in all of these projects," Hedges said in a recent interview in a midtown Manhattan restaurant. In parts large and small, Hedges has over the past two years assembled a portrait gallery of young men in strained, anxious periods of transition. He has been a newly parentless son ("Manchester by the Sea"), a gay teen in denial ("Lady Bird"), an abusive older brother ("Mid90s") and a drug addict in recovery ("Ben Is Back"). Their struggles have all in some way mirrored Hedges' own; their coming of age has been his. In this Oct. 22, 2018 file photo, Lucas Hedges poses in New York to promote his latest film, "Boy Erased." (Photo by Amy Sussman/Invision/AP) "In the last few years, I've felt really restless and searching for the approval of the world," says Hedges. "Moving forward, I can't say I'll be drawn to the same roles. But these parts have felt like no-brainers. There's been a lot of transformation occurring within me." Hedges, a Brooklyn-native currently living with his older brother, Simon, in a Manhattan apartment, spoke on a day off from his Broadway debut in Kenneth Lonergan's "The Waverly Gallery," alongside Elaine May, Joan Allen and Michael Cera. (The latter has made himself a mentor to Hedges, giving him regular film assignments.) Hedges' father, the author-playwright-filmmaker Peter Hedges ("What's Eating Gilbert Grape," ''Pieces of April"), recently attended opening night. And while he's been well aware of his son's natural talent since a seventh grade production of "Nicholas Nickleby" (Hedges played Smike, the disabled boy), he was still impressed when he entered Lucas' dressing room. On the wall were pictures of his grandmother for personal inspiration. (Hedges plays the grandson of a woman descending into dementia.) "You walk in and you go, 'Oh, there's a real actor preparing in this room,'" says the elder Hedges. "Then it hits me that I get to be his dad." A decade ago, Peter cast his son in "Dan in Real Life" but ultimately cut his scene. It was a kind of blessing. Lucas later made it clear he wanted to make his own path, outside of his father. "I wanted to have the life of an actor. I didn't fantasize about acting. I wanted to be famous. I wouldn't say I had the purest intentions of getting into this industry," says Lucas. "And to be honest, I still don't have the purest intentions." Such a line - far from the usual sort actors make promoting their movies - is reflective of Hedges' rare humility. In the course of a wide-spanning interview Hedges spoke with candor about everything from his growing opportunities ("Honestly, there's no shortage of parts for young, white, male actors. ... That's a weird thing to say."), to his deep affection for the puberty sitcom "Big Mouth" to his history as a ranked squash player. He tends to deflect praise. About as far as he'll go is to credit the material he's gotten to be a part of: "Maybe I'm good at, like, being aware of what I'm working on is good." Others, though, don't shy from complimenting. "He has this blank-canvas, everyday-beautiful-ordinary regularness about him," says Edgerton, who wrote and directed "Boy Erased." ''Lucas is an actor who holds the screen so well without words. The central character of 'Boy Erased' is such a quiet, put-upon person. Lucas was coming out of being a boy and transitioning into being a man." Hedges was lured back into working with his father by Julia Roberts, who lobbied for Lucas to star alongside her in Peter's upcoming "Ben Is Back." Lucas plays a young man home from rehab for the holidays; Roberts plays his mom. "The hardest part of being the father of a young actor who has had inordinate early success, what my worry would be is that he now has to protect his place and constantly prove that he is a certain type of actor," says Peter. "What impresses me is that he's still thinking very much like a student. He's always learning and growing." Both "Boy Erased" and "Ben Is Back," Hedges says, are for him about overcoming shame. "Shame has been a big part of my life and something I've really be able to come face-to-face with through these projects. I've gotten to look more directly at myself and heal those parts of me," he says. "I try to approach every part in terms of: This part has come to me to heal something." Part of that process on "Boy Erased" was also coming to terms with his sexuality. In an interview last month with New York Magazine, Hedges said he's "not totally straight, but also not gay and not necessarily bisexual." Saying that publicly, he says, has been a relief. "I don't feel like I'm only attracted to women. There are people in my life that I'm afraid to say that to, and I don't like it," says Hedges. "But if I'm going to play this part, then I wouldn't deserve to play it if I wasn't able to be honest. This character had to risk everything in sharing his sexuality and being honest with himself. The least I can do is be like, 'Am I doing the same?'" It may have been a tumultuous period in Hedges' life, one cathartically charted on screen. But it has brought him a hard-earned maturity. "For the first time in my life," Hedges says, "I'm more settled in myself." ___ Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP This image released by Focus Features shows Theodore Pellerin, left, and Lucas Hedges in a scene from "Boy Erased." (Focus Features via AP) In this Oct. 22, 2018 file photo, Lucas Hedges poses in New York to promote his latest film, "Boy Erased." (Photo by Amy Sussman/Invision/AP) This image released by Focus Features shows Nicole Kidman, left, and Lucas Hedges in a scene from "Boy Erased." (Focus Features via AP) In this Oct. 22, 2018 file photo, Lucas Hedges poses in New York to promote his latest film, "Boy Erased." (Photo by Amy Sussman/Invision/AP) HONOLULU (AP) - Pioneering coral reef scientist Ruth Gates, who dedicated much of her career to saving the world's fragile and deteriorating underwater reef ecosystems, has died. She was 56. Gates died in Honolulu on Thursday, the University of Hawaii said Tuesday. The researcher, also the president of the International Society for Reef Studies, was diagnosed with brain cancer in May and had been on medical leave since. Gates became known globally for her idea to speed up coral evolution and create more resilient reefs. The Associated Press first wrote about her project to breed "super coral " in 2015. Her goal was to develop coral that could withstand the devastating effects of climate change. Her work was featured in the 2017 Netflix documentary "Chasing Coral." Warmer ocean temperatures can cause corals to go through a process known as bleaching, where the animals become weak and sick. Repeated bleaching events can lead to coral death and the loss of entire reef ecosystems. Gates' colleague and partner in the assisted evolution project, professor Madeleine van Oppen of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, said Gates was "a great inspiration" to many. In this Sept. 28, 2015 file photo, Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology director Ruth Gates talks about her project to create "super coral" near her lab on Coconut Island in Kaneohe, Hawaii. Gates, who dedicated much of her career to saving the world's fragile and deteriorating coral reefs, has died at age 56. The University of Hawaii, where Gates was the director of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, said Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, that the researcher died in Honolulu on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones, File) "She was intelligent, professional and had a wonderful sense of humour," Van Oppen told the AP in an email. "She was a great ambassador for the reef and a role model for women in coral reef science." Van Oppen said it's a shame she will not be able to see the long-term impacts of their research. "But I will work extra hard to try and make it a success in her honour," she said. Gates was known for her innovative science, but she was also widely admired for her welcoming, energetic and cheerful personality. "Ruth was not only a shining star in coral research, but an indomitable spirit in every aspect of life," said Judy Lemus, interim director the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology and friend of Gates. "Her enthusiasm was contagious, and she absolutely loved what she did. Her loss will be felt deeply within our own community and throughout the broader research community." Mark Eakin, coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch program, said Gates' death is a loss for the entire scientific community. "Ruth was really a force of nature, I mean she was just an amazingly productive scientist, one of the brightest, most inquisitive minds that we had in the whole field of coral reef science. Her energy was boundless," Eakin said in a phone interview. Gates faced a "whole suite of criticisms" over her plan to breed stronger corals, but "rather than dismissing those criticisms, she would embrace them" Eakin said. "She is the kind of great leader who has trained so many and left a legacy of students who will be able to pick up and continue this work." Mariana Rocha de Souza, a doctoral student in Gates' lab, said in an email to the AP that her mentor was an advocate for women in science. "We are a very gender balanced lab and she encouraged us as PhD students to do the same when selecting the professors in our committee. She motivated us, women in science by telling her experience and encouraging us to fight," Rocha de Souza said. Gates' research won the support of philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, allowing her to expand, develop and test her theories in a lab on Oahu's Coconut Island. "Ruth Gates realized before most others that for corals to survive climate change, their adaptation to warming waters will have to be assisted," said Lauren Kickham, director of product management at Paul G. Allen Philanthropies. "She believed in their resilience and ultimately offered hope for the future." Allen, 65, died Oct. 15 from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Gates was born in Akrotiri, Cyprus, in 1962 and is survived by her wife, Robin Burton-Gates, and her brother, Tim Gates. ___ Follow AP Hawaii Correspondent on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CalebAP ___ This story has been corrected to show the release date of the documentary "Chasing Coral" was 2017, not 2018. In this Sept. 28, 2015 photo, Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology director Ruth Gates shows corals that are undergoing enhancement at her lab on Coconut Island near Kaneohe, Hawaii. Gates, who dedicated much of her career to saving the world's fragile and deteriorating coral reefs, has died at age 56. The University of Hawaii, where Gates was the director of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, said Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018 that the researcher died in Honolulu on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones, File) In this Thursday, Aug. 13, 2015 file photo, Malia Chow, superintendent of NOAA's Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, right, and Ruth Gates, director of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology at the University of Hawaii, discuss coral reefs aboard a boat with the crew of the XL Catlin Seaview Survey in Kaneohe Bay off the east coast of Oahu, Hawaii. Gates, who dedicated much of her career to saving the world's fragile and deteriorating coral reefs, has died at age 56. The University of Hawaii, where Gates was the director of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, said Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018 that the researcher died in Honolulu on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones, File) ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - President Donald Trump said Tuesday he wants to end a constitutional right that automatically grants citizenship to any baby born in the United States. Trump, in an interview with "Axios on HBO," said his goal is halting guaranteed citizenship for babies of noncitizens and unauthorized immigrants. U.S. citizenship through birth comes via the 14th Amendment , which was ratified after the Civil War to secure U.S. citizenship for newly freed black slaves. It later was used to guarantee citizenship to all babies born on U.S. soil after court challenges. Here is a look at the Citizenship Clause and how citizens worked to be included in it throughout U.S. history: THE 14TH AMENDMENT In the aftermath of the Civil War, radical Republicans in Congress sought to push through a series of constitutional protections for newly emancipated black slaves. The 13th Amendment, which was ratified in December 1865, outlawed slavery. The 14th Amendment, ratified in July 1868, assured citizenship for all, including blacks. And the 15th Amendment, ratified in February 1870, awarded voting rights to black men, stating those rights should not be denied based on "race, color or previous condition of servitude." "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside," the 14th Amendment says. "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." FILE - In this Sept. 16, 2015 photo, in Sullivan City, Texas, a woman who is in the country illegally plays with her 2-year-old daughter who was born in the in the United States but was denied a birth certificate. Lawyers for immigrant families denied birth certificates for their U.S.-born children by Texas health officials who refuse to recognize as valid certain forms of identification will argue for a federal judge to intervene against the state. U.S. citizenship through birth comes via the 14th Amendment, which was ratified after the Civil War to secure U.S. citizenship for newly freed black slaves. It later was used to guarantee citizenship to all babies born on U.S. soil after court challenges. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File) During a debate over the 14th Amendment, U.S. Sen. Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania said birthright citizenship could result in "a flood of immigration of the Mongol race." He was referring to immigrants from Mongolia and China. By extending citizenship to those born in the U.S., the amendment nullified the Supreme Court's 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which held that those descended from slaves could not be citizens. Dred Scott and his wife Harriet were slaves who sued for their freedom after they were taken from the slave state of Missouri to the non-slave territories of Wisconsin and Illinois where slavery had been prohibited by the Missouri Compromise. FIGHT FOR CITIZENSHIP Despite the Citizenship Clause and equal protections afforded under the 14th Amendment, Native Americans were consistently denied the benefits of U.S. birthright citizenship and it took decades for them to receive full citizenship, according to the nonpartisan National Constitution Center. Native Americans who remained under tribal structures were not considered in determining the number of representatives for states in Congress. And if Native Americans left tribal structures, they weren't eligible for naturalization under the general naturalization laws because only whites could become naturalized citizens, Rutgers University School of Law professor Earl M. Maltz told the National Constitution Center in a conversation about citizenship. Congress finally granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S. in 1924. The idea that the children of immigrants born in the U.S. were automatically U.S. citizens remained unclear until 1898. That's when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that San Francisco-born Wong Kim Ark was a U.S. citizen because he was born in the U.S. The federal government had tried to deny the son of Chinese immigrants re-entry in the U.S. after a trip abroad on grounds he wasn't a citizen under the Chinese Exclusion Act. Still, U.S.-born Mexican-Americans in the 1930s were denied citizenship protections when authorities in California and Texas deported them to Mexico during the Great Depression. U.S.-born Japanese-Americans were denied citizenship protections when they were forced into Japanese internment camps during World War II. AN EXECUTIVE ORDER Geoffrey Hoffman, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Houston Law Center, says some proponents of immigration restrictions have argued the words "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in the 14th Amendment allows the U.S. to deny citizenship to babies born to those in the country illegally. However, Hoffman said those arguments are false since any person in the U.S., besides diplomats, would be subject to U.S. laws regardless of immigration status. Any executive order by Trump or any president could be subjected to a judicial challenge and there are many articles in the Constitution that would make a fight against the Citizenship Clause difficult. Besides the 14th Amendment itself, Hoffman said an executive order banning the Citizenship Clause would violate Article 2 of the Constitution, which states the president "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Hoffman said such an executive order would violate laws of denaturalization and would attempt to strip citizenship retroactively - another violation of the Constitution. ___ Associated Press Writer Russell Contreras is a member of the AP's race and ethnicity team. Follow Contreras on Twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontreras . FILE - In this July 13, 2005, file photo, Cornelia Brown, left, executive director of the Multicultural Association of Medical Interpreters, talks with Lul Mohamed, a Somalian, who does translation from Maay and Kiswahili to English at the maternity area at the St. Luke's Campus of Faxton-St. Luke's Healthcare in Utica, N.Y. Lul works for MAMI and has done two translations at the hospital. U.S. citizenship through birth comes via the 14th Amendment, which was ratified after the Civil War to secure U.S. citizenship for newly freed black slaves. It later was used to guarantee citizenship to all babies born on U.S. soil after court challenges. (AP Photo/Jim McKnight, File) FILE - In this May 13, 2004, file photo, Jose Aguilar, and his wife, Maria, read a book with their children Jose Jr.,7, and Jennifer, 9, at their home in National City, Calif. The Aguilar children are U.S. citizens by virtue of their American birth, but their parents face deportation back to their homeland of Mexico. U.S. citizenship through birth comes via the 14th Amendment, which was ratified after the Civil War to secure U.S. citizenship for newly freed black slaves. It later was used to guarantee citizenship to all babies born on U.S. soil after court challenges. (AP Photo/Sandy Huffaker, File) NEW DELHI (AP) - India's prime minister on Wednesday unveiled a towering bronze statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a key independence leader being promoted as a national icon in the ruling party's campaign ahead of next year's general elections. Patel, who hailed from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's native Gujarat state, was also India's first home minister after the 1947 independence from Britain. He was known as the "Iron Man of India" for integrating various states in the post-independence era, when the creation of Pakistan led to massive bloodshed between Hindus and Muslims moving between the two nations. The statue is part of a broader project by Modi to counter the opposition Indian National Congress Party's firm claim on India's history by way of the country's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, his mentor, peace activist Mahatma Gandhi, and his daughter, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated by her guards in 1984. Nehru's great-grandson, Rahul Gandhi, leads the Congress Party, and if a unified opposition wins a majority of seats in parliamentary elections due next spring, he could be a candidate for India's next prime minister. The Patel statue "puts the opposition in a quandary because any criticism of Modi's showmanship will enable him to depict critics as being legatees of those who denied Patel his rightful place in the nation and history," said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a Delhi-based political analyst and author of the book "Modi: The Man, The Times." Indian policemen gather next to the Statue of Unity at Kevadiya colony in Gujarat state, India, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. The 182-meters (597 feet) bronze statue of Sardar Vallabbhai Patel, a key independence leader and the country's first home minister after British colonialists left in 1947, was inaugurated Wednesday by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki) "In the process, not only will the Statue of Unity literally dwarf statues of all other Indians leaders, but the event will also enable the memory of Sardar to rise imposingly over Congress Party leaders," Mukhopadhyay said. At 182 meters (597 feet), Patel's bronze figure in Kevadiya, a village in Gujarat, is one of the tallest statues in the world - almost 10 stories higher than the 153-meter (501-foot) Spring Temple Buddha statue in China and nearly twice the height of the Statue of Liberty, which stands at 93 meters (305 feet). The 42-month project built by 250 engineers and 3,000 workers began in 2013, when Modi was the top elected official in Gujarat. After he became prime minister in 2014, he pledged to complete it despite some critics balking at the nearly $403 million price tag, which they said could be better spent on welfare programs for India's poor. Standing on the banks of the Narmada River on Wednesday as Indian air force pilots dropped flower petals on Patel's imposing figure, Modi said the statue would serve as a beacon of hope for India and "keep on reminding the whole world" about Patel's courage. The monument will have a museum with 40,000 documents, 2,000 photographs and a research center dedicated to Patel's life and work. "Though Patel was from Gujarat state, all Indians were proud of him because of his stature," said Rashesh Patel, a 42-year-old businessman among the crowd gathered for the inauguration ceremony. The Patel statue could, however, soon be topped by the 212-meter (696-foot) Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Memorial commemorating a 17th-century Indian warrior king, which is set to open in Mumbai in 2021. ___ This story corrects the spelling of Vallabhbhai. A view of the Statue of Unity from the valley of flowers at Kevadiya Colony in Narmada district of Gujarat State, India, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday unveiled the towering bronze statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a key independence leader being promoted as a national icon in the ruling party's campaign ahead of next year's general elections. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki) Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, centre, waves during the inauguration of Statue of Unity at Kevadiya Colony in Narmada district of Gujarat State, India, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. The 182-meters (597 feet) bronze statue of Sardar Vallabbhai Patel, a key independence leader and the country's first home minister after British colonialists left in 1947, was inaugurated Wednesday by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki) PITTSBURGH (AP) - The suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday, and members of a grief-stricken Jewish community endured another round of funerals for victims of the worst anti-Semitic attack in American history. Robert Bowers, a 46-year-old truck driver who authorities say raged against Jews as he gunned down 11 and wounded six, was charged in a 44-count indictment with murder, hate crimes and other offenses that could bring the death penalty. The indictment, which was expected, was announced on the second day of a weeklong series of funerals for congregants who perished in the mass shooting at Tree of Life synagogue. "Today begins the process of seeking justice for the victims of these hateful acts, and healing for the victims' families, the Jewish community, and our city," U.S. Attorney Scott Brady said in a statement. "Our office will spare no resource, and will work with professionalism, integrity and diligence, in a way that honors the memories of the victims." One after another, services were held for three more victims of the rampage: Joyce Fienberg, 75; Melvin Wax, 87, and Irving Younger, 69. "It can't be fixed," Robert Libman said at his sister's funeral, clutching his chest as he described the pain of losing her. "My sister is dead. My sister was murdered. There was no one I know like her. Pure goodness. ... She was the most tolerant and gentle person that I've ever known." Fienberg's sons, Anthony, of Paris, and Howard, of Vienna, Virginia, said she spent five years caring for their father as he battled cancer, then, after his death a few years ago, devoted more of her time and energy to Tree of Life. She was a retired researcher at the University of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh police stand guard as pallbearers carry the casket of Irving Younger, 69, from Congregation Rodef Shalom after his funeral on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Pittsburgh. Younger was one of the eleven victims killed in the deadly shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood on Saturday. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic) "My mom would be very angry that her funeral wasn't able to be at Tree of Life, and that her friends lost Saturday couldn't be here," Howard Fienberg said. Younger had a small realty office in Squirrel Hill, the heart of Pittsburgh's Jewish community, and coached baseball for more than 20 years. He loved to talk, and would gladly share his life story or stop strangers on the street to show them pictures of his grandson in California. One friend called him "a kibbitzing, people-loving man." Widowed a decade ago, Younger had a son and daughter in California, who waited all day Saturday to learn if he had survived. "That waiting stage was just unbearable," said his son, Jared, of Los Angeles. "Saturday was the most lonely day of my life." Jared Younger said that when his sister contacted him, he had a feeling it was about his father. Irving Younger hadn't been in great health, undergoing bypass surgery last year. Jared Younger said his dad drank Diet Coke for 40 years, quipping he was "anti-water." The day's other funeral was held for Wax, a retired accountant who was regarded as a core member of the congregation at New Light, which rented space in the lower level of Tree of Life. A drained-looking Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, a survivor of the weekend shooting, hurried from service to service. "I can't imagine the stress he's under," said his predecessor, Rabbi Charles "Chuck" Diamond. As Younger's service was wrapping up, Myers momentarily forgot to read a letter to his family that another rabbi had sent. "After preparing for five funerals, you get a little verklempt," Myers said. Bowers remained jailed without bail ahead of an arraignment scheduled for Thursday. Mourners walk behind the hearse with the casket of Irving Younger, 69, past Congregation Rodef Shalom after his funeral on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Pittsburgh. Younger was one of the eleven victims killed in the deadly shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood on Saturday. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic) Pittsburgh police stand guard as the casket of Irving Younger, 69, is wheeled from Congregation Rodef Shalom after his funeral on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Pittsburgh. Younger was one of the eleven victims killed in the deadly shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood on Saturday. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic) Pittsburgh police stand guard as the casket of Irving Younger, 69, is wheeled from Congregation Rodef Shalom after his funeral on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Pittsburgh. Younger was one of the eleven victims killed in the deadly shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood on Saturday. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic) FILE - In this Oct. 30, 2018, file photo, a casket is carried out of Rodef Shalom Congregation after the funeral services for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, in Pittsburgh. The brothers were killed in the mass shooting last week at the Tree of Life synagogue. A team of rabbis and volunteers has gone into the Tree of Life synagogue to gather up blood and other remains from the victims of the shooting rampage, in keeping with Jewish law that says the entire body must be buried. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, places a stone on the Star of David for Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Greenblatt flew in for the funerals of victims of Saturday's mass shooting at Tree of Life, which left 11 dead and six injured. He said President Trump was right to call the massacre an act of anti-Semitism, but he said Trump's words and actions in coming weeks and months will be the test of his sincerity. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed) Students from the Yeshiva School in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh stand outside Beth Shalom Synagogue after attending the funeral service for Joyce Fienberg, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Fienberg, 75, Melvin Wax, 87, and Irving Younger, 69, were to be laid to rest as part of a weeklong series of services for the 11 people killed in a shooting rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) Students from the Yeshiva School in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh stand outside Beth Shalom Synagogue after attending the funeral service for Joyce Fienberg, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Fienberg, 75, Melvin Wax, 87, and Irving Younger, 69, were to be laid to rest as part of a weeklong series of services for the 11 people killed in a shooting rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) Mourners embrace as they gather at the funeral home before the funeral for Melvin Wax, 87, on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Pittsburgh. Wax, Irving Younger, 69, and Joyce Fienberg, 75, were to be laid to rest as part of a weeklong series of services for the 11 people killed in a shooting rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic) Mourners embrace as they gather at the funeral home before the funeral for Melvin Wax, 87, on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Pittsburgh. Wax, Irving Younger, 69, and Joyce Fienberg, 75, were to be laid to rest as part of a weeklong series of services for the 11 people killed in a shooting rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic) U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, right, stands in line with mourners as they gather at the funeral home before the funeral for Melvin Wax, 87, on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Pittsburgh. Wax, Irving Younger, 69, and Joyce Fienberg, 75, were to be laid to rest as part of a weeklong series of services for the 11 people killed in a shooting rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic) People wait inline at the funeral home before the funeral for Melvin Wax, 87, on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Pittsburgh. Wax, Irving Younger, 69, and Joyce Fienberg, 75, were to be laid to rest as part of a weeklong series of services for the 11 people killed in a shooting rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic) Pallbearers carry the casket of Joyce Fienberg from the Beth Shalom Synagogue following a funeral service in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Fienberg, 75, Melvin Wax, 87 and Irving Younger, 69 were to be laid to rest as part of a weeklong series of services for the 11 people killed in a shooting rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) Pallbearers carry the casket of Joyce Fienberg from the Beth Shalom Synagogue following a funeral service in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. Fienberg, 75, Melvin Wax, 87 and Irving Younger, 69 were to be laid to rest as part of a weeklong series of services for the 11 people killed in a shooting rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) Four Russian-built RD-180 rocket engines have been transferred to their U.S. buyers, the NPO Energomash rocket engine producer said in a website statement. "Four RD-180 engines have been handed over to buyers. On October 26, 2018, Pratt & Whitney, United Launch Alliance and RD AMROSS singed the engines log books," TASS cited the statement as saying. During the two weeks preceding the engines handover, representatives from the two U.S. companies and the Russian-U.S. joint venture RD AMROSS, along with other representatives from NASA and the U.S. Air Force, had been externally inspecting the engines, checking their spare parts and accompanying documents, NPO Energomash added. According to the manufacturer, the engines are ready to be sent out. NPO Energomash also said that in April 2018, four RD-180 engines had already been supplied to buyers. "Another three RD-180 engines are expected to be delivered in November," the company added. TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran on Wednesday summoned the Danish ambassador to Tehran over Copenhagen's allegations about an Iranian plot to kill an opposition activist in Denmark, the official IRNA news agency reported. Iran expressed a "strong protest" to Ambassador Danny Annan over what it described as the Danish officials' "hasty, political" and "uncalculated actions" in the case. The development came after Denmark's intelligence agency said on Tuesday that a police operation last month that briefly cut off Copenhagen from the rest of Denmark stemmed from an alleged Iranian plot to kill an opposition activist. It said a suspect in the case, a Norwegian citizen of Iranian descent, has denied wrongdoing and is being held in pre-trial custody until Nov. 8. Iran's Foreign Ministry strongly denied the plot allegation, calling it part of enemy plans aimed at damaging Iran-EU relations. Danes say intelligence shows Iran was planning to kill a member of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz, or ASMLA, a group that Tehran has blamed for the Sept. 22 terror attack on a military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz that killed at least 25 people. ASMLA condemned the violence and said it was not involved. Denmark condemned Iran for the alleged plot and recalled Annan, the ambassador to Tehran, for consultations. Annan left Iran on Wednesday, shortly after being summoned to the Iranian Foreign Ministry. FILE - In this file photo dated Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, families of victims of Saturday's terror attack on a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, that killed 25 people mourn at a mass funeral ceremony, in Ahvaz, Iran. A Norwegian citizen of Iranian descent was arrested Oct. 21, 2018, on suspicion of helping an unspecified Iranian intelligence service "to act in Denmark" against the ASMLA, according to Danish security service chief Finn Borch Andersen and Tehran has blamed the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA) for a terror attack on a military parade in Ahvaz on Sept. 22 that left at least 25 people dead. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, FILE) "We are looking at the situation in Denmark as being very serious and not least because there is a Norwegian of Iranian descent involved," Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg said. Her government had not yet decided what it would do pending a Norwegian police probe, she added. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking in an interview with Fox News Radio on Wednesday, said Iran is the leading actor conducting assassination attempts in Europe. "That kind of behavior needs to stop, and we have offered our support and effort to help the Europeans in preventing these kinds of assassination attempts from taking place," he said. ___ Associated Press writers Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report. JUCHITAN, Mexico (AP) - The latest on the migrant caravan making its way through Mexico (all times local): 7:05 p.m. An activist working with several thousand Central American migrants moving through southern Mexico says the caravan's effort to arrange bus travel to Mexico City has "failed." Caravan coordinator Walter Cuello said Wednesday evening that the migrants now plan to set out on foot again before dawn Thursday from Juchitan in Oaxaca state. They will be heating to Santa Maria Jalapa del Marques, about 35 miles (57 kilometers) to the west. The migrants had not said what route they intended to take northward or where on the U.S. border they hope to reach, and Juchitan was something of a crossroads. Choosing Jalapa del Marques as the next destination appears to indicate they are opting to travel via Oaxaca's eponymous state capital instead of turning north toward the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. Veracruz is a common transit route for Central Americans heading for the nearest crossing, at McAllen, Texas. Central American migrants watch a movie set up at their makeshift camp where a caravan of thousands of Central American migrants are sleeping in Juchitan, Mexico, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. This caravan of about 4,000 mainly Honduran migrants set up camp Tuesday in the Oaxaca state city of Juchitan, which was devastated by an earthquake in September 2017. A second, smaller migrant caravan is trailing this one in southern Mexico. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) ___ 6:55 p.m. Mexican authorities say a woman with the thousands of Central Americans moving through the country's south has given birth to the first known caravan baby. The National Human Rights Commission says the girl was delivered at a hospital in Juchitan, where the migrants took a day off from traveling in hopes of negotiating bus transportation to Mexico City. The commission says it arranged medical attention for the Guatemalan woman. Her husband was able to be present for the birth and the newborn is reported to be healthy. ___ 2:30 p.m. Mexico's top security official has appeared to suggest there was some kind of conspiracy behind the two migrant caravans already in Mexico, related to the Nov. 6 U.S. midterm elections. Interior Secretary Alfonso Navarrete says "the fact that this is being done at a time when there are election campaigns in the country they're headed for, that's not a coincidence, that's not chance, that's the reason why." Activists with the caravan have denied there is any political motivation in the timing of the event. Navarrete told a news conference Wednesday that "Here we are talking about a humanitarian crisis of a lack of jobs, a lack of opportunities, and the use by third parties of a vulnerable population group like the migrants." He did not specify who those third parties were, but said "I have talked about there being people tied to criminal activities who have infiltrated the caravan ... we have detained some." That appeared to be a reference to two Hondurans caught and deported Monday, one accused of homicide and another of drug trafficking. ___ 9 a.m. President Donald Trump's complaints that Mexico is not doing enough to stop a caravan of migrants are being contradicted by his own White House. Trump tweeted Wednesday that Mexican soldiers were "unable or unwilling" to stop the thousands of migrants moving toward the United States border. But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told Fox News on Wednesday that "Mexico has stepped up in an unprecedented way." Trump has consistently exaggerated the size of the caravan and the threat it plays to the United States. The group is approximately 900 miles from the border. But the Mexican government has taken a fairly contradictory stance on helping or hindering the first caravan, reflecting the country's balancing act: Officials don't want to irk Trump, but Mexicans themselves long suffered mistreatment as migrants. A migrants from El Salvador wait to be attended by Salvadoran migration authorities in La Hachadura, El Salvador, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. A fourth group of about 700 Salvadorans set out from the capital, San Salvador, with plans to walk to the U.S. border, 1,500 miles away. (AP Photo/Diana Ulloa) Central American migrants gather around a fire at a camp set up by a caravan of thousands of migrants, in Juchitan, Mexico, after sunset Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. This caravan of about 4,000 mainly Honduran migrants set up camp Tuesday in the Oaxaca state city of Juchitan, which was devastated by an earthquake in September 2017. A second, smaller migrant caravan is trailing this one in southern Mexico. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. and South Korea are reviewing whether they will conduct large-scale military exercises next year and will decide before December. South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo told reporters Wednesday at the Pentagon that if more exercises are suspended the two countries will conduct other training to mitigate the lapse. He says the review will be done by Nov. 15. Three major joint military drills were scrapped this year as part of a broader effort to push for diplomatic progress with North Korea. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says he is not yet concerned about a loss of combat capability. He says they may have to make changes to make sure those capabilities aren't eroded, but so far it is not a worry. Members of the Honor Guard carry U.S. and South Korea flags after participating in the 2018 Security Consultative at the Pentagon, co-hosted by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and South Korea Minister of Defense Jeong Kyeong-doo, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) South Korea Minister of Defense Jeong Kyeong-doo, reviewing the troops as he co-hosts the 2018 Security Consultative with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at the Pentagon, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, right, and South Korea Minister of Defense Jeong Kyeong-doo, left, arrive to begin reviewing the troops as they co-host the 2018 Security Consultative at the Pentagon, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) South Korea Minister of Defense Jeong Kyeong-doo, center, reviewing the troops as he co-host the 2018 Security Consultative with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at the Pentagon, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) A member of the Honor Guard carries the South Korean flag after participating in the 2018 Security Consultative at the Pentagon, co-hosted by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and South Korea Minister of Defense Jeong Kyeong-doo, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, right, and South Korea Minister of Defense Jeong Kyeong-doo, left, arrive to begin co-hosting the 2018 Security Consultative at the Pentagon, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Members of the Honor Guard parade on the grounds of the Pentagon as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and South Korea Minister of Defense Jeong Kyeong-doo co-host the 2018 Security Consultative, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Members of the Honor Guard fire cannons as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and South Korea Minister of Defense Jeong Kyeong-doo co-host the 2018 Security Consultative at the Pentagon, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Virgin Moneys chief executive has said that the lenders 1.7 billion takeover by CYBG is a testament to how far the UK banking sector has come, 10 years on from the financial crisis. Jayne-Anne Gadhia said that the past decade has given industry challengers like Virgin Money a chance to improve their customer offerings and compete with the British bank majors, which were trying to pick up the pieces following the banking crash. The advent of the CYBG-Virgin deal proves that the banking industry is now on a stable footing, she said. It shows how strong it is, really. You know, weve got two very successful organisations with limited overlap in terms of products able to contemplate joining forces and becoming more than just a challenger bank, she said in an interview with the Press Association. A combination between CYBG and Virgin Money will create the sixth biggest bank in the UK, and that has to be a stable competitor for the future. So I do think that means over the 10-year period weve created more competition and more robust systems, I genuinely believe that. Clydesdale Bank owner CYBG is set to acquire Virgin Money (PA) CYBG the owner of the Clydesdale Bank, Yorkshire Bank and B brands earlier this year agreed to acquire Virgin Money in a deal valuing its target at around 1.7 billion. It is one of the biggest for the banking industry since the financial crisis, though other recent deals have seen smaller lender Aldermore bought by South Africas FirstRand in a 1.1 billion takeover, and Shawbrook, taken over by private equity firms last year in an 850 million deal. But the environment is not necessarily ripe for a raft of consolidation, the chief executive said, insisting that competition is strong, not least thanks to upstarts like digital bank Monzo. Id say the smaller, new banks are doing their bit for competition, too, she said. In the past decade, challengers have grown from relatively small to being much more slick, much more capable, much bigger, much more resilient. Monzo said that its got one million customers now and thats properly competitive, and I think thats good for customers, Mrs Gadhia added. So all in all I think its a healthy time for the banking sector. But the big incumbents, having finally gained their footing, are not standing still. RBS is trialling two standalone digital banks under its NatWest brand as it mulls whether to launch a raft of online-only products to market. Reports emerged earlier this month that HSBC is working on its own digital bank for businesses banking, which could launch by the end of 2018. RBS has also teamed up with partners like digital challenger Starling to help develop its digital offerings. The Duchess of Sussex has said young people and their sense of self-worth can become really skewed by social media. Meghan was speaking to youngsters about how unrealistic images on sites such as Instagram can have an impact on mental health. The duke and the duchess attended a beachside cafe in Wellington, New Zealand, and were praised for their efforts in highlighting mental health issues. Meghan spoke to staff and volunteers from Live for Tomorrow, an online youth programme focused on reaching millennials with messages of positive change, and said: Young people find it so difficult. You see photos on social media and you dont know whether shes born with it or maybe its a filter. Your judgment of your sense of self-worth becomes really skewed when its all based on likes. The couple spent 45 minutes discussing mental wellbeing and learnt about initiatives and programmes supporting mental health in New Zealand, with a focus on youth. The duke also spoke about social media, suggesting that parents needed educating as much as children. At Maranui Cafe in Wellington The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are meeting young New Zealanders supporting others in the area of mental health. #RoyalVisitNZ pic.twitter.com/m8bXNxnY3s The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) October 28, 2018 He said: Issues stemming from social media and gaming are a major problem for young people in the UK and globally. Fingers are often pointed at the parents but thats not always fair as they too need to be educated about these things. The Sussexes were at the Maranui cafe in New Zealands capital, the latest stop on their 16-day tour which has also seen them travel to Australia, Fiji and Tonga. Harry spoke about his own struggles with mental health during the conversations, admitting that it took him years to confront his own inner turmoil. He said: It took me about three or four years to start the journey and then after that you still have to find the right people to speak to. Crowds were out in force to welcome the duke and duchess (Dominic Lipinksi/PA) Harry praised Voices of Hope for their 2017 viral video Dear Suicidal Me, which features young people who have overcome mental health issues reading their own suicide notes. The couple heard the video saved the life of a 15-year-old young girl in Canada. Her mother contacted us and said that her daughter was planning to take her life but then saw the video and went to speak to her instead, said Jazz Thornton, co-founder of Voices of Hope. Chatting with Jazz Thornton and Gen Mora, founders of Voices of Hope which Jazz and Gen launched to provide hope for those struggling with mental health issues. #RoyalVisitNZ pic.twitter.com/GGqxxM7GS8 The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) October 28, 2018 It saved her life. Harry said: Its amazing what you have done. I think anyone who has overcome mental health problems often go out of their own way to help others. The pregnant Duchess of Sussex showed off her motherly touch as she met a visibly emotional five-year-old in New Zealand. Meghan knelt down to comfort little Joe Young, who was part of a group of schoolchildren waiting to greet the royal couple outside a cafe in Wellington. Harry also reassured the overwhelmed youngster by tickling his stomach. The duke and duchess had a packed schedule on their first full day in New Zealand, meeting with mental health workers before flying by helicopter to the Abel Tasman National Park. Meghan crouched down to speak to Joe Young, who rubbed his eyes as the royal visitors approached (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Harry also comforted Joe with a tummy tickle (Dominic Lipinski/PA) A smiling Harry waved to the crowds who had come out to greet him and Meghan (Dominic Lipinski/PA) School students held homemade signs as they hoped to catch a glimpse of the couple (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Later, Harry and Meghan visited Abel Tasman National Park (Paul Edwards/PA) Meghan took the time to pose for a photo with local schoolchildren (Paul Edwards/PA) A passenger jet with 189 people on board has crashed into the sea just minutes after taking off from Indonesias capital, Jakarta. Indonesias disaster agency posted photos online of a crushed smartphone, books, bags and parts of the Lion Air jets fuselage that had been collected by search and rescue vessels. The airline said the brand-new aircraft, on an hour-and-10-minute flight to Pangkal Pinang on an island chain off Sumatra, was carrying 181 passengers, including one child and two babies, and eight crew members. Indonesian TV broadcast pictures of a fuel slick and debris field. Distraught friends and relatives prayed and hugged each other as they waited at Pangkal Pinangs airport. Relatives began to gather at the airport on Monday (AP/Hadi Sutrisno) The National Search and Rescue Agencys deputy chief, Nugroho Budi Wiryanto, said some 300 people including soldiers, police and local fishermen are involved in the search and that so far it has recovered no bodies only identity cards, personal belongings and aircraft debris. At the agencys headquarters in Jakarta, family members turned up, hoping desperately for news. Feni, who uses a single name, said her soon to be married sister was on the flight, planning to meet relatives in Pangkal Pinang. We are here to find any information about my younger sister, her fiance, her in-law to be and a friend of them, said Feni. We dont have any information, she said, as her father wiped tears from reddened eyes. No one provided us with any information that we need. Were confused. We hope that our family is still alive, she said. Indonesias finance minister, Sri Mulyani, also arrived at the agency and met with its chief, seeking information about 20 finance ministry staff who were on the flight after attending a ministry event in Jakarta. The search and rescue agency said the flight ended in waters off West Java that are 98ft to 115ft deep. The agencys chief Muhammad Syaugi told a news conference that divers are trying to locate the wreckage. (PA Graphics) The Boeing 737 Max 8 was delivered to Lion Air in mid-August and put in use within days, according to aviation website Flightradar24. Malindo Air, a Malaysian subsidiary of Jakarta-based Lion Air, was the first airline to being using the 737 Max 8 last year. The Max 8 replaced the similar 800 in the Chicago-based planemakers product line. Boeing spokesman Paul Lewis says Boeing is closely monitoring the situation but did not provide details on the aircraft in question. The pilot of Flight 610 had more than 6,000 flying hours, while the co-pilot had more than 5,000 hours. Indonesias Transport Ministry said the plane took off from Jakarta about 6.20am and crashed just 13 minutes later. Data from FlightAware showed it had reached an altitude of only 5,200ft. Saat ini tim SAR Basarnas melakukan penyelaman dikoordinat 05 derajat 90' 361" S - 107 derajat 06' 618" E untuk mencari pesawat Lion Air JT 610 yang jatuh di perairan Karawang Jawa Barat. pic.twitter.com/XK0UiSKyfH Sutopo Purwo Nugroho (@Sutopo_PN) October 29, 2018 The transport ministry said crisis centres have been set up Pangkal Pinangs airport and Jakartas Soekarno Hatta airport. The crash is the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea in December 2014, killing all 162 on board. Indonesian airlines were barred in 2007 from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, though several were allowed to resume services in the following decade. The ban was completely lifted in June this year. The US lifted a decade-long ban in 2016. Lion Air, a discount carrier, is one of Indonesias youngest and biggest airlines, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations. In 2013, one of its Boeing 737-800 jets missed the runway while landing on the resort island of Bali, crashing into the sea without causing any fatalities among the 108 people on board. Malaysias government has launched a one-month auction for a luxury yacht bought with money stolen from the multi-billion-dollar looting of a state investment fund. The sale that began on Monday came nearly three months after Indonesia returned the 250 million US dollar yacht, Equanimity, after seizing it off Bali in February in cooperation with the US FBI. The yacht was allegedly bought with money plundered from Malaysias investment fund (Yam G-Jun/AP) The US Justice Department, one of several foreign agencies investigating a massive corruption scandal at the 1MDB fund, had listed the yacht among the assets it could seize and sell to recover stolen funds. Ong Chee Kwan, a lawyer for 1MDB, says the government has opened bids for the yacht following a lengthy court process. Once the auction ends on November 28, the government could make a decision on the sale within a week. Reports that a group of people dressed as Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members posed outside an Islamic prayer house are being investigated as a hate incident, police said. Images circulating on social media purport to show individuals dressed as members of the far-right group in a town close to Belfast over the weekend. The KKK was a group based in the southern United States which was responsible for lynchings and mob attacks on black people. Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) inspector Richard Murray said: Hate crime, in all its forms, is totally unacceptable. It is the responsibility of each and every one of us to ensure that we live in a society where diversity is respected. The suspected incident happened in the Co Down town of Newtownards. Reports that a group of people dressed as Ku Klux Klan members posed outside an Islamic prayer house are being investigated as a hate incident, police said (Paul Faith/PA) The inspector added: We received a report around 5pm yesterday, Sunday 28 October, about a group of people dressed as KKK members in the vicinity of Greenwell Street in the town on Saturday night. We are also aware of images that are circulating that show people dressed as Ku Klux Klan members. Our inquiries are ongoing, and we are treating this as a hate incident at this time. Alliance Party Stormont Assembly member Kellie Armstrong said the group drank in a local bar with their masks off and CCTV evidence could be available. She added: Everyone knows exactly what the KKK stands for. The KKK represents a brand of hatred not wanted or welcome in the area. This group did not simply dress up for Halloween, rather they deliberately posed outside the prayer house in Newtownards. This is a clear demonstration of aggression and bullying towards one particular religion and that is a hate crime. Last year a pigs head was placed outside the same centre in Newtownards. The top two candidates in Sundays presidential elections in Georgia obtained less than 50% of the vote, paving the way for a run-off. The Central Election Commission said on Monday that preliminary results show two former foreign ministers, Salome Zurabishvili and Grigol Vashadze, won 39 and 38% of the vote, respectively, amid a field of 25 candidates. Grigol Vashadze (Shakh Aivazov/AP) A runoff between the two is expected to be held by December 2. This is Georgias last presidential election. Salome Zurabishvili casts her vote (Shakh Aivazov/AP) Constitutional changes kick in at the end of the next presidents term that will leave it to a delegate system to choose the president. The changes will make the prime minister the most powerful political figure in the country. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 31) Ramon Tulfo, the new Special Envoy for Public Diplomacy to China, echoed the Duterte administration's stance on an international arbitral tribunal ruling favoring the Philippines' rights in the West Philippine Sea. "China doesn't recognize the ruling of the Hague. What can we do about it? We might as well talk business with China," Tulfo told CNN Philippines' The Source on Wednesday. He reiterated President Rodrigo Duterte's stance that the Philippines cannot go to war with the Eastern giant, which claims nearly the entire South China Sea. "Can we back up our claim with might? That's it. The President is very practical. Can we match China's military's might? The U.S. would have backed us up, but it doesn't or didn't," Tulfo added. The newly-appointed envoy said he is for the Beijing-Manila joint oil exploration deal. Critics have argued that allowing the joint exploration compromises the country's sovereignty, as the exploration will cover parts of the Philippines' exclusive economic zone. "We can be friends with China without compromising our dignity as a nation," he explained. China has an ongoing territorial dispute with the Philippines in parts of the South China Sea. It refuses to recognize the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration's 2016 ruling that invalidated Beijing's historical claims on a sprawling area of the sea and recognized the Philippines' sovereign rights over areas within its exclusive economic zone. The Duterte administration has been slammed for developing warmer ties with Beijing amid this maritime row. Tulfo said his top priority is to bring in investors from China and convince them to come to our shores as tourists. "China has always been misunderstood by us because we've been greatly influenced by the U.S. especially by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)," but China is not an evil empire as portrayed by the U.S. and as many people see it," he said. No conflict of interest Tulfo also denied there is conflict of interest in taking the post and retaining his radio show on dzRP network, "Isumbong Mo Kay Tulfo." "'Yung trabaho ko naman as Special Envoy is not a full-time job. Pag meron lang utos si Presidente, pupunta ako sa China, pupunta ako," Tulfo told CNN Philippines' The Source. [Translation: My job as Special Envoy is not a full-time job. If the President has an order, I will go to China, then I will go.] Tulfo, the eldest of the controversial siblings, said he will only receive P1 salary after he was apppointed to the post by President Rodrigo Duterte on October 25. "It's an honorific title, 'yung Special Envoy," he said. "Kaya nga, ang ibig sabihin, walang sweldo [That means there is no salary]." Tulfo said he is asking PTV-4 to give him a program slot on the network. He admitted he asked President Rodrigo Duterte to offer him the post after he was discouraged from going after a Senate seat in the 2019 midterm polls. "The President tried to convince me to run," he said. "Sabi niya, "Meron akong nakatagong pera diyan na kaunti. Pwede kitang bigyan." But Tulfo declined the President's offer, and the President offered him the special envoy post instead. "I wanted to serve my country. Also I have many friends in China. I have established relations with many Chinese people," he claimed. Provocations with the use of toxic chemicals are being planned in some regions in Syria, in particular in the Aleppo region, the spokesman for Russias Defense Ministry, Major General Igor Konashenkov said. "Yesterday, residents of the Aleppo province informed [us] that militants were preparing another action. Members of the White Helmets organization have arrived at populated localities of Azaz, Marea and Chobanbei carrying professional video equipment. Along with this, tanks with poisonous substances, allegedly chlorine gas, have been brought in," TASS cited Konashenkov as saying. The spokesman added that militants of the Turkistan Islamic Party (outlawed in Russia) have transported 20 ten-liter containers with chlorine to Syrias Idlib province to carry out provocations. Fishing industry representatives are to meet with the US ambassador to discuss post-Brexit trade opportunities. Scottish Fishermens Federation (SFF) chief executive Bertie Armstrong said the potential market for seafood in the US is there to be grasped. The meeting in London on Monday comes after US ambassador to the UK Woody Johnson met senior seafood industry representatives during a visit to the new Peterhead Fish Market in Aberdeenshire in August. Representatives invited to the event include the SFF, the Scottish Seafood Association, the Scottish Pelagic Processors Association, Peterhead Port Authority, Lunar Fishing Company, Don Fishing Company and Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation. SFF chief executive Bertie Armstrong said: The fishing industry stands on the cusp of a new era, with the potential for UK boats to be landing much more of the quality fish that already swim in our waters. While we remain unconvinced by the argument that this will have a detrimental impact on our existing trading arrangements, we have a fantastic opportunity to open up new markets. Fishing boats off the Scottish coast (David Cheskin/PA) Innovations in technology and transport mean that the quality of seafood produce can be maintained. He added: We are extremely grateful to the ambassador for calling this roundtable. He was genuinely enthused by what he saw on his visit to Peterhead and is taking a close personal interest in supporting our endeavours. It is time for us to look beyond Brexit and seize the opportunities on offer. The USA love our salmon, and we know the potential market for other great seafood is there to be grasped. Plans have been announced for a new 950,000 centre to enable children and vulnerable adults to give evidence without attending court. The new centre will mean more of these witnesses will be be able to pre-record their evidence for criminal trials in advance, meaning they will not face the potentially daunting prospect of attending court. Based in Glasgow it will include hearing suites and vulnerable witness suites with a video link to court. There will also be a private evidence room with one-way glass for observation and a sensory room. The new centre will help deal with an anticipated increase in the number of children giving evidence this way if proposed legislation creating a presumption in favour of this, introduced to the Scottish Parliament in June, is passed. Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf (Jane Barlow/PA) Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf said: This is the latest step towards achieving our ambition that children, wherever possible, should not have to give evidence in court during a criminal trial. It will make significant improvements to witnesses experience of the justice system in Glasgow. I am pleased to hear that there is scope for expansion in Scotland and where appropriate, these suites may also be used for vulnerable adult witnesses. Last year Scotlands second most senior judge, the Lord Justice Clerk, published a practice note for the High Court encouraging greater use of taking evidence by commissioner procedure. This involves a child or vulnerable witness being questioned by both the prosecution and defence in advance of a trial under the supervision of a judge, and having their evidence recorded. Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service chief executive Eric McQueen said: We know from the initial evaluation of the practice note that having the right facilities and environment are critical factors and the new hearings suite in Glasgow will mean that children and vulnerable people can be supported to give their best evidence, and have it tested, in a safe and secure environment. Photos of 11 men wanted in connection with violent disorder during the Welcome Trump and Free Tommy Robinson marches have been released by police. Police officers were assaulted and racially harassed when violence broke out during the marches on July 14 in central London, Scotland Yard said. The marches in support of US President Donald Trump, who was visiting the UK at the time, and activist Tommy Robinson, turned violent in Storeys Gate in Westminster. Eleven people wanted for questioning in connection with violent disorder during the Welcome Trump and Free Tommy Robinson processions (Metropolitan Police/PA) Detective Sergeant Matt Simpson, from the Metropolitan Polices Public Order Investigations Team, said: At about 4pm police officers who were present to keep the public safe and facilitate peaceful protest were subject to assaults and racial harassment. This behaviour is completely unacceptable and we are appealing for the publics help to identify the people in these images. Former English Defence League (EDL) leader Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was jailed for contempt of court after using social media to broadcast details of a trial which was subject to blanket reporting restrictions. Can you help identify these men? Detectives have today released images of 11 men wanted for questioning in connection with disorder during the 'Welcome Trump' and 'Free Tommy Robinson' processions in London on Saturday, 14 July. https://t.co/aNkWu7OIyk pic.twitter.com/fnnrg6BdLl Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) October 29, 2018 He was freed from prison in August after three judges quashed a contempt of court finding made at Leeds Crown Court, but could be sent back to jail as his case has been referred to the Attorney General. People who recognise anyone in the photos or have information about their identity can contact the Metropolitan Polices Public Order Investigations Team on 020 8246 0076 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 500 111. A woman has appeared in court charged with murdering her husband. Natasha Welsh, 43, of Greyhound Hill in Hendon, north west London, is charged with the murder of Martin Welsh, 47. She appeared in custody at Willesden Magistrates Court on Monday for a brief hearing in which the case was sent up to the Crown Court. Welsh was remanded to appear at the Old Bailey (Nick Ansell/PA) Welsh was dressed in a grey tracksuit and had her hair pulled back in a ponytail. The Metropolitan Police previously said the victim was found with a stab wound at a semi-detached house in Greyhound Hill, late on Friday night, and was pronounced dead at the scene. Welsh was remanded in custody to appear at the Old Bailey on Wednesday. Award-winning actress Judy Davis has told a court that she had heard comments in the film industry that Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rushs career was finished after he was accused of inappropriate behaviour toward a female co-star in a Sydney stage play. Mr Rush is suing the publisher of Sydneys The Daily Telegraph newspaper and its journalist, Jonathon Moran, in the Federal Court for defamation over articles published last November that accused the 67-year-old Australian actor of behaving inappropriately toward actress Eryn Jean Norvill during the Sydney Theatre Companys production of King Lear in 2015 and 2016. Mr Rush denies the claims against him and argues the articles portrayed him as a pervert and a sexual predator. Ms Davis who has won three Emmys, two Golden Globes and has twice been nominated for Academy Awards told the court Mr Rush had a very serious heavyweight reputation as an actor before the articles. Ms Davis said she had loved working with Mr Rush, who had a very fine reputation. Rush won a best actor Oscar in 1996 or Shine (AP) Actress Robyn Nevin testified that she had appeared in the King Lear production and did not see anything to justify Ms Norvills complaint. Ms Nevin said a tearful Ms Norvill had told her during another Sydney Theatre Company production in 2016 that being back at the venue reminded her of the trouble she had had during King Lear months earlier. Ms Nevin said she thought Ms Norvill was reflecting on the great struggles she had playing the character of Cordelia. Under cross-examination, Ms Nevin denied that Ms Norvill gave any indication of inappropriate sexual behaviour. Ms Nevin became emotional when she recalled Mr Rushs state of confusion after the articles were published. After the articles appeared, Ms Norvill texted Ms Nevin that she was in the eye of the storm, according to court documents. The trial before Judge Michael Wigney, without a jury, will continue on Tuesday. Mr Rush won the best actor Oscar in 1996 for his portrayal of pianist David Helfgott in Shine and was nominated for roles in Shakespeare In Love, Quills and The Kings Speech.He is also famed for his portrayal of Captain Barbossa in the Pirates Of The Caribbean films. He received his nations highest civilian honour in 2014, the Companion of the Order of Australia for service to the arts. An awards programme aiming to help students learn fundamental business skills has been launched. The Scottish Innovative Student Award (SISA) scheme will be delivered in modules that support regular university degree programmes. The programme includes three levels of development: future thinkers, innovation catalysts and innovation champions. It aims to allow students to develop and apply their innovative skills and business knowledge. Created by the Scottish Institute for Enterprise (SIE), the programme hopes to build bridges between academia and the business industry. Robert Gordon University (RGU), in Aberdeen, is one of the first universities to be involved, with a number of courses set to feature SISA in January next year. Professor Rita Marcella, one of five RGU academics accredited, said: Employers are increasingly looking for flexible workers who can operate over multidisciplinary groups, with a rich mix of skills which will help those businesses thrive in a constantly changing global environment. Being able to teach students the right business skills alongside their traditional academic studies, will therefore be crucial in sustaining growth in Scotland. Gillian Martin MSP and the MSP Ivan McKee spoke at a reception at Holyrood recongising standout SISA students (PA/Big Partnership) The Scottish Governments minister for trade, investment and innovation Ivan McKee said: We are committed to maximising the potential of Scotlands people and becoming a world-leading entrepreneurial and innovative nation. SIE has a history of working with universities delivering workshops and competitions such as the Young Innovators Challenge and Fresh Ideas. Fiona Godsman, SIE chief executive, said: We add value to undergraduate degree course by encouraging forward thinking and, crucially, by creating awareness of the challenges and opportunities facing key industries in Scotland. Our collaboration with Robert Gordon University is the first of many and we look forward to supporting them as the first group of students undertake the modules. Going forward, we expect the SISA programme will play an important role in what SIE does as an organisation, and we will continue building relationships with higher education institutes to support the design of courses which teach students the fundamental skills required to thrive in todays workplace. An arrogant, controlling bully who strangled and then stabbed his wife 49 times in front of her young son has been jailed for life. Tanzanian Kema Salum, 39, pleaded guilty to the murder of 35-year-old Leyla Mtumwa at her home and was ordered to spend at least 23 years behind bars. Salum, who had a history of violence against an ex-wife, was living in Britain on a six-month visa having wed Ms Mtumwa in east Africa. The night before the murder on March 30, he had become jealous because his wife had gone out with female friends, the Old Bailey heard. Just before 7am, he fell into a violent rage and attempted to strangle her at their home in Haringey, north London. He broke off and went into the kitchen to get a knife which he used to stab her 49 times in the head, neck, body and arms, the court was told. Ms Mtumwas 12-year-old son had screamed at him to stop before alerting police. When he was arrested, Salum claimed he had acted in self defence. Initially, he had denied murder but changed his plea at the 11th hour at the Old Bailey. The court heard Salum had been extremely violent towards his ex-wife in the past and had lied through his teeth when he claimed to police he had been defending himself at all times. Leyla Mtumwa was murdered by husband Kema Salum (Family handout/PA) The court heard the victims parents had been left devastated by her death. Judge Richard Marks QC described the defendant as an arrogant, controlling bully. He said: This was a consistent attack of very considerable force which, although relatively short-lived, must have caused Leyla very substantial suffering before she died. Having started off attempting to strangle her you broke off, went to get a knife, and then resumed the attack. The victims family said yes as Salum was sent down. Cancer charities are demanding the number of staff in the NHS is increased urgently after new figures showed a rise in deaths from the disease last year. A total of 16,105 deaths were caused by cancer in Scotland in 2017, up from 15,813 the previous year. While the total number of cancer deaths reached its highest for 25 years, overall mortality rates from the disease have fallen by 10% in the last decade going from 358 deaths per 100,000 people in 2007 to 321 deaths per 100,000 in 2017. But with more Scots living longer, increasing numbers are developing the disease. Gregor McNie, Cancer Research UKs head of external affairs in Scotland, said: Its clear cancer continues to have a devastating impact in Scotland. Thanks to advances in research, new and better treatments are coming on stream which will help more people survive. A cancer charity is calling for NHS staffing to be increased after cancer deaths rose (Rui Vieira/PA) Too many people are diagnosed when their cancer has already spread and is harder to treat. If we can diagnose more cancers earlier, its likely more people will survive. To do this, we need to make sure that people with suspected cancer are offered the right tests. We know staff shortages are currently having an impact on patients receiving efficient access to diagnostic tests. Wed urge the Scottish Government to urgently progress its plans to employ more people. Five types of the disease lung cancer, bowel cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer and oesophageal cancer were responsible for more than half of all cancer deaths in Scotland last year, with lung cancer killing 4,069 alone. While official NHS figures showed the overall cancer mortality rate had fallen by 12% for males and 7% for females over the last 10 years, there was a 60% rise in the mortality rate for liver cancer over the period. Death rates for the disease which is linked to both obesity and alcohol consumption increased by 47% for men and 93% for women. However the mortality rate for females due to breast cancer fell by 17% over the decade, with the rate of male deaths from stomach cancer down by 33% over the period 2007 to 2017. Meanwhile cancer death rates in the most deprived parts of Scotland were 76% higher than they were in the least deprived communities. Gordon McLean, of Macmillan Cancer Support, said: The picture in deprived areas continues to be incredibly concerning. It is simply not right that those in the most deprived areas of Scotland are most likely to get cancer and most likely to die of it. Conservative health spokesman Miles Briggs said even with an ageing population, the number of cancer deaths must still be cause for concern. He stated: Every month we see hospitals struggling to see cancer patients on time, meaning efforts to treat the disease early are often undermined. That can be the difference between life and death, and needs to improve as a matter of urgency. Labour health spokeswoman Monica Lennon said: Many people are surviving and living well after cancer thanks to advances in treatment and our dedicated NHS staff. However, if you are poor you are increasingly more likely to get cancer and die and these new statistics sadly prove that SNP ministers have failed to make Scotland a healthier or more equal country. These figures show the urgent need to end austerity and instead invest in communities with the goal of eradicating poverty and inequality. Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said the encouraging drop in the cancer mortality rate over the last 10 years was a reflection of the fact that more people are surviving cancer as a result of early detection and better treatment methods. She added: In particular I welcome the decrease in the breast cancer mortality rate, which has gone down by 17.2% for women in the last decade. Last week we published our Waiting Times Improvement Plan, backed with more than 850 million of funding. This plan aims to substantially and sustainably reduce waiting times across the system, with a particular focus on those requiring cancer treatment. As the plan outlines, we will maintain our performance against the 31 day standard for treatment of cancer, and increase diagnostic capacity to improve performance on the 62 day standard for those with a suspicion of cancer. Our 42 million Detect Cancer Early Programme demonstrates our commitment to early detection aiming to increase the proportion of Scotlands most common cancers (breast, bowel and lung cancers) detected at an early stage. The Home Office is seeking new technology to help tackle surging levels of knife crime. Initial funding of up to 500,000 is available for research projects that could help police spot suspects who are carrying blades in crowded areas. A notice detailing the competition states that it is seeking proposals for innovative technologies and approaches that help reduce knife crime in the UK. (PA Graphics) The Home Office is interested in methods that can detect people carrying knives in public spaces, including crowds and uncontrolled areas where there is typically limited or no police presence. The initiative is focusing on techniques to identify steel-bladed knives with a blade length greater than 7.62cm (3in). This includes household kitchen knives and other knives designed specifically to cause serious harm or death. Techniques are being sought that would allow police to carry out screening at pinch points such as ticket barriers or escalators or in busy areas where movement is essentially unconstrained for example, on the approach to a major event. Solutions should be safe, unobtrusive, potentially covert and easy to operate. Research that focuses on potential behavioural indicators of people in crowds who are in possession of a knife will also be considered. The Home Office is seeking simple, unobtrusive equipment that could help police detect blades (Alan Simpson/PA) Concerns over knife crime have intensified this year after a spate of fatal stabbings. Figures released earlier this month showed police in England and Wales registered a 12% increase in recorded offences involving a knife or sharp instrument in the year to June. The competition notice says: Although crime in general has fallen rapidly in the UK over the past 20 years, some types of violent crime recorded by the police have increased. In 2017, knife crime rose by 20% across England and Wales when compared to 2015 figures, with a significant increase in fatal stabbings and serious injuries. Whilst this increase in knife crime is a complex problem with many influencing factors, the ability of the police to determine if knives are being carried by people is one fundamental aspect to potentially reducing incidents. This is particularly challenging when knives are concealed and carried in public. The use of current detection systems is limited. The competition is being run by the Defence and Security Accelerator, a body set up to find and fund innovations with potential benefits for UK safety and prosperity. Minister for crime, safeguarding and vulnerability Victoria Atkins said: Knife crime destroys lives and communities and as a government we are determined to keep our streets safe. Technological developments can play a crucial role in identifying those who are carrying weapons and stop them before they can inflict violence. This is why we are calling for businesses and industry to submit their ideas and help us tackle this issue. Pupils from high attaining state schools are better prepared for the university application process than those in more deprived areas, according to new research. The University of Stirling study found high attainment schools focused on preparing applicants to be desirable to leading universities, while low attainment schools focused on persuading their students that university is a desirable option. Inequality in university attendance between those living in the most and least advantaged areas is wider in Scotland than elsewhere in the UK, the study said. In 2016/17 only a quarter (25%) of school leavers from the most deprived areas entered higher education compared to 41% nationally and 61% in the least deprived areas. Researchers found in high attainment schools there was a long-term commitment to helping a student develop the personal skills or habitus of an appealing persona throughout their school career. The report said: Within the most advantaged schools, there was a long-term commitment to actively build the skills that institutions desired and undertake one-to-one interviews to ensure the personal statement was pitched correctly, with strong applications demonstrating an appropriate habitus. School pupils in high attaining state schools are better prepared for the university application process, a report found (David Jones/PA) Amongst the most deprived communities, there was evidence of a long-term battle by teachers to foster student aspirations and encourage them to reach their potential. This appears to lead to teachers focusing on persuading students to apply, rather than preparing them longer term to be desirable. The study found those from lower socio-economic groups are less likely to apply to, and consequently enter, the more prestigious higher education institutions in the UK than students with the same grades from more advantaged backgrounds. In addition state school pupils are less likely to participate in higher education than those from independent schools and are profoundly under-represented in more prestigious universities. The researchers conducted interviews with nine teachers from six state schools and 25 young people from 18 state schools in Scotland. Lead author Jennifer Ferguson, a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Social Sciences, said: The research highlights the big differences in the preparation for higher education between state schools. This sends a powerful message to local authorities and education providers that if they are striving for fair access to higher education across all schools, then they must start preparing and persuading students of all backgrounds much earlier. The report is published in the journal Social Sciences. A Scottish Government spokesman said: We expect schools to work with a broad range of partners to give their pupils the best possible educational opportunities. There are many examples of schools collaborating extremely effectively with universities, colleges and employers, to the clear benefit of the young people they are responsible for educating, such as increased choice and better preparation for their next steps in learning. In addition, the Scottish Funding Councils Schools for Higher Education Programme works with pupils and schools across Scotland to support those who are currently underrepresented, to access and succeed in higher education The Russian foreign ministry expressed concern over reports about possible chemical provocations in Syria and calls for steps not to let that happen. "Alarming reports are coming from various sources that some terrorist and extremist groups in Syria never stop attempts at staging large-scale provocations with the use of chemical weapons and toxic agent," the ministry said, adding that the Russian military also has such information. According to the Russian foreign ministry, in case such a provocation is successful, all the blame would be placed on Syrias legitimate authorities, following a traditional pattern. "Concurrently, claims would be laid to Russia and Iran that they allegedly connive at such crimes and must be held responsible," TASS cited the ministry as saying. "It is absolutely obvious that extremists chemical provocations are geared to furnish foreign opponents of the legitimate government in Damascus with another pretext to stage aggressive actions like the illegal missile strikes delivered by the United States, the United Kingdom and France on Syria in April 2018, to frustrate efforts towards establishing political process, to slow down revival of the country and return of refugees and internally displaced persons to their homes. We cannot and must not let it happen," the statement says. Breastfeeding rates in Scotland remain low compared to other countries, a new report has found. NHS statistics on infants born in 2017-18 showed by the time babies are given their six to eight week check up, 28% had been exclusively breast fed since birth. Health visitors working with new parents recorded just over half (51%) of babies were being given breast milk at their first check up at 10 to 14 days with up from 44% in 2001-02. Just over a third (36%) of youngsters were fed only with breast milk at this stage, with 15% being given both this and formula milk. But by six to eight weeks old, the proportion being breastfed fell to 42% with 11% receiving both breast and formula milk and 31% exclusively breast fed. The report said: The proportion of babies being breastfed at six to eight weeks of age has increased from 36% of babies born in 2001-02 to 42% of babies born in 2017-18. By six to eight weeks old, the proportion being breastfed fell to 42% (Andrew Matthews/PA) However, breastfeeding rates in Scotland remain low compared to those seen in other countries, and fall far short of recommended levels. It added breastfeeding was much more common among older mothers, and those from less deprived areas. Of those babies whose mothers were aged 40 or above, 56% were being breastfed either wholly or in part at six to eight weeks old, compared to 13% of babies whose mothers were under the age of 20. Meanwhile 60% of babies in the least deprived areas were receiving breast milk when they were six to eight weeks old, compared to 28% of infants in the most deprived areas. Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton said: Breastfeeding gives babies the best chance of a healthy start in life. Its disheartening to see rates of breastfeeding plateau well below the levels wed like to see. We know that midwives and NHS staff do what they can to inform new mothers about the benefits of breastfeeding. But more needs to be done given the majority of young mothers are not breastfeeding and huge disparities based on levels deprivation persist. We need to address this health inequality and increase the pace of change for the next generation. We know that intervention works and the check-up is an opportunity to assist mothers who are struggling to breastfeed. .@JoeFitzSNP welcomes the results of the latest Infant Feeding Statistics. pic.twitter.com/mG60RA4X4k Scot Gov Health (@scotgovhealth) October 30, 2018 Public health minister Joe FitzPatrick said it was hugely encouraging that across Scotland more than half of the babies born in 2017-18 were being breastfed at their first health visitor check. He added: The proportion of babies being fed any breast milk at their first visit has also steadily increased year on year for more than 10 years. These statistics also show that 42% of babies born in 2017-18 were being breastfed at their six to eight week review, of which 31% were being exclusively breastfed. This represents the highest percentage of babies being exclusively breastfed at six to eight weeks since recording began. We are continuing to support women to breastfeed as the normal nutrition for babies and we recently announced the provision of additional funding of more than 2 million for breastfeeding support. This will enable NHS Boards and third sector partners to improve the quality of support and experiences of mothers. A blogger has had his SNP membership suspended following the publication of a post described as vile and anti-Semitic. The blog was aimed towards GMB organiser Rhea Wolfson and included references to Hitler accusing the Jew of gradually assuming leadership of the trade union movement. It was shared across social media platforms, including on the SNP Edinburgh East Twitter page, Livingston East Facebook page and the campaign page of two West Lothian councillors. The author of the Grouse Beater blog, Gareth Wardell, said the essay was an attack on fascism and that political opponents had tried to make it sound sinister. The Scottish Labour Party and the GMB wrote letters to the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon calling for an investigation into the post. An SNP spokesman said: A complaint has been passed to the disciplinary committee and the individual has been suspended. It was shared across social media platforms, including on the SNP Edinburgh East Twitter page (Dominic Lipinski/PA) There are also calls for the suspension of SNP Councillor Frank Anderson, a representative of East Livingston and East Calder, after he initially defended the post. GMB Scotland Secretary Gary Smith said: The SNPs suspension of Mr Wardell was the only logical course of action to take. GMB will also be contacting Police Scotland to establish what further action can be taken. However, the apology from Councillor Anderson is insufficient in light of the earlier defence of his comments. We believe this is contrived and insincere. He should be sacked from his elected position and his political membership should be suspended. As we said earlier, no political party has clean hands on the issue of anti-Semitism but nobody should need any reminders that anti-Semitism is on the rise and we in GMB are clear that it is absolutely intolerable. The Councillors position is untenable and if he cannot do the right thing himself then the SNP must take that decision for him. Councillor Anderson said: Ive now had the opportunity to properly understand the offence caused to Rhea Wolfson by this blog. I was unaware of her Jewish heritage and therefore did not appreciate how hurtful the words would be. I unreservedly apologise to her for my embarrassing lack of understanding of these issues and my part in the offence that she has suffered. John McDonnell has refused to back down after supporting Philip Hammonds tax cuts for the middle classes in the face of intense criticism from the Labour ranks. The shadow chancellor said he would not reverse changes that benefit higher earners because people like head teachers have had a rough time in recent years. But centrist figures in the party criticised Mr McDonnell for backing perks for the wealthy while there are people dying on British streets, and branded the move wrong. Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, said when he heard that the party would be backing Philip Hammonds tax cuts for the richest it sent a shiver down my spine. We should not be supporting tax cuts that disproportionately help the wealthy. Tory cuts will benefit rich families 14 times more than the poor according to @resfoundation analysis. https://t.co/9eOsri6wvy David Lammy (@DavidLammy) October 30, 2018 In an article for The Times, he wrote: I honestly cant see how Labours position will hold. It is not just that the distribution is so unfair. I cant see how tax cuts for the wealthiest can be the top priority when our police are so stretched and there are people dying on British streets for want of a roof over their head. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell listens as Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond makes his Budget statement to MPs in the House of Commons, London. Former work and pensions secretary Yvette Cooper tweeted: People on 90-100k a year will get tax cut worth 860 in April, those on 125k will get 600 far more than low-paid workers, at a time when child poverty is going up, benefits are being cut, vital council services are being cut, police are badly overstretched. This is wrong. I cannot support it. Tottenham MP and former culture minister David Lammy said: We should not be supporting tax cuts that disproportionately help the wealthy. Tory cuts will benefit rich families 14 times more than the poor according to @resfoundation analysis. Analysis by the Resolution Foundation think tank showed the tax cuts would overwhelmingly benefit richer households, with almost half (45%) set to go to the top 10% of households. There we are - tax cuts for the rich and they are coming earlier. #Budget2018 Emily Thornberry (@EmilyThornberry) October 29, 2018 The cuts were criticised as tax cuts for the rich by shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry on Monday. Mr McDonnell told BBC Radio 4s Today programme that Labour would support the tax cuts on the basis they would inject some demand into the economy. What weve said is we will leave those personal allowances at whatever we inherit but our focus will be on a fair taxation system, he added. Mr McDonnell later defended his decision to back Mr Hammonds income tax cuts. He said: We are not going to oppose it on the basis it will put more money in peoples pockets. The shadow chancellor said Labour would make the top 5% pay that bit more. He added: We are not going to take funding away from people. Some of these are middle earners, were talking about head teachers and people like that who have had a rough time as well as everyone else. The personal allowance and the higher rate threshold will rise from April in a move the Chancellor said would mean a tax cut for 32 million people. The personal allowance, which is the minimum income someone can earn before paying tax, will rise to 12,500 from 11,850. The higher rate threshold, the income at which someone becomes liable to pay the 40% tax rate, will rise to 50,000 from 46,350 at the same time. Labour says it will support the income tax cuts announced yesterday - almost half of which goes to the top ten per cent of households alone. Nearly 90% goes to the top half. Not a good idea Torsten Bell (@TorstenBell) October 30, 2018 Torsten Bell, director of the Resolution Foundation, tweeted: Labour says it will support the income tax cuts announced yesterday almost half of which goes to the top ten per cent of households alone. Nearly 90% goes to the top half. Not a good idea. An outdoor nursery could be introduced to a park in Aberdeen, inspired by a Scandinavian approach to education. A pilot project has been proposed by Aberdeen City Council which would see Duthie Park used as the base for a new early years facility catering for children aged from two to five. The practice follows the principle that childrens education should feature a combination of more traditional nursery provision and extended outdoor learning. There are currently outdoor nurseries across Scotland including in Glasgow, Fife and Perthshire, as well as the opening of the Mucky Boots Nature Kindergarten in Aberdeenshire last year. The plans are expected to be brought before Aberdeen City Council elected members for consideration this year. The co-leader of Aberdeen City Council, Jenny Laing said: The aim of the outdoor project is to strengthen wellbeing and provide conditions that will achieve better outcomes for the citys youngest children, recognising that over the years lifestyles have become more sedentary and the traditional benefits of the outdoor environment are not always being maximised. Outdoor education has been practiced in Scandinavia for a number of years (Andrew Matthews/PA) Research shows that higher levels of active play are associated with higher academic attainment but just as importantly helps improve motor skills and has great advantages in terms of physical and mental health, which are so important in terms of giving children the best possible start in life. The plan is part of a package being developed as the council works towards meeting the entitlement to 1,140 hours annually of early learning and childcare for each child in Scotland by 2020. Investment in new nursery facilities in areas including Tillydrone, Torry and Northfield, is included in the strategy and opportunities to utilise school buildings outside of core hours will also be embraced. The organisation, Inspiring Scotland, has previously worked with local authorities across the country to enhance and increase outdoor play provision for children. Chief executive Celia Tennant welcomed the councils move to introduce the facility. She said: Being outdoors, being active and having fun is so important for childrens health and wellbeing, and their learning and development. Providing our young children with the opportunity to explore the outdoors within their own communities is a fantastic way both to let their imaginations run free in contact with nature and to anchor them with an appreciation and sense of ownership of the natural greenspaces around them. Our work establishing outdoor nurseries with Glasgow City Council and local partners is proof that growing up in a city should be no barrier to playing, exploring and learning outdoors. Inspiring Scotlands Thrive Outdoors team is funded by Scottish Government to support eight local authorities to enhance and increase their outdoor play provision to help them meet the Scottish Government commitment to a near doubling of funded hours of early learning and childcare. Ms Tennant added: While Aberdeen is not one of the eight councils, we have met officials and visited some of their proposed sites and we are delighted to hear that plans for an outdoor nursery in Duthie Park have come to fruition we wish the nursery every success in future. A neurology review sparked by concerns about a consultants work has cost around 1 million so far, Northern Irelands department of health said. A total of 3,544 former patients of Dr Michael Watt have been or are in the process of being recalled. Many have epilepsy. Patients who were being actively treated by Dr Watt have already been seen. A total of 1,044 who had been seen by the consultant but discharged to the care of their GP and prescribed medications for neurological conditions will be offered appointments within the next four months, Stormonts health authorities said. The medications include anti-epileptic drugs, immunosuppressants and disease modifying therapies which are used to treat conditions like epilepsy and Multiple Sclerosis. Patients will be drawn from the NHS and two private clinics where Dr Watt practised. Northern Irelands chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride said: We want to apologise for any distress and uncertainty that this process brings. It is clearly our responsibility to act on clinical advice and the emerging outcomes from the first phase of the recall. Dr Michael McBride (Paul Faith/PA) The decision on who to offer appointments to has been shared with the Royal College of Physicians, whose report triggered the review. It described the action as very sensible and in line with its initial findings. Additional clinics have been secured from the independent sector to support consultants at Northern Irelands largest public healthcare provider, the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. All patients in the first stage of the review, announced earlier this year, have already received a first appointment and more than 600 discharged. A significant number of other patients have been referred separately from the main recall process. Belfast Health and Social Care Trust consultant neurologist Dr John Craig said: We wish to reassure everyone who has received a letter that our primary focus is to provide assurance that they are on the correct treatment and request that they should not stop or make adjustments to their medication until they have been reviewed by a consultant neurologist at their appointment. It is crucial that everyone who does not receive a letter understands that they have no action to take and do not need to get in touch. This latest review process is being concentrated on specific groups of patients taking specific, specialised medicines. At least 11 people have been killed over two days in Italy as much of the country was hit by heavy rain and high winds. Many of the deaths were due to falling trees crashing down on cars or passers-by. The fatalities also included a woman who was buried by mud when a landslide invaded her home near Trento in northern Italy, and a man who was windsurfing in Emilia-Romagna. The other fatalities occurred in Naples, Liguria, Lazio and Veneto. The high winds created an exceptional tide in Venice, covering three-quarters of the city for the first time in a decade. Water levels were forecast to hit 41.3in. A man uses a hose to clean the wooden floor inside the historic Caffe Florian in Venice (Andrea Merola/Ansa) It was the perfect storm during which adverse meteorological conditions contributed to the situation in the sea and winds, said civil protection chief Angelo Borrelli. News agency Ansa reported damage to the mosaic floors inside Venices famed St Marks Basilica, where waters reached 35in. The bronze metal doors and columns also sustained damage. The wooden floors in the nearly 300-year-old Florian cafe nearby were also seriously damaged. Nothing but respect to all the runners of the #Venice #marathon today. This is insane. pic.twitter.com/7nnO2WfnPT Alexander Araya Lopez (@alxaraya) October 28, 2018 Rains flooded roads and caused a landslide that forced the temporary closure of the Brenner highway connecting Italy with Austria, while the Adige River running through Verona rose by six feet but did not overflow. In the capital, Rome, more than 100 trees were felled by high winds, and ports reported damage from the storm, including to moored boats. Traffic at a standstill as an uprooted tree blocks a road in Rome (Beatrice Larco/AP) Nearly 6,000 firefighters were dispatched to remove debris from roadways across the country. One firefighter was killed by a tree near Bolzano. Schools were closed in large areas of the country for two days as a precaution. David Cameron and George Osborne ran away from their responsibilities when they lost the EU referendum, a Labour MP has claimed, as he warned Britain was heading for a very bad time indeed over Brexit. Barry Sheerman branded Philip Hammonds Budget uninspiring, lacking of passion, lacking in leadership, lacking in values during a year of crisis. The MP for Huddersfield said: We are heading for a very bad time indeed if we leave the EU on bad terms, that is the fact of the matter, wasnt mentioned. Chancellor Philip Hammond outside 11 Downing Street (Victoria Jones/PA) The Chancellor of the Exchequer at this time of crisis, impending disaster for our country hadnt got the courage to mention Brexit more than once, that is the truth. Whatever Brexit deal was struck, he argued, it wont be as good as the deal of staying in the EU and would negatively impact peoples lives. Speaking during the Commons Budged Resolutions debate, he said: I know that what were moving towards is a disaster for their living standards, their health standards and everything else that touches their lives over these coming years. This is a year of crisis This is going to be the next crisis where we need people there at the Despatch Box who actually take on their role as leaders. Not people who were there as prime minister and chancellor and when they lost the referendum ran away from their responsibilities, ran away from the leadership. Where are they now, in the Evening Standard I suppose, in their man cave writing their memoirs. He added: The great people that have been at that Despatch Box are the people who had values, showed leadership and led this country in good times and bad times. Mr Sheerman took issue with the Chancellors description of the global meltdown of the world economy as Labours great recession. Recalling the actions of then Labour prime minister Gordon Brown and chancellor Alistair Darling, he said: They did what was necessary to save our country and dont this bunch over here tell us how to raise to our responsibilities. We showed leadership, we showed that we had the values and we worked incessantly to get this country back on track. Mr Sheerman sought to draw a parallel with the First World War, stating that it was politicians that failed the people of this country. He said: That was a failure of leadership, failure of values, failure of the responsibility to be at that Despatch Box and make courageous decisions and were heading in that direction. Not particularly in war but into the most troubled times, when our people will come out impoverished, miserable, unhappy and that will hurt their health, their education and their chance of a good life and for my part I will do everything I can to stop the disaster that those people have wished on our people. A convicted IRA member suspected of involvement in the Hyde Park bombing has said he does not intend to take part in a High Court claim brought against him by the victims families. Relatives of the four Royal Household Cavalrymen who died in the July 1982 blast are suing John Downey, who has always denied involvement in the attack. Squadron Quartermaster Corporal Roy Bright, 36, Lieutenant Dennis Daly, 23, Trooper Simon Tipper, 19, and Lance Corporal Jeffrey Young, 19, were killed by a car bomb as they rode through the central London park to attend the Changing of the Guard. Mr Downey was charged four years ago with the murders, but the prosecution at the Old Bailey collapsed. Family members of those killed launched legal action against Mr Downey after the collapse of the trial. During a brief hearing on Tuesday, Master Richard Davison was told Mr Downey leaves everything in the courts hands and said he is not in a position to make any legal submissions at this stage. Families of victims of the Hyde Park bombing are taking civil action against a suspect (PA) The judge, sitting in London, was dealing with preliminary issues ahead of a five-day trial due to take place after October 1 next year. Anne Studd QC, representing the families, told the judge Mr Downey has filed a defence to the claim. She said: Although he says at the moment he is not going to participate, we have to assume that at some point he might change his mind about that. Ms Studd said Mr Downey challenges expert evidence relating to fingerprints found at the scene. He also claims it is too late for any legal action to be brought against him, given the passage of time since the bombing. The barrister told the judge Mr Downey has assets which could be used to pay any damages in the event he is found liable for the bombing. She said he is believed to own two properties in Ireland, one of which has been transferred in part to his wife, while the other has been part sold to another person. Matthew Jury, the solicitor acting for the families, told the judge Mr Downey said recently he has not been receiving mail from the court. He added: The difficulty we have is he has not been willing to tell us where he lives. Master Davison said the case will be split into two, with the first stage focusing on whether Mr Downey is liable for the bombing and the second considering the level of damages. None of the families attended the hearing. They initially asked for help with legal fees through crowdfunding after being refused legal aid five times, but The Sun revealed in February that they have been granted public funding. Speaking at that time, a Legal Aid Agency spokesman confirmed the award of legal aid and said: Our deepest sympathies remain with those affected by this atrocity. The car bomb left in South Carriage Drive killed the four soldiers and injured others as they travelled from their barracks to Buckingham Palace. Seven horses were also killed and another horse, Sefton, survived terrible injuries. The criminal case against Mr Downey, from Co Donegal, dramatically collapsed after it was revealed he had received a written assurance from former prime minister Tony Blairs government that he was no longer wanted. The letter was issued under the terms of the controversial On The Runs (OTRs) Scheme. Trial judge Mr Justice Sweeney ruled that his arrest at Gatwick Airport, as he passed through the UK on the way to a holiday, represented an abuse of process and he put a stay on any future prosecution. A lawyer for a sex predator accused of murdering two nine-year-olds has pointed the finger at the father of one of the girls, saying police spent 32 years building a case against the wrong man. Former roofer Russell Bishop is on trial for the second time for the murders of Karen Hadaway and Nicola Fellows. The girls were sexually abused and strangled on the South Downs on the outskirts of Brighton in October 1986. Karen Hadaway and Nicola Fellows (PA) In an opening speech, Bishops lawyer Joel Bennathan QC cast suspicion on Barrie Fellows, Nicolas father, saying detectives had spent 32 years building a case against the wrong man. He told jurors at the Old Bailey: Only one person is on trial here sitting in the dock Russell Bishop. But the law allows a defendant like him to point out facts, ask questions, to the jury that might suggest the possibility that another person exists who may have carried out these awful attacks. We will ask questions of witnesses to show that when the girls went missing there was someone very close to them who has no alibi. That someone made comments after the killings that are far more incriminating than anything Russell Bishop said. That someone is someone who may actually unlike Mr Bishop have been able to order Nicola Fellows to meet him in Wild Park. That someone has a guilty secret that he has been complicit in the sexual abuse of Nicola Fellows, which shows an interest in paedophilic sex. In the end it might mean he could not let Nicola Fellows tell the world what has been happening. That person is her father, Barrie Fellows. Michelle Hadaway, left, and Sue Eismann at the scene in Wild Park (Gareth Fuller/PA) Nicolas mother Susan Fellows now Eismann told jurors her daughter was funny, happy and spoke her mind to the point of embarrassment. In 1986, she told police: Nicola was dotty over her father but was also wary of him. She knew what he said went. In a recent statement, she described hearing of a sexual allegation about her daughter from Bishops then-teenage girlfriend Marion Stevenson. Russell Bishop denies two counts of murder (Sussex Police/PA) She said: I first heard of an allegation made by Marion of Nicola being in a pornographic film in 1986. I heard the allegation through speaking to people in the area and also through my police liaison officer. She said she never spoke to her ex-husband about it, saying she would not dare. She was also asked about an incident of violence towards her grandmother, and said the elderly woman was quite outspoken and said something about not liking Barrie. Mr Fellows responded by raising his hand and striking her directly on the nose. The grandmother suffered a broken nose, but did not want to press charges, according to the account. Mrs Eismann said Nicola and her father loved each other in a childs way, adding: If she was out of control, if she was naughty, he would slap her. Karens mother Michelle Hadaway was asked about concerns she raised in 1989 about Nicolas father. She had written a letter to her local councillor and Bishops uncle outlining her fears about his strange behaviour. She wrote: Im afraid that Barrie Fellows strange and unnatural behaviour since my daughter was murdered has not got any better. He allegedly told her it was lucky Karen had not been beaten before she died, which she found strange coming before she had been told what happened. Mr Fellows also remarked more than once that Karen was in the wrong place at the wrong time, she had said. The trial has heard how Nicola and Karen went missing while out playing together in Wild Park near Brighton after school on October 9 1986. Bishop, pictured in 1988, was originally acquitted of murder in 1987 (PA) Following a desperate search by the girls mothers, police and locals including Bishop, they were found dead in a wooded den the next day. Mrs Hadaway wept as she told of the moment the girls were found. She said: I was all upset, confused and did not know where I was. I was just terrified about my little girl. Worried about both them children. Bishop was cleared of the murder in 1987 but was ordered to stand trial at the Old Bailey in light of new DNA evidence. Three years after his acquittal, he was convicted of the kidnap, indecent assault and attempted murder of a seven-year-old girl at Devils Dyke, also on the South Downs. Bishop, now aged 52, formerly from Brighton, has denied two charges of murder. Notorious Boston gangster James Whitey Bulger has died in US federal custody nearly five years after being sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. Officials at the Federal Bureau of Prisons said he died on Tuesday in West Virginia. He was 89. Bulger led a largely Irish mob that ran loan-sharking, gambling and drug rackets in the Boston area. He also served as an FBI informant. He became one of the nations most-wanted fugitives after fleeing Boston in late 1994. James "Whitey" Bulger has died (FBI via AP) After more than 16 years on the run, Bulger was captured at the age of 81 in Santa Monica, California, where he had been living with his long-time girlfriend, Catherine Greig. In 2013, Bulger was convicted of participating in 11 murders in the 1970s and 1980s and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. Bulger was the model for Jack Nicholsons ruthless crime boss in the 2006 Martin Scorsese movie The Departed. When the extent of his crimes and the FBIs role in overlooking them became public in the late 1990s, Bulger became a source of embarrassment for the FBI. During the years he was a fugitive, the FBI battled a public perception that it had not tried very hard to find him. Bulger had just been moved to USP Hazelton, a high-security prison with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. He had been in a prison in Florida before a stopover at a transfer facility in Oklahoma City. Federal Bureau of Prisons officials and his lawyer had declined to comment on why he was being moved. Bulger, nicknamed Whitey for his bright platinum hair, grew up in a gritty South Boston housing project and became known as one of the most ruthless gangsters in the city. His younger brother, William Bulger, became one of the most powerful politicians in Massachusetts, leading the state Senate for 17 years. In working-class Southie, Jim Bulger was known for helping old ladies across the street and giving turkey dinners to his neighbours at Thanksgiving. He had a kind of Robin Hood-like image among some locals, but authorities said he would put a bullet in anyone who he even suspected of double-crossing him. You could go back in the annals of criminal history and youd be hard-pressed to find anyone as diabolical as Bulger, said Tom Duffy, a retired state police major who investigated Bulger. Killing people was his first option. They dont get any colder than him, said Mr Duffy after Bulger was finally captured in 2011. Turkey's Armed Forces opened fire at the positions of the Kurds in the north of Syria's Ain al-Arab district, Turkish media reported. As a result of the shelling, at least six terrorists were killed and six more were injured. The missiles were launched from Turkey's southeastern province of Sanliurfa, Anadolu Agency reported. Yesterday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkeys launch of a new military operation in Syria against the YPG/PYD terrorists, as well as the PKK, was a matter of time. A landmark ruling that Uber drivers are workers and therefore entitled to employment rights should be upheld, the Court of Appeal has heard. The ride-hailing firm is attempting to overturn employment tribunal findings which could pave the way for tens of thousands of its drivers in the UK to receive the national minimum wage and paid holiday. At a hearing in London on Tuesday, Jason Galbraith-Marten QC, representing former drivers and Yaseen Aslam and James Farrar, said the previous findings that the drivers were workers were properly reached on the evidence. Uber is contesting the Employment Appeal Tribunal finding (Laura Dale/PA) He said that, as there was no express agreement between Uber and its drivers, the tribunals needed to determine the true nature of the (implied) agreement and were entitled to ask whether the claimants are genuinely in business on their own account. Last November, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) dismissed Ubers appeal against an earlier tribunal ruling that Mr Aslam and Mr Farrar were workers at the time they were operating for Uber. Uber contends that both tribunals erred in law in concluding that the pair were workers, submitting that it wrongly disregarded the written contracts in which the parties agreements were recorded. But Mr Galbraith-Marten said the tribunals did not have to construe a written agreement, but rather determine the relationship between Uber and its drivers from all the relevant circumstances, of which the written agreements are just one. The barrister also said that the relationship between Uber and its drivers was inconsistent with a relationship of agency, noting that Uber retains sole and absolute discretion to decline bookings and deliberately does not tell the driver the destination before pick up. Dinah Rose QC, for Uber, earlier told the court that the tribunals misunderstood or failed to apply basic principles of agency law and had treated as bizarre or absurd normal relationships widespread in the industry. She said Ubers agency model was typical of the private hire industry and had been used for many years. Speaking outside court, Mr Farrar said the case had snowballed since he first took it on three years ago, adding: It does end up taking over your life. He said: There is a rising tide of demand from precarious workers. A lot of people say to me, if you dont like it just go and work somewhere else. The problem is the conditions are repeated across the economy. Mr Farrar said the case was now bigger than the outcome for himself and his fellow claimants: There is a lot at stake. If we lose this, all those [other] people will be affected. He added: Myself and Yaseen should not be here today. The Government should be enforcing the law. Ubers first responsibility is to obey the law and the Governments first responsibility is to enforce the law and protect people. The hearing will conclude on Wednesday and judgment is expected to be reserved. Ernesto Valverde insists Barcelonas resounding victory over Real Madrid at the weekend has changed nothing at the Nou Camp. Barca thrashed their great rivals 5-1 on Sunday, a result that prompted the sacking of Julen Lopetegui as Real Madrid manager. That development has dominated sporting headlines in Spain and emphasised the current gap between the two clubs, but Barca boss Valverde has played down the idea it has enhanced his own position. Julen Lopetegui was sacked after his team were thrashed by Barcelona (AP) Valverde told reporters: Im disappointed because I thought I was going to have superpowers, but I do not. Im exactly the same as a week ago and the previous one, (but) people are happier and that makes everything more calm. Valverde was speaking at a press conference as LaLiga leaders Barca prepare to return to action in the more modest surroundings of third-tier Cultural Leonesa in the Copa del Rey. Valverde is planning to make a host of changes for the start of their defence of the trophy. Valverde: The cup is a very important competition. I don't understand the idea of not going for one tournament to focus on another" #CopaBarca pic.twitter.com/zNUzKtkUTt FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) October 30, 2018 Brazilian forward Malcom, who has featured little since his controversial summer move from Bordeaux, is likely to be given an opportunity. Jasper Cillessen is set for an opportunity in goal after overcoming a bout of illness while a clutch of youngsters have been included in the squad to travel to Leon. Despite being likely to field a much-changed side, Valverde insists the task is not being taken lightly. Stars such as Luis Suarez could be rested at Leon (Mike Egerton/PA) He said: We expect an opponent who tries to play well, taking the ball from the back. I expect their fans to be enthusiastic. Its a complicated game in that sense, they have a lot to win. Its a big game for them. Every game is a test. It is a test for the players who play. It is not a friendly. This adds pressure to the players. The cup is a very important competition. I dont understand the idea of not going for one tournament to focus on another. Valverde : "We are happy with the reaction and the step in the right direction. This positivity will reinforce the team" #CopaBarca pic.twitter.com/AP2qE5Smys FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) October 30, 2018 Valverde is buoyed by Barcas recent good form, which includes a 4-2 win over Sevilla and defeat of Inter Milan in the Champions League. He said: I am more than proud and we are happy with how things have gone. That reinforces us as a team and we look to take that feeling of confidence into the cup. British tourists could face delays at European airports after Brexit, the Immigration Minister has admitted. Caroline Nokes said the prospect of UK travellers ending up in rest of the world queues is not unrealistic. In a wide-ranging session with the Commons Home Affairs Committee, she also acknowledged that in some cases it could be almost impossible for businesses to differentiate between EU migrants who have lived in the UK for years and those who arrive after Brexit. Ms Nokes told MPs the priorities in the event of a no-deal scenario are security, the flow of goods and people, and revenue processes. Of course its feasible that there could be delays for people travelling through EU airports. The prospect of them ending up in rest of the world queues at some major airports across the continent is not unrealistic. Ms Nokes also acknowledged employers may struggle to establish whether a prospective EU worker is a long-term resident if they have not yet obtained the status that confirms their right to live and work in the UK. She said the issue presents a conundrum but denied the future system is unworkable. Under the Governments proposed settlement scheme, EU migrants who have been in the UK for five years by the end of 2020 can apply for settled status, meaning they are free to go on living and working in the UK indefinitely. Those who have arrived by December 31 2020 but do not have five years residence can seek to stay until they have, at which point they can seek settled status. EU citizens who arrive in the implementation period, which starts after the official exit date in March, will face no new curbs on living and working in the UK but will be required to register if they intend to stay for longer than three months. Ms Nokes came under pressure from committee members to explain how the system would affect businesses employing workers from the bloc. She said: You are absolutely right to point out that somebody who has been here for ten years and has simply not yet been through the scheme, it will be almost impossible for an employer to differentiate between them and somebody who is a new arrival. Ms Nokes said the approach would be pragmatic and the early enforcement regime would not be overly rigorous. She added: We are quite clear that this is absolutely one of the conundrums employers will face that there will be people who have rights under the settled status scheme but havent yet gone through the process to evidence that. The settlement scheme is currently being trialled and will be fully operational next year. It is anticipated the total number of applications could run to more than 3.5 million. Ms Nokes told the committee: It is going to be an enormous challenge for both employers and EU citizens who do have the right to work to make sure we get them through the scheme as efficiently as we possibly can. Her evidence sparked claims the Governments approach to Brexit risks a repeat of the Windrush scandal. Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman Sir Ed Davey said: Millions of EU citizens in the UK have been living under a cloud of uncertainty for more than two years. Far from clearing up that uncertainty today, the Immigration Minister made it worse. The Home Office said employers already need to carry out right to work checks on EU citizens, and that will not change. A spokeswoman for the department said: We will protect EU citizens rights when we leave the EU, in both a deal or no deal scenario. We are considering a number of options for the unlikely event that we reach March 2019 without a deal, and will set out more information shortly. Detectives investigating the murder of a building site security worker say they have yet to establish a motive. Mohammad Abu Sammour, 49, was found injured at a housing development under construction near Newarthill in North Lanarkshire in the early hours of Sunday. A vehicle seen being driven away from the scene and later found burnt out is believed to be the victims work van. Police said the family of the security officer from Caldercruix, Airdrie, has been devastated by his death as officers appealed for information. The security worker was found injured at around 1am (Police Scotland/PA) Detective Chief Inspector David Pinkney said: Mr Abu Sammour worked as a site security supervisor who travelled around a number of building sites in the Central Belt. Enquiries are being carried out to identify his last known movements and we would urge anyone with information to contact us. We now believe that the vehicle which was seen driving off is in fact Mr Abu Sammours works van which is a white Peugeot Partner van with blue writing on the side. At this time the motive of the murder is unknown. However, our extensive enquiries are ongoing and we retain an open mind. The victim was found injured at around 1am in Panmuir Crescent, part of a new housing development between Holytown and Newarthill. He was taken to Wishaw General Hospital where he died a short time later. A witness reported seeing a white van being driven off at speed on a road adjacent to Panmuir Crescent. A van similar to the one found burnt out (Police Scotland/PA) Mr Pinkney said: We need to ascertain if anyone has seen this white van between 1am and midday on Sunday, when it was found burnt out within waste ground situated between the A723 and Burn Crescent, New Stevenston. Once again, I would ask anyone who was in the area at the time or who may have seen the van travelling in the local area to please get in touch with officers. If you do not wish to contact police, you can pass information in confidence to Crimestoppers. Mr Abu Sammours family has been left devastated, it is imperative that we trace those responsible for his death as soon as possible, and I need help from the local community of Newarthill and Holytown to achieve that. Extra police patrols have been deployed in the area to reassure local residents. Top seed Daria Kasatkina saw off the challenge of home player Qiang Wang as she battled to a victory in three sets at the WTA Elite Trophy in Zhuhai. In a match which lasted almost two hours, the Russian world number 10 progressed 6-1 2-6 7-5. For sure, (Wang) improved her game so much and always we have big, big matches. We never have, like, the easy one, Kasatkina said after her victory in the Azalea Group. Elsewhere on Tuesday, Belgiums Elise Mertens opened her campaign with a confident straight-sets victory over Anett Kontaveit. The world number 13 is the tournaments fourth seed, and needed just over an hour to dispatch Estonian Kontaveit 6-3 6-1. Mertens, debuting in the China event, will next face defending champion Julia Goerges in her other Rose Group round-robin tie playing against the German for the first time at tour level. Daria Kasatkina is through to the next round (Steven Paston/PA) Ive got nothing to lose. I dont have any (ranking) points to defend or anything. Ill just play freely, the Belgian said, quoted on the WTA website. Ive had a good year and shes had a good year. Hopefully it will be a real competitive match. Kontaveit, the world number 20, hopes for an improved display in her next match. I havent played round robin on the WTA level ever, so its kind of new, the 20-year-old said. Today was not great for me, but its good that I get another opportunity tomorrow. In the Camellia Group fixture, Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, the third seed, beat Australian Ashleigh Barty 6-4 6-4. Im so happy with this start, with the win, the world number 12 said. Now I just enjoy the tournament, try to improve more and more. A man has offered a 50,000 reward for the safe return of 11 puppies stolen from his home by a gang at knifepoint. Mark Orley said the dogs, taken from Loughton in Essex, could die in the next 24 hours as they are too young to be weaned. He said on Facebook that three people threatened his boy then stole the animals. Essex Police are investigating a burglary in Loughton in which 11 puppies were stolen. (Essex Police/ PA) Essex Police said a man in a hi-vis jacket, posing as a utility company worker, knocked on the front door and two balaclava-clad men burst in when it was opened by a teenage boy. The men threatened the boy then stole seven French bulldog and four dachshund puppies from the address in Hogarth Reach at about 2pm on Monday, the force said. Two handbags and a mobile phone were also stolen. Detective Constable Jody Greenfield, of Loughton CID, said: We are extremely concerned about the welfare of the puppies as they are very young and theyve been separated from their mother. Unless theyre in the hands of experts there is a very real chance they might not survive beyond a few days. Fortunately this type of incident is not common in Essex but wed urge anyone who breeds or keeps dogs to make sure theyre taking steps to protect their animals. Our advice is not to open external doors to anyone whos not expected, take details of anyone whos not familiar or vehicles near to houses or buildings where breeding takes place, and ensure dogs and puppies are kept in as secure a location as possible. Police are appealing for witnesses and those with CCTV or dashcam footage to call 101 quoting the crime reference number 42/157577/18. A six-year-old boy who died in a house fire has been described by his family as a brave warrior who survived heart surgery as a baby. Riley Jake Jackson died after the fire in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, on Friday evening. The family of six-year-old Riley Jake Jackson, who died in a house fire in #Ilkeston, have paid tribute to him https://t.co/whgzzc36GH pic.twitter.com/wo0jHqXuoB Derbyshire Police (@DerbysPolice) October 30, 2018 His family said in a statement: Riley touched the lives of everyone who met him. Despite being born with a serious heart condition and needing surgery just after his first birthday at Glenfield Hospital, as well as dealing with multiple health conditions, he took it in his stride like the brave warrior that he is. Riley loved life and lived every day to the full, never letting any barriers hold him back. He is a superhero, and his light will always shine as brightly as his smile. Rileys family has asked for privacy but said donations in his memory could be made to Heart Link Childrens Charity, based at Glenfield Hospital, Keep The Beat childrens charity or Patches Heart Group. Police and firefighters at the scene in Ilkeston (Josh Payne/PA) Police were called to the house in Shaw Street West, Ilkeston, at 10.40pm on Friday after firefighters found Riley with serious injuries. He was given CPR by emergency services at the scene but died at Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham. Anybody with information about the incident is asked to contact Derbyshire Constabulary, with reference 18*516997. Two life-sized Tommies have been unveiled at the US embassy in London to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War. The 6ft Soldier Silhouettes were revealed by US ambassador to the UK Robert Woody Johnson and General Lord Dannatt, former chief of the general staff in the British Army. The unveiling commemorated British soldiers, known as Tommies, and soldiers from the US, known as Doughboys, who served together in the war. One Tommy will guard the embassy foyer and the other will be placed in the consular entrance for the Remembrance period. They have been purchased from the There But Not There campaign, commemorating 100 years since the end of the conflict. Today I welcomed Lord Dannatt, @Tobias_Ellwood & @RHChelsea to @USAinUK as we unveiled two silhouettes of #WW1 soldiers for the @Remembered2018 centenary commemoration. Let us never forget the sacrifices of the men & women that gave everything for our freedom. #SideBySide pic.twitter.com/a7uKtXHxgP Charge d'Affaires Philip T. Reeker (@USAmbUK) October 30, 2018 The campaign was launched in the US in February and has raised more than 4 million for a group of US and UK military charities. More than 76,000 10in and 6ft Soldier Silhouettes have been sold so far and have appeared at locations across the US, including the Golden Gate Bridge and Times Square. Mr Johnson said: A hundred years ago, many brave young Americans volunteered to come and fight side by side with their British comrades in the First World War. Many never made it back home. They may be gone but they are never forgotten. These Soldier Silhouettes are a moving tribute to the sacrifices those soldiers made to defend us. We will be displaying them in pride of place at the US embassy in London. US Ambassador to the UK Woody Johnson (right) and General Lord Dannatt during the unveiling (Kirsty OConnor/PA) Lord Dannatt, who is patron of There But Not There, said: The Great War marked the beginning of an unbreakable military alliance between the United Kingdom and the United States. The camaraderie that was forged between Tommies and Doughboys 100 years ago paved the way for the transatlantic partnership we have enjoyed since. We are honoured to represent the sacrifice made by the American troops by having our silhouettes stand guard beneath the Great Seal of the United States. As we approach Veterans Day, we hope that the American public will purchase their own silhouette to commemorate their forefathers and raise vital money for those veterans in need today. A beech tree grafted into an N-shape to woo a sweetheart named Nellie has been crowned the UKs tree of the year, the Woodland Trust said. Nellies Tree, near Aberford in West Yorkshire, beat a giant redwood in Northern Ireland, a spruce in which children play in Scotland, and an oak that may once have hidden a king in Wales to scoop the overall prize for the UK contest. The trees unusual shape was created nearly 100 years ago by Vic Stead, who walked along the old colliery railway from his home in Garforth, near Leeds, to visit Nellie, the young lady he was courting who lived in nearby Aberford. Vic Stead created the tree on the route he walked to woo his sweetheart Nellie, who lived in a nearby village (Rob Grange/WTML/PA) When one day he came across three beech saplings on his route, he grafted one sapling between the other two to form the letter N in an attempt to woo his sweetheart. The romantic gesture worked, with Vic and Nellie going on to marry and have a family. Though they are now gone, Nellies tree, which is also known as the love tree by locals, remains and is a popular place for lovers to pop the question. Vic and Nellie Stead, whose romantic tree lives on (Chris Lund/PA) The beech was nominated for the Tree of the Year competition by Vic and Nellies grandson, Chris Lund, who was told the story as a child by his grandparents when they went on walks past the tree. The trees romantic history also won the hearts of voters, and it was the clear winner in the final of the annual competition. For the contest, hundreds of nominated trees were whittled down to several entries each for Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales, with a public poll to find winners for each country, and then a final vote for an overall winner. Nellies tree will now go on to represent the UK in the European Tree of the Year contest early next year. Mr Lund said: I am absolutely astounded and hugely happy with the support the tree has had. I think its just the wonderful story behind it. It is a fitting tribute to my grandparents. It just shows how important it is to protect the nature around us and also what we could lose if we are not careful. Nellie and Vic Stead told their grandson the story of the tree when he was a child (Chris Lund/PA) Kaye Brennan, lead campaigner at the Woodland Trust, said: This northern gem, Nellies Tree is a really fitting winner as all our trees could do with a bit more love right now. Since last years contest thousands of trees have been needlessly lost across towns and cities, and opportunities to save important trees from infrastructure plans such as HS2 have been denied. We hope this trees tale stands as a beacon for the need to protect our special trees and the wonderful tales they have to tell, she said. Nellies tree will now go on to compete in the European Tree of the Year contest (Rob Grange/WTML/PA) The competition is supported by players of the Peoples Postcode Lottery, which funds a 1,000 care award to the winning trees from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. President Donald Trump has arrived in Pittsburgh to pay tribute to those touched by the worst instance of anti-Semitic violence in American history. He arrived in Pennsylvania to visit Squirrel Hill, the Pittsburgh neighbourhood that is home to the Tree of Life synagogue, where 11 people were gunned down during Sabbath services on Saturday. When Air Force One touched down at the airport outside Pittsburgh, President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were not greeted by the usual phalanx of local officials that typically welcomes a visiting president, a reflection of controversy surrounding the visit. President Donald Trump with First Lady Melania (Keith Srakocic/AP) The White House said President Trump was coming to express the support of the American people and to grieve with the Pittsburgh community. But local and religious leaders were divided on whether he should be there. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, a Democrat, told reporters before the visit was announced that the White House ought to consult with the families of the victims about their preferences and asked that the president not come during a funeral. Neither he nor Democratic Gov Tom Wolf planned to appear with President Trump. His itinerary remained under wraps even as he stepped off the plane, trailed by his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who are Jewish, and members of the first ladys staff carrying white flowers. The White House invited the top four congressional leaders to join President Trump in Pittsburgh, but none accompanied him. President Trump travelled to the historic hub of the citys Jewish community as the first funerals were scheduled to be held for the victims, who range in age from 54 to 97. He is expected to meet with first responders and community leaders. The death toll includes a set of brothers, a husband and wife, professors, dentists and a physician. It was not immediately clear whether President Trump would meet with any family members. It was always important for the Tretyakov Gallery to put on public display the Azerbaijani art heritage, held in its funds, Director General of the State Tretyakov Gallery Zelfira Tregulova told the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, commenting on the exhibition of Azerbaijani artists of 1960-1980's 'Absheron Constellation,' which was held in the gallery from November 2016 to February 2017. On the exhibition there were presented works of Nadir Abdurakhmanov, Kamal Ahmadov, Rasim Babayev, Sattar Bahlulzade, Tofik Javadov, Javad Mirdzhavadov, Mir Nadir Zeynalov, Ashraf Murad, Togrul Narimanbekov, Tahir Salahov, Farhad Khalilov and Geyyura Yunusov - as well as sculptures by Fazil Najafov. The exhibition was opened in the cooperation with the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, its president and the vice-president, Mehriban Aliyeva and Lelya Aliyeva, attended the vernissage. "Indeed, it was a very interesting exhibition, which combined the works of Azerbaijani artists from the Tretyakov Gallery collection and from state and private collections of the Azerbaijan Republic. We exhibited the works of artists in Moscow, who are not very well known here, and the works of artists, which represented in the Tretyakov collection by official works, while in Azerbaijan's state and private collections - by unusual works, often made for themselves," she said in the first place. "This exhibition showed that there was no hard division into the unofficial and official art in the 60s-80s. The same artist could have been an exhibitor of the 'We Build Communism' all-union exhibition, and at the same time create other things in his studio. And this seems to be common to all artists. It seems to us very important to put this art on display, since we have a unique collection of art from the once-union republics, which are independent states now," Zelfira Tregulova noted. The Tretyakov Gallery is open for cooperation with Azerbaijani museums. "For the last two years we have made two large projects related to the art of Azerbaijan - a personal exhibition of Tahir Salakhov and the 'Absheron Constellation'. At the same time, Azerbaijani museums take part in almost each of our exhibitions, they have really wonderful collections of Russian art. It suffices to recall the El Lissitzky exhibition, which started with the work of 1919 from the Azerbaijan National Art Museum's collection. Now the 'Volga Coast' unique work is on display at the Kuindzhi exhibition, it was also provided by Azerbaijan," the director general of the Tretyakov Gallery said. Conservationists across the world have never held the Chinese concern for wildlife in much esteem for a good reason. Here is the latest reason why Beijing is guilty of letting down conservationists yet again. On Monday, China reversed the quarter-century-old ban on trade and use of rhino horns and tiger bones. This time, for scientific and medical uses, apparently. Oh, China! What have you done? Or undone China has reversed the quarter-century-old ban on using rhinoceros horns and tiger bones in medicine. The law, which has been in place since 1993, has now been altered so that the bones and horns can now be used in medical research or in healing. The move is in complete contradiction to the commitment that China made in 1993 after it joined the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES. At that point, China had banned all use and trading of tiger bone and rhino horn a ban in effect until Monday. No reason was given for the lifting of the ban, which was implemented amid a global push to protect fast disappearing endangered species. A Chinese officer holds a package containing crushed tiger bones. (Photo: Reuters). Tiger bones and rhino horns should no longer be used in medications, the notice of the CITES ban then said. CITES is an international agreement among governments of more than 170 countries controlling the trade of endangered species. Beijing had gone on to also say that the Chinese government-encouraged research of substitutions of medicines using the endangered animals. The use of tiger bones was removed from the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) pharmacopoeia soon after when China had first introduced a domestic ban on tiger trade. Tiger conservation has become a political issue in the world. Therefore, its necessary for the traditional Chinese medicine industry to support the conservation of endangered species, including tigers, Huang Jianyin, deputy secretary of World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies (WFCMS) had said back then. The decision by the Chinese government comes less than a year after it officially banned the trade of ivory a move that redeemed China in the eyes of the conservationists. But when have we ever known the Chinese to be too consistent? According to the latest mandate, Under special circumstances, trading or using of tiger bone, rhino horn or any products containing them should apply for permission. Tiger bone or rhino horn for medical treatments can be prescribed by doctors certified by the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Scientific research such as genetic studies that require tiger or rhino products may submit applications, and the products should be used only for the purpose specified." One would wish that the ignominy would stop there. But perhaps that would be expecting too much from our neighbours. The statement by Chinas cabinet, the State Council went on that antique tiger and rhino products are also permitted if they are gifted or inherited assets. So, does Chinese "medicine" work? By China's own admission NO. Chinese medicines, much like all their other products that flood the global markets, have possibly never been known to be effective. The World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies issued a statement in 2010, saying there was no evidence for claimed medical benefits of tiger bone or rhino horn, and urged members not to use any other parts from endangered species. Agencies like WWF and TRAFFIC International had welcomed the statement that was made at a symposium in Beijing. An Indian rhinoceros lies dead with its horn missing at Kaziranga National Park. June 6, 2008 (Photo: Reuters). The statement further said that some of the claimed medicinal benefits of tiger bone have no basis. Similarly, rhino horn has for centuries been believed to hold medicinal properties to cure gout, fever, arthritis, headaches, nausea and stomach disorders, anxiety, boils, infantile convulsions, food poisoning, and inflammation and infections. Some older myths claim that it is also effective in the treatment of hallucinations, snakebites and "demonic possessions". It does not stop there. Many Chinese and Vietnamese further believe that powdered rhino solution in water can cure cancer. Only that rhino horn is made of keratin the same protein that makes up human nail and hair. So rhino horn should be as effective in curing ailments as chewing on our fingernails or hair should be. But when have facts ever stopped illegal trade? Despite the prohibitively high prices, the Asian market for traditional medicines continues to invest in them. A lucrative trade in tiger and rhino body parts also flourishes for gifting purposes. A single tiger skin considered a premium dowry fetches around Rs 6.5 million. What does this now translate to? The direct consequence of this order, as WWF was quick to point out, is that even if the usage is restricted to antiques and in hospitals, this trade would flourish. There would now be confusion amongst consumers and law enforcers as to which products are legal and which are not legal. This chaos is what poachers and the smuggling mafia wait for. The lines between legal and illegal markets would blur, expanding the markets for other tiger and rhino products. And before we know it, we would have wiped tigers and rhinos off the face of the earth. In 1960, there was an estimated population of 1,00,000 black rhinos in Africa today, there are fewer than 28,000 rhinos of all species left in Africa and Asia, according to the 2016 UN World Wildlife Crime Report. Most of them have been victims of poaching. India is not and cannot be impervious to China's mandate, for it spells a death knell for Indian conservation efforts. Seized head of a poached tiger in Nagpur. The poachers were arrested at the airport, allegedly trying to smuggle the head and skin of the tiger. (Photo: Reuters). India has the largest population of Bengal tigers and one-horned rhinos in the world. The 2018 rhino census estimates numbers at 2645 individuals and the 2015 tiger census roared at 2226 individuals. One-horned rhinos in India, in fact, account for 85 per cent of the global population tigers account for over 70 per cent of the global population. Look back at 1966, when the rhinos poached from India to China had left us with 366 individuals the immense efforts by Indian conservationists and the government could bring the numbers up to 1855 in 2006, up by a whopping over 600 per cent to 2645 individuals in 2018. All these efforts are now at the brink of futility. The tiger population in India hit an all-time low of 1,411 individuals in 2006 poaching being the primary cause and bounced to 2226 barely nine years thence. These efforts, and the population itself, are sure to be wiped out entirely if China does not reverse the new mandate on an immediate basis. It is a known fact that tiger and rhino poaching in India primarily caters to the Chinese market for traditional medicines. Ironically, a day after China lifted the ban, the findings of WWF's Living Planet Report study was released. It showed that humans have wiped out 60 per cent of the worlds mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970 a level of annihilation that scientists are beginning to call Earths sixth mass extinction. It is comparable to the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Does it stop with the wild world? No. It has been established, over and over again, that illegal wildlife trade, directly and indirectly, funds narcotics, illegal weapons and terrorism. Environmentalists have repeatedly asserted that outfits like Al Shabaab and the Lords Resistance Army (militant groups in Central and Eastern Africa) fund their operations through poaching. Part of a 33 rhino horn shipment seized by Chinese Customs and Excise Department in Hong Kong in November 2011. (Photo: Reuters) Governments are increasingly acknowledging that there is a convergence between the criminal networks involved in wildlife trafficking, human trafficking, and drugs and weapons smuggling, Kate Brooks, photojournalist and director of the documentary film The Last Animals told TIME. Irony hits again. Three days ago, on October 26, the US Attorney General Jeff Sessions addressed a forum on the illegal wildlife trade in Washington DC. In his speech, he said that the USA views the poaching and trafficking of protected wildlife as a threat to good governance, a threat to the rule of law, and a challenge to our stewardship responsibilities to this good earth, and would take renewed steps to combat the problem overseas. A ray of hope? Not. The regulations do come with small solace it limits the sources of animal parts to captivate bred tigers that die a natural death. Rhino horn power for medical use can only be obtained from captive-bred rhinos, and tiger bones from those of natural death. But there is no way to establish if the tiger bones sourced were from a natural death or not. About 200 Chinese tiger farms house over 6,000 captive tigers, ostensibly to "release into the wild". This is twice the global wild population. Not one has been released so far. In its statement, China's State Council said any illegal trade of rhino and tiger products would be subject to "severe crackdowns" and illegal products would be confiscated. But then, who is checking? Also read: Albino tiger cubs born in China zoo. But hold your applause. It's not awwww. Regional parties in Kashmir need to emerge as genuine voices of the people who are fed up of senseless violence and are yearning for peace. They need to become the torch-bearers of change Kashmir Valley is once again on the boil. The reason is simple. Continued spell of peace and normalcy does not suit the narrative of the separatists as well as the regional parties. Of late, they all are on the common page and are working together for their mutual benefit as they feel that their future is threatened. Boycott politics, which so far was the sole preserve of the terrorists, has now been embraced by the regional parties as well. Peaceful conduct of urban local bodies elections despite the best efforts of the regional parties to subvert them has sent shock waves across their spine and left them dumbfounded. Feeling the loss of turf beneath their feet, they were looking for an opportunity to reverse the trend and put Kashmir once again on the boil. The Kulgam incident was seized by them as an opportunity though it was totally unjustified. The said incident, the States Director General of Police said, was unfortunate but was a case of deliberate negligence by those who rushed to the ground zero even before the area was sanitised by the local police. But the self-seeker leaders of Kashmir lost no time in projecting civilian deaths as civilian killings to add fuel to fire and also provide fodder to anti-national forces to drum it as human rights violation. How can civilian deaths due to utter self-negligence be termed as civilian killings blaming the security forces for the same? To the contrary, the security forces personnel put their own lives in danger to prevent collateral (collateral) damage. Rather than appreciating the security forces for their concern, the Kashmiri leaders lost no time in portraying them as villains and speaking in tandem with pro-Pakistani and separatist forces operating in the Valley. It was also not surprising that no time was lost by the dummy Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, in raising his voice. He tweeted: Strongly condemn the new cycle of killings of innocent Kashmiris in IOK by Indian security forces. It is time India realised it must move to resolve the Kashmir dispute through dialogue in accordance with the UNSC resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people. No Kashmiri leader, however, condemned Pakistan for unleashing terror, leading to bloodshed and regular killing of innocent Kashmiris. Pakistan, which has the worst human rights track record in the world, is the darling of the Valley leaders ignoring the fact that their own brethren in Pakistan Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (POJK) cry hoarse 24x7 against the worst kind of state-sponsored violence unleashed on them. Sadly, people in Kashmir, misguided by the vested elements, have stopped to distinguish between the destroyer and the saviour. Soon another non-issue was also grabbed by the discarded Kashmiri leaders in a bid to further spoil the atmosphere. The issue pertained to an advisory issued by the education department to consider purchasing a sufficient number of copies each of Urdu version of Shrimad Bhagwad-Gita and Koshur Ramayana, authored by Shri Sarwanand Premi for making these available in schools/colleges and public libraries of the State. A good-intentioned circular was converted into a communal issue when Omar Abdullah, former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister, tweeted: Why just the Gita and the Ramayana? If religious texts are to be placed in schools, colleges and Government libraries (and Im not convinced that they need/should be) then why is it being done selectively? Why are other religions being ignored? The tendency of the Kashmiri leaders to give a communal touch to those decisions of the Government which they perceive to be anti-Kashmiri, irrespective of the sentiments of the rest of the populace, is not new. This includes major issues like citizenship to West Pakistan refugees, the dignified return of Kashmiri Pandit community, issuance of Dogra certificate, extradition of Rohingyas and Bangladeshis, demand of CBI investigation for Rasana rape and murder case, the establishment of sainik colonies in Kashmir and discrimination against Jammu and Ladakh. Urdu, which once used to be lingua franca, of late, is being portrayed as the language exclusively of Muslims. This tendency is very harmful and will damage the social fabric in the State because it also happens to be the official language of the State. The Urdu version of the Hindu holy scriptures which enjoyed universal acceptance as magnum opus of behavioural and spiritual knowledge was not necessarily meant to be read by Muslims only but also by Hindus and Sikhs who preferred Urdu as their first language. In any case, the circular did not mention anything about not buying other religious books whose Urdu version is also available. Unfortunately, the administration buckled under the pressure and cancelled the circular thus strengthening the hands of the communal forces. It would have been better had the administration stuck to its decision and delivered another big blow to the already sullied Kashmiri leaders who were sulking after the administration refused to fall prey to their time-tested formula of blackmail politics and went ahead to conduct the local bodies and panchayat elections. The advocates of Kashmir being a political issue are neither realists nor idealists. They live in a utopian world and sell false hopes and dreams to innocent Kashmiris. They use the Kashmiris as cannon fodder for their own political gains. They fully realise that neither azadi nor greater autonomy or self-rule will ever see the light of the day. Yet, they keep feeding these narratives to the Kashmiris. This alienates them from the rest of the nation. While they continue to fill their coffers with money and provide luxurious life and modern education to their kith and kin, the common Kashmiri is pushed towards a gun culture and radical madrasa education. While the disillusioned Kashmiris look up to these leaders for their bright future, they keep pushing them into gullies of darkness through bundles of false promises. The day these power brokers also start speaking the truth and accept the reality of Jammu & Kashmir being an integral part of India as enshrined in the States Constitution, and convince the Kashmiris that all forms of struggle against the might of the nation are futile, the problems will cease to exist. It would be naive to expect that it would happen overnight but a sustained effort to change the mindset would be needed. Kashmir today is a victim of radicalisation and numerous socio-economic issues. The vibrant multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic and multi-cultural Kashmiri society has turned into a monolith. The root cause for this is the greed for power. The zenith of this greed was the rigged elections in the State in 1987. Disenchanted and disgruntled by petty political games played to remain in power, the youth revolted. Pakistan, which always casts an evil eye on peaceful Kashmir, lost no opportunity to fish in the troubled waters and launched the so-called religious militancy in Kashmir. It soon turned into a full-fledged Pakistan-sponsored proxy-war with cross-border terrorism as its main weapon. With the introduction of Wahabi Islam, bewildered youth, fed up with repeated Vada Khilafi (broken promises), got attracted towards religion. Gradually, the Kashmiri society is shedding Sufism and getting radicalised under the growing influence of Wahabism. Pakistan ever since has not changed its stance and in fact, upped the ante in order to relocate the terrorists from its own soil into Kashmir with the hope of winning over the Kashmiris by helping them in their struggle. Unfortunately, the regional parties also use the Pakistan card to boost their political fortunes in the quagmire of Kashmiri politics, which unfortunately have also been radicalised with a very few nationalist voices still surviving. The terrorism in Kashmir is no more confined to those seeking azadi. One has to admit that terrorism in Kashmir today is driven by the ambition of creating Nizam-e-Mustafa or an exclusive Muslim state governed by Sharia. Regional parties have remained ambiguous on the subject thus adding to the confusion in the minds of the youth and rural society in Kashmir. By remaining ambivalent, the regional parties want to retain the option of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. If these parties remain embedded in the past, surrender the present to radicalisation and continue to ignore the future of Kashmiri awam, nothing fruitful can happen. The regional parties and their leaders have to shed their negativity as self-seekers. They need to emerge as genuine voices of the Kashmiris who are fed up of senseless violence and are yearning for peace. The parties need to become the torch-bearers of change in Kashmir. (The author is a Jammu-based political commentator and strategic analyst. The views expressed are entirely personal) The three-day Navy Commanders' conference commenced here on Wednesday with focus on the top brass brainstorming on the themes of 'Optimisation' and 'Emerging Technologies.' The commanders will also take stock of operational preparedness of the naval fleet to meet any challenges in the strategically important Indian Ocean Region(IOR). Having adopted mission based deployment over the past one year, the conference will deliberate upon combat readiness of units and optimisation of resources including manpower to meet the growing list of missions and tasks that the Navy is expected to perform, navy officials said here. The conference will have dedicated brainstorming sessions to discuss and conceptualise new ideas and concepts, as well as critically examine organisational structures and processes to meet developing challenges and threats to maritime security. Commanders would also look at utilising emerging technologies such as Big-Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness. India is a maritime nation and its growth is inexplicably linked to the seas. Under the overall vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of 'Security and Growth for All in the Region' (SAGAR), the Indian Navy has been at the forefront of providing an environment of stability and peace in the IOR. As the premier Navy in the region, the Indian Navy aspires to remain the 'Net Security Provider' in the Indian Ocean through collaboration and cooperation with like-minded and friendly nations. The Indian Navy has witnessed an unprecedented growth in its operational tasking over the past decade in consonance with India's rising maritime interests. The Navy has adopted the 'Mission-based Deployment' philosophy and the 'Maintenance-to-Operations' transition cycle over the past year to address the need to be present and to respond to emerging situations in the IOR. The CPI on Tuesday hit out at the BJP and the RSS over the Sabarimala issue, accusing them of launching a "war" against women and motherhood. CPI national secretary D Raja slammed BJP chief Amit Shah's statement threatening to "pull down" the LDF government led by Pinarayi Vijayan over the issue. Addressing reporters here, he alleged that while the BJP and other saffron units had charged the CPI(M) Government in Kerala with having "launched a war against Hindus," it was the Sangh outfits that were actually targeting women in the guise of Ayyappa devotees. He said it was the Supreme Court which had ruled in favour of entry of women of all age groups into the shrine and that it is not a CPI(M) verdict". "Boycott of women (at Sabarimala) has come to an end. The BJP, RSS and VHP are creating violence in the name of devotees. The BJP and the RSS have launched a war against women and motherhood," he alleged. On Shah's recent remark that BJP workers "would not hesitate to pull down the government" if Ayyappa devotees were attacked, Raja asked whether the saffron party had the strength to do so in the State Assembly. "Is this democratic," the Rajya Sabha MP asked. In a hard-hitting speech after inaugurating the BJP district office in Kannur Saturday, Shah alleged the communist Government was "conspiring against temples". He also came out in support of Ayyappa devotees, who have been protesting against the implementation of the Supreme Court's decision to allow entry of women of menstrual age into the shrine. "You concentrate on developing the state rather than attacking the Ayyappa bhakts," the BJP president had said and warned Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan that he would have to pay a "heavy price" if this continues, as BJP workers "would not hesitate to pull down the Government". Hitting out at the BJP Government at the Centre, Raja said parliamentary democracy and other institutions in the country were "under attack," and urged all secular forces to join hands against the Government. He also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal, and urged him to speak out on the matter. Raja demanded a probe by the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC). The Rs 58,000-crore Rafale fighter jet deal has been at the centre of a raging political row with Congress accusing the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance Government of wrongdoing. The Government has rejected all allegations. On Lanka, Raja said new PM Mahinda Rajapaksa was president during the peak of hostilities in the island nation. A host of programmes under Vigilance Awareness Week are being organised by Regional Office of Bank of Baroda (BoB) in the State. The week-long programmes which commenced on October 29 would continue till November 3, a Bank press release informed. At a programme held at Regional Office of the Bank in Raipur, Regional Head and Deputy General Manger,Bank of Baroda, Ranjeet Kumar Mandal apprised the employees about precautions to be taken while doing banking work. In the Regional Office as well as in various branches, 'e-pledges' were also taken to observe precaution in banking work. Meetings with Sarpanchs of various villages and villagers were also conducted in which they were apprised about how to prevent frauds . To deal with inter-State criminals involved in illegal manufacturing, supply and sale of firearms, liquor and drug-trafficking, the Delhi Police in a meeting with police officials of other States have asked them to take joint action against such criminals. On Tuesday there was a 'Interstate Coordination Meeting' held at the Delhi Police headquarters which aimed at strengthening cooperation and coordination, in order to address various issues, related to policing in Delhi and neighboring States. The meeting was attended by senior officers of Delhi Police and their counter parts Hanif Qureshi, IGP (Crime) Haryana, S K Rampal, DIG/CI, Gurmeet Singh Chauhan, AIG-Intelligence (OCCU) Punjab, Amitabh Yash, IGP (STF) Uttar Pradesh, Laxman Gaur, DIG (CID) Rajasthan, Ajitabh Kumar, IGP (CID) Bihar, Ranjit Kumar Prashad, IGP (Crime) Jharkhand, YS Ramesh SP (CID) Jharkhand and SP Singh, IGP (CID) Madhya Pradesh. It was stressed upon to take joint action against interstate criminals by sharing of information of their activities as such exercise would certainly help for keeping surveillance over the interstate criminals involved in trafficking of drugs and proliferation of fire arms. The officers stressed upon exchanging information at senior levels in sensitive matters in advance to make the operations successful. It was also decided for undertaking effective diversion of non-destined goods traffic by the respective states of Haryana and UP, well within their borders, so that they do not enter Delhi. In meeting the police officials also agreed to mutually share data-base of stolen and registered vehicles in neighbouring districts such as Gurugram, Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad, Bahadurgarh, Jhajjar and Sonipat. All officers were also briefed to share advance intelligence having interstate ramifications on crime and law & order. The meeting ended with a resolution to augment co-ordination in policing in the NCR, and to have one to one interaction at all levels and units for effective action against crime, firearms and drug-trafficking. A farmer from Mundet village was shot dead on Wednesday morning by unidentified persons who came in a car. The miscreants escaped in the car, police said, adding that a hunt for them was on. The body has been sent for post-mortem in the civil hospital, police further informed. It is learnt that the incident happened when Pradeep Tyagi, 58, was standing outside his house in the morning. Three people came in a car and one of them fired shots at him. The trio escaped in the same car. On hearing the sound of the gunshots, the villagers came and found Tyagi lying in a pool of blood. They informed the police. Speaking of the incident to The Pioneer, SP rural Manikant Mishra said, On receiving information, police rushed to the spot. Investigation is on. The hunt for the trio is also on. The family members have been quested over whether there was an old enmity of the farmer with anybody which might account for the murder. The post-mortem report will come soon. The promulgation of model code of conduct before assembly elections has evoked mixed feelings among the citizens here. While the code of conduct is mainly for the politicians to observe the guidelines of the code so that the elections can be conducted in a peaceful and orderly manner, certain recent developments have made one wonder whether it is used to check the erring politicians or harass the public. During the last four days alone more than Rs 25 Lakhs was seized by the flying squads from various vehicles. While distribution of cash or any item of bribe during election time is a crime, it is learnt that most of these people from whom money was confiscated are ordinary people carrying money for personal use. Two days back Rs 1.5 Lakh was seized from the car of one Pratap Kushwah who was taking the money to his in-law who was afflicted with Dengue and was referred to a hospital in Delhi. Even after showing the relevant medical reports the flying squad led by the District Collector didnt relent. After some discussions Rs 50000 was returned and the rest impounded. Total 14 people whose money had been seized are running from pillar to post at the collectorate to get back the money but none of them has so far got it despite showing the relevant documents. Speaking to the media persons, Sandeep Kerkette, the ADM said that none of the 14 had submitted proper documents, hence their money could not be returned. He also appealed to the public to keep proper documents while carrying more than Rs 50000. In another development yesterday the Food Department and the officials from the District Administration raided the canteen of the prestigious Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management and confiscated 31 gas cylinders. The officials of the department also collected food samples from the Institute canteen and have sent them to the lab for further testing. While the administration and the concerned officials term it as a routine matter, it looks a bit suspicious as the raid, ordered by the Upper Collector came hours after the Institute authorities had refused to provide rooms for the Election Training Program. The District Administration had earlier demanded 14 rooms and one computer lab for the training programme of election officers, but the institute authorities had expressed their reluctance as they thought it would affect the studies of the students. However, it has also been learnt that all the 31 cylinders are domestic cylinders being used by the canteen manager for commercial purpose. A case has been registered against the canteen manager, Sanjeev Kumar Bhagel. The authorities have also initiated an enquiry to find out how so many domestic cylinders came into the possession of one individual. Haryana unit of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday accused the BJP of failing in honouring the promises mentioned in its manifesto released in 2014. AAP state unit chief Naveen Jaihind, while talking to the mediapersons here on Wednesday said that the BJP led Haryana Government has failed to fulfill its promises during its past four years tenure. Releasing a report card of Chief Minister Manohar Lal and senior Ministers in his cabinet, Jaihind alleged that the government has failed to perform in the last four years. Be it schools, hospitals, facility of electricity, employment or other basic requirements, the ruling BJP has failed to improve any sector and people are suffering under the present regime, he said. Taking a dig at Agriculture Minister OP Dhankar for his promise in 2014 to bring brides from Bihar for Haryanas youth who were unable to find a match in view of skewed sex ratio in Haryana, the AAP leader asked, How many youth have got married? Has the Minister kept his promise? He also challenged the Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues to read out their election manifesto in public now and get Rs 1 lakh reward. The farmers are forced to burn the crop residue as the State Governments have failed to provide them any financial assistance, he said. He also said that Delhi CM will be in Chandigarh on Thursday to talk about his feedback taken from the people of Haryana during his recent visits to schools and hospitals in the state. CS administers pledge of national unity, integrity Chandigarh: Haryana Chief Secretary DS Dhesi on Wednesday administered pledge of National Unity and Integrity to the officers and officials of Haryana Civil Secretariat. Dhesi inaugurated the programme by lighting traditional lamp and paying floral tributes to Iron Man of India Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. SBIs newly built premises inaugurated Chandimandir: The newly-built premises of State Bank of India at Chandimandir headquarter branch was inaugurated by Western Command Commanding Officer Lt General Surinder Singh and SBI Chandigarh Circle CGM Rana Ashustosh Kumar Singh. Ashutosh highlighted long standing relationship between SBI and Indian defence forces while adding that the Bank is providing its services to all defence personnel posted even in the most remote and difficult places. Punjab observes Rashtriya Ekta Diwas Chandigarh: Punjab Government on Wednesday observed Rashtriya Ekta Diwas (National Unity Day) throughout the State to mark the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Punjab Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh administered the pledge to the officers and staff of the Punjab Civil Secretariat-1, while the state Additional Chief Secretary (Home) NS Kalsi administered oath to Punjab Civil Secretariat-2 employees. KU digitized academic record of one crore students Kurukshetra: The Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, has digitized academic record that is results of students from 1960 to 2014 consisting of 55 years of 1.10 crore (1,10,07,113) students. Digitization of students, who appeared in examination in 2015, is under process and it will be completed shortly, said Controller of Examinations Dr Hukam Singh. Chandigarh Crafts Bazaar kicks-off Chandigarh: Dr Hukam Singh Dastkari Haat Samiti's Chandigarh Crafts Bazaar opened with much excitement and pomp with RTI Commissioner, writer and journalist Khushwant Singh inaugurating it. The bazaar has been especially curated for the Diwali season and features beautiful sarees, dupattas, pottery, terra-cotta jewellery, festive footwear, handcrafted decor products and so much more. Haryana DGP (HQ) administers unity pledge Chandigarh: Haryana Director General of Police, Headquarters, KK Mishra on Wednesday administered the pledge of national unity to all the police officers and officials working in the Police Headquarter on the occasion of birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbai Patel in a function held at Haryana Police headquarters. Punjab Police bags CCTNS good practice awards Chandigarh: Punjab Police on Wednesday bags Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) good practice award for the development of Digital Criminal Intelligence Gazette and generation of State Crime Record Bureau (SCRB) reports. Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, Intelligence Bureau director Rajiv Jain, NCRB director Ish Kumar and joint secretary Punya Srivastava conferred the awards to the state DGP (IT&T) VK Bhawra. Warm send off to IPS officer on his superannuation Chandigarh: A warm send-off was accorded to IPS officer KK Sharma, who retired on Wednesday on attaining the age of superannuation after putting in over 32 years of service in various capacities. A farewell meeting was organized at Police Headquarters, Panchkula, where Haryana DGP BS Sandhu, and other top police brass wished Sharma a happy and healthy post retirement life. Sharma retired in the rank of DGP. HCS Tilak Raj on deputation to Chandigarh Chandigarh: Haryana Government has placed the services of HCS officer Tilak Raj at the disposal of Chandigarh Administration, Chandigarh with immediate effect. The Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (Jogi) (JCC (J) on Wednesday announced that partys Supremo and former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi would be its candidate from Marwahi seat for the upcoming Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh. Presently , the former Chief Ministers son Amit is a sitting MLA from Marwahi who has decided to vacate the seat for his father and will not contest polls. Party sources informed that earlier, Ajit Jogi declared of contesting polls from Rajnandgaon assembly seat against the Chief Minister Raman Singh but he later backtracked while asserting that the alliance partner Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had urged him to do so. Notably, BSP and Communist Party of India (CPI) are the alliance partners of JCC (J) and they have declared that Ajit Jogi would be the Chief Ministerial candidate from the alliance. There was speculation that leaving Marwahi seat, Amit could contest polls from Manendragarh but party announced the official candidate from the constituency as Lakhan Shrivastava. Another candidate whom JCC (J) declared is from Raipur (North) from where Amar Gidwani would be in fray. In a rare show of protest, lawyers across the State burnt effigies of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik around the same time at noon on Wednesday in front of the offices of their respective bar associations. Alleging that the State Government has not taken any initiative to resolve the lawyers-police bickering, the High Court Bar Association, which is agitating for over two months now, on Tuesday had given the call to set the CMs effigies on fire. Responding to the call, over 160 bar associations burnt the effigies of the Chief Minister after taking the effigies on biers amid mourning processions. The lawyers also raised slogans against Patnaik, his Government, the BJD Legal Front and the police. Members of the High Court Bar Association here took out a procession in which hundreds of lawyers joined and burnt an effigy of the CM in front of the office of their association. On the other hand, addressing mediapersons here, BJD Legal Front advisor Asim Amitav Dash alleged that the ongoing strike by the High Court Bar Association is politically motivated and those who are leading it from the front have ulterior motives. The State Government have, in fact, taken several measures to resolve the faceoff between lawyers and police, Dash said, adding that the BJD Legal Front has distanced itself from the strike. Pushed on the back foot and confined to a limited forest patch, Maoist insurgents are desperate for a big catch ahead of Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh to get wider publicity, claimed security experts and police officials. Five States will witness staggered polling over the next one-and-half months, starting on November 12 from Chhattisgarhs Bastar, the nerve centre of Maoist militancy in India. Spread over about 40,000 sq km, the iron-ore rich, tribal-dominated and heavily-forested Bastar region has 12 assembly seats. It has been the hideout of top Maoist militants since the late 1980s. The Central Government has deployed roughly 55,000 paramilitary troopers in Bastar to team up with 25,000 state policemen to eliminate the Maoists. Maoists are fighting for their survival in Bastar. Their area of dominance has shrunk significantly, but during the busy election season they want to produce some shock results with a big catch either of politicians, bureaucrats, security personnel, polling parties or media persons who are now flooding Bastar unprotected to cover the elections, a top officer of the State Intelligence Bureau (SIB) informed. Others too agree that the Maoists are struggling. The Maoists are facing their worst days in Bastar. Their recruitment has entirely dried up, the arms supply network has been cut off and, most importantly, the aging Maoist leaders are suffering from serious diseases and are thus unable to keep the violent movement alive, said Brigadier BK Ponwar (Retd), director of the Kanker-based Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College (CTJWC). The people of Bastar have shunned Maoists. Security forces trained to counter guerrilla warfare have turned the heat on them and the Government has taken development to the extreme interiors so Maoists are now looking for soft targets to send out a message that they are still active in Bastar, added Ponwar, whose institution has trained over 34,000 paramilitary and state policemen in the past 14 years in Bastar to "fight a guerrilla like a guerrilla". Candidates of the political parties who are contesting from the 12 seats of the Bastar region, which is made up of seven districts, have largely kept out of Maoist pockets of influence while campaigning. Even the star campaigners of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the main opposition Congress have been strongly advised by security agencies to stay out of the extreme interiors and inform the police well in advance while meeting with the local people to seek votes. Union Minister and BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad too abandoned hisscheduled poll campaign in Dantewada district on Oct 29 in the wake of fresh intelligence reports suggesting that Maoists are desperate for bigger incidents. Candidates of political parties have hired their own security guards to accompany them on the election campaign in Bastar. MJ Akbar, who resigned as Union Minister amid sexual harassment allegations raised in the #MeToo campaign in India, testified in Delhi Patiala House court on Wednesday in the defamation case he has filed against journalist Priya Ramani. Akbar wasn't present when a Delhi court took up his case on October 18, a day after his exit from the Government. Akbar appeared before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal and recorded his statement to support the defamation complaint filed by him against Ramani on October 15. "I have filed a criminal defamation complaint against Priya Ramani for series of tweets that she tweeted on social media. The first one that came to my notice was on my return from an official tour from Africa. The offending portion is the text of her tweet," Akbar said before the court. Akbar cited a number of tweets by Ramani from October 10 to 13 and an article published in Vogue in 2017. "Indeed there was an immediate damage because of the scurrilous nature of these concocted and false allegations. I was attacked in my personal capacity about alleged and fabricated non-events allegedly done two decades ago," Akbar said in his statement. "I chose in that environment to seek justice in my personal capacity without the appurtenance of office. This is why I offered my resignation as Minister of State, Government of India. My reputation has been tarnished in the eyes of general public and those who are near and dear and known to me," Akbar said. Akbar, who had resigned from the Union Council of Ministers on October 17, has concluded the recording of his statement. The court has fixed November 12 for further hearing of the case when the statements of witnesses named by Akbar will be recorded. Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code (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. Remembering the contribution of Indias first Home Minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Chief Minister Raghubar Das on the 143rd birth anniversary of the Iron Man of India said that National Unity Day is a tribute to Indias great unifier. Even today, Sadar Patel is relevant. His sacrifice motivates each one of us to be united and work for the countrys progress, the CM said. Taking examples from the present context in describing the contribution of Sardar Patel, the CM said that in comparison to earlier days, the anti-social elements are more active now and is a threat for each one of us. In the name of caste, religion, ideologies, anti-social elements are promoting their decadent agendas for creating rift among us. At this point, we all need to stand together, sidelining all our differences, Das added. Further, throwing light on the contribution of Sadar Patels role in uniting over 550 princely estates into a country called India the CM further said, Following his ideology, we too must take a pledge to be united and to maintain harmony so that no force could ever break our unity even in difficult times. In the name of castes, creeds and religions, the forces trying to hamper our unity merely to strengthen their vote banks must be immediately crushed down. Together we can fight against all odds, standing as a blockade in the way of ensuring holistic development for all, the CM further added while addressing the people gathered at Albert Ekka Chowk to participate in Run for Unity programme. The CM appreciated all people for showing an incredible example of unity. I am overwhelmed with the response of the people that is being witnessed across the State on the birth anniversary of Sadar Patel. Students, army personnel, policemen, government officials including all civilians today gave the world a perfect example of unity showcasing the world that if any destructive force will try to disturb the peace of the country, 1.25 crore people will not tolerate and fight back together, the CM stated. The CM while expressing his happiness further said, Taking inspiration from Patel and Mahatma Gandhi, we must follow their footstep and must try to counter all negative forces. The world today got a message that the countrymen are united and is ready to make sacrifice. The contribution of all great leaders who shaped the country is simply incredible. Targeting all opposition party leaders who often rake up a few issues for their pity politics, the CM added, The 182 Meter high, the Statue of Unity is a real accolade to the great visionary Sadar Patel. PM Narendra Modi has aptly recognised the contribution of this great leader who was sidelined for several years in opposition parties regime. The contribution of Patel should have been recognised much earlier. It is the vision of PM Modi that every year, October 31 will be observed as National Unity Day. The CM who flagged off Run for Unity event from Sainik Market, saw the participation of Urban Development Minister, CP Singh, Welfare Minister Louis Marandi, Health Minister, Ramchandra Chandravanshi, Education Minister Neera Yadav, Ranchi MP Ramlal Chaudhary, MLA Naveen Jaiswal, Ramkumar Pahan, Dr. Jitu Charan Ram, Mayor Asha Lakra , Deputy Mayor Sanjeev Vijayvargiya, Chief Secretary Sudhir Tripathi, Principal Secretary, Home Department SKG Rahate, DGP DK Pandey, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Dr. Sunil Kumar Barnwal, DG (JAP) Neeraj Sinha, DG (Headquarters) PRK Naidu, Town Commissioner Manoj Kumar, Ranchi DC Rai Mahimapat Ray and others. Meanwhile, the CM also paid tribute to Indias first woman Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi on her birth anniversary. Similarly, over thousands took part in the 6 km Run for Unity from Baridih chowk to Tinplate chowk on Wednesday morning. Jamshepdur MP Bidyut Baran Mahto led the run. Senior district administration officials including DC Amit Kumar, SSP Anup Birtharay, district NCC cadets, police jawans, BJP functionaries and people from different walks of like took part in the run. Students from Eklavya Model Residential School hailing from 12 states, who are in the city to take part in the national music contest, were also part of the run. An oath for unity was also administered on the occasion. Besides, employees of different PSUs SAIL, CCL on the occasion took pledge to maintain unity and follow the ideology of Patel. SAIL Ranchi Units Employees took pledge together at Ispat Bhawan. Kamakshi Raman, ED (HRD) and Kajal Das, ED (CET) administered the pledges in Hindi and English respectively. As annual commemoration of the birthday of Sardar Patel, who was instrumental in keeping India united, Sarala Birla Public School including other educational institutions observed National Unity Day with great enthusiasm. Angry residents blocked the Gumla road on Wednesday morning to protest the murder of coal dealer named Babu Khan near Naro village under Nagri police station area of Ranchi district on Tuesday evening. Unidentified criminals had shot dead the victim while he was playing cards with his acquaintances on Tuesday night. The miscreants fired several rounds at the victim leading to his death on the spot. Police later found five empty cartridges from the spot. Angry locals first gathered at the local police station demanding arrest of the criminals. Later on they blocked the Ranchi-Gumla highway to press for their demand. The protest was, however, withdrawn after a short while on persuasion of the administration. Police said the victim who lived near the Piska railway crossing was involved in coal trade. He supervised the loading and unloading of coal in the local railway siding. He had been sent to jail twice in connection with various crimes including violation of arms act in the past. The victims wife Kiran Kachhap informed police that unidentified miscreants had demanded extortion money of five lakh from Khan a few days ago adding the murder could be linked to the demand. Police have started investigation in the case. So far we have not been able to ascertain the criminals involved in the incident said the DSP headquarter-II in this connection. With an eye on the dominant OBC communitys Kurmi votebank ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Samajwadi Party on Wednesday organised a function to celebrate the 143rd birth anniversary of Sardar Patel across the state on Wednesday. The SP mobilised its Kurmi leaders to address meetings in districts with significant concentration of Kurmi population. The heightened activity in the SP to protect its Kurmi votebank is also prompted by the mega event of unveiling of the statue of Sardar Patel by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat on Wednesday. State SP president Naresh Uttam presided over a function in Allahabad, also attended by Phulpur MP Nagendra Patel, who won the Phulpur bypoll in March this year. The SP also sent its national vice-president Kironmoy Nanda to Ambedkar Nagar where former Cabinet minister and Kurmi leader Rammurti Verma organised a huge meeting to commemorate Patels birth anniversary. Addressing a meeting at Lucknow party office, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav lashed out at the BJP for using the national icon to meet its narrow political ends. The BJP has put up the statue of Sardar Patel, the tallest in the world, but they should also learn to conduct themselves as per the ideals of the Iron Man, and stop pursuing divisive politics aimed at polarisation of voters on communal lines. Patel played a decisive role in shaping the present map of India and its secular polity, said Akhilesh. Demanding that currency note series be printed carrying pictures of Sardar Patel and other great leaders, Akhilesh said: We will do something big to commemorate the memory of Sardar Patel. The SP also celebrated the birth anniversary of socialist ideologue Acharya Narendra Dev on Wednesday. Akhilesh visited the samadhi and paid floral tributes. The King of Mathura gave up on everything in the lust of power. The best known mythological tale about Kans was showcased in the play Katha Kans Ki. The play was performed here on Wednesday at Anatarang Hall, Bharat Bhavan leaving the audience totally spellbound. The hall of Bharat Bhavan was jam-packed to watch the show Kahani Kans Ki. Directed by Arvind Singh, the play was beautifully presented by the artists of Sumukha Cultural Organisation, New Delhi. It is to be noted that the play marked the third day of theatre festival Rang Ekagra being organised as a tribute to Daya Prakash Sinha. Katha Kans Ki is a reinterpretation of a well-known Indian mythological tale in contemporary theatrical idiom. King Kans of Mathuraa has been portrayed as a dictator, who is no different from modern-day dictators like Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, etc. Thus, King Kans story is the story of all the dictators who appear on the world stage, from time to time, in different countries. In effect, this play becomes a clinical analysis of the phenomena of dictatorship, shaped into a play to entertain and enlighten contemporary theatre audiences. The play was effectively written by Daya Prakash Sinha and it is a two-act play. In this play the personality of a tyrant king Kans is portrayed through different shades of his life. Once, a little boy who jumped into the water to save his sisters wooden doll, becomes the reason of her pain and troubles. When the narrator enters the stage describing the personality of Kans, since then the thrill was created among the audience. With zestful light design, beautiful costumes and above all powerful performance by the artists and intelligent direction made the play worthwhile watching. Amid reports of its mounting tension with the RBI, the Finance Ministry Wednesday said the government has "nurtured and respected" autonomy of the central bank and has been holding extensive consultations with it on many issues. "The autonomy for the central bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential and accepted governance requirement. Government of India has nurtured and respected this," it said in a statement. Both the government and RBI, in their functioning, have to be guided by public interest and the requirement of the Indian economy, it said. "For the purpose, extensive consultations on several issues take place between the government and the RBI from time to time." However, the statement did not mention about the government citing the never-before-used power of issuing directions under the Act to RBI Governor to seek a resolution to differences with the central bank. The government has sent at least three letters on different issues under Section 7 (1) of the Reserve Bank of India Act that gives it powers to issue any direction to the central bank governor on matters of public interest. "The government of India has never made public the subject matter of those consultations. Only the final decisions taken are communicated," the statement said. "The government, through these consultations, places its assessment on issues and suggests possible solutions. The government will continue to do so," it added. CyrusOne Inc., a premier global data center REIT, announced entry into an agreement with Agriport A7 for the development of hyperscale data centers in Middenmeer, The Netherlands. Under the terms of the agreement, CyrusOne will have the option to purchase up to 33 hectares of land, in parcels as demand dictates, for a 270MW master planned multi-data center campus. The land is located on Agriport A7's 1,000 hectare campus approximately 40km north of central Amsterdam, which boasts access to the significant future power necessary to support the data center campus and is already home to two major hyperscale developments. "We are very excited to announce this strategic partnership with the Agriport team to develop the largest master planned data center campus in Europe for our hyperscale customers. The unique, first-of-its-kind in the data center space, option agreement aligns the parties' interests and allows CyrusOne to aggressively pursue build-to-suit development projects on ready-to-develop property without deploying significant capital in advance of winning these deals," said Gary Wojtaszek, president and chief executive officer of CyrusOne. "We will be replicating this development model around the globe and are already speaking to other potential land partners." "Our campus, with low latency to the AMS-IX, has access to significant dark fiber and more than 600MWs of primarily green power. Already home to two of the world's largest hyperscale companies, we expect our partnership with CyrusOne to attract a number of additional players, ultimately establishing Agriport A7 as the premier location for large scale data center deployments in The Netherlands," said Anton Hiemstra, CEO of Agriport A7. With India as a top source market for the Sultanate of Oman, the destination is going all out to promote its latest offerings for the discerning Indian travelers Steadily increasing their tourism market share, the Sultanate of Oman is marketing its new tourism products in the Indian market. In the past, travel between the two countries has been limited to employment but over the past few years, the destination has witnessed a steady increase in leisure travellers. The fact that in 2017 alone, Oman received 321,161 Indian arrivals, registering a growth of seven per cent, is a testimony to the increased popularity of Oman in India. Further, from January to June this year, the country has already recorded a 15 per cent growth in Indian arrivals as compared to the same period last year, informed, Lubaina Sheerazi, the India representative of the Ministry of Tourism, Oman. We recognise and acknowledge the demand from India and other potential markets. As part of the Sultanates National Tourism Strategy 2040, the Ministry of Tourism seeks to introduce the sectors latest developments, services, projects and facilities of the tourism industry, said Her Excellency Maitha Saif Al Mahrouqi, the undersecretary of the Oman Tourism Ministry. Oman is introducing various incentives to ease travel between the two countries. The destination has announced a short-term tourist visa which would allow the Indian travellers to visit Oman for a period of 10 days for five Omani Riyal or Rs 940. Also, the newly-built Salalah Airport and the revamped, state-of-the-art, Muscat International Airport, will expand the capacity from 12 million to 20 million passengers, further facilitating travel. One of the most important brand-building activities for Oman has been its association with Bollywood. Film shootings at the destination have given way to collaborations to promote it as a location of interest and increase its appeal among Indian travellers. Other focused areas of Oman include promotion of destination weddings and corporate travel including the meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE) travel. The country has seen an increase in business tourism with the launch of the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre in Muscat. Sheerazi commented, Being only three hours away and having excellent air connectivity with various cities in India also makes Oman a preferable wedding destination. It is important to note that Oman Air caters to 11 cities in India with over 161 flights a week. Oman is tapping into every segment of tourism. New itineraries for different kinds of travellers include a visit to Nizwa (the old capital) for the culturally inclined travellers; guided tours to the Raz al Jinz Turtle Reserve for the wildlife enthusiasts and a host of adventure sports, both soft and hard, at various locations across the country for those who wish to quench their adrenaline. Anadarko Petroleum Corporation engages in the exploration, development, production, and marketing of oil and gas properties. It operates through three segments: Exploration and Production, WES Midstream, and Other Midstream. The company explores for and produces oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids (NGLs). It is also involved in gathering, processing, treating, and transporting oil, natural-gas, and NGLs production, as well as the gathering and disposal of produced water. The company's oil and natural gas properties are located in the United States onshore and deepwater Gulf of Mexico; and Algeria, Ghana, Mozambique, Colombia, Peru, and other countries. As of December 31, 2018, it had approximately 1.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent of proved reserves. The company was founded in 1959 and is headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas. 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Pedersen Co., EIC Holding GP I, EIC Holding GP II, EIC Holding GP III, EIC Holding GP IV, EIC Holding I LLC, EIC Holding II LLC, EIC Holding III LLC, EIC Holding IV LLC, EIC Holding V LLC, EIC Holding VI LLC, ETN Asia International Limited, ETN Holding 1 Limited, ETN Holding 2 Limited, ETN Holding 3 Limited, EX Innovations Limited, Eaton (China) Investments Co. Ltd., Eaton Aeroquip, Eaton Aerospace LLC, Eaton Ann Arbor LLC, Eaton Asia Investments Corporation, Eaton Automation G.m.b.H, Eaton Automation Holding G.m.b.H., Eaton Automotive Components Spolka z.o.o., Eaton Automotive Spolka z.o.o., Eaton Automotive Systems Spolka z.o.o., Eaton B.V., Eaton C.V., Eaton CHB LLC, Eaton Capital Unlimited Co., Eaton Controls (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Eaton Controls (UK) Limited, Eaton Controls S. de R.L. de C.V., Eaton Corporation, Eaton ETN Offshore Company, Eaton ETN Offshore II Company, Eaton Electric, Eaton Electric & Engineering Services Limited, Eaton Electric (Japan) Ltd., Eaton Electric (South Africa) Pty Ltd., Eaton Electric (Thailand) Ltd., Eaton Electric AS, Eaton Electric ApS, Eaton Electric Company Ltd., Eaton Electric G.m.b.H., Eaton Electric Holdings LLC, Eaton Electric Limited, Eaton Electric Manufacturing Middle East LLC, Eaton Electric S.I.A., Eaton Electric S.a.r.l., Eaton Electric S.r.l., Eaton Electric SPRL, Eaton Electric Sales Ltd., Eaton Electric Spolka z.o.o., Eaton Electric d.o.o., Eaton Electric s.r.o., Eaton Electric s.r.o. (Slovak Republic), Eaton Electrical (Zhongshan) Co. Ltd., Eaton Electrical Equipment Co. Ltd., Eaton Electrical IP G.m.b.H. & Co. KG, Eaton Electrical Ltd., Eaton Electrical Products Limited, Eaton Electrical S.A., Eaton Electrical S.A. (Venezuela), Eaton Electrical Systems Limited, Eaton Electro Productie S.r.l., Eaton Elektrik Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Eaton Elektrotechnika s.r.o., Eaton Energy Solutions Inc., Eaton Enterprises (Hungary) Kft., Eaton Enterprises Limited, Eaton Enterprises S. de R.L. de C.V., Eaton FZE, Eaton Filtration, Eaton Filtration (Denmark) ApS, Eaton Filtration (Italy) S.r.l., Eaton Filtration (Poland) Sp. z.o.o., Eaton Filtration (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Eaton Filtration BVBA, Eaton Finance (Ireland) Limited, Eaton Finance S.a.r.l., Eaton Fluid Power (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Eaton Fluid Power Limited, Eaton Fluid Power S.r.l., Eaton France Holding S.A.S., Eaton Germany G.m.b.H., Eaton GmbH & Co. KG, Eaton Holding (Austria) G.m.b.H., Eaton Holding (Netherlands) B.V., Eaton Holding (UK) II Limited, Eaton Holding G.m.b.H., Eaton Holding I B.V., Eaton Holding I Limited, Eaton Holding II LLC, Eaton Holding II Limited, Eaton Holding II S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding III B.V., Eaton Holding III Limited, Eaton Holding III S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding IV S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding IX S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding International LLC, Eaton Holding LLC, Eaton Holding Limited, Eaton Holding S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding SE & Co. KG, Eaton Holding SRL, Eaton Holding V B.V., Eaton Holding V S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding VI B.V., Eaton Holding VI S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding VII B.V., Eaton Holding VIII S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding X S.a.r.l., Eaton Holding XII B.V./S.a.r.l., Eaton Holec AB, Eaton Holec OY, Eaton Hydraulics (Luzhou) Co. Ltd., Eaton Hydraulics (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., Eaton Hydraulics (Proprietary) Limited, Eaton Hydraulics LLC, Eaton Hydraulics Systems (Jining) Co. Ltd., Eaton I Spolka z.o.o., Eaton II LP, Eaton III LP, Eaton IV LP, Eaton India Innovation Center LLP, Eaton Industrial Clutches and Brakes (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Eaton Industrial Corporation, Eaton Industrial IP G.m.b.H. & Co. KG, Eaton Industrial Systems Private Limited, Eaton Industries (Argentina) S.A., Eaton Industries (Austria) G.m.b.H., Eaton Industries (Belgium) BVBA, Eaton Industries (Canada) Company, Eaton Industries (Chile) S.p.A., Eaton Industries (Colombia) S.A.S., Eaton Industries (Egypt) LLC, Eaton Industries (England) Limited, Eaton Industries (France) S.A.S., Eaton Industries (Ireland) Ltimited, Eaton Industries (Israel) Ltd., Eaton Industries (Italy) S.r.l., Eaton Industries (Japan) Ltd., Eaton Industries (Jining) Co. Ltd, Eaton Industries (Korea) Limited, Eaton Industries (Luxembourg) B.V./S.a.r.l., Eaton Industries (Morocco) LLC, Eaton Industries (Netherlands) B.V., Eaton Industries (Philippines) LLC, Eaton Industries (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Eaton Industries (Spain) S.L., Eaton Industries (Thailand) Ltd., Eaton Industries (U.K.) Limited, Eaton Industries (Wuxi) Co. Ltd., Eaton Industries Company, Eaton Industries EOOD, Eaton Industries G.m.b.H., Eaton Industries Holding G.m.b.H., Eaton Industries Holdings Ltd., Eaton Industries II G.m.b.H., Eaton Industries KFT, Eaton Industries LP, Eaton Industries Manufacturing G.m.b.H., Eaton Industries Panama S.A., Eaton Industries Pte. Ltd., Eaton Industries Pty. Ltd., Eaton Industries S. de R.L. de C.V., Eaton Industries SAC, Eaton Industries Sdn. Bhd., Eaton Industries s.r.o., Eaton International B.V., Eaton International Corporation, Eaton International Industries Nigeria Limited, Eaton Japan Co. Ltd., Eaton LLC, Eaton LP, Eaton Leasing Corporation, Eaton Ltda., Eaton MEDC Limited, Eaton Madeira SGPS Lda., Eaton Manufacturing G.m.b.H., Eaton Manufacturing II G.m.b.H., Eaton Manufacturing III G.m.b.H., Eaton Manufacturing LP, Eaton Middle East LLC, Eaton Moeller B.V., Eaton Moeller S.a.r.l., Eaton Phoenixtec MMPL Co. Ltd., Eaton Power Quality (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Eaton Power Quality AB, Eaton Power Quality Limited, Eaton Power Quality OY (Finland), Eaton Power Quality Private Limited, Eaton Power Quality S.A.S., Eaton Power Solution Ltda., Eaton Production International G.m.b.H., Eaton Protection Systems IP G.m.b.H. & Co. KG, Eaton S.A.S., Eaton S.r.l., Eaton SAMC (Shanghai) Aircraft Conveyance System, Eaton SE, Eaton Safety IP G.m.b.H. & Co. KG, Eaton Safety Limited, Eaton Senstar Automotive Fluid Connector (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Eaton Services S.a.r.l., Eaton Solutions S. de R.L. de C.V., Eaton Switzerland Holding I GmbH, Eaton Switzerland Holding II GmbH, Eaton Technologies (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Eaton Technologies G.m.b.H., Eaton Technologies IP G.m.b.H. & Co. KG, Eaton Technologies Private Limited, Eaton Technologies S. de R.L. de C.V., Eaton Technologies S.A., Eaton Trading Company S. de R.L. de C.V., Eaton Truck Components (Proprietary) Ltd., Eaton Truck Components S. de R.L. de C.V., Eaton Truck Components Spolka z.o.o., Eaton Truck and Bus Components (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Eaton US Holdings Inc., Eaton Worldwide LLC, Eaton-Powerware, Electromanufacturas S de R.L. de C.V., Electrum Group Ltd., Elpro Technologies Pty. Limited, Ephesus Lighting, Ephesus Lighting Inc., FHF Bergbautechnik GmbH & Co. KG, FHF Funke+Huster Fernsig GmbH, FHF New World GmbH, Fast Eaton (Xi'an) Drivetrain Company Ltd., Fifth Light Technology Ltd., Funke+Huster (Tianjin) Electronics Co. Ltd., Funke+Huster GmbH, GeCma Components electronic GmbH, Georgetown Financial Services Ltd., Gitiesse Asia Pte. Ltd., Gitiesse S.r.l., Green Holding Company, Green Motion, Guangzhou Nittan Valve Co. Ltd., Hein Moeller Stiftung G.m.b.H., Hernis Scan System do Brasil Comercio E Servicos LTDA, Hernis Scan Systems - Asia Pte. Ltd., Hernis Scan Systems A/S, IE Power, Illumination Management Solutions Inc., Iluminacion Cooper de las Californias S de R.L. de C.V., Innovative Switchgear Solutions Inc, Institute for International Product Safety G.m.b.H., Integrated Hydraulics, Integrated Partial Discharge Diagnostics, Intelligent Switchgear Organization LLC, Internormen Filters Private Limited, Internormen Technology, Jeil Hydraulics, Kaicheng Funke+Huster (Tangshan) Mining Electrical Co. Ltd., Lian Zheng Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., MP Group SAS, MTL Instruments (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, MTL Instruments B.V., MTL Instruments GmbH, MTL Instruments LLC, MTL Instruments Private Limited, MTL Instruments SARL, MTL Italia Srl, MTL Partners II Inc., MTL Partners Inc., Marina Power and Lighting, Martek Power F SAS, Martek Power GmbH, Martek Power Limited, Martek Power Limited (UK), Martek Power S.A. de C.V., Martek Power SA, McGraw-Edison Development Corporation, Measurement Technology Limited, Menvier Overseas Holdings Limited, Micro Innovation Holding, Moeller Electric (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Moeller Electric Ltda., Moeller Electrical Equipment (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Moeller Holding Gmbh & Co. KG, Moeller Industria de electro-electronicos do Amazonas Ltda., Morestana, Nittan BVI Co. Ltd., Nittan Euro Tech Spolka z o.o., Nittan Global Tech Co. Ltd., Nittan Valve Co. Ltd., Norex AS, Ocean Technical Systems Limited, Oxalis Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, Oxalis Group, Oxalis Group Limited, PKL LLC, PT. Eaton Industries, PT. Fluid Sciences Batam, PerkinElmer - aerospace division, Phoenixtec Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Phoenixtec International Corp., Phoenixtec Power, Pigozzi, Polaron Components Limited, Polimer Hortum Teknolojileri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Polimer Kaucuk Sanayi Ve Pazarlama, Polimer Kaucuk Sanayi ve Pazarlama A.S., Power Distribution, Pringle Electrical Manufacturing, Productos Eaton Livia S.L., Pulizzi Engineering, RTE Far East Corporation, RTK Instruments Limited, Riseson International Limited, Rizhao Yoosung Shinhwa Automobile Parts Co. Ltd., Rolec Comercial e Industrial, SOURIAU, Santak Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Santak Electronics Company Limited, Saturn Insurance Company Ltd., Scantronic Benelux B.V., Schreder-Hazemeyer, Scoremax Limited, Sefelec GmbH, Sefelec SAS, Semelec SAS, Senyuan International Holdings Limited, Senyuan International Investments Limited, Shinhwa Precision Co. Ltd., Shinhwa Takahashi Precision Co. Ltd., Silver Light International Limited, Silver Victory Hong Kong Limited, Standard Automation & Control LP, Sure Power Inc., TGM Automotiva, TT (Ireland) Acquisition Limited, Tai Ah Electrical Ltd., Taiwan Nittan Industrial Co. Ltd., Telkom Kenya, The MTL Instruments Group Limited, The Oxalis Protection Technology India Private Limited, Tractech, Tractech (Ireland) Limited, Tractech Industries (Ireland) Limted, Tripp Lite, Turlock B.V., Tuthill Coupling Group, U.S. Engine Valve Company, UPE Electronics (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Ultronics, Ultronics Nordic Sales AB, Ulusoy, Vickers International Inc., Vickers Systems Limited, Viking Electronics Inc., WPI-Boston Division Inc., Winner Hydraulics Ltd., Wireless Power and Communications AS, Wright Line, Wright Line Holding Inc., Wright Line LLC, and Zhenjiang Daqo Eaton Electrical Systems Co. Ltd.. The following companies are subsidiares of Dover: Accelerated Production Systems, Acme Elevator, Advansor A/S, Advansor Dover International (Poland) sp. z o.o, Advansor Germany GmbH, Alfred Fueling Systems Holdco Ltd., Alfred Fueling Systems Inc., Alfred Fueling Systems Intermediate Holdco Ltd., All-Flo Pump Company, Anman LLC, Anthony Equity Holdings Inc., Anthony Holdings Inc., Anthony Inc., Anthony International, Anthony International Foreign Sales Corp., Anthony International Holding Company, Anthony Mexico Holdings LLC, Anthony North Holdco Inc., Anthony Specialty Glass LLC, Anthony TemperBent GP LLC, Auto Glanz Solutions LLC, Automatik Grundstucksverwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, Automatik Plastics Machinery (Taiwan) Ltd., BSC Filters Limited, Background2 Limited, Belanger, Belanger Inc., Belvac Middle East FZE, Belvac Production Machinery Inc., Blackmer, BlitzRotary GmbH, Butler Engineering and Marketing S.P.A., CDS Visual, CEP Liquidation LLC, CP Formation LLC, CPC Europe Inc., CPI Products Inc., Caldera, Canada Organization & Development LLC, Chief Automotive Technologies (Shanghai) Trading Company Ltd., Chippewa Square Captive Insurance Company, Colder Products Company, Colder Products Company GmbH, Colder Products Company LTD, Cook Compression BV, Cook Compression LLC, Cook Compression Limited, Cook-MFS Inc., DD1 Inc., DDI Properties Inc., DE-STA-CO Benelux B.V., DE-STA-CO FRANCE, DE-STA-CO Shanghai Co. Ltd., DESTACO UK Limited, DFH Corporation, DFS Netherlands B.V., DSR BZ Holdings LLC, Datamax International Corp, De Sta Co (Asia) Company Limited, De-Sta-Co Cylinders Inc., DeStaCo Europe GmbH, Delaware Capital Formation Inc., Delaware Capital Holdings Inc., Dover (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Dover (Schweiz) Holding GmbH, Dover (Shanghai) Industrial Co. Ltd., Dover (Shenzhen) Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Dover (Suzhou) Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Dover Asia Trading Private Ltd., Dover Australia Holdings Pty Limited, Dover Business Services EMEA Limited, Dover Business Services LLC, Dover Business Services Philippines Corporation, Dover CLP Formation Limited Partnership, Dover CR spol s r.o., Dover Canada Holdings ULC, Dover Canada Operations ULC, Dover Corporation Regional Headquarters, Dover DEI Services Inc., Dover Denmark Holdings ApS, Dover EMEA FZCO, Dover Energy UK Ltd, Dover Engineered Products Segment Inc., Dover Europe Inc., Dover Europe Sarl, Dover Fluids UK Ltd, Dover France Holdings, Dover France Participations, Dover France Technologies, Dover Fueling Solutions Segment Inc., Dover Fueling Solutions UK Limited, Dover Germany GmbH, Dover Global Holdings LLC, Dover Holdings de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Dover Imaging & Identification Segment Inc., Dover India Pvt. Ltd., Dover Intercompany Services UK Limited, Dover International B.V., Dover International Operations Inc., Dover International Ventures Inc., Dover International Ventures Tunisia S.a.r.l., Dover International ithalat ihracat ve Pazarlama Limited Sirketi, Dover Italy Holdings S.r.l., Dover Luxembourg Finance Sarl, Dover Luxembourg Participations Sarl, Dover Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Dover Luxembourg Services Sarl, Dover Operations South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Dover Overseas Ventures Inc., Dover Pumps & Process Solutions Segment Inc., Dover Refrigeration & Food Equipment Segment Inc., Dover Refrigeration & Food Equipment UK Ltd, Dover Resources International de Mexico S. de R.L. C.V., Dover Solutions Colombia SAS, Dover Southeast Asia (Thailand) Ltd., Dover Spain Holdings S.L., Dover UK Pensions Limited, Dover WSCR Holding LLC, Dover WSCR LLC, Dover do Brasil Ltda., Dow-Key Microwave Corporation, Dresser Wayne Data Technology (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Dresser Wayne Fuel Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., EOA Systems Inc., Ebs-Ray Holdings Pty Ltd, Ebs-Ray Industries Pty. Ltd., Ebs-Ray Pumps Pty. Ltd., Em-tec, Espy, Ettlinger, Ettlinger Kunststoffmaschinen GmbH, Fairbanks Environmental Limited, Fibrelite Composites Limited, Fibresec Holdings Limited, Fibresec Limited, Finder, GAL LLC, GIIER LLC, Gala Industries, Gala Kunststoff-und Kautschukmaschinen GmbH, Guangdong Tokheim LIYUAN Oil Industry Technology Limited Company, Highland Park Insurance Company, Hill PHOENIX Inc., Hill PHOENIX WIC LLC, Hill Phoenix Costa Rica Sociedad De Responsabilidad Limitada, Hill Phoenix El Salvador Limitada de Capital Variable, Hill Phoenix Guatemala Sociedad Anonima, Hill Phoenix Honduras Sociedad Anonima, Hill Phoenix Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, Hill Phoenix de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Hiltap Fittings Ltd., Hydro Systems Company, Hydro Systems Europe Ltd., Hydronova Australia-NZ Pty Ltd, Industrial Motion Control LLC, Innovative Control Systems, Innovative Control Systems Inc., Inpro/Seal LLC, JK Group, JK Group S.P.A., JK Group USA Inc., K S Boca Inc., K&L Microwave DR Inc., K&L Microwave Inc., KPS (Beijing) Petroleum Equipment Trading Co Ltd., KPS Fueling Solutions Sdn. Bhd., KPS Hong Kong Holding Limited, KPS UK Limited, KS Formation Inc., KS Liquidation Inc., KSLP Liquidation L.P., Kiian Digital (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Knappco LLC, Knowles Electronics, LIQAL, Liquip, Liquip International Pty Limited, MAAG, MARKEM FZ SA, MARKEM-IMAJE Corporation, MIP Holdings Inc., MS Printing Solutions, MS Printing Solutions S.R.L., Maag Automatik GmbH, Maag Automatik Plastics Machinery (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Maag Gala Inc., Maag Italy S.R.L., Maag Pump Systems, Maag Pump Systems (US) Inc., Maag Pump Systems AG, Maag Reduction Inc., Maag Service (Malaysia) Sdn. Bdn., Maag Systems (Thailand) Limited, Marathon Equipment Company (Delaware), Markem Imaje Center of Competencies Spain S.L.U., Markem-Imaje, Markem-Imaje (China) Co. Limited, Markem-Imaje - Unipessoal Lda, Markem-Imaje A/S, Markem-Imaje AB, Markem-Imaje AG, Markem-Imaje AS, Markem-Imaje B.V., Markem-Imaje CSAT GmbH, Markem-Imaje Co. Ltd., Markem-Imaje GmbH, Markem-Imaje Holding, Markem-Imaje Identificacao de Produtos Ltda., Markem-Imaje Inc., Markem-Imaje India Private Limited, Markem-Imaje Industries, Markem-Imaje Industries Limited, Markem-Imaje KK, Markem-Imaje LLC, Markem-Imaje Limited, Markem-Imaje Limited, Markem-Imaje Ltd., Markem-Imaje N.V., Markem-Imaje Oy, Markem-Imaje Philippines Corporation, Markem-Imaje Pty Ltd, Markem-Imaje S.A., Markem-Imaje S.A. de C.V., Markem-Imaje S.r.l., Markem-Imaje SAS, Markem-Imaje Sdn Bhd, Markem-Imaje Singapore Pte. Ltd., Markem-Imaje Spain S.A.U, Markpoint Holding AB, Midland Manufacturing LLC, Mouvex, Northern Lights (Nevada) Inc., Northern Lights Funding LP, Northern Lights Investments LLC, Nova Controls Inc., OK International, OK International (UK) Ltd., OK International Holdings Inc., OK International Inc., OPW Engineered Systems Inc., OPW Fluid Transfer Group Europe B.V., OPW Fluid Transfer Solutions (Jiang Su) Co. Ltd., OPW Fluids Group Inc., OPW France, OPW Fuel Management Systems Inc., OPW Fueling Components (SuZhou) Co. Ltd., OPW Fueling Components LLC, OPW Iberia Sociedad Limitada, OPW Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., OPW Slovakia s.r.o., OPW Sweden AB, Officine Meccaniche Sirio S.R.L., PDQ Manufacturing, PDQ Manufacturing Inc., PISCES by OPW Inc., PSD Codax Holdings Limited, PSD Codax Limited, PSG (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, PSG (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., PSG California LLC, PSG Germany GmbH, Petro Vend Sp. z o.o., Pike Machine Products Inc., Pole/Zero Acquisition Inc., Precision Brasil Equipamentos E Servicos Para Postos De Combustiveis Ltda., Precision Service - Servicos De Manutencao E Instalacao De Postos De Abastecimento De Combustivel Ltda., Production Control Services, Pump Management Services Co. LLC, RAV Equipos Espana S.L., RAV France, Ravaglioli Deutschland GmbH, Ravaglioli S.P.A., Reduction Engineering GmbH, Revod Corporation, Revod Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Revod SAS, Revod Singapore Holdings Pte. Ltd, Revod Sweden AB, Robohand Inc., Rosario, Rosario Handel B.V., Rotary Lift Consolidated (Haimen) Co. Ltd, SE Liquidation LLC, SWEP Germany GmbH, SWEP Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., SWEP North America Inc., SWEP Slovakia s.r.o., SWEP Technology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Seabiscuit Motorsports Inc., Simmons Sirvey Corporation, So. Cal. Soft-Pak, So. Cal. Soft-Pak Incorporated, Solaris Laser, Solaris Laser S.A., Somero Enterprises, Sound Solutions, Space S.R.L., Spirit, Start Italiana Petrol Cihazlari Sanayi Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Start Italiana S.R.L., Swep Energy Oy, Swep International A.B., Swep Japan K.K., Sys-Tech Solutions, Sys-Tech Solutions Inc., Systech GB Limited, Systech Shanghai Consulting Company Limited, TQC Quantium Quality S.A. de C.V., TTSI III Inc., TWG Canada Consolidated Inc., TXHI LLC, Tartan Textile Services Inc., The Heil Co., Tokheim Belgium, Tokheim China Company Limited, Tokheim GmbH, Tokheim Group, Tokheim Hengshan Technologies (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd., Tokheim Holding B.V., Tokheim India Private Limited, Tokheim Sofitam Applications, Trans - Logistic Group S.R.L., Triton Systems, Tulsa Winch Inc., UPCO Inc., US Synthetic, Unattended Payment Solutions LLC, Unified Brands, Unified Brands Inc., Val TemperBent Glass L.P., Vectron Frequency Devices (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Vehicle Service Group LLC, Vehicle Service Group UK Limited, Vos Food Store Equipment Ltd., WSCR Corp., Warn Automotive LLC, Warn Industries, Waukesha Bearings, Waukesha Bearings Corporation, Waukesha Bearings Limited, Waukesha Bearings Russia LLC, Wayne Fuel Management UK Ltd., Wayne Fueling Systems, Wayne Fueling Systems (Rus) Limited Liability Company, Wayne Fueling Systems Australia Pty Ltd, Wayne Fueling Systems Canada ULC, Wayne Fueling Systems Deutschland GmbH, Wayne Fueling Systems Italia S.R.L., Wayne Fueling Systems LLC, Wayne Fueling Systems Ltd., Wayne Fueling Systems Sweden AB, Wayne Fueling Systems UK Holdco Ltd., Wayne Industria e Comercio Ltda., WellMark, XanTec Steuerungs- und EDV-Technik GmbH, and em-tec GmbH. 8 hours ago US rests its case against fallen tech star Elizabeth Holmes SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) The government rested its case Friday in the trial of fallen Silicon Valley star Elizabeth Holmes after spending more than two months trying to prove she bamboozled investors and patients into believing that her startup, Theranos, would reshape health care. Holmes and her team of lawyers now have the opportunity to counter evidence introduced by prosecutors that cast her as a greedy, fame-obsessed swindler. Read Article iShares China Large-Cap ETF's stock was trading at $38.80 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, FXI shares have increased by 4.4% and is now trading at $40.51. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Chung toi thuc su tin rang a tim uoc mot phan than cua chiec may bay mang so hieu JT610. , Tu lenh Quan oi Indonesia Hadi Tjahjanto cho TV One hom 31/10. oi tim kiem a xac inh uoc toa o vi tri va hien ang trong tien trinh xac minh o co phai la phan than may bay hay khong. Cac tho lan ang tim kiem tai hien truong. Indonesia truoc o a cho trien khai may phat do toa o e xac inh vi tri hop en, sau khi a co uoc ghi am du lieu ve chuyen bay va ghi am trong buong lai. Trua ngay 30/10, oi tim kiem a nhan uoc tin hieu phat ra tu o sau 35 met, theo thong tin tu Pho Chu tich Uy ban an toan giao thong quoc gia Indonesia Haryo Satmiko cho Reuters biet cung ngay. 5 gio sang ia phuong ngay 31/10, cac tho lan quay tro lai vi tri a inh vi e tiep tuc cong tac tim kiem. Indonesia military chief believes fuselage of crashed plane located (Reuters) - Indonesias military chief believes a search and rescue team has found part of the body of a Lion Air plane that crashed into the sea with 189 people on board, he told a television channel on Wednesday. We strongly believe that we have found a part of the fuselage of JT610, Hadi Tjahjanto told TV One, referring to the flight operated by the Indonesian budget carrier. The search team had the location coordinates but now had to confirm it was the fuselage, he added. Indonesia has deployed pinger locators to try to locate the planes blackboxes, as the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder are known, at the crash site. Yesterday afternoon, the team had heard a ping sound in a location at 35 meters depth, Haryo Satmiko, the deputy chief of the national transport safety panel, told Reuters, referring to a depth of 115 feet. This morning, at 5 a.m., the team has gone back to dive at the location. There is not enough analysis data for MFS Municipal Income Trust. 4.8 Community Rank Outperform Votes MFS Municipal Income Trust has received 172 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.) Underperform Votes MFS Municipal Income Trust has received 65 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.) Community Sentiment MFS Municipal Income Trust has received 72.57% outperform votes from our community. MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about MFS Municipal Income Trust and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe MFM will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe MFM will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days. Previous Next iShares MSCI Mexico ETF's stock was trading at $35.82 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, EWW shares have increased by 32.0% and is now trading at $47.27. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. The following companies are subsidiares of BorgWarner: B80 Italia S.r.l., BERU AG, BW El Salto S.A. De C.V., BWA Receivables Corporation, BWA Turbo Systems Holding LLC, Borg Warner Europe Holdings (PDS) B. V., BorgWarner (China) Investment Co. Ltd., BorgWarner (Reman) Holdings L.L.C., BorgWarner (Thailand) Limited, BorgWarner Aftermarket Europe GmbH, BorgWarner Alternators Inc., BorgWarner Arden LLC, BorgWarner Arnstadt RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Asia Inc., BorgWarner Automotive Asia Limited, BorgWarner Automotive Components (Beijing) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Jiangsu) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Wuhan) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Brasil Ltda., BorgWarner Chungju Co. LLC, BorgWarner Comercial e Distribuidora de Pecas para Veiculos Automotores Ltda., BorgWarner Comercializadora PDS S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner Componentes PDS S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner Cooling Systems (India) Private Limited, BorgWarner Cooling Systems GmbH, BorgWarner Diversified Transmission Products Services Inc., BorgWarner Drivetrain Engineering GmbH, BorgWarner Drivetrain Management Services de Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner Drivetrain de Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner Electric Motors L.L.C., BorgWarner Emissions Systems (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Emissions Systems (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Emissions Systems Holding LLC, BorgWarner Emissions Systems India Private Limited, BorgWarner Emissions Systems LLC, BorgWarner Emissions Systems Portugal Unipessoal LDA, BorgWarner Emissions Systems Spain S.L.U., BorgWarner Emissions Systems of Michigan Inc., BorgWarner Emissions Talegaon Private Limited, BorgWarner Engineering Ketsch RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Engineering Kibo RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Esslingen GmbH, BorgWarner Europe GmbH, BorgWarner Europe Holding S.a. r. l., BorgWarner Gateshead Limited, BorgWarner Germany Holding GmbH, BorgWarner Germany Holding Services GmbH, BorgWarner Germany REH GmbH, BorgWarner Germany REM GmbH, BorgWarner Germany Verwaltungs GmbH, BorgWarner Global Holding S.a. r. l., BorgWarner Heidelberg I RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Heidelberg II RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Heidelberg REH GmbH, BorgWarner Heidelberg REM GmbH, BorgWarner Holding Inc., BorgWarner Holdings Limited, BorgWarner Hungary Kft., BorgWarner IT Services Europe GmbH, BorgWarner India Holdings Inc., BorgWarner Investment Holding Inc., BorgWarner Ithaca LLC, BorgWarner Ketsch Plant RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Ketsch REH GmbH, BorgWarner Ketsch REM GmbH, BorgWarner Kft., BorgWarner Kibo RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Korea Holdings (PDS) B.V., BorgWarner Korea Holdings LLC, BorgWarner Korea LLC, BorgWarner Limited, BorgWarner Ludwigsburg GmbH, BorgWarner Ludwigsburg RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Markdorf Plant RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Markdorf REH GmbH, BorgWarner Markdorf REM GmbH, BorgWarner Massachusetts Inc., BorgWarner Mauritius Holdings Ltd., BorgWarner Mexico Holding BV, BorgWarner Mexico Holdings II LLC, BorgWarner Mexico Holdings LLC, BorgWarner Morse Systems India Private Limited, BorgWarner Morse Systems Italy S.r.l., BorgWarner Morse Systems Japan K.K., BorgWarner Morse Systems Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner Muggendorf RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner NW Inc., BorgWarner Netherlands Holdings (PDS) B.V., BorgWarner Oroszlany Kft., BorgWarner PDS (Anderson) L.L.C., BorgWarner PDS (Changnyeong) LLC, BorgWarner PDS (Indiana) Inc., BorgWarner PDS (Livonia) Inc., BorgWarner PDS (Ochang) LLC, BorgWarner PDS (Thailand) Limited, BorgWarner PDS (USA) Inc., BorgWarner PDS Brasil Produtos Automotivos Ltda., BorgWarner PDS Irapuato S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner PDS Mexico Holdings S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner PDS Technologies L.L.C., BorgWarner Poland Sp. z o.o., BorgWarner Pyongtaek LLC, BorgWarner Romeo Power LLC, BorgWarner Rzeszow Sp. z o.o., BorgWarner Shenglong (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner South Asia LLC, BorgWarner Southborough Inc., BorgWarner Spain Holding S.L.U, BorgWarner Sweden AB, BorgWarner Systems Lugo S.r.l., BorgWarner Thermal Systems Inc., BorgWarner Thermal Systems of Michigan Inc., BorgWarner TorqTransfer Systems Beijing Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Tralee Ltd., BorgWarner Transmission Products LLC, BorgWarner Transmission Systems Arnstadt GmbH, BorgWarner Transmission Systems GmbH, BorgWarner Transmission Systems Korea LLC, BorgWarner Transmission Systems Tulle S.A.S., BorgWarner Trustees Limited, BorgWarner Turbo & Emissions Systems France S.A.S., BorgWarner Turbo Systems Engineering GmbH, BorgWarner Turbo Systems GmbH, BorgWarner Turbo Systems LLC, BorgWarner Turbo Systems Worldwide Headquarters GmbH, BorgWarner Turbo Systems of Michigan Inc., BorgWarner Turbo and Emissions Systems de Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner UK Financing Ltd., BorgWarner UK Holding and Services Ltd., BorgWarner US Holding LLC, BorgWarner USA Industries L.L.C., BorgWarner United Transmission Systems Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Waterloo Inc., BorgWarner Wrexham Limited, Cascadia Motion LLC, Creon Insurance Agency Limited, Delphi Technologies, Dytech ENSA, Gustav Wahler GmbH u. Co. KG, Haldex, Kuhlman LLC, Kysor Europe Limited, M. & M. Knopf Auto Parts L.L.C., NSK-Warner (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., NSK-Warner K.K., NSK-Warner Mexico S.A. de C.V, NSK-Warner U.S.A. Inc., New PDS Corp., Old Remco Holdings L.L.C., Old Remco International Holdings L.L.C., Remy International, SeohanWarner Turbo Systems LLC, Sevcon, Sevcon New Energy Technology (Hubei) Company Limited, and Transmission Systems AutoForm LLC. iShares National Muni Bond ETF's stock was trading at $114.45 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, MUB shares have increased by 1.6% and is now trading at $116.25. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. VanEck Vectors CEF Municipal Income ETF's stock was trading at $26.51 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, XMPT stock has increased by 10.6% and is now trading at $29.32. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. Medtronic Plc is a medical technology company, which engages in the development, manufacture, distribution, and sale of device-based medical therapies and services. It operates through the following segments: Cardiac and Vascular Group; Minimally Invasive Technologies Group; Restorative Therapies Group; and Diabetes Group. The Cardiac and Vascular Group segment consists of products for the diagnosis, treatment, and management of cardiac rhythm disorders and cardiovascular disease. The Minimally Invasive Technologies Group segment focuses on respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract, renal system, lungs, pelvic region, kidneys, and obesity diseases. The Restorative Therapies Group segment comprises of neurostimulation therapies and drug delivery systems for the treatment of chronic pain, as well as areas of the spine and brain, along with pelvic health and conditions of the ear, nose, and throat. The Diabetes Group segment offers insulin pumps, coninuous glucose monitoring systems, and insulin pump consumables. The company was founded in 1949 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of BlackRock: Acero Cooperatief U.A., Acero Holdings I B.V., Amethyst Merger Sub LLC, AnalytX Hosting LLC, AnalytX LLC, AnalytX Software LLC, Aperio, Aperio, Aquila Heywood, Asia-Pacific Private Credit Opportunities Fund I (GenPar) Ltd., BAA Holdings LLC, BFM Holdco LLC, BLK (Gallatin) Holdings LLC, BLK SMI LLC, BR Acquisition Mexico S.A. de C.V., BR Jersey International Holdings L.P., Beijing eFront Software Company Limited, BlackRock (Barbados) Finco 1 SRL, BlackRock (Channel Islands) Limited, BlackRock (Luxembourg) S.A., BlackRock (Netherlands) B.V., BlackRock (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., BlackRock (Singapore) Holdco II Pte. Ltd., BlackRock (Singapore) Holdco Pte. Limited, BlackRock (Singapore) Limited, BlackRock AP Investment Holdco LLC, BlackRock Advisors (UK) Limited, BlackRock Advisors LLC, BlackRock Advisors Singapore Pte. Limited, BlackRock Alternative Advisors GP Holdings LLC, BlackRock Alternatives Management LLC, BlackRock Argentina Asesorias Ltda., BlackRock Asset Management Canada Limited, BlackRock Asset Management Deutschland AG, BlackRock Asset Management International Inc., BlackRock Asset Management Investor Services Limited, BlackRock Asset Management Ireland Limited, BlackRock Asset Management North Asia Limited, BlackRock Asset Management Schweiz AG, BlackRock Asset Management UK Limited, BlackRock Australia Holdco Pty. Ltd., BlackRock Brasil Gestora de Investimentos Ltda., BlackRock Cal 1 Investor LLC, BlackRock Canada Holdings LP, BlackRock Canada Holdings ULC, BlackRock Capital Holdings Inc., BlackRock Capital Investment Advisors LLC, BlackRock Capital Management Inc., BlackRock Cayco Limited, BlackRock Cayman 1 LP, BlackRock Cayman Capital Holdings Limited, BlackRock Cayman Finco 2 Limited, BlackRock Cayman Finco 3 Limited, BlackRock Cayman Finco Limited, BlackRock Cayman West Bay Finco Limited, BlackRock Cayman West Bay IV Limited, BlackRock Cayman Z Limited, BlackRock Channel Islands Holdco Limited, BlackRock Chile Asesorias Limitada, BlackRock Colombia Holdco LLC, BlackRock Colombia Infraestructura S.A.S., BlackRock Colombia SAS, BlackRock Company Secretarial Services (UK) Limited, BlackRock Corporation US Inc., BlackRock Delaware Holdings Inc., BlackRock Enterprise Management Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., BlackRock Europe Development Management Limited, BlackRock Execution Services, BlackRock Finance Europe Limited, BlackRock Financial Management Inc., BlackRock Finco LLC, BlackRock Finco UK Ltd., BlackRock First Partner Limited, BlackRock France SAS, BlackRock Fund Advisors, BlackRock Fund Management Company S.A., BlackRock Fund Managers Limited, BlackRock Funding International Ltd., BlackRock Funds Services Group LLC, BlackRock Germany GmBH, BlackRock Group Limited, BlackRock HK Holdco Limited, BlackRock Holdco 2 Inc., BlackRock Holdco 3 LLC, BlackRock Holdco 4 LLC, BlackRock Holdco 5 LLC, BlackRock Holdco 6 LLC, BlackRock Hungary Kft, BlackRock Index Services LLC, BlackRock Infrastructure Management I LLC, BlackRock Institutional Services Inc., BlackRock Institutional Trust Company National Association, BlackRock International Holdings Inc., BlackRock International Limited, BlackRock Investment Management (Australia) Limited, BlackRock Investment Management (Dublin) Limited, BlackRock Investment Management (Korea) Limited, BlackRock Investment Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., BlackRock Investment Management (Taiwan) Limited, BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Limited, BlackRock Investment Management Ireland Holdings Limited, BlackRock Investment Management LLC, BlackRock Investments LLC, BlackRock Japan Co. Ltd., BlackRock Japan Holdings GK, BlackRock Jersey Finco 2 Limited, BlackRock Latin America Holdco LLC, BlackRock Latin American Holdings B.V., BlackRock Life Limited, BlackRock Lux Finco S.a r.l., BlackRock Luxembourg Holdco S.a r.l., BlackRock Mexican Holdco B.V., BlackRock Mexico Infraestructura I S. de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Infraestructura II S. de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Infraestructura III S. de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Manager II S. de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Manager III S. de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Manager S de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Operadora S.A. de C.V. Sociedad Operadora de Fondos de Inversion, BlackRock Mortgage Ventures LLC, BlackRock Niagara LLC, BlackRock Operations (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., BlackRock Overseas Investment Fund Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., BlackRock PC Holdings LLC, BlackRock Pensions Limited, BlackRock Peru Asesorias S.A., BlackRock Property Consulting (Beijing) Co. Ltd., BlackRock Property France S.a.r.l., BlackRock Property Lux S.a.r.l., BlackRock Property Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., BlackRock Realty Advisors Inc., BlackRock Saudi Arabia, BlackRock Scale Holdings LLC, BlackRock Services India Private Limited, BlackRock Singapore III Pte. Ltd., BlackRock Slovakia s.r.o., BlackRock Strategic Investors GP LLC, BlackRock Strategic Investors LP, BlackRock Trident Holding Company Limited, BlackRock UK (Alpha) Limited, BlackRock UK (Beta) Limited, BlackRock UK (Delta) LP, BlackRock UK (Gamma) Limited, BlackRock UK (Sigma) Limited, BlackRock UK 2 LLP, BlackRock UK 3 LLP, BlackRock UK 4 LLP, BlackRock UK A LLP, BlackRock UK Holdco 2 Limited, BlackRock UK Holdco Limited, Blackhawk Investment Holding LLC, CIE Automotive, Cachematrix Holdings, Cachematrix Holdings LLC, Cachematrix Integrations Private Limited, Cachematrix Software Solutions LLC, Cachematrix UK Limited, FutureAdvisor Inc., Glass Mountain Pipeline, Global Energy & Power Infrastructure Advisors LLC, Global Energy & Power Infrastructure II Advisors LLC, Grosvenor Alternate Partner Limited, Grosvenor Ventures Limited, HLX Financial Holdings LLC, MGPA (Bermuda) Limited, MGPA (Exec) Limited, MGPA Limited, Mercury Carry Company Ltd., Mercury Private Equity MUST 3 (Jersey) Limited, Object Capital Technology Inc., Phoenix Acquisition B.V., Phoenix Acquisitions Holdings LLC, Portfolio Administration & Management Ltd., Prestadora de Servicios Integrales BlackRock Mexico S.A. de C.V., SVOF/MM LLC, St. Albans House Nominees (Jersey) Ltd., State Street Research & Management, Tennenbaum Capital Partners LLC, Tennenbaum Capital Partners LLC, Tlali Acero S.A. de C.V. SOFOM ENR, Trident Merger LLC, eFront, eFront, eFront (Jersey) Limited, eFront DMLT Holdings LLC, eFront DMLT Holdings S.R.L, eFront DR S.R.L, eFront Do Brasil Solucoes Informaticas Para Sistemas Financeiros Ltda., eFront FZ-LLC, eFront Financial Solutions Inc., eFront GmbH, eFront Holding II SAS, eFront Holdings SAS, eFront Hong Kong Limited, eFront II SAS, eFront Kabushiki Kaisha, eFront Ltd, eFront SAS, eFront Singapore Pte. Ltd, eFront Software Luxembourg S.a r.l., eFront Solutions Financeieres Inc., eFront d.o.o. Beograd, iShares (DE) I Investmentaktiengesellschaft mit Teilgesellschaftsvermogen, and iShares Delaware Trust Sponsor LLC. Our portfolio of high quality UK commercial property is focused on London Offices and Retail around the UK. We own or manage a portfolio valued at A13.7bn (British Land share: A10.3bn) as at 30 September 2020 making us one of Europe's largest listed real estate investment companies. Our strategy is to provide places which meet the needs of our customers and respond to changing lifestyles - Places People Prefer. We do this by creating great environments both inside and outside our buildings and use our scale and placemaking skills to enhance and enliven them. This expands their appeal to a broader range of occupiers, creating enduring demand and driving sustainable, long term performance. Our Offices portfolio comprises three office-led campuses in central London as well as high quality standalone buildings and accounts for 65% of our portfolio. Our Retail portfolio is focused on retail parks and shopping centres, and accounts for 31% of our portfolio. Increasingly our focus is on providing a mix of uses and this is most evident at Canada Water, our 53 acre redevelopment opportunity where we have plans to create a new neighbourhood for London. Sustainability is embedded throughout our business. Our places, which are designed to meet high sustainability standards, become part of local communities, provide opportunities for skills development and employment and promote wellbeing. In April 2016 British Land received the Queen's Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development, the UK's highest accolade for business success for economic, social and environmental achievements over a period of five years. Read More Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 31) There will be no militarization of the beleaguered Bureau of Customs (BOC), newly-appointed Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero said Wednesday. "As I've explained, 'yung directive ni President to have military people, personnel from the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) to assist the Customs is not a militarization process," Guerrero said in a press conference shortly after officially taking the helm of the BOC. President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday said all Customs officials "will be replaced, all of them, by military men. It will be a takeover of the Armed Forces in the matter of operating in the meantime while we are sorting out how to effectively meet the challenges of corruption in this country." READ: Duterte: Military to take over Customs He made this order after a massive shabu shipment, believed to be worth 11 billion, slipped past Customs concealed in magnetic lifters. Duterte has since replaced Isidro Lapena, whom he promoted as Director General of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, and placed all BOC officials on floating status. Guerrero, a former Armed Forces chief, clarified there will be no military takeover, since Customs officials will still run the bureau. "The officers of the Bureau of Customs will still be in control of the operations and activities of the bureau," Guerrero stressed. He said he will meet with Finance Secretary Sonny Dominguez and other concerned officials "to discuss details of the transition process." The BOC is under the supervision of the Finance Department. Guerrero said Duterte has ordered him to "choose people with integrity and with a high-learning curve" to take on the job of ensuring a corruption-free bureau. Malacanang on Tuesday said members of the Armed Forces will not take over the tasks of Customs employees, adding that it will be up to Guerrero to decide on the new setup. "These people will be there to make their presence felt, to create the military presence that will hopefully intimidate those corrupt people there. To assist them," Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said. Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Carlito Galvez, Jr. is now forming a contingent composed of air force, Army, Navy and Marine personnel, to be sent to Customs in line with Duterte's order. 'Unrelenting' fight vs. corruption Guerrero is the third Customs chief to be appointed by Duterte. Before Lapena, there was Nicanor Faeldon, who quit his post amid investigations into the 6.4-billion shabu shipment from China that slipped through the country under his watch in May 2017. Faeldon, along with other Customs officials and employees, were also accused of accepting "tara" or grease money to ease the release of shipments. Faeldon denied the allegations. Guerrero on Wednesday promised to be on top of the situation to rid the bureau of corruption and avoid the slip of shipments. He refused to detail his plans, which he said he prefers to keep to himself for now. "As I take the helm of the Bureau of Customs, expect that the effort against corruption will be both decisive and unrelenting as I focus on addressing systemic weaknesses, implementing stronger internal safeguards, enhancing integrity systems and building the capabilities and capacities of our workers," Guerrero said during his speech at the turnover ceremony. He called on current and incoming Customs officials and employees to work on regaining public trust on the corruption-tainted bureau. "I need to be able to trust every single member of the Bureau of Customs to be honest and upright and each of you needs to trust me in my commitment and capacity to lead with integrity," Guerrero said. CNN Philippines' Carloyn Bonquin contributed to this report. McDermott International, Inc. provides engineering, procurement, construction and installation, and technology solutions to the energy industry worldwide. It operates through five segments: North, Central and South America; Europe, Africa, Russia and Caspian; the Middle East and North Africa; Asia Pacific; and Technology. It designs, engineers, and constructs upstream offshore oil and gas facilities, downstream oil and gas facilities, gas-fired power plants, liquefied natural gas import and export terminals, atmospheric and refrigerated storage vessels and terminals, water storage and treatment facilities, pipe and module fabrication, hydrocarbon processing facilities, pipe fabrication and manufacturing, and refining and petrochemical facilities. The company also provides gas processing, refining, petrochemical and coal gasification technologies, as well as a supplies catalysts, equipment, and related engineering services. It serves national, integrated, and other oil and gas companies, as well as producers of petrochemicals and electric power. McDermott International, Inc. was founded in 1923 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Read More iShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF's stock was trading at $158.09 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, IWF stock has increased by 95.5% and is now trading at $309.06. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. The following companies are subsidiares of Bristol-Myers Squibb: 1096271 B.C. ULC, 345 Park LLC, A.G. Medical Services P.A., AHI Investment LLC, AbVitro LLC, Abraxis BioScience Australia Pty Ltd., Abraxis BioScience Inc., Abraxis BioScience International Holding Company Inc., Abraxis BioScience LLC, Abraxis BioScience Puerto Rico LLC, Acetylon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Adnexus, Adnexus a Bristol-Myers Squibb R&D Company, Allard Labs Acquisition G.P., Amira Pharmaceuticals, Amira Pharmaceuticals Inc., Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Apothecon LLC, B-MS Generx Unlimited Company, BMS Benelux Holdings B.V., BMS Bermuda Nominees L.L.C., BMS Data Acquisition Company LLC, BMS Forex Company, BMS Holdings Sarl, BMS Holdings Spain S.L., BMS International Insurance Designated Activity Company, BMS Investco SAS, BMS Korea Holdings L.L.C., BMS Latin American Nominees L.L.C., BMS Luxembourg Partners L.L.C., BMS Omega Bermuda Holdings Finance Ltd., BMS Pharmaceutical Korea Limited, BMS Pharmaceuticals Germany Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals International Holdings Netherlands B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Korea Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Mexico Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Netherlands Holdings B.V., BMS Real Estate LLC, BMS Spain Investments LLC, BMS Strategic Portfolio Investments Holdings Inc., Blisa Acquisition G.P., Bristol (Iran) S.A., Bristol Iran Private Company Limited, Bristol Laboratories Inc., Bristol Laboratories International S.A., Bristol Laboratories Medical Information Systems Inc., Bristol-Myers (Andes) L.L.C., Bristol-Myers (Private) Limited, Bristol-Myers Middle East S.A.L., Bristol-Myers Overseas Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (China) Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (Israel) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (NZ) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Proprietary) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (Singapore) Pte. Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Taiwan) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (West Indies) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb A.E., Bristol-Myers Squibb Aktiebolag, Bristol-Myers Squibb Argentina S. R. L., Bristol-Myers Squibb Australia Pty. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Axia Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb B.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb Belgium S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Business Services Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada International Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Delta Company Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Denmark Filial of Bristol-Myers Squibb AB, Bristol-Myers Squibb EMEA Sarl, Bristol-Myers Squibb Egypt LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Epsilon Holdings Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Farmaceutica Ltda., Bristol-Myers Squibb Farmaceutica Portuguesa S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb GesmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb GmbH & Co. KGaA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holding Germany GmbH & Co. KG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings 2002 Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Germany Verwaltungs GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Ireland Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Pharma Ltd. Liability Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Ilaclari Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb India Pvt. Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb International Company Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb International Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Investco L.L.C., Bristol-Myers Squibb K.K., Bristol-Myers Squibb Kft., Bristol-Myers Squibb Luxembourg International S.C.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Bristol-Myers Squibb MEA GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb Manufacturing Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Marketing Services S.R.L., Bristol-Myers Squibb Middle East & Africa FZ-LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Norway Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Nutricionales de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb Peru S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma (HK) Ltd, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma (Thailand) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Holding Company LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Ventures Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Polska Sp. z o.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Products SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Puerto Rico Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Puerto Rico/Sanofi Pharmaceutical Partnership Puerto Rico, Bristol-Myers Squibb Romania S.R.L., Bristol-Myers Squibb S.A.U., Bristol-Myers Squibb S.r.l., Bristol-Myers Squibb SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Holding Partnership, Bristol-Myers Squibb Sarl, Bristol-Myers Squibb Service Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Services Sp. z o.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Spol. s r.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Theta Finance Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Trustees Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Verwaltungs GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb de Colombia S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb de Costa Rica Sociedad Anonima, Bristol-Myers Squibb de Guatemala S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb/Astrazeneca EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Pfizer EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Partnership, Bristol-Myers de Venezuela S.C.A., CHT I LLC, CHT II LLC, CHT III LLC, CHT IV LLC, CR Finance Company LLC, Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals, Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals Inc., Celem LLC, Celem Ltd., Celgene, Celgene A.B., Celgene AS, Celgene Ab (Finland), Celgene Alpine Investment Co. II LLC, Celgene Alpine Investment Co. III LLC, Celgene Alpine Investment Co. LLC, Celgene ApS, Celgene B.V., Celgene BVBA, Celgene Brasil Produtos Farmaceuticos Ltda., Celgene CAR LLC, Celgene CAR Ltd., Celgene Chemicals Sarl, Celgene China Holdings LLC, Celgene Co., Celgene Corporation, Celgene Distribution B.V., Celgene EngMab GmbH, Celgene Europe B.V., Celgene Europe Limited, Celgene European Investment Company LLC, Celgene Financing Company LLC, Celgene Global Holdings Sarl, Celgene GmbH [Austria], Celgene GmbH [Germany], Celgene GmbH [Switzerland], Celgene Holdings East Corporation, Celgene Holdings II Sarl, Celgene Holdings III Sarl, Celgene Ilac Pazarlama ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Celgene Inc., Celgene International Holdings Corporation, Celgene International II Sarl, Celgene International III Sarl, Celgene International Inc., Celgene International Sarl, Celgene K.K., Celgene Kft., Celgene Limited [Hong Kong], Celgene Limited [Ireland], Celgene Limited [New Zealand], Celgene Limited [Taiwan], Celgene Limited [UK], Celgene Logistics Sarl, Celgene Ltd, Celgene Luxembourg Sarl, Celgene Management Sarl, Celgene NJ Investment Co, Celgene Netherlands B.V., Celgene Netherlands Investment B.V., Celgene Pharmaceutical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Celgene Pte. Ltd., Celgene Pty Ltd, Celgene Puerto Rico Distribution LLC, Celgene Quanticel Research Inc, Celgene R&D Sarl, Celgene RIVOT LLC, Celgene RIVOT Ltd., Celgene RIVOT SRL, Celgene Receptos Limited, Celgene Receptos Sarl, Celgene Research Incubator At Summit West LLC, Celgene Research S.L.U., Celgene Research and Development Company LLC, Celgene Research and Development I ULC, Celgene Research and Development II LLC, Celgene Research and Investment Company II LLC, Celgene S. de R.L. de C.V., Celgene S.L.U., Celgene S.R.L., Celgene SAS, Celgene Sarl AU, Celgene Sdn Bhd, Celgene Services Sarl, Celgene Sociedade Unipessoal Lda, Celgene Sp. Z.o.o., Celgene Sro [Czech Republic], Celgene Summit Investment Co, Celgene Switzerland Holding Sarl, Celgene Switzerland II LLC, Celgene Switzerland Investment Sarl, Celgene Switzerland LLC, Celgene Switzerland Sarl, Celgene Tri A Holdings Ltd., Celgene Tri Sarl, Celgene UK Distribution Limited, Celgene UK Holdings Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing II Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing III Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing Limited, Celgene d.o.o., Celgene sro [Slovakia], Celmed LLC, Celmed Ltd., ConvaTec Divestiture, Cormorant Pharmaceuticals, Cormorant Pharmaceuticals AB, Crosp Ltd., Delinia Inc., Deuteria Pharmaceuticals Inc., DuPont Pharmaceuticals, E. R. Squibb & Sons Inter-American Corporation, E. R. Squibb & Sons L.L.C., E. R. Squibb & Sons Limited, EWI Corporation, EngMab Sarl, F-star Alpha, FermaVir Pharmaceuticals L.L.C., FermaVir Research L.L.C., Flexus Biosciences, Flexus Biosciences Inc., Forbius, Galecto Biotech, GenPharm International L.L.C., Gloucester Pharmaceuticals LLC, Grove Insurance Company Ltd., Heyden Farmaceutica Portuguesa Limitada, IFM Therapeutics, Impact Biomedicines Inc., Inhibitex, Inhibitex L.L.C., Innate Tumor Immunity Inc., JuMP Holdings LLC, Juno Therapeutics GmbH, Juno Therapeutics Inc., Kosan Biosciences, Kosan Biosciences Incorporated, Linson Investments Limited, Mead Johnson (Manufacturing) Jamaica Limited, Mead Johnson Jamaica Ltd., Medarex, Morris Avenue Investment II LLC, Morris Avenue Investment LLC, MyoKardia, O.o.o. Bristol-Myers Squibb, Oy Bristol-Myers Squibb (Finland) AB, Padlock Therapeutics, Padlock Therapeutics Inc., Pharmion LLC, Princeton Pharmaceutical Products Inc., Receptos LLC, Receptos Services LLC, RedoxTherapies Inc., Route 22 Real Estate Holding Corporation, SPV A Holdings ULC, Seamair Insurance DAC, Signal Pharmaceuticals LLC, Sino-American Shanghai Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited, Societe Francaise de Complements Alimentaires(S.O.F.C.A.), Squibb Middle East S.A., Summit West Celgene LLC, Swords Laboratories, VentiRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., Westwood-Intrafin SA, Westwood-Squibb Pharmaceuticals Inc., X-Body Inc., ZymoGenetics, ZymoGenetics Inc., ZymoGenetics LLC, ZymoGenetics Paymaster LLC, iPierian, and iPierian Inc.. iShares Micro-Cap ETF's stock was trading at $74.73 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, IWC stock has increased by 99.4% and is now trading at $148.99. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. The following companies are subsidiares of Ecolab: AO Ecolab, Abednego Environmental Services, Abednego Environmental Services LLC, Abednego Mexico Holdings LLC, Abednego de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Alcide Corp., Anios America S.A., Anios Diffusion SAS, Anios Manufacturing SAS, Bioquell, Bioquell Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Bioquell Global Logistics (Ireland) Ltd., Bioquell Holding SAS, Bioquell Inc., Bioquell Limited, Bioquell SAS, Bioquell Technology (Shenzhen) Ltd., Bioquell Technology Canada Ltd., Bioquell UK Limited, Bioxyquell Limited, CALGON EUROPE LIMITED, CALGON LLC, CID LINES HOLDING NV, CID LINES INVEST NV, CID LINES NV, CID Lines, CID Lines Beijing Animal Hygiene Co Ltd., CID Lines France Sarl, CID Lines Iberica SL, CID Lines LLC, CID Lines Mexico S.A. DE C.V., CID Lines R&D NV, CID Lines Sp. z o. o., CORPAK MedSystems, Cascade Water Services, Champion Technologies, Chamtech L.L.C., Chemlawn, Chemstaff Inc., Chemstar Corporation, Cirlam BVBA, Copal Holding NV, Copal Invest NV, DERYPOL SA, DMD, E&M Bio-Chemicals LLC, ECOLAB NL 10 B.V., ECOLAB PEST FRANCE SAS, Ecolab (Antigua) Ltd., Ecolab (Aruba) N.V., Ecolab (Barbados) Limited, Ecolab (China) Investment Co. Ltd, Ecolab (Fiji) Pty Limited, Ecolab (GZ) Chemicals Limited, Ecolab (Guam) LLC, Ecolab (Proprietary) Limited, Ecolab (Schweiz) GmbH, Ecolab (St. Lucia) Limited, Ecolab (Taicang) Technology Co. Ltd., Ecolab (Trinidad and Tobago) Unlimited, Ecolab (U.K.) Holdings Limited, Ecolab A.E.B.E., Ecolab AB, Ecolab AP Holdings LLC, Ecolab AT 2 GmbH, Ecolab AU2 Pty Ltd, Ecolab Acquisition LLC, Ecolab ApS, Ecolab Argentina S.R.L., Ecolab Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Ecolab B.V., Ecolab B.V.B.A./S.P.R.L., Ecolab Bahrain S.P.C., Ecolab CDN 2 Co., Ecolab CDN 4 ULC, Ecolab CH 1 GmbH, Ecolab CH 2 GmbH, Ecolab CH 3 GmbH, Ecolab CH 5 GmbH, Ecolab CH 6 GmbH, Ecolab Chemicals Limited, Ecolab Co., Ecolab Colombia S. A., Ecolab DE 1 GmbH, Ecolab Deutschland GmbH, Ecolab EOOD, Ecolab East Africa (Kenya) Limited, Ecolab East Africa (Tanzania) Limited, Ecolab East Africa (Uganda) Limited, Ecolab Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Ecolab Engineering GmbH, Ecolab Europe GmbH, Ecolab Export GmbH, Ecolab FR 1 SAS, Ecolab FR 4 SAS, Ecolab Finance Company Designated Activity Company, Ecolab Food Safety & Hygiene Solutions Private Limited, Ecolab G.K., Ecolab Global Business Services LLC, Ecolab GmbH, Ecolab Gulf FZE, Ecolab HK 1 Limited, Ecolab HK 2 Limited, Ecolab Hispano-Portuguesa S.L., Ecolab Holding Italy S.r.l., Ecolab Holdings (Europe) LLC, Ecolab Holdings Inc., Ecolab Holdings Mexico S. de R. L. de C. V., Ecolab Hygiene Kft., Ecolab Hygiene d.o.o., Ecolab Israel Holdings LLC, Ecolab JVZ Limited, Ecolab Korea Ltd., Ecolab LLC, Ecolab LUX & Co Holdings S.C.A., Ecolab LUX 1 Sarl, Ecolab LUX 2 Sarl, Ecolab LUX 4 Sarl, Ecolab LUX 7 Sarl, Ecolab LUX Sarl, Ecolab Limited, Ecolab Ltd., Ecolab Lux 10 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 12 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 13 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 14 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 15 Sarl, Ecolab Lux 9 S.a.r.l., Ecolab Lux Partner LLC, Ecolab MT Holdings LLC, Ecolab MT Limited, Ecolab Malta 1 Limited, Ecolab Malta 2 Limited, Ecolab Malta GPS, Ecolab Manufacturing IE Limited, Ecolab Manufacturing Inc., Ecolab Manufacturing UK Limited, Ecolab Maroc Societe a Responsabilite Limitee, Ecolab NL 11 B.V., Ecolab NL 15 BV, Ecolab NL 16 B.V., Ecolab NL 23 B.V., Ecolab NL 3 BV, Ecolab NL 4 BV, Ecolab Name Holding Limited, Ecolab New Zealand, Ecolab Peru Holdings S.R.L., Ecolab Pest Deutschland GmbH, Ecolab Philippines Inc., Ecolab Production Belgium B.V.B.A., Ecolab Production France SAS, Ecolab Production Italy Srl, Ecolab Production LLC, Ecolab Production Netherlands B.V., Ecolab Production Poland sp. z o.o., Ecolab Pte. Ltd., Ecolab Pty Ltd., Ecolab Quimica Ltda., Ecolab S. de R.L. de C.V., Ecolab S.A., Ecolab S.A. de C.V., Ecolab SAS, Ecolab SIA, Ecolab SNC, Ecolab SRL, Ecolab Sdn Bhd, Ecolab Services Argentina S.R.L., Ecolab Services Poland Sp. z o o, Ecolab Sociedad Anonima, Ecolab Sp. z o o, Ecolab Spain Services S.L.U., Ecolab Temizleme Sistemleri Limited Sirketi, Ecolab U.S. 2 Inc., Ecolab U.S. 6 LLC, Ecolab U.S. 7 LLC, Ecolab US 1 GP, Ecolab USA Inc., Ecolab Viet Nam Company Limited, Ecolab Water Holding LImited, Ecolab a.s., Ecolab d.o.o., Ecolab s.r.l., Ecolab s.r.o., Ecolab y Compania Colectiva de Responsabilidad Limitada, Ecolab-Importacao E. Exportacao Limitada, Ecolabone B.V., Ecolabtwo B.V., Endoclear Equipamentos Medicos Hospitalares Ltda., Enviroflo Engineering Limited, Food Protection Services, GCS Service, Gallay Medical & Scientific Pty Ltd, Gallay Medical & Scientific Pty Ltd., GallayTrac Pty. Ltd., Georgia-Pacific - Paper Chemicals Business, Gibson Chemical Industries, Green Harbour Mainland Holdings Ltd, Guangzhou Green Harbour Environmental Operation Ltd., HYDROSAN LIMITED, Henkel-Ecolab, Hicopla SL, Holchem Laboratories, Huntington Laboratories, Hydenet SAS, INDUSTRIAL) UNIPESSOAL LDA, INTERNATIONAL WATER CONSULTANT B.V., Immobiliare R.E.O.P.A. SRL, Instrunet Hospital SLU, Jianghai Environmental Protection Co., Jianghai Environmental Protection Co. Ltd., KATAYAMA NALCO INC., Kay BVBA, Kay Chemical Company, LHS (UK) Limited, Laboratoires Anios, Laboratoires Anios-Distribution SAS, Les Produits Chimiques ERPAC Inc., Lobster Ink, Lobster Ink Africa (Pty.) Ltd., Lobster International S.A., London & General Packaging Ltd, MALAYSIA SDN. BHD, MANUFACTURING S.R.L., MOBOTEC AB LLC, Master Chemicals OOO, Meratech Rus Group LLC, Microtek Dominicana S.A., Microtek Italy S.R.L., Microtek Medical B.V., Microtek Medical Europe Limited, Microtek Medical Holdings, Microtek Medical Holdings Inc., Microtek Medical Inc., Microtek Medical Malta Holding Limited, Microtek Medical Malta Limited, Midland Research Laboratories, Midland Research Laboratories UK Limited, NALCO (SHANGHAI) TRADING CO. LTD., NALCO AB, NALCO ACQUISITION ONE, NALCO ACQUISITION TWO LIMITED, NALCO AFRICA (PTY.) LTD., NALCO ASIA HOLDING COMPANY PTE. LTD., NALCO BELGIUM BVBA, NALCO CHINA HOLDINGS LLC, NALCO COMPANY OOO, NALCO DANMARK APS, NALCO DE MEXICO S. de R. L. de C.V., NALCO DELAWARE COMPANY, NALCO DEUTSCHLAND GMBH, NALCO DEUTSCHLAND MANUFACTURING GMBH UND CO. KG, NALCO DUTCH HOLDINGS B.V., NALCO EGYPT LTD., NALCO EGYPT TRADING, NALCO ESPANOLA MANUFACTURING S.L.U., NALCO ESPANOLA S.L., NALCO EUROPE B.V., NALCO FINLAND MANUFACTURING OY, NALCO FINLAND OY, NALCO FRANCE, NALCO FRANCE SNC, NALCO GLOBAL HOLDINGS B.V., NALCO GLOBAL HOLDINGS LLC, NALCO HOLDING B.V., NALCO HOLDING COMPANY, NALCO HOLDINGS G.m.b.H., NALCO HOLDINGS UK LIMITED, NALCO HONG KONG LIMITED, NALCO INDUSTRIAL OUTSOURCING COMPANY, NALCO INDUSTRIAL SERVICES, NALCO INDUSTRIAL SERVICES (NANJING) CO. LTD., NALCO INDUSTRIAL SERVICES (SUZHOU) CO. LTD., NALCO INDUSTRIAL SERVICES (THAILAND) CO. LTD., NALCO INDUSTRIAL SERVICES CHILE LIMITADA, NALCO INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS B.V., NALCO INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LLC, NALCO INVESTMENTS U.K. LIMITED, NALCO ISRAEL INDUSTRIAL SERVICES LTD, NALCO ITALIANA, NALCO ITALIANA HOLDINGS S.R.L., NALCO ITALIANA SrL, NALCO KOREA LIMITED, NALCO LIMITED, NALCO LUXEMBOURG HOLDINGS SARL, NALCO MANUFACTURING BETEILIGUNGS GMBH, NALCO MANUFACTURING LTD., NALCO NETHERLANDS B.V., NALCO NORTH AFRICA LIMITED, NALCO OSTERREICH Ges m.b.H., NALCO OVERSEAS HOLDING B.V., NALCO PAKISTAN (PRIVATE) LIMITED, NALCO PHILIPPINES INC., NALCO PORTUGUESA (QUIMICA, NALCO PWS INC., NALCO SAUDI CO. LTD., NALCO TAIWAN CO. LTD., NALCO TWO INC., NALCO U.S. HOLDINGS LLC, NALCO UNIVERSAL HOLDINGS BV, NALCO WORLDWIDE HOLDINGS LLC, NALCO ZAO, NALFLOC LIMITED, NALTECH INC., NANOSPECIALTIES LLC, NLC PROCESS AND WATER SERVICES SARL, Nalco (BN) SDN BHD, Nalco (China) Environmental Solution Co. Ltd., Nalco Anadolu Kimya Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Nalco Canada ULC, Nalco Company LLC, Nalco Contract Operations LLC, Nalco Grundbesitz GmbH & Co. KG, Nalco Gulf Response Corp., Nalco Japan G.K., Nalco Libya, Nalco Middle East FZE, Nalco Polska Sp. z o. o., Nalco Production LLC, Nalco Real Estate GmbH, Nalco Schweiz GmbH, Nalco US 1 LLC, Nalco Wastewater Contract Operations Inc., Nalco Water India Limited, Nalco Water Pretreatment Solutions LLC, Nalco Worldwide Holdings S.a.r.l./B.V., Nigiko, Nuova Farmec S.r.l., Oksa Kimya Sanayi A.S., Oy Ecolab AB, PT Ecolab International Indonesia, PT Ecolab Technologies and Services, Purate business - AkzoNobel, Quantum Technical Services LLC, Quimicas Ecolab S.A. de C.V., Quimiproductos S.A. de C.V, RP Adam Ltd, Research Fumigation Co., Royal Pest Solutions, Shield Holdings Limited, Shield Medicare Limited, Shield Salvage Associates Limited, Soluscope International Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Soluscope SAS, Swisher Hygiene, Technical Textile Services Limited, Techtex Holdings Limited, Terminix, Ultrafab, Wabasha Leasing LLC, and vanBaerle Hygiene AG. Rolls-Royce Holdings plc operates as an industrial technology company in the United Kingdom and internationally. The company operates in four segments: Civil Aerospace, Power Systems, Defence, and ITP Aero. The Civil Aerospace segment develops, manufactures, and sells aero engines for large commercial aircraft, regional jet, and business aviation markets, as well as provides aftermarket services. The Power Systems segment provides high-speed and medium-speed reciprocating engines, and propulsion and power generation systems for the marine, defense, power generation, and industrial markets. The Defence segment offers aero engines for military transport and patrol aircraft applications; and naval engines and submarine nuclear power plants, as well as aftermarket services. The ITP Aero segment engages in the design, research and development, manufacture and casting, assembly, and testing of aeronautical engines and gas turbines. It also provides maintenance, repair, and overhaul services for regional airlines, as well as business aviation, industrial, and defense applications. Rolls-Royce Holdings plc was founded in 1884 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom. Read More Shares of iShares Gold Trust reverse split on Monday, May 24th 2021. The 1-2 reverse split was announced on Wednesday, March 3rd 2021. The number of shares owned by shareholders was adjusted after the market closes on Friday, May 21st 2021. An investor that had 100 shares of iShares Gold Trust stock prior to the reverse split would have 50 shares after the split. 1 Wall Street research analysts have issued "buy," "hold," and "sell" ratings for iShares North American Tech ETF in the last twelve months. There are currently 1 hold rating for the stock. The consensus among Wall Street research analysts is that investors should "hold" iShares North American Tech ETF stock. A hold rating indicates that analysts believe investors should maintain any existing positions they have in IGM, but not buy additional shares or sell existing shares. View analyst ratings for iShares North American Tech ETF or view top-rated stocks. KBR, Inc. engages in the provision of differentiated professional services and technologies across the asset and program life-cycle within the government services and hydrocarbons industries. It operates through the following segments: Government Solutions, Technology Solutions, Energy Solutions, Non-strategic Business, and Other. The Government Solutions segment provides full life-cycle support solutions to defense, space, aviation, and other programs and missions for military and other government agencies. The Technology Solutions segment combines KBR's proprietary technologies, equipment, and catalyst supply and associated knowledge-based services into a global business for refining, petrochemicals, inorganic, and specialty chemicals as well as gasification, syngas, ammonia, nitric acid, and fertilizers. The Energy Solutions segment provides full life-cycle support solutions across the upstream, midstream and downstream hydrocarbons markets. The Non-strategic Business segment represents the operations or activities which the company intends to exit upon completion of existing contracts. The Other segment includes corporate expenses and general and administrative expenses not all Read More WellCare Health Plans, Inc. provides government-sponsored managed care services. The company operates in three segments: Medicaid Health Plans, Medicare Health Plans, and Medicare Prescription Drug Plans (PDPs). The Medicaid Health Plans segment offers plans for beneficiaries of temporary assistance for needy families, supplemental security income, and aged blind and disabled residents; and other state-based programs, such as children's health insurance programs and long-term services and supports programs for qualifying families who are not eligible for Medicaid. The Medicare Health Plans segment provides Medicare, a federal program that provides eligible persons aged 65 and over, as well as some disabled persons with a range of hospital, medical, and prescription drug benefits; Medicare Advantage, a Medicare's managed care alternative to the original Medicare program, which offers individuals standard Medicare benefits directly through Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; and coordinated care plans that are administered through health maintenance organizations and require members to seek health care services and select a primary care physician from a network of health care providers. The Medicare PDPs segment provides Medicare part D PDP plans to Medicare-eligible beneficiaries. Its PDP plans offer national in-network prescription drug coverage, including a preferred pharmacy network. As of December 31, 2018, the company served approximately 5.5 million members in the United States. WellCare Health Plans, Inc. was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Tampa, Florida. Read More Mettler-Toledo International, Inc. is a supplier of precision instruments and services. The firm manufactures weighing instruments for use in laboratory, industrial, packaging, logistics, and food retailing applications. It also manufactures several related analytical instruments and provides automated chemistry solutions used in drug and chemical compound discovery and development; and also, metal detection and other end-of-line inspection systems used in production and packaging and provides solutions for use in certain process analytics applications. Its operations are conducted by the following segments: U. S. Operations, Swiss Operations, Western European Operations, Chinese Operations and Other. The U.S. Operations segment represents certain of the company's marketing and producing organizations located in the United States. The Swiss Operations segment includes marketing and producing organizations located in Switzerland, as well as extensive R&D operations that are responsible for the development, production, and marketing of precision instruments, including weighing, analytical, and measurement technologies for use in a variety of industrial and laboratory applications. Th Read More Nuveen North Carolina Quality Municipal Income Fund is a closed ended fixed income mutual fund launched by Nuveen Investments, Inc. The fund is managed by Nuveen Fund Advisors LLC and Nuveen Asset Management, LLC. It invests in the fixed income markets of North Carolina. The fund invests in tax exempt municipal bonds, with a rating of Baa/BBB or higher. It employs fundamental analysis, with bottom-up stock picking approach, to create its portfolio. The fund benchmarks the performance of its portfolio against the Standard & Poor's North Carolina Municipal Bond Index and Standard & Poor's National Municipal Bond Index. The fund was formerly known as Nuveen North Carolina Premium Income Municipal Fund. Nuveen North Carolina Quality Municipal Income Fund was formed on May 20, 1993 and is domiciled in the United States. Read More Nuveen Virginia Quality Municipal Income Fund is a closed ended fixed income mutual fund launched by Nuveen Investments, Inc. The fund is co-managed by Nuveen Fund Advisors LLC and Nuveen Asset Management, LLC. It invests in the fixed income markets of Virginia. The fund invests primarily in municipal securities rated Baa/BBB or better. It invests in securities that provide income exempt from federal and Virginia income tax. The fund employs fundamental analysis with bottom-up stock picking approach to create its portfolio. It benchmarks the performance of its portfolio against the S&P National Municipal Bond Index and the S&P Virginia Municipal Bond Index. The fund was formerly known as Nuveen Virginia Premium Income Municipal Fund. Nuveen Virginia Quality Municipal Income Fund was formed on January 12, 1993 and is domiciled in the United States. Read More The following companies are subsidiares of IDEX: ADS Corp., ADS Environmental Services Pty Limited, ADS Environmental Technologies Inc., ADS LLC, AEGIS Flow Technologies, AEGIS Flow Technologies L.L.C., AWG, AWG Fittings GmbH, Abel Pumps, Advanced Thin Films, Advanced Thin Films Inc., Airtech Group, Akron Brass, Akron Brass Company, Alfa Valvole, Alfa Valvole S.r.l., Band-It Clamps (Asia) Pte. Ltd., Band-It Company Limited, Band-It-IDEX Inc., Banjo Corporation, Banjo Europe S.r.l., BarbIDEX International SRL, CIDRA Precision Services, CVI Laser, CVI Laser LLC, CVI Laser Limited, CVI Melles Griot, Corken Inc., ERC, Eastern Plastics, FAST & Fluid Management S.r.l., FM Delaware Inc., FM Investment Inc., FMD Distribution and Service LLC, FMD Fabrication Services LLC, FTL Seals Technology Limited, Fast & Fluid Management B.V., Fast & Fluid Management Eastern Europe Sp. Z O.O., Fast and Fluid Management Australia Pty. Ltd., Flow Management Devices, Flow Management Devices LLC, Fluid Management Canada Inc., Fluid Management Inc., Fluid Management Operations LLC, Gast Group Ltd, Gast Manufacturing Inc., Godiva Limited, Godiva Products Limited, Hale Products Europe Limited, Hale Products Inc., Hurst Jaws of Life Inc., IDEX Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., IDEX Dinglee Technology (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., IDEX Europe GmbH, IDEX Health & Science KK, IDEX Health & Science LLC, IDEX Holdings GmbH, IDEX Holdings Inc., IDEX India Private Limited, IDEX Italy S.r.l., IDEX Japan GK, IDEX Korea Ltd, IDEX Leasing GmbH, IDEX MPT Inc., IDEX Mexico S.A. de C.V., IDEX Middle East FZE, IDEX Pump Technologies (Ireland) Limited, IDEX SAS, IDEX Service Corp., IDEX Sourcing Corporation, IDEX Technology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., IDEX Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, IDEX UK Investment Ltd, IDEX UK Ltd., IDEX do Brasil Servicos e Vendas Ltda., IETG, Isolation Technologies, KNIGHT LLC, KVT-Koenig Holding Limited, Knight (Canada) Limited, Knight Inc., Knight UK Ltd, LUKAS Hydraulik GmbH, Liquid Controls, Liquid Controls LLC, Matcon, Matcon (R&D) Limited, Matcon Group Limited, Matcon Limited, Melles Griot B.V., Melles Griot GmbH, Microfluidics, Microfluidics International Corporation, Micropump Inc., Nova Technologies, Nova Technologies Corporation, Novotema, Novotema S.p.A, OBL, OBL Srl, Oil & Gas Process Solutions LLC, PP AWG GmbH, PPE International LLC, PPE LLC, Precision Photonics, Precision Polymer Engineering Limited, Project Gold Acquisition Corp., Pulsafeeder Inc., Quadro Engineering Corp., RV Acquisition Corp., Richter Chemie-Technik, Richter Chemie-Technik GmbH, Richter EP (Nanjing) Co. Ltd., Richter Pumps & Valves Inc., Roplan AB, Roplan GmbH, Roplan Holding AB, Roplan Ltd, Roplan Machinery (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., Roplan Machining AB, Roplan Sales (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., Roplan Sales AB, Roplan Sales Inc., Roplan Trading AB, S.A.M.P.I. S.p.A., SFC KOENIG, SFC KOENIG Flow Control (Suzhou) Co. Limited, SFC Koenig AG, SFC Koenig Beteilgungs GmbH, SFC Koenig GmbH, SFC Koenig LLC, Scivex, Seals Limited, Semrock, Steridose Sales AB, The Fitzpatrick Company, Toptech Systems, Toptech Systems Inc., Toptech Systems NV, Trebor International Inc., Velcora, Velcora Holding AB, Vetter GmbH, Viking Pump Inc., Viking Pump of Canada Inc., Warren Rupp Inc., Wright Flow Technologies Limited, XAM Swiss Holding I GmbH, iPEK, iPEK International GmbH, iPEK Spezial TV GmbH, thinXXS Microtechnology, and thinXXS Microtechnology AG. The following companies are subsidiares of Quest Diagnostics: AmeriPath, AmeriPath Cincinnati Inc. (OH), AmeriPath Cleveland Inc. (OH), AmeriPath Consolidated Labs Inc. (FL), AmeriPath Florida LLC (DE), AmeriPath Hospital Services Florida LLC (DE), AmeriPath Inc. (DE), AmeriPath Indianapolis PC (IN), AmeriPath Kentucky Inc. (KY), AmeriPath Lubbock 5.01(A) Corporation (TX), AmeriPath New York LLC (DE), AmeriPath Texas Inc. (DE), AmeriPath Tucson Inc. (AZ), American Medical Laboratories, American Medical Laboratories Incorporated (DE), Associated Clinical Laboratories L.P. (PA), Associated Clinical Laboratories of Pennsylvania L.L.C. (PA), Athena Diagnostics, Athena Diagnostics Inc. (DE), Blueprint Genetics, Blueprint Genetics FZ-LLC (UAE), Blueprint Genetics Inc. (DE), Blueprint Genetics Oy (Finland), California Laboratory Associates, Cape Cod Healthcare - Business, Celera, ClearPoint Diagnostic, Clearpoint Diagnostic Laboratories LLC (TX), Cleveland HeartLab, Cleveland HeartLab Inc. (DE), Clinical Laboratory Partners, Colorado Pathology Consultants P.C. (CO), ConVerge Diagnostic Services, Consolidated DermPath Inc. (DE), DFW 5.01(a) Corporation (TX), DGXWMT JV LLC (DE), Dermatopathology of Wisconsin S.C. (WI), Diagnostic Laboratory of Oklahoma LLC (OK), Diagnostic Pathology Services Inc. (OK), Diagnostic Reference Services Inc. (MD), ExamOne Canada Inc. (New Brunswick), ExamOne LLC (DE), ExamOne World Wide Inc. (PA), ExamOne World Wide of NJ Inc. (NJ), Focus Diagnostics, HemoCue, Hoffman M.D. Associated Pathologists Chartered (NV), Institute for Dermatopathology Inc. (PA), Isabella Street Urban Renewal LLC (NJ), Kailash B. Sharma M.D. Inc. (GA), Kilpatrick Pathology P.A. (NC), LabOne, LabOne LLC (MO), LabOne of Ohio Inc. (DE), Laboratorio de Analisis Biomedicos S.A. (Mexico), Lancet Labs, MACL, Med Fusion LLC (TX), Med fusion, MedPlus, Mid America Clinical Laboratories LLC (IN), Nomad Massachusetts Inc. (MA), Nuclear Medicine and Pathology Associates (GA), Ocmulgee Medical Pathology Association Inc. (GA), Pathology Building Partnership (MD) (gen. ptnrshp.), PeaceHealth Laboratories, PhenoPath Laboratories, PhenoPath Laboratories PLLC (WA), Q Squared Solutions Holdings LLC (DE), Q Squared Solutions Holdings Limited (UK), Quest Diagnostics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. (China), Quest Diagnostics Brasil Holdings Ltd. (UK), Quest Diagnostics Clinical Laboratories, Quest Diagnostics Clinical Laboratories Inc. (DE), Quest Diagnostics Domestic Holder LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics HTAS India Private Limited (India), Quest Diagnostics Health & Wellness LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics Holdings Incorporated (DE), Quest Diagnostics Holdings Ltd. (UK), Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (MD), Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NV), Quest Diagnostics India Private Limited (India), Quest Diagnostics Infectious Disease Inc. (DE), Quest Diagnostics International Holdings Limited (UK), Quest Diagnostics International LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics Investments LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics Ireland Limited (Ireland), Quest Diagnostics LLC (CT), Quest Diagnostics LLC (IL), Quest Diagnostics LLC (MA), Quest Diagnostics Massachusetts LLC (MA), Quest Diagnostics Mexico Holding Company Trust (Mexico), Quest Diagnostics Mexico S de RL de CV (Mexico), Quest Diagnostics Nichols Institute (CA), Quest Diagnostics Nichols Institute Inc. (VA), Quest Diagnostics Receivables Inc. (DE), Quest Diagnostics Subsidiary Holdings Ltd. (UK), Quest Diagnostics TB LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics Terracotta LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics Venture LLC (PA), Quest Diagnostics Ventures LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics do Brasil Ltda. (Brazil), Quest Diagnostics of Pennsylvania Inc. (DE), Quest Diagnostics of Puerto Rico Inc. (PR), Quest HealthConnect LLC (CA), ReproSource, Reprosource Fertility Diagnostics Inc. (MA), Solstas Lab Partners, Sonora Quest Laboratories LLC (AZ), Specialty Laboratories Inc. (CA), Summit Health, UMass Memorial Medical Center - Anatomic Pathology Outreach Laboratory Business, Unilab Corporation, and Unilab Corporation (DE). Guess?, Inc. engages in designing, marketing, distributing and licensing of contemporary apparel and accessories for men, women and children that reflect the American lifestyle and European fashion sensibilities. It operates through the following segments: Americas Retail, Americas Wholesale, Europe, Asia, and Licensing. The Americas Retail segment includes the Company's retail and e-Commerce operations in North and Central America and its retail operations in South America. The Americas Wholesale segment consists of the Company's wholesale operations in the Americas. The Europe segment comprises the Company's retail, e-commerce and wholesale operations in Europe and the Middle East. The Asia segment refers to the Company's retail, e-commerce and wholesale operations in Asia and the Pacific. The Licensing segment includes the worldwide licensing operations of the Company. The company was founded by Paul Marciano and Maurice Marciano in 1981 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA. Read More AXA SA operates as a holding company, which engages in the provision of insurance and asset management services. It operates through the following segments: France, Europe, Asia, AXA XL, the United States, International and Transversal & Central Holdings. The France segment consists of Life & Savings and Property & Casualty activities, AXA Banque France and France holdings. The Europe segment consists of Life & Savings and Property & Casualty activities in Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, United Kingdom & Ireland, Spain and Italy. The Asian segment consists of Life & Savings activities in Japan, Hong Kong and Asia High Potentials as well as Property & Casualty activities in Hong Kong and Asia High Potentials. The AXA XL segment consists of Property & Casualty activities at XL Group, as well as AXA Corporate Solutions Assurance and AXA Art. The United States segment includes Life & Savings activities in United States, as well as Asset Management services offered by AB. The International segment consists of Life & Savings and Property & Casualty activities in 14 countries within Europe, Middle East, and Africa & Latin America as well as in Singapore, in Malaysia and in India. The Trans Read More iShares Silver Trust's stock was trading at $15.63 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, SLV stock has increased by 45.6% and is now trading at $22.75. View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19. The following companies are subsidiares of Waste Management: 635952 Ontario Inc., 8242348 Canada Inc., Acaverde S.A. de C.V., Access Computer Products, Advanced Environmental Technical Services L.L.C., Akron Regional Landfill Inc., Alliance Sanitary Landfill Inc., Alpharetta Transfer Station LLC, American Landfill Inc., American Oil Recovery LLC, Ameriwaste LLC, Anderson Landfill Inc., Anderson Rubbish Disposal, Antelope Valley Recycling and Disposal Facility Inc., Arden Landfill Inc., Atlantic Waste Disposal Inc., Automated Salvage Transport Co. L.L.C., Avalon South LLC, Azusa Land Reclamation Inc., B&B Landfill Inc., Big Dipper Enterprises Inc., Bluegrass Containment L.L.C., Burnsville Sanitary Landfill Inc., CA Newco L.L.C., CR Group LLC, CWM Chemical Services L.L.C., Cal Sierra Disposal, California Asbestos Monofill Inc., Canadian Waste Services Holdings Inc., Capels Landfill LLC, Capital Sanitation Company, Capitol Disposal Inc., Carolina Grading Inc., Cedar Ridge Landfill Inc., Central Disposal Systems Inc., Chadwick Road Landfill Inc., Chambers Clearview Environmental Landfill Inc., Chambers Development Company Inc., Chambers Development of Ohio Inc., Chambers of Georgia Inc., Chambers of Mississippi Inc., Chemical Waste Management Inc., Chemical Waste Management of Indiana L.L.C., Chemical Waste Management of the Northwest Inc., Chesser Island Road Landfill Inc., City Environmental Services Inc. of Waters, Cleburne Landfill Company Corp., Coast Waste Management Inc., Coastal Recyclers Landfill LLC, Connecticut Valley Sanitary Waste Disposal Inc., Conservation Services Inc., Coshocton Landfill Inc., Cougar Landfill Inc., Countryside Landfill Inc., Curtis Creek Recovery Systems Inc., Cuyahoga Landfill Inc., DHC Land LLC, Dafter Sanitary Landfill Inc., Dauphin Meadows Inc., Deep Valley Landfill Inc., Deer Track Park Landfill Inc., Deffenbaugh Disposal Inc., Deffenbaugh Group Holdings Inc., Deffenbaugh Industries Inc., Deffenbaugh Recycling Company L.L.C., Deffenbaugh of Arkansas LLC, Del Almo Landfill L.L.C., Delaware Recyclable Products Inc., Dickinson Landfill Inc., Disposal Service Incorporated, Dolphin Services & Chemicals LLC, Dolphin-One LLC, ELDA Landfill Inc., Earthmovers Landfill L.L.C., East Liverpool Landfill Inc., Eastern One Land Corporation, Eco-Vista LLC, Elk River Landfill Inc., Energy Injection Services of Mississippi LLC, EnviroSolutions Dulles LLC, EnviroSolutions Holdings Inc., EnviroSolutions Real Property Holdings Inc., Envirofil of Illinois Inc., Evergreen Landfill Inc., Evergreen Recycling and Disposal Facility Inc., Finch Waste Co LLC, Firetower Landfill LLC, Fred J. Eckert Sanitary Service Inc., Furnace Associates Inc., G.I. Industries, GA Landfills Inc., Gallia Landfill Inc., Garnet of Maryland Inc., Gateway Transfer Station LLC, Georgia Waste Systems Inc., Giordano Recycling L.L.C., Glades Landfill LLC, Glen's Sanitary Landfill Inc., Grand Central Sanitary Landfill Inc., Greenbow LLC, Greenleaf Compaction Inc., Greenstar Allentown LLC, Greenstar Georgia LLC, Greenstar LLC, Greenstar Managed Services - Connecticut LLC, Greenstar Managed Services - RLWM LLC, Greenstar Mid-America LLC, Greenstar New Jersey LLC, Greenstar Ohio LLC, Greenstar Paterson LLC, Greenstar Pittsburgh LLC, Greenstar Recycled Holdings LLC, Greenstar Recycling LLC, Guadalupe Mines Mutual Water Company, Guadalupe Rubbish Disposal Co. Inc., Ham Lake Haulers Inc., Harris Sanitation Inc., Harwood Landfill Inc., Hedco Landfill Limited, High Mountain Fuels LLC, Hillsboro Landfill Inc., Holyoke Sanitary Landfill Inc., IN Landfills L.L.C., Illini Disposal, International Environmental Management Inc., Jahner Sanitation Inc., Jay County Landfill L.L.C., K and W Landfill Inc., Keene Road Landfill Inc., Kelly Run Sanitation Inc., King George Landfill Inc., King George Landfill Properties LLC, Kirby Canyon Holdings LLC, L&K Group Holdings LLC, LCS Services Inc., Lakeville Recycling L.P., Land South Holdings LLC, Landfill Services of Charleston Inc., Laurel Highlands Landfill Inc., Liberty Landfill L.L.C., Liquid Logistics, Liquid Waste Management Inc., Longleaf C&D Disposal Facility Inc., Looney Bins Inc., Mac Land Disposal Inc. II, Mahoning Landfill Inc., Mass Gravel Inc., Mc Ginnes Industrial Maintenance Corporation, McDaniel Landfill Inc., McGill Landfill Inc., Meadowfill Landfill Inc., Michigan Environs Inc., Midwest One Land Corporation, Modesto Garbage Co. Inc., Moor Refuse Inc., Mordell, Mountain Indemnity Insurance Company, Mountainview Landfill Inc., Nassau Landfill L.L.C., National Guaranty Insurance Company of Vermont, New England CR L.L.C., New Milford Landfill L.L.C., New Orleans Landfill L.L.C., North Manatee Recycling and Disposal Facility L.L.C., Northwestern Landfill Inc., Nu-Way Live Oak Reclamation Inc., OAKLEAF Waste Management LLC, OGH Acquisition Corporation, Oak Grove Disposal Co. Inc., Oakleaf Global Holdings Inc., Oakleaf Waste Management Inc., Oakridge Landfill Inc., Oakwood Landfill Inc., Okeechobee Landfill Inc., Ozark Ridge Landfill Inc., P & R Environmental Industries L.L.C., Pacific Waste Management L.L.C., Pappy Inc., Peltz H.C. LLC, Pen-Rob Inc., People's Landfill Inc., Peterson Demolition Inc., Phoenix Resources Inc., Pine Grove Landfill Inc., Pine Tree Acres Inc., Prime Westport LLC, Quail Hollow Landfill Inc., Questquill Limited, R & B Landfill Inc., RAA Colorado L.L.C., RAA Trucking LLC, RCI Hudson Inc., RTS Landfill Inc., Recycle America Co. L.L.C., Recycle America Holdings Inc., Redwood Landfill Inc., Refuse Inc., Refuse Services Inc., Reliable Environmental Transport, Reliable Landfill L.L.C., Remote Landfill Services Inc., Reno Disposal Co., Resco Holdings L.L.C., Resource Control Composting Inc., Resource Control Inc., Richland County Landfill Inc., Riverbend Landfill Co., Rust Engineering & Construction Inc., Rust International Inc., S & J Landfill Limited Partnership, S & S Grading Inc., S&T Materials LLC, SC Holdings Inc., SF Land Acquisition LLC, Sanifill de Mexico (US) Inc., Sanifill de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Shade Landfill Inc., Shawnee Rock Company, Sierra Estrella Landfill Inc., Southern Alleghenies Landfill Inc., Southern One Land Corporation, Southern Waste Services L.L.C., Spruce Ridge Inc., Stony Hollow Landfill Inc., Suburban Landfill Inc., Summit Energy Services Inc, Swire Waste Management Limited, TN'T Sands Inc., TX Newco L.L.C., Texarkana Landfill L.L.C., Texas Pack Rat - Austin #1 LLC, Texas Pack Rat - Dallas #1 LLC, Texas Pack Rat - Houston #1 LLC, Texas Pack Rat - Houston #2 LLC, Texas Pack Rat - Houston #3 LLC, Texas Pack Rat - San Antonio #1 LLC, Texas Pack Rat Service Company LLC, The Peltz Group LLC, The Waste Management Charitable Foundation, The Woodlands of Van Buren Inc., Thermal Remediation Solutions L.L.C., Trail Ridge Landfill Inc., TransAmerican Waste Industries, Transamerican Waste Central Landfill Inc., Trash Hunters Inc., Twin Bridges Golf Club L.P., USA South Hills Landfill Inc., USA Valley Facility Inc., USA Waste Geneva Landfill Inc., USA Waste Landfill Operations and Transfer Inc., USA Waste Services of NYC Inc., USA Waste of California Inc., USA Waste of Texas Landfills Inc., USA Waste of Virginia Landfills Inc., USA Waste-Management Resources LLC, USA-Crinc L.L.C., USB LIHTC Fund 2010-1 LLC, UWS Barre Inc., United Waste Systems Leasing Inc., Valley Garbage and Rubbish Company Inc., Vern's Refuse Service Inc., Vickery Environmental Inc., Vista Landfill LLC, Voyageur Disposal Processing Inc., WM Avon Inc., WM Bagco LLC, WM Billerica Inc., WM Biloxi Hauling LLC, WM Biloxi Transfer Station LLC, WM Boston CORE Inc., WM CCP Solutions LLC, WM Conversion Fund LLC, WM Corporate Services Inc., WM Curbside LLC, WM DC 1 LLC, WM Emergency Employee Support Fund Inc., WM Energy Resources Inc., WM Energy Services Holdings LLC, WM Energy Services of Ohio LLC, WM Energy Solutions Inc., WM GTL Inc., WM GTL JV Holdings LLC, WM GTL LLC, WM Green Squad LLC, WM GreenOps LLC, WM Healthcare Solutions Inc., WM Illinois Renewable Energy L.L.C., WM Intellectual Property Holdings L.L.C., WM International Holdings Inc., WM KS Energy Resources LLC, WM LNG Inc., WM LampTracker Inc., WM Landfills of Ohio Inc., WM Landfills of Tennessee Inc., WM Leasing Services of Texas LLC, WM Leasing of Arizona L.L.C., WM Leasing of Texas L.P., WM Logistics India Private Limited, WM Logistics LLC, WM Mercury Waste Inc., WM Middle Tennessee Environmental Center L.L.C., WM Mobile Bay Environmental Center Inc., WM ND Energy Resources II LLC, WM ND Energy Resources LLC, WM Nevada Renewable Energy L.L.C., WM North Broward Inc., WM Organic Growth Inc., WM PA Holdings LLC, WM PRG L.L.C., WM Pack-Rat LLC, WM Pack-Rat of California LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Illinois LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Kentucky LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Maryland LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Massachusetts LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Michigan LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Nevada LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Ohio LLC, WM Pack-Rat of Rhode Island LLC, WM Partnership Holdings Inc., WM Phoenix Energy Resources LLC, WM Propane LLC, WM Quebec Inc., WM RA Canada Inc., WM Recycle America L.L.C., WM Recycle Europe L.L.C., WM Recycling Latin America LLC, WM Refined Coal LLC, WM Renewable Energy L.L.C., WM Resource Recovery & Recycling Center Inc., WM Resources Inc., WM Safety Services L.L.C., WM Security Services Inc., WM Storage II Inc., WM Storage Inc., WM TX Energy Resources II LLC, WM TX Energy Resources LLC, WM Texas Pack Rat LLC, WM Trash Monitor Plus L.L.C., WM WY Energy Resources II LLC, WM WY Energy Resources III LLC, WM WY Energy Resources LLC, WM of North Dakota Energy Disposal Solutions LLC, WMI Mexico Holdings Inc., WMNA Container Recycling L.L.C., WMRE of Kentucky LLC, WMRE of Michigan LLC, WMRE of Ohio LLC, WMRE of Ohio-American LLC, WMSALSA Inc., WTI Air Pollution Control Inc., WTI Rust Holdings Inc., Warner Company, Waste Away Group Inc., Waste Management Arizona Landfills Inc., Waste Management Buckeye L.L.C., Waste Management China Holdings Limited, Waste Management Collection and Recycling Inc., Waste Management Disposal Services of Colorado Inc., Waste Management Disposal Services of Maine Inc., Waste Management Disposal Services of Maryland Inc., Waste Management Disposal Services of Massachusetts Inc., Waste Management Disposal Services of Oregon Inc., Waste Management Disposal Services of Pennsylvania Inc., Waste Management Disposal Services of Virginia Inc., Waste Management Energy Services of Texas LLC, Waste Management Holdings Inc., Waste Management Inc. of Florida, Waste Management Inc. of Tennessee, Waste Management Indycoke L.L.C., Waste Management International Inc., Waste Management National Services Inc., Waste Management National Transportation Services Inc., Waste Management Partners Inc., Waste Management Recycling and Disposal Services of California Inc., Waste Management Recycling of New Jersey L.L.C., Waste Management Service Center Inc., Waste Management of Alameda County Inc., Waste Management of Alaska Inc., Waste Management of Arizona Inc., Waste Management of Arkansas Inc., Waste Management of California Inc., Waste Management of Canada Corporation, Waste Management of Carolinas Inc., Waste Management of Colorado Inc., Waste Management of Connecticut Inc., Waste Management of Delaware Inc., Waste Management of Fairless L.L.C., Waste Management of Five Oaks Recycling and Disposal Facility Inc., Waste Management of Georgia Inc., Waste Management of Hawaii Inc., Waste Management of Idaho Inc., Waste Management of Illinois Inc., Waste Management of Indiana Holdings One Inc., Waste Management of Indiana Holdings Two Inc., Waste Management of Indiana L.L.C., Waste Management of Iowa Inc., Waste Management of Kansas Inc., Waste Management of Kentucky Holdings Inc., Waste Management of Kentucky L.L.C., Waste Management of Leon County Inc., Waste Management of Londonderry Inc., Waste Management of Louisiana Holdings One Inc., Waste Management of Louisiana L.L.C., Waste Management of Maine Inc., Waste Management of Maryland Inc., Waste Management of Massachusetts Inc., Waste Management of Metro Atlanta Inc., Waste Management of Michigan Inc., Waste Management of Minnesota Inc., Waste Management of Mississippi Inc., Waste Management of Missouri Inc., Waste Management of Montana Inc., Waste Management of Nebraska Inc., Waste Management of Nevada Inc., Waste Management of New Hampshire Inc., Waste Management of New Jersey Inc., Waste Management of New Mexico Inc., Waste Management of New York L.L.C., Waste Management of North Dakota Inc., Waste Management of Ohio Inc., Waste Management of Oklahoma Inc., Waste Management of Oregon Inc., Waste Management of Pennsylvania Gas Recovery L.L.C., Waste Management of Pennsylvania Inc., Waste Management of Rhode Island Inc., Waste Management of South Carolina Inc., Waste Management of South Dakota Inc., Waste Management of Texas Holdings Inc., Waste Management of Texas Inc., Waste Management of Tunica Landfill Inc., Waste Management of Utah Inc., Waste Management of Virginia Inc., Waste Management of Washington, Waste Management of West Virginia Inc., Waste Management of Wisconsin Inc., Waste Management of Wyoming Inc., Western One Land Corporation, Western Waste Industries, Western Waste of Texas L.L.C., Westminster Land Acquisition LLC, Wheelabrator Technologies, Wheelabrator Technologies International Inc., White Lake Landfill Inc., Willow Oak Landfill LLC, and eCycling Services L.L.C.. Nabors Industries Ltd. engages in the provision of platform work over and drilling rigs. It operates through the following segments: U.S. Drilling, Canada Drilling, International Drilling, Drilling Solutions, and Rig Technologies. The U.S. Drilling segment includes land drilling activities in the lower 48 states and Alaska, as well as offshore operations in the Gulf of Mexico. The Canada segment consists of land-based drilling rigs in Canada. The International segment focuses in maintaining a footprint in the oil and gas market, most notably in Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Argentina, Colombia, Kazakhstan, and Venezuela. The Drilling Solutions segment offers drilling technologies, such as patented steering systems and rig instrumentation software systems that enhance drilling performance and wellbore placement. The Rig Technologies segment comprises Canrig, which manufactures and sells top drives, catwalks, wrenches, drawworks, and drilling related equipment, such as robotic systems and downhole tools. The company was founded by Clair Nabors in 1952 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda. Read More Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 31) Ten Filipino seafarers were kidnapped at the Gulf of Guinea along Nigerian waters on two separate dates in October, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed Wednesday. DFA said the seafarers have been held hostage by suspected pirates, who hijacked two different vessels on separate events along the gulf. Philippine Ambassador to Nigeria Shirley Ho-Vicario said two Filipino sailors were abducted last Saturday, when alleged pirates boarded their Liberian-flagged container ship. The eight other seamen, meanwhile, were kidnapped on Monday as bandits hijacked a Panama-based vessel they were working in. Ho-Vacario added the embassy is exerting efforts to locate the missing seafarers. Seafarers, kidnap victims Twelve other seafarers-- including seven Filipinos-- were freed last Sunday after over a month of ordeal in the hands of gunmen who kidnapped them off the coast of Nigeria in September, DFA said. The Philippine embassy in Nigeria's capital Abuja reported the Filipinos' release to Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin, the DFA said in a statement late Tuesday. The DFA said the Filipinos are crew members of Swiss-owned MV Glarus. They were held hostage for over a month by gunmen who boarded the vessel on September 22. The crew members were reported to have been kidnapped as the ship was traveling from city of Lagos to Port Harcourt in Rivers State, Nigeria. Ho-Vicario added the Filipino seafarers, who are currently in Zurich, Switzerland, will soon be flown to Manila. However, it was not clear whether the same group of pirates conducted the three abductions. Meanwhile, DFA also advised some 3,000 members of the Filipino community in Nigeria to remain vigilant, following reported "violent clashes" between the police and protesting members of the Islamic community there. No Filipino has been reported hurt in the violence, the department added. Calvert City Jingle All the Way 5k and Fun Run set for December 4 This article was originally published on The Conversation , which features includes relevant and informed articles, written by researchers and academics in their areas of expertise and edited by experienced journalists. At 8 a.m. one recent morning, when the milking of 110 cows was complete, I helped Jeannie van Dyk feed her calves and give them clean bedding. Van Dyk has not lost any calves due to excellent biosecurity and their housing and feeding regimes. All the calves at Lellavan Farms in Noel Shore, N.S., are fed warm water, which helps them avoid getting chilled. The calf hutches are modular, allowing them to be taken down for cleaning. The space is being moved to a positive air-pressure system to ensure protection from disease. The calves are fed milk twice daily, individually according to size, appetite and age. Then theyre taught to drink from a bucket and they start solid food at around three weeks. At 8:20, the milk tanker arrived, collecting 8,000 litres that would soon reach homes across the province. The conversation at the farm shifted from cows to macro forces shaping the Lellavan Farm familys world: Supply management and international trade deals. At the centre of trade talks Our dairy industry has been in the news a lot in recent years as a focal point in Canadas many international trade negotiations. First, there was the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the European Union, known as CETA. Then came the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, dubbed the TPP. Most recently there was the sticky renegotiation of NAFTA, resulting in the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or the USMCA. Every farmer in Canada rides the waves of these negotiations. Concessions and deals are cut in faraway urban environments, sometimes with little input from the rural communities that depend on agriculture for cultural and physical survival. Day kicks off in darkness Ive worked with the agricultural industry for more than 20 years, in at least four different countries. But until this past Thanksgiving weekend at Lellavan Farms, I didnt really know what it was to be a dairy farmer, to stomp a mile in their muddy boots, kicking my day off in the darkness at 4:30 a.m. As we worked our way through the various chores, I chatted with Jeannie about her job, her farm and what these trade agreements mean to her. The three aforementioned agreements have collectively given other countries access to more than nine per cent of the Canadian milk market. That is more milk than is produced in all of Atlantic Canada. Van Dyk shared with me a report commissioned by Agropur Dairy co-operative, whose members are spread across five Canadian provinces, called Analysis of the potential impacts of the end of supply management in the Canadian dairy industry. It says opening up the Canadian dairy system risks a net loss of $2.1 to $3.5 billion of Canadas GDP. Approximately 24,000 direct jobs would be affected. A spike followed by a decline Other studies suggest that countries that have transitioned away from supply management, such as Australia, have seen an initial spike in dairy production, then a steady reduction in production, farms and farmers. Many producers have been forced to exit the industry due to soft market conditions. Van Dyk tells me that she writes 50 business cheques each month to local companies, a substantial contribution to the local economy. Her farm employs people from the community and hosts a student each summer, so future farmers have applied knowledge. Being a dairy farmer is more than a job. Its a way of life. The recent concessions in trade agreements are eroding farmers livelihoods, and thus that way of life. Granted, its a challenging life. I often ask farmers why they do it. Love of their animals The answer is always the same: Love. Canadian dairy farms are not just milk factories. They are collections of people who love what they do and the animals in their care. That gets them through 20-hour days in the summer. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ron Ward Jeannie and her husband John are proudly mentoring their two sons into the management of the 600-acre crop and 300-head farm. They all showed me how incredibly innovative farmers are as well as their dedication to the welfare and comfort of their animals. Lellavan Farms just installed a $2.2-million dairy barn designed around the principal criteria of animal welfare, comfort and safety. Jeannie knows every single animal. As we walked around and interacted with them, it was clear they knew her. They showed affection. In the language of reports, the Agropur report states that the dairy industry contributes to the regional fabric and territory occupations. Ill put it this way: You cannot separate farming from the fabric of rural Canada. The families, animals and land are fully integrated into the community and landscape. The survival of rural Atlantic Canada, in particular, is dependent on this, and it is something we must keep in mind during all of our trade negotiations. 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Narayan, associate professor (finance) at SP Jain Institute of Management and Research to Bloomberg. Hyderabad: With the stand-off over the RBIs autonomy reaching its fever pitch, economists advised caution as the showdown between them on a host of issues, including a proposal to dip into the central banks reserves, could impact the economy. The stand-off is over three issues namely the governments proposal to wean away RBIs regulatory powers over payments bank and the central banks approach towards bad loans and easy lending to MSMEs, said Subhanil Chowdhury, assistant professor at Institute of Development Studies. The other issues which reportedly have driven wedge between the Mint Road and the North Block are the Centres proposal to dip into RBI reserves to fund its fiscal deficit. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the government has invoked never-used clause in Section 7 of the RBI Act to begin consultations with the Reserve Bank of India. The clause empowers the central government to order the RBI to take specific action on the issues that it considers to be of public interest. While the difference of opinion between the RBI and the finance ministry officials is not new, the invocation of mandatory clause in the RBI Act hints at hardening of positions by both the authorities. Section 7 of the RBI Act was never used by any government in around 70 years. It was not used during economic stress in 1990s, or during the global recession in the aftermath of Lehman Brothers collapse or when US Feds tapper tantrums hit the economy badly in 2013. So the invocation of Section 7 by the government makes one wonder how bad is the economy, he explained. Mr Chowdhury said the invocation of Section 7 appears to be a step taken by the government in panic as the economic indicators like stocks, current account deficit and rupee are not favaourably placed in the election season. We should have never gotten to this point, said Ananth Narayan, associate professor (finance) at SP Jain Institute of Management and Research to Bloomberg. He said the government may be trying using RBI's reserves to fund fiscal deficit. "Rather than taking on long-term reforms, the government thinking of short-term steps. The entire ecosystem that was supposed to keep the system safe does not come out looking good. Even while counselling caution to RBI on regulatory steps, Mr Chowdhury said the government should not undermine institutions like RBI. If the government wants to create another regulator for payments banks or issue directions on how to operate, it indicates the government's lack of faith in the RBI's ability. If the government itself does not trust the RBI, how could it expect people have faith in it. October 11, 2017 marked the date of Anupam Kher taking over Gajendra Chauhans position of being the chairman of FTII and a year since, the actor has already reportedly put in his resignation from the position. On being appointed as chairman of FTII, Anupam Kher had posted on Twitter, "I feel deeply humbled and honoured to be appointed as the Chairman of iconic #FTII. I will performa my dutires to the best of my abilities." Kher had even told Times Of India, "How I can enhance, how I can make my contribution, that is what is important," adding further, "It's a very important day for me as seldom it happens that you become chairman of the place where you once were a student. I am not going to start this journey thinking about the previous things. I am a very hopeful person and I have never begun anything while thinking about any controversy or negativity. I will go with a clear mind and do as much work as I can. The teacher inside me will teach the students some things and in return I will also learn a lot from them. For me, this tenure will be an extremely important learning experience. It's important to have the right intention, which I have. I will go there and see what is to be done." The actor, most in news for his portrayal of Dr. Manmohan Singh on screen through his upcoming film The Accidental Prime Minister, has quoted his busy schedule as the reason of resigning from the highly regarded post. Apart from The Accidental Prime Minister, Anupam also runs his theatre company Actor Prepares and has projects like One Day: Justice Delivered, Mrs. Wilson, New Amsterdam and more. Mumbai: Sidharth Malhotra who is currently busy with 'Jabariya Jodi' alongside Parineeti Chopra, has already bagged another big project wherein he will be seen romancing with 'Student Of The Year 2' star Tara Sutaria. This fresh pair is all set to set screens on fire with their sizzling chemistry in director Milan Zaveri violent love-story titled Marjaavaan. Interestingly, Marjaavaan will also see Sidharth sharing screen space with his 'Ek Villain' co-star Riteish Deshmukh, who also plays an important role in the upcoming film. Unveiling the teaser poster of the film, Sidharth Malhotra wrote, A love worth dying for Presenting #Marjaavaan .A thrilling game of love and death with @Riteishd again! Very excited to begin working with this amazingly talented team @zmilap @itsBhushanKumar @nikkhiladvani @tarasutaria__ @TSeries @EmmayEntertain See u on 2nd OCTOBER 2019" A love worth dying for Presenting #Marjaavaan .A thrilling game of love and death with @Riteishd again! Very excited to begin working with this amazingly talented team @zmilap @itsBhushanKumar @nikkhiladvani @tarasutaria__ @TSeries @EmmayEntertain See u on 2nd OCTOBER 2019 pic.twitter.com/ydMFWN9wNV Sidharth Malhotra (@S1dharthM) October 31, 2018 Nikkhil Advani, who produces the movie with Bhushan Kumar's T-Series told Mumbai Mirror, "This time too, the expectations are high as Sidharth and Riteish have delivered a huge hit in the past. Also, with Milap at the helm post the confidence he has gained from Satyameva Jayate and his strength in the dialogue and drama department we are confident we have another winner. Tara joining the team just adds to the freshness and excitement. Her character is one of the USPs of the film." Post the blockbuster success of Johan Abraham starrer Satyameva Jayate, Bhushan Kumar is excited about his next collaboration with Nikkhil, he said, We have together backed Milaps earlier film and are confident of this family entertainer. Apart from an engaging story, the film will boast of a wonderfully curated musical score to highlight the love story." The forthcoming film is targeting a Dussehra release as Raavan plays a significant role in the plot. Speaking of which, Nikkhil further told the daily, "So, its a long Dussehra weekend and Raavan plays a significant role in the plot too so its the ideal date for us." Marjaavaan is slated to go on floors by December this year and is expected to wrap up shoot by March. Bagging her first tele-serial Maharani on Star Suvarna, Rashmitha Changappa who hails from Coorg and also has a Mangaluru connection speaks with Bengaluru Chronicle on what led her into a career in television, and about her talent as a lyricist, and more. She is the latest queen to hit the small screen in Kannada. The architect with an engineering degree ventured into acting and has not looked back. Interestingly, she has also acted in two Tulu movies, and is currently shooting for a couple of Kannada movies as well. Bagging her first tele-serial Maharani on Star Suvarna, Rashmitha Changappa who hails from Coorg and also has a Mangaluru connection speaks with Bengaluru Chronicle on what led her into a career in television, and about her talent as a lyricist, and more. It was a huge surprise when I found out that I had made it through to the audition for a brand new serial on Star Suvarna. In fact, the channel had auditioned several talented girls, before I gave it a shot. I was one among the last few to do so. I had little hope about being chosen, and had left to Mangaluru to promote my Tulu movie. Surprisingly, I was asked to take a screen test, and I rushed back to Bengaluru, and everything fell into place. It was a moment of great satisfaction as my mother, a big fan of Kannada television, always wanted to see me perform on the small screen, says Rashmitha Changappa. Before venturing into acting, the actress reveals that she worked as a junior architect after completing her civil engineering degree in the coastal city. A Kodava by birth, I have been living with my parents in Mangaluru as my father runs a business there. I am well-versed in Tulu too, thus I got an opportunity to work in Tulu movies. Though none of my family members have any connection with the industry, I was always fascinated with the performing arts, she explains. During college, and post engineering, she was a part of a small group which performed street plays, creating awareness among the public on various social issues. Later, I took up an architects job, and worked for over a year before I quit to take up films. I am presently shooting for a Kannada film which is yet-to-be titled. It is being directed by Srinivas Kaushik, who earlier directed the film Angaaraka starring Prajwal Devaraj and Pranitha Subhash. Recently, another movie titled Geleya was launched too, Rashmitha says. Her Tulu movie Yara Ullerge which was released in September this year is running to full houses in Dakshina Kannada districts, and across the state. Another one in Tulu, titled Kambalabettu Bhatrena Magal is also due for release in the coming weeks. In her debut serial, Maharani, she plays a village girl who takes care of her siblings, and the story takes a twist when a rich grandmother who is in search of her granddaughter crosses paths with Rashmitha. Before wrapping up, Rashmitha says that she has also penned a song for the upcoming Kannada movie titled Kannada Deshadol. Writing is my other passion, and when the makers approached me with a request, I penned a song for the film which talks about Karavali (coastal), its culture, life and traditions. The most anticipated and the biggest multi-starrer in Tollywood is set to go on floors soon. Although director S.S. Rajamouli has been guarded about the films theme, story and plot, heres an interesting titbit about the project. We have reliably learnt that this film, starring Ram Charan and Jr NTR, will be a period drama. The story will unfold against the backdrop of the 20s. A source informs, Rajamoulis father and writer Vijayendra Prasad has penned a gripping drama thatll show both the stars, Charan and Jr NTR, in a new light without affecting their respective market images. Since the director has earlier worked on themes like rebirths and on period dramas, itll be interesting to see how he gives a different spin to this period drama. To create a setting that reflects the times, the filmmaker has erected a huge set near Gandipet where a major portion of the first schedule will be shot. The source adds, The preparations for the set work are in full swing and nearing completion. While some action sequences will be shot at another set in the aluminium factory, major portions will be shot at the Gandipet set on the citys outskirts. Meanwhile, Ram Charan, who has been shooting for director Boyapati Sreenu, will apparently take a 10-day break from the ongoing project to commence shooting scenes alongside Jr NTR for Rajamoulis film. The source adds, Both the actors are supposed to shoot together in November as per the original plan. And Charan wants to stick to the original plan. Despite the delay in Boyapatis film, Charan wants to make sure that Rajamoulis film schedule remains unaffected. So, he is taking a 10-day break to join Rajamoulis film. HT05 Girls given four or more types of the drugs were 50 per cent more likely to become obese. (Photo: Pixabay) A new study now says that giving antibiotics to babies and toddlers given antibiotics makes them more likely to become obese. The study, on 30,000 children found that those prescribed antibiotics during their first two years of life had a 26 per cent higher risk of obesity. The study found that the longer the children took the drugs and the more classes of antibiotics they had taken, the greater the risk of obesity was. Girls given four or more types of the drugs were 50 per cent more likely to become obese. Researchers say that these powerful drugs can kill off important bacteria in the gut which help to regulate body weight. Speaking about it, Dr Cade Nylund from the University of the Health Sciences in Maryland, senior author of the study said that there are too many unnecessary antibiotics being prescribed to infants who may not need them, for things like common colds. He added, We have to be careful about medications which might risk obesity because people who are obese in childhood typically increase their weight in adulthood, putting them in danger of high blood pressure, diabetes and heart problems. The survey showed there was a particular risk for boys and for children born by caesarean section, who are believed to miss out on important gut bacteria transferred through the birth canal. Britain's Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex during their visit to Rainbow Springs to learn more about the centre's kiwi breeding programme in Rotorua, New Zealand, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. (Photo: AP) ROTORUA, New Zealand - Prince Harry and wife Meghan examined the navel, nostrils and whiskers on New Zealand's flightless kiwi bird and got to name two tiny chicks on the final day of their 16-day tour of the South Pacific. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex visited a kiwi hatchery in the town of Rotorua on Wednesday and learned about the breeding program for the threatened birds, which are considered national icons. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex then moved to watch the Haka Powhiri, the Dance of Welcome, outside the Wharenui. #RoyalVisitNZ pic.twitter.com/tTWF6WZ6cl Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) October 31, 2018 They gave the 3-day-old kiwi chicks indigenous Maori names: "Koha" meaning "gift" and "Tihei" meaning "sneeze," from the Maori saying "tihei mauri ora" meaning "the sneeze of life" or the right to speak. The names were gender neutral because their sexes haven't yet been identified. The couple also visited a Maori meeting grounds or "marae," went for a public walkabout and strolled through a redwood forest as they finally enjoyed sunny weather after their stop in New Zealand had earlier been dampened with rain. A spectacular Haka Powhiri was performed by the Te Arawa people as The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrived in Rotorua. #RoyalVisitNZ pic.twitter.com/HniJCkaBPh Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) October 31, 2018 At the Te Papaiouru Marae, the couple attended a formal welcoming ceremony and luncheon and were each given striking Maori cloaks, or "korowai." Harry and Meghan arrived in New Zealand on Sunday after earlier visiting Australia, Fiji and Tonga. During public walkabouts they have been greeted by hundreds of enthusiastic fans. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said this week there seems to be little appetite for changing New Zealand from a constitutional monarchy that recognizes Britain's Queen Elizabeth II to a republic. "I do not pick up from the New Zealand public that this is high on their agenda. That this is an issue that they see of such importance that we need to be debating it in the current environment for New Zealand," she said. "And I take my steer from them." On the trip, Meghan has shown she is prepared to continue speaking out about feminist issues in her new role as a royal. In Wellington, she gave a speech congratulating the country on becoming the first in the world to allow women to vote some 125 years ago. Citing that there is staff shortage in the civic body, Gangambike assured that measures will be taken to recruit necessary staff and help speed up development works. Bengaluru: Those illegally dumping garbage on the street corners should now watch out. Mayor Gangambike has now sought the help of police department to curb this menace, which has led to creation of black spots across the city. Addressing the monthly council meet on Wednesday, Gangambike said, "We have written a letter to the city Police Commissioner Suneel Kumar seeking his help to curb the illegal garbage dumping." She was confident that with the help of police they can keep a vigil and prevent people from illegally dumping garbage. While Gangambikes first council meet was adjourned after paying respect to deputy mayor Ramila, who died recently. Gangambike sought the support of all the 198 corporators to improve the citys garbage situation. Ruling party leader Shiv Raj and leader of opposition Padmanabha Reddy expressed their support. Citing that there is staff shortage in the civic body, Gangambike assured that measures will be taken to recruit necessary staff and help speed up development works. She requested officials and Corporators to take up complaints related to potholes and garbage seriously and solve them immediately. Kozhikode: As the High Court ultimatum to remove illegal hoardings and flex boards at public places ends in October, there was a massive crackdown on them in the last few days. The special squad removed more than 1000 flex boards and hoardings in Azhiyur grama panchayat on Tuesday and Wednesday. "The National Highway-66 stretch, from Poozhithala to Mukkali were cleared on Tuesday. Boards and other decorative items put up at Kunjipally, Mukkali and Chombala harbour were removed on Wednesday," said Azhiyur panchayat secretary T. Shahul Hameed. The panchayat had convened an all-party meet, and all agreed not to put up illegal hoardings. As per HC order, from November application should be furnished to the LSG body concerned to place a hoarding in public place. "The spot of the hoarding to be placed, the material, the display content etc. should be made clear in the application. If the LSG sanctions permission, the hoarding could be erected for a maximum period of 60 days," says Vadakara Municipal Corporation chair K. Sreedharan. Flex material should not be used if it was banned in the LSG concerned. Hyderabad: The idea of India as a nation has remained contentious in academia.Notwithstanding the cultural unity that the Indian subcontinent has had from times immemorial, the idea of nation state was a recent one. Its a fact that India would not have been one political entity but for the contribution made by the Iron Man of India. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patels contribution was not limited to bringing over 562 princely states under one umbrella by demonstrating extraordinary political acumen, but extended to taking some candid decisions. One such was Operation Polo. Sardar Patel handled the issue of Hyderabad samsthan at a critical juncture. The Razakars were committing horrendous crimes on the people, especially the Hindus, while the Nizam was toying with the idea of either making Hyderabad an independent country or merging it with Pakistan on the lines of East Pakistan. Inspired by the slogan of Vande Mataram, the people of Hyderabad samsthan fought for three causes: against Razakars, for the liberation of Hyderabad Samsthan and for the unification of Hyderabad into the Indian Union. In September 1948, Razakars massacred Hindus and committed heinous crimes. Incidents such as Parakala and Bairanpally took place. This proved the last straw. The fact that Nehru was tentative and the Cabinet was divided on the issue did not deter the Iron Man from taking the tough decision. As a consequence of Operation Polo, the Nizam surrendered on September 17, 1948, and Hyderabad samsthan got merged with the Indian Union. This is a momentous occasion in history. But for Sardar Patel, Hyderabad samsthan would not have been part of the Indian Union. Owing to Congress type of politics, the mega contributions of Sardar Patel were ignored and certain deeds of Congress leaders were blown out of proportion. In due recognition of the fact that the monumental contribution made by Sardar Patel did not get adequate recognition and with an objective to set certain historical fallacies right, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the decision to instal the statue of Sardar Patel and dedicate it to the nation. Mr Modi has been trying to bring to the fore those leaders who were marginalised by the Nehruvian discourse. Seventy years of history of post-independent India is a mute witness to the neglect by the successive governments of the monumental contribution made by Sardar Patel. This is the minimum we as a nation could offer the chief architect of the modern Indian nation. The writer is BJP national executive member, president of the Hyderabad BJP unit and member of Bar Council of India. Hyderabad: Eight student leaders of Osmania University attacked the finance head and managing trustee of an international school in the city, on Tuesday after the school refused to provide a school bus for a rally The school authorities alleged the student leaders demanded that the management contribute Rs 50,000 for the rally. The students created a ruckus when the management declined to pay. The school management lodged a complaint against the students at the Nallakunta police station. The student leaders denied the allegations made by the management. A school official told this newspaper: Eight students attacked our school finance head and managing trustee and they used abusive language. They wanted us to provide a school bus for their rally. When we refused, they asked us for Rs 50,000 donation. When the 68-year-old woman official refused saying that it was not possible for us as this is a trust-run school, they started creating a ruckus. They pushed down all the things on table and abused her verbally. They also manhandled our watchman. Asked about the incident, Mr B. Swamy Goud, OU president, Telangana BC Students Association said, We were conducting a rally for which we asked them to provide a school bus and some contribution. They first promised to provide a bus but refused later. We did not create any ruckus but we did ask them to help us for the rally. Later the issue was resolved at the Nallakunta police station. It said Chidambaram, being a senior advocate practising in the Supreme Court, a Rajya Sabha MP and former union minister, 'is a highly influential and well connected individual'. (Photo: File | PTI) New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday told a Delhi court that custodial interrogation of former Union minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram was necessary in the Aircel-Maxis money laundering case to unravel the truth as he was evasive and non-cooperative in the probe. The ED opposed his anticipatory bail saying that from the conduct of Chidambaram, who is a "highly influential and well connected individual", there was a serious apprehension of his influencing the witnesses and tampering with evidence pertaining in the case. The agency sought custodial interrogation of Chidambaram on the ground that he has not been cooperating with it in the probe and hence making it difficult complete the investigation in a time bound manner as directed by the Supreme Court. The agency, which filed its response to the anticipatory bail plea of Chidambaram, said that he has remained evasive and therefore grant of pre-arrest bail at this stage would be highly detrimental to the investigation. "From the conduct of the petitioner, which gets amply demonstrated from the records available, the investigating agency has reached a bonafide conclusion that in the absence of custodial interrogation it will not be possible to reach the truth of the allegations as the petitioner has chosen to be evasive and non-cooperative," the agency said. It said Chidambaram, being a senior advocate practising in the Supreme Court, a Rajya Sabha MP and former union minister, "is a highly influential and well connected individual. Therefore, there is a serious apprehension of the applicant influencing witnesses or tampering with evidence pertaining to the present case." The agency said that the investigation pertaining to FIPB approval fraudulently granted by Chidambaram has got several dimensions having wide ramifications. The investigation, it added, has been concluded to some extent and with regard to certain issues was still going on. The hearing on Chidambaram's plea will take place before Special Judge O P Saini on Thursday. The court had on October 8 extended till November 1 the interim protection from arrest granted to Chidambaram and his son Karti in the Aircel-Maxis case filed by the CBI and the ED. Chidambaram had filed the plea for protection from arrest in the ED case on May 30 this year after which he got relief from the court on various occasions. The agency on October 25 had filed charge sheet against Chidambaram in the Aircel-Maxis money laundering case, accusing him of conspiring with foreign investors to clear their venture. The others named in the charge sheet filed are: V Srinivasan (former CEO of Aircel), Augustus Ralph Marshall (associated with Maxis), Astro All Asia Networks Plc Malaysia, Aircel Televentures Ltd, Maxis Mobile Services Sdn Bhd, Bumi Armada Berhad, Bumi Armada Navigation Sdn Bhd. The nine are accused of money laundering of Rs 1.16 crore in lieu of illegal approval by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) accorded by the former minister in March 2006. The approval was given to the foreign investor Global Communication and Services Holdings Limited, Mauritius in violation of the various rules and regulations governing the FDI policy in India. Filing the second supplementary charge sheet, the ED had said: "As per rules and FDI policy of Government of India in 2006, Chidambaram, the then Finance Minister was empowered to give approval of the foreign investment to the proposals involving foreign investment up to Rs 600 crore only." The foreign investment proposal of Global Communication and Services Holdings Limited was of USD 800 million which amounted to Rs 3,560 crore approximately (when 1 USD was Rs 44.5), it had said. "The foreign investment proposal of Global Communication and Services Holdings Limited should have been referred to Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) but it was not done and approved by Chidambaram under a conspiracy," ED said. ED had filed the first charge sheet in the case against Karti; later, a supplementary charge sheet was also filed against him. The first charge sheet in the case was filed against Karti on June 13 which claimed that he controlled two firms which allegedly received Rs 1.16 crore as bribe money in the Aircel-Maxis money laundering case. The ED had registered the case under the sections of Prevention of Money Laundering Act on February 7, 2012 on basis of an FIR registered by the CBI. The agency had mentioned that the former Union minister's son has been linked with various individuals and companies involved in the FIPB approval given to the Aircel-Maxis deal. The senior Congress leader's role has come under the scanner of investigating agencies in the Rs 3,500-crore Aircel-Maxis deal and the INX Media case involving Rs 305 crore. In its charge sheet filed earlier in the case against former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi Maran and others, the agency had alleged that Chidambaram had granted an FIPB approval in March, 2006 to Mauritius-based Global Communication Services Holdings Ltd, a subsidiary of Maxis. The Maran brothers and the other accused named in the CBI charge sheet were discharged by the special court, which had said the agency had failed to produce any material against them to proceed with the trial. The ED is also probing a separate money-laundering case in the Aircel-Maxis matter, in which Chidambaram and Karti have been questioned by the agency. A senior police officer, Dr K. Fakeerappa, said that in over 90 per cent of rape cases, the accused were known to the victims. Visakhapatnam: Over 45 per cent of the total rape cases registered in various parts of Andhra Pradesh in the past two years pertain to accusations of sex under false promise of marriage. Just as promises of marriage can be fraudulent, senior advocates say that certain grey areas in Section 375 of IPC allow a complainant to take advantage of the situation when a relationship turns sours and ends. The AP police data reveals that in 2018 (January to September), AP recorded 739 rape cases while it was 751 in 2017 in the same period. Of the total 739 rape cases in 2018, 45 per cent (339) of the rape cases were related to false promise of marriage while 242 cases were actual sexual assault, 137 cases were booked under elopement and 21 cases came under consensual relationship. A senior police officer, Dr K. Fakeerappa, said that in over 90 per cent of rape cases, the accused were known to the victims. The accused were either friends, neighbours or colleagues of the victims in most of the cases. This made prevention of such crimes comparatively more difficult for the men-in-uniform as they were committed in private spaces, he added. Stating that the woman was the ultimate victim in any kind of rape case, social activist K. Padma, said if a man was living with a woman and promised to marry her, he would have to stick to his commitment. Ironically in most cases, the rape accused were acquitted by the court in the absence of proper investigation or evidence, she added. Senior advocate and president of the Forum of Legal Professionals, Kuppili Muralidhar, said, establishing sexual relationship with a woman on false promise of marriage amounted to rape. However, various courts in the country had expressed concern over the rise in false rape cases, he added. Anupam Kher esigned as the chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), citing busy schedule. Mumbai: Anupam Kher on Wednesday resigned as the chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), citing busy schedule. In his resignation letter to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Kher cited his commitment to international television show for which he has to be stationed in the US for nine months as reason for stepping down. Kher in his resignation letter to I&B Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore said, "Given this assignment it would not be fair to me, the students and management team, for me to hold a position of such responsibility and accountability, without being actively involved in the operations." His resignation letter has been accepted by Rathore, who thanked Kher for his services to FTII, sources told news agency PTI. Anupam Kher resignation letter to I&B Ministry. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) Kher was appointed as the chairman of the premier film and television institute on October 11, 2017. He had replaced Gajendra Chauhan, who had a controversial tenure, as the head of the Pune-based institute. The actor has recently wrapped up shooting of 'The Accidental Prime Minister' a political drama on former PM Manmohan Singh. Dr Suman, a donor mother, said, I am a paediatrician and knowing how important mothers milk is to the baby made me realise that when I have excess milk, I did not want to waste this liquid gold. (Representional Image) Bengaluru: The first anniversary of Bengalurus first public human milk bank, Amaara, was celebrated on Tuesday by Fortis La Femme, Richmond Road in association with the Breast Milk Foundation (BMF), a non-profit organisation within the GNS foundation. Amaara is an initiative in line with the World Health Organisation (WHO) Millennium Development Goals of reducing infant mortality rate. The WHO and the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) recommend that the best feed for a baby who cannot be breastfed is milk expressed from own mother or from another healthy mother. The hospital has pioneered a collection system in which a mother can express the milk in the comfort of her home, which is collected by a carrier from the bank in specialised freezer boxes and transported to the bank to be sent to a premature baby whenever needed, said Mr Srikant Subudhi, Facility Director, Fortis La Femme. BMF Founder Dr Ankit Srivastava highlighted BMFs efforts in raising awareness and hope to open more such branches. Dr Raghuram Mallaiah, Director Neonatology, Fortis La Femme, and co-founder Amaara, said, In India, prematurity and low birth weight are the biggest contributors of neonatal/infant mortality. According to recent government surveys, prematurity is among the 10 most common causes of mortality in all age groups. Donating human milk goes a long way in helping save these vulnerable babies and decreasing infant mortality. So far, 31 hospitals have been using the services of Fortis La Femmes Pasteurised Donor Breast Milk and 176 preterm babies have benefited. But the demand is steadily growing, pointed out Dr Sreenath Manikanti, Head, Neonatology, Fortis La Femme. Dr Suman, a donor mother, said, I am a paediatrician and knowing how important mothers milk is to the baby made me realise that when I have excess milk, I did not want to waste this liquid gold. I wish milk banks like Amaara can start their services in other cities too. A recipient mother, Shwetha Kamath, said, My babies were premature triplets delivered at 31 weeks and weighed 1.5 kg each. I did not have enough breast milk to feed them all and was worried about their nutrition. Amaara milk bank was the God send for me and my babies. They were in NICU for three weeks and at the time of their discharge they were healthy enough with the nutrition from donor milk. Zinc and Lithium in Ireland Bob Moriarty Archives Oct 31, 2018 I just got back from an interesting visit to Ireland. From 1975 to 1985 I was working flying small aircraft to new owners all over the world. Gander Newfoundland and Shannon Ireland were natural jumping off points for ferry pilots. The distance between the two via a great circle route is 1922 nautical miles. Give me five minutes and a glance at a wind chart and I could generate a flight plan from memory. I must have flown it 150 times and stayed in Shannon 80-100 times. And after I flew under the Eiffel Tower I was smart enough to continue on to Shannon from Paris. Forty years ago Ireland was a different world than today. In 1841 the population was over 8.1 million people. It was one of the most densely populated countries in Europe. After the famine from 1845 until about 1850 the population was cut in half and has only now grown back up to 4.8 million. All that I saw during the 1970s and 1980s was a land without opportunity. For a century Ireland's biggest export was its young people. I remember reading something in one of my trips that 47% of the GDP went for cigarettes and booze. It was a land without hope. Im not a EU fan. It was ill conceived and I think doomed to failure. However Ireland benefited greatly. While we were driving around the country visiting different projects it seemed the construction industry was booming. The hotels were inexpensive and comfortable. The food was magnificent. In the 1970s I used to say that in Ireland all you ate were boiled potatoes, boiled meat and boiled carrots. The only way to tell the difference was the color. The carrots were pale yellow and the meat was a dismal gray. Everything tasted exactly the same, carrots, meat and potato. It was dismal then but dismal no more. Lithium was popular in early 2018 after a short rally from December of 2017 until February of 2018. Redzone Resources soared from $.20 in early December to $.75 a share in January. Redzone with 23 million shares was doing very well. A lack of news and a dull stock market for resources has brought the share price back to as low as $.10 recently even in the face of good exploration progress. I talked to Redzone management and learned they were announcing an option on a major lithium project in Ireland. Since I was traveling to the country to see a young and upcoming zinc company I managed to fit in visits to both companies during the same week. On October 23rd Redzone announced an option for up to 90% of a highly potential lithium property in Ireland. What they call the North West Leinster lithium project is not really a Plan B for the company. An extraordinary opportunity jumped up and company president Michael Murphy jumped on it. Ireland has an interesting and long history with lithium. I visited the project with Wilson Robb last week. A year ago he had been chatting with someone at the geological survey for Ireland and casually asked if anything interesting had opened up. And the North West Leinster Lithium project literally fell into his hands for the cost of two years property payments. He looked around the industry for a good junior to vend the property into and discovered Redzone. The deal makes a lot of sense. All of the money goes into the ground and REZ can earn up to 90%. The option requires REZ to spend 1 million Euros within two years to earn 51% of the property. They can earn a further 24% by spending another 2 million Euros within five years. And the last 15% requires a PEA from Redzone and a cash/stock payment to the vendor of 500,000 Euros. A Chinese lithium producer named Ganfeng Lithium has been in a JV with a Canadian junior named International Lithium on a project just to the Southeast of the North West Leinster property. Ganfeng Lithium has agreed to spend $10 million to earn 79% of ILCs Avalonia project. ILC has two drills turning on the project and has intersections of up to 2.23% Li2O over 23 meters. That is a home run intercept. The Irish government seems to be highly mining friendly and has conducted various regional geological studies over the years and made the information freely available. Clearly the potential as shown in the government surveys suggests the North West Leinster project to have even more potential than the ILC Avalonia project. So Redzone is picking up an option on a superior lithium project over a Chinese lithium producer funded project and doing so at 1/3 of the price. With Redzone share price in the dumps but still with almost $1 million in the kitty, I suggested to Michael Murphy that he start drilling off his Arizona project but conduct the basic groundwork in Ireland prior to drilling as soon as possible. If you like lithium, you should be looking at Redzone. They are now a two-pronged fork. The second company I visited last week in Ireland is named Group Eleven Resources (ZNG-V). Im not a big fan of the name but I am a big fan of both the commodity and the company. Group Eleven is a zinc company and zinc is both in short-term and long-term shortage. Mines are being shut down and the industry realized years ago that we need to be opening new zinc mines as old mines become deleted. Bart Jaworski is the tactical genius behind Group Eleven. He saw the dismal state of the resource markets back in 2015 and realized that even the majors were dumping projects in order to clean up their balance sheets. He wanted to rationalize zinc production in Ireland and succeeded. He put together a giant package of three major projects any of which would be considers as having company making potential. The majors were literally giving projects away. He was smart enough to convince Mag Silver to back him politically and financially and managed a major coup in putting the three properties together. We visited all three last week. Normally I believe I can do a better job at communication than the companies I deal with. I dont care if they are poor at communication as long as they are good at either exploration or mining but in the case of Group Eleven I want anyone interested in zinc to visit the site and spend a lot of time there. The site is wonderful and covers everything about zinc and their company. Glencore Plc. has a major zinc property in Ireland they call Pallas Green near Group Elevens Stonepark zinc property. Glencore has 145,000 employees and does $200 billion a year in turnover. Mining is a tiny part of the Glencore stable yet the company has almost a 44 million ton resource at Pallas Green with two drills turning now. They have had as many as eight rigs working. Its a major project of them. Group Elevens Stonepark is higher grade and closer to the surface. There is no way Glencore is going to start a mine at Pallas Green without doing a deal with Group Eleven. Stonepark is a JV with a local Irish company eager to move the project forward. They are fully funded for this years exploration program and will have drill results coming out for months. The second major project for ZNG is Ballinalack made up of a 60% interest for Group Eleven and 40% for a Chinese company with a name so meaningless to western readers that I wouldnt write it. The Chinese company is one of the largest zinc producers in China and needs more feed. The last but not least project for ZNG is their Silvermines project that is not a silver property, its a lead, zinc property but located near a historic silver mine from the 17th century. It is 100% owned by Group Eleven. Exploration on the project was primitive and in the case of all three major projects, modern exploration should be far more effective. Im a giant fan of both Redzone and Group Eleven. Redzone still has $900,000 in the bank. Group Eleven is well cashed up with $3.5 million in the till. We need a lot more lithium and while lithium companies abound, most are flogging dead horses. Redzone has a past producing mine in Arizona and a wonderful project in Ireland next to another lower grade project that a lithium producer has made a $10 million work commitment to. Group Eleven has brilliant management and their technical team is second to none in Ireland. I love both companies. Redzone and Group Eleven are both advertisers. I have bought shares in the open market for both companies. As a shareholder naturally I am biased. Do your own due diligence. Redzone Resources REZ-V $0.13 (Oct 30, 2018) REZZF-OTCBB 23.4 million shares Redzone Resources website Group Eleven Resources ZNG-V $0.14 (Oct 30, 2018) GRLVF-OTCQB 59.8 million shares Group Eleven Resources website ### Bob Moriarty President: 321gold Archives 321gold Ltd Chennai: The CPI on Tuesday hit out at the BJP and the RSS over the Sabarimala issue, accusing them of launching a "war" against women and motherhood. CPI national secretary D Raja slammed BJP chief Amit Shah's statement threatening to "pull down" the LDF government led by Pinarayi Vijayan over the Sabarimala tussle. While the BJP and other saffron units accused the Kerala government of launching "a war against Hindus," it was the Sangh outfits that were actually targeting women in the guise of Ayyappa devotees, Raja told reporters here. He said it was the Supreme Court which had ruled in favour of entry of women of all age groups into the shrine and that it "is not a CPI (M) verdict". "Boycott of women (at Sabarimala) has come to an end. The BJP, RSS and VHP are creating violence in the name of devotees. The BJP and the RSS have launched a war against women and motherhood," Raja alleged. On Shah's recent remark that BJP workers "would not hesitate to pull down the government" if Ayyappa devotees were attacked, Raja asked whether the saffron party had the strength to do so in the state Assembly. "Is this democratic?" the Rajya Sabha MP asked. In a hard-hitting speech after inaugurating the BJP district office in Kannur Saturday, Amit Shah accused the LDF government of "conspiring against temples". He also came out in support of Ayyappa devotees, who have been protesting against the implementation of the Supreme Court's decision to allow entry of women of menstrual age into the shrine. "You concentrate on developing the state rather than attacking the Ayyappa bhakts," the BJP president had said and warned Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan that he would have to pay a "heavy price" if this continues, as BJP workers "would not hesitate to pull down the government". Hitting out at the BJP government at the Centre, Raja said parliamentary democracy and other institutions in the country were "under attack," and urged all secular forces to join hands against the government. He also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal, and urged him to speak out on the matter. Raja demanded a probe by the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC). The Rs 58,000-crore Rafale fighter jet deal has been at the centre of a raging political row with Congress accusing the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government of wrongdoing. The government has rejected all allegations. Referring to the Sri Lankan developments, Raja said the newly sworn-in Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa was president during the peak of hostilities in the island nation. There were a number of allegations of war crimes against the army then, he said. Tamils were "still struggling" for their rights, he said, and urged India to strive for their well-being. In its annual report 'Doing Business' 2019 report, World Bank said India improved on six of the 10 parameters relating to starting and doing business in a country. (Representational Image \ DC) New Delhi/Washington: India has jumped 23 places to the 77th position in the World Bank's 'ease of doing business' ranking released Wednesday, a development that could help the country attract more foreign investments. India was ranked 100th in the World Bank's Doing Business Report last year. The ranking comes as a shot in the arm for the Narendra Modi government which faces strong dissenting voices from opposition parties ahead of the general elections next year. In its annual report 'Doing Business' 2019 report, World Bank said India improved on six of the 10 parameters relating to starting and doing business in a country. These parameters include ease of starting a business, construction permits, getting electricity, getting credit, paying taxes, trade across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. India was ranked at the 142nd position among 190 nations when the Modi government came to power in 2014. It rose to 100th spot in the last ranking from the 131st rank in the previous year. New Zealand topped the list of 190 countries in ease of doing business, followed by Singapore, Denmark, and Hong Kong. The United States is placed eight and China has been ranked 46th. Neighbouring Pakistan is placed at 136. World Bank put India among the top 10 economies to make the most improvements. SNC Chief of Staff Rear Admiral RJ Nadkarni meet the crew of INS Tarangini on her return to Kochi. Kochi: The sail training ship of Indian Navy, INS Tarangini based at Kochi, returned after a seven-month sail across the world to the naval base in Kochi on Tuesday. The ship sailed over 22000 nautical miles across 15 ports in 13 countries in 205 days. The ship was recei-ved by Rear Admiral RJ Nadkarni, Chief of Staff, Southern Naval Command. The primary role of these Sail Training Ships is to develop character and professionalism, as well as inculcate the qualities of courage, resilience and perseverance, Admiral Nadkarni said. The ship and its crew have interacted with different people across countries, and she has proved to be true ambassador to the nation. This is one of the roles that all naval ships are supposed to carry out, what we call maritime diplomacy, he said. The voyage named Lokayan 18 was flag-ged off on April 10 from Kochi to sail acr-oss the Arabian Sea, Red Sea, Suez Canal, Mediterranean Sea, Strait of Gibraltar, North Atlantic Ocean, Bay of Biscay, English Channel and North Sea, right up to Norway. The ship also participated in the culminating event of the Three Festival Tall Ships Regatta at Bordeaux, France, as well as the Tall Ships Races Europe 2018 which started at Sunderland, UK and touched Esbj-erg, Denmark and Sta-vanger, Norway before finishing at Harlingen, Netherlands. We were the only country outside Euro-pe which participated in all these events. Only advanced countries do these kinds of sea training and we are happy to have projected our own maritime heritage over there, said Comman-der Rahul Mehta, captain of INS Tarangini. The ship head to Mu-scat next month along with INS Sudarshini and Omans Zinat al Bihaar to participate in the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium. The navy officials said that the ship will soon be put for maintenance for few days before the journey on November 13. It is a three masted 'square rigged' barque and also is the first Sail Training Ship in Indian Navy commissioned on 11 November 1997. The ship has sailed over 2,20,000 nautical miles in 21 years across the world's oceans. It has a crew of nine officers and 43 sailors and can also embark 30 Officer Sea Trainees. Tarangini had been earlier deployed for long voyages, which includes one circumnavigation of the globe in 2003 and three previous Lokayans in 2005, 2007 and 2015. Kasargod: Chandera police has filed a case against a person for threatening to kill the Chief Minister in a Facebook post. The case was framed against one K.C Ranjith of Valiyapoil, Cheemeni in Kasargod. DYFI block secretary Rajeesh Vellat had filed the plaint regarding the threat. Ranjith, in the name Ranjith Poduval, had stated that if needed, Pinarayi Vijayan should be killed to sustain the customs at Sabarimala in his FB post. No Pinarayi can change the decades old customs prevailing at Sabarimala. If Pinarayi should be killed for that, that should be done to keep the faith of believers, said Ranjith Poduval. Besides, he had also used abusive terms against the Chief Minister. IPC sections including 506 (Punishment for criminal intimidation) have been slapped. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Union Minister for Shipping and Road Transport Nitin Gadkari during the foundation laying ceremony of dry dock in Kochi on Tuesday. ARUN CHANDRABOSE Kochi: The Cochin Shipyards Rs 1,799 crore dry dock project is expected to increase the countrys share in global shipbuilding to two per cent, says Nitin Gadkari, Union minister for shipping, road transport and highways. Speaking after laying the foundation for Indias largest dry dock here, he said at present the country's share is 0.66 per cent. He ruled out the possibility of privatising the shipyard. The profit-making Cochin Shipyard will not be privatised. We will never allow a private person to take this because the Cochin Shipyard is in good profit, he said. The Rs 3,200 crore commercial shipbuilding industry in the country focuses primarily on small-medium sized offshore vessels and cargo or bulk carriers. The new drydock will be 310 m long and 75 m wide with a depth of 13 m and a drought of 9.5 m and designed to handle both shipbuilding and repairs. It can bear a load up to 600 T/m with international safety standards. It will have a water treatment plant and green belt development. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said CSLs project would pave the way to the development of the country along with the growth of Kerala. "Kerala government is giving great importance to the inland water transport and water based-tourism projects," he said. "The completion of the Vizhinjam harbour will play a significant role in the development of logistics and tourism sectors." Gadkari praises Pinarayi Union minister of shipping, road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari has praised chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan for progress in the national highway and GAIL pipeline laying. The land acquisition process for the expansion of the national highways gained traction after Mr Vijayan became the CM, Mr Gadkari said in Kannur after laying the foundation of three NH projects. He lauded his role in the completion of the land acquisition for the GAIL pipeline project to evacuate gas from the Petronet LNG terminal here. Mr Gadkari said the Union government had provided `450 crore for rebuilding infrastructure following the floods. Kochi: The high court on Tuesday rejected a petition seeking judicial probe into the recent violence at Sabarimala holding it would not like to interfere on the discretionary powers of the government. The security of Sabarimala is a matter coming under the discretionary power of the state government, and the court has limitations, it held. It is for the state cabinet to decide on ordering a judicial probe and for the government to issue the necessary notification, the court observed. Rajendran, a native of Kollam, approached the court seeking a judicial probe on the incidents in Sabarimala Sannidhanam, Nilakkal and Pamba during October 17-20 when the temple was open for monthly pujas. The petitioner also alleged a conspiracy in the attempt by Rehana Fathima to enter Sabarimala and sought a probe into the role of IGs Manoj Abraham and S. Sreejith. In another petition, the court asked the government to keep it informed of all decisions taken by the government in connection with the Sabarimala pilgrimage. It directed the government and the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) to inform the court about the arrangements in time. The court asked the government whether it has issued any directive to the TDB in contravention to the existing rules. It sought details of timings for visits to the hill shrine newly set by the government and posted the case for further hearing on Monday. Kochi; The family members of Ayyappa Dharma Sena president Rahul Easwar, including his grandmother, mother and wife, rejected the #MeToo allegations raised against the activist. Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, Devaki Antharjanam, 83, Rahuls grandmother, said that he is a true Ayyappa devotee and that has been active in issues related to religious faith. It is unfortunate that he is being insulted for actively intervening in issues connected with Sabarimala and other Hindu temples, she said. Mallika Namboothiri, Rahuls mother, termed the allegations as baseless. It is part of deliberate attempts to keep Rahul away from Sabarimala on November 5 when the temple will be opened for poojas. We will support Rahul who has been fighting for the interests of devotees, she said. Rahuls wife Deepa remarked that though she has respect for the #MeToo movement, such fabricated complaints would ruin its credibility. The allegations are fabricated and on the day when the alleged incident happened, there were four persons in Rahuls home. It is unfair that character assassination is being conducted raising false allegations, she said. Rahul alleged that the state government was haunting Ayyappa devotees. I expect more false allegations against me before November 5 and 13 when the Sabarimala temple will be opened. #MeToo allegations against me are a conspiracy of ultra radical feminist groups, he said. Rauf of Nadamalpoyil lost his palm in an accident at a sawmill in Manipuram, the hospital said in a press release on Tuesday. (Representational Images) Kozhikode: A rare surgery held at a private hospital here has corrected the severed palm of a 22-year-old man. Rauf of Nadamalpoyil lost his palm in an accident at a sawmill in Manipuram, the hospital said in a press release on Tuesday. On October 5, he was there for buying wood. Suddenly a stampeding bull dashed at him. While running for life, he accidentally ran into the working sawmill resulting in the severing of his palm. People immediately rushed him along with severed palm to Aster MIMS Hospital. The plastic surgery team led by Dr Krishna Kumar, senior consultant and head, plastic and reconstructive surgery department, sutured the severed palm in a 12-hour-long two-stage surgery. The first which took more than seven hours reattached his tiny blood vessels and bones. Three days later, doctors were able to reconstruct his nerves and muscles in five hours. Mr Rauf left the hospital four days later, and his hand has regained 90 per cent of its functionality. Hyderabad: Telangana state government employees will observe October 31 as Rashtriya Ekta Divas. The employees have been asked to assemble at the secretariat 10.55 am on Wednesday to take a pledge on unity. The pledge will be: I solemnly pledge that I dedicate myself to preserve the unity, integrity and security of the nation and also to strive hard to spread this message among my fellow countrymen. I take this pledge in the spirit of unification of my country which was made possible by the vision and actions of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. I also solemnly resolve to make my own contribution to ensure internal security of my country. Hyderabad: Telangana and Maharashtra are among the states to tap quickly into the growing demand for Data Centres by coming up with several incentive schemes for the sector. Jharkhand and CG too have formulated policies for the ITITeS segment as well as introduced a single-window clearance system to encourage investors. According to CBRE South Asia Pvt. Ltd report, India has seen the growth of Data Centres across all key cities, including Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Most of the demand for data centers in the country is being generated by businesses relying on internet communication and data storage. However, Mumbai, followed by Bengaluru and NCR has the highest number of Data Centre operators in the country. Considering growing adoption of cloud computing, IoT and Big Data, the demand for Data Centres to spread across different types of businesses is increasing. Furthermore, growing dependency on internet services and these advanced technologies for data management have provided additional impetus to the demand for high-quality Data Centres. The report noted that India despite having immense potential to become a Data centre hub in the Asia Pacific region, has several hurdles in this path. Several states in India are yet to formulate policies for this segment. Cumbersome approval process for the acquisition of infrastructure and prolonged environmental clearances also need to be addressed. Anshuman Magazine, Chairman, India and South-East Asia, CBRE said, India holds massive potential to become the next destination for data centres, driven by demand created by businesses. Overall, the DC market outlook looks positive on the back of the availability of land and a skilled talent pool along with a huge, untapped market. Oct 31, 2018 | By Thomas Swedish electric car company Uniti has announced plans to establish an electric vehicle pilot production plant at Silverstone Park, UK, part of the famous grand prix circuit. Uniti is developing an all-new electric two-seater Uniti One, which will be first produced at a pilot production plant by 2020. The facility, which the company is calling the UK's first fully digitised electric vehicle production site, will serve as a template for franchise production model that will influence future global production. Uniti's vision is to produce 50,000 units per year. "The UKs approach to vehicle production, with its focus on light-weighting and innovation in advanced materials, is an ideal model for electric car production globally, Uniti CEO Lewis Horne said. Uniti One target specifications: 240 km (149 miles) of range top speed: 130 km/h (81 mph) Rear wheel drive, Dual motors output of 120 kW 26 kWh battery pack, DC fast charging 25 min from 20-80% on standard charge 450 kg of curb weight, 900 kg gross weight The Uniti One car will be 100 per cent electric, could cost around 14,900 (12,980). Uniti plans to unveil its production models in late 2019 and deliver vehicles to pre-order customers throughout northern Europe shortly thereafter. The Uniti One will go on sale in late 2020, priced from 14,900 (12,980). Uniti has partnered with energy supplier E.ON to provide a unique benefit for their Swedish customers. With each purchase of a Uniti car in Sweden, E.ON customers will receive five years worth of energy for charging their car at home. Uniti claims that the One emits 75 percent less carbon-dioxide over a lifecycle than many of today's EVs. Uniti CEO Horne said the electric vehicle, developed as part of a three-year program, is made from recyclable carbon fiber and organic composite materials to reduce its environmental impact. Horne explained that these materials can be manufactured via a fully automated process. Because of the cars scalable design the company will be able to offer it with 2, 4 or 5 seats. The digital design process from car to factory automation is pretty fascinating check out the video below: Uniti aims to supply each market from within that market. With the help of Siemens' 'digital twinning' technology, Uniti is able to design and crash test its models digitally. It it can send all the blueprints and plans to its new plant where its robots will make the car per the specifications in the digital files. ""Once the Uniti pilot plant facility is fully operational, we can take this blueprint global," says the company. The company is now taking 149 deposits. Following a successful crowdfunding campaign on their own website, the company has received some 3,000 pre-orders for its first model. The global electric vehicle (EV) industry is expected to be worth more than $100bn by 2020, with electric vehicles rapidly increasing their market share year on year. Aimed as the ideal second family car as a daily commuter vehicle, Its small dimensions and light weight (450kg) make it suited to city driving. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: Hyderabad: Leaders of the Mahakutami, the grand alliance of opposition parties, held discussions on Tuesday night till 2 am to finalise the seats for the upcoming Assembly elections. According to sources, Telangana Telugu Desam president, L. Ramana, Telangana Jana Samiti president, Kodandaram, and CPI Telangana state secretary, Chada Venkata Reddy, have declared they will not be contesting as candidates. They say their main aim is to end the dark rule of the TRS and so want to campaign across the state for the victory of the Mahakutami. As candidates, they would have to confine themselves to their constituencies. They have been assured by the Congress party that they will be taken into the cabinet if the Mahakutami comes to power. Messrs Ramana, Kodandaram and Chada have said that they are not after power; they just want to end TRS rule and bring in a peoples government. The alliance will put out its first list of candidates on November 2. There are expected to be more than 50 candidates from the Congress, five from the TD, three from the TJS, and two from the CPI. In the first list, Telangana TD will announce E. Peddiredy (Kukatpally), T. Veerendar Goud (Uppal), K. Dayakar Reddy (Mak-thal) or Sita Dayakar Reddy (Dvera Kadra), Erra Sekhar (Jadcherla or Mahbubnagar). From the TJS, the candidates are K Dilip Kumar (Malkajgiri), K Chandar (Ramagundam), and for Dubaka two names are being considered. From the CPI, G Mallesh (Bellam Pally) and Ramulu Naik (Vyra) are the candidates. Former MLAs and senior leaders will be in the Congress list. Sources said in the election campaign they will be called Mahakutami candidates and not Congress, TD, TJS or CPI candidates. But they will contest on their own party symbol and from their own party. For only campaign purposes they will be called Mahakutami candidates. Vijayawada: In a significant development, TD chief and AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu who has begun efforts to sew an anti-BJP front at the national level, will be meeting AICC president Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi on Thursday. Mr Naidu will be travelling to Delhi and is scheduled to meet representatives of various political parties, including Mr Gandhi. It is expected that a major announcement will be made after the meeting. In a party meeting on Wednesday evening, Mr Naidu said, Its a democratic compulsion to unite all like-minded parties against the BJP at the national level. In that endeavour I have met many leaders and I will be meeting some more, including Rahul Gandhi. There is a need to save the nation and democracy. It is learnt that while in New Delhi, Mr Naidu may unveil a plan of action Save the Nation aimed at uniting all anti-BJP forces. The meeting between Mr Naidu and Mr Gandhi assumes significance as it comes at a time the Opposition is struggling to take on the duo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah. Amidst pouring of support from various quarters at the national level to mr Naidus move, its being seen as an assertion and a bid to position himself as the mascot of the anti-BJP Front. This will be Mr Naidus second visit to New Delhi in a week. It is also learnt that from now on he will dedicate at least two days a week to national politics. Sources close to Mr Naidu said that he would explain that the BJP top two are responsible for the crises that the country faces at present and the imperative need for an alternative non-BJP government at the Centre. Incidentally, Mr Naidu had earlier met leaders like Mayawati, Arvind Kejriwal, Farooq Abdullah and Sharad Yadav. During this visit, he is expected to meet Mr Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Akhilesh Yadav, Yashwant Sinha, Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy, Mr Abdullah and others on Thursday and seek their cooperation. Khammam: Bhukya Prasad, the BJP candidate for Aswaraopet, is relying on the schemes launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to work in his favour. A doctor by profession, Dr Prasad goes about his campaign explaining the schemes implemented by the NDA government. The BJP has no strength cadre-wise in Aswaraopet, when compared to the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and Congress, which is supported by Telugu Desam. Taking on the might of these parties is a tough ask, but the BJP candidate is doing his best. KCR Kit is a good scheme, but the funds from the National Rural Health Mission are being spent on its implementation. The credit should go to Modi not KCR, he says. Though the BJP has never won from Aswaraopet constituency, Dr Prasad is confident of a victory this time. The foreign policy of the NDA government is very good. The Prime Minister is maintaining good relations with USA, China and Russia, a rarity. Make in India has also proven to be a successful slogan and the entrepreneurs have started concentrating on manufacturing, he says. BJP will increase its base in Telangana. The party has constituted booth-level committees in a majority of the polling booths. My partys top leaders will come and campaign in my favour, Dr Prasad says. When asked about the issues he sees as a doctor, he said that there are no gynaecologists in many primary health centres located in the villages. It is a major problem for the women particularly, pregnant women. I assure you I will try to get at least one gynaecologist posted in each PHC, Dr Prasad said. A native of Gandlagudem under Aswaraopet mandal, Dr Prasad completed his MBBS in Vizag and worked as medical officer in Aswaraopet. He realises that there are various issues to be resolved in the habitations of the constituency. Many of the adivasis are still bereft of basic amenities and he says that they should not be deprived of the fruits of development. Hyderabad: YSR Congress president and leader of the opposition in AP, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, on Wednesday moved the Hyderabad High Court seeking a direction for an investigation into the murder attempt on him at Visakhapatnam airport on October 25 through an appropriate independent agency not functioning under the control of the AP government and its DGP. He told the court that he moved the petition aggrieved by the abuse of the entire criminal justice administration by the AP government presided over by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu. He complained of various wrongful actions by the DGP of the state and assistant commissioner of police, North division, Visakhapatnam city, at Mr Naidus behest. He prayed for exposing and unearthing a cause of serious conspiracy that needed to be properly investigated under the criminal justice administration in terms of constitutional and legal provisions. He submitted that the failure of the respondents to undertake such action in the legally provided manner was being challenged as unlawful, ultra vires and unconstitutional under the premises indicated thereinafter. He submitted that within an hour of the attack occurring, the DGP of the state addressed a press conference indicating and stating that the assailant was a fan of YSR Congress party and the attack was apparently done for the purpose of seeking publicity as the attack was on the left shoulder. He told the court that the CM addressed a press conference on the same day stating that the attack was an orchestrated effort to defame the government and also referred to the attack as being a part of Operation Garuda undertaken by the Central government to unseat him as CM. He submitted that the CM also made various false and frivolous accusations to indicate that the attack was not a serious one by contending that after alighting at Hyderabad airport, he had gone home and, upon advice given by other political party leaders and phone calls from BJP leaders in Delhi, he had proceeded to a hospital from his house and got admitted only for the purposes of trumping up publicity. He told the court that the CM further trivialised the issue by stating that the wound on the shoulder of the petitioner was only 0.5 cm in depth; however, the doctors who had actually treated him had confirmed that the cut was indeed 3.5 cm in depth, necessitating 9 stitches, with four for a torn muscle and others for the skin. Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy submitted that it was shocking to imagine that this incident could have quite conceivably resulted in an injury to the carotid artery, resulting in fatal consequences and that this was what was primarily intended by the perpetrators and was narrowly missed, thanks to divine intervention and his reflex action. He brought to the notice of the court that the assailant was a TD sympathiser and was a senior office bearer of the partys village unit. Meanwhile, it is the mobile phone call data record (CDR) of the accused, J Srinivasa Rao alias Srinivas that is going to speak about the suspected involvement of other persons and the motive behind the attack on Jagan. The SIT intensified the investigation. Bengaluru: With just forty eight hours left for the campaign for the five Lok Sabha and Assembly by-polls to end, the barbs are flying fast and high with some of the remarks made by political leader at campaign rallies and press conferences, too hard to stomach for those used to a more refined kind of politics. Former BJP minister Gali Janardhan Reddy for one, hit below the belt remarking that former CM Siddaramaiah's son Rakesh died a couple of years ago because of his father's sins. Not to be left behind, his party colleague and BJP MLA Kumar Bangarappa let go a salvo at CM H.D. Kumaraswamy saying he too may have to face the heat of the #MeToo campaign charges! Not the one to let go an affront lightly, Mr Siddaramaiah was however dismissive of the Gali remark saying, "I do not want god to punish children for your sins." He was rewarded with appreciation from his fans and from across the political spectrum for sticking to the limits of decency. The Bangarappa-Kumaraswamy slugfest began after the CM, while speaking at a meeting late Monday evening, alleged that Kumar had thrown his late father S. Bangarappa out of his house. Hitting back on Tuesday, Kumar Bangarappa asked Kumaraswamy to refrain from making personal comments. "There are photographs of Radhika Kumaraswamy (an actress with whom the CM is romantically linked) going around in social media. I would challenge Mr Kumaraswamy to field Ms Radhika from Hassan or any other constituency or use her for campaigning in any of the constituencies," he quipped. The comments also reflected the intensity of the poll battle in Lok Sabha constituencies like Shivamogga and Ballari where the fight may go down to the wire. The five constituencies go to polls on November 3. B01 Today, as the nation celebrates the 143rd birth anniversary of Indias Iron Man, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the giant Sardar Patel statue facing the Narmada Dam, 3.2 km away on the river island called Sadhu Bet near Rajpipla in Gujarat. Standing almost 600 feet tall, it is the worlds tallest statue. The project, begun initially by the Gujarat government in December 2013, is probably the only achievement the Narendra Modi government has to show. The project, worth Rs 2,989 crores, was won by Larsen and Toubro. Initially, the total cost was estimated to be about Rs 3,001 crores, paid for by the Government of India. Initially, Mr Modi flagged it off, to be built by small contributions and crowd-funding, but like all his other projects the means were actually something else. The bronze plates, to create the likeness of Sardar Patel were imported from TQ Art Foundry, a part of the Jiangxi Toqine Company in Nanchang. Hundreds of Chinese workers also toiled at Chad Bet to assist L&T in the concreteconstruction of the statue core. The statue was as much a bold assertion of Gujarati nationalism as it was to give Narendra Modi a political lineage to distinguish him from the parent RSS, which sat out the freedom movement. Please note that he didnt build a statue of Guru Golwalkar or Deen Dayal Upadhyaya or even V.D. Savarkar. Or for that matter even Subhash Chandra Bose, who still has a far bigger imprint on our minds than Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel ever did. After Mr Modis brazen attempt to draw political sustenance from the memory of Sardar Patel, an unseemly argument has broken out between the Congress and the BJP over who are the true inheritors of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patels legacy. That the BJPs not-so-disguised attempt to arrogate it for itself in a bid to give itself a nationalist movement genealogy is a tawdry attempt to rewrite history. What Sardar Patel thought of the RSS is a matter of record. He minced no words about what he thought of it that it was fascist and narrow-minded, and was responsible for the climate of hatred that led to Gandhijis assassination. In a letter on July 18, 1948, after Gandhis murder, the Sardar wrote to Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who would later found the Jan Sangh: As a result of the activities of these two bodies (RSS and Hindu Mahasabha), particularly the former, an atmosphere was created in the country in which such a ghastly tragedy became possible. There is no doubt in my mind the extreme section of the Hindu Mahasabha was involved in this conspiracy. The activities of the RSS constituted a clear threat to the existence of the Government and the State. The RSS now has the government, but it still presents a clear and present danger to the original idea of India, as an inclusive, egalitarian nation united by a Constitution and a shared purpose. Mr Modi has invested hugely in creating the illusion that the Congress Partys preferred leader was the Sardar and that Nehru was imposed on it. Nehru became PM because he was by far the Congress most popular politician, after Gandhiji. Nehru was the partys star campaigner, captivating people with his soaring oratory and easy communication style in Hindustani. Patel might have had a firm grip on the Congress organisation, but he was far behind Nehru in popularity and charisma. Patel himself conceded this at a massively-attended Congress rally in Mumbai, when he told the celebrated American author and journalist Vincent Sheean, They come for Jawahar, not for me. Patels realism was the hallmark of his politics and that made him the perfect foil to Nehrus idealism. It is also well known that the Congress had little time for the Sardars legacy till Mr Modi tried to don it. But the Congress attempt to rediscover the Sardars legacy and claim exclusive rights over it is also no less tawdry. Even when L.K. Advani tried it was not taken seriously. But like the Sardar, Mr Modi too is a Gujarati and that has a certain resonance in that state. We know how strongly Mr Modi feels about the Gujarati identity. His unwillingness to insure the Asiatic lion against extinction by translocating a few prides emanates from this. It is well known that there were serious differences between Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel. It was less a clash of personalities as it was a clash of ideologies. The Sardar espoused a more robust and practical nationalism, and laissez faire economic policies. Nehru wanted to dismantle the colonial bureaucratic system, but Patel wanted to retain the centralised civil service structure, the price for which we are still paying. Nehru was more internationalist, more leftist than realist, and preferred central planning to free market policies. Their policy inclinations were as different as chalk and cheese. But both were patriots tempered by the nationalist movement and both were popular leaders of the Congress rank and file, and the nation as a whole. Above all, both were thorough gentlemen, and whatever their differences never disrespected each other and subverted each other with factional intrigue. They preferred a moderation in language that would now be seen as a sign of weakness. They preferred to onciliate rather than divide. It is also well known that after the death of Sardar Patel, something akin to a purge took place in the Congress and the Congress leaders who preferred to support the policies and politics espoused by the Sardar were shown their place or shown the door. The party donned socialist colours, and its transformation was complete. With this physical purge, the intellectual purge of the Congress Party also gathered pace, and Sardar Patel was practically airbrushed out of the Congress pantheon. For all practical purposes, Sardar Patel became anathema for the Congress Party, particularly after the advent of Indira Gandhi. Its another matter that after its ideological peregrinations for half a century, the Congress Party returned to the very same laissez faire economics favoured by Patel and rejected by Nehru. Congress leaders who now claim to be legatees of Sardar Patel would hardly know of him and what he stood for. For a start their language is different. Those days they belonged to a very different school of politics. Politics was about policies and grand ideas. To qualify in politics nowadays, one has to be a graduate of the school for scoundrels, where sycophancy and personality worship are the main attainments needed. Sardar Patel had a thriving law practice which he abandoned to heed the Mahatmas call, Jawaharlal Nehru was a superbly educated and highly evolved personality, and politics to him was a calling, not an occupation. Neither Narendra Modi nor Rahul Gandhi have much in them to claim such legacies. They are symptomatic of the sad days that have befallen the nation that was midwifed and contemplated by Nehru and Patel. The writer, a policy analyst studying economic and security issues, held senior positions in government and industry. He also specialises in the Chinese economy. The terrible tragedy that struck an Indonesian airliner, that also claimed the life of an experienced Indian pilot with impeccable flying credentials, comes amid key safety issues in that country. The weather was clear and the aircraft less than three months old with 800 hours of flying, but sank without a trace in the sea within minutes of taking off. The investigations will probably focus on the aircraft as its previous flight had seen a horrific, up-and-down performance, maybe due to engine issues. The ill-fated flights data also appears to show it was performing erratically after takeoff and the pilots wanted to turn back. Efforts are on to trace the plane and recover its black box, with transponder pings raising hopes. What the Indonesian crash stresses most is that even in todays environment of crowded, competitive aviation, safety must never be compromised. Relatively new to the open skies policy, Indonesia has 60 airlines competing for passengers at steep discounts and suffered around 45 crashes since 2000, besides many scares. Its aviation procedures and standards were considered so lax that the EU and the United States had barred the entry of Indonesian aircraft till very recently. Deregulation sounds good in the days of truly free markets, but it shouldnt come at the cost of quality infrastructure and global safety norms in regulating and operating flights. India is said to have sought a check of its Boeing 737MAX-8 jets, but they seem to have been cleared too quickly for total reassurance. The point is that passenger safety should get the highest priority and should not be lost sight of just for the commerce of flying millions of people. The just-ended two-day 13th India-Japan summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo is suggestive of a smoothly rising curve in the bilateral relationship. The summit yielded a slew of agreements in the economic and security areas, but it is the deepening of ties in personal interaction at the top leadership level that is the basis of the success of Mr Modis Japan visit. Before the formal talks, the two Prime Ministers held informal one-on-one conversations for practically an entire day. This raises the tally of informal dialogues of Mr Modi with major world leaders to three, the first two being China and Russia earlier this year. This is a positive development which raises the prospect of cooperation and reduces scope for misunderstanding. Chinas strong rise has raised anxieties all around. India and Japan have both had anxious moments dealing with China in recent times. In light of this, India-Japan relations appear to have moved closer over the past decade. Russia and China, on the other hand, have come closer too, especially in view of their contentious ties with the United States. And yet, India-Russia relations, which have for decades been very strong but had of late come under some pressure, too are on the mend, as Russian President Vladimir Putins recent visit to New Delhi showed. All round, then, the key Asian powers India, China and Japan are in close touch with one another. In fact, the Modi-Abe summit came on the heels of the Japanese leaders trip to China. Russia is also half an Asiatic power for all practical purposes, and has an opening to the Pacific. It is good for the Indian leadership to be on easy terms with leaders of the other three countries. Apart from the agreements in several fields, especially in infrastructure, Mr Modis recent visit to Japan points to specific forward gains in terms of security consultations in the form of a 2+2 dialogue mechanism involving the foreign and defence ministers of the two countries, and the establishment of closer ties between their navies, given their apprehensions about Chinese military role in the South and the East China Seas. An important pact on the economic and financial side is the Bilateral Currency Swap Agreement worth $75 billion, which signifies a 50 per cent increase from the agreement of the same kind signed with the government of former prime minister Manmohan Singh. This will make it possible to pay for imports and exports in the currencies of the two countries, rather than the American dollar, under certain given conditions. This is a distinct gain for India, and another pointer that India-Japan ties are gaining solidity. Brazil has a new President in Jair Bolsonaro, who won a divisive and violent contest at a time of economic upheaval amid a prolonged recession. It is yet another triumph for the far-right, as the Donald Trump of the Tropics is the spitting image of the US Presidents personality, in his proclivity for misogyny and hatred for minorities, indigenous people and gays. The swing to the right in Austria, Poland, Hungary and the Philippines is a worrying enough sign not just for liberals but for a world that seems permanently on edge in a marked intra-country polarisation, with the arrival of radicalism. This pattern is all the more frightening as Mr Bolsanaro won on a campaign pointing to rising crime, corruption scandals going right to the top and the faltering economy. Incendiary comments like calling for opponents to be shot may have stemmed from a stabbing attempt during the campaign that almost killed him. But the licentious manner in which far-right politicians are exploiting social vulnerabilities around the world in frenetic propaganda via the social media is evolving into a pattern that is frightening as none of this seems to stop with just election rhetoric. Provocative tweets and whimsical decision-making are not the only reasons to fear the rise of the far right, as their governance also leads to attacks on the press, human rights violations and a kind of laissez-faire in business, which in Brazil could harm the environment because of exploitation of the great natural resources of the Amazon rainforest. The personal chemistry is great; the compliments effusive and the avowals of friendship overwhelming. But can the relationship between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe go beyond their personal equations? That is the question that will determine whether their shared vision of a long-term strategic relationship between the two countries outlasts them. At stake is much more than just good press, diplomacy or success of a bilateral visit. India and Japan are emerging as key pivots in Indo-Pacific geopolitics and how their relationship evolves will impact not just the future of the two countries but the whole of Asia as well. Prime Minister Abe has defined his pro-India stance by declaring that he will be Indias friend for ever, and so has Prime Minister Modi by making it clear that Japan is Indias key partner both in the economic and strategic spheres as he ended a two-day visit to that country. At the heart of the Japan-India dynamic is the China factor. While this will always be unstated, it will remain key to assessing developments on the India-Japan front. Prime Minister Abe, who comes from a respected political family, is adept at political diplomacy. While he has publicly stated the need to have good relations with China, he has also taken several steps to ensure that Beijings hegemonic aspirations do not break down the strategic equilibrium in the Asian continent. This is the main reason for his relentless efforts to both raise military preparedness and forge strategic alliances with likeminded nations, including India. Most worrying for Japan is Chinas attempts to completely dominate the East China Sea and claim Japans uninhabited Senkaku Islands. Earlier this year, the Chinese sent in a nuclear attack submarine and a frigate to the island, thus violating Japans territorial integrity. Grabbing these islands would vastly extend Chinas maritime boundaries and shrink Japans. The Chinese Air Force too has been testing Japan by regularly violating its airspace. As China grows more assertive and belligerent, Prime Minister Abe knows Asia requires a counter-balance. At stake is the independence of virtually all Asian nations. This concern is at the heart of his strategic initiatives, including his support for the not so successful Quadrilateral initiative aimed at forging an alliance involving Japan, Australia, the United States and India. Prime Minister Abes strategic concerns were reflected in the joint statement issued by him and Prime Minister Modi last September, which stressed the need for safeguarding and strengthening a rules-based order and ensuring the peaceful resolution of disputes, including through full respect for legal and diplomatic processes, without resorting to the threat or use of force, and in accordance with the universally recognised principles of international law Having Japan as a strategic ally would be a huge plus for India and the Prime Minister recognises this. It is no coincidence that Japan was the first country he paid a state visit outside South Asia after his 2014 election. The shared worldview of the two Prime Ministers has helped overcome the traditional Japanese resistance to the idea of military cooperation with any country other than the United States. Japanese strategists believe that India could grow into a naval power capable of protecting the sea lanes in the Indian Ocean Region. Former Japanese ambassador to India Yasukuni Enoki had once said: Japanese energy security is dependent on the Indian Navy. The Indian Ocean has very important sea lanes. We have only the Indian Navy which can be trusted. Other navies are not as reliable. For Japanese energy security, closer relations with India are very much required. Despite this, there are a number of obstacles to the growing strategic partnership. For one, there are powerful pro-China elements in Japanese politics and, second, Beijing on its own seeks to scuttle the growing alliance. The other problem is more pragmatic. If for either India or Japan, economic stakes in the geopolitical game assume a larger role than territorial disputes, then the India-Japan strategic equation would automatically be weakened, if not wrecked. It is significant that just prior to Mr Modis visit, Mr Abe was in China leading a huge delegation comprising 500 top Japanese business leaders. This was the first visit to China by a Japanese Prime Minister in seven years. Mr Abe has not been popular in China. The Chinese leadership has criticised Prime Minister Abe for drifting away from Japans constitutional pacifism adopted after its defeat in the Second World War. They see him as a militarist, revisionist and an anti-China leader. Mr Abes 2013 visit to the Yasukuni shrine, a controversial Shinto place of worship dedicated to the Japanese who died serving their emperor during the wars from 1867 to 1951, further incensed the Chinese who saw this as an attempt to honour Japans militaristic past. The timing of this visit, however, pleased Beijing, which made it out to be a snub to Washingtons policy of increased belligerence. This promo will last between (November 29 December 3, 2018), with savings from $1,000 and 30% off rental rates to be available on Jamaica Ocean View Villa Services during that period. Ocho Rios, Jamaica Jamaica Ocean View Villa is proud to announce that starting from the 29th of November, 2018 to the 3rd of December, 2018, they would be offering amazing deals and rates for their Villa services to their numerous customers. The vacation rentals company has announced four special promotion offers; a free airfare credit from $1000 per family, the Chukka Caves percentage off rates, the Ocho Rios percentage off promo, and the three-night minimum promo. For a very limited time, families can book ahead of time to receive free airfare credit of (max $1,000 per group) on any stay booked online before Nov 29, 2018. 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This offer is valid for new reservations only, subject to change and is based on availability, cannot be combined with any other offer, and also has some restrictions that apply. For more information about Jamaica Ocean View Villas amazing offers, please visit https://jamaicaoceanviewvilla.com/cyber-monday-sale/ or send an email to cavelcapalbo@jamaicaoceanviewvilla.com Media Contact Company Name: Villa Serenity Contact Person: Cavel Capalbo Email: Send Email Phone: 410 626 6942 Country: United States Website: jamaicaoceanviewvilla.com The pieces - a basalt fragment, similar to most of the Earths volcanic rock, and bits of surface debris known as regolith - are being sold by an unidentified private American collector who purchased them in 1993. (Photo: Sothbeby's) Wealthy space buffs will have the chance to own three small particles of lunar matter when what Sothebys describes as the only known documented moon rocks to be legally available for private ownership hit the auction block in November. Sothebys said on Tuesday it expects the fragments, retrieved from the moon by a Soviet space mission in 1970, could fetch between USD 700,000 to USD 1 million at the Nov. 29 auction in New York. The pieces - a basalt fragment, similar to most of the Earths volcanic rock, and bits of surface debris known as regolith - are being sold by an unidentified private American collector who purchased them in 1993. Sothebys said in a statement they were first sold in 1993 by Nina Ivanovna Koroleva, the widow of former Soviet space program director Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. The fragments, ranging in size from about .079 inch x .079 inch (2 x 2mm) to .039 inch x .039 inch (1 x 1mm), were presented to her as a gift on behalf of the Soviet Union in recognition of her late husbands contributions to the program. Sothebys said that the particles, encased under glass with a Russian plaque, are both the only known lunar sample to have ever been officially gifted to a private party, and with documented provenance to be available for private ownership. Collectors pay huge sums for space exploration artefacts. Last year Sothebys sold a zippered bag stamped with the words Lunar Sample Return laced with moon dust which was used by Neil Armstrong for the first manned mission to the moon in 1969, for USD 1.8 million. That sale took place after NASA lost a court battle to retrieve the artefact from a private collection. Most other known samples taken from the moon remain with the two entities that collected them: the United States during the Apollo 11-17 missions and the Soviet Union via the unmanned Luna-16, Luna-20, and Luna-24 missions. A number of other countries were gifted with Apollo 11 samples and Apollo 17 goodwill moon rocks on behalf of the Nixon administration, and in most places, the law bars transferring such gifts to individuals. The particles being sold in November were retrieved in September 1970 by Luna-16 which drilled a hole in the surface to a depth of 13.8 inches (35 cm) and extracted a core sample. They are encased under glass below an adjustable lens and labelled -16 [SOIL PARTICLES FROM LUNA-16]. Tests on similar samples have dated the bits as being as much as 3.4 billion years old. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. Houston: An Indian-American couple has been honoured in the US for making significant contributions to the areas of literacy, education and healthcare in India. Marie and Vijay Goradia received the Roy M Huffington Award here recently. The Houston couple has made significant contributions in the areas of healthcare, literacy and education in India for decades now. "We are pleased to announce that Goradias are being recognized by Asia Society Texas Centre (ASTC) as the recipients of the 2018 Huffington Award," Asia Society said in a statement. "Named after our co-founder Roy M Huffington, the award is symbolic of outstanding contributions that have furthered international understanding and diplomacy on a global scale," it said. The Huffington Award is the highest honour granted by ASTC, and past award recipients include former Exxon CEO and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former president George W Bush and Kevin Rudd, Australia's ex prime minister. Vijay Goradia, 67, the founder and chairman of Vinmar International, that has been in business for 35 years with a record of continued growth and profitability. In 1998, Vijay, who is originally from Mumbai, began seriously mulling ways to help the country he left behind, along with the American charities he supports as well. He has since become one of the major fundraisers for Pratham, an education nonprofit organisation in India, and founded the first American chapter. Through their noble act Pratham has affected the lives of more than 50 million underprivileged children in the past two decades. Pratham USA is listed as one of the top ten charities in Houston by Charity Navigator. Marie, also from Mumbai, received a Master's degree in biochemistry and a PhD in molecular biology from Bombay University. One of four women to be selected by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) for their training school, Marie was later appointed as a research officer there. She did her postdoctoral studies at Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory and Columbia University in New York. The couple, who through their social media posts chronicled their travelling adventures, also wrote a blog called 'Holidays and HappilyEverAfters'. (Photo: Instagram/holidaysandhappilyeverafters) New York: An Indian couple who died after falling 800 feet in an area with steep terrain in California's Yosemite National Park last week were apparently taking a selfie before the tragedy occurred, a media report said. Vishnu Viswanath, 29, and Meenakshi Moorthy, 30 fell to their deaths from Taft Point in the national park in California. They were identified Monday as the married couple from India living in the United States. A report in Fox News cited Viswanath's brother Jishnu Viswanath as saying that they were apparently taking a selfie. The popular viewpoint in the California park does not have a railing to protect visitors from the ledge. Read: Indian couple dies after falling 800 ft in California's Yosemite National Park Park rangers recovered their bodies last Thursday after people reported seeing an unattended camera on a tripod, Viswanath's brother said. He added that Moorthy had set up the tripod by the ledge possibly to take a selfie. Rangers had arrived at the scene Thursday and "used high-powered binoculars to find them and used helicopters to airlift the bodies. The couple, who through their social media posts chronicled their travelling adventures, also wrote a blog called 'Holidays and HappilyEverAfters'. Just months before her tragic death, Moorthy had warned in an Instagram post the dangers of taking photographs on the edge of cliffs and atop skyscrapers. She posted a picture of herself at the Grand Canyon, saying in the caption that "A lot of us including yours truly is a fan of daredevilry attempts of standing at the edge of cliffs. But did you know that wind gusts can be fatal? Is our life worth one photo? In an eerie coincidence, Moorthy appears in the selfie of another tourist couple at Taft Point, just minutes before she plummeted to her death. After reports of the couple's death emerged and their identities were revealed, Sean Matteson said that Moorthy appears in two of their selfie photos that they took at the popular tourist destination. Matteson said Moorthy's pink-haired visage appears in the corner of two photos he snapped of himself and his girlfriend Drea Rose Laguillo. He said the woman made him a little nervous because he felt she was standing too close to the edge. But he said she appeared comfortable. Park spokesman Jamie Richards was earlier quoted as saying that "We still do not know what caused them to fall. We're trying to understand what happened. We may never know, (but) from everything we see, this was a tragic fall." Richards said that so far 10 people have died in the park this year, and six of those park visitors fell to their deaths. In May, Asish Penugonda, a 29-year-old Indian national, fell to his death while ascending the park's famous Half Dome trail. "Yosemite is a wild and scenic place. If you are not paying attention to your footing, it is very easy to have a slip and fall," Richards said. "Now, we don't know what happened in this case, but we urge hikers to stay on the trail." Investigators were looking into how the couple fell or what had occurred when the accident happened at the famous spot which is a favourite place for tourists from around the world to take scenic and memorable photos. The couple had been married since 2014 and both were software engineers. On the cover of Viswanath's Facebook page is a picture of the two of them smiling on the edge of a cliff at the Grand Canyon. In a Facebook post, College of Engineering, Chengannur said the two were its alumni and added that it deeply mourns their "accidental demise". The college said Viswanath and Moorthy belonged to the BTech 2006-10 Computer Science and Engineering batch. "Our hearts go to the friends and family members of this lovely couple. May their souls rest in peace, the college said. Raj Katta, 24, of New York, said he got to know both of them while attending Bradley University, in Illinois. He said Viswanath was a "thoughtful and amazing guy, very talented. They are a really happy couple. Very positive." Katta described Moorthy as extremely positive and enthusiastic. "She's one of those girls who wants to explore the world and discover a deeper meaning in life." He said that Viswanath and Moorthy had decided six months ago that he would take the job at Cisco and they would live in California for a year or so. This is first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Jamal Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered after he entered Saudi Consulate on October 2. (Photo: File | AFP) Mumbai/Ankara: Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed by 'strangulation' as soon as he entered consulate as part of premeditated killing, a Turkish prosecutor said. Khashoggi's body was 'cut into pieces' after the murder, the prosecutor added. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said on Wednesday that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth. The statement is the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered after he entered the Saudi Consulate on October 2 to collect paperwork needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. The announcement came as Saudi Arabia's chief prosecutor, Saud al-Mojeb, ended a three-day visit to Istanbul during which he held talks with Fidan and other Turkish officials. Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 Saudi suspects detained in Saudi Arabia over the killing of Khashoggi. It is also pressing Saudi Arabia for information concerning Khashoggi's remains, which still haven't been found, as well as who ordered the journalist's slaying. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also called on Riyadh to disclose the identity of an alleged local collaborator said to have been involved in disposing of Khashoggi's body. Khashoggi, a 59-year-old columnist for The Washington Post, vanished after entering the consulate in Istanbul to pick up paperwork for his upcoming marriage to his fiancee, who was waiting for him outside. A critic of the Saudi royal family, Khashoggi had been living in exile in the United States. Turkey alleges a Saudi hit squad from Saudi Arabia including a member of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's entourage during a trip to the United States traveled to Istanbul to kill the journalist and then tried to cover it up. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia changed its narrative about Khashoggi's killing several times, eventually admitting that Khashoggi died inside the consulate and only recently acknowledging that Turkish evidence shows his killing was premeditated. Saudi Arabia has not commented on the prosecutor's visit. One of the charges against the convict was that he had forced, persuaded, coerced and enticed girl students under the age of 18 to engage in sexual activities and was involved in explicit sexual conduct and abuse of minor schoolgirls. (Representational Image) Islamabad: A principal of a private school in Pakistan was sentenced to a total of 105 years in prison on Tuesday by a local court for sexually exploiting schoolchildren and filming them with secret cameras installed on campus. Attaullah Marwat, who is also the schools owner, was arrested in this city after police registered a case against him on July 14, 2017, on the complaint of a boy student. A Sessions court in Peshawar handed a total of 105 years in prison to the principal on charges of child abuse, pornography, rape, blackmail and maintaining illicit relations. Marwat was also fined Rs 1.4 million in addition to the jail terms. A trial court had framed charges against him on eight counts under the Pakistan Penal Code. He was found guilty of all charges and handed various jail sentences under each section - resulting in a total prison term of 105 years. One of the charges against the convict was that he had forced, persuaded, coerced and enticed girl students under the age of 18 to engage in sexual activities and was involved in explicit sexual conduct and abuse of minor schoolgirls. Following his arrest last year, the accused had recorded his confessional statement before a judicial magistrate, wherein he had admitted that it was his hobby to make videos of his sexual activities. He had also admitted that the videos were stored in his personal computer. The police had recovered memory cards and USBs. With most of these disputes being related to licence fees, spectrum usage charges and one-time spectrum fees, the DoT will draw a plan to reduce litigation by simplifying the system, said an official. Besides amicable settlement in some cases, being lenient in the case of minor issues and combining all levies into one charge are some of the ways to reduce disputes, said the official, adding that the DoT would seek the opinion of the Law Department before taking any decision. While the government claimed that dues of telecom firms, which include penalties and interest, was the main bone of contention, telecom firms have filed petitions in various fora questioning this. According to the government, disputed spectrum user charges alone stood at Rs 25,000 crore. The telecom operators contend litigation was affecting merger and acquisition, besides inflow of overseas investment in the sector. Some operators suggested the DoT should have alternative dispute settlement mechanism to prevent every matter landing in courts. The government for its part said the National Digital Communication Policy (NDCP), notified on October 22, proposed to address problem areas of the sector by reviewing levies and fees, including licence fee, spectrum usage charges and resolve long disputed definition of adjusted gross revenue on which telecom operators pay charges. High levies At the recently concluded India Mobile Congress-2018, several telecom companies had expressed concern over high levies on the sector and growing number of litigation. AirTel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal had said any policy should not focus on revenue maximisation, which is one of the reasons for litigation. "There is an overarching objective of the earlier national telecom policy and now also enshrined in the NDCP that revenue maximisation is not the objective. Then the question is why the industry and Department of Telecom are in hundreds of litigation around only one objective of revenue maximisation," Mittal had said. Police said Srinivasa Rao was in good health and it is normal procedure to take the accused under judicial custody for a medical checkup every 48 hours. His health is normal and only after the doctors confirmed it, he was taken back for questioning, Mahesh Chandra Laddha, Commissioner of Police, Visakhapatnam told the media. He said Rao is not cooperating with the police. He trashed reports that the accused had a heart condition and also denied that the police intended "to bump him off". The police said that it is normal for the accused to feel slight weakness after three days of questioning.' Meanwhile, the Special Investigation Team probing the attack on Jagan said that the call records of Raos mobile phones and his bank accounts in SBI, Vijaya and Andhra banks were under scrutiny. The SIT said that a team has gone to Madhya Pradesh and Odisha to question old acquaintances of Rao, who worked with him in the airport cafeteria. Police have questioned 35 witnesses of the incident. The Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP), floated by independent MLA and former BJP leader Hanuman Beniwal, claims to be the alternative to the BJP and Congress in Rajasthan. Moreover, the prominent Jat leader on Monday also announced an alliance with former BJP leader Ghanshyam Tiwari and his Bharat Vahini Party (BVP) for the upcoming elections. He said the RLP and BVP hopes to form a strong third front. According to political experts, their alliance could be a threat to both the Congress and BJP in upcoming elections, especially in the Brahmin and Jat communities in Khimsar and Jaipur's Sanganer localities. While Beniwal is set to please the Jat voters of West Rajasthan, Tiwari is eyeing Brahman votes. Beniwal claims that apart from the Jat community, the party has the support of farmers and the youth. Both Beniwal and Tiwari are former BJP leaders and have accused the Raje government of corruption. Tiwari, a six-time legislator, quit the BJP in June after accusing Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindhia of corruption. Beniwal was the BJP's candidate in the 2008 state elections and was suspended from the party before the 2013 elections. Beniwal defeated his rival and BJP candidate on the Khimvsar seat by a margin of 23,020 votes as an independent candidate. Reiterating its demand for a law or an ordinance enabling construction of the Ram Mandir, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Wednesday said that the courts, so far, have not been able to resolve the Ayodhya dispute. "Consuction of Ram mandir is a matter of national pride," RSS joint general secretary Dr Manmohan Vaidya said. His comments came after RSS chief Dr Mohan Bhagwat inaugurated the three-day long Akhil Bharatiya Karyakarani Mandal (working commitee meeting) at Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini in Keshav Shrusti at Uttan in Bhayender, nearly 40 kms from Mumbai. Top RSS functionaries and chiefs of Sangh affiliates are attending the deliberations. Dr Vaidya said that issues of national and social importance are being discussed. "Various contemporary issues are being discussed," he said. To a question on Congress president Rahul Gandhi's attack on RSS, he said: "It is not something new, they have been attacking us for long. " Active Duty Support/Dept. of Defense(WASHINGTON) -- The head of U.S. Northern Command expects that additional active duty troops will supplement the 5,239 already slated to deploy in support of the Trump administration's efforts to stop a migrant caravan making its way through Mexico. At the same time, Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy again denied sending thousands of troops to the border was part of a political stunt ahead of next week's midterm elections. Shaughnessy told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday that additional forces could be required depending on future requests from Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). "There will be additional force over and above 5,239," said O'Shaughnessy. "The magnitude of that difference I don't have an answer for now because we don't know what that answer is." A U.S. official told ABC News that 2,000 active duty troops have already been placed on "prepared to deploy" orders in anticipation of those requests. When asked if the U.S. military was being used as part of a political stunt, O'Shaughnessy noted that the U.S. military routinely partners with the Department of Homeland Security on a host of operations. However, previous administrations, including Trump's, have utilized National Guard troops, not active duty forces for border security. "I firmly believe that border security is national security and with that in mind that we are in support of Secretary Nielsen and her efforts to secure the border," the general said. According to O'Shaughnessy, approximately 1,000 troops have already been positioned at bases in Texas joining an additional 870 stationed at U.S. Army North in San Antonio. More forces will continue to deploy to Texas, Arizona, and California by the end of the week and New Mexico is expected to receive forces as well in the future. He could not say when those forces would make their way to the border saying that would be done in coordination with CBP in the future. Among the units deploying to border states this week are two aviation units from the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, which could be used to transport CBP agents to more remote areas along the border. Those units will head to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and Davis-Montham Air Force Base in Arizona by Friday, according to Defense Department planning documents obtained by ABC News. The aviation units are among ten listed in the planning documents which are slated to be in place by Nov. 2 and conclude their mission on Dec. 15. They represent a fraction of the approximately 5,200 troops approved for the border security mission stood up in response to the migrant caravan -- still more than one thousand miles from the U.S. border. It's unclear if the caravan, which is reportedly moving about 25 miles each day, could arrive at the border in that time. Lackland AFB and Davis Monthan AFB, along with Camp Pendleton in California will serve as staging areas so the active duty troops can receive training on the rules of engagement and CBP procedures when they are eventually deployed along the border. O'Shaughnessy did not have a timetable for when the active duty forces would be sent to areas directly along the border. Military police and medical companies among units deploying to border Planning documents show that several military police companies will head to Lackland and Camp Pendleton in California, while two medical companies will deploy to Lackland and Davis-Montham. Additionally, a headquarters unit from the Marine's Corps Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force (SPMAGTF) out of Pendleton will travel further south to San Diego. Imagery released by the Defense Department online suggests that other units already participating in the mission, dubbed Operation Faithful Patriot, include the 89th Military Police Brigade's Task Force Griffin out of Fort Hood and the 19th Engineering Battalion out of Fort Knox. Active duty troops in support of border patrol agents Federal law stipulates that active duty forces cannot act in a law enforcement capacity, and, therefore, will be limited to acting in support of CBP. Units are expected to provide CBP with planning assistance, engineering support, and fixed and rotary wing aviation, as well as provide personal protective equipment for CBP personnel. The 5,239 troops approved for the mission -- more than double the number of U.S. service members deployed to Syria -- will join approximately 2,100 National Guard troops deployed to the borders of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas on a similar security mission since last April. Previous presidents have ordered the military to support anti-drug smuggling operations and active-duty troops still do so. A military deployment to stop a caravan Trump has publicly declared that the migrant caravan, which he says contains Middle Easterners and terrorists, will be a central issue for the 2018 midterms just days away. The caravan, once 7,000-strong, has dwindled to about 3,500 men, women, and, children largely escaping poverty and violence in Central America. O'Shaughnessy said that the U.S. is "working closely to understand the nature and makeup of this caravan." He would not say if terrorists were among the migrants, but told reporters that the caravan has differentiated itself from previous groups because of its level of organization. The general also expressed concern that elements of the caravan had used violence when crossing into Mexico from Guatemala. Despite suggestions by Trump to Fox News on Monday that tents along the border could be used to house migrants who have applied for asylum, O'Shaughnessy told reporters that the tents, along with building facilities, would only be erected to house CBP personnel. Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 31) Twenty-two overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have been rescued from "deplorable" working and living conditions in Denmark, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). In a statement on Tuesday, the DFA thanked Danish authorities for helping the OFWs, who worked as truck drivers in the Scandinavian country. They were rescued after a police raid on their camp in the town of Padborg in the southern part of Denmark, the DFA said. The statement did not detail the OFWs' situation, but described it as "unacceptable by any standard," quoting the Philippine Embassy in Norway. "The Embassy, which has jurisdiction over Denmark, has been working closely with Danish authorities in the past weeks to assist Filipino truck drivers who have been working in substandard conditions there," the DFA said in a statement. It said that the Embassy, the DFA and the Labor Department are working closely to assist the Filipinos "until an appropriate and amicable solution is reached." "[Philippine Ambassador to Norway Jocelyn Batoon Garcia] said the Embassy will make sure the Filipinos are treated humanely and with dignity," the DFA said. Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III also ordered Geneva-based Labor Attache Delmer Cruz to attend to the OFWs. September 2018 Quarterly Activities Report Perth, Oct 31, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Ardea Resources Ltd ( ASX:ARL ) ( OTCMKTS:ARRRF ) provides the Company's September 2018 Quarterly Activities Report.DEVELOPMENTGoongarrie Nickel Cobalt Project (GNCP)- First pilot plant run successful - Goongarrie goethite ore delivers excellent performance with on-specification nickel and cobalt sulphate produced.- Finalisation of EPA referral underway with programs for Goongarrie flora, fauna, hydrology, geotechnical design and material characterisation all underway or awaiting requisite climatic event.- Goongarrie infill 80x40m RC drilling completed on all 1.5Mtpa pit areas, extended to 2.25Mtpa pit areas and completed.- New resource estimation including nickel-cobalt-scandium and neutraliser with target completion Q4 2018.- Ongoing Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) drilling program confirms high-grade intercepts at the Pamela Jean Deeps orebody.o AGSR419 112m at 1.30% Ni, 0.26% Co, 31g/t Sc from 30m(see Note 1 below)o AGSD0001 100.8m at 1.00% Ni, 0.08% Co from 32m(see Note 2 below)o AGSR0413 76m at 1.11% Ni, 0.09% Co and 38g/t Sc from 24mo AGSR0418 56m at 1.29% Ni, 0.14% Co and 18g/t Sc 104mo AGSR0190 57m at 1.04% Ni, 0.10% Co and 21g/t Sc from 70m- Strategic Partner search advancing with KPMG.EXPLORATIONWA Gold-Nickel Assets- Mt Zephyr - structural interpretation completed defining Yamarna-style structural system with altered granitoid gold host. Drill sites selected and first drilling campaign scheduled.Lachlan Fold Belt NSW- Orange-based management team in place in NSW - completing full re-interpretation of Lewis Ponds ore as a bulk-tonnage system.CORPORATECash position at end of Quarter of $15.8M, all corporate and development activity well-funded.Notes:1 Calculated using a 0.5 % nickel cut-off, 2 m minimum intercept, and 4 m maximum internal waste2 0.5 % nickel cut-off, 2m minimum intercept, and 4m maximum intern waste, previous report 2017 core holeTo view the full report, please visit:About Ardea Resources Ltd Ardea Resources Ltd (ASX:ARL) (OTCMKTS:ARRRF) (FRA:A91) is an ASX listed resources company, with 100% controlled Australian based projects, prioritising a three-pronged value creation strategy which is: - development of the Goongarrie Nickel Cobalt Project, which is part of the Kalgoorlie Nickel Project, a globally significant series of nickel-cobalt deposits which host the largest nickel-cobalt resource in the developed world, coincidentally located as a cover sequence overlying fertile orogenic gold targets; - advanced-stage exploration at WA gold and nickel sulphide targets within the Eastern Goldfields world-class nickel-gold province; and - the demerger of the NSW gold and base metal assets with planned in-specie share distribution, with projects located within the Lachlan Fold Belt world-class gold-copper province. CargoIT Founders Christina and Bjorn Wiklund Sydney, Oct 31, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Global logistics solutions group, WiseTech Global ( ASX:WTC ) ( OTCMKTS:WTCHF ), today announced the acquisition of CargoIT i Skandinavien ('CargoIT'), a leading customs management and logistics solutions provider in Sweden.Headquartered in Stockholm, CargoIT offers customs management solutions along with their freight forwarding, warehousing and transport solutions to over 150 customers, which include DHL, Kerry Logistics, SAS Cargo, Clas Ohlson, Mondelez International, Mitsubishi Motors, Hyundai, and many other logistics providers and organisations.WiseTech Global Founder and CEO, Richard White, said "Sweden is a highly developed market and the largest in Scandinavia, so bringing CargoIT into the WiseTech Global group gives us a strong foothold in a very active trade region. CargoIT's considerable Swedish customs management experience, further enhances our provision of integrated cross-border logistics solutions to customers worldwide, alongside the significant productivity benefits we can deliver to the local market through our integrated CargoWise One global platform."CargoIT Co-founder, Bjorn Wiklund, said "For over 30 years we have been providing highly innovative and effective products for our customers and today we are a leading provider of customs management solutions in Sweden. Joining forces with a global leader like WiseTech will help us develop even more flexible and higher productivity cross-border compliance solutions."CargoIT Co-founder and Senior Product Manager, Christina Wiklund, said "This is a great opportunity for CargoIT and our customers, which we will continue to work closely with. WiseTech brings significant global expertise and extensive development capabilities that we can tap into to create even more effective logistics solutions for CargoIT and the wider region."Co-Founders, Bjorn and Christina Wiklund, will remain with the business and continue to work with its customers to deliver innovative customs and logistics management solutions across Scandinavia, along with WiseTech's global logistics platform, CargoWise One.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, the UK and Uruguay, and is in line with WiseTech Global's clearly stated strategy of accelerating long-term organic growth through targeted, valuable acquisitions.About CargoITFounded in 1981, CargoIT is a leading provider of customs management solutions in Sweden. CargoIT's logistics software also includes freight forwarding, warehousing and transportation management solutions. Customers include organisations such as DHL, Kerry Logistics, SAS Cargo, Clas Ohlson, Mondelez International, Mitsubishi Motors, Hyundai, and many other logistics providers and organisations.Headquartered in Stockholm, CargoIT has a team of 15, together providing considerable logistics and technical expertise.For more information on CargoIT visit http://www.cargoit.se 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 "SWEENEY TODD: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," through Nov. 10, Pioneer Theatre Company, 300 S. 1400 East (801-581-6961 or pioneertheatre.org); running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes (one intermission) SALT LAKE CITY Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is not a play about nice people. There are a couple of folks in Stephen Sondheim's 1979 Tony winner with good hearts the simple, sweet-voiced Toby Ragg, Shakespeares fool who sees what others do not, and Anthony Hope, an earnest sailor who falls for the wrong girl but this play is not about them. Rather, it's about the titular Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, one of musical theater's great couples. If it wasn't for the killings, it would almost be a love story. Todd, the demon barber himself, returns to London for bloody revenge, pining for his wronged wife Lucy, but Mrs. Lovett gets it right when she sings, Could that thing have cared for you like me? No, whatever Todd may think, his match is in the cheerful and chatty Mrs. Lovett. Unlike him, shes not bloodthirsty just opportunistic and that she would extend her big-hearted ways to a grim murderer should have kept him out of trouble. But alas. Pioneer Theatre Companys adaptation of Sondheim's musical, running through Nov. 10, is obviously timed for Halloween, and youll be hard-pressed to find a more wonderfully macabre night out in the area. Theyve done the musical justice and given it all the trappings: gobs of smoky London atmosphere, gorgeous leads and a talented ensemble dressed (beautifully by costume designer Brenda Van der Wiel) in smog-colored Victorian garb to lead the audience through the horrible tale. And it is a truly horrible tale, one the ensemble laid out in Saturday evenings opening number, The Ballad of Sweeney Todd. Benjamin Barker, the London barber sentenced to 15 years hard labor for the crime of being married to a pretty wife, has returned to kill Judge Turpin the man who destroyed his life and family. Turpin is also the guardian of Barkers, now Sweeney Todds, daughter Johanna. But of course, things get far more gruesome than simple revenge by the time the musical is over, and this cast handily dispenses the highs and lows of Sondheims grisly classic. The audience took note when Todd, played by Kevin Earley, first appeared on stage with his pale skin and odd eye. Earley has that magical thing called stage presence, and at times, it was enough to see him caressing his shaving blade to get a feel for Todds unhinged, revenge-possessed mind. But luckily, he was more than a presence. Earley soon showed off his rich baritone, a sonorous voice just right for a deep-feeling man, especially noticeable when he sang Epiphany and Pretty Women with Turpin, played here with an elegant arrogance by Joe Dellger. And while Earley portrayed Todd as impatient and single-minded, desperate for the chance to slit Turpins (or anyone who might be in his way) throat, his slightly mocking smile emphasized Sondheims witty lyrics, packed full with dark, winking humor. The pie-making Mrs. Lovett, Todd's partner in crime, got the nights biggest laughs, thanks to Anne Tolpegin's comedic timing and gift for physical comedy. Her strong contralto blended beautifully with Earley's voice, and although they sang about killing people off and baking them into pies, they sounded so good it didn't much matter. Their story unfolded against scenic designer George Maxwell's massive, rusted cogwheels, an oversized reminder that this story sits at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Lighting designer Paul Miller kept pace with Sondheim's musical moods, at times bathing the actors in haunting shadow and other times in blood red. And the supporting cast also added to this overall excellent production, with Brigham Young University grad DeLaney Westfall's high soprano and wide-eyed innocence making it easy for the audience to understand how Jonathan Shew's charming Anthony Hope could fall in love with her so immediately. But nice as they were, it was the nasty characters who kept us watching until the final, brutal end. "Sweeney Todd" is the stuff of the old penny dreadfuls, sensational and overwrought, and its genius is that somehow, those heightened emotions still feel relevant. And besides, only a man with a blade and a woman with a pie could convince us that revenge is not a dish best served cold, but rather piping hot with a mug of cider. Content advisory: According to PTC, its production of "Sweeney Todd" would be rated PG-13 for mild gore, language and sexual innuendo. The production is not recommended for children under 10 and "older children should attend at a parents discretion," according to its website. SALT LAKE CITY The two candidates vying to become Salt Lake County sheriff have a lot in common. Grid View Justin Hoyal, a candidate for Salt Lake County sheriff, talks with Valerie LeBel as he campaigns in Murray on Wednesday, Oct 10, 2018. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Justin Hoyal, a candidate for Salt Lake County sheriff, rushes to talk with a resident as he campaigns in Murray on Wednesday, Oct 10, 2018. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Justin Hoyal, a candidate for Salt Lake County sheriff, posts a sign as he campaigns in Murray on Wednesday, Oct 10, 2018. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Justin Hoyal, a candidate for Salt Lake County sheriff, campaigns in Murray on Wednesday, Oct 10, 2018. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News A flyer touting Justin Hoyal, a candidate for Salt Lake County sheriff, is pictured on a Murray resident's door on Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2018. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Justin Hoyal, a candidate for Salt Lake County sheriff, is helped by Danie Bills prior to campaigning in Murray on Wednesday, Oct 10, 2018. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera, shown during her swearing-in ceremony in August 2017, is vying for her first full term as sheriff. She has held a handful of campaign events this fall. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera smiles after being sworn into office in 2017. Rivera, who is vying for her first full term as sheriff, has held few campaign events this fall. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera speaks during a ceremony for fallen officers in May. Rivera, who is vying for her first full term as sheriff, has held few campaign events this fall. Laura Seitz, Deseret News Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera, shown during her swearing-in ceremony in August 2017, is vying for her first full term as sheriff. She has held a handful of campaign events this fall. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Both Justin Hoyal and Rosie Rivera were the faces of the department for many years, acting as the sheriff's public information officer. Hoyal was chief deputy under former Sheriff Jim Winder. Rivera became the Unified Police Department's first female chief when she became head of the department's Riverton precinct while Winder was in office. Hoyal was on the SWAT team. Rivera was the first female officer in the Metro Gang Unit. Hoyal started with the sheriff's office in 1996. Rivera started in 1993. Both have spent their entire careers with the department and risen through the ranks. And when it comes to the future of the Unified Police Department and the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office, there isn't a lot of disagreement between the candidates on what they believe are the main challenges the departments face in the immediate future. But while Rivera and Hoyal have a lot of similarities, each believes their plan is the one that will take the department to the next level. Rivera, a Democrat, was sworn in as sheriff a little over a year ago to fill the remainder of Winder's term after he left to become Moab's police chief. "I want to continue because Ive had such a short amount of time to really be able to get in deep and change the direction of the Unified Police Department and the sheriffs office, she said. Hoyal, the Republican candidate, said he will bring problem-solving through partnerships if elected. "I think what I ultimately bring to the table is strong leadership abilities. The experiences that Ive had over the years are what make me uniquely qualified to bring about strong relationships to the table. I can bring people to the table to try and fix these things." Jail beds Both candidates agree one of the biggest issues the next sheriff will face is the ongoing crisis over jail beds and a Salt Lake County Jail that is almost always at capacity. Rivera calls it one of the department's biggest priorities. "We cant just keep booking people in. We have to have other alternatives, she said. Rivera notes that she was able to get funding in July to open 184 beds at the mothballed Oxbow Jail and hopes to secure funding to open the remaining 184 beds. But simply throwing people in jail won't solve the problem, she said. There needs to be more programs offered to people suffering from drug addiction and mental health issues. Those people, she said, need a place to go other than jail. Hoyal agreed. "We have got to look at getting more beds," he said. One thing he hears a lot from other officers, he said, are pleas to not go back to the policy of closing the jail and refusing to accept people arrested for minor crimes, such as what happened in 2017 under Winder. "Do not go back to that," Hoyal said he hears a lot. But he also agrees that partnerships with the community, drug treatment centers and mental health providers need to be strengthened. "I really think that with the relationships Ive built over the years, the experiences that Ive had working throughout my career, I can bring the right people to the table to get these discussions going, he said. Rather than being tough on crime, Hoyal said the county needs to be smart on crime to stop the jail's revolving door. "We need to help those who cant help themselves. We need to help those who are struggling with drug abuse, mental health issues. We need to be able to help those people, he said. Another component in fixing problems at the jail is treating employees fairly and giving corrections officers incentives to stay, Rivera said, adding that for years, corrections officers have been forced to work mandatory overtime shifts every day. "Theyre tired of working. And I dont blame them. But now were addressing it. And it should have been, probably, addressed a long time ago. Rivera said her budget proposal in November will ask for "a few million" to give officers long overdue pay raises. Many officers, after they are hired by the jail, leave for much higher paying jobs at places like the Salt Lake City Police Department, Rivera said. Furthermore, Rivera called jail staffing a safety issue. It doesn't do any good to add jail beds if there aren't enough officers to watch them. Hoyal also said he plans to address staffing issues, noting there are currently 110 vacancies on the jail staff. Unifying police Possibly the biggest point of contention between the two candidates is the issue of the Unified Police Department's governing board and cities that are mulling whether to leave Unified and create their own departments. In September, Herriman cut ties with the Unified Police Department. Earlier this month, Riverton took steps to form its own department next year. Hoyal believes the department's relations with other cities has been damaged. "I am really sad to see the direction the Unified Police Department is going in, he said. Hoyal blames a "lack of transparency, communication and responsiveness" for the cities wanting to leave Unified. "If youre not explaining it and working well with your partners, then it can create problems, he said. But Rivera said she was only sheriff for two months when Herriman announced it was leaving and said there had already been rumblings of the city's decision before she became sheriff. She said Herriman even had its new patch and badge created before formally announcing it was leaving. Since becoming sheriff, Rivera said she has addressed the problems raised by Riverton and Herriman. "We are fixing what they complained about. They complained about transparency, efficiency as far as the cost goes," she said. Rivera said she fired the Unified police board's chief financial officer for not being open or responsive to Herriman and Riverton's questions about the budget. Both Hoyal and Rivera said they believe in the Unified model of policing. "The consolidation of services is so important. It helps public safety. Its more cost-effective, Rivera said. The sheriff said she knows some cities feel like they're paying a lot of money for not a lot of services. But she said when those cities need specialized units to respond like the homicide unit they'll get their money's worth. "Unified is a top department in this county. It costs to be part of Unified. Its like this insurance, she said, noting that some cities might not have as many murders as others, but when a major crime happens, "one event could be devastating to a small department." Furthermore, Rivera said she has been able to fix the relationships with other law enforcement agencies that were fractured during Winder's final months as sheriff. "There was so much bad blood between (other county) sheriffs and Sheriff Winder that it was tough. Weve mended that relationship," she said. What's the difference? With the candidates being so similar in their visions for the department, one might ask what's the difference between the two? Rivera believes voting for Hoyal would be like voting for former Sheriff Winder, who has endorsed Hoyal. "I think the difference is, I have a new set of eyes," she said. "Our communities are so diverse right now, our law enforcement needs to be diverse. I have been in leadership positions for 17 years. I know how to do budgets. Being a young, teenage mom, I learned early on how important a budget it, how there has to be checks and balances. And Ive used that experience from the time I was 15 years old. "I think the biggest thing is my vision is much different. I like to empower people. I like to have good people in leadership positions to where they are empowered to take the department with my vision, she said. Rivera points to her restructuring of Unified's command staff and appointing Jason Mazuran as chief of police (Rivera's official title is CEO of Unified police). "Leadership is key. If you dont have good leadership in place, you cant make the changes that need to be made, she said. "We are moving so progressively this last year." Rather than micromanaging every aspect of the department, Rivera said she has empowered people to carry out her vision by making independent decisions. While Rivera said she wouldn't be where she is today without Winder, she believes the sheriff's office cannot go back to that style of management. "Thats not working. We need to go a different path to make sure it works and it sustains for a very long time, she said. Hoyal disagrees that voting for him would be like a voting for Winder. "I do have my own vision," he said. "I am the candidate who will move Salt Lake County forward working with community leaders to build real, long-term solutions to public safety issues." Hoyal said the reason he wants to be sheriff is the same reason he became a police officer: to make a difference. He believes the department needs to highlight the good interaction it has with the community. And he believes something has to be done to make being a police officer an attractive profession for the next generation. "You have to have partners to solve problems," Hoyal said. "I can bring people to together to solve problems." MOAB A man originally named as a person of interest in connection with a fatal shooting in Moab has now been charged with murder. Omar Guerro, who also goes by Martin Armento Verduzco Lopez and Irving Martin Armento, was charged Tuesday in 7th District Court with the first-degree felony. Moab police were still looking for Guerro on Tuesday. In addition, Moab police confirmed Tuesday that Guerro is also wanted in Denver for an aggravated assault in that city earlier this year. About 1:30 a.m. Sunday, officers responded to a report of a fight at a mobile home at 250 Walnut Lane. They arrived to find Edgar Luna Najera, 30, dead of multiple gunshot wounds. Five people left the scene of the shooting in a black SUV, according to police. The SUV was later found abandoned, and four of the five people were identified and questioned. Court documents say Guerro's exact birthday is not known, but he is between 20 and 30 years old, is about 5 feet 8 inches tall and has a "stocky build." A motive for the shooting was not given in the charging documents. Investigators believe Guerro may have left Utah for Grand Junction, Colorado. The Utah State Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Marshals are assisting in the investigation. Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Moab Police Department at 435-259-8938. On Nov. 8, the governors office, the Salt Lake Chamber and the World Trade Center will sponsor an all-day forum titled Utah the Crossroads of the World. The weekly Tabernacle Choir broadcast made legendary the phrase, Crossroads of the West, but what about the world? Utah's economy produced in 2017 just slightly less than Qatar, measured in nominal U.S. dollars. If Utah were a nation-state, it would rank as the worlds 55th largest economy. Of course, California would rank fifth, surpassing the United Kingdom and trailing Germany, and each of the 50 states could be listed among the top 98 nations around the globe. Utah is landlocked and mostly deserts and mountains. Its population of 3.1 million is appreciably smaller than that of Los Angeles. Among the states, Utah stands 30th in both population and GDP. Utahs share of the value of U.S. exports in 2017 was 0.7 percent, ranking 28th among the 50 states. It also has a peculiar export profile. Thirty-five states export more to Canada than any other country, and four count Mexico as their primary export destination. For Utah, number one is the U.K. and number two is Hong Kong. Why? The vast mining operation in Bingham Canyon was sold by Kennecott to the Rio Tinto Group in 1989. It refines gold and much is shipped to Rio Tintos headquarters in London and major subsidiary in Hong Kong. Refined gold is Utahs leading export, far ahead of electronic integrated circuits and food preparations. Foreign direct investment in the United States, which provides overseas enterprises with control over U.S.-based companies, provided 6.7 million U.S. jobs in 2015. Roughly 42,000 of these jobs were in Utah, or 0.6 percent of the U.S. total. U.K. companies are the leading foreign investors in Utah, led by Rio Tinto. International tourism is also important for Utahs economy, with 800,000 foreign visitors traveling to the state in 2015 and spending $770 million. Utah is also next door to a magnet for visitors from abroad Las Vegas which attracts nine times more foreign visitors spending 12 times more money. Utahs scenic national parks, ski resorts and other natural, historical and cultural sites should be enticing to some of these overseas visitors to nearby southern Nevada and Southern California. Overall, the Utah economy is doing very well, with a 3.1 percent unemployment rate, the twelfth lowest in the U.S. Nevertheless, can its companies do better in servicing the almost 96 percent of potential consumers who live abroad? Some of these enterprises already provide internationally competitive goods and services, but sadly do not export. Just as the Utah Jazz attract some of the best talent from around the world, so should Utah be enticing to foreign investors because of its young and disciplined workforce, first-rate infrastructure, quality universities and research facilities, the new inland port and high quality of life. Utah also ranks near the top in terms of U.S.-born residents who speak a second language. However, only 21 percent of K-12 students are currently studying a foreign language, ranking 16th in the U.S. and far behind New Jerseys 51 percent. Utah displayed itself to the rest of the world by hosting the highly successful 2002 Winter Olympics. No longer would global residents simply stereotype the state as mountains, Mormons and Osmonds. As Gov. Mike Leavitt emphasized at the time, friends tend to trade with friends, and he met with international business leaders throughout the duration of the Olympics. Following in the tradition of the Olympics, Salt Lake City will host next August a meeting of non-governmental organizations expected to attract thousands of international visitors. Utah is emerging as a global actor and should continue to solidify its linkages with the rest of the world. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. SALT LAKE CITY Like the precious, pure and noble metal that symbolizes 70 years, Tanner Dance and the Childrens Dance Theatre exhibits platinum's same qualities of purity, timelessness and strength. This 2018-2019 school year marks the platinum anniversary for the program that looks to the future and continues the legacy of its founder, Virginia Tanner (1915 1979), and her vision of developing young people who are useful, imaginative, worthwhile human beings, as she once said. A visionary's beginnings Tanner, or Miss Virginia to her students, was born in 1915 and grew up in Salt Lake City. After studying in New York City in the late 1930s, Tanner returned to Utah and began to teach dance in the original Deseret Gymnasium, built in 1910 and located where the Church Office Building now stands. In the early 1940s, Tanner directed the dance program at the McCune School of Music and Art at the McCune Mansion located at 200 N. Main. It was during this time at McCune that Mary Ann Lee, current director of the Tanner Dance Program, first saw Tanner and her students dancing in Ginny gowns. Lee decided, at the young age of about 4, that she wanted to dance like Miss Virginia. She was always thinking about dance, Lee recalled of Tanner. She was always thinking about the next project, always excited about the creative process. Anne Cannon, who taught at Tanner Dance until 2016, was also part of Tanners creative process in those early years. When she was about 4 years old, Cannon danced at the McCune Mansion, later moving with the dance school when it relocated to the basement of a motel while the space above the North Temple Bowling Alley, formerly the Odeon Dance Hall, was remodeled for her Conservatory of Creative Dance. (Now where the Church History Library sits.) In 1949, at their new conservatory location, Tanner established the Childrens Dance Theatre. The CDT gave its first official performance at Kingsbury Hall that same year. While it's likely that parents and friends came to support their children at that first performance, Cannon remembers one very special guest in the audience that night: Doris Humphrey, a pioneer in early American modern dance. Tanner, who had studied with Humphrey in New York years earlier, invited her old teacher to see what she had started. (Tanner) understood children, Cannon said. (Childrens) contribution to dance was not recognized as being of value, particularly in those days. When Doris Humphrey came, she validated the work that Miss Virginia was doing with children. Growing and expanding Around 1961 the program moved again, this time to the barracks building on the University of Utah campus. It was a rich era for Tanner Dance. Lee remembered the funny, funky, lovely WWII barracks building with lots of light, she said. It was while at the barracks that Miss Virginia took the CDT to Washington, D.C., to perform for the White House Conference on Children, and later that same year, she developed a national children's dance program funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Thanks to her positive experience with the NEA, she was able to secure funding for Tanner Dance's Arts in Education, a program that is still going strong today. Tanner also helped form Repertory Dance Theatre in 1966 thanks to a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Through all this growth and movement, Tanner still managed to find time to focus on what was most important to her. She was gentle strong, kind compassionate, firm and disciplined, said Joni Urry Wilson, a 30-year-long Tanner Dancer instructor who started with "Miss Virgina" at age 5. She allowed us to be children and thats what we knew she wanted us to be, but she also wanted us to be our best selves. Tanner passed away in 1979 and Lee became director of the Tanner Dance Program. Lee, who had taught in low-income schools in New York City and Oakland, saw the need to expand Tanner Dance's Arts in Education program. I just thought, We absolutely need to start working more in schools where we go to the children, Lee said of her vision. Lee said that Tanner Dance is now in 25 schools throughout Utah, supporting 4,500 students with a free dance class each week. She believes that art education in the classroom is helping to make a difference in how children experience school. If (children) can learn through the art, that is extraordinary and we really change the climate of the school, Lee said. If youre going to dance with somebody and be their partner, you can hardly not be kind and speak (well) to them, and support them and do all the things that youre required to do in a dance class. I think that does change the community. Looking forward Tanners legacy continues to nurture creative voices with several programs and services offered at the U. and along the Wasatch Front. These programs include the Dancers with Disabilities classes for children and adults, the Fine Arts Preschool, the French Immersion Program and the teen programs of Tipping Point Dance Company, Momentum Dance Company and In Motion Dance Company. Also founded was the Creative Dance and Studio Program with classes at the U. and at satellite locations in Ogden, Brigham City, South Jordan and Park City, When construction began on the Student Life Building, which replaced the old barracks, the Tanner Dance Program moved to the George Thomas Building at Presidents Circle from 2012 to 2014. In February 2014, the newly completed Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts and Education Complex was dedicated on the U. campus. The new home has bought new possibilities as Tanners and now Lees vision carries the program into the future. As the Tanner Dance Program and the Children's Dance Theatre gracefully ages into its 70th year at the new complex, Lee sees the company expanding its satellite locations and growing its programs. Lee also aims to keep the excellence of the program and not lose sight of the philosophy to develop each individual. "Each of these kids, whose parents entrust them to our care, are so precious, Lee said. We believe that about them and we also want to help them be their best selves and that's who they really are. (Dance) is quite empowering and those skills and those abilities and those confidences and that self-efficacy, really translates into everything in your life. There's nothing more joyous. If you go What: Building Center documentary When: Nov. 2, 3 and 5 p.m. Where: 1720 Campus Center Dr How much: $10 for general, $5 for children ages 12 and younger Web: tannerdance.utah.edu/performances Also What: Ring Around the Rose: Decades When: Nov. 10, 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., Where: Rose Wagner Center, 138 W. 300 South, How much: $5 Phone: 801-355-2787 Web: artsaltlake.org Also What: Tanner Talks speakers When: dates, times, location and price to be announced Web: tannerdance.utah.edu/performances Also What: The Dancing Man, Childrens Dance Theatre 70th anniversary show When: March 21 and 23, 2019, times vary Where: Capitol Theatre, 50 W. 200 South How much: price to be announced Web: tannerdance.utah.edu/performances Also What: Studio Spring concert When: May 11, 2019, 1 and 4 p.m. Where: Kingsbury Hall, 1395 E. Presidents Circle, University of Utah How much: price to be announced Web: tannerdance.utah.edu/performances SALT LAKE CITY There is no disagreement among legal scholars, politicians and advocacy groups in Utah that President Donald Trump can't end birthright citizenship with the stroke of a pen. And for some, Trump's talk of issuing an executive order denying citizenship to babies born in the U.S. to noncitizen parents is nothing more than midterm electioneering. "The way to change birthright citizenship would be through constitutional amendment, short of that it's electoral politics," said Mark Alvarez, an attorney with Immigrant Defenders Law Group in West Valley City. Trump told HBO's Axios in an interview released Tuesday that the White House counsel has advised him that there is legal standing to terminate birthright citizenship. Even House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., told a Kentucky radio station, "Well, you obviously cannot do that." The 14th Amendment, passed after the Civil War, states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the law for legal permanent residents, but it has never decided a citizenship case involving an illegal immigrant or a short-term visitor to the U.S. "The president doesn't get to make his own laws," said Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, adding she has always opposed presidential attempts to change immigration law unilaterally. "The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to 'establish a uniform rule of naturalization' and the 14th Amendment makes the conditions of citizenship clear: individuals born in this country are citizens. The executive cannot unilaterally change those facts," she said in a statement. Love's parents emigrated from Haiti to the U.S. in the 1970s. Her birth in the U.S. in 1976 paved the way for them to become citizens under immigration law at the time. Immigration, she said, is a personal issue for her. "I'm proud of the fact that my parents studied American history. They studied the Constitution. When they took their pledge to become a member of the United States, not only were they willing to take on the benefits, but they were willing to take on the responsibilities also, and I'm a product of that," she said. Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams, Love's Democratic opponent in the 4th Congressional District, said Trump's proposed action is a result of Congress "once again" failing to address immigration reform. "Congress has the legislative authority for that and the Constitution is clear," he said in a statement. "To succeed, we need members of Congress who are strong enough to resist special interests and who are willing to work across party lines. Thats what I will do as Utahs member of Congress." Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has held the position that Congress must clarify the intent of the citizenship clause through legislation specifying that children born to illegal immigrant parents in the U.S. are not entitled to automatic citizenship. The senator has backed legislation to amend immigration law to consider a person born in the U.S. "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S. for citizenship at birth only if one parent is a U.S. citizen, a lawful permanent resident or on active military duty. "Sen. Lee does believe Congress has the power to determine what it means to be born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. He does not know what legal basis there might be for the executive branch to redefine the meaning unilaterally," said Lee spokesman Conn Carroll. But constitutional scholar and University of Utah law professor Wayne McCormack said neither Congress nor the president can change the meaning of the Constitution. Interpretation of the Constitution rests with the Supreme Court. "It seems like an obvious ploy because it's so far-fetched," he said of Trump raising the idea of an executive order a week before Election Day. However, he said, if the president wants to get the Supreme Court to reverse previous rulings on birthright citizenship, signing an order that would face legal challenges would be a way to go about it. The high court ruled in 1898 that "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" means children of foreign diplomats born in the U.S. are not citizens nor are children of an invading army. "Those are the only two categories at the time that were in the minds of the drafters," he said. "In order to try and apply that language to the children of persons who are here without lawful permission, they would have to get the Supreme Court to adopt an interpretation that was not the same in the 1890s when the court decided the case." McCormack said that would be a challenge for the "originalists" those who interpret the Constitution in light of its original meaning and from the perspective of those who drafted and adopted it on court. Interestingly, Trump's two Supreme Court appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, are originalists. McCormack said an argument could be made that the court got it wrong in 1898, and to understand the intent, a court would have to go back to the adoption of the 14th Amendment in 1868. Luis Garza, executive director of Comunidades Unidas, a West Valley City-based Latino advocacy group, said Trump's musings on ending birthright citizenship are "another very clear attack on immigrants" and an "example of the anti-immigrant sentiment of this White House." "This administration has continued to increase fear and uncertainty among immigrant families here in the state and (is) making it more and more difficult for families to continue to thrive," he said. Garza said he is confident any attempt to end birthright citizenship by executive order would not hold up in court. "It is something that is clearly part of the Constitution so, an executive order I don't know how that would change anything. But I think what is more dangerous is just the message that is being sent," he said. Garza wants to see a strong response to Trump's remarks from Utah's political leaders. "I really hope that our congressional delegation stands up for our Constitution and stands up for the rights of everyone in this country," he said. "We really need to put pressure on all our representatives locally and at the federal level to really stand up for immigrant families." Brittney Nystrom, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, said there would "absolutely be legal challenges" to any executive order from the president. "It's very clear that eliminating citizenship for individuals born in the United States would be unconstitutional. Reading the text of the Constitution leaves no ambiguity. It's very clear what the 14th Amendment guarantees," Nystrom said. Undoing 14th Amendment protections would, besides affecting the children of undocumented immigrants, apply to any American for whom "there was some kind of confusion about that child's parents' immigration status," she said. Nystrom said the citizenship of those born to parents in the U.S. on temporary visas, for example, would also be threatened if birthright provisions were rolled back. "Especially in the current context, where we have pretty rampant anti-immigrant hatred, this kind of a tactic would potentially unleash even more efforts to question what rights and liberties all immigrants have in this country," she said. Nystrom said Utah's congressional delegation should "carry out their oath to uphold the Constitution" and reject Trump's idea. Catholic Community Services of Utah, which runs immigration and refugee resettlement programs, also heavily criticized the president's proposal Tuesday. Aden Batar, director of migration and refugee resettlement for Catholic Community Services, said the idea of undoing birthright citizenship shows that Trump "doesn't have any heart whatsoever for immigrants or refugees who come into this country." Batar contends Trump is using "tactics to scare the immigrants and refugees who are coming to America, that this is not a country that welcomes anymore. "I think this is the wrong message that the president is sending. That is not what America has stood for, this is not what America is about," Batar said. If the children of Utah's immigrants and refugees in Utah "cannot get what the Constitution is granting for them, I don't know who will protect (those) rights," he said. But Batar, like Garza and Nystrom, said he is confident a Trump executive order would not have the legal standing to survive. Contributing: Ladd Egan A Major Project with a Key Difference at Youanmi IMARC Presentation- Rich Vanadium Oxide Perth, Oct 31, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Venus Metals Corporation Limited ( ASX:VMC ) provides the Company's latest presentation.RICH VANADIUM OXIDEYOUANMI - THE PROJECT WITH A DIFFERENCE1. The JORC 2012 inferred oxide resource is 110 million tonnes grading 0.3% V2O5 (Refer ASX release 6 February 2015)2. Youanmi oxide ore different to all others - high vanadium, low iron, high clay3. Oxide ore starts at surface4. Rich vanadium oxide ore high graded by simple crushing - no grinding5. V, Cu, Ni and Co can be successfully recovered by simple acid leaching6. Venus has target* potential for over 1 billion additional tonnes of rich vanadium oxide along 25km of strike (Refer ASX release 6 February 2015)*The potential quantity and grade of the Exploration Target is conceptual in nature, that there has been insufficient exploration to estimate a Mineral Resource and that it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the estimation of a Mineral ResourceSOUTHERN CROSS DEPOSIT1. Inferred Oxide Resource occurs over a zone 3.5km long and up to 400m wide.2. Magnetic highs correlate with a high grade vanadium core zone.3. Vanadium supergene enrichment occurs within completely weathered saprolite.4. Vanadium values extend into fresh rock.WHY THE DEPOSIT IS DIFFERENT1. Vanadium mineralization occurs within magnetite grains.2. Balance of rock is coarse grained feldspar containing no vanadium.3. Feldspar weathers completely to clay in the saprolite zone at Youanmi.4. Creates large tonnages of rich vanadium oxide soft rock which can be easily mined and cheaply beneficiated.To view the full presentation, please visit:About Venus Metals Corporation Limited Venus Metals Corporation Limited (ASX:VMC) is a West Australian based Company with a focus on gold and base metals exploration. The Company aims to increase shareholder value through targeted exploration success on its projects. The Company's major gold project is the Youanmi Gold Mine, located 500km north east of Perth. The Youanmi Gold Mine is now jointly owned by Venus Metals (30%) and Rox Resources Limited (70%) (OYG JV); Indicated and Inferred Resources of the mine is 1.7 million ounces of gold. Exciting new discoveries at the Youanmi Gold Mine have been made at the Grace prospect in footwall granites where very high grades of free milling gold have been intersected, including 25m @34.7g/t Au from 143m (RXRC 287) and 13m @60.49 g/t from 181m (RXRC 239). The Grace Prospect may substantially add to the Youanmi Gold Mine resources. President Russell M. Nelson capped off his South American tour Sunday with the dedication of the Concepcion Chile Temple. The leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints visited a total of five countries. Deseret News photographer Jeffrey Allred was there to capture some incredible moments from President Nelson's tour these are our favorite 30. Peru The trip began in Peru with President Nelson spending time with Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra. The Peruvian president asked President Nelson to help his country's children and discussed humanitarian issues. Bolivia In Bolivia, a crowd of nearly 9,000 people packed an arena to listen to President Nelson speak and roughly 15,000 watched the live video feed. President Nelson invited all of the children in the meeting to stand and sing him a song: "I am a Child of God." Paraguay President Nelson visited with full-time missionaries in Paraguay, and these missionaries traveled a total of 48 hours to be in attendance. This was the third meeting in three days that President Nelson spoke to church members in Spanish. Uruguay In Uruguay, more than 4,500 people filled a massive tent to listen to President Nelson deliver a message to members of the church. Another 35,000 members watched the broadcast via a feed of the event. President Nelson spoke on the need for parents to teach their children the gospel, and also stressed the need of prayer, Sabbath day observance and temple attendance. Chile Chilean leaders greeted President Nelson on the last leg of his South American tour on the eve of the Concepcion Chile Temple dedication. Sen. Jacqueline Van Rysselberghe, the city's former mayor, said of the temple, "It's an enormous honor to have this temple in our city." President Nelson then dedicated the temple in what was a "heavenly crescendo" for the trip. SALT LAKE CITY A Utah attorney has been barred from practicing law in the Beehive State for the next three years after he failed to contact witnesses in a death penalty case, didn't file or ask for documents in other proceedings and didn't meet with a client he was representing. Sean Young said he admitted to the violations identified in four complaints lodged with the Utah State Bar to put the disciplinary case behind him, but he doesn't agree with them and isn't liable for them under the terms of a settlement he signed. "I was a good lawyer and represented people fairly and justly," he said Tuesday. Complaints in 16 other cases were dropped as part of the agreement Young and the Utah bar's professional conduct office reached in July. The bar's move to suspend his license, effective in September, came to light Tuesday when his client, prominent Latino activist Tony Yapias, appeared in front of a judge in an evidence-tampering case without an attorney by his side. The bar identified 17 violations of its rules across four different cases that range from Young not refunding fees to clients in a timely way, to misrepresenting to a state bar conduct committee the reason he did not file a petition in an immigration case. In the capital murder case of Douglas Lovell a Clearfield man twice convicted of kidnapping and raping Joyce Yost, of South Ogden, then killing her to silence her testimony in 1985 Young failed to interview all but two of 18 witnesses, including some who testified at trial, according to the bar. Young did not question those who took the witness stand about Lovell's remorse or their belief that he could do well on parole. And he "ineffectively capitulated" to concerns from attorneys for the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which restricted bishops from testifying about whether they believed Lovell had remorse, according to the agreement Young signed. Lovell has appealed, saying Young was ineffective. Another attorney has appealed a case of one of Young's former clients, arguing Young didn't meet with the defendant or gather evidence, and didn't object to "highly prejudicial gang and tattoo evidence." He didn't file court documents requesting an undocumented client be allowed to lawfully remain in the U.S. despite being granted more time to file them and was not timely in returning fees she had paid him, the court documents show. Young told the Deseret News on Tuesday he has wanted to leave behind his career as an attorney for five years and plans to find a new line of work, possibly in sales. He believes that after the complaint from Lovell, others he has represented reported violations of bar conduct in hopes it would persuade a judge to revisit their cases. Yapias, a longtime advocate in Utah's Hispanic community, was scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday for holding a woman in her house for too long and deleting texts with evidence from her phone, both misdemeanors. He was originally charged with rape, but he and Young reached a plea deal with prosecutors in August. Young said he had believed the Utah State Bar would allow him to finish out the case so Yapias would not need to find and pay a new attorney, but the settlement document he signed in July does not mention such an exception. A prosecutor pointed out to him Tuesday that the bar's website showed his license was suspended, he said. "The blame's on me for not following up and understanding," he said. Third District Judge Randall Skanchy on Tuesday postponed the hearing by a week, saying he wanted Yapias to have an attorney at the time of his sentencing. Young said he could have called another attorney to represent Yapias at the hearing Tuesday but negotiated a postponement because he and his client didn't know the details of a statement that the victim intended to make in court. Young said that while he will not be representing Yapias, he will be there to support him on Nov. 6. SALT LAKE CITY After Lauren McCluskey broke up with a man she'd just learned was a convicted sex offender and 16 years her senior, she began receiving harassing texts and emails. When she first reported to University of Utah police she believed the messages were connected to her breakup with Melvin Shawn Rowland, she was told campus law enforcement didn't have a way to help her. That is according to McCluskey's police reports released Tuesday by the university. "I explained that without any threats or anything of a criminal nature that there isn't much we can do, but I told her to contact us if this escalates," according to the officer who filed McCluskey's first police report 10 days before Rowland, 37, gunned her down on campus. In the reports, McCluskey, 21, twice said she was scared. U. police and communications did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. But in the days following McCluskey's death, U. Police Chief Dale Brophy said McCluskey didn't inform police that she felt physically threatened. "We did believe that Rowland and/or his associates both were threatening her financially and reputationally. But there was no indication from Lauren to us at any point in this investigation that he was threatening physical harm. He was very, very good at getting people to trust him, and Lauren was no different," Brophy said. On the night McCluskey planned to break up with the man she had known as Shawn, the report filed Oct. 12 says that "while waiting for Shawn to come to her dorm room, Lauren saw that Shawn was (peeking) through her dorm window." And she told police "that scared her," according to the report. When Rowland knocked on her door just moments later, McCluskey said she confronted him about his age and his sex offender status. He admitted to being a sex offender but denied lying about his age, according to police. "Shawn was really upset with her because she had ended the relationship," the report states. Two days later, McCluskey began receiving messages she believed came from Rowland's friends, telling her he had died and it was her fault. That is when she made her first report to police. "McCluskey said that she doesn't believe that Rowland is dead, but she is concerned that his friends are trying to lure her into a trap for some reason," police wrote. The officer advised McCluskey that she would need to tell the friends to stop contacting her before the messages could be classified as harassments and not to meet up with them if "she thinks they want to do something to her." McCluskey was also told that if anything else happened, she should let the department know. The next day, she did. At about 6 a.m., McCluskey received an email telling her to contact the sender if she wanted "to protect her dignity and image," police wrote. "The email also states that if she calls the cops that the pictures will go viral including her family," according to the report. Rowland demanded $1,000 to delete the pictures. McCluskey sent the money to an account provided in the messages. "Lauren stated that she was scared and did not know what to do because she did not want her pictures to go online," police said. The officer asked her to meet to give more details and fill out a statement. In that meeting, the officer told McCluskey to contact her bank to try to stop the payment. The bank said the payment could not be stopped because McCluskey had sent it voluntarily, according to the report. The officer also "advised her to stop communication with Shawn." "Based on the elements of the crime detectives can screen for sexual extortion," the report states. But a formal investigation didn't begin until Oct. 19, six days later, due to the department's case load, Brophy said last week. At that point, detectives began trying to "identify all suspects involved," as police did not know which of Rowland's friends, if any, aided in the extortion. When the department ran a criminal background history on Rowland, they learned he had been convicted with enticing a minor over the internet and forcible sex abuse and was listed on Utah's sex offender registry. However, Brophy said last week it didn't appear the department checked to see whether he was on parole, and did not reach out to any other agencies, including Adult Probation and Parole, about what was happening. He also said that as the investigation got underway, police did not know of a physical danger to McCluskey. She was murdered three days later. Brophy revealed last week that from Oct. 19 until the day of McCluskey's death, security camera footage showed Rowland around campus, "looking for Lauren without her knowledge." On the morning of Oct. 22, McCluskey again reached out to police after she received a text from a number she did not recognize. The person who sent the text claimed to be the department's deputy chief, Rick Mclenon, and requested she come to the police station. Brophy said investigators believe the text was a ploy by Rowland to try to get McCluskey to leave her dorm. That evening, Rowland grabbed McCluskey outside the dorm building as she talked on the phone with her mother, dragged her across a parking lot and threw her in the back seat of a car, and shot her multiple times, killing her, according to police. Several hours later, Salt Lake police spotted Rowland and pursued him on foot to Trinity A.M.E. Church, 239 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. (600 South), where he fatally shot himself as police closed in. U. officials last week announced two independent investigations into its police department's protocols. Details of those investigations, including who will complete them or when they will begin, have not been released as of Tuesday. On Saturday, McCluskey's mother, Jill McCluskey, shared her daughter's obituary and tweeted, "It's a very dark time for us right now, but we hope that her light will continue to shine through the people she touched with her kindness." According to the obituary, "Lauren has been described as quiet, but more accurately, she chose her words carefully. Her professors were delighted by how she was engaged and made incisive, on-point comments. She was a deep, independent thinker with an interest in philosophy and a strong sense of right and wrong." Free and confidential help and support for victims and survivors of domestic violence is available 24/7 at 1-800-897-LINK (5465) or visiting udvc.org. OREM Utah Valley University has agreed to pay its former Title IX director $45,000 as part of an agreement settling her wrongful termination lawsuit. The settlement dated Oct. 4 bars Melissa Frost from applying for another job at the school and stipulates that the university will absorb costs in any litigation that arises from her time at the university, shows a copy of the document obtained in a public records request. Frost headed UVU's first Title IX office from 2014 to 2017, investigating reports of sexual harassment, assault and discrimination made by students and employees. She sued the university in May in 3rd District Court in Salt Lake City, alleging she was fired after telling the school's attorney she was about to investigate allegations by three women against white men in upper management. The agreement prevents either party from speaking with the news media beyond a mutal statement they gave Tuesday, when each side denied any wrongdoing. The settlement includes a job reference letter explaining that Frost helped develop policies for the university's first Title IX office and that a survey revealed that 95 percent of employees knew what to do if they received a report of sexual harassment or assault. Frost argued that administrators were slow to refer students the Title IX office. She sought reinstatement at UVU, payment for lost wages and other damages. Attorneys for the school countered that when Frost was terminated, administrators didn't know she was gathering information about potential Title IX violations and that it later hired an outside investigator who found Frost's claim of retaliation was unsubstantiated. ANTIMONY, Garfield County Sydnee Dickson is back where her long association with public education began, the elementary school of her youth. It was there she developed a passion for reading, devouring every book in the book closets that served as the school's makeshift library sometimes reading each title twice. From kindergarten until she was 10 years old, she learned in a two-room schoolhouse. Her teacher was her grandmother. "She would not allow me to call her grandma, grandmother. I had to call her Mrs. Jolley. If I called her anything but Mrs. Jolley she didn't answer me because she didn't want to show favoritism to her grandkids," said Dickson, Utah's State Superintendent of Public Instruction. On Tuesday, Dickson returned to the school and her hometown as part of her annual fall listening tour, a tradition started after she was named state superintendent in 2016. This year's tour includes visits to 10 school districts and a number of charter schools. While each visit gives her an opportunity to see how state education policies are carried out in urban, rural and charter schools, it is also an opportunity for educators and administrators to share their perspectives and concerns. Earlier this fall, Dickson visited San Juan School District, where she was told by a veteran educator that it was the first time the state's education leader had visited the Navajo reservation in at least three decades. "I almost cried when I heard that," Dickson said. For Dickson, the return to Antimony was personal. Drive down the main drag and she points out her childhood home. A little further down the road is Antimony Mercantile, which was run by her family during her youth. Young Sydnee Sorensen worked the candy counter, carefully wiping fingerprints and smudges from the glass cases. She also dug for nightcrawlers, collecting them for bait to sell to anglers who stopped by the store. Coming home is "just surreal," she said. The school was rebuilt a decade ago and after Dickson's family moved to St. George when she was 10, she has only visited Antimony a handful of times. "Just to see all the updates of the building, technology and modernization of the school, and yet it still has that wonderful hometown feel. Meeting the kids, they belong to families that I grew up with. A couple of the teachers are people I'm related to. It was fun to make connections but really just to come home and see how important that having a school in the community really is," she said. Antimony Elementary has a current enrollment of 15 students grades K-6, which made it easy for Dickson to pose with entire student body and staff for photographs. The school is led by teacher/principal Sierra Westwood, who is 23 years old. Although Westwood is from rural Utah as well, she was unaccustomed to what is the modern version of the one-room schoolhouse. Dickson's visit made a big impact on Antimony students, she said. "We're from tiny little Antimony here and the world is so big. I felt it just really showed the kids that they can do big things and they can do hard things. They can go places in life and dream big. They were really excited to have her here. She knows a lot of their family members. She got down to their level and really talked to them about people that they knew and it made the kids more comfortable and it was really exciting," Westwood said. Dickson said she was not sure that elementary school students understand what a state superintendent does. "They were really excited I was once a student here. They were more excited about that than my role," said Dickson. Dickson said her visit to Antimony, named for semi-metallic ore that historically was mined in the area, reaffirmed to her the importance of the state's Necessarily Existent Small Schools program, which helps school districts pay to operate schools in remote areas of the state and in places with low student populations. "In order to provide school for these rural and remote places, the funding source of NESS is really critical," she said. It helps, as well, that the education efforts are supported by mobile libraries and health care clinics, she said. When Dickson was attending Antimony Elementary School, part of her finger was cut off in an accident. "The principal had to pick me up and carry me and run to my parents' store and then it was another hour to the doctor. Just the remoteness of some of these rural places can make things very complicated," she said. But smallness and isolation are also what makes rural education magical, Dickson said. "The most innovative schools sometimes are those in small towns because you have to be creative and innovative. She (Dickson's grandmother) definitely was. All those years later when I became a teacher, there was all this research to back up what my grandmother used to do. "So I think it's just the invention of necessities. Teachers work really hard to figure out what works best for their students and really individualize everything for their students." PROVO A family of four was displaced early Tuesday morning after a fire burned through their home, firefighters said. Crews were called to the home, 75 S. 1000 West, around 2:15 a.m., according to a tweet from the Provo Fire Department, and were able to extinguish the blaze within 15 minutes of arriving. No one was injured. Damage to the home is estimated at between $80,000 and $100,000. Investigators are looking into the cause of the fire, which was undetermined as of Tuesday evening. However, firefighters said it might have been caused by electrical work around the home's power meter. IVINS, Washington County A woman was critically injured Saturday when a fire tore through her home, firefighters said. When crews were dispatched to 220 E. 8325 South around 12:15 p.m., smoke and flames were already billowing out of the back of the house, said Steve Ikuta, Santa Clara-Ivins Fire and Rescue public information officer. Firefighters initially believed the woman might have been trapped inside, he said. A team was sent in to find the woman, but she had made her way out of the home herself and was treated by paramedics outside, Ikuta said. She was taken to Dixie Regional Medical Center in critical condition. Additional information about her injuries was not immediately available. Ikuta said he did not have an update on her condition as of Tuesday night. An estimated 25 firefighters fought the blaze, including a crew from St. George Fire Department, Ikuta said. "Once it made its way up into the attic and into the roof, we went from an offensive attack to a defensive, so we pulled all the firefighters who were inside the home outside to fight the fire," Ikuta said. The woman's husband, who was out on an errand at the time of the fire, returned home to find the home had been destroyed. Ikuta did not have an estimate for the total cost in damages to the home but called it a complete loss. The cause of the fire has not been determined. SALT LAKE CITY When the legal system considers the fate of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter and the Florida man charged with mailing bombs to prominent Democrats, decisions by lawyers, judges or juries will be based on an ancient legal principle: Each person is responsible for his or her own actions. But what if a shooter or bomber was inspired by the words of another? Its a question with growing relevance in an age in which public discourse is becoming more volatile, and when anyone with a social media account can rant to global audiences in real-time, without pausing to consider the potential consequences of the words. While inciting others to violence is a criminal act, its not always clear what constitutes incitement, and America is unique in its devotion to free speech no matter how inflammatory, legal analysts say. We have a very long history in this country of preservation of free speech, including preservation of free speech on some topics that are sometimes uncomfortable, or are ugly or potentially dangerous, said RonNell Andersen Jones, the Lee E. Teitelbaum Professor of Law at the University of Utah College of Law. In the wake of the synagogue shootings, however, supporters of President Donald Trump found themselves defending the president against accusations that his divisive and combative style played a role in the crimes. On Face the Nation Sunday, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said the shooting was the work of a hate-filled individual alone, but added that the president doesnt need to be as caustic in his rhetoric. A new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute found that 54 percent of Americans believe the presidents behavior has emboldened white Supremacists. But even as finger-pointing at Trump is increasing, his opponents, to include actor Robert DeNiro and comedian Kathy Griffin, have said and done incendiary things themselves. Unless inflammatory words provoke an immediate violent act, its unlikely that a public figure or social media provocateur would ever be charged with incitement under current law, First Amendment experts say. The solution, according to past Supreme Court rulings, is not found in a courtroom. It's in what's known as the marketplace of ideas. What qualifies as incitement Writing for The Washington Post a day after the Pittsburgh shooting, journalist Julia Ioffe was among several columnists who suggested that Trump should share the blame for the violence that claimed 11 lives at the Tree of Life synagogue. Culpability is a tricky thing, and politicians, especially of the demagogic variety, know this very well, Ioffe wrote. Unless they go as far as organized, documented, state-implemented slaughter, they dont give specific directions. They dont have to. They simply set the tone. Ioffe later came under fire for an offensive comment herself; she apologized Oct. 29 for saying that the president has radicalized more people than ISIS. I clarified and apologized on air, but Ill say it again here. This has been a very emotional and painful time, but I absolutely should not have gone with such hyperbole on the air. I apologize. Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) October 29, 2018 Jurisprudence has traditionally held that an individual alone is responsible for his or her actions a concept called moral agency. In the 3rd century before Christ, Aristotle described the two conditions for this standard: First, the person had to undertake an act willingly, without being coerced; second, he has to be mentally sound. But some societies have been willing to share blame through the concept of incitement, and up until the 1960s, America was among them, Jones said. We started with a fairly generous standard that basically suggested if words had a bad outcome, that would be enough constitutionally to hold the urging party responsible for the acting party. But that standard didnt last very long, Jones said. Most of the early laws were written when people were afraid of speech, as in the time around World War I when America had significant external threats. But the standard relaxed with the 1969 decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio. In that case, the American Civil Liberties Union represented a member of the Ku Klux Klan who had been convicted of advocating violence at a speech at a Klan rally. The Supreme Court found that Ohio had violated the Klan leader's right to free speech, and the decision established two principles that remain the standards for incitement today, according to Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley: "Speech can be punished as incitement only if there is a substantial likelihood of imminent illegal activity and if the speech is directed at causing imminent illegal activity." In other words, for incitement to be a crime, the violent act would have to happen immediately after the words were spoken, and the words must be clearly intended to provoke the violent act. Jones gave an example from America's past: If a crowd had gathered outside a jail, and a speaker yelled "Let's hang him," inducing an mob act of violence within minutes, that's incitement, as least as it pertains the law, and it rarely happens today. But there's another kind of "colloquial incitement" that does increasingly take place in the public square, she said, which is to purposely "engage voters in ways that excite people" and by talking about opponents as enemies instead of people with differing ideas. We might be seeing a lot of colloquial incitement in conversations about public concern today. But its very unlikely that we are seeing incitement in the legal term, Jones said. The role of social media Earl Warren was chief justice of the Supreme Court and Richard Nixon was the U.S. president when Brandenburg v. Ohio was decided on June 9, 1969, just two weeks before the Republican Nixon installed Warren Burger to replace the liberal chief justice. At the time the case was decided, the nation was nearly four decades away from the emergence of social media platforms that enable much of today's incendiary words and behavior. While the United States has largely left social media companies to police themselves, other countries are taking a tougher stand. The United Kingdom, for example, allows prosecution of hate speech on the Internet, and a Scottish man was convicted earlier this year of hate speech because he posted a video of a dog doing a Nazi salute. (He was fined the equivalent of $1,100 and later raised $185,000 on a crowdfunding website.) And last year, Germany passed a law that requires Facebook and other social media companies to remove hate speech within 24 hours or face a multimillion-dollar fine. As progressive a country as Germany is, and as progressive as Israel is, their political systems dont match ours, and their open acceptance of speech is not as wide as ours, said Sara F. Hawkins, a Phoenix attorney who regularly writes about free speech and social media. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has not addressed the question specifically, Hawkins said, The incitement of violence is not protected speech, anywhere. And yet we havent quite figured out what incitement is when it comes to social media because social media is filled with so much hyperbole. A defense of humor also sometimes deflects a charge of incitement. During the 2016 campaign, then-candidate Trump made a remark that some people took as a joke, others as a veiled call for violence to his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. Hillary wants to abolish, essentially, the Second Amendment, Trump said. By the way, and if she gets the pick if she gets the pick of her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I dunno. The Scottish man who trained his pug to do a Nazi salute said that was a joke, too. The actor DeNiro, however, was not joking in savage diatribes he has made about Trump, including his expletive-filled denouncement at The Tony Awards in June, and a video in which he called the president a punk and a pig and said he'd like to punch him in the face. When inflammatory language doesn't immediately result in a criminal act, Hawkins notes there is already a punishment for people who cross the line of propriety. Look at Kathy Griffin; talk about someone who paid a price with her career, she said. Griffin, who posted a picture of herself holding a decapitated head of Trump, lost her job hosting a New Years Eve broadcast on CNN and was widely ostracized. Griffin has also said she was investigated by federal agents for possible conspiracy to assassinate the president. I think a lot happens that we dont hear about. Somebody makes a credible threat and the government suppresses it," Hawkins said. The 'scourge' of reasoned discourse Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky is dean of the University of Missouri School of Law, and has spent much of her career defending people who engage in rhetorical hyperbole from criminal and civil liability on First Amendment grounds. That doesnt mean that rhetorical hyperbole, when widespread, isnt the scourge of reasoned, civic discourse. Theres a difference in where we draw the line for First Amendment purposes and whats good for civic discourse, she said. Many of Trump's supporters, however, enjoy his combative style, saying his tell-it-like-it-is persona is a refreshing change from politics as usual. And there has always been rhetoric in campaigns. Lidsky believes the rhetoric has become harsher in the past decade, however, with people calling their opponents enemies instead of people with whom they disagree on issues. There is extreme vilification of ones political opponents, on both sides, she said, which is not good for society, whether or not its legal, she added. The larger point here is, the First Amendment is not the only consideration in these debates. Even if it wont technically subject the speaker to criminal prosecution, it can still be a terrible idea to throw this kind of rhetoric around. It might be the case that we should demand more of our public officials and ourselves in terms of civility and public discourse knowing we raise the likelihood by creating a certain kind of climate that some terrible people may do terrible things. While the Brandenburg case defined cases where incitement could be a crime, its focus on the immediacy of a violent action also points out the remedy for volatile speech: time. If theres time for the audience members to reason out that violence is a bad idea, then they, and not the speaker, are responsible for their own violent actions, Lidsky said. Social media, while enabling immediacy, can also enable a more thoughtful, reasonable response, said Jones at the University of Utah. All of us have the opportunity to sign in and say, Thats evil, thats inappropriate, thats racist. I stand for something different,' she said. When we hear politicians engaging in language we think is not civil, not fair, not healthy to a democracy, we can condemn it, and say thats not the way we talk, and its certainly not a way we speak when were in a position of leadership. In that sense, the conversations were having about lowercase 'i' incitement are really important. SPRINGVILLE Two people were arrested and many more detained for questioning late Tuesday as Springville police sorted out a domestic dispute that turned into a shooting. Police started untangling the wild series of events about 10 p.m. when officers were called to a shooting in the Brookside area, said Springville Police Lt. Warren Foster. As officers were en route, they spotted a vehicle leaving the area at a high rate of speed, he said. Officers pulled that car over and found seven people inside, Foster said. As the officers had everyone get out, they discovered one man had a head injury and another had been shot in the foot, he said. The two people were taken to a local hospital to be treated for their injuries. As detectives continued retracing the group's steps, they were led to a house where the shooting allegedly occurred. Investigators learned that the man who was shot in the foot had lived at the house with his girlfriend. The girlfriend is the daughter of a woman who also lives at the house with her common-law husband, who owns the house, Foster said. There was a dispute earlier in the day and the daughter and her boyfriend were told they had to move out, Foster said. The couple returned to the house later that night with friends to collect their belongings, he said. But as the couple was moving out, the girlfriend's brother got into an argument with her boyfriend, Foster said. It was during the argument that Justin Jenkins, 61, the homeowner, came out of the house holding a gun, he said. Jenkins then hit a 21-year-old man in the head with the gun, Foster said. But when the man was pistol-whipped, the gun went off and struck the boyfriend in the foot, Foster said. The daughter, boyfriend and their five friends all loaded into one car after the shot was fired and drove away. Jenkins was arrested and booked into the Utah County Jail for investigation of aggravated assault, discharging a firearm in city limits and reckless endangerment. While detectives were attempting to interview all the parties involved in the small Springville Police Department, they learned that about four hours earlier, Eli Edwards, the brother of the girlfriend, had brandished a knife at the boyfriend, Foster said. Because of that, he was arrested for investigation of disorderly conduct and aggravated assault. Business Update - FY19 Q1 September Quarterly Report Melbourne, Oct 31, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Rhinomed ( ASX:RNO ) ( OTCMKTS:RHNMF ) a leader in nasal delivery technology, today announced its 7th consecutive quarter on quarter of revenue growth. Positive trading conditions saw unaudited recognised revenues increase 30% over FY18 Q4 to $1.14m(see Note below) for FY19 Q1.This strong growth represents a 273% increase over the same corresponding period in Q1 of FY18.TOPLINE- Quarterly Revenues continue to grow - up to $1.14 million- 7th consecutive quarter on quarter of Revenue growth- New accounts to push US store count to 9000+, global store count to 11,000+- Signs landmark nasal drug delivery licensing deal with US medical cannabis leader - Columbia CareDuring the quarter the company also successfully shipped stock to new retail partners CVS and Rite Aid who have now begun stocking Mute on the shelves of an additional 4500 stores (1500 CVS stores) and 3000 Rite Aid stores. Revenues from these new accounts, in line with Accounting standards, is not included in this Quarter's result. The unaudited revenue result for Q1 is particularly pleasing given we enter FY19 Q2 with double the US store count that we had at the beginning of FY19 Q1.During the course of the Quarter a further 62,000 units were shipped to customers with a value of an additional $897,000 in unaudited invoiced sales being added. Accounts receivable now stand at $1.5 million.Net Cash used in Operating Activities was $918k. Cash receipts of $522k lag revenues in line with trading terms. The company ended the quarter with $348k in cash and has yet to draw down on the existing $2m working capital facility.Landmark Nasal Drug Delivery partnership with Columbia CareThe company completed a landmark nasal drug delivery licensing deal with US based Columbia Care at the end of September.This deal will see Rhinomed's nasal platform used by Columbia Care to deliver nasal medical cannabis formulations. The agreement covers a portfolio of potential products across both consumer health and clinical settings that would initially be sold through Columbia Care's US based dispensary network. The US is the largest and one of the fastest growing cannabis markets in the world.Under the terms of the agreement Rhinomed will optimise its platform for delivery of cannabinoid formulations and supply the customised product to Columbia Care. Columbia Care will manufacture and place specific pharmaceutical formulations onto the platform in its facilities in the U.S. Rhinomed will retain all intellectual property rights to its drug delivery platform.The agreed revenue model will see Rhinomed receive cost plus a double-digit royalty fee on a per product basis. In addition, Rhinomed will also receive a further double-digit share of net profits that varies based on the retail channel - with a greater share for product sold through its retail channels.Rhinomed notes that while it is too early to assess whether the impact of this deal will affect its 2019 revenues the company has been steadily working to unlock shareholder value by strategically opening up new industry verticals such as drug delivery, following the widespread and successful distribution and adoption of its Mute nasal stent product.Business developmentInterest in the company's technologies from the sleep medicine community continues to grow at a rapid rate. This strongly illustrates the growing recognition of the importance of the nose and nasal resistance and airflow and its impact on both efficacy and compliance with a range of other sleep therapies, including CPAP and oral devices.FutureThe key focus of the company remains reaching a sustainable cash flow position. The growth in store numbers provides the company with a strong base from which it can build a steady and strong growth in customer numbers.Rhinomed continues to build a reputation and be recognised as an innovator and global leader in improving nasal drug delivery, airflow, breathing and sleep. The strong interest in the company's progress continues to open up opportunities for strategic relationships that will further assist the company to expand its footprint.Note: All financial figures contained in this Announcement are provided on an unaudited basesTo view figures, please visit:To view Investor Update Presentation, please visit:About Rhinomed Limited Rhinomed Limited (ASX:RNO) is a Melbourne based technology firm with a focus on nasal, respiratory and breathing management technologies. The company is seeking to monetise applications of its technology portfolio in the Sport, Sleep, Wellbeing and Drug Delivery markets. For more information, go to www.rhinomed.global Follow the Turbine on Twitter at @theturbinecom Follow Mute Snoring on Twitter at @mutesnoring SALT LAKE CITY A memorial scholarship fund honoring slain University of Utah student Lauren McCluskey has raised about $40,000, according to the school. The majority of contributions have come from Utahns, but about three dozen donors are from McCluskey's native Washington state, and others living abroad, including in Canada, Belgium, Australia, Japan and Great Britain. About 460 individual donors have given to the fund, which will provide scholarships to students on the school's track and field team. Most of the Utah donors are not affiliated with the university, said school spokesman Chris Nelson. And many are fans of rival Brigham Young University. McCluskey, a senior at the school who was majoring in communication, was shot to death on campus Oct. 22 by a man she briefly dated and whom she stopped seeing after learning he was a registered sex offender, police said. Her killing has spurred a series of reviews by the university and Utah's public safety department. In her obituary, McCluskey's family members urged people to refrain from sending flowers and instead give to the scholarship fund or to the Whitman County Humane Society in Washington. A celebration of her life is scheduled for Nov. 11 in Pullman, Washington. SALT LAKE CITY President Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints finished his five-country South American ministry tour over the weekend with the dedication of the Concepcion Chile Temple. The tour, which began Oct. 19, included visits to Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile. We feel very grateful, President Nelson said Sunday. The people are so loving and so anxious to serve the Lord and to serve each other. It really is a sacred feeling you have among them. Church News editor Sarah Jane Weaver and Deseret News staff writer Tad Walch and photographer Jeff Allred chronicled the South American tour. Here are eight significant events and inspiring moments from the tour. President Nelson dedicated the new Concepcion Chile Temple, the second in the nation of Chile, on Sunday. That day, President Nelson spoke about the "young church" that was organized 188 years ago. President Nelson is 94. We are witnesses to a process of restoration, he said. If you think the church has been fully restored, you are just seeing the beginning. There is much more to come. President Nelson first visited Chile as a cardiac surgeon before returning as an apostle, according to the Deseret News. This was his first visit to the country as president of the church. He has seen the faith of the people, Sister Wendy Nelson said of President Nelson. He has seen the love of the people for the Lord. Now he has seen the love of the people for the temple. That means everything to my husband to see that. The Concepcion Chile Temple was announced Oct. 3, 2009. The groundbreaking was held Oct. 17, 2015. The dedicatory prayer offered by President Nelson can be read here. In a historic event, President Nelson met with Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra. The two leaders agreed that Latter-day Saints are a force of good in Peru. The two also discussed the needs of women and children, humanitarian issues and concerns about corruption. "It was an extraordinary privilege for us," President Nelson said. "He was very warm and gracious, welcoming." Addressing the Saints in Spanish President Nelson surprised Peruvian Latter-day Saints by addressing them in their native language of Spanish. "Now I'd like to speak to you from my heart in a language not my own," President Nelson said while speaking at Limas Coliseo Mariscal Caceres. See the reaction here: Photo of children hugging President Nelson captured Allred explained how he captured a lucky image of children gathered around the prophet of the church after a devotional in Asuncion, Paraguay. Sergio Rubin, author of the international best-selling biography "Pope Francis: Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio, interviewed President Nelson in Montevideo, Uruguay. During the interview, President Nelson condemned religious violence. "The Catholics and the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we need to work together to stem the tide of violence," President Nelson told Rubin. When asked about extremists whose violence is motivated by religion, President Nelson said, "The teachings of the Lord are clear. There is to be no contention, no disputation." Later, Rubin spoke with the Church News about how religious leaders can help others embrace religion. President Nelson addresses youths During the Concepcion Chile Temple youth devotional, President Nelson spoke to 28,000 youth in the temple district. About 1,500 of those youths gathered at the Talcahuano Chile South Stake Center, where the devotional originated and where it was broadcasted from, according to Church News. 'I would not miss that for the world' Elder Gary E. Stevenson, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, spoke about why Latter-day Saints gather to hear the president of the church. "People want to gather in the latter days to hear a prophet speak," Elder Stevenson told the Deseret News. "Imagine if you had the chance to gather in the Kirtland Temple to hear Joseph Smith speak or in the Salt Lake Tabernacle to hear Brigham Young or John Taylor. I would not miss that for the world. "I think we see that with President Nelson and the Latter-day Saints wherever we go." Prophet, president and grandfather President Nelson met with his grandson, Elder Nicholas Russell Nelson, during his visit to Uruguay. We captured moments from the meeting in the video below. WASHINGTON At an apparent turning point in one of its hardest foreign policy challenges, the Trump administration is demanding a cease-fire and the launch of U.N.-led political talks to end the Saudi-Iran proxy war in Yemen. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called for a halt to hostilities within 30 days. The renewed diplomatic drive reflects a convergence of political pressures: international outrage over the slaying of a U.S.-based Saudi journalist and a Yemeni humanitarian crisis fueled by the dual threats of war and hunger in the Arab world's poorest country. "The time is now for a cessation of hostilities," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a written statement late Tuesday. His plea came shortly after Mattis spoke in unusual detail about diplomacy to end a crisis that has put vast numbers of Yemenis on the brink of starvation. The administration's new push comes amid mounting fears of a fresh Arab coalition assault on the Red Sea port of Hodeida, the entry point for 70 percent of food imports and international aid to Yemen. "Yemen has more problems than any people deserve to carry," Mattis said. The conflict in Yemen began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, and the toppling of the government by the Houthis, a Shiite Muslim minority in the country. The Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. An estimated 10,000 people have been killed. The war has also left around two-thirds of Yemen's population of 27 million relying on aid, and more than 8 million at risk of starvation. The fact that the Pentagon chief offered detailed thoughts on the urgency of a need for diplomatic progress, even before Pompeo had weighed in, strongly suggests that the administration has reached a turning point in its approach to Yemen, which also confounded the Obama administration. At stake is not only the humanitarian crisis in Yemen but also the future of the American relationship with Saudi Arabia, long the linchpin of U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf. "It's about time," said one congressional critic, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. "After more than three years of war, thousands of dead, millions on the brink of starvation, and growing pressure from Congress, the Trump administration is finally calling for an end to the Saudi-led war in Yemen," Khanna said in a statement. The Oct. 2 killing of Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate in Turkey has prompted critics of the Saudi ruling family to urge an end to American arms sales to the kingdom and a reappraisal of U.S. military support for the Saudi-led Arab coalition that has been bombing Iranian-supported Houthi rebels, sometimes at the expense of killing civilians. A top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday that Khashoggi, who wrote columns critical of the Saudi government for The Washington Post, was killed and dismembered in a premeditated murder at the consulate. As details about the case have emerged, U.S. lawmakers stepped up demands for responses to the murder and to the crisis in Yemen. Pompeo urged a cease-fire, citing both missile and drone strikes into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates by Houthis and the airstrikes "in all populated areas" of Yemen by the U.S.-backed Arab coalition. He urged implementation of "confidence-building measures" to address the underlying issues of the conflict. Mattis was more specific than Pompeo in his call for urgent movement toward a political solution to the fighting under peace talks being urged by the U.N. special envoy, Martin Griffiths. Mattis said a cease-fire should take effect within 30 days. "We're calling on all the parties, specifically the Houthis and the Arab coalition, to meet in Sweden in November and to come to a solution," Mattis said. The U.S. proposal was greeted with skepticism in Houthi-controlled Sanaa. Sultan Al-Samaey, a member of the Houthi political council, said that while the war needed to be brought to an end, the group would only support "a peace which will preserve our independence." Ayoub Al-Tamimi, a Sanaa resident and political activist, said: "This is simply a solution that will only plant land mines in the future of this region. There is no solution that can come from Trump or the Democrats, only booby traps." Sweden on Wednesday said it had accepted Griffiths' request that it host such talks but that nothing was definite. Griffiths on Wednesday welcomed the U.S. calls for immediate resumption of the political process and said the United Nations remains committed "to bring the Yemeni parties to the negotiations table within a month." Mattis called for demilitarization of Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia "so that the Saudis and the Emirates do not have to worry about missiles coming into their homes and cities and airports." He also said measures should be taken to "ensure that all Iranian-supplied missiles to the Houthis" are put under "international watch." "This has got to end. We've got to replace combat with compromise," Mattis said. Mattis put the primary blame on Iran. He said its proxies and surrogate forces are fueling the conflict. "They need to knock it off," he said. Mattis said the political process should "set the conditions for a return to traditional areas inside Yemen and a government that allows for this amount of local autonomy that Houthis or that southerners want." A group of five Republican senators cited the situation in Yemen as well as the Khashoggi killing as reasons for calling on the administration to halt ongoing negotiations with Saudi Arabia on a civilian nuclear energy agreement. Among them, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has proposed legislation that would stop arms sales to the Saudis. The administration's diplomatic push highlights the severity of the crisis in the Yemeni port city of Hodeida. A protracted siege of Hodeida by the U.S.-supported Arab coalition could imperil the international lifeline to the port. The International Committee for the Red Cross said Wednesday that its team in Hodeida this week found dreadful living conditions for thousands of displaced families "who own only the clothes they wear and survive on a little rice or a thin mix of flour and water, if they find any food to eat at all." LOGAN A day after a prominent northern Utah businessman was charged and arrested for several sex-related crimes against teenagers, Utah State University officials issued a warning to students. Lonnie Kent Nyman, 34, of Millville, Cache County the president and owner of Nyman Funeral Home was charged Tuesday in 1st District Court with three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony; four counts of dealing in harmful materials to a minor, witness tampering and obstruction of justice, third-degree felonies; and two counts of enticing a minor, a class A misdemeanor. According to charging documents, Nyman had child pornography on his iPad and arranged to have sex with juvenile boys. On Wednesday, USU police issued a "Code Blue," or community safety alert. "USU police are concerned about a potential threat to the Logan campus from Lonnie Kent Nyman, who was arrested and charged with sexual exploitation of a minor," according to the message from Chief Mike Kuehn. "Nyman has ties to campus community members, and may pose a threat to them and others." The chief states that Nyman had posted bail, which was set at $100,000. Without explaining why Nyman is perceived to be a threat on campus, Kuehn asked students to call 911 or contact USU police at 435-797-1939 if he is spotted on campus. "Do not approach him," the alert states. SALT LAKE CITY A Murray police sergeant who recently resigned from his department is scheduled to go to trial in January for allegedly assaulting a teenage boy while on duty. The case against Luis Alberto Argueta-Salazar, 46, of West Jordan, was originally filed under seal, according to court records. But after his case was brought up in a motion for another case, an amended public information was filed last week. Argueta-Salazar is charged in Murray Justice Court with assault, a class B misdemeanor. The alleged incident happened on June 13 at a gas station at 4503 S. State, according to court documents. On Wednesday, Murray city issued a prepared statement regarding the allegations. Argueta-Salazar was performing a welfare check on a 16-year-old boy who was passed out, according to the statement. "A witness called two days later to complain about the incident, at which time Murray city police began an investigation. The city placed the officer on paid administrative leave," according to a statement from Jennifer Heaps, spokeswoman for Murray Mayor Blair Camp. While South Jordan police were conducting an independent investigation, Murray officials conducted an internal investigation. "Prior to the conclusion of the internal investigation, the officer resigned," the city stated. "The city is concerned that the release of additional information at present may create a danger of depriving the officer of a fair trial or impartial hearing. Accordingly, the city has no further comment at this time." Argueta-Salazar's came to light publicly when it was referenced in a motion filed Oct. 19 in another, unrelated court proceeding involving a former nurse charged with sexually assaulting patients. Adam Tae Kyun Lim, 54, of Herriman, was charged in 2016 with two counts of object rape, a first-degree felony, and forcible sexual abuse, a second-degree felony. He was accused of sexually abusing two women while working as a registered nurse. Soon after the charges were filed, the Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing issued an emergency order against Lim and suspended his license. The division report listed 12 women dating back to 2006 who claimed they were inappropriately touched or sexually assaulted by Lim. On Thursday, a jury convicted Lim on all three counts. He is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 7. Prior to Lim's conviction, Argueta-Salazar was scheduled to testify in the case. But the Utah Attorney General's Office wanted to avoid questions about his own pending case during cross-examination. According to the motion filed by the attorney general's office, in June Argueta-Salazar "was making an arrest of an inebriated individual," according to court records. The man being arrested, however, became "combative," according to Argueta-Salazar. The former officer said he was acting in self-defense when he hit the man, according to the motion. South Jordan police were called to investigate the matter. They referred their case to Murray Justice Court and the charge was formally filed on July 12. "The information filed in this case is identified as NP and is not accessible by the public. Therefore, the state obtained a copy of the information directly from, and with the permission of (the officer)," the motion noted. SALT LAKE CITY After meeting twice in executive session this month to interview and review four finalists for a new state commissioner of technical education, the Utah System of Technical Colleges board of trustees will reopen the search. The trustees announced "a postponement of final selection for the position of commissioner of technical education" and Tuesday named Jared Haines, associate commissioner of the system, as interim commissioner. On Oct. 15, the trustees interviewed four finalists but held off naming a new commissioner to allow time to conduct further "due diligence." The finalists included Tami Pyfer, education adviser to Utah Gov. Gary Herbert; Rick Bouillon, associate vice president for workforce and economic development at Salt Lake Community College; Russell Galt, vice president of administrative services at Davis Technical College; and Dan Peterson, CEO and president of Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The board of trustees met again Tuesday to review the candidates and possibly appoint a new commissioner, according to its agenda, but instead announced the search had been reopened and Bouwhuis' interim role would be ending. Given the significance of the role of commissioner, the trustees feel more time is needed to fill the position and, after we engage a thorough review of our processes, will reopen our search, the trustees said in a statement. Haines replaces Michael Bouwhuis, who has served in the interim role since August following the resignation of former Commissioner Dave Woolstenhulme. "Commissioner Bouwhuis has served the system over 40 years, including his role as interim commissioner. We thank him for his dedication and look forward to working with Commissioner Haines as we attend to the important business of oversight of the technical colleges, trustees Chairman Jim Evans said in the statement. Woolstenhulme resigned in July to become vice president of regional campuses at Utah State University. He was the state's first commissioner of technical education after the position was created by the Utah Legislature in 2015. Haines will serve as interim commissioner until the boards search concludes in April 2019. The trustees' appointment is subject to the approval of the governor and confirmation by the state Senate. The Utah System of Technical Colleges includes eight technology colleges from Logan to St. George. They are Bridgerland Technical College in Logan; Davis Technical Collegein Kaysville, Dixie Technical College in St. George; Mountainland Technical College in Lehi; Ogden Technical College; Southwest Technical College in Cedar City; Tooele Technical College and Uintah Basin Technical College in Vernal. The colleges had a combined enrollment of more than 33,800 secondary and post-secondary students during the 2017-18 school year. Arjun Rampals Mother Gwen Rampal Passes Away: Girlfriend Gabriella And Daughters At Funeral Actor Arjun Rampals mother has died after a long fight against cancer. Several film celebrities paid their last respects to Gwen Rampal at her funeral in Mumbai on Sunday evening. Arjun performed the last rites for his mother and found support in his friends and colleagues from Bollywood. His co-star from Paltan, Harshwardhan Rane arrived to bid a final goodbye to Gwen. Ranes girlfriend and actor Kim Sharma also accompanied him to the funeral. Arjuns rumored girlfriend Gabriella Demetriades and his daughters Mahikaa and Myra were also seen at their grandmothers funeral. Arjuns ex wife Mehr Jessia was also spotted. Here are a few pictures from the funeral: Arjun had shared a video on Twitter a few months ago detailing his mothers fight against breast cancer. In the video he said, Cancer is becoming more and more epidemic these days. My mother underwent a treatment for it and was cured. But 10 months later, cancer metastasized into her lungs and then with the help of my friend, we went to Champali Maud Foundation research centre in Lisbon. The actor ended the video on an emotional note as his mother spoke about her experience while announcing that she is now all hale and hearty. It has been two days since the OnePlus 6T became official globally and just a few hours since its India price was announced and the company is already rolling out a software update to the phone. OnePlus is now seeding OxygenOS 9.0.4 update to the OnePlus 6T, which brings improvements to Nightscape in camera and also updates the phones Android security patch to November, which the OnePlus 6 also received recently through Open Beta 6. We still don't know what the November patch fixes, because Google is yet to release the November Security Bulletins. Nightscape on the OnePlus 6T is nothing but the pro-mode sprinkled with some computational photography. When shooting in low light, the camera bumps up the ISO and slows down the shutter speed. The update was originally spotted by HDBlog and apart from improvements to Nightscape and an updated security patch, it also brings improvements to Screen Unlock, come new navigation gestures, optimised standby power consumption and some general bug fixes. OnePlus 6Ts camera also gets added studio lighting to enhance face contour. The OxygenOS 9.0.4 update is rolling out right now and users may receive it in a phased manner. The OnePlus 6T is priced starting at Rs 37,999 for 6GB+128GB variant while the 8GB+128GB variant will retail for Rs 41,999. The top most variant with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage will be available for Rs Rs 45,999. You can read more about its India availability and buying offers here. We all consider ourselves worldly. Not Columbus worldly, but at least well travelled. I thought of myself as such up until 12 hours ago, when an Instagram post swung out of my phone and slapped me square in the face. The post alerted me to two things. Firstly: I am the travel equivalent of an anti-vaxxer, naively believing in gravity and blissfully unaware that the falling lakes existed, despite thousands of people taking selfies of them every day. Secondly: this incredible natural wonder is under threat from the very people that alerted me to its presence. Pie munching Aussies. Beer swilling Brits. Sauerkraut happy Germans. Americans. Which leaves me (us?) with a dilemma. Do we visit this real-life manifestation of an old Microsoft screensaver before it collapses under the weight of Augustus Gloop worshipping backpackers? Or do we stay away and hope the Plitvice lake authorities and UNESCO get their act together? But before we get into all that: what are the falling lakes? Basically, also known as Plitvice Lakes, the falling lakes are a series of 16 crystalline lakes and waterfalls that run down one of Croatias largest national parks. The lakes limestone basin makes for calcium carbonate rich waters (and a malleable base) that moves and hardens over time, following the pattern of moss and water flowwhich is how the chain-like barriers have been formed between pools. At a glacial pace, the water flowing underneath then reclaims the limestone, breaking down the rock, and the lakes shift, or fall steadily downhill. As for the unbelievably azure water, this is thanks to the moss that gets fossilised into this particular rock. This algae blooms and releases gases (particularly in the summer months) which react with the water to create shades of electric blue and inviting green, where fish hang, as if suspended in glass. But enough of the poetry: we have a problem on our hands. Although other Croatian national parks currently have a limit of 10,000 people per day, this policy does not apply to Plitvice. This means that upwards of 1.3M+ visitors trundle through the Falling Lakes each year. Even though officials have built bridges and walkways over the water to mitigate this, selfie-seeking visitors consistently wander off the wooden paths, sometimes into the water, which has led to various injuries, deaths, and significant damage to the ecosystem. Cruelly, and in light of this, Plitvice Lakes National Park is allegedly at risk of losing its UNESCO statuswhich would make its park officials even less equipped to look after it than before. Park officials are considering a number of options because the recklessness and careless attitude of tourists caused harm to both the visitors and the park. The problem is also being exacerbated by the construction of vacation homes and clearing of land near the borders of the park. So before the place turns into a reservoir for coke cans instead of fish, get in quick because as long as you dont wander off piste or buy a house, your tourism dollars could help save the Falling Lakes. RELATED: Amalfi Coast Destinations Only Locals Know About Quarterly Activities Report Sydney, Oct 31, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Hastings Technology Metals Ltd ( ASX:HAS ) provides the Company's Quarterly Activities Report.- Probable Ore Reserves increased to 7.74 million tonnes at 1.13%TREO including 0.43%Nd2O3+Pr6O11, and further successful infill and extension drilling- These additional Ore Reserves confirm the eight-year mine life as described in the Company's Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) of November 2017- Major aeromagnetic target identified at Yangibana- Exclusive mandate executed with German KfW IPEX-Bank for project finance loan advisory services- KfW IPEX-Bank has provided indicative terms for senior debt of up to A$250 million for the project (conditional upon UFK Cover being obtained)- Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) releases Yangibana rare earths project public environmental review report for consultation- Execution of agreement for supply of Rotary Kiln and technical assistance with FLSmidthTo view the full report, please visit:About Hastings Technology Metals Ltd Hastings Technology Metals Ltd (ASX:HAS) (FRA:5AM) is advancing its Yangibana Rare Earths Project in the Upper Gascoyne Region of Western Australia towards production. The proposed beneficiation and hydro metallurgy processing plant will treat rare earths deposits, predominantly monazite, hosting high neodymium and praseodymium contents to produce a mixed rare earths carbonate that will be further refined into individual rare earth oxides at processing plants overseas. Neodymium and praseodymium are vital components in the manufacture of permanent magnets which is used in a wide and expanding range of advanced and high-tech products including electric vehicles, wind turbines, robotics, medical applications and others. Hastings aims to become the next significant producer of neodymium and praseodymium outside of China. Hastings holds 100% interest in the most significant deposits within the overall project, and 70% interest in additional deposits that will be developed at a later date, all held under Mining Leases. Numerous prospects have been identified warranting detailed exploration to further extend the life of the project. Brockman Project The Brockman deposit, near Halls Creek in Western Australia, contains JORC Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources, estimated using the guidelines of JORC Code (2012 Edition). The Company is also progressing a Mining Lease application over the Brockman Rare Earths and Rare Metals Project. Hastings aims to capitalise on the strong demand for critical rare earths created by the expanding demand for new technology products. India, Japan to expand security and defence cooperation India and Japan have decided to further deepen bilateral security and defence cooperation through established mechanisms, including the annual defence ministerial dialogue and mutual interaction between national security advisors, the three services, coast guards. Both countries attach importance to the Malabar exercise, regular Passage Exercises (PASSEX) and other joint exercises, including the first counter terrorism exercise between the Japan Ground Self-Defence Force (JGSDF) and the Indian Army as well as Japan Air Self-Defence Forces (JASDF) participation as observer in Cope India and welcome increased cooperation with like-minded countries. Maritime security cooperation between India and Japan through enhanced exchanges in expanding maritime domain awareness (MDA) and mutual logistics support in the Indo-Pacific Region contributes to regional peace and stability. During the 13 Summit, the two prime ministers welcomed the signing the implementing arrangement for deeper cooperation between the Indian Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF) and commencement of negotiations for the Acquisition, Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA). These two documents will enhance the strategic depth of the relationship. Cooperation between India and Japan on defence equipment and technology holds immense scope and potential for future bilateral collaborations. Defence cooperation between India and Japan flows from the Joint Declaration Security Cooperation 2008 and the Memorandum on Defence Cooperation and Exchanges concluded in 2014. The agreement concerning the Transfer of Defence Equipment and Technology and Agreement concerning Security Measures for the Protection of Classified Military Information also concluded in 2015 have further built on this edifice. The Implementing Arrangement for Deeper Cooperation between the Indian Navy and JMSDF was signed in October 2018. It will establish the means and framework for information sharing and conduct of joint exercises and other maritime engagements for the enhancement of Maritime Security and MDA, including the exchange of shipping information. India, Japan to expand special strategic and global partnership India and Japan have committed themselves to working together to promote peace, stability and prosperity, through economic growth and development in the Indo-Pacific, including Africa, by enhancing connectivity through quality infrastructure and capacity building of our partners. Both countries emphasised that all development cooperation must be carried out in an open, transparent and non-exclusive manner and based on international standards, including respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of nations, responsible debt financing practices, and in alignment with local economic and development strategies and priorities. By synergising Indias "Act East Policy and Prime Minister Modis 10 guiding principles for Indias sustained and regular engagement with African countries, with Japans "Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure Initiative and TICAD VI Nairobi declaration, the two countries welcomed and committed to further consultations with host governments to foster tangible cooperation focusing on development of connectivity and other infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific. India and Japan welcomed progress in identification of specific cooperation, including but not limited to the following: Cooperation in Sri Lanka, such as the development of LNG-related infrastructure; Cooperation in Myanmar, synergizing development efforts in the Rakhine State by collaborating in housing, education and electrification projects; Cooperation in Bangladesh, for enhancing connectivity by way of four-laning of road and reconstruction of bridges on the Ramgarh to Baraiyarhat stretch, and providing rolling stock and constructing the Jamuna Railway Bridge over the Januma River; and Cooperation in Africa, such as organising an SME development seminar in Kenya and seeking a possibility of a collaborative project in the area of health service such as developing a cancer hospital in Kenya. The two countries also acknowledged the importance of expanding cooperation in human resource development, capacity building, healthcare, livelihood, water, sanitation and in the digital space, and of working together to extend access to education, health and other amenities, and assist the people of the Indo-Pacific, including Africa, to realize their developmental potentials. Further, the two countries will work towards establishing an India-Japan Business Platform to enhance the exchanges between Indian and Japanese businesses toward developing industrial corridors and industrial network in the region. In this context, the two countries welcomed the memorandum of understanding between NEXI and ECGC, which is expected to promote development of concrete India-Japan business projects in the region. Both India and Japan said their development cooperation in the Indo-Pacific can contribute to unlocking the potential for an equitable, positive and forward-looking change in the region, and contribute to socio-economic development of Africa. India-Japan `Act East Forum Indias North East Region is one of the main areas of Indias Act East Policy. The region also shares historical and traditional bonds with ASEAN countries, and has the potential to be Indias springboard to the ASEAN region. Enhancing connectivity within North East Region and with its neighbouring countries is essential to tap its potential and presents crystallized examples of the shared vision between Japan and India as expressed in the Vision Statement. The Act East Forum established last year has served as a driving force to advance India-Japan cooperation in the North-East. Its second meeting, held on 8 October decided to expediting implementation of Meghalaya North East Connectivity by fast-tracking the following projects Phase 1: Tura-Dalu (NH-51) Phase 2: Shillong-Dawki (NH-40) Mizoram North East Connectivity Phase 1 & 2: Aizawl-Tuipang (NH-54) Sikkim: Biodiversity Conservation & Forest Management Nagaland: Forest Conservation Livelihood Improvement Japan and India reaffirmed their intentions to proceed with the completion of Gelephu-Dalu Corridor in collaboration with the ADB, including Dhubri/Phulbari bridge project, which will be the longest river bridge in India if realised, as Phase 3 of North East Road Network Connectivity Improvement Project. The will also consider developing main district roads and other district roads, which will have positive socio-economic effect. For skill development, the two countries will launch "Japan-India North East Bamboo Initiative in view of the significance bamboo plays in the region. Industrial uses of bamboos and bamboo forest management will be pursued under this initiative, building on the successful first "North East Bamboo Workshop. To promote Japanese language education in the North East as a part of the commitment made by the two prime ministers to establish Japanese language certificate courses at 100 higher educational institutions in India. The forum welcomed the interest for such courses expressed by cotton university and Gauhati University in Assam, EFLU in Meghalaya state as well as NIT-N in Nagaland, to which Japan is prepared to provide appropriate support through Japanese Language Teachers Training Centre. More proposals from North East states are welcome. To promote skill training, including Japanese language for caregivers from North East who visit Japan for training under TITP (Technical Intern Training Programme) ,which contributes to enhancing cooperation between the two countries under the Asia Health and Wellbeing Initiative. Govt weighs options for sale of debt-laden IL&FS: report Government is examining various options, including an outright sale of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services, reports quoting sources with knowledge of the matter as saying. The new board of IL&FS will be presenting a resolution plan for the debt-laden infrastructure financing company to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) today. The plan is expected to include sale of the entire assets of the company, the board may also weigh splitting up the company into several verticals and selling all several non-core assets. Alternatively, it may also revival plans by injecting liquidity at group level to avoid an outright sale. IL&FS owns a number of very good assets, which will fetch good value. The board is now looking at a plan to maximise realisation from sale of assets, so as to ensure maximum returns to lenders. IL&FS group is sitting on a debt pile of nearly Rs90,000 crore, and it would be difficult to find a buyer with such financial clout. Also, the group has some 300-odd subsidiaries, making things difficult to manage for any buyer. Any buyer would not like to take on an entity with such high debt and a complex structure. The new board is in the process of identifying subsidiaries that have solid businesses and those that are merely on paper. Anyway, the entire group has to be restructured before any sale is contemplated. Meanwhile, some of the group entities of IL&FS continue to default, even after the new board took over. On Tuesday, ILFS Transport Networks (ITNL) said it has defaulted on payment of interest on six separate non-convertible debentures for the period between 27 July 2018, and 26 October 2018. ITNL also said that its managing director, K Ramchand, has resigned with immediate effect. There have been several other big exits from IL&FS Group since the meltdown started earlier this year. The problem facing the IL & FS is not bad investment, rather it is finding it difficult to service debt for lack of liquidity. While existing shareholders have not shown interest to a rights issue to raise Rs4,500 crore, banks are wary to lend more money without seeing a plan to revive the company. Also, there is uncertainty on the various investigations being carried out against the former management. The Serious Fraud Investigation Office has started looking into the companys complex structure and the money trail into various foreign subsidiaries. The IL&FS Group has 348 direct and indirect subsidiaries. Its investors include Life Insurance Corporation, State Bank of India, Housing Development Finance Corporation, and Japans Orix Corporation. SC seeks price details of Rafale deal; rules out CBI probe The Supreme Court today asked the central government to share with it the price details of Rafale fighter jets, being acquired from French aircraft maker Dassault, in a sealed envelope. The Supreme Court, while hearing two petitions filed by lawyers ML Sharma and Vineet Dhanda had directed the government to provide in a sealed cover, the steps taken in arriving at the decision to seal the deal in its present form. The apex court, while hearing a petition filed by former union ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha along with lawyer Prashant Bhushan, said that even if the centre could not share the details, file an affidavit to the same. The court, however, ruled out a CBI probe into the matter and Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi observed that the CBI should first put its house in order. The petitions by Sinha and Shouri were filed after the Supreme Court's directives on the earlier petition. As of now, four PILs are pending before the Supreme Court on the deal. Sinha, Shourie and Bhushan have sought registration of FIR into the Rafale jet deal alleging criminal misconduct' by public functionaries. The trio has also sought a CBI investigation into the case. It may be noted that the tender for the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) deal, under which rafale was chosen, was floated in 2007. The original tender for the purchase of 126 fighter jets, involved procurement of 18 fighter jets in flyaway condition and remaining 108 in India with the transfer of technology. Dassault, the manufacturer of Rafale, was declared the lowest bidder and the price negotiations were at a very advanced stage by March 25, 2015. "However within 15 days of this, the prime minister of India and the President of France announced a totally new deal jettisoning the virtually complete 126 aircraft deal and the prime minister on behalf of India agreed to purchase only 36 Rafale aircraft in a 'fly-away' condition without any transfer of technology and make in India. It later turned out that the new deal involved 50 per cent of the value of the contract to be given as 'offset contracts' to Indian companies and that the government informally told Dassault and the French government that the bulk of the offset contracts would have to be given to a company of Anil Ambani which had just been set up," it claimed. The pleas cite that the government extended an undue benefit to Reliance Aerospace Limited (RAL) and also resulted in price escalations. Bhushan's plea also demands a SIT probe into the matter. Sensex ends 550 points higher, Nifty closes at 10,386; midcaps up 2% Market at Close: Wednesdays session has ended on a strong note, with the Sensex soaring over 500 points, while the Nifty closed above 10,350-mark. A strong surge in financials along with IT names were responsible for pushing the indices higher. Pharmaceuticals joined the bandwagon as well and a combination of all these factors boosted the market. Automobiles, consumption, infrastructure, and PSU banks were the other big gainers. In the broader markets, the Nifty Midcap index rose around 2 percent. At the close of market hours, the Sensex ended up 550.92 points or 1.63% at 34,442.05, while the Nifty was higher by 188.20 points or 1.85% at 10,386.60. The market breadth is positive as 1,593 shares advanced, 946 shares declined, while 1,114 shares were unchanged. Market Update: Benchmark indices gained further ground in the afternoon trade with Nifty trading cloer to 10,350 level. The Sensex is up 406.41 points or 1.20% at 34297.54, while Nifty up 138.10 points or 1.35% at 10336.50. About 1409 shares have advanced, 941 shares declined, and 1297 shares are unchanged. Reliance Industries, HDFC, Infosys, ICICI Bank and TCS are the positive contributors to the Sensex. Market Update: Equity benchmarks have extended their gains, with the Nifty soaring past 10,250. The Sensex is up 219.04 points or 0.65% at 34110.17, while the Nifty is higher 74.90 points or 0.73% at 10273.30. The market breadth is positive as 1,279 shares advanced, against a decline of 1,021 shares, while 1,346 shares were unchanged. IT stocks have further extended their gains, while pharmaceuticals and PSU banks were higher as well. Metals, infra and automobiles were the other big losers. The midcap index was higher by a percent. Market Update: Theres a recovery on the cards. The Sensex is up over 140 points, while the Nifty is around 10,250. The Sensex is up 140.09 points or 0.41% at 34031.22, and the Nifty up 48.70 points or 0.48% at 10247.10. The market breadth is positive as 1,188 shares advanced, against a decline of 1,022 shares, while 1,434 shares were unchanged. Among sectors, gains are visible among IT and pharmaceuticals, while auto, metals and infrastructure names are trading in the red. Midcaps are in the green, with Nifty Midcap index trading around a percent higher. Market Update: The market is trading volatile on Wednesday with Nifty trading around 10,150 mark, while Sensex is down over 50 points. The Sensex is down 69.35 points or 0.20% at 33821.78, while the Nifty down 15.20 points or 0.15% at 10183.20. About 1002 shares have advanced, 1090 shares declined, and 1551 shares are unchanged. Infosys, HDFC, IndusInd Bank, Sun Pharma and Axis Bank are the top gainers on the Sensex. Buy Gujarat Ambuja Exports: Gujarat Ambuja Exports has been consolidating in the range of Rs 180-230 from the last four months. In this month we have observed fresh breakout in the prices, said Shitij Gandhi of SMC Global Securities. Currently, the stock has formed a bullish flag pattern on the daily charts and is on the verge of a breakout above the same. The positive divergence on secondary indicators like RSI and stochastic also suggest for further upside in prices moving forward. Traders can accumulate the stock in a range of Rs 235-240 for the upside target of Rs 261 and a stop loss below Rs 220, he added. Market Update: Sudden selling has gripped D-Street as the Sensex is trading over 200 points lower. The Nifty has given up 10,150. The Sensex is down 214.93 points or 0.63% at 33676.20, while the Nifty is down 75.60 points or 0.74% at 10122.80. The market breadth is negative as 789 shares advanced, against a decline of 870 shares, while 1,983 shares were unchanged. Shares of Infosys, HDFC, and Indiabulls Housing are the top gainers, while Tata Steel, Coal India and Dr Reddys Laboratories have lost the most. Market Update: Equity benchmarks are off their high points, but the Nifty is holding 10,200. The Sensex is up 24.31 points or 0.07% at 33915.44, while the Nifty is higher by 10.10 points or 0.10% at 10208.50. The market breadth is positive as 980 shares advanced, against a decline of 472 shares, while 2,190 shares were unchanged. Infosys, HDFC, UPL and Indiabulls Housing are the top gainers, while Coal India, Tata Steel, and Dr Reddys have lost the most. Dr Reddys falls 6%: Shares of Dr Reddys Laboratories fell over 6 percent on Tuesday morning as investors reacted to the company receiving observations for its Duvvada unit. The drug maker said it got Form 483 with 8 observations from US FDA for its injectable plant in Duvvada. This is to inform you that the audit of our formulations manufacturing facility at Duvvada, Visakhapatnam, by the US FDA, has been completed today, the company said in a statement to stock exchanges. We have been issued a Form 483 with 8 (eight) observations, which we are addressing, the company added. The company didnt disclose the nature of these observations. The US drug regulator conveys its concerns on manufacturing practices through Form 483. Companies that receive observations must respond in writing with a corrective and preventive action plan in 15 days. The company's Duvvada unit, known as FTO-VII, manufactures cytotoxic and hormonal injectables is under warning since November 2015, blocking any new approvals. The inspection has begun on October 22. Market opens: Its a higher start for the market on Tuesday morning. The Nifty is above 10,200-mark. The Sensex is up 136.70 points or 0.40% at 34027.83, while the Nifty is higher by 40.50 points or 0.40% at 10238.90. The market breadth is positive as 566 shares advanced, against a decline of 281 shares, while 2,795 shares were unchanged. Shares of Cummins India are up around 12 percent on the back of robust Q2 numbers. Bank of Baroda is higher by 3 percent ahead of its September quarter results announcement. Yes Bank, HDFC, and Indiabulls Housing are the top gainers, while Coal India, Tata Steel, and Dr Reddys are the top losers. Market at pre-open: Equity benchmarks are trading higher in pre-opening trade. At 09:03 hrs IST, the Sensex is up 94.73 points or 0.28% at 33985.86, while the Nifty is higher by 28.40 points or 0.28% at 10226.80. The Indian rupee opened weak at 73.92 per US dollar. Asian markets trade strong: Asian stocks pulled away from 20-month lows to eke out small gains on Wednesday, thanks to a rebound on Wall Street though investors remained cautious after a torrid October month that saw trillions of dollars wiped out of global equity markets, reported Reuters. Wall Street gains: Major US stock indexes jumped more than 1 percent on Tuesday, helped by strong gains for chip and transport stocks as investors took advantage of cheaper prices following a steep recent pullback for equities, reported Reuters. Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content. Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist. If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider subscribing to our ePaper and/or free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. Quarterly Activities Report for the Period Ending 30 September 2018 Sydney, Oct 31, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - New Energy Minerals Limited ("New Energy Minerals" or the "Company") ( ASX:NXE ) ( FRA:GGY ) is pleased to provide an update to the market in relation to the Company's activities for the period ending 30 September 2018.HIGHLIGHTS- The feasibility study drilling program on the Caula Vanadium-Graphite Project in Northern Mozambique was completed with 3,025m of diamond drilling and 1,130m of reverse-circulation drilling completed in Q3- Caula hosts a JORC (Measured) mica-hosted vanadium resource of 22Mt @ 0.37% V2O5 (0.2% cut-off) for 81,600 tonnes of vanadium pentoxide (180 million pounds) with high-grade intersections up to 1.9% V2O5 (see Note 1 below)- The Caula Graphite Mineral Resource, which is all in the Measured category, was upgraded to 21.9Mt at 13.4% Total Graphitic Carbon ("TGC") (8% cut-off) for a total of 2,933,100 tonnes of contained Graphite (see Note 2 below)- The Company's Montepuez ruby assets were merged with TSX-V listed Fura Gems Inc. ( CVE:FURA ) for A$10 million in shares. Under the agreement the shares will be issued to New Energy Minerals in three tranches over a 20-month period, which will result in New Energy owning approximately 8% of Fura- The Company announced its intention to change the Company name to 'New Energy Minerals Limited', to reflect its focus on vanadium and graphite exploration and mining, critical commodities for the rapidly growing New Energy Market.Notes:1 Refer to ASX Announcement dated 20 July 20182 Refer to ASX Announcement dated 24 July 2018To view the full report, please visit:About New Energy Minerals Ltd New Energy Minerals Ltd (ASX:NXE) (FRA:GGY) is an ASX listed junior mining company, that recently announced the divestment of the Company's Caula vanadium - graphite project and the Montepuez Ruby project in Mozambique. Quarterly Update Perth, Oct 31, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Nanollose Limited ( ASX:NC6 ) ("Nanollose" or the "Company") is pleased to provide its Appendix 4C cash flow statement for the quarter ending 30 September 2018, together with the following operational update.Highlights:- Successful creation of test garment made from the Company's Nullarbor(TM) fibre- Awarded Advanced R&D Findings from the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science- Confirmed viability of additional wastes streams for the production of microbial celluloseSuccessful creation of test garment made from Nullarbor(TM) fibreThe Company recently created a test garment using the latest 3D sweater-knit technology. This marks the first time a piece of clothing has been made using our Tree-Free rayon fibre, and is a drastic departure from clothing made from traditional rayon fibre that comes from environmentally challenging wood pulp processing. Our Nullarbor fibre performed extremely well and successfully withstood the industrial manufacturing process.This milestone is a significant step in Nanollose's journey from converting its Nullarbor fibre into a piece of clothing, validating that the Company's technology could offer a commercially viable, eco-friendly manufacturing solution for the clothing industry who are urgently seeking alternatives to rayon and cotton fibres. Furthermore, throughout all steps the fibre, fabric and garment were produced using standard industrial equipment currently used by textile and clothing manufacturers.Awarded Advanced R&D Findings from the Department of Industry, Innovation and ScienceThe Company was recently awarded favourable findings from the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science ("Innovation and Science Australia"), which will enable the Company to claim tax rebates on certain overseas research and development expenditure up to $1.419 million over the next three years. This represents potential tax rebates of $617,000 (at the current rate of 43.5%) over the next three years, subject to Nanollose undertaking these overseas R&D activities, and will be in addition to rebates claimed from the Company's Australian based R&D expenditure.The certificates enable partial recovery of expenses for overseas R&D work that cannot be undertaken in Australia. These include refinement of Nanollose's fibre spinning technology, creation of additional fibre types and development of the Company's pilot plant, which is being established to optimise production and processing conditions for microbial cellulose.Combined with tax rebates from the Company's R&D undertaken in Australia, these additional tax rebates on overseas expenditure will be an important source of non-dilutive funding for Nanollose.Confirmed viability of additional wastes streams for the production of microbial celluloseNanollose has continued its R&D towards improving the growing and processing of microbial cellulose with a particular focus on scale-up methodology. Recent results have been positive with a number of wastes from the beer and sugar industries successfully used to produce microbial cellulose in good yields. Further work is ongoing into developing scalable processes to convert the raw microbial cellulose into a form and purity readily acceptable to the textile industry.Nanollose signs a policy with CanopyThe Company has recently been recognised as a next generation solution provider by Canopy, a global leader in forest conservation. Canopy works to protect the world's forests, species and climate by collaborating with business leaders, scientists and decision-makers to help create sustainable supply chains and foster innovative solutions to environmental challenges.Canopy works with over 750 of the forest industry's largest customers, from book publishers and printers to leading clothing brands and fashion designers, to help shape their purchasing practices and create permanent solutions for the world's threatened forests. Canopy's brand partners include H&M, Sprint, Penguin-Random House, Zara/Inditex, TC Transcontinental, Levi Strauss & Co., Stella McCartney, The Globe and Mail and Guardian Media Group.OutlookThe next 3-6 months will see Nanollose focus on the following objectives:- Commence pilot scale production of microbial cellulose while continuing to develop improved processes to increase the throughput and reduce the cost of production.- Select and develop commercial relationships with companies which align with Nanollose's commercialisation strategy.- Convert our existing stockpile of 250kg of microbial cellulose into Nullarbor fibre to be offered up to brands to create limited edition offerings.About Nanollose Ltd Nanollose Limited (ASX:NC6) is an innovative Australian company that uses a low cost and eco-friendly fermentation process to grow fibres that could become a sustainable alternative to conventional plant-derived cellulose fibres. The Companys process, which uses streams from various large-scale industries like sugar, wine and food, has the ability to produce Plant-Free Cellulose. Cellulose is the hidden building block polymer most consumers know nothing about, but forms a huge part of items used in their everyday life such as clothing, paper and hygiene products. Monday, 5 and Tuesday, 6 November 2018 Brussels The European Central Bank, the National Bank of Belgium, the Toulouse School of Economics and the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management are pleased to announce a conference on Managing financial crises: where do we stand? to be held in Brussels at the National Bank of Belgium on 5 and 6 November 2018. This event is designed to provide a platform for leading policymakers and academics to exchange views on the experience gained and lessons learnt from managing the financial crisis that erupted a decade ago. It will be composed of keynote speeches and panel sessions. Each panel session will start with presentations by each of the speakers, followed by responses from the invited discussants and a Q&A session with the audience. The financial crisis triggered profound changes in global economic and financial policy. The conference will discuss the various policy responses in the monetary, macroprudential and regulatory fields. It will aim not only to take stock of events, but also to assess, with the benefit of hindsight, whether the overall set of measures, taken individually or collectively through international coordinated action, has made our economies and their financial systems safer and more resilient than they were a decade ago. Programme WAKEFIELD Todays podcast features Linda Greer, Senior Scientist at the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) who joins Mike Schragger online from her office in Washington, D.C. to hear about her initial ideas on creating a climate roadmap for apparel and how current thinking on transparency and circularity are not good enough. Listen to full podcast here. Annual Report 2018 Perth, Oct 31, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Australian Potash Limited ( ASX:APC ) is an ASX-listed Sulphate of Potash ('SOP') explorer and developer. APC holds a 100% interest in the Lake Wells Potash Project located approximately 500km northeast of Kalgoorlie, in Western Australia's Eastern Goldfields. On development of Stage 1, Lake Wells will comprise a 150,000 tonne per annum (tpa) SOP processing operation, supported by an estimated 35-bore brine abstraction network.During the year, APC continued progressing the feasibility study into the development of the Lake Wells Sulphate of Potash Project. This was achieved through a number of specific programs of work as detailed below (see link below).To view the full report, please visit:About Australian Potash Ltd Australian Potash Limited (ASX:APC) is an ASX-listed Sulphate of Potash (SOP) developer. The Company holds a 100% interest in the Lake Wells Potash Project located approximately 500kms northeast of Kalgoorlie, in Western Australia's Eastern Goldfields. Following the release of a Scoping Study in 2017, APC has been conducting a Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) into the development of the Lake Wells Potash Project. The Company is aiming to release the findings of the DFS in H2 2019. The Lake Wells Potash Project is a palaeochannel brine hosted sulphate of potash project. Palaeochannel bore fields supply large volumes of brine to many existing mining operations throughout Western Australia, and this technique is a well understood and proven method for extracting brine. APC will use this technically low-risk and commonly used brine extraction model to further develop a bore-field into the palaeochannel hosting the Lake Wells SOP resource. A Scoping Study on the Lake Wells Potash Project was completed and released on 23 March 2017. The Scoping Study exceeded expectations and confirmed that the Project's economic and technical aspects are all exceptionally strong, and highlights APC's potential to become a significant long-life, low capital and high margin sulphate of potash (SOP) producer. A school cook in Nebraska was canned after he mixed kangaroo meat into chili made for students. In a letter to parents, Potter-Dix schools Superintendent Mike Williams explained that public school students in the village of Potter were served chili with kangaroo meat as a main course. Williams said that the head cook, Kevin Frei, told him he served the kangaroo meat because of its nutritional value, and he provided Williams and the nutrition-services office of the state education department with nutritional information. But that didnt stop Frei from being fired. If a family wants to eat exotic foods, they can do so on their own time not at school, Williams letter said. If we were to have food or ingredients that are out of the ordinary, they should be listed on the menu so that the students and families are aware of what they would be being served. We will no way be serving food of this nature again. Period. With 22 school shootings so far this year , including the one on Monday in North Carolina, and more virtually guaranteed, many Americans are echoing the Parkland students call for action. Some want more background checks, while others demand an assault rifle ban. Still others are calling for additional armed guards and metal detectors in schools. Everyone wants to reduce the violencebut the truth is that we dont know what works because the federal government refuses to fund and analyze new data on gun violence. Earlier this year, researchers at RAND summarized how little we know about gun violence. Their study looked at 13 potential policies, such as gun-free zones or concealed carry and their effects on outcomes, including mass shootings and suicide . The researchers found little persuasive evidence for the effects of most policies on most outcomes. The strongest finding was that laws preventing child access to firearms decreased suicides and unintentional deaths; other policies were associated with only a few moderate effects. While other policies may work, we dont yet have enough data to say whether they do. How could we know so little? Our nation is willfully ignorant about what works to prevent gun violence: Our federal government does not collect even the most basic statistics on how and when it occurs. For 20 years, Congress has effectively banned agencies from addressing guns through the Dickey Amendment, a rider on the 1996 appropriations bill signed by then-President Bill Clinton. Although the amendment only banned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using federal funds to advocate or promote gun control, italong with the commensurate reduction in fundingwas interpreted by the agencies to mean a complete ban on researching the public health implications of guns. The 1996 bill largely starved social scientists of the opportunity to generate new data and research about gun violence. For most of the last 20 years, the CDC has done few studies: search guns on the CDC site, and nail gun injuries are the most relevant result. A 2013 review by Mayors Against Illegal Guns found that the National Institute of Justice funded 32 gun-related studies from 1993 to 1999, but none from 2009 to 2013. The review also found that the share of peer-reviewed research on gun violence dropped by nearly two-thirds from 1996 to 2010. Data and research, supported by federal funding, have been the keys to solving other public health problems. Take, for example, motor vehicle safety, which the CDC has proclaimed a 20th century public health achievement. Despite a 10-fold increase in the number of motor vehicles since the 1920s, the rates of death from cars plummeted by 90 percent largely attributable to actions begun in the 1960s, when the government established the National Highway Safety Bureau. As a result, our country started making cars with new safety features such as head rests, shatter-resistant windshields, and safety belts. And roads were improved through the additions of guardrails, reflectors, and break-away utility poles. The subsequent declines in deaths were rapid. Weve done such a good job at reducing motor vehicle deaths that, since 2009, more teenage boys ages 15 to 19 have died from guns than from cars. In fact, while nearly every other cause of death has diminished in the past 10 years, deaths from guns persistedand are on the rise. This makes gun deaths an increasing percentage of all deaths. Thirty percent of boys ages 15 to 19 who died in 2016 died from a gun. For boys who are black, the majority of deaths (54 percent) were from a firearm injury. And for girls the same age, more than 1 in 10 deaths (11 percent) were from a gun. Of all causes of death for children age 1 to 19including the flu, car accidents, and cancerguns now account for 15 percent of deaths. For teens, guns claim 1 in 4 (25 percent). Many major health organizationsincluding the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Public Health Associationhave called for the gun epidemic to be treated as a public health crisis, just like motor vehicle deaths. But we cannot even begin to approach the problem without good data and adequate research funding, which the federal government can certainly provide. Congress has had ample opportunity to revisit the Dickey ban or clarify its language. Despite many calls for the riders removalincluding in 2012 by the riders author, former Arkansas congressman Jay Dickeythe language has been included in all subsequent appropriations bills. Far from opposing the language, Congress has taken steps to expand it. Beginning in 2003, the Tiahrt Amendment to the appropriations bill blocked the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives from sharing previously available information from its national database of guns used in crime. In 2011, Congress copied that language to apply it to the entirety of the Department of Health and Human Services. Earlier this year, just after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., Congress again chose not to remove the rider. Instead, in a seemingly contradictory message included in the report which accompanied the appropriations, Congress noted that the CDC could conduct research into the causes of gun violence. Congress also provided funding to expand the National Violent Death Reporting Systema dataset that could begin to answer what worksto all states and the District of Columbia but did not allocate funding for any research itself. While these actions represent steps forward, answers will be slow to comeand we need action now. We need game-changing grants for state or local governments to try new approaches and measure the results. We need to name the problem and bring science to bear in the laboratories of the states to solve it. Currently, public funding for research on gun violence is estimated at less than $2 million per year, oras the mayors noted in their reportabout one-tenth of the budget for studying headaches ($21 million). According to former Rep. Dickey, It is critical that the appropriation contain enough money to let science thrive and help us determine what works. Too many of our children, under our protection, are dying from guns. Doing nothing is not an option. As educators, were always looking for new ways to motivate our students and invigorate our teaching. In my class of English-language learners, students often, justifiably, are fearful being in a new country and having to make new friends. Naturally, not feeling comfortable in class can become an obstacle to learning. But when I integrate humane education, teaching about kindness to animals, in my lessons, I see my students light up. One of my students who was hesitant to speak in English found her voice when talking about the rabbits and chickens on her grandmothers farm in Ecuador and how she missed playing with the animals outside. Her participation invigorated a discussion with the other students about animals. The lowered stress level allows my students to open up, learning more English and engaging in their lessons in a deeper, more attentive way. The room immediately becomes a warmer and friendlier environment. This learning framework, humane education, is character education that includes teaching about kindness to animals. Fostering compassion and empathy for others, including non-human animals, is one of its overarching goals. But humane education is not about preaching. Instead, students are encouraged to problem solve. When students learn about the impact humans have on animals, they frequently want to use their voices to work toward a more just and fair world for all of its inhabitants. Research supports what most teachers and parents know empiricallychildren are particularly engaged when learning about and interacting with animals. Building on that connection, schools across the country have implemented reading to dogs programs because of both the comfort and motivation the animals elicit. However, the presence of a live animal may not always be feasible or appropriate. Just learning about animals, especially issues of animal welfare, can motivate students to engage with standards-aligned curriculum content and enhance their critical thinking skills. While character education is unfortunately often viewed as a separate, standalone curriculum, humane education can and should be incorporated into the teaching of academic subjects. For example, math lessons about pet overpopulation teach multiples, readings on endangered species teach children about conflict and problem solving, and advances in testing for product safety allow for science teachers to teach the chemistry and technology behind animal-free testing methods. In my classes, students learn the academic language and writing format necessary to craft a business letter when they write to local politicians about animal-friendly legislation. They also employ reading, critical thinking, and reasoning strategies when researching the background of the bills. The topic of animals is the gateway to deliver the content you need to teach. Unfortunately, most adults, let alone children, do not fully appreciate the impact humans cause to the world in which we live. We need to ensure that critical information is relayed to young people, all of whom are set to inherit a currently harmful legacy. Humane education can help future generations address the environmental issues they will face. Recently, the federal government has opened the national parks to logging and drilling , weakened the Endangered Species Act and animal welfare requirements in organic food labeling , and allowed an increase to trophy hunting , affecting wild animal populations throughout the world. Most alarmingly, Animal Welfare Act reports have been pulled from public record , making it harder for the public to learn which companies are violating even minimal AWA standards. As students learn about protecting the habitats of non-human animals, they become aware of how our personal and national decision-making affects all species. The Institute for Humane Education calls students who participate in humane education solutionaries, because when they learn about new topics, they are tasked with problem solving. This can mean problem solving on a global scalehow to protect wildlife habitats or slow climate change. But humane education also promotes interpersonal cooperation and conflict resolution. In this way, humane education can complement schoolwide goals of social-emotional learning and antibullying initiatives. The framework asks educators and students to expand their definition of others to include non-human animals, teaching compassion. Teaching about kindness to animals awakens the empathy that helps children improve all of their interpersonal relationships, and it develops children who will become change agents for a more positive future. Quarterly Activities Report 30 September 2018 Adelaide, Oct 31, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - The Board of Core Exploration Ltd ( ASX:CXO ) ("Core" or "Company") is pleased to present its Quarterly activities report for the Period ended 30 September 2018.HighlightsCore spent much the September quarter working on a number of initiatives aimed at further enhancing the value and potential of its wholly-owned Finniss Lithium Project, located near Darwin in the Northern Territory, as the Company progresses a Definitive Feasibility Study on the project which is due to be released before the end of 2018. During the reporting period Core:- Identified significant extensions outside of the existing defined Mineral Resource at the Grants Deposit- Entered into a non-binding US$35 million pre-payment and concentrate offtake term sheet with RuiFu- Improved the recovery of high-grade lithium concentrate at Grants- Further boosted the economics of the BP33 Prospect with wide and high-grade lithium assay results- Progressed exploration work at the Carlton and Hang Gong prospects- Appointed Argonaut as a financial adviser- Appointed Erik Palmbachs as Chief Financial Officer- Relocated head office to larger premises in Adelaide to facilitate expansion plansTo view the full report, please visit:About Core Lithium Ltd Core Lithium Ltd (ASX:CXO) is an emerging lithium producer focused on development of its Finniss Project near Darwin in the Northern Territory. Core owns 100% of Finniss, a major developing project that lies close to existing infrastructure such as the Darwin Port, grid power, gas and rail infrastructure. The Finniss Project covers a 500km2 tenement holding and 25 historic pegmatite mines. The project area is about 80km from Darwin Port. Exploration work has generated a near term development timeline, with feasibility studies to be completed over the course of 2018 ahead of receipt of approvals in early 2019 and planned first production during 2019. An aggressive exploration program is under way, which has confirmed the high quality prospectivity across much of the Finniss Project area. Core's stated ambition is to upgrade Finniss' resource base to fast-track commercialisation options. By Sara Acosta. San Salvador, Oct 31 (epa-efe).- Women in El Salvador are exposed to judicial proceedings that lack gender perspective, especially those accused of homicide or attempted murder when allegedly having an abortion, attorney Alejandra Burgos said in an interview with EFE. The lawyer is part of the defense team that represents Imelda Cortez, a 20-year-old woman charged with "attempted murder" after allegedly trying to end her unwanted pregnancy resulting from repeated sexual assaults by her stepfather, who abused her over the past seven years. "Imelda and other women prosecuted for homicide - when in fact they had an obstetric problem - are poor women, from rural areas and whose rights to education and healthcare have been hampered," Burgos said. "And their fundamental rights as humans beings have been violated, too." The lawyer said that cases like Imelda's "have to be addressed from a gender perspective to prevent judges and other authorities from criminalizing them just because they are women, and so that their fundamental rights are not violated." This "would make it possible to identify the context of the victims and the situation of inequality in which they find themselves due to gender, and to assess the adoption of special protection measures," as well as "to act on the facts and according to the legal regulations, applying a critical view of reality," neutral and without sexist stereotypes, she explained. The lawyer hopes that on Nov. 12, the day Imelda will face trial for attempted murder, her client will be released and can "carry on with her life." "This young woman, who has survived years of sexual violence and who has been a victim of poverty and social exclusion, is today considered a victimizer because she faced an obstetric emergency," Marcia Aguiluz, director of the Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil) for Central America and Mexico, said. El Salvador is one of the few countries in the world where abortion is prohibited in all circumstances and where women who experience pregnancy complications - which can lead to spontaneous abortions or obstetric emergencies - are often accused of first-degree murder by the Attorney General's Office. Quarterly Activities Report Sydney, Oct 31, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - The Board of The BetMakers Holdings Limited ( ASX:TBH ) ( OTCMKTS:TPBTF ) ("BetMakers" or the "Company") is pleased to provide the following overview on the quarterly activities for the period ending 30th September 2018.Highlights- Acquisition of leading global wagering service provider, Global Betting Services Pty Ltd- Acquisition of wagering data provider, DynamicOdds Pty Ltd- Completion of capital raising through Entitlement Offer- Company on track to move into profitability, expected in March 2019 quarterThe Company had an underlying EBIT loss of $1.27M for operating activities during the September quarter.While The Betmakers' cash position was $252k at the end of the reporting period, the Company notes that, in October, it received $770k from R&D activities and an additional $250k payment as part of the sale of TopBetta Pty Ltd and the associated retail brands to PlayUp Australia Pty Limited. Further payments of $2.75m are due from Play Up in the December Quarter.The Company would also like to advise that it is on track to achieve profitability, which is expected within the March 2019 quarter, with the agreements that have been secured and deals that have been announced to the market.During the December quarter, the Company expects 'outflows' of $3.3M, which includes a $1.0M payment as part of the acquisition of the DynamicOdds business, to be offset by expected 'inflows' to amount to $5.2M.To view the full report, please visit:About Betmakers Technology Group Ltd Betmakers Technology Group Ltd (ASX:BET) (OTCMKTS:TPBTF) is an ASX-listed holding company and a global provider of online wagering products and services to both wholesale and retail markets through its various wholly owned subsidiaries. The Company operates a retail wagering business, offering consumers wagering, fantasy tournament and content products and services. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 31) The country's top cop is strongly denying claims of a "rape culture" in the Philippine National Police (PNP) wherein rogue policemen take advantage of women and minors who are relatives of detained suspects. PNP Chief Oscar Albayalde on Wednesday stressed he will not tolerate any form of abuse committed by his men. "Meron mga acts of lasciviousness pinagbabawal din 'yan of course. Porke nakakulong yung kamag-anak or kaya yung asawa or what, hinding hindi pupuwedeng ganyang sexual advances," Albayalde told reporters as he inspected security preparations ahead of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. [Translation: "There are acts of lasciviousness but those are prohibited of course. Those sexual advances are not allowed even if the relative or husband is detained."] "Hinding hindi po natin tinotolerate yang mga ganyang gawain (We do not tolerate these acts)," Albayalde added. He made this statement after a police officer was accused of raping a 15-year-old girl whose parents were detained on drug charges in Manila. Albayalde said the accused cop, PO1 Edgardo Valencia, may be dismissed from service as the police hears his administrative case. The Center for Women Resources records at least 33 cases of violence against women attributed to police officers since President Rodrigo Duterte assumed office in 2016. About 60 policemen were named respondents in the cases, more than a dozen of which involved minors as victims, the report showed. The abuses included rape, acts of lasciviousness and sexual harassment. Conducted in Yaounde (Cameroon), the study aims to compare the efficacy of two first-line treatments for HIV infection in more than 600 participants. The results of the trial, coordinated by Dr Charles Kouanfack (Yaounde Central Hospital, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmaceutiques Sciences of Dschang University) and Pr Eric Delaporte (TransVIHMI, Montpellier University, Research and Development Institute (IRD) and French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM)), show that dolutegravir-based treatment is in not inferior to treatment with efavirenz (400 mg). In the specific context of treatment for people living with HIV in Southern countries, the researchers believe that first-line treatment with dolutegravir is a good alternative to efavirenz. The findings of the study, co-funded by Unitaid and ANRS, are being presented at the HIVDrugTherapy Conference in Glasgow on Wednesday, 31 October 2018. The latest World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations published in July 2018, advocate first-line treatment of HIV infection using dolutegravir(1) (DTG) as an alternative to treatment with efavirenz 400 mg (EFV400)(2) . Until now, no clinical trial data have been collected to directly compare the efficacy of the two drugs in the specific context of low-income countries. The ANRS NAMSAL study has compared the effect of both DTG and EFV with 613 participants living with HIV who had not previously received ARV treatment. According to Unitaid Deputy Executive Director Dr Philippe Duneton: "This trial is the first of its kind to supply comparative data on the use of dolutegravir in people living with HIV in low-income countries such as Cameroon. Unitaid values the great importance of the partnership with ANRS and WHO, because it will accelerate access to better HIV treatment." The participants in the ANRS NAMSAL trial were randomly divided into two groups. The first group followed a DTG-based regimen, while the second followed a EFV400-based regimen. After 48 weeks, 74.5% of the DTG participants and 69% of the EFV400 participants presented with an HIV plasma viral load of below 50 copies per ml of blood. This shows that DTG-based treatment is not inferior to EFV400-based treatment. The fact that dolutegravir is not inferior to efavirenz 400 has been demonstrated. The observed difference between the two treatments was not significant enough to assert the superiority of either regimen over the other. Moreover, participants showed similar tolerance to both treatments.DTG is thus considered a valid treatment option in first line in the context of treating people with HIV in low and middle-income countries. According to Professor Eric Delaporte: "In patients presenting with a high viral load in their blood at the start of treatment, we observed persistently low viral replication rates in both prescribed treatments (DTG and EFV). Hence, it is important to continue long-term monitoring of the patients who initiated DTG treatment to confirm the absence of resistance mutations to this drug; the trial will continue until 2021". "We welcome the results from this important research", said Dr Gottfried Hirnschall, WHO's Director for HIV and hepatitis. "The ANRS NAMSAL study supports joint efforts being made by WHO and Unitaid to optimize HIV treatment and to identify ever better and safer treatments for people living with HIV". The ANRS New Antiretroviral and Monitoring Strategies in HIV-infected Adults in Low-income countries (NAMSAL) trial launched in July 2016 is being conducted in Cameroon at three hospitals in Yaounde: The Central Hospital, the Military Hospital and the Cite Verte district hospital. It will continue until 2021. It included more than 600 participants infected with HIV who had never had antiretroviral treatment. The aim was to compare the efficacy, tolerance and cost of the two first-line antiretroviral treatments, efavirenz 400 mg and dolutegravir. The trial is being promoted by ANRS and coordinated by Dr Charles Kouanfack (Faculty of Medicine and Pharmaceutiques Sciences of Dschang University) and Pr Eric Delaporte (TransVIHMI). It is co-funded by ANRS and Unitaid. ### Sources: Dolutegravir- versus an efavirenz 400mg-based regimen for the initial treatment of HIV-infected patients in Cameroon: 48-week efficacy results of the NAMSAL ANRS 12313 trial Amandine Cournil1, Charles Kouanfack2,3, Sabrina Eymard-Duvernay1, Serra Lem3, Mireille Mpoudi-Ngole4, Pierrette Omgba5, Serge Tchokonte2, Ginette Edoul Mbesse6, Eitel Mpoudi-Ngole4, Alexandra Calmy7, Eric Delaporte1,8, for the NAMSAL study group 1. TransVIHMI, Montpellier University, IRD, INSERM, Montpellier, France, 2. Central Hospital, Yaounde, Cameroon, 3. ANRS, Yaounde, Cameroon, 4. Military Hospital, Yaounde, Cameroon, 5. Cite Verte Hospital, Yaounde, Cameroon, 6. PreVIHMI International Joint Laboratory, IRD, CREMER, Yaounde, Cameroon, 7. Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland, 8. University Teaching Hospital, Montpellier, France HIVDrugTherapy Conference, Glasgow Abstract available here: https://doi.org/10.1002/jia2.25187 (1) With a note of caution on the use of DTG in the periconception phase and for women and teenage girls of childbearing age, considering the possible risk of malformation of the neural tube when DTG is used during the first three months of pregnancy. (2) EFV 400 is better tolerated than EFV 600, which is normally prescribed, and it is also available in fixed-dose combination tablets. A new Tel Aviv University study finds that neonatal birthweights increase in direct proportion with the number of births of the mother in at least 30 percent of all cases. The study focuses on the risk of having large for gestational age (LGA) infants, babies who clock in at higher than the 90th percentile for weight. "We know that LGA babies are at risk for several neonatal complications, including jaundice, low sugar levels after birth and more," says Dr. Liran Hiersch of TAU's Sackler School of Medicine and Tel Aviv Medical Center, who, together with Dr. Eran Ashwal, also of Sackler and Tel Aviv Medical Center, led the research for the study, which was published last month in the Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics. "The results of the current study can help identify women who are at increased risk for LGA from the beginning of pregnancy and earlier. This, in turn, will help caregivers advise women and will help reduce the risk of LGA by controlling known risk factors such as weight gain during pregnancy," Dr. Hiersch continues. Infant birthweights were found to be in increasing order in 30 percent of cases, the study found, meaning that the third infant in a series of pregnancies weighed the most and the first baby weighed the least. "We did not use absolute birthweight but rather birthweight percentile, which is a more accurate way of assessing infant growth," Dr. Hiersch says. "In addition, we focused on the risk of having LGA infants in the third delivery, according to the presence of LGA in prior deliveries." The researchers conducted a large retrospective cohort study that included 4,615 women who had delivered three children at Israel's Rabin Medical Center over 20 years (1994-2013). To avoid potential data biases, they excluded women with obstetric complications that tended to affect neonatal birthweight. "Importantly, we found that a history of LGA is a major risk factor for recurrence of LGA," says Dr. Hiersch. "We can harness this information to provide better medical care to women in the initial stage of pregnancies and improve their chances of maintaining healthy pregnancies. Safer deliveries will likely increase. "The effect of prior pregnancies on future pregnancy outcome is fascinating. Most current data addressing this issue includes only women with past pregnancy complications. It does not specify if the said complication occurred only once or twice in the past. Since we found that there is a relationship, we plan to explore other pregnancy-related complications in the same manner in the future," concludes Dr. Hiersch. ### American Friends of Tel Aviv University supports Israel's most influential, comprehensive and sought-after center of higher learning, Tel Aviv University (TAU). TAU is recognized and celebrated internationally for creating an innovative, entrepreneurial culture on campus that generates inventions, startups and economic development in Israel. TAU is ranked ninth in the world, and first in Israel, for producing start-up founders of billion-dollar companies, an achievement that surpassed several Ivy League universities. To date, 2,500 US patents have been filed by Tel Aviv University researchers -- ranking TAU #1 in Israel, #10 outside of the US and #43 in the world. At TropMed 2018, researchers report Chagas disease, known to be on the Southern U.S. border, in working canines across the country; outfitting dogs with ECG monitors reveals hidden Chagas-related cardiac problems NEW ORLEANS (October 31, 2018)--More than 100 working dogs employed by the federal government across the United States have been infected with the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, the cause of Chagas disease, which may lead to heart problems, according to a new study presented today at the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) Annual Meeting. Chagas disease is a tropical infection spread by a blood-sucking triatomine or "kissing bug" that may pose a growing threat in the United States. Once known only in Mexico, Central America and South America, Chagas is now making tentative incursions into the United States, infecting canines and humans. But the extent of the risk, for either, is not clearly defined. "We were surprised to find that so many dogs, including those working outside of the kissing bug range, had been exposed to the parasite T. cruzi, and were exhibiting heart abnormalities associated with the disease," said Alyssa Meyers, a PhD candidate at Texas A&M University who presented the findings. The T. cruzi parasite is transmitted through the feces of kissing bugs, so called due to their tendency to feed around the mouth. Infections in humans or dogs initially can produce a fever and fatigue. But even infections that produce no symptoms can lead to an enlarged heart or abnormal heart rhythms that can cause sudden death. Meyers said that because kissing bugs can thrive in locations with high concentrations of hosts, like dog kennels, dogs in training facilities could be at risk for exposure. These dogs train at facilities in Texas and Virginia, two states with known populations of kissing bugs that carry the Chagas parasite, and it is likely that some dogs were exposed while training in the South. "From previous studies we knew that shelter and stray dogs were at risk for exposure, likely because of their time spent outdoors, and perhaps the dogs working along the U.S.-Mexico border who spend long hours outside often at night might be equally exposed," she said. "We were not expecting infection in dogs that spend most of their time working along the border with Canada or in airports in Nebraska." Meyers and fellow researchers at Texas A&M University worked with colleagues from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to collect and test blood samples from 1,660 working dogs in 43 states whose duties include border patrol, search and rescue, detecting drugs and explosives, and assisting officers who guard federal buildings. The testing--which was prompted by evidence of Chagas in dogs working on the Mexican border--revealed that 121 dogs, or more than 7 percent tested, had antibodies to T. cruzi, indicating an ongoing infection. Many of the infected dogs also showed signs of heart abnormalities associated with Chagas that can be fatal. Meyers said that in South America, dogs have served as effective sentinels to provide early warning of Chagas risk to humans, though dogs themselves pose little direct risk of infecting humans. But Meyers added that uncertainty about where the infected dogs picked up the parasite--including dogs now working in states within the kissing bug range--makes it difficult to say what the findings mean for human risks. Most human cases diagnosed in the U.S. are believed to have been caused by infections picked up in Latin America. But there have been documented cases of locally acquired infections in some of the southern states--Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas. In some states this has prompted regular surveillance. Kissing bugs are now found in 27 states and as far north as Delaware. And a growing number of those bugs are known to be carrying the Chagas parasite. Risks for Dogs May Not Mean Dangers for Humans Meyers said the discovery of a relatively high rate of Chagas infections in working dogs is not necessarily an indication of an increasing threat to people. "A positive dog usually signals that infected kissing bugs are in the environment," Meyers noted. "But the risk to humans is likely not equal to dogs, in part because dogs have a tendency to eat bugs that could be infected with the parasite and dogs spend more time outdoors." Also, unlike the kissing bugs that transmit Chagas in Mexico and Central America, studies show the varieties found in the U.S. are less likely to infest houses, significantly reducing encounters with humans. Meanwhile, there is concern about how the disease may affect working dogs exposed to the disease, given the many important functions they provide. For example, in 2009, several military working dogs serving alongside U.S. troops conducting bomb detection work in Iraq had to be evacuated due to heart problems linked to Chagas infections, leaving troops without an important member of their team. "Not all dogs that are exposed to the parasite develop cardiac disease. Many can live a happy, healthy life," Meyers said. "We are trying to understand why some dogs remain asymptomatic, while others develop Chagas cardiomyopathy. These dogs play a critical role in our country's security, and we want to make sure we are doing everything we can do to keep them healthy." To learn more about the effect of Chagas on the DHS dogs, a subset of the infected dogs were outfitted with wearable electrocardiogram or ECG monitors that allowed researchers to obtain 24 hours of data on cardiac performance. "We just pulled the dogs aside for a few minutes to put on the monitors and then they went right back to work," Meyers said. The monitors revealed that over two-thirds of the infected dogs were showing early signs of cardiac problems associated with Chagas. The dogs are now being monitored for any signs of progression of cardiac problems. But there are no treatments available specifically for dogs infected with Chagas disease, and the researchers said that medications used to protect dogs from fleas and ticks are not known to repel either kissing bugs or the Chagas parasite. There are drugs available to treat human infections, but their efficacy varies and is especially low for infections that have been lingering for a long period undetected. A follow-up study is planned to explore interventions that can help the DHS dogs avoid exposure to kissing bugs. The researchers also are collecting additional cardiac data from the dogs in an effort to better determine whether the abnormalities detected pose an immediate risk. "This silent killer Chagas has posed a real risk to humans in certain parts of the country," said ASTMH President Regina Rabinovich, MD. "Ongoing support for research to track where this disease is and how it got there is crucial, as is enhanced education and training for those in the health sector to better recognize this disease." ### About the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, founded in 1903, is the largest international scientific organization of experts dedicated to reducing the worldwide burden of tropical infectious diseases and improving global health. It accomplishes this through generating and sharing scientific evidence, informing health policies and practices, fostering career development, recognizing excellence, and advocating for investment in tropical medicine/global health research. For more information, visit astmh.org. Chestnut Hill, Mass. (10/31/2018) Two-dimensional magnetism has long intrigued and motivated researchers for its potential to unleash new states of matter and utility in nano-devices. In part the excitement is driven by predictions that the magnetic moments of electrons - known as "spins" - would no longer be able to align in perfectly clean systems. This enhancement in the strengths of the excitations could unleash numerous new states of mater, and enable novel forms of quantum computing. A key challenge has been the successful fabrication of perfectly clean systems and their incorporation with other materials. However, for more than a decade, materials known as "van der Waals" crystals, held together by friction, have been used to isolate single-atom-thick layers leading to numerous new physical effects and applications. Recently this class has been expanded to include magnetic materials, and it may offer one of the most ambitious platforms yet in scientific efforts to investigate and manipulate phases of matter at the nanoscale, researchers from Boston College, the University of Tennessee, and Seoul National University, write in the latest edition of the journal Nature. Two-dimensional magnetism, the subject of theoretical explorations and experimentation for the past 80 years, is enjoying a resurgence thanks to a group of materials and compounds that are relatively plentiful and easy to manipulate, according to Boston College Associate Professor of Physics Kenneth Burch, a first author of the article "'Magnetism in two-dimensional van der Waals materials." The most oft-cited example of these materials is graphene, a crystal constructed in uniform, atom-thick layers. A procedure as simple as applying a piece of scotch tape to the crystal can remove a single layer, providing a thin, uniform section to serve as a platform to create novel materials with a range of physical properties open to manipulation. "What's amazing about these 2-D materials is they're so flexible," said Burch. "Because they are so flexible, they give you this huge array of possibilities. You can make combinations you could not dream of before. You can just try them. You don't have to spend this huge amount of time and money and machinery trying to grow them. A student working with tape puts them together. That adds up to this exciting opportunity people dreamed of for a long time, to be able to engineer these new phases of matter." At that single layer, researchers have focused on spin, what Burch refers to as the "magnetic moment" of an electron. While the charge of an electron can be used to send two signals - either "off" or "on", results represented as either zero or one - spin excitations offer multiple points of control and measurement, an exponential expansion of the potential to signal, store or transmit information in the tiniest of spaces. "One of the big efforts now is to try to switch the way we do computations," said Burch. "Now we record whether the charge of the electron is there or it isn't. Since every electron has a magnetic moment, you can potentially store information using the relative directions of those moments, which is more like a compass with multiple points. You don't just get a one and a zero, you get all the values in between." Potential applications lie in the areas of new "quantum" computers, sensing technologies, semiconductors, or high-temperature superconductors. "The point of our perspective is that there has been a huge emphasis on devices and trying to pursue these 2-D materials to make these new devices, which is extremely promising," said Burch. "But what we point out is magnetic 2D atomic crystals can also realize the dream of engineering these new phases - superconducting, or magnetic or topological phases of matter, that is really the most exciting part. It is not just fundamentally interesting to realize these theorems that have been around for 40 years. These new phases would have applications in various forms of computing, whether in spintronics, producing high temperature superconductors, magnetic and optical sensors and in topological quantum computing." Burch and his colleagues - the University of Tennessee's David Mandrus and Seoul National University's Je-Geun Park - outline four major directions for research into magnetic van der Waals materials: Discovering new materials with specific functionality. New materials with isotropic or complex magnetic interactions, could play significant roles in the development of new supercondcutors. These new materials can also lead to a deeper understanding of fundamental issues in condensed matter physics, serving as unique platforms for experimentation. The materials will be tested for the potential to become unique devices, capable of delivering novel applications. The two-dimensional structure of these materials makes them more receptive to external signals. These materials possess quantum and topological phases that could potentially lead to exotic states, such as quantum spin liquids, "skyrmions," or new iterations of superconductivity. Germano Iannacchione, a National Science Foundation (NSF) program officer who oversees grants to Burch and other materials scientists, said the co-authors offer the broader community of scientists ideas that can serve to guide a dynamic field pushing beyond boundaries in materials research. "Magnetism in 2D van Der Waals materials has grown into a vibrant field of study," said Iannacchione. "Its investigators have matured from highly focused researchers to statesmen shepherding a field, broadening applications into as many channels as possible. The review captures the multiplicative aspect of steady, focused, and sometimes risky research that opens vast new frontiers, with tremendous potential for applications in quantum computing and spintronics." ### PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- In 2016, the Rhode Island Department of Corrections (RIDOC) became the first state correctional system in the U.S. to screen all incarcerated individuals for opioid use disorder and provide medications for addiction treatment (MAT) for those who need it. A 2018 study led by researchers from Brown University found that the program significantly reduced post-incarceration drug overdose deaths. Now, a new $1.5 million grant from the federal government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration will allow Brown, RIDOC and their partners to expand the existing program and treat more people. "The goal of this project is to increase the number of individuals with an opioid use disorder receiving medications for addiction treatment by providing intensive outreach to those involved in the criminal justice system, who are at high risk for overdose and treatment non-compliance," said Rosemarie Martin, an assistant professor at Brown's School of Public Health and the principal investigator on the grant. "By ensuring access to MAT, levels of relapse and recidivism will decline, hopefully leading to lower crime, intact families, higher levels of employment and community engagement." Martin is involved in evaluating the effectiveness of RIDOC's existing MAT program, and she said two gaps in the program are ensuring that patients continue treatment after they are released and treating individuals who were released before they began MAT. The new grant will allow the team to specifically address those areas. The expanded program will include transportation to outpatient MAT service providers for the first six days upon a participant's return to the community. Additionally, the team will work with peer recovery support services to provide expanded guidance, support and information after the participant's release from prison. Peer recovery support specialists are people who have been in recovery from substance abuse for at least two years and have received specialized training in addiction support. Over the three years of grant support, the team hopes to treat more than 300 additional Rhode Island residents with opioid use disorders. Other partners for the expanded MAT program include CODAC Behavioral Healthcare, the largest and only nonprofit opioid treatment program in the state, and the Rhode Island State Police's Heroin-Opioid Prevention Effort Initiative. ### The world's first instrument system for Raman-activated Cell Sorting and Sequencing (RACS-SEQ) was recently developed in East China's Qingdao City, allowing functional identification, sorting and sequencing of individual cells, in a label-free manner. The system, developed by scientists from the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was released at the 20th Molecular Spectrum Conference of China and the 2018 Annual Conference of Spectroscopy on October 20. A single cell is the basic unit of function and evolution for most life forms on earth. To understand why cells differ from each other and to rapidly identify cells and genes in terms of target function, functional profiling and sequencing at the single-cell level are of great importance. Fluorescence-activated Cell Sorting (FACS) is the most commonly used strategy and instrument for single-cell sorting. However, cells have to be fluorescently labeled (on specific DNA, protein or metabolite biomarkers) prior to flow cytometry. Therefore, cells without known biomarkers, cells that cannot be fluorescently labeled, and cells that are not yet cultured, are all beyond the reach of FACS. "RACS-SEQ runs in a different way," said XU Jian, director of the Single-Cell Center at QIBEBT. "It does not require labeling of cells, which overcomes the disadvantages of FACS, and is generally applicable to the plethora of types of cells in nature." The system is based on the Ramanome concept and the invention of key technologies including Raman-activated Gravity-driven Cell Encapsulation (RAGE) and Raman-activated micro-Droplet cell Sorting (RADS). It consists of four functional modules, including single-cell Raman imaging, interpretation of Ramanome data for phenotype and function, and RACS-SEQ library construction for the sorted single cells. The RACS-SEQ system is equipped with an intelligent information system, which consists of the Ramanome Lab Information System (RamLIS), Ramanome Explorer (RamEX) and Ramanome Database (RamDB). Users can acquire Ramanome data for samples rapidly and accurately through RamLIS, process and mine these data online through RamEX, and store all information for future data storage and mining through RamDB. The single cells sorted by RAGE and RADS can then be subjected to single-cell sequencing, via single-cell nucleic acid extraction and amplification in microdroplets. The system, via novel technologies such as RAGE and RADS, not only retains cell activity post-sorting, but also greatly elevates the quality of single-cell genome assemblies. The genome coverage of a single bacterial cell can reach 95% using the RACS-SEQ system, according to MA Bo, group leader of Microfluidics Systems, Single-Cell Center. The released RACS-SEQ system also includes a number of kits such as the single-cell clinical antimicrobial resistance testing kit, the post-RACS single-cell genome amplification kit and the RAGE microchip kit. "[This system] will find wide applications in microbiome and synthetic biology research, and support the biomedicine, biosecurity, industrial biotechnology as well as marine biotechnology industries," said LIU Chenli, director of the Center for Synthetic Biology Engineering Research, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. ### ESO's exquisitely sensitive GRAVITY instrument has added further evidence to the long-standing assumption that a supermassive black hole lurks in the centre of the Milky Way. New observations show clumps of gas swirling around at about 30% of the speed of light on a circular orbit just outside its event horizon -- the first time material has been observed orbiting close to the point of no return, and the most detailed observations yet of material orbiting this close to a black hole. ESO's GRAVITY instrument on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) Interferometer has been used by scientists from a consortium of European institutions, including ESO [1], to observe flares of infrared radiation coming from the accretion disc around Sagittarius A*, the massive object at the heart of the Milky Way. The observed flares provide long-awaited confirmation that the object in the centre of our galaxy is, as has long been assumed, a supermassive black hole. The flares originate from material orbiting very close to the black hole's event horizon -- making these the most detailed observations yet of material orbiting this close to a black hole. While some matter in the accretion disc -- the belt of gas orbiting Sagittarius A* at relativistic speeds [2] -- can orbit the black hole safely, anything that gets too close is doomed to be pulled beyond the event horizon. The closest point to a black hole that material can orbit without being irresistibly drawn inwards by the immense mass is known as the innermost stable orbit, and it is from here that the observed flares originate. "It's mind-boggling to actually witness material orbiting a massive black hole at 30% of the speed of light," marvelled Oliver Pfuhl, a scientist at the MPE. "GRAVITY's tremendous sensitivity has allowed us to observe the accretion processes in real time in unprecedented detail." These measurements were only possible thanks to international collaboration and state-of-the-art instrumentation [3]. The GRAVITY instrument which made this work possible combines the light from four telescopes of ESO's VLT to create a virtual super-telescope 130 metres in diameter, and has already been used to probe the nature of Sagittarius A*. Earlier this year, GRAVITY and SINFONI, another instrument on the VLT, allowed the same team to accurately measure the close fly-by of the star S2 as it passed through the extreme gravitational field near Sagittarius A*, and for the first time revealed the effects predicted by Einstein's general relativity in such an extreme environment. During S2's close fly-by, strong infrared emission was also observed. "We were closely monitoring S2, and of course we always keep an eye on Sagittarius A*," explained Pfuhl. "During our observations, we were lucky enough to notice three bright flares from around the black hole -- it was a lucky coincidence!" This emission, from highly energetic electrons very close to the black hole, was visible as three prominent bright flares, and exactly matches theoretical predictions for hot spots orbiting close to a black hole of four million solar masses [4]. The flares are thought to originate from magnetic interactions in the very hot gas orbiting very close to Sagittarius A*. Reinhard Genzel, of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching, Germany, who led the study, explained: "This always was one of our dream projects but we did not dare to hope that it would become possible so soon." Referring to the long-standing assumption that Sagittarius A* is a supermassive black hole, Genzel concluded that "the result is a resounding confirmation of the massive black hole paradigm." ### Notes [1] This research was undertaken by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), the Observatoire de Paris, the Universite Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, the University of Cologne, the Portuguese CENTRA - Centro de Astrosica e Gravitacao and ESO. [2] Relativistic speeds are those which are so great that the effects of Einstein's Theory of Relativity become significant. In the case of the accretion disc around Sagittarius A*, the gas is moving at roughly 30% of the speed of light. [3] GRAVITY was developed by a collaboration consisting of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (Germany), LESIA of Paris Observatory-PSL/CNRS/Sorbonne Universite/Univ. Paris Diderot and IPAG of Universite Grenoble Alpes/CNRS (France), the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (Germany), the University of Cologne (Germany), the CENTRA-Centro de Astrofisica e Gravitacao (Portugal) and ESO. [4] The solar mass is a unit used in astronomy. It is equal to the mass of our closest star, the Sun, and has a value of 1.989 1030 kg. This means that Sgr A* has a mass 1.3 trillion times greater than the Earth. More information This research was presented in a paper entitled "Detection of Orbital Motions Near the Last Stable Circular Orbit of the Massive Black Hole SgrA*", by the GRAVITY Collaboration, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics on 31 October 2018. The GRAVITY Collaboration team is composed of: R. Abuter (ESO, Garching, Germany), A. Amorim (Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal), M. Baubock (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, Germany [MPE]), J.P. Berger (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France [IPAG]; ESO, Garching, Germany), H. Bonnet (ESO, Garching, Germany), W. Brandner (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany [MPIA]), Y. Clenet (LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universites, UPMC Univ. Paris 06, Univ. Paris Diderot, Meudon, France [LESIA])), V. Coude du Foresto (LESIA), P. T. de Zeeuw (Sterrewacht Leiden, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands; MPE), C. Deen (MPE), J. Dexter (MPE), G. Duvert (IPAG), A. Eckart (University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany; Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn, Germany), F. Eisenhauer (MPE), N.M. Forster Schreiber (MPE), P. Garcia (Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal; Universidade de Lisboa Lisboa, Portugal), F. Gao (MPE), E. Gendron (LESIA), R. Genzel (MPE; University of California, Berkeley, California, USA), S. Gillessen (MPE), P. Guajardo (ESO, Santiago, Chile), M. Habibi (MPE), X. Haubois (ESO, Santiago, Chile), Th. Henning (MPIA), S. Hippler (MPIA), M. Horrobin (University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany), A. Huber (MPIA), A. Jimenez Rosales (MPE), L. Jocou (IPAG), P. Kervella (LESIA; MPIA), S. Lacour (LESIA), V. Lapeyrere (LESIA), B. Lazareff (IPAG), J.-B. Le Bouquin (IPAG), P. Lena (LESIA), M. Lippa (MPE), T. Ott (MPE), J. Panduro (MPIA), T. Paumard (LESIA), K. Perraut (IPAG), G. Perrin (LESIA), O. Pfuhl (MPE), P.M. Plewa (MPE), S. Rabien (MPE), G. Rodriguez-Coira (LESIA), G. Rousset (LESIA), A. Sternberg (School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute, New York, USA), O. Straub (LESIA), C. Straubmeier (University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany), E. Sturm (MPE), L.J. Tacconi (MPE), F. Vincent (LESIA), S. von Fellenberg (MPE), I. Waisberg (MPE), F. Widmann (MPE), E. Wieprecht (MPE), E. Wiezorrek (MPE), J. Woillez (ESO, Garching, Germany), S. Yazici (MPE; University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany). ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It has 16 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky". Links * Research paper - http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1835/eso1835a.pdf * Photos of the VLT - http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/paranal/ * ESO Photos of the Galactic Centre - https://www.eso.org/public/images/?search=Galactic+Centre Contacts Oliver Pfuhl Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics Garching bei Munchen, Germany Tel: +49 89 30 000 3295 Email: pfuhl@mpe.mpg.de Jason Dexter Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics Garching bei Munchen, Germany Tel: +49 89 30 000 3324 Email: jdexter@mpe.mpg.de Thibaut Paumard CNRS Researcher Observatoire de Paris, France Tel: +33 145 077 5451 Email: thibaut.paumard@obspm.fr Xavier Haubois ESO Astronomer Santiago, Chile Tel: +56 2 2463 3055 Email: xhaubois@eso.org IR Group Secretariat Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics Garching bei Munchen, Germany Tel: +49 89 30000 3880 Email: ir-office@mpe.mpg.de Hannelore Hammerle Public Information Officer, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics Garching bei Munchen, Germany Tel: +49 89 30 000 3980 Email: hannelore.haemmerle@mpe.mpg.de Calum Turner ESO Public Information Officer Garching bei Munchen, Germany Tel: +49 89 3200 6670 Email: pio@eso.org Beef cattle improvement programs have focused for decades on promoting the rapid growth of calves. Now, the goal is to improve other traits, such as meat tenderness or ribeye muscle area. Researchers at Sao Paulo State University (UNESP) in Brazil who are studying the genome of the Gir breed of Zebu cattle have identified 35 genes associated with reproduction, milk composition, growth, meat and carcass, health or body conformation traits. This identification is a key step toward the development of novel lines with traits desired by producers and consumers. The results of the study have recently been published in the journal PLOS ONE by the group, which is led by Josineudson Augusto II de Vasconcelos Silva, a professor at the university's Botucatu School of Agrarian & Veterinary Sciences (FCAV-UNESP). The research was supported by Sao Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP. Researchers affiliated with the University of Georgia in the United States and with Brazilian animal science institutes located in Nova Odessa and Sertaozinho, both in Sao Paulo State, also took part. The Gir breed is of Indian origin and has been successfully introduced into the tropics. It is one of the main cattle breeds farmed in South American tropical countries, especially Brazil. However, the various populations have pronounced differences. Strong artificial selection in recent decades has increased the genetic differentiation among herds in countries of the region. Gir cattle are mainly farmed for milk in Brazil today, although they were once an option for meat producers, who now prefer Nelore cattle. To locate the genes associated with beef and dairy production in Gir cattle, the researchers analyzed the genotypes of animals from different populations, including a herd raised between 1976 and 2003 at the Sertaozinho Animal Science Institute. During this period, the institute's scientists selected animals from the herd to develop traits associated with meat production, such as rapid yearling growth. As a result, calves born to cows in this herd became steadily larger. In 2003, however, the herd was sold in response to a change in preference among farmers, who opted to raise Gir for dairy rather than beef. At that time, Brazil launched its Dairy Gir Genetic Improvement Program (local acronym PNMGL). Selection for traits associated with milk production led over the years to cows with steadily larger udders that produced increasing amounts of milk. The genotyping exercise used hair samples collected in 2003 from 173 bulls, cows and yearlings belonging to the herd selected for beef production and from 273 animals belonging to the PNMGL herd, which was selected for dairy production and raised on five farms in Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo State. The researchers also recorded key lifecycle data, such as birth weight, preweaning and postweaning weight, and slaughter weight. "We selected a Gir group for beef and another for dairy. The difference in morphology was significant. The animals selected for beef had more muscle mass and were stronger, while cows selected for dairy had very large udders," Vasconcelos Silva said. "The results obtained are clear and consistent with the history of both populations. Because they were involved in different breeding programs, there was intentional segregation of their genes, leading to complete isolation and this significant genetic variation." The genomes of the 173 animals selected for beef production were compared with the genomes of the 273 animals selected for dairy production with the aim of detecting the regions in which the respective genes were located. "We found that 282 genes in the regions concerned could be considered signatures of selection in Gir beef and dairy herds. Of these, 35 were found to be associated with reproduction, milk composition, growth, meat and carcass, health or body conformation traits," Vasconcelos Silva said. Larger herds The investigation funded by FAPESP showed that traits associated with fertility, milk production, beef quality, and growth were involved in the process of differentiation between the two populations, one selected for meat production and the other for milk production. Some of these 35 genes were already known to science. The rest are new discoveries. The next steps will involve larger herds. The group will genotype at least 2,000 animals to understand how the previously known genes are expressed and more precisely how they are associated with the traits investigated. "We may perhaps discover that some genes are more abundantly expressed in Gir than Nelore, for example," Vasconcelos Silva said. Another possibility will be a comparison of Gir genes with those of a European breed such as Angus, which is preferred by Brazilian steakhouses. ### About Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) The Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. For more information: http://www.fapesp.br/en. BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The Indiana University Philanthropic Venture Fund, which provides capital to faculty, students, alumni and staff at all IU campuses to help them further develop their research and innovations into startup companies, has committed to invest $500,000 in Indianapolis-based NERx Biosciences Inc. as part of a $2.2 million bridge round. The company discovers and develops targeted therapeutics for cancer treatment. John J. Turchi founded the company and serves as president and chief scientific officer. He is also the Tom and Julie Wood Family Foundation Professor of Lung Cancer Research and a professor of medicine at IU School of Medicine and the IU Simon Cancer Center. Katherine Pawelczak, the company's vice president for research, is optimistic about NERx's first-in-class targeted agent. "This drug shows robust, single-agent, anti-cancer activity. Additionally, it has been designed to work with and enhance existing therapeutic regimens to provide effective combination therapy," she said. "NERx is positioned to lead the first-in-class and first-in-human clinical trials with this novel agent." Pawelczak said the IU Philanthropic Venture Fund investment will assist NERx in further developing the agent. "The investment, combined with additional funds we have raised, will allow NERx to complete the preparation of a preclinical data package to support an Investigational New Drug application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration," she said. NERx Biosciences has received more than $1.2 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health, including the National Cancer Institute and National Institute of General Medical Sciences. It has also received $150,000 in matching funds from the Indiana Economic Development Corp. and Elevate Ventures. Teri Willey, manager of the IU Philanthropic Venture Fund and managing director of the IU Research and Technology Corp., said the fund is pleased to work with the NERx Biosciences team. "NERx is developing small molecules for cancers that do not respond to current approaches, including immune therapy," she said. "The company is now in position to expand its team to address the risks in clinical development and corporate partnering, and we are glad to be supporting them in doing so." ### About Indiana University Research and Technology Corp. IURTC catalyzes entrepreneurial activities at Indiana University and provides support for IU innovation-based startup companies. It advises and connects IU startups to capital and commercialization partners, industry mentors, and leadership talent. It also develops appropriate programming and startup space to accelerate company growth. About Indiana University Philanthropic Venture Fund The IU Philanthropic Venture Fund is an Indiana University-affiliated venture fund launched in 2018 through the vision and generosity of IU alumni and friends supporting IU discoveries best developed through a new venture. The fund is managed by IURTC staff who work with the IU ICO, alumni, faculty and staff as well as the venture and economic development communities to identify and develop IU-related opportunities for investment. Scientists from the Higher School of Economics have developed a method that allows physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to separate between various types of elementary particles with a high degree of accuracy. The results were published in the Journal of Physics. http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1085/4/042036/meta One of major unsolved problems of modern physics is the predominance of matter over antimatter in the Universe. They both formed within a second after the Big Bang, in presumably equal fractions, and physicists are trying to understand where antimatter has disappeared to. Back in 1966, Russian scientist Andrei Sakharov suggested, that imbalance between matter and antimatter appeared as a result of CP violation, i.e., an asymmetry between particles and antiparticles. Thus only particles remained after their annihilation (mutual destruction) of resulting unbalanced contributions. The Large Hadron Collider beauty experiment (LHCb) studies unstable particles called B-mesons. Their decays demonstrate the clearest asymmetry between matter and antimatter. The LHCb consists of several specialised detectors, particularly calorimeters to measure the energy of neutral particles. Calorimeters also identify different types of particles. These are done by search and analysing of corresponding clusters of energy deposition. It is, however, not easy to separate signals from two types of photons - primary photons and photons from energetic 0 meson decay. HSE scientists developed a method that will allow physicists to classify these two with a high accuracy. The authors of the study applied artificial neural networks and gradient boosting (a machine-learning algorithm) to classify energies collected in the individual cells of the energy cluster. 'We took a 5X5 matrix with a centre at the calorimeter cell with the largest energy,' comments Fedor Ratnikov, one of the study's authors and a leading researcher in the HSE Laboratory of Methods for Big Data Analysis. 'Instead of analysing the special characteristics constructed from raw energies in cluster cells, we pass these raw energies directly to the algorithm for analysis. The machine was able to make sense of the data better than a person.' Compared with the previous method of data pre-processing, the new machine-learning-based method has quadrupled quality metrics for the identification of particles on the calorimeter. The algorithm improved the classification quality from 0.89 to 0.97; the higher this figure is, the better the classifier works. With a 98% effectiveness rate of initial photon identification, the new approach has lowered the false photon identification rate from 60% to 30%. The proposed method is unique in that it allows for elementary particles to be identified without initial studying the characteristics of the cluster being analysed. 'We can afford to avoid limiting data processing by our particular knowledge about data, but rather pass data to machine learning in the hope that the algorithm finds correlations we might not considered. Such approach obviously worked out in this case,' Fedor Ratnikov concludes. ### Researchers at Portland State University and Oregon State University looking at the aftermath of wildfires in southwestern Oregon and northern California found that after 20 years, even in severely burned areas, Douglas-fir grew back on its own without the need for salvage logging and replanting. The study, published online Oct. 26 in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, is the latest to address the contentious issue of whether forest managers should log dead timber and plant new trees after fires, or let them regenerate on their own. Melissa Lucash, an assistant research professor of geography in PSU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a co-author of the study, said that concerns in the Klamath over whether conifer forests would regenerate after high-severity fires have led to salvage logging, replanting and shrub removal on federal lands throughout the region. But the study found that the density of Douglas-fir was relatively high after 20 years and was unaffected by whether or not a site had been managed. "This is an area where forest managers are really worried that the Douglas-fir won't come back, but what we found is that they come back just fine on their own," she said. "We forget the power of natural regeneration and that these burned sites don't need to be salvage logged and planted." Lucash suggests that those resources could instead be reallocated elsewhere, perhaps to thinning forests to prevent high-severity wildfires. The research team also included Maria Jose Lopez, a research associate at Universidad del Cono Sur de las Americas in Paraguay; Terry Marcey, a recent graduate of PSU's Environmental Science and Management program; David Hibbs, a professor emeritus in Oregon State University's College of Forestry; Jeff Shatford, a terrestrial habitat specialist in British Columbia's Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development; and Jonathan Thompson, a senior ecologist for Harvard Forest. The authors sampled 62 field sites that had severely burned 20 years prior on both north and south slopes of the Klamath-Siskiyou Mountain -- some of which had been salvaged logged and replanted and others that had been left to regenerate on its own. Among the study's findings: Aspect, or the direction a slope faces, played an important role in determining the effectiveness of post-fire practices. Density of Douglas-fir was higher on north than south aspects, but was unaffected by whether or not a site had been managed, suggesting that Douglas-fir regeneration is inherently less abundant on hot and dry sites and management does not influence the outcome. On the flip side, management practices increased the density of ponderosa pine on south aspects, but had no impact on north aspects. That finding suggests that with rising temperatures and increasing severity of fires in the region, management would be most effective when tailored to promote drought-tolerant ponderosa pine on south aspects. Managed sites had taller conifers, which can improve fire resistance, but also had fewer snags -- an important habitat feature for bird, small mammals and amphibian species in the region. A study commissioned to help guide revisions of best practices in providing palliative care finds that there is a wide and varied body of evidence to support such clinical practice guidelines. The systematic review by researchers from the RAND Corporation found that the research base for palliative care was larger than generally appreciated, although there was limited evidence across some areas of clinical practice such as how to care for patients during the last days of their lives. Published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, the study was conducted to support the fourth edition of the National Consensus Project's Clinical Practices Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care, which establishes best practices in end-of-life care. While previous guidelines have been developed through consensus among experts, the systematic review was incorporated into the just-released fourth edition of the guidelines. "Our review will help guide best practices going forward and help focus future research efforts to build a high-quality evidence base for end-of-life care," said Sangeeta Ahluwalia, the study's lead author and a senior policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "While the palliative care evidence base has been rapidly growing, we now better understand where there are gaps." Palliative care is a rapidly growing field aimed at improving quality of life for patients with serious illness and their caregivers. Inpatient palliative care programs have increased sharply in recent years, with two-thirds of hospitals with 50 or more beds reporting that they have an interdisciplinary palliative care team. Researchers from the Southern California Evidence-based Practice Center at RAND reviewed the research literature to assess the status of evidence across eight domains of palliative care: the structure and process of care; physical aspects of care; psychological aspects of care; social aspects of care; spiritual, religious and existential aspects of care; cultural aspects of care; care of the patient nearing the end of life; and ethical and legal aspects of care. The most promising approaches to palliative care structure and process identified by the review include home-based palliative care, interdisciplinary team care and telehealth interventions. The findings support continued growth in these areas, with attention needed on workforce expansion, quality assessment of these services and innovative payment models. The study also found there is now documented evidence for comprehensive palliative care and music/art therapy addressing physical and psychological aspects of care. However, the existing evidence base for social needs assessments and culturally-sensitive care remains very limited. There is also documented evidence that grief and bereavement support services appear to improve key outcomes for caregivers, but the evidence base for effective approaches for care focused on the last days of life is very limited. Evidence for physician orders and advance directive interventions showed the strongest evidence in the ethical and legal aspects of care domain. Ethics consultations improve consensus in the intensive care unit, which can help reduce use of high-intensity and often life-prolonging treatments at the end of life. "Our review documents a substantial body of evidence to support clinical practice guidelines for palliative care, but the quality of evidence remains limited," said Susanne Hempel, the study's senior author and co-director of the Evidence-based Practice Center at RAND. "This comprehensive review underscores the importance of targeting future research toward building high-quality evidence in key areas of clinical practice, and patient and caregiver needs." ### The systematic review was sponsored by the National Coalition for Hospice and Palliative Care and funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Gary and Mary West Foundation, The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Stupski Foundation. Other authors of the study are Christine Chen, Laura Raaen, Aneesa Motala, Margaret Chamberlin, Claire O'Hanlon, Jody Larkin and Olamigoke Akinniranye, all of RAND, Anne M. Walling of the David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine, and Karl Lorenz of the Stanford University School of Medicine. RAND Health Care promotes healthier societies by improving health care systems in the United States and other countries. A novel immunotherapy appears safe for use in patients with a type of blood cancer called non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, according to a phase-1 multicenter clinical trial led by a researcher at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Although some patients showed signs of a transitory anemia or reactions at the injection site, there were few other significant side effects to the treatment, the researchers said. The therapy combines an experimental antibody developed by researchers at Stanford and a commercially available anti-cancer antibody called rituximab. The experimental antibody, known as Hu5F9-G4, blocks the protein CD47, a "don't eat me" signal that inhibits immune attacks on cancer cells. The antibody combination was used to treat people with two types of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma: diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and follicular lymphoma. Half of the 22 people enrolled in phase 1 of the trial had a positive response to the therapy, and about one-third went into complete remission from their cancer. Testing for safety Phase-1 trials are intended to test the safety of potential medical treatments in small groups of participants, but they sometimes also suggest whether a treatment is effective against specific diseases, such as cancer. Because the number of people enrolled is low, it's not possible to say definitively whether a positive result in a phase-1 trial will be echoed in future trials with larger numbers of participants. "It was very gratifying to see how the treatment was well-tolerated and showed a clinically meaningful response," said Ranjana Advani, MD, professor of medicine at Stanford. Advani led the phase-1B clinical trial and is the lead author of a paper describing the results, which will be published Nov. 1 in The New England Journal of Medicine. The senior author is Sonali Smith, MD, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. The clinical trial was funded by Forty Seven Inc., the company that licensed the patent from Stanford to produce Hu5F9-G4, and by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Silencing 'don't eat me' signal In 2010, researchers led by Irving Weissman, MD, director of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, showed that nearly all cancer cells cover themselves with a protein known as CD47, which acts as a "don't eat me" signal to immune cells called macrophages. Weissman and his colleagues later developed an antibody called Hu5F9-G4 that blocks the CD47 protein, prompting macrophages to engulf and devour cancer cells. Rituximab is an antibody that has been shown to amplify positive "eat me" signals. The combination of rituximab and Hu5F-G4 has previously been shown to work well in fighting human cancers in animal models, but this is the first published result of a clinical trial of this therapy in humans. For this clinical trial, participants were administered a combination of Hu5F-G4 and rituximab at 10 clinical centers. All the patients in the study had failed to respond to or relapsed after at least two previous types of therapy. Hu5F-G4 was administered to the patients at slowly increasing dosages to test for adverse reactions to the antibody. Of the 22 patients enrolled in the trial, 11 showed a clinically significant reduction in their cancers. In eight of those patients, all signs of cancer were eliminated, Advani said. Three other patients in the trial did not respond to the treatment and died due to disease progression. Although there are many things that can kill cancer cells, the real test of a therapy is whether it can kill the cancer cells without harming normal cells. Advani said she was particularly pleased that the researchers observed only minor side effects in the participants. "It's very exciting to have a potentially new class of immunotherapy like this," said Advani, who is the Saul A. Rosenberg, MD, Professor of Lymphoma. "For the first time we have an antibody that activates macrophages against cancer and appears to be safe for use in humans." ### Weissman and Ravindra Majeti, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at Stanford, are co-authors of the paper. Weissman is a founder of Forty Seven, and he and Majeti are board members of the company. Other Stanford-affiliated authors are instructor of medicine Mark Chao, MD, PhD, and clinical research coordinator Thu Tran. Chao is a founder of Forty Seven and its vice president of clinical development. In addition to being members of Stanford's stem cell institute, Weissman and Majeti are also members of the Stanford Cancer Institute and of the Stanford Ludwig Center for Cancer Stem Cell Research and Medicine. Advani also is a member of the Stanford Cancer Institute. Researchers at the City of Hope, Sarah Cannon Research Institute/Tennessee Oncology, the University of Alabama-Birmingham, Washington University in St. Louis, Levine Cancer Institute, the University of Chicago, the National Cancer Institute, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and the University of Oxford also contributed to the study. Stanford's Department of Medicine also supported the work. The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the nation's top medical schools, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community service. For more news about the school, please visit http://med.stanford.edu/school.html. The medical school is part of Stanford Medicine, which includes Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health. For information about all three, please visit http://med.stanford.edu. Print media contact: Krista Conger 650-725-5371 kristac@stanford.edu Christopher Vaughan 650-736-8849 vaughan1@stanford.edu Broadcast media contact: Margarita Gallardo 650-723-7897 mjgallardo@stanford.edu Each spring, male deer sprout a new pair of antlers, which are essentially temporary external bones, at a speed unparalleled by the bone growth of other mammals. Now, research led by scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine has identified two genes that drive the animals' abnormally quick bone generation. Although the research is still in its early stages, the scientists hope the findings could one day inform more efficient and effective therapies for bone diseases and fractures in humans. "Right now, we have two focuses: To understand the genetic regulation of deer antler growth, and to see if we can use this information to build therapeutic agents to potentially prevent or treat bone diseases such as osteoporosis, or more quickly repair bone fractures," said Peter Yang, PhD, associate professor of orthopedic surgery. Antlers are essentially regenerating bone, which is rare in the animal kingdom. During the spring, antlers begin to sprout; by winter, they start to shed. "Knowing the genetics behind antler regeneration, fast bone growth and mineralization is fundamental to our ultimate therapeutic goal and is critical to understanding rapid bone regeneration in other species, like humans," Yang said. The genes Yang and his collaborators identified are uhrf1, which supports rapid bone cell proliferation, and s100a10, which supports rapid mineralization, or the hardening of bone tissue. Together, the genes work in a one-two punch fashion, with uhrf1 spurring bone cell generation and s100a10 working to cement the bone's structural matrix. What lends even more transformative potential to Yang's research is that both uhrf1 and s100a10 are linked to bone development in humans. A paper detailing the researchers' findings will be published online Oct. 30 in the Journal of Stem Cell Research and Therapy. Yang is the senior author. Postdoctoral scholar Dai Fei Elmer Ker, PhD, is the lead author. Going stag As an orthopedic researcher, Yang never planned to pursue deer antler genetics. But while on vacation in Alaska in 2009, Yang's tour guide rattled off some fun facts about wild deer, and it piqued his curiosity. "Deer antlers can grow a whopping 2 centimeters per day when it's summertime and their antlers are growing at full speed," Yang recalled from the guide's spiel. "It made me wonder: Are there special genes that are behind this unusually fast bone growth?" To investigate, Yang and his lab traveled to a deer farm in California where they collected samples of early antler tissue, which is primarily made up of skeletal stem cells. Antlers grow from the top down; so as they grow upward, a reservoir of stem cells remains at the top of the antlers, continuing to proliferate. In early development, antler tissue is soft, much like the cartilage of your nose, making cell sampling an easy task for Yang and harmless for the buck. Only in the second stage of development does the antler mineralize and become rigid. Back in the lab, the scientists used a variety of techniques to decipher the genetics behind antler growth, including analyses of RNA, a molecule that help carry out specific gene instructions, and gene "knock-down" and "over-expression" studies, which hinder gene function or rev it up, respectively. Comparative RNA analyses between stem cells in deer antlers and human stem cells from bone marrow led Yang to a collection of genes that seemed to have a unique expression in antlers. From that pool, he narrowed the search by tampering with gene function, watching to see how different levels of gene expression affected tissue growth in mouse cells. In mouse cells, Yang saw that when the uhrf1 gene was decommissioned, the bone tissue could still grow, just not as quickly; only when uhrf1 was fully functional did the scientists see the rapid cell proliferation characteristic of antler growth. Likewise, when s100a10 was overexpressed, calcium deposits increased and the engineered cells more rapidly mineralized. "Antler regeneration is a unique phenomenon that, to me, is worth studying just out of pure curiosity, but lo and behold, it may have some really interesting applications for human health," Yang said. Applying antler genetics to humans The researchers hope that their insights into antler genes might inform new approaches for treating diseases like osteoporosis. In healthy bones, two types of cells -- osteoblasts and osteoclasts -- work as opposing forces. Osteoblasts produce new bone tissue, while osteoclasts break down old bone. The two cell types work in a yin and yang style to continuously form and degrade bone to maintain balanced bone structure. In osteoporosis, osteoclast function overtakes osteoblasts, and the bone starts to break down. "We're just at the beginning of this research, but our ultimate goal is to figure out how we can apply the same underlying biology that allows for rapid bone regeneration in deer antlers to help treat human bone conditions, such as osteoporosis," Yang said. Yang plans to continue researching multiple kinds of deer to confirm that uhrf1 and s100a10 back speedy antler growth across species. In addition, he plans to test how the genes function in human cell lines, while continuing to parse how uhrf1 and s100a10 work on a molecular level, looking into possible functional pathways. "There's a lot of work to be done, but this could be a unique model of bone regeneration, and our initial work here has started to lay a foundation for future studies," Yang said. ### Other Stanford co-authors of the paper are postdoctoral scholars Dan Wang, PhD, and Bin Zhang, PhD; Norma Neff, PhD, former DNA sequencing core director; former undergraduate researcher Rashmi Sharma; professor and chair of orthopedic surgery William Maloney, MD; and professor of bioengineering and of applied physics Steven Quake, PhD. Peter Yang is a member of Stanford Bio-X, the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, the Stanford Child Health Research Institute and the Stanford Neurosciences Institute. Scientists from the Tenth People's Hospital of Tongji University, Calico Life Sciences and the State Key Lab for Molecular Biology of Special Economic Animals also contributed to the study. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health (grants R01AR057837, R01AR057837, R01DE021468 and S10RR027431) the Department of Defense, the Boswell Foundation and the AO Foundation. Stanford's Department of Orthopedic Surgery also supported the work. The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the nation's top medical schools, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community service. For more news about the school, please visit http://med.stanford.edu/school.html. The medical school is part of Stanford Medicine, which includes Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health. For information about all three, please visit http://med.stanford.edu. Print media contact: Hanae Armitage650-725-5376 Broadcast media contact: Journal Journal of Stem Cell Research & Therapy Margarita Gallardo650-723-7897 Comparing the properties of cold- and hot-brew coffee, researchers found similar acidity in both, but higher antioxidant levels in hot coffee (PHILADELPHIA) -- In a new study, Jefferson (Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University) researchers found chemical differences between hot and cold brew coffee that may have health impacts. In particular, the researchers found that hot-brewed coffee has higher levels of antioxidants, which are believed to be responsible for some of the health benefits of coffee. The study, published Oct. 30 in Scientific Reports, also found that the pH levels of both hot and cold coffee were similar, ranging from 4.85 to 5.13 for all coffee samples tested. Coffee companies and lifestyle blogs have tended to tout cold brew coffee as being less acidic than hot coffee and thus less likely to cause heartburn or gastrointestinal problems. The study was done by Niny Rao, PhD, associate professor of chemistry, and Megan Fuller, PhD, assistant professor of chemistry, both of them coffee drinkers who wondered whether the chemical make-up of cold brew differed from that of hot coffee. While the popularity of cold brew coffee has soared in recent years--the U.S. market grew 580 percent from 2011 to 2016--they found almost no studies on cold brew, which is a no-heat, long-steeping method of preparation. At the same time, there is well-documented research that hot-brewed coffee has some measurable health benefits, including lower risk of some cancers, diabetes and depression. While the overall pH levels were similar, Fuller and Rao found that the hot-brewed coffee method had more total titratable acids, which may be responsible for the hot cup's higher antioxidant levels. "Coffee has a lot of antioxidants, if you drink it in moderation, research shows it can be pretty good for you," Fuller said. "We found the hot brew has more antioxidant capacity." And considering hot and cold brews have comparable pH levels, Rao said, coffee drinkers should not consider cold brew a "silver bullet" for avoiding gastrointestinal distress. ### Article reference: Niny Z. Rao and Megan Fuller, "Acidity and Antioxidant Activity of Cold Brew Coffee," Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-34392-w, 2018. Media Contact: Debbie Goldberg, Debbie.Goldberg@jefferson.edu, 215-951-2718 A U.S. Army Research Laboratory scientist and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor joined forces on a new book showcasing advances in robotics and autonomous platforms. Dr. Shawn Walsh, a materials researcher from the laboratory and Prof. Michael S Strano, Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, authored and edited a book that they say, "unites materials, energy, computation and robotics in profoundly new ways." "The book emphasizes teaming with academia and industry to deliver the best solutions to Soldiers, and more generally, to society," Walsh said. The book, "Robotic Systems and Autonomous Platforms: Advances in Materials and Manufacturing," includes chapters written by five ARL researchers: Dan Baechle, Drs. Randy Mrozek, Geoff Slipher, Anit Giri, Kris Darling, and Sam Stanton. "The future includes research at the transdisciplinary intersections of these diverse, but complementary research areas -- something ARL is extremely well positioned to do," Walsh said. The book explores how autonomous systems can "enable new uses for materials, including innovations on different length scales, from nano, to macro and large systems." It takes a look at autonomous systems that can enable new uses for manufacturing, highlighting innovations in 3-D additive manufacturing, printing of materials, novel synthesis of multifunctional materials and robotic cooperation. Enabling a breakthrough requires new thinking according to the scientists and engineers on the front lines of innovation. "It requires disrupting the notion of an intelligent system as a rigid multi-body platform optimized for quasi-static and steady-state motion," Stanton said. "To achieve robust, resilient, and energetically versatile agility and dexterity rivaling biological systems, robotic systems and exoskeletons require breakthrough components featuring locally tunable material properties with embedded sensing and actuation." The authors foresee a future military offset that will leverage autonomous systems to increase situational awareness, lighten warfighter load, improve sustainment, facilitate movement and protect the force. "Some of the DOD capabilities required to achieve these goals include miniaturization of robotic platforms, swarming intelligence, adaptive exoskeletons and all-terrain autonomous mobility," Stanton said. The Army Research Laboratory has made foundational research investments in materials, energy, computation, and robotics, Walsh said. "We're looking for new opportunities at the intersections of disparate science and technology areas, to move away from thinking of a robot as a discrete device to the idea of a robot as being a 'self-adaptive ecosystem' with task and purpose," he said. "We discuss themes that highlight highly novel applications from the international academic, industrial and government sectors." Walsh said the new Army Futures Command is "keen on science and technology, including robotics, artificial intelligence and new modes of collaboration with industry and academia." "Our book exemplified this approach," he said. ### The book, which was published this month, is available in print and as an e-book from major retail booksellers. 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. Someone who is "neurotic" does not necessarily show anger or anxiety in a given situation, even though those are generally accepted traits of a person with that personality style. New University of California, Davis, research suggests that lumping those with personality disorders into a package of traits should be left behind for more dynamic analysis instead. Those who study and treat people with personality disorders need to more deeply look at personality dynamics and variation over time, not just box people into specific categories or traits. UC Davis psychologist Chris Hopwood wants to take a more dynamic view of personality traits and disorders. "Just as water level could be affected by climate, tide, and weather, different levels of personality dynamics can be classified according to the timescales along which they occur," said Christopher Hopwood, a psychology professor and author of "Interpersonal Dynamics in Personality and Personality Disorders," which was published recently in the European Journal of Personality. "Personality researchers are on the verge of marrying technological advances and psychological theories to generate novel insights about why people are different and how that can go wrong," he said. Hopwood acknowledges that there is value in clinical descriptions of personality disorders focusing on traits - which he describes as abstract concepts, averaged across situations. For instance, neuroticism includes features such as anger, impulsivity, anxiety and self-consciousness, but those traits are over-generalized and could apply to various psychopathologies. They are poorly suited to answer specific questions about particular moments in daily life and environmental changes over time, Hopwood said. "By analogy," Hopwood said, "although it would be more useful for a musician to understand chords (personality factors) and notes (personality facets) than to learn a few songs (personality disorder categories), this does not mean that she would not ultimately prefer a model of rhythm, melody, and key signatures (dynamics) through which she can better understand and even generate her own music." Hopwood said this research can help improve the treatment of people with personality disorders and better their lives because: research on clinical personality disorders and basic or "normal" personality processes are both converging on the importance of dynamics, these dynamics may explain why personality features that are not adaptive stay stable, and understanding personality in terms of dynamics may provide more guidance for intervention, and thus close the research-practice gap. But to realize this potential, he added, the field needs to move on from old debates and encounter the massive methodological challenges involved in studying dynamic personality processes. ### Additional information: Interpersonal Dynamics in Personality and Personality Disorders (European Journal of Personality) UC Davis Personality Assessment Lab https://personality.faculty.ucdavis.edu/ Scripps Oceanography-led study finds even most sustainable fishing not enough to support livelihoods in Gulf of California A new study shows that even if fishers used the most efficient and sustainable known practices, they wouldn't generate enough revenue to maintain a living above poverty level. Researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego and the University of British Columbia found that two-thirds of the small-scale fisheries in the Gulf of California present some degree of overexploitation. There is a silver lining, however. The study highlights that if fish stocks were allowed to recover, total annual fishing revenues could increase by 70 percent. This represents an increase from $141 million now to $240 million per year in the future. Still, in areas with large numbers of fishers, such as Mazatlan and Guaymas, even if depleted fisheries recovered, fishers would not earn enough money to pay for food, education, health services and clothing. For the Gulf of California as a whole, as much as 80 percent of fishers would continue to live in poverty. "Our results demonstrate that fisheries have a maximum economic capacity. Failing to recognize that will harm our efforts to conserve marine resources and to provide economic security for coastal communities," said lead author Alfredo Giron, a graduate student at Scripps. While fishers around the world are often recognized as vulnerable groups frequently living in poverty, governments seem invested in increasing the number of people trying to make a living out of this activity. For example, between 2006 and 2010, the total number of small-scale fishing boats in the Gulf of California rose from around 18,000 to approximately 25,000. Increasing the number of fishers not only exacerbates unsustainable exploitation of marine ecosystems, but will also compromise fishers' well-being since their individual revenues will continue to decrease year after year. "We would not like the only take-home message to be that the only solution to achieve sustainable fisheries is to have fewer fishers, but it definitely needs to be part of the conversation," said Giron. Oversaturated fisheries are just one part of the problem that fishing communities face in this region, Giron said. Previous studies highlighted the importance of addressing other social problems like marginalization of coastal communities and lax or inconsistent enforcement of sustainable practices. "Focusing on the sustainable exploitation of fisheries is still important to preserve our marine biodiversity," said Octavio Aburto, a marine ecologist at Scripps Oceanography and co-author of the study. "However, if we want to talk about human well-being, we need to start thinking further ahead within a broader social, economic and ecological perspective." "It is not a matter anymore of mitigating the effects that fisheries overexploitation has on particular locations, but about designing adaptation strategies that will provide coastal communities with more economic opportunities," said Andrew Johnson, co-author of the study, and a fisheries biologist consultant for the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. The study, published Nov. 5 in the journal Fish and Fisheries, highlights the need for policymakers to recognize the potential of the oceans as a platform for sustainable economic development and encourage present-day fishers to pursue livelihoods that stand a better chance of providing stable income over the long-term. For example, ecotourism has been demonstrated to provide alternative and sufficient incomes in the Gulf of California, such as in Cabo Pulmo National Park. Other economic alternatives include offshore wind and tidal energy projects, as well as innovative economic instruments, such as blue bonds and payments for ecosystems services. "The challenge will be to generate alternate economic opportunities that fishers would be willing to accept, as most times fisheries are not only a job, but a form of living," said Andres Cisneros, co-author of the study and research economist at the University of British Columbia. With this in mind, this paper aims to alert not only fisheries managers, but development economists, anthropologists, sociologists and new sustainable industries. ### Giron was funded by CONACYT (CVU 579904) and Fulbright Garcia-Robles (LASPAU ID 20140963) doctoral program fellowships. Johnson was supported by NSF grant DEB-1632648. Cisneros is supported by the Nippon Foundation Nereus Program. This project was supported by The Nature Conservancy through the project "Mapping Oceans Wealth." Veterans released from prison are five times as likely to attempt suicide as their peers who have never been incarcerated. Veterans released from prison are five times as likely to attempt suicide as their peers who have never been incarcerated, report UConn Health researchers in an article slated for publication in the November 2018 print edition of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. "People over 50 are the fastest growing segment of the prison population, and most of them will eventually be released," says UConn Health epidemiologist Lisa Barry. Regardless of a person's age, release from prison increases the chance of death in the years immediately afterward. But older prisoners tend to have fewer friends and family around when they get released, and may find it even harder to reintegrate into the workforce than the average ex-prisoners, with the double stigma of being a former prisoner and being old. Knowing this, Barry and her colleagues suspected older ex-prisoners were at high risk of suicide attempts, but there was very little data available on the health of older, just-released prisoners. Researchers worked with the Veteran's Administration to get data from its Suicide Prevention Application Network (SPAN). SPAN tracks suicide attempts by veterans, and includes detailed information including time and date, mechanism of the attempt (hanging, drug overdose, etc.), and whether the veteran has any safety plan to prevent another attempt in the future. The researchers combined SPAN data with the medical records from Medicare and the VA of more than 14,000 people age 50 and older between 2012 and 2014. They found that approximately half had rejoined the community following incarceration during this time. The other half were counterparts of the same age and gender who had never been incarcerated. The results were sobering. When the researchers adjusted for conditions including brain trauma, mental illness, and homelessness (all additional risk factors for suicide), those who had been imprisoned were still three times as likely to attempt suicide. They were also more likely to die from accidental drug overdoses and other apparently accidental deaths. "The risk of suicide may be larger than we report. For some of those classified as dying by accident, was there some intent? We may never know," Barry says. "But there needs to be awareness that this is a high-risk group, and perhaps a need for targeted prevention." Barry and her colleagues are currently looking more closely at the healthcare services used by people who attempted suicide versus those who did not. They hope to find patterns that could help identify who is most at risk, and perhaps point to effective preventive strategies that health care providers serving the older population can use to help. ### Researchers from UConn Health, the Veterans Administration, University of California-San Francisco, and University of Rochester contributed to this study. With the help of a binding protein, the most common messenger RNA modification in mammals helps coordinate nerve cell response to memory-inducing stimulus in mice RNA carries pieces of instructions encoded in DNA to coordinate the production of proteins that will carry out the work to be done in a cell. But the process isn't always straightforward. Chemical modifications to DNA or RNA can alter the way genes are expressed without changing the actual genetic sequences. These epigenetic or epitranscriptome changes can affect many biological processes such as immune system response, nervous system development, various human cancers and even obesity. Most of these changes happen through methylation, a process in which chemical molecules called methyl groups are added to a DNA or RNA molecule. Proteins that add a methyl group are known as "writers," and proteins that can remove the methyl groups are "erasers." For the methylation to have a biological effect, there must be "reader" proteins that can identify the change and bind to it. The most common modification on messenger RNA in mammals is called N6-methyladenosine (m6A). It is widespread in the nervous system. It helps coordinate several neural functions, working through reader proteins in the YTH family of proteins. In a new study published in Nature, scientists from the University of Chicago show how Ythdf1, a member of the YTH family that specifically recognizes m6A, plays an important role in the process of learning and memory formation. Using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing tools to knock out Ythdf1in mice, they demonstrated how it promotes translation of m6A-modified messenger RNA (mRNA) in response to learning activities and direct nerve cell stimulus. "This study opens the door to our future understanding of learning and memory," said Chuan He, PhD, the John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UChicago and one of the senior authors of the study. "We saw differences in long-term memory and learning between the normal and knockout mice, demonstrating that the m6A methylation plays a critical role through Ythdf1." In 2015, He published a study in Cell showing how Ythdf1 recognizes m6A-modified mRNAs and promotes their translation to proteins. The new study further demonstrates how this translation increases specifically in response to nervous system stimulation. Hailing Shi, a graduate student in He's lab, led the new study, working with colleagues from Shanghai Tech University in China and the University of Pennsylvania. Mice express more Ythdf1 mRNAs in the hippocampus, part of the brain crucial to spatial learning and memory. So, the researchers conducted several experiments with both normal mice and mice without Ythdf1 to test the effects on their ability to learn from experiences. In one scenario called the Morris water maze to test spatial memory, they used a water tank with a submerged platform a mouse could stand on to avoid swimming. Mice got several tries to learn where the platforms were located based on visual cues in a testing room. Then the platform was removed. The normal mice did a better job remembering where the platform used to be than the knockout mice. The researchers also tested contextual and auditory fear memory in the different groups of mice by administering electrical shocks in combination with certain sounds in specific settings. Again, the normal mice demonstrated better contextual memory than knockout mice. They showed a fear response after being placed in the same setting again without the associated sounds, but not after hearing the sounds in a different setting. The memory and learning deficits were reversible, however. When the researchers injected knockout mice with a virus carrying Ythdf1, their performance on memory and learning tasks improved dramatically. The researchers also tested the response of cultured mouse neurons directly in the lab. When the normal cells were stimulated, they increased new protein production, compared to much less activity in Ythdf1 knockout cells. "It's really an exciting finding to show how the protein can respond to a neuronal stimulus which could contribute to controlled translation," Shi said. "It's a stimulation-dependent upregulation of translation," He added. "It makes sense because you don't want to fire up your neurons constantly, only when you have a stimulation." While the current study identifies one important function for YTHDF1, there may be many other functions involved with other biological processes. "This is not just limited to learning and memory. This stimulation induced translation should apply to many other systems," He said. "The same m6A modification is known to play a role in the immune system when there is an infection, or when a cell moves to a different part of the body. So, I think this is a general concept." ### The study "m6A facilitates hippocampus-dependent learning and memory through Ythdf1" was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Key R&D Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation. Additional authors include Xuliang Zhang, Zongyang Lu, Yajing Liu, Jianan Li, Piliang Hao, Yu Zhang, Xingxu Huang, and Tao Zhou from Shanghai Tech University, China; Yi-Lan Weng, Feng Zhang, Yijing Su, Guo-li Ming, and Hongjun Song from the University of Pennsylvania; Zhike Lu, Jary Y. Delgado, Meera J. Patel, Xiaoxi Zhuang from the University of Chicago; You Wu from Tongji University, China; Xiaohua Cao from East China Normal University; and Bin Shen from Nanjing Medical University, China. About the University of Chicago Medicine The University of Chicago Medicine & Biological Sciences is one of the nation's leading academic medical institutions. It comprises the Pritzker School of Medicine, a top 10 medical school in the nation; the University of Chicago Biomedical Sciences Division; and the University of Chicago Medical Center, which recently opened the Center for Care and Discovery, a $700 million specialty medical facility. Twelve Nobel Prize winners in physiology or medicine have been affiliated with the University of Chicago Medicine. Learn more at uchicagomedicine.org. A special supplement to the most recent issue of the Journal of Political Economy (JPE) (October 2018) commemorates the life and work of the late Nobel laureate Gary S. Becker. The issue contains contributions from economists such as fellow Nobel laureate and JPE editor James J. Heckman, as well as Richard Blundell, Edward P. Lazear, Pierre-Andre Chiappori, Monica Costa Dias, James Liang, John Eric Humphries, and Gregory Veramendi. The articles in this issue extend, explore, and honor Becker's influential research and scholarship. Heckman, the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor and director of the Center for the Economics of Human Development at the University of Chicago, edits and introduces the issue with Edward P. Lazear and Kevin M. Murphy. In their opening remarks, the scholars laud Becker's considerable and lasting contributions to behavioral economics, discussing Becker's view of social institutions such as marriage, child rearing, discrimination, and crime, and addressing Becker's theory of human capital, which provides the backbone for labor economics and bolsters economic theory, policy, and discourse in education and health. They write, "Gary Becker was an intellectual giant. No one had a greater impact on broadening economics and making its impact felt throughout the social sciences than Becker. Indeed, Milton Friedman once described Gary Becker as the most important social scientist of the second half of the twentieth century." The issue begins with a posthumous contribution from Becker himself. In "A Theory of Intergenerational Mobility," Gary Becker, Scott Duke Kominers, Kevin M. Murphy, and Jorg L. Spenkuch extend classic theories of intergenerational mobility by studying its link with the market and inequality. Wealthy parents invest, on average, more in their children than poorer ones, which results in the persistence of economic status across generations, regardless of a child's innate ability. The authors conclude that "even modern societies may develop social classes with considerable mobility within but not across class boundaries." In "The Marriage Market, Labor Supply, and Education Choice," Pierre-Andre Chiappori, Monica Costa Dias, and Costas Meghir assess "the intersection of two fundamental Beckerian concepts: human capital and matching." Drawing on Becker's groundbreaking JPE scholarship from 1973, the authors' model contends that marital sorting patterns rely on human capital considerations for complementarity and substitutability and that intra-household resource allocation is related to the conditions of the marriage market, a demand for public goods, and the motivation to share economic and social risks. The authors explain that these issues help describe marriage markets and intra-household inequality and could inform future education policy. In "Children, Time Allocation, and Consumption Insurance," Richard Blundell, Luigi Pistaferri, and Itay Saporta-Eksten explore resource allocation by considering how households decide to divide spouses' time and consumption between work, leisure, and childcare. Using Becker's pioneering studies from the 1960s and 70s as a base, the authors find that mothers work less outside the home when their spouse's wages are temporarily raised. This is due to the spouse's increased work time - occurring in conjunction with the wage increase - which results in fewer available hours to devote to childcare. To compensate for the lost childcare hours, mothers spend more time with their children and less time at their own jobs. "Social Norms in Social Insurance" by Assar C. E. Lindbeck and Mats Persson investigates the interplay between economic incentives and the social customs of receiving welfare payments. The authors focus on income received from insurance associated with sick leave and temporary disability, but the analysis is also relevant for other forms of income insurance impacted by policy, such as early retirement for health reasons and unemployment insurance. The authors suggest that insurers can mitigate moral hazards if social norms discourage overuse or cheating of insurance benefits, though they acknowledge that societies have varying tolerances for payment system abuse. In "Demographics and Entrepreneurship," James Liang, Hui Wang, and Edward P. Lazear explore the hinderance of age and seniority on growth in business formation and innovation: "The focus here is on another mechanism by which not only the supply of the workforce, but also the age structure of the workforce, can have a significant impact on economic performance through the channel of entrepreneurship." Looking to Becker's findings on human capital and fertility from nearly fifty years ago, the authors offer a renewed appraisal, and a more internationally focused data set--Japan's dramatic decline in birth rates over each generation since the end of World War II illustrates the starkest example of an entrepreneurial vacuum. The "advantages of youth" include the energy and creativity required to start a business, but not the experience an older worker has gained from a longer career. While household resource availability influences how much a parent can invest in a child, innate ability is an important consideration when deciding how much a person should invest in personal development like education. James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, and Gregory Veramendi develop and estimate a robust dynamic model of schooling choice and its consequences in "Returns to Education: The Causal Effects of Education on Earnings, Health, and Smoking." The authors conclude that schooling, especially at higher tiers, "has strong causal effects on earnings, health, and healthy behaviors." The article features web appendices with additional analyses that supplement and support the authors' set of six broad conclusions, some with policy implications, including: "There are substantial benefits from graduating high school that are especially strong for the less able, many of whom currently do not graduate," and "There are no causal effects of college graduation for low-ability persons. College graduation is not for all." This issue stands as a testament to Becker's far-reaching contributions to and influence on the field of economics, its scholars, and the world beyond academia. ### One of the oldest and most prestigious journals in economics, the Journal of Political Economy (JPE) has since 1892 presented significant research and scholarship in economic theory and practice. The journal aims to publish highly selective, widely cited articles of current relevance that will have a long-term impact on economics research. JPE's analytical, interpretive, and empirical studies in a number of areas--including monetary theory, fiscal policy, labor economics, development, micro- and macroeconomic theory, international trade and finance, industrial organization, and social economics--are essential reading for all economists wishing to keep up with substantive new research in the discipline. People who have had a colectomy have increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospitals have shown in a new study analysing data from more than 46,000 citizens. The researchers hope this new knowledge may pave the way for new ways of preventing and treating the disease. The colon may play a role in regulating the body's blood sugar level, a new study conducted by researchers at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen and Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospitals suggests. In the large study the researchers have shown what happens when patients have parts of or the entire colon removed. The researchers have seen increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes following this type of surgery. This suggests that the colon plays a role in regulating the blood sugar level. The research results have just been published in the scientific journal eLife. 'We know that the colon houses large numbers of gut bacteria and hormone-producing cells, but we still do not know which role they play in regulating the blood sugar level. We hope our study will facilitate further research into the significance of the colon in blood sugar regulation and diabetes development', says co-author Kristine Allin, Head of Section and Staff Doctor at the Center for Clinical Research and Prevention at Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg Hospitals. The study's first author, Postdoc Anders Boeck Jensen from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research, has studied data from Danish registers of just over 46,000 patients who have either had the entire colon or parts of it removed. This data was compared to data of just under 700,000 comparable patients who in the same period had undergone surgery for something else than disease in the gastrointestinal tract. The study is an example of how researchers can use real human treatment in the healthcare system as a kind of 'model'. 'The surgical procedures these patients have undergone represent the "trial", and the results are then determined from the many data held in the Danish registers. Researchers often use animal testing to identify a connection, before determining whether the results also apply to humans. Here we are looking directly at surgery on humans, and we do not have to worry about whether the findings also apply to humans. The human as a 'model organism' is a concept that is gaining ground, ensuring that new patients benefit from experience and data collected through 20 years of treatment of previous patients', says co-author and Professor Sren Brunak from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research. Left Side of the Bowel Stands out The data studied by the researchers span an 18-year period beginning at the time of the operation. Patients who had the entire or left side of the colon removed showed increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the 18 years following the operation compared to patients who had undergone surgery in different parts of the body. Patients who had had the right or middle horizontal part of the colon removed showed no increased risk of developing diabetes, though. This suggests that the left side of the colon plays a role in regulating the body's blood sugar level. The colon is full of gut bacteria and microbes, and some other studies indicate that a changed composition of these microbes - like when part of the colon is removed in surgery - may play a role in the development of various diseases, aside from infections. 'The greater majority of the body's microbes are found in the colon, so it is relevant to look at what happens after the colon or part of it is removed. In a previous study we saw no significant connection with the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases. We were therefore rather surprised to see so relatively massive an increase in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. In fact, the increased risk corresponds to the effect of having three times as high a BMI', says co-author and Professor Thorkild I.A. Srensen from the Department of Public Health and Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research. ### Researchers in the University of Kent have made significant strides towards understanding the genomes - and hence the biology - of falcons. A study by a team led by Professor Darren Griffin at the University's School of Biosciences created chromosome-level assemblies and compared three iconic species, the Peregrine, Saker and Gyr falcons. Many falcons are classified as endangered and are remarkable for their incredible eyesight, acceleration speeds and hunting skills. Studying their genomes helps understand a wide range of aspects of falcon biology, including morphology, ecology, and physiology, as well as being essential for conservation efforts. Furthermore, whole genome sequencing enables an understanding of how the genome relates to physical characteristics, e.g., growth, development, maintenance and disease resistance. The researchers focussed specifically on the overall organization of the genome, expressed as an arrangement of chromosomes. The ultimate aim of any genome sequencing effort is to assign all or most of the genes to the appropriate chromosomes, with each gene or marker in order - in essence, creating a genomic map. Making such a map of the genome in relation to the chromosomes (a so-called 'chromosome-level assembly') can aid genomic selection in breeding regimes and it also allows comparisons between species. Despite this, many animals - although having their genome sequenced - have not until recently had a chromosome-level genome assembly, and this had also applied to falcons. ### The approach was developed at Kent in collaboration with the Royal Veterinary College, University of London.The paper, entitled Chromosome level genome assembly and comparative genomics between three falcon species reveals a pattern of genome organization not typical for birds, (Joseph S.*, O'Connor R.E.*, Al-Mutery A.*, Watson M.*, Larkin D.M*. and Griffin, D.K*.) is published in the journal Diversity. https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/10/4/113 For more information or interview requests contact Martin Herrema at the University of Kent Press Office. Tel: 01227 816768 Email: M.J.Herrema@kent.ac.uk News releases can also be found at http://www.kent.ac.uk/news University of Kent on Twitter: http://twitter.com/UniKent Notes to editors Established in 1965, the University of Kent - the UK's European university - now has almost 20,000 students across campuses or study centres at Canterbury, Medway, Tonbridge, Brussels, Paris, Athens and Rome. It was ranked 22nd in the Guardian University Guide 2018 and in June 2017 was awarded a gold rating, the highest, in the UK Government's Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). In 2018 it was also ranked in the top 500 of Shanghai Ranking's Academic Ranking of World Universities and 47th in the Times Higher Education's (THE) new European Teaching Rankings. Kent is ranked 17th in the UK for research intensity (REF 2014). It has world-leading research in all subjects and 97% of its research is deemed by the REF to be of international quality. Along with the universities of East Anglia and Essex, Kent is a member of the Eastern Arc Research Consortium (http://www.kent.ac.uk/about/partnerships/eastern-arc.html). The University is worth 0.7 billion to the economy of the south east and supports more than 7,800 jobs in the region. Student off-campus spend contributes 293.3m and 2,532 full-time-equivalent jobs to those totals. Kent has received two Queen's Anniversary prizes for Higher and Further Education. LAWRENCE -- Millions of people around the world inhabit urban spaces shaped by public squares, parks, statues, monuments, place names and architecture. These cityscapes are the backdrops of people's daily lives, serving as the settings of professional, family and social interaction. But looking beyond the practical benefits of urban spaces, a new book co-edited by a University of Kansas geographer explores cities' power to build, uphold and challenge national identity, state power and a sense of belonging. "The City as Power: Urban Space, Place and National Identity" was published by Roman & Littlefield in September. "When you talk about urban landscape, it's a powerful medium for people to learn who they are," said Alexander Diener, the book's co-editor and associate professor of geography & atmospheric science. "This book tries to test that idea from a global perspective, and we reached out to experts around the world for their views." Co-edited with Joshua Hagen, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Northern State University, the new book brings together international scholars from many disciplines. According to the publisher: "'The City as Power' provides broad comparative perspectives about the critical importance of urban landscapes as forums for creating, maintaining, and contesting identity and belonging." "This book explores the idea that cities are not just settings in which people exist but also something which people live through," Diener said. "They are influenced by banal surroundings that can themselves be shaped by ruling elites. People living within the cities have choices of what they accept in terms of these." The KU researcher said that cities have an apt comparison in a palimpsest, a manuscript where the original writing has been partially removed and replaced, but it remains legible under the new text. "These ancient manuscripts were created when parchment and paper were rare, so they would write over the old writing, but they couldn't quite erase the old writing -- it would be legible," Diener said. "We thought that was an interesting analogy for cities. Rarely do you have a blank slate. You build over the old regime, and there's a remnant. Cities are about remembering and forgetting. The state wants people to remember some things and forget other things. But not everybody is following along the same narrative that the elites who shape the city are setting forth." Diener said the idea for the book arose from sessions he and Hagen organized at a meeting of the American Association of Geographers. "We had such great papers, we started asking people, 'Would you be interested in contributing?'" he said. "We're very pleased with the global scope and scales of analysis -- it's an excellent bunch of writers." Although the book's contributors are academic researchers, Diener said the book would hold interest for students or any reader with an interest in their urban surroundings. "We intentionally wrote this to be accessible," he said. "We want it to be useful to scholars in this field, but we also want the educated lay public to find this readable. Historic buildings, monuments, memorials and landmarks play key roles in making and remaking of national identity. We want people to see there may be a parallel in their city. We think students will be able to read this and look around and say, 'You know, I see it.'" Recently in the U.S., controversy over Confederate memorials and statues in public spaces has shone a light on urban iconography's influence over place, memory and identity. Diener is quick to point out that similar disputes happen all over the world. "Cityscapes have been created by human beings, often with a particular intent -- we hope this book can be helpful in terms of raising people's awareness as to the effect they can have," he said. "It's not always up to the regime that creates it how a place will be perceived by the greater public. For example, Bishkek, in Kyrgyzstan, has a fascinating history. First, they had a prominent statue of Lenin, but they moved it behind a museum. Next, they built a statue representing liberty and freedom -- it was female but with a European-looking face sitting on a globe and holding a centerpiece of a yurt. That statue didn't work for many people either. They tore it down and put up another." Other cityscapes explored in the book include Dublin; Tokyo; Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Ankara, Turkey; Budapest, Hungary; Lusaka, Zambia; and many others. The KU researcher said the process of editing in part requires compiling the contributions and ensuring a variety of topics, as well as a consistency in presentation of the writing. "To do a book like this well, you have to choose the right contributors, be clear about expectations, then you trust them because they're professional academics," Diener said. "We go through the writing looking for specific elements, editing a bit for length and tone, then the press goes through its process." ### Contributors to "The City as Power" are Bikramaditya Choudhary, Diganta Das, Ronald Davidson, Kara Dempsey, Alexander Diener, Emine Evered, Kyle Evered, Bill Freund, Brian Godfrey, Joshua Hagen, Reuel Hanks, Joshua F. J. Inwood, Natalie Koch, Sarah Moser, Orhon Myadar, Garth Myers, Emilia Palonen, James DeShaw Rae and Angela Subulwa. MIAMI--A new study of the Deepwater Horizon response showed that massive quantities of chemically engineered dispersants injected at the wellhead--roughly 1,500 meters (4,921 feet) beneath the surface--were unrelated to the formation of the massive deepwater oil plume. A University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science-led research team analyzed polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), the most toxic components of petroleum, based on the BP Gulf Science Data's extensive water chemistry samples taken within a 10-kilometer (6-mile) radius of the blowout site. The results of this analysis demonstrated that substantial amounts of oil continued to surface near the response site, despite 3,000 tons of subsea dispersants injection (or SSDI) -- a new spill response strategy meant to curb the spread of oil and facilitate its degradation. Dispersants application to manage surface oil spills has been shown to break the oil into small, easily dissolved droplets. However, the Deepwater Horizon was very different in that the oil entered the system at depth. The turbulent energy and pressure at such immense depths not only contributed to the rapid expansion of the spill, but these natural forces helped disperse oil in micro-droplets and render the dispersant ineffective and unnecessary. "The results of this study are critically important," said the study's coauthor Samantha Joye from the University of Georgia. "This work shows clearly that the eruptive nature of the Macondo discharge was more than sufficient to generate the deepwater oil plume. Further, application of dispersant did not increase the amount of oil in the aqueous phase or change the distribution of oil over depth. These findings should change the way we think about spill response and calls for a reconsideration and reprioritization of response measures." The team's research, led by Claire Paris, professor of ocean sciences at UM, founded on an unprecedented volume of data publicly available through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information and Data Cooperative (GRIIDC), demonstrated that the formation of the massive deepwater oil plumes was unrelated to the new response. They further show, in agreement with previous studies, that plumes of oil persisted in the Gulf months after the spewing wellhead was capped 87 days later. The powerful chemical dispersant, called Corexit, may have added to the ecological damage by suppressing the growth of natural oil-degrading bacteria and by increasing the toxicity of the oil itself. "Our earlier work using computer modeling and high-pressure experimental approaches suggested that pumping chemical dispersants at the spewing wellhead may have had little effect on the amount of oil that ultimately surfaced. But empirical evidence was lacking until the release of the BP Gulf Science Data. When completely different approaches converge to the same conclusion, it is time to listen," said Paris. "There is no real trade-off because there is no upside in using ineffective measures that can worsen environmental disasters." As the oil industry drills in deeper and deeper water, it must find alternative strategies to manage blowouts, says the study's authors. The "capping stack" method in which BP used to stop the wellhead outflow may be a more effective first response strategy. Bio-surfactants, which are less toxic and more efficacious to biodegeneration, may offer a viable alternative for oil spills in shallow waters, according to the researchers. As part of the massive response and damage assessment effort, a robust data collection and management strategy was employed, including the BP Gulf Science Data water chemistry data used in this new study and compiled under the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative. "This type of data management is a strategic asset enhancing both science and management as it allows scientists to use data-driven approaches and test important hypotheses for better understanding and managing future oil spills," said Igal Berenshtein, a coauthor of the study and postdoctoral researcher at the UM Rosenstiel School. On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, releasing 210 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico for a total of 87 days, making it the largest oil spill in U.S. history. ### The study, titled "BP Gulf Science Data Reveals Ineffectual Sub-Sea Dispersant Injection for the Macondo Blowout," was published on Oct. 30 in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science's Marine Pollution section. The study's authors include: Claire B. Paris, Igal Berenshtein, Marcia L. Trillo, Robin Faillettaz, and Maria J. Olascoaga of the UM Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmosheric Science; Zachary M. Aman of the University of Western Australia's School of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering; Michael Schluter of Hamburg University of Technology, Institute of Multiphase Flows; and Samantha B. Joye of the University of Georgia's Department of Marine Sciences. The study was supported by a grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GOMRI) Center for Integrated Modeling and Analysis of Gulf Ecosystems (C-IMAGE) II and the Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and Gas Input to the Gulf (ECOGIG). Data are publicly available through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information and Data Cooperative (GRIIDC) at https://data.gulfresearchinitiative.org. About the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School The University of Miami is one of the largest private research institutions in the southeastern United States. The University's mission is to provide quality education, attract and retain outstanding students, support the faculty and their research, and build an endowment for University initiatives. Founded in the 1940's, the Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science has grown into one of the world's premier marine and atmospheric research institutions. Offering dynamic interdisciplinary academics, the Rosenstiel School is dedicated to helping communities to better understand the planet, participating in the establishment of environmental policies, and aiding in the improvement of society and quality of life. For more information, visit: http://www.rsmas.miami.edu. Robust genetic analyses point to South American roots for tiny flightless rails that only live and thrive on Inaccessible Island EUGENE, Ore. -- Oct. 31, 2018 -- By wings or maybe riding on debris, that's how a now-flightless and rare species of tiny birds likely got to Inaccessible Island, an aptly named small island of volcanic origin in the middle of the South Atlantic. And it turns out that the bird, a rail, listed scientifically as Atlantisia rogersi, needs a name change, says Martin Stervander, a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Oregon. His four-member team has found genetic evidence that ties the bird to a South American species. Inaccessible Island, the westernmost of three islands in the Tristan Archipelago, is the only place in the world where this species of rail lives. The island, formed by a now-extinct volcano 3 to 6 million years ago, is located roughly 3,600 kilometers (2,250 miles) east of Porto Alegre, Brazil, and about 2,800 kilometers (1,750 miles) west of Cape Town, South Africa. The birds were first described in 1923 by British surgeon Percy Lowe, a bird-lover who then headed the ornithology collections at the British Museum. He placed the birds in the genus Atlantisia, a reference to mythical Atlantis, and named the species rogersi after the Rev. H.M.C. Rogers, a chaplain on nearby island Tristan da Cunha, who was the first to collect specimens. Lowe surmised that the birds walked to the island on a since-sunken land bridge from Africa or South America, but the later discovery of plate tectonics ruled out that idea, Stervander said. "We found obviously that the birds did not walk by foot," he said. "They flew or were assisted by floating debris. Whether they flew all the way or were swept off by a storm and then landed on debris, we can't say. In any case, they managed to make it from the mainland of South America to Inaccessible Island." Using modern sequencing of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA and phylogenetic methods, Stervander's team tied the island's rail to the South American dot-winged crake, a rail species known as Porzana spiloptera. The split came 1.5 million years ago, with the rail colonizing Inaccessible Island in a single migration, the team concluded in a paper put online Oct. 12 by the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. Their genetics also make them relatives of black rails (Laterallus jamaicensis) found in the Americas and likely the Galapagos crake (Laterallus spilonota), which also has a reduced flight ability. Stervander's team recommends that the Inaccessible Island rail species be reclassified in the genus Laterallus as are the related species. "We are sorry to be suggesting that we take away this beautiful name, Atlantisia, which is something we can all love, but we can now say that the closest relatives of this species are American birds that were given their name before the Inaccessible Island rail," Stervander said. When the birds arrived at the island, they found three predator-free habitats -- grasslands, tree fern bogs and woodland -- and abundant food sources, including worms, moths, berries and seeds. Soon after, the reclusive birds no longer needed strong wings for survival and evolved into a flightless species, he said. Stervander visited the island once, traveling by ship and helicopter in 2011, while a doctoral student at Sweden's Lund University. His research built on earlier efforts by study co-author Peter G. Ryan of the University of Cape Town. The genetic analyses began while Stervander was at Lund University and was completed using computational resources at the UO, where Stervander is doing research under a three-year fellowship from the Swedish Research Council. The island's rail population, Stervander said, is in a delicate situation. While some 5,500 mature birds now thrive on the island, an accidental introduction of rats or other predators could destroy them. Fossils found on other islands suggest that numerous other flightless rail species had been there but fell to predation with the arrival of humans. The rail is classified as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's red list of species threatened with extinction. ### The paper's other two co-authors are Martim Melo of the University of Cape Town and the CIBIO Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources in Portugal, and Bengt Hansson of Lund University. The South African National Antarctic Programme, Swedish Research Council and Portuguese Science Foundation supported the research. Source: Martin Stervander, postdoctoral research associate, Institute of Ecology and Evolution, mste@uoregon.edu Note: The UO is equipped with an on-campus television studio with a point-of-origin Vyvx connection, which provides broadcast-quality video to networks worldwide via fiber optic network. There also is video access to satellite uplink and audio access to an ISDN codec for broadcast-quality radio interviews. Links: About Martin Stervander: http://www.stervander.com/ Institute of Ecology and Evolution: https://ie2.uoregon.edu/ Researchers have identified the weak molecular forces that hold together a tiny, self-assembling box with powerful possibilities. The study demonstrates a practical application of a force common in biological systems and advances the pursuit of artificial chemical life. "I want to understand self-assembly systems, which are essential for life. Building artificial self-assembling cubes helps us understand how biological systems function," said Professor Shuichi Hiraoka, leader of the laboratory at the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Arts and Sciences where the boxes were designed, built, and analyzed. The formation of DNA and proteins are biological examples of self-assembly, but the forces or processes controlling how these natural molecules come together also remain undefined. Investigations by Hiraoka's team contribute to chemical understanding of how natural molecules might self-assemble and reveal techniques for mimicking those processes in the future. Hiraoka and his team identified the forces holding together the sides of their tiny boxes as van der Waals forces, mainly dispersion forces. These forces are weak attractions between molecules created when electrons temporarily group together on one side of an atom. Geckos can walk up walls in part due to van der Waals forces. Each side of the cube is formed from one molecule that is 2 nanometers in diameter and shaped like a six-pointed snowflake. Each side is about one-four-thousandth the size of a human blood cell. The weak forces holding the sides of the cube together make the box slightly flexible, so it adjusts to best accommodate guest molecules based on their size, shape, and atomic charge. The box can bulge to hold large or long contents and contract to eliminate extra space when hosting guest molecules with negative charge(s). "We do not have the data yet, but the logical conclusion is that long chainlike guest molecules somehow fold to get inside the box," said Hiraoka. Researchers build the tiny box out of molecules of hexaphenylbenzene. The individual molecules exist as a dry, white powder. When mixed with water, the molecules spontaneously self-assemble into cubes. "In solution, the six molecules come together so quickly that we cannot observe how they form cubes. The exact process of self-assembly remains a mystery," said Hiraoka. A cube that can self-assemble in water has the potential for future biological applications. The hexaphenylbenzene cube also holds together even above the boiling temperature of water, remaining stable up to 130 degrees Celsius (266 degrees Fahrenheit). The six points of the snowflake-shaped hexaphenylbenzene molecules lock together when they assemble into a cube. Researchers describe the design of this molecular box as resembling the Japanese wood joining technique called hozo, where pieces of wood are held together without adhesives or hinges, using only intricate interlocking designs. ### About the Research In addition to van der Waals forces, other forces also contribute to holding the box together, specifically the hydrophobic effect (exclusion of water molecules) and cation- interactions (an attraction between molecular bonds and positively charged ions). Hiraoka's team uses physical chemistry techniques including nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to characterize the box. Because the box only forms when mixed in water, researchers cannot use imaging techniques that require solid samples. The motion of the box as it self-assembles and bulges or contracts to host new molecules is not visible with techniques that require stationary samples. Hiraoka's research group first constructed a similar cube in 2008 and has worked to improve the water solubility and thermal stability since then. The study is published in Nature Communications. Collaborators in Japan at Ritsumeikan University and Tokyo Institute of Technology also contributed to the research. Journal Article Yi-Yang Zhan, Tatsuo Kojima, Takashi Nakamura, Toshihiro Takahashi, Satoshi Takahashi, Yohei Haketa, Yoshiaki Shoji, Hiromitsu Maeda, Takanori Fukushima, and Shuichi Hiraoka. 31 October 2018. Induced-fit expansion and contraction of a self-assembled nanocube finely responding to neutral and anionic guests. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06874-y Related Links Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo: http://www.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/eng_site/ Hiraoka Group laboratory website: http://hiraoka.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/index.html Hiraoka Group laboratory Facebook page (Japanese only): @Hiraoka Group Research Contact Professor Shuichi Hiraoka Department of Basic Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan Tel: +81-3-5465-7659 Email: chiraoka@mail.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp Press Contacts Ms. Caitlin Devor Division for Strategic Public Relations, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8654, JAPAN Tel: +81-3-5841-0876 Email: press-releases.adm@mail.u-tokyo.ac.jp Public Relations Office Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan Tel: +81-3-5454-4920 Email: pro-www@adm.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp About the University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo is Japan's leading university and one of the world's top research universities. The vast research output of some 6,000 researchers is published in the world's top journals across the arts and sciences. Our vibrant student body of around 15,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate students includes over 2,000 international students. Find out more at http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ or follow us on Twitter at @UTokyo_News_en. People who regularly take cocaine cut with the animal anti-worming agent levamisole demonstrate impaired cognitive performance and a thinned prefrontal cortex. These findings from two recent studies at the University of Zurich indicate that levamisole could have a toxic effect on the brain. Drug-checking programs should therefore be expanded, argue the researchers. Cocaine is the second-most commonly consumed illegal substance worldwide after cannabis. The cocaine sold on the streets is usually cut with other substances such as local anesthetic agents, painkillers and caffeine. Around 10 years ago, however, a new adulterant made an appearance which is now widely spread in street cocaine in Europe and North America: The animal anti-worming agent levamisole. It's not fully understood why levamisole is added to cocaine, but it is assumed that it may increase or prolong the effects of cocaine. What is known is that levamisole can lead to severe side effects such as changes to blood counts and blood vessels. Initial animal testing also revealed that the substance can attack the nervous system. A team of researchers from the Psychiatric Hospital and the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the University of Zurich have now researched the extent to which the common cutting agent impairs the cognitive performance and alters the brain structure of people who consume it, thereby increasing the well-described negative effects of cocaine on the brain. Higher levamisole content, lower brain power In order to estimate the consumption of cocaine and the amount of levamisole content, the scientists analyzed hair samples of their study participants. Based on this, they examined the cognitive performance of those who had taken cocaine with a high levamisole content (more than 25% proportional to the cocaine) and those who had taken cocaine with a low levamisole content (less than 25%), and compared the results with a control group who had not taken cocaine. As expected, the cocaine users showed lower performance than non-users in all areas - attention, working memory, long-term memory, and executive functions. However, those who had consumed cocaine that also contained a high level of levamisole showed even greater impairment in their executive functions than those who consumed cocaine with lower levels of levamisole, even though the amount of cocaine they had taken was the same. Changes in the brain's structure In a second, independent study, the researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to find out whether there was also a difference in the brain anatomy of people who consumed cocaine containing a higher or lower proportion of levamisole. The same effect was seen in this study: People who consumed cocaine with a high levamisole content clearly displayed a thinner prefrontal cortex - the area of the brain associated with executive functions. Better protection through drug checking For research leader Boris Quednow, the functional and structural changes observed in the brain clearly indicate that levamisole could have a toxic effect on the brain for cocaine users. "We can assume from our findings that it is not just cocaine that changes the brain, but that the adulterant levamisole has an additional harmful effect. The sorts of cognitive impairment often exhibited by cocaine users may therefore be exacerbated by levamisole." The UZH professor and his research colleagues are therefore calling for public health protection authorities to expand their drug-checking programs. "Such programs mean users can have their drugs tested for purity and therefore avoid taking cocaine that has very high levels of levamisole," says Quednow. ### In a paper published in NANO, researchers from the School of Microelectronics in Tianjin University have discovered a two-step sputtering and subsequent annealing treatment method to prepare vertically aligned WO 3 -CuO core-shell nanorod arrays which can detect toxic NH 3 gas. Over the years, WO 3 has received considerable attention among the numerous transition metal oxides as a wide band-gap n-type semiconductor in various gas detection, such as NO x , H 2 S, H 2 , and NH 3 . CuO has the unique property of being intrinsically p-type. In the last decade, p-n heterojunction sensors composed of an n-type metal oxide and CuO were reported to have a good sensitivity to reducing gases owing to the interface between n-metal oxide and CuO. Much effort has been focused on the WO 3 -based nanocomposites, since the synergetic enhancement and heterojunction effects attributes to the enhanced gas sensing properties. However, gas sensors based on 1D WO 3 -CuO composite structures are limited. Additionally, the template or catalyst was usually necessary to synthesize WO 3 -based nanorod arrays, including using chemical vapor deposition, electrochemical anodization and hydrothermal approaches. Among toxic gases causing adverse impact on living organisms, NH 3 is one of the most hazardous substances. It is necessary to build up ultrasensitive NH 3 gas sensors with short response and recovery time. Metal oxides have been widely used in gas sensor applications. In order to obtain great sensing performances of metal oxide sensors, 1D metal oxide nanostructures and 1D heterojunction composite nanostructures have been investigated due to their large surface area, size-dependent properties, and the nano-heterojunction effects. Vertically aligned ordered 1D arrays effectively avoid the dense stacking of rod monomers, especially, resulting in novel physicochemical characteristics, such as higher gas response and shorter gas recovery. Here, vertically aligned WO 3 -CuO core-shell nanorod arrays are synthesized using a non-catalytic two-step annealing process of sputtered metal film on silicon wafer. The growth mechanism of the vertically aligned nanorod arrays are discussed. The NH 3 sensing behaviors of the WO 3 -CuO core-shell arrays at different temperatures are reported. A possible NH 3 sensing mechanism for the hybrid is proposed. ### This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61271070, 61274047) and Tianjin Key Research Program of Application Foundation and Advanced Technology, China (Grant No. 11JCZDJC15300). The corresponding author of this study is Wenjun Yan. For more insight into the research described, readers are invited to access the paper on NANO. IMAGE Caption: A schematic illustration of the gas sensor device based on the hybrid nanorod arrays. The real time resistance versus time of the vertically aligned WO 3 -CuO core-shell nanorod arrays-based gas sensor to varied concentrations of NH 3 decreasing from 500 ppm to 50 ppm at 150 ?. The resistance of the WO 3 -CuO hybrid increases upon exposure to NH 3 , consistent with p-type semiconductor behavior. The response of the hybrid sample increasing with increasing NH 3 concentration at 150 ?. The response and recovery times range from 10 to 15 s for all NH 3 concentrations. NANO is an international peer-reviewed monthly journal for nanoscience and nanotechnology that presents forefront fundamental research and new emerging topics. It features timely scientific reports of new results and technical breakthroughs and publishes interesting review articles about recent hot issues. About World Scientific Publishing Co. World Scientific Publishing is a leading independent publisher of books and journals for the scholarly, research, professional and educational communities. The company publishes about 600 books annually and about 135 journals in various fields. World Scientific collaborates with prestigious organizations like the Nobel Foundation and US National Academies Press to bring high quality academic and professional content to researchers and academics worldwide. To find out more about World Scientific, please visit http://www.worldscientific.com. For more information, contact Tay Yu Shan at ystay@wspc.com. this news is not available Privacy Settings This site uses functional cookies and external scripts to improve your experience. Which cookies and scripts are used and how they impact your visit is specified on the left. You may change your settings at any time. Your choices will not impact your visit. NOTE: These settings will only apply to the browser and device you are currently using. Welcome to the News Release Wire Selection Control Panel. Instant News Wire City aviation officials want to expand San Antonio International Airport rather than build a new airport elsewhere a move that could mean acquiring hundreds of acres of nearby commercial and industrial properties. The airport must figure out how to handle millions of new travelers projected for the coming decades, and officials are trying to avoid an estimated $10 billion price tag to start over in a new location. One option to improve the airport would build out the existing terminal facilities and not require more land. RELATED: San Antonio airport set another passenger record in September But two other ideas to build a 65-gate terminal or a runway parallel to the existing 8,500-foot runway that runs northwest to southeast would run right into about 221 acres of industrial and commercial property off of Jones Maltsberger and Nakoma roads, appraised at $163.5 million by the Bexar Appraisal District earlier this year, according to an Express-News analysis. Businesses in the path include a Ford dealership owned by McCombs Enterprises, a branch of IBC Bank and the headquarters for Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas along with several warehouses. A task force appointed by Mayor Ron Nirenberg will recommend to City Council members Wednesday that the city not pursue a new airport a hope held out by critics of San Antonio International. City estimates peg the amount of land needed to build a new airport from scratch between 5,000 acres and 6,000 acres, at least twice as much land as the San Antonio airport currently sits on. Buying the necessary amount of property elsewhere and building the new airport would cost as much as $10 billion, according to those estimates. The alternatives (to buying land around the existing airport) are to do the same thing but for a huge new airport footprint, said John Dickson, a local cybersecurity executive who heads the task force. And that would be way crazier. No specific proposals to acquire that land or build the additions to San Antonio International that would use that land have been put forward, San Antonio Aviation Director Russ Handy said. But its reasonable to expect that the city will obtain more property in the future as officials weigh how to cope with the airports projected growth, Handy said. I certainly want the public to know that were not throwing around terms like land acquisition lightly, Handy said. This is going to involve some fairly major decisions but the reality is our community is growing and everyones enjoying the benefits of that community growth. Part of the growing community means growing the infrastructure to support it. San Antonio International currently sits on about 2,600 acres on the citys North Side with two terminals with a total of 24 gates, two 8,500-foot runways for commercial aircraft, a 5,519-foot general aviation runway for smaller aircraft and 124 buildings. The mayors 21-member Airport System Development Committee determined earlier this month that the footprint could handle projected demand and passenger growth over the next 50 years but that changes must be made to the airfield. RELATED: San Antonio airport could get new terminal, runway under proposal Passenger traffic to San Antonio International has grown rapidly within the past two years. More than 9 million travelers a record passed through San Antonio International Airport in 2017 and aviation officials say that number is on track to exceed 10 million this year. The city recently told the FAA it expects passenger growth to increase at an annual rate of 1.6 percent during the next two decades. About 80 percent of the airports traffic uses the runway that runs northwest to southeast, according to a task force presentation. Placing a parallel runway there would allow San Antonio International to double its flight capacity, Dickson said, making that land the most feasible spot for expansion. Stephanie Finleon Cortez, chief development and communications officer for Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas, said in an email, There are far too many factors that remain unknown at this time to speculate if the city chose to follow a recommendation requiring not only the land our Sally Cheever Girl Scout Leadership Center currently occupies but the other businesses surrounding our area. Buying land near the existing airport would be considerably cheaper than constructing a new one and hoping travelers come, officials said. Youre talking about $10 billion to create a really quality airport somewhere else away from what weve got now, said District 9 Councilman John Courage, whose district includes the airport and surrounding land. It would probably cost 20 percent of that amount to make the airport we have now an airport for the next 50 years. To me, thats a much smarter investment of our money. When asked whether he supports using eminent domain to obtain land to expand the airport, Courage said, I think thats a last resort not even worth talking about at this point in time. Im certain we can find some common ground with many of the businesses and industries that are around the airport right now. Austin-Bergstrom International Airport would likely siphon off travelers originating along the Interstate 35 corridor between San Antonio and Austin if officials opted to build a new airport on San Antonios South Side, Dickson said. And land in northern Bexar County is too expensive. That mightve been there 20 or 30 years ago, Dickson said. I think that alternative is exceedingly expensive and unattractive. Joshua Fechter is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering retail and tourism. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jfechter@express-news.net | Twitter: @JFreports Sen. Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat facing one of the countrys toughest re-election races, raised eyebrows Monday when she distanced herself from leading members of her own party, including two possible presidential hopefuls, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, in a Fox News interview about crazy Democrats. McCaskill, who has been attacked by her Republican challenger, Josh Hawley, as too liberal for Missouri, was asked on Fox about a radio ad that sunnily describes her as not one of those crazy Democrats. When asked who she considered to be crazy Democrats, McCaskill pointed to liberal activists who have publicly confronted Trump administration officials and other Republican figures in recent months. The crazy Democrats are the people who walk into restaurants and scream in elected officials faces. The crazy Democrats are we have a state senator here in Missouri that actually advocated for the assassination of President Trump, McCaskill said, referring to state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, who made the remark on Facebook last year. Thats a crazy Democrat. Does she think any of her colleagues in the U.S. Senate are crazy Democrats? Well, I would say this, I would not call my colleagues crazy, McCaskill told the interviewer, Bret Baier. But Elizabeth Warren sure went after me when I advocated tooling back some of the regulations for small banks and credit unions. I certainly disagree with Bernie Sanders on a bunch of stuff. Neither Warren nor Sanders responded to a request for comments. McCaskill is a famously shrewd politician adept at surviving as a Democrat in one of the most purple states in the country, which she has represented in the Senate since 2006. She is one of 10 Democratic senators who represent states won by President Donald Trump in 2016 in Missouri, by almost 20 points. Republicans view many of those seats, including hers, as possible pickups next week, when strategists see slim hope for a Democratic takeover of the Senate. This year, McCaskill is facing a tough challenge from Hawley, a telegenic dyed-in-the-wool conservative and former law professor who has served as Missouris attorney general since 2016, when he won more votes statewide than Trump. Hawley has assailed McCaskill for months as out of touch with average voters in the state, both for her considerable personal wealth and for her voting record, which he has called too liberal for the state. She has rejected that characterization, pointing to her working-class roots and her votes in favor of about half of Trumps Cabinet nominees and most of his judicial nominees. McCaskill voted against the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh to serve on the Supreme Court, however, a move that Hawley has seized on as an example of her left-wing inclinations. After the vote, he described her as a partisan ally and reliable supporter of Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in Congress. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. A lawsuit targeting electric scooter-sharing companies seizes on the dangers of zipping around town on two wheels and brings gory detail to one of the more polarizing technology trends to emerge over the last year. Nine people injured by electric scooters filed the class-action suit on Oct. 19 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. It accuses startups Bird Rides and Lime, and their manufacturers Xiaomi and Segway, of gross negligence, claiming the companies knew the scooters were dangerous and deployed them in a way that was certain to cause injuries. Since e-scooters zoomed into the U.S. last September with the arrival of Bird, hundreds of riders and pedestrians have landed in the hospital with injuries ranging from severe gravel rash to knocked-out teeth, ripped out toenails and detached biceps, according to doctors and victims. Three people died last month while riding scooters in Dallas, Cleveland and Washington, D.C. There is no official tally on the number of scooter-related injuries in the country since hospitals code their patients based on the type of injury they are admitted with, rather than what caused it. But one metric Bird and Lime have been closely tracking is the number of rides their scooters have handled: more than 20 million combined and growing daily. Electric scooters have appeared in more than 100 cities worldwide with the startups aiming to usher in a new, environmentally friendly era of micro transportation. After a remarkable one-year ascent, Bird and Lime are now two of the youngest startups to earn unicorn status in Silicon Valley with valuations of $2 billion and $3 billion or more, respectively. The rapid rise of the scooter revolution has been plagued by controversy, complaints and concussions. Citing fears over public safety, officials in some cities, including San Francisco and Santa Monica, have temporarily banned electric scooters and filed criminal complaints against the companies behind them for operating without a business permit. Some frustrated vigilante residents have tossed scooters into the ocean, buried them in the sand and even set them on fire. According to the lawsuit, two of the plaintiffs were injured by tripping over scooters left discarded on the sidewalk, four were rammed into from behind as they walked, including a 7-year-old boy who suffered severe damage to eight of his front teeth and had to get his lip stitched back together. "These companies are putting profit over safety," Catherine Lerer, the personal injury lawyer at McGee Lerer who represents the plaintiffs, said in an interview for Bloomberg's Decrypted podcast. Since filing the lawsuit, Lerer said an additional 75 people who have suffered from scooter injuries have contacted her, including a 67-year-old man with a brain injury. Bird and Lime say safety is a top priority. But from their perspective, cars are the real transportation danger. "Class action attorneys with a real interest in improving transportation safety should be focused on reducing the 40,000 deaths caused by cars every year in the U.S.," a Bird spokesperson said in a written statement. Lime said it could not comment on pending litigation, but in an interview on Bloomberg's Decrypted podcast, Taylor Bennett, director of public affairs, said Lime has upgraded its scooters with new safety features three times in the past year. The latest version has bigger tires to take on potholes, brakes on the back wheel to prevent riders hurtling over the handlebars and dual suspension. The company is also handing out 250,000 helmets to its riders. Wally Ghurabi, medical director of one of the emergency departments at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica -- ground zero for the scooter boom -- said plastic surgeons have spent hours cleaning asphalt out of facial wounds to prevent gravel-rash tattoos. "You can break your face, break your nose, break your facial bones, break your skull and bleed inside your skull," Ghurabi said, ticking off some of the risks of electric scooters. In June, Victor San Andres was hurled over the handlebars of his electric scooter when the front brakes malfunctioned as he was cruising downhill. He remembers "flying through the air" but said his mind has mercifully wiped out the moment his face collided with the pavement. He was knocked unconscious and suffered from severe facial lacerations, a broken pinkie finger and a ripped-out toenail. San Andres, an online video producer, was injured in New York, where the scooter-sharing companies aren't authorized to operate but some people have personal electric scooters. San Andres was given the scooter for free in exchange for uploading positive promotional scooter videos online. He isn't a signatory on the class-action suit. 2 1 of 2 Catherine Avalone, Staff Photojournalist | New Haven Register / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 2 of 2 Photo provided by Daniel Mulhall Show More Show Less Irelands ambassador to the United States will speak today at Trinity University on Ireland, Brexit and the Future of Europe. Daniel Mulhall will speak at 12:30 p.m. in the Chapman Center Auditorium. He is a former ambassador to the United Kingdom, Germany and Malaysia who has been posted to Washington since September 2017. For a week, Gloria Galvans fifth-graders were rabid readers, tearing through biographies and fiction, starting their own book clubs even offering to give up their recess to stay inside and read. By Oct. 5, they had finished more than 4,000 books, earning a fifth-place finish in a national competition that fueled their efforts all week. The Fall Into Reading challenge from Epic!, an app thats essentially a digital library, challenged classrooms to read as many books as they could through the first week of October, with prizes awarded to the top 10 classes. Galvan, who had been using the app in her classroom at Price Elementary School in the South San Antonio Independent School District, said she wanted to try the contest in the past but didnt have enough technology for all the students to participate. This year, armed with Chromebooks and iPads and challenged to beat schools from across the country, her students bought into it, wholeheartedly. When they checked their standings online each day, we were so excited, said student David Amaral. As they climbed up in the rankings we said, Oh my God, what if we win? We put our whole effort into it, said Lilianna Espino, whose favorite books were a series of biographies. We didnt just do whatever, we tried hard for it. As a reward, theyll each receive a free six-month subscription to the online library, which Galvan hopes will encourage them to read more on their own. They can log in through computers at home or at a public library, or on their parents smart phones, she said, and can access books at their own reading levels. The students are excited about the class party theyll have to celebrate, and being recognized at school by the principal for their accomplishment. Theyve already started talking about forming book clubs on their own, Galvan said, and they want to take it out of the classroom. Thats what I really wanted for them, Galvan said. I dont want them to think about reading as an assignment, I want it to be a passion. LTeitz@express-news.net | @LizTeitz South San Antonio Independent School District has cut its projected deficit by about $1.8 million, as a long-running decline in enrollment slowed this year. The district, which has struggled with reduced per-pupil funding from the state because of shrinking numbers for the past five years, adopted its budget in August with an estimated $2.7 million gap between expenses and revenue. The board planned to use reserve funds to fill the gap. The budget was based on an estimate of 8,600 students, which would have reflected a drop of 500 students since last fall. But South San ISD had 8,936 students enrolled as of Friday, officials said. All Texas school districts are required to report their enrollment snapshot from the last Friday in October to the Texas Education Agency, though school funding is determined based on attendance, not just the number of students enrolled. The enrollment declined at South San, but only by 21 students compared to the 8,957 it enrolled on the last day of school in May 2018, spokeswoman Laurie Salazar said. The decline from last fall was 165 students. The enrollment picture is expected to result in about $1.8 million more revenue from the state than was expected when the budget was put together in the summer, Salazar said. In August, the boards adopted budget included an expected $1.7 million shortfall in the general fund, and a deficit of just under $1 million in the debt service fund, which is used to pay the districts bond and long-term debt obligations. The additional anticipated state revenue, along with additional expenses, will leave the district with a combined deficit of about $1.5 million, Salazar said. Enrollment in South San has declined by nearly 10 percent since the 2013-14 school year, when 9,842 students were enrolled on the last day of school. It has fallen each year since. South San lost 556 students in one year alone, from the last day of the 2016-17 school year to 2017-18, according to data from the district. But the latest decline so far has been substantially smaller. The district opened choice academies at its three middle schools this fall in an effort to offer parents more options and compete with charter schools. The Fine Arts, STEM and Health Science magnets enrolled more than 350 sixth-graders this fall. In the past two years, the board has moved out from TEA oversight and trustee infighting has subsided. The district avoided layoffs this year but previously had cut $2.8 million in operating costs by eliminating 42 jobs, including 22 teaching positions, by attrition. A tax ratification proposal that would have raised around $6.3 million in revenue from taxes and additional state funding for the district failed to pass at an election this summer. The request to raise taxes by 13 cents for every $100 of property value was rejected by 57 percent of voters. An earlier version of this story underreported the combined shortfall for South Sans current budget year. | LTeitz@express-news.net | @LizTeitz By the time the 950-seat domed sanctuary at Temple Beth-El was at capacity, a crowd was gathered in the back and others lined each side of the majestic house of worship. Ushers then opened an adjacent auditorium, and eventually another 300 people filled that room, too San Antonians of diverse ages, backgrounds and faiths who came out on a Tuesday night to stand in solidarity with their Jewish brothers and sisters and grieve the deaths of 11 Jews gunned down in a synagogue almost 1,500 miles away. The San Antonio Jewish Community Memorial Gathering may have been much like those being held across the country to help a nation cope with the Saturday morning massacre in Pittsburgh that Mayor Ron Nirenberg called the worst act of anti-Semitic terrorism in our nations history. It was an emotional service that brought people to tears, to applause and to silence. READ ALSO: Pentagon sending 5,200 GIs to the border Conducted in English and Hebrew, the service drew Jews from all the citys synagogues as well as Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and Sikhs, as it did teens in T-shirts and men and women in business suits. Members of the San Antonio chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America were recognized in their red T-shirts as were members of San Antonios leadership. It included Police Chief William McManus, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller and faith leaders such as Omam Mehmet Oguz of the Raindrop Turkish House and Gurpaul Singh of the Sikh Dharamsal. Temple Beth-Els cantor Julie Berlin opened the service with Beth-El Rabbi Mara Nathan, who together sang the Psalm, Those Who Sow. It is a great comfort to be here all of us together, said Nathan. We feel so fortunate to be able to open up Temple Beth-El, not only to the Jewish community of San Antonio, but to all of San Antonio tonight. As Pittsburgh and the Tree of Life Synagogue began to lay to rest the dead Tuesday, Nathan said here in San Antonio, along with Jews from around the world, along with people from around the world, hold all in our heart. Nathan also thanked the audience. Your presence here tonight reminds us, she said, that there is more good than evil in the world. Your presence here tonight assures us we have more allies than enemies. Your presence here tonight comforts us, for at our greatest moments of loss, Jewish tradition commands us (that) we must not be alone. READ ALSO: Quest to end birthright citizenship questioned, condemned in San Antonio Tonight, whatever your faith, she said. We are as one. Rabbi Chaim Block of the Chabad Center for Jewish Life and Learning and Rabbi Jeffrey Abraham of Congregation Agudas Achim read the names of the 11 Tree of Life congregants who died. Later, a moment of silence was broken by a violinists chords. Nirenbergs message about the fight for justice and the danger of hate-mongering was met with sustained applause. The people of San Antonio, Texas, and of the United States are grieving for our fellow Americans murdered in Pittsburgh, he said. The loss of life in place of worship is a horrific reminder of the consequences of dangerous rhetoric. Lets be clear, Nirenberg said without mentioning President Donald Trump, nor his policies. The free and independent press is not the enemy of the people. Neither are refugees. Nor immigrants. Nor gay or transgender people. Nor anyone who looks, loves or prays differently than you or me. This is not a battle between them and us, the mayor said. This is not contest of Republicans vs. Democrats. This is a choice between right and wrong. Truth or fiction. Hope or fear. Dignity or inhumanity. The soul of America is at stake. Many in the audience, however, were not there to make bold statement but only to be supportive. Austin Bordobsky, a Catholic and member of Holy Trinity parish, showed up to sit with his girlfriend Mia Hockersmit and her family, who are Jewish and members of Temple Beth-El. A synagogue opened last Saturday morning for a Sabbath service was not safe, the 16-year-old girl said. Like schools, she said, they are places that should be safe. The service was livestreamed and is now available online. Elaine Ayala covers religion and minority affairs in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | eayala@express-news.net | Twitter: @ElaineAyala Legal scholars in San Antonio are questioning whether the president has the authority to end the constitutional guarantee of citizenship to anyone born in the United States. Democrats, meanwhile, were quick to condemn the move. Professor Michael Ariens at St. Marys University School of Law said birthright citizenship has been the law since ratification of the 14th Amendment after the Civil War and he doesnt believe President Donald Trump can end it by executive order. An executive order is a declaration that the president is enforcing a law or laws, but the executive branch cant make laws, Ariens said. The question we have not answered is what law is he going to enforce to (outlaw) birthright citizenship? Ariens asked. I dont know of any law that claims to do so. Further, even if Trump were able to get Congress to make a law ending birthright citizenship, the consensus among scholars is that it would not be constitutional, he said. Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., who is fighting a court battle against the Trump administrations plan to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which former President Barack Obama created with an executive order, said Trumps call to stop birthright citizenship by executive order is absolutely outrageous. Clearly, he doesnt have the authority to do that, the Los Angeles lawyer said Tuesday while in San Antonio on an unrelated case. Its really just a distraction tactic to rile up his base. It really is inconsistent with the constitutional values of this country. Boutrous cited the writings of James C. Ho, one of his former law partners at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, to back his claim that Trump would be on perilous legal ground with his new proposal. Trump appointed Ho on Jan. 4 as a justice on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Ho served in the civil rights division at the Justice Department early in the administration of President George W. Bush, worked as chief counsel to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, on the Senate Judiciary Committee and was a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Ho succeeded another Texas Republican, the future U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, as the states solicitor general, serving in that post from 2008 to 2010. Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, Ho wrote in 2006 in an essay cited by several legal observers. That birthright is protected no less for children of undocumented persons than for descendants of Mayflower passengers. In an op-ed piece published in the Wall Street Journal in 2011, Ho wrote about an attempt by some states to deny U.S citizenship to the American-born children of undocumented immigrants, noting it was well established that Congress had extended citizenship to such children. Many Americans have sincere concerns about the rule of law, Ho wrote. But there are many tools available to combat illegal immigration. Surely we can do so without wasting taxpayer funds on a losing court battle, reopening the scars of the Civil War, and offending our Constitution and the rule of law. Area Democrats issued statements blasting Trumps plan. U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, whose district stretches from San Antonio to Austin, said it was designed to foment bigotry to distract from his failed agenda, hoping his base rhetoric will motivate his base in the coming midterm elections The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution mandates that all persons born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens, Doggett said. Even a Republican-dominated Supreme Court cannot change all into some or deny that refugees are people. U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, said Trump lacked the authority to unilaterally change our Constitution and called on Congress to challenge any such move. Its clear this plan is solely to suit Trumps goals of scapegoating immigrants, dividing our nation, and distracting us from his harmful policies, including deploying additional troops to our Southern border in response to migrants fleeing Central America, he added. State Sen. Jose Menendez also called Trumps announcement a distraction from issues such as education, health care and the deficit by using immigration issues to score cheap political points. Our American values and human rights are under attack by a president that is continually presenting false information, he said. Democratic congressional candidate Gina Ortiz Jones, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, said the Constitutions promises are woven into the fabric of our nation, and I am disturbed at how Will Hurd, this Congress and this president are allowing them to unravel. Other San Antonio observers, including those who advocate for immigrants, were equally critical. The president does not have the authority to alter the Constitution, said Sara Ramey, executive director of the Migrant Center for Human Rights in San Antonio. You need either two-thirds of Congress or a Constitutional Convention, and three-fourths of the states. Whether Trump believes Republican voters will agree that denying citizenship to people born in the U.S. is a good idea, or he is simply continuing his disparaging vitriolic attacks on immigrant communities, his idea that punishing people for who their parents are is illogical, illegal, and inhumane, Ramey said. Arturo Chavez, president of the Mexican American Catholic College, on Tuesday called the presidents call not only unconstitutional but racist rhetoric thats being fanned to appeal to voters with extreme views about limited immigration, even legal immigration. They have been wanting this for a while. These are very dangerous times, as we have seen in these last few days. Words matter, Chavez said. Chavez said MACC long has reached beyond U.S. borders but also has a history of confronting racism by embracing understanding and diversity, including to migrants who seek refuge here. No one in his right mind thinks that what President Trump is saying this is legitimate, but hes the president of the United States and when he fans that kind of rhetoric, it gives permission to others to do the same. Its why weve seen a rise in hate crimes. Chavez said its particularly disturbing for the president to voice the issue as the nation begins to bury those killed in a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday. Why is our president talking about this today? he said. Whatever side youre on, were all American, and we deserve a president that leads with all of us in mind, not just his base. Nate Roter of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services says the agency sees the presidents latest proposal as a continuation of his presidential campaign, which began with an anti-immigration as its core message. Roter, a social worker who manages RAICES post-release program, says the presidents most recent assault paints a picture of chaos and disorder at the border, as he did at the start of his presidential run, using immigrants from Latin America, in particular, as scapegoats. We see this in that context, Roter said. The first U.S.-born citizen in his family on his fathers side, Roter said the presidents hope to eliminate birthright citizenship is also another in a series of proposals that have not been thought through for its consequences. In addition to being unconstitutional, Roter said denying birthright citizenship to children born in the United States would create a group of stateless residents. His father was born stateless in Belgium, and his grandparents were Holocaust survivors from Poland, he said. Denying birthright citizenship seeks to stripe away a protection granted to so many people who have sought relief from generations of violence, Roter said. Its a strategy the president is not thinking through in that way. Its a huge attack on peoples rights were it to happen. Guillermo Contreras covers federal court and immigration news in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | gcontreras@express-news.net | Twitter: @gmaninfedland President Donald Trump promised to sign an executive order ending birthright citizenship for children of immigrants who are in the country illegally and was met by doubts from across the political spectrum that it could survive a tangle of lawsuits. Trump made his proposal in a televised interview with the political website Axios that was previewed Tuesday, a week before hotly contested midterm elections that he has sought to frame as a battle over immigration. Speaker Paul Ryan, the top House Republican, flatly rejected the idea, and even staunch proponents of ending birthright citizenship conceded that it probably would not survive constitutional scrutiny even with a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. RELATED: Trumps quest to end birthright citizenship questioned, condemned in San Antonio In the interview, scheduled to air as part of a new HBO series starting this weekend, Trump falsely stated that the United States is the only country in the world to grant citizenship to any child born here. In fact, more than 30 countries, including Canada and Mexico, have similar policies. Its ridiculous. And it has to end, Trump said, adding that he had discussed the measure with his legal counsel. It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You dont. Trump has railed against a caravan of Central American migrants making their way through southern Mexico to try to reach the U.S. border and ask for asylum, and this week ordered thousands of military troops to the border. Trump told Fox News on Monday that he would hold such migrants in tent cities until their deportation cases conclude, though a 1997 legal settlement prevents the prolonged detention of children. The caravan itself was a political winner, and hes decided to go further and send troops there and now the suggestion of birthright citizenship we will see if he actually does that, said Matt Mackowiak, an Austin-based communications strategist who chairs the Travis County Republican Party. Both sides are trying to motivate their base right now. Removing that right would require a constitutional amendment and a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and Senate, or a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures. It likely would never be retroactive, instead applying only to future births. An executive order is a declaration that the president is enforcing a law or laws, but the executive branch cant simply change a law ratified as part of the 14th Amendment after the Civil War, professor Michael Ariens at St. Marys University School of Law said. The question we have not answered is what law is he going to enforce to (outlaw) birthright citizenship? Ariens asked. Any executive order would have to interpret a statute on how citizenship should be understood, and would likely be declining to give benefits to certain children of immigrants who are not here lawfully, said Josh Blackman, a constitutional scholar at the South Texas College of Law in Houston. Sending it to the courts that way could be the White Houses plan, if Trump follows through. A small group of legal scholars argue that the clause in the 14th Amendment that grants citizenship to all those born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof does not apply to the children of immigrants in the country without legal status. The Supreme Court has never ruled on this specific question, said Sarah Pierce, an analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington D.C. The high court has ruled on two related cases that analysts say would weaken such an argument. In 1898, the court held in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that a U.S.-born child of Chinese immigrants was entitled to citizenship. The court reiterated this interpretation in 1982 in Plyler v. Doe, holding that the 14th Amendment extends to anyone subject to the laws of a state, including the U.S.-born children of immigrants here illegally. Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., who is fighting a court battle against the Trump administrations plan to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which former President Barack Obama created with an executive order, said Trumps call to stop birthright citizenship by executive order is absolutely outrageous and a distraction tactic to rile up his base. RELATED: Ryan, Trump at odds on birthright citizenship In San Antonio working on an unrelated case, the Los Angeles lawyer cited the writings of James C. Ho, one of his former law partners, who Trump appointed on Jan. 4 as a justice on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Ho has a conservative Republican pedigree he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, served in the Justice Departments civil rights division in the George W. Bush administration, was chief counsel to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, on the Senate Judiciary Committee and succeeded another Texas Republican, the future U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, as the states solicitor general, serving in that post from 2008 to 2010. But Ho wrote, in a 2006 essay cited by several legal observers, that the 14th Amendment protects birthright citizenship no less for children of undocumented persons than for descendants of Mayflower passengers. In an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal in 2011, he said an attempt by some states to deny U.S citizenship to the American-born children of undocumented immigrants went against a well-established legal consensus. Many Americans have sincere concerns about the rule of law, Ho wrote. But there are many tools available to combat illegal immigration. Surely we can do so without wasting taxpayer funds on a losing court battle, reopening the scars of the Civil War, and offending our Constitution and the rule of law. Charles Foster, a Houston immigration attorney who has advised President George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton on the issue, said that some proponents of removing birthright citizenship argue the original intent of the amendment could not have contemplated granting the benefit to such children because illegal immigration would not have been a problem at that time. If you got to the U.S. you were a legal resident, no matter how you got here, Foster said. Even Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington group favoring the end of birthright citizenship, said he thought the administration was unlikely to prevail. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a TV interview that he supports the idea and predicted it would be a close call before the high court. Gov. Greg Abbott indicated that he was less certain, saying at a campaign stop in Georgetown that the proposal would require keen legal analysis. He later told reporters in Sugar Land, The reality is, theres only one entity in this country that has the authority to do anything about this, and that is the United States Congress. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who has become a staunch defender of Trump, said on Twitter he would introduce legislation to deal with the future children of those in the country illegally. It has become a magnet for illegal immigration in modern times, he said. But immigrant advocates were quick to condemn the move. Whether Trump is appealing to Republican voters or simply continuing to disparage immigrants, his idea that punishing people for who their parents are is illogical, illegal, and inhumane, said Sara Ramey, executive director of the Migrant Center for Human Rights in San Antonio. Arturo Chavez, president of the Mexican American Catholic College, on Tuesday called the proposal racist rhetoric thats being fanned to appeal to voters with extreme views about limited immigration, even legal immigration. They have been wanting this for a while. These are very dangerous times, as we have seen in these last few days, Chavez said. Nate Roter of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services said the agency sees Trumps proposal paints a picture of chaos and disorder at the border, so its a continuation of his presidential campaigns core message. Roter, a social worker who manages RAICES post-release program, said his own father was born stateless in Belgium, and his grandparents were Holocaust survivors from Poland, making him the first U.S.-born citizen in his family on his fathers side. Denying birthright citizenship seeks to strip away a protection granted to so many people who have sought relief from generations of violence, Roter said. Its a huge attack on peoples rights were it to happen. Jasper Scherer contributed to this report in Houston. Elaine Ayala and Guillermo Contreras contributed in San Antonio. | lomi.kriel@chron.com |@lomikriel There are no indications that Robert Bowers and Cesar Sayoc know each other. But if Bowers, the alleged assailant of 11 congregants of the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and Sayoc, the Florida-based Donald Trump enthusiast suspected of sending pipe bombs to CNN and several prominent Democrats, ever met, theyd have a lot to commiserate about. They share the special paranoia of self-pitying white nationalists who hate immigrants and refugees and believe that shadowy forces are conspiring to take their country away. Above all, Bowers and Sayoc share a common bogeyman. Both of them despise George Soros, the 88-year-old, Hungarian-born fund manager targeted for one of Sayocs pipe bombs and vilified on social media by both men. In their contempt for Soros, these two brothers in terror fit squarely within the orthodoxy of the Republican Party. READ ALSO: Trump's quest to end birthright citizenship questioned, condemned in San Antonio Soros towers above former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the GOPs Public Enemy Number 1. Republicans see Pelosi as someone who merely advocates for legislation they dislike; they see Soros as the deep-pocketed puppet master for a sinister, globalist agenda bent on destroying the United States. Soros has been a force in the financial speculation business for nearly half a century, a man once described by a fellow money manager as the Michelangelo, Renoir and Beethoven of Wall Street all wrapped into one. For most of that time, he was favorably depicted as a financial wizard and a remarkably generous philanthropist, who has given more than $12 billion of his own money to various charitable causes. All that changed in 2003, when he pledged to contribute $15 million to the cause of defeating incumbent Republican President George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. From that point on, his name started popping up on the regular in snarky syndicated columns by right-wing warhorses such as Ann Coulter, Cal Thomas and Bill OReilly. In 2010, Glenn Beck turned his afternoon Fox News show into a daily, Soros conspiracy mongering spectacle. Beck accused Soros of running a shadow government bent on controlling the global economy. READ ALSO: Pentagon sending 5,200 GIs to the border Beck also perpetuated a wild theory that has nonetheless stuck: that during World War II, Soros, who is Jewish, had conspired with anti-Semites in Nazi-occupied Hungary to send the Jews to the death camps. It was a vicious distortion of the truth. In fact, Soross family hid from the Nazis. As part of that effort, Soross father placed his son under the guardianship of a Hungarian bureaucrat, who brought the then 14-year-old boy with him (rather than leave him at home for three days) on one occasion to inventory the estate of a Hungarian Jew who had already fled his home. That was the extent of it. Nonetheless, the Nazi collaborator stigma is one that has been regurgitated by conservatives ranging from Dinesh DSouza to Roseanne Barr. Again and again, Soros is tagged by the right as a globalist, a fair point, given that he believes that international organizations should coalesce to tackle environmental and health issues and eradicate hunger. But its not too hard to figure out what Soross detractors mean when they vent about his commitment to globalism. Globalist is definitely a buzzword for Jewish, said Eli Saslow, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter, during a Monday interview on National Public Radio. Saslow noted that the final ad of Trumps 2016 presidential campaign ad featured an attack on globalists with a picture of George Soros and five others, all Jewish, with the Star of David on the ad. If, as Samuel Johnson declared, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, blasting Soros is the first refuge of a nervous Republican pol. READ ALSO: San Antonians come together to mourn 11 in Pittsburgh Last year, while Alabama Senate contender Roy Moore faced allegations of child molestation, his spokesperson, Janet Porter, defended him by saying that it was better to side with Moore than the convicted felons that George Soros is registering to vote. This week, flailing Florida gubernatorial hopeful Ron DeSantis attacked his Democratic rival, Andrew Gillum, by saying a Gillum win would make the sunshine state a Petri dish for people like George Soros. Every Trump detractor, every asylum seeker, according to the GOP, is secretly funded by Soros. This Soros demonization act even infected this years Bexar County district attorney race, with incumbent Nico LaHood blasting his Democratic primary challenger, Joe Gonzales, as a Soros puppet for taking nearly $1 million from the billionaires Texas Justice & Public Safety political action committee. Criminal justice reform is just one of many big issues for Soros. Hes donated more than $100 million to after-school programs, gave $50 million in humanitarian aid to war-torn Bosnia and donated tens of millions in the 1990s to liberate education in the former Soviet Union from Communist dogma. You wont hear from Republicans about that George Soros. AUSTIN Angleton state Rep. Dennis Bonnen announced Tuesday he will run for House speaker to replace outgoing San Antonio Republican Joe Straus, deepening the pool of candidates who could run the Texas House in the 2019 legislative session. Bonnen has served in the Texas House for more than 20 years and was a top lieutenant for Straus, who opted not to run for re-election this year. AUSTIN Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a TV interview on Tuesday that he supports President Donald Trumps pledge to use an executive order to do away with birthright citizenship in order to address immigration issues. You create an incentive for somebody to cross the border, have a baby and suddenly theyre a citizen. It doesnt make any sense and Im glad the presidents taking a look at this and considering this option, Paxton said on FOX News Tuesday. Paxton, a Republican, said he hadnt researched the issue but predicted it would turn out to be a close call before the U.S. Supreme Court. RELATED: Trump says no other country has birthright citizenship. He's wrong. It will be interesting to see what this new Supreme Court does, he said, referencing Trumps two newest appointments to the bench. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott indicated hes not so sure about the presidents plan to issue an executive order to end citizenship rights for babies born to non-citizens in the United States. Citizenship for any child born in America is guaranteed under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Many legal scholars have said birthright citizenship is protected and cannot be changed by executive order and Trumps move would likely spur a long legal battle. Abbott, at a campaign stop Tuesday in Georgetown, said the proposal would "require keen legal analysis." The Republican wouldn't offer an immediate opinion. "As a former judge I would take a judicial aspect toward it, read all the law on it," said Abbott, who is running for a second term. "For me, it's premature to cast any type of judgment on it." Meanwhile, Democrats running against Abbott and Paxton say the presidents remarks are a gimmick to stir up Republican voters. RELATED: Trump targets citizenship, stokes pre-election migrant fears Former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, who is challenging Abbott in next weeks election, accused the governor of letting down millions of Texans who are first-generation residents. "Donald Trumps hateful rhetoric is a campaign ploy intended to incite fear before a critical and consequential election, and comes in the wake of plummeting poll numbers for both him and the Republican Party, said Valdez in an emailed statement. "Texas deserves a leader who will work to protect the 4.1 million first-generation Texans targeted by the Presidents divisive proposal." RELATED: Trump says no other country has birthright citizenship. He's wrong. Justin Nelson, the Democrat running for attorney general, accused Paxton of using legal wizardry to undercut the 14th Amendment protections. Ken Paxton obviously doesnt understand the law or the Constitution, said Nelson, an Austin lawyer and adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law. One conservative Texas judge Trump appointed to the bench, Judge James Ho, of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, has opined on birthright citizenship. He wrote in 2006 that birthright citizenship is protected no less for children of undocumented persons than for descendants of Mayflower passengers. Allie Morris and The Associated Press contributed to this report. In announcing his decision to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, President Donald Trump cited Russias repeated violations and the fact that the treaty does not bind China, which is engaged in the worlds most ambitious ballistic missile development program. But Trumps withdrawal may also be designed for another purpose. It sends a subtle but unmistakable message to North Korea: If you refuse to denuclearize, we can now surround your country with short- and medium-range missiles that will allow us to strike your regime without warning. At the moment, the Trump administration appears to be making little progress in nuclear talks with Pyongyang. The threat of deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Asia could change the dynamics of those negotiations. Recall that in 1983, President Ronald Reagan announced plans to deploy hundreds of U.S. intermediate-range Pershing II missiles in Western Europe in response to the Soviet Unions deployment of SS-20 nuclear missiles. The U.S. deployment sparked mass protests throughout Europe, but it also put enormous pressure on Moscow and in so doing laid the groundwork for a series of arms control breakthroughs, including the INF Treaty. By withdrawing from the INF Treaty, Trump can now put similar pressure on Pyongyang. The treaty barred both conventional and nuclear land-based missiles with a range of 300 to 3,400 miles. Freed from the treatys constraints, the United States can now deploy hundreds of conventional short- and medium-range missiles to bases in Asia, including in Guam (2,100 miles from North Korea) and Japan (650 miles). There would no longer be a need to send U.S. aircraft carriers on temporary deployments to waters off the Korean Peninsula as a sign of military strength. The deployment of intermediate-range missiles in the region would put North Korea permanently in our crosshairs. Pyongyang certainly does not want these U.S. missiles on its doorstep. Neither does Beijing, which knows such a deployment would restore U.S. military supremacy in the Pacific. According to Adm. Harry Harris, former commander of U.S. Pacific Command, China possesses the largest and most diverse missile force in the world and 95 percent of its missiles would violate the INF (Treaty) if China was a signatory. The fact that Beijing has such missiles, while the United States does not, puts the United States at a strategic disadvantage in any conflict with Beijing. As my American Enterprise Institute colleague Dan Blumenthal pointed out in the Washington Post, our only possible response would be to strike China with intercontinental ballistic missiles an unacceptable escalation. By contrast, the U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty allows deployment of conventional mobile ground-based missiles in Guam and Japan, improving our ability to deter Chinese aggression. Trump can deploy Tomahawk cruise missiles on ground launchers to the Pacific almost immediately after withdrawal from the treaty. Withdrawal would also pave the way for U.S. development and deployment of new missiles banned by the treaty, as well as new hypersonic weapons which travel five times faster than the speed of sound to compete with Chinas massive investment in these capabilities. This would be a massive strategic setback to both China and North Korea. So by withdrawing from the INF Treaty, and clearing the way for such deployments, Trump has given the United States a massive new bargaining chip. North Korea now has a new incentive to denuclearize, and China has a new strategic interest pressuring them to do so. It still may not work. But if those negotiations fail, Trumps INF Treaty withdrawal has given the United States a fallback option that will allow Washington to more effectively deter both Beijing and Pyongyang and reassert American military primacy in the region. Yet another mass shooting. Time again for our thoughts and prayers for the victims. Time now must be set aside for funerals. Is it time for Congress to address responsible gun controls? No. It is midterm elections, and Congress is in recess. Is the gun lobby anxious to enter into such discussions? Are you serious? How about the NRA? Its too early for them as well. Let things calm down is their rote response. Have things calmed down since Columbine High School, the shooting in a theater in Aurora my God, at Sandy Hook Elementary? The specter of assault weapons has escalated since those tragedies shocked us. Solutions. More guns, the NRA says. Dont take my assault weapons, advocates of the Second Amendment say. Congress just squirms and obstructs. What is left? I see a deeper decent into the abyss of insanity to which we blindly plunge albeit well-armed. Robert Paul Take action on guns In the wake of another tragedy in this country associated with gun violence, I find it necessary to hold our elected officials accountable for their lack of urgency to address this public problem. Our representatives cannot prevent people from pulling a trigger or having hate in their hearts, but there are measures that could mitigate the occurrence of these tragedies that Congress has balked on time and again. The most recent spending bill paints a disturbing picture of how the crisis of gun violence is labeled a priority only in political rhetoric and not when implementing policy. The March legislation instituted the Fix NICS Act, providing encouragement for states and localities to add necessary information to our national criminal database but failed in instituting a measure that a Quinnipiac poll says 96 percent of Americans are in favor of: universal background checks. The Manchin-Toomey measure was drafted to fulfill this particular purpose, but it has not been debated in Congress since failing to pass the Senate in 2013. I question the benefit of mandating the expansion of a database without clear mandates to utilize it. Further, the spending bill finally addressed a disastrous article, that of the Dickey Amendment of 1996. The change clarified that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is, in fact, able to do research on the causes of gun-related violence, which the 1996 amendment previously prevented. For 22 years, one of our premiere national research institutions was held from researching one of the most hot-button issues of this generation. Even now this glaring mistake may not be corrected, as the new spending bill did limit the scope of researching to only the causes of these incidents and did not allocate to the CDC funding for researching gun violence. I understand that not every issue can be solved through the passage of policy. But I cannot accept the willingness of our countrys elected leaders to ignore measures of public voice while not expanding their scope of data collection for an issue plaguing the nation. Its time to correct the 20-year information gap that they initiated and collect more data, as well as time to act on the data they already have. Alyssa Kerr Aid at the polls I recently drove to the Northside Activity Center with my family of four to vote. Just prior to entering, my wife fell face forward on the sidewalk. Present to witness and assist was a San Antonio Fire Department employee who ordered a cold pack for the bruises and stayed with her until she stabilized. Of significant help were all the volunteers at the voting precinct. They all went out of their way to help. There arent enough words of praise to thank all of them. John McFarland Alamo Towers, part of real estate tycoon James F. Cotters estate, likely wont remain in the family. Partners Investors, a company owned by local real estate executive Charles Chuck Brown, has submitted an offer to acquire the two eight-story office buildings near Loop 410 and Broadway for almost $14.9 million. The company that owns Alamo Towers, which total about 195,000 square feet, was put into bankruptcy last year to stop a foreclosure after Cotters death at age 83 on Jan. 25, 2017. The estates independent administrator is in the process of selling assets, including Alamo Towers. Cotters son, James Val Cotter, wanted to keep the Alamo Towers in the family and submitted a high bid of $15.2 million. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Craig Gargotta, though, found there were too many contingencies inherent in the (proposed) sale to James Val Cotter, according to a Sept. 26 court order. The judge ruled that it was in the best interests of the bankruptcy estate to go with a more expeditious sale that contains less contingencies. Im not real happy with seeing my fathers estate basically getting sold off, James Val Cotter said in a phone interview. I wanted to keep a portion of it together. I worked with my dad for 35 years and helped build a pretty sizable estate. Cotter, 59, declined to comment on the hang-up with his offer, directing questions to his lawyer Jason Davis. The attorney did not respond to a request for comment. The judge has scheduled a hearing for next week on a request to approve the sale to Partners Investors. Brown, who also is president of real estate management and leasing company Primera Partners, said Alamo Towers is in a super location. I think were making a reasonable buy on it, Brown said. Were budgeting a pretty significant capital expenditure over the first two years, both in improvements (and) upgrades and tenant finish to get it re-leased. Theres no reason for it to be 60 percent leased in that location. Browns Partner Investors expects to spend more than $3 million to upgrade the elevators, energy-management system and common areas. We are at a stage right now where weve got a lot of work to do, Brown said. Partners Investors is still conducting due diligence on the building, but it expects to close by the end of the year if the judge approves the sale, according to David Gragg, an attorney for the company. Browns other local real estate holdings include Riverview Towers at 111 Soledad St. James F. Cotter acquired Alamo Towers, built in 1980, in 2007 for an undisclosed price. Cotter died without a valid will, leading to much dispute and legal maneuvering among his widow, five children, lenders, creditors and the IRS over his estate. The bulk of his estate was a real estate empire of 66 properties in six states. Cotters assets were valued at $287.9 million 13 months before his death, with his real estate holdings representing all but about $41 million. His liabilities were listed at $181.7 million. Bexar County Probate Judge Tom Rickhoff said in a letter to independent administrator Marcus Rogers last year that the value of the estate is somewhat speculative in nature. Rogers did not respond to a request for comment. This summer, Rogers sold the 36-story Cotter Ranch Tower office building considered the crown jewel in Cotters portfolio in Oklahoma City to BancFirst Corp. for $21 million, a court document shows. Rogers also had put the company that had owned the building into bankruptcy in December to stop a foreclosure. Rogers also is trying to sell San Antonios Petroleum Towers, two office buildings located around the corner from Alamo Towers on Tesoro Drive. The company that owns Petroleum Towers entered bankruptcy in February. Patrick Danner is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering banking and civil courts. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | pdanner@express-news.net | Twitter: @AlamoPD Zagreb Airport International Company (ZAIC), which runs Zagreb Airport, will request for the Croatian government to lower its annual concession fee, the "Slobodna Dalmacija" daily reports. According to the newspaper, the airport's General Manager, Jacques Ferron, announced the plan last week. The operator argues that as a result of the concession fee, it was forced to increase its charges. which has in turn deterred low cost airlines from flying to Zagreb. This winter season, only one low cost carrier, Eurowings, will maintain services to the Croatian capital. However, it too noted last year that Zagreb Airport's charges are "significantly higher than most major European airports, making it less appealing for low cost carriers". Croatia's busiest airport hiked its fees following the opening of its new passenger terminal in 2017 by two euros per each international passenger for a total of seventeen euros. Similarly, it increased its fees by half a euro per every domestic passenger to seven and a half euros. In practice, concession fees applied to airports are passed on to airlines and their passengers through artificially higher charges, making airlines and passengers pay more than their fair share of airport facilities and service costs. Nonetheless, governments do not provide additional services in return for these concession fees. The Croatian government has said it is yet to receive an official request from Zagreb Airport's operator for the reduction of the annual concession fee. "We have not received a request from Zagreb Airport International Company to reduce the concession fee and neither have we discussed it with them. The concession fee is determined based on the agreement signed between the government of Croatia and Zagreb Airport International Company. ZAIC, as the concessionaire, has so far met all of its obligations, not only in terms of making the concession fee payments but also through continual passenger growth and the introduction of new destinations", the Minister for Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, Oleg Butkovic, said. ZAIC's concession fee is made up of a fixed and a variable charge. The fixed charge amounted to two million euros in the first year of the concession and will increase to twelve million in the 29th year. The variable charge fluctuates based on the overall gross revenue. It becomes payable from the third year of the concession and totals 0.5% of the total gross profit, after which it grows to up to 61% of revenue in the 30th (last) year of the concession. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is in favour of removing rent and concession fees airports are paying to governments, as it believes it will benefit all stakeholders - governments, airports, airlines and the paying passenger. "Airport charges should be related to the cost of providing airport facilities and services and airlines should not bear more than their fair share of the costs. Consequently, airlines and their passengers should not be requested to cover rent and concession fee costs for which they receive no service in return. A decrease in the level of aviation charges and ticket prices will have a substantial positive impact on a countrys aviation and tourism industry. The growth in air traffic, tourism and economic activity related to lower aviation costs alone will significantly benefit a countrys economy and off-set any reduction in direct revenue from rent or concession fees", IATA notes. BRIDGEPORT -A city police officer, arrested on assault charges after being accused of beating a man who collided with the officers Mercedes sedan, has been granted a pretrial probation program. Davon Polite, a 4-year member of the police force and the head of the departments minority organization, The Guardians, was granted accelerated rehabilitation Wednesday despite the objection of the victim in the case. I am happy the judge imposed this equitable resolution to the case, said Polites lawyer, Dennis Bradley. My client is absolutely not guilty of these charges and this program will result in those charges being dismissed. In March 2017, Polite was charged with second-degree assault and second-degree breach of peace in connection with an incident in 2016 outside a city restaurant. Police said Polite was off-duty when he allegedly dragged a 41-year-old city resident from his van and beat and kicked him after the man's van collided with Polite's Mercedes sedan on Sept. 19, 2016, on Hurd Avenue. Accelerated rehabilitation is a pretrial program previously only available to defendants of nonviolent crimes. Under the program the defendant does not plead guilty to the charges but is placed on probation. If he commits no other crimes during that probation the charges are dismissed. In granting AR for Polite, Superior Court Judge Frank Iannotti noted that the victim didnt appear to suffer serious injuries. He placed Polite on six months probation and ordered him to complete an anger management program and to have no further contact with the victim. We opposed the granting of accelerated rehabilitation because we didnt feel it was appropriate based on the seriousness of the offense, said the victims lawyer, Noah Kores. But we are happy the judge did impose anger management and a no contact order. On Sept. 19, 2016, police were dispatched to Bridgeport Hospital for an assault victim, according to the arrest warrant affidavit. The victim, who was being treated for trauma to his face and bruises in his side, stated he was leaving the Pioneira restaurant on Hurd Avenue about 1 a.m., when he turned right and his van accidentally struck a newer red Mercedes sedan causing minor damage. The victim said a man got out of the driver's seat of the Mercedes and they got into a confrontation that ended when the man dragged the victim out of his van and, along with at least one other man, beat and kicked the victim, the affidavit states. The affidavit continues that the victim said he was told the man who attacked him was a police officer and he subsequently identified officer Polite as his assailant. The affidavit states that Polite is the owner of a 2014 Mercedes sedan. A woman who claims she was in Polite's Mercedes at the time of the incident, said she saw the victim on the ground and she yelled for Polite and the other men to stop assaulting him, the affidavit states. Another woman said she saw Polite, his father, Marvin Polite and a third man assaulting the victim following the collision. "(She) told the three males that she was going to call the police, and one of the males replied that she didn't have to call the police because a cop was already there," the affidavit states. FAIRFIELD A town man pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to charges related to his role in a defrauding the state out of millions of dollars in taxes, the Department of Justice said. Rishi Malik, 46, of Fairfield, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and to violate the Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act and one count of wire fraud. The first charge carries a maximum term of five years in prison and the second carries a maximum prison term of 20 years. Court documents indicated that for several years, until 2012, Malik and a partner operated Connecticut Discounts, a tobacco wholesale business based in Bridgeport. Through that company, Malik got tobacco products from out-of-state suppliers and distributed the products to several clients who offered tobacco products for retail sale. The state of Connecticut imposes taxes on tobacco products imported into the state for distribution within the state. Tobacco amounts purchased, and taxes due, are reported on forms filed with the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services. In June 2012, Malik sold Connecticut Discounts to Pavan Vaswani, who continued to run the business. Between June 2012 to April 2017, the DOJ said, Malik helped Vaswani import tobacco products from out-of-state suppliers. From Jan. 2013 to April 2017, the business acquired millions of dollars of in tobacco products from suppliers in Pennsylvania and distributed them to hundreds of customers in Connecticut. On the forms that Vaswani filed with the Department of Revenue Services on behalf of the business, the amounts reported were a fraction of what the business actually acquired, the DOJ said. Through the scheme, the DOJ said, Vaswani failed to report about $5,821,057 in taxes to the state. As the years went on, Malik pruchased more than $1.1 million in smokeless tobacco products from Pennsylvania suppliers. There were no tax payments to the state between 2014 and 2017, the DOJ said. Authorities arrested Malik and Vaswani on Jan. 11. Malik is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 23, 2019. On Aug. 21, Vaswani, 40, of West Haven, pleaded guilty to the same charges as Malik. He awaits sentencing. The two agreed to pay restitution in the amount of $5,821,057. They were each released on bond pending sentencing. BRIDGEPORT With some in the community calling for a public forum with the three finalists for police chief, Mayor Joe Ganim has instead offered a luncheon meeting. Invitations for Thursdays hastily-convened midday event went out Tuesday to select community leaders, including the Rev. Cass Shaw, head of the Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport. The council is part of a coalition that has been pushing for policing reforms and been critical of Acting Police Chief Armando A.J. Perez, a close friend of Ganims and one of the three finalists for a five-year contract. Perez is competing against Bridgeport Police Capt. Roderick Porter and New Haven Assistant Chief Luiz Casanova. Their names were announced by Ganim early last week following a nationwide search. Its a step, but its not a public forum in the evening and falls short of what we need, Shaw said Wednesday. Its in the middle of the day so anybody working (who) doesnt have the flexibility I do cant attend. It certainly doesnt have the breadth or accessibility that was offered to the community with the finalists for the (schools) superintendents job. The Bridgeport Board of Education held community forums with the contenders for superintendent. And, as previously reported, there are examples of other cities and towns in Connecticut and across the country that have scheduled meetings for residents to question police chief candidates. While the Ganim administration and its personnel consultant sought public input earlier this year before launching a national search for a top cop, critics of the mayors and of Perezs argue City Hall could have been more aggressive in engaging and sharing information with residents throughout the process. There was a pool of 17 applicants, which was reduced to seven by the consultant and Bridgeports Office of Civil Service. Those seven were then interviewed by a panel of out-of-town individuals with experience in policing, human resources and government management. That panel recommended Perez, Porter and Casanova to Ganim. Perezs friendship with the mayor leads some to believe the search was a show and Ganim already had his mind made up to give the contract to the acting chief. Perez was Ganims driver when the mayor first held office in the 1990s, then helped him return to City Hall in 2015. More recently Perez cut checks to Ganims failed run for governor and also campaigned with the mayor. STAMFORD After outcry from parents and poor air quality test results, the district has resorted to closing Westover Magnet Elementary School for at least a week to remediate mold and other facility problems that are allowing its growth. While the school is closed, parents have the option of sending their children to the Boys and Girls Club on Stillwater Avenue for the day if they need child care, deputy superintendent Tamu Lucero announced at a Board of Education meeting Tuesday night. The closing comes after news that Northeast and Newfield elementary schools are shutting their portable classrooms for the time being due to mold infestations. The decision to close Westover was made following the end of the school day Tuesday, after the district received preliminary air quality test results from a Saturday inspection of the building. The early results showed 21 elevated mold counts out of 90 tests performed. If wed gotten these results back at 10 oclock this morning, we wouldve recommended you close school today based on the counts that we saw, Mike Handler, the citys Director of Administration, told school officials at the Tuesday night board meeting. The schools gym, not affected by the mold, will remain open for voting on Election Day, Nov. 6, said city Republican Registrar of Voters Lucy F. Corelli. The mayors office on Tuesday announced the formation of a Stamford Public School Mold Task Force consisting of Handler, interim Director of Operations Cindy Grafstein, Lucero, Chief Financial and Operations Officer Clarence Zachery and City Engineer Lou Casolo. The task force will investigate, develop and implement ongoing remediation efforts and monitoring programs while planning short-term and long-term solutions to the problem. While the initial focus is on Westover due to conditions there, the goal is to ensure the safety of and create an ongoing maintenance plan for all 20-plus Stamford Public School buildings, Handler said. Mold problems have been found throughout the district. The most recent mold status report from Stamford Public Schools shows mold was also found in the OT/PT room at Northeast. Remediation dates are to be determined. According to that report, dated Oct. 25, there is also mold in Cloonan Middle School, Hart Magnet Elementary School, KT Murphy Elementary School and Turn of River Middle School. Initial remediation has already cost the district more than $427,260, not counting custodial overtime. Right now at Westover, its not acceptable, Handler said. Thats why we closed the school. Handler said officials are prepared to keep Westover closed an additional week if needed, as well as work on it during Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. Maintenance projects, including drain clearing, gutter repair and window caulking, will be done during this time, to prevent further mold incidents. He added that there will be an increased number of people on site during future inspections, including hygienists to identify mold and additional custodians to move ceiling tiles and speed along the process. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will be present as well. Data will also be collected from teachers and students about symptoms of any mold-related health problems to form a better understanding of whats happening in the building. Our hope is that with the comprehensive peer review and visual inspection, coupled with the test results we get back tomorrow ... we can get a plan for remediation for each of the rooms, Handler said. The reason why school was closed was not just out of an abundance of caution, but because its the right thing to do. ... There is no physical place to put kids anymore thats safe in the school. In the meantime, the districts paraprofessional union will send staff to supervise children the Boys and Girls Club, Lucero said, and Chartwells food service will provide breakfast and lunch. Busing will remain the same, given the clubs close location to the school. Sharon Beadle, spokesperson for Stamford Public Schools, said the displaced students would be housed at the Boys and Girls Club on Wednesday apart from the students in the districts Alternative Routes to Success program, who are normally in the building during the day. After Wednesday, ARTS students will be temporarily moved to the Ferguson Library. Beadle said less than 100 students showed up to the club on Wednesday and the district will continue to re-assess the situation. Were really grateful to the Boys and Girls Club for their generosity, she said. This is sort of a whirlwind, trying to accommodate students on such short notice. While the mold is being remediated, facilities upgrades will also be made to Westover, Handler said, which will hopefully prevent future spread of mold. The ventilators in each classroom are being upgraded, drain valve systems are being replaced, gutters are being repaired, window caulking will be improved and the auditorium HVAC system will be fixed. Were not going to get this all done at once, Handler said. Were going for the low hanging fruit first. Our hope is well get the building safe for kids to occupy, well maintain it safe and well fix its underlying issues. If we dont fix underlying water intrusion issues, this is going to be a perpetual problem were dealing with for the rest of our lives. Lucero said families were notified of the closing Tuesday afternoon. According to Superintendent Earl Kim, there is no plan in place yet to make up the missing days. Suggestions have included making them up at the end of the year (pending any inclement weather days) and sending students to school during spring break. Last week, parents and staff from Westover and Newfield elementary schools spent two hours at a board meeting demanding action be taken to remedy a growing mold problem at both schools. Following the outcry, a decision was made to close the portables at Newfield. According to a letter sent to parents Monday by Northeast Principal Shawn Marinello, the portable classrooms are being closed temporarily out an abundance of caution per the recommendation of industrial hygienist company Hygenix. The letter said Hygenix conducted a further investigation of the portables and advised the school to close the portable classrooms until further testing results come later this week. Music classes, previously conducted in the portables, will now be held in homerooms. erin.kayata@stamfordadvocate.com; (203) 964-2265; @erin_kayata UPDATE: 6:11 P.M. WEDNESDAY BRIDGEPORT As of Wednesday afternoon, there was no update on this incident. ORIGINAL STORY - TUESDAY: BRIDGEPORT A victim of an armed robbery accidentally shot himself in the city Tuesday evening, dispatch reports indicated. Shortly after 9 p.m., Bridgeport police were dispatched to a location in the 100 block of Huntington Turnpike for two 911 calls about shots fired. One caller reported possibly hearing a dispute beforehand. When police arrived, minutes later, they found a male in the back of the location with a gunshot wound to the leg. Dispatch reports indicated that the male told the officers that he accidentally shot himself during an armed robbery. A bag containing the victims wallet and thousands of dollars in cash was taken. It was unclear if the victim shot himself with a gun that he got from one of the suspects, or from a gun he was carrying himself. Police are investigating. This story will be updated when more information becomes available. BRIDGEPORT The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport has paid $52.5 million to settle claims of abuse by priests since 1953. But along with that disclosure, which was part of a report it released Wednesday, the diocese acknowledged greater costs. My heart breaks at the harm to victims and betrayal of the faithful caused by the sin of abuse and the churchs repeated failure to act decisively and transparently to protect young people, said Bishop Frank Caggiano, in releasing the report. I wish to express my heartfelt apology to those affected by this tragedy. That apology wasnt enough for everyone. For too long, leadership in the diocese treated our clients as enemies of the church, said Jason Tremont, whose Bridgeport law firm Tremont, Sheldon, Robinson and Mahoney, represented most of the people who received settlements listed in the diocese report. One wonders whether the diocese would have issued this report in the absence of the Pennsylvania grand jury investigation into sexual abuse of children by priests. The current actions by Bishop Caggiano are steps in the right direction, but there is more to be done, Tremont said. Unfortunately, this report does not include the valid claims of victims who are now over the age of 48. There were 156 settlements since 1953, the diocese said, with the settlements averaging $337,000. The report states that 97.7 percent $51.5 million of the settlements were for claims of abuse that occurred before 1990, with most occurring in the 1970s. There was one settlement of an alleged abuse of a child by a priest that occurred after 2000. The report states that $46.2 million was paid for abuse claims against 12 priests. One priest, the Rev. Raymond Pcolka, was responsible for $11.9 million in settlements, according to the report. He was accused of abusing 23 children in the 1970s, was defrocked in 2004 and died five years later. Since the early 1990s, the diocese also paid $6.5 million in legal fees on abuse claims, the report states. Caggiano announced on Oct. 3 that he had appointed a retired judge to look into claims that the diocese covered up priests sexual abuse of children for decades, and that he was going to make public the amount of settlements the diocese had paid. I pray that this financial report and other measures we are taking represent the beginning of a new chapter of transparency and accountability in the diocese, the bishop states in a letter accompanying the financial report. The report states that 92 percent of the settlements were paid through the sale of diocese property, insurance and from co-defendants in abuse lawsuits. It states that since 2014, after Caggiano became bishop, procedures were put in place to ensure that no funds used for settlements came from the Annual Catholic Appeal. The diocese lists 26 priests on its website who have credibly been accused of sexual abuse in the diocese. Since the 1960s, according to the dioceses own records turned over to the courts, abuse allegations against priests was hidden and the priests accused of abuse were moved from parish to parish. Bishop Walter Curtis hid priest abuse in the 1970s and his predecessor, Bishop Edward Egan, who later became New Yorks cardinal, continued the practice into the early 1990s, the records show. Bishops settle child sex cases to protect the careers and reputations of church officials who hid the abuse, said David Clohessy, founder of the national Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. So a massive figure like this (in the report) suggests that many high-ranking Bridgeport Catholic staffers concealed horrific crimes. Clohessy continued, This figure should prod local parishioners to demand real action to prevent and expose clergy sex crimes and cover ups and lay people should, in light of this scandal, donate to groups that stop abuse, not groups that enable abuse. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 31) Newly-appointed Special Envoy for Public Diplomacy to China Ramon Tulfo supports the military takeover of the Bureau of Customs (BOC), saying that government should take the fight against illegal drugs one step further. "I would have the most corrupt people in the Bureau of Customs executed. Like what the government is doing to drug traffickers and minor drug players like pushers. If the government can mercilessly execute drug traffickers and drug pushers, why can't it execute the most corrupt personnel in the Bureau?" Tulfo told CNN Philippines' The Source Wednesday. Duterte's war on drugs has left more than 4,000 killed in various police operations, while human rights groups peg the number beyond 12,000. He had previously said that his "only sin against the country is the extrajudicial killings," which critics believe is an admission that the deaths are perpetrated by the state. Tulfo's comment comes after 11 billion worth of shabu found in a warehouse in Cavite last August (shabu) slipped past the agency. TIMELINE: 11B-worth of shabu slips past PH customs days after 4.3B worth of shabu was intercepted Duterte had ordered the military to take over the bureau. Tulfo said he agreed with the President, saying it needs the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to oversee the process. "Mahirap kasi may pera," he said. "Ang sabi nila, kahit na raw si Jesus Christ magiging corrupt 'pag napunta sa Customs." [Translation: It's difficult since there's money involved. They say even Jesus Christ will be corrupt once he is placed in Customs.] Tulfo said he wants the likes of former Customs Commissioners Ramon Farolan and Alberto Lina to take over the bureau. Duterte transferred former BOC Commissioner Isidro Lapena to the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), and assigned Maritime Industry Authority chief Rey Guerrero to take over the bureau. Guerrero was formerly chief of staff of the AFP. Tulfo said there was negligence on Lapena's end, but cleared him of involvement in the entry of the shabu shipment. "Malinis siya; tumaas 'yung collection ng Customs [He's clean; the collection of the Customs increased]," he said. As newly-appointed envoy, Tulfo said one of his tasks is to take up the anti-drug campaign with law enforcement officials in Beijing. "I can try talking to government, law enforcement officials in China to apprehend the Chinese syndicates because China hates drugs, abhors drugs, so I can ask China to arrest or apprehend drug traffickers," he said. After critical delays, harvest is catching up in the western Corn Belt. The eastern Corn Belt has had a good harvest, and is ahead of the five-year average, but parts of Iowa, Minnesta and South Dakota have suffered with steady rains and worries about damaged soybeans. This week, our largest corn producer, Iowa, came in Sunday night with 49 percent of the corn harvested. This was a 20 percent gain in one week, but still has them behind the 57 percent average for this time of year. Minnesota pushed harvest up to 58 percent, which is exactly their average. Wisconsin is still at 46 percent, well below the 63 percent average. Meanwhile, Indiana is at 77 percent, well above the 65 percent average, and Ohio is at 64 percent, above the 56 percent average. Early harvest Northeast Ohio continues to confound history by having the earliest harvest in my lifetime. The first heavy rains of the entire fall came this weekend. We have had limited evening showers which have held up the last of the bean harvest. Until the weekend we had seen semis parked in the fields to load, which is normally unheard of near where I live in Ashtabula County. Cars were parked on my lawn Saturday when we had guests for a costume party. I assumed they would get stuck, but they didnt. I told people we didnt park on the lawn in Wayne this wasnt Kinsman! The soybean harvest is still behind normal, but is catching up fast. Close to average The U.S. Sunday night was at 72 percent harvested, just off the 81 percent average. Ohio farmers are even closer to the average, with 75 percent off against the 80 average. I believe Northeast Ohio is ahead of that pace, which would be a first for us. I have been watching statistics for Minnesota, where farm reports had disaster written all over them. They had a good week, and went from 62 percent to 87 percent. That was a huge gain, even if they are normally at 95 percent. According to our Monday morning Russell Consulting call, a good forecast has them expecting to finish this week. The return to good harvest weather in the west hurt prices this week. Corn dipped in response to harvest pressure on prices, but came back on Friday to give us a small gain for the week. On this Tuesday morning, we are trading 3.6634 on December corn futures, unchanged for the day so far. Our recent high was on the 15th of October, at 3.6634. The low was made ten days later, at 3.6012. The contract low was on Sept. 18 at 3.4212. It feels like we are safely above that low, but have not seen real bullishness. Slow exports Hurting our prospects for the bull market we all want is the slow pace of exports. That is not helping us move out the huge supplies we have been building with three big years for corn. So far we see no real help from the plan to allow 15 percent ethanol blends announced by our president. Previously, they were not allowed in summer months because of environmental concerns (which I do not completely understand, so I should not have mentioned them). It is hoped that once the year-round 15 percent rule is in force, there may be more infrastructure to pump the E-15. That would likely come from a switch from E-10, as no retailer wants to have pumps for both. While we are on ethanol, it should be mentioned that current cheap corn allows us to sell ethanol to Brazil. This seems odd, since Brazil was the country that first gave a big start to ethanol, but from sugar cane. Improved currency In the wake of their recent election of a conservative president, their currency, the real, has improved. This has made our ethanol more competitive to them and our soybeans more competitive than theirs to go to China. We are seeing no sales to China for political reasons, even though we are now cheaper than Brazil even with the 25 percent Chinese tariff. Chinese importers worry the tariffs will be increased while the beans are in transit. We are currently trading November soybean futures at 8.40-14, up one and a quarter cent. The recent high was 8.92 on October 15th. The low came overnight this Tuesday morning, at 8.3534. In this case the harvest has pushed prices lower, and they have not rebounded, except to the 8.4014 of this morning. December Chicago wheat continues to be cheap, at 5.0614 this morning. We had an excursion Friday the 26th to 4.85-12, but have come back with a USDA report of slow winter wheat planting. We are at 78 percent planted, which is a gain of only six for the week, and well of the normal pace of 85 percent. November will be here by the time this is published, and it is past time to plant wheat. I dont see much around here, even with the good weather this fall. I think it is an economic decision. A project to improve the sustainability of the Welsh dairy industry has been launched and farmers are being encouraged to apply for support. The new project 'HerdAdvance' seeks to improve the health of herds and boost the future sustainability of the dairy industry. Launched at the Dairy Show, it is part of the Welsh Governments 6.5m Dairy Improvement Programme, funded through the Rural Development Programme. Support will be available for dairy farmers to improve the performance of their business by better cattle health and welfare, through working with their vet to deliver cattle health action planning. The new project will provide financial and technical assistance on herd health management and disease control. With the UK leaving the European Union in five months time, it will provide timely support, delivering interventions to improve the profitability and performance of the industry at a crucial time. Dairy farmers are able to submit expression of interest in the first window of applications until 30 November. Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Lesley Griffiths said: Earlier this year I announced 6.5m for AHDB Dairy to deliver our Dairy Improvement Programme, which aims to improve the profitability, sustainability and resilience of the industry. Today the first phase of the programme launches and dairy farmers will now be able to apply for support to help improve the health of their herds and the profitability of their businesses. Dairy farmers are being urged to make use of the support and to submit their expressions of interest by 30 November. Farmers have called on the public to use "common sense" as bonfire night approaches, in particular when using "dangerous" sky lanterns. It is NFU Scotlands stance that sky lanterns should not be available to the public as there is no guarantee of them landing safely. Sky lanterns are constructed from paper with a wire or wooden frame and contain a lighted candle, they are a proven fire risk and can be a danger to animals and farm buildings, which may house hay and straw, or other flammable products. Sky lanterns have been known to set fire to sheds, causing serious damage and loss to the farm business. And with straw and hay at such a premium this year, any incident could cause significant financial hardship for farmers. When sky lanterns fall on farm land they can have "devastating effects" on those farm businesses, according to NFU Scotland. The frame material can get mixed up into feed, such as silage or grain, and be accidentally digested by livestock the effects of which can be fatal. 'Fire damage' Farming unions have previously called on local councils across the UK to ban the use of sky lanterns, and NFU Scotland is now repeating this plea. A number of councils have already responded to the unions's call for a ban, by stopping their release from council owned land and properties. However, NFU Scotland believes there are some who still allow the devices to be released by the public. NFU Scotlands Animal Health and Welfare Policy Manager, Penny Middleton said: Although these lanterns seem to be innocent fun, they can in fact be very dangerous both for farm animals, who often end up ingesting them, and farm buildings which are extremely susceptible to fire damage from them. I would discourage people from incorporating these devices into their displays this year and ask them to consider farmers and crofters, who could end up paying a heavy cost for their brief enjoyment. She added: We applaud the action already taken against sky lanterns by those local authorities in Scotland who have already imposed a ban and we urge other councils to take their responsibilities as seriously. We would also ask that you consider any neighbouring livestock and other animals when planning fireworks display, even taking simple measures to warn animal keepers of a planned display can allow them to take measures to protect their stock, Ms Middleton said. 'A mass landing of 28 sky lanterns' Beef and arable farming couple Tony and Sue Robinson from Coolham, West Sussex experienced a mass landing of 28 sky lanterns on their farm in 2013 and are urging people not to release them. They believe they were lucky to escape a fire, given many sky lanterns had landed alight, scorching the ground around them. Sue Robinson said: All we want is for people to be aware of what could happen and we hope we will dissuade people from releasing sky lanterns. "If this had happened three weeks earlier, during the dry weather, we could have had a major fire here as many lanterns landed in fields that were earlier growing corn. By the burn marks, many were still alight on landing. One landed yards from our supplies of winter straw and feed for the cattle, shes said. Earlier this year, calls were made for England and Scotland to follow Wales lead, as all Welsh council land have now been designated a no fly zone for sky lanterns. Fresh concerns have been raised over Defra's preparations in the event of a 'no deal' exit from the European Union. In a letter to Defra Secretary Michael Gove, the House of Lords' EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee has expressed "serious concerns" about his department's preparations. It follows Mr Gove appearing in front of the Committee last week. Defra is one of the government departments most affected by EU Exit. It is responsible for 55 of the 319 EU related work streams across government, covering chemical and agri-food industries, agriculture, fisheries and the environment. The National Audit Office recently concluded that the department is at "high risk" of not delivering all its EU Exit portfolio in a no-deal scenario. And a report released in May by the Public Accounts Committee also raised concerns, highlighting how the lack of preparations not only leaves the department in the dark, but also farming and rural businesses. In their new letter, the Lords' Committees raises five key concerns to the Defra Secretary. It asks Mr Gove whether there will be a delay in the UK being able to export animals to the EU. Unless the Government can persuade the EU to give the UK listed status in advance of Brexit, all animal exports could be halted for months. All animal exports that currently travel Dover-Calais will have to be re-routed, the letter states. Calais does not have a Border Inspection Post; something all animal exports would have to pass through in a no deal scenario. The Governments ability to control access to UK waters is also touched upon. The Committee were concerned that Mr Gove had yet to receive permission to obtain the additional staff and boats required for fisheries control and enforcement. No agreement has been reached on how shipments of waste from the UK to the EU will be approved. The waste industry has told the Committee that this could lead to 1.8m tonnes of waste being stranded in the UK. Lastly, the letter states that Mr Gove seemed unaware that UK chemical companies may not own the rights to the data that proves their chemicals are safe to use. The Governments plans for the chemical industry in the case of a no deal Brexit are predicated on companies being able to provide this. A Defra spokesperson said: We remain confident that we will agree a mutually advantageous deal with the EU, however it is the duty of a responsible Government to prepare for a range of potential outcomes including no deal. Defra is working hard to carry out extensive preparations to make sure environmental, welfare, and biosecurity standards will continue to be met in a way that supports trade and the smooth flow of goods. Noble Foods is cutting the price it pays producers for medium and small eggs - but increasing the price for large and very large. Demand for large eggs amongst consumers has surged, exacerbating problems in moving other grades of egg. Earlier this year, Andy Crossland of Central Egg Agency said that retailers seemed to almost have an "obsession with large eggs." He said: "Retailers are looking far too much for large eggs. We are producing far more medium than large eggs, but selling more large than medium. The industry needs to be putting pressure on retailers because it is an issue." Packing companies agreed that this was a problem. Noble Foods has reacted to this in new changes to its producer prices. It has written to its producers to say that from November 3 the price paid for large and very large eggs would be increased by two pence per dozen. "As mentioned in our producer bulletin back in September, the current trend in the free range egg market is now showing a dramatic swing towards large eggs at the expense of mediums," said agriculture director, Graham Atkinson in the letter to producers. "The resultant medium egg surplus is generally traded on the wholesale market or sent to processing, both routes resulting in lower returns not only for medium grade but also for small grade and second quality eggs, which already trade in the processing market. This, in turn, results in substantial losses against the price paid to yourself," he said. Larger eggs Andy Crossland has said that he has had difficulty moving small and medium grade eggs. During the summer, Stonegate said that consumers were moving to larger eggs, as it announced that the price for standard medium free range eggs were being reduced by 10 pence. Noble has told its producers that its medium egg prices are being reduced by seven pence per dozen. The new price for small eggs will be 22 pence per dozen, inclusive of any bonus. This is down from an inclusive price of 33 pence per dozen. The amended price for graded seconds is 10 pence per dozen inclusive - down from 14 pence - and the new price for farm seconds is 15 pence per dozen inclusive -down from 21 pence per dozen. Graham Atkinson says in his letter to producers: "Your current flock age and egg size profile will, of course, have effect on the cost impact of these changes, but we must endeavour to align supply and demand by size as soon as possible and reduce the surplus which has the greatest negative influence on price." 'Unsustainable' At the annual conference of the British Free Range Egg Producers Association (BFREPA) in October, chief executive Robert Gooch warned that, whilst demand for free range eggs was growing at three or four per cent each year, supplies were increasing by 10 per cent, as new producers moved into the industry and existing producers expanded their units. He said this was unsustainable. "At the beginning of this year free range became the dominant production system for the first time. That means we are now mainstream," he said at the conference. "We are not a niche product any more. We need to accept as a sector that we are no longer niche and that we can't continue to expand and expand and expand. We are now a mature sector and the dominant production system. "We have been expanding at 10 per cent a year for the last three years, two million free range hens going down every year for the last three years," he told those attending the conference. "It has led us to the position we are in now where price is under significant pressure because of over-production." Big is not always best Some leading figures in the egg industry have suggested that consumers need to be persuaded that big is not necessarily best when it comes to buying eggs. But in his letter to producers, Graham Atkinson calls on them to increase production of larger eggs if possible to try to meet the demand of the market. "Some of you may be in a position, dependant on bird age, to improve egg size from your flock without negatively impacting other performance and welfare parameters, and, as ever, your regional manager in conjunction with your feed representative will be happy to help and advise on how this may be achieved." During the BFREPA conference, John Kirkpatrick, Tesco agricultural manager for poultry, eggs and feed, warned about the consequences of oversupply in the egg market. He said everyone had a responsibility in dealing with the supply of eggs. "We are all part of the supply chain, retailers, farmers, bank managers, farming consultants. I think the key thing from our perspective is everybody sat in this room is part of the supply chain," he said. "I think we've got to recognise that and work together to make sure we don't create situations whereby we have got all this egg on the market - we actually manage it better. Mr Kirkpatrick added: "We have got to wake up and smell the coffee, here. There is nobody forcing people to put up chicken houses. People out there are doing this of their own volition." BFREPA has warned that a tough summer has already resulted in farm gate prices of free range eggs falling because of oversupply. At the same time drought conditions have increased feed bills by 50 per cent for some producers, it says. Countryside campaigners have slammed the Government for accepting recommendations for a new major road development, calling it a "devastating blow" to local democracy and the countryside. The Government accepted recommendations from the National Infrastructure Commission to develop the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, despite no formal public consultation, environmental assessment or parliamentary enquiry. The National Infrastructure Commission has recommended a million new houses in the Arc by 2050, a million new jobs, and the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway a new major road. The expressway, with options to pass either west or east of Oxford, is expected to take up to 40 minutes off the journey between the A34 south of Oxford and the M1. However, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has previously highlighted how the new development will lead to "unsustainable" urban sprawl, which will in turn "threaten unspoilt countryside". The CPRE has now stressed the need for a full public consultation on the proposals, and not one limited to local partners. Paul Miner, head of strategic plans and devolution at the group, said: "That the government has accepted the NICs recommendation for growth in the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, without formal public consultation or an environmental assessment, is a devastating blow for local democracy and the countryside. "It seems the government remains wedded to its 'growth at all costs' approach. Despite clear commitments to new houses and a new road, the Government has made only vague statements on housing design and levels of affordable housing, with no assurances that the Arc will be an example of sustainable development." Mr Milner added: "It is imperative that a Strategic Environmental Assessment is conducted. The assessment must look at the impacts of both the proposed 1 million homes and major new road on the countryside, peoples health and well-being, and climate change in a holistic manner." CPRE are now calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the proposals, a planning process with local involvement, an Arc-wide commitment to high standards of affordable housing provision and design, commitments for protection and improvement of the environment, and a focus on improvements to public transport, not a new road. 2020 was a year marked by hardships and challenges, but the Fauquier community has proven resilient. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you for your continued support, wed like to offer all our subscribers -- new or returning -- 4 WEEKS FREE DIGITAL AND PRINT ACCESS. We understand the importance of working to keep our community strong and connected. As we move forward together into 2021, it will take commitment, communication, creativity, and a strong connection with those who are most affected by the stories we cover. We are dedicated to providing the reliable, local journalism you have come to expect. We are committed to serving you with renewed energy and growing resources. Let the Fauquier Times be your community companion throughout 2021, and for many years to come. The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike. We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve. Category Select Category Apparel/Garments Textiles Fashion Technical Textiles Information Technology E-commerce Retail Corporate Association Press Release SubCategory Select Sub-Category Salman Khan's LOOK Revealed from Bharat, Picture gets Leaked; Check Out | FilmiBeat After the super success of Sultan and Tiger Zinda Hai, Salman Khan and Ali Abbas Zafar are reuniting for the third time for 'Bharat', which is an official remake of the Korean flick, 'An Ode To My Father'. The film was earlier supposed to star Priyanka Chopra who later bowed out of it and Katrina Kaif stepped into it. The cast recently wrapped up the Abu Dhabi shooting schedule of the film and the pictures from the sets are already going viral on the internet. We recently stumbled upon few pictures of Salman Khan from the sets. Check them out right away here- Dashing As Always Salman is seen sporting a sleeveless jacket and flaunting his biceps in this picture. His Simpleton Look These second picture features the superstar in a checkered shirt with he has teamed up with brown pants. Salman To Sport Five Different Looks In The Film Salman Khan will be sporting five different looks spanning 60 years, wherein a crucial part will showcase the actor in his late 20s, looking much leaner and younger. Interestingly, he will be recreating his 'Karan-Arjun' look which has created immense excitement amongst the audience. Including stellar performers like Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Disha Patani, Tabu, Jackie Shroff and Sunil Grover, the Ali Abbas Zafar directorial boasts of an ensemble cast promising power-packed performances. Varun Dhawan will also be seen in a cameo in the film. Directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, 'Bharat' is produced by Atul Agnihotri's Reel Life Production Pvt. Ltd and Bhushan Kumar's T-Series releasing Eid 2019. Bharat: New Still From The Salman Khan Starrer Is Out! View Here Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone are hands down, one of the cutest couples of tinsel town. After months of speculation, 'DeepVeer' as they are fondly called by their fans finally announced their wedding date as 14th and 15th November. The couple issued a joint statement on social media and sought everyone's blessings and expressed their gratitude to their fans and loved ones for their support. Buzz is that Ranveer and Deepika are all set to get married at Lake Como. We also hear that they will reportedly leave for Italy on November 10, 2018 for a four day extravaganza. Amidst all this, here are some new details about this one of the most-awaited weddings of 2018- Get Ready For The Wedding Of The Year As per a Zoom report, Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone wanted the best of the best and have zeroed down to exquisite Versace cutlery for the special day. The Food Menu When it comes to the food menu, the guests will be treated with exclusive recipes. In fact, the couple has reportedly signed a bond with the caterers and chefs about these special recipes which will be served at their wedding. Color-Coordinated Outfits Ranveer-Deepika's wedding at Villa Del Balbiano at Lake Como in Italy will be colour-coordinated. In fact, even the waiters have been asked to follow the color-scheme of the day. Hmm, this sounds interesting! The Wedding Deets The couple will tie the knot following the South Indian customs on the 14th and with Sindhi traditions of November 15th. Later, they will be hosting two receptions; in Mumbai on December 1 and in Bengaluru on November 21, 2018. The reception in Bengaluru will take place at Hotel Leela Palace and in Mumbai at the Grand Hyatt. Meanwhile, recently in an interview with India Today, Deepika opened up about her nuptials and said, "Of course (I am excited), I think it's the same way that I am excited about signing my next film. Marriage is definitely something I have looked forward to in my life as would any other girl. When it does happen, it will be exciting, it should be exciting. I don't see why my life should change at all (after marriage)." Deepika Padukone On Marrying Ranveer Singh: I Would Like My Married Life To Be Like My Parents Some time ago, an associate director named Varun accused AR Murugadoss of plagiarism and claimed that his film Sarkar was a copy of a script he had written a few years ago. Following this, the Ghajini director refuted these claims and the matter reached the Writers Union. The Writers Union found similarities between Sarkar and Varun's script. Thereafter, the associate approached the Madras High Court. Yesterday (October 30, 2018), the case came to a close when the makers of Sarkar agreed to acknowledge that Varun had come up with Sarkar-like story long before them. Following the final resolution, K Bhagyaraj revealed in an interview that Vijay had asked him to look into the matter in an impartial manner and do full justice to his position. Bhagyaraj, who is the head of the Writers Union, also revealed that Vijay told him to follow all the rules while looking into the Sarkar story theft case. Needless to say, Vijay's reaction to the case is quite classy and it proves that he richly deserves to be called 'Thalapathy'. In case you did not know, Sarkar is touted to be a political thriller and it features Vijay in the role of a tycoon who returns to India from the US to cast his vote. The film is slated to hit the screens on November 6, 2018. Sarkar Story Theft Controversy: Sarkar Story Is Mine Says AR Murugadoss After The Court Verdict {document1} MOSCOW, October 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- RVC and the Korean electric power company LSIS have agreed on an exchange of technological innovations in the field of equipment, software, engineering and services for the electric power systems market, as part of the implementation of the EnergyNet National Technology Initiative roadmap. A relevant memorandum was signed at the International Open Innovations Forum by Mikhail Antonov, the Director for Innovative Infrastructure Development at RVC and Bong Hyun Kwon, the Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Director of LSIS. (Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/611590/RVC_Logo.jpg ) The main direction of cooperation will be the exchange of experience in the development and introduction of technologies in the field of the generation of smart energy and a commercial introduction of innovations in the Russian and Korean markets. The parties will provide each other with expert and engineering support and assistance in promoting the products of domestic companies abroad. The memorandum was signed within the framework of the implementation of the roadmap of the EnergyNet National Technology Initiative, aimed at the development of the multi-scale integrated systems market and services for smart energy systems in Russia. "In the field of development of the electrical power sector, our countries face similar tasks: optimisation of energy consumption, reduction of accident rates at power plants and in the grid network and the improvement of user-friendly features for the end-users. We highly appreciate the support of the Korean partners and we are confident that the exchange of experience between our countries will help to promote domestic innovation companies to international markets," said Mikhail Antonov, the Deputy General Director - Director for Innovative Infrastructure Development at RVC. "Today's signing is our first experience of cooperation with Russia. Korea has a rich experience in the development of smart technology systems and we believe these technologies have a great future. This venture is a significant contribution to our cooperation," said Bong Hyun Kwon, the Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Director of LSIS. The road map of EnergyNet NTI was approved by the Executive Committee of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation on the modernisation of the economy and innovative development in Russia in 2016. It is aimed at the development of new technologies in the electric power industry, creation of new products and development of new markets for an efficient and user-friendly ecosystem for interaction between the energy producers and consumers. According to the roadmap plans, by 2035, the volume of revenues of Russian companies in the global integrated systems and smart energy systems services market should be at least 40 billion US dollars a year. Domestic manufacturers should take a significant share in the international market: reliable and flexible distribution networks - 10-12%; smart power generation distribution - 3-6%; consumer services - 3-6% of the world market. RVC has been cooperating with South Korea in the field of innovation since 2014. RVC partners include major Korean development institutions, universities and corporations. RVC cooperates with the Ministry of Commerce, the Industry and Energy of the Republic of Korea, the Korean Institute for the Advancement of Technology (KIAT), the Korean Technology Venture Fund and Samsung Research Centre in Russia. Reference Information: RVC JSC is the State fund of funds, the institute for the development of the venture industry in the Russian Federation. The main objectives of RVC JSC are to stimulate the development of the private venture investment industry in Russia and implement the functions of the Project Office of the National Technology Initiative (NTI). The authorised capital of RVC JSC is over 30 billion RUB. 100% of the capital of RVC is owned by the Russian Federation represented by the Federal Agency for State Property Management of the Russian Federation (Rosimushchestvo). The total number of funds formed by RVC has reached 26, their total size is 41.8 billion RUB. The share of RVC JSC is 24.8 billion RUB. The number of portfolio companies of RVC funds is 225. The total amount of funds approved for investment is 18.6 billion RUB. http://www.rvc.ru LSIS is a world leader in the field of power supply, automation and green technologies. The global network consists of more than 20 foreign branches and subsidiaries. The equipment is manufactured at nine factories in Korea and abroad. It exists since 1974. The representative office was opened in Moscow in April 2014. http://www.lsis-ru.com 31 October 2018 - Today, Kvaerner signs a contract with Equinor for delivery of the steel substructure for the Johan Sverdrup Phase 2 process platform. With this award Kvaerner will deliver the fourth substructure for the Johan Sverdrup Field, one of the world's largest ongoing offshore projects. The value of the contract is approximately NOK 900 million. The steel jacket substructure for the Phase 2 process platform is to be delivered from Kvaerner's specialised facility in Verdal, Norway during spring 2021. The activity will be at its highest from September 2019 to May 2020, when 300 employees will be working on the project. The new delivery includes engineering, procurement and fabrication. Kvaerner will also perform load-out and sea-fastening of the complete steel jacket substructure on a barge before sail-away to the field. The engineering work will be performed at Kvaerner's offices in Oslo and will start immediately. The project management will be based at Kvaerner's yard for advanced steel substructures in Verdal, where prefabrication will start early in the summer of 2019. When completed, the steel jacket will weigh slightly above 12 300 tonnes. "The award of yet another contract won in international competition confirms Kvaerner's position as one of the industry's leading contractors for steel jacket substructures. In 2017 and 2018, Kvaerner delivered three out of the four jackets which are part of the first phase of the field development. Through a very effective cooperation with Equinor, we delivered all these three platform substructures to agreed quality, schedules and budgets. I am pleased to see that our customers confirm that we are a contractor offering an attractive combination of technical expertise and cost efficiency", says Kvaerner's President & CEO Karl-Petter Lken. Today's award, together with previous contracts for deliveries to Valhall Flank West and modules for the Johan Castberg FPSO, will increase the opportunities for strategic development of the expertise at the Verdal facility for the coming years. The order book provides a good foundation for activity at the yard until spring 2021. "We are very happy today! With the delivery of the substructure for Johan Sverdrup Phase 2 combined with the other order backlog, we have a good foundation for continuous improvement and long term planning around future development of Kvaerner in Verdal. We have long experience from providing our customers with complete, integrated deliveries. Over the last few years, we have taken new steps for industrialising how we execute projects. This, combined with long term relations in the supplier's market, enables us to offer flexibility to our customers", says EVP Structural Solutions Sturla Magnus. Kvaerner has delivered both substructures and topsides to many of the world's most demanding offshore projects, and has been a main contractor to the majority of Norway's oil and gas platforms. The new steel substructure will be number 46 in a series of substructures from Kvaerner in the last 45 years. END For further information, please contact: Investor Relations: Torbjrn Andersen, VP Investor Relations & Communications, Kvaerner, Mob: +47 928 85 542 Media: Tove Strand Trana, Head of Communications Mid Norway, Kvaerner, Mob: +47 46401103 About Kvaerner: Kvaerner is a leading provider of engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services, and delivers offshore installations and onshore around the world. Kvrner ASA, through its subsidiaries and affiliates ("Kvaerner"), is an international contractor and preferred partner for oil and gas operators and other engineering and fabrication contractors. Kvaerner and its approximately 2 700 HSSE-focused and experienced employees are recognised for delivering some of the world's most amazing and demanding projects. In 2017, Kvaerner's Field Development segment had consolidated annual revenues of NOK 7.6 billion and the company reported an order backlog at 30 September 2018 of NOK 10.6 billion. Kvaerner is publicly listed with the ticker "KVAER" at the Oslo Stock Exchange. For further information, please visit www.kvaerner.com (https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kvaerner.com&data=02%7C01%7Ctove.strand.trana%40kvaerner.com%7Cdf4a7014b34346ef5e4108d638a43f25%7C20d4745c70614b6d84dc036d4d008aed%7C1%7C0%7C636758675421611498&sdata=yq%2FlueZMFLLZV9FLQfu3UqGD%2BkJ3Ft0PR34H8XX%2B1js%3D&reserved=0). To subscribe or unsubscribe to our press releases, please see our web page: http://www.kvaerner.com/subscribe (https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kvaerner.com%2Fsubscribe&data=02%7C01%7Ctove.strand.trana%40kvaerner.com%7Cdf4a7014b34346ef5e4108d638a43f25%7C20d4745c70614b6d84dc036d4d008aed%7C1%7C0%7C636758675421611498&sdata=99VnzXwDPhbmj%2BJvMNFqLHk9uiRFLmrFmGv2gBTXm%2B8%3D&reserved=0) Facts about the steel substructure for the process platform (P2): Contract: EPC Height: 140 metres Weight: Approx 12 300 tonnes Top elevation: 28 m x 72 m Bottom elevation: 49.4 m x 62 m Piles: 16 This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5 -12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act. Illustrasjon Johan Sverdrup Phase two jacket (http://hugin.info/134981/R/2223114/871132.pdf) This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: Kvrner ASA via Globenewswire Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 31, 2018) -American Lithium Corp. (TSXV: LI) (OTCQB: LIACF) (FSE: 5LA1) ("American Lithium" or the "Company") reports is has received the initial data and interpretation from the Company's seismic survey conducted in August and September, 2018. Initial interpretation indicates a general shallowing upward of sediments and unroofing of prospective Lithium clay stone layers in the west side of the north end of the Fish Lake Valley (FLV). The target Sediment package that hosts the neighboring Rhyolite Ridge Lithium deposit is interpreted to thicken a shallow up on the South end of the Seismic line. Map 1 To view an enhanced version of Map 1, please visit: https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4734/40709_039b163de45dc8e9_001full.jpg 12 miles, (19km), of seismic line has been collected over two north-south lines with one east-west tie line. The survey was designed to integrate downhole data from two existing drill holes and integrate surface mapping to develop a regional picture of the lithium clay bearing sediment formation seen to the south in Global Geoscience's Rhyolite Ridge Lithium Borax Project. American Lithium consultant Dr. John Oldow comments on the preliminary analysis, "The thickness of the FLV assemblage rocks increases significantly south of the northwest-trending faults that carry older units including the Rhyolite Ridge tuff to the surface. South of these faults the mudstone and sandstone thickens dramatically to over 700 feet. The thickness of the overlying sandstone-conglomerate unit does not appear to increase significantly from north to south. What we may be seeing is that the rock exposed along the eastern flank of the basin (western Silver Peak Range) where the thickness of the mudstone-sandstone greatly thickened to the south; the thickness increase corresponds to the area where US Borax had high B and Li concentrations." CEO, Mike Kobler states, "The initial interpretation defines sufficient volume of the Rhyolite Ridge Tuff unit in the Fish Lake Valley sedimentary basin to host a significant lithium deposit.With receipt of the final interpretation we expect to be able to speed up the exploration and definition of potential lithium mineralized zones within this target member." The valley's prospectivity for lithium and boron is well known since mining began there in the 1880s. Surging lithium demand and rising prices, along with recent strategic metal status being declared by the US Government and breakthroughs in lithium processing methods, have intensified investment focus onto US domestic lithium production. Principal among the Fish Lake Valley lithium deposits under evaluation are lithium claystones, such as the Rhyolite Ridge project undertaken by Global Geosciences Corp., which adjoins the FLV Project, and is responsible for Global Geosciences' $400 million market cap. The seismic survey was conducted by Bird Seismic of Globe Arizona utilizing a Seistronix EX-6 cable based 24 bit recording system and a United Service Alliance model AF-450 nitrogen gas accelerated weight drop source and a data receiver interval of 20" (6m) and a source interval of 20" (6m). The technical information within this news release has been reviewed and approved by Michael Collins, P.Geo., a consultant to the Company and a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101. About American Lithium Corp. American Lithium is actively engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of lithium deposits within mining-friendly jurisdictions throughout the Americas. The Company is currently exploring and developing two projects, the FLV and TLC Projects, in the highly prospective Esmeralda Lithium District in Nevada. These projects, within 30 miles of each other, are close to infrastructure, 3.5 hours south of the Tesla Gigafactory, and in the same basinal environment as Ablemarle's Silver Peak Lithium Mine, and the advancing deposits and resources including Global Geosciences Rhyolite Ridge and Cypress Development Corp's Clayton Valley Project. For more information, please contact the Company at info@americanlithiumcorp.com or visit our website at www.americanlithiumcorp.com. On behalf of the Board, American Lithium Corp. Michael Kobler, Chief Executive Officer Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-looking statements Statements in this release that are forward-looking information are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning the specific factors disclosed here.Information provided in this release is necessarily summarized and may not contain all available material information.All such forward-looking information and statements are based on certain assumptions and analyses made by American Lithium management in light of their experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors management believes are appropriate in the circumstances.These statements, however, 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 information or statements.Important factors that could cause actual results to differ from these forward-looking statements include those described under the heading "Risks Factors" in American Lithium's most recently filed MD&A.The Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any obligation to, update or revise the forward-looking information contained in this news release, except as required by law.Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information or statements. ASCHHEIM, Germany, October 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Wirecard to issue the SpenditCard, Germany ' s first regulated credit card program for employee benefits Expanded cooperation capitalizes on the sustained global trend in the area of employer offers Wirecard, the global innovation leader for digital financial technology, along with Spendit AG, a multi-award-winning HR and FinTech company, are expanding their long-term cooperation and are set to develop digital solutions in the area of employee benefits for the whole of Europe. With immediate effect, the SpenditCard, a digital voucher for tax-free benefits in kind, offered by Spendit since 2014 as Mastercard's preferred partner, will be issued by Wirecard. It is the first regulated credit card program based in Germany and already has over 4,000 corporate customers. There are plans for it to be further developed to include new functions and cover new countries in the near future. Wirecard is applying its global expertise in the area of employee benefit solutions. This can be seen in the USA, for example, where Wirecard has already been providing large businesses with benefit products for many years: Millions of consumers make use of the solution's advantages on a regular basis, with the number of cards issued rising by a compounded average of 75% per year. At the same time, expenditure using employee benefit cards is rising by around 45% on average. Catharina Tiede, Head of Partner Management at Wirecard, says: "With the SpenditCard, we are setting new standards in the digitization of benefit programs. This partnership is an exciting opportunity to promote the use of consumer cards as a corporate incentive. We are delighted that, together with Spendit, we will soon be digitizing employee programs across Europe." Florian Gottschaller, founder and CEO of Spendit, explains: "We are proud to have exceeded expectations and grown our customer base to over 4,000. With a strong partner in the form of Wirecard, we can look forward to further increasing our customer numbers and to tapping into additional European markets." He adds: "As the market leader, Wirecard is the ideal strategic partner for Spendit because it shares our vision of developing innovative products for global employers and continuing to drive forward the digitization of benefit products." The SpenditCard is like a universal voucher that can be used worldwide. Businesses can use the card to give their employees a wide range of tax-free fringe benefits as a modern alternative to petrol and gift vouchers on a prepaid card, which can be used by employees without restriction in the Mastercard network across the world. The SpenditCard, which can be branded in line with a company's corporate design including the logo, is a reflection of employer appreciation that benefits employees' everyday lives. It has been well-received as an employer branding element. The card enables employers to optimize wage costs and to significantly reduce administration overhead. The modular system of the SpenditCard enables businesses to design individual, industry-specific benefit programs. Each employee is entitled to a total of EUR 708 tax-free (net) and up to EUR 11,000 that is subject to a flat rate of taxation. About Wirecard: Wirecard (GER: WDI) is one of the world's fastest growing digital platforms in the area of financial commerce. We provide both corporate clients and consumers with a constantly expanding ecosystem of real-time value-added services built around innovative digital payments by using an integrated B2B2C approach. This ecosystem concentrates on solutions in the areas payment and risk, retail and transaction banking, loyalty and coupon programs in addition to data analytics and conversion rate enhancement across all sales channels (online, mobile, ePOS). Wirecard operates regulated financial institutions in several key markets, in addition to holding issuing and acquiring licenses from all major payment and card networks. Wirecard AG is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (DAX and TecDAX, ISIN DE0007472060). Visit us on http://www.wirecard.com , follow us on Twitter @wirecard and on Facebook @wirecardgroup. About Spendit AG: In 2014, the visionaries Dr. Ralph Meyer and Florian Gottschaller founded Spendit AG in Munich and dedicated themselves to the digital revolution of employee benefits. An international team supports them in their mission: Developing customer-specific benefit solutions for employers who are serious about digitization and who want to keep the best talent in their business. Today, more than 4,000 businesses in Germany and Austria use Spendit AG's smart products: the SpenditCard, the digital voucher for income tax-free benefits in kind, and the Lunchit App, the digital meal voucher. For more information, please visit http://www.spendit.de Wirecard media contact: Wirecard AG Jana Tilz Tel.: +49-(0)-89-4424-1363 Email: jana.tilz@wirecard.com Spendit AG media contact: Spendit AG Daria Kossogova Tel.: +49-(0)-89-2003-1881-80 Email: daria.kossogova@spendit.de SIKURPhone the convenience of a high-end smartphone with first-class security Device set to lead the way in the secure communications market Operating system, SikurOS, is the foundation of the secure mindset Whilst Sikur's competitors are promising to release secure blockchain devices, Sikur is already delivering a full and innovative operating system experience. SikurOS is powering devices that can deliver much more than secure cryptocurrency wallets and other gadgets to protect assets. "2018 has been an incredible year for us from the rush of launching SIKURPhone at Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona, to porting SikurOS to different hardware. It has been an exciting journey and we still have more to come", said Alexandre Vasconcelos, Sikur's COO. SikurOS is a very innovative model, although its concepts are widely available. An operating system that is capable of effectively protecting user data is an approach that has taken SIKURPhone to the next level. Combining safety with convenience is a challenge that Sikur's research and development team face every day. According to Group-IB, more than $882 million in cryptocurrency assets was lost to fraud and hacks in 2017 and 2018, mostly in the Asian market, including the over $500 million hack of Japanese Cryptocurrency Exchange Coincheck. Protecting cryptocurrency coins for the regular investor with simplicity and usability is already possible with SIKURPhone. After passing rigorous tests by HackerOne with a bug bounty program, securing cryptocurrency is a challenge that SIKURPhone has already overcome. Sikur is now daring to take it a step further with the Trading Station concept. "The financial market is dynamic and constantly changing. Fraud and loss numbers keep increasing as the variety of digital transaction methods grow. Existing solutions do not provide enough flexibility, usability and security for the modern-day user. Sikur's Trading Station uses the strength of SikurOS and provides extra security layers for financial apps that require ultimate protection. It also introduces freedom and flexibility to perform operations from any place, without the need of being in offices or highly protected networks. Trading stocks, mobile banking and mPOS (Mobile Point of Sale) are some of the real-world examples where SIKURPhone can make a huge difference to the industry", said Fabio Fischer, Sikur's Executive VP. Securing data locally and in the cloud is a high priority for businesses and governments. Therefore, having well known apps in such devices is becoming mandatory as safety concerns more people each year. "At Sikur, innovation is part of our DNA. We are always looking to create. This energy gives everyone more power and determination to make progress. The Trading Station concept comes from this way of thinking", says Alexandre Stumpf, Sikur's CTO. Sikur today is a security mindset. It is a new way of thinking about security. We are a platform capable of delivering reliable and trustworthy protection. We have created a way to provide total security on any application, be it banking, stocks, news, cryptocurrency, wallets or e-mail. Now, even WhatsApp runs on SikurOS. We can incorporate widely available apps if they meet Sikur's security criteria. We are the security that your communications need. About Sikur Sikur is defining the future of secure communication. Operating globally, it has offices in Latin America, the United States and Europe. Sikur works alongside governments and corporations that believe security is fundamental to the integrity of their work. We believe that security is not only about platforms and digital systems but is a mindset that surrounds every aspect of business. www.sikur.com Press Kit: https://www.sikur.com/SIKURPhone/PressKit/Japan Connect LinkedIn Twitter View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181030006248/en/ Contacts: Sikur Christian Maclaren christian.maclaren@sikur.com Paris, October 31, 2018 - Sodexo (NYSE Euronext Paris FR 0000121220-OTC: SDXAY), world leader in Quality of Life services, announces the acquisition of Novae Restauration, significantly expanding its footprint in the attractive Swiss market. Founded in 2003, Novae Restauration is the leading independent player in high-end catering services for French-speaking Switzerland, with 700 employees serving a network of over 80 prestigious client sites. Novae Restauration's high-end positioning matches current trends and market demand. Their unique and responsible sourcing ecosystem delivers premium products through a network of local producers, farmers and distributors. Novae Restauration's daily menus include 80% fresh ingredients with at least 50% of local products (from within a 200km radius). Novae Restauration and Sodexo Switzerland have complementary client portfolios and offers: Novae Restauration's comprehensive offer of premium catering services complements Sodexo Switzerland's position as a facilities management provider on the German Swiss market, providing the opportunity to develop a fully integrated services offer. There is strong potential for commercial synergies for the combined entity in terms of cross-selling and development across German and French speaking markets. Novae Restauration will continue to operate under its name and the experienced operational management team will stay with the business to drive future growth, particularly in the corporate, institutional and education sectors, under the leadership of Christian Volmerange from Sodexo, who is appointed Managing Director for Novae Restauration, effective immediately. He will be supported by Maxime Ballanfat during the next 6 months. Denis Machuel, Sodexo Group CEO said: "I am pleased to welcome the Novae Restauration team to Sodexo. Novae Restaurationhas built an admirable reputation locally, based on values and experiences that are aligned with Sodexo's. Food is at the heart of our Quality of Life solutions for clients and consumers, and we are proud to sustainably grow our business in Switzerland with a partner committed to delivering personalized, healthy and innovative premium food services." Maxime Ballanfat, Novae RestaurationCEO said: "Surrounded by the best, over 15 years we built a company of chefs serving employees, students, residents and patients. Common sense, passion for our profession and audacity drove us. And it's the same good sense that led us to choose Sodexo, a family-controlled company, when we needed to think about the future. Sodexo will take good care of our clients and my teams, enabling them to stay true to their DNA while offering enhanced innovation and perspectives. I am proud to transfer my teams and our strong position on the French Suisse market to Christian Volmerange About Sodexo Founded in Marseille in 1966 by Pierre Bellon, Sodexo is the global leader in services that improve Quality of Life, an essential factor in individual and organizational performance. Operating in 72 countries, Sodexo serves 100 million consumers each day through its unique combination of On-site Services, Benefits and Rewards Services and Personal and Home Services. Through its more than 100 services, Sodexo provides clients an integrated offering developed over 50 years of experience: from food services, reception, maintenance and cleaning, to facilities and equipment management; from services and programs fostering employees' engagement to solutions that simplify and optimize their mobility and expenses management, to in-home assistance, child care centers and concierge services. Sodexo's success and performance are founded on its independence, its sustainable business model and its ability to continuously develop and engage its 460,000 employees throughout the world. Sodexo is included in the CAC 40 and DJSI indices. Key Figures 20.7 billion euro in consolidated revenues (as of August 31, 2017) 460,000 employees 19thlargest employer worldwide 72 countries 100 million consumers served daily 13.5 billion euro in market capitalization (as of September 5, 2018) About Novae Restauration: https://www.novae-restauration.ch/ Contacts Media Analysts and Investors Laura SCHALK Tel: +33 1 57 75 85 69 laura.schalk@sodexo.com Virginia JEANSON Tel: +33 1 57 75 80 56 virginia.jeanson@sodexo.com Sodexo acquires leading Swiss caterer (http://hugin.info/157633/R/2223231/871215.pdf) This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: Sodexo via Globenewswire Signs MOU with outstanding German and Dutch corporations and investment firms SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- 12CM.Inc (One-two-cee-em), a company that develops foundational technology for smart stamps, is gearing up to enter the European market in earnest. On October 15, 12CM, a member company of the K-ICT Born2Global Centre, signed an MOU with Lucrion GmbH, a German marketing company, and Heptagon Square, a Netherlands-based IT firm, at GMV 2018 (Global Mobile Vision 2018) regarding the establishment of a joint venture. Multiple American and other foreign corporations are experiencing significant difficulties doing business in the European market, mainly because of the amendment that was made to the personal information protection law this year. 12CM's "echoss" smart stamp technology is currently provided through partnerships with 53 companies worldwide. The greatest advantage of this technology is its ability to localize diverse services in accordance with the regulations of the relevant region or policies of the given service provider through cloud-based software and smart stamp hardware. The recently signed MOU is expected to produce meaningful and tangible business outcomes, especially with the investment made by the European venture capital firm Arena Amnis B.V., which is currently in the process of making follow-up investments in 12CM. CEO Brend J. Kouwenhoven, the head of investment at Heptagon Square, said, "The European market, which has thus far been quite conservative, is changing rapidly in terms of the financial environment for venture capital firms and the stance of governments, making it easier to foster so-called 'unicorn' companies such as Google and Uber. If the 'echoss' smart stamp, a revolutionary technology that has already achieved success in the Asian and U.S. markets, can be adequately adapted to the needs of the European market, we are very hopeful that the business will expand." 12CM is engaged in business in the global market based on its echoss smart stamp, an independently developed foundational technology. Starting in 2019, it will be conducting a new project in the U.S., European, and Asian markets. For more detailed information on 12CM, visit http://www.12cm.co.kr/en/12cm/ Media Contact Jay Cha Director of 12CM.Inc support@12cmglobal.com Jina Lee PR Manager of K-ICT Born2Global Centre jlee@born2global.com Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/776003/12cm_MOU_Lucrion_GmbH.jpg With a Noticeable Distrust in Authority, the Time to Bring More Equity into the Workplace is Now Heightened social activism and hot-button trends have employees reconsidering how they think and feel about their employers, according to a new global survey released today by Globoforce's WorkHuman Analytics Research Institute. The report, "Social Impact in the Human Workplace," surveyed more than 3,600 people in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Ireland. The study examines how movements such as MeToo and TimesUp along with record low unemployment are causing a power shift in the workplace. The survey's findings reveal that employees are now asking for more out of their employers, especially with regard to pay equity. Men are more likely to agree that they are paid fairly (70%), compared to women (61%), and more women than men reported not receiving any monetary bonuses. As the old command-and-control management style continues to crumble, companies are challenged to match how work gets done today. Organizations need to create workplaces where employees feel fairly compensated, feel safe, are heard, have strong connections with both their managers as well as co-workers, feel recognized, and are inspired to perform their best work. "The forces shaping our societal landscape calls for fairness, equity, transparency, and trust are driving an awakening in the workplace," said Derek Irvine, Globoforce senior vice president of client strategy and consulting. "It is simply unacceptable to treat men and women differently at work. This year's employee survey tells the story of a workforce ready to make an impact but unwilling to stick around if inequity and bureaucratic processes get in the way. Organizations that provide a positive culture for their people will see renewed commitment, engagement, and strengthened relationships that fuel the backbone of their business and their bottom line." The "Social Impact in the Human Workplace" report reveals that employees are holding their employers to higher standards. They are expecting more out of their workplace, fueled by growing distrust in positional authority. Employees increasingly want their voices to be heard, to be recognized for their accomplishments, and transparency in the way they are rewarded and evaluated. The report identifies the following trends: Most employees have not been recognized recently, but there are opportunities to make recognition more meaningful. The recognition experience varies greatly across the workforce with only 16% of workers having been recognized in the last month, due in part by the fact that one in three companies (30%) have no formal recognition program. In addition, another 25% of companies have a recognition program that is not tied to core values, which does not lead employees to feel engaged. Giving everyone in the company the power to recognize others through social recognition also has a positive impact on employees' experience at work. When only senior leaders are allowed to recognize, 73% of workers report a positive experience. That number jumps to 88% when everyone in the company can celebrate good work. Annual performance reviews still remain in many organizations, but workers want more flexibility and openness. The more frequently an employee reports checking in with their manager, the more likely they are to trust and respect their manager. 38% of workers say they check in with their manager daily and another 35% check in on a weekly basis. Traditional compensation can present pay equity risks. More women than men reported not receiving any bonus. In the United States, nearly two times as many men as women received a bonus greater than $5,000, and in the United Kingdom, more than three times as many men as women received a bonus greater than 5,000. While there is progress around belonging, psychological safety varies greatly by gender and position in a company. 82% of workers say they feel a sense of belonging in the workplace. But when workers were asked if they feel safe offering a dissenting or unpopular view at work, only 65% agreed. Women are less likely to feel safe speaking up (60%), compared to men (70%). And individual contributors are much less likely to feel safe speaking up (59%) than senior management (81%). Traditional methods for celebrating life events and service anniversaries leave employees feeling uninspired and causing them to rethink their commitment to the organization. In response to traditional service anniversaries, more than half (51%) of respondents said, "It made me feel nothing at all." Another 13% reported, "It made me feel less valued." Celebrating just one life event in a meaningful way with your colleagues and community at work can have a sizable impact, making workers 19% more likely to feel like they belong. To review the full survey, please visit Survey Methodology This survey was directed by the WorkHuman Analytics Research Institute at Globoforce from July 9-23, 2018. This is the10th deployment of the employee survey since its launch in Spring 2011. The respondent sampling of this survey was conducted by independent market research firm Research Now SSI. The final sample of the survey was composed of 3,607 randomly selected fully employed persons in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Ireland (age 18 or older). The survey has a margin of error of +/- 1.6 percentage points at a 95% level of confidence. About Globoforce Pioneer of the WorkHuman movement, Globoforce makes work more human for millions of people and organizations worldwide. Today, Globoforce is the leading provider of human applications, including its award-winning Social Recognition solution. Through its WorkHuman Cloud suite of products, companies can strengthen employee performance and the connection between people and teams on a more positive, emotional level in tune with how work gets done today. Founded in 1999, the company is headquartered in Framingham, Mass., and Dublin, Ireland. About the WorkHuman Analytics Research Institute The WorkHuman Analytics Research Institute at Globoforce is dedicated to the understanding and application of global workplace practices that create more engaged, productive, and ultimately more human work cultures. In collaboration with leaders in the human resource industry and global research experts, the WorkHuman Analytics Research Institute publishes original research on current trends that affects and influences the employee experience, culture management, and leadership. To learn more: Visit: https://www.globoforce.com/ Read: https://resources.globoforce.com/globoforce-blog Follow: Twitter @Globoforce LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/globoforce Facebook: www.facebook.com/globoforce Instagram: www.instagram.com/globoforce View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005049/en/ Contacts: Globoforce Shweta Agarwal, 508-229-1541 Shweta.Agarwal@globoforce.com Percona Server for MySQL 8.0 Provides the Power and Capabilities Required for Enterprise Production Environments in an Affordable and Continually Innovated Open Source Solution RALEIGH, N.C., Oct. 31, 2018, a leader in open source database software and services, today announced Percona Server for MySQL 8.0, the latest version of the company's free, enhanced, drop-in replacement for MySQL Community Edition. Percona Server for MySQL 8.0 includes all the features of MySQL Community Edition 8.0, along with enterprise-class features from Percona that make it ideal for enterprise production environments. The latest release offers increased reliability, performance and security. MySQL databases remain a pillar of enterprise data centers. But as the amount of data collected continues to soar, and as the types of databases deployed for specific applications continue to expand, organizations require a powerful and cost-effective MySQL solution for their production environments. Percona meets this need with its mature, proven open source alternative to MySQL Community Edition. Percona also backs Percona Server for MySQL 8.0 and MySQL Community Edition with the support and consulting services enterprises need to achieve optimal performance and maximize the value they obtain from the software - all with lower cost and complexity. With more than 4,550,000 downloads, Percona Server for MySQL offers self-tuning algorithms and support for extremely high-performance hardware, delivering excellent performance and reliability for production environments. Percona Server for MySQL is trusted by thousands of enterprises to provide better performance. The following capabilities are unique to Percona Server for MySQL 8.0: Greater scalability and availability, enhanced backups, and increased visibility to improve performance, reliability and usability Parallel doublewrite functionality for greatly improved write performance, resulting in increased speed Additional write-optimized storage engine, MyRocks, which takes advantage of modern hardware and database technology to reduce storage requirements and maintenance costs, and increase ROI for both on-premises and cloud-based applications, delivered with a MySQL-compatible interface Enhanced encryption functionality - including an integration with Hashicorp Vault to simplify the management of encryption keys - for increased security Advanced PAM-based authentication, audit logging, and threadpool scalability - enterprise-grade features available in Percona Server for MySQL without a commercial license Percona Server for MySQL 8.0 also contains all the new features introduced in MySQL Community Edition 8.0, including: Greater Reliability - A new transactional data dictionary makes recovery from failure easier, providing users with a higher level of comfort that data will not be lost. The transactional data dictionary is now crash-safe and centralized. In addition, support for atomic Data Definition Language (DDL) statements ensures that all operations associated with a DDL transaction are committed or rejected as a unit. Enhanced Performance - New functions and expressions (along with Percona's parallel doublewrite buffer) improve overall performance, allowing users to see their data more quickly. Enhanced JSON functionality improves document storage and query capabilities, and the addition of Window functions provides greater flexibility for aggregation queries. Common Table Expressions (CTEs) enable improved query syntax for complex queries. Increased Security - The ability to collect a typical series of permission grant statements for a user into a defined role and then apply that role to a user in MySQL makes the database environment more secure from outside attack by allowing administrators to better manage access permissions for authorized users. SQL Roles also enable administrators to more easily and efficiently determine a set of privileges for multiple associated users, saving time and reducing errors. Expanded Queries - Percona Server for MySQL 8.0 provides support for spatial data types and indexes, as well as for Spatial Reference System (SRS), the industry-standard method for geospatial lookup. Percona Server for MySQL 8.0 will be available later this year. Percona - The Open Source Database Expert Percona is a leader in providing best-of-breed, enterprise-class support, consulting, managed services, training and software for MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, PostgreSQL and other open source databases in on-premises and cloud environments. An unbiased, trusted partner, Percona provides single-source expertise in multi-vendor environments that eliminates lock-in, increases agility and enables business growth. Quote Peter Zaitsev, Co-founder and CEO of Percona "MySQL is a critical part of enterprise application strategies, both on-premises and in cloud deployments, and MySQL 8.0 expanded the software's ease-of-use and versatility in production environments. Percona is committed to helping enterprises maximize the power and value of open source databases. As a free, fully compatible, enhanced, and open source drop-in replacement for any MySQL database, Percona Server for MySQL delivers greater value to enterprises with optimized performance, greater scalability and availability, enhanced backups and increased visibility." Company Information Press Contact Brigit Valencia For Percona About Percona With more than 3,000 customers worldwide, Percona is the only company that delivers enterprise-class solutions for MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, and PostgreSQL across traditional and cloud-based platforms. The company provides Software , Support , Consulting , and Managed Services to large, well-known global brands such as Cisco Systems, Time Warner Cable, Alcatel-Lucent, Rent the Runway and the BBC, as well as smaller enterprises looking to maximize application performance while streamlining database efficiencies. Well established as thought leaders, Percona experts author content for the Percona Database Performance Blog and the Percona Live Open Source Database Conferences draw attendees and expert technical speakers from around the world. For more information, visit www.percona.com . Percona is a registered trademark of Percona LLC. All other registered and unregistered trademarks in this document are the sole property of their respective owners. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, October 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 400 delegates from over 40 countries are expected to attend the 12th annual Global Residence and Citizenship Conference, which takes place this week (4-6 November) at the Mina A'Salam Hotel in Dubai. Hosted by leading international citizenship and residence advisory firm Henley & Partners, this annual event has become the world's largest and most significant conference on investment migration, bringing together presidents, prime ministers, senior government ministers and officials, leading academics, experienced industry professionals, and top-tier financial and business media. The 2018 conference program features sophisticated, cutting-edge content on the major developments shaping investment migration and geopolitics today, offering delegates the opportunity to engage with the leading minds and ideas driving the growing trend towards global citizenship and interconnectivity. (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/777552/12th_Global_Residence_Citizenship_Conference.jpg ) Dr. Christian H. Kalin, Group Chairman of Henley & Partners, says of the event's relevance: "Residence- and citizenship-by-investment programs are very much the new frontier in terms of freedom, flexibility, and future-readiness, both for the countries issuing these programs and for the individuals participating in them. The societal and economic value they are able to generate is truly extraordinary, which is why we are seeing such strong industry growth year-on-year. The industry as a whole, with residence and citizenship combined, is currently grossing roughly USD 18 billion per year, by our estimates, and we expect that we will hit the USD 20 billion mark very soon." Headlining the conference will be artificial intelligence sensation Sophia, the world's first-ever robot-citizen. Sophia will introduce an exclusive panel debate on the battle for digital supremacy being waged between the global superpowers and on what this new technological climate means for the future of global citizenship. Among the panelists participating will be Taavi Kotka, former CIO for the Government of Estonia and pioneer of the country's 'digital nation' and 'e-Residency' initiatives. The Moldova Citizenship-by-Investment (MCBI) program - the latest and most exciting new investment migration opportunity in Europe - will be officially launched at the conference. Minister of Economy and Infrastructure for the Republic of Moldova, H.E. Chiril Gaburici said, "The MCBI program will provide our economy with much-needed foreign direct investment that will enhance the daily lives of all Moldovans, while strict due diligence standards and compliance procedures will guarantee the credibility and sustainability of the program." Other notable key speakers include President of Montenegro, H.E. Milo ukanovic; the Hon. Dr. Timothy Harris, Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis; and Peter S. Vincent, Assistant Director General for International Policy at BORDERPOL and General Counsel for Thomson Reuters. The event will be co-hosted by Tariq Qureishy, Founder and CEO of MadTalks, Dubai, and Katie Fielder, Dubai-based journalist and broadcaster. In a talk entitled 'Nature, Nurture, and Nationality', Prof. Dr. Dimitry Kochenov will discuss the latest edition of the Henley & Partners - Kochenov Quality of Nationality Index, revealing how the quality of a nationality affects the global distribution and movement of wealth and talent. Other highly topical sessions in this year's program include 'A Changing World: Where Are We Going and How Are We Getting There?', 'Two Years with Trump: The New Trade Wars and What They Mean for Democracy and Investment Migration', and 'Stimulating Economic Growth through Transformative Foreign Direct Investment Policies'. This prestigious event will be co-hosted by Tariq Qureishy, Founder and CEO of MadTalks, Dubai, and Katie Fielder, Dubai-based journalist and broadcaster. The conference will conclude with a gala dinner on Tuesday 6 November, during which the 2018 winner of the Global Citizen Award will be announced. The award is presented each year to an inspiring individual who has made an extraordinary and courageous contribution to the global community. The full program of events for the 12th Global Residence and Citizenship Conference is available for download on Henley & Partners' website: henleyglobal.com/grcc2018-overview Notes to editors About Henley & Partners Henley & Partners is the global leader in residence and citizenship planning. Each year, hundreds of wealthy individuals, families, and their advisors rely on its expertise and experience in this area. The firm's highly qualified professionals work together as one team in over 30 offices worldwide. The concept of residence and citizenship planning was created by Henley & Partners in the 1990s. As globalization has expanded, residence and citizenship have become topics of significant interest among the increasing number of internationally mobile entrepreneurs and investors whom we proudly serve every day. The firm also runs a leading government advisory practice that has raised more than USD 7 billion in foreign direct investment. The firm has been involved in strategic consulting and in the design, set-up, and operation of the world's most successful residence and citizenship programs. henleyglobal.com Media contact: For further information and interview requests, please contact: Paddy Blewer Group Public Relations Director paddy.blewer@henleyglobal.com Landline: +44-207-811-5910 Mobile: +44-774-190-9957 Sarah Nicklin Senior Group Public Relations Manager sarah.nicklin@henleyglobal.com Landline: +27-21-850-0524 Mobile: +27-72-464-8965 LONDON, October 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Fidelity International, one of the world's leading investment solutions providers, will return as headline sponsor of Master Investor Show 2019. Hosted at London's Business Design Centre on Saturday 6th April 2019. (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/776378/Master_Investor_Show.jpg ) This year's Master Investor Show connected 4,000 signed-up delegates with the CEOs, founders and decision-makers of 100 global exhibiting companies through engaging keynote talk, workshops and networking. The event's success in connecting financial services companies with a high-quality investor audience, has led Fidelity to sponsor Master Investor Show for the third year in succession. Stuart Welch- Head of UK Personal Investing and Wealth Solutions at Fidelity International comments: "We are delighted to be supporting this superb event for the third year running. Delegates will once again have an excellent opportunity to benefit from the expertise of leading investment professionals and fund managers from across the industry, helping them in achieving their investment goals." As the headline 'Platinum Sponsor' for Master Investor Show 2019, Fidelity's Investment Director, Tom Stevenson will present a 30-minute keynote speech on the main-stage. Fidelity will also host two workshop sessions in the Auditorium as well as offering free appointments for attendees to meet with one of their Wealth Relationship Managers. Amanda Taylor, Head of Business Development at Master Investor, "We are delighted to partner with Fidelity for the third year running and look forward to hosting them at our 2019 event. Our event aims to provide a platform for companies and private investors to connect and we are grateful to Fidelity for sharing their expertise to help our attendees achieve their investment goals and get the most from their day." About Master Investor Ltd. Master Investor Ltd. is an investment media and events company that delivers independent, financial commentary and analysis to UK private investors and traders. The yearly Master Investor Show introduces its 5000+ private investor audience to companies they can invest into. It offers clients opportunities to generate leads to an audience with significant investable funds. Master Investor Ltd. is backed by visionary entrepreneur, Jim Mellon, amongst the top 10% in the Sunday Times Rich List. About Fidelity International Fidelity International offers world class investment solutions and retirement expertise. As a privately owned, independent company, investment is our only business. We are driven by the needs of our clients, not by shareholders. Our vision is to deliver innovative client solutions for a better future. We invest 235.1bn globally on behalf of clients in 26 countries across Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and South America. Our clients range from central banks, sovereign wealth funds, large corporates, financial institutions, insurers and wealth managers, to private individuals. In addition to asset management, we offer investment administration and guidance for employer benefit schemes, advisers and individuals in several countries. We are responsible for 80.5bn in assets under administration. Data as at 30 June 2018. LONDON, October 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Unmanned Cargo Aircraft (UCA) Systems Market Report 2019-2029 Forecasts for Long Range / High Payload Delivery Systems, Military Systems, Specialised / Irregular Delivery Systems, Urban Delivery Systems. Featuring Analysis of Technologies Including VTOL / STOL Capable Fixed Wing, Multi-Rotor and Rotor Wing sUAS, mUAS & lUAS The latest report from business intelligence provider Visiongain offers comprehensive analysis of the global unmanned cargo aircraft market. Visiongain assesses that this market will generate revenues of US$724m in 2019. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/523989/Visiongain_Logo.jpg ) How this report will benefit you Read on to discover how you can exploit the future business opportunities emerging in this sector. Visiongain's new study tells you and tells you NOW. In this updated report you will receive 280 in-depth tables, charts and graphs plus analysis of the leading companies and regions in this sector: North America Europe Asia-Pacific Latin America Middle East Africa The 333-page report provides clear detailed insight into the global unmanned cargo aircraft market. It reveals the key drivers and challenges affecting the market. By ordering and reading our report today you will be better informed and ready to act. Report Scope Global unmanned cargo aircraft market forecasts from 2019-2029 6 Regional unmanned cargo aircraft market forecasts from 2019-2029 further subdivided by the 4 submarkets - Unmanned cargo aircraft submarket forecasts from 2019-2029 at the global as well as regional level. - Long Range / High Payload Delivery Systems - Military Systems - Specialised / Irregular Delivery Systems - Urban Delivery Systems Analysis of the key factors driving growth in the global and regional level unmanned cargo aircraft markets from 2019-2029 Multiple detailed tables of projects and programmes in the unmanned cargo aircraft market by region Profiles of the leading 20 companies operating in or likely to enter the unmanned cargo aircraft market - AeroVironment Inc. - Airbus Group - Alphabet Inc. - Amazon.com Inc - Aurora Flight Sciences - Avio Aero - Boeing Company - Deutsche Post AG - Dronamics Ltd. - Honeywell International Inc. - Kaman Corporation - Leonardo-Finmeccanica - Lockheed Martin Corporation - Matternet - Nimbus S.r.l. - Raytheon Company - Singular Aircraft - Thales Group SA - United Parcel Service Zipline International Incorporated How will you benefit from this report? This report will keep your knowledge base up to speed. Don't get left behind This report will reinforce strategic decision decision-making based upon definitive and reliable market data You will learn how to exploit new technological trends You will be able to realise your company's full potential within the market You will better understand the competitive landscape and identify potential new business opportunities & partnerships Who should read this report? Anyone within the unmanned cargo aircraft value chain. UAV companies Military organisations Logistics and delivery companies CEO's COO's CIO's Business development managers Marketing managers Technologists Suppliers Investors Government agencies Contractors Visiongain's study is intended for anyone requiring commercial analyses for the unmanned cargo aircraft market. You will find data, trends and predictions. Buy our report today Unmanned Cargo Aircraft (UCA) Systems Market Report 2019-2029: Forecasts for Long Range / High Payload Delivery Systems, Military Systems, Specialised / Irregular Delivery Systems, Urban Delivery Systems. Featuring Analysis of Technologies Including VTOL / STOL Capable Fixed Wing, Multi-Rotor and Rotor Wing sUAS, mUAS & lUAS Avoid missing out by staying informed - order our report now. To request a report overview of this report please contact Sara Peerun atsara.peerun@visiongain.comor refer to our website:https://www.visiongain.com/report/unmanned-cargo-aircraft-uca-systems-market-report-2019-2029/ 3D Robotics AEL Sistemas SA AeroVironment Airbus Group SE Aircraft Philipp Group Alphabet Inc. Amazon Astral Aviation Limited Aviation Consulting Group Aurora Flight Sciences AVID LLC BAE/ Jetstream Boeing Boeing HorizonX BP Dajiang Innovation technology (DJI) Deutchse Lufthansa AG Deutsche Post AG DPD Group Dronamics Ltd. Ehang Elbit Systems Ltd. Emprende e-Mprende Enlightenment Capital EVO FEDEX Flipkart Flirtey Fokker Technologies Gavi Alliance GE Aviation Google inc. Heathrow Cargo Honeywell Aerospace Huntington Ingalls Industries Integra Aerial Services (INAS) Intel Inter American Investment Bank Israel Aerospace Industries Jakajima JD.com Kaman Aerospace KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Konelek L-3 Link Simulation & Training Leonardo SpA LightningStrike Lionbridge Capital SAS group Lockheed Martin Matternet Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Multilateral Investment Fund NATS NAVAIR Neya Systems Nimbus S.R.L. Northrop Grumman Ocean Aero Panoptes Systems Corporation Paramount Group Parrot SA Prime Air Proteus Puma AE Raytheon Company Redbird Reiner Stemme Utility Air-Systems GmbH Rohde & Schwarz Rolls-Royce PLC SESAR Sikorsky Aircraft Singular Aircraft Skyfront Sky-Watch SmartC2 Socionext Inc Swiss Post Swiss WorldCargo TenCate Textron Systems Uber Uplift Aeronautics UPS WESCAM Wilhelmsen Ships Service Williams Advanced Engineering Zipline Organisations Mentioned Abu Dhabi Autonomous Systems Investments Company (ADASI) Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transportation (CILT) Cranfield University Cybernetic Park of Santo Domingo (PCSD) Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Delft University of Technology Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt - German Aerospace Centre (DLR) Dominican Civil Aviation Institute (IDAC) Dominican Republic National Health Service Duke Engineering Research Institute Dutch National Aerospace Laboratory NLR European Shippers Council European Union (EU) Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) French Air Force (FAF) German Armed Forces Government of Malawi Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) IATA Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) McGill University Ministry of Higher Education Science and Technology (MESCyT) NASA National Robotics Engineering Center Oklahoma State University Royal Netherlands Air Force Royal Netherlands Army Royal Netherlands Navy Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (University of Technology) The Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research Alliance UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) Unicef University of South Wales University of Twente US Global World Health Organization To see a report overview please e-mail Sara Peerun on sara.peerun@visiongain.com TEL AVIV, Israel, October 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Unique Solution Incorporates Proprietary Artificial Intelligence Finscend, recognized as one of the most innovative fintech start-ups, will debut its Bank Dispute Platform (BDP) at the MoneyLIVE Nordic Banking conference, to be held in Copenhagen on November 6. The Finscend Bank Dispute Platform is an end-to-end solution for financial institutions that onboards, processes and resolves all credit card disputes. BDP is compatible with all current systems and easily integrates itself into all existing bank technology. "Currently, dispute processing is both unnecessarily tedious and exceedingly expensive," notes Aaron Lazor, Finscend's CEO and co-founder. "With our expertise, and through our extensive research of banking inefficiencies worldwide, we've developed a groundbreaking technology to fix these problems." Using proprietary Artificial Intelligence, BDP calculates a unique AI dispute-or-not (DoN) score that predicts the optimal outcome for each dispute. Equipped with real-time dashboards for individual customer service representatives as well as their supervisors, BDP is an efficient workflow tool that provides all relevant bank personnel with a full array of real-time analytics. The solution ensures that disputes are processed in accordance with Visa and MasterCard dispute resolution schemes, and meets all compliance and regulatory requirements. "Deployment of Finscend's BDP will standardize dispute processing within the banking ecosystem, streamline workflows and reduce operating costs by as much as 25 percent," Lazor concludes. "Simultaneously, it will significantly improve customer satisfaction in what is a very competitive market." http://www.finscend.com PR Contact: Reuben Eliaz, +1-773-312-4800, news@finscend.com Hamilton, Bermuda, October 31, 2018 Dear shareholders, We refer to the press announcement of October 1, 2018 describing the business combination between NAO and Horizon Maritime of Canada. In the October 1st announcement, NAO advised an ambition to execute a binding agreement within October 2018. The parties are now in agreement on the main terms of the combination. However, diligence processes are ongoing. The companies look forward to signing a binding agreement as soon as practically possible. 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," "intend," "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 management's 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. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. 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 in the PSV market, as a result of changes in the general market conditions of the oil and natural gas industry which influence charter hire rates and vessel values, demand in platform supply vessels, our operating expenses, including bunker prices, dry docking and insurance costs, governmental rules and regulations or actions taken by regulatory authorities as well as potential liability from pending or future litigation, general domestic and international political conditions, potential disruption of shipping routes due to accidents or political events, the availability of financing and refinancing, vessel breakdowns and instances of off-hire and other important factors described from time to time in the reports filed by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Contacts: Gary J. Wolfe Seward & Kissel LLP New York, USA Tel: +1 212 574 1223 Bjrn Giver, CFO Nordic American Offshore Ltd. Tel: +1 888 755 8391 or +47 91 35 00 91 Herbjrn Hansson, Executive Chairman Nordic American Offshore Ltd Tel: +1 866 805 9504 or +47 90 14 62 91 Web-site: www.nao.bm (http://www.nao.bm) Press Release (PDF) (http://hugin.info/159489/R/2223284/871233.pdf) This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: Nordic American Offshore Ltd via Globenewswire --Amended Agreement Now Covers the Current EU Member States (including the UK) plus Eight Other Countries-- Acerus Pharmaceuticals Corporation (TSX: ASP) ("Acerus" or the "Company") today announced the signing of an amendment to its existing licensing and supply agreement with medac Gesellschaft fur klinische Spezialpraparate mbH ("medac"), expanding the German pharmaceutical company's exclusive right to market NATESTO in the totality of the 28 current EU member countries (including the United Kingdom) as well as Norway, Liechtenstein, Iceland, Turkey (including Turkish Cyprus), Australia, New Zealand, Israel and South Africa. In addition, Acerus is pleased to report that medac has submitted a dossier for NATESTO in the first 21 European Member States under the Decentralised Procedure (DCP) on September 28th, 2018. The original agreement with medac spanned 15 European countries including Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Italy. medac is a German pharmaceutical company with business in over 80 countries and more than 1,200 employees worldwide. "With the signing of this amendment Acerus has now secured a presence for NATESTO in 71 countries worldwide, supporting our goal of making NATESTO a global brand," said Ed Gudaitis, President and Chief Executive Officer of Acerus. "Consolidating NATESTO's European commercialization efforts under a single, experienced partner like medac, should yield meaningful synergies once sales begin." "We are very pleased to announce the expansion of our partnership with Acerus. This development enables us to provide patients throughout the EU and beyond with an innovative product", said Heiner Will, medac's Chief Marketing Officer. "With its novel nasal route of administration", he added, "NATESTO is offering an important advance in improving the quality of life of patients suffering from hypogonadism." Under the terms of the amendment, Acerus will receive an additional non-refundable one-time upfront fee upon signing. Pursuant to the terms of the original agreement, Acerus still expects to receive regulatory milestone payments upon medac receiving marketing approval in certain countries, as well as milestone payments based on achieving sales targets. In total, Acerus is eligible to receive up to 11,000,000 in milestone payments. Acerus will oversee the manufacturing of NATESTO and, in addition, will receive a supply price for the product. If approved, NATESTO will be the first and only testosterone nasal gel for androgen replacement therapy in adult males for conditions associated with a deficiency or absence of endogenous testosterone (hypogonadism) in Europe.1 References 1. NATESTO Product Monograph, October 25th, 2016 and Rogol et al. J Andrology 2015, 4(1), 46. About NATESTO (Testosterone) Nasal Gel NATESTO is a nasal gel formulation of testosterone developed by Acerus Pharmaceutical Corporation and indicated as a replacement therapy for men diagnosed with conditions associated with a deficiency or absence of endogenous testosterone (hypogonadism). It is the first and only nasally-administered testosterone product approved by the U.S. FDA, Health Canada and South Korea and available in a 'no-touch' dispenser with a metered dose pump. A copy of the NATESTO Canadian product monograph can be found at: http://www.aceruspharma.com/English/products-and-pipeline/NATESTO/default.aspx. For further information, specific to the U.S. product dosing and administration, please visit: www.NATESTO.com. About Acerus Acerus Pharmaceuticals Corporation is a Canadian-based specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development, manufacture, marketing and distribution of innovative, branded products that improve patient experience, with a primary focus in the field of men's and women's health. The Company commercializes its products via its own salesforce in Canada, and through a global network of licensed distributors in the U.S. and other territories. Acerus' shares trade on TSX under the symbol ASP. For more information, visit www.aceruspharma.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Information in this press release that is not current or historical factual information may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of securities laws. Implicit in this information are assumptions regarding our future operational results. These assumptions, although considered reasonable by the company at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect. Readers are cautioned that actual performance of the company is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including with respect to the regulatory approval of NATESTOin Europe and the achievement of the milestone payments by Acerus, and could differ materially from what is currently expected as set out above. For more exhaustive information on these risks and uncertainties you should refer to our annual information form dated March 20, 2018 that is available at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information contained in this press release is based on our current estimates, expectations and projections, which we believe are reasonable as of the current date. You should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. While we may elect to, we are under no obligation and do not undertake to update this information at any particular time, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities law. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005071/en/ Contacts: Tricia Symmes Chief Operating Officer Acerus Pharmaceuticals Corporation tsymmes@ceruspharma.com (416) 509-2116 Capital for Colleagues plc / EPIC: CFCP / Market: NEX / Sector: Investment 31 October 2018 CAPITAL FOR COLLEAGUES PLC ('Capital for Colleagues' or the 'Company') DIRECTORS' INTERESTS Capital for Colleagues, the investment vehicle focused on opportunities in the Employee Owned Business ('EOB') sector, has been notified that Piccadilly SIP Trustee Limited has acquired 11,250 ordinary shares of 40p each in the Company ('Ordinary Shares') at a price of 44p per share pursuant to the Company's Share Incentive Plan. John Eckersley and Alistair Currie, both of whom are Executive Directors of the Company, are each interested in 5,625 of the 11,250 Ordinary Shares acquired for the Share Incentive Plan and their interests in the Company's issued share capital are now as follows: Ordinary Shares % John Eckersley 499,348 3.23 Alistair Currie 373,850 2.42 The Directors of the Company are responsible for the contents of this announcement. **ENDS** For further information, please visit www.capitalforcolleagues.com or contact: CAPITAL FOR COLLEAGUES PLC Richard Bailey, Chairman John Eckersley, Chief Executive 0161 464 3260 PETERHOUSE CAPITAL LIMITED Mark Anwyl Duncan Vasey 020 7469 0930 Capital for Colleagues Capital for Colleagues is an investment company focused on the UK EOB sector. The Company has a proven management team, with a wide network of contacts and affiliates, as well as established access to investment opportunities, enabling the Company to execute its strategy and capitalise on EOB-focused investment opportunities. The Company's joint venture, Castlefield Corporate Advisory Partners, educates and assists companies which are looking to launch employee ownership schemes, advising them, amongst other things, on how to secure investment and achieve their objectives. Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014. Upon the publication of this announcement via a Regulatory Information Service, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain. Notification and public disclosure of transactions by persons discharging managerial responsibilities and persons closely associated with them. 1 Details of the person discharging managerial responsibilities / person closely associated a) Name John Eckersley 2 Reason for the notification a) Position/status Chief Executive of Capital for Colleagues plc b) Initial notification /Amendment Initial 3 Details of the issuer, emission allowance market participant, auction platform, auctioneer or auction monitor a) Name Capital for Colleagues plc b) LEI 213800K2JRG9LQKQTM98 4 Details of the transaction(s): section to be repeated for (i) each type of instrument; (ii) each type of transaction; (iii) each date; and (iv) each place where transactions have been conducted a) Description of the financial instrument, type of instrument Identification code Ordinary Shares of 40p each ISIN: GB00BGCZ2V99 b) Nature of the transaction Acquisition of Ordinary Shares by SIP Trustee c) Price(s) and volume(s) 5,625 Ordinary Shares at 44p per share d) Aggregated information - Aggregated volume - Price n/a (single transaction) e) Date of the transaction 30 October 2018 f) Place of the transaction NEX Exchange Growth Market VAUGHAN, Ontario, October 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- CannTrust Holdings Inc. ("CannTrust" or the "Company") (TSX: TRST), a licensed producer of cannabis, is pleased to announce the appointment of John T. Kaden as a Director of the Company. John T. Kaden is the co-Founder, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Navy Capital Green Management LLC., a global investment firm specializing in public and private investments in the emerging legal cannabis industry. Prior to this, Mr. Kaden was the co-Manager and Chief Investment Officer for Northwoods Capital Management LLC, a TMT-focused global hedge fund. Prior to joining Northwoods, Mr. Kaden was the Founder and Managing Partner of Cynthion Partners, a global macro hedge fund, from 2006 through the end of 2013. Prior to founding Cynthion, Mr. Kaden was an Associate in the Strategic Division of Blackrock. Mr. Kaden began his career as a macro strategist for The G7 Group, a global consulting firm that advises its clients on macroeconomic and political developments that affect financial markets. Mr. Kaden graduated Magna Cum Laude with an A.B. from Harvard University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. "I am delighted to join the board of CannTrust which I believe is positioned to be one of the leading companies, not only in Canada's medical and recreational cannabis markets, but also among the earliest multinational corporations positioned to lead this rapidly emerging global industry," said John T. Kaden, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer, Navy Capital, LLC. "I have known John for over two years and appreciate his vision, industry depth and capital markets expertise. We look forward to his guidance as we continue our rapid expansion in Canada and the global medical markets," said Eric Paul, CannTrust's Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board. About CannTrust CannTrust - a front-runner in the cannabis industry, a federally regulated licensed producer and proudly a Canadian company - is leading the Canadian and global market in producing standardized cannabis products. Started as Canada's only pharmacist-founded medical cannabis producer, CannTrust brings more than 40 years of pharmacy and healthcare experience to the medical cannabis industry. CannTrust currently operates its 450,000 sq. ft. Niagara Perpetual Harvest Facility. The 600,000 sq. ft. greenhouse expansion has begun and is fully funded. The industry's broadest product portfolio is prepared and packaged at the 60,000 sq. ft. manufacturing Centre of excellence in Vaughan, Ontario. CannTrust is ready for Cannabis 2.0, and is currently developing new products for future verticals that span the medical, recreational, beauty, wellness and pet markets. CannTrust is committed to research and innovation, as well as contributing to the growing body of evidence-based research regarding the use and efficacy of cannabis. Its product development teams along with its exclusive global pharma partner, Apotex Inc., are diligently innovating and developing products that will make it easier for patients to use medical cannabis. CannTrust supports ongoing patient education about medical cannabis and has a compassionate use program to support patients with financial needs. For more information, please visit: http://www.canntrust.ca. Forward Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation which are based upon CannTrust's current internal expectations, estimates, projections, assumptions and beliefs and views of future events. Forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "expect", "likely", "may", "will", "should", "intend", "anticipate", "potential", "proposed", "estimate" and other similar words, including negative and grammatical variations thereof, or statements that certain events or conditions "may", "would" or "will" happen, or by discussions of strategy. The forward-looking information in this news release is based upon the expectations, estimates, projections, assumptions and views of future events which management believes to be reasonable in the circumstances. Forward-looking information includes estimates, plans, expectations, opinions, forecasts, projections, targets, guidance or other statements that are not statements of fact. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to future product offerings, internal expectations, expectations with respect to actual production volumes, expectations for future growing capacity and the completion of any capital project or expansions. Forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks, including, without limitation, risks associated with general economic conditions; adverse industry events; loss of markets; future legislative and regulatory developments; inability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources, and/or inability to access sufficient capital on favourable terms; the cannabis industry in Canada and globally generally; the ability of CannTrust to implement its business strategies; competition; crop failure; and other risks. Any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and, except as required by law, CannTrust does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for CannTrust to predict all such factors. When considering these forward-looking statements, readers should keep in mind the risk factors and other cautionary statements in CannTrust's Annual Information Form dated March 29, 2018 (the "AIF") and filed with the applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities on SEDAR at http://www.sedar.com. The risk factors and other factors noted in the AIF could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those described in any forward-looking information. The TSX does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Copyright 2017 CannTrust Holdings Inc. or to arrange an interview, please contact: Sybil Eastman at Strategic Objectives. Tel: (416)366-7735 X254 Email: sybil.eastman@strategicobjectives.com Second Investment in Huai'an Marks Third Joint Venture with Zhongliang Real Estate DALLAS and BEIJING, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Century Bridge Capital announced today that it has invested in a joint venture real estate development for a middle-income, residential project in Huai'an, a Tier 3 city in northern Jiangsu Province, China. The investment will be made through a joint venture with Zhongliang Real Estate Group. Commenting on the investment Century Bridge CEO, Tom Delatour, noted, "Market dynamics in Huai'an continue to be attractive with strong housing demand and low inventory forecast for the short and medium term. In addition this second Huai'an joint venture development with Zhongliang allows us to leverage our combined sales and development teams' resources over two projects and further enhance the overall profitability of these two investments." Century Bridge President, Wei Deng, commented, "A key component of Century Bridge's strategy is the development of long-term relationships with trusted local partners. We are pleased to be commencing our third joint venture with Zhongliang, with whom we recently announced our initial investment in Huai'an and with whom we have partnered on our Xuzhou development project which we announced in May. Zhongliang has been developing projects in China for 26 years and is ranked as a top 25 real estate developer nationwide by the State Council Research & Development Center and China Index Academy." KEY FACTS Huai'an - A vibrant Tier 3 city that benefits from steady infrastructure investment and stable economic growth. GDP grew 7.4% in 2017 and the city has experienced steady population growth for the past five years, supporting consistent long-term demand for residential housing. Established in-fill location - The project is located in an in-fill location on the southside of the city three kilometers south of the other Huai'an project on which Zhongliang and Century Bridge collaborated. The benefits of brand recognition and shared development resources such as common sales centers and the same sales team will allow us to leverage the value of our joint resources in our second investment with Zhongliang. Transportation Infrastructure and Economic Growth - Two new high-speed railway stations currently under construction will connect the city with the high-speed rail system extending from Shanghai to Beijing . Huai'an Airport which began operations in 2010 is currently undergoing its first expansion. As one of the cities within the Yangtze River Delta region, Huai'an and the Huai'an Economic Development Zone are a part of the business cluster that supports many global enterprises as their global manufacturing base. to . Huai'an Airport which began operations in 2010 is currently undergoing its first expansion. As one of the cities within the Yangtze River Delta region, Huai'an and the Huai'an Economic Development Zone are a part of the business cluster that supports many global enterprises as their global manufacturing base. Amenities - Hospitals and schools for children of all ages are a short walk away. Residents also have easy access to the largest park in Lianshui, to the northeast. A commercial area adjacent to the site is planned to be developed in to a multifunctional retail center with retail shops and services providing an additional amenity for the residents of the project. The Lianshui High-speed Railway Station, scheduled to open in 2020, is a 20-minute drive from the Project and the Huai'an Lianshui Airport is a 25-minute drive away. Personal Income Growth - Average per capita urban disposable income in Huai'an has grown at an annual rate of 7.5% since 2012 reaching RMB 32,976 in 2017. During the same period, housing prices have increased at a CAGR of 3.3% resulting in improved housing affordability with a price-to-income ratio of 5.6 in 2017. in 2017. During the same period, housing prices have increased at a CAGR of 3.3% resulting in improved housing affordability with a price-to-income ratio of 5.6 in 2017. Development - The $125 million project includes above ground gross floor area of 154,897 square meters (1,667,311 square feet) on a site of 89,287 square meters (961,085 square feet). project includes above ground gross floor area of 154,897 square meters (1,667,311 square feet) on a site of 89,287 square meters (961,085 square feet). Residential - Will comprise approximately 91% of the above ground gross floor area of the project with 141,293 square meters (1,520,878 square feet) that will be developed into 344 high-rise units, 216 mid-rise units, 154 low-rise units, 240 multi-story units and 368 SOHO units (approximately 1,322 units). Century Bridge is a private equity firm with offices in Beijing, China and Dallas, Texas. The firm is focused exclusively on investment in the middle-income, residential real estate sector in China's growing Tier 2 and 3 cities. www.centurybridge.com PRESS CONTACT: COMPANY CONTACT: Guy Lawrence Jeff Tucker Ross & Lawrence Century Bridge Capital 212-308-3333 214-270-2121 gblawrence@rosslawpr.com jtucker@centurybridge.com Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/777227/Century_Bridge_Capital.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/348507/century_bridge_capital_logo.jpg NET ASSET VALUE BLACKROCK COMMODITIES INCOME INVESTMENT TRUST PLC 54930040ALEAVPMMDC31 The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock Commodities Income Investment Trust plc at close of business on 30 October 2018 were: 77.21p Capital only 78.22p Including current year income Notes: 1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis. 2. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date. 3. Following the Buyback of 37,897 ordinary shares on 22 October 2018, the Company now has 116,126,515 Ordinary Shares in issue (excluding 2,839,485 Ordinary Shares which are held in Treasury). 4. For the latest daily net asset value, previous month end performance statistics, asset allocation and ten largest holdings of the BlackRock managed Investment Trusts; see BLRKINDEX on Reuters or page 8800 on ICB (Topic 3). NET ASSET VALUE BLACKROCK GREATER EUROPE INVESTMENT TRUST PLC 5493003R8FJ6I76ZUW55 The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock Greater Europe Investment Trust plc at close of business on 30 October 2018 were: 341.54p Capital only (undiluted) 341.54p Capital only (Diluted for treasury shares) 345.61p Including current year income (undiluted) 345.61p Including current year income (Diluted for treasury shares) Notes: 1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis. 2. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date. 3. Following the Tender Offer of 2,317,172 ordinary shares on 01 June 2018, the Company now has 86,459,691 Ordinary Shares in issue (excluding 23,869,247 Ordinary Shares which are held in Treasury). 4. For the latest daily net asset value, previous month end performance statistics, asset allocation and ten largest holdings of the BlackRock managed Investment Trusts; see BLRKINDEX on Reuters or page 8800 on ICB (Topic 3). NET ASSET VALUE BLACKROCK WORLD MINING TRUST PLC LNFFPBEUZJBOSR6PW155 The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock World Mining Trust plc at close of business on 30 October 2018 were: 384.48p Capital only (undiluted) 394.95p Including current year income (undiluted) Notes: 1. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date. 2. Following the buyback of 25,000 ordinary shares on 23 October 2018, the Company has 176,330,242 ordinary shares in issue, excluding 16,681,600 which are held in treasury. 3. For the latest daily net asset value, previous month end performance statistics, asset allocation and ten largest holdings of the BlackRock managed Investment Trusts; see BLRKINDEX on Reuters or page 8800 on ICB (Topic 3). 4. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis. NET ASSET VALUE BLACKROCK THROGMORTON TRUST PLC 5493003B7ETS1JEDPF59 The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock Throgmorton Trust plc at close of business on 30 October 2018 were: 514.68p Capital only 522.63p Including current year income 514.68p Capital only (adjusted for treasury shares) 522.63p Including current year income (adjusted for treasury shares) Notes: 1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis. 2. The Company's issued share capital comprises 73,130,326 Ordinary Shares and 7,400,000 Treasury Shares. 3. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date. NET ASSET VALUE BLACKROCK EMERGING EUROPE PLC 549300OGTQA24Y3KMI14 The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock Emerging Europe plc at close of business on 30 October 2018 were: 405.47c per share (US cents) - Capital only 318.49p per share (pence sterling) - Capital only 417.24c per share (US cents) - Including current year income 327.75p per share (pence sterling) - Including current year income Notes: 1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis. 2. Revenue items included in net asset value. 3. Following the cancellation of 400,000 treasury shares on 17 February 2017, the Company's share capital consists of 35,916,028 Ordinary shares (excluding 5,000,000 ordinary shares held in treasury) carrying one vote each. 4. As announced on 17 August 2018, the Company intends to put forward proposals which will result in the liquidation of the Company's assets. Effective 17 August 2018 the daily valuation includes an accrual in respect of expected costs associated with the liquidation. This accrual accounts for costs directly attributable to the liquidation. It is expected disposal costs will also be encountered while selling down the portfolio however such costs cannot be reliably estimated until the sale is executed. Consequently disposal costs have not been accrued in the valuation at this point." NET ASSET VALUE BLACKROCK NORTH AMERICAN INCOME TRUST PLC 549300WWOCXSC241W468 The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock North American Income Trust plc at close of business on 30 October 2018 were: 173.30p Capital only 174.70p Including current year income Notes: 1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis. 2. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date. 3. Following the buyback of 75,000 ordinary shares on 14 June 2017, the Company has 68,874,044 ordinary shares in issue, excluding 31,487,261 which are held in treasury. NET ASSET VALUE BLACKROCK LATIN AMERICAN INVESTMENT TRUST PLC UK9OG5Q0CYUDFGRX4151 The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock Latin American Investment Trust plc at close of business on 30 October 2018 were: 664.61c per share (US cents) - Capital only 664.61c per share (US cents) - Including current year income XD 522.05p per share (pence sterling) Capital only 522.05p per share (pence sterling) - Including current year income XD Notes: 1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis. 2. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date. 3. Following the Buyback of 20,000 ordinary shares on 24 May 2018, the Company now has 39,259,620 Ordinary Shares in issue (excluding 2,181,662 Ordinary Shares which are held in Treasury). 4. For the latest daily net asset value, previous month end performance statistics, asset allocation and ten largest holdings of the BlackRock managed Investment Trusts; see BLRKINDEX on Reuters or page 8800 on ICB (Topic 3). NET ASSET VALUE BLACKROCK INCOME AND GROWTH INVESTMENT TRUST PLC 5493003YBY59H9EJLJ16 The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock Income and Growth Investment Trust plc at close of business on 30 October 2018 were: 187.18p Capital only (undiluted) 191.81p Including current year income (undiluted) Notes: 1. Following the buyback of 41,500 ordinary shares on 08 October 2018, the Company has 24,059,668 ordinary shares in issue excluding 8,874,264 shares in treasury. 2. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis, with the exception of the holding in Patisserie Valerie which has been valued at a directors' valuation following its suspension from trading on AIM on 10 Oct. The portfolio's holding in Patisserie Valerie at 30 October 2018 represents 0.16% of the Company's total portfolio following this revaluation 3. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date. NET ASSET VALUE BLACKROCK SMALLER COMPANIES TRUST PLC 549300MS535KC2WH4082 The unaudited net asset values for BlackRock Smaller Companies Trust plc at close of business on 30 October 2018 were: 1375.80p Capital only and including debt at par value 1368.66p Capital only and including debt at fair value 1401.71p Including current year income and debt at par value 1394.56p Including current year income and debt at fair value Notes: 1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis. 2. The total number of ordinary shares in issue excluding treasury shares is 47,879,792. The total amount of ordinary shares held in treasury is 2,113,731. 3. For the latest daily net asset value, previous month end performance statistics, asset allocation and ten largest holdings of the BlackRock managed Investment Trusts; see BLRKINDEX on Reuters or page 8800 on ICB (Topic 3). NET ASSET VALUE BLACKROCK FRONTIERS INVESTMENT TRUST PLC 5493003K5E043LHLO706 The unaudited net asset values for the ordinary shares of BlackRock Frontiers Investment Trust plc at close of business on 30 October 2018 were: 161.92c Capital only USD (cents) 127.19p Capital only Sterling (pence) 169.00c Including current year income USD (cents) 132.75p Including current year income Sterling (pence) Notes: 1. Investments have been valued on a bid price basis. 2. Revenue items included in net asset value, with dividends payable deducted on the ex-dividend date. 3. Following the share issuance of 250,000 ordinary shares on 16th October 2018, the Company has 203,491,108 ordinary shares in issue. LONDON, Oct 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- CRU is pleased to announce that Fertilizer Latino Americano 2019 takes place on the 28-30 January 2019, at the Hilton Reforma, Mexico City. This industry-leading conference attracts 700 leading fertilizer producers, traders, distributors and consumers from 50 countries, to trade fertilizer products with Latin America's huge agricultural sector.Latin America accounts for 8% of global nitrogen: 20% of global potassium consumption; and 16% of global phosphate fertilizer consumption. As well as the extensive business opportunities, the comprehensive three-day agenda will provide delegates with up-to-date market outlooks; developments in supply, demand, and logistics; the latest technologies; trade; and dedicated sessions on specialty fertilizers. Dominic Halahan, Portfolio Director for Fertilizer Events at CRU said, "The Fertilizer Latino Americano conference is by far the largest and most commercially significant gathering of the region's fertilizer industry. Mexico City is a popular location for hosting the conference and 2019 will be another excellent meeting." Running alongside the conference is an exhibition showcasing the latest products and services. To get involved please contact Paul Terry at paul.terry@crugroup.com or call +44-(0)-20-7903-2131. A private meeting room, bookable in advance, will also allow you to schedule in vital meetings in ahead of the conference. CRU is delighted to have OCP, Indorama, ICL and Ma'aden already confirmed as sponsors, and the company is also working closely with ANACOFER, International Fertilizer Industry Association, Fertilizar, and Abisolo on the event. Please visit www.fla-conference.com to find more details and to and book your place. The Fertilizer Latino Americano conference is produced in collaboration with Argus. Read more about CRU: http://bit.ly/About_CRU About CRU: CRU offers unrivalled business intelligence on the global metals, mining and fertilizer industries through market analysis, price assessments, consultancy and events. Since our foundation by Robert Perlman in 1969, we have consistently invested in primary research and robust methodologies, and developed expert teams in key locations worldwide, including in hard-to-reach markets such as China. CRU employs over 260 experts and has more than 10 offices around the world, in Europe, the Americas, China, Asia and Australia - our office in Beijing opened in 2004. When facing critical business decisions, you can rely on our first-hand knowledge to give you a complete view of a commodity market. And you can engage with our experts directly, for the full picture and a personalised response. CRU - big enough to deliver a high-quality service, small enough to care about all of our customers. About CRU Events: CRU Events has a well-established portfolio of events for the metals, mining and fertilizer industries, including Wire & Cable, World Optical Fibre & Cable, World Copper and CRU Ryan's Notes Ferroalloys. Letter to the Nordic PMs (http://hugin.info/134793/R/2223029/871079.pdf) Picture Nordic CEO launch (http://hugin.info/134793/R/2223029/871254.jpg) This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: Yara International ASA via Globenewswire The group consists of the CEOs of Equinor, Hydro, the GSMA, Islandsbanki, Nokia, SAS, Swedbank, Telenor Group, Telia Company, Vestas and Yara International. The CEOs have joined forces to highlight the need for new business models that will drive the transition to a 21st century economy aligned with the ethical, social and environmental priorities of our time. The initiative also creates a platform for the Nordic Prime Ministers to engage directly with the CEOs on how to move from sustainability as a compliance exercise to purpose driven companies. A key objective is to explore ways to deliver more impact through collaboration and responsible business practices."I applaud this joint Nordic initiative. Collaboration is indeed the magic formula for reaching the UN sustainability goals. We learn again and again, that through collaboration we achieve results that exceed our imagination. For instance, thanks to a joint effort between Yara, Kongsberg, SINTEF, Kalmar and the Norwegian Government, we can soon launch the world's first autonomous and emission free container ship. This we would never have achieved alone," says Svein Tore Holsether, President and CEO of Yara.The CEOs have committed to aligning their business strategies with the UN SDGs and to exploring opportunities for collaboration. The arena will facilitate experience exchange, shared learning and explore how the companies can best measure effects and maximize impact of their efforts.In the early stages of forming the initiative, the CEOs sent a joint letter to the Nordic Prime Ministers in June 2018 announcing their ambitions. This resulted in today's meeting with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who is also a co-chair of the UN's Global SDG Advocate group, during Nordic Council's 70joint session. In the meeting, the CEOs presented the shared ambitions on behalf of the initiative and an updated joint letter. The group also discussed the importance of global trade and public-private partnerships as vital preconditions for realizing the UN SDGs.Read the letter from the Nordic CEOs for a Sustainable Future to the Nordic Prime Ministers and their individual statements here (https://www.nordic-ceos.com/).Kristin Nordal, Head of External Communications, YARAMobile: +4790015550Email: Kristin.nordal@yara.com (mailto:Kristin.nordal@yara.com)In collaboration with customers and partners, Yara grows knowledge to responsibly feed the world and protect the planet, to fulfill its vision of a collaborative society, a world without hunger and a planet respected.Our crop nutrition solutions and precision farming offerings allow farmers to increase yields and improve product quality while reducing environmental impact. Our environmental and industrial solutions improve air quality and reduce emissions, and are key ingredients in the production of a wide range of products. We foster an open culture of diversity and inclusion that promotes the safety and integrity of our employees, contractors, business partners, and society at large.Founded in 1905 to solve emerging famine in Europe, Yara has a worldwide presence with more than 17,000 employees and operations in over 60 countries. In 2017, Yara reported revenues of USD 11.4 billion.www.yara.com (http://www.yara.com/) (Oslo, 31 October 2018) Today, a group of Nordic-based CEOs announced a joint initiative to speed up the realisation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Representatives from the group presented their shared ambitions to Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg during the 70th Nordic Council session in Oslo. The group consists of the CEOs of Equinor, Hydro, the GSMA, Islandsbanki, Nokia, SAS, Swedbank, Telenor Group, Telia Company, Vestas and Yara International. The CEOs have joined forces to highlight the need for new business models that will drive the transition to a 21st century economy aligned with the ethical, social and environmental priorities of our time. The initiative also creates a platform for the Nordic Prime Ministers to engage directly with the CEOs on how to move from sustainability as a compliance exercise to purpose driven companies. A key objective is to explore ways to deliver more impact through collaboration and responsible business practices. "Technology creates new opportunities to solve massive challenges connected to health, education and inequality. Businesses and the public sector play a key role in facilitating positive impact on society - that's why we need close and constructive collaboration across sectors and industries. Several of the major Nordic companies have acknowledged this and, as Telenor, aligned their business strategies to one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We want to be ambassadors of change and encourage more CEOs and business leaders to join in. This isn't about charity, it's about facilitating long-term sustainable growth," says Sigve Brekke, President & CEO, Telenor Group. Anchored in business strategies The CEOs have committed to aligning their business strategies with the UN SDGs and to exploring opportunities for collaboration. The arena will facilitate experience exchange, shared learning and explore how the companies can best measure effects and maximize impact of their efforts. Telenor Group's core business of connectivity is a driver for reducing inequalities. The UN SDG #10, Reduced Inequalities is ingrained in the company's strategic direction and Telenor has committed to concrete contributions by 2020. These include facilitating seven million mobile birth registrations in Asia, providing online safety training for 4 million children, and delivering 100,000 hours of supply chain sustainability training. Joint letter to the Nordic Prime Ministers In the early stages of forming the initiative, the CEOs sent a joint letter to the Nordic Prime Ministers in June 2018 announcing their ambitions. This resulted in today's meeting with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who is also a co-chair of the UN's Global SDG Advocate group, during Nordic Council's 70th joint session. In the meeting, the CEOs presented the shared ambitions on behalf of the initiative and an updated joint letter. The group also discussed the importance of global trade and public-private partnerships as vital preconditions for realizing the UN SDGs. Read the letter from the Nordic CEOs for a Sustainable Future to the Nordic Prime Ministers and their individual statements here (https://www.nordic-ceos.com/). Download high res image here (https://www.flickr.com/photos/telenorgroup/43829769690%20). Press contact: Hanne Knudsen Director, Media Relations, Telenor Group M: +4790804015 | hanne.knudsen@telenor.com (mailto:hanne.knudsen@telenor.com) This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: Telenor via Globenewswire About Premier Biomedical, Inc. Premier Biomedical, Inc. (OTC: BIEI) is a research-based publicly traded company that intends to discover and develop medical treatments for a wide range of diseases in humans. Premier has obtained, via exclusive license agreements, the technology behind three granted US Patents, multiple pending provisional patents. Founded in 2010, Premier has partnered with the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). In 2016, the company began developing a line of all-natural pain relief products which they began selling in early 2017 to address the rising opioid addiction problem. The company's R&D efforts are centered in El Paso, TX, and their business offices are in Western Pennsylvania. The Company is a fully-reporting issuer whose common stock trades on the OTC marketplace maintained by OTC Markets Group, Inc. under the ticker symbol "BIEI." For more information please visit our website: http://www.premierbiomedical.com/. Safe Harbor Notice Certain statements contained herein are 'forward-looking statements' (as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995). Premier Biomedical, Inc. cautions that statements, and assumptions made in this news release constitute forward-looking statements and makes no guarantee of future performance. Forward-looking statements are based on estimates and opinions of management at the time statements are made. These statements may address issues that involve significant risks, uncertainties, estimates made by management. Actual results could differ materially from current projections or implied results. Premier Biomedical, Inc. undertakes no obligation to revise these statements following the date of this news release. Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 31, 2018) - CGX Energy Inc. ("CGX Energy") (TSXV: OYL) announced today that it and its subsidiary CGX Resources Inc. (collectively, the "Company") have entered into an agreement with Japan Drilling Co., Ltd. ("JDC") to settle all liabilities claimed by JDC from the Company arising from a drilling contract and subsequent settlement arrangements between the parties as detailed in note 9 to the Company's interim consolidated financial results for the three and six-month periods ended June 30, 2018 posted under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. The agreement with JDC is one step in a series of transactions that CGX Energy is seeking to undertake in order to restructure its liabilities and provide for sufficient working capital to enable CGX Energy to give effect to its business plan. Under the terms of the agreement, the Company is proposing to pay JDC 45% of the principal amount of the funds claimed (or US$6,637,536.80), together with interest accrued on such reduced amount in the sum of US$1,266,500.08 (or US$7,904,036.88 in the aggregate), in order to fully satisfy all liabilities. The completion of this transaction is conditional on CGX Energy successfully completing a financing, which condition may be waived by the Company. The agreement between JDC and the Company will terminate if the closing of the transaction is not completed on or before March 31, 2019. The failure to complete this transaction will result in any liabilities owed to JDC remaining outstanding which liabilities would continue to incur interest. To the knowledge of the Company, JDC owns 14,752,764 CGX Energy common shares (or approximately 13.36% of the outstanding CGX Energy shares). As a result, the transaction is considered to be a related party transaction under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 ("MI 61-101"), which absent exemptions would obligate CGX Energy to obtain a formal valuation and obtain approval from a minority of the CGX Energy shareholders. CGX Energy is exempted from the formal valuation requirement pursuant to section 5.5(b) of MI 61-101 and from the minority approval requirement pursuant to section 5.7(1)(c) of MI 61-101 on the basis that JDC beneficially owns voting securities of CGX Energy that carry fewer voting rights than Frontera Energy Corp. who, in the circumstances of the transaction, is not an interested party, is arm's length to JDC and supports the transaction. About CGX Energy CGX Energy is a Canadian-based oil and gas exploration company focused on the exploration of oil in the Guyana-Suriname Basin. NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. Forward-Looking Statements: This news release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "would", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur in the future. Forward looking statements herein include statements regarding the closing of the transaction between JDC and the Company. These forward-looking statements are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by CGX Energy, including its expectation that it will be able to complete an appropriate financing on a timely basis. CGX Energy believes the expectations and assumptions on which it develops forward-looking statements are reasonable; however, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements as there can be no assurance they will prove to be correct. No assurance can be given that the Company will be able to complete a financing or otherwise complete the terms of the transaction agreed to with JDC. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. In addition, other risks that may affect the forward-looking statements in this news release are outlined further in the CGX Energy's management discussion and analysis and annual information form on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and CGX Energy undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws. For further information, please contact: Brooks Lyons, Manager, Commercial & Business Development at (832) 300-3200 or blyons@cgxenergy.com or Tralisa Maraj, Chief Financial Officer at (832) 300-3200. AXA Property Trust Limited To Company Announcements Date 31 October 2018 Company AXA Property Trust Limited Subject Unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements Following the announcement made by the Company on 19thOctober 2018, the Directors are pleased to present the Unaudited Financial Statements for the year ending 30 June 2018, together with abbreviated notes to the financial statements. Audited financial statements will be presented following the completion of the Company's annual audit for the same period. This will include additional information and may require financial adjustments in order to show a true and fair view. Key Financial Information (Unaudited) As at 30 June 2018 Sterling currency Net Asset Value ("NAV") was 10.7 million ( 30 June 2017 : 15.7 million) NAV was 45.68 pence per share ( 30 June 2017 : 66.94 pence ) per share ( : ) Share price1 was 38.40 pence per share ( 30 June 2017 : 61.25 pence ) For the year ended 30 June 2018 Loss was 21.16 pence per share (year ended 30 June 2017 : loss was 1.92 pence per share), principally arising from the change in value of the Company's remaining property asset per share (year ended : loss was per share), principally arising from the change in value of the Company's remaining property asset No dividends were paid relating to the year No redemption of shares were made during the year (year ended 30 June 2017 : 24.0 million) Performance Summary(Unaudited) Year ended 30 June 2018 Year ended 30 June 2017 % change NAV (000s) 10,690 15,665 (31.8)% NAV per share 45.68p 66.94p (31.8)% Loss per share (21.16)p (1.92)p 533.3% Share redemptions paid nil 24.0m (100)% Share price1 38.40p 61.25p (37.3)% Share price discount to NAV 15.9% 8.5% 87.5% Total assets less current liabilities (000s) 10,899 16,164 (32.6)% The 2018 NAV is presented without any deduction of redemption payments. Total annual return Year ended 30 June 2018 Year ended 30 June 2017 NAV Total Return2 (37.3)% 2.5% Share price Total Return - AXA Property Trust (15.6)% 23.0% - FTSE All Share Index 9.0% 18.1% - FTSE Real Estate Investment Trust Index 9.8% 9.2% Past performance is not a guide to future performance. 1 Mid-market share price (source: Stifel Nicolaus Europe Limited). 2 On a pro-forma basis which includes adjustments to add back any prior NAV reductions from share redemptions. Source: AXA Investment Managers UK Limited and Stifel Nicolaus Europe Limited Property Portfolio at 30 June 2018 Investment Country Sector Net Yield on Valuation1 Curno, Bergamo Italy Leisure 16.31% 1 Source - external independent valuers to the Company, Knight Frank LLP. Consolidated Income Statement For the year ended 30 June 2018 (Unaudited) For the year ended For the year ended 30 June 2018 30 June 2017 Notes 000s 000s Gross rental income 2 1,312 1,704 Service charge income - 127 Property operating expenses (143) (251) Net rental and related income 1,169 1,580 Valuation loss on investment properties 7 (4,527) (781) Impairment of financial assets - (589) General and administrative expenses 3 (741) (929) Operating loss (4,099) (719) Net gain on financial instruments - 55 Share in loss of a joint venture 8 (127) (40) Net finance cost 4 (14) (151) Loss before tax (4,240) (855) Income tax expense 12 (711) (67) Loss for the year (4,951) (922) Basic and diluted loss per ordinary share (pence) 5 (21.16) (1.92) The accompanying notes on the following pages form an integral part of these unaudited Financial Statements Consolidated Statement of Changes in Equity For the year ended 30 June 2018 (Unaudited) Revenue reserve Distributable reserve Foreign currency reserve Total 000s 000s 000s 000s Balance at 1 July 2017 (41,411) 44,853 12,223 15,665 Loss for the year (4,951) - - (4,951) Other comprehensive loss - - (24) (24) Balance at 30 June 2018 (46,362) 44,853 12,199 10,690 For the year ended 30 June 2017 (Audited) Revenue reserve Distributable reserve Foreign currency reserve Total 000s 000s 000s 000s Balance at 1 July 2016 (40,489) 68,856 10,327 38,694 Share redemptions - (24,003) - (24,003) Loss for the year (922) - - (922) Other comprehensive income - - 1,896 1,896 Balance at 30 June 2017 (41,411) 44,853 12,223 15,665 The accompanying notes on the following pages form an integral part of these unaudited Financial Statements Consolidated Statement of Financial Position For the year ended 30 June 2018 (Unaudited) 30 June 2018 30 June 2017 Notes 000s 000s Non-current assets Investment properties 7 7,871 12,310 Current assets Cash and cash equivalents 3,406 3,846 Trade and other receivables 9 370 788 Investment in joint venture 8 165 642 Total assets 11,812 17,586 Current liabilities Trade and other payables 10 913 1,422 Non-current liabilities Provisions 11 209 499 Total liabilities 1,122 1,921 Net assets 10,690 15,665 Reserves 10,690 15,665 Total equity 10,690 15,665 Number of ordinary shares 13 23,402,881 23,402,881 Net asset value per ordinary share (pence) 14 45.68 66.94 The accompanying notes on the following pages form an integral part of these unaudited Financial Statements Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows For the year ended 30 June 2018 (Unaudited) Year ended Year ended 30 June 2018 30 June 2017 Notes 000s 000s Operating activities Loss before tax (4,240) (855) Adjustments for: Loss on valuation and disposals of a subsidiary and investment properties 4,527 1,370 Shares in loss of joint venture 8 127 40 Gain on financial instruments - (55) Decrease in trade and other receivables 443 305 Decrease in provisions (290) (754) Decrease in trade and other payables (301) (417) Net finance cost 4 14 151 Net cash generated from/(used in) operations 280 (215) Interest income received - 97 Interest paid (14) (334) Tax (paid)/received (944) 44 Net cash outflow from operating activities (678) (408) Investing activities Investment in joint ventures 400 - Repayments of joint ventures loan - 8,383 Proceeds from disposals of a subsidiary and investment properties 7 - 25,362 Net cash inflow from investing activities 400 33,745 Financing activities Redemption of shares 13 - (24,003) Bank loan facility repaid - (15,018) Decrease in derivative financial liabilities - (11) Net cash used in financing activities - (39,032) Effects of exchange rate fluctuations (162) 735 Decrease in cash and cash equivalents (440) (4,960) Cash and cash equivalents at start of the year 3,846 8,806 Cash and cash equivalents at the year end 3,406 3,846 The accompanying notes on the following pages form an integral part of these unaudited Financial Statements Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements For the year ended 30 June 2018 (Unaudited) 1. Operations AXA Property Trust Limited (the "Company") is a limited liability, closed-ended investment company incorporated in Guernsey. Under its original investment objectives the Company invested in commercial properties in Europe which were held through its subsidiaries. Following shareholder approval in 2013 the Company's investment objectives changed to a managed wind-down, with the realisation of assets in a prudent manner and the repatriation of sales proceeds to shareholders. The Unaudited Consolidated Financial Statements (the "Financial Statements") of the Company for the year ended 30 June 2018 comprise the Financial Statements of the Company and its subsidiaries (together referred to as the "Group"). 2. Gross rental income Gross rental income for the year ended 30 June 2018 amounted to 1.31 million (30 June 2017: 1.70 million). The Group leases out its investment property under an operating lease which is structured in accordance with local practices in Italy. The lease benefits from indexation. Minimum Lease Payments (based on leases in place as at 30 June 2018) 30 June 2018 30 June 2017 000s 000s 0-1 year 1,284 1,277 1-5 years 6,420 6,385 5 + years 616 1,892 3. General and administrative expenses 30 June 2018 30 June 2017 000s 000s Administration fees (173) (188) General expenses (257) (621) Audit fees (181) (142) Legal and professional fees (33) (160) Directors' fees (74) (74) Insurance fees (62) (64) Liquidation costs 36 17 Sponsor's fees (25) (25) Investment management fees (282) (255) Performance fee 310 583 Total (741) (929) Each of the Directors receives a fee of 13,500 (30 June 2017: 13,500) and the Chairman receives a fee of 18,000 (30 June 2017: 18,000). The aggregate remuneration and benefits in kind of the Directors in respect of the Company's year ended 30 June 2018 amounted to 58,500 (30 June 2017: 63,012) in respect of the Company and 73,827 (30 June 2017: 74,282) in respect of the Group. Investment management fees for the year ending 30 June 2018 include adjustments from previous years. 4. Net finance cost 30 June 2018 30 June 2017 000s 000s Interest loss from bank deposits (14) (49) Interest income from JV partners - 97 Finance costs - (199) Total (14) (151) 5. Basic and diluted loss per Share The basic and diluted loss per share for the Group is based on the net loss for the year of 4.95 million (30 June 2017: net loss of 0.92 million) and the weighted average number of Ordinary Shares in issue during the year of 24,402,881 (30 June 2017: 48,025,516). 6. Dividends The Company has suspended dividends from June 2012 in order to prudently manage its cash and debt positions. No dividends were declared or paid during 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. 7. Investment properties 30 June 2018 30 June 2017 000s 000s Fair value of investment properties at beginning of year 12,310 37,023 Opening fair value of assets sold during the year - (24,724) Fair value adjustments (4,527) (781) Foreign exchange translation 88 792 Fair value of investment properties at the end of the year 7,871 12,310 The remaining property held by the Company has been valued on the basis of fair value. In accordance with IFRS accounting standards, the valuation attributed to the property in Curno is before any allowance or deduction of capital gains tax due on sale. The extent of these taxes will depend upon whether the asset is sold directly, in which case full capital gains tax on the chargeable gain is due, or within the existing corporate structure, in which case the extent of the net price adjustment will depend upon commercial negotiations between the Company and the buyer. In either case it is expected the impact will be a reduction in net proceeds. 8. Investment in joint venture The Group holds a 50% joint venture interest in the equity of the Italian joint venture Property Trust Agnadello S.r.l. which held a logistics warehouse in Agnadello, Italy. In 2017, the property was sold. The remaining 50% equity interest is held by European Added Value Fund S.a r.l., a subsidiary of European Added Value Fund Limited. The Group's interest in Property Trust Agnadello S.r.l. is accounted for using the equity method in the Financial Statements, which approximates the lower of its carrying amount and its fair value less cost to sell. The following table summarises the financial information of Property Trust Agnadello S.r.l. which also reconciles the summarised financial information to the carrying amount of the Group's interest in the joint venture: Summarised Consolidated Statement of Financial Position 30 June 2018 30 June 2017 000s 000s Current assets 431 1,322 Current liabilities (102) (38) Net assets (100%) 329 1,284 Group's share of net assets 50% 50% Group's share of net assets 165 642 Loan balances due to joint venture partners - - Carrying amount of interest in joint venture 165 642 Summarised Consolidated Income Statement 30 June 2018 30 June 2017 000s 000s Net rental and related (expense)/income (2) 568 Loss on disposals of investment properties - (387) Total administrative and other expenses (251) (180) Financial expenses - (202) Loss before tax (253) (201) Income tax gain - 121 Loss for the year (253) (80) Group's share of loss for the year (127) (40) Summarised Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income 30 June 2018 30 June 2017 000s 000s Loss for the year (253) (80) Total comprehensive loss for the year (253) (80) Group's share of loss for the year (127) (40) 9. Trade and other receivables 30 June 2018 30 June 2017 000s 000s Other receivables 250 681 VAT receivable 84 59 Rent receivable 11 14 Prepayments 25 34 Total 370 788 The carrying values of trade and other receivables are considered to be approximately equal to their fair value. Rent receivable is non-interest bearing and typically due within 30 days. 10. Trade and other payables 30 June 2018 30 June 2017 000s 000s Investment manager's fee - 111 Tax payable (income, transfer, capital and other) 424 632 Legal and professional fees 13 29 Audit fee 124 221 Other 352 429 Total 913 1,422 Trade and other payables are non-interest bearing and are normally settled on 30-day terms. The carrying values of trade and other payables are considered to be approximately equal to their fair value. 11. Provisions 30 June 2018 30 June 2017 000s 000s Non-current Provision for performance fees - 310 Provision for wind-down costs 153 189 Other provisions 56 - Total 209 499 The variation of the provisions for performance fees and wind-down costs are included in the general and administrative expenses, in which wind-down costs are disclosed as "Liquidation costs" (see note 3). 12. Taxation 30 June 2018 30 June 2017 000s 000s Effect of: Current tax Luxembourg (550) (1) Italy (161) (188) Germany - (152) Total current tax (711) (341) Deferred tax Investment property - 274 Total deferred tax - 274 Tax charge during the year (711) (67) The Parent Company is exempt from Guernsey taxation. 13. Share capital 30 June 2018 30 June 2017 Number of shares Share Premium 000s Number of shares Share Premium 000s Shares of no par values issued and fully paid 23,402,881 100,000 23,402,881 100,000 Capital management The Company's capital is represented by the Ordinary Shares, revaluation reserves, revenue reserves, hedging reserves, distributable reserves and foreign exchange reserves. The share premium is included in the distributable reserve presented in the Consolidated Statement of Changes in Equity. The capital of the Company is managed in accordance with its investment policy in pursuit of its investment objective. It is not subject to externally imposed capital requirements. The Ordinary shares carry rights regarding dividends, voting, winding-up and redemptions which are detailed in full in the Company's Memorandum and Articles of Incorporation. The Company was authorised at the Annual General Meeting ("AGM") on 8 December 2017 to make market purchases of up to 14.99% of its Ordinary Shares until the conclusion of the next AGM or 31 December 2018, whichever is earlier. Purchases would only be made at prices below the prevailing Net Asset Value of the shares where the Directors believe such purchases would enhance shareholder value. In the Prospectus (issued by the Company on 18 April 2005), the Directors stated their intention to seek annual renewal of this authority. Share buy backs are at the discretion of the Board. Additionally, pursuant to the AGM which took place on 2 December 2016 ("2016 AGM"), the Directors shall not apply and shall be excluded in relation to the issue of up to an aggregate number of Ordinary Shares as represents less than 10 per cent. of the number of Ordinary Shares admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange. The following redemptions of shares have been done under the mechanism for the Redemption of Shares as approved at the EGM held on 27 February 2014: Redemption date Capital Returned Shares cancelled 19-Mar-14 1,999,957 3,641,580 09-Apr-14 2,099,903 3,823,572 30-Oct-14 1,999,547 3,688,894 14-May-15 1,799,022 3,181,296 20-Jul-15 5,197,083 9,725,084 06-Jan-16 10,996,174 18,382,104 17-Feb-17 18,400,902 25,771,573 23-Jun-17 5,602,290 8,403,016 48,084,878 76,597,199 14. Net asset value per ordinary share The Net Asset Value per Ordinary Share at 30 June 2018 is based on the net assets attributable to the ordinary shareholders of 10,69 million (30 June 2017: 15.67 million ) and on 23,402,881 (30 June 2017: 23,402,881) ordinary shares in issue at the Consolidated Statement of Financial Position date. 15. Related party transactions The Directors are responsible for the determination of the Company's investment objective and policy and have overall responsibility for the Group's activities including the review of investment activity and performance. Mr Hunter, Chairman of the Company is also a Director of the Company's subsidiaries, Property Trust Luxembourg 1 S.a r.l., Property Trust Luxembourg 2 S.a r.l. and Property Trust Luxembourg 3 S.a r.l. and was able to control the investment policy of the Luxembourg subsidiaries to ensure it conforms with the investment policy of the Company. Mr Lawson, a Director of the Company is also Chairman of Northern Trust (Guernsey) Limited, the Company's bankers and member of the same group as the Administrator and Secretary. The total charge to the Consolidated Income Statement during the year in respect of Northern Trust administration fees was 145,000 (30 June 2017: 145,000) of which nil (30 June 2017: nil) remained payable at the year end. Under the Investment Management Agreement, fees are payable to the Investment Manager, Real Estate Adviser and other entities within the AXA Group. These entities are involved in the planning and direction of the Company and Group, as well as controlling aspects of their day to day activity, subject to the overall supervision of the Directors. During the period, fees of 0.24 million (30 June 2017: 0.25 million) were expensed to the Consolidated Income Statement. No transaction fees were expensed in 2018 (30 June 2017: 0.09 million). During the year, a provision for the performance fee was reversed/(increased) by 0.31 million (30 June 2017: 0.58 million). The amount had been provided under the terms of the Investment Management Agreement. All the above transactions were undertaken at arm's-length. 16. Commitments As at 30 June 2018 the Company has no commitments. 17. Subsequent events These Financial Statements were approved for issuance by the Board on 31 October 2018. In August 2018 the Board issued a Shareholder Circular ("the Circular") with proposals and recommendations to: 1. put the Company into voluntarily liquidation in accordance with the Companies Law, 2. appoint Linda Johnson and Ashley Paxton of KPMG Channel Islands Limited as Liquidators, and 3. cancel the admission of its shares to the Official List of the UK Listing Authority and to trading on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange (the "Proposals"). The decision to recommend the voluntary liquidation of the Company followed the managed wind-down of the Company which was approved by Shareholders in 2013 through a change in its investment policy and objective with the intention of realising all remaining assets and returning the proceeds to the shareholders in an orderly manner. As a result, there is now only one asset remaining in the portfolio, the property in Curno, Italy. As the managed wind-down has reached an advanced stage, plans for the final winding-up and liquidation were confirmed in an announcement on 22 June 2018 and were subsequently set out in detail in the Circular. The Circular included a review of the Company's operating cost structure having regard to the uncertain prospects of achieving a sale of the Curno property and the reducing rental income. As a result of this analysis the Board considered there were significant cost savings that would be achieved. It was also explained within the Circular that no financial statements of the Company or updated NAV would be prepared for the financial year ended 30 June 2018 or subsequent years once the liquidation was approved. This was re-confirmed on 30 August 2018 when the Company released unaudited financial information for the period ending 30 June 2018. In expectation of the Proposals being approved, the existing auditor to the Company, KPMG Channel Islands Limited, gave notice of their resignation, contingent upon the Proposals being passed by letter dated 5 July 2018. An EGM was scheduled for 7 September 2018, at which shareholders were due to vote on the Proposals. The EGM took place as scheduled, but it was adjourned until 21 September 2018 following the attendance of representatives of shareholders accounting for approximately 30% of the voting rights who expressed their intention to vote against the Proposals, which required 75% approval of those voting in order to be passed. The Adjourned EGM took place on 21 September 2018. However, the Proposals were not approved. A single shareholder came to hold a 29.8% interest in the Company prior to the Adjourned EGM. At the Adjourned EGM, the Proposals were supported by shareholders representing 38.3% of the issued shares of the Company, amounting to 56.2% of those voting at the Adjourned EGM. However, the shareholder holding shares representing 29.8% of the Company voted against the Proposals and effectively blocked them as a 75% majority was required. The Directors have consulted with the shareholder who voted against the Proposals. As indicated in the Company's announcement issued on 5 October 2018, the shareholder has indicated a wish to present an alternative plan for the continuation of the Company with a different investment policy and objective. The Directors note that any proposal to amend the investment policy and objective of the Company would require shareholder approval. The Directors believe that such a potential proposal, if put forward, would be a significant change from the Company's current investment policy and objective, which was approved by more than 75% of those Shareholders voting at the EGM in October 2013 and which remains in place. The Board therefore remains committed to continue with the Company's current realisation strategy, in particular with respect to the lease negotiations at Curno and the property's subsequent disposal. The Company will also continue to make distributions at the earliest opportunity. At the same time and in view of the fact that plans for the significant cost savings identified in the Circular have been affected whilst the Company remains listed, the Board and its advisors will continue to review the Company's ongoing operating cost structure to identify and implement expense reductions where possible. Corporate Information Directors (All non-executive) C. J. Hunter (Chairman) G. J. Farrell S. C. Monier S. J. Lawson Registered Office PO Box 255 Trafalgar Court Les Banques St Peter Port Guernsey GY1 3QL Channel Islands Investment Manager AXA Investment Managers UK Limited 7 Newgate Street London EC1A 7NX United Kingdom Real Estate Adviser AXA Real Estate Investment Managers UK Limited 155 Bishopsgate London EC2M 3XJ United Kingdom Sponsor and Broker Stifel Nicolaus Europe Limited 150 Cheapside London EC2V 6ET United Kingdom Administrator and Secretary Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited PO Box 255 Trafalgar Court Les Banques St Peter Port Guernsey GY1 3QL Channel Islands Registrar Computershare Investor Services (Guernsey) Limited 1st Floor Tudor House Le Bordage St Peter Port Guernsey GY1 1DB Channel Islands Independent Auditor KPMG Channel Islands Limited Glategny Court, Glategny Esplanade St Peter Port Guernsey GY1 1WR Channel Islands VANCOUVER, British Columbia, October 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Namaste Technologies Inc. ("Namaste" or the "Company") (TSXV: N), (FRANKFURT: M5BQ), (OTCMKTS: NXTTF) is pleased to provide an update for investors on its strategy to launch medical cannabis sales within the UK market. Namaste operates a global e-commerce platform which sells cannabis ancillary products in over 20 countries around the globe. One of the Company's largest consumer databases lies in the UK, with over 500,000 customers. With the impending roll-out of medical cannabis in the UK market, Namaste is well positioned to leverage its database along with its telemedicine application and potential acquisition of Access Fulfilment Ltd. ("Access Fulfilment") to enter directly into medical cannabis sales in the UK. The Company's strategy includes medical cannabis importation, telemedicine and distribution. Subject to compliance with UK federal regulations, the Company will be launching a UK version of its innovative telemedicine application, NamasteMD, which has been designed to provide patient consolations for the purposes of acquiring medical cannabis prescriptions, and is available in the Apple Store, on Android and on desktop at NamasteMD.com. The Company plans on submitting NamasteMD to the UK App Store and for Android in November 2018. The Company is active in securing strategic relationships with clinics and specialist healthcare practitioners that will provide resources to facilitate patient onboarding in the most effective manner possible. Further to the Company's September 13th, 2018 news release, Namaste has entered into a binding terms sheet (the "Terms Sheet"), to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of UK-based Access Fulfilment Ltd. ("Access Fulfilment"). Access Fulfillment operates a 30,000 square-foot distribution facility in the UK and holds a Wholesale Distribution Authorization (Human) License issued by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency ("MHRA") which allows Access Fulfillment to distribute pharmaceutical products throughout the UK. The Company intends on closing of the acquisition and is undergoing due diligence and are actively engaged with Access Fulfilment to supply an amendment to their license to allow for distribution of medical cannabis products. The Company is pleased to have launched sales through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Cannmart Inc. ("Cannmart"), which is the first medical cannabis "sales-only" license in Canada which has been issued to a non-cultivator. The Company has secured supply channels for Cannmart and has also acquired future supply through strategic agreements and investments offering a Right of First Refusal ("ROFR") on inventory through several cultivators that will guarantee supply to Cannmart now and in the future. The Company has begun the process of its application for Good Manufacturing Practice ("GMP") certification for Cannmart, and as such, will intend on exporting cannabis from the Canadian market to the UK directly. Namaste is actively pursuing new supply channels in Canada and abroad which will support the Company's anticipated demand for medical cannabis in the UK and in other emerging markets like Australia, where the Company maintains large databases of cannabis consumers. Management Commentary Sean Dollinger, President and CEO of Namaste comments: "We are very excited about the potential for Namaste in the UK market. The UK was our first market and is one where we maintain deep roots within the community through our hardware and accessory business. Everyonedoesit.co.uk ("EDIT UK") is one of the oldest online shops which sells a wide range of vaporizers and accessories and has been established in the UK for many years. Between EDIT UK and NamasteVapes.co.uk, we hold over 500,000 customers in our collective database. We have also maintained a long-standing relationship with Access Fulfilment who already distribute our vaporizers and accessories to the UK and EU markets, but now as we progress on closing of the Terms Sheet and potential acquisition, we see great value for the Company's future in the UK market. We will stay focused on securing strategic relationships with cultivators in the UK and abroad as we look to leverage our technology and consumer bases to expand cannabis sales within our existing global markets." About Namaste Technologies Inc. Namaste Technologies is Your Everything Cannabis Store. Namaste operates the largest global cannabis e-commerce platform with over 30 websites in 20+ countries under various brands. Namaste's product offering through its subsidiaries includes vaporizers, glassware, accessories, CBD products, and the company will soon be selling medical cannabis in the Canadian market. Namaste has developed and acquired innovative technology platforms including NamasteMD.com, Canada's first Health Canada compliant telemedicine application, and in May 2018 the Company acquired a leading e-commerce AI and Machine Learning Company, Findify AB. Findify uses artificial intelligence algorithms to optimize and personalize a consumer's on-site buying experience. Namaste is focused on leveraging its cutting-edge technology to enhance the user experience throughout its platforms. Namaste will continue to develop and acquire innovative technologies which will provide value to the Company and to its shareholders as well as to the broader cannabis market. Further information on the Company and its products can be accessed through the links below: NamasteTechnologies.com NamasteMD.com NamasteVapes.ca Everyonedoesit.ca Forward Looking Information This press release contains forward-looking information based on current expectations. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions. The Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by law. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. These statements speak only as of the date of this press release. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks including various risk factors discussed in the Company's disclosure documents which can be found under the Company's profile on http://www.sedar.com. This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The CSE has neither reviewed nor approved the contents of this press release. On behalf of the Board of Directors Sean Dollinger Chief Executive Officer Direct: +1(250)300-5103 Email: IR@namastetechnologies.com BRISTOL, England, October 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Torry Harris Business Solutions (THBS), a global leader in integration, full life-cycle API management and digital transformation, today announced the launch of 'THIS' (Torry Harris Integration Solutions), thereby formally branding its efforts to facilitate the creation of digital ecosystems, under an umbrella of integration solutions. Karthik TS, Head of CoE, Torry Harris Business Solutions, said, "THIS is proof of our commitment to lead in the API driven digital business space & create meaningful platform ecosystems. THBS' 20 years of experience in delivering world-class integration solutions right from our middleware days, has enabled us to reach the power of digital access to large and small enterprises alike, through integration." Visit https://www.thbs.com/torry-harris-integration-solutions to know more about 'THIS'. About THBS Torry Harris Business Solutions (THBS) is a multinational provider of business, technology and IT consulting services. It specializes in the areas of Integration, Platform Services, Full life-cycle API Management and Digital Transformation Services. THBS has been appraised at level 5 of the CMMI Institute's Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI Level 5). The company has been assessed and certified for ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 27001 & ISO 26001. THBS is also compliant with Payment Card Industry's Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). The company has its offshore development centres in Bangalore & Gurgaon (India). It has offices in Bristol (UK), New Jersey (USA), Dubai (UAE), Dublin (Ireland), Munich (Germany), Paris (France) and Vienna (Austria). Visit https://www.thbs.com/ to know more about the company, its services & products. Contacts: Torry Harris Business Solutions Diganta Kumar Barooah E-mail: marketing@thbs.com Tel: +91-80-41827200 Brings 22+ years of expertise to help continue the company's significant market momentum Will spearhead the next wave of growth across EMEA as organizations embrace digital strategies to deliver business agility and performance Riverbed, The Digital Performance Company, today announced that Mark Jopling has joined Riverbed as Senior Vice President (SVP) Sales of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Jopling will be responsible for the company's sales strategy and go-to-market execution in EMEA, leading the team across its five EMEA markets to ensure closer engagement with existing customers; deeper penetration into key industry sectors; as well as generate new business opportunities with strategic partners, to deliver continued success and acceleration across Riverbed's portfolio of industry-leading digital performance solutions. Jopling will report to Andy Elder, Senior Vice President and Chief Sales Officer at Riverbed. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005189/en/ Mark Jopling, Riverbed Senior Vice President Sales, EMEA (Photo: Business Wire) LinkedIn: Riverbed Appoints Mark Jopling as Senior Vice President Sales in EMEA: https://rvbd.ly/2ziuJ2P "Our customers worldwide are embracing digital, focusing on new digital processes, exceptional customer experiences and disruptive new digital business models. Riverbed has a huge market opportunity to help our customers on their digital journey in EMEA, so it's an exciting time for Mark to be joining the company," explains Andy Elder, Senior Vice President and Chief Sales Officer at Riverbed. "Mark's experience in leading large cross-functional customer-orientated teams, delivering excellence in operational performance through mutual strategic channel partnerships, and his deep knowledge of the Enterprise market including the Financial Services industry, makes him the ideal leader of the EMEA region and a great addition to the leadership team." Jopling joins Riverbed from Lloyds Banking Group, where he was the Colleague and Network Technology Director, responsible for 24/7 business critical operations, risk and control. This included transforming their legacy environment to a cloud-centric architecture, and developing customer experience platforms via omni-channel technologies to help enable digital customer journeys. Prior to this, Jopling spent almost nine years at the British multinational telecommunications company, BT, in several roles, as their Vice President of Financial Services, delivering major digital transformation projects for clients, and as their Director for EMEA Carriers, selling and operating complex Managed Network Services to Mobile and Fixed Network Operators. Earlier in his career, Jopling has also held senior sales positions at Nokia and Vodafone. "Riverbed has been executing on a multi-year strategy to lead in digital performance, providing organizations with a powerful combination of Digital Experience Management and Next-Generation Infrastructure solutions to accelerate business performance and outcomes," said Mark Jopling, Senior Vice President Sales, EMEA, at Riverbed. "I'm delighted to be joining the company and working with the EMEA team and our partner community, to help our customers modernize their IT architecture for the cloud and digital, with the ever-increasing demand for Riverbed's digital performance solutions. Digital innovations are simply transforming industries every day, and I'm very excited to be part of it with Riverbed." Jopling holds a PhD and MBA from Warwick Business School, UK. Jopling also has a BSc in Electronic Engineering from Aston University, UK. Riverbed is the Digital Performance Leader Riverbed has recognized the need to maximize digital performance and is uniquely positioned to provide organizations with a Digital Performance Platform that delivers superior digital experiences and accelerates performance, allowing our customers to rethink possible. Solutions include: Digital Experience Management: Unifies device-based user experience, application, infrastructure, and network monitoring to provide a holistic view of a user's digital experience. This provides clear insights into how customers are consuming apps, what their digital experience is like, and how that experience directly impacts revenue, productivity, costs, and other business KPIs. Next-Gen Infrastructure: Delivers new levels of operational agility and dramatically accelerates business performance spanning from the edge, to the data center, and to the cloud. Cloud Networking enables a next-gen network architecture with a comprehensive solution that includes SD-WAN, Wi-Fi, app acceleration, and network visibility. Cloud Edge centralizes islands of infrastructure to secure 100% of data the lifeblood of any digital business while still delivering superior, local-like experiences for users at the edge. Connect with Riverbed Facebook LinkedIn Riverbed Blog Riverbed Community Twitter (@Riverbed) YouTube SlideShare Google+ About Riverbed Riverbed, The Digital Performance Company, enables organizations to maximize digital performance across every aspect of their business, allowing customers to rethink possible. Riverbed's unified and integrated Digital Performance Platform brings together a powerful combination of Digital Experience, Cloud Networking and Cloud Edge solutions that provides a modern IT architecture for the digital enterprise, delivering new levels of operational agility and dramatically accelerating business performance and outcomes. At more than $1 billion in annual revenue, Riverbed's 30,000+ customers include 98% of the Fortune 100 and 100% of the Forbes Global 100. Learn more at riverbed.com. Riverbed and any Riverbed product or service name or logo used herein are trademarks of Riverbed Technology, Inc. All other trademarks used herein belong to their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005189/en/ Contacts: Riverbed Technology Katherine Harwood, 415-527-4170 Katherine.Hardwood@riverbed.com or Helen Bainton, +44 (0)7827 806990 helen.bainton@riverbed.com Artprice: imminent nomination of a Chief Executive in China Considering the depth of Artprice's strategic, capitalistic and economic involvement with Artron, thierry Ehrmann plans to propose to Artprice's board of directors the nomination of a Chief Executive responsible for its Chinese and Greater Asia operations. The selected candidate (not a member of the Ehrmann family) has all the confidence of thierry Ehrmann, who remains CEO and Chairman of the Group. The objective of this strategy is to accelerate the numerous initiatives recently engendered by Artprice's and Artron's contractual and promissory agreements. This informed decision has been carefully deliberated and enjoys the unanimous support with the Group. About Artron: Artron Art Group (Artron) is a general cultural industry group rooted in the art field and aims to "serve the people with art" by "serving the people's art", inherit, enhance, spread and realize values of art, and inherit excellent art and culture and enhance their values in professional art markets; spread values of art and culture and convey the beauty of art to people's daily lives in public art markets. As China's largest comprehensive art service platform, Artron.net delivers four solutions including Smart Archive, Smart Show, Smart Deal and Smart Reading. In addition, upon resources and professional studies of Artron's art market monitor agency (AMMA) and almost 20 years' of experience in the field of art, it has established long-term strategic cooperation with governmental bodies such as the Ministry of Culture, cultural institutions such as the Palace Museum, global art universities, internet companies such as Baidu and overseas research institutes. Artron's Web: www.artron.com.cn; www.artron.net. Contact: 400-6690-999 About Artprice: Founded by thierry Ehrmann (see Who's who certified Biography ) (c) https://imgpublic.artprice.com/img/wp/sites/11/2018/10/bio-2019-whos-who-thierry-ehrmann.pdf ). Artprice is listed on the Eurolist by Euronext Paris, SRD long only and Euroclear: 7478 - Bloomberg: PRC - Reuters: ARTF. Dicover Artprice in video: https://www.artprice.com/video Artprice is the global leader in art price and art index databanks. It has over 30 million indices and auction results covering more than 700,000 artists. Artprice Images(R) gives unlimited access to the largest Art Market resource in the world: a library of 126 million images or prints of artworks from the year 1700 to the present day, along with comments by Artprice's art historians. 12 Oct. 2018: Artprice and Artron have just created an "Art Media Mogul": Video: https://vimeo.com/296010836 Artprice permanently enriches its databanks with information from 6,300 auctioneers and it publishes a constant flow of art market trends for the world's principal news agencies and approximately 7,200 international press publications. For its 4,500,000 members, Artprice gives access to the world's leading Standardised Marketplace for buying and selling art. Artprice is preparing its blockchain for the Art Market. It is BPI-labelled (scientific national French label)Artprice's Global Art Market Annual Report for 2017 published last March 2018: https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-art-market-in-2017 Artprice's Contemporary Art Market Annual Report for 2017 - free access at: https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-contemporary-art-market-report-2017 Artprice's press releases: http://serveur.serveur.com/Press_Release/pressreleaseen.htm https://twitter.com/artpricedotcom Artmarket News: https://twitter.com/artpricedotcom & https://twitter.com/artmarketdotcom https://www.facebook.com/artpricedotcom & https://plus.google.com/+artpricedotcom/posts http://artmarketinsight.wordpress.com/ Discover the Alchemy and the universe of Artprice http://web.artprice.com/video, which headquarters are the famous Museum of Contemporary Art, the Abode of Chaos: http://goo.gl/zJssd https://vimeo.com/124643720 The Contemporary Art Museum The Abode of Chaos on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/la.demeure.du.chaos.theabodeofchaos999 Contact: ir@artprice.com ------------------------ Copyright Actusnews Wire Receive by email the next press releases of the company by registering on www.actusnews.com, it's free Full and original release in PDF format:https://www.actusnews.com/documents_communiques/ACTUS-0-55781-artprice-artron-nomination-china.pdf Providing a 30% ROI, and over 31,000 kg CO2 annual savings. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 31, 2018) - Ted Konyi, CEO, Smartcool Systems Inc. (TSXV: SSC) (OTC Pink: SSCFF) (FSE: R3W) is pleased to announce that agency partner CoolSave, has successfully installed Smartcool ESM technology in a critical environment for a department in the UK central government. CoolSave identified the opportunity that would benefit from Smartcool's ESM energy reduction technology. Working for one of our biggest customers but in a new site, we found that the Smartcool ESM installation is saving over 70,000kWh and gives our customer a return on investment of over 30%. Environmental emission benefits of this single installation are savings of 31,000 kg annually of Carbon Dioxide (CO 2 ), a greenhouse gas (GHG), approximately 6 acres of tree equivalent annually and enough electricity to power 24 homes for a year. Independent, device level sub metering was then installed to measure energy consumption at device level and categorically prove the savings as part of our commissioning procedure for customers. This enables customers to fully validate results through an easily accessed web portal. Matt Sandell, Commercial Director of CoolSave said, "Securing projects like this, which is a repeat order from one of our biggest customers, shows the confidence we have built as a team in the UK energy efficiency market. It is fantastic to be operating in another prestigious and secure site, as well as a clear demonstration of the success we are building in the UK. CoolSave use IoT technology to prove savings to our customers at device level and it is a real game changer in the way we operate, that has ultimately led to repeat business and although the customer cannot be named for security reasons, the revenue we are generating as a result is the only evidence we need. CoolSave has built up a great customer base in the UK for Smartcool technologies and is now securing repeat business with an open approach to showing customers what these technologies can do for them. Smartcool technology will bring both financial and environmental benefits to customers we work with. We are able to give back valuable information about where energy is really being consumed in customer's buildings and at the same time, categorically show the difference our Smartcool technology can make when it comes to reducing energy usage." About Smartcool Smartcool Systems Inc. provides cutting edge energy efficient and energy cost reduction solutions for businesses around the world. The ECO3, ESM and ECOHome are Smartcool's unique retrofit technologies that reduce the energy consumption of compressors in air conditioning, refrigeration and heat pump systems by up to 40%. Total Energy Concepts (TEC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Smartcool, is a national leader in Power Protection, Energy Management, Power Quality, Facility Grounding, and Lighting Solutions that help companies improve their bottom line by reducing expenses that drastically cut into company profits. TEC focuses on a holistic approach to energy efficiency with proprietary technologies for power factor correction and third party technologies including LED, voltage conditioning and intelligent motor controls. For further information WEB www.smartcool.net and www.smartcooleco3.comEMAIL info@smartcool.net Investor inquiries Mike Kordysz Vice President, Investor Relations TEL +1 604 904 8632EMAIL mike.kordysz@smartcool.net Legal Notice Regarding Forward Looking Statements This news release contains "forward looking statements".Forward-looking statements are projections of financial performance or future events.Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "expect", "anticipate", "intend", "plan", "believe", "estimate" and words of similar meaning.Forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and assumptions and they are subject to risks that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this news release include those concerning the company's belief in the growth opportunities in the Israel.These statements are subject to risks that may cause the actual results to be materially different in future periods from those expressed or implied by such forward looking statements.Risks that may prevent or delay the forward looking statements from coming to fruition as anticipated include the availability of working capital, risks inherent in product development, as well as market factors that may increase costs or time to market.It is our policy not to update forward looking statements except to the extent required under applicable securities laws. Further information on the Company is available at www.sedar.com or at the Company's website, www.smartcool.net. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Phoenix, Arizona--(Newsfile Corp. - October 31, 2018) - Excelsior Mining Corp. (TSX: MIN) (FSE: 3XS) (OTCQX: EXMGF) ("Excelsior" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company has entered into an agreement for a US$75 million project financing package. This comprehensive funding plan will enable Excelsior to transition the fully-permitted Gunnison Copper Project in southeastern Arizona into America's next new copper producer. Stephen Twyerould, the President & CEO, commented, "In today's challenging mining market, only quality projects are able to secure funding. This financing delivers superior long-term economics for shareholders and allows us to quickly move into construction this year. Excelsior's pathway to achieving producer status is now clear, and we look forward to bringing the USA's next new strategic metal producer online in 2019." Shaun Usmar, CEO of Triple Flag Mining Finance Ltd., commented, "Triple Flag is excited to partner with Excelsior to finance the Gunnison Copper Project. Our flexible and innovative financing will allow the Gunnison Copper Project to quickly proceed to construction and production over the next year, delivering a new, low-cost source of American copper. We congratulate the Excelsior team for its impressive progress in advancing this project to fully funded status." Financing Package Highlights The US$75 million project financing package (collectively, the "Financing") will be provided by Triple Flag Mining Finance Bermuda Ltd. ("Triple Flag"), and consists of a US$65 million copper metal stream (the "Stream") and a concurrent US$10 million private placement of common shares of Excelsior (the "Equity Placement"). The closing of these funding commitments is subject to various conditions, including the approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange. The Financing is expected to close during November 2018 (the "Closing Date"). Benefits for Excelsior The Financing provides Excelsior with a comprehensive project funding solution that would cover all capital expenditures and working capital requirements related to the start-up of the Gunnison Copper Project. The Stream is not subject to interest payments and is unsecured, thereby allowing for future project debt financing to expand the project production capacity up to the targeted 125 million pounds per year. The Stream provides an option for Triple Flag to provide an additional US$65 million in funding for the second stage expansion of the Gunnison Copper Project, while also preserving the right of Excelsior to buy-down 50% of the Stream. The Equity Placement provides further alignment between Excelsior and Triple Flag, with Triple Flag acting as a true project partner. This transaction allows Excelsior to complete the construction without incurring project debt financing or the issuance of a large number of shares in a poor equity market. Details of the Financing Upfront Deposit Excelsior and its subsidiaries, Excelsior Mining Arizona, Inc. ("Excelsior Arizona") and Excelsior Mining JCM, Inc. ("JCM"), have entered into a metals purchase and sale agreement (the "Stream Agreement") with Triple Flag, whereby Triple Flag has committed to fund a deposit of US$65 million (the "Stage 1 Upfront Deposit") against the future sale and delivery by Excelsior Arizona of a percentage of the refined copper production from the Gunnison Copper Project. Excelsior will sell to Triple Flag this percentage of refined copper at a price equal to 25% of the copper spot price. The exact percentages of copper production to be sold to Triple Flag varies as per the total production capacity. These percentages are detailed in the table below. Stage 1 (25 M lbs/yr) Stage 2 (75 M lbs/yr) Stage 3 (125 M lbs/yr) Stage 1 Upfront Deposit 16.5% 5.75% 3.5% "At full production of 125 million pounds per annum, and using the same US$2.75 copper price from our Feasibility Study, the Stream would add just an additional 7 cents per pound to our industry-leading all-in-sustaining operating costs of US$1.23 per pound," added Stephen Twyerould. "With this Stream, the Gunnison Copper Project would still be one of the lowest cost pure copper producers in the United States, and one of the lowest capex per pound copper projects in the industry." In consideration of the Stream, Excelsior shall also issue to Triple Flag 3.5 million five-year common share purchase warrants, whose five-year term shall begin on the Closing Date, entitling Triple Flag to purchase 3.5 million Excelsior common shares at a strike price of C$1.50 per share issued. Triple Flag Expansion Option and Excelsior Buy-Down Right Subsequent to notice from Excelsior that the Company will be expanding production capacity to an amount equal to or greater than 50 million pounds per annum, Triple Flag will have the option to increase its stream participation by paying an additional US$65 million (the "Expansion Upfront Deposit"). Excelsior also retains the option to reduce the amount of the Stream by 50% by making a buy-down payment to Triple Flag (the "Buy-Down Payment"). The amount of the Buy-Down Payment depends on whether Triple Flag has exercised its option to provide the Expansion Upfront Deposit. The Buy-Down Payment is calculated as an amount that provides Triple Flag with an internal rate of return of 15% on 50% of the Stage 1 Upfront Deposit and, if applicable, 15% on 50% of the Expansion Upfront Deposit (in each case after taking into account the value of Stream deliveries (net of the 25% purchase price payment for such deliveries) made to Triple Flag prior to its payment). The table below shows the percentage of production to be acquired by Triple Flag based on scenarios that include Triple Flag's Expansion Option and Excelsior's Buy-Down Right. Stage 1 (25 M lbs/yr) Stage 2 (75 M lbs/yr) Stage 3 (125 M lbs/yr) Stage 1 Upfront Deposit + Expansion Option 16.5% 11.0% 6.6% Stage 1 Upfront Deposit + Expansion Option + Buy-Down Right 16.5% 5.5% 3.3% Stage 1 Upfront Deposit + Buy-Down Right 16.5% 2.875% 1.75% Equity Placement In conjunction with the Stream, Excelsior will complete the Equity Placement to raise proceeds of US$10 million (net of applicable fees and expenses). The Equity Placement will consist of the issuance to Triple Flag of an aggregate of 13,818,977 Excelsior common shares at an aggregate subscription price of US $10 million, or equal to approximately Cdn$0.95 per share at current exchange rates. In addition, affiliates of Greenstone Resources L.P. retain a pre-emptive right over the issuance of common shares of the Company. The overall size of the Equity Placement may be increased up to US$20 million dependent upon Greenstone's decision to exercise its pre-emptive right and in what proportion. Advisors Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP acted as legal counsel to the Company. Torys LLP acted as legal counsel to Triple Flag. Clarksons Platou Securities AS and BMO Capital Markets acted as financial advisors to the Company. About Triple Flag Triple Flag Mining Finance Bermuda Ltd. and Triple Flag Mining Finance Ltd. together constitute Triple Flag Mining. Triple Flag Mining primarily targets streaming and royalty investments in the mining sector with backing by Elliott Management Corporation, an experienced global investment firm with more than $35 billion of assets under management. Triple Flag Mining's focus is on being a leading sought-after long-term funding partner to mining companies throughout the commodity cycle. In less than 2 years, Triple Flag has committed over US$800 million to the mining sector, with a primary focus on precious metal streaming and royalty investments. For more information, visit http://www.tripleflagmining.com. About Excelsior Mining Excelsior "The Copper Solution Company" is a mineral exploration and development company that is advancing the Gunnison Copper Project in Cochise County, Arizona. The project is a fully-permitted, advanced staged, low cost, environmentally friendly in-situ recovery copper extraction project. The Feasibility Study projected an after-tax NPV of US$ 807 million and an IRR of 40% using a US$ 2.75 per pound copper price and a 7.5% discount rate. Excelsior's technical work on the Gunnison Copper Project is supervised by Stephen Twyerould, Fellow of AUSIMM, President & CEO of Excelsior and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Twyerould has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this news release. Additional information about the Gunnison Copper Project can be found in the technical report filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com entitled: "Gunnison Copper Project, NI 43-101 Technical Report, Feasibility Study" dated effective December 17, 2016. For more information on Excelsior, please visit our website at www.excelsiormining.com. ON BEHALF OF THE EXCELSIOR BOARD "Stephen Twyerould" President & CEO For further information regarding this press release, please contact: Excelsior Mining Corp. Concord Place, Suite 300, 2999 North 44th Street, Phoenix, AZ, 85018. JJ Jennex, Vice President, Corporate Affairs T: 604 723 1433 E: info@excelsiormining.com www.excelsiormining.com Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news release contains "forward-looking information" concerning anticipated developments and events that may occur in the future. Forward looking information contained in this news release includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to: (i) the closing the Financing, (ii) whether, and the extent which, Triple Flag will increase its stream and provide Excelsior additional funding (iii) Greenstone's participation in the Equity Placement, (iv) the results of the Feasibility Study, including operating and capital cost estimates and the economic benefits from the Gunnison Copper Project; (v) the timeline for commencement of construction and commercial production from the Gunnison Copper Project; and (vi) the ability to mine the Gunnison Copper Project using in-situ recovery mining techniques. In certain cases, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved" suggesting future outcomes, or other expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions, intentions or statements about future events or performance. Forward-looking information contained in this news release is based on certain factors and assumptions regarding, among other things, the estimation of mineral resources and mineral reserves, the realization of resource and reserve estimates, copper and other metal prices, the timing and amount of future development expenditures, the estimation of initial and sustaining capital requirements, the estimation of labour and operating costs, the availability of necessary financing and materials to continue to develop and construct the Gunnison Copper Project in the short and long-term, the progress of development activities, the receipt of necessary regulatory approvals, the estimation of insurance coverage, and assumptions with respect to currency fluctuations, environmental risks, title disputes or claims, and other similar matters. While the Company considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect. Forward looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such factors include risks inherent in the exploration and development of mineral deposits, including risks relating to changes in project parameters as plans continue to be redefined including the possibility that mining operations may not commence at the Gunnison Copper Project, risks relating to variations in mineral resources and reserves, grade or recovery rates resulting from current exploration and development activities, risks relating to the ability to access infrastructure, risks relating to changes in copper and other commodity prices and the worldwide demand for and supply of copper and related products, risks related to increased competition in the market for copper and related products and in the mining industry generally, risks related to current global financial conditions, uncertainties inherent in the estimation of mineral resources, access and supply risks, reliance on key personnel, operational risks inherent in the conduct of mining activities, including the risk of accidents, labour disputes, increases in capital and operating costs and the risk of delays or increased costs that might be encountered during the development process, regulatory risks, financing, capitalization and liquidity risks, including the risk that the financing necessary to fund the exploration and development activities at the Gunnison Copper Project may not be available on satisfactory terms, or at all, risks related to disputes concerning property titles and interest, environmental risks and the additional risks identified in the "Risk Factors" section of the Company's reports and filings with applicable Canadian securities regulators. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information is made as of the date of this news release. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 31, 2018) -Altamira Gold Corp. (TSXV: ALTA) (FSE: T6UP) (OTC Pink: EQTRF), ("Altamira" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has been granted a 2 year extension to the Porta Aberta claim block which is located 13km SSW of Altamira's flagship Cajueiro project (Figure 1) located in the north of the Alta Floresta Belt, in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. (Figure 1 - Location of the Porta Aberta project in the north of the Alta Floresta Belt) Figure 1 - Location of the Porta Aberta project in the north of the Alta Floresta Belt To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit: https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4500/40715_a9439daa64dfeb32_001full.jpg Highlights are as follows: - The Porta Aberta claim blocks amounting to 1,521ha and located 13km SSW of the Cajueiro project area have been extended for a further two years Recent reconnaissance work by Altamira suggests the presence of a series of high-grade veins with gold values ranging from 0.5g/t - 242.8g/t gold from a total of 12 surface rock samples taken within a NNW trending shear zone over a distance of approximately 2.5km Three of twelve samples returned values of 199.3g/t, 202.1g/t and 242.8g/t gold from poorly exposed NE trending veins within weathered granitic rocks over a distance of 800m (Figure 2 - The Porta Aberta project showing historic placer workings and location of surface samples with gold values.) Figure 2 - The Porta Aberta project showing historic placer workings and location of surface samples with gold values. To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit: https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4500/40715_a9439daa64dfeb32_002full.jpg The Porta Aberta project area is characterized by extensive historic placer workings which produced an estimated 500kg of gold and cover an area of several square kilometers. Outcropping gold mineralization appears to be confined to a series of quartz-sulphide veins within a NNWtrending shear zone characterized by silica-sericite-pyrite alteration which has been traced for 2.5km and is open to the north and south. The width of the shear zone and the width and extent of individual veins within the zone is, as yet, unknown. Reconnaissance rock chip sampling from outcropping quartz-sulphide veins returned gold values ranging from 0.5 to 242.8g/t gold (12 samples) with three samples returning 199.3g/t, 202.1g/t and 242.8g/t gold. In addition to the high-grade gold values returned from the surface sampling, elevated Ag (up to 60g/t), Zn (up to 0.13%), Pb (up to 1%) Cu (up to 0.08%) values were also returned. Commenting on these results, Mike Bennett, President & CEO stated "the discovery of very high-grade gold mineralization at Porta Aberta which is located just 13km SSW of our flagship Cajueiro project, is highly significant and comes on top of recent discoveries at Matrincha and Baldo East at Cajuiero. We are optimistic that additional surface work at Porta Aberta will allow us to define targets ahead of drilling". (Figure 3 - Location of the Porta Aberta project area with respect to larger Cajueiro project area. Main targets at Cajueiro are highlighted.) Figure 3 - Location of the Porta Aberta project area with respect to larger Cajueiro project area. Main targets at Cajueiro are highlighted. To view an enhanced version of Figure 3, please visit: https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/4500/40715_a9439daa64dfeb32_003full.jpg The company follows industry standard procedures with a quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) program. 2 Blank, 2 duplicate and 2 standard samples were inserted in each batch of 40 samples. Sample preparation and analysis was done at SGS GEOSOL in Vespasiano, Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Analysis is performed by fire assay with 50g fusion and Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy. About Altamira Gold Corp. The Company is focused on the exploration and development of gold deposits within western central Brazil. The Company holds 12 projects comprising approximately 200,000 hectares, within the prolific Juruena gold belt which historically produced an estimated 7 to 10Moz of placer gold. The Company's advanced Cajueiro project has an NI 43-101 compliant resources of 8.64Mt @ 0.78 g/t Au (for 214,000oz) in the Indicated Resource category and 9.53Mt @ 0.66 g/t Au (for 204,000oz) in the Inferred Resource category and an additional 1.37Mt @ 1.61 g/t Au in oxides (for 79,000oz in saprolite) in the Inferred Resource category. On Behalf of the Board of Directors, ALTAMIRA GOLD CORP. "Michael Bennett" Michael Bennett President & CEO Tel: 604.676.5660 Toll-Free: 1-833-606-6271 info@altamiragold.com www.altamiragold.com Guillermo Hughes, P. Geo., a consultant to the Company as well as a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, supervised the preparation of the technical information in this news release. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statements Statements in this document which are not purely historical are forward-looking statements, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. It is important to note that actual outcomes and the Company's actual results could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements.Except as required by law, we do not undertake to update these forward-looking statements. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 31, 2018) -SilverCrest Metals Inc. (TSXV: SIL) (NYSE American: SILV) ("SilverCrest" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Hannes Portmann to the Board of Directors replacing George Sanders, who is retiring from the Board. SilverCrest is also pleased to provide a brief update of ongoing activities at the Las Chispas project. Mr. Portmann is a mining executive with significant management and capital markets experience. Through May 2018, he spent 10 years with New Gold Inc., ultimately serving as President and Chief Executive Officer of the intermediate gold producer. Previously, Mr. Portmann served as Executive Vice President, Business Development with primary responsibilities including corporate development, investor relations, human resources, and exploration. Prior to New Gold, Mr. Portmann was a member of the Merrill Lynch investment banking mining group and the assurance and advisory practices of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Mr. Portmann holds a Bachelor of Science in Mining Engineering from Queen's University and a Masters of Management and Professional Accounting from the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. N. Eric Fier, CPG, P.Eng, and CEO, remarked, "We would like to thank George Sanders for his leadership and guidance during the Company's expansion of the Las Chispas project. His advice and strategic expertise made a significant contribution to SilverCrest's success as we navigated a challenging mining investment climate. We are happy to welcome Hannes Portmann to the Board of Directors. Hannes brings significant strategic planning, finance and capital markets experience to the Board, which should prove invaluable as we look to build shareholder value by advancing the Las Chispas project and the Company." On October 2, 2018, SilverCrest retained the services of Tetra Tech Inc. of Vancouver, BC to complete a Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") for the Las Chispas project. The PEA will consider the conceptual economics of developing a 1,000 to 1,500 tonne per day underground mining operation with a counter-current decantation facility (CCD) and Merrill Crowe recovery circuit similar to the nearby Santa Elena and Mercedes mines. The PEA is expected to be completed in Q1, 2019. As part of the PEA, the Company is completing expansion and in-fill drilling and detailed metallurgy testwork at Las Chispas. Given the high-grade nature of Las Chispas, the Company is evaluating cyanidation with a possible add-on flotation circuit followed by intense leaching for greater than 1,000 grams per tonne silver equivalent material. This test work will help determine the potential for higher silver recoveries using both cyanidation and flotation methods. Initial metallurgical testwork completed in November 2017 showed average recoveries of 86.6% for silver and 98% for gold using standard cyanidation only. SilverCrest is proceeding with the construction of an exploration decline to access the Babicanora Vein, Area 51 zone. The Company is finalizing its selection of contractors to construct this decline, estimated to be 500 metres long, 4.5 metres wide by 4.0 metres in height. The work will also include drifting 600 to 800 metres along the strike of vein mineralization to collect information on vein grade and width continuity, reconciliation with the resource model, geotechnical parameters, mineability, and bulk sampling for additional metallurgical testwork. During the construction of the exploration decline, the Company will set up drill stations to further in-fill drill the Area 51 zone and test for extensions at depth. The Company expects to be drifting in high-grade mineralization and stockpiling of this material in the second half of 2019. As previously stated in the Company's May 2018 prospectus offering, the total estimated cost of the decline and associated exploration work is approximately US$3 million, which will be funded by the Company's current cash position of approximately C$12.3 million. ABOUT SilverCrest Metals INC. SilverCrest is a Canadian precious metals exploration company headquartered in Vancouver, BC, that is focused on new discoveries, value-added acquisitions and targeting production in Mexico's historic precious metal districts. The Company's current focus is on the high-grade, historic Las Chispas mining district in Sonora, Mexico. SilverCrest is the first company to successfully drill-test the historic Las Chispas Project resulting in numerous discoveries. The Company is led by a proven management team in all aspects of the precious metals mining sector, including taking projects through discovery, finance, on time and on budget construction, and production. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. These include, without limitation, statements with respect to: the strategic plans, timing and expectations for the Company's exploration, rehabilitation and drilling programs of the Las Chispas Property, including expansion and in-fill drilling, detailed metallurgy testwork, completing a PEA, constructing an exploration decline, permitting for various work, and optimizing and updating the Company's resource model; information with respect to high grade areas and size of veins projected from underground sampling results and drilling results; accessibility of future mining at the Las Chispas Property and status of mineral titles. Such forward looking statements or information are based on a number of assumptions, which may prove to be incorrect. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things: the conditions in general economic and financial markets; availability of skilled labour; timing and amount of expenditures related to rehabilitation and drilling programs; and effects of regulation by governmental agencies. The actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of risk factors including: the timing and content of work programs; results of exploration activities; the interpretation of drilling results and other geological data; receipt, maintenance and security of permits and status of mineral property titles; environmental and other regulatory risks; project cost overruns or unanticipated costs and expenses; and general market and industry conditions. Forward-looking statements are based on the expectations and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. The assumptions used in the preparation of such statements, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date the statements were made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements included in this news release if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as otherwise required by applicable law. N. Eric Fier, CPG, P.Eng Chief Executive Officer SilverCrest Metals Inc. For Further Information: SilverCrest Metals Inc. Contact: Fred Cooper, Investor Relations Telephone: +1 (604) 694-1730 Fax: +1 (604) 357-1313 Toll Free: 1-866-691-1730 (Canada & USA) Email: info@silvercrestmetals.com Website: www.silvercrestmetals.com 570 Granville Street, Suite 501 Vancouver, British Columbia V6C 3P1 Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release . NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / October 31, 2018 / From October 23rd to 24th, the TAP team attended the 2018 Korea Blockchain Expo, sponsored by The Korea Economic Daily and Deloitte, and organized by GBIC and Hashed. The two-day event was held at the Seoul Hilton Hotel Convention and Exhibition Center and focused on blockchain policies at home and abroad as well as future industry prospects. Various blockchain projects were introduced to more than 2,500 participants from domestic and foreign enterprises. Several famous overseas blockchain projects and capital firms were also in attendance. The Sentinel Protocol API and ICF (Interactive Cooperation Framework) released for the first time Participants visited the TAP booth where they were introduced to the project and were able to try the beta version of the application. 'It is currently very cumbersome to go through the KYC (Know Your Customer) procedure for each exchange', said one of the visitors. 'It is impressive to be able to use TAP to trade on several exchanges with only a single KYC'. He also affirmed TAP's vision. 'With the TAP application, I believe that transacting with virtual currencies will become more and more convenient.' "I hope to use the TAP card as soon as possible", said another participant, confirming interest in convenient virtual currency settlements. During the live application demo, transactions were conducted using virtual currencies across different exchanges. The demo showed that these transactions can be settled within 3 seconds, giving the developers a well-deserved sense of relief! 'This has been a very meaningful trip to introduce the TAP project to the personal and institutional investors of South Korea, a prominent digital currency market', said Arsen Torosian, founder of TAP. 'We will further improve our company and applications based on feedback from participants.' The TAP project combines functions of a virtual currency investment portfolio with a free, virtual currency transaction service built upon TAP middleware. The application is attractive and user friendly, which is partly why TAP is widely considered to be a rising star in the blockchain community. The official version of the TAP application is undergoing testing and is expected to be released to the public on November 30th, 2018. For more information, follow TAP on: Website: http://www.tap.global/ Telegram: http://t.me/tapngoofficial Medium: https://medium.com/@tapngo.social Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TAP_Official/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/tapofficial1 Contact: peter@tapngo.io SOURCE: TAP View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/526739/Newest-Crypto-App-TAP-Attends-the-2018-Korea-Blockchain-Expo (ANSA) - Rome, October 31 - A small vase for oils and ointments, a wine pitcher and a bowl for food are three archaeological finds from the Greek era that had been smuggled out of Italy and have been tracked down and will be brought back. The finds were recovered through collaboration between the cultural heritage section of the Carabinieri and the FBI and were handed over to Culture Minister Alberto Bonisoli on Wednesday in Washington. "On this occasion I want to announce that, in the next few months, a draft law of government initiative will be presented at the cabinet in collaboration with the foreign affairs ministry, the justice ministry and the ministry that I represent for the ratification of the Convention of Nicosia on crimes against cultural heritage," Minister Bonisopli said at the ceremony in the Italian embassy in Washington. Over 15 years of collaboration between Italy and the US in working against the smuggling of archaeological finds was celebrated during the event. The minister said that there would be stiffer penalties in the draft law. Now businesses can automatically find what their dashboards miss and then easily generate common understanding and an action plan MELBOURNE, Australia, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Yellowfin BI, the enterprise analytics company that gets customers to the why faster, today announced the availability of Yellowfin Signals and Yellowfin Stories to help customers discover, understand, and act on real business opportunities faster than ever before. The release of these products represents two industry firsts: Yellowfin Signals provides the industry's first truly automated analysis of business information, and Yellowfin Stories provides the first cross-platform storytelling solution. Yellowfin Signals Yellowfin Signals automatically discovers and immediately surfaces critical changes in business data, such as sudden spikes and changes in trends. Yellowfin Signals alerts business users immediately as these changes occur. This is all achieved without logging into a dashboard or performing manual data discovery. "Yellowfin Signals represents the future of BI: continuous time-series detection of trends and anomalies with instant correlations to help users identify critical issues in real-time and what's driving them," said Wayne Eckerson, President, Eckerson Group. "Signals will dramatically speed time to relevant insights, allowing business users to focus on what really matters instead of hunting for data." Yellowfin Signals runs on a continuous basis, where it routinely analyzes available data looking for trends, patterns, or other changes. When it finds something, it analyzes other data sources to find correlated information, then sends an alert highlighting the pattern so all recipients can determine if the data is actionable. As a result, analysis fatigue and human bias, prevalent in traditional dashboard tools, are removed. "We're taking dead aim at dashboards because they fail to deliver on their promise. They should move businesses forward -- not making them wait," said Yellowfin BI CEO, Glen Rabie. "Yellowfin Signals automatically finds what dashboards miss, so users know what is going on in their business as it happens." Yellowfin Stories Yellowfin Stories is the first-ever data-storytelling product. Users create data stories that provide context and narratives, which give decision makers the information to make faster, better-informed decisions. Designed from the ground up to provide consistent and common understanding within the organization, Yellowfin Stories lets users embed live reports from multiple dashboard vendors, so all the key information is viewable in a single sharable story. "Dashboards rarely provide full context for the data they share, resulting in differing interpretations," said Rabie. "Yellowfin Stories lets you collect information in one place -- including signals and reports from different vendors -- agree on its meaning, and align on the action to take. Where dashboards fail, Yellowfin delivers." Yellowfin Stories improves knowledge sharing, collaboration, and communication within organizations and in turn, helps organizations become more data-driven in their decisions. "Yellowfin Signals uses AI that runs continuously in the background on live data, alerts users to changes in their data, visualizes the data, explains what is in the visualization and has the ability to find correlated information from other databases," said John Santaferraro, Research Director at EMA. "EMA considers Yellowfin to be a leader in the use of AI, machine learning, contextual storytelling, and social communication for business intelligence." Yellowfin Suite of Products Yellowfin Signals and Yellowfin Stories are standalone components of the Yellowfin suite of analytics products. Yellowfin provides the only enterprise analytics software suite that offers industry-leading automated analysis, storytelling, and collaboration. The suite can be purchased as a single integrated solution, or each component can be purchased separately, giving customers the flexibility to buy only what they need. The enhanced Yellowfin suite includes: Yellowfin Signals Yellowfin Stories Yellowfin Dashboards Yellowfin Data Discovery Yellowfin Data Prep Pricing and Availability Yellowfin Signals and Yellowfin Stories are available immediately as standalone solutions or as part of the Yellowfin Suite of products direct or through select channel partners. Pricing is based on server core and user seats. For more information, or to see a demo of any of the Yellowfin products, please visit yellowfinbi.com/suite. About Yellowfin Most BI vendors can tell customers what happened. Yellowfin tells them why it happened. Founded in 2003 in response to the complexity and costs associated with implementing and using traditional BI tools, Yellowfin delivers the only enterprise analytics software suite that offers industry-leading automated analysis, storytelling, and collaboration. Yellowfin ranked among the Top 5 analytics platforms across all 15 Gartner Critical Capabilities for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms, 2018. More than 27,000 organizations, and more than three million end-users across 75 different countries use Yellowfin every day to get to the why faster. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/690127/YF_Full_Colour_Logo.jpg Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. Camposol, with sales of USD 149.9 million reported a record EBITDA of USD 54.0 million in the third quarter of 2018, up 10.4% compared to the third quarter of 2017, and a record EBITDA of USD 88.4 million for the first nine months of the year, up 4.5% compared to the same period last year. LTM EBITDA amounted to USD 129.0 million. During the first nine month of the year, sales reached USD 290.0 million, up 20.5% vs. the same period last year, and LTM sales reached USD 417.8 million, 13.4% higher compared to year end 2017. This increase is mainly explained by higher volumes and prices of blueberries. As of September 30th, 2018, the Company maintained a cash balance of USD 29.3 million and it's net leverage ratio was 1.8x. Camposol reached over 2,000 planted hectares of blueberries, finalized investments in its top of the line blueberry packing facility and continued its expansion plan with tangerines in Uruguay and avocadoes in Colombia. The Company continues executing its strategy by increasing production on the F&V Division (blueberries, avocados and tangerines), consolidating shrimp volumes/yields in the Aquaculture Division (Marinasol), and reinforcing its relations with clients adding value through commercial programs, marketing and service initiatives. "Nowadays, the main supermarket chains in the world recognize the strength of Camposol's value proposition based on high levels of quality, consistency, traceability and on-time delivery of our products. This performance is possible because of our vertically integrated production model, which is also socially and environmentally responsible. Camposol is now moving up from being a window player to a year-round supplier and this is how we decided to go to Colombia to produce avocado all year round, together with Peru. Camposol has also arrived in Uruguay and soon will be the most important seedless tangerines player in the southern hemisphere and continue growing strongly in blueberries and shrimps from Peru, because of the advantage of being able to produce them all year round, with a continuous presence at the point of sale and an intelligent and focused communication" stated Jorge Ramirez Rubio, CEO of Camposol. Mr. Andres Colichon Sas, CFO, and Mr. Jossue Yesquen Lihim, Deputy Manager of Investor Relations, will host a conference call today, Wednesday October 31st at 10:00 (Lima). For details on the conference call, please see attached invitation details. Please see the full third quarter 2018 financial results' report and presentation enclosed (or click on the links below of this release if received by e-mail). For further information, please contact: Andres Colichon Sas, CFO acolichon@camposol.com.pe (mailto:acolichon@camposol.com.pe) Jossue Yesquen, Deputy Manager of Investor Relations jyesquen@camposol.com.pe (mailto:jyesquen@camposol.com.pe) Phone: +511 621 0800 Ext.: 7171 About CAMPOSOL CAMPOSOL is a vertically integrated producer of branded fresh and healthy food that offers high quality, healthy and fresh food to consumers around the world, based on a sustainable management model. CAMPOSOL is organized into two main business units: Camposol Fruits and Vegetables (fresh produce) and Marinasol (aquaculture) and its portfolio includes superfoods like blueberries, avocados, shrimp, mandarins, among others. Additionally, our international commercial platform is responsible for the commercialization of the products of these two units, with offices in the US, The Netherlands and China. CAMPOSOL guarantees the full traceability of its products and is committed to supporting sustainable development through social and environmental responsibility policies and projects intended to increase the shared-value for all its stakeholders. On the strength of this value proposition, CAMPOSOL's commercial offices have established long-term relationships with the top worldwide supermarket chains and service them directly. CAMPOSOL is also an active member of the Global Compact since 2008. It presents annual Sustainability Reports aligned to the GRI Methodology and has achieved the following international certifications: BSCI, Global Gap, IFS, HACCP and BRC among others. To learn more about CAMPOSOL please visit: www.camposol.com.pe (http://www.camposol.com.pe/) Camposol Holding 3Q - 2018 Presentation (http://hugin.info/138464/R/2223226/871207.pdf) Camposol 3Q - 2018 Invitation (http://hugin.info/138464/R/2223226/871206.pdf) Camposol Holding 3Q - 2018 Report (http://hugin.info/138464/R/2223226/871208.pdf) This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: Camposol Holding Limited via Globenewswire VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 31, 2018 -- Midnight Sun Mining Corp. (the "Company" or "Midnight Sun") (TSX-V: MMA) is pleased to announce the completion of the first tranche of its previously announced non-brokered private placement by issuing 4,458,000 units (the "Units") at a price of $0.12 per Unit for gross proceeds of $534,960. Each Unit consists of one common share ("Common Share") in the capital of the Company and one Common Share purchase warrant ("Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles the holder to purchase one Common Share of the Company for a period of twelve months from closing, at an exercise price of $0.20. The Company has agreed to pay finder's fees of $26,236.80 in cash and 218,640 finder's warrants in connection with this tranche of the Private Placement. Each finder's warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one common share at a price of $0.20 for a period of twelve months, expiring on October 31, 2019. The net proceeds of the Offering will be used by the Company to fund exploration work on its Zambian mineral properties as well as general working capital. All securities issued pursuant to this tranche, including the Common Shares underlying the Warrants, are subject to a statutory hold period which expires on March 1, 2019. The completion of this private placement and the issuance of all Common Shares and Warrants is subject to final acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange. Stock Options The Company has extended the previously announced investor relations agreement with Kaye Wynn Consulting Inc. ("Kaye Wynn") for an additional 12 months. Kaye Wynn has been extended for a period of twelve months at a rate of $1,500 (plus GST) per month. The Company will also grant Kaye Wynn stock options to purchase 350,000 Common Shares at $0.25 for a period of one year. The stock options shall vest in accordance with TSX Venture Exchange policies relating to the granting and vesting of Investor Relations Stock Options. The options are granted pursuant to the Company's Stock Option Plan and the contract may be cancelled by either party with 30 days' notice. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF MIDNIGHT SUN MINING CORP. Brett A. Richards - President and Chief Executive Officer For Further Information Contact: Brett A. RichardsPresident and Chief ExecutiveTel: +1 905 449 1500Al FabbroOfficer Lead DirectorTel: +1 604 351 8850 NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS NEWS RELEASE. These securities being offered have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the benefit of, U.S. persons (as defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act) absent U.S. registration or an applicable exemption from the U.S. registration requirements. This release does not constitute an offer for sale of securities in the United States. SOURCE: Midnight Sun Mining Corp. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/526729/Midnight-Sun-Mining-Corp-Completes-First-Tranche-of-Private-Placement Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - October 31, 2018) -Sitka Gold Corp. (CSE: SIG) ("Sitka" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has filed with the British Columbia Securities Commission, an updated NI 43-101 Technical Report on its recently acquired Burro Creek Property in Arizona. The Report was prepared by Ms. Jean Pautler, P.Geo., an independent registered professional geologist with Engineers and Geoscientists British Columbia. The report can be found on SEDAR and on the Company's website. The report presents a two-phase exploration to expand the size of the currently known deposit. Phase 1 will consist of geophysical surveys, trenching and geochemical surveys in advance of further drilling. During this time the existing Historical Mineral Resource Estimate on the property will be updated to bring it in line with present-day NI 43-101 reporting standards. Phase 2 calls for 4,000m of drilling in approximately 50 holes. The total cost of Phase 1 & 2 will be approximately $1.3 million CAD. Additionally, the Company has recently staked 27 lode claims on highly prospective ground adjacent to the 4 patented mineral claims where much of the exploration will take place going forward. This adds to the existing 8 lode claims and patented claims to bring the total area for the project to approximately 750 acres. About the Burro Creek Property The Burro Creek Property is located 1.6 km off of State Highway 93 in Mohave County, Arizona, approximately 265 km southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada and 200 km north of Phoenix, Arizona. The 750 acre property is accessible via dirt road and consists of four patented mineral claims (situated on private land) and 35 surrounding lode mineral claims. The Property is situated in an active mining belt that includes Freeport McMoran Copper & Gold Inc.'s neighbouring Bagdad Mine (www.fcx.com). Northwest Arizona also hosts other gold & silver development properties such as Northern Vertex Mining Corp.'s Moss Gold-Silver project (www.northernvertex.com). The Property covers a low-sulphidation epithermal vein system (the "Burro Vein") that hosts gold and silver Indicated and Inferred Historical Mineral Resource Estimates. The Burro Vein has been traced for over 1.7 km with reported widths of up to 45 meters and remains open for expansion along strike near surface and at depth. Results from a Mobile Metal Ion (MMI) soil survey conducted in 2013 by the last operators on the Property returned an anomalous gold and silver trace across the basalt cover that is interpreted to be the buried portion of the Burro Vein over a strike length of approximately 1.0 km. This anomaly provides immediate drill targets to test the continuity of the Burro Vein and potentially expand the known Historical Mineral Resource Estimate. Parallel high-tension power lines lie within 1.6 km of the Burro Deposit and water rights on the Property have been secured, providing the project with excellent infrastructure for future development (see previous news release NR18-18, dated September 21, 2018). This news release has been reviewed and approved by Donald Penner, P. Geo., President of Sitka Gold Corp., a "Qualified Person" under National Instrument 43-101 Standard for Disclosure for Mineral Projects. About Sitka Gold Corp. Sitka Gold Corp. is a mineral exploration company headquartered in Canada and managed by a team of experienced mining industry professionals. The Company is focused on exploring for economically viable mineral deposits with its primary emphasis on gold and copper mineral properties of merit. Sitka currently has an option to acquire a 100% interest in the Adobe Gold property in Nevada, an option to earn a 100% interest in the Burro Creek Property in Arizona and owns a 100% interest in its Coppermine River project in Nunavut and the Alpha Gold property in Nevada. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF SITKA GOLD CORP. "Donald Penner" President and Director For more information contact: Donald Penner President & Director dpenner@sitkagoldcorp.com or Cor Coe CEO & Director 604-817-4753 ccoe@sitkagoldcorp.com or Peter MacLean Director 604-781-8513 petergmaclean@hotmail.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. Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward Looking Information Certain statements included herein may constitute "forward-looking statements". All statements included in this press release that address future events, conditions or results, including in connection with exploration activity, future acquisitions and any financing, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may", "must", "plan", "believe", "expect", "estimate", "think", "continue", "should", "will", "could", "intend", "anticipate" or "future" or the negative forms thereof or similar variations. These forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions and analyses made by management in light of their experiences and their perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors they believe are appropriate in the circumstances. These statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including those mentioned in the Company's continuous disclosure documents, which can be found under its profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com). Many of such risks and uncertainties are outside the control of the Company and could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. In making such forward-looking statements, management has relied upon a number of material factors and assumptions, on the basis of currently available information, for which there is no insurance that such information, will prove accurate. All forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements set forth above. 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. The startup acceleration program -Protechting- reinforces Fosun's contribution to the Global innovation ecosystem LISBON, Portugal, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Fosun will announce the winners of the Protechting competition at Web Summit 2018, one of the largest technology conferences in the world. This is the third edition of Protechting, a startup acceleration program developed by Fosun and its portfolio companies Fidelidade (one of the largest Portuguese insurance companies), Luz Saude (one of the largest private health care groups) and the German private bank Hauck & Aufhauser. The final pitch of the competition dedicated to Healthtech, Fintech and Insurtech will be held on November 8th, at 10:30, in Pavilion 3 of the Web Summit venue, in Lisbon. During the largest and most international event for technology, entrepreneurship and innovation, the six Protechting finalists will make their final pitch before the judges composed of high-level representatives from Fosun and its portfolio companies. Vincent Li, Vice-President of Fosun and Chairman of Fosun Insurance Group will provide a key-note speech alongside Rogerio Campos Henriques, Vice-President of Fidelidade. The three winning startups will be announced by Vincent Li and Jorge Magalhaes Correia, President of Fidelidade Group. Sandra Freimuth, Board Member of Hauck & Aufhauser and Isabel Vaz, CEO of Luz Saude, will also attend the ceremony as partners of Protechting. The six finalists, that will have the opportunity to pitch at Web Summit's stage, will be selected in a first round that will take place on November 7th, among the 12 startups that were developing a pilot project inside Fosun's portfolio companies since June. The Protechting program, in association with Fidelidade and already on its third edition, reflects the Group's commitment to the development of a global startup ecosystem, by giving entrepreneurs a chance to make their dreams come true, and allowing them to collaborate with some of the most significant national and international players, such as incubators, venture capital funds and other entities. The three winning projects to be announced during the Web Summit will be awarded a roadshow in China, with access to some of the world's biggest investors, as well as the opportunity to integrate and develop their businesses with Fosun, Fidelidade, Luz Saude or Hauck & Aufhauser. The winner that is distinguished with the best business model will also receive a 10-thousand-euro monetary prize. During the Web Summit, which will take place from November 6th to 8th at Fil and Altice Arena in Lisbon, Fosun and Fidelidade will also host parallel events promoting networking opportunities between startups, partners and investors present at this conference dedicated to innovation and entrepreneurship. About Fosun Fosun was founded in 1992. Fosun International Limited is a family-focused multinational company that has been listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (00656.:HK) since 2007, with total assets over RMB560 billion (c.US$85 billion) as of June 30th, 2018. With its roots in China, and through technology and innovation, Fosun's mission is to create Customer-to-Maker (C2M) ecosystems in health, happiness and wealth, providing high-quality products and services for families around the world. About Fidelidade Fidelidade is the market leading insurance in Portugal, both life insurance and non-life area, currently recording a market share of 27.7%. The company is present in various business segments of the insurance activity and benefits from a largest network in Portugal, with a presence in several countries, as Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Spain, France and China (Macau). About Luz Saude Luz Saude was established in 2000 and is one of the largest health care groups in terms of income operating in the Portuguese market. The group provides its services through 20 units (including eight private hospitals, a hospital of the national health service operated under the Public-Private Partnership program, seven private outpatient clinics and two senior residences), located in the North, Central and Central-South regions of Portugal. About Hauck & Aufhauser With its 222 years of tradition, Hauck & Aufhauser Privatbankiers is one of few independent private banks in Germany. From its locations in Frankfurt am Main, Munich, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Cologne and Luxembourg, the bank focuses on providing comprehensive advisory services and administering the assets of its private, corporate and institutional clients. This includes asset management for institutional investors, close cooperation with independent asset managers and both the concept and management of private label funds. The focus lies in providing comprehensive and personalized advisory services, which form the basis for developing customized solutions. WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Statement by Lanny J. Davis, attorney for Dmitry Firtash, denying published reports about organized crime and other associations: Mr. Dmitry Firtash has never had any business dealings with Semion Mogilevich and has never been involved in any organized criminal activities in Russia or anywhere. Nor has he been involved in any way as a financial conduit to President Trump and an owner of Cambridge Analytica. He is also not connected to the ongoing investigation into U.S. elections. Any assertions to the contrary are not true - whether in a book, film, or news story. For further inquiries please contact: Eleanor McManus emcmanus@dggpllc.com 202-460-1451 cell DISSEMINATED BY DAVIS GOLDBERG GALPER, A REGISTERED FOREIGN AGENT, ON BEHALF OF DMITRYO FIRTASH. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE AT THE US DEPT OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, D.C. DUBLIN, October 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Fenergo delivers standardised global KYC policy, single client view, operational efficiencies and optimised client experience for Natixis' Corporate and Investment Banking business Fenergo, the leading provider of Client Lifecycle Management (CLM) software solutions for financial institutions, will deploy its flagship platform, Fenergo CLM, across Natixis' Corporate and Investment Banking division globally. Natixis is the international corporate and investment banking, asset management, insurance and financial services arm of Groupe BPCE, the second-largest banking group in France. Fenergo CLM delivers a standardised global Know Your Customer (KYC) policy and procedure. The robust, out-of-the-box regulatory framework spans Anti-Money Laundering (AML), KYC and other KYC classifications (such as MiFID II, FATCA, CRS, Dodd-Frank, EMIR, Canadian Derivatives, Margin Requirements, The Volcker Rule / Loi de Separation Bancaire, QDD/Hire Act (871M), Sec 15a6*, GDPR*) etc. Client and counterparty data and documentation are centralised, facilitating global regulatory rules and increasing the transparency of information across the KYC process, creating a single view of the client. This enables available client information to be reused, reducing the need for superfluous client outreaches. Marc Vincent, Global Head of Corporate & Investment Banking at Natixis, said: "Our strategy is based around serving our clients' needs, and our internal agility is central in this respect. By enhancing our processes through digital systems such as Fenergo's CLM platform, we aim to provide the best possible experience, and ultimately the best possible financial solutions to our clients." Marc Murphy, CEO, Fenergo, commented: "With increasing regulatory change and the expectation to deliver an optimum customer experience (cx) we are seeing accelerated demand for CLM amongst financial institutions. Leveraging our platform clients like Natixis can enhance the end-client experience whilst fast-tracking opportunities for revenue." Greg Casey, Vice President, EMEA, Fenergo, said: "By joining the Fenergo global CLM platform, Natixis has become an active member of our client engagement community and will join our regulatory, design and CTO forums. Natixis will directly contribute to the Fenergo regulatory and product roadmaps, enhancing our solution set even further. I personally look forward to working closer with Natixis professionals to deliver the next generation of Client Lifecycle Management solutions." About Fenergo (www.fenergo.com) Fenergo is the No. 1 provider of Client Lifecycle Management (CLM) software solutions for financial institutions, counting 26 of the top 50 financial institutions in the world as clients. Its award-winning CLM suite transforms how sell-side banks and buy-side firms manage clients - from initial onboarding to KYC/AML and regulatory compliance, to client data management and ongoing lifecycle KYC reviews and refreshes. Fenergo CLM empowers financial institutions to deliver a faster, more efficient and compliant client experience and achieve a single client view across channels, products, business lines and jurisdictions. Its rules-driven solution ensures compliance with multiple global and local regulatory frameworks including AML, KYC, Tax (CRS, FATCA, 871M), OTC Derivatives (EMIR, Dodd-Frank, MiFID II, Margin Requirements) and data privacy rules (GDPR). It supports the collection, centralization and sharing of client and counterparty data and documentation across the institution and deploys an API-first approach to advanced integration with a host of external KYC, AML and entity data providers, KYC and industry utilities. The solution is underpinned by next generation Artificial Intelligence, Robotics Process Automation and Machine Learning technologies, using advanced OCR and NLP capabilities to extract information, expedite compliance and improve operational efficiencies. INSEAD's The Force for Good Conference highlights how cultivating purpose-driven leaders and businesses can transform the world for the better Fontainebleau (France), Singapore, Abu Dhabi, 31 October 2018 - "Right in Principle, Right in Practice", the keynote speech by Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever at the inaugural INSEADThe Force for Good Conference highlights that cultivating purpose-driven leaders and businesses can transform the world and achieve a sustainable future. "Businesses represent approximately 60 percent of global GDP, 80 percent of financial flow and 90 percent of job creation," Polman said. "Business cannot be a bystander in a system that gives it life in the first place. We cannot find the solutions to these world challenges if we don't start to do things differently and see things differently." Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, giving a keynote speech at The Force for Good Conference. Polman demonstrated how Unilever's ambitious vision to fully decouple growth from its overall environmental footprint and to increase its positive social impact has not only brought sustainability and positive social impact to the table, but simultaneously created twice the market growth and 300 percent shareholder return to Unilever's bottom line over a 10-year period. "With two and a half billion consumers using Unilever's products every day in about 190 countries in the world, the company set a goal to reach one billion people. No governments alone in the world can do that." He added, "And interestingly, the more you do that, the more you address these societal issues, the better you do, and the better the company grows." Polman concluded that it is vital to have purpose-driven leaders and organisations focused on sustainability - driving growth by not only looking at the bottom line, but also at long-term impact to societies. Transforming people: changing mindsets and social norms Ilian Mihov, Dean of INSEAD and Professor of Economics, shared similar insights. During his speech on the Dean's Vision for Business and Society, he outlined INSEAD's ambitious goal: "Our goal is to change social norms, to change the way that we think about what it takes to do business. And we want to change mindsets. We want our students, our alumni, our community to continue transitioning in the way that we think about how we make decisions. At strategic level, what should we be doing? At operational level, how we are doing these things? So, in the process of decision making, we want automatically, instinctively to integrate the ideas of what we have as an impact on society." Ilian Mihov, Dean of INSEAD, shares the Dean's Vision for Business and Society. INSEAD's mission is clear - to develop responsible leaders who transform business and society. The school recently launched The Hoffmann Global Institute for Business and Society. The Institute will not only conduct research, but also engage INSEAD's students and its expanding network of 57,000 alumni to "challenge the status quo, and to find out what are the social norms today that our children, generations 20, 30 years from now, will find ridiculous and absolutely unacceptable," according to Dean Mihov. Polman said, "I am here supporting INSEAD and applauding the school to simply do more because it is one of the institutions that can produce the leaders that the world needs. The best investment we can make is in our future leaders - and in people that are more purpose-driven, who think long-term, intergenerational, people that understand the values of working in partnership and have a high level of humanity and humility as global challenges are being tackled." Transforming the world: inclusiveness and sustainability The takeaway from Polman's speech was clear - moving forward, business needs to align more with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed in the United Nations. Polman shared research that implementing the SDGs now can unlock $12 trillion a year in economic opportunity and create 380 million jobs. The timing could not be better. The world is starting to understand that the cost of not moving to a circular economy, the cost of not decarbonising the global economy and the cost of inaction on critical issues is immense. We face new risks and new levels of risk. "Today is an inflection point in my view. Paul mentioned many issues that the world is facing, in terms of health, gender, climate change and income inequality. We see that the world is moving on a path that is very risky. We also see that there is a will to change. I think we can do it. I think that INSEAD can be a leader in efforts to change these social norms," said Mihov. More than 600 global business leaders and practitioners attended The Force for Good Conference and Campaign for INSEAD Europe Launch in Fontainebleau on 5 October. The conversation on the role of business in positive societal progress will continue at the INSEAD Alumni Forum Asia and Campaign for INSEAD Asia Launch in Singapore on 10 November 2018. You can find more information about these events here (https://www.insead.edu/events/campaign-launch/asia). To learn more about the Campaign for INSEAD, visit the website (https://forceforgood.insead.edu/). ### About INSEAD, The Business School for the World As one of the world's leading and largest graduate business schools, INSEAD brings together people, cultures and ideas to develop responsible leaders who transform business and society. A global perspective and cultural diversity are reflected in all aspects of its research and teaching. With campuses in Europe (http://www.insead.edu/campuses/europe)(France), Asia (http://www.insead.edu/campuses/asia)(Singapore) and the Middle East (http://www.insead.edu/campuses/middle-east)(Abu Dhabi), INSEAD's business education and research spans three continents. The school's 154 renowned Faculty (http://www.insead.edu/faculty-research/faculty?types=4236)members from 40 countries inspire more than 1,400 degree participants annually in its MBA (https://www.insead.edu/master-programmes/mba), Executive MBA (https://www.insead.edu/master-programmes/gemba), Executive Master in Finance (https://www.insead.edu/master-programmes/executive-master-in-finance), Executive Master in Change (https://www.insead.edu/master-programmes/emc) and PhD (http://www.insead.edu/phd)programmes. In addition, more than 11,000 executives participate in INSEAD's executive education (http://www.insead.edu/executive-education)programmes each year. In addition to INSEAD's programmes on its three campuses, INSEAD participates in academic partnerships (https://www.insead.edu/about/alliance-partnerships) with the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (https://www.insead.edu/about/alliance-partnerships/insead-wharton-alliance) (Philadelphia & San Francisco); the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University near Chicago; the Johns Hopkins University/SAIS in Washington DC and the Teachers College at Columbia University in New York; and MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In Asia, INSEAD partners with School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University (http://tsinghua.insead.edu/)in Beijing, and China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai. INSEAD is a founding member in the multidisciplinary Sorbonne University (https://www.insead.edu/about/alliance-partnerships/sorbonne-universites) created in 2012, and also partners with Fundacao Dom Cabral in Brazil. INSEAD became a pioneer of international business education with the graduation of the first MBA class on the Fontainebleau campus in Europe in 1960. In 2000, INSEAD opened its Asia campus in Singapore. In 2007, the school inaugurated a Centre for Research and Executive Education in the United Arab Emirates and officially opened the Middle East Campus in Abu Dhabi in 2010. Around the world and over the decades, INSEAD continues to conduct cutting edge research and to innovate across all its programmes to provide business leaders with the knowledge and sensitivity to operate anywhere. These core values have enabled INSEAD to become truly "The Business School for the World". More information about INSEAD can be found at www.insead.edu (http://www.insead.edu/). INSEAD contacts for press: Axel Tagliavini Tel +33 1 60 72 90 11 Email: axel.tagliavini@insead.edu Aileen Huang Tel: +65 6799 5552 Email: aileen.huang@insead.edu (mailto:aileen.huang@insead.edu) Cheryl Ng Tel: +65 6407 7234 Email: cheryl.ng@insead.edu (mailto:cheryl.ng@insead.edu) Zeina Sleiman Tel: + 971 50 640 31 91 Email: zeina.sleiman@insead.edu (mailto:zeina.sleiman@insead.edu) Linda Furtado Tel +971 2 651 53 09 Email: linda.furtado@insead.edu (mailto:linda.furtado@insead.edu) This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients. The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein. Source: INSEAD via Globenewswire Regulatory News: Arkema (Paris:AKE) is expanding in engineering adhesives with the announcement of the acquisition of Afinitica, a Spanish company specializing in instant adhesives, also known as cyanoacrylates. This small targeted acquisition will enable Bostik to develop a solid position in adhesives used in markets with strong growth potential, including electronics and medical equipment, and in many other durable goods manufacturing applications. Afinitica has developed and patented a highly innovative manufacturing process for cyanoacrylate monomers used in the formulation of instant engineering adhesives with a broader scope of applications than traditional cyanoacrylates. The new adhesives formulated by Afinitica can be used on any type of surface and with any material (metal, wood, ceramic, plastics, etc.), and offer the advantage of being odorless, non-irritant, and leaving no trace. Instant adhesives are used in particular in high added value niche applications in the electronics markets, with their many applications such as automotive or communication, as well as in optical and medical device markets. They are enjoying strong growth thanks to the surge in the use of electronics in all aspects of everyday life. With this targeted acquisition, Bostik will expand its existing range of assembly adhesives, while also speeding up the development of its offering for the durable goods markets. This acquisition confirms Arkema's commitment to continue the expansion of its adhesives business, one of the major drivers of its long-term growth. A designer of materials and innovative solutions, Arkema shapes materials and creates new uses that accelerate customer performance. Our balanced business portfolio spans high-performance materials, industrial specialties and coating solutions. Our globally recognized brands are ranked among the leaders in the markets we serve. Reporting annual sales of 8.3 billion in 2017, we employ approximately 20,000 people worldwide and operate in close to 55 countries. We are committed to active engagement with all our stakeholders. Our research centers in North America, France and Asia concentrate on advances in bio-based products, new energies, water management, electronic solutions, lightweight materials and design, home efficiency and insulation. www.arkema.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005524/en/ Contacts: Arkema INVESTOR RELATIONS Sophie Fouillat, +33 1 49 00 86 37 sophie.fouillat@arkema.com or Arie Taieb, +33 1 49 00 72 07 arie.taieb@arkema.com or MEDIA Gilles Galinier, +33 1 49 00 70 07 gilles.galinier@arkema.com or Veronique Obrecht, +33 1 49 00 88 41 veronique.obrecht@arkema.com (ANSA) - Rome, October 31 - British budget airline EasyJet on Wednesday reiterated a manifestation of interest in a restructured Alitalia. It said this "manifestation of interest, in line with the terms of the process of sale started by the new Government, is consistent with EasyJet's current strategy for Italy". TO Company Announcements FROM F&C Commercial Property Trust Limited DATE 31 October 2018 LEI 213800A2B1H4ULF3K397 Director Declaration In accordance with the requirements of the Listing Rule 9.6.14, the Company advises the following change to directorships in other publicly quoted companies, held by the following member of the Board: Trudi Clark will be appointed to the Board of Alcentra European Floating Rate Income Fund Limited on 1 November 2018. All enquiries: The Company Secretary Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited Trafalgar Court Les Banques St Peter Port Guernsey GY1 3QL Tel: 01481 745001 Fax: 01481 745051 Additions to Board and Executives: Former Goldman Sachs Managing Director and Executives from MySpace, McCann-Erickson Marketing Join FRLF Team Las Vegas, Nevada--(Newsfile Corp. - October 31, 2018) -Freedom Leaf Inc. (OTCQB: FRLF) has surprised analysts and investors by exceeding its revenue guidance for its last quarter of its June 30 2018 fiscal year of $400K issued in a press release on July 3rd by 47% delivering revenue of $590K. Additionally its latest acquisition, Tierra Sciences Global, has generated $167K in the first 30 days of their prelaunch in affiliate marketing campaign. We project that the first quarter of our current fiscal year will be above approximately $600,000. Freedom Leaf CEO Clifford J Perry stated, "2018 was a transition year as we integrated Irie and Hempology brands and rationalized our supply chain. Closing Q4 with a 47% above our revenue guidance reflects these efforts and sets us up for a strong year of growth in 2019." The Company also announced the following key Board of Director appointments: Mr. David Goldburg, Senior Partner of Merida Capital Partners, a private equity fund, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of Freedom Leaf Inc. Mr. Goldburg has specialized in credit investing for the past 25 years, managing proprietary investment portfolios at leading Wall Street firms and hedge funds. Before joining Merida, he founded Battlebourne Capital, a cross-capital structure investment firm, in January 2016. Prior to Battlebourne, Mr. Goldburg served as the senior member of the New York office of Silver Rock Financial, Michael Milken's family office, since its inception in 2010 until his departure in January 2016. In September 2009, Mr. Goldburg formed Garnet Financial, a $200 million special situation credit vehicle funded by the Milken family. He was the portfolio manager of Garnet until it was merged into Silver Rock at the end of 2010. Previously, Mr. Goldburg was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs in the Bank Loan Distressed Investing Group, where he became responsible for managing a $1.0+ billion proprietary investment portfolio and a team of nine analysts. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, he had senior responsibility managing distressed credit portfolios at Oak Hill Advisors, Morgan Stanley, and Bear Stearns. Mr. Goldburg began his career as an analyst in the mergers and acquisitions group at the First Boston Corporation, received a B.A. in History from Brown University and is a Harry S. Truman Scholar. Ms. Jane Cavalier, CEO of Brightmark Consulting, a leading brand strategy advisory firm, has joined the company's Strategic Advisory Council. Ms. Cavalier has over twenty-five years of brand marketing experience, as a global brand strategist, Chief Marketing Officer and advertising executive. She has shaped brand and marketing strategies for over 50 organizations and is widely recognized for building some of the world's most iconic brands. Ms. Cavalier has been internationally recognized for creating such "renegade" brands as Snapple "Made from the Best Stuff on Earth," Qwest "Ride the Light" and the groundbreaking "BlindNewWorld" public service campaign for Perkins School for the Blind. Prior to founding Brightmark, Ms. Cavalier directed strategic planning at McCann-Erickson Worldwide, where she built McCann's global consulting unit and has been a visiting professor at New York University's Stern School of Business and the Yale School of Management. Mr. Joseph Abrams has joined Freedom Leaf's Strategic Advisory Council. Mr. Abrams has over thirty years of professional experience as a serial entrepreneur, capital structure and strategic business development advisor and early stage investor. Mr. Abrams was the co-founder of Toolworks where he served as President and Chief Operating Officer. Toolworks was successfully sold to Pearson PLC for $460M, as well as co-founder of eUniverse, Intermix Media and social media network MySpace. He was an early stage investor in Recruiter.com, one of the largest paid recruiter networks on the planet, an early stage investor in Akeena Solar, and is the owner and operator of seven orthotics and prosthetics clinics. He serves on the board of the Williams School of Business and the Simon School of business, both at the University of Rochester as well as the advisory board of Petroeq Energy. Additionally, Freedom Leaf announced the following key corporate executive appointments: Mr. Richard A. Bolandz, Managing Partner of the International Consultants Consortium, (ICC) who had been acting Special Assistant to Freedom Leaf's CEO for Operations has joined the company as Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Bolandz has over 25 years of professional experience in the field of competitive strategy, the strategic management of technology, and the application of technology to corporate development, business transformation and organizational change. Prior to his tenure at ICC, Mr. Bolandz has held successive C level positions within the Fortune 500 and has led four successful emerging technology start-ups as CEO. Before embarking on his career as an operating executive, he served as Director Technology Enabled Business Transformation at CSC Index Consulting, as an international competitive strategy consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton, and an intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Christopher Thompson has been promoted to Chief Marketing Officer after serving three years with The Company, first as Director of Digital Marketing, and then Director of Marketing for the new Hempology product line. Mr. Thompson joined Freedom Leaf after graduating with a degree in Biological Engineering from Purdue University, where he learned how to apply engineering-based problem-solving strategies to the design, development, and execution of brand strategy and marketing campaigns. He has also served as the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Las Vegas NORML Chapter, and has had a hand in founding 6 other non-profit NORML chapters across the country. Mr. Thompson is now leading the Freedom Leaf corporate marketing division and interfaces directly with all of Freedom Leaf's subsidiaries to align individual market strategies with The Company's overall corporate brand strategy. Going forward, Mr. Thompson will be continuing to expand The Company's in-house marketing team and developing new, innovative products to increase The Company's global brand recognition and market share. Freedom Leaf CEO and Co-Founder Clifford J. Perry, said, "We are very proud that these leaders have joined the Freedom Leaf team. This is a great vote of confidence in our company." All of the Freedom Leaf Inc. brands will be on display in a massive 20x20 island booth (#1869) at MJBizCon at the Las Vegas Convention Center from November 14th through 16th. The Freedom Leaf Inc. booth will feature upgraded lead capture systems and digital order processing for maximum effectiveness at generating bulk orders and marketing email lists at the show. The entire hemp and cannabis industry is invited to see what is new from Freedom Leaf's subsidiaries, including Hempology, Leafceuticals, and Irie CBD. About Freedom Leaf Freedom Leaf Inc. (OTCQB: FRLF), a group of diversified, international, vertically-integrated hemp businesses concentrating on health, wellness, and education as well as cannabis media companies. Freedom Leaf, Inc. has been a leading go-to resource in the cannabis, medical marijuana and industrial hemp industries since 2014, founded by professionals with decades of combined experience in marijuana legalization advocacy. FRLF is building a diverse portfolio of valuable businesses through strategic mergers, acquisitions, and acceleration projects across the industry. Freedom Leaf, Inc. does not handle, grow, sell, or dispense marijuana or related products. All of our European activities are in full compliance with relevant EU laws. Investor relations information can be found on the FreedomLeafInc.com company website. About Merida Capital Partners Merida Capital Partners is a private equity firm targeting fundamental growth drivers which accelerate the rapid development of the cannabis industry. Our motto, Responsible Investing in the Emerging Cannabis Industry, highlights our focus on cultivation technologies, products and services associated with the evolution of cannabis as an agricultural product, a natural plant-based medicine, a constituent in pharmaceutical formulations and a recreational consumer product. For more information, please visit www.meridacap.com or follow us on twitter @meridacap. Safe Harbor Statement Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical are "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by phrases such as Freedom Leaf, Inc. or its management "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "foresees," "forecasts," "estimates" or other words or phrases of similar import. Similarly, statements herein that describe the Company's business strategy, outlook, objectives, plans, intentions or goals also are forward-looking statements. All such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to differences include the uncertainty regarding viability and market acceptance of the Company's products and services, changes in relationships with third parties, and other factors described in the Company's most recent periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K dated June 30, 2016 and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Contact: Raymond Medeiros PR and Business Development Director Phone: 415-601-1974 ray@freedomleaf.com Freedom Leaf, Inc. CALGARY, AB / ACCESSWIRE / October 31, 2018 / Perisson Petroleum Corporation ("Perisson" or the "Company") (TSXV: POG) wishes to update its shareholders concerning the previously announced proposed USD $50 million equity private placement. Lan-cheng Limited ("Lan-cheng"), a private investment fund, has completed their due diligence work and has decided to proceed with the financing. Lan-cheng has established a new fund, Lan-cheng Westcity LP (the "Fund") and has advised Perisson of the appointment of legal (Chien Yeh Law Offices, Taipei) and financial advisors (Ernst Young, Shanghai) to oversee the funding process. The Fund has commenced finalizing commitments from its investor group. As previously announced, the Fund intends to purchase approximately 45,678,787 common shares of the Company at a price of USD $1.0946 per share, resulting in gross proceeds to the Company of USD $50 million (the "Financing"), subject to the negotiation and completion of a definitive financing agreement by the parties. The investment will represent 4.9% of the issued and outstanding shares of Perisson, post-Financing. Lan-cheng is an international private equity fund operating primarily in Shanghai and Hong Kong, China and Taipei, Taiwan. The Fund is a network of wealthy individuals, associated institutions and private equity groups which invest in large diverse projects on a project-by-project basis. Completion of the Financing is subject to a number of conditions, including but not limited to, TSXV acceptance. There can be no assurance that Financing will be completed as proposed or at all.Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved of the information contained herein. The Company continues to look for suitable oil and gas acquisitions, including farm-in candidates, and associated infrastructure, to leverage the Company's access to drilling capital, equipment and expertise. We look forward to developing partnerships with oil and gas companies with asset rich prospects that require significant funding to fully exploit. Perisson continues to work with CNOG for the acquisition of petroleum assets and petroleum product delivery into China. About Perisson Petroleum Corporation Perisson Petroleum Corporation is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange and trades under the symbol "POG". The Corporation has ownership in certain oil and gas producing properties in the Twining and Wainwright areas of Alberta, Canada. The Company also holds a 100% working interest in the VMM-17 block, a license located in the prolific, stable, oil-producing region of the Middle Magdalena Basin in central Colombia. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Wayne Rousch, President Direct Line: (403) 827-8597 wrousch@perisson.com FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to the timing and completion of the future operations of Perisson and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding the proposed Acquisition and the future plans and objectives of Perisson, 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. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Perisson's expectations are risks detailed from time to time in the filings made by Perisson with securities regulations. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of any offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities offered have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws. Trading in the securities of Perisson Petroleum Corporation should be considered highly speculative. 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. SOURCE: Perisson Petroleum Corporation View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/526794/Perisson-Announces-Financing-Update Washington DC--(Newsfile Corp. - October 31, 2018) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it has voted to adopt amendments to modernize the property disclosure requirements for mining registrants, and related guidance, under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The amendments will provide investors with a more comprehensive understanding of a registrant's mining properties, which should help them make more informed investment decisions. The amendments also will more closely align the Commission's disclosure requirements and policies for mining properties with current industry and global regulatory practices and standards. Under the final rules, a registrant with material mining operations must disclose specified information in its Securities Act and Exchange Act filings concerning its mineral resources, in addition to its mineral reserves. Current Commission rules and guidance permit the disclosure of non-reserve estimates only in limited circumstances. Requiring the disclosure of mineral resources in addition to mineral reserves will provide investors with important information concerning the registrant's operations and prospects. "The final rules will modernize the Commission's mining property disclosure regime by improving the quality and reliability of information provided to investors and by harmonizing disclosures with international standards, including removing the restriction on disclosure of mineral resource estimates that may have placed U.S. registrants and investors at a disadvantage," said SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. "We appreciate the valuable input that we have received from a diverse group of interested parties that helped inform the Commission and shape the final rules." The final rules include several other requirements designed to further the protection and understanding of investors. The final rules also reflect a number of changes to the rules proposed in June 2016 in response to commenters. The final rules provide a two-year transition period so that a registrant will not be required to begin to comply with the new rules until its first fiscal year beginning on or after Jan. 1, 2021. * * * FACT SHEET Modernization of Property Disclosures for Mining Registrants Action The Commission has adopted amendments to modernize the property disclosure requirements for mining registrants, and related guidance, under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The amendments more closely align the Commission's disclosure requirements and policies for mining properties with current industry and global regulatory practices and standards. In addition, the amendments rescind Industry Guide 7 and consolidate the disclosure requirements for registrants with material mining operations in a new subpart of Regulation S-K. These amendments are intended to provide investors with a more comprehensive understanding of a registrant's mining properties, which should help them make more informed investment decisions. Highlights of the Final Rules Under the final rule amendments, as proposed and consistent with global standards as embodied by the Committee for Reserves International Reporting Standards ("CRIRSCO"), a registrant with material mining operations must disclose specified information in its Securities Act and Exchange Act filings concerning mineral resources that have been determined on one or more of its properties. Current Commission rules and guidance permit the disclosure of non-reserve estimates, such as mineral resources, only in limited circumstances. Requiring the disclosure of mineral resources in addition to mineral reserves will provide investors with important information concerning the registrant's operations and prospects. Also as proposed, and consistent with the CRIRSCO standards, the final rule amendments require a registrant's disclosure of exploration results, mineral resources, or mineral reserves in Commission filings to be based on and accurately reflect information and supporting documentation prepared by a mining expert--the "qualified person." This requirement will further the protection of investors by helping to foster proper risk assessment and disclosure, which is key to an investor's understanding of each stage of a mining project. As proposed, the final rule amendments require a registrant to obtain a dated and signed technical report summary from the qualified person or persons, which identifies and summarizes the information reviewed and conclusions reached by each qualified person about the registrant's mineral resources or mineral reserves determined to be on each material property. A registrant must file the technical report summary as an exhibit to the relevant Commission filing when disclosing mineral reserves or mineral resources for the first time or when there is a material change in the mineral reserves or mineral resources from the last technical report summary filed for the property. The technical report summary filing requirement will not only help ensure that the registrant's disclosure in the Commission filing is accurate and reliable, but also will enhance investor understanding of a registrant's material mining properties. Principal Changes from the Proposed Rules The final rule amendments include a number of changes to the proposed rules in response to commenters. These changes would more closely align the Commission's mining property disclosure requirements with the CRIRSCO standards and thereby help decrease, relative to the proposed rules, the compliance burden and costs for the many registrants that are subject to one or more of the CRIRSCO-based codes, while preserving important investor protections. For example, among the changes, the final rules: Require a qualified person to use a price for each commodity that provides a reasonable basis for establishing estimates of mineral resources or mineral reserves, which may be a historical or forward-looking price, as long as the qualified person discloses and explains his or her reasons for using the selected price, including the material assumptions underlying the selection Provide that a qualified person will not be subject to expert liability under Section 11 of the Securities Act for certain aspects of specified modifying factors outside the expertise of the qualified person that are based on information provided by the registrant and are discussed in the technical report summary or other parts of the registration statement Eliminate the proposed quantitative presumptions regarding when a registrant's mining operations, and when a change in previously reported estimates of mineral resources or mineral reserves, are deemed to be material Eliminate the proposed summary disclosure provision requiring specific items of information in tabular format about a registrant's top 20 properties and, instead, adopt a more principles-based approach by requiring the registrant to provide investors with an overview of its properties and mining operations Reduce the number of summary and individual property disclosure provisions requiring tables from seven, as proposed, to two, and permit other required disclosure to be in either narrative or tabular format Permit, but not require, a registrant to file a technical report summary to support its disclosure of exploration results Permit the disclosure of exploration targets in Commission filings if accompanied by certain specified cautionary and explanatory statements Permit a qualified person to determine mineral resources and reserves at any specific point of reference, which must be disclosed in the technical report summary, rather than at three points of reference Permit a qualified person to include inferred resources in an economic analysis that the qualified person opts to include in an initial assessment as long as certain conditions are met Define "mineral reserve" to include diluting materials and allowances for losses that may occur when the material is mined or extracted Permit a qualified person to conduct either a pre-feasibility or final feasibility study to support a determination of mineral reserves even in high risk situations Permit the use of historical estimates of mineral resources or reserves in Commission filings pertaining to mergers, acquisitions, or business combinations if the registrant is unable to update the estimate prior to the completion of the relevant transaction, provided that the registrant discloses the source and date of the estimate, and does not treat the estimate as a current estimate Permit a registrant holding a royalty or similar interest to omit any information required under the summary and individual property disclosure provisions to which it lacks access and which it cannot obtain without incurring an unreasonable burden or expense The final rules also clarify that a third-party firm, which employs a qualified person, may sign the technical report summary and provide the written consent required for an expert under the Securities Act. Compliance Date The Commission adopted a two-year transition period so that a registrant will not begin to comply with the new rules until its first fiscal year beginning on or after Jan. 1, 2021. A registrant may voluntarily comply with the new rules prior to the compliance date, subject to the Commission's completion of necessary EDGAR reprogramming changes. Guide 7 would remain effective until all registrants are required to comply with the final rules, at which time Guide 7 would be rescinded. RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- 20 Safar 1440 - The first oil tanker has arrived in Aden port carrying the first installment of oil derivatives, worth USD 60 million, to supply diesel and mazut to electrical power stations in all provinces liberated by the Yemeni government as part of the Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen (SDRPY). The Aden Refinery Company has started distributing 62,000 tons of diesel and 25,000 tons of mazut to directorates, under the supervision of the legitimate Yemeni government, in order to power electricity- generating plants 24 hours per day and benefit some 8.5 million Yemenis. "Today we celebrate the arrival of the first installment of oil derivatives, in accordance with the royal decree from the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, as a continuation of the ongoing generosity of King Salman and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince toward our brothers in Yemen," said H. E. Mohammed bin Saeed Al Jaber, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Yemen and Supervisor of SDRPY. "This is being done because development in Yemen can't wait for the Iran-backed Houthi militias to accept political solutions - they are stealing from the Yemeni Central Bank and imposing famine on the Yemeni people, but we have begun development, because we are doing what is a priority for the support of all Yemenis." "The Saudi program," he added, "is a real example of the seriousness of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in supporting development and a better future for brotherly Yemen." "You all see the destruction caused by Iranian-backed Houthi militias, and you also see the reality of the development and construction carried out by the Kingdom," noted Al Jaber. "The difference between the two visions is clear: Iran is expending time and resources smuggling missiles and soldiers while the Kingdom works on rebuilding within the framework of integrated development supporting all of Yemen needs." The legitimate government of Yemen has agreed with SDRPY that distribution should begin in coordination with a local committee that includes a representative from: the oil company, SDRPY, the national electricity company, the central system of auditing and accountability, the chamber of commerce, and civic organizations. This committee's work will involve visiting the electrical power stations designated to receive the oil derivatives, checking the equipment, and monitoring the amount of oil derivatives supplied by SDRPY. The grant is intended to alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people, which is caused by the Iran-backed Houthi militias, and to support the economic situation and living standards. The first batch of oil derivatives was received by Ambassador Mohammed Al Jaber, SDRPY Supervisor; H. E. Aws Abdullah Ahmed Al Oud, Minister of Oil and Minerals; Vice Minister of Oil and Minerals Dr. Saeed Suleiman Al-Shamas; Vice Minister of Finance Mansour Al-Batani; Vice Minister of Electricity Mubarak Al- Tamimi; Acting General Manager of Aden Refinery Company Saeed Mohammad; Deputy General Manager of the Yemeni Oil Company Ghaleb Bin Maili; and President of the Syndicate at Aden Refinery Company Mohammed Al-Musibli. Twitter: @SaudiDRPY Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SaudiDRPYEN YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2T60Y_ZB9ta5PLRaCJbZ4Q LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/saudi-reconstructions-program-in-yemen/ Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/778030/Saudi_Development_Aden_20Ships.jpg Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - October 31, 2018) - Cuda Oil and Gas Inc. (TSXV: CUDA) ("Cuda" or the "Company") announces that it has changed its auditor from Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton LLP (the "Former Auditor") to KPMG (the "Successor Auditor") effective October 15, 2018 as a consequence of the Plan of Arrangement between Cuda Energy Inc. and Junex Inc. The audit committee and the board of directors requested that the Former Auditor resign as auditor effective October 15, 2018 to facilitate the appointment of the Successor Auditor as the Company's new auditor effective until the next annual general meeting. The Company has sent a Notice of Change of Auditor (the "Notice") to the Former Auditor and to the Successor Auditor and has received a letter from each addressed to the Alberta Securities Commission stating that they agree with the statements contained in the Notice. The Former Auditor confirms there are no reportable events, including disagreements, consultations or unresolved issues between Cuda and the Former Auditor. The Notice along with the letter from the Former Auditor and the letter from the Successor Auditor have been reviewed by the Company's audit committee and the board of directors and are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. About Cuda Oil and Gas Inc. Cuda Oil and Gas Inc. is engaged in the business of exploring for, developing and producing oil and natural gas, and acquiring oil and natural gas properties across North America. The Cuda management team has worked closely together for over 20 years in both private and public company environments and has an established track record of delivering strong shareholder returns. Cuda will continue to implement its proven strategy of exploring, acquiring, and exploiting with a long-term focus on large, light oil in place resource-based assets across North America including significant operational experience in the United States. The Cuda management team brings a full spectrum of geotechnical, engineering, negotiating and financial experience to its investment decisions. 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. SOURCE Cuda Oil and Gas Inc. For further information: Ronald J. Purvis Chief Financial Officer Cuda Oil and Gas Inc., (403) 863-8188 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. (ANSA) - Rome, October 30 - The death toll of the wave of extreme weather that is lashing Italy climbed to 11 on Tuesday, sources said. A man was found dead near Belluno, bringing to 11 the toll from the storms that have swept Italy since Sunday. Ennio Piccoli, 61, was found dead in the river Blois, near where his car had been found earlier. Four more victims were registered early on Tuesday after the gale-force winds and torrential rain claimed six lives on Monday. A woman was killed by flood waters at Dimaro, a volunteer firefighter was hit by a falling tree during an operation at San Martino in Badia, in Alto Adige, a 63-year-old kite-surfer was thrown against rocks at Cattolica and the body of a fisherman was found by firefighters in Lake Levico in Trentino. The fisherman is said to have gone out to check on his boat and is likely to have been blown into to the lake by the winds. Schools in many cities are closed again on Tuesday. Falling trees the cause of many of the deaths and of major disruption. The body of a man believed to be an immigrant of about 50 was found on the beach at Bacoli near Naples Tuesday. He is believed to have been swept into the sea by Monday's violent thunderstorms, drowned, and washed up on the beach, sources aid. But this has yet to be confirmed by an autopsy, and he is not among the storm death toll. The wave of extreme weather that is pounding Italy caused violent waves and winds to break very many large luxury yachts away from their berths and slammed them into the coastline at the private Carlo Riva Marina at Rapallo, near Genoa. Of the 390 yachts in the marina, half were destroyed, marina director Marina Scarpino said. "Ten-metre-high waves struck the rocks for hours and their force broke the storm barrier for 300 metres. "After the collapse in 2000, because of another freak wave, we had rebuilt the dam higher by 1.30 metres taking it up to 6.5 metres. "But it was not enough with this exceptional event". In Venice, St Mark's Basilica was damaged by Monday's exceptionally high acqua alta in the lagoon city, the First Procurator of St Mark's, Carlo Alberto Tesserin, said on Tuesday. The high water submerged some tens of square metres of the thousand-year-old marble mosaic floor opposite the altar of the Madonna Nicopeia and completely inundated the Baptistery and the Zen Chapel, he said. The water reached a depth of 90 centimetres above the mosaic flooring of the Nartece, washing up against the monumental Byzantine doors, the columns and the marbles, he said. On 8 October, the Delhi court had extended interim protection from arrest to P Chidambaram and his son Karti till 1 November in the Aircel-Maxis deal case. New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday requested a Delhi court to reject the anticipatory bail plea of former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in the Aircel-Maxis money laundering case and pressed for his custodial interrogation. The ED submission came in a reply to Chidambaram's anticipatory bail plea. The ED filed the reply before Special Judge O.P. Saini who is scheduled to hear the plea on 1 November. On 8 October, the court had extended interim protection from arrest to Chidambaram and his son Karti till 1 November in the Aircel-Maxis deal case. Citing various top court judgements, the ED pressed for custodial interrogation of the former Minister. Stating that the former Minister is an influential person, the agency told the court: "A blanket order fully insulating a person from arrest would make his interrogation a mere ritual." The agency also told the court that Chidambaram has not cooperated in investigation. It said: "...therefore, grant of anticipatory bail at this stage would be highly detrimental for the investigation process." The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the ED are investigating how Karti Chidambaram allegedly managed to get clearance from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) in the Aircel-Maxis deal when his father was the Union Finance Minister in 2006. The ED said the investigation pertaining to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval granted fraudulently by Chidambaram has to some extent been concluded, while with regard to certain issues it is still going on. The ED on 25 October filed a charge-sheet in the case naming Chidambaram and a few others. The CBI on 19 July filed a chargesheet against 18 persons in the case, including the former Finance Minister and Karti. On 29 August, 2014, the CBI had filed a charge-sheet in the case alleging that between July 2004 and September 2008, Dayanidhi Maran, as Minister in the UPA-I government, used his influence to help Malaysian businessman T.A. Ananda Krishnan buy Aircel by coercing its owner Sivasankaran to part with his stake. Sivasankaran alleged that Maran favoured the Krishnan-owned Maxis Group in the takeover of his company. In return, he alleged, Maxis made investments through Astro Network, a sister concern, in Sun Direct TV Pvt Ltd (SDTPL), stated to be owned by the Maran family. However, a special court had dropped charges against Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi and others in the alleged kickback of Rs 742 crore in the Aircel-Maxis deal, saying that the "perception or suspicion" was not backed by concrete evidence. Special judge MS Azmi rejected Vijay Mallya's plea and said the court will hear arguments on the main ED plea to declare the beleaguered industrialist an FEO on 22 November Mumbai: A special court on Tuesday rejected businessman Vijay Mallya's plea seeking a stay on the proceedings initiated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to declare him a fugitive economic offender (FEO). Special judge MS Azmi rejected Mallya's plea and said the court will hear arguments on the main ED plea to declare the beleaguered industrialist an FEO on 22 November. The special court had heard extensive arguments on Friday from Mallya's lawyer as well as the ED counsel on his petition seeking a stay on proceedings of the financial crime probe agency against him. The ED has sought that Mallya, who is currently in the UK, be declared an FEO and his properties be confiscated and brought under the control of the Union government as per provisions of the new FEO Act. Mallya's counsel Amit Desai, however, had urged the court, set up under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), to refrain from hearing the ED's plea at least till 26 November. Desai had told the court that earlier this month, the appellate tribunal against money laundering had directed the ED to maintain status quo with regard to Mallya's properties till 26 November, the next date of hearing before the tribunal. The ED, represented by advocate D P Singh, however, had told the court that Desai's arguments were aimed only at ensuring that Mallya did not have to face any proceedings before any court in India. He has no intention of repaying anyone, or, of ever coming back to India. Mallya is using the pending extradition proceedings and his bail conditions imposed by an English court as mere excuses to avoid coming back to India. Declaring him an FEO is the only way to bring him back, ED had told the court. The ED had also argued the court could first declare Mallya an FEO and then wait for the tribunal's proceedings before acting upon the agency's plea for the confiscation of the embattled liquor tycoon's properties and assets. Mallya, accused of defaulting on loan repayments and money laundering, left India in March 2016. Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, at the India Mobile Congress (IMC), had said that the telecom sector remains highly taxed just like the tobacco industry New Delhi: The Department of Telecom (DoT) has constituted committees to work on objectives set by National Digital Communications Policy, especially around concerns raised by service providers, a top government official said. "We have constituted several committees. We need to enlarge some committees... to bring inter-ministerial participation for views of the Department of Finance, Department of Space and Department of IT. Most of the committees have been constituted, and now we will get down to work," Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan told PTI in an interview. She was responding to a question on the action plan of DoT to achieve targets set by the government under National Digital Communications Policy (NDCP) 2018. When asked about the roadmap for rationalisation of levies and spectrum prices, Sundararajan said "committees will start working immediately." Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, at the India Mobile Congress (IMC), had said that the telecom sector remains highly taxed just like the tobacco industry. "In India, for every Rs 100 that mobile operators earn, nearly Rs 37 goes towards one form of levy or the other," Mittal had said. "I cannot see how this contradiction can exist...where on one hand we have PM's vision of digitally enabled India ...which requires tremendous amount of investment, on the other hand, we keep the spectrum prices and our licence fee very high...and of course the GST is at 18 per cent which almost at the highest tax bracket," he had stated. The telecom secretary said that most of the issues were expected to be resolved in a year, and for some work will have to go on till 2022 as per the target date set under NDCP. "We do accept two things. You need a lot more spectrum for 5G to happen. Second, revenue maximisation cannot be the only objective," Sundararajan said. She said that taking concerns of telecom sector players, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has already proposed up to 46 per cent reduction in price of spectrum. "If anything more needs to be done, then we will have to look at it after committee gives its recommendations," Sundararajan said. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) Monday recommended auction of about 8,644 MHz of telecom frequencies at an estimated total base price of Rs 4.9 lakh crore, which includes radiowaves for 5G services. Sundararajan said that telecom companies have shown huge enthusiasm for 5G services at the IMC. "They (telecom companies) need spectrum for the trials. We will make available all global bands for trial. They need simply right of way mechanism. We will set up official mechanism to set up trials. We have also told them we do not want showcasing of what has already been done. We want something new," Sundararajan said. The IMC that was held during October 25-27. Sundararajan said that government had plans to conduct spectrum auction for 5G services in the second of 2019. In June, India-headquartered Tata Steel had confirmed that it has agreed on the terms of a 50-50 joint venture with ThyssenKrupp to create Europes second-largest steel company after Lakshmi Mittals ArcelorMittal. London: The European Union on Tuesday launched an "in-depth investigation" to assess if Tata Steel's proposed joint venture with German steel giant Thyssenkrupp would breach the bloc's merger regulations and reduce competition. Tata Steel and Thyssenkrupp are major integrated producers of flat carbon steel and electrical steel, with significant production facilities in the European Economic Area (EEA), in particular in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. In June, India-headquartered Tata Steel had confirmed that it has agreed on the terms of a 50-50 joint venture with Thyssenkrupp to create Europes second-largest steel company after Lakshmi Mittals ArcelorMittal. "The European Commission has opened an in-depth investigation to assess the proposed creation of a joint venture by Tata Steel and Thyssenkrupp," the European Commission, the executive arm of the 28-member economic bloc, said in a statement. At this stage, the Commission said it is concerned that the merger between the two steel majors may reduce competition in the supply of various high-end steels. "Steel is a crucial input for many of the goods we use in our everyday life, and competitive steel prices are vital for the European economy," said Margrethe Vestager, Commissioner in charge of the EUs competition policy. Industries dependent on steel employ over 30 million people in Europe and we must be able to compete in global markets. This is why we will carefully investigate the impact of the planned combination of Tata Steel's and Thyssenkrupp's steel businesses on effective competition in the steel markets, the Danish politician said. The European Commission said its initial market investigation raised several issues, relating in particular to combining both companies' offer of certain specialty flat carbon steel and electrical steel products. The specific categories it highlighted as areas of concern include steel for automotive applications, which concerns various types of steel, predominantly galvanised, that are used to produce cars and car parts; metallic coated steel for packaging, which is used to produce various packaging solutions, such as food and aerosol cans; and grain-oriented electrical steel, which is used to produce a variety of engineering products such as transformers. The Commission said it is concerned that, following the transaction, customers would face a reduced choice in suppliers, as well as higher prices. These customers include various European companies, ranging from major corporations to numerous small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). Many compete with imported products in the EEA, or export their products outside Europe and compete globally, the Commission said in a statement. The Tata-Thyssenkrupp transaction was notified to the European Commission on 25 September and both companies chose not to submit commitments during the initial investigation to address the Commission's preliminary concerns. The Commission now has 90 working days, until 19 March next year, to take a decision. The opening of an in-depth investigation does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation, its statement clarified. Under EU rules, the Commission has a duty to assess mergers and acquisitions involving companies with a turnover above certain thresholds and to prevent concentrations that would significantly impede effective competition in the EEA or any substantial part of it. The proposed JV firm called Thyssenkrupp Tata Steel, which had been under discussions since September 2017, will have a total workforce of 48,000 employees spread across 34 sites, producing about 21 million tons of steel a year with revenues of around EUROS 15 billion. "The joint venture will create a strong pan-European steel company that is structurally robust and competitive," Tata Steel chairman N Chandrasekaran had said at the time of the announcement. By Alexandra Alper and Marta Nogueira RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA could sell an additional $20 billion in assets through next year, a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Tuesday, indicating that the state-run oil company expects to maintain its robust pace of divestments despite recent setbacks. Planned sales of its Pasadena refinery in Texas and two oilfield clusters in the Campos basin could be inked by year end, the source said, declining to be named given the sensitivity of the topics By Alexandra Alper and Marta Nogueira RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA could sell an additional $20 billion in assets through next year, a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Tuesday, indicating that the state-run oil company expects to maintain its robust pace of divestments despite recent setbacks. Planned sales of its Pasadena refinery in Texas and two oilfield clusters in the Campos basin could be inked by year end, the source said, declining to be named given the sensitivity of the topics. Petrobras did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Petrobras, the world's most indebted listed oil company, has been seeking to sell assets to reduce its debt load, despite resistance from unions and courts. From 2016 to the present, it has divested some $20 billion. But as of June 2018, it had completed just $9.5 billion of the $21 billion in divestments it had targeted for 2017 and 2018. It has not released an asset sales forecast for 2019. Petrobras could conclude the sale of its Pasadena refinery in Texas to Chevron by the end of 2018, though it will not recover its more than $1 billion investment, the source said. Reuters reported last week that Petrobras was in talks to sell the refinery to Chevron. [nL2N1X51W3] Chevron declined to comment. A plan, valued at around $1 billion, to sell Pampo and Enchova, two shallow-water mature oilfield clusters located in Brazil's Campos basin, is also expected to be signed this year, said the source and another person familiar with the matter. Reuters reported in July that Petrobras had entered exclusive talks to sell the area to Brazilian energy firm Ouro Preto Oleo e Gas, which is backed by private equity firm EIG Global Energy Partners. [nL1N1UK1P2] EIG could not immediately be reached for comment. Ouro Preto declined to comment. Petrobras will not achieve the $21 billion 2017-2018 divestment goal without the sale of its TAG pipeline unit, valued at around $7 billion. The TAG sales process, which had been in its final stages, is likely to remain frozen for the time being after a court decision earlier this year requiring sales of units of state companies to get congressional approval. [nL1N1TZ0IO] Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, who takes power in January, has said he generally favours allowing Petrobras to sell assets, while opposing a full privatisation. New Brazilian presidents typically replace senior management at Petrobras and other state-owned companies, and the pace of divestments could shift under new leadership. BOOSTING OUTPUT Petrobras has also been seeking creative ways to boost output from its aging oil fields, selling a 25 percent stake in its prolific Roncador field in the Campos Basin to Norway's Equinor earlier this year. In the same vein, the company also sought bids in May from oil services firms Schlumberger , General Electric Co's unit Baker Hughes and Halliburton for a production sharing agreement for an onshore field in the Potiguar basin. [nL2N1T719C] That would mark the first such deal between oil services companies and Petrobras, with the firms competing by offering to boost output most from the aging Canto do Amaro field. But a deal is not likely until the first quarter of 2019, the source said. Another person familiar with the matter said an agreement this year was possible but more likely for next year. Baker Hughes, Halliburton and Schlumberger declined to comment. Despite the setbacks, Petrobras, which reports quarterly results next week, is likely to reach its goal of cutting net debt to 2.5 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by year-end, the person with knowledge of the matter said, down from 3.23 times at the end of June. (Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Marta Nogueira; Editing by Christian Plumb and Rosalba O'Brien) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Speaking at India-Italy Technology Summit, Modi said that India is taking IT software power to the next level and 'developing technological temperament from scientific temper' Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced the launch of next phase of the India-Italy bilateral industrial research and development cooperation program. Modi addressed the India-Italy Technology Summit in New Delhi along with his Italian counterpart Giuseppe Conte and discussed a range of issues, including ways to boost cooperation in key areas such as trade and investment. Conte arrived in New Delhi On Tuesday morning and was warmly welcomed by Modi. More technology for greater progress. Addressing the India-Italy Technology Summit. https://t.co/Tqn285Hevs Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 30, 2018 Speaking at the summit, Modi said that India is taking IT software power to the next level and "developing technological temperament from scientific temper". He said that digital payments are increasing at a speed of 250 crore transactions per month. "In the past 4 years in India, the price of 1 GB data has reduced by more than 90 percent," the prime minister said. The prime minister informed that India and Italy have agreed to enhance cooperation in the field of LAD Life Style Accessories Design. "There will also be a special focus on the leather sector, transportation and automobile design, he said. He said that the goal of the government is to ensure that the results of the research & development programmes do not get limited to research centres only, but reach the public. "That's why I say that science is universal, but technology has to be local," Modi said. Conte said that he had a fruitful meeting with Modi where the heads of the two countries reviewed all the areas of our bilateral partnership. "Regarding our economic partnership, we've explored possible Italian contribution to 'Make In India', Conte said. The highlight of the day-long visit is the Italian prime minister's participation at the 24th edition of the India-Italy Technology Summit, which is being organised by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The summit will focus on a number of areas, including healthcare, aerospace, education, clean technology, renewable energy and information and communication technology. The bilateral trade between the countries increased to $10.5 billion in 2017-18 from $8.8 billion in the previous fiscal. Italy is India's fifth largest trading partner in the European Union and the annual trade turnover between the two countries was$10.4 billion in 2017-18. Over 600 Italian companies are operating in India. With inputs from PTI TOKYO (Reuters) - Oil prices climbed for the first time in three days on Wednesday, but rising supply and fears over the outlook for demand amid the U.S.-China trade war kept pressure on the market. Brent crude futures had gained 36 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $76.27 a barrel by 0110 GMT. They fell 1.8 percent on Tuesday, at one point touching their lowest since Aug TOKYO (Reuters) - Oil prices climbed for the first time in three days on Wednesday, but rising supply and fears over the outlook for demand amid the U.S.-China trade war kept pressure on the market. Brent crude futures had gained 36 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $76.27 a barrel by 0110 GMT. They fell 1.8 percent on Tuesday, at one point touching their lowest since Aug. 24 at$75.09 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures advanced 27 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $66.45 a barrel on Wednesday. They dropped 1.3 percent the day before, after hitting their weakest since Aug. 17 at $65.33 a barrel. Both crude benchmarks have fallen about $10 a barrel from four-year highs reached in the first week of October, and are on track to post their worst monthly performance since July 2016. Oil has been caught in the global financial market slump this month, with equities under pressure from the trade fight between the world's two largest economies. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he thinks there will be "a great deal" with China on trade but warned that he has billions of dollars worth of new tariffs ready to go if a deal is not possible. Trump said he would like to make a deal now but that China was not ready. He did not elaborate. The United States has already imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods, and China has responded with retaliatory duties on $110 billion worth of U.S. goods. In a bearish signal, the American Petroleum Institute reported U.S. crude inventories rose 5.7 million barrels last week, more than analyst forecasts for a 4.1 million-barrel build. Investors will look to official government data on U.S. inventories due on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said high oil prices were hurting consumers and could dent fuel demand at a time of slowing global economic activity. Oil production from Russia, the United States and Saudi Arabia reached 33 million barrels per day (bpd) for the first time in September, Refinitiv Eikon data showed. (Reporting by Aaron Sheldrick; Editing by Joseph Radford) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The special court had heard extensive arguments from Mallya's lawyer as well as the ED counsel on his petition seeking a stay on proceedings of the financial crime probe agency against him The special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court on Tuesday rejected fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya's plea seeking to stay attachment of his assets by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), a media report said. According to Mint, Mallya will now move the Bombay High Court to stop the ED from attaching his properties. We would like to appeal this order in the Bombay high court. Since we are challenging the order and there is a court vacation in between, we are just requesting a reasonable time from the court, Amit Desai, senior counsel for Mallya was quoted as saying by the newspaper. The court has also rejected Mallya's plea seeking a stay on the proceedings initiated by the ED to declare him a fugitive economic offender (FEO). Special judge MS Azmi rejected Mallya's plea and said the court will hear arguments on the main ED plea to declare the beleaguered industrialist an FEO on 22 November. The special court had heard extensive arguments on Friday from Mallya's lawyer as well as the ED counsel on his petition seeking a stay on proceedings of the financial crime probe agency against him. The ED had also argued the court could first declare Mallya an FEO and then wait for the tribunal's proceedings before acting upon the agency's plea for the confiscation of the embattled liquor tycoon's properties and assets. In June, the ED moved a court against Mallya seeking to confiscate his assets worth Rs 12,500 crore. The application sought to immediately confiscate about Rs 12,500 crore assets of Mallya and his companies, both movable and immovable. The ED had furnished evidences in its two charge sheets, filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in the past. Mallya is contesting these money laundering charges in London as part of India's efforts to extradite him from there and face the legal system here in connection with an overall alleged loan default of over Rs 9,000 crore of various banks. Mallya left India in March 2016. With inputs from PTI The RBI had announced last week that it would inject Rs 40,000 crore into the system in November as it looks to meet festive season demand for funds. Mumbai: Ahead of the Diwali festival, the Reserve Bank on Tuesday announced it will inject Rs 12,000 crore into the system through the purchase of government securities on 1 November. Last week, the central bank said had announced to inject Rs 40,000 crore into the system in November through the purchase of government securities as it looks to meet festive season demand for funds. "Based on an assessment of prevailing liquidity conditions and also of the durable liquidity needs going forward, the RBI has decided to conduct the purchase of the following Government securities under Open Market Operations for an aggregate amount of Rs 120 billion on November 01, 2018 (Thursday)...," it said in a statement. The eligible participants should submit their offers in electronic format on the Reserve Bank of India Core Banking Solution (E-Kuber) system on 1 November. The result of the auction will be announced on the same day and payment to successful participants will be made the following day. The RBI had earlier stated that the system liquidity will move into deficit in the second half of 2018-19 and the evolving liquidity conditions would determine its choice of instruments for both transient and durable liquidity management. Section 7 empowers the central government to give directions to the RBI, after consultation with the Governor of the central bank, as it may consider necessary in the public interest. There have been reports that the government may consider invoking Section 7 of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Act allowing it to issue directions to the central bank governor on matters of public interest. However, no government since Independence has invoked Section 7 of the Reserve Bank of India. Tensions between the finance ministry and the RBI have risen since the banks deputy governor Viral Acharya said in a speech on Friday that undermining a central banks independence could be potentially catastrophic, an indication that the regulator is pushing back hard against government pressure to relax its policies and reduce its powers. Acharya, who had three of his fellow deputy governors in the audience, also thanked RBI Governor Urjit Patel for his "suggestion to explore this theme for a speech," in a show of unity from an institution typically known for its restraint. Government officials have recently called for the RBI to relax its lending restrictions on some banks, and New Delhi has also been trying to trim the RBI's regulatory powers by setting up a new regulator for the country's payments system. Union finance minister Arun Jaitley criticised the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for failing to prevent lending excess in a speech on Tuesday. "The central bank looked the other way when banks gave loans indiscriminately during 2008 to 2014, Jaitley said while speaking at an event in New Delhi. A high-level empowered committee will decide on whether to invoke Section 7 of the RBI Act for providing relief to stressed power projects from insolvency proceedings. Economic Affairs Secretary S C Garg told reporters last month that there is a panel headed by the Cabinet Secretary which will take a call on whether to invoke Section 7 of the RBI Act or not. "The section can be invoked only in exceptional circumstances and the power asset issue is too small to enforce Section 7 of RBI Act," a finance ministry functionary said last month. What is Section 7 of the RBI Act? The Section empowers the central government to give directions to the RBI, after consultation with the Governor of the central bank, as it may consider necessary in the public interest. The Central Government may from time to time give such directions to the Bank as it may, after consultation with the Governor of the Bank, consider necessary in the public interest, says the Section. "Subject to any such directions, the general superintendence and direction of the affairs and business of the Bank shall be entrusted to a Central Board of Directors which may exercise all powers and do all acts and things which may be exercised or done by the Bank. 2[(3) Save as otherwise provided in regulations made by the Central Board, the Governor and in his absence the Deputy Governor nominated by him in his behalf, shall also have powers of general superintendence and direction of the affairs and the business of the Bank, and may exercise all powers and do all acts and things which may be exercised or done by the Bank." --With inputs from agencies (ANSA) - Bologna, October 31v - Alleged multiple murdered Norbert Feher aka 'Igor the Russian' said at a preliminary hearing Wednesday that he did not want a public trial. On a video link with Zaragoza prison in Spain, the Serb was asked if he would allow journalists to be present. His defence requested a fast-track trial pending a psychiatric evaluation. The daughter of one of Igor's victims, environmental aid worker Valerio Verri, told reporters "sadly perhaps a murderer with a black skin would make more of a noise than Igor". Feher was indicted in April for the murders of barman Davide Fabbri and Verri near Bologna and Ferrara in April last year. In the indictment request, Feher was cited as using at least six aliases. He has been charged with 11 crimes including murder, judicial sources said. Feher is in jail in Zaragoza in Spain where he has been indicted for another three murders committed before he was arrested there in December. Feher alias Igor Vaclavic confessed to two murders in Italy and three in Spain before a Spanish magistrate in mid-December. But he refused to answer Italian prosecutors' questions, exercising his right to remain silent. Feher, 37, was captured on December 15 after a shoot-out in which three people, including two members of Spain's Guardia Civil police, were killed. Feher, who was born in Serbia in 1981, said he had used 18 different identities in eight States. He said he arrived in Spain in September and agreed to be tried in Italy for the crimes he is accused of there. Spain has said he will not be extradited to Italy until he has answered for the crimes he committed in Spain. 'We are easing regulations for startups. We are also working with the tax department and regulators, and we have been able to simplify 24 regulations so far,' DIPP Secretary Ramesh Abhishek said New Delhi: The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) is working with the tax department and regulators to ease the rules and laws for startups to support budding entrepreneurs, a top government official said on Wednesday. "We are easing regulations for startups. We are also working with the tax department and regulators, and we have been able to simplify 24 regulations so far," DIPP Secretary Ramesh Abhishek said here. He said that easing the processes and norms are the biggest agenda for the department so that it supports the growth of startups. The secretary also said that to increase the availability of funds for startups, the department has asked Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) to commit Rs 3,300 crore by March next year. "SIDBI has already taken equity in 30 alternate investment funds (AIFs), committing more than Rs 1,500 crore and those funds have raised Rs 7,500 crore," he said. The government has established Rs 10,000 crore Fund of Funds for startups (FFS) to meet their needs. SIDBI is the operating agency for the FFS. As per the guidelines, the FFS contributes to the corpus of Sebi-registered AIFs. These AIFs in-turn have to invest at least twice the contribution under FFS in startups. Under the 'Startup India Action Plan', the government announced incentives, including tax holiday and inspector raj-free regime, besides capital gains tax exemption. Talking about patent facilitation programme for budding entrepreneurs, Abhishek said that so far patents were granted to 41 startups with an average time of one year. Normally, it takes about 5-7 years for grant of a patent. India jumped 30 places to rank 100th among 190 nations in last year's World Bank's 'ease of doing business' index India has jumped 23 places to rank 77th in the World Bank's 'ease of doing business' ranking, helped by improvement in 6 out of 10 indicators. India improved its ranking for the second straight year on the back of reforms related to insolvency, taxation and other areas. India was ranked 100th in the World Bank's Doing Business report last year. The ranking comes as a shot in the arm for the Narendra Modi government which faces strong dissenting voices from opposition parties ahead of the general elections next year. In its annual 'Doing Business' 2019 report, World Bank said India improved its rank on six out of the 10 parameters relating to starting and doing business in a country. These parameters include ease of starting a business, construction permits, getting electricity, getting credit, paying taxes, trade across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. India was ranked at the 142nd position among 190 nations when the Modi government came to power in 2014. It rose to the 100th spot in the last ranking from 131st rank in the previous year. New Zealand tops the list of 190 countries in ease of doing business, followed by Singapore, Denmark, and Hong Kong. The United States is placed eight and China has been ranked 46th. Neighbouring Pakistan is placed at 136. World Bank put India among the top 10 economies to make the most improvements. Observing that the two economies with the largest populations, China and India, demonstrated impressive reform agendas, the World Bank said India also focused on streamlining business processes. What worked for India India, it said, made starting a business easier by integrating multiple application forms into a general incorporation form. "India also replaced the value-added tax with the GST (Goods and Services Tax) for which the registration process is faster," it said. Also, "India made paying taxes easier by replacing many indirect taxes with a single indirect tax, the GST, for the entire country. India also made paying taxes less costly by reducing the corporate income tax rate and the employees' provident funds scheme rate paid by the employer," the World Bank said. Stating that a well-designed insolvency framework is a vital determinant of debt recovery, it said the establishment of debt recovery tribunals in India "reduced non-performing loans by 28 percent and lowered interest rates on larger loans, suggesting that faster processing of debt recovery cases cut the cost of credit." Further, India reduced the time and cost of export and import through various initiatives, including the implementation of electronic sealing of containers, the upgrading of port infrastructure and allowing electronic submission of supporting documents with digital signatures, it said. World Bank said India has further streamlined the process of obtaining a building permit and made it faster and less expensive to obtain a construction permit. It also improved building quality control by introducing decennial liability and insurance. 'Rare feat' says Commerce Ministry A Commerce and Industry Ministry statement in New Delhi said: "India's leap of 23 ranks in the ease of doing business ranking is significant considering that last year India has improved its ranking by 30 places, a rare feat for any large country of the size of India." The country, it added, has improved its ranking by 53 positions in the last two years and 65 positions in four years since 2014. Richa Gupta, senior director and senior economist, Deloitte India, said: In World Banks latest release of Ease of Doing Business rankings 2019 among 190 countries, India managed to accumulate a further jump of 23 paces to reach 77th position. This is a big positive for the economy, and indicates the pace of reform measures underway. "Over the last year, the government eased FDI rules across various sector for ease of passage of investments apart from implementing GST and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). Separately, the government had also announced implementation of investor-centric online single window model for providing faster clearances and filing compliances. Noting these, the recent ranking upgrade clearly depict Indias consistency in resolving barrier issues, having made the most gains in indicators relating to trading across borders and construction permits. India remains among the top economies in terms of making improvements in doing business for the second consecutive year. The effect of this is going to be positive for India. The gains made can be expected to boost the recovery in the growth further. Rankings on 10 parameters The World Bank ranks 190 countries based on 10 parameters, including starting a business, construction permits, getting electricity, getting credit, paying taxes, trade across borders, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency. "India has improved in rank in 6 out of 10 indicators and has moved closer to international best practices...The most dramatic improvements have been registered in the indicators related 'construction permits' and 'trading across borders'," the ministry said. The rank has improved by a whopping 129 notches with regards to 'construction permits', 66 points in 'trading across borders', 19 in 'starting a business', and 7 points in 'getting credit'. World Bank: India's ease of doing business ranking 2016 2017 2018 Overall 130 100 77 Starting a Business 155 156 137 Dealing with Construction Permits 185 181 52 Getting Electricity 26 29 24 Registering Property 138 154 166 Getting Credit 44 29 22 Protecting Minority Investors 13 4 7 Paying Taxes 172 119 121 Trading across Borders 143 146 80 Enforcing Contracts 172 164 163 Resolving Insolvency 136 103 108 Under its National Trade Facilitation Action Plan 2017-2020, India implemented several initiatives that improved the efficiency of cross-border trade, reducing border and documentary compliance time for both exports and imports, World Bank said. "Enhanced risk-based management now allows exporters to seal their containers electronically at their own facilities; as little as five percent of shipments must undergo physical inspections," it said, adding that India also invested in port equipment, strengthened management and improved electronic document flow. Regarding getting electricity, newly-adopted regulations from the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission require that electrical connections be completed within 15 days of the application's acceptance. To comply with this regulation, Tata Power Delhi Distribution deployed more personnel as well as tracking tools and key performance indicators to monitor each commercial connection, it said. In its annual report, the World Bank said overall, the BRIC economies -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- improved their average ease of doing business score by a combined total of almost 19 points across various areas of business regulation. All four economies improved in the area of getting electricity and passed reforms simplifying the process of trading across borders, it said. Govt expected better rankings On Tuesday, Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu hinted at improvement in India's ranking in the World Bank's ease of doing business report, to be released on Wednesday. "Tomorrow [Wednesday], you will be hearing a better news about India improving parameters on ease of doing business. We already have improved substantially. We will make the formal announcement tomorrow with the World Bank (releasing its report)," Prabhu said here on Tuesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was in Japan recently to attend the 13th India-Japan annual summit said, "When I took over the responsibility of the government in 2014, India was at 140th position in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business rankings. Now, India has reached 100th position, and we are working towards a better ranking." The prime minister also pointed out that the Government of India has started to rank its 36 states and Union Territories "to further promote Ease of Doing Business" in the country. With inputs from PTI At a function organised by CVC, Kovind said there is a serious effort to curb and punish those involved in economic offences, and to give habitual offenders a sense of fear of the law. New Delhi: President Ram Nath Kovind Wednesday asked those holding top posts in financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies, and the government to act like "ethical leaders" as their work and conduct affects the lives of common people. His advice assumes significance as CBI director Alok Verma and special director Rakesh Asthana, who have accused each other of impropriety, have been sent on leave by the Central government. At a function organised by probity-watchdog Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), Kovind said there is a serious effort to curb and punish those involved in economic offences, and to give habitual offenders a sense of fear of the law. Citing different legislative measures and the introduction of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill in Parliament, Kovind said such initiatives give confidence to honest citizens and taxpayers. Addressing the gathering, he said those present in the auditorium hold top positions in state-run banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions, and the government. "It is important that you understand the actual meaning of integrity, transparency and honesty. In the broad meaning of integrity both dedication to work and institutional discipline is included." "Your conduct inspires other people of your organisation. Your work and ethical values, affect lives of lakhs and crores of citizens. In true sense, your role is of ethical leaders," the president said. The function was organised by the CVC during the ongoing vigilance awareness week, being observed from 29 October to 3 November to raise awareness on anti-corruption measures. "The confidence of our people that decisions and actions are being undertaken with transparency, accountability and fairness must continuously be enhanced," Kovind said. "Unnecessary delays in decision making too hurt the credibility of any institution," he said, adding that technology and the internet can be of great use in this regard. Kovind said like "prevention is better than cure" is considered effective in the health sector, in the same way preventive vigilance is better that the punitive vigilance can prove to be an effective policy in checking corruption. Talking about benefits of use of technology to check graft, he said Rs 3.65 lakh crore has been delivered to beneficiaries of 431 different schemes using direct benefit transfers in the past four years. In addition, I have been told that direct benefit transfer and other governance reforms have led to removal of duplicate or fake beneficiaries, as also to plugging of leakages. As a result of these, estimated savings amounting to approximately Rs 90,000 crore have been made in the period ending March 2018, Kovind said. He said from extending banking facilities to previously un-banked sections of our people to implementing the Goods and Services Tax (GST), various endeavours have been made to boost the formal economy. Adoption of digital systems has also helped contain corruption. In this manner, loop-holes for corruption and misuse of public money are being addressed, the president said. Two people were killed and two others were seriously injured when unidentified armed men opened fire at a garment shop in JHV Mall in Varanasi. Two people were killed and two others were seriously injured when unidentified armed men opened fire at a garment shop in JHV Mall in Varanasi. "Two people have died in the incident, we are examining the CCTV footage and a thorough investigation will be done," ANI quoted a police personnel as saying. IANS reported that the deceased are said to be shopkeepers who ran the garment shop. The Times of India further reported that the injured have been shifted to a hospital for treatment. The report also said that there was panic in the mall after the gunshots were heard. There were four assailants who opened fire indiscriminately in the mall. According to India TV, eyewitnesses said that the firing took place due to an argument over a discount. The report added that the mall has been evacuated and the police are going through the CCTV footage of the mall to nab the culprits. Another report in Financial Express said that similar incidents have been reported at the mall earlier too. With inputs from agencies The Ayodhya issue has been on the political table for more than a couple of decades. We would do well to remember a few facts. The Ayodhya issue has been on the political table for more than a couple of decades. We would do well to remember a few facts. Both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are responsible for the communalisation of the issue. Congress allowed a mosque to be opened for worship by Hindus on entirely specious pleas. The BJP went one better: it demolished the mosque and now, the Sangh Parivar, including vocal sections of the party, wants the immediate construction of a temple on the disputed site. The matter is under litigation. In a wholly egregious judgment, a third of the disputed property has been assigned to a non-existent character in the dramatis personae: Rama, a mythological character at best. The matter now rests with the Supreme Court, which has made it clear that it will deal with the matter in due course. That may not suit the BJP, which may have been looking for quick electoral rewards, following the judgment by an earlier bench dismissing the review petition seeking relief from an earlier verdict that had held that a mosque was not necessary for Muslims to offer prayer. A temple is not necessary for Hindus to offer prayer either. Whether it is at all necessary to offer prayer is, of course, an entirely different issue. We shall forebear from entering into disputatious territory. One thing is absolutely clear, however. Now that the Supreme Court has made clear its intentions, if the government allows itself to be stampeded into legislative deus ex machina, it will show up as a plaything of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and a willing tool of the Sangh parivar. It is a different matter that many people in the country already know that the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi relies on the Hindutva push rather than the avowed development agenda to remain in power. That is singularly why Modi allows members of his council of ministers to issue statements urging action independent of the Supreme Courts final verdict. The more extreme elements, outside the Union council but well within the Sangh parivar, are advocating direct action. Others are urging the government to pass legislation which will overtake the judicial process and make it possible to construct a temple on the disputed Babri Masjid site. No one has publicly advocated the construction of a residential school for the underprivileged or a hospital. These are demands, presumably, that no community would be averse to signing up to. The problem, of course, is that the Ayodhya, or Ram Janambhoomi, issue was not mainly a matter of faith. It was converted into an emotive issue by then BJP president LK Advanis rath yatra and the subsequent demolition of a structure that had archaeological significance, if nothing else. The majority of Hindus populating the territory we call India did not know about the specifics of the Ayodhya dispute because, strictly speaking, it did not exist, and the people did not care. The BJP weaponised the issue as an electoral ploy and succeeded to an extent in that it reaped rich electoral rewards by mobilising the majority. The Ayodhya issue, lest we forget, is a classic example of the self-same vote-bank politics the BJP so routinely decries. We do not know how far the Ayodhya issue can run politically. The BJP obviously thinks it still has legs. One reason is that it has used the plank of majoritarian mobilisation successfully since, and leading up to, Modis ascent to power. Think of the Muzaffarabad riots and the BJPs 71 seats in the Lok Sabha. Think also of the beef with beef and the vigilantism, covertly sponsored by the Union government and state governments run by the BJP. But there is a good reason why the party in power at the Centre should not allow itself to be herded into executing legislative force majeure. Parliaments actions, in other words, legislation, create precedents. They have always done so. But to legislate in a matter so divisive and partisan would expose the government for what it is: not the agent of development but one of majoritarian fantasies. Legislation in this matter would announce unambiguously that India is a denominational, or communal, state. It does not distance itself from religion, as it ought to under its constitutional remit, and it does not even take on the role of an impartial umpire, as it has usually done. It actively intervenes on the behalf of a vocal section of the majority community only for electoral gains. How will that play out? One would like to think that the gain from majoritarian mobilisation in north India will be wiped out by other forms of mobilisation in north India, amongst the Dalits, for instance, and in other places, the east and south, where Ayodhya is not exactly top-of-the-mind. For the moment, however, it is fervently to be wished that a judicial outcome be awaited, even if it is argued that the Ayodhya issue is not primarily a property dispute: it is fundamentally about how the nation-state will live out its destiny. We hope it will not be benighted. On 22 October, a 13-year-old girl was murdered before her mother in a village on the outskirts of Salem near Aathur, Tamil Nadu. S Rajalakshmi was beheaded by 27-year-old P Dinesh Kumar, a neighbour On 22 October, a 13-year-old girl was murdered in a village on the outskirts of Salem near Aathur, Tamil Nadu. S Rajalakshmi was beheaded in front of her mother by a 27-year-old neighbour P Dinesh Kumar, reports The Times of India. According to the report, Kumar entered Rajalakshmi's house wielding a sickle around 9.30 pm. Following a brief confrontation with her mother, he attacked the class VIII student, soon beheading her. Kumar escaped but was handed over to the police by his wife. The initial report suggests that a preliminary investigation found that Kumar, a driver by profession, had attempted to murder his own son just a couple of days before the incident and might not have been in a stable frame of mind. His wife also claims that he had been behaving erratically for the past few months. The subsequent report, however, quotes the victim's mother alleging that Kumar had abused her using her caste name after he had entered her home on the night of the crime. Rajalakshmi belonged to a Dalit family. Her mother claims that Kumar was provoked to kill her daughter after Rajalakshmi rejected his sexual advances and exposed him, reports The Times of India. Activists have too rejected the police's line of inquiry pertaining to Kumar's mental state at the time of the crime. This is, in a way, a #MeToo crime. Rajalakshmi was killed because she had spurned his advances; because she spoke about it. In fact, it is both a caste crime and a sexual offence and needs to be addressed at both levels, A Kathir, executive director of Evidence, a movement that works on human rights among Dalits, is quoted saying by The Wire. Meanwhile, several human right activists organised protests condemning the incident and demanding a thorough inquiry. "All of us need to rise against brutality on Dalit girls and women," the activist Kamla Bhasin wrote, expressing solidarity with a protest at Chepauk, on Wednesday. The police, in the meantime, say are probing all angles in the case. CBI DSP Devender Kumar's bail plea was arrested on 22 October in connection with bribery case involving the agency's special director, Rakesh Asthana. Kumar is accused of forging documents in the Moin Qureshi case. Delhi's Patiala House Court on Wednesday granted bail to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Devender Kumar on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and surety of the same amount. Earlier in the day, the court had reserved its verdict on the bail plea filed by Kumar, who was arrested on 22 October in connection with bribery allegations involving his immediate senior at the agency, CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana. During the hearing, the lawyer appearing for the DSP told the court that the CBi had violated every rule in this case against him, and the "irony" is that the person who followed the rule was in jail. The CBI did not oppose Kumar's bail petition either. In his bail application, Kumar called his custody "illegal" and claimed that CBI sleuths did not have valid search warrants when they raided his office and residence before his arrest. He also said he was ready to abide by conditions imposed by the court if granted bail. His eight mobile phones, an iPad and his son's laptop were seized in the raids, Kumar said in his bail plea, seeking a direction to the CBI to release these articles. Kumar and Asthana have already challenged the legality of the FIR filed against them. Besides them, two alleged middlemen brothers Manoj Prasad and Somesh Prasad have also been named as accused in the case. The CBI had earlier told the court that Kumar had tried to fabricate evidence during the investigation into another case. Kumar had claimed that he was falsely implicated in the case and was a victim of rivalry among the senior officers of the investigating agency. Kumar had said he was looking into a case against meat exporter Moin Qureshi, in which the complainant in the present case Hyderabad-based businessman Satish Babu Sana was a suspect, and the names of some past and present senior CBI officers had surfaced. The DSP had claimed that his arrest in the present bribery case was motivated to stall the investigation into the Qureshi matter, and that there was no direct allegation against him. If convicted in the case, the accused may get a maximum of 10 years in jail. The FIR in the bribery case was lodged on the basis of a written complaint from Sana on 15 October, wherein it was alleged that Kumar, being the investigating officer in the case against Qureshi, had repeatedly called the complainant to the CBI office to harass him and compel him to pay a bribe of Rs 5 crore to get a clean chit in the case. The complaint had also claimed that a part of the bribe was paid by Sana. With inputs from agencies Two officers from warring factions of Alok Verma and Rakesh Asthana are accusing each other of manipulation of seized data, tampering with evidence and destroying records to benefit one or the other camp, further eroding the credibility of the investigating agency New Delhi: In a criminal investigation, nothing is more tangible than the search and seizures. If all items can be accounted for and thoroughly examined, the procedure may transform the fate of the case. But the entire process has a flimsy side too. If they can be manipulated, the whole case may just cause an upheaval. And thats what is happening in the present CBI case where two officers from warring factions of Alok Verma and Rakesh Asthana are accusing each other of manipulation of seized data, tampering with evidence and destroying records to benefit one or the other camp. CBI DSP Devender Kumar, close confidante of Asthana, has accused investigating officers close to Verma of manipulating the seizure memo by showing on record just one mobile phone during the searches at his office and residence on 20 October. Devender was arrested on bribery charges in the Moin Qureshi case and is now under 14-day judicial custody. Devender alleges that seven other mobile phones belonging to him were not shown in the search list for two days and may have been tampered with to fabricate evidence against him. The seven other phones were submitted to the CBI technical unit on 22 October. On the other hand Vermas close confidante DSP Ajay Kumar Bassi, who was transferred to Port Blair after the government appointed M Nageshwar Rao as the interim director via a midnight order, has alleged that the new officers appointed by the agency to handle the investigation may destroy the records and irrefutable evidence to insulate Asthana from bribery charges levelled against him by Sathish Babu Sana. Let's have a look at the evidence tampering charges by Devender . Firstpost has reviewed the search and seizure list dated 20 October by CBI AC-III Unit. It mentioned that One' mobile phone of Devender was seized and it was put in a sealed envelope. Another memo accessed was prepared on 26 October giving out details of all the articles seized by the CBI, which clearly mentioned that One mobile was handed over to Inspector SK Jha around 8 PM on 20 October while other seized items including an iPad were given on 22 October. The mobile phone mentioned at serial No 1 in the list (Motorola make, model XT1068, dual SIM mobile) was handed over to me by Dinesh Kumar, Inspector CBI AC III on 20 October, 2018, around 8 pm. The remaining articles were handed over to me by Inspector Dinesh Kumar on 22 October, 2018, around 5 pm for data extraction purpose. The articles were kept in paper envelopes but were not in a sealed condition. However, the envelopes were closed by using cello tape. The articles mentioned at serial No 2 to 4 have been opened and processed by me for retrieving the data. The envelopes of remaining articles were opened to check the specifications of the articles, which has been incorporated in the instant handing over memo, it said. It is pertinent to mention that handing over memo was prepared after the midnight mayhem at CBI Headquarters on 23 October. The two-page memo date 26 October also unravels the mystery about those mobile phones that were missing for more than 48 hours and suddenly appeared in paper envelopes. The list includes two iPhones, another Motorola phone with a 16 GB memory card, two external USB hard drives, one mobile phone each of Samsung, GFive, Nokia make and an iPad. Devender alleges that other articles were not shown in the search and seizure memo and surreptitiously inserted two days later to tamper with evidence and even fabricate some evidence to frame him in the bribery case. Interestingly, the memo is silent on those two mysterious days and about the officers, who were supposedly handling it during that period. Bassi, on the other hand, moved the Supreme Court seeking not just setting aside his transfer order but also requesting the apex court for constituting a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to conduct an impartial investigation. Bassi claims that he was brought into the unit investigating the bribery charges against Asthana and Devender only on 28 September 2018 and barely spent three weeks on the job. Nevertheless, the officer, who earlier served in the domestic spy agency Intelligence Bureau (IB) for more than a decade before joining CBI in 1999 has collected a plethora of evidence charging Asthana and his team members of colluding with the accused (Moin Qureshi and others) and scuttling the probe in return of huge sums. Although, he claims to have handed over the evidence related to the case to the newly appointed DSP Satish Dagar, Bassi alleges that Dagar is suspected to have been instructed to ensure a clean chit to Asthana, while officers like him (Bassi) are implicated for performing their duties with honesty and integrity. Bassis twist in the CBI scandal Bassi, who was permanently absorbed in the CBI in 2006, has handled several big ticket cases including the Telgi fake stamp paper case, Ryan International School case and the notorious wildlife poacher Sansar Chand case. He alleges that subsequent investigation in the case reveals that money in five installments totaling Rs 2.95 crore was paid to Asthana through middlemen Manoj Prasad and Somesh Prasad by the complainant Sathish Babu Sana. Bassi claims he took over the case after an FIR was filed against Asthana, Devender and others on 15 October and further investigation revealed the name of R&AW special secretary Samant Goel. Bassi and his team had arrested Manoj, the alleged middleman in the present case on 17 October. He claimed that Manoj had not deleted his whatsapp messages with Dubai-based brother Somesh and they provide a peek into the alleged corruption scandal that rocked the CBI. Among those are one message on 3 January 2018 where Somesh is allegedly asking Manoj to put pressure on Sana for payment to not to take panga with them... too powerful people'. Interestingly, in none of these messages Asthana or Devenders name has been mentioned. However, Bassi claims that during the investigation Somesh mobile phone was put under surveillance which provided investigators with more evidence. Bassi said they have analysed call detail records of suspects and investigation revealed that immediately after the news broke out on the arrest of Manoj in the late night on 16 October 2018, Somesh made immediate calls to Goel, who in turn called Asthana. Bassi alleged that on 16 October Somesh and Goel called each other once and spoke for about 10 minutes. He alleged that on 17 October morning Goel made two calls to Asthana while Asthana, Bassi alleged, called Goel twice. "In between Somesh called Goel once and spoke to him for about a minute, Bassi alleged. Bassi also alleged that Somesh, who was kept under surveillance made calls to his father-in-law Sunil Mittal. In the conversation between Somesh and Mittal, Bassi alleged Asthana's name was mentioned as 'our man'; in the conversation with Goel, Somesh was warned by the former not to come to India at any cost. These transcripts are available with the CBI but there is a strong chance that they may not place the same on record, Bassi claimed while alleging that a false statement of Sana was recorded by Devender under Section 161 of CrPC and the newly appointed officers may frame the former investigation team. Currently, no investigation can claim to demystify the affairs at dark stained CBI headquarters. The horrifying details of toxic culture emerging each passing day have further eroded the credibility of the premier investigating agency, which is probing more than 400 corruption cases. It may not be the time to measure the impact of the current crisis within the ranks but certainly a signal for the government to read the temperature and deploy right mechanism for a methodical overhaul. The Supreme Court was informed on Monday, through pleadings filed by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Deputy Superintendent of Police Ajay Kumar Bassi, that the agency had intercepted a conversation between RAWs Goel and banker Somesh Prasad, warning the Dubai-based fugitive not to return to India 'at any cost'. New Delhi: Evidence of unexplained contact between Samant Goel, the head of the Research and Analysis Wings West Asia operations, and two Dubai-based brothers named as suspects in an ongoing bribery investigation, could compel the Union Government to initiate an inquiry into the actions of an officer tipped to be Indias next spymaster, highly-placed sources have told Firstpost. The Supreme Court was informed on Monday, through pleadings filed by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Deputy Superintendent of Police Ajay Kumar Bassi, that the agency had intercepted a conversation between RAWs Goel and banker Somesh Prasad, warning the Dubai-based fugitive not to return to India 'at any cost'. In addition, Bassis pleadings say that the arrest of Prasads brother, Manoj Prasad, on 18 October, sparked off a series of phone conversations between him, Goel, and Rakesh Asthana the CBI second-in-command at the heart of the still-unfolding crisis in the agency. The CBI named Goel in a First Information Report filed against Asthana earlier this month, but did not accuse him of committing a crime. In one phone call intercepted by the CBI, Somesh Prasad told his father-in-law, Sunil Mittal, that Goel had met Asthana after criminal proceedings were filed early in October. Somesh Prasad described Asthana as apna aadmi, or our man. Following Manoj Prasads arrest, Bassis plea states, Goel made multiple phone calls to both Asthana and Somesh Prasad. Bassi was among two officers involved in investigating Asthana when the government sent both the CBI second-in-command and his boss, Alok Verma, on leave. His Supreme Court plea which claims he is being persecuted by the agency for investigating Asthana does not allege Goel received payoffs. However, Bassis plea suggests Goel maintained an inappropriate relationship the Prasad brothers, despite knowing they were the subjects of a criminal investigation. RAW chief Anil Dhasmana had been pushing for Goels elevation to the top job, bypassing two more-senior officials. K Illango, the second-in-command at RAW, has extensive experience in both Kashmir and Sri Lanka, and R Kumar is an offensive-operations expert considered among the most able professionals to have ever worked in the organisation. Dhasmana, highly-placed government sources have said, has defended Goels relationship with the Prasad brothers, telling National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval these were founded on an intelligence relationship. The banker brothers, Dhasmana argued, offered privileged insights into the use of Dubais financial system by criminal cartels based in Pakistan. However, one RAW official said, Once it became clear that the Prasad brothers were sought in criminal proceedings, it was simply unacceptable for Goel to have maintained the relationship. RAW cannot and ought not offer deals to Indian nationals sought by Indian authorities for crimes against the Indian state." Posted to Dubai early in his career, the former Punjab Police officer turned in passable, though unspectacular, results. His last major overseas assignment, in London early this decade, focussed on political reconciliation with one-time Khalistan leaders, by giving them visas and allowing them to return home. Goels London tenure, however, marred by a row that broke out with the United Kingdoms MI6, after he claimed one of its officersa Sikhharboured Khalistan sympathies. Following the appointment of BK Chaturvedi as RAW chief in 2007, Goel acquired a key role in counter-intelligencethe agencys operations to monitor its own officials. He continued to play a key role in counter-intelligence under KC Verma, RAWs chief from 2009-2013. The role of counter-intelligence in RAW expanded dramatically after 2004, when mid-ranking officer Rabinder Singh defected to the United States of America, after years of passing on intelligence assessments to the Central Intelligence Agency. Goel was, however, seen by some officers as using his power to spy on powerful colleagues seen as a threat by RAWs chiefson one occasion leading to a showdown with an officer then running operations targeting Pakistan, an official familiar with the affair said. In 2015, Goel had been under consideration to return to Punjab as the states intelligence chiefwhich would have put him in line for becoming the States Director-General of Police. Both part of the 1984 batch of the Indian Police Service, Asthana and Goel have been closely tied as players in the bureaucratic gang-war that exploded last week. Last year, Goel had issued a two page unsigned note, alleging Enforcement Directorate officer Rajeshwar Singh had been in touch with Mohammad Alam Shah, an Indian businessman RAW claimed had links to the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate. The report was submitted to Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia, as well as the Supreme Court. The Enforcement Directorate later denied the reportand RAW was unable to substantiate its findings, after it was pointed out the agency had done nothing to detain or investigate Shah though he regularly travelled to India. Enforcement Directorate chief Karnal Singh also defended Rajeshwar Singh, saying he had reported the conversation with Shah to his superiors, adding that it centred around information of intelligence value. This first skirmish escalated into a full blown war between CBI chief Verma and his Enforcement Directorate allies, against Asthana and Goel. The CBI FIR filed against Asthana in February alleges he received over Rs 3 crore in payoffs in the course of ongoing investigations with Goel playing the role of a conduit. The Prasad brothers have denied the allegations. "This is a fight between two elephants and one mouse has been caught in between," Manoj Prasads lawyer, Sidharth Luthra said during legal proceedings in the Delhi High Court, referring to the conflict between Verma and his deputy. Road construction has always been a sore point as Maoists are strongly anti-development and dont want any construction of the road that connects interior villages with the mainstream. Nandlal Murami, a 34-year-old member of the district panchayat (Zila Panchayat) in Palnar village of Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh, is currently battling for life in a Raipur hospital. He was brutally attacked by the Jan Militia cadre of Maoists on 28 October with a sharp, locally-made weapon. Murami, whos still in ICU, has lost two fingers and his vocal cords are badly injured. His friends said hes communicating through sign language. The incident occurred while Murami was having dinner at home, when suddenly, a few unidentified men with weapons barged in and attacked him. When members of his family raised an alarm, the attackers left Murami lying in a pool of blood. They had intended to kill him, but he survived. Before leaving, the attackers left leaflets behind with chilling warnings anyone supporting anti-people work like road construction will face death" enough to describe the volatile situation existing in the Maoist-hotbed of Bastar. It was just a few months back, on 2 June, that I had met Murami a BJP worker when I visited Palnar village 128 kilometres from Jagdalpur, the headquarters of Bastar, while covering the state of Naxal insurgency in Chhattisgarh. Seeing him lying blood-splattered on a hospital stretcher is a shock that will take time to abate. Coupled with the killing of Doordarshan camera person Achyutananda Sahu and two policemen Rudra Pratap Singh and Manglu by the Maoists on Tuesday, the horror has come very close people under siege are those that one knows or are of the fraternity, and not too far off whose personal tragedies could wear off the mindscapes of those sitting in Delhi over time. I had met several people on my nearly one-month long tour of Chhattisgarhs Naxal-infested districts in Bastar. In Murami's village too, I had spoken to several people, but I chose to interview him as he was one of the brightest among the young guys around. A member of the village panchayat, he spoke with the clarity of a man determined to assist in changing the fortunes of his fellow villagers. A graduate with two school-going children, he was determined to bring opportunities of personal and collective growth to the next generation of his community and give them the opportunities that were denied to him. Tribal village Palnar which a decade ago was under the clutches of Maoists and no outsider dared to enter without the approval of these ultra-Left cadres, has now transformed into a digital hub. During my long interactions with Murami and his friends, and also a group of villagers, it became evident how difficult it had been for them to join the mainstream in the face of the wrath of Naxals, who oppose any form of development. There was no education facility here, so I had to go to Jagargunda, which is now in Sukma district. Today, we have a cluster of schools with hostel facility. It caters to students from adjoining villages. Unprecedented development has taken place in this village in all spheres in the form of schools, roads, banks, ATM, medical centre etc. This will help this new generation to be a part of the mainstream and grow, Murami had told me in his interview on 2 June. Speaking to Firstpost on condition of anonymity, a close friend of Murami said, He had to face the wrath of Maoists (andarwale) as he was actively pursuing development work in the village. They dont want the construction of roads. Several times they threatened us not to support road construction work. Even after freeing the village of Maoists, the terror of the ultras is such that nobody dares to refer to them as Maoist or Naxal. Instead, they call them as andarwale (those living in deep interiors) or as asamaajik (anti-social). Its common across the seven Naxal-infested districts in Bastar. The attack on a civilian like Murami, who is a young citizen of the most notorious part of the Red Corridor of the country is symptomatic of the brutal war that the Naxals are waging, not just against the Indian state but also against the common citizens who wish to get on with their lives and are willing to join the mainstream. It was the Jan Militia cadre of the Maoists, who attacked panchayat member Nandlal Murami. They left leaflets warning them to stay away from road construction or face death. The Naxals dont want villagers to support development projects. Due to the construction of roads and other developments, the Maoists are being pushed back, inspector general, Chhattisgarh Police (Bastar range), Vivekananda told Firstpost. Road construction has always been a sore point as Maoists are strongly anti-development and dont want any construction of the road that connects interior villages with the mainstream. Development will be the topmost poll plank of the ruling BJP government in Chhattisgarh in the upcoming assembly election in the state. The CPI (Maoist) has desperately been trying to derail the poll process in tribal Bastar. The Narendra Modi government at the Centre has been determined to flush out Naxalism which the former prime minister Manmohan Singh had termed as the biggest threat to internal security by using development and strengthening security measures. According to government officials and villagers, the Maoists have been opposing the construction of the road from Aranpur (the site of the Maoist attack on Tuesday) in Dantewada to Jagargunda which will ultimately connect Dornapal in Sukma district, as it would give an easy access to security forces to Maoist stronghold. This road will shorten the distance from Dantewada to Bhadrachalam town in Telangana via Sukma district. The attacks on police, CRPF personnel and road construction workers are all plausibly explained by the fact that all these represent the governments development agenda. However, the only explanation of the attack on a harmless, unarmed civilian like Murami is that the Naxals, fearing on losing out their constituency of tribal villagers, are in turn instilling fear among the villagers. They almost seem to be giving out the message -- if you allow development, education and infrastructure to come to the tribal villages by actively participating in it, you will pay the price. And, Murami is not the only case. Italian artist at Cairo Arabic Calligraphy Biennial Leoni guest of honor at international event (ANSAmed) - CAIRO, OCTOBER 31 - An Italian, Antonella Leoni, is among nine guests of honor at the International biennial of art and calligraphy ongoing in Cairo, in an officially appreciated mix between Mediterranean cultures. The Emilia native who resides in the Egyptian capital is the first Italian to receive the award, exhibiting her work at a show running until November 3 at the Palace of arts in Cairo. Other ''guests of honor'', as reported by the website of the event, hail from China, Tunisia, Jordan, Kuwait, Poland, Lebanon, Algeria and Palestine. The work of artists from Indonesia and Bangladesh, among others, is also exhibited. Leoni has a degree in Oriental art from London's Royal Holloway University, where she mainly focused on decorative art of the Islamic world. The artist, who creates abstract work with ancient techniques on marbled paper, is working for a degree at the Academy of Arabic calligraphy Bab El Luq in Cairo. ''God is beautiful and loves beauty'' is the text from a hadith (a brief narration on things the Prophet has said and done), which is elegantly decorated with arabesques, one of his works exhibited at the Biennial. In another, the artist traced ''Kaf HaYa 'Ain Sad'': ''These are letters with which the first verse of the Sura of Maryam starts of which we don't know the meaning'', the artist told ANSAmed, referring to a chapter of the Koran. ''They are written on marbled paper'' and accompanied, among other things, by ''white hearts in an abstract form to represent the pure love of Maryam'', she added. The art of calligraphy is particularly considered in Islam and often defined as ''Islamic calligraphy''. This edition of the Biennial is dedicated to the leading member of Arabic calligraphy, Sayed Ibrahim, with 53 of his works on display. (ANSAmed). While Chhattisgarh's royal families may have lost their realms, the power they exert in these regions is still formidable Raipur: In October, Chhattisgarh Youth Commission chairman Kamal Chandra Bhanjdeoalso the 22nd king of Bastarwas listening to the problems of mukhiya, manjhi, chalkin and memrin (these are different posts in society of tribals) at a muria darbar organised in the district. In older times, we used to listen to the problems and solve them immediately, Bhanjdeo said. The darbar is a mere annual tradition now observed during the Dussehra festivities where tribals from across Bastar region congregate to pay respect to the royal family and sort out their disputes. The meetings in October came against the backdrop of speculation that Bhanjdeo might clinch the BJP ticket from Bastar for the upcoming Assembly elections to be held on 12 and 20 November. The rumours were put to rest on 20 October after the BJP declared Santosh Bafna as its Bastar candidate. Bhanu Pratap Deo, the ruler of tribal-dominated Kanker kingdom, became an MLA in 1951 and 1962. The heirs of Kanker state were dispelled from power and politics after the seat was reserved for Scheduled Tribes. Pravir Chandra Bhanj Deo, the ruler of Bastar estate who championed tribals' rights, became a legislator from Jagdalpur in 1957 but unsatisfied with the working of the party, resigned by 1959. Pravir Chandra had realised the need for a national tribal outfit to counter the ruthless exploitation of Bastar's resources by the state at the time. His organisation led nine candidates whom he supported in the then Assembly of the undivided Madhya Pradesh. Pravir Chandra was killed in police firing on the steps of his palace along with many tribal men, women and children on 25 March, 1966, leading to the withdrawal of the royal family of Bastar from active politics. Now, descendants of Pravir Chandra, the family of Kamal Chandra Bhanjdeo, son of last Maharaja Bharat Chandra Bhanj Deo (1970- 1996), who joined the BJP during the 2013 Lok Sabha elections are active in state politics. Going into the present Assembly election in Chhattisgarh, the Leader of Opposition TS Singh Deo, a descendant of the royal Sarguja estate, is one of the front-runners for the chief ministerial position in the state Congress. Realm gone, but rule remains "Gone are the days when kings and queens were born to womb. There is an end of princely estates. TS Singh Deo has been a king. Then, why doesnt Congress declare him as a candidate for the post of chief minister? asked Ajay Chandrakar, Chhattisgarh panchayat minister. TS Deo, however, said the constitutional way to elect the leader of the state government is to have a unanimous representative selected by the legislators who make it to the Assembly. Congress will follow this process, he added. While the royal tribal families in Chhattisgarh may have lost their states after Independence, the power they exert in these regions is still formidable and thus they are hence entwined with electoral politics. From Sarguja to Bastar, the maharajas continue to hold the reigns in state politics. In Chhattisgarh, most princely estates made their place in politics through hard work. Being from a royal family does not guarantee special treatment, political analyst Brajendra Shukla said. Sarguja with Cong, Jashpur for Sangh In 1951, Ramanuj Saran Singh Deo, the ruler of Sargujathe largest princely state of Chhattisgarhbecame the first MLA of the region. Later, his wife, Maharani Devendra Kumari contested the polls on Congress ticket and became a legislator and minister. Umeshwar Saran Singh Deo and Maharani Devendra Kumari Singh Deo were active in politics. However, in 1957, the Lok Sabha constituency and most of the Assembly seats in Sarguja were reserved for Scheduled Castes, thus removing the royal family from the race. When the Assembly seat of Ambikapur constituency in Sarguja division was unreserved in 2008, the Congress party turned towards the royals again, fielding TS Singh Deo who defeated BJP's Anurag Singh Dev by 980 votes. In 2013, TS Singh Deo repeated his win against Anurag Singh Dev with a huge margin of 19,558 votes. Following his massive victory, Deo was made the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly. The Singh Deo family is not the only royal family to dabble in politics successfully. King Nareshchandra Singh of Sarangarh estate became the MLA from Sarangarh in the first election of 1951 and repeated his success thrice thereafter. He was also the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh for 13 days in 1969. His daughters Kamla Devi, Rajnigandha and Pushpadvevi Singh also joined politics, with Pushpadevi going on to serve in Lok Sabha. Currently, Dr Parivesh Mishra, son-in-law of late Nareshchandrawho married his fourth daughter Menaka Deviand his daughter are in active politics from this family. Ram Chandra Singh Deo of the Koriya royal family also successfully contested the Assembly polls in 1967 and became the minister of 16 departments in the government. He won six elections and held various important ministerial posts: including being the first finance minister of Chhattisgarh. Opposing the distribution of liquor in elections, he later retired from electoral politics. After his demise in July, his niece, Ambika Singh Dev, entered the election fray from Baikunthpur constituency on a Congress ticket. Vijay Bhushan Singh Deo of Jashpur royal family was elected first as an MLA from Jashpur in 1952 and 1957 and later as an MP from Raigarh in 1962. Dilip Singh Judeo, son of Vijay Bhushan, who had been in active politics since the Jan Sangh days, is among the most popular leaders hailing from Jashpur royal family. He had started a programme against the alleged conversion of tribals in this area and used it to enter politics. In 1989, Judeo won the Janjgir Lok Sabha constituency only to lose in 1991. Later, BJP made him a member of the Rajya Sabha and he served as a central minister as well as a member of the state cabinet. While Judeo was one of the front-runners for chief ministerial position, he was pushed to the sidelines after being involved in a bribery scandal where he was allegedly heard saying: Money is not God but not less than God. He was later elected from Bilaspur and died of illness in 2013. After his demise, Ranvijay Singh Judev (nephew of Dilip Singh Judeo) was made the Rajya Sabha MP from the vacated Rajya Sabha seat while Dilip Singh Judeo's son Yudhveer Singh Judev has been a two-time legislator from Chandrapur seat. In the 2018 Assembly polls, BJP has nominated Yudhveers wife Sanyogita Singh to contest from the Chandrapur seat. The princely state of Khairagarh is divided into several political camps, but the seat has remained among the heirs of the princely state in nine Assembly elections, with Rashmi Devi Singh winning the Khairagarh seat four times and her son Deovrat Singh winning it thrice, apart from Raja Bahadur Birendra Bahadur Singh, who became Khairagarh legislator in the first Assembly elections held in 1951. The author is a Raipur-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com The 182 m Statue of Unity, touted as the world's tallest, is slated to be unveiled by prime minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat on Wednesday. CPI national secretary Binoy Viswam claimed that 75,000 adivasi families living near the Sardar Sarovar dam had been rendered homeless to facilitate the construction of the mammoth structure. Patna: The CPI on Tuesday flayed the Narendra Modi government for "splurging" nearly Rs 3,000 crore on building Sardar Patel's gigantic statue at a time when debt-ridden farmers are "being driven to suicide" and millions of people are defecating in the open for want of sanitation facilities. The 182 m Statue of Unity, touted as the world's tallest, is slated to be unveiled by prime minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat on Wednesday. CPI national secretary Binoy Viswam claimed that 75,000 adivasi families living near the Sardar Sarovar dam had been rendered homeless to facilitate the construction of the mammoth structure. "While unveiling the structure amid trademark fanfare, the prime minister would do well to take note of the fact that residents of 12 villages situated along the dam have decided not to cook food in their kitchen in protest against the government's high-handedness that was on display while executing the project", he alleged at a press conference in Patna. "While touting the statue as the tallest in the world he (the prime minister) must also explain the logic behind splurging Rs 2979 crore on a single project at a time when agrarian distress is driving farmers to suicide", the Rajya Sabha MP said. The statue, he said, is an insult to Sardar Patel as he would have never agreed to the displacement of 75,000 adivasi families to facilitate the construction of a statue. "The 'Statue of Unity' is testimony to the fact that Make in India is as much a sham as Swachh Bharat has been," he said. While crores of Indians are still defecating in the open due to lack of sanitation facilities, 99 per cent work on the statue was completed abroad. "Modi and the RSS which has been his alma mater are the Indian heirs of Hitler and Goebbels for whom spreading falsehood is an ideology. We and all Left and secular parties are therefore committed to defeating the BJP in the next general elections", Viswam asserted. A beginning to this end has already been made in Patna where all like-minded parties had gathered and spoken in one voice at a rally organized by CPI, he claimed. State CPI secretary Satya Narayan Singh was also present at the press conference. Today's top stories: Narendra Modi will unveil the Statue of Unity in Gujarat today; Donald Trump visits the site of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting; Apple launches the new Macbook Air; and more. Modi to unveil Statue of Unity today Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate the world's tallest statue the 'Statue of Unity' at Kevadiya in Gujarat on Wednesday. The 182-metre statue of Vallabhbhai Patel will be dedicated to the nation on his birth anniversary in Narmada district of Gujarat. At the launch ceremony, the prime minister will pour soil and Narmada water into a kalash to mark the dedication of the statue, a statement from his office said. The prime minister will press a lever to commence a 'virtual abhishek' of the statue, it said. He will then arrive at the Wall of Unity to inaugurate it. At the feet of the statue, Modi will perform a special prayer to mark the occasion. The prime minister will then visit the museum and exhibition, and the viewers' gallery. This gallery, at 153 metres height, can accommodate up to 200 visitors at one time. It offers a spectacular view of the Sardar Sarovar Dam, its reservoir, and the Satpura and Vindhya mountain ranges. The dedication ceremony shall also be punctuated by a flypast of IAF aircraft and performances by cultural troupes. RSS to hold 3-day meeting to press for Ram Temple construction With the Supreme Court on Monday adjourning the hearing on the Ayodhya Ram temple construction till January 2019, the issue is most likely to dominate the midterm review meeting of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), to be held at Uttan in Bhayander between 31 October and 2 November. Led by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, the meeting will be attended by the organisations top authorities. They will review the progress of the initiatives taken by the organisation. The RSS will also brainstorm on various other issues, including the performance of the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre as well as the 2019 polls, sources said. EPCA suggests ban on use of private vehicles in Delhi As part of a graded action plan against rising air pollution in Delhi, Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) on Tuesday said private cars will be stopped from plying in the capital if air pollution continues to worsen. "Let us hope the air pollution situation in Delhi doesn't deteriorate but if it turns out to be an emergency, we will have to stop the use of private transport," said Bhure Lal, chairman of the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA). "There is a committee which will advise me on this." The EPCA, appointed by the Supreme Court, has already proposed halting construction, the use of diesel-run power generators, brick kilns and the burning of garbage between 1 and 10 November when pollution levels are expected to rise. The order also includes the halting of civil construction to remain closed in Delhi and other NCR districts, closure of all stone crushers, hot mix plants generating dust pollution in Delhi and NCR districts. Data from the Central Pollution Control Board showed the air quality index, which measures the concentration of poisonous particulate matter, hit 469 in parts of Delhi on Tuesday, up from 299.4 a week ago. Crop stubble burning, a major source of pollution, vehicular exhaust and a drop-off in wind speeds have aggravated the smog that is likely to worsen around 7 November, when fireworks will set off to celebrate Diwali. Trump visits Pittsburgh synagogue after shooting Donald Trump on Tuesday visited the Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 people were gunned down at the weekend in an anti-Semitic attack, as more than 1,000 protesters gathered nearby to make it clear that the US president was unwelcome. Trump accompanied by his wife Melania, as well as his daughter Ivanka and her Jewish husband Jared Kushner was to light a candle for each of the 11 victims, killed during Shabbat services. Carrying signs that read "President Hate, Leave Our State!" and "Trump, Renounce White Nationalism Now," the protesters gathered near the Tree of Life synagogue where the carnage unfolded Saturday. The controversial visit came after mourners crowded into nearby synagogues and joined street processions at the first funerals for some of the victims of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in modern US history. The service for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, both in their 50s, was the first in honour of those killed in what was an apparent hate crime. Services for 66-year-old doctor Jerry Rabinowitz and 71-year-old Daniel Stein followed in Pittsburgh, where scores of residents protested Trump's visit. The president's trip to Pennsylvania came amid a mounting row over whether his fierce rhetoric at campaign rallies and on Twitter has helped stoke extremism ahead of next week's midterm elections. "It's just enraging that this type of hate crime could occur here and that the leadership of our country does not denounce anti-Semitism and does not denounce white nationalism and does not denounce neo-Nazism. And that is the problem," mourner Joanna Izenson told AFP. Suspect Robert Bowers is facing more than two dozen charges related to the bloodshed at the Tree of Life, which is located in the city's traditionally Jewish Squirrel Hill neighbourhood. The 46-six-year-old reportedly told police after his capture, "I just want to kill Jews," having claimed on social media that Jews were helping transport caravans of refugees from Central America into the United States, calling the migrants "invaders". Apple launches the MacBook Air, Mac Mini and two new iPad Pro models Apple's October event ended with most of the major rumours being proven right. The event saw the launch of two new iPad Pro variants, a return of the Mac Mini and a much-needed updated version of the MacBook Air. The Apple iPad Pro starts at a price of Rs 71,900 in India for the Wi-Fi-only model and goes up to Rs 85,900 for the cellular and Wi-Fi model. Similarly, the new Mac Mini comes in at Rs 75,900 for the base variant and the MacBook Air starts at a whopping Rs 1,14,900. All three products will be available for sale starting 7 November. The 31 October will, therefore, be all about digging into the new hardware features and comparisons made to existing models. Save farmers, pay off their loans, urges Amitabh Bachchan Moved by the plight of a farmer who made it to the 'hot seat' of game show Kaun Banega Crorepati, Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan has urged the public to step forward and help pay off their loans. A farmer named Anantkumar Khanke made it to the show and spoke about his struggle to survive. This led Amitabh Bachchan to urge people to come forth and help the farmers in whatever way possible. Khanke said his annual income is around Rs 60,000 if they face a good rainy season. When there is a shortage of water, he pays Rs 100 per gallon for farming. Ease of doing business report to be released today The World Bank's ease of doing business report will be released on Wednesday. India jumped 30 places to rank 100th among 190 nations in last year's World Bank's 'ease of doing business' index. According to sources, improvement is expected in parameters, including construction permits, starting a business, and trading across borders. Maoists on Tuesday attacked a police patrol party accompanying a three-member team of national broadcaster Doordarshan for election-related coverage, near Nilawaya village under Aranapur police station limits of Dantewada at around 11 am. Raipur: A day after the Maoist attack in Dantewada district which claimed four lives, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh on Wednesday convened an emergency meeting of officials and asked them to intensify operations against the Naxals. Singh held the meeting with senior bureaucrats and police officials at his official residence, where he reviewed the law and order situation. He directed them to intensify operations against the naxals, a government public relation official told PTI. Maoists on Tuesday attacked a police patrol party accompanying a three-member team of national broadcaster Doordarshan for election-related coverage, near Nilawaya village under Aranapur police station limits of Dantewada at around 11 am. Two policemen- Sub Inspector Rudra Pratap Singh, assistant constable Manglu and the cameraman of Doordarshan Achyutanand Sahu were killed on the spot. Of the two injured policemen, an assistant constable Rakesh Kaushal died here at a private hospital on Wednesday morning. During the meeting, the chief minister condemned the attack and expressed his condolences to the bereaved families of the martyred personnel and the media person, the official said. Chief Secretary Ajay Singh, Principal Secretary (Home) Amitabh Jain, Principal Secretary to the CM Aman Singh, Director General of Police (DGP) A N Upadhyay, Special DG (anti-naxal operations) DM Awasthi and states Additional Director General (Intelligence) Ashok Juneja were present at the meeting. Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh are scheduled to held next month in two phases- on 12 and 20 November. The counting of votes will be held on 11 December. Naxals have called upon voters to boycott the polls in the state. The 35-year-old, who was posted at the Aranpur police station in Dantewada, died in a private hospital Raipur: A policeman who was critically injured in Tuesday's Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district died in a private hospital here Wednesday, police said. Assistant Constable Rakesh Kaushal's death takes the number of those killed in the attack to four. The 35-year-old, who was posted at the Aranpur police station in Dantewada, died on Wednesday morning at Raipur's Ramkrishna Care Hospital, a police official told PTI. Sub Inspector Rudra Pratap Singh, Assistant Constable Manglu and Doordarshan News cameraperson Achyutanand Sahu were killed and two policemen, including Kaushal, injured in the ambush near Nilawaya village under Aranpur police station limits. The injured were moved by air to Raipur and admitted at Ram Krishna Care, he said. "Kushal received grievous bullet injuries and succumbed during the treatment," the police official added. The other person injured, Constable Vishnu Netam, is undergoing treatment, he added. Kaushal was a native of Barsoor village of Dantewada district, about 400 km from Raipur. The body will be sent to his village after the post-mortem examination, the official said. The petition by a lawyer, Joginder Kumar Sukhija, said that under the #MeToo campaign several women disclosed instances of sexual harassment suffered by them, but the NCW 'failed' to perform its duty to enquire into such matters. New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday declined to entertain a PIL seeking that the Centre and the National Commission for Women (NCW) to on their own inquire about the instances of sexual harassment and assault highlighted under the #MeToo movement on the social media. A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice VK Rao said, "We are not inclined to entertain it. Please don't waste our time. Let the affected individual come. Dismissed." The petition by a lawyer, Joginder Kumar Sukhija, said that under the #MeToo campaign several women disclosed instances of sexual harassment suffered by them, but the NCW "failed" to perform its duty to enquire into such matters. The lawyer wanted the NCW and the Ministry for Women and Child Development to "suo motu take notice" of matters related to sexual harassment and assault that were appearing on the social media under the #MeToo movement. Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday said Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's claim that one crore cases have been attended to under a state-run health scheme was misleading. Seeking evidence from Patnaik over his claim, Pradhan said the BJD government was providing incorrect information to the people of the state. Bhubaneswar: Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday said Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's claim that one crore cases have been attended to under a state-run health scheme was misleading. Patnaik, following a review of the Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana (BSKY) scheme on Saturday, had said the scheme "benefitted over one crore cases" within 60 days of its launch. Seeking evidence from Patnaik over his claim, Pradhan said the BJD government was providing incorrect information to the people of the state. "How come one crore cases have been registered under the BSKY scheme within 60 days when the total number of people who visit government hospitals in a year is much less than 1 crore?" the Union Petroleum Minister contended. "Afraid of Narendra Modi's popularity, Patnaik rejected the Ayushman Bharat programme. The government is misleading the people of Odisha over BSKY," Pradhan said. The Odisha government launched the BSKY scheme on 15 August after refusing to implement the Centre's flagship health programme 'Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana'. Pradhan claimed that the healthcare system in Odisha is in a "bad shape". He said the average number of doctors for every one lakh people in the state has fallen to nine from eleven. "While ICUs are available in only 12 out of 30 district headquarter hospitals, 112 health centres in Odisha still don't have electricity. Also, infant mortality rate here is among the highest in the country," Pradhan said. Odisha's Health and Family Welfare Minister Pratap Jena dismissed Pradhan's allegations and said it was an attempt to "divert attention from the BJP's failures". He said the figure given by Patnaik included patients who visited the hospitals on more than one occasion. "The chief minister mentioned that over 1 crore cases were benefited under the scheme from August 15 till date. This number includes patients visiting hospitals either once or multiple times," he said. Jena also said the BSKY scheme is "100 times better" than the Centre's Ayushman Bharat programme. Dukonia Village Grazing Reserve, which was notified by former Assam chief minister Bishnu Ram Medhi in the mid-1950s, is home to about 2000 buffaloes belonging to farmers from villages in Hajo. Flanked by more than a dozen toddlers, Sarifa stared wide-eyed and hid in a corner of the courtyard when she saw a group of men approaching her hut. When asked to disclose how long she and her family had been staying at the location, she muttered a few words in the Mymensingia dialect of Bengali (spoken in Bangladesh) which was hardly graspable. She was relaxed only after an assurance that the purpose of the groups visit was to gather information and not to carry out an anti-encroachment drive. Sarifa stays at a village grazing reserve (VGR) at Dukonia, a riverine island on the Brahmaputra 40 km west of Guwahati in Assam. Her family was among the 500 odd families of Bangladeshi migrants that illegally occupied a part of the reserve spread over more than 10,000 bighas two decades ago. The first anti-encroachment drive came within days of a complaint lodged by the local dairy farmers but the huts resurfaced within a couple of months. The governments reluctance to repeat the exercise compelled the farmers to approach the Gauhati High Court which issued an order for resumption of the drive. However, the subsequent operation demolished only a few houses which encouraged more settlers to occupy the reserve. The government launched the exercise again in 2010 when the court gave the same order following the submission of a fresh petition by the farmers. But the episode took a different turn this time around the encroachers also petitioned the court saying that their houses were located outside the VGR. Evidence submitted by the farmers and local groups from Hajo town proved the fallacy of the encroachers claims. The court passed the same verdict in 2017 and months after the BJP led government swept the polls in Assam with the commitment to identify and expel illegal migrants. The operation was restarted only to be halted within a few days after the circle inspector Gunajit Roy Choudhury was transferred. This is not surprising given that the settlers have developed deep contacts with officials and political functionaries. There were also plans by some powerful people to avail the services of these migrants for cultivation at a plot of land in the reserve which is absolutely illegal. We have also kept photographs of the signboard that was erected and subsequently removed during an operation, claimed Ghanashyam Malakar, secretary of Dukonia Grazing Reserve Suraksha Committee. His views were shared by other farmers in the reserve. The fourth operation last year on 17 November which resulted in the demolition of fifty houses commenced only after the influential All Assam Students Union (AASU) was informed by the farmers with a plea to take up the matter with the district administration. Checking further encroachment Dukonia Village Grazing Reserve, which was notified by former Assam chief minister Bishnu Ram Medhi in the mid-1950s, is home to about 2000 buffaloes belonging to farmers from villages in Hajo. Scattered huts of the farmers are discernible on the river bank but they always keep themselves at a safe distance from the settlements of the migrants. Many years ago Uma Patowary was killed by the encroachers since he was opposed to their presence in this region. The situation becomes tense whenever a demolition drive is carried out and we have to exercise caution, said Babul Malakar, president of the committee. We are outnumbered as their (migrants) total number would not be less than 10,000. The farmers have been regularly reporting to the district administration on the expansion of the illegal settlements at Dukonia over the years and the migrants return every time an anti-encroachment drive is carried out. Last September, the issue grabbed the headlines in the local dailies after a few journalists were taken to the villages that have sprung up deep inside the reserve. An official admitted that further expansion of the settlements has been thwarted by the continuous presence of the farmers in the region but also blamed them for illegally felling trees in the reserve. No construction or chopping of trees is allowed in a grazing reserve but a market, shops and a mosque were spotted at some locations inside a village that resurfaced after it had been demolished years ago. Officials were unable to explain the electric poles in the reserve which means that efforts were also on to provide power supply to the illegal settlement. Eviction again in December Deputy Commissioner of Kamrup (Rural) Kamal Baishya informed that the next round of eviction would commence in December after the panchayat polls in the state draws to a close. We are aware of the court orders and the fact that the settlements have been frequently resurfacing. The circle officer has already submitted a report on the situation in Dukonia and the operation will resume in December, he said. Baishya explained that the remoteness of the encroached areas in the grazing reserve poses several hurdles for the administration. It's difficult for the officials to keep a tab on the reserve all the time. So the encroachers move in again whenever the demolition drive comes to an end. Construction of a boundary wall around the reserve is also not feasible, the deputy commissioner said. The reserve is located about 10 km from Silguri village in Hajo and can be reached only by boat. Another official pointed out that the demolition could have been faster with excavators but they cannot be carried to the spot in the absence of roads or large boats. Nor can elephants be taken to clear the illegal settlements which have been used on several occasions in Assam. Many officials are of the view that an operation every year is the only option to prevent the reserve from being encroached by illegal settlers. The author is a senior journalist in Guwahati and author of Rendezvous With Rebels: Journey to Meet Indias Most Wanted and Lens & The Guerilla: Insurgency in Indias Northeast. The government statement on Wednesday although seemed like an attempt to douse the flames of disagreement between itself and RBI that pretty much happened due to its own doing. Efforts are on to contain the fight before it turns macabre as speculations are rife that RBI governor Urjit Patel, an NDA pick, may resign. With the two giants managing the Indian economy the Central government and the Reserve Bank of India at loggerheads with each other, it is the economy that is under stress. And the most contentious issue of this fight is the reference to Section 7 (1) of the Reserve Bank of India Act under which the government shot off at least three letters on different issues to the Central bank. This act empowers the government to issue any direction to the Central bank governor on matters of public interest. Although the government in a bid to bring down the mounting tensions issued a statement saying that government has "nurtured and respected" autonomy of the Central bank and has been holding extensive consultations with it on many issues, the anxiety in the air was palpable. Top sources said three consultations were sent to the RBI in August, September and in the first week of October by the finance ministry. Three issues were raised through these consultations -- Issues of the power sector, Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) and Medium and Small Scale Enterprises (MSME). Sources said after the consultation, RBI has to take directions from the government in 'Public interest'. They also said RBI stand on technical issues is undisputed. "One needs to see who are the stakeholders in these consultations sent to RBI. First, it is private power companies, second 11 banks affected by PCA and the third is only moderate entrepreneurs. So even if the government cite public interest, it can only argue about MSME and not the other two. RBI is perfectly fine as far as its stand regarding monetary policies is concerned," sources said. Although the government has issued a press statement on Wednesday afternoon in a bid to clarify controversy surrounding invocation of section 7, sources said the tussle has been going on for quite some time and it all started with 'forced demonetisation' by the government in 2016. Subsequently, the RBI was unhappy with FRDI bill and the government stand on asset quality rating (AQR). The Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill (FRDI Bill) was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 10 August last year, and thereafter, it was referred to a joint committee of Parliament for scrutiny. However, it was withdrawn on 7 August this year by the government. "The stakeholders including public have raised apprehensions relating to the provisions of the FRDI Bill, like the use of bail-in instrument to resolve a failing bank, the adequacy of deposit insurance cover and the felt need to revive the insurance limits substantially, and application of resolution framework for public sector banks. "Resolution of these issues would require a comprehensive examination and reconsideration. It is, therefore, appropriate that the bill may be withdrawn," then finance minister Piyush Goyal had informed the joint committee, which tabled its report on the controversial bill on 7 August 2018 in Parliament. According to Investopedia: "An asset quality rating is a review or evaluation assessing the credit risk associated with a particular asset. These assets usually require interest payments such as loans and investment portfolios. How effective management is in controlling and monitoring credit risk can also have an effect on the what kind of credit rating can be achieved. Asset quality is an important determinant of risk, as such, analysts go to great lengths to accurately estimate asset quality and its impact on the overall condition of a business, bank or portfolio." Top sources indicated that the Central government played hardball and made things difficult for the Central bank. "The government criticised RBI on the aggressive lending by banks and NPAs but actually, the regulator had little space to do what the government wanted in public interest. In lending cases, government stand is contradictory. In one hand it is criticising RBI for NPAs and on the other accusing it of a liquidity squeeze. There are so many issues that have been troubling the RBI. It is true reform is needed for RBI in governance issue for human resources, recruitments etc. Otherwise, they are operating under a standard global norm," informed government sources said. On Tuesday, finance minister Arun Jaitley criticised the RBI for failing to check indiscriminate lending during 2008 and 2014 that has led to the present bad loan or NPA crisis in the banking industry. "You see (between) 2008 to 2014, after the global economic crisis, to keep the economy artificially going, banks were told open your doors and lend indiscriminately," Jaitley said at India Leadership Summit organised by US-India Strategic Partnership Forum. "The central bank looked the other way, there was indiscriminate lending," he said. The government of the day, he said, was pushing banks to lend which resulted in credit growth in a year shooting up to 31 percent from the normal average of 14 percent. RBI deputy governor Viral V Acharya in a speech on Friday had stated that undermining the Central bank's independence could be "potentially catastrophic". This was seen as a veiled reference to RBI pushing back hard against government pressure to relax its policies and reduce its powers. Delivering the AD Shroff Memorial Lecture, Acharya had called for greater powers for RBI to regulate public sector banks as it seeks to clean up the banking system. This independence, he said, was necessary to secure greater financial and macroeconomic stability. The government statement on Wednesday although seemed like an attempt to douse the flames of disagreement between itself and RBI that pretty much happened due to its own doing. "The autonomy for the Central bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential and accepted governance requirement. Government of India has nurtured and respected this," it said in the statement. Both the government and RBI, in their functioning, have to be guided by public interest and the requirement of the Indian economy, it said. "For the purpose, extensive consultations on several issues take place between the government and the RBI from time to time." However, the statement did not mention about the government citing the never-before-used power of issuing directions under the Act to RBI governor to seek a resolution to differences with the Central bank. "The government of India has never made public the subject matter of those consultations. Only the final decisions taken are communicated," the statement said. "The government, through these consultations, places its assessment on issues and suggests possible solutions. The government will continue to do so," it added. Slamming the government for citing a never-used clause of the RBI Act, former Union finance minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday alleged that the BJP dispensation is "hiding facts" about the economy and is "desperate". The senior Congress leader said that the governments he was a part of in the past had never used Section 7 of the Reserve Bank of India Act of 1934, under which a direct order can be issued by the government to the central bank to carry out its wishes in "public interest". "If, as reported, Government has invoked Section 7 of the RBI Act and issued unprecedented 'directions' to the RBI, I am afraid there will be more bad news today. "We did not invoke Section 7 in 1991 or 1997 or 2008 or 2013. What is the need to invoke the provision now? It shows that government is hiding facts about the economy and is desperate (sic)," he said in a series of tweets. The former finance minister also attacked the government after it issued a statement to clarify things that are going on between itself and the RBI. Refer Governments statement on the consultations with RBI. If it contained the truth alone, why was it necessary to issue the statement? P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) October 31, 2018 Obviously, the government has concealed something. The buzz is that government has recently written one or more letters to the RBI P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) October 31, 2018 Will government say whether such letters have been written and whether the letters specifically refer to Section 7 of the RBI Act? P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) October 31, 2018 With inputs from PTI According to reports, the new bus service will be launched between Lahore in Pakistan and Kashgar in China via Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on 13 November. New Delhi: India said it has lodged strong protests on Wednesday with China and Pakistan over a proposed bus service between the two countries through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said on Wednesday the bus service will be a violation of India's sovereignty and territorial integrity. According to reports, the new bus service will be launched between Lahore in Pakistan and Kashgar in China via Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on 13 November. Kumar said it has been India's consistent and well-known position that the "so-called China-Pakistan 'Boundary Agreement' of 1963 is illegal and invalid, and has never been recognised by the Government of India." "Therefore, any such bus service through Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir will be a violation of India's sovereignty and territorial integrity," he added. The MEA spokesperson was responding to media queries regarding the proposed bus service. The $50-billion CPEC, launched in 2015, is a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking China's resource-rich Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with Pakistan's strategic Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 31) President Rodrigo Duterte will release a list of candidates that he will support in the 2019 elections. In a speech in Cagayan de Oro City Wednesday, Duterte said he will actively campaign for candidates that he supports after Christmas. "I'll come up with a list. Dili ko mupili ug mga tao nga hiwi," Duterte said in a mix of English and Cebuano. [Translation: I will not pick people who are crooked.] Duterte said that he has two requirements for candidates that he will support: ma-abilidad (efficiency) and honesty. As he did in recent speeches, Duterte introduced his former special assistant, Bong Go, as "Senator Go," and spent minutes telling the audience about the man's educational background and work history. "Naa ni siya daghang sulod sa ulo na magamit sa Pilipino," Duterte said, adding that Go is not Chinese and will not be corrupt. [Translation: He has a lot of knowledge that will be useful to the Filipino] Duterte also mentioned Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos as one of the people who has helped him as a politician. Both Go and Marcos have submitted their certificates of candidacy for senator in the upcoming elections. Despite saying that he will openly support the candidates that he chose, the President said that he told the military, police and his Cabinet members not to campaign for anyone because they will inevitably use government funds to do it. "Ako lang, pasagdi ko kay presidente ko. Usa ra sad ko. Unya ang presidente (The president) is always a politician because he was elected by the people," Duterte said. [Translation:But allow me to campaign because I'm a president and I'm only one.] (ANSAmed) - ROME, OCTOBER 31 - The MedFilm Festival, in the words of director Ginella Vocca, is a ''lighthouse for all Mediterranean cultures''. This 24th edition will run November 9-18 at Cinema Savoy, the Museo di Arte Contemporanea di Roma (MACRO) and Nuovo Cinema Aquila. Several changes will be seen this year, beginning with a three-year appointment for artistic director Giulio Casadei, who had been collaborating with the event for seven years. Casadei said that the Open Eyes and Amore & Psiche sections would be combined this year, since ''for years we have been asking ourselves what sense it had to separate fiction feature films from documentaries. We now have 10 films - 7 feature films and 3 documentaries - in competition for the Amore & Psiche Award. Five are debuts. Overall there are 79 films including features films, shorts and documentaries, with 44 national premieres, 2 European premieres and 34 countries represented.'' This year the Lifetime Award will go to two women: Liliana Cavani and Dora Bouchoucha, with the first celebrated at the opening ceremony and the second at the closing one. The collaboration with CNA Cinema has meanwhile has made it possible to create a circuit of independent festivals. ''We have signed a contract with the Rome Film Festival to better harmonize the program and calendar of events,'' Vocca said, underscoring that Roma Capitale had resumed its support of the festival alongside the culture ministry and the Lazio regional government. Country protagonists this year will be Tunisia and Spain. ''I would like to pay homage to the director and her team for the beautiful showcase offered to our country and Tunisian youth, of the creativity that the Italian public is often unaware of,'' said Tunisian Ambassador to Italy Moez Sinanoui. The director of the Cervantes Institute in Rome, Juan Carlos Reche Cala, also expressed his appreciation for the initiative. MedFilm will be hosting the 7th edition of Lux Film Days a Roma in collaboration with the European Parliament's information office as well as a special focus on women's bodies and the driving force of desire. The festival will also include the second edition of MEDmeetings on the opportunities offered by the new competition entitled Lazio Cinema International, dialogue on inter-culture on November 14 at MACRO, a photographic show entitled 'The Small Beauty' in the farmers' market of Piazza Alessandria on residential and outlying areas of Rome and Italian independent cinema in the Le Perle section. Amnesty International will be receiving the KOINE 2018 award at the Cinema Savoy. On awards, the one for the Amore & Psiche section will enjoy a high-level jury of professionals working in the sector, flanked by one from the journalistic publication PiuCulture. Giving the Concorso Internazionale Cortometraggi - Premio Methexis and Premio Cervantes awards will be 10 students from national schools focusing on European and Mediterranean cinema along with detainees at the Rebibbia jail. Some 40 university students from Tor Vergata, La Sapienza and the Scuola d'Arte Cinematografica Gian Maria Volonte will be forming three parallel, autonomous juries, one for each competition. The awards are five gold and silver statues created by the artist Alfredo Futuro, while the image for the official poster was by Francesco Faraci: ''a beautiful jump full of energy but not without risk'' was how Director Vocca described it. (ANSAmed). Hindutva ideologue Rajiv Malhotra, who has been appointed honorary visiting professor by Jawaharlal Nehru University, has a history of courting controversy. Hindutva ideologue Rajiv Malhotra, who has been appointed an honorary visiting professor by Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, has a history of courting controversy. In September, Malhotra, who is based in the United States, in conversation with godman Paramahamsa Nithyananda, proposed a unique concept to manage wealth the world's first inter-life reincarnation management trust. "If you go to Bill Gates," Malhotra said, "his biggest problem you tell him is when you're dead, your wealth is useless in the next life, unless we can find you and transfer you that wealth." "Out of the $100 billion you give us $50 billion in trust: to be given to you in your next life when we find you. So if we can within the rules of the Agama (a collection of scriptures of several Hindu devotional schools) locate where Bill Gates is next time and give him at least $5 billion to $10 billion. He'll be much happier." A physicist and computer scientist by training, Malhotra drew outrage in August amid the Kerala floods by soliciting donations "for Hindus". "Christians and Muslims worldwide raising lots of money to help mainly their own ppl & agendas," he had said on Tiwtter and later deleted the tweet. In another example of Malhotra courting controversy, a lecture he delivered at Mumbai's Tata Institute of Social Sciences on 29 January, 2016, according to a report in Scroll, quickly devolved into a back and forth with his audience. Malhotra then took to Twitter to accuse some attending students of being "uncritical leftist goons" and "missionary agents who cannot engage with his views in a calm academic manner". He tweeted after the talk: The Indian left has sold out to the American Right. Many of India's elite leftists at TISS are serving as sepoys for American Christianity Rajiv Malhotra (@RajivMessage) January 31, 2016 TISS mayhem: Students shouted "dont let the video leave here". Tried to stop the video evidence. One student said "burn his books" Rajiv Malhotra (@RajivMessage) February 1, 2016 This is the price of mimicking Western theories blindly, like obedient pets wearing invisible collars https://t.co/0SrAetQ1V8 Rajiv Malhotra (@RajivMessage) February 1, 2016 In 2015, Malhotra was accused of plagiarism by historian Richard Fox Young, who alleged that the author had quoted verbatim from other works and lifted his ideas without attribution. Malhotra's books include Indra's Net: Defending Hinduism's Philosophical Unity, Battle for Sanskrit and Academic Hindophobia. With inputs from PTI As Chhattisgarh heads towards Assembly elections, the conflict between the state and the Maoists in their strongholds of Bastar division has spiked. Dantewada: As Chhattisgarh heads towards Assembly elections, the conflict between the state and the Maoists in their strongholds of Bastar division particularly in Dantewada, Bijapur and Sukma has spiked. On Tuesday, a police party accompanying a team of three Doordarshan journalists came under Maoist ambush in Nilawaya forests in the Aranpur police station limits of Dantewada district. Doordarshan cameraman Achyutananda Sahu, sub-inspector Rudra Pratap Singh and assistant constable Mangal Ram were killed in the crossfire. Two other constables and a DD reporter were injured in the attack that seemed like a pre-planned operation in which over 100 armed Maoists took part. They even threw grenades at the troops but those did not burst. They were forced to retreat once the reinforcements arrived. The road on which the police team was attacked was under construction and motorable only by a two-wheeler. Inspector General of Police Vivekanand Sinha said that one AK-47 rifle and a walkie-talkie set were missing from the scene of attack. This was a rare incident in which a journalist was killed in a direct Maoist attack. The trend in Bastar region till now had been that journalists face the ire of the police and the administration for reporting on tribal concerns against mining and deforestation activities, which align with the Maoist propaganda. Special Director General of Police (anti-Naxal operations) DM Awasthi said in a press conference after the incident that the encounter between the security forces and the Maoists lasted for around 50 minutes and was not related to upcoming elections. He said it was a planned ambush conducted after a Maoist warning against continuation of road construction in Aranpur. While increased deployment of forces and frequent operations have pushed the Maoists deeper in the forests across Bastar division, Aranpur which is around 60 km from Dantewada and only about 14 km from Jagargonda remains one of the sectors where Maoist activity has been at its peak. Traveling to Jagargonda from Aranpur requires a detour of 172 km via Sukma and Dornapal as the stretch between the two villages has been mined by the Maoists. This election would be the first time when Nilawaya village would have a polling station in two decades because the last time villagers here voted was in 1998. Stories of such villages, which polled zero votes in past and are witnessing a concentrated effort to motivate the tribal population to vote, are being covered by journalists this season. Before the Doordarshan crew reached Dantewada, Tanima Biswas reported from the region for Mirror Now about villages where polling booths are to be set up for the first time. Local scribes said that the Maoists must have observed a pattern of movement to Nilawaya as efforts were being made to spread awareness and get media coverage of the democratic push in the Maoist-infested belt, where painted messages and pamphlets circulated by the Maoists have been calling for boycott of elections. The three Doordarshan journalists were reportedly travelling ahead of the police party of about 40 personnel on a motorcycle. DD cameraman Sahu was on a motorcycle with SI Rudra Pratap at the front and the first bullet hit him, police sources said. Sahus last post on Facebook was a collage of photos/videos showing the beauty of Bastar region from his election yatra, but only hours later, he was shot down while shooting the developmental works being taken up in the Aranpur area. Messages of condolence started trickling down on Sahus post by Tuesday afternoon. The Bastar division in Chhattisgarh, which comprises seven administrative districts of Kanker, Narayanpur, Kondagaon, Bijapur, Dantewada, Bastar and Sukma, has been a perilous ground for journalists, with many facing the state authorities ire for reporting Maoists side of the story and being branded Maoists themselves. The risk involved in working from the region has forced many to leave the state. But this is the first incident when journalists have come under direct attack by Maoists. Earlier this month, journalists Kamal Shukla and a cameraman who were accompanying Pulitzer fellow Siddharthya Roy (who covers South Asian affairs for The Diplomat) on a reporting assignment in Narayanpur district were detained by the CRPF at their Kurusnar camp. They had entered the tribal areas from Kokrajhore police limits and had spent a night inside the forests due to poor connectivity and ongoing tribal festivities, according to Roy. The journalists were questioned for eight hours and their tapes copied by the troops before they were released. With inputs from Shankar Sukma, Rishi Bhatnagar and Hitesh Sharma Contributors are members of 101Reporters.com Last week, an Army jawan and a Seema Shashtra Bal (SSB) personnel were killed in the sniper attacks in Tral area. Srinagar: A Jaish-e-Mohammed module was neutralised in South Kashmir Tuesday after at least two terrorists from the outfit were killed by security forces and an M-4 carbine was recovered, which was possibly used for carrying out sniper attacks on security forces, officials said. "Two bodies were recovered after a day-long encounter that broke in Chaanketaar village of Tral in Pulwama district," they said. "The body of one more militant was expected to be retrieved from the rubble," they said. According to officials, the intelligence inputs as well as the material seized from the encounter site showed that the terrorists belonged to JeM. While the identity of the slain terrorists was not ascertained immediately, reports said that one of those killed was the nephew of Maulana Masood Azhar, the chief of outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammed. "The security forces have also recovered M-4 Carbine rifle from the encounter site which was possibly used by the group to carry out sniper attacks on security forces," they said. Last week, an Army jawan and a Seema Shashtra Bal (SSB) personnel were killed in the sniper attacks in Tral area. The national public radio broadcaster of India, the All India Radio (AIR), has come under scrutiny after its Shahdol station in Madhya Pradesh terminated the services of nine women who complained against the assistant director of programming, Ratnakar Bharti, of sexual harassment As the second wave of the #MeTooIndia movement gains ground in the country, the national public radio broadcaster of India, the All India Radio (AIR), has come under scrutiny after its Shahdol station in Madhya Pradesh terminated the services of nine women who named the assistant director of programming, Ratnakar Bharti, in their complaints of sexual harassment, reports The Times of India. According to the report, the women have gone public a year after a police complaint was filed against Bharti, and the Internal Committee (IC) of AIR declared him guilty. However, Bharti remains stationed at the station's headquarters in New Delhi. The AIR employee union has also claimed that similar complaints of sexual harassment have been filed at different stations across the country, but in each case, while the accused was let off with a warning, the complainants have been asked to leave. Fayyaz Shehryar, director general AIR, has denied any connection between the lodging of the complaints and the services being terminated. He also added that all the complaints have been probed by IC, The Times of India reports. Since 5 October 2018, a slew of #MeToo allegations have emerged on social media timelines in India, triggering the second wave of the movement here. Many of these, like the alleged harassment at AIR, have occurred within the confines of the workplace. Here's a complete list of the allegations reported on social media so far, that Firstpost has followed up on. We will be updating this report over the following days. Former Union minister MJ Akbar on Wednesday appeared before a Delhi court to record his statement in the criminal defamation case filed by him against journalist Priya Ramani. Former Union minister MJ Akbar on Wednesday appeared before a Delhi court to record his statement in the criminal defamation case filed by him against journalist Priya Ramani. Akbar appeared before the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal and began his testimony by telling the court about his credentials and professional background as a journalist. "I acquired a good reputation as both a writer and an editor." He also reportedly submitted books authored by him as exhibits. Akbar also talked about his political career and said that he entered public life in 2014 and became National Spokesman for BJP in 2015 and is currently a Member of Parliament from Madhya Pradesh. He then spoke about the nature and basis of his complaint against Ramani, who had published a series of tweets making allegations of sexual harassment against him. Akbar told the court that the first tweet came to his notice after he returned from an official tour to Africa. He said that the tweet in question had a link to an article published in Vogue India. "The article has a history. It was first published in October 2017." He submitted to the court that Ramani's tweets on 10 and 13 October have caused defamation as these tweets were picked up by various publications and did the rounds on social media. Senior Counsel Geeta Luthra, who was representing Akbar, listed some of the publications that carried the tweets. "The tweets have been retweeted and shared on social media and the publications have been read widely", Akbar submitted. "The opening sentence of the tweet explained one anomaly. When the article was published in Vogue India in 2017, it did not include my name", Akbar said in court. He said that: "... Ramani stated as to why my name was not included earlier. She said it was because I had done nothing. This is mentioned in the tweet dated 8 October as well." Akbar then stated that how the allegations did an "immediate damage" to his reputation and goodwill. "There was immediate damage because of the scurrilous nature of these concocted and false allegations. I was attacked in a personal capacity about fabricated non-events allegedly done two decades ago. It has lowered my reputation in the eyes of the right-thinking members of the public, my friends, colleagues, peers and professional and political fraternity, thereby causing irreparable loss to my reputation and goodwill," Akbar testified before the court. He mentioned in the court that his colleagues were "understandably affected" and his friends were deeply upset and that he also received many calls questioning him about the allegations. "I chose in that environment to seek justice in my personal capacity without appurtenance of my office This is why I offered my resignation as Minister of State," he said in conclusion to his statement. Ramani has accused Akbar of sexual misconduct around 20 years ago. Akbar's name cropped up on social media when he was in Nigeria, as the #MeToo campaign raged on in India. Eighteen women have come out with accounts of alleged sexual harassment by Akbar when he was a journalist. Hours after returning home on 14 October, Akbar had termed the sexual misconduct allegations against him "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. With inputs from PTI and Bar and Bench Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate the Statue of Unity, which is a tribute to Sardar Vallabhai Patel, to the country at the inauguration ceremony today. The Statue of Unity, which honours Indias first deputy prime minister, Sardar Vallabhai Patel will be unveiled on Wednesday, 31 October. The statue dedicated to the Iron Man of India has been constructed on a river island called the Sadhu Bet on the Narmada river in Gujarats Kevadiya town. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the structure on the occasion of Sardar Patels 143rd birth anniversary, dedicating the Statue of Unity to the country. At 182 metres, it is the tallest statue in the world, dwarfing the Spring Temple Buddha in China, currently the world's tallest statue at 128 metres. The tribute to Sardar Patel is also twice the size of the Statue of Liberty in New York city in United States. The inauguration is scheduled for 11.30 am on Wednesday, and the statue will be open to public from Saturday, 3 November, according to India Today. The inauguration ceremony is expected last three hours, after which Modi may return to Delhi, reported The Indian Express. Surya Kiran, an aerobatics demonstration team of the Indian Air Force, will perform aerobatics at the event, spreading out the Tricolour. A squadron of Jaguar fighter aircraft will also participate in the inauguration, while MI-17 helicopters will shower flowers on the Sardar Patel statue. For the cultural programme, the prime minister will be welcomed by the bands of the armed forces, Gujarat Police, State Reserve Police Force, Central Reserve Police Force and Border Security Force, as well as by cultural troupes from 29 states and two Union Territories. According to The Financial Express, folk dance performance from various states have been planned. Modi will also inaugurate the Wall of Unity near the statue and also address a public gathering. Infrastructure giant Larsen and Toubro was given the contract to construct the Statue of Unity. L&T said the construction of the raft of the structure began on 19 December, 2015, and was completed in 33 months. The bronze statue, which cost nearly Rs 3,000 crore to construct, is being projected by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as a symbol of unity and a message that the Congress underplayed the contributions of Sardar Patel towards the country in favour of the Nehru-Gandhi family. As a precursor to the unveiling event, the BJP conducted 'Ekta Yatras' (unity marches) across Gujarat from 19 to 29 October. The yatras carried a prototype of the Statue of Unity throughout the state. With the Ekta Yatras, the BJP is believed to have virtually kicked off its campaign for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Facing the Sardar Sarovar Dam, the statue has a viewing gallery at 153 meters from where visitors will be able to see the dams reservoir and the mountain ranges of Satpura and Vindhya. The Statue of Unity website states that after completion, the memorial will generate approximately 15,000 jobs for tribal people. However, chiefs of 22 villages near the Sardar Sarovar Dam on Monday reportedly wrote an open letter to Modi, saying that villagers will not welcome him at the inauguration of the Statue of Unity. Local tribal leaders have also announced a boycott of the function, saying the natural resources were destroyed by the construction of the memorial. With inputs from agencies Narendra Modi dedicated the 'Statue of Unity' to India and said that the world's tallest statue will remind the nation of the courage, strength and determination of Sardar Vallabhai Patel, the whole world and our future generations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday dedicated the 182-metre 'Statue of Unity', built in honour of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, to the nation. Modi unveiled the statue, which is constructed on a river island called Sadhu Bet near the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat's Narmada district. Modi inaugurated the structure on Sardar Patels 143rd birth anniversary and marked the occasion as 'Ekta Diwas' or 'Unity Day'. The Statue of Unity, built as a tribute to Sardar Patel known as the Iron Man of India is the tallest in the world and the quickest to be completed in just 33 months. It dwarfs the Spring Temple Buddha in China and is twice the size of Statue of Liberty in United States. During the inauguration ceremony Modi said: "Today is a day that will be remembered in the history of India. No Indian will ever forget this day." "This is a project that we had thought about during the time I was the Chief Minister of Gujarat," Modi added. "In order to build the Statue of Unity, lakhs of farmers from all over India came together, gave their tools, portions of the soil and thus, a mass movement developed." "Had Sardar Patel not united the country, we would need visas to see lions or pay homage at Somnath, or view the Charminar in Hyderabad... Sardar Patel wanted India to be strong, sensitive, vigilant and inclusive. All our efforts are towards realising his dream." Questioning the critics of the structure, Modi said it "amazed" him that "some people" would "see this initiative from a political view" and "criticise us like we committed a huge crime". "Is remembering country's great personalities a crime?" he asked. The prime minister that the statue will remind those who question India's existence that this nation was, is and will remain eternal. He described the Statue of Unity as a symbol of the country's engineering and technical capabilities. It has been built using over 70,000 tonnes of cement, 18,500 tonnes of reinforced steel, 6,000 tonnes of structural steel and 1,700 metric tonnes of bronze, which was used for the outer cladding of the structure. Modi thanked the sculptors and architects who worked on the statue. The Statue of Unity project, barring bronze cladding which is a fragment of the mammoth work, has been done indigenously, infrastruccture giant Larsen and Toubro (L&T) claimed. The raft construction of the structure actually begun on 19 December 2015, and took 33 months to complete. L&T CEO and MD S N Subrahmanyan told PTI, "The Statue of Unity, apart from being a symbol of national pride, and integration is also a tribute to India's engineering skills and project management abilities. "Our engineering and construction teams along with the architects, the sculptor, and reputed global consultants, have realised this dream of Prime Minister to reality in a record period of time. Our commitment to scale, speed and quality in engineering has yielded this desired outcome, which is not only structurally superior but also aesthetically appealing." L&T said it has been engineered to withstand wind speeds of up to 50 metre per second (almost 180 km). The Statue of Unity can also survive earthquakes measuring up to 6.5 on the Richter Scale, at a depth of 10 km and within a radius of 12 km of the statue. A viewing gallery has been created at a height of 135 metres inside the statue to enable tourists to have a view of the dam and nearby mountain ranges. The bronze statue cost Rs 2,989 crores to construct. Governor of Gujarat OP Kohli, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and BJP chief Amit Shah were present at the unveiling of the Statue of Unity. With inputs from PTI The accused Dinesh Kumar beheaded the teenager using a sickle after she had rejected the accused's advances. The incident happened near Attur village in Tamil Nadu's Salem district. Salem: A 13-year-old Dalit girl was beheaded at a hamlet in Salem district of Tamil Nadu allegedly by her neighbour after she reportedly spurned his advances. A senior police official said on Wednesday the accused Dinesh Kumar has been arrested and lodged in Salem jail and a probe was on. The incident happened at a small village near Attur in Salem district recently. In a complaint filed by the victim's relatives, they have levelled allegations of sexual misconduct against the accused, an upper caste Hindu, the official said. The police dismissed media reports that the accused was mentally disturbed. According to reports, the deceased teenager had rejected the accused's advances and also informed her mother. Police said Kumar beheaded her using a sickle. The victim was studying at a nearby government school and was the last of three siblings. Her parents are said to be labourers. The Supreme Court on Tuesday observed that nobody has the right to rape a woman even if a woman is of easy virtue, while setting aside a Delhi high court verdict that acquitted four men of rape in a 1997 case. The Supreme Court on Tuesday observed that a woman has a "right to refuse to submit herself to sexual intercourse to anyone" even if she is habituated to sexual intercourse and that no inference on her "character" is permissible from that, while setting aside a Delhi High Court verdict that acquitted four men of rape in a 1997 case. "Even in cases where there is some material to show that the victim was habituated to sexual intercourse, no inference like the victim being a woman of loose moral character' is permissible to be drawn from that circumstance alone," said a bench of justices R Banumathi and Indira Banerjee. The bench also ordered an inquiry against the police officers who investigated the case. "Even assuming that the prosecutrix was of easy virtue, she has a right to refuse to submit herself to sexual intercourse to anyone," said the court, reported Bar and Bench. The case was that the accused entered the jhuggi of the complainant at Shaheed Bhagat Singh Jhuggi Camp, Katwaria Sarai in Delhi on 28 July 1997 and raped her. Charges were then framed against the accused under Section 376(2)(g) of the IPC to which they pleaded not guilty. The accused in their statement under Section 313 CrPC had earlier stated that the complainant was of bad character and she was indulging in prostitution and therefore said that they were falsely implicated in the rape case. They also told the court that a complaint was lodged by them against her though nothing was produced before the court. The trial court convicted them taking into account the evidence of the complainant. However, the accused the moved the Delhi High Court, where they presented the alleged complaints that were made against the prosecutrix, during the hearing. The high court then observed that the trial court made a mistake in saying that the accused failed to prove the making of previous complaints against the complainant. The court then acquitted the accused of rape. The bench observed that the high court was not right in taking into consideration those complaints produced at the time of arguments in the appeal. Referring to the judgment in State of Maharashtra and Another versus Madhurkar Narayan Mardikar, the bench said that the evidence of a woman cannot be dismissed only because she is a woman of easy virtue. The bench then stated that the trial court judgement can be restored on the sole testimony of the prosecutrix if it inspires confidence, and affirmed the sentence of 10 years imposed on the accused by the trial court. The ban on fishing within 20 kilometres from the coast for the protection of turtles will be imposed from 1 November, 2018 till 30 May, 2019. Bhubaneswar: Ahead of imposing ban on fishing in the state coastline for the annual mass nesting of Olive Ridley turtles, Odisha government has prepared an action plan to ensure protection of the endangered species. The ban on fishing within 20 kilometres from the coast for the protection of turtles will be imposed from 1 November, 2018 till 30 May, 2019. The action plan got nod of the high power committee for protection and conservation of Olive Ridley turtles held under the chairmanship of chief secretary A P Padhi, an official said. The ban will be imposed in the specified coast of the sea comprising sea turtle congregation area and their buffer zones in three river mouths like Dhamara river mouth, Devi river mouth and Rusikulya river mouth. While reviewing the preparedness, Padhi directed the departments of fishery, forest and marine police to operate in close coordination and ensure strict enforcement of the conservation rules. The Coast Guard has been requested to have real-time intelligence sharing with the departments about any illegal fishing. The institutions like Integrated Test Range, DRDO, Dhamara Port, Gopalpur Port and Paradip Port authorities have been requested to follow the black-out and light deeming practices to save turtles from possible delusion, he said. Keeping in view of the interest of the hundreds of fishermen Padhi directed the departments concerned not to cause unnecessary harassment to small traditional fishermen without power boats. The meeting also resolved to extend livelihood support programmes to the fishermen during the ban period, the official said adding that the committee proposed to enhance the livelihood support assistance from Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,500 to each fishermen family. It was also resolved to cover more eligible fishermen during 2018-19 who suffer because of the fishing ban. Berthing places will be set up at Barunei, Gupti, Sasanapeta and Krushnapriyapur and Rajnagar for safe custody of the seized vessels. There would be around 62 patrolling camp including 57 on-shore and 5 off-shore camps. Each camp will be provided with very high frequency communication devices, mobile phones and required camping materials. There will be regular communication and intelligence sharing among coast guard, patrolling ship, and various camps and marine police. Armed police force will be deployed for patrolling and enforcement activities. Collectors will depute magistrates to remain in charge of armed police force placed at disposal of DFOs. The proposal for setting up a Sea Turtle Research Centre was also discussed in the meeting. It was decided to set up the centre near the Ghati Central Nursery in the Khalikote forest range of Ganjam district. The proposal for instituting a research fellowship on Olive Ridley conservation was discussed in the meeting. Presenting the updates in the meeting, PCCF, (Wildlife) Sandeep Tripathy said, "during last year (2017-18) around 11.10 lakh Olive Ridley emerged from the sea to lay eggs along Odisha coast." Tripathy said because of better coordination mechanism among the departments concerned like coast guard, naval wing, ITR, fisheries & animal resource department, police, various port authorities, community-based organisations and forest and environment department, the sea turtle conservation and protection operation was carried on successfully last year. He said sporadic nesting activities of the turtles and their mortality would be monitored through a web portal manage.odishawildlife.org. "Soon after mass nesting, the rookeries will be fenced to protect the nests and eggs. Patrolling along with watch and ward activities will be further strengthened like previous years," Tripathy said. The South Korean President Moon Jae-in had expressed his liking for the 'Modi jackets' during his first state visit to the country in July. After South Korean President Moon Jae-in expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on receiving meticulously tailored "Modi jackets" on Wednesday, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah said the Indian prime minister could have gifted the jackets without changing the name of the apparel. Its really nice of our PM to send these but could he not have sent them without changing the name? All my life Ive known these jackets as Nehru jacket and now I find these ones have been labelled "Modi Jacket". Clearly nothing existed in India before 2014. https://t.co/MOa0wY37tr Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) October 31, 2018 Although he appreciated Modi's gesture towards the South Korean president, Abdullah said he always knew of this particular clothing to be known as "Nehru jackets". Moon Jae-in had expressed his liking for the "Modi jackets" during his first State visit to the country in July. On Wednesday, he uploaded photos of him wearing the jackets on Twitter, saying they "fit great". "During my visit to India, I had told the Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he looked great in those vests, and he duly sent them over, all meticulously tailored to my size. I would like to thank him for this kind gesture," the South Korean president tweeted. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India sent me some gorgeous garments. These are modernised versions of traditional Indian costume, known as the 'Modi Vest', that can also be worn easily in Korea. They fit perfectly," he tweeted. In a second photograph posted on Moon's Twitter handle, four of those jackets of different shades were displayed. Hours after Moon's tweet, Modi said he was delighted to see the South Korean president looking elegant in his gift. Delighted to see my friend, President Moon looking so elegant in a tailored Indian waist-coat Jacket! I hope these simple gifts from the Indian people remain close to the President's heart and remind him of the civilizational bond our countries share. @moonriver365 https://t.co/cJ5aQdPlDN Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 31, 2018 In July, Moon made his first state visit to India during which the two leaders held talks on key issues such as the situation on the Korean peninsula, and ways to boost bilateral trade and defence cooperation. With inputs from PTI Trump flew into Pittsburgh with wife Melania to pay his respects at the Tree of Life synagogue, but many in the largely Democratic city say his rhetoric and vitriolic tweets have fanned white supremacy and are fueling a spike in anti-Semitism across the United States. Pittsburgh: Around 1,500 people took to the streets of Pittsburgh on Tuesday to demonstrate peacefully in song against a visit by US President Donald Trump and to mourn 11 Jewish worshipers killed in a synagogue. The crowd of all ages and faiths, including many young families, children and the elderly, marched for six blocks holding signs that read "President Hate, Leave Our State!" and "Trump's Lies Kill." They marched through leafy Squirrel Hill, the tolerant and diverse neighbourhood that has been a beating heart of Pittsburgh's Jewish community, home to the synagogue where Saturday's carnage took place. Trump flew into the city with wife Melania to pay his respects at the Tree of Life synagogue, but many in the largely Democratic city say his rhetoric and vitriolic tweets have fanned white supremacy and are fueling a spike in anti-Semitism across the United States. The rally began with an organizer reading aloud from an open letter written by a group of Pittsburgh Jewish leaders to Trump, telling him he bears responsibility for the shooting and asking him not to come. "President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully renounce white nationalism," she read. The crowd broke into soft acapella song, which they continued as they marched through the neighbourhood, watched by residents and shop workers who poured out of their homes and businesses in solidarity. "I just think it's important to show solidarity in this time of unimaginable tragedy," said Patricia Calderone, 62, a retiree and a photographer, who made a "Trump's Lies Kill" sign. The Steel City is "stronger than the hate," she said. "It's a very diverse city, it's a small city but people are close, people are united and we're not going to let this happen here and hurt us." "I can't know what the president is thinking and I cannot know his motivations, but I can know his words," said Gabriel McMorland, 36, who used to live in Squirrel Hill. "They line up so closely with the words of white nationalist terrorists and racist right-wing conspiracy theories," he added. "What he's saying are the kinds of thing that a Nazi sympathizer would say and I don't think I'm exaggerating at all to say that." Toward the end, a short prayer was said in Hebrew, the protesters held their arms up to the sky and tore a piece of black paper in ritual, before observing a moment of silence punctuated only by birdsong. As they marched on, past a fire station and standing police officers, they applauded loudly and chanted "thank you" in tribute to the first responders who were called out to the massacre on Saturday. Many in the crowd were too emotional to speak to the press. The organization was disciplined and determinedly peaceful. A police officer at the scene confirmed there had been no incidents even as the president was in the area mourning the victims. "I think it's more divisive than uniting," librarian Nonie Heystek, 57, said of Trump's arrival. Friends of friends were among those killed, she said. "Pittsburgh is a very small place and there's really only two degrees of separation, especially in this neighbourhood." The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to give an early hearing to a review petition against the entry of women in the age group of 10 to 50 years in Sabarimala temple in Kerala. The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to give an early hearing to a review petition against the entry of women in the age group of 10 to 50 years in Sabarimala temple in Kerala. Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said that the temple will be open for 24 hours on 5 and 6 November and that court has already fixed the matter for hearing on 13 November, four days ahead of the commencement of the pilgrimage season. Earlier, the court had noted that there were 19 review petitions pending in the matter, filed by National Ayyappa Devotees Association and others seeking a review of its verdict. The apex court, on 28 September, had banned an age-old tradition which restricts entry of menstruating women between age 10 and 50 into the Lord Ayyappa temple by a majority verdict of 4:1. It said that the ban on women in the menstruating age group, whose presence at the Sabarimala temple was considered to be "impure", violated their fundamental rights and the constitutional guarantee of equality. Several protests were witnessed after the verdict, with close to 4,000 people being arrested. A dozen women were also forced to retreat when they tried to enter the temple. In the review plea by the Nair Service Society, one of the petitioners, said the majority decision of the court "has the effect of holding that the character of the deity can be altered based on individual faith and belief, in violation of the tenets of a particular religion and or religious sect". The petitioners have also argued that besides "patent legal errors" in the verdict, the assumption that the temple practice is based on notions of menstrual impurity is "factually erroneous". Pointing to massive protests against the verdict by women worshippers, the petitioners have contended that "the subsequent events that transpired after the judgment clearly demonstrate that overwhelmingly large section of women worshippers is supporting the custom of prohibiting entry of women". The doors to Sabarimala temple closed on 22 October and will open again on 17 November for the three-month-long Mandalam Makaravilakku celebrations when lakhs of devotees from the country and abroad visit the place every year. The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Assam government to provide a timeline by when foreign nationals who have been put in detention centres can be united with their families. The court also asked the state government to apprise it by when it will send necessary facilities such as gas and medicines to the detention centres. The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Assam government to provide a timeline for foreign nationals (who have been put in detention centres) to be united with their families. The court also asked the state government to apprise it by when it will send necessary facilities such as gas and medicines to the detention centres. Accusing the government of detaining people against their wish, the court said: You (the government) cannot put a person in a detention centre and then say you will decide what is to be done about them later. It must be planned out in advance. You must provide them certain basic facilities," ANI reported. The apex court's ruling comes after three more detention centres were announced in Assam for declared foreign nationals until they are deported to their countries of origin. At present, the state has six detention centres that run within the premises of jails. The new plan envisages standalone centres for foreign nationals, unlike the six cells that already exist in the state attached to the district jails. While the Centre has already approved the proposal for Goalpara, the process for selecting the sites for the other two in Silchar and Tezpur has started. The Goalpara facility will cost about Rs 46 crore, reported The Economic Times. LS Changsan, principal secretary of Assam's home affairs and political department, was quoted as saying in the report: "This will be the first standalone detention camp with a capacity for 3,500 people." Approximately 800 foreign nationals are currently detained at the six centres attached to jails across the state, where separate provisions have also been made for women and children. However, they have fuelled a huge controversy with human rights activists, complaining about their deplorable conditions. Last August, the Supreme Court had asked the government to submit a report on the condition of these centres in Assam. The Centre replied saying that guidelines were being framed for keeping foreign nationals in detention centres across the country. Many detainees have also been languishing for years at the centres since deportation is a tedious and unpredictable process. There is no agreement with Bangladesh on repatriation of its citizens who have illegally entered India. Moreover, Bangladesh has never accepted that its citizens have been sneaking into and settling in different parts of India since the past many decades. Last year, its information minister Hasanul Haq Inu told this correspondent that people who were forced to cross over to India following the genocide in 1971 have returned to their homes. The green signal for repatriation comes from Dhaka only after the addresses of the detainees in the jails and detention centres have been verified and confirmed. As per government records, 7,056 persons have been sent back to Bangladesh between 2013 and 2017. Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has sent Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad a legal notice for making 'false and defamatory statements' against him Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has sent Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad a legal notice for making "false and defamatory statements" against him, ANI reported. According to the report, Tharoor sent the notice over a statement Prasad made during a press conference which he later put on Twitter: Shashi Tharoor who is accused in a murder case has attempted to disrespect Lord Shiva. I seek a reply from Rahul Gandhi who claims himself to be a Bhakt of Lord Shiva on this horrific denunciation of Hindu gods by a Congress MP. Rahul Gandhi must apologize to all Hindus. pic.twitter.com/QeShJoCHDZ Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) October 28, 2018 Tharoor sought an apology from Prasad within 48 hours and warned of legal action if he does not do so, according to the report. Prasad was responding to Tharoor launching a fresh attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday. Quoting a profile on Modi in The Caravan from 2012, which in turn quoted an unnamed leader in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Tharoor compared him to a "scorpion sitting on a Shivling". While speaking at the Bengaluru Literature Festival on Saturday, Tharoor said the prime minister's "personality cult" has not been popular with the RSS and has been a cause of frustration within the group. Tharoor said: "There is an extraordinarily striking metaphor expressed by an unnamed RSS source to journalist Vinod Jose of The Caravan, in which they express their frustration with their inability to curb Modi. The man says: 'Modi is like a scorpion sitting on a Shivling; you can't remove him with your hand, and you cannot hit it with a chappal either.'" Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the 'Statue of Unity', touted as the world's tallest statue, to the nation on Wednesday. It is twice the height of Statue of Liberty and is built on an islet, Sadhu Bet, near the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Narmada district. Ahmedabad: Apprehending protests, the Gujarat police on Tuesday detained several tribal leaders and activists in Narmada district ahead of the inauguration of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's statue on 31 October the birth anniversary of India's 'Iron Man'. Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the 'Statue of Unity', touted as the world's tallest statue, to the nation on Wednesday. It is twice the height of Statue of Liberty and is built on an islet, Sadhu Bet, near the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Narmada district. The police went knocking on the doors of several tribal activists and leaders in Kevadia, Rajpipla and Dediapada talukas (blocks), detaining them under IPC 68, fearing disruption of the government programmes on Wednesday. "The police came to my house in Kevadia and arrested me and is now taking me to some place. There are 8 to 10 other tribals with me. Most probably they will take us to Jeetnagar, Rajpipla. We will be detained for 24 hours and then they will release us when the Wednesday's programmes get over," said Lakhan Musaafir from Kevadia. "Tribals in entire eastern Gujarat are angry at this show of pomp (unveiling of the statue). Their anger is also expressed in a peacceful manner as they have announced boycott, fast, and shutdown of the whole tribal belt. They have done so in the face of extreme pressure and intimidation," said Anand Mazgaonkar, a social activist working for the tribals. "What is shocking is that they were detained in an unconstitutional manner. The detention was carried out after 6 in the evening and there were also two females in the raid at Kevadia. We have heard that around five thousand police personnel are going to detain around fifty tribal leaders by midnight. Why are they so terrified of tribals," asked Anand. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday will dedicate to the nation The Statue of Unity, a 182-metre statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, which is also the worlds' tallest statue so far. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday will dedicate to the nation the Statue of Unity, a 182-metre-tall statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, which is also the world's tallest statue so far. The imposing monument is twice the height of the Statue of Liberty and is built on an islet, Sadhu Bet, near the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Narmada district. After Modi unveils the statue, three IAF planes will fly past, said an official release Tuesday. Modi will also inaugurate the 'Wall of Unity' near the statue. At that time, three Jaguar fighter jets will fly past the structure at a low altitude, said the release. After inaugurating the Wall of Unity, Modi would offer floral tributes to Patel, whose birth anniversary falls on 31 October. At the same time, two MI-17 helicopters will shower flowers, the release added. On the occasion, cultural and musical programmes will be performed by the bands of the Gujarat Police, armed and paramilitary forces. There will be dance and musical performances by artists drawn from 29 states and two Union Territories. Modi, who landed in Ahmedabad on Tuesday night, is also scheduled to visit the 'Wall of Unity' which is built with soil collected from more than a lakh villages across the country in 2013-14, The Indian Express reported. Governors of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat and at least 140 Gujaratis living in 38 cities across 20 states will be a part of the inauguration event, the report said. Some of the other major attractions include the inauguration of a 17-kilometre-long Valley of Flowers, a tent city for tourists near the statue and a museum dedicated to the life and times of Patel. A viewing gallery at a height of 135 metres has been created inside the statue to enable tourists to have a view of the dam and nearby mountain ranges. There will also be bhavans made near the statute for various states, built by some state governments on the Gujarat governments invitation. Reportedly, Uttar Pradesh and Nagaland have already accepted the proposal. The statue has been built using over 70,000 tonnes of cement, 18,500 tonnes of reinforced steel, 6,000 tonnes of structural steel and 1,700 metric tonnes of bronze, which was used for the outer cladding of the structure, according to the government statement. The statue's construction had received opposition from some tribal groups in Narmada district. Meanwhile, local tribal leaders have announced a boycott of Wednesday's event claiming "mass destruction" of natural resources due to the project. In an open letter addressed to Modi, sarpanches of 22 villages situated near the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada river have said villagers will not welcome the prime minister when he arrives for the function. "We villagers want to tell you with extreme grief that we will not welcome you on 31 October. Even if you come here like an unwanted guest, you are not welcome here," said the common letter signed by sarpanches of the villages of Narmada district, located around 200 kilometres from Ahmedabad. The area still lacks basic facilities like schools, hospitals and drinking water, they alleged. With inputs from PTI The so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) had a difficult birth and had appeared to be foundering when Trump withdrew the US shortly after coming to office. That turned out to be the opening salvo in Trump's winner-takes-all, 'America first' and threat-heavy approach to trade relations. Sydney: A massive trans-Pacific trade deal cleared a final hurdle Wednesday allowing it to enter into force this year, a pointed rebuke of President Donald Trump's protectionist policies from some of America's closest allies. Hours before an administrative deadline, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that his government had ratified the 11-country pact, meaning a quorum of more than half the members have formally signed on. "Australia is the sixth country to ratify the agreement, meaning it can now enter into force on 30 December this year," said centre-right leader Morrison. Other signatories include G7 economies Japan and Canada. The so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) had a difficult birth and had appeared to be foundering when Trump withdrew the US shortly after coming to office. That turned out to be the opening salvo in Trump's winner-takes-all, "America first" and threat-heavy approach to trade relations. Frantic behind-the-scenes, Japanese-led diplomacy kept a slimmed-down version of the pact alive among the remaining members in the hope that Washington will have a change of heart, or government, and will eventually join. The entry into force "will send a strong message that the new rules of the 21st century, which are free and fair, will be established and will spread to the world," said Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan's minister in charge of economic revitalisation. The deal was spearheaded by then-president Barack Obama, who saw it as a geopolitical power play, with ramifications far beyond trade a way of binding rising Asian powers into a rules-based, American-backed order and countering China's might-is-right approach to commerce in the Asia-Pacific region. Even without the participation of the world's largest economy, the deal has been described as a game changer. It covers many rapidly growing economies that account for around 14 percent of world trade. Lower tariffs As well as binding countries into a tougher legal framework for trade, lowering tariffs and opening markets, the pact will also introduce new labour standards and force some governments to bring competition into sectors long dominated by insiders and political cronies. Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and Singapore have already signed off on the agreement, meaning more than half of the members have now ratified it. On December 30, the first round of tariff cuts will now come into effect. "The timing means there will be the added bonus of the second round of tariff cuts on 1 January, 2019," said New Zealand trade minister David Parker. "I expect other signatories will come on board" he added, referring to the remaining five members who have not yet formally ratified Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru and Vietnam. "Many are working hard to progress their applicable domestic procedures," he said. But not everyone is convinced the deal will transform the world. With the US gone, "the TPP became a bulwark against protectionism, sustaining the flame for free trade until Trump leaves office and things return to normal," Tom Chodor, a professor at Australia's Monash University recently wrote. "As Trump continues to transform the Republican Party and the United States, the notion that things will go back to 'normal' after his departure is looking increasingly problematic," he said. "Even without Trump, Trumpism might be here to stay." "There is little chance of a US-less TPP exerting leverage on China," Chodor added. Countries like Indonesia have indicated they would like to join, but would first need to embark on wholesale economic reforms that would threaten the business interests of local powerbrokers. Urjit Patel versus Centre LIVE updates: Ministry of Finance statement on RBI autonomy has an unmistakable sense of displeasure and warning from the government when it says that it frequently consults with RBI on important matters but never goes public with these matters. Auto refresh feeds Sources reported that RBI governor Urjit Patel may tender his resignation willingly if government invokes Section 7 of RBI Act. The report, which has not received any by official confirmation, said that the government is keen on a bureaucrat as the next governor if Patel resigns. "RBI governor may even consider resigning. All options on the table," a CNBC-TV18 report quoted a source familiar with the matter as saying. It quoted another source as saying that there is "irreversible breakdown between RBI governor and the government". Reports about Urjit Patel stepping down as the RBI governor started floating following Finance Minister Arun Jaitleys scathing criticism of the central banks lending spree, reports quoted sources as saying on Wednesday. On Friday night, the RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya warned that undermining a central banks independence could be potentially catastrophic, in an indication that it is pushing back hard against government pressure to relax its policies and reduce its powers. Government officials were "very upset" with the RBI for publicly talking about a rift with the government, fearing it could tarnish the countrys image among investors, Reuters reported . A second official, based in Prime Minister Narendra Modis office, said it was very unfortunate that the RBI took the matters public. The government is very upset. It was not expected from the RBI, the official added. An RBI spokesman was not immediately available for comments after business hours. The government officials Monday declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject. One said that it was vital that what happened between the government in New Delhi and the RBI in Mumbai was kept confidential. The government respects the autonomy and independence of the RBI but they must understand their responsibility, the government official said. The Modi administration has also been pushing the central bank to part with some of its Rs 3.6 trillion rupees ($49 billion) surplus to help bridge the fiscal deficit and finance its welfare programmes. Government officials have recently called for the RBI to relax its lending restrictions on some banks, and New Delhi has also been trying to trim the RBIs regulatory powers by setting up a new regulator for the countrys payments system. Warning of more "bad news", former finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said, If, as reported, Government has invoked Section 7 of the RBI Act and issued unprecedented directions to the RBI, I am afraid there will be more bad news today, he said. CNBC-TV18 also quoted sources as saying that the government has initiated consultations with RBI under Section 7 of the RBI Act. The provision reportedly allowed the government to issue directions to the RBI on matters of public interest. Sources in the ministry of finance told Firstpost that Section 7 of the RBI Act has not been invoked. However, two letters were sent to RBI last month in which "Section 7 was quoted", highlighting the existence of powers under the Act that allows the government to issue directions to the central bank on "matters of public interest". Government officials believe that RBI Governor Urjit Patel has some responsibility for the controversy, and he cannot expect an extension of his current three-year term which ends next September "as his right", one of the officials added. The officials in New Delhi were particularly angry that Viral Acharya launched the attack while Narendra Modi was about to head to Japan for talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, government official told Reuters. Finance ministry officials remained largely silent in response to the speech at the weekend, as they didnt want to aggravate the issue when Modi and top officials were in Japan, this official said. After Congress leader P Chidambaram, CPM's Sitaram Yechury also tweeted out slamming Prime Minister Narendra Modi and how the government has tried to damage "every single institution." All India Reserve Bank Employees Association (AIRBEA) expressed concern over the recent statements made by deputy governor Viral Acharya and sought autonomy of the apex bank. The association in a statement said on Monday that "Undermining the country's central bank was a recipe for disaster which the government must desist. Let the two talk and sort out the issues instead of the government trying to ride roughshod over the RBI, what they are trying at the expense of the nation". Pitching for "effective independence", RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya said governments that do not respect central bank's independence would sooner or later incur the wrath of the financial markets. On Friday, RBI deputy governor Viral Acharya warned that undermining a central bank's independence could be "potentially catastrophic", in an indication that it is pushing back hard against government pressure to relax its policies and reduce its powers ahead of a general election due by next May. Jaitley, had on Tuesday, blamed the RBI for failing to stop a lending spree between 2008-2014 that left banks with huge bad debts, inflaming a row that recently erupted between the government and the central bank. There is a crisis of confidence in financial markets. In such a scenario, it is a no-brainer that if the government Invokes Section 7 can have serious ramifications in the economy and the immediate message that will go out to the world that the government has taken another step to undermine the central bank's independence. That's not a desirable situation. Friction between the ruling political dispensations and the central banks is not uncommon in large economies. Typically, governments have a short-term view on policy matters while central banks take a long-term approach. But, Indian economy is already facing a crisis situation on account of an NPA-ridden banking sector and seer liquidity crisis in the non-banking finance companies. Even thought the controversy around spat between the government and the RBI has been doing rounds for a couple of days now, speculations over RBI governor Urjit Patel's resignations hit the headlines on Wednesday morning. Senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai commented on the situation: "Political India (read netas) are battling over Sardar Patel legacy but real India (read economy) is more worried about Urjit Patel future! One Patel may get you votes, the other Patel hits your notes!!" "Since the Congress is not getting any chance to expose Modi government on corruption issues, it is picking up subjects concerning government agencies. This shows Congress' grounding, which is fast eroding in national politics," Trivedi told reporters. BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi Tuesday said Rahul Gandhi's criticism against Prime Minister Narendra Modi over an apparent RBI-Centre rift, reflects Congress party's grounding, "which is fast eroding in national politics." Rahul on Monday said it was nice to see RBI Governor Urjit Patel "finally defending" the central bank from Modi. Mere speculation of contagion of IL&FS crisis sent stocks of other well-run housing finance companies to multi-year lows. Again, it was speculations that RBI wont support Rupee, which sent the currency to all time lows. Now that talk of Section 7 is dominating the headlines. Both the government and RBI have so far refrained from commenting on the facts of the matter. They should, in the interest of financial markets. In the world of financial markets, sentiments come at play first, then facts. Speculations can have major ramifications and destablise markets, at least, in the short-term, particularly equities. Second letter was on using RBIs capital reserves and the third letter was on relaxing constraints on PCA banks for loans to SMEs. According to reports , sources said that Letters of Consultation under Section 7 of the RBI Act were invoked 3 times. First letter under Section 7 followed Allahabad court's verdict in RBI versus Power companies. At this crucial juncture, when markets are recovering from the NBFC shake-up and harping on global cues, the resignation of the RBI Governor Urjit Patel will rattle the investor sentiment, said a Business Standard report . Nevertheless, the government is likely to come with a strong-worded statement on issues where it has differences with the RBI and end the matter there, for now. That would send the message to the central bank and one needs to wait and watch for the response of the RBI governor. Remember, technically, the government is the boss of the RBI and the governor is a government appointee. The Narendra Modi government is reportedly readying to issue a statement soon to clarify its position on the matter. Regardless of the speculations in media, there are reasons to believe that government is very unlikely to go for the extreme step of invoking Section 7, which would add to its headaches in the financial markets. Channels reporting on the alleged spat ongoing between the RBI and the Centre reported that highest authorities were very upset With RBI deputy governor Viral Acharya's speech last week. According to the reports, Acharya met with officials from the PMO on Tuesday in New Delhi. Acharya had said undermining RBIs independence can trigger a crisis of confidence in capital markets and that attrition of central bank powers results in attrition of its human capital and deterioration of its efficiency and expertise over time. He was speaking at a lecture in Mumbai on 26 October. Gurumurthy, who was recently nominated to the RBI board by the government, told Economic Times that he had written to Patel but said he wouldn't divulge the contents of his letter. RBI board member S Gurumurthy has reportedly complained to governor Urjit Patel about comments made by Viral Acharya last week regarding the need to maintain regulatory autonomy, adding another dimension to the conflict between the government and the central bank. An NDTV report released a statement by the Ministry of Finance which said, "Both the government and the Central Bank, in their functioning, have to be guided by public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy. For the purpose of extensive consultations on several issues take place between the government and the RBI from time to time." "The autonomy for the Central Bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential and accepted governance requirement. Governments in India have nurtured and respected this. Both the Government and the Central Bank, in their functioning, have to be guided by public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy. For the purpose, extensive consultations on several issues take place between the Government and the RBI from time to time. This is equally true of all other regulators. Government of India has never made public the subject matter of those consultations. Only the final decisions taken are communicated. The Government, through these consultations, places its assessment on issues and suggests possible solutions. The Government will continue to do so." First reaction from Centre: Finance ministry says autonomy for Central Bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential and accepted governance requirement This is a clear message to the RBI, particularly in the backdrop of deputy governor, Viral Acharyas public outburst on RBI autonomy, that dont go to public on differences with the government. The truce from the government has come. This, indeed, will be welcomed by the financial markets. But, the public dissent is out in the open now. Over to RBI now. As expected, the government has rightly chosen not to escalate the matters further. A statement from the government clarifying on the issue clearly acknowledges the need for RBI autonomy within the framework of RBI Act,by calling it is essential and accepted in an economy. But at the same time, there is an unmistakable sense of displeasure and warning from the government when it says that it frequently consults with RBI on important matters but never goes public with these matters. Sources, however, insisted that the government has not taken any action of issuing any specific direction and has only initiated consultations with the central bank on unresolved issues. The government has sent at least three letters on different issues under Section 7 (1) of the Reserve Bank of India Act that gives it powers to issue any direction to the central bank governor on matters of public interest. The government has cited the never-before-used power of issuing directions to RBI Governor to seek a resolution to differences with the central bank, sources with knowledge of the development said. "Even the RBI board is being sought to be stuffed in a particular direction which would prompt the discerning people to look askance, and make it difficult for RBI to frame policies," the union said in the letter. "We appeal to all right-minded people and experts to speak out and persuade the government to amend, and let RBI do its jobs in an unfettered was as per statutes, mandates, practices," the letter said. The All India Reserve Bank Association's letter said the hiatus has widened now and the deputy governor has spoken more "in disgust and despondency" due to continuous nibbling by the government and the finance ministry. At this crucial juncture, when markets are recovering from the NBFC shake-up and harping on global cues, the resignation of the RBI Governor Urjit Patel will rattle the investor sentiment, said a Business Standard report . Nevertheless, the government is likely to come with a strong-worded statement on issues where it has differences with the RBI and end the matter there, for now. That would send the message to the central bank and one needs to wait and watch for the response of the RBI governor. Remember, technically, the government is the boss of the RBI and the governor is a government appointee. The Narendra Modi government is reportedly readying to issue a statement soon to clarify its position on the matter. Regardless of the speculations in media, there are reasons to believe that government is very unlikely to go for the extreme step of invoking Section 7, which would add to its headaches in the financial markets. Channels reporting on the alleged spat ongoing between the RBI and the Centre reported that highest authorities were very upset With RBI deputy governor Viral Acharya's speech last week. According to the reports, Acharya met with officials from the PMO on Tuesday in New Delhi. Acharya had said undermining RBIs independence can trigger a crisis of confidence in capital markets and that attrition of central bank powers results in attrition of its human capital and deterioration of its efficiency and expertise over time. He was speaking at a lecture in Mumbai on 26 October. Gurumurthy, who was recently nominated to the RBI board by the government, told Economic Times that he had written to Patel but said he wouldn't divulge the contents of his letter. RBI board member S Gurumurthy has reportedly complained to governor Urjit Patel about comments made by Viral Acharya last week regarding the need to maintain regulatory autonomy, adding another dimension to the conflict between the government and the central bank. An NDTV report released a statement by the Ministry of Finance which said, "Both the government and the Central Bank, in their functioning, have to be guided by public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy. For the purpose of extensive consultations on several issues take place between the government and the RBI from time to time." Autonomy for Central Bank, within the Framework of the RBI Act, is an Essential and Accepted Governance Requirement: Says Government ; For full details, please log on to: https://t.co/lqjjoH9pOb "The autonomy for the Central Bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential and accepted governance requirement. Governments in India have nurtured and respected this. Both the Government and the Central Bank, in their functioning, have to be guided by public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy. For the purpose, extensive consultations on several issues take place between the Government and the RBI from time to time. This is equally true of all other regulators. Government of India has never made public the subject matter of those consultations. Only the final decisions taken are communicated. The Government, through these consultations, places its assessment on issues and suggests possible solutions. The Government will continue to do so." First reaction from Centre: Finance ministry says autonomy for Central Bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential and accepted governance requirement This is a clear message to the RBI, particularly in the backdrop of deputy governor, Viral Acharyas public outburst on RBI autonomy, that dont go to public on differences with the government. The truce from the government has come. This, indeed, will be welcomed by the financial markets. But, the public dissent is out in the open now. Over to RBI now. As expected, the government has rightly chosen not to escalate the matters further. A statement from the government clarifying on the issue clearly acknowledges the need for RBI autonomy within the framework of RBI Act,by calling it is essential and accepted in an economy. But at the same time, there is an unmistakable sense of displeasure and warning from the government when it says that it frequently consults with RBI on important matters but never goes public with these matters. Sources, however, insisted that the government has not taken any action of issuing any specific direction and has only initiated consultations with the central bank on unresolved issues. The government has sent at least three letters on different issues under Section 7 (1) of the Reserve Bank of India Act that gives it powers to issue any direction to the central bank governor on matters of public interest. The government has cited the never-before-used power of issuing directions to RBI Governor to seek a resolution to differences with the central bank, sources with knowledge of the development said. RBI governor Urjit Patel versus Centre LATEST updates: As expected, the government has rightly chosen not to escalate the matters further. A statement from the government clarifying on the issue clearly acknowledges the need for RBI autonomy within the framework of RBI Act, by calling it is essential and accepted in an economy. But at the same time, there is an unmistakable sense of displeasure and warning from the government when it says that it frequently consults with RBI on important matters but never goes public with these matters. According to latest reports, Ministry of Finance released a statement which said, "Both the government and the Central Bank, in their functioning, have to be guided by public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy. For the purpose of extensive consultations on several issues take place between the government and the RBI from time to time." The Narendra Modi government is reportedly readying to issue a statement soon to clarify its position on the matter. Regardless of the speculations in media, there are reasons to believe that government is very unlikely to go for the extreme step of invoking Section 7, which would add to its headaches in the financial markets. Former finance minister Yashwant Sinha said RBI governor must resign if govt has issued directives to central bank. "If indeed govt has issued directives to the RBI then its governor should resign forthwith." According to reports, sources said that Letters of Consultation under Section 7 of the RBI Act were invoked 3 times. First letter under Section 7 followed Allahabad court's verdict in RBI versus Power companies. The letter wanted RBI to carve out exemption for power companies under 12 February circular. Second letter was on using RBIs capital reserves and the third letter was on relaxing constraints on PCA banks for loans to SMEs. In the world of financial markets, sentiments come at play first, then facts. Speculations can have major ramifications and destablise markets, at least, in the short-term, particularly equities. Mere speculation of contagion of IL&FS crisis sent stocks of other well-run housing finance companies to multi-year lows. BJP slammed Rahul Gandhi for his criticism against Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the RBI-Centre rift, and said that it reflects Congress party's grounding, "which is fast eroding in national politics." Rahul on Monday said it was nice to see RBI Governor Urjit Patel "finally defending" the central bank from Modi. Even thought the controversy around spat between the government and the RBI has been doing rounds for a couple of days now, speculations over RBI governor Urjit Patel's resignations hit the headlines on Wednesday morning. Experts and observers noted that before Patel, others, including Raghuram Rajan, Arvind Panagaria and Viral Acharya pointed at serious problems with the way this government approached economic policies and implementation. Government officials believe that RBI Governor Urjit Patel has some responsibility for the controversy, and he cannot expect an extension of his current three-year term which ends next September "as his right", one of the officials added. Sources in the ministry of finance told Firstpost that Section 7 of the RBI Act has not been invoked. However, two letters were sent to RBI last month in which "Section 7 was quoted", highlighting the existence of powers under the Act that allows the government to issue directions to the central bank on "matters of public interest". Government officials were "very upset" with the RBI for publicly talking about a rift with the government, fearing it could tarnish the countrys image among investors, Reuters reported. On Friday night, the RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya warned that undermining a central banks independence could be potentially catastrophic, in an indication that it is pushing back hard against government pressure to relax its policies and reduce its powers. Sources reported that RBI governor Urjit Patel may tender his resignation willingly if government invokes Section 7 of RBI Act. The report, which has not received any by official confirmation, said that the government is keen on a bureaucrat as the next governor if Patel resigns. Patel had come under increasing criticism from the banking industry as well as the government over his handling of non-performing assets (NPAs) and his stance on the autonomy of the RBI. There is also a rumoured rift with finance minister Arun Jaitley. According to ET Now, Patel had told government not to 'raid RBI reserves', as government was keen on the transfer of reserves to fill up its fiscal deficit amid NPA stress. The Uttara Kanda details an episode where Ravana raped an apsara. However, it is possible that this incident was included in the Ramayana so that we don't feel any sympathy for the so-called Demon King I was thinking of Ravana, the rakshasa king, just the other day. Okay, it was Dusshera, the day Ram famously defeated Ravana in battle, good versus evil, light versus dark, you've read the books, you've watched the cartoons, you know Harry beats Voldemort in the end. But, I was also thinking of Ravana in the context of the #MeToo movement that is blazing across the country at the moment. Ravana is the guy famous for abducting a woman against her will and setting off a war, but he didn't actually touch her. Which is also not okay: Don't abduct people! But later, I began to hear stories about how Ravana wasn't so bad, he never actually touched Sita, he waited for her consent before he ravished her and so on. However, some texts contradict this popular sentiment and it's really more popular than you would think. From the Uttara Kanda of the Ramayana, we learn that Ravana came across the gorgeous apsara Rambha several years before the war went down. She was all dressed in green, her face was like the moon, her legs were like elephant trunks (ancient India had different beauty standards) and her palms were soft. And Ravana was all, Where are you going and who gets to touch your b**bs? (No, literally, he said this.) To which Rambha said that Ravana was like her father-in-law, because she was with his nephew, Nalakuvera. But then Ravana found a loop hole in her arguments, much like some of the sexual harrassers we've been reading about in the last few weeks, and said, Hey, you're an apsara, and everyone knows apsaras don't have husbands, so you're like, free game. With that, he rapes her, and manages to blame the rape on her as well. But Nalakuvera was so pissed off at this, he put a curse on his uncle: If he ever touched a woman against her will, his head would split apart into seven pieces. Which, since he had ten heads, means about 70 pieces. Ravana was a rakshasa. In early Vedic literature, all supernatural beings could be classified into devas and asuras; in fact, they were often one thing, a hybrid, a Deva-Asura. Later, as the mythology evolved, they became distinct, devas for the good guys and asuras for the bad ones. There's also the dancers (apsaras), the dryads (gandharvas) and the forest spirits (yakshas) but those are a whole different story. Asuras aren't always evil, but they are powerful(ish) demigods who can have both good and bad qualities. The rakshasas on the other hand, are pure evil, from the time they're born, from Brahma's breath. Must have been some wicked morning breath that day though. As soon as they sprung to life, they started to eat their dad, who shouted out, Rakshama! (Sanskrit for save me), and that's how they were named. Ravana on the other hand, was a bit of a mixed bag, as far as baddies go. He was a great king no one in Lanka ever had to go hungry, and even poor people ate off gold plates. (Which makes me wonder: Did that change the price of gold in Lanka at all? And if not, did that mean that there were no poor people?) He was a good brother, he loved his sister Shuparnakha, who persuaded him to go to avenge her honour. He loved his brother Kumbhkarna, who was outfoxed by a god, and had to sleep all the time, and Ravana negotiated on his behalf and got the curse amended a bit. He liked music and literature. He worshipped Shiva or Vishnu, depending on who you're asking. All in all, he was a good person, following kingly rules. If he hadn't been a rakshasa, he'd be more of a hero, and not have his figure burnt all around India every year. But then, he was also a rapist, as we've just seen. You can be a good person by which I mean, a person perceived as good by society, by your family, by your subjects, and still be a rapist. Those are two distinct things. But once you're a rapist, you're also a rapist as well as everything else. A filmmaker and a rapist. A politician and a rapist. Loving father to your own children, loving husband to your wife and also a rapist. A good king, a good brother, a good scholar and also a rapist. I wanted to believe better of Ravana. There are communities around India who worship him to this day, who think their god got a bad deal in the whole Ramayana of it all. A lawyer in Mathura tried to petition the president to stop burning Ravana effigies because it hurt his religious sentiments. Kings were kind of rape-y all through the ages after all how else did you prove your power than by coercing an unwilling woman who couldn't complain about it? But I see nothing to contradict that story about Rambha, just minding her own business, going for a walk, and Ravana forcing himself on her. On the other hand, the Uttara Kanda is a later text of the Ramayana, and could have been bunged in there just for reasons like this, so we don't feel any sympathy for the so-called Demon King. Who knows? I only wish Rambha and Sita and Shuparnakha, when it comes to that, had Twitter accounts, or even someone who cared enough to investigate their sides of the story. Unfortunately, we only know about the men, because it's men who wrote the stories, as I've said before. Not any more. Read more from the 'Mythology for the Millennial' series here. Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan is the author of several books, including The One Who Swam with the Fishes: Girls of the Mahabharata. She tweets @reddymadhavan Editor's Note: This reportoriginally published in May 2017is being republished in the wake of the Delhi High Court reversing a trial court order and sentencing 16 former policemen to life imprisonment for their role in the 1987 Hashimpura massacre case. In Hashimpura, 42 people of a minority community were killed in a neighbourhood in Meerut. It has been 30 years since the night of 22 May, 1987 when about 45 Muslim men from Hashimpura, a settlement in Meerut, were rounded up and packed into the rear of a truck of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC). On that night of May 1987, 42 of those on board the truck were killed in two massacres in neighbouring Ghaziabad district. One along the Upper Ganga canal near Muradnagar, a The other along the Hindon canal in Makanpur, on the border with Delhi in what have since come to be known as the Hashimpura killings. Thirty years after the 1987 massacre in Hashimpura not much has changed for the survivors and the relatives of the people killed. The wounds are still fresh, the quest for justice is still an ongoing ordeal and they no more trust men in khakis. Hashimpura remains devoid of basic municipal amenities, the erring silence on the narrow lanes of the locality amid the activities of a daily life speaks of the horror of the fateful day in 1987. Every house has a story to narrate and every individual is some or the other way a victim of the massacre, the women lost their husbands and children, the children lost their fathers and fathers lost their kids. Hashimpura massacre was the result of one among the many outcomes of the decision taken by the then Congress government of Rajiv Gandhi to open the locks of Babri Masjid. After a month of rioting, the situation was tense in various parts of Meerut, and a lot spilled over in the nearby areas. In Meerut, the Army and paramilitary had been called in. A company of the 41st battalion of the PAC, which has its battalion headquarters in Ghaziabad, had also been sent to Meerut. The Army had forced all the residents of Hashimpura out of their homes onto the road, and searched their homes. That night, the PAC truck with the Hashimpura residents had first stopped along the Upper Ganga canal near Muradnagar and allegedly killed some of the villagers. They stopped only when a milk van drove that way. A Ashraf of Firstpost travelled to Hashimpura and met the survivors and relatives of those dead. Here is the record of how things transpired on the night of 22 May, 1987 by the survivors of one of the worst carnages in independent India. A sprightly woman in her seventies, Hajra Bi has been living in Hashimpura ever since the mohallah came into existence. She lost her son in the massacre but still speaks of justice in the eyes of Allah. Narrating her tale, she says, "Our children had come back after Friday prayers when PAC personnel's climbed our terrace and asked us who had fired the gunshots (the imprints of which are still there on the walls). One of them was dancing, when I told him that I dont know who had fired it. He mocked me asked if it was Amitabh Bachchan who had fired. They took away my son who never came back." Haneef, a textile worker of Hashimpura, who was a well-built young man then, as it appears from the photographs on record from the day, was one of the lucky few who were spared after being beaten to a pulp. Haneef said, "PAC personnels desperately tried to enter house and then told me to come outside. I was the first one to be arrested. Later other men from the locality also assembled and formed a line. We were told to keep our hands up and were taken to civil lines police station and were beaten as if cotton was rugged before it gets filled inside a quilt. I was bleeding very badly but to make sure that others were not beaten like I was, I started painting their heads and faces with my blood in a bid to project them as already thrashed by the policemen. Later, we were sent to Fatehgarh jail, where policemen abused us and threatened us that they we will dig your graves and bury us." The massacre damaged their business and everyday life. After 1987, there was no trace of business, as no big trader would want to be associated with them. Mujeeb-ur Rahman, a then young boy from Bihar, worked with the power loom factories which were setup inside the houses in Hashimpura. Mujeeb is a survivor of the massacre and was a witness in the court but he could not identify the perpetrators. He recalls, "When our truck reached the canal, one among was taken out from the truck and shot at point blank range. We started screaming 'save us save us', when they started firing indiscriminately. I was shot in the leg, my uncle was shot in the chest and he died on the spot. As the killing spree continued, I was thrown in the canal. But two people who had already jumped in the canal caught my leg and saved me. I drank some water and came back to my senses. Somehow I survived. Later some policemen helped us and made us file a report. The same policemen also took us to a hospital where we were treated." In her late seventies, and bereft of all hope, Zareena Bano recalls the fateful night in tears. Emphasising on the denial of justice in India, Zareena said, "My husband said he had to say something to me, but he never returned. They killed him and my son. Since then I have been waiting for the perpetrators to be brought to justice or even get imprisoned. But that has not happened yet. Everyone knows the truth - who has done it - but justice has not been done. We have been to courts so many times but of no use. I believe in God and strongly feel that he will do justice with us and the criminals and those who died." A migrant worker from Bihar's Darbhanga district, Babbudin works at a power loom factory in Hashimpura. One of the survivors of the massacre, Babbudin barely survived the gunshots and was able to return home and lived to tell the tale. Narrating his story, Babbudin says, "I was a child when the massacre happened and was terrified with the intensity of brutality. Provincial Armed Constabulary personnels asked the men of our locality to gather outside on the Hapurs road and took some 400-500 men to Ganga Canal, Muradnagar. They pulled the men out of the truck and started firing and threw the bodies into the canal. Others were taken at Hindon and shot there. I survived because the bullets couldnt kill me and I was left on the bridge on the presumption that I was dead." All photographs by Vijay Pandey With inputs from Asma Rafat Mayawati accused the BJP and its government at the Centre of confining Sardar Patel to a region, saying this is an example of BJP's 'narrow-mindedness'. Thiruvananthapuram: As Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the world's tallest statue to celebrate Vallabhbhai Patel, Opposition parties on Wednesday questioned the BJP as to why there was no bigger statue for Mahatma Gandhi and also accused the ruling party of trying to "hijack" the legacy of Independence heroes like Sardar Patel. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi took a swipe at Modi, saying it is "ironic" that a statue of Sardar Patel is being inaugurated, but every institution he helped build is being destroyed while BSP chief Mayawati demanded an apology from the BJP and the RSS who flayed her over the statues of Dalit leaders her government had installed in Uttar Pradesh. Gandhi also alleged that the "systematic destruction" of India's institutions is nothing short of "treason". After unveiling the 182-metre structure in his home state of Gujarat on Patel's 143rd birth anniversary, Modi addressed the criticism of the decision to build the monument, questioning whether any crime had been committed by constructing such memorials for national heroes like Patel. "We are criticized for praising the contributions of national heroes like Sardar Patel. We are made to feel as if we have committed a serious crime," he said. He then posed a question to the audience, "You tell me, is it a crime to remember our national heroes?". To this, the audience replied in the negative. Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said there was no such gigantic statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the country and wanted to know why BJP had not built a bigger statue for him. "The biggest one is in Parliament, but this is a 182-metre statue for his disciple. Why is there such a big statue for a disciple of Gandhiji in the country where there is no statue of that size for the Mahatma?" he asked while addressing a function at the district congress committee office in Thiruvananthapuram. "Patel, a very simple person, was known as the disciple of Gandhiji," Tharoor said. "I am asking a question...Is it right to erect such an imposing statue of Patel, a man of simplicity and a true Gandhian, who moved along with poor peasants," he said. Tharoor said BJP had no answer to the query why they did not erect a bigger statue of the Mahatma. "The reason is that they do not believe in Mahatma Gandhi's principles of non-violence," he alleged. He also alleged that BJP was trying to "hijack" the legacy of freedom fighters and national heroes like Patel as they have no leaders of their own in history to celebrate. He said Patel was a Congress leader and BJP should not be allowed to adopt him. Gandhi said Patel was a patriot, who fought for a independent, united and secular India. "A man with a steely will, tempered by compassion, he was a Congressman to the core, who had no tolerance for bigotry or communalism," he tweeted. Mayawati accused the BJP and its government at the Centre of confining Patel to a region, saying this is an example of BJP's "narrow-mindedness". "All those in the BJP, the RSS and company need to apologise, especially to the people of the Bahujan Samaj Party, for terming the statues installed by the then BSP government to honour icons like Baba Saheb Ambedkar and others as wasteful expenditure," she said in a statement released in Lucknow. "The people of the country are also wondering if all this is not politics, and if the BJP really had this love for Patel why had they not put up such a massive statue earlier in Gujarat where they are in power for a long time," the chief of BSP said. Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge slammed BJP for using the statue of Sardar Patel for their "vested interests". BJP remembering Patel was an "election gimmick", Kharge told reporters at Hubballi in Karnataka. The Congress leader said, "Every year BJP remembers a different freedom fighter - sometimes they remember Patel, sometimes Gandhi for Swachch Bharat Abhiyan and sometimes they remember Dr BR Ambedkar and Subhas Chandra Bose. These are all their election stunts. They never had respect for those who fought for the freedom of India. Jawaharlal Nehru was the prime minister while Patel was home minister. Naturally credit goes to the prime minister. It is not good to project somebody to undermine somebody else," Kharge said. CPI general secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy echoed similar sentiments. Reddy demanded to know why a bigger statue of Mahatma Gandhi was not built by the BJP. He said while there was no objection over the monument built for Patel, what was surprising was why a bigger statue for the father of the nation, who was also born in Gujarat, was not thought of. "They (BJP) do not like his (Gandhi's) secularism, that is why they have not build his statue. Instead, they have gone for Patel, who had rightist ideas," the CPI general secretary alleged. Reddy also charged the BJP with trying to "appropriate" the legacy of Patel. "We have no objection to Sardar Patel's statue. With all due respect to him (Patel), we feel Mahatma Gandhi is the tallest leader of Indian politics. He is the father of the nation," he told PTI in Hyderabad. "Mahatma Gandhi's statue should have been bigger, he is leader of the highest stature than anybody else," he said. Rahul Gandhi, however, acknowledged that his opinion on women's entry in Sabarimala Temple is different from that of his party's Kerala unit. Indore/Thiruvananthapuram: Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said women of all age groups should be allowed to enter the Sabarimala temple, a remark that was at variance with the stand taken by his party's Kerala unit and which created ripples in the southern state. Gandhi, however, acknowledged that his opinion is different from that of his party on the "emotional issue" after the Supreme Court last month lifted the ban on entry of women of menstrual age to the hilltop shrine of Lord Ayyappa in Kerala. "It is a very emotional issue and my personal thinking on the matter is different from my party's Kerala unit," Gandhi told a select group of journalists in Indore in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh. "My personal view point on the issue of Sabarimala temple is that men and women are equal. All women should get permission to enter into the temple. However, my party's Kerala unit's view is that it is a very emotional issue for both men and women, he said. "Therefore, my personal opinion and my party's Kerala unit's thinking is different on the matter. My party represents the feeling of Kerala's natives on the issue," he added. The remarks by Gandhi came on a day when hundreds of BJP workers staged a "hunger strike" in front of the state police chief's office in Thiruvananthapuram protesting the LDF government's decision to implement the Supreme Court order that allowed entry of girls and women of all age groups to the shrine and also the police crackdown on the protesters. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan welcomed Gandhi's statement and flayed the state unit saying it was 'unfortunate' that the Congress in the state was not in sync with the its national leadership on the Sabarimala issue. "It is unfortunate that the Congress in Kerala does not have the same opinion as that of the party's national leadership on the subject," he said in a facebook post. A section of Congress leaders were adopting a 'conservative' approach on the issue which would only help the BJP, the chief minister said. Chennithala, the Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, asserted that the Congress and the party-led United Democratic Front (UDF) in the state were with the believers of Lord Ayyappa who want the ban on entry of girls and women in the menstruating age group to be restored. "AICC chief has given permission to take that stand," he told reporters in Kozhikode, adding Gandhi's views on Sabarimala were his personal opinion. Chennithala also said there was no "confusion" in the party over the Sabarimala issue and that Gandhi had not disowned the state Congress's stand on the matter. Adivasis make up one in every five voters in Madhya Pradesh, which distinguishes Hiralal Alawa's JAYS from other parites. It is now akin to a wild card in the Assembly election either poised to flop miserably, or dictate terms after the polls are over. With less than a month to go for the Assembly election, Jai Adivasi Yuva Shakti (JAYS) is all set to add a new corner to Madhya Pradesh's traditional bipolar politics. The new socio-political outfit, led by former AIIMS doctor Hiralal Alawa, joining the electoral contest symbolises the inclination among marginalised communities that national parties are failing them. JAYS represents a stirring among tribals in pockets of Madhya Pradesh similar to what the Dalits of Uttar Pradesh experienced in the 1980s. Dalits rejected mainstream political outfits of their state to spawn the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as they felt it would better represent their interests. "We tribals lost political relevance despite our numerical strength because we could never combine," says Alawa. "Now, we are saying, 'Abki Baar, Adivasi Sarkar' because from Madhya Pradesh's 47 seats reserved for tribals, we can defeat any outfit. Along with the backward classes, Dalits and Muslims, we want to join the mainstream and seek leadership in political parties." JAYS epitomises the dissatisfaction among the tribal population with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as well as the Congress. Alawa and his followers believe that both parties have failed to nurture effective tribal leaders. Their grievance is that the existing ones toe their party line far more than work for the community. As a result, Alawa wants tribals to stop flip-flopping between the two big parties. "We told the Congress and BJP that they cannot stroll into Adivasi areas during elections, play the drums and take our votes," says Alawa, whose party has been making waves in Madhya Pradesh ever since it secured 162 posts in the 2017 student body elections. "In their higher echelons, both parties lack noteworthy tribal leaders. The Congress does not have even a single big tribal leader." Unlike the Dalits of Uttar Pradesh, who are spread across the state, the tribals in Madhya Pradesh live in scattered pockets. Nevertheless, they constitute 21 percent of the population, which is why Alawa feels empowered. His JAYS started as a social movement in 2012, but was soon fatigued by conventional means of redress. "Dharnas and rallies didn't solve our problems. We spent money fighting court cases, but nothing changed. So we realised that unless we gain political strength, we will be like other activists who come to Bhopal, petition powerful people, but ultimately get nothing," says Alawa, who is now proposing a new idiom of economic and cultural rights in tribal regions, not limiting their assertion to politics. "Tribals depend on forests for sustenance, but the Forest Rights Act was never implemented since 2007," he adds. "If Adivasis oppose their land being taken for projects, they are branded Maoists." Unrest over land acquisition was the primary reason why Alawa's motivational work found appeal among the youth in Fifth Schedule areas. In these regions, tribal representatives are supposed to sign off on development projects, but it is the contention of JAYS that this has not been happening. It wants ruling parties to stop installing their members in tribal advisory councils. In Madhya Pradesh's Alirajpur district, many workers returned home from mines in Gujarat with lung silicosis, while sickle cell disease and fluorosis are rampant. This has primed the tribal population to oppose development as often envisaged by the dominant parties. "People here can see the flip side of development as well," Alawa says. In Dhar, Khargone, Ratlam and Alirajpur, basic needs such as irrigation, a medical college and rail connectivity are still unavailable. A recent United Nations report found that development indices here are comparable with that of Sierra Leone, one of the least developed parts of Africa. "Thousands of crores were spent under tribal sub-plans, but we still live in India's most backward zones, malnourished and hungry," Alawa says. Culturally, too, Alawa marks a distinction between tribal and mainstream aspirations. Where the Congress is taking a leaf out of the BJP's Hindutva playbook and projecting leaders as caste Hindus who obsessively pray in temples, JAYS is more accommodating and keen to preserve traditional forms of tribal worship. With this comes a growing distaste for mixing religion with politics. "Gonds don't have a religion as such, while Bhils worship their forefathers. They are not Hindu but have adopted some Hindu practices. They feel that both the BJP and Congress politicise religion, which they dislike," Alawa says. A majority of tribals believe in independent forms of worship, excluding many rituals they consider superstitious or dogmatic. At the same time, JAYS neither has no caste or religious base, nor has it been fomenting such rivalries, which the mainstream parties are struggling to deal with. "At our Kisan Panchayat on 20 October, we assured Muslims in writing that tribal youth will not let themselves be used by the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) in riots," Alawa says. His platform has also made space for savarnas Anand Rai (a former RSS member behind the Vyapam test-rigging expose), for example, is contesting the Assembly elections on a JAYS ticket. "We want to bridge the rich-poor divide. They talk of smart cities, we talk of smart villages," Alawa says. Alawa's perfunctory meeting with Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Chouhan in October was a non-starter. Now, he is stitching up an alliance with the Congress. Many small players, including retired IAS officer Hiralal Trivedi's SAPAKS (Samanya Pichda Alpsankhyak Kalyan Samaj Sanstha) and the Gondwana Gantantra Party, are nipping at the BJP and Congress in Madhya Pradesh. Alawa, like these outfits, counts just one broad social group as its base. However, one in every five voters in the state is tribal, which distinguishes JAYS from others. It is now akin to a wild card in the Assembly election either poised to flop miserably, or dictate terms after the polls are over. Groups working for victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy in Madhya Pradesh polls made the decision to vote only for the party that promises compensation at a meeting in September. Bhopal: Survivors of the worlds worst industrial tragedy are still fighting a dual battle one, internally, struggling with the health-related aftermath of the disaster, and second, on the outside, waiting for adequate compensation. On the intervening night of 2 and 3 December, 1984, a leak from the Union Carbide India Ltd's pesticide plant in Bhopal exposed over five lakh people to methyl isocyanate gas. The highly toxic substance killed over 3,700 people and injured over 5.5 lakh people, which also led to permanent disabilities among scores of those affected. While these are the official numbers, others estimate that at least 8,000 people died within two weeks of the disaster. While the Madhya Pradesh Assembly election was announced on 6 October, groups working for victims of the tragedy decided at a meeting on 18 September that in this poll, they will vote for the party that promises compensation. These groups, which included the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pensionbhogi Sangharsh Morcha and Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh, decided that the promise should be notarised, not verbal, so legal action can be initiated if the party did not fulfil the terms and conditions. On 24 October, dozens of hoardings and banners sprung up in colonies where survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy live in large numbers. A hoarding carried a historical representational photo of the disaster, with the slogan, "Jo muavza dilaega, vote wahi le jayega" (whoever provides compensation will get the vote)". The banner also claimed that it represented a combined voice of all victims and survivors of the incident. "We have been betrayed by all political parties. For us, the BJP is no different than the Congress, which allowed Warren Anderson (the owner of the Union Carbide factory) to flee. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had promised Rs 5 lakh as compensation to every survivor of the disaster. More than seven years have passed, and nothing has been done yet," said Rachna Dhingra, convener of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action. Explaining the survivors' strategy, Dhingra said there are seven constituencies in Bhopal district, where Narela and Bhopal North host the largest population of victims and survivors of the tragedy. Both constituencies have more than 80 to 90 percent voters with direct or indirect links with the incident. Constituencies such as Bhopal Central and Huzur, too, have a sizeable population of families of victims and survivors, who still suffer from the aftermath of the disaster. There are around 40 percent survivor voters each in these two constituencies, and the numbers are enough to affect results. Berasia could be considered the rural extension of Bhopal district, but Govindpura and Bhopal South-West, too, have a sizeable population of survivors who migrated. "On the basis of the betrayal the gas tragedy survivors' community has faced, all organisations working for them have decided to ask for a notarised pledge from candidates contesting from these constituencies," Dhingra said, adding that they have been asked to ensure at least Rs 5 lakh compensation. Rashida Bi of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh said, "We are insisting on a notarised pledge so that if netas backtrack on their words, we can take legal action against them." These organisations have started campaigning and have been successful in convincing ward-level leaders from the BJP and Congress to agree to their demands. Vinod Kulhare, Sonu Manjhi, Sauraiya Ansari and Narayan Dubey of the BJP, who work at the mohalla level, strongly agreed to the demands. Similarly, Sajid Ansari, JP Naagar and Sanjiv Kumar, who have been promoting and working for the Congress, said they will try to convince their senior leaders to seriously consider the demands and warn them of consequences. Of the two prominent constituencies with a high population of survivors of the gas tragedy, Bhopal North is represented by Congress MLA Arif Aqueel, while Narela is represented by BJP MLA and state cabinet minister Vishwas Sarang. Both legislators have avoided questions on compensation for the families, but speak about looking after medical and social needs. Aqueel, who has been representing Bhopal North for the past 15 years, said he has been demanding justice for the victims, but the BJP government has not paid any heed to them. "I have tried to provide them with potable water and basic health facilities from my funds, but the BJP government has done nothing for them. Rather, their representatives have encroached upon playgrounds and community halls," he claimed. Sarang claimed: "I have tried to ensure a regular supply of medicines in hospitals meant for gas tragedy victims, besides good doctors. My government has also tried to provide several measures for employment." Dhingra, however, brushed his claim aside. She said Sarang, despite being the Minister for Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation in the Madhya Pradesh government, has done little to provide relief. The convener of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan, Abdul Jabbar, said that Union Carbide gave a compensation of $470 million (Rs 715 crore), and the payment was received in March 1989. Meanwhile, the state government initiated work to fill the compensation forms of the survivors. The money began to be distributed in 1990 and has continued for more than a decade. However, most of the compensation was provided between 1990 and 1995. On an average, 94 percent of the victims received Rs 25,000 as compensation in 1985. After a legal battle around 10 years later, they received Rs 25,000 from the interest from the compensation accumulated in banks, which means that the victims effectively received only Rs 25,000 as compensation, Jabbar said. The activist added that even today, about 5,000 to 7,000-odd victims seek outpatient department services in seven specialised gas relief hospitals. Two lakh victims were permanently affected after exposure to the deadly methyl isocyanate gas. "The most surprising thing is that no medical treatment protocol has been prescribed for gas victims in 34 years," he said. Interestingly, the data provided for compensation and loss by the state and Union governments did not match, and they were later revised on court orders. The final data is as follows: The author is a Bhopal-based freelance writer and member of 101Reporters.com Although Upendra Kushwaha described Nitish Kumar as his 'elder brother' in the Delhi press conference, he is known to have viewed the JD(U)'s return to the NDA in 2017 with consternation. Patna: The Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar on Tuesday accused Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of "blackmailing" the BJP to secure a seat-sharing deal favourable to his Janata Dal (United) while denying "adequate" representation to Union minister Upendra Kushwaha's Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) - an NDA constituent in the state. RJD national vice-president Shivanand Tiwary made the statement reacting to a press conference in New Delhi by Kushwaha, wherein the RLSP chief had expressed his readiness to make "sacrifice" in the Lok Sabha polls but expressed his displeasure over his party not getting a 'ministerial berth' in the Nitish Kumar goverrnment. "We fully back Upendra Kushwaha's concern over his party not getting a ministerial berth in Bihar government despite the NDA being in power and his party being its constituent for over four years", Tiwary told PTI. "Kumar fought tooth and nail to secure a respectable share of seats for his JD(U) by blackmailing the BJP with the help of Prashant Kishor, whom he has made his party's national vice-president. Kishor has friends in all parties and had given the BJP the hint that Kumar was ready to switch sides if he did not get his due in the NDA", Tiwary alleged. "However, when it comes to giving Kushwaha his due, Kumar has different standards. Does his government not enjoy the support of RLSP MLAs. Just look at the manner in which Shah and Kumar made the announcement about seat-sharing last week. It looked as if Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP and Kushwaha's party did not exist", the RJD leader - who had been a close aide of the Bihar chief minister till a few years ago - said. "Both LJP and RLSP have been given a shabby treatment by the BJP which seems to have forgotten that these were the parties that stood by its side when Nitish was busy trying to chart an independent course. At least LJP has Pashupati Kumar Paras as its representative in the state government. What does the RLSP have", he asked. Tiwary's comments are the latest in a series of sympathetic gestures by the RJD towards Kushwaha, whom it has been expecting to switch sides out of frustration. Kushwaha had quit the JD(U) in 2013, months after being suspended for anti-party activities, and floated his own outfit. Although he described Kumar as his "elder brother" in the Delhi press conference, he is known to have viewed the JD(U)'s return to the NDA in 2017 with consternation. Tiwary, along with the state RJD president Ram Chandra Purve, had tried to fish in troubled waters earlier in 2018 when they appeared in a "human chain" organized by the RLSP which BJP and JD(U) stayed away from. RJD heir apparent Tejashwi Yadav has been maintaining that there was a "standing invitation" to Kushwaha to join the Mahagathbandhan and a meeting between the two leaders last week, shortly after Shah and Nitish spoke to the media, had fuelled speculations about the RLSP chief's future move. Rahul had on Monday, during a rally in Madhya Pradesh's Jhabua, said that 'the name of the son of 'mamaji' had figured in the Panama Papers but no action was taken against him.' Though he had not specifically identified the chief minister, he was referring to Chouhan who is popularly known as 'mamaji'. Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday alleged that the "family" of Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was involved in the Vyapam scam and thus he was ready to face defamation cases for his remarks. Addressing an election rally in Khargone, Gandhi said, "The (Madhya Pradesh) chief minister got angry on Monday and said Rahul Gandhi was speaking about Vyapam. He said he would file a defamation suit. File as many as cases as you want, it doesn't make any difference." "Entire Madhya Pradesh knows that there is involvement of the family of the Madhya Pradesh chief minister in the Vyapam scam. I repeat, MP CM's family is involved in the Vyapam scam. "File cases against me... You cannot run away from the truth. Entire Madhya Pradesh knows about corruption in e-tendering and that 50 people were murdered in the Vyapam scam." Rahul had on Monday, during a rally in Madhya Pradesh's Jhabua, said that "the name of the son of 'mamaji' had figured in the Panama Papers but no action was taken against him". Though he had not specifically identified the chief minister, he was referring to Chouhan who is popularly known as 'mamaji'. Chouhan had then tweeted that he will file a defamation case against Rahul for his "frivolous and malafide statements" against him and his family. On Tuesday, Chouhan's son Kartikey filed a criminal defamation case against the Congress chief. The defamation suit was filed by Chouhan in the Special Court of Additional District Judge (ADJ) Suresh Singh through his lawyer Shirish Shrivastava. In the suit, Kartikey has alleged that Gandhi intentionally made the statement to defame him. Meanwhile, earlier in the same day Rahul had admitted having got "confused" and said Chouhan was not involved in the Panama Papers case. "For campaigning, I am touring Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan these days. The ruling BJP has indulged in so many scams and corruption that I got confused," Rahul told the media in his clarification on the controversy. However, reacting to the allegations levelled by the Congress chief, a senior leader of the BJP state unit said he was misleading the people. On the other hand, Congress too owned-up to Rahul's goof-up and said that the mix-up happened as Rahul was extensively travelling for elections to Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, and the chief ministers of the three states were facing "serious corruption charges". Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma at a press conference on Tuesday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also made "Saint Kabir, Guru Nankadeva and Baba Gorakhnath sit together" when they belonged to different centuries. "What could be a bigger confusion than this, this (Rahul Gandhi's) was just a mix-up between the names of two Singhs," he said. However, state unit BJP vice-president Vijesh Lunawat said, "The Congress had raised the Vyapam issue in earlier elections but lost. He (Gandhi) should know that the CBI has already given a clean chit to the MP chief minister. "On the contrary, the court ordered registration of an FIR against Congress leaders Digvijaya Singh, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kamal Nath to enquire into the charges of submitting false electronic evidence and making false allegations in connection with the Vyapam case," he said. Lunawat confirmed that Kartikey has filed a criminal defamation case. The Vyapam scam allegedly pertains to fraudulent practices in conducting professional exams through the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) and recruitment to government posts. It allegedly involved 13 different exams conducted by Vyapam (the acronym for 'Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal'), for selection of medical students and state government employees where the final results were rigged. With inputs from PTI Top Congress leaders held a meeting on Wednesday to select the party's candidates for Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. New Delhi: Top Congress leaders held a meeting on Wednesday to select the party's candidates for Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. However, the party did not announce the name of any candidate. The party's central election committee, headed by Congress president Rahul Gandhi, held separate discussions for selecting candidates for Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Top Congress leaders, including Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, were part of the deliberations. State Congress presidents and senior leaders were also present during the discussions. While the meeting for selecting candidate for Rajasthan was held in the morning, that for Madhya Pradesh was held in the evening and continued till late night. Sources said another round of meeting will be held Thursday to finalise candidates for Rajasthan polls, amid differences between state leaders over candidates for various seats. While the Madhya Pradesh assembly election will be held on 28 November, that in Rajasthan would be held on 7 December. The results would be announced on 11 December. The Congress is seeking to dislodge the BJP-led governments in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. tech2 News Staff Only a day to go for the launch of the new Lenovo Z5 Pro to be unveiled at a launch event in China. The launch date i.e 1 November was declared through a post on Weibo by the company's VP Chang Cheng and now there are more features about the phone that are being revealed. While the previous poster revealed that the phone will likely come with a mechanical slider which will house the front camera. A new poster by Lenovo on Weibo also talks about the presence of a feature being referred to as 4D-U built integrated into Lenovo's UI called ZUI 10. The front camera is also said to be enabled with AI for Super Night mode and Super Video. As for the back camera, it is expected to be a dual camera setup with a primary 24 MP sensor and 16 MP secondary sensor. There is also a new leak which leaves very little room for imagining the design. A report by MyDrivers states that Lenovo will use dual-screws with six position guidance to keep the slider technology in place. It is said to feature the world's most expensive in-display fingerprint reader as well and has claimed to test the mechanical slider for more than 3,00,000 times. The leaks show the phone to have rounded edges and also the ultra-thin body of the phone even with a full-screen slider design and ZUI 10. Also along with these ones can see an LED flash on the back, below the dual camera setup. Lenovo Z5 Pro is expected to come with Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box. Previous leaks claim the phone to come with a Snapdragon 845 chipset and up to 8 GB of RAM. The Z5 Pro is also expected to feature a large 6.5-inch display with a resolution of 14402880 pixels. Reuters The first manned mission to the International Space Station since a Russian rocket failed to launch earlier this month may take off on 3 December, space agency Roscosmos said on Wednesday. A Russian cosmonaut and US astronaut were forced to abort their mission on 11 October and perform an emergency landing after a launch accident that Roscomos said was caused by a faulty sensor. The accident was the first serious launch problem experienced by a manned Soyuz space mission since 1983, when a crew narrowly escaped before a launch pad explosion. Sergei Krikalyov, a senior Roscosmos official, was quoted by state news agency TASS as saying the next manned launch had been planned for mid-December, but that Russia was trying to bring the date forward so that the ISS is not briefly left without a crew. The three-person crew may return home on 20 December, he was quoted as saying. The industry is making significant efforts to move the launch to 3 December so that the station does not switch to autopilot mode, and landing is expected around 20 December, he said. tech2 News Staff The song and dance between civil society, torch-bearers of Indian culture and rituals and the law plays out like clockwork every year before Diwali. We complain about the inhuman quality of air pollution around Diwali, worsened by burning of extremely toxic and polluting firecrackers and governments, forced to take a back seat on this culturally sensitive issue stay mum. The Supreme Court almost always intervenes and tries to bring some respite. Following the SC's verdict on banning the sale and use of polluting firecrackers and urging citizens to resort to green firecrackers, the Union Minister for Science and Technology, Dr Harsh Vardhan, announced that a set of less-polluting green firecrackers have been developed by scientists. The idea of 'green fireworks' has largely been welcome in light of pollutions woes, and even brought on a joke or five in the days after the Supreme Court verdict restrictions about fireworks. #GreenFirecrackers is like saying healthy pizza Ser Champ McStark (@BolshoyBooze) October 23, 2018 Whats #GreenFirecrackers ?? Sukhe patte jalana hai ?? Fidus Achates (@Sohni_Bose) October 23, 2018 Jaisa aap kahein MiLords pic.twitter.com/MOAPOijAJD Ankur Singh (@iAnkurSingh) October 23, 2018 Jokes aside, the concept of a 'green firecracker' remains elusive to the majority. What about regular firecrackers makes them so polluting? How are 'green fire crackers' any better for people and the environment? They will not compromise on the light or sound of regular firecrackers, but are made from chemicals that would leave lower traces of particular matter once used, a press release said. What goes into a 'regular' firecracker? It takes a lot of different chemicals to create the right colour, brightness and duration of burn in firecrackers. Traditionally, they are made out of a combination of three or more of the following: A Fuel: sustains the heat for as long as the firecracker burns the most widely used fuel is charcoal. An oxidising agent: produces the oxygen required to keep the mixture inside the cracker burning like nitrates, chlorates or perchlorates. A reducing agent: burns oxygen to produce the massive energy required by the explosion often sulphur or charcoal. Regulating agents: metals compounds that are added to control how fast the cracker burns coloured metals like cobalt, copper and magnesium are used in sparklers and glittery variants. Binders: organic glue or resin used to hold the firecracker together. Colouring agents: different chemicals and metals used to produce variety of colours like strontium, lithium, barium, chlorine or copper. Each and every component of fireworks causes varying degrees of pollution all of them pollute the air and release toxic fumes when burned. But some of them, like nitrates from the oxidising agents and heavy metals from colouring agents, create lasting effects after a celebration. Some of the biggest concerns from bursting thousands of fireworks in an already polluted city come from particles and heavy metals that linger in the air well after firecrackers are burnt, worsening the air quality. Cheap Thrills and Toxic Consequences The short-lived spike in pollution immediately afterwards fireworks is also caused by burnt leaves, heavy metals and toxic smoke which travels as it is airborne, causing suspended particulate matter and potentially, acid rain. The finer particulate pollutants can trigger asthma, respiratory discomfort or chemical sensitivity in people exposed to the smoke, while heavy metals can cause long-term damage to the skin and lungs. While the effects of greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and ozone from burning fireworks is often not irreversible, it still remains a problem for cities already dealing with pollution woes. A week ago, the Supreme court verdict on bursting of firecrackers in Tamil Nadu restricted the bursting of firecrackers to between 8pm and 10pm. The verdict also mandated that only green firecrackers be used in any celebrations, which will be sold through licensed vendors. The Supreme Court clarified that the ban on any other firecrackers was restricted only to the Delhi-NCR region in a statement on Tuesday. But nationwide, efforts to monitor the levels of pollution during Diwali will be underway. "All state pollution boards and the Central Pollution Control Board will regulate and measure the particulate matter (PM) 2.5 and PM 10 in the air, seven days ahead and after Diwali," Vijay Panjwani, Central Pollution Control Board advocate told press. Green Firecrackers: An oxymoron or really a solution? Researchers from two national labs the Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI), Tamil Nadu and the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) in Nagpur have developed these controversial 'green firecrackers'. They are still far from eco-friendly, but are nevertheless given the tag of 'green' for being 25-30 percent less polluting than regular fireworks. Three prototypes were developed by these national labs and named SWAS (safe water releaser), SAFAL (safe minimum aluminum) and STAR (safe thermite cracker). Researchers tweaked the composition of regular firecrackers in flower pots, jil jils and atom bombs by replacing the more-polluting aluminum oxides with magnesium oxides. This reduced the particulate matter released from exploding these crackers, the press release said. NEERI researchers have created green crackers in which harmful chemicals like barium and potassium nitrate were replaced with zeolites (metals readily soluble in water) and magnesium, respectively. Some of them, like the 'bijli' crackers, have also been modified to replace the use of ash as a desiccant (to dehydrate and give a longer lasting burn), and lower particulate matter emissions by 25-30 percent. These eco-friendly firecrackers release water vapour as a 'dust suppressant', which would help bring suspended pollutants in the air down using humidity. How soon will the green firecrackers be sold? Greener crackers have been demonstrated to the manufacturers and their reaction has been positive, Dr Harsh Vardhan told press. These crackers match the performance of conventional crackers in terms of sound. The green crackers were developed in multiple laboratories across the country, and sent for approval by manufacturers to the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO). The chances of them being rolled out in time for Diwali celebrations this year, though, looks highly unlikely. We are working on them," said Dr Vardhan when asked about when the crackers would reach markets. "We will let you know when they are ready for the market. Until these green fireworks materialise in markets, it falls to the hands of the public to choose less polluting fireworks within permitted emission and decibel levels. The alternative? Abstain from them altogether, or live with breaking the new law. By Bill Trott and Sarah N. Lynch (Reuters) - James 'Whitey' Bulger, who lived a double life as one of Boston's most notorious mobsters and as a secret FBI informant before going on the run for 16 years, was killed at a federal prison in West Virginia, sources said on Tuesday By Bill Trott and Sarah N. Lynch (Reuters) - James "Whitey" Bulger, who lived a double life as one of Boston's most notorious mobsters and as a secret FBI informant before going on the run for 16 years, was killed at a federal prison in West Virginia, sources said on Tuesday. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was looking into Bulger's death and a prison employee briefed on the matter said it was being investigated as a homicide. A U.S. Bureau of Prisons statement had earlier confirmed Bulger had died and said the FBI was investigating. Bulger, who was 89, had been transferred a day earlier to the high-security prison in a wheelchair, the prison employee said. Two men were seen on surveillance footage entering his cell, the prison employee said. Bulger's body was discovered wrapped in a sheet, the employee said, and the notorious gangster had been beaten so badly that blood had come out of his ears. Federal officials did not give a cause of death, but the Bureau of Prisons said no other inmates or staff were injured. The prisons bureau had said in its statement that Bulger's body was found on Tuesday. The prison employee said it was discovered when he did not appear for breakfast, indicating he was killed early morning or overnight. Henry Brennan, a defence lawyer for Bulger, said in an email he could not confirm or deny the reports. Bulger was convicted in August 2013 of 11 murders, among other charges and sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus five years. Prison had been something Bulger had gone to great lengths to avoid - killing potential witnesses, cultivating corrupt lawmen and living as a fugitive for 16 years. It all ended when a tip from a former Icelandic beauty queen led to his capture in June 2011 in Santa Monica, California, where he was living with a long-time girlfriend. Bulger and his Winter Hill gang had operated for more than two decades in the insular Irish-dominated South Boston neighbourhood, engaging in loan sharking, gambling, extortion, drug dealing and murder. They did so with the tacit approval of an FBI agent who looked the other way when it came to Bulger's crimes so that he would supply information on other gangsters. Bulger, portrayed by Johnny Depp in the 2015 film "Black Mass," was feared for his short temper and brutality. Prosecutors said he strangled two women with his hands and tortured a man for hours before shooting him in the head with a machine gun. "We took what we wanted," Kevin Weeks, a former Bulger lieutenant who would eventually testify against him, wrote in "Brutal," his memoir. "We made millions through extortion and loansharking and protection. And if someone ratted us out, we killed him. We were not nice guys." Bulger was born Sept. 3, 1929, and grew up in South Boston. He was called "Whitey" because of his light blond hair but was said to detest the nickname and preferred being called Jimmy. As a teenager he joined a gang known as The Shamrocks, compiled an arrest record for assault and armed robbery and ended up in a juvenile reformatory. Bulger was a bank robber early in his criminal career, which landed him in prisons such as the infamous Alcatraz, located on an island in San Francisco Bay. Upon his release in 1965, he eventually fell in with the Irish mob in South Boston and worked his way through the ranks as a bookie and loanshark. He survived a gang war between two Irish mobs and was a leading figure in Boston's underworld by the early 1970s. His career was boosted by his relationship with rogue FBI agent John J. Connolly, who Bulger had known since they were boys. Connolly was supposed to be in charge of getting information out of him and Bulger did provide information that helped the FBI go after his main rival, New England's Italian Mafia, as well as local criminals. In return, Connolly let Bulger know about working investigations while Bulger and close associate Steve "The Rifleman" Flemmi carried on with impunity. After he retired from the FBI, Connolly tipped off Bulger about a coming indictment, sending the mobster on the run in 1995. Connolly was convicted in 2008 of racketeering, taking bribes and second-degree murder for his role in the slaying of an accountant who Bulger and Flemmi feared would testify against them. "A BAD, BAD, BAD GUY" Bulger's former associates turned on him while he was at large and their information led to a 2000 indictment that originally charged him with 19 murders. "The guy is a sociopathic killer," Tom Foley, who worked on Bulger cases for the Massachusetts State Police, told CNN. "He loved that type of life. He's one of the hardest and cruellest individuals that operated in the Boston area. He's a bad, bad, bad guy." When Bulger fled, he first took Teresa Stanley, his girlfriend of 30 years, with him. After a few weeks at large, however, Stanley wanted to go home so Bulger dropped her off in the Boston area. He picked up another of his girlfriends, Catherine Greig, and disappeared again. Bulger spent his final years of freedom in No. 303 of the Princess Eugenia apartment complex in Santa Monica with Greig. One of their neighbours, Anna Bjornsdottir, a former U.S. television actress and Miss Iceland of 1974, earned a $2 million reward for turning in Bulger. She was watching a television news report about the Bulger manhunt when she recognised the man she knew by the name Charlie Gasko and notified the FBI. At first he denied his identity but eventually told authorities, "You know who I am. I'm Whitey Bulger." More than $800,000 in cash and a cache of weapons was found hidden in the walls of his apartment. Greig was sentenced to eight years in prison and fined $150,000 for helping Bulger evade capture. She is scheduled for release in September 2020. Bulger's two-month trial for murder, extortion and drug dealing in 2013 was sometimes raucous. A parade of former associates testified against him, giving brutal details about how Bulger would kill enemies and then take a nap. Sometimes Bulger sat silently at the defendant's table and at other times he engaged in profane shouting matches with witnesses such as Flemmi. Bulger, who denied ever being an FBI informant, refused to testify on the grounds that the trial was a sham. The U.S. Justice Department paid more than $20 million in damages to families of people killed by Bulger on the grounds that he was operating under government supervision while killing. While Bulger was robbing banks and killing people, his younger brother Billy was acquiring political notoriety and power. Billy served in the Massachusetts legislature for 35 years, including several years as president of the state Senate, after which he was president of the University of Massachusetts. He was forced to resign the latter job in 2003 after it was learned that eight years earlier he had spoken by phone with his brother, who at the time was a federal fugitive, and did not report it to authorities. (Reporting and writing by Bill Trott and Sarah Lynch; additional reporting by Jonathan Allen, Nate Raymond, Bernie Woodall and Alex Dobuzinskis; editing by Diane Craft, Bill Tarrant and Grant McCool) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday backed a U.S. call for a cessation of hostilities in the Yemen war, a conflict that has killed at least 10,000 people and brought on the world's worst humanitarian crisis. But foreign minister Jeremy Hunt told lawmakers that Britain - an ally and arms supplier to Saudi Arabia - would be careful in any response to the Saudi role in the conflict due to commercial interests and a fear of 'unintended consequences'. LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday backed a U.S. call for a cessation of hostilities in the Yemen war, a conflict that has killed at least 10,000 people and brought on the world's worst humanitarian crisis. But foreign minister Jeremy Hunt told lawmakers that Britain - an ally and arms supplier to Saudi Arabia - would be careful in any response to the Saudi role in the conflict due to commercial interests and a fear of "unintended consequences". May, who is under pressure to end British arms sales to Saudi Arabia to stop their use in the war, said she supported U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's appeal for a ceasefire but a political agreement was needed. "We certainly back the U.S.'s call for de-escalation in Yemen," May told parliament. "A nationwide ceasefire will only have an effect on the ground if it is underpinned by a political deal between the conflict parties." Yemen, one of the poorest Arab countries, is locked in a nearly four-year-old war that pits Iran-aligned Houthi rebels against the government backed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the West. Its plight and the Saudi Arabia intervention have taken centre stage after the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at its embassy in Turkey. The Saudi-led coalition has conducted frequent air strikes targeting the Houthis and has often hit civilians, although it denies doing so intentionally. Foreign minister Hunt welcomed the U.S. announcement but he added that Britain's position had to be considered for two reasons. "Firstly we do have a commercial relationship (with Saudi Arabia). There are jobs in the UK...at stake so when it comes to the issue of arms sales we have our procedures," Hunt said. Second, he said, "we just have to be very careful about any action we take that there aren't unintended consequences". British exports to Saudi Arabia have provided billions of pounds of revenue for the British arms trade, but opposition has grown as the conflict and humanitarian crisis in Yemen worsened. A spokesman for Britain's main opposition Labour Party, which backs an immediate halt to arms supplies to Saudi Arabia, told reporters it was "quite clear that the prime minister is not supporting the call for an urgent ceasefire". "That goes to highlight the role that the British government has played in supporting the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen and the direct advice to Saudi military in that campaign by British forces under government direction." (Reporting by Elizabeth Piper, William James and Kylie MacLellan; editing by Stephen Addison and Angus MacSwan) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The peddling of despair by the chief minister, who was elected to bring help and hope to the Tamil people, was perhaps the saddest aspect of the many missed opportunities of the now unlamented end of the Wigneswaran administration in the Northern Province. As the term of office of the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) concludes this month, Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran, elected from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), actually from the Illankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK)the TNA not being a recognised political party or alliancefinally and formally broke with the TNA and announced his plans to form a new party, the Tamil Peoples Alliance, perhaps as the successor of the Tamil Peoples Forum which he oversaw and patronised for the past several years. As Justice Wigneswaran prepares to form his new political party and take on the traditional ruling elites of the Tamil people gathered under the banner of the ITAK-led TNA, it would be useful to examine the track record of the man who would seek to unseat or replace one of the current pillars of Sri Lankan politics, the veteran Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, as the leader of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka. Despite the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009 and the existence of provincial councils in the rest of the country, the Rajapaksa administrations policy of seeking to govern in peacetime as in the time of war meant that it was disinclined to fulfill its constitutional obligation to constitute the Northern Provincial Council. It took increasing international isolation and lack of sympathy for the hardline Rajapaksa administration internationally to coax it to hold the first ever post-war provincial elections in the North as a concession and constitute the NPC. Despite the stellar efforts and the example of the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC), which initiated the first step in the defeat of the Rajapaksa administration by refusing to give accent to the 'Divi Neguma Bill' and initiating the successful Supreme Court challenge to the same, which consequently saw Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranaike impeached by an over-confident Rajapaksa administration, thereby commencing the slippage of its Sinhala support, who still hold the judiciary in high esteem. The Northern Provincial Council (NPC) under Chief Minister Wigneswaran became a strange creature. It neither had the political imagination nor the courage to take on Rajapaksa at the center as the EPC democratically and judicially did, nor did it go about the urgent task of providing relief and bettering the lot of the people of the Northern Province, all of whom had been at the center of a war for close upon three decades. In fact, in the first year of the NPCs administration it actually returned unspent money to the treasury in Colombo, for projects that had been approved and funded but not implemented. In the second year, the chief minister engaged in a financial sleight of hand to prevent returning the money and donated all remaining funds to provincial public libraries in the North, in a process which barely passed muster with the relevant Financial Regulations (FRs). Instead, the chief minister busied himself with a rather impractical and unproductive agenda of passing an endless array of resolutions in the NPC, which dealt with various issues, mostly in the area of accountability during the war years, but this too selectively and with no mention of LTTE culpability or responsibility for its international crimes of child conscription and assassination of democratic (unarmed) political opponents and dissidents. He was also unwilling to support the resolution which called for the return of and restitution to the Muslims who had been evicted (ethnically cleansed) from Jaffna by the LTTE during the war. With the change of government in 2015, there was a significant change of policy by the government towards the Northern Province. For the first time since 1999 and only second time ever since 1982, the Northern Province voted for the winner of the presidential election in Maithripala Sirisena, and that by a huge margin of nearly 75 percent; President Sirisena was duly grateful to his constituency. An obstructionist and retired military General Chandrasiri was replaced as governor by SGMS Palihakkara, who went with clear instructions to bring relief, rehabilitation, and reconstruction to the North. This writer, as the then chairman of the Resettlement Authority, had a ring side seat to painfully watch the chief minister use the power of his office to obstruct all efforts to use the provincial administration to serve the people, including delaying World Bank funded projects. He spent a couple of years fighting fruitlessly with the UNDP to get an Australian national and diaspora activist appointed as his advisor/consultant and used the UNDPs needs assessment process as his weapon of choice against itself. In hindsight, it might not be unfair, having watched for five years, to conclude that CV Wigneswaran, in full agreement with his hardline political backers in the diaspora and particularly the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) of Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, was determined to prove that the provincial council was useless, even as an institution of limited devolved executive authority. As much as Velupillai Prabhakaran believed that using poor Tamil children as cannon fodder was acceptable in the greater goal of Tamil Eelam, Wigneswaran clearly believed that using the most vulnerable Tamil war widows, orphans, the homeless and the maimed as continuous beggars wounds was fair game or collateral damage in his quest to prove to the Tamil people and the world that the provincial council is useless. Rather like Mahinda Rajapaksa before him, he has used ethnic nationalism to disguise poor governance as well as poor service delivery in the Northern Province. Sadly, another wasted opportunity for Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans. It has been, however, in his public political challenge to the moderation and engagement strategy of the TNA and its leader R Sampanthan that Wigneswaran has done the most damage to the cause of post-war reconciliation in Sri Lanka in general, and the Tamil people in particular. Following the end of the war in 2009, the Tamil people were close to the brink of destruction as a people group. Their middle class was decimated, their brightest and best had been forced to flee abroad and worse probably for reconciliation and integration, completely alienated from the Sri Lankan State. It was into this political post-war vacuum that the ITAK-led TNA, headed by Sampanthan, stepped in and adroitly marshalled the Tamil people to use their electoral muscle to politically engage the Sinhala southern polity and seek to pursue reforms of the Sri Lankan State. Reforms which may not have progressed much, but Rome was not built in a day and the alternate of war did not achieve anything for the Tamil people either. Wigneswaran clearly differed with the engagement strategy. He would solely articulate the grievance but never provide a solution. He should then have either followed the motto of his alma mater, disce aut discede and resigned as the TNA's CM or engaged with Sampanthan on the policy in private or in intra-party conclaves behind closed doors, not grandstand and seek to pressure in public and thereby politically weaken Sambanthan and the TNA. The peddling of despair by the chief minister, who was elected to bring help and hope to the Tamil people, was perhaps the saddest aspect of the many missed opportunities of the now unlamented end of the Wigneswaran administration in the Northern Province. This article was originally published in Groundviews Naser Mehdi, a spokesman for the provincial governor, says the helicopter crashed around 9.10 am (0440 GMT), shortly after taking off from the mountainous Anar Dara district heading toward nearby Herat province. Kabul: An Afghan army helicopter crashed on Wednesday in bad weather in the western Farah province, killing all 25 people on board, including the deputy corps commander of the western zone, a provincial spokesman said. Mohammad Naser Mehri, spokesman for the Farah governor, said the helicopter crashed around 9.10 am (0440 GMT), shortly after taking off from the mountainous Anar Dara district heading toward the nearby Herat province. On board were the corps commander, Gen. Naimudullah Khalil, and two members of the Farah provincial council, its chairman, Farid Bakhtawar, and Jamila Amini, one of only two women on the nine-member council. Wednesday's was the second army helicopter crash in as many months in Farah. In September, five crew members died when their helicopter crashed. Investigators blamed the crash on a technical failure, without elaborating. Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a suicide bomber struck outside the country's largest prison on the edge of the capital, Kabul, killing seven people, including prison workers and security personnel, said Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish. The attacker targeted a bus carrying prison workers, he said. The sprawling Pul-e-Charkhi prison houses hundreds of inmates, including scores of Taliban insurgents. Abadullah Karimi, a prison official, said the attack occurred near the prison gate where visitors were waiting to pass a rigorous security check before entering. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. A massive search effort has identified the possible seabed location of the crashed Lion Air jet, Indonesia's military chief said Wednesday, as experts carried out the grim task of identifying dozens of body parts recovered from a 15 nautical mile search area. Jakarta: A massive search effort has identified the possible seabed location of the crashed Lion Air jet, Indonesia's military chief said Wednesday, as experts carried out the grim task of identifying dozens of body parts recovered from a 15 nautical mile search area. The 2-month-old Boeing plane plunged into the Java Sea on Monday just minutes after takeoff from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. "Based on the presentation of the head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, the coordinates of the suspected body of the aircraft have been found. We will send a team there to confirm," said armed forces chief Hadi Tjahjanto. The disaster has reignited concerns about safety in Indonesia's fast-growing aviation industry, which was recently removed from European Union and US blacklists, and also raised doubts about the safety of Boeing's new generation 737 MAX 8 plane. Boeing Co. experts are expected to arrive Indonesia on Wednesday and Lion Air has said an "intense" internal investigation is underway in addition to the probe by safety regulators. Locating the fuselage will bring the search effort closer to finding the airplane's flight recorders, which are crucial to the accident investigation. Data from flight-tracking sites show the plane had erratic speed and altitude in the early minutes of a flight on Sunday and on its fatal flight Monday. Safety experts caution, however, that the data must be checked for accuracy against the plane's "black boxes," which officials are confident will be recovered. Passengers on the Sunday flight from Bali to Jakarta have recounted problems that including a long-delayed takeoff for an engine check and terrifying descents in the first 10 minutes in the air. Officials said the non-stop search effort has sent 48 body bags containing human remains to police identification experts. Anguished family members have been providing samples for DNA tests and police say results are expected within 4-8 days. Daniel Putut, a Lion Air managing director, said the airline and Boeing will meet Wednesday afternoon. "Of course there are lots of things we will ask them, we all have question marks here, why? What's the matter with this new plane," he said. Indonesia's Transport Ministry has ordered all Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes operated by Lion Air and national carrier Garuda to be inspected. Boeing declined to comment about potential inspections globally. The aircraft manufacturer told airlines in a bulletin, "Boeing has no recommended operator action at this time," according to two people familiar with the matter. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia changed its narrative about Khashoggi's killing several times, eventually admitting that Khashoggi died inside the consulate and only recently acknowledging that Turkish evidence shows his killing was premeditated. Istanbul: Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and his body was dismembered before being disposed of, a top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth. The statement is the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered after he entered the Saudi Consulate on 2 October to collect paperwork needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. The announcement came as Saudi Arabia's chief prosecutor, Saud al-Mojeb, ended a three-day visit to Istanbul during which he held talks with Fidan and other Turkish officials. Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 Saudi suspects detained in Saudi Arabia over the killing of Khashoggi. It is also pressing Saudi Arabia for information concerning Khashoggi's remains, which still haven't been found, as well as who ordered the journalist's slaying. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also called on Riyadh to disclose the identity of an alleged local collaborator said to have been involved in disposing of Khashoggi's body. Khashoggi, a 59-year-old columnist for The Washington Post, vanished after entering the consulate in Istanbul to pick up paperwork for his upcoming marriage to his fiancee, who was waiting for him outside. A critic of the Saudi royal family, Khashoggi had been living in exile in the United States. Turkey alleges a Saudi hit squad from Saudi Arabiaincluding a member of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's entourage during a trip to the United Statestraveled to Istanbul to kill the journalist and then tried to cover it up. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia changed its narrative about Khashoggi's killing several times, eventually admitting that Khashoggi died inside the consulate and only recently acknowledging that Turkish evidence shows his killing was premeditated. Saudi Arabia has not commented on the prosecutor's visit. Speaking at a memorial in London, Hatice Cengiz expressed disappointment in the leadership of many countries and told the memorial that she wishes she had entered the consulate instead of Khashoggi Istanbul: The Turkish fiancee of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi has called on President Donald Trump and other leaders to ensure that his death in Istanbul is not covered up, while Saudi Arabias top prosecutor on Tuesday visited the Saudi Consulate where officials from his government killed the writer. Speaking at a memorial in London on Monday, Hatice Cengiz expressed disappointment in the leadership of many countries. Singling out Trump, she urged him to help reveal the truth and ensure justice be served. He should not pave the way for a cover-up of my fiances murder. Lets not let money taint our conscience and compromise our values, she said. Cengiz also told the memorial that she wishes she had entered the consulate instead of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who had written critically of Saudi Arabias crown prince. Khashoggi vanished after entering the consulate in Istanbul on 2 October to pick up paperwork for his upcoming marriage with Cengiz, who was waiting for him outside. Turkey alleged that a Saudi hit squad from Saudi Arabia traveled to Istanbul to kill the journalist and then tried to cover it up. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia changed its narrative about Khashoggis killing several times, eventually admitting that Khashoggi died inside the consulate and only recently acknowledging that Turkish evidence shows his killing was premeditated. In an interview with ABC News, Cengiz said Khashoggi had been worried about being spirited back to Saudi Arabia the first time he went to the consulate unannounced on 28 September, but was pleasantly surprised when he received a warm reception. Naturally, after the first positive visit we had no reasons to think that there would be any sort of danger, Cengiz told ABC. Our second visit was full of hope and it was the last step to our union. She said during the memorial: If only I knew that would be the last time I would see my Jamal, his smile, hear his laughter, I would have stood in front of that murderous team myself. Cengiz last week declined an invitation by the White House, criticizing Trumps statements on Khashoggis killing. Saudi Arabias top prosecutor, Saud al-Mojeb, arrived at Istanbuls main courthouse Tuesday for more talks with Istanbuls chief public prosecutor, Irfan Fidan, on the investigation into the killing, Turkeys state-run Anadolu Agency reported. The two had met for an hour and 15 minutes on Monday as part of an agreement between Riyadh and Ankara for cooperation over the investigation. Al-Mojeb then went to the consulate and left after spending a little over an hour there. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the investigation needs to be completed swiftly. This needs to be solved now; there is no point in excuses, Erdogan told journalists. Erdogan said the prosecutor repeated to his Saudi counterpart Turkeys extradition request for 18 suspects detained in Saudi Arabia for the killing to be put on trial in Istanbul. Fidan asked al-Mojeb to reveal who sent this group, according to the president. The country is also asking Saudi Arabia to help locate Khashoggis body, which still has not been found. Erdogan said Riyadh must disclose the identity of an alleged local collaborator said to have been involved in disposing Khashoggis body. The UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, also urged Saudi Arabia to reveal the location of the writers remains. In her strongest public comments yet on the subject, she said international experts should have complete access to evidence and witnesses. She added: I urge the Saudi authorities to reveal the whereabouts of his body without further delay or prevarication. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has said the kingdom will try the perpetrators and bring them to justice after the investigation is completed. The Maldives Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed exiled former president Mohamed Nasheeds 13-year jail sentence on terrorism charges, allowing him to go home this week. The Maldives Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed exiled former president Mohamed Nasheeds 13-year jail sentence on terrorism charges, allowing him to go home this week. Nasheed has said he will return on Thursday. The Supreme Court also reinstated 12 opposition lawmakers who were stripped of their seats when they defected to the opposition in 2017. The move comes days before newly elected President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih is scheduled to take his oath of office. Solih, a close ally of Nasheed, unseated former pro-China leader Abdulla Yameen in the 23 September poll by a 16.8 percent margin. The Indian Express quoted Nasheed as saying, "I am going back to my country after three years to see a democracy that is showing signs of strength. Of course, this is a transition stage, it is a long process. But I would say that Maldives democracy is getting strengthened now." The stay order came two days before Nasheed is to return to the Maldives after living in exile for more than two years, and appears to be a move by the incoming Solih government to prevent his arrest on arrival. The Muslim-majority tourist paradise has been in political upheaval since February, when a state of emergency was imposed by Yameen to annul a court ruling that quashed the convictions in criminal cases of nine opposition leaders, including Nasheed. Who is Mohamed Nasheed? Mohamed Nasheed is the first democratically elected president of the Maldives. He is also a respected human rights activist and was elected as president in the island nation's first free polls after the end of the 30-year autocratic rule of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in 2008. According to reports, the trial in which Nasheed was convicted for terrorism charges and sentenced to 13 years in jail, was widely criticised for being unfair. The United Nations also termed the trial as 'politically motivated'. Nasheed was found guilty by a three-judge bench of terrorism in a unanimous verdict in 2015. The Guardian had reported, "The political struggle in the island nation sets Nasheed, who has favoured a pro-western foreign policy and launched efforts to counter growing local Islamic conservatism, against more rightwing elements, many close to the former regime." The report added that India was among the countries which had expressed concern about the treatment that the former Maldivian president was subjected to. Why did Nasheed go into exile? Nasheed is returning to The Maldives after almost two years in exile in Britain. In addition to terrorism charges, Nasheed was sentenced to jail for allegedly ordering the abduction of a judge after a rushed and widely criticised trial in March 2015. He went into exile during a medical trip to Britain. Britain gave him asylum when he reached the UK. He later based himself in neighbouring Sri Lanka for political work. Nasheed had said he will return to the Maldives on 1 November, "come what may". Referring to Yameen's crackdown on the judiciary, he had tweeted, "If we at this juncture try to find an amicable arrangement for my freedom with the now-defunct Maldives Supreme Court, it will not further our ambitions for judicial reform in the Maldives. I will go to the Maldives on 01 November, come what may." The Maldives, located near key shipping lanes, has become a battleground for China and India as they compete for influence in the region. With inputs from agencies By Garba Muhammad and Abraham Achirga KADUNA/MARARABA, Nigeria (Reuters) - The movement of a jailed Nigerian Shi'ite cleric whose followers have repeatedly been targeted by the authorities said on Wednesday security forces had killed 42 of its members during two days of violent crackdowns on protests in the capital Abuja. Security forces opened fire with live ammunition on members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) who had marched in their hundreds to demand the release of their leader Ibrahim Zakzaky, jailed since 2015 when the army killed hundreds of his followers at his compound and a nearby mosque and burial ground. The IMN raised its death toll on Wednesday from the two previous days' violence to 42 from an earlier figure of 25 By Garba Muhammad and Abraham Achirga KADUNA/MARARABA, Nigeria (Reuters) - The movement of a jailed Nigerian Shi'ite cleric whose followers have repeatedly been targeted by the authorities said on Wednesday security forces had killed 42 of its members during two days of violent crackdowns on protests in the capital Abuja. Security forces opened fire with live ammunition on members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) who had marched in their hundreds to demand the release of their leader Ibrahim Zakzaky, jailed since 2015 when the army killed hundreds of his followers at his compound and a nearby mosque and burial ground. The IMN raised its death toll on Wednesday from the two previous days' violence to 42 from an earlier figure of 25. The toll included seven people who died of injuries received on Tuesday and 35 killed the previous day, said Ibrahim Musa, an IMN spokesman. On Wednesday evening, 20 bodies lay shrouded in white, awaiting burial in the town of Mararaba, some five miles (8 km) from Abuja, a Reuters reporter said. "I, as a Shi'ite today, I'm carrying my death certificate," said Muhammed Ibrahim Gamawa, an IMN youth leader, at the burial site. "Under Buhari's government any Shia in Nigeria is under threat and can be gunned down any day, any time, any minute," he said, referring to Nigerian President Mohammadu Buhari. "We are not safe, we are an endangered species in Nigeria." A few hours earlier, in a bustling commercial area of Abuja, dozens of IMN members staged a short march. Security forces were absent. "We are ready to die for our Zakzaky!" and "Free Sheikh Zakzaky!" the marchers chanted. "Death to Buhari! Death to America! Death to U.K!" they also cried. Buhari's administration has overseen the deadly crackdown on IMN over the past three years. PROTESTERS On Monday, the army opened fire on the marchers on the outskirts of Abuja. On Tuesday, the police shot at the protesters in the city centre, issuing a statement later that day saying 400 IMN members were detained. The statement did not mention any deaths. Police and army spokesmen did not respond to phone calls seeking comment on the updated death toll. The army has said that three IMN members were killed on Monday. Zakzaky was charged in April this year with murder over the 2015 violence, after being held for more than two years. Authorities ignored a court ruling during the period before he was charged that he be released, sparking protests from his followers. IMN protests have frequently been met with force. In April, police fired bullets and tear gas during days of protests by IMN, wounding at least four protesters. After the December 2015 crackdown, Buhari accused the Shi'ites of creating "a state within a state", though he also said civilian deaths could not be justified. Since then, however, the government has remained largely silent on accusations it has used excessive force against the group. Around half of Nigeria's 190 million people are Muslims. Although virtually all of them are Sunnis, Zakzaky has attracted an estimated 3 million followers as a preacher of Shi'ite Islam since being drawn to that sect by the 1979 revolution in Iran. The repression of IMN and detention of its leader have drawn criticism from international human rights watchdogs and raised concern that the group could become radicalised, just as the Sunni Muslim militant group Boko Haram turned into a violent insurgency in 2009 after police killed its leader. (Reporting by Garba Muhammad in Kaduna and Abraham Achirga and Paul Carsten in Abuja; Editing by Peter Graff and Gareth Jones) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. By Josh Smith SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's spy agency has observed preparations by North Korea for international inspections at several of its nuclear and missile test sites, the Yonhap news agency said on Wednesday, citing a South Korean lawmaker. Kim Min-ki of the ruling Democratic Party told reporters the South's National Intelligence Service observed North Koreans 'conducting preparation and intelligence activities that seem to be in preparation for foreign inspectors visit' at Punggye-ri nuclear test site and the Sohae Satellite launching ground. By Josh Smith SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's spy agency has observed preparations by North Korea for international inspections at several of its nuclear and missile test sites, the Yonhap news agency said on Wednesday, citing a South Korean lawmaker. Kim Min-ki of the ruling Democratic Party told reporters the South's National Intelligence Service observed North Koreans "conducting preparation and intelligence activities that seem to be in preparation for foreign inspectors visit" at Punggye-ri nuclear test site and the Sohae Satellite launching ground. The lawmaker added no major movements were seen at Yongbyon, the North's main nuclear complex. North Korea has stopped nuclear and missile tests in the past year, but it did not allow international inspections of its dismantling of Punggye-ri in May, drawing criticism that the action was merely for show and could be reversed. In September, its leader, Kim Jong Un, also pledged at a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in to close Sohae and allow experts to observe the dismantling of the missile engine testing site and a launch pad. At the time, Moon said North Korea agreed to let international inspectors observe a "permanent dismantlement" of key missile facilities, and take further steps, such as closing Yongbyon, in return for reciprocal moves by the United States. The U.S. State Department and Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Washington has demanded steps such as a full disclosure of the Norths nuclear and missile facilities, before agreeing to Pyongyangs key goals. American officials have been skeptical of Kim's commitment to giving up nuclear weapons, but the Norths pledge at the summit with the South drew an enthusiastic response from President Donald Trump. In Washington, South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo said the United States and South Korea would make a decision by December on major joint military exercises for 2019. Earlier this month, the two countries suspended Vigilant Ace, one of several exercises that have been halted to encourage dialogue. "We are not right now concerned with a loss of combat capability," U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters after the meeting with his South Korean counterpart. "Clearly as we go forward, we'll have to make adaptations to ensure we don't lose that capability. But right now, again this is not a total suspension of all collaboration and military exercises," Mattis added. (Reporting by Josh Smith; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Peter Cooney) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Christian woman facing execution for blasphemy, a landmark verdict that sparked protests in the Islamic nation. Islamabad: Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Christian woman facing execution for blasphemy, a landmark verdict that sparked protests in the Islamic nation. Asia Bibi was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. She always maintained her innocence but has spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement. Her case has been deeply divisive in Pakistan where there is strong support for the controversial blasphemy laws. The blasphemy laws were promulgated by former military dictator Ziaul Haq in 1980s. A person convicted under these laws is given a death sentence. The apex court, in a three-member bench led by chief justice Saqib Nisar, issued the verdict on Wednesday morning, three weeks after they had reached a decision. The delay followed threats by blasphemy campaigners to hold protests. "Her conviction is set aside and she is to be relieved forthwith if not required in other charges," said Nisar, reading out the judgment. There was tight security in the capital, Islamabad. Protests broke in different cities of Pakistan following the verdict. Protestors blocked a highway linking the capital, Islamabad with garrison city of Rawalpindi and the old airport, according to an announcement by Islamabad police. Punjab, the country's most populous province, was on high alert and its Home Department banned all kinds of public gatherings until 10 November, according to police. Tahreek-i-Labaik Pakistan, an Islamic political party, was leading the protest in Lahore where a large number of its activists gathered on the Mall Road. Security officials said protests were also being held in Karachi and other cities by groups linked with religious parties. Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal chief Fazlur Rehman denounced the verdict and alleged that it was influenced by unnamed "foreign powers". There were reports that mosques at different places asked the people to take to the streets against Bibi's acquittal. Despite protests by extremists, the verdict was hailed on social media. Bibi's lawyer Saiful Mulook also told media that it was the "happiest day" of his life. Bibi was accused of committing blasphemy in 2009. She was convicted in 2010 by the trial court and her death sentence was maintained by the Lahore High Court in 2014. She appealed against the conviction to the Supreme Court, which for the first time heard the case in July 2015. Bibi's case gained prominence when the former governor of Pakistan's Punjab province Salman Taseer was killed in 2011 for supporting her and criticising the blasphemy laws. Critics say strict blasphemy laws have often been used to get revenge after personal disputes, and that convictions are based on thin evidence. Dozens of people have been charged under the laws. Though Bibi is being released there are fears that she might be at risk of being attacked by militants. Asia Bibi was condemned for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbours objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim. Her case has outraged Christians worldwide and been a source of division within Pakistan, where two politicians who sought to help Bibi were assassinated. Islamabad: Pakistan's Supreme Court is due on Wednesday to rule on the final appeal by a Christian woman sentenced to death by hanging over blasphemy allegations, a case that has drawn global attention and condemnation. Asia Bibi, a mother of four, has been living on death row since 2010 when she became the first woman to be sentenced to death under Pakistan's draconian blasphemy laws. She was condemned for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbours objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim. Her case has outraged Christians worldwide and been a source of division within Pakistan, where two politicians who sought to help Bibi were assassinated. A special three-person bench headed by Pakistan's top judge, Chief Justice Saqib Nasir, is due to deliver the verdict at 9 am local time (0400 GMT), according to a notice by the court. Bibi's case is also high on the agenda of religious hardliners in Pakistan, many of whom are fiercely opposed to her release. The ultra-Islamist Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) party, which makes punishing blasphemy its main campaign rallying cry, earlier this month warned the court against any "concession or softness" for Bibi. "If there is any attempt to hand her over to a foreign country, there will be terrible consequences," TLP said in a statement. In November, TLP staged a crippling blockade of the capital after small changes to a religious oath, which it claims was tantamount to blasphemy. Seven people were killed and more than 200 wounded in clashes with the police and TLPs supporters only dispersed after striking a deal with the military. Insulting Islams prophet is punishable by death under Pakistani law, and blasphemy accusations stir such emotions that they are almost impossible to defend against. Dozens have been killed following blasphemy claims, sometimes by mobs of men. Rights groups say the blasphemy law is increasingly exploited by religious extremists as well as ordinary Pakistanis to settle personal scores. The law does not define blasphemy and evidence might not be reproduced in court for fear of committing a fresh offence. Bibi has always denied blaspheming and her representatives have claimed she was involved in a dispute with her neighbours and that her accusers had contradicted themselves. In February, Bibi's husband Ashiq Masih and one of her daughters met with Pope Francis shortly before Rome's ancient Colosseum was lit in red one evening in solidarity with persecuted Christians, and Bibi in particular. Pope Francis told Bibi's daughter: "I think often of your mother and I pray for her". At the Rome gathering, Masih said his wife was innocent of blasphemy. "This is just hate against Christians, who are considered impure," he said. By Denis Dumo JUBA (Reuters) - South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar returned to the capital Juba on Wednesday to celebrate a peace deal, more than two years after fierce fighting erupted in the city and forced him to flee the country. To further reinforce the peace deal, President Salva Kiir ordered the release of a jailed advisor to Machar, and a spokesman to his rebel group. Machar flew in with his wife and a small retinue but none of his troops - then met Kiir, his long-time rival, and a line-up of regional leaders who have spent years pressing the two men to end their civil war. By Denis Dumo JUBA (Reuters) - South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar returned to the capital Juba on Wednesday to celebrate a peace deal, more than two years after fierce fighting erupted in the city and forced him to flee the country. To further reinforce the peace deal, President Salva Kiir ordered the release of a jailed advisor to Machar, and a spokesman to his rebel group. Machar flew in with his wife and a small retinue but none of his troops - then met Kiir, his long-time rival, and a line-up of regional leaders who have spent years pressing the two men to end their civil war. "We need peace," Machar told thousands of people who gathered at a ceremony marking the accord that he, Kiir and other groups signed last month. "We really pray that this peace agreement holds this time," said 27-year old Juma Khamis in the crowd. Regional and Western powers alike have been exasperated by a string of failed ceasefires and deals. The world's youngest nation plunged into conflict in 2013 after Kiir sacked Machar as vice president. Troops loyal to both men clashed in the capital that December and ethnically charged fighting soon spread across the state, shutting down oil fields, forcing millions to flee and killing hundreds of thousands of people. Kiir said he had ordered the release of an advisor and a spokesman to rebel leader Machar on Thursday. Kiir said retired South African colonel William Endley, who was sentenced to death in February for trying to bring down the government, would be released. "I'll release him tomorrow and he will be deported to his country," he said, adding that rebel spokesman James Gatdet will also be released. Gatdet had also been sentenced to death in February on charges of treason and incitement against the government. There have been sporadic incidences of fighting since the latest agreement was signed, but violence has largely died down. Kiir hosted Wednesday's ceremony near the mausoleum of national hero John Garang - the same spot where the country celebrated its independence from Sudan in 2011 after decades of north-south war fuelled by oil, ethnicity and religion. Leaders from Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt and Somalia looked on as traditional dancers entertained the crowds. Machar fled to neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo in 2016 after fighting broke out again in the capital, wrecking an earlier peace deal and killing hundreds. He later travelled to South Africa, where he was held under house arrest until earlier this year. Under pressure from governments in East Africa and from United Nations and Western donors, Machar's group, other rebel factions and the government last month signed a peace deal, under which he will again become vice president. (Reporting by Denis Dumo; Writing by Aaron Maasho; Editing by George Obulutsa, Richard Balmforth) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish says the attacker early on Wednesday targeted a bus carrying prison workers outside the Kabul prison. The sprawling Pul-e-Charkhi prison houses hundreds of inmates, including scores of Taliban. Kabul: A suicide bomber targeting a bus carrying employees of Afghanistan's biggest prison killed at least seven people on Wednesday, officials said, in the latest militant attack in the war-torn country. Another five were wounded in the blast near the facility in Kabul, which police spokesman Basir Mujahid said had hit a vehicle that staff of Pul-e-Charkhi prison were travelling in. The attacker was on foot, interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said. He struck as the bus was entering the jail in the east of the Afghan capital. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion, but the Islamic State group (IS) has claimed most suicide attacks in Kabul in recent months. The attack comes days after a suicide bomber blew himself up near the entrance of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission in Kabul, killing at least one person and wounding six. A wave of election-related violence has killed or wounded hundreds across the country in recent months as the Taliban and IS step up attacks on Afghan security forces and government workers. Afghanistan's long-delayed parliamentary election, which was held over three days this month, was marred by chaos and deadly attacks. Two days before voting began on 20 October, a Taliban-claimed shooting killed a powerful police chief in the southern province of Kandahar. General Abdul Raziq was among three people killed in the brazen insider attack on a high-level security meeting in the provincial capital that was attended by General Scott Miller, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan. Miller escaped unhurt, but US Brigadier General Jeffrey Smiley was among 13 people wounded in the shooting, which the Taliban said had targeted Miller and Raziq. US officials and NATO's Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan were adamant that Miller had not been a target. Several days later another Taliban-claimed assault killed a NATO soldier and and wounded two others all from the Czech Republic in the western province of Herat. The attacks came amid a flurry of US-led diplomatic activity to convince the Taliban, Afghanistan's largest militant group, to negotiate an end to the 17-year war. Earlier this month, newly appointed US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met with Taliban representatives in Qatar. Less than two weeks later a top Taliban commander held in Pakistani detention for more than eight years was freed. A senior Taliban leader told AFP the group had requested the release of Abdul Ghani Baradar and several others at the meeting with Khalilzad UN chief Antonio Guterres has informed the UNSC that he wishes to appoint Norwegian diplomat Geir Pedersen as the next special envoy to Syria. Pedersen is currently Norway's ambassador to China and has previously served as its envoy to the UN. Washington: United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has informed the Security Council that he wishes to appoint Norwegian diplomat Geir Pedersen as the next special envoy to Syria, diplomatic sources told AFP Tuesday. Pedersen is currently Norway's ambassador to China and has previously served as its envoy to the UN. "I am pleased to inform you of my intention to announce the appointment of Mr Geir O Pedersen as my Special Envoy for Syria. In taking this decision, I have consulted broadly, including with the government of the Syrian Arab Republic," Guterres wrote in a letter seen by AFP. "Mr Pedersen will support the Syrian parties by facilitating an inclusive and credible political solution that meets the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people," the letter read. It also thanked Staffan de Mistura, the outgoing envoy, "for his more than four years of concerted efforts and contributions to search for peace in Syria." The leaders of Turkey, Russia, France and Germany met in Istanbul at the weekend and called for a political solution to the war and a permanent truce in the last major rebel-held bastion of Idlib. Their joint statement called for a committee to be established to draft Syria's post-war constitution before the end of the year, "paving the way for free and fair elections" in the war-torn country. The Syria conflict, which began with anti-government street protests in 2011, has claimed more than 360,000 lives and drawn in foreign powers and various jihadist groups. Khashoggi, a 59-year-old Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributor, was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October to obtain paperwork ahead of his upcoming wedding. His body has not yet been found. Geneva: The UN rights chief on Tuesday called for "international experts" to help investigate the murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and called on Riyadh to reveal the whereabouts of his body. "For an investigation to be carried out free of any appearance of political considerations, the involvement of international experts, with full access to evidence and witnesses, would be highly desirable," Michelle Bachelet said in a statement. Khashoggi, a 59-year-old Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributor, was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October to obtain paperwork ahead of his upcoming wedding. His body has not yet been found. His death has brought near unprecedented international scrutiny on Saudi Arabia and its powerful Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. The journalist's fiancee has accused the regime of a massive cover-up. Bachelet stressed the importance of ensuring the murder be investigated in an independent and impartial manner. "I welcome the steps taken by Turkish and Saudi authorities to investigate and prosecute the alleged perpetrators of Mr Khashoggis murder," the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said. "But given the information that high-level officials in Saudi Arabia were apparently involved, and it took place in the Consulate of Saudi Arabia, the bar must be set very high to ensure meaningful accountability and justice for such a shockingly brazen crime against a journalist and government critic," she insisted. Bachelet added that it was important to determine whether "serious human rights violations such as torture, summary execution or enforced disappearance were committed and to identify all those implicated in this crime, irrespective of their official capacity." She called on authorities in both Turkey and Saudi Arabia to cooperate in ensuring that the full truth about Khashoggi's murder comes to light. "Forensic examination, including an autopsy on the body of the victim is a crucial element in any investigation into a killing, and I urge the Saudi authorities to reveal the whereabouts of his body without further delay or prevarication," she said. Bachelet's statement marks the third time she has commented on Khashoggi's disappearance and murder. It comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Saudi Arabia's chief prosecutor, who visited the consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday, to find out who ordered the journalist's murder, and not spare "certain people" in his investigation. Saudi Arabia is seeking to draw a line under the crisis after offering a series of differing narratives following the journalist's disappearance. Since admitting the murder was premeditated, the Saudi leadership has blamed a "rogue operation" for the killing of Khashoggi, who was once an insider in Saudi royal circles and had lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 2017. The Pentagon chief said the US had been watching the conflict in Yemen 'for long enough' and said he believes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are in a US-backed coalition fighting Shiite Huthi rebels, are ready for talks. Washington: US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis called Tuesday for a ceasefire in Yemen and for parties to come to the negotiating table within the next 30 days. The Pentagon chief said the US had been watching the conflict "for long enough" and said he believes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are in a US-backed coalition fighting Shiite Huthi rebels, are ready for talks. "We have got to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it sometime in the future," Mattis said at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. "We need to be doing this in the next 30 days." He said the US is calling for all warring parties to meet with United Nations special envoy Martin Griffiths in Sweden in November and "come to a solution." Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the conflict between embattled Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, whose government is recognized by the United Nations, and the Huthis in 2015. Nearly 10,000 people have since been killed and the country now stands at the brink of famine. The United States has faced fierce international criticism for its role in supporting the Saudi-led coalition, especially after a series of strikes killed scores of civilians. Mattis said US support is based primarily on teaching the Saudi air force to improve targeting and to not drop bombs when there is any doubt about what they might hit. "Our goal right now is to achieve a level of capability by those forces fighting against the Huthis that they are not killing innocent people," he said. "The longer-term solution, and by longer-term I mean 30 days from now, we want to see everybody around a peace table based on a ceasefire, based on a pullback (of Huthis) from the border and then based on a ceasing dropping of bombs that will permit the special envoy Martin Griffiths... to get them together in Sweden and end this war. That is the only way we are going to really solve this." Last month, UN-led peace talks failed to take off after Huthi rebels refused to fly to Geneva over what they said was the UN's failure to guarantee a safe return to the capital Sanaa, which the group has controlled since 2014. James Mattis described threats of today's world from three different angles - power, urgency and will. Washington: US Defence Secretary James Mattis has said that countries in Asia and Indo-Pacific region want America's engagement because they are worried about the "massive piling" of Chinese debt, describing the country as one of the three threats to the world today. The US would cooperate with China where it can and confront where it must like the freedom of navigation in international waters, he said at the US Institute of Peace (USIP). "I just got back from Singapore, met with ASEAN, two weeks ago, where we are welcome, where many nations, in private, will tell us why they need us engaged out there because they're concerned about what China is doing and the piling of massive debt...," Mattis said on Tuesday. "And then you see what happened in Sri Lanka, where they lost sovereignty over their own harbour. One of those issues, I'll be talking, obviously, with my counterpart about here in Washington, shortly," he said in response to a question on China, which he described as one of the three threats that the world faces today. "'How did we look at the threats in the world?' he asked and said that the US looks at them from three different angles: power, urgency and will. We're in a competition of sorts to maintain this world and turn it over, hopefully, in slightly better condition than we received it. "In terms of raw power right now, I look at Russia and the nuclear arsenal they have. I look at their activities over the last 10 years from Georgia and Crimea to the Donets Basin, to Syria... their violations of INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty), for example. But in terms of just power, I think it's clearly Russia that we have to look at and address," Mattis said. In terms of urgency, there's two, one is the current fight against the violent extremists. For example, the Defeat of the ISIS coalition is 70 nations plus four international organisations working on that fight that is ongoing, he said. "We must continue... that character of warfare that is very unusual. We call it irregular, but at the same time in terms of urgency, is the DPRK, the North Korea nuclear and missile programmes that are clearly a violation of international sanctions, they are clearly a threat to peace and stability," he said. However, in terms of will, clearly it's China, Mattis said, adding that Beijing is different than Russia. Russia wants security around its periphery by having insecurity with other nations. They want to veto authority over the economic, the diplomatic and the security decisions of the nations around them. "China on the other hand seems to want some sort of tribute states around them. We are looking for how do we work with China," Mattis added. As promised, OnePlus has rolled out latest open beta for OnePlus 6 which brings features that OnePlus introduced on the OnePlus 6T. This includes new navigation gestures, improved UI for About phone, November security patch, and improvements for taking screenshot experience. Apart from these changes, the company is also bringing new Google quick search box design, the much-anticipated nightscape, and Studio Lighting. OnePlus is also improving and smoothening the gallery for better zooming gesture and magnification. Since it is a beta software, it might not be as stable as the official OTA update. The company has also integrated the Feedback tool into Community App and you can report bugs and share Logs directly to our bug hunters with the community App. If you are already on an Open Beta, you will receive this new build as an OTA. If you are not running open beta software and would like to, you need to flash it manually which will wipe your data. Once you are in beta, you will no longer receive the regular Official Stable OTAs. System New navigation gestures Improved UI for About phone Updated Android security patch to 2018.11 Improvements for taking screenshot experience Launcher New Google quick search box design Camera Added Nightscape and Studio Lighting Gallery Gallery smoother and improved zooming gesture and magnification Source ZTEs Nubia brand just announced the Nubia X, the companys latest smartphone in China, as it had promised. It has a 6.26-inch FHD+ 19:9 aspect ratio display with minimal bezels, 93.6% screen-body ratio and no notch since it doesnt have a front camera, and a secondary 5.1-inch HD+ AMOLED screen that blends into the glass body. It is patentend for eye protection with a separate mode. It has a 16-megapixel rear camera with AI scene recognition, dual-tone LED flash along with a secondary 24-megapixel camera. Since there is a screen on the back, you can use the rear display to capture selfies. It is powered by Snapdragon 845 with up to 8GB of RAM and runs Android 8.1 (Oreo) with nubia UI 6.0. It has fingerprint sensor on both the sides so it is suitable for both the right and left handers. It packs a 3800mAh battery with support for Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging. Nubia X specifications 6.26-inch (1080 2280 pixels) 19:9 FHD+ In-Cell 2.5D curved glass display, Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection 5.1-inch (720 x 1520 pixels) 19:9 AMOLED 2.5D curved glass secondary display with 96% NTSC Color Gamut, Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection Octa-Core Snapdragon 845 64-bit 10nm Mobile Platform with Adreno 630 GPU 6GB LPDDR4X RAM with 64GB (UFS 2.1) storage, 8GB LPDDR4X RAM with 128GB / 256GB (UFS 2.1)internal storage Android 8.1 (Oreo) with nubia UI 6.0 Dual SIM 16MP rear camera with dual-tone LED flash, f/1.8 aperture, 1/2.6 inch CMOS sensor, 1.22m pixel size, PDAF, 24MP secondary rear camera with f/1.7 aperture, dual-tone LED flash Dual side-mounted fingerprint sensors Dimensions: 154.173.308.4mm; Weight: 181g Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5, GPS + GLONASS, USB Type-C 3800mAh battery with Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging The Nubia X starts at 3299 yuan 3399 yuan (US$ 473 / Rs. 34,960 approx.) for the 6GB + 64GB Gray and Black with Gold colors, Blue version of it costs 3399 yuan (US$ 487 / Rs. 36,000 approx.). The 8GB RAM with 128GB storage version in Gray and Black with Gold version costs 3699 yuan (US$ 530 / Rs. 39,195 approx.), while the Blue version costs 3799 (US$ 544 / Rs. 40,255 approx.). The top-end 8GB RAM with 256GB storage version in Black with Gold color variant costs 4199 yuan (US$ 602 / Rs. 44,490 approx.), while the Blue with Gold version costs 4299 yuan (US$ 616 / Rs. 45,540 approx.). It will be available for order from today and goes on sale in China from November 5th. Source Mixed results. That's what the headlines will tell you about Pfizer's (NYSE:PFE) third-quarter earnings report, announced before the market opened on Tuesday. And Pfizer did provide mixed results in its Q3 update. The company topped earnings estimates, with adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.78 compared to the consensus Wall Street estimate of $0.75. However, Pfizer's Q3 revenue of $13.3 billion came in below the $13.5 billion that analysts were expecting. But there was a lot more to Pfizer's update than those mixed results. Here are five things in the drugmaker's Q3 earnings that you might miss unless you read the fine print. 1. The bad news for Ibrance Pfizer's press release stated that sales for Ibrance outside the U.S. were up a whopping 98% operationally with the gain "primarily driven by continued uptake in developed Europe and the December 2017 launch in Japan." CEO Ian Read mentioned Ibrance prominently in his list of key brands with continued growth. What those comments don't tell you, though, is that sales for Ibrance fell by 1% year over year in the U.S. during the third quarter. Overall, revenue generated by the breast cancer drug increased 17% from the prior-year period but was flat compared to the second quarter of 2018. Ibrance is still generating growth, but its momentum appears to have largely evaporated. 2. Just how much losing Lyrica patent exclusivity will hurt Total sales for Lyrica fell 6% year over year in the third quarter. Still, Lyrica remained Pfizer's No. 2 best-selling drug. The company is seeking pediatric exclusivity for Lyrica, with an FDA decision expected before the end of the year. Neither these facts nor Pfizer's overall Q3 performance tell just how big an impact losing patent exclusivity for Lyrica will have. The drug generated total sales during the third quarter of $1.21 billion. To put that number into perspective, it's more than Pfizer's Q3 sales of Eliquis, Xtandi, and Eucrisa combined. Granted, Pfizer could win pediatric exclusivity -- but it would only push back the loss of exclusivity by six months, to June 30, 2019. If you want to get a sense for what the future for Lyrica is, look at the 40% year-over-year decline in Q3 sales for the drug in markets where it has already lost exclusivity. 3. Essential health segment performance is a little worse than it looks Pfizer reported that its essential health segment Q3 revenue fell 4% from the prior-year period. That's not good, but it's not horrible, either. Except there's more to the story. The segment's performance was helped considerably by Pfizer's transfer of Viagra from its innovative health segment. Sales for Viagra jumped 35% year over year to $137 million. 4. Share buybacks aren't quite as helpful as you might think Pfizer CFO Frank D'Amelio stated in the company's press release that "to date in 2018, we returned $15.0 billion directly to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, demonstrating our continued commitment to returning capital to our shareholders." He's right. As of the end of Q3, Pfizer paid out $6 billion in dividends and repurchased $9 billion of its stock. But those share buybacks haven't been as advantageous to shareholders as you might think. Why? Take a look at this statement in Pfizer's update: "Dilution related to share-based employee compensation programs is expected to offset the reduction in shares associated with these share repurchases by approximately half." In other words, only around 50 cents of every dollar Pfizer spends on buybacks directly benefit shareholders. 5. The worrisome sign in Pfizer's updated guidance Pfizer narrowed its revenue and earnings guidance for full-year 2018. The good news was that the company kept the midpoint of its adjusted EPS range unchanged, with new guidance of adjusted EPS between $2.98 and $3.02 compared to previous guidance of $2.95 to $3.05. The bad news, though, was that Pfizer's 2018 revenue guidance is now $53 billion to $53.7 billion, with the upper end of the range slipping from the previous outlook of $55 billion. What's most concerning is that Pfizer stated that a key reason for the lower guidance was "continued legacy Hospira Sterile Injectable Pharmaceuticals (SIP) product shortages in the U.S." In the company's Q2 conference call, Ian Read predicted that Pfizer expected to see year-over-year improvement for the SIP business beginning in the third quarter. That didn't happen. And some good news Unfortunately, much of the fine print in Pfizer's Q3 earnings release contained bad news. However, there were plenty of reasons to be optimistic about Pfizer's future included in the announcement -- none of which show up in the company's financial numbers. Pfizer, as always, featured product development and pipeline highlights in its quarterly update. These highlights included two new FDA approvals for breast cancer drug Talzenna and lung cancer drug Vizimpro, as well as European approvals for new indications for Xeljanz in ulcerative colitis and Xtandi in non-metastatic prostate cancer. Notable pipeline advances included great late-stage results for pain drug tanezumab and FDA regulatory submissions for three new biosimilars. Investors should focus as much or more on these items as they do on Pfizer's numbers. Over the long run, they're what will matter, rather than mixed results in one quarter. salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) has delivered stunning returns to investors over the past decade. But with its shares up a staggering 1,700% during this time -- and 30% already this year -- can the software titan continue to reward its shareholders from this point forward? Read on to find out. A dominant competitive position Salesforce is the undisputed leader in customer relationship management software -- the biggest and fastest-growing segment in the massive enterprise software market. In fact, Salesforce's nearly 20% share of the global CRM market is more than that of its three closest competitors combined. Moreover, Salesforce is widening its lead over its rivals. The company is growing at nearly twice the rate of the overall market, fueled by the popularity of its best-in-class sales, customer service, and marketing solutions. Better still, Salesforce's share gains may accelerate in the coming years. The company's recent acquisition of MuleSoft provides it with another powerful competitive advantage: MuleSoft offers highly regarded data integration solutions, at a time when businesses are coming to recognize the need to combine and analyze data from many disparate sources. "As more and more companies connect everything and everyone, they're realizing that integration is vital to their success and to their digital transformation, and now they're turning to Salesforce MuleSoft, the No. 1 integration cloud, to do it," co-CEO Marc Benioff said during the company's second-quarter conference call. Stated simply, Salesforce is the dominant provider of CRM software, and it's poised to grow even more powerful in the years ahead. Tremendous opportunities for growth Despite years of strong gains, Salesforce has plenty of room for growth still ahead. Its trailing-12-month revenue of $11.8 billion makes up only about 3% of the $391 billion that businesses are expected to spend on enterprise software in 2018. Moreover, Gartner estimates that enterprise software spending will grow to more than $537 billion by 2021. Thus, Salesforce gives investors the opportunity to invest in the dominant leader of the fastest-growing -- and increasingly vital -- segment in an enormous industry. And with its cloud-based software likely to remain in high demand for the foreseeable future, Salesforce should continue to expand its share of this massive market in the decade ahead. A great company at a reasonable price Salesforce's management has set an aggressive goal of nearly doubling its current revenue base by fiscal 2022. Incredibly, the company is on track to do just that, with revenue surging 27%, to $3.3 billion in the second quarter. "With this strong quarter, we're well on our way to our next milestone of $23 billion in revenue in FY22," co-CEO Keith Block said at the time. Based on this revenue target, and using the company's five-year average free cash flow margin of 18% as our baseline estimate, Salesforce is likely to produce more than $4 billion in free cash flow in fiscal 2022. At its current $100 billion market cap, investors are therefore paying about 25 times this free cash flow estimate for Salesforce today. If we instead use Salesforce's trailing-12-month free cash flow margin of 21.7%, our free cash flow estimate would rise to $5 billion. In this scenario, investors who buy shares today would be paying about 20 times this figure. Old-school value investors may balk at paying 20 times the free cash flow a company may produce more than three years in the future, but this is not an entirely unreasonable price to pay for a dominant business that could legitimately grow its earnings and cash flow by more than 20% annually over the next decade. It's also possible that these free cash flow estimates may prove conservative, particularly if Salesforce's margins continue to improve in the coming years. (Salesforce's operating margins have steadily expanded along with its revenue base in recent years.) As such, I'd argue that Salesforce is a buy at current prices -- and that long-term investors who purchase shares today are likely to be well rewarded. While there are no direct references to the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China in A.O. Smith's (NYSE:AOS) most recent earnings report, the results it posted were peppered with reminders. Higher costs and weakening sales not only led to a decline in earnings, but they also led to management lowering its guidance for the year. Here's a look at the things that impacted A.O. Smith's earnings in the third quarter and what they mean for investors. By the numbers Metric Q3 2018 Q2 2018 Q3 2017 Revenue $754 million $833 million $750 million Operating income $131.5 million $146.1 million $131.6 million Net income $104.6 million $114.5 million $93.7 million Diluted EPS $0.61 $0.66 $0.54 The two things management pointed to as the culprit in this slowdown were steel costs and shipping expenses. Ever since the Trump administration slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum, domestic steel prices have increased considerably. Also, robust economic growth in the U.S. has strained the American trucking market to the point that shipping costs are also up considerably compared with this time last year. While these two things are having a considerable impact on the cost side of the business, management noted that it is also experiencing a slowdown in sales in response to higher prices it put in place to offset these rising costs. As a result, the company's North America segment posted a decline in earnings as well as a 100-basis-point reduction in profit margins. The trade war also hurt the company's China sales. According to management, water heater sales were weaker than expected as the housing market grew at a much slower pace. It was able to make up for the weaker water heater sales with growth in air-purification and water-treatment equipment as well as improving costs in India. Overall, though, it was not A.O. Smith's finest showing. Even though there was a lot of bad news in this report, it wasn't without its bright spots. One of the things that investors should like is that the company remains flush with cash even after repaying $217 million in debt, buying back $100 million in stock, and increasing its dividend by 20% for the second time in 2018. What management had to say Management believes that the things working against the company this past quarter are likely to continue for at least the rest of the year. So as part of his press release, CEO Kevin Wheeler noted that he expects a slowdown for the rest of the year: We do not expect sales of water heaters in the U.S. will be as strong as we previously forecasted. Based on our shipments in September, we believe residential water heater industry volumes will be down approximately 100,000 units in the second half of the year compared with last year, but increase by 250,000 to 300,000 units for the total year. Based on year-to-date shipments and a difficult fourth-quarter comparison, we expect 2018 commercial water heater industry volumes will decline by approximately 5 percent compared with last year. We believe our China sales will continue to be negatively impacted by significantly slower housing growth caused by deteriorating consumer confidence related to a weakening economy and international trade issues. We expect sales in China in local currency to grow approximately 3 percent this year. Management revised its 2018 earnings per share guidance down to a range of $2.57 to $2.60, and said that revenue will only be 7% higher than the prior year. Despite headwinds, A.O. Smith has some things working in its favor The challenges that A.O. Smith faced this past quarter are all things that are more or less out of the company's control. So it's hard to get too upset about these results. There's no telling when some of these trends reverse, but one constant that investors can rely upon is the fact that the North American market is largely a replacement business that remains incredibly consistent throughout economic cycles. Also, even though it is facing some hurdles in China, it is looking to gear up operations in India to take advantage of a lot of the trends that made it so popular in China in the first place. The market has not been kind to A.O. Smith's stock, as it is down 25% for the year. Based on management's revised guidance, the stock is trading for about 17 times 2018 earnings. That is the lowest this stock has traded in over five years. It would appear that the market is anticipating the company's results will get much worse. It's possible that a continued trade war will hurt the company's earnings. But the water heater replacement cycle in North America -- coupled with a great balance sheet and a good management team -- suggests that this is an overreaction and could be an attractive buying opportunity. Not all good things can last forever, especially in the world of dividend stocks. Holly Energy Partners (NYSE:HEP) has built a great reputation over the past decade and a half for delivering consistent payout growth. Based on the company's more recent earnings results and some of management's recent statements, it's entirely possible that parent company HollyFrontier (NYSE:HFC) may revisit having Holly Energy Partners as a separately traded master limited partnership. Let's take a look at the company's most recent earnings results as well as why management is hinting at making a move that so many other companies in HollyFrontier's position have made over the past couple of months. By the numbers Metric Q3 2018 Q2 2018 Q3 2017 Revenue $125.8 million $118.7 million $110.3 million EBITDA $86.9 million $81.8 million $74.9 million Diluted EPS $0.43 $0.38 $0.66 Distributable cash flow $66.6 million $65.1 million $59.2 million While Holly Energy Partner's earnings per share did decrease compared to this time last year, that is never too much of a concern with master limited partnerships. Cash is king, and distributable cash flow is what matters. The good news is that it increased distributable cash flow on a sequential and year-over-year basis, but it wasn't quite enough to keep up with its payout, as the company's distribution coverage ratio was 0.95 times for the quarter. Anything less than 1.0 means more cash paid out than what came in the door. According to management, this quarter was negatively affected by lower amounts of refined product and crude oil at parent company HollyFrontier's Navajo refinery complex and its Woods Cross facility. These facilities experienced some downtime for planned and some unforeseen operational issues. Management is confident that it will be able to maintain a distribution coverage of 1.0 for the full fiscal year. What management had to say Earlier this past quarter, refining company Valero Energy announced it was acquiring all outstanding shares of its subsidiary master limited partnership, Valero Energy Partners. One of the reasons for the move was that new corporate tax rates made the MLP structure slightly less appealing than it once was. Also, Valero Energy Partners struggled to find capital projects it could develop itself and was pretty much wholly reliant on the parent company to drop down assets to it. On Holly's conference call, one analyst asked if both it and parent HollyFrontier had considered a similar option. While he didn't give a direct answer, it was pretty clear that CEO George Damiris is considering the idea: To your point, there's no MLP equity market today. It's closed. In the past three years, we've grown our distribution 20% and our equity's declined 14-15% and unfortunately, we're not alone there, and the Alerian [MLP Index] is down roughly 25% at the same time period. So then at the same time, we've got this complete disconnect between the public and private markets in the midstream space. So we're in a tough spot. We don't know how, whether the current state of this equity market is transitory or if it's permanent. We don't know how it will interact with the private market eventually. I don't know how this is gonna resolve itself. It has to, but how it's gonna happen. So a very longwinded way of saying, there's no obvious strategic or corporate action to us at the moment. In the near term, we'll continue to look at all the options to your point there. We've seen some folks do different things. So we're watching to see how that works and how well that works. You can read a full transcript of Holly Energy Partners conference call here. End of the line? For years, Holly Energy Partners has produced relatively steady and reliable growth, as evidenced by its 56 straight quarters with a distribution increase. For almost all of that time, the partnership could rely on its parent dropping down assets to it, which gave it a predictable growth pipeline. Once HollyFrontier ran out of assets to sell, though, the situation became a little trickier. Now, Holly Energy Partners needs to develop its own projects in-house. While it has invested in some high-return projects like loading racks for refined products, they have been quite small in nature and haven't been enough to keep up with payout growth. Even though the company still has a respectable balance sheet, the high yield for its units means the cost for capital is high, and without any excess cash to pay for growth, the company is somewhat painted into a corner. As Damiris noted, it is a frustrating situation for management, and it wouldn't be too surprising if HollyFrontier made a move similar to Valero's. Neighborly Announces Top Performers At Annual Conference October 30, 2018 // Franchising.com // Neighborly, one of the worlds largest parent companies of home service brands, recently held its annual conference in Dallas, TX where franchisees nominated and awarded their top performers for significant accomplishments and contributions throughout the year. Glass Doctor, Aire Serv, Rainbow International, Mr. Rooter Plumbing, Mr. Appliance and Window Genie, all recognized top award winners throughout the U.S. and Canada, including: Glass Doctor Franchisee of the Year : John & Susan Goldsmith, owner of Glass Doctor of North Vancouver: This award is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a franchisee. John and Susan Goldsmith (out of North Vancouver, Canada) first became Glass Doctor franchisees with the opening of their first location in in 2010. Today, the Goldsmiths currently own and operate four locations -- North Vancouver (est. 2010), Sunshine Coast (est. 2014), Langley (est. 2015) and Burnaby (est. 2018). John and Susan attribute a lot of their success to following best practices, utilizing the technology, infrastructure and software provided by the Glass Doctor system and working closely with other franchisees. In addition, the Goldsmiths have had to overcome some incredible geographical challenges (given that they are located on the Sunshine Coast, they are locked in by ocean and mountains). Due to this, they typically have to take a 45-minute ferry ride just to make many of their reservations. : John & Susan Goldsmith, owner of Glass Doctor of North Vancouver: This award is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a franchisee. John and Susan Goldsmith (out of North Vancouver, Canada) first became Glass Doctor franchisees with the opening of their first location in in 2010. Today, the Goldsmiths currently own and operate four locations -- North Vancouver (est. 2010), Sunshine Coast (est. 2014), Langley (est. 2015) and Burnaby (est. 2018). John and Susan attribute a lot of their success to following best practices, utilizing the technology, infrastructure and software provided by the Glass Doctor system and working closely with other franchisees. In addition, the Goldsmiths have had to overcome some incredible geographical challenges (given that they are located on the Sunshine Coast, they are locked in by ocean and mountains). Due to this, they typically have to take a 45-minute ferry ride just to make many of their reservations. Rookie of the Year : Stephen & Cyndi Poe, owners of Glass Doctor of Kingman, AZ and Josh & EmilyAnne Thomason, owners of Glass Doctor of Melbourne, FL. This year, Glass Doctor had some really incredible rookies, so much so that there was a tie. This award is to the franchisee who has demonstrated outstanding performance in sales and building their organizations in their first 12 months. Only franchisees in the system less than 18 months are eligible. : Stephen & Cyndi Poe, owners of Glass Doctor of Kingman, AZ and Josh & EmilyAnne Thomason, owners of Glass Doctor of Melbourne, FL. This year, Glass Doctor had some really incredible rookies, so much so that there was a tie. This award is to the franchisee who has demonstrated outstanding performance in sales and building their organizations in their first 12 months. Only franchisees in the system less than 18 months are eligible. Presidents Choice Award: Ed Sieber, owner of Glass Doctor of Charlotte, NC. The Presidents Choice award is one that is not given out every year. Its a special recognition for the franchisee, or employee, who epitomizes who Glass Doctor is, stands for the brands Code of Values and is a shining example of what every franchisee should strive to achieve. Aire Serv Franchisee of the Year : Nikki and Lee Downing, owners of Aire Serv of Memphis, TN. The Franchisee of the Year award is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon an Aire Serv franchisee. The award is presented to the franchisee who has consistently grown through proper training and management of the organization and has had a consistently high level of sales through quality, professional service and implementation of the Aire Serv System. : Nikki and Lee Downing, owners of Aire Serv of Memphis, TN. The Franchisee of the Year award is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon an Aire Serv franchisee. The award is presented to the franchisee who has consistently grown through proper training and management of the organization and has had a consistently high level of sales through quality, professional service and implementation of the Aire Serv System. Woman of the Year : Anastasia Stewart, co-owner of Aire Serv of Melbourne, FL. This award is presented to the woman who has had the greatest contribution to the success of the franchise and recognizes the continuous efforts that strengthen and support the success of the franchisee. : Anastasia Stewart, co-owner of Aire Serv of Melbourne, FL. This award is presented to the woman who has had the greatest contribution to the success of the franchise and recognizes the continuous efforts that strengthen and support the success of the franchisee. Rookie of the Year: Gary and Shelley Mertz, owners of Aire Serv of Flower Mound, TX. This award is presented to a new franchisee who has demonstrated outstanding performance in sales, building their organization and implementing the Aire Serv System. Only franchisees in the system for less than 24 months are eligible. Rainbow International Franchisee of the Year : Reed and Heather Mattingly, owners of Rainbow International of Columbia, SC. The Franchisee of the Year Award is the highest annual honor that can be bestowed upon a Rainbow International franchisee. The award goes to a franchisee that has consistently, over a period of years, grown a model Rainbow International business and has exemplary customer service, while developing a talented team of associates. Fellow franchisees view them as approachable and caring. : Reed and Heather Mattingly, owners of Rainbow International of Columbia, SC. The Franchisee of the Year Award is the highest annual honor that can be bestowed upon a Rainbow International franchisee. The award goes to a franchisee that has consistently, over a period of years, grown a model Rainbow International business and has exemplary customer service, while developing a talented team of associates. Fellow franchisees view them as approachable and caring. Woman of the Year : Rebecca Hill, owner of Rainbow International of Vancouver Island, Canada: The Woman of the Year award is presented to a female franchise owner who has contributed the most to becoming a successful franchise during the previous year. The award also recognizes Rebeccas continued efforts to strengthen the Rainbow International brand while also supporting her local community. : Rebecca Hill, owner of Rainbow International of Vancouver Island, Canada: The Woman of the Year award is presented to a female franchise owner who has contributed the most to becoming a successful franchise during the previous year. The award also recognizes Rebeccas continued efforts to strengthen the Rainbow International brand while also supporting her local community. Rookie of the Year: Kris Brower, owner of Rainbow International of St. Louis, IL. This award is presented to the franchisee that has been in business less than 18 months and demonstrates outstanding performance in sales; is focused on building the organization, and is committed to full execution of the system. Mr. Rooter Plumbing Franchisee of the Year : Derek and Pam Moreland, owners of Mr. Rooter Plumbing of Greater Toronto, Canada: The Franchisee of the Year award is the highest annual honor that can be bestowed upon a Mr. Rooter franchisee. The Morelands have consistently grown their business, shown exemplary customer service and constantly strive to offer support to fellow Mr. Rooter franchisees to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to learn from their experiences, along with supporting the local communities they serve. : Derek and Pam Moreland, owners of Mr. Rooter Plumbing of Greater Toronto, Canada: The Franchisee of the Year award is the highest annual honor that can be bestowed upon a Mr. Rooter franchisee. The Morelands have consistently grown their business, shown exemplary customer service and constantly strive to offer support to fellow Mr. Rooter franchisees to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to learn from their experiences, along with supporting the local communities they serve. Woman of the Year : Stacy Franken, owner of Mr. Rooter Plumbing of Williamsburg, VA. The Woman of the Year award is presented to a female franchise owner who has contributed the most to becoming a successful franchise. The award also recognizes Stacys continued efforts to strengthen the Mr. Rooter brand while also supporting her local community. : Stacy Franken, owner of Mr. Rooter Plumbing of Williamsburg, VA. The Woman of the Year award is presented to a female franchise owner who has contributed the most to becoming a successful franchise. The award also recognizes Stacys continued efforts to strengthen the Mr. Rooter brand while also supporting her local community. Excellence in Leadership: Scott Hobbs, owner of Mr. Rooter Plumbing of Northwest Florida. This award is given to the franchisee that consistently sets an example for others within the system by conveying vision, participation and positive contribution to the network. Mr. Appliance Franchisee of the Year : Jeanette and Scott Stewart, owners of Mr. Appliance of Delaware Valley, PA. The Franchisee of the Year award is the highest annual honor that can be bestowed upon a Mr. Appliance franchisee. The Stewarts have consistently grown their business, shown exemplary customer service and constantly strive to offer support to fellow franchisees to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to learn from their experiences, along with supporting the local communities they serve. : Jeanette and Scott Stewart, owners of Mr. Appliance of Delaware Valley, PA. The Franchisee of the Year award is the highest annual honor that can be bestowed upon a Mr. Appliance franchisee. The Stewarts have consistently grown their business, shown exemplary customer service and constantly strive to offer support to fellow franchisees to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to learn from their experiences, along with supporting the local communities they serve. Excellence in Mentoring : Steven and Tammy Johnson, owners of Mr. Appliance of Over the Mountain, AL. This award is presented to the franchisee that stands out by proactively going out of their way to mentor and assist other franchises in the development of their businesses. This franchisee sets an outstanding example of following the system. : Steven and Tammy Johnson, owners of Mr. Appliance of Over the Mountain, AL. This award is presented to the franchisee that stands out by proactively going out of their way to mentor and assist other franchises in the development of their businesses. This franchisee sets an outstanding example of following the system. Rookie of the Year: Quentin Smith, owner of Mr. Appliance of West Augusta, GA. This award is presented to the franchisee that has been in business less than 18 months and demonstrates outstanding performance in sales; is focused on building the organization, and is committed to full execution of the system. Window Genie Franchisee of the Year: Steve Sarafin, owner of Window Genie of NW New Jersey. This award is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a franchisee. Steve joined Window Genie back in 1999 and was one of the brands very first owners. Over the past 19 years, Steve has proven himself as a top performer, so much so, that he is a member of Window Genie's Franchise Advisory Council. Sarafin was born and raised in New Jersey, where he currently runs his 10 truck operation. Steve attributes much of his success to his team of hardworking technicians. Because Steve is one of the most veteran franchise owners in the system, many of the newer owners lean on him for guidance and advice. About Neighborly Neighborly is a holding company of 21 service brands, focused on repairing, maintaining and enhancing consumers homes and businesses. The company operates online platforms that connect consumers to service providers in their local communities that meet their rigorous standards as a franchisor across 14 service categories at www.getneighborly.com in the United States and www.getneighbourly.ca in Canada. The company was founded in 1981 as Dwyer Group and is based in Waco, Texas. More information about Neighborly/Neighbourly, and its franchise concepts, is available at www.NeighborlyBrands.com. SOURCE Neighborly ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 31) President Rodrigo Duterte is set to visit Mountain Province on Thursday, following a landslide that killed at least 10 people trapped in a government building. Duterte announced this at the early part of his speech during the ceremonial distribution of Certificates of Land Ownership Award in Cagayan de Oro City Wednesday evening. What he mentioned, however, was that he will go to Benguet, where the mining town of Itogon was hit by a landslide caused by Typhoon Ompong in September. "I won't be long, I'm reserving some time because I will be flying to Benguet tomorrow. There was a landslide and people are missing," Duterte said in Cebuano. Details of his visit has yet to be disclosed. Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo had earlier said the President will personally visit the areas affected by Typhoon Rosita. Panelo also said that financial assistance worth P834,304.90 was already provided by the government through the Department of Social Welfare and Development and local government units. "The public can count on the government that it will undertake all necessary actions and not take a load off, if need be, during this time of adversity," he said. Thick muds due to a landslide amid the onslaught of Rosita engulfed a Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) building in Natonin, Mountain Province, causing more than 20 individuals--mostly workers--to be trapped. DPWH Secretary Mark Villar said at least 10 bodies have been recovered, while 11 others are still missing. Submit a public comment There are several ways to submit public comments about the coastal barrier to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: at public meetings by mail to USACE, Galveston District, Attn: Mrs. Jennifer Morgan, Environmental Compliance Branch, Regional Planning and Environmental Center, P.O. Box 1229, Galveston, TX 77553-1229 or by email to CoastalTexas@usace.army.mil. Comments must be postmarked by Jan. 9. LA Noire creator Brendan McNamara is back in gaming, as ResetEra users have spotted a LinkedIn job offer by himself for the brand new studio Videogames Deluxe. The offer has been created by McNamara and also features references to what he has achieved in the past, so its clearly him. Videogames Deluxe is recruiting for the right talented game engine programmer to join our experienced, tight-knit team, says the job offer. Our team has decades of experience across multiple AAA titles, and we recently developed and shipped the acclaimed L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files for Rockstar Games on Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Now we need to grow to support our current titles! Youll work closely with our small team to improve our existing engine and develop new features to get the absolute most out of the target hardware. The studio is located in Sydney, Australia, but we dont know which publisher or platform holder could be financing and bringing on the market its next title. After Team Bondi got closed, it looked like the partnership between McNamara and Rockstar Games has reached an end but theyve worked together on LA Noire: The VR Case Files, so who knows ONGC earlier this year bought the government's entire 51.11 per cent stake in HPCL for Rs 36,915 crore. ONGC's demand for being recognised as the promoter of the company. New Delhi: Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's assertion notwithstanding, oil refiner Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) continues not to recognise ONGC, its majority owner, as its promoter company. In a filing to stock exchanges on the company's shareholding pattern as of the end of September, HPCL continues to list "President of India" as its promoter with "zero" per cent shareholding. Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), which earlier this year bought the government's entire 51.11 per cent stake in HPCL for Rs 36,915 crore, is listed a "public shareholder", owning "77.88 crores" shares or "51.11 per cent" shareholding of the company. Calls made to HPCL Chairman and Managing Director M K Surana for comments went answered. ONGC, which had to borrow Rs 24,876 crore for the acquisition that helped the government meet its disinvestment target for the 2017-18 fiscal, had made its displeasure clear about not being recognised as a promoter of HPCL. In a strongly worded letter to HPCL, it a couple of months back had warned of regulatory consequences of not recognising the majority shareholder as the promoter, sources privy to the development said. HPCL, however, has stuck to its gun and has refused to recognise ONGC as its promoter. When the issue first arose in August, Pradhan had clearly stated that ONGC is the new promoter of HPCL. ONGC, he had said, had invested in acquiring a majority stake in the company and so it is the promoter. "ONGC is the promoter of HPCL," he had said. Pradhan's comments followed Surana rejecting ONGC's demand for being recognised as the promoter of the company. "Whatever we are doing, whatever we have done and whatever we will be doing will be as per our understanding of the statute and the guidelines and Companies Act and the SEBI guidelines... Beyond that who is interpreting whatever, it is his understanding of the situation. We need not subscribe to that," he said. After ONGC bought out government stake, HPCL became its subsidiary. Since ONGC takeover in January, HPCL has made three stock exchange filings about the shareholding pattern of the company -- the first on April 20, then on July 12 and finally on October 19. In all three, ONGC is shown as the public shareholder and President of India listed as the promoter. Sources said ONGC feels the HPCL management is bound to take corrective action to reflect the true picture. According to the Securities and Exchange Board of India's rules, the entity that owns the controlling stake should be listed as promoter even if it was not the original promoter of the company. When Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) had bought the government's stake in fuel retailer IBP Co Ltd, it was listed as the latter's promoter in every instance after the deal. The same was the case when IOC acquired a majority stake in Chennai Petroleum Corp Ltd (CPCL). Surana has retained the title of Chairman and Managing Director despite corporate governance structure require a group having just one chairman and subsidiaries being run by managing directors and CEOs. ONGC's overseas subsidiary, ONGC Videsh Ltd, is headed by a Managing Director and CEO. Its refinery subsidiary Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), which is listed on BSE, too is led by a Managing Director and CEO. ONGC Chairman is the head of boards of both the companies. Since acquiring a majority stake in HPCL, ONGC has only been able to appoint one director to that firm's board. ONGC has appointed its Director (Finance) Subhash Kumar to HPCL board. He has replaced Sushma Taishete Rath, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Prior to this, HPCL had two government nominee directors -- Rath and Sandeep Poundrik, Joint Secretary (Refineries) of the Oil Ministry. After the appointment of Kumar, there remains only one government nominee director on HPCL board. Nokia 6.1 Android 9 Pie stable update starts rolling out News oi-Abhinaya Prabhu Nokia 6.1 gets the stable Pie update. HMD has already proved that it focuses on rolling out timely updates to the Nokia-branded smartphones. In 2018, the company has been launching Android One smartphones that will get regular OS updates and security patches. And, it had also confirmed that all its devices will get the Android Pie update in the coming months. A few days back, Juho Sarvikas, the CPO at HMD Global confirmed that the Nokia 6.1 will get the Android 9 Pie update in a few weeks. Now, the stable Android 9 Pie has started rolling out for the Nokia 6.1. Following this one, the Nokia 6.1 Plus is said to get the stable update to Android Pie. Nokia 6.1 changelog Given that the stable Android Pie update has been rolling out to the Nokia 6.1 launched earlier this year, we can expect it to get new features such as Adaptive Battery, Slices, App Actions, new gesture navigation system, Adaptive Brightness, Digital Wellbeing and more. Also, we can expect all the units of the device to get this update in phases. Eventually, the Nokia 6.1 becomes the second smartphone in the Nokia portfolio to get the stable Pie update. The first one is the Nokia 7 Plus and the beta update is available for the Nokia 6.1 Plus. Nokia 6.1 specifications To refresh, the Nokia 6.1 adorns a 5.5-inch FHD IPS display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and an aspect ratio of 16:9. Under its hood, this device makes use of an octa-core Snapdragon 630 SoC paired with 3GB/4GB RAM and 32GB/64GB storage space along with up to 128GB of expandable storage. On the optical front, this smartphone comes with a 16MP rear camera with ZEISS optics and f/2.0 aperture. Also, there is dual-tone LED flash for better low-light shots. There is an 8MP selfie camera with a similar aperture. The smartphone has a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor and necessary sensors such as compass, proximity, gyro and accelerometer. The other aspects of this device are 4G VoLTE, dual SIM support, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, a 3.5mm headphone jack, FM Radio and a 3000mAh battery. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications OnePlus is the preferred brand in the fast-growing segment: Counterpoint News oi-Priyanka Dua The study pointed out that Xiaomi remains the most preferred brand for users for their next smartphone purchase while Samsung was the second most preferred brand According to a new study by research firm Counterpoint, OnePlus is the preferred brand in the fast-growing Rs.25,000 to Rs.40,000 segment, where consumers are looking for premium experiences at affordable price-points. While Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is the most preferred brand for consumers' next purchase, with target users mainly the ones upgrading to their second smartphone. It said, "OnePlus leads the satisfaction index and retention rate among all Android OEMs. Overall, Xiaomi was the preferred brand for future purchases followed by Samsung and OnePlus. The study pointed out that Xiaomi remains the most preferred brand for users for their next smartphone purchase while Samsung was the second most preferred brand. This shows that value-for-money and brand awareness are important for growth. The purchase intention for Xiaomi smartphones was highest in Haryana, and Punjab, Counterpoint said. Meanwhile firm noticed that another Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus is ahead of some of the leading smartphone brands like OPPO, Vivo, Apple and Honor as the next preferred brand. OnePlus leads the satisfaction index (94 percent) and retention rate (88 percent) among all Android OEMs, suggesting that OnePlus is capitalizing on an aspirational target customer base with its value-for-money offering and high on mindshare. OnePlus purchase Intention was highest in Karnataka and Maharashtra. "Mobile phone users in India are becoming more sophisticated as many of them are on their second or third smartphone. We have seen advanced features diffusing through the mid-tier segment faster than ever before and users are finding these features attractive enough to upgrade," said Pavel Naiya, Senior Analyst, Consumer Lens. It took less than six months for some of the key flagship features of 2018 to reach the mid-tier market. It said Vivo is getting stronger in Southern India with the highest purchase intention coming from Tamil Nadu while 72 percent of respondents prefer Apple as their next smartphone brand in the $600 and above segment. The study also said that WhatsApp and paytm topped the most installed apps for communication and commerce. Hotstar is leading for video streaming, Jio Music for music streaming and UC Browser for web browsing. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Oppo R17 Neo with in-display fingerprint sensor announced, priced around Rs. 25,000 News oi-Abhinaya Prabhu Oppo R17 Neo is now official! Oppo has announced a new smartphone in Japan. Well, this device belongs to the Oppo R17 lineup and is dubbed R17 Neo. Notably, the company launched the R17 back in August in China. Later, the company announced the pricing of the device along with the launch of the R17 Pro with upgraded specifications. The highlights of the Oppo R17 Neo include the presence of an in-display fingerprint sensor, a 6.4-inch display, Snapdragon 660 SoC and more. The smartphone comes with a few changes in its specifications comparison to the other variants. Oppo R17 Neo specifications Oppo R17 Neo is fitted with a 6.41-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a resolution of 2340 x 1080 pixels. It has employ an octa-core Snapdragon 660 SoC clocked at 1.95GHz clubbed with 4GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage space, which can be expanded up to 256GB using a microSD card. The imaging department comprises of a dual-camera setup with 16MP + 2MP cameras at the rear and a 25MP selfie camera. For connectivity, this Oppo smartphone comes with 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, and dual SIM capabilities. There is an in-display fingerprint sensor on this smartphone. And, the device gets the power from a 3600mAh battery operating under its hood. On the software side, the Oppo R17 Neo is fueled by Android 8.1 Oreo topped with ColorOS 5.2. Oppo R17 Neo price The R17 Neo can be grabbed on a contract for JPY 3,218 (approx. Rs. 2,100) per month. However, the unlocked variant is priced at JPY 38,988 (approx. Rs. 25,000). However, the official Oppo Japan website doesn't provide any information regarding the pricing and other aspects. It has been launched in Astral Blue and Mocha Red gradient color variants. Notably, the Oppo R17 was launched for 3199 yuan (approx. Rs. 32,600) and 3499 yuan (approx. Rs. 35,600) for the two variants with 6GB/8GB RAM and 128GB storage space. On the other hand, the Oppo R17 Pro was launched in the company's home market for 4299 yuan (approx. 43,800). As of now, there is no word regarding the global availability of the Oppo R17 Neo, the latest offering in its lineup. We can expect an official word regarding the same to be announced by the company. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications Nokia confirms Android 9 Pie update for Nokia 3, Nokia 5 and Nokia 6 smartphones Reviews oi-Sandeep Sarkar Apart from Nokia 3, Nokia 5, and Nokia 6, the other Nokia devices which are expected to receive the Android Pie update includes Nokia 6, 6.1 Plus, 8 and 8 Sirocco. Earlier this month the Finnish smartphone giant HMD global had made an announcement that four of Nokia smartphones will get a stable Android 9 Pie update by November end this year. The Nokia devices which were lined up for the Android 9 Pie update included the Nokia 6.1, Nokia 6.1 Plus, Nokia 8 and Nokia 8 Sirocco. While the Nokia 7 already has Android 9 Pie, these smartphones are yet to receive the Android 9 Pie update. And if all of the aforementioned smartphones receive the Android 9 update then the total number of Nokia devices running on Android 9 Pie will be 5. As of now, there is no specific timeline mentioned as to when the aforementioned Nokia devices will receive the Android 9 Pie update apart from the fact that the update will be rolled out in November. However, the company has today confirmed the other smartphones which will receive the Android 9 Pie update. Nokia has confirmed that the Nokia 3, Nokia 5 and Nokia 6 will soon receive the official Android 9 Pie update. However, the update might be rolled out to these smartphones once the previously lined up devices receive the update. As Google first releases the new Android OS update to the chipset vendor before making it available for the handset maker, therefore the devices that have been lined up earlier will be receiving the update first. This is one of the primary reasons why Nokia releases the Android Pie update in a phased out manner rather than releasing it at once for all the devices. So if in case you own any of the above-mentioned handsets you will soon receive the Android 9 Pie update for the device. To recall, the Nokia 3 was launched in India back in June 2017. The smartphone comes with a budget price tag and like the other Nokia smartphones, it runs on stock Android UI. This means the smartphone comes first in line to receive the Android updates and security patches. The Nokia 3 packs a 5-inch IPS LCD display with a screen resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels. Powering the Nokia 3 is a quad-core MediaTek 6737 CPU paired with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. The internal memory is expandable up to 128GB via microSD card. Best Mobiles in India Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications The clause empowers the central government to order the RBI to take specific action on the issues that it considers to be of public interest. Even while counselling caution to Reserve Bank on regulatory steps, Mr Chowdhury said the government should not undermine institutions like RBI. Hyderabad: With the stand-off over the Reserve Bank of Indias autonomy reaching its fever pitch, economists advised caution as the showdown between them on a host of issues, including a proposal to dip into the central banks reserves, could impact the economy. The standoff is over three issues namely the governments a proposal to wean away RBIs regulatory powers over payments bank and the central banks approach towards bad loans and easy lending to MSMEs, said Subhanil Chowdhury, assistant professor at Institute of Development Studies. The other issues which reported have driven wedge between the Mint Road and the North Block are the governments proposal to dip into RBI reserves to fund its fiscal deficit. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the government has already invoked the never-used clause in Section 7 of the RBI Act to begin consultations with Reserve Bank. The clause empowers the central government to order the RBI to take specific action on the issues that it considers to be of public interest. While the difference of opinion between the Reserve Bank and the finance ministry officials is not new, the invocation of mandatory clause in the RBI Act hints at hardening of positions by both the authorities and complete breakdown of communications. Section 7 of the RBI Act was never used by any government in around 70 years. It was not used during economic stress in 1990s, or during the global recession in the aftermath of Lehman Brothers collapse or when US Feds tapper tantrums hit the economy badly in 2013. So the invocation of Section 7 by the government makes one wonder how bad is the economy, he explained. Mr Chowdhury said the invocation of Section 7 appears to be a step taken by the government in panic as the economic indicators like stocks, current account deficit and rupee are not favourably placed in the election season. We should have never gotten to this point," said Ananth Narayan, associate professor (finance) at SP Jain Institute of Management and Research in an interview to Bloomberg. He said the government may be trying using RBI's reserves to fund fiscal deficit. Rather than taking on long-term reforms, the government thinking of short-term steps. The entire ecosystem that was supposed to keep the system safe does not come out looking good. Even while counselling caution to Reserve Bank on regulatory steps, Mr Chowdhury said the government should not undermine institutions like RBI. If the government wants to create another regulator for payments banks or issue directions on how to operate, it indicates the government's lack of faith in the RBI's ability. If the government itself does not trust the RBI, how could it expect people have faith in it. Frances Mahon Deaconess Hospital hosted their annual health and wellness fair this past Saturday, Oct. 27, at the Glasgow Civic Center. For over 20 years, FMDH has hosted the annual event in an effort to educate the public on issues and ailments facing the world. This year was no exception and the fair featured 28 booths including displays as diverse as local law enforcement, the Valley County Health Department, Hi-Line Homes and various departments of FMDH including 5th Avenue Pharmacy, Patient Account Services and radiology. The MEGA Heart even made an appearance allowing all in attendance to walk through a replica of the human heart, complete with information on common heart deformities. The Zimmer Biomet Mobile Learning Center (MLC) was also available for attendees to walk through and view all of the different orthopedic treatments options available. The MLC is a traveling education vehicle that provides training and education on the different orthopedic topics and treatment options. Attendees were able to see the different parts used in knee replacement surgeries and how joints can be artificially fixed to provide further motion. "It's amazing what technology can do nowadays," one attendee said while touring the center and marveling at the various equipment and displays. "We put on a yearly health fair as a service to our community," explained FMDH Marketing Director Kyla Burns continuing, "We aim to increase the public's knowledge of health and wellness services that are offered in our area, as well as promote healthy living, disseminate important wellness information and offer screenings and flu shots." Burns praised the great turn out from the public and the sentiment of community support, "It is truly a testament of our area's commitment to health and wellness to see so much community involvement. I was thrilled to see so much local participation this year." In all, the fair administered 131 flu shots and handed out over 149 balloons to area children. Burns also praised the response to the mega-sized heart saying, "The MEGA Heart was a hit across the board, from young to old it had information . for everyone. It was 13 feet high by 15 feet wide by 26 feet long. We did private school tours on Friday to any classes in Valley County that wanted a chance to see it." The Valley County Health Department was recently awarded a $5,000 Barclay-Giel Seed Grant in order to improve their family planning program and to promote oral health in the community. The Department was one of 20 recipients countrywide to receive the funding in the programs inaugural year. We are pretty excited to be the only public health department in the state of Montana to be awarded this grant, said Director of Valley County Health Department Crystal Alvarado. Seeing all the countrywide programs that were funded, really showed us that for a small department the work we do is just as important as the larger organizations that are out there. The Department only asked for $2,000 when applying for the grant in order to purchase updated and modern equipment for the family planning program. According to the application submitted to the program, the equipment used for the family planning program was donated by FMDH after 20 years of use at the facility, and is over 30 years old. Improvements need to be made to make the exam table and necessary equipment more patient-friendly and modern, said Alvarado. The Department also requested funds to be able to purchase a medical-grade instrument table, a gel-positioning pillow and other supplies for the oral health program, which is a grant program through the state of Montana. The program offers fluoride varnish treatment to children six months to six years of age to promote healthy mouths and prevent disease through education and prevention. Studies show by age two most children have one or more cavities, and by age five nearly 50 percent of children have cavities. The gel-positioning pillow will allow children the opportunity to be more comfortable when the fluoride varnish is applied. We want to be able to continue to promote the importance of oral health in the community, stated Alvarado. In the application the Department stated: We are proud of the role we have in our community and want our clients to feel assured of our high standards of care reflected in an environment that instills confidence in our skills and our programs. The Barclay-Giel Seed Grants program is funded by the PHS Commissioned Officers Foundation for the Advancement of Public Health. The program supports community-based public health programs and organizations may apply for up to $5,000 to support their programs. The Seed Grants program is named after the late Martha Barclay-Giel, a retired Captain of the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service. Captain Barclay-Giel dedicated her lifes work to advancing the health of Americans. After retiring, she generously supported Commissioned Officers Foundation through considerable charitable donations. A rule in internet chat rooms is that two topics you are asked not to discuss are politics and religion. It is easy to understand that rule. Those two topics can cause violent reactions. Everyone has their own opinions and ideas about politics and religion and we should be able to discuss them in a respectful manner. But, as we know and lately have seen, that is not always the case. It is not only sad but heartbreaking as well to see whats been happening in our country and our world. There has been many ideas offered as to why, greed, power, hate, jealousy, just to name a few. In my opinion, one of the most basic reasons is disrespect. Disrespect of others ideas, beliefs, opinions. Even disrespect of lifestyles. In short, disrespect of each other. Disrespect isnt anything new. As my mother was hanging out the laundry, a woman said to her, I wouldnt hang those dirty pit clothes on my line for everyone to see. My Dad was a coal miner and the coal dust would cling to the fibers of his clothing. There was no way to completely get rid of it. My mothers reply was, You have seven children to raise. You dont know what kind of work your husband will do before they are all grown. Along the line of disrespect is one thing Ive long held to be wrong. That one thing is the reporting on political races long before the polls are closed nationwide. A question that may be asked is, What does it matter to someone in Montana who wins the congressional race in Vermont? It matters in the aspect of which political party has the most members in Congress. It used to be you didnt know until the morning after Election Day who won the offices up for grabs. Now before the polls in Hawaii are closed you pretty well know who the winners are for national offices. For me, it is unfair to those running for office for results to be given out on such an early basis for the western-most part of our nation. As well as what I consider wrong for early election results to be published, I also feel it is wrong for one candidate to be given more coverage than another for the same office. All candidates for an office should be afforded the same amount of time and coverage to offer their reasons for running. In conjunction with that I think that the time for campaigning should be limited. I see no reason for a political campaign to run for two years before the scheduled Election Day. What is a good length of time? How about six weeks? Perhaps if the time was shortened, candidates would spend their time on why they are running for office and what they hope to accomplish instead of all the negativity about their opponent. Not only that, it would cut the costs of campaigns. I find it to the point of obscene that candidates spend millions of dollars to try and get elected. And lastly, exercise one of the most important rights you have. In my opinion it is also an obligation. And that is to vote. But dont just vote for a candidate because a member of your family or friend is or because they are more pleasing to the eye than their opponent or you like the sound of their voice more. Vote for a candidate because you are convinced in your own mind they are the best person for the job. In the case of initiatives or amendments, research them. Know and understand what they are about -- the pros and cons. Dont just vote -- be an informed voter. If you are not an informed voter, you are doing a disservice to everyone, especially yourself. Dear Voters, Montana is special. That's why my wife, Susan, and I raised our four kids here. It's why we started a business here in our home one that created hundreds of high-paying, Montana jobs. And it's why I ran for Congress to protect our Montana way of life. I'm honored to serve as your lone voice in the U.S. House of Representatives. It's a responsibility I take very seriously. The only way I know to do this job is stay connected with Montanans where we live, work and recreate. In my first two months in office, I met with Montanans in each of our 56 counties and haven't stopped since. Our country has turned a corner. Under Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, the economy sputtered, our military grew weaker, our borders were open and the federal government grew too large. The American dream fell out of reach for too many Montanans. Today, we're better off than we were two years ago, and we can't afford to go back to the failed policies of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. Working with President Trump, we've achieved outstanding results. Our economy is thriving, our country is more secure and our communities are safer. President Trump and Republicans cut tax rates for all hardworking Montanans and doubled the child tax credit to make it easier to start a family and raise kids. In fact, a single, working mother of three in Helena has an extra $400 a month thanks to the tax cuts. She's thinking about getting a new used car. We reformed the tax code so Montana's Main Street businesses can grow and create jobs. A small business in Billings, which operates a fleet of helicopters, is investing in new equipment as well as research and development. Washington's red tape has tied up Montana businesses for too long. We've reviewed, rolled back and repealed unnecessary Obama-era regulations. Cutting taxes and cutting red tape are working for Montana. Our economy is booming. The unemployment rate is at a 49-year low. Wages are growing at their highest rate in nine years. The economy has created more than 2.5 million new American jobs in the last year, including thousands in Montana. Optimism is on the rise. Opportunities are growing. The American dream is coming into greater reach for more Montanans. I've also been working with President Trump to make our country more secure and our communities safer. We're rebuilding our military increasing the size of our armed forces and giving our troops the largest raise they've had in nine years. We're taking care of our veterans, so they have reliable access to the high-quality care they earned. We're equipping law enforcement to combat illegal drugs that are tearing apart our families and communities, and we're promoting treatment and recovery efforts for addicts. We're ending human trafficking, a modern form of slavery that targets young women and innocent children. I will always put Montana first, and I'm working with President Trump to protect our way of life. My first bill signed into law protects public access to our public lands. I will always defend the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Montanans against the threats of progressive politicians and liberal special interest groups. Having a seat at the table with President Trump has helped me deliver results for Montana, and I'm proud of what we're achieving a booming economy, a more secure America, and safer communities. Ultimately, this election is about competing ideas do you want someone who has achieved results with President Trump or someone who will be part of the resistance mob, standing alongside Nancy Pelosi and against President Trump? I humbly ask for your vote. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 31) Australian nun Patricia Fox will leave the country by November 3, her lawyers said Wednesday, following the denial of their request for the extension of her downgraded visa. Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra confirmed that the Bureau of Immigration (BI) did not allow Fox to stay in the country any longer. It earlier downgraded Fox's missionary visa to a temporary visitor's visa which expires on November 4. "I understand that her request for extension of her TVV (temporary visitor's visa) has been denied by the BI," Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, who has supervision over the BI, said in a text message to reporters. The BI has yet to release a statement on its decision. Fox's lawyers said she is "compelled to leave under strong protest." "We will not allow the government to forcibly expel Sr. Fox out of the country given her stature as a respected missionary nun and human rights defender neither will we give them the wicked pleasure of gloating over this injustice," Fox's legal counsel, the National Union of People's Lawyers (NUPL) said in a statement. Guevarra said the Justice Department will continue to study Fox's appeal on the BI's deportation order. "Her voluntary departure, if true, is without prejudice to the resolution of her deportation case. If she wins, then her name will be removed from the blacklist," Guevarra said. The 71-year-old nun was propelled into the spotlight when she was arrested and detained in April for attending protest rallies. The BI said her participation violated the conditions of her stay, but her lawyers argue that fighting for the rights of minorities is part of her missionary work. Fox's camp also maintains the gatherings she attended were not anti-government in nature. "Sr. Fox will leave the Philippines with a clear conscience that she has done nothing wrong and illegal during her 27 years of stay in the country," her lawyers said. They said Fox will continue to speak up for the rights of the Filipinos and eyes a return to the country after President Rodrigo Duterte's term. "She intends to come back in the Philippines as soon as President Duterte is out of power and another government more receptive of dissent and who recognizes missionary and human rights work is in place," her lawyers added. Fox's arrest, and a move to forfeit her missionary visa, was seen as another crackdown on dissent from Duterte's controversial administration. The President himself admitted that he was behind the BI probe on Fox, which led to her one-day detention for questioning. CNN Philippines' Regine Cabato contributed to this report. Market capitalisation (m-cap) of BSE-listed companies surged Rs 1,92,961.33 crore to Rs 1,38,45,109.37 crore. At the BSE, 1,613 stocks advanced, while 941 declined and 144 remained unchanged. New Delhi: Investor wealth soared Rs 1.92 lakh crore on Wednesday following a sharp rebound in the broader market where the BSE benchmark index rallied 550.92 points. The 30-share Sensex zoomed 550.92 points or 1.63 per cent to close at 34,442.05. In intra-day, the index had fallen by 303.89 points to 33,587.24. Investor sentiment turned positive after the Finance Ministry issued a statement to dampen concerns over a spat between the government and the RBI. Led by the improved sentiment, the market capitalisation (m-cap) of BSE-listed companies surged Rs 1,92,961.33 crore to Rs 1,38,45,109.37 crore. "After a volatile start, market sharply rebounded led by clarity over the independence of RBI by the Govt. Rupee pared some losses while strong global cues and stock specific actions supported the market to remain positive," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services Ltd. From the 30-share basket, 21 stocks ended with gains, led by HDFC, Induslnd Bank, Infosys and Axis Bank. In the broader market, the S&P BSE midcap index gained 1.56 per cent and the smallcap index rose 1.38 per cent. At the BSE, 1,613 stocks advanced, while 941 declined and 144 remained unchanged. Sector-wise, banking, IT, pharma and realty indices drove the market momentum. Chinese Intelligence Officers and Their Recruited Hackers and Insiders Conspired to Steal Sensitive Commercial Aviation and Technological Data for Years FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, October 30, 2018 Chinese intelligence officers and those working under their direction, which included hackers and co-opted company insiders, conducted or otherwise enabled repeated intrusions into private companies' computer systems in the United States and abroad for over five years. The conspirators' ultimate goal was to steal, among other data, intellectual property and confidential business information, including information related to a turbofan engine used in commercial airliners. The charged intelligence officers, Zha Rong and Chai Meng, and other co-conspirators, worked for the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security ("JSSD"), headquartered in Nanjing, which is a provincial foreign intelligence arm of the People's Republic of China's Ministry of State Security ("MSS"). The MSS, and by extension the JSSD, is primarily responsible for domestic counter-intelligence, non-military foreign intelligence, and aspects of political and domestic security. From at least January 2010 to May 2015, JSSD intelligence officers and their team of hackers, including Zhang Zhang-Gui, Liu Chunliang, Gao Hong Kun, Zhuang Xiaowei, and Ma Zhiqi, focused on the theft of technology underlying a turbofan engine used in U.S. and European commercial airliners. This engine was being developed through a partnership between a French aerospace manufacturer with an office in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, China, and a company based in the United States. Members of the conspiracy, assisted and enabled by JSSD-recruited insiders Gu Gen and Tian Xi, hacked the French aerospace manufacturer. The hackers also conducted intrusions into other companies that manufactured parts for the turbofan jet engine, including aerospace companies based in Arizona, Massachusetts and Oregon. At the time of the intrusions, a Chinese state-owned aerospace company was working to develop a comparable engine for use in commercial aircraft manufactured in China and elsewhere. Defendant Zhang Zhang-Gui is also charged, along with Chinese national Li Xiao, in a separate hacking conspiracy, which asserts that Zhang Zhang-Gui and Li Xiao leveraged the JSSD-directed conspiracy's intrusions, including the hack of a San Diego-based technology company, for their own criminal ends. "For the third time since only September, the National Security Division, with its US Attorney partners, has brought charges against Chinese intelligence officers from the JSSD and those working at their direction and control for stealing American intellectual property," said John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. "This is just the beginning. Together with our federal partners, we will redouble our efforts to safeguard America's ingenuity and investment." "State-sponsored hacking is a direct threat to our national security. This action is yet another example of criminal efforts by the MSS to facilitate the theft of private data for China's commercial gain," said U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman. "The concerted effort to steal, rather than simply purchase, commercially available products should offend every company that invests talent, energy, and shareholder money into the development of products." "The threat posed by Chinese government-sponsored hacking activity is real and relentless," said John Brown, FBI Special Agent in Charge of the San Diego Field Office. "Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with the assistance of our private sector, international and U.S. government partners, is sending a strong message to the Chinese government and other foreign governments involved in hacking activities. We are working together to vigorously investigate and hold hackers accountable regardless of their attempts to hide their illicit activities and identities." On October 10, the Department of Justice announced that a JSSD intelligence officer was extradited to the Southern District of Ohio, on charges that he attempted to steal trade secrets related to jet aircraft engines, and in September, in the Northern District of Illinois, a grand jury indicted a U.S. Army recruit who is accused of working as an agent of a JSSD intelligence officer, without notification to the Attorney General. As the indictment in the Southern District of California describes in detail, China's JSSD intelligence officers and hackers working at their direction masterminded a series of intrusions in order to facilitate intrusions and steal non-public commercial and other data. The hackers used a range of techniques, including spear phishing, sowing multiple different strains of malware into company computer systems, using the victim companies' own websites as "watering holes" to compromise website visitors' computers, and domain hijacking through the compromise of domain registrars. The first alleged hack began no later January 8, 2010, when members of the conspiracy infiltrated Capstone Turbine, a Los-Angeles-based gas turbine manufacturer, in order to steal data and use the Capstone Turbine website as a "watering hole." China's intelligence service also sought, repeatedly, to hack into a San Diego-based technology company from at least August 7, 2012 through January 15, 2014, in order to similarly steal commercial information and use its website as a "watering hole." Chinese actors used not only hacking methods to conduct computer intrusions and steal commercial information, they also coopted victim company employees. From at least November 2013 through February 2014, two Chinese nationals working at the direction of the JSSD, Tian Xi and Gu Gen, were employed in the French aerospace company's Suzhou office. On January 25, 2014, after receiving malware from an identified JSSD officer acting as his handler, Tian infected one of the French company's computers with malware at the JSSD officer's direction. One month later, on February 26, 2014, Gu, the French company's head of Information Technology and Security in Suzhou, warned the conspirators when foreign law enforcement notified the company of the existence of malware on company systems. That same day, leveraging that tip-off, conspirators Chai Meng and Liu Chunliang tried to minimize JSSD's exposure by causing the deletion of the domain linking the malware to an account controlled by members of the conspiracy. The group's hacking attempts continued through at least May of 2015, when an Oregon-based company, which, like many of the other targeted companies, built parts for the turbofan jet engine used in commercial airliners, identified and removed the conspiracy's malware from its computer systems. Count Two of the indictment charges a separate conspiracy to hack computers in which Zhang Zhang-Gui, a defendant charged in Count One, supplied his co-defendant and friend, Li Xiao, with variants of the malware that had been developed and deployed by hackers working at the direction of the JSSD on the hack into Capstone Turbine. Using malware supplied by Zhang, as well as other malware, Li launched repeated intrusions that targeted a San Diego-based computer technology company for more than a year and a half. These intrusions caused thousands of dollars of damage to protected computers. Count Three of the indictment charges Zhang Zhang-Gui with the substantive offense of computer hacking a San Diego technology company, which was one of the targets of the conspiracies alleged in Counts One and Two. The charges contained in the indictment are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. The FBI, led by the San Diego Field Office, conducted the investigation that resulted in charges announced today. This case is being prosecuted by Alexandra Foster and Sabrina Feve of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California and Jason McCullough of the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. The Criminal Division's Office of International Affairs also provided assistance in this matter, and the Department appreciates the cooperation and assistance provided by France's General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) and the Cybercrime Section of the Paris Prosecutor's Office during the investigation of this matter. Case Number: 13CR3132-H Attachment(s): Download Indictment Topic(s): Cyber Crime National Security Component(s): National Security Division (NSD) Press Release Number: 18-1416 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Budgets $22.1Bln for Military Intelligence Programs in 2018 Pentagon Sputnik News 19:08 30.10.2018 WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The US budget for military intelligence in fiscal 2018, which ended on September 30, was $22.1 billion, the Department of Defense disclosed in a press release on Tuesday. "The total MIP [Military Intelligence Program] budget, which included both the base budget and Overseas Contingency Operations appropriations, was $22.1 billion," the release stated. The Defense Department did not reveal additional MIP budget figures or program details, as they remain classified for national security reasons. The MIP is devoted to intelligence activity conducted by the military departments and agencies in the Department of Defense that support tactical US military operations, according to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) website. The US intelligence budget has two major components: the MIP and the National Intelligence Program, which had a top line budget of $57.7 billion in 2018, the DNI disclosed earlier. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. to keep backing freedom of navigation in Taiwan Strait: Navy ROC Central News Agency 2018/10/30 14:44:19 Manila, Oct. 29 (CNA) The United States military will continue to advocate for free navigation through international waters, including those in the Taiwan Strait, a top U.S. Navy official said Monday, a week after the Navy sent warships through the strait. "Parts of the Taiwan Strait are international waters. They are accessible to all who want to pass through them," said U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson at a press conference in the Philippines. "They're part of the global commons, which is the foundation for free navigation, and so in this area, the United States and the United States Navy will continue to advocate for free navigation through those international waters, where we will operate and sail and fly or enter wherever international law allows," Richardson said. The U.S. official's comments were made in response to a question from CNA on how he sees the current situation in the Taiwan Strait and what the U.S. military will do to help maintain peace and stability there. He was non-committal on what operations the U.S. might have planned in the region for the future. "I think it's not healthy to speculate on those sorts of things, but you can count on us to be persistent and consistent advocates for freedom of navigation through international waters," he said. His pledge came after two American ships, shadowed by Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) warships, sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Oct. 22 and a Chinese destroyer came dangerously close to an American Navy ship in the disputed South China Sea in September. The ships' passage were predictably criticized by China, though Beijing's response was relatively muted. Richardson said the U.S. Navy will keep pressing for freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and elsewhere and will continue to communicate with the PLA on the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES). Meanwhile, noting that the Philippines and the other ASEAN claimant states in the South China Sea are negotiating a code of conduct (COC) to govern their actions in the sea, Richardson said any progress is a move in the right direction, whether the code is legally binding or not. Richardson was in the Philippines to reaffirm strong U.S.-Philippines relations. (By Emerson Lim and Evelyn Kao) Enditem/ls NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Yemeni army shoots down 2 Saudi spy drones IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Oct 30, IRNA -- The air defense units of the Yemeni army and popular forces shot down two Saudi spy drones on Monday, Almasirah news network reported. Almasirah said one drone was downed in Jizan, south of Saudi Arabia and the other in the western coast of Al-Hudaydah Province. Earlier on Saturday, the Yemeni army 's air defense unit had downed another Saudi drone in Jizan region. Meanwhile, the Yemeni army forces in an operation in AL Jawf Province Monday night killed scores of mercenaries affiliated to the Saudi-led Arab coalition. Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the country's Houthi Ansarullah movement. Some 16,000 Yemenis have been killed and thousands more injured since the onset of the Saudi-led aggression. 1396**1396 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 24th MEU executes amphibious assault during Trident Juncture 18 US Marine Corps News By Lance Cpl. Margaret Gale | 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit | October 30, 2018 The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit conducted an amphibious landing in Alvund, Norway, Oct. 29, 2018, during Exercise Trident Juncture 18. The exercise allowed the MEU to rehearse their amphibious and expeditionary capabilities in a unique environment in support of partner nations. Norway is a NATO Ally and hosted this year's exercise which provided challenging terrain and weather for the participating Marines. Training in challenging conditions helps acclimate the forces to the elements and enhances their combat readiness. The amphibious landing consisted of a surface assault and an air assault to display the MEU's ability to rapidly project combat power ashore. Battalion Landing Team 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Division arrived ashore with roughly 700 Marines, 12 Amphibious Assault Vehicles, six Light Armored Vehicles, and 21 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, all designed to increase the lethality of the infantry Marines. Marines arrived at the beach landing site and transitioned to follow on operations at subsequent objectives around Alvund. All operations were conducted within the exercise scenario against mock enemy forces which required the Marines to make decisions in real time. "We came to the North Atlantic looking for a challenge and Trident Juncture delivered; throughout the exercise the environment forced us to be flexible and adaptive," said Maj. Anthony Bariletti, the 24th MEU operations officer. "It is the adaptability that makes Marine Expeditionary Units such a lethal crisis response force. As Marines, we gain our lethality from the ability to operate as part of a naval integrated team. The ability to conduct amphibious operations in the premier core competency of our service and this exercise provided an outstanding opportunity for the 24th MEU to hone its skills and prepare for combat as a forward deployed, sea-based Marine Air-Ground Task Force." Throughout the training exercise, the MEU was able to provide strategic speed and agility while operating in international waters and retaining flexibility in support of NATO Allies and partners. Trident Juncture allowed the Marines to operate from the sea with their Navy counterparts and increase interoperability. The success of Trident Juncture will lead to more combat-ready forces capable of proficiently supporting combat operations and humanitarian activities across the globe. "I'm extremely proud of how hard the Marines and Sailors have been working throughout the exercise," said Sgt. Maj. Christopher Garza, the 24th MEU sergeant major. "They have endured the challenging cold weather conditions and long work days. It's great to come together and display our capabilities as a MEU and the Marines and Sailors are the ones who make it happen. All the training and preparation they put in has paid off and my hat's off to them on a job well done up to this point." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address USS Shoup Arrives in American Samoa as Part of OMSI Deployment Navy News Service Story Number: NNS181030-04 Release Date: 10/30/2018 9:11:00 AM From Commander, U.S. 3rd Fleet Public Affairs PAGO PAGO, AMERICAN SAMOA (NNS) -- Guided-missile destroyer USS Shoup (DDG 86) arrived in Pago Pago October 27 as part of the ship's Oceania Maritime Security Initiative (OMSI) deployment. OMSI is a Secretary of Defense program that leverages Department of Defense assets transiting the region to improve maritime security and maritime domain awareness, ultimately supporting maritime law enforcement operations in Oceania. "I am proud of our Sailors' accomplishments and the dedication they have shown towards supporting our partners in Oceania" said Cmdr. Andy Strickland, commanding officer of USS Shoup. "This is our crew's first time pulling into American Samoa, and we are excited to experience Samoan culture and engage with the local community." Shoup last pulled in to American Samoa in 2006. During this visit, Shoup Sailors will have the opportunity to give back to the locals by participating in several community outreach events including visiting a local elementary school and playing sports. Commander, U.S. Third Fleet leads naval forces in the Pacific and provides realistic, relevant training necessary for an effective global Navy. They coordinate with Commander, U.S. Seventh Fleet to plan and execute missions based on their complementary strengths to promote ongoing peace, security, and stability. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address If indeed the government has issued directives to the RBI, then its governor should resign forthwith, said former finance minister Yashwant Sinha. The finance ministry statement said both the government and the central bank, in their functioning, have to be guided by the public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy. New Delhi: Amid the escalation of the standoff between the Central government and the Reserve Bank over the past week, the finance ministry on Wednesday assured that the government respects the central banks autonomy within the framework of the RBI Act. This is being seen as a softening of the governments stand. The autonomy of the central bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential and accepted governance requirement. Govern-ments in India have nurtured and respected this, said a finance ministry statement. Relations between the Centre and the RBI appeared to worsen after reports that the finance ministry sent three letters under Section 7(1) of the RBI Act for consultations that gives North Block the power to issue any direction to the RBI governor on matters of public interest. These letters deals with the relaxation in lending restrictions on some banks by removing them from Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) and easing NPA norms for power companies. This will be the first time that the government will be using this provision in the 84-year history of the RBI. In the morning there was speculation that RBI governor Urjit Patel may resign if he was forced by the Centre to follow its orders by evoking Section 7(1), which will undermine his autonomy. However, the RBI governor has reportedly called a board meeting on November 19 to discuss contentious issues raised by the government, indicating that he may not be resigning, at least not immediately. If indeed the government has issued directives to the RBI, then its governor should resign forthwith, said former finance minister Yashwant Sinha. In the evening, finance minister Arun Jaitley said that communications between the government and the central bank have never been disclosed. This showed that the government felt the RBI was to blame for the worsening of relations between Mint Street and North Block. The finance ministry statement said both the government and the central bank, in their functioning, have to be guided by the public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy. For this purpose, it said, extensive consultations on several issues take place between the government and the RBI from time to time. This, the finance ministry noted, is equally true of all regulators. The Government of India has never made public the subject matter of those consultations. Only the final decisions taken are communicated, said the statement. It said the government, through these consultations, places its assessment on issues and suggests possible solutions. The government will continue to do so, it added. Tensions between the finance ministry and Mint Street escalated after RBI deputy governor Viral Acharya had warned in a speech last week that undermining a central banks independence could be potentially catastrophic. The finance ministry is upset with the central bank for publicly talking about a rift with the government. In his speech, Mr Acharya cited the Argentine governments meddling in its central banks affairs in 2010 as an example of what can go wrong. Governments that do not respect the central banks independence will sooner or later incur the wrath of financial markets, ignite economic fire, and come to rue the day they undermined an important regulatory institution, Mr Acharya said. The differences between the finance ministry and the RBI emerged over a number of issues, including capital norms, independent payments regulator, NBFC liquidity, oversight of PSU banks and NPA recognition rules, among other matters. We did not invoke Section 7 in 1991 or 1997 or 2008 or 2013. What is the need to invoke the provision now? It shows that the government is hiding facts about the economy and is desperate, said former finance minister P. Chidambaram. 'Saudi-led coalition sends 10,000 of troops to Hudaydah ahead of new offensive' Iran Press TV Tue Oct 30, 2018 04:04PM The Saudi-led military coalition has sent 10,000 of troops to Yemen's Hudaydah ahead of a fresh offensive against the blockaded port city, a report says. Leading a coalition of its allies, including the United Arab Emirates and Sudan, Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall Yemen's former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who resigned amid popular discontent and fled to the Arab kingdom. Since the onset of the imposed war, the Yemeni army, backed by fighters of the country's popular Houthi Ansarullah movement, has been defending the impoverished nation against the brutal aggression. The coalition is also resolute to crush the movement as another goal in its war on Yemen, which is teetering on the edge of famine. More than three and a half years into the war, Saudi Arabia has achieved neither of its objectives. Riyadh had declared at the start of the invasion that the war would take no more than a couple of weeks. Back in June, coalition forces, backed by armed militia loyal to Hadi, launched a full-scale offensive against the Houthi-held Hudaydah, which is currently under a tight siege imposed by the invaders. The so-called liberation operation, however, failed to achieve its objective, which is overrunning the vital port and defeating Houthi fighters, backed by those from the Popular Committees. Citing an unnamed military official from Hadi's so-called government, AFP reported on Tuesday that the pro-Hadi coalition would deploy reinforcements to the Red Sea coast ahead of a new offensive on Hudaydah "within days." The official further claimed that they would "secure areas liberated" from Houthi fighters, adding that Sudanese forces had moved in to "secure" areas around the city, through whose docks over 70 percent of Yemen's imports used to pass. Over the past several month, humanitarian organizations have warned that military operations against Hudaydah threaten to cut off essential supplies to millions of Yemeni people. More than 70 percent of Yemen's imports pass through Hudaydah's docks. The coalition claims Houthis are using Hudaydah for weapons delivery, an allegation rejected by Ansarullah fighters. Yemenis target Saudi base in Asir Meanwhile, Yemen's Arabic-language al-Masirah satellite television network, citing a military source, reported that Yemeni forces had targeted a new military base in Saudi Arabia's southwestern province of Asir with a short-range Badr-1 missile, adding that the projectile had struck the designated target with precision. The official also said that the retaliatory missile strike had inflicted heavy human and material damage. The aggression initially consisted of a bombing campaign, but was later coupled with a naval blockade and the deployment of ground forces to Yemen. According to a new report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has so far claimed the lives of around 56,000 Yemenis. The Saudi-led war has also taken a heavy toll on the country's infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years. A number of Western countries, the United States and Britain in particular, are also accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Taliban Floggings Hint At New Crackdown On Smartphones Frud Bezhan October 30, 2018 The scenes of a public flogging in a Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan showed two women in blue burqas kneeling nearly motionless as a man beat them over their heads and bodies with a cane. The women, whose names have not been released, had been found guilty of breaking the Taliban's strict interpretation of Shari'a law after police said they visited a local health clinic without a male relative being present. They were also said to have been seen by Taliban fighters communicating on mobile phones. While the fundamentalist Taliban has long forced women to be accompanied by a male relative when venturing outside their homes, reports of the second charge appear to point to the recent enforcement of strictures on the use of mobile devices, particularly smartphones, in militant-controlled areas. It was unclear if the women, both of whom were married, were punished simply for using the phones or specifically for communicating with men outside their immediate families -- a charge that has led to public floggings in the past. While men on mobile devices are a common sight, local conservative culture frequently frowns on women using mobile phones in public. Fear Of Drone Strikes, Surveillance Obaid Ali, an expert on the Afghan insurgency at the Afghanistan Analysts Network, an independent think tank in Kabul, says the Taliban's cultural commission banned all fighters from using smartphones in 2016 for security and religious reasons. Since then, Ali says, the militants have enforced the ban on civilians in some areas under their control. But he says primitive mobile phones without Internet access or the ability to record images or video are tolerated in many of those same locations, which frequently lack fixed-line telephone services. "One of the main reasons the Taliban banned smartphones was because of the growing threat of U.S. drone strikes and surveillance," says Ali. "The Taliban also fears smartphones being used among civilians because people can access independent information, take photos and videos, and might give away the militants' activities and locations." The Taliban has restricted mobile-phone use in most areas under its control. In parts of the southern Helmand Province, mobile phones and the Internet are banned. Taliban fighters communicate via walkie-talkies. In the northern Kunduz Province, where Taliban fighters control several districts, the group has forced mobile service providers to switch off coverage every day between 6:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Brutal Punishments It was unclear if the women who were flogged in Jawzjan were using smartphones. The incident occurred in the Beron Sena area of the Darzab district, a former stronghold of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, which was ousted from the area by the rival Taliban and government forces in August. Mohammad Ismail, Darzab's chief of police, this week confirmed that the floggings had taken place and said the incident occurred about 10 days ago. He said the women had since returned to their homes. The news of the floggings only reached mainstream Afghan media on October 28. Videos purportedly showing the punishments have since been widely shared on social media. ''Moral Crimes' This is not the first time the Taliban, which ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, has meted out public punishments for so-called moral crimes. In the northern province of Faryab, a young girl was publicly flogged in a market last month for not being accompanied by a male relative. Moral offenses, including adultery or even running away from home, are not considered crimes under the Afghan Criminal Code. But hundreds of women and girls have nevertheless been imprisoned after "immorality" verdicts by courts dominated by religious conservatives. In some rural areas, where Taliban militants exert considerable influence, residents view government bodies as corrupt or unreliable and turn to Taliban courts to settle disputes. The Taliban courts employ Shari'a law, which prescribes public flogging, stoning, or execution for men or women found guilty of having a relationship outside marriage or an extramarital affair and for women who had contact with men outside their immediate families. Recent years have seen a spate of chilling public punishments of women accused of such offenses. In February 2017, an armed mob killed an 18-year-old woman and the man she had eloped with in the eastern Nuristan Province. In October 2015, 19-year-old Rokhsana was stoned to death by Taliban militants in the central Ghor Province after being accused of having premarital sex. In November 2015, a 26-year-old Afghan woman died of her injuries after being publicly lashed, also in Ghor. She had been accused of running away from home. In August 2016, also in Ghor Province, a young man and woman found guilty of having sex outside marriage were publicly lashed. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/taliban-floggings-new- crackdown-smartphones/29573464.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address NATO Chief Expects Russian 'Professionalism' As Both Prepare For War Games RFE/RL October 30, 2018 NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says he expects Russia to behave in a "professional" manner as the Russian Navy and the Western military alliance both conduct exercises in the same area in waters off Norway's coast this week. Speaking on October 30 as he attended NATO's Trident Juncture war games in his native Norway, Stoltenberg reiterated that the alliance was informed last week about Russia's planned tests of missiles in international waters off the Scandinavian country's coast from November 1-3. The missile tests and Trident Juncture exercises -- NATO's largest since the end of the Cold War -- come amid persistent tension between the alliance and Russia. The Kremlin accuses the alliance of provocative behavior near its borders, while NATO has sharply criticized the annexation of Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, as well as Moscow's backing of separatists in an ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine. Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, sought to ease tensions, saying this wasn't the first time exercises have been held near each other "without creating a dangerous or difficult situation." "So, I'm absolutely confident that the Russian forces will behave in a responsible way and act safely as will, of course, the NATO forces," he added. The NATO chief also said the alliance will monitor the Russian missile-firing tests, which he said "will not change the plan of our exercise." On October 29, a spokesman for Avinor, which operates Norwegian airports and air-navigation services, said Russia had informed it about the three-day missile tests in a so-called NOTAM, a notice to pilots about potential hazards along a flight route. The spokesman, Erik Lodding, told the dpa news agency that the message was "routine." The missile tests are to take place west of the coastal cities of Kristiansund, Molde, and Alesund. The Trident Juncture drills will stretch from the North Atlantic Ocean to the Baltic Sea. The live-field drills, which Stoltenberg called a "necessary exercise" to "send a strong signal of unity," are set to run until November 7. They will involve around 50,000 soldiers, 10,000 vehicles, 250 aircraft, and ships from all 29 NATO allies, plus partners Finland and Sweden. The aim of the exercise, which has drawn criticism from Moscow, is to practice the alliance's response to an attack on one of its members. Stoltenberg said NATO had invited observers from member states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), including Russia, to watch the exercises and will use the NATO-Russia Council to brief Moscow on the drills. Conversely, NATO has accused Russia of failing to meet its international commitments by lacking transparency about its war games. Russia held large military exercises called Zapad-2017 (West-2017) in September 2017 in its western regions jointly with Belarus, which borders several NATO countries, and last month conducted massive drills across its central and eastern regions. Ambassadors from the 29 NATO countries are set to meet Russian officials on October 31 for the first meeting of the NATO-Russia Council since May. The discussions are also expected to cover the situation in Ukraine and the war in Afghanistan. No details of the agenda have been announced, but an unidentified European diplomat was quoted as saying that Moscow asked for talks on a decades-old nuclear arms agreement between the United States and Russia. U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this month declared his intention to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, citing alleged Russian violations since 2014 and concern that China is not covered by its ban on ground-launched short- and intermediate-range ballistic and cruise missiles. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on October 30 warned that Washington's withdrawal from the 1987 accord would have "serious consequences" for Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the U.S. plan could lead to a new "arms race." With reporting by AP, dpa, and AFP Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/nato-chief-expects- russian-professionalism-as-both-prepare -for-war-games/29573545.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pashinian's Bid To Force Snap Elections Advances In Armenian Parliament RFE/RL's Armenian Service October 30, 2018 Armenia's acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian's parliamentary faction has nominated him for the top post for the second time in a week, executing part of a plan to force snap elections that could increase his dominance four months after he came to power. The nomination by the Yelk faction, backed by an allied grouping and some independent lawmakers, was a tactical move meant to lead to the dissolution of parliament and early elections, Yelk faction leader Lena Nazarian told RFE/RL on October 30. A former opposition lawmaker, Pashinian took office in May after spearheading weeks of protests that prompted the resignation his long-ruling predecessor, Serzh Sarkisian of the Republican Party of Armenia (HKK). Since his My Step political alliance scored a landslide victory in municipal elections in Yerevan in September, Pashinian has been pushing for an early parliamentary vote in a bid to unseat the HHK, which has maintained a majority in the legislature. He stepped down on October 16 to pave the way for the dissolution of the current National Assembly, in which he controls only a handful of seats. Under the Armenian Constitution, snap elections can be called only if the prime minister resigns and the parliament fails to replace him or her within two weeks. New elections must be held no more than 45 days after that happens. Yelk first nominated Pashinian as prime minister on October 23 and lawmakers rejected the nomination the next day. The second nomination required the signatures of one-third of the lawmakers in parliament. Yelk, which has only nine seats in the 105-member National Assembly, was backed by the Tsarukian Bloc's 31 lawmakers as well as four lawmakers who earlier quit the HHK faction. Pashinian's candidacy is again expected to be rejected in a vote scheduled for November 1. If that happens, it would trigger the dissolution of parliament and snap elections in the first half of December. Speaking to RFE/RL on October 30, HHK spokesman and deputy parliament speaker Eduard Sharmazanov confirmed that the party will not raise obstacles to the dissolution of parliament by fielding its own candidate or voting for Pashinian. Sharmazanov also reiterated criticism of the current government and its head, saying that "Pashinian is an eloquent speaker, but a poor prime minister." In a setback for Pashinian, he has been unable to muster enough votes to adopt legislation that would change the mechanism for distributing parliament seats, which critics believe favored the HHK in April 2017 elections. Pashinian's Civil Contract Party formed the Yelk alliance together with two other parties ahead of the 2017 elections. After winning seats in parliament, those two parties withdrew support for Pashinian during the protests he led in April 2018, only to back him again after the protests pushed Sarkisian from power. Yelk now exists only as a parliamentary faction. My Step, which was formed by Pashinian after the success of the protest movement, consists of his Civil Contract Party and a number of activists who supported the protests. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/pashinian-s- bid-to-force-snap-elections-advances-in- armenian-parliament/29572912.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US, China 'Will Meet More and More on High Seas' Navy Chief Richardson Sputnik News 16:16 30.10.2018(updated 16:17 30.10.2018) Tensions between Washington and Beijing were ramped up last month following an incident involving a US Navy destroyer nearly colliding with a Chinese warship in the South China Sea, a contested sea zone where the US military has been making demonstrative 'freedom of navigation' missions in recent years. The US and China "will meet each other more and more on the high seas" following last month's incident involving the USS Decatur and a Chinese vessel which the US has accused of attempting to shove out of the area, Chief of US Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson said on Tuesday, according to Reuters. Richardson made the statement in Jakarta, where he met with his Indonesian counterpart for talks about US-Indonesian naval cooperation and the two countries' commitment "to growing" their "strategic partnership." Richardson also said that the US would monitor Russian-Chinese naval cooperation "with interest" as it continues to grow. The admiral made the remarks a day after wrapping up his visit to the Philippines, which he also characterized as a steadfast friend, partner and ally in the region. Indonesia and the Philippines are two of the six regional countries including China, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, as well as Taiwan, with claims to portions of the South China Sea, a strategically and economically crucial waterway through which some $5 trillion in annual global trade passes. Last month, a US Pacific Fleet spokesman accused a Chinese destroyer of approaching the USS Decatur in an "unsafe and unprofessional" way, with photos released later showing the two warships drifting to within a distance of less than 45 meters. On Monday, Richardson promised that September's incident would not stop the US Navy from carrying out "freedom of navigation operations" either in the region, or anywhere else for that matter. "We do dozens of these operations around the world to indicate our position [on]illegitimate claims, maritime claims," the admiral said. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi responded to the admiral's Monday remarks, commenting on how some "non-regional countries" fuel tensions by "showing off their force" in the disputed waters. Earlier, Cui Tiankai, China's ambassador to the US, called the destroyer incident an intervention "at China's doorstep," not unlike that which would follow if Chinese warships appeared off of the coast of California or in the Gulf of Mexico. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 80,000 youngsters at risk in DRC after forcible expulsion from Angola: UNICEF 30 October 2018 - Tens of thousands of children who have been forcibly returned from Angola to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) need help urgently, UN Children's Fund UNICEF said on Tuesday. The warning concerns at least 80,000 youngsters who are part of a more than 300,000-strong wave of people who have mostly arrived in DRC's troubled Kasais region since the start of the month. "UNICEF estimates that among the returnees more than 80,000 are children, and these children are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance," spokesperson Christophe Boulierac told journalists in Geneva. The alert follows a warning by the UN's human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, that the forcible mass expulsion of Congolese migrants from Angola had resulted in "serious human rights violations by security forces on both sides of the border". Some youngsters described having to leave Angola in a rush, after official efforts to reform the country's diamond mining industry, which reportedly also involved ethnic violence and the destruction of DRC migrant workers' homes. Extortion In addition to suffering from hunger and bad weather, those expelled from Angola have also faced extortion at checkpoints along the country's border with DRC, UNICEF said in a statement. The influx of so many people to the Kasais is particularly concerning because the once relatively peaceful region was gripped by deadly conflict between local and government forces in 2016 and 2017 that destroyed vital public services. "There was a very, very serious crisis of malnutrition in Kasai and these children are coming in a very bad condition from Angola," Mr Boulierac said, before adding that dangerously low levels of blood sugar - hypoglycaemia had been diagnosed in some youngsters. "Some of them are suffering from hypoglycaemia and there might be an increase of malnutrition, acute malnutrition, which makes a child more vulnerable to all kinds of disease." UNICEF's immediate concerns about a rise in malnutrition levels have been heightened by the rapid increase in food prices. In Kamako, Kasai province, the cost of corn has doubled since the start of the crisis. Non-accompanied Children As the UN agency ramps up its humanitarian aid effort which includes installing safe drinking water points and emergency shelters in 27 settlement sites - it is also concerned about an as-yet unknown number of particularly vulnerable children travelling alone. "In Kamako, in the province of Kasai, we have listed 162 non-accompanied children, children who are alone," Mr Boulierac said. "That's only in Kamako, and there are many other places." Authorities are also wary of a resurgence of epidemics linked to the new arrivals, who are crowded into churches and markets in small border towns, the UNICEF spokesperson said, noting that illnesses including cholera and malaria are already endemic in DRC. To help the returnee children and their families, UNICEF has appealed for $3 million to fund its immediate response. An additional $6 million will be needed to support the resettlement of returned populations to their home or host areas, the UN agency said in a statement. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ex-Guantanamo Taliban Prisoners Join Team Negotiating Peace with US By Ayaz Gul October 30, 2018 Five senior Afghan Taliban leaders, who were swapped for the freedom of an American hostage in 2014, have been "re-activated" and made part of the Islamist insurgency's Qatar-based "political office" holding peace talks with the United States. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told VOA on Tuesday the men formally assumed the role of "political negotiators" the previous day at a ceremony in its office in Doha, the capital of the Gulf state. "They have rested enough and practically resumed service (to the Taliban)," he added. The United States released them from its Guantanamo detention center to authorities in Qatar in June 2014, in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the only American soldier taken prisoner by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Mullah Fazal Muhammad, former Taliban army chief, and Mullah Abdul Haq, former spy chief, are among the group of five insurgent leaders. The induction of the five senior Taliban members in its political office follows two known rounds of direct talks Washington has held with the insurgent group in Qatar since late July in a bid to seek a negotiated end to the Afghan war. Newly appointed U.S. envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, led the latest meeting with the Taliban in Doha earlier this month. "The fact that these persons have become active again will certainly have a big impact," Mujahid told VOA when asked whether the new appointments would help further the nascent peace dialogue with the U.S. There was no immediate reaction available from Washington to the Taliban's move nor have authorities in Qatar commented on it. The Qatari government, under the deal that led to the release of Taliban commanders four years ago, was bound until now to prevent the former Guantanamo prisoners from leaving the country or participating in any political activity related to the insurgency. Analysts say U.S. tacit approval might have played a role in allowing the senior insurgent officials to join the nascent political dialogue process. Adam Weinstein, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps who served in Afghanistan, says the tentative U.S.-Taliban dialogue could pave the ground for securing a political solution to the conflict. "I am not in the room so I don't known what terms are being discussed. But if the U.S. is serious, Pakistan is serious and the Taliban are serious, and the Afghan government is serious, I think there is a possibility," Weinstein told VOA. He currently is in Islamabad delivering public talks on regional security issues. "The Taliban certainly have a decent amount of leverage right now. They have regained significant territories. Virtually every district that my task force took from the Taliban is now back in the Taliban's hands. So, they are negotiating from a position of strength," noted Weinstein. Last week, neighboring Pakistan also set free the former deputy supreme leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, along with another senior member of the insurgency who had spent years in custody. It was not clear whether Bradar's release had anything to do with the Qatar peace process talks. "Mullah Bradar and Mullah Samad Sani were released by Pakistan in line with its commitment to facilitate peace process in Afghanistan.. We remain committed to an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process," an official Pakistani statement said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN: Congolese Children Deported From Angola Face Humanitarian Crisis By Lisa Schlein October 30, 2018 The U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) reports that more than 80,000 children are among 330,000 Congolese migrants expelled by the Angolan government since the start of October. The migrants were sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo's volatile Kasai Province, where ethnic tensions triggered a brutal conflict in 2016. According to UNICEF, the migrant children, many of whom lived most of their lives in Angola, are dealing with dire conditions. Thousands of them are walking long distances in bad weather with little to eat or drink, and are exposed to violence. UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac said there is a rising fear of disease, and that the agency is very worried about the health of the children and their families. "There was a very, very serious crisis of malnutrition in Kasai and these children are coming in a very bad situation, very bad conditions from Angola," he told VOA. "Some of them are suffering from hypoglycemia. And, there might be an increase of malnutrition, acute malnutrition, which makes a child more vulnerable to all kinds of disease." Boulierac said cholera, measles, and malaria are of particular concern and measures are being taken to try to prevent the spread of these illnesses. He said UNICEF is installing chlorination points, hand washing stations, and emergency latrines. He said efforts are also underway to reunite children separated from their families and to provide those who are traumatized by their experience with psycho-social counseling. The Congolese migrants, forcibly expelled by Angola, had been working in the country's informal mining sector. UNICEF reports children as young as 13 and 14 were part of the illegal work force. Angola's government has reportedly cracked down on the activity with the aim of reducing diamond smuggling and making the mining industry more transparent. But it has also denied allegations of mass expulsions and brutality, maintaining the migrants returned home voluntarily. The U.N. human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, called the mass movement an expulsion. She said the influx of migrants could trigger a renewal of inter-ethnic violence in Kasai Province. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israel, Boeing Sign Multibillion Dollar Reciprocal Spending Deal Sputnik News 03:02 31.10.2018(updated 03:07 31.10.2018) Boeing has agreed to spend billions of dollars over the coming decade in Israel in the event that it is awarded major defense contracts by Tel Aviv. The "reciprocal procurement" agreement says Boeing will collaborate with Israeli industries for at least 35 percent of the value of any transaction with the Israeli government. Boeing is vying for several crucial Defense Ministry contracts, such as the purchase of additional F-15 aircraft, fueling planes and transport helicopters, Israel's Economy Ministry said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Israel expects to make about $10 billion worth of military purchases from Boeing over the next decade, which would translate to the company investing about $3.5 billion in Israeli businesses, the ministry added. The agreement would not only benefit the US aerospace company but also could placate Israel regarding requirements in a US aid package which diverted the use of US funds away from local Israeli businesses. "A reciprocal procurement agreement of this magnitude is a significant achievement that will lead to the growth of many companies in the economy, increase their activity and also their success in international markets," said Israeli Economy Minister Eli Cohen. Under the terms of an official deal between the US and Israel signed in 2016 by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-US President Barack Obama, the United States government agreed to provide $38 billion in military assistance to Israel over the decade. However, that agreement phased out a stipulation which had long allowed Israel to use 26.3 percent of US military aid for purchases from its own defense industry instead of buying American-made weapons. Thus, all $38 billion of the deal will have to be spent on US equipment by 2026. Israel's new deal with Boeing will partially offset its domestic industry losses from that change. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 5,200 Active-Duty Personnel Moving to Southwest Border, Northcom Chief Says Oct. 29, 2018 By Jim Garamone Defense.gov WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department will deploy more than 5,000 active-duty personnel to aid the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection "to harden the southern border," said Air Force Gen. Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy, the commander of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Command. "Border security is national security," the general said at a news conference at the Ronald Reagan Building here, today. He briefed the press alongside U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan. The active-duty troops will be participating in Operation Faithful Patriot, the general said. "As we sit here today, we have about 800 soldiers who are on their way to Texas," the general said. The troops are coming from Fort Campbell and Fort Knox, Kentucky. "By the end of this week we will deploy over 5,200 soldiers to the Southwest border," he said. "That is just the start of this operation. We will continue to adjust the numbers and inform you of those." The active duty soldiers will join 2,092 National Guardsmen participating in Operation Guardian Support. The deployment "fully adheres to our current authorities and governed by law and policy," the general said. The troops that deploy with weapons will carry them, the general said. The troops will be in support of law enforcement with Customs and Border Protection, McAleenan said. The agency is facing something new. "What is new and challenging about this caravan phenomenon is the formation of multiple large groups, which present unique safety and border security threats," he said at the news conference. "Due to the large size of the potential caravans that may arrive at the border, however, the Department of Homeland Security has further requested the support of the Department of Defense." The agency has requested aid in air and ground transportation, and logistics support, to move CBP personnel where needed. Officials also asked for engineering capabilities and equipment to secure legal crossings, and medical support units. CBP also asked for housing for deployed Border Protection personnel and extensive planning support. Two Caravans The commissioner said there are two caravans that the agency is watching. One has already made illegal entry across two international borders, and the second still in Guatemala "has deployed violent and dangerous tactics against Guatemalan and Mexican border security teams," he said. "Accordingly, we are preparing for the contingency of a large group of arriving persons intending to enter the United States in the next several weeks. Operation Faithful Patriot will harden the U.S. border with Mexico. "In a macro sense, our concept of operations is to flow in our military assets with a priority to build up Southern Texas then Arizona and then California," O'Shaughnessy said. "We will reinforce along priority points of entry to enhance CBPs ability to harden and secure the border." Members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will bring their experience to the border, the general said. They will be joined by three combat engineer battalions with expertise in building temporary barriers and fencing. The battalions will bring their heavy equipment "which as we speak is long hauling toward Texas," the general said. Military planning teams are already engaged with CBP counterparts. The military is also providing three medium lift helicopter companies and military police units. There are already three C-130 Hercules and one C-17 Globemaster III aircraft standing by to provide strategic airlift for CBP. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The US had set that deadline for countries across the globe to either fall in line or face sanctions. New Delhi is hoping for waivers from the US to escape any sanctions when it (India) continues to buy Iranian oil after November 4. New Delhi: India is set to bypass the American deadline of November 4 to stop oil imports from Iran, with top government sources telling this newspaper that India will continue buying Iranian oil even after that date. New Delhi is also worried over the implications that any move to stop Iranian oil imports may have on the strategic Chabahar port development project which provides India with much-needed sea-land connectivity to Afghanistan. New Delhi is hoping for waivers from the US to escape any sanctions when it (India) continues to buy Iranian oil after November 4. The US had set that deadline for countries across the globe to either fall in line or face sanctions. In the wake of American pressure on countries, including India, to completely scrap oil imports from Iran which is being seen in many quarters as an unreasonable and impractical demand, India had in July this year hailed Iran as an important partner during the visit of Iranian deputy foreign minister Dr. Seyyed Abbas Araghchi. New Delhi had then said the two sides (India and Iran) agreed to maintain the momentum of mutually beneficial multifaceted bilateral cooperation and exchanges. After the talks, the MEA had then said that views were also exchanged on regional and international issues of mutual interest, including the efforts being made by various parties to address issues that have arisen over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA). The JCPoA refers to the Iranian nuclear deal from which the US walked out in May this year, prompting Washington to crack the whip on Tehran. New Delhi had also said enhancing connectivity and strengthening cooperation in trade and economic issues came up during talks with Iran. The issues of Iranian oil imports (a key trade and economic issue) and also the strategic Chabahar port project in Iran (a key connectivity project) were also understood to have been discussed during talks. U.S. Department of Defense Press Operations News Transcript Kevin McAleenan, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner; Air Force Gen. Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command October 29, 2018 Homeland Security and Defense Department Officials Joint Press Conference on the Defense Department Deployment to the Southwest Border Ronald Reagan Building Press Briefing Room, Washington, D.C. STAFF: Appreciate everybody attending today's press conference. The purpose of today's press briefing is to provide an update on Operation Secure Line and the Department of Defense deployment at the southwest border. Each of the principles here today will deliver a few remarks, after which we'll open it up for a few questions. With that, I'll turn it over to Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan. KEVIN MCALEENAN: Good afternoon and welcome. Commanding General O'Shaughnessy of U.S. Northern Command and I wanted to update you on our efforts to prepare for enhanced security operations in order to address the potential for large groups of migrants to arrive at the U.S. border as part of a so-called caravan. As of this afternoon, we continue to track a large group of approximately 3,500 traveling through southern Mexico with the stated intent to reach the U.S. border. This group is near the Chiapas-Oaxaca border in southern Mexico. We're also aware of a second large group of migrants at the Ciudad Hidalgo border crossing between Guatemala and Mexico. Size estimates for the second group are around 3,000 and made up of family units and unaccompanied children who have placed themselves in the hand of violent human smugglers paying 7,000 per person to make the journey. They're incentivized to try and cross by -- our border by the gaps in our legal framework and the expectation that they will be allowed to stay. This means that at any given moment, there are tens of thousands of intending migrants between the Guatemala border and the U.S. border moving towards us at any given time. Within that flow included are about 17,000 criminals last year, along with hardened smugglers and people from over 100 countries around the world, and our immigration system is unable to effectively process and repatriate those without the right to remain in the United States due to extensive backlogs in our courts and court restrictions on detaining people through their immigration proceedings. What is new and challenging about this caravan phenomenon is the formation of multiple large groups, which present unique safety and border security threats. For the two large groups that we are following, we have already seen the first one make unlawful entry across two international borders and the second, still in Guatemala, has deployed violent and dangerous tactics against both Guatemalan and Mexican border security teams. Accordingly, we are preparing for the contingency of a large group of arriving persons intending to enter the United States in the next several weeks. Our message to the organizers and participants of this caravan is simple, as the President and Secretary Nielsen have made clear, we will not allow a large group to enter the United States in an unsafe and unlawful manner. For those that seek to cross the border illegally, we will apprehend them and fully enforce the laws of the United States. For those that seek to make an asylum claim safely and lawfully at a port of entry, the government of Mexico has already offered you protection and employment authorization. If you are fleeing alleged persecution at home, you have arrived at a safe place to make your claim. If you're an economic migrant seeking to join family members in the United States, you should return home and apply for the appropriate visa. While CBP and its DHS partners processed over 38,000 inadmissible persons claiming fear to return to their home country safely and efficiently at our ports of entry last year, there's no benefit to be part of a large group. The caravan has already been offered protections in Mexico, you will not be allowed to enter the U.S. the same way. I would like to note here that we very much appreciate the efforts of the government of Mexico to address this challenging situation in accordance with the highest principles of protection of human rights and respect for migrants, while upholding the integrity of the Mexican border and Mexican immigration law. We also appreciate the continuing communication and efforts of our Central American partners, especially Guatemala, to address the challenges of these large groups. In terms of our preparations at the border, yesterday we launched Operation Secure Line, a multi-phased and flexible operational response designed to ensure that we are prepared for any number of contingencies involved with the arrival and attempted crossing of a large group of intending migrants at our border, whether they attempt to cross at a port of entry or unlawfully in between ports of entry. An important principle here is that border security is a law enforcement mission, and as the unified border security agency of the United States, CBP is well equipped, along with support from interagency federal, state, and local partners to manage multiple contingencies of varying size. Since we initiated our planning two weeks ago, we have completed updated assessments at each of our 26 crossing points on the southwest border and already deployed 100 specially trained special response team operators to prepare plans for each location. As information on the approach of a large group at a port of entry is available, we have at the ready 1,000 CBP officers, including 250 tactical enforcement officers and mobile response team professionals with training on managing contingencies including riot control. Between ports of entry, we have an additional 830 Border Patrol agents on standby ready to deploy, to include 140 special operations agents, 385 mobile response team agents and an additional 350 agents from unaffected sectors. These agents will be augmented and supported by over two dozen CBP air assets for surveillance and mobile response, including four Blackhawks, six additional helicopters, as well as multiple fixed-wing assets and unmanned aerial systems. Due to the large size of the potential caravans that may arrive at the border however, the Department of Homeland Security has further requested the support of the Department of Defense. This is in addition to the 2,000 National Guard personnel already augmenting operations under Operation Guardian Support and making an impact in border security, supporting apprehensions and drug seizures since last year. Specifically, CBP has requested that DOD provide support in several key areas, significant air and ground transportation and logistics support to move CBP personnel and equipment to locations of operational focus, engineering capabilities and equipment to help ensure our ability to secure our legal crossings in key areas of the border, medical support units, mobile housing for sustaining CBP deployed personnel and extensive planning support. I will turn it over to General O'Shaughnessy to detail DOD's robust response to our request for support in just a moment, but let me close by saying that regardless of the operational contingencies we face, along with its interagency partners and unprecedented support from DOD, CBP will ensure border security. We will not allow a large group to enter the U.S. unlawfully. We will maintain lawful trade and travel to the greatest extent possible. We will act in accordance with the highest principles of law enforcement. We will treat intending migrants humanely and professionally at all times. And the safety of CBP personnel -- especially our law enforcement personnel on the front lines, as well as the traveling public -- will remain paramount. Thank you. GENERAL TERRENCE J. O'SHAUGHNESSY: Well, thank you, Commissioner McAleenan, for the partnership and the opportunity today to speak about how U.S. Northern Command, as the operational command for the Department of Defense's forces, is providing mission-enhancing capabilities to the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, to harden the southern border. DOD has a long history of supporting DHS. And now, more than ever, U.S. Northern Command has a well-established relationship with the Department of Homeland Security. Examples include the recent support for Hurricane Michael, Hurricane Florence, our cyber-security initiatives and our critical infrastructure protection that we're doing with the Department of Homeland Security. Our mission of homeland defense is inextricably linked to the Department of Homeland Security's mission of homeland security. Operation Faithful Patriot, as we've named the military operation supporting CBP in hardening the southwest border, is the latest example of this critical partnership. In a macro sense, our concept of operations is to flow-in our military assets with a priority to build up southern Texas, and then Arizona, and then California. We'll reinforce along priority points of entry, so as to enhance CBP's ability to harden and secure the border. The specific request for assistance is for the active duty military to enhance the capacity and capabilities of CBP by providing robust military capabilities. Our first level of effort with CBP will be to harden the points of entry and address key gaps in areas around the points of entry. And here's a list of just some of the capability that we're bringing. First, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, they bring amazing expertise, earned through years of experience under challenging conditions, including the current work of building the border wall. We're also bringing three highly experienced and capable combat engineering battalions with expertise in building temporary vehicle barriers, fencing -- and we're bringing them in with heavy equipment which, as we speak right now, is line-hauling towards Texas. We're bringing military planning teams that are already actively engaged with their CBP counterparts. We've integrated command and control capabilities. We're working with our aviation, engineering, medical and logistic resources to bring them to bear. We're bringing three medium-lift helicopter companies in. These are aircraft equipped with the latest technology. They're enhanced with optics. They have NVGs. They have sensors that will allow them to operate at night and be able to provide assistance to bring our CBP personnel exactly where they need to be, regardless of the conditions. We'll be able to spot-identify groups and rapidly deploy CBP personnel where they're needed. The helicopters will ensure the CBP agents can arrive in the most austere locations. They can fast-rope down if they need to. They can conduct and work their law enforcement activities. These aircraft will also ensure those agents needing medical assistance will be able to get that assistance when required. In addition, we're bringing military police units. We're bringing strategic airlift to bear. As we sit right now, we have three C-130s and a C-17 that is ready to deploy CBP personnel wherever they need to be at any time. We have deployable medical units. We have the logistical support. We have command posts. We're bringing, again, command posts so we can combine with CBP, and we have combined command posts where our operational commanders will be working side-by-side to integrate our efforts. And make no mistakes. As we sit right here today, we have about 800 soldiers that are on their way to Texas right now. They're coming from Fort Campbell, they're coming from Fort Knox. They're moving closer to the border. They're going to continue their training, and they're ready to deploy to be actually employed on the border. We're deploying aviation assets that could quickly transport our CBP personnel. But it isn't just the men and equipment and the soldiers that we're bringing. We've already brought critical material that's already in place. We have enough concertina wire to cover up to 22 miles, already deployed already to the border. We have additional concertina wire that we can string, with over 150 miles available. Additionally, looking at where the reinforcers are needed so we can get it exactly where CBP wants us to put it. By the end of this week, we will deploy over 5,200 soldiers to the southwest border. That is just the start of this operation. We'll continue to adjust the numbers and inform you of those. But please know, that's in addition to the 2,092 that are already employed from our National Guard, Operation Guardian Support, that's been so effective. And my final point I would like to stress is that everything I've discussed here fully adheres to our current authorities and governed by law and policy. We know border security is national security. And the U.S. military will advance CBP's capability to harden the border. The Department of Defense is already -- and will continue to provide -- support to CBP to secure the border. Thank you. STAFF: With that, we'll open it up for a few questions. Tara? Q: General O'Shaughnessy, Tara Copp with Military Times. A couple of questions, sir. First, why weren't National Guard forces used instead, since it's typically a state governor role to bring those troops to the border? Secondly, how will you ensure that that active duty forces along the border will be operating in compliance with posse comitatus? And will those forces be armed? Thank you. GEN. O'SHAUGHNESSY: Yeah, thanks for those questions. First, to be clear, Operation Guardian Support continues on, 2,092 National Guardsmen employed right now under the governor's authority. That will continue. This effort -- Faithful Patriot -- is complementary to that effort, but brings additional capability and capacity to help CBP. With respect to posse comitatus, everything that we are doing is in line with and adherence to posse comitatus. Q: Sir, why not use the National Guard forces? And will the forces -- the active duty troops on the way -- will those soldiers be armed? GEN. O'SHAUGHNESSY: To be clear, we are using the National Guard forces, and that's under Operation Guardian Support. Very effectively being employed as we speak right now. We're bringing additional capability with Title 10 forces under -- under Faithful Patriot. We have the authority given to us by Secretary Mattis. The units that are normally assigned weapons, they are, in fact, deploying with weapons. Q: (Inaudible) with ABC News. My question is for the CBP commissioner. You're talking about a caravan that's already dwindled down to 3,500 people. The last caravan eventually dwindled down to only 400 people by the time it reached the border. And yet you're talking about numbers for the active duty military that would be double that. Why do you feel that this is necessary, and is this a political move shortly before the election? MR. MCALEENAN: Yeah, this -- this group is very large, 3,500 is much larger than the Via Crucis caravan or caravans we've seen in the past. We do see other large groups forming. Again, there's 3,000 or so at the Guatemala-Mexico border now, hoping to join up with the lead group. And we do see other caravans forming in El Salvador and elsewhere in Central America. So we -- we've got to be prepared for the potential arrival of a very large group. And because of the size, we -- we want to be able to handle it effectively and safely. What we saw when this group crossed the -- the Honduras-Guatemala borders, they did it very forcefully. They pushed past the Guatemalan security forces. Even more risky was on the Guatemala-Mexico border, where it was a combination, of you, know, near-rioting on the bridge and then, crossing illegally, the Rio Suchiate. So we -- we saw those tactics, which are different than we've seen in -- in past large groups. And we want to be ready for that. And we think this opportunity to harden our ports of entry, to be ready for mobile deployment between ports is a better way to prepare for the potential arrival of a large group like this. Q: (OFF MIKE) And do you see this move as political to assuage voters that might be concerned about these caravans? MR. MCALEENAN: No, this is a law enforcement operation from CBP 's perspective and we partner with DOD all the time to help secure our border. Q: Question for the commissioner. Foreign nationals who reach American soil and attempt to exercise their legal right to seek asylum in the United States, how do you plan to proceed? MR. MCALEENAN: Yeah, under -- under law -- existing law and policy we'll process people that we apprehend crossing illegally or arriving and presenting lawfully but without documents at our ports of entry the same way we're doing currently. Q: Can you be taken into custody? not returned to Mexico? MR. MCALEENAN: That's an ongoing conversation on how we best handle that group. If they come as a large group we are talking with Mexico. We're also considering all potential options in terms of administration authority. Q: Commissioner, where is the -- (inaudible), CNN -- can you tell me where the border patrol additional services are coming from? Are any coming from the northern border or other areas around the country? MR. MCALEENAN: Yes, so first of all I mentioned the special operations groups, this is the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, the Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue teams. That's a significant portion of the mobile troops. We also have agents identified as members of mobile response teams that come from sectors all over the country. And then because the northern border sectors aren't directly affected by a potential caravan arrival we would potentially pull a few hundred agents from the northern border if we saw the need for a full-scale operation. Q: (OFF MIKE) Is this happening in this first part or is that potentially in the (future ?)? MR. MCALEENAN: That's potentially in a future phase as the caravan gets closer and depending on the size of the caravan. Q: Question for -- question for General O'Shaughnessy, would you say this is a national emergency and how would you rate it on par with military efforts in Syria and Iraq where -- potentially you could have more troops on the border than in those operations? GEN. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I think -- I think the president has made it clear that border security is national security. That is the direction we've given, that's the direction that we're marching to. Our -- our orders are very clear. We are engaged. We're here to support CBP. And we're going to secure the border. STAFF: Folks, we have time for a couple more questions. Sir? Q: This is for the commissioner, two quick questions. First is, do you have a sense for how many additional miles of temporary fencing or vehicle barriers you need or are going to be done in this operation? And then second is, the inspector -- I think it was Inspector General, not GAO, recently had a report on the previous caravan and said that the way that CBP handled funneling or preventing people from coming through the ports of entry actually sent them between the ports of entry. Any lessons learned from that that you're going to do different? MR. MCALEENAN: So, first of all, we -- we've made a broad request for assistance, which is being responded to robustly as General O'Shaughnessy outlined. We're going to use fortifications to -- to help both at the ports of entry, so we can manage the potential arrival of a large group trying to enter through a port of entry -- infrastructure. But also in the immediate areas around ports or other vulnerable areas of the border. So -- so that's still being worked through with DOD and exactly what that structure would require and it would be obviously dependent on which direction we see a group moving. Now you can only process a certain number of people at a time, even if they're presenting lawfully. So we would want to work with the Government of Mexico if this group does make it all the way to border. And, again, the President of Mexico has offered, very generously, protections, employment authorization, shelter and status to this group in Mexico. So if you're really seeking asylum you've reached a safe place and you've been given a generous offer by the first country that you've crossed into from Central America, so I think that's an important point to focus on. So we'd want to work with Mexico to manage that -- that flow and ensure that people don't try to cross illegally. That is more dangerous. They generally have to engage with a smuggler and it -- it's even less orderly than a large group arriving. So that's -- that's what we're going to be focused on in partnership with our government of Mexico counterparts. Q: ... anything you've been able to do to actually change that incentive structure that existed last time, where processing I guess throttling them through the ports of entry sent them in the other direction? MR. MCALEENAN: So I think that's questionable, we -- we -- as I noted in the outset, we -- we processed 38,000 claims of fear over return to a home country at our ports of entry in the last fiscal year. That is far and away a -- a new record. So we are providing access to asylum seekers at our ports of entry lawfully as -- as directed. So I think that's -- that's an appropriate point to understand. STAFF: Last question (inaudible) Q: Hi, I'm (inaudible) from -- excuse me, AP. I just wanted to clarify if people were crossing between ports of entry, are they -- will they be able to claim asylum if they make it through? What will happen in terms of trying to claim asylum if they manage to get through? MR. MCALEENAN: I -- I think part of the goal is to deter people from trying to cross between ports of entry. We're -- we're going to have a substantial capability with CBP assets, supported with extra mobility and capability with our DOD partners. So we don't want them to cross that way in the first place, and we will apply the full extent of our laws to those who do cross illegally. STAFF: All right everyone, thank you very much. If you have any follow ups, we're happy to take for action. Appreciate you taking the time today. MR. MCALEENAN: Thank you. STAFF: Thank you. https://dod.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1675870/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Algerian Man is Sentenced to 15 Years' Imprisonment for Conspiring with Pennsylvania Woman and Others to Provide Material Support to Terrorists FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, October 30, 2018 Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers and United States Attorney William M. McSwain for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania announced that an Algerian man was sentenced today to 15 years' imprisonment for conspiring to provide material support and resources to terrorists. United States District Judge Petrese B. Tucker presided over the proceeding. Ali Charaf Damache, 53, also known as Theblackflag, was indicted in 2011 in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and one count of attempted identity theft to facilitate an act of international terrorism. He was extradited from Spain in 2017 and pleaded guilty in July 2018. Upon completing his prison sentence, he will be removed from the United States and return to Ireland, where he is a citizen, or alternatively, Algeria. Damache, his co-defendant Mohammad Hassan Khalid, and others conspired to support, recruit, and coordinate a terrorist cell, consisting of men and women from Europe and the United States, to wage violent jihad in and around Europe. Jamie Paulin Ramirez, a resident of Colorado, and Colleen R. LaRose, aka Fatima LaRose, aka JihadJane, a resident of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania are among Damache's co-conspirators. Though there were several involved in the conspiracy, Damache was the force behind the terrorist cell he formed. He enticed LaRose and Ramirez to travel to Ireland live with him and train in the ways of violent jihad; convinced Khalid, LaRose and others to recruit men online to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe; and began to coordinate explosives training for his co-conspirators. He also trained Ramirez's son in the ways of violent jihad, on one occasion taking him to a public park for physical training that scared him. "At a time when radical terrorist groups use the Internet to recruit new members and coordinate attacks against innocent people, the National Security Division remains committed to investigating all possible threats to our country aggressively including those that take place online," said Assistant Attorney General Demers. "Through close cooperation with our international law enforcement partners and the dedicated work of our agents and prosecutors, we have brought Damache to justice. The sentence in this case and order of removal have made the United States safer, and I applaud the women and men throughout the law enforcement community who made it happen." "Today's sentencing marks the end of a long and arduous prosecution that has spanned more than nine years, involved four defendants and five unnamed co-conspirators, and required multiple coordinated international arrests and two extradition applications," said United States Attorney McSwain. "Damache and his co-conspirators were motivated by hate and prejudice, and their criminal activities presented a very real danger to our country and the world. This case is a prime example of the remarkable results we can accomplish when law enforcement both foreign and domestic work together to stop our enemies who intend to wage war on our way of life. As this case shows, our resolve to dismantle extremists groups is stronger than ever." This case was investigated by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York and the FBI Field Divisions in New York, Denver, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and the IRS. The Justice Department's Office of International Affairs and authorities in Spain provided substantial assistance. Authorities in Ireland also provided assistance in this matter. The case is being prosecuted Trial Attorneys Matthew F. Blue and C. Alexandria Bogle of the National Security Division's Counterterrorism Section, and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams and Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah M. Wolfe of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Topic(s): Counterterrorism National Security Component(s): National Security Division (NSD) Press Release Number: 18-1417 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Wisconsin Man Convicted of Conspiring to Provide Material Support to ISIS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, October 30, 2018 On Oct. 25, 2018, Jason Michael Ludke, of Milwaukee, pled guilty to conspiring to provide material support or resources to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2339B(a)(1). Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, United States Attorney Matthew D. Krueger for the Eastern District of Wisconsin and Special Agent-in-Charge R. Justin Tolomeo of the FBI's Milwaukee Division made the announcement today. According to the plea agreement, Ludke and a co-conspirator agreed that they would travel through Mexico to Syria and Iraq in order to join ISIS and to work under its direction and control. Ludke also recorded a video of himself pledging his allegiance to the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and stating that he was ready to join ISIS. Ludke told an FBI Undercover Employee (UCE), who Ludke believed was assisting in the travel plans, that Ludke had training in jiu-jitsu and computers, which Ludke believed would benefit ISIS. On Oct. 5, 2016, Ludke and his coconspirator were traveling to the Texas/Mexico border in order to accomplish their plan to join ISIS (in Syria or Iraq), when law enforcement located and arrested them. Ludke has prior convictions for child sexual assault and for making death threats against a federal judge. Also according to the plea agreement, Ludke was on probation at the time he was arrested and had cut the tracking device from his ankle before leaving Wisconsin. "This conviction demonstrates the United States' resolute commitment to protecting our country and combatting foreign terrorism," United States Attorney Krueger said. "Individuals like Ludke who seek to provide material support to ISIS will be held accountable." "The FBI's number one priority is protecting Americans from terrorism," said Special Agent-in-Charge Justin Tolomeo. "I commend our Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), which includes our local, state and federal partners, for their investigative efforts in identifying and arresting Jason Ludke that prevented him from joining the ISIS terror group." Ludke faces a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years, a maximum term of supervised release of life, and a maximum fine of $250,000. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes. The sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. The case was investigated by the FBI and the JTTF and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Paul Kanter and Benjamin Taibleson and Trial Attorney Jolie F. Zimmerman of the Department's Counterterrorism Section. Topic(s): National Security Component(s): National Security Division (NSD) Press Release Number: 18-1415 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Security Council urges responder-safety focus, as DR Congo Ebola outbreak worsens 30 October 2018 - The United Nations Security Council has voiced "serious concern" over the impact of deteriorating security situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on the response to the deadly Ebola outbreak and fears that the virus could spread further into the country and the wider region. A large country in central Africa, DRC has been plagued by violence and insecurity for decades. Across the country, local populations and humanitarian workers assisting them have come under attacks by armed groups, necessitating the deployment of a large UN peacekeeping mission. Unanimously adopting resolution 2439 (2018), the 15-member Council "demanded" that all armed groups in the region respect international law and ensure full, safe, immediate and unhindered access for humanitarian and medical personnel, and their equipment, transport and supplies to the affected areas. Humanitarian response teams and hospitals providing life-saving assistance and relief to those in need "must be respected and protected, and that they must not be a target," said the Security Council in the resolution. The UN body also stressed the need for gender-sensitive response to the Ebola outbreak that addresses the specific needs of both men and women, given that men and women are affected differently by the socio-economic impacts of the outbreak. The Council also stressed the importance of the "full, active and meaningful engagement" of women in the development of such responses. According to the UN World Health Organization (WHO), as of 22 October, over 200 cases have been confirmed and at least 150 people have lost their lives since the outbreak was declared in DRC's North Kivu and Ituri provinces in August. This is the tenth outbreak in the country in the past 40 years. In its latest assessment, the UN health agency also warned of the potential for the virus to spread into Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan and Burundi, and called on these countries to step up readiness efforts. Primary Responsibility In the resolution, the Council also noted that the Government of the DRC "bears the primary responsibility" to protect civilians subject to its jurisdiction and stressed the need for the international community to "remain engaged" in supporting national health systems, as well as maintaining financial, technical and in-kind support for efforts to control the outbreak. It also encouraged the Government and countries in the region to "continue efforts to address and resolve the wider political, security, socioeconomic and humanitarian consequences of the Ebola outbreak, as well as to provide sustainable and responsive public health mechanisms." The Security Council also expressed its appreciation towards the work of humanitarian and health staff on the ground and as well as the "positive role" of the UN peacekeeping mission in the country (MONUSCO) in support of the response and in protecting civilians. It also requested all relevant parts of the UN System to step up their response to the outbreak, within the overall coordination of WHO, including by supporting the development and implementation of preparedness and operational plans, in collaboration with governments of the region and those providing assistance. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pentagon: 5,200 US Troops Headed to Border with Mexico By VOA News October 30, 2018 The Pentagon is deploying 5,200 troops along the U.S. border with Mexico to help agents deal with a caravan of Honduran migrants heading to the United States. "Border security is national security," Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, head of U.S. Northern Command, told reporters Monday. He said the 5,200 soldiers will be in addition to the nearly 2,100 National Guard personnel already along the border. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said about 3,500 men, women and children in Mexico are slowly making their way to the U.S. A second caravan of about 3,000 approached the Guatemalan-Mexican border Sunday with the apparent intention to meet up with the larger group. Some of the migrants crossed the river into Mexico despite police efforts to keep them from entering the country as one large group. McAleenan said those who manage to make it into the U.S. will be apprehended and their asylum requests considered, as required by U.S. law. He said border agents will act with the highest respect for the law and treat people as humanely as possible. But McAleenan said there is no benefit in trying to get in as part of a large group, especially in what he calls an "illegal and unsafe" manner. He said U.S. immigration courts are facing a huge backlog of asylum requests and reminded those in the caravan that they already have generous protections in Mexico, including the promise of work visas and the chance to apply for refugee status. McAleenan said 1,900 asylum seekers are picked up at U.S. border crossings a day, and that many of them put themselves in the hands of violent smugglers. President Donald Trump put it more bluntly in a tweet Monday. In an interview Monday with Fox News, Trump said the U.S. would construct "tent cities" for asylum-seekers. "We're going to put tents up all over the place," Trump told Fox News' Laura Ingraham. "They're going to be very nice and they're going to wait and if they don't get asylum, they get out." Again, without providing evidence, he said there are "many gang members and some very bad people mixed into the caravan." The president also claims "Middle Easterners" are in the group. The first group of migrants left San Pedro Sula, Honduras, earlier in October. Honduras is one of the world's most violent and deadliest nations, in part, because of gangs and drugs. Many of those trying to get to the United States want to escape the daily threat to their lives and the lack of jobs, and want to get their children away from the influence of gangs. Trump said anyone wanting to get into the United States must do so through the legal process. News reports quote unnamed U.S. officials as saying the White House is weighing a range of administrative and legal actions on grounds of national security to restrict the ability of migrants to seek asylum. Although no decision has reportedly been made, immigration attorneys told VOA the move would be quickly challenged in court. The U.N. refugee agency is urging Washington to allow people fleeing persecution and violence to request asylum on U.S. territory. "Our position globally is that the individuals who are fleeing persecution and violence need to be given access to territory and protection, including refugee status and determination procedure," UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic told VOA. "And if the people who are fleeing persecution and violence enter Mexico, they need to be provided access to the Mexican asylum system, and those entering the United States need to be provided access to the American asylum system," he said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Does Not Seek to Change Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons in Space - Pence Sputnik News 19:31 30.10.2018 WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States fully supports the 1967 Treaty banning nuclear weapons in space and has no intention to change that, US Vice President Mike Pence said in an interview on Tuesday. "There is a space treaty that's been on the books which bans weapons of mass destruction in space, and we fully sport that," Pence said. "There is no intention to change that in any way, shape, manner or form." Development of orbital weaponry was largely halted after the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and the 1979 SALT II Treaty came into force. These agreements prohibit the placement of weapons of mass destruction (but not other weapons) in space. "We have a firm commitment to abide by that treaty, continue to abide by that treaty. The objective is that we secure space so that we can lead in the space for peaceful purposes and carry out our values of freedom and liberty," Pence said. Pence stressed, however, that he is not "much about saying what we'll never do." "The Constitution requires that we provide for the common defense before we promote the general welfare," he said. "The objective here would be that we first recognize space is already a war fighting domain." Earlier in October, Trump said the United States was creating a space force to catch up with China and Russia. In September, Moscow warned Washington against deploying conventional arms in space, saying that the international community had to adopt an agreement on the issue. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address India Makes $4 Bln Down Payment for Rafale Jets Despite Controversy Sources Sputnik News 17:36 30.10.2018(updated 18:54 30.10.2018) India's main opposition party has accused the Indian government of corruption claiming that the price of each Rafale Jet under the current deal has gone up significantly without proper justification as compared to the previous deal during their tenure. Amid corruption charges in the $8.7 billion Rafale deal, the Indian government has made partial payment of around $4 billion to France for 36 fighter jets that are to be inducted into the Indian Air Force starting September 2019. A government official told Sputnik that the government is undeterred by the opposition's fury and is making payments at agreed terms to France. "We have made payment to the French side of over $4 billion as part of the terms and conditions agreed upon at the signing of the contract. The first Rafale jet is expected anytime by next September," a government official told Sputnik on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi, President of India's main opposition party the Indian National Congress on Tuesday said that the Rafale jet deal case is an open and shut case. "The day an inquiry starts on Rafale, it is only a question of time that the PM (Modi) will go to jail. Nothing less," Rahul claimed. The opposition figure also said that most likely an inquiry will start in France against the deal as former French President Francois Hollande had sparked a major row last month when he said that the French government had no say in choosing its Indian commercial partner for offset delivery in the deal. Rahul Gandhi had questioned the visit of Indian defense minister Nirmala Sitharaman, earlier this month, to the production facility of French manufacturer Dassault Aviation where the Rafale jets to be supplied to India are being manufactured. Rahul Gandhi alleged that she visited France in a bid to cover up the wrongdoings in the deal. Last week, the government filed the details of the decision-making process for the purchase of the Rafale before the Supreme Court of India on October 10 while hearing a petition. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address India Successfully Test-Fires Nuclear-Capable Agni-I Ballistic Missile - Reports Sputnik News 00:49 31.10.2018 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - India's Strategic Forces Command (SFC) has successfully test-fired a nuclear-capable Agni-I ballistic missile, local media reported on Tuesday, citing defense industry sources. The missile, launched from a test range off the coast of the eastern state of Odisha as part of regular training activities, hit the target area with accuracy, according to The Times of India newspaper. The trajectory of the flight was closely tracked by radars and telemetry equipment, the newspaper added. The Agni-I missile was developed by India's Defence Research and Development Organization and tested for the first time in January 2002. Its operational range is 700 kilometers (about 435 miles). The 12-tonne missile is capable of carrying warheads weighing up to 1 tonne. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Tehran strongly rejects anti-Iran claims of a Danish official IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Oct 30, IRNA -- Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi on Tuesday dismissed claims of a Danish official against Iran and said it is enemies' conspiracy to influence the ever expanding Iran-Europe relations. Qasemi strongly rejected the 'hostile' reports regarding the failed attempt against an Iranian opposition in Denmark and the claim that it was linked to the Islamic Republic of Iran. He said such a claim is in line with the enemies' plots and conspiracies against the good and ever growing Iran-Europe relations under present grave and special conditions. Without providing any evidence, Danish police on Tuesday linked the so-called Iranian agents of attacking a person in the country. Denmark's foreign ministry then announced in a statement that it had summoned Iran's Ambassador to Copenhagen Morteza Moradian to Denmark's foreign ministry in that connection. 1420 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran rejects Denmark claim about thwarted assassination plot Iran Press TV Tue Oct 30, 2018 05:08PM Iran has "strongly" dismissed the claim made by Danish intelligence chief Finn Borch Andersen that an Iranian intelligence service had tried to carry out a plot to assassinate an Iranian Arab opposition figure on Denmark's soil. Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Tuesday that the publication of such "spiteful" media reports and its attribution to Iran is a plot by enemies to affect Tehran's growing relations with European countries. He emphasized that these claims are the continuation of plots and conspiracies hatched by known enemies who are against good and expanding Iran-Europe relations at the current sensitive conditions. Earlier on Tuesday, Borch Andersen said a Norwegian citizen of Iranian background was arrested on October 21 on the accusation of helping an unspecified Iranian intelligence service "to act in Denmark" and on alleged involvement in the assassination plot. He did not name the suspect but said he has denied wrongdoing and is being held in pre-trial custody until November 8. Denmark's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen summoned the ambassador of Iran, Mr. Morteza Moradian, to a meeting with the political director of the ministry. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Karthiyani Amma, oldest student appearing for exam, scored 98 out of 100 marks in 'Aksharalaksham' literacy program. Karthiyani Amma from Alappuzha district reportedly took the examination at the Cheppad government LP school. (Photo: ANI) Mumbai: Age is just a number for a 96-year-old woman from Kerala who has cleared a test under the states literacy programme with a stellar result. Karthiyani Amma, the oldest student appearing for the exam, scored 98 out of 100 marks in 'Aksharalaksham' literacy program of Kerala State Literacy Mission. In the exam, reading, writing and mathematical skills were tested. Approximately, 42,993 people cleared the test this year, news agency ANI reported. Karthiyani Amma from Alappuzha district reportedly took the examination at the Cheppad government LP school. The 'Aksharalaksham' literacy program was launched with an aim to eliminate illiteracy in the state that boasts of over 90 per cent literacy, the highest in the country. Kerala was declared a fully literate state on April 18, 1991, which means attaining 90 per cent literacy, as per UNESCO norms. However, the 2011 Census revealed that around 18 lakh people remained illiterate, which prompted the state government to launch the "Aksharalaksham" programme on January 26 this year. The programme was launched by the state-run Kerala State Literacy Mission to help eradicate illiteracy among marginalised groups like tribals, fisher folks and slum-dwellers. Hurt by Iran sanctions, South Korea asks US for waiver Iran Press TV Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:25AM New sanctions on Iran will harm South Korean companies, the Asian nation has told the US, asking for "maximum flexibility" on its request for a waiver. South Korea is one of Asia's biggest customers of Iranian oil, but US introduction of new sanctions against Tehran on November 4 is threatening new shipments. South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha phoned US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo late Monday to ask for an exemption, the ministry said in a statement. "Minister Kang requested the US side exert maximum flexibility so that South Korea can secure an exemption to minimize the damage to our companies," the statement said. Trump has pledged to bring Iran's oil exports down to zero, but a tightening market and rallying prices have forced American officials to hint at possible waivers to those customers who cut down on their shipments. US president himself is behind a surge in oil prices. On Monday, Pompeo said he had noted Seoul's position and would continue discussions on the matter, the South Korean statement said. South Korea is a main customer of Iran's condensate, an ultra light oil which has a wide range of utilization in the petrochemical industry. International buyers favor the Iranian grade for its rich naphtha yield and its relative cheapness to other condensate grades. South Korean companies, however, have reportedly cut their purchases in recent months and count on a US waiver to maintain trade with Iran. South Korea's Hyundai Engineering & Construction was reported on Monday to have halted $521 million deal to build a petrochemicals complex in Iran. In June, Daelim Industrial cancelled a $2 billion (2.3 trillion won) to renovate and expand a refinery in Isfahan. However, other top Iranian oil customers China, India and Turkey have pledged to continue imports in the face of shrinking supplies. They are worried by a sharp oil price hike which could seriously damage their economies, especially after Trump's assurances of sufficient supplies in the market have sounded hollow. On Monday, Reuters quoted an Indian government source as saying that New Delhi told Washington rising energy costs caused by high oil prices meant cutting Iranian purchases was impossible. "We have told this to the United States, as well as during Brian Hook's visit," the source said. "We cannot end oil imports from Iran at a time when alternatives are costly." India is Iran's second largest oil importer. The US sent State Department's special representative for Iran Brian Hook to India recently to convince the country into halting Iran imports, but to no avail. "We have told this to the United States, as well as during Brian Hook's visit. We cannot end oil imports from Iran at a time when alternatives are costly," the unnamed source told Reuters. The news agency said a US diplomat had confirmed the discussions, saying waivers for India and other countries were possible. Among major clients, Turkey and China have vowed to maintain Iran imports, with the latter raising shipments to record 800,000 barrels per day and promising to buy even more. Meanwhile, Iranian officials have said the country has contingency plans in place in order to limit any fallout from the US sanctions. On Sunday, Iran sold 280,000 barrels of crude oil through the country's domestic bourse for the first time as officials reiterated that US efforts to zero its oil imports would fail. "Oil exports might have decreased by a few thousand barrels per day, but we have always stressed that even with the sanctions, Iran's oil exports should not fall by 1 million barrels per day," Vice President Es'hagh Jahangiri was quoted as saying. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Denmark Accuses Iran Of Plotting Political Assassination On Its Soil RFE/RL's Radio Farda October 30, 2018 Denmark has accused Iran of plotting to assassinate an Iranian Arab opposition leader on the European Union member's territory and will discuss taking possible action against Tehran over the matter. Danish intelligence head Finn Borch Andersen told journalists on October 30 that a man with a Norwegian passport and Iranian background is being held after he was arrested on October 21 in neighboring Sweden. He was apprehended under suspicion of helping to plot an attack on the leader of the Danish branch of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of al-Ahvaz (ASMLA). "It is totally unacceptable that Iran or any other foreign state plans assassinations on Danish soil. Further actions against Iran will be discussed in the EU," Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said in a tweet. Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen told reporters he had decided to recall Denmark's ambassador in Tehran for consultations. The suspect and officials in Iran have denied the allegations. Iran has previously objected to Denmark to the presence of members of ASMLA, which is seeking a separate state for ethnic Arabs in the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi called the Danish allegations "a continuation of enemies' plots to damage Iranian relations with Europe at this critical time," according to the Tasnim news agency. Several European countries, China, and Iran are in talks to salvage parts of a 2015 agreement with world powers to curb Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of global economic sanctions. The United States pulled out of the accord in May. Khuzestan Province, home to around 80 percent of Iran's oil fields and 60 percent of the country's natural-gas reserves, borders Iraq. Ethnic Arabs, which in total make up about 3 percent of Iran's population, have long complained of social, political, and economic discrimination. Iranian officials, who often blame foreign enemies for unrest in the country, have claimed in the past that Persian Gulf countries were provoking ethnic strife in Khuzestan by attempting to exploit the legitimate demands and grievances of the people. Last month an attack on a military parade in the province killed 25 people and wounded dozens of others when gunmen dressed in army uniforms opened fire at a military parade in Khuzestan's capital, Ahvaz. A separate Iranian Arab opposition group, the Ahwaz National Resistance, and the extremist group Islamic State both claimed responsibility for the parade attack. Tehran summoned diplomats from Denmark, the Netherlands, and Britain for allegedly hosting members of groups suspected of links to government resistance. In November 2017, an Iranian exile who established the ASMLA was killed in the Netherlands, prompting Danish security officials to increase police protection of several ASMLA officials. With reporting by Reuters and AP Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/denmark-accuses-iran -of-plotting-political-assassination -on-its-soil/29573662.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address South Korea Presses US for 'Maximum Flexibility' on Iranian Sanctions Exemption Sputnik News 11:15 30.10.2018(updated 11:38 30.10.2018) A new wave of US measures targeting the oil exports and financial flows of the Islamic Republic is expected to take effect on November 5. Earlier this year, the US pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal and slapped Teheran with new sanctions, provoking criticism among Washington's European and Asian allies. South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha asked his US counterpart, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to grant his country a waiver for new US sanctions targeting Iran's partners in a recent phone call. "Minister Kang requested the US side exert maximum flexibility so that South Korea can secure an exemption to minimize the damage to our companies," the statement of the South Korean Foreign Ministry reads. According to the ministry, Pompeo said that he noted Seoul's position and promised further discussions. South Korea is one of Asia's biggest importers of Iranian crude oil, which is expected to be targeted with a new round of US sanctions, scheduled to come into force on November 5. Seoul fears a negative impact on South Korean companies, which have projects and deals with Iran as the expected curbs on the financial flows would hamper payments sent to the Islamic republic. Another US ally, Japan, has been in talks with Washington to minimize the effect of the re-introduced sanctions against Iran. Tokyo enjoyed exemptions from the previous wave of sanctions, which were lifted as part of the multi-lateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in exchange for Tehran's agreement to shut down its nuclear weapons program. Mirroring the sentiments of Israel and hawks within the United States, President Donald Trump announced the unilateral exit of the US from the treaty in May 2018, decrying it as "the worst deal ever." The remaining signatories of the deal, the other four UN Security Council members plus Germany and the EU leadership, pledged to keep the agreement alive, announcing the creation of a payment mechanism to let companies bypass US sanctions as they do business with Iran. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Denmark Recalls Envoy to Iran After Failed Murder Plot By VOA News October 30, 2018 Denmark recalled its ambassador to Iran Tuesday after accusing Iran of planning to kill three of its citizens who were living in Denmark. "Denmark can in no way accept that people with ties to Iran's intelligence service plot attacks against people in Denmark," Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen told reporters in Copenhagen. Danish intelligence agency PET accused Tehran of plotting the attack in Denmark on three Iranians who were suspected of being members of the separatist group Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, said Danish security service chief Finn Borch Andersen. Andersen said the plot was planned in retaliation for a deadly attack in Iran in late September. A Norwegian citizen of Iranian descent was arrested on October 21 on suspicion of helping an unnamed Iranian intelligence service "to act in Denmark," Andersen said. Anderson also said the suspect was allegedly involved in the plot. That suspect, whose name was not disclosed, has denied wrongdoing, as has Iran's Foreign Ministry. The suspect was detained in Sweden, according to the Swedish security service SAPO. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Japan to Resume Construction of Airfield for US Troops in Okinawa - Minister Sputnik News 09:43 30.10.2018(updated 09:56 30.10.2018) TOKYO (Sputnik) The Japanese government wants to resume work on the construction of a new airfield for the US armed forces in the southwestern prefecture of Okinawa in the near future, Japanese Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said Tuesday. "We are carrying out preparations on the site. It depends, in particular, on the weather, but we want to resume work as soon as possible," Iwaya told reporters. In August, the Okinawa authorities decided to revoke the permit to carry out a landfill reclamation project off the city of Nago for the relocation of a US military base to the area. In turn, Transport and Tourism Minister Keiichi Ishii said on Tuesday that he rejected this decision of the Okinawa authorities at the request of the Defense Ministry. "Based on the analysis of documents submitted by the Defense Ministry and the authorities of Okinawa Prefecture, it was decided to suspend the withdrawal of permission," Ishii stated. The work on dumping soil off Nago for the relocation of the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, currently located in Ginowan city, started in mid-2017. Okinawa residents had protested against the deployment of US troops and equipment in the area, citing abuses by US personnel and various accidents during military training. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Bulldozing the past: Myanmar erasing evidence on Rohingya Iran Press TV Tue Oct 30, 2018 11:10AM Myanmar's government has been destroying villages in Rakhine State and the physical evidence of state-sponsored violence committed against the Rohingya Muslims there, a report says. The Guardian reported on Monday that Myanmarese authorities were destroying areas where thousands of Rohingya Muslims lived before either being killed or fleeing to Bangladesh amid deadly government-sponsored violence in Rakhine. "Bulldozers and backhoes are parked beside new, blue-roofed homes, built by a government agency chaired by state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi," the report said, referring to Myanmar's de facto leader. According to the newspaper, the authorities plan to settle non-Rohingya individuals in the new homes. Inn Din village administrator Kyaw Soe Moe said during a government-organized media tour of northern Rakhine late last month that the new homes would soon be occupied by "Rakhine, Chin, Bamar, and Hindu people from other parts of the country." The United Nations (UN) Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, whose report last month called for the country's military leaders to stand trial for "genocide" against minority Rohingya Muslims, said the purpose of the bulldozing and construction was "the removal of the Rohingya and all traces of them and their replacement with non-Rohingya." The Guardian further said that the construction boom also aimed to destroy the physical evidence that could be used in a potential tribunal. Tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims were killed, injured, arbitrarily arrested, or raped by Myanmarese soldiers and Buddhist mobs mainly between November 2016 and August 2017, when many of the surviving members of the community started fleeing to Bangladesh en masse. Doctors without Borders, known by the French acronym MSF, has estimated that at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed between August 25 and 24 September 2017, but less than 100 bodies have been recovered. "It's a big question I ask myself: where are all the dead bodies?" said Chris Lewa, head of the Arakan Project, a human rights organization documenting the atrocities against the Rohingya community. "A year later, how will we find out? If we find bones, how will we know how or when they were killed, or whether they were killed at all?" "As the past is bulldozed, the future chances of a Rohingya return look bleak. On the ground, efforts to erase their historical presence appear to be succeeding," The Guardian wrote. The UN says nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar's Rakhine State since August 2017. Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed in January to complete a voluntary repatriation of the refugees in two years. The repatriation, however, was delayed due to a lack of preparation as well as protests staged by Rohingya refugees against the plan to send them back to Myanmar while conditions were not safe for their return. Kyaw Soe Moe, the administrator of Inn Din, said, "I don't think the Muslims will come back." 'Myanmar can't avoid accountability' Meanwhile, a member of the UN fact-finding mission said Myanmar's destruction of evidence won't help it avoid accountability as there is other evidence that crimes occurred and were systemic. "The [land] clearance is certainly destroying evidence, including of probable graves and sites of burning bodies, but it does not prevent accountability because of the great mass of other evidence," Christopher Sidoti said. Sidoti added that he and his colleagues had managed to collect sufficient witness and victim evidence to compile pre-prosecution briefs, which could one day be used by prosecutors. The UN Human Rights Council has also created an "independent mechanism" to collect evidence which links individuals to specific crimes for a future tribunal. Kingsley Abbott from the International Commission of Jurists said damaging evidence is treated as a separate offence and may leave Myanmar's leaders more vulnerable. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Bangladesh, Myanmar Agree to Repatriate Rohingya By VOA News October 30, 2018 Myanmar and Bangladesh have agreed to repatriate Rohingya refugees back to the country they fled, in the midst of a U.N warning that genocide was still being committed against them. Myanmar Minister for Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Win Myat Aye told VOA Burmese that the date to begin the repatriation is tentatively set for November 15. He also added that more than 5,000 refugees have been verified for return. Over 720,000 of Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority fled Rakhine State in August of last year after Rohingya militant attacks inspired a military crackdown from the government. Refugees and journalists have reported widespread killings, rape and the burning of villages. This is not the first attempt the governments have made to repatriate the Rohingyas, whose presence in Bangladesh has gone from welcomed to controversial as they strain the impoverished country's resources. A similar attempt almost a year ago failed after hitting insurmountable logistical roadblocks. "We can't stress enough that returns cannot be rushed or premature," U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said of the announcement, "and the decision on whether or not for a refugee to return should be determined by refugees themselves, when they feel the time and circumstances right." Last week, the chair of the U.N. fact finding mission in Myanmar warned that thousands of Rohingyas were still fleeing to Bangladesh, and that those who remained "continue to suffer the most severe" limitations and repression. Myanmar signed a memorandum of understanding last month agreeing to meet certain conditions before beginning repatriation, including guaranteed security and a pathway to citizenship. The Rohingya have been technically stateless since a 1982 law stripped them of their citizenship. It is not clear where the Rohingyas would be relocated to, as most of their villages have been burned. The government has built new housing in Rakhine State since, but human rights groups have expressed concern that these could become guarded prisons. Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US: Pakistan Should Continue Ban on Terror-Linked Charity Groups By Madeeha Anwar October 30, 2018 Washington is criticizing Pakistan for ending a ban on two Islamic charity organizations the United States has designated as terrorist groups. The expiration of the ban on Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF) runs counter to Pakistan's commitment to work with global terror watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a U.S. official told VOA. "The United States is deeply concerned that this development will jeopardize Pakistan's ability to meet its commitments under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1267 to freeze and prevent the raising and moving of funds belonging to or associated with U.N.-designated terrorist groups," according to a U.S. State Department spokesman. Washington is urging Pakistan to pass legislation that formally proscribes JuD and FIF. Last week, Pakistan admitted that JuD and FIF, headed by Islamist cleric Hafiz Saeed, are no longer banned after the expiration of a presidential ordinance that blacklisted them under a U.N. resolution. Raja Khalid Mehmood Khan, Pakistan's deputy attorney general, said Thursday during a court hearing in Islamabad that the presidential ordinance that blacklisted JuD and FIF has not been renewed by the government or ratified into law. According to Pakistan's constitution, any presidential amendment needs to be turned into law or renewed by the parliament within four months of its issuance. In February 2018, Pakistan's President Mamnoon Hussain signed an amendment to the country's antiterrorism law that allowed the state to ban charities linked to Saeed. Before the amendment, organizations sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council were not automatically listed as terrorist entities in Pakistan. Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed 160 people, including six Americans, filed a petition and called the amendment to the country's antiterrorism law unconstitutional. He lives freely in Pakistan's capital, Lahore, despite having a $10 million U.S. bounty on him since 2012. Front organizations Last month, Pakistan's National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) issued a list of 66 banned organizations that did not include JuD or FIF, even though Pakistani officials say that both JuD and FIF are "under watch by the Ministry of Interior." Saeed's original Lashar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, which was formed in the 1980s to liberate Indian-administered Kashmir and merge it with Pakistan, was designated a terrorist outfit by the U.S., the United Nations, Britain, Russia and the European Union. Saeed has evaded a ban in Pakistan on LeT by creating multiple other organizations, including JuD and FIF, that critics say are merely fronts. JuD and FIF allegedly manage a large charity network with the help of thousands of volunteers. The groups manage more than 300 religious seminaries, schools, hospitals and ambulance networks. Over the years, they have managed to gain influence throughout the country. Pakistan's 'Name Game' Gives Terror Groups a Pass Some analysts in Pakistan voiced concerns over the government's recent decision to let the ban on JuD and FIF lapse and exclude them from the list of outlawed terror groups. Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general and security analyst, says this undermines Pakistan's claims to be targeting terror groups operating in the country. "The lapse of the presidential amendment means more international pressure as to why Pakistan is not able to crack down and ban organizations placed on the U.N.'s terror watch list," Masood told VOA. "The FATF team was here last week and expressed dissatisfaction over Pakistan's insufficient measures against terror financing and urged the country to address inadequacies in the supervision of nonprofit and charitable organizations." Gray list In June, the FATF placed Pakistan on its gray list for the country's inadequate measures to curb terror financing and money laundering. Regional experts from India and Afghanistan believe the development will further undermine Pakistan's claim to be tough on militants. Chitrapu Uday Bhaskar, an Indian security affairs analyst, told VOA that the news did not surprise experts in India, despite renewed hopes that the new Pakistani government would bring tougher enforcement. "It's not a surprise that Pakistan has not been able to take a firm decision about Hafiz Saeed, but there was a hope that Mr. Imran Khan might be able to handle this differently," Bhaskar said. "But my sense as an analyst is that while this is not surprising, there will be a lot of disappointment that definitely could impact the bilateral relationship," he added. Abdul Qadir Zazai, an Afghan parliamentarian, echoed Bhaskar's concerns and added that Pakistan's government needs to take a firm stance against all terror groups. "We strongly condemn this measure, and hope and call on Pakistan's civilian government to prevent and stop those who call for jihad in Afghanistan and who train and send terrorists to Afghanistan," he told VOA. VOA's William Gallo, Mohammad Habibzada and Jaleel Akhtar contributed to this report from Washington. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ingushetian Court Declares Divisive Border Deal With Chechnya Illegal RFE/RL October 30, 2018 The Constitutional Court in Russia's Ingushetia region has ruled that a law designed to support a controversial border agreement with neighboring Chechnya is illegal. The October 30 ruling adds to the uncertainty over the fate of the deal, which mandated land swaps between the two North Caucasus republics and has prompted angry protests in Ingushetia. On its website, the court said that the law was illegal because "it changes the territory of the Republic of Ingushetia," something it said required approval by referendum. But the head of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, said that the court decision did not render the pact with Chechnya invalid and that only the Russian Constitutional Court in Moscow should have the authority to rule on the agreement. "It's necessary to understand that today's ruling does not cancel the agreement -- it has entered into legal force," Yevkurov told journalists. The agreement on the administrative boundary was signed behind closed doors on September 26 by Yevkurov and Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya. The deal sparked large, persistent protests in Ingushetia by opponents who say the deal unfairly hands parts of the region to Chechnya, its larger neighbor to the east. Protesters have called for Yevkurov's resignation and a referendum on the deal, which officials announced was approved by the parliaments of both regions several days later. Some Ingushetian lawmakers said later that the legislature had not approved the deal. The dispute has raised the specter of regional conflict in Russia, a huge country that is home to a large number of ethnic groups, and amplified concerns about the Kremlin-backed Kadyrov's power and influence. Kadyrov has publicly threatened the protesters in Ingushetia, and there was tension on October 26 when he brought a large entourage into Ingushetia to meet with a protest leader, but the meeting ended peacefully. Ingushetia and Chechnya were parts of a single administrative region in the Soviet era and split after the 1991 Soviet collapse. Concerns about losing territory are strong in Ingushetia, which lost control of the disputed Prigorodny district to another neighbor, North Ossetia, following a conflict in 1992 that left some 600 people dead, predominantly Ingush. Rights activists say that Kadyrov, who was appointed to head Chechnya by President Vladimir Putin in 2007, rules through repressive measures and has created a climate of impunity for security forces in the province. Kremlin critics contend that Putin has given Kadyrov free rein because he relies on him to keep a lid on separatism and insurgent violence after two devastating post-Soviet wars in the region. With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service and Interfax Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ingushetian- court-declares-divisive-border -deal-with-chechnya-illegal/29573182.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia's Shoigu Warns Of 'Serious Consequences' For Europe If U.S. Quits Nuclear Pact October 30, 2018 Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is warning that Washington's plans to withdraw from a decades-old nuclear arms agreement will have "serious consequences" for Europe. Shoigu told his visiting Greek counterpart on October 29 that the European Union and NATO should weigh the consequences of a U.S. exit from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which was signed by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union. "It seems to us that not everybody in Europe understands that this decision will have serious consequences for Europe either, and to put it more accurately, for Europe in the first place," Shoigu said. Shoigu's statement follows a warning from Russian President Vladimir Putin last week that Russia would target any NATO member countries if the United States withdraws from the treaty and puts currently banned intermediate-range missiles in those countries -- something NATO has said is not currently being contemplated. U.S. President Donald Trump, in declaring his intention to withdraw from the pact, cited alleged Russian violations since 2014 and concern that China is not covered by its ban on ground-launched short- and intermediate-range ballistic and cruise missiles. Russia has denied violating the treaty and has maintained that some aspects of the U.S. missile-defense system in Europe violate the agreement. In the days since Trump announced his intent to abandon the pact, Russia has called for a return to dialogue over the treaty to address complaints on both sides. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on October 28 that Moscow is drafting answers to a list of questions the United States has drawn up about Russian compliance with the treaty. Based on reporting by Reuters and Interfax Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-defense- minister-shoigu-warns-serious-consequences-for-europe-if- us-quits-inf-nuclear-treaty/29571551.html Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Anupam Kher cited his commitment to international television show as a reason for stepping down. Anupam Kher esigned as the chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), citing busy schedule. Mumbai: Anupam Kher on Wednesday resigned as the chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), citing busy schedule. In his resignation letter to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Kher cited his commitment to international television show for which he has to be stationed in the US for nine months as reason for stepping down. Kher in his resignation letter to I&B Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore said, "Given this assignment it would not be fair to me, the students and management team, for me to hold a position of such responsibility and accountability, without being actively involved in the operations." His resignation letter has been accepted by Rathore, who thanked Kher for his services to FTII, sources told news agency PTI. Anupam Kher resignation letter to I&B Ministry. (Photo: Twitter | ANI) Kher was appointed as the chairman of the premier film and television institute on October 11, 2017. He had replaced Gajendra Chauhan, who had a controversial tenure, as the head of the Pune-based institute. The actor has recently wrapped up shooting of 'The Accidental Prime Minister' a political drama on former PM Manmohan Singh. UN rights chief urges intl. experts to help murdered Saudi journalist's investigation Iran Press TV Tue Oct 30, 2018 10:31PM United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, has called for international experts to be involved in an independent investigation into the murder of prominent Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who went missing after visiting the kingdom's consulate in Turkey's largest city of Istanbul earlier this month. "For an investigation to be carried out free of any appearance of political considerations, the involvement of international experts, with full access to evidence and witnesses, would be highly desirable," Bachelet said on Tuesday. She further noted that it is important to determine whether serious human rights violations such as torture, summary execution or enforced disappearance were committed and to identify those implicated, "irrespective of their official capacity." The senior UN official also welcomed the steps taken by Turkish and Saudi authorities to investigate and prosecute the alleged perpetrators. "Given the information that high-level officials in Saudi Arabia were apparently involved, and it took place in the Consulate of Saudi Arabia, the bar must be set very high to ensure meaningful accountability and justice for such a shockingly brazen crime against a journalist and government critic," Bachelet pointed out. She stressed that an autopsy on the victim's body is crucial in any murder investigation, asking Saudi authorities to reveal the whereabouts of Khasoggi's body "without further delay or prevarication." On Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Saudi Attorney General Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb to investigate who ordered the hit on the journalist. Erdogan maintains that a 15-strong team traveled from Riyadh to kill Khashoggi, who had been a vocal critic of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammad bin Salman, at the Saudi diplomatic compound in Istanbul. "Who sent these 15 people? As Saudi public prosecutor, you have to ask that question, so you can reveal it," the Turkish president told reporters in Ankara. He added, "Now we have to solve this case. No need to prevaricate, it makes no sense to try to save certain people. There is no sense to try to protect the culprits." "Either the Saudi foreign minister or the 18 suspects must explain who the local co-conspirators are. "Let's know who this co-conspirator is, we can shed further light," Erdogan said. The Turkish president underscored that the Ankara government would not turn a blind eye to the Khashoggi case. "If we turn a blind eye to the issue, we will have a joint debt against humanity, we have a conscientious debt," he said. Khashoggi's fiancee Hatice Cengiz says he entered the consulate at around 1 p.m. local time (1000 GMT) on October 2, as she accompanied him but waited outside. The woman, who is a Turkish citizen, called police when Khashoggi did not emerge at 5 p.m., after the consulate had officially closed. The Arab21 news website reported that the 59-year-old author paid a visit to the mission late last month, but was told by officials at the time to return at a later date to complete an application related to a family matter and obtain paperwork ahead of his upcoming wedding. Khashoggi, a prominent commentator on Saudi affairs who wrote for The Washington Post's Global Opinions section, had lived in self-imposed exile in the US since September 2017, when he left Saudi Arabia over fears of the Riyadh regime's crackdown on critical voices. His death has subjected the Riyadh regime and Mohammed bin Salman to strict scrutiny. The journalist's fiancee has accused Saudi officials of a massive cover-up. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saudi public prosecutor holds 2nd round of talks in Istanbul, visits Riyadh's consulate Iran Press TV Tue Oct 30, 2018 11:03AM Amid investigations into the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the kingdom's public prosecutor holds a second round of talks with Turkish officials in Istanbul before visiting Riyadh's consulate, where the crime took place. Saud al-Mojeb sat down with Istanbul's chief prosecutor, Irfan Fidan, at the city's main courthouse for a second time on Tuesday. The meeting lasted around an hour. Mojeb and the delegation accompanying him then headed to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where Khashoggi was killed this month. Turkish broadcaster TRT reported that Mojeb had on Monday asked to be given the full findings of the Turkish investigation into Khashoggi's death, including all images and audio recordings. Turkish investigators, however, rejected the request and instead urged the Saudi prosecutor to reveal information about the location of Khashoggi's body, the report added. Khashoggi, an outspoken critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, vanished at Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Riyadh initially claimed that the journalist had walked out of the mission. Later, however, it said that Khashoggi was killed accidentally in a "fist fight" with a Saudi hit squad. Most recently, Mojeb said that the killing of the Washington Post columnist was "premeditated" by Saudi operatives. The kingdom announced the arrest of 18 Saudi suspects in the murder and the sacking of two top officials. Ankara called for the extradition of the suspects, an appeal rejected by Riyadh. At a memorial service for Khashoggi in London on Monday, his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, held the Saudi authorities responsible for the killing, singling out US President Donald Trump for "paving the way for a cover-up." Khashoggi's murder has led to a major diplomatic crisis for Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has denied any involvement of the crown prince in the killing, but reports say some members of the hit squad were from bin Salman's personal security staff. Turkish investigators have said they are in possession of recordings that show Khashoggi was tortured before his death and his body dismembered with a bone saw by the Saudi hit squad. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN Commissioner Urges Saudi Officials to Reveal Whereabouts of Khashoggi's Body Sputnik News 19:09 30.10.2018(updated 19:10 30.10.2018) GENEVA (Sputnik) - UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday called on Saudi authorities to reveal the whereabouts of the body of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi in order to ensure an independent and impartial investigation of his murder. "For an investigation to be carried out free of any appearance of political considerations, the involvement of international experts, with full access to evidence and witnesses, would be highly desirable," the commissioner Michelle Bachelet said in a statement as quoted by her office. She stressed that "forensic examination, including an autopsy on the body of the victim, is a crucial element in any investigation into a killing." The commissioner also urged the Saudi authorities to reveal the whereabouts of his body "without further delay or prevarication." Bachelet's statement follows Turkish President's Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeal made earlier in the day to Saudi chief prosecutor Saud Mojeb to reveal who had ordered the murder of Saudi opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. On October 19, after more than two weeks of denials, Saudi Arabia admitted the journalist had been killed in a brawl inside the consulate. According to Riyadh, 18 people have been arrested over their suspected involvement in the incident. On Thursday, the Saudi prosecutor general acknowledged that the journalist's murder had been orchestrated in advance. However, Riyadh maintains that the murder had nothing to do with the Saudi Royal family, describing it as a rogue operation. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN rights chief says 'bar must be set very high' for investigation of murdered Saudi journalist 30 October 2018 - The United Nations human rights chief pressed on Tuesday for an impartial, investigation into the "shockingly brazen" murder of Saudi Arabian journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and OHCHR head Michelle Bachelet stressed that a full examination of, and accountability for, human rights violations committed against Mr. Khashoggi be conducted. The journalist disappeared from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018. According to news reports, Saudi officials now admit that he was killed inside the embassy by a team of agents sent from Riyadh, although his body has yet to be recovered. Ms. Bachelet welcomed the steps taken by Turkish and Saudi authorities to investigate and prosecute the alleged perpetrators, but added that "given the information that high-level officials in Saudi Arabia were apparently involved, and it took place in the Consulate of Saudi Arabia, the bar must be set very high to ensure meaningful accountability and justice for such a shockingly brazen crime against a journalist and government critic." "For an investigation to be carried out free of any appearance of political considerations, the involvement of international experts, with full access to evidence and witnesses, would be highly desirable," she stated. Ms. Bachelet said it is important to determine whether serious human rights violations such as torture, summary execution or enforced disappearance were committed and to identify those implicated, "irrespective of their official capacity." She called on Turkish and Saudi authorities to cooperate in ensuring that the truth be revealed. Noting that forensic examination, including an autopsy on the victim's body is crucial in any murder investigation, Ms. Bachelet urged the Saudi authorities to reveal the whereabouts of Mr. Khasoggi's body "without further delay or prevarication." Since the murder was discovered, a chorus of UN officials have demanded a probe into Mr. Khashoggi's case, including Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who stressed the need for a "prompt, thorough and transparent investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Khashoggi's death and full accountability for those responsible." The Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression David Kaye said he was "very disappointed" that Member States have so far failed to back calls for an independent international investigation into the murder. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Turkey Presses Saudi Arabia to Reveal Who Sent Journalist's Killers By VOA News October 30, 2018 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday urged Saudi Arabia to reveal who gave the order to have Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi killed at Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul. Speaking to reporters in Parliament, Erdogan said the investigation into Khashoggi's killing should be completed swiftly. He said there was no point in making excuses. Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 Saudi suspects detained in Saudi Arabia in the Oct. 2 killing of Khashoggi. It is also seeking Saudi Arabia's help in locating the slain journalist's body, which so far has not been found. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, meanwhile, called on Turkish and Saudi authorities to launch an "independent and impartial" investigation into what she called a "shockingly brazen crime." "But given the information that such high-level officials in Saudi Arabia were apparently involved, and it took place in the Consulate of Saudi Arabia, the bar must be set very high to ensure meaningful accountability and justice," she said. During a memorial service in London late Monday, Khashoggi's fiancee, Turkish national Hatice Cengiz, said she was "disappointed in the leadership of many countries" in response to Khashoggi's killing this month in Istanbul. She called on U.S. President Donald Trump to "help reveal the truth" about his death at the hands of agents deployed by the kingdom. Khashoggi was an exiled journalist who wrote several opinion columns for The Washington Post that were critical of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler. Cengiz said Trump "should not pave the way for a cover-up" of Khashoggi's death. "Let's not let money taint our conscience and compromise our values." Trump has called Khashoggi's disappearance and death "one of the worst cover-ups in the history of cover-ups," but has also said the U.S. should not be too critical of the regime because of a pending multibillion-dollar arms deal with Riyadh. Khashoggi had gone into the Saudi Consulate in the Turkish capital on Oct. 2 to obtain paperwork he needed for his planned marriage to Cengiz who waited for him outside the consulate but was never seen again. After numerous shifting explanations, the kingdom finally admitted that Khashoggi was killed by a team of 15 agents inside the consulate. Saudi Arabia has arrested 18 officials in connection with the plot to kill Khashoggi, while U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has revoked the visas of Saudi officials believed to have taken part in the killing. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Taiwan defense strategy built on dual-development system: official ROC Central News Agency 2018/10/30 13:00:18 Annapolis, Maryland, Oct. 29 (CNA) Taiwan's national defense will be built on a dual-development system that focuses on both indigenous system development and foreign arms sales, Vice Minister of Defense Chang Guan-chung () said Monday. "We are standing at a time when Taiwan is marching towards self-reliant defense," Chang said in a speech addressing the opening ceremony of the U.S.-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference 2018 in Maryland. But he stressed that the strategy would not exclude the participation of foreign suppliers. "Our focus in pushing self-reliant defense over the past two years is the development of main systems. That being said, we still seek the participation of both domestic and foreign companies in developing sub-systems and critical modules through market mechanisms," he said. "Our demand for cooperation with international companies never declined. Instead, it has become more diverse and provides more opportunities." Explaining the need for an indigenous weapons program, Chang said Taiwan has faced "painful lessons" in foreign military acquisitions because of diplomatic obstacles. "We therefore understand one thing: that is, to forge strength for a sustainable and reliable self-reliant defense that meets our requirements is fundamental to our defense policy," he said. Chang said Taiwan's military investment should avoid an arms race but take advantage of "the unique battlefield in the Taiwan Strait" to "create weapon systems we actually need with asymmetric thinking." In addition, Taiwan will emphasize how to integrate its defense development with its technology and industrial strengths, and bolster the use of technology to maximize the cost-effectiveness of the military investments. "To reach the goal, we will use a certain amount of our domestic acquisition budget in scientific research to elevate our technology level and human resources quality," Chang said. "By making defense investment and national power mutually supportive, our self-reliant defense will be sustainable." Chang said Taiwan looked forward to active participation by the U.S. industry in Taiwan's self-reliant defense development, and such participation will depend on policy support from the U.S. government. "We welcome the U.S. industry to join us and together make contributions for peace and stability of Taiwan Strait," Chang said. On the sidelines of the meeting, Chang was asked to comment on a prediction by Rupert Hammond-Chambers, head of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council on Sunday, that Washington will approve another round of arms sales to Taiwan by the end of the year, following a US$330 million deal in September. Chang sidestepped the question, saying the conference focused on cooperation between the two sides' defense industries and did not touch on arms sales. National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General York Chen () said the U.S. is Taiwan's first choice as a partner in its defense industry development, and such cooperation could enable Taiwan to enter the U.S.'s global supply chain. (By Chiang Chin-yeh and Frances Huang) Enditem/ls NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Erdogan says Turkey set to begin operation in northern Syria IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Istanbul, Oct 30, IRNA -- President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that Turkey has finished preparations for operations on the eastern side of Euphrates River. "We will trample on terror groups with more effective operations," Erdogan told his Justice and Development (AK) Party's parliamentary group in Ankara. He said that Turkey would bring down all terror nests on the eastern side of Euphrates. "We have finished all our preparations, plans, program regarding the issue," he added. He said that Turkey cannot "look to the future with confidence without solving the Syrian issue". Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating conflict that began in 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on demonstrators with unexpected ferocity. The powers using terror groups as tools to reach their goals are trying to revive Daesh in Syria, Erdogan warned. But, Turkish president said Turkey would never allow them to drag Syria into chaos and bloodshed by inciting the regime or reviving Daesh in the region. "Neither people in the region nor the world believes in the Daesh game," said Erdogan. More than 300 people lost their lives in Daesh-claimed attacks in Turkey, where the terror organization has targeted civilians in suicide bomb, rocket, and gun attacks in recent years. 8072**1420 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Turkey to launch larger operations in northern Syria: Erdogan Iran Press TV Tue Oct 30, 2018 11:30AM Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Ankara will soon launch larger operations east of the Euphrates River in northern Syria, where it has been confronting US-backed Kurdish militants. "Our preparations and plans [for an operation] are done, we will soon bring down the terror formation east of the Euphrates," Erdogan said in a speech to members of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) on Tuesday. He said the Turkish military had already started an intervention against the "terrorists" in the area. His remarks came two days after state-owned Anadolu news agency said Turkish forces had bombarded the positions of Syrian Kurdish militants, known as the YPG, on the eastern banks of the Euphrates. Ankara considers the US-backed YPG to be a terrorist group and an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting for independence in Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast since 1984. Turkey first deployed forces to northern Syria in 2016 to repel the YPG under the banner of the so-called "Operation Euphrates Shield." The Turkish incursion in Syria's northwestern region of Afrin started after the United States said it sought to set up a thousand-strong force in Syria near the Turkish border comprising the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is led by the YPG. Syria views the Turkish military intervention as a violation of its sovereignty, and has repeatedly called on Ankara to pull its forces out. Turkey, however, has vowed to press ahead with attacks on the positions of the YPG. Syria, Turkey spar over Idlib deal In another development, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem accused Turkey of failing to meet the obligations set out in an agreement with Russia to create a demilitarized buffer zone to separate Syrian government troops from Takfiri militant groups in the northwestern province of Idlib. "The terrorists still exist with their heavy arms in this region and this is an indicator of Turkey's unwillingness to fulfill its obligations," Muallem said in Damascus, according to Syria's official news agency SANA. The agreement, which was reached between the Turkish president and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in September, staved off a major government offensive into the militant-held region. Under the deal, a demilitarized zone of 15-20 kilometers will have to be created in Idlib along the contact line between the militants and government troops by October 15. The deal also involves the withdrawal of "radically-minded" militants, including the al-Qaeda-linked ones, from the region. Damascus has vowed to recover "every inch" of Syria, including the Idlib region. Turkey's foreign minister, however, said on Tuesday that the implementation of the deal was continuing according to plan. Mevlut Cavusoglu, who was speaking at a joint news conference with his Azeri and Iranian counterparts in Istanbul, also said that if terrorists or radical groups in Idlib displayed a "different approach" to that of the agreement, Turkey would intervene. Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Turkey was doing its best to fulfill its difficult obligations in Idlib, but that "not everything was going as it was planned." Russia did not see a threat that the agreement would fail, he added. On Saturday, the leaders of Germany, Russia, France and Turkey at a quadrilateral summit on Syria in the Turkish city of Istanbul stressed the importance of a lasting ceasefire in Syria, and said a committee to create a new constitution should meet by the end of the year. Peskov said Moscow would inform Syrian officials about the outcome of the top-level summit. Erdogan also said on Tuesday that Turkey would ensure a more active international role in Idlib after the four-way summit. Turkey, Iran and Russia are the guarantors of a countrywide ceasefire in Syria. The three have been mediating a peace process since January 2016 among Syria's warring sides in Astana, Kazakhstan. Turkey has set up a series of observation posts in Idlib as part of the deal to reduce fighting between militants and the Syrian government in de-escalation zones. The strategic Syrian province of Idlib hosts several militant groups backed by Turkey and other foreign parties especially Western states, Israel and their regional allies. In recent weeks, the Syrian army has been preparing for the liberation of Idlib, drawing support from Iran and Russia, but concerns from Turkey. Ankara fears a fresh influx of Syrian refugees in the wake of the Idlib battle. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US in Touch With Turkey, SDF Regarding Ankara's Planned Offensive in Syria Sputnik News 23:19 30.10.2018(updated 23:52 30.10.2018) WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States has been in contact with both Turkey and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) following Ankara's announcement it will launch an operation against the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) to the east of the Euphrates River, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Robertson told Sputnik on Tuesday. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continue to be a devoted partner of the United States in the fights against the Daesh* terrorist group, Sean Robertson said. Earlier in the day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara will soon begin a large-scale operation against the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). "We are aware of Turkish statements about a planned offensive into northeast Syria and have been in touch with Turkey and the SDF to de-escalate the situation," he said. Robertson stressed that Turkey is a NATO ally and a key partner in the global coalition to defeat the Daesh terrorist group, and the United States remains fully committed to Turkey's border security. "We encourage all parties to avoid escalation and focus on the most important task of defeating ISIS," he added. Robertson said US forces "remain fully committed" to the implementation of a road map for the city of Manbij agreed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his Turkish counterpart, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. Under the agreement US and Turkish forces are expected to start joint patrols of the Syrian city, which lies to the west of the Euphrates. "US and Turkish soldiers have actively trained side-by-side for this critical mission, and we are confident that these patrols will be an important step forward on the Manbij Roadmap," Robertson added. Robertson said the SDF remains committed partner of the United States in the in the anti-Daesh fight. "The campaign against ISIS is not over, and the fight remains very difficult," he said. "We are working closely with the SDF, who are in the midst of offensive operations against ISIS in the Middle Euphrates River Valley. The SDF remains a committed partner against ISIS." Robertson stressed, however, that US officials take Turkey's "legitimate security concerns" seriously and Washington remains committed to working with Ankara as a NATO ally and partner in the fight against Daesh. "We are already working closely with Turkey to address the threat that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, poses to Turkish security," he noted. Since August 2016, Manbij has been controlled by Kurdish groups that liberated it from terrorist organizations, including the Daesh terrorist group, which took it over in January 2014. In June 2018, Turkey and the United States adopted a road map envisaging the withdrawal of the US-backed Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) from the city. The Turkish government has long been seeking the YPG withdrawal over security concerns, as it regards the YPG as an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, listed as a terrorist organization in the country. Since June 18, the Turkish and the US-led coalition's forces have been carrying out independent patrols in Manbij, while planning to carry out joint patrols in the future. Ankara has repeatedly accused Washington of failing to fulfill its promises regarding the withdrawal of the YPG. *Daesh (aka ISIS/IS/Islamic State) is a terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Turkey Prepping for Large-Scale Op Against Syrian Kurdish Forces - Erdogan Sputnik News 12:35 30.10.2018(updated 16:34 30.10.2018) Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to clear the area east of the Euphrates River in Syria from Kurdish militia. "We are ready to smash the terrorist structure east of the Euphrates. We have completed preparations for this issue. In the near future, we will drive the terrorist organization into a corner through a large-scale and efficient operation. One night we will suddenly come," Erdogan told Turkey's parliament. Ankara considers Syria's Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), the principal component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which enjoys the support of the US and controls the territory of Syria east of the Euphrates River, a terrorist organization associated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is banned in Turkey. The Turkish forces have killed, captured or forced to surrender 1,451 Kurdish militants in the course of counterterrorism operations held over the past year, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on Tuesday. "Over the past year, 1,451 PKK members, 40 members of a far-left terrorist organization were neutralized and 336 Daesh [IS] members were remanded in custody," Soylu said, as quoted by the Anadolu news agency. Turkey and the United States will start joint military patrols in the Syrian city of Manbij no later than Wednesday, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Tuesday. "Training of the Turkish and US armed forces on joint patrolling of Manbij has been completed, today or tomorrow we will start such patrolling. After Manbij, our next target is the east of the Euphrates," Akar said, as quoted by the Anadolu news agency. Earlier, Turkey carried out an offensive against YPG forces in Syria's Afrin during a military operation called Olive Branch, which was followed by raids against the Kurdish militia in Syria and Iraq. Tensions between Ankara and the Kurds escalated in July 2015 when a ceasefire between Turkey and the PKK, collapsed over a series of assaults allegedly committed by the PKK militants. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Rao was made interim chief last week after government intervened and sent CBI Director Alok Verma and Rakesh Asthana on leave. Rao's innings as interim CBI chief came to an abrupt halt after the Supreme Court had Friday last refrained him from taking an policy decision and submit in a sealed envelope about the administrative decision undertaken by him. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Interim CBI chief M Nageswar Rao Tuesday denied any irregularities in the investments made by his wife in a private company. In a signed statement, Rao, a 1986-batch IPS officer from Odisha, said all the transactions and investments made by him or his wife, Mannem Sandhya, have been given to the competent authorities, and everything has been mentioned in his annual property return filed mandatory with the government. Denying all reports and giving a chronological order of events, Rao said his wife had taken a loan of Rs 25 lakh from Angela Mercantile Pvt Ltd, a company which belonged to "our longtime friend Praveen Agarwal for purchase of an immoveable property in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh". Rao's innings as interim CBI chief came to an abrupt halt after the Supreme Court had Friday last refrained him from taking an policy decision and submit in a sealed envelope about the administrative decision undertaken by him. He was made interim chief last week after the government intervened and sent CBI Director Alok Verma and his second-in-command Rakesh Asthana on leave toll corruption cases against them were probed. Giving details, Rao said the property was purchased by her with her cousin Dr R K Rana Babu on September 18, 2010. He said a year later, his wife sold some acres of land from her inherited agricultural property for an amount of Rs 30.72 lakh and two months later sold more land for an amount of Rs 27.90 lakh. "Thus she received a total amount of Rs 58.62 lakh as sale proceeds during 2011. This along with Rs 1.38 lakh from personal savings and a total of Rs 60 lakh was sent to Angela Mercantiles Private limited in 2011, who after deducting the loan amount retained the balance of Rs 35 lakh as investment," he said. Rao added that in July 2014, a little less than three years of the investment, the Kolkata-based company returned to her a total of Rs 41.33 lakh which included an interest of Rs 6.33 lakh. Exercise 'utmost restraint' in eastern Ukraine to safeguard civilian life, top UN official urges fighters on the ground 30 October 2018 - After a lull in fighting in Ukraine over the summer, the last few weeks have seen a sharp rise in civilian deaths, more than half of which are due to landmines and explosive remnants of war, the United Nations top political official said on Tuesday. "On the ground, continued and unpredictable escalations of hostilities aggravate the climate of insecurity," UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Rosemary A. DiCarlo told the 15-member Security Council. She said the recent so-called Harvest Ceasefire and Back to School Ceasefire negotiated by representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) - clearly showed that the impact of conflict on civilians could be drastically reduced with "sufficient political will and genuine commitment." "We continue to call upon the parties to ensure the full and immediate implementation of the ceasefire agreements and exercise utmost restraint to protect the civilian population," she stated, urging an immediate withdrawal of heavy weapons from populated areas and protection of civilian infrastructure. In her briefing, Ms. DiCarlo also drew attention to reports of increased tensions in the Sea of Azov and underscored the importance of the Minsk Agreements, endorsed by the Security Council, for a negotiated peace in eastern Ukraine. "[We urge] all parties to avoid any unilateral steps that could deepen the divide or depart from of the spirit and letter of the Minsk Agreements," she said, noting in particular the 11 November so-called "leadership" elections announced by separatists of the self-described "Donetsk people's republic" and "Luhansk people's republic". "Despite Ukraine's objections, media report that preparations are still going ahead," she added, recalling that the agreements address election-related matters "as part of a comprehensive package." "Any such measures, taken outside Ukraine's constitutional and legal framework, would be incompatible with the Minsk Agreements," she stressed, calling upon all parties to "recommit" to their full implementation and help usher in peace and stability to all of Ukraine. Severe funding shortage affecting humanitarian response Also briefing the Security Council, Ursula Mueller, the Deputy UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, said that over 3.5 million people across the region continue to rely on humanitarian assistance and protection. Challenges, however, persist for relief actors, she continued, noting "unpredictable" access to areas in need as well as severe shortages of funds. "I appeal to the donors to increase their support for consolidating these humanitarian gains, especially with Ukraine's harsh winter fast approaching," she said, stressing that UN agencies and humanitarian partners will continue to work to assist Ukraine's displaced and conflict-affected people. In late February 2014, the situation in Ukraine went from political crisis, to violent confrontation and, later became a full-scale conflict in the east, which has claimed the lives of over 3,000 civilians so far. In April, the Russian Federation annexed and occupied the Crimean Peninsula, and according to the UN human rights office, OHCHR, "continues to apply its laws in violation of international humanitarian law." The crisis has also engulfed the highest proportion of elderly people in the world of any conflict-zone, more than 30 per cent. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Vancouver, October 31, 2018 - Surge Exploration Inc. (the "Company" or "Surge") (TSX-V:SUR, OTCQB:SURJF, FRA:DJ5C) is pleased to announce that it's wholly owned subsidiary, Surge Exploration Chile SpA has entered into an arm's length non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (the "MOU") with Mr. Miguel Angel Perez Vargas ( "MAPV") for an option to acquire up to 100% of the Incahuasi Lithium Project in the prolific Antofagasta mining region in Northern Chile. The Incahuasi Lithium Project comprises 10 exploration concessions totalling 2,300 hectares, and the Incahuasi Salar is located on the Chile/Argentina national border approximately 75 km / 46 mi southeast from the famed Atacama Salar in Chile. The Atacama Salar is well-known to be the world's largest and actively mined source of lithium with over 15% of the global supply of lithium contained within its boundaries. Map of Chile - Incahuasi Property Click Image To View Full Size Tenure Map - Incahuasi Salar Click Image To View Full Size The MOU, when superseded by a definitive option agreement (the "Agreement"), will require Surge to make certain cash and common share payments totalling USD$2.22 million and making certain work and development commitments during the term of the option agreement. The Incahuasi Lithium Project exhibits many highly desirable and key acquisition attributes, including: the appearance of a low-cost resource definition opportunity; the overall project size fits well within the capability of a junior company; the property is well situated within the Incahuasi Salar with nearby highway and paved road access; within the Incahuasi Salar lithium brines appear to exist near the surface resulting in potential lower costs of exploration; and the proposed Incahuasi lithium exploration concessions lie beside existing lithium exploration operations in Argentina that are held by other publicly traded mining companies. The Company intends to undertake a preliminary resource definition program upon receipt of the National Instrument 43-101 report, which is expected to be completed in 2019. "We are excited about the opportunity to earn a significant interest in a lithium concession located in the Lithium Triangle, the world's most prolific lithium producing region with over 70% of the world's lithium reserves. We look forward to develop this concession, for the benefit of all our shareholders." says Tim Fernback, Surge's President & CEO. Structure of the MOU and subsequent Agreement: The proposed transaction to acquire 100% of the mining rights associate with the Incahuasi Lithium Project shall be effected by payment of the amounts described below: a non-refundable payment of US$10,000 in cash by the Company to be paid to MAPV within fifteen business days of signing the MOU. This payment guarantees a six-month period of exclusivity for Surge to conduct its due diligence and for the negotiation and signing of Definitive Option agreement. Upon approval of the Option Agreement and Transaction by the TSX Venture Exchange, the Company shall pay the sum of US$50,000 in cash immediately (this date is referred to as the "Effective Date"); the Company shall pay the sum of US$150,000 in cash to MAPV no later than twelve (12) months from the Effective Date; the Company shall pay the sum of US$200,000 in cash to MAPV no later than twenty-four (24) months from the Effective Date; the Company shall pay the sum of US$250,000 in cash to MAPV no later than thirty-six (36) months from the Effective Date; the Company shall pay the sum of US$1,540,000 in cash and or common shares to MAPV no later than forty-eight (48) months from the Effective Date. This sum will be paid as follows: i) USD$1,000,000 will be paid in cash and, at the sole discretion of Surge ii) USD$540,000 in cash or equivalent common shares of Surge Exploration Inc.); and the Company shall have the exclusive right to accelerate all payments due under this agreement. Once Surge has completed the foregoing conditions, the Company must also have completed the following work commitment in order to exercise the option and acquire 100% interest in the Incahuasi Lithium Project. Work Commitments: Surge shall be required to complete the following under its "Work Commitment" obligations with the exploration phase starting immediately after the conclusion of the Option Agreement, with the assurance that Surge produces a geophysical survey and at least one drill hole completed within 24 months from the Effective Date (the "Exploration Program"). Net Smelter Return ("NSR") Royalties: Once Surge completes all the prerequisites of the Agreement, and therefore owns the rights to the lithium mineral claims, MAPV shall receive a 2% NSR in the Incahuasi Lithium Project. Surge will retain the right to repurchase 50% of the NSR to MAPV at a price of USD$3,500,000. The transaction will be subject to TSX-Venture approval. Finders fees are payable in connection with the sourcing and negotiation of the potential acquisition of the Incahuasi Lithium Project. Qualified Person: The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Thomas Eggers. Mr. Eggers is a non-independent Qualified Person within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101 Standards, as a Registered Member of the Chilean Mining Commission. About Surge Exploration Inc. https://surgeexploration.com/ The Company is a Canadian-based mineral exploration company which has been active in the resource sector in British Columbia and elsewhere in Canada. The Company has an exploration office in Santiago, Chile to review mineral exploration opportunities in Chile and elsewhere in South America. Incahuasi Lithium Project, Salar de Incahuasi, Chile: The property is located on the northernmost section of the Incahuasi salar, 75 km southeast from both the town of Tilomonte, Chile and the Salar de Atacama, where mining is the largest economic activity, and the mining industry is one of the region's major employers. The Incahuasi salar is located on the national border between Chile and Argentina at an elevation of 3,260 m. The Incahuasi Lithium Project consists of 10 mineral exploration concessions totalling 2,300 hectares with the adjoining 9,843 hectare property located directly over the national border in Argentina is held by Advantage Lithium (TSX-V: AAL OTCQB:AVLIF). Cobalt Ontario Properties, Cobalt ON, Canada: The Company has an option to earn an undivided 60% interest in the Glencore Bucke Property and the Teledyne Property, located in Cobalt Ontario. Atacama Cobalto Project, Copiapo, Chile: The Atacama Cobalto Project is located in the Atacama Province in northern Chile, 15 km northwest of the town of Copiapo, where mining is the largest economic activity, and the mining industry is one of the region's major employers. The Atacama Cobalto Project consists of 1,059 hectares and is located only 3 km East of the Cerro Iman Mine. To date, CAP Mineria has drilled over 20,250 m on the Atacama Coblato Project. The option on this project is subject to TSXV approval. Hedge Hog Property, Barkerville BC, Canada: The Company has an option to earn an undivided 60% interest seven mineral tenure covering 2,418 hectares (5,972 acres) located approximately 80 km northeast of the town of Quesnel, BC and 20 km north of the historic gold mining towns of Wells and Barkerville. On Behalf of the Board of Directors "Tim Fernback" Tim Fernback President & CEO Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements which include, but are not limited to, comments that involve future events and conditions, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Except for statements of historical facts, comments that address resource potential, upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt and security of mineral property titles, availability of funds, and others are forward-looking. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may vary materially from those statements. General business conditions are factors that could cause actual results to vary materially from forward-looking statements. Copyright (c) 2018 TheNewswire - All rights reserved. A statement and video purportedly shared by Jaish-e-Mohammed on social media identified one of the killed terrorists as Haider. Two bodies were recovered after a day-long encounter that broke in Chaanketaar village of Tral in Pulwama district. (Representational image) Srinagar: Two Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists, including Usman Haider, the nephew of the terror outfit's chief Maulana Masood Azhar, were killed Tuesday after a fierce encounter at Tral in South Kashmir, police said. A M-4 Carbine, used for carrying out sniper attacks on security forces, was also seized from the encounter site, officials said. Two bodies were recovered after a day-long encounter that broke in Chaanketaar village of Tral in Pulwama district, they said. The body of one more terrorist was expected to be retrieved from the rubble, they said. The intelligence inputs as well as the material seized from the encounter site showed that the terrorists belonged to JeM, they added. The police had not officially identified the bodies, but officers speaking on the condition of anonymity said Haider was among those killed in the encounter. A statement and video purportedly shared by Jaish-e-Mohammed on social media identified one of the killed terrorists as Haider. It also claimed that he was heading sniper attacks in Kashmir for quite sometime. The security forces also recovered M-4 Carbine rifle from the encounter site which was used by the group to carry out sniper attacks on security forces, they said. Last week, an Army jawan and a Seema Shashtra Bal personnel were killed in the sniper attacks in Tral area. Vancouver, October 31, 2018 - Hi Ho Silver Resources Inc. (CSE: HHS) (OTC Pink: HHSRF) (FSE: H9T1) ("Hi Ho" or the "Company") has optioned a major land position totaling 1650 hectares in the Chibougamau Mining District of North Western Quebec, Canada. Two contiguous properties, the Beaurox property comprising 28 unpatented mining claims covering approximately 1000 Ha, and the Norbeau property covering 637 Ha in two claim groups, both located in McKenzie Township, have been optioned by the Company from two separate owners. Beaurox Property The Beaurox option allows Hi Ho to acquire a 100% interest in the Beaurox property, subject to a 2.5% NSR royalty, requires annual cash payments, annual advance royalty payments, periodic issuances of stock, and work commitments until commercial production is attained. Cash payments are $50,000 on October 28, 2018, being the effective date of the agreement, $70,000 on October 28, 2019, $70,000 on October 28, 2020, and $60,000 on October 28, 2021. Issuances of stock under the Beaurox option comprise 750,000 shares 30 days from effective date, 750,000 shares on or before October 28, 2019, 1,000,000 shares on or before October 28, 2020, 1,000,000 shares on or before October 28, 2021, and an additional 1,000,000 shares on reaching a Drill Indicated Economic Reserve on the property or upon sale of the Beaurox property by Hi Ho. Required expenditures under the Beaurox option comprise $300,000 on or before October 28, 2019, $1,500,000 on or before October 28, 2020, and $2,000,000 on or before October 28, 2021. Annual Advanced Royalty Payments under the Beaurox option require annual payments to Beaurox of one kilogram of fine gold of no less than 99.9% purity commencing on the 3rd anniversary of the agreement and thereafter at 12 month intervals until commencement of commercial production. Payment in the alternative to fine gold can be made by substituting free and tradeable Hi Ho shares for debt at a 25% discount to market or payment of cash equivalent of one kilogram of fine gold. Hi Ho has the right to purchase one half of the 2.5% NSR for payment of $3,000,000 cash. Norbeau Property The Norbeau option to reacquire 100% interest in the property, subject to a 2% NSR, requires annual cash payments, periodic issuance of stock, and annual work commitments. This property, previously held by Hi Ho, was subject to forfeiture, and is being reacquired together with additional claims from the previous vendor. Cash payments consist of $25,000 on the effective date of September 20,2018, $25,000 on or before January 20, 2019, $50,000 on or before September 20, 2019, $60,000 on or before September 20, 2020, and $60,000 on or before September 20, 2021. Stock issuances under the Norbeau option consist of 750,000 shares 15 days after effective date, 750,000 shares on or before September 20, 2019, 1,000,000 shares on or before September 20, 2020, and 1,000,000 shares on or before September 20, 2021. Work commitments under the Norbeau option consist of $300,000 on or before September 20, 2019, $1,500,000 on or before September 20, 2020, and $2,000,000 on or before September 20, 2021. The NSR can be reduced at any time to 1% by paying the vendor $1,000,000. Both the Beaurox and the Norbeau properties are underlain by favourable Precambrian volcanic stratigraphy that is prospective for gold mineralization. Several zones of mineralization are present on each property. The Norbeau Mine was previously mined through a shaft extending to 1200 feet with development at several levels. Production at Norbeau in the period from 1965 to 1969 totalled 419,029 tonnes grading 13.77 g/t (0.38 oz/t gold). The mine was closed when gold was fixed at $35 per ounce and has remained inactive. A major program to establish a current gold resource and redevelop the area is envisioned. Nik Property The reduce work commitments, the Company has relinquished its option to acquire the Nik property, located in British Columbia, Canada, and has returned the property to the vendors. Silver Reef Property The Company has relinquished the Silver Reef property located in San Bernardino County, California, to avoid additional expenditures, and has transferred the claims. This press release has been prepared by and approved by Dr Stewart A. Jackson, PGeo., a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101, and Technical Advisor to Hi Ho Silver Resources Inc. About the Company Hi Ho Silver Resources Inc. is a Vancouver based mineral exploration company dedicated to the exploration and development of precious and base metal mineral deposits and other mineral opportunities in North America and elsewhere. For further information contact: William G. Jorgenson C. 778-989-0770 Email: bill@hihoresources.com Website: www.hihoresources.com The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or the accuracy of the contents of this news release. This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". The use of any of the words "anticipate', "continue", "estimate", "expect", "may", "will", "would", "project", "should", "believe" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. These statements speak only as of the date of this news release. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks including various risk factors discussed in the Company's disclosure documents which can be found under the Company's profile on www.sedar.com. Final hurdle passed for OnePath deal The final regulatory approval has been granted from the Reserve Bank and the Overseas Investment Office for Cigna's acquisition of ANZs OnePath Insurance business. Wednesday, October 31st 2018, 8:37PM Earlier this year Cigna entered into negotiations with ANZ to purchase OnePath. Once completed. This acquisition will make Cigna New Zealands third largest life insurance provider. This year will see Cigna celebrate its 100th year of operation. Cigna has a long history in the New Zealand market as a strong and sustainable business that customers can trust. Gail Costa, Cigna New Zealand chief executive, said: were really pleased to have reached this important milestone on the journey. This is an exciting time for both organisations as we work towards bringing the companies together. The sale is expected to be completed by early 2019. Special Offers Comments from our readers No comments yet Sign In to add your comment At least 20 Christians arrested for holding a public worship service continued to share their faith even while in prison, a persecution watchdog has revealed. China Aid reports that a number of Christians were arrested and detained in two separate police stations on Oct. 2 in China's southern Sichuan province for proselytizing on a public street and holding a worship service in a public park. The detained Christians were part of a street evangelism team from the Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, one of the area's most well-known unregistered churches. The Christians were reportedly imprisoned because rules ban evangelism outside of registered religious sites. While in detention, the Christians took turns sharing their faith, while their fellow church members prayed that they would "be filled with the power of joy, peace, and grace," notes China Aid. Those who were not arrested either continued to preach in the streets or gathered outside of the police stations to wait for news. "The Gospel has been proclaimed. We gave out all the leaflets. Those brothers and sisters [in Christ] who were waiting at the police station brought more and distributed them all," Early Rain Covenant Church pastor Wang Yi was quoted as writing in a message on social media. "We encountered another police station and got to know a group of people who believe in Christ. May the Lord's love be with these law enforcement officers." Currently, the government is pressuring an estimated 20,000 underground house churches to close and join the state-sanctioned church. In turn, their leaders are being forced to pledge their loyalty to the Communist party. "The Church in China needs to move out of the passive zone and be actively integrating their faith into every part of their walk in China, including standing up if the Chinese government decides it wants to 'edit' the Bible," Open Doors CEO David Curry told Mission Network News. The Church cannot afford to avoid such atrocities, Curry said, adding that Christians have an obligation to "call it out." "I think it's an issue of prayer and letting people know in the global community, that we're aware," he said. "Whenever Christians are persecuted, we need to stand up and let our voice be heard." "Governments like to do this sort of thing," Curry said of the Chinese government's continued crackdown on believers. "What is important is that the Church remain fully followers of Jesus, not first, citizens of some country here, but first, kingdom citizens and follow the Scriptures, as they are written, and abide by that." Maharashtra Rajya Rashtriya Kamgar Sangh (MRRKS) had held a meeting till 3 am on Tuesday night with the Ola and Uber officials. Mumbai: Ola and Uber drivers continued their strike on Wednesday as the negotiation with the management over the base price has failed. The base price is currently Rs 40 and the drivers have demanded to increase it to Rs 100. Maharashtra Rajya Rashtriya Kamgar Sangh (MRRKS) had held a meeting till 3 am on Tuesday night with the Ola and Uber officials. Speaking with The Asian Age, Govind Mohite, general secretary of MRRKS said that the strike would continue till the demands are fulfilled. A meeting will again be held with Ola and Uber officials on Thursday. The sources in MRRKS said that the disagreement is on two points, first is the base price should be increased from Rs 40 to Rs 100 and second is that the incentive on riding time per minute should be Rs 1.20. According to the sources, the company is ready to increase Rs 4.80 per km to Rs 12 per km but it will scrap the incentive on the riding time. The city has around 50,000 app-based cars. The drivers were demanding a minimum base fare of Rs 100 to Rs 150 depending on the range of the cars, while the per kilometre fare should be increased to Rs 23 from Rs 18. Uber sources said that the talks with the cab drivers are in the final stage; the deadlock will be resolved soon. Mr Mohite said that if the meeting were inconclusive, the union would approach the government. Last week, leader of Opposition in the Legi-slative Council, Dhananjay Munde and Mumbai NCP president Sachin Ahir met transport minister Diwa-kar Raote over ongoing cri-ses between drivers and cab aggregator companies. Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut met UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath last week. Mumbai: Ahead of Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackerays November 25 visit to Ayodhya, the controversial site of Rams birthplace in Uttar Pradesh, his party colleagues have reached the city to carry out preparations. His personal assistant and man Friday Milind Narvekar, Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut and the partys Thane strongman Eknath Shinde have reached Ayodhya. Mr Thackeray in his annual Dussehra rally at Shivaji Park, Mumbai, declared that he would visit Ayodhya and Ram Janmabhoomi on November 25. He also told the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to build the temple or else he would initiate the process. Mr Thackeray also slammed the Union government for being inactive in matters related to the Hindu faith. In this backdrop, Mr Thackerays visit to Ayodhya has become a talking point in state politics. To make Mr Thackerays visit a grand affair, the Shiv Sena has put three of its major leaders on the ground. Mr Narvekar, known as the right hand of Mr Thackeray, went to Ayodhya on Wednesday morning and Mr Shinde, Mr Raut, MLC Anil Parab and others accompanied him. They discussed the itinerary of Mr Thackeray with the partys local leaders. Mr Raut also met Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath last week regarding the same tour programme. There are two speculations that are doing the rounds in political circles regarding Mr Thackerays visit. The first is that the Sena would be in alliance with the BJP and so its trying to find a strong Hindutva issue to get back into the National Democratic Alliance for a pre-poll tie-up. The other is that the Sena which has already declared it would go it alone in the pools does not want to lose its Hindutva-oriented votes to BJP and so taking an aggressive line on the Ram Mandir issue. The BJP has been trying to make the Ram Mandir a talking point for the coming general elections. Meanwhile, environmentalists hailed the order by the SC stating that it will help in celebrating the Diwali festival in an eco-friendly manner. Activists now feel that the responsibility is on the police and the government to strictly implement the directives regarding the two-hour window for firecrackers. Mumbai: The firecracker market in Mumbai has welcomed the Supreme Courts clarification that its earlier direction that only green firecrackers should be used for Diwali this year would be applicable only for Delhi and the National Capital Region and not the rest of the country. While some sellers stated that they already had the stock of green firecrackers, which are now in demand in Mumbai during big festivals, but traders said that it was not possible for them to replace all firecrackers with green crackers on such a short notice this year. However, activists feel that now the responsibility is on the police and the government. If they do not strictly implement the directives regarding the two-hour window for firecrackers, the SC order will be defeated. We are happy that now the green firecrackers are not mandatory, as it was difficult for us to arrange the adequate stock of green crackers in such a short notice. We will also try to encourage the customers to use green crackers, said Mahesh Parmar, a firecracker seller at Mohammed Ali road. Meanwhile, environmentalists hailed the order by the SC stating that it will help in celebrating the Diwali festival in an eco-friendly manner. The crackers that produces minimum amount of toxicity and fumes are green firecrackers, which the experts highlighted, will help in reducing health problems like coughing and lung problems experienced by people during festivals and also help in curbing the crisis of poor air quality post the festival day. SCs efforts to regulate the sale and bursting of firecrackers are a welcome move towards addressing the pollution peak episode post-Diwali, said Sunil Dahiya, senior campaigner, Greenpeace India. Trillium, one of the nations leading providers of alternative fuel systems and renewable fuels, along with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) today celebrated the opening of the commonwealths newest compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station in Indiana, Pennsylvania. The facility is the fourth of six new public CNG fueling stations Trillium is designing, building and maintaining for numerous transit authorities in Pennsylvania as part of a public-private partnership (P-3) contract PennDOT awarded to the company in 2016. The P-3 project will provide CNG to more than 1,600 buses at transit agencies across Pennsylvania, including 11 at the Indiana location. The agreement also brings 23 additional private CNG facilities to the commonwealth. The station, located at 1640 Saltsburg Avenue in Indiana, is open 24/7 and features one public CNG dispenser and one private CNG dispenser. It will primarily serve IndiGOs fleet of CNG buses, but its also open to the public, including light-, medium- and heavy-duty trucks. Larson Design Group of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, is assisting with the construction of the locations. Additional public facilities are scheduled to open at transit authorities across Pennsylvania in Lackawanna and Erie Counties in later phases of the project. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 31) Travelers are starting to head to different airports and bus terminals on the eve of the long weekend All Saints' Day holiday, locally called "Undas." It has been a tradition among Filipinos to go home to their respective provinces during Undas to remember their departed loved ones. It also serves as an opportunity for them to reunite with their family and relatives. Passengers arrived at the Araneta Center bus terminal in Quezon City for their trip to the provinces. Buses departing from this terminal are bound for either the Bicol region or Visayas. There were no long lines in the said terminal as of October 31 afternoon, so passengers can still collect tickets from bus dispatchers. Despite the absence of a crowd, security remains strict at the terminal, with security guards checking the baggage of passengers. Meanwhile, lines at the check-in counters at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay City have also started to clear up as of Wednesday evening. Flower prices Before heading to the cemeteries to visit their departed loved ones, some are passing by Manila's Dangwa Flower Market first. Vendors are saying most customers are opting to buy flower arrangements. Each arrangement costs 400-700 depending on the flower composition. Some sellers are saying business is not as vibrant this year. They said there are fewer shoppers because of the torrential rains brought by the typhoon. The Supreme Court, as every Indian citizen knows, has served as the final word on some of the most important issues facing the country. There is a bronze statue of a mother and a child on the lawn of the Supreme Court. Made by the famous artist Chintamoni Kar, the mother is Mother India and the young Republic is represented by the symbol of a child upholding the law of the country shown in the form of an open book, with the symbol of the balance representing law and justice. The statue offers an important symbolic message today. The Supreme Court, as every Indian citizen knows, has served as the final word on some of the most important issues facing the country. Thanks to the courts enlightened interpretations of Article 21 (life and personal liberty), primarily after the Emergency period, we now have public interest litigation, which has promoted critical economic and social rights, that may not be always enforceable but are constitutionally protected. Examples: the rights to free education, livelihood, a clean environment, and many others. These have helped foster a greater sense of rights consciousness in a nation where most people are still not aware of their rights and opened up avenues for litigation on important issues. As a citizen of India, I am intensely proud of our Supreme Court and distressed at the barrage of snide remarks hurled at it in recent days. Some of it borders on attempts to pressure the court into taking decisions that resonate with majoritarian sentiment at the cost of other groups. This is dangerous. Take some of the recent headline-grabbers. On Monday, soon after the Supreme Court announced that the hearing of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case would be taken up in the first week of January 2019, the Hindutva brigade took to the social media en masse to express displeasure at the courts ruling in a way that comes across as pressure tactics. They asked the government to opt for the ordinance route and clear the way for early construction of a Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath publicly said sometimes, justice delayed is justice equivalent to injustice. We have our own priorities, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had said, rejecting an urgent hearing as the UP government argued it was a 100-year-old dispute that should be taken up on priority. Is a ruling on the Ram temple the most important issue facing the Supreme Court today? Majority sentiment may be inclined a certain way but the court is not meant to only go by what most people feel. There would be no need for courts if popular sentiment alone could adjudicate all matters. It is also important to note that the Supreme Court has not actually passed any order or verdict in the contentious Ram Janmabhoomi case. It has merely said the matter will be listed in early January to decide the future course. Take another volatile case the courts recent verdict allowing women of all ages to worship at Sabarimala. Women devotees reportedly stopped vehicles at the main gateway to Sabarimala and prevented other women in the 10-50 age group from trekking to the hill shrine, flouting the courts ruling that the Ayyappa temple was to open for the monthly puja. What is at stake here? The notion that menstruating women are impure and polluting, and somehow lesser mortals, is antithetical to the idea of equality and not grounded in science. Moreover, what is packaged as centuries-old tradition is actually only a few decades old. The ban on the entry of women between the ages of 10 and 50 was introduced in 1991 through a court verdict, presuming that menstruation precluded the possibility of their observance of purity for 41 days, and that Ayyappa, a celibate, would not like young women. But there is neither ritual sanctity nor scientific justification for this restriction, noted Prof. Rajan Gurukkal, an eminent historian and social scientist, and former vice-chancellor of M.G. University, Kottayam, in a recent magazine article. Its true that Savarna households observed menstrual pollution and abstained from entering holy places during their periods, Gurukkal added, but menstruation was auspicious and symbolic of fertility for the tribals, who had flocked the temple with their women and children of all age groups till the 60s. There is also archival evidence of young Savarna women from the Travancore region entering the temple till the 80s. Should faith and tradition be allowed to take precedence over the orders of the Supreme Court? And what happens to the justice system and rule of law in the country if this attitude is normalised and if influential people get away with openly advocating flouting or sidestepping the orders of the Supreme Court? Faith and religion trigger charged emotions, but as we have seen, neither is cast in stone. Change has happened through judicial orders. One of the most celebrated cases is the one related to the entry of Muslim women into the sanctum sanctorum of Haji Ali shrine in Mumbai to lay flowers or chador. There was a prohibition on this earlier but a petition by the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan paved the way for the removal of restrictions on womens entry into the shrine. In 2016, in what was seen by many as a victory for equal rights to worship for women, the Haji Ali Dargah Trust conceded before the Supreme Court that it had resolved to allow women to enter the sanctum sanctorum of the famed dargah in Mumbai at par with men. The Supreme Court exists as a last resort of dispensation of justice for all in a hugely diverse country. In carrying out its mandate, it will, and often has, ruled contrary to what is seen as popular sentiment which often influences the decisions of the executive. Right now, India faces a very important question. As Indians, do we believe in the supremacy of the Supreme Court or not? The Supreme Court itself has said that data that exposes any lacunae of the judicial system is not tantamount to contempt and is a welcome step forward in self-rectification. But theres a difference between pointing out lacunae in the judicial system and encouraging people to violate or ignore the orders of the top court. The latter would damage the countrys justice system. Also up for sale is a copy of Hawkings best-selling book A Brief History of Time signed with his thumb print. Other documents, an invitation for a reception for Time Travellers as well as a motorised wheelchair Hawking used, are also being sold in the Oct. 31 - Nov. 8 online auction. (Photo: Hawking.org.uk) From a copy of his PhD thesis to his wheelchair, items belonging to Stephen Hawking are headed for auction, offering fans of the late British physicist famed for his work exploring the origins of the universe a chance to buy some of his possessions. Known for his acclaimed research on black holes, the wheelchair-bound Hawking, who suffered from motor neurone disease and used an electronic voice synthesiser, died in March at the age of 76. On the Shoulders of Giants, which also features documents penned by Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, will feature 22 lots from Hawkings estate, including one of five known copies of his PhD thesis, Properties of expanding universes, estimated at 100,000-150,000 pounds (USD 127,480 - USD 191,220). Stephen Hawking was a huge personality worldwide. He had this amazing ability to connect with people, Thomas Venning, head of the Books and Manuscripts department at auction house Christies London, told Reuters. The whole idea...was to provide something that was accessible to his admirers so that people could connect with him and remember his extraordinary story. Also up for sale are a copy of Hawkings best-selling book A Brief History of Time signed with his thumbprint, estimated between 2,000 and 3,000 pounds, as well as awards and medals given to the scientist, priced at 10,000-15,000 pounds. Other documents, an invitation for a reception for Time Travellers as well as a motorised wheelchair Hawking used, are also being sold in the Oct. 31 - Nov. 8 online auction. It has already attracted interest from Asia, the Middle East, the United States and Australia, according to Venning. (Hawking) travelled across the world and he has fans in the US, he has fans in Asia, he said. (Source) With the company a manufacturing mainstay and its signature product at work around the world, executives and employees at Stratford-based Sikorsky say they are looking forward to the next four decades of Black Hawk helicopters. The Lockeed Martin subsidiary commemorated 40 years of developing and selling its Black Hawk on Wednesday, and officials said the helicopter put Sikorsky and state on the map in the combat aircraft industry, breathing life into Connecticut manufacturing. When I think of the Black Hawk I think of hope, not just from the mission perspective but also what it offers families in this community, said Dana Fiatarone, vice president of Army and Air Force systems at Sikorsky. The Black Hawks 40th birthday also stands as an acknowledgment to the long-standing partnership with the U.S. Army, which has long regarded the aircraft as the backbone of the U.S. Army Aviation according to Fiatarone. Longtime Sikorsky employee Joseph Donato predates the aircrafts debut with his 51-year career with the helicopter manufacturer. Developing the Black Hawk was a point of pride for him, not only for its worldwide success but for bringing life back to the company, which struggled during the 1960s and 1970s when production began lagging. When we first got the Black Hawk contract, everybody was nervous, he said. We didnt know what the future of the company was or what our future was as employees. We got the contract, and now we had stability. We knew the company would prosper. It created work for generations of Connecticut residents, including the first Black Hawks lead engineer and designer Ray Leoni. Leoni spent 41 years with Sikorsky, and in that time saw his two sons, Peter and Christopher, join its ranks. Now, even his granddaughter, Katherine, works for the company. We knew we had something special, but I dont think any of us at that time could have predicted we would still be building and delivering today, said Ray Leoni. As it stands, Sikorsky employs 13,000 people worldwide with the majority in Connecticut. The companys local workforce currently sits at 7,900, with more expected to follow in coming years. Sikorsky is now working on a new helicopter the U.S. Air Force wants for combat missions like rescuing pilots downed in enemy territory. The Pentagon is expected to order 112 aircraft. With ongoing contracts and recent requests for proposals out from the government, Sikorsky is looking at roughly a 10-year window that Fiatrone said will provide further workforce and economic development opportunities in the region as the company looks to fill the orders. The company currently has 4,000 Black Hawks serving 30 countries, including variants like the maritime Seahawk and Pave Hawk. It truly is an economic generator for the region, Fiatarone said. I look forward to it being here for the next 40 years. In May, Sikorsky delivered the first CH-53K King Stallion helicopter to the Marines of an expected total order of 200 aircraft. In recent tests, Sikorsky pilots have flown the aircraft at more than 230 miles per hour while banking it at sharp angles, attaining altitude of 18,500 feet, and lifting an external load weighing 18 tons. Includes prior reporting by Alexander Soule. Jordan.grice@hearsmediact.com The European Commission unveiled its plan in March, insisting that EU member countries should be able to tax firms that make profits. Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond holds up the traditional red dispatch box. Technology company chiefs have warned that a digital services tax proposed by the European Union would hinder innovation and hurt economic growth. In a letter to finance ministers of the 28-nation European Union, leaders of 16 tech companies including Spotify, Booking.com and Zalando say the proposed tax would undermine the EUs goal of a digital single market and harm the very businesses that are the catalysts for economic growth and employment in the European economy. Johannes Bahrke, spokesman at the EUs executive Commission, defended the proposal Tuesday, saying it aims to create a level playing field for companies whether they are based in or outside the EU. Our proposal remains fully grounded on the most basic principle of corporate taxation which is that profits should be taxed where the value is created, he said. However, Bahrke added that the commission would prefer an international agreement to a new EU law. The European Commission unveiled its plan in March, insisting that EU member countries should be able to tax firms that make profits on their territory even if they arent physically present. The proposal was seen as a way of making tech giants like Google and Facebook pay more taxes. Brussels argues that corporate tax rules havent kept up with the emergence of the borderless digital marketplace that allows some companies to make huge profits in Europe yet pay very little tax. In the EU, foreign companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook pay what tax they owe in the country where they have their regional base usually a low tax haven like Ireland. Britain, which is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29, announced its own tech tax on Monday. Treasury chief Philip Hammond said the proposed tax would target UK-generated revenues of specific digital platform business models. Hammond, like the EU, said he would prefer an international solution. In their letter, tech CEOs warned that the EU proposal will have a disproportionate impact on European companies, resulting in unfair treatment. They also said the tax will be difficult to implement, could result in double taxation for some businesses and might trigger retaliatory measures from other countries. Addressing EU finance ministers ahead of a Nov. 6 meeting, the letter urged them not to adopt a measure which would cause material harm to economic growth and to innovation, investment and employment across Europe. (Source) The U.S. said talks to end the war in Yemen must start in November, pressuring Saudi Arabia to dial back its aggressive foreign policy following the murder of a vocal critic of the kingdom. In separate remarks, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis said the Saudi-led coalition which entered the conflict in 2015 and Iran-backed Houthi rebels must move toward a political resolution to a war that has created one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters. Mattis said the warring parties should meet in Sweden in 30 days. British Prime Minister Theresa May told lawmakers the U.K. is backing efforts to reach a political agreement. "A nationwide cease fire will only have an effect on the ground if it's underpinned by a political deal between the conflict parties," she said. The killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a former Saudi court insider, has focused international attention on the policies of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. In addition to the war in Yemen, the 33-year-old has led an unprecedented political and economic embargo against neighboring Qatar and engaged in diplomatic confrontations with Germany and Canada. "The time is now for the cessation of hostilities," including missile and drone strikes by Houthi rebels against Saudi Arabia and its ally the United Arab Emirates, Pompeo said in a statement. "Subsequently, coalition air strikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen." While the statements are the strongest yet from U.S. officials against the war in Yemen since the Saudi campaign began, forcing the Houthis into an agreement at a time when their chief backer, Iran, is increasingly isolated by American sanctions could prove difficult. "The question becomes what enforcement measures the U.S. has in mind?" said David B. Roberts, an assistant professor at King's College London who studies the Gulf. Saudi Arabia assembled a coalition of mainly Sunni-ruled countries to restore the government of Yemen President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi after it had been forced out of much of the country by the Shiite Houthis. The war has created a humanitarian catastrophe in the impoverished country, with thousands of civilians killed, and displacement, hunger and sickness rampant. Three-quarters of the country's 28 million people need aid to stave off hunger and disease, and half of those require it urgently to survive, according to the UN. Hadi's forces have since regained large parts of Yemen, yet the Houthis still control the capital, Sanaa, and have resisted attempts to force them to negotiate a solution that would diminish their influence. Mattis in a speech on Tuesday said Saudi Arabia and the UAE were ready for talks. "We've got to move toward a peace effort and we can't say we're going to do it some time in the future," he said. "We need to be doing this in the next 30 days." Warring parties must "meet in Sweden in November and come to a solution, not talk about subordinate issues," Mattis said at the U.S. Institute of Peace event. Discussions should focus on demilitarizing the Yemeni border and placing Iranian-provided Houthi missiles "under international watch and parked somewhere where they can be accounted for." The killing of Khashoggi has led to growing pressure from both parties in Congress for the U.S. to punish Saudi Arabia, including even halting weapon sales to Riyadh, something President Donald Trump has ruled out. "Both the Trump administration and the Saudis have little choice but to accept the inevitable and agree to a cease-fire," said Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle Eastern politics at the London School of Economics. GREENWICH Greenwich honored seven veterans by presenting them with special medals for their service to the nation during a Town Hall ceremony on Tuesday afternoon. The Connecticut Wartime Medal is given out to those who served 90 days in uniform in a overseas during a war. And it was awarded to Vincent Masi, who served in the Navy in World War II and Korea, and to Army veterans Ronald Pucci, Edward Fox, Thomas Orrico, Joe Musich, Thomas Klinka and Peter LeBeau, all of whom served during Vietnam. It is such a privilege to be here and recognize your service, said state Rep. Livvy Floren R-149, a member of the Greenwich Veterans Council, who served as master of ceremonies. It really is special. About 20 people attended, many of whom were family members of the honored veterans. I dont think its ever too late to do something like this, said Daniel Griffin, a member of Greenwichs American Legion Post 29 who put the ceremony together and arranged for the medals from the state. I think of Fred Intrieri who recently passed away at 94 who was a World War II vet. He said the greatest moment of his life was last year when he took the Honor Flight and got to meet Bob Dole and see the World War II monument in Washington, D.C. He was actually buried in his honor flight shirt. That recognition meant a lot to him. The ceremonies can be very significant to Vietnam veterans who were often not welcomed home after their service in the unpopular war, Griffin said. When anyone recognizes you for your sacrifices in the military its very important, he said. LeBeau, commander of the American Legion Post 29, also spoke of the importance of the ceremony after receiving his medal. When I host veterans events, I usually say all of you are here free and prosperous because we and millions of other men and women went overseas and put their lives on the line, LeBeau said. Next year will be a year of observation in Greenwich for the women who have served in the military, he said, an announcement that garnered loud applause. All of the veterans were given chances to speak after getting their medals. Many chose either not to talk or to keep it simple. Pucci said he was just glad to be home after they werent recognized after serving in the war. Musich, who is post commander for the Cos Cob VFW Post 10112, said something similar, thinking back to his time in Vietnam. On Oct. 24 of this year I turned 71 and 50 years ago in 1968 I was hoping to make it to 21, Musich said. I did and Im very proud to serve my country. Orrico told the crowd how glad he was to be a part of the Greenwich community and praised First Selectman Peter Teseis leadership. I was born here in Cos Cob and to watch this town grow and prosper is tremendous, Orrico said. Im very proud. Like many of the veterans at the ceremony, Pucci came with several family members. His wife, Joan Pucci; daughter, Mary Inzitari; and grandchildren Nick and Jennifer all said they were proud to attend. And it came as a happy surprise to Pucci who didnt know how much of his family was coming. I think its well-deserved, not just for him but for everyone here, Joan Pucci said. After receiving his medal, Massi said he remained humbled by all the tributes that have come for his service during World War II and Korea. You become a man after it, he said. You learn respect for each other from serving and from helping your fellow veterans. Griffin said Massis service continues on as he is one of the more active members of the American Legion in their work placing American flags on the grave sites of local veterans. It amazes me, Griffin said. Hes up and down those hills like a mountain goat and after a half hour Im ready to sit down in my car while hes still going. The medals were pinned to the honorees by state Sen. L. Scott Frantz, R-36, and state Rep. Michael Bocchino, R-150, both of whom said they were very happy to have the honor to recognize heroes like the veterans. Tesei also attended the ceremony and even served as pro bono photographer. This is to honor those who have sacrificed for our country, Tesei said. Bocchino said he had been taught at a young age to say welcome home to veterans and he made sure to do it at the ceremony. kborsuk@greenwichtime.com I came to Judaism in a roundabout way. Growing up in Brooklyn, I begged my mom to send me to Hebrew school because thats where all my friends went. Whats more, Beth Elohim (the synagogue in Park Slope) was doing Fiddle on the Roof, and I was desperate to be one of Tevyes daughters, preferably the one who gets to sing Matchmaker, Matchmaker. Building on my school girl fascination of matchmakers and the world of Orthodox Judaism, I was drawn like a magnet to neighboring Eastern Parkway, the home of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. I read an amazing New Yorker article on Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and regretted that I did not have the privilege of seeing him in person. I mean, even Bob Dylan went to see the Rebbe; the whole thing drew me in like a moth to a flame. Fast forward to my husband, Ian. Ians father attends a Modern Orthodox synagogue and brought up his family with a deep appreciation of the Jewish world. Unfortunately, Ian hated it. Saturdays at Shul meant Ian could never do team sports. When Ians father started going to an Orthodox synagogue, his mother and sister stopped going because of the way women were separated from the men. Ians mom used the whole thing to ramp up her atheism, and this is a woman who does not hold back. So, enter me, the shiksa from hell. When Ians parents met me, they tried their hardest. They had royally screwed up non-Jewish relationships their children had in the past; now they wanted grandchildren, so they needed to behave. Regardless, it was clear they were concerned I was not Jewish, and as Ian and I became more serious I made a real effort to embrace Judaism. Like Ians mother, I dont hold back. I was always fascinated with Judaism; I could sing the entire soundtrack of Fiddler on the Roof like a champ, after all. Turned out, I was clueless. Ian and I started taking a Derek Torah class offered through the 92nd Street Y, which was legendary in its missive to help interfaith couples prepare for a potential conversion or interfaith marriage. Our class consisted of Jewish men coupled with non-Jewish fiancees; there were no women who were Jewish, which was striking. Our class was taught by a long-suffering Orthodox rabbi who did his best to smile his way through an education process that most rabbis would see as the ultimate challenge: the acceptance of interfaith marriage in Judaism. In one class, our rabbi tried patiently to explain the Jewish tradition of Tefillin, which involves wrapping black leather straps with scrolls of parchment inscribed from the Torah around certain parts of the body. The male Jewish partners, all of whom couldnt make it to class for some reason, had a similar experience when their shiksa wives returned home. Um, why did you never tell me Judaism involved bondage? was the common question posed from all us stunned Shiksas. I mean, who knew?! Looking back, I like to say my flirtation with Judaism was a bit of a bait-and-switch for my long-suffering fiance and his family. I met several awesome rabbis, and one of them looked at me like an alien when I explained to her that I would happily convert to Judaism but would still celebrate all the Christian holidays. Christmas is not Jewish, Claire, the Rabbi told me, firmly. I know but all of the Jewish holidays involve suffering and if I dont have the Carols, the Christmas tree, the Easter bunny its game-over here, I replied. It was a line that went down as lore in that particular Upper West Side temple, apparently. To make matters worse, three years into our marriage my father died very suddenly at the age of 71. His death shook all of us to the core, and I found myself church-shopping in Greenwich after his passing with a desperation and passion I didnt fully understand. I had been raised going to Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims, a famous old church in Brooklyn Heights where I was confirmed. My father was a staunch atheist who could sing the famous Easter hymn Christ the Lord has Risen Today with suspect volume and passion. My mother felt it was important my brothers and I were confirmed, but we didnt talk much about God in our house even though our entire brownstone vibrated with the Sunday drums from the legendary Brooklyn Tabernacle Gospel church that abutted our house. Watching my Dad trying to read the Sunday NY Times as Gospel music seeped through our 12-foot 19th-century walls, was one of my favorite pastimes. I found a church in Greenwich which quickly became home, Trinity church. Two pastors blew me away with their academic and passionate preaching. I found myself in the front row, my mouth literally agape as I took in as much as I could from their teachings and then I would fly home to consume anything written by C.S. Lewis. Ian was amused, his father was horrified. The girl his son had married had not only not converted, she had become a born-again Christian. But my promise held firm; despite my newfound passion for Christianity, I was going to raise all three children Jewish. I had screamed in kitchen in both Harlem and Greenwich as my tiny baby boys had their Bris, and I wasnt going to turn around now. We did some shopping around and landed on the Chabad of Greenwich, where I immediately fell in love with the rabbis wife. Like literally. We met for coffee, spoke of the Rebbe and my situation and she looked at me right in the eye and said: Listen Claire. We dont do this often, but I want you to come and get to know us spend time with us and lets just see where you end up after a couple of years in our company, she said, smiling wisely. I can do that, I replied instantly, but I will curious to know where YOU will end up after a few years in my company. Game on. My children have attended the Chabad of Greenwich ever since, and the place feels like family. So does Trinity church, I will be quick to add. I helped the Jewish Family Services of Greenwich ramp up an interfaith group that met monthly and sat back and prayed to Hashem for a faithful and respectful way forward. The situation was further complicated by the fact that I had to be the cheerleader for Judaism in our family, given my husbands reservations. Claire do you have to be so into it? Its like Charlotte from Sex and The City, he muttered, annoyed with my challah braiding. The Deren family, who run the Chabad, were onto to us from the start. Long Shabbat dinners, high holiday celebrations, marriage counseling groups, parenting classes the amount of time I suddenly found myself at their long dining room table astounded me. It delighted Ians father. Take them as long as they will have you my father-in-law informed me with urgency. They will get fed up with you, but just stick with them as long as you can please, Claire. Nice. But here is the thing I have come to learn about Judaism: its truly awesome, even if you not a member of the tribe. There is a passion for learning, for debate, for passionate understanding of the human condition under Hashem (G-D, as they call him) and most of all a deeply rooted love in the Torah, which for Christians is the first five books of the Old testament. I like to say, same source material. You know, I love your enthusiasm for Judaism Claire, a very wise Christian mentor told me last year. But at a certain point, you will come to a critical divide. Thats kind of what its all about, after all. Thank you, Father Killjoy. But the thing is, he has a point. I dont know what I am doing a lot of the time, but I know that my children will be raised Jewish and I will pray from my very core that I will be guided on this odd and windy path in which I find myself. The fact that both an evangelical pastor and an Orthodox rabbi have embraced us with love is really what its all about, after all. So, in a very real time of despair for the Jewish people, following a long history of horrific persecution and the recent shooting in Pittsburgh, I choose to celebrate everything in my life that is Jewish. Marrying into a Jewish family makes this shooting more tragic, the Holocaust a different story, the diaspora a different narrative and Israel more than just a different country. Its as if a light switch was turned on to a world I knew existed but didnt fully own. Whether we are Jewish or not, we need to own what we see right now. Antisemitism is very real, especially in Fairfield County home of the WASP with the whale belt and financial services. And as we all are learning in the wake of the horrific shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, antisemitism in this country and elsewhere is growing at a frightening speed. And so, last Shabbat as my family made its way to our Rabbis home, we stopped at the window to look at the candles glow from the chilly autumn evening outside. Despite some who criticize the way woman are treated in the Orthodox community, I readied myself for my favorite part of the evening, the Eishet Chayil (Proverbs 31). This gorgeous tradition takes place every Friday night when the husband sings over his wife reminding her that she is at the center of the home and his universe. So I will leave you with these sacred and ancient words, which every MotherLode can appreciate, whether they are Jewish or not: A Woman of Valor, who can find? She is more precious than corals She opens her mouth with wisdom and a lesson of kindness is on her tongue. She looks after the conduct of her household Her children rise up and make her happy; her husband praises her: many women have excelled, but you excel them all! Shalom Greenwich. Especially right now. Claire Tisne Haft is a former publishing and film executive, raising her family in Greenwich while working on a freelance basis on books and films. Mastercard has started storing all its new payments transaction data in India at its technology centre in the western city of Pune. The companies had sought dilution of the central bank directive, requesting they be allowed to store data both locally and at their offshore offices, a practice widely known as data mirroring. But their requests were declined. Global card payments giant Mastercard is storing its new Indian transaction data locally, the company said on Tuesday, as it starts to comply with a regulatory directive which US companies unsuccessfully lobbied hard to dilute. The Indian central bank in April said companies such as Mastercard, Visa and American Express will from October need to store their payments data only in India so that the regulator could have unfettered supervisory access. The directive sparked an aggressive lobbying effort from US companies who said the rules would increase their infrastructure costs, hit their global fraud detection platforms and affect planned investments in India where more and more people are using digital modes of payments. The companies had sought dilution of the central bank directive, requesting they be allowed to store data both locally and at their offshore offices, a practice is widely known as data mirroring. But their requests were declined. Mastercard has started storing all its new payments transaction data in India at its technology centre in the western city of Pune, the company said in a statement to Reuters on Tuesday. It did not specify whether a copy of that data was still being stored abroad. The company said it has submitted a proposal with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for storage of data only in India within a specified timeframe. It did not give a timeline. Visa too has started storing a copy of its new transaction data locally and had sought time from the RBI to comply with the requirement to store Indian data only within the country, two industry sources said. Visa and American Express did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The RBI directive was part of a wider push by India to ask companies to store more of their data locally at a time when governments globally are enforcing more stringent rules to protect user data. Government sources have previously told Reuters that stringent data localisation measures were essential for gaining easier access to data during criminal and other investigations. Two US senators this month called on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to soften Indias stance on data localisation, warning that measures requiring it represent key trade barriers between the two nations. Other than the RBI proposal, India is working on an overarching data protection law that calls for the storing of all critical personal data in India. E-commerce and cloud computing policies are also being developed. (Source) Following Huaweis lead with the Watch GT, Honor has unveiled a smartwatch based on the proprietary Light OS platform. The Honor Watch Magic is smaller and less fancy than the GT, but even more affordable. The Honor smartwatch has a 1.2 AMOLED display, compared to 1.39 for the Huawei one. In both cases the resolution was selected to deliver a sharp 326ppi pixel density. The battery is smaller as well, 178mAh, down from 420mAh. Honor claims that this is enough for a week of typical operation. Honor Watch Magic in Lava Black The price of the Honor Watch Magic is CNY 900, down from the CNY 1,300 that Huawei is charging for the Watch GT. In Europe, the GT sells for 200, so the Watch Magic (if it does come to Europe) should be around 150. Anyway, youre getting a pretty complete package for your money. It is rated to 5ATM so its swim-proof, it has a heart rate monitor, advanced positioning (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo) and Huawei Pay. The Honor Watch Magic is even thinner, just 9.8mm, which is great news for anyone who is sick of having their shirt sleeve constantly catching on their chunky smartwatch. A wide variety of straps is available Advanced exercise tracking features The body of the watch is built out of 316L stainless steel and plastic (no ceramic this time around). It supports a variety of QuickFit straps. The Watch Magic goes on sale in China at midnight, you can find it on vmall. Its available in Lava Black and Moonlight Silver (theres a fashion version, but that option is grayed out). Lines for the OnePlus 6T were longer than the ones for the iPhones, says T-Mobile People are buying what OnePlus and T-Mobile are selling the lines for the OnePlus 6T in front of the carriers stores were longer than those for the new iPhones (according to a T-Mo employee quoted by Business Insider). T-Mobile stores are currently the only place in the world where you can buy a 6T, but thats not why the carrier has the best deal on the new flagship. By trading in an eligible phone (the list is quite long and even includes the original OnePlus One) you get $300 credit towards buying a OnePlus 6T. That drops the final price from $580 to just $280 a deal that Apple, Samsung and others cant match with their $1,000 flagships. In case you missed it, OnePlus has entered the US market with the backing of T-Mobile and Qualcomm. This is even more newsworthy given how fellow Chinese makers Huawei and ZTE were treated in the US recently. The future seems bright for OnePlus and the 6T may be the ace up T-Mobiles sleeve, because just as the phone maker is fighting to gain market share, so is the carrier trying to unseat AT&T and Verizon. Source These are the best offers from our affiliate partners. We may get a commission from qualifying sales. The Silicon Valley-based company has faced protests, regulator crackdowns and licence losses around the world. In 2016, two British drivers successfully argued at a tribunal that Uber exerted significant control over them to provide an on-demand taxi service and that they should be given workers rights, which include the minimum wage. Uber defended its business model at the Court of Appeal on Tuesday in the latest stage of a long-running battle over the classification of its drivers as self-employed, a designation that entitles them to few workplace rights in Britain. The Silicon Valley-based company, which could be valued at USD 120 billion in a flotation, has faced protests, regulator crackdowns and licence losses around the world as it challenges existing competitors and rapidly expands. In 2016, two British drivers successfully argued at a tribunal that Uber exerted significant control over them to provide an on-demand taxi service and that they should be given workers rights, which include the minimum wage. An employment appeal tribunal upheld that decision last year prompting Uber to go to the Court of Appeal. Unions argue that the gig economy - where people often work for various firms at the same time without fixed contracts - is exploitative, whilst Uber says its drivers enjoy the flexibility and on average earn much more than the minimum wage. It says its practices have been widely used for decades in Britain by minicabs, private hire vehicles which cannot be hailed in the street like traditional black taxis. Many mini-cab companies operate a business model under which drivers are self-employed, own their own cars, and bear the risk of their own expenses, the firm said in a court document. But co-claimant in the case and chair of the drivers branch of The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain James Farrar criticised the company. Its two years since we beat Uber at the Employment Tribunal, yet minicab drivers all over the UK are still waiting for justice, while Uber exhausts endless appeals, he said ahead of the hearing. In Britain, the self-employed are entitled to only basic protections such as health and safety but workers receive the minimum wage, paid holidays and rest breaks. Uber has introduced a number of benefits for drivers in recent months. The US firm is embroiled in legal action around the world where courts have taken differing approaches to the issue of workplace rights. The matter has risen up the political agenda in many countries as more people work for companies without fixed hours or a guaranteed income. A march backed by several trade unions and involving cleaners, receptionists and security officers was held in central London last Tuesday. The government launched a review into working practices last year but has yet to respond after a consultation closed in the summer. A reply is due in due course, according to a business ministry spokeswoman. (Source) Haiti - Facebook : The Embassy of Haiti in France calls for vigilance "The Embassy of Haiti in France invites Facebook users to be vigilant about false Facebook accounts created by malicious people, including an account that usurp the identity of the Ambassador of Haiti in France, Vanessa Lamothe Matignon, in order to convey false information. The Haitian Embassy recalls that the official information of the Haitian State is communicated only through the official accounts of its institutions and not on the private accounts of its representatives." HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - NOTICE Canada : Change of address for VISA applications The Embassy of Canada in Haiti informs that as of November 2, 2018, the services offered by Visa Receipt Centers (VACs) under contract with the Government of Canada located in Asia, Asia Pacific and the Americas will change in the case of the renewal of these contracts. Effective November 2, 2018, new contracts will result in changes to: - Services and fees; - The location of VACs and service providers. As of November 2, 2018, VACs in Asia, Asia-Pacific and the Americas : - charge a separate fee to submit your application and send your documents - collect biometrics by appointment only - introduce other services and fees The following VACs will move to a new address in the same city and will be operated by a new service provider effective November 2, 2018 : Los Angeles, United States New York, United States Georgetown, Guyana Port-au-Prince, Haiti Kingston, Jamaica Montego Bay, Jamaica Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago Download the information PDF for the Port-au-Prince VAC (in French) : https://www.haitilibre.com/docs/Transition_Communication_Handouts-Annex_C_and_D_Haiti_fr.pdf Visit this address as of November 2, 2018 for the new location of these VACs and for more information www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/contact-ircc/offices/find-visa-application-centre.html HL/ HaitiLibre New York and Arab media said the sisters, who had run away from home before, were of Saudi origin. The two young women, identified as Rotana Farea, 22, and her sister Tala, 16, were found on the banks of the Hudson last week with no visible signs of trauma, dressed all in black, with fur-trimmed coat collars, and bound together at the ankles and waist by duct tape. (Photo: Twitter | NYPDnews) New York: Police in New York searched Tuesday for clues to what, or who, killed two sisters whose bodies were found duct-taped together on the banks of the Hudson River in Manhattan. The two young women, identified as Rotana Farea, 22, and her sister Tala, 16, were found on the banks of the Hudson last week with no visible signs of trauma, dressed all in black, with fur-trimmed coat collars, and bound together at the ankles and waist by duct tape. New York and Arab media said the sisters, who had run away from home before, were of Saudi origin but their family was living in Fairfax, Virginia. The Saudi embassy in Washington declined to comment on the reports. The young women's bodies were being held by the New York medical examiner pending an autopsy. Tala had been reported missing to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children on August 24, the New York Daily News said. But the missing child report was withdrawn after it was claimed she was living with her elder sister in New York City. Police are considering whether the sisters died as part of a suicide pact, possibly jumping from the George Washington bridge some six miles (10 kilometres) north of where their bodies were found. But investigators have not ruled out that the sisters were murdered. The Hudson River separates New York from New Jersey, and police were scouring the river banks to see if they can establish where the sisters entered the water. Havre Police Department A caller on 17th Street West reported at 10:28 a.m. Wednesday that a child was trying to find her mother. -- Wednesday at 10:39 a.m. a First Street Northeast caller reported a theft from a vehicle. -- A Fifth Avenue caller reported Wednesday at 1:29 p.m. that two chainsaws were missing. -- A possible stabbing was called in to 911 from 11th Avenue at 2:59 p.m. Wednesday. An arrest was made, but no details were provided in the dispatch log or in response before print deadline to a phone inquiry. Matthew Alcorn, who is listed in the dispatch log as a possible involved party, was listed on the jail roster this morning with a charge of felony tampering with evidence. -- Officers did a followup investigation at the hospital Wednesday at 3:32 p.m. on a four-wheeler accident. -- Keenan Lewis Doney of Havre, 28, was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct after a 911 caller reported a man walking in the middle of Second Street Wednesday at 5:49 p.m. -- Officers rendered services after a 10th Street West caller reported Wednesday at 7:28 p.m. a 10-year-old boy was being harassed. -- Officers investigated a 24/7 Sobriety Program no-show Wednesday at 8:01 p.m. Hill County Sheriff's Office After a 911 caller on First Avenue Southwest in Box Elder reported gun shots at 12:46 p.m. Wednesday, investigating deputies arrested six Box Elder residents. Paul Joseph Theboy, 30, was arrested on a Justice or City court warrant; Michael James Lamere, 36, and Nina Maria Demontiney, 31, were each arrested on charges of obstructing a peace officer or other public servant and probation violation; Demarise Melanie St. Mark, 34, was arrested on a charge of obstructing and on a Justice or City court warrant; Lloyd Daniel Henry, 46, was arrested on a charge of obstructing; and Jayson Richard Mcguire, 30, was arrested on charges of obstructing and possession of drug paraphernalia. -- A Rudyard Road South caller reported Wednesday at 9:42 p.m. receiving harassing texts. -- Deputies were asked to assist at a structure fire on Boulevard Avenue at 1:39 a.m. today. Havre Fire Department Emergency medical personnel responded to three calls Wednesday and two calls early this morning, including the 1:39 a.m. fire callon Boulevard Avenue. -- Firefighters were called Wednesday at 4:13 p.m. to a construction site on the 1000 Block of First Street after a main gas line was struck. Fire crews performed standby while NorthWestern Energy crews repaired the damage -- Firefighters were called to a structure fire on the 900 Block of Boulevard Avenue at 1:39 a.m. today. The home received extensive damage and will possibly be determined to be a total loss, Fire Chief Mel Paulson said, but no one was injured in the incident. The cause of the fire is under investigation, he added. Havre Animal Shelter The Havre shelter this morning held one medium-hair cat and one short-hair cat of unknown gender and six 5-week-old kittens being fostered until ready for adoption. Another 28 cats and a 6-month-old kitten, all of unknown gender, were listed separately as being held in the shelter or at a volunteer shelter. -- The Havre shelter this morning also held a female Australian cattle dog-blue heeler-border collie dog, a male German shepherd dog, a female mixed-breed dog, a female pit bull-terrier-German shepherd dog, a male shepherd 23-week-old puppy, a female German shepherd-Bernese mountain dog 9-week-old puppy, a female mixed-breed 8-month-old puppy and a female mixed-breed 10-month-old puppy. Births A boy was born Monday, Oct. 29, 2018, to Jordana Haas and Payton Peterson of Havre. Hank, a black Labrador retreiver recently rescued by RezQ Dogs, looks at the camera while his photograph is taken. RezQ Dogs is continuing its work to rescue stray and abandoned dogs and is looking for people who want to adopt the dogs and people to help the non-profit pay for its work. RezQ Dogs has been saving lives of unwanted, abandoned and injured dogs along the Hi-Line for the last eight years, said Anita Wilke, executive director of the organization. Located near Dodson, RezQ has so far saved lives of nearly 3,000 animals, mostly dogs -although some cats did wiggle their way in - she said. The small organization has been working closely with Fort Belknap Animal Control and, as a result of this cooperation, RezQ Dogs has been able to change FBAC's euthanasia rate from 98 percent of dogs euthanized to less than 2 percent, a 96 percent decrease. She said that recently her husband, Jim Wilke, received a call about an injured dog lying on the sidewalk - he didn't know what he would find. The dog, a young black Labrador retriever, was lying where no dog would usually lie, Anita Wilke said. He knew he found the right dog, but as Jim Wilke got closer, he didn't see aggression in the dog, just signs of intense pain and friendliness. Wilke slowly reached out to pet him and quietly promised the injured dog, "Nothing but the good stuff from now on," Anita Wilke said. From people living nearby, Jim Wilke found out that the dog had been there for two days, unable to move. He rushed him to a veterinary clinic in Chinook to find out that Hank, as the young dog soon became known, had a bad break of the femur and multiple broken ribs, one of which may have punctured the lung. The decision was made to immediately transport him to a 24-hour veterinary hospital in Great Falls to save his life, Anita Wilke said. That is standard in RezQ Dogs operations. All animals in the care of the rescue receive basic veterinary care, vaccinations, deworming, flea/tick treatments as needed, and are spayed or neutered prior to adoption. Sadly, many of the dogs, like Hank, require much more than that, Anita Wilke added. Dogs with serious illness or orthopedic injuries often times require care in a specialty veterinary clinic in Great Falls. RezQ Dogs has received an unprecedented number of injured animals this year, she said. Just in the last four weeks, the organization has spent nearly $9,000 on emergency veterinary care for four dogs that arrived with severe orthopedic injuries and a mystery illness. Hank was one of them. Now recovering at RezQ Dogs, the young playful pup is nearly ready for adoption. Courtesy photo Athena, who is recovering from surgery to repair damage from being hit by a car, looks at the camera at RezQ Dogs. Athena, an adult female, is also recovering from an orthopedic surgery after being hit by a car. A young puppy, named Yoda, is still in the hospital in Great Falls recovering from amputation. Sadly, the orthopedic specialist was not able to save her broken front leg. An extremely emaciated 6-month-old puppy named Faith is also staying in a veterinary clinic pending test results and a diagnosis. Those injured animals are just a few of the dozens currently waiting for adoption at RezQ Dogs. Wilke said people can visit http://www.rezqdogs.org for more information on how to adopt and help. One way people can help is by having some pizza Thursday. A Pizza Hut fundraiser is set where if people mention RezQ Dogs when paying for dine-in or carry-out food, 20 percent of the purchase price will go to the fundraiser to help the non-profit pay its expenses. The company also underpaid the workers annual leave entitlements, failed to provide the employee with the terms of her employment in writing, and failed to provide a Fair Work Information Statement when she commenced work. Fair Work Inspectors investigated after the employee lodged a request for assistance. The agency had previously informed Bundaberg Refrigerated Transport about its obligations when investigating requests from other workers. Ombudsman Sandra Parker said the Courts penalty should serve as a warning to businesses to comply with their legal obligation to workers. Employers have a responsibility to fully pay the minimum rates and entitlements that apply to their employees, said Parker. We are prepared to take legal action to enforce workplace laws, especially if businesses have been put on notice. Any workers with concerns should contact the Fair Work Ombudsman. At the National HR Summit, Schneider will be interviewed by HRD, where he will discuss the companys people strategy and why it matters to overall business strategy. With the guiding principles of integrity, respect, teamwork, achievement and innovation, hear how these principles are the keys to corporate culture and to achieving success. Super saver registrations are now open for the Summit. HRD readers are encouraged to book in soon to take advantage of the savings on offer. For more information and to register, go to http://hrsummit.com.au/ The National HR Summit Australia will be held at Luna Park Sydney on 26-27 March 2019. Some harvesting machines are known to operate at a speed of up to 4 kilometres per hour. Deconinck Vineyards has no prior history of workplace hazards resulting in injury or death, based on information from the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The state agency is now investigating the workers death. The incident, however, is not the first time a California vineyard worker had been killed by machinery. SFGate reported an unidentified man in Sonoma Valley was crushed to death by a tractor implement he was cleaning. Authorities have yet to confirm the type of machinery that was involved in the mishap. High-end wineries are reportedly opposed to harvesting grapes by machine, preferring handpicked grapes for their wines. However, 80% of grapes in California vineyards are gathered mechanically. A heart attack is like an earthquake. When a patient is having a heart attack, its easy for cardiologists to look at a coronary artery and identify the blockages that are causing trouble. However, predicting exactly where and when a seismic fault will rupture in the future is a scientific challenge in both geology and cardiology. In a recent paper in Journal of the American College of Cardiology , Habib Samady, MD, and colleagues at Emory and Georgia Tech show that the goal is achievable, in principle. Calculating and mapping how hard the bloods flow is tugging on the coronary artery wall known as wall shear stress could allow cardiologists to predict heart attacks, the results show. Weve made a lot of progress on defining and identifying vulnerable plaque, says Samady, director of interventional cardiology/cardiac catheterization at Emory University Hospital. The techniques were using are now fast enough that they could help guide clinical decision-making. Heres where the analogy to geography comes in. By vulnerable plaque, Samady means a spot in a coronary artery that is likely to burst and cause a clot nearby, obstructing blood flow. The researchers approach, based on fluid dynamics, involves seeing a coronary artery like a meandering river, in which sediment (atherosclerotic plaque) builds up in some places and erodes in others. Samady says it has become possible to condense complicated fluid dynamics calculations, so that what once took months now might take a half hour. Previous research from Emory showed that high levels of wall shear stress correlate with changes in the physical/imaging characteristics of the plaque over time. It gave hints where bad things might happen, in patients with relatively mild heart disease. In contrast, the current results show that where bad things actually did happen, the shear stress was significantly higher. This is the most clinically relevant work we have done, says Parham Eshtehardi, MD, a cardiovascular research fellow, looking back on the teams previous research, published in Circulation in 2011. Co-first authors of the paper are cardiology research fellow Arnav Kumar, MD and Georgia Tech engineer Elizabeth Thompson, now a medical student at Penn. Co-authors include Georgia Tech biomedical engineers Don Giddens, PhD and Emory mathematicians David Molony, PhD, Adrien Lefieux, PhD, and Alessandro Veneziani, PhD. Other contributing cardiologists included Bill Gogas, MD and Spencer King, MD from Emory, Bill Fearon, MD from Stanford University and international collaborators from Belgium. How did the Emory researchers find a large group of people who were at risk of having a heart attack, with well-mapped coronary arteries? They tapped into an ongoing debate about who needs to have a stent, a small tube that keeps a coronary artery open. It has been unclear whether its better to pre-emptively implant a stent for someone who has stable disease. Samady and his team extracted data from a large multi-center clinical trial called FAME-II , which evaluated whether measuring FFR (fractional flow reserve) can help doctors make decisions about stents. FFR looks at how much a blockage reduces flow compared to the maximum possible. The group of people they were interested in were patients who had an abnormal FFR, and were being treated with statins and other preventive medicines only. These patients were at risk of having subsequent chest pain or a heart attack, but as controls in the FAME-II study, didnt get stents. During three years of the FAME-II study, out of 441 patients being treated medically, 34 had heart attacks. The Emory/Georgia Tech researchers were able to analyze the coronary arteries of 29 people who experienced heart attacks, and compared them to 29 study participants who didnt have heart attacks, but were equally at-risk based on their FFR value. Looking at wall shear stress, the differences between people who had heart attacks and didnt were the greatest at the throat of the lesion, the problem area of the coronary artery. And measuring shear stress provided more information, in terms of predicting heart attacks, compared with FFR by itself. Whats next? Ideally, confirmatory studies. Samady says his group has been looking at using non-invasive CT, instead of catheterization and angiography, to get the structural information about coronary arteries. They are also planning to harness the fluid dynamics approach to study patients after they have a heart attack and have a stent implanted, looking at what happens in other arteries. The Emory team has a companion paper in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions , which looks at the other side of the coin, low wall shear stress, in patients with non-obstructive coronary artery disease. In this paper, low shear stress is a sign of endothelial dysfunction, a precursor to atherosclerosis. The researchers want to investigate if low WSS can help identify patients who will benefit from more aggressive life style changes or preventive therapies like statins, and hence also prevent future heart attacks. With funding from the Georgia Research Alliance, the researchers have formed a start-up company called Covanos that is seeking to commercialize software, like what was used in these studies, to help refine cardiac risk prediction. Emory University Scientists of the Hopp Childrens Cancer Center at the NCT Heidelberg (KiTZ), the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), in collaboration with colleagues from Seattle, U.S.A., have built a collection of tumor models that can be used to test anticancer drugs for treating childhood brain cancer. The biobank and database can be accessed by scientists worldwide and is an important resource for cancer research. Children suffering from brain cancer may also benefit from it. The researchers have now published their results in NATURE MEDICINE. The Hopp Childrens Cancer Center at the NCT Heidelberg (KiTZ) is a joint institution of the Heidelberg University Hospital and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). Microscopic examinations of tumor tissue (histology) make it possible to differentiate several subtypes of brain cancer. However, analyses of tumor genomes and investigations at molecular level have shown that tumors of similar histology can vary considerably in their biological behavior and their response to anticancer drugs. Marcel Kool, who is a staff scientist at KiTZ and a group leader at DKFZs Pediatric Neurooncology Division, explains: This means that a new targeted anticancer drug that is very effective in one patient may fail completely in another patient even though the tumors look very similar under the microscope. Since every ineffective therapy is a risk for the young patients and may also be extremely stressful for their minds and bodies, we need model systems that we can use to test the effectiveness of new therapy approaches in tumors with specific characteristics at molecular level before applying them in children. Mouse transplant systems have been very successfully used as models in cancer medicine for adults because they offer a natural environment for brain tumors. In the artificial environment of a culture medium, the tumor cells most often fail to grow, or if they do, they show a completely different behavior than they do in the patient. In collaboration with our colleagues from the Seattle Childrens Hospital, the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, U.S.A., we have generated and characterized 30 tumor models representing 14 subtypes of pediatric brain tumors for the new biobank, said Sebastian Brabetz, a KiTZ scientist and first author of the publication. He added: It has become evident that our tumor models reflect the brain tumors in patients very well. Thus, we can expect highly meaningful results from tests of novel substances in these tumor models. The scientists plan to further expand the biobank over the next few years to represent as many brain tumors as possible including rare subtypes. A biobank with worldwide access The working groups from Heidelberg and Seattle have made the tumor models and the corresponding data (r2platform.com/pdxexplorer) available in the biobank (http://www.btrl.org/) for the whole scientific community in order to advance cancer research worldwide. For translational oncology, the biobank is an important element bridging the gap between basic research and clinical application. In addition, it is an important resource for further research in cancer medicine from which ultimately all patients, children as well as adults, can benefit greatly. Gathering models of pediatric brain tumors in a biobank which is accessible for all scientists around the globe is a first and important step within a project called ITCC-P4 (Innovative Therapies for Children with Cancer Pediatric Preclinical Proof-of-concept Platform), which was launched in 2017. Stefan Pfister, Director of the Preclinical Program at KiTZ and also a senior physician at Heidelberg University Hospital, explains the relevance of this biobank in the worldwide battle against cancer in children: Among the many innovative compounds that have usually been developed to treat cancer in adults, it is very challenging to identify those that are also active against pediatric cancers. Within the ITCC-P4 project, which is undertaken as a joint venture with pharmaceutical companies, the European Union therefore supports the development of systems that make it easier and faster to identify effective cancer medications for children. Original publication: Brabetz S. et al. 2018 A biobank of patient-derived pediatric brain tumor models https://rdcu.be/9Phy . DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-018-0207-3 The German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) with its more than 3,000 employees is the largest biomedical research institute in Germany. At DKFZ, more than 1,000 scientists investigate how cancer develops, identify cancer risk factors and endeavor to find new strategies to prevent people from getting cancer. They develop novel approaches to make tumor diagnosis more precise and treatment of cancer patients more successful. The staff of the Cancer Information Service (KID) offers information about the widespread disease of cancer for patients, their families, and the general public. Jointly with Heidelberg University Hospital, DKFZ has established the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg, where promising approaches from cancer research are translated into the clinic. In the German Consortium for Translational Cancer Research (DKTK), one of six German Centers for Health Research, DKFZ maintains translational centers at seven university partnering sites. Combining excellent university hospitals with high-profile research at a Helmholtz Center is an important contribution to improving the chances of cancer patients. DKFZ is a member of the Helmholtz Association of National Research Centers, with ninety percent of its funding coming from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the remaining ten percent from the State of Baden-Wurttemberg. WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. Youre experiencing jaundice, abdominal pain or constipation. And by then, you may be too late. Pancreatic cancer symptoms often arrive after the cancer has already spread, making the disease one of the leading causes of cancer deaths in the U.S. However, a team of researchers believes that targeting how blood clots form and are naturally cleared could make the cancer more treatable. The team which includes researchers from Purdue University, the Cincinnati Childrens Hospital, the Indiana University School of Medicine and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine at Chapel Hill is studying the relationship between clots and pancreatic tumors in both animal and human tissue samples through the support of a $4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. What the team finds could lead to improved therapies for patients suffering from pancreatic tumors. Pancreatic cancer promotes blood clot formation, and then these clots make the cancer develop faster, which prevents drugs from controlling tumor growth, said Bumsoo Han, professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University and program leader of the Purdue University Center for Cancer Research. Our idea is to study this process by use of engineered tumor models mimicking the pancreatic duct, he said. The work aligns with Purdues Giant Leaps celebration, acknowledging the universitys global advancements made in health, longevity and quality of life as part of Purdues 150th anniversary. This is one of the four themes of the yearlong celebrations Ideas Festival, designed to showcase Purdue as an intellectual center solving real-world issues. The project is based on the initial findings of Matthew Flick, a member of the faculty at Cincinnati Childrens Hospital and former Ph.D. student in biological sciences at Purdue, that pancreatic tumors and blood clots are linked through bi-directional mechanisms that promote both pancreatic cancer growth and blood clot formation. Hans group built a tiny device with microfluidic channels that host pancreatic duct tissue samples beneath a microslide. The device takes information from these samples to simulate with greater detail how cancer develops from the pancreatic duct and invades surrounding tissue. The microfluidic device will assist in defining key mechanisms of pancreatic cancer growth and blood clot formation. Validation studies will be performed by Flicks group to confirm tumor growth findings in mouse models, while Melissa Fishels group at the IU School of Medicine and Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center will perform the same using patient samples. Alisa Wolbergs group at UNC Chapel Hill will further validate identified mechanisms of cancer-driven blood clot formation in animal and patient samples. Each member of the team is contributing equally to the project. The NIH grant will facilitate future work on the study of these mechanisms and translation of the findings into new treatments. Purdue University A Rutgers researcher has identified additional early childhood health impacts of prenatal exposures to phthalates. Pregnant mothers exposure to phthalates substances often used in personal care products, childrens toys and more may be linked to delays in language development during early childhood, according to a study published today in JAMA Pediatrics. A team of scientists from the United States and Sweden conducted the study, one of the first to examine this correlation. Phthalates are added to plastics to increase flexibility, transparency, durability and longevity. They are often used in a myriad of everyday products but can seep into the environment and are easily ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. They have often been identified in urine, blood and breast milk, but have also been found in amniotic fluid, which suggests that they can transfer to the fetus through the placenta, says Emily Barrett, an associate professor at Rutgers School of Public Health and researcher at Rutgers Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, who was a co-investigator on the U.S. portion of the study. Virtually 100 percent of people studied have measurable levels of these chemicals in their bodies, Barrett said. The study included 370 children whose mothers had provided urine samples during pregnancy and completed language questionnaires when their children turned 2. A vocabulary of 50 words or less was classified as language delay. Barrett said concentrations of two specific phthalates, which are often found in PVC and floor tiles, were significantly associated with language delays in children at 2 1/2 to 3 years of age. Delays in language development are important because they may be early signals of academic issues and a need for special services later in childhood, said Barrett. This adds to the growing body of work suggesting that phthalates may be harmful to the developing fetus and suggests that we may need tighter regulation of these chemicals in the everyday products we use. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Khashoggi's body was 'cut into pieces' after the murder, the Turkish prosecutor said. This is first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Jamal Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered after he entered Saudi Consulate on October 2. (Photo: File | AP) Mumbai/Ankara: Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed by 'strangulation' as soon as he entered consulate as part of premeditated killing, a Turkish prosecutor said. Khashoggi's body was 'cut into pieces' after the murder, the prosecutor added. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said on Wednesday that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth. The statement is the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered after he entered the Saudi Consulate on October 2 to collect paperwork needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. The announcement came as Saudi Arabia's chief prosecutor, Saud al-Mojeb, ended a three-day visit to Istanbul during which he held talks with Fidan and other Turkish officials. Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 Saudi suspects detained in Saudi Arabia over the killing of Khashoggi. It is also pressing Saudi Arabia for information concerning Khashoggi's remains, which still haven't been found, as well as who ordered the journalist's slaying. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also called on Riyadh to disclose the identity of an alleged local collaborator said to have been involved in disposing of Khashoggi's body. Khashoggi, a 59-year-old columnist for The Washington Post, vanished after entering the consulate in Istanbul to pick up paperwork for his upcoming marriage to his fiancee, who was waiting for him outside. A critic of the Saudi royal family, Khashoggi had been living in exile in the United States. Turkey alleges a Saudi hit squad from Saudi Arabia including a member of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's entourage during a trip to the United States traveled to Istanbul to kill the journalist and then tried to cover it up. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia changed its narrative about Khashoggi's killing several times, eventually admitting that Khashoggi died inside the consulate and only recently acknowledging that Turkish evidence shows his killing was premeditated. Saudi Arabia has not commented on the prosecutor's visit. Breastfeeding pain is not often recognized as a problem, but a majority of first-time mothers experience this type of pain, which may lead some to stop breastfeeding altogether. A new study from Western University has discovered that the pain experienced is often severe and leads to avoidance and other pain-related behaviours, which could have health implications for the feeding child. This study allowed us to better understand that severe and distressing pain is a common experience for breastfeeding mothers and that for some, this pain plays a role in their decision making around stopping breastfeeding earlier than they planned, says Kimberley Jackson, the studys lead author and an Assistant Professor in Westerns Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing. We know that breastfeeding leads to better health outcomes for women and children and finding ways to help women breastfeed comfortably is a win-win for both mother and child. Leading health authorities recommend exclusive breastfeeding for infants up to six months of age due to the numerous health benefits that extend to infants and mothers, especially when it is done exclusively and for longer durations. Evidence suggests that breastfeeding decreases incidences of childhood infections, lowers risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and neonatal mortality rates; and reduces the risk of childhood diabetes, certain cancers, and childhood obesity. Women also stand to benefit from breastfeeding, with lowered risk of postpartum bleeding and some breast and ovarian cancers. In addition to the cost savings for women who breastfeed versus formula feed, finding ways to support women in their choice to breastfeed has numerous benefits. The study, published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynecology, identifies breastfeeding pain as multidimensional and reveals that current measurement tools may not adequately reflect all the components of this unique type of pain, which creates challenges for health-care providers. Because of the various etiology and a lack of adequate measurement tools, health-care providers are at a loss for how to best assess this underrepresented type of pain, says Jackson. Having a better understanding of how women experience this pain will allow them to provide more individualized, appropriate care, which will hopefully allow women to achieve their breastfeeding goals. Funded by a grant from Womens College Hospital, this study, which involved assistant professor Tara Mantler from Westerns School of Health Studies, and researchers from Brock University, used a mixed-methods approach to study 14 partnered and educated women living in southern Ontario with experience of breastfeeding-related pain. Western University Early voting in county exceeds 2014 number Related Stories With 3 days of early voting left, Henderson County has already recorded more voters than four years ago in the last mid-term election. As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, the Board of Elections had counted 18,964 voters, exceeding the total in 2014 of 16,997. Henderson County followed the state trend of higher early voting totals thanks to longer hours and more days than ever. Polls were open three hours longer per day and one day of Sunday voting was offered for the first time in Henderson County. Statewide, ballots cast so far in the 2018 general election exceeded all ballots cast early during the 2014 midterm election on Monday. As of 3:30 p.m. Monday, 1,225,892 North Carolinians had voted early, up 4.4 percent from 1,174,184 in 2014. The 2014 number was surpassed with six days remaining in this years in-person early voting period, which ends Saturday (November 3). Also, by-mail absentee ballots are still being accepted by county boards of elections across the state. However, with more than 7 million registered voters in North Carolina, nearly 6 million people still have not cast ballots in this important election season. We hope millions of voters who have not yet made their voices heard will do so, either during early voting or on Election Day, Kim Westbrook Strach, executive director of the State Board of Elections & Ethics Enforcement, said in a news release. In the 2014 midterms, final statewide voter turnout was 44 percent, or more than 2.9 million votes. Through 3:30 p.m. Monday, 17.3 percent of registered voters had cast ballots in 2018. In 2014, the in-person early voting period was 10 days. This year, the early voting period spans 18 days. Early voting schedules and locations vary by county. Voters can find their countys early voting schedules here: https://vt.ncsbe.gov/ossite/. In North Carolina, early voting includes in-person absentee voting, also called one-stop voting, as well as absentee by-mail voting. On Election Day Nov. 6 polls are open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Click here to look up your polling place.. Thinner Kanuga project still too wide for some homeowners Kanuga Road resident Fred Collins (in vest) asks an NCDOT engineer about Kanuga Road widening project. Although the NCDOT has made a series of concessions to lessen the impact of the Kanuga Road widening project, the slimmed down version still drew opposition from many homeowners who turned out for the public unveiling on Tuesday. Related Stories Graham MacPherson, owner of the 1905 Pinebrook Manor Inn, said he tried to talk to engineers about whether the state will rebuild a rock wall and entrance to its historical nature. The project would take the existing wall, he said. He's also worried that roundabouts farther up the road in Hendersonville won't work because traffic is imbalanced. They only work for balanced traffic counts," he said. "You end up with traffic lights on the roundabouts. This is obviously going to become much faster and when they widen this theyre going to increase the volume of traffic," he said. "The trouble is, there are poor sightlines on Kanuga and people are doing 50, 60 mph now. The wider it goes, the faster the traffic goes. It will be a lot more dangerous. David Uchiyama, the NCDOT spokesman for Western North Carolina, said the agency has made major changes. "We cut the right of way required by 50 percent, he said. Its a major concession. Coming into this project weve addressed just about everything that weve been asked to address, the biggest concern being how much right of way is needed. We made compromises to make that happen." Kanuga Road does not current meet standards for a two-lane road, and the crash rate is 74 percent higher than the state average for similar roads, the DOT says. The new preliminary design requires 25 feet of right of way instead of 50 feet from the centerline. The new plans which are far from final will still accommodate the current traffic of 11,000 vehicles per day and the anticipated 14,000 vehicles in 2040. Additional changes include: Widening the existing travel lanes to 11-feet wide; Adding two-foot paved shoulders along the entire project; Building 14-foot shared lanes within city limits to accommodate bicycles; Installing turn lanes at the intersection with Erkwood Drive/State Street, London Road and Crooked Creek Road; Adding five-foot sidewalks with curb and gutter north of the Erkwood Drive/State Street intersection; and Creating intermittent retaining walls and expressway gutters to reduce impacts. Homeowner Fred Collins said the project would take part of a lot he hoped to build on. His son has a 2-acre lot next to his house that he planned to use. I was going to build a house on it and subdivide it, Collins said. The way theyve got it I wouldnt be able to, I couldnt meet the septic. If they want to acquire that land, its going to cost them because thats where my retirement land was going to be. The number of community gardai has plummeted by almost 40pc, newly released figures have revealed. Numbers went from 1,182 community officers in 2010 to 716 this year, according to statistics released to Social Democrats TD Roisin Shortall. She has claimed Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan has "totally abdicated" responsibility for protecting communities. The number of community gardai in the Dublin Metropolitan Region went from 508 to 311, a fall of 39pc, which is in line with the national average. Releasing the information, Mr Flanagan said the Garda Commissioner is responsible for the distribution of resources and that the minister has "no direct role". He insisted that community policing is "at the heart of An Garda Siochana". He said the role of a community garda is not a "specialist" one, and argued that all garda members have a role to play in community policing. He said community garda members are those tasked exclusively with building relationships in neighbourhoods and civil society, including giving talks at schools and to local groups. Safety Ms Shortall claimed Mr Flanagan has "totally abdicated any responsibility for ensuring the safety of communities". The Dublin North-West TD said community gardai play an "absolutely vital role in discovering and preventing crimes" and help communities feel safe. She said there's a growing problem of antisocial behaviour involving minors in Dublin. She argued this "will only get worse if community gardai aren't out and about in local communities nipping antisocial behaviour in the bud". She also claimed there has been an increase in the number of young people using and dealing crack cocaine and said this can have "a devastating impact on entire communities if it isn't tackled". A Department of Justice statement said the minister does not interfere politically in policing matters. Garda management is said to keep the distribution of resources under review in the context of crime trends and policing priorities to ensure optimum use is made of resources. The statement pointed to an extra 110m allocated to the force in the Budget, bringing it to 1.76bn, as well as plans to recruit another 800 members. A cleaner who verbally abused gardai had "over-indulged" at a celebration for her husband's birthday. Eirone Baltusuikiene (56) ended up being arrested and she tried to bite an officer's finger as she was being taken by car to the garda station. Judge David McHugh ordered Baltusuikiene to donate 100 to Blanchardstown Hospice and said he would strike out the charges, leaving her without a conviction. The defendant, of Warrenstown Lawn, Blanchardstown, admitted public drunkenness and threatening and abusive behaviour when she appeared at Blanchardstown District Court. The public order incident took place outside her home on August 19. Sergeant Geraldine McManigan said gardai were on mobile patrol shortly after 3am when they received a breach of the peace call at Warrenstown Lawn. Shouting Sgt McManigan said Baltusuikiene was outside her home. She was highly intoxicated and was shouting. She was verbally abusive to gardai and continued to be abusive when she was arrested and put in a patrol car. Sgt McManigan said Baltusuikiene tried to bite a garda's finger while she was in the back of the car. The court heard that the defendant had no previous convictions. Defence solicitor John Wood said Baltusuikiene had been celebrating her husband's 55th birthday and she had "over-indulged". Mr Wood said the defendant worked as a cleaner. Baltusuikiene was very embarrassed at her behaviour and she wished to apologise to the court, Mr Wood said. She had never been in trouble before and this was a one-off incident, the court heard. A heroin addict subjected an 80-year-old man who courageously tried to stop him stealing a church collection box to a brutal and cowardly attack. David O'Donovan (41) gouged Robert Duggan's eye, kicked him in the groin and then stamped on his glasses. The assault on the elderly man only ended when a Polish woman attending Mass bravely intervened. O'Donovan, of Glendalough, Grenville Place, Cork, pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to Mr Duggan, who was working as a volunteer at St Augustine's Church in Cork. Volunteer Cork Circuit Criminal Court heard that Mr Duggan - a volunteer at St Augustine's for almost 70 years - heroically challenged a man who he spotted trying to break in to a collection box while Mass was being celebrated. Judge Sean O'Donnabhain was told by Detective Garda Padraig Harrington that the incident took place at 8.30pm on March 24 at St Augustine's Church on the Grand Parade. Mr Duggan had gone over to ask a man interfering with the collection box to stop. "He said words to the effect of 'he was in a house of God and to stop it'. But he told him, 'f**k you and f**k the church'," said Garda Harrington. "He then counted down, four, three, two, one and then kicked Mr Duggan in the groin." When the pensioner fell to the ground, O'Donovan gouged his eye and stamped on his glasses, then fled the scene. The defendant, who has a chronic heroin problem, was later spotted by gardai in a nearby supermarket as they went to check CCTV security camera footage. Mr Duggan, who walked to the witness box with the aid of a cane, told the court he had never before experienced such treatment. "I have been working as a volunteer in St Augustine's for almost 70 years," he said. "This has knocked my confidence. He stuck his thumb in my eye and he kicked me in the groin. "In the past I have seen people with drink, people with drugs and people who were depressed." However, he stressed he had never experienced anything like what happened to him that day. O'Donovan had not come to garda attention until he was 32, but due to drink and drug abuse problems he now has a total of 22 convictions. None, until now, involved any violence. Judge O'Donnabhain remanded O'Donovan in custody to be sentenced before Cork Circuit Criminal Court on November 23. Father-of-one Kenneth O'Brien died from an "instantaneously fatal" gunshot wound to the head that caused extreme skull fractures and catastrophic brain injuries. The muzzle of the gun was pressed against Mr O'Brien's head when it was fired, a pathologist said. Mr O'Brien's head and limbs were "neatly cut" off his torso, but the dismemberment was "crude" and did not display any anatomical knowledge. Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis was giving evidence in the Central Criminal Court trial of Paul Wells. Mr Wells (50), of Barnamore Park, Finglas, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr O'Brien (33) at that address between January 15 and 16, 2016. He has admitted that he shot him dead, but said it happened when they struggled during a row after Mr O'Brien turned up at his home with a gun. Expand Close Gardai discovered the dismembered remains of Kenneth OBrien in a search of the Grand Canal / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Gardai discovered the dismembered remains of Kenneth OBrien in a search of the Grand Canal Limbs The accused claimed that Mr O'Brien had wanted to have his partner Eimear Dunne murdered and Mr Wells refused to kill her. He said he "panicked" and chopped up the body in his back yard with a chainsaw, throwing the torso in a suitcase and the head and limbs in bags into the Grand Canal in Co Kildare. Dr Curtis said he carried out post-mortem examinations on Mr O'Brien's torso, which was found on January 16, 2016, then on nine further body parts discovered more than a week later, on January 24. He noted the head had been cut off at around the sixth vertebra. The neck and limbs were "neatly sawn across... consistent with the use of a power saw". The body, he said, was relatively well preserved. The jury heard that two Tesco and two Dunnes Stores bags were found with the handles knotted and further plastic bags inside, bound with cable ties, containing body parts and bricks. One bag contained the arms in four sections; the legs, also in four parts with the feet attached, were found in two more bags, and a fourth bag contained the head. The hands were not recovered. One of the upper arms had a tattoo with letters, possibly the word 'Ken', the jury heard. In the head, Dr Curtis said, he found a bullet entrance wound on the back left of the skull, tracking "directly forwards and very slightly downwards". The injury was a "contact entry wound", he said, and "the muzzle of the weapon has been pressed against the head and all the products of discharge have gone into the head". The skull bones were extensively shattered and the bullet had rebounded back into the cranial cavity, remaining in the head, along with its jacket. The brain was "severely traumatised", he said. Dr Curtis said there were extreme skull fractures and catastrophic brain injuries "which would have proved instantaneously fatal". It appeared the dismemberment had been done with a high-speed mechanical saw. In cross-examination, Dr Curtis agreed with Michael O'Higgins SC, defending, that there was "nothing to indicate the person dismembering the body displayed any anatomical knowledge" and "the cutting was crude". Mr O'Brien's aunt Lorraine O'Brien said that when he returned from working in Australia in December 2015, he was "probably the happiest I had ever seen him". The jury heard Jean O'Brien, his sister, told gardai "he seemed very distracted" when he returned. The trial continues. A Dublin sex offender who was jailed for groping two teenage concert-goers on a Luas will be sentenced next year for acts of gross indecency with a mentally impaired male. John Daly (58) served a partially suspended four-year sentence for sexually assaulting two teenage girls on their way to a Rihanna concert in 2011. He received a six-year sentence from the Court of Criminal Appeal in 2000 for other sexual crimes, including indecent assault, aggravated sexual assault and rape. Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that those crimes dated from the 1980s and 1990s and involved females. Demons Daly, of Cabra Park, Phibsboro, and Leinster Road, Rathmines, pleaded guilty to five acts of gross indecency with a mentally impaired person on dates between 2016 and 2017. Garda Niall Freaney said the victim later revealed that Daly had threatened to kill him on one occasion and to burn him to death on another, if he didn't comply with the acts. Gda Freaney said Daly was later arrested but claimed during interview that the behaviour had been consensual. The garda agreed with Luigi Rea BL, defending, that Daly's guilty plea was valuable to the investigation. Mr Rea submitted to Judge Melanie Greally that his client had an intellectual disability himself. He said Daly did make efforts to deal with his demons. Judge Greally imposed an 18-month sentence for one of the latest charges and remanded Daly in custody until next year, when she will deal with the remaining four counts. She said an aggravating aspect of the case was that Daly had a "significant and concerning record of misconduct of a sexual nature". Islamabad (AsiaNews) - The Supreme Court overturned the death sentence that hung over Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was convicted of blasphemy in 2010. Her case, an obvious manipulation of the so-called "black law" of Pakistan, sparked waves of solidarity worldwide, but also strong reactions within the country. Even today, the headquarters of the Supreme Court were surrounded by groups of policemen for fear of violence against the judges and Asia Bibi herself. The three judges, Saqib Nisar, Asif Saeed Khosa and Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel, after reading the 56-page verdict, told the woman she was free. Some radical groups led by imams have already decreed that they will oppose her release. In many cities of Punjiab there are demonstrations and roadblocks. Many Christian schools have warned parents to go and get their children from school because they would wish to close the buildings for fear of violence. Asia Bibi was sentenced to death on 7 November 2010 by a Punjab court. She was arrested for blasphemy in June 2009, after an argument with some of her co-workers in which she defended her religion. The other women, who like Asia and her two daughters, are agricultural workers, urged her to renounce the Christian faith and embrace Islam. Asia Bibi replied by speaking of how Jesus died on the Cross for the sins of humanity, and asked the other women what Muhammad had done for them. The women then beat her and her daughters and pushed by the local imam and a group of men, they accused her of blasphemy. The police took her into custody, saving her from a fierce mob. But after a year and more of a prison, she was sentenced to death. The then governor of Punjiab, Salman Taseer, a Muslim, was killed in 2011 for campaigning for her release, and the Catholic Shahbaz Bhatti, then minister for minorities, was killed a few months later for the same reason. Irish Rail is running out of room for new passengers on Dublin services. The State transport company said that there would be no space for additional passengers on peak services around the capital by early 2021, unless dozens of additional carriages are ordered. A massive surge in demand has led to overcrowding on morning and evening commuter routes, and Irish Rail said it had to order a new fleet by the end of this year - or risk having no additional capacity from early 2021. It is considering leasing up to 70 carriages, which would provide 5,500 additional journeys. Pressure If approved, it hopes to begin procuring these at the end of the year, with a view to having them in service by the end of 2020. However, it also needs to expand the existing fleet of 629 carriages, with the National Development Plan sanctioning investment in 300. The first order of 100 is likely to be in place by next year, but they will take up to three years to deliver. "We have natural growth and it's looking like being in excess of 6pc this year," an Irish Rail spokesman said. "We have a capacity issue which needs to be resolved. The pressure on existing capacity is growing all the time and if we get to a situation where in late 2020 or early 2021 there is not additional fleet, there will be nowhere for people to go. "You start to get an artificial constraint. You do get to a point where at the busiest times, trains are full and the highest-capacity mode (rail) can't take any more." Irish Rail operates commuter, Dart and inter-city services and last year completed 45.51 million passenger journeys across the country, slightly above the 2007 peak. Some 32.77 million of these were into and around Dublin on the Dart and commuter services. This compares with 25.94 million in 2013. Numbers have grown in recent years, up 8pc in 2016 and 6pc last year, with similar growth forecast for 2018. This has resulted in capacity becoming an issue, with complaints of overcrowding on commuter trains and Dart services. Irish Rail had proposed refurbishing 28 carriages which had entered service in 1998 and been held in storage since 2012, at an estimated cost of 12m. However, just one firm bid to complete the works at a cost of more than 30m, so the upgrade has been scrapped. In a letter to Labour Party TD Joan Burton, the National Transport Authority (NTA) said it was considering buying or leasing second-hand vehicles to provide additional capacity in the short term, with expressions of interest for new fleet likely to be sought by the end of the year, and an order placed in 2019. Irish Rail said that while the Irish system operated differently to the UK and other European countries, carriages could be altered to run here. Electric It added that the leasing market was "very active" and leased carriages could be in service by the end of 2020. Between 40 and 70 are expected to be sought, which would primarily operate on the Kildare, Maynooth and northern line commuter belt. A decision will be made in the coming weeks following discussions with the NTA and Department of Transport. However, new carriages will take longer to deliver. It is not clear how many of the 300 will be electric, and how many hybrid. The investment forms part of a upgrade of the rail network around the capital, including electrification of the lines to Maynooth, Hazelhatch and Drogheda. More than 10,300 ill children are facing delays of at least a year-and-a-half to see a medical specialist. Among them are 3,488 waiting for an appointment with an orthopaedic surgeon for conditions such as scoliosis - many for as long as three years. The extent of the queue is causing major concern among desperate parents who fear their children will have life-long complications because of not being seen and treated on time. They include children with a range of conditions which need to be assessed by a specialist, including those with heart and vision difficulties. The waiting list only refers to young patients at the main children's hospitals in Dublin; Temple Street, Our Lady's Hospital Crumlin and Tallaght Hospital. The real figure is even higher when the waiting lists around the country are counted. The queue of children faced with lengthy waits is now nearly 20 times longer than when the Government took office in 2016. Then, the number of children waiting over 18 months was 505. The issue was raised by Fianna Fail TD Jack Chambers in a parliamentary question to Health Minister Simon Harris. Damage Mr Chambers condemned the manner in which the waiting list for vulnerable children has been allowed to lengthen. "The figures are stark, and they hide the potential damage to these children who are at risk of life-altering health difficulties," he said. "I am also concerned that these figures do not capture all children enduring this kind of delay across the country. "They expose the Government's shallow spin." In response, the minister said: "In Budget 2019, the Government has prioritised improving access and reducing waiting times for patients, with funding to the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) increasing from 55m in 2018 to 75m in 2019, of which 6m will be invested in outpatient activity." However, Claire Cahill, of ScolioNetwork which represents parents of children with the severe spinal condition, said: "The delay can have serious implications for children who live with progressive scoliosis. Long waits for a first spinal assessment can impact the outcome of surgery and their quality of life. "Children who experience long waits for care often have to endure more complex surgeries with greater risks of increased blood loss and reduced outcomes. The current wait for an outpatient appointment is not acceptable." A breakdown of the hospitals reveals how the queue of children waiting 18 months and longer to see a specialist has spiralled since the current Government took office. There were 236 waiting in 2016 in Crumlin Hospital, and this has now risen to 4,560. Temple Street has seen its numbers increase from 163 two years ago to 5,553. The children's hospital in Tallaght, which is now struggling to cope with 1,216 on long waits, had just 106 in 2016. The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue issued a statement for Diwali, noting that Attentiveness and cooperation are needed, not only to defend the legitimate place and rights of the vulnerable in society, but also to cultivate a culture of care and concern in their regard. Vatican City (AsiaNews) The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue issued a statement today titled Christians and Hindus: In Defence of the Vulnerable of Society to mark the Hindu festival of Diwali. Celebrated by Hindus around the world, the festival is also known as Deepavali or Diwapali, i.e. "row of oil lamps". Symbolically founded on an ancient mythology, it represents the victory of truth over untruth, light over darkness, life over death, good over evil. The statement, signed by Bishop Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot, MCCJ Secretary, says: We know from news bulletins and web portals, as well as from direct experience, the daily hardships endured by the vulnerable members of our society: the poor, infirm, elderly, disabled, destitute, abandoned, migrants; those socially, religiously, culturally and linguistically marginalized and excluded; and the victims of abuse and violence, especially women and children. Largely helpless and defenceless, discarded and ignored by a society increasingly indifferent and even callous in the face of human needs and sufferings, the vulnerable everywhere in our time suffer greatly. It is in this troubling context that we wish to share with you a reflection on how we, Hindus and Christians alike, can engage in efforts to defend, protect and assist them. The moral duty to care for the vulnerable springs from our shared belief that we are all God's creatures and, as a result, brothers and sisters, equal in dignity, with responsibility for one another. It also stems from the realization that we too at times feel vulnerable, looking for someone to offer us a helping hand. A healthy awareness of our common human condition and our moral duty towards others inspires us to promote their cause by doing all that we can to alleviate their sufferings, defend their rights and restore their dignity. There is no doubt that, in this regard, many praiseworthy efforts are being made by individuals, groups and communities in different parts of the world. Yet given the great numbers of the vulnerable, and the complexities often involved in meeting their needs, those efforts can appear no more than a few drops in a great ocean. Still, opportunities for service are all around us, since the vulnerable can be found in every community and society. Greater efforts, inspired by a sense of solidarity, are needed so that they can feel "the presence of brothers and sisters who are concerned for them, and, by opening the doors of their hearts and lives, make them feel like friends and family'' (Pope Francis, Message for the Second World Day of the Poor, 18 November, 2018) In the end, the true measure of civilization of any society is the way it treats its most vulnerable members. Attentiveness and cooperation are needed, not only to defend the legitimate place and rights of the vulnerable in society, but also to cultivate a culture of care and concern in their regard. In our families too, every effort should be made to ensure that no one feels unwanted, unloved, ignored or left out. Every level of society - especially political and government leaders, and those best equipped to provide practical assistance - needs to display a human face and heart to the vulnerable of our society and to reach out to all those suffering marginalization and oppression. Such generosity should not appear as a token gesture, but as one divinely inspired and aimed at the true emancipation and welfare of the vulnerable and the defence of their cause. As believers grounded in our own respective spiritual traditions, and as individuals with shared concerns for the wellbeing of all, may we join hands with the adherents of other religious traditions and all people of good will, and make collective and concerted efforts to secure a joyful present and a hopeful future for our vulnerable brothers and sisters! An unprecedented crowd in the history of the Filipino Church. During the three weeks of pilgrimage, the relic crossed the country, stopping at Santo Tomas and in the cities of Manila, Cebu, Davao and Lipa. Card. Quevedo: "Christians are not simply called to admire great saints like Padre Pio, but rather to imitate their virtues of humility and charity". Manila (AsiaNews / CBCP) - During the historic pilgrimage to the Philippines of the incorrupt relic of the heart of Padre Pio (6-26 October), five million Catholic devotees rushed to venerate the remains of the saint, according to Fr. Jojo Gonda, rector of the National Shrine of Saint Padre Pio in Santo Tomas, Batangas. The Philippines was the fourth country to receive the relic, after the United States, Paraguay and Argentina. In the Asian country with the largest number of Catholics (about 83% of the population) the pilgrimage was longer and gathered an unprecedented crowd in the history of the local Church. Italian Fr. Carlo Laborde, Superior of the Franciscan Capuchin Community of San Giovanni Rotondo, said that being in the Philippines was an experience of extraordinary faith. The heart of Padre Pio has visited various countries in the world attracting numerous crowd but (the visit) in the Philippines has been unprecedented, he said. Our heart has been moved to see huge crowd everywhere, said Laborde. Last October 26, the relic left the national shrine bound for Italy at the end of a solemn mass (photo), presided over by Card. Orlando Beltran Quevedo (photo), Archbishop of Cotabato. During the homily, Cardinal Orlando Quevedo of Cotabato said people are called to Christian discipleship at a time when the country is in deep crisis because of the spate of killings and widespread corruption. In his homily at the National Shrine of St Padre Pio in Sto. Tomas, Batangas, he said these dark signs of our times includes a damaged culture because of faith that doesnt lead to concrete action. This is one of the greatest errors of Christian life in the Philippines. We say that we are Christians but we dont practice what believe in, Queveo said. These are the reasons why there are so many problems in our country criminality, corruption and so forth, he said. The cardinal said Christians are not called simply to admire great saints like Padre Pio, bur rather to imitate their virtues of humility and charity. He said the devotion to the Capuchin friar must be expressed not just by words but also by deeds. The call to holiness then is the call of our times, said Quevedo. But we cant be holy by simply desiring it. We have to collaborate with Gods grace and strive daily to be holy and charitable. He added that to be holy, people also need to pray. Prayer is the key to Gods heart as Padre Pio reminds us, he said. We cannot be holy, we cannot be united to the suffering heart of Jesus unless we pray. (Photo credit: CbcpNews). (CNN) The Chinese government has legalized the use of endangered tiger and rhino products for "medical" purposes, a move wildlife activists say will be a setback to efforts to protect the increasingly endangered animals. The directive reverses a 1993 ban put in place by Beijing on the international trade in tiger bones and rhino horns, both valued for their purported healing powers in Chinese traditional medicine. In a statement Monday, China's State Council said rhino and tiger parts could now be used "in medical research and healing," as long as they came from farmed animals. "Powdered forms of rhino horn and bones from dead tigers can only be used in qualified hospitals by qualified doctors recognized by the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine," the statement said. In 2010 the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies issued a statement saying there was no evidence for the claimed medical benefits of tiger bone. Despite this, there is a still a lucrative trade in the body parts in China, where thousands of captive tigers are bred for ineffective traditional cures. Iris Ho, senior specialist for Wildlife Program and Policy at Humane Society International, said in a statement the announcement by Beijing was a "death warrant" for rhinos and tigers in the wild. "This is a devastating blow to our ongoing work to save species from cruel exploitation and extinction, and we implore the Chinese government to reconsider," Ho said. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) called on Beijing to urgently reinstate the ban, saying in a statement it was "critical" to saving the species. "It is deeply concerning that China has reversed its 25 year old tiger bone and rhino horn ban, allowing a trade that will have devastating consequences globally", said Margaret Kinnaird, WWF Wildlife Practice Leader. The decision by the Chinese government comes less than a year after it officially banned the trade of ivory, a move which conservationists hoped would help save increasingly endangered elephants. In its statement the State Council said any illegal trade of rhino and tiger products would be subject to "severe crackdowns" and illegal products would be confiscated. But Kinnaird said the new law could lead to illegal products being sold under the cover of legality, as well as increased demand from consumers. "With wild tiger and rhino populations at such low levels and facing numerous threats, legalized trade in their parts is simply too great a gamble for China to take," she said. This story was first published on CNN.com, "China allows use of tiger and rhino products, infuriating wildlife activists." by Vladimir Rozanskij In Moscow, 1000 people gathered in front of the Lubianka. Demonstrations also in St. Petersburg, Penza, Novosibirsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov. Their children are considered dangerous for the state security, accused of "terrorism". Alongside ordinary citizens, famous dissidents, actors, writers and artists. Everyone is afraid of a return to the Stalinist controls. Moscow (AsiaNews) - For the first time in Russia, parents and citizens without any political affiliation have demonstrated against the repressions of the FSB (security services, formerly KGB). The protest took place last October 28 in the capital and in several Russian cities. In Moscow, about 1,000 people marched in front of Lubyanka, the notorious Stalinist palace of Ceka, inherited from successive versions of Soviet and Russian political police up to the current FSB. Parents demand news on the fate of their children, young people arrested in recent times on charges of terrorism and sedition. The purpose of the protests is to "break down the wall of silence" around the arrests and state repressions of young people considered dangerous for state security. There are two groups of people arrested: those belonging to the Novoe Velichye association ("The new greatness"), in which the young people discuss political questions on an online chat, occasionally meeting at bars and cafes, and those of the so-called Set '("The Net") , considered terrorists, young anarchists and anti-fascists who would have conspired to organize subversive acts. Of the first group, 10 people are currently on trial, accused of "attempted coup d'etat" supported by three testimonies of people infiltrated by the same FSB; 11 are from "Network", accused of attempts to gather in various cities in "subversive cells" and plan terrorist acts. The young people have reportedly been tortured psychologically and physically, and service agents would have planted weapons in their bags and homes when they were arrested. Their parents then got together via the Internet in the "Parental Network" with the slogan of #StopFSB, to get together to protest and demand the truth about police actions. The demonstrations were not authorized by the authorities, and the participants knew they were going to be arrested and repressed. It is the first time that groups of citizens, in particular parents, have gathered in Russia, without any political coordination, not even "public" opponents in Naval'nyj. As stated by Dmitry Pchelintsev, whose son has been imprisoned for over a year in Penza: "Many are indignant at the violent actions of the government, but remain at home, out of laziness or due to bad weather, while parents come in any case because no one else will defend our children ". In fact, the title of the event was "For our and your children - In defense of the new generations". The demonstrators gathered in small numbers, without banners or placards, while in front of the Lubyanka 300 anti-riot agents were deployed. Among the defendants there were also some historical dissidents, Lev Rubinstein, Josif Galperin, Aleksandr Rykhlin, but also actors, writers and artists, alongside ordinary citizens and exponents of various anarchist groups. Without journalists and cameras, the procession moved in heavy rain from the Tverskoy Bulvar to the center of Moscow to the Lubyanka square, passing by Red Square. In the end more than 20 people were detained in Moscow, more than 30 in St. Petersburg, where the police used particularly violent means to disperse the crowd. Similar demonstrations took place in Penza, Novosibirsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov and other cities, where there were also violence and arrests. A protest was even organized in Helsinki, in front of the Russian consulate, with slogans in English and Finnish saying "The FSB is the real terrorist!" And "Solidarity has no borders, freedom for political prisoners!". State television downplayed the events by presenting protesters as "marginal" and supporters of terrorists. In reality, the fear of repression is spreading among the population, as well as the fear that it can degenerate into a sort of generalized "terror" that extends even to a simple "like" on social media, with agents appearing at the home of ordinary citizens like in Stalin's times. Seven days of horror end with two ex-cops and two little girls dead by Kamran Chaudhry Police set up roadblocks on Punjab highways as radicals protest in the province and the capital Islamabad. The authorities are monitoring the situation from a central control centre, including "red zones" in sensitive areas. Lahore (AsiaNews) This morning Pakistans Supreme Court cleared Asia Bibi of all charges. The Christian woman spent nine years in prison for blasphemy is now free. Her acquittal has plunged the country into chaos and confusion. Islamic radicals quickly reacted, organising demonstrations and roadblocks in the major cities. As a result, in Lahore, Church authorities ordered the indefinite closure of Christian schools and asked parents to come and take their children home. Likewise, Schools will remain closed till further notice," said a sign at St Peters High School, which is run by the Diocese of Raiwind of the Church of Pakistan. In view of the situation, the Province of Punjab invoked Section 144 of the Penal Code, which forbids public demonstrations with more than four people. The ordinance was not enough to stop extremists in the streets of the provincial capital Lahore. Police barriers blocked Tehreek-e-Labbaik demonstrators from reaching the Provincial Assembly building. Rangers were deployed in Youhanabad, Lahores largest Christian enclave. The first arrests took place in the city of Multan. After Punjab, Sindh too banned public gatherings under Section 144 over possible terrorist activities". Local authorities set up a control room to "monitor the prevailing law and order situation and liaise with various agencies: police, other law enforcement agencies, commissioners and their deputies. Meanwhile, Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan blocked the Power House Chowrangi roundabout in Karachi pledging to stop the whole city. In the federal capital Islamabad, Jamaat-i-Islami party called on Muslims to join the protests. The Capital Territorys deputy commissioner, Muhammad Hamza Shafqaat, twitted that Aabpara Chowk and Faizabad are blocked, but the Bara Kahu, Tarnol and Kashmir Highway is still open. For their part, police set up a "red zone" around Rawal Lake. Compiled by By Mata Press Service After almost a century of prohibition, Canada has become the second country in the world, after Uruguay, to fully legalize the use of cannabis. Accounting firm Deloitte estimates legal marijuana is expected to become more than a $6bn business in Canada in 2019, with up to $4.34bn coming from the legal recreational market and as much as $1.79bn from medical sales. The global legal medical cannabis market alone could be worth more than $50bn by 2025. The dizzying numbers surrounding Canada's green rush has triggered interest across Asia as hardliners soften their attitudes towards cannabis use, incentivized by the potential economic impact of legalizing the weed in their countries. Here is some of whats happening in Asia; SRI LANKA Sri Lanka will begin cultivating cannabis for medical purposes later this year. Health minister Rajitha Senaratne said he plans for cultivation to take place across 100 acres of designated cannabis plantation land in the north-central Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa districts. This is estimated to produce 25,000kg of the drug annually, which will be used for domestic Ayurveda - a South Asian system of medicine - and for export to North America. Farmers will be hired by the state to cultivate the cannabis, and production will be overseen by the military. Cannabis prohibition was initiated by British colonizers in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) in the late nineteenth and earlier twentieth century. THAILAND Thailands National Legislative Assembly (NLA) is currently drafting a new bill to remove marijuana from the Category 5 Narcotics list. But it will only apply use for medical purposes. The law is expected to be passed as law in April 2019, making Thailand the first Asian country to legalize medical cannabis and they will be competing in the market led by the US and Canada. The country's Governmental Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO) has also begun researching mass-producing medicines from the drug. While 72% of Thais support the move to legalize weed for medical purposes, a Nida poll found half said it should be restricted to hospital use. Back in the 1980s, Thailand used to be the worlds top exporter of illegal cannabis. MALAYSIA The challenge for Malaysia, which still imposes strict punishment for some drug trafficking offenses, is how to draft new laws that are specific enough to differentiate marijuana for medical as opposed to recreational and other uses. The Ministry of Health, which has the final say, remains skeptical about the medicinal value of cannabis. The country's cabinet was reported to have "very briefly" discussed its medical value last month. Land and Natural Resources Xavier Jayakumar described getting cabinet support for medical marijuana use as an uphill battle. My own personal view is that if its got medicinal value, then it can be a controlled item that can be used by Ministry of Health for prescription purposes, he said. PHILIPPINES Despite President Rodrigo Dutertes bloody war on drugs that claimed the lives of thousands since mid-2016, the Philippines committee on Health in March last year endorsed the use of medical marijuana. House Bill 180 prescribes the rules for the proper use of medical marijuana, including the designation of a qualified medical cannabis physician, a medical cannabis patient who shall be issued an identification card, a qualified medical cannabis caregiver and a qualified medical cannabis compassionate centre. Lawmaker Rep. Seth Jalosjos believes legalizing marijuana for medical use, has the backing of the Philippine Cancer Society, will benefit thousands of patients suffering from serious and debilitating diseases. Medical marijuana has been frowned upon by Filipino leaders in the past, but Albano feels confident that his Bill will pass with Duterte in power. INDIA The usage of marijuana is rooted in ancient literature and Hindu mythology. Despite its illegality, it is well documented that marijuana is grown in many parts of the country, especially in villages in Himachal Pradesh and in the Indian Himalayas. Cannabis cultivation and trade are partially restricted in India. While its cultivation for industrial purposes (i.e. obtaining fibre such as industrial hemp or for horticultural use) is allowed, consuming it could lead to a jail term of six months or a hefty fine. Earlier this year Uttarakhand became the first State in the country to allow commercial cultivation of hemp crop. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, whose Patanjali company, has already made a fortune selling ayurveda-based face cleansers, toothpaste, and detergents is now looking to cannabis as a growth avenue. There exists a huge market for cannabis in India. A lot of scientific research needs to be done, especially for those who are framing the laws, said Yash Kotak, founder and director of Mumbai-based startup, The Bombay Hemp Company, which is backed by industrialist Ratan Tata. CHINA/HONG KONG While cannabis remains illegal in the Peoples Republic of China, the country itself produces 50% of the worlds supply. Chinas crops are largely hemp, and thus the non-psychotropic and fiber-rich variety of cannabis. As of 2017, Chinese companies have 309 out of the 606 patents filed around the world that relate to cannabis. So while cannabis remains illegal in the Peoples Republic of China, its massive economic potential poses a threat to cannabis interests around the world. In Hong Kong, manufacturing cannabis or any other drug included in the citys Dangerous Drugs Ordinance is deemed the most serious of all drug-related offenses. Any person who cultivates any plant of the genus cannabis faces an HK$100,000 fine and 15 years in prison. For Chinas pot to make a significant impression on the Western canna-economy, there must be state-approved logistics for global distribution and permissive banking regulations, experts say. Guest Commentary By Bruce Ralston Minister of Jobs, Trade and Technology When people think of B.C.s economy, mining, forestry, tourism, and our booming tech sector are often mentioned. But there is an area of our economy that does not receive nearly as much attention as it should: manufacturing. As the Minister for Jobs, Trade, and Technology, I have seen first-hand the work of the people who drive B.C.s bustling manufacturing sector. From the Peace region to the Kootenays, manufacturers are creating good jobs for British Columbians, adding value to our natural resources and raising the export value of products. October is Manufacturing Month in B.C. when the Government of British Columbia celebrates our provinces manufacturers for their contributions to local communities and the provincial economy. The sector is definitely on the upswing. Over the past five years, B.C. has had the second-fastest growing manufacturing sector in Canada. Manufacturing provides well-paying, high-skilled jobs to about 175,000 people in B.C., with weekly earnings that are almost 17% higher than the provincial average. As minister, I have the privilege of seeing our manufacturers in action all around the province. The diversity of businesses in this sector is impressive. In Kelowna, I visited KF Aerospace, which has grown to become the Okanagans largest private employer, and FormaShape, which is one of North Americas largest manufacturers of composite fiberglass products. While touring the Kootenays, I stopped by Drop Designs in South Slocan, which manufactures components for the oil and gas, agriculture, forestry, and mining industries. It started 12 years ago as a one-person business, building sprockets, and now has 75 full-time employees. Drop Designs has benefited from a number of government programs and is an outstanding example of how small B.C. manufacturers can thrive by embracing technology. In Trail, I visited Fenix Advanced Materials, which uses raw material from the towns zinc and lead smelter to produce ultra-high-purity metals for use in the solar energy, telecommunications, and commercial and military infrared markets. On a trip to northeastern B.C., I paid a visit to Louisiana-Pacifics engineered-wood products facility in Dawson Creek, which is undergoing a $130-million expansion and adding 55 new jobs to its current workforce of 145. Another great example of innovation in manufacturing is a Vancouver-based company called ChopValue. Felix Bock, founder, and CEO, and his staff of 18 recycle some of the estimated 100,000 chopsticks that are thrown away in Vancouver every day and transform them into beautiful home-decor items, such as table tops and wall pieces. Their coasters are a conversation piece. I have a set for coffee cups in my office and guests are regularly amazed that waste materials can be converted into such elegant products. To date, ChopValue has prevented 15,000 kilograms of waste from going to the landfill. The companies I visited demonstrate the remarkable diversity of products being produced in B.C. Whether those products come from natural resources or are fabricated, the people behind them demonstrate what can be accomplished with innovation and hard work. B.C. applauds manufacturers for developing emerging industries and recognizing that diversification is a crucial component of a healthy, stable economy. As the manufacturing sector continues to expand, our government will continue to invest in people to create good jobs and ensure all sectors have the skilled workers they need to grow in every corner of B.C. By the numbers Manufacturing contributes $16.8 billion to the B.C. economy and represents about 9% of the total Canadian manufacturing gross domestic product (GDP). In 2017, there were 174,200 people employed in the manufacturing sector in British Columbia, the third-largest share of manufacturing workers among all Canadian provinces. There are approximately 7,200 manufacturing companies in British Columbia with at least one employee. Workers in the sector have weekly earnings that are 16.5% higher than the provincial average. Females represent approximately 30% of the employed labour force in the manufacturing sector of B.C. Every 100 direct jobs in the manufacturing sector support 75 jobs in the rest of the economy. In 2017, manufactured goods accounted for 61% of B.C.s total goods exported to international destinations. Manufacturers of technology products account for over 14,300 jobs and $1.6 billion of provincial GDP. Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing in B.C. has increased by over 125% since 2011. Medical equipment manufacturing exports from B.C. totalled $187 million in 2017 an increase of 70% from 2011. B.C. has the third-largest aerospace sector in the country, generating $1.3 billion of the provinces GDP and providing 8,300 high-skilled, well-paid jobs. By Ian Lowe Australia has been ranked third-worst in the developed world for environmental protection, and medical professionals are increasingly concerned about the health impacts of climate change. Australia ranks third-worst in the developed world for environmental protection. The annual report of the Washington-based Centre for Global Development has placed Australia ahead of only South Korea and Japan among the 27 nations it assessed. We were considered even worse than the USA under President Donald Trump. The Centre singled out our poor response to climate change as the area most needing attention, noting high per capita emissions, relatively low levels of taxation on transport fuels, and heavy reliance on coal for electricity. The negative international assessment was conducted before the Coalition blood-letting led to the scrapping of the National Energy Guarantee. I guess we look even worse now. For the second time in his political career, Malcolm Turnbull was removed by his Liberal Party colleagues, partly because his moderate and inadequate response to climate change was still too much for those in the government who deny the science. I have written before about the improbability of Australia achieving its Paris commitment of 2628% emissions reduction if we only cut electricity generation by that amount, with no attempt to reduce greenhouse gas production from transport, agriculture and manufacturing. Now we dont even have an energy policy with a weak target, just meaningless platitudes about lower prices and secure supply. There is even irresponsible talk in government ranks of using public money to build a coal-fired power station, since no private corporation is willing to spend its own funds on an obviously uneconomic project. With drought gripping much of eastern Australia and super-storms creating havoc in the northern hemisphere, it is impossible to justify our failure to respond to what some scientists are now calling the climate emergency. The same US report was also critical about Australias poor level of international aid. Under Abbott and Turnbull, in the latter case with Scott Morrison as Treasurer, the aid budget has been systematically cut. It is now down to about $4 billion, or 0.22% of our gross national income. We used to have a bi-partisan commitment to contributing about 0.5% of national income to aid, which would still compare badly with Scandinavian countries that meet the United Nations target of 1%. Our approach looks miserly to our Pacific island neighbours, who are also critical of our failure to act on climate change as it threatens their very survival. There has been significant activity recently on the health impacts of climate change. The Climate and Health Alliance held a symposium in Melbourne just a few days after a Queensland report looked at the issues specific to that State. That report was launched in Brisbane, then taken by the responsible Minister to a global conference in California. While many politicians arent concerned about the impacts on biodiversity and the health of natural systems, they are clearly worried about the effects on the health of voters. With the Commonwealth government missing in action, severals states are stepping up. Queensland has reinstated its Climate Change Advisory Council, and Victoria now has a Climate Change Act, a legislative instrument requiring action plans for both mitigation and adaptation. That makes sense, because further significant climate change is locked in, even if future mitigation efforts are much stronger than currently being implemented. I was particularly interested to learn that the health professions are now getting engaged with the issue. The Medical Deans of Australia and New Zealand commissioned a report on including the health impacts of climate change in the formal education of medical students, a move supported by the presidents of the various professional colleges representing practising doctors. Pharmacists have formed a new peak body advocating for concerted adaptation plans. A report being prepared by the University of Sydney has found that Australia lags behind most OECD countries in responding to the impacts on infectious diseases and mental health. We now know that there was a 40% spike in rural suicides during the millennium drought, and there is anecdotal evidence that the current dry spell is having serious impacts on mental health in the bush. Health professionals are drawing attention to the effects of stress on children, warning that the consequences will continue to be serious for decades. The World Health Organizations (WHO) air pollution and child health report released on Monday adds to evidence that air pollution is causing health damage and deaths worldwide, including in India. Instead of spending time questioning the evidence, India must establish timebound strategies to deal with the crisis. The Centre is yet to release the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) with a goal to meet the annual air quality safe standard at all locations within a specified period. But the draft released in April did not set a time frame for reaching the target. The ministry since then has said that the draft has been revised and finalised with timebound targets. One of the targets being considered is to reduce PM 2.5 (fine, respirable pollution particles) concentrations by 35% in the first five years of NCAP implementation, in more than a 100 cities, which have not met the safe standard. About 80 city air pollution action plans under NCAP have been finalised by the ministry; 36 others are being considered. The environment ministry on various occasions has been sceptical of premature mortality data released by global reports. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has commissioned some local health studies to understand health impacts of air pollution but perhaps there is no time to waste. Large scale cohort studies will help India document the health burden but Indian doctors and scientists are already raising alarm bells on severe air pollution levels. The NCAP has to have a clear implementation strategy to be able to verify if cities are on track to meet targets. Only a handful of cities have source apportionment studies that clearly lay out which are the major pollution sources in the region. A couple of such studies have been conducted for Delhi. IIT Kanpur is currently conducting source apportionment studies for Kanpur and Agra. One way to address specific local sources of air pollution is to immediately conduct source apportionment studies for major pollution hotspots and then devise plans to reduce emissions from major sources. State governments can use satellite measurements and a dense network of ground monitoring stations to check how their strategy is affecting pollution levels. State governments can make it legally mandatory for the city, state or district administration to meet targets. Not doing so within a stipulated time could be linked to disbursal of development funds, for example. Covering rural areas that have a high burden of household air pollution will be crucial in reducing morbidity and mortality from air pollution, by verifying if they have LPG coverage and transparently releasing industrial emissions data. It is also important to have clear strategies in NCAP for villages, towns and cities in the vicinity of polluting industries like thermal power plants, coal mines, industries releasing hazardous waste which cause extremely high air pollution exposure but are invisible in government policies because there is little or no pollution monitoring here. Chinas Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan (APPCAP) (2013-2017) has already started showing results. A recent study by Peking University School of Public Health has found that the annual average concentration of PM 2.5 decreased by 33.3% in 74 key cities where the plan was implemented in the past five years. This reduction may have led to 44,240 fewer air pollution-linked deaths in 74 Chinese cities, according to the study. Chinas success story can be studied to refine the NCAP. There is another global example of legal remediation. The European Commission took the UK, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Romania to the European Court of Justice earlier this year for not meeting nitrogen dioxide standards. Even as India waits for the NCAP to be notified, the focus doesnt need to be limited to Delhi-NCR alone, which already has an air quality monitoring network of 38 real time stations and a graded response action plan for high air pollution days and a comprehensive action plan with medium and long-term strategies. Environmental lawyers say there is no dearth of legal remedies for air pollution which includes sections in the Air Act, the Environment Protection Act and section 133 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The CPCBs notification dated April 11, 1994, also mandates that national air quality standards should be met on 98% of days, which is violated in almost all cities. Article 21 of the Constitution guarantees every Indian the right to live in a clean and healthy environment. Communities affected by air pollution can always use it to demand clean air. jayashree.nandi@htlive.com Days before Tipu Jayanti is observed on November 10 by the state government, the Bharatiya Janata Party and some right-wing organisations have vowed to protest the event, urging the HD Kumaraswamy-led regime to stop the practice. The previous Siddaramaiah-led Congress government had begun the practice in 2015, when it officially observed the anniversary amid protests by the BJP and other organisations. Two persons had been killed in Madikeri town of Kodagu districts that year during the protests. The BJPs argument was that the 18th century ruler of Mysore was a tyrant, who had desecrated many temples and forced a large number of Hindus to convert to Islam. However, the then state government had brushed aside the criticism and chosen to go ahead, highlighting the fact that he had fought the British. On Wednesday, at a press conference organised by the Tipu Jayanti Virodhi Horata Samiti (Anti-Tipu Jayanti Agitation Committee), Tejaswi Surya, general secretary of the youth wing of the BJP here, said it was not right for the government to use public funds to observe the event. Last year, when chief minister HD Kumaraswamy was in the opposition, he had aired similar views. So, we hope he walks the talk... Else, he will face the same fate that befell former CM Siddaramaiah, who lost in the recent assembly polls, said Surya. The chief ministers office confirmed that the event would be held this year, for the fourth time in a row. Some leaders from the BJP have earlier spoken highly of Tipu. At a 2012 rally, former CM BS Yeddyurappa had worn headgear similar to that seen in pictures of Tipu, while breaking away from the BJP to form the Karnataka Janata Paksha. Historian Nanjaraj Urs, formerly of Mysore University, said the controversy over Tipu had grown with the rise of the BJP in the state. Even Hindu kings have destroyed temples. The Marathas ransacked the Sringeri Math and it was Tipu who provided protection..., he said. Congress leader Rizwan Arshad said there was no question of the government backing away from celebrating Tipu. Tipu was one of the first rulers to oppose the British and sacrificed his life in this effort, he said. These protests are only a tactic to divert the growing anger against the BJP for failing to deliver on any of the promises the party made before the 2014 elections, Arshad said. Veteran actor, Anupam Kher, resigned as chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) on Tuesday, saying his international assignments would keep him away from being actively involved in the affairs of the institute. In his resignation letter, addressed to Information and Broadcasting minister, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Kher said he will have to be in the United States for nine months every year between 2018 and 2022, for a show he is working on. Kher said when the then I&B minister, Smriti Irani, approached him about taking over as FTII chairman in September 2017, he had told her of this possibility. Kher replaced Gajendra Chauhan as the chairperson in October 2017. Given this assignment, it would not be fair to me, the students and management team, for me to hold a position of such responsibility and accountability, without being actively involved in the operations, Kher wrote in his resignation letter, a copy of which he posted on Twitter on Wednesday. Soon after, he tweeted: It has been an honour, a privilege & a great learning experience to be chairman of the prestigious @FTIIOfficial. But because of my international assignments I wont have much time to devote... It has been an honour, a privilege & a great learning experience to be the Chairman of the prestigious @FTIIOfficial. But because of my international assignments I wont have much time to devote at the institute. Hence decided to send my resignation. Thank you. @Ra_THORe pic.twitter.com/lglcREeYM2 Anupam Kher (@AnupamPKher) October 31, 2018 Khers resignation comes at a time when students were protesting over poor infrastructure. FTII students said they were shocked by Khers resignation. We were hoping he would intervene for us and help us get better facilities..., said Rohit Kumar, a 2016 batch student, who was also a former secretary of the FTII students union. A new chairperson has not been decided on yet, he said. Kher served as chairman of the FTII for 11 months, but until September this year, he did not have a team that could help him constitute two key decision-making bodies. The government immediately nominates a 12-member society to work under the chairman and constitute the governing and academic councils. However, the I&B ministry appointed the society, only a year after Kher took over. The society met for the first time on Tuesday and constituted the two councils. (With inputs from Yashika Mathur and Yogesh Joshi) After refusing credit in the teaser of Manikarnika, the ambitious biopic of Laxmi Bai, queen of Jhansi, Kangana Ranaut will be credited as the films co-director, along with original helmer Krish. According to a report in Mid Day, producer Kamal Jain took a call after a meeting with the head honchos of Zee Studios on Monday. Quoting an insider, Mid Day said: Kangana helmed the 45-day schedule that included the re-shoot of several key parts of the drama. Not just that, after she returned from the US earlier this week, she was thoroughly involved in the editing process along with Rameshwar Bhagat. She is overseeing the VFX work, the music and the final cut as well, all of which are the directors responsibilities. Kangana also cut short the first schedule of Panga to accommodate the post-production of Manikarnika. It may be recalled that the teaser of the biopic, which was unveiled on October 2 (Gandhi Jayanti), did not identify Kangana as the films co-director. Reports had suggested that Kangana was offered the opportunity to claim credit, but had refused to do so. Krish left the project midway after the makers were not content with some crucial segments of the shoot as they felt some plot points were missing, the report said. He soon moved on to his other big project, the Telugu language NTR biopic and passed the baton on to Kangana. Confirming the development, Kamal told Mid Day that the final product is looking exactly the way the makers had envisioned it. The film is finally looking exactly the way we had envisioned it. Kangana is a perfectionist who headlined every department. We are happy with what she has done and it would be unfair to not give her credit where its due. Manikarnika is expected to chronicle the life of Laxmi Bai, her succession issues and her final battle against the British during the Revolt of 1857. Follow @htshowbiz for more If this doesnt make Misha and Zain the cutest brother-sister duo, we dont know what will. The adorable babies proud mommy, Mira Rajput shared the loveliest picture of the two enjoying a beautiful morning together. Mira shared a picture of Misha on Wednesday morning as she peeped over her baby brother Zains crib, perhaps to give him a wake-up call. Misha is sporting the biggest smile as she looks at Zain, who is also looking at his big sister. Zain is seen cradled between a soft pillow that bears his name and a few toys. He is resting in a crib secured by glass walls. Mira and her actor husband Shahid welcomed Zain on September 5. Shahid announced his arrival on Twitter two days after his birth. Zain Kapoor is here and we feel complete. Thank you for all the wishes and blessings. We are overjoyed and so grateful. Love to all, the Padmaavat actor wrote. Mira also recently shared a picture of Misha looking so grown up. It featured her little girl with a young friend as they smile for the camera and enveloped one another in a hug. Sugar and spice and all things nice.. thats what little girls are made of #bffs #youcansitwithus, she had captioned the photo. Shahid recently said in an interview that being a dad is a lot of work. It does require a lot of effort. Sometimes, you dont have time for yourself... but here you have to choose the time between your work and family. That is something I do it very consciously, Shahid said. Shahid is currently shooting for Kabir Singh, the Hindi remake of Arjun Reddy. It also stars Kiara Advani and will arrive in theatres on June 21. Follow @htshowbiz for more Two of Bollywoods A-listers, Sonali Bendre and Rishi Kapoor, are currently in New York getting treated for their respective ailments. While the nature of Rishis illness is still not known, Sonali is getting treated for cancer. Many from Bollywood have been turning up in the Big Apple and meeting Sonali to boost her morale. Among the Bollywood stars who have met her over the last four months are Priyanka Chopra, Anupam Kher, Sussanne Khan and Neetu Singh. The actor herself is putting up a pitched battle against the dreaded disease. Now, former Bollywood actor Namrata Shirodkar has met the actor and is all praises for Sonali. Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Namrata said that Sonali was a brave girl and appreciated her undying spirit. She is a strong girl. She looks amazingly fit and ready to get back to normal life. I had such a lovely time with her. We discussed so many things. She told me the entire story of her illness and what gives her the strength, and I told her that shes always in my prayers. Sonali Bendre and Namrata Shirodkar are married to Goldie Behl and Mahesh Babu respectively. (Instagram) Namrata is currently in the US on a vacation with her husband Telugu superstar Mahesh Babu and her two kids, Gautham and Sitara. Namrata added that the two of them shared a deep bond and that they were typically Maharashtrian in so many ways and that they laughed about some shared recollections of the past. Meanwhile, Sonali made it to Priyankas bridal shower held at New Yorks Tiffany & Co. Blue Box Cafe. Looking lovely in a bright red dress and a wig, Sonali was a picture of courage under fire. A while back, Sonali also attended a show by veteran Sarod player Amjad Ali Khan and his sons, Amaan and Ayaan. In early July this year, Sonali shared with the world that she had been diagnosed with cancer, one that has metastised and that she would be undergoing treatment in New York. Sonali keeps updating her fans about her struggle and in early October, sharing a bald picture of hers, she had written how there have been days when Ive been so exhausted and in so much pain that even lifting a finger hurt. Follow @htshowbiz for more Farms in Punjab recorded a spurt in cases of crop residue burning over the weekend, satellite images show, and winds slowed down in much of north India creating two potent conditions that resulted in the air quality in the national capital plunging on Tuesday to its worst level so far this season. The average air quality index for the day was 401 classified as severe, the second worst of five grades of pollution as satellite pictures released by the National Aeronautical Space Agency (Nasa) showed a band of haze stretching from across the border in Pakistan to Agra in western Uttar Pradesh. It is because of unfavourable meteorological conditions that air quality has worsened. A cyclonic circulation over Odisha is blocking winds, as a result of which the wind speed [in north India] has dropped as has the ventilation index (which determines how fast pollutants get dispersed), a Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) official said. Mist in the morning and pollutants from stubble burning regions of neighbouring states are making the air toxic, he added. Farmers in Punjab and Haryana set fire to stubble left from paddy harvest in order to quickly turn their fields around for the next round of sowing, a problem that the state and Union governments have tried to solve through punitive as well as assistive measures such as subsidies on farming equipment. Farmers said more instances of burning will be reported in coming days, especially around the festival of Diwali when fireworks will add a cocktail of toxic gases that are anyway hard to disperse due to meteorological conditions typical for this time of the year. Crop stubble burning will continue up to November 15 and overlap with Diwali. Farmers cannot help it because almost 50% of the crop is left to be harvested, said Harinder Singh Lakhowal, general secretary of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU). Another farmer said the increase was inevitable since there is little time left for sowing wheat, which begins from November 10. Small farmers cannot purchase equipment to handle straw, thus they have no other option except to burn it, said farm leader Darshan Singh in Patiala. An official of the Punjab pollution control board, who asked not to be named, said another spike could come around Diwali. Many farmers will try to burn paddy straw by terming it as incidental fire, the official added. The primary pollutants in Delhis air PM10 and PM2.5 shot up alarmingly over the past one week. At 8pm on Tuesday PM10 level shot up to 454ug/m3 which is 4.5 times above the safe limit of 100ug/m3. The ultra fine particles PM2.5 shot up to 256ug/m3, which was 4.2 times above the permissible limit of 60ug/m3, said the CPCB quoted above. According to CPCB scientists, Safar and Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), the air is likely to remain as bad for the next two days at least. The highest recorded AQI Delhi has witnessed so far was 497 on November 6, 2016 when the city recorded its worst smog in 17 years. That day came less than a week after Diwali that year. Even though the Delhi government is yet to issue an advisory for schools, some are taking precautionary measures such as suspending morning assemblies and restricting outdoor activities for students. CPCB has asked people in Delhi to minimise exposure to the toxic air, and avoid strenuous exercise between November 1 and 10. Car owners have been advised to use public transport. Avoid major traffic intersections during rush hours. Avoid other forms of pollution such as burning incense sticks and mosquito coils indoors, said Dr TK Joshi, a health expert of the CPCB task force. Most of the increase in crop burning on the weekend was registered on Sunday, when 3,162 cases of fire were reported. The farmers took advantage of a holiday when officials were not on field visits, said Kahan Singh Pannu, Punjabs agriculture secretary. He said senior officials now carry out inspections on holidays as well. He, however, said this was not the reason why Delhis pollution levels had shot up. Lakhowal, the BKU leader, said the state government had not done enough to help them manage crop residue. Farmers asked for ?200 per quintal of produce as compensation to meet diesel costs of using machinery to mulch straw. The government didnt do anything about it. The government subsidy on machinery for straw management is useless because companies have increased the market price of machinery and farmers cannot afford them, he said. Aeronautical charges at the Delhi airport is likely to increase from 2019 as the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) is planning to invest Rs 9,000 crore in next three years for proposed expansion work. The hike will come in the form of landing and parking charges and airport development fee, which the airlines are likely to pass it on to passengers. At present, the DIAL has approached the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) as the second concession period is expiring. At the end of the concession period, which is for five years, DIAL approaches the regulatory authority, giving details of financial closure, proposed investment and a demand for hike in tariffs. For the 2009-14 concession period, AERA had allowed around a 346% rise in aeronautical charges, whereas the hike was 94% for the 2014-2019 period, as no major infrastructure work was planned. The AERA will decide the percentage hike after consulting airlines and other stakeholders. Of the total amount, a large portion has to be raised from outside. The government will also have to help facilitate raising funds for expansion, said Videh Kumar Jaipuriar, CEO of DIAL. Jaipuriar was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of a report on the economic impact of Delhi airport by National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). The NCAER had also conducted a passenger survey, speaking to 3,500 passengers, and found that there are more women passengers in the age group of 26-35 years compared to male passengers in the same group. The report also talks about how Delhi airport is helping in creating jobs even in agriculture and unorganized sectors. While it has created about 28 lakh direct, indirect and induced jobs, the number is likely to go up to 40 lakh by 2025. The report also points out that the Delhi airport contributes 0.70% to the national GVA in 2014-15 and 17.89% to the GSDP of Delhi in 2014-15. The impact on value added after taking into account direct, indirect and induced effects will work out to be 2,40,356 crore by 2025-26 (equivalent to 0.60% of the estimated national GVA), said Kanhaiya Singh, senior fellow at NCAER. Delhi airport is the most successful public-private partnership example at such a scale. The impossible task of developing one of the largest airports in the world in 37 months with state-of-the-art infrastructure is no less than a miracle, said GM Rao, chairman of the GMR group. Elections are always a tense affair in Chhattisgarh because of the presence of Maoists in parts of the state. On Tuesday, a Doordarshan cameraperson and two policemen were killed in a Maoist ambush in the tribal-dominated states Dantewada district. Reports said the cameraperson was in the area for election coverage (November 12 and November 20) and heading for reporting on a new polling booth at Nilawaya where people have not exercised their rights for the past 20 years. The special director general (Naxal operations), DM Awasthi, however, claimed that the attack was not related to the polls, but linked to the construction of roads, which the rebels were opposed to, in the Maoist-affected area. Last week, four Central Reserve Police Force personnel were killed and two more injured after Maoists used a powerful IED to target a bulletproof mobile bunker vehicle in the Bijapur district. Either way, Maoists would be concerned. The Red Army doesnt want infrastructure in their strongholds because that would mean better tracking and easier movement of security personnel. Their opposition to elections is more ideological because the group doesnt believe in the democratic process, which they consider a consolidation of power in the hands of upper caste and dominant class elites. So every time an election is announced, Maoists put up posters warning residents to desist from voting, leading to a tussle with the India State machinery that is duty-bound to organise elections even in the remotest areas of the state and the country. The situation in Chhattisgarh is a bit more complicated because security forces are known to have indulged in several cases of extrajudicial excesses on tribals, an impoverished community that has been caught in the crossfire between the two armed groups for years. Yet development is the only way out of the mess, if not for anyone else, but the tribals, who have been impoverished for years because of the negligence of the Indian state, and the lack of any strong political leadership from the community who can give their demands a voice. While the deaths of the securitymen and journalist are distressing, the Indian government must continue to push its development agenda in the Maoist strongholds, and also ensure that the forces dont violate the standard operating procedures and human rights in this turf war with the Red Army. This is critical for their personal security, and also to restore trust between the State and tribals. By Merja Myllylahti, Research Fellow, Auckland University of Technology from www.shutterstock.com, CC BY-ND Facebook and quality journalism are uneasy companions. Recent headlines suggest the platforms lies about video metrics smashed journalism and the platform crashed and burned news companies referral traffic after it changed its algorithm in January. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is currently holding a digital platform inquiry to investigate what kind of impact social media platforms, search engines and other content aggregators have on the local media market. In the United Kingdom, the Cairncross review is assessing similar issues, looking for ways of sustaining high-quality journalism in a changing market. My research suggests these enquiries should pay attention to the impact of Facebook and the lessons weve already learned about the social platform. Read more: Class action against Facebook over facial recognition could pave the way for further lawsuits Lesson one: overstated metrics You should not trust all the metrics platform companies offer. A recent article in The Atlantic revealed that a lawsuit has been filed against Facebook, because it allegedly overstated its video statistics for years, exaggerating the time spent watching them by as much as 900% percent. The article asserts that hundreds of journalists lost their job after Facebook lured news companies to invest in video. However, Facebook has denied these claims. The Spinoff, a digital native media company in New Zealand, recently posted a story with a similar analysis of the platforms impact, saying that Facebooks fake video statistics smashed New Zealand journalism because when it encouraged news companies to invest in online video production, they followed. New Zealand media were collateral damage in Facebooks obsessive desire to grow at all costs. Read more: How to stop haemorrhaging data on Facebook Lesson two: traffic dependency You should not rely on Facebook traffic. A recent report by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism shows that in the United States, news companies have a substantial presence on Facebook. The report found that roughly 80% of the local news outlets are using the social platform. Additionally, two recent studies demonstrates how news companies rely on Facebook to drive their traffic. My own research of four New Zealand news companies shows that 24% of their traffic came from social media, and most of that came from Facebook. Together social and search drove 47% of New Zealand news sites traffic. A larger study of 12 newspapers and broadcasters in Europe, conducted by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, notes: news organisations are making major investments in social media and report receiving significant amounts of traffic" from social media. These studies confirm news companies Facebook dependency in terms of traffic, although the level of dependency differs between media outlets. The Reuters study found that Facebooks algorithm changes in January had a severe impact on some of the news companies traffic. However, the severity of impact differed between media outlets. For example, Le Monde saw its interactions drop by almost a third, but for The Times these grew. In New Zealand, The Spinoff suffered a substantial drop in its traffic after Facebooks algorithm tweaks: its traffic from the platform dropped from 50% to 30%. We have seen similar drops in other markets, too. The Nieman Lab, which reports on digital media innovation, found that following Facebooks algorithm change, the drop in referral traffic was not universal. Some not-for-profit media organisations benefited. Bottom line: The decline in referrals to publishers from Facebook is not universal, and in the face of those declines, other sources of traffic are more important than ever. Indeed, it would be wise for all news outlets to grow their direct traffic which delivers better user engagement and monetisation. Lesson three: dont do it for the money You dont make much money on Facebook. My research suggests if news companies abandoned Facebook, they would hardly lose any money. For the companies studied, social media traffic made up 0.03%0.14% of their total revenue, and social shares 0.009%0.2% of total revenue. These figures dont take into account advertising income from platforms or subscription conversion. The reason news companies continue to distribute their content on social media platforms is because they gain attention. News companies believe they can turn this attention into money, but so far with little success. However, some news publishers have reported that they have gained digital subscriptions from the platforms. The Reuters study notes Facebook delivers news companies audience engagement that is considered more cost effective at driving digital subscription sales. The bottom line is there is no data yet to verify how well news publishers manage to convert social media attention to digital subscriptions. Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple are all offering, or are in the process of offering, digital subscription services to news publishers, but how well these will work for news companies remains to be seen. Merja Myllylahti 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. The admit card for Uttar Pradesh Teachers Eligibility Test (UPTET) 2018 examination is expected to be downloaded on the official website of UP basic education board on Wednesday. The examination will be held on November 18. The last date to register for UPTET 2018 was extended to October 7 due to the difficulty faced by the candidates in filling their application. The last date to pay the application fees was also extended to October 8 and the last date to print the filled application form was extended to October 9. A record 17.80 lakh aspiring teachers have registered for UPTET 2018 to be organised by Examination Regulatory Authority (ERA). As per reports, Last year UPTET examination was held on October 15, 2017 wherein a total of 9,76,760 candidates appeared. The result was scheduled to be declared on November 30, but a dispute arising over some questions asked in the examination, led to postponement of declaration of results to December 15, 2017. In such a short span of time, Kiara Advani has managed to work with a range of filmmakers and she is looking forward to experimenting further with the cinematic landscape and exploring other genres. Her upcoming releases for next year include Kabir Singh with Shahid Kapoor and Good News with Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor and Diljit Dosanjh. Kiara made her acting debut with the 2014 release Fugly and later starred in successful films like MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, the Telugu political drama Bharat Ane Nenu, action thriller Machine and her latest, the much acclaimed Lust Stories. She isnt stereotyped as yet and she wants to keep it that way. Kiara Advani at the newly launched Koovss first offline store. The Lust Stories actress was in the capital recently to walk the ramp in the Koovss latest Autumn Winter collection as the popular fashion label went offline with their first ever physical store in Gurugram. The venue had mini London vibes, mirroring the brands approach, aesthetics and inspiration, echoing European fashion history and impressions of uber chic design philosophy. As she is gearing up for her next year projects, she spoke to us on fashion, fitness, beauty and how the female protagonist is getting her due in Bollywood. Whats next? I am working on two upcoming projects where the characters are very different from each other. One is an innocent and vulnerable person who speaks only when spoken to and the other is a bubbly fun-loving Punjabi girl. I enjoy playing a range of characters. Its challenging but very interesting at the same time. I have been brought up in a liberal environment and its very important for me to speak my mind and stand up for everything I believe in. Your style evolution Right now, I am more into classics and the art of detailing. When I look at a silhouette, I think about how it will work for me in the best way possible as per my body type. I have always loved to dress up ever since I was young. As you grow older, you are more open to experimenting and you have a better understanding of what looks good on you as per your personality and body type. Current style trend Athleisure is my go-to trend. It looks great, shapes your body really well and it encourages you to go to the gym. I live in it. Fitness is a way of life for me. Its a mood lifter for a dull day. Favourite colour White dominates my wardrobe. It reflects very well on your complexion. Its such a classic tone. Beauty tip No matter how tired you are, always remove your make-up before you go to sleep. We tend to ignore it at times but it is a very important for your skin to breathe in this day and age. Keep it natural and find out what works best for your skin. Fitness mantra Avoid fried food and sugar, salt and oily preparations. Keep it clean and indulge in fruits, vegetable and a reasonable amount of protein. Your lifestyle choices reflects on your face and body. Current obsession Fortunately, I will be in Delhi to enjoy the winters as I have to shoot for a film here. I am quite excited to explore my winter wardrobe. Must have make-up product Mascara. It works for me as I have long lashes. Cheek tint and lip tint as well. I keep it natural otherwise for a fresh look. Currently reading Completely into my scripts right now. I would love to read something soon, during a holiday maybe. Favourite city New York! I am a city girl and I have a lot of family living in New York. My brother is studying there as well so I get to meet him. Bucket list Maldives! I am a complete beach bum. Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter Gurugrams Deputy Commissioner (DC) Vinay Pratap Singh on Tuesday issued an order banning the sale of all crackers, except green crackers, in the district, following a Supreme Court order last week. In a separate order, the DC also fixed the time from 8pm to 10pm on November 7 during which crackers can be burst on the day of Diwali festival. Bursting of crackers on any other day from October 30 till November 8 is prohibited, the order said. Meanwhile, the city police said that they have already given directions to all station house officers (SHOs) for implementing the timing and enforcing the ban on crackers, except green crackers. Green crackers are made from eco-friendly materials and compared to conventional firecrackers, have lower emission and decibel levels upon bursting. We are also making sure that wholesalers who had stocked up on crackers before the Supreme Court order are not selling them, said Subhash Boken, the spokesperson for the Gurugram police. The police and district administration said that green crackers are yet to hit the market. Munish Sharma, the additional deputy commissioner, said that traders who want to obtain a licence for selling crackers will have to prove to the district administration that they have green crackers. He added that it is highly unlikely that traders would be able to obtain green crackers before Diwali. Green crackers are not being commercially produced and the licence has not been issued to any trader for selling crackers, said Sharma. Boken said that if anyone is found selling crackers, the police will coordinate with the district administration to check whether the materials being sold are indeed green crackers. The DC said in the order that station house officers (SHOs) of respective areas are responsible for the implementation of the orders. They will be charged with contempt of the court, if any violation is found under his/her police station limits, the order said. Boken said that no separate team has been formed for implementing the orders and the deputy commissioner of police (DCP) of each zone would monitor the implementation and enforcement. A meeting between the district administration and police is to be held on November 2, in which the orders will be discussed further. Citizens can inform the nearest police station if they find anyone bursting crackers, police said. The order issued on Tuesday also asked regional officers of the pollution control board to conduct a temporary vigil monitoring in the district for 14 days seven days prior to Diwali and seven days post-Diwali to ascertain the levels of barium, aluminium and iron in the atmosphere. The DC said in the order that this would help in generation of data on pollution caused by bursting of firecrackers and help in regulation of barium, aluminium and iron used in making firecrackers. Boston gangster James Whitey Bulger, who was found dead in his prison cell on Tuesday, was not a fan of Johnny Depps portrayal of him in 2015s drama, Black Mass. Bulger, who was convicted in 2013 for his part in the murders of 11 people, also inspired Jack Nicholsons character in Martin Scorseses 2006 Oscar-winner, The Departed. Depps performance as Bulger was seen as a comeback for the actor, whod spent many years up to that point playing larger-than-life characters in big-budget fantasy films. He wore heavy prosthetics, stained his teeth and altered his voice for his performance, for which he received multiple accolades, including nominations at the Critics Choice and SAG awards. It would have been easy to dive into this thing as if it were just simply a gangster film, Depp said at Toronto International Film Festival screening of Black Mass. But director Scott Cooper made it a story about people, Depp added. Present the people, warts and all, and then allow their personality, their way of life, to reveal themselves. Bulger did not meet with Depp to consult about the role. His lawyer, Hank Brennan, compared Depps performance to his work in Alice in Wonderland. Johnny Depp might as well have been playing the Mad Hatter all over again as far as James Bulger is concerned, Brennan told People. Hollywood greed is behind the rush to portray my client, and the movie missed the real scourge created in my clients case, the real menace to Boston during that time and in other mob cases around the country the federal governments complicity in each and every one of those murders with the top echelon informant program. Bulger was found unresponsive in his cell by guards at a West Virginia prison. He was captured in California in 2011 after a 16 year manhunt. He was killed on the same day that he arrived from a Florida prison. The Boston Globe reports that an inmate with mafia ties is being investigated for the crime. Bulger was severely beaten. He was 89. Follow @htshowbiz for more Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Wednesday sought an apology from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for terming the Dalit memorials and statues built by her government as an extravagance after Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the Rs 3000 crore, 182-metre high statue of Indias first home minister, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, in Gujarat. BJP and RSS leaders used to attack my government over the construction of Dalit memorials and statues, including of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar, in Lucknow and Noida. Now these leaders should tender an apology for condemning my government, she said in a statement. Paying tributes to Sardar Patel on his 143rd birth anniversary, she said he was a true nationalist and became a symbol of Indian culture but giving the statue a foreign name - the Statue of Unity - clearly shows the scant respect of the BJP leadership toward the great leader. The construction of the statue by a foreign agency will continue to haunt the followers of Patel, she added. Mayawati said that Sardar Patel had a following all over the country and was respected by people cutting across caste and community, but dragging him into regional politics shows the narrow-mindedness of BJP leaders. The BSP leader also said that if BJP leaders had regard for Patel, then the party, which has been ruling Gujarat for a long time, should have constructed the statue earlier. National Democratic Alliance (NDA) constituent Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) president Upendra Kushwaha said on Tuesday that talks over seat-sharing in Bihar are positive but inconclusive, and his party has conveyed to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership what it expects. RLSP is a partner in the alliance in Bihar that includes the BJP, Janata Dal United (JDU) and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP). Last week, the BJP and JD(U) announced that they would contest an equal number of Lok Sabha seats in the state, which sends 40 members to Parliament. Since then, there has been speculation on whether this would mean fewer seats for the other partners. Even as both the BJP and RLSP are trying to scotch rumours of a crack in the alliance, Kushwaha, who is also a union minister, said all partners in an alliance should be able to share the benefits and losses equally. We have told the BJP how many seats we want, but I will not disclose the number, he said. Kushwaha said he was meeting LJP chief Ramvilas Paswan later in the day and if the need arises he would meet both BJP president Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Kushwaha denied that he has resigned from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government and asserted that his party is working to help Modi get a second term. Kushwaha did not hide his displeasure over reports indicating that his party will get a smaller number of Bihars 40 Lok Sabha seats. I met (BJP general secretary) Bhupinder Yadav; the talks happened in a cordial atmosphere and I conveyed to him the sentiments of our supporters in the state. I told them that seat sharing should be finalised, keeping their aspirations in mind, he said. In 2014, his party contested three seats, winning all. However, the JDU was not part of the alliance then. Shah and JDU chief Nitish Kumar announced last week that their parties will contest an equal number of seats after granting a respectable number of seats to the allies in Bihar. Kushwaha said the BJP should consider their past performance to arrive at a number for the next round of polls. Kushwaha added that his party would contest 66 seats in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections next month. On the day of Shah-Kumar meeting, Kushwaha met Bihars Opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav, setting off speculation that he was unhappy with the developments. Kushwaha later called it was a chance meeting with no political undertones. After two days of brainstorming, the BJP core committee on Tuesday narrowed down names of probable candidates for the assembly elections. The action will now shift to Delhi where the core committee will hold meetings on Wednesday. While BJP has been saying that it will change candidates on about 80-90 seats, sources said that it has been decided to drop several ministers in view of anti-incumbency. After the meeting, Rajasthan poll incharge Prakash Javadekar said that the names finalised here would be sent to the Centre which would declare the names at the appropriate time. Ahead of the election committee meeting scheduled for November 1, the core committee will now meet in Delhi on Wednesday to discuss the names of candidates. Chief minister Vasundhara Raje, state general secretary Chandrashekhar joint general secretary V Satish will hold meetings at the residence of Javadekar and BJP national president Amit Shah. Incidentally the Congress party too is holding meetings in Delhi to finalise its own candidates. During the meetings in Jaipur over two days, the leaders discussed the names on the basis of three surveys that were done by the party at various levels. A fourth survey was done after the feedback meetings in Ranakpur and Jaipur and the names received in this survey too were discussed. Sources said two panel names were finalised on about 70 seats. Consensus was arrived at for names of candidates on almost 75 seats such as those of chief minister Vasundhara Raje, home minister Gulab Chand Kataria and Panchayati Raj minister Rajendra Rathore. Names of candidates on seats where there is no controversy will figure in the first list that is likely to be released in the first week of November. Meanwhile, after Dholpur district Congress president Ashok Sharmas entry into the BJP, another Congress leader, Mahesh Pratap Singh of the former royal family of Nathdwara, joined the BJP on Tuesday. Singh joined the party in the presence of chief minister Vasundhara Raje and state BJP president Madanlal Saini, Rajasthan poll incharge Prakash Javadekar and state incharge Avinash Rai Khanna. Welcoming Singh, Raje said his family was well-known in Mewar and his entry in the BJP would strengthen the party. Singh hails from Kotharia in Nathdwara and is a descendent of Rajput king Prithviraj Chauhan. A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officer on Wednesday moved Delhi high court, opposing the petition of the agencys special director, Rakesh Asthana, to have the bribery case against him quashed. SS Gurm, an additional police superintendent with the CBI, said he had reasonable apprehension that the agency was seeking to protect and support Asthana. He sought to be heard as a party to Asthanas plea seeking the quashing. Gurm was among the CBI officials transferred last week after Asthanas feud with CBI director Alok Verma escalated. The government was forced to divest Verma and Asthana over the corruption charges the two have levelled against each other. The CBI had on October 15 registered the case against Asthana saying two middlemen had allegedly struck Rs 5 crore deal on his behalf to close a case against Hyderabad-based businessman Sana Satish Babu. Gurm accused Asthana of misleading the court by placing only selective documents on record. He promised to produce relevant materials and important facts to enable the court to effectively hear Asthanas plea. Gurms plea, which is likely to be heard on Thursday, claimed that the probe conducted till date revealed that Rs 2.95 crore was paid as illegal gratification in December 2017 in Asthanas name. He alleged Rs 36 crore was paid to Asthana as illegal gratification in October 2018. There was incriminating evidence that establishes a clear link between Sana Satish Babu (the complainant) to the Prasad Brothers to Samant Goel (Special Director R&AW) and culminating at Shri Rakesh Asthana, he claimed. Gurm claimed investigations revealed that co-accused and CBI DSP Devender Kumar sought to implicate Verma and Parliament member CM Ramesh to shield Asthana. Another CBI officer, Ajay Bassi, had made similar allegations against Asthana on Monday. Asthana refused to comment saying the matter is sub- judice. Guidelines framed by the election commissions model code of conduct define how elections are to be carried out across India. But in Mizoram, a church-sponsored poll watchdog has been trying to ensure free and fair polls. Mizoram Peoples Forum (MPF), an independent body formed in 2006 by Mizoram Presbyterian Church Synod, the largest Christian denomination in the northeastern state, comprises church elders and members of three prominent organizations of women, senior citizens and young people. As per 2011 census, over 87% of Mizorams total population of 1.12 million are made up by Christians. The Mizoram Presbyterian Church (MPC) has nearly 600,000 followers and 1,097 churches across the state. Last month, leaders of eight national and regional parties contesting the coming assembly polls in the state signed an eight-point memorandum of understanding (MoU) with MPF . We issue guidelines for all elections held in Mizoram. The MoUs signed with the parties and move to educate voters has proven very useful in holding clean elections in the state, said Rev. B Sangthanga, senior vice-president MPF. The guidelines prevent parties from giving inducements to voters, keeps check on poll expenses, bans use of violence, promotes peaceful campaigning, insist on selection of good candidates and inclusion of achievable promises in manifestoes. It asks parties to select candidates who are reputed, stable personality and mature minded, diligent and faithful, not corrupt, without any record of infidelity, who is free from alcohol and other substances, has great human value, religious and a prominent member of his religion, etc. This time we have included new guidelines restricting misuse of social media for electoral gains, use of minors in poll activity and allowed MPF monitored house to house campaigns, said Rev. R Lalbiakmawia, general secretary, MPF. Political parties have no issues signing the MoUs and following MPFs guidelines as they believe it helps in conduct of polls in a much fairer manner. The church role has been very effective. The guidelines prevent unnecessary expenses. The MPF is not trying to control the polls, but just ensuring we have free and fair elections, said Zoramthanga, former chief minister and president of Mizo National Front (MNF). If any party or candidate is found violating the guidelines they are called for explanations and is the complaints are found to be genuine public announcements are made about the unfair practice. Kidnappings of party workers and threats of violence to voters during the 2004 general elections led to MPFs formation in 2006. The MPC synod felt these acts were non-Christian and thats why we decided to form MPF, SAID Rev Lalzuithanga, former moderator of MPC synod. To ensure strict compliance of the guidelines MPF has volunteers who monitor activities of parties and candidates and inform about any breach. Three complaints, all related to giving of community feasts to voters, have been received by MPF this month. Though it is signed by political parties, the guidelines are applicable to Independent candidates as well. Besides church appointed members, MPF comprises of representatives from Young Mizo Association (YMA), Mizoram Upa Pawl (MUP)a senior citizens body and Mizo Hmeichhe Insuihkhawm Pawl (MHIP)the largest women organization. As someone without political affiliation, I can say MPFs role has been very effective in Mizoram. Theres always possibility of some secret deals happening. But since the church here is so powerful and parties and candidates face the risk of being named and shamed publicly if they violate the guidelines, there are rarely such occurences, said Moses Vanlalthlana, a former student leader and resident of Upper Khatla in Aizawl. Mizoram goes to polls on November 28. Places for protests in cities, reservation to women and employment rights were among 32 demands that civil society organisations in Rajasthan submitted on Tuesday to political parties, which assured to fulfil them. Suchana Evum Rojgar Abhiyan Rajasthan and other organisations held a Jan Nigrani Abhiyan from October 15 to discuss peoples problems and demands. The organisations formed Jan Manch to submit their demands to representatives of parties. The BJP did not attend the Manch. Social activist Aruna Roy said governments did not give place for staging demonstrations and sit-ins. Places should be provided in the middle of a city in each district to protect the right to protest and democratic culture. Kavita Srivastava of the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) demanded 33% reservation to women and equal right in employment. The organisations formed an election vigilance committee with retired justice VS Dave as its patron. The committee with 40 members will keep a watch during assembly elections in the state. Social activist Nikhil Dey associated with Jan Nigrani Abhiyan spoke about the programmes held in the 15 days of the campaign and demands raised by people. He appealed to the parties not to give tickets to criminals. The 32 demands relate to ration, labour, unorganised labourers, Dalits, saharias, semi-nomadic tribes, education, land, agriculture, mining, child rights, transgender community, employment guarantee, womens right, disabled, youth, and so on. Congress spokesperson Archana Sharma, Congress manifesto committee chairman Harish Choudhary, Aam Aadmi Party state coordinator Devendra Shastri, Communist Party of India (Marxist) state general secretary Amraram, Janwadi Mahila Samitis Sumitra Chopra, CPI state secretary Narendra Acharya and Bahujan Samaj Party representative Satyapal Choudhary attended the event. Harish Choudhary assured that if the Congress comes to power, places for demonstrations and sit-ins will be fixed. Sharma assured increase in representation to women. Representatives of other parties assured that peoples demands will be included in their manifestos. More than 100 organisations and about 1500 people took part in Jan Manch. They took a pledge that they will not vote based on caste and religion and will not be lured by parties. Banks across the country have begun refusing to accept coins, saying they have to dedicate a lot of human resource in the cumbersome process of counting them in the absence of sufficient machines to do so. The refusal has begun hurting small businessmen, vendors, temple trusts, etc. that deal with a high volume of coins that have now begun to pile up. Ranchis Pahadi Temple is struggling with coins worth Rs 4.5 lakh that have accumulated over the last few months. Banks say they have no space to keep such a huge amount of coins. We are contacting traders and disposing of Rs 5 and Rs 10 coins. But there are no takers for Rs 1 and Rs 2 coins, said Pahadi Temple deputy treasurer Nitesh Lohiya. Raj Kumar Joshi, a priest at Jaipurs Shani Mandir, echoed Lohiya. He said banks have been refusing to accept coins for the last six month. Earlier, I would deposit coins worth Rs 7,000 monthly. Since banks stopped accepting coins, I have to give them to local vendors, said Joshi. HT Media Ltd, the flagship company that owns Hindustan and the Hindustan Times, is saddled with coins worth Rs 38 lakh received from newspaper agents and vendors. We have accounts in commercial and private banks. But we have been able to get rid of only Rs 4 lakh out of Rs 42 lakh, said an HT media finance officer. Banks are reluctant to accept coins despite the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)s directions to them to do so. Many banks are not accepting coins as they either do not have machines to count the coins or the machines are not functional. Also, counting of the coins consumes considerable time. Being understaffed, banks generally avoid accepting coins, said a Bhopal-based bank official on condition of anonymity. Some banks also cite the lack of space for the refusal to accept coins. Others blame the account holders too. Banks receive coins but customers would never accept coins from the banks. In such situation, every bank has become overstocked with coins, said State Bank of India Staff Association president Rajesh Tripathy. Federation of the West Bengal Trade Association chairman Mahesh Singhania said the problem is more acute in smaller towns. More or less all banks, nationalised, private or foreign, are guilty. However, the reluctance is more in case of the private sector and foreign banks, said Singhania. A bank manager blamed the RBI, saying its currency chests are filled up with coins. As a result, the coins keep lying in banks. The more coins we deposit, the less storage we get for the currency notes. Coins come in only four denominations. But they come in different sizes for the same denominations. If customers come with sorted coins of different denominations, we will accept them, said a banker in Patna. Bhopal-based street vendor, Vishwanath Dubey, said he had to call police when a businessman refused to accept coins from him because of the refusal of the banks to accept them. But how many times can I call the police? he asked. Chandigarh-based grocer Radhay Lal said most of them now exchange coins with the religious institutions. Most religious institutions have got priority accounts, which allow them to deposit collections, said an official at Chandigarhs ISKCON temple. Many small business owners in Punjab have stopped accepting coins from customers completely. We have stopped accepting coins from our customers as the banks do not accept coins from us, said Atul Kumar, who runs a confectionary shop in Punjabs Bhikhiwind. (With HTC in Chandigarh, Bhopal, Ranchi, Rohtak, Jaipur, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Kolkata, Jammu and Patna) A 13-year-old Dalit girl was beheaded at a hamlet in this district of Tamil Nadu allegedly by her neighbour after she reportedly spurned his advances. A senior police official said Wednesday the accused Dinesh Kumar has been arrested and lodged in Salem jail and a probe was on. The incident happened at a small village near Attur in Salem district recently. In a complaint filed by the victims relatives, they have levelled allegations of sexual misconduct against the accused, a caste Hindu, the official said. The police dismissed media reports that the accused was mentally disturbed. According to reports, the deceased teenager had rejected the accuseds advances and also informed her mother. Police said Kumar beheaded her using a sickle. The victim was studying at a nearby government school and was the last of three siblings. Her parents are said to be labourers. Delhi High Court on Wednesday sentenced 16 officials of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) to life imprisonment for the murder of 42 Muslim men in Hashimpura locality of Uttar Pradeshs Meerut in 1987 as it set aside the trial courts judgement acquitting them. This was a targeted killing by the armed forces. Members of the minority community were killed and their families had to wait 31 years for justice, the court said. Nineteen PAC personnel were accused in the incident, out of which three died during the course of the trial and the rest 16 were acquitted by the Tis Hazari sessions court. Their acquittal was challenged in Delhi High court by the state of UP. The armed police team allegedly rounded up hundreds of Muslim men in Hashimpura, picked out some of them, drove them to nearby water bodies in a truck and shot each of them. According to the prosecution, the PAC personnel threw their bodies in the canal, which surfaced after two days. The force had been attacked a day before, during Hindu-Muslim riots, and apparently wanted to teach the community a lesson, activists say. Historians and experts later described the killings as among Indias worst incidents of custodial violence. The trial began only in 1996, and in 2015 all accused were cleared of all charges by a trial court in what activists have called a grave miscarriage of justice. The Bihar government said in the Supreme Court on Wednesday its former cabinet minister Manju Verma, who resigned in the wake of the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual abuse scandal, could not be traced by police in a case related to the recovery of ammunition from her house. Verma who has been representing Cheria-Bariarpur assembly constituency on a Janata Dal(United) ticket since 2010, had to resign as the social welfare minister in the wake of the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual abuse case where several women and girls were allegedly raped over time. A probe had revealed that her husband had spoken to the prime accused in the case, Brajesh Thakur, 17 times between January and June. An FIR was registered against Verma and her husband under the arms act in August following the recovery of 50 cartridges from their Begusarai residence, owned by the former ministers in-laws, during a raid by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the case. The top court had questioned Bihar police on Tuesday over its failure to arrest Verma in the case under arms act. It pointed out that even after the former ministers anticipatory bail was rejected, she was not arrested by the police. The Patna High Court on October 9 dismissed Vermas plea for a pre-arrest bail. During the previous hearing, the court asked for a status report on the probe from the police and sought to know the whereabouts of Vermas husband, Chandrashekhar Verma. The husband surrendered on Monday in the arms case. South Korean President Moon Jae-in has expressed his happiness over receiving some special gifts from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In a series of tweets posted today, President Moon thanked PM Modi for sending him Modi Vests, the sleeveless jackets often worn by the Indian prime minister. Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India sent me some gorgeous garments. These are modernized versions of traditional Indian costume, known as the Modi Vest, that can also be worn easily in Korea. They fit perfectly, Moon tweeted, along with a picture of himself wearing one of the jackets. Prime Minister @narendramodi of India sent me some gorgeous garments. These are modernized versions of traditional Indian costume, known as the Modi Vest, that can also be worn easily in Korea. They fit perfectly. pic.twitter.com/3QTFIczX6H (@moonriver365) October 31, 2018 Thanking PM Modi for his kind gesture, the South Korean President tweeted: During my visit to India, I had told the Prime Minister @narendramodi that he looked great in those vests, and he duly sent them over, all meticulously tailored to my size. Another picture tweeted by him shows the jackets, in at least four colours, displayed on a stand. During my visit to India, I had told the Prime Minister @narendramodi that he looked great in those vests, and he duly sent them over, all meticulously tailored to my size. I would like to thank him for this kind gesture. pic.twitter.com/wRgekJSW16 (@moonriver365) October 31, 2018 Moon also congratulated PM Modi for winning the Seoul Peace Prize. The Seoul Peace Prize Committee chose Modi in recognition of his dedication to improving international cooperation, raising global economic growth, accelerating human development of the people of India by fostering economic growth in the worlds fastest growing economy and furthering the development of democracy through anti-corruption and social integration efforts, the external affairs ministry said in a statement. Moon also praised PM Modi for tweeting in Korean. I have read Prime Minister Modis tweets upon winning the Seoul Peace Prize. They were written in Korean, and I was moved by his thoughtfulness. I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to Prime Minister Modi. https://t.co/ZLwBWAHb7J (@moonriver365) October 31, 2018 The tweets have been liked and retweeted hundreds of times and many have praised PM Modi for his gesture. The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government to provide within 10 days pricing details of the 36 Rafale fighter jets bought from France. The top court said it would like to be apprised of the details with regard to pricing and cost particularly the advantages thereof, if any, which again will be submitted to the court in a sealed cover. The governments top law officer KK Venugopal, however, told the court that it would not be possible for the government to provide pricing details to the court since this information had not been provided to Parliament either. The Supreme Court, which is hearing petitions questioning the deal, told Attorney General KK Venugopal to make this point in their affidavit. At the last hearing, the court had ordered the government to provide details of the decision-making process. But the three-judge bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had then made it clear that it was only seeking this information for the purpose of satisfying ourselves. The bench had then, also underlined that the centres report did not have to cover pricing or suitability of the equipment for the Indian Air Force. The Supreme Courts order on Wednesday, goes one step further. The three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, justice UU Lalit and justice K M Joseph said they had received the report about the process and wanted the government to share them with the petitioners too to the extent possible. We are of the view that the information conveyed upon in the report, which can be legitimately be brought into the public domain be made available to the lead counsel of the petitioners in all cases. Along with the said facts, further details that could legitimately come in the public domain with respect to the induction of the Indian offset partner, if any, be also furnished to the lead counsel of the parties, the bench ordered. It said that if there were any details that may be considered to be strategic and confidential may at this stage be placed before the court and may not be furnished to the petitioners. The NDAs decision to enter an $8.7 billion government-to-government deal with France to buy the 36 Rafale warplanes made by Dassault was announced in April 2015, with an agreement signed a little over a year later. This replaced the previous United Progressive Alliance regimes decision to buy 126 Rafale aircraft, 108 of which were to be made in India by the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. The petitions have been filed by lawyers Vineet Dhanda and ML Sharma. Aam Aadmi Partys Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh has also moved the top court against the Rafale deal; Sanjay Singh has sought a court order for the formation of a special team to probe the matter under the Supreme Courts oversight. Some burnt tyres, others released black balloons and many protesting tribal families from 73 villages near Kevadiya in Gujarat did not cook on Wednesday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the Statue of Unity. The reason they gave was that many people displaced for development of the Sardar Sarovar Dam had allegedly not been given a proper rehabilitation package. Besides, for development of areas surrounding the statue, about 3 km from the dam, many trees had been cut, causing environmental damage in tribal areas, they claimed. A ~3000-crore statue in one of the most backward districts of Gujarat is a farce. We are not against Sardar Patel, but we want schools and hospitals, said Praful Vasava, a tribal leader who was arrested along with his aides before they could take out a rally to the inauguration ceremony venue. Villages in Bharuch, Songadh and Rajpipla are reported to have observed a bandh, with markets remaining closed. Some protesters held placards written in blood, criticising Modi and asking him to go back. At least 17 Congress MLAs and independent MLA, Jignesh Mewani, backed the bandh. We do not cook while mourning a death in the family. Today is an equivalent day. Though we were provided food at Songadh police station, we did not eat as our community is fasting today, said Raj Vasava, an activist who was taken into custody. The tribals have been protesting since at least 200 families from Kevadiya village were recently shifted to Kaba village for development of the areas surrounding the dam and leading up to the statue. They have offered land in exchange or cash compensation. But nobody wants to leave their ancestral homes, said Sanjay Tadvi, whose family had to shift out of Kevadiya. Narmada collector, R Ninama, said, On paper, land in Kevadiya was taken over in 1992. But some families were shifted out only recently. The cash compensation in the rehabilitation package has been increased to ~7.5 lakh per hectare from ~3.5 lakh, in case the tribals do not want land in exchange. The BJP termed the tribal bandh a Congress-sponsored protest. Development schemes like Vanbandhu Yojana have established a connect between the tribals and the government. The statue will help develop the tourism industry and the local people are happy. The protests are Congress-sponsored, claimed BJP spokesman, Bharat Pandya. Congress spokesman, Manish Doshi, alleged, The BJP, which has failed all communities, has been blaming the Congress for all its setbacks. The fact is be it tribals or patidars, they are unhappy with the BJP. Devender Kumar, the CBI officer arrested in the corruption case against the agencys special director Rakesh Asthana, was granted bail by a Delhi court on Wednesday. The court order came after the CBI lawyer did not oppose release on bail but only asked that strict conditions be imposed for his release. The CBI officers lawyer told Special CBI Judge Santosh Snehi Mann that the CBI had violated every rule in this case and the irony is that the only person who followed the rulebook, Devender Kumar, was in jail. For one, he said that CBI officers did not have a valid warrant when they raided his house. Later, Kumar alleged, the CBI seized 8 mobile phones and other gadgets, some of them without a receipt. Judge Mann has ordered Devender Kumars release on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and one surety of the like amount. Kumar, who was arrested last week in connection with bribery allegations, and Asthana have already challenged the FIR filed against them. While the CBI had earlier told the court that Kumar had tried to fabricate evidence during the investigation in another case, Kumar had claimed that he was falsely implicated in the case and was a victim of rivalry among the senior officers of the central probe agency. The nephew of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar was among two militants killed in an encounter in Tral area of south Kashmirs Pulwama district, police said. The Pakistan-based terror group also told a local news agency that one of the two is Azhars nephew, Usman Hyder. An officer later confirmed that the sniper killed in the gunfight is Hyder. Hyder was wanted for some recent attacks on security forces in the Tral area where Tuesdays encounter took place. A M-4 Carbine, used for carrying out sniper attacks on security forces, was also seized from the encounter site, officials said. The encounter comes against the backdrop of reports that Jaish had started using snipers to attack security personnel. Over the last one month, three security personnel have been killed in sniper fire in Kashmir. The armys Rashtriya Rifles and Special Operations Group of the police had launched a joint operation at Chantikar village in Tral after a tip-off about the presence of militants on Tuesday morning, During the search operation, the militants fired on the search party which retaliated leading to an encounter. In the ensuing encounter so far, two bodies of the terrorists have been recovered. They are affiliated with the proscribed terror outfit, Jaish-e-Mohammad, the police spokesman said. Searches are still going on in the area, he said. Police have also requested local villagers not to venture inside the encounter zone since such an area can prove dangerous due to stray explosive materials. As the operation was underway, people assembled near the encounter site and pelted stones on the security forces in a bid to provide an escape route to the militants. Officials said three militants were believed to be holed up in a house. Locals also alleged the police and army used explosives to bring down the house. (With PTI inputs) A personal security officer of Kerala irrigation minister Mathew T Thomas, allegedly shot himself to death, using his service revolver early Wednesday, police said. The deceased, 28-year-old Sujith, who was attached to the armed reserve camp here, was found with a gunshot wound on the head at his home at Kadakal in Kollam district, the police said, adding he had also cut veins in both hands. Though the officer was rushed to the hospital, his life could not be saved. Sujith, a bachelor, has left a suicide note, police said. Meanwhile, the Ministers office said Sujith has been working as Thomas personal security officer for the past three months and was on leave on Tuesday. Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Puducherry on Wednesday sent officials instead of ministers for a meeting called by Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan to discuss arrangements for the annual Sabarimala pilgrimage season starting next month. The meeting, which was to be inaugurated by the chief minister was later opened by Keralas Devasom Minister Kadakampally Surendran. Surendran said ministers were unable to attend the meet as they were preoccupied with political engagements and government affairs. They have informed us about their inconvenience due to various reasons, it has nothing to do with the verdict. We will go ahead with preparations to ensure a smooth three-month pilgrimage season starting November 18, the Devasom minister said. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to hold an early hearing on a batch of review petitions challenging the entry of women in the age group of 10 to 50 years in Keralas Sabarimala. A three judge bench, led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, said the matter was fixed for hearing on November 13 four days ahead of pilgrimage season. Uttar Pradesh strongman Mulayam Singh Yadav continued his balancing act between his son and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, and brother Shivpal Yadav who recently announced the formation of a rival party, the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party and a movement, the Samajwadi Secular Morcha. On Tuesday, he visited Shivpals political HQ, took a tour of the premises, spoke to supporters, even accepted a flag of the Morcha before zipping off to the Samajwadi Party HQ where he met Akhilesh and party workers and asked them to strengthen the party. Shivpal has all along claimed that he formed the party and launched the Morcha with Yadavs blessings and repeated this, for the first time in the latters presence. I asked Netaji (Mulayam) thrice before forming the Morcha. I have formed it with his consent and blessings. Both he and I had suffered much disrespect in Samajwadi Party because of gossip mongers and sycophants. Shivpals party HQ, on 6, Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg, was alloted to him by the Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party government. The premises was occupied previously by Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati who vacated it in June this year. The rapidity of the allotment has set tongues wagging about the new partys possible spoiler-effect in next years Lok Sabha elections. Akhilesh and Mayawati have already sewn up an alliance for the election although its exact contours havent been revealed. Asked for reactions, Samajwadi Party spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said: What can I say on this?. Another party leader said: They are brothers and they will stay brothers. So far as politics is concerned, he is with Samajwadi Party. Even today he asked us to strengthen Samajwadi Party to fight BJP. Interestingly, the visit seems to have been a planned one. Seeing the crowd at the venue, Yadav said: When you all were aware that I was coming here, then you should have had organised this programme at a bigger place. Shivpal, with Mulayam, sitting by his side said: We have proposed making Netaji the national president of our Morcha and we will make a formal proposal at our national convention. Yadav asked the gathered party workers to to respect poor, farmers, youth, and women and work for them. Fight against injustice. Shivpal said Yadav had founded, expanded, and strengthened the Samajwadi Party and that following that example, he too would bring together Lohiawaadis and Gandhiwaadis and strengthen the Morcha and the new party. The Samajwadi Party is a socialist party and follows in the footsteps of socialist Ram Manohar Lohia, Yadavs mentor. This is the second time Yadav has attended a Shivpal event. On October 12 the two shared the dais at the Lohia Trust Office in Lucknow. Mulayam has visited the Samajwadi Party office in Lucknow about half a dozen times in recent weeks, even sharing the stage with Akhilesh in Delhi at Jantar Mantar at the end of a cycle rally by the party in New Delhi last month. Before October 12, political circles concluded that Mulayam had realigned himself with Akhilesh and simultaneously distanced himself from Shivpal. That perception changed on October 12 and will change even more after Tuesdays happenings. Akhilesh and Shivpal were locked in a bitter feud over the control of the party that started in 2016. Akhilesh eventually took over the reigns of the pary in January by becoming its national president. Shivpal was stripped of all posts and was not given any constitutional post in the party and merely existed as the SP MLA from Jaswant Nagar. Eventually, Shivpal announced his long proposed Samajwadi Secular Morcha (SSM) on August 29; last week he announced the formation of the party, Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia). Analysts say Yadav may not choose one over the other. Prof Deepak Malik, a political analyst who taught at Banaras Hindu University, said, Mulayams balancing act wont serve either Akhilesh or Shivpal. But if he carries on like this, then it will heavily impact Mulayam himself, as he will lose the credibility that he has built over the years. Prof SK Dwivedi, a political analyst and former head of the department of political sciences, Lucknow University said: He will benefit none, harm Samajwadi Party more. He is confusing the workers and leaders of both sides. He should take a firm stand, and stand with one. Shivpal presented Yadav with a flag of the Morcha. Both brothers were all smiles. Former Union minister MJ Akbar on Wednesday told a Delhi court that he filed a criminal defamation complaint against journalist Priya Ramani for referring to him as predator through a series of tweets that she published over allegations of sexual harassment against him as part of the MeToo movement. Ive filed criminal defamation complaint against Priya Ramani for a series of tweets that she published, the BJP leader said in Delhis Patiala House court as the hearing began in the case. The defamatory/offending portion, in particular, apart from the rest of the article is when she (journalist Priya Ramani) referred to me a predator and an expert on so-and-so. The tweets have caused defamation to my reputation, he said referring to a tweet linked to an article in Vogue magazine. The opening line of this tweet showed one anomaly. When the article was first published, it did not include my name. When Ms Ramani was asked, my name was not included and she said it was because I had done nothing. This is mentioned in the tweet as well, he said. Akbar said he had worked for over four decades to build a stellar reputation which had suffered immediate damage because of the scurrilous nature of the false and concocted allegations. He said his reputation has been tarnished in the eyes of the state, the government, right thinking members of the public, my friends, colleagues, my peers and my professional and political fraternity, and those who are near and dear ones. I can name the several persons who have worked with me, including Joyeeta Basu, Veenu Sandal, Sayyed among others in whose eyes my reputation has been lowered, he said. I was attacked in my personal capacity about the alleged and fabricated non events. I chose to seek justice in my personal capacity without the appurtenance of office which is why I offered my resignation as a minister, he told the court. Akbar had stepped down as the minister of state for external affairs after Ramani and a number of other women accused him of sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour at various stages of his journalistic career. Dismissing the allegations, the editor-turned-politician had said that these were malicious, fabricated and salacious intended to harm his reputation. Ramani has said she is ready to fight allegations of defamation laid against me, as truth and the absolute truth is my only defence. The court has fixed November 12 as the next date for hearing the case. Witnesses will record their statements at the next hearing. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday morning unveiled the worlds tallest statue, the Statue of Unity, in Kevadiya in Gujarats Narmada district. The 182m-tall statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was inaugurated to coincide with the 143rd birth anniversary of Patel, Indias first home minister. Modi pulled a lever and inaugurated the statue at a ceremony along the banks of Narmada river in Gujarats Kevadiya. He lead the puja ceremony with water brought in a kalash (metal pots) from 30 holy rivers, including the Ganga, Yamuna and Brahmaputra among others. Dedicating the statue to the nation, Modi called this a significant moment in the history of the country as a proper tribute had not been given to the tall personality who had worked hard to make Indias identity This is a project that we had conceived when I was the chief minister of Gujarat. To build the statue, lakhs of farmers from all over India came together, gave their tools, portions of soil and started a mass movement, Modi said. The Rs 2,389-crore monument is a tribute to Patel who played a major role in integrating the princely states into the Indian Union after the partition of 1947. Three Indian Air Force planes flew past the Patel figure and created the tricolour in the sky after Modi inaugurated the giant. Patels grand nephew Dhirubhai, who lives in Vadodara, said the occasion was a once in a lifetime moment for him and congratulated the government for its excellent work. President Ram Nath Kovind, vice-president Venkaiah Naidu and home minister Rajnath Singh paid floral tributes to Patel in Delhi. Later Rajnath Singh and sports minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore flagged off a run for unity at the India Gate in the national capital. Other top ministers, including Nirmala Sitharaman, JP Nadda, Dharmendra Pradhan and Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal flagged off the run for unity in Chennai, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar and other parts of the country. The ministers said Patel had worked hard to unite India and the statue should have been made years ago. The statue, whose foundation was laid by Modi in 2013 as chief minister of Gujarat, will dwarf the current tallest statue, the Spring Temple Buddha in China (128m), and will be almost double the height of the Statue of Liberty in New York. But the Statue of Unity will lose its crown to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Memorial, a 192m statue under construction in the Arabian sea off the Mumbai coast, when work is expected to finish in three years. The statue is a tribute in a real sense as here the research on agriculture and tribal development will take place. These were the subjects close to Sardar saab. It (statue) will open the floodgates of tourism in this tribal belt, bringing income to locals, said Gujarats deputy chief minister Nitin Patel. Cultural groups from 29 Indian states are performing at the venue on Sadhu Bet, a hillock 3.1km away from the Sardar Sarovar Dam. Experts see the statue as the latest in a series of attempts by the BJP to lay claim to the legacy of Patel, who was a lifelong member of the Congress, at a time when a section of the Patel (Patidar) community has grown increasingly disgruntled with the BJP. The support of the influential Patidar community, which constitutes 12% of the states population, is crucial for the BJP to repeat its 2014 record of winning all 26 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Not just Patidars, the statue will help the BJP woo Gujaratis as it has been seen a moment for Gujarat Asmita (pride). Even over the OBC quota issue, Patidars are divided and a large section is not adamant over the demand of reservation. This section will be very pleased with Sardar memorial, said political analyst Krishnakant Unadkat. But the inauguration is not without controversies. Scores of tribal groups from nine districts have called for a strike and as many as 11 Congress tribal MLAs and independent MLA Jignesh Mewani have supported the call. Patels and tribals are unhappy and the drama surrounding the statues inauguration is uncalled for, said Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi. The Congress, organising brainstorming sessions to decide on winnable candidates for the upcoming assembly polls in Rajasthan, is keeping a close watch on Muslim dominated seats in the state where rebel and independent candidates had played spoilsport in the last assembly elections. Division in Muslim votes had helped BJP in the Muslim-dominated constituencies, especially in six constituencies, in the 2013 assembly polls, as many Muslim candidates of the Congress party contested as rebels or independent candidates. The analysis of voting trend in the 2013 elections suggest that the difference of votes between the winner and the loser was fewer than the votes polled by the Independent Muslim candidates. The Congress candidates may have won in 14 minority-dominated assembly constituencies of the state, had the rebel or independent candidates not contested. Congress candidate from Kaman (Bharatpur), Zahida Khan lost to BJPs Jagat Singh with a margin of 3,357 votes. In the elections, 10 minority candidates got 8,207 votes in total. In Adarsh Nagar constituency, late Mahir Azad lost to Ashok Parnami with a margin of 3,803 votes candidates from minority received 4,556 votes. Health minister in the former Congress government, AA Khan alias Duru Miyan was the second runner-up in the elections, as the party rebel Fazal Hussain, who contested on the BSP ticket, was the first runner-up. BJPs Maman Singh Yadav won the seat defeating Hussain with a margin of 37,994 votes. Similarly, in Ramgarh constituency (Alwar), Congress candidate Zubair Khan lost to BJPs Gyan Dev Ahuja with a margin of 4,647 votes. Other minority candidates received 7790 votes. Congress candidate from Nagaur Shuakat Ali was the second runner-up, as the party rebel Harinder Mirdha contested as Independent and was the first runner-up. BJPs Habibur Rehman won the seat with a margin of 5,855 votes. Other minority candidates received 9,419 votes. In Tonk constituency, Congress candidate Zakia was the second runner-up, as the party rebel Saud Saidi, who contested as an Independent, lost to BJPs Ajit Singh with a margin of 30343 votes. In Jaipur, Kishanpole, Hawa Mahal and Adarsh Nagar are minority-dominated constituencies. Since 2008, when the assembly constituencies were reframed under the delimitation process, the Congress is giving ticket to minority candidates from Kishan Pole and Adarsh Nagar, but they lost to BJP with close margins, as infighting and independent candidates played spoilsport. The statistics reflect that had the rebel and independent candidates not contested in the minority-dominated constituencies, the number of Congress legislators would have been better in the outgoing state assembly. I have contested six elections and won thrice. I lost thrice because of rebels from the community contested the polls. To an extent BJP was responsible, as they sponsored some candidates, but largely it was infighting among the community, said Zakia Khan, Congress candidate, who contested in 2013 from Tonk. After independence I am the only Muslim candidate, who won from this seat thrice, she added. Saud Saidi, who contested as rebel against Khan, said, I am with the party and hopeful to get tickets this time. In last elections, workers were neglected and ticket distribution was not done rightfully. Zahida Khan, the Congress candidate from Kaman, who lost with a thin margin of 3,357 votes, said, People who contested as independent from the community were sponsored by BJP. This time, people will reply to them and we will win. Congress Minority Cell president Nizam Kureshi held ticket to outsiders as the major reason for the partys defeat. BJP role is responsible to an extent, but to a larger extent it is because of candidate selection, which was wrongfully done, Kureshi said, adding, Minority community has become politically mature with time. If local candidates are given ticket, they will win. He cited example of Jaipurs Kishanpole seat, where the party has lost many elections. It is because outsiders are given ticket, said Kureshi, adding that similar situation prevailed in Adarsh Nagar, Tijara and Kaman constituencies. Congress spokesperson and Jaipur district president of the party, Pratap Singh said, These rebel and independents are BJP sponsored. Congress this time is alert and will make efforts that such things do not happen. Reacting over Singhs claim, BJP spokesperson Mukesh Pareek said, BJP has faith on party candidates and does not need to support any other candidate. The party candidates are selected on the basis of workers and voters. Every election in Karnatakas Ballari district has witnessed the direct or indirect involvement of controversial mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy over the last decade. The November 3 by-election to the Ballari Lok Sabha seat is no different. Like in the assembly elections in May, the Congress has again targeted Reddy, a former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state minister, to discredit his aides contesting the polls. Reddys brothers and aide, B Sreeramulu, contested the assembly elections. Now Sreeramulus sister, J Shantha, is contesting the seat her brother vacated after being elected to the assembly. Shantha is pitted against VS Ugrappa, the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition candidate. Former chief minister Siddaramaiah last week attacked Reddy, who is an accused in illegal mining cases, and Sreeramulu. He said the duo did not know about the special status accorded to the backward Hyderabad-Karnataka region, where the district is located under the Constitutions Article 371 J, for reservation to the residents in education, jobs, and promotions. Siddaramaiah said they knew of the Indian Penal Codes section 420, which deals with cheating. Reddy claimed some sources within the states intelligence department had advised him to be alert as Karnatakas Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) alliance government was gunning for him. They have created an atmosphere of fear not just here but also at my house in Bengaluru, Reddy told journalists in Molkalmuru district near Ballari, where he cannot go as per Supreme Court directions because of the cases he faces. But I did not get scared even after they put me in jail. Let these elections conclude and I will tell the people of the state everything. A BJP leader declined to comment on whether Reddy was a part of the party. In the run-up to the assembly elections, BJP president Amit Shah had dissociated the party from Reddy, even as it fielded his brothers Karunakara and Somashekhar. The mining baron said the Congress had decided to attack him every single day to discredit his close friend Sreeramulu. Siddaramaiah keeps saying I looted money. But in his five-year tenure as chief minister he could not prove what it was that I had done, he said. Siddaramaiah said the Congress had given the state schemes for free rice and milk. The BJP governments contribution to the state is the looter Reddy brothers and Sreeramulu who is standing in their support, he tweeted. An imposing bronze head rises out of the horizon at Narmada Valley in the last stretch of the 80km drive from Vadodara to the Statue of Unity, located at Sadhu Bet. The Gujarat Police takes over from that point: lined up along the jet-black road, zipping through on bikes and in jeeps, and posted at the entrance to villages along the way. Dozens of them are huddled at the gates of the statue complex, ready for the last security rehearsal before the arrival of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday morning. We are expecting 7,000 people tomorrow. All of them have been invited, said Ashwin Tyagi, a visibly hassled senior police officer. The 182m structure towers over him, almost a hundred times his size. Some workers are still perched inside the hulking statue, checking the surface and smoothening out any kinks. I am proud of the marvel we have created in just 33 months, says a construction worker who asks not to be named. The ~2,989 crore project was billed as mega tourist draw and visitors have already begun trooping in from across India. We are visiting Ahmedabad from Mumbai on business, so we thought why not, says Ajith Vishwakarma. His verdict? Nice statue, great finish, he said. But it is too far. I doubt people will come all this way to see just one thing. He looked up and down the structure before speaking again: It doesnt look all that tall from up close. The group will drive down again in the morning, however, for the real show.Also planning to show up at the site were visitors of a different kind thousands from tribal communities spread across the area. They are protesting against a number of things, from the acquisition of land allegedly without adequate compensation, to rehabilitation, to employment promises that, they say, are still pending. In the days leading up to the inauguration, some of them took down hoardings featuring PM Narendra Modi and the chief minister, Vijay Rupani. We torn down and burnt them, says Praful Vasava, a social activist. Our jal (water) zameen (land), and jangal (forest) belong to us. Govind Tadvi, sarpanch of Vaghadia village, which has ceded all of its farmland to various Narmada projects, doesnt know if his people will be able to carry on with the protest. They have posted police across our villages, he said. So, the villagers have decided to observe a day of quiet mourning. Many people have shaved their heads, says Vasava. Tadava added: None of us will cook or eat tomorrow. The government has denied the allegations and claimed that the process of providing compensation had already been initiated. The 182m-tall Statue of Unity will be a source of inspiration for generations to come, the family of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel said on Wednesday as they praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for keeping his legacy alive. Thirty-seven members of Indias first home minister attended the unveiling of the worlds tallest statue by Modi on Patels 143rd birth anniversary at Kevadiya in Gujarats Narmada district. This is a once in a lifetime moment. We all have come from the US, Mumbai, Vadodara, Vallabh Vidyanagar. The statue will remain a source of inspiration for generations to come, his grandnephew Dhirubhai Patel, who lives in Gujarats Vadodara, said. The statue, made of 210,000 cubic metres of cement, 25,000 tonnes of steel and 1,700 tonnes of bronze, has Patel in traditional attire with a shawl over his shoulders. Urmilaben Patel, who lives in Vallabh Vidyanagar, praised the Prime Minister for seeing the project through. What the Prime Minister did to keep Sardar Sahebs legacy alive, no one has done. It is sad that some people still criticise the PM, she said. Samir Patel, another family member, said that Indias history would have been different if Sardar were the first PM. He would have solved the Kashmir issue if Sardar Saab were made the first PM, he said. Dhirubhai also recollected how Patel and his immediate family members avoided favouritism. When I had just completed engineering, I went to meet Maniben (Patels daughter) to ask for a job. She told me like you many other youths want the same. You have to wait and find yourself, he said. The Rs 2,389-crore monument is a tribute to Patel who played a major role in integrating the more than 500 princely states into the Indian Union after the partition of 1947. The statue, whose foundation was laid by Modi in 2013 as chief minister of Gujarat, will dwarf the current tallest statue, the Spring Temple Buddha in China (128m), and will be almost double the height of the Statue of Liberty in New York. The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to submit pricing details of the Rafale jet deal in a sealed cover within 10 days, in what appeared to be a departure from its position three weeks ago when the court said it did not want to examine the issue of pricing. The government argued that the information is so sensitive that it has not been shared even with Parliament. If you feel that pricing is an exclusive issue, mention it in the affidavit, a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi told the government, which maintained that details of the defence deal cannot be divulged due to strategic reasons. The bench of CJI Gogoi, justice UU Lalit and justice KM Joseph is hearing petitions challenging the deal to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets from France. At a hearing on October 10, the court sought details of the decision-making process that led to the purchase of the jets, but said at that time it did not want to get into pricing. The court said on Wednesday it received the report and asked the Centre to share with the petitioners portions that can be legitimately brought into the public domain. Along with the said facts, further details that could legitimately come in the public domain with respect to the induction of the Indian offset partner, if any, be also furnished to the lead counsel of the parties, the bench said. The court also said details that may be considered to be strategic and confidential could be placed only before the court at this stage, and may not be shared with the petitioners. The bench clarified that it was not commenting on the merits of the case and the petitioners have not questioned the suitability of equipment and their utility to the Indian Air Force. Attorney general KK Venugopal, the governments top legal official, said several passages of the information already submitted in the court cannot be shared because they are covered under the Official Secrets Act. Please read our order. Give whatever is possible, CJI Gogoi told him. The bench gave the government 10 days to comply with its order. Petitioners will have another seven days to file their responses on the information shared with them. The court will hear the matter again on November 14. Lawyers Vineet Dhanda and ML Sharma, and Aam Aadmi Party parliamentarian Sanjay Singh have challenged the deal in the court. Advocate Prashant Bhushan and former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie have demanded a court-monitored probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Wait for this. First, let the CBI get its house in order, CJI Gogoi said, referring to the infighting between the top two officials of the agency that has reached the court. Shourie described the developments as a very substantial step forward. The SC order wants the government to clarify on the procedure, price and how the offset partner was brought in. These were the exact three issues raised in our petitions. What more could we want? he said. Sinha said, The court has decided to go into the pricing issue as well as the roll-out of the offset contract. All the questions that we were raising are now going to be uncovered by the SC. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) governments decision to enter a $8.7 billion government-to-government deal with France to buy 36 Rafale warplanes made by Dassault was announced in April 2015, with an agreement signed a little over a year later. This replaced the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime decision to buy 126 Rafale aircraft, 108 of which were to be made in India by the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). The deal has become controversial with the Opposition, led by the Congress, claiming that the price at which India is buying Rafale aircraft now is ~1,670 crore each, three times the ~526 crore, the initial bid by the company when the UPA was trying to buy the aircraft. It has also claimed the previous deal included a technology transfer agreement with HAL. The NDA has not disclosed details of the price, but the UPA deal, struck in 2012, was not a viable one, former defence minister Manohar Parrikar had previously said, implying that it would have never been closed and that, therefore, any comparison is moot. Indeed, the UPA was not able to close the deal till 2014, largely over discussions related to pricing of items not included in the initial bid. The NDA has said the current deal also includes customised weaponry. The deal has also become controversial on account of the fact that one of the offset deals signed by Dassault is with the Reliance Group of Anil Ambani. The Congress claims the earlier deal was scrapped and a new one signed just to provide Ambani this opportunity for an offset deal. Both the government and Reliance have repeatedly denied this. The NDA government has said it cannot disclose the details of the price on two counts a confidentiality agreement with France, and the strategic reason of not showing its hand to Indias enemies. On Wednesday, the Congress reiterated its demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Rafale issue. Senior Congress leader Manish Tewari said the Congresss stand that pricing details should be revealed has been vindicated. The most significant part of the order is on pricing of Rafale. It (the court) has asked the Centre to file an affidavit on why it claims it (pricing details) to be secret, said Tewari. Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala tweeted, BJP Govts boat of corruption will no longer sail, Supreme Court orders will expose the truth of Rafale. Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo member Brinda Karat said the court is very correct in asking for relevant information on pricing and decision-making. (With inputs from HT Correspondents) Pilots training to join the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Indian Navy are flying jets fitted with inferior engines and Category B or second-hand components that seriously affect the quality of the aircraft, a recent audit by the Comptroller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA) says. Faced with an ageing fleet of intermediate jet trainers, India bought 123 Hawk - 106 for IAF and 17 for the Navy from British company BAES in 2004. Twenty-eight of these 123 jets were to be bought in flyaway condition whereas the rest were to be assembled by the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) with the engines being made by it based on technology transfer. The total value of the deal was about $2 billion. The aircraft were ordered in three phases, starting March 2004. The problem is with the aircraft assembled here, according to the audit. In addition to using inferior engines, a large number of second-hand components and parts have been fitted in the aircraft, according to the audit report, which has been seen by Hindustan Times. And, although India specifically bans using agents, a middleman was involved, the inquiry found. The audit estimates illegal commission worth Rs 500 crore was paid. In our findings, a linkage between commission paid and compromises made on the quality of engines, which has affected the quality of aircraft has been clearly brought out, the audit report says. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was asked to investigate the allegations of payment of commission which first surfaced in the British media. The case is still under investigation. IAF, HAL and DGQA, or Directorate General of Quality Assurance, part of the defence ministry, and which independently vets the quality of equipment all seem to have turned a blind eye to the lapses, the audit says. For instance, according to the audit, while India contracted for engines that could be used for 2,000 hours before overhaul and service, the engines which ultimately arrived had to be overhauled after flying for 1,000 hours. Subsequently, to cover up this issue HAL, IAF and DGQA released a statement which shows that the life of Aero Engines is 1,400 hours and not 2,000 hours and that special inspection to be carried out to find whether it is capable of operations for another 600 hours, the audit report says. A spokesperson for HAL didnt respond to queries. The Indian Air Force also did not respond. A defence ministry official and an IAF officer, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, questioned the audit, which was conducted in 2016. Assumptions that the engine is of inferior quality are incorrect. HAL manufactured engines post transfer of technology from the Original Equipment Manufacturer Rolls Royce, a senior defence ministry official. Commenting on the issue of inferior engines and Time-Between Overhaul (TBO) a senior IAF officer said, Engine servicing is supervised by the OEM every 500 hours till it reaches 2,000 hours. Based on the recommendations of the OEM, engines manufactured HAL are subject to additional inspections after they flown for 1,400 hours for three components. As on date, all HAL engines are accepted with a TBO of 2,000 hours. Every component, the IAF officer said, is subject to a rigorous test, and use of sub-standard equipment does not arise. Explaining the issue of Category B or second-hand equipment being fitted in the jets as raised in the audit, another defence ministry official who asked not to be named because he is not also authorised to speak to the media, said: Category B equipment is not second-hand equipment. It is a fly worthy component that is removed from a serviceable fighter for utilisation in another aircraft with necessary certified residual life. Hours after a leader of the Kirar community named in the Vyapam scam joined the Congress, the main opposition party in Madhya Pradesh denied he was extended its membership and deleted the tweet announcing it. The state unit of the Congress tweeted Gulab Singh Kirar joined the party in Indore along with a few others in the presence of its president Rahul Gandhi. In presence of Congress president Rahul Gandhi BJP MLA from Tendukheda Sanjay Sharma, ex-MLA Kamlapat Arya and Gulab Singh Kirar got membership of the Congress. Welcome to Congress family, the Congress said in the now-deleted tweet from its official Twitter handle @INCMP on Tuesday. Kirar too acknowledged his membership of the Congress. I joined the Congress unconditionally as I was feeling suffocated in the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) as the latter failed to address the problems of common people, Kirar said. On his alleged involvement in Vyapam scam, Kirar said, I am a victim of a political conspiracy. Till now, CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) didnt get any proof against me and my son but now I have joined the Congress so anything can happen. The information came as a shock to many in the Congress amid its presidents attacks on chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in his speeches since he began his campaign in Madhya Pradesh for the state assembly elections. Gandhi said during his visit to Bhopal last month that his party would not allow those accused in Vyapam and e-tendering scams to flee as liquor baron Vijay Mallya had done. Rahulji is a national leader. He must not have been aware of credentials of Kirar. It seems certain party leaders didnt tell him about Kirar. Otherwise, this would not have been possible, a Congress leader said on the condition of anonymity. Vyapam scam whistleblowers Anand Rai and Ashish Chaturvedi also launched an attack on the Congress after Kirar joined the party. Congress spokesperson Shobha Oza, however, said he was not there to join the party. I think he was there to say something, she added. However, when asked about the Congress tweet she said she would check it as to how it happened. A former chairperson of the State Backward Classes Commission, Kirar was suspended from his post by the BJP-led state government in 2015 after an FIR was registered by the special task force (STF) against him and his son Shakti Pratap Singh for their alleged involvement in the Vyapam scam. As per forces charge-sheet, Kirar had allegedly paid money to Vyapam officials to help his son clear the pre-PG medical exam in 2011. Shakti Pratap had topped in the exam. Kirar and his family members absconded for about nine months after the FIR was registered and the Congress launched an attack on chief minister Chouhan for his alleged proximity to the accused. Former chief minister Digvijaya Singh had alleged that Kirar was being shielded as he happened to be a relative of Chouhan. The Vyapam scam, as it is known, surfaced in July 2013 when the police arrested 20 impersonators appearing for the medical entrance examination in Indore. Vyapam is the Hindi acronym for the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB), which conducts a raft of entrance examinations for professional courses and government job recruitment tests for posts ranging from food inspectors to forest guards. The racket, in which undeserving candidates secured high ranks by either getting proxies to impersonate them in the tests or through cheating by other means, involved a clique of politicians and bureaucrats that facilitated the fraud in exchange for bribes, according to investigators. CBI took over the probe of the scandal three years ago. Kirar and his son got bail from the Supreme Court in 2016. He was active on social media for the past few months and posted several tweets in favour of the BJP. The BJP also attacked the Congress over Kirars joining the party. This has proved as to who is supporting the Vyapam scam accused. We believe that common people have a good understanding of the real character of the Congress party and that would be proved in the upcoming elections, BJPs spokesperson Rajneesh Agrawal said. Hours after the Supreme Court pulled up the Bihar government for its inability to trace former social welfare minister Kumari Manju Verma, a Manjhaul court in Begusarai district issued an arrest warrant against her on Wednesday. A second-time MLA of the JD(U) from Cheria Bariapur constituency in the district, Verma has gone into hiding after the CBI registered an FIR against her and her husband under the Arms Act following the recovery of ammunition from their house. The court said there were sufficient grounds in the application seeking an arrest warrant against her and authorised the police to arrest her. We will now attach her property if she does not surrender, said a police officer amid criticism over the failure to arrest the MLA in spite of having formed several teams and conducting raids at more than 10 places across the state. Police said the cellphone numbers of Verma and her close aides had been put under surveillance, but the former minister had been changing her location frequently to avoid arrest. The CBI, which is probing the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual abuse case, had raided Vermas house at Arjun Tola in Begusarai on August 17 and recovered 50 illegal cartridges. An FIR was registered on August 18. On August 24, the Begusarai court rejected the anticipatory bail petitions moved by Verma and her husband in the Arms Act case. She had resigned as minister on August 8 after Shiba Kumari Singh, wife of incarcerated Muzaffarpur child protection officer Ravi Kumar Raushan, alleged that her husband used to visit the shelter home quite often. The Supreme Court had on Tuesday pulled up Bihar police for not arresting Verma even after her anticipatory bail application was dismissed by the Patna High Court on October 9. Her husband Chandrashekhar had surrendered before a court in Begusarai on Monday in connection with the arms case. Central Vigilance Commissioner KV Chowdary said on Wednesday that the vigilance body received most of the documents from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to proceed on its inquiry into allegations against Alok Verma. We have got most of the files. We are in process of getting some files from the CBI. Nothing much can be said now as the matter is sub-judice, Chowdary said. On August 24, CBI special director Rakesh Asthana in a representation to the cabinet secretary gave 10 instances where he alleged that CBI chief Alok Verma interfered in probes carried out by him or indulged in misconduct. The government divested Verma and Asthana from their responsibilities as director and special director on October 24. The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has been asked to complete inquiry against Verma by November 12 by the Supreme Court after he moved the top court challenging his temporary removal by the central government. The top court has asked former Supreme Court judge Justice AK Patnaik to oversee the inquiry conducted by the CVC. Justice Patnaik is visiting the CVC headquarters regularly to oversee the inquiry. The documents submitted by the CBI are being scrutinized at the moment, said an official familiar with the matter. The official added that all those connected with the probe will be examined during the course of inquiry including Verma and Asthana. The agency had on October 15 registered an FIR against Asthana for allegedly receiving a bribe of 2 crore from Hyderabad-based businessman Sana Satish Babu to sabotage the probe against meat exporter Moin Qureshi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday inaugurated the worlds tallest statue dedicated to Indias first home minister, Vallabhbhai Patel, on his 143rd birth anniversary at Kevadiya in Gujarats Narmada district. The 182-metre steel and bronze Statue of Unity is nearly twice the height of New Yorks Statue of Liberty. Modi called the statue not only a tribute to Patel but also an expression of a new Indias new self confidence. He recalled the role Patel played in uniting the country after independence in 1947. Had Sardar Saheb not vowed (to unite India), then to see lions of Gir, to worship at the Somnath Temple and to visit Charminar, we would have needed a visa, Modi said. He was referring to landmarks in Gujarats Junagarh and Hyderabad, which were among the 562 nominally-independent princely states across India under the British Patel played a key role in integrating with the Indian union after independence. If we are able to move freely from Kutch to Kohima and from Kargil to Kanyakumari, it is because of Sardar Saheb, Modi said, adding he was surprised over the criticism he has faced over the statue that has cost 2,989 crore. We are criticised for praising sons of the soil. We are made to feel as if we have committed a major crime. Modi said Patel wanted India to be empowered, robust, sensitive, alert and inclusive. Modi said his government was taking all the steps to fulfill his dreams. He listed the schemes and projects to highlight how they were in line with Patels vision. We are working on the Bhagirath project to provide concrete houses to the homeless. We have provided electricity to 18,000 villages, which were deprived of power supply for all these years after Independence. The work to provide road and digital connectivity to every village is on a fast track. We are providing gas connection as well as toilets to every household. He referred to his resolve for Ek Bharat, Shrestha Bharat (One India, Superior India) and called maintaining the countrys unity a responsibility he [Patel] had passed on to us. It is our responsibility to answer, with full force, all the efforts made to divide the country. Modi said the statue reflects Indias engineering and technical capabilities. The structure is a reminder to those questioning Indias existence. This nation was, is and will remain eternal. He said he thought of building the statue when he was the Gujarat chief minister as he wanted the person, who contributed immensely to make the country one, to get the respect he deserved. Modi, who laid the statues foundation stone in 2013, added his sentiments were same like crores of Indians. Thirty-seven members of Patels family, some of whom had flown from the US, attended the event. This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment. The statue will remain a source of inspiration for generations to come, said Patels grandnephew, Dhirubhai Patel, who lives in Vadodara. Urmilaben, Patels grandniece, said Modi has kept the independence heros legacy alive by having the statue built. The statues inauguration is seen as part of the Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) efforts to honour the leaders it accuses the Congress, which has ruled the country for 49 years, of ignoring. In his response to the inauguration, Congress president, Rahul Gandhi, accused the government of destroying the institutions Patel helped build. Ironic that a statue of Sardar Patel is being inaugurated, but every institution he helped build is being smashed, he tweeted. Gandhi called Patel a patriot, who fought for an independent, united and secular India. A man with a steely will, tempered by compassion, he was a Congressman to the core, who had no tolerance for bigotry or communalism. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati asked the BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to apologise for criticising her for building statues of Dalit leaders when she was in power in Uttar Pradesh. All those in the BJP, the RSS and company need to apologise, especially to the people of the Bahujan Samaj, for terming the statues the then BSP government installed to honour icons like Baba Saheb Ambedkar and others as wasteful expenditure, she said. The YSR Congress and Jana Sena Party (JSP) are unlikely to contest assembly elections in Telangana scheduled to be held on December 7. We are yet to decide whether or not to contest the assembly elections. We know our limitations. Anyway, we shall take a call by November 12, when the nomination process begins, YSRC Telangana unit president Gattu Srikanth Reddy said. JSP chief Pawan Kalyan, who recently had a meeting with party leaders in Telangana , also expressed similar view stating that it was a waste of money and energy to contest the elections. In recent times, both YS Jaganmohan Reddy and Pawan Kalyan have openly praised the K Chandrashekar Rao-led Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government several times. KCRs son K T Rama Rao has in the past extended support Pawans rallies in Andhra and condemned the recent knife attack on Jagan. We have good relations with TRS. But we have not taken any decision to support the TRS, says Srikanth Reddy. In the 2014 general elections, the YSRC fielded candidates in Telangana and won three MLA seats and a Lok Sabha seat , while the JSP, which was founded just before the elections, did not contest the elections but supported the Telugu Desam Party-Bharatiya Janata Party combine. October 5, 1989 was the last day to file nominations for the student elections that would be held three months later in Mumbai colleges. Owen DSouza, a first year law student at Jitendra Chauhan (JC) College of Law at Mithibai College campus in Vile Parle, was on his way to fill his nomination form. He never managed to submit it. Just outside the college, DSouza was killed he suffered 64 stab wounds and his fingers were chopped off. DSouzas murderers have not been identified, but his family believe he died because of political power play. DSouza was a student leader with the Congress-backed National Students Union of India (NSUI) and their rivals were Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In the past, there were incidents of kidnapping (to keep students from voting or appearing in elections), but the blatant violence of DSouzas murder stunned the city. It would spur the state to eventually ban campus elections in 1994. This order would be lifted 24 years later. He [Owen] was attacked with choppers and swords and had multiple stab wounds on his body. He was killed as the result of a blow to his head, said DSouzas sister, Lona Rawat. She remembers receiving a call from the principal of JC College, who informed her of DSouzas murder. Rawat, who lives in Mumbai and has since joined politics herself, also recalls the crowds that came to pay their respects to DSouza at his funeral. Owen was attached to many social causes in Jogeshwari. He would help the poor and the needy, she said. On the same day that DSouza was killed, NSUI members reported his murder to the police, who filed a first information report (FIR). In the FIR, Parag Alavani, then the state secretary of ABVP, was named as DSouzas killer. Alvani is now a BJP legislator. In 2002, he was acquitted of DSouzas murder. The NSUI decided to pin the blame for murder on me to hide the fact that one of their district presidents was killed due to his ties with underworld, alleged Alavani. When the case reached hearing stage, the police had nothing against me. I could have sought a discharge, but instead I preferred the acquittal, he said. Rawat, who started her political career with Congress and is now with Shiv Sena, said that the charges against Alvani did not hold up in court because a key witness couldnt appear for hearings as they had relocated to the United States. Despite the bitter memories of DSouzas death, both Rawat and Alvani are in favour of college elections. Alvani said society and campuses were both more peaceful now than in his student years. Rawat said, The student elections are the first step towards developing political leadership. Provided they happen peacefully, they will bring more educated people in politics. After 24 years, campus elections will return to colleges in the state. With the Maharashtra Public Universities Act 2016 progressively coming into effect, student elections can now be held in universities across the state. On one hand, this means students can actively participate in how these institutions of higher learning are run, by weighing in on issues like fee hikes. It also means a more active presence of political parties on campus. While universities in Delhi, Kerala and West Bengal are known for being hotbeds of political activism, campus politics in Mumbai has been a low-key affair historically, barring the phase in the late 1980s that saw spiralling violence between student unions, which led to campus elections being banned in the state. In Mumbai, students are more career-oriented. Even those who participate in elections are motivated more by the recognition they get among their peers. They take pride in heading cultural and other activities , said Sanjay Vairal, a former senate member of the University of Mumbais student council who has remained active in campus politics for the past 30 years. The late 1980s saw incidents of kidnapping and other criminal activity on campuses across the state, culminating in the brutal murder of Owen DSouza in October 1989. The last student elections were held in 1993. Indirect elections in which students elected class representatives who went on to elect chairpersons and other functionaries continued till 1993, after which elections in state universities were banned in 1994. For the intervening 24 years, student representatives were chosen on the basis of their academic record and nominated for positions by college and university authorities. The only elections that were allowed were internal college polls and those to appoint presidents and secretaries of student councils. From this year, students may once again be involved in university affairs. Its a very good move. For more than two decades, the students were deprived of elections. They will now have a stronger voice in the university senate, said Dharmesh Vyas, a former state general secretary of National Students Union of India (NSUI) and ex-chairman of University of Mumbais student council. Remembering his years as a student, Vyas said, Whenever there was a proposal for fee hike, we were on the streets. The vice-chancellor would give weightage to student organisations. There was unity amongst the student community.The campus has long been the training ground for future politicians. Bharatiya Janata Partys Vinod Tawde, Congresss late Gurudas Kamat, Nationalist Congress Partys Jitendra Avhad and Maharashtra Navnirman Senas Raj Thackeray are just a few examples of politicians whose careers began as student leaders. The student leaders entered these organisations for better political prospects in the future, said Harshad Bhosale, an associate professor at Kirti College who has done his research on student movements and politics in Maharashtra.Although elections werent allowed and internal polls were a subdued affair, these student unions with their varied political affiliations remained influential on campus. The student groups would pressurise college administrations to nominate the students of their choice [for councils and administrative positions], said Dinesh Panjwani, principal of RD National College in Bandra. Bhosale said the strength of student organisations is tied to the strength of the parent political party. The prominent players are the Congress-backed NSUI and BJPs student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). If a particular political party is in power, the morale of its student wing is boosted and it tends to become more active. With the strategic support of their parent body, they tend to become more dominant, said Bhosale. In the 1970s, the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Students Federation of India (SFI), was influential in universities in Mumbai, Pune and Marathwada. They would regularly contest elections and stage agitations. But, as the peasants and workers movements started weakening in Mumbai, the political fortunes of SFI also started dwindling, said Bhosale. The 1980s saw the rise of Shiv Senas Bhartiya Vidyarthi Sena (BVS), headed by Raj Thackeray. Between 1990 and 2000, BVS was very active, said Bhosale. When Thackeray started his own political party in 2006, his MNS also launched its student wing, Maharashtra Navnirman Vidyarthi Sena (MNVS). Political parties give much weightage to student politics. The dominance of their student wing in college bodies is a great way to send a message that the hold sway over the youth vote, said Vairal. Opinion is divided on whether the ban has had any real impact. Instead of parties recruiting real leaders, dynastic politics got a push, Bhosale said, but Panjwani doesnt agree. Around 50% leaders in political parties were educated in the last 20 years. We cant argue that they are inferior to their seniors, said Panjwani. With elections returning to campuses on the eve of general elections, politics will be in the spotlight in universities. A 17-year-old Kashmiri student, who was roughed up by a mob of students at Sharda University in Greater Noida earlier this month, has been missing since the last three days, according to university authorities and his parents. Police, however, said probe has indicated that the student has travelled to Jammu. Ehtisham Bilal, a first year student of Bachelors in Medical Imaging Technology (BMIT) has been missing since Sunday when he had gone on a sight-seeing trip to Delhi from Greater Noida. Bilal, who belongs to Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, had enrolled in Sharda University three months ago. He lived in varsity a hostel at the Knowledge Park area in Greater Noida. On Sunday, I called by son around 10.30am and he informed me that he is going to Delhi for some sight-seeing as it was a holiday. Then, around 4.39pm, I called him again and he informed me that his trip had ended and he was boarding a Metro to Noida within the next 15 minutes. When I asked him what places he went to in Delhi, he said he will send me the pictures on WhatsApp once he reached his hostel campus. That was the last time I spoke to him as when I called him again around 6pm, his phone was switched off, Bilal Ahmad, father of Ehtisham, said. However, Arvind Pathak, the station house officer of Knowledge Park police station said that the students location has been traced to Jammu. Till around noon, his phone location was in Delhi and by around 2pm, his location was traced to Jammu. We suspect he caught a flight from Delhi and reached there. We are making all efforts to trace him and a case has been lodged, Pathak, said. Ehtisham had informed his hostel warden that he would be meeting a friend in Delhi on Sunday and would return by the evening. When he did not return, we reported about it to the police by Monday morning. We are in constant touch with his parents, said Ajit Kumar, spokesperson, Sharda University. Rebel leader and Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) general secretary TTV Dhinakaran announced on Wednesday that 18 MLAs loyal to him will not challenge their disqualification in the Supreme Court and asserted the partys readiness to face bypolls. Our 18 MLAs will not move the Supreme Court to appeal against the High Court verdict, upholding the disqualification by the Speaker. We are fully prepared to contest all the seats in the by-poll and confident of emerging victorious in all of them, he said in Madurai. This comes a day after the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) announced election committees headed by ministers and senior functionaries for each of the constituencies awaiting bypolls. The 20 seats are spread across the state. Till recently, the AMMK appeared to be in two minds about fighting fresh elections. One of the disqualified MLA and Dhinakarans lieutenant, Thanga Tamilselvan, had said they would file an appeal in the top court. Yet, he had also made it clear that the party was not averse to contesting the elections, as and when they are held. But now, in what appears to be a calculated political gamble, Dhinakaran, nephew of ousted AIADMK chief VK Sasikala, has decided to face the electorate rather than fight a long-drawn legal battle. Last week, the Madras high court had upheld the disqualification of the 18 MLAs by Speaker Dhanapal during a trust vote in September 2017 that the AIADMK government ultimately won. With 20 assembly seats going to the polls , the exercise is being likened to a mini mid-term poll. Other than the 18 seats, the election commission also had to hold byelections to seats vacated by the deaths of former chief minister Karunanidhi and AIADMK legislator AK Bose. From the principal opposition DMK and the Congress to the Bharatiya Janata Party, every other mainstream political party has demanded that elections be conducted. DMK president MK Stalin has urged the Election Commission to hold the bypoll without any delay. The AIADMK is hoping Dhinakarans loyalists will return to the party fold. They should kneel before the memorial of Jayalalithaa and repent for siding with Dhinakaran, the party mouthpiece Namathu Amma has said. Experts say Dhinakaran senses an opportunity to upstage his bitter rivals, chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami and deputy CM O Panneerselvam, who hold a narrow majority of 109 (apart from the Speaker) in the Tamil Nadu assembly of 234 seats. Following the disqualification of the 18 legislators and the demise of two members, the strength of the House has come down from 234 to 214 and, as such, only 108 is required for a majority. This is a good strategy by Dhinakaran. By opting for the elections, he has proved that he is still a serious player..., said Ramu Manivannan, a professor with the department of political science at Madras University. (CNN) The plane behind Lion Air's crash off Indonesia was one of Boeing's newest and most advanced jets. It was just two months old and with 800 hours under its belt, so experts are baffled as to what exactly caused the 737 MAX 8 to crash. While no information has been released yet as to why the brand-new plane crashed into the sea 13 minutes after takeoff, FlightRadar24 has published data that shows the plane behaving erratically during takeoff. When a plane would normally be ascending in the first few minutes of flight, the Lion Air jet experienced a 726-foot drop over 21 seconds. Aviation expert Philip Butterworth-Hayes told CNN that the data was unusual -- especially since takeoffs like this are typically controlled by the plane's automatic systems. "This doesn't fit an automatic flight profile," Butterworth-Hayes said while studying the data. "Unless, the aircraft was trying to correct itself at the time for a number of reasons." "This shows an unusually unstable vertical flight profile," he added. "Exactly at the same time as the speed increased there was an altitude dip, which meant that at that point there was quite some loss of control." The plane, which has only been in operation since August 15, was carrying 181 passengers as well as six cabin crew members and two pilots, bound for Pangkal Pinang on the Indonesian island of Bangka. Former U.S. National Transportation Safety Board air crash investigator and CNN aviation analyst Peter Goelz told CNN the data clearly showed issues with both the speed and altitude of the plane. "There is something obviously wrong in both the air speed and the altitude which would point to the flight control systems," he said. "These are fly-by-wire systems -- highly automated -- and pilots may not be able to troubleshoot failures in a timely manner." 'Airplanes don't just fall out of the sky' Butterworth-Hayes said that given that the plane was only two months old, the reason behind the crash was "very unlikely" to be a mechanical fault. "Airplanes don't just fall out of the sky," he said. "I can't think of any mechanical issue apart from a sudden, unexplained loss of engine power (or)complete electrical failure. It's far more likely to be an external event." He suggests that an environmental issue is to blame -- such as a microburst, or the plane hitting something like a flock of birds. "Microbursts are very difficult to detect -- they're a sudden down-rush of wind, like a vortex and you can't really see it -- you hit it, suddenly your aircraft isn't performing how it should do, you start doing all sorts of recovery motions and then it's too late." The new Boeing 737 MAX 8 made a request to air traffic control to return to the airport around 19 kilometers (12 miles) after takeoff, but did not indicate there was any emergency. Radar data did not show that the plane had turned back, and air traffic controllers lost contact with it soon after, Yohanes Sirait, spokesman for AirNav Indonesia, the agency that oversees air traffic navigation, told CNN. Butterworth-Hayes said that the fact that the pilots had not indicated there was any problems on board suggests there was a minor incident they were dealing with that they were in control of. "Their call suggests it was a minor incident which they were in control of and they didn't require assistance," he said. "But that rapidly escalated." "There was an altitude loss (before the flight crashed) and just after that there was obviously some sort of correction," Butterworth-Hayes said while looking at the FlightRadar24 data. "Whatever happens to that dip is a correction but whatever that correction was wasn't very long and that's when the plane started falling." Speaking earlier with CNN, David Soucie -- a former safety inspector with the US Federal Aviation Administration -- said the fact that an emergency wasn't declared should be a cause for concern. "What's most peculiar to me is the fact that they didn't declare an emergency. They just simply said, 'We're going back,'" said Soucie, a CNN safety analyst. "But when I look at the track of the aircraft after that, the aircraft made a very steep dive after that, which is not typical of what they would've done," he added. "They would have maintained altitude and made that turn and come back to (the airport)." Soucie added that something had to have happened for the aircraft to lose control. He ruled out weather as a cause of the crash, however, since the plane did not appear to attempt to turn back toward Jakarta. "That says that something abrupt and very fast happened to the aircraft." Are pitot tubes to blame? Pilots on board the plane's previous flight to Denpasar reported technical problems and that the plane was displaying "unreliable airspeed," the deputy chief of Indonesia's National Transport Safety Committee, Haryo Satmiko, told reporters, including Reuters, during a news conference on Monday. Engineers had checked and repaired the issue, Lion Air Chief Executive Edward Sirait told local media, and that they gave the plane clearance to fly. When asked about the "unreliable airspeed" problem that was reported, Butterworth-Hayes said the pilots would have been reporting an issue with the pitot tubes that determine air speed. Infamously, Pitot tubes were to blame for the Air France Flight 447 crash in 2009 when it plunged into the Atlantic Ocean. Ice crystals blocked the plane's pitot tubes, the autopilot disconnected and the pilots did not know how to react to what was happening. "It reminds me a lot of the aircraft that came down in the Atlantic where you had accelerating speed and a loss of altitude -- which implies there was a sudden loss of control of the aircraft," he said. "But if you look at the speed (from data from FlightRadar24), it's pretty constant." He says, however, "Pitot tubes are only one part of the issue -- if pitot tube sensors were showing a different reading from other aircraft sensors this might explain a difference in aircraft performance indications." Boeing 737 MAX 8 'top of the line, best you can buy' The aircraft was one of 11 of the Boeing planes in Lion Air's fleet. In a statement, Boeing said the company was "deeply saddened" by the loss and offered "heartfelt sympathies" to passengers and crew on board, and their families. Soucie said 800 hours was plenty of time "to get this tried and true." He added the MAX 8 was "the top of the line, it's one of the best you can buy ... I don't see anything coming back towards maintenance on this issue or the flight of the aircraft itself." Goelz agreed that the loss of such a new aircraft was "highly unusual." But because Lion Air jet's pilot and co-pilot were experienced -- 6,000 and 5,000 flight hours, respectively -- and weather did not seem to be a factor, investigators would be focusing on the aircraft, he said. Indonesian aviation authorities will inspect all Boeing 737 Max 8 planes belonging to the country's commercial airlines, Transportation Ministry official Capt. Avirianto told CNN. Avirianto said Garuda's plane was inspected on Monday night. The ministry hoped to inspect at least three of Lion's remaining aircraft Tuesday night and the other eight soon. "We will checklist one by one, with its system and technical things," he said. Until the aircraft's flight data recorders are found and an investigation is held, it's unlikely we'll know much about the cause of the Monday's crash, Aviation consultant and former pilot Alastair Rosenschein told CNN's Becky Anderson. Rosenschein said it's particularly important to find the black boxes quickly because the plane that crashed was a newer aircraft. "What happened here could possibly affect the same model of aircraft flying in other parts of the world," he said. Until those boxes are found, it's unlikely that authorities will be able to figure out what brought down the plane. Goelz said the Lion Air crash is yet again another reminder to officials that airlines need better recovery equipment. "I also think it will take a few days to find the date recorders," he said, adding it's hard to find things in the ocean. "(It) again highlights the need for more sophisticated tracking and recovery devices." This story was first published on CNN.com, "Lion Air: Why did a brand-new Boeing jet crash 13 minutes after takeoff?." The smashed fuselage of a crashed Indonesian jetliner may have been found, the countrys military chief said Wednesday, two days after the deadly accident feared to have killed 189 people. Hadi Tjahjanto said authorities were confident sonar technology had pinpointed the location of the Boeing 737-MAX plane that plunged into the sea on Monday. We strongly believe weve determined the coordinates of the JT 610 fuselage, he told reporters in Jakarta. However, it has not yet been confirmed that it is part of the fuselage. Authorities have been searching for the downed jets location in water some 30-40 meters (100-130 feet) deep in the hope of also finding flight data recorders crucial to crash investigations. Dozens of divers were taking part in the recovery effort along with helicopters and ships, but authorities have all but ruled out finding any survivors. Boeing officials are expected to meet with Lion Air on Wednesday, after Indonesia ordered an inspection of the US plane makers 737-MAX jets. The doomed plane, which went into service just a few months ago, was en route to Pangkal Pinang city when it crashed into the Java Sea off Indonesias northern coast moments after it had asked to return to Jakarta on Monday. The pilot and co-pilot had more than 11,000 hours flying time between them and had undergone recent medical checkups and drug testing, the carrier said. Aviation experts say it is too early to determine what caused the accident. But Lions admission that the plane had an unspecified technical issue on a previous flight -- as well as the planes abrupt nosedive just 12 minutes after takeoff -- have raised questions about whether it had any faults specific to the newly released model. The bigger picture here is that youve got a lot of American carriers flying the same aircraft, Stephen Wright, aviation expert at the University of Leeds, told AFP. Is there (a problem) that could affect other aircraft? The accident has also resurrected concerns about Indonesias patchy air safety record which led to a now-lifted ban on its planes entering US and European airspace. Lions co-founder Rusdi Kirana, now Indonesias ambassador to Malaysia, said he had met with passengers families and called the crisis exhausting and saddening for everybody. In a 2015 interview, Kirana said that my airline is the worst in the world, but you dont have a choice. Founded in 1999, the budget carrier capitalised on a boom in Indonesias aviation industry, but has been plagued by safety woes and complaints over unreliable scheduling and poor service. It has been involved in a number of incidents including a fatal 2004 crash and a collision between two Lion Air planes at Jakartas Soekarno-Hatta airport. Indonesias transport minister ordered an inspection of all 737-MAX aircraft on Tuesday. Lion Air Managing Director Daniel Putut said the airline had many questions for the Chicago-based company and they would discuss the delivery of remaining aircraft 737-MAX models, Indonesian news website tirto.id reported. Lion Air, Indonesias biggest budget airline which has been engaged in huge expansion, announced earlier this year it was buying 50 Boeing-737 MAX 10 jets for $6.24 billion. Boeing suspended release of the fuel-efficient 737 MAX just days before its first commercial delivery last year due to an issue with engines. But the narrow-body jet was subsequently cleared for commercial delivery and has had thousands of orders from more than 100 customers worldwide. Boeing said it was providing technical assistance under the direction of Indonesian authorities, while the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is also helping the probe. Search teams have taken up the grim task of separating human remains from plane debris and recovered personal effects, sending the body parts -- including from an infant -- to hospital for DNA testing. Some 48 body bags filled with limbs and other remains have so far been recovered, authorities said Wednesday. Among the personal effects plucked from the water was a smartphone case with the image of a couple walking hand-in-hand over a bridge. The story went viral online as social media users tried to figure out who the couple was and if they were on the plane. The pair were later identified as Ine Yunita Savitri and her husband Wahjoe Noegrohantoro, who was on the downed jet. Savitri was not on the plane. On Tuesday, their daughter Samantha posted the image to her Instagram account with the words: Dad, I love you every day. Journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a 59-year-old Washington Post contributor, was strangled soon after he entered consulate and his body was cut into pieces, Turkish prosecutor this evening. Turkey cast doubt Wednesday on whether Saudi Arabia was willing to genuinely cooperate in the investigation into the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as international pressure increased on Riyadh to provide answers. Seeking to draw a line under a crisis that has brought near unprecedented scrutiny on Saudi Arabia and its powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom Khashoggi had criticised, Riyadh sent the head of its investigation to Istanbul this week. However a senior Turkish official said Wednesday that Saudi officials seemed primarily interested in finding out what evidence Turkey had against the perpetrators. We did not get the impression that they were keen on genuinely cooperating with the investigation, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Khashoggi was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 to obtain paperwork for his upcoming marriage. His body has not been found. After initially insisting Khashoggi left the consulate unharmed, then saying he died in a brawl, the Saudi government has admitted he was killed by a rogue operation and arrested 18 people. Gruesome reports in the Turkish media have alleged the journalist was murdered and dismembered by a team sent from Riyadh to silence him. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged the Saudi regime to reveal the location of Khashoggis body and who ordered the hit. He has also repeatedly called for the suspects to be extradited for trial in Turkey, but Riyadh has rejected the request. Truth needs to come out The case has sorely strained relations between the ultra-conservative kingdom and the West. France said Wednesday that not enough was being done to find those responsible for the murder of Khashoggi, who was an insider in Saudi royal circles before going into self-imposed exile in the United States last year. This crime has to be punished and the perpetrators identified. The truth needs to come out, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said. Saudi Arabias Attorney General Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb, who was the first Saudi official to acknowledge that the killing was premeditated based on the results of Turkeys investigation, arrived in Istanbul on Sunday. He met with Istanbuls chief prosecutor twice, visited the consulate and spoke with Turkeys MIT intelligence agency. Mojeb, who has not made a public statement in Istanbul, was headed for Ataturk airport on Wednesday afternoon to leave the city, Turkish broadcaster TRT reported. Abdulkadir Selvi, a well-connected pro-government columnist for Turkeys Hurriyet newspaper, accused the Saudi prosecutor of working to save the crown prince by covering up the investigation rather than shed light on the murder. He also wrote that Mojeb was in pursuit of Khashoggis phone, which the journalist handed to his Turkish fiancee before entering the consulate. Pakistans Supreme Court on Wednesday acquitted Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam nearly eight years ago, sparking protests in several cities across the country and death threats from religious extremists. A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar had earlier reserved its decision on Asias appeal on October 8. On Wednesday, amid great tension and tight security at the apex court, the judgement was read out by the Chief Justice, who cited the Quran in his ruling. The judgement of the (Lahore) high court and that of the trial court is reversed, Nisar said, adding Asia should be set free from a jail in Sheikhupura, near Lahore, if she wasnt wanted in any other case. Her conviction is set aside and she is to be relieved forthwith if not required in other charges, the judgement said. The 56-page judgement was authored by Nisar, with a separate concurrent opinion note from Justice Asif Saeed Khosa. Tolerance is the basic principle of Islam, Nisar read from the judgement, noting that religion condemns injustice and oppression. Reports suggested that Asia and her family would be flown out of Pakistan to a Western country to ensure their safety. Asia appeared to be in a state of disbelief after hearing the verdict. I cant believe what I am hearing, will I go out now? Will they let me out, really? she told AFP by phone from prison. I just dont know what to say, I am very happy, I cant believe it. Within hours of the Supreme Courts order, activists of different religious parties came out on the streets, vandalised cars and blocked roads. The head of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), Khadim Hussain Rizvi, started a sit-in opposite the Punjab provincial assembly in Lahore with hundreds of supporters. Jamaat-u-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed called for protests after Friday prayers. A TLP leader, in a video circulated on social media, attacked Prime Minister Imran Khan and army chief Gen Qamar Bajwa, calling them non-Muslims. He called on his supporters to kill the judges who gave the verdict. In Islamabad, the main entry points at Faizabad and Peshawar Morh were blocked by supporters. In Karachi, the main Karachi-Hyderabad highway was blocked and parts of the citys main thoroughfare, MA Jinnah Road, were closed by protestors. The government imposed Section 144 of CrPC in Punjab and Sindh provinces, prohibiting the holding of rallies and carrying of arms. Asia, a 47-year-old mother of four, was on death row since 2010 when she became the first woman to be sentenced to death by hanging under Pakistans draconian blasphemy laws, which critics say are often misused to persecute minorities and to settle scores. She was accused of making derogatory remarks about Prophet Mohammed by Muslim co-workers after an argument. Asia has always denied the charges. The case outraged Christians worldwide, with Pope Benedict XVI calling for Asias release in 2010. It was also a source of division within Pakistan. Now Open 31 October 2018 Today, Canopy by Hilton, Hilton's (NYSE: HLT) lifestyle hotel brand, announces the official opening of its first hotel in continental Europe, Canopy by Hilton Zagreb. The hotel, which joins Canopy by Hilton Reykjavik in the brand's European portfolio, is situated in the heart of Croatia's capital, near the city's main rail station and the upcoming Branimir Centar shopping mall. Guests can grab a complimentary Canopy Bike and explore the many nearby attractions, where there are shops, restaurants, and nightlife in every direction. With more museums per capita than any city in the world(1), and with a vibrant art and theatre scene, Zagreb is a city of great culture with much to explore. Locally Inspired Design Canopy by Hilton Zagreb is home to 151 Just-Right rooms, including eight spacious suites. The interiors of the rooms are inspired by the long industrial history of the local neighbourhood, with local textiles and artwork featured throughout. This includes the brand's signature canopy bedframe, inspired by Croatia's national emblem and carpets inspired by traditional folk costumes. The hallways also highlight the neighbourhoods' rich history, lined with posters of the famous Croatian investor Nikola Tesla. Eat, Drink, Smile For breakfast, guests can start their day with an inclusive artisanal breakfast in Canopy Central or opt for the "Break Fast" bag delivered to their door - ideal for guests on the go. Guests can savour authentic cuisine with fresh local ingredients at the ReUnion Restaurant, with menu highlights including traditional specialities such as Croatian chard pie, Croatian-style black cuttlefish risotto and a selection of local cheese and wines. Small nibbles, bites and local spirits, wines and craft beers are available at Canopy Central Cafe and Bar, with signature dishes including cocktails inspired by the famous Croatian inventors Nikola Tesla and Slavoljub Penkala. Each evening, the Canopy Central Bar hosts a complimentary evening tasting, showcasing local drinks and bites for hotel guests, such as Orahnjaca - a traditional walnut strudel and Samoborska greblica - a traditional pastry with fresh cottage cheese. Upon arrival, guests are also welcomed with the locally well-known traditional Bajadera chocolate. Just-Right Meeting Space For meetings and events, Zagreb is an ideal choice as it is superbly connected by its recently expanded airport, located just 20km away from Canopy by Hilton Zagreb. The hotel has two meeting rooms, offering smaller meetings capabilities and a unique venue for social events such as cocktail receptions. The hotel also has a spacious 24-hour fitness centre. At Canopy by Hilton, every guest will experience an energetic, thoughtfully local stay. Canopy by Hilton Zagreb is located at Ul. Kneza Branimira 29, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia. In Europe, Middle East & Africa Hilton's rapid growth has led to the creation of nearly 25,000 new jobs in the last year alone. Pipeline 31 October 2018 Hilton today announced the signing of Hilton Parramatta, which will add to Hilton Hotels & Resorts' portfolio of 101 world class properties in the Asia Pacific region. Under a management agreement with Ledrae Hotels Pty Ltd, Hilton will manage the new-build hotel, located in the heart of one of Sydney's fastest growing suburbs. Construction of the 245-room hotel will commence Q4 2018 and is due for completion by late 2020. Located 25 km west of Sydney's central business district, Parramatta is a major business and commercial destination and is home to many federal and state government department centres. Hilton Parramatta will offer convenience to both corporate and government travellers, as well as leisure guests looking to explore the city's rich cultural offerings. The hotel is located in the heart of Parramatta, walking distance to Parramatta stadium, and steps away from the city's best shopping and dining venues. "We are privileged to be partnering with Ledrae Hotels Pty Ltd to launch Hilton Parramatta and further strengthen our current portfolio of acclaimed hotels and resorts," said Guy Phillips, senior vice president, development, Asia & Australasia, Hilton. "Today's announcement bears testament to Hilton's strength in Australasia and, more broadly, throughout the Asia Pacific region and we look forward to welcoming guests to the hotel with Hilton's signature hospitality." Hilton Parramatta will offer 240 guest rooms and five suites as well as three state-of-the-art meeting spaces and an executive lounge. Additional offerings will include a signature restaurant, bar, fitness centre and outdoor pool. Appointment 31 October 2018 Montage Palmetto Bluff announced the appointment of Brent Gresham as director of operations. With a deep familiarity of the region and wealth of hospitality experience earned at Forbes Five Star-rated properties, Gresham will oversee overall management and direction of the luxury resort including food & beverage, lodging, security and spa operations. He will also join the senior leadership team alongside the general manager, director of finance, human resources, sales and marketing, and the general manager of the Palmetto Bluff Club. Gresham joins Montage Palmetto Bluff from Charlestowne Hotels, a Charleston, South Carolina-based management company specializing in independent boutique hotels and resorts, where he served as corporate area manager. Prior to that, he served as dual general manager for two Charlestowne properties, French Quarter Inn and The Spectator Hotel, where he was honored as "General Manager of the Year." Gresham was also previously the director of operations at Woodlands Inn in Summerville, South Carolina; and general manager at The Inn at Dos Brisas in Washington, Texas. He began his hospitality career as operations manager at the Westin Hilton Head Resort & Spa, before becoming assistant food & beverage director and director of banquets at The Lodge at Sea Island in the Golden Isles of Georgia. As a graduate of the University of South Carolina, Gresham earned a bachelor's degree in hotel, restaurant and tourism management, and master's degree in international hospitality and tourism management. He participated in the master's graduate program at Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne in Switzerland, the oldest and most prestigious hotel school in the world. A true industry veteran, Gresham has earned recognition as "Hotelier of the Year" by the Boutique & Lifestyle Lodging Association, "Top Thirty Under 30" in the U.S. by Hotel Management Magazine, and "Hotel Manager of the Year" by the South Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association. Appointment 31 October 2018 The Pierre New York, A Taj Hotel is pleased to announce that Suzanne Latapie has joined the iconic five-star hotel as Director of Restaurants. A proven executive with over 30 years of industry experience, Ms. Latapie will oversee operations for The Pierre's signature restaurant Perrine, Two E Bar & Lounge and The Rotunda. "We are delighted to welcome Suzanne to our food and beverage team," said Francois-Olivier Luiggi, General Manager of The Pierre. "Her extensive experience, creativity and expertise in building strong restaurant brands will bring a new dimension to all of our dining outlets, most especially Perrine." Ms. Latapie launched the wildly popular Upper East Side restaurant, Bistro Chat Noir, in 2005. She remained as restaurateur until its closing earlier this year, building an avid, loyal following through close relationships with local businesses, hotel concierge teams, art galleries and local residents. Prior to establishing Bistro Chat Noir, Ms. Latapie spent 12 years at New York's legendary La Goulue and also worked at such renowned French restaurants in the city as Cafe Un Deux Trois, Le Perigord and Sign of the Dove. "The Pierre's service approach is the same as mine has always been--go the extra mile and treat everyone like family," says Latapie. "The hotel also works with the region's top food purveyors for its legendary banquet functions and these locally sourced products make up 30 to 50% of Perrine's sourcing as well," says Latapie. "Most restaurants aren't able to offer this volume of local ingredients. Executive Chef Ashfer Biju's recipes really showcase these vibrant flavors." The Pierre offers a robust calendar of special events at its three dining outlets. Perrine features festive holiday celebrations, including an outdoor Diwali party, multi-course Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve menus. The restaurant is launching a new Classic Hour bar menu this fall. Two E Bar & Lounge features the acclaimed Broadway At The Pierre monthly cabaret series, weekend jazz nights with artist-in-residence Antonio Ciacca and an award-winning daily Afternoon Tea; The iconic Rotunda offers tableside craft cocktails and light supper. A North Carolina native, Ms. Latapie moved to New York to work as a choreographer, juggling auditions with a job as server at Cafe Un Deux Trois. She quickly discovered a passion for the restaurant business and shifted gears while still maintaining her love of dance. She graduated from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte and completed post graduate study at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She is the proud mother of two daughters and lives in New York. Press Release 31 October 2018 Following the highly successful launch of 'AUSCA', the world's first Autonomous Service Chef Associate, at M Social Singapore in 2017, Millennium Hotels and Resorts (MHR), the hotel arm of property giant City Developments Limited (CDL), is pleased to deploy AUSCA to the group's five other Singapore propertiesOrchard Hotel Singapore, Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel Singapore, M Hotel Singapore, Studio M Hotel Singapore and Copthorne King's Hotel Singaporeby end November 2018. Advertisements AUSCA the robot chef deployed at Copthorne Kings Hotel Singapore and M Social Singapore respectively Photo: Millennium AUSCA was first introduced to the hospitality industry in November 2017 as the world's first robot chef prototype, where he prepared eggs for guests of M Social Singapore as part of the hotel's breakfast offering. AUSCA was launched with the support from Singapore Productivity Centre's Hotel Productivity Centre Applied Research initiative, and was developed by Kurve Automation with industry guidance from Republic Polytechnic, School of Hospitality. AUSCA has since gone through six upgrades over the last 12 months, with enhancements made to the speed and variation of eggs he can prepare. The first AUSCA prototype could prepare eggseither sunny-side up or omelette styleat an average time of 2 minutes 30 seconds. The current version offers guests the choice of sunny-side up and omelette at an improved time of slightly more than a minute, and allows guests to choose from a selection of toppings for their omelette. The latest version of AUSCA is currently deployed at M Social Singapore, Studio M Hotel Singapore, Copthorne King's Hotel Singapore and M Hotel Singapore. He will be launched at Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel Singapore on 12 November 2018, and Orchard Hotel Singapore by end November 2018. This exciting deployment comes after the rollout of AURA, the group's front-of-house Autonomous Service Delivery Robot, to the group's properties in Singapore, including M Social Singapore, Orchard Hotel Singapore, Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel Singapore, M Hotel Singapore and Studio M Hotel Singapore. Commenting on this move, Mr Tan Kian Seng, Interim Group Chief Executive Officer at Millennium Hotels and Resorts, says, "As a group, we saw robotic solutions like AUSCA and AURA as a way to increase productivity, help optimise operations, and elevate guest experiences to a new level. Given M Social Singapore's size and millennial demographic, it was well-suited for such a new technology to exist first. The intention is now to incorporate these innovative robotic solutions into the rest of our Singapore properties before a global roll out." External Article 31 October 2018 It's safe to assume that, as a traveler, you have your pre-trip routine down to a science. Perhaps you Google Image your upcoming destination before bed every night, daydreaming about the moment when you'll finally be able to swim in those turquoise-blue waters. Or maybe you buy a bunch of novels that take place in your travel spot of choice, just to get in the mood. Or, if you're anything like us, you go down a deep Instagram rabbit hole, cruising through your hotel's geotag and creeping on random previous guests' photos for hours on end. Advertisements But what if you could actually get in touch with the guests you'll be staying with before your trip? That's just one of the many ideas behind Life House, a new technology-forward and affordable boutique hotel brand whose mission is to connect travelers with each other and the local community. The brandwhich, notably, is the first lifestyle hotel company to ever be fully backed by Silicon Valleyis set to open its first location in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood in December, followed by a second location in South Beach soon after. When you stay there, you'll be able to both check in and opt in to its social network directly through its app (which is still in beta but will go live before the hotel opens). The social network allows guests to interact with each other, along with locals who've been vetted by the community. "This social technology exists outside of the hotel industry, but not in itso we're trying to change that," says CEO Rami Zeidan, who worked with 1 Hotels and the Sydell Group before co-founding Life House along with CTO and technology entrepreneur Yury Yakubchyk. "There are so many studies out there that suggest that travelers want to engage with others and meet new people...and what better way to build a community than with people staying at the same hotel?" It's safe to assume that, as a traveler, you have your pre-trip routine down to a science. Perhaps you Google Image your upcoming destination before bed every night, daydreaming about the moment when you'll finally be able to swim in those turquoise-blue waters. Or maybe you buy a bunch of novels that take place in your travel spot of choice, just to get in the mood. Or, if you're anything like us, you go down a deep Instagram rabbit hole, cruising through your hotel's geotag and creeping on random previous guests' photos for hours on end. But what if you could actually get in touch with the guests you'll be staying with before your trip? That's just one of the many ideas behind Life House, a new technology-forward and affordable boutique hotel brand whose mission is to connect travelers with each other and the local community. The brandwhich, notably, is the first lifestyle hotel company to ever be fully backed by Silicon Valleyis set to open its first location in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood in December, followed by a second location in South Beach soon after. When you stay there, you'll be able to both check in and opt in to its social network directly through its app (which is still in beta but will go live before the hotel opens). The social network allows guests to interact with each other, along with locals who've been vetted by the community. Shared rooms aren't the typical bunk set-up of traditional hostels. Courtesy Life House "This social technology exists outside of the hotel industry, but not in itso we're trying to change that," says CEO Rami Zeidan, who worked with 1 Hotels and the Sydell Group before co-founding Life House along with CTO and technology entrepreneur Yury Yakubchyk. "There are so many studies out there that suggest that travelers want to engage with others and meet new people...and what better way to build a community than with people staying at the same hotel?" WATCH THIS The Most Under-Appreciated Spot in the Atlantic Technology aside, the actual spaces are just plain cool. Designed to appeal to all sorts of travelers, Life Houses have a variety of rooms, from standard queen and king rooms to suites to shared roomsand all of them come with complimentary Le Labo products, plus a Marshall bluetooth speaker. The shared rooms are very adult-ynothing like those busted hostels from way back whenfeaturing bunk beds with full-size mattresses, places to charge all of your gadgets, and, perhaps sweetest of all, privacy curtains that make you feel like you're all cozied up in your own little private cocoon. In fact, in the future, guests will even be able to choose their fellow cocooned roommates through the app. Press Release 31 October 2018 Thomas Cook has today confirmed the opening of 20 own-brand hotels between now and end of 2019 including six in Spain, four in Greece and three in Turkey. The new openings include the company's first Casa Cook in its biggest market, Spain; the first family Casa Cook, and seven confirmed Cook's Club hotels. Advertisements Further new openings are set to be confirmed within the coming months which will take the company's portfolio to 200 hotels with around 40,000 rooms. This makes it one of the top 40 largest hotel groups in the world. The expansion is part of Thomas Cook's strategy to deliver sustainable profitable growth through a carefully-curated portfolio of own-brand hotels that have higher customer satisfaction, more repeat guests and deliver higher margins than the holiday company's broader selection of hotels. Casa Cook Ibiza will open next summer as one of the key assets of Thomas Cook Hotel Investments, the hotel fund that the company launched earlier this year with hotel development company LMEY. The 189-room hotel will be managed by Thomas Cook and is expected to continue the success of the first two openings for the brand where more than 75 per cent of guests have been new to the company. The second Casa Cook for summer 2019 will be the first for families and open in Chania, Crete. The 106-room hotel, delayed from summer 2018, will take an alternative approach to the traditional kids club with more of a focus on learning through play, art and local culture. Building on the success of the first Cook's Club in Crete, this summer, Thomas Cook has also named seven new hotels and expects to confirm a further three in the coming months. The new Cook's Clubs include a managed hotel in Palma Beach, Majorca that Thomas Cook will convert from an existing smartline hotel, as well as two franchised hotels in Turkey, a further two in Greece, and another in Italy. The brand will also open in Gambia in winter 2019. Three further Cook's Club properties in Bulgaria, Egypt and Greece are expected to be confirmed soon. Thomas Cook's largest own-brand is SENTIDO hotels which will add a further six hotels next year to take the total to 70. The new openings include a 184-room hotel in Majorca that will sit in Thomas Cook Hotel Investments and will undergo refurbishment to bring it up to SENTIDO standards. SunConnect, the holiday company's other family-focused hotel brand, will open four hotels next summer taking it to 20 hotels across Europe and North Africa. The brand has seen significant investment in quality training and support for its hoteliers in the past couple of years leading to the NPS lifting more than three points in two years. Aldiana, the club resort that Thomas Cook now owns 42% of following an investment last year, will open a club in Ampflwang, Austria as well as a new-build resort in Calabria. Enric Noguer, chief of Hotels & Resorts, said: "Expanding our own-brand hotel portfolio is central to the success of the whole business. Operating and overseeing a group of well-managed and high-quality hotels that our customers recognise and turn to for the better service and reliability they experience is an important part of our strategy as a group. "These latest announcements demonstrate further progress in developing our Hotels and Resorts division into a hotel company within Thomas Cook, working with strong partners and focused around hotel management, franchising, and sales and distribution. "Next year we will add three more managed hotels taking our total to 24 hotels as we accelerate our ambitions to take on more management contracts for hotels around the Mediterranean." Thomas Cook has also removed a further nine hotels that did not meet brand quality standards. The new hotels are listed here. JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. You should upgrade or use an You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.You should upgrade or use an alternative browser Largest Mobile Key Platform Named Exclusive Provider California Lodging Industry Association (CLIA) today announced the appointment of OpenKey as Exclusive Mobile Key Provider for the Association, whose mission is to promote, protect and advance the interest of lodging owners and their management teams statewide, and to provide a network of resources to support member efficiency, profitability and professionalism. OpenKey is the industry standard for universal mobile key in hotels. On the OpenKey partnership CLIA President David Bowman remarked, The California Lodging Industry Association has a long history of serving California hotel owners and the hotel industry through establishing strategic partnerships that promote improved operational outcomes for our members. Partnering with OpenKey is an example of doing that by recognizing the beneficial potential that digital key offers to hoteliers and guests alike. Since its inception in 1946, CLIA has served as a major voice for the independent lodging industry when group action has been needed, especially important when lobbying industry views before government agencies. In addition, the Association is continually aware of the need to provide programs and services required by members to more effectively and profitably operate their businesses. CLIA has become and continues to be increasingly visible and aggressive as a coordinator of industry efforts with a focal point being to develop business strategies to keep the industry economically sound. OpenKey is honored to be working with CLIA toward a more sustainable future for hotels in California by improving guest convenience and security while eliminating plastic keycard waste for guestroom access, said Brian Shedd, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for OpenKey. The evolution towards mobile keyless entry is a global trend that OpenKey is proud to be leading through innovative programs for hoteliers and exclusive partnerships like this one. We applaud the important work and forward-thinking that CLIA provides for over 1,000 members. In 2014, OpenKey set out to perfect mobile hospitality. Its keyless entry technology has been elevating the guest experience while reducing hotel staff workload. In addition to empowering guests with a tap of a button on their smartphones, it also reduces waste, eliminating the need for plastic key cards. About CLIA The California Lodging Industry Association (CLIA) is Californias hospitality trade association serving independent lodging owners and operators. CLIA, since its inception in 1946, is the recognized leader for providing legislative, educational marketing, and profit oriented programs for the California lodging industry. Visit www.clia.org to learn more about CLIA. Media Contact for CLIA Bobbie Singh-Allen bsinghallen@clia.org 916.925.2915 About OpenKey Founded in 2014, OpenKey is reinventing the hospitality experience through its mobile access solution. The OpenKey app is the industry standard for universal mobile key technology and works with the majority of digital hotel locks. Hotels and their guests benefit from OpenKeys platform providing efficiency, convenience and cost savings. OpenKey is a privately held company located in Plano, Texas. The company has been funded by several of the largest hotel ownership and management companies in the world. The app is available for both iOS and Android devices. For more information, please visit www.openkey.co. Media Contact for OpenKey Juana Veliz media@openkey.co 469.661.0841 Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource Continuing our annual Halloween tradition, weAve asked hotel marketers nationwide, across all chain scales and property sizes, what theyAre most spooked about right now. This article originally appeared on Tambourine. Continuing our annual Halloween tradition, weve asked hotel marketers nationwide, across all chain scales and property sizes, what theyre most spooked about right now. In past years, the list has included: Unrealistic goals set by ownership Product deterioration The cost of guest acquisition Shaky job security Many of those were on the minds of the folks we spoke to this year, however, here are five particularly frightening problems keeping hotel marketers up at night right now: 1. Brand Proliferation/Differentiation Many hotel marketers (and owners) view the industrys numerous and ever-growing assortment of brands as an increasingly frightening issue, especially considering that many of those brands are owned by a handful of massive conglomerates. For some marketers, as more brands enter each competitive marketplace, it becomes proportionally more difficult to convey the identity of their own brand to consumers and build lasting brand loyalty Further commoditizing hotels in the eyes of consumers. There are hundreds of hotel brands currently operating, according to STRs latest global chain scale list. And as was reported in Skift, at least 30 of those brands are owned by Marriott, AccorHotels owns 25 (not including luxury rental purveyor Onefinestay), 20 are owned by Wyndham and Hilton and InterContinental Hotels Group each have 14. The list keeps growing too, as companies add more brands, without removing older brands that may no longer have the same appeal, partly due to the long-term nature of many brand agreements. One solution, according to experts, is to view each property as a brand unto itself, and focus on communicating the unique qualities, location and selling points of that hotel. This way, the hotel stands out on its own merit when searched by travelers, who may be more loyal to a third-party aggregator like TripAdvisor, as well as their own specific wants and needs, than anyone traditional hotel brand. 2. Recruiting Digital Talent Staff turnover among job-hopping millennials can limit your hotel marketing success The hotel industry stands to benefit from high-quality digital marketing even more than many other businesses, yet hoteliers frequently struggle to hire and retain skilled digital marketing professionals. Its partly due to the overwhelming competition for digital talent by multiple industries, the difficulty of marketing competitively against the OTAs and specific issues and perceptions within the hospitality business itself. When trying to attract candidates who might also be considering options ranging from joining Silicon Valley giants to creating hip new startups, hotel marketers often need to combat the (unfair) assumption that hotel marketing is a stagnant, slow-to-change profession. There are also issues with compensationthe hotel industry sometimes lags behindas well as a lack of candidates who possess both the required digital skills and the experience demanded by owners and their hotel management firms. In addition to these hiring difficulties, you also need to be sure your digital team deeply understands the hotel experience and booking process. Look for hires who have substantial personal travel experience, understand the travel purchasing funnel and have the knowledge and skills to turn that funnel into tangible digital action. 3. Integration Woes Even though its a problem long bemoaned by hoteliers, the continued lack of integration between the numerous and growing list of software applications and vendors used by hotels remains a major nightmare for hotel marketers. Far too many hotels are still operating with a disparate hodge-podge of systems (PMS, CRS, POS, CRM, website, etc.) that each performs their given role, but may not communicate properly with one another. More seamless integration would enhance both the effectiveness of these systems and their reporting abilities, while eliminating some of the job frustration caused by the disparity. Reducing the amount of vendors utilized at each hotel will also boost accountability for each vendor, while saving the time that would typically be spent coordinating and communicating among all the various vendors. This is why its best to partner with vendors who can potentially satisfy multiple needs under the same relationship and do it well. By paring down your vendor list, youll be surprised at just how many fewer nightmares youll experience. 4. Vetting Social Media Influencers The rise of hotel social media influencersusers who claim sway over a vast legion of social media followers, particularly on Instagramhas resulted in a sustained flood of requests for comp stays at hotels by numerous self-dubbed influencers, some of whom are flat-out scammers. As a result, the process of vetting these requests and determining their potential has become a growing problem for many hotels. Some marketers are now utilizing a standardized process where influencers complete a form when submitting their request. Management can then look deeper into validation metrics, like user engagement on that influencers posts, which can help determine whether the influencer has real followers, or has purchased them. Once vetted, hoteliers can decide whether the influencers audience is aligned with the hotels customer base, and if the influencers posts can bring pertinent value to the hotel. Hotels and resorts are being bombarded by social media influencers seeking free travel creating another challenge for already beleaguered hotel marketing decision-makers If your hotel does partner with social influencers, be sure to communicate in advance what the expectation will be for a return on your accommodations (i.e. the specific amount of posts or content that the influencer will deliver). You also want to be sure the posts will spotlight the features that are the most important selling points for the property. 5. Big Data/data security Hotel marketers are increasingly called upon to harness data in the quest to enhance one-to-one consumer marketing, anticipating each potential guests wants and needs, including the specific times of the year for those needs, amid a customer relationship that will hopefully last a lifetime. Big data is also great for identifying peak and off-peak times, lucrative customer segments and a host of other analytical applications. However the realities of cultivating and maintaining that dataincluding keeping it safehave become more perilous and onerous over time. Over the last decade, the hotel industry has tallied a lengthy list of data breaches, many of which were quite substantial, impacting even the largest hotel companies. Hotel IT staff do all they can to lock down systems and try to prevent future breaches, but the reality is hackers will continue their efforts, making the concept of security a constantly moving target. Further complicating the situation is the European Unions 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which took effect on May 25, mandating that companies receive customer consent before storing, processing or using personal data from all EU citizens, while also providing a means for those citizens to remove their data from databases. For hotels, GDPR compliance is a great excuse to change all data-related processes, regardless of guest nationality; in the future, hotel marketers will be increasingly juggling big data and these heightened privacy and security fears. About Tambourine Tambourine uses technology and creativity to increase revenue for hotels and destinations worldwide. The firm, now in its 34th year, is located in New York City, Carlsbad, and Fort Lauderdale. Please visit: www.Tambourine.com Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource Radisson Hotel Group announced the introduction of its Radisson and Park Inn by Radisson brands to Lagos, Nigeria, with the opening of two new hotels: the Radisson Hotel Lagos, Ikeja and the Park Inn by Radisson Serviced Apartments Lagos, Victoria Island. Radisson Hotel Group announced the introduction of its Radisson and Park Inn by Radisson brands to Lagos, Nigeria, with the opening of two new hotels: the Radisson Hotel Lagos, Ikeja and the Park Inn by Radisson Serviced Apartments Lagos, Victoria Island. Tim Cordon, Senior Area Vice President, Middle East, Turkey & Africa, Radisson Hotel Group, said: "2018 has been a record year for us in terms of growth in Nigeria, and we're pleased to now have more than 2,000 rooms in operation and under development in this exciting market. We're further delighted with these two new hotel openings and the introduction of two new brands to Lagos, a dynamic destination and one of Africa's booming cities. We've seen Nigeria's tourism sector continue to grow and make a significant contribution to the country's GDP, while being one of its key employers. We're thrilled to be playing a leading role in this growth." Radisson Hotel Lagos Ikeja, Nigeria The hotel features 94 rooms that include standard and deluxe rooms, as well as spacious suites. The hotel has a restaurant serving locally inspired cuisine, a bar and a pool terrace. There are also three meeting rooms, a business center, a special lounge for airline crew, a gym and swimming pool. Located in Ikeja, the capital of the Lagos State, the hotel is situated on Mobolaji Anthony Highway, a main highway linking Ikeja with the rest of Lagos. The international airport, which accounts for 50% of all air traffic in Nigeria is located 1km from the hotel. Jaco Prinsloo, General Manager of the Radisson Hotel, Lagos Ikeja, said: "We're delighted to open the first Radisson branded hotel in Lagos, Nigeria's bustling capital. The hotel has a prime location next to one of Africa's busiest airports, and we look forward to welcoming domestic and international guests. The team is ready to deliver our legendary Yes I Can! Service and create memorable moments for our guests." Park Inn by Radisson Serviced Apartments Lagos, Victoria Island, Nigeria Also making its debut in Lagos is the fast-growing upper midscale brand, Park Inn by Radisson opening serviced apartments on Victoria Island, the exclusive address to Lagos' financial district. Located just off Adetokunbo Ademola Street, the main boulevard within Victoria Island, the hotel features 55 contemporary hotel apartments offering views of the pool, waterfront or lively business district. The hotel offers an international menu at Avalon Brasserie and an outdoor terrace for some al fresco dining. Guests can also enjoy refreshments at the hotel bar or small bites by the pool. Other facilities include a gym and a swimming pool, while the meeting and events space consists of two modern conference rooms and a boardroom boasting a total capacity of 112 people. Daily News Delivery Join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest Hotel industry news and trends. Subscribe 2021 Hotel News Resource This year, we've had to report on far too many deaths. It's never a nice feeling to have to notify you of a murder in the community but it seems to keep happening and frankly, it's incredibly discouraging. Just a few days after Young Greatness passed away, reports that two promising Florida artists have been murdered are circulating online. YNW Juvy and YNW Sakchaser were part of a rap collective in the Sunshine State that was receiving tons of attention. YNW Melly is part of the group, taking major strides in his career this year. It's being reported that Juvy and Sakchaser were murdered on Friday. According to Miramar Public Information Officer Tania Rues, Juvy and Sakchaser were victims of a fatal shooting last week. They were brought to a local hospital with gunshot wounds at approximately 4:35 AM on Friday morning but the two were reportedly already deceased. Thus far, the gunman has not been identified. The two rappers were in Fort Lauderdale but the exact location is yet to be determined. Their partner, YNW Melly, has taken to social media to mourn the loss of his friends, saying, "I know yall watching over me." YNW Juvy was 19-years-old and YNW Sakchaser was 21-years-old. R.I.P. https://twitter.com/_/status/1056208465243398144 [via] French Montana is doing even more for his home country of Morocco since TMZ is now reporting that the rapper has teamed with the Sabae School of Fida-Mers Sultan district and has donated enough money to front two new classrooms for kids. The publication notes how the funds will sustain the classrooms for a few years with the proper supplies and usual classroom necessities. French grew up in Morocco and came to America when he was 13-years-old and became a citizen in June but he has always made sure his hometown was an important aspect of everything he does. Earlier in the year, French announced that all proceeds from his "Famous" remix would be donated to the Uganda Hospital (a maternity and children's health clinic) he helped build. Me coming from Morocco in North Africa, I feel like it should be a soft spot for anyone that has a mother or a child. I think that's got to be one of the worst things, not having the right healthcare. When I went to Uganda I felt obligated to [help]. French previously stated. "I feel like every woman and child deserves the right healthcare. It shouldn't be a privilege it should be a right," Montana said. Open enrollment for health plans under the Affordable Care Act begins Thursday, an annual event that this year will get under way with little fanfare or outrage something supporters see as a testament to the adhesiveness of a law that has been under attack from the moment it was born. In Harris County, residents will have their choice of 33 individual health plans offered by four insurers, almost identical as last year. The biggest change is that average premiums have either gone down or increased only modestly. Stability is something new after all of the years of troubled finances, surging premiums, bitter political battles and predictions of imminent doom of a law known as Obamacare. The Republican-controlled Congress failed to kill off the law last year. The Trump administration has launched a series of efforts to unravel it, including slashing the advertising budget for enrollment, cutting off funding for community groups who help with signups, shrinking the enrollment period by half and eliminating the penalty for not having insurance. But its popularity has only grown. A Fox News poll this month showed 54 percent of likely voters favor the law, compared to 38 percent in March 2015 in the same poll. About 1 million Texans bought insurance plans on the federal exchange last yer. The law is like the Energizer bunny, said Kevin Nix, a spokesman for Legacy Community Health, the largest community-based health care system in Texas. It keeps going and going and going, Perhaps the clearest sign of Obamacares growing acceptance is the midterm election, in which Democrats who once ran from the law are embracing it and its protections for people with pre-existing conditions and Republicans are touting their support, if not for Obamacare itself, than something similar. On HoustonChronicle.com: Wait, what? ACA rates going down next year Consider it was but two years ago that the nations largest insurers beat a hasty retreat from the federal exchange in Houston. First came UnitedHealthcare, which said it could no longer afford to offer ACA plans. Then it was Aetna, Humana and Cigna, all singing similar tunes of unsustainable losses from not being able to predict the cost of covering the sick and chronically ill under a new model that would not let them charge such patients more or deny them outright. Remaining insurers sought eye-popping rate increases to counteract their own losses in the individual ACA market. In 2016, Blue Cross and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, the states largest insurer, asked for nearly 60 percent rate hike, ultimately whittled by the federal government to just under 50 percent. In 2017, another local insurer, Community Health Choice, got a 49 percent rate increase. From the very beginning few states have been as inhospitable as Texas, which continues to lead the nation in the rate and number of uninsured. When given the choice to expand Medicaid, the government health coverage for the poor, Texas leaders said and continue to say no, even though under the law the federal government picks up most of the tab. By some estimates the state will have left $100 billion on the table over a decade because of its refusal. Former Gov. Rick Perry saw Obamacare as an intrusion by the federal government. Earlier this year, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit, joined by 19 other state attorneys general, seeking to declare the entire health law unconstitutional. The case is still pending in federal court. In March, 2017, U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, a steadfast opponent and architect of a replacement law, wrote in a guest editorial for Chron.com, a web affiliate of the Houston Chronicle. The end of ObamaCare has begun, Brady said. The controversial, struggling health care law set sail seven years ago, helping some but hurting millions of patients, families and local businesses. Today experts from both political parties acknowledge it's a sinking ship leaving even more Americans in a lurch in the near future. Related: Rep. Kevin Brady: A historic week for Obamacare repeal Brady did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment. Still, time marched on and insurers again started making money as they figured out who their customers would be. For instance, Health Care Service Corporation, the Chicago-based parent company of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, made $1.26 billion in profits last year. That is more than a ten-fold increase from the previous years $106 million, and a far cry from the $281.9 million loss in 2014, according to financial records. Over the last several years, we reduced our expenses, managed medical costs across the health care system and remained true to our commitment to stand with customers, even in tough market conditions when others wavered, said Paula Steiner, CEO of HCSC in a statement earlier this year. She also announced the nonprofit company would invest $1.5 billion over three years to reduce health care costs for its members. For 2019, a menu of 33 individual plans will be offered in Harris County. That is one fewer than last year but the number of insurers remains unchanged: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, Community Health Choice, Molina Healthcare, and Ambetter from Superior HealthPlan. As in the previous enrollment period all of the plans except Ambetter are health maintenance organizations (HMO). Ambetter offers a choice of exclusive provider organization (EPO) plans which are similar to HMOs but typically do not cover care outside of the plan's provider network. For the coming year there will be eight bronze individual plans with an average price of $341 per month without a subsidy to lower premium price. Insurers will offer 17 silver plans, at an average price of $437 per month without subsidy; and eight eight gold plans at an average monthly cost of $517 without subsidy, according to the healthcare.gov tool to shop for plans. The website only gives a snapshot of plans and rates are variable with many lower cost plans carrying high deductibles. In Texas 90 percent of enrollees qualify for subsidies, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Michael Morrisey director of Texas A & M Universitys Program for Health Policy Research, admits there were times when the laws survival looked iffy. But he predicts it has found its stride not only with the insurance industry but also with consumers, especially those with health needs. Once a benefit is in place, he said, it makes it difficult to take away. Heavy is the head that wears the crown especially when that crown-bearer has to battle political rivals and zombies who want his head, one metaphorically, the other literally. Equal parts Shakespeare, Game of Thrones, The Godfather, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and 28 Days Later, the swashbuckling, bloodthirsty South Korean film Rampant is a rollicking genre mash-up thats what you might get if Hamlet were being chased by the undead for two hours. At the start of Rampant, Western sailors are covertly selling arms to dissenters in the ancient Asian kingdom of Joseon, the predecessor to contemporary Korea. The rebels, including the Crown Prince Lee Young (Kim Tae-woon), want to overthrow King Lee Jo (Kim Eui-sung) because of his fealty to the Chinese empires Qing dynasty. But the Westerners are hauling more than guns on their ships; they are also unwittingly bringing some sort of illness that turns victims into ravenous, flesh-eating fiends who only come out at night. This complicates the political war among the kings loyalists, his opposition, and the nefarious and murderous Kim Ja-Joon (Jang Dong-gun), one of the kings chief ministers who thinks he can use the zombies or demons as theyre called to his scheming advantage. Stepping into the middle of all this is prodigal Prince Ganglim aka Lee Chung (Hyun Bin, The Swindlers), the Crown Princes younger and more carefree, womanizing brother, who has just returned from China. Everyone thinks he, too, wants to take charge of the family business but he has no interest in ruling. But with both zombies hungry for humans on one side and plotting politicians hungry for power on the other, Ganglim has no choice but to become the reluctant, sword-wielding hero. Rampant has a few too many characters to get to know well so their deaths dont have the impact they might have had. But this is a minor fault in what is otherwise a zombie-slaying good time. Directed by Kim Sung-hoon with an epic, wide-screen vigor there are moments that seem straight out of a prestige costume drama while the zombie attacks are akin to a biblical locust invasion the often electric Rampant taps into the same flesh-ripping appeal as Train to Busan, the 2016 South Korean film that ranks as one of the best zombie movies ever. Like its initially recalcitrant but ultimately determined and brave prince, Rampant totally rules. cary.darling@chron.com Judging by Harris County Clerk Stan Stanarts campaign website, you might think that he is running against George Soros the billionaire Jewish philanthropist whos become a worldwide lightning rod for anti-Semitic groups, white supremacists and conspiracy theorists, but who has no apparent connection to the county clerks duties or to any current Harris County race. Make NO mistake, begins the main article on re-elect.stanstanart.com. George Soros wants to control Harris County Elections and Stan Stanart is in his way. There are many more Flag Waving, defenders of the Constitution then [sic] those who support Soros world views, but remember All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing. The page unnerves observers attuned to historic attacks on Jews particularly in light of the past two weeks, in which a Trump supporter sent a pipe bomb to Soros house, and a conspiracy-theory-fueled neo-Nazi gunman killed 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Stanarts focus on Soros is clearly a dog whistle, said Houston voter Rachel Dvoretzky, who discovered Stanarts website last week via a discussion on Facebook. Its red meat for a wave of anti-Semitism thats infecting American public discourse right now. The Anti-Defamation League noted earlier in October that Soros had become the focus of outsized conspiracy theories, including claims that he masterminds specific global plots or manipulates particular events to further his goals. Many of those conspiracy theories employ longstanding anti-Semitic myths, particularly the notion that rich and powerful Jews work behind the scenes, plotting to control countries and manipulate global events. Thats part of a rising tide of anti-Semitism, which had been growing fast even before the past weeks violence. According to the ADL, in 2017, the number of reported anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. surged 57 percent. Stanart, for his part, said theres no anti-Semitic intent behind his website. Are you serious? he shouted on the phone. Are you serious? Asked about the ADL statement decrying conspiracy theories related to Soros, Stanart called it B.S.! Big B.S.! He meddles in lots of races across the U.S. It has nothing to do with religion. The Republican base Melissa Phillip, Staff / Houston Chronicle Rice political science professor Bob Stein suggests that Stanarts focus on Soros is a cool political calculation what it takes for a Republican to win in Harris County as it tilts more Democratic. This kind of campaign is all about bringing out the Republican base, Stein said. Most Harris County voters dont know who George Soros is. Stanart isnt running against a Democrat. Hes not running against [Democratic opponent Diane] Trautman. What youre seeing right now is meaningless unless youre a core Republican. That partisan appeal stands out in the race for county clerk, a job whose nonpartisan-seeming duties include recording official meetings, filing birth and death records, and ensuring that election days go smoothly. This year, youd expect candidates to discuss issues such as local ballot security, polling machine accuracy and ease of voting. But since 2004, when Soros donated heavily to John Kerrys presidential campaign, hes been a favorite whipping post for the right wing of the Republican Party. The neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website has pushed out posters blaming Soros for funding protests against Brett Kavanaughs appointment to the Supreme Court. Anti-Muslim advocate Frank Gaffney has sent supporters an email blast asking Is George Soros the anti-Christ? In May, comedian Roseanne Barr falsely tweeted that Soros, a Holocaust survivor, was a Nazi who turned in his fellow Jews. Donald Trump Jr. retweeted her. Most recently, Soros has been painted as the mastermind and financial backer of the migrant caravan trekking toward the U.S. claims that appear to have no basis in fact. This is an invasion of our Country, President Trump declared in one tweet. In another, on Oct. 18, he released a video said to show someone connected to Soros handing cash to the migrants. On Oct. 22, a pipe bomb was found at Soros house. Cesar Sayoc, a Florida man with a long criminal record, has been charged with mailing bombs to Soros and a dozen other Democrats whom the president frequently criticizes. On Oct. 27, police say gunman Robert Bowers killed 11 people in and around Pittsburghs Tree of Life synagogue. For months, hed fulminated on the internet, calling immigrants invaders and writing that Jews are the enemy of white people and children of Satan. Oren Hayon, senior rabbi at Houstons Congregation Emanu El, urges public officials to take particular care not to stir hatred. Anybody in an elected position who represents a minority population including Jews, but not limited to Jews has to be careful, Hayon said. Public statements are volatile, dangerous. They get weaponized. They can be used against the people youre elected to serve. Dog whistles such as references to the global elite, said Hayon, send clear signals to white nationalists. It doesnt take a genius to be able to crack that code. Strong rumors Stanart, asked why his campaign website focuses on Soros, said that he posted it during the Republican primary, when he heard strong rumors that Soros might back Stanarts Democratic opponent. Two years ago, Soros made a significant campaign donation Kim Ogg, a Democrat running for district attorney. But he hasn't backed Trautman, the Democrat in Stanart's race -- and for that matter, there's no sign that he's backed any other candidate in Harris County since then. Though his race against Trautman is tight, Stanart said he simply hasnt updated the main part of his website since the primary. The Soros article, with its quote about evil, remains front and center. But last week, after the shooting at the Pittsburgh synagogue, Stanart did make a minor adjustment. Beside the Soros entry, he added a small sidebar note decrying the horrific tragedy that hate has brought, and declaring himself a longtime friend of Jews in America and throughout the world. Dvoretzky is unconvinced. With friends like him, she said, who needs enemies? For months Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart's campaign website, re-elect.stanstanart.com, was dominated by an attack on George Soros, the billionaire political donor who's become a lightning rod for anti-Semitic groups, white supremacists and conspiracy theorists. In 2016, Soros donated a large amount of money to the Democrat running for Harris County district attorney. But Soros has no connection to the county clerk's duties or to any current Harris County race, including Stanart's. screengrab of website After the Houston Chronicle posted an article Tuesday in which observers described the Soros attack as a "dog whistle" to anti-Semites, references to Soros disappeared from the site. In the main article on Stanart's website, the words "George Soros" and "Soros" have been replaced with the words "Liberal Socialist Democrats." Now, instead of "Make NO mistake, George Soros wants to control Harris County Election and Stan Stanart is in his way," the site says, "Make NO mistake, Liberal Socialist Democrats want to control Harris County Elections and Stan Stanart is in their way." The photo of Soros has given way to a collage showing Democrats Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Stanart had no comment. On Facebook Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, a fellow Republican, said he discussed the matter with Stanart on Tuesday, after a Houston rabbi brought the matter to his attention. The rabbi asked not to be named in this article. Throughout the day Tuesday, the commissioner and rabbi exchanged emails, with the rabbi explaining to Emmett that though Stanart's site didn't identify Soros as a Jew, Soros' name "has become a banner" for the anti-Semitic idea that Jews want to achieve world domination. "What I hope we can agree on," she wrote, "is that the time demands for ALL of us to be careful with our language, how we speak to and about one another, and to be really cognizant of the consequences of our speech." At 9:30 p.m. that night -- after the Chronicle's article had been posted -- Emmett wrote the rabbi: "Finally... Stan has taken all Soros references off his campaign website... He should not get beat up for doing the right thing, I hope." The official response of the Harris County Republican Party was very different. Wednesday, in a press release, it called the Chronicle's article a "divisive partisan attack" driven by "a desperate attempt to gin up listless Democrat turnout." This week, Houston takes center stage in a national movement to preserve communities of color. A three-day conference will culminate November 3 with the inaugural celebration and ribbon cutting ceremony to kick off the North Main Street Heritage Corridor Initiative in Independence Heights, where artists will draw sketches of seven planned murals that will tell the story of the first African American municipality in Texas. "The theme of the 2018 Preserving Communities of Color Conference is Disruptive Inspiration,'" says Tanya Debose, a lead organizer of the conference. "Speakers will share their stories of disruption turned inspiration and how they work at the grassroots level to preserve and revitalize their communities." The visibility of Independence Heights recently got a boost when Whole Foods agreed to work with the community on a mural painted on the new 365 Independence Heights store at the intersection of Yale Street and the 610 Loop. The muralist, Danny Asberry El, has family roots in the neighborhood, which was annexed by Houston in 1929. The site of the Whole Foods borders the historic Starkweather district. The seven additional murals will extend through several sites within Independence Heights. According to the 2014 designation, "Independence Heights offered working and middle class African Americans the opportunity to live in better conditions than in Houston's wards, while maintaining access to the central city by way of streetcar, jitney, and bus." Independence Heights offered blacks the opportunity to own land and build a better life. The Texas Department of Transportation demolished and displaced many of the buildings and families, including the home where Tanya Debose's mother was raised, when it built the 610 Loop in 1959. In advance of the 2016 conference, Debose told Cite, "I didn't know Independence Heights was the first African-American incorporated community in Texas until I was 40 despite having family living in the community and growing up in the church in Independence Heights." Since her late discovery of her own community's history, Debose has become a formidable force gathering leaders from across Houston, Texas, and the Americas. Aimee VonBokel, a Kinder Scholar at Rice University and a speaker at the conference, says, "Historic black communities like Independence Heights are destroyed and erased all the time Kinloch in St. Louis in the 1990s, Weeksville in Brooklyn, New York in the 1940s, and many others and when they're erased from the landscape, they're erased from our understanding of the cities we call home." The 2018 Preserving Communities of Color Conference, she continues, both educates participants about this history and "brings together community leaders from all over the country from Africatown in Seattle to the Hill Neighborhood of Pittsburgh to Zora Neal Hurston's Eatonville in Florida to share strategies for disrupting the process of erasure." With large numbers of people wanting to live close in, historic Black communities are ripe for investment, and displacement, because they are within easy commuting distance to jobs. VonBokel adds, "To some developers, they are blank slates waiting demolition and renewal, but to the children and grandchildren of people who built places like Independence Heights these sites offer evidence of their ancestors' determination to own land where they could raise future generations in a community deliberately set apart from the everyday indignities of racism. The pre-conference activities include tours of Freedmen's Town and the Buffalo Soldiers Museum. The conference program itself moves back and forth from national and local efforts. The conference begins with an international bang at Texas Southern University. Sara Zewde, a US-born urban planner working in the Rio de Janeiro office of the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy, will speak about how she disrupted plans to build luxury condos over the Valongo Wharf where at least four million enslaved Africans were trafficked into the Americas. Next, Anna Mod, a historic preservation consultant who has worked extensively in Houston and Independence Heights, will speak about using historic tax credits in community development. Then Assata Richards will share stories from the Third Ward, including her personal story and her work with the Emancipation Economic Development Council. And that is just the first half of the first day. The powerful lineup of speakers continues throughout the conference. "Using historic tax credits can be a great way to preserve important buildings in communities of color and repurposing them to serve housing needs," says Mod, citing Jefferson Davis Hospital, now called the Elder Street Lofts, as a successful local example. Courtesy Houston Public Library, Houston Metropolitan Research Center. The second day of the conference takes place at the DeLuxe Theater on Lyons Avenue in the Fifth Ward. The rehabilitated building is an appropriate one for the conference. By 2020, the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Council (CRC) plans to complete the designation of Lyons Avenue as an African American Cultural District and create a unified brand for it that attracts cultural tourists from within Houston and afar. VonBokel will share findings from her research on the destructive pattern of wealth extraction and its relationship to black land ownership in New York's Weeksville community as well as her own story about growing up in St. Louis. Other speakers are organizing in Pittsburgh's Hill District, Seattle's Africatown, Austin, Galveston, Freeport, and Hobson City, Alabama. As noted at the beginning of this article, the conference ends in Independence Heights. The speaker lineup on the third day starts with NY Nathiri, the standard bearer and precedent setter for cultural tourism around African American heritage. Nathiri founded the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts that draws 10,000 visitors per year in Eatonville, Florida. Other speakers include Urban Historian Walter Greason from Monmouth University in New Jersey and Carol Bebelle, who established the Ashe Cultural Center in New Orleans. As architectural historian Stephen Fox has noted, the most tragic losses of Houston's stock of historic buildings were in Houston's African American neighborhoods, particularly in Freedmen's Town, though nearly all areas of Houston are at risk. This week, Chevron began the demolition of the Shelor Building. As a result, the remaining buildings and communities seem all the more precious. But "precious" is the wrong word. The conference theme of "Disruptive Inspiration" speaks to the paradox of preservation battles. In one breath organizers are looking back at history and also projecting into the future. For the African American community in particular, nostalgia for a past marked by enslavement, Jim Crow segregation, and racial terror lynching makes no sense. Fighting gentrification as an endpoint also doesn't make sense in places burdened by decades of disinvestment, environmental injustices, and other challenges. At the same time, places like Eatonville and Independence Heights have histories of self-determination and thriving cultures. Memory and preservation are considered a first step towards innovation, and justice. After all that has been lost, it is hopeful to see Houston will be the host to a historic preservation conference hell-bent on the future. Raj Mankad is an editor at Rice Design Alliance. This story first appeared in the RDA blog offcite.org. Subscribe to the Gray Matters newsletter. It disrupts the process of erasure. This Gray Matters column originally published in January 2018. Marianne Williamson walked to the middle of the stage, paused for a second, then she asked all the black people to stand. The New York Times best-selling author, internationally known spiritual teacher and native Houstonian was in town recently for her "Love America Tour" at Unity of Houston. She urged the 200 of us from our seats. She then instructed a white person to hold the hand of a black person standing. A white woman and a teenage girl who looked to be mother and daughter in the row behind me took my hand and arm. Williamson then told the white people to repeat after her. She began with, "I apologize ... ." I was at Williamson's event to celebrate my birthday, January 15, the same as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Each year, I try to attend a talk, lecture or event for my birthday that inspires and uplifts as he did. This year, it was Williamson's sell-out talk at Unity Church with some 700 people in attendance. Her focus was on racism and politics, saying that until the United States addresses slavery honestly, gets deep about its enduring impact on African Americans and makes amends, we will continue a cycle of hate and racism in this country. She cited Germany's effort to apologize to Jewish people for the Holocaust and pay out billions in reparations. According to The New York Times, many Germans are not even aware that their country, after paying $89 billion in compensation mostly to Jewish victims of Nazi crimes over six decades, still meets regularly to revise and expand the guidelines for reparations. The mission is to reach as many of the tens of thousands of elderly survivors who have never received any form of support. TIPS FOR PARENTS: How to talk with your kids about police, race, protests The U.S. State Department also has paid or approved 90 claims for $11 million in reparations from France to former World War II prisoners who were carried to Nazi death camps in French trains the first French reparations paid to Holocaust survivors living in the U.S. Reparations, even the "forty acres and a mule" promised in part by General William Tecumseh Sherman on Jan. 16, 1865, to former slaves, has been an ongoing debate in this country, but that's not really what Williamson focused on. A black woman stood up and told Williamson, who is Jewish, she was struggling to deal with the hurt and hate in her heart for white people because of racism. Williamson said one of the problems is that many white people are in denial about racism, don't want to talk about it and want black people to "get over it." Jayme Gershen/Bloomberg Black people are angry, and it's understandable, she said. Unfortunately, anger is our Achilles' heel. A colleague, whom I have tremendous respect for, once asked me why many black people are so angry today. I responded with, "Why aren't you angry?" She looked at me with a puzzled stare. I explained that ending racism is just as much a responsibility for her white community to "get it" as it is for my black community to "explain it." Frankly, I said many of us are tired of explaining racist actions and racially insensitive and dismissive messages that permeate our world. It's time for white people to get it and speak up, too. That's why Williamson's apology to African Americans at Unity was so powerful. In 2016, she penned, "Prayer of Apology to African Americans," and shared it on Twitter. "With this prayer I acknowledge the depth of evils that have been perpetrated against black people in America. ... I apologize, please forgive us." Before she even started, I felt on edge as I often feel when white people say things, like "You don't talk black." Honestly, I was waiting to be offended. With nearly 200 black people in the audience on their feet, Williamson apologized for slavery, lynching, murders, rapes of black women, destruction of the black family, mass incarceration of black men, being called the N-word and systemic and institutionalized racism and more. As she continued for what seemed like forever, I felt a rage boiling inside of me that was followed by a Viola Davis ugly cry. (Fans of Davis in ABC's "How to Get Away with Murder" know what I'm talking about.) KEYS TO HAPPINESS: How to be happy in an unhappy world I never thought I needed an apology from white people, but it felt like I was crying for my grandmother, my great-grandmother and all my people who endured and died because of hate in this country. I cried for all of the times I've felt marginalized, discriminated against and invisible because of the color of my skin, even in my own industry. I cried for all of the times I've watched black children, especially girls, had their esteem beaten down to nothing because they didn't fit the standard of white beauty. I cried because I didn't know how deep the hurt was. I could not stop crying. I opened my eyes to see everyone around me white, black, Asian like my friend, Sydney Dao, who is Vietnamese crying, too. I nearly collapsed to floor from the emotional weight I was feeling. But the harder I cried, the tighter the white woman and girl held on to me. There was a white man in the front pew who had turned around to face the entire audience. He had no one black to hold onto, but he seemed to be shouting Williamson's words for me to hear. It was one of the most powerful spiritual experiences I have ever had. On my way out, I whispered "thank you" to the white woman and girl who held onto me so tightly. They had kind eyes and thanked me back. Marianne Williamson is right. We need healing. We need real talk about racism in this country. It's time for white people to get it. An apology is a start. GIRL POWER: You go, girls! Authors encourage young readers to be bold Bookmark Gray Matters. It's a start. Bloomberg photo by David Paul Morris WASHINGTON - On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said he will try to end the right to U.S. citizenship for babies born in the United States to noncitizens. He will issue an executive order, he said, to override the 14th Amendment, which states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States . . . with all of those benefits," Trump said in an interview with Axios. President Donald Trump believes he has the power to scuttle the 14th Amendment via executive order. Constitutional scholars disagree. So would the Supreme Court, presumably, should it come to that. But it might, unfortunately. Trump is the president. Hes made it clear that hed like to end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to noncitizen parents. And the cumulative expertise of Americas constitutional scholars isnt sufficient to prevent him from issuing an executive order to that effect, as he threatened this week. It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't, Trump said in an interview with Axios taped on Monday. He also said he plans to take executive action on the subject sometime in the future. GRIEDER: Family separations are cruel and gratuitous All Americans should be outraged by Trumps threat, even if they share his opposition to birthright citizenship. And Texans, in particular, should speak up, because this isnt an abstract issue for our state. The Constitution is the law of the land. It is the civic equivalent of a sacred text. Trump, like all presidents, has sworn an oath to preserve, protect, and defend this document. We can and should object to the fact that he has instead devoted himself to continually pawing away at it, with no regard for the rule of law and the bedrock of our democracy. Trumps declaration that he plans to end birthright citizenship may be nothing more than a brazen political ploy to rally his base on the eve of the midterms. Thats likely all he intends it to be. In recent weeks, hes sounded the alarm over a caravan of migrants from Central America, most of whom are apparently hoping to seek asylum in the United States. On Monday, the Department of Defense announced plans to send thousands of troops to meet the caravan, currently in southern Mexico - more than a thousand miles away. And while Trumps most craven supporters think he can do whatever he wants via executive order, some Republican leaders want to dissuade him from trying to do so, this time. GRIEDER: Charlottesville should have been a wake-up call for Republicans You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order, House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a radio interview on Tuesday. By contrast, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declined to take a clear stance on Trumps plans. Havent had a chance to read the law, said Abbott, who served 12 years as Texas attorney general. Texass current attorney general, Ken Paxton, similarly demurred when asked during one of his regular appearances on Fox News whether such an executive order would pass constitutional muster. Lone Star State voters, at this point, shouldnt expect better leadership from those two. But for reference, roughly a third of the states residents are immigrants or second generation, meaning that at least one of their parents was born outside the United States. And Trumps rhetoric implicates all of us, even though hes nominally trying to target the children of unauthorized immigrants or, as theyre often referred to in right-wing cesspools, anchor babies. The theory Trump is espousing here rests on the premise that the first section of the 14th Amendment has been wrongly interpreted. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside, is the relevant language. In July, Michael Anton, a national security professional who briefly served in Trumps administration, wrote an op-ed column for the Washington Post focused on this phrasing. In his view, it implies that the senators who ratified the amendment did not necessarily think that birthright citizenship should extend to the children of foreign nationals, even if they were born on U.S. soil. GRIEDER: Donald Trump might change American culturebut immigration wont Thats an opportunistic interpretation, in my view the kind one would only come up with if they were hoping to goad the president into unilateral action, as Anton was. But it would be difficult for Trump to come up with an executive order based on this line of reasoning that wouldnt have implications for the children of immigrants who came here legally, too. The United States has no control over the citizenship laws of other countries, obviously. So a child born in the United States to a foreign-born mother or father may have citizenship rights in that parents country of origin even if his or her other parent was born in the United States, and even if the foreign-born parent had acquired citizenship via naturalization. And more to the point if U.S.-born children of immigrants living in the country illegally can be stripped of their citizenship by executive order, so can anybody else. And that is fundamentally un-American. Trump, whose Slovenian in-laws became U.S. citizens in August thanks to a family-based immigration program, may never issue an executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. If he does attempt to implement such a plan, the courts would quickly put the kibosh on it. Still, by publicly mulling this option and by denying that hes bound by what the Constitution says in plain language, Trump is undermining the law of the land. Even worse, the president is questioning what it means to be an American, and doing it for his personal political gain. Thats reckless and abhorrent, and we should all object to it, even if our leaders dont. Erica Grieders column appears on Wednesday and Sunday. She can be reached at erica.grieder@chron.com By day, Courtney Wunder works in the Molecular Diagnostics Lab at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. By night, she becomes a regular Michelangelo, spending hours carving intricate designs on foam pumpkins to get family and friends in the Halloween spirit. RELATED: Local pumpkin patches and fall festivals worth the trip this October Wunder said she's been carving since she was a little girl. But she's been creating designs that look as real as photographs since around 2011, she said. This year, her pumpkin designs were inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, Harry Potter and The Nightmare Before Christmas, among other things. "I always just thought it was a nerdy hobby," Wunder told Chron.com after multiple news stations reached out to her on Wednesday. Wunder said complex designs sometimes takes up to eight hours to carve. Although she called it a hobby, she said she has been selling her pumpkins to mostly family and friends in 2015, when she created four designs. This year, she carved 16 pumpkins, including two for The Melting Pot restaurant. RELATED: Rice Village kicks off holidays with pumpkin patch pop-up "That may not seem like a lot to some, but it is to me," she said in a Facebook message, "Especially [since] people want this hobby of mine in their homes." See more of Wunder's designs in the slideshow above. You can find her creations by following "wunderkinspumpkins" on Instagram. 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 | Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message President Donald Trump this week promised to sign an executive order ending birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants in the United States illegally, even though most analysts say it would violate the Constitution and immediately be tied up in lawsuits that likely would ultimately fail. Paul Ryan, the top House Republican, flatly rejected the idea, and even staunch proponents conceded that it would end up at the Supreme Court and probably be dismissed. Trump revealed his proposal during a televised interview with the political website Axios that was previewed Tuesday. His tough talk on immigration came a week before hotly contested midterm elections that Trump has sought to frame as a battle over the issue. He has railed against a caravan of Central American migrants making their way through southern Mexico to try to reach the U.S. border and ask for asylum, and this week ordered thousands of military troops to the border even though it is questionable what, if anything, they can do to prevent migrants from legally requesting protection. Trump told Fox News on Monday that he would hold such migrants in tent cities until their deportation cases conclude, though a 1997 legal settlement prevents the prolonged detention of migrant children and has generally forced the government to release most families. The caravan itself was a political winner, and hes decided to go further and send troops there and now the suggestion of birthright citizenship we will see if he actually does that, said Matt Mackowiak, an Austin-based communications strategist who chairs the Travis County Republican Party. Both sides are trying to motivate their base right now. Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C., said the executive order was a legal non-starter. This is clearly a political balloon that Trump is floating to gin up the base before the election, he said. In the interview, scheduled to air as part of a new HBO series starting this weekend, Trump falsely stated that the United States is the only country in the world to grant citizenship to any children born here. In fact, more than 30 countries, including Canada and Mexico, have similar policies. Its ridiculous. And it has to end, Trump said, adding that he had discussed the measure with his legal counsel. It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You dont. Ryan, the House speaker, dismissed the idea during a radio interview in Kentucky, saying it is not consistent with the 14th Amendment. Well you obviously cannot do that, Ryan said. You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order. Josh Blackman, a constitutional scholar at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, said it is uncertain whether such an executive order had even been seriously considered. Speaking in Houston last week, Trump promised a new round of tax cuts, even though Congress is out of session and few lawmakers had heard of his proposal. Its a week before the election and what Trump said may not actually be true, Blackman said. But even if he does it, its not a case of stripping people of birthright citizenship. Removing that right would require a constitutional amendment and a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and Senate, or a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures. It likely would never be retroactive, because of the logistic quagmire it would pose, instead applying only to future births. Because the president cannot change the law or the Constitution on his own, any executive order would thus have to interpret a statute on how citizenship should be understood. Trump could, for instance, offer guidance to the State Department that U.S. passports should not be granted to children born of parents living illegally here. Any executive action would likely be declining to give benefits to certain children of immigrants who are not here lawfully and would certainly go to the courts almost immediately, Blackman said. That could be the White Houses game plan -- if Trump follows through. A small group of legal scholars argue the clause in the 14th Amendment that grants citizenship to all those born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof does not apply to the children of immigrants in the country without legal status. The Supreme Court has never ruled on this specific question, said Sarah Pierce, an analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C. The high court has ruled on two related cases that analysts say would weaken such an argument. In 1898, the court held in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that a U.S.-born child of Chinese immigrants was entitled to citizenship. The court reiterated this interpretation in 1982 in Plyler v. Doe, holding that the 14th Amendment extends to anyone subject to the laws of a state, including the U.S.-born children of immigrants here illegally. Charles Foster, a Houston immigration attorney who has advised President George W. Bush and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the issue, said that some proponents of removing birthright citizenship argue the original intent could not have contemplated granting the benefit to such children. The truth is they wouldnt have thought of illegal immigration because that would not have been a problem at that time, Foster said. There were no quotas. If you got to the U.S. you were a legal resident, no matter how you got here. Judge James Ho of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a conservative elevated by Trump, wrote in 2006 that birthright citizenship is protected no less for children of undocumented persons than for descendants of Mayflower passengers. Opponents of illegal immigration cannot claim to champion the rule of law and then, in the same breath, propose policies that violate our Constitution, Ho wrote in a 2011 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. Even Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington group favoring the end of birthright citizenship, said he thought the administration was unlikely to prevail at the Supreme Court on the argument. If I was a betting man, I would not bet on it, he said. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a TV interview that he supports the idea and predicted it would be a close call before the high court. Gov. Greg Abbott indicated that he was not as certain, saying at a campaign stop in Georgetown that the proposal would require keen legal analysis. He later told reporters in Sugar Land, The reality is, theres only one entity in this country that has the authority to do anything about this, and that is the United States Congress. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who has become a staunch defender of Trump, said on Twitter that he supported the presidents efforts to have the court review what he saw as an unsettled question. He said he would also introduce legislation that would deal with the future children of those in the country illegally. It has become a magnet for illegal immigration in modern times, he said. Pierce, of the Migration Policy Institute, said most people come to the United States for a host of reasons, including seeking better employment or fleeing danger, and that having so-called anchor babies is rarely an important draw. According to the think tanks analysis, if citizenship were denied to every child with at least one parent who is here illegally, the unauthorized population in the U.S. would reach 24 million by 2050 more than double what it is now. This is going to create a self-perpetuating class that would be excluded from social membership, Pierce said. Aura Espinosa, a 35-year-old mother in Houston, said that despite its legal obstacles, Trumps proposal nevertheless frightened her. She and her husband have temporary work permits through the endangered Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which Trump ended, forcing it into legal limbo in the courts. Espinosa came here illegally with her parents when she was 8 and her three children were all born in the United States. You can see the hatred toward immigrants, to children, this president is having, she said. These kids who are born here, where would they be from, then? It is threatening if he is willing to try this. Jasper Scherer contributed to this report. lomi.kriel@chron.com Tom Reel, Staff / Staff photographer On Sunday, Houston hip-hop artist Travis Scott visited a polling location in Bayou City to campaign with and endorse Rep. Beto O'Rourke. Then, on Tuesday, "Hamilton" star and creator Lin-Manuel Miranda threw on a Beto shirt and joined Scott in endorsing the Senate candidate. Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor With the climate getting cooler in Texas and the mundane details of city life chugging along, there's no better time for adventure. For most of us, that means setting aside a weekend to drive out and find a quiet place to grill or lounge about. The launch to the International Space Station earlier this month was aborted after a malfunctioning sensor triggered the rocket's first and second stages to crash into each other, Russian officials said Wednesday. The rocket's first stage "during the separation did not take the right distance and hit the second stage fuel tank, which caused the second stage to break," Sergey Krikalev, Russian state space corporation Roscosmos' executive director for manned programs, told state-run news agency TASS. Earlier this month, American astronaut Nick Hague, 43, and his crew mate, Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, were aboard Russia's Soyuz spacecraft rocketing to the space station when the launch was aborted, forcing an emergency landing. It was the first aborted launch of a Soyuz spacecraft in 35 years. Both Hague and Ovchinin were safe and in good condition after the landing. Now Playing: Astronaut Nick Hague who was on board the Soyuz rocket that malfunctioned talked about the ordeal. Video: GeoBeats Russia is taking steps to ensure this kind of malfunction doesn't happen again, Krikalev said, and officials still think they can move up the next flight to the space station, currently scheduled for Dec. 20. WORK DELAYED: NASA spacewalks to upgrade space station power still on hold after aborted launch NASA could not immediately be reached for comment. Since NASA's space shuttle program was shuttered in 2011, the agency has relied on Russia to ferry American astronauts to the station. NASA has spent billions of dollars on the space station in its 20-year lifetime, but the agency has no other way to reach it and, therefore, is grounded until Russia sorts out what caused the aborted launch. NASA's Serena Aunon-Chancellor, who is currently living on the space station after arriving in June, said in an interview Wednesday with the Houston Chronicle that having two fewer crew members on board hasn't impacted their schedule at all. "It's interesting, we talked about how we almost immediately went from six [crewmembers] down to three and I'm used to having two other Americans with us all the time," Aunon-Chancellor said. "It definitely was a change, but it hasn't impacted our schedule at all." Krikalev said Wednesday that the Dec. 20 flight -- transporting NASA's Ann McClain, and two others -- could be moved up to Dec. 3, according to TASS. That means the current crew on station -- including Aunon-Chancellor -- could return around Dec. 20, he added. Aunon-Chancellor said the crew is always prepared to stay longer on station or leave early. Spaceflight is hard, she added, and they have to be ready for anything. "We were well aware of launch abort systems, we trained to fix holes in case we do have a leak," she said. "For us, when we're in training, we practice like we play." SEEKING INPUT: NASA asks companies to evaluate commercial viability of International Space Station The failed mission earlier this month would have been Hague's first spaceflight since being tapped as an astronaut in 2013. NASA officials aren't sure when he will get to fly again, but Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Roscosmos, has said he and Ovchinin would get to fly again in spring 2019. How that would work still is unclear. The Soyuz' April 2019 launch already has an assigned crew and NASA has yet to offer insight into the development. Russian officials still are investigating another Soyuz-related problem that occurred in August, when astronauts discovered an air leak-causing hole in a different Soyuz attached to the station. The hole was plugged, but Russia continues to investigate how it happened. NASA expects that investigation to conclude in December. As Aunon-Chancellor and her crewmates wait for more direction from NASA and the Russians, she said it's business as usual in low Earth orbit, where the space station flies. "We're already looking forward to the next crew flying up here," she said. "We learn to trust [the countries'] investigations ... we rely on the countries to sort it out." Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey. The Halloween spirit has captured Sen. Ted Cruz like California authorities never could. On Wednesday, Cruz tweeted out an image of one of the Zodiac Killer's cryptic letters, possibly reviving a two-year-old meme that suggested he was the unidentified 1970s California serial killer. Obviously, the Texas Senator is most definitely not the Zodiac Killer; He was still a child during the span of unsolved murders that took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But it's clear people love to pretend, including, perhaps reluctantly, Cruz himself. Last year, Cruz assumed his joking role as the Zodiac Killer after a fellow Senator complained on Twitter that Cruz spilled Dr. Pepper on him during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The internet's obsession with labeling Cruz as the Zodiac Killer for no particular reason dates back to around 2013, but it really picked up steam during his 2016 run for president. RELATED: Cruz v. O'Rourke U.S. Senate race passes $100M milestone Things got so out of hand at one point that a poll found about 10 percent of Florida primary voters believed Cruz was actually the Zodiac Killer, with 28 percent of voters responding that they were "not sure." Elaina Plott, an Atlantic writer who profiled Heidi Cruz recently, said she has to clamp down on the meme within the home because of their daughter's sleuth-like propensities. Talk about killer optics! Fernando Ramirez is a digital reporter for Chron.com and Houstonchronicle.com. Read him on our breaking news site and on our subscriber site. Follow him on Twitter at @fernramirez93 or email him at Fernando.ramirez@chron.com. There is a Jewish plan to control the world, not by territorial acquisition or governmental subjugation, but instead by control of the machinery of commerce and exchange. Moreover, it is not that there are a few Jews among those who controlled international finance; rather, it is that these world-controllers are exclusively Jews. A century ago, a Michigan newspaper called the Dearborn Independent made this claim. During the 1920s, the newspapers circulation climbed as high as 700,000, delivered not just to households across the state, but also distributed in Ford motorcar showrooms across the country. This was not surprising: In 1920 the renowned industrialist and reviled anti-Semite Henry Ford bought the newspaper and, like the Model-Ts rolling off his assembly lines, transformed the anti-Semitic publication into a vehicle for the masses. The approaching centenary of this anniversary falls at a tragically appropriate moment. On Saturday, another mass murder shook our country. It was not a school this time, but instead a synagogue in Pittsburgh where a man identified as Robert Bowers burst into a morning Sabbath service and, shouting All Jews must die, killed 11 congregants with his AR-15. Inevitably, politicians have presented their prayers and, like Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, portrayed the event as senseless. Apologies to Gov. Wolf, but this attack is not senseless. A brief look at the Independent, and what followed, suggests that anti-Semitism, while not quite as American as apple pie, nevertheless has a long history in our country. Shortly after becoming publisher of the Independent in January 1920, Ford launched a series of exposes under the gripping title: The International Jew: The Worlds Problem. The articles, eventually gathered into a four-volume collection titled The International Jew, fingered the Jew as the source of all of Americas ills. Whichever way you turn to trace the harmful streams of influence that flow through society, you come upon a group of Jews. Their baleful influence was at work from matters great like the start of World War I to matters small such as the 1919 Black Sox scandal. The Ku Klux Klan embraced the Independent, as well as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious forgery by Russian police also distributed by Ford that revealed the plot of Jewish leaders to take over world finance. This embrace was important: By the early 1920s, the KKK boasted four million members. The group identified African-Americans and Catholic Americans as insidious elements that had insinuated themselves into American society. Yet its principle bogeyman was the Jew. These Christ-killers, the KKK declared, constituted a government within the government and were responsible for countless hostile acts against Christian America. One act of aggression was evolutionary theory, which the KKK labeled a foreign and Jewish conspiracy. We do not know Bowers views on Charles Darwin or Shoeless Joe Jackson, but we do know his views on Jews matched those of Ford and the KKK. Among his posts on social media, Bowers denounced Jews as the children of Satan and declared below a doctored photo of Auschwitz that Lies Make Money. Shortly before grabbing the AR-15 from the arsenal of 21 guns registered under his name, we also know Bowers posted his intentions: I cant sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. But we know more than this. Bowerss worldview, reflecting the worldview of The International Jew and the Protocols, reveals that anti-Semitism, like the plague bacillus, sleeps but never dies. We also know that the spirit of the KKK, though a shadow of its former self, hovered over the white supremacists participating in last years fatal march in Charlottesville. We know, moreover, that investor George Soros has been transmogrified, in the crucible of Fox News and conservative talk radio, into a national menace. Though no mention is made of his Jewish background, no mention needs to be made. He is portrayed as the puppet-master behind events ranging from protesters at the Kavanaugh hearings to the caravan of Central American migrants approaching our southern border. In fact, Gov. Greg Abbott invoked the puppet metaphor in a fundraising letter last year. The left-wing billionaire, he warned, had already unloaded a whopping $1 million to install his liberal puppets in positions of power this fall. We also know that the Anti-Defamation League reported a dramatic increase in anti-Semitic incidents during 2017, the first full year of the Trump presidency. The preceding year, Trumps presidential campaign ended with an ad warning against occult global special interests and featuring pictures of Janet Yellen, then-head of the Federal Reserve; Lloyd Blankfein, chairman of Goldman Sachs, and Soros. All three are Jewish. We know two last things. First, our president must do more than smile and say nothing when his crowds chant that Soros must be locked up, just as he must say something other than that there were very fine people on both sides in Charlottesville. Finally, deep down we know that the truly shocking aspect to Saturdays mass murder is that, as we reach the midpoint of Trumps presidency, we were not shocked when it happened. Zaretsky teaches at the University of Houston and is the author, most recently, of "Catherine & Diderot: An Empress, A Philosopher and the Fate of the Enlightenment." Miami Winter Music Conference Announces 2019 Plans Organizers of longtime electronic music gathering, Miami's Winter Music Conference, have announced plans to shake up the event for 2019. Under the umbrella of Miami Music Week, the Winter Music Conference [WMC] will return to Miami Beach from March 25-28 in the Faena District, centered on the downtown Faena Hotel. For the first time, WMC will offer two distinct segments targeted at industry professionals as well as music consumers looking to learn more about electronic music industry and the music, technology, and culture that powers it. WMC was acquired in 2018 by the organizers behind Ultra Worldwide, the popular electronic music festival brand that got its start in Miami, joined at the hip with the WMC. Once considered the pre-eminent EDM music conference in the U.S., Winter Music Conference has faded in recent years in the face of competition from international rivals such as International Music Summit which takes place in Ibiza. As well, the event has been pared down in scope in recent years. In 2014, WMC took place over 10 days but by 2016, was down to just four days. For decades, the electronic music industry ran through WMC. It was where the mega deals were done and provided a launching point for countless legendary tracks as well as breakthrough DJs. In March 2019, WMC returns with a fully revamped program that gets the industry back to business. Its the perfect start to an unforgettable Miami Music Week, said Russell Faibisch, Ultra Co-Founder, Chairman & CEO. Ultra plans to release additional details, including information about panels, keynote speakers, and partners for the WMC in coming weeks. CelebrityAccess Share on: iciHaiti - Economy : Towards the integration of Haiti into the CARICOM Common Market On Tuesday, as part of a working visit on the implementation of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy Agreement (CSME), President Jovenel Moise received a visit in Haiti of the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley. The occasion for the Head of State reiterated to the Prime Minister of Barbados who currently holds the Caribbean Presidency of the Caribbean community, his requests for integration of Haiti into the CSME. This is the most important request made by Moise to the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley, during this working session on the different stages and conditions that can lead to the effective integration of the country. Remember that the CSME offers better opportunities to produce and sell goods and services, as well as to attract investment, while creating increased competitiveness, jobs and a higher standard of living for the people of the region. This integration of Haiti, according to Chenet Saint-Vil, the General Coordinator of the CARICOM regional monitoring office, could be beneficial for Haiti in terms of trade and free flow of capital between Haiti (member country) and the others Caricom member countries : Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Caribbean the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-24859-haiti-flash-caricom-examines-the-free-movement-of-haitians.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-23826-icihaiti-caricom-towards-the-implementation-of-the-single-market.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-17425-icihaiti-politic-the-haitian-companies-will-have-to-consent-lot-of-efforts.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-4959-haiti-politic-thierry-mayard-paul-encourages-caricom-states-to-invest.html S/ iciHaiti iciHaiti - Security : Assassination of a director of the Ministry of Health Kapi Minthor, the Administrator of the Departmental Directorate Northeast of the Ministry of Public Health was assassinated on the night of Monday to Tuesday, October 30, 2018. His body was found bleeding near his service vehicle, on the Ti koulin road in a deserted area near Caracol (Northeast) near the campus of the University Henry Christophe. The death of Kapi Minthor, a highly respected and appreciated person, caused a great stir in the communities he served. According to a radio station in Port-de-Paix, the National Police of Haiti (PNH) as part of the investigation, would have made arrestS for interrogation of several people to try to discover the motives and circumstances of this murder in order to get hold of the individual (s) responsible for this crime. TB/ iciHaIti Fishermen risk death in Yemens violent waters October 31,2018 | Source: AP Every time Ammar Ahmed heads out to sea, he thinks about the helicopter. Earlier this month, after three days without a catch, he and eight other Yemeni fishermen decided to take their small boat into deeper waters, closer to the invisible boundary off the Red Sea coast enforced by the Saudi-led coalition at war with Yemens Houthi rebels. Thats when the Apache helicopter swooped in over the waves, its heavy guns causing a frenzy in the churning waters. The Apache attacked, firing everywhere, the 70-year-old father of three told The Associated Press (AP) in his small port town of Mahwa. Everyone jumped in the water. The men treaded water for more than 20 minutes as the Apache continued to hover overhead. When it flew off, they returned to their boat and sailed back to port empty-handed. Ahmed was so traumatised by the experience he couldnt go near the water for two weeks. But then a new fear took hold hunger. The three-and-a-half-year war in Yemen has caused the worlds worst humanitarian crisis, with two thirds of the population some 18 million people relying on humanitarian aid. International aid agencies said eight million Yemenis dont know where their next meal is coming from. So an estimated 300,000 fishermen still ply the waters of Yemens Red Sea coast, where heavy fighting has been underway for months as the coalition tries to pry the port city of Hodeida a crucial lifeline for aid from the Iran-aligned rebels. The fishermen try to avoid the coalition warships, which are on the lookout for weapons smugglers and rebels armed with rockets and explosives. The Houthis have carried out several attacks on ships off Yemens coast. The fishermen share advice on Facebook, warning each other to avoid international waters, to stay five kilometres from any ships, and to wave white flags or fish in the air if one approaches them. It doesnt always work. Just days before Ahmeds encounter with the Apache, a frigate opened fire on a fishing boat, killing 18 fishermen from a small village near the port of Khokha and leaving just one survivor. In October 2015, coalition ships and Apaches killed 48 fishermen who were heading to an island some 48 kilometres offshore to rest. The governing body in charge of Red Sea fishing in Yemen, which is currently controlled by the Houthis, said more than 220 fishermen have been killed in more than 70 attacks since the fighting broke out in March 2015. The fishermen used to stay out at sea for 15 days at a time, but now the trips are much shorter, and the catches smaller. The price of fish has gone up as a result, making it too expensive for many Yemenis and further squeezing the fishermen. Hunger is harder than fear, Ahmed said. Its scary for me to go out because I dont know if I will return or not, but how do I live seeing my family not able to feed itself? 2013 Borneo Bulletin Online - The Independent Newspaper in Brunei Darussalam, Sabah and Sarawak Theme(s): Communities and Organisations. 5,000 Indian fishermen hold protest against draft guidelines restricting their area of operation in Mumbai October 31,2018 | Source: ENS Around 5,000 fishermen gathered at the Sassoon dock in Mumbai, India, on Tuesday to mark a protest against the draft guidelines issued by the directorate general (Shipping) last month, restricting them from fishing between 15 to 35 nautical miles from the coastline in the Arabian Sea. Twenty nautical miles is proposed as a designated traffic corridor for merchant vessels between Gujarat to Kanyakumari as a remedy to mid-sea collision. Members of the Karanja Macchimar Society, which staged the protest, said this would have a huge impact on their business as the restricted corridor is where they find different variety of fish. A part of the Centres Sagarmala programme, the government has decided to construct new ports to harness the countrys coastline. The plan is to build 142 cargo terminals at all the major ports. Ganesh Nakhawa, the director of the society, said: On Saturday, our association members met Union Minister Nitin Gadkari in Delhi. As he failed to assure us instead said we were interfering in the development of the ports we have decided to protest on the western coast. The fishes, which are in demand, are found between 15 to 35 nautical miles, so this will cause a huge problem to our business, said a fisherman. The fishermen also planned to block the route leading to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust but following police intervention, the move was called off. The route is around 500 m from the coast, and we were planning to block it. However, after the police intervened and our MLA Raj Purohit promised to raise the issue with the Centre, we decided to protest from the coast, said Nakhawa. Terming it as a peaceful protest, Assistant Commissioner of Police Subhash Khanvilkar (Colaba division) said: It was more of a gathering of fishermen. They came together and discussed their problems with their MLA. DG (Shipping) Dr Malini Shankar said, We are not stopping them from far into the sea. Traffic system needs to be followed and we are equally sensitive about this issue. Certain incidents have taken place at the Kerala coast, owing to which such a draft was issued. 2018 The Indian Express (P) Ltd Theme(s): Communities and Organisations. Dont forget about us, fishermen and farmers tell Malaysian govt October 31,2018 | Source: The Star Fishermen and farmers in Melaka, Malaysia, are hoping to get continued attention from the government in Budget 2019. Fisherman Luke De Costa, 47, from the Portuguese Settlement hopes that subsidies to aid fishermen will continue, especially when catches from the sea are low. We are facing difficulties now especially with large-scale reclamation work along our shores and hopefully we are given more help, he said yesterday. Another fisherman, Andrew De Roche, 68, said: Not only bad weather causes our catches to dwindle but the declining fish stock along our shores has also reduced our income. image: https://content.thestar.com.my/smg/settag/name=lotame/tags=all,Demo_Young_Adults_18to34_Prec,Int_Business_Finance_SME,Demo_Old_Adults_55plus_Prec,Demo_Gender_Male_enr,Int_Business_Finance,Demo_Middle_aged_Adults_35to54_Prec,Demo_Gender_Female_enr He said such markets, like Pasar Tani for farmers, could be set up at jetties and fishermen villages nationwide. Vegetable farmer Yaakop Baba, 73, from Bukit Rambai here said Budget 2019 should include plans to improve productivity and encourage farmers to venture into agri-entrepreneurship and agri-tourism. 1995-2018 Star Media Group Berhad Theme(s): Communities and Organisations. The International Energy Agency held its third annual global conference on energy efficiency in Paris last week, bringing together more than 200 energy professionals from over 60 countries, to focus on the critical role that efficiency plays in the global energy transition, as well as opportunities that can be addressed. During the event, which brought together energy ministers, high-level officials from the public and private sector, as well as a wide range of organizations, Dr Fatih Birol, the IEAs executive director, also launched an online platform for energy efficiency data and information, which showcases the depth of the IEAs expertise on the topic. Dr Birol underlined energy efficiencys role as the first fuel, highlighting that by implementing the cost-effective energy efficiency actions available today, the global economy could double while greenhouse gas emissions would be 12% lower between now and 2040. The finding, which was published in the IEAs Energy Efficiency 2018 report recently is significant in light of the recent IPCC report noting the short timeframe for achieving global climate change mitigation goals. Highlighting other benefits of the efficient world modelled in the report, Dr Birol noted that households would be better off by half a trillion dollars per year, while local air pollutants and associated deaths would be reduced by a third. Dr Birol outlined three key things the IEA was doing to support countries take actions to realise these benefits. First, through its new online platform, the IEA is providing data, analysis and information for policy makers to learn about efficiency policies being used around the world, their impacts and lessons learned. Second, the IEA is building global skills and capacity, through its training programme for emerging economies, which has trained more than 1000 policy makers from over 70 countries over the last four years. And third, in partnership with the European Investment Bank, the IEA will launch a new initiative in early 2019, bringing together global leaders from international financial institutions (IFIs) to explore ways to scale up energy efficiency finance. Dr Birol described the new initiative on finance as a great opportunity to strengthen the global dialogue on financing the investments required to deliver energy efficiency at scale and thanked the EIBs vice president, Andrew McDowellwho also spoke at the conferencefor his leadership. The two-day conference was the largest the IEA has held on energy efficiency, and involved representatives from government, business and the research community. In addition to ministers representing Estonia, Finland, and Japan, conference attendees heard from an African Union Commissioner, the CEOs of Schneider Electric and Scania, as well as senior executives from other leading energy efficiency companies. See also the workshop page with presentations Watch the sessions back below: Assistant Secretary of State Mitchell Travel to Minsk, Vilnius, and the Hague Washington, DC - Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs A. Wess Mitchell will travel to: Minsk, Belarus; Vilnius, Lithuania; and the Hague, Netherlands from October 30 to November 2. On October 30, he will arrive in Minsk, where he will meet with senior Belarusian officials to discuss U.S.-Belarusian cooperation on a range of global issues. On October 31, Assistant Secretary Mitchell will travel to Vilnius, where he will meet with senior Lithuanian officials, including Foreign Minister Linkevicius and Defense Minister Karoblis, to discuss regional issues and the bilateral relationship. Finally, on November 1 he will arrive in the Hague where he will meet with senior Dutch officials to discuss a range of issues including security cooperation and the 2019 Global Entrepreneurship Summit, which will be co-hosted by the United States and the Netherlands in the Hague in June. Construction Award for the New U.S. Consulate General in Guadalajara, Mexico Washington, DC - The Department of State has awarded the construction contract for the new U.S. Consulate General project in Guadalajara, Mexico to B.L. Harbert International of Birmingham, Alabama. This complex will provide a safe, secure, and modern facility platform for the Consulate community and those it serves. Miller Hull Partnership, LLP of Seattle, Washington is the design architect for the project and Page of Washington, D.C. is the architect of record. Since 1999, as part of the Departments Capital Security Construction Program, the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) has completed 149 new diplomatic facilities and has an additional 53 projects in design or under construction. OBOs mission is to provide safe, secure, and functional facilities that represent the U.S. government to host nations and support our staff in achieving U.S. foreign policy objectives. These facilities represent U.S. values and the best in U.S. architecture, engineering, technology, sustainability, art, culture, construction execution, and resiliency. A district attorney's office has officially declined to file sexual assault charges against Sylvester Stallone. Prosecutors in California found there was "insufficient evidence" against the Hollywood actor. A woman told Santa Monica police in November last year that the Rambo star attacked her on two separate occasions, in 1987 and 1990. She claimed that friends were informed of the incidents at the time, but when brought in for questioning they did not corroborate her account. The 72-year-old denied the allegations and the Los Angeles County District Attorney has now said no charges will be brought. The best films of 2018 (so far) Show all 17 1 /17 The best films of 2018 (so far) The best films of 2018 (so far) The Guardians From its slow-burning beginning, The Guardians develops into an epic melodrama. Its a wartime story in which, for a change, the men are relegated to supporting roles. It follows in a tradition of French rural family sagas like Jean De Florette or Manon Des Sources. The landscapes and the changing seasons play as much of a part in the story as the main characters. The best films of 2018 (so far) Dark River Dark River offers little such consolation. It has some lyrical and delicate moments but the mood is generally overwhelmingly bleak and lugubrious. Incest and abuse dont leave much space for any comic interludes. This is a powerful film with a grinding intensity about it. Light relief it isnt but Dark River still has quite an impact. Alamy The best films of 2018 (so far) Zama Late on in Argentinean director Lucrecia Martels startling, highly original new feature, Zama, a character who has just had both his arms cut off, is advised to shove your stumps in the sand if you dont bleed out, youll survive. Its a grisly, darkly humorous moment in a film that continually surprises us with both its brutality and its lyricism. The Match Factory The best films of 2018 (so far) The Breadwinner The most dispiriting aspect of this otherwise enrapturing Oscar-nominated animated feature is that its storyline still seems so current. The film depicts an Afghan society in which women dont have a face. It is set during the Taliban rule, which lasted from the mid-1990s until late 2001, but this doesnt feel like a period piece. Seventeen years after the Taliban were ousted from power in Afghanistan following the US invasion, the plight of women in the country appears hardly to have improved. GKIDS The best films of 2018 (so far) BlacKkKlansman Spike Lees work sometimes risks sensory overload. He fires off so many different ideas and storytelling styles that audiences can become bamboozled by his scattergun approach. BlacKkKlansman is one of his very best films because the digressions are as entertaining as ever but dont get in the way of the main story. AP The best films of 2018 (so far) Early Man Much of the pleasure in Aardman films has always lain in their gently ironic, Alan Bennett-like humour. They take very exotic characters and subject matter but then deal with them in a matter-of-fact fashion. They make a virtue out of their own relative modesty. Early Man isnt the flashiest animated feature that youll see this year but it is certainly the most likeable. The best films of 2018 (so far) Isle of Dogs Like all of Wes Andersons work, Isle Of Dogs is very stylised, very offbeat and characterised by its extremely dry and often ironic humour. This Japanese-set stop-motion fable is also gorgeous to look at packed full of intricate visual detail. It deals with some weighty themes (ethnic cleansing, fascism and corruption) but does so in an idiosyncratic fashion. The best films of 2018 (so far) Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri Writer-director Martin McDonagh has a host of award-winning plays behind him but his movies havent always lived up to his stage work. This one certainly does. It shares some of the dark and nihilistic humour found in McDonaghs previous film, Seven Psychopaths. The best films of 2018 (so far) A Quiet Place In an era of wearisome poltergeist movies, haunted house stories and torture porn, A Quiet Place is a refreshingly pared-down and very original affair. Director John Krasinski relies on editing, sound effects and off-screen action to crank up the tension. We do see the creatures from time to time, sometimes even in extreme closeup. They are very grotesque, bigger versions of the polyp-like succubus which exploded out of John Hurts stomach in Alien. However, the most terrifying moments here come when the humans are waiting for them to appear, desperately hoping that they wont. Paramount Pictures The best films of 2018 (so far) Lady Bird Lady Bird is one of the best American coming-of-age films since Barry Levinsons Diner. Written and directed by Greta Gerwig, it offers an utterly winning mix of humour, poignancy and sharp-eyed social observation. Gerwig approaches her subject matter with the same tenderness and affectionate irony with which the adolescent Lady Bird regards Sacramento. Gerwig also shows Lady Birds heroism as the young heroine strives against the odds to become the very best version of herself she can be. A24 The best films of 2018 (so far) Phantom Thread If Phantom Thread is indeed Daniel Day-Lewiss final film as an actor, he is going out on a wondrously bizarre note. This must be the oddest film in his career, one in which he gives a typically commanding but very idiosyncratic performance. Almost everything here is jarring but generally in a very positive way. The best films of 2018 (so far) First Reformed It is not so long ago that Paul Schrader seemed to be giving up on cinema. The American writer-director (whose credits include Taxi Driver, American Gigolo and Affliction) had taken to making movies like the sour Hollywood satire The Canyons with Lindsay Lohan and the cartoonishly violent Dog Eat Dog, shot cheaply, aimed at a VOD audience. The former had a montage of closed-down movie theatres. In interviews, Schrader struck a gloomy note about the future of the industry. This is why First Reformed is so refreshing. This is not just Schraders best film in a very long while. It is also a re-affirmation of the directors belief in the medium. Rex The best films of 2018 (so far) The Happy Prince Oscar Wilde goes to ruin in Rupert Everetts debut feature as director. Everett also wrote and stars in the film, giving a grandstanding performance as the Irish writer at the end of his life, after his release from prison, where he has been doing hard labour for gross indecency. This is a moving and surprising biopic that squeezes out every last drop of pathos from its subject matter. BBC Films The best films of 2018 (so far) Black Panther Black Panther is not only one of the most entertaining recent superhero films but has an intelligence and a political dimension that such inchoate offerings as Suicide Squad and Justice League completely lacked. It is an action movie which touches on Pan-Africanism and which owes as much to Malcolm X as it does to Batman or Captain America. Marvel Studios/Disney The best films of 2018 (so far) Sicilian Ghost Story Sicilian Ghost Story is a genre-bending affair that combines elements of teen romance, gothic psycho-drama and political thriller. It is loosely based on a true story of a boy called Giuseppe Di Matteo whose father, an ex-member of the Sicilian Mafia, turned grass against his erstwhile associates. The Mafia responded by kidnapping Giuseppe and keeping him in captivity for nearly 800 days. Altitude The best films of 2018 (so far) First Man First Man is all about understated heroism. Its affecting precisely because Armstrong (played with quiet intensity by Ryan Gosling) doesnt feel the continual need to boast about his mission. The film is a tearjerker but a very subtle one. AP The best films of 2018 (so far) Dogman Dogman is one of the best Italian films of recent times, a modern day neo realist fable that bears comparison with the great work of Fellini, Rossellini, De Sica et al. Its main character, the dog groomer Marcello (Marcello Fonte), is a wonderful creation: loveable, vulnerable, seedy and comic all at the same time. Curzon Artificial Eye The charge evaluation sheet states: "Victim and suspect had a consensual relationship in 1987. The victim alleged assaults in 1987 and 1990 and provided fresh complaint witnesses. "However, none of the witnesses corroborated victim's allegations. Additional investigation did not provide any further corroboration." The document said there was insufficient evidence to support a prosecution and added the allegations were outside California's statute of limitations. Stallone will next appear alongside Michael B Jordan in the sequel to Creed, once again playing the iconic boxer Rocky. Dir: Mike Leigh; Starring: Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake, Pearce Quigley, David Moorst, Rachel Finnegan, Tom Meredith. Cert 12A, 154 mins Mike Leighs epic new film Peterloo is bound to foster awareness about an event which no one in Britain now pays much attention to. In August 1819, mounted yeomen militia charged into a huge crowd that had gathered in St Peters Fields, Manchester, to listen to a speech from campaigning political reformer, Henry Hunt. Fifteen people were killed and several hundred injured in the ensuing mayhem. The carnage was reported in national and local newspapers. It marked a transformational moment in British history. As the historian EP Thompson noted, the moral consensus of the nation outlawed the riding down of an unarmed crowd. To put it another way, the authorities realised they couldnt get away with violent attacks on crowds, even if they didnt approve of those crowds politics or their reasons for assembling. Leighs achievement is to have made a period film with the same immediacy and sense of anger that runs through contemporary dramas like Hillsborough or Bloody Sunday. He has a huge ensemble cast but that exhaustive attention to detail and fascination with the eccentricities of human behaviour which has always characterised his work is still there. The film starts four years before Peterloo, with the battle of Waterloo. Leigh doesnt bother with Wellington or Napoleon. Instead, he homes in on a lone bugler in the middle of the carnage. This is Joseph, a traumatised young man who, after the battle, makes his way home to the north of England, still wearing his red coat. Here, he finds poverty and hardship. Mill owners are cutting wages. Bread itself is being taxed. Might you be familiar with the north of England? a character in the well-to-do south is asked early in the film. In the eyes of the government, it is the savage hinterland of the country. While people in northern mill towns are starving, the politicians back in London are voting to give 750,000 (a vast sum) to Wellington as tribute for his heroics at Waterloo. Their attitude towards any rabble that protests about not having the vote or lacking representation in parliament is that they should be awed into submission. The countrys rulers do not want their citizens to try to emulate the odious French revolution. Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up Leigh exposes the gaping fissures in British society of the period. He also fills the film with the type of characters you might expect to encounter in a Charles Dickens novel or a Hogarth painting pompous local dignitaries, Bill Sikes-like blackmailers and conceited army officers. The prince regent (Tim McInnerny) is a decadent buffoon. The home secretary Lord Sidmouth (Karl Johnson) is like a more cunning, better spoken, upper-class version of Albert Steptoe. Even orator Hunt (Rory Kinnear), who speaks so eloquently on behalf of the common man, is shown in a very ambivalent light. Hes the Wiltshire peacock, a narcissistic minor celebrity who basks in the adoration of the crowds. The directors frame of reference is astonishing. One moment he will be showing us a meeting of the Manchester Female Reform Society and the next we will see the dashing officer General Sir John Byng (Alastair Mackenzie) bunking off at the races when he should be commanding the cavalry in St Peters Square. Thanks to backing from Amazon Studios, Leigh has a far bigger budget than on any of his previous features. This shows itself not just in the huge cast but in the massacre itself, in which we see the cavalry charge into the vast crowds. With so much going on and so many different characters, the film occasionally loses its dramatic impetus. Arguably, it wasnt necessary to throw in shots of fiddlers playing their music or of attendees at the rally sharing their picnics or comparing notes on when they got up or how far theyve come. Then again, one of the points about Peterloo is that the film doesnt have a hero. It is about the collective experience of the massacre. The most prominent actors, whether Maxine Peake as a matriarch trying to hold her family together in the face of extreme deprivation or Kinnear as the orator, share screen time with dozens of others. As a story of a massacre, Peterloo is bound to end on a grim note. However, it has plenty of humour and pathos along the way. The journalists (not a breed Leigh generally likes) emerge with credit for reporting promptly and truthfully on what happened at the Manchester rally. Leigh himself shows he is just as comfortable helming historical epics as he is making tightly focused contemporary dramas like Happy-Go-Lucky or Another Year. At 75, the British director is still clearly at the peak of his powers. Whatever else, his latest film will ensure that the bloody events in St Peters Fields nearly 200 years ago are put back on the radar of politicians, historians and cultural commentators alike. Rusty nails, glistening innards, ruined ancient instruments of torture. For an hour before stage time, seven screens across the Roundhouse stage rotate visuals of gruesome decay to a sinister, ambient Joey Santiago soundtrack. When stage time hits the visuals continue, now overdubbed with an audio interview with 4AD sleeve designer Vaughan Oliver, detailing how he came up with the memorably debased cover images for Pixies first two albums the ape-man of 1987s demo collection Come On Pilgrim, and the topless flamenco dancer of 1988s debut album proper, Surfer Rosa. In keeping with their bone-saw allure, Pixies are drawing the Roundhouse into their soiled and sordid world in preparation for a night that feels like gazing into the volcanic spume of alternative rock. To mark Surfer Rosas 30th anniversary, the Boston indie rock legends are here to play both albums in full over a five-night run: grisly, glorious records full of violence, sex, incest, mythology, perversion and death plus, for much needed light relief, the odd superhero called Tony which were the wellspring for grunge and the three decades of guitar rock beyond. When Pixies finally take the stage to an orchestral refrain from Where Is My Mind?, opener Caribou makes for a deceptively sedate introduction, despite Black Francis wolf-howling the title and barking Repent! like a lycanthropic Pentecostal preacher. Brutally business-like as ever, theyre soon flying through Come On Pilgrims eight songs in 20 minutes (one ill-timed bar break and youll miss entire albums tonight), firing off scarified punk folk like Ed Is Dead, The Holiday Song and Nimrods Son at assault rifle pace, drenched in malicious melodies, bouts of doomy flamenco and Franciss demented yelps. Its the savage momentum of these songs that helped ignite the late-Eighties wave of impassioned grunge rock take the rabidly infectious Ive Been Tired, featuring the most inadvisable Tinder-date small talk ever: Why dont you tell me one of your biggest fears?/I said losing my penis to a whore with disease But the mythologies Pixies built or borrowed keep them timeless: biblical images of violence and incest, quasi-religious references to reincarnation and ascendance, murky characters like the elevator lady at the heart of scorched surf rocker Levitate Me. It feels less like revisiting a bygone age of indie rock and more like getting re-baptised in battery acid. A languorous, sea-squall cover of David Lynchs In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song) gives way to the meat of the evening Surfer Rosa in full, thundering in on the broken axle of Bone Machine, a totalled tanker of a song still doing 120 mph down the road to hell. The disjointed union of Dave Loverings clattering beats, Santiagos guitar squeals and Kim Deals chocolate basslines, carried by new bassist Paz Lenchantin on a flower-laden bass guitar, is a sort of dark magic that carries the album through its accelerating brutality. Break My Body, Something Against You and Broken Face are breakneck portraits of mutilation, inbred deformity and incest (theres enough incest on Surfer Rosa to make Fleetwood Mac blush) that give way to the bright pop relief of Gigantic, Deals interracial love song dropped from the set when she left the band in 2013 but delivered adroitly by Paz tonight, albeit lacking Kims iconic alt-rock charm. Pixies revel in the lighter moments of Surfer Rosa. Francis dons shades for Where Is My Mind?, fully aware that his cartoonish dream pop tale of being chased by a fish around the Caribbean is still the coolest song The Velvet Underground never wrote. They relish the comic book punk of Tonys Theme and the flamenco riot Oh My Golly!. On the second outing of Vamos (the song features on both albums), Joey unplugs the lead from his guitar and plays the feedback from the jack in place of the earlier versions more traditional solo. Theres a magical moment when Black Francis stoically lifts a sheet of paper to the microphone and recites the albums you f***in die! studio banter segment. Their reverence to their seminal debut is both dutiful and playful. An encore of random B-sides and later album tracks highlights how lop-sided and incomplete a Pixies set feels without classic stalwarts like Debaser, Monkey Gone To Heaven, Velouria and Gouge Away. But few full-album gigs feel this relevant and rejuvenating, encompassing a genre, not just an era. Right up to Wolf Alices Mercury Prize win, Rosa is still surfing the zeitgeist. For some people, food is a language of love and that includes Jennifer Garner, who once relied on the comforting power of a beef bourguignon to bond with her Alias co-star. The actor, a devoted fan of Ina Garten, recounted in an essay for Bon Appetit how she cooked the French classic for Victor Garber, who played her father on the ABC show, and his partner Rainer Andreesen, back in the early 2000s. Another one of her co-stars, Michael Vartan (who starred as CIA handler Michael Vaughn in the series), had tracked down a signed copy of Garten's 2004 recipe book Barefoot in Paris for Garner. In the book, the Alias star found her favourite recipe by the American chef, which she cooked at the end of a week of work for Garber, Andreesen and herself. "We were mid-season and had just finished a long week, and I somehow made this gorgeous meal on a Saturday night," Garner recounted. "I remember being in my little house listening to music and drinking a glass of gorgeous red wine. (Always cook with a wine youd like to have at the table, right, Ina?) The house smelled like winter when Victor and Rainer arrived, and the meal was done." Garner said she loved the simplicity of the recipe, which had her cook all the ingredients in the oven and enabled her to enjoy her time with her guests rather than fuss in the kitchen. "I didn't have to get up to check anything or stir or saute everything had cooked in the oven, and we just sat and ate and talked and laughed," she added. The actor loved Garten's beef bourguignon so much she added the dish to her permanent repertoire. She has since made it "countless times", including for Christmas and dinner parties. Garner, a food lover who has hosted her own "Pretend Cooking Show" on social media, has long held Garten as her culinary idol. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events In April this year, the cook wished Garner a happy birthday on Instagram, sharing a photo of the two of them together. Back in February, Garner extended the same gesture for Garten to mark the food icon's 70th birthday. On that occasion, the actor recounted how Garten cooked her a meal for her birthday three years ago, adding: "I was able to cook for her, it would only be because she taught me (and the rest of America) how." Netflix has released the first images of Henry Cavill in its adaptation of The Witcher. The actor plays Geralt of Rivia in the platform's version of the fantasy series by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski, which has also been turned into a beloved series of video games. Netflix released a short clip from Cavill in full costume and make-up for the role on Wednesday. Cavill can be seen in the video with long grey hair, clad in black leather, gazing soulfully into the camera. Recommended BoJack Horseman renewed for season 6 by Netflix He doesn't talk in the 23-second clip but turns away from the lens to bring a small flask to his lips, tilting his head back to sip on its contents. Cavill's casting as Geralt, a monster hunter and the protagonist of Sapkowski's series, was first revealed in September. That same month, Cavill was said to be leaving his role as Superman and the DC Comics universe, according to The Hollywood Reporter. All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 Show all 8 1 /8 All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 Tiempo compartido - 30 November Two haunted family men join forces in a destructive crusade to rescue their families from a tropical paradise, after becoming convinced that an American timeshare conglomerate has a sinister plan to take their loved ones away. Netflix All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding - 30 November A year after Amber helped Richard secure the crown, the two are set to tie the knot in a royal Christmas wedding - but their plans are jeopardized when Amber finds herself second-guessing whether or not she's cut out to be queen, and Richard is faced with a political crisis that threatens to tarnish not only the holiday season, but the future of the kingdom. Netflix All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle - 7 December Acclaimed actor and director Andy Serkis reinvents Rudyard Kiplings beloved masterpiece, in which a boy torn between two worlds accepts his destiny and becomes a legend. Mowgli (Rohan Chand) has never truly belonged in either the wilds of the jungle or the civilized world of man. Now he must navigate the inherent dangers of each on a journey to discover where he truly belongs. Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto, Rohan Chand, Matthew Rhys and Naomie Harris lead an all-star cast in this visually spectacular and emotionally moving adventure. Netflix All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 Natale a 5 Stelle - 7 December Christmas is coming. An Italian political delegation, led by our Premier, is on an official visit to Hungary. In addition to his political commitments, the Premier intends to spend, secretly, a few happy hours in the company of a young member of parliament traveling with the delegation. Everything seems to proceed for the better until the two clumsy lovers find themselves with a mysterious corpse in the suite of the luxurious hotel where they stay. Netflix All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 Dumplin' - 7 December Dumplin (Danielle Macdonald) is the plus-size, teenage daughter of a former beauty queen (Jennifer Aniston), who signs up for her moms pageant as a protest that escalates when other contestants follow her footsteps, revolutionizing the pageant and their small Texas town. Netflix All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 ROMA The most personal project to date from Academy Award-winning director and writer Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity, Children of Men, Y Tu Mama Tambien), ROMA follows Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a young domestic worker for a family in the middle-class neighborhood of Roma in Mexico City. Delivering an artful love letter to the women who raised him, Cuaron draws on his own childhood to create a vivid and emotional portrait of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst political turmoil of the 1970s. Cuarons first project since the groundbreaking Gravity in 2013, ROMA will be available in theaters and on Netflix later this year. Netflix All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 Bird Box - 21 December When a mysterious force decimates the worlds population, only one thing is certain: if you see it, you take your life. Facing the unknown, Malorie finds love, hope and a new beginning only for it to unravel. Now she must flee with her two children down a treacherous river to the one place left that may offer sanctuary. But to survive, they'll have to undertake the perilous two-day journey blindfolded. Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock leads an all-star cast that includes Trevante Rhodes, with Sarah Paulson, and John Malkovich in Bird Box, a compelling new thriller from Academy Award winner Susanne Bier. Netflix All the Netflix Original films coming out in 2018 Girl With the support of her father, a 15-year-old transgender girl pursues her dream of becoming a professional ballerina. Winner of the Camera dOr for best first film at this years Cannes Film Festival as well as the Best Actor Prize for Un Certain Regard. Netflix Filming for The Witcher is set to start this month in Hungary. Alongside Cavill, the show will star Anna Shaffer (who played Romilda Vane in the Harry Potter franchise and Ruby Button in Hollyoaks) as sorceress Triss Merigold. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Cavill announced his new role as Geralt on Instagram in September, joking that his new address was now in the Kaer Morhen Valley of Kaedwen. "Please note, I'm rarely there. Monster slaying being what it is," he added in a humorous message. "So, replies will be few and far between, if at all." More than 70 per cent of our planets remaining areas of wilderness are contained in just five countries and are at the mercy of political decisions regarding their future, new research has warned. Urgent international action is required to ensure the preservation of these last pockets of intact ecosystems, the study says, which calls for mandated conservation targets. The places where the greatest remaining tracts of wilderness containing mixes of species at near-natural levels of abundance were identified as being in Russia, Canada, Australia, the US and Brazil. Produced by the University of Queensland (UQ) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the study published in the journal Nature, says these areas are increasingly important buffers against changing conditions Yet they arent an explicit target in international policy frameworks." The study also examines the huge future value these areas are likely to have for our planet. They are also the only areas supporting the ecological processes that sustain biodiversity over evolutionary timescales, it says. As such, they are important reservoirs of genetic information, and act as reference areas for efforts to re-wild degraded land and seascapes. Professor James Watson, from UQs School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said the work provides the first full global picture of how little wilderness remains, and he was alarmed at the results. Glacier collapse shows climate impact Show all 20 1 /20 Glacier collapse shows climate impact Glacier collapse shows climate impact An iceberg floats in a fjord near the town of Tasiilaq Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Meltwater pools on top of the Helheim glacier near Tasiilaq Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Safety officer Brian Rougeux works with student Febin Magar to assemble a radar dome while working in a science camp on the side of the Helheim glacier Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Airplane Mechanic, David Fuller, left, works with a local worker to move a Nasa Gulfstream III during a pre-flight inspection before a flight to support the Oceans Melting Greenland research mission Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Meltwater pools on top of the Helheim glacier Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Earth Science Flight Programs Director at Nasa, Eric Ianson, looks out at the Greenland ice sheet Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Glacial ice is seen from the window during the Nasa flight Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Oceanographer David Holland's science camp on the side of the Helheim glacier Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact An iceberg floats in a fjord near the town of Tasiilaq Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact A large crevasse forms near the calving front of the Helheim glacier Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Safety officer Brian Rougeux uses a drill to install antennas for scientific instruments that will be left on top of the Helheim glacier Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Tabular icebergs float in the Sermilik Fjord after a large calving event at the Helheim glacier Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Radar Engineer, Ron Muellerschoen, monitors data collection inside a NASA Gulfstream III flying above Greenland to measure loss to the country's ice sheet Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact GPS tracking equipment is left on top of the Helheim glacier REUTERS Glacier collapse shows climate impact Sunshine lights up the Helheim glacier Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact A glacial terminus above the east coast of Greenland REUTERS Glacier collapse shows climate impact Student Febin Magar watches as leftover wood burns in a research camp Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Tabular icebergs float in the Sermilik Fjord after a large calving event Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact Oceanographer David Holland repairs a broken GPS module at his research camp Reuters Glacier collapse shows climate impact An iceberg floats in a fjord near the town of Tasiilaq Reuters A century ago, only 15 per cent of the Earths surface was used by humans to grow crops and raise livestock, he said. Today, more than 77 per cent of land excluding Antarctica and 87 per cent of the ocean has been modified by the direct effects of human activities. It might be hard to believe, but between 1993 and 2009, an area of terrestrial wilderness larger than India a staggering 3.3 million square kilometres was lost to human settlement, farming, mining and other pressures. UQ Postdoctoral Research Fellow James Allan said the worlds remaining wilderness could only be protected if its importance was recognised in international policy. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Some wilderness areas are protected under national legislation, but in most nations, these areas are not formally defined, mapped or protected, he said. "There is nothing to hold nations, industry, society or communities to account for long-term conservation. We need the immediate establishment of bold wilderness targets -- specifically those aimed at conserving biodiversity, avoiding dangerous climate change and achieving sustainable development. One obvious intervention these nations can prioritise is establishing protected areas in ways that would slow the impacts of industrial activity on the larger landscape or seascape, Prof Watson said. We have lost so much already, so we must grasp this opportunity to secure the last remaining wilderness before it disappears forever. Amazon Fashion is launching a try before you buy service in the UK following a successful trial in the US. Named Prime Wardrobe, the scheme allows customers signed up to Amazons subscription service to order three to eight clothing items with no upfront charge and free delivery. Wardrobe shoppers are also offered a range of discounts depending on the number of items they choose to keep. Recommended Asos sales soar as online retailer leaves high street rivals behind If they choose to keep items worth 100 or more they could save 5, while holding on to items worth 200 more will see a saving of 20. Should customers decide not to keep some of the items ordered, they can be returned within seven days free of charge. Fashion brands available from the new Prime Wardrobe service include Calvin Klein, Levis, Miss Selfridge, New Look, Also, New Balance, LK Bennett, Vans and more. Fit is an important factor when it comes to buying clothes and shoes, and with Prime Wardrobe, Amazon Prime members can try their purchases in the comfort of their own home at no extra cost, said Xavier Garambois, vice-president of Amazon Europes retail division. The UK is the third country to join the service, which started in the US in June and launched in Japan last week. However, it isnt the first major retailer to offer a try before you buy scheme. Last year, Asos partnered with Klarna Pay Later to allow its UK app customers to try any of the 85,000 products on its website at home and only pay for what they want to keep within 30 days of the order being dispatched. The Klarna Group, which is now one of Europes largest banks, has a growing number of retailers in its shop directory including Topshop, Beauty Bay, Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Finery, Lazy Oaf and Schuch. The new service is the online retailers latest push into the clothing market as it attempts to align itself with more traditional high street stores like John Lewis and Next. Amazon only began selling clothing in the UK in 2008, and according to stockbroker Societe Generale, has already built a market share of 4.6 per cent, not far behind Marks & Spencer. Next remains by far the biggest online seller of clothes, with 12.5% of the market, followed by John Lewis, Asos and eBay. "I've been working on a new electronic cash system," someone by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto wrote exactly one decade ago. "[It's] fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party." What Nakamoto went on to describe to the obscure mailing list of cryptographers and so-called 'cypherpunks' he was writing to, was a new form of money called bitcoin, which claimed to offer a revolutionary alternative to the traditional financial system. The paper, titled 'Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System', explained how a computer network could support a decentralised cryptocurrency by replacing the need for banks with an online ledger known as a blockchain. 10 years later, bitcoin has grown into a payments network worth more than $100 billion, while simultaneously spawning more than 2,000 other cryptocurrencies and an entire industry of online exchanges, digital wallets and trading apps. Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Satoshi Nakamoto creates the first bitcoin block in 2009 On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System' Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin is used as a currency for the first time On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices Lazlo Hanyecz Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Silk Road opens for business Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin Screenshot Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures The first bitcoin ATM appears On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures The fall of MtGox The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Would the real Satoshi Nakamoto please stand up In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's big split On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin's price sky rockets Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year Reuters Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures What goes up... Bitcoin price crashes spectacularly, losing half of its value in a matter of days Getty Images Bitcoin's volatile history in pictures Bitcoin plunges The cryptocurrency eventually bottoms out below $4,000 in 2019 before slowly rebuilding momentum to outperform more traditional assets Getty Images So how far has bitcoin really come since 2008 and how much further could it and other cryptocurrencies still go? On its 10th birthday, The Independent spoke with experts and analysts to understand the significance of Nakamoto's email that began it all. A reaction to the 2008 financial crisis Many bitcoin advocates point to the decentralised nature of bitcoin, meaning no bank or government controls its supply a concept that had not been seen before on any significant scale before. This means it is immune to mechanisms like quantitative easing, which saw trillions of dollars pumped into the economy following the 2008 financial crisis, as well as costly remittance fees when transferring funds internationally. A nod to the instability of traditional banking was even included in the first block of bitcoins that was produced in early 2009. The text read: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." Nakamoto believed bitcoin could provide a solution. "Bitcoin's birth in the depths of the financial crisis is not surprising. Many joined the bitcoin movement early on as a move against censorship and monetary control over cross-border payments," says Jonathan Levi, CEO of blockchain firm Hacera. "The traditional financial system, that I was part of at the time, had got ahead of itself in the complexity of its products and risk oversight... Bitcoin and blockchain at its core is an incorruptible record of transactions, that's an idea that any regular person can get behind." David Carlisle, head of community at the cryptocurrency intelligence firm Elliptic, echoes this view that cryptocurrencies offer a real solution to the problems associated with the financial industry. Theres a lot of talk about what bitcoin will and wont achieve. Evangelicals and naysayers have been quick to pick sides, [but] what it comes down to is whether you believe decentralisation has a future; whether cryptocurrencies have the potential to transform the financial industry," he says. We believe that the enduring appeal of cryptocurrencies lies in their liberating and democratic nature; it is accessible to all, borderless, and offers fewer barriers to entry than traditional financial services." Backing from the banks? Given the subversive ideas embedded within Nakamoto's white paper, push back from the existing financial system was expected from the beginning. Yet in order to truly take off, some believe that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies need the support of the governments and banks that they seek to bypass. The backing from such institutions is already underway, at least in terms of bitcoin's underlying technology. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Due to trying to take the market share away from one of the most important tools of power money central banks and governments all over the world tried to kill bitcoin, albeit unsuccessfully," Angel Versetti, CEO of blockchain firm Ambrosus comments. "Having failed to kill bitcoin, they have decided to become its champions and proponents. Not only has this established Bitcoin as a unique financial phenomenon and a new asset and a social construct, but it also showed the resilience and power of the underlying technology, blockchain." Achieving its promise Bitcoin critics often point to the lack of mainstream adoption, which can be attributed to a variety of factors. These include price volatility that makes it unsuitable to use as a day-to-day currency or even a store of value as well as its reputation as a tool for underworld criminals. In order to overcome these challenges and achieve its potential, experts say certain industry regulation is needed, as well further technological progress with the network. "In order to achieve any kind of mainstream adoption, crypto-enabled services need to be able to keep the bad guys out," Mr Carlisle says. "Over the next 10 years, wed like to see increased efforts to embrace compliance. No regulation means no rules, which creates an environment where laundering, fraud and other forms of illegal activity can thrive." Whether or not bitcoin achieves success as a mainstream currency may be largely irrelevant when considering the ultimate impact of Nakamoto's white paper. The publishing of the bitcoin white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto a decade ago kickstarted a new era of technological innovation and global disruption that is continuing to this day. Through community consensus, bitcoins protocol has evolved through the years and has remained the standard for the cryptocurrency market and bitcoin purists," says Max Kordek, co-founder of blockchain startup Lisk. "However, the white paper is also responsible for the emergence of the underlying blockchain technology. Back then, the technology was simply a concept, a potential vehicle for technological innovation and inspiration. Ten years later, we have a robust global community forging the path ahead, carrying the technology forward. "Satoshi Nakamoto has inspired hundreds of dedicated teams around the world to build on his vision for a future powered by blockchain, a future in which individuals are empowered to bring real change to the world. Mark Zuckerberg has been summoned to appear before MPs from both the UK and Canadian parliaments, as the fallout from Facebooks data scandals continues. The social media boss has been repeatedly asked to appear in front of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, and has repeatedly refused. Last time around he sent another high-ranking member of Facebooks staff instead, who was laughed at by MPs who accused the company of having no morals. Now the two parliaments have joined up in an unprecedented move to attempt to force Mr Zuckerberg to appear before them. They will call what Damian Collins, chair of the UK body, has labelled an international grand committee to quiz the Facebook boss. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Show all 9 1 /9 How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Lock your profile down If you havent done this already, do it now. In Settings, hit the Privacy tab. From here, you can control who gets to see your future posts and friends list. Choose from Public, Friends, Only Me and Custom in the dropdown menu. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Limit old posts Annoyingly, changing this has no effect on whos able to see your past Facebook posts. Instead, on the Privacy page, you have to click on Limit Past Posts, then select Limit Old Posts and finally hit Confirm on the pop-up. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Make yourself harder to find You can stop completely random people from adding you by selecting Friends of Friends from the dropdown menu in the Who can send you friend requests? section of the Privacy page. Its also worth limiting who can find your Facebook profile with your number and email address. At the bottom of the page is the option to prevent search engines outside of Facebook from linking to your profile. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Control access to your Timeline You can limit who gets to post things on your Timeline and who gets to see posts on your Timeline too. In Settings, go to Timeline and Tagging and edit the sections you want to lock down. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Block people When you block someone, they wont be able to see things you post on your Timeline, tag you, invite you to events or groups, start conversations with you or add you as a friend. To do it, go to Settings and Blocking. Annoyingly, you have to block people on Messenger separately. You can also add friends to your Restricted list here, which means theyll still be friends with you but will only be able to see your public posts and things you share on a mutual friend's Timeline. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Review tags One of Facebooks handiest privacy features is the ability to review posts youre tagged in before they appear on your Timeline. Theyll still be visible on the News Feed while theyre fresh, but wont be tied to your profile forever. In Timeline and Tagging, enable Timeline review controls. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Clean up your apps You can view a list of all of the apps youve connected to your Facebook account by going to Settings and Apps. The list might be longer than you expected it to be. Its worth tidying this up to ensure things you no longer use lose access to your personal information. If you dont want to log into websites and apps with your facebook account, scroll down and turn Platform off. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Change your ad preferences You can view a list of everything Facebook thinks youre into and tinker with your ad preferences by going to Settings and Adverts. A lot more information is displayed on the desktop site than the app, so wed recommend doing this on a computer. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Download your data Facebook lets you download all of the data it has on you, including the posts youve shared, your messages and photos, ads youve clicked on and even the IP addresses that are logged when you log in or out of the site. Its a hell of a lot of information, which you should download to ensure you never over-share on the social network again. Mr Collins will work with Bob Zimmer, chair of the Canadian Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, to hold the hearing on disinformation and fake news. The hearing will be led by the UK committee and is scheduled to take place on 27 November. Recommended Facebook loses a million European users in three months Each committee has separately sought evidence from Facebook over failures of process, including the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and subsequent data breaches, a spokesperson for the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee said. A number of requests have been issued by the committee to Mark Zuckerberg to give evidence in person; none has been successful. In a letter sent by both Mr Collins and Mr Zimmer to the Facebook boss, they say they have been disappointed by his failure to appear in front of either parliament. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events No such joint hearing has ever been held, they write. Given your self-declared objective to fix Facebook, and to prevent the platforms malign use in world affairs and democratic process, we would like to give you the chance to appear at this hearing. We call on you to take up this historic opportunity to tell parliamentarians from both sides of the Atlantic and beyond about the measures Facebook is taking to halt the spread of disinformation on your platform, and to protect user data. The letter requests that Mr Zuckerberg should respond by 7 November. Living in fear of spiders can be pretty tough, particularly in autumn, when the nimble eight-legged creatures are most visible as males scurry around to find a mate. Now, arachnophobes might finally get some respite, as new research claims that exposing people to spiders at the exact moment their heart beats may help relieve them of their phobias. Published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, the study claims that the key is to track a person's heart rhythms while exposing them to whatever they're afraid of, which, in this case, was spiders. "Many of us have phobias of one kind or another - it could be spiders, or clowns or even types of food, writes lead author Hugo Critchley, Chair of Psychiatry at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Treatment usually involves exposing the person to their fear, but this can take a long time. Our work shows that how we respond to our fears can depend on whether we see them at the time our heart beats, or between heartbeats. You could say we're within a heartbeat of helping people beat their phobias." Critchley and his team of scientists at the University of Sussex conducted a series of clinical trials involving a total of 54 volunteers with severe fears of spiders, who were selected from 270 people who had completed questionnaires regarding their spider phobia. Each person underwent one of three modified computerised exposure exercises. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events One group of participants were presented with pictures of spiders in-time with their heartbeats. A second group were presented with the same images in-between heartbeats and a third control group saw the images at random times in therapy sessions. Its well known that exposing people to their phobias can help reduce them - this is called exposure therapy - but this is the first time this technique has been linked to a patient's own heart rhythms. The researchers found that out of all of the groups, the patients who had been exposed to the spiders in-time with their own heartbeats reported lower fears of spiders afterwards in addition to reduced levels of anxiety overall. "We think that showing spiders exactly on the heartbeat automatically increases attention on the spider, which is followed by period of low arousal," Critchley tells The Independent. "This increased attention enables people to learn that spiders are safe." According to the American Psychiatric Association, phobias affect more than 10 per cent of people in the US - 40 per cent of these are related to bugs, including spiders. As for why so many people are afraid of the tiny creatures, Chris Buddle of McGill University explains in an article for The Conversation how it derives from a fear of their erratic movements, or their legginess. Labours shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has told finance chiefs there is nothing up my sleeve and even offered to alter the partys policies in response to their advice. Mr McDonnell met with a group of representatives of financial firms and other companies in the heart of the City of London on Wednesday as part of the shadow chancellors ongoing efforts to overcome the deep distrust and often outright hostility of the business sector towards the opposition party and its leadership. All the asset managers, the bank managers what weve been saying is that what youll get from us is certainty. Theres nothing up my sleeve, he told journalists. Well publish everything in advance what the policies are, what the costings are, where the funding will come from. Some things you [finance and businesses] will like because you will get a good rate of return on your investments. Some things you wont but will happen and we believe, at the end of the day, will provide the quality of life that you will want to enjoy in this country. Goldman Sachs came to see me about Brexit. I met people like Schroders, because of their influence on shareholders. Ive been meeting with some pension funds themselves a whole range of people. For me a lot of it is listening to their ideas and long term plans. I say, come in and advise us. Heres our objectives, if youre not keen or if you dont like the policies were using to achieve those objectives, if theres another way of achieving those objectives let me know and well discuss them. If theres another way thats more pragmatic well do it. Mr McDonnell, who once listed one of his interests as generally fermenting the overthrow of capitalism, argued that Labour was offering more certainty to businesses than the Conservatives, whose policy of leaving the single market and customs union and countenancing of a no-deal outcome is a source of profound concern for business. What theyre not getting back from the Government is certainty about Brexit but also certainty about where the Government is going on a number of individual domestic policies as well, he said. Labours 2017 manifesto pledged to extend stamp duty to ensure the financial sector pays a greater share of its profits in tax. It also mooted breaking up the Royal Bank of Scotland and set out a goal of transform[ing] how our financial system operates. Most bankers and asset managers would be personally hit by the partys policy of introducing a new 45p rate of tax for those on more than 80,000 a year. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Despite Mr McDonnells attempts to build bridges, Labour has had an extremely fractious relationship with business. Last year the CBIs director general said that the partys nationalisation agenda and suggestion that existing PFI contrasts could be simply torn up would send investors running for the hills. And the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, took pride 12 months ago when an analyst at the Wall Street bank, Morgan Stanley, said a Labour government was a risk to investors. When they say were a threat, theyre right. Were a threat to a damaging and failing system thats rigged for the few, Mr Corbyn said in a social media video message. Earlier that year, Mr McDonnell said Labour had a scenario plan for a run on the pound in the immediate wake of a Labour election victory, although he added that he did not think a currency collapse was likely. Asked about the possibility of Labour supporting a second referendum on Wednesday, Mr McDonnell said that Labour would push first for a general election. If they wont give us a general election, yes, theres a potential for another vote and Parliament will decide whats on that ballot paper. But theres a lot of stages to go before that. We think theres a deal to be had if the Government sensibly negotiates. Mr McDonnells meeting took place at the headquarters of the global media group Bloomberg, close to the Bank of England. Among the finance groups listed as invited were Aviva, Prudential and the Investment Association, as well as representatives from Pfizer, Skanska, John Lewis, Virgin Media and the Crown Estate. A no-deal Brexit would likely tip the UK into a recession lasting as long as the downturn after the 2008 financial crisis, ratings agency Standard & Poors has warned. S&P said Britain would go into a moderate recession lasting four to five quarters if it leaves the EU with no deal. It said this would shrink the economy by 1.2 per cent in 2019 and a further 1.5 per cent in 2020. Most of the economic loss of about 5.5 percent (of) GDP over three years compared to our base case would likely be permanent, S&P said. Meanwhile, unemployment would rise above 7 per cent from around 4 per cent now and house prices would fall by 10 per cent over two years, the agency said. The recent recession lasted five quarters and saw the economy shrink by more than 6 per cent. Wages have yet to recover to pre-crisis levels. Our base-case scenario is that the UK and the EU will agree and ratify a Brexit deal, S&P credit analyst Paul Watters said. But we believe the risk of a no-deal has increased sufficiently to become a relevant rating consideration. S&Ps warning comes as Brexit talks remain at a standstill due to a failure to agree on the Irish border. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The ratings agency's predictions contrast dramatically with the governments forecasts of 1.6 per cent growth next year and 1.4 per cent growth in 2020, which the chancellor announced in his Budget earlier this week. However, those projections are based on a smooth Brexit, and the Office for Budget Responsibility has warned that its forecasts could be changed rapidly in the event of a chaotic Brexit. Philip Hammond also said that a no-deal Brexit would result in a new Budget. Removing the appendix could reduce the risk of Parkinsons disease in later life by as much as 20 per cent, according to new research. Thought to be linked to abnormal clumps of protein molecules which kill nerve cells, Parkinsons causes gradually worsening tremors in the limbs and muscles. Previous research has suggested the disease starts in the gut. But now a team of American and Swedish researchers have discovered the appendix acts as a reservoir for these abnormal alpha-synuclein proteins, even in adults without the disease The team analysed the health records of 1.6 million Swedish adults and found that those who had an appendectomy had a 19.3 per cent reduction in their chance of developing the disease. A second analysis of 849 patients diagnosed with Parkinsons, found that having an appendectomy was associated with a delay in the onset of the disease by 3.6 years on average. However, an appendectomy had no effect on Parkinsons development among people who had a family history or genetic risk of the disease. Our results point to the appendix as a site of origin for Parkinsons and provide a path forward for devising new treatment strategies that leverage the gastrointestinal tracts role in the development of the disease, said Dr Viviane Labrie one of the authors of the study published in the Science Translational Medicine journal. Despite having a reputation for being useless the appendix has a poorly understood role in the immune system and Dr Labrie said it was surprising that the disease causing protein clumps were evident in the appendix of both healthy adults and people with the disease. It appears that these aggregates although toxic when in the brain - are quite normal when in the appendix, added the researcher from the at Van Andel Research Institute, US. Science news in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Science news in pictures Science news in pictures Pluto has 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen Pluto has a 'beating heart' of frozen nitrogen that is doing strange things to its surface, Nasa has found. The mysterious core seems to be the cause of features on its surface that have fascinated scientists since they were spotted by Nasa's New Horizons mission. "Before New Horizons, everyone thought Pluto was going to be a netball - completely flat, almost no diversity," said Tanguy Bertrand, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center and the lead author on the new study. "But it's completely different. It has a lot of different landscapes and we are trying to understand what's going on there." Getty Science news in pictures Over 400 species discovered this year by Natural History Museum The ancient invertabrate worm-like species rhenopyrgus viviani (pictured) is one of over 400 species previously unknown to science that were discovered by experts at the Natural History Museum this year PA Science news in pictures Jackdaws can identify 'dangerous' humans Jackdaws can identify dangerous humans from listening to each others warning calls, scientists say. The highly social birds will also remember that person if they come near their nests again, according to researchers from the University of Exeter. In the study, a person unknown to the wild jackdaws approached their nest. At the same time scientists played a recording of a warning call (threatening) or contact calls (non-threatening). The next time jackdaws saw this same person, the birds that had previously heard the warning call were defensive and returned to their nests more than twice as quickly on average. Getty Science news in pictures Turtle embryos influence sex by shaking The sex of the turtle is determined by the temperatures at which they are incubated. Warm temperatures favour females. But by wiggling around the egg, embryos can find the Goldilocks Zone which means they are able to shield themselves against extreme thermal conditions and produce a balanced sex ratio, according to the new study published in Current Biology journal Ye et al/Current Biology Science news in pictures Elephant poaching rates drop in Africa African elephant poaching rates have dropped by 60 per cent in six years, an international study has found. It is thought the decline could be associated with the ivory trade ban introduced in China in 2017. Reuters Science news in pictures Ancient four-legged whale discovered in Peru Scientists have identified a four-legged creature with webbed feet to be an ancestor of the whale. Fossils unearthed in Peru have led scientists to conclude that the enormous creatures that traverse the planets oceans today are descended from small hoofed ancestors that lived in south Asia 50 million years ago A. Gennari Science news in pictures Animal with transient anus discovered A scientist has stumbled upon a creature with a transient anus that appears only when it is needed, before vanishing completely. Dr Sidney Tamm of the Marine Biological Laboratory could not initially find any trace of an anus on the species. However, as the animal gets full, a pore opens up to dispose of waste Steven G Johnson Science news in pictures Giant bee spotted Feared extinct, the Wallace's Giant bee has been spotted for the first time in nearly 40 years. An international team of conservationists spotted the bee, that is four times the size of a typical honeybee, on an expedition to a group of Indonesian Islands Clay Bolt Science news in pictures New mammal species found inside crocodile Fossilised bones digested by crocodiles have revealed the existence of three new mammal species that roamed the Cayman Islands 300 years ago. The bones belonged to two large rodent species and a small shrew-like animal New Mexico Museum of Natural History Science news in pictures Fabric that changes according to temperature created Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a fabric that adapts to heat, expanding to allow more heat to escape the body when warm and compacting to retain more heat when cold Faye Levine, University of Maryland Science news in pictures Baby mice tears could be used in pest control A study from the University of Tokyo has found that the tears of baby mice cause female mice to be less interested in the sexual advances of males Getty Science news in pictures Final warning to limit "climate catastrophe" The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a report which projects the impact of a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and warns against a higher increase Getty Science news in pictures Nobel prize for evolution chemists The nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three chemists working with evolution. Frances Smith is being awarded the prize for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes, while Gregory Winter and George Smith take the prize for their work on phage display of peptides and antibodies Getty/AFP Science news in pictures Nobel prize for laser physicists The nobel prize for physics has been awarded to three physicists working with lasers. Arthur Ashkin (L) was awarded for his "optical tweezers" which use lasers to grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou were jointly awarded the prize for developing chirped-pulse amplification of lasers Reuters/AP Science news in pictures Discovery of a new species of dinosaur The Ledumahadi Mafube roamed around 200 million years ago in what is now South Africa. Recently discovered by a team of international scientists, it was the largest land animal of its time, weighing 12 tons and standing at 13 feet. In Sesotho, the South African language of the region in which the dinosaur was discovered, its name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn" Viktor Radermacher / SWNS Science news in pictures Birth of a planet Scientists have witnessed the birth of a planet for the first time ever. This spectacular image from the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope is the first clear image of a planet caught in the very act of formation around the dwarf star PDS 70. The planet stands clearly out, visible as a bright point to the right of the center of the image, which is blacked out by the coronagraph mask used to block the blinding light of the central star. ESO/A. Muller et al Science news in pictures New human organ discovered that was previously missed by scientists Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluid-filled compartments researchers have termed the interstitium. These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins Getty Science news in pictures Previously unknown society lived in Amazon rainforest before Europeans arrived, say archaeologists Working in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, a team led by archaeologists at the University of Exeter unearthed hundreds of villages hidden in the depths of the rainforest. These excavations included evidence of fortifications and mysterious earthworks called geoglyphs Jose Iriarte Science news in pictures One in 10 people have traces of cocaine or heroin on fingerprints, study finds More than one in 10 people were found to have traces of class A drugs on their fingers by scientists developing a new fingerprint-based drug test. Using sensitive analysis of the chemical composition of sweat, researchers were able to tell the difference between those who had been directly exposed to heroin and cocaine, and those who had encountered it indirectly. Getty Science news in pictures Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary Professor Tom Foltynie, from the University College London Institute of Neurology, was not involved with the study but said: This is strong, highly valuable, long term epidemiological evidence supporting a link between Parkinsons and the gut. The question that remains is why Parkinsons develops in only some people with abnormal alpha synuclein aggregation in the gut, and why others are seemingly resistant. The findings emerged as a new therapy with the potential to stop the progression of Parkinson's was developed by scientists at Australia's University of Queensland. A small molecule known as MCC950 worked to effectively cool the brain of a disease sufferer in a number of animal models, preventing the loss of brain cells, researchers said. They hope human clinical trials can begin in 2020. Associate Professor Trent Woodruff said: "The disease is characterised by the loss of brain cells that produce dopamine, which is a chemical that co-ordinates motor control, and is accompanied by chronic inflammation in the brain.We found a key immune system target, called the NLRP3 inflammasome, lights up in Parkinson's patients, with signals found in the brain and even in the blood. Recommended Scientists discover what the appendix is for "MCC950, given orally once a day, blocked NLRP3 activation in the brain and prevented the loss of brain cells, resulting in markedly improved motor function." The study, which was also published in Science Translational Medicine, was supported by The Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research and Shake it Up Australia Foundation. Parkinsons UK says the lifetime risk of developing the disease is around 2.7 per cent and 145,519 people currently have disease in the UK. Claire Bale, head of research at the charity said: There is much still to learn about how surgical approaches, such as removing the appendix, may stop the progression of toxic proteins that cause Parkinsons. However, these approaches are unlikely to eliminate the condition, as Parkinsons may also start in other areas of the body or brain. Jamal Khashoggi felt safe in Turkey, comfortable enough to buy an apartment in the Zeytinburnu district of Istanbul and make plans to partially settle down there. Turkey was not only his Saudi clans ancestral home, but also the nation of his future wife, Hatice Cengiz. The 59-year-old Saudi journalist also felt an affinity for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, despite what critics describe as Turkeys authoritarian drift, and appreciated his Justice and Development Partys brand of populist, Islamist-rooted politics far more than that of Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He felt real simpatico with Erdogan, says Maggie Mitchellhe Salem, a friend of Khashoggi. There was some kind of bond there. In how he viewed Erdogan, it was with an eye towards what he had been during his earlier political career. Jamal saw there was some of that still there, in a way many of us dont. Thats how he was, though. Jamal was always full of hope. As the daughter of the Earl and Countess of Longford, she was one of the last ever debutantes. But as a poet and campaigner, Judith Kazantzis, who has died aged 78, was a keen advocate for social justice and reform. Recommended Unseen Sylvia Plath short story to be published by Faber next year Kazantzis was the fourth child of Frank Pakenham, Earl of Longford, the Anglo-Irish Labour cabinet minister who died in 2001, and his wife Elizabeth Harman, the historian, who died in 2002. Young Judith Elizabeth Pakenham grew up in a literary household. Her father was a publisher. Her seven siblings included historians Antonia Fraser and Thomas Pakenham and the novelist Rachel Billington. Born in Oxford, Kazantzis was educated first at Mayfield School, which she likened to a prison, then at Londons More House School, before returning to her birthplace to read modern history at the all-female Somerville College. Upon graduating in 1961, Kazantzis embarked on her own literary career, writing arts reviews for the Evening Standard and history textbooks. As the daughter of a peer, she was entitled to style herself Lady but quickly dropped the title in her professional life. In 1963, she married lawyer Alexander Kazantzis. The couple had two children. Kazantzis wrote her first poem aged seven. In the 1970s, now in her thirties, she returned to her first literary love. She published her first collection, Minefield, which drew heavily on her complicated family relationships, in 1977. She published 11 other collections of poetry and, in 2002, the novel Of Love And Terror a multi-generational story of women in love and war. Influenced by Sylvia Plath, Kazantzis poetry threw light on the power dynamics of relationships in the domestic and social spheres. Kazantzis also turned to the classics for inspiration, notably reworking the stories of Clytemnestra and Odysseus (in 2002 she translated In Cyclops Cave: The Odyssey, Book IX). Kazantzis frequently used her poems to highlight injustice on an international scale. In 1986 she published A Poem For Guatemala, declaiming US involvement in the genocide of the Mayan Indians. In Just After Midnight, published in 2004, she wrote about the West Bank and Tiananmen Square. Her powerful verses brought her literary acclaim. In 2006, she was the recipient of the Society of Authors Cholmondeley Award. Like her father, Kazantzis threw herself behind many social causes. She was a supporter of the Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament, joining the protest at the Greenham Common air base. Her contemporary poem Hiroshima Day expressed her disgust at the UKs policy of nuclear deterrence. During the 1990s, she worked for Kalayaan, a charity supporting migrant domestic workers. She was one of the founders of British Writers in Support of Palestine. She later chaired the judging panel of the Longford Prize for prison reform. Also like her father, Kazantzis was a staunch Labour supporter. Upon graduating, she worked for the Chelsea Labour Party. However, she became increasingly disillusioned with the party under Tony Blair and eventually resigned her membership in 1991. Kazantziss first marriage ended in 1982, though she retained her husbands surname for professional reasons. She married again in 1998. Her second husband was lawyer and thriller writer Irving Weinman. For part of each year, Weinmans teaching work took them to Floridas Key West. They spent the rest of the year in Lewes, East Sussex. Kazantzis was Royal Literary Fund fellow at the University of Sussex from 2005 to 2006. Aside from poetry, Kazantzis was an accomplished water-colourist and printmaker, who showed her work in many group exhibitions and at her Lewes home. Weinman died in 2015. Kazantzis is survived by her two children, Miranda and Arthur, two step-children and her seven siblings. Judith Kazantzis, poet, born 14 August 1940, died 18 September 2018 New images offer the best ever proof that a supermassive black hole is lurking at the middle of our own galaxy. The huge astronomical phenomenon and can be seen swirling around clumps of gas at the centre of the Milky Way, according to scientists. Astronomers have long thought that there is a huge black hole hiding out in our own galaxy. But because they are entirely dark, it is difficult to actually spot it., and scientists continue to investigate how they are formed. Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 more commonly known as WR 124 and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region Now the new pictures from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) show clumps of gas swirling around at about 30% of the speed of light on a circular orbit just outside its event horizon. It is the first time material has been observed orbiting close to the point of no return, and the most detailed observations yet of material orbiting this close to a black hole, scientists say. Recommended Scientists see evidence of black holes merging into each other Specialist equipment was used to take a close look at the infrared radiation coming from the accretion disc around Sagittarius A*, the massive object at the heart of the Milky Way. The ESO said the observed flares provide long-awaited confirmation that the object in the centre of the galaxy is, as has long been assumed, a supermassive black hole. The flares originate from material orbiting very close to the black hole's event horizon - making these the most detailed observations yet of material orbiting this close to a black hole. Reinhard Genzel, of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, who led the study, said: "This always was one of our dream projects but we did not dare to hope that it would become possible so soon." Additional reporting by agencies Scientists are watching a vast cloud spread out of Mars. The featuring is hovering over a volcano on the Martian surface. But it does not appear to be related to volcanic activity, instead is a water ice cloud being pushed around by the volcano. That did not stop many speculating that the images showed a huge fire burning on the planet, despite that being technically impossible. And some even went to far as to suggest that the activity might be linked to alien life, with one newspaper suggesting the evidence could be getting hidden by Nasa. Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 more commonly known as WR 124 and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region But the actual explanation is much cooler: it's not hot, but very cold indeed. Water ice clouds condense over the summit of the volcano, known as Asia Mons, and can be spotted spreading across the surface. Recommended Nasa Kepler Space Telescope dies after running out of fuel The images were collected by the European Space Agency's Mars Express craft. They were first spotted in late September and have been tracked throughout October, allowing for hundreds of pictures. The white cloud stretches 1,500km over the surface of the planet far bigger than the volcano itself making it easy to see in images sent back from the spacecraft. Usually, the clouds disappear around this kind of year. Mars had its winter solstice on 16 October, and the clouds usually go before that. But a water ice cloud in this region has occurred at a similar time of year before, scientists say. Nasa and Vans have finally released their new collection, inspired by space suits and borrowing from the patches for the agency's most famous missions. The collection comes amid a huge range of Nasa-licensed products and suggestions that the relationship could eventually go the other way, with brands appearing on the space agency's rockets. The collection takes some of the Vans well-known silhouettes, including its Sk8-Hi shoes and traditional clothing and accessories. But it pairs them with imagery taken from Nasa's history, including patches inspired by the Apollo 11 mission the space agency's famous "meatball" logo. Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 more commonly known as WR 124 and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region There are eight shoes in all, coming in everything from sneakers to slip-ons. And there are plenty of clothes offerings too, including an anorak in black and orange, T-shirts, hoodies and a bag. The collection will be available on 2 November at Vans stores and on its website. (Vans (Vans) It is far from the first time that Nasa has joined up with design companies to create consumer products: earlier this year, it worked with streetwear designer Heron Preston to create a 60th anniversary collection, and even made homeware with Ikea. Numerous fashion companies have recently borrowed from Nasa's history of design to create space-inspired clothes. Recommended Nasa Kepler Space Telescope dies after running out of fuel The agency also makes its own clothes, which sell at the visitor centres at its facilities and online. And the space agency has even suggested that its collaborations with brands could go the other way, too. As it continues to look for sources of funding, Nasa administration Jim Bridenstine has even suggested that the agency could open itself up to product placement a decision that some suggested could lead to rockets with brands' logos on their side, for instance. Police investigating the deaths and illnesses of premature babies given contaminated food at British hospitals have charged a pharmaceutical company with a series of offences. London-based ITH Pharma is accused of seven counts of supplying medicines not of the nature or quality specified and failing to take all reasonable steps to ensure patients were not infected with contaminants. The charges follow a four-year investigation by the Metropolitan Police into a contaminated batch of drip feed distributed to NHS hospitals in May 2014. Scotland Yard launched the probe following the death of nine-day-old Yousef Al-Kharboush on 1 June that year after he contracted an infection at St Thomas hospital in Lambeth, London. Two other babies died and another 20 fell ill at nine hospitals. All developed blood poisoning after receiving intravenous food, known as total parental nutrition (TPN), manufactured by ITH Pharma. An investigation found Yousefs death was the only fatality caused by contamination. The company said it had every sympathy for all the families affected but would vigorously defend this case. UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 17 November 2021 The sun rises over South Shields Lighthouse, on the North East coast of England PA UK news in pictures 16 November 2021 ancer Maithili Vijayakumar at the launch of 2021 Diwali celebrations at St Andrew Square in Edinburgh PA UK news in pictures 15 November 2021 Forensic officers work outside Liverpool Women's Hospital, following a car blast, in Liverpool Reuters UK news in pictures 14 November 2021 Wreaths by the Cenotaph after the Remembrance Sunday service in Whitehall, London PA UK news in pictures 13 November 2021 Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, is ending his hunger strike in central London after almost three weeks. Ratcliffe has spent 21 days camped outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London without food. He began his demonstration on 24 October after his wife lost her latest appeal in Iran, saying his family was caught in a dispute between two states PA UK news in pictures 12 November 2021 Peter Green protesting outside the Cop26 gates during the official final day of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow. PA UK news in pictures 11 November 2021 Seagulls fly around the statue entitled 'Tommy', a first World War soldier by artist Ray Lonsdale at dawn in Seaham, Britain Reuters UK news in pictures 10 November 2021 Climate activists dressed as characters inspired by the Netflix series Squid Game protest as they ask Samsung to go 100% renewable energy, outside the venue for COP26 in Glasgow Reuters UK news in pictures 9 November 2021 A deer statue silhouetted at Loch Faskally in Pitlochry, Scotland Reuters UK news in pictures 8 November 2021 Sunrise over St Mary's Lighthouse at Whitley Bay on the North East coast of England PA UK news in pictures 7 November 2021 Activists from Friends of the Earth during a demonstration calling for an end to all new oil and gas projects in the North Sea outside the UK Government's Cop26 hub during the Cop26 summit in Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2021 Protesters take part in a rally organised by the Cop26 Coalition in Glasgow demanding global climate justice PA UK news in pictures 5 November 2021 Final touches are made to a life sized Sir David Attenborough cake surrounded by animals as part of a display created by a group of cake artists during Cake International at NEC Birmingham PA UK news in pictures 4 November 2021 A spectacular display of the Northern Lights seen over Derwentwater, near Keswick in the Lake District PA UK news in pictures 3 November 2021 Police and demonstrators at a Extinction Rebellion protest on Buchanan Street, during the Cop26 summit in Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 2 November 2021 A person walks along the Basingstoke canal near to Dogmersfield in Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 1 November 2021 Sir David Attenborough delivers a speech during Cop26 in Glasgow Reuters UK news in pictures 31 October 2021 Extinction Rebellion activists protest in Edinburgh as the Cop26 conference begins in Glasgow Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2021 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with Mapuche leader and Minga Indigena Lead Coordinator Claflin Lafkenche (right) alongside indigenous delegates at a ceremonial gathering at the Tramway in Glasgow in a symbolic gesture to mark a unified demand for climate justice PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2021 Ocean Rebellion put on a display of puking oil heads ahead of climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow EPA UK news in pictures 28 October 2021 A man dressed as Santa Claus outside Selfridges in London as the department store unveils its Christmas windows on Oxford Street PA UK news in pictures 27 October 2021 Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak during a visit to Fourpure Brewery in Bermondsey, London, after the chancellor announced a cut to beer taxes in his budget PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2021 Activist Steve Bray demonstrates with a toilet outside the gates of Downing Street, after MPs voted in Parliament against the Environment Bill, allowing companies to pump raw sewage into UK rivers and seas, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 October 2021 Second World War veteran James White, 96, at the opening of the Edinburgh Garden of Remembrance, marking the start of the remembrance period PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2021 Richard Ratcliffe holds up a photo of his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as he protests outside the Foreign Office while on hunger strike, part of an effort to lobby the UK foreign secretary to bring his wife home from detention in Iran Getty UK news in pictures 23 October 2021 Partner of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Stella Morris and Editor in Chief of WikiLeaks Kristinn Hrafnsson attend a protest ahead of the appeal hearing over Assange's extradition, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 22 October 2021 Palace Gardener Justine Howlett adds the finishing touches to pumpkins bearing the face of Henry VIII and his wives, at Hampton Court Palace. PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2021 Flooded fields near Lingfield in Surrey, after southern England was hit overnight by heavy rain and strong winds from Storm Aurore moving in from France PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2021 A wing surfer enjoys the strong winds as they surf in the sea off of Hayling Island in Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 19 October 2021 Actor Jude Law holds hands with Little Amal, a 3.5-metre-tall puppet of a nine-year-old Syrian girl, as it arrives in Folkestone, Kent, as part of the Handspring Puppet Company's 'The Walk' PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2021 A view over Southend-on-Sea in Essex, which is set to become a city in tribute to Sir David Amess MP, who spent years campaigning for the change Getty UK news in pictures 17 October 2021 Members of the Essex Bangladeshi Welfare Association pay their respects by floral tributes laid at the scene where Sir David Amess MP was killed at Belfairs Methodist Church, in Leigh-on-Sea Reuters UK news in pictures 16 October 2021 Boris Johnson, Sir Keir Starmer, Priti Patel and Lindsay Hoyle pay respects to Sir David Amess at Belfairs Methodist Church, in Leigh-on-Sea, the site of his death EPA UK news in pictures 15 October 2021 A person lays flowers at the scene near the Belfairs Methodist Church in Eastwood Road North, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, where Conservative MP Sir David Amess has died after he was stabbed several times at a constituency surgery. A man has been arrested and officers are not looking for anyone else PA UK news in pictures 14 October 2021 A red deer stag during rutting season in Bushy Park, Richmond, south west London, which is home to over 300 red and fallow deer PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2021 Police officers detain a man as Insulate Britain activists block a roundabout at a junction on the M25 motorway during a protest in Thurrock Reuters UK news in pictures 12 October 2021 The aerial climate installation by Swiss artivist Dan Acher 'We Are Watching' is unveiled at Our Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2021 A young girl is helped by a Border Force officer as a group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, following a small boat incident in the Channel. PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2021 People walk past a life-size sculpture of British singer John Lennon entitled "Imagine", by sculptor Lawrence Holofcener, displayed to mark what would have been the 81st birthday for the former member of the Beatles in Carnaby Street Reuters UK news in pictures 8 October 2021 WW II veteran, 96-year-old Lorna Cockayne, who served in the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS), popularly and officially known as the Wrens, as a Bletchley Park codebreaker, poses for a photograph with the Legion d'honneur after receiving it during a ceremony at the Pear at Parley in Ferndown, Bournemouth PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2021 British comedian Jo Brand poses with cut-out silhouettes representing women outside the Metropolitan Police headquarters New Scotland Yard, to highlight violence against women by male police officers or former police officers AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 6 October 2021 A protester, wearing a mask of Johnson, holds a sign reading Question it all on the final day of the Tory conference Getty UK news in pictures 5 October 2021 Members of Insulate Britain outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, before a hearing over the injunction banning the environmental activists from blocking the M25 PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2021 A delegate passes a street cleaner on the second day of the annual Conservative Party Conference being held at the Manchester Central convention centre AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2021 Margaret Thatcher-themed mugs for sale at the annual Conservative Party conference in Manchester EPA UK news in pictures 2 October 2021 A couple make their way through a flooded underpass in Bristol as a yellow weather warning for rain and wind is issued for parts of the UK Tom Wren/SWNS UK news in pictures 1 October 2021 A driver talks to members of the media after passing his HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) driving test at National Driving Centre in Croydon, south London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 30 September 2021 The centrepiece One Thousand Springs by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is seen ahead of the beginning of the Japan Festival, a celebration of the countrys plants, art and culture running from 2-31 October, at Kew Gardens in London PA UK news in pictures 29 September 2021 The family of Betty Campbell unveil the bronze sculpture of her during the unveiling of the statue in Central Square, Cardiff, of Betty Campbell, Wales' first black headteacher PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2021 A sign referring to the lack of fuel is placed at the entrance to a petrol station in London AP Yousefs parents said the lengthy police investigation had been like living with an open wound that will not close. He and his twin brother Abdulilah were born by emergency caesarean section at 32 weeks gestation. While in intensive care, they were both fed intravenously and, although Abdulilah was not affected, Yousef contracted septicaemia. Their father Raaid Sakkijha said: We have found it impossible to move on while the case is ongoing, I am not sure that we will ever come to terms with what happened. We never celebrate events such as Yousefs brothers birthday because it is too painful a reminder of what weve lost. The familys solicitor Arti Shah, of legal firm Fieldfisher, said: It has been incredibly hard for Yousefs parents to have to wait so long for a charging decision while the company has simply been allowed to continue to trade. Yousefs family has suffered the worst grief imaginable, knowing that Yousefs death was avoidable. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events In a statement, ITH Pharma said: We have every sympathy for all the families affected, regardless of the cause. However, we are disappointed by the decision to charge the company and will vigorously defend this case. Since 2008, ITH has manufactured more than 1.4 million components of total parenteral nutrition and is the sole commercial supplier of reactive feeding solutions to the NHS. This product has helped thousands of extremely vulnerable infants survive premature and complex births. ITH imposes rigorous environmental monitoring on its manufacturing process. The company has always had a strong relationship with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and continues to receive exemplary ratings for quality and safety. The northwest London firm will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on 17 December. A failed asylum seeker is facing removal from the UK even though a judge has ruled her nine-year-old daughter could be subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) if taken abroad. In a preliminary private hearing in the High Court on Wednesday, Suffolk Country Council, the local authority responsible for the childs welfare, asked the judge to consider the case. The girls mother, who has links to Bahrain and Sudan, fears that if she leaves Britain for Bahrain, she will end up being be trafficked to Sudan, where the girl would be subjected to FGM. The judge said the case, which is said to be the first of its kind, raised public interest issues relating to tensions between politicians and the courts and could be reported by journalists. Mr Justice Newton said the trial judge might give guidance on how such issues should be resolved if they arose again. Barrister James Holmes, who is leading Suffolk Councils legal team, said a family court judge had concluded that the girl would be at risk and made her the subject of an FGM protection order. But Home Office officials had rejected the womans asylum application and ordered her removal. The Home Offices lawyer told the judge that the woman would be allowed to stay in the UK for the next few weeks. Two new processing centres are to be opened in Hayes and Milton Keynes to handle high-risk customs arrivals after Brexit. Paul Lincoln OBE, director-general of Border Force, said the centres would be set up regardless of whether a security deal is reached with the European Union (EU) or its terms. Speaking at a police conference in central London, he said the government had ordered the acceleration of no-deal preparations but added: We are still confident that we can secure a deal with the EU. Mr Lincoln told senior officers and police and crime commissioners it was working to minimise the potential disruption that may occur at the border and ensure a smooth and orderly exit. He was speaking a day after being accused of not being straight with MPs over the security consequences of a no-deal Brexit. The Border Force is to prioritise security, followed by the flow of people and goods, and then revenue. We're implementing a number of different projects, which are both at the border but also to minimise activity at the border, to include inland clearance sites, Mr Lincoln said. For example, the government has already announced two new inland clearance sites one at Hayes [west London] and one at Milton Keynes, which is to do new checks away from the border. A National Audit Office report on border preparedness, which was released last week, said the facilities would target the 50 current highest-risk traders from the rest of the world. It added: If there is no deal, it will also use these sites for compliance activity relating to high risk EU traders. HMRC does not expect to use these facilities to undertake checks relating to other intelligence-led risks, but they could be used in certain circumstances if required. A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Show all 65 1 /65 A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit An estimated 700,000 people marched through London to demand a final say on the withdrawal agreement Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Red smoke from a canister hangs in the air as around 100,000 demonstrators march through London during a People's Vote anti-brexit demonstration savings banners and placards Anti-Brexit People's Vote March for the Future in London Rex A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Mayor of London Sadiq Khan takes part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Protesters wearing final Say shirts and holding placards Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit MP Chuka Umunna (left) and MP Vince Cable (right) as MP Anna Soubry (centre) addresses Anti-Brexit campaigners at a rally after the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A Peoples Vote march attendee calls for a Final Say Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators with banners 'We're with EU' during the People's Vote March for the Future in London, Britain, 20 October 2018. Reports state that the 'March for the Future' is to be led by a column of young people and call for a Peopleas Vote on the Brexit deal. After marching through central London, there will be a rally on stage in Parliament Square, including speeches from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. EPA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Protesters at Londons march for the future in October The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Editor of The Independent Christian Broughton speaks to demonstrators in Parliament Sqaure after they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A poster at the March for the Future in October The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators hold placards as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 campaigner wrapped in EU flag Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators pass Trafalgar Square as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators wave Union and European flags and hold up placards as they pass Trafalgar Square, taking part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators hold placards as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A demonstrator holds a message during a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators take part in the 'People's Vote March for the Future,' in central London, Britain, 20 October 2018. Reports state that the 'March for the Future' is to be led by a column of young people and call for a Peopleas Vote on the Brexit deal. After marching through central London, there will be a rally on stage in Parliament Square, including speeches from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan EPA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A protester brandishes an Independent t-shirt during the Brexit March Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Tens of thousands of people take part in People's Vote March for the Future in central London. The march organised by the People's Vote campaign is led by young people calling for a People's Vote on the Brexit deal Rex A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum PA Border Force is already recruiting staff in Milton Keynes and Hayes. It is taking on a 300-strong readiness taskforce for Brexit and another 600 extra staff. Mr Lincoln said stringent leave restrictions have been imposed in the months before and after Britain leaves the EU in March 2019. He added: This wasn't a popular measure with my 8,190 staff but it was something we decided needed to be done given this was a momentous occasion for the country. The last time did this was for the 2012 London Olympics, which was a slightly different experience. The Metropolitan Police is among the forces preparing for potential disorder at British ports in the event of a no-deal Brexit, which could spark protests and significant traffic jams. Earlier this year a leaked document prepared by the National Police Coordination Centre revealed the real possibility of police calling on the military to help with civil disorder caused by a no-deal Brexit. It warned of traffic queues at ports and said concerns around medical supplies could feed civil disorder, while a rise in the price of goods could also lead to widespread protest and trigger crimes such as theft. All arms of the British criminal justice system and law enforcement are facing a huge loss of intelligence if Britain loses access to databases including the Schengen Information System (SIS II), and the European Arrest Warrant. Authorities have been collaborating on contingency plans to replace the Europe-wide tools currently used but admit alternatives would be sub-optimal, slower and potentially make the public less secure. Lord Bach, who sits on the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners' Brexit working group, said European officials had made it absolutely crystal clear is that there is no chance of a deal being made on security and policing before March 2019. It would have to take place, if it is to be made at all, in the transition period to the end of December 2020, he added. Sir Philip Rutnam, permanent secretary to the Home Office, said a no-deal scenario was not impossible but said: We remain confident that we will reach a deal. The mutual self-interest is overwhelming. Remember, remember, the fifth of November, Gunpowder, treason and plot! We see no reason, Why gunpowder treason, Should ever be forgot! Every 5 November we remember the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 a thwarted act of terror in which a cabal of Catholic conspirators planned to blow up the House of Lords to rid England of King James I. The plot is commemorated every autumn with the burning of an effigy of Guy Fawkes, its mastermind, an oddly pagan act of gloating sanitised by the addition of fireworks, sparklers and toffee apples. The scholarly and superstitious James VI of Scotland had ascended to the English throne in 1603 following the death of Elizabeth I, ending the reign of the Tudors and uniting the monarchies of the two nations as Britains first Stuart king. Had they succeeded in assassinating the Protestant James at the state opening of Parliament, the plotters, led by Fawkes and Robert Catesby, hoped to install the Catholic Philip III of Spain in his stead. James himself was broadly sympathetic to Catholics as both his mother and his wife, Mary Queen of Scots and Anne of Denmark, were of the faith, but the prevailing climate in England was hostile. Recusants who refused to attend Church of England services on a Sunday were fined 20 a month. Catholic hopes of a more tolerant England under the king were dashed when he announced his utter detestation of its adherents in February 1604 following the foiling of the Bye and Main Plots against him. The former saw Catholic agitators plan to kidnap him, the latter to replace him with his cousin, Lady Arabella. Catesby, a nobleman who had been pardoned for his part in the Earl of Wessexs abortive coup detat of 1601, had visited Spain in a bid to encourage Philip to invade England but was unsuccessful. Frustrated, he returned to London and recruited 12 men to carry out an attempt on Jamess life. One of these was Fawkes, a zealous Catholic convert from York who had fought for Spain against rebellious Dutch Protestants in the Low Countries during the Eighty Years War. Guy Fawkes (Hulton Archive/Getty) Here he had encountered soldier Thomas Wintour, who had recommended him to his cousin Catesby for his valour and experience with explosives. Fawkes has been described by the historian Dame Antonia Fraser as a tall, powerfully built man, with thick reddish-brown hair, flowing moustache, and a bushy reddish-brown beard. Originally intending to dig a tunnel under the streets of Westminster to Parliament, the plotters had to abandon the scheme and entrusted another of their number, Thomas Percy, to rent a cellar directly below the Lords. Fawkes posed as a caretaker under the name John Johnson to conceal his visits there to stow the powder kegs. On 26 October, Lord Monteagle - a member of the House received an anonymous letter warning: They shall receive a terrible blow this Parliament; and yet they shall not see who hurts them. The author is thought to have been Francis Tresham, his brother-in-law and one of Catesbys accomplices, apparently entertaining grave doubts. Monteagle passed the letter onto the king and the men were discovered on 4 November, when Fawkes himself was caught red-handed by royal guards below ground with the 36 tell-tale barrels, a fuse, a box of matches and a small iron lantern. Questioned before James, Fawkes impressed the monarch with his Roman resolution when he frankly declared his intention was to blow you Scotch beggars back to your native mountains. English conspirator Guy Fawkes is interrogated by King James I after his arrest for planning to blow up the House of Lords (Getty Images) He was subsequently imprisoned in the Tower of London and interrogated under torture on the rack by Sir William Waad, the administering of which extracted a full confession from Guido scrawled in the spidery writing of a soul in torment. The rest of the plotters fled the capital for the Midlands but were pursued by Richard Walsh, the High Sheriff of Worcestershire, after raiding Warwick Castle for supplies. Catesby, Percy and the brothers John and Christopher Wright were shot dead by musket fire at Holbeche House in Staffordshire on 8 November. The corpses were ransacked and Catesby and Percys bodies would subsequently be exhumed and decapitated. Fawkes and his surviving co-conspirators were reunited in London, where they were tried at Westminster Hall on 27 January 1606 and found guilty of treason, sentenced by the Lord Chief Justice Sir John Popham. Four days later, they were dragged through the streets of London to Old Palace Yard in Westminster where they were hanged, drawn and quartered. An eye-witness account recorded that Fawkes was almost too weak to reach the hangmans noose and died before he could be castrated, disembowelled and dismembered like his friends: He made no speech, but with his crosses and idle ceremonies made his end upon the gallows and the block, to the great joy of all the beholders that the land was ended of so wicked a villainy. The execution of Guy Fawkes by Claes (Nicolaes) Jansz Visscher The persecution of British Catholics only intensified after the thwarting of the Gunpowder Plot. Parliament passed the Observance of 5th November Act 1605, ordering that prayers be uttered and church bells rung every 5 November to remember, remember the conspiracy, which stood until 1859. The Popish Recusants Act 1606 meanwhile increased fines on Catholics who refused to attend Anglican services and barred them from entering the legal profession or military and denied them the right to vote. Some historians have called the affair a conspiracy on the part of the British government, a false pretext staged to justify new anti-Catholic legislation, pointing out that no half-dug tunnel was ever found, that only the state had the right to sell gunpowder and to the suspicious nine-day delay between Monteagle receiving the warning and the mens ultimate apprehension. Protestors in the UK are seen wearing the Guy Fawkes mask commonly associated with the Anonymous group. (Rex Features) The memory of the plot lingers in British politics to this day: the Yeoman of the Guard still peer into the cellars beneath the Houses as part of the state opening of Parliament to check for gunpowder. Fawkes himself lives on in the 21st century not as a proto-terrorist but as an all-purpose icon of protest and defiance, a plastic mask from the 2005 film adaptation of Alan Moores graphic novel V for Vendetta worn by the cyber-activists of Anonymous, members of the Occupy movement and Million Mask marchers as a symbol of opposition to Big Government. A Bangladeshi mother who was denied a UK visa by the Home Office to visit her seriously ill daughter has now been allowed into the country 12 hours after The Independent published a story about the case. Fateha Begum, a 61-year-old who has residency in the US, was initially told she would not be granted a visa because immigration officials were not satisfied her intentions were genuine. But she then received a letter from the Home Office stating they had exceptionally overturned the decision after supplementary information and evidence was made available to them. Yet the family had provided no new evidence since the initial application. (screen grab) The 61-year-old was initially told she could not come to Britain to see Tunazzina Nizu, who has recurrent ovarian cancer, despite providing financial evidence that she would be accommodated during her six-week visit and that her flight costs would be covered. Ms Begum, who spends half her time in the US and half in Bangladesh, also included a letter from her daughters NHS oncologist who confirmed the cancer diagnosis, describing Ms Nizus condition as very serious. But the decision from the Home Office, which provided no right to appeal, cast doubt over her reason for entering the UK. The government said it was not satisfied that she was a genuine visitor. Within an hour of The Independent publishing the story, the Home Office called the family to tell them they were reviewing the case. Within 12 hours, they emailed Ms Begum to say they had exceptionally overturned the original decision. The letter stated that the department was satisfied the decision to refuse was correct at the time of consideration, but that the decision had been reversed based on the compelling and compassionate aspects of [the] application, together with the supplementary information and evidence that has been made available to [the Home Office]. Jan Doerfel, Ms Begums lawyer, said he was delighted for his client and her family, but added it was a scandal that the Home Office defended the initial unlawful decision. He said: The fact is that my client had submitted all the evidence with her initial application on 10 September 2018, including all the financial information and her doctors letter which showed that she is a genuine visitor under the immigration rules. This evidence was ignored by the decision-maker, who was also fully aware of the compassionate circumstances in her case. It is a scandal that instead of apologising for the unlawful and devastating refusal in the first place and vowing to review decision-making practices so this will never happen again the entry clearance manager is defending the initial unlawful decision. He said they had tried to justify the reversal by citing supplementary information when there was none, adding: What is needed is individual accountability for decisions that can ruin peoples lives and a clear commitment and consistent practice to take lawful decisions on all applications in the first place. Chai Patel, legal policy director for the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said: This case, like so many others, exposes a cavalcade of failings in the Home Office. This lady should never have been prevented from visiting her dying daughter. A decent country, which I hope we aspire to be, would do everything in its power to help such an application, not look for reasons to refuse. Caseworkers are far too reliant on the excuse that they suspect people who have compelling reasons to visit will want to stay on illegally, as way of helping Theresa May meet her net migration target. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events But worse it seems that yet again the Home Office has changed its mind just after a story broke in the press [...] They know these decisions are indefensible, but they also know that thousands of people dont have the power to command media attention, and in those cases they continue to get away with it. Ms Nizu, who lives in Dagenham, East London, with her husband and two young children and is currently in Queens hospital, has had two unsuccessful rounds of chemotherapy. She is due to begin radiotherapy, but because of a failed kidney this has been delayed. After hearing that the decision had been reversed, she said: Im so happy. My mum is going to come next week. I spoke to her this morning and she was very happy crying with happiness. It was really hard when I thought I wouldnt see her. Boris Johnson took part in a 14,000 all-expenses paid trip to Saudi Arabia just two weeks before the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, parliamentary papers have revealed. The ex-foreign secretary flew out to Jeddah on September 19 for a three-day visit, where his accommodation, food and travel were funded by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs. An entry in the Commons register of members' interests said Mr Johnson's purpose was a "meeting with regional figures to promote education for women and girls", a cause he championed while at the Foreign Office. However the trip is likely to trigger a backlash, following international condemnation of the murder of Mr Khashoggi, who was killed at the Saudi consulate in Turkey, earlier this month. A source close to Mr Johnson said: Mr Johnson visited Saudi Arabia to discuss his long-standing campaign of improving education for women and girls. He has denounced the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and continues to believe that the UK must hold Saudi Arabia to account for this barbaric act." The source said there was no cost to the taxpayer for the visit, which was declared in line with parliamentary transparency rules. Saudi Arabia has faced global criticism over the death of Mr Khashoggi in its consulate in Istanbul amid allegations from Turkey that the well-known government critic was killed by agents from Riyadh. Turkish prosecutors said they believe Mr Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the consulate before his body was dismembered and disposed of, in their first official statement on the case. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia initially denied knowledge of his death before claiming it was the result of a "rogue operation". Andrew Smith, of the Campaign Against Arms Trade, said: "As foreign secretary, Boris Johnson supported billions of pounds worth of arms sales to the Saudi regime and gave his full backing to its terrible bombardment and blockade of Yemen. "Politicians should not be taking money from authoritarian regimes or dictatorships like the one in Saudi Arabia, which has an appalling human rights record and has inflicted a humanitarian crisis on Yemen. "The Saudi regime is not spending money on hospitality for Boris Johnson because it cares about his views on education. It is doing it because it knows that he's got ambitions for Downing Street and it wants to buy influence." Shadow cabinet office minister Jon Trickett said it was symbolic the "cosy relationship" between the Tories and the Saudi government. He added: This latest error of judgement from Boris Johnson comes after doing absolutely nothing as foreign secretary to pressure the Saudi regime to change its behaviour, much like the current Conservative government. Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Show all 7 1 /7 Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi Washington Post journalist who was critical of the Saudi regime and the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he was murdered on 2 October in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul AFP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Heir to the Saudi throne, Mohammed bin Salman has been implicated in the murder, with US officials claiming that he must have known of the plot AFP/Getty Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures 15 man hit squad Turkish police suspect these 15 men of being involved in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, issued 10 October, 8 days after the journalist disappeared EPA Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saud al-Qahtani Aide to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saud al-Qahtani is claimed to have ordered Khashoggi's murder Saud Al-Qahtani/Twitter Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb A former diplomat who often travelled with the Crown Prince, Mutreb was initially claimed to be the leader of the hit squad and is pictured here entering the Saudi consulate on the day of the murder AP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Mustafa al-Madani First implicated in the 15 CCTV photos released by the Turkish police, al-Madani was later found to have been used as a body double for Khashoggi, leaving the Saudi consulate dressed in his clothes on the day the journalist was killed CNN Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Salah bin Jamal Khashoggi (L) Son of the murdered journalist met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on 23 October EPA Kate Allen, Amnesty International UKs director, said the trip came in the middle of a "vicious human rights crackdown" and questioned whether he raised the case of jailed women rights activists like Loujain al-Hathloul, who defied the kingdom's driving ban. Mr Johnsons support for women and girls education in the Middle East is welcome, but he and others must speak out publicly about how Saudi Arabia systematically denies women their basic human rights," she said. Mr Johnson has lavished praise on the Saudi Crown Prince as a supposed reformer, which is a total misjudgement. Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, told MPs that the murder was "incredibly shocking" but it was important to consider Saudi Arabia's importance for the UK arms industry and the risk of destabilising the Middle East. He told the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee: "The Khashoggi murder is incredibly shocking. I have spoken more openly and more strongly about it than any Western foreign minister that I am aware of. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events "I made it very clear that if the press stories were true - and it appears increasingly likely that they are true - then what happened would be completely contrary to our values." But Mr Hunt added: "Our response has to be considered, for two reasons. Firstly, we do have a commercial relationship and there are jobs in the UK - in the North West and the South West - that are at stake." The second consideration was the risk of "unintended consequences" any response could have in the highly sensitive region, where Saudi Arabia is a key ally. A Brexit deal will be agreed with the EU within three weeks, Dominic Raab has predicted despite the apparent stalemate in the negotiations. The Brexit secretary told MPs the talks were on course to achieve a breakthrough by 21 November, insisting: The end is now firmly in sight. In a letter to the Brexit committee, Mr Raab wrote: While obstacles remain, it cannot be beyond us to navigate them. We have resolved most of the issues and we are building up together what the future relationship should look like and making real progress. And, in a crucial sentence, he added: I would be happy to give evidence to the committee when a deal is finalised, and currently expect 21 November to be suitable. However, Theresa Mays spokesman refused multiple times to endorse her ministers view that the talks were poised to achieve success, despite the failure to strike a deal at the EU summit this month. We have always said we want to conclude the process as soon as possible, he said, declining to say that would happen in November. The Brexit appeared deadlocked after the EU rejected Theresa Mays insistence that the backstop to prevent Irish border checks must keep the entire UK, rather than simply Northern Ireland, in the EU customs territory. Cabinet ministers have also threatened to resign unless there is a time limit on the backstop, fearing the UK will otherwise be locked into EU rules permanently. A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Show all 65 1 /65 A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit An estimated 700,000 people marched through London to demand a final say on the withdrawal agreement Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Red smoke from a canister hangs in the air as around 100,000 demonstrators march through London during a People's Vote anti-brexit demonstration savings banners and placards Anti-Brexit People's Vote March for the Future in London Rex A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Mayor of London Sadiq Khan takes part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Protesters wearing final Say shirts and holding placards Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit MP Chuka Umunna (left) and MP Vince Cable (right) as MP Anna Soubry (centre) addresses Anti-Brexit campaigners at a rally after the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A Peoples Vote march attendee calls for a Final Say Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators with banners 'We're with EU' during the People's Vote March for the Future in London, Britain, 20 October 2018. Reports state that the 'March for the Future' is to be led by a column of young people and call for a Peopleas Vote on the Brexit deal. After marching through central London, there will be a rally on stage in Parliament Square, including speeches from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. EPA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Protesters at Londons march for the future in October The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Editor of The Independent Christian Broughton speaks to demonstrators in Parliament Sqaure after they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A poster at the March for the Future in October The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators hold placards as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 campaigner wrapped in EU flag Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators pass Trafalgar Square as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators wave Union and European flags and hold up placards as they pass Trafalgar Square, taking part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators hold placards as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A demonstrator holds a message during a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators take part in the 'People's Vote March for the Future,' in central London, Britain, 20 October 2018. Reports state that the 'March for the Future' is to be led by a column of young people and call for a Peopleas Vote on the Brexit deal. After marching through central London, there will be a rally on stage in Parliament Square, including speeches from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan EPA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A protester brandishes an Independent t-shirt during the Brexit March Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Tens of thousands of people take part in People's Vote March for the Future in central London. The march organised by the People's Vote campaign is led by young people calling for a People's Vote on the Brexit deal Rex A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum PA And the prime minister also faces a threat by the Democratic Unionist Party to end its propping up of the Tories in power if she allows new regulatory checks between Britain and Northern Ireland. In his letter, sent last week but only published today, Mr Raab did not go into any detail about the negotiations, which only resumed between officials this week. But he said the UK and the EU now agree on the principle of a UK-wide customs backstop although the two sides had still appeared far apart on the controversy. The EU has said it is willing to make a legal commitment to exploring a UK-wide customs backstop, but argued there is no time to agree the details before Brexit day. Therefore, it would appear only in an annexe to the withdrawal agreement which must still contain the UKs legal commitment to a Northern Ireland-only version, as the ultimate guarantee of no return to a hard border. Layla Moran, a Liberal Democrat supporter of the anti-Brexit Best for Britain group, accused Mr Raab of an arrogant statement. Theres no indication that any progress has been made on the Irish border question, she said. But, more than that, theres absolutely nothing to suggest that any deal brought back would be acceptable to parliament or even Dominic Raabs own party. Mr Rabb backtracked later, with a spokesman for his department saying: There is no set date for the negotiations to conclude. The 21 November was the date offered by the chair of the select committee for the secretary of state to give evidence. The EU has stepped up planning for a no-deal Brexit as time runs out for stalled negotiations that could see the UK crash out of the bloc without an agreement. There have been no signs of progress in Brussels since the meeting of the European Council a fortnight ago, when the EUs 27 leaders scrapped plans for a November summit to finalise a deal, stating that not enough progress had been made. With the original October deadline for a deal now officially in the past, officials behind the scenes still remain hopeful that a withdrawal agreement can be struck though there are few clues to how or when. Speaking at lunchtime on Wednesday a spokesperson for the European Commission told reporters: Im not currently in a position to confirm when the next meeting of the negotiators will take place. A committee of EU ambassadors, which organises behind-the-scenes heavy lifting, met in Brussels on Wednesday and agreed to organise a series of seminars to work out details of the EUs response to a no-deal. The sessions will cover planning for issues such as what would happen to flights between the UK and EU, the protection of citizens rights, how border controls would operate, and whether the Eurostar and freight trains could still use the Channel tunnel. Speaking at the Commissions headquarters in the Berlaymont building, the EU spokesperson added: Contact at technical level continues the Commission will debrief Coreper this afternoon on the latest state of play this afternoon of negotiations. This is just a routine update of the state of play of negotiations. Ive got no juicy details to give you Im afraid. A UK government spokesperson said: We want to get a deal as soon as possible and agreed in the autumn. We will continue to work with the EU to make this happen. Talks remain deadlocked on the issue of the Northern Irish backstop, a policy meant to ensure that no hard border appears on the islands of Ireland under any circumstances. The EU says new checks will be required on the Irish sea because the UK and EU are leaving the customs union, but Theresa May, under pressure from her DUP allies, has said no British prime minister could agree to them claiming they are a breach of sovereignty. A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Show all 65 1 /65 A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit An estimated 700,000 people marched through London to demand a final say on the withdrawal agreement Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Red smoke from a canister hangs in the air as around 100,000 demonstrators march through London during a People's Vote anti-brexit demonstration savings banners and placards Anti-Brexit People's Vote March for the Future in London Rex A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Mayor of London Sadiq Khan takes part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Protesters wearing final Say shirts and holding placards Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit MP Chuka Umunna (left) and MP Vince Cable (right) as MP Anna Soubry (centre) addresses Anti-Brexit campaigners at a rally after the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A Peoples Vote march attendee calls for a Final Say Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators with banners 'We're with EU' during the People's Vote March for the Future in London, Britain, 20 October 2018. Reports state that the 'March for the Future' is to be led by a column of young people and call for a Peopleas Vote on the Brexit deal. After marching through central London, there will be a rally on stage in Parliament Square, including speeches from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. EPA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Protesters at Londons march for the future in October The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Editor of The Independent Christian Broughton speaks to demonstrators in Parliament Sqaure after they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A poster at the March for the Future in October The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators hold placards as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 campaigner wrapped in EU flag Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators pass Trafalgar Square as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators wave Union and European flags and hold up placards as they pass Trafalgar Square, taking part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators hold placards as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A demonstrator holds a message during a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators take part in the 'People's Vote March for the Future,' in central London, Britain, 20 October 2018. Reports state that the 'March for the Future' is to be led by a column of young people and call for a Peopleas Vote on the Brexit deal. After marching through central London, there will be a rally on stage in Parliament Square, including speeches from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan EPA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A protester brandishes an Independent t-shirt during the Brexit March Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Tens of thousands of people take part in People's Vote March for the Future in central London. The march organised by the People's Vote campaign is led by young people calling for a People's Vote on the Brexit deal Rex A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum PA In September the UK looked close to agreeing to regulatory as opposed to customs checks on the Irish Sea, but a swift rejection of that idea by the DUP appears to have killed it, at least for now. As a result of the impasse there has been no formal drawing up of an outline of the future trade relationship between the EU and UK, which Britain has been desperate to talk about since talks started over a year ago. Ms Mays Chequers plan, for frictionless trade outside the customs union and single market, was rejected by EU leaders as unworkable. George Osborne has defended the governments programme of austerity after enduring a verbal assault during an appearance on the BBCs Newsnight. The former chancellor who admitted his administration had made mistakes that contributed to the Brexit vote insisted the UK had to live within its means after being told his treatment of the poorest people in this country has been despicable. Mr Osborne, now editor of the London Evening Standard, sister title to The Independent, was invited on the programme after his successor Philip Hammond claimed the era of austerity is finally coming to an end in this weeks Budget. Fellow guest on the show, writer Polly Toynbee, said the former Conservative MP who oversaw the governments policy of austerity had done such harm and damage to this country, branding him the most right-wing chancellor we have ever had. The columnist tore into Mr Osborne after Newsnight presenter Evan Davis suggested the former chancellor was closer to Polly Toynbees politics than you are to two-thirds of Conservative Party members. Ms Toynbee described the comparison as unthinkable. This man has done such harm and damage to this country, she added. He has been the most right-wing chancellor we have ever had. The journalist said Mr Osborne had taken billions from Britains poorest through benefit cuts and then abused them with that endless talk about people with their blinds down, trying to make people hate anyone on benefits, despite the fact that the great majority of them are in work, often working in two jobs. She told the ex-MP: Your treatment of the poorest people in this country has been despicable. Mr Osborne replied: I just disagree with all of that. We were left a desperate political and economic situation by the Labour government that [Ms Toynbee] supported and cleaned up the mess, but obviously not to [her] satisfaction. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Asked by Mr Davis if he had any regrets about his time in office, the former chancellor admitted government errors had led to Brexit. We were wrong to play into the debate that everything that Brussels did was a challenge and a battle and was wrong, he said. The Conservative government had also set targets on cutting immigration that we couldnt deliver and that then led to a debate about how you might deliver those targets, he conceded. We definitely contributed to that argument, didnt make enough of the value of immigration. He went on to urge Theresa Mays government not to attempt to compete with Labour on government spending. The Conservatism I think that works is socially progressive and fiscally conservative and we lost in the election I wasnt involved in 2017 because we tried to out-Ukip Ukip, he said. We arent going to win the next election by trying to out-Corbyn Corbyn. The Conservatives should stand their ground for what I think still millions of people are, they want a progressive, successful country, youve got to live within your means... trying to outspend our political opponents wont help the Conservatives either. Michael Gove has come under fire for failing to protect the UK from lower quality imports such as chlorinated chicken in his new agriculture bill. MPs asked why such measures were not included when the whole raison detre of the plan was to preserve animal welfare and environmental standards. The environment secretary stated such provisions were not within the scope of the bill, which was meant to deal exclusively with payments to farmers and the fairness of the UK supply chain. But during a question session on the bill, members of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) Committee said any subsidies provided to farmers would be meaningless if they were undercut by products from abroad. Concerns have been raised in recent months about the prospect of post-Brexit trade deals with nations like the US and Australia, which could see the country flooded with cheap products including hormone-treated beef and even burnt goat heads. Committee member and Labour MP Kerry McCarthy asked if Mr Gove and agriculture minister George Eustice would endorse a change to the bill to ensure UK standards would apply equally to imports. Mr Eustice responded saying the argument would be better suited to the trade bill, and that the new agriculture bill was more focused on schemes to replace the EUs common agricultural policy. A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Show all 65 1 /65 A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit An estimated 700,000 people marched through London to demand a final say on the withdrawal agreement Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Red smoke from a canister hangs in the air as around 100,000 demonstrators march through London during a People's Vote anti-brexit demonstration savings banners and placards Anti-Brexit People's Vote March for the Future in London Rex A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Mayor of London Sadiq Khan takes part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Protesters wearing final Say shirts and holding placards Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit MP Chuka Umunna (left) and MP Vince Cable (right) as MP Anna Soubry (centre) addresses Anti-Brexit campaigners at a rally after the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A Peoples Vote march attendee calls for a Final Say Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators with banners 'We're with EU' during the People's Vote March for the Future in London, Britain, 20 October 2018. Reports state that the 'March for the Future' is to be led by a column of young people and call for a Peopleas Vote on the Brexit deal. After marching through central London, there will be a rally on stage in Parliament Square, including speeches from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. EPA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Protesters at Londons march for the future in October The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Editor of The Independent Christian Broughton speaks to demonstrators in Parliament Sqaure after they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A poster at the March for the Future in October The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators hold placards as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 campaigner wrapped in EU flag Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Angela Christofilou/The Independent A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Final Say campaigners take part in the peoples vote march for the future in London 20/10/2018 Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators pass Trafalgar Square as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators wave Union and European flags and hold up placards as they pass Trafalgar Square, taking part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators hold placards as they take part in a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A demonstrator holds a message during a march calling for a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, in central London on October 20, 2018. - Britons dreading life outside Europe gathered from all corners of the UK to London on Saturday to try to stop their country's looming breakup with the EU. AFP/Getty A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum. PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Demonstrators take part in the 'People's Vote March for the Future,' in central London, Britain, 20 October 2018. Reports state that the 'March for the Future' is to be led by a column of young people and call for a Peopleas Vote on the Brexit deal. After marching through central London, there will be a rally on stage in Parliament Square, including speeches from Mayor of London Sadiq Khan EPA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit A protester brandishes an Independent t-shirt during the Brexit March Angela Christofilou A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum PA A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Tens of thousands of people take part in People's Vote March for the Future in central London. The march organised by the People's Vote campaign is led by young people calling for a People's Vote on the Brexit deal Rex A historic moment: thousands march to demand Final Say on Brexit Anti-Brexit campaigners take part in the People's Vote March for the Future in London, a march and rally in support of a second EU referendum PA Its not in the scope of the bill which is intended to deal with future payment and also with fairness in the supply chain here, but the sentiments that you express are ones we absolutely share, confirmed Mr Gove. The Labour MP told the ministers this was a real point of concern for the farming community, and all the subsidies we give to British farmers would be pretty meaningless if they could be undercut by lower quality cheap imports where they cut corners. Committee chair and Conservative MP Neil Parish echoed these concerns, citing the recent visit of US agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue. He talked really nothing but getting access to our market for their chicken, said Mr Parish. The US uses different techniques to avoid contamination and infection in its livestock, washing chicken carcasses with chlorine and reportedly using up to five times as many antibiotics in their animals. Mr Eustice acknowledged these differences, stating: The US approach is much more: turn a blind eye to what might happen on the farm and treat it when it gets to the abattoir. Its a different culture and they dont have a culture of putting animal welfare in a particularly prominent position either. Given these concerns, Mr Parish told the ministers you have got to protect us against imports. I dont see what harm it would do in the agriculture bill, then at least when a trade deal comes along when we are debating it in the House of Commons we can say in the agriculture bill it refers to maintaining those standards when we import food. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Why are you so adamant it cant go there when your whole raison detre of British agriculture in the future is to have high welfare and environment standards? he asked the ministers. Responding to the hearing, a spokesperson from the National Farmers Union said: British farming operates to some of the highest standards in the world. The recent Efra Committee The Future of Food, Farming and the Environment report recommended that the government does not enter into trade agreements that allow food imports that do not meet our environmental, welfare and food safety standards. It is vital that British farmings produce and contribution to the nation is not undermined. Ms McCarthy said she planned to table an amendment to the bill to try to get these protections enshrined in law. The proposals suggested by Mr Gove include payments to farmers for environmental services such as curbing flooding and improving access to the countryside. They have been heralded as part of the governments plan to deliver a green Brexit, but some members of the Efra Committee said there were fears among farmers that the plans will come at the expense of food production. Mr Eustice said he hoped to have the agriculture bill finalised before the end of the year or early next year, before the Brexit date in March. Close Theresa May's claim that 'austerity is ending' met with laughter by MPs as she clashed with Jeremy Corbyn over the Budget Theresa May's claim that "austerity is ending" was met with laughter by MPs as the prime minister clashed with Jeremy Corbyn at Prime Ministers Questions. Condemning what he called a "broken promise Budget", the Labour leader demanded to know why the government had not pledged to end the benefit freeze. That prompted confusion over Labour's own policy on the issue after a spokesman for Mr Corbyn said the party would not necessarily raise benefits in line with inflation, despite John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, having said it would. The Tories were later engulfed by confusion of their own after Downing Street refused to endorse Brexit secretary Dominic Raab's suggestion that an agreement with the EU was likely to be in place by 21 November. As Britain prepares to leave the EU, Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, announced plans to recruit 1,000 more diplomatic staff. His predecessor, Boris Johnson, was also in the news after it emerged that he had accepted an all-expenses-paid trip to Saudi Arabia just two weeks before the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Follow the action in Westminster as it happened... A newly-expanded civil lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein alleges that the disgraced movie producer sexually harassed a 16-year-old girl. The new court documents state that the unnamed teenager moved from Poland to the US in 2002 with hopes of becoming an actress and that she met Weinstein at an event held by her modelling agency. The lawsuit - updated on Wednesday, having been filed in Manhattan - alleges that Weinstein took the teenager to his Soho apartment a few days later, where he "aggressively and threateningly" demanded sex. Recommended A sex assault charge has just been dropped against Harvey Weinstein Jane Doe, one of 10 named plaintiffs in the class action, was able to leave the alleged encounter - but lawyers say she endured nearly a decade of sexual harassment and emotional abuse afterwards. Weinstein has denied all allegations of non-consensual sexual conduct against him. In a statement, Weinstein's lawyer Bejamin Brafman told Sky News: This claim is preposterous and eventually, just as others have been exposed to be liars, this uncorroborated allegation that is almost 20 years old will be shown to be patently false. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Weinstein was charged in May with six criminal counts relating to sexual assault and harassment against three women - although one of the charges was later dropped. He now faces five charges in connection with alleged assaults against two women, one in 2013 and one in 2006. Weinstein has denied all the charges. Dozens of women have come forward to accuse Weinstein of sexual assault, harassment, or misconduct since allegations against the producer first broke in 2017. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The accusations made against the powerful Hollywood producer turned global attention onto a political movement - #MeToo - that has led to accusations against men in positions of power across various industries. Earlier this month, a year on from when the bombshell reports about the film mogul first broke, Mr Weinstein was tracked down by Sky News reporters. He was grilled by them in Manhattan, but remained silent - aside from a grin and a thank you to the reporter, before getting in his car and driving away. A theme park owner, whose ill-fated attempt to build the worlds biggest water slide ended in a 10-year-old boy being decapitated, is now facing criminal charges for crystal meth possession. Jeff Henry, who is already subject to a criminal case over the death of Caleb Schwab at Schlitterbahn Waterpark in August 2016, was arrested by police in Kansas on Monday. The latest charges are possession with intent to supply methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia alleged to have taken place in July. He also faces misdemeanour charges for possession of Xanax and buying sex. Mr Henry, who has since been bailed after posting his $100,000 (79,000) bond, was detained the day after he made a court appearance in relation to a second-degree murder charge over Calebs death. The boy was killed on the Kansas City water parks main attraction, a 168-foot tall slide called Verruckt, when a raft he was travelling in became airborne, forcing his head into a pole. Court documents released as part of a grand jury indictment in March said Mr Henry concocted a scheme to build the worlds largest water slide in 2012 on the spur of the moment. The indictment claims Verruckt, named after the German word for insane, had violated nearly all aspects of industry safety standards. Mr Henry and the slides lead designer, John Schooley, drew up plans for Verruckt in just 36 days. Experts told prosecutors the plans should have taken around three to six months. Jeff Henry was charged with drug offences on Monday (Johnson County Sheriff) The pair, who possess no formal qualifications in amusement park ride design, then allegedly ran a series of crude, trial and error tests flinging sandbags down the slide in a bid to solve an issue with rafts becoming airborne. Court documents claimed Mr Schooley had even admitted: If we actually knew how to do this, and it could be done that easily, it wouldnt be that spectacular. Prosecutors allege Mr Henry considered the slides construction an arms race against other water parks and ignored continuing problems in a bid to deliver the project for its grand opening in 2014. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The indictment claimed the park owner voiced concerns about the safety of the attraction shortly before its launch, going as far as to say he was scared he could die while riding it. [Verruckt] could hurt me, it could kill me, it is a seriously dangerous piece of equipment today because there are things that we dont know about it, Mr Henry is alleged to have said. Its complex, its fast, its mean. If we mess up, it could be the end. I could die going down this ride. Prosecutors claim Verruckt violated 'almost all' ride safety regulations (Schlitterbahn) (Schlitterbahn Kansas City) The boys death almost two years after Verruckt opened was initially thought to be a freak accident, but Schlitterbahn employees later came forward to reveal a number of visitors had previously been hurt. In total, 11 people suffered injuries on the slide, including slipped spinal discs, whiplash, broken toes and lacerations. Mr Henry and Mr Schooley have both pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, while the parks director of operations, Tyler Miles, denies a charge of involuntary manslaughter. The park began deconstruction of the slide on Monday. Police are investigating a suspicious package sent to the offices of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party. It comes two days after a 15th suspicious package was intercepted in Atlanta on its way to the CNN headquarters - what was the latest in a series of packages containing suspected pipe bombs and sent to prominent Democrats and critics of Donald Trump. CNN president Jeff Zucker said as of last week all domestic mail addressed to the news network is screened at off-site locations after it received two other packages addressed to the network's contributors, and bomb squads were called to the Atlanta post office where the package was detected. Recommended Cesar Sayoc makes first court appearance over pipe bombs The package in Miami was sent to the Democrat organisations office inside the CIC Miami building, where the local police bomb squad is investigating it. Police confirmed members of the organisation were not expecting a package and thus found it suspicious. Ricky Junquera, Vice Chair for the Democratic party of Miami Dade County, said in a statement: "Given the events of last week, we are on high alert at our office and reported to building management, who notified police, after receiving a package from an unrecognised sender. We are grateful for the first responders and police who work so diligently to keep us safe". Suspicious package addressed to former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper found in Manhattan Traffic in the surrounding area has been blocked off as a precaution. Police have not confirmed a connection between last week's incidents and this as yet but yet another suspicious package was found by the California Democratic Party Headquarters located in the state capital of Sacramento. The party organisation tweeted it received it "in the mail, which we reported to law enforcement out of an abundance of caution. We have evacuated (sic) our headquarters building as a safety (sic) precaution, and law enforcement is presently addressing the situation" Explosive packages sent to prominent Democrats and CNN Show all 11 1 /11 Explosive packages sent to prominent Democrats and CNN Explosive packages sent to prominent Democrats and CNN Barack Obama The Secret Service intercepted a package en route to the Washington D.C. residence of former President Barack Obama on Wednesday 23 October Getty Explosive packages sent to prominent Democrats and CNN Hillary and Bill Clinton A package was delivered to the Chappaqua, New York home of former US President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Tuesday 23 October Getty Explosive packages sent to prominent Democrats and CNN Joe Biden Two packages adressed to former Vice-president Joe Biden were found at a sorting facility in Delaware on Thursday 25 October AFP/Getty Explosive packages sent to prominent Democrats and CNN George Soros A package was delivered to the New York home of Billionaire investor and funder of the Democrats George Soros on Monday 22 October AFP/Getty Explosive packages sent to prominent Democrats and CNN CNN and John Brennan A package was delivered to former CIA director John Brennan at the CNN offices in New York on Wednesday 23 October Getty Explosive packages sent to prominent Democrats and CNN Debbie Wasserman Schultz A package was delivered to the office of Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Wednesday 23 October, it was addressed to former attorney general Eric Holder Getty Explosive packages sent to prominent Democrats and CNN Eric Holder The package that was delivered to the office of Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was addressed to former attorney general Eric Holder Getty Explosive packages sent to prominent Democrats and CNN Maxine Waters Two packages were sent to Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters on Wednesday 23 October, one to LA one to D.C. Getty Explosive packages sent to prominent Democrats and CNN Robert De Niro A package was delivered to actor Robert De Niro in New York on Thursday 25 October AFP/Getty Explosive packages sent to prominent Democrats and CNN Cory Booker A package found in Florida was addressed to Democratic Senator Cory Booker on Friday 26 October Getty Explosive packages sent to prominent Democrats and CNN James Clapper NYPD intercepted a package addressed to former directo of national intelligence James Clapper on on Friday 26 October AFP/Getty Cesar Sayoc of Aventura, Florida, is suspected of sending up to 15 packages containing explosive devices addressed to Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack and Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, former US Attorney General Eric Holder, House Democrat Maxine Waters, Democratic Senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, billionaires and Democratic contributors George Soros and Tom Steyer, actor Robert DeNiro, and CNN. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Ms Waters and Mr Biden both received two packages. Mr Sayoc appeared in court and documents stated he may have planned the attack for more than three months. The packages also contained a return address for House Democrat from south Florida and former Democratic National Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. All have been vocal critics of Mr Trump and the public targets of his criticism. A rally with Steve Bannon in Kansas reportedly attracted around 25 people. Mr Bannon, a former adviser to Donald Trump, appeared at the rally in a Holiday Inn in North Topeka. His speech attracted around 25 people, including the event's organisers and a group following Mr Bannon for a documentary, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported. US midterm elections: the voters Show all 10 1 /10 US midterm elections: the voters US midterm elections: the voters Ross Kershey of Exton, Pennsylvania objects to President Trump's recent threat to unilaterally suspend the constitutional protection of birthright citizenship as a way to control undocumented immigrants AP US midterm elections: the voters Thomas Jakel of Eveleth Minnesota is a former miner. The economy is the most important thing to voters in his town AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the voters Jerry Mcneff of Exton, Pennsylvania intends to split his ballot between the parties for Pennsylvania's House, Senate and governor elections AP US midterm elections: the voters Jean Hoffman of Exton, Pennsylvania has concerns about the cost of her daughters' college education. She thinks that voting Republican might help extend the economy's rise AP US midterm elections: the voters Supporters attend a rally of President Trump in Rochester, Minnesota AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the voters Supporters attend a rally of President Trump in Rochester, Minnesota Reuters US midterm elections: the voters Supporter Jenny Haley and son wait in line to see a Trump Rally in Rochester, Minnesota AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the voters Dick Calef of Exton, Pennsylvania is a life-long Republican. He credits the economic gains in suburban Philadelphia to longer-term factors beyond Trump's policies, such as the growth of internet and health care companies. He's not yet sure how he will vote AP US midterm elections: the voters Markus Fasel of Mendota Heights, Minnesota attends a campaign event for Democrat Angie Craig, his favoured congressional candidate AFP/Getty US midterm elections: the voters Supporters attend a rally of President Trump in Rochester, Minnesota Reuters Invites for the rally, dubbed "Red Tide Rising", were sent out via text message. Mr Bannon told those gathered that if Trump supporters did not vote in the midterm elections "we're going to lose this". He also referred to himself as "sloppy Steve", a name given to him by Mr Trump after he was quoted making critical remarks about the president in Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury. Despite the event featuring posters for Steve Watkins, the Republican candidate, his campaign told the paper they had nothing to do with the rally. It comes after Mr Bannon was interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller's team last week, at least the third time he has met with them, according to CNN. Steve Bannon: People in EU countries didn't sign up to have their national identity taken away After leaving the White House, Mr Bannon has been throwing his weight behind far-right politicians in Europe and elsewhere in an attempt to shake up the global order. Donald Trump called a US journalist a sick woman after she suggested he had radicalised more people than Isis. The president lashed out at GQ correspondent Julia Ioffe for comments made during a CNN panel discussion. Ms Ioffe had said: This president, one of the things that he really launched his presidential run on is talking about Islamic radicalisation. This president has radicalised so many more people than Isis ever did. She later apologised for the hyperbole, saying she had been speaking in the heat of the moment. I clarified and apologised on air, but Ill say it again here, the journalist tweeted. This has been a very emotional and painful time, but I absolutely should not have gone with such hyperbole on the air. I apologise. Asked Ms Ioffes during an interview on Fox News, Mr Trump said: Well that must be some kind of a sick woman. He then defended his repeated attacks on the media, who he regularly refers to as the enemy of the people and fake news. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events While Ms Ioffe apologised for her exaggerated comment, she also pointed out antisemitic attacks had surged since Mr Trump entered the White House. The journalist, who is Jewish, said: It is not a coincidence that the number of antisemitic attacks has jumped nearly 60 per cent in 2017the biggest one-year increase in recent historywhile this administration has systematically pulled back resources from countering domestic extremism. Donald Trump's administration is calling for peace talks and a ceasefire in Yemen within the next 30 days. Yemen has been the site of a brutal civil war since 2015, and the US has been pressured to withdraw their support for Saudi-Arabian intervention there. Defense Secretary James Mattis urged all parties to meet for peace talks in the hopes of a ceasefire. "We have got to move towards a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it sometime in the future. We need to be doing this in the next 30 days," he said. Specifically, Mr Mattis called for a demilitarisation of the border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia and that all Iranian-supplied missiles to Yemen are put under an international watch. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged both sides to discontinue attacks on the other, and says that the time for an agreed-upon ceasefire is now. The recent murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul put further strain on the USs relationship with Riyadh. The US, UK and France were providing logistical support, including intelligence and fuel, to Arab states such as Saudi Arabia as part of their intervention in Yemen. The Saudi military forces had been trying to restore Yemens internationally-recognised government. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events However, at least 16,700 civilians have died - with accusations that a Saudi-led bombing campaign has increased suffering. The United Nations calls it the worlds worst humanitarian crisis. Houthi rebels in Yemen have also issued drone missile strikes on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Blockades have made it difficult to deliver supplies to Yemen as well, leading to near-starvation of thousands. Saudi Arabia has admitted civilian casualties but says it takes all measures to avoid them, and complies with international law. The United States has never before formally called for a ceasefire through the United Nations. In the past, Houthi representatives have refused to partake in peace talks. A woman from Indiana has been accused of writing a racist note targeting a black child who was moving into a new neighbourhood with his family, using a racial slur and telling them: THIS IS A WHITE NEIGHBORHOOD. Authorities said 63-year-old Deborah Cantwell, who is white, penned the letter and placed it on the new neighbours front door this month near Greentown, Indiana. It warned the parents that one of their children, who authorities said is black, was not welcome in the community, according to court documents. It is unclear whether his parents are also black; police declined to comment further. A photo posted on GoFundMe, which appears to show the letter, revealed that a racial slur was used to describe the child. We moved here to a WHITE TOWN, ALL WHITE NEIGHBORHOOD FOR HEALTH REASONS AMONG OTHER THINGS. THIS IS OUR FOREVER HOME, WE CANNOT AFFORD TO MOVE BESIDES THIS IS MY DREAM HOME AND WE HAVE BEEN HERE FOR A VERY LONG TIME, it read. It added that the family SHOULD HAVE CONSIDERED THE NEIGHBORS before bringing the child into the area. The alleged letter posted on Amy Howell Pundts fundraising page (Amy Howell Pundt - GoFundMe) (Amy Howell Pundt, GoFundMe) The letter continued, stating just the sight of the child reminds me of all the things I live in this town to forget. Authorities have not confirmed whether the photo shows the letter, but the text matches quotes found in the court records. Ms Cantwell was arrested late last week on charges of intimidation and criminal mischief. She has since been released on bond. Officials with the Howard County Sheriffs Department said in a statement that deputies responded to the familys new home on 13 October about a letter found on the front door leading up to their move-in date. The letter contained erroneous information concerning the property and also made derogatory racial comments towards a juvenile family member, according to the statement. Court records show a family member told authorities his family had not yet moved into the house but he had stopped by the home about midnight and discovered the trees had been toilet-papered. The lengthy note was attached to the door. In her letter, Ms Cantwell said she has had negative experiences with black people and seeing the child would cause stress. She urged them not to move into the house. Ms Cantwell wrote in the letter YOU CAN SELL YOUR HOUSE AND MAKE MONEY ON IT RIGHT NOW, and added, BY THE WAY HOPE YOU HAVE DEEP POCKETS, according to the court records. Authorities suspected Ms Cantwell after the homes seller said Ms Cantwell did not want the new family to buy the home, the records said. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events When investigators questioned Ms Cantwell on 18 October, she admitted that she had written the letter because she was angry, suggesting that, throughout the years, black people held her father at gunpoint, stabbed an uncle and beat her sister. Ms Cantwell told police she delivered the note and toilet-papered the house out of rage and said I was trying to vent, according to court documents. When asked whether she regretted her actions, Ms Cantwell told police, yes and no. I am sorry that it caused so much ruckus, but I feel like I released some anger writing that letter, she said, according to the court documents. She added that had she received such a letter, Id want to get out of the neighbourhood. It is unclear whether Ms Cantwell has an attorney. She is due in court 19 November. The Washington Post India has unveiled the worlds tallest statue a towering bronze tribute to one of the key figures of its independence movement. At 597ft, the Statue of Unity honours the countrys first home minister after the end of British rule, Sardar Vallabbhai Patel. It opened in Kevadiya, Gujarat, on Wednesday. Dwarfed by the structure which reportedly cost in excess of $400m (315m) helicopters sprayed bursts of flower petals over the statue during an elaborate ceremony attended by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. The sculpture is almost 180ft taller than Chinas Spring Temple Buddha, the previous largest statue on the planet. It also dwarfs some of the most iconic monuments in the world, standing roughly four times the size of the Statue of Liberty in New York and six times the height of Rio de Janeiros Christ the Redeemer. Patel was known as the Iron Man of India for integrating various states in the post-independence era, during a time when the creation of Pakistan had sparked massive bloodshed between Hindus and Muslims in the region. The statue, in the prime ministers home state, is part of his Hindu nationalist partys policy to reinvigorate the myths surrounding what it calls the countrys forgotten leaders. Patel wanted India to be a forceful, strong, sensitive, vigilant and accommodative nation, and were working towards that, Mr Modi said at the monuments unveiling ceremony. Mr Modi today he is under fire for dismantling the honoured politicians legacy (AFP) Some of the leaders Mr Modi has branded as forgotten came from the opposition to his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress party, and fought for independence from British colonial rule in 1947. But, facing five state elections and a general election by May, the prime minister is searching for alternatives to the heroes of the Nehru-Gandhi family that have dominated Congress over the years. The BJP has accused its opposition of ignoring leaders such as Patel, and BR Ambedkar, who led the drafting of the constitution, and freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events This, however, is a distortion of history, according to Congress, which is now led by Rahul Gandhi, the great-grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indias first prime minister. Ironic that a statue of Sardar Patel is being inaugurated, but every institution he helped build is being smashed, Mr Gandhi said on Twitter. The systematic destruction of Indias institutions is nothing short of treason. Additional reporting by agencies Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed to begin by November the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims More than 700,000 Rohingya refugees crossed from the west of mostly Buddhist Myanmar into Bangladesh from August last year after Rohingya insurgent attacks on the Myanmar security forces triggered a sweeping military response. "We are looking forward to start the repatriation by mid-November," Bangladesh's Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque told reporters in Dhaka after a meeting with a Myanmar delegation led by senior foreign ministry official Myint Thu. Mr Myint Thu hailed what he called a "very concrete result on the commencement of the repatriation". He said: "We have put in place a number of measures to make sure that the returnees will have a secure environment for their return." However, the United Nations refugee agency said conditions in Rakhine state were "not yet conducive for returns", stressing that they must be voluntary. Necessary safeguards are "absent" in the region, where it has had only limited access amid continuing restrictions for media and other independent observers, it said. "It is critical that returns are not rushed or premature," said UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic. "We would advise against imposing any timetable or target figures for repatriation." Leaders of the largely stateless Rohingya community have said they will not return without various demands being met, including the right to Myanmar citizenship. "We have some demands but the government of Myanmar didn't do anything to meet them. How can we go back?" said Mohib Ullah, a Rohingya leader now living in southeast Bangladesh. "What about our citizenships, our rights and our demand to go back to our land ... our own houses?" Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Show all 30 1 /30 Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya women and children wait in line for a food distribution of super cereal at Action Against Hunger Getty Images Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya refugees gather near the fence in the "no man's land" zone between Myanmar and Bangladesh border AFP/Getty Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya women cry as they shout slogans during a protest rally to commemorate the first anniversary of Myanmar army's crackdown AP Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures A Rohingya Muslim child holding an umbrella while under the rain AFP/Getty Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya refugees cry as they pray during a gathering to commemorate the first anniversary of Myanmar army's crackdown which lead to a mass exodus of Rohingya Muslims to Bangladesh AP Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Police stand near the checkpoint at the Shwe Zar village in Maungdaw township, Rakhine State, western Myanmar EPA Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures A group of Rohingya refugee children stand at a makeshift camp EPA Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya refugee Juhara, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, poses for a portrait at the Kutapalong refugee camp near Cox's Bazar in southern Bangladesh. Juhara passes her days carting water with difficulty to thirsty bricklayers working in a bustling corner of Cox's Bazar. She has just one hand - the other was cleaved off in a raid on her village after the August 25 clampdown started last year. Her husband and parents were killed. The 40-year-old said she ran for her life but was hunted down and savagely attacked AFP/Getty Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya refugees walk on a road along a makeshift camp in Kutubpalang EPA Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya refugees are seen outside of their makeshift tent in the Kutupalong camp in Cox's Bazar Reuters Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Thousands of Rohingya refugees staged protests for "justice" on August 25 on the first anniversary of a Myanmar military crackdown that forced them to flee to camps in Bangladesh AFP/Getty Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures A Rohingya refugee child looks through a window at a makeshift camp in Teknuf EPA Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya refugee women hold placards as they take part in a protest at the Kutupalong refugee camp Reuters Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures A young Rohingya boy waits in line for a food Getty Images Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya refugees shout slogans during a protest march AFP/Getty Images Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya refugee girl with other children at a makeshift camp in Teknuf in Cox's Bazar EPA Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya women protest on the first anniversary of the Rohingya crisis Getty Images Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya women and children receive super cereal at Action Against Hunger Getty Images Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya girls share a laugh in Kutupalong, the largest refugee camp housing the Rohingya Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya refugees gather near the fence in the "no man's land" zone between Myanmar and Bangladesh border AFP/Getty Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya refugees attend a ceremony organised to remember the first anniversary of a military crackdown that prompted a massive exodus of people from Myanmar to Bangladesh AFP/Getty Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rashida Begum, a Rohingya refugee woman walks on the Kutupalong camp in Cox's Bazar Reuters Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures A Rohingya refugee bursts into tears as she shouts slogans during a protest march AFP/Getty Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya refugee baby Nur Sadek two years old undergoing treatment at a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in Teknuf in Cox's Bazar EPA Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya refugees protest Getty Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya refugees perform prayers AFP/Getty Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rashida Begum, a Rohingya refugee woman bathes her son in the Kutupalong camp Reuters Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya refugees protest Getty Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya refugees walk on a muddy road EPA Rohingya crisis one year on Myanmar camps in pictures Rohingya women and children wait in line for a food distribution of super cereal at Action Against Hunger Getty The two countries first reached a deal last November to begin repatriation within two months, but it has not started. Rohingya are still crossing the border into Bangladesh, with nearly 14,000 arriving this year, according to UN officials. UN rights investigators issued a report in August accusing which accused Myanmar's military of acting with "genocidal intent". It also called for the country commander-in-chief, Min Aung Hlaing and five generals to be prosecuted under international law. Myanmar has denied accusations of ethnic cleansing and says its actions were part of a fight against terrorism. It has also blamed Bangladesh for the delay and says it is ready to take back the refugees and has built transit centres to house them initially on their return. Given the delays, Bangladesh has been preparing new homes on a remote island called Bhasan Char, which rights groups have said could be subject to flooding. Reuters Irans relations with the European Union face a fresh potential crisis over an alleged scheme to assassinate a dissident in Denmark. Danish officials said a Norwegian suspect of Iranian descent tied to Irans intelligence services was behind the plot to assassinate an Arab Iranian opposition activist who is also a citizen of Denmark. They presented no evidence. Top Danish officials called for sanctions against Iran over the plot. Denmark summoned its ambassador to Tehran back to Copenhagen on Wednesday for consultations, an Iranian official said. Prime Minister of Denmark Lars Loekke Rasmussen speaks during a press conference in Copenhagen, 20 October 2018 (EPA) It is totally unacceptable that Iran or any other foreign state plans assassinations on Danish soil, Danish prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said on Twitter on Tuesday. Further actions against Iran will be discussed in the EU. Irans foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi dismissed the accusations, calling them plots and conspiracies meant to harm relations between Tehran and Europe. Without providing any evidence, Danish police on Tuesday linked so-called Iranian agents of attacking a person in the country, he was quoted as saying. News of the alleged plot comes just days before the imposition of fresh US sanctions on Iran that Europe has so far resisted. Danish foreign minister Anders Samuelsen, pushing for fresh sanctions over the plot, said any measures wont affect Copenhagens commitment to salvaging the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which was forged by the US, Iran and other world powers but is facing challenges after a withdrawal from the deal by the US under President Donald Trump. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, spearheading Trump administration efforts to convince European and Asian nations to abide by US sanctions on Irans oil industry and financial sector, praised the Danish decision to punish Iran over the affair. We congratulate the government of Denmark on its arrest of an Iranian regime assassin, he wrote on Twitter. We call on our allies and partners to confront the full range of Irans threats to peace and security. Analysts say any suggestion that Denmark would concoct a scenario to damage Iran-EU relations seems far fetched. Not a single major Danish political faction favours Washingtons approach to Iran or the Middle East. The general picture of Denmark saving Trump is not plausible, said Rasmus Alenius Boserup, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. In the years following Irans 1979 Islamic Revolution, Tehran operatives gunned down numerous enemies abroad, including across Europe, a practice that eased with apparent attempts to pick it up again in recent years. Last month France imposed penalties on several Iranian officials and a branch of Irans Ministry of Intelligence and Security over an alleged plot to bomb a gathering of opposition figures and US officials near Paris. The alleged plot comes almost a year after Ahmad Mola Nissi, founder of Arab nationalist group Ahvaz, was shot dead in the Netherlands capital under still mysterious circumstances. The alleged assassination attempt in Denmark unfolded in late September, just after a deadly 22 September terrorist attack on a parade in southwest Iran that was claimed by both Isis and members of an Iranian Arab separatist group, which later rescinded the claim. Iranian soldiers run for cover during a terror attack in Ahvaz on 22 September (EPA) The Norwegian-Iranian suspect had allegedly been detected spying on the home of an Arab Iranian opposition figure leading the Danish branch of a group the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, which demands independence for the oil-rich Arab southwest of Iran. Danish security forces shut down bridges into Denmark and ferry services to Sweden and Germany on 28 September in an attempt to prevent an attack. The Norwegian-Iranian suspect was arrested in Sweden on 21 October and extradited to Denmark. He has denied the charges of attempted murder collaboration with a foreign intelligence agency in court. Police surround a suspect on the Oeresund Bridge near Copenhagen on Sunday (EPA) We are dealing with an Iranian intelligence agency planning an attack on Danish soil, Danish intelligence chief Finn Borch Andersen told reporters on Tuesday. Obviously, we cant and wont accept that. The practice of Middle East autocracies using operatives abroad to dispose of dissidents, critics, and opposition activists has come to the foreground of global affairs following the 2 October killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in his own nations consulate in Istanbul, the commercial capital of Nato member Turkey. Senator Lindsey Graham says it would be terrible to be Iranian on Fox News The Khashoggi affair, as well as the case of the unnamed Norwegian-Iranian alleged operative, suggest spillover of the Middle Easts internal conflicts into Europe. They are part of a long history of such violence that stretches back to killings between rival Algerian factions in the 1950s. Its a trend that seems to be coming in more intensely, said Mr Boserup, the researcher. Of course they spy on their dissidents and they try to rein them in. What weve seen is an uptick in the risk willingness of their secret services. It jibes with autocratic powers rising and growing more emboldened, and an increasing fear among some of these autocratic regimes that dissidents matter. Everybodys happy in Happy House!, promises the front page of the menu of Casa Feliz on the seafront in Magaluf. The British customers tucking into an industrial-sized all-day breakfast of sausage, bacon, beans, eggs, tomato, mushrooms, hashbrowns, toast and tea (PG Tips, English milk) for 4.75 certainly appear content. But Vicente Tur Araullo, the proprietor, says: Im not happy at all. The rotund and normally genial bar owner is despondent because the giant tour operator, Thomas Cook, has thrown in the beer-sodden bar towel and killed off Club 18-30. A brand synonymous with sun, sea, sangria and sex (sometimes, legend has it, all at the same time), has been consigned to the museum of travel curiosities. It joins Concorde, Yugotours and free baggage allowances as 20th-century concepts that could not survive in a new millennium. They blame the English for getting drunk and all that, says the bar owner. I think they were very important for Magaluf. Across at the BH Mallorca Hotel, location for the last-ever Club 18-30 trip, workmen are taking everything down for the winter except for the ungainly waterslide that forms the centrepiece of the property. The adult water park with nine white-knuckle slides, wave pool and giant jacuzzis will reopen next summer, but without Club 18-30. If, as Philip Larkin wrote, sexual intercourse began in 1963, Club 18-30 was not far behind. It started operations in 1970, just like the Boeing 747. And in their very different ways, the Jumbo jet and the party brand liberated travellers. Club 18-30 quickly became synonymous with excessive drinking, wild partying and, well, short-term holiday romances. It was like a rite of passage, says Peter David, now a 55-year-old company director living in Surrey. He took a Club 18-30 trip to Morocco in 1980 when he was only 17. My dad had to write a letter to say I was allowed to go, he says. It was quite pissy, he recalls. Mainly drinking, and hoping you might have a shag. There was sex, but I didnt get any, unfortunately. The Islamic kingdom of Morocco did not turn out to be a long-term partner for Club 18-30. The brand whose name was (almost) its age limits achieved lasting relationships with some key Mediterranean resorts: Kavos in Corfu, Malia in Crete and Ayia Napa in Cyprus. But Magaluf was always the Club 18-30 heartland. Choosing a boozing and bonking holiday from a brochure peaked around the turn of the century: in a year, 110,000 customers spent an average of 436 on a package that included flights, transfers, accommodation and the services of a rep. He or she was not employed to inform clubbers from Somerset and Strathclyde about the landscapes and language of Mallorca, nor to lead artistic adventures to the inspirational Fundacio Joan Miro just up the road. Clients many of whom were on their first trip abroad were enticed onto banana boat rides and bar crawls. At least the booze is cheap in Magaluf (Simon Calder) But the world was changing. Travellers dont need reps to hold their hands all week, says Jools Thomas, travel and tourism lecturer at Bucks College Group in Aylesbury. The shelf life of the brand had started to decline. No-frills flying means that cheap alcohol and liberal moral codes are no longer the sole preserve of Mediterranean resorts. Stag and hen parties head for Riga in Latvia, Krakow in Poland or, for the cheapest beer in Europe, Skopje in Macedonia. Eighteen years ago, social media did not extend beyond the postcard which itself was a rare phenomenon in Magaluf, since it required a Club 18-30 customer to coordinate the activities of finding a card and a stamp, remembering the address and getting round to posting it. But today, the standard dispatch from Mediterranean beaches has shifted from a handwritten wish you were here to an instant dont you wish you were here?. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events News of the impending demise of Britains best-known youth holiday brand was buried on page six of Thomas Cooks half-year results in May. The firm said it would discontinue the UK markets Club 18-30 holiday brand after summer 2018 as a result of the continued strategic review of our differentiated holiday offer. To make its holidays more Instagrammable, Thomas Cook is discarding wet T-shirt competitions in favour of a casually cool paradise where everyone is welcome. People who were born in the 21st century are promised a melting pot of cultures, textures and flavours at its new youth brand, Cooks Club. The modern day wanderer craves more, and we think its high time to offer something extraordinary, says a company seemingly intent on turning itself into Thomas Cool. Crucially, the properties have chic backdrops which look better on selfies than the giant plastic spiral waterslide at the heart of the final Club 18-30 property in Magaluf. At BCM, the biggest club in Mallorca, the shutters are down for winter. It promises that from 9 June next year, the Foam Party, Water Party, Paint Party or the outrageous Washing Machine Party will be back. But Club 18-30 wont be. Breakfast of champions at the Happy House in Magaluf (Simon Calder) Back at the Happy House on the seafront, Abba are singing Dancing Queen and the clientele more Saga than lager are loving it. But Vicente Tur Araullo is still cross with Thomas Cook. They want more quality customers, they want families. But they didnt need to take all the other ones out; 18-30, theyre not all hooligans, are they? But with Thomas Cook unable to find a serious buyer for Club 18-30, the last banana boat has sailed. In its wake: only blurred memories, and a certain wistfulness among those who missed out on the phenomenon. As Jane, a leading travel executive, confesses: By the time I plucked up the courage to go on a Club 18-30 holiday, I was too old. Investigators searching for the remains of Lion Air Flight 610, which crashed into the sea minutes after taking off from Jakarta on 29 October, say they have detected 'pings' from the aircraft's black box flight recorder. Soerjanto Tjahjono, head of Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee, told Associated Press reporters that they know the pings detected are definitely from the recorder because of their regularity. Locating the recorder, which records audio from the cockpit as well as flight instrument readings, will be vital in discovering the reason why the plane went down so soon after takeoff. The jet, a Boeing 737 Max 8, was only two months old. Search and rescue teams have so far retrieved small pieces of debris and the remains of some of the 189 passengers and crew on board at the time of the crash, but are still trying to locate the majority of the wreckage. Indonesian navy officer Haris Djoko Nugroho told the Associated Press that sonar had detected a 22-metre long piece of debris on the seabed at 32 metres, which could be a part of the plane's fuselage. Divers will now be sent to investigate. Indonesias Transport Ministry has ordered an inspection of all Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes operated by Lion Air and the Indonesian national carrier Garuda. Boeing released a statement saying that the company is "providing technical assistance at the request and under the direction of government authorities investigating the accident". Experts from Boeing are expected to arrive in Indonesia today. Flight-tracking data shows that the plane began flying erratically just two minutes into the flight, which took off at 6.20am local time on Monday. The pilots asked to turn back shortly afterwards, before losing contact with air traffic control, a spokesman for Indonesias air navigation authorities said. Indonesia's transport minister, Budi Karya Sumadi, ordered the dismissal of Lion Air's technical director, according to Reuters. The budget airline, which was founded in 1999, has suffered a series of accidents, including the loss of 25 people when an aircraft crashed on landing in 2004. In London it might get you a flat in Chelsea, but in New Zealand 1.4m can buy an entire village. Located on the South Island, Lake Waitaki village is up for sale, with its eight three-bed homes, 14 hectares of land, a restaurant, lodge and garages all included; the new owner will also get water rights. The village sprang up to accommodate dam workers in the 1930s but has been largely abandoned since 1989, when the dam system was automated, eliminating tens of jobs. Recommended Buy your own village on the Isle of Skye It was sold to a private buyer by the state in the Nineties and has had several owners over the years. One Agency estate agent Kelli Milmine told The Guardian there had been heaps of interest in the listing, including from potential buyers keen to turn the village into a commune to house extended family, a holiday resort or a winery. The village is surrounded by mountains and the areas tourism potential is only recently starting to be realised with the opening of the Alps to Ocean (A2O) cycle trail, bringing many new visitors to the region, according to One Agency. Chinese nationals have also made enquiries, but a recent ban on foreign buyers means they cannot purchase residential properties that Kiwis could otherwise buy and live in themselves. However, the price tag is currently putting off domestic buyers, according to Milmine theyd prefer to pay in the region of NZ$1m (513,000). The village could be good for tourists (One Agency) Waitaki is just one of many small New Zealand villages that are struggling in the face of urbanisation. Theres been an increasing trend of people moving from rural communities to cities in order to find work. The New Zealand government is attempting to tackle the problem by ploughing NZ$1bn (512m) a year into the regional development fund, which is aimed at rejuvenating areas outside of the cities and making them desirable places to live and work. Its not the only time countries have had to get creative to make abandoned areas more attractive prospects. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The Italian village of Ollolai in the Barbagia region of Sardinia ran an initiative from 2015 to 2018 to attract more residents after the local population had dwindled to 1,300, with few babies born each year. The scheme, introduced by local mayor Efisio Arbau, saw houses sold for just 1 although there were strings attached. The houses themselves were in varying states of disrepair and in need of serious work, and only those with around 20,000 to 30,000 to make them inhabitable were considered. The scheme stipulated that participants must commit to refurbish the property within three years of purchase, and could only sell it on after five years. From Thursday 1 November, Ryanairs hand luggage rules change again for the second time in a year. The airline is cutting the volume of cabin baggage you can take on board without paying extra by two-thirds. Its rival, Wizz Air, is doing something similar. Their strict new rules have been called the Cliff Richard policy, after his 1963 hit, Travelling Light: No comb and no toothbrush/Ive got nothing to haul/Im carrying only/A pocket full of dreams/A heart full of love/And they weigh nothing at all. What are the rules, and which are the best and worst airlines? Here is what you need to know. What is changing? Recommended Baggage allowance for all major airlines explained Ryanair and Wizz Air are changing their cabin-baggage policies dramatically reducing the amount passengers can carry without paying extra. For Ryanair flights up to 31 October, the rule was that passengers could take one large and one small cabin bag through the security checkpoint to the departure gate without paying. But from November, the limit is cut to one midsize bag. The maximum dimensions are 40x25x20cm. The overall volume allowed without paying falls by almost two-thirds from 58 litres to 20 litres. Passengers will be allowed a bit of wriggle room in terms of their free bag; the gauge deployed at the departure gate to check the dimensions is 25 per cent bigger than the maximum size. Ryanair claims that only 40 per cent of passengers will be affected, since 30 per cent already buy Priority Boarding and 30 per cent currently travel with one bag which complies with the new dimensions. What are my options with Ryanair? Bring the single bag measuring 40x25x20cm and make do with that. Pay for Priority Boarding and take a second bag (measuring 55x40x20cm, weight no more than 10kg) on board. The cost will be 6 if you buy at the time of booking, or 8 if you book later. Note that the number of passengers allowed to choose priority boarding will be capped at 95 half the capacity of Ryanairs Boeing 737s. Check in a bag weighing up to 10kg for 8 or 10, again depending on when you choose this option. What if I just try to wing it? The airline warns that if you bring a second bag to the gate or if your small bag is too big to fit under the seat in front of you, youll be charged a fee of 25. Why is this happening? Ryanair insists the move is not aimed to make more money, but purely to improve timekeeping. Passengers have only been getting used to the airlines latest cabin-baggage policy since January. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Punctuality has been a challenge this year, said Kenny Jacobs, the airlines chief marketing officer. Weve flagged for a while that while we love offering two cabin bags, it was creating a problem at the boarding gates. We want to protect our punctuality. The policy is designed to eliminate the need to remove cabin bags at the departure gate and check them into the hold. What is Wizz Air doing? The Hungarian-based budget airline has copied Ryanairs new policy, with some small differences in dimensions. The free cabin bag can be 40x30x20cm, and if you pay for Priority Boarding (between 5 and 15) the larger cabin bag can be 55x40x23cm. A 10kg checked bag with Wizz Air costs between 7 and 12. How do these policies compare with other big airlines? Ryanairs leading rival, easyJet, currently allows one piece of cabin baggage with no weight limit and a volume of 63 litres. British Airways has the most generous cabin-baggage allowance in Europe, permitting two bags one measuring 56x45x25cm and the other up to 40x30x15cm, with a maximum weight of 23kg each. The meanest limits are on Thomas Cook Airlines (6kg) and TUI (5kg or 7kg, depending on aircraft/holiday type). These airlines and others will be looking closely at the effect of the new rules and gauging the reaction of passengers before making their next moves. Why do the rules keep changing? The frequent changes of policy, particularly by Ryanair and Wizz Air, are frustrating and confusing. But the two airlines are trying to tune their regulations to maximise efficient turnarounds of aircraft, while offering a policy attractive to (or at least tolerated by) passengers and extracting some revenue from the process. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has updated its advice to travellers to Sri Lanka, warning them to "exercise vigilance and avoid all demonstrations or large political gatherings". The update comes in the wake of Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena's sacking of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his cabinet on 26 October, and Mr Wickremesinghe's subsequent refusal to leave office. There have been political demonstrations in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, which the Foreign Office says are "likely to continue and may happen at short notice". Over the weekend the bodyguard of the Sri Lankan oil minister fired into a crowd of protestors, killing one and injuring a further two people. Travellers are advised to monitor the FCO's Sri Lanka pages for further advice. Sri Lanka recently topped Lonely Planet's list of top countries to visit in 2019. Among its reasons to go, Lonely Planet said the country's people defied "all odds by their welcome and friendliness after decades of civil conflict". Lonely Planet tweeted on 30 October that: "We're aware of the current political situation in Sri Lanka which has occurred since we published our latest book Best in Travel 2019 (which ranks Sri Lanka as the number 1 country to travel to in 2019). Despite this, travel to Sri Lanka remains largely unaffected. We'll monitor developments but as with any travel we'd recommend you follow advice from your local government." Joe Bindloss, Lonely Planet's destination editor for Sri Lanka, told The Independent: "The latest developments in Sri Lanka are disappointing, and a setback for those hoping to draw a line under the troubles of the past, but aside from advice to avoid protests and other large gatherings in Colombo, the FCO travel advice for Sri Lanka is unchanged, and at this stage, the political situation is not significantly affecting travel to the island. With the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi fresh in the mind, the appetite of the global community for holding countries to account on human rights abuse appears to be increasing. Not only are world leaders joining in criticism where abuses are exposed, but ordinary citizens seem to have been galvanised to take action too. Though limited, and late, this change in attitude is welcome. But what of the other countries still benefiting from their own covert abuses that target communities that the west is still turning a blind eye to? Countries such as China, which, through its ever-expanding financial power, has managed to throw a great deal of the world off the scent of its relentless oppression of various communities at home (the plight of Uyghur Muslims, in particular), as well as abroad. Take Chinas Belt and Road project throughout Africa as an example of its new global influence: the ambitious endeavour has seen the nation expand its influence exponentially in countries including Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya and South Africa, through huge investment in this major infrastructure scheme. China has been touted as a welcome, benevolent financier in Africa, with the added bonus of providing infrastructure support and peace-keeping assistance even where past evidence suggests the contracts drawn up to facilitate this support have a troubling legacy for local people. In September, at a Beijing summit with African leaders, Xi Jinping pledged $60bn (47bn) for endeavours in Africa in addition to its 2015 promise of $60bn, to be delivered in the form of investment and loans, as a means of bettering lives for locals, and putting more emphasis on the environment and resources. China has, during this time, also become increasingly involved in UN Peacekeeping operations, offering training for police officers and military assistance in a number of African nations. This level of intervention should be raising global questions about how power is used and where it is abused. But those questions are not forthcoming. There are lots of reasons to be worried about Chinas conduct on the world stage. Just this week, the country opened its 13th police station in South Africas Port Elizabeth, an initiative that the provincial commissioner, lieutenant general Liziwe Ntshinga referred to as noble. But South Africans who believe the partnership is built on corruption and a growing debt burden (as evidenced in Angola, a nation China has also consistently provided with aid and one which has an appalling track record when it comes to reproductive rights, abuses by security and political violence) think otherwise. In Kenya, a wave of Chinese management brought to light racist abuse against Kenyans in the workplace, with examples of bosses referring to black people as monkeys, according to The New York Times. The long arm of finance appears to be linked to Chinese enforcement, not only at home but now overseas. And Chinas record at home should be of particular concern to anyone watching its influence spread across the globe. As Human Rights Watch consistently reports, Chinese law enforcement has seen to the surveillance and arbitrary detention of human rights defenders for years now. Forced confessions, brought about through physical as well as psychological torture, are known to be common interrogation tactics when it comes to law enforcement, with the Turkic Muslim Uyghur community one of the most severely targeted groups in the region. Extremely invasive surveillance missions have targeted the community, ranging from the installation of QR codes on the homes of Uyghur Muslims to the legalisation of vocational training centres understood by many in the west to be internment camps that serve solely as a means of further persecuting the religious minority. It is estimated that up to one million Chinese Muslims are held in these camps today. The abuses of world power, in the face of Chinas financial influence, do not end at human lives, either. The Chinese cabinet has just reversed a 25-year-old ban on the use of rhinoceros horns and tiger bones in medicine a move that the World Wildlife Fund said would have devastating consequences globally. And yet, unlike elsewhere, nobody speaks up. Chinas silent abuses are treated with a business-as-usual complacency. When the world wakes up to the severity and consequences of its silence over China, the cries of injustice will be too little, too late. Earlier this year, revelations of Cambridge Analyticas involvement in data harvesting exposed a serious breach of law by Facebook. Last week, the punishment for the crime was finally announced: a 500,000 fine by the UK Information Commissioners Office the most it could demand. The ICO ruled that until 2015, third party app developers had been allowed access to Facebook subscribers data without clear consent. For one of the worlds five richest corporations, the fine amounts to petty cash slipping unnoticed through a hole in a trouser pocket. Were a similar breach to be committed after 25 May this year, the fine for Facebook under the new GDPR would have been gigantic. Working on Facebooks turnover of $40bn for 2017, it would likely have been $1.6bn, rather than a comparatively measly half a million UK pounds (some $700,000). According to the ICO, even when alerted to what was happening, Facebook did not do enough to ensure those who continued to hold the data had taken adequate and timely remedial action, including deletion. One million Facebook subscribers were affected in the UK. Globally Facebook say it was 87 million. Facebooks culture problems are clear. Mark Zuckerberg confirmed to the US senate in April that the super wealthy company he founded and runs as CEO is an idealistic and optimistic company. But it is clear now that we did not do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well. He realised that too late. Odd really, given that he started 2018 with a New Year message that preached a serious year of self-improvement. As he admitted then: We currently make too many errors enforcing our policies and preventing misuse of our tools. The over idealistic and positive culture clearly did not change fast enough. Alerts in 2015 about questionable exploitation of data by third parties had been marginalised internally at Facebook. We should have done more to investigate claims about Cambridge Analytica and taken action in 2015, Facebook has now reiterated in a statement. Had they done so, they would probably not have been found guilty of the serious breach. The fine is nothing to the company but the reputational damage is significant enough for them to wish they had taken notice. But as Chris Langdon and I report in our new book Thinking the Unthinkable, Facebooks self-confidence had been brought up short by its own complacency. Only Good News was the secret label for the conference room of Facebooks COO Sheryl Sandberg. That was because good news was all she wanted to hear, as one jaundiced former insider revealed. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Show all 9 1 /9 How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Lock your profile down If you havent done this already, do it now. In Settings, hit the Privacy tab. From here, you can control who gets to see your future posts and friends list. Choose from Public, Friends, Only Me and Custom in the dropdown menu. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Limit old posts Annoyingly, changing this has no effect on whos able to see your past Facebook posts. Instead, on the Privacy page, you have to click on Limit Past Posts, then select Limit Old Posts and finally hit Confirm on the pop-up. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Make yourself harder to find You can stop completely random people from adding you by selecting Friends of Friends from the dropdown menu in the Who can send you friend requests? section of the Privacy page. Its also worth limiting who can find your Facebook profile with your number and email address. At the bottom of the page is the option to prevent search engines outside of Facebook from linking to your profile. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Control access to your Timeline You can limit who gets to post things on your Timeline and who gets to see posts on your Timeline too. In Settings, go to Timeline and Tagging and edit the sections you want to lock down. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Block people When you block someone, they wont be able to see things you post on your Timeline, tag you, invite you to events or groups, start conversations with you or add you as a friend. To do it, go to Settings and Blocking. Annoyingly, you have to block people on Messenger separately. You can also add friends to your Restricted list here, which means theyll still be friends with you but will only be able to see your public posts and things you share on a mutual friend's Timeline. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Review tags One of Facebooks handiest privacy features is the ability to review posts youre tagged in before they appear on your Timeline. Theyll still be visible on the News Feed while theyre fresh, but wont be tied to your profile forever. In Timeline and Tagging, enable Timeline review controls. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Clean up your apps You can view a list of all of the apps youve connected to your Facebook account by going to Settings and Apps. The list might be longer than you expected it to be. Its worth tidying this up to ensure things you no longer use lose access to your personal information. If you dont want to log into websites and apps with your facebook account, scroll down and turn Platform off. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Change your ad preferences You can view a list of everything Facebook thinks youre into and tinker with your ad preferences by going to Settings and Adverts. A lot more information is displayed on the desktop site than the app, so wed recommend doing this on a computer. How to stop Facebook from revealing everything about you Download your data Facebook lets you download all of the data it has on you, including the posts youve shared, your messages and photos, ads youve clicked on and even the IP addresses that are logged when you log in or out of the site. Its a hell of a lot of information, which you should download to ensure you never over-share on the social network again. As we detail in our book, the Cambridge Analytica revelations forced Zuckerberg to concede his narrow view of his mega companys responsibility. Vast wealth and commercial success had not generated the worldly capacity for wisdom that many expected. Today, given what we know ... I think we understand that we need to take a broader view of our responsibility ... That we are not just building tools, but that we need to take full responsibility for the outcomes of how people use those tools as well, he told a press briefing in April. This was clearly a revelation. After being grilled by two US congressional committees, Zuckerberg said it would take three years to fix the nature and scale of the problems. Campbell Brown, the companys head of news partnerships, conceded: There is an awakening that is taking place inside the company where the mentality is very much all hands on deck. People have to see how we perform on our promise. That awakening needed to be dramatic. Three years to fix things? The urgency is in weeks, days and hours, perhaps even minutes. In late September, the data of 50 million more Facebook users was exposed by a security flaw. So there are significant problems of culture, mindset and behaviour to overcome at high speed. It is all very well for former deputy prime minister Sir Nick Clegg to accept a $1m a year job as Facebooks head of global affairs and communications. But window dressing and image massaging the company globally, as Clegg is tasked with doing, will not fix the systemic flawed attitudes of top executives and engineers, which subsequently lead to violations of the law. And parliamentary efforts to significantly tighten the accountability of tech giants such as Facebook seem to be getting scant traction. The UKs Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee warned in July that the UK faces a democratic crisis founded on the manipulation of personal data. This is what happened unlawfully to Facebooks data and led to the fine. MPs demanded new powers for the UKs Electoral Commission to block the accelerating scale of manipulation. This would include bigger fines and new regulation of social media firms. But of 42 recommendations in its interim report, the committee chair Damian Collins said last week that the government has accepted only three. It will probably take an unthinkable digital disaster of seismic proportions to force high speed engagement on these issues. Only then will we understand that tech companies themselves, and political systems, lack the wherewithal to regulate corporate giants such as Facebook. Nik Gowing is co-author of Thinking the Unthinkable, a New Imperative for Leadership in a Disruptive Age and a former BBC news presenter The quiet voice of sanity tending to be lost amid the din of partisan lunacy, you may have missed the words of Dr Jeff Cohen. A member of the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, he is also president of Allegheny General Hospital, where the alleged killer was treated for gunshot wounds sustained in a shootout with police. A few hours after Robert Bowers allegedly massacred 11 elderly people while yelling his desire for all Jews to die, this Jew visited him in his hospital room. I just asked him how he was doing, he told ABC News. I asked him if he was in pain, and he said no, he was fine. Names of Pittsburgh shooting victims released Cohen added that Bowers was being cared for by another Jewish doctor and a Jewish nurse. We have a very simple mission, he said. Were here to take care of sick people. Were not here to judge you. I am, he forlornly continued, trying to make some sense of this. Those words wont make a jot of difference to the outcome of the US midterms a week today (though the killings, along with the Florida MAGA fans pipe bombs, seem to have stalled Republican momentum), or to the political landscape beyond. Few will be aware of them at all. Those who are wont have an epiphany and stop hating Jews or anyone else if they hate them now. But the facts they relate and the sentiment they express deserve to be recognised and demand to be celebrated. What Cohen passes off as basic medical professionalism is that, but it is also something more. It is a reminder, when this is so easily forgotten, that however deafening the sound of people judging each other with poison darts on Twitter and with bullets, simple humanity will make itself heard. Under another president, any other president, Cohen would surely be invited to the Oval Office to have the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest US civilian honour, pinned to his lapel. Under this president, who reportedly had to be badgered by his Jewish son-in-law and Jewish convert daughter to express even the most glib, synthetic sympathy for the victims, that seems unlikely. Cohen will return to the obscurity from which he came, and the caravan of psychotic rage will roll on towards the next slaughter of innocents. Nothing literally nothing imaginable will penetrate the perverted morality of those who support a man whose reflex response to the Pittsburgh horror was to blame its victims for the lack of armed security in a place of worship. Hence the widespread assumption that, if he avoids tanking the US economy, Trump will be exceedingly hard to beat in 2020. For all that, potential Democratic opponents are already testing the water. Among this crowded field, in her own head if nowhere else, appears to be Hillary Clinton. As if on a mission to reposition herself as a living exemplar of the Einsteinian definition of madness, Clinton told an interviewer that she would like to be president. The message was mixed. She did say she has no desire to run, but also suggested she has the ideal experience to clean out the steaming, putrid mess Trump will leave behind him. Im not even going to think about that, she said of a third crack at the White House, evidently thinking about precisely that, until we get through this 6 November [midterm] election. Easy as it is to ridicule the notion, you understand the air of shell-shocked bewilderment she wears these days like a carefully colour-coded accessory to the trusty pants suit. She probably ought to wear it more like a hair shirt, her complacency on the campaign trail having done as much as anything else to release the kraken. But to win the popular vote by 3 million and lose is a haymaker even the most durable punch bag in modern political history could not be expected to take on the chin without becoming a bit punchy. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events If her own mind is the only conceivable venue in which she is a viable runner for the presidency, it is impossible to fathom the depths of the generic politicians capacity for self-delusion. Thankfully, thinking of her dignity, her oldest and staunchest supporters wasted no time before pulling the plug on whatever ambition she was sustaining on life support. Yet somehow, after 21 months of Trump, the Democrats are still without an unofficial leader. Even Barack Obama, who is finally, gingerly taking off the gloves, cannot find the words to make any more sense of how his country has sunk to this than Cohen can make of the massacre in his synagogue. Even Obama hasnt developed a coherent vision of how it might be led out of this civil war. A chilling sense of misery about the state of America and the world had infiltrated the bones long before Sundays Brazilian presidential election diminished any residual hope that the nationalist surge throughout western democracies might be nothing more than a blip. The horror in Pittsburgh that preceded it by a day will not prove to be the ebbing point of this hideous tide. But while he may be president of nothing more than a hospital, a Jewish doctor, with two Jewish colleagues, soared above the screeching hatred to give a lesson, if only for a sacred moment, about what it should mean to be human. The gruesome murder of exiled Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has sparked debate about US and UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia in ways that four years of war in Yemen have failed to do. Yesterday, the matter was debated in parliament with renewed focus. And last week, something rather unusual happened: a member of the British military establishment Brigadier John Deverell, former defence attache to Riyadh, no less spoke out against British policy on the Radio 4 Today programme. He states quite clearly and simply that were deeply complicit in the war, a conclusion the UK government has been strenuously trying to avoid for the past four years. His intervention was also unusual in a couple of further respects. The brigadier curtly dismissed as complete rubbish the claim that if the UK stops selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, Russia and China will step into the gap. He was clear that the effectiveness of suspending arms sales unilaterally, if necessary would be swift and significant: once existing Saudi stocks run out, that would be it. A halt to sales, combined with pressure on the Saudis to encourage the Yemen government to negotiate with the Houthis, could end the war. And when Today presenter John Humphrys intervened to make the governments case, repeating that an end to arms sales would hit British jobs, the brigadier refused to pander to the ideological tug, though he recognised there would likely be furious lobbying by the arms industry. As a long-standing researcher of UK arms export policy, this intervention was music to my ears. At last, someone from the British establishment was giving a description of policy and practice that I recognised. This moment may represent a turning point in the debate about arms sales to Saudi Arabia, not least because the government is now having to resort to the tired old argument if we don't sell, someone else will an indication that it is scrabbling around for a justification. Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Show all 7 1 /7 Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Jamal Khashoggi Washington Post journalist who was critical of the Saudi regime and the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he was murdered on 2 October in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul AFP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Heir to the Saudi throne, Mohammed bin Salman has been implicated in the murder, with US officials claiming that he must have known of the plot AFP/Getty Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures 15 man hit squad Turkish police suspect these 15 men of being involved in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, issued 10 October, 8 days after the journalist disappeared EPA Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Saud al-Qahtani Aide to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saud al-Qahtani is claimed to have ordered Khashoggi's murder Saud Al-Qahtani/Twitter Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb A former diplomat who often travelled with the Crown Prince, Mutreb was initially claimed to be the leader of the hit squad and is pictured here entering the Saudi consulate on the day of the murder AP Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Mustafa al-Madani First implicated in the 15 CCTV photos released by the Turkish police, al-Madani was later found to have been used as a body double for Khashoggi, leaving the Saudi consulate dressed in his clothes on the day the journalist was killed CNN Jamal Khashoggi death: key figures Salah bin Jamal Khashoggi (L) Son of the murdered journalist met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on 23 October EPA Nonetheless, it also gives me pause for thought, for three reasons. First, NGOs, activists, journalists and academics have been saying exactly what the brigadier said for decades. There has been long-standing criticism of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, including the mention of endemic corruption. Detailed analysis of the economic arguments has long drawn us to the conclusion that government support for the industry is far out of proportion to its economic contribution. Yet these voices have not been loudly heard in mainstream public debate. It is an indictment of the state of British public debate and democracy that such claims only gain prime-time resonance when made by a military man. Second, the calls for a halt to arms sales today are based on shared outrage about one horrific murder. But the UK has already arguably been breaking the law for the past four years by continuing to supply weapons to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen. The UKs rules state that it wont supply weapons where there is a clear risk they might be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law. While I welcome any development that puts UK export policy under the spotlight and prompts a halt, the controversy over the murder of Khashoggi makes a mockery of the governments claim to have a rigorous control regime for arms sales. Given the conduct of the war, under the UK rules, sales should already have been suspended. Third, the manner of Khashoggis death was horrific. It is worth remembering, as we shudder in contemplation, that thousands of Yemeni civilians have been dismembered by UK and US supplies and bombs, and continue to live in fear of air-strikes. Women, whether public figures or not, as well as queer and transgender people, are tortured and killed around the world every day. The murder of a single male journalist has sparked a long-overdue crisis over the war in Yemen and the sale of UK arms. That is a telling sign of how masculinised the debate over conflict and human rights has become. Dr Anna Stavrianakis is senior lecturer in international relations at the University of Sussex Puerto Vallarta's 2018 Dia de Los Muertos Festival Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - In cities throughout Mexico, Dia de Los Muertos festivities begin on October 31 and continue through November 2. But, if you happen to be in Puerto Vallarta this year, you will enjoy an eight-day Spooktacular that includes art, music, food, contests, parades and more! The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. Despite the dreary name, El Dia de Los Muertos is marked by vibrant bouquets of marigolds, heaping plates of favorite foods and lively parties that all celebrate lost loved ones in the ancient Mexican tradition. Intent on preserving Mexico's traditions, every year, the Puerto Vallarta municipal government, together with various neighborhood associations and businesses, organize a series of frightfully fun activities to be held in the downtown area, on the Malecon, in public squares - and even in shopping centers. Puerto Vallarta's 2018 Day of the Dead Festival, which runs through November 4th, is full of activities that combine deep-rooted traditions, customs and beliefs with new artistic angles and interpretations. Some of the highlights of this year's Festival, which runs through November 4th, are: the colorful Day of the Dead altars and Catrina displays in various public places; free tours of a local cemetery with a guide who explains Dia de Los Muertos and its traditions; and all kinds of music and dance performances, street parties, costume contests and family fun - everywhere you turn! One of the most popular events is the traditional La Muerte esta Viva! parade that departs from the cemetery on San Salvador street (a.k.a. Panteon de la 5 de Diciembre) at 5:00 pm; winds through downtown in a colorful procession of Catrines and Catrinas, floats and musicians; and ends at Lazaro Cardenas Park, where La Catrina Mexicana, a Mexican Kermes, features live music and dancing, booths selling traditional Mexican food and more from 6:00-11:00 pm. Permanent exhibitions of altars and offerings will be on display from Wednesday, October 31 through Sunday, November 4, in the exterior corridors of the Municipal Presidency, Los Arcos del Malecon, Iturbide Plaza, Hidalgo Park, the tourist office on Mina Street, the Santana Building on Juarez Street, the Plaza de Armas kiosk and on the Francisca Rodriguez walkway to Los Muertos Pier. Unlike Halloween, when death is something to be feared, on El Dia de Los Muertos death - or at least the memories of those who have died - is something to be celebrated. Come join in the family-friendly fun! Anna Stavrianakis is right to raise the moral bankruptcy of selling arms to countries implicated in war crimes in Yemen. This reveals the hypocrisy of the UK and the US. It is hard to believe that they have been moved by the brutal murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi while at the same time remaining blind to those emaciated, starved, victimised, forgotten and abandoned in an impoverished country on the verge of famine. History books will be harsh on us for failing to stave off such seething injustices. Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob London, NW2 Recruiting from the private sector into the public sector? Bad idea, Jeremy Jeremy Hunt (Mr I forgot-I-owned-those-luxury-flats-guv) is just the latest in a long line of intellectually grey politicians to come to the conclusion that what government needs is to channel more public money towards those from the private sector. Never mind that welfare already subsidises low wages in the UK weve been here so many times before. I remember when an influx from the private sector was the answer to a shortage of teachers and also to prepare pupils for life. Business people were encouraged to take up teaching. My youngest daughter suffered from this experiment with one of the worst teachers she ever had who was entirely incapable of well teaching and with, apparently, no understanding of 9 year olds. Passing over the obvious point that those in the private sector seem to succeed these days by asset stripping (anyone heard of Sir Philip Green?) has it ever occurred to those in Westminster that if we train and fund those in the public sector properly we wouldnt have to bring in the locusts? Amanda Baker Edinburgh Surely there will be loud applause for Jeremy Hunt, and his latest seismic suggestion to appoint British ambassadors from the ranks of business leaders: truly an act of genius. May I be the first to put forward a few names for his learned consideration: fracking mogul James Ratcliffe, ex-G4S boss Nick Buckles (remember him), ex-RBS CEO Fred Goodwin (no surprise, but could not resist) and last but not least Arron Banks! Our troubles are now all but over. Robert Boston Kings Hill Where were the Tories for the Budget debate? Ive switched BBC Parliament on and the House Of Commons is virtually empty. Ive seen Corbyn and McDonnell earlier but, on returning, the place is even emptier. Are these people not paid an enormous salary, most of which they dont spend because of what they claim in expenses, to do this job that most of them arent even qualified to do? No May, Hammond, Truss, McVey, Duncan Smith, Raab, Hunt, Johnson, Javid to mention a few who think highly of themselves but not us. Most of us in the real world would get the sack for simply not bothering to turn up. This is simply unacceptable and yet more evidence of their utter disdain, nihilism, lack of ethics and incompetence. Disgraceful. R Kimble Leeds We are all immigrants I wholeheartedly agree with the argument that President Trump is using the crisis surrounding the caravan of migrants at the southern US border for his own political purposes, prior to the upcoming mid-term elections. With the rise of anti-immigration and protectionist policies, we must look to the past for guidance with regards to international politics over borders and migration. The United States was founded through the process of migration, as stated by Franklin D Roosevelt: Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists. Eleanor Parker Newcastle All hail Che! At the end of the Budget speech, deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle attempted to take the proceedings on. He was interrupted by a rush of hard-left Labour MPs bursting into applause and providing a standing ovation aimed at the public gallery. Who was up there? Che Guevara? Edward Thomas Eastbourne Sri Lanka is in crisis again, after a few years of fragile peace. The president has sacked the prime minister which he has no constitutional power to do and appointed someone else. He has also postponed the reopening of parliament. Supporters of rival politicians gather on the streets of Colombo, the biggest city. I am vividly reminded of the horrific scenes 35 years ago, shown on television and in newspapers across the world. State-backed thugs burned out and murdered members of the Tamil ethnic minority in Colombo and beyond, as police looked on or even lent a hand. I was a young Sri Lankan living in London. Phone lines were jammed with frantic callers: it took me days to discover that my parents were still alive. Others were not so lucky. The authorities claimed it was a spontaneous act by some in the Sinhalese majority, retaliating after an ambush by Tamil separatist fighters in which soldiers were killed. But the wave of ethnic cleansing was clearly carefully planned, as armed men with voters lists swept through one neighbourhood after another. Many Sinhalese in fact sheltered Tamil friends. Like many others, I felt shocked and betrayed by those in power. But looking back over the half-decade before, the government of the day had gradually undermined the norms which keep peoples worst passions in check. The presidency had been given huge powers, judges were intimidated, strikers attacked and the rule of law whittled away. Measures which were supposed to stamp out the violent fringe of Tamil nationalism ended up swelling its ranks, as young people were held without charge and abused, losing their trust in the state. Civilians were murdered by the armed forces, an historic library in Jaffna burned down with the encouragement of ministers. A distorted version of Buddhism, far removed from core teachings of wisdom and compassion, was used to whip up hatred. In a rigged referendum, voters supposedly agreed to postpone the election in 1983. Instead, the island suffered arson, killings, a refugee crisis and deepening divisions. In the wake of the riots, the government cracked down on peaceful channels for dissent. Some young Sinhalese from poorer backgrounds, fed up with lack of opportunities, joined a rebellion led by the JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna or People's Liberation Front). Many Tamils, feeling rejected by and unsafe in Sri Lanka, joined armed groups fighting for a separate state in the North and East of the island. The rebels, as well as security forces, went in for human rights abuses. The rebellion in the South was crushed with great brutality. Numerous Sri Lankans of my generation disappeared, their remains heaped in mass graves, families left without even a body to grieve. Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Show all 15 1 /15 Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Sahira 34, her husband Ahm 38 and their 4 children at the foot of their plot. Their two room home is not big enough to raise a family. Paddy Dowling Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Sahira 34, resident of Muththunagar resorts to to collecting mussels for 12 hours a day which she sells on the market for 2.50 which barely feeds her family of six. The work is exhausting and dangerous. Paddy Dowling Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis One of many buildings destroyed in Muttur during Sri Lankas 26 year civil war. Typically doors, windows and roofs were removed by soldiers on both sides to construct bunkers. Paddy Dowling Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Sajeeda 23, single mother of two left to raise her children after her husband divorced her to re-marry in a neighbouring town whilst he was looking for work. Paddy Dowling Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Nasmeeya 6, plays on their plot of land which is covered in blend of sand and burnt rice husks which make it black in appearance but helps the nutrients in the soil for growing vegetables. Paddy Dowling Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Abdul Cadar 67, a recipient of a new home under the Muslim Aids Housing scheme after he became to ill to work and provide any income from his family. Paddy Dowling Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Hairunisas family living in Kulumeemakada are all beneficiaries of the Muslim Aid Livelihoods programme designed to provide economic empowerment to rebuild their lives. Paddy Dowling Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Farshana 46, works the tides collecting mussels to provide for her family. Paddy Dowling Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Rafeek 55, is too tired to hold a conversation with me. He suffers from a deteriorating medical condition which he cannot afford to treat. Rafeek and his family had not eaten for 3 days. Paddy Dowling Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Hairunisa 35, a widower, enrolled in the Muslim Aid Livelihoods programme now supports her mother and her children working from home buying fabric and making garments for local villagers in Kulumeemakada. Paddy Dowling Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Hairunisa 35, working from home on her newly purchased industrial sewing machine making garments which she sells and carrys out alterations. Paddy Dowling Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Amir Khan 80, living alone whilst his wife receives treatment and remains in hospital. He grows his own vegetables on his plot and has a few chickens which yields enough for him to live off. Paddy Dowling Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Asmya 13, lives with her family in Shafi Nagar, Muttur. Her and the rest of her family have not eaten for 3 days as they have no money to buy food. They wait patiently for handouts from villagers. Paddy Dowling Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Abdul 50, The 'Tailor of Mutur. Wanted to provide a better education for his children so he received a micro finance loan to buy an industrial sewing machine and some fabric. With his loan repaid in full he has now increased his monthly income from 75 to 225. As his business expands he looks to create 6 new jobs. Paddy Dowling Sri Lankas humanitarian crisis Younis 56, a widower lives alone as her home was too small to accommodate her children and their families. She sells watermelon for 12 hours a day by the roadside in the relentless sun to earn herself 2 p/day. She dreams of having her own business wholesaling fabric. Pictures by Paddy Dowling The other revolt took far longer to suppress, as ruthless Tiger leaders wiped out rival Tamil groups and dissidents and murdered Sinhalese and Muslim civilians. Child soldiers were sent to their deaths, as were suicide bombers, as a deathly cult flourished around the supreme chief Prabhakaran. Even government ministers lost their lives to assassination amidst the chaos that had been created. When the Tigers were finally defeated in 2009, thousands of civilians were killed in the last few months of the civil war, as both rebel and state forces ignored the laws protecting non-combatants. The president at the time was Mahinda Rajapaksa. His increasingly dictatorial behaviour and refusal to address human rights concerns led to his defeat at the polls in 2015 by an alliance for national unity. President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe, though unimpressive in many ways, began to rebuild trust among minorities. Democracy was also partly strengthened, though much remained to be done. It is this alliance which has now come apart, Sirisena has appointed Mahinda Rajapaksa as prime minister. There are widespread fears of a downward slide. Now, as in the past, international politics plays a part, as rival Asian and Western powers jockey for influence. A return to the levels of violence of the 1980s is still far off. But those of us old enough to remember and fortunate enough to have survived, and younger people with an interest in history, are aware of what can happen when the powerful begin to tear up the rulebook, page by page. Already the situation is volatile. In other countries too, when constitutional safeguards have been ignored, there has often been an unhappy ending. The president felt able to make his move in part because there is widespread dissatisfaction. Ordinary people often feel powerless and struggle to make ends meet. Yet a leader who promises a better future, if only he is allowed to do whatever he pleases, is likely to make matters even worse. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events Human rights are about more than freedom of speech and movement, fair trials and protection from torture, important as these are. Having affordable food, shelter, healthcare and education are also basic rights. When people feel unheard, insecure and not valued, fear and hatred can grow, while democracy is weakened. Many Sri Lankans are putting themselves at risk to defend democratic values, with support among those throughout the globe who care about justice for all. There is still hope of halting a downward spiral. I, and many others, will keep praying not to see past horrors replayed. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to exit politics over two years will weaken her EU power - but Irish officials are confident her Brexit pledges to Ireland still stand. The Irish Government believes Ms Merkel's surprise announcement that she will begin withdrawing from politics will also have a negative effect on on Brexit, though it still remains on a knife-edge. Officials in Dublin said they were happy Germany's policy on Brexit remained fixed, with broad consensus inside the governing coalition. Whoever replaces Ms Merkel in December as leader of the CDU - the main coalition party - is not likely to change its stance. If Ms Merkel does stand down as party leader in December, but continues as chancellor until her term expires in 2021 as planned, her full exit from public life would also coincide with the expected end of transition periods in any emerging EU-UK divorce deal. "It is clear Chancellor Merkel has always wanted 'an orderly Brexit' and she would clearly want that to be part of her own legacy as she departed the scene," one Brussels diplomat told the Irish Independent. But there is growing scepticism she will not succeed in seeing out her term of office. Speaking last week, before news broke of her planned slow exit from politics, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar recalled sitting beside her at dinner at an EU leaders' summit in Salzburg on September 19. Expand Close Under threat: UK Prime Minister Theresa May faces DUP resistance. Photo: Victoria Jones/PA Wire / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Under threat: UK Prime Minister Theresa May faces DUP resistance. Photo: Victoria Jones/PA Wire He said Ms Merkel told him Ireland would never again enjoy such a level of EU solidarity on any issue as it has on its interests around Brexit. The Taoiseach also stressed that neither Ms Merkel, nor any other EU leader, had linked Irish concerns about the future of the Border to demands that Dublin change its stance on EU corporate or digital taxes. He indicated he would not have been unduly surprised if the issues had been linked. Other officials also pointed to express assurances given by the chancellor when the two leaders met in Berlin on April 16 last. She specifically pledged to help Ireland safeguard its interests in the Brexit talks and said she was aware of Irish concerns including the "very important issues of war and peace". As things stand, there are now no formal Brexit negotiations going on between the EU and the UK. But Brussels sources say "informal contacts" are continuing. Diplomats will know by Friday whether a special Brexit summit for mid-November is to be definitely ruled out. The focus this week has been on allowing British Prime Minister Theresa May to get her budget through the London parliament, the more so since the Democratic Unionist Party had threatened to withdraw its vital support over Brexit compromises. EU officials have noted the budget unveiled by Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond assumes a Brexit deal will happen. Warned Mr Hammond, an advocate of a "soft Brexit", had warned if there is no deal his budget plans will have to be radically altered. If the November summit does not happen, the effort would move on to an EU leaders' summit on December 13-14 in Brussels. If there is a compromise, it will be rolled out in advance, and Mrs May will then be faced with the prospect of trying to drag whatever deal she gets through Westminster amid opposition from ultra- Brexiteers and very possibly the DUP. There is no confidence she can succeed but hopes will turn on excluding all other options and making it "a back me or sack me" choice. It is also hoped that pressure from UK business and trade unions, horrified at the economic carnage of a no-deal Brexit, could help tip the balance in favour of UK parliamentary approval. Brussels officials also expect the EU to publish more details of fall-back plans to manage a no-deal Brexit in the coming weeks. This will again increase pressures and feed political speculation. "But that is part of war-gaming aimed at advancing arguments for a finding a workable compromise," one source said. Despite her own assurances that she will continue working to the end of her four-year term in 2021 as head of the German government, Ms Merkel is now widely seen as a lame duck and hopes of getting compromises on other key EU issues at next month's leaders' summit have been dented. One senior Brussels source said she "had no hope of making 2021". TANAISTE Simon Coveney held secret talks with the UKs Brexit Secretary last night amid growing expectation that a deal can be finalised. Mr Coveney spent 90 minutes with Dominic Raab in London but only revealed the meeting this evening while in Paris. He described it as very frank and long discussions. It comes as details of a letter in which Mr Raab signals a Brexit deal could be agreed by November 21 emerged. How to maintain an open border on the island of Ireland after Brexit remains the key stumbling block to a deal. But Mr Raab wrote to the UK Parliament's Exiting the EU Committee in recent days saying he will give evidence to them "when a deal is finalised, and currently expect November 21 to be suitable." Mr Coveney is in Paris this evening where he said major progress will have to be made in the next week for this deadline to be met. He was speaking alongside French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian who said a moment of truth is coming for the UK. Mr Coveney said it is possible to get a deal in November but it will have to include the so-called Irish backstop. I think it is up to the negotiating teams, but the British side in particular. If they want to conclude the text of a withdrawal treaty in November then the negotiations need to intensify and the commitments theyve already need to be followed through on. We all know what the remaining barrier is. Its very much linked to the Irish border question and the backstop that has been committed to last December and last March, he said. The Tanaiste added: If there were to be a summit as soon as the November 20 or 21 then effectively there would need to be a signal from the negotiating teams next week in order to put the machinery in place [for an EU leaders summit]. There is not enough support yet for an EU ban on the key tillage fungicide chlorothalonil, but the Commission is determined to continue lobbying member states on the issue. At a meeting in Brussels last week, Commission officials made their case to ban the chemical, but did not get enough EU countries on side. A super-majority of countries with the largest EU populations is required to revoke the chemical's licence. Any ban would apply gradually, with a phase-out period. Last year the Commission reauthorised the use of the herbicide glyphosate for five years, but intends to phase out its use in the future. Chlorothalonil is the active ingredient in Bravo, manufactured by global agri-chemical giant Syngenta. It's most commonly used on cereals, tomatoes and potatoes. A European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) report on the chemical stated that it causes kidney tumours in rats, and is "very toxic" if inhaled. Ireland, the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands - the bloc's major users of the chemical -are lobbying to keep it on the market. A ban would also affect US trade relations, diplomats say. A Teagasc report earlier this month said that banning chlorothalonil could reduce net margins on for wheat and barley growers by 50-65pc, and that there are no ready alternatives on the market. EU officials are not dropping their call for a ban, and plan to raise the issue again in the coming weeks. Roundup ban Meanwhile, the new French Agriculture Minister Didier Guillaume has pledged he will introduce a ban on glyphosate (Roundup) by 2020. Last week a California judge rejected Monsanto's appeal to overturn a landmark jury verdict in a case involving Roundup. The judge's ruling largely sided with a former school groundskeeper who won a $289m award over the summer after alleging that his exposure to Roundup weedkiller gave him cancer. The 46-year-old also alleged that Monsanto had failed to warn him of the risks of using its product. Monsanto's request for a retrial was denied but the damages award against the company was reduced to $78m. China has found three new African swine fever cases on small pig farms in Shanxi, Hunan and Yunnan provinces, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said. The herds at the affected farms together total 390 pigs, the ministry said on its website. China, the worlds top pork producer, has reported more than 40 outbreaks of the highly contagious disease in 13 provinces since it was first detected in early August. China has reported more than 40 outbreaks of the highly contagious disease since early August, with farms across 12 provinces and municipalities already infected. It does not affect humans. Beijing has not yet said how the disease first entered the country but the ministry found 62pc of the first 21 outbreaks were related to the feeding of kitchen waste, a statement published on its website said. The outbreak of African Swine Fever in China could lead to increased exports for Irish pigmeat to the country in the medium term, Director of Meat Industry Ireland (MII) Cormac Healy has said. In the short-term it could lead to more domestic product coming onto the market which would dampen import demand. That said, restrictions on movement of pigs within China could lead to some regional shortages. However, in the medium term, as we move into next year, if significant culling within the domestic Chinese pig herd takes place, then it should create greater import opportunities. The recent outbreak of ASF in wild boars in southern Belgium has the EU pig sector on edge. The response of most international markets has been to close there border to Belgian pork. Should ASF spread into neighbouring France or Germany and international markets close to their exports, then we face a massive surplus of Pigmeat on the EU market. The jump of ASF from Eastern EU member states to Belgium should be a wake-up call to everyone. Maximum vigilance is essential in terms of imports, controls and biosecurity, he explained. Arsonists last night attacked the home of Tony Lunney, a senior manager at Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH). QIH said a car belonging to Mr Lunneys daughter was set alight after 11pm last night. The attack follows a similar incident at the home of Dara OReilly, QIHs chief financial officer. QIH is made up of elements of the old Quinn empire. Mr Quinn returned to the business as a consultant after it was established but later parted ways with the company. A number of other violent incidents have taken place against the company, including an arson attack on a tyre factory owned by a senior manager. QIH has said there has been a "campaign of threats and intimidation against senior management of QIH by persons who had sought the return of Sean Quinn." Mr Quinn has repeatedly condemned the attacks against the business. QIH chief executive Liam McCaffrey said: "It is grossly unacceptable that criminals who threaten the lives and wellbeing of staff on both sides of the border continue to operate with impunity. It is also enormously frustrating that following years of intimidation and threats and a substantial escalation of violence over recent months that not a single arrest has been made." "Unless politicians and the authorities on both sides of the border properly prioritise and resource this issue, as they have with gangland and paramilitary crime in other area, lives will be lost. More than 830 staff and their families and the wider community are impacted by this violence and intimidation and they are in urgent need of reassurance that this issue is being taken seriously." Liam OMahony is to retire as chair of paper packaging giant Smurfit Kappa. Mr OMahony, who will retire from the board following the Smurfit Kappa AGM next May, will be replaced by Irial Finan. Mr OMahony joined the board of Smurfit Kappa when the group was admitted to trading on the Irish Stock Exchange (Euronext Dublin) and the London Stock Exchange in 2007. He has served as chair of the group since December 2008. "It has been a privilege to chair the board of Smurfit Kappa group," Mr OMahony said. "The last 10 years have been a transformative time for the business and I have been lucky to work alongside a group of outstanding professionals, both on the board and throughout the business." Tony Smurfit, CEO of the group, thanked Mr OMahony for his contribution to the group. "He has fully dedicated himself to the role of chair and has overseen the significant development of the group over the period," Mr Smurfit said. "His leadership and guidance has been invaluable and he leaves the group in a position of strength and with exciting prospects in the short, medium and long term." His replacement Mr Finan joined the board of Smurfit Kappa in February 2012. Mr Finan has been chair of the remuneration committee since 2015 and a member of the audit committee since his appointment. Previously he was executive VP of the Coca-Cola Company and president of the Bottling Investments Group from 2004 until he stepped down from the role in December 2017 and retired in March 2018. He originally joined the Coca-Cola system in 1981. Meanwhile, Smurfit Kappa has reported a 27pc increase in pre-exceptional earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) to 1.3bn in the nine months to 30 September. The earnings margin was 16.9pc, according to a trading update from the group. Smurfit Kappa reported a 7pc increase year-on-year in underlying revenue growth during the nine month period. The performance was drived by continued demand growth across most markets as well as corrugated price recovery initiatives. Separately and the company also announced the acquisitions of Fabrika Hartije a paper mill and Avala Ada a corrugated plant, in Belgrade, for a total consideration of 133m. The group said that the acquisitions would expand its geographic footprint and provide for full containerboard integration in the group's packaging operations in Southeast Europe. The transaction reflects a pre-synergy multiple of 7.6 times the expected full year 2018 EBITDA and it will be funded from the group's existing resources. A LIQUIDATOR will be nominated to take control of The Organic Supermarket Ltd, the company behind a chain of Dublin retail outlets and a grocery delivery service. The chain has shops in Blackrock, Rathgar and Malahide - three of the capital's wealthiest suburbs. Accounts for 2017 show it was dependent on shareholders loans. A meeting of creditors has been scheduled for November 9, when Myles Kirby of Kirby Healy Chartered Accountants will be proposed as liquidator. One of the company's main shareholders is also its biggest creditor, according to the most recently filed accounts. They show HCI Trust is a 50pc shareholder in The Organic Supermarket Ltd, and was owed 611,305 by the company at the end of 2017. In January, a further loan of 225,000 was advanced by shareholders to support working capital, the accounts show. FCA Reconsiders Moving Ram Production from Mexico Detroit, Michigan - Production of Ram's heavy-duty trucks may not be ending in Mexico after all. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Mike Manley is reportedly reconsidering a decision announced in January to stop making Ram heavy-duty trucks at a plant in Saltillo, Mexico. That earlier announcement said the production would be shifted to the Warren Truck Assembly Plant in Michigan, and Fiat Chrysler, in a statement Monday, said the plan to move production to Warren as part of a $1-billion investment remains in place. "Moving the Ram Heavy Duty to Warren from Mexico is our plan of record. Of course, we always assess latest market and economic conditions when making significant industrial moves," according to the statement. During the earlier announcement, FCA said it would repurpose the Saltillo plant to build future commercial vehicles for global distribution. The possible switch in plans, according to Reuters, would allow FCA to boost production capacity of other truck models as the company battles for sales with Ford and General Motors. "We need to get ourselves into second (place). Frankly, I dont care which of the two I take share from," Manley said, according to Reuters. The potential move of truck production from Mexico to Michigan has been touted numerous times by President Donald Trump as proof that his policies are working to boost jobs in the U.S. The previous plan, which was announced under then-CEO Sergio Marchionne, preceded the recent deal reached on a renewed trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. US gun-control advocates have outspent gun-rights groups by more than 40pc ahead of next week's congressional elections, the first time they have done so in two decades in a bid to break the National Rifle Association's long-standing dominance in spending on gun politics. Boosted largely by the personal fortune of billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who is considering a 2020 presidential run, the gun-control war chest almost entirely benefits Democrats who are seeking to wrest majorities from the Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate in the November 6 elections. Gun-control groups, including one founded by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords who survived an assassination attempt, have spent $20.2m (17.6m) on the elections, well over the $14.1m spent by pro-gun groups led by the NRA, according to data released by the US Federal Election Commission. It is the first time in at least two decades that gun-control groups have outspent gun-rights groups on federal races, though they have outspent gun-rights advocates in state elections in recent years, according to data compiled by the National Institute on Money in Politics. "There is definitely a shift," said Peter Ambler, the executive director of Giffords which was formed by Ms Giffords after the mass shooting in December 2012 that killed 20 school children in Connecticut. "It was just a few years ago when people considered gun safety to be one of politics' third rails. Now the opposite is true." The FEC report covers federal campaign spending through October 17 and will be the last public report before the November 6 vote. An NRA spokeswoman said Mr Bloomberg's money would not overturn public support for the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. "His money is no match for our grassroots organisation," she said. Mr Bloomberg formed Everytown in 2014 when he pledged $50m to the cause and combined forces with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. He has pledged another $100m for this year's campaigns. Everytown has spent $3.6m, according to the FEC data. Most of its $20m budget this year has been devoted to state races. Giffords has spent $16.3m, the FEC data show, and has set aside at least $1m for each of four competitive House races to defeat incumbent Republicans in Virginia, Minnesota, Texas and Colorado. Gun control groups have outspent their opponents in states before, notably in 2016, by a margin of $26m to $11m, according to National Institute on Money in Politics. The NRA and its allies more than made up for that with $70m in spending on the federal level. At the weekend, 11 worshippers were shot dead at a synagogue. Ready for take-off: Among the new routes from Irlandia airline Viva Colombia is a direct flight to Miami, Florida that will launch in December Latin America's Viva Air, founded and backed by Declan Ryan's Irelandia Aviation, has launched a route to the US from Colombia. It comes as the Irish-backed low-cost airline gears up an expansion plan built around the addition of 50 new aircraft to its fleet. The Viva brand currently has operations in Colombia and Peru. Last year Irelandia caught global headlines when it placed an order at the Paris Air Show for 50 Airbus aircraft. The order has a list price of about $5.3bn, and the aircraft were ordered for use by Viva Colombia and Viva Peru as part of Viva Air's aim to expand its business across Latin America. To date, four of the 50 new aircraft have been delivered, Viva Colombia has said. It has launched new routes from its third base in the country, in the city of Santa Marta, including a direct flight to Miami, Florida that will launch in mid-December. Declan Ryan, a son of the late aviation finance pioneer Tony Ryan, was a co-founder of Ryanair, and held a number of senior management posts there including as chief executive. He later set up Irlandia, which is based in Dublin, to invest in low-cost carrier and startup airlines around the globe. Previous investments include stakes in Mexico's VivaAerobus - sold two years ago as focus shifted to Central and South America - as well as stakes in Singapore-based Tiger Airways, and as US-based Allegiant. Ireland needs to be more ambitious in terms of leveraging technology to transform its healthcare system, or the existing challenges facing the system - already at crisis point - will only worsen. Its more than just the job that inspires vice-president and general manager of Dell EMC Ireland Aisling Keegans passion for change; she draws on personal experience when it comes to aiming for a brighter healthcare future. "I had a child born with kidney challenges, my now 11-year-old has been under the care of a children's hospital and I look at how far we've come," she told Independent.ie. "My childs personal records have gone from a centimetre to more than 10 inches high over the last 11 years. The health strategy has undergone huge inroads into digitising; theres more opportunity now to leverage the digital transformation in the health care space. "I am genuinely so privileged that Im working in Ireland enabling healthcare organisations to deliver healthcare solutions, the tech solutions, that actually save human lives and can create different outcomes." More than 6,000 hospitals worldwide leverage Dell EMC solutions and the healthcare life science vertical is one the largest for the group, "the consumerism of healthcare". In working with their partners, Keegan said they have seen a huge shift, as patients are moving from a more passive stance to active personal engagement. As a result of that shift, there are more demands, an increased expectation, and more personalised information required; all added to existing waiting lists and a growing aging population. Issues that can be addressed using technology, but Keegan maintains awareness is not yet prevalent. "The rate of acceleration of adoption of this new tech - [cognitive solutions, AI, machine learning etc] - is not as fast as it should be in terms of the market that we're living in. And thats not unique to just healthcare," she said. "Theres a gap in terms of educating and showcasing how tech can actually enable better outcomes better production and procedures." Although there is much discussion on introducing electronic health records here in Ireland, Aisling believes we need to be more ambitious as to how technology can bring positive change to every aspect of healthcare. She acknowledges the work the State is doing it terms of digitising and transforming the healthcare system here, but she believes there is so much more to do. "Budget and funding of healthcare organisations are flagged continuously as a challenge. But if you look at the funding, and the money even allocated in this years Budget, how we're using that money is perhaps most important. "As a country, we are ambitious in our plans but need awareness about the need to accelerate that change, we need to educate our partners in what they could realise. "If I could go into the hospital over those 11 years and have had one single repository that all authorised users could access, that would be the nirvana." Aisling Keegan received the Women Mean Business 2018 Businesswoman of the Year award this month. Now in its 12th year, the Women Mean Business (WMB) event recognises the achievements of outstanding businesswomen and female entrepreneurs. Gambling company William Hill is to buy Sweden-based online betting firm Mr Green & Co for 271m. Mr Green currently has online gambling licenses in Ireland, Britain, Denmark, Italy, Latvia, and Malta, and expects to obtain Swedish licenses by the end of the year. William Hill said today that it will offer SEK 69 (6.63) in cash per share for the business, with the total offer amounting to SEK 2,819m (271m), a 48.5pc premium on its closing price on October 30. Commenting on the offer, Philip Bowcock, William Hill CEO, said: "This proposed acquisition accelerates the diversification of William Hill - immediately making us a more digital and more international business." "William Hill will move from a single brand to a suite of brands that can maximise growth opportunities moving forward in new and existing markets." The deal will reduce its exposure to the UK market, which has been subject to increased regulation in recent months. Based on its third quarter results this year, Mr Green's geographic revenue mix was 40pc in Western Europe, 36pc in the Nordics, 21pc in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe and 3pc in other regions. It marks the latest expansion for the British firm, after it recently agreed a tie-up with US casino giant Eldorado in a bold move to tap into the recently liberalised American market. (Additional reporting PA) The decision to make Leeds the new national headquarters for Channel 4 will be a game changer for the city, Kay Mellor has said. The channel announced it will relocate 300 staff to three new bases in the nations and regions, including creative hubs in Bristol and Glasgow, while keeping its main London headquarters on Horseferry Road. Leeds-born Mellor, best known for penning series including Fat Friends, The Syndicate and Girlfriends, said: Its absolutely the right decision, every indie got behind the campaign and weve got the right result. Expand Close Channel 4 headquarters in Horseferry Road (Philip Toscano/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Channel 4 headquarters in Horseferry Road (Philip Toscano/PA) Leeds is the perfect fit in terms of location and talent and well all be there with open arms to welcome them to our wonderful city. Its a game changer for Leeds, putting us firmly on the media map. I am so proud. A statement from her Yorkshire-based production company Rollem Productions on Twitter added: We are absolutely delighted that Leeds will be the location of @Channel4s new National HQ So proud of our city, and the exciting times to come. We are absolutely delighted that Leeds will be the location of @Channel4 's new National HQ So proud of our city, and the exciting times to come #4AlltheUK #4sparks https://t.co/nZyz38lVQf Rollem Productions (@RollemProdCo) October 31, 2018 Sally Joynson, chief executive of Screen Yorkshire, said the decision was hugely significant for the sector and a validation of the citys production expertise and potential for further growth. She added: We have worked tirelessly with the Leeds City Region team throughout the bid process and believe passionately that it will enable Channel 4 to engage with and better reflect audiences outside of London. We are thrilled with today's hugely significant news that @Channel4 will be moving its new National Headquarters to #LEEDS. We believe passionately that it will enable Channel 4 to better reflect audiences outside of London. Our statement >> #4AlltheUK https://t.co/5SWmIpAlxh pic.twitter.com/g8XJ8fMpCb Screen Yorkshire (@screenyorkshire) October 31, 2018 Video of the Day Todays decision will be transformational to the screen industries in the Leeds City Region and indeed across the North of England. We look forward to welcoming Channel 4 and working with them to capitalise on the creative opportunities that this bold move brings. Jessie Buckley has said awards nominations are the icing on the cake after her film Beast picked up ten nods at the British Independent Film Awards (Bifa). In the movie, the Irish star plays a troubled woman living in an isolated community who finds herself pulled between the control of her oppressive family and the allure of a secretive outsider suspected of a series of brutal murders. The star, who is nominated in the lead actress and most promising newcomer categories at the ceremony, told the Press Association: I have been incredibly lucky, I have got to work with people that I bloody love and got to tell stories about incredible women in lots of shapes and colours, and its not anything that has ever been planned, I feel very lucky. We're on a roll with the announcements, and can finally share the phenomenal nominees for Best Actress, with huge thanks to @MACcosmetics. Congrats to all! #BIFA2018 Take a look at the full list here: https://t.co/6PxS0hfsEi@mpeakeofficial pic.twitter.com/N0oqNllh92 BIFA (@BIFA_film) October 31, 2018 She added: This is the icing on the cake, the best part is the making of the things and those experiences and the bonds that you make, and being curious about what else is possible and what other stories about women and people and what other stories that havent yet been uncovered. I feel like Im on an expedition trying to find some secret land that I havent explored yet in myself. Buckley will soon be seen starring opposite Renee Zellweger in a new film about Judy Garland and in a Cold War drama with Benedict Cumberbatch. She added: There is potential in each character and its your job to draw out the complexities and the humanity of characters, and Ive been very lucky to work with amazing people and the characters Ive played have all been completely different, and that is so exciting. Beasts writer and director Michael Pearce, who received nominations in all directing and screenwriting categories, including best director, best screenplay, debut screenwriter and best debut director, said he hopes the nods bring people to the film. Showcasing their exceptional film-making over the past year to create some outstanding British Independent Films, here are the official nominees for Best Director with huge thanks to @BroadswordGroup. #BIFA2018 Find out who's made the list: https://t.co/6PxS0hfsEi @BartfromRaw pic.twitter.com/4pVmjVFbu6 BIFA (@BIFA_film) October 31, 2018 Video of the Day He said: Any accolade is only going to draw more people towards the film and want to check it out, and that is great and it validates all the hard work that everyone put into the film. Right from the beginning when I had the idea seven years ago, all the people who helped me develop it and all the way thought the shoot and post production, its great for the whole team. The winners will be announced at the Bifa ceremony on December 2 at Londons Old Billingsgate. Jennifer Zamparelli is the new co-host on Dancing with the Stars. The third season of Dancing with the Stars begins on RTE One in January. Picture: Kinlan Photography Vogue Williams attends the Pride of Britain Awards 2018 at The Grosvenor House Hotel on October 29, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images) NO REPRO FEE 30/10/18 Jennifer Zamparelli is the new co-host on Dancing with the Stars. The third season of Dancing with the Stars begins on RTE One in January. Picture: Kinlan Photography. Jennifer Zamparelli has beaten Vogue Williams to nab the top job on Dancing with the Stars, as she was confirmed as the show's new host by RTE yesterday. The 2FM presenter revealed Vogue told her she had gone for the job too, but Jennifer proved the favourite with the show's bosses. When the news that Jennifer would take the reins after Amanda Byram's departure broke yesterday, the new host bumped into Vogue, who was in town to promote Lily O'Brien's chocolates. New mum Vogue told Jen she had also thrown her hat into the ring to replace Amanda, who left the show in August after two years at the helm. Expand Close Jennifer Zamparelli is the new co-host on Dancing with the Stars. The third season of Dancing with the Stars begins on RTE One in January. Picture: Kinlan Photography / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jennifer Zamparelli is the new co-host on Dancing with the Stars. The third season of Dancing with the Stars begins on RTE One in January. Picture: Kinlan Photography "I don't know who went for it, but I know now that Vogue went for it because I met her this morning and she was like, 'you got the job I wanted'," said Jennifer (38). The Breakfast Republic host said it was a hard-earned position as she was put through her paces before being chosen for the coveted role. "It was like a three-hour audition process with Nicky Byrne - I wasn't complaining, but it wasn't an easy job," she said. "I think the beauty of Amanda and what she did, she made it look effortless and easy and hopefully I can do that too. She has left big shoes to fill, but I am looking forward to the challenge and I can't wait to get started really." Read More Jennifer is more than ready to put her own stamp on the job, but reckons she will have to toe the line with her trademark witty gags. "You kind of have to. Me and Amanda are completely different people, different styles of presenting, so I think you have to be yourself," she said. Expand Close Vogue Williams attends the Pride of Britain Awards 2018 at The Grosvenor House Hotel on October 29, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Vogue Williams attends the Pride of Britain Awards 2018 at The Grosvenor House Hotel on October 29, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images) Video of the Day "But there is probably going to be a big rulebook of things I can't say that I will probably have to read ov er again before I start. It's going to be a lot of fun and I am looking forward to working with Nicky. We worked together briefly, we are both from Baldoyle, we have a lot in common so I am excited about that." As for the gender pay gap, Jennifer said she would be on an even footing with Nicky. "I think that is just known, it is a given," she said. Although famed for her biting sense of humour, Jen said she would be sympathetic toward the dancers if things went a bit pear-shaped on the dance floor. "I am on their side, that is what you're there to do," she added. "They are putting themselves out there so much, but you have to have a bit of fun with it I suppose." A couple who terrorised the boyfriend of an acquaintance when they were told he had lots of money have been sentenced to a total of 12 years for burglary and theft of over 16,000. Carlos Lawrence (27) of Rosary Road, Maryland, Dublin 8, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to theft and aggravated burglary while armed with a wedge hammer, at Wainsfort Manor Grove, Terenure, Dublin, on December 13, 2017. He has 51 previous convictions for robbery, possession of an imitation firearm, hi-jacking, theft, criminal damage and road traffic offences. His partner and mother of his twin boys, Catherine Dempsey (26) of Michael Mallin House, Vicar Street, Dublin 8, pleaded guilty to stealing 15,000 in cash and burglary at the same time and same place. She has seven previous convictions, six of which arose out of the same incident. Judge Melanie Greally had previously adjourned the case after hearing evidence earlier this month. Today she said Lawrence had been the protagonist. He alone made the threats, he alone used the hammer and he was responsible for the violence, Judge Greally said. She noted the offence was committed against a man in his own home. She accepted that Dempsey was unaware of the full extent of Lawrence's intentions. She said the State also accepted this, as it was reflected in the charges brought against Dempsey. The judge acknowledged that Lawrence had expressed remorse both to the victim and Dempsey. She said he was someone of intelligence who was capable of productivity when he is drug free. Dempsey was sentenced to five years with the final three years suspended after Judge Greally took into account the fact that she was acting under pressure, that she expressed remorse and that a probation report puts her at a low risk of re-offending. Lawrence was sentenced to seven years with the final 12 months suspended after the judge allowed for the fact that he was in the throes of a severe drug addiction at the time, that he had expressed remorse, had a good work history and difficult background. Judge Greally said Lawrence had immense potential to be a productive member of society. Detective Sergeant Jason Miley told Antonia Boyle BL, prosecuting at the sentence hearing earlier this month, that Alan Greene was asleep in his bedroom when Lawrence smashed through the glass of the room's French doors with a hammer. Mr Greene immediately struggled with the intruder, who was dressed all in black with a scarf around his nose and mouth, but the man managed to get inside. The house alarm was sounding and Lawrence instructed Mr Greene to switch it off, before telling him to open the front door to allow Dempsey into the apartment. The court heard Dempsey also had her face covered. The pair started shouting at him and demanded money, telling Mr Greene that G had told him that he had lots of money. Det Sgt Miley confirmed that G was Mr Greene's partner and they had been in a relationship for a number of years. Later in evidence, he said that Mr Greene's brother told gardai that while Mr Greene was emotionally invested in the relationship, G was financially invested in it. He said that Mr Greene became aware that G was a drug addict a few months previously and had tried to help her. She had moved out of his home but he had continued to support her financially. G introduced Mr Greene to both Lawrence and Dempsey two months previously and he had agreed to invest in Lawrence's new business venture as the man had promised to give G a job. Det Sgt Miley said on the night of the burglary, Lawrence took Mr Greene's phone and made a number of calls. He claimed that G owed him 200,000 after she stole a stash of crack cocaine and he said Mr Greene would have to pay for it. He ultimately made Mr Greene speak to a woman on the phone who said that everything could be settled for 9,000. He promised to go to the bank in the morning to withdraw the cash. The apartment was ransacked and 150 was recovered before Mr Greene was made withdraw cash from a local ATM using two different cards. The couple stole a total of 1,200 in these transactions. Mr Greene was told to drive to McDonalds where he went in and bought food. He later told gardai that while they were eating the take-out back at his apartment, Lawrence's scarf slipped and he recognised him. He said at one point Dempsey left the house but returned without her face covered. The following morning Dempsey accompanied him to the bank where he ultimately withdrew 15,000 after waiting an hour for the cash to be prepared for him. While waiting for the money he was told to drive to a garage on the Kylemore Road where Lawrence picked up a Mercedes. Det Sgt Miley said when Mr Greene handed over the 15,000, Lawrence returned his phone to him and offered to give him the Mercedes but the man refused to take the car. He returned home and the gardai were later alerted. Gardai arrived at the couples' home later that day and 12,500 was recovered from Dempsey, half of which was on her person and the other half of which was in her handbag. Det Sgt Miley said nothing came out of Lawrence's interview with gardai but Dempsey said she was put under pressure to go into the bank with Mr Greene. She accepted that he was threatened with violence in his home but said she had not threatened him. A victim impact statement from Mr Greene acknowledged that 12,455 was returned to him of the 16,350 stolen. He said the burglary takes over all of his thoughts of the day. He dreads night-time and has stopped spending time at home. He blocks up his doors with chairs and is waiting for them to come back and hurt him. The real impact is being at home alone, the statement read. More than a third of the schools assessed for structural deficits will now require intervention following on-site inspections. Assessments of all 42 schools built by Western Building Systems (WBS) have now been completed with 17 requiring intervention, while inspection reports from a further 13 school buildings continue to be analysed. Ardgillan Community College in Dublin remains closed completely, while three other schools - Tyrrelstown Educate Together NS, the adjoining St Lukes NS and Gaelscoil Eiscir Riada are to partially close with only the ground floor reopening to pupils and staff on Monday. The Department of Education said it was looking at interim accommodation for pupils who cannot return to their old classrooms on the upper floors of the affected buildings. A further 14 schools have also been identified as requiring external intervention and supports in the form of fencing and protective decking in order for them to reopen. The outcome of the remaining 13 schools which have been assessed is still being reviewed by engineers and department officials, and is expected to be released later today. Education Minister Joe McHugh said none of the inspections had presented the same severity of concerns as those in Ardgillan Community School which closed 18 classrooms over a week ago. The outcomes of further structural assessments which we have received today are important in providing clarity to school authorities, students and parents, Mr McHugh said. The advice I have received is that no other building has presented the same severity of structural issues as those identified in Phase 1 of Ardgillan Community College, which was built in 2009. Two other schools are still under development by the construction company but a department spokesperson previously confirmed additional oversight introduced from 2014 would not require any delays to the two projects. In a statement WBS said it had not seen any of the assessments carried out by the Department. So far, we have been invited to meet with the Departments inspectors and officials at 13 of the 42 schools. We had insufficient time on site to make structural evaluations, it said. That such a turnaround is now being reached is troubling on a wider scale." Below is a list of the affected schools: School building closed: Ardgillan Community College Schools subject to ongoing structural assessment and analysis: Lucan Community National School, Balgaddy Rd Griffeen Valley Educate Together National school Gaelscoil na gCloch Liath Rush and Lusk Educate Together National School St. Francis of Assisi Primary School, Belmayne Belmayne Educate Together National School Gaelscoil Mhichil Ui Choileain, Clonakilty Cara Junior (Special) School Galway Educate Together National School Carrigaline Educate Together National School St. Colman's Boys National School, Macroom Gaelscoil Mhic Aodha Mullingar Educate Together National School Schools in which the ground floor will be cleared to open following the implementation of internal engineering solutions and external interventions: Tyrrelstown Educate Together National School St Lukes National School, Tyrellstown Gaelscoil Eiscir Riada, Lucan Schools cleared to open in full, following external intervention in the form of a fence around the building and protective decking: Scoil Chaitlin Maude, Tallaght Castlemills Education Centre, Balbriggan St Paul's National School, Ratoath Scoil Phadraig Naofa, Athy Athy Model School (GP Hall Extension only) Gaelscoil Atha I (GP Hall Extension only) Lucan East Educate Together National School Convent National School, Portarlington Scoil Phadraig Naofa, Rochestown Gaelscoil Phortlaoise Portlaoise Educate Together National School Colaiste De Lacy, Ashbourne Gaelscoil na Mi, Ashbourne Ashbourne Educate Together National School Schools cleared to open in full, without any internal or external intervention: Luttrellstown Community College Gaelscoil Shliabh Rua, Dublin 18 Broombridge Educate Together National School Scoil Choilm Community National School, Porterstown Gaelscoil na Giuise, Firhouse Gaelscoil Thulach na nOg, Dunboyne Maryborough National School, Portlaoise Scoil Aoife Community National School, Citywest Letterkenny Educate Together National School Firhouse Educate Together National School St. Joseph's Primary School, Gorey Bertie Ahern and Paddy Duffy's son, Gavin, left pictured at the funeral of Paddy Duffy, advisor to former Taoiseach. Photo: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin. LED by former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, the Fianna Fail old guard turned out in strength to say farewell to the partys former political adviser, Paddy Duffy, on Wednesday. The packed funeral congregation also included representatives of media and public relations, teaching, trade unions and other people with whom he came in contact over a diverse and successful career. Mr Duffy, aged 75, died suddenly, at an airport in London in the company of Mr Ahern as both travelled back from a peace engagement in Papua New Guinea on October 17. Expand Close Former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern looks on as the remains are taken into church pictured at the funeral of Paddy Duffy. Photo: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern looks on as the remains are taken into church pictured at the funeral of Paddy Duffy. Photo: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin. At the funeral mass in Dublin Airport church there were prayers and hymns in English and Irish to celebrate his long and varied life, and especially his love of his wife, Margaret, and his children and grandchildren. Mr Duffys son, Gavin, thanked all who had helped his father when he was suddenly taken ill and he paid a special tribute to Mr Ahern recalling a 40-year friendship he had with his father. Fr Des Doyle told the congregation that Paddy Duffy was a lover of words and a student of philosophy who had a deep Christian faith. Mr Duffys brother-in-law, Malachy Kerr, said his many interests were totally diverse and he had recently taken to photography and cultivating Irish wild flowers. Mr Kerr said he had planted wildflowers on public land near his home which were cut down by the Councils lawnmower. Paddy, being the man he is, got a sign professionally made which read: No grass cutting by order. When the flowers grew again, they were not cut down, Mr Kerr recalled to the great amusement of the congregation. Paddy Duffy was a native of Athboy, Co Meath, and a proud supporter of that countys teams. He had a life-long dedication to the Irish language, was a founder and principal of Gaelscoil na Cille in Ashbourne, and was a regular contributor to Raidio na Gaeltachtas news and discussion programmes. Expand Close Former TD Ned O'Keeffe pictured at the funeral of Paddy Duffy..Picture Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Former TD Ned O'Keeffe pictured at the funeral of Paddy Duffy..Picture Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin. The large Fianna Fail contingent was led by deputy leader, Dara Calleary and general secretary Sean Dorgan, and included TDs, Darragh OBrien and Shane Cassells. Also present were Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, Denis ODonovan, and Senator Gerry Horkan. Former government ministers present included Tony Killeen, Ned OKeeffe, Brendan Daly, and Mary Hanafin. There were two former government press secretaries, Joe Lennon and Mandy Johnston, present along with former ministerial adviser, Derek Mooney. Other attendees included businessman Denis OBrien, RTE Northern Editor, Tommie Gorman, and radio journalist Eileen Brophy. Former trade union leader, Mick Reilly, was there as was gay rights activist Tiernan Brady. There was a host of people from the public relations sector, in which Mr Duffy worked for many years, including Dave Curtin, and Jackie Gallagher. Mr Duffys remains were laid to rest at Dardistown Cemetery. Dominic Lipinski - Pool/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- All eyes are on Meghan Markle as she and her husband, Prince Harry, undertake a 16-day tour of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga. The couple will attend more than 70 engagements over the course of their four-nation tour. For Meghan, who is expecting the couple's first child, that means possibly the same number of outfit changes. The duchess, whose every fashion move is closely watched, was joined for part of the Down Under tour by Jessica Mulroney, her close friend and style adviser. It was Mulroney, who lives in Toronto, who helped Meghan plan her wedding and who has assisted in styling some of her biggest fashion moments since becoming a royal. Mulroney and her husband, Ben Mulroney, the parents of three children, arrived in Australia on Monday, according to her Instagram stories. Check back here over the next two weeks as "Good Morning America" tracks all of Meghan's fashion choices during the royal tour Down Under. Wellington, New Zealand Meghan chose a custom white blazer dress to meet with young students and professionals working in Wellington's film and creative industries. The "Leap of Faith" dress is by Maggie Marilyn, a New Zealand fashion brand that launched in 2016. A version of the "ethically made" dress, which Meghan wore as sleeveless, is available for preorder on the brand's site for $1,020. Sydney, Australia Meghan wore a magical Oscar de la Renta gown to the Australian Geographic Society Awards in Sydney. She and Harry presented young people with awards at the event, an "annual gathering of Australia's brightest and best in exploration, science and conservation," according to Kensington Palace. Tonga Meghan began her last day in Tonga wearing a sleek pony tail and a striped dress by Australian designer Martin Grant. She later changed into a blue Veronica Beard dress for an engagement at the Tongatapu and Eua National Park Reserve. Meghan also wore the dress as she and Harry board their charter flight back to Sydney. Tonga Meghan stunned in a white formal gown by Theia at an official dinner hosted by King Tupou VI and Queen Nanasipauu. She accented the gown with a Givenchy clutch and a very personal accessory, an aquamarine ring from the collection of her late mother-in-law, Princess Diana. Harry gifted the ring to Meghan when they wed in May and Meghan wore the ring to their evening wedding reception. Earlier in the day, Meghan chose a more colorful Self Portrait dress, in Tongan red, for their arrival to Tonga. Nadi, Fiji On her last day in Fiji with Prince Harry, Meghan wore a green dress by New York-based designer Jason Wu. Meghan and Harry attended a special event at Nadi Airport, where they unveiled a new statue commemorating Sergeant Talaiasi Labalaba, a British-Fijian soldier. Suva, Fiji Meghan chose a pink wrap dress with pom pom details for her second day in Fiji with Prince Harry, where she delivered an address on girls' education at the University of the South Pacific. Meghan's Frederica Printed Ruffle Dress is described as featuring a "wrap silhouette with a v neckline, long sleeves and asymmetrical ruffle hem." It retails for $1,495 on Moda Operandi, where it is already sold out. The dress is by fashion line Figue, whose creative director is a French woman, Stephanie von Watzdorf. Fiji Meghan dazzled in blue at a state dinner hosted for her and Harry in Fiji. Her cape gown was designed by Safiyaa, a London-based fashion line founded by Daniela Karnuts. The Ginkgo Embroidered Cape Dress retails for $2,085 and includes "ginkgo-inspired embroidery" in its original design on Safiyaa's website. Meghan paired the gown with a stunning pair of borrowed diamond earrings. Earlier in the day, Meghan wore a cream dress by Australian label Zimmerman and a Stephen Jones hat for her arrival with Harry in Fiji. She accented the dress with earrings gifted to her by Queen Elizabeth during their first joint engagement in Chester and a bracelet gifted to her by Prince Charles. Fraser Island Meghan dressed island casual for a visit with Harry to Fraser Island, located off Australias eastern Queensland Coast. Meghan chose a sleeveless linen dress by U.S. brand Reformation, which focuses on making its clothes from sustainable fabrics. Meghan's pineapple dress retails for $218 and is already sold out on the companys website. Meghan paired the dress with a pair of $245 sandals by celebrity-favorite footwear designer Sarah Flint. Anzac Memorial Hyde Park Meghan chose a black dress by designer Emilia Wickstead for the opening of the Anzac Memorial in Sydney's Hyde Park, to honor Australians who have been killed in conflict. She paired the dress with a hat by Philip Treacy, a favorite milliner of the royal family. 2018 Invictus Games Meghan accessorized her official Invictus Games shirt with a white blazer and black jeans as she and Harry attended the first events of the 2018 Games in Sydney. For the Opening Ceremony of the 2018 Invictus Games at Sydney Opera House, Meghan wore a dress by Stella McCartney, who also designed the gown Meghan wore to her evening wedding reception. Meghan chose a much more causal look, appropriately, when she and Harry went boarded a boat to watch a sailing event. She paired black pants and an official Invictus Games windbreaker with a pair of trendy sneakers by French footwear brand Veja. Sydney, Australia Meghan went casual in a Martin Grant maxi dress for a visit to Sydney's iconic Bondi Beach with Prince Harry. The duchess accessorized her dress with wedge shoes but took them off to walk in the sand on the beach. In choosing the $1,420 dress by Grant, Meghan continued her tradition of dressing in Australian designers during her visit Down Under. Later in the day, Meghan changed into a pleated two-tone crepe midi dress by Roksanda for a visit to a girls' school. The Roksanda "Athena" dress retails for $1,850 on Net-a-Porter. Melbourne, Australia Meghan continued her tour of diplomatic fashion when she and Prince Harry visited Melbourne. Meghan wore a navy Dion Lee dress and Martin Grant trench coat, both made by Australian designers. Dion Lees folded sail dress was instantly besieged with online requests, causing the companys website to crash. The dress, which was a custom-made bespoke dress for Meghan, will reportedly become available later this week. Later in the day, Meghan changed into a Club Monaco dress and Rothy's flats, which she also wore earlier this week, for a visit to South Melbourne Beach. Dubbo, Australia Duchess Meghan showed how friends support friends by wearing a blazer from her pal Serena Williams' fashion line on the second day of the royal tour Down Under. The blazer is aptly named "Boss" and is from Williams' royal line of her Serena Williams Collection. It retails for $145 and has already sold out. Williams is a longtime friend of Markle's who attended her wedding to Prince Harry last May. Williams and her husband, Alexis Ohanian, also joined Meghan and Harry at a charity polo match in the U.K. in July. Meghan paired the blazer with a white button down shirt and black jeans by Outland Denim, an Australian company. A portion of the sales from the Outland jeans, which are ethically sourced, go toward stopping human trafficking in Cambodia. Meghan's necklace was made by Australian designer Natalie Martin. She completed with look with a pair of black ankle boots by U.S. retailer J. Crew that sell for $178. Sydney, Australia On the first day of the tour, Meghan chose to honor her late mother-in-law, Princess Diana, by wearing a pair of butterfly earrings and a bracelet that belonged to Diana, who died in 1997. Meghan chose an Australian designer, Karen Gee, for her first dress of the tour, the "Blessed Dress" that retails for around $1,200. The designer's website crashed just moments after Meghan was first spotted in the white dress, which Meghan paired with a chic trench coat. Meghan also proved practical in her fashion choices, opting to swap her heels for a pair of Rothy's flats when she and Harry caught a ferry to the Sydney Opera House. Later in the day, Meghan changed into a $1,895 olive green shirt dress by designer Brandon Maxwell for a welcome reception hosted by Australia's governor general. Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Condemned: The group in KKK garb outside the mosque in Newtownards Churches in the North have united to condemn the actions of a group of men who posed as Ku Klux Klan members outside an Islamic prayer house in Co Down. Police are treating the incident in Newtownards at the weekend as a hate crime. Pictures have emerged showing the group in white KKK garb and carrying wooden crosses at Greenwell Street, right beside the Bangladesh Islamic Centre. One of the men was also pictured on the same night embracing Sharon Mellor, the girlfriend of London-based National Front leader Tony Martin, in a pub in Newtownards. The Rev Norman McAuley of Greenwell Street Presbyterian Church, which is next door to the centre, appealed to the men to identify themselves. "If it was just a Halloween prank, then come forward and explain it - hold your hands up and say so," he said. "Just admit it was a joke that in hindsight was in very poor taste." Expand Close Sharon Mellor poses with one of them / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sharon Mellor poses with one of them The images, which have made global headlines on CNN, have drawn widespread condemnation. "We regard these members of the Islamic community as our neighbours and our Christian faith teaches us to love our neighbours," Rev McAuley added. "These men stood with wooden crosses and from our point of view the cross is a symbol of the unconditional love of God," he said. "What we saw at the weekend was sacrilege." Ards Churches Together has offered its full support to those in the Muslim community who feel intimidated after "symbols of hate" appeared outside their place of worship and "hurt a whole community". "We stand with you," it added. A couple, who owe 336,000 arrears on a double mortgage totalling 670,000, have been granted a stay of almost a year on the re-possession of a Dublin property, still the home of one of them. University lecturer Dr Paul Stokes, of 'Pinehaven', Dalkey Avenue, Co Dublin, and his wife, Eilish Kendlin, 17 Kilcolman Court, Glenageary, Co Dublin, consented in the Circuit Civil Court Wednesday to EBS taking back their jointly mortgaged Glenagery property. Ms Kendlin told Judge Jacqueline Linnane that she was undergoing a hospital treatment that was envisaged to last for a year and she had asked for a 12-months stay on the re-possession order. Barrister David Colgan, counsel for EBS Dac, said he had been instructed to consent to a three months stay on the order and, while banks sometimes agreed to a six months delay on re-possession to allow people find another home, he was unable to agree to a year-long stay. Judge Linnane heard that Stokes, a lecturer in UCD, and Kendlin were co signatories on two mortgage agreements with EBS, the first for 249,000 and the second for 239,000. Ms Kendlin said there had been no difficulties with the initial mortgage; it was the second that had created all the problems. The second mortgage had been raised to purchase an apartment in Manchester, which was now in negative equity, and an investment of 46,000 had been paid out on an apartment in Spain, with no likelihood of it being built. The judge was told in bank documents that the current monthly repayment was 1,818 on the initial mortgage and 1,577 monthly on the second mortgage. There had been no repayments made since October 2015. Dr Stokes, currently renting 'Pinehaven' told Judge Linnane no-one had asked him to consent to the re-possession of the Kilcolman Court, Glenageary, property but he was consenting in court in order to help her. He said that although they were separated she was still his wife. Judge Linnane granted EBS an order for re-possession of 17 Kilcolman Court but put a stay on execution of her order until September next year. She said that, while it was probably an academic exercise, the court would grant the bank its legal costs. She said the chances of the bank recovering its costs were probably nil. A 24-year-old female teacher appeared in court today where she was charged with the defilement of a teenage boy who was a student in her school at the time. The woman was brought before Swords District Court where she was charged with two offences under Section 3(1) of the Criminal Sexual Offences Act 2006 that on February 1 this year and on February 13 that she had engaged in a sex act with a child under the age of 17. The young teacher appeared before Judge Dermot Dempsey after she was arrested by investigating gardai at Dublin Airport on Sunday after returning to Ireland on a flight. Judge Dempsey remanded the teacher on bail and adjourned the case until December 19 when she is due to appear in court again. The judge granted bail with a number of conditions that included that she surrender her passport and not apply for a new document. She must also provide gardai with a phone number to be contactable at all times. Judge Dempsey granted an application for legal aid as the defendants solicitor said her client had lost her job. The judge granted the application and the accused made a cash lodgment of 2,000 in court as she was granted bail. The defendant who was a teacher in a Dublin school at the time of the alleged offence did not speak during the brief hearing. It has been reported that evidence of arrest, charge and caution was given in court by Garda Stephen Hughes. Garda Hughes said: She was interviewed under the provisions of Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act. Directions to charge were obtained last night. The accused, who cannot be named for legal reasons, made no reply after the charge. Garda Hughes told the court that they had seized the young womans mobile phone and that she would have to obtain another phone. She also must not have any contact with the alleged victim or any other witnesses engaged in the case. Garda Hughes asked the court that an order be made under Section 30 of the Sexual Offences Act that there would be no reporting of the identity of the accused or any details that might identify the victim. He said: This is due to the nature of the offence. The teacher will appear again in court in December. Stock Image A 24-year-old female teacher has appeared in court charged with the defilement of a teenage boy who was a student in her school at the time. The woman was brought before Swords District Court where she was charged with two offences under Section 3(1) of the Criminal Sexual Offences Act 2006 that on February 1 this year and on February 13 she had engaged in a sex act with a child under the age of 17. The young teacher appeared before Judge Dermot Dempsey yesterday after she was arrested by investigating gardai at Dublin Airport on Sunday after returning to Ireland on a flight. Judge Dempsey remanded the teacher on bail and adjourned the case until December 19 when she is due to appear in court again. The judge granted bail with a number of conditions that included that she surrender her passport and not apply for a new document. She must also provide gardai with a phone number and be contactable at all times. Judge Dempsey granted an application for legal aid as the defendant's solicitor said her client had lost her job. The judge granted the application and the accused made a cash lodgement of 2,000 in court as she was granted bail. The defendant, who was a teacher in a Dublin school at the time of the alleged offence, did not speak during the brief hearing. The teacher was dressed in a pink hoodie and black tracksuit bottoms with black-rimmed glasses and sat in the body of the court for the duration of the hearing. It has been reported that evidence of arrest, charge and caution was given in court by Garda Stephen Hughes. Phone Gda Hughes said: "She was interviewed under the provisions of Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act. Directions to charge were obtained last night." The accused, who cannot be named for legal reasons, made no reply after the charge. Gda Hughes told the court they had seized the young woman's mobile phone and that she would have to obtain another phone. She also must not have any contact with the alleged victim or any other witnesses engaged in the case. Gda Hughes asked the court that an order be made under Section 30 of the Sexual Offences Act that there would be no reporting of the identity of the accused or any details that might identify the victim. He said: "This is due to the nature of the offence." David ODonovan was found guilty of the assault on pensioner Robert Duggan. Photo: Michael Mac Sweeney/Cork Courts An 80-year-old man who tried to prevent a heroin addict from stealing a Church collection box was subjected to a horrific attack including having his eye gouged, being kicked in the groin and then had his glasses stamped on. The assault by David O'Donovan (41) on the pensioner only ended when a Polish woman attending Mass bravely intervened. O'Donovan, of Glendalough, Grenville Place, Cork, pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to Robert Duggan, who was working as a volunteer at St Augustine's Church in Cork. Cork Circuit Criminal Court heard that Mr Duggan, a church volunteer for almost 70 years, heroically challenged a man who he spotted trying to break in to a collection box while Mass was ongoing. Judge Sean O'Donnabhain was told by Detective Garda Padraig Harrington the incident unfolded at 8.30pm on March 24 last at St Augustine's Church on the Grand Parade. Mr Duggan went over to a man interfering with the collection box. "He said words to the effect of: 'He was in a house of God and to stop it'. But he (O'Donovan) told him: 'F*** you and f*** the Church'. He then counted down, four, three, two, one and then kicked Mr Duggan in the groin," said Det Gda Harrington. When the pensioner fell to the ground, he gouged his eye and stamped on his glasses. The defendant, who has a chronic heroin problem, was later spotted by gardai nearby. Mr Duggan, who walked to the witness box with the aid of a cane, told the court he had never before experienced such treatment. "This has knocked my confidence. He stuck his thumb in my eye and he kicked me in the groin. In the past I have seen people with drink, people with drugs and people who were depressed," he said. However, he stressed he never experienced anything like the March 24 incident. O'Donovan has 22 convictions. None, until now, involved any violence. Judge O'Donnabhain remanded O'Donovan in custody to be sentenced on November 23. A 49-year old man who sued over his care at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin has settled his High Court action for 5.9 million. Brendan Doyle's counsel told the High Court a shunt, which had been in Mr Doyle's brain since childhood was removed when he was admitted to Beaumont Hospital in 2011, but was not re-inserted and this had "tragic consequences" and he is now totally blind. Denis McCullough SC said for Mr Doyle, who has cerebral palsy and mild learning disabilities, it was the "final straw" and he has lived in a nursing home ever since. Approving the settlement Mr Justice Cross said it was a sad incident and it had a catastrophic effect on Mr Doyle. He said the settlement will look after Mr Doyle for the rest of his life. He noted the hospital had admitted liability and had taken a reasonable approach in relation to the future accommodation needs of Mr Doyle, who will now be able to move out of the nursing home. Brendan Doyle who currently resides at Lawson House, Glenbrien, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford had through his brother John Doyle sued the Beaumont Hospital over the circumstances of his care. Mr Doyle who has cerebral palsy and problems relating to this central nervous system had a shunt inserted in his brain in childhood. On June 1, 2011 he was complaining of headache and vomiting and went to his local hospital in Wexford where he had a CT scan and was referred to Beaumont Hospital, Dublin. It was claimed that due to a suspicion Mr Doyle had sustained a shunt related infection, the brain shunt was removed a few days later and it was decided it was not necessary to re-establish the shunt. Mr Doyle was discharged from Beaumont Hospital on June 10, 2011 with directions to continue antibiotic therapy and after a few days in his local hospital was discharged on June 16, 2011. It is claimed the next day he was back in the A&E of his local hospital complaining of increased weakness and and he had a CT scan. He had another CT scan in July. Mr Doyle who was complaining of headache was referred back to outpatients at Beaumont Hospital and in August, 2011 his case was reviewed and it is claimed the impression was formed that the man's condition was improving and another CT scan was recommended for December 2011. In early September 2011, it is claimed Mr Doyle suffered loss of vision and was referred back to Beaumont Hospital where he underwent surgery. Notwithstanding the reinsertion of the brain shunt, Mr Doyle lost his eyesight. Brendan Doyles brother John in a statement read outside the court by his solicitor Michael Boylan said the family felt aggrieved liability was only admitted in January of this year, six and half years later. "Brendan has wasted almost seven years of his life in a nursing home with no effective rehabilitation programme, surrounded by elderly patients and having to wait for a call bell to be answered just so he can use the bathroom, the statement read." It said before this incident Brendan was very independent - he used bus services independently, wrote for his local newspaper and enjoyed lots of hobbies. "Before this he required supervision only, rather than care. Brendan was an active and contributing member of his community." The Doyles said the settlement will provide Brendan with a purpose built home of his own and the 24-hour support he now needs. "We and Brendan would return every cent of this settlement were it to mean that he could see again but we hope that with therapy and proper rehabilitation, Brendan will at least once again become an active member of his community and begin to enjoy life once more. "We will leave Dublin now and return to Wexford to start putting arrangements in place so that Brendan will spend Christmas in a suitable home and can start the New Year with a care support package in place that will allow Brendan to surmount the challenges life has presented, as he has bravely done before." A computer seized from murder accused Paul Wells home was used to search for ferry timetables hours before he says he killed Kenneth OBrien. A Central Criminal Court jury heard a user profile called Paul visited the Irish Ferries website shortly before he maintains he shot Mr OBrien in a scuffle in his back yard. A garda cyber crime expert was giving evidence at Mr Wells trial today. Mr Wells (50), of Barnamore Park, Finglas, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr OBrien (33) at that address between January 15 and 16, 2016. He has admitted that he shot him dead but said it happened when they struggled during a row after Mr OBrien turned up at his home with a gun. The accused claimed Mr OBrien had wanted to have his partner Eimear Dunne murdered and Mr Wells refused to kill her. He said he panicked and chopped up the body in his yard with a chainsaw. He put Mr OBriens torso in a suitcase and his head and limbs in shopping bags, which he threw into the Grand Canal in Co Kildare. Today, Det Gda Cliff Cullen of the Cyber Crime Bureau said an Acer laptop was seized from the accuseds home after he was arrested in February 2016. A forensic image was examined using software tools and showed the operating systems registered user was Paul. It was last shut down on February 7, 2016 and the last recorded log-in was on February 5, at 11.20pm. It was ascertained that search terms had been used on the laptop in relation to Irish Ferries Times from Dublin and Irish Ferries Timetables. The searches were undertaken at 3.49pm and 4.01pm on January 15. The user profile Paul visited the Irish Ferries website at 3.59pm and between then and 4.01pm, Paul accessed pages on the site including UK to France from Ireland and Rosslare to Cherbourg". The web pages would have included ferry schedules for those routes. Michael OHiggins SC, defending, said he was reserving cross examination of the witness until tomorrow. Lorraine OBrien, the deceaseds aunt who gave evidence previously, was then recalled for additional cross examination. She said in her statement to gardai that Mr OBrien had had a lot of time for his foreman in Australia. She indicated Mr OBrien had lived in one place and moved on without telling anyone. He had had a strong personality, she told the jury. Mr OHiggins said she had told gardai when Mr OBrien came home in December 2014, he was not in a good place, was moping around and very distracted. Mr OHiggins said she had said Mr OBrien did not want to come home. She told the jury she had asked him if he wanted to come home or stay in Australia and he never said either way and she still did not know what was upsetting him at the time. She agreed Mr OBrien had told her the company owner in Australia was involved in drugs. Mr OBrien had told her he had gone through a serious amount of money since he got off the plane, saying he had bought presents and paid bills. Lee OBrien, the deceaseds brother, then gave evidence. Mr OHiggins put it to him that his mother had said she understood an Anna from Rwanda who Mr OBrien had been seeing, was originally from London. When asked where she garnered that information, she had said it was from you, Mr OHiggins said. The witness agreed he had had a conversation with his brother about this. Det Gda Declan OBrien, who gave evidence previously, was called again for further cross examination about the CCTV system at Mr OBriens home at Leland Road, Clondalkin. He said there were four cameras; two at the front and two at the back. Footage was viewed and it did not record between 8.36pm on December 28, 2015 and just after midnight on January 7. It then recorded continuously in a 24-hour cycle and Det Gda OBrien agreed with Mr OHiggins that the things he noted happening outside the house after this were a picture of a typical day. This continued until Wednesday, January 13, when the camera went off at 4.52am, Mr OHiggins said. On Thursday, January 14, it recorded for a minute and 13 seconds from 11.50am to 11.51am. The footage stops, Det Dga OBrien said, agreeing that this was the last entry of recorded CCTV from Mr OBriens home. In re-examination, prosecutor Sean Gillane SC said Det Gda OBrien had used the phrase stops as opposed to turned off. The screen goes blank, he replied. There is no visible footage. Mr Gillane said this was the last evidence he was putting forward, but as the defence had deferred a decision on cross-examination of Det Gda Cliff Cullen, the prosecution would not be formally closing its case until tomorrow. John and Louise Wills were devastated after the death of baby Eibhlin John and Louise Wills were devastated after the death of baby Eibhlin (inset) A 12-day-old baby girl died after contracting the common cold sore virus in hospital days after birth. Baby Eibhlin Wills acquired the infection in the first five days of her life, an inquest into her death heard. Blood tests showed no sign of the infection three days after birth but the infection was present in samples taken when Eibhlin was five days old. Expand Close John and Louise Wills lost their daughter Eibhlin (pictures) to the herpes simplex virus in 2015 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp John and Louise Wills lost their daughter Eibhlin (pictures) to the herpes simplex virus in 2015 Dublin Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane found the infant died due to a hospital acquired infection. The family described the loss of their precious baby as an "unspeakable horror". For the past three years we have had to live with the unspeakable horror of losing our baby girl to an entirely preventable disease. While it has been extremely painful to go through the details again...todays verdict gives us the opportunity to again warn the public and especially the families of newborns and those caring for them, of the potential danger of the common cold sore virus, baby Eibhlins father, John Wills said. The coroner recommended that the Minister for Health include neonatal herpes as a formally notifiable disease and endorsed and commended the Wills familys efforts to raise awareness of the dangers of neonatal herpes. Expand Close John and Louise Wills were devastated after the death of baby Eibhlin / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp John and Louise Wills were devastated after the death of baby Eibhlin Parents John and Louise Wills from Boden Park, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16 welcomed baby Eibhlin, their first-born, into the world on November 19 2015. She was born at the National Maternity Hospital where she was cared for until her discharge on November 24. She was a babbly, amenable baby, goo-ing and gaa-ing and making noises. She was this tiny little person who was incredibly alert for her age, Mr Wills said, describing his baby after the inquest. He told Dublin Coroners Court how the couple cared for their newborn after bringing her home. We spent those first few days getting used to her. She was feeding well and sleeping well and settled into her little routine, he said. The public health nurse visited the family on November 27. The nurse was very happy with her. That weekend Eibhlin seemed to have picked up a cold. She was sniffling a little but she was still feeding, Mr Wills said. Expand Close Baby Eibhlin died age 12 days after contracting neonatal herpes simplex / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Baby Eibhlin died age 12 days after contracting neonatal herpes simplex By Monday the infant was feeding less and she seemed tired. John and Louise phoned the hospital and were told to bring the baby in if they remained concerned. They called Louises mother who arrived at their home at 11.30pm. Very suddenly Eibhlin went limp and her colour changed. We drove her straight to Tallaght Hospital, Mr Wills said. Resuscitation attempts failed and the baby was pronounced dead at 1.09am on December 1. A post-mortem conducted by Dr Michael McDermott gave the cause of death as disseminated neonatal herpes simplex virus type 1, the virus that causes the common cold sore. Dr McDermott found no other abnormalities or underlying vulnerabilities other than the infants age. This was an overwhelming primary infection and it was a recent infection, Dr McDermott said. The court heard details of ongoing training to prevent cross-contamination at the National Maternity Hospital (NMH). Staff with a visible cold sore are expected to cover it with a patch. Obstetrician Prof Mary Higgins said baby Eibhlin was a 'a beautiful little girl who left us far too soon.' She said the infant's death from the virus had an impact on NMH staff. "When you are looking after a person who is sick you have to be so careful not to pass it onto another person. Basic principals of hand hygiene are integrated into training as a student and again at induction days. Infection control staff give talks on hand hygiene and universal precautions. Before you approach someone you wash your hands so as not to pass on any bacteria," she said. Virologist Prof Cillian De Gascun performed laboratory tests on blood samples provided by the hospital following the autopsy. The challenge with herpes is you can actually transmit the virus without having a cold sore. In a significant proportion of cases, there wont be a cold sore and its passed on as it asymptomatic. Asked if the virus is more likely to be spread when a cold sore is present, Prof De Gascun said it was. Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane returned a verdict of death due to a healthcare acquired infection and commended the couple on their efforts to raise awareness of the dangers of the HSV virus. I endorse the ongoing raising of awareness of this condition for the public and other maternity hospitals in order this can be prevented as much as possible, although it is never possible to entirely eliminate tragedies such as this. This is such an affecting inquest, you have been very active in the raising awareness and have to be commended on what youve done, the coroner said. A High Court judge has dismissed a challenge by a solicitor to a decision to cut costs he sought from a former client by 650,000. Wicklow-based solicitor Joseph Buckley's costs bill was decreased by the Taxing Master, who assesses legal bills arising from court actions. A legal costs accountant described it as "the worst example of overcharging" he had ever seen. Denis Doyle, a client of Mr Buckley for 10 years, had opposed Mr Buckley's case over the cut and claimed the Master's decisions showed Mr Buckley was involved in "serious overcharging" of him. Taxing Master Declan O'Neill issued a determination in January 2017 that made reductions of about 650,000 in claims by Mr Buckley. However, that determination was not finalised pending Mr Buckley's High Court case over it. Separate proceedings by Mr Doyle against his former solicitor seeking a sum of 565,000 in a client account, which Mr Doyle alleges is his also, remain on hold pending the High Court review. Mr Buckley, who claims he is owed the monies in fees, had said 45,000 remained in that account. Yesterday, Mr Justice Donald Binchy said he had concluded the court should not intervene in the "significant reductions" made by Master O'Neill. He had one reservation arising from Mr Buckley's insistence he had discharged a particular sum of 190,000, the judge said. If Mr Buckley could establish he had done so, that could be taken into account at the plenary hearing and the Taxing Master's findings adjusted to reflect that. The judge gave a brief summary of his decision. Full judgment will be made available within a few days. He said a lack of judicial resources meant a "very unsatisfactory state of affairs" where judges had to sit and hear cases one after another, with no opportunity to give decisions in a timely manner. This led to cases such as this, which threw up complexities and a lot of material requiring "careful sifting", getting pushed aside, he said. Primary schools may face strikes after teachers rejected a government deal to end two-tier pay in the public service. Members of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) have voted by a narrow majority of 53pc against a package that meant recent recruits would get pay hikes worth 3,300 each. There was a 55pc turnout. The deal means those who were hired over the last seven years on lower pay would catch up with their longer-serving colleagues. They would move up the pay scale from next March by skipping increments on their pay scales. However, there will be no back-pay. The teachers face a nine-month delay in pay rises and increment if they take industrial action. If the primary teachers go on strike they face the prospect of delayed pay rises due under the current pay deal and a freeze on increments. In a statement, the union said the vote demonstrates the commitment of its members to secure pay equality. It said the proposed agreement left several new entrants from 2011 onwards paid less than their colleagues. The statement said the membership has sought to stand in unity with their colleagues in demanding full restoration. Its central executive committee will meet next week to consider the result and a forthcoming ballot on industrial action. "Notwithstanding progress to date on pay equality, the proposed agreement by Government failed to signal an end to pay inequality for all new entrants," said INTO general secretary Sheila Nunan. "Acting in solidarity with their colleagues who are paid less for doing the same job, our membership has signalled that they will not stand for any agreement which leaves them in a similar position." Last week, the TUI was the first of the teacher unions to deliver a verdict on the proposal. The ASTI is due to give its verdict on the Government package next month. All three teacher unions put the proposals to ballot without a recommendation. Meanwhile, onsite repairs are under way at five of the 42 schools cleared to reopen after structural inspections were carried out. The five schools include Tyrrelstown Educate Together National School and the adjoining St Luke's National School in Dublin, as well as Gaelscoil Eiscir Riada in Lucan, which were closed as a result of the structural issues identified in the walls of school buildings. Two other schools, Scoil Chaitlin Maude in Tallaght and Castlemills Education Centre in Balbriggan, will also reopen following external works to the building walls. Education Minister Joe McHugh said: "I am pleased with the progress being made on the programme of initial assessments. "I appreciate that parents, pupils and staff are keen to hear results from inspections at schools and the Department is confident that once further analysis is carried out by engineers and consultants we will be in a position to confirm decisions in the next day or two." Gardai have launched a number of criminal investigations into allegations of abuse relating to Scouting Ireland. (Stock Photo) The number of community gardai has plummeted by almost 40pc, newly released figures have revealed. According to the statistics, which were released to Social Democrats TD Roisin Shortall, there were 1,182 community officers in 2010, while now there are only 716. Ms Shortall has claimed Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan has "totally abdicated" responsibility for protecting communities. The fall in numbers was sharpest in the Garda's Northern Region, where there was a 74pc drop, from 78 to 20. The Eastern Region saw a 55pc drop from 101 to 46. And in the Dublin Metropolitan Region there was a 39pc drop - in line with the overall national average - from 508 to 311. Releasing the information, Mr Flanagan said it is the Garda Commissioner who is responsible for the distribution of resources and that the minister has "no direct role". He insisted that community policing is "at the heart of An Garda Siochana". He insisted that all Garda members have a role to play in community policing. He said community garda are those tasked exclusively with building relationships in neighbourhoods and civil society, including giving talks at schools and to local groups. Ms Shortall said community gardai play an "absolutely vital role in discovering and preventing crimes" and help communities - particularly the elderly - feel safe. She said there's a growing problem of anti-social behaviour involving minors in Dublin. A Department of Justice statement said the minister does not interfere politically in policing matters. General view of boy attempting to kick wheeled bin into the bonfire alongside a burning car on Halloween evening. Finglas south, Dublin. Picture: Caroline Quinn Dublin Fire Brigade was called out to more than 900 incidents overnight as people across the city celebrated Halloween. The vast majority of the calls related to illegal bonfires. "We received 904 '999' calls into our control centre, 368 of these were Dublin fire calls (230 Halloween related) and 365 were Dublin ambulance calls," the service said this morning. Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland, acting assistant chief fire officer Greg O'Dwyer said that the service's full fleet of 21 engines and fire personnel were on duty on the busiest night of the year. Expand Close General view of (2nd) burning car in Primrose Grove, Darndale, Dublin. Picture: Caroline Quinn / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp General view of (2nd) burning car in Primrose Grove, Darndale, Dublin. Picture: Caroline Quinn "It's exactly on par - on average we have approximately 900 calls each Halloween for the last three or four years, which is at least six times higher than your average Wednesday night," he said. He said illegal bonfires allied with some anti social behaviour made up the majority of the calls overnight, while the ambulance calls included a number of serious injuries to hands and eyes from fireworks, including one in the Dolphin's Barn area of the city. While he said the number of injuries and amount of anti social behaviour was going down due to an increase in 'official' Halloween events, he confirmed there was an incident in which cars were driven onto bonfires overnight. It is understood that happened in the Dublin 12 area. "That does happen on occasion. Thankfully not very often but it can happen in certain areas but sometimes in the early hours of the morning when fires tend to die down a bit - people will resort to whatever they can to keep them going," he said. "The big danger with illegal bonfires is what people throw on to them, the combustible materials, especially gas cylinders and aerosol containers. Among the incidents dealt with by the fire brigade were a bonfire in Kilbarrack which firefighters said was radiating a lot of heat. Expand Close General view of Garda Public Order unit vehicles on Benbulbin road, Drimnagh, Dublin, on Halloween evening. Picture: Caroline Quinn / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp General view of Garda Public Order unit vehicles on Benbulbin road, Drimnagh, Dublin, on Halloween evening. Picture: Caroline Quinn Kilbarrack firefighters at a bonfire tonight, there would a lot of radiated heat from a large bonfire like this #DFBLive #Dublin #Halloween pic.twitter.com/iy7yTZKU6S Dublin Fire Brigade (@DubFireBrigade) October 31, 2018 Firefighters from Dolphin's Barn were also called to extinguish a bonfire in the south of the city. Firefighters from Dolphins Barn station dealing with a bonfire in the South city centre #Dublin #fire #DFBLive #Halloween pic.twitter.com/7YVK86X5Yj Dublin Fire Brigade (@DubFireBrigade) October 31, 2018 Meanwhile, in Drimnagh a firework was thrown at gardai at around 8pm this evening. Gardai confirmed there was an incident on Benbulben Road involving an accelerant or fire work being thrown at a Garda vehicle. At approximately 8pm some type of accelerant or possibly a fire work was thrown at a public order van on Benbulben Road, Dublin 12, a Garda spokesperson said. Public order units were deployed to Greenhills in the south of the city to disperse crowds of youths. The extent of the queue is causing major concern among desperate parents who fear their children will have life-long complications because they were not seen and treated on time. Stock Image More than 10,300 children are now facing gruelling and potentially life-changing delays of at least a year-and-a-half to see a specialist. Among them are 3,488 children who are waiting to see an orthopaedic surgeon for conditions such as scoliosis, many for up to three years. The extent of the queue is causing major concern among desperate parents who fear their children will have life-long complications because they were not seen and treated on time. They include children with a range of conditions which need to be assessed by a specialist, including heart and vision difficulties. The waiting list only refers to young patients at the main children's hospitals in Dublin - Temple Street, Our Lady's Hospital Crumlin and Tallaght Hospital. The real figure is higher when the waiting lists around the country are counted. The queue of people waiting lengthy periods is now nearly 20 times higher than just two years ago when the number of children waiting over 18 months was 505. The Government's plans to tackle the crisis was put to Health Minister Simon Harris in a parliamentary question by Fianna Fail TD Jack Chambers, who condemned the manner in which the waiting list for vulnerable children has been allowed to escalate. "The figures are stark and they hide the potential damage to these children who are at risk of life-altering health difficulties," he said. "I am also concerned these figures do not capture all children enduring this kind of delay across the country. "They expose the Government's shallow spin." Claire Cahill, of ScolioNetwork, representing children with the severe spinal condition, said: "The delay can have serious implications for children who live with progressive scoliosis. "Long waits for a first spinal assessment can impact the outcome of surgery and their quality of life. "Children who experience long waits for care often have to endure more complex surgeries with greater risk of increased blood loss and reduced outcomes. "The current wait for an outpatient appointment is not acceptable." Struggling A breakdown of the hospitals reveals how the 18 month and longer queue of children to see a specialist has spiralled since the current Government took office. There were 236 waiting in 2016 in Crumlin Hospital and this has now risen to 4,560. Temple St has seen its numbers go up from 163 to 5,553. The children's hospital in Tallaght is struggling to cope with 1,216 long waiters, as opposed to just 106 in 2016. In response, the minister said that in Budget 2019 the Government has prioritised improving access and reducing waiting times for patients, with funding to the National Treatment Purchase fund (NTPF) increasing from 55m in 2018 to 75m in 2019, of which 6m will be invested in outpatient activity. "In addition, specific investments to improve paediatric services have been made including the establishment of the outpatient and urgent care centre at Connolly Hospital, Dublin in 2019 and the development of sustainable and safe paediatric orthopaedic service, including scoliosis, for children and young people," said Mr Harris. He said that to date this year the NTPF has approved almost 12,700 additional first-time outpatient appointments and this is projected to increase to 40,000 appointments in 2019. "I recently met with the chief executives of all hospital groups to discuss improving access for patients and requested that they work with the NTPF and HSE in 2019 to develop innovative proposals to address the number of long waiters on outpatient lists in 2019," he added. Read more: Only one child with scoliosis sent to UK for surgery as 109 still wait The group overseeing the three children's hospitals has implemented a number of "new and innovative" initiatives to improve access to outpatient appointments for patients across a range of specialties, including cardiology and orthopaedics, he said. These include additional clinics in ear, nose and throat and dermatology. There has also been the appointment of additional staff in general paediatrics, ophthalmology and orthopaedics. The hospitals are also using some "virtual assessment clinics" for children who need rheumatology care. An additional 9m was given to the three hospitals this year to support a sustainable and safe paediatric orthopaedic service for children and young people, he insisted. Several GPs fear their surgeries will be picketed by protesters if they provide a medical abortion service when the new law is introduced. Although the doctors may not have a conscientious objection to providing abortion, it is likely to be a factor in some opting out. Others are worried about workload and how they would fit the service into their daily care of patients. There are also strong objections from a number of anti-abortion GPs to having to refer a woman to another doctor. The concerns are understood to have emerged in a wide-ranging consultation of doctors carried out by the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP). The ICGP is considering a request from some of its members to hold an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) to discuss its stand. A spokeswoman for the ICGP confirmed it received a request to hold an EGM. "The college's rules require that a minimum of 10pc of members of good standing must sign the requisition of an EGM. Due procedure needs to be followed, including the validation of the names attached to the request," the spokeswoman said. A decision is likely to be made this week. A recent survey of ICGP continuing medical education tutors revealed a majority would not become involved in a medical abortion service. The group, made up of around 35 working GPs, wrote to ICGP chief executive Fintan Foy. It felt that GPs should not have to be the designated doctors to provide a medical abortion and that they had been "too compliant". The Bill to Regulate Termination of Pregnancy will come before the Oireachtas health committee next week with the aim of having its provisions in place in January. However, there is increasing concern that, with just two months to go, including the Christmas break, the support services may not be in place to meet this deadline. GPs would only provide a medical abortion up to nine weeks of pregnancy and hospitals would be required to deliver it from between nine and 12 weeks. The legislation will allow for termination where there is a diagnosed fatal foetal abnormality and where the mother's health or life are at risk. A 24-hour helpline will have to be set up to provide clinical advice to women. GPs will also want to have rapid access to ultrasound scans. Clinical guidelines will be drawn up for GPs and hospitals to provide the necessary care for thousands of women who avail of abortion. Lauded: Sergeant Maurice McCabe and his wife Lorraine at the Disclosures Tribunal in Dublin Castle. Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins Garda Whistleblower Sgt. Maurice McCabe and his wife Lorraine photographed at their home in Mount Nugent on the Cavan/Meath border GARDA whistleblower Maurice McCabe has said he decided to retire from An Garda Siochana because it was in the best interests of his family. Speaking to Independent.ie hours before he officially retires, Sgt McCabe praised recently appointed Garda Commissioner Drew Harris but said now is the right time to step down. I am happy with the findings of the Charleton Tribunal but I think it is in the best interest of my family to retire from policing, Sgt McCabe said. After 30 years of serving as a garda, Sgt McCabe plans to spend time with his family as he prepares for life outside the force. For the last few years Ive been snowed under with paper work from the tribunals and other investigations. Im going to take a month or two off now and spend it with the family, he said. Since the publication of Justice Peter Charletons report Sgt McCabe has met personally with Commissioner Harris and the two discussed the future of policing in this country. Expand Close Maurice McCabe. Photo: Tony Gavin / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Maurice McCabe. Photo: Tony Gavin We had fantastic meeting with the Commissioner, Sgt McCabe said. He came to the house for an hour and half. He outlined his plans for policing and I believe he wants to change the gardai for the better, he added. The whistleblower, who uncovered widespread malpractice in the penalty point system, only told his wife Lorraine and their five children he planned to retire today at midnight. The rest of their family and friends were not told of the decision which will bring to an end a dark chapter in Irish policing. Garda Assistant Commissioner Fintan Fanning came to the McCabes family home last night to complete the retirement process with the countrys most well-known whistleblower. Today is Sgt McCabes last day as a police officer and he will wake up tomorrow morning as an ordinary citizen. But he will always be remembered as a garda who spent more than a decade seeking to raise awareness of garda malpractice. His long-running battle to expose allegations of negligence in the force led to the resignation of two Garda Commissioners, Martin Callinan and Noirin OSullivan, and two Justice Ministers, Alan Shatter and Frances Fitzgerald. He endured years of public inquiries which all found he was a diligent member of An Garda Siochana who was seeking to raise matters of genuine concern. The Charleton Tribunal found former Commissioner Callinan, along with Garda Press Officer David Taylor orchestrated a smear campaign against Sgt McCabe in order to damage his reputation while he was raising concerns about malpractice. Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan praised Sgt McCabes persistence, courage and great sense of duty when he was taking on the upper ranks of the force. Speaking to Sean O'Rourke on RTE Radio One, Mr Flanagan acknowledged the whistleblower went through a difficult time but said he had always distinguished himself. He said Sgt McCabes legacy will be that his actions will accelerate change in An Garda Siochana. Sgt McCabe officially handed in his retirement notice to Assistant Garda Commissioner Fintan Fanning over the weekend. His solicitor Sean Costello told Sean O'Rourke that Sgt McCabe had reached the decision after "an awful lot of consideration". Mr Costello said: "It is sad in many ways because obviously this is the job that he loved. He would have kept going but the impact of everything that has happened... he wasn't able to go back. He couldn't go back to being a member of An Garda Siochana." The Disclosures Tribunal investigated allegations that Garda chiefs orchestrated a smear campaign, including false sex abuse claims, against Sgt McCabe - a scandal that almost brought down Ireland's fragile minority government last year. The report found Sgt McCabe was a "genuine person" who at all times had "the interests of the people of Ireland uppermost in his mind". It found he regarded those interests as "superior to any loyalty" to the police force of the state. Sgt McCabe accused the force of malpractice, including the quashing of penalty points, and later made a complaint against Mr Callinan. He joined the Garda in 1985 and had more than 30 years of service. He had been on leave from the service since May 2016. There will be no space for additional passengers to travel on peak train services around Dublin in less than three years unless dozens of additional carriages are in service. A massive surge in demand has led to overcrowding on busy morning and evening commuter routes, and Irish Rail says it has to order new fleet by the end of 2018 or risk having no additional capacity from early 2021. The State transport company is considering leasing up to 70 carriages, which would provide 5,500 additional journeys. If approved, it hopes to begin procuring these at the end of the year, with a view to having them in service by the end of 2020. But it also needs to expand the existing fleet of 629 carriages, with the National Development Plan sanctioning investment in 300 new vehicles. The first order of 100 is likely to be in place by next year, but they will take up to three years to deliver. "We have natural growth and it's looking like being in excess of 6pc this year," an Irish Rail spokesman said. "We have a capacity issue right now which needs to be resolved. The pressure on existing capacity is growing all the time and if we get to a situation where in late 2020 or early 2021 (there is no additional fleet), there will be nowhere for people to go. Expand Close Joan Burton was told NTA is considering leasing vehicles / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Joan Burton was told NTA is considering leasing vehicles "You start to get an artificial constraint. You do get to a point where, at the busiest times, trains are full and the highest-capacity mode (rail) can't take any more." Irish Rail operates commuter, Dart and inter-city services and last year completed 45.51 million passenger journeys across the country, slightly above the 2007 peak. More than 32 million of these were into and around Dublin. Numbers have grown in recent years, up 8pc in 2016 and 6pc last year, with similar growth forecast for 2018. This has resulted in capacity becoming an issue, with complaints of overcrowding on commuter trains and Dart services. Irish Rail had proposed refurbishing 28 rail carriages that had entered service in 1998 and held in storage since 2012, at an estimated cost of around 12m. However, only one firm bid to complete the works at a cost in excess of 30m, so the upgrade has been scrapped. In a letter to Labour Party TD Joan Burton, the National Transport Authority (NTA) said it was considering buying or leasing second-hand vehicles to provide additional capacity in the short term, with expressions of interest for new fleet likely to be sought by the end of the year, and an order placed in 2019. Irish Rail said while the Irish system operated on a different gauge from the UK and other European countries, carriages could be altered to serve here. They added the leasing market was "very active" and that leased carriages could be in service by the end of 2020. Between 40 and 70 are expected to be sought, which would primarily operate on the Kildare, Maynooth and northern line commuter belt. A decision will be made in the coming weeks following discussions with the NTA and Department of Transport. However, new carriages will take longer to deliver. It is not clear how many of the 300 will be electric and how many hybrid, with a decision expected by the end of the year. The investment forms part of an upgrade of the rail network around the capital, including electrification of the lines to Maynooth, Hazelhatch and Drogheda over time. A deceased millionaire heiress has bequeathed her 30m estate to five charities in a generous act of philanthropy. The donations were left in the will of Elizabeth O'Kelly from Stradbally, Co Laois, who referenced monies she had inherited from family. Ms O'Kelly died aged 93 in December 2016. She was a shareholder in Clylim Properties, which has extensive property interests in Dublin, and it was reported she made around 30m from the sale of the 'Leinster Leader' Ltd in 2005. The five charities are the Irish Cancer Society; Irish Heart Foundation; Irish Kidney Association; the Irish Society for Autistic Children; and the Royal National Lifeboat Institute Ireland in Airside, Swords, Dublin. Each charity will receive 6m. The amount represents the largest single donation received by the Irish Cancer Society (ICS), and is the equivalent of income from two Daffodil Days, its major fundraiser. The ICS identified the generous donor as Ms O'Kelly, adding that her "kindness and generosity is reflected in her decision to leave equal amounts in her will to five charities". In its annual financial statement, the ICS said it was "investigating a number of high impact and transformational projects in which the bequeathed funds will be invested". A statement from the ICS said: "We are deeply grateful to Elizabeth O'Kelly for generously remembering people with cancer in her will. "Her generosity will provide hope to so many people affected by cancer and deliver improvements in cancer care that would have been impossible otherwise. "Ms O'Kelly was known for displaying great kindness towards her friends and being charitable in supporting those in need. "Ms O'Kelly successfully battled cancer in the 1980s. She knew first-hand the challenges cancer patients face and the positive difference the Irish Cancer Society makes to them in their time of need." Investment An ICS spokeswoman said: "In the 1980s, when Ms O'Kelly was diagnosed with cancer, only three out of 10 Irish cancer patients survived. Today, six out of 10 do. "This is thanks in no small part to the generosity of the Irish public in supporting the Irish Cancer Society's lifesaving research, advocacy and patient support services. "The Irish Cancer Society won't give up until Ireland's cancer services are truly world-class and every patient has the best possible chance of surviving and thriving after a cancer diagnosis. We won't settle for anything less and we know Ms O'Kelly would not want us to. "Ms O'Kelly's gift will be the seed for this investment. It will therefore enable us to deliver the kind of transformational change that would have been impossible otherwise." "On behalf of people affected by cancer all across Ireland, our supporters and volunteers, we are deeply grateful to her." A family from the Travelling community that found themselves at the centre of Presidential candidate Peter Caseys controversial remarks have said that they are not surprised with the support he received in the race. Mr Casey landed himself in hot water during the lead up to the election after telling Independent.ie that Travellers are basically people camping in someone elses land. The Derryman finished with 23.3pc of the vote, despite remaining on 1-2pc of the vote in various opinion polls prior to election day. During his campaign, the presidential runner-up visited unoccupied homes near Cabragh Bridge in Thurles, at the centre of a dispute with the Traveller community in Co Tipperary. Speaking on behalf of the extended family, Traveller activist Eileen Ni Fhloinn criticised media coverage during the controversy. Different elements of the media are now asking us for our opinion about what seems to be big support for Peter Casey in the presidential election, Ms Ni Fhloinn said in a statement last night. Our family has already gone through hell because of the hatred directed against us in all of this. And we have had to learn very quickly that the media were happy to play a very big part in it all. However, the activist said that the family were unsurprised with the surge in votes for Mr Casey. Are we surprised at the big amount of support for Casey? No. We are not, the statement said. Casey was able to pick the worst-off people in Irish society and set them up against each other. When you can get the settled people to put the blame on the Travellers for everything, then nobody needs to question who is really responsible for the terrible conditions the Government has people living in. The statement concluded with thanks to those who supported their protest over Mr Caseys visit to the Cabragh Bridge site, and encouraged the media to learn from their very big ordeal. A lot of settled people saw through these lies, and we would like to thank them for their support in our dignified protest when Mr Casey decided to visit us. Casey probably now feels he has got somewhere through using us and all the Traveller community in a hate campaign. So we know he will keep going, and there will be probably a lot more Caseys coming out when they see this works. We have learned a lot from this very big ordeal we were put through. We are asking the media now learn from it as well. Please check out the facts before you use people in this way no matter how popular it might be to run down Travellers. Fianna Fail will be "election-ready" after boasting perhaps its best financial position in more than three decades. The party has cleared its debts, according to newly filed accounts. And it is poised to swell its coffers by around 500,000 if its upcoming national superdraw replicates last year's success. The financial boost will leave the party well-placed to fight a general election early next year in the event of a failure to renew the confidence and supply deal in which Fianna Fail props up the Fine Gael-led minority Government. The two parties exchanged documents yesterday ahead of the formal opening of talks on the arrangement tomorrow. Sources said the Fine Gael document was "simple and to the point" where Fianna Fail is keen for a "very detailed" analysis. While no deadlines have been set for talks, Fine Gael ministers now see November 17 as a key date for progress. The party's Ard Fheis will take place that weekend and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will want to give supporters some indication of when the country will go to the polls. "If Fianna Fail's plan is to drag these talks out for months, then there will be a row from the start," said a Government source. "We don't want an election. We want a new deal that runs until summer 2020." A number of ministers told the Irish Independent that Mr Varadkar sees huge risks attached to having a pre-Christmas election but is weighing this up against the risk of having Fianna Fail force a new year election. It comes as the Standards in Public Office Commission published 2017 accounts for all the political parties last night. The Fianna Fail return shows it had a surplus of almost 1.4m and used it to clear debts that historically stood at nearly 4m, as well as to improve the cash reserves of the party. However, it will still be hard-pressed to match Fine Gael's spending power during an election campaign. The rival party enjoyed a surplus of 1.6m in 2017 and made around 647,000 from its own national draw last year after fundraising expenses are deducted. Nevertheless, Fianna Fail's 2017 accounts - signed off on last March - strike an optimistic tone. Its honorary treasurers, including Limerick TD Niall Collins, reported: "Financially the organisation is now in one of its most encouraging positions in [more than] 30 years." They also pointed to fundraising income of more than 1.2m and the absence of any election campaign expenditure in 2017 as helping to deliver an overall surplus of 1.39m. The report says the party's financial position is "now relatively a positive one". Focused The treasurers were said to be focused on ensuring Fianna Fail's finances are "well-positioned for the challenges emanating from the upcoming electoral cycle" and they stressed the importance of fundraising "to that end". The treasurers say the party's national collection and superdraw are "vitally important to achieving this". The national collection - which takes place each April and May - brought in net income of 179,000 last year. The Fianna Fail superdraw took in around 487,000 in 2017 once the costs of holding it were stripped out. In relation to other parties, Sinn Fein's accounts show a deficit of 48,663 in 2017 but also an accumulated fund of 1.7m. The Labour Party accounts show it recorded a surplus of 150,000 in 2017. Ireland's role in reducing the risk of a nuclear holocaust when Cold War superpowers were on the brink of conflict has been detailed in newly declassified documents. The papers, published by the US National Security Archive, show that American diplomats were initially opposed to Irish external affairs minister Frank Aiken's bid to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. However, they also show how the Irish proposal later formed the basis of the non-proliferation treaty that helped prevent the Cold War turning hot. The first record is an October 1958 telegram from the US mission at the United Nations to then President Dwight D Eisenhower's State Department outlining the Irish idea. Fianna Fail minister Mr Aiken was suggesting a resolution that would seek an undertaking from nuclear powers not to make weapons available to other countries. At the time, this would have limited possession to the US, the Soviet Union, the UK and potentially France. The State Department said the "Irish resolution" was "potentially dangerous" and outlined six reasons why it should be opposed. Further diplomatic communications say Mr Aiken was "not impressed" by US arguments, and US officials assessed the prospect of further attempts to persuade the Irish diplomat as "futile". Mr Aiken introduced a non-proliferation resolution to the UN each year from 1958 to 1961. The National Security Archive website says president John F Kennedy's administration was more willing to work with Mr Aiken. Both the US and USSR voted in favour of a modified Irish resolution in December 1961. It was the first time the superpowers voted the same way on an arms control issue at the UN. The 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed seven years later. Mr Aiken was the first minister to sign the treaty at the Moscow ceremony. The chair of the National Womens Council Ellen OMalley Dunlop will run for Fine Gael in the next general election. In a statement today, Fine Gael announced Ms OMalley Dunlop will be added to the ticket in Dublin South West where she will run alongside Colm Brophy. The former Dublin Rape Crisis Centre CEO previously worked as a primary school teacher and a psychotherapist in Tallaght which is a key area for votes in the constituency. Ms OMalley Dunlop said she is looking forward to the challenge. For more than ten years as CEO of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, I have influenced positive change on complex issues such as sexual and gender based violence and the rights of victims of crime. If elected I will continue to work for legislative reform for womens and victims rights, she said. Mr Brophy said he was delighted to have Ms OMalley Dunlop as his running mate in Dublin South West. It is important as a society that we continue to foster a spirit of inclusiveness and equality, which is why I am very pleased that Ellen will be my running mate in Dublin South West, he said. I know she will add a lot to the Fine Gael ticket here with her immense experience of public service. Securing two seats in Dublin South West will enable us to further that work so that we can continue to improve peoples standards of living and access to new opportunities. We will be working together with that goal and objective clearly in mind, he added. Revised MetroLink plans have been further delayed, until early in the new year, as engineers attempt to resolve a raft of issues. It is understood the sheer volume of problems highlighted following consultation has caused the delay. The revised plans had initially been expected to be ready by November. Engineers are now working on attempts to find solutions to the litany of concerns raised. Among the concerns on the table for alterations are two schools on Mobhi Road in Glasnevin, while the route through Ranelagh is also being examined after locals compared plans to creating a "Berlin Wall" between the community. Fine Gael TD Noel Rock, who represents Glasnevin, said: "What we need now is proper, concrete details. We're no closer to a definitive timeframe. "I want to see these schools given certainty as to their future and I equally want to see us moving ahead with MetroLink, which, for the northside, is absolutely vital," he added. In a statement issued last night, Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) said the process was taking longer than expected and engineers were carefully considering all issues raised. A teenager has been treated for a stab wound to the chest after being attacked on a train last night. The incident happened as the train was at Killester station in north Dublin at 10pm. Gardai are investigating the assault after the victim was taken to Beaumont Hospital for treatment. His injuries are not believed to be life threatening. The victim is in his late teens and it is understood that he and his attacker are known to each other. A man in his late teens was arrested at the scene and taken to Raheny Garda Station under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act for questioning. Bus and rail drivers have warned they may pull services in anti-social hotspots following the latest serious assault. The National Bus and Railworkers Union has warned Transport Minister Shane Ross and Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan of possible service disruption after the stabbing. General Secretary Dermot OLeary said that anti social behaviour and outright thuggery has reached crisis point. He said it may be only a matter of time before staff are forced to review potential preventative measures. This would include an assessment of service provision at certain times and locations. The safety of commuters and staff would be paramount in such a review, said the letter to the ministers. He said its seems that not a week goes by without another headline appearing across various media platforms highlighting yet another assault on our public transport system. Last evenings serious incident on an Iarnrod Eireann service between Killester and Harmonstown may serve to be a watershed moment in the ongoing debate on the issue of anti-social behaviour and outright thuggery on transport services. It has not reached crisis point. He urged the ministers for an immediate commitment to set up a Garda Public Transport Division. The mood among transport workers has changed dramatically on the back of a number of recent assault across both our train and bus services, he said. Whilst they were encouraged by the ministers initial response in early summer, they are now of the view that they may have to take their own preventative measures, inclusive of assessing service provision in particular hot spots and in areas with a high prevalence of anti-social behaviour. Reacting to the incident, Labour Party Senator, Aodhan O Riordain, also said the latest violent incident shows the need for a dedicated transport police. Reports of a stabbing incident on board a northbound DART service at 10pm on Tuesday October 30th between Killester and Harmonstown underlines the need for a dedicated Transport Policing service," Senator O Riordain said in a statement. This is the latest in a long list of troubling incidents on the Northside line, with many of the stations being vandalised on a regular basis and a DART being taken over by hooded youths in the summer who attempted to spray paint the carriage in Clongriffin." I welcome the fact that Minister Ross has indicated his willingness to explore the possibility of establishing a Transport Police Service. The proposal must be brought to fruition as soon as possible for the safety of commuters and staff on our public transport system. Speaking to Independent.ie, Dermot OLeary, General Secretary on the NBRU, said that: The NBRU have been leading calls for a garda public transport division for a while now. Weve written to the minister on two occasions, in June and July of this year following an assault at Connolly Station. The initial response from the minister was encouraging for staff but unfortunately things have moved on since then. Not a week goes by when were not reading another headline regarding anti-social behaviour or in some cases outright thuggery on trains. The day is coming, if were not here already, when staff will have to take their own preventative measures and that may include looking at service provision in particular hotspots and locations that have a prevalence for that type of anti-social behaviour. That day has probably arrived now. There are fears tens of thousands of illegal Irish immigrants will be caught by a new crackdown ordered by US President Donald Trump. He plans an executive order ending the right of US citizenship for children born in the United States to non-citizens and immigrants who are in the country illegally. The measure comes a week ahead of important mid-term elections in the USA. Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney was unavailable for comment on the matter, but Fianna Fail's foreign affairs spokesman, Niall Collins, said he was concerned about the fate of Irish illegal immigrants in the USA. "This will add to the worries of people already in a difficult situation. We are still waiting on a promised initiative to help Irish people left in this plight," Mr Collins said. There are varying estimates of the numbers of Irish involved in this precarious position in the USA. Some estimates suggest the number may be as low as 10,000 Irish people but others put the figure at nearer 50,000. Mr Trump told the 'Axios' news website: "We're the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States. It's ridiculous. And it has to end." Mr Trump claimed it would not take a constitutional amendment to rescind birthright citizenship from some people born in the US, a stance that would undoubtedly draw a legal challenge should he proceed. "It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't," he said. The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution spells out birthplace as an arbiter of citizenship, stating that: "All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." The father of a newborn who died days after contracting neonatal herpes has urged people to be aware of the dangers the virus can pose to vulnerable babies. John Wills and his wife Louise tragically lost their first-born daughter Eibhlin just 12 days after she was born in 2015 after her organs began to fail. A post-mortem revealed that baby Eibhlin died after being exposed to the herpes simplex virus (HSV-1), also known as oral herpes or the cold sore virus. Expand Close John and Louise Wills lost their daughter Eibhlin (pictures) to the herpes simplex virus in 2015 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp John and Louise Wills lost their daughter Eibhlin (pictures) to the herpes simplex virus in 2015 After her death, Eibhlin's mother Louise was tested for the virus, and was found not to be a carrier. John and Louise believe that Eibhlin came in contact with the virus early on in her life in the National Maternity Hospital, which devastated her major organs before she became symptomatic. In recent days, Iowa mum Nicole Sifrit made the headlines when she warned other parents of the dangers of exposing newborns to the herpes virus, after she sadly lost her daughter Marianna to the virus. The mum claimed that the baby was kissed by someone who had a cold sore, which led to her contracting the virus that ended her life. Since her death, Eibhlin's father John, from Rathfarnham in Dublin, has become passionate about raising awareness of neonatal herpes in Ireland, which although rare, has had a devastating effect on his family. "The reason we decided to go public so soon after losing Eibhlin was because there is little or no knowledge about neonatal herpes, even amongst doctors. But cases like Marianna's and of course our own tragedy show that it can happen, even if cases of this are rare. "In our case it's important to say, Eibhlin didn't get the virus through a kiss. It was something she picked up very soon after she was born in the National Maternity Hospital. We know this because Louise and I both tested negative for the virus. "Eibhlin was our first child. She was very much wanted and when she died it was awful, it felt unreal," he said. Expand Close American mum Nicole Sifrit made the headlines last week after she sadly lost her daughter Marianna to the virus. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp American mum Nicole Sifrit made the headlines last week after she sadly lost her daughter Marianna to the virus. In Ireland, neonatal herpes simplex is not a notifiable disease, which means that statistics are not kept and the number of children who have died from the virus in Ireland is unknown. Statistics from the US have found that there are 33 cases of neonatal herpes in every 100,000 births, while in the UK the figure is between 1 and 17.5 cases per 100,000 births. John and Louise have set up an awareness page "Remembering Eibhlin" and one of the couple's main aims to to have the virus recognised in the list of notifiable diseases in Ireland. This would mean Irish medical professionals would not have to rely on statistics from our American or British counterparts, but instead have relevant statistics to help prevent neonatal deaths from the virus in Ireland. "In Ireland, neonatal herpes simplex is not a notifiable disease, which means that there are no statistics to reflect how many outbreaks of this virus or how many deaths have occurred because of infection. "We hope that we will shortly have a meeting with Minister Simon Harris to discuss some of the aims of the Remembering Eibhlin campaign. "If neonatal herpes simplex was a notifiable disease here, we would have the same accurate statistics as they do in places like Australia, the UK and the USA, which is what we have to base a lot of our knowledge on because we don't have our own statistics." Expand Close Since her death, Eibhlin's father John has become passionate about raising awareness of neonatal herpes / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Since her death, Eibhlin's father John has become passionate about raising awareness of neonatal herpes "The fact of the matter is that in Ireland we just do not have the same awareness in other countries. I have a friend who welcomed a baby in the US. He would be a sufferer of cold sores. He was given the advice he needed, not to kiss the baby, to cover up the cold sore, and to use anti viral creams from the onset." John also hopes the campaign will encourage a change in Irish policy surrounding the virus. While Eibhlin died of herpes simplex virus 1, or oral herpes, herpes simplex virus 2 (genital herpes) also threatens the health of newborns. According to foreign statistics 85pc of babies who have died of neonatal herpes simplex have been infected with type 2, and John hopes that Eibhlin's campaign will encourage a change in policy also. "At the moment, Irish mothers aren't screened for herpes in pregnancy which in our view is problematic. Based on statistics from abroad, 85pc of neonatal herpes cases are passed from mother to baby during birth. Mothers may not tell their physician that they have the virus but by screening, this could be picked up during pregnancy," he said. "The National Maternity Hospital has been supportive in the wake of Eibhlin's death and have put into place a number of changes to prevent this happening to somebody else." The dad said there is some comfort in working towards a better awareness of the virus that took his daughter's life. "The reason we were so determined to go public with our own story was to prevent the same tragedy happening to somebody else. That no other baby could contract this virus. "Many of my friends have said we've done what we needed to do in terms of raising awareness. I'm not one to stay quiet. In grief you can easily get into depression and sadness, and I certainly did, but you can also build from that. If you can help someone else from going through the same thing, if we can make this a notifiable disease and bring this to life it is worth it." "When you've gone through something like that, it does put things into perspective. Like when you're stressed or worried about something, you think back to that awful time after losing her and think, this is nothing compared to that." "For us we left the hospital with a beautiful normal baby, but it all changed so quickly." For more information on neonatal herpes simplex visit www.rememberingeibhlin.org Precautions parents should take when it comes to the herpes simplex virus If you suffer from genital herpes simplex, let your physician know. Avoid direct contact with young babies if you are suffering from a cold-sore If you suffer from herpes simplex, use anti viral creams It is illegal to burn tyres in bonfires Halloween revellers are being urged not to use tyres in bonfires with experts warning about the dangers associated with them. Local authorities remove thousands of tyres from bonfire stockpiles each year. Now Continental Tyres Ireland is urging people not to include tyres among the material they plan to burn in bonfires this week. Its general manager Tom Dennigan says every year at this time they hear reports of thefts of old tyres from premises. In addition, he says, we know that there are some unscrupulous tyre dealers who are giving old tyres out to youths who are collecting material for the traditional Halloween bonfire. He says that it is illegal, while smoke from burning tyres carries toxins that are harmful to people and animals. The residue from burnt tyres can also be damaging to the environment. In fact, the only safe way to burn a tyre is in a concrete kiln which would have sophisticated filtration systems in place to neutralise any toxins. He adds: In view of the strong family-focus of Halloween celebrations, often with young children being allowed out late for the first time, it is all the more important that we ensure that bonfires are safe for all revellers, young and old. For this reason it is not advisable to burn tyres or indeed, any other material that may release noxious fumes or that could risk exploding when heated. One of the RSA's most successful campaigns in recent years has been the Driver Fatigue campaign. You might remember it as the ad that features a driver fighting sleep at the wheel, while all around him are visual cues telling him to pull over and take a break. The central message is for drivers to stop and park in a safe place if feeling tired, to get a cup of coffee and then take a 15-minute nap. It is encapsulated in our campaign tag line: Stop. Sip. Sleep. It's all sound advice based on discussions with the world leading Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom. While the majority of motorists have bought into this advice there are some who think we have got it wrong. Or should I say that they believe it is the wrong way around. Since the campaign first aired on TV and radio we have received emails from people saying the advice we are giving is wrong. They maintain that you should sleep first and then have a coffee. They argue that 'everyone knows' if you have a coffee first it's going to keep you awake and you won't be able to sleep. The same view is also coming through among a minority of respondents in recent research we conducted on the whole issue of fatigue. In an effort to address any misconceptions preventing people from adopting our advice we approached an expert closer to home for some definitive help on the issue. We spoke to Professor Walter McNicholas of the Sleep Disorders Unit in St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin. You might have heard him voicing the RSA's most recent radio campaign. In the advert he reaffirms the tactics that drivers should take when they are tired. If you feel tired when you are driving you should pull in somewhere safe. Then drink a coffee or a caffeinated energy drink before taking a 15-minute nap. This is important to know: The short nap will allow time for the caffeine to take effect - roughly 15 to 20 minutes - before you continue with your journey. This should give you another hour or so worth of driving. You see when you wake from your nap, you get the double benefit of the sleep and the caffeine as it starts to kick in. That's why the advice is to Sip before you Sleep. Don't sleep longer than 15 or 20 minutes as you might wake up feeling groggy. Another thing that's raised with us is the fact that late at night, when you are most likely to feel sleepy behind the wheel, there are very few places open selling coffee. So how can people heed our advice? Simple. The nap is the most important tactic. Doing this on its own will help significantly. The coffee is a bonus. And if there is nowhere nearby selling coffee, do what I do and put a caffeinated energy drink in the boot of the car. If you are planning a long journey taking a flask of coffee is another option. Of course, this tactic is a short-term solution and in cases of extreme tiredness, brought on by sleep deprivation, the only cure for such a lack of sleep is sleep. One last point. Don't be tempted to keep driving when you are tired just because you are close to your destination. Many tiredness-related collisions occur within a few minutes of the driver's destination because he or she has relaxed and the body takes this as a signal that it's alright to fall asleep. Tactics such as opening the window or turning up the volume on the radio do not work. And no amount of willpower will keep you awake either. If you fight sleep at the wheel you'll end up drunk with tiredness. You'll start drifting in and out of consciousness and experience what are called 'micro-sleeps', which can last for up to 10 seconds and can take place with your eyes wide open - until you eventually fall asleep at the wheel. So please if you are feeling tired behind the wheel, heed the advice of the experts: Stop. Sip. Sleep. Taking a petrol hybrid and a diesel car to see how far they'd go on just 20 worth of fuel ended up revealing a lot more than I'd bargained for. The plan was to drive the cars until one or both conked out - completely empty of fuel. But first off let's be clear. The exercise was organised by Skoda. Now I have to say they were scrupulously fair and had absolutely no control over how we drove or who drove what. Everything - fuel loading etc - was filmed for authenticity. My colleague and I remained entirely independent on our assessments. We were in total control of the cars at all times. Expand Close Fuel receipts / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Fuel receipts Both cars had their tanks purged of all fuel before the 20 worth of petrol and diesel were respectively poured in so there was no lingering litres or residue. The two cars specifically were: 1. A Toyota Auris Luna Sport 181-reg, 1.8 petrol hybrid e-CVT. Price as tested: 25,995. Spec included: 17in alloys, front sport seats, reversing camera, air con, lane assist, privacy glass. CO2 of 97g/km; road tax 180. Claimed combined fuel economy: 3.5l/100km (81mpg). Range starts from 25,490 2. A Skoda Octavia Ambition 1.6TDI 115hp, DSG (automatic) 182-reg. Price as tested: 26,425. Spec included: 16in alloys, cruise control, air con, rear parking sensors, reversing camera. CO2 107g/km; road tax 190. Claimed fuel economy 4.1l/100km (69 mpg). Diesel range starts from 25,000. The important thing to remember is that I am not a proponent of either genre or brand. Skoda clearly understood my position in agreeing to participate. They wanted independent reportage and that's what I'm giving. I have some reservations about the trial being based on 20 worth of fuel for both cars rather than an equal measure for each. With diesel being a bit cheaper, the Octavia benefited from 0.66 litres more fuel in the tank. Would it affect the outcome? We'll see. Secondly the Auris had 17in wheels, the Skoda had 16in - again a minor but potentially significant point. Anyway, after much checking and verifying we took off from Sandyford; me in the Skoda, my colleague in the Auris. We drove through town traffic to Dundrum, Goatstown, Stillorgan, Cabinteely, Bray (right through the town centre). Then we stopped for a cup of tea before taking the motorway to Gorey where we had a quick lunch. The Skoda computer told me I'd covered 93km and had 55km range left. The Auris' reading was virtually identical on kms to empty. We switched cars and headed for Courtown and up the coast towards Arklow. Then we drove a continuous loop which took in Inch, Coolgreany and an industrial estate. My Auris 'kms-to-empty' dipped to 25km in no time. I took a hands-free call. When I looked at the screen again there was no figure at all. I was running on 'empty'. Or so I thought. Don't forget I was pushing 130/140km at this stage so I wasn't disappointed at all. To reiterate: the plan was to keep going until either car conked out. After one run of the 17km loop the needle in the gauge prodded the 'E'. I was expecting a shudder at any moment but slowly the kms rolled by. I topped 200km and still the needle kissed the 'E'. My colleague in the Octavia diesel reported her car was saying 'zero kms left' in the tank for some time. It was, as Alex Ferguson used to say, "squeaky bum time". Which of the cars would give up the fuel ghost first? Furthermore I asked myself a dozen times: "When does empty really mean empty?" Merciful hour: 230km rolled by. We had to stop for tea. It was getting dark. Should we call it a draw? No way. An opportunity like this doesn't come around too often (the preparations and organisation had been absolutely superb). The important thing at that stage was we were driving country roads, typical of many people's everyday journeys. That's what I really liked about this trial: we'd done city driving (though I'd suggest another 20km would have been more representative); we'd done motorway and we'd put on lots of 'everyday' kms. And so, refreshed, we drove into the clear night. I know that loop route like the back of my hand. Still we drove. I grew confident the Auris would last longer because the monitor illustration of what was going on under the bonnet showed how little the engine was in use, and the level of regenerative energy when going downhill for example. As we crept over the 270km mark - yes 271km on 20 of petrol - I got that little shiver. My monitor showed the fuel wasn't going to the engine any more; the battery started to contribute heavily and was depleting rapidly. At 271.3km precisely, I stopped. The Octavia went on for another 15 minutes before, at 8.30pm, we decided we had a result. Okay, the Octavia may appear to have 'won' but I think both cars deserve enormous credit for what they achieved. That is not a cop out. I genuinely feel that. The exercise could be repeated in the morning and, with a bit more city driving or a different set of drivers, the result could be different. I've no qualms saying that. There is no black and white result here. We got two phenomenal fuel consumptions on normal routes; we didn't drive slowly. I came away with the conclusion that diesel is far, far from dead; it has a huge relevance and can slug it out on MPG with anything currently on the go. Hitting new (and imported) diesels with a 1pc VRT surcharge was absurd. Our test showed its staying power and ability in no uncertain terms. But I developed a real soft spot for the Auris hybrid. I didn't think it would last as long after the motorway driving. I think it made a big case for how frugal it can be in typical driving for families. To get so far on 20 of fuel - and on 0.66-litres fewer - is testament to its ability to serve many masters. There is no denying, however, that the Octavia made a massive case for those who put up big mileage at moderate to higher speeds. I believe there is plenty of room for both. VERDICT: Diesel is not dead by a long, long shot and hybrid is not just for urban dwelling. Key facts * Petrol for the Auris cost 1.495/litre = 13.38 litres for 20. * It travelled 271.3km before coming to a stop; an average of 4.9 litres/100km or 58mpg. * Diesel for the Octavia cost 1.425/litre = 14.04 litres for 20. * It travelled 293.8km approx before coming to a stop; an average of 4.8 litres/100km or 59 mpg. Routes: * Sandyford to Bray (25km urban driving). * Bray to Gorey (68km motorway driving). * Gorey to Arklow (27km extra urban/country driving). * Ballynattin to Inch loop: The Auris travelled an additional 151km in the extra urban/country driving conditions during this loop. The Octavia travelled an additional 173km during the loop. * In total we covered 25km urban, 68km motorway and the remainder (151km for Auris and 173km for Octavia) in extra urban or countryside driving. * Before departure the Octavia's trip computer gave a range of 130km. * The Auris's computer indicated 183km range. * In Gorey, after travelling 93km, both trip computers read 55km approx. * Overall, the Octavia was more economical by 0.1/100km but it is minuscule and reliant on factors such as driving style etc as to be negligible. Runaway consumption: Global wildlife like the black crested macaque has been decimated, say the WWF. Photo: AFP/Getty Images Global wildlife populations have fallen by 60pc since 1970 as humans overuse natural resources, drive climate change and pollute the planet, a report warns. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has called for an ambitious "global deal" for nature and people, similar to the international Paris Agreement to tackle climate change, as the conservation charity's new report spelled out the damage being done to the natural world. Only a quarter of the world's land area is free from the affects of human activity and by 2050 that will have fallen to just a 10th, the 'Living Planet Report 2018' said. The percentage of the world's seabirds with plastic in their stomach is estimated to have increased from 5pc in 1960 to 90pc today, and the world has already lost around half its shallow water corals in just 30 years. Overall, populations of more than 4,000 species of mammals, reptiles, birds, fish and amphibians have declined by an average of 60pc between 1970 and 2014, the most recent year for which data is available. Tropical areas have seen the worst declines, with an 89pc fall in populations monitored in Latin America and the Caribbean since 1970. Expand Close Tanya Steele: We know we are destroying our planet / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Tanya Steele: We know we are destroying our planet Species which live in fresh water habitats, such as frogs and river fish, have seen global population falls of 83pc, according to the living planet index by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), which tracks the abundance of wildlife. From hedgehogs and puffins to elephants, rhinos and polar bears, wildlife is in decline, due to the loss of habitats, poaching, pollution of land and seas and rising global temperatures, the 'Living Planet' report warned. Current action to protect nature is failing because it is not enough to match the scale of the threat facing the planet, the conservationists claim. "Exploding" levels of human consumption are driving the affect on nature, with over- exploitation of natural resources such as over-fishing, cutting down forests to grow crops such as soy and palm oil and the use of pesticides in agriculture. Expand Close Human pollution: A saltwater crocodile with a tyre around its neck in Palu river in Palu, Indonesia. Photo: AFP/Getty Images / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Human pollution: A saltwater crocodile with a tyre around its neck in Palu river in Palu, Indonesia. Photo: AFP/Getty Images Climate change and plastic pollution are also significant and growing threats. But wildlife is not just a "nice to have" for humans, the report warned, with human food, health and medicines all relying on natural resources. All human economic activity ultimately depends on nature, the report said, with globally natural resources estimated to provide services worth $125tn (110tn) a year. With the world set to review progress on sustainable development and conserving biodiversity under UN agreements by 2020, there is a window of opportunity in the next two years, the group argued. A new global deal should be secured, backed by strong commitments from governments and businesses. WWF chief executive Tanya Steele said: "We are the first generation to know we are destroying our planet and the last one that can do anything about it. "Our wanton destruction of nature, coupled with the brutal chaos of climate change, is the biggest threat to humanity. "If we want a world with orangutans and puffins, clean air and enough food for everyone, we need urgent action from leaders and a new global programme of recovery." The Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI) upheld four complaints made against an Irish beauty company claiming its false eyelashes were cruelty free. BiaBelle Beauty Lashes is an online retailer which sells 18 different types of lashes, which it claimed, via its website, were made cruelty free and one particular set, the Lolly lash, were made using "faux mink". The term cruelty free refers to products that do not harm animals during its testing and/or creation. The frequently asked questions section of their website included the following question and answer: "Are the lashes cruelty-free? Yes, all of our lashes are made cruelty-free", which the ASAI found to be misleading. The complainants said it would be impossible for mink lashes to be obtained this way as minks are wild animals who would be required to be caged for the process. Of the decision, the ASAI said: "One complainant referred to the fact the lashes were imported from China, where animal cruelty laws did not compare to those in the EU." Another said there was a discrepancy between what was advertised on its website in comparison to social media, in which they said they saw the lashes being described as made from genuine mink. The company launched in December of last year and the owners said they had researched their supplier before importing them to Ireland and had an agent visit the supplier's premises to ensure it was of an acceptable standard. They received a certificate from their supplies stating, "Our mink fur eyelash is made of 100% mink fur. The mink has not been killed, the hair is only cut down. Its cruelty-free. We hereby certify!" The advertisers said they felt that they had carried out the correct procedures when researching their supplier and described it as a "genuine mistake" put down to teething issues during their first year in business. "They said that it had been put into the mink category on their website but the description had incorrectly stated that it was faux mink and hadnt been spotted by them. They said that as they were a new business, they had encountered a few teething problems, however, mistakes were corrected immediately," the report read. Video of the Day In order to assess the validity of the claims, the ASAI consulted the School of Veterinary Medicine at UCD about the specifics of what the term cruelty free and its corresponding Leaping Bunny Program certification, entails. Professor Bairbre Redmond, Independent Head of the Complaints Committee of the ASAI, said that consumers are more aware than ever of best practice in advertising to ensure a transparent experience for both parties. "The Complaints Committee has also spent considerable time highlighting awareness in relation to advertising best practice within the advertising industry, ensuring all relevant parties are equipped with the knowledge and resources to correctly identify commercial marketing content across their platforms," she said. Pierre Casiraghi and wife Beatrice Borromeo attend the 35th Copa del Rey Mapfre Sailing Cup awards ceremony at Ses Voltes cultural center on August 6, 2016 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. (Photo by Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images) Pierre Casiraghi and Beatrice Borromeo attend the Rose Ball 2015 in aid of the Princess Grace Foundation at Sporting Monte-Carlo on March 28, 2015 in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. (Photo by Gaetan Luci/Le Palais Princier via Getty Images) Pierre Casiraghi and Beatrice Borromeo attend the Franca Sozzani Award during the 74th Venice Film Festival on September 1, 2017 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images) Prince Albert II of Monaco (L) and Princess Charlene of Monaco arrive to attend the 70th annual Red Cross Gala at the Monte-Carlo Sporting Club on July 27, 2018 in Monaco Queen Rania of Jordan arrives to attend the opening of the ordinary session of parliament in the capital Amman on November 12, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / KHALIL MAZRAAWI (Photo credit should read KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images) First lady Melania Trump (R) and Queen Rania of Jordan walk the colonnade of the White House on June 25, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images) Jordan's Queen Rania, right, and Dutch Queen Maxima pose for photographers when arriving for a visit to the Mondriaan ROC school, a regional education center in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday, March 21, 2018. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) Queen Maxima of the Netherlands wears the Steward Tiara as she attends a State Banquet at Buckingham Palace in London, during their State Visit to the UK Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden attends a ceremony for the Stockholm Junior Water Prize at Berns Hotel on August 28, 2018 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images) Queen Maxima of the Netherlands attends the Dutch ship HNLMS Zeeland, anchored on the Thames next to HMS Belfast, to watch an on-water capability demonstration by Royal Marines and HNLMS Zeeland's Marines company during day two of the state visit to the UK on October 24, 2018 in London, United Kingdom Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden walk their daughter Princess Estelle to her school Campus Manilla for her first day at school in Stockholm on August 21, 2018. (Photo by Jessica GOW / TT NEWS AGENCY / AFP) Queen Margrethe of Denmark as host for the evening leads Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary to the Knights hall where the gala banquet on the occasion of The Crown Prince's 50th birthday at Christiansborg Palace is held on May 26, 2018 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Some 350 guest participated in the event (Photo by Ole Jensen/Getty Images) Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark with his wife Crown Princess Mary at the balcony of their residence on Amalienborg Palace on the occasion of his 50th birthday on May 26, 2018 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Later during the evening the Crown Prince host a Gala Banquet at Christiansborg (Photo by Ole Jensen/Getty Images) Crown Princess Marie Chantal of Greece attends the Valentino show as part of Paris Fashion Week - Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2014-2015 at Hotel Salomon de Rothschild on July 9, 2014 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) Princess Mary of Denmark departs The Grand Hotel to attend the wedding of Princess Madeleine of Sweden and Christopher O'Neill hosted by King Carl Gustaf XIV and Queen Silvia at The Royal Palace on June 8, 2013 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images) Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece attends the 2015 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 22, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) Princess Mette-Marit of Norway and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway attend the wedding of Princess Madeleine of Sweden and Christopher O'Neill hosted by King Carl Gustaf XIV and Queen Silvia at The Royal Palace on June 8, 2013 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) Lady Amelia Windsor walks the runway at the Dolce & Gabbana secret show during Milan Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2018 at Bar Martini on September 23, 2017 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images) Prince Carl Philip of Sweden and his wife Princess Sofia of Sweden during the wedding of Prince Konstantin of Bavaria and Deniz Kaya at the french church 'Eglise au Bois' on September 1, 2018 in St Moritz, Switzerland. (Photo by Gisela Schober/Getty Images) Queen Letizia of Spain arrives to the 2018 Princess of Asturias Awards Ceremony at the Campoamor Teather on October 19, 2018 in Oviedo, Spain. (Photo by Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images) After 16 days of show-stopping high fashion looks mixed with ASOS maternity dresses, Meghan Markle's tour de couture Down Under is officially over. It's likely that Meghan and Harry will be taking a break from the spotlight for at least a few weeks to recover from the intensive schedule of their first major royal tour (their two-day trip to Dublin over the summer is nothing compared to this endurance test), which means that there will be a gap in our fashion news consumption and our Instagram feeds. So, we tracked down some of our favourite royals from around the world who deliver every time and should quench your desire for style stalking - for now, at least. Sweden's Princess Sofia Expand Close Princess Sofia of Sweden and Prince Carl Philip at a friend's wedding in Sweden. Picture: IBL/REX/Shutterstock / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Princess Sofia of Sweden and Prince Carl Philip at a friend's wedding in Sweden. Picture: IBL/REX/Shutterstock What you need to know: Sweden's Princess Sofia has been married to Prince Carl Philip for the last three years and has transformed from her past life as a reality tv star and glamour model, who once posed topless with a boa constrictor, into an elegant style icon and impeccably dressed mother-of-two. They also seem impossibly charming, recently opening their formerly private - and personal - Instagram account to the public, filled with adorable photos of their young family. Style highlights: It's rare that Sofia takes even a step wrong with her wardrobe choices, but she truly knocks it out of the park with her state dinner attire - and we get the added bonus of a tiara! Spain's Queen Letizia Expand Close Queen Letizia of Spain arrives to the 2018 Princess of Asturias Awards Ceremony at the Campoamor Teather on October 19, 2018 in Oviedo, Spain. (Photo by Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Queen Letizia of Spain arrives to the 2018 Princess of Asturias Awards Ceremony at the Campoamor Teather on October 19, 2018 in Oviedo, Spain. (Photo by Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images) What you need to know: The former journalist, who, like Meghan, had her own struggles of acceptance within the Spanish royal family due to a divorce, wed then-Prince Felipe in 2004. The couple ascended the throne in 2014 and Letizia remains one of the world's busiest royals, working nearly seven days a week attending various different events championing her personal causes. Style highlights: Her workwear wardrobe is the dream for anyone in a corporate setting: a spectacle of pencil dresses, tailored jackets and cigarette trousers. And she takes any chance to show off her impossibly toned arms. Princess Olympia of Greece Expand Close Princess Olympia of Greece. Picture: Instagram / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Princess Olympia of Greece. Picture: Instagram What you need to know: Greece's monarchy may have been abolished in 1973, but the members' ability to retain their titles is enough to guarantee front row seats at international fashion weeks and serious celebrity status. Olympia, at 22, is an 'it' girl living in New York City, where she was born and raised. Style highlights: Her Instagram feed is an influencer's dream aesthetic, with professional shots of her leaving Princess Beatrice's wedding in Windsor earlier this month, alongside bikini clad pictures on private yachts. Her life is essentially one giant style highlight. Video of the Day Lady Amelia Windsor Expand Close Lady Amelia Windsor poses during a photocall before the Christian Dior women's 2018 Spring/Summer ready-to-wear collection fashion show in Paris, on September 26, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / Patrick KOVARIK / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Lady Amelia Windsor poses during a photocall before the Christian Dior women's 2018 Spring/Summer ready-to-wear collection fashion show in Paris, on September 26, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / Patrick KOVARIK What you need to know: The British tabloids have been trying to make Lady Amelia Windsor happen for a long time, and it looks like it's finally happenning. The 22-year-old is 28th in line to the British throne and in 2016, was named the 'most beautiful member of the royal family' by Tatler magazine, thanks to her rather obviously stunning features. Style highlights: She's trying her hand at modelling and her name has elevated her to certain prestige jobs like walking for Dolce & Gabanna at Milan Fashion Week, but given her young age, she still has years to polish an already near-perfect personal style. Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria Expand Close Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden attend the 2018 Polar Music Prize award ceremony at the Grand Hotel on June 14, 2018 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by MICHAEL CAMPANELLA/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden attend the 2018 Polar Music Prize award ceremony at the Grand Hotel on June 14, 2018 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by MICHAEL CAMPANELLA/Getty Images) What you need to know: Next in line to the Swedish throne, Crown Princess Victoria has had a lifetime to prepare for the role of a lifetime as future queen. She takes her duties very seriously and famously said that she has missed a number of important events in her children's lives because Sweden comes first. Her children Princess Estelle (six) and Prince Oscar (two), whom she shares with husband Prince Daniel, are scene stealers at any family event. Style highlights: Victoria has mastered the art of the day dress, showcasing an impressive mix of floral shift dresses (without looking frumpy). Denmark's Crown Princess Mary Expand Close Crown Princess Mary of Denmark seen outside CIFF fair during the Copenhagen Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2019 on August 8, 2018 in Copenhagen, Denmark. (Photo by Christian Vierig/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Crown Princess Mary of Denmark seen outside CIFF fair during the Copenhagen Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2019 on August 8, 2018 in Copenhagen, Denmark. (Photo by Christian Vierig/Getty Images) What you need to know: She's a former marketing executive who met husband Crown Prince Frederik in her native Sydney in 2000. It was love at first sight and within a year, she had moved to Copenhagen to learn Danish and acclimate to royal life. Style highlights: It's often written that Kate Middleton and Mary have similar taste, but Mary is more of a risk-taker, unafraid to step away from traditional attire in favour of something fresh and youthful - i.e., this floaty dress she wore the Copenhagen Fashion Week in August. The Netherlands' Queen Maxima Expand Close Queen Maxima of the Netherlands smiles upon arrival in Trier during a three day visit to Germany, on October 10, 2018. (Photo by Boris Roessler / dpa / AFP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Queen Maxima of the Netherlands smiles upon arrival in Trier during a three day visit to Germany, on October 10, 2018. (Photo by Boris Roessler / dpa / AFP) What you need to know: King Willem-Alexander wed Argentinian financial sales director Maxima Zorreguieta Cerruti in 2002 after initially meeting in 1999 in Seville and the rest is history. She is a bonafide Instagram style star thanks to her colourful combinations and while her personal life has been marred by tragedy in recent years, she has always put on a brave face. Style highlights: Maxima loves a piece of headwear, whether it be a beret, a fascinator, a hairband, she doesn't discriminate, once it's big and bold like her personaity. During her recent trip to the UK, she chose a piece by Irish designer Philip Treacy, so here's hoping we get more designs from our little island. Norway's Crown Princess Mette-Marit Expand Close Princess Mette-Marit of Norway and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway attend the wedding of Princess Madeleine of Sweden and Christopher O'Neill hosted by King Carl Gustaf XIV and Queen Silvia at The Royal Palace on June 8, 2013 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Princess Mette-Marit of Norway and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway attend the wedding of Princess Madeleine of Sweden and Christopher O'Neill hosted by King Carl Gustaf XIV and Queen Silvia at The Royal Palace on June 8, 2013 in Stockholm, Sweden. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) What you need to know: Mette-Marit's rise to royalty is a fascinating one as she was a single mother when she met now-husband Crown Prince Haakon in 2001, when she was working as a waitress and charmed the Norwegian public before long. Most recently, she announced that she was diagnosed with life-limiting condition chronic pulmonary fibrosis, in addition to vertigo. Style highlights: Despite the tiaras and sleek dresses for official royal business, this woman knows how to do casual. It's clear that she never forgot her normal roots and always prefers basics over fussy details and over-accessorised outfits. Queen Rania of Jordan Expand Close Queen Rania of Jordan arrives to attend the opening of the ordinary session of parliament in the capital Amman on November 12, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / KHALIL MAZRAAWI (Photo credit should read KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Queen Rania of Jordan arrives to attend the opening of the ordinary session of parliament in the capital Amman on November 12, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / KHALIL MAZRAAWI (Photo credit should read KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images) What you need to know: Jordan's Queen Consort Rania is often regarded as one of the best dressed women in the world, praised for her dedication to philanthropy and advocacy for education and children through work with UNICEF. Not to mention she's on the board of directors of several international organizations such as the World Economic Forum (WEF); the United Nations Foundation (UNF); and International Youth Foundation (IYF). Style highlights: She has a power wardrobe to beat the band and thanks to her Instagram account, she's arguably one of the most influential street style stars around - at least Vogue thinks so. Princess Charlene of Monaco Expand Close Prince Albert II of Monaco (L) and Princess Charlene of Monaco arrive to attend the 70th annual Red Cross Gala at the Monte-Carlo Sporting Club on July 27, 2018 in Monaco / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Prince Albert II of Monaco (L) and Princess Charlene of Monaco arrive to attend the 70th annual Red Cross Gala at the Monte-Carlo Sporting Club on July 27, 2018 in Monaco What you need to know: Princess Charlene will always remain a fascination not only because of her past as an Olympic swimmer representing South Africa or her statuesque appearance, but the 'runaway bride' narrative in the run-up to her 2011 wedding to Prince Albert that they've never been able to shake. These days though, the couple do seem genuinely happy together and are parents to four-year-old twins Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella. Style highlights: At the annual Red Cross Gala, Charlene always makes a breathtaking appearance, usually in Versace. Crown Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece Expand Close Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece attends the 2015 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 22, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece attends the 2015 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 22, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) What you need to know: The London-born childrenswear designer is Princess Olympia's mother and has been married to Crown Prince Pavlos, heir apparent to a defunct throne, for 23 years. Style highlights: She's also based in the US, which means we get to see her in more of a modern princess role, one sprinkled among Hollywood royalty as she's pictured above at the Vanity Fair Oscars party. Beatrice Borromeo of Monaco Expand Close Pierre Casiraghi and Beatrice Borromeo attend the Franca Sozzani Award during the 74th Venice Film Festival on September 1, 2017 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Pierre Casiraghi and Beatrice Borromeo attend the Franca Sozzani Award during the 74th Venice Film Festival on September 1, 2017 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images) What you need to know: Beatrice is an Italian journalist who had an established career covering political development before marrying Pierre Casiraghi (his uncle is reigning monarch of Monaco Prince Albert) in 2015. Two years ago, she was appointed a special envoy for human rights for Fashion 4 Development (F4D), an organisation which teamed up with the United Nations to tackle poverty in the developing world. Style highlights: Beatrice's style has evolved from laid-back luxe synonymous with old-money in the summer to an increasingly preened royal-in-waiting. Her style has always been flawless, but now designers from around the world are clamouring even more to dress her - and it's easy to see why. Millie Mackintosh departs the Xiao Li show during London Fashion Week Autumn/Winter 2016/17 at Brewer Street Car Park on February 23, 2016 in London, England.. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) Millie Mackintosh has revealed she "cried every day for two months" after announcing the closure of her eponymous fashion line. The former Made in Chelsea star launched the collection in 2014 and while it was generally well-received by fashion critics and consumers, the positive buzz didn't translate to enough sales to sustain the business and in May, she announced it was clsoing due to the "immensely challenging financial climate". "Despite our best efforts and being a top seller with a number of our stockists, the financial climate in the fashion industry has proved immensely challenging and the business is no longer sustainable," she said. Mackintosh's pieces were stocked across the UK and Ireland in ASOS and Arnotts, where she made a number of appearances to bolster its popularity over the last 12 months. And the professional struggles took a personal toll on her, as she balanced the bittersweet year she experienced with closing her business, while also basking in her joy at marrying Hugo Taylor in June. Expand Close Millie Mackintosh in Arnotts. Picture: Michael Chester / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Millie Mackintosh in Arnotts. Picture: Michael Chester "Its been an up-and-down year. I've had the highest highs and the lowest lows. When the business went under it was upsetting and not just for me," she told Red magazine. "The worst part was feeling like I'd let down everyone involved. I sat people down and let them know what was happening. It was upsetting, anxiety inducing, tearful I cried every day for two months. It was painful. Horrible." In the end, she wound up losing 178,000 of her own money and the company owned 548,000 by its closure. Read More Earlier this year, during a trip to Dublin, she told Independent.ie Style: "Its not all pretty dresses and playing dress up, its hard work." Mackintosh says was trying to harmonize running the creative and business elements of her line, which became particularly stressful when they reached financial difficulty. Expand Close Millie Mackintosh and Hugo Taylor at the Chelsea Old Town Hall in 2018 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Millie Mackintosh and Hugo Taylor at the Chelsea Old Town Hall in 2018 Video of the Day "I was trying to save it, trying to get investment. I self-invested, then left it too late to get outside investment. Its hard when you're paying to make stock before money's come in," she explained. "In the end, the fun, creative part that I really loved got lost under the strain of trying to keep it together. Time heals. I'm still proud of myself for attempting to start my own thing and I still have clothes in my wardrobe, but now I think Was I completely crazy? I must have been!" Priyanka Chopra arrives for her bridal shower at Tiffany's Blue Box Cafe in Midtown on October 28, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Gotham/GC Images) Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman attend the 87th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on February 22, 2015 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and British designer Georgina Chapman attend the Time 100 Gala celebrating the Time 100 issue of the Most Influential People In The World at Jazz at Lincoln Center on April 24, 2012 in New York. AFP PHOTO / TIMOTHY A.CLARY Harvey Weinstein and designer Georgina Chapman (R) arrive for a State Dinner in honor of British Prime Minister David Cameron at the White House on March 14, 2012 in Washington, DC. Cameron is on a three day official visit to Washington. (Photo by Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images) Priyanka Chopra arrives for her bridal shower at Tiffany's Blue Box Cafe in Midtown on October 28, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Gotham/GC Images) Priyanka Chopra arrives for her bridal shower at Tiffany's Blue Box Cafe in Midtown on October 28, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Gotham/GC Images) Priyanka Chopra has defended her friend Georgina Chapman after several stars shunned her Marchesa clothing line when her estranged husband Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual harassment. The 42-year-old designer filed for divorce from the disgraced producer after he was accused last year of sexual misconduct by dozens of women, and despite not being involved in the scandal herself, many stars have chosen to shun her fashion label on the red carpet in the wake of the allegations. But Priyanka - who has been friends with Georgina for several years - has now defended the designer, saying it isnt right for stars to take out their frustrations on a self-made woman, as her husbands alleged actions arent her fault. The Baywatch star - who is engaged to Nick Jonas - donned a $5,995 white strapless dress with a feathered skirt from Marchesas spring 2018 collection to her bridal shower over the weekend, as a show of support to her friend. Expand Close Priyanka Chopra arrives for her bridal shower at Tiffany's Blue Box Cafe in Midtown on October 28, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Gotham/GC Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Priyanka Chopra arrives for her bridal shower at Tiffany's Blue Box Cafe in Midtown on October 28, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Gotham/GC Images) She told Womens Wear Daily: Georginas a friend of mine, and she has been. And its not her fault. And I dont think its right to take it out on a self-made woman what somebody in her life did. Thats the wrong attitude. Ive known her for years, and that was a beautiful gown, and deserved to be worn by a bride-to-be. And it made me feel like a princess. It was the right choice. Speculation has since been swirling that the 36-year-old actress could wear another Marchesa gown to her nuptials, which are set to take place at the end of the year. A source recently said: "The wedding is happening in India in December. It was previously revealed Priyanka and Nick, 26, plan to "blend traditions" from their respective cultures on their big day. An insider said in September: "They really want to blend wedding traditions from both of their cultures that are important to them. Expand Close Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman attend the 87th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on February 22, 2015 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Harvey Weinstein and Georgina Chapman attend the 87th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on February 22, 2015 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) Video of the Day "Priyanka is having a really good time planning the wedding because it's a mix of Indian and American styles and customs, which she knows so much about." A royal fan was blown away when the Duchess of Sussex recognised her at a public walk in Auckland, New Zealand, after having exchanged messages on Instagram two years ago. Hannah Sergel had exchanged messages with the duchess in 2016, with the then Meghan Markle sending the student encouraging messages as she was starting university. Waiting for Meghan at an event at the Viaduct Harbour, Ms Sergel carried a sign saying: Its Hannah from Instagram, which prompted Meghan to greet her and give her a hug. A video posted on social media showed the Duchess saying oh my god, how are you? after spotting her in the crowd. Ms Sergel told Press Association: When I first saw her, I really got emotional. After the hug, I was so blown away, I couldnt comprehend what had happened. The volunteer worker was so moved by the encounter, she joked on Twitter that the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, had to comfort her at the event. She added that Ms Ardern had even been sending her footage of the encounter via direct message. Ms Sergel, who co-founded the Twitter fan account Meghan Markle Daily, said this was the first time the two had met in person. She said: Her messages were about me starting university and how I was going to do well if I just put my mind to it. In addition to meeting Ms Sergel, Meghan also greeted many fans who gifted her flowers and baby toys for her future child. The public walk was part of a 16-day royal tour of Australia, Fiji, Tonga, and New Zealand. While visiting New Zealand, Meghan and Prince Harry participated in a welly throwing contest and planted a tree for the Queens Canopy dedication. K-Beauty Korean Beauty is one of the worlds biggest skin and make-up trends, as everyone wants to emulate the enviably bright and dewy look of South Korean women. However, there is a growing backlash against extreme pressures to look perfect in South Korea. This has started manifesting itself on social media, with women smashing their make-up and cosmetic products. K-Beauty is notorious for being labour-intensive and expensive. To achieve perfect glass skin and the desired pore-less complexion, you need to invest money in the right products and time into a multi-step regime. And now women are saying theyve had enough. This destruction of make-up comes as part of a wider feminist movement which has been nicknamed escape the corset. Women face pressures to look a certain way all over the world, but its intensity does seem to be heightened in South Korea a place where there is such a focus on the aesthetic that youre often asked to include a picture of yourself in job applications. The demands on women to conform to the South Korean ideal of beauty are intense, which perhaps explains why some estimates place it as the plastic surgery capital of the world. Its common to see adverts for plastic surgery clinics all over Seoul some even sporting ominous captions like: Everyone but you has done it. In fact, there is a growing trend of gifting plastic surgery procedures to South Korean students upon their graduation from school. The cosmetics industry is similarly huge, predicted to be eighth largest market in the world by export.gov and growing at an annual rate of 7.4 between 2012 and 2016. Cha Ji-won is one of the women who has trashed her make-up in protest against these weighty expectations, telling the Guardian she would spend up to 70 a month on cosmetics, and adding: Theres only so much mental energy a person has each day, and I used to spend so much of it worrying about being pretty. Destroying cosmetics isnt the only way women are taking a stand in South Korea, which is experiencing something of its own #MeToo moment. Since public prosecutor Seo Ji-hyeon told the world she was groped by a former politician in January, many more women have been coming forward with their own stories. Not only this, but Seoul saw a feminist rally of around 22,000 people in June, protesting the phenomenon of molka spycams hidden in places like public bathrooms to take explicit footage of women without their knowledge. However, its apparent theres an uphill battle facing the women of South Korea. Earlier this year, a female news anchor wore her glasses on air and this caused a significant stir online even though male anchors wear specs regularly, its not necessarily seen as the done thing for women. In an interview afterwards, the Korean Herald reports Lim Hyeon-ju as saying: I hope that people wouldnt think that it is uncomfortable to watch a news presenter wearing glasses, just because that presenter is a woman. Chances are, the cosmetic industry wont suffer much from the escape the corset movement. However, its opening up the conversations around the expectations placed on women, and how toxic this need to conform can be. This is only a start, but its an important one for the women of South Korea. Aviation experts have said a small metal tube on the wing of commercial airplanes that measures airspeed could have been responsible for the crash which killed all 189 passengers and crew. Indonesia has now ordered the inspection of all Boeing 737-MAX airliners as rescue teams recovered more human remains and wreckage from the brand new jet that plunged into the sea. Expand Close A victims body arrives in Jakarta to be identified. Photo: Reuters / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A victims body arrives in Jakarta to be identified. Photo: Reuters The plane had flown erratically the day before the crash and its instruments recorded inaccurate airspeed and altitude readings, according to a number of sources. Now experts have said a fault with a pitot pipe - which was found to have caused the Air France Flight 447 to crash into the Atlantic in 2009 - could have been responsible. Maintaining correct airspeed is crucial. If a plane flies too slowly it can stall while if it flies too fast it can break up. In the case of the Air France flight, ice was found to have clogged one of the plane's pitot pipes. "The erratic flight path makes us suspect a problem with the pitot-static system," Gerry Soejatman, an Indonesian aviation expert, told 'The New York Times'. Experts told the newspaper it was too early to determine the exact cause of the accident and added it was a combination of equipment malfunctions and human error that often led to crashes. The Boeing-737 MAX, which went into service just two months ago, crashed into the Java Sea off Indonesia's northern coast moments after it had asked to return to Jakarta on Monday. Search and rescue personnel examine recovered debris and personal items from Lion Air flight JT 610 Flight JT610 sped up as it suddenly lost altitude and then vanished from radar 12 minutes after take-off, with witnesses saying the single-aisle jet plunged into the water. The accident has resurrected concerns about Indonesia's patchy air safety record which led to a now-lifted ban on its planes entering US and European airspace. Yesterday, Indonesia's transport minister ordered an inspection of all 737-MAX aircraft but stopped short of grounding the new models. Dozens of divers were taking part in the recovery effort along with helicopters and ships. Authorities are trying to pinpoint the smashed jet's location and flight data recorders. There were 178 adult passengers, one child, two infants, two pilots and six cabin crew on board. Divers searched for victims and high-tech equipment was deployed as reports emerged of problems on the jet's previous flight that had terrified passengers. Search and rescue personnel worked through the night, sending 24 body bags to identification experts while the airline flew dozens of grieving relatives to the country's capital, Jakarta. The jet's pilot had requested clearance to return to the airport just minutes after take-off, which aviation experts said indicated a problem. The National Search and Rescue Agency said 10 intact bodies as well as body parts have been recovered. Aircraft debris and personal belongings from ID cards to clothing and bags found scattered in seas northeast of Jakarta have been spread out on tarpaulins at a port to the north of the capital. Two passengers on the plane's previous flight from Bali to Jakarta on Sunday have described issues that caused frustration and alarm. Alon Soetanto told TVOne the plane dropped suddenly several times in the first few minutes of its flight: "About three to eight minutes after it took off, I felt like the plane was losing power and unable to rise. That happened several times during the flight. "We felt like in a roller coaster. Some passengers began to panic and vomit." In a detailed post online, Indonesian TV presenter Conchita Caroline said boarding of Sunday's flight was delayed by more than an hour and when the plane was being towed, a technical problem forced it to return to its parking space. She said passengers sat in the cabin without air conditioning for at least 30 minutes listening to an "unusual" engine roar, while some children vomited from the overbearing heat, until staff faced with rising anger let them disembark. After 30 minutes of waiting on the tarmac, passengers were told to board again while an engine was checked. Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush touched his co-star's breast and humiliated her with sexual innuendo during a production of 'King Lear', an Australian court has been told. Rush is suing over a series of articles saying he was the subject of a complaint to the Sydney Theatre Company regarding the 2015 production. Under the headline 'KING LEER' and in later articles, Sydney's 'Daily Telegraph' newspaper claimed last year that the actor, in the title role, had been accused by a co-star of unspecified inappropriate conduct. Eryn Jean Norvill, who played Lear's daughter Cordelia, was called to give evidence by 'Telegraph' publisher News Corp which stands by the stories. Norvill said that in a performance of a climactic scene, where she was playing dead, Rush stroked her right breast slowly with his fingers. Rush (67), who won the Best Actor Oscar in 1997 for 'Shine', has denied any improper conduct. British Gas owner Centrica has appointed a new chairman to lead it into its next phase as it struggles to retain customers. Charles Berry, the current chairman of Weir Group, is to join the board of Centrica immediately as a non-executive director, before taking the reins as chairman on February 21 2019. Mr Berry has previously chaired Senior, Drax Group, EAGA and Thus Group. He has also held executive roles at Scottish Power, where he was responsible for power generation, commodity trading, energy retailing and renewable energy in the UK. Expand Close Charles Berry is currently chairman of Weir Group (Chris Close/Weir Group/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Charles Berry is currently chairman of Weir Group (Chris Close/Weir Group/PA) Current chairman Rick Haythornthwaite, who announced his decision to leave the firm in May, said: Charless breadth of international energy and engineering knowledge and a long track record of successful leadership of businesses across industrial, minerals, and retail sectors over the last 20 years, stand him in an excellent position to succeed me and lead the Centrica board. Centrica has been struggling with declining profits as more customers choose alternatives to the Big Six energy suppliers. In July the company reported a 20% slump in earnings and said it was keeping prices under review as the wholesale costs of energy continue to rise. Centrica has redoubled efforts to cut costs this year, announcing the axing of 4,000 jobs in February. Expand Close Centrica CEO Iain Conn said the appointment of Charles Berry wold help the company navigate a challenging backdrop (Dominic Lipinski/PA) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Centrica CEO Iain Conn said the appointment of Charles Berry wold help the company navigate a challenging backdrop (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Chief executive Iain Conn said the appointment of Mr Berry would help the firm to navigate a challenging backdrop. The markets in which we operate have been very challenging in the last few years, and we have worked hard to reposition and strengthen the group as the landscape for energy and services continues to change, he said. Charles brings extensive experience and leadership to the board, and the support and challenge necessary for us to be successful in this next phase. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP) President Donald Trump has said the number of military troops deployed to the US-Mexican border could go as high as 15,000. Mr Trump told reporters at the White House well go up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel on top of Border Patrol, ICE and everybody else at the border. He said the move would be aimed at preventing the entry of a caravan of migrants travelling from Central America. Expand Close Honduran migrants joke while taking bucket showers at a camp set up by a caravan of thousands of Central American migrants, in Juchitan, Mexico (Rodrigo Abd/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Honduran migrants joke while taking bucket showers at a camp set up by a caravan of thousands of Central American migrants, in Juchitan, Mexico (Rodrigo Abd/AP) The caravan is still nearly 1,000 miles from the border. Mr Trump said the US was going to be prepared and that the migrants are not coming into our country. Currently there are 2,100 National Guard helping at the border. The Pentagon says an additional 5,200 active-duty troops could join them. The suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre has been indicted by a federal grand jury, four days after 11 people were killed and six wounded in the deadliest attack on Jews in American history. Wednesdays indictment, which was expected, charges Robert Bowers with 44 counts, including hate crimes. US federal prosecutors have previously indicated they plan to seek the death penalty. The charges were announced on the second day of funerals for the victims. Expand Close A vehicle carrying Robert Bowers with a Pittsburgh Police escort leaves the Federal Courthouse (Gene J. Puskar/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A vehicle carrying Robert Bowers with a Pittsburgh Police escort leaves the Federal Courthouse (Gene J. Puskar/AP) Today begins the process of seeking justice for the victims of these hateful acts, and healing for the victims families, the Jewish community, and our city, US attorney Scott Brady said in a statement. Our office will spare no resource, and will work with professionalism, integrity and diligence, in a way that honours the memories of the victims. Bowers, a 46-year-old lorry driver, remained jailed without bail ahead of a preliminary hearing scheduled for Thursday. Authorities say he raged against Jews during the attack. Members of Pittsburghs grief-stricken Jewish community, meanwhile, endured another round of funerals for the congregants who were gunned down in Saturdays rampage. Melvin Wax, 87, Irving Younger, 69, and Joyce Fienberg, 75, were being laid to rest as part of a week-long series of services. It cant be fixed, Robert Libman said at the funeral of Ms Fienberg, his sister, clutching his chest as he described the pain of losing her. My sister is dead. My sister was murdered. There was no one I know like her. Pure goodness. She was the most tolerant and gentle person that Ive ever known. Her sons, Anthony and Howard said she spent five years caring for their father as he battled cancer, then after his death a few years ago, devoted more of her time and energy to Tree of Life. Expand Close Stones and white flowers, left by President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump (Andrew Harnik/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Stones and white flowers, left by President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump (Andrew Harnik/AP) My mom would be very angry that her funeral wasnt able to be at Tree of Life, and that her friends lost Saturday couldnt be here, Howard Fienberg said. The funerals for Mr Wax and Mr Younger were to be held later Tuesday. Six people were wounded in the attack, including four police officers, two of whom remained in hospital with gunshot wounds. Two congregants were still in the hospital, one in critical condition. In a bit of good news, hospital officials said the two most seriously injured shooting victims are improving. A police officer and a congregant remain in intensive care but are doing much better now, Dr Donald Yealy, chairman of emergency medicine at UPMC, said Wednesday. Expand Close President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner visit a memorial outside Pittsburghs Tree of Life Synagogue (Matt Rourke/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner visit a memorial outside Pittsburghs Tree of Life Synagogue (Matt Rourke/AP) I think overall the prognoses are good now. But each of them, in a varying way, will have a different trajectory and likely will require a series of ongoing care. The first three funerals were held on Tuesday, with thousands of mourners jamming a synagogue, a Jewish community centre and a third, undisclosed site for the funerals of a beloved family doctor, a pillar of the congregation, and two intellectually disabled brothers in the 50s who were known as the boys. Cecil and David Rosenthal were beautiful souls who had not an ounce of hate in them, something were terribly missing today, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, a survivor of the massacre, said at their funeral at Rodef Shalom, one of the citys oldest and largest synagogues. The brothers were both active at Tree of Life, with Cecil the more gregarious of the two, a man with a booming voice who was known as the mayor of the citys Squirrel Hill neighbourhood and the town crier for the gossip he managed to gather. They were innocent like boys, not hardened like men, the Rosenthals sister, Diane Hirt, told mourners. On Tuesday afternoon, after the days funerals were over, Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrived in Pittsburgh to shouting, chanting protesters with signs such as Its your fault and Words matter. That was a reference to allegations that Mr Trumps combative language has emboldened bigots. Expand Close Students from the Yeshiva School in the Squirrel Hill neighbourhood of Pittsburgh stand outside Beth Shalom Synagogue after attending the funeral service for Joyce Fienberg (Gene J. Puskar/AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Students from the Yeshiva School in the Squirrel Hill neighbourhood of Pittsburgh stand outside Beth Shalom Synagogue after attending the funeral service for Joyce Fienberg (Gene J. Puskar/AP) Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, both Democrats, declined to join him during the visit. He didnt pull the trigger, but his verbiage and actions dont help, said Squirrel Hill resident Paul Carberry, 55, wearing anti-Trump patches on his hat and jacket. Another Squirrel Hill resident, Shayna Marcus, a Jewish 34-year-old nurse and Trump supporter who hoped to catch sight of the presidential motorcade, said: I dont think focusing on Trump is the answer, or on politics. One person was arrested during the protests. During their visit, Mr Trump and the first lady lit candles at Tree of Life for the victims and laid white roses as well as stones for each of the dead, a Jewish burial tradition. They later went to a hospital to visit with survivors. They were joined by Mr Trumps daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, as well as Mr Myers, the Tree of Life rabbi, and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer. A private funeral was conducted on Tuesday for Daniel Stein, the 71-year-old mens club president at Tree of Life. And a service with more than 1,000 people was held for Dr Jerry Rabinowitz at the Jewish Community Centre in Squirrel Hill. The 66-year-old Dr Rabinowitz was a go-to medic for HIV patients in the epidemics early and desperate days, a physician who always hugged his patients as they left his office. A lot of people are feeling really angry about this. A lot of rage built up inside about this, because of it being a hate crime. Dont get me wrong; I do. But Im so overwhelmed with sadness right now that I cant even be angry right now, said Robin Faulkner, whose family had seen Dr Rabinowitz for 30 years and counted him as a dear friend. Its just such a loss. Just tragic. Among the mourners at the Rosenthal brothers funeral was Dr Abe Friedman, who typically sat in the back row of Tree of Life with the two men but was late to synagogue on Saturday and was not there when the gunman opened fire. As he stood in line at the funeral, Dr Friedman wondered why he had been spared. Why did things fall into place for me? he asked. I usually sit in the back row. In the last row, everyone got killed. Hungarian camerawoman, center left in blue, kicks out at a young migrant who had just crossed the border from Serbia near Roszke Hungar Hungary's highest court has acquitted a camerawoman who was filmed kicking and trying to trip migrants on the border with Serbia in 2015. The decision announced on Tuesday revised the rulings of two lower courts that had sentenced Petra Laszlo to three years' probation for disorderly conduct. The Hungarian supreme court, the Kuria, said Laszlo should have been charged with a misdemeanour instead of a criminal offence. It said the case had to be terminated now since the statute of limitations had expired. In September 2015, Laszlo was filming migrants passing through Hungary on their way west when several broke through a police cordon and jostled her as they ran by. She responded by kicking two people, including a young girl. Someone else with a camera recorded her actions. A German nurse has admitted to being post-war Germany's deadliest serial killer, murdering 99 patients with lethal injections so that he could play the hero by trying to revive them. When Judge Sebastian Buehrmann asked 41-year-old Niels Hoegel in court if the charges against him were valid, he responded in the affirmative, adding: "All that I have admitted to is true." Hoegel tried to hide his face behind a plastic folder as he was ushered into the courtroom in the northern city of Oldenburg. He had already been sentenced to 15 years in jail in 2015 after he was found guilty of killing two patients with lethal injections. In January, prosecutors brought new charges against him for killing another 97 people. The murder charges stem from Hoegel's time at a hospital in Oldenburg between 1999 and 2002 and at another in nearby Delmenhorst from 2003 to 2005. The alleged victims were aged between 34 and 96. Hoegel was convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders. Then he said he intentionally brought about cardiac arrests in some 90 patients in Delmenhorst because he enjoyed the feeling of being able to resuscitate them. He later told investigators that he also killed patients in Oldenburg. Expand Close Doctor Death: Harold Shipman killed 250 people in the UK. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Doctor Death: Harold Shipman killed 250 people in the UK. Authorities subsequently investigated hundreds of deaths, exhuming bodies of former patients. The Oldenburg state court is conducting the trial at a courtroom set up in a conference centre, a venue chosen to accommodate a large number of co-plaintiffs and public interest in the proceedings. Presiding Judge Buehrmann opened the proceedings by asking everyone present to stand for a minute of silence for the deceased patients. "All of their relatives deserve that their memory be honoured," independently of whether or not Hoegel had anything to do with their deaths, Judge Buehrmann said. "We will make every effort to seek the truth." He promised Hoegel a fair trial. An additional conviction could affect Hoegel's parole chances, but there are no consecutive sentences in Germany. Prisoners serving life sentences are usually considered for parole after 15 years. "We have fought for four years for this trial and expect Hoegel to be convicted of another 100 killings," said Christian Marbach, representing the patients' relatives. "The aim is for Hoegel to stay in custody as long as possible." The trial is scheduled to last until May. Police have said that if local health officials hadn't hesitated in alerting authorities, Hoegel could have been stopped earlier. Authorities are pursuing criminal cases against former staff at the two medical facilities. His admission will not end the trial, at which victims' families hope to hear more information about the crimes. "We want him to get the sentence that he deserves," said Frank Brinkers, whose father died in an overdose allegedly administered by Hoegel. Prosecutors say an investigation and toxicology reports show he injected 35 people at the clinic Oldenburg clinic and 62 in Delmenhorst. Ten years ago, a German nurse was given a life sentence for killing 28 elderly patients, using lethal injections because he said he felt sorry for them. In the UK, Dr Harold Shipman was believed to have killed as many as 250 people, most of them elderly and middle-aged women who were his patients. Known as Dr Death, Shipman was sentenced to 15 life terms in 2000; he died in prison in 2004, after apparently committing suicide. A Turkish prosecutor says journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing. A statement from chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidans office added that Mr Khashoggis body was dismembered and disposed of. It also said that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no concrete results despite good-willed efforts by Turkey to uncover the truth. The statement is the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Mr Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered after he entered the Saudi Consulate on October 2 to collect paperwork needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. Expand Close Image purportedly showing Jamal Khashoggi entering the consulate (CCTV/TRT World via AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Image purportedly showing Jamal Khashoggi entering the consulate (CCTV/TRT World via AP) The announcement came as Mr al-Mojeb ended a three-day visit to Istanbul during which he held talks with Mr Fidan and other Turkish officials. Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 Saudi suspects detained in Saudi Arabia over the killing of Mr Khashoggi. It is also pressing Saudi Arabia for information concerning Mr Khashoggis remains, which still have not been found, as well as who ordered the journalists killing. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also called on Riyadh to disclose the identity of an alleged local collaborator said to have been involved in disposing of Mr Khashoggis body. Mr Khashoggi, a 59-year-old columnist for The Washington Post, vanished after entering the consulate in Istanbul to pick up paperwork for his upcoming marriage to his fiancee, who was waiting for him outside. A critic of the Saudi royal family, Mr Khashoggi had been living in exile in the United States. Turkey alleges a Saudi hit squad from Saudi Arabia including a member of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans entourage during a trip to the United States travelled to Istanbul to kill the journalist and then tried to cover it up. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia changed its narrative about Mr Khashoggis killing several times, eventually admitting that Mr Khashoggi died inside the consulate and only recently acknowledging that Turkish evidence shows his killing was premeditated. Saudi Arabia has not commented on the prosecutors visit. Fotios Freddy Geas is said to be under suspicion (Don Treeger /The Republican via AP) A Mafia hitman who is said to hate rats is under suspicion in the killing of former Boston crime boss and long-time FBI informant James Whitey Bulger, a former investigator briefed on the matter said. Bulger was found dead just hours after he was transferred to a West Virginia prison. The official said that Fotios Freddy Geas and at least one other inmate are believed to have been involved in Bulgers killing. Authorities have not disclosed the cause of death for the 89-year-old Bulger. He was found dead on Tuesday. Geas, 51, and his brother were sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for their roles in several violent crimes, including the 2003 killing of Adolfo Big Al Bruno, a Genovese crime family boss who was gunned down in a Springfield, Massachusetts, car park. Expand Close James Whitey Bulger was found dead on Tuesday (AP Photo/U.S. Marshals Service, File) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp James Whitey Bulger was found dead on Tuesday (AP Photo/U.S. Marshals Service, File) Private investigator Ted McDonough, who knew Geas, told The Boston Globe: Freddy hated rats. Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. Its probably that simple, Mr McDonough told the newspaper, which first reported that Geas was under suspicion. An FBI spokeswoman in Pittsburgh declined to comment on Geas. Federal officials said only that they are investigating the death as a homicide. Bulger led South Bostons Irish mob for decades and became an FBI informant who supplied information on the New England Mafia, his gangs main rival, in an era when bringing down the Italian mob was a top national priority for the bureau. Tipped off that he was about to be indicted, Bulger became a fugitive and eluded authorities for nearly two decades before being captured in 2011. He was convicted in 2013 in 11 underworld killings and a host of other crimes and was sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars. He had just arrived on Monday at USP Hazelton, a high-security prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. He had previously been in a prison in Florida, with a stopover at a transfer facility in Oklahoma City. Bulgers lawyer, JW Carney Jr, blamed his death on prison officials, saying Bulger was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty. The Geas brothers were not made members of the Mafia because they were Greek, not Italian. But they were close associates of the mob and acted as enforcers. Neymar currently plays for Paris St Germain in France (Simon Cooper/PA) A Spanish judge says fraud and corruption charges brought against footballer Neymar could merit a prison sentence of up to six years when the Brazil forward stands trial. Prosecutors were seeking a two-year sentence for the Paris Saint-Germain player for alleged irregularities related to his transfer to Barcelona five years ago, but the court said a sentence of four to six years could be handed down if Neymar is found guilty. The decision is a setback for Neymar because in Spain sentences of two years or less for first offences are usually suspended, meaning he would avoid any jail time. The charges were brought after a Brazilian investment group said it received a smaller compensation because part of Neymars transfer fee was concealed by those involved. Neymars parents, Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu, and former president Sandro Rosell also faced charges, along with Barcelona and Brazilian club Santos. They all denied any wrongdoing. The trials date has not been set. The trial is scheduled to begin next Monday in Brooklyn federal court. Stock image A judge in the US has turned down a last-ditch effort by accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman to delay his trafficking trial, scheduled to begin next Monday in Brooklyn federal court. Lawyers for Guzman said in a motion last week they needed more time to review more than 14,000 pages of documents, largely related to key witnesses expected to testify. However, US District Judge Brian Cogan said the volume of documents was in line with what they should have expected. In a concession, he ruled opening statements would begin no earlier than November 13. At the peak of his nefarious career, James 'Whitey' Bulger, the long-ago murderous Boston mob boss, wasn't one to dwell on his mistakes, even when he killed the wrong guy a few times. Back then, as whispers had it, Whitey was untouchable. However, in 2015, after three schoolgirls wrote to him in prison as part of a history project, seeking his views on "leadership" and "legacy," the octogenarian ex-gangster, a ninth-grade dropout, responded with a rueful letter. In the Coleman II federal prison in Florida, he filled a sheet of college-ruled notebook paper with tidy cursive, lamenting: "My life was wasted and spent foolishly, brought shame + suffering on my parents and siblings and will end soon." Now it has. Bulger, whose bloody reign in the Boston underworld was aided by crooked FBI agents in the 1980s and who later went on the run for 16 years, living incognito by the California seashore, was found murdered yesterday while completing the first of his two life sentences. He was 89. The Bureau of Prisons confirmed that Bulger was found unresponsive at a jail in Bruceton Mills, West Virgina. Staff attempted life-saving measures and he was pronounced dead by the county medical examiner. An inmate with Mafia ties is now under investigation for the killing. Expand Close Bulger gunned down bar owner Eddie Connors at a phonebooth in Boston in 1975. Photo: U.S. Attorney's Office of Massachusetts/Handout/File Photo via REUTERS / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Bulger gunned down bar owner Eddie Connors at a phonebooth in Boston in 1975. Photo: U.S. Attorney's Office of Massachusetts/Handout/File Photo via REUTERS Although notorious in Boston, Bulger was largely unknown to the wider world until after he disappeared in 1994. In his absence, his darkest secrets, including his corrupt ties with FBI agents, were gradually laid bare in court hearings, media exposes and a congressional inquiry. He shared space with Osama bin Laden on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. Captured in Santa Monica, California, in 2011, Bulger was sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus five years after a Boston jury convicted him of 31 racketeering offences. The charges catalogued 19 alleged murders and he was found guilty of ordering or carrying out 11 of them. The verdicts, in 2013, climaxed a gangland opera of fealty and betrayal that spanned half a century and combined two of Boston's abiding fixations: ethnic crime and politics. Bulger, dubbed "Whitey" in his fair-haired youth, was a brother of William "Billy" Bulger, a longtime Democratic state politician and iron-fisted boss of Massachusetts government. Theirs was a family epic - a tale of two siblings, each ruthless in his own way, and each ever loyal to the other, who climbed to power from insular, working-class South Boston. Expand Close Movie: Johnny Depp as Bulger in the 2015 film Black Mass. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Movie: Johnny Depp as Bulger in the 2015 film Black Mass. Billy, an erudite lawyer schooled in classic literature, dominated the statehouse as Senate president for 18 years, while the shadowy, menacing Whitey, once a bank robber and Alcatraz inmate, loomed over the streets as a czar of bookmaking, loan-sharking, extortion and drugs. After Whitey skipped town in late 1994, a step ahead of an indictment, it came to light that throughout the 1980s he had been listed in FBI records as a confidential "top echelon informant". The so-called 'Irish Godfather', recruited to snitch on his competitors in the Mafia, had also regularly lavished his FBI handlers with illicit cash and gifts. And the agents, for their part, had connived to shield him from law enforcement interference, allowing a homicidal mob kingpin to operate with virtual impunity for years. Testifying at Bulger's 2013 trial, his former chief leg-breaker, Kevin Weeks, voiced the hoodlum community's dismay at Bulger's perfidy. To his old cronies, it made no difference that he had supposedly dished dirt only on their Italian American rivals. As a matter of principle, "we used to kill people that were rats," Weeks told the jury, evincing disgust that, unbeknownst to him in the 1980s, one of "the biggest rats" had been "right next to me." He had been finally caught in 2011 when an ex-beauty queen - Anna Bjornsdottir, Miss Iceland 1974 - had seen age-enhanced images of Bulger and his moll on TV and recognised the couple as neighbours of hers in Santa Monica. Bulger had often rolled up his sleeves and did the dirty work himself. "He stabbed people; he beat people with bats; he shot people, strangled people, run them over with cars," Weeks said on CBS's '60 Minutes' in 2006. Jurors in the trial of a police officer accused of rape have watched footage of him allegedly sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl. Ian Naude, of Market Drayton in Shropshire, could be heard asking the complainant "how old are you?" in the clip, filmed on his mobile phone. He was also heard saying "show daddy your tits" in the short clip which was played as his trial opened at Liverpool Crown Court on Wednesday. Naude, wearing a grey suit and burgundy tie, put on his glasses to watch the clips from the dock. The 30-year-old, a constable with Cheshire Police, denies rape and sexual assault but admits sexual intercourse and activity which he claims was consensual. Owen Edwards, prosecuting, said the two brief videos showed Naude's car, his reflection in the mirror and the face of the complainant. He said: "It is not the face of a consenting woman. It is the face of a sad, scared and abused 13-year-old girl." The court heard Naude had met the girl when he was called to a domestic incident at her address in October 2017. He then messaged her via Facebook and Snapchat and three days later picked her up in his car and took her to a quiet spot where he allegedly raped and sexually assaulted her, jurors heard. The court heard a police investigation, started after the teenager reported the alleged assault to her family, discovered it was the "tip of the iceberg" of Naude's offending. "Naude is a committed paedophile who had been targeting young girls on the internet for a considerable period," Mr Edwards said. "Shockingly it emerged that he had joined the police with the intention of exploiting the access he would gain to vulnerable young girls. "In essence, he was hoping to gain the keys to a sweetshop." He said Naude was "obsessed" with taking the virginity of teenage girls and would make them call him "daddy". The Pc, who has admitted a number of other child sex offences, would gain the trust of young girls by posing as a 15-year-old boy called Jake Green. He also had an account under the name of Bruce Ian Wayne, an apparent reference to superhero Batman, and a Snapchat account named King Of The North. He would persuade his victims to undress and sometimes perform sexual acts on camera before sending them pictures and video of himself masturbating, the court heard. Mr Edwards said: "The pattern of behaviour which emerges from the evidence of each of his young victims leaves not a shadow of a doubt that Ian Naude was intent upon a campaign in which the prize was taking the virginity of young girls." The court heard he was identified as a suspect in a Staffordshire case in January 2017 when a girl had sexual conversations with an older man online but was not investigated and arrested and just months later, in April that year, joined Cheshire Police. Mr Edwards said: "Undoubtedly an opportunity was missed since in this period Ian Naude left the British Army and joined the Cheshire Police as a probationary constable." As well as denying rape and sexual assault, Naude denies four charges of attempting to arrange the commission of a child sex offence and one charge of arranging a child sex offence, relating to five complainants aged between 12 and 15. Mr Edwards told the jury: "His defence is that there were limits to his depravity, you will have to decide where the truth lies." Naude has pleaded guilty to two counts of engaging in sexual communication with a child, 14 counts of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, one count of taking indecent photos of a child, four counts of making indecent photos of a child, six counts of causing a child to watch a sexual act, two counts of misconduct in a public office and one count of possessing indecent photos of a child. The trial was adjourned until Thursday. Former mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger is seen in a combination of booking mug photos released to Reuters. Photo: REUTERS/U.S. Marshals Service/U.S. Department of Justice Notorious gangster James 'Whitey' Bulger's Irish links ran deep - and not only due to his ancestry with one book on the mobster describing him as an IRA sympathiser. Bulger grew up in the Irish heartland of South Boston in Massachusetts. His mother was first generation Irish-American, while his father also had strong links. The infamous mobster came to particular prominence just off Irish shores, when he orchestrated the American side of a massive gun-running plot to the IRA, which ultimately failed. In 1984, some 160 weapons and 71,000 rounds of ammunition were sent across the Atlantic by Bulger and his notorious Winter Hill gang on the Valhalla trawler. This was moved onto the Marita Ann fishing trawler and was destined to be picked up by the IRA. However, while the transfer to the Marita Ann was successful, the fishing vessel was intercepted by the Irish Navy off the coast of Kerry, with three members aboard arrested and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment at Portlaoise Prison. Among those convicted for the failed plot was current Sinn Fein TD Martin Ferris. In his book 'The Inside Story of the Boston Mob and the IRA', author Patrick Nee wrote that Bulger "loved being associated with the IRA and the cause of Irish freedom". Rumours While he was on the run for 16 years between 1995 to 2011 there were a number of alleged sightings of Bulger in Ireland, with rumours circulating he had been in hiding here. Scott Cooper, director of 'Black Mass' - the movie based on Bulger's life of crime which starred Johnny Depp - said in 2015 that Bulger "felt very strongly about his ties to Ireland". He added that Bulger "wanted to help the IRA as much as he could". South Sudans opposition leader Riek Machar, centre, is greeted as he arrives at the airport in Juba, South Sudan (AP Photo/Bullen Chol) Opposition leader Riek Machar has returned to South Sudan for the first time since fleeing more than two years ago, to take part in a nationwide peace celebration. I came only to confirm to people that I am for peace. The past is gone. We have opened a new chapter for peace and unity, said Mr Machar, speaking in both Arabic and English to several thousand at the event. He assured South Sudans citizens that peace was in the hearts of all members of the opposition and those attending have seen peace with their own eyes. Mr Machar promised to strengthen government institutions, address corruption and injustice and said that the new government would uphold accountability. Under the peace deal signed on September 12, he will again serve as a vice president in President Salva Kiirs government. Expand Close Sudans President Omar al-Bashir, centre, stands with South Sudans President Salva Kiir, centre-left, during an arrival ceremony at the airport in Juba, South Sudan (AP Photo/Bullen Chol) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Sudans President Omar al-Bashir, centre, stands with South Sudans President Salva Kiir, centre-left, during an arrival ceremony at the airport in Juba, South Sudan (AP Photo/Bullen Chol) This will be the third time the two men have tried to work together since the country erupted into civil war in 2013. The last attempt failed when fighting broke out in the capital Juba in July 2016 and Mr Machar escaped the country on foot. He is joined in Juba for the peace celebrations by South Sudans other opposition groups as well as regional heads of state including the leaders of Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Somalia and Egypt. Five years of fighting in South Sudan has crippled the country, displacing millions and killing almost 400,000 people through violence and disease, according to a recent report. The latest peace deal has been met with scepticism by the international community, including the US, Norway and the UK, the troika that ushered South Sudan into independence in 2011. Since the deal was signed six weeks ago it has been criticised for slow implementation, missed deadlines and continued ceasefire violations. While security concerns remain surrounding Mr Machars return, he has come back to give confidence to the population and put more pressure on the government to implement the peace process, opposition spokesman Mabior Garang de Mabior said. At least one South Sudan expert says Mr Machars return is a positive step towards peace. Augustino Ting Mayai, researcher at the Sudd Institute, said: This indicates South Sudanese leaders readiness to implement the agreement. That President Kiir invited Dr Riek ahead of the implementation schedule and Dr Riek responding positively, in particular, offers reason to be hopeful. I think that this shows a genuine desire by the leaders to end the conflict. But some locals in Juba are more wary of his return. Radio personality Eva Lopa said: Well feel peace when we have three meals a day, when we can afford basic needs, when we can put our children and siblings through school, when we are paid our salaries at the end of each month, when we are no longer being attacked by unknown gunmen. That would be peace. Machars coming home is just that, hes coming home. Im not sure what else it means. A Russian combat fighter bomber Su-34 unloads its bombs over a target in Syria (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service photo via AP, File) A Syrian-led human rights group says it has documented more than 1,400 incidents in which Russian forces indiscriminately targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure in the three years since Moscow intervened in the Syrian civil war. The Berlin-based Syrian Archive has created a database of more than 3,000 verified videos of the incidents, reported between September 2015, when Russia began its air strikes on behalf of President Bashar Assads forces, and September 2018. Hadi al-Khatib of the group said the searchable database is the first visual documentation of alleged Russian air strikes in Syria and is essential for advancing justice. The database, which includes more than 700 incidents in which civilian casualties were reported and some 35 hospitals were struck, can help lawyers build cases against perpetrators of violence, he said. Expand Close A destroyed ambulance is seen outside the Syrian Civil Defence main centre after air strikes in Ansari neighbourhood in Aleppo (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP, File) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A destroyed ambulance is seen outside the Syrian Civil Defence main centre after air strikes in Ansari neighbourhood in Aleppo (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP, File) The database includes videos from citizens, journalists, humanitarian groups and even the Russian Defence Ministry. Russia denies targeting civilians and has often said the air strikes are aimed at terrorist infrastructure. In a recent report on its three-year involvement in Syria, the Russian military lists the number of air strikes and the types of aircraft and weapons used, but does not say anything about casualties. Syrian Archive said it has documented and verified at least 704 incidents in which there were civilian casualties as a result of alleged Russian attacks. The verified videos show that at least 35 hospitals, 27 mosques, 23 schools and 27 markets were struck in Russian air strikes, it said. In one incident, Russias Defence Ministry released a video identifying a target as an oil refinery, which upon further investigation turned out to be a water treatment facility, according to the report and other investigations. Expand Close A lineup of Russian troops is held before withdrawal at Hemeimeem air base in Syria (Vadim Grishankin/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, file) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A lineup of Russian troops is held before withdrawal at Hemeimeem air base in Syria (Vadim Grishankin/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, file) The group also identified 63 incidents in which cluster munitions were used and 39 incidents in which incendiary weapons were used. Russia denies using those weapons. The whole point of the report is to advance justice, Mr al-Khatib said. Lawyers can use this kind of data, corroborate them with other evidence, to build their cases. Syrian Archive has been working to document and preserve the history of the civil war, uploaded mostly on YouTube. As the tech giant introduced new technology to rein in violent content on the internet, hundreds of thousands of videos from the conflict suddenly disappeared. Syrian Archive worked with YouTube to retrieve some of the videos and ensure that violent videos were marked for graphic content. Mobile phone giant Telefonica doubled its annual sales outlook after quarterly sales and profits rose at its UK network, O2 (Sean Dempsey/PA) Telecoms giant Telefonica has doubled its annual sales outlook after quarterly sales and profits rose at its UK network, O2. The Spanish telecoms group said it now expects full-year revenues to grow by 2%, against the 1% previous forecast. It hailed a strong performance from O2, where revenues rose 7.9% to 1.5 billion and it nearly tripled the number of new customers, with 120,000 joining in the third quarter on a net basis those signing up with the group less those leaving. This was up from 43,000 net new customers in the previous three months. O2s underlying earnings lifted 9.8% to 414 million in the three months to the end of September. The figures come after Telefonica last week shelved its 10 billion stock market flotation of O2 until after Brexit in the wake of market uncertainty and a recent spate of initial public offering (IPO) flops. An IPO had been expected in 2018 following 4G and 5G spectrum auctions in April. The third-quarter results saw O2 cheer a good response to its custom plan offering launched in August, which gives customers the flexibility to choose their contract term up to 36 months, amount of upfront payment and data plan. O2 now boasts a total customer base of 32.3 million in the UK, up 1.9% year on year, with contract customers now accounting for 65% of the total. Its level of churn the rate of customers quitting the group remained firm at 1%. Our ongoing commitment to invest in our network includes enhancing 4G connectivity and preparing the ground for 5GMark Evans, Telefonica UK Mark Evans, chief executive of Telefonica UK, said: The third quarter saw us deliver strong commercial performance with continued growth in revenues and profitability as more customers chose to join us, stay with us and spend more with us. He added: Our ongoing commitment to invest in our network includes enhancing 4G connectivity and preparing the ground for 5G. The group is investing more than 2 million a day in its networks, recently pledging to spend on enhanced 4G connectivity in more than 300 communities by the end of the year, helping around 250,000 residents. Parent group Telefonicas third-quarter results showed net profits grew by 35.8% to 1.1 billion euros (979 million), although underlying earnings fell 1.4% to 4.04 billion euros (3.6 billion). Group-wide revenues fell 8.3% year on year to 11.7 billion euros (10.4 billion). Bookmaker William Hill is splashing out 241 million to acquire Sweden-based online betting firm Mr Green & Co. The group said on Wednesday that it will offer 69 Swedish krona (5.90) in cash per share for the Stockholm-listed company, a 48.5% premium on its closing price on October 30. Mr Green operates in 13 markets under brands including Redbet and holds gambling licences in Denmark, Italy, Latvia, Malta, the UK and Ireland, and expects to obtain permission to operate in Sweden by year-end. The combination of William Hill and Mr Green will create a strongly positioned combined business with a pan-European footprint in online betting and gaming markets, the firms said, alongside operations in the UK and the US. William Hill said the takeover of Mr Green will increase its share of revenue and profits from online as well as from outside the UK, and reduce exposure to the UK market. This proposed acquisition accelerates the diversification of William Hill - immediately making us a more digital and more international businessCEO Philip Bowcock William Hill chief executive Philip Bowcock said: This proposed acquisition accelerates the diversification of William Hill immediately making us a more digital and more international business. Mr Green will provide William Hill with an international hub in Malta, with market entry expertise and strong growth momentum in a number of European countries. William Hill will move from a single brand to a suite of brands that can maximise growth opportunities moving forward in new and existing markets. It marks the latest expansion for the British firm, after it recently agreed a tie-up with US casino giant Eldorado in a bold move to tap into the recently liberalised American market. British gambling groups have been increasingly turning to overseas expansion as a way to offset the recent blow from a UK Government crackdown on fixed-odds betting terminals. Ladbrokes owner GVC recently announced a similar joint venture with Las Vegas-based casino group MGM. Indian scientist and aerospace engineer S. Nambi Narayanan, who is known for introducing liquid fuel rocket technology, was wrongfully arrested by the Kerela Police in sensational ISRO Espionage Case in 1994. The charges were dismissed in 1996 by CBI and he was declared non-guilty in 1998, but it was after 24 years that he received compensation of Rs 50 lakhs recently in September for being kept in prison for 50 days. BCCL/LRSHANKAR Why was he arrested? He was accused by Central Bureau for selling highly confidential information, including drawings of ISROs Vikas engine and cryogenic technology, to Maldivian women who then passed it on to Pakistan. He was then in-charge of ISRO's cryogenics division and was arrested with four others. For 50 days he was in custody and he said, he was tortured and pressed to give false statements. He fought the long battle to be proven non-guilty later. Watch the intriguing teaser of Rocketry The Nambi Effect which starts with Sep 2014 announcement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the successful launch of Orbiter Mission. Now bringing his story on the big screen, R Madhavan is all set to leave the audiences enthralled. As Nambi Narayanan in the trilingual movie titled Rocketry The Nambi Effect, R Madhavan will showcase his life from the age of 27 to 75. The movie will be released in English, Tamil as well as Hindi. Child marriage is a punishable offence in India however, rural administrations or the panchayats refuse to give up on this age-old tradition. According to this practice, children are promised to be married to each other when they are as young as two or three years old. The practice was considered as an offence on the grounds that it denied children of their right to make a decision for themselves. At such a tender age, they arent equipped with the understanding to choose a suitable partner for themselves and hence, the decision of child marriage is imposed on them without their consent. In an absurd incident in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, a 22 year-old Chartered Accountant committed suicide because she was forced to keep her child marriage promise by the Panchayat, the India Today reported. Photo: BCCL/Representational Image Divya Choudhary was three when she hadnt even started her playschool. She was engaged to Jeevraj despite child marriage being a punishable offence in India. The police alleged that Divya and her family were being coerced into fulfilling their childhood promise of marrying Jeevraj. She refused to marry him which irked the local panchayat. They slammed a penalty of Rs 16 lakh on Divyas family. A helpless family, they made the cash payment to Jeevraj which further led to emotional manipulation and extortion of money. Jeevrajs family continued to put pressure on Divya so she lodged a police complaint on October 25. The panchayat became agitated by the police FIR and further demanded an extra amount of Rs 20 lakh along with a public apology and withdrawal of the complaint. Photo: BCCL/Representational Image Divyas family was threatened with social boycott if the panchayats demands were not met. Before the local village meeting on Sunday, Divya reached the police station and consumed poison in front of the police and her family. She had reportedly said she couldnt even step out of the house and had missed five job interviews at top multinational corporations due to the boycott. "I was so scared that I stopped going out of my house. My hopes of making a career seemed dashed. I saw no hope after the panchayat interfered and so I consumed poison." she was quoted as saying by India Today. The investigation of the case has been handed over to a DSP rank officer of the SC/ST Cell Narayan Singh, said DCP (East) Aman Deep Singh. Sarpanch of the village along with the father of the present Zila Pramukh of Jodhpur have also been booked under a police complaint. Police was blamed for taking the matter leniently. However, they said in their defence that Divya didnt turn up for recording her statement after the registration of FIR. Doordarshan crew which got ambushed in Chhattishgarhs Dantewada in which one of crew member Achyutananda Sahoo, the cameraperson came out with the horror, they had gone through. Doordarshan reporter Dheeraj Kumar and assistant Mormukut Sharma whose video he shot during the shootout for his family as his last message, shared what they had gone through with News18. We were going to shoot a poster by Naxals calling for the election boycott. Sahu was 50 meters ahead on his foot. We were on a bike, riding pillion behind Chhattisgarh police personnel. Suddenly we heard a cracking sound and saw Sahu drop. I wasn't sure what had happened but my bike skidded and I fell in the ditch next to the road," said Dheeraj Kumar. The Doordarshan camera man Achyuntananda Sahoo, FB Mormukut Sharma spoke about his colleague and friend Achyuntanand Sahoo and told how he got hit. He was waiving at the camera indicating we are from press. We tried showing the DD Mike id. But every movement was greeted by more bullets." SP Abhishek Pallav who had accompanied the team was waiting on the main road, roughly 2 km from the spot of the firing. Hearing the gunshots being fired, he and his security personnel rushed to the under-construction road, but by then one journalist and two policemen had died. A distraught Pallav couldn't hold his tears, "If I had let the journalists go without security, there was risk of abduction. I don't know if I was the real target but the way they shouted anti-media slogans, looked like the target was the press," he said. pti The survivors claimed that at least 200-250 Naxals ambushed the surroundings with grenades strewn around the area. IEDs, wires and pressure mines were laid. "They fired at us non-stop for 45 minutes," Deepak said. The Doordarshan team had gone to report on the five election booths set up in the village Neelabhaya. Donald Trump is all set to tighten the noose around birthright citizenship guidelines after H-1B visa rules. Midterm elections are going to take place next week and just like the Republican mindset, Trump has decided to play his Immigrant card. Since day one, Trump has been known for endorsing Buy American, Hire American philosophy that would keep Americans first then people of any other nation. His strict policy regarding the issuance of green cards, employment to even scholarships to non-U.S residents are well known. Therefore, since 2016 there has been a shift from U.S when it comes to preference for jobs and education to Canada and the United Kingdom. Photo: AP He expressed his anxiety about a large number of Central American migrants making their way to the U.S-Mexico border. Were the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States, Trump said to Axios on HBO on Tuesday. He even said that all this while he cant change the constitutional amendment to which he replied, theyre saying I can do it just with an executive order. The 14th amendment of the U.S constitution guarantees right for all children born in the U.S. Birthright citizenship: Trump claims only the US grants it, he's wrong: US President Donald Trump vowed Tuesday to end birthright citizenship -- the process by which babies born in the country automatically https://t.co/33Y0jjCFyR #ImpeachTrump #ImpeachKavanaugh #TheResistance pic.twitter.com/Ce3eHCmw69 Patrick (@cahulaan) October 31, 2018 Meanwhile, Omar Jadwat, director of the Immigrants' Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, told AP, "If you are born in the United States, you're a citizen,'' he said, adding that it was "outrageous that the president can think he can override constitutional guarantees by issuing an executive order," A person who is familiar with the White House debate said that the issue of birthright citizenship had popped up quite a few times in the last year though, there are many internal detractors. Trump said that the White House lawyers were reviewing his proposal. The first line of the 14th Amendment states: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. While Indians who are studying or working there are already struggling to get H-1B visas, many who have been residing in the state for a decade or more will now be struggling to get their children a U.S citizenship. This could also mean that employees of U.S based multinational corporations would prefer seeking employment elsewhere. U.S employers of foreign employees are already in dilemma as hiring a non-American is now more expensive than recruiting an American for that particular job. Firstly it's the most common form of gaining citizenship, Trump is truly an imbecile. America, I truly pitty your poor choice for a great country! https://t.co/gepJj5BROc they call me Iniy (@iniy) October 30, 2018 But U know what @realDonaldTrump the #Redindians r the original residents of US all others r immigrants US President plans to end birthright citizenship - Times of India https://t.co/qhIo6jyCmX Samir (@from_Samir) October 30, 2018 Much needed one for US. Similar act also by Indian Govt. to stop illegal immigrants is the need of the hour. https://t.co/aVjIuQWf6V Uber_S (@ubers3008) October 30, 2018 India should implement this idea, we have huge population , we dont need any more than illegal immigrants and their decedents, Japan has this its , hence Japan is so safe.https://t.co/tP8BdPrtGG Sangram (@sangram_sk) October 30, 2018 Suddenly #USA is no more a preferred destination for #Indians. I am quite loving it! https://t.co/TvwJtWNS78 rneelmani (@rneelmani) October 30, 2018 Doordarshan crew which got ambushed in Chhattishgarhs Dantewada in which one of crew member Achyutananda Sahoo, the cameraperson came out with the horror, they had gone through. Doordarshan reporter Dheeraj Kumar and assistant Mormukut Sharma whose video he shot during the shootout for his family as his last message, shared what they had gone through. Read More. Here's More Top News For The Day: 1) All Private Cars May Be Pulled Off Road From November 1 If Air Pollution Worsens In Delhi As the national capitals air is set to turn more toxic this week and the week after Diwali, the government is taking fast-paced decisions to somehow control air pollution. In the most recent proposal, the use of private vehicles may be stopped in Delhi of the pollution situation gets worse. It has reached severe levels in recent days. Read More. 2) Sardar Patel Statue In A Bottle! Odisha Artist Creates Miniature Of World's Tallest Statue Using Soap The Statue of Unity, which was just inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat's Narmada district stands at a height of 182m. While it has been dubbed as the world's tallest statue, an artist in Odisha has made a replica of the giant statue, which can fit inside a bottle. Read More. 3) Here's Why Karnataka Government Has Said No To Elevated Corridors In Bandipur National Park As the protests against the proposed elevated corridors inside the Bandipur National Park in Karnataka intensifies, the state Chief Minister has once again clarified that it is not in favour of building flyovers. Read More. 4) Here's Everything About Eco-Friendly Crackers Capable Of Reducing Particulate Matter By 30% While local vendors remain clueless about the term green crackers and are finding ways to push out their forbidden stock, scientists at the Council Of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have developed less-polluting firecrackers which are eco-friendly and much cheaper than the conventional ones.Read More. 5) Babies Born To Indian Parents In US Might Face Trouble In Getting Birthright Citizenship He expressed his anxiety about a large number of Central American migrants making their way to the U.S-Mexico border. Were the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States, Trump said to Axios on HBO on Tuesday. Read More. Modi Jacket or Nehru Jacket, the internet seems to be locking horns over the simple jacket. The debate once again got ignited on Wednesday after South Korean President Moon Jae-in posted a photo on Twitter where he is seen wearing a jacket which according to him was gifted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India sent me some gorgeous garments. These are modernized versions of traditional Indian costume, known as the Modi Vest, that can also be worn easily in Korea. They fit perfectly," he tweeted. Prime Minister @narendramodi of India sent me some gorgeous garments. These are modernized versions of traditional Indian costume, known as the Modi Vest, that can also be worn easily in Korea. They fit perfectly. pic.twitter.com/3QTFIczX6H (@moonriver365) October 31, 2018 "During my visit to India, I had told the Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he looked great in those vests, and he duly sent them over, all meticulously tailored to my size. I would like to thank him for this kind gesture," the Korean PM said in another tweet. During my visit to India, I had told the Prime Minister @narendramodi that he looked great in those vests, and he duly sent them over, all meticulously tailored to my size. I would like to thank him for this kind gesture. pic.twitter.com/wRgekJSW16 (@moonriver365) October 31, 2018 However, many were quick to point out to him that the jacket is originally called Nehru jacket and not 'Modi Vest. Did Modi tell you its called Modi Vest? Because it's not. So stop embarrassing yourself by calling it that. You're welcome. Priyanka (@autumnrainwish) October 31, 2018 You got Modified. Congratulations. Imam of Peace (@Imamofpeace) October 31, 2018 This is Nehru jacket, the trend for which was set by the first Prime Minister of India #JawaharlalNehru who passionately inspired and shaped the idea of a syncretic, pluralistic, dynamic and forward-looking #India (@anindita_guha) October 31, 2018 Nehru was first to receive these gorgeous Modi Vest garments from Narendra Modi in 1945 pic.twitter.com/vkH44Jw3Ul Zoo Bear (@zoo_bear) October 31, 2018 Mr. President, You are wrong. This is not Modi Vest, this is Nehru jacket. Modi is no Nehru, can never be one. If anything Modi, that is Khaki Nikkar. https://t.co/8DrZ8b1RVM Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) October 31, 2018 Another Congress legacy, the Nehru Jacket, renamed by BJP and claimed to be their creation. Tch. pic.twitter.com/9d4eZQNDwF L'extraterrestre (@PeaceBeUponEww) October 31, 2018 The Indonesian plane Lion Air flight, JT610 which crashed in the sea with 189 passengers on board had an Indian pilot who sunk into the sea as well. Bhavye Suneja, a 31-year-old Indian pilot was flying the airplane and had a party planned for his friends when he would head home for Diwali and other festivities. Suneja lost contact with the ground officials just 13 minutes after taking off from the Jakarta Soekarno Hatta International Airport. Captain Suneja hailed from New Delhi and had completed his education from Ahlcon Public School, Mayur Vihar. His passion for driving was known to many and he wouldnt allow anybody to take charge of the wheel, reported The Indian Express. Photo: 31-year-old Indian pilot of the Indonesian carrier, Bhavye Suneja Bhavyes Linkedin profile stated that he had been working at Lion Air since March 2011 where he flew the Boeing 737. He had been residing in Jakarta and received his pilot license from Bel Air International in 2009. A senior official from Lion Air told TOI that Suneja had an accident-free record and they were keen to have him on board, just that he wanted a Delhi posting. He was informed that once he flies with the low-cost carrier for a year, the company might consider his posting in Delhi. "Our deepest condolences on the tragic loss of lives in the Lion Air Plane crash, off the coast of Jakarta today. Most unfortunate that Indian Pilot Bhavye Suneja who was flying JT610 also lost his life," Indian Embassy in Indonesia said in a tweet. Our deepest condolences on the tragic loss of lives in the Lion Air Plane crash, off the coast of Jakarta today. Most unfortunate that Indian Pilot Bhavye Suneja who was flying JT610 also lost his life...Embassy is in touch with Crisis Center and coordinating for all assistance. pic.twitter.com/56lbxGSoJe India in Indonesia (@IndianEmbJkt) October 29, 2018 Sunejas wife, Garima Sethi had worn a saree for the first time for Saturdays Karva Chauth occasion, the Indian Express reported. Bhavye was supposed to be back in Delhi on November 05 and had asked his friends to get ready for a party. The accident is the first to be reported that involves the widely-sold Boeing 737 MAX, an updated, more fuel-efficient version of the manufacturer's workhorse single-aisle jet. The first Boeing 737 MAX jets were introduced into service in 2017. In the biggest serial killing case in Germany post-war- the former nurse Niels Hoegel admitted on Tuesday that he killed 100 patients in his care out of Boredom. Hoegel (41) has been in jail for nearly a decade for killing patients and is accused of injecting overdoses of medicines to bring the dying victims back to life in their last moments. Hoegel seems to have followed the same procedure each time as he first injected a medicine which triggered a cardiac arrest and later he tried resuscitation which mostly failed. Former nurse Niels Hoegel covers his face as he arrives for the start of his trial in a courtroom in Oldenburg, Germany, October 30, 2018. reuters Prosecutors say he was motivated by vanity, to show off his skills at saving human lives, and by simple "boredom". The choice of victim appears to have been entirely random, with their ages ranging from 34 to 96. As the proceedings opened in the northern city of Oldenburg, presiding judge Sebastian Buehrmann asked whether the charges against him were accurate. Hoegel replied quietly "yes". "What I have admitted took place," he told the courtroom crowded with dozens of grieving relatives. As the proceedings began Buehrmann said the main aim of the trial was to establish the full scope of the murder spree that was allowed to go unchecked for years at two German hospitals. "We will do our utmost to learn the truth," he said. "It is like a house with dark rooms we want to bring light into the darkness." After a minute of silence in the courtroom for the victims, the bearded, heavyset Hoegel listened impassively, his head lowered, as public prosecutor Daniela Schiereck-Bohlmann read out the name of each dead patient and the charges against the defendant. Prosecutors say at least 36 patients were killed at a hospital in Oldenburg where he worked, and about 64 more at a clinic in nearby Delmenhorst, between 2000 and 2005. More than 130 bodies of patients who died on Hoegel's watch have been exhumed, in a case, investigators have called "unprecedented in Germany to our knowledge". One of the more than 100 co-plaintiffs in the trial, Christian Marbach, said it was a scandal that Hoegel had been allowed to kill with impunity for such an extended period of time without hospital authorities or law enforcement intervening. "They had everything they needed (to stop him) you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes," Marbach, the grandson of one of the patients, said. representational image, afp He later expressed surprise about Hoegel's quick confession, which was broadcast on two large screens to the courtroom audience. "I didn't expect it to happen today. We now have a chance to make some real progress," he said. On Tuesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai broadcast an email to employees, apologizing for the company's response to sexual harassment in the office. This was in response to a recent report indicating they'd paid bonuses to executives fired for misconduct. Reuters Last week, The New York Times reported how three top executives at the company was let go on accusations of sexual misconduct. That in itself was fine, except that they were all given massive payouts on their departure, none of which they were entitled to based on sexual harassment laws. One of those, was Android creator Andy Rubin, who received a staggering Rs 660 crore in annual payouts, the last of which is this year. When the story emerged, Pichai and senior staff didn't deny the publication's claims, instead just admitting it was "difficult to read". They preferred to just point out how they've tried to be more stringent since then, even firing 48 people in the last two years over sexual harassment claims, none of whom were paid an exit package. In the five-paragraph message he sent out today, which Ars Technica obtained, Pichai wrote that Google's apology "wasn't enough." "So first, let me say that I am deeply sorry for the past actions and the pain they have caused employees Larry mentioned this on stage last week, but it bears repeating: if even one person experiences Google the way the New York Times article described, we are not the company we aspire to be," he wrote. Android creator Andy Rubin was paid Rs 660 Crore after termination for sexual misconduct "I understand the anger and disappointment that many of you feel. I feel it as well, and I am fully committed to making progress on and issue that has persisted for far too long in our society...and yes, here at Google, too." For the future, Pichai has admitted that the company needs to develop a harder stance on "inappropriate behaviour". Yet, his words sans actions are clearly not enough. Google employees are reportedly planning a walkout on Thursday this week, at multiple offices across the world, in order to show leadership they mean business when they ask for change. Pichai meanwhile has said Google is aware of the protest and that employees would "have the support that they need." As the dust settled on Apple's last event of 2018, where it announced new iPad Pro, MacBook Air and Mac Mini, I was particularly interested by three key developments. Apple's full embrace of the USB Type-C connector, its demonstration of how effortless wireless charging can be with the Pencil and iPad Pro, and its T2 hardware security chip for enhanced safety. reuters I think these three developments will be instrumental in setting the agenda for the rest of the consumer tech industry for the coming year, following Apple's lead. Apple has ensured the success of USB Type-C The 2018 iPad Pro -- both the 11-inch and 12.9-inch versions -- is the first non-Mac device to not have a proprietary charging port (Lightning or otherwise). Even the new 2018 MacBook Air does away with standard USB ports, fully embracing only USB Type-C ports on its shell. This is an important development, not to be dismissed lightly. For a few years now, USB Type-C has shown it has all the ingredients of becoming a universal port on all our electronic devices. Android phones have been gradually adopting Type-C without any momentum. But with Apple throwing its weight behind USB Type-C, there's a very good chance it will also show up on next year's iPhones -- if Apple wants to keep doing business in EU. Reuters And usually, as we've seen with the iPhone, whatever Apple does the rest of the industry pretty much follows. This is great news for ensuring the success of USB Type-C in the long term. No more different charging cables, no more connectors, no more inconvenience -- our gadget-infused lives will be a lot more saner very soon. Wireless charging: Convenience vs need During Apple's keynote, the company demonstrated how the new Apple Pencil has a symbiotic relationship with the new iPad Pro, where the Pencil just magnetically sticks to the iPad Pro's edge and wirelessly charges itself. To borrow Apple's hyperbole, this is truly phenomenal, and I'll tell you why. Wireless charging has three major hurdles to cross before it becomes huge. First, it needs to be fast -- no one wants to wait till their tea goes cold and see their phone charge by only 5%. Second, no one wants to buy just another accessory for wirelessly charging a phone. Third, everyone is perfectly happy charging their phone through a wire. FossBytes I don't think the Pencil sticking to the iPad Pro will charge super quick, but it does present a use case which is intuitive, convenient and doesn't make you buy a new accessory for wireless charging alone. It may not be widely replicated, but Apple has demonstrated it can re-imagine wireless charging, make it more hassle-free and convenient. Enhanced privacy through encrypted hardware During the MacBook Air presentation at Apple's keynote last night, for the first time the company provided more details on its T2 security chip. Long story short, it's a custom-made hardware chip that physically sits on the MacBook Air's motherboard, protecting the device's encryption keys, fingerprint data, and other sensitive data zones. Among other things, the T2 security chip ensures the MacBook Air's microphone is physically disconnected from the rest of the computer's hardware, every time you close the Air's lid. This will ensure that advanced spyware or eavesdropping tools won't listen in on you, even when you think your device is temporarily suspended. Apple Apple is no doubt responding to the rise in targeted malware on the Mac ecosystem of devices, and it's great to see it's trying to protect user's privacy and sensitive data at a hardware level on both the new Retina Display MacBook Air and Mac mini 2018. Intel has similar hardware-level encryption through TPM -- a trusted platform module chip -- for professional and business PCs in the Windows world, but nothing for consumer devices. In fact, this level of security isn't normally seen on consumer-focused devices, so it's great to see this shift from Apple -- it will definitely force the rest of the industry to move in this direction, which is only great news for consumers. It's that time of year again, when farmers across Haryana engage in stubble burning. It's a banned practice now for sure, but some just don't have the finances to pursue other methods to clear their fields. And so, Delhi is suffocating again. There's been an onset of thick smog in the national capital region lately, thanks to smoke and particulate matter from these stubble burning incidents flowing down towards New Delhi and surrounding regions. In fact, it's so bad you can actually see the effects from NASA's WorldView satellite feed. Here's what the area looked like on September 28. NASA WorldView And here's what it looked like on October 28, two days ago. NASA WorldView For those of you that don't know, stubble burning is when farmers clear their fields of the crop stubble by, well, burning it. The method has been outlawed by the government, but is still practiced in North India. Despite the amount of pollution it causes, even farmers aware of the damage may not be able to switch methods, purely because they don't have the financial means to pursue other alternatives. And the state governments in largely farming states like Punjab and Haryana say they don't have enough aid from the Centre to compensate farmers that need to undertake more expensive measures. So each year, Delhiites are forced to tromp through fog that deteriorates their lungs with every breath. There are plenty of ways to spread awareness about breast cancer, but this woman took it upon herself to really do something that will make a difference. As a breast cancer survivor herself, Shadi Ganz, a psychotherapist and an artist, decided to start a foundation Mammomobile Charitable Trust which runs a fully-equipped breast and cervical cancer screening bus. She is a German National who first arrived in Bengaluru in 2011 when her husband was transferred here. She started this foundation because she thinks that by the time a woman in India is diagnosed with breast cancer, it probably is too late to cure it. The bus is painted a bright pink colour and inside it is a mammography machine, a control room where reports are generated and another section where women are examined for cervical cancer. Facebook This bus currently travels through the rural areas of Tamil Nadu, where we conduct awareness programmes and convince women to come to get screened at the mammomobile, Shadi said Currently, the foundation has only one bus which is operational since 2016 and has covered around 96 villages of Tamil Nadu, conducting around 500 mammograms in a month. The bus and all the services it provides is self-funded and the machinery comes from a company in the US. She also said that she wanted digital machinery but looking at the condition of the Indian roads which are so bumpy, it would be really difficult to manage it, so she opted for the analogue machine. She also raises funds for women who are diagnosed with cancer and some women also come forward to give her resources that can help others get treated. Fighting cancer and then becoming a shield for others is not exactly the easiest thing to do. Hats off to Shadi Ganz for having the heart and spirit to pull this off. Old Monk seems to be adding some colours and some flavours to life and you're going to be delighted if you are an Old Monk lover. Old Monk has launched a whole range of flavours. It's called the The Connoisseur Collection by Old Monk and it includes Old Monk Orange Rum, Old Monk Lemon Rum, Old Monk Apple Rum, Old Monk White Rum, Old Monk Cola, Old Monk Cranberry and Old Monk Mojito. According to social media and reports, these new ones especially the cola, cranberry, mojito and all have a slightly lower alcohol content compared to the regular Old Monk. They even look like Bacardi's Breezer in terms of packaging. This collection is available in Karnataka, Pune and Mumbai and the public reaction to them has been fairly positive and some disappointed because nothing can beat classic Old monk. If you live in Karnataka, here are a few places you can find the new collection: Here's what people have to say about the new flavours: #1 Brand dilution Rajat Arora (@RajatAroraET) October 18, 2018 #2 Sacrilege Paddy Mayne (@Regimentdar) October 19, 2018 #3 Sergey Skripnikov via 123RF.com Black males now comprise half of the top media managers Women still face hurdles Sexist and patriarchal structures continue to hold women back Compiled by the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef) and womens advocacy group Gender Links (GL) , the 2018 report highlights inroads made in terms of equity in race and gender in news media since 2006 when the first Glass Ceiling report was released.Focused on assessing progress made in the 25 years since the first Glass Ceiling report was published and the ten years since the last report was published, the 2018 research shows that gender equity has improved substantially, and the South African news media can boast having reached gender parity in its workforce.Here South Africa ranks higher than the rest of the SADC region with 49% of the workforce female, compared to 41% in the rest of the region as per the latest SADC figures recorded. Positive inroads are also noted with regards to women in management position, with 46% female representation in senior management positions and 36% in top management.Highlighted is also how racial equity has been improved in management and how black males now comprise half of the top media managers. The proportion of black women in top media management has also increased thus addressing some of the concerns raised in previous research around the lack of women in decision making positions in the news media. Black women now constitute 40% of senior managers in the media, suggesting that change is on the way.While this is encouraging for both gender and racial equity in the South African news media, this rarely translates into equal influence over news agendas and public discourses for women and neither does it have an impact on wages and promotions, which is attributed to an existing old boys club culture in the media.It is also worrying that pay gaps between male and female media workers seem to be widening and progressive policies around equity with regard to maternity and paternity leave are still lacking. This means women still face hurdles towards real career advancement and empowerment.Further to this, new threats have emerged in the online space and female journalists are disproportionately experiencing attacks online, including sexual harassment and threats of physical violence. This points to an emerging culture of cyber misogyny used to silence female journalists and that might lead to self-censorship among female journalists , ultimately leaving an already male dominant public sphere with even fewer female voices.Professor Glenda Daniels, one of the editors of the report says The time is now for women to speak up and speak out to disrupt the male superiority. Equally, men must call out sexism and violence against women in the newsroom and media as a whole. The salary pay gap must end and we must fight sexism and misogyny especially through online and social media.While advances have been made, there is still a long way to go to reach equity in very real and tangible terms. Sexist and patriarchal structures continue to hold women back in their careers and that impacts negatively on the role that female media workers play in influencing the direction of the industry and the role that it plays in our democratic society. Particularly important is how media houses, platform providers and policymakers protect female journalists and deal with threats emanating from social media including harassment, intimidation and fake news.In line with the post-2015 SADC Protocol on Gender and Development , the findings will be used to develop strategic interventions to ensure gender equality in the media by 2030.Given the dearth of research about gender and the media in general, and in the context of the Global South (young democracies and postcolonial societies in particular) this research is of utmost importance to debates around equity, not only with regards to gender, but also in terms of intersections of gender, race and class, and ultimately the role of the news media in democratic public discourse formation. The U.S.-India State and Urban Initiative announced a partnership between the state government of Madhya Pradesh in India and the University of Central Florida. The memorandum of understanding was the result of an April visit to Orlando, Fla., by Madhya Pradesh Principal Secretary Vivek Aggarwal. Parents in the Katy, Texas Independent School District have expressed outrage after the local police department released a Facebook post of an overcrowded school bus featuring Indian children. The Police Department said it meant no offense. (Facebook photo) President Donald Trump walks to Air Force One prior to departure from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, Oct. 30 as he travels to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, following the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images) Airbus released The Great Enabler: Aerospace in Africa - a white paper on the role of aerospace technologies and their impact on socio-economic development in Africa. The aerospace industry offers solutions to many of the socio-economic challenges Africa is facing on the path to sustainable development. A paradigm shift from thinking about aerospace as an isolated industry to a key enabler of socio-economic change is necessary to realise its benefits for a prosperous future. That is what this White Paper is aiming at, by highlighting different ways in which aerospace technology can support social and economic development in Africa, said Mikail Houari, president of Airbus for Africa and Middle East. On manufacturing and industrialisation Many African countries are final consumers in the global aerospace value chain. Joining the ranks of producers in this value chain is challenging for many but not impossible. The examples of Africas current leaders in aerospace South Africa, Tunisia and Morocco demonstrate the complexities but also the opportunities for African countries to develop aerospace manufacturing and industrialisation capacity. Key among these opportunities is Africas potential demographic dividend, which will be achieved by investing in its youthful and increasingly techno-savvy population. Many African countries are final consumers in the global aerospace value chain. Joining the ranks of producers in this value chain is challenging for many but not impossible. The examples of Africas current leaders in aerospace South Africa, Tunisia and Morocco demonstrate the complexities but also the opportunities for African countries to develop aerospace manufacturing and industrialisation capacity. Key among these opportunities is Africas potential demographic dividend, which will be achieved by investing in its youthful and increasingly techno-savvy population. The aviation sector The key question remains how to connect people to markets and goods in a faster, cheaper and more efficient way in order to maximise the sectors role as an economic engine and a vehicle for greater integration in Africa. The key question remains how to connect people to markets and goods in a faster, cheaper and more efficient way in order to maximise the sectors role as an economic engine and a vehicle for greater integration in Africa. Agriculture This is perhaps the most consequential pillar of the continents sustainable development. However, despite employing more than 60% of Africas population, the sector contributes only about 15% of the continents GDP as underlying challenges persist. Aerospace technology such as precision farming could potentially reverse this situation by enabling farmers to produce more with less. This is perhaps the most consequential pillar of the continents sustainable development. However, despite employing more than 60% of Africas population, the sector contributes only about 15% of the continents GDP as underlying challenges persist. Aerospace technology such as precision farming could potentially reverse this situation by enabling farmers to produce more with less. Healthcare Access to healthcare is still a challenge for many rural populations. While building on the existing technologies in the sector - such as air ambulances - new technology will further change the dynamics of access to medical care and emergency response in terms of quantity, distance and data collection. The extensive report looks at how different segments of the industry can address a core set of challenges on the continent by: increasing access to healthcare; enhancing food security by making African agriculture more competitive and sustainable; promoting education, training and innovation; empowering businesses with innovative products and solutions; and breaking down barriers to the movement of people and goods across Africa.The report was officially launched at a special summit convening African government officials, policymakers, business leaders, entrepreneurs, intergovernmental bodies and multilateral development organisations in Toulouse, France.The white paper analyses the role of aerospace technologies in sectors with the greatest possible impact on social and economic development including manufacturing and industrialisation, civil aviation, agriculture, healthcare and humanitarian assistance:The report also stresses the need for clear government policies to harness the power of aerospace technology, concluding with key recommendations on human capital development, partnerships and financing.The research was based on 30 in-depth interviews with a cross-section of stakeholders including: African Union Commission, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, African Development Bank, United Nations World Tourism Organisation, World Bank, International Finance Corporation, Kenya Red Cross, International Air Transport Association, African Airlines Association, South African National Space Agency, Nigerias National Space Research and Development Agency, Airbus Bizlab, Farmerline, Air Mauritius, Air Seychelles, Congo Airways, Fastjet, Overland Airways, Aerosud, Denel Aeronautics, Lazard, MARA Group, One2Five Advisory, Ag.Aviation Africa, ch-AviationDownload the white paper The Great Enabler: Aerospace in Africa (PDF: 4.70MB) Now, in a statement, Cigna said it has received the Reserve Bank of New Zealands and the Overseas Investment Offices final approval for the deal. Were really pleased to have reached this important milestone on the journey, Cigna New Zealand chief executive Gail Costa said. This is an exciting time for both organisations as we work towards bringing the companies together. The sale is expected to be completed by early 2019. The completion will see Cigna become New Zealands third largest life insurance provider. The apartment complex includes 94 units, and residents included small children and elderly people who were home at the time of the fire and were forced to evacuate, according to the US Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia. The fire caused more than $40,000 worth of damage and rendered at least one neighboring apartment uninhabitable. Carelock had applied for an insurance policy eight days before setting the fire. He later filed a claim for more than $11,000, according to the US Attorneys Office. Carelock stated in his insurance claim that he was not responsible for the fire and that he lost several personal items items that he had actually removed from the apartment prior to starting the blaze. He also claimed to be in Georgia at the time of the fire. However, an investigation revealed that his cell phone was just one mile away from the blaze only five minutes after the alarm was pulled. Carelock was arrested on January 09 and has been in custody ever since. Clarke used phony names and addresses and forged documents to take out the coverage because he was known in the industry for his previous conviction, the Gazette reported. However, after he took out a policy with Tradewise Insurance, the insurer became suspicious and called in one of its fraud investigators. When the investigator initially contacted Clarke, Clarke answered the phone using an alias. When the investigator called again, Clarke said he was the policyholder, and the investigator told him that his policy was being terminated because his documentation was fraudulent, the Gazette reported. After the calls, the investigator felt the voices on both calls were the same. A voice-analysis expert confirmed that Clarke had been on both calls. Clarke also tried to scam another insurer by taking out fraudulent personal car insurance, according to the Gazette. He pretended to be taking out the policy for his father and once again used a phony name and address in order to bring the premium price down. Clarke was sentenced to eight months in prison and ordered to pay 750 in court costs. This post is part of a series sponsored by CoreLogic. Most people understand that the goal of a homeowners policy is to restore a home and possessions to the way they were should a catastrophic (CAT) event, such as a hurricane, wreak havoc. If the building and labor cost database is not property monitored, and initial coverage and claims estimate is too low, the homeowner may not be able to fully cover the losses incurredand thats not a message anyone experiencing loss should hear. Although protecting homeowners is the primary reason structure replacement costs should be as accurate as possible, there are other potential impacts of getting it wrong: Undervaluing properties for many years creates problems beyond the one-time hit on individual claims. This issue is especially exposed during CAT events when even partial losses quickly exhaust coverage limits. And speaking of CAT events, if building and labor costs are not continually monitored, claims estimates may be inaccurate due to supply and demand fluctuations. Inadequate insurance valuation keeps coverage limits artificially low and if a CAT event occurs, Insurance companies risk losing loyal customers. They also risk incurring online wrath from dissatisfied policyholders via social media and consumer review sites, which can drive away future business. Todays best practice for reconstruction cost estimating uses information specific to each home and its location along with detailed and extensive construction knowledge to create an estimatea method comparable to those used by builders. Current localized costs of labor and building materials are applied to create a cost estimate that is unique to the specific home at the time of the estimate; especially important after a catastrophic event such as Hurricanes Florence and Michael in 2018, as well as Hurricane Irma in 2017, which affected building and labor costs in North and South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia. This produces objective estimates without the inaccuracies that are introduced by subjective quality judgments or unsophisticated estimating tools. Accurately estimating reconstruction costs requires an estimation tool that was designed upon a thorough understanding of construction techniques and the interplay of building characteristics as well as up-to-date, localized material and labor costs. Finally, it requires a solution that understands catastrophic risk from every angle and how getting it wrong is welljust wrong. Click here to learn more about how CoreLogic monitors reconstruction costs.. 2018 CoreLogic, Inc. All rights reserved. Bermuda-based RenaissanceRe Holdings has agreed to pay about $1.5 billion to acquire Tokio Marines reinsurance platform (TMR), which includes Tokio Millennium Re AG and Tokio Millennium Re (UK). If closing tangible book value is unchanged from June 30, 2018, Tokio Marine would receive approximately $1.5 billion in cash and RenaissanceRe common shares. At the same time, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., which has current investments in two RenaissanceRe subsidiaries, has agreed to invest $250 million in RenaissanceRe. Following the completion of its investment, State Farm will own approximately 4.8 percent of RenaissanceRes total common shares outstanding, reflecting a broader relationship with RenaissanceRe that already includes State Farms investments in RenaissanceRe-managed vehicles Top Layer Reinsurance and DaVinciRe Holdings. Also, as part of the transaction, Tokio Marine has agreed to provide RenaissanceRe a $500 million adverse development cover that will protect TMRs stated reserves at closing, including unearned premium reserves. In addition, Tokio Marine and RenaissanceRe will enter a business cooperation agreement, which will enhance their business relationship and facilitate cooperation on a portion of the international reinsurance purchases of Tokio Marine and its affiliates. RenaissanceRe said it expects that the transaction will be immediately accretive to book value per share, tangible book value per share, operating earnings per share and operating return on equity. Kevin ODonnell, president and CEO of RenaissanceRe, said the deal will increase his companys scale, broaden its reach and provide a deeper customer base. ODonnell thanked State Farm for agreeing to broaden its relationship with RenaissanceRe. We see this as an opportunity to strengthen the long term relationship we have with RenaissanceRe, State Farm Executive Vice President Paul Smith said in prepared remarks. Tokio Marine Holdings President and Group CEO Tsuyoshi Nagano said selling TMR will allow Tokio Marine Group to focus on its primary insurance businesses globally, whilst strengthening its relationship with RenaissanceRe. Through the divestment of the reinsurance activities of TMR and TMR(UK), the Group will reduce volatility in its results and also unlock the capital that was held to support these operations. Our strategic focus will continue to be on primary insurance business in developed countries as well as emerging market, Nagano said. Stephan Ruoff, chief executive officer of TMR, commented: We believe that the transaction opens new opportunities as we integrate TMR into a much larger global reinsurance organization, ready to meet the challenges of a dynamic reinsurance market. TMR will continue to honor its commitments, with the backing of Tokio Marine until the transaction is officially closed. The agreement has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies and is expected to close in the first half of 2019. No shareholder approval is required. The acquisition announcement comes following a call less than two months ago by one RenaissanceRes institutional investors for the insurer to explore strategic options including a possible sale of the company. On Sept. 7, Ian Anthony Rosenthal and Seth Bienstock, partners of TimesSquare Capital Management, a RenaissanceRe investor since 2008, wrote RenaissanceRe CEO Kevin ODonnell with their pitch to explore other strategic options. They argued the companys position as a standalone reinsurer hasnt led to any value creation for shareholders, due in large part to dampening prices. Noting the increasing consolidation of the industry, TimesSquare asked the RenaissanceRe board to consider strategic alternatives, including a possible sale, in order to boost shareholder value. The TimesSquare letter drew a non-committal response from RenaissanceRe management. Tokio Marine Group established TMR in 2000 as a subsidiary to write overseas reinsurance risks. Since that time, the insurer said TMR and TMR(UK) have contributed to profits. However, during the continuing soft market in the global reinsurance market TMTs contribution to overall profit has fallen significantly from approximately 50 percent to below 10 percent in a decade. According to TMRs 2017 annual report, natural and manmade catastrophe losses last year resulted in the biggest bottom-line net loss in TMRs history$158.9 million. RenRe also took a hit from last years record-breaking insured catastrophe losses for the industry, recording a net loss of $244.8 million for the year. According to an analysis by Carrier Management, property-cat premiums of $1.1 billion represented 39.5 percent of RenRes $2.8 billion of total premiums written last year, and more than three-quarter of the total property reinsurance book. For TMR, property-cat premiums of $390 million represented on 24.3 percent of total assumed premiums of $1.6 billion and just over 60 percent of the total TMR property reinsurance book. About two-thirds of TMRs business$1.1 billion of the $1.6 billion total comes from North America. At RenRe, North American business was roughly one-third of the 2017 property book and 20 percent of the casualty and specialty segment. Today Tokio Marine consists of 245 subsidiaries and 32 affiliates worldwide. Tokio Marines non-life domestic businesses include Nichido Fire, Nishin Fire, E.design and Millea SAST. Starting in 2007, the insurer began making significant acquisitions including Kiln Group, Philadelphia Insurance, Delphi Financial, HCC, Seguradora and Mellennium Re, building a diversified global portfolio focusing primarily on specialty insurance classes of business. Topics Mergers Reinsurance Property Market Indonesia may be close to finding the main wreckage of the Lion Air plane that crashed earlier this week, as the hunt for clues to what caused the countrys worst air disaster since 1997 continued into a third day. The search team stumbled on quite a large object, about 20 meters long, Haris Djoko Nugroho, commander of Indonesias naval ship Rigel said Wednesday. The crew is now zeroing in on the area, National Military Chief Hadi Tjahjanto said in a televised statement separately. Divers are preparing to go down, the National Search and Rescue Agency said. We arent sure if its part of JT610, Tjahjanto said, referring to the doomed flights number. We are focusing on that one spot to confirm that what were suspecting under the water is part of JT610. The ill-fated plane had a technical issue with its airspeed and altitude readings during its previous flight from Bali to Jakarta, but it was fixed by the airline, Lion Airs spokesman Danang Mandala Prihantoro said. While that could be a potential focus area for investigators, the carrier said it was firing its technical director under instructions from the transport ministry. The almost new Boeing Co. 737 Max plane crashed a few minutes after takeoff from Jakarta airport early Monday, slamming into the water at high speed, according to preliminary data transmitted from the aircraft to the ground and reported by FlightRadar24. One of the jets pilots had asked to return to land, and the flight track showed variations of speed and altitude, suggesting they may have been dealing with some kind of problem. The jet carried 189 people on board and all are feared dead. If the search crews manage to locate the fuselage, the next crucial task, besides recovering bodies, is to retrieve the planes black box. The data and cockpit voice recorders monitor the planes electronics and mechanical systems as well as store the conversations of the pilots useful information to help unravel the mystery behind the dive. The sea-bound search for the crashed aircrafts debris evoked images of the years-long and as yet unsuccessful search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared over the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean. Scouring in the shallow waters off Jakarta where the plane went down has so far yielded little else than small aircraft pieces, body parts and passengers personal belongings. It is too early to determine what led to the disaster, Lion Air owner Rusdi Kirana said. Authorities expanded the search area Wednesday. The Lion Air crash is the first fatal incident for Boeings Max model, the latest version in the Chicago-based planemakers popular single-aisle 737 family. While Indonesia has ordered its airlines to check Max planes after the crash, other carriers in Asia that fly the plane indicated they hadnt been prompted to do so by Boeing. SilkAir, a unit of Singapore Airlines Ltd., said it is closely monitoring developments after the crash. Indias aviation safety regulator said Tuesday that it reviewed the performance of the six aircraft operated by local carriers and hadnt found significant technical issues. Those planes have completed a cumulative 4,000 flight hours since their induction in June 2018, the regulator said. Lion Air said Tuesday that its too early to decide on the future of the some dozen Max 8 planes it flies. The plane that crashed had clocked 800 hours of flight time since delivery in August. Indonesia has dispatched more than 30 vessels and over 800 soldiers and civilians to look for the Lion Air plane. The mission is using remote operated underwater vehicles, ping locator and side-scan sonar in areas divided into one meant for diving and another for scanning. A team of investigators from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, Boeing and engine maker CFM International a joint venture between General Electric Co. and Safran SA will assist the probe spearheaded by Indonesian authorities. The plane dropped from an altitude of about 4,850 feet (1,479 meters) in about 21 seconds. Based on what appears to be a high-speed dive into the water at about 350 miles an hour far above the typical rate for a descent the body of the plane might have broken up into pieces as it plowed into the seabed, burying some of the crucial parts, according to Shadrach Nababan, a former investigator at Indonesias National Transportation Safety Board. The biggest question that I have so far is why the search and rescue parties have not been able to detect the ping from the black box, said Nababan, who investigated the 1997 crash of a SilkAir Boeing 737-300 that plummeted into a river at high speed in South Sumatra. This is puzzling. Related: Copyright 2021 Bloomberg. Topics Aviation Authorities in Cameroon should immediately release or disclose charges against Michel Biem Tong, editor of the privately owned Hurinews website, who was detained on October 23 after being summoned to the State Secretariat for Defense in the capital, Yaounde, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. sakhorn saengtongsamarnsin via 123RF Prior to his arrest, Tong had published articles criticising the Cameroonian government's handling of grievances of Anglophone Cameroonians from the western regions of the country in the run-up to presidential elections on October 7, according to a friend of the journalist who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal."Michel Biem Tong has been in detention for a week and Cameroonian officials have yet to give any reason for his arrest," said Muthoki Momo, CPJ's sub-Saharan Africa representative. "Journalists in Cameroon are too often arrested for simply trying to keep the population informed about the political and economic situation in the country."According to a letter Tong sent before his arrest to the same friend, the journalist had anticipated his arrest after he received repeated calls from a Cameroonian military official known as Colonel Joel Emile Bamkoui to present himself at the State Secretariat for Defense, known by its French acronym, SED. The summons were connected to an alleged audio recording in which Tong expressed sympathies toward the Anglophone separatists in western Cameroon, according to the friend. In his letter, Tong denied having made any such recording.CPJ could not immediately determine whether Tong had been granted access to a lawyer."We are concerned about the arrest of Michael Biem Tong and we have been discussing with authorities to know why he has been arrested," said Denis Nkwebo, president of the Cameroonian journalists' trade union, of which Tong is a member.Hurinews published a statement by a Gabonese network of civil society organisations, known by its French acronym ROLBG, calling for Tong's release and extolling "his numerous writings supported by credible and richly documented information", about the government's alleged human rights violations in the Anglophone regions.CPJ's repeated calls to the Cameroonian minister of information, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, went unanswered, and calls to Cameroonian police went unanswered. When contacted by CPJ, Bamkoui declined to comment on Tong's case.Since 2016, Cameroon has repeatedly jailed journalists for reporting in the western regions of the country, according to CPJ research . Cameroonian President Paul Biya was in early October re-elected for a seventh term. Canadian insurer Manulife Financial Corp said on Tuesday it would ask a court in Saskatchewan to dismiss claims made against it by a hedge fund after the province changed its rules to limit how much an investor can put into certain life insurance policies. Manulife has been fighting the case, brought by Mosten Investment LP two years ago, in which the hedge fund claimed the right to put unlimited funds into an old policy known as universal life insurance, which pays out 4.5 percent a year on excess funds. Shares in Manulife have fallen by 14 percent since research firm Muddy Waters said on Oct. 4 it had taken a short position on the stock, citing the court case, which Manulifes own expert has said in court could be financially damaging to Manulife, if it lost the case and was forced to pay out on unlimited investments on the policy in question and similar ones. In the last few days, Saskatchewan said it would limit the amount of money investors could put into universal life insurance policies. Manulife said it believes the new regulations will more quickly resolve the case in its favor. With respect to any possible remaining ancillary matters in the litigation, Manulife continues to believe that it will prevail and that those matters are insignificant in any event, the company said. Shares in Manulife were up 5.3 percent to C$20.92 in early trading in Toronto, still down 10 percent from its level before Muddy Waters disclosed that it had taken a short position. (Reporting by Matt Scuffham; editing by Bill Rigby) Related: Topics Canada A no-deal Brexit would be likely to tip Britain into a recession as long as the downturn that followed the global financial crisis, and investors should no longer ignore this danger, credit ratings agency Standard & Poors said on Tuesday. Talks on Britains departure from the European Union have stalled over arrangements for the border between the British province of Northern Ireland and the Irish republic if a trading relationship is not agreed in time. Our base-case scenario is that the UK and the EU will agree and ratify a Brexit deal, S&P Global Ratings credit analyst Paul Watters said. But we believe the risk of a no-deal has increased sufficiently to become a relevant rating consideration. S&P has an AA credit rating for Britain a full step below its top-notch AAA rating but it warned that any failure by London and Brussels to reach a deal would be likely to force it to cut the grade further. On Monday finance minister Philip Hammond stressed the importance of getting a deal, saying this would dispel uncertainty weighing on businesses and allow him to spend money he is holding back as a reserve. Britain would experience a moderate recession lasting four to five quarters in the event of a no-deal Brexit, S&P predicted. This would shrink the worlds fifth-largest economy by 1.2 percent in 2019 and by a further 1.5 percent in 2020. Most of the economic loss of about 5.5 percent (of) GDP over three years compared to our base case would likely be permanent, S&P said. Unemployment would rise to above 7 percent from around 4 percent now and house prices would be likely to fall by 10 percent over two years, S&P said. In London, office prices could shrink by more than 20 percent over two to three years. Britains economy shrank by more than 6 percent during its last recession in 2008-09 which lasted five quarters, and growth in wages and productivity has been persistently weak ever since. Economists polled by Reuters earlier this month assigned a median one-in-four chance that Britain leaves the EU in March with no deal. (Reporting by Andy Bruce, editing by David Milliken and David Stamp) Related: UK Heading for Acrimonious and Disruptive No-Deal Brexit: Fitch Topics Europe Uk Brexit Ageas announced it has reached an agreement with BNP Paribas Cardif to sell its 33 percent share in the share capital of Cardif Lux Vie S.A. (CLV), for a total cash consideration of 152 million ($172.7 million). Under the deal, BNP Paribas Cardif also will repay to Ageas 30 million ($34.1 million) for subordinated loans. Brussels-based Ageas said the divestment of its minority stake in CLV is in line with its strategy to concentrate its efforts on further developing businesses where it holds stronger positions or in growth markets. The sale also offers an opportunity to crystallize the value that has been created over the past years. In 2011, BNP Paribas Cardif, Ageas and BGL BNP Paribas merged their existing life insurance operations to create the joint-venture Cardif Lux Vie in Luxembourg, which mainly focuses on international wealth management business. As a result of the merger, Ageas became a 33 percent shareholder, while the other 66 percent of CLVs shares are held by BNP Paribas Cardif and BGL BNP Paribas. The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close at the latest during the first quarter of 2019. The divestment is expected to generate a capital gain of 39 million ($44.3 million) for Ageas, which said the transaction will also have a positive impact on the group Solvency II ratio of approximately 7 percent, based on the position as at the end of June 2018. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the management team and staff of CLV, as well as our joint-venture partners for the excellent cooperation over the past seven years, commented Bart De Smet, CEO of Ageas. Source: Ageas LMC Insurance and Risk Management (LMC Insurance) is launching a new health insurance plan underwritten by Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield for Iowa-based employers with 51-500 eligible employees. The program, referred to as the Employer Coalition, will be available beginning Jan. 1, 2019. It will provide a predictable insurance pool with features designed to stabilize costs long term, simplify administrative burdens and help employees better understand and utilize their benefits, the company said. The Employer Coalition plan provides a new level of partnership and collaboration through semi-annual stakeholder meetings, thus allowing employers more influence in the decisions impacting the program. The Employer Coalition plan is now available to quote to qualified employers. With roots dating back to 1865, LMC Insurance & Risk Management is one of the Midwests oldest and largest independent brokerage firms, partnering with individuals, business and industry leaders across the nation in the areas of property casualty insurance, employee benefits and risk management services. Licensed in 48 states and headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa, LMC Insurance also has offices in Nebraska and Wisconsin, and the LMC family of brands consists of four additional licensed insurance subsidiaries, including Independent Insurance Services, Molyneaux Insurance, The Friedman Group, Inc. and Agri-Business Insurance Services. Source: LMC Topics Commercial Lines Business Insurance Iowa Liberty Mutuals Safeco insurance has agreed to accept the $132.5 million in personal lines business of Iowa-based EMC Insurance Companies. Safeco is offering EMCs independent agents the opportunity to transition their EMC personal lines policies to Safeco beginning the first quarter of 2019. Des Moines-based EMC said it has decided to dedicate itself to its commercial, reinsurances and life businesses across 43 states, which accounts for more than 90 percent of the companys current $1.7 billion in premiums. About 7.8 percent of its business is personal lines. The company said the agreement with Safeco will also allow EMC to provide a smooth transition for personal lines policyholders and for the independent agents in the more than 20 states where EMC sells personal lines policies. The personal lines marketplace is highly competitive and has evolved significantly since we first entered it back in the 1950s. This is a decision we made with careful, strategic consideration given our long history in the business, said Bruce G. Kelley, president and CEO of EMC Insurance Companies, in prepared remarks. We are focused on maximizing profit and growth potential and believe that can best be accomplished by further strengthening and expanding our commercial lines. EMCs personal lines business is in the states of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Safeco signed a similar agreement with Donegal Mutual last month when that insurer decided to exit the personal lines business in seven states. Safeco agreed to accept the transfer of accounts worth $25 million in premium. Safeco has also done similar deals with QBE North America ($230 million in premium) and Mapfre in three states this year. EMC management had been monitoring its personal lines business. in 2016, the company revamped the personal lines management and introduced new products. In its 2017 annual report, management wrote of the personal lines operation: Management believes that the overall quality of the personal lines book of business improved during 2017; however, that improvement was overshadowed by an increased level of catastrophe and storm losses. Management continues to closely monitor the performance of the personal lines business, and expects to expand personal lines into additional states in the future to further diversify the exposures of this business. Topics Agencies A final judgment upholds a jury award of more than $200 million to a Dallas-area family against Toyota over what they alleged were defective front seats in their Lexus sedan. State District Judge Dale Tillery entered the final judgment on Oct. 26 in Dallas in the lawsuit brought by Benjamin and Kristi Reavis. The Dallas County jury returned its verdict Aug. 17. The couple alleged that in a September 2016 rear-end collision defects caused their front seat backs on their two young children seated in child safety seats behind them. Their attorney said the 5-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son suffered severe head trauma and other injuries. Reuters reported in August that the jury awarded damages of $242 million to the Dallas family after finding that defects in the familys Lexus sedan caused injuries to their two children during a rear-end collision. The verdict included more than $143.6 million in punitive damages after jurors agreed that the actions of Lexus-maker Toyota Motor Corp. and Toyota Motor Sales amounted to gross negligence, according to the Reuters report. The $242 million award included: $92M in compensatory damages for the two children for past and future medical care, loss of earning capacity, physical impairment, pain & anguish. $6 million for parents Ben and Kristi Reavis for past and future mental anguish. The apportionment of the above damages was: Toyota Motor Corp. 90 percent Toyota Motor Sales 5 percent Honda Pilot driver who caused the rear-end collision 5 percent The $143,600,400 in punitive damages for gross negligence was apportioned as follows: Toyota Motor Corp.: $129,600,000 Toyota Motor Sales: $14,000,400 In a statement, Toyota said it would ask the judge or, if necessary, an appeals court for a new trial. Related: Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Texas Legislation A resident of Richardson, Texas, who recognized a suspected arsonist from a television news report has been awarded a $500 check for his call that will lead to the arrests of three suspects in the fire of the Owens Sausage plant in Richardson on May 7, according to A Texas Advisory Council on Arson (ATAC) The suspects face charges of state jail felony reckless arson in Collin County. Investigators say the suspects used an accelerant to set fire to furniture inside the abandoned factory. Firefighters from Richardson were called to battle the fire and although no firefighters were injured, one of the suspects apparently suffered burns to his arm. The fire destroyed a conference room and four offices inside the structure. Fire investigators say a game camera set inside the two-story building captured photos of all three suspects. Lacking any leads in the case, Richardson Fire Investigator Walter Clifton turned to a Dallas TV station to air the photos of the suspects in hopes one of them might be identified. One phone call came in and two of the suspects were positively identified, which eventually lead to naming all three suspects. Without the assistance of our one phone call, we would have never discovered who set fire to the building, Clifton said in ATACs announcement. The cooperation of the public brought this case together. ATAC agreed to award the caller for his public service and closing the case. The Texas Arson Hotline and reward program was created and is funded by ATAC, an advisory body for the State Fire Marshals Office. Callers can anonymously contact the Arson Hotline 24 hours a day, seven days a week to report suspected arsonists. Callers can receive up to $1,000 if their calls results in an arrest or conviction. The arson hotline phone number is 1-877- 4 FIRE 45. Source: ATAC Topics Texas Arson A.M. Best has upgraded the financial strength ratings of two workers compensation insurers based in Florida. RetailFirst Insurance Co. and BusinessFirst Insurance Co. have received a financial strength ratings of A- (Excellent) from A.M. Best, upgraded from B++ (Good). The outlook of these ratings has been revised from positive to stable. The ratings upgrades are based on the consolidated financial results of Retail First and BusinessFirst, which make up RetailFirst Insurance Group, according to a statement from the Summit Consulting, the companies managing general agent. During 2017, the group reported more than $135 million in combined direct written premium, and as of Sept. 30, 2018, the group had more than $370 million in total admitted assets and more than $184 million of policyholder surplus. The groups ratings continue to be supported by the strongest level of risk-adjusted capitalization, as measured by Bests Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR) and conservative reserving practices, A.M. Best said. The A- (Excellent) rating is assigned to companies that have an excellent ability to meet their ongoing insurance obligations. Together RetailFirst and BusinessFirst provide workers compensation insurance to more than 13,000 businesses throughout Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. The day-to-day operations of both companies are managed by Summit, a MGA with more than 40 years of experience in workers compensation. Source: Summit Consulting Topics Carriers Florida Workers' Compensation AM Best Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear has sued a pharmaceutical company, accusing it of contributing to the states opioid epidemic. Beshear says he has sued Pennsylvania-based Teva for marketing its products to treat chronic pain despite the drugs being approved for treating pain in cancer patients. Beshear called the deceptive marketing one of the most egregious acts we have seen from a pharmaceutical company. A spokeswoman for Teva declined to comment. This is the eighth lawsuit Beshear has filed against a company that either makes or distributes opioid-based medication. Kentucky has one of the highest drug overdose death rates in the country. Most of the deaths are related to opioids. Beshear, a Democrat, is running for governor in 2019. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits Kentucky The Los Angeles Unified School District will pay $5 million to settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of a student who was molested by a teacher when she was 13. It would be the largest payout the nations second-largest school district has ever made to a single sexual-abuse victim, according to her lawyers. In a statement Monday, the school district said it couldnt discuss the case because the agreement had not been executed or approved by the court. However, lawyers for the district agreed to the payment and said they hoped to make the payment within 30 days, according to a transcript of the hearing. This young girl was abused in the classroom and victimized a second time in the courtroom, John Taylor, an attorney for the girl, said in a statement Monday. Because of her courage and persistence, she will make it easier for other abuse victims to pursue their claims without fear of being blamed for the abuse. According to her lawyers, the girl was 13 during the 2010/2011 school year when she was groomed and manipulated into having sex with her eighth-grade mathematics teacher at Thomas Alva Edison Middle School. Elkis Hermida, who was then 30, molested the girl for seven months in the classroom and near campus. He was arrested in 2011 after a friend of the girl told a teacher about the relationship. Hermida pleaded no contest to one count of committing lewd acts upon a victim aged 14 and was sentenced to three years in prison. In a 2011 negligence lawsuit, the girls lawyers argued that the district ignored Hermidas inappropriate conduct with girls, including having them sit on his lap in the classroom. During trial, however, the district argued that the girl had consented to having sex and she was questioned on the stand about her previous sexual history. A jury ruled in favor of the district but an appeals court ordered a new trial. In 2015, the case prompted California lawmakers to pass a measure barring the use of consent as a defense in civil lawsuits involving minors and adults in positions of authority over them. The law also barred the use, in most cases, of the minors sexual history to prove consent. Fridays settlement came as pre-trial arguments were about to begin. Jury selection had been scheduled to begin Monday. Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits California Education 1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war. 2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war. 3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength. 4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war. 5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites. 6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination. 7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N. 8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N. 9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress. 10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N. 11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.) 12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party. 13. Do away with all loyalty oaths. 14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office. 15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States. 16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights. 17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks. 18. Gain control of all student newspapers. 19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack. 20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions. 21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures. 22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms." 23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art." 24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press. 25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV. 26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy." 27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch." 28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state." 29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis. 30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man." 31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over. 32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc. 33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus. 34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities. 35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI. 36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions. 37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business. 38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand. 39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals. 40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce. 41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents. 42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems. 43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government. 44. Internationalize the Panama Canal. 45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike. Las Vegas, Nevada - October 31, 2018 (Newsfile Corp.) (Investorideas.com Newswire) Freedom Leaf Inc. (OTCQB: FRLF) has surprised analysts and investors by exceeding its revenue guidance for its last quarter of its June 30 2018 fiscal year of $400K issued in a press release on July 3rd by 47% delivering revenue of $590K. Additionally its latest acquisition, Tierra Sciences Global, has generated $167K in the first 30 days of their prelaunch in affiliate marketing campaign. We project that the first quarter of our current fiscal year will be above approximately $600,000. Freedom Leaf CEO Clifford J Perry stated, "2018 was a transition year as we integrated Irie and Hempology brands and rationalized our supply chain. Closing Q4 with a 47% above our revenue guidance reflects these efforts and sets us up for a strong year of growth in 2019." The Company also announced the following key Board of Director appointments: Mr. David Goldburg, Senior Partner of Merida Capital Partners, a private equity fund, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of Freedom Leaf Inc. Mr. Goldburg has specialized in credit investing for the past 25 years, managing proprietary investment portfolios at leading Wall Street firms and hedge funds. Before joining Merida, he founded Battlebourne Capital, a cross-capital structure investment firm, in January 2016. Prior to Battlebourne, Mr. Goldburg served as the senior member of the New York office of Silver Rock Financial, Michael Milken's family office, since its inception in 2010 until his departure in January 2016. In September 2009, Mr. Goldburg formed Garnet Financial, a $200 million special situation credit vehicle funded by the Milken family. He was the portfolio manager of Garnet until it was merged into Silver Rock at the end of 2010. Previously, Mr. Goldburg was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs in the Bank Loan Distressed Investing Group, where he became responsible for managing a $1.0+ billion proprietary investment portfolio and a team of nine analysts. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, he had senior responsibility managing distressed credit portfolios at Oak Hill Advisors, Morgan Stanley, and Bear Stearns. Mr. Goldburg began his career as an analyst in the mergers and acquisitions group at the First Boston Corporation, received a B.A. in History from Brown University and is a Harry S. Truman Scholar. Ms. Jane Cavalier, CEO of Brightmark Consulting, a leading brand strategy advisory firm, has joined the company's Strategic Advisory Council. Ms. Cavalier has over twenty-five years of brand marketing experience, as a global brand strategist, Chief Marketing Officer and advertising executive. She has shaped brand and marketing strategies for over 50 organizations and is widely recognized for building some of the world's most iconic brands. Ms. Cavalier has been internationally recognized for creating such "renegade" brands as Snapple "Made from the Best Stuff on Earth," Qwest "Ride the Light" and the groundbreaking "BlindNewWorld" public service campaign for Perkins School for the Blind. Prior to founding Brightmark, Ms. Cavalier directed strategic planning at McCann-Erickson Worldwide, where she built McCann's global consulting unit and has been a visiting professor at New York University's Stern School of Business and the Yale School of Management. Mr. Joseph Abrams has joined Freedom Leaf's Strategic Advisory Council. Mr. Abrams has over thirty years of professional experience as a serial entrepreneur, capital structure and strategic business development advisor and early stage investor. Mr. Abrams was the co-founder of Toolworks where he served as President and Chief Operating Officer. Toolworks was successfully sold to Pearson PLC for $460M, as well as co-founder of eUniverse, Intermix Media and social media network MySpace. He was an early stage investor in Recruiter.com, one of the largest paid recruiter networks on the planet, an early stage investor in Akeena Solar, and is the owner and operator of seven orthotics and prosthetics clinics. He serves on the board of the Williams School of Business and the Simon School of business, both at the University of Rochester as well as the advisory board of Petroeq Energy. Additionally, Freedom Leaf announced the following key corporate executive appointments: Mr. Richard A. Bolandz, Managing Partner of the International Consultants Consortium, (ICC) who had been acting Special Assistant to Freedom Leaf's CEO for Operations has joined the company as Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Bolandz has over 25 years of professional experience in the field of competitive strategy, the strategic management of technology, and the application of technology to corporate development, business transformation and organizational change. Prior to his tenure at ICC, Mr. Bolandz has held successive C level positions within the Fortune 500 and has led four successful emerging technology start-ups as CEO. Before embarking on his career as an operating executive, he served as Director Technology Enabled Business Transformation at CSC Index Consulting, as an international competitive strategy consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton, and an intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Christopher Thompson has been promoted to Chief Marketing Officer after serving three years with The Company, first as Director of Digital Marketing, and then Director of Marketing for the new Hempology product line. Mr. Thompson joined Freedom Leaf after graduating with a degree in Biological Engineering from Purdue University, where he learned how to apply engineering-based problem-solving strategies to the design, development, and execution of brand strategy and marketing campaigns. He has also served as the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Las Vegas NORML Chapter, and has had a hand in founding 6 other non-profit NORML chapters across the country. Mr. Thompson is now leading the Freedom Leaf corporate marketing division and interfaces directly with all of Freedom Leaf's subsidiaries to align individual market strategies with The Company's overall corporate brand strategy. Going forward, Mr. Thompson will be continuing to expand The Company's in-house marketing team and developing new, innovative products to increase The Company's global brand recognition and market share. Freedom Leaf CEO and Co-Founder Clifford J. Perry, said, "We are very proud that these leaders have joined the Freedom Leaf team. This is a great vote of confidence in our company." All of the Freedom Leaf Inc. brands will be on display in a massive 20x20 island booth (#1869) at MJBizCon at the Las Vegas Convention Center from November 14th through 16th. The Freedom Leaf Inc. booth will feature upgraded lead capture systems and digital order processing for maximum effectiveness at generating bulk orders and marketing email lists at the show. The entire hemp and cannabis industry is invited to see what is new from Freedom Leaf's subsidiaries, including Hempology, Leafceuticals, and Irie CBD. About Freedom Leaf Freedom Leaf Inc. (OTCQB: FRLF), a group of diversified, international, vertically-integrated hemp businesses concentrating on health, wellness, and education as well as cannabis media companies. Freedom Leaf, Inc. has been a leading go-to resource in the cannabis, medical marijuana and industrial hemp industries since 2014, founded by professionals with decades of combined experience in marijuana legalization advocacy. FRLF is building a diverse portfolio of valuable businesses through strategic mergers, acquisitions, and acceleration projects across the industry. Freedom Leaf, Inc. does not handle, grow, sell, or dispense marijuana or related products. All of our European activities are in full compliance with relevant EU laws. Investor relations information can be found on the FreedomLeafInc.com company website. About Merida Capital Partners Merida Capital Partners is a private equity firm targeting fundamental growth drivers which accelerate the rapid development of the cannabis industry. Our motto, Responsible Investing in the Emerging Cannabis Industry, highlights our focus on cultivation technologies, products and services associated with the evolution of cannabis as an agricultural product, a natural plant-based medicine, a constituent in pharmaceutical formulations and a recreational consumer product. For more information, please visit www.meridacap.com or follow us on twitter @meridacap. Safe Harbor Statement Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical are "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by phrases such as Freedom Leaf, Inc. or its management "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "foresees," "forecasts," "estimates" or other words or phrases of similar import. Similarly, statements herein that describe the Company's business strategy, outlook, objectives, plans, intentions or goals also are forward-looking statements. All such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to differences include the uncertainty regarding viability and market acceptance of the Company's products and services, changes in relationships with third parties, and other factors described in the Company's most recent periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K dated June 30, 2016 and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Contact: Raymond Medeiros PR and Business Development Director Phone: 415-601-1974 ray@freedomleaf.com Freedom Leaf, Inc. Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions. More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ and tickertagstocknews.com Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp October 31, 2018 (Investorideas.com Newswire) The average tariff for wastewater services grew by 4.1% between July 2017 and July 2018, compared with a 3.5% increase for the average water tariff in the same period, according to new data from released by Global Water Intelligence, as part of its 2018 Global Water Tariff Survey. The 2018 survey is the most extensive one carried out GWI so far, calculating changes to the price of urban water and wastewater in 512 cities across 191 countries, based on a benchmark of an urban household of four using 15 m3/month. Analysis and commentaries on the survey results were released in an accompanying white paper, The Global Value of Water, published by GWI in partnership with Arup and The Global Water Leaders Group with insights from public policy advisors and utility leaders. The white paper revealed that in all but two regions (the Middle East & North Africa and Eastern Europe & Central Asia) the average wastewater tariff grew more than that for water supply. GWI's team of analysts found that many utilities are increasing wastewater service rates to fund sewerage network upgrades, as cities across the developed world act to address growing concerns over ageing infrastructure, stormwater management, and micropollutants this year. US cities led the way, having historically found it easier to push through wastewater tariff hikes than raise water rates. GWI found that wastewater services now cost 139% of water services on average in the US, compared with just 88% in Western Europe. North America is now the most expensive region for utility wastewater, accounting for 7 of the top 10 cities with the highest wastewater tariffs recorded in the 2018 survey. Juneau, Alaska topped the survey with the most expensive wastewater tariff in 2018, at a cost of $6.55/m3. Major urban wastewater tariff changes in 2018: Top ten most expensive wastewater tariffs in 2018: Top ten biggest wastewater tariff increases in 2018: *Cape Town's average wastewater tariff rose because it is tied to drinking water tariffs in the city, which were increased as a punitive measure in the face of extreme drought. Christopher Gasson, Publisher at GWI, commented: "Wastewater is more expensive to manage properly than drinking water, so wastewater tariffs ought to be higher than drinking water tariffs. There is problem however. Traditional sewer systems with wastewater treatment plants are unaffordable for low income communities and it is killing people. Most of those who die from water borne diseases do so because of bad wastewater management. It is the one area of the water cycle which needs a new paradigm." The survey recorded notable wastewater tariff hikes in several US cities this year, with 47 of the 70 US cities assessed by GWI experiencing increases in wastewater costs in 2018. Six of these cities saw double-digit percentage growth. Wastewater bills rose by 14.3% in Louisville, Kentucky for example, with the increased revenues from tariffs being channelled towards a special sewer repair fund. Meanwhile residents in Washington D.C saw their wastewater bills increase by 20.4%, resulting in a combined tariff of $6.46/m3, to keep in line with core operating costs and fund the upgrade of ageing sewer networks. Genova, Italy experienced the highest wastewater tariff increase in Western Europe, with increased tariff revenues also being used to fund sewerage upgrades. Wastewater rates in Genova grew by 14.7% this year, fuelling an 11.7% increase in combined tariffs to $3.34/m3. In the Icelandic capital city of Reykjavik, wastewater tariffs rose by 10.9% to $2.68/m3 to fund the $475-$760 million of investment needed to raise the quality of the country's sewer treatment to international standards. However, despite the general trend of wastewater tariffs outpacing water tariffs in the Western World, the 2018 survey also recorded notable water and wastewater tariff rate drops in several European cities. Malaga, Spain for instance, experienced the biggest decrease in wastewater tariffs in Western Europe as rates in the Spanish city fell by 4.3% this year. The move was a part of an overall drop in combined bills by 4.4% to $1.80/m3 following the removal of drought-mandated pricing after local reservoir levels recovered at the start of 2018. As detailed in the white paper, water tariffs in Spain remain among the lowest in Europe however, due to a long-standing gap in investment into the Spanish water and wastewater sector. The Global Value of Water and The Global Water Tariff Survey are available as part of a subscription to GWI Magazine, visit www.globalwaterintel.com/gwi/tariffsurvey Notes to Editors: Caption for attached map graphic: The percentage of combined (water & wastewater tariff) accounted for by wastewater charges, by country (source: The Global Water Leaders Group / Arup Global Water Tariff Survey 2018.) Journalists with valid press credentials wishing to access the full dataset should request press access from Alex Shuttleworth on ashuttleworth@globalwaterintel.com. The Global Value of Water is a Global Water Leaders Group (GWLG) white paper, containing detailed analysis of the results of The Global Water Tariff Survey 2018 and insights from the following contributors: Justin Abbott, Director, Global Water Skills Leader, Arup Dr Rolfe Eberhard, Independent Public Policy Advisor Dr Mark Fletcher, Director, Global Water Leader Arup Siegfried Gendries, Independent Consultant Steve Lloyd, Director, UKIMEA Advisory Services Leader, Arup Adam Lovell, Executive Director of the Water Services Association of Australia Dr William T. Muhairwe, Executive Director of the Global Water Leaders Group and founder of 2ML Consulting Professor Howard M. Neukrug, Senior Advisor to the Global Water Leaders Group and former CEO of Philadelphia Water Wang Qiang, Senior Supervisor at Shanghai Chengtou Corporation The Global Water Tariff Survey is the leading repository of global water tariff data and analysis, featuring water & wastewater tariff profiles from over 510 locations. It is updated annually by Global Water Intelligence (GWI). The Global Value of Water and The Global Water Tariff Survey are available to all GWI Magazine subscribers who can download it from www.globalwaterintel.com. To purchase a subscription to GWI Magazine, contact nrumpaisum@globalwaterintel.com Global Water Intelligence (GWI) researches and publishes business data and information about the water markets worldwide. Based in Oxford, UK it also has offices in Singapore and USA (Austin, Texas) and has researchers and office staff in many other countries. It publishes three subscription titles and a free weekly GWI Briefing email (http://www.globalwaterintel.com/accounts/mailinglist/) and two market intelligence and forecasting platforms. It also organises two major financial conferences for the water industry each year: the American Water Summit in Autumn and the Global Water Summit in Spring. GWI was awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise in 2011. Press contact: ashuttleworth@globalwaterintel.com, Media Analytics Ltd, Suite C, Kingsmead House, Oxpens Road, Oxford OX1 1XX, UK. Tel: +44 1865 204208 www.globalwaterintel.com Water-Stocks.com: investing ideas in water stocks Like Water Stocks? View our Water Stocks Directory More Info: This news is published on the Investorideas.com Newswire - a global digital news source for investors and business leaders Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions. More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ and tickertagstocknews.com Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp By Padraig Hoare Limerick civil engineering firm Roadbridge will co-partner Spanish giant FCC Construccion on the DAAs 320m north runway project for Dublin Airport with an extra 10m sweetener separately given by the authority to fund local community projects. DAA, formerly known as Dublin Airport Authority, said the 320m contract was for the building of 306,000sq m of new runway and taxiways; 6km of new internal airport roads; new drainage and pollution controls; 7.5km of electrical cable; and more than 2,000 new runway and taxiway lights. The new runway will be over 1.5km north of the existing runway. Roadbridges major Irish projects include Centre Parcs Longford, Facebooks data centre in Clonee, the Gort to Tuam motorway, the Cullahill to Cashel motorway, DIT Grangegorman Campus, the Limerick Tunnel and Southern Ring Road. FCC, which has built terminals, runways and control towers at Barcelona, Madrid, Mallorca, and in Colombia, has been involved in Irish projects such as the M50 upgrade, and buildings in the new Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) at Grangegorman. DAA said the 320m project was a 50:50 split between the two firms. It said the extra 10m allocated for community measures would go towards a public park and other local issues. The runway has been met with stiff oppositions for residents as well as farmers and property owners in the area in recent years, leading to a number of court actions. DAA said it was mindful of its local communities and that a voluntary house purchase scheme and a sound insulation programme for homes that will be affected are already in place. The voluntary house scheme and sound insulation are included in the 320m contract. The extra 10m for the community is not included in the 320m contract and is being paid separately by DAA, doubling its previous contributions to the community fund. DAA, which also runs Cork Airport, hit out at onerous planning conditions attached by An Bord Pleanala for the north runway project. Conditions attached would limit flights at the airports busiest time of the day between 6am and 7am, and also at night, it said. It said it will make its case in relation to the conditions as legislation was currently being drafted for an independent noise regulator at Dublin Airport. The preparatory site works for the project will begin immediately, DAA said, and groundworks will start in January. Construction of the new runway is due to be completed in early 2021 and commissioning will then take place, DAA added. Homecare Independent Living has announced the creation of 200 new jobs, adding to their already 1,200 strong team over the next 12 months. The company, which recently celebrated 23 years in business, provides care, support and housing solutions and the new roles will be based across its domiciliary, housing and support businesses. HCIL has nine regional offices located across Ireland with plans to expand into its brand new Dublin office imminently. Up to 50 healthcare assistant and community management roles are immediately available across Dublin with further jobs in finance, HR, marketing, communications, administration, recruitment, housing, maintenance and support. Mairead Mackle, founder and CEO of HCIL said, We are delighted to officially launch our recruitment drive this morning with the announcement of 200 new roles across our HCIL suite of businesses in Ireland and an investment of up 5 million. "This reinforces our commitment not only to our existing team but our ambition to create a range of excellent career opportunities for those interested in being part of a value-led family business that makes a real difference to the lives of our societys most vulnerable. All five dates for Picture This at the 3Arena in Dublin next March are have sold out in under a week. Ryan Hennessey, Jimmy Rainsford, Owen Cardiff and Cliff Deane announced their five-night run at the Dublin venue last Wednesday, October 24. The announcement of five gigs as part of the MDRN LV European tour was met with a huge response as demand for their tickets went through the roof and fans got their hands on every single ticket with all five dates officially selling out yesterday. International dates in New York, Los Angeles, London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow are also sold out. Two years since their formation, theyve 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 the 3Arena in Dublin. ALL FIVE NIGHTS IN THE 3ARENA ARE SOLD OUT!!!! Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow all sold out too and limited tickets left for Brighton and London! Thank you so much pic.twitter.com/u44XgrfviY Picture This (@picturethis) October 30, 2018 This summer marked their first stadium tour in Ireland, which capped off with a 35,000-person stadium show selling out over three months prior. On top of their successful tours, the band's self-titled 2017 full-length debut album, Picture This, certified triple-platinum in Ireland and held the #1 spot in the Irish Album Chart for four weeks. The band's new single One Drink heralds the arrival of the bands anxiously awaited second full-length album, MDRN LV, releasing on February 15, 2019. We cannot wait. Never change, boys. By Ann O'Loughlin Irish Rail is not required to allow an inspector have legal representation before it embarks on a disciplinary inquiry into a charge of misconduct arising from alleged theft of fuel through misuse of a company fuel card, the Court of Appeal has ruled. The Appeal Court found the High Court erred in law by granting injunctions restraining the inquiry until Irish Rail allowed Barry McKelvey get lawyers. On the facts as they stood in May 2017 when Irish Rail initiated the inquiry and refused Mr McKelvey's application for legal aid, he did not require lawyers, Ms Justice Mary Irvine said. There were no special or exceptional circumstances which warranted the High Court finding Mr McKelvey could not get a fair hearing in accordance with natural justice unless he was represented by solicitor and counsel, she ruled. While the High Court was entitled to have regard to the serious nature of the charge against Mr McKelvey, the potential penalty and potential impact on his reputation, these were matters "far from exceptional" in the context of work place investigations and not dispositive of his entitlement to lawyers, she added. She failed, for example, to see why lawyers were necessary to advise of the significance of spreadhseets relating to use of fuel cards. None of his other rights, including to be heard in relation to the allegations and to make representations, were in dispute, she stressed. Mr McKelvey can also, at any stage during the inquiry, renew his request to entitlement to be represented by lawyers should matters emerge which neither he nor his trade union representative could reasonably be expected to deal with without such legal representation, she added. Irish Rail's disciplinary policy and procedures are fully compliant with the code of practice under the Industrial Relations Act and all disciplinary inquiries must be carried out in a fair manner which meets the requirements of natural and constitutional justice, she said. For that process to meet that standard, it was not necessary, save in exceptional circumstances, for an employee to be legally represented. A disciplinary process which routinely involved lawyers would slow down the process, make it more costly and have "significant adverse effects" for the relationship between management and employees and between employees themselves. She was giving the three judge courts judgment allowing Irish Rails appeal over the High Court injunctions. Mr McKelvey was an employee of Irish Rail since 1999 and an inspector from May 2013. His responsibilities included managing employees charged with maintaining the Dublin to Cork rail line. As part of that work, he was given fuel cards to facilitate re-fuelling of company vehicles and machinery. Other Irish Rail employees also had use of such cards. Irish Rail began a preliminary investigation in late 2016 after it became concerned about the amount of fuel purchased using fuel cards in Mr McKelvey's division, division three. He was interviewed as part of that and shown spreadsheets relating to purchases made with his fuel card in 2014, 2015 and 2016. He had said some such purchases could have been made using his card without his knowledge and his card may have been taken by another staff member. In March 2017, after he was advised he was being suspended on basic pay until further notice, that triggered letters from his trade union representative, Paul Cullen, and from Sinnott Solicitors challenging the lawfulness of his suspension. In May 2017, Mr McKelvey was notified Irish Rail had decided to initiate its formal disciplinary process to inquire into the matter of: "Theft of fuel through the misuse of a company fuel card(s), which has resulted with the company suffering a significant financial loss." He requested an oral hearing and also asked, having regard to the allegation of "theft", he be allowed to be represented by solicitor and counsel at the disciplinary hearing. He also made various complaints about the procedures for that hearing. Irish Rail was later restrained by the High Court from taking any further steps in the process until it agreed Mr McKelvey might have legal representation. It argued that was unnecessary for reasons including he would be represented by an experienced trade union official. Plans for Dublin's MetroLink have been further delayed until the new year. They were expected to be ready for November, but have now been pushed back with National Transport Authority saying the process is taking longer than expected. The 26km Metro Line will go from Swords to Sandyford when completed. Fine Gael TD for Dublin North West, Noel Rock, said things need to get moving. He said: "It isn't good enough that the NTA, just before the summer, said that there would be a consultation published in September, that then became November, that has now become the new year. "That's already nearly a six-month slippage at this stage. What we need is a clear guideline with clear goals and clear outcomes and let's get the shovels in the ground and let's get this project started." He went on to describe the delays as "not good enough" and claimed they are already having a serious impact on families along the proposed route. Mr Rock said: "Parents don't know whether or not their children will effectively be attending a school on a Metro building site, so that lack of clarity has already had an impact on their schools. "What I want to see is a clear plan, a concrete plan and one which ensures there are strict timelines and that those timelines are adhered to because what we are seeing now is a slip, slip, slip of the timeline already, and it's simply not good enough." Sean Lyons to succeed R/GA founder, CEO Following the departure of R/GA's CEO and founder Bob Greenberg, Sean Lyons has been appointed by the company to fill the veteran's shoes. R/GA announced the appointment in an all-staff meeting. Greenberg will continue to serve as chairman into 2020 while working with Lyons to develop the company's next iteration. Groups working with people who have suffered child sexual abuse, sexual violence, or domestic abuse want gardai to do better in keeping people informed about investigations and prosecutions. The groups stressed the need for training for frontline gardai and specialist training for dedicated units in submissions to the Policing Commission, which produced its report last month. One in Four, Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI), Irish Rape Crisis Centre Managers Forum, SAFE Ireland, and Womens Aid welcomed the creation of the Garda National Protective Services Bureau (GNPSB) and divisional units. One in Four, which works with adults sexually abused as children, said it had a close working relationship with the GNPSB and good relationships with senior gardai across the country. Writing its submission, executive director Maeve Lewis welcomed the major shift in the Garda culture to victims of sexual crime, from scepticism to support. It is our experience that the majority of gardai are able to carry out investigations both sensitively and professionally, she said. But she said that one of the most common frustrations and upset expressed by clients was lack of communication from the investigating garda, ranging from general updates to not communicating when a file has gone to the DPP or a decision by the latter. She said gardai may call to a client without due notice or meet them at an inappropriate place, which can be detrimental for clients. She said in one instance the garda gave the client information about an upcoming trial when they met at a traffic checkpoint. Ms Lewis said her organisation had noticed in recent years that many older, experienced gardai have retired and that younger, inexperienced gardai are investigating serious sexual crimes without undergoing specialist training or without adequate supervision. On occasion, our clients have raised concerns about the outcome of their case having been affected by a poor investigation, she said. We are also aware of a number of trials collapsing where it has been claimed by the defence that an inadequate investigation had taken place. She added: While it is rare, a number of our clients have been victims of what could be perceived to be negligence by members of the Gardai. Investigations have not been properly undertaken, cases have not been referred to the DPP, and files have been mislaid or lost. RCNI said progress included the GNPSB, rollout of local units, and increased resources in combating online sex offences. It said proactive contact by gardai with victims was important as well as full and accurate explanations about decisions by gardai, prosecutors, and judges. Irish Rape Crisis Centre managers forum also stressed the need to keep victims informed and for a consistent approach by gardai. It said the divisional units were a positive development but said only three of the 28 divisions had them. SAFE Ireland raised the issue of information and the need for adequate training for frontline responders. Womens Aid said the experience of female victims of domestic violence with gardai can vary from the excellent to the very negative. Brexit to exacerbate security threat Brexit will exacerbate threats to Irish security and an overstretched Garda Siochana will struggle to adapt to an expected increase in smuggling and terrorist activities, according to a security expert. Edward Burke, director of the Centre for Conflict, Security & Terrorism at the University of Nottingham, said that given the Garda Siochana is both a policing and security agency it prioritises criminal investigation over long-term intelligence gathering. In a submission to the Policing Commission, he called for a new intelligence service, a national security adviser and secretariat and, in the medium term, evolving the National Cyber Security Centre into a full signals intelligence agency. The commission published its report last month and proposed the creation of a National Security Co-ordinator and a new Strategic Threat Analysis Centre, but did not favour a new intelligence service. Mr Burke said according to the PSNI, 43% of organised crime activities, including paramilitaries, had a cross-border dimension. He said Brexit will exacerbate threats to Irish security as it would involve some physical infrastructure and that a customs border would create a market for criminal evasion. An over-stretched Irish police and security infrastructure will struggle to adapt and respond to an expected increase in an already worrying level of border smuggling and terrorism. He said securing the Common Travel Area will require significantly increased political attention, intensified bilateral security relations and an investment in capabilities. Mr Burke said Ireland had a limited capability to detect and monitor networks of international criminals or terrorists who operate in Ireland. He said the extent of reliance on the British signals agency (GCHQ), the British Security Service (MI5) and the National Crime Agency confirmed an impression of excessive dependency. Mr Burke said the European Commission had expressed growing concern that Ireland has been too slow to link up with critical EU crime and intelligence databases such as Schengen Information System II. A Government announcement that a pilot One House centre for children who have been sexually abused will open early next year has been welcomed by the Ombudsman for Children and support organisations. Under the plan, children who have been abused will be brought to the child-friendly centre in Galway where they and their family members will meet gardai, doctors, and social workers who will co-ordinate their assessments so the child does not have to repeat their experiences. It will mark a change to current practice, whereby children are interviewed by gardai and Tusla child protection social workers and may also need to have a forensic and medical examination. Those assessments can take place in different places at different times and may result in referrals to other services. Minister for Children Katherine Zappone, alongside Health Minister Simon Harris and Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan, announced the plan. I am delighted to say that the pilot centre for a new interagency service to work with children who have been sexually abused, and their families, will open in early 2019 in Galway, said Ms Zappone. This new approach is aimed at ensuring children are not re-traumatised by having to recount the details of their ordeal a number of times to different people. Together with the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection, Geoffrey Shannon, representatives from the gardai, the child and family agency, Tusla, and officials from Department of Justice, I have seen first-hand, similar approaches that are working well in New York, Northern Ireland, and Oxfordshire. Mr Flanagan said the One House model will bring together the forensic, protection, health, therapeutic and policing services in a child-centred way and should improve the efficiency and effectiveness of child sexual abuse services. The measure of the success of the project will be in how it assists those affected, he said. The Ombudsman for Children, Niall Muldoon, was among those to welcome the news. Young victims of abuse deserve the best possible services with the shortest possible delay in accessing them, said Dr Muldoon. Co-location of services to reduce the trauma endured by children who have already been abused makes sense and is an initiative that I have been advocating for some time. ISPCC CEO John Church said the new initiative could provide the level of support needed by children in this situation and which has not always been available to those in need. Mr Church said that he wanted to see the plan rolled out to other centres, while Rape Crisis Network of Ireland (RCNI) executive director Cliona Saidlear said: This is long overdue. This pilot is a new approach based on well-established best international practice, which seeks to ensure the aspiration of a child-centred response where the child receives support not further trauma, becomes a reality. By Ann O'Loughlin A 49-year-old man who sued over his care at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin has settled his High Court action for 5.9m. Brendan Doyle's counsel told the High Court a shunt which had been in Mr Doyle's brain since childhood was removed when he was admitted to Beaumont Hospital in 2011 but was not re-inserted and this had "tragic consequences" and he is now totally blind. Denis McCullough SC said for Mr Doyle, who has cerebral palsy and mild learning disabilities, it was the "final straw" and he has lived in a nursing home ever since. Approving the settlement Mr Justice Cross said it was a sad incident and it had a catastrophic effect on Mr Doyle. He said the settlement will look after Mr Doyle for the rest of his life and he noted the hospital had admitted liability and had taken a reasonable approach in relation to the future accommodation needs of Mr Doyle, who will now be able to move out of the nursing home. Brendan Doyle who currently resides at Lawson House, Glenbrien, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, had through his brother John Doyle sued the Beaumont Hospital over the circumstances of his care. Mr Doyle who has cerebral palsy and problems relating to this central nervous system had a shunt inserted in his brain in childhood. On June 1, 2011, he was complaining of a headache and vomiting and went to his local hospital in Wexford where he had a CT scan and was referred to Beaumont Hospital, Dublin. It was claimed that due to a suspicion Mr Doyle had sustained a shunt-related infection, the brain shunt was removed a few days later and it was decided it was not necessary to re-establish the shunt. Mr Doyle was discharged from Beaumont Hospital on June 10, 2011, with directions to continue antibiotic therapy and after a few days in his local hospital was discharged on June 16, 2011. It is claimed the next day he was back in the A&E of his local hospital complaining of increased weakness and he had a CT scan. He had another CT scan in July. Mr Doyle, who was complaining of headaches, was referred back to outpatients at Beaumont Hospital and in August 2011 his case was reviewed. It is claimed the impression was formed that the man's condition was improving and another CT scan was recommended for December 2011. In early September 2011, it is claimed Mr Doyle suffered loss of vision and was referred back to Beaumont Hospital where he underwent surgery. Notwithstanding the reinsertion of the brain shunt, Mr Doyle lost his eyesight. Brendan Doyles brother John, in a statement read outside the court by his solicitor Michael Boylan, said the family felt aggrieved liability was only admitted in January of this year, six-and-a-half years later. "Brendan has wasted almost seven years of his life in a nursing home with no effective rehabilitation programme, surrounded by elderly patients and having to wait for a call bell to be answered just so he can use the bathroom," the statement read. It said before this incident Brendan was very independent, he used bus services independently, wrote for his local newspaper and enjoyed lots of hobbies. "Before this he required supervision only, rather than care. Brendan was an active and contributing member of his community." The Doyles said the settlement will provide Brendan with a purpose-built home of his own and the 24-hour support he now needs. "We and Brendan would return every cent of this settlement were it to mean that he could see again but we hope that with therapy and proper rehabilitation, Brendan will, at least, once again become an active member of his community and begin to enjoy life once more. "We will leave Dublin now and return to Wexford to start putting arrangements in place so that Brendan will spend Christmas in a suitable home and can start the New Year with a care support package in place that will allow Brendan to surmount the challenges life has presented, as he has bravely done before." The Department of Health says it is working closely with the HSE to ensure the most effective response to the winter challenges after it was claimed the countrys already-stretched hospitals face another chaotic winter. A lack of emergency department resources, a lack of beds and a lack of recruitment will combine to create a perfect storm, according to the Irish Medical Organisation. This will lead to over 1,000 people being left on trolleys and a severely hampered health service, says IMO president, Dr Peadar Gilligan. This year 10m has been provided so hospitals can get patients home, where appropriate, before the end of the year, the Department of Health pointed out. There is a particular focus on supporting patients aged over 75 who no longer require acute care to leave hospital. Health Minister Simon Harris asked the HSE to ensure activity next year takes account of critical demand pressure, particularly in emergency departments. The department has stressed that increasing capacity is a Government priority. An additional 240 beds have been opened with a further 79 opening coming on stream towards the end of the year and early in 2019. The extra beds include an additional 30-bed ward in Our Lady of Lourdes in Drogheda, Co Louth, a 40-bed modular ward block in South Tipperary General Hospital, and four high-dependency beds each in the Mater Hospital in Dublin and Cork University Hospital. Also, a new emergency department planned for Our Lady of Lourdes Drogheda is due to open early next year. The department said a further 10m will be spent next year to alleviate pressure on EDs for next winter and the year ahead. The additional spending, yet to be finalised by the department in consultation with the HSE, is in response to recommendations in the Health Service Capacity Review. Dr Gilligan, an emergency medicine consultant in Dublins Beaumont Hospital, said 2,650 more beds are needed immediately as well as more specialists to care for patients in those beds. In an RTE radio interview yesterday, he pointed out that almost 2,000 beds had been taken out of the hospital system since 2006. As well as recruiting more consultants, there should be an end to the two-tier contract that leaves new consultants since 2012 earning 30% less than their colleagues. The IMO has also called for a widespread investment in general practice and primary care. Dr Gilligan said the IMO had long warned that resources cannot be removed without an impact on services. We will be told in January that it is a flu crisis or a winter crisis. It is not. It is a failure of policy, he said. Meanwhile, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation said 403 admitted patients waited in EDs and on wards for a bed yesterday. The worst-hit hospitals were University Hospital Limerick with 55 patients waiting; Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, Dublin, had 34 and Cork University Hospital had 31. On the same day last year, there were 359 patients waiting, according to the INMO. University Hospital Limerick had 57 patients, the highest number, followed by University Hospital Waterford with 35 and University Hospital Galway with 33. Cork University Hospital had 27. Politicians have called for an urgent investigation into hidden nursing-home fees. It has emerged that the HSE has been forced to pay out 105,000 to six families whose relatives were wrongly charged, for over a decade, for incontinence wear. The Dail Public Accounts Committee demanded the move after claiming that the HSE had to be dragged kicking and screaming into admitting the compensation payments, linked to a religious-run nursing home. In a letter to the PAC in recent days, the HSEs community operations section said it has paid out considerable sums, in response to alleged improper or illegal charging of residents. Citing the Brothers of Charity-run Loyola Lodge, in Co Roscommon, the HSE said that between 2002 and 2013, residents at the home were told to pay for incontinence wear, which should have been funded by the State. The situation which the HSE said was due to late 1990s advice from the then director of public health nursing meant that the cost of the incontinence wear was deducted from elderly peoples funds. The practice of charging ended in 2013, after a formal complaint by the family of one of the people who had been affected. The HSE has been aware of the issue of over-charging of service-users since 2013 and was involved in the decision to stop the charge, the HSE said in the letter to the PAC. The HSE area manager met with one of the families in 2014 to explain what had happened. In addition, a family referred the case to the ombudsman in November 2014. In 2018, 105,335 has been provided on a once-off basis to the Brothers of Charity to refund clients for the inappropriate charges for incontinence wear. The director of services in the Brothers of Charity service, Roscommon, has confirmed that all six service-users who were charged for incontinence wear have received a full refund. Fianna Fail TD and PAC member, Marc MacSharry, said the HSE had to be dragged kicking and screaming to admit what had happened and that there is a deeper problem here that this is covering. Calling for a wider examination, Fine Gael TD Kate OConnell similarly said that, from her previous work as a pharmacist, I have had reason to see that people are charged for other services, including packaging of medications, catheters and going to Mass. The PAC is expected to call for a meeting with Nursing Homes Ireland, the HSE, and other groups linked to the issue, when it returns from the Halloween break, next week. Concerns have previously been raised about illegal nursing-home charges and other costs, with minister of state for older persons, Jim Daly, warning, last month, that nursing-home residents and their families must be told of any hidden charges before they occur. Maurice McCabes retirement from An Garda Siochana today brings the curtain down on one of the most extraordinary careers seen in the force. His departure comes two weeks after the publication of the Disclosures Tribunal, which was followed by apologies from An Taoiseach, the minister for justice and the Garda commissioner. In the tribunal report, Judge Charleton described Sgt McCabe as having done considerable service for the State. The judge also noted that he is a genuine person who at all times has had the interests of the people of Ireland uppermost in his mind. The report and the reaction from the highest echelons of the State have brought a sense of closure for Sgt McCabe and his family. He can leave now knowing that a tribunal has determined not just that he did his job properly, but that there was a campaign to destroy his reputation because he exposed wrongdoing within the force. The result from the tribunal serves in its own way as an acknowledgement to him and his family of the pain they endured for more than a decade. In theory, his vindication and the opinion of the current commissioner that he had done a good job should have opened up the chance for him to continue on in the force. In reality, going back would present a massive challenge: Would there be embers of resentment towards him in some quarters? What of career advancement? If he were to be promoted would it be perceived as unfair by competitors? And, crucially, has the job on the ground changed in any meaningful way since the time he made his complaints? Despite the Cavan-based sergeants vocational love of the job, there was no way back. And after a decade of being under pressure, he and his wife quite obviously came to the conclusion that the best thing for them and their children at this stage is a clean break. Maurice McCabe wanted to be a guard since he was a child. In 1985, he joined at the second time of asking. The previous year he had been rejected because of his height. Over the following 19 years he would make steady rather than spectacular progress through the ranks. He served in Drogheda, Dundalk, Bailieboro and Clones as a guard until in 2000 he was appointed sergeant. Two years later he was elevated to sergeant-in-charge of the Clones station. What marked him out was an appetite for work, according to later testimony from those who knew him at the time, particularly superior officers. In 2004 he was approached and asked to apply for the job of sergeant-in-charge in Bailieboro, Co Cavan. Bailieboro was a tough brief. It was the main station in a busy district of seven stations. Despite repeated requests, Bailieboro wasnt provided with an inspector. The superintendents who served as district officers came and went McCabe served under six in the space of three-and-a-half years. All of this meant that a major responsibility fell back on him. He got on with the job and received major commendations from the first four supers he served under. Then came an allegation from the daughter of a colleague which Sgt McCabe has always believed was associated with his work. An investigation dismissed the allegation out of hand, but the whole affair and its aftermath left him shaken. A year later, frustrated at how standards had been slipping he made an official complaint. That was in January 2008. Little was he to know that his life would be irrevocably changed over the following years. He had broken the code of omerta in the force, and when the pressure came on he didnt back down. Judge Peter Smithwick, in a tribunal unrelated to Sgt McCabe, had opined that in An Garda Siochana loyalty is prized above honesty. That comment was coincidentally published in a report in 2013, at a time when Sgt McCabe was enduring the cost of putting honesty ahead of loyalty. An internal Garda inquiry upheld some of his complaints in 2010, and dismissed others but no effort at reform in Bailieboro was undertaken. To add insult to injury, the divisional officer posted a notice in every station in Cavan/Monaghan dismissing the allegations and giving the impression that the complaints had been groundless. Seven years after that was posted, retired chief superintendent Colm Rooney finally admitted at the Disclosures Tribunal that posting the notice had been a mistake. A similar routine developed in relation to the complaints Sgt McCabe made about road policing in 2012. An internal investigation largely dismissed the complaints. It was only when outside agencies examined both issues that the true picture emerged. Sgt McCabe was vindicated in both cases. Along the way, he and his family paid a high price for refusing to leave well enough alone. That has been acknowledged in the apologies from the Government and the new commissioner. It has also been reflected in the Disclosures Tribunal report which ruled that a campaign of calumny had been perpetrated against him by former commissioner Martin Callinan and former garda press officer, Superintendent David Taylor. The landscape in which An Garda Siochana operates has been changed utterly as a result of Sgt McCabes actions, his persistence, and the resistance to his efforts to highlight poor and shoddy work. Two ministers for justice and two commissioners left office along the way. The current commissioner, Drew Harris, is the first to be recruited from outside the State. One factor in his appointment is widely regarded to have been that he carried no baggage from within the force. A policing authority oversees the force. A commission on the future of policing was established and reported last month. The Garda ombudsman GSOC has greater powers than was the case prior to Sgt McCabes case hitting the public square. And one can only hope that ultimately all of this will lead to positive change in a cultural manner within the force. Only time will tell that. Before Maurice McCabe felt he had no choice but to highlight what was wrong on the job, he was just a garda trying to do his best in very difficult circumstances. One assessment of his performance in that regard came from former assistant commissioner Derek Byrne at the OHiggins commission, which investigated Sgt McCabes complaints of malpractice. Sgt McCabe is regarded as a highly efficient sergeant, competent, Byrne told Judge Kevin OHiggins. The judge added: That assessment is shared by the commission. Shared also, one suspects, by most of the country. Sgt Maurice McCabe was efficient in serving An Garda Siochana, and when the time came he was efficient in serving the State by illustrating what was wrong within the force. It was an extraordinary career. Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe is to retire from the force today. The Irish Examiner understands Sergeant McCabe met Assistant Commissioner Fintan Fanning at the weekend and applied to retire. As he has served the requisite 30 years, he is entitled to retire on a full pension. His application was accepted and will come into effect from 12am. His retirement comes three weeks after publication of the Disclosures Tribunal report in which Judge Peter Charleton described the Cavan-based sergeant as having done the state considerable service. Judge Charleton also ruled there had been a campaign of calumny against Sgt McCabe conducted for former commissioner Martin Callinan and former garda press officer Superintendent David Taylor. Earlier inquiries had largely vindicated the complaints of malpractice within the force which Sgt McCabe had made and which caused enormous pain for him and his family over a decade. Judge Charleton also concluded that there had been hostility towards Sgt McCabe in some quarters of An Garda Siochana. Following the publication of the Disclosures report, Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan apologised to Sgt McCabe on behalf of the State. The minister told the Dail that Sgt McCabe deserves the gratitude of all of us for bringing serious shortcomings to public attention. He also deserves an apology for what he had to endure, both him and his family over the past decade. The State is facing a significant payout to Sgt McCabe, who is also taking a case against Tusla, the child and family agency, after it grossly mishandled an erroneous allegation against him. Tusla has already formally apologised. In the Dail, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar reiterated his description of Sgt McCabe as a distinguished public servant. Mr Varadkar first made that observation in 2014 in response to a comment from Mr Callinan that the sergeants actions were disgusting. The intervention of the then minister for transport was seen as crucial in changing the approach to Sgt McCabe within government circles. I was in touch with him again to express my view that he has done enormous service to the State and to wish him and Lorraine the best into the future, Mr Varadkar told the Dail. Current Garda Commissioner Drew Harris also apologised to Sgt McCabe on behalf of An Garda Siochana. Last Wednesday, Mr Harris travelled to the McCabe family home in Co Cavan for a meeting with the couple. In recent years, as a result of fallout from the various inquiries into his complaints of malpractice and how they were handled by senior management, Sgt McCabe has been absent from his station on sick leave. Up until 2015, he had been a sergeant attached to Mullingar station and had been asked to head up the traffic unit there. However, following events at the OHiggins commission in 2015, he informed his district officer that he felt unable to take up the post. The Disclosures Tribunal ruled that then commissioner Noirin OSullivan had done nothing wrong at the OHiggins commission. In an interview on RTE following publication of the report, Sgt McCabe said he accepted the report in that regard. I accept that finding, but its a pity that she didnt say that to me back at the OHiggins commission, or meet with me when all this arose, he said. But I accept the finding. The Education Minister, Joe McHugh, has expressed his disappointment after primary school teachers rejected a pay offer for 'new entrants'. Up to 53% of INTO members voted against the proposals and the union's executive will meet next week to discuss a ballot for industrial action. Hundreds of people in mortgage arrears have reached settlements with their creditors through the Insolvency Service of Ireland (ISI) this year but the numbers applying for help has fallen. Up to the end of last month, 675 people had secured Personal Insolvency Arrangements (PIA) this year, enabling them to enter an agreement that combines debt write-downs, payments restructuring and spending restrictions with a 95% success rate in keeping them in their home. A further 272 secured other forms of agreements Debt Relief Notices or Debt Settlement Arrangements around other forms of debt. These numbers are likely to be similar to or slightly lower than last year by the time the picture for the full year becomes clear. However, it is already clear that the number of new applications for the debt resolution options offered by the ISI is down. By this time last year, there were 3,507 new applicants and 4,626 by the end of 2017. To date this year there are 2,750. That is despite Central Bank figures that show there are still more than 66,000 mortgages for family homes in arrears around the country, with more than half of them in arrears for more than a year. ISI head Lorcan OConnor said more could be helped. I encourage anyone with serious debt issues to consult a personal insolvency practitioner or an approved intermediary, he said. One of the criticisms of the PIA process is the banks have to agree to the arrangement and just half of all PIAs (51%) worked out are ultimately agreed. Mr OConnor said: The ISI is working closely with personal insolvency practitioners and creditors in a bid to increase the rate of Yes votes. Where a creditor votes no to a PIA, a debtor can still apply to court for the case to be reviewed and if the court deems it appropriate, have the arrangement confirmed. Meanwhile, wide regional variations have emerged in the numbers of debt solutions approved over the last four years. Waterford tops the list with 46.3 debt solutions per 10,000 adults, while Limerick has the lowest rate of just 10 per 10,000. The rate in Cork is 23.5. The ISI had no explanation for the differences. Plans to tell all parents affected by the schools safety crisis if the facility their child attends has fire and structural flaws have been delayed by a day or two. The Department of Education pushed back the deadline for informing families and also confirmed some children at affected schools will be sent to different facilities when they return from the mid-term break. Education Minister Joe McHugh said that while it had been hoped to confirm by yesterday evening which of the 42 schools built over the past decade by Western Building Systems are safe to re-enter, the deadline would not be met. Noting that initial site-based structural assessments must be followed by detailed analysis by engineers and department officials, he said clarity on the safety of the buildings will now not be fully known until Thursday tomorrow evening at the earliest. I am pleased with the progress being made on the programme of initial assessments, said Mr McHugh. I appreciate that parents, pupils, and staff are keen to hear results from inspections at schools and the department is confident that once further analysis is carried out by engineers and consultants we will be in a position to confirm decisions in the next day or two. The department said on-site work has begun at three schools Tyrrelstown Educate Together, St Lukes national school, and Gaelscoil Eiscir Riada to allow the three-storey buildings ground floors to re-open next week. However, the scale of the problems at the Dublin facilities means their remaining two storeys will stay shut, while less serious work is also commencing at Scoil Chaitlin Maude in Tallaght and the Castlemills Education Centre in Balbriggan. The department has appointed a contractor to mobilise in the event of internal and/or external interventions being required in more schools over the coming days. However, a spokesperson said that, even if no further problems are identified, displaced classes in affected schools will have to be sent to other facilities next week, with the department now arranging space and travel for those affected before the mid-term break ends. Both Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Mr McHugh were adamant late last week that the inspections would be concluded by last night, allowing a clearer picture to emerge over what is facing education authorities and affected families. In a statement last night, the firm at the centre of the scandal, Western Building Systems, which is based in Coalisland, Co Tyrone, repeated its claim that it is not responsible for safety errors at the schools it built for the State. We welcome the ongoing progress in the departments assessment of the 42 schools identified, said Western Building Systems in the statement. It is crucial for everyone that we better understand why schools previously certified as substantially complete and suitable for occupation and which also had defects certificates subsequently issued by the departments advisors are now being assessed by the department. Tanaiste Simon Coveney is visiting London and Paris today for talks focusing on Brexit. In London, he will meet with his UK counterpart Jeremy Hunt while in Paris the Tanaiste will meet with the French ministers for Foreign Affairs and European Affairs. Ahead of today's meeting, Minister Coveney spoke to the French news station France24, and said: "We're trying to come up with a complicated solution to preventing physical border infrastructure reemerging, potentially. "We need an insurance mechanism that that can't happen - that's the backstop." He said he does believe there will be a deal between the EU and UK before Christmas, explaining: "We can get this Irish border issue agreed as well. We're working towards a solution there that everybody can live with, and nobody feels threatened by. "A deal is needed now to try and create a calm, politically." Meanwhile, a trade mission of 45 Enterprise Ireland clients will get underway in China today. Business Minister Heather Humphries said it is important for companies to diversify as Britain leaves the EU. Ms Humphries said: "It's in our mind at the event all the time because what we want to do is to diversify our markets into other countries. "Asia is a big and growing economy and we have many Irish companies that can provide the necessary solutions for these companies abroad." As Halloween gets underway, Shane Cochrane looks at six ghosts that have made the headlines. Ireland is an island of ghost stories. But most of these stories will have been told many times before they were ever written down. And we can assume that they grew much with each telling. But sometimes the ghosts became news, and the eerie events were recorded as they were happening. Sometimes this timely gathering of facts helped solve the mystery. More often than not, as well see in the following stories, it just added to it. STONE COLD CRIMINAL For five weeks in 1853, the Cork police chased a ghost that was throwing stones at a house in the city. Officially, they were looking for a flesh and blood criminal. But given that the stone thrower appeared to be invisible and the victims lived in the cottage attached to the Quaker Cemetery, rumours that a ghost was responsible spread very quickly. After the first night of ghostly vandalism on September 8, hundreds began to gather at the cemetery each night in the hope of catching a glimpse of the ghost. But despite being surrounded by eager witnesses, the ghost managed to continue its nightly assaults unseen. The Royal Irish Constabularys Head Constable Crowley was desperate to solve the mystery. He had uniformed officers on crowd control duty and plain-clothes officers mingling with the crowds. He was questioning everyone who lived in the area and was even using his own money to pay bribes. But despite these efforts, the invisible stone thrower continued its nightly antics. It would take until October 14 to catch the ghost. And though, according to one newspaper, the ghost resembled a dirty looking Cinderella, it was very much alive. It was a seventeen-year-old girl called Catherine McCarthy and she worked as a servant in the house that was being stoned. A SLEEPOVER WITH A POLTERGEIST In July 1910, a poltergeist was tormenting the two men sharing a room at a boarding house in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford. Each night, soon after the candle in the room was extinguished, a strange tapping sound would be heard. Then, invisible hands would pull the quilts from the beds, before shoving the men on to the floor. On one occasion, as the two men cowered together on one bed, the vacant bed was raised to the ceiling, flipped, and gently lowered to the floor again. A local journalist volunteered to spend a night in the room. Shortly after retiring, the infamous tapping began. But it was soon drowned out by the cries of the journalists companion: The clothes are going off me. Good God, they are going off me. The journalist quickly lit a match, and then watched in horror as something unseen pulled the quilt from the bed. But worse was to come. When the room was once again in darkness, the tapping resumed; and once more it was quickly followed by the cries of the journalists companion. This time, the journalist found that his companion, wrapped in his sheet and quilt, had been lifted from the bed and lowered to the floor. Somehow, they stayed in the room until 3am. A GHASTLY GIANT GALWAY GHOST Much like the living, ghosts come in all shapes and sizes. But in 1908, an absolute giant was haunting a section of the Connemara railway line near the Corrib viaduct, Co Galway. On Saturday, November 14, as two local men were taking a shortcut across the tracks, a 9ft tall ghost came towards them in the darkness. Spooked, they ran home and told their friends. Some of these friends arrived at the site at midnight on Sunday and, armed with shotguns, a revolver, and some sticks, lay in ambush. When the ghost arrived, the man with the revolver immediately raised the gun to shoot. But some force stopped him pulling the trigger. Then he lost all power in his arm. And as the gun fell from his hand, he lost consciousness. On the Monday night, a group from Queens College, now NUI Galway, gathered at the site. One of them boasted that when the ghost appeared he would step forward and talk to it. Of course, when the ghost arrived the student became tongue tied and rooted to the spot. Which is a shame as it was the ghosts last appearance. INTERVIEW WITH THE GHOST On the evening of Sunday, January 17, 1932, police were called to Trinity Street, Belfast, where a crowd of 3,000 had gathered to confront a ghost at one of the houses there. On hearing this, a Northern Whig journalist left immediately for Trinity Street, not to cover the story, but to interview the ghost. When he got there, he elbowed his way through the crowd, charmed the policeman guarding the haunted house, and was soon chatting with the three families who called it home. The ghost, they explained, took the form of a thin man dressed in a dark robe, and it would move silently about the house, walking through walls in the traditional manner. And while the ghost was likely to be found in any part of the house, they believed it had taken up residence in the attic. The journalist convinced some of the residents to take him to the top of the house. And after traversing the barricade of string that some of the men had created to prevent the ghost from opening the doors and coming downstairs, they arrived in the darkness of the attic. Where they waited. And waited. But the ghost never came back. A PARANORMAL PUNISHMENT? For 10 days in January 1907, John McLaughlin, a 60-year-old farmer from Magilligan, Co Derry, was tormented by ghostly goings-on. It began with soot appearing, in thick deposits, over everything in his kitchen. And as quickly as he could sweep it up, it would reappear again. Then it began to rain stones in the kitchen. They would fall from the thatched roof, fly through the kitchen, and smash the windows on their way out. When the story spread beyond Magilligan and made the newspapers, it was met with disbelief. But one reporter who had travelled to the area to investigate the story was surprised to discover that the story was essentially true. He was even more surprised when he heard what might have caused McLaughlins troubles. It seems that immediately before the ghostly disturbances began, McLaughlin had cut a branch of holly, tied it to a rope, and used it to clean his chimney. It was a common enough practice at the time, but some of McLaughlins neighbours had warned him he would be punished for treating a gentle bush under fairy protection in this way. LETTERS FROM THE OTHER SIDE Traditionally, ghosts haunt one place at a time. But in May 1906, a poltergeist in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, was haunting two houses simultaneously. That wasnt the only unique thing about this spook. While it did many of the things youd expect of a poltergeist, like rapping the walls and moving furniture, this one could talk. On one occasion, as the police who had been called to investigate the haunting were leaving one of the houses, the ghost thanked them for coming, then chastised the homeowner for not making them tea. It could write, too. And it regularly wrote and delivered letters to both houses. One of the homeowners sat at his front door for three hours one day in the hope of catching the ghostly correspondent. Moments after hed given up his surveillance, a letter appeared. It read: There is no use in your watching; you wont catch me. The ghostly activity ended in June 1906 with a letter of apology: I am sorry for all the trouble I caused you. I beg your pardon, and I promise Ill never do it again. Yours truly, The Ghost. By Niall Murray Parents involvement with their childrens homework drops off significantly once they move into second-level school, according to new research. The study shows that most parents had some involvement in helping their 13-year-old children with their homework, but the level of such support has fallen since they were last surveyed four years earlier when their son or daughter was aged nine. For 80% of children who are being tracked by the Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) study, their primary caregivers, who are usually their mothers, know what type of homework they were being given at age 13. All but 3% of the 7,423 children surveyed at this age in 2012 were in second-level education, a slightly higher number being in second year than in first year. However, despite knowing about their homework, parents are far less likely to help with it after they move to second level. When asked four years earlier, when their children were nine, just over half said they help always or nearly always with homework and another 20% did so regularly. Four years later, however, just 8% of 13-year-olds primary caregivers give homework assistance always or nearly always, and only 15% did so regularly. Instead, the average parent helps now and again with their 13-year-olds homework, while 13% never help out and 25% do so only rarely. However, while 11.5% of primary caregivers in professional or managerial families said they never help with homework, that figure almost doubles to 22.5% if the primary caregiver has never been employed. Children in a one-parent household were also nearly twice as likely to never get help with their homework, as answered by 21.2% of their primary caregivers. Cillian Murphy, Childrens Minister Katherine Zappone, and Carrie Staunton at the launch of the ESRI Growing Up in Ireland report. The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) reports, however, that families were more likely to help with homework where the 13-year-old had a special educational need. More than one third (35%) did so always, almost always, or regularly, compared to a fifth of families whose child did not have a special need. Although not examined directly, it might be inferred that parents are more likely to help with homework where they feel more equipped to do so [e.g. because of their own level of education] or where the child needs help [e.g. children with SEN], said the report. Previous studies showed that informal involvement of parents in their childrens education has a greater influence on outcomes than formal involvement, and the GUI study examined the extent of different types of involvement by caregivers of 13-year-olds. There was slightly more knowledge of their childs schooling among those with daughters than those with sons, which was linked by the researchers to the far greater likelihood of girls to talk at home about school than boys. On the question of formal contact with schools, 88% of primary caregivers had been to a parent-teacher meeting in the past year, but less than two-thirds had attended a school concert, play, or other event. Irish less interesting and more difficult Irish is less interesting and more difficult than many other subjects for students in first year and second year. Asked about the extent to which they find four school subjects difficult, Irish emerges as the toughest. It is considered difficult by 24% of girls and 29% of boys, compared to next-hardest science, which 17% of boys and 21% of girls described as difficult. The findings are among the data in the education aspects of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) report, The Lives of 13-Year-Old which is the latest major analysis of the Government-funded Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) project. English is the easiest subject, with less than 5% of all 13-year-old survey respondents considering it difficult and more than 55% deeming it not difficult, with 40% categorising it as OK. There is little gender difference on language subjects, but maths or science are considered tougher by girls than by boys. Science is tougher than maths for all students but is considered difficult by 21% of girls compared to 17% of boys. Maths is considered difficult by 17% of girls, but just 11% of boys. The ESRI reported that perceived difficulty is higher for second-year students than those in first-year for maths (16% compared to 11%) and science (21% of second-years find it difficult, compared to 16% of first-years). However, there are no such differences in relation to English and Irish. The study also finds a strong link between childrens performance when they were aged nine and later perceptions of subject difficulty. Those with lowest reading scores four years earlier experienced more difficulty across all four subjects when they were 13, but the differences were smaller for English. Maths performance at age nine is linked to finding Irish, maths and science difficult at age 13, but there is no association with finding English difficult. Degree expectations vary widely Childrens expectations about getting a college degree vary widely depending on their social background from as young as 13, an extensive study has revealed. As part of the long-running Growing up in Ireland (GUI) research project, children are asked a range of questions about their experiences, including the transition from primary to second-level school. The latest major report from the project looked at the lives of Irish 13-year-olds, including their responses to questions around their own educational expectations. Just over half (54%) of all 13-year-olds expect to go on to obtain a college degree or higher qualification, according to the report published this month by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). However, there was a big drop when it comes to those with a special educational need, of whom just over one-third (37%) have their sights on a degree. A similar proportion of children whose primary caregivers (usually their mothers) are not educated beyond Junior Certificate do not themselves expect to get a third-level degree. However, the biggest gaps in expectation are between children of different social status. Just 39% of those from the one-fifth of households with the lowest incomes expect to receive a degree, compared to 64% from the highest income category. There are very similar expectation differences for children of parents who were never employed and those from a professional or managerial background. A students social class is also strongly linked to their enjoyment of school, a factor which is known from international studies to be predictive of later educational achievement. Although 29% of all 13-year-olds said they like school very much, this masks differences between those from different social backgrounds. The same highly positive attitude was held by 34% of those whose primary caregivers had a degree, but by just 24% if the caregivers highest qualification was Junior Certificate. Children with special educational needs also have less positive attitudes to school than their peers, as 25% said they like school very much, compared to 30% of other students. Gender emerged as one of the most strong determinants of attitudes to school, according to the ESRI report. It shows that girls are much more likely to like school very much than boys 34% compared to just 22%. Based on their own responses, boys are significantly more likely to misbehave at school or to be punished for behaviour issues. Nearly three-quarters of boys and 62% of girls said they had been messing in class at least once in the previous year. However 31% of girls got in trouble for not following school rules, much less than the 52% of boys, and the 27% of boys who had been given detention is nearly twice the 15% of girls. Just 4% of boys had been suspended but that is still double the rate for girls. The new tolerance in the US for bigoted commentary is behind the increase in anti-Semitic violence. It is why 11 Jews were killed in a synagogue this week, says Zach Schapira. On Saturday, the world awoke to the horrifying news of a synagogue shooting in the US city of Pittsburgh during Sabbath services. Robert Bowers, armed with an assault rifle and three handguns, charged into the sanctuary of the Tree of Life temple, yelling all Jews must die, before spraying bullets indiscriminately on the worshipers. He killed 11 and wounded six others. It is believed to be the deadliest attack on Jewish people in the history of the US. Debates are already raging about gun control, the death penalty, and security at houses of worship. But this tragedy, while similar to other recent mass shootings, is also very different. Coming on the heels of a record-breaking increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the US, it represents a continued escalation in violence against Jewish people. Emerging from a pattern of tolerated hate speech, it serves as a reminder that Americans must address the increasingly permissive environment in the US, which trivialises anti-Semitism. Shortly after the shooting, we learned that the murderer was active on Gab, a social network that advertises its protection of free speech above all else. In recent weeks, he posted comments, such as jews are the children of satan and there is no #MAGA, as long as there is a kike infestation. He called one member a deceptive little oven-dodger for debunking a rumour that trucks marked with the Star of David were bringing migrants to the US. Unsurprisingly, this did not appear to violate the platforms community guidelines, which reserve the right to police explicit calls for violence, but make no mention of hate speech. Though Bowers wrote screw your optics, Im going in just minutes before the shooting, it was too late. Only after the attack did Gab close the account and refer it to the FBI. (Gab was offline Monday, posting a message that it was under attack and inaccessible, while it transitioned to a new hosting provider.) Some may be comforted knowing that such disgusting speech is at least relegated to a small forum for bigots to blow off steam. But the problem is significantly greater. This isnt just the stuff of fringe, extremist websites. According to an extensive study by the Anti-Defamation League, some 3m users posted 4.2m English-language anti-Semitic items to Twitter between January 29, 2017, and January 28, 2018. Three million people, spewing hatred at Jews. In at least one prominent case, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan blamed societys moral decadence on the Satanic Jew and the synagogue of Satan and later quipped: Im not an anti-Semite. Im anti-termite. While Twitter removed his blue verification badge after the first tweet, they apparently did not find the second in violation of any existing policy. Following an uproar, Twitter said that it would not suspend Farrakhan or remove the offending tweets, because they did not violate Twitter policies at the time. Bigotry is contagious, and social media companies are failing in their obligation to curtail it. Anti-Jewish hate speech has also spilled out beyond the internet. Arthur Jones, an avowed Nazi, who told Politico he was running to fight a two-party, Jew-party, queer-party system, will be on the ticket for an Illinois congressional seat this November. One candidate for state office in North Carolina wrote on his campaign website that Jews were the descendants of Satan and that God is a racist and white supremacist. A candidate for the Missouri House of Representatives, during a radio talk show interview, said Hitler was right. This March, a councilman in Washington apologised for a comment accusing the Rothschilds, a prominent Jewish family, of being behind climate change. Additionally, though more nuanced, plainly anti-Semitic rhetoric is often disguised as criticism of Israel. US Congresswoman Betty McCollum has repeatedly accused the Israeli military of mistreating and abusing Palestinian children. Linda Sarsour a co-leader of the 2017 national Womens March on Washington accused Israel of being behind the killing of unarmed black people in the US. A presentation at the national conference of United We Dream Americas largest immigrant youth-led community accused Israelis of sterilising, imprisoning, and murdering Palestinians in order to maintain a majority of white Jewish people in Israel. While cloaked in language about Israel, these attacks quite clearly cross the line of legitimate criticism, flirting instead with blood libels that have been used for hundreds of years to justify persecution and violence against Jews. Saturdays bloodbath must serve as a wake-up call. Generation after generation, demagogues have poisoned minds, but society still underestimates the ability of words to arouse action. As human beings, our instinctive optimism lulls us into believing the Pittsburgh shooting was an isolated incident. And Americas reverence for the first amendment blinds the nation to the dangers of letting hate speech fester. If theres one lesson from Pittsburgh, its this: In all societies, hate speech breeds violence. It follows a predictable pattern, which begins with the dehumanisation and demonisation of a targeted group. Injustice, real or perceived, is then attributed to that group. Finally, crazed bigots set out to restore what they perceive as justice, with tragic consequences. The first two ingredients are firmly in place in the US today. Grievously, we witnessed Saturday what happens when you add the third. Zach Schapira is executive director of the Jaccuse Coalition for Justice, a non-profit organisation dedicated to combating anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias. Burma Analysis: Muse-Mandalay Railway Agreement with China Raises Debt, Conflict Fears A road between Mandalay and Lashio in Shan State. / The Irrawaddy YANGONEven as Laoss planned railway connecting southern China with northeast Thailand comes under scrutiny due to its huge cost and uncertain benefits, Naypyitaw has agreed to conduct a feasibility study on a high-speed railway project that would link two economic centers in Myanmar as part of Beijings grand infrastructure plan for the region. Critics of the rail project warn that it could saddle Myanmar with unsustainable debts, and point out that the route passes through conflict zones. By approving the feasibility study despite these concerns, the government has again signaled its willingness to cooperate with China in its bid for economic supremacy in the region. Two state-owned companies, China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group (China Railway Group Ltd) and Myanmar Railways signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) last week to begin studying a proposed railway line from Muse, in northern Shan State, to Mandalay. The rail link would form part of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), which is itself a part of Chinas ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), President Xi Jinpings signature foreign policy unveiled in 2013. The BRI would create a trade network of more than 70 countries in Asia, Africa and Europe. Muse and Mandalay are envisioned as key hubs in a plan to improve connectivity in Southeast Asia, so the proposed railway is viewed as economically and strategically important for both sides. Muse sits on Myanmars border with Yunnan province in southwestern China, and is the largest trade portal between the two nations, while Mandalay is central Myanmars commercial center and the countrys second largest city, so the railway could become a lifeline for China-Myanmar trade. Another component of the BRI announced by Beijing is the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIM-EC). Encompassing the CMECwhich the two countries formally committed themselves to developing in an MoU signed in Septemberthis route from Kunming, China to Kolkata, India would follow the ancient Southern Silk Road trading route through Myanmar and Bangladesh. Beijing plans to build a parallel expressway and railway from Ruili to Kyaukphyu with a separate road running through northern Myanmar, the northeast states of India and Bangladesh. The 1,700km CMEC runs from Kunming to Mandalay, then east to Yangon and west to the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in western Rakhine State. China has already succeeded in renegotiating its stake in the SEZ, where it plans to build a deep seaport and which already serves as the terminus for twin cross-border oil and gas pipelines between the two countries. Longtime Myanmar observer U Maung Maung Soe told The Irrawaddy, After the government agrees to move forward the Kyaukphyu SEZ, the railway project is unavoidable. Rail is the fastest way to transport goods. But mostly it will benefit China. He added that, The important thing is who will take control of the railway; it is important that Myanmar establish control of railways in its own territory. The proposed railway link is not the first between the two countries. In 2011, Beijing and Naypyitaw signed an MoU to build a railway between Muse and Kyaukphyu. According to Chinese media reports, China Railway Group was to be in charge of building the rail line from Ruili in southwestern Yunnan Province to Kyaukphyu via Muse. The entire rail line was to run 810km. Under the terms of the MoU, the project was to have been completed at a total estimated cost of $20 billion in less than three years. However, the government of then-President U Thein Sein suspended the project following strong local objections. In 2014, the agreement expired and the railway project remains in limbo. China has since completed a stretch of line from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, to Ruili, to be connect with Myanmar in the future. China later approached the government led by State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, asking it to consider building a railway from Muse to Mandalay as the initial part of Chinas strategic railway link from Ruili to Kyaukphyu. China Railway Group proposed the feasibility study for the line from Muse to Mandalay in May 2017, according to the Myanmar Transport Ministry. To assist the study, the ministry asked for recommendations from the Shan and Mandalay chief ministers, and related ministers. In June, both sides worked on the MoU draft. On Oct. 2, a government economic committee gave the Ministry of Transportation and Communications the green light to sign the MoU. Under the agreement, China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group will cover the full cost of the study, which will assess the environmental and social impacts of the proposed railway line. While the agreement calls for a study period of two years, Union Minister of Transport and Communications U Thant Zin Maung said Myanmar expects to finish it within one year. Though the MoU only commits the two sides to begin a feasibility study, the minister said the railway is a priority project and part of Myanmars national transport master plan. The minister said Myanmar is in the process of implementing five priority transportation corridors. The Muse-Mandalay railway would be part of the South Transportation Corridor section of the Trans Asian Railway Network (TAR), a project implemented by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. Myanmar and China expect to link with the eastern states of India via this route. The Mandalay-Muse railway project will be 431km (268 miles) long, with trains running at speeds of 160 km per hour, the ministry said. The journey from Mandalay to Muse would take roughly three hours. Currently, Mandalay is connected to Muse via Lashio by the national highway. The drive normally takes more than eight hours. There is an existing 313 km meter-gauge railway from Mandalay to Lashio. Since 2017, as a key project of the China-Myanmar railway, a standard gauge line has been under construction from Ruili, in western Yunnan Province, across the border from Muse and around 140 km from Lashio, according to the New China TV. New China TV reported in August 2017 that Chinese engineers are drilling one of the worlds longest rail tunnelsthe 34.5-km Gaoligong Mountain Tunnel in southwest Chinas Yunnan province. It will be part of a railway that will eventually connect China and Myanmar. According to the ministry statement, the proposed route will connect the Ruili East Railway and run to Muse, Lashio, Kyaukme, Pyin Oo Lwin and end in Mandalay. Chinese Ambassador Hong Liang said the project would support the BRI and CMEC while promoting peace and stability in northern Myanmar. In June, U Thaung Tun, the Union government minister and national security adviser, told the South China Morning Post that a railway project linking Ruili and Mandalay would start quite soon. He said it had potential to extend to Yangon and Kyaukphyu. Although both sides have voiced confidence in the project, regional experts warned that it will face many challenges, particularly the armed conflicts in project areas and resistance from local people who have negative sentiment toward China based on past impressions of the countrys investment in the country. It could easily provoke more fighting in those areas, not necessarily because of the construction of the railway itself but because troops will be brought in to provide security for the project, so it is almost inevitable that there will be fighting when the Myanmar Army engages clearance operations along the railway route, longtime Myanmar observer Bertil Lintner told The Irrawaddy. And who will the workers be? Will China, as usual, bring in their own labor, or employ local people? If they bring in Chinese labor, there is bound to be resentment among local people along the railway route, he said. It is also likely that land will be confiscated to make way for the railway, and people are not going to like that, he added. Experts point to broad pushback against Chinas BRI projects from Malaysia and Sri Lanka to Zambia. The NLD-led government should bear this global pushback against China in mind and use it as leverage when dealing with China, they say. Some of the BRI projects have been slow to get off the ground, while others have been criticized for creating unsustainable debts for the host countries. According to a March 2018 report by the Washington-based Center for Global Development, China is putting many countries involved in the BRI at financial risk through a series of aid activities and huge amounts of lending. Amid increased pressure on Myanmar from the West due to the Rohingya crisis in Rakhine State, the government has grown more agreeable to involvement in the BRI. The Rohingya crisis, and the Wests condemnation of what has happened in Rakhine State, have pushed Myanmar back into the hands of the Chinese, and the Chinese are taking full advantage of the situation to advance [their] own interests, Lintner said. In recent months, Naypyitaw has signed an MoU committing itself to the USD2-billion CMEC, but key questions remain over ownership, operation, project terms and financing, and whether Myanmar can afford the BRI infrastructure projects. Thitinan Pongsudhirak, associate professor at the Institute of Security and International Studies in the Faculty of Political Science at Bangkoks Chulalongkorn University, told The Irrawaddy, Myanmar has time on its side. It can study and review other similar projects and maximize its own national interests. There is no need to rush, and Chinas bargaining power now appears less than it used to be in view of being pushed back in many countries. The head of the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation has warned that the BRI was creating a debt trap for many poor nations. According to Thitinan, Debt avoidance and public benefit for Myanmar should be the key criteria. Burma Bangladesh, Myanmar Set Date For Start of Rohingya Repatriation Rohingya refugees cross the Naf River with an improvised raft to reach Bangladesh on Nov. 12. / Reuters NAYPYITAW The first 2,000 mainly Rohingya refugees sheltering in Bangladesh will start returning to Rakhine State on Nov. 15, Myanmars social welfare, relief and resettlement minister, U Win Myat, told reporters in Naypyitaw on Wednesday. He said U Myint Thu, permanent secretary of Myanmars Foreign Affairs Ministry, settled on the date during a meeting in Dhaka on Tuesday with Bangladeshi Foreign Secretary M. Shahidul Haque. Both governments agreed at yesterdays meeting that the Myanmar government will receive 150 people per week and they would come through the Ngakura entry point, U Win Myat said. Ngakura is located along Bangladeshs border with Rakhine States Maungdaw Township. The social welfare minister said Myanmar assured its neighbor that after many delays it was now safe for the refugees to return, nearly a year after they agreed in principle to repatriate the 700,000 mostly Rohingya who have fled Rakhine since late August, 2017, to escape a military crackdown. Bangladesh has to date given Myanmar a list of just over 8,000 refugees it says have volunteered to return. On a visit to the refugee camps in Coxs Bazar on Wednesday, U Myint Thu said Myanmar has so far vetted and verified 5,000 of them as former residents of Rakhine. During the secretarys visit to the camps, a Rohingya community leader, Abdul Rahim, said Myanmar should grant the returning refugees equal rights and issue them national ID cards, not national verification cards, which the Rohingya say block their path to citizenship. He also urged the international media to monitor the repatriations and resettlements carefully. U Tun Kyi, a Muslim and former political prisoner who lives in Yangon, said Rohingya who fled Myanmar deserve full citizenship rights on their return. When you listen to the voices of the refugees from the camps, they have made demands. If they truly lived in those places [in Myanmar], they have the right to become citizens. If they are eligible to become citizens, they must be entitled to the full rights of a citizen, he said. And while some have argued that the Rohingya crisis is isolated to northern Rakhine, U Tun Kyi said the international pressure the militarys alleged human rights violations have brought to bear on Myanmar was affecting the entire country. Only when the refugees know that they can come back safely and shape their futures will the international pressure subside, he said. U Pe Than, an Arakan National Party central committee member, said the government had to make sure that any refugees involved in the militant attacks on security posts in Rakhine State that triggered the military crackdown are not allowed to return. Accepting the refugees alone wont help to decrease the international pressure, because it [the international community] is ambitious, he added. There will be more pressure to ensuring their citizenship and related rights and to accept the term Rohingya. The government of Myanmar does not consider the Rohingya an ethnic group. It refers to them as Bengali, implying they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, even though many have lived in Myanmar for generations. Myanmar has agreed to accept the UNs help in speeding up the repatriation process and formed an ad hoc commission to investigate alleged human rights violations in northern Rakhine following the August 2017 militant attacks. The UN says there are now 887,661 refugees from Myanmar living in the Coxs Bazar camps, driven out of Rakhine by the violence late last year and by earlier bouts of communal violence. Bangladesh puts the number at 1,118,578. Additional reporting from Dhaka by Muktadir Rashid. The original version of this story mistakenly referred to the agency involved as the Rural Development Department. The correct name of the agency is the Rural Road Development Department. The six accused are currently facing trial in Yangon. Last month, the ACC filed cases against the attorney general of Yangon Region and five other officials including a judge, law officers and a police officer for accepting more than 70 million kyats (nearly USD46,300) to drop cases against three suspects in the murder of Facebook comedian Aung Yell Htwe. Founded in 2013, the ACC has stepped up its activities since U Win Myint was sworn in as president in March. He has vowed to fight the countrys chronic corruption. Cases were opened against the men under Articles 56 and 63 of the countrys Anti-Corruption Law. If convicted, the deputy director faces a maximum of 10 years in prison. The clerk is accused of being an accomplice to the alleged graft. The anti-graft body announced Wednesday that U Aung Myint Kyaw, the departments deputy director in Mandalay, and clerk Daw Thuzar demanded more than 10.278 million kyats in office expenses from six companies that won tenders to build roads in rural areas. YANGONCorruption charges have been filed against a deputy director and a clerk of the Rural Road Development Department who allegedly abused their positions to demand more than 10 million kyats (USD6,200) in bribes, Myanmars Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) said. Anti-Corruption Commission Chairman U Aung Kyi delivers an address at the Anti-illicit Trade Forum 2018 in Naypyitaw in September. / ACC Anti-Corruption Commission Chairman U Aung Kyi delivers an address at the Anti-illicit Trade Forum 2018 in Naypyitaw in September. / ACC Global Pressure Mounts on Myanmar to Act on Accountability in Rakhine Crisis Former Malaysian PM Najib Faces Six More Corruption Charges over State Funds No Deals on Secession, Military Integration Without Consent of Shan People: RCSS Ten Things to Do in Yangon This Week Indonesia Hunts For Victims, Wreckage of Air Crash; Survivors Seen Unlikely Govt Says Karen Armed Group Not to Blame For Stalled Peace Process First Group of Rohingya to Be Repatriated Next Month From 'Cardboard Nannies' to 'Fruit Money': Fast-Paced Hong Kong Slow to Adapt to Its Elderly Only a Peace Approach Can End the Cycle of Conflict in Myanmar Thousands of Refugees Arrive in Lashio After Fleeing Clashes in Northern Shan We do not encourage viewing this site in this width. Please increase the size of your window. News EU Delegates Encounter Broad Show of Opposition to Ending Trade Preferences A garment worker makes clothes at a factory in Yangon. / The Irrawaddy YANGONA visiting EU delegation has encountered vocal opposition to the possible withdrawal of trade preferences in numerous meetings with a wide range of government officials, union leaders, businesspeople and garment workers as it starts its mission to examine human rights and labor conditions in Myanmar. From Monday to Wednesday, the joint mission of the European Commissions trade arm and the EUs diplomatic service met with numerous officials from government ministries and labor organizations as part of its investigation of the crisis in Rakhine State, as well as labor rights and workplace conditions. In Naypyitaw on Tuesday, EU delegation members met with high-level officials from 10 ministries: Home Affairs; Foreign Affairs; the Ministry of the State Counselors Office; Information; the Ministry of the Office of the Union Government; Labor, Immigration and Population; Industry; Commerce; Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement; and Union Attorney Generals Office. According to a government statement, Myanmar officials made a strong appeal to the delegation to consider the impact on ordinary working people if the EU were to withdraw Myanmars tariff-free import status, a move they said would leave more than 400,000 people jobless, mostly women working in the garment sector. The arrival of the EU monitoring mission follows a statement by EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom on Oct. 5 warning that Myanmar could lose its Everything but Arms (EBA) status over human rights violations alleged in a UN fact-finding missions report. Part of the EUs Generalized System of Preferences, the EBA scheme allows participating countries to export any goods except weapons to the EU tariff-free. According to a statement from the Ministry of Information, U Thaung Tun, the minister of the Office of the Union Government, and Helena Konig, deputy director general of the EUs Directorate General of Trade, held a separate meeting in Naypyitaw on Tuesday. They had an open discussion about the EBA scheme, the ministry statement said. In separate meetings with the EU delegates, Myanmar government officials, lawmakers, labor policy experts, academic scholars and members of the business community have voiced strong disagreement with the idea of the EU withdrawing trade preferences. According to the Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association (MGMA), the EU is Myanmars largest partner in the garment sector. Brussels lifted duties on goods from Myanmar in 2013, and the EU now purchases more than 47 percent of the countrys garment products. The second-largest buyer is Japan, which purchased 27 percent of Myanmars garments in 2017. The garment sector accounts for 71 percent of overall exports to the EU and employs more than 450,000 people, according to the MGMA. It is the most labor intensive of the countrys major industries. Historian U Thant Myint-U attended a private meeting with the EU delegates in Yangon on Monday. U Thant Myint-U did not disclose to the media what was discussed at the meeting, but told The Irrawaddy the meeting was a very open and engaging discussion on many aspects of the situation in Myanmar. Revoking Myanmars GSP privileges would be an unmitigated disaster that must be avoided, he said. Myanmars had its fair share of tragedies these past years; one of the few really good stories has been the growth of the garment sector, providing jobs to hundreds of thousands of otherwise impoverished young women, he said. The EU has been a good friend of Myanmar and I understand why they are reviewing their relationship. But revoking the GSP would be a kind of collective punishment against some of the most vulnerable people in Myanmar society; young women who are finally able to help themselves and help their families, he added. EU delegates also met with representatives of the Myanmar Confederation of Trade Unions and the Myanmar Infrastructure, Craft and Service (MICS) organization at the EUs office in Yangon on Monday. During the meeting, representatives of both organizations said targeting ordinary Myanmar people is not the right way to apply pressure over alleged human rights violations in the country. MICS vice president U Naw Aung told EU mission officials that Myanmars workers had faced rights violations for many years. However, conditions had improved recently, he said. We dont want to see the current conditions devastated. If the EU withdraws trade preferences, its support for our countrys democratic reform would be fruitless, he said. U Naw Aung said he asked the EU officials, Do you think withdrawal of the trade preferences is the only way to solve the problems in Rakhine and Kachin states? On the same day, the delegations held a meeting with garment factory owners and major exporters to the EU at the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI). The meeting was also attended by 22 garment workers, who were asked about their incomes and working and living conditions. UMFCCI vice president U Mg Mg Lay told The Irrawaddy the federation opposes the EUs possible withdrawal of trade preferences. He said, I also object personally. It doesnt support Myanmars transition to democracy. The move will badly hurt ordinary women and also dent the confidence of foreign investors, U Mg Mg Lay said. If the EU decides to withdraw trade preferences, it would be hard to believe that the EU supports Myanmars democratic transition in a positive way, U Mg Mg Lay added. Prominent lawmakers also warned that a halt to EU trade preferences would cause widespread harm by throwing Myanmars civilian government into another crisis as it attempts to implement economic reforms after more than six decades of international isolation under military dictatorship. The EU officials told Myanmar that the decision-making process would take months, and promised they would carefully investigate human rights violations, and whether Myanmar had committed labor rights violations and followed international law and regulations. In Naypyitaw, EU delegates also discussed accountability for human rights violations, promotion of collaboration with UN organizations, humanitarian aid to Kachin, Rakhine and Shan states, the repatriation process for Rohingya in Rakhine State, press freedom and the improvement of labor rights and protections, according to the Ministry of Information. UMFICC joint secretary Daw Khine Khine Nwe said the organization welcomed the EU delegations visit, but added that, After meeting with stakeholders here, I hope they will report back their findings with proper consideration. News Ex-Child Soldier Aung Ko Htwe Acquitted of Latest Charge Aung Ko Htwe arrives at Dagon Seikkan Township Court in Yangon on Jan. 17. / The Irrawaddy YANGON Aung Ko Htwe, a former child soldier in the Myanmar Army, was acquitted of violating the Union Seal Law by a court in Yangons Botahtaung Township on Tuesday, according to his lawyer. Aung Ko Htwe, who is serving a two-year prison sentence for incitement handed down in March, was facing another three years in jail after police charged him under Section 7 of the Union Seal Law for allegedly standing on a copy of the Constitution during a protest. The court did not find that he stepped on the Constitution and the prosecutor could not even prove that he stepped on the book. Therefore, he was acquitted of the second charge, Robert San Aung, Aung Ko Htwes lawyer, told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday. We welcome the courts decision. The lawyer said he would write to President U Win Myint to ask that his client be absolved of his standing conviction. Both local and international rights groups have condemned the incitement case against Aung Ko Htwe and urged the government to secure his release. In 2005, at the age of 14, Aung Ko Htwe was abducted at Yangons central railway station and forced into military service, according to his family. After two years he escaped with two other men. While making their getaway, however, the owner of a motorbike they were stealing was strangled to death. Aung Ko Htwe denied responsibility. All three were charged with murder, convicted and sentenced to death. In 2013, however, Aung Ko Htwe had his sentence commuted to life in prison and was released in July 2017, after 10 years in jail. He was rearrested late last year after the military charged him with incitement for an interview he gave Radio Free Asia in which he claimed he was abused by authorities during his first trial. News Thousands of Refugees Arrive in Lashio After Fleeing Clashes in Northern Shan Villagers arrive at Mansu Monastery in Lashio on Tuesday after fleeing fighting in northern Shan State. / Charity Without Borders / Sipaw MANDALAYAbout 2,000 villagers from northern Shan State arrived in Lashio on Tuesday after fleeing armed clashes between the Restoration Council of Shan State/Shan State Army South (RCSS/SSAS) and the Shan State Progressive Party/Shan State Army North (SSPP/SSAN). Residents of Ei-Naing, Pan Pone, Kalar and Nang Har villageslocated just 13 miles from Lashioand Man Pyein, Namt Taung and Maing Taung villages in Namtu Township arrived in the state capital amid intensifying fighting. There are 1,402 refugees currently taking shelter at Mansu Monastery in Lashio. More than 500 others are taking shelter at Kachin Baptist and Roman Catholic churches, said Ma Kaythi, a member of the Lashio Charity group, which is helping the refugees. Local charities, civil society groups and local authorities were supplying the refugees with food, water, sanitary products and clothing. There is no need for [additional] aid yet, but we are worried that if the fighting continues, the childrens schooling will be disrupted, Ma Kaythi said. According to the groups helping the refugees, among the refugees are dozens of children whose schools have been closed by the fighting. The refugees initially took shelter at monasteries and churches located in villages neighboring their own. However, as the fighting between the RCSS/SSA and SSPP/SSA become more severe in recent days, they decided to flee to Lashio. The SSPP soldiers frequently entered the church and monastery where we sheltered in recent days, so we no longer felt safe staying there. Our village chiefs suggested we go to Lashio, so we all moved out here, said Ma Khun Nu, a resident of Ei-Naing who initially took refuge at a church in her village. We hope the fighting will end very soon so that we can go back home, she said. Fighting over territory between the RCSS/SSAS and SSPP/SSAN near Lashio erupted last weekend, displacing more than 500 people from five villages. Additional clashes over territory near Namtu Township between the RCSS/SSAS, SSPP/SSAN and Taang Nationalities Liberation Army (TNLA) that broke out last week have displaced about 750 people from eight villages. Guest Column Only a Peace Approach Can End the Cycle of Conflict in Myanmar State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi greets RCSS Chairman U Yawd Serk at a meeting between the Union government and Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement signatories on Oct. 16 in Naypyitaw. / State Counselors Office Historically, the peace process in Myanmar has been dominated by men. Peace talks have focused on security as the main factor in ending conflict. In the past, negotiations between the military government and insurgent groups including the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) followed a familiar pattern: Insurgent groups demanded autonomy for their states and recognition of their ethnic armies; the military government rejected those demands and the peace talks broke down. In The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Burma, Swedish journalist Bertil Lintner writes about the failures of peace talks in 1963 and 1980s. He observes that in 1981, Kachin rebel leader Brang Seng declared that his troops were willing to lay down arms if the government granted autonomy to Kachin State, stressing that separation was no longer an issue. But the rebels were offered rehabilitation onlyno political concessions were forthcoming, and the talks eventually broke down. The cessation of armed conflict was the focus of the negotiations, but this was not sufficient to achieve genuine conflict resolution. The root causes of the conflict, such as historical context, ideological divide and political will, were not given priority in the peace process between male-dominated armed groups. In their book Equal Opportunity Peacekeeping, Sabrina Karim and Kyle Beardsley discuss three different masculinitieswarrior masculinity, protective masculinity, and militarized masculinityas the main obstacles to negotiating peace. These masculinities are frequently on display in speeches by Myanmar military commander-in-chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. In his opening speech to the Third Session of the 21st-Century Panglong Peace Conference earlier this year, he stated that We, the government and the Tatmadaw [Myanmars military], are actively leading the peace process[but] not because we are weak. Drawing attention to the power imbalance between the Myanmar military and EAOs doesnt help the peace process; it only creates more doubt in the minds of EAO leaders about the militarys desire for peace. And in the most recent peace talks involving the government, the Tatmadaw and EAOs that are signatories to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), the military chief again warned EAOs not to abuse the NCA. The NCA shouldnt be misappropriated. If there is a misappropriation, the Tatmadaw, which is responsible for protecting the lives and property of ethnic people, will not just stand by and do nothing. His statement clearly showed the protective norms of the military with regard to ethnic people. Yet dozens of EAOs operate under a similar protective norm vis-a-vis their own people and territory. Furthermore, the Tatmadaw holds firm to the principle of non-secession, based on one of the three main national causes, the non-disintegration of the Union. The concept originated from a security point of view in regards to perpetuation of sovereignty. A guarantee of non-secession is a one-sided demand of the Tatmadaw, General Yawd Serk, the chairman of the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS/SSA), said during a recent interview with The Irrawaddy. Turning this demand back on the military, Gen. Yawd Serk commented that We also have a question for the Tatmadaw: Will they promise not to stage another military coup if they are [sincere about] building a federal democratic nation? Gen. Yawd Serks question demonstrates the EAOs concern with security, and illustrates the degree to which the Tatmadaws willingness to grant autonomy to the ethnic states influences to issue of non-secession. The Tatmadaws concerns are of a similar nature. The 2008 Constitution was drafted to protect the military and gives it the right to independently administer and adjudicate all affairs of the armed forces. Negotiations based on security concerns alone lead to deadlock in peace talks. We have no areas of compromise, which is why there is no mutual trust. We are acting based on our own principles, Gen. Yawd Serk. The masculinity-influenced security approach is a key obstacle to the success of peace talks among these groups of warriors. After 70 years of shooting at one another, they are still fighting a war of words with no room for compromise. And the peace talks are only getting more complicated. In 1963 there were only four guerrilla groups. Today, there are many. In the space of five decades, four main guerrilla groups mushroomed into 24, including breakaway ethnic armed groups and newfangled militias across the country. The NCAs political roadmap, drafted under the Thein Sein government, is also based on a security approach. It contains three main steps: signing the NCA, holding a national political dialogue, and negotiating security reintegration matters. If we look at peace talks from 1963 to 2015, we can see that both the Tatmadaw and the EAOs have held fast to the security approach, leaving them trapped in a cycle of conflict. Women can play a leading role After the National League for Democracy (NLD) won the 2015 election by a landslide, its leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi became the state counselor and, for the first time in Myanmars history, a woman took a leading role in the countrys peace process. Daw Aung San Suu Kyis administration has tried to change the peace process from a security approach espoused by armed men to the peace approach. As a woman, and therefore perceived as a natural peacemaker, she has tried to kill two birds with one stone: the peace process and constitutional amendment. The NLDs roadmap for national reconciliation and the Union peace process is not based on security matters but rather cites constitutional amendment and building a democratic federal union, both of which can lead to multi-party general elections. It sounds promising, but in fact it is rather vague and unrealistic. But it is not a new concept. It is based on sub-para (d) of Paragraph 22 of the NCA, which holds that all decisions adopted by the Union Peace Conference shall be the basis for amending, repealing and adding provisions to the Constitution and laws, in line with established procedures. During the constitutional amendment campaign in 2014, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her fellow party members said that the undemocratic 2008 Constitution creates inequality between the military and people, and called for it to be amended. The basic principle of unity is equality. This country can become a genuine federal union only if we have equality. Where can equality be started? We have to start from the Constitution, as it is a foundation of the country, she said. Daw Aung San Suu Kyis government maintains that peace is the best approach to security and conflict transformation. But for the groups who are mainly concerned with security, this approach is fraught with complications and requires time. Moreover, many people involved in the peace process think it is unrealistic to expect that it will be concluded by 2020. Johan Galtung, founder of the Oslo, Norway-based International Peace Research Institute, asserts that the peace argument against the security approach is strong: It works like a bandage over a festering wound. The conflict formation of parties with goals with too many incompatibilities has to be transformed into a peace formation by bridging the legitimate goals non-violently, empathically, creatively. An untransformed conflict will reproduce violence sooner or later. Because of the divergent approaches taken by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the Tatmadaw, some EAOs are confused about whether they should sign the NCA. The Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) is one of the EAOs that remain undecided as to whether to sign the NCA. The Tatmadaws principle is to lay down arms after a national political dialogue. Then we have to take part in the elections. The Tatmadaw wants us to abandon armed struggle. But the NLD wants us to work together to amend the Constitution. As the Tatmadaws principle is to protect this Constitution with its life, their principles are different. So no matter which side we take, we will face one problem or another, KNPP second secretary Khu Daniel told the author during an interview. The Tatmadaw seems unhappy with the NLDs actions, and with the dual process of constitutional amendment and peacebuilding. In his speech, Sen-Gen. Min Aung Hlaing voiced displeasure at the notion of amending the Constitution. We agree in principle with amending and supplementing the really necessary provisions of the Constitution with the aim of achieving lasting peace. But it would be difficult for us to agree to amending and supplementing the Constitution and other laws with the intent of serving [specific groups] self-interest and abusing the NCA, the military chief said. Nonetheless, the Tatmadaw still has to follow the political framework of the NCA drafted by Thein Seins government, because the international community is involved in Myanmars peace process and has recognized the agreement. Before 2016, the NLD led the discussion on the constitutional amendment issue, but now ethnic people and EAOs have started talking about amending the Constitution and putting the military under the civilian governments control. Amend the undemocratic 2008 Constitution and drafting federal principles should be done in parallel, not sequentially, because they are equally important. The DDR (disarmament, demobilization and reintegration) and SSR (security sector reform) approaches failed because of a lack of specific principles or an appropriate Constitution. During the transition from the security approach to the peace approach, the peace process got stuck and made no progress. Somehow, we have reached the third anniversary of the NCA signing ceremony, making it the longest peace process in Myanmars history. In mid-October, senior leaders of the government, the Tatmadaw and 10 NCA signatory EAOs attended the first round of special peace talks focusing on deadlock issues such as non-secession and the integration of military forces. In his interview with The Irrawaddy, Gen. Yawd Serk of the Shan State Army accused the Tatmadaw of stalling the peace process: This deadlock happened because of these two issues brought up by the Tatmadaw. If the Tatmadaw wants peace, they do not need to bring up these two issues. Whether there is any will to make peace depends on the Tatmadaw. Peace approach based on conflict resolution Galtung discusses six peace tasks: three absences and three presences. A ceasefire is only one-sixth of a complete peace process, yet often mistaken for the real thing, he says. The three absences he discusses are the absence of direct violence such as civil war and conflict, the absence of structural violence and the absence of cultural violence. The three presences are those of cooperation; equality and equity; and a culture of peace and dialogue. Myanmars peace process is still in the beginning stage. After the first step, a ceasefire agreement, there are other steps that must be taken. To take these steps, a Constitution that guarantees equality must be drafted along the way. A democratic federal constitution should guarantee the absence of structural violence and absence of cultural violence in order to prevent massive suffering by economic, political and cultural structures, according to Galtung. It is impossible for the Tatmadaw, the government or any particular EAO to implement the peace process alone. To stop the cycle of conflict which has been going on for more than 70 years, all parties must participate. For the time being, the gradual development of a political dialogue proves that all parties are on common ground, and agree that there is a need to stop the cycle of conflict. Although people might think that the peace approach based on conflict resolution is unachievable, it has the potential to end the conflict cycle if everyone steadfastly steps forward. Not only Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, but anyone involved in the peace process who has the spirit of a natural peacemaker can carry on the peace approach. Crucially, we need to recognize that the security approach, despite many years of attempts, has failed. We need to recognize and adopt the peace approach as the best chance for a long-lasting peace. Mon Mon Myat is a freelance writer/journalist and a graduate student in the Ph.D. program in peacebuilding at Payap University in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Wednesday, October 31st, 2018 (9:00 am) - Score 3,747 City centric full fibre UK ISP Hyperoptic has announced that their on-going deployment of a 1Gbps capable broadband network is now expected to reach more than 160,000 social housing properties across the country, which represents a significant chunk of their overall FTTP/B roll-out. Hyperoptics normal approach involves connecting their Fibre-to-the-Premises / Building (FTTP/B) based network to large residential or office buildings in dense urban areas (e.g. Multi-Dwelling Units with at least 50 units), although they have expanded to do a few new build housing estates and of course lots of council (social) homes. The ISP is currently known to supply a number of registered providers of social housing, including A2Dominion, the Hyde Group, Catalyst, Genesis Housing Association and Notting Hill Housing Trust. It is also working with 50 councils across the UK, to supply connectivity to their social housing stock. So far theyve already built a network that they say covers well over 500,000 premises (mostly homes) in multiple UK cities (expected to reach parts of 50 cities and towns by Q1 2019) and last year they set a new target of 2 million premises by 2022, as well as a future aspiration for 5 million by 2025 (here). The first target of 2 million is being supported by a recent debt raise of 250 million via eight international banks (here), although theyre starting to face growing competition from similar roll-outs by operators like Openreach, Community Fibre and Cityfibre etc. Floyd Widener, Hyperoptics Chief Sales Officer, said: For too long digital inclusion has been a buzzword that broadband providers have bandied around to secure grants and funding. Its not the case for us. Working successfully with social landlords is a strategic priority for our business which is why we are squarely focused on getting residents successfully connected. The provision of our full fibre service is just one part of this equation we also offer digital skills training and flexible products, such as rolling contracts and a low-price broadband-only service. Its proven that being able to take advantage of everything the Internet has to offer makes you financially better off, healthier and more communicative. We are committed to lead the charge to smash the digital divide and set the best practice for the broadband sector following through on what we say, getting people connected and supporting them through the process to enhance their digital skills. Steven Waite, Director of Technical at A2Dominion, said: We recognise the vital role that fast and reliable broadband services can play in getting a tenant online. However in the past weve had very little control over what broadband and telephone services our residents could opt for. It was a broadband postcode lottery depending on the available existing broadband infrastructure at each site. Thanks to our collaboration with Hyperoptic, thousands of properties across our portfolio are now enabled with its gigabit connectivity and its growing all the time. It has previously been estimated that 11.3 million adults in the UK remain digitally excluded and 37% of those are social housing tenants. The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee similarly estimate that the digital skills gap is costing the UK economy 63bn a year in potential GDP. Hyperoptic believes that its roll-out will help to address that problem, at least some of it. Meanwhile those who are able to join the service can usually choose from either a broadband and phone bundle or a broadband-only service on a 12 month contract. You can also get a no contract option (broadband-only), but this tends to cost a few pounds extra. All packages include unlimited usage, 24/7 support, a wireless router (e.g. ZTE H298A) and a dynamic IP address or 5 extra per month for a Static IP. Global technology company Siemens and Australian data analytics firm Interlate have signed a memorandum of understanding to improve productivity in the mining industry through the use of data. A statement from Siemens said the two companies would examine the use of data in other industries like food and beverages, water, waste water and oil and gas after initially concentrating on mining. The memorandum of understanding signed by the two companies outlines how they will use their expertise in data analytics and processing to build solutions that will add to the lifetime value of critical mining industry assets. Michael Freyny, head of Siemens Digital Factory and Process Industries & Drives Divisions in Australia and New Zealand, said: Industries such as mining that have made significant capital investments are now looking to optimise their total cost of ownership. "With operational costs representing about 95% of asset lifecycle costs, customers are looking for digitalisation technologies that can help turn data from these assets into real value that will in turn drive increased overall equipment effectiveness, reduction in operational costs and support future growth. "We take a long-term view to the market and understand the importance of being there to support our customers over the operational life of projects. This MoU with Interlate is a big step forward towards combining our product and process knowledge with their ability to turn data into real-time predictions and optimisations that not only benefit the customer, but the industry. "As the fourth largest mining country in the world, how we apply digital technologies to progress the industry is important not just for the sector and Australia, but globally as well. Interlate chief executive and managing director David Meldrum said: This MoU has the potential to create something very special for our customers and for Siemens mining customers. Siemens, through their global footprint and networks will add significantly to the richness and reach of Interlates intimate service delivery model. "We are excited about the potential to deliver our solutions, jointly, to the global mining community and in time, other asset intensive industries. This MoU lays the foundation for us to accelerate our growth plans and expedite our product development roadmaps. Australia has an incredible opportunity to make our mining sector even more competitive through digitalisation. But this requires collaboration and partnerships such as Siemens and Interlate bringing together their brightest people with the latest technologies." The government has kicked off a pilot of its myGovID identity solution on the last day of October, with the trial open to people who have iPhones at the outset as a private, beta app is available for this operating system only. An Android app is expected to be issued next year and a Web interface to be provided after that. The trial will enable those who wish to apply for a tax file number using the service to do so. The system will be opt-in. myGovID is being run by the Australian Taxation Office and the Department of Human Services. It is overseen by the Digital Transformation Agency. The company providing the cloud service for the trial is unknown. In a statement on Wednesday, Human Services and Digital Transformation Minister Michael Keenan said: When fully operational, myGovID will transform the way Australians interact with government by removing the burden on them to have to come into an office to prove who they are over and over again. Instead, if they wish to do so, they will be able to complete transactions at any time of the day or night from the comfort of their own homes by using a simple mobile app. That is what digital transformation is all about providing greater simplicity and convenience for busy Australians. And based on the feedback we have had so far, I am confident Australians will embrace it fully when it is released publicly next year. The statement said eight pilot programs would be run over the next nine months with selected users to test the delivery of a range of services. User feedback will be collected regularly during the trials to help continually update and improve the system to ensure the final product is robust, reliable, safe and secure. Cabcharge has officially rolled out its Digital Pass on Android to allow corporate travellers to pay their fares via Google Play. Digital Pass on Google Pay is compatible for users who have installed the Google Pay app on their phone (Google Pay requires Lollipop (Android 5.0) or higher). The launch represents another step in Cabcharges drive towards digital payments innovation, following the launch of Digital Pass on Apple Pay in July. Cabcharge say the launch of Digital Pass represents another step in its drive towards digital payments innovation, following the launch of Digital Pass on Apple Pay in July. And Cabcharge says the Digital Pass makes travel payments much more convenient, with the digital eTICKET emailed directly to a users smartphone and when combined with a fully automated back-end expense process, there is no need to collect new tickets or receipts when hopping in and out of taxis. Cabcharge says its Digital Pass provides a solution for businesses to customise the time and cost of each travel ticket in order to maximise efficiency and ensure the legitimacy of each journey. Launch of the digital pass comes as Cabcharge released a recent business travellers survey which found that: Forty-nine percent didnt feel in control of their travel policy; Fifty-three percent still rely on their employees collecting receipts and manually raising expenses; and Forty-three percent recognise that some travel expenses may not be legitimate. Our research found the top frustration for corporate travellers is collecting and expensing receipts, said Todd Shipp, head of Corporate Accounts, Cabcharge. This practice is outdated, yet still occurs in more than half of businesses throughout Australia. The Cabcharge Digital Pass removes time consuming and costly expense management altogether. Were excited to now make Digital Pass available on Google Pay and provide a solution that suits all travellers and organisations. Shipp said a recent brand refresh by Cabcharge saw an increased focus on digital products, with Cabcharge releasing a world-first single use electronic payment solution in Australia, and continues to lead disruption in the transport industry. Cabcharge has been built on innovation and the launch of our Digital Pass earlier this year opened up a new payment channel for many Australian travellers. The feedback weve received from our clients has been overwhelming. We look forward to continuing to drive better travel experiences with more innovation to come. Cheryl Chang, Strategic Partnership Development manager, Google commented, We want to enable simple, fast, and frictionless payment solutions for customers. Cabcharge Digital Pass on Google Pay enables a speedy payment experience with a simple tap. Cabcharge says Austereo, ABC, Clemenger and APN Outdoor and Vision Australia are already running Digital Pass. German digital business platform provider Software AG has appointed 25-year veteran Stuart Rees as its vice-president in Australia and New Zealand, with a view to boosting its business in the region. A statement from the company said the appointment coincided with the expansion of its ANZ team by a quarter, including the hiring of new pre-sales and direct sales staff for its offices in Melbourne and Sydney. The ANZ region has huge market potential and Im excited to be joining Software AG which has market-leading technologies in the area of Integration, Application Management, the Internet of Things and data analytics, which are key to running many digital transformation projects, said Rees. I look forward to working closely with our customers and partners to successfully execute on our business strategy. Rees has held senior positions in JDA Software, TIBCO Software and IBM prior to joining Software AG. Mike Saxton, regional vice-president, Software AG Asia Pacific & Japan, said: I am delighted to welcome Stuart to Software AG. The experience in enterprise software and in the ICT industry will be essential in accelerating the adoption of our Digital Business Platform. His skills in building and leading world-class sales teams will be invaluable as we look to grow our customer base in Australia and New Zealand. The ANZ region is an important one for Software AG. With more organisations looking to embark on their digital transformation journey as well as implement IoT projects, we are immensely excited about the many opportunities this market provides us with. Software AG also announced the appointment of Mark Fitzsimons as vice-president and head of IoT GTM Centre of Expertise for the Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) region. He will leverage his experience to help push Software AGs IoT business in APJ. Fitzsimons has more than 21 years experience in enterprise software sales, including 14 years in the APJ region. He has held a number of high-profile leadership positions in Infor, PTC/ThingWorks, MKS and Oracle. He spent five years with MKS focusing on the Japanese market before they were acquired by PTC where he spent a further six years as director of GTM for ALM and PLM for APJ. Saxton added, I am thrilled to welcome Mark to the team. His experience IoT space, ability to effectively communicate with his team and customers as well as his proven track record in focusing teams on revenue generating business in both the short and long term are assets to helping us achieve strong growth in Software AGs IoT business. Australian-listed satellite company Sky and Space Global has appointed 25-year telco and technology industries veteran Michael Malone as its chairman. Prior to his Sky and Space (ASX:SAS) role, Malone held multiple director and chairman positions at both listed and unlisted companies, and currently holds board roles at a number of large companies including SpeedCast, Superloop, Diamond Cyber, Seven West Media and national broadband company NBN Co. In 1993, Malone founded iiNet, Western Australias first Internet service provider, and also founded .auDA, the industry body for all .au domain names. Malone also founded Austism West, a charity supporting families of children on the spectrum, and Diamond Cyber, a company established to provide military grade information security to the private sector. He has been recognised with a raft of industry accolades, including Australian Entrepreneur of the Year, the First Among Equals in the 40 under 40, and CEO of the Year in the Australian Telecoms Industry Awards. Sky and Space Global says the appointment of Malone signals the completion of Brett Mitchells tenure as non-executive director at SAS. The company said in a statement that Mitchell remains committed to the companys growth and will remain the boards lead corporate advisor, through his firm Chieftain Securities. The Board would like to thank Mr Mitchell for his key role in the financing, corporate development and growth of SAS over the past three years, for bringing the company to the ASX and for his ongoing commitment to the successes of the company, the statement says. Peter Wall, the incumbent chairman, will transition to the role of non-executive director. Commenting on his appointment, Malone said: I am delighted to join the Sky and Space team and am excited to be playing an active role in this sector. We can reach everyone, everywhere, with voice and data services There is a fantastic opportunity here to become a world renowned nano-satellite service provider. Sky and Space Globals managing director and chief executive, Meir Moalem, said Malone had a lot of experience in the Australian telco sector, and his appointment would be a big plus for Australian investors and put us on the international map as well. "In 2019, we will launch our constellation of 20 satellites that will give us serious global coverage. That is what this company is all about. Infrastructure and strategic networks in Iran have been attacked by malware similar to Stuxnet which was used to attack centrifuges at the country's Natanz nuclear enrichment centre in 2011 and Israeli officials are not willing to say if they are involved or not. The Israeli Hadashot TV station said the new malware was more violent, more advanced and more sophisticated", than Stuxnet. The Times of Israel reported that the broadcast came a few hours after Israel said its Mossad intelligence agency had foiled a murder plot in Denmark allegedly perpetrated by Iran. Two days before that, Iran had said that the mobile phone used by its president, Hassan Rouhani, had been bugged. The Hadashot report said: "Remember Stuxnet, the virus that penetrated the computers of the Iranian nuclear industry?" adding that Iran has admitted in the past few days that it is again facing a similar attack, from a more violent, more advanced and more sophisticated virus than before, that has hit infrastructure and strategic networks". On Sunday, Reuters quoted Gholamreza Jalali, the head of Irans civil defence agency, as saying the country had neutralised a new version of Stuxnet. Recently we discovered a new generation of Stuxnet which consisted of several parts and was trying to enter our systems." Stuxnet sabotaged the uranium enrichment program at Natanz by speeding up the centrifuges. It was slipped into the enrichment centre on an USB as the centre was air-gapped from the rest of the buildings around it. Regarding the plot in Denmark, the Mossad said it had provided its Danish counterpart with information about an alleged plot to attack three Iranian opposition figures living in the country. A Norwegian national of Iranian origin was arrested in connection with this alleged plot. Harrison Lewis wasnt looking for SD-WAN, but hes glad he found it. Northgate Gonzalez, which operates 40 specialty grocery stores throughout Southern California, had distributed its compute power for years. Each store individually supported applications with servers and other key infrastructure and relied on batch processing to deal with nightly backups and storage, according to Lewis, the privately held companys CIO. Over time, the companys needs changed, and it began centralizing more services, including HR and buying systems, as well as Microsoft Office, in the cloud or at the companys two data centers. With this shift came a heavier burden on the single T-1 lines running MPLS into each store and the 3G wireless backup. Complicating matters, Lewis says, rainy weather in the region would flood the wiring, taking down terrestrial-network connectivity. It was problematic. We even doubled up on T-1 lines to each location, but it still wasnt enough. The network had to be a lot more reliable, Lewis says. Lewis searched for a suitable and cost-effective alternative, researching incremental options that could have increased bandwidth and addressed the companys security needs. They all came with a significant price tag, he says. In July 2016, Lewis and his team came upon software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN), technology that decouples the control plane from the data plane and enables networking groups to control the entire WAN in a centralized manner. Uniquely, SD-WAN supports the use of multiple types of connectivity (such as MPLS, broadband, broadband wireless), offering flexibility and ease of use for organizations with multiple locations. Lewis thought the technology was too immature to deploy at the time, but he kept an eye on its growth and by late 2017, considered it ready for a proof of production. With the NSX SD-WAN appliance from VeloCloud (VMware acquired VeloCloud in December 2017), he, along with his carrier AT&T, created a test zone at a single store, running the SD-WAN and traditional network side by side. The SD-WAN linked to two broadband connections and 4G wireless as a backup, along with ZScaler for Internet security. He put a similar configuration in the two data centers, which soon proved a viable approach. Today, Northgate Gonzalez has deployed SD-WAN in all 40 stores, with a recent bump to 5G wireless as backup. READ MORE: How enterprises can prep for 5G The move to broadband and wireless backup increased bandwidth because all three connections can be used interchangeably by SD-WAN, Lewis says. It also decreased monthly connectivity expenses by about 40%. Hes particularly proud of this result, as he is mindful of his fiduciary responsibility to not just keep throwing T-1 lines at the problem. Doing so could have led Northgate Gonzalez to have to raise prices or negatively impacted shareholders. That just doesnt make sense if there are alternatives, he says. He appreciates SD-WANs ability to prioritize traffic in support of business-critical activities, including payments and ordering, allowing them to take precedence over all else, and the somewhat zero-touch nature of provisioning the appliances. It doesnt require a great deal of skill to install the appliance, he says, adding he leveraged store technicians and help desk members to get the preconfigured appliances up and running at each site. SD-WAN handles diversity of circuits Luis Castillo, senior network manager for global network engineering at National Instruments, also was drawn to SD-WAN for its ease of deployment. National Instruments, an Austin-based maker of scientific equipment and software, operates in 50 countries and needed a solution that could handle the complexity of its distributed workflow. Customer service calls and research and development are handled by teams around the world, requiring tight attention to quality of service. We were throwing money at QoS toolsets to get classification, packet shaping, queuing, etc. that was the only way we could maintain a certain quality of service, Castillo says. Along with the cost of the toolsets, requirements for bandwidth would climb as much as 25% or more. We only got approved for 1% or 2% increases in our annual budget, so the gap kept getting wider, he says. As bandwidth demands grew, the company began to bump up against issues surrounding availability and the cost of more lines into their offices. In Russia, a 4M bit/sec [connection] cost $10,000 a month. We couldnt pay that, he says. The global nature of their business also made it difficult to get a single MPLS provider to handle all locations and some locations, such as Armenia, didnt have MPLS. Castillo first began looking for alternatives in 2008, and deemed performance-based routing, a precursor to SD-WAN, not good enough to operationalize. Most of the efforts in those early days didnt leave the lab, he says. When SD-WAN emerged, he connected with Viptela (Cisco closed its acquisition of Viptela in August 2017), and determined the software-driven technology (atop Cisco vEdge routers) to be the best bet to integrate with National Instruments environment, especially its diversity of circuits. Viptelas zero-touch provisioning was also a draw. It saved money because we didnt have to ship engineers VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FIREWEED ZINC LTD. (Fireweed or the Company) (TSXV: FWZ) is pleased to announce further drill results from its 2018 drill program on the Macmillan Pass Project in Yukon, Canada. Highlights Hole TS18-010 intersected 8.11% Zinc, 6.31% Lead and 82 g/t Silver over 10.16 meters (true width) in an infill hole in the Tom East Zone confirming previous drill grades Hole TS18-011 intersected 9.18% Zinc, 3.73% Lead and 12 g/t Silver over 13.47 meters (true width) in a hole drilled on the northern end of the Tom West Zone which showed that poor core recoveries in historical drilling in this area under-reported grades Additional drilling has been completed and assays are pending from the Tom West and End Zone areas New drill results are as follows: TOM EAST AND TOM WEST DRILL RESULTS Hole No. Zone From (meters) To (meters) Interval (meters) Estimated True Width (meters) Zinc (%) Lead (%) Silver (g/t) TS18-009 Tom West Intersected fault where zone was projected TS18-010 Tom East 296.00 306.32 10.32 10.16 8.11 6.31 82 Including 302.00 306.32 4.32 4.25 16.57 11.43 151 TS18-011 Tom West 44.90 65.85 20.95 13.47 9.18 3.73 12 Including 57.40 65.85 8.45 5.43 12.15 6.12 24 CEO Statement Brandon Macdonald, CEO, stated, We are encouraged that drilling at the edges of the Tom West Zone is reporting higher grades than historic holes due to better recoveries using modern drilling techniques and that new structural interpretations based on these drill results indicate potential for expanding the zone. Meanwhile drilling at Tom East continues to return consistent very high grades over significant widths. We look forward to further drill results from the summer program as well as interpreted results from the large program of geophysics, geochemistry and mapping carried out on the property. Drill Hole Descriptions Drill hole TS18-009 was a step out hole on the northwestern-most part of the Tom West Zone. This hole was drilled to the northwest of the known mineralization and intersected a faulted contact between the Fuller Lake Member and Macmillan Pass Member where the Tom West horizon was anticipated. Further drilling is required to determine if the Tom West Zone continues to the northwest side of this fault. Drill hole TS18-010 is an infill hole in the Tom East Zone and intersected 10.16m (true width) of vent proximal massive sulphide with minor distal style laminated sulphide mineralization. This intersection confirms the high grades and wide widths of the Tom East Zone mineralization previously estimated for this area of the deposit. Drill hole TS18-011 was drilled in the northwestern most part of the Tom West Zone approximately 60m southeast of hole TS18-009 and below the first hole drilled on the property in 1951. TS18-011 intersected 13.47m (true width) of massive and laminated sulphide reporting higher grades than the 1951 drill hole. Mineralization in this part of the Tom West deposit shows both distal style, laminated sphalerite and galena mineralization with massive, feeder proximal sphalerite, galena, and pyrite and pyrrhotite. Drill holes TS18009, 007 (previously released), and TS18-011 of this news release, better define the northern part of the Tom West Zone and confirm the high grade mineralization in this part of the zone where historical drilling (drill hole TS1951-001) had incorrectly suggested that the grade of mineralization drops off likely due to significant intervals of core loss and poor core recovery resulting in reported unrepresentative low grade historical results. Modern triple-split tube drilling in 2018 ensured that recoveries were excellent with 95% and 90% average core recoveries in holes TS18-010 and TS18-011 respectively. Assay results from additional drill holes at Tom West and End Zone are still pending (see table at end of this news release). Notes on sampling and assaying: The drill core logging and sampling program is carried out under a rigorous quality assurance / quality control program using industry best practices. Drill intersections are all HQ3 (split tube) size core (61.1mm / 2.4-inch diameter) with recoveries typically above 85%. After drilling, the core is logged for geology, structure and geotechnical characteristics, marked for sampling, and photographed on site. The cores for analyses are marked for sampling based on geological intervals with individual samples 1.5 meters or less in length. The core is cut in half lengthwise with a rock saw at the core facility on site, with half-core samples bagged and sent by reliable transport to the laboratory, and the other half-cores are stored on site for future reference. Intersections selected for metallurgical testing are cut in half with a rock saw and then quartered; one quartered core is archived on site, one quartered core is sent for assay, and the half-core is sent for metallurgical testing. A total of 5% assay standards and 5% blanks are inserted into every sample shipment as a quality control measure and, after analyses were received, were found to be acceptable. Samples are sent to the Bureau Veritas (formerly Acme Labs) preparation laboratory in Whitehorse, Yukon, where the samples are crushed and pulverized to 85% passing 200 mesh size pulps. A 250-gram split of each pulp is then sent to the Bureau Veritas laboratory in Vancouver, B.C., and analyzed by 1:1:1 Aqua Regia digestion followed by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-ESI/ICP-MS) multi-element analyses (BV Code AQ270). All samples are also analyzed by lithium borate fusion and X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF) finish (BV Code LF725). Over-limit Pb (>25.0%) and Zn (>24.0%) were analyzed by lithium borate fusion with XRF finish (BV Code LF726). Silver is reported in this news release by method AQ270, and zinc and lead are reported by LF725 or LF726. Bureau Veritas (Vancouver) is an independent, international ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accredited laboratory. Technical information in this news release has been approved by Gilles Dessureau, P.Geo, Vice President Exploration and a Qualified Person as defined under Canadian National Instrument 43101. About Fireweed Zinc Ltd. (TSXV:FWZ): Fireweed Zinc is a public mineral exploration company focused on zinc and managed by a veteran team of mining industry professionals. The Company is advancing its large 470 km2 Macmillan Pass Project in Yukon, Canada, which is host to the 100% owned Tom and Jason zinc-lead-silver deposits with recently announced Mineral Resources and a PEA economic study (see Fireweed news releases dated January 10, 2018 and May 23, 2018 respectively and reports filed on www.sedar.com for details). The project also includes option agreements on large blocks of adjacent claims (MAC, MC, MP, Jerry, BR and NS) which cover projected extensions of mineralization from the Jason area and areas where previous exploration identified zinc, lead and silver geochemical anomalies in critical host geology. Additional information about Fireweed Zinc and its Macmillan Pass Project, can be found on the Companys website at www.FireweedZinc.com and at www.sedar.com . ON BEHALF OF FIREWEED ZINC LTD. Brandon Macdonald CEO & Director Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statements This news release may contain forward-looking statements and information relating to the Company and the Macmillan Pass Project that are based on the beliefs of Company management, as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to Company management. Such statements reflect the current risks, uncertainties and assumptions related to certain factors including but not limited to, without limitations, exploration and development risks, expenditure and financing requirements, general economic conditions, changes in financial markets, the ability to properly and efficiently staff the Companys operations, the sufficiency of working capital and funding for continued operations, title matters, First Nations relations, operating hazards, political and economic factors, competitive factors, metal prices, relationships with vendors and strategic partners, governmental regulations and oversight, permitting, seasonality and weather, technological change, industry practices, and one-time events. Additional risks are set out in the Companys prospectus dated May 9, 2017 and filed under the Companys profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Should any one or more risks or uncertainties materialize or change, or should any underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results and forward-looking statements may vary materially from those described herein. The Company does not undertake to update forwardlooking statements or forwardlooking information, except as required by law. Contact: Brandon Macdonald T.604.646.8361 Appendix to Fireweed Zinc news release dated October 2018 The Most Extensive and Reliable Source of Information Related to the Mexican Drugs Cartels. You will not find this level of coverage anywhere else, join us! Send information, pictures or videos, you remain 100% anonymous. Envia fotos, videos, notas, enlaces o informacion todo 100% Anonimo. Want to be a contributor or citizen reporter for Borderland Beat? We love to have you in our team, send Sol Prendido or HEARST an email! WARNING: Posts may contain strong violent material, discretion is advised. COMMENTS: We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. TORONTO, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Xanadu Mines Ltd (ASX: XAM, TSX: XAM) (Xanadu or the Company) is pleased to announce that an interim upgrade to the Mineral Resource Estimate at its Kharmagtai Project in Mongolias South Gobi region has resulted in a 400% increase in contained copper and a 249% increase in gold (Figure 1 and Table 1) compared with the resource update announced on 19 March 2015 at the same 0.3% Cu cut-off grade. HIGHLIGHTS Major increase in Kharmagtai Open-Cut Mineral Resource Estimate (Resource) to 598Mt containing 1.9Mt copper and 4.3Moz gold (2.6Mt copper equivalent metal) Interim resource upgrade represents a 400% increase in contained copper and a 249% increase in contained gold within the open cut Scoping Study on shallow, higher grade starter project (due Q4, 2018) Shallow higher-grade core has a current resource of 54Mt @ 0.86% CuEq at a 0.6% CuEq cut off, some 61% of which is in the Indicated category (by tonnage) Metallurgical test work programme being scoped to support a geometallurgical study Further resource growth will come from: --extension of White Hill pit to include new results --conversion of inferred mineral resources to indicated category on recent infill drilling --addition of resources from the newly discovered Zaraa porphyry (not factored into this resource upgrade), and --continued exploration success from high priority targets at Zephyr and Sandstorm. The Mineral Resource estimate has been prepared by independent consultants, CSA Global Pty Ltd (CSA Global) and is reported in accordance with the JORC Code (2012 Edition) and National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101) to support the upcoming Scoping Study on a shallow, higher grade starter project. A global Resource update incorporating results from Xanadus fourth porphyry discovery at Kharmagtai, Zaraa, and other successful drilling will be incorporated as drilling progresses. Xanadus Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Dr Andrew Stewart, said: Xanadus exploration has been very efficient, driven by a high-quality geological model and understanding of the deposits. We are extremely delighted with the new results, particularly with the substantial increase in the open-pit shallow Resource base at Kharmagtai. With a 400% increase in contained copper, we are confident that the upcoming Scoping Study will show a financially robust open-pit starter project that will pave the way for Kharmagtai to develop into another high-quality Mongolian mining operation. Xanadu has entered an exciting period of cost-effective discovery and growth. Since acquiring the Kharmagtai project, we have been able to discover copper at a cost of less than 1c a pound, which is well below the global average of 4-7c per pound. We are now in the privileged position of controlling a large exploration district with outstanding potential. I'm highly optimistic that we will continue to grow the resource base at Kharmagtai where the existing Resource remains open both along strike and at depth. With the discovery of Zaraa and mineralisation intersected down to 1,200 vertical metres and still open, we believe there is an opportunity for a very large-scale system. The addition of Zaraa to the global resource base should have a positive impact on the overall scale and grade. We are now thinking about how big the mineral endowment could be at Kharmagtai and what future production it could sustain. The Kharmagtai Scoping Study remains on-track for completion in Q4 2018. MINERAL RESOURCE ESTIMATE This Mineral Resource Estimate is the first update to the maiden Resource announced on March 2015 (ASX release dated 19th March 2015). The upgraded Mineral Resource Estimate is summarised in Table 1. The Mineral Resources are quoted above 0.3% CuEq cutoff within a conceptual constraining wireframe. The parameters used to generate an optimised ultimate open pit shell are provided in Table 2. The Resource models are well understood and there is substantial upside potential to be realised by better understanding the economics of the deposit. As demonstrated in the images below, significant volumes of mineralisation have been modelled that fall outside of the constraining pit wireframe. These parts of the model will be targeted for further investigation through economic studies to assess if more of this material can be brought into the Mineral Resource. Table 1: Interim Kharmagtai Mineral Resource Estimate Deposit Classification Tonnes Grades Contained Metal Mt CuEq, % Cu, % Au, g/t CuEq, Kt Cu, Kt Au, Koz White Hill Indicated 45.2 0.42 0.30 0.23 189 135 340 Stockwork Hill 74.4 0.59 0.38 0.41 441 286 972 Copper Hill 9.7 0.76 0.48 0.54 73 47 167 Total Indicated 129.3 0.54 0.36 0.36 703 468 1,479 White Hill Inferred 412.8 0.40 0.31 0.17 1,653 1,299 2,227 Stockwork Hill 55.4 0.47 0.30 0.34 263 167 601 Copper Hill 0.7 0.39 0.31 0.16 3 2 4 Total Inferred 468.9 0.41 0.31 0.19 1,919 1,468 2,832 Mineral Resources are classified according to CIM Guidelines . Mineral Resources for open pit mining are estimated within the limits of an ultimate pit shell. A cut-off grade of 0.3% CuEq has been applied for open pit resources. Density values of 2.65 t/m 3 for oxide zones; 2.76, 2.74, 2.73 and 2.71 t/m 3 for country rocks, 2.78, 2.80 2.77, 2.81 and 2.76 t/m 3 for porphyries and 2.76 t/m 3 for andesite dyke were used for the model cells. for oxide zones; 2.76, 2.74, 2.73 and 2.71 t/m for country rocks, 2.78, 2.80 2.77, 2.81 and 2.76 t/m for porphyries and 2.76 t/m for andesite dyke were used for the model cells. CuEq copper equivalent was calculated using conversion factor 0.62097 for gold. Metal prices used were 3.1 $/lb for copper and 1320 $/oz for gold, recoveries 70% for gold and 85% for copper (82.35% relative gold to copper recovery), copper equivalent formula applied: CuEq = Cu + Au * 0.62097 * 0.8235. Rows and columns may not add up exactly due to rounding. This Mineral Resource update incorporates the results from drill programs completed since 2015 including much of the latest infill drilling program which was completed in Q3 2018 totalling approximately 8,725m in 27 drill holes. The primary aim of the drilling program was to infill the deposit within the conceptual pit to focus on converting the Inferred Mineral Resource to the Indicated category. The completed JORC (2012) and NI 43-101 resource demonstrates that the mineralisation is robust and continuous with over 22% of the resource classified in the Indicated Mineral Resource category. The substantial increase in the revised Resource combined with higher confidence from the recent resource drilling is expected to have strong positive impact on the life of mine at Kharmagtai. Table 2 below provides a summary of the resource model at various cut off grades. Xanadu is now focused on the completion of the Scoping Study which is expected in Q4 2018 and will reflect the Companys strategy of proving- up a significant Resource upgrade, with an initial focus on a higher-grade open pit starter project to demonstrate project economics. The optimal marginal cut-off for resources is under review as part of the Scoping Study with consideration of a cut-off of approximately 0.6% CuEq. Table 2: Constraining Pit Parameters used for Resource Estimate Parameters Units Value 1. Mining Ore mining cost $/t 2.49 Waste mining cost $/t 2.49 Mining losses % 0 Mining dilution % 5 2. Processing Processing cost (including G&A costs) g/t 4.2 Processing recovery: Gold % 70 Copper % 85 3. Pricing Elements price: Gold $/oz 1,320 Copper $/t 6,834 Selling cost for Au $/oz 4 Selling cost for Cu $/t 1,030 4. Other to optimization SG parameters t/m3 2.75 General pit slopes 50 Table 3: Grade-tonnage Table Summary Cut-Off CuEq(%) Mining Method Resource Category Material (Mt) CuEq (%) Cu (%) Au (g/t) Cu (kt) Au (Koz) CuEq (kt) 0.2 OC Indicated 187.6 0.45 0.31 0.29 572.5 1737.0 848.8 0.2 OC Inferred 854.5 0.34 0.26 0.15 2205.6 4228.6 2878.2 0.2 Total Ind + Inf 1042.1 0.36 0.27 0.18 2778.1 5965.6 3727.0 0.3 OC Indicated 129.3 0.54 0.36 0.36 468.0 1478.9 703.2 0.3 OC Inferred 468.9 0.41 0.31 0.19 1468.2 2831.7 1918.6 0.3 Total Ind + Inf 598.2 0.44 0.32 0.22 1936.2 4310.6 2621.8 0.4 OC Indicated 80.0 0.67 0.43 0.46 346.0 1172.7 532.5 0.4 OC Inferred 189.9 0.50 0.38 0.24 718.5 1479.1 953.7 0.4 UG Indicated 2.3 0.59 0.40 0.37 9.1 27.1 13.4 0.4 UG Inferred 28.4 0.51 0.38 0.26 106.6 232.9 143.7 0.4 Total Ind + Inf 300.5 0.55 0.39 0.30 1180.2 2911.9 1643.4 0.5 OC Indicated 49.4 0.80 0.51 0.57 251.1 912.2 396.2 0.5 OC Inferred 68.2 0.60 0.44 0.33 297.3 723.4 412.4 0.5 UG Indicated 1.5 0.67 0.45 0.44 6.6 20.6 9.9 0.5 UG Inferred 8.3 0.63 0.44 0.37 36.7 98.4 52.4 0.5 Total Ind + Inf 127.4 0.68 0.46 0.43 591.7 1754.6 870.8 0.6 OC Indicated 33.0 0.93 0.57 0.69 189.6 736.1 306.7 0.6 OC Inferred 20.7 0.75 0.50 0.49 103.8 323.9 155.3 0.6 UG Indicated 0.9 0.75 0.49 0.50 4.5 14.9 6.9 0.6 UG Inferred 3.9 0.74 0.49 0.49 19.1 60.8 28.7 0.6 Total Ind + Inf 58.6 0.85 0.54 0.60 317.0 1135.7 497.6 GEOLOGY AND GEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION New geological understanding of intrusive units and structures controlling mineralisation at Kharmagtai has driven the formation of a high-quality 3D geological model. This 3D geological model was used to define hard boundaries around which the mineral resource estimate could be built, resulting in a more realistic and accurate estimation. The 3D model was based on complete relogging of the +110km of diamond drilling conducted within the mineral resource area over the past 30 years. This relogging has standardised the geology across the deposits and many phases of drilling/previous loggers, allowing a high-quality 3D model to be generated. This model not only forms a robust framework for the Mineral Resource update but allows predictions as to extensions to the deposits to be identified and drilled. 3D geological wireframes were developed for all major geological formations of the deposits, including country rock, all porphyry phases, andesite dykes and breccia pipes. The base of oxidation surface was developed based on geological logging and used to domain the deposits. In addition, three wireframe solid models were developed for the level of veining: <0.5%, 0.5 to 1.5% and >1.5% of veining for each deposit. All geological domains were sub-domained using the wireframes for veining and divided into oxidised and fresh material. The additional drilling since the last Mineral Resource and other exploration and evaluation programs such as - relogging of historical core, geophysical review and geochemistry studies have delivered superior understanding of the deposit geometry. This has led to greater confidence in the geological and grade continuity and has infilled several areas of the deposit. The programs have collectively allowed us to deliver a more robust and larger Mineral Resource. The Mineral Resources have been estimated using all available analytical data. This has included diamond core drilling (NQ, PQ and HQ, reverse circulation percussion drilling and in some areas channel samples taken at surface. Additional data on drilling and sampling procedures is provided in Table 1. Significant drilling has taken place since the last Resource in 2015 which has driven the increase in resources. The drilling pre-2015 and since the last resource is provided in the collar plan below and Table 4. Table 4: Drill Hole Summary Timing Reverse Circulation Metres Diamond Core Metres RC and Diamond Metres Trenches Metres Drilling <2015 155 24553 252 88511.1 0 0 106 39774 Drilling >2015+ 68 13107 116 57876.7 22 5323.1 17 5618 Total 223 37660 368 146387.8 22 5323.1 123 45392 ESTIMATION METHODOLOGY A block model was created to encompass the full extent of the Kharmagtai deposits (White Hill, Copper Hill and Stockwork Hill - other exploration areas were excluded). The block model used a parent cell size of 20 m(E) x 20 m(N) x 20 m(RL) with sub-celling to 4 m(E) x 4 m(N) x 4 m(RL) to maintain the resolution of the wireframed geological domains and rock types. An empty block model was created within the closed wireframe models for the geological domains, rock types, barren dykes, level of veining (stockwork) and breccia. The model was also coded according to the oxide zones. Each modelled geological domain was assigned several unique codes in the model file (geology, veining and breccia). The block model was then restricted below the topography surface. Copper and gold grade values were interpolated into the empty block models separately for each modelled geological domain of the deposits using the Ordinary Kriging method. The Ordinary Kriging process was performed at different search radii until all cells were interpolated. The search radii were determined for each domain based on the parameters of the modelled semi-variogram ranges averaged for each direction for copper and gold. The blocks were interpolated using only assay composites restricted by the corresponding domain for each deposit. When model cells were estimated using radii not exceeding the full semi-variogram ranges, a restriction of at least three samples from at least two drill holes or trenches was applied to increase the reliability of the estimates. CRITERIA USED FOR CLASSIFICATION The classification level was based upon an assessment of geological understanding, geological continuity, mineralization continuity, drill hole spacing, QC results, search and interpolation parameters and an analysis of available density information. The following approach was adopted: Measured Resources: Not reported. Not reported. Indicated Resources: Were classified where the drill density did not exceed 65 m x 65 m with at least two mineralisation intersections on a drilled cross section. Geological and structural continuity have been interpreted with moderate confidence levels and blocks were interpolated at least the second run. Were classified where the drill density did not exceed 65 m x 65 m with at least two mineralisation intersections on a drilled cross section. Geological and structural continuity have been interpreted with moderate confidence levels and blocks were interpolated at least the second run. Inferred Resources: Inferred Mineral Resources were assigned to all model blocks lying outside the Indicated wireframes, which still display reasonable strike continuity and down dip extension, based on the current drill hole and trench intersections NEXT STEPS This interim Resource update is specifically designed to support a smaller-scale high-grade open pit Scoping Study for the existing resources at Kharmagtai. The focus once this work is completed will be to add the new discoveries (Zaraa and White Hill West) to the global resource base and explore the many opportunities identified by the interim Resource update. Xanadus near-term brownfields exploration strategy will focus on: Zaraa Resource Drilling Golden Eagle - Oxide gold At Zaraa, the focus will be on developing a maiden Mineral Resource estimate to add to the global Kharmagtai Mineral Resource base. This maiden Resource Estimate will provide the platform from which potential mining scenarios can be explored. At Golden Eagle, the focus will be on defining a potential shallow oxide gold project where a cost-effective leach operation may have strong synergies with a starter project on the existing Resources. Initial metallurgical work is being scoped and planning is being conducted around closer spaced shallow drilling to define a potential maiden oxide gold Resource at Golden Eagle. This oxide gold opportunity at Golden Eagle may synergise well with the oxide gold caps on the three existing resource to provide a moderate to large scale, low-cost oxide gold leach opportunity early in the development pipeline at Kharmagtai. ZARAA CRACKING THE CODE FOR ADDITIONAL EXPLORATION SUCCESSES Given the early drilling success at Zaraa, we are confident that we have cracked the geological code for additional exploration successes in the Kharmagtai area in 2019 and beyond. This latest discovery at Zaraa validates our exploration model for the geological features controlling the high-grade copper-gold mineralization in the district. This model reflects the accumulation of in-depth, new geological insights gained by Xanadus exploration team during nearly two decades of exploring in the region. Furthermore, numerous high priority brownfield exploration targets close to the existing resource have been identified from the extensive review of historical drill results and will be tested in the near future. The exploration potential of the new and extensive Zaraa discovery is being assessed simultaneously with the development plan for White Hill, Stockwork Hill and Copper Hill, for example one option is to develop an underground drive from the bottom of the Kharmagtai open pit directly to the high-grade core at Zaraa containing > 2% CuEq material. Xanadus aggressive 2018 exploration drilling program, which was targeting the discovery of additional porphyry copper-gold centres undercover in the large underexplored Kharmagtai porphyry district has proved to be highly successful with the discovery of the blind Zaraa porphyry copper-gold centre. With five recent drill holes featuring close to 1km of continuous copper-gold mineralisation, the new discovery of Zaraa supports the definition of a fourth large-scale porphyry deposit located only 2km east-southeast of the currently defined resources. The objective is now to demonstrate that this large-scale porphyry has both open pit and underground potential. The Company looks forward to providing further regular updates on its ongoing active development campaign. QUALIFIED PERSON STATEMENT The information in this announcement that relates to Mineral Resources is based on information compiled by Dmitry Pertel who is responsible for the Mineral Resource estimate. Mr Pertel is a full time employee of CSA Global and is a Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists, has sufficient experience relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity he is undertaking to qualify as the Qualified Person as defined in the CIM Guidelines and National Instrument 43-101. Mr Pertel consents to the inclusion in the report of the matters based on this information in the form and context in which it appears. The information in this announcement that relates to exploration results is based on information compiled by Dr Andrew Stewart who is responsible for the exploration data, comments on exploration target sizes, QA/QC and geological interpretation and information. Dr Stewart, who is an employee of Xanadu and is a Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists, has sufficient experience relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity he is undertaking to qualify as the Competent Person as defined in the 2012 Edition of the Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves and the National Instrument 43-101. Dr Stewart consents to the inclusion in the report of the matters based on this information in the form and context in which it appears. DISCLAIMER This ASX/TSX press release has been prepared by Xanadu Mines Ltd and neither the ASX or the TSX, nor their regulation service providers accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release. Forwardlooking statements Certain statements contained in this press release, including information as to the future financial or operating performance of Xanadu and its projects may also include statements which are forwardlooking statements that may include, amongst other things, statements regarding targets, estimates and assumptions in respect of mineral reserves and mineral resources and anticipated grades and recovery rates, production and prices, recovery costs and results, capital expenditures and are or may be based on assumptions and estimates related to future technical, economic, market, political, social and other conditions. These forwardlooking statements are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Xanadu, are inherently subject to significant technical, business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties and contingencies and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from estimated or anticipated events or results reflected in such forwardlooking statements. Xanadu disclaims any intent or obligation to update publicly or release any revisions to any forwardlooking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, circumstances or results or otherwise after todays date or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, other than required by the Corporations Act and ASX and TSX Listing Rules. The words believe, expect, anticipate, indicate, contemplate, target, plan, intends, continue, budget, estimate, may, will, schedule and similar expressions identify forwardlooking statements. All forwardlooking statements made in this press release are qualified by the foregoing cautionary statements. Investors are cautioned that forwardlooking statements are not guarantees of future performance and accordingly investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forwardlooking statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein. For further information, please contact: Andrew Stewart Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer T: +612 8280 7497 M: +976 9999 9211 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.xanadumines.com VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cameo Cobalt Corp. (TSX Venture: CRU) (OTC: CRUUF) (FWB: SY7N) (the Company or Cameo Cobalt) is pleased to announce that further to its news release dated October 4, 2018, the Company has completed site visits (the site visits") to its Carrizal and Montreal Cobalt projects. Site visits attendees included Cameo Cobalts Chilean geological team, Ridgeline Exploration Services (Ridgeline), as well as certain advisors and consultants of the Company. Successful completion of the site visits allows Cameo Cobalt to prioritize its Chilean cobalt assets, as well as expedite the planning of the upcoming exploration roadmap. In addition to the successful site visit, the Company secured meetings with key officials from the Chilean Ministry of Mines, as well as John Mitchell, President of Genlith Inc. (Genlith). Genlith is a Pennsylvania-based holding company focused on energy storage and critical battery materials. Cameo Cobalt regards Genlith as its regional peer within the Chilean battery metals exploration arena. During the site visits the Company concluded a comprehensive review of the Carrizal and Montreal projects; including preliminary geological investigations and rock sampling on both properties. Rock samples have been sent to MS Analytical Laboratories in Vancouver, BC, for assays. The Company expects to receive assay results in the coming weeks and will provide the market with an update in due course. High-resolution photos from the site visits will be available on the company web site in the coming weeks (https://cameocobalt.com/). Cameo Cobalt is extremely encouraged following its initial site visits; bolstered by strong support from the Chilean Ministry of Mines pertaining to the development of the Companys flagship energy metals assets. The Company is currently collaborating with Ridgeline, as well as its Chilean geological team to formulate a detailed year-round exploration program focusing on its Carrizal and Montreal Cobalt projects. Akash Patel, CEO of Cameo Cobalt stated: The Company continues to remain bullish on the macro outlook for battery metal exploration. Cameo Cobalt believes that recent trends remain intact and are reinforced as global cobalt supply continues to be constrained. The majority of the Worlds cobalt supply is produced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a jurisdiction where human rights issues continue to be a concern. The Companys ultimate objective is to develop a portfolio of projects located in safe, ethical jurisdictions which can help to meet demand from the nascent EV revolution. Carrizal Cobalt Project The Companys Carrizal Cobalt Project is situated adjacent to Genlith Inc.'s Carrizal Alto Project (see Genlith's news release dated April 11th). Genlith Inc. is a Pennsylvania-based holding company focused on energy storage and critical battery materials. Genlith has reported that cobalt production occurred on its Carrizal Alto projects from 1844 through 1944, mostly for military applications ceasing at the end of the Second World War. Genliths Carrizal Alto development plans include expedited drilling and dimensioning programs on high-grade past producing mines with the objective of providing a clear path to full-scale production. The Companys Carrizal Cobalt claims map can be found by following the below URL link: Click Here Genlith Inc. also recently announced the appointment of John Mitchell as the companys new President. Mr. Mitchell will also assume the role of Chief Executive Officer of Chilean Cobalt Corp. (C3), a subsidiary of Genlith. Mr. Mitchell joins Genlith after serving as President of Lithium for Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB). Mr. Mitchell guided Albemarles lithium division to a global market leading position (see Genliths news release dated July 25th, 2018). About the Montreal Cobalt Project The Vendor reports that the Montreal Cobalt Project consists of 16 mineral claims and comprises a total of 4,500 hectares. The Companys Montreal Cobalt Project is less than 2 kilometres away from the past producing Merceditas mine. The acquisition of the Montreal Cobalt Project has entrenched Cameo Cobalt in two of the three historic cobalt-producing regions of Chile. The Montreal Cobalt Project claims map can be found by following the below URL link: Click Here CAMEO COBALT CORP. Akash Patel For more information contact: (778) 549-6714 Or Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.cameocobalt.com Reader Advisory This news release contains certain forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as plan, expect, project, intend, believe, anticipate, estimate and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions may or will occur. In particular, forward-looking information in this press release includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the Companys proposed acquisition, exploration program and the expectations for the cobalt industry. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. We cannot guarantee future results, performance or achievements. Consequently, there is no representation that the actual results achieved will be the same, in whole or in part, as those set out in the forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is 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 anticipated in the forward-looking information. Some of the risks and other factors that could cause the results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking information include, but are not limited to: general economic conditions in Canada and globally; industry conditions, including governmental regulation and environmental regulation; failure to obtain industry partner and other third party consents and approvals, if and when required; the availability of capital on acceptable terms; the need to obtain required approvals from regulatory authorities; stock market volatility; liabilities inherent in water disposal facility operations; competition for, among other things, skilled personnel and supplies; incorrect assessments of the value of acquisitions; geological, technical, processing and transportation problems; changes in tax laws and incentive programs; failure to realize the anticipated benefits of acquisitions and dispositions; and the other factors. Readers are cautioned that this list of risk factors should not be construed as exhaustive. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. We undertake no duty to update any of the forward-looking information to conform such information to actual results or to changes in our expectations except as otherwise required by applicable securities legislation. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. 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. TORONTO, Oct. 31, 2018 /CNW/ - Roscan Gold Corporation ("Roscan" or the "Company") (TSX-V: ROS) is pleased to announce that it has signed a contract with Geodrill Ltd. to commence drilling on, or about, November 15, 2018 at the Company's 100%-owned Kandiole Project in West Mali. A 3,500 metre Air Core ("AC") drilling program has been designed to test the numerous, high-quality, gold geochemical anomalies previously identified. The program is expected to be completed prior to December 31, 2018. AC DRILLING PROGRAM The AC drilling program will include holes of maximum depths of 50 meters and a dip angle of no less than 50 degrees. At present, drilling access roads are being completed and detailed information on drilling targets will be provided to the market in a future news release prior to the beginning of the program. A map identifying targets and illustrating the drill plan will also be disseminated. It is expected that in early 2019, a follow up program of Reverse Circulation ("RC") drilling will be initiated in areas with the most significant AC results. GEOCHEMICAL SAMPLING PROGRAM In addition, a crew of 25 personnel, including three senior geologists, are at the site and presently working. The exploration camp has been set up to support the field crews and equipped to manage all of the data being collected. Three sampling crews are active in the field with soil and termite sampling. The sampling program has been designed to cover all of the high priority targets and other areas of interest and will result in approximately 75% of the permits covered. It is expected that this sampling program will identify further drilling targets. "We were encouraged by the amount and strength of the previously announced Au-in-soil and termite mound anomalies that were identified in an area of existing gold mines and are excited to begin this initial drill program," stated Greg Isenor, Roscan President and CEO. "We plan to release the first tranche of drill results in early to mid December, along with future plans of the next phase of RC drilling. We are confident in the bright future of Roscan and see this initial drilling program as the first step to building value for Roscan shareholders," Mr. Isenor continued. ABOUT ROSCAN Roscan Gold Corporation is a Canadian gold exploration company focused on the acquisition and exploration of gold properties in West Africa. The Company has assembled a significant land position of 100%-owned permits in an area of large gold deposits for its Kandiole Project in west Mali. Forward Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking information which is not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking information is characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, changes in the state of equity and debt markets, fluctuations in commodity prices, delays in obtaining required regulatory or governmental approvals, and other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry, including those risks set out in the Company's management's discussion and analysis as filed under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. Forward-looking information in this news release is based on the opinions and assumptions of management considered reasonable as of the date hereof, including that all necessary governmental and regulatory approvals will be received as and when expected. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, other than as required by applicable securities laws. 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. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Westhaven Ventures Inc. (TSX-V:WHN) is pleased to report further drill 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. Highlights: Drill hole SN18-15 returned 46.20 metres (m) of 8.95 g/t gold (Au) and 65.47 g/t silver (Ag), including 5.00m of 14.70 g/t Au and 215.00 g/t Ag . (m) of (Au) and (Ag), including of and . SN18-15 is 100 metres southeast of hole SN18-14 which returned 17.77 m s of 24.50 g/t Au and 107.92 g/t Ag . s of and . The strike length of the South Zone is 700 metres and is open to the east and southeast. Fully financed drill program to commence in early November. DRILL HOLE SN18-15 Hole From (m) To (m) Interval (m) Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) SN18-15 139.00 143.00 4.00 3.37 2.89 179.00 188.00 9.00 1.01 7.14 189.80 236.00 46.20 8.95 65.47 incl 196.00 201.00 5.00 14.70 215.00 204.00 209.90 5.90 12.57 90.88 214.00 218.33 4.33 12.58 113.41 222.00 225.00 3.00 20.35 37.50 234.50 236.00 1.50 48.04 55.02 Drilling to date is limited so true widths cannot be definitively determined. However, based on the strike of the vein zone with a steep dip to the west, true widths are estimated to be about 80-90% of reported interval lengths. Gareth Thomas, President & CEO of Westhaven stated, Drilling at the South Zone continues to intercept broad, high-grade gold intervals. Drill hole SN18-15 was drilled 100 metres to the southeast of hole SN18-14 and 360 metres to the southeast of SN18-12. It provides additional evidence to support management's belief that we are dealing with a sizable gold system. We are preparing to initiate a fully financed follow-up drill program to begin in early November. The Shovelnose gold property benefits from its proximity to infrastructure and can be worked year-round. Peter Fischl, P.Geo., Exploration Manager, states, Hole SN18-15 indicates that the mineralized horizon, centered at about 1200m elevation, continues southeast into a stronger dilational environment, resulting in broader mineralized veins. Follow-up drilling will continue stepping out to the southeast to test this trend of widening veins. 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: Click Here 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 for any properties outside of the 5km area of interest. 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. 0.75g of this pulverized split is digested by Four Acid and analyzed via ICP-MS (method code ME-MS61m (+Hg)), which reports a 49-element suite of elements. All samples are analyzed by Fire Assay with an AES finish, method code Au-ICP21 (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. At least one field blank is inserted in every batch of 25 samples, with additional blanks inserted following samples with visible gold. 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. PLAN MAP OF SOUTH ZONE DRILLING TORONTO, Oct. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- McEwen Mining Inc. (NYSE: MUX) (TSX: MUX) today reported third quarter results for the period ended Sept. 30, 2018 (Q3). During Q3, gold equivalent ounces (GEOs) produced increased by 51% and all-in sustaining costs per GEO sold decreased by 3% compared to Q3 2017. Net cash flow from the business excluding project development costs was $2.2 million or $0.01 per share. Total expenditure of $35.5 million was incurred to further our long-term production growth plans at the Gold Bar, Black Fox, Fenix and Los Azules projects. Our consolidated net loss for Q3 was $13.3 million or $0.04 per share. During the first nine months of 2018, GEOs produced increased by 48% and all-in sustaining costs per GEO sold was unchanged compared to the same period in 2017. Net cash flow from the business excluding project development costs was $20.8 million or $0.06 per share. Total expenditure of $84.5 million was incurred to further our long-term production growth plans at the Gold Bar, Black Fox, Fenix and Los Azules projects. Our consolidated net loss for the first nine months of 2018 was $23.9 million or $0.07 per share. Please join our conference call on Wednesday, Oct. 31st, 2018 at 11 am EDT. Call Toll Free (USA & Canada): 1 (844) 630-9911, Conference ID Number: 1787027. Further details are provided below. The table below provides comparative production and cost results for the third quarter and year-to-date (YTD) ended Sept. 30, 2018 and 2017. For the SEC Form 10-Q Financial Statements and MD&A refer to: Click Here Production and Costs (US$) Q3 YTD Full Year 2018 Guidance 2017 2018 2017 2018 Consolidated Production Gold (oz.) 19,051 33,806 61,338 105,834 128,000 Silver (oz.) 749,749 745,172 2,252,003 2,213,254 3,225,000 GEOs(1) 29,047 43,742 91,364 135,344 171,000 El Gallo, Mexico GEOs(1) 7,213 10,448 26,801 33,473 32,000 Cash Cost ($/GEO)(1)(3)(4) 832 671 695 709 650 AISC ($/GEO)(1)(3)(4) 946 696 813 752 715 San Jose, Argentina (49%)(2) Gold (oz.) 11,862 11,768 34,705 34,729 48,000 Silver (oz.) 747,960 743,100 2,239,454 2,204,349 3,225,000 GEOs(1) 21,834 21,676 64,563 64,120 91,000 Cash Cost ($/GEO)(1)(3)(4) 850 856 896 864 860 AISC ($/GEO)(1)(3)(4) 1,065 1,028 1,109 1,078 1,110 Black Fox, Canada(4) GEOs(1) - 11,618 - 37,751 48,000 Cash Cost ($/GEO)(1)(3)(4) - 932 - 839 920 AISC ($/GEO)(1)(3)(4) - 1,285 - 1,159 1,210 Notes: Silver and gold production is presented as GEOs, which approximate prevailing spot prices at the beginning of the year. The silver-to-gold ratio used for 2017 and 2018 is 75:1. Represents the portion attributable to us from our 49% ownership interest in the San Jose Mine. Earnings from mining operations, total cash costs, all-in sustaining costs (AISC), and cash, investments and precious metals, as applicable, are non-GAAP financial performance measures with no standardized definition under U.S. GAAP. See Cautionary Note Regarding Non-GAAP Measures for additional information, including definitions of these terms. The Black Fox mine was acquired on Oct. 6, 2017. The table below provides comparative financial highlights for the third quarter and nine months ended Sept. 30, 2018 and 2017. Financial Highlights (US$) Sept. 30, 2017 Sept. 30, 2018 Treasury ($ millions) Cash, Investments and Precious Metals (4) 82.3 54.0 Working Capital 82.7 37.9 Debt nil 50.0 Q3 2017 Q3 2018 YTD 2017 YTD 2018 Earnings (Losses) from Mining Operations(4) El Gallo ($ millions) 5.1 7.4 20.1 25.8 San Jose (49%) ($ millions) 4.5 (0.2 ) 14.3 7.7 Black Fox ($ millions) - (0.3 ) - 7.1 Consolidated Net Income Net Loss ($ millions) (8.1 ) (13.3 ) (12.8 ) (23.9 ) Net Loss per Share ($) (0.03 ) (0.04 ) (0.04 ) (0.07 ) Cash Flow Net Cash Flow Provided (Used) in Operations ($ millions) 0.2 (1.4 ) (16.4 ) (0.8 ) Gold Bar, Nevada, USA (100%) Construction is advancing on schedule for completion by the end of 2018, targeting production in Q1 2019. Activities at Gold Bar in Q3 focused on completion of the heap leach pad and the crushing and conveying system, and advancing the gold processing facility. All major equipment and bulk materials are either on site or purchased. Engineering for the project is complete and 97% of contracts are awarded. During the first three years of operation beginning with 2019, Gold Bar is projected to produce 55,000, 74,000 and 68,000 ounces of gold, respectively. During Q3 we announced an updated and increased resource estimate reflecting changes since the last Gold Bar Feasibility Study was published in March 2018. Measured and Indicated resources increased by 92,000 gold ounces to 721,000 gold ounces at 0.92 grams per tonne (g/t), and Inferred resources increased by 82,000 gold ounces to 197,000 gold ounces at 0.90 g/t. Combined with the nearby Gold Bar South deposit, the total resources on the Gold Bar Property are now 822,000 gold ounces in the Measured and Indicated category, and 202,000 gold ounces in the Inferred category. An updated mineral reserve estimate will be completed in Q1 2019. We capitalized to construction in progress $28.5 million and $55.5 million for the three and nine months ended Sept. 30, 2018, respectively, and $61.5 million cumulative to date. Open pit mining development in the third quarter continued to focus on the Gold Pick West and Cabin Creek deposits. To date, 52,000 tonnes of ore at a grade of 0.5 g/t have been stockpiled, and a total of one million tonnes of pre-strip waste material has been removed. We spent $1.0 million and $4.2 million on exploration in 2018 for the three and nine months ended Sept. 30, 2018, respectively, to further increase gold resources and test new exploration concepts at the Gold Bar Property, located along the prolific Battle Mountain - Cortez Gold Trend, Nevada. During 2019 we plan to drill for potential deep and large Carlin-type gold deposits below the existing oxide resources. Black Fox, Canada (100%) Black Fox production is in line with our full year production and cost guidance for 2018. Production in Q3 was 11,618 GEOs at cash costs and AISC of $932 and $1,285 per GEO, respectively. Year-to-date production was 37,751 GEOs at cash costs and AISC of $839 and $1,159 per GEO, respectively. The total exploration budget for 2018 at the Black Fox Complex in Timmins is $19.0 million, of which we have spent $17.4 million during the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2018. For information on our encouraging exploration results refer to recent news releases published in 2018 on Apr. 30, Jul. 25, and Sept. 6, available on the McEwen Mining website www.mcewenmining.com. For a comprehensive video introduction to the potential of our properties and operations, watch our Sept. 6, 2018 investor day presentation here: MUX Investor Day on YouTube San Jose, Argentina (49%) San Jose production is in line with our full year production and cost guidance for 2018. Our attributable production from San Jose in Q3 was 11,768 gold ounces and 743,100 silver ounces, for a total of 21,676 GEOs at cash costs and AISC of $856 and $1,028 per GEO, respectively. Year-to-date our attributable production is 34,729 gold ounces and 2,204,349 silver ounces, for a total of 64,120 GEOs at cash costs and AISC of $864 and $1,078 per GEO, respectively. During the three and nine months ended Sept. 30, 2018 we received $2.1 million and $9.4 million in dividends from our interest in San Jose, compared to $2.3 million and $7.2 million in dividends received during the same periods in 2017. For 2018, we are forecasting dividends of $12.0 million. El Gallo, Mexico (100%) El Gallo production has exceeded our full year guidance for 2018 of 32,000 GEOs and costs for the quarter are in line with our guidance. Residual heap leaching in Q3 resulted in 10,448 GEOs at cash costs and AISC of $671 and $696 per GEO, respectively. When combined with mining activity in the first half, year-to-date production was 33,473 GEOs at cash costs and AISC of $709 and $752 per GEO, respectively. Q3 was strong as a result of ore stacked on the heap leach pad at the end of Q2. Residual leaching is expected to taper significantly in Q4 to be more in line with our longer-term recovery expectations. Fenix Project, Mexico (100%) A new Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) study on potential production from the El Gallo Complex assets was published on Jul. 9, 2018. This proposed development plan evaluated in the PEA is called the Fenix Project. Key outcomes of Fenix Project include an average annual production rate of 47,000 ounces gold equivalent, a 12-year mine life, low initial capital cost of $41 million for Phase 1 and $30 million for Phase 2, and pay-back period of 4.1 years. At gold and silver prices of $1,250 and $16 per ounce the after-tax internal rate of return (IRR) is 28%, and the net present value (NPV) at a 5% discount rate is $60 million. The Fenix Project PEA is available for review on our website and SEDAR (www.sedar.com). During the three and nine months ended Sept. 30, 2018, we spent $1.5 million and $2.6 million respectively, on activities required to advance the Fenix Project. A final feasibility study for the Fenix Project will be released during the first half of 2019. Los Azules Project, Argentina (100%) For the 2017-2018 exploration season at Los Azules, we forecasted $8.9 million in expenditures, of which we spent $5.5 million during the year. The activities performed were mainly technical site investigations and environmental baseline monitoring work, to advance permitting efforts. Currently, we are investigating the possibility of a new access road that could provide year-round access, as opposed to the current 5-month seasonal window. Conference Call and Webcast We invite you to join our conference call, where management will discuss our Q3 2018 financial results and project developments and follow with a question and answer session. Questions can be asked directly by participants over the telephone or can be emailed in advance to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Please email questions prior to the start of the call. Wednesday, Oct. 31st, 2018 11:00 am ET Toll Free USA & Canada: 1 (844) 630-9911 Outside USA & Canada: 1 (210) 229-8828 Conference ID Number: 1787027 Webcast Link: Click Here An archived replay of the webcast will be available for one week after it takes place. Access the replay using the link Click Here or by calling (855)-859-2056 (North America) / (404)-537-3406 (International), Conference ID Number 1787027. ABOUT MCEWEN MINING McEwen has the goal to qualify for inclusion in the S&P 500 Index by creating a profitable gold and silver producer focused in the Americas. McEwens principal assets consist of: the San Jose mine in Santa Cruz, Argentina (49% interest); the Black Fox mine in Timmins, Canada; the Fenix Project in Mexico; the Gold Bar mine in Nevada, currently under construction; and the large Los Azules copper project in Argentina, advancing towards development. McEwen has a total of 337 million shares outstanding. Rob McEwen, Chairman and Chief Owner, owns 24% of the shares. QUALIFIED PERSON The technical contents of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Nathan Stubina, Managing Director - Innovation, and a Qualified Person as defined by Canadian Securities Administrators National Instrument 43-101 "Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects". RELIABILITY OF INFORMATION REGARDING SAN JOSE Minera Santa Cruz S.A., the owner of the San Jose Mine, is responsible for and has supplied to the Company all reported results from the San Jose Mine. McEwen Minings joint venture partner, a subsidiary of Hochschild Mining plc, and its affiliates other than MSC do not accept responsibility for the use of project data or the adequacy or accuracy of this release. CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING NON-GAAP MEASURES In this report, we have provided information prepared or calculated according to U.S. GAAP, as well as provided some non-U.S. GAAP ("non-GAAP") performance measures. Because the non-GAAP performance measures do not have any standardized meaning prescribed by U.S. GAAP, they may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. Total Cash Costs and All-in Sustaining Costs Total cash costs consist of mining, processing, on-site general and administrative costs, community and permitting costs related to current explorations, royalty costs, refining and treatment charges (for both dore and concentrate products), sales costs, export taxes and operational stripping costs. All-in sustaining cash costs consist of total cash costs (as described above), plus environmental rehabilitation costs, amortization of the asset retirement costs related to operating sites, sustaining exploration and development costs, and sustaining capital expenditures. Depreciation is excluded from both total cash costs and all-in sustaining cash costs. For both total cash costs and all-in sustaining costs we include our attributable share of total cash costs from operations where we hold less than a 100% economic share in the production, such as MSC, where we hold a 49% interest. In the case of MSC, total cash cost and all-in sustaining cash cost per ounce sold are calculated on a co-product basis by dividing the respective proportionate share of the total cash costs and all-in sustaining cash costs for the period attributable to each metal by the ounces of each respective metal sold. We use and report these measures to provide additional information regarding operational efficiencies both on a consolidated and an individual mine basis, and believe that these measures provide investors and analysts with useful information about our underlying costs of operations. A reconciliation to the nearest U.S. GAAP measure is provided in McEwen Mining's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2018. Earnings from mining operations The term Earnings from Mining Operations used in this report is a non-GAAP financial measure. We use and report this measure because we believe it provides investors and analysts with a useful measure of the underlying earnings from our mining operations. We define Earnings from Mining Operations as Gold and Silver Revenues from our El Gallo Mine which ceased mining and crushing activities by Jun. 30, 2018, Black Fox Mine and our 49% attributable share of the San Jose Mine's Net Sales, less their respective Production Costs Applicable to Sales. To the extent that Production Costs Applicable to Sales may include depreciation and amortization expense related to the fair value increments on historical business acquisitions (fair value paid in excess of the carrying value of the underlying assets and liabilities assumed on the date of acquisition), we deduct this expense in order to arrive at Production Costs Applicable to Sales that only include depreciation and amortization expense incurred at the mine-site level. The San Jose Mine Net Sales and Production Costs Applicable to Sales are presented, on a 100% basis, in Note 5 of McEwen Mining's Quarterly on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2018. Cash, investments and precious metals The term cash, investments and precious metals used in this report is a nonGAAP financial measure. We report this measure to better understand our liquidity in each reporting period. Cash, investments and precious metals is calculated as the sum of cash, restricted cash, investments, and ounces of dore held in inventory, valued at the London P.M. Fix spot price at the corresponding period. A reconciliation to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP measure, metals inventory, is provided in McEwen Mining's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2018. CAUTION CONCERNING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This news release contains certain forward-looking statements and information, including "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements and information expressed, as at the date of this news release, McEwen Mining Inc.'s (the "Company") estimates, forecasts, projections, expectations or beliefs as to future events and results. Forward-looking statements and information are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties, risks and contingencies, and there can be no assurance that such statements and information will prove to be accurate. Therefore, actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements and information. Risks and uncertainties that could cause results or future events to differ materially from current expectations expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements and information include, but are not limited to, factors associated with fluctuations in the market price of precious metals, mining industry risks, political, economic, social and security risks associated with foreign operations, the ability of the corporation to receive or receive in a timely manner permits or other approvals required in connection with operations, risks associated with the construction of mining operations and commencement of production and the projected costs thereof, risks related to litigation, the state of the capital markets, environmental risks and hazards, uncertainty as to calculation of mineral resources and reserves, and other risks. The Companys dividend policy will be reviewed periodically by the Board of Directors and is subject to change based on certain factors such as the capital needs of the Company and its future operating results. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information included herein, which speak only as of the date hereof. The Company undertakes no obligation to reissue or update forward-looking statements or information as a result of new information or events after the date hereof except as may be required by law. See McEwen Mining's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017 and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, under the caption "Risk Factors", for additional information on risks, uncertainties and other factors relating to the forward-looking statements and information regarding the Company. All forward-looking statements and information made in this news release are qualified by this cautionary statement. The NYSE and TSX have not reviewed and do not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the contents of this news release, which has been prepared by management of McEwen Mining Inc. JUSTICEINFO.NET IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS Mark Freeman Executive Director of the Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT) From June 2014 to December 2015, Mark Freeman was one of two independent experts hired by the Colombian government delegation to advise them on transitional justice issues during the peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). He tells us some of the inside story of the peace negotiation and analyses the momentous process of justice that is now underway in Colombia. Freeman further shares sharp and thought-provoking views on the damaging misunderstandings of amnesties, and how transitional justice tools may be helpful to engage some of the most reviled and violent groups today, such as Jihadists and organized crime. PART 1 Colombia and the Farc A former rebel from the FARC holds a peace flag during a final act of abandonment of arms in June 2017. [Raul ARBOLEDA / AFP] JUSTICEINFO.NET: Your role in the Colombian peace talks in Cuba came to an end when, in December 2015, the full chapter on victims (i.e. transitional justice) was published. This subject turned out to be the hardest part of the peace negotiation. What was it that each party feared most? MARK FREEMAN: Both parties knew that it was going to be the hardest issue. They actually referred to it as the nucleo duro, the hard nut to crack. The chapter on victims is deliberately vague: it doesnt refer to justice, it doesnt refer to transitional justice. It just says victims, and it has two bullets underneath it: human rights and truth. You would imagine from the outside that the biggest difficulty would be the government trying to convince the FARC why they have to accept criminal punishment and sanctions. And, of course, that was one of the issues. But the biggest surprise to anyone who might have arrived from Mars and landed into the negotiation was that, to a large degree, the hardest negotiation was inside of each delegation rather than across the delegations. Let me give you an example. If we break down the mechanisms, the FARC was quite in favor of a truth commission. The government had to take account of the interests of the armed forces a 500,000 strong, very powerful institution in the country and what created more anxiety for the state agents was the truth commission. Think about what a truth commission does: it makes findings on institutional responsibility. And so the military assessed that they had a lot to lose and not a lot to gain from a truth commission. That meant a very intensive talk within Bogota, not just inside the delegation. On justice and reparations, I think the FARC had a lot more to fear. Their political project was to transform into a non-armed political party and the prospect of criminal punishment, quite logically, would not be good for their political careers, and not good for [their] image and brand. So they had to fight very hard. On reparations, the government delegation emphasized, quite rightly, the great achievements and economic sacrifices of its citizens. One per cent of the gross national product goes to victims in this gigantic reparations program that has been in place since 2011, in which the state provides reparations to victims of any criminal act. So the question was: what would the FARC contribute to the reparations, morally but also in finance. Colombia is arguably the most extraordinary transitional justice process in the world at the moment. What is it that makes it so unique? We cant understand the way transitional justice looks in Colombia without understanding, and appreciating, that it comes out of a negotiation. One part of it is that it is a transitional justice deal that is the result of a negotiation. Thats important in its own right. We cant understand the way that it looks without understanding, and appreciating, that it comes out of a negotiation. It is important not only to understand the limits of what we can expect from it but, also because you have to understand that the transitional justice deal is directly, structurally connected to other elements. For example, criminal sanctions cant be understood in isolation from the larger transitional justice package but also cant be understood in isolation from the disarmament process: they have to disarm as a condition for getting the potential benefits, the reduced sentences, the legal leniency that this deal offers. It also has to do with political participation: if they confess or if they are found to be guilty of certain actions, that affects their ability to participate politically. This is not transitional justice as an isolated strategy. A third element is one of the things that characterizes Colombia: for better and for worse, they cant do anything without being extremely ambitious. I dont mean to say theyre not realistic, but they push themselves to the limits. They have this expression that they use: We are more papist than the Pope. I say this because its one of the strengths but also one of the great challenges of this process. This is not the first chapter of the story of transitional justice in Colombia. They had this very robust process, the Peace and Justice Law, that involved something like a truth commission, plea-bargaining schemes, victim reparations. So weve got this huge system: a fifty-year conflict that a truth commission is supposed to investigate; this gigantic structure with five or six different bodies, just within the justice component, which also involves an amnesty granting body, an initial chamber that receives confessions, etc.; a new scheme of reparations that builds on the existing one, which has individual and collective components, symbolic acknowledgment and material benefits ; and a chapter on guarantees of non-repetition. And this is all constructed on top of this whole other system still operating. Isnt it a recipe for disaster? Its a recipe for a lot of disappointment. Its going to disappoint but its always going to deliver certain things as well. The truth commission will carry out its work although its probably going to be in a constant battle with the new government. This extraordinary justice mechanism called the JEP in Spanish [Special Jurisdiction for Peace] has its own job to do and has to interact with the ordinary justice system, and with the truth commission; and theyre going to deliver something, and there will be trials. But its going to do far less that what it was intended to do, because of this almost cultural proclivity towards ambition. Whats the most promising or attractive aspect of the whole process? There are some critical decisions that the justice system and the truth commission have to take now that will define if they can be something promising or something certain to disappoint. I am hesitating because there are some critical decisions, strategic or tactical, that each of these bodies, in particular the JEP and the truth commission, have to take now that will define if they can be something promising or something certain to disappoint or fall apart. The truth commission [is facing] a new government that is, generally speaking, hostile to what has been negotiated. But truth commissions have the opportunity to surprise people, to disrupt those expectations. You have an extraordinary chair who could potentially orient this commission more towards dialogue and reconciliation rather than a kind of blaming exercise. The truth commission is going to be irrelevant or positively disruptive. The same thing is true of the tribunal. It is in the first stage of this process, which is almost the equivalent of a truth commission. The tribunal is receiving confessions and it is going to produce a report saying: here are the cases we think should be investigated, the ones which should be amnestied, and the ones we just leave alone. So are they going to spend the next ten years going over tens of thousands of cases in the pursuit of the perfect transitional justice or are they going to be very clever and balanced in terms of what they do? It could be promising or it could be a disaster. You cant say just yet. Whether they manage to attract some people to come forward and confess is the critical dimension. Many things made South Africa powerful, but one of the most important ones, I believe, was the emotional power, the raw power, of seeing people come forward publicly, confess in detail and confront their victims. The confrontation of victims wont happen in Colombia and I dont think it needs to, but if people come forward and participate and confess in honorable ways, it could be important. My fear would be that Colombia falls back into a kind of legalistic, maximalist tradition that also afflicted the Justice and Peace process. Whats unviable is the sheer complexity of it. If it were to be implemented to the letter it would be a disaster. Its mission impossible. Its too maximalist. Moving from being a transitional justice expert working from the outside to the real-life, practical need of achieving peace, what major lessons did you draw from the negotiation process? What youre negotiating is peace. This is not a transitional justice deal; its a peace deal which has transitional justice components. I would go back to how absolutely different transitional justice is when it needs to be negotiated versus when it can be declared. Its fundamental. You cannot understand negotiating transitional justice unless your analytic starting point is the fact of negotiation itself and all the constraints and implications that it has mutual concessions, the fact that you are making deals with the leaders of an enemy side, and that it all has to be reduced to a written agreement and that whatever you negotiate in this arena, it is subservient: what youre negotiating is peace. This is not a transitional justice deal; its a peace deal that has transitional justice components. If you dont understand that, you dont understand anything. Many people have emphasized the difference between transitional justice after dictatorship and transitional justice after a civil war. And I agree this is a relevant distinction. But I dont think those are the things that necessarily lead you to have to come up with more nuanced concessions or balancing acts. It is when you have to negotiate the end of a civil war or dictatorship. Why did Rwandas forays into transitional justice look the way they did? Because they didnt have to negotiate with anybody. It doesnt mean they didnt have challenges and constraints but were not a world in which all wars and all dictatorships end through elections or public revolts or resignations or the death of leaders. Thats not how all civil wars and dictatorships end. Chile has more to teach Colombia in terms of transitional justice than any place where there was no need to negotiate political settlement or a peace deal. That is the most important story. It has transformed my understanding of what makes amnesty and transitional justice look so different in some places than others: its how the transition came about. Its not intellectually honest to say that you believe that a particular conflict should end through a negotiated deal and then have all these red lines on justice. Its not serious. Its not intellectually honest to say that you believe that a particular conflict should end through a negotiated deal and then have all these red lines on justice. Its not serious. You can have values, you can have principles, you can advocate. But if you are saying you believe in a negotiated solution as a way to end this conflict or this dictatorship, then you have to adjust. You cant on the one hand say this seriously, and on the other hand declare in the most unrealistic, and I think undignified ways, that justice must look the same for a negotiated process as it would if there was no negotiation. And thats effectively what lots of human rights actors say. Some are simply ignorant and dont understand that. But most are intellectually dishonest. Its like the whole debate on peace and justice. Its not that the goals are irreconcilable. It is that if peace must be negotiated, that has direct implications in terms of the kind of justice that is possible. Any other argument is not worth listening to. You have to understand what negotiation means. Justice is not what youre negotiating; youre negotiating a political or peace settlement and [justice] is one component, a subsidiary component, of a larger process. PART 2 Rehabilitating Amnesties Protesters in Burkina Faso after a failed coup in 2015 ( No to the amnesty of the assassins ). [Sia KAMBOU/ AFP] You may be the most prominent expert on amnesties, which is the least understood and most despised transitional justice tool. Its radioactive. Can you tell us why is it so and why it shouldnt be? An amnesty is an exception to the ordinary application of law. The discomfort generally has to do with this: we are knowingly making an exception to the rule. The rule is that you obey the law and if you fail to obey there shall be consequences. And an amnesty is like the big eraser. But amnesties when it comes to atrocities, thats a question people struggle with because we have to ask ourselves whether some things are ultimately unforgivable. Its profoundly discomforting, morally and intellectually, to actually think that, ultimately, every act can be forgiven in law, no matter what act. Thats a terrible thought. And the only thing that can allow us to live with that horrendous idea that every kind of act, no matter how atrocious, gruesome and barbaric, the law can forgive it under some circumstances is where there is some greater good that is being served. Most of the time that greater good has to do with prevention, with ending, halting a situation where these atrocities continue, or are likely to continue. Think of it like this: the topic is atrocities, not amnesty. And some people I include myself in this group are comfortable with the idea that since the topic is atrocities we can accept the price that in order to end atrocities we have to forgive atrocities that have already occurred. Theres a whole other group of people that are prepared to see atrocities continue because their abhorrence of the idea of forgiving through law certain atrocities is so great. They will argue that if we forgive them there will be a never-ending cycle of atrocities. But we have to all be intellectually honest about this. For me, where [this group] ceases to be intellectually honest is when they fail to say: I am prepared to see atrocities continue. They wont say it but that is the direct logical consequence of their position. And I dont accept that. The dominant position, however, at the United Nations and among major human rights organizations is a no amnesty principle, isnt it? No amnesty for the worst atrocities. They will tell you: we have no problem with amnesty but the cut-off point is war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and some will also say, like the U.N., gross human rights violations. I can look at it, sit down, and say: Ok, I share your abhorrence with the idea that there could be amnesty for such things, so what should we do in the context of a negotiation that is going on in Central African Republic? Can we end the war? Can we stop atrocities with your policies, yes or no? The United Nations has been almost irrelevant ever since it has adopted this ideological position on amnesties. Frankly, why is the United Nations almost irrelevant for the last twenty years, ever since it has adopted this ideological position on amnesties, which doesnt have an exception for negotiations? Under no circumstances, will the U.N. ever ever endorse any deal, any law, that would enshrine legal impunity or forgiveness for past atrocities. Never. But in reality amnesties or conditional amnesties are constantly offered ; they are just called something different I think its worse. We get the agreement on paper that says there will be no amnesty for these things, and then there actually ends up being no transitional justice of any kind. South Sudan reached the most beautiful agreement in 2015: there will not be amnesty for these crimes, there will be a tribunal, there will be a truth commission. This is what the South Sudanese felt that they had to agree in order to get international aid to continue. But what you get is those fictions. Whats worse is that it has created misunderstandings in the diplomatic community about what international law actually allows and what it doesnt allow. Diplomats believe now that they cant sign deals unless they have these clauses. So, rather than law and transitional justice being enablers of deals, they are now just another obstacle that has to be overcome. Essentially it has eliminated nuance and eliminated any relevance of the United Nations as a broker of deals. Because only the weakest parties that agree to have no plans to implement will have the U.N. involved. The U.N. is not involved in any negotiation or mediation in a serious way anymore. They were not involved in Colombia, not until the very end and not on this issue. Theyve condemned themselves to a certain irrelevance. But its worse than that. It has the effect of preventing the negotiation from getting started in the first place because parties, dictators, war criminals think that they will never get anything close to an amnesty so they just keep going. Whereas in reality if the position had some nuance to it which the law allows , and if it wasnt so ideological, we would see more talks begin. Sadly, the legal fears that all these parties have are causing them more and more to hold on to power because they think that the international community will never give them some legal leniency where, in fact, as you say, it will! We sacrifice conflict resolution possibilities because of an unnecessarily rigid and absolutist position on amnesty. Its made the generation of dialogues and negotiations much more difficult and in some cases, I think, almost impossible. So we sacrifice conflict resolution possibilities because of an unnecessarily rigid and absolutist position on amnesty. And effectively it means let the atrocities continue, let the dictators remain in power, let the warlords remain in power. Its a very serious problem. You can have preconditions to getting an amnesty: it can be individualized, it can be conditional on disclosing certain criminal acts, on disarmament, on non-recidivism, it can be so that if you commit certain violations or actions you lose the amnesty. You can do all kinds of clever things. But we dont get to discuss those things, because for atrocities there is nothing to discuss. PART 3 Jihadists and Mafias: On the Frontiers of Transitional Justice A large-scale weapons haul from drug cartels in Mexico in 2008. In 2017 narco-trafficking-related homicides caused more than 25,000 deaths in Mexico. [Fernan CASTILLO / AFP] More recently, youve worked on what may be called the frontier of transitional justice: trying to understand how transitional justice tools could be used in negotiating with the most reviled and violent groups, such as religious extremists or even organized crime, gangs. What are your initial thoughts and findings on this? We accept negotiating with groups like the IRA [Irish Revolutionary Army], the ANC [African National Congress], the FARC, because we can imagine, as the endgame of the negotiation, that those groups have the capacity to transform, on the institutional level, into something that the society can coexist with. As we push further out into the frontiers of different kinds of non-state groups such as Jihadist groups and organized crime, the endgame is much harder to see. Its extremely remote to imagine Jihadist groups, given their nature, their ideological motivation at the leadership level, their self-identity, their operations and their transnational nature, that they could transform into something that the society could coexist with. There is political Islam; Boko Haram is negotiating with the Nigerian government; the Taliban is negotiating with the Afghan government. But its one step further. Before we can even talk about transitional justice, what we have to confront is that if we are unable to overcome Jihadism through coercive, military and judicial techniques, the question is: what other options do we have? The idea of negotiating with the mafia is even more unacceptable than with ISIS. Again the question is: Can we solve it through purely coercive techniques? The second kind of group, organized crime, is even further out on the frontier, which is surprising because you might say people might detest ISIS more than they detest the Mafia. Maybe. But the idea of negotiating with the mafia is even more unacceptable to them than with ISIS. Again the question is: what do we do about organized crime? Can we solve it through purely coercive techniques? I think the mature policy response has to be that we have to take seriously the idea of the possibility of negotiation. What can and cant wisely and realistically be negotiated with such groups? So it is a frontier, but it shouldnt be such a stretch to say that we can and should negotiate with these groups. But we need a paradigm that fits these groups, and we also need to develop the policy analysis and justification to think of how to do so wisely. And youre saying that tools and experience of transitional justice can be helpful? Thats exactly right. At its best transitional justice is a zone of creative policy-making in a context of dramatic constraints, as a way to respond to atrocities. We need to draw upon fields that have produced creative solutions, balanced solutions in the face of dramatic constraints in response to atrocities. Here there doesnt seem to be any transition involved any longer. Should it still be called transitional justice? I think this is where we come full circle. It has to do with the misunderstanding of transitional justice, which is not a field that applies once a transition is underway. Look at Colombia: there was no post-conflict transitional justice until it could be negotiated. Transitional justice is also the things that you negotiate that would be part of a future transition. It is transitional justice when youre negotiating, not only when youre implementing, and not only when the transition is there but rather when youre building the architecture of the transitional justice. I began as a transitional justice specialist. That was my passion. I studied it, I practiced it. But negotiation has helped me understand transitional justice better. I realized that what fascinated me in transitional justice was never the justice part but the possibilities of transition which sometimes required negotiation to bring about. That has been my personal discovery. Interviewed by Thierry Cruvellier, JusticeInfo.net. MEDFORD, Ore. -- Breast cancer survivors say repeatedly that support groups made a difference on their road to recovery. Laina Rhodes is no different. She is a patient at Providence Medford Medical Center, and found her own cancer. It wasnt until the pathology came back they said, Oh, its cancer, Rhodes said. So they wanted me to wait six months and I just couldnt do it. She later had a double masectomy. To heal, she turned to writing, something shed done since her teenage years. This time, she journaled about her diagnosis and treatment process. Thats advice she has for other people going through breast cancer treatment. Find an outlet for what youre feeling. Mine was to write, Rhodes said. Others may be to exercise or to go to groups, but find an outlet for those feelings because bottling them up doesnt help. Providence offers some support groups, as does Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center. There are also a number on social media sites, like Facebook. JOSEPHINE COUNTY, Ore. Authorities are investigating a confrontation that occurred over the weekend in which a group of hunters claim they were fired upon by armed individuals, injuring one. Deputies from the Josephine County Sheriff's Office (JCSO) first responded to reports of a man who had been shot in the leg around Sunny Valley on Saturday. When they arrived in the area, they found a man with a small wound on his leg from "an apparent gun shot." According to Oregon State Police (OSP), the victim told investigators that he had been riding in the back of a pickup with several other individuals who had been hunting in the mountains. "While driving down the mountain, they drove into an area where they were confronted by several individuals who were armed. At least one round was fired towards the hunters vehicle, causing the injury," OSP said. JCSO called in for assistance from the OSP Major Crimes Section and SWAT Team. On Monday, deputies and SWAT officers served a search warrant at 9998 Jump Off Joe Creek Road. OSP said that several people were "contacted" at the property and interviewed about the incident on Saturday. Two men at the residence were found to have felony arrest warrants from Missouri. 27-year-old Akeem Lorenz White and 26-year-old Robert Paul Frenchie, both of Missouri, were lodged in the county jail for Failure to Appear on an original charge of Dangerous Drugs. So far, neither have been charged with crimes related to the incident on Saturday. OSP said that their detectives and JCSO deputies are continuing to investigate the shooting. "No other arrests have been made at this time and no further information is available at this time," OSP said. DIAMOND LAKE, Ore. A lost Israeli hiker is safe following a joint rescue effort along the border between Klamath and Douglas counties, according to the Douglas County Sheriff's Office (DCSO). Search and rescue teams in Douglas County received word of the missing hiker from Klamath County officials just before 9 a.m. on Tuesday. Rescuers in Klamath County had reportedly been trying to find the hiker since Monday evening, and were folowing a SPOT Personal Tracker device that was broadcasting a distress signal. The signal eventually indicated that the hiker was along the Pacific Crest Trail near Tipso Peak just across the Douglas County line. The hiker's parents also contacted law enforcement, identifying the hiker as their daughter, 36-year-old Anat Taher Leb of Israel. Douglas search and rescue organized a team of four ground hikers, two Oregon State Police horse riders with an extra horse, and a plane from Civil Air Patrol. Klamath County helped the teams continue to track the GPS signal from Leb's personal tracker. While the plane conducted flyovers with a loudspeaker broadcasting a message for the hiker to "stay put" and that rescuers were on the way, the teams set out toward the GPS signal. Four hours later, the teams found Leb. "She was cold, tired and hungry but otherwise in good condition," DCSO said. The rescuers mounted Leb on their extra horse and rode out to safety. The SPOT Personal Tracker was able to successfully summon help for the hiker who was not prepared for the elements," DCSO said. EAGLE POINT, Ore. A wanted man is in jail after leading police officers on a four-mile chase Wednesday morning. Officers arrested 40-year-old Tyler Anthony Boyd on a no-bail warrant for parole violation plus a new charge for attempting to elude police, according to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office (JCSO). On Wednesday morning, members of the Pacific Northwest Violent Offender Task Force (PNVOTF), a multi-agency team funded by the U.S. Marshals Service, learned that Boyd was living in a camp near the 25-mile marker of Highway 140. Around 7 a.m., when task force members were in the area looking for Boyd, the wanted man drove by in a Jeep Wrangler. Officers attempted a traffic stop, but Boyd fled west along Highway 140. Near the 21-mile marker, Boyd tried to turn onto a logging road. According to JCSO, Boyd lost control of the Jeep and drove onto an embankment, where his vehicle became disabled. Task force personnel took Boyd into custody without further incident. Nobody was injured. PNVOTF operates throughout the northwest states. The regional task force for Southern Oregon is made up of personnel from the U.S. Marshals Service, JCSO, and the Central Point Police Department. Since its inception in June 2018, JCSO said that the regional multi-agency task force has made more than 200 arrests in Southern Oregon. The task force focuses on tracking down fugitives with felony warrants, including those identified locally as Chronic FTA Offenders. They also assist local agencies with locating suspects in active felony investigations. Federal funding is provided to pay for overtime costs and equipment for local law enforcement personnel taking part in the task force. The task force also offers funding to local agencies for periodic fugitive apprehension operations. Per contract, the task force pays for space to lodge local fugitives in the Jackson County jail. Currently, 18 inmates are in the jail on a federal fugitive hold. In addition to task force members, the Oregon State Police assisted in the Wednesday incident. Troopers are investigating a separate case involving Boyd, JCSO said. A judge will decide if Walmart denied a Southern Oregon man his right to buy a gun. Tyler Watson is suing the big box retailer. The attorneys for Walmart and Watson presented their cases at the Josephine County Court House today. Watson's lawyers are asking for a summary sentencing, meaning the judge makes the decision instead of going to trial. They told the judge that Tyler Watson's rights were ignored since he was not allowed to purchase a firearm at a Walmart in Josephine County. Oregon law says someone over the age of 18 can buy a gun. Watson's lawyers also said this was prejudice since he was denied the right to purchase because of his age. Walmart's lawyer's told the judge that Watson had no intention of buying a gun. Walmart changed its gun policy to 21 and older after the school shooting in Florida that killed 17 people. Lawyers argued Watson went to Walmart to be told no so he could sue Walmart. The judge did not make a decision today. She wants to read over everything before deciding. The judge said she'll have a decision in the next couple of weeks. Watson is also suing Dicks Sporting Goods in Jackson County. That case could head to trial in November. Start your Black Friday shopping early Black Friday is the day, people eagerly look forward to; when patrons get the best deals and businesses turn their books to black. With online... Spindle Items ..SWITCHING HANDS I am honored to assume the responsibilities of the editor of the Ken-Ton Bee. I would like to begin by thanking the... Out of the Past 25 Years AgoNov. 20, 1996 Despite hearing the Department of Transportations modified proposal of the widening of a 1.5-mile stretch of Niagara Falls Boulevard, the... Inclusive playgrounds will bring families together Last month we celebrated the official opening of the much-anticipated Playground for All at Chestnut Ridge Park, a project that came to fruition thanks to... Reflections on 2021 November elections America is special for many reasons. Chief among them is our belief in democracy and our commitment to free and fair elections. On Nov. 2nd... 6 Shares Share A few months ago, I was having lunch with a friend. He mentioned a recent outpatient surgery that he had and indicated that upon being discharged, he was given a prescription for 30 pain pills. Although the recovery was uncomfortable, the pain was not overwhelming. But, as a precaution, it was assumed that he needed this powerful pain relief to be available even after he told the provider that he was not going to take it. Years earlier, he had taken a similar drug in the hospital after dealing with the excruciating pain of kidney stones. As he noted, The pain was intense, and the medication was both useful and necessary! However, upon being discharged, he was given a further prescription for this same medication and told to take the drugs every four hours to stay ahead of the pain. After two doses, he decided to stop. He described feeling loopy and out of it. As he further elaborated, I wasnt clear-minded or sure on my feet. I had young kids in the house and didnt like the idea of feeling that way if something were to happen and they needed me. In 1998, the Joint Commission designated pain as the fifth vital sign, and every hospital was required to ask their patients about it. This practice quickly spread throughout various outpatient clinics and practices. Yet gradually, many patients began finding out that opioids were being used, even against their wishes. Recently, an article was written by a former patient and someone who works in the insurance industry. She describes her personal experience in which repeatedly, her documented demands that opioids not be used were ignored, even so much as being shocked to find that a nurse was trying to administer Dilaudid through an IV while she was sleeping. As the article described, it was as is if most involved in her care assumed that she could not simply tolerate the pain involved in the procedure without this high-level pain relief. It also illuminated what is well known in the medical community and through associated research, which is that opioid prescribing has been profitable for hospitals. Because patient satisfaction scores are being increasingly linked to reimbursement rates, and because research has indicated that satisfaction rates are generally higher for those who are prescribed opioids, then hospitals and providers are increasingly tempted to use them inappropriately because of the incentives they provide. Unfortunately, what often is lost is a true understanding of what is best for each individual given their unique circumstances. In May of 2018, the City of Evansville joined many other communities in filing a federal lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors in their responsibility for the opioid epidemic. The lawsuit alleged that companies lied about the costs and benefits associated with the opioids and did not flag questionable prescriptions that could have reduced a growing drug trade associated with this prescribing. Like hundreds of other cities and counties filing a similar suit, the community of Evansville is struggling to financially and logistically manage many of the negative consequences that have resulted from this tragic situation. One of the many ways in which the opioid epidemic is affecting communities relates to increased parental incapacity and subsequent foster care needs. In Florida, between 2012 and 2015, for every 6.7 additional opioid prescriptions written per 100 people, the number of children entering the foster care system due to parental neglect increased by 32 percent. An increase of 129 percent in foster care needs occurred in Florida during this time frame. Nationwide, communities are increasingly struggling with what to do when parents are no longer able to care for their children due to opioid drug addiction. All of this brings us back to that 1998 decision by the Joint Commission to designate pain as the fifth vital sign. Prior to this, vital signs typically included the following: body temperature, pulse rate, respiration rate and blood pressure (in addition to height and weight). Where pain differs from all of these is that there is no objective measure of pathology. Having worked with a number of individuals who report varying levels of acute and chronic pain, it is clear that what for one person is reported as unbearable is for another quite manageable. Yet as hospitals have increasingly sought to remove pain from even the simplest of procedures (e.g., numbing cream designed to help children not feel injections) and treat it as a symptom to be removed, not a sign to be understood, physicians and hospitals have fallen prey to the notion that they should be ones who take all the pain away. To be clear, no one (myself included) likes pain, and for some, it is downright brutal and seemingly unfair. The purpose of this article is not to suggest that we shouldnt provide responsible options for pain relief. But rather, it suggests that we as a culture and medical community are doing almost nothing to help teach people the value of pain and how to best bear and reduce it (naturally) when it does occur. Years ago, in working at a childrens center in a hospital, I noticed that there was a significant focus on removing all pain for youth as part of a childrens bill of rights. Although born out of good intent, I was uncomfortable with the idea that children were being taught that pain was not important to understand and should be eliminated. As the past decade has taught us, these two messages have unfortunately brought about an exponentially greater level of pain and heartache than any initial pain and suffering that might have incurred. Recently, the Southwest Indiana Chamber of Commerce voted on the most important business issue of the year. In an unprecedented move, the normally business-minded membership stepped outside into the medical domain, indicating that the opioid crisis was the most important issue facing the business community today. Whether it is parents struggling to care for their kids, or business people struggling to fulfill their work roles, everyone is suffering when we fail to consider how to, well, best handle suffering that will occur. There have been many good ideas on how to best manage the epidemic. But as parents, it may turn out to be that our role in this is the most important. Early in life, when our children first encounter the inevitability of pain, they will look to us in considering just how they are to manage its discomfort. Do we talk about possible causes, and talk about non-pharmacological means to manage and reduce it best when it occurs? Do we help them understand its usefulness even while acknowledging it is no fun? Do we support them and strengthen them when, unfortunately, it remains? Or do we repeatedly just teach them to treat it immediately and try and make it go away? Obviously, each person and situation deserves an empathetic consideration, and likely a balance of the previous approaches. But when they become adults, maybe instead of asking each person how bad their pain is, maybe we should inquire about how they are doing, and let them decide whether the pain is part of their concern. For people who existed in this world prior to the last 100 years, options for pain relief were limited at best or not present at worst. I cant imagine incurring an amputation without even a simple local anesthetic to offer or dealing with kidney stones with no pain relief in sight. Today, though, opportunities abound for immediate aid, but potentially carry a long-term price. More than ever, it demands that we all take a broader look at just how we deal, and help others deal, with all types of pain and the motives that underlie it. Fortunately for my friend, his upbringing and approach to life helped him recognize when he was approaching a danger zone. But for many, these roadblocks are not in place, and what started as pain relief may end up leading them down an avenue of broken dreams. Jim Schroeder is a pediatric psychologist. Image credit: Shutterstock.com 623 Shares Share Whats the deal with your people? As a baffled second-year resident, I looked up through my scrub mask at the Caucasian female attending with whom I was operating. I had an idea about what she was referring to as I overheard her complain about a laboring patient while she was scrubbing with the other Caucasian attending who was operating in the room next door. She acts as if she has never had anything in her vagina, but clearly she has. This recently immigrated South-Asian patient, Aisha (identifying information changed), was like many that I had been asked to examine. She was a meek patient and, like any other woman in her first labor, she was scared and uncomfortable. She had a small introitus and had a difficult pelvic exam with an inability to relax her legs during the exam. She had always had pain with intercourse but was told this was normal. Looking back with more knowledge and expertise, she clearly had a hypertonic pelvic floor secondary to anxiety and fear resulting In vaginismus and likely had provoked vestibulodynia. There were quite a few Aishas who I would encounter during my residency, and I always felt like the attending physicians involved would begrudgingly take care of my people. Yes, their exams were difficult, and each patient took extra time, but I found many of them did not receive the empathy and cultural sensitivity they needed in their health care delivery. Many of the patients were from a culture of deference to the physician, so, although they may have been uncomfortable, they went along with whatever the doctor said. As a young resident, I never felt comfortable with the stereotype but also did not feel brave enough to say anything to these physicians. Truthfully, racial inequity exists in the delivery of health care just as it does throughout other elements of society. The father of modern gynecology, James Marion Sims, is a prime example of how the institutions that have existed for centuries have utilized endemic racial biases to unequally treat different immigrants and races. He is known for modernizing many surgeries, including vesico-vaginal fistulas, but did it at the expense of experimenting on un-anesthetized African slaves and poor Irish immigrants. It was a common belief that African women did not experience pain, and it made it easier to dehumanize these patients for the sake of the greater good, elite Caucasian women with similar problems. Even today, maternal mortality rates in the U.S. for African-American women is three to four times higher than Caucasian counterparts, even when correcting for education and socioeconomic status. According to the Institute of Medicine, there are still quality chasms that exist for minority groups in the United States owing to the lack of cultural competence by many health care providers and lack of education and understanding of certain underserved and under-represented groups. But in my opinion, it is a deeper problem than this. Racial inequality is experienced by many of us through many different institutions law enforcement, education, and political systems, to name a few. Is it that much of a surprise that it spills over into health care delivery? As a brown girl growing up in the South, I was subjected to a significant amount of racism. I always imagined, once I had attended elite universities, attended medical school and started practicing medicine, I would be less likely to see it and be immune to it. Working as a Muslim physician in the post-9/11 era, there were many times I would hear blatant racist statements or even subtle ones during Ramadan when fasting, from certain patients and even from attending physicians. Whether it was a joke about terrorism, discussions about towel-heads, or opinions about their female patients, their pelvic exams or their status, these comments were often stated with minimal remorse. It never surprised me and for some doctors that I know, this discrimination is still endured now during the Trump-era of politics. Nowadays, I work in downtown Chicago owning and operating a gynecology practice with one of my specialties being sexual dysfunction. As it turns out, based on my expertise and location, my people tend to flock toward me for their care and management. Maybe because of my background, cultural competence and experience, I now know whats the deal with my people. I like to believe that being brought up with egalitarian principles and a general calling to serve those in need, I am able to deliver unbiased health care equally to my patients. I do not believe the entire health care system is broken when it comes to equality in health care delivery but I do believe our inherent biases impact how we perceive patients. Representation matters and knowing there are like-minded medical professionals is a start. Empathy and goodwill toward all races and socioeconomic backgrounds cannot always be re-taught to individuals but being aware of the discrimination and stereotypes are a stepping stone to breaking these barriers in health care. Sameena Rahman is an obstetrician-gynecologist. Image credit: Shutterstock.com 2K Shares Share Sanjay Gupta. John Locke. Jill Stein. Charles Krauthammer. What do they all have in common? If you guessed that they are all physicians, then youre right. Less salient, however, is the fact that all of them pursued passions outside of medicine. (Dr. Gupta is an Emmy Award-winning medical reporter. John Locke was a physician-philosopher. Stein and Krauthammer both made their mark in politics.) In doing so, they avoided an existential trap that many of us in the medical community, including medical students, residents and seasoned physicians, unfortunately, fall into. That is, they did not let their profession as physicians define their entire personhood. They allowed themselves to be more than just their title. Im a first-year medical student. A non-trad like many of my peers, I didnt go straight to medical school after college. In the years after receiving my bachelors degree in 2014, I taught high school science in the South Bronx, earned a masters degree in education, co-founded a stroke wellness startup and designed e-learning solutions for a major health care system in the Washington, DC region. During those four years, I witnessed the inequities in our public education system, discovered the power of meditation, got bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, published my writing and launched (unsuccessfully) two Kickstarter campaigns. When I entered medical school, I knew what I signed up for. After all, I had many friends forewarn me about it, and Ive read multiple Reddit threads on med school life the summer prior to matriculating. And they werent kidding. It didnt take long before I would subject myself to hours upon hours of studying while internalizing imposter syndrome and lugubriously commiserating with distressed classmates. Elevated levels of cortisol, bouts of sleep deprivation and information overload, which can be best described as drinking from a firehose, were all but inevitable. After our first exam, just three weeks into the school year, it became apparent that our self-worth for the next few years would be tethered to the number of questions we get right on a three-hour exam that we take every couple of weeks. Our identities would gradually fall by the wayside. In lieu of passion projects, hobbies, a healthy social life, and unbridled introspection, I would now be chasing after good marks on exams, lest I feel unworthy and undeserving. In this trek to become healers of the human body, my classmates and I would unknowingly chip away at aspects of our personhood that do not fit the schema of the idealized physician the medical community wants us to embody. Creativity, extraversion, discomfort, uncertainty, vulnerability all of those are to be avoided and not embraced. Why would they be if our health care system doesnt foster a culture that acknowledges such things constructively and empathetically? Im fortunate to be at a medical school where we are taught a variety of topics and skills that would, in theory, make us well-rounded physicians, ready to tackle health care issues of the 21st century. To name a few, we have comprehensive lectures on race in medicine, LGBTQIA health and self-care. During our first week of school, we were even trained to improve our listening skills using mindfulness techniques. However, many medical schools still lag in this aspect of medical education. And while a handful of medical schools, like my own, are paving the way for a more holistic, socially-conscious, and interdisciplinary medical education, the health care system as a whole still has a lot to catch up on. In her book In Shock: My Journey From Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope, Dr. Rana Awdish highlights the problematic culture of medicine. To do what needed to be done, we believed we had to be superhuman, she writes. And there was sadly an implied superiority in those achievements. Doctors, we believed, were just different. The perception that physicians are different from the other members of society pervades the minds of many. I remember having a debate with a friend, a medical resident, who insisted that doctors have the right to feel superior because, without them, society would not function. What about social workers, teachers, policemen, and firefighters? Im pretty sure society wouldnt do so hot without them, I retorted. Dont get me wrong. Doctors are indeed noble for what they do. Their work is undoubtedly physically intense and emotionally taxing. But the notion that they are superhuman and different from the rest of society is exactly the trap that we fall into the moment we don our white coats as medical students. It is because of this trap that we get tunnel vision and let mistakes during our medical school training define our self-worth. We forget that there is a world outside of our flashcards, PowerPoint slides, exams, and clerkships teeming with people, adventures, and stories that, if we so choose, we can enrich our lives with, intellectually, physically and spiritually. Theres a reason depression, anxiety, and burnout is disproportionately higher among medical students and physicians. In fact, nearly 400 physicians commit suicide a year, the highest of any profession. Might it be because we are anchored to one thing and one thing only? Those of us who pursue medicine have built our entire personhood around the goal of becoming a doctor. If that is all that is meaningful to us, should we really be surprised at the statistics on mental health? I would say though that I am cautiously optimistic about the future. Medical schools nationwide are increasingly emphasizing student well-being and interdisciplinary learning. For example, many schools are now pass/fail during the preclinical years. Some take it a step further like the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and Yale School of Medicine, where medical students do not get grades during the first two years and can take exams anonymously. At these schools, they are encouraged to take on intellectual pursuits and scholarly work of their own choosing. Even hospitals have changed their work hours by adding caps to alleviate the high workload of medical residents. So maybe the tide is turning. Maybe its not quixotic of me to imagine a culture of medicine that embraces, not shuns, humanness. A culture that allows doctors and medical students like myself to be more than just their title so that we can define medicine not the other way around. King Pascual is a medical student. Image credit: Shutterstock.com Click here for updates on this story OAHU, Hawaii (KITV) -- Behind every ghost, ghoul, and goblin costume, is a kid who's spent hours, days or even weeks planning. Kaydie Kurokawa is one of those kids. The Mililani 3rd grader said she is excited to join her friends in the hunt for the perfect Halloween treats Wednesday night. "I like trick-or-treating," she said. "But then I don't get the candy all the time." Kaydie has a nut allergy. Her dad, Kory, said when she ingests nuts she swells up and can't breathe. She has the same reaction if she's touched by someone eating peanut-based foods. She stays away from the Snickers, the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and the M&M's. But at her own house, the Kurokawa's offer non-edible treats, like pencils, erasers, and fortune telling fish. Not long ago, the Kurokawa's learned about the Teal Pumpkin Project -- an idea brewed up by the group "Food Allergy Research and Education." Families put a teal pumpkin out on their doorsteps for trick-or-treaters to alert kids and parents that non-food treats are available. Kory Kurokawa says they do offer snacks but some choose the toys. "It's cooler to have the toys," he said. According to the Teal Pumpkin Project's website, Kaydie is one 6 million kids living with serious food allergies. Some with nut allergies like her, others with sensitivities to soy, dairy, or eggs. Some right here on Oahu. The Kurokawas -- and about 2 dozen other families -- registered with the project, so now if your princess, super hero, or wizard is looking to avoid an allergy scare, you know where to go. The idea is growing nation wide, now including families without food allergy concerns. Kaydie said there's a few houses in her neighborhood who aren't registered that offer peanut-free snacks or toys. She hopes more people catch on. Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform. KATHMANDU (PTI): China has pledged to provide assistance of RMB 150 million to the Nepalese Army over a period of five years for humanitarian and disaster relief equipment. The Chinese assistance - equivalent to Nepalese Rs 2.5 billion - was announced during Nepal Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Ishwor Pokhrel's visit to China. Pokhrel returned to Kathmandu on Tuesday on conclusion of his week-long visit. During the visit, Pokhrel and Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this effect. With the latest aid, China's financial support to the Nepalese Army has increased by 50 per cent. Pokhrel held separate meetings with Chinese counterpart Wei and Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission of China Gen Xu Qiliang. Last year, China had extended RMB 100 million for humanitarian and disaster relief equipment to Nepal's Army. China has hiked defence assistance to the Nepalese Army in recent years. Pokhrel also attended the eighth Beijing Xiangshan Forum from October 24-26 that witnessed participation of more than 500 representatives from 67 countries and seven organisations from around the world. The forum was themed 'Building a new type of security partnership of equality, mutual trust and win-win cooperation'. Formerly known as the Xiangshan Forum, it was launched for the first time in 2006 with the objective of promoting cooperation among security officials, armed forces, international organisations and experts. ALBANY, Ore. -- Two teenagers have been arrested in connection with a plot to kill one of the boys parents, the Benton County Sheriffs Office said. The sheriffs office said they received a call Oct. 25 from a concerned father who had received information that his son wanted to give him and his wife sleeping pills and light the house on fire to kill them. Deputies took a 14-year-old from Albany into custody Saturday night on two charges of attempted aggravated murder and first-degree attempted arson. Deputies said this a very difficult case for everyone involved. "He did not want discipline, he wanted to live his life the way he wanted to live," Said Greg Ridler, Benton County Undersheriff. "The fact they didn't take it seriously contributed to the length it took us to discover what had happened and allowed for the possibility he could've completed these activities." His alleged accomplice, a 13-year-old boy, was taken into custody Monday on two counts of attempted aggravated murder after the sheriffs office said he admitted to giving his friend the sleep aid medication to kill his parents. Neither of the teens have criminal histories. Both are lodged at the Linn-Benton Detention Center in Linn County. Several friends were reportedly aware of the sons plot. The sheriffs office said youth should report suspicious activity anonymously to Safe Oregon at 844-472-3347 or tip@safeoregon.com. The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information should contact the Benton County Sheriffs Office at 541-766-6858. OREGON -- Measure 104 proposes a change to the Oregon Constitution that would require a three-fifths legislative majority to approve any bill that raises revenue. Voting yes supports expanding the meaning of bills for raising revenue, which require a three-fifths legislative majority, to include fees and changes to tax exemptions, deductions and credits. If the measure passes, it would define the term raising revenue in the Oregon Constitution. Voting no means the current law would stay intact. Bills for raising revenue that require the majority are limited to bills that levy or increase taxes. The term raising revenue is not currently defined in the Oregon Constitution. Based on interpretations by Oregon courts, a bill that imposes a fee for a specific purpose or in exchange for some benefit or service is not included. Bills that reduce or eliminate tax exemptions are also not included in the legislative majority requirement. Albany Area Chamber of Commerce President Janet Steele said they support the measure because it prevents legislators from creating loopholes to raise taxes that end up hurting businesses. Were seeing that the Legislature is getting greedier and greedier on tax dollars, and we think its unfair to businesses and the citizens of Oregon to have legislators circumvent the law, Steele said. Steele said the three-fifths majority requirement would also create a healthy discussion in the Legislature. However, Carol Van Houten, a member of Community Alliance Lane County, opposes the measure. She said itll create an unnecessary gridlock and could prevent social programs from being funded if tax increases cant be implemented. We think it would stop the government from spending money on social needs, Van Houten said. Money needs to go to things that help people. Van Houten said people should trust the government to make wise decisions with money. The Springfield and Roseburg chambers of commerce also support the measure, along with other farming and business organizations. Nike, AARP and numerous social rights organizations oppose it. Stay with KEZI 9 News leading up to the election and on Election Day for the latest about the races and measures that matter to you. Watch KEZI 9 News at 4, 5 and 6 and 11 p.m. on Nov. 6 and follow KEZI on Facebook and Twitter. OREGON -- The debate over Oregon's sanctuary state law is one of the more controversial topics appearing on the November ballot. Voting "yes" on Measure 105 supports repealing the state's sanctuary law that was passed in 1987, which made Oregon the first sanctuary state in the nation. Voting "no" means the sanctuary state law would remain in place. Currently, the sanctuary law prohibits state agencies from asking about a person's immigration status if they haven't committed another crime. It also bans state and local law enforcement from coordinating with federal immigration officials on raids and roundups. Supporters of the measure said it will allow American citizens to come first. "We're a nation of laws," said Jim Ludwick, communications director for Oregonians for Immigration Reform. "We're also a nation that has a immigration policy and the policy is, you're not supposed to come into this country illegally." People in opposition said it will cause fear in minority communities. "Undocumented immigrants have been part of the fabric of Oregon," said Joel Iboa, a coordinator for the No on Measure 105 campaign. "They are the backbone of our local economy." Ludwick argued this point. "Nobody would target them," he said. "How would your family be targeted unless you break the law? I don't understand that concept. If they're here illegally, shouldn't they leave?" The Repeal Oregon Sanctuary Law Committee (ROSL) raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of the measure. The largest donors on the opposing side include the ACLU of Oregon and the National Immigration Law Center. In July, the Republican candidate for governor, Knute Buehler, said he would vote to repeal the law. Governor Kate Brown made it clear she supports the sanctuary state law. Stay with KEZI 9 News leading up to the election and on Election Day for the latest about the races and measures that matter to you. Watch KEZI 9 News at 4 and 11 p.m. on Nov. 6 and follow KEZI on Facebook and Twitter. BUCKS COUNTY >> State Senator Steve Santarsiero (D-10), along with state Representative Shelby Labs (R-143) have announced the award of $686,000 in Commonwealth funds for the expansion of a multi-use trail originating in Central Park in Doylestown Township. The lawmakers also announced a $450,000 grant to Plumstead Township for pedestrian improvements on Old Easton Road and Route 611 and $50,000... The family of murdered mother Marie Tierney are on their way to meet with gardai following the exhumation of her remains earlier today. Her brother, John Bourke said that 'everything has to be done' and that 'there is no turning back' in the hunt for his sister's killer. Gardai, along with a family liaison officer will meet Ms Tierney's siblings this afternoon to brief them on the progress of their investigation. Ms Tierney's remains have been brought to the mortuary at Waterford Regional Hospital where they will be examined and she will be re-interred at the graveyard in Conahy later today. Marie Tierney was reported missing by her husband Jim on October 22, 1984. He told gardai that she left her home at Clinstown, Jenkinstown at approximately 10.30pm on October 21, 1984 in the family car, a Renault 18. The car was located at Newpark Fen the following day. On December 21, 1984 her body was located in a ditch by a male out walking on the Bleach Road on the outskirts of Kilkenny City. She had been violently strangled. Maries siblings, Breda Fay and John Bourke have pleaded with her murderer to do the right thing and hand yourself in. We strongly believe that her murderer is alive. You know who you are and we are asking you to please come forward.Hand yourself in for the sake of her children, her grandchildren and all her family. We need justice for Marie, they said. Marie's remains were re-interred yesterday evening and a simple prayer service took place at her grave, attended by family members and gardai. Anyone with information can contact Kilkenny Garda station on (056) 7775000 or the Garda Confidential Line, tel 1800-666111. An information evening on the proposed new housing developments at the former Brogmaker site on the Castlecomer Road will take place next Wednesday, November 7. Having purchased the site last year, Kilkenny County Council has since revealed proposals to convert the well-known pub and guesthouse building into ten apartments. Its also proposed to demolish the dormer building and construct two new apartments in its place, and build two new houses and four new apartments in what is currently the carpark. The decision to buy the site last autumn for a sum of 850,000 recoupable from the Government under Rebuilding Ireland was not without some controversy. Some councillors said they had first learned of the purchase on social media, while one councillor, Malcolm Noonan, described it as utterly bizarre at the time. Rampant speculation on social media and in the public arena then lead to the council issuing a statement to clarify that the premises had not been bought to accommodate refugees. A spokesman for the council said the purchase of the site was for the provision of social housing, to meet the needs of approved applicants on the housing list. An information evening, at which plans and details of the proposed development will be on display, takes place at the Newpark Hotels Glendine Suite from 4pm to 8pm on Wednesday, November 7. Staff members from Kilkenny County Councils housing section will attend to answer any questions the public might have. All are welcome to attend. The plans are also on display at County Hall, John Street until Friday, November 16. The closing date for submissions or observations is Friday, November 30. Development The eastern part of the city has recently seen the opening of five new self-contained one-bed units, specifically for women, at the former Greensbridge B&B. The houses, designed by Brian Dunlop Architects and built by Ashgrove Construction, are part of Kilkenny County Councils housing delivery programme which is expected to deliver more than 185 new homes this year. The council has said at present it is ahead of its Rebuilding Ireland 2018-2021 targets. The remains of a mother-of-two who was brutally murdered over thirty years ago are being exhumed from a graveyard in Co Kilkenny this morning as detectives gather the final pieces of evidence in their investigation. The graveside exhumation of the remains of the murdered mother-of-two Marie Tierney is currently taking place at Conahy graveyard. Gardai began work at 6am and Ms Tierney's remains are expected to be examined by forensic experts before she is re-interred. Advanced scientific developments will allow officers gather together evidence that will be crucial to prosecuting the killer. New witnesses have also come forward during the cold case investigation, which started last December. The exhumation of bodies involves a complex application process, and is only allowed in the rarest of circumstances. Investigating gardai had to apply to Kilkenny County Council for a licence for the process and a Ministerial Order was also required and granted by the Department of Justice. The law requires that the exhumation be carried out with due care and decency, and in such a manner as not to endanger public health. An environmental protection officer from the local council must be present to supervise the process. A special coffin, lined with zinc, known as a shell is then used to transport the remains. A forensic anthropologist, a state pathologist, gardai from the Technical Bureau and a forensic scientist from Forensic Ireland Limited all attended the exhumation. The exhumed body must then be reburied or cremated within 48 hours. As part of the investigation over 300 lines of enquiry have been examined and 200 people have been interviewed. House-to-house enquires have taken place in a number of areas including the Bleach Road, Conahy, the Ballyragget Road, Lovers Lane and Old Newpark and Newpark. Inspector Liam Connolly is heading the investigation and is continuing to liaise with the Tierney and Bourke families. Chief Superintendent Dominic Hayes has outlined how every necessary resource has been deployed in the investigation. It is incumbent on us that we put a huge effort into solving this murder for Maries family. I have no doubt that we will have a successful outcome, he said. Marie Tierney was reported missing by her husband Jim on October 22, 1984. He told gardai that she left her home at Clinstown, Jenkinstown at approximately 10.30pm on October 21, 1984 in the family car, a Renault 18. The car was located at Newpark Fen the following day. On December 21, 1984 her body was located in a ditch by a male out walking on the Bleach Road on the outskirts of Kilkenny City. She had been violently strangled. Maries siblings, Breda Fay and John Bourke have pleaded with her murderer to do the right thing and hand yourself in. We strongly believe that her murderer is alive. You know who you are and we are asking you to please come forward.Hand yourself in for the sake of her children, her grandchildren and all her family. We need justice for Marie, they said. Anyone with information can contact Kilkenny Garda station on (056) 7775000 or the Garda Confidential Line, tel 1800-666111. Works have commenced in Freshford to improve the water supply for residents and businesses by tackling the high levels of water leakage in the area. Irish Water, working in partnership with Kilkenny County Council is decommissioning 875m of old cast iron water mains and constructing new water mains along the R693 road in Freshford. The old, damaged pipes will be replaced with modern, high density polyethylene (plastic) pipes. New service connections will be installed from the new water main to each customers property. This week, the first section of the works got under way along Mill Street and Urlingford Road, where 500m of new water main pipes will be laid before the end of this year. Irish Waters Leakage Reduction Programme will continue in Freshford into 2019, when a further 375m of problematic water main on Kilkenny Street will be replaced. These works will be carried out by Coffey Northumbrian Ltd in partnership with Kilkenny County Council on behalf of Irish Water. As they get older, cast iron watermains can become severely corroded and have a high level of leakage as well as being subject to frequent bursts, which in turn leads to water discoloration. At present, almost half of the water produced in Ireland is lost to leaks in the network. said Mark ODuffy, Leakage Reduction Programme Regional Lead at Irish Water. Replacing these ageing water mains will not only reduce the high levels of leakage, but it will also improve security of water supply, as well as improving the quality of the water We would like to thank local residents and businesses for their ongoing cooperation as we work together to deliver these improvements for Freshford; and Kilkenny County Council for their continuing efforts in delivering this programme of works. We will continue to work with the community to minimise disruption. Customers can phone Irish Water on Callsave 1850 278 278 if they have any further questions about the project, added Mark ODuffy MASON CITY, Iowa An accused arsonist is set to stand trial in December. Cedric Lee Harris Jr., 20 of Forest City, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to one count of 1st degree arson. Law enforcement says Harris dumped gasoline on firewood that was for sale outside the Yesway convenience store on North Federal Avenue in Mason City. Court documents state there was someone inside the store and other persons near it when Harris dumped the gasoline around 1 am on September 22. His trial is scheduled to start on December 11. AUSTIN, Minn. A $14,000 donation will support STEM-related scholarships at Riverland Community College. The money is coming from AT&T to the Riverland Community College Foundation and will be used for 14 $1,000 scholarships in science, technology, engineering, and math fields in the fall semester. We are honored to continue this partnership with AT&T and provide scholarships to students with a high financial need who are interested in STEM careers, said Dr. Adenuga Atewologun, president of Riverland Community College. Many Riverland students face financial obstacles as they work toward their dreams of a college education. These scholarships supported by AT&T reward hard-working students who need financial support to pursue careers in high-demand and high-paying STEM professions. AT&T previously provided $13,000 donations to Riverland in both 2014 and 2015, and $10,000 in 2017, for a total of $50,000 in scholarship support. AT&T Minnesota is committed to helping advance the education of our young people, particularly in the critical fields of science, technology, engineering and math, said Paul Weirtz, president of AT&T Minnesota. We are proud to once again support Riverlands scholarship program and help more students receive the STEM education they need to be prepared for careers in the 21st Century. MOUNT PLEASANT, Iowa (AP) A prosecutor in the trial of an Iowa father whose infant son was found dead and maggot-infested in a baby swing last year has told a jury the child "died of diaper rash." Assistant Iowa Attorney General Coleman McAllister told jurors Tuesday that 4-month-old Sterling Koehn had been in the same diaper for nine to 14 days when his body was found in the swing Aug. 30, 2017, at his parents' Alta Vista apartment, the Courier reported . The baby's father, 29-year-old Zachary Paul Koehn, is charged with murder and child endangerment. The boy's mother, Cheyanne Harris, is also charged and faces a separate trial at a later date. McAllister said Tuesday in opening statements that the baby's heavily soiled diaper had attracted bugs that had laid eggs, which had hatched into maggots. The resulting diaper rash led to ruptured skin, and e.Coli bacteria set in. "He died of diaper rash. That's right, diaper rash," McAllister said. A coroner's report showed the baby died of malnutrition, dehydration and the infection. In opening statements Tuesday, Koehn's attorney said the baby's death was a tragedy, but not a crime. McAllister denied the defense's claims, saying Koehn was an experienced parent. He noted that Koehn's 2-year-old daughter was also in the apartment and was healthy, and that Koehn had money to buy food and baby supplies. He stated Koehn was a drug user. Nurse and county rescue squad EMT Toni Friedrich testified Tuesday that she was the first to arrive at the apartment after Koehn called 911 to report the baby had died. Friedrich said Koehn showed no emotion when he led her to the dark, hot bedroom where the baby's body was. The baby's "eyes were open, and it was a blank stare," she said. Friedrich said when she touched the baby's chest, his clothing was crusty. When she moved his blanket, gnats flew up, she said. Koehn's trial was moved from Chickasaw County to Henry County to counter pretrial publicity. CLEAR LAKE, Iowa A stove top grease fire at a condominium complex was put out before firefighters could arrive Monday night. The Clear Lake Fire Department was called to The Harborage Pilot House on North Shore Drive around 8:44 pm. Three engine companies, 18 firefighters, and one ambulance responded, with another engine company and five firefighters from Ventura being sent for mutual aid. When they arrived at the scene, fire department officials determined a pot of grease on a stove had ignited. The heat activated the sprinkler system and extinguished the flames. An estimated $5,000 in water, smoke, and heat damage was done to one condo, with some water damaged to that floor and the floors below. All residents were able to evacuate and no one was injured. The Clear Lake Police Department also assisted at the scene. MASON CITY, Iowa A trial is scheduled for a woman accused of charging thousands on her mothers credit card. Marissa Castine Nichols, 32 of Mason City, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to credit card fraud. Authorities accuse her of racking up more than $3,400 in local and out-of-state charges on her mothers credit card from June 30 until the card was cancelled on July 23. Court documents say Nichols got the card out of a box under her mothers bed. Her trial is set to begin on January 15, 2019. GARNER, Iowa A Hancock County man is pleading guilty to stealing from his grandparents. Anthony James Fickel Schoneman, 23 of Garner, has entered a guilty plea to one count of 2nd degree burglary. Law enforcement says he illegally entered his grandparents home on May 15, 2017, and stole more than $10,000 worth of items, including cash, collector coins and prescription pills. No sentencing date has been set. CHARLES CITY, Iowa - In a surprise assembly, Ms. Stephani Barry received the Golden Apple Award on Tuesday at Immaculate Conception School. Oh, I was so surprised, the girls had been doing something secret for the last couple of weeks, says Ms. Barry. Those girls are 6th graders Alex Wright, Tayleigh Lantz and Isabelle Vance. They nominated Ms. Stephani Barry for the prestigious award. She's just so caring, she's always there for you, says Alex. She's so goofy and fun, says Tayleigh. She has like teacher super powers, says Isabelle. But if you ask the 5th and 6th grade teacher what her super powers are, she'll tell you it's all about being authentic in the classroom. I think it's really important to let the kids see the real side of me and my goofy side. I'm not afraid to look silly or dorky in front of the kids because I think it just makes them feel more comfortable around me and creates a better relationship, says Barry. Not only is Ms. Barry building relationships, she is also encouraging her students to be comfortable in their own skin. I think it also shows them that it's okay to be yourself and make mistakes, she says. As for how Ms. Barry feels about being a Golden Apple Award winner? It feels great, it really shows that sometimes I don't think I am doing as good of a job but it shows that they obviously think I am. CHARLES CITY, Iowa - Over 230 Iowa schools and 50,000 students are participating in this year's Youth Straw Poll. Students cast ballots in a mock election, voting for their favorite candidates in Iowa's gubernatorial and U.S. Congress races. One of the schools participating is Charles City High School. Christian Kreger is a senior and 18 years old, and has been spreading the word about the straw poll. "The vote is the most powerful tool that you we have. So I think people are feeling that it's a need to go out and vote and we do have a question on the survey 'Are you 18 and will you register to vote when you're 18?' And so far, everybody has said yes." He says that if you have the right to vote, use it. "I believe you should get out and get your opinion heard because if you don't, then you don't really have a right to complain in my opinion." Nathan Shultz is a junior, and while he's not yet eligible to vote next week, he does intend on registering to vote in 2020. He says the poll is helping students understand what to expect when they head to the polls. "Our teachers are working to make sure we're informed. It doesn't matter which way they look on politics it's just they want you to know each side of the story and what they stand for." Shultz remembers the 2016 election vividly. "That election was just so huge, you were involved in it anyway. I feel like the class I had in 8th grade in social studies with Mr. Rahmiller, we really talked about the issues and we did it on both sides." Robert Pittman's social studies classes are participating in the straw poll, considering as a valuable educational opportunity, and has noticed how the results from the poll can sometimes mirror results at the polls. "Sometimes it has over the years shown trends, but sometimes it's been slightly different. If you think about what you were able to see today, students actually sat down, looked at several issues connected to them, looked at every viewpoint the candidate has said about that, and then formulated their opinion." and with the amount of students taking part, as well as a rise in civic participation around the state, he predicts we could someday see the legal age of voters lowered to 16 years old. "It's very much actually a growing trend across the country where kids are like, 'I pay taxes, I know what's going on in politics, why don't I have the right to vote?'" Pittman wants to add one thing for those who haven't decided to vote yet: "Go out and vote next week." The results of the straw poll at Charles City High School include: For Governor: Reynolds/Gregg - 87, Hubbell/Hart - 93, Porter - 7, and Seigwarth - 11. For U.S. House of Representatives: King - 65, Scholten - 123, Aldrich - 3, Peterson - 7 Also included was the question of 'Will you vote when you are 18?' 174 responded with Yes, and 24 responded with No. For statewide results of the straw poll, click here for the Secretary of State's website. (Results are updated in real time.) ROCHESTER, Minn. A Kellogg woman is pleading not guilty to drug crimes in Olmsted County. Julie Lynn Bigelow, 48, was charged in May with 1st degree drug sales and 2nd degree drug possession. The Olmsted County Sheriffs Office says Bigelow was a passenger in a vehicle stopped on 17th Street and was found with 29.5 grams of methamphetamine in a clear plastic bag. A trial date for Bigelow has been set for April 8, 2019. CHARLES CITY, Iowa A North Iowa man is pleading guilty to cheating the government. Brian Charles Sachen, 39 of Mason City, was charged with 1st degree theft after authorities say he lied about having custody of his son in order to receive more than $10,000 in government benefits. Sachen has entered a guilty plea in Floyd county District Court. His sentencing is set for January 7, 2019. ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) A man who pleaded guilty to strangling an 81-year-old woman while burglarizing her St. Paul home more than 30 years ago has been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Sixty-year-old Michael Withers was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty last month to second-degree murder in the 1987 death of former "Ziegfeld Follies" dancer Lilian Kuller. The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports Winters criticized the judge and prosecutor's office for turning his case into a "media circus." The judge allowed reporters to video record the hearing. Kuller's family said afterward that Withers' claims were callous and disappointing. Authorities finally tied Withers to the crime last year after additional DNA testing was done on Kuller's fingernails. Withers was given credit for time served since he was charged in Kuller's death in March 2017. ___ This story has been corrected to correct year of killing to 1987 instead of 1981. MOUNT PLEASANT, Iowa (AP) A former friend of an Iowa father whose infant son was found dead and maggot-infested in a baby swing last year has testified he wasn't even aware the man had a baby. Jordan Clark testified Wednesday at the trial of 29-year-old Zachary Paul Koehn, who's charged with murder and child endangerment in the August 2017 death of 4-month-old Sterling Koehn, the Courier reported. The baby's mother, Cheyanne Harris, is also charged and faces a separate trial. Clark testified that he was aware Koehn had a young daughter, because he said Koehn would often talk about her. But said he didn't know Koehn had an infant son, despite having visited Koehn's Alta Vista apartment. Clark also said that he, Koehn and the baby's mother smoked meth, and that Koehn bought $20 to $40 worth of meth from him weekly. Clark, who began a relationship with Harris after the baby's death, said on the stand that Koehn called the morning of the baby's death saying he had misplaced a black bag containing meth and a scale. "He made the comment he needed to find it before anyone else did," Clark said. A prosecutor said Tuesday that the baby had been in the same diaper for nine to 14 days when his body was found in the swing by first responders at his parents' Alta Vista apartment. The baby's heavily soiled diaper had attracted bugs that had laid eggs, which had hatched into maggots. The resulting diaper rash led to ruptured skin, and e.Coli bacteria set in. A coroner's report showed the baby died of malnutrition, dehydration and an infection. Koehn's trial was moved from Chickasaw County to Henry County to counter pretrial publicity. CHARLES CITY, Iowa A Mason City man is facing charges after a high-speed pursuit in Floyd County. Sean Daniel Wendling, 51, was arrested on Sunday and charged with felony eluding, possession of stolen property, and possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver. The Floyd County Sheriffs Office says a deputy tried to pull Wendling over on the Avenue of the Saints near Floyd due to a headlight out. Wendling is accused of speeding away through Floyd before abandoning his vehicle and hiding in a wooded area east of the truck stops. A K9 unit was brought in and the Sheriffs Office says Wendling was found after a brief search. According to court documents, Wendling was found with multiple baggies of methamphetamine and the car he was driving was reported stolen out of Kansas. The Charles City Police Department, Mitchell County Sheriffs Office and the Iowa State Patrol assisted in this arrest. MASON CITY, Iowa A woman arrested after a drunken chase with children in her vehicle is pleading guilty. Natalie Marie Green, 26 of Mason City, was arrested on May 9 after authorities say she was pulled over on a report of a reckless driver and then drove away from the traffic stop. The pursuit never went faster than the speed limit and ended when Green turned into the Meadow Lake Apartment parking lot, where law enforcement says she had to be physical forced out of the vehicle. Court documents say there were children ages 3, 2, and two months in the vehicle. No one was injured in the incident. Green entered guilty pleas Tuesday to OWI-1st offense and child endangerment, both misdemeanors. Her sentencing is set for December 5. ROCHESTER, Minn.- It's that time of year again where families are starting to plan for holiday meals. It's also a sad reminder that many families struggle to put food on the table. That's why Tile Superstore & More is partnering with Channel One Regional Food Bank to bring food to those families. All throughout the month of November you can stop in the store and drop off non-perishable items like canned fruits and vegetables. We've been a local business for over 20-years in the Rochester community and we really think it's a part of our responsibility to give back and make sure the people who helped us grow and live this long are also take care of, Said Jacob Ward. He works at the superstore and tells KIMT this is their first food drive and they're hoping to help as many Rochester families as they can. Honestly, I'll be happy with 20 barrels too. Just as much as we can do to support channel one, said Ward. They're also running a special for anyone who donates three or more items to receive a special discount Osage and Forest City doubled up with top honors when the all-Top of Iowa Conference teams were released Wednesday. Osage, a state qualifier in Class 3A, had the Player and Coach of the Year in Rylie Olson and her mother, Andie Olson. The Green Devils placed five players on the TIC-East Division first team. Forest City's Kelsey Koch was tabbed the Player of the Year in the TIC-West Division, while her coach, Lacey Jerome, was named Coach of the Year. TIC East First Team Kessa Fingalsen, Central Springs; Emy Osterbuhr, North Butler; Sydney Midlang, Osage; Paige Kisley, Osage; Danielle Johnson, Osage; Rylie Olson, Osage; Kourtney Chambers, Osage; Jadyn Anderson, St. Ansgar; Gabrielle Finberg, St. Ansgar; Morgan Meier, West Fork. TIC West First Team Madison Meister, Garrigan; Jessa Gasteiger, Lake Mills; Cora Holland, Forest City; Kelsey Koch, Forest City; Kylie Greenfield, Lake Mills; Sydney Sabin, North Iowa; Hannah Hanson, Lake Mills; Katelin Adams, North Iowa; Kaylee Miller, Forest City. PITTSBURGH (AP) Paying solemn tribute to the dead, President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump stepped into the vestibule of a Pittsburgh synagogue Tuesday to light candles for the 11 people slain in the worst instance of anti-Semitic violence in American history. Outside the Tree of Life synagogue, the Trumps were later set to lay stones for each victim, a Jewish burial tradition, and place small white roses just steps from where a gunman opened fire during Sabbath services Saturday and further shook a nation reeling from jarring expressions of political violence and hate. Trump stepped into the role of national consoler, a title he wears uncomfortably, as he arrived in Squirrel Hill, the neighborhood where he faced an uneasy welcome. When Air Force One touched down at the airport outside Pittsburgh, the Trumps were not greeted by the usual phalanx of local officials that typically welcomes a visiting president, a reflection of controversy surrounding the visit. The White House said Trump was coming to "express the support of the American people and to grieve with the Pittsburgh community." But local and religious leaders were divided on whether Trump should be there. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, a Democrat, told reporters before the visit was announced that the White House ought to consult with the families of the victims about their preferences and asked that the president not come during a funeral. Neither he nor Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf planned to appear with Trump. Stepping off the plane, Trump was trailed by his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who are Jewish, and members of the first lady's staff carrying white flowers. As his motorcade wound through downtown Pittsburgh, some onlookers saluted the president with upraised middle fingers and others with downturned thumbs. The White House invited the top four congressional leaders to join Trump in Pennsylvania, but none accompanied him. A spokesman for Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he already had events in his home state of Kentucky, pushing back on the suggestion that he declined. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan's office said he could not attend on short notice. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also opted not to participate. Questions have long swirled about the president's credibility as a unifier. Since his 2016 campaign for the White House, Trump has at times been slow to denounce white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other hate-filled individuals and groups that found common cause with his nationalistic political rhetoric. Trump traveled to the historic hub of the city's Jewish community as the first funerals were scheduled to be held for the victims, who range in age from 54 to 97. He is expected to meet with first responders and community leaders. The death toll includes a set of brothers, a husband and wife, professors, dentists and a physician. It was not immediately clear whether Trump would meet with any family members. Those who live in the tight-knit community were uncertain about whether they wanted the presidential visit. To Marianne Novy, Trump wasn't wanted "unless he really changes his ways." For David Dvir, politics should take a pause for grief: "It's our president, and we need to welcome him." Barry Werber, 76, who said he survived the massacre by hiding in a dark storage closet as the gunman rampaged through the building, said he hoped Trump wouldn't visit, noting that the president has embraced the politically fraught label of "nationalist." Werber said the Nazis were nationalists. "It's part of his program to instigate his base," Werber said, and "bigots are coming out of the woodwork." Novy, 73, a retired college English professor, said she signed an open letter asking Trump not to come to Pittsburgh. "His language has encouraged hatred and fear of immigrants, which is part of the reason why these people were killed," she said. Just minutes before the synagogue attack, the shooter apparently used social media to rage against HIAS, a Jewish organization that resettles refugees under contract with the U.S. government. Dvir, 52, the owner of Murray Avenue Locksmith in Squirrel Hill, said of Trump: "I think he made some mistakes, but he is a great president." He added that it would be "a shame" if the community protested the president's visit. Asked Monday if Trump had done enough to condemn white nationalism, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president "has denounced racism, hatred and bigotry in all forms on a number of occasions." She added: "Some individuals they're grieving, they're hurting. The president wants to be there to show the support of this administration for the Jewish community. The rabbi said that he is welcome as well." Beth Melena, campaign spokeswoman for Wolf, said the governor did not plan to return to Pittsburgh as part of Trump's visit on Tuesday. She said he based his decision on input from the victims' families, who told him they did not want the president to be there on the day their loved ones were being buried. "Community leaders expressed to the governor that they did not feel it was appropriate for Trump to come, so the governor made a decision not to join him on his visit out of respect for the families and the community," Melena said. But Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who was conducting Sabbath services at the Tree of Life synagogue when the shooter opened fire, made clear the president would be welcome, telling CNN: "The president of the United States is always welcome. I am a citizen. He is my president. He is certainly welcome." Shulamit Bastacky, 77, a Holocaust survivor and neighbor of victim Melvin Wax, expressed hope that fraught political issues and protests would not overshadow the remembrances. "This is not the place to do it," she said. "You can do the political part everywhere else. Not at this time. This would be like desecrating those people who were killed. They were murdered because they were Jews." "You can protest later on," she added. "To me, it's sacred what happened here." ROCHESTER, Minn. - Rochester Community and Technical College invited students and faculty to sign a 'Yellowjacket Pledge,' a dedication to practice respect, responsibility, civility, compassion, and integrity. RCTC is holding a 'Pizza with a Purpose' series for students to talk about what each of those values mean while enjoying some slices. The first event was held Tuesday on the topic of civility. Students participated in a roundtable discussion on what civility is, and how to engage in dialogue with people they don't share experiences and views with. Student Guydan Sakor attended the discussion. As a Syrian immigrant, he tells KIMT that he practices civility when discussing immigration law with friends. "We get into a little bit of a big discussion and, you know, keep it respectful... Nobody likes to lose a friend," he says. Director of Student Rights and Responsibilities hopes that the first session of civility will lay groundwork for conversations held in the next sessions. "Within our own national dialogue if you look at it, it's really difficult for us to have conversations across areas of difference," she explains. "I think if we can provide a space here for our students to do that in a way that they can learn and grow, make mistakes, be supported in that, and learn something from that so they can take that out into the community, I think that's really our responsibility as an institution to do that." The next session will be held in November on the topic of compassionate learning. The series is expected to run at least through the end of the semester. WINNESHIEK COUNTY, Iowa A Winneshiek County Sheriffs Deputy suffered injuries after an intoxicated driver from Cresco drove through an accident scene and struck a deputy. Authorities said the initial accident occurred at 2:57 p.m. Tuesday when 64-year-old Gerald Ferrie, of Cresco, was westbound in a semi on Pole Line Rd. cresting a hill when 76-year-old David Drtina, of Cresco, was pulling two corn wagons and pulled out of a field. Ferrie saw Drtina and took evasive action by braking and ultimately swerving to the right ditch to avoid colliding with Drtina. Ferrie clipped a culvert under the roadway and rolled onto the right side spilling the load of corn. Drtina was not part of the collision, the sheriffs office said. While the roadway was closed to investigate and clean up the scene, 34-year-old Adam Strand, of Cresco, drove around a fully lit sheriffs vehicle parked in the roadway, authorities said. Strand struck a Winneshiek County Deputy who was attempting to stop him from entering the accident scene. Strand continued through the accident scene and then struck a fully lit emergency management vehicle that was parked blocking the accident scene. Authorities said that due to Stands intoxication level he was transported by ambulance to Regional Health Services of Howard County in Cresco before being transferred to Mayo Clinic in Rochester. The deputy who was struck suffered minor injuries. Multiple charges against Strand are pending. * Cbank autonomy essential, accepted governance requirement - govt* India govt to continue consultations, suggest solutions - govt* RBI Governor may consider resigning - TV * Govt invokes rare power to issue directions to RBI - report * Bonds, rupee weaken after reports that RBI governor may quit (Updates to add India govt statement, quotes, details) By Manoj Kumar and Suvashree Choudhury NEW DELHI/MUMBAI, Oct 31 (Reuters) - India's government stressed on Wednesday that the autonomy of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is "essential" as it sought to calm investors worried about a growing public quarrel with the central bank. Indian stocks and bonds fell and the rupee weakened earlier in the day amid reports that RBI Governor Urjit Patel may consider resigning given the breakdown in relations. The media reports also said the government had invoked never-before-used powers to issue directions to the central bank governor on matters of public interest. In a statement issued hours later through the finance ministry, the government said the RBI's independence was "an essential and accepted governance requirement". The government added that it would continue to carry out extensive consultations with the central bank to give its assessments on issues and suggest possible solutions. But it was unclear if it had used powers for the first time under the RBI Act to give the bank instructions. The Economic Times reported the government had sent letters to Patel in recent weeks exercising those powers. Indian television channels CNBC-TV 18 and ET Now both reported earlier in the day that Patel might resign. The RBI declined to comment. "The statement is ambiguous and does not fully clarify the issues at hand," said A. Prasanna, chief economist at ICICI Securities Primary Dealership in Mumbai. "Still it does sound like the finance ministry is trying to dial down the temperature." The Economic Times report said that the Section 7 powers had been invoked on issues ranging from liquidity for non-bank finance companies, to capital requirements for weak banks and lending to small- and medium-sized companies. TENSIONS BALLOON Indian markets clawed back some early losses after the statement but still appeared tentative. Benchmark stock indexes BSE and NSE rose around 1 percent, while the rupee was at 73.85 to the dollar, up from a low of 74.14 but still down on the day. The 10-year benchmark bond yield was at 7.87 percent from its previous close of 7.83 percent. Tensions between the RBI and the government mushroomed after RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya said on Friday that undermining central bank independence could be "potentially catastrophic", indicating the authority was pushing back against government pressure to relax its policies and reduce its powers ahead of a general election due by May. Investors are worried that a prolonged row between the government and the RBI could impact decision making at a time when India's financial markets have been hit hard by a series of debt defaults by one of the largest infrastructure funding companies. That has led to a liquidity crunch in the entire non-banking finance sector. "We have a fairly fragile financial system, between the public sector banks and non-banking financial companies," said Dhananjay Sinha, head of institutional research at Emkay Global Financial Services. "If RBI's top brass exits, there is a likelihood of instability that will be perceived, and that can have an impact on the economy and the market at large." India's $2.6 trillion economy surpassed France's in 2017 to become the world's sixth largest, and is not far behind that of the United Kingdom, according to World Bank data. IN THE OPEN Acharya's speech came after a long-running spat between the government and the RBI over whether the central bank should part with some of its 3.6 trillion rupees ($48.73 billion) of reserves to help fund the country's fiscal deficit. Government officials have also called for the RBI to relaxf strict lending rules for weak banks and are trying to trim the RBI's regulatory powers by setting up a new payment regulator. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday blamed the central bank for failing to stop a lending spree during 2008-2014 that left banks with $150 billion of bad debt. Patel and his deputy governors are expected to meet top finance ministry officials on Friday. TV channels said Patel has called for a full RBI board meeting on Nov. 19. (Additional reporting by Tanvi Mehta and Chris Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier and Neil Fullick) Messaging: tanvi.mehta.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) Stuff reports: Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway will review the case of a drug smuggler who was granted residency while serving jail time after new information. Karel Sroubkek had been handed an unprecedented get-out-of-jail card in getting residency, instead of being deported after serving his prison sentence. Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway made the special decision, even though the 37-year-old Czech national came to New Zealand on a false passport and is now serving time in Auckland South prison for importing drugs with a street value of $375,000. However, Newstalk ZB reported that Sroubeks had already been back to the Czech Republic which would mean his claim hed be hunted down if he returned to his home country doesnt ring true. On Wednesday, Lees-Galloway told Parliament that shortly before he arrived at Question Time he had become aware that information may exist that appears on the face of it to directly contradict information that I used and relied upon to make that decision. I am now taking advice on my options and need to consider the veracity or the new information that has been made available to me. South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, left, poses with U.S. special representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun for a photo during a meeting at the government complex in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018. AP-Yonhap South Korea and the United States have agreed to launch a working group to improve coordination on their joint approach to North Korea, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday. The agreement was reached during a trip to Seoul this week by U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun, according to the department's deputy spokesperson, Robert Palladino. The announcement comes amid a perceived rift in the allies' approach to North Korea. Seoul has been pushing cross-border projects with the North in a bid to spur the denuclearization of the regime, but Washington has appeared concerned about the possible undermining of sanctions on Pyongyang. The purpose of Biegun's visit to Seoul was to discuss diplomatic efforts to achieve the "final, fully verified" denuclearization of North Korea, Palladino said. By Robert Neff Just a little over a century ago, an American missionary described Korea as the most haunted place upon the planet. That was long time, however, and people today are no longer frightened by superstitions and ghosts. Or are they? Koreans often revere the elderly but, in some cases, they also fear and vilify them. In the early 1980s, whispered tales of "gumiho" (nine-tailed fox) disguised as an elderly woman, circulated amongst children in the southern provinces. This malevolent creature hunted children for their livers and was especially drawn to those wearing yellow or red. One woman who, oddly enough, lived in Gumi City - recalled that as a child she was careful never to wear yellow or red and was quite relieved when her family moved to Seoul in early 1984. That relief was short-lived. In summer 1984, whispers of an elderly woman a gumiho hunting children also began to circulate. Suspicion fell upon a fox at the small zoo in Children's Grand Park. In an attempt to ascertain the validity of these rumors, anxious parents and children contacted the media prompting the DongA Ilbo to publish an article dismissing the claims as preposterous. Of course, gumiho were not the only ones to terrorize Korean children in the 1980s. In 1989, the ghost of Hong Kong Grandmother an elderly cat-loving woman who perished in an airplane accident became popular in Korea. She prowled the streets at night and would attempt to trick children into showing their fingernails upon which she would kill them. One middle-aged Korean homemaker confessed that as a child she was careful not to show her fingers to strangers and slept with her hands under her pillow in case the Hong Kong Grandmother broke into her room. Dining out can also be dangerous. In 1921, near Seoul's Tapgol Park, a very popular restaurant patronized mainly by Japanese officials began experiencing strange events including blood leaking from the ceiling onto patrons and restaurant staff. Business plummeted and by the end of the year the restaurant was closed and the once prosperous proprietress was reduced to roaming the streets, mentally unbalanced and penniless. More recently, a popular restaurant in Sinchon is alleged to have a ghost haunting its bathroom. But aside from its startling appearance or rather its disappearance it has not caused any harm. But not all bathroom ghosts are harmless. For some, knocking on the bathroom door before entering is not a matter of courtesy, but self-preservation. The "cheuksin," a malevolent female spirit, sulks in the bathroom (presumably near the ceiling) - angered at the events that led to her taking her own life - and does not like to be surprised when the door is suddenly opened. When her victims are most vulnerable (using the facilities), she wraps her long black hair around their neck and strangles them. Any mishap that occurs in the bathroom is attributed to her. It isn't only children and drunks who encounter ghosts. About a decade ago, members of the National Assembly and their staff complained of ghostly molestations at night. It was determined the wandering spirits of palace women who had been buried on the grounds were the cause. Only the erection of a large phallus-shaped stone could appease their unrest. It was immense and cost nearly $190,000 but didn't last long - it was not popular with some of the more religious members of the National Assembly and was removed. Foreigners in Seoul are not exempt from ghostly encounters. The first Western adviser to the Joseon government, von Mollendorff, was provided as his living quarters a house widely believed to be haunted. Von Mollendorff was apparently unimpressed with whatever ghosts may have dwelt there for he did not write about it. Others in the foreign community, such as Horace Allen, found haunted houses in Seoul to be advantageous as they could be purchased for a relatively cheap price. Even the Jeong-dong compound where the U.S. ambassador resides is said to have been haunted. One American who has resided for several decades in a hanok (Korean traditional house) in Seoul believes his home was haunted by a young woman who hanged herself from the rafters in the 1920s. The ghost used to stomp about the house, rattle doors and scatter papers but over the years she has become quiet and rarely makes an appearance - perhaps she has become content with the passing of time. Dark Side of Seoul offers . When asked if he thought there were ghosts, Shawn Morrissey replied: "With the idea that ghosts are memories of tragedy and hardship still creeping in otherwise forgotten places [then] I'd say yes, Seoul has long been haunted." Tour operator Joe McPherson acknowledges that many of his guests, while on the tour, have had the eerie feeling of being followed by a woman. One incident that "freaked [McPherson] out" was when a guest turned around and took a picture that revealed "under a hazy lamppost was the figure of a woman" watching them. Even though technology is advancing constantly and our knowledge of our world is increasing, nothing is more powerful than belief and for this reason ghosts will always be part of our society. Robert Neff is a historian and columnist for The Korea Times. He can be reached at robertneff103@gmail.com The future of the builders merchant industry came together at the Builders Merchants Federations Young Merchant Conference. The event took place at the NEC, Birmingham during UK Construction Week as part of the BMFs 110th anniversary. A host of expert speakers joined senior BMF members to discuss the future of the industry and share insights into taking businesses to the next level. The event was hosted by writer Kevin Parr, and the first speaker was Sheri Hughes, UK Diversity & Inclusion Director at PageGroup. She talked about the importance of workplace diversity and encouraging people from all walks of life to share ideas and experiences with one another. She urged delegates not to be afraid of finding out their businesses demographics everyone has to start somewhere and it can be the first step towards addressing diversity in your company if you find it lacking. Next up was John Cremer, who delivered a talk on reading people and explained the categories of personalities, based on Greek gods, which he believes everyone fits into. He also gave celebrity examples of the character types, and helped delegates to understand how to deal with different types of characters in their everyday lives most effectively. Key figures from the industry including Peter Hindle MBE, BMF Chairman, Andrew Harrison, Deputy CEO of the Plumbing and Heating Division, David Kilburn, Executive Chairman of MKM Building Supplies, Steve Durdant-Hollamby, Managing Director of Alumasc Water Management Solutions, and David Grace, Sales Director at IG Lintels. They each told their career stories and then took part in a Q&A session hosted by Parr, where audience members had the chance to pick the brains of industry veterans. Olympic medallist Steve Backley OBE was next to take the stage, and he shared his tips for success and self-belief that he learned during his career as a javelinist. These included finding your passion, and surrounding yourself with talented and empowering people. Finally, keynote speaker George Clarke, a TV presenter and architect, spoke about some of his most challenging and rewarding construction renovations. He emphasised the need to find ingenuity in speeding up the construction process to ensure that we build enough houses. He then told delegates about his charity, MOBIE, which trains and inspires young people to build homes in an innovative way. The day closed with a summary from BMF CEO John Newcomb, and delegates moved on to a night of fun and networking at a nearby bar and casino. If you're interested in submitting a Letter to the Editor, click here. Submit | BY Ricki Green | R/GA has announced that Sean Lyons, the companys US president, will assume the role of global CEO on January 2, 2019. The appointment, made by R/GA founder, executive chairman, and CEO Bob Greenberg (left), represents the first time the CEO role will be filled by someone other than the companys founder. Greenberg, who founded R/GA in 1977 with his brother Richard, will continue to serve as the companys executive chairman and has committed to staying active at the company through 2020. During that time, he will support Lyons in evolving and promoting the companys vision for creating transformation at speed and ensure that every office in the network is able to deliver the innovative work the agency has become famous for. Greenberg will also be a leading voice for R/GA at major industry events and with the media. He will continue to report to Michael Roth, chairman and CEO of R/GA parent company, IPG. I could not be happier to have found both a partner and future successor in Sean, said Greenberg. In his eleven years with R/GA, Sean has proven himself to be a strong leader who is equal parts technologist, producer, and creative. I have every confidence that he will successfully guide the next generation of talent at R/GA and that together, they will chart a bright future. | BY Ricki Green | Filmgraphics has announced the signing of Sydney based duo Tourist. Tourist is Mitch and Louis, a young director/DP team at the forefront of the next generation of filmmakers. They met in high school art class where they were confused by Man Ray and went surfing instead. They soon discovered writing, film and a unique sensibility in collaboration. As comfortable working with real people and real stories as they are with actors they have developed a reputation for creating compelling work, grounded in human emotion and a talent for striking, visual storytelling. They have worked with brands such as BMW, Ducati and Tourism NSW. Says Anna Fawcett, EP, Filmgraphics: Tourist is unique in that they are a director/DOP team who create a visual style for every project. They are full of ideas, enthusiastic and bring their own special brand of energy to the eclectic talented Filmgraphics roster. Patna, Oct 31 (PTI) The Bihar government has sought records of lakhs of indentured labourers who had migrated from villages of the state to far-off Mauritius in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi made the request before authorities at the Mahatma Gandhi Sansthan in the island country which he is touring as part of a 10-member delegation from the state, a release said here. The Mahatma Gandhi Sansthan has 2055 registers containing names and details 4.54 lakh indentured servants, called "girmitiya" in local parlance, who had been brought to Mauritius from the port at Kolkata. The Deputy CM said the state government would like - with the help of records - to identify the villages from where people had migrated to the far-off land and later made it their home. He also recalled the "close ties between Bihar and Mauritius" and pointed out the grand welcome accorded to the then Premier Navin Ramgoolam by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar when he visited the state in 2007. He also said that a crossroad in Patna has been named after Ramgoolam's father and former Mauritius PM Sir Seewoosagar Ramgoolam. The delegation from Bihar, which is headed by Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Chaudhary and comprises other leaders like legislative council acting chairman Haroon Rashid, ministers Shravan Kumar and Rajiv Ranjan Singh among others also called on current Mauritian Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth and extended him the invitation for a visit to Bihar. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday embarked on a three-nation visit to Botswana, Zimbabwe and Malawi, during which he will hold talks with the top leaders of these African countries, meet business groups and interact with the Indian diaspora. Naidu is being accompanied by a high-level delegation for the six-day visit, the Ministry of External Affairs said Tuesday. The delegation includes Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Krishan Pal Gurjar, two MPs and senior officers of the Union government, it said. Naidu's official engagements includes meeting presidents of the countries; holding bilateral meetings with his counterparts and delegation level talks; and interacting with business groups and Indian communities, the ministry said in a release. In Botswana, the vice president will inaugurate the Global Expo Botswana 2018 together with his counterpart in that country. The expo will see participation of 25 big Indian companies and business houses covering a range of sectors, it said. In Zimbabwe, Naidu will meet the nation's foreign minister and lay the foundation stone of the Chancery project. He will witness signing of MoUs on mining, information and communication technology, and culture, the ministry said. The vice president, in Malawi, is expected to inaugurate the Business Incubation Centre and India-Africa Institute of Agriculture and Rural Development and unveil a bust of Mahatma Gandhi, it said. Several MoUs and agreements, including an extradition treaty, and pacts on agriculture and training will be signed during the visit, the External Affairs Ministry said. From India, there have been 26 outgoing visits to Africa at the level of president, vice president and prime minister in the last four years, it said. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Wednesday, October 31, 2018 at 12:41PM Netflix While people are speculating whether Henry Cavill will be returning to the DC movie universe as Superman, the actor has lined up his next project: starring in Netflixs adaptation of The Witcher. The streaming service gave us a first look of Cavill as a brooding monster hunter named Geralt. The series is going to be based on Andrzej Sapkowskis novels and is being adapted by writer Lauren Schmidt Hissrich. Filming will start this month in Hungary. Cavill will be joined by Freya Allan as Ciri, Anya Chalotra as Yennefer, Jodhi May as Queen Calanthe, and many more. The series, which is expected to come out on the service next year, is described as an epic tale of fate and family. It follows Geralt of Rivia, whos being described as a solitary monster hunter. Hes said to be struggling to find his place among people but when destiny hurtles him towards a powerful sorceress, and a young princess with a dangerous secret, the three must learn to navigate the increasingly volatile Continent together. Source: Polygon Gaborone, Oct 31 (PTI) Vice President Venkaiah Naidu Wednesday invited companies in Botswana to seize business opportunities in India, which he said is moving rapidly on the path of economic transformation. Addressing business leaders at the 13th Global Expo Botswana 2018, Naidu said Botswana and India enjoy a longstanding and enduring partnership as the two countries share the common values of democracy and strong people-to-people ties. Naidu, who arrived here this evening on the first leg of his three-nation visit to Botswana, Zimbabwe and Malawi, inaugurated the expo along with his Botswanian counterpart Slumber Tsogwane. Twenty-five Indian companies have taken part in the expo, the largest participation from a single country. "India commends Botswana's significant role in integrating its regional partners and promoting inclusive growth for Africa, he said. "I come from a country that has, from time immemorial, believed that the entire world is one large family. It is a country that has espoused peaceful co-existence among nations. It is a country that believes that all the countries should work together to improve human lives," he said. India's engagement with Africa over the last four years has been unprecedented, Naidu said. "Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set out 10 guiding principles to take our relationship with Africa to even greater heights," he added. "In the India-Africa Forum Summit in 2015, India pledged an overall lines of credit of USD 10 Billion for Africa, in addition to USD 600 million as grant and 50,000 scholarships. We are well on our way to fulfilling these pledges," he said. India-Botswana business ties have been growing steadily over the years, he said. "Our bilateral trade is valued at USD 1.75 billion in 2017-18. It is impressive to note that our trade has increased by 26 per cent during 2017-18." India is moving rapidly on the path of economic transformation with an annual growth rate of over 7 per cent and presents multiple opportunities for Botswana entrepreneurs in various sectors, he added. "Transformative taxation reforms like the introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST) has made India a transparent and an integrated market with greater ease of doing business," he said. "Aiming to make India the 3rd largest consumer market in the world, we are moving forward to build a five trillion dollar economy by 2025," he said. "Today, in India, there is a new enthusiasm, a new dynamism and a new quest for excellence in all spheres," Naidu said. The vice president said the Modi government has launched flagship schemes like Swachh Bharat, Make in India, Skill India, Digital India, industrial corridors and smart cities development programmes and asked Botswana companies to "seize these current and emerging" business opportunities. Naidu's six-day Africa visit is aimed at boosting bilateral ties with Botswana, Zimbabwe and Malawi. During the six-day Africa visit, Naidu's official engagements include meeting presdents of the countries; holding bilateral meetings with his counterparts and delegation level talks; and interacting with business groups and Indian communities. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) New Delhi, October 31: India has been featured on the list of countries with the worst record for punishing the killers of journalists, according to reports of the Committee to protect journalists (CPJ). The report states that India has been placed on CPJ's annual Global Impunity Index for the eleventh time. It further claimed that India has occupied 14th spot in the list this year and the condition has only worsened with 18 unsolved cases. The list comprises countries which have the worst record of punishing assailants of journalists. The list is topped by Somalia, and it features 13 countries. The other offenders in this list include Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Philippines, Afghanistan, Mexico, Colombia, Pakistan, Brazil, Russia, Bangladesh, Nigeria and India. Bulgarian Investigative Journalist Found Raped and Murdered in Ruse. Global Impunity Index 2018 (Photo credits: Cpj.org) CPJ's Impunity Index rank is calculated by the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of the country's population. The latest report was compiled by analysing data between September 1, 2008, and August 31, 2018. In the past decade, more than 324 journalists have been killed worldwide and in 85 percent of these cases, no accused have been convicted. Out of 324 cases, more than three quarters, which constitutes about 82 percent of these cases, took place in the 14 countries mentioned in the CJI's Index. Most of the victims were local journalists. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 31, 2018 10:40 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Srinagar, October 31: Indian and Pakistani troops on Wednesday traded heavy fire on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district. Police said the Pakistan Army targeted Indian posts in Tangdhar and Keran sectors, after which the Indian positions retaliated. The police said heavy firing continued between the two sides for around 15 minutes at both places. No casualty or damage was reported on the Indian side. Jammu And Kashmir: Soldier Injured In Gunfight In Kulgam District; Cordon And Search Operation Underway. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 31, 2018 04:47 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Mumbai, October 31: The Maharashtra government on Wednesday declared a drought in 151 tehsils of the state, covering nearly half of the total administrative units. The announcement comes a week after the Cabinet selected 181 tehsils, which witnessed more than 30 per cent deficient rainfall as compared to the long-term average. With the drought being officially declared, the relief measures are likely to follow to mitigate the agrarian and drinking-water crisis. Most of the affected tehsils fall in the interiors of Maharashtra, in the regions of Vidarbha and Marathwada. Farmers Threaten Pune IMD with Letters! Say Will Lock Office if Monsoon Prediction Goes Wrong. Notably, the two regions had faced prolonged droughts in 2014 and 2015, leading to the suicides of over 5,000 farmers. A severe drinking water-shortage was also reported, with the government being forced to procure potable water from neighbouring states. Check Full List of Tehsils in Maharashtra Where Drought Has Been Declared: Full list of tehsils where "#drought" has been declared by #Maharashtra government. pic.twitter.com/rc0SaVE4vw Mohammed Uzair (@mohammeduzair01) October 31, 2018 A central government team would also be visiting the 151 tehsils, to assess the level of drought and the amount of financial assistance which should be disbursed by the Centre. The decision to declare drought is based on a report submitted by Maharashtra's water and sanitation department, which claimed that 197 tehsils in the state received less than normal rainfall in 2018. Of such tehsils, 27 recorded more than 50 per cent deficit rainfall, 109 between 30-50 per cent and 61 between 20-30 per cent deficit in rainfall. Around 86 tehsils have received nearly 20 per cent deficit rainfall -- which is considered normal by the Indian Meteorological Department. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 31, 2018 08:25 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). The Maldives Supreme Court on Tuesday suspended a 13-year jail sentence given to the country's exiled former president Mohamed Nasheed until it reviews his conviction. This ruling came after a request was filed by the countrys prosecutor general. The court ordered that the government, police and prison authorities adhere to the suspension of the sentence for the countrys first democratically-elected leader Mohamed Nasheed. The order came two days before Nasheed is to return to the Maldives after living in exile for more than two years. The ruling appears to be a move by the incoming president-elect Ibrahim Mohamed Solih to prevent his arrest on arrival. Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, was a joint opposition candidate, who defeated incumbent Abdulla Yameen. The prosecutor general's office on Sunday sought a Supreme Court review of Nasheed's conviction under the country's tough terrorism law for ordering the military to detain a top judge when he was president in 2012. Nasheed had said he will return to the Maldives on November 1. His trial was criticized internationally for lack of due process, along with the trials of many other political opponents jailed by outgoing President Abdul Yameen's administration. He was offered asylum in Britain when he went there for medical treatment on leave from prison. He later based himself in neighboring Sri Lanka for political work. Nasheed, a pro-democracy activist, became the archipelago state's first president elected in a multiparty election in 2008, following decades of autocratic rule. He became popular as an environment crusader holding an underwater Cabinet meeting to highlight the perils of global warming and rising sea levels. He resigned in 2012 amid public protests over his decision to detain the judge and lost the 2013 presidential election to Yameen, who has rolled back much of the country's democratic gains. This ruling also comes a fortnight after the top court ruled against the challenge mounted by outgoing President Abdulla Yameen against the election results. Yameens lawyers had challenged in court that the results were manipulated and supporters of Yameen were hindered from voting through elaborate schemes such as disappearing ink and ring that erases ink. The top court threw out the challenge on the basis of lack of evidence and Yameen has since resigned himself to demitting office on November 17. (With PTI inputs) (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 31, 2018 05:58 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Oct 31, 2018, 5:55am ET Hispano-Suiza coming back from the dead in 2019 It will make -- you guessed it -- electric cars. Spanish car-maker Hispano-Suiza will return from the dead at the 2019 Geneva auto show. The company -- which stopped making cars in the 1950s -- will leap back onto the automotive stage to make high-end electric cars. The brand published a dark teaser image to give the world a preview of its upcoming new model. We see the curvaceous fenders of a coupe and a low roof line that gently flows towards the rear end of the car. The design channels Hispano-Suiza's heritage; in its heyday, the company was known for making aerodynamic, forward-thinking cars. British magazine Autocar reports the revival project is being funded by a Spanish conglomerate named Grup Peralada. Production will take place in Barcelona. Some of the heirs of the company's founders are involved in the project, too. "When Hispano-Suiza started, it built [an] electric car, but the prototype was never industrially manufactured. Now, 119 years later, in March 2019, Hispano-Suiza has its first 100% electric car," said Suque Mateu, the great-grandson of one of the company's founders. Additional details about the yet-unnamed Hispano-Suiza will trickle out over the coming months. While nothing is official yet, we expect the car that will make its debut in Geneva will arrive as a limited-edition model with a price tag pegged well into six-digit territory. It's too early to tell whether it will be available in the United States. This isn't the first time someone has tried to revive Hispano-Suiza. The name appeared at the 2010 Geneva auto show on a low-slung coupe powered by a V10 engine borrowed from the Audi R8. At the time, Hispano Suiza (it dropped the hyphen for the 2010 concept) announced plans to make up to 25 cars priced at nearly a million dollars each. These plans never came to fruition. Civil servants in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, have scampered out of their offices, as security agents confront members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) sect who infiltrated into the city centre on Tuesday, October 30. The IMN members also known as Shiites have for the third day staged protests against the continued detention of their leader, Shiekh Ibrahim Zakzaky. Police men take over the streets of Abuja. Photo credit: Twitter Source: Twitter READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Conscious of being overwhelmed by the thousands of Shiites members, the police resulted to firing live canisters and teargas to scare the protesters away. This led to civil servants in the federal secretariat scampering to safety to avoid being caught in the melee. In a statement posted on its social media pages, the Nigerian Army had said its troops deployed on routine duty at Kugbo/Karu bridge checkpoint in Abuja were attacked by Shiites on Monday, October 29. The army claimed the sect in massive numbers forced their way into the troops checkpoint after over running the police force. According to the statement, the sect members, fired weapons at troops, throwing bottle canisters with fuel, large stones, catapults with dangerous objects and other dangerous items at troops causing bodily harm and stopping motorist movement, breaking their windscreen and causing heavy traffic. Nigerian Air Force Operations Against Boko Haram | Legit TV Source: Legit - Nigerian workers are the least paid in Africa according to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) - Peter Gambo, NLC chairman in Taraba state state disclosed this in Jalingo after a solidarity protest march to demand governments approval of the new minimum wage - 30,000 minim wage is being proposed by Nigeria's Organised Labour The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) says Nigerian workers are the least paid in Africa, citing an analysis of the wages of most African countries. Mr Peter Gambo, the NLC chairman in Taraba, disclosed this to newsmen in Jalingo on Tuesday after a solidarity protest march to demand governments approval of the new minimum wage being proposed by Organised Labour. READ ALSO: Civil servants scamper to safety as Shiites, police clash in front of federal secretariat Gambo said: We analysed the wages of most of the African countries and discovered that Nigerian workers are the least paid in Africa. Nigeria, being the giant of Africa, should not be lagging behind. We made our request of what we expect to be paid to workers as minimum wage, but government keeps saying they cant pay without giving reasons why they cant pay. So, our protest is to create awareness and prepare the minds of Nigerians that if government did not respond to our request before Nov. 6, we are going to shut down the country. Gambo attributed the two months salary arrears owed local government workers in Taraba to the drop in federal allocation from April 2015. He, however, said that labour in the state had contacted the governor over the issue and that he had agreed to pay the arrears. PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news update Legit.ng had reported that Nigeria Labour Congress on Tuesday, October 30, staged a protest at Ikorodu road, Lagos state to complain about the failure of the federal government to accept the new minimum wage of N30,000. The peaceful protest caused traffic gridlock from the Onipanu bus stop to Obanikoro bus stop as of the time our correspondent filed this report. Who should get higher salary - doctors or teachers? | Legit TV: Source: Legit - A mobilisation group for Buhari expelled six members - The group said the persons had been parading themselves as members - They said they would not allow corruption under any guise Grassroots Mobilizers for Buhari (GMB), a political association promoting President Muhammadu Buharis 2019 presidential ambition, has expelled six of its members for allegedly fraternising with Buharis opposition, Atiku Abubakar. Atiku Abubakar is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the 2019 general elections. A statement by the director-general of the GMB, Hajiya Fatimah Goni in Abuja on Tuesday, gave the names of the suspended members. Goni revealed that the affected members had been parading themselves as members of the association in spite their expulsion. READ ALSO: Civil servants scamper to safety as Shiites, police clash in front of federal secretariat She, however, stated that the association had notified relevant law enforcement agencies on the fraudulent activities of the expelled persons, whom she said, were bent on tarnishing the good name of the association and that of President Buhari. The attention of the Grassroots Mobilizers for Buhari (GMB) has been drawn to the activities of some of its suspended and expelled members who are now parading themselves as executives of GMB, and are going about deceiving vulnerable politicians and organisations alike with the intent to misinform, defraud and extort them in this season of politics and politicking, These elements have, in the past weeks, been planning with an evil intent to bring Grassroots Mobilizers for Buhari into shame and disrepute in a grand design using the name, logo and letterheads of GMB to make a declaration in support of the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. We hereby draw the attention of the general public that the plan, intent and actions of these criminal-minded individuals do not in any way reflect the views of the GMB and we, by this disclaimer, deny and disown their plans, intent and actions in part, whole and its entirety to be false and of criminal intentions. We in the GMB are volunteers for nation building. Our voluntary mobilization efforts for the support of President Buhari is neither for sale nor salable. Our time, energy and efforts put in the steering of this organization are with the intention that the administration of President Buhari remains the right choice and the best for the nation in these times when the evil cancer of corruption and its supporting tissues are regrouping to re-infect, re-hijack and re-inflict our nationhood. We at the GMB will not and shall never compromise for any article of corruption under any guise whatsoever," she said. PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet! The director-general also dismissed Senator Bukar Ibrahims outburst that President Buhari might not win the majority votes in the northeast in 2019. She said the GMB had intensified its grassroots mobilization with the hope to ensure landslide victory for President Buhari in 2019. Meanwhile, about 5,000 members of the Kwankwasiya group in Kebbi have defected to the All Progressives Congress(APC) from the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP). Kwankwasiyya is the political structure of Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso who represents Kano Central senatorial zone in the National Assembly, and an aspirant in the recent presidential primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) that was won by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. Nigeria News Today: Police Arrest 'Sweet Sweet' Codeine Vendor, Suspected Cult Members | Legit TV Source: Legit - Malam Ibrahim Shekarau has said President Muhammadu Buhari will not garner as much votes as he did in 2015 - The APC senatorial aspirant for Kano Central is however confident that the president will win the majority votes in the region - Shekarau, a former governor of Kano state, dumped the PDP for APC recently A former governor of Kano state, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, has said President Muhammadu Buhari will win the majority votes in the north but will not garner as much votes in the region as he did in 2015. Shekarau said his prediction was premised on the strength of the opposition PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar who also hails from the north. He, however, said President Buhari will ultimately defeat Atiku in the contest. READ ALSO: Buhari group expels 6 members for fraternising with Atiku In an interview with Daily Trust in Ibadan on Tuesday, October 30, Shekarau, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and senatorial aspirant in Kano state, noted that the 2019 election would not be as simple as the 2015 poll. But with massive mobilisation, he said Buhari would win majority votes in the north and ultimately a re-election. His words: You cannot wish away the issue of regional, tribal, religious influences in anything that you do about people. Both of them (Buhari and Atiku) are from the north. So I think it is going to be a very tall order in terms of the struggle that decides the votes in the north; there is no doubt about that. Buhari may not necessarily get all of the votes he got in 2015 but we are still very hopeful he is going to have majority votes, I have no doubt about that. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, the presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Obiageli Oby Ezekwesili, has called on Nigerians to reject the presidential candidates of the APC and PDP in the upcoming 2019 presidential elections. Ezekwesili, a former minister of education, said the cycle of leadership failure in Nigeria is unsustainable and it has to end. According to her, the country deserves better than the quality of leadership it currently gets. Nigeria Latest News: PDP Convention - Atiku Elected as Presidential Candidate | Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - Nigeria's organised labour unions have insisted on the earlier announced indefinite strike action - The unions advised all Nigerians to stockpile foodstuff before Tuesday, November 6, when it plans to begin its indefinite strike action - According to the unions, the minimum wage must be pegged at N30,000 or nothing The organised labour group has warned Nigerians against its looming indefinite strike action over the minimum wage. The group made up of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC), United Labour Congress (ULC), Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and PSJNC said all is set for the joint labour unions strike scheduled to commence on Tuesday, November 6. The unions during a protest in Asaba, Delta state capital on Tuesday, October 30, advised Nigerians to stockpile foodstuffs to last them for a long time ahead of nationwide strike. The protesters carried placards with different inscriptions, like No pay, no work, We will not go back on N30,000, Say no no to modern day slavery, N30,000 or nothing, Minimum wage is our right . They also marched from the Labour House in Asaba to Government House threatening to shut down banks, BEDC office, the airports and other economic utilities. READ ALSO: Access your favourite news site Legit.ng instantly in 3 simple steps Daily Trust reports that the unions said the strike is aimed at compelling the federal government to introduce a new minimum wage of N30,000. Speaking during the protest, the Delta state chairman of the NLC, Jonathan Jemiriyigbe, accused the minister of labour and employment, Chris Ngige, of misinterpreting the resolution of the tripartite committee on minimum wage. Jemiriyigbe alleged that the federal government had only paid lip service to laws on workers welfare. He said any form of modern day oppression will be resisted as from Tuesday, November 6. The N30,000 minimum wage will afford Nigeria workers the greater opportunity of purchasing power. So, this rally is to create awareness and correct the way and manner the representatives of the Federal Government, especially the Minister of Labour, had erroneously misled the general public on the outcome of the tripartite meeting, that state Governors cannot pay," Jemiriyigbe said. Addressing the union members, the Delta state governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, said the state would comply with the payment if implemented. Okowa represented by his chief of staff, Tam Brisibe, said: Delta state cannot be found wanting in terms of workers welfare. The state will pay whatever that is agreed as minimum wage. If it is N1 million, we will pay; if it is one kobo, we will also pay. Out of the 36 states in Nigeria, Delta will not be found wanting on the issue of payment. Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Nigerian governors met in Abuja in the night of Tuesday, October 30 and resolved they can only increase workers salary in their states from N18,000 to N25, 500 per month. PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet! The resolve of the governors was contrary to the demand of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) that the minimum wage must be increased to N30,000. The federal government had earlier offered to pay N24,000 as minimum wage. Labour had declared that it would order workers to go on strike from November 6, if the government refused to take a decisive action on its demand. Who should get higher salary - doctors or teachers? | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - Civil servants in Bayelsa state may start receiving the new minimum wage of N30,000 soon - The state government assured civil servants in the state of its willingness to pay the new minimum wage - The promise was made during a peaceful protest to the Government House by union leaders on Tuesday, October 30 The government of Bayelsa state has promised civil servants in the state that the new minimum wage of N30,000 will be paid by the state government. This is coming following a peaceful protest by the leaders of the state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Punch reports. Legit.ng gathers that the promise was made on Tuesday, October 30, by the state head of civil service, Wellington Obiri, during the protest to the Government House in Yenagoa. READ ALSO: Buhari will get fewer northern votes in 2019 - Shekarau Obiri said: I want to assure Bayelsa workers that government is in support of your quest for minimum wage. The N30,000 minimum wage will be implemented by the state government. In anticipation of that, Governor Seriake Dickson has directed the head of service and the finance committee to start working out the modalities for the implementation of whatever decision that is agreed and such a decision will be adhered to by the government. Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Nigeria Labour Congress on Tuesday, October 30, staged a protest at Ikorodu road, Lagos state to complain about the failure of the federal government to accept the new minimum wage of N30,000. The peaceful protest caused traffic gridlock from the Onipanu bus stop to Obanikoro bus stop as of the time our correspondent filed this report. The protesters were seen holding flags of the NLC, and sharing fliers, to passersby, which detailed their demands from government. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app In a previous report by Legit.ng, Nigerian governors met in Abuja on the night of Tuesday, October 30 and resolved they could only increase workers salary in their states from N18,000 to N25, 500 per month. The resolve by the governors was contrary to the demand of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) that the minimum wage must be increased to N30,000. Labour had declared that it would order workers to go on strike from November 6, if the government refused to take a decisive action on its demand. Who should get higher salary - doctors or teachers? | Legit TV Source: Legit Nigeria Ahead of the 2019 general elections, the battle for the seat of the Caliphate is most likely for political godfathers, especially of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC). According to Leadership, the 2019 race for Sokoto state Government House between incumbent governor, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, and his deputy, Ahmed Aliyu Sokoto, is another blunt reality. After all, both politicians are beneficiaries of Senator Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakkos political benevelonce to have emerged governor and deputy respectively in 2015. Both Senator Wamakko and Governor Tambuwal were said to have high degree of respect for each other, especially when they dumped the PDP in 2014 on grounds of misgovernance. The former governor of Sokoto state, Senator Aliyu Wamakko, had since parted ways with Governor Tambuwal who lost the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential ticket to former vice president Atiku Abubakar. READ ALSO: Buhari will get fewer northern votes in 2019 - Shekarau However, recent turn of events after Tambuwals sudden but expected defection from the APC and back to the PDP proves that the marriage was no longer of convenience, hence things fell apart. Tambuwal, while addressing scores of supporters in front of the Sokoto Government House warned that the opposition should not dare his patience. The governor, however, stressed that should he be pushed to the wall, he would be left with no option than to open up some cans of worms whose resultant effect will lead to outright self exile by some persons in the state. Tambuwals predecessor, Senator Wamakko on his part, being a political bulldozer only spoke in public about his successor once when he was given a heroic welcome back to the state for remaining in the APC. Wamakko was very emphatic about his love for Tambuwal when he told the crowd that Tambuwal is a very promising politician with lots of prospects but has pathetically lost it via this singular return to the PDP. As genuine as Wamakkos advise was, political observers however read lots of meanings to it, with many saying, it implies another battleline being drawn between the duo ahead of the next general elections. Those holding such notion rightly affirmed that Wamakko, as the immediate past govenror of the state who single handedly endorsed Tambuwal in 2014 to be his successor is most likely to anoint another candidate against Tambuwal come 2019. Political observers, noted that should such happen as Tambuwal will be left with no option than to liase with other godfathers to be able to contain Wamakkos political dexterity. True to their words, the turn of events shortly after Tambuwals defection back to the PDP and his instant reunion with former governor Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa amongst other political big shots in the state became a very glaring confirmation that 2019 election in Sokoto might be battle for the godfathers. As expected, Wamakko automatically became the state leader of the new party (APC) and some godfathers such as former governor Attahiru Bafarawa who could not stomach that defected from the party to PDP. True to that postulation that Sokoto is one state where incumbent governors dont anoint their deputy as successor, Wamakko single handedly brought Tambuwal as his successor. On the other hand, Aliyus greatest strength is the backing he has from Senator Wamakko who to date is considered the most influential politician in the state. For that reason, many people believed Wamakkos endorsement will work for the APC. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Now that Tambuwal, as governor has dumped APC for the PDP and Senator Wamakko has anointed his deputy as gubernatorial candidate of the APC, the natural question is Tambuwal contesting his second term bid against his deputy or his godfather? Though, some notable godfathers such as Bafarawa, Umarun Kwabo and 19 of the 30 House of Assembly members, 23 local governments sole administrators and the commissioners are with Tambuwal, how far he can go against the Sai Alu factor in the state still remains to be seen. Legit.ng previously reported that Senator Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko has lambasted Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, describing him as a governor that talks more than doing his job. Wamakko who is a former governor of Sokoto state disclosed this in a statement signed by his media consultant in Abuja, Prof Dagaci Aliyu Manbe. In the statement, he alleged that Tambuwal was not committed to good governance in Sokoto. The Next President of Nigeria. Who Will Win the 2019 Elections? | Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - The hearing of a suit mandating the National Assembly to begin removal process of President Buhari has been adjourned to Monday, November 26 - Justice Maurine Onyetenu, the presiding judge of the Federal High Court in Osogbo, Osun state, made this known on Tuesday, October 30 - The plaintiffs in the suit accused the legal team of Buhari of allegedly slowing down the hearing of the matter A Federal High Court sitting in Osogbo, Osun state, has fixed Monday, November 26 for hearing a suit seeking to compel the National Assembly to begin impeachment proceedings against President Muhammadu Buhari. The presiding judge, Justice Maurine Onyetenu made this known on Tuesday, October 30, as she entertained the case, which was jointly instituted by a human right lawyer, Kanmi Ajibola, and an activist, Sulaiman Adeniyi against the President for his alleged failure to meet basic requirement to occupy the office of the president, Premium Times reports. In the motion ex-parte, they accused Buhari of violating the 1999 Constitution by contesting for election, winning and being sworn in as the president on May 29, 2015 without possessing the basic constitutional requirements, which would have qualified him to contest for the election. READ ALSO: Buhari will get fewer northern votes in 2019 - Shekarau They further alleged that the 4th Respondent, Buhari, presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in 2015 presidential election which is violation of section 137 (1) (j) of the 1999 Constitution. In the light of the 4th Respondents placement to continue in the office as the president, he has no certificate and basic requirements upon which this placement to continue in the office can be placed. The 4th Respondent on the 29th day of May 2015, took an oath of office, among others, to the effect that, he would rule in accordance to and protect the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, particularly section 14 (2) (b) which stipulates that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. In the contrary, the 4th Respondent has proved to be unable to guarantee the security of lives and property of the citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in fulfilment of his oath of Office. The herdsmen killings of innocent citizens under the 4th Respondent have been uncountable, unbearable and unprecedented overheating figures in the globe. The 4th Respondent, in contravention of the due process and sections 80 and 81 of the 1999 Constitution, spent about $496 million on the purchase of Tucano Jets without the approval of the National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as required by the law. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda The 4th Respondent ordered to be withdrawing money from the public fund of the Federation without the approval of the National Assembly or the authorisation of its act and same used for the purchase of Tucano jets. The 4th Respondent has committed several impeachable offences, that is, gross misconduct. By the provision of section 143 of the 1999 Constitution, the 1st to 3rd Respondents (The Senate President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the National Assembly) have the statutory duty to impeach the 4th Respondent as the president and Commander-in- Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on gross misconduct. The 1st (Senate President) and 3rd (Speaker) Respondents have closed their eyes to the gross misconduct of the 4th Respondent. The applicants however said they have the right to mandate 1st and 3rd Respondents to perform their statutory duty of impeachment against the 4th Respondent, having bordered on the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Citing several constitutional authorities in the written address in support of th motion and with 44-paragraph affidavits, they asked some questions by putting comparing Nigeria to some countries. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Can the conduct of the 4th Respondent, particularly on the presentation of a forged certificate, be condoned in America or great Britain unchecked? Can the 4th Respondent continue to benefit from his act of forgery and infraction of constitution? Definitely, an American president cannot be genuinely accused of presentation of a forged certificate and still be allowed to continue as the president, likewise the Prime Minister of the Great Britain. Presidents counsel, Solomon Ogunlowo, pleaded with the court for not serving the applicants with notice of preliminary objection to the reliefs being sought by the applicants and therefore asked for adjournment. He also promised to effect the service. The applicants counsel, Samuel Echeonwu, however refused to object the adjournment plea. Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that a Federal High Court, sitting in Osogbo, the Osun state capital, ordered the National Assembly to immediately commence impeachment process against President Buhari. According to Vanguard, Justice Maurine Adaobi Onyetenu on Wednesday, July 4, gave the order based on the suit filed by two Nigerians, Kanmi Ajibola, a lawyer and Sulaiman Adeniyi, a human right activist. The duo had urged the court to enforce the National Assembly to impeach President Buhari, three months ago, after writing to both the lower and the upper chambers of the National Assembly on the need to impeach the president. EXCLUSIVE: Be patient with President Buhari, Femi Adesina tells Nigerians on Legit.ng TV: Source: Legit - Nigeria has been ranked top on the list of countries that produce HIV-infected babies in the world - This report given by an international survey was confirmed by the federal government on Tuesday, October 30 - The minister of health, Isaac Adewole, confirmed that Nigeria presently has not less than 3.1 million persons living with the virus The federal government has confirmed a report which ranks Nigeria first on the list of countries with high record of mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS throughout the world. The government confirmed local and international indices that affirmed that Nigeria produces 30 percent of children born with HIV/AIDS internationally, The Sun reports. Speaking with newsmen at the launch of a roadmap on implementation of the national treatment and Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV/AIDS in Abuja on Tuesday, October 30, the minister of health, Isaac Adewole, said that the situation is a cause for worry and requires joint action of all stakeholders with the support of global partners for effective intervention. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng Adewole said the roadmap has been designed to give proper guidance and direction on how best to offer treatment to HIV patients in Nigeria and also protect unborn children from contacting the virus through infected mothers. The minister also confirmed that Nigeria has 3.1 million people living with the virus, out of which 1.1 million people have been under proper and timely treatment funded by the federal government. He said he was impressed with the commitment of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) to the cause of proper and timely care for patients with the virus. Adewole said: There is no reason why Nigeria should be the highest producer of babies infected with HIV because, we have put in great efforts in the past. Obviously, more is required to achieve more results. PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet! He also expressed hope that the revived fight against the virus would bring about significant decrease in the spread of the virus and will increase the attention given to people living with the disease. Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that many people are afraid to disclose their HIV status due to the fear of what other people might think of them. However, one African queen had decided to not let HIV rule her life, so she made her status known on social media and it inspired other South Africans. Lebogang Brenda Motsumi, 29, took to her Twitter account to talk about her positive HIV status and she explained to one tweep how she was infected in the first place. Signs You Need to Go For An HIV/AIDS Test ASAP | Legit TV Source: Legit - Social media abuse is still a source of worry for the presidency - The presidency wants those abusing the platform to be prosecuted - The call was made by the personal assistant to the president on social media, Lauretta Onochie The presidency has called for strict enforcement of law by security agents to curb abuse of social media. The personal assistant to the president on social media, Lauretta Onochie, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday, October 30, in Abuja. Legit.ng gathers that Onochie said the challenge in the country is that the laws are not being enforced by the appropriate authorities. According to her, the country has the necessary laws to guide what is being published and spoken online. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda She said: Our laws are not being enforced; we must plead with the law enforcement agencies to look into this to help the president and the nation to stay together." She said that hate speech was capable of disintegrating the country, adding that if this happened, everybody would be a victim because the people would not have anywhere run to for succour. Onochie noted that social media had given a voice to young Nigerians who were hitherto trained by their parents not to ask questions or raise their voices. Many of our youths are raised by mothers and fathers who rebuke them when they ask question. Now that they are on social media, they can air their opinions, but I must counsel them that whatsoever they say today they should make sure it is the truth. If you are lying in order to bring bloodshed on our nation, the blood would be on you and your generation." PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app The SA said Nigerians should ensure that they must at all times ensure that whatever they say on social media must be the truth. Onochie called on the law enforcement agents to do their job, saying that they were failing in the discharge of job in apprehending people who use hate messages to divide the country. Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the federal government on Wednesday, July 11, admonished Nigerians not to share any information for which they cannot vouch on Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp as a measure to curtail fake news menace. The minister of information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, gave the admonition in Abuja at the launch of National Campaign against Fake News. He urged social media users that before sharing any information on Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp, they should ascertain how credible the source is. Are Nigerians truly tired of President Buhari? - on Legit.ng TV Source: Legit - Nigerias power generation capacity has reportedly dropped - It dropped from 4,000MW/ 3,741.30MW to 2,390.20MW - The number of idle power plants has also risen from seven to 15 Power generation in the country dropped to 2,390.20 megawatts on Monday, October 29 as the number of idle power plants rose from seven to 15, according to the latest data from the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing. Total electricity generation has been hovering below 4,000MW in recent months and stood at 3,741.30MW as of 6am on Sunday, October 28, The Punch reports. Nigeria generates most of its electricity from gas-fired power plants, while output from hydropower plants makes up about 30% of the total, Legit.ng gathers. READ ALSO: Buhari will get fewer northern votes in 2019 - Shekarau But the three hydropower plants accounted for more than 50% of the electricity generated as of 6am on October 29, with Kainji, Jebba and Shiroro producing 366MW, 354MW and 494MW, respectively. Egbin, the biggest power station in the country, saw its output drop to 176MW on October 29 from 306MW on Saturday, October 27. The idle plants are Sapele, Afam IV & V, Geregu, Omotosho, Geregu NIPP, Alaoji, Omotosho NIPP, Odukpani NIPP, Ihovbor NIPP, Gbarain NIPP, Okpai, Afam VI, AES, ASCO and Rivers IPP. The electricity generation companies in the country had earlier reportedly said that their plants were being forced to operate below their optimal capacity levels. The executive secretary, Association of Power Generation Companies, the umbrella body for the Gencos, Dr Joy Ogaji, in an emailed response to questions from The Punch, attributed the problem to transmission and distribution. She said: Specifically, generation companies are pinned down by some operational impediments. The frequency of instructions to either increase load or decrease load (ramp up and ramp down) and, in some cases, shut down, has induced damaging stresses to the components of the machines. These instructions, reflective of the grid behaviour, are subjecting key electrical components of the power plants to operational stresses. Our available generation has always been steady between 7,500MW and 8,000MW; you can check the records at the National Control Centre, Osogbo. PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet! Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) said that the power outage recently experienced in some northeast states was due to a tripping caused by a fault on the Jos-Gombe 330kv transmission line. TCN's general manager, public affairs, Ndidi Mbah, stated this in a statement on Monday, September 24, in Abuja, adding that the problem occurred shortly after the annual scheduled maintenance on the transmission line. Fashola EXCLUSIVE Interview: How Nigeria Can Have Uninterrupted Power Supply| Legit.ng TV Source: Legit.ng - The Nigerian Labour Congress is pushing for an increase in the country's minimum wage to N30,000 - Supporting the labour unions, Senator Shehu Sani nationwide mass protest of the NLC is commendable - According to him, those who can pay N22,000 as minimum wage should just add N8,000 to make it N30,000 The senator representing Kano Central senatorial district in Kaduna state, Shehu Sani, has declared his support for the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). Sani, a member of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), says the nationwide mass protest of the NLC is commendable. NLC leaders across the federation on Tuesday, October 30, staged a procession in their various states sensitizing Nigerians on their resolve to push for the new minimum wage. READ ALSO: Sack NHIS executive secretary now - Unions tell Buhari The leaders vowed not to renege on the N30,000, accusing government of being insincere and reneging on previous agreements. Declaring his support for the labour leaders, Senator Shehu said: Those who can pay N22,000 as minimum wage should just add N8,000 to make it N30,000. Nigerias economy can sustain it. The struggle must continue.I will add a strong voice of solidarity to this on the floor of the Senate. PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet! Meanwhile, the organised labour group has warned Nigerians to be ready for the looming indefinite strike action over the minimum wage. The group made up of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC), United Labour Congress (ULC), Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and PSJNC said all is set for the joint labour unions strike scheduled to commence on Tuesday, November 6. The unions advised Nigerians to stockpile foodstuffs to last them for a long time ahead of nationwide strike. Peace Abiamuwe Story: I Make N1.5k From My Palm Kernel Business and Im Okay With It | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - The 14-year-old daughter of a bus driver has emerged as 2018 one-day governor of Lagos state - Her name is Gloria Ajala, a student of Lafiaji Senior High School, Lagos Island - She won the 2018 edition of the spelling bee competition to emerge as one-day governor Gloria Ajala, a 14-year-old student of Lafiaji Senior High School, Lagos Island, has emerged as the 2018 one-day governor of Lagos state after winning the 2018 edition of the spelling bee competition organised by the state Ministry of Education. Nigerian Tribune reports that Ajala, who is a secondary school 3 student, is the daughter of a commercial bus driver in Lagos. Legit.ng gathers that the date she would perform pseudo-role of the governor of the state would be announced before the end of 2018. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Ajala was said to have defeated 56 contestants at the competition. The final of the competition was held in Alausa secretariat on Tuesday, October 30. Gloria Ajala and the deputy of Lagos state, Dr Idiat Adebule. Photo credit: Nigerian Tribune. Source: Depositphotos In attendance at the event were the deputy governor of the state, Dr Idiat Adebule; the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Education, Adebunmi Adekanye, and many other top government functionaries. The winner and other participants were commended by the deputy governor, who said their performances were impressive and exemplary. Teachers in the state public schools were also commended by the deputy governor for their efforts in imparting quality knowledge and skills on the students. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that a 16-year-old Bukola Zoffun, a female student of the Awodi-Ora Secondary High School Ajegunle, in Ajeromi-Ifelodun local government area, emerged the winner of the 2017 edition of the Spelling Bee Competition. Bukola, who won the sum of N250,000 along with the coveted prize of becoming the one-day governor of the state for 2017, said she would champion the course for girl-child education in Lagos state. Speaking on her win, Zoffun said: I have put in my best effort to have been selected at the preliminary level and here I am today a proud winner. I am very happy to be part of this competition, and I can tell you that this has given me great exposure that will help me to achieve my dream of becoming a lawyer." Who should get higher salary - doctors or teachers? | Legit TV Source: Legit Newspaper - An APC chieftain, Anthony Nwafor, has commended President Buhari for the ways he handles security issues - Reacting to the recent Shiites protest in Abuja, he said religious leaders owe the society the duty of mentoring their followers on the need to obey constituted authorities - He urged the Shiites not to take laws into their hands because their leader was in detention Anthony Nwafor, the All Progressives Congress (APC) Nkanu East/West constituency candidate for House of Representatives, says President Muhammadu Buhari has done so much to ensure security of lives and property in the country. Nwafor, who made this known when he reacted to pockets of protests by the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, said in a statement on Wednesday, October 31, that Buhari should be encouraged to maintain the good works of maintaining peace in the country, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports. According to him, the only way Nigerians will encourage president is by being law abiding. Legit.ng gathers that he also stated that religious leaders in the country owe the society the duty to mentor their followers on the need to obey constituted authorities no matter the level of provocation. READ ALSO: Buhari will get fewer northern votes in 2019 - Shekarau He said: This is the only way the values they teach them can be said to reflect in their daily lives. Getting too obsessed with religious loyalty breeds extremism which is what the world is gripped with today." Nwafor advised the federal government to review the continued detention of the leader of the group, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, after several court orders. He also urged the members of the group not to take laws into their hands because their leader was in detention. The APC chief further urged the sect to stop confronting the Nigerian Army under any guise so that more lives would not be lost. He said: The number of lives lost on daily basis to the confrontation between the group and the Nigeria Army is not necessary as the development can be avoided. Women, children and youths are made to march on the streets of Abuja to protest, thereby exposing them to the dangers associated with this confrontation with the military. Every life is important. Nigerians should learn to present their grievances without creating further problems." PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news update Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the Nigerian Army had said troops deployed on routine duty at Kugbo/Karu bridge checkpoint of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) were attacked by the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) sect on Monday, October 29. In a statement posted on its social media pages, the army claimed the sect in massive numbers forced their way into the troops checkpoint after over running the police force. Nigerian Air Force Operations Against Boko Haram | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - Ex-governor Ayo Fayose has taken a swipe at the Chief Judge of Ekiti state, Justice Ayodeji Daramola - Daramola had been bad-mouthing the new state-of-the-art high court complex constructed by Fayose's administration - Fayose in a statement, asked the chief judge cannot commend him, he could as well shut up his mouth The former Ekiti state governor, Ayo Fayose, has told the Chief Judge of Ekiti state, Justice Ayodeji Daramola, to grow up and shed his toga of unbridled hatred for him. Legit.ng gathered that Fayose stated this in reaction to a statement by Daramola bad-mouthing the new state-of-the-art high court complex constructed by the Fayose administration. According to a press statement issued on his behalf by his chief press secretary, Idowu Adelusi, the former governor said Daramola had only lent credence to the Yoruba adage that the horse of our enemy is never tall enough in our reckoning. READ ALSO: We can only pay N22,500 as minimum wage - Governors reportedly tell workers Adelusi said the true test of maturity and decency is another Yoruba adage which says an elephant is too big an animal that someone out of malice or hatred will compare with a fly. He continued: Reproach and bad-belle apart, the high court complex built by Fayose is world class. It is also the first of its kind since the creation of Ekiti state in 1996. If Daramola cannot commend Fayose, he could as well shut up his mouth and stop behaving like a cry-baby Adelusi described Daramolas statement that the new high court complex, built and commissioned five months ago, was hybrid of absurdity that could not be put to use, as an after-thought and an exercise in futility. The statement read: "It is shameless Pull-Him-Down syndrome at work. Daramola was there at commissioning; he should have spoken there and then or is he a coward? Disparaging Fayose now is an act of cowardice. Speaking now after Fayose has left office tantamount to back-biting and stabbing the former governor in the back. READ ALSO: Access your favourite news site Legit.ng instantly in 3 simple steps Justice Daramola has never hidden his displeasure towards Fayose, dating back many years. He had time and again allowed himself to become willing tool in the hands of some politicians to be used against the former governor. Justice Daramola was bitter and shed tears at the Oluyemi Kayode Stadium, Ado Ekiti on October 16, 2014, the day Fayose was being sworn in for second term because the former governor triumphed over all their conspiracies. Throughout the four years of Fayoses administration, Justice Daramola never attended state functions personally and on the day when the foundation of the new high court complex was being laid, Justice Daramola openly expressed doubt of Fayose completing the project. In this regard, what does any right-thinking person expect Justice Daramola to say of one of Fayoses legacy projects? When the project started, if truly he had noticed certain defects, why did he fail to point them out? Why did he have to wait till now? This, certainly, is not the act of a forward-looking person. It is without doubt an act of backwardness. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app "Had this project been executed by the All Progressive Congress ( APC) administration whose interests Daramola leaves no one in doubt he represents, he would have commended it to high heavens. Justice Daramola will be well advised to please insulate himself from politics and allow Ekiti judiciary remain the last hope of the common man." Legit.ng previously reported that the former governor of Ekiti state state, Ayodele Fayose, regained freedom after spending 13 days in custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). According to his aide, Lere Olayinka, Fayose was released on Monday, October 29. He is expected to return to the Federal High Court in Ikoyi from November 19 for his trial. Ekiti Election 2018: Watertight Security in Ado-Ekiti as INEC Expects Election Materials | Legit.ng TV: Source: Legit - The body of the missing General Muhammed Alkali has been reportedly found - This came after commendable search efforts by the Nigerian Army over the last two weeks - The Nigerian Army would make a statement on the development soon The remains of Muhammed Alkali, the retired army general, who was declared missing on September 3 by the Nigerian Army a couple of days after his retirement, has been found in an abandoned well in a village known as Guchwet in Shen district of Jos South local government area of Plateau state. Daily Trust reports that the water from the well was drained on Wednesday, October 31, and the remains of the retired senior military officer was pulled out and covered in a green and white body bag. In a report by The Cable on Wednesday, October 31, the military authorities confirmed the development. They added that the appropriate authorities would soon issue a statement on the development. However, no medical investigation has been carried out to ascertain if the remains belonged to the general. Legit.ng gathers that B. A. Akinruluyo, general officer commanding, 3 division, Rukuba barracks, had said soldiers located a grave where Alkali was initially buried. READ ALSO: 2019: Buhari may not as much northern votes as he got in 2015 - Shekarau According to Akinruluyo, some of the suspects arrested in connection with the mystery behind the disappearance and death of General Alkai confessed that the body of the deceased retired Army boss was buried in a place known as No Mans Land in Dura-Du community in Plateau state. He said those behind the dastardly act later exhumed the corpse and took it to an unknown place. The garrison commander 3 Armoured Division, Maxwell Kobe Cantonment, Rukuba near Jos, Brigadier General Umar Mohammed, who led the search operation for the missing general said the location for the abandoned well was provided by one of the eight suspects on the police wanted list who submitted himself for interrogation. Late Alkali was the immediate past chief of administration of the Nigerian Army. He was declared missing when he was traveling from Abuja to Bauchi state. The deceased general just retired from service after 35 years in the Nigerian Army. PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news update Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the chief of Army staff, Lt General Tukur Buratai constituted a special task force to carry out sting operations aimed at finally locating the whereabouts of General Idris Alkali, the retired major-general who went missing on Monday, September 3. The Army said the first phase of the operation involved combing the entire Doi Du community in Du District of Jos South LGA of Plateau state. Nigerian Air Force Day Celebration 2018 (54th Anniversary) - on Legit TV Source: Legit - The federal government has been urged to review the continued detention of Ibrahim El-Zakzaky - This was disclosed by Anthony Nwafor, the All Progressives Congress (APC) Nkanu east/west constituency candidate for House of Reps - He also urged the members of the group not to take laws into their hands because their leader was in detention Mr Anthony Nwafor, the All Progressives Congress (APC) Nkanu east/west constituency candidate for House of Representatives has advised the federal government to review the continued detention of Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, after several court orders. Nwafor, gave the advice in a statement while reacting to pockets of protests by the followers of El-Zakzaky known as Islamic Movement of Nigeria, on Wednesday He also urged the members of the group not to take laws into their hands because their leader was in detention. Nwafor further urged the sect to stop confronting the Nigerian Army under any guise so that more lives would not be lost. READ ALSO: Body of missing General Alkali found in abandoned well The number of lives lost on daily basis to the confrontation between the group and the Nigeria Army is not necessary as the development can be avoided. Women, children and youths are made to march on the streets of Abuja to protest, thereby exposing them to the dangers associated with this confrontation with the military. Every life is important. Nigerians should learn to present their grievances without creating further problems. He said that President Muhammadu Buhari had done so much to ensure security of lives and property in the country adding that he should be encouraged to maintain the good works of maintaining peace in the country. According to him, the only way Nigerian will encourage Mr President is by being law abiding. He said that religious leaders in the country owe the society the duty to mentor their followers on the need to obey constituted authorities no matter the level of provocation. This is the only way the values they teach them can be said to reflect in their daily lives. Getting too obsessed with religious loyalty breeds extremism which is what the world is gripped with today, Nwafor said. Legit.ng had reported that the federal government has beefed up security around the Presidential Villa in Abuja and important places following the growing clash between security operatives and members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN). PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news update FG has tightened security at the different gates leading into the Presidential Villa, the Federal Secretariat, the Court of Appeal Complex, the National Arcade and the National Assembly Complex - all located within the Three Arms Zone in the Federal Capital Territory. Nigerian Air Force Operations Against Boko Haram | Legit.ng TV Source: Legit.ng - An Islamic cleric, Imam Kamarudeen Salawu has commended President Buhari for carrying out the will of God for the country - Salawu said evil men and women are parading themselves as saints and wanting to buy religions in Nigeria with their ill-gotten wealth - He, however, noted that both Islam and Christianity have started praying for the country An Islamic cleric, Imam Kamarudeen Salawu who declared his support for President Muhammadu Buhari's second term bid said despite the various challenges confronting Nigeria his administration is carrying out the will of God for the country. Salawu who made this known at the 21st day special prayers and prophetic declaration said some men and women are parading themselves as saints and wanting to buy religions with their ill-gotten wealth. He said: Allah the Almighty says in the Noble Quran, to Him belongs all that is in the heavens and all that is on the earth, and all that is between them, and all that is under the soil.) Taha, 20:6] O Allah, we know nothing but what You teach us. READ ALSO: FG rejects N22,500 governors proposed minimum wage - Ngige You are the All-Knower, the Wise. O Allah, guide us what is good for us, and benefit us from what You taught us, and increase our knowledge Show us the righteous things as righteous and help us to do them, and show us the wrong things as bad and help us to keep away from them. O Allah, our Lord, lead us out from the depths of darkness and illusion, unto the lights of erudition and knowledge, and from the muddy shallows of lusts unto the heavens of Your Vicinity. READ ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo Olupohunda Evil men and women are parading themselves as saints and wanting to buy adherents of both religions in Nigeria with their ill-gotten wealth. May Allah cause them to fail because Neither Islam nor Christianity can be bought with money in Nigeria and those banking on stolen dollars to defeat President Buhari against the will of God are playing with Fire. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app They will come seeking for prayers, they will also so come pretending to be for good to get our acceptance. But we shall resist and rebuke them Insha Allah. I am grateful for being a part of this excellent programme. And it indeed tells us that a Christian is not an enemy of a Muslim and a Muslim not an enemy of a Christian. We have been together in the past 21 days praying. And we shall continue like this after 40 days and even forever Insha Allah praying for the common good of Nigeria. Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that the federal government urged by the Congress of Northern Nigeria Christians to institute a probe panel to investigate the recent Kaduna crises. CNNC wants the panel to discover the cause of the crises and the perpetrators behind them. The Christian body spoke through its media and publicity secretary, Larry Joseph Yammai. The body also wants those displaced from their homes to be resettled so they can go back to their normal lives. Nigeria Latest News: Buhari vs Atiku - 2019 Elections | Legit TV: Source: Legit - A Cameroonian woman has cried out after her son went missing - The woman revealed that her son went missing a week ago - She also claimed that her son was last seen in Nigeria Cressy Mira, a Cameroonian woman, has cried out for help to find her son who went missing. The woman identified her son as, Hermann Botchack Fangang, a 20-year-old man. In a chat with Legit.ng, the woman revealed that her son went missing a week ago. According to her, the 20-year-old was last seen in Nigeria after he came on a trip. She said: "Please help me publish this announcement with this picture. He is missing since one week. His name is Hermann Botchack Fangang, 20 years old, Cameroonian. Someone saw him in Nigeria. Please contact this number if someone see him. (+237) 677041018/ 699541602 / 676370019." Cameroonian mum begins frantic search for her missing 20-yr-old son, says he was seen in Nigeria Photo: Facebook Source: Cressy Mira Source: Facebook READ ALSO: Famous Ghanaian slay queen reportedly dies mysteriously (photos) The Cameroonian woman claimed that she believes her son was influenced by an unknown man who is wanted by the Cameroonian police. She revealed that the a news site in Cameroon reported that her son was influence by the bad man. PAY ATTENTION: Read best news on Nigeria's #1 news app Mira said: "He seems like he is influence following a bad guy whom is wanted in Cameroonian police. This is what I received from the paper news." PAY ATTENTION: Get your daily relationship tips and advice on Africa Love Aid group Nigeria News: 55-yr-old Widow in Tears As She Explains Reason For Being Incapacitated - on Legit TV Source: Legit - Relief materials have been distributed to flood victims in Bayelsa and Delta state - The materials were distributed by Goldcoast Developmental Foundation, a Bayelsa based non-profit organization - Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo praised the foundations work Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has praised Goldcoast Developmental Foundation, a Bayelsa based non-profit organisation for distributing relief materials to flood victims in Bayelsa and Delta state through the foundations 'All Lives Matter Flood Relief Programme.' The foundation, working with a team of volunteers made of up of doctors, nurses and pharmacists visited temporary campsites of displaced flood victims in Yenagoa, Igbogene, Seibokorogha, Igbedi, Okoloba, Angiama, Toru-Orua in Bayelsa and Toru- Angiama in Delta state, to distribute relief materials. Legit.ng gathered that they distributed dr*gs, insecticide-treated mosquito nets and food items. READ ALSO: Handsome 17-year-old boy reportedly drowns in police college swimming pool The foundation's medical team also treated various ailments, dewormed children and delivered health awareness talks alongside the relief materials provided. Osinbajo who visited one of the camps where the foundation distributed relief material, was full of praises for the foundations work; commending all their efforts. The reward for the good work you young people are doing, is the smiles you put on the faces of others, he said. Speaking on the initiative, Goldcoasts founder, Moses Oruaze Dickson, said: We are deeply touched by what the flood waters have done to people across the country and particularly, the Niger-Delta. We recognize that our assistance will not solve all their problems, but it can help them cope with the impact of the tragedy at this time. All these would not have been possible without the support of volunteers and donors who have contributed to this programme. All lives matter, and it is our responsibility to always put humanity first in all our endeavours. PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app Meanwhile, the federal government says the latest flood data indicates that the worst is over as water level at Lokoja and Lagdo Dam in Cameroun dropped significantly. The minister of water resources, Alhaji Suleiman Adamu, made this known when he briefed State House correspondents on the outcome of the meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) recently. Peace Abiamuwe Story: I Make N1.5k From My Palm Kernel Business and Im Okay With It | Legit TV Source: Legit.ng - The Nigerian Army said it is working to bring killers of General Alkali to book - His body was discovered in an abandoned well - The Army has vowed not est until those who committed the crime were punished The Nigerian Army said it is left with one task which is to make sure that those connected with the disappearance and death of Major General Idris Alkali are brought to book. Brig. Gen. Umar Mohammed, Garrison Commander 3 Division Nigeria Army, said that they were led to the well by one of those suspects earlier arrested in connection with the crime. He said that the operation was jointly carried out by men of the Nigeria Police and the Fire Service. Umar said that with the recovery of the body, they were left with one task to ensure that those declared wanted in connection with the crime were brought to book. READ ALSO: Ex-attorney-general, 10,000 others defect from PDP to APC in Jigawa The COAS gave us three terms of reference, to get the missing senior officer dead or alive, to recover his car and to ensure that those who committed the crime were punished. We have today fulfilled the second condition, we will not rest until we meet the third. We want to assure those that are on the run to know that we are on their trail and we must get them, he vowed. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the body of the missing general was moved into an ambulance after military parade by his course mates. Many arrests were made and the district head of Dura was declared wanted. He gave himself up to the police. Legit.ng had reported that the remains of Muhammed Alkali, the retired army general, who was declared missing on September 3 by the Nigerian Army a couple of days after his retirement, has been found in an abandoned well in a village known as Guchwet in Shen district of Jos South local government area of Plateau state. The water from the well was drained on Wednesday, October 31, and the remains of the retired senior military officer was pulled out and covered in a green and white body bag. PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest news update In a report by The Cable on Wednesday, October 31, the military authorities confirmed the development. They added that the appropriate authorities would soon issue a statement on the development. However, no medical investigation has been carried out to ascertain if the remains belonged to the general. Nigerian Air Force Day Celebration 2018 (54th Anniversary) - on Legit TV Source: Legit Newspaper The embattled executive secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Usman Yusuf, has been ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari to proceed on administrative leave, effective from Monday, November 5. The president conveyed the directive on Wednesday, October 31, in a letter signed by the secretary to the government of the federation, Boss Mustapha, Premium Times reports. READ ALSO: 2019: Be mindful of your utterances - Buhari urges politicians The statement noted: This is to allow for unfettered investigation into allegations of infractions and financial malfeasance levelled against him by the governing council of the institution and other stakeholders. The NHIS board suspended Yusuf on October 18, over alleged fraud and infractions. The suspension was his second, over similar allegations, since he assumed office in 2016. PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app Recall that Legit.ng previously reported that two labour unions on Tuesday, October 30, renewed their resolve to sustain their ongoing protest over the suspension of Usman Yusuf, the executive secretary of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), by the governing council of the organisation. The trade unions are the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), and Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN). Abdulrazak Omomaji, the chairman of ASCSN, made this known in Abuja, while reacting to the statement made by the secretary to the government of the federation, Boss Mustapha. Mustapha had on Monday, October 29, at a retreat for boards and governing councils as well as chief executives of MDAs, clarified that as appointees of the president, the boards and councils have no power to suspend any chief executive without recourse to due process. N1,500 for health of Nigerians - on Legit.ng TV: Source: Legit Newspaper A Northampton County jury convicted Christopher Baj of aggravated assault for shooting through his bathroom door while his wife hid in the bathroom. The jurors could not reach a verdict on an attempted homicide charge, however. The jurors found Baj, 59, of Bethlehem Township, endangered his wife and two sons when he shot through the door on Jan. 30, 2018. He was convicted Wednesday of aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person and two counts of endangering the welfare of children. The maximum sentence Baj faces if Judge Stephen Baratta runs every sentence consecutively is 34 years in state prison. Baj's wife served Baj with divorce papers at their home on Toursdale Drive hours before he shot at her. Jurors deliberated for nearly seven hours on Wednesday. The jurors were 8-4 on the attempted homicide charge, although they didn't say how many thought Baj was guilty. Assistant District Attorney James Augustine has 30 days to decide whether to retry Baj on that single charge. "I think the jury worked really hard and they clearly struggled with a difficult charge," Augustine said. He said he'll take this jury's deadlock into account and discuss the case with District Attorney John Morganelli before deciding whether to retry Baj for attempted homicide. Defense attorney John Waldron said Baj escaped a potential 20-year sentence when the jurors did not convict him of attempted homicide. "He's fortunate there was a hung jury on that particular charge," Waldron said. Sentencing in the case is scheduled for Dec. 14. Waldron argued during the trial that Baj didn't want to kill his wife. He wanted to shoot the door lock to open the door and talk to her, he said. Augustine said there's no way Baj could have any thought but murder on his mind when he fired the shots. Jurors asked repeatedly during deliberations for the definition of attempted homicide. They also asked to listen again to a 911 recording of a hysterical Mia Darling-Baj calling for help while locked in her bathroom. "It's a sad case," Waldron said. "Mrs. Baj was quite upset. Who wouldn't be while hiding in the bathroom with shots being fired? I feel bad for my client too. This was a total surprise when the divorce and custody papers came through. (But) he acted unreasonably. He shouldn't have taken those actions and those steps." Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook. Christohper Baj admits he fired a gun through his bathroom door. He admits his wife was on the other side. But he refuses to admit that he wanted to kill her. The Bethlehem Township man's fate now rests in the hands of Northampton County jurors, who will decide whether he is guilty of attempted murder. His wife, Mia Darling-Baj, handed him divorce papers on Jan. 29, 2018, the day before the couple and their two sons were to go to Poland for a two to three year stay and to establish a new real estate business, according to Assistant District Attorney James Augustine. After the shots were fired, she fled from the Toursdale Drive home, Augustine said. Baj refused to acknowledge police in riot gear outside for about nine hours until they stormed the home and captured him, police said. Defense attorney John Waldron said Baj shot the door because he wanted to unlock it and continue to discuss the divorce with Darling-Baj. That makes him guilty of recklessly endangering her, but not of trying to kill her, Waldron said during his closing argument Wednesday. "My client made a mistake here, clearly. He didn't have to talk to his wife at 2:30 a.m. at night. But he did not try to kill her, ladies and gentlemen," Waldron said. Waldron said Baj was confused, surprised and unwell after receiving the divorce papers. "That doesn't excuse what he did," Waldorn said, later adding, "It wasn't his intent to kill her because he had many opportunities to do so." Augustine said any reasonable person would understand the risk of firing a gun through a hollow-core interior door. He said some of the shots were in the middle of the door, well away from the locked knob he was allegedly trying to open, Augustine said. "He placed his shot through the door where he assumed the bulk of her body would be," Augustine said. He said Baj transferred the family funds into his son's account, which had the address of a post office box where only Baj could access the funds. He knew that once they got to Poland, where he was a citizen, his wife would be under his control, Augustine said. "This was a marriage chess game and Mia Darling-Baj called checkmate," Augustine said. Augustine said Baj emailed a family friend contact information about his adult daughters that night, suggesting he was about to do something life-threatening and serious. Baj terrified both his wife and his children by firing the shots, Augustine told the jurors. "Ask yourselves, who among you after an evening that Mia Darling and Christopher Baj had, would stand behind that door and let Chris Baj shoot at them and have any thought other than that 'This man is trying to kill me,'" Augustine said. Baj, 59, is charged with attempted homicide, aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person and two counts of endangering the welfare of children. Jury deliberations began at 10:18 a.m. Wednesday. Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook. Lehigh University sophomore Rebekah Nicholas is considering dropping out of school after the university dropped a bombshell in her email inbox Monday. The Bethlehem school informed rising juniors and seniors via email Monday that they will not be able to live on campus during the 2019-2020 school year. Lehigh is tearing down the Trembley Park apartment complex, located at 68 University Drive, to build its Bridge West residence hall project, which was approved by the Bethlehem Planning Commission earlier this month. The demolition and construction is leaving a shortage of on-campus housing for the upcoming academic year. "As you know, Lehigh has been planning for an expanded student body and understands the potential impact of this temporary loss of on-campus student housing," according to the email. "As such, the university has been partnering with a private development company to build SouthSide Commons, Lehigh's premier affiliated apartment complex." Students can choose to live at SouthSide Commons or find other off-campus housing, the email states. The fully-furnished SouthSide Commons apartments are under construction at the corner of Packer and Broadhead avenues. Set to open in August 2019, the 426-bed complex only still has four-bedroom units available at a cost of $10,690 for an academic year or 10 payments of $1,069, according to the complex's website. Lehigh University spokeswoman Lori Friedman did not respond to a request for comment. Some parents and students are balking at the price tag and the short notice. A Facebook group for Lehigh University parents was full of worries and complaints Tuesday afternoon. Similar apartments in Trembley, Farrington Square or Sayre Park cost $4,615 per semester this school year and are the most expensive on-campus housing, according to the university. If students had been notified sooner, they could have looked for off-campus alternatives, but Nicholas said most of the affordable options were all rented more than a month ago. Now, landlords can charge higher rents given the demand, she said. Lehigh referred students to Places4Students.com to find off-campus rentals, where a search turned up 63 available properties. Nicholas said the late notices leaves the "overly expensive" SouthSide Commons apartments as her sole choice. Her full scholarship to Lehigh won't come close to covering the cost of her housing there, let alone food and parking. Her mom is a disabled single mother, who can't afford this expense, she said. Nicholas spends the entire summer working so she can cover her expenses during the school year. "(I) am very well facing the possibility of having to drop out of Lehigh University and revert to working full time until I can find a college that will fund my education and offer affordable housing," Nicholas said. "I am not the only one in this situation; there are many students at Lehigh that are now at a loss and have no idea what to do or where to go in this situation." A second email from Lehigh Vice President for Finance and Administration Patricia A. Johnson and Vice Provost for Student Affairs Ricardo Hall was sent to the student body Tuesday afternoon. "We apologize for the confusion caused by the incomplete email communication sent yesterday to rising juniors and seniors regarding updates to Lehigh's residential facilities," the email states. "We are aware of your concerns and acknowledge the need to provide further information about the housing options available to you, including at SouthSide Commons, a Lehigh University housing facility." Lehigh promised an email with "more complete information" on housing options would be sent by the end of week. The dorm projects are crucial parts of of Lehigh's "Path to Prominence" announced by President John D. Simon two years ago. The plan aims to increase Lehigh enrollment by 1,000 undergraduate and 500 to 800 full-time graduate students over seven years. "This exciting and historic period of expansion and evolution is designed to move the university forward, building on the institution's strengths to propel Lehigh into an even brighter future," the second email states. "We acknowledge that these efforts can present challenges to the campus community, which we have been actively seeking to minimize. Another key feature is a new College of Health and a new science and research center. The new health, science and technology building, which will serve as the home for Lehigh's fledgling College of Health, is slated for a Morton Street parking lot behind the Whitaker Lab. The project was granted a zoning variance by the Bethlehem Zoning Hearing Board in July. The Bethlehem Planning Commission earlier this month approved the land development plans for Bridge West, a two-phase project that calls for a 720-bed residence hall. Last week, Lehigh launched the public phase of an ambitious effort to raise $1 billion to expand and support the Bethlehem school. Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. There's no housing shortage at Lehigh University next school year, so Lehigh's president says an email never should have been sent telling rising upperclassmen they had to move off campus. Earlier this week, the Bethlehem university's housing services department contacted rising juniors and seniors and told them they'd need to live in a new Lehigh-affiliated apartment building or head off campus. Parents and students balked at the short notice and the $10,690 cost of housing at SouthSide Commons, which is slated to open in August 2019. Lehigh had said this housing crunch was precipitated by the closure and demolition of Trembley Park, apartment-style dorms on University Drive. While Lehigh does plan to tear down Trembley Park as part of its two-phase development of the Bridge West residence hall, that won't be happening immediately, according to an email from Lehigh's President John D. Simon and Provost Patrick Farrell. "This message should not have been sent and we apologize for the confusion it created within our student community," the email sent Wednesday afternoon states. "Trembley Park will not be demolished this coming summer and will remain available for student housing for the 2019-2020 academic year with the same housing lottery process used as in years past." The news of the on-campus housing shortage was met with swift action by Lehigh students, who organized a Path to Poverty Campaign, a coalition of more than 10 student clubs and organizations, protesting the housing switch. The name is a nod to Lehigh's Path to Prominence, which aims to increase Lehigh enrollment by 1,000 undergraduate and 500 to 800 full-time graduate students over seven years. Students had planned a protest for Friday afternoon. On Tuesday, Lehigh's Student Senate passed a resolution demanding answers from the administration, according to the Brown and White, Lehigh's student newspaper. The university is committed to an open dialogue and transparent process that includes students, Simon and Farrell said in their email. "In the past 24 hours, you have raised thoughtful and legitimate concerns ranging from timing of the message, to availability of comparably priced housing options, to a need for greater transparency in Lehigh's master planning efforts," the email states. "Your individual and collective voices have shared personal stories and sets of circumstances that guide, and even dictate, student housing decisions. You have also shared your thoughts on how this week's announcement might affect our broader residential community. All voices are important and have been greatly appreciated." The administration has committed to holding a series of student meeting with the Student Senate in the near future to discuss students' concerns and questions about future housing and the residential experience at Lehigh, the email states. Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. The social media threat referencing a possible shooting at 12:47 Wednesday afternoon at "EHS" is impacting an area well beyond the Lehigh Valley, Easton Area School District Director of Safe Schools John Remaley said. The Snapchat threat that traces to the screen name of an inactive account from 2014 has been shared on other social media such as Instagram. It is causing headaches for authorities in New Jersey and Maryland as well as other districts in Pennsylvania, Remaley said. "There are far more agencies working on this than I could have imagined," he said. Easton students have both been receiving and pushing out the post, he said. One person can deliver it to dozens or more in a click, he said. "This has just spread so fast through the student population," he said. The speed left school authorities "chasing our tails," he said. Anyplace with an EHS -- such as the East Penn School District's Emmaus High School -- and on the receiving end of the shared Snapchat post that references "I might shoot up ehs on Wednesday at 12:47 to make my list clear" is potentially scrambling. While the uproar was broadcast Tuesday by the Easton Area School District, it's actually less likely to be the target because its high school is known as "EAHS", Remaley proposed. The time came and passed Wednesday afternoon, but while the post includes a day of the week, it doesn't add a date, Remaley said. We are aware of the Snapchat that has been shared several times on social media. As many of you may be aware there are... Posted by Talbot County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday, October 31, 2018 The Talbot County Sheriff's Office, which covers Easton, Maryland, and its Easton High School, said on Facebook, "As many of you may be aware there are more than one "EHS" in the Country." The sheriff's department has been "working closely with the Easton Area High School in Easton PA due to some of the recipients of this message are from Easton, Pa." The department said it takes all threats very seriously "and we are working closely with the Talbot County Board of Education to ensure all students safety." While the Easton Area School District said Tuesday night that the threat wasn't credible, Remaley cautioned that authorities don't know enough about the genesis of the threat to know that to be true. School district police can't prove it to be true or false at the moment, he said. "No one can say for certain where it's coming from," he said. His "educated guess" is that "it is not local and not specific to the district." Various law enforcement agencies have been contacting Easton Area all day, Remaley said. The East Penn district, on the other hand, said borough police were working with Easton police and had determined it is not "a credible threat to our school," Principal Kate Kieres said in a post linked off the district's home page. Some Emmaus students shared the Snapchat post with administrators, Kieres said. A similar thing happened Tuesday morning at Easton High. Easton Area officials also sent it to East Penn to alert administrators, she said. "It is a post from 2014 that was reposted this week," she wrote. Some Emmaus students were allowed to leave school early on Wednesday if their parents picked them up, a district spokeswoman said. The threat to an "EHS" has sent other school districts into a tailspin to investigate the claim. Elizabeth High School in Elizabeth, New Jersey, told parents a threat was made via social media late Tuesday night, and that schools in Pennsylvania and New Jersey received the same threat with the same wording. Police personnel were assigned to Elizabeth schools as authorities investigated on Wednesday. Earlier this month, Ennis Independent School District in Texas warned parents of a potential threat to "EHS," but said in a post on the district's Facebook page that the threat was made to a school in Florida. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. A possible threat posed against Easton Area High School has been deemed not credible, according to the latest alert from district administration. The alert sent out at 5:55 p.m. says a comprehensive investigation conducted with local and federal law enforcement indicated no credible threat against the school. Easton students saw what appears to be an Instagram post and quickly notified school officials between 9:30 a.m. 9:45 a.m., according to Director of Safe Schools John Remaley. "I might shoot up ehs on Wednesday at 12:47 to make my list clear," a screen shot of the post says. Investigators spent the day trying to determine whether "ehs" referenced the high school and whether any sort of threat was imminent. Despite the investigation result, the school district is putting extra security precautions in place Wednesday. "There will be an increased presence of law enforcement in and around the high school along with additional security staff," the alert says. The alert says the previously scheduled Halloween dress up at the high school is now canceled. Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook. UPDATE: The giveaway was moved to Nov. 18 Last year former Easton Area School Board member Frank Pintabone gave away 130 Thanksgiving turkeys. This year he's upped the giveaway to 200. If you want to celebrate Thanksgiving dinner but can't afford the turkey, you can get one for free at Pintabone's giveaway. The giveaway will be at 9 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 18, at American Printing Unlimited, 201 Northampton St., Easton. "People can start lining up," Pintabone said. "It's first come, first served." If you want to contribute to the event, reach out to Pintabone on Facebook. Pintabone said he created a nonprofit foundation so contributions are tax deductible. A New Jersey man is accused of attacking his Uber driver, telling the victim he looked like a terrorist before choking him with a seat belt, Bethlehem Township, Pa., police said. Kevin Malavarca, of Boonton, Morris County, was arrested early Saturday morning and charged with simple assault, harassment and two counts of reckless endangerment in Northampton County. The 38-year-old Malavarca is free after posting 10 percent of $10,000 bail. An attorney has not yet entered an appearance on his behalf in the case, and a phone number could not be located for Malavarca's address. Bethlehem Township police were initially called at 12:31 a.m. Saturday for a domestic assault incident in a car on Hecktown Road, between Oakland Road and Easton Avenue. When officers arrived, the Uber driver reported Malavarca choked him with a seat belt and grabbed his arm. The driver said they were traveling on Route 22, when he heard a commotion in the backseat and believed Malavarca was repeatedly hitting his girlfriend. When they exited onto Route 191 in Bethlehem Township, Malavarca reportedly asked the driver to pull over to let the woman out. The driver pulled onto Hecktown Road, when Malavarca allegedly tried to grab the driver's phone and then tried to hit the driver. Both times, the driver said he grabbed Malavarca's wrists to stop him. "Malavarca then stated he would kill (the driver). Malavarca then stated (the driver) looked like a terrorist and that he would strangle him," according to police. Malavarca allegedly pulled the driver's seat belt tight around the victim's neck. Township police said the driver pushed the seat belt release, and was able to get out of the belt and stop the car. The driver had a bleeding cut to his left hand, and red marks on his right arm, police said. The woman with Malavarca reported that "out of nowhere" Malavarca grabbed the driver's seat belt and would not let go, according to police. Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. I am not a member of the Democratic Party, and I don't believe that the party politics of Washington, D.C., belong in our Washington Borough. I chose to live in a small town for the sense of community with local businesses and neighbors helping neighbors. Josephine Noone and Chelsea DuChemin are community builders and assets to our borough, which is why I am supporting them for borough council. Both embrace the vision of the small town I want to live in. Noone, an incumbent, has helped make the borough more business-friendly and fought the blight of abandoned properties. She is the council representative to the Washington Business Improvement District and the only council member to welcome new businesses by attending every ribbon-cutting ceremony. She runs the Washington Farmers Market, bringing foot traffic to our downtown businesses as well as providing a sense of community by connecting us with local farmers. DuChemin created a community through her creation and management of the Washington Borough Community Forum Facebook page. She has organized Christmas drives for local families and encourages people to get involved community issues. She works at the borough library where she increased community programming. As a relative newcomer to the borough, she sees what Washington is and can be, and doesn't lament what it was. Please vote for the two candidates who work tirelessly to make Washington the great community it can be. Bob Valinski Washington Borough A Bangor man is behind bars in lieu of $500,000 bail, after allegedly attacking his girlfriend and a police officer Monday afternoon. A Washington Township Police Department officer who responded with Bangor police found a woman "covered in blood" at Bender's apartment in the 200 block of Broadway, police said. Police responded after a 911 hang up call a little after 2 p.m. Monday, police said. The victim reported Mark Bender, her boyfriend, repeatedly punched her in the face and head, and threatened her with a steak knife. The woman's face was bruised and swollen, and she could not see out of her left eye due to the injuries, police said. She was taken to St. Luke's University Hospital in Fountain Hill for treatment of possible bone fractures to her face and head, police said. Bender, 41, is facing three counts of aggravated assault, as well as single counts of unlawful restraint, simple assault, resisting arrest and institutional vandalism. Bender was on a couch, holding the couple's infant child and refusing to let the child go, according to police. Bender eventually let the child go, but allegedly charged at a Bangor officer and slapped the officer, causing injuries to the victim's face. Bender then charged the Washington Township officer and attempted to punch him, but was hit with the officer's stun gun, prosecutors said. Bender allegedly scuffled with police before he was handcuffed, spit at officers and later urinated in a holding cell. Bender is currently on parole in an aggravated assault case from a year ago. Bender was kicked out of a Pen Argyl home and spit into the face of an ambulance worker who responded to evaluate him, police said. Bender pleaded guilty to aggravated harassment by a prisoner, and was sentenced in February to 10 to 22 months in county prison. He was paroled in August, according to court records. Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Bord na Mona needs investment to stop the midlands from becoming Ireland's rust belt, according to Laois Sinn Fein TD Brian Stanley while a Labour Party representative in Laois went further suggesting the demise of the peat industry could open the way for cars to be built in the midlands. While it was bad news for the region, the TD said alternative jobs must be found. These workers cannot simply be set aside as we move away from peat. The Government and the company need to quickly develop alternative jobs, he said. Deputy Stanley met with the new CEO of Bord na Mona Mr Tom Donnellan last week and outlined to him that it is now absolutely essential that the company establish alternatives. The Cul na Mona plant in Portlaoise (is also at risk), 80% of its horticulture peat moss product currently goes to Britain, where retail companies are demanding peat free compost within the next 2 years, he said. Dep Stanley said a response is needed, including retraining and upskilling workers. Without action, he believes the Midlands is facing a grim future. Action is now needed from Government and the new management team at Bord na Mona to ensure the midlands does not become Ireland's rust belt, he said. Local Labour Party member Eoin Barry also called for action. He suggested the region could be a hub for new green energy companies. Not enough has been done to create new jobs in the clean energy industry. The Midlands, with its highly educated workforce and excellent transport links, is ideally located for the development of these industries. Just this week we heard the news that Dyson was going to build its electric cars in Singapore. There is no reason why high-quality manufacturing jobs, like these, couldnt be based in Ireland and in the midlands, he said. A Portarlington man described as a chronic heroin addict has been jailed for a number of shoplifting offences. Kamil Cruk (26), 9 Ballymorris Manor, Portarlington, appeared before the district court on a number of occasions charged with thefts. Evidence was given by Sgt JJ Kirby that on May 23 this year, the accused entered Lidl, Portlaoise, and stole meat to a total value of 94. The property was not recovered. Then on June 21, the accused again went into Lidl and stole various meats to a value of 178.21. This property was recovered. In separate matters, the accused was charged with theft from Tesco, and theft from Dealz, on February 20. The total value of goods stolen from both stores was 119.45 and the property was recovered. The accused had a number of previous convictions, including convictions for drugs and the possession of knives. All matters were previously adjourned for a probation report. When the case returned to court last week, Insp Ollie Baker said the accused was still well known to gardai. Insp Baker also said that in the last number of weeks the accuseds house had been searched and an investigation was ongoing concerning drug matters. Defence, Mr Declan Breen said the accused had been feeding his habit by stealing voraciously, but he has now stopped and is attending with a drugs counsellor. Defence said the accused was struggling hard with his addiction. Judge Staines said that the difficulty was these thefts had been committed while the accused was out on bail. Judge Staines said she had every sympathy for him as he was a chronic heroin addict, but she had to protect the public until he gets himself sorted out. The judge imposed six months in prison, with recognisance fixed in the event of appeal. A former Laois resident and former shareholder in the Leinster Express newspaper has left 30 million to five charities. Mrs Elizabeth OKelly, formerly of Stradbally and Emo Court in Co Laois left equal amounts in her will to the charities. The charities who received donations are: the Irish Cancer Society, the Irish Kidney Association, the Irish Heart Foundation, the RNLI and the Irish Society for Autism. Mrs OKelly died aged 93 in December 2016. Prior to her death, She was a shareholder in Clylim Properties but also earned 30 million from the sale of the Leinster Leader Ltd in 2005 to the Johnston Press Group. The Leinster Express was part of the Leader group of newspapers at the time. The cancer society welcomed the funding. We are deeply grateful to Mrs Elizabeth OKelly for generously remembering people with cancer in her will. Her generosity will provide hope to so many people affected by cancer and deliver improvements in cancer care that would have been impossible otherwise. Mrs OKelly successfully battled cancer in the 1980s. She knew first-hand the challenges cancer patients face and the positive difference the Irish Cancer Society makes to them in their time of need. In the 1980s, when Mrs OKelly was diagnosed with cancer, only three out of ten Irish cancer patients survived. Today, six out of ten do. This is thanks in no small part to the generosity of the Irish public in supporting the Irish Cancer Societys lifesaving research, advocacy and patient support services. The Irish Cancer Society wont give up until Irelands cancer services are truly world-class and every patient has the best possible chance of surviving and thriving after a cancer diagnosis. We wont settle for anything less and we know Mrs OKelly would not want us to, it said. The amount left to the Society is the equivalent of two years worth of Daffodil Day donations. STATEMENT FROM IRISH CANCER SOCIETY We are deeply grateful to Mrs Elizabeth OKelly for generously remembering people with cancer in her will and bequeathing 6 million to the Irish Cancer Society. Her generosity will provide hope to so many people affected by cancer and deliver improvements in cancer care that would have been impossible otherwise. Mrs OKelly, who most recently lived in Stradbally, Co. Laois, was known for displaying great kindness towards her friends and being charitable in supporting those in need. This tremendous kindness and generosity is reflected in her decision to leave equal amounts in her will to five charities. Mrs. OKelly successfully battled cancer in the 1980s. She knew first-hand the challenges cancer patients face and the positive difference the Irish Cancer Society makes to them in their time of need. In the 1980s, when Mrs OKelly was diagnosed with cancer, only three out of ten Irish cancer patients survived. Today, six out of ten do. This is thanks in no small part to the generosity of the Irish public in supporting the Irish Cancer Societys lifesaving research, advocacy and patient support services. Working in partnership with patients, medics and successive governments, we have helped deliver major improvements in cancer care in Ireland. However, there is still much more to be done to make Irelands public cancer services truly world-class. While Irish cancer services have improved significantly in recent years, they still lag behind other countries in many areas. Issues such as delayed diagnoses and inadequate access to new treatments are costing too many lives. The Irish Cancer Society wont give up until Irelands cancer services are truly world-class and every patient has the best possible chance of surviving and thriving after a cancer diagnosis. We wont settle for anything less and we know Mrs OKelly would not want us to. As a charity, we receive only 2 per cent of our income from the State. With the number of cancer patients at an all-time high, we have been experiencing unprecedented requests for help from cancer patients and their families in recent years. Prioritising day-to-day services has enabled us to meet this demand. However, we cannot deliver truly world-class cancer services in Ireland without far greater investment in research and transformational projects. The scale of the challenge in cancer prevention, treatment and support is simply too great. Mrs OKellys gift will be the seed for this investment. It will, therefore, enable us to deliver the kind of transformational change that would have been impossible otherwise. On behalf of people affected by cancer all across Ireland, our supporters and volunteers, we are deeply grateful to her for making this possible. Failed presidential candidate Peter Casey will be invited to join RENUA Ireland leader and Laois Offaly candidate and Offaly County Councillor John Leahy and replace him as the party's leader. Peter Casey emerged from the pack to finish second to Michael D Higgins with over 20% of the vote with 340,000 votes across the country. Mr Casey received 8,419 votes in Laois and 9,253 votes in Offaly. Mr Casey had been polling at 2% before making controversial comments about the ethnic status of travellers and labelling them "people living on other people's land." Cllr Leahy, who is likely to be a Laois Offaly candidate at the next General Election, said he would be reaching out to Mr Casey. "We're reaching out to Peter Casey because we believe he's in line with what we're saying, particularly on three of six of our core pillars, namely taxpayers first, entrepreneurship and law and order," Cllr Leahy told the Offaly Express. "He's touched on law and order in terms of the traveller movement and from our point of view, we believe he was honest in what he was saying. We don't believe he was anti-traveller in any shape or form, but at least he was honest and reflecting what's actually happening on the ground," said Cllr Leahy. The Offaly man sits on the Traveller Accommodation Committee. "I've said this for two or three years at committee level that the way a small proportion of travellers carry on is disgraceful." "You can't have a situation where there is an element of crime related to travellers, an element of illegal encampment and disregard for property and burning rubbish. There is one rule for the travellers and another rule for settled people, and that's the reality. "I work with Travellers and don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-Traveller, but what I'm saying is it's a reflection of what's happening on the ground, and people are looking for someone to come out and say that and he [Casey] came out and said it. "But he said a lot more too, he spoke about taxpayers and entrepreneurship and I feel like people felt it was a breath of fresh air and decided they were going to reward him for his honesty and bravery in coming out," said Cllr Leahy added. Speaking about the surprising level of the vote around Ireland for Peter Casey, Leahy said: "There is a message in that and it's that rural middle Ireland are sick to the teeth of everything going on at the moment, they're seeing ethnic minority groups getting status, making no contribution, not them all now but the vast majority, and people are absolutely sick of it." "They're working every day, they're listening to Fine Gael's spin that the economy is recovering and they're looking after people who get up early in the morning. The reason they are getting up early in the morning is to sit on a motorway and to get an extra fiver a week in their pay packet in 2019, that's the reality." Cllr Leahy suggested rural crime is another reason people voted for Peter Casey. "Renua is strong on crime and we believe repeat offenders and anyone stepping out of line needs to be dealt with severely. Judges are not being tough enough and the people are suffering, especially in rural Ireland," he said. Cllr Leahy said he thinks Peter Casey aligns with RENUA on these issues to a large extent and that he would welcome him to the party. He also said that if it came to it and Peter Casey had a mandate and the members of the party wanted him as leader, he wouldn't stand in his way and he would remain in the party in support of Peter Casey. He aims to make contact with the Presidential runner-up in the coming weeks. Halloween is upon us and Laois County Fire and Rescue Service has given a timely warning about the many dangers of fire on the busy evening. They have reminded the public that both bonfires and fireworks are illegal. They have also warned about the danger of Halloween costumes that are not fire retardant. Met Eireann's Halloween weather forecast Anthony Tynan is Assistant Chief Fire Officer. "Be extremely careful with costumes. A lot that are sold are not fire retardant. Only buy ones with the symbols on them. There has been a few nasty incidents around the EU, they can go on fire very easily," he told the Leinster Express. The service has eight crews around Laois who will be on call tonight. They are prepared to put out any bonfires that may be dangerous. "In recent years in Laois it has been very quiet. However if a bonfire is causing a threat or a danger, it will be extinguished. You are not supposed to have a bonfire, but if you do, keep it away from buildings and powerlines, and do not put plastics, metal or anything dangerous in it," he said. Fireworks are another danger. "All fireworks are illegal unless it is a licenced display. There is a risk of personal injury, and they could cause fires," ACFO Tynan said. A record donation to the Irish Heart Foundation by a Laois woman will be used to tackle childhood obesity, the charity has confirmed. Tim Collins, CEO of the Irish Heart Foundation, said the 6 million received from Stradbally woman and former Leinster Express co-owner Elizabeth O'Kelly was a record. The bequest received last year from Elizabeth OKelly was the single biggest donation ever received by the Irish Heart Foundation in our 52 years of existence. The board and staff of the organisation have been overcome by her generosity and are committed to ensuring it is put to best effect and has a long-lasting impact on reducing premature death from heart disease and stroke in Ireland. Mrs OKelly was a remarkable woman who with her will has gifted five Irish charities a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to invest in and transform Irish society. We are extremely grateful to her for her kindness and generosity in choosing to remember the Irish Heart Foundation and our crucial work to protect and improve the cardiovascular health of the nation, he said. The foundation says that in order to ensure Mrs OKellys generous donation is put to best effect and has a long-lasting impact, it has ringfenced the donation and spent the past number of months working with the Board and external partners on a large-scale innovative project in the area of childhood obesity. The foundation says that almost a third of Irish children are now overweight and in 2016 nine per cent of girls and ten per cent of boys in Ireland were classed as obese. 85,000 children currently living on the island of Ireland will die prematurely due to being overweight. It says childhood obesity is the single biggest threat facing public health in Ireland. If it is not tackled the significant progress that has been made in reducing deaths from heart disease and stroke will soon be undone. The Irish Heart Foundation said it was committed to working and campaigning to reduce childhood obesity in Ireland and Mrs. OKellys generous donation has made this work possible. Further details of the new project will be published early next year in a strategy for 2019-2024. In 2017 the Irish Heart Foundation generated 90% of our income from donations, sponsorship and fundraising activities. Bequeaths and legacy donations are an extremely important source of income for charities, allowing us to both fund our ongoing work, and in this instance, be innovative in our work and develop key interventions focused on impact. Legacy donations constitute a significant proportion of the Irish Heart Foundations income and are an important income stream and are crucial to our continued operation said charity. "Without people like Elizabeth OKelly, we simply wouldnt be here today," concluded the statement. The Irish Cancer Society, RNLI, Irish Autism Society and Irish Kidney Association also received an equal portion of the 30 million left by Mrs O'Kelly in her will. Mrs OKelly died aged 93 in December 2016. Prior to her death, she was a shareholder in Clylim Properties but also earned 30 million from the sale of the Leinster Leader Ltd in 2005 to the Johnston Press Group. The donation of 6 million to the RNLI by Laois woman Elizabeth O'Kelly will be used in Ireland to save lives around the country's coastline and through its inland services. Despite being a resident of Ireland's most land-locked county, the Laois resident picked the lifeboat service as one of five organisations to inherit equally from the 30 million she left to charity. The RNLI issued a statement thanking the Laois woman for her donation. "The RNLI is deeply grateful and humbled by the generosity of Mrs Elizabeth OKelly to bequeath over 6 million in her will to the charity. Gifts in wills, be they large or small, are vital to the charitys work in saving lives at sea, they fund six out of every 10 lifeboat launches. The RNLI said she was a long-standing supporter and was also active. "She held a high regard for the volunteer work carried out by the charity which appealed to her ethos and she herself for many years, volunteered her time to help out at an RNLI stall at the RDS in Dublin. "Throughout her life, she displayed great kindness towards her many friends and was most charitable in supporting those in need. This has been reflected in her generous decision to bequeath the funds to five charities. "Mrs OKelly asked that her legacy be used to support the RNLIs lifesaving work in Ireland. The impact of her incredible generosity will be directly felt by our volunteer crews and the people whose lives they save for many years to come. As this is such a large legacy, the RNLI will be carefully considering all options to ensure the funds are used where they are needed most and with a view to how they can be spent to fittingly reflect Mrs OKellys support for the charity," said the statement. The RNLI provides a 24-hour search and rescue service and has 46 lifeboats stations in Ireland and 59 lifeboats. In 2017, Irish lifeboats launched 1,088 times and our volunteer crews rescued 1,471 people, thats an average of four people aided each day. "We rely on the generosity of the public to fund our lifesaving service and to ensure our lifeboat stations are properly equipped, our lifeboats are maintained and that our volunteers are highly trained and skilled to continue their work in saving lives at sea," concluded the statement. The Irish Cancer Society, Irish Heart Foundation, Irish Autism Society and Irish Kidney Association also received an equal portion of the 30 million left by Mrs O'Kelly in her will. Mrs OKelly died aged 93 in December 2016. Prior to her death, she was a shareholder in Clylim Properties but also earned 30 million from the sale of the Leinster Leader Ltd in 2005 to the Johnston Press Group. She was a shareholder in the Leinster Express. Five artists including one from Kildare are in the frame for the most significant award in Irish contemporary art The Savills Prize which will be announced tomorrow evening November 1 at Vue 2018, Irelands national contemporary art fair. The shortlisted artists are Celbridge native Gabhann Dunne along side Dubliners Claire Halpin and Janet Mullarney, Cork-born and Galway-based Gordon Harris, Kilkennys Paul Mosse. Gabhan Dunne has been described as one of the best painters of his generation and the colour palette in the Celbridge artists work "gives it a visionary, almost poetic quality." The 5,000 Savills Prize is awarded to the artist who has produced an outstanding body of work in the last year or made some other substantial contribution to the visual arts in Ireland. Vue 2018 takes place at the Royal Hibernian Academy gallery from Thursday, November 1 until Sunday, November 4. "This is the fourth year the Savills Prize has been presented at Vue and we hope the award will become as important to Irish art as the Turner Prize is in the UK," said Vue 2018 organiser Patrick OSullivan. Vue 2018 is a great opportunity for collectors and investors to experience some of the best contemporary art currently being created in Ireland, and to get some expert advice and guidance from leading galleries.. There were no tricks, only treats for a Kildare winner at the National Lottery headquarters in Dublin today who joined players from Limerick, Louth and Waterford to pick up a massive 471,385 in prize money between them from the EuroMillions game. The lucky EuroMillions player from Sallins, who wishes to remain anonymous, also claimed another 105,000 raffle prize after he won with a lucky ticket which he bought online. The Kildare family man received an email from the National Lottery on Friday night to inform him of his win and he described the wild celebrations with his family as they celebrated the win: I received an email late on Friday evening from the National Lottery telling me that there was some good news about my ticket I didnt realise how great that news would be! I had to get my wife out of bed and we all stayed up celebrating until very late, it was just incredible. Were going to pay-off all of our bills and credit cards before we make any concrete decisions on what to do with the money its a brilliant decision to have to make, he said. The National Lottery has again reminded all EuroMillions ticket holders to check their EuroMillions tickets following Friday nights special Ireland Only Raffle draw as there are still currently seven winners of the 105,000 prize who have yet to claim their prize. SEE ALSO: Gardai warn of cash scam Team Hope, the charity behind the Christmas Shoebox appeal, is in need of a warehouse in the Newbridge/Naas/Kildare town area to store and sort the boxes prior to their delivery to thousands of children in Eastern Europe and Africa. Local volunteer, Breda Healy explained that the warehouse they used last year at Naas Enterprise Park, is now unavailable. We are looking for a 2,500sqft place with toilet facilities. We just need a loan of it until the first week of December, just for about six weeks, in fact it's less than six weeks because we are late getting started, she said. Last year, 8,637 boxes were collected in the mid/south Kildare region with 7,250 going to Malawi and 1,387 delivered to Transnistria in Moldova. Anyone, who has a premises, or wants more info can contact Breda on 086 8477620. Get your shoeboxes ready The Team Hope Christmas Shoe box appeal is underway and volunteers will be at next Saturday's Newbridge Cottage Market from 10am to 2pm to inform people of how it works. They will be on hand to fill people in on the project and the items suitable for inclusion in the boxes. "There are so many heartwarming stories that come back when the boxes are delivered. They make such a huge difference. Many children in Africa can't go to school if they don't have a copy or pencils. For many children, it will be the first present they ever get," added Breda. The closing date for receiving filled shoeboxes is November 11 but the volunteers will accept boxes up to the end of November. Your filled Christmas Shoe boxes can be left in AXA Insurance, 7 The Crossings, Main St, Dublin Road, Naas; Dealz Naas; and Dealz Newbridge, or by contacting Breda or logging on to the website. Shoe boxes should be covered with Christmas wrapping paper but with the lid and box separate to allow checking. Follow the 4W guidelines when filling the boxes TO WRITE Items for school like a pen, pencil, copy book, paper, colouring book, felt pens, sharpener, eraser, solar calculator. TO WASH Some hygiene items toothbrush and toothpaste, soap (wrapped please), facecloth, hairbrush, comb. TO WEAR Small clothing items a hat, scarf, gloves, socks or underwear WOW! A treat sunglasses, game, small Irish gift, a photo of yourself, sweets (must be in date until at least March 2019), make up, a small musical instrument, toys like a doll, a car, cuddly toy, skipping rope, yo-yo, a finger puppet even a ball is fantastic. Check out www.teamhope.ie A Beezneez Theatre Company visit to The Dock Arts Centre is always welcome but when they come with a revival of what many consider to be John McDwyers finest play, it is a visit not to be missed. Callaghans Place is the second part of John McDwyers Leitrim Trilogy and following the hugely successful revival of Lovely Leitrim in 2016, it was inevitable that calls would go out for a revival tour of Callaghans Place. Callaghans Place was a massive success when premiered in 2003 and was toured three times by the company including sold out, week long appearances in London and in Newcastle for the Irish Arts Festival there. It has since become a staple of amateur theatre and has been performed all over Ireland. In Callaghans Place, Paul and Mary Dolan struggle to come to terms with the departure of their only child, Frances, to study at university. A mysterious Englishman arrives in their midst and his blossoming friendship with the daughter creates tension and ultimately leads to tragedy as neighbours Pat Kelly and Annie Jackson fail to stem the tide of Pauls anger and suspicion. For all the seriousness of the underlying themes, Callaghans Place is peppered with scenes of outrageous humour and laugh out loud situations. An all-star Beezneez cast which includes Michael Roper, Peter Davey and Margaret Kilcoyne ensure an evening of unmissable theatre. Callaghans Place comes to The Dock tonight, Wed October 31 to Saturday, November 3 tickets at 071 9650828 or www.thedock.ie The play also shows at Roscommon Arts Centre on Tuesday November 6, The Glens Centre, Manorhamilton on Friday November 9 and Hawks Well Theatre, Sligo on Wednesday November 21. LifeStyle The best Lifestyle shows are right here, from Australia and around the world. Catch up with the experts on home design and interiors, food and cooking, the property market, and get fresh ideas with the savviest of renovators. Whether you need inspiration for cooking up a storm, to refresh a tired room, or tips to sell your property, Foxtel Lifestyle will always something new for you to watch. Enjoy your favourite experts like Andrew Winter and Neale Whitaker, or Shaynna Blaze and Jamie Oliver live or On Demand. THE NEWS that Ormston House is closing up shop for the winter over plummeting temperatures has reawakened concerns felt in the Limerick culture community. Co-director and founder Mary Conlon has said that due to temperatures dropping below the legal standard under the Offices, Shops and Railways Premises Act, the Patrick Street gallery will shut its doors on December 8. This is despite the gallery receiving a government grant worth 12,510.26 for the installation of a heating system. All grants awarded to Ormston House, totalling 183,000, cannot be drawn down due to its ongoing tenancy problems, she explained. The sale of the gallery has yet to go through, though many believed it would have been completed by August. The gallery was put on the market in July 2017, after Namas loan book was sold to New York-based Cerberus Capital Management last year. The Rubberbandits Twitter, which is mainly curated by author Blindboy Boatclub, described Ormston Houses closure as shite news and that Ormston House is a brilliant hub for arts and culture in the city. An American equity fund is robbing Limerick of a space for artists. Im going to puke. This is shite news. Ormston is a brilliant hub for arts and culture in Limerick city. What can we do to help this? https://t.co/0fTHzQvV1z Rubber Bandits (@Rubberbandits) October 25, 2018 Ms Conlon told The Limerick Leader that the focus in 2019 will be to secure long-term tenancy. Tell us a little bit about 4site: 4site provides innovative engineering solutions for major infrastructural developments in telecommunications. We work with infrastructure owners and operators of distributed networks to design, build, deploy and maintain utilities infrastructure and across Ireland, the United Kingdom and beyond. We basically simplify complex engineering solutions and work with clients to help them maximise the value of their infrastructure. With over 15 years experience at home and abroad, we have earned a reputation as an independent, trusted partner who innovates, develops services, optimises assets and delivers cost efficiencies. We provide unparalleled service and quality, ensuring clients successfully meet the challenges presented by the always-evolving technology landscape. Where are you located? We are headquartered at the Raheen Business Park in Limerick, with sister offices in Dublin and Britain, and we currently employ 80 people, the majority of which are qualified engineers and technicians. Innovation is at the heart of what we do and our highly skilled in-house technical teams continually adapt technology, tools and processes to deliver reliable and future-proofed turnkey services for clients across Ireland, Britain and further afield. These clients include Vodafone, SIRO, Cignal, Huawei, 2RN (RTE), Three, Ericsson, Nokia, CityFibre, CommScope and enet. How much have you invested in your centre here? We recently invested 250,000 in developing a Fibre Centre of Excellence at our Limerick HQ, unique in Ireland and testament to the focus on the need for increased broadband speeds for both homes and businesses in Ireland and abroad. This facility brings together the expertise of fibre design, survey and planning engineers who will continually innovate how fibre networks are designed and delivered, while also focusing on specialised training for graduate engineers to meet not just the current demands, but future 5G or next generation network developments. What does your role entail? As chief executive, I lead a strong senior management team across operations, programs, finance, sales and marketing and represent a skilled and professional workforce that covers all parts of Ireland and Britain. As 100% owner of the business, my commitment to the organisation is significant. My role is prioritised by the needs of our clients and ensuring we are doing everything possible to deliver for them. During a typical week I will work from our headquarters in Limerick on Monday, focusing mainly on the day to day operations with our operations director and program directors. On Tuesdays, Im also in headquarters, but this time focusing on the finance aspect of the business. Wednesday and Thursday are usually client facing. I meet with existing clients to discuss ongoing projects and also meet with new business prospects. If I can at all, I try and work from home on Fridays as this allows me to catch up on paperwork as well as having time to think. While thats my ideal week, this can change on a day to day basis depending on clients needs. As we are primarily involved in the rollout of networks, it can be very dynamic and demanding around targets and we need to ensure we deliver for our clients. Where were you born and raised? I grew up in Tralee and still live in Kerry, even though I mostly work in Limerick and Dublin. I love Kerry, especially during the summer a typical Kerry man! What is your educational background? I attended CBS the Green in Tralee and then studied construction management in Waterford IT, which gave me a good broad knowledge of construction and engineering as well as business management. How did you get to where you are today? After I graduated as an engineer with a BSc (Hons) in construction management from Waterford in 1992, I worked with Jons Civil Engineering as an engineer on a range of major civil projects. I then joined Ned OShea Construction in Kerry as a site manager/engineer looking after a number of commercial, healthcare and public building projects. I moved to Dublin to Spain Courtney Doyle as a resident engineer, working on the second phase of The Square shopping centre in Tallaght which included an extension of the shopping centre and the construction of a new multi storey car park. In 1996, I joined Esat Digifone shortly after they were awarded the second mobile licence and I worked as a principal engineer looking after the roll out of hundreds of mobile network sites. As a result, I gained invaluable experience in the rollout of telecom networks and getting to market quickly. I was also involved in the establishment of the Cork office for the business and also took on the role of construction manager to a team of engineers. I loved the faster pace of telecoms rollout and having to constantly adapt to new trends and technologies. Nobody realised back in the late 1990s that we would end up with an insatiable appetite for data and mobile phones and that there would be a need for the constant expansion and upgrading of networks. After six years with Esat, I saw an opportunity to set up a consultancy company offering engineering services to the telco operators and in 2002, I established 4site. What are your goals for the next 12 months? In telecoms right now, its about two things - bandwidth capacity and fibre to the home. With this in mind, we have invested significantly in our fibre to the home offering and developing our purpose built 3,500 square foot space in our Limerick headquarters called the Fibre Centre of Excellence. This is allowing us to support our customers in Ireland, the UK and further afield. It is also testament to the focus on the need for increased broadband speeds for both homes and businesses in Ireland and abroad. We are now starting to see the green shoots of what will be the next 5G networks and have been involved in some interesting projects in the UK that are paving the way to what these networks will ultimately be. Who do you admire in business? I have huge admiration for anyone that has set up their own business. I particularly admire those who may have failed on their first or second attempt at entrepreneurship, but have still come back and created jobs and real value in our economy. As the son of a garage owner, I always had ambitions to work for myself. I grew up in a house where running a business was a big part of our day to day lives. I only really appreciate now the highs and lows of running a business. In business and life, are you guided by any particular motto? One of my key mottos is a client will forget if youre late, but they will never forget if youre wrong. My team are sick of hearing me say this, but its so true. I also try not to be overly dependent on particular clients or sectors. Diversity in your client portfolio is important. Grow across multiple clients and sectors, but dont ignore the core skills your business provides. Away from work, what are your pastimes and hobbies? I love cycling and do a lot of cycling at club level. I also enjoy reading, I recently read The Secret Race by Tyler Hamilton, a member of Lance Armstrongs US postal team. Its a great book that shows what winning at any cost can do to people. Even if youre not into cycling, its an honest and compelling account of a guy thrown into a rotten system and the disastrous results this had for him and the people around him. We too often look for the villain in an individual when, in actual fact, its the system that is to blame. GARDAI have arrested a man in connection with a large daylight brawl in Limerick city, in which a number of people were assaulted. The incident occurred at the Roches Street and Catherine Street junction this Tuesday at around 1.30pm. Video footage of part of the incident, obtained by the Limerick Leader, shows two men hitting another male with what appear to be metal pipes. It appears that the male who was attacked with the weapons, who was wearing a red jacket, was also wrestling with a fourth man, as a number of shocked onlookers witnessed the vicious attack. The man in the red jacket, who is told to get off him, is punched in his sides and punched in the face during the ordeal. Traffic was at a standstill during the incident as one of the people involved in the incident had left their car at the crossing. The video also shows that a woman attempted to intervene in the incident. A spokesperson for An Garda Siochana said: An investigation is ongoing into an incident that occurred this (Tuesday) afternoon at approximately 1.30pm on Roches Street where a number of persons were assaulted. One man is currently in custody detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act at Henry Street garda station. Investigations ongoing. Anyone with information in connection with the incident is urged to contact Henry Street garda station at 061 212400. THE BISHOP of Limerick believes that despite the darkness that has engulfed the Catholic church in recent years including the horrible revelations of clerical sex abuse, there is a future for the church in Ireland. Speaking at Boston College, Bishop of Limerick Brendan Leahy acknowledged the Catholic Church in Ireland had been involved with many scandals, including the horrible revelations of clerical sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience in the Church. In his address, made at the Church of the 21st Century Centre, Bishop Leahy pointed out the importance of acknowledging reality as the Church moves forward. Calling things as they are and not hiding or concealing, he said. Although the church is experiencing a dark night of the soul, there are positives, he believes. There is a future. We are seeing more clearly that certain ways of doing things and practices will have to die. Church life revolved somewhat passively around the priest, Bishop Leahy said. But as we look to the future, we now see that in the future it will be lay people assisting in funeral liturgies, lay people taking over the running of parishes, lay people exercising pastoral co-ordinating roles. Its already in view. Recognising and accepting the reality of past and the present will allow the Church to help and unite, he said. In particular, the issue of young people's mental health needs to be tackled together, he added. We can recognise and help others recognise the cry from young people around issues such as mental health issues. We all need to come on board, raising the flag on this issue and tackling it together. There is a greater sense of togetherness in mission emerging in this night time of the Church in Ireland. Its not enough to do works of charity. We need to be charity and love as we do them. THERE was spook-tacular fun at the weekend in Limerick city, with hundreds joining in the Halloween celebrations. As night fell on Limerick on Saturday night, more than 300 people gathered at City Hall for a special parade to mark the ancient festival of Samhain, which traditionally signals the beginning of winter. It was the centre-piece of the first ever festival by the same name, with Martin Shannon of the Lumen street theatre group saying he is delighted with how it went. He also highlighted an open-water swim by night which was organised by Swimmable Limerick. It was immensely successful. It was really emotional to see how the parade was. All the events were very well attended, none more so than the swim. The only thing which surpassed it was the parade itself, he said. Despite chilly temperatures, everyone was in high spirits, Martin added. We had our large Bishops Lady ghost, and she was being chased by 200 quakers trying to capture her. We also had four or five Bishops Ladies who were lifesized and dancing around her, the organiser told The Leader. And in a nod to the part of the city the activities were taking place in, there was an impromptu rendition of There is an isle. Up to 100 lanterns were released into the River Shannon providing a spectacular vista on the dark October night. The aim was to banish the darkness and remember the souls of loved ones. Mayor James Collins, who was out and about over the Halloween Bank Holiday weekend says it is Limericks ambition to own the October festivities. The bars were busy, we saw people in fancy dress having fun. There was just so much going on. There were workshops going on because of Samhain. There were screenings going on as part of the Richard Harris Festival. It was just very busy, he said. The mayor revealed that in years to come, Limerick could be welcoming its own food festival, saying that the Food on the Edge movement have visited the city. We gave them venison stew served outside from a cauldron. We had organic stuff. They were blown away. Wed love for them to come to Limerick, he added. Martin says he hopes the festival is back bigger and better next year. THE President of the Limerick Institute of Technology has challenged the current blueprint for third level education, as he revealed that 95% of last years LIT graduating class either went directly into employment or on further study. At the opening 2018 conferring ceremony in the LIT Moylish Campus this Wednesday, Professor Vincent Cunnane questioned whether the Governments Hunt Report, first published in 2011, was still relevant for the sector and the challenges it now faces. According to Prof Cunnane, the Hunt Report outlines Government policy and includes the imperative that institutes of technology should merge, face more international competition, and fundamentally change. If 95% of our graduates are in employment or further study, if students are coming to us from diverse backgrounds, if we are retaining more students in college, if we are keeping people here in this region, I want to know what we are doing wrong and why we must change so fundamentally, Prof Cunnane asked. We work for you, your communities, our regional economy and our society. We are delivering. He also called on the newly appointed Minister for Education and Skills Joe McHugh to review the Hunt Report in light of the environment we find ourselves in today. The reality is that the challenges this sector faces are very different from when the Hunt Report was published. The biggest challenges to us lies in a policy written in a different time for a different country, he said. In the course of his address, Prof Cunnane also revealed the results of the HEAs Graduate Employment Survey of 2017, which show that only 5% of last years graduating class were looking for employment after graduation. This figure is particularly significant when compared to the national youth unemployment rate of 13.9%, Prof Cunnane said. And it is not that people are going into poorly paid jobs in other parts of the country, or that they have to emigrate, he added. The average salary for someone graduating from LIT last year was just over 26,000, with one third of those graduates on a salary of over 30,000 per year, he added. About three quarters of last years LIT graduates are working in Limerick, Clare or Tipperary. Results like this do not happen by accident. They happen because the staff of LIT work hard to deliver an education that makes students as work-ready as possible. LIT graduates are plugged into the economy, he told the class of 2018. This creates a virtuous cycle. You get good jobs, and employers invest here in the Mid-West because you have the skills, the knowledge and the attitude that the modern workplace needs. He noted that many of these ambitions and targets are set out in LITs Strategic Plan, launched this year, which puts it on a trajectory to become a Technological University. The LIT conferring ceremonies will take place over five days in Limerick and Tipperary and will see 1,600 students graduate from five campuses. Apr 28, 2021, 4 AM The United States Postal Service used its booth space at the Nojex/ASDA stamp show Oct. 19-21 in East Rutherford, N.J., to promote the Honoring First Responders forever stamp and also held a dedication ceremony for the commemorative. Philatelic Foreword by Jay Bigalke Working together to create a successful stamp show seems to be a new trend. This past summer, the American Philatelic Society and the American Topical Association joined forces for Stampshow 2018. In mid-October, the American Stamp Dealers Association collaborated with Nojex, the annual stamp show of the North New Jersey Federated Stamp Clubs Inc., to jointly host a show in East Rutherford, N.J. The ASDA did not present a fall show in New York City this year, but is planning a spring show in May 2019. Amos Media Co. (Linns and the Scott catalogs) had a booth at the ASDA/Nojex show to support the new effort and also to see how the partnership fared. Connect with Linns Stamp News: Sign up for our newsletter Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Im pleased to report that the event was a success. The show floor had a true buzz to it on Friday and Saturday (Oct. 19-20). Many customers were shopping, and dealers seemed busy. On Saturday, the United States Postal Service held a dedication ceremony for the Honoring First Responders stamp. While it wasnt a first-day ceremony, it was still meaningful to those who attended. The ASDA/Nojex partnership will continue next year. The exact date of the show hasnt been finalized, but when it is we will report on the date in our Champion of Champions show listing. These efforts of working together are a real plus to the future of the stamp hobby. For what is likely the first time ever, two mothers each got to carry the same child for part of the fetus's development, according to news reports. The married women, Ashleigh and Bliss Coulter, were each able to carry the developing embryo (and eventually, for one woman, the fetus) thanks to a relatively new fertilization technique, local news station WFAA 8 ABC reported Oct. 25. Ashleigh gave birth to the healthy baby boy, Stetson, five months ago. So, how did it happen? The technique which uses a device called the INVOcell lies somewhere between in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intrauterine insemination (IUI). During IVF, scientists fertilize eggs with sperm in a lab and then transfer the resulting embryos into a woman's uterus. During IUI, sperm is inserted directly into the uterus, with the goal of making it easier for a sperm cell to reach and fertilize an egg. [Conception Misconceptions: 7 Fertility Myths Debunked] INVOcell is basically a form of IVF, but instead of the egg being fertilized in a lab, the egg and sperm are put in a small vial that's inserted into a womans vagina, along with a diaphragm to ensure it stays in place, according to a 2012 study that outlines the procedure. There, with the help of the bodys heat, the sperm can fertilize the egg. (Essentially, the woman's vagina replaces the incubator in the lab.) After five days, the doctor removes the device to see if an embryo has formed and can then either implant the embryo into the woman's uterus or freeze it for later. Indeed, the Texas couple's case isn't the first time that the INVOcell technique has been used; it's just the first time it's been used with two women both sharing an embryo. Typically, the technique is used for just one woman. In this case, however, the couples doctor took advantage of INVOcells unique design to let both mothers in on the pregnancy process. To explain briefly, after the embryo was incubated in the device in one woman's vagina, the doctor removed the embryo and implanted it into the other woman's uterus, who carried it to term and delivered a healthy baby. "It's a somewhat novel twist on what we already do" with this technique, said Dr. John Couvaras, the medical director of IVF Phoenix who offers INVOcell at his practice. Couvaras was not involved in the Coulters' case. Of course, the technique is slightly more complicated than simply removing the embryo from one woman and implanting it in another. For this to work, the mother receiving the five-day-old embryo in other words, the woman carrying the child to term would have to have the appropriate uterine lining and hormone levels for a five-day-old embryo, Couvaras told Live Science. If the whole process is successful, this allows one parent to hold the embryo as it first forms and the other to carry the child until delivery. "Its kind of a neat trick," Couvaras added. [5 Myths About Fertility Treatments] This fertilization technique may have a few other benefits, too. For starters, some doctors and clinics think the natural fertilization process has a better chance of generating viable embryos than IVF, though not all data supports this theory. That would mean fewer embryos have to be transferred and that allows for more precise control over how many kids someone has. During IVF, doctors often transfer several lab-fertilized embryos into the uterus to increase the odds of one of the embryos successfully implanting and developing, which often results in multiple births (like twins or triplets). It also means there are fewer leftover embryos to freeze, which dodges an ethical dilemma for some people who are unsure about freezing embryos. INVOcell also costs less than IVF, which can be prohibitively expensive due to incubation and medication costs. While it might still be best for some couples to try IUI first, INVOcell acts an "accelerator" to ensure that IVF is more successful, Couvaras said. Indeed, given these benefits, Couvaras said he isn't sure why the method isn't more popular. It's possible, he said, that some might think the process appears regressive and not as high-tech as the very precise, lab-based joining of sperm and egg. "But if I could be the czar of infertility, I'd say we should do more low-cost approaches up front, and if not successful, then move to [IVF]," he said. Originally published on Live Science. Bizarre, star-like objects that act like single, giant atoms may be hidden throughout the universe, and for the first time, researchers have shown how these strange quantum stars could form. If these objects do exist, they could help explain dark matter, the unknown stuff that emits no light and yet makes up 27 percent of the universe. They could also be behind bright, fast bursts of cosmic radio waves that have confounded astronomers and even stoked thoughts of alien civilizations. Unlike regular stars, these so-called axion stars (if they exist) do not shine. They're dark because they're made of hypothetical particles called axions, a primary candidate for dark matter. Different theories predict axions to have a wide range of masses, but overall, they're expected to be extremely light perhaps as tiny as 10 raised to the 31st power times lighter than a proton. [Strange Quarks and Muons, Oh, My! Nature's Tiniest Particles Dissected] Cold, dark stars Axions, if they do exist, would hardly interact with one another, but if gravity can coax them together, they could form a dense sphere with exotic properties unlike those of any other kind of star. That's because axions are bosons, a class of particles that includes particles of light, or photons. In quantum physics, particles have discrete amounts of energy, meaning the particles exist at particular energy levels. With bosons, multiple particles can be at the same energy level simultaneously, unlike a different class of particle called fermions, which include electrons and protons. In an axion star or, more generally, a boson star every axion would be at the lowest energy level, meaning that the entire star would have the same quantum behavior, as if it were a single, giant particle. Such an exotic object is also known as a Bose-Einstein condensate, a type of matter that physicists create in labs on Earth by cooling atoms to near absolute zero. In the lab, these condensates can also form superfluids, which flow without friction. Previously, some physicists said that the gravity between the featherweight axions would be too weak to corral the particles into a star, said study co-author Dmitry Levkov, a physicist at the Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Star formation in no time But new computer simulations, described on Oct. 12 in the journal Physical Review Letters, suggest that axion stars could indeed form quite readily, depending on the mass of the axion. For one relatively heavy axion, called a QCD axion, it might take 1 billion years for an axion star to form. (The QCD axion is a favorite candidate for dark matter among some physicists, because it could also solve a mystery related to the strong force, which holds atomic nuclei together.) For an extremely light axion about 100 quadrillion times lighter than the QCD axion and dubbed "fuzzy dark matter" it could take just 10 million years to build an axion star, Levkov told Live Science. "It's really interesting that just gravity can help you form Bose-Einstein condensates if given enough time and that time is less than the age of the universe," Bhupal Dev, a physicist at Washington University in St. Louis who wasn't involved in the research, told Live Science. Previous simulations started with smaller chunks of axion Bose-Einstein condensates, which then attracted one another via gravity to form axion stars, Levkov said. But in the new simulations, the researchers started with nothing but a gas of axions, and they found that a star formed all on its own. "We were very excited when we saw the Bose-Einstein star," Levkov said. Over time, such a star could continue to accumulate axions and grow. "It's nice work," said Sebastian Baum, a physicist at Stockholm University in Sweden who wasn't part of the study. "It's an important stepping stone in understanding the story of such objects and, in general, axion dark matter." If much of the dark matter is contained in these stars, Baum told Live Science, then axions could be rarer elsewhere and thus harder to find on Earth using detectors like the Axion Dark Matter Experiment at the University of Washington in Seattle. Axion stars could also produce detectable signals themselves. Axions can decay into photons, and a series of particle reactions from an axion star could produce detectable radiation. And if an axion star slammed into a neutron star, the collision could generate powerful blasts of radio-frequency radiation potentially explaining the mysterious fast-radio bursts that have perplexed astronomers. Over the last few years, astronomers have detected dozens of powerful cosmic radio signals of unknown origin, prompting a plethora of explanations, including the possibility that the beams were coming from alien civilizations. Originally published on Live Science. This 4,500-year-old system used to pull alabaster stones up a steep slope was discovered at Hatnub, an ancient quarry in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Two staircases with numerous postholes are located next to this ramp. An alabaster block would have been placed on a sled, which was tied by ropes to the wooden poles. Archaeologists have long wondered exactly how the ancient Egyptians constructed the world's biggest pyramid, the Great Pyramid. Now, they may have discovered the system used to haul massive stone blocks into place some 4,500 years ago. They discovered the remains of this system at the site of Hatnub, an ancient quarry in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. The contraption would have been used to transport heavy alabaster stones up a steep ramp, according to the archaeologists working at the site, from the Institut francais d'archeologie orientale (French Institute for Oriental Archaeology)in Cairo and from the University of Liverpool in England. And it was possibly how Egyptians built the Great Pyramid, in the name of the pharaoh Khufu. [In Photos: Inside Egypt's Great Pyramids] "Thissystem is composed of a central ramp flanked by two staircases with numerous post holes," Yannis Gourdon, co-director of the joint mission at Hatnub, told Live Science. "Using a sled which carried a stone block and was attached with ropes to these wooden posts, ancient Egyptians were able to pull up the alabaster blocks out of the quarry on very steep slopes of 20 percent or more." The ropes attached to the sled acted as a "force multiplier," making it easier to pull the sled up the ramp, said Roland Enmarch, the other co-director of the Hatnub mission. "This kind of system has never been discovered anywhere else," Gourdon said. "The study of the tool marks and the presence of two [of] Khufu's inscriptions led us to the conclusion that this system dates back at least to Khufu's reign, the builder of the Great Pyramid in Giza," he added. The Great Pyramid at Giza is Egypt's largest pyramid, built for the pharaoh Khufu. (Image credit: Mikhail Nekrasov/Shutterstock) "As this system dates back at least to Khufu's reign, that means that during the time of Khufu, ancient Egyptians knew how to move huge blocks of stone using very steep slopes. Therefore, they could have used it for the construction [of] his pyramid," Gourdon said. The Great Pyramid is the largest of the three Giza Pyramids, built for each of three pharaohs Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure. Khufu's is the largest pyramid ever constructed in Egypt, standing 481 feet (146 m) tall when it was first built. It was considered a wonder of the world by ancient writers. While archaeologists generally agree that workers at this pyramid used a ramp system to move stone blocks up the pyramid, how exactly this system worked has been a long-standing mystery, one which this discovery may help solve. Originally published on Live Science. The original "Suspiria" did a lot with a little. A prime example of the Italian horror genre known as "giallo," Dario Argento's 1977 film featured cheap-looking sets, badly dubbed dialogue, laughable overacting, blood that looked like it came from a Sherwin-Williams can, and a gossamer-thin plot about a young American student at a German dance academy who discovers that the school is a front for an ancient coven of murderous witches. And yet that film, which is now considered a cult classic, managed to create and sustain a mood of psychological terror through the use of stylized violence, luridly lit scenes and an aggressively unsettling score by the Italian rock band Goblin. The new remake of "Suspiria," by the Italian director of "Call Me by Your Name," Luca Guadagnino, does the exact opposite. It takes every resource available to a recently minted Oscar nominee - cash, big Hollywood stars, handsome cinematography (by "Call Me by Your Name's" Sayombhu Mukdeeprom), music by Radiohead's Thom Yorke, and a screenplay (written with Guadagnino's "A Bigger Spash" collaborator David Kajganich) that is stuffed with ideas about Nazis, the political terrorism of the late 1970s, art, religion and Freudian psychology - but does almost nothing with it. Worst of all, it isn't even especially scary. Guadagnino has said in interviews that he's less interested in cheap jump-scares than in building a relentless mood of suspense. But "Suspiria" doesn't even really do that - not unless you count checking your watch every few minutes to see when this 2 1/2-hour film will be over. (The movie is distributed by Amazon Studios. Amazon chief executive Jeffrey Bezos owns The Washington Post.) As in the original, "Suspiria" begins with the arrival of American dance student Susie (Dakota Johnson) at a venerable German dance academy, just as Patricia (Chloe Grace Moretz), a traumatized current student, is seen fleeing from it in a fugue state. Unlike the original, however, the new film actually acknowledges the existence of the outside world. Set in a divided Berlin, the story takes place against the backdrop of the October 1977 hijacking of Lufthansa flight 181 by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group that sought the release of members of the Red Army Faction (aka the Baader-Meinhof Gang). Patricia may or may not have had associations with that collective of militant leftists. But put that question right out of your head. You'll need room in it to accommodate other characters that come and go here, like poltergeists, in a haunted house of a script that includes, to name only a few: Patricia's Jewish psychiatrist - and Holocaust survivor - Josef Klemperer; the school's demanding artistic director, Madame Blanc (both played by Tilda Swinton); and Susie's Mennonite mother (Malgosia Bela), who is seen in creepy if inscrutable deathbed flashbacks. The theme of motherhood and its discontents gets chewed on like a vulture tearing at carrion, but so does the topic of ethnic nationalism. Blanc's magnum opus is a dance, said to have been created in 1948, called "Volk" (German for "the people"). Neither subtext goes much of anywhere and only overburdens a story that is no more substantial than the 1977 original, despite being loaded up with heavy-sounding gobbledygook. There's also a disturbing, if unintended, undercurrent of misogyny, epitomized not only by the theme of witchcraft (a manifestation of men's fear of women's power, if ever there was one), but in the film's frequent nudity and violent objectification of women's bodies. Two scenes feature female characters being grotesquely contorted by supernatural forces. There's a thin line between indicting the male gaze, as Guadagnino claims to have intended, and reveling in it. "Suspiria" culminates in a climax so bloody, gross and confusing that you may feel like you need an explainer just to understand the several explainer articles that have cropped up online, like flies on a corpse, to help viewers process the over-the-top ending. That said, there are some things to admire ("enjoy" seems the wrong word) about "Suspiria." Blanc's dance, choreographed by Damien Jalet, features a muscular sequence of angular thrusts and jerks, convincingly delivered by Johnson and the other actresses. In the context of the film, in which movement functions as a form of nonverbal spell-casting, it works beautifully. And Swinton (who also does triple-duty in a third role, late in the film) delivers her usual tour de force performance, one that is never less than spellbinding in its own right. As for the look of the film, Mukdeeprom's cinematography is muted where the 1977 film was garish. It's handsome to look at, even if Guadagnino sometimes apes Argento's jumpy, quick-cut style of storytelling to a fault. It's hard to know who "Suspiria" is for. Arguably too radical a reimagining for fans of the first film, it's also likely to be too pretentious for aficionados of workaday horror. Call it an arthouse slasher film. Call it a beautiful mess. Just don't call me with questions about what any of it means. --- Two stars. Rated R. Contains disturbing material involving ritualistic violence, bloody images and graphic nudity, and for some coarse language, including sexual references. 152 minutes. Ratings Guide: Four stars masterpiece, three stars very good, two stars OK, one star poor, no stars waste of time. Jonah Hill recently joked that he landed on a coming-of-age story for his directorial debut because of the genre's "tried and true" formula. But he manages to make it his own: The requisite quest for acceptance in "Mid90s" deals largely with masculinity, as the movie follows 13-year-old Stevie (Sunny Suljic) as he tries desperately to fit in with a ragtag group of skateboarding teenagers. Stevie's new friends are slightly older and, while nice to him, spew homophobic and sexist remarks. His many attempts to prove his grit amid this "tough guy" air sometimes end poorly - at one point, he tries to jump from one rooftop to another but skates right into the gap between them, falling face-first onto a metal table. Wham! "Mid90s," which came out Friday, joins August releases "Skate Kitchen" and "Minding the Gap" to form a trio of recent films that challenge gender norms against the backdrop of skateboarding. The works vary in approach: Hill said on NPR that he is "not here to tell an audience how they should feel," whereas the other two are more direct. But all three display the harmful effects of such norms - or, in the case of "Skate Kitchen," celebrate their disruption - through stories plucked from the same tumultuous stage of life. Adolescence is especially conducive to stories that explore these topics, "Skate Kitchen" writer-director Crystal Moselle said. It's when "you're opening your eyes up a little wider to the world. It's the first time you really feel depression and pain. Things don't look as bright, and you have to deal with that. But it's also the transformation where you're becoming an adult and you're feeling love for the first time." These are far from the first coming-of-age skate films, given the path paved by the likes of "Kids" and "Lords of Dogtown." But "Skate Kitchen" and "Minding the Gap" in particular are emblematic of the more progressive era in which they were made. "Skate Kitchen" shares its name with the real-life crew that inspired it. Actresses Rachelle Vinberg and Nina Moran curated the group after meeting on YouTube. Vinberg came up with the moniker after she read comments under Lacey Baker videos demanding that the professional skateboarder head to the kitchen and make sandwiches. Moselle said of the all-women crew, "They were using 'kitchen' as this ironic way of saying, 'OK, if we're supposed to be in the kitchen, we're going to be skateboarding in the kitchen.' " This feminist current flows through the film, which follows Camille (Vinberg), a reserved 18-year-old who sneaks out of the suburban Long Island home she shares with her mother to skate at a Lower East Side park. The girls Camille befriends are a vibrant bunch, eager to accept her into their tightknit clan. It was important to Moselle that she paint a realistic portrait of female friendship, which was easy to do given that the girls were already friends in real life. Their blunt conversations, which Moselle workshopped with the cast, concern everything from relationships to menstruation. At one point, Camille and her friend Janay (Dede Lovelace) watch footage of boys performing edgy tricks. Janay says she feels "like a lot of good skaters just don't think," to which Camille responds, "That's the thing, you can't think. And us girls, we think too much." Although a jerkish guy (Jaden Smith) from the crew's wider circle does drive a bit of a wedge between Camille and the others, "Skate Kitchen" doesn't become a tired story of girls-versus-boys. The film's progressive quality instead lies in its depiction of women propping one another up in a male-dominated space. It passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors. "It's very intimidating when you go to the park. There are so many amazing supporters in the skate world for women, but then there are also a lot of haters and a lot of condescending" people, Moselle said, using a more colorful word. "I just wanted it to be about these girls and the environment they're in." Unmasking reality is key to "Minding the Gap," an intimate documentary that looks at the lives of director Bing Liu and his friends Zack Mulligan, a roofer, and Keire Johnson, a dishwasher. Bing knew Zack from when they were teenagers and got to know Zack's younger friend Keire after reconnecting years later. All three Rockford, Illinois, natives bonded over skateboarding, which in their youth served as a refuge from turbulent home lives. They had strained relationships with their father figures, Bing said, which served as the impetus for his documentary: How could he and his friends become better men without having had that example? While Bing acknowledged in an interview with The Washington Post that misogyny persists in skateboarding culture, he warned against painting it as monolithic: "It's as varied as young people are," he explained. Even with its hypnotic images of Zack and Keire racing down the streets, "Minding the Gap" avoids analyzing gender dynamics among skateboarders specifically and instead highlights the "unhealthy" form of masculinity that exists as a symptom of our greater culture. "Your whole life, society tells you, like, 'Oh, be a man, and you're strong, and you're tough, and margaritas are gay,' " Zack says early on. "You know, you don't grow up thinking that's the way you are." The subjects of "Minding the Gap" are slightly older than those in "Mid90s" or "Skate Kitchen," as Keire had just turned 18 at the start of the film and Zack, who laments that he and his pregnant girlfriend "have to fully grow up," is a few years Keire's senior. Bing, who was 25 at the start, follows his friends as they face adulthood, an effort supported by archival footage captured over a 12-year period. "Minding the Gap" is notable for its willingness to depict male vulnerability. A second cameraman records Bing as he faces his own trauma and interviews his mother about why she stayed with his abusive stepfather for as long as she did. Zack finds fatherly duties incompatible with his volatile nature (especially evident when his girlfriend reveals that he hit her). Keire grapples with loving the father who abused him. "One of the hardest things to do is experience a traumatic childhood, be able to own it and make it part of your narrative and accept it," Bing told The Post. "A lot of children have experienced abuse, and it's not validated for them." While Hill, who was unavailable for an interview, doesn't treat the situation with as much gravitas, "Mid90s" similarly positions skateboarding as a reprieve. Stevie has been numbed by frequent abuse at the hands of his troubled older brother, Ian (Lucas Hedges), and as a result doesn't seem to realize how harmful his efforts to fit in can be. This leads to a moment of clarity when one of Stevie's friends, Ray (Na-kel Smith), visits him in a hospital after a particularly bad injury and says that the 13-year-old takes "the hardest hits out of anyone I've ever seen in my life." It seems like praise, but Ray continues, "You know you don't have to do that, right?" A man landed behind bars for allegedly changing price tags at a store at The Outlet Shoppes. Johnny Hernandez-Cardona, 32, was arrested and charged with fraud, destroy, removal concealment writing. At 3:23 p.m. Monday, LPD bike patrol officers responded to a theft report at the Tommy Hilfiger store. RELATED: LPD: Woman accused of stealing more than $250K as theft charges pile up Mall security stated that a man, Hernandez-Cardona, had tried to change price tags on clothing. Officers located Hernandez-Cardona and escorted him back to the store. Video surveillance revealed that Hernandez-Cardona did change a price tag and made an attempt to pay for the item, according to police. A woman was arrested for allegedly leaving her 5-year-old grandson at a residence when nobody was home. Leticia Nunez, 60, was charged with abandon, endanger child with intent to return. A man wanted on a drug charge has been arrested. Juan Alfredo Alba, 20, was served with an arrest warrant out of the Webb County Sheriff's Office for possession of marijuana, a second-degree felony. READ ALSO: Alleged San Antonio intruder in fatal gunfight: 'I just wanted money' His arrest unfolded at about 11:49 a.m. Oct. 18 when officers pulled over a 2010 Ford Focus in the 3600 block of Lee Avenue for a traffic violation. Authorities identified the driver as Alba. A records check revealed he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest. Officers then noticed a strong odor of marijuana emitting from Alba's vehicle. READ ALSO: Laredo man accused of furnishing alcohol to a minor when female found unresponsive Police said they searched the vehicle and discovered a clear plastic baggy containing a green leafy substance in the center console. He was taken into custody and charged additionally with possession of marijuana. James Whitey Bulger had amassed enemy after enemy over a lifetime of murder, extortion, double-crossing and in a breach of the cardinal rule of his ilk snitching on rival mobsters. When Bulger was sent to federal prison about five years ago after more than a decade on the run, his enemies remained, their memories of him long. That left some of those who followed his exploits back in South Boston unsurprised Tuesday when Bulger, 89, turned up dead in his jail cell, apparently beaten by fellow inmates, according to four Federal Bureau of Prisons employees. Anyone in criminal activity with him feels grossly betrayed that he was informing on them while he was supposedly their comrade and friend, Michael Kendall, a former federal prosecutor from Boston who also once represented the family of one of Bulgers murder victims, said of the trail of foes Bulger had left behind. And anyone committed to law enforcement wouldnt consider him a legitimate informant, because he just manipulated law enforcement to carry out criminal activity including murders. No official details were given on the circumstances of Bulgers death. But some federal prison employees, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information was not yet public, said Bulger did not die of old age. Rather, they said, he was beaten to death by at least two fellow inmates at the West Virginia federal prison, where he had been transferred the day before. Inside a maximum security cell at the U.S. Penitentiary, Hazelton in Bruceton Mills, W.Va., Bulger was likely attacked early in the morning sometime between 6 a.m., when cell doors were unlocked so inmates could go to breakfast, and 8 a.m., when the staff made rounds, federal prison employees said. Bulger had not emerged from his cell for breakfast and when prison staff went to check on him, they found him wrapped in blankets and unresponsive, they said. When they tried to shake him awake, blood spattered the floor. He was dead. One federal prison worker said the inmates involved in the killing were thought to be affiliated with the mob. Separately, a senior law enforcement official, who oversees organized crime cases but was not involved in the investigation into Bulgers death, said he was told by a federal official that an organized crime figure was believed to be responsible. And a lawyer for Bulger, J.W. Carney Jr., made clear that he blamed the prison system for the death of his client, whom, he said, he was proud to have been appointed to represent. He was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty, Carney said. Bulger had suffered a series of heart attacks while in prison more than half a dozen over the years and was expecting to be moved to a medical facility run by the Bureau of Prisons. Instead, he was relocated to the West Virginia facility, which has been plagued by violence, where he was placed in the general prison population, according to some of the federal prison workers. After Bulgers body was found, roadblocks were put in place outside the prison complex, and a lock down meaning prisoners could not leave their cells lasted into the evening. Danielle Ivory, William K. Rashbaum, Katharine Q. Seelye and Serge F. Kovaleski are New York Times writers. A nearly 10-foot alligator was spotted and captured on a Galveston beach Wednesday morning. Galveston police were called to the beach at 23rd Street and Seawall Boulevard after beachgoers spotted an alligator hanging out on the sand. "He didn't hurt anybody or anything like that, he was fairly quiet," said Capt. Joshua Schirard, a spokesman for the police department. "Just hanging out on the beach." Galveston Police Chief Vernon Hale tweeted a photo of the 9 foot, 8 inch alligator being captured by a Texas game warden. Texas Parks and Wildlife is expected to relocate and release the alligator in freshwater. Schirard said alligators have been known to make their way out into the Gulf during periods of heavy rain, which makes the water in the freshwater Galveston Bay less brackish and allows the gators to venture farther for food. This alligator likely get stuck out in the saltwater and ended up on the beach when the tide receded. Texas Parks and Wildlife did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nick Powell covers Galveston County for the Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter and send him tips at nick.powell@chron.com In the neighboring western states of Nevada and Arizona, the Democratic strategy for flipping Republican Senate seats in the Trump era is moving in opposite directions. Senate candidate Jacky Rosen is touting progressive policy ideals and hammering President Donald Trump to motivate the Democratic base in Nevada to turn out for the Nov. 6 election. Yet over the border in Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema is downplaying her party affiliation and rarely mentions the president as she pitches a moderate platform to middle-of-the-road voters. "This race is about Arizonans, not party politics in Washington," Sinema said. "As my record shows, I've never been afraid to buck my party to get things done for our state." The two states represent Democrats' best hopes for gains in a year when the party is facing one of the most politically skewed Senate-election maps in history. They are crucial to cushioning possible Democratic losses in states such as North Dakota and Indiana or, less likely, giving them a shot at Senate control if the party's incumbents all manage to win re-election. "There's no path to taking back the Senate that doesn't run through Nevada," Rosen, a first-term congresswoman, said in an interview. "I'm aware of that every day." For the Republican candidates, incumbent Sen. Dean Heller in Nevada and Rep. Martha McSally in Arizona, the strategy is simple and unified: embrace Trump closely and count on a fervent Republican base to carry them to the Senate. Despite some demographic similarities, Arizona and Nevada have diverged politically in recent decades, and that's dictating campaign strategy. Nevada has become more of a swing state, going for the Democratic presidential candidate in the last three elections and consistently electing one Democrat and one Republican to the Senate since 2001. Arizona has been more reliably Republican -- it hasn't voted to send a Democrat to the Senate since 1988 and voted for a Democratic presidential candidate only once since 1948. But it's trending blue. Hillary Clinton lost Arizona by 3.4 percentage points in 2016, and Democrats lost an open Senate seat by just 3 points in 2012. At a rally in Las Vegas last week, Rosen was joined by self-described Democratic-socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders. She drew cheers from a young crowd as she vowed to "turn Nevada blue" and fight for gun control, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, protecting undocumented youth and tackling climate change. She said she and Sanders "both believe that health care is a right, not a privilege." And she torched Trump's "reckless" immigration policy that "tears babies from their mothers." The next day, she held a get-out-the-vote rally in a heavily Latino east Vegas community that she said was "under attack" by Trump. Rosen also often reminds audiences that Heller is a Trump ally and urges them to vote to wrest Senate control from Republicans. Sinema, a three-term U.S. representative, doesn't talk much about the president or about flipping Senate control. She's cautious about making explicit appeals to Latinos. And she's emphasizing issues with centrist appeal like making sure people with pre-existing conditions can get health insurance and supporting veterans, while avoiding culturally divisive issues like immigration and guns. On the campaign trail last week, Sinema blasted "the political partisanship that is creating chaos in Washington, D.C." Hispanics are critical to Democratic prospects in both states. They make up 29 percent of Nevada's population and 31 percent of Arizona, according to the Census Bureau. They typically vote for Democratic candidates by large margins, but their turnout tends to be low compared to white voters, especially in midterm elections. Yet to be seen is how Trump's use of immigration as a campaign issue, including proposing to limit birthright citizenship and dispatching U.S. troops to the Mexico border, will affect Latino turnout. At a press conference last week in Phoenix, Sinema answered carefully when asked how she's appealing to Hispanics, saying the contest is "not about what individual ethnicity a person lives with." She said she's "communicating with all Arizonans" including Latinos, Native Americans, Anglos, African Americans and Asian Americans. Sinema has the fourth-highest "Trump score" of any House Democrat and votes with him 62.2 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.com. She has voted against her party leaders to make Trump's tax cuts for individuals permanent, undo Dodd-Frank regulations on some financial institutions, oppose a carbon tax, and express support for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that some on the left want to eliminate. McSally said she doesn't buy Sinema's centrist "makeover." Her campaign distributed fliers featuring side-by-side photos of McSally in an Air Force fighter pilot uniform and Sinema, a former Green Party activist, in a pink tutu protesting the Iraq war in its early days. "I need you to talk to your friends, because a lot of them actually think she's OK, that she's OK on the issues," McSally told supporters at a synagogue in Scottsdale. "But she's not." Seeking distance from her party, Sinema rejects a push by some Democrats for Medicare for all, saying last week she's interested in "pragmatic solutions to the health-care challenges we face." Rosen is more in line with party liberals, saying in an interview that she supports legislation to let Americans buy into Medicaid as a public insurance option. At his rally in Henderson last Friday, Heller cited experience, economic progress and his alliance with Trump as reasons Nevadans should vote for him. "We have become friends, and we're delivering for Nevada," he told reporters. "Everybody has to run their own campaign the way they think that their state is going to find appealing. Rosen is running a very liberal campaign - she wants to appeal to the Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders crowd. I don't think that works in Nevada," Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in an interview at a recent Heller rally in Henderson, Nevada. "Kyrsten Sinema tries to appeal as a moderate - the problem is YouTube for her," Gardner said, alluding to recently unearthed videos of her disparaging Arizona for the state's sharp right turn early in Barack Obama's presidency. Obama recently visited Nevada to campaign for Rosen - but he hasn't rallied in Arizona for Sinema. Before his Nevada rally with Rosen, Sanders paid a visit to Arizona and campaigned for Democratic gubernatorial nominee David Garcia. Sinema didn't join him. WASHINGTON - Five Republican senators sent a letter to President Trump on Wednesday imploring him to end discussions with Saudi Arabia on nuclear energy cooperation in the wake of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi's killing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The senators also threatened in the letter to file legislation to block any civil nuclear agreements with Saudi Arabia if Trump will not agree to suspend negotiations "for the foreseeable future." "We already held serious reservations about negotiations for such an agreement," Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Todd Young, R-Ind., Cory Gardner, R-Colo., Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Dean Heller, R-Nev., wrote in the letter, first reported by NBC. "The ongoing revelations about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as certain Saudi actions related to Yemen and Lebanon, have raised further serious concerns about the transparency, accountability, and judgment of current decision-makers in Saudi Arabia." Congressional dissatisfaction with the U.S.-Saudi relationship was on a slow ascent before the prominent journalist's disappearance earlier this month. But his apparent murder - which most lawmakers believe occurred at the behest of Saudi leaders, including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman - has precipitated unprecedented calls for consequences, from sanctions to an end to arms sales and military support for the Saudi Kingdom in its controversial regional engagements, particularly in Yemen's civil war. Saudi officials have acknowledged that Khashoggi, a self-exiled critic of the Saudi government, was killed in the consulate, but deny that the action had their authorization. The senators' letter indicates yet another layer of distrust in Saudi leaders: concern that the kingdom may try to adapt nuclear technologies acquired in a civil-use deal for weapon-making purposes. Saudi Arabia has never agreed to terms that would prohibit it from turning a civil nuclear program dedicated for energy production into a tool to enrich uranium, reprocess plutonium, and pursue other weapons-grade uses "that can bring a nation within weeks of producing a nuclear weapon," they wrote, pointing out that the United Arab Emirates did accept such terms for a similar deal. The senators suggested it would be hypocritical and dangerous for the United States to accept anything less than a Saudi pledge to abide by terms of an Emirates-style deal - terms known as the "Gold Standard," especially when the administration is demanding such behavior from Iran. "Given your Administration's ongoing efforts to press the Iranian regime - in the words of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo - to 'stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing,' we have long believed that it is therefore critical and necessary for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to accept and uphold this 'Gold Standard' for responsible nuclear behavior," the senators wrote. PITTSBURGH - Resettled to this city's southern suburbs after 20 years in Nepalese refugee camps, Bhanu Phuyel has acclimated and prospered. In the nine years since two Jewish refugee agencies helped him join this community, Phuyel has worked at McDonald's and the post office, as a long-haul trucker and as a caretaker for older people, he said. In 2013, he opened his own jewelry store, and he has since purchased some rental apartments. But this week, Bhutanese refugees such as Phuyel and the aid agencies that brought him here were both disturbingly reminded that there are those who still do not welcome them in Pittsburgh. Robert Bowers, the alleged synagogue gunman who grew up not far from where Phuyel lives, appears to have targeted the Tree of Life congregation to vent his hatred of Jews and immigrants. He specifically mentioned a prominent resettlement agency as a target of his ire in online posts. When Phuyel heard that Bowers allegedly wanted to kill Jews, he, too, felt threatened. "I felt that we were also his target," Phuyel said Tuesday in an interview at a friend's clothing store. "All the people resettled by Jews were his target." Just before he allegedly shot and killed 11 worshipers at Tree of Life in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, Bowers posted on social media that a refugee resettlement group, HIAS, "likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I'm going in." HIAS, an umbrella resettlement group that contracts with the U.S. State Department to bring refugees to the country, and Jewish Family and Community Services, its local partner, spoke out about the violence as well, saying that the refugees they bring to this region are no different from their own relatives and neighbors. "They want safety, peace and a better life for their children," Jordan Golin, JFCS's president and chief executive, said at a news conference. "These values should unite us, not divide us." The rampage will test the ties that greater Pittsburgh's refugees have built here, community leaders said. While friction between newly arrived immigrants and established communities has been part of U.S. life for generations, Pittsburgh community leaders have expressed pride in the way their city has handled the most recent wave of refugees, which includes Bhutanese, Somalis, Iraqis and Burmese. "We hope to live a secure life," said Khara Timsina, executive director of the Bhutanese Community Association of Pittsburgh. The region now has about 6,000 Bhutanese residents. "When such things happen, it proves otherwise, that America is no longer a safe haven for people who have endured such traumas." The area near where Bowers lived in Baldwin, a part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, has been part of the city's transition, attracting significant growth in Asian and Hispanic residents during the past two decades, according to demographic data. Almost all-white in 1990, it is now far more racially diverse. Some refugees described a duality in the city. They have seen extraordinary kindness - particularly on the part of religious groups and social service agencies - but they also have seen ugly racial divisions that have even led to violence. Even as the city diversifies under the leadership of a Democratic mayor who has made a concerted effort to attract immigrants, racially motivated crimes persist. Six white men and women were charged in July with shouting racial slurs and beating a black man in a bar in Avalon, Pennsylvania, about eight miles northwest of the city. Some were wearing clothes with the logos of a prominent statewide skinhead group. In 2015, after a Kenny Chesney concert, four white men were charged in connection with an assault in which a black man was racially insulted, beaten and thrown onto the tracks of the light rail system. In 2009, a man who expressed racist views in white supremacist forums and espoused Zionist conspiracy theories shot and killed three Pittsburgh police officers. Aweys Mwaliya, president of the Somali Bantu Community Association of Pittsburgh, moved to the city in 2011 after living in Salt Lake City, noting that the atmosphere was markedly different. "The people here are very good people," Mwaliya said. "But the racial problem is worse than many places I have lived." Sanjeeb Rai, 22, lives in a small apartment in Leland Point, a sprawling complex of brick buildings that has become a hub of the Bhutanese refugee community. She escaped squalid refugee camps in eastern Nepal and was resettled by JFCS. Rai said she faced some inexplicable hostility from classmates at Baldwin High School and occasionally strange looks at the grocery store. But she has largely been left alone, she said. "Why would they hate us being here?" Rai said. JFCS described a strong outreach from recent immigrants after the massacre. Grateful for what they have found in Pittsburgh, expatriate communities have offered money and social support. Pittsburgh's Muslims have raised $150,000 in aid since the shooting. "I'm now reaching out to the refugee community to see how we can help, and they're now saying, 'How can we help you?" said Leslie Aizenman, the director of refugee and immigrant services at JFCS. Noor Alsabahi, 36, a Syrian refugee who moved into an apartment in Pittsburgh on the day of the shooting, said she walked the few blocks from her home to attend the vigil for the synagogue victims Saturday night. "I felt it was my duty to come," she said. "I am a member of the community. As I am taking a lot, I want to pay it back." On the day President Donald Trump placed a white flower and a small stone on each Star of David in the makeshift memorial outside Tree of Life, refugees and others here cited his role in the refugee debate. They referred to his language about immigrants and refugees, the ban on U.S. entry by citizens of a number of majority-Muslim countries and his decision to cut legal refugee resettlement from 85,000 in fiscal 2016 to 22,491 in fiscal 2018. Asked whether he supported Trump's visit, Mark Hetfield, HIAS's president and CEO, said, "It would be inappropriate for him not to come. But given his role in spreading hate against refugees. . . . I'm not comfortable with it." Mwaliya, the Somali community leader, also has grown increasingly uneasy since Trump was elected. "But the good thing about Pittsburgh," he said, "is you have good neighbors who will stand with people who are being racially abused." WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would deploy as many as 15,000 military personnel to the border with Mexico in response to caravans of Central American migrants making their way northward, doubling the figure Pentagon officials have announced would be operating there. "We'll go up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel on top of Border Control, ICE, and everybody else at the border," Trump said in remarks to reporters before departing Washington for a campaign rally in Florida. "Nobody's coming in. We're not allowing people to come in." Trump's comments came a day after the general in charge of the border deployment said 5,239 active-duty troops would be heading to the border with more potentially to follow, in addition to the 2,092 members of the National Guard already there. It wasn't clear if Trump's 15,000 figure was inclusive of the National Guard deployment. If the deployment reaches 15,000 troops, it would be roughly equivalent to the size of the U.S. military's presence in Afghanistan and three times the size of the presence in Iraq. Already, the deployment is believed to be the largest of its kind in more than a century. "The number of troops deployed will change each day as military forces flow into the operating area, but the initial estimate is that [the Defense Department] will have more than 7,000 troops supporting DHS across California, Arizona and Texas," U.S. Northern Command said in a statement issued shortly after Trump spoke. Critics say the president's decision to announce the deployments just days before the election is a political stunt designed to fire up a base concerned about immigration. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, speaking to reporters during at the Pentagon, rejected the criticism on Tuesday, saying that the military was deploying to support the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection. "The support that we provide to the Secretary for Homeland Security is practical support based on the request from the commissioner of customs and border police, so we don't do stunts in this department," Mattis said. The defense secretary said the military had carried out similar missions within the United States following natural disasters. "We are there in support of the Secretary of Homeland Security, who needs additional military assistance," he said. A retired Marine Corps general, Mattis has long prioritized protecting the military from politicization, regularly emphasizing the apolitical traditions of the American armed forces. Deploying forces domestically in relation to such a politically charged issues risks eroding the public support that the armed forces enjoy with the American public. Officials in Washington say that if thousands of migrants make it to the border and attempt to force their way through a crossing, the military will be needed and should be in place well in advance. The officials also hope the deployment will help deter the caravans from proceeding. Two caravans, each with more than 3,000 travelers, are trailed by at least two other groups of several hundred migrants. Many are fleeing poverty and violence in Honduras and intending to seek asylum in the United States. At the speed they are moving, they are weeks away from the border. The military's active-duty deployment, dubbed Faithful Patriot, will send planning teams to coordinate operations, helicopter companies to move around CBP personnel, engineer battalions to construct barriers and medical units to treat patients, according to U.S. Northern Command. The forces will also erect temporary housing to support CBP and military personnel. Northern Command, which is overseeing the deployment, has identified 13 bases in Arizona, California and Texas close to the operations area near the border, which will serve as primary logistics hubs for the deployment. In addition, the command listed 38 units from 14 bases that had been identified to deploy to the southwest border. Travis Sharp, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, estimated that a deployment of 15,000 active-duty troops through mid-December would cost from $90 million to $110 million. He calculated that a 10,000-troop deployment of active-duty forces would cost about $60 million to $75 million. Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, commander of Northern Command, said Tuesday that he could not give an estimate of the operation's cost. A media release from Land Information today revealed that it was Land Information Minister Eugenie Sage, who is also Conservation Minister and a Green Party MP, who gave the Government go-ahead for the super dump on sensitive Dome Valley land. Land Investment New Zealand (LINZ) said today the Overseas Investment Act consent was granted to Waste Management on September 11 by Ms Sage and Associate Finance Minister and Labour MP David Clark. LINZ said the ministers approved the new landfill site because of the investments substantial and identifiable benefits. It is estimated that 50 to 100 jobs will be created during the two years it is expected to take to build and develop the landfill. Many of the staff at Waste Managements Redvale landfill will be transferred to the new landfill, LINZ said. The decision summary said the application had been for an overseas investment in sensitive land a freehold interest in approximately 1,020.0694 hectares of land adjoining State Highway 1 near Wellsford, including the Springhill Farm and a part of the Mahurangi Forest. The price paid by Waste Management to vendors Matariki Forests and Springhill Estate Ltd was withheld under the Official Information Act, which applies if, and only if, the withholding of the information is necessary to protect information where the making available of the information would be likely unreasonably to prejudice the commercial position of the person who supplied or who is the subject of the information. The ownership of Waste Management NZ is split between the Peoples Republic of China (just over 83 per cent) and the Hong Kong Public (just under 17 per cent). As last Fridays exit polls predicted Longford-Westmeath followed an unrelenting national tide of public opinion in ensuring Michael D Higgins return to Aras an Uachtarain for another seven years. The biggest talking point to emerge from last Saturdays count was not about the former Labour minister becoming the first president to be re-elected for a second term since Eamon de Valera in 1966. ALSO READ: Traveller group expresses 'shock' at Longford's backing of Peter Casey Neither was it restricted to haphazard gossip over the distinct lack of political figures and even tallymen and women to record voting patterns within the vast but eerie halls of Athlones International Arena. Rather, this was an election which will be remembered for one overriding upshot - the decision of Longford voters to select Peter Casey as their preferred President and not the 77-year-old incumbent, who attracted more than 55 per cent of the nations first preference votes. According to a cross section of boxes taken from Saturdays count, 37.41 per cent of the countys electorate sided with the former Dragons Den investor as opposed to the 37.19 per cent of voters who gave their backing to Mr Higgins. Given the controversial remarks made by the Derry native over his view that Travellers should not be recognised as an ethnic minority, the fact Longford appeared to endorse such a rhetoric is as eye-opening as it is emblematic of an anti-establishment vote. Of course, many industry experts will point to the low turnout, a public very much at odds from a campaign bereft of intrigue, not to mention the unpropitious qualities of those looking to displace Mr Higgins from the Aras. But it was the results from some of the more rural pockets of Co Longford which this campaign will ultimately be remembered for. Boxes in Clondra, Moyne and Killoe, the latter of which saw Mr Casey attract almost double (147 to 75) the vote of his nearest rival, ensured Longford would be one of the few counties that bucked a prevailing national trend. There were similarly notable scalps for the Irish-American tycoon in the likes of Ballinamuck, Newtownforbes, Drumlish and Stonepark. This, from a county whose largest urban centre, according to the last census, accounts for the second highest number of Travellers in the country. Representative groups such as Pavee Point may argue the point one of the reasons behind the Longford vote was due to the fact many Travellers are not registered to vote. But if the events of the past weekend have told us anything, the onus is on society to thrash out these issues and reasons as to why Longford voters exercised their franchise in the way they did. If we dont, it could be a decision we live to regret. Longford shoppers will have the luxury of availing of free off street car parking in the main county town in the lead up to Christmas amid renewed calls last week for the charges to be waived throughout the entire festive period. Longford County Council have agreed to afford motorists parking in off street car parks free gratis over the course of four Saturdays running from December 1, 8, 15 and 22. ALSO READ: Councillors put a positive spin on paid parking The same rule will also be applied on Friday November 30 when a group of visitors from from Longford's twinning town in France, Noyal-Chatillon-Sur Seiche fly in for the annual switching on of the Christmas lights. In a move similar to arrangements put in place last year, free parking in off street car parks will be in place from December 22 to January 2 inclusive. The announcement was relayed to elected members at last week's meeting of Longford Municipal District which resulted in fresh calls for paid parking to be rolled out throughout Longford town during the holiday season. Fianna Fail's Joe Flaherty led that appeal as he asked that the Council provide a report in January of the estimated loss of income if free on street parking was provided over the same dates. Cathaoirleach Cllr Seamus Butler cautioned against rolling out such a measure, saying unless parking charges are enforced on street the likelihood of cars being left outside business premises for extended lengths of time was all the more probable. Cllr Flaherty responded, saying it was common knowledge half the people in Lanesboro were opting to do their shopping in Roscommon due to its liberal paid parking laws. One of those to support Cllr Flaherty in his appeal was Independent Cllr Mae Sexton. A long time critic of the charges, Cllr Sexton said shoppers had become increasingly frustrated with the charges, adding she was not overly hopeful of avoiding being hit with a parking ticket of her own. Don't worry, we (councillors) will all come down and support you at the District Court, Cllr Butler impishly replied. Local News By Legislator Anker's Office Published: October 31 2018 Suffolk County Legislator Sarah Anker recently honored Coram Fire Department Commissioner Vandorn Van Johnson III as part of the Suffolk County Legislature Recognition Program for Firefighter and EMS Personnel. Coram, NY - October 31, 2018 - Suffolk County Legislator Sarah Anker recently honored Coram Fire Department Commissioner Vandorn Van Johnson III as part of the Suffolk County Legislature Recognition Program for Firefighter and EMS Personnel. Each Legislator designated one outstanding firefighter or EMS personnel from his or her district to be recognized, and their names were read into the record of the October 2nd General Meeting of the Suffolk County Legislature. Van Johnson has been a firefighter for over 50 years, in the communities of Hauppauge, Coram, and New York City. He has served as the Fire Commissioner of the Coram Fire Department for the past 32 years and has donated his time to various community organizations such as the Davis Meeting House Committee, the Coram Civic Association, and local Boy Scout Troop 560. He has worked closely with Legislator Ankers office and other local organizations to help facilitate community events such as the Coram Concerts, addiction prevention programs, and Narcan trainings. I wholeheartedly thank Van for all that he has done to protect and better our community, said Legislator Anker. It is with great pleasure that I recognize him for his efforts to go above and beyond his duties to ensure that Coram is a great place to live for all. Local News, Crime, Health & Wellness, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: October 31 2018 Edwardo M. Yambo of Lake Grove, 70, of Lake Grove, has been charged with Grand Larceny. Hauppauge, NY - October 31, 2018 - Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood today announced that a Suffolk County medical doctor, Edwardo M. Yambo, 70, of Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood today announced that a Suffolk County medical doctor, Edwardo M. Yambo, 70, of Lake Grove , has been arrested and charged (together with his company, Edwardo Yambo, P.C.), with Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, a class C felony. Court papers filed by the Attorney General in Suffolk County First District Court allege that between January 2012 and November 2016, Yambo stole approximately $939,000 from the New York Medicaid program and New York Medicaid managed care organizations by routinely submitting and causing others to submit false claims to Medicaid. The Attorney General alleges that Yambos claims falsely stated that his laboratory had rendered certain drug testing services when it did not, and that it performed services that were not medically necessary. Moreover, the complaint alleges that Yambo operated his laboratory without a laboratory director, which is required under state and federal regulations to ensure that the lab is properly operated. Billing New Yorks Medicaid program for unnecessary or made-up procedures amounts to stealing from New York taxpayers, while wasting critical resources on which our most vulnerable neighbors depend, Attorney General Underwood said. Doctors have a special duty to ensure the quality of care provided to their patients, and my office will continue to investigate and prosecute those who betray that trust in order to line their pockets. Yambo was arraigned today at Suffolk County First District Court before Judge Gaetan Lozito. The case was adjourned to December 5th, 2018. Prior to his arrest, Yambo surrendered his controlled substance prescribing privileges to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Tactical Diversion Squad. The Attorney General thanks the DEA and the New York State Department of Health, Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement for their assistance during the investigation. If convicted, Yambo is also subject to significant prison time and possible revocation of his license to practice medicine and mandatory exclusion from participating in the Medicaid and Medicare programs. The charges against the defendants are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. This case was investigated by the Attorney Generals Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) Investigator George Feliciano, with the assistance of Supervising Investigator Greg Muroff and Deputy Chief Investigator Kenneth Morgan. Senior Auditor-Investigator Gretchen Hugh and Auditor-Investigator Patrick Beltrani conducted the financial analysis, with the assistance of Regional Chief Auditor Kathleen E. Yoos. Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases, Politics By Long Island News & PR Published: October 31 2018 New York State Trooper Joel R. Davis Posthumously Honored with 2017 Lifesaving Award. Albany, NY - October 31, 2018 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that Trooper Joel R. Davis of the New York State Police was posthumously honored with the state Division of Criminal Justice Services' Lifesaving Award for his role in responding to a violent domestic dispute in Jefferson County on July 9, 2017. When Trooper Davis arrived at the scene in the town of Theresa, he engaged a gunman as a woman and two children sought refuge in a nearby shed. During the incident, Trooper Davis was fatally shot. The award was presented to Trooper Davis' family this morning at a ceremony at the State Police's Watertown station, where fellow Troopers also unveiled a marker in his memory. "Trooper Davis epitomizes the courage and bravery that characterizes the New York State Police and first responders," Governor Cuomo said. "On behalf of all New Yorkers, I am proud to honor Trooper Davis for his service, heroic actions and selfless sacrifice to protect the public." Michael C. Green, Executive Deputy Commissioner of the Division of Criminal Justice Services, presented the 2017 Lifesaving Award to Trooper Davis' three children, who accepted the award on behalf of other family members in attendance: Trooper Davis' wife, his parents and brother. Following that presentation, members of the State Police who worked with Trooper Davis remembered their colleague and unveiled the memorial marker, which states, in part, "Our Friend and Co-Worker. Always Remembered. Never Forgotten." Trooper Davis, 36, spent his entire law enforcement career serving in Jefferson County. A four-year veteran of the State Police who also served with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, Trooper Davis was the first trooper killed in the line of duty in the North Country. The Governor's Police Officer of the Year Award Selection Committee established the Lifesaving Award in 2016 to recognize officers who perform courageous and unselfish acts that result in the saving of a human life or lives. The Committee selects the recipient or recipients from nominations submitted for the Police Officer of the Year Award, which recognizes a single police officer or team of officers for an exceptional act of valor; that award has been presented since 1984. Executive Deputy Commissioner Green, who also chairs the Police Officer of the Year Selection Committee, said, "Without question, Trooper Davis' selfless actions in response to this chaotic, violent incident saved the lives of a woman who had been wounded and two children as they were fired upon by the gunman. His actions in the face of imminent danger epitomize the spirit of this award." New York State Police Superintendent George Beach II said, "Trooper Davis recognized a lethal threat and, without pause or concern for his personal safety, sprang into action to protect the lives of the innocent. His selfless actions shielded the lives of three individuals, who may have been killed without his intervention. This is the type of bravery we have come to expect and depend on in our troopers - the courage and self-sacrifice that should set the standard for all who carry our shield." At 8:24 p.m. on July 9, 2017, Trooper Davis was the first officer to respond to a violent domestic dispute. Upon arriving, he observed a gunman firing an assault weapon into a shed. Despite the threat to his safety, he emerged from a hedgerow that had been concealing his location and engaged the shooter. Trooper Davis was struck by a .223-calliber round that penetrated an area of his chest not covered by his protective vest, fatally wounding him. The gunman surrendered to Troopers who had subsequently arrived on the scene. During a search of the scene, the gunman's wife was found deceased from gunshot wounds. A friend of hers - who had suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to her back - and two children were found hiding in the shed. The gunman is awaiting trial on murder and other charges in connection with the incident. The Police Officer of the Year Selection Committee also named eight members of the Port Authority Police Department as 2017 Lifesaving Award recipients. Lt. Miriam Rubio, Sgts. Hector Martinez and Victor Talamini and Officers Jack Collins, Anthony Estevez, Sean Gallagher, Anthony Manfredini and Drew Preston were recognized for their actions following the detonation of a bomb at a New York City Subway station near the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan on Dec. 11, 2017. That award ceremony is scheduled for later this year. Lupinacci Visits 7-Year-Old Who Inspired Towns Hauntington Name Change, Sign at Town Hall Changes for Halloween School & Education, Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases, Seasonal & Current Events By Long Island News & PR Published: October 31 2018 Sign on Front Lawn of Town Hall Now Reads Hauntington Town Hall in Orange and Black. Huntington Station, NY - October 31, 2018 - Supervisor Chad A. Lupinacci visited 7-year-old student Angelica Dee Cunningham, whose letter to the Supervisor inspired the renaming of the Town to Hauntington in the spirit of Halloween, in front of her classmates at Washington Primary School on Tuesday, October 30. Angelica Dee Cunningham, a Huntington resident, student and avid trick-or-treater, wrote to my office and asked that we rename the Town Hauntington for Halloween, said Supervisor Chad A. Lupinacci, who sponsored the resolution to rename the Town. The Town Board unanimously voted to start this new tradition -- I commend Angelicas interest in local civics and I encourage all of our students to follow her lead! Supervisor Chad A. Lupinacci with Hauntington Town Hall sign on the front lawn of Huntington Town Hall, Wednesday, October 31, 2018. Photo Credit: Town of Huntington As of Wednesday morning, October 31, 2018, the sign for Town Hall displays Hauntington Town Hall in orange and black for Halloween. First-time visitors to the booming cities of Eastern China invariably marvel at everything new the gleaming airports, super-fast trains, luxury emporia and glamorous rich. But in Western China, where foreigners are forbidden to look too closely, the ruling Communist Party remains as brutal and totalitarian as ever. An estimated 1 million people, perhaps more, are imprisoned in concentration camps in Xinjiang province. New camps are going up at a furious pace, signaling even more widespread repression ahead. After many months of flat denials, the government in Beijing has finally admitted to the mass roundup of Turkic Muslims, primarily ethnic Uighurs and Kazakhs. The explanation is straight out of Maos disastrous Cultural Revolution of a half-century ago: to cure ideological diseases, as one party official put it. The primary disease, in this case, is religious freedom and cultural identity. A campaign begun in the 1950s and accelerated in 1999 to conquer Xinjiang by filling the region with Han Chinese settlers only embittered the native populations. So in 2014, under the guise of fighting Islamist terrorism, communist authorities began herding Xinjiangs Muslims men and women, young and elderly into so-called reeducation facilities ringed with guard towers and barbed wire. Chinese leader Xi Jinping sped the crackdown in 2016 by assigning a favorite henchman to serve as provincial party secretary. Chen Quanguo had proved his mettle as party secretary for Tibet, where he pioneered mass surveillance tactics and cut off communication with Bhuddist exiles led by the Dalai Lama. Under Chen, Xinjiang province has become a police state, where people can be detained simply for buying a tent, abstaining from alcohol, or giving up cigarettes supposed telltale signs of a faithful Muslim. Formal written permission from authorities is required simply to travel from one village to another. Vast detention facilities have spread like chokeweed. An examination of satellite images by the BBC found that one camp, about an hour from the provincial capital of Urumqi, roughly quadrupled in size between April and October of this year. The U.S. Congressional-Executive Committee on China has called Chens escalating repression the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today. Chinese authorities describe the purpose of the camps as educational or therapeutic. Members of the public who have been chosen for reeducation have been infected by an ideological illness, residents of the province were told via state-approved social media. They have been infected with religious extremism and violent terrorist ideology, and therefore they must seek treatment from a hospital as an inpatient. But reporters for Agence France-Presse recently unearthed government records that suggest the true nature of these supposed schools and hospitals. The documents show massive orders for equipment such as electric prods, police batons, handcuffs and spiked clubs known as wolfs teeth. At least one camp has installed a tiger chair, the metal contraption favored by Chinese interrogators in which immobilized prisoners are sometimes confined for days at a time. Prisoners spend their days learning Mandarin, absorbing propaganda and renouncing the faith of their forebears. Some have been released from captivity after proving themselves to be fully indoctrinated with the Communist Party line. Others may be held indefinitely, perhaps as hostages to lure family members who have fled China to return to be punished or brainwashed. The brutality in Xinjiang is no sideshow for Beijing. Chinas economic future and political ambitions are wrapped up in the proposed transportation network of new ports and depots known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Central to the BRI is a modern version of the ancient Silk Road linking China to Europe by way of Central Asia. This route passes directly through Xinjiang; therefore the population must be brought to heel. Some have compared what is going on to the oppression of Native Americans during the westward expansion of the United States. When Chens deputy Shohrat Zakir recently spoke through state-run media of the vocational education and training program underway in the camps, there were indeed echoes of the language used to defend the reservations and so-called Indian schools for Native Americans established more than a century ago. But the mistakes of the American past dont justify present and future human rights violations in China or anywhere else. Beijing seeks to help lead the world in the 21st century, not the 19th century. In Xinjiang, China is headed in the wrong direction. A survey by the Pew Research Center asked people around the globe whether they prefer the United States or China to have the upper hand in coming years. By a wide margin, the United States was the favorite. The world is leery of China and will continue to be no matter how many ultra-modern cities it builds. For even the most expensive wristwatch, the most glittering of bracelets and rings, cannot disguise the fist of tyranny. Prince Harry and Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle have been more than open to embracing the local languages during their visit to Aotearoa. From Meghan's Te Reo use, to Harry's Pasifika greetings, the couple have obviously done their research. And now it appears as though Harry has gone above and beyond while at a powhiri in Rotorua today, after beginning his speech with a few sentences of Te Reo: James "Whitey" Bulger, the notorious Boston gangster who eluded authorities for nearly two decades before being caught in 2011, was found dead in prison Tuesday, officials said. His death is being investigated as a homicide, said Justin Tarovisky, executive vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 420, which represents corrections officers at the West Virginia prison where Bulger had recently been moved. Don't Edit Bulger, 89, was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2013 of participating in 11 murders. He served as an FBI informant who ratted on his gang's main rival before becoming the agency's most wanted fugitives for 16 years until his arrest in Santa Monica, California. Take a look at other notorious criminals who met a violent death behind bars: Don't Edit JEFFREY DAHMER Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was serving life prison sentences when a fellow inmate beat him with a metal bar while he was cleaning a prison locker room in 1994. The chocolate factory worker was arrested in 1991 and admitted killing 17 young men, most in Milwaukee, some of whom he mutilated and cannibalized. Dahmer's killer, Christopher Scarver, was already serving a life sentence for a 1990 murder when he bludgeoned to death Dahmer and another inmate of the Columbia Correctional Institution in Wisconsin. Don't Edit JOHN GEOGHAN John Geoghan was beaten and strangled to death at Massachusetts' maximum-security Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in 2003 by a fellow inmate. Geoghan, who had accused of molesting as many as 150 boys over three decades, was serving a 9- to 10-year sentence for groping a boy and was at the center of the Boston clergy abuse scandal. His killer, 37-year-old Joseph Druce, planned the killing for a month, stretching out the socks used to choke Geoghan and doctoring a book to jam the cell door shut, authorities said. Don't Edit ALBERT DESALVO Albert DeSalvo, who confessed - then recanted - to being the "Boston Strangler", was stabbed to death in 1973 at a maximum-security prison in Walpole, Massachusetts. DeSalvo was never indicted in the killings that terrorized the region and grabbed national headlines in the early 1960s, but was convicted in January 1967 of armed robbery, assault and sex offenses, and sentenced to life in prison. In 2013, DNA tests confirmed that DeSalvo did kill the woman believed to be the serial killer's last victim and then-Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said it was "most likely" that he was the Boston Strangler. Don't Edit Don't Edit DONALD HARVEY Donald Harvey, a former nurse's aide and serial killer known as the "Angel of Death", was fatally beaten last year by a fellow inmate in a protective custody unit at the state prison in Toledo. Harvey was serving multiple life sentences after pleading guilty in 1987 to killing more than three dozen hospital patients in Ohio and Kentucky during the 1970s and '80s. He later said he was responsible for killing 18 others while working at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Cincinnati. Don't Edit Lawyer Clarence Darrow, center, pleads the case of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. RICHARD LOEB Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold created a nationwide sensation in 1924 when they were convicted of kidnapping and slaying a young neighbor in Chicago just for the thrill of it. Loeb and Leopold, then 18 and 19 respectively, were sentenced to life terms for the murder plus 99 years for the kidnapping. Loeb was killed in a prison fight in 1936. Don't Edit Read more Don't Edit Don't Edit Don't Edit Each week The Republican will put together a slideshow of select clips and comics from the archive from the past 100 years. This week's selection of clips, headlines and comics from the past 100 years. This week we feature clips from 1918, 1938 and 1968. From the November 1, 1938 edition of The Springfield Daily Republican Eighty years ago, this week, Western Massachusetts celebrated Halloween with several events. In Springfield, parades of costumed children, and adults, were held at the X and Winchester Square. The annual event at the X was attended by over 1,000 people. A party at the Boys Club was attended by 1,200 boys who enjoyed ice cream, donuts and cider which were donated by area businesses. From the November 1, 1938 edition of The Springfield Daily Republican In South Hadley, students at Mount Holyoke College were entertained with parties held at the various residence halls. The residents of Mead hall celebrated the evening with a moonlight hayride through a "goblin-infested countryside." From the November 1, 1938 edition of The Springfield Daily Republican Twenty years earlier, sixty-five hospital tents were set up in Forest park, waiting to receive influenza patients from Springfield hospital. Each tent would house two patients and officials expected that more tents would be set up in the future. From the October 30, 1918 edition of The Springfield Daily News And, back in 1918, the comic Private Dobb's Diary, a light hearted take on the men serving in Europe during World War I. From the October 30, 1918 edition of The Springfield Daily News The pages of The Republican and its predecessors can be found online through the Newsbank Historic archive. The Historic Archive includes editions from 1824 to 1989. Pages and clips can be printed or downloaded in pdf format. Chicopee - The board of trustees of College of Our Lady of the Elms voted on Oct. 19 to grant the title of president emerita to Sr. Kathleen C. Keating, '52, SSJ, in recognition of the lasting impact Keating has had on the college. Keating, a native of Springfield and an alumna of Elms College, was installed as the seventh president of Elms College in 1994. During her tenure, from 1994 to 2001, Elms College underwent extensive changes. In 1997, the college voted to admit male students to all programs of the college, which helped stabilize a declining enrollment. In addition, the college added four new undergraduate majors and one new master's degree program. She more than doubled the school's endowment from $2.3 million to $5.8 million, and oversaw various campus improvement projects including the building of the Maguire Center. She also oversaw the establishment of the Irish and Polish Cultural Centers on the Elms College campus. A 1952 graduate of the college, Keating received a master's degree from Villanova University and a doctoral degree from Fordham University. She joined the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1953. She worked as a teacher at St. Joseph High School in North Adams and was assistant professor history at Elms College from 1966 to 1975. She also served as chair of the college's Division of Social Sciences. From 1975 to 1978, she was president of the National Assembly of Women Religious in Chicago, and she served as president of the Congregation of Sisters of St. Joseph of Springfield from 1979 to 1987. From 1989 to 1993, she ministered in Nicaragua as an associate member of the Maryknoll Sisters, working as a pastoral minister and a professor English at the Jesuit University of Central America in the city of Managua. She received the Elms Distinguished Alumni Award in 1983, and a number other national and regional awards over the years. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh is defending the hiring of a former state representative convicted of assault and battery. Carlos Henriquez, a Dorchester Democrat, was expelled from the Massachusetts House of Representatives in February 2014 while serving a six-month sentence for punching a woman he'd been dating. The Boston Globe reported that Henriquez, who hit the woman for refusing to have sex with him, has been hired as a special assistant for community engagement at $89,000 a year. "There was a court case there, and there was a judgment, he went to jail, served his time," Walsh told reporters Tuesday. "And for the last five years he's been out in the community working hard, and trying to not just rebuild his reputation but also do good things in our communities, in the city of Boston." Walsh, who had called for Henriquez to resign after a jury convicted him, said Tuesday that Henriquez since then has served as a "positive role model" for young black men and talked about "his mistakes, his past, and he's been doing that for the last five years." Walsh continued: "As I said earlier, I believe in second chances. That's why we created the Office of Returning Citizens. And he's going to be working closely with that office. And I think it's important that we appreciate that." In the audience for Warren-Diehl debate, Boston Mayor Walsh fields questions afterwards from @jm_bos and @deehan about the hiring of former state rep Carlos Henriquez, convicted of assaulting woman in 2014 #mapoli #bospoli pic.twitter.com/nDBqY8dcjm Gintautas Dumcius (@gintautasd) October 31, 2018 The Office of Returning Citizens, created in 2017 and located in the city's Seaport neighborhood, is meant to "support the nearly 3,000 individuals who return to Boston after being released from state, federal and county facilities each year, as well as others who were previously incarcerated," according to the city's website. Before he was expelled from the House in 2014, Henriquez maintained his innocence: "The truth is I never touched my accuser in any way, at any point in time, that would result in harm or injury." Asked if Henriquez personally expressed his culpability in the matter to Walsh, the mayor said, "No, you have to ask him that. You'll have to ask him that." Henriquez did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. The ex-lawmaker in 2017 ran for Boston City Council, joining a total of 13 candidates vying to replace Tito Jackson, who sought to unseat Walsh. Henriquez did not advance past the September preliminary. Material from State House News Service was used in this report. WEST SPRINGFIELD -- It can happen three to four times a day. Long freight trains coupling and decoupling at the CSX rail yard block the Vietnam Veterans Bridge that links the city to neighboring Agawam. Motorists can wait anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour as the freight cars block Front Street in West Springfield. The long line of containers moves back and forth as cars are attached and detached at the multimodal freight facility, located about a mile away. Drivers have no prior warning of the random bridge blockades. When they occur, many motorists turn around, head east, and cross the Westfield River at the nearby Morgan-Sullivan bridge instead. However, the Morgan-Sullivan bridge is now undergoing a $21 million reconstruction, and will see lane closures for three to four years. Already, the construction is causing backups -- even without any extra traffic diverted from its sister span. In recent interviews, mayors from Agawam and West Springfield said it's time for CSX and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to come to the table, agree to some concessions, and help keep traffic flowing between the two communities. "What we're seeing now is the combination of bridge construction, more activity by CSX, and poor communication between CSX and MassDOT," said West Springfield Mayor William Reichelt. "We need a legitimate long-term solution, or at least a band-aid for the next several years." "I haven't given up on this, and I'm not going to give up on this," said Agawam Mayor William Sapelli. The mayors said their short-term goal is to find a way to set up electronic "early warning signs" to inform motorists when the intersection is blocked. "It's written into the Morgan-Sullivan bridge contract that MassDOT will pay for the early warning signs," said Reichelt. "What's not known is if CSX will let us tap into their signal." A CSX electronic signal tracks the location of freight cars, and that information could be shared to help the motoring public, Reichelt said. In previous years, he said, CSX refused to share that signal, or wanted too much money. Reichelt said if CSX won't cooperate the city or MassDOT might set up their own infrared sensor to animate such early warning signs. "The state will pay to have the sensors talk to the sign," he said. The two said CSX has listened to community concerns, then taken little action to allay them. "Our words have fallen on deaf ears," said Sapelli, who took office in January. "They were very polite," said Reichelt, who added that West Springfield has been trying to work with CSX for more than four years, ever since a nearby Route 20 bridge was replaced to let the rail yard accept double-stack cargoes. State Rep. Michael J. Finn, D-West Springfield, said he has worked over the years to bring CSX to the table, but that the corporation has not been responsive. "Our conversations have never been very productive," said Finn. Reichelt said West Springfield once set up a temporary video camera to document the problem. During a meeting this spring involving CSX, Reichelt and Sapelli, counsel for both towns and state lawmakers, a live feed from the camera was projected on a 70-inch screen in Reichelt's office. "The whole time CSX was here, their train was blocking the road," said Reichelt. "So they could see that we are not just making this up." Reichelt and Sapelli said they are hopeful progress could be in store. "MassDOT has taken an interest," said Sapelli. He said rail division Deputy Administrator James Eng is working to solve the problem, and that Eng's assistant at MassDOT, Scott Conti, is also on task. Reichelt said electronic warning signs would help, but that a longer-term strategy is needed. He said rail yard operators could choose to "break the train in half" at Front Street after a certain number of cars are linked, and at least temporarily open free passage for motorists during any lengthy train coupling. "Having to wait for 10 or 15 minutes is better than having to wait for an hour," said Reichelt, who added that the trains can be a mile and a half long. According to the mayors, having both bridges hobbled has implications for mutual aid between fire departments. West Springfield last year hired more firefighters and established a third ambulance, so it is no longer quite as vulnerable, said Reichelt. "At this point, Agawam is more dependent on us than we are on them," Reichelt said. A third road link between the two communities, involving Routes 5 and 57, involves more miles, but can be used if both bridges are blocked. Sapelli said that's not adequate. "Time delays can result in possible death," he said. "For safety reasons we need something done." In the meantime, a Facebook group has been set up where drivers post updates when Front Street and the Vietnam Veterans Bridge are blocked by freight trains. It's not clear how much jurisdiction MassDOT has over the situation. The state agency has not responded to multiple requests from The Republican for comment and information. CSX submitted a statement Monday pledging to be part of the solution. "CSX has worked closely with local officials and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to fully understand and discuss potential solutions for the Front Street blocked crossing issue," the statement reads. "Most recently, in the pre-planning meetings for the Morgan-Sullivan Bridge Project, CSX officials reviewed our public project process and reiterated our willingness to partner with the road authority and MassDOT on both a long-term solution and a project-specific fix to assist with the traffic challenges." The statement said CSX "remains focused on being a good neighbor to West Springfield residents and businesses," and "looks forward to keeping an open line of communication" with city leaders and MassDOT. Sapelli said he's skeptical, and that CSX so far has not come up with any solutions. "West Side has been upset abut this for some time," added Reichelt. "Now that Mayor Sapelli is in office, he is pushing this hard. We're going to keep working together." CSX in 2010 completed a $10 million upgrade of its West Springfield rail yard. Several years ago, in order to accommodate double-stack operations by CSX, MassDOT replaced and reconstructed six bridges in the towns of Chester, Hinsdale, Richmond and West Springfield. Earlier this month, CSX announced record third-quarter earnings of $894 million, versus $459 million in the same period last year. Update: U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal issued a statement on Wednesday afternoon. "Travel between West Springfield and Agawam should be safe, efficient and reliable. That's why I am working with officials in both towns to address some local transportation concerns, including train blockages on bridge crossings," said Neal. "I have also raised the issue with representatives of CSX on several occasions. My hope is that all parties will be able to come to an agreement that will benefit the commuters who travel across the Westfield River each day." The Republican has asked Neal's office to provide more specific information on the congressman's efforts. SPRINGFIELD -- The lawyer for Geovonny Hernandez, the man shot by Springfield police after allegedly driving into an officer July 3, argued Wednesday that his client should not be held without right to bail. "It seems rather improbable the incident took place the way police officers' said it took place," said Timothy M. Farris, who is representing Hernandez. Assistant District Attorney Christopher E. McDonald said Hernandez drove directly at city police officer Darrin Fitzpatrick, who landed on the car's hood. While on the hood of Hernandez's accelerating car, Fitzpatrick fired his gun into Hernandez's chest, according to police reports. McDonald argued to Hampden Superior Court Judge Daniel M. Wrenn that Hernandez should be held without right to bail for the 180 days allowed under the state's dangerousness law. Wrenn took the matter under advisement. Farris said he believes police reports from officers at the scene are not reliable, and said the idea that Fitzpatrick shot Hernandez while he was on the hood of Hernandez's moving car is not believable. "I suggest it's totally illogical it occurred this way," Farris said. He said he believes Fitzpatrick was standing in front of Hernandez's car when he shot Hernandez -- and that Hernandez then lost control of the car and hit Fitzpatrick. McDonald said Fitzpatrick fired the shot and then was thrown off the car and "went airborne" as Hernandez accelerated. Hernandez, 24, of Springfield, has pleaded not guilty to six charges, including armed assault with intent to murder. Other charges are illegal possession of a firearm, negligent operation of a motor vehicle, leaving the scene of a personal injury accident, assault and battery on a police officer, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. The dangerous weapon is the vehicle Hernandez was driving. No guns or drugs were found on Hernandez or in his car. The incident unfolded outside 68 Fort Pleasant St. after police said they saw Hernandez bring a gun there and give it to someone else. An officer said he watched the transaction via binoculars while doing surveillance on that address during a drug investigation. After Hernandez was shot and drove away, police stopped him again about a half-mile away on Kensington Avenue, near the intersection of Oakland Street. Officers provided first aid until an ambulance arrived. Hernandez was bleeding heavily from his chest, police said. Fitzpatrick was treated at the hospital and released later that night. Hernandez was released from the hospital July 9, according to police. About a dozen people were arrested on drug charges from the investigation of 68 Fort Pleasant Ave. Some were alleged to be customers and some were charged as drug dealers. SPRINGFIELD -- An East Longmeadow man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to operating under the influence of alcohol, fourth offense. Sean Doyle, 56, was sentenced to two and one half to five years in state prison, followed by five years probation by Hampden Superior Court Judge John S. Ferrara. Doyle had been charged with operating under the influence of alcohol, fifth offense, but it was reduced to fourth offense as part of the plea. He also pleaded guilty to violating a restraining order and driving with a suspended license (subsequent offender). Defense lawyer Joseph Bernard asked Ferrara to sentence Doyle to a two and one half year sentence in the Hampden County Correctional Center in Ludlow, with 18 months to be served and the rest suspended with probation. He said a long state prison sentence would not help Doyle deal with his alcoholism, asking that Ferrara recommend the 18 months be at the Western Massachusetts Recovery and Wellness Center at Mill Street. Police responded to a call March 30 saying Doyle was parked outside of his estranged wife's Springfield house despite her having a restraining order against him. Officers found him sleeping in his car which was running and had the radio on, Assistant District Attorney James M. Forsyth said. When police took him out of the car he was unable to stand on his own, Forsyth said. He said Doyle has similar charges pending in Connecticut. He has new charge of assault and battery and resisting arrest in Springfield District Court. Alcohol was a factor in that case, Forsyth said. Bernard said Doyle did not hurt anyone and was parked with the car running when police found him drunk. He said Doyle parked in front of his estranged wife's house and "gets himself bombed with a bottle of brandy." Bernard said, "It doesn't matter how long you take away the drink." He said the program at the Mill Street facility is "nationally renowned." Doyle asked to speak to Ferrara and the judge said he would hear him. After offering apologies to the court, lawyers and his family, Doyle said, "I'm begging the court to send me to Mill Street." In addition to Doyle's past operating under the influence of alcohol charges he has past assault convictions and has had other restraining orders taken out against him, Forsyth said. SPRINGFIELD -- Former Springfield police detective Steven M. Vigneault denied an excessive force charge in U.S. District Court Wednesday. He and his former colleague, Officer Gregg Bigda, were arrested earlier this morning and charged in a five-count indictment alleging the two brutalized teen boys who had stolen Vigneault's undercover SUV in 2016. Vigneault's attorney, Daniel D. Kelly, said during remarks outside the courthouse that Vigneault will likely be exonerated. "There is a tendency to rush to judgment in cases like these. We would ask that the public not rush to judgment," Kelly said. The chain of events leading to the indictments began when Vigneault left his vehicle running outside a Worthington Street pizza shop while he ran in to get take-out food for the narcotics unit one night. He and Bigda were part of that unit at the time. At least three boys hopped in the car and took off, according to police reports. They were later stopped and arrested in Palmer. Springfield detectives showed up, by all accounts, uninvited at the scene and essentially hijacked the arrest, by most accounts. Vigneault and Bigda both stand accused of kicking and beating two boys when they were in handcuffs. Bigda allegedly screamed "Welcome to white town!" during the arrest and was later recorded on surveillance video at the Palmer police station verbally terrorizing two of the boys. The incident has been a persistent embarrassment for the police department for over two years. The pair's arrests this morning ended months of speculation over whether federal prosecutors would move forward with criminal charges. Vigneault resigned over the kicking allegation in 2016, though he denies assaulting any of the juvenile suspects. He has a civil lawsuit pending in Hampden Superior Court against the city. Vigneault argues he was bluffed into resigning while Bigda was treated with favoritism. Bigda was suspended for 60 days when the video footage came to light two years ago. He was suspended indefinitely without pay after his arrest this morning. Vigneault was released without bail and ordered to stay away from witnesses and alleged victims in the case. He faces up to 15 years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines. Convicted double-murderer Fotios "Freddy" Geas, formerly of West Springfield, is under investigation for the slaying of legendary Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger at a West Virginia prison early Tuesday, according to anonymous sources cited by The Boston Globe. Geas, 51, is serving a life sentence for the murders of former Springfield mob boss Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno and low-level associate Gary D. Westerman in 2003. Geas has been housed for several years at Hazelton Penitentiary in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. Bulger, 89, also serving life sentences for 11 murders, was transferred there Monday. He'd been at the facility for just hours when he was ambushed by multiple inmates who beat him with a lock wrapped in a sock, according to news reports. Speculation locally reached a fever pitch by late Tuesday among insiders aware of Geas' placement at the same facility. Federal officials did not respond for requests for comment from The Republican throughout the day Tuesday. Neither the Bureau of Prisons nor the U.S. Attorney's Office in West Virginia has released official information beyond confirming Bulger's death and that an investigation is underway. Northampton attorney David P. Hoose, who once represented Geas in the Bruno murder case in Massachusetts, said he had no official word on the Bulger investigation. He offered brief comments on his impressions of his former client during an interview Tuesday night. "Freddy was a stand-up guy," Hoose said. "He wouldn't have ratted on anybody." Geas, his brother, Ty Geas, and New York mob boss Artie Nigro were convicted in tandem at a trial in Manhattan in 2011. Their convictions hung heavily on the testimony of several gangsters turned government informant. This is a breaking story that will be updated with additional reporting. US Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor, paused when asked to give a letter grade to Gov. Charlie Baker, a fellow elected official from Massachusetts who is voting against her. "C," she finally said during the third and last televised debate with her GOP opponent, Geoff Diehl. "I'll give him a B," Warren's GOP opponent, Geoff Diehl said, adding that he believes Baker in his second term will move up to an "A." Baker, a Swampscott Republican, and Warren, a Cambridge Democrat, are both on the same Nov. 6 ballot and face challengers. Warren, who was first elected in 2012, is running for a second six-year term and eyeing a 2020 president campaign, while Baker is running for a second four-year term and has repeatedly said he isn't interested in heading down to Washington. In the 2018 election cycle, Warren and Baker are far outraising their opponents and public polling has shown Diehl and Jay Gonzalez, the Democrat challenging Baker, trailing the incumbents. Warren is backing Gonzalez, putting his name under hers on campaign signage. Baker is supporting Diehl, a Republican state representative from Whitman who served as Donald Trump's campaign co-chair in Massachusetts during the 2016 presidential election. While Democrats supporting Gonzalez have sought to tie the popular governor to Diehl, Baker has pointed to support from Democrats inside and outside the state Legislature, among mayors, and longtime Democratic fundraisers like Jack Connors. After a gaffe during a debate with Gonzalez, in which Baker wavered on whether he will vote for Diehl despite endorsing him, the governor reiterated he backs Diehl. "I think it's interesting that my opponent continues to want to talk about the Senate race instead of what's going on here in Massachusetts," Baker told reporters the day after his debate with Gonzalez. "And I think that's in large part because things in Massachusetts are actually going quite well for the vast majority of people." James "Whitey" Bulger's death inside a West Virginia federal prison is being investigated as a homicide, federal authorities confirmed Wednesday. Bulger, 89, was killed inside the USP Hazelton facility in West Virginia Tuesday around 8:20 a.m. He was transferred to the prison on Monday. Reports by the Boston Globe say Bulger was attacked by inmates at the facility. One of those inmates is convicted mob hitman Freddy Geas, who rose to prominence in the organized crime hierarchy in Western Massachusetts in the early 2000s. Both Bulger and 51-year-old Geas were in federal prison serving life sentences. For Bulger, he was serving life for 11 murders. Geas was among those convicted of the 2003 murders of Springfield mob boss Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno and low-level associate Gary Westerman in 2003. The U.S. Attorney's Office in West Virginia has not released any more details about Bulger's death. The Federal Bureau has released few details. "The United States Attorney's Office and the FBI are investigating the death of James Bulger as a homicide," the recent statement from the US Attorney's Office read. "To protect the integrity of the investigation, no further details will be released at this time." The Massachusetts Police Association Tuesday evening announced it was suspending the duties of Lt. Rick Pedrini after backlash over comments Pedrini had made in columns written for the organization's newsletter, The Sentinel. "Some of the columns that were written in the latest issue of The Sentinel newsletter do not uphold the high standards of the MPA and its mission, the association said in a statement it posted to Twitter Tuesday evening. "The columns in question, which were meant to be taken in a tongue-in-cheek satirical fashion were written for an audience of law enforcement officers and were not meant to be taken literally. They were an evocative response to the emotion felt by all police officers around the state due to the recent senseless deaths of Weymouth Police Officer Michael Chesney and Yarmouth Police Officer Sean Gannon." Pedrini, an Arlington police lieutenant who was slated to become the MPA's executive director, penned three columns railing against criminal justice reform, progressive policing practices, migrants seeking asylum and Colin Kaepernick. "I am sick and tired of the social justice warriors telling us how to do our jobs. It's time we forget about 'restraint', 'measured responses', 'procedural justice', 'de-escalation', 'stigma-reduction', and other feel-good BS that is getting our officers killed," Pedrini wrote in the 2018 edition of The Sentinel. "Let's stop lipsynching, please! Let's meet violence with violence and get the job done." Arlington Police Chief Frederick Ryan told MassLive earlier on Tuesday that Pedrini's comments do not represent the department's viewpoints or policies. Following publication of a story about the columns on MassLive Tuesday, Arlington police relieved Pedrini of duty and placed him on paid administrative leave from the police department. The announcement of Pedrini being relieved of his duties with the Mass. Police Association followed several hours later. Pedrini's comments drew support from some in the public, but also were quickly condemned by political leaders around the state. Hours after the controversial columns surfaced, Gov. Charlie Baker said Pedrini should not be allowed to hold a leadership position in the organization. Terry MacCormack, a spokesman for Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito's re-election campaign, said they "strongly condemn these disturbing comments that contradict collaborative policing efforts throughout the commonwealth's communities, support the town of Arlington's investigation, and believe that Lt. Pedrini should not hold a leadership role at the Association." Jay Gonzalez, a Democrat challenging Baker for the governor's office, said earlier Tuesday that he was "disgusted" by Pedrini's comments. "Rick Pedrini is not suited to lead the Massachusetts Police Association. Governor Baker has been endorsed by the MPA and therefore should immediately demand the organization replace Rick Pedrini," Gonzalez said in a statement. "The public needs to be able to trust our law enforcement officers and Lt. Pedrini has lost that trust." The association, while stating that the comments were not in line with the values of the police association, defended Pedrini's service. "Lt. Pedrini is a strong advocate for the law enforcement community and has been throughout his career," the statement by the association read. SPRINGFIELD -- Now-suspended city police officer Gregg A. Bigda denied several criminal counts in U.S. District Court Wednesday. He pleaded not guilty to charges of exercising unreasonable force by allegedly beating two juveniles under arrest for stealing an undercover police car in 2016 and later threatening them with injury and trumped up criminal charges. Video recorded at the Palmer police station showed Bigda interrogating the suspects, telling one: "I'll crush (your) skull and f---ing get away with it." The teens were arrested in Palmer following a car chase through several communities. Bigda appeared in court without handcuffs, wearing jeans, a sweatshirt and a down coat after his arrest by federal agents at his home early this morning. He quietly entered not guilty pleas and was released without bail. Bigda was ordered to surrender his passport, firearms and license to carry weapons. Assistant U.S. Attorney Deepika Baines Shukla also asked that Bigda be evaluated for alcohol abuse. "There was quite a bit of evidence that arose during the investigation about alcohol abuse by the defendant and excessive drinking by the defendant, including while on duty," Shukla told a magistrate judge. Under federal sentencing guidelines Bigda could face up to 15 years in prison. Bigda was previously suspended for 60 days over his behavior on the video footage, and was suspended without pay indefinitely when a five-count indictment handed up by a grand jury on Oct. 25 was unsealed today. Bigda was indicted along with his former colleague, Steven M. Vigneault, who resigned from the police force in 2016 after being accused of kicking a juvenile in the face after three boys stole an undercover car left running outside a pizza shop. Vigneault has steadfastly denied he kicked the teen and was a cooperating government witness in a long-running federal investigation. He recently found himself a target instead. He is also slated to be arraigned Wednesday. BOSTON -- Red Sox fans from across New England and Western Massachusetts descended on Boston Wednesday to cheer on the 2018 World Series champions as they took to the streets for the victory parade. For Alexis Lebrasseur, a 20-year-old Springfield resident, and her father, Glen Lebrasseur, the chance to see the team up close was something she and her father could not miss. "They won and they made history. It will probably be the only parade for awhile, so we had to make it out here for it," Alexis Lebrasseur said. Alexis Lebrasseur said she woke up at 4 a.m. to make the early morning trip from Springfield in hopes of seeing Andrew Beninitendi and the World Series trophy at her first Red Sox parade. Glen Lebrassuer, 52, said while the 2018 celebration is not his first in Boston, he wanted to share the experience with his daughter. "I was at one of the first Patriots parades after the won the Super Bowl. She had to be at this in case the Patriots don't win, we still get a parade. We're New Englanders, so we're here to see the Sox," he said. "I had to bring my daughter -- she would've gotten rid of her dad if I didn't bring her." Glen Lebrassuer added that he looked forward to seeing "the duck boats, the players and to have a good day." Tim Nale, 45, of Munson, and his wife, Jennifer Nale, 45, also got up early Wednesday to see the Red Sox World Series parade in person. "We took the T in from Riverside -- got up at the crack of dawn, 5 a.m. and got up here to get our spot at the parade," he said while waiting for the rolling celebration to hit Boylston Street. Tim Nale, however, said it was all worth it "to see history." "You don't get to see a team win the World Series everyday," he said, noting it's his first Red Sox parade. "Growing up, we never got to see this, so it's a great time to be a Boston fan." Jennifer Nale added that she hoped to "see Mookie (Betts) smile" at the parade. Thousands turned out to downtown Boston to celebrate the Red Sox's 2018 World Series win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. The duck boat parade took players and Red Sox staff from Fenway Park to the Boston Common before ending near City Hall. If all goes according to plan, Worcester's former Lincoln Square Boys Club, which has sat vacant and deteriorating since 2007, will find new life as a school alternative for students with high-functioning autism. WinnDevelopment Company Limited Partnership has conditionally agreed to buy the property for $300,000 and convert it into the new home of Summit Academy, a therapeutic school alternative for students with high functioning autism and related diagnoses that has been located in Worcester for a decade. The $20 million project would begin early next year. The company went before the City Council's Economic Development Committee Tuesday night, which voted to forward the transfer to the full council for a vote. WinnDevelopment plans to take title by the end of December provided the results of a structural integrity analysis shows it's feasible to renovate the building. A review of the 1929 building found that the core and shell is significantly compromised and is in dire need of permanent corrective actions. "The adaptive reuse of 16 Salisbury is a unique and challenging undertaking to say the least -- but the partnership forged with the city, our future tenant and others will see this through to fruition," CEO Gilbert Winn wrote in a letter to the city. The developer has a strong partnership with Preservation Worcester, to secure state historic tax credits "in the millions" for the project, as well as federal historic tax credits. "We really brought the best of the community around the table in order to bring this iconic structure in Lincoln Square back to life," said Michael O'Brien, executive vice president of WinnCompanies and former city manager of Worcester. The move would allow Summit Academy to expand its programming for middle and high school students and add on-site living and dorm-style housing for young adults attending local colleges and universities. Winn plans to convert the former pool and gym areas into a cafe, WiFi bar and culinary training facility for students and guests. The building will feature a school on the first floor, as well as 42 to 45 dorm beds. Summit Academy accepts students ages 6 to 22. "The residential component we're developing for students that could go to any of the 10 colleges but be on our campus with a supportive campus," Summit Academy Executive Director Dan Dimezza said. "There's nobody else doing this in the country." Summit Academy plans to pay for all renovations with help from the Fuller Foundation. The project is expected to be done in July 2020. District 4 Councilor Sarai Rivera expressed her support for the project during Tuesday's meeting. "I think it's a great project, it's very exciting," she said. "We all went through the heartbreak of the Notre Dame, and I think being able to salvage a building like this, the beauty of it is really important." The Worcester Community Labor Coalition said it supports the project, but believes the property transfer should be treated as similar projects have been. The organization has asked the City Council to include in its vote the city's Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Policy as a condition for approving the sale. "This will protect Worcester taxpayers and ensure local workers have an opportunity to work at this project, that they are paid a livable wage, are not victimized and are safe on their job site," the coalition wrote in a letter to the city. O'Brien said there have been efforts by several other area institutions, including Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. "There's been valiant efforts, a real desire, but unfortunately up until this point in time, no real solution until today," he said. Deborah Packard, executive director of Preservation Worcester, said the proposed use is compatible with the building's historic use as a boys club, which served the community for 60 years. "I just think it's a perfect match," she said. In addition to taking ownership of the building, Winn has agreed to maintain the grounds of the abutting Lincoln Square War Memorial. Anthony Amore, the GOP candidate challenging Massachusetts Secretary of State Bill Galvin, is adding a Halloween sheen to his effort to unseat the longtime incumbent. Amore's campaign launched a website dubbed "Galvin's House of Horror," complete with depictions of Galvin, a Democrat in the office since 1995, with glowing red eyes. Blood flows down the website's landing page. "We created this website because what we've seen from Bill Galvin's office has been truly frightening," Amore said in a statement. "It's time for a new Secretary of State who will modernize the office's actual website and end politics as usual on Beacon Hill." Bill Galvin's opponent has launched a website keying off Halloween, the "Prince of Darkness" nickname, and giving Galvin glowing red eyes https://t.co/543KqVBEk6#mapoli pic.twitter.com/b9E7xF4OCw Gintautas Dumcius (@gintautasd) October 31, 2018 Amore's website says it's "pulling back the curtains of corruption on the Prince of Darkness," a nickname for Galvin that, as CommonWealth magazine put it, "has shadowed a long career as a smart and wily pol." Amore, a Swampscott Republican who works as the security director for the Gardner Museum in Boston, is hoping to knock Galvin out of the secretary of state's office. Galvin's campaign did not respond to a request for comment. The secretary of state serves as the state's elections chief and liaison to the US Census, a regulator of securities, and the chairman of the Massachusetts Historical Commission. The site links to recent stories on Galvin, including one in the Salem News headlined "Tax credits go to Galvin's political contributors" and another noting a voter guide sent to registered voters by his office drew criticism from opponents who say Galvin was promoting himself in one section. The race between Galvin and Amore has turned testy, with Galvin defending the tax credits, saying they go to anyone who qualifies for them. The one and only televised debate between the two ended on an acrimonious note, as Galvin accused Amore of overstating his role in the capture of Richard Reid, the terrorist known as the Shoe Bomber. "You're a liar," Amore told Galvin. "And you're a faker," Galvin responded. The election is Tuesday, Nov. 6. Early voting is already underway and ends Friday, Nov. 2. Green Rainbow Party candidate Juan Sanchez is also on the ballot with Galvin and Amore. A week before election day, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jay Gonzalez released his campaign's second TV ad, tying Republican Gov. Charlie Baker to President Donald Trump. Although Baker has often criticized Trump, also a Republican, Gonzalez has spent much of his campaign trying to tie the governor to the president. The ad opens with a shot of the U.S. Capitol, with Gonzalez saying he is "angry and appalled at what's happening in Washington." Gonzalez says in the ad that the state needs leaders who will fight back. "Charlie Baker wants to replace Elizabeth Warren with the guy who ran Donald Trump's campaign in Massachusetts," Gonzalez says. Baker has endorsed Republican U.S. Senate candidate Geoff Diehl, saying he will support the Republican ticket. But Baker has not actively campaigned for Diehl and in one debate, hesitated to say that he would vote for Diehl, although he later clarified that he will. Baker has repeatedly tried to distance himself from Trump and said he did not vote for him for president. Separately, Baker's campaign this week released a new web video, a three-minute discussion of the reforms that Baker instituted at Bridgewater State Hospital, the state's hospital for people with mental illness who have been criminally charged or civilly committed. The video features Baker and a family of someone with mental illness talking about Baker's work bringing more humane care to the facility. Massachusetts voters want Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren to remain in the Senate, according to a poll released Wednesday by the Western New England University Polling Institute. The poll found that likely voters overwhelmingly support Warren's U.S. Senate campaign - she would beat Republican challenger Geoff Diehl, 57 percent to 27 percent. Independent Shiva Ayyadurai would get 7 percent of the vote, and 8 percent are undecided. Much of Warren's margin of victory is due to the voter makeup of the state, which leans heavily Democratic. Warren would get support from 84 percent of the state's Democrats, while Diehl would get support from 78 percent of Republicans. Independents also favor Warren, 47 percent to 29 percent. But at the same time, voters do not want Warren to run for president in 2020, with 56 percent of registered voters saying it would be a bad idea for Warren to seek the White House, compared to 27 percent who think it would be a good idea. Even among Democrats and independents, more than half of each group say it would be a bad idea for Warren to run for president. In follow-up interviews with pollsters, the most frequent reasons voters cited for not wanting Warren to run for president are that she is too liberal, they don't think she could win, and they do not like Warren or her positions on issues. The top reasons voters want her to run are she has good ideas and is sincere, and she could compete with Trump. Lack of support for a Warren run does not mean Massachusetts residents like the current inhabitant of the White House. President Donald Trump's approval rating is just 25 percent among Massachusetts voters, according to the poll. Warren's approval rating is 55 percent. The poll also finds Republican Gov. Charlie Baker maintaining a large lead over his Democratic challenger, Jay Gonzalez, 65 percent to 27 percent among likely voters, with 7 percent undecided. The poll found high levels of interest in the midterm elections, and found that enthusiasm and political activism are higher among Democrats than Republicans. The election is Tuesday. The poll of 485 registered voters and 402 likely voters was conducted Oct. 10-27 and has a margin of error of 4 percentage points for registered voters and 5 percentage points for likely voters. Despite coming to blows on an array of issues as they met for their third and final debate Tuesday, both U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, and Republican challenger Geoff Diehl said they're concerned about the safety of natural gas pipelines in the state. Warren and Diehl, who went head to head during an evening televised forum at WCVB in Needham, agreed that more must be done to address safety concerns relating to natural gas pipelines in wake of explosions that ravaged the Merrimack Valley in September. Diehl, a Whitman state representative, said he's "not sure" if natural gas is a safe energy alternative for Massachusetts residents, offering that gas line workers have long raised concerns about them. The Republican stressed that the Merrimack Valley explosions "should have never happened," offering that they underscore why the federal government should be more involved in overseeing such lines. Warren, meanwhile, noted that she and U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, have raised similar questions about the safety of natural gas lines in Massachusetts -- something she hopes will be addressed at an upcoming U.S. Senate hearing. "This is really about getting to the bottom of what happened here, getting to the question of how safe natural gas is," she said, arguing that it underscores the issue of who government works for. Warren added that she believes there should be a temporary moratorium on new natural gas pipelines in Massachusetts "until we know what went wrong." Diehl, however, raised concerns about whether Massachusetts could sustain losing such a large amount of its energy sources. Warren and Diehl will square off in the Nov. 6 election. Independent U.S. Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadurai will also be on the ballot. This is a breaking news story and will be updated. NEEDHAM -- U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, continued to fuel speculation that she will seek a 2020 White House bid Tuesday, reiterating her intention to "look at" a presidential run after the 2018 election. Warren, in her third and final debate against Republican challenger Geoff Diehl at WCVB in Needham, would not say whether she plans to serve her full six-year term if sent back to the Senate this fall. The Massachusetts Democrat, who has become an oft-rumored 2020 presidential contender, acknowledged that she plans to "take a look at running for president" after next week's midterm election. The senator, however, stressed that no matter what she decides on 2020, she will always serve in the best interest of Massachusetts residents. "I guarantee this: No matter what I do, I will work for the people of the commonwealth of Massachusetts," she said. Diehl, who has repeatedly accused Warren of being more focused on the White House than Massachusetts residents, said he will serve his full term if sent to Capitol Hill. "The answer for me is, 'yes,'" he said. "Ironically, my opponent and President (Donald) Trump do have something in common: Neither one wants to be a senator from Massachusetts, but both want to be president." Warren told a crowd in Holyoke last month that she "will take a hard look at running for president," after the Nov. 6 election. She echoed that plan when asked about her 2020 plans during a stop in Springfield in last week. The Democrat will face Diehl, a Whitman state representative, and independent candidate Shiva Ayyadurai in the Nov. 6 election. President Donald Trump's desire to end birthright citizenship was at the center of a spat between Sen. Elizabeth Warren and GOP challenger Geoff Diehl, who tangled over over whether the US Constitution protects it. With a week to go before the November 2018 midterms, Trump claimed he could accomplish that with an executive order and incorrectly said the United States is the only country to provide birthright citizenship. About 30 countries provide it. "That's in the Constitution," Warren, a Cambridge Democrat and Harvard law professor running for a second six-year term, said during the last televised debate with Diehl, a state representative from Whitman. "The president can't end it by himself," Warren continued. "So no, I don't agree with the president. He doesn't get to erase parts of the Constitution that he doesn't like." "I can actually read what's in the Constitution," Diehl responded. The Constitution "does not call for providing citizenship to those who are not here as national citizens and the children thereof," he said. Diehl said he would back an executive order if it's held up by a court. Gov. Charlie Baker, a Swampscott Republican, broke with Trump earlier on Tuesday, saying the Constitution does protect birthright citizenship. According to the Associated Press, a Supreme Court decision in 1898 said the US-born son of legal Chinese immigrants was a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment. The wire service notes the high court "has never ruled squarely about the clause's application to children of immigrants who are in the US illegally" and "a footnote in a 1982 decision suggests there should be no difference for children of foreign-born parents whether they are in the U.S. legally or illegally." The debate between Diehl and Warren, hosted by WCVB, was co-cosponsored by a consortium that includes the Boston Globe, the University of Massachusetts, and Western Mass News. The televised debate was their final face-off before the Nov. 6 election. In a scrum with reporters after the debate, Warren said Diehl's response on the birthright question "just goes how far Geoff Diehl will go to back up Donald Trump." In their previous scraps in Boston and Springfield, Warren has repeatedly pointed to Diehl co-chairing Trump's Massachusetts campaign in 2016, while Diehl has said she is more focused on running against Trump in 2020 than serving as the senator from Massachusetts. Speaking in his own separate scrum with reporters on Tuesday night, Diehl pointed to a migrant "caravan" close to the US-Mexico border. "I think what's happening now is the president's looking at places that we can try to get something done that Congress has been unwilling to do as far as immigration reform," he said. "And I think looking at the birthright issue and making sure chain migration is not on the table anymore is one way to go about it." Diehl continued, referring to birthright citizenship, "It's not meant for people who have not taken the initiative to become a US citizen, that their children should not be considered automatically US citizens." Asked whether he believes children of undocumented immigrants born in the US are not actually citizens, Diehl said, "I think what we have to deal with is a grandfathering, where we clarify whether it's through the Supreme Court, or whether Congress actually takes this up and fully adjusts the Fourteenth Amendment. But I think that anybody who's been here and has been considered a US citizen, we have to respect that." President Trump is trying to get a discussion going, according to Diehl. "Whether he can or can't do it, we'll find out very soon," Diehl said. Material from Associated Press was used in this report. Backers of Elizabeth Warren and Geoff Diehl's respective U.S. Senate campaigns braved brisk temperatures and rush-hour traffic Tuesday to rally support ahead of the candidates' third and final debate before next week's midterm election. Boston-area supporters lined the streets outside WCVB's television studio in Needham, boasting signs for both campaigns, flags and even musical instruments hours before Warren and Diehl took the debate stage. Supporters gather outside WCVB Channel 5 Boston for debate between U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren and Geoff Diehl Posted by MassLive on Tuesday, October 30, 2018 Sharline Nabulime, of Waltham, said she decided to campaign for Warren outside the debate because she believes the incumbent Democrat has demonstrated her commitment to being a "champion" for Massachusetts in the Senate. "Elizabeth Warren understands equity. She's been fighting for all of us to have a level playing field when it comes to achieving the American dream," she said in an interview. Nabulime, who said she came to the United States as a refugee from Uganda, added that "if it wasn't for people like Elizabeth Warren," she doesn't know what her life would be right now. "I'm glad that I live in Massachusetts. But, I'm here fighting for others who don't have senators like Elizabeth Warren," she said. "I'm voting for Elizabeth Warren because she's my champion in the Senate and I want it to remain that way." Patrick Welch, of Amesbury, said he joined other International Union of Painters and Allied Trades members in campaigning for Warren because he believes the incumbent Democrat "supports working people." Welch added that he likes that Warren "is not a polished politician." "She's like a regular, down-to-Earth person, kind of like the opposite of (former President Barack) Obama in the way she carries herself. But, she's honest, she's sincere, and she comes from working class roots," he said. "I think that, unlike (President Donald) Trump, she probably really has more empathy and understanding for what working people go through." Danny Avery, a Westborough resident who campaigned for Diehl outside the debate, however, offered a different take on the incumbent senator. "She lies ... I was listening to the people who were chanting for Warren and they were saying how great she was at supporting the hardworking Americans. If she's supporting the hardworking Americans, why doesn't she vote for building the wall?" he said. Avery, who called Warren "a horrible, horrible representative" for Massachusetts, added that he supports Diehl because offers such a stark contrast to the current senator. "He's the absolute opposite of (Warren,)" he said. "I just feel Geoff Diehl is going to be a better opportunity. One of his number one things, is doing something about the opioid crisis. Have you heard that out of Elizabeth Warren? I haven't. All I've heard from her is 'oppose,' 'oppose.'" Sharon Massaadi, meanwhile, said she traveled from Quincy to campaign for Diehl because she believes he's "a wonderful person." "He always listens to everybody, he takes the time to talk to you and you can ask him any question and he'll listen to you -- he'll pay attention," she said. "He's a good guy. He believes in all the patriotic, American values -- that's what I believe in." Warren and Diehl will go head-to-head in the Nov. 6 election. Independent U.S. Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadurai will also appear on the November ballot against Warren and Diehl. Ayyadurai, who has protested his exclusion from the three U.S. Senate debates, was notably absent from the crowd outside the WCVB forum. Supporters of the independent candidate's campaign disrupted a debate at WGBY in Springfield earlier this month. On the day the Red Sox were touring Boston in Duck Boats to celebrate their 2018 World Series victory, the Los Angeles Dodgers, who the Red Sox defeated in five games to win the title, offered an official congratulations and gifts. The Dodgers took out a full-page ad in the Boston Globe. They did the same thing last year with the Houston Chronicle after losing to the Astros. The Dodgers took out a full page ad in Wednesdays Globe to congratulate the #RedSox on winning the World Series. https://t.co/zZ9Kr0S4kd pic.twitter.com/xYjHrPBIcs The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) October 31, 2018 "That's never the plan and we prefer not to have to [take out an ad]," Dodgers executive vice president and chief marketing officer Lon Rosen told the Globe. "But we did it because we think it was a well-played World Series. We have a friendly business rivalry [with the Red Sox] on and off the field. It's a competition, but at the end of the day, we do feel it warrants something of this nature." The Dodgers also gave the Red Sox, home plate, the pitcher's rubber, balls and dirt from Dodger Stadium to be used for commemorative purposes. Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Market: This report studies the Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Market size of key regions like North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Central & South America and Middle East & Africa, focuses on the consumption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare in these regions. This research report categorizes the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare market by top players/brands, region, type and end user. This report also studies the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare market status, competition landscape, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, sales channels and distributors. The global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare market is valued at million US$ in 2017 and will reach million US$ by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of during 2018-2025. The objectives of this study are to define, segment, and project the size of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare market based on company, product type, end user and key regions. The following manufacturers are covered in this report, with sales, revenue, market share for each company: Intel Corporation Nvidia Corporation Google IBM Corporation Microsoft Corporation General Vision Enlitic Next IT Welltok Icarbonx Recursion Pharmaceuticals Koninklijke Philips General Electric (GE) Company Siemens Healthineers (A Division of Siemens AG) Johnson & Johnson Services Medtronic Stryker Corporation Careskore Zephyr Health Oncora Medical Sentrian Bay Labs Atomwise Deep Genomics Cloudmedx Get a PDF sample of this report @ http://www.orbisresearch.com/contacts/request-sample/2318372 Market size by Product Deep Learning Querying Method Natural Language Processing Context Aware Processing Other Market size by End User Hospitals Clinics Research Institutions Other Market size split by Region: North America: United States, Canada, Mexico Asia-Pacific: China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam Europe: Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Russia Central & South America: Brazil, Rest of Central & South America Middle East & Africa: GCC Countries, Turkey, Egypt, South Africa Some Points from Table of Contents: Chapter One: Study Coverage 1.1 Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Product 1.2 Market Segments 1.3 Key Manufacturers Covered 1.4 Market by Type 1.4.1 Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Market Size Growth Rate by Product 1.4.2 Deep Learning 1.4.3 Querying Method 1.4.4 Natural Language Processing 1.4.5 Context Aware Processing 1.4.6 Other 1.5 Market by End User 1.5.1 Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Market Size Growth Rate by End User 1.5.2 Hospitals 1.5.3 Clinics 1.5.4 Research Institutions 1.5.5 Other 1.6 Study Objectives 1.7 Years Considered Chapter Two: Executive Summary 2.1 Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Market Size 2.1.1 Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Revenue 2013-2025 2.1.2 Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Sales 2013-2025 2.2 Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Growth Rate by Regions 2.2.1 Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Sales by Regions 2.2.2 Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Revenue by Regions Chapter Three: Breakdown Data by Manufacturers 3.1 Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Sales by Manufacturers 3.1.1 Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Sales by Manufacturers 3.1.2 Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Sales Market Share by Manufacturers 3.1.3 Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Market Concentration Ratio (CR Chapter Five: and HI) 3.2 Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Revenue by Manufacturers 3.2.1 Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Revenue by Manufacturers (2013-2018) 3.2.2 Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Revenue Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018) 3.3 Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Price by Manufacturers 3.4 Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Manufacturing Base Distribution, Product Types 3.4.1 Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Manufacturers Manufacturing Base Distribution, Headquarters 3.4.2 Manufacturers Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Product Type 3.4.3 Date of International Manufacturers Enter into Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare Market 3.5 Manufacturers Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion Plans Enquiry before buying report @ http://www.orbisresearch.com/contacts/enquiry-before-buying/2318372 The study objectives of this report are: To study and analyze the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare market size (value & volume) by company, key regions, products and end user, breakdown data from 2013 to 2017, and forecast to 2025. To understand the structure of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare market by identifying its various sub-segments. To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks). Focuses on the key global Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare companies, to define, describe and analyze the sales volume, value, market share, market competition landscape and recent development. To project the value and sales volume of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare sub-markets, with respect to key regions. To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market. About Us: Orbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customized reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients. Contact Us: Hector Costello Senior Manager Client Engagements 4144N Central Expressway, Suite 600, Dallas, Texas 75204, U.S.A. Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019 by Sara Guaglione , October 30, 2018 Language learning app Babbel says its recently launched magazine is the No. 1 source of leads, or prospective customers, to the Babbel program. Babbel claims to be the top-grossing language app, with over 1 million active paying subscribers. The magazine inspires readers to learn a language and sign up to pay to use the program, Babbels U.S. CEO Julie Hansen told Publishers Daily. Babbel magazine wants to connect with language-learners through editorial content on interesting topics, like food and culture, and practical ways to better learn a language. Recent articles include: The Grim Reaper And Friends: How 5 Different Cultures Imagine Death and Bilingual Jobs: How Mental Health Interpreters Make Tough Talks Easier. advertisement advertisement Some of the most popular articles address how to say simple phrases, such as: Hello, Where is the bathroom? and I love you in 10 different languages. The idea is the content will draw visitors to the site and inspire them to pay to learn a new language through the Babbel app, which costs from $6.95 to $12.95 a month. An article on a trip to Spain, for example, may link readers to Babbel lessons on Spanish phrases to use at a hotel. Or it could simply display a link for readers to try out Babbel. We want the magazine to guide users through and to content, Hansen said. She was previously COO, Business Insider and held executive roles at Conde Nast and Time Inc. Babbel publishes about 10 stories a week for the magazine. The digital magazine has a team of five writers, two video producers and a social media editor behind it. The Babbel magazine has over 1,000 articles in English. It also publishes content in seven other languages. Babbel teaches 14 languages in total: English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish, Dutch, Polish, Indonesian, Norwegian, Danish and Russian. The Babbel program focuses on immersion in a new language through real-life situational dialogue, using speaking, listening reading and writing lessons. Babbel also publishes word books to help users practice on paper. The program uses language pairs to facilitate learning a language. If an English speaker is learning German, for example, it will use the similarities between the languages to help the user get a grasp on the language they are learning. It is all about building on what you already know from your native language, Hansen said. Babbel content gets syndicated on Business Insider, Mic and the Matador Network. Most of Babbel's content is aimed at an American audience, and the majority of its readership comes from the U.S. Two-thirds of the magazines visitors are millennials. Babbel was founded in 2007 in Germany by CEO Markus Witte. It came to the U.S. in 2015. A key goal behind the magazine is to market the brand more broadly in the U.S. Babbel plans to soon introduce crosswords (The German word for?) and a podcast, Hansen said. It is available on mobile and desktop. Chart source: Trustpilot It may be hard to believe, but mostly, consumers write bad reviews online to be helpful, according to a new study from Trustpilot, an online review platform that publishes consumer comments goods and services. Trustpilot surveyed over 1,000 consumers in the North America and Europe, and discovered that 54% of women and 44% of men say they leave little bombshells to help others make better buying decisions. And 44% of women and 32% of men say they do it to help the company improve a product/service/policy. More than half in North America and Europe said warning the online community about a bad product/service/policy was reason enough to sound off. advertisement advertisement Among other reasons, only 19% of women and 25% of men say they complain to get back at a company that has somehow disappointed them. But it should be noted that in Europe, the tendency for revenge does seem more pronounced. In North America, only 16% say they may post their comments in spite, but 31% or European respondents say they sometimes do. (Respondents could give more than one response to questions, so sometimes the percentages far exceed 100%.) Trustpilot has been a repository for consumer comments in Europe since 2007, says Zach Pardes, the head of communications for the company, which expanded to the U.S. three years ago. In Europe, Pardes says, were pretty much a household name. It has published 50 million reviews a number thats growing by 1.4 million a month and the service gets 400 million Google impressions monthly. Trustpilot is now aggressively trying to make its mark in the crowded North American market. That mark, to be sure, has a pretty specific shape. Consumers like stars, Pardes says. Merchants all like four- or five star reviews. They all fear the opposite, which is why many businesses, big and small, are leery of consumer reviews. We think one of the best benefits reviews can bring to a company are the SEO benefits. Because Trustpilot is a Google Review partner, companies using Trustpilot can rely on our reviews to improve their paid and organic search performance, says Matt Malanga, senior vice president of marketing. After a certain number of positive Trustpilot reviews, a business can use those Trustpilot stars in Google AdWords listings. Trustpilot says seeing stars increases the chance a consumer will click on that listing by about 10%. To allay fears that Trustpilot is a play-to-pay operation, businesses can be included on Trustpilot without paying a dime, with the ability to see and respond to reviews. But for a fee, Trustpilot helps its member businesses prepare email solicitations to consumers to post reviews, gives tips on how to showcase the Trustpilot TrustScore and gives those businesses the right to post their star ratings on their own websites and in other material. Pardes, who shuttles between the Copenhagen headquarters and the Trustpilot office in New York, says that generally speaking, a close-knit European sense of community affects how reviewers deal with companies that get rated. But he says that spirit seems to be bending these days. By and large though, people who post reviews seem more altruistic than the common perception might suggest. For example, among North American consumers, 66% say they post positive reviews to reward the goods provider/service. In Europe only 43% say thats one of their goals. This survey points to another consumer attitude worth noting: How eagerly consumers want a response to their criticism. Eighty-eight percent of respondents said the very best way to respond to a negative review is to fix the problem and then tell them what was done. But 61% said that just getting a response to their complaint would be reward enough. Still, on the flip side, 25% of people who get an inadequate response say they will take action to get a refund; 33% say they will edit their review to note the lack of a proper response; and 69% say they wont shop at the poorly responding retailer anymore. by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, October 31, 2018 Three Senate Democrats are calling on the Federal Communications Commission's inspector general to investigate the way the agency handled fake net neutrality comments, including ones submitted by Russian operatives. Despite concerns that the rule-making process was subverted by fraudulent comments and manipulated by special interests, including possible Russian interference, the FCC has seemingly ignored the issue, failed to provide answers to Congress, and dismissed public concerns, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), said this week in a letter to FCC Inspector General David Hunt. The Commission's apparent disinterest in investigating fraudulent comments risks undermining public trust in the FCC's rule-making process. advertisement advertisement The request stems from the FCC's decision to repeal the Obama-era net neutrality rules, which prohibited broadband providers from blocking or throttling traffic and from charging higher fees for fast-lane service. In April 2017, Chairman Ajit Pai, a vocal critic of the rules, officially proposed revoking them. The proposal drew a record-breaking 22 million comments, but many of those were submitted under phony names, or by Russian bots. The precise number of fake comments isn't known, but New York Acting Attorney General Barbara Underwood recently said up to 9.53 million comments may have been submitted under stolen identities. In addition, around 450,000 came from Russian email addresses. Underwood has subpoenaed more than 12 organizations, including groups funded by the broadband industry (which opposed the net neutrality rules), as well as advocacy groups that supported net neutrality. Former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman launched a probe of the fake comments late last year, but the FCC refused to cooperate. The New York Times Co. recently sued the FCC for more information about possible Russian meddling in the proceeding. Most of the 22 million comments used canned language that had been posted online, or offered by organizations such as pro-neutrality advocacy groups Fight for the Future, Demand Progress and Free Press, and the anti-regulatory group Taxpayers Protection Alliance, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. Nearly all of the unique comments were in favor of keeping the net neutrality rules, according to a recent Stanford University report. The lawmakers are asking Hunt to investigate a number of questions, including when the FCC first learned of the phony comments and what steps it took to respond. Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel tweeted her support for an investigation. Millions of comments filed in the @FCC #NetNeutrality record were fraudulent -- featuring stolen identities and Russian e-mail addresses, she posted. What happened? Who is responsible? What is the @FCC hiding? It's time -- past time -- to investigate. Many people use baby powder to absorb moisture and cut down on friction. This can help prevent rashes and skin irritation from chafing. Some, but not all, baby powders are talcum powder, made with talc. Talc is one of the softest minerals in the world. As a powder, it can absorb oils, moisture, and odor, and reduce friction. Baby Powder is also the product name of one popular talcum powder. While talcum powder helps prevent diaper rash and infections in babies, adults use it as well. Some people use it on their genital areas, such as around their underwear to keep it dry. Talcum powder is also an ingredient of various makeup products, such as setting powder and foundation. Talc became popular as a cosmetic product when Johnson & Johnson started selling it in the late 1800s. Manufacturers have to mine for talc. The mineral naturally tends to occur near asbestos in the earth. Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral with known carcinogenic (cancer-causing) effects. Because of their proximity in the ground, many people claim that talcum powder also causes cancer. In this article, learn about these claims, as well as how to reduce any risk. The claims Share on Pinterest Some consumers believe that using baby powder causes cancer. While manufacturers should take responsibility to select talc mining sites carefully to prevent asbestos contamination, there is no federal mandate to test the contents of cosmetic products. Over 6,600 consumers have filed baby powder lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson. Most of these consumers are women who have ovarian cancer. According to their claims, they believe that their cancer developed due to using talcum powder on their genitals. These women back their claims with a variety of studies that have found that long-term use of talcum powder on female genitals may increase the risk of ovarian cancer. Another concern regards asbestos contamination. In April 2018, Johnson & Johnson and another company were found guilty of selling products contaminated with asbestos. Does baby powder cause cancer? There is no clear scientific evidence suggesting that talcum powder causes cancer. At best, there is only a weak link. The issue was first investigated in 1971 when researchers found talc particles in ovarian tumors. A later study in 1982 saw a possible connection between ovarian cancer and using talc on genitals. More recently, a 2014 study found no link between talc and ovarian cancer. However, research from 2016 found that using talc on the genitals could increase the risk of ovarian cancer by 33 percent in participants. However, the study relied on personal interviews based on participants memories, which may not be accurate. According to a 2018 review , there is a weak but statistically significant association between ovarian cancer and talcum powder used on genitals. However, given this conflicting evidence, as well as many other risk factors of ovarian cancer, such as older age, long-term hormone therapy, family history, and genetics, scientists are unable to say for sure that talcum powder causes cancer. What official health organizations say According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), talc-based powders are generally not carcinogenic. However, there is a small risk that talcum powder may be carcinogenic for humans when used on genitals. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) repeatedly inhaling talc might harm the lungs. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not have a stand on the issue due to the ongoing scientific debate. The European Union, however, has banned talc in beauty and health products, so people cannot purchase it in certain European countries. Reducing the risk Share on Pinterest Cornstarch powders are an alternative to talcum. While talcum powder remains popular, there are no medical reasons to use it. The choice is up to the individual whether they wish to use talcum powder or not. According to some reports, talcum powder may cause respiratory problems in babies if inhaled. Alternatives to talc-based baby powders include: cornstarch powders arrowroot starch powders tapioca starch powders oat flour baking soda zinc-based diaper rash creams for infants and toddlers As we stepped off the train, the ice-cold wind hit our faces. There the Medical News Today editorial team stood, wrapped up in hats, gloves, and scarves, with maps in hand and ready to take on the challenge that lay ahead. Share on Pinterest The MNT editorial team wrapped up warm for the chilly charity hike. The challenge was a sponsored 8-kilometer hike across the South Downs, one of the most scenic parts of the United Kingdom. Featuring chalk hills and Saxon burial mounds, it was the perfect setting for a Halloween hike. Though there was a biting chill in the air, the walk was enjoyable, made extra special by the cows and horses we passed en route. Most importantly, we raised more than $950 for Children in Need, a charity that funds more than 2,400 projects to help disadvantaged children and young adults across the U.K. That feeling as we reached the end of our hike was second to none; the feeling that what we had achieved would really help people. Its the same proud feeling we get with every piece of content we produce. So, which of our articles have you been enjoying most this month? It seems youre brushing the Halloween candy to one side in favor of a healthier lifestyle; our article on the most healthful vegetables proved popular in October, as did our article on how to lose belly fat. You were also interested to learn about the causes of swollen feet, as well as whether its possible to take too much magnesium. Within our news content, our article on a study that uncovered a new role for fat in the development of diabetes piqued your curiosity, and you were intrigued by a study that linked an apple compound with delayed aging. What a great excuse to get apple bobbing! Share on Pinterest It really was the perfect Halloween hike. In our quest to bring you the latest news in medical research, MNT attended the London Microbiome Meeting last week. There, some of the top researchers in the U.K. presented the results of their work, which primarily investigated how the abundance of microorganisms throughout the human body impacts our health. Our Assistant News Editor summarizes one of the many interesting topics covered in this meeting in her article about how gut bacteria could help promote healthy aging. Well be reporting on more great research from this conference shortly. Our aim is to bring you, our readers, the most accurate, informative, and actionable health content, and judging by your comments on our Facebook page you like what were doing. Awesome info. Very interesting! said one reader. I read an excellent article on Mediterranean anemia [thalassemia], and it explains a lot things I didnt know, commented another. However, our work is never done. Were always looking for ways to improve our content, and your feedback is crucial in this process. Do you have some ideas youd like to share? Please get in touch! You can also keep up to date with the latest medical research by following us on Twitter. Ill be back next month with the latest updates on whats happening at MNT. From all of the team, we wish you a happy and healthful Halloween! Honor Whiteman, Managing Editor Fertility drugs can treat many issues, increasing the chances of conceiving and carrying the baby to term. These drugs treat specific problems, so a person should take them only at a doctors recommendation. Taking fertility drugs without a diagnosis will not necessarily increase the chances of getting pregnant. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States, 12 percent of women ages 1544 in the country have trouble getting pregnant. Infertility can result from problems in males and females. Most doctors recommend seeking treatment if a woman cannot get pregnant or continues to have miscarriages after trying to conceive for 12 months or longer. For women over 35, many doctors recommend seeking treatment after 6 months of trying to conceive. Women who do not have regular periods and women with medical conditions that could affect pregnancy should talk to a doctor before trying to get pregnant. Types of fertility drugs for women Some fertility drugs try to prompt ovulation in a woman who is not ovulating regularly. Others are hormones a woman must take before artificial insemination. Drugs to cause ovulation Share on Pinterest Some fertility drugs can treat ovulation issues. Some women ovulate irregularly or not at all. About 1 in 4 women with infertility have issues with ovulation. Drugs that can treat ovulation issues include: Metformin (Glucophage) : This can decrease insulin resistance. Women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), especially those with a body mass index over 35, may be insulin resistant, which can cause problems with ovulation. : This can decrease insulin resistance. Women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), especially those with a body mass index over 35, may be insulin resistant, which can cause problems with ovulation. Dopamine agonists : These drugs reduce levels of a hormone called prolactin. In some women, having too much prolactin causes ovulation issues. : These drugs reduce levels of a hormone called prolactin. In some women, having too much prolactin causes ovulation issues. Clomiphene (Clomid) : This drug can trigger ovulation. Many doctors recommend it as the first treatment option for a woman with ovulation problems. : This drug can trigger ovulation. Many doctors recommend it as the first treatment option for a woman with ovulation problems. Letrozole (Femara) : Like clomiphene, letrozole can trigger ovulation. Among women with PCOS, especially those with obesity, letrozole may work better. A 2014 study found that 27.5 percent of women with PCOS who took letrozole eventually gave birth, compared to 19.1 percent of those who took clomiphene. : Like clomiphene, letrozole can trigger ovulation. Among women with PCOS, especially those with obesity, letrozole may work better. A found that 27.5 percent of women with PCOS who took letrozole eventually gave birth, compared to 19.1 percent of those who took clomiphene. Gonadotropins: This group of hormones stimulates activity in the ovaries, including ovulation. When other treatments do not work, a doctor may recommend using a follicle-stimulating hormone and a luteinizing hormone in the group. People receive this treatment as an injection or nasal spray. In about 10 percent of infertility cases, a doctor cannot find a cause. The medical term for this is unexplained infertility. Drugs that aim to stimulate ovulation may help in cases of unexplained infertility. These drugs can enable a woman to optimize the chances of conceiving by timing intercourse. They can also reduce the effects of unidentified ovulation issues. Hormones before artificial insemination Drugs cannot treat some causes of infertility. When this occurs, or when a doctor cannot identify the cause of infertility, they may recommend artificial insemination. Intrauterine insemination (IUI) involves inserting sperm directly into the uterus around the time of ovulation. It may improve the chances of conceiving when there is an issue with the cervical mucus or the mobility of the sperm, or when the doctor cannot detect the cause of infertility. A doctor may recommend taking the following before IUI: Ovulation drugs : Clomiphene or letrozole, for example, can induce the body to ovulate and, possibly, to release extra eggs. : Clomiphene or letrozole, for example, can induce the body to ovulate and, possibly, to release extra eggs. Ovulation trigger : Because timing the moment of ovulation is essential, many doctors recommend an ovulation trigger shot of the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). : Because timing the moment of ovulation is essential, many doctors recommend an ovulation trigger shot of the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). Progesterone: This hormone can help sustain early pregnancy, and a woman usually takes it via a vaginal suppository. In vitro fertilization (IVF) involves removing one or more eggs so that a doctor can fertilize them with sperm in a petri dish. If the eggs grow into embryos, the doctor implants them into the uterus. IVF requires several drugs, including: Ovulation suppression : If a woman ovulates too early, IVF may not work. Many doctors prescribe gonadotropin antagonist hormones to prevent early ovulation. : If a woman ovulates too early, IVF may not work. Many doctors prescribe gonadotropin antagonist hormones to prevent early ovulation. Ovulation drugs : IVF is more likely to succeed, like IUI, if the ovaries to release several eggs. A doctor will prescribe clomiphene or letrozole to cause this. : IVF is more likely to succeed, like IUI, if the ovaries to release several eggs. A doctor will prescribe clomiphene or letrozole to cause this. Ovulation trigger shot : IVF also has a better chance of success if the doctor can control the moment of ovulation using a trigger shot with the hormone hCG. : IVF also has a better chance of success if the doctor can control the moment of ovulation using a trigger shot with the hormone hCG. Progesterone: A woman receiving IVF will take progesterone to help support early pregnancy. When treating infertility, a doctor may recommend taking hormonal birth control temporarily to help regulate the menstrual cycle. It can also help prepare the body for artificial insemination. What to expect Share on Pinterest A doctor may recommend IVF if the diagnosed condition does not respond to medication. Before recommending fertility drugs, the doctor must diagnose the issue, using blood work, imaging tests of the uterus and fallopian tubes, and ovulation tests. They may also ask a woman to chart her menstrual cycles and take her basal body temperature each morning. If the diagnosis is not a condition that will respond to medication, the doctor may recommend IUI or IVF. A woman may need to wait a few months before beginning treatment because it is essential to take fertility drugs on specific days of the cycle. If the first treatment does not work, a doctor may recommend more testing, another treatment cycle, or a different treatment. Side effects Many women experience side effects of fertility drugs, especially those that contain hormones. The most common side effects include: mood changes, including mood swings, anxiety, and depression temporary physical side effects, including nausea, vomiting, headaches, cramps, and breast tenderness ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome multiple births increased risk of pregnancy loss Some research suggests that certain fertility drugs increase the risk of ovarian and endometrial cancers, among others. Considerations Most health insurance policies in the U.S. do not cover infertility treatment. However, if infertility results from a serious medical issue, such as an infection or PCOS, insurance may cover some of the treatment. For many women, the cost is a significant factor. Deciding on the right treatment may mean weighing potential costs and benefits. Some questions to ask a doctor include: What is the success rate for this treatment among people with my diagnosis? What is the average length of treatment before a successful pregnancy? How much does this treatment cost? Is there a less expensive treatment? What are my odds of getting pregnant if I do not use fertility drugs? Is there anything else I can do to increase my chances of pregnancy? If a woman is trying to get pregnant with a male partner, he should also receive fertility testing. In some instances, both the woman and man have fertility issues, and treating only the woman may not be sufficient. Drugs cannot treat all causes of infertility. For instance, blocked fallopian tubes are a common cause, and a procedure called hysteroscopy can often treat the condition. If you want some thrills this Halloween, you should try tricking yourself for a change. In this Spotlight, we look at some spooky experiments thatll trick the brain and ask intriguing questions about consciousness and perception. Share on Pinterest Treat yourself to some scientific spooks this Halloween. In Act One, Scene Five of William Shakespeares play Hamlet, the main character, after meeting his fathers ghost, remarks to his best friend, There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Hamlet is referring to the world being filled with spooky mysteries that we may have a hard time even imagining. Perhaps one of the most mysterious things on earth is, in fact, the human brain. How does our consciousness work? Can we rely on our senses, or do they and the brain often trick us? In this Spotlight, we look at a series of spooky experiments that shed some light on how our brains work, and which might make you question your own senses. So, if you are in the mood to test the limits of your perception this Halloween, why not try to trick your own brain by replicating one of the experiments below? 1. The ghost in the mirror One legend that used to be popular among schoolchildren has it that if you look into a mirror by the light of a candle and recite Bloody Mary three times, a womans specter will appear in the glass. In the past, young women supposedly performed other, similar rituals in the hope that theyd catch a glimpse of their future husbands in the dimly lit surface of the mirror. It turns out that while peering into a mirror in a dimly lit room will bring about no supernatural events, it will likely reveal to the viewer one or several strange faces sometimes with a fearsome, and at other times a benevolent, expression. How so? Share on Pinterest What will you see if you peer at your own reflection in a mirror placed in a dimly lit room? This is what Giovanni Caputo, in the Department of Psychology at the University of Urbino in Italy, set out to answer. He reported his findings in a paper published in the journal Perception in 2010. In his study, Caputo recreated a visual illusion that occurs when a person stares at their own face in the mirror in a room with poor lighting. The researcher used a relatively large mirror of 0.5 x 0.5 meters, which he placed in a room lit by a 25-Watt incandescent light, although he notes that to recreate this experiment, the exact same conditions are not necessary. Each volunteer sat 0.4 meters away from the mirror, and they had about 10 minutes to peer into it; though the illusion, Caputo says, usually manifested within about 1 minute. At the end of the session, the participants wrote down what they had seen in the mirror, and their descriptions varied greatly. Out of a total of 50 participants: 66 percent reported seeing huge deformations of their own faces 18 percent saw a parents face with traits changed, with 10 percent of these seeing the faces of deceased parents, and 8 percent those of parents who were still alive 28 percent saw an unknown person another 28 percent reported seeing an archetypal face, such as that of an old woman, a child, or a portrait of an ancestor 18 percent saw the face of an animal 48 percent saw fantastical and monstrous beings The Troxler effect or spectral apparitions? First and foremost, this visual illusion seems to appear due to the fact that the eyes are forced to fixate on a single point. In this respect, the faces in the mirror illusion could be compared to an optical illusion called Troxlers fading or the Troxler effect. Share on Pinterest If you stare at the red dot in the center for long enough, the blue circle will soon start to fade away. Image credit: Mysid, Wikimedia Commons This phenomenon which Ignaz Paul Vital Troxler discovered in 1804 occurs when someone stares fixedly at a single point. When it starts to happen, anything surrounding that point, particularly splashes of color, will begin to fade away. As a result, it might seem as though we have temporarily lost our ability to perceive colors. This likely happens as a result of neural adaptation , in which our nerve cells ignore stimuli that are not essential to perceiving the object of our focus. Therefore, we end up seeing the one thing that we are fixing our gazes on and little or nothing else. This, however, is not the case with the faces in the mirror illusion, Caputo says. [This] explanation, he writes, would predict that face traits should fade away and eventually disappear, whereas the apparitions in the mirror consist of new faces having new traits. Instead, what may happen is that by staring continually at our own faces, the stimuli initially stop connecting in a meaningful way, so that we are unable to string together the facial traits we perceive. This may result in a spontaneous reassembly of these traits, so it may seem to us that our faces have become deformed or uncanny. However, this fails to explain all, Caputo suggests. [The] frequent apparition of fantastical and monstrous beings, he writes, and of animal faces cannot [] be explained by any actual theory of face processing. The other that we project So, what happens? It seems likely that once our vision is disrupted, our brains start projecting fears or desires onto the distorted traits in the mirror, giving them new identities and purposes. Caputo inferred this when analyzing the participants emotional responses to their individual mirror apparitions. Depending on what they thought they saw, the volunteers often felt either scared or happy. Some participants saw a malign expression on the other face and became anxious. Other participants felt that the other was smiling or cheerful, and experienced positive emotions in response. The apparition of deceased parents or of archetypal portraits produced feelings of silent query. Giovanni Caputo According to him, the apparition of strange faces in the mirror, to which we then respond in such a strong emotional way, is probably due to the fact that the complex process of self-identity construction which we go through each time we see our reflections is disrupted. This, he thinks, may cause a potential breakdown of self-identity that we experience as a spooky dissociation. 2. Is that your hand? There is little that we are as certain of as the fact that we own every inch of our bodies. Wellthis is true for most of us, at least. Share on Pinterest The rubber hand illusion can make you think that an artificial hand has replaced your real one. Following serious health events such as brain lesions, a person may experience something called somatoparaphrenia. This is a sense of dissociation from a part of or even the entire body. In other words, a person will believe that a limb, some other body part, or their entire body does not belong to them. These may seem like extreme cases, but some simple experiments have shown that pretty much all of us can be tricked into dissociating from our bodies, or claiming artificial body parts or even ghost limbs as our own. The most famous experiment conducted in this sense is that of the rubber hand. In this experiment, a dark screen shields one of the participants arms from their sight. Instead, the researchers place a rubber arm in front of the participant. Then, they repeatedly tickle both the rubber hand and the participants hidden real hand at the same time. At this point, the volunteer has surprisingly taken ownership of the rubber arm and seems to react as though their own real hand has been tickled. In the video below, put together by National Geographic, you can see a variation of the rubber hand illusion experiment: Movement and the sense of self In a study focused on the rubber hand illusion, a team of researchers from the University of Milan, the University of Milan Medical School, and the University of Turin all in Italy wanted to see what happens in the brain when a person experiences this strange illusion. The investigators found that body ownership and the motor system are mutually interactive and both contribute to the dynamic construction of bodily self-awareness in healthy and pathological brains. In other words, MRI scans showed that when participants began to believe that the rubber hand was their own, the brain networks that coordinated movement in the real hand began to slow down. The present findings, they explain, which shed new light on our understanding of the different aspects that contribute to the formation of a coherent self-awareness, suggest that bodily self-consciousness strictly depends on the possibility of movement. In this article, we look at the most harmful types of tobacco and how to quit smoking. Even if nicotine does increase the risk of cancer, the risks of developing cancer through the use of nicotine-only products are much lower than the risks from smoking. For this reason, people often use nicotine-only products, such as e-cigarettes , as a way to quit smoking . However, although most experts agree that nicotine does not directly cause cancer, some research suggests that nicotine may lead to a type of DNA damage that increases the risk of cancer. Most research points to cigarette smoke, not nicotine, as being the primary contributor to cancer among smokers. Nicotine is the primary substance in cigarettes that causes addiction, but most experts agree that it does not directly cause cancer. The safety and long-term health effects of using e-cigarettes or other vaping products still arent well known. In September 2019, federal and state health authorities began investigating an outbreak of a severe lung disease associated with e-cigarettes and other vaping products . Were closely monitoring the situation and will update our content as soon as more information is available. Nicotine is addictive and is the primary reason most people smoke. However, almost every other nicotine-based product is safer than smoking. No nicotine replacement product is completely safe for all people, but some of the less harmful alternatives include: Nicotine replacement therapy Share on Pinterest A person with a heart condition should speak to a doctor before undergoing NRT. Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) refers to a group of treatments designed to help smokers quit. NRT is available in several forms, each of which delivers nicotine without smoke, tobacco, or other chemicals that cause cancer: The following types of NRT are available over the counter: a patch, which delivers nicotine through the skin chewing gum, which allows a user to chew and swallow nicotine a lozenge, which slowly dissolves and releases nicotine into the mouth Two additional forms of NRT are available with a prescription: an inhaler, which allows users to take in nicotine in a similar way to inhaling it from a cigarette a nasal spray, which delivers nicotine through the nose NRT poses some risks. In addition to nicotines potential link to cancer, it is also a stimulant. This may make it unsuitable for some people with heart disease or certain heart disease risk factors to use. However, most people who have a heart condition can use NRT. A small group of people should not use NRT, including those with severe arrhythmia, severe angina, or people who have recently had a heart attack. People should talk to their doctor for individual advice if they are in any doubt about using NRT. Some people also use NRT as a means of consuming nicotine regularly, instead of for cutting down or quitting, and the long-term effects of NRT are not clear. A 2010 study in the American Journal of Public Health concludes that the benefits of NRT far outweigh the risks. Researchers specifically state that increasing NRT use could save 40,000 lives per year by preventing heart disease and lung cancer. Electronic cigarettes Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, sometimes called vaporizers or vapes, all work by vaporizing nicotine. The amount of nicotine in each electronic cigarette varies. Some allow users to decide the amount of nicotine they use. Researchers have carried out dozens of safety studies on e-cigarettes in recent years, often producing conflicting results. A 2013 study found that amounts of nicotine vary with these products and that some may provide dangerously high, or even fatal, levels of nicotine. Other research, including another 2013 study comparing several e-cigarette brands, found that they may contain toxic chemicals. When e-cigarettes do contain these chemicals, they are generally fewer in number and quantity than in traditional cigarettes. A 2014 systematic review in the journal Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety argues that smokers who switch to vaping might experience fewer health problems. E-cigarettes only serve a health benefit as a tool to reduce harm in those who are looking to quit smoking traditional cigarettes. However, they will only damage the health of people who do not smoke, so they are not a safe alternative to cigarettes for non-smokers. Both would expose an individual to harmful chemicals. Smokeless tobacco A person would chew a smokeless tobaccos are chewed or place it in the nose. They contain nicotine and a range of other known carcinogens. According to the American Cancer Society, smokeless tobaccos are safer than cigarettes but still have links to cancer. Some types of smokeless tobacco include: Snus or Swedish tobacco Share on Pinterest Researchers have linked chewing tobacco with an increased risk of cancer. Snus, sometimes called Swedish tobacco, is a moist powder form of tobacco. The user can suck on or chew the tobacco. Unlike chewing tobacco, people swallow it instead of spitting it out. According to the American Cancer Society, Snus may contain less nicotine than other types of moist tobacco types. However, as a form of tobacco, it contains a variety of chemicals that may be carcinogenic . A World Health Organization (WHO) analysis of previous research argues that snus is unlikely to cause oral or gastric cancer. As a result of this research, the WHO suggest that snus may be an important method of harm reduction. However, not all research supports this claim. A 2013 case study reported on snus users in Iran who presented with oral cancer. The authors of that study argue that snus and other forms of smokeless tobacco significantly increase the risk of oral cancer. However, this risk appears to vary by region. Overall the potential risks of snus are unclear. Chewing tobacco Chewing tobacco, sometimes called dip, allows a user to chew on or suck tobacco. Some people hold it between their cheeks and gum while tissues in the mouth absorb the nicotine. People then spit it out. However, the American Cancer Society note that while users consume roughly the same amount of nicotine as people who smoke cigarettes, they also take in lots of dangerous chemicals . The Society state that there are strong correlations between chewing tobacco and the development of oral cancer, pancreatic cancer, and esophageal cancer, as well as gum disease and other mouth health problems. As India gets ready to show off its very own Iron Man, the 182-metres tall statue of eminent Indian freedom fighter Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is being hailed as an engineering marvel. Located near the Narmada dam in Gujarat, it now holds the title of the tallest statue in the world. Also known as the Statue of Unity, the monument is double the height of The Statue of Liberty in New York. Not just that, the construction of the monument was completed in a record time of just thirty three months. The monument has been built by Larsen & Toubro Ltd, and the government had to shell out a whopping sum of 3000 crore rupees for its construction! Twitter Now, while the monument also rightly boasts of a three-star hotel, museum and audio visual gallery within its premises itself, it nonetheless makes us wonder if the hefty amount could have been utilised for better, and more urgent matters. While Modi Ji decided to turn the crores into an iron statue, we asked 7 men to share how they would have liked to utilise the amount given a chance. Well that was a mixed bag of responses, but we do agree with a few things some of these guys mentioned. With only 7.0 physicians and 17.1 nurses every 10,000 patients, India is in dire need of better healthcare facilities, especially in rural and semi rural areas. Investing and promoting low-cost education institutions could have been another way of putting the funds to better use. Waste and infrastructure management needs to be looked into at the earliest. Gurgaon, Mumbai Assam's repeated struggles with annual floods, could have been treated too, to some extent. These are just some areas we have pointed out, but we're sure you can think of many more. So, we'd like to ask you about how you'd spend the 3000 crores, given a chance. Base metal prices on the London Metal Exchange were mostly lower at the close of trading on Tuesday October 30, with broad strength in the US dollar index prompting sharp drops in the three-month copper and zinc contract prices while aluminium drifted to levels not seen since August 2017. Read more in our live futures report Here are how prices looked at the close of trading:Competition regulators in the European Union have opened an in-depth investigation into the 50:50 European flat steel joint venture between ThyssenKrupp and Tata Steel Europe, the European Commission said on October 30.London Metal Exchange members will be permitted to clear via London even if no Brexit deal is reached, although it remains unclear whether this reprieve would also apply in the event of Brexit being agreed with a deal on March 29, 2019.Strategic & Precious Metals Processing (SPMP) has delayed the production of antimony metal at its antimony-gold project in Oman , SPMPs parent company, Tri-Star Resources, said on Tuesday. Turkey's domestic scrap prices have increased over the past week due to tight supply and increasing costs for imported scrap, sources said on October 30.Eastern Chinas hot-rolled coil prices continued to fall on Tuesday due to low demand, with buyers putting off restocking plans on expectations that the market would weaken further.With discounts for lower-grade and high-impurity iron ore indicating a structural change in the market, Australias Flinders Mines is looking to improve the grade of the steelmaking raw material that it hopes to develop at its flagship project in the Pilbara region in the north of Western Australia. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Markos Bolaris, met today with His Eminence Metropolitan of Arcadia, Mr Basileos, from the Greek Orthodox Primatial Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East. During the meeting, which took place in a very warm and cordial atmosphere, His Eminence referred in detail to the problems and challenges faced by the Greek Orthodox of his province, which stretches from Lebanon to Syria, the deep and long-lasting love they have for Greece, and the possibilities of cooperation which can flourish on the basis of the local Church. Mr Bolaris, for his part, stressed that the Orthodox Christians in the Eastern Mediterranean are a key part of the united tradition of Romiosini, which unceasingly creates culture and values of a universal character. He pointed out the need to further cultivate religious and cultural ties with the Greek centre, in particular around the development of the Greek language, the cooperation of theological schools and the exchange of students through scholarship programs. Finally, he referred to the Greek government's willingness to help by every means the populations affected by the ongoing civil war so that they can remain in their ancestral homes. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Markos Bolaris, received, today, the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Greece, Mr Maslov. The latter referred to the successful initiatives between Greece and Russia in recent years to further their cooperation in the fields of culture and tourism, as exemplified by the Greece-Russia Common Commemorative Year (2016) which culminated with the visit of Russian President Putin to our country, and the current year of tourism, which coincides with the 190th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. On the occasion of a recent proposal by the President of the Greek Parliament, Mr Voutsis, during a conference of the Hellenic Parliament on the Greek-Russian year of tourism, the Russian Ambassador proposed, in view of the planned visit of the Greek Prime Minister, Mr Tsipras, to his country, to consider the possibility of carrying out a new initiative to strengthen the cooperation of the two countries in another sector, such as culture or education. The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, responded positively to Mr Maslovs proposal, and assured him that he will explore, with the co-competent directorates of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, appropriate themes for the launching of a joint and new initiative with Russia, that would be immediately implementable in cooperation with any co-competent Ministries, and inform the Prime Minister accordingly. Regarding current events in international ecclesiastical affairs, the Russian Ambassador handed to the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Russian Patriarchates announcement concerning the latest developments on the question of the Autocephaly of the Orthodox Christian Church in Ukraine, seeking the understanding of the Greek government for the concern of the Russian side about the dangerous consequences in Ukraine. JOURNALIST: Our first guest, Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs for European Issues, Mr. Giorgos Katrougalos. Good morning, Mr. Katrougalos. G. KATROUGALOS: Good morning to you and to your audience. JOURNALIST: I would like your comment on the tragic incident in Bularat. G. KATROUGALOS: As you know, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from the very first moment, proceeded with the announcement that presented the issue in its true dimensions. For us at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for Greek society, priority is placed on clarifying the conditions under which this tragic incident occurred, the protection of the rights of Greek nationals in the neighbouring country, and of course for relations between the countries not to deteriorate. The latter though, not to the detriment of the first two, but simply through refraining from rhetoric that can lead to the deterioration of those relations, always on the condition of reciprocity. This is clearly applicable for both countries, for the officials of both countries. JOURNALIST: And to refrain from drawing hasty conclusions, such as the first statement regarding an extremist. G. KATROUGALOS: One must generally refrain from making premature statements because we cannot seek clarification of the events and at the same time rush to conclusions. You know, there is mobilisation on all sides. Judicial assistance has been requested. The heads of the Police on both sides are in contact with each other. Everything humanly possible is being done for us to truly elucidate what happened. JOURNALIST: I would like to turn now to the EU-Arab Summit; it is continuing for the second day today. This is a significant initiative, given the situation in the wider region of the Middle East. I would like for you to tell me if all these Summits have led to tangible results. In other words, is it only wishful thinking, or can we find, through these Summits, avenues of cooperation that are productive and beneficial to the peoples in the region. G. KATROUGALOS: This is the third time that this Summit is being held and, each time, participation is even greater. More than 800 attendees this time, more than 30 countries were represented at the highest level, Prime Ministers, Deputy Prime Ministers, or Ministers. This shows, first of all, the success of this multilateral initiative. Now, as to the results of such initiatives. These can be seen on two levels: The first is the creation of a positive climate, which must not be underestimated, precisely because what we aspire towards, as a country, is to strengthen our role as a pillar of stability, as a mediator to resolve conflict or to ease tensions in the region, in this manner also, as well as to promote the goals of our economic diplomacy. The second and more concrete goal is to provide the possibility for contacts to take place between the representatives of the business communities of the countries which participate, in order for the specific synergies to be promoted as well. Therefore, on both these levels, it has been proven that this World Summit of the European Union, countries of the European Union, and Arab countries, is especially successful. JOURNALIST: You spoke of creating a positive climate. Let's turn to the constitutional revision, Minister, where a calm stance is required, if maintained with regard to the issue of the constitutional revision, because the Prime Ministers letter to the parties led to a backlash. G. KATROUGALOS: Listen, from the beginning, as early as 2016, when the Prime Minister announced, at the Propylaea, the beginning of the related procedure, what were we seeking? We sought to have consent where this could be achieved because, like it or not, ideological differences exist, and the Constitution also represents seeking consent on one level, but it also represents a level of conflict where true political differences exist. JOURNALIST: Are they giving consent to the Government? Is that what constitutional revision is? G. KATROUGALOS: No. I was speaking about the political world. The Constitution, precisely because it is the foundational law of the State, depicts the development of the political system where certain issues have become overripe. One such thing, for example, is for this disgraceful practice, in our opinion at least, of granting Parliamentary immunity, immunity to Ministers, the separate roles of Church and State, but there are also issues which are focused, which are at the core of political conflict, as is for us, for example, the protection of the social state from an attack by neoliberalism. To protect water, to protect energy from privatisation, as well as to fend off those who, for example, would like for this role of the State to cease to exist, in terms of intervening to reduce great social inequalities. To begin with your first question, regarding the overall climate and consent, we sought, from the very beginning, for essential dialogue to exist. This is why we recommended and established a Dialogue Committee for the Constitution which truly, on a social level, on the level of society, conducted a series of events. Unfortunately, the parties of the opposition, as early as 2016, did not meet our request to proceed with dialogue, in order for this consent to become obvious, for the contrasts that exist to become obvious also. JOURNALIST: In other words, Minister, it isnt mature politically. The issue of the constitutional revision is temporally mature, but politically though, it isnt? G. KATROUGALOS: I dont think that it isnt mature politically speaking. The political powers of the opposition are not mature. It is immature for them not to discuss the major issue of revision of the Constitution. And one cannot say that it is not politically mature to resolve, for example, the issue of Ministerial immunity. It would seem that those who do not wish to proceed with something like this have other things on their mind. Whoever truly does not wish for the State to take advantage of its abilities to seek criminal liability where it exists, I believe they give the impression of trying to conceal such liability. And I repeat, to dodge it by not going to Parliament to discuss the revision is unprecedented in the annals of Greek politics, and more generally I would say, and it shows a lack of desire on the part of the opposition to confront essential issues. We are not just speaking about the reforms, we have made reforms which others, for decades, would not even attempt. And I am not speaking only about issues that are charged in terms of ideology, for example the fact that we abolished Sharia in Thrace, Muslim law, one can only volunteer to submit to it, if one belongs to the Muslim minority, to Muslim law, I am talking about the Cadastral Offices, I am talking about forest maps. Now that the time came to speak also about the political reform which gives our political system its very nature, one cannot say, I shall not participate. Whoever fails to participate essentially refuses to have a place in political life. JOURNALIST: Minister, the Government is taking a series of measures to relieve the groups most affected during the period of the financial crisis. Nonetheless, we essentially remain outside the markets, and the uncertainty in Italy creates an unsettling climate. Is it indeed the right time for a financial policy that supports the social strata more? Is there room for this? G. KATROUGALOS: Listen, we have come out on the markets three times, and now we shall not exit because the conditions - for exogenous factors, not for reasons that pertain to the Greek economy - are not ideal, due to the turmoil that existed in the international capital markets initially due to the depreciation of the Turkish pound, subsequently due to the turmoil in Argentina, and now with the uncertainty that exists with regard to the Italian budget. And this was completely within our predictions. And I remind you that, for this reason, we had secured this cushion of 20 billion euros which permits us, without coming out on the market, to be able to service the loan and other needs of the country. Consequently, we have come out on the market and we shall come out again, when this will be beneficial for the country. Beyond that, we cant keep from trying to continue, as we did during the entire duration of our governance, to also help those who are in need, and for the economy to strengthen its positive activity. So, we are not ready to take neither anti-growth measures nor recessional measures, as is cutting of pensions, while contrasting measures, those which help employees, such as rent subsidies, and those which help the economy more generally, such as contribution relief and generally relief of tax burdens, we are not in a position not to take them. We shall take them, in the context of the fiscal space that we have, of course. JOURNALIST: 2019 is an election year but it is also a year for European elections. There is a wave of populism and nationalism in Europe. Do you think this will become apparent also in the composition of the next European Parliament? G. KATROUGALOS: What you are saying is very true. We are headed, perhaps for the first time while faced with European elections, towards a heads on clash which concentrates on those who desire an open Europe and the protection of the social state on the one hand and, on the other, those who want to return to a closed nationalist past which never existed, to a Europe that is a fortress, in conjunction with a view that wishes for us to abandon the European social model and to go with neoliberal solutions. This clash is not limited only to a European level, it horizontally cuts through the political classes as well, the political systems of Member States. Everywhere, we shall face the same dilemma, in other words of a progressive governance or a strange pairing of the Far Right with Neoliberalism. And precisely because this dilemma is crucial with regard to the direction that Europe will take on the whole, both on a European Union level as well as a national level, it affects us all. JOURNALIST: Minister, thank you very much for your time. Have a wonderful rest of the day. Photo: Contributed A Kelowna truck driver is concerned hateful attitudes towards religious and ethnic minorities are spreading north into Canada from the United States. Mohit Saini took this photograph of hateful graffiti spray-painted on a sign at the Pennask Summit brake check on the Okanagan Connector. He took the photo Tuesday morning, just days after the most deadly attack on Jews ever in the U.S., when a gunman opened fire at a Pittsburgh synagogue. The graffiti says "Let's expel Jews and Muslims." Saini drives to the Coast and back to Kelowna every day, and says this was the first time he noticed the graffiti. "Is the hate towards races growing in Canada, too?" he asked. "It saddens me that humanity has gotten to a state of such hatred and persecution. The promotion of hate and xenophobia from one misinformed world leader has caused such a mistrust and fear among the masses." Saini said things are getting so bad in the U.S. that some groups feel they must hide, while others feel it is their duty to eradicate what they do not understand. Photo: CTV Vancouver It's not quite a world record, but a massive pumpkin grown in a Saanich backyard still has neighbours dropping their jaws. Bryan Sloat is a veteran pumpkin grower who has been growing gigantic gourds for the last two decades, but this year's is by far the biggest. The gourd sits at 1,500 pounds and sits at four-and-a-half feet tall. Sloat says the key to dominating annual pumpkin contests is to bury the vines. "When you bury the vines underneath as the stems come down, there's a little white nodule that turns into a big root ball. Typically if you've got 500 leaves, which is conservative, you basically have 500 plants sucking at water going to the one pumpkin." Neighbours say Sloat's annual pumpkin project has become a Halloween tradition. with files from CTV Vancouver Island Photo: Wikipedia The B.C. government has introduced laws banning corporations and unions from donating to campaigns to recall members of the legislature. Attorney General David Eby says the legislation will ensure the influence of big money is removed from those in favour of and opposed to a recall. The new laws will limit individual contributions to $1,200 per year to recall members of the legislature. They will also create a spending limit of $5,000 for third-party advertisers during a recall petition period. Under the current legislation, there are no restrictions on who may contribute to recall proponents or how much they may contribute. Green Leader Andrew Weaver welcomed the legislation, saying recall campaigns should be about making politicians accountable to their constituents, not making them subject to "big money-funded hit jobs." UPPER THUMB In the wake of two suicide attempts handled by the Tuscola County Sheriff's Office last week, mental health officials want people to know there is always help available should they need it. According to Ruth Schwendinger, prevention specialist with Huron Behavioral Health, each county has a suicide prevention coalition associated with the county mental health agency that can provide support for individuals, family members, and others who may be effected by suicide. Additionally, each county has an instructor in mental health first aid. This is an eight-hour training for community members to recognize and respond appropriately to situations where people may be experiencing a mental health crisis. "Because of the national shortage of mental health workers and the delay of months to years before an individual with identified mental illness receives treatment, we must rely on the public to help fill that gap or we will continue to lose people to suicide," said Schwendinger. Schwendinger said the shortage in Huron County is estimated at one worker per 3,000 residents. With a prevalence of diagnosable mental health conditions of one in five adults and one in four adolescents, the National Council on Behavioral Health has been providing nationally-certified trainings across the US since 2001. "Shockingly, only about 60 percent of individuals who die by suicide have a mental illness, so we are not talking about the minority of our residents," Schwendinger said. "Unfortunately, working age caucasian men are at the highest risk of dying by suicide. We are talking about the majority of our residents being at risk." If you would like to get involved, Huron Behavioral Health is offering an eight-hour training for adults who interact with youth scheduled on Wednesday, Nov. 7, and one for interacting with other adults scheduled on Saturday, Dec. 8. Information about that program is available at MentalHealthFirstAid.org. With support from the Huron County Board of Commissioners, Huron Behavioral Health is able to offer the training at no cost. Other mental health resources include: Huron Behavioral Health's website at huroncmh.org and 24/7 hotline at 1-800-356-5568. Sanilac County Community Mental Health's website at sanilaccmh.org or call 1-888-225-4447. Tuscola Behavioral Health Systems' website at tbhsonline.com or call 1-800-462-6814. The Suicide Resource Prevention Center at sprc.org. Video training can be taken through texassuicideprevention.org. At healthymenmichigan.org, you can find webinars targeting specific populations. Text for help to the Crisis Text Line at 741741. Photo: The Canadian Press University of Hawaii President David Lassner, left, speaks at a news conference on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018 in Honolulu accompanied by state Board of Land and Natural Resources Chairwoman Suzanne Case, second from left, Attorney General Russell Suzuki,second from right, and Hawaii Gov. David Ige, right, regarding a Hawaii Supreme Court ruling upholding a decision to grant a permit for the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea. The state Supreme Court's 4-1 ruling is a victory for the contentious Thirty Meter Telescope planned for Hawaii's tallest mountain. After years of delay, including lengthy court battles and passionate protests from those willing to be arrested for blocking construction crews, builders of a giant telescope plan to move forward with constructing the $1.4 billion instrument on a Hawaii mountain that is considered sacred. The state Supreme Court's 4-1 ruling upholding the project's construction permit Tuesday is a victory for the contentious Thirty Meter Telescope planned for Hawaii's tallest mountain, Mauna Kea. Opponents say the telescope will desecrate sacred land on the Big Island. Supporters say it will bring educational and economic opportunities to the state. Astronomy and Native Hawaiian "uses on Mauna Kea have co-existed for many years and the TMT Project will not curtail or restrict Native Hawaiian uses," the ruling said. The advanced telescope will answer some of the most fundamental questions of the universe, and Native Hawaiians will also benefit from it, the ruling added. Associate Justice Michael Wilson dissented but didn't immediately release his opinion. Further legal action is still possible, state Attorney General Russell Suzuki said. There can be a motion for reconsideration filed within 10 days and following that, a request can be made to the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision, he said. Kealoha Pisciotta, one of the main leaders against the telescope, said she's doesn't know what their next steps will be, but she's not hopeful that more legal wrangling will help. "The court is the last bastion in democracy," she said. "The only other option is to take to the streets. If we lose the integrity of the court, then you're losing normal law and order, and the only other option is people have to rise up." Opponents and supporters have been awaiting the ruling because it was expected to help determine whether the project is built in Hawaii or moves to a backup location in Spain's Canary Islands that is less desirable to scientists hoping to use the instrument for groundbreaking discoveries. Henry Yang, chair of the TMT International Observatory Board of Governors, said in a statement they are grateful the ruling will allow the telescope to be built on Mauna Kea. Gov. David Ige, who said he is pleased with the ruling, vowed to protect rights of protesters and telescope builders. "The court's decision will allow Hawaii to continue to lead the world in astronomy," Ige said. State Department of Land and Natural Resources Chairwoman Suzanne Case said the next steps involve telescope builders submitting construction plans. The department will review the plans before issuing permission to proceed. Plans for the project date to 2009, when scientists selected Mauna Kea after a five-year, around-the-world campaign to find the ideal site. The project won a series of approvals from Hawaii, including a permit to build on conservation land in 2011. Protests disrupted a groundbreaking and Hawaiian blessing ceremony at the site in 2014. After that, the protests intensified. Construction stopped in April 2015 after 31 protesters were arrested for blocking the work. A second attempt to restart construction a few months later ended with more arrests and crews retreating when they encountered large boulders in the road. Scientists revere the mountain for its summit above the clouds that provides a clear view of the sky with very little air and light pollution. The telescope will allow astronomers to reach back 13 billion years to answer fundamental questions about the advent of the universe, touts a website for the project. In December 2015, the state Supreme Court revoked the permit, ruling the land board's approval process was flawed. That meant the application process needed to be redone, requiring a new hearing. After oftentimes emotional testimony for the hearing that spanned 44 days, the retired judge presiding over the proceeding recommended granting the permit. Opponents appealed again after the land board approved the permit. They complained about various due process issues, including that the hearings officer had a conflict of interest because she was a member of a Big Island astronomy centre. Klan wives: Its an intriguing topic. So much so that Jacqui Hubbard, the intrepid artistic director at Ivoryton Playhouse, chose to produce the new play The Queens of the Golden Mask. Its not a topic in the old summer theaters comfort zone; Ivorytons last three offerings were musicals Grease, A Chorus Line and Once. Writer/actor Carole Lockwood submitted the play to a womens playwright festival, but it had two acts so it didnt fit that festival, Hubbard said in a phone chat the other day. But I read it and I was intrigued by it, and I kept it on my desk for a year, she said. ... And it was still on my desk when Charlottesville happened. So Hubbard picked it up again, brought it to her board because she felt strongly it should be done, and it opened this week and will run through Nov. 18. Look, I dont often do plays and I certainly dont often do drama because its very hard to sell, Hubbard said. More Information Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main St., Ivoryton. Through Nov. 18. Wednesdays, Thursday 7:30 p.m.; Fridays, Saturdays 8 p.m.; Wednesdays, Sundays 2 p.m. $55-$20. 860-767-7318. Ivorytonplayhouse.org See More Collapse Set in summer 1961 in Celestial, Alabama, the play begins in the kitchen of the Sage household where the matriarch, Ida, has gathered friends to meet the new girl in town Rose from Ohio. Will she fit in with the ladies of Celestial who bake pies, sell Avon products and belong to the Ku Klux Klan? Based on the experiences in the autobiographical book Long Time Coming: An Insiders Story of the Birmingham Church Bombing that Rocked the World, which is about a woman inside a racist and violent world, Queens of the Golden Mask is full of girl talk, everyday life and ... danger. In Klan families, women were subservient and men beat their wives in order to sustain white male supremacy, said Hubbard. Women were partners in the goal of maintaining white supremacy but there were some who put their lives on the line to challenge that way of life. Its really about peer pressure and normalizing hate, said Hubbard. What happens when ... people in the community are not bad people, but their belief system is messed up? It couldnt be more relevant; it just couldnt. Hubbard said based on early rehearsals, Its been a real adventure to dig into this because its hard for the actors, too. They have to take on characters that they have to know and love. I call it a cross between Steel Magnolias and Mississippi Burning. These are women youd meet in the grocery store warm, friendly and funny. They just happen to have a belief system that is alien to what a lot of the rest of us believe in, Hubbard said.She said its not a political play during this fractious time. Its not ... were not talking about politics. Were talking about people and peoples prejudices, she said, adding the topic will spur conversation. Hubbard said the playwright has been tweaking the play, which was written in 2008, but theres no sort-of sly nods to whats going on now. Its very much of its time, but even then it cant help reflect whats going on (now). jamarante@nhregister.com; @Joeammo on Twitter MIDDLETOWN The Parrot Clubs biggest annual event, Birdie Bash 2018, features an exciting line-up of activities for exotic bird enthusiasts from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, November 3, at the Elks Club in Middletown, Connecticut. A live raptor show presented by Ashford, Connecticut-based Horizon Wings is the highlight of the days festivities, which are open to the public. Bird lovers of all ages will marvel at bald eagles, an owl and other birds of prey, as educators from Horizon Wings share stories of their bird rehabilitation efforts and insights about ways to protect these magnificent wild birds during an 11 a.m. presentation. At 1 p.m., bird owners can learn how to make inexpensive foraging toys for their pets during a presentation by parrot behavior consultant Sheila Blanchette of Heart of Feathers Education. Members of Connecticuts most enduring organization for companion bird owners will also display their exotic birds during this 17th annual event, which also features a marketplace: the ideal place to shop for birds and bird owners on your holiday list. Birdie Bash 2018 also features exhibits and opportunities for both experienced and prospective bird owners to learn about adopting and caring for parrots and other pet birds. Refreshments and fundraiser tickets will be sold. Admission is $5 for adults and free for children under 12; non-members may not bring birds to the event. The Elks Club is located at 44 Maynard Street in Middletown, Connecticut. Parking is free. For more information about Birdie Bash 2018, visit theparrotclub.org or the Clubs Facebook page: www.facebook.com/theparrotclubct Mary-Beth Kaeser founded Horizon Wings Raptor Rehabilitation & Education (horizonwings.org) in 2001. This Connecticut non-profit aims to heal injured birds of prey and return them to the wild, as well as to educate the community about threats to these birds. The Parrot Club, founded 44 years ago as the Connecticut Association for Aviculture, is a non-profit organization dedicated to education about responsible ownership and care of exotic birds. The club provides educational outreach programs; sponsors field trips; supports the work of bird rescue, breeding and habitat preservation organizations; and hosts a variety of speakers and programs during its monthly meetings, held the second Tuesday evening of each month, March through December, at East Hartfords Veterans Memorial Clubhouse. The club welcomes bird enthusiasts of all ages. Membership information is available at all Parrot Club events. The calendar says Halloween but the holiday that best describes the five debates weve seen between Democrat Ned Lamont and Republican Bob Stefanowski is Groundhog Day. That, at least, is the movie version of this governors race, including Tuesday evenings final take at Foxwoods Resort Casino. Over and over and over again, weve heard Stefanowski, a Madison business executive whos never run for office, say the same words: I will cut your taxes. He will raise your taxes. Specifically, he claims hell end the state personal income tax, the corporate earnings tax and the estate tax more than 60 percent of the state budget, combined without raising other revenues. And he accuses Lamont of plotting to raise taxes through payroll deductions, a state motor vehicle property levy and by raising rates of existing taxes. Lamont, the Greenwich heir and digital entrepreneur, had hoped to put forth a more nuanced argument about his ideas for a balanced approach to managing the state with the aspiration of cutting local property taxes and smart investing. Instead, hes been forced to react to Stefanowskis promises which Stefanowski cant possibly keep and defend against charges hes out to raise taxes, whuch Lamont insists are false. Oz Griebel, a petitioning candidate and former Hartford area economic development executive, polling in the high single digits, dug in Tuesday night on his idea to dip into the states rainy day fund, estimated to reach $2 billion by next summer, and shortchange the teachers pension fund for a couple of years. He says theres no other way to fill a projected shortfall of $4.6 billion over the next two fiscal years and hes probably right but it wont get him elected. Both major party candidates derided Griebel for those two ideas. Its unclear which one the former Republican hurts worse by capturing voters on Nov. 6, though Stefanowski would seem slightly more advantaged if Griebel were to pick up momentum. A recent Quinnipiac University poll confirmed that. On Tuesday, at least, we had a passing, personal view of the candidates, as a questioner asked what theyve done for the community. Lamont waxed about his teaching experience in Bridgeport Public Schools, volunteer work that started with his organizing businesses to work with students in that city. Stefanowski talked about the need for cities made vibrant by tax cuts until he was chided for not answering the question, whereupon he returned to his quick reference to serving on the board of the Cardinal Shehan Center in Bridgeport. Griebel talked about his work with the United Way and other community organozations. And the candidates, asked to name their favorite politicians in history by moderator Ann Nyberg of WTNH-Channel 8, the co-sponsoring group, stuck to their lanes. Lamont: Bobby Kennedy for his courage. Stefanowski: Reagan for fixing the economy. Griebel: Lincoln for leadership in ending slavery. The other co-sponsors were The Hartford Courant and the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, giving each candidate a chance to say why hes in the corner of mayors and first selectmen (1,400 state mandates? Wow). I liked this debate, Lamont said later, because you got a sense of who we were as people. Not much of that but the bar has been low in these debates. As for depth on issues, the candidates danced around policy questions such as public safety, gun control (Lamont wants more and Stefanowski still isnt clear on where he stands) and how to ease the costs of special education (Lamont: The state has an important role; Stefanowski: Leave it up to parents and local school boards but let the money follow the student). On assisted suicide, a new topic in the campaign, Lamont and Strefanowski both said theyd be inclined to let families go ahead with lethal doses of medication for terminally ill patients. Griebel said hed want to see details but wasnt opposed to the idea. The centerpiece of all of it, through all five debates, was the thin argument about taxes, over and over and over again. Neither Lamont nor Stefanowski seems ready to present a state budget by the Feb. 6 deadline when the fiscal 2020 shortfall of $2 billion hits home, especially in the case of Stefanowski if he intends to cut spending deeply. Were now done with six debates for Lamont, five for Stefanoswki and three for Griebel. Stefanowski has promised umpteen times that he will find waste to the tune of $2 billion a year, and asked whether anyone doubts he can do it. Well, yeah, forgive us for our skepticism, but maybe offer up a couple hundred million, Bob, just as a sort of pre-nuptial gesture. He talks about 100 percent privatization of the Department of Motor Vehicles, a $10 million toll study, both small potatoes, and the $600 million busway from New Britain to Hartford which was 80 percent federally financed, making it a good deal for the state. Ten million dollars here, $20 million there, it starts to add up, Stefanowski said. It adds up for household budgets but in this state fiscal crisis, it doesnt. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy actually decreased spending by $250 million over eight years, eliminating more than 4,000 jobs in the regular government operations of state agencies, but the deficits continued. In all, state agencies direct spending, after taking out outsourcing, education, Medicaid, bonded debt, pensions, health care and town aid none of which Stefanowski can easily cut amounts to maybe $4 billion a year. Even a 10 percent haircut off that amount would still leave a $1.6 billion hole in the budget, no breathing room for tax cuts. Lamont, for his part, has criticized Stefanoswkis pie-in-the-sky cutting plans but hasnt said how hed attack the shortfall, either. Good management, yeah, but that will get us there by 2034. First thing you do, when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. And you cant do that by promising to cut eight, 10, 12 billion dollars, Lamont said Tuesday at Foxwoods showing that hes boxed into a corner responding to Stefanowskis compelling but quixotic vow. His idea: Invest in education, invest in transportation . thats how we start to attract businesses back to our cities. True needs, but not a roadmap for balancing the budget. Naturally, wed like to have heard about some of the other issues that occupy a governors time. You know, casino expansion, recreational marijuana, gun control, criminal justice, social services, housing policy, transportation. The little stuff that makes life fun. In closing, as always, Lamont and Stefanowski attacked each other on taxes. You tell me one idea that came out of either one of them, Griebel said later. One. Griebel, when asked what he would say to anyone telling him to drop out - which Stefanowski and Lamont are not doing - said he would tell them to drop dead. Photo: The Canadian Press Dustin Duncan talks with reporters at the provincial legislature in Regina, Sask., on Thursday, November 17, 2016. Saskatchewan has introduced climate change legislation as its feud with Ottawa over a national carbon tax continues. The Saskatchewan government has introduced its own climate change law as its feud with Ottawa over a carbon tax continues to play out in the courts. The bill, which amends current climate legislation, lays the groundwork for standards to reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions. Under the proposed legislation, large emitters would be required to register with the province and could receive credits for reaching targets. Environment Minister Dustin Duncan said Tuesday the law would be an effective way to fight climate change without a carbon tax. "It's really just the next step for us in implementing the plan that the federal government have acknowledged is a good plan," he said. The province said large emitters generate 11 per cent of the province's emissions and the new standards are expected to reduce emissions by 10 per cent or one million tonnes by 2030. Around 43 facilities fall under the new regulations. The majority of those facilities are large potash producers or oil companies. Amir Attaran, a law professor at the Ecojustice Environment Law Clinic at the University of Ottawa, said Saskatchewan's plan doesn't commit the province to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. "It expresses hopes that will happen," Attaran said. "It likewise does not commit anyone in the province to pay a carbon price that's comparable to the federal one." Saskatchewan is asking its Court of Appeal to rule on whether Ottawa's plan to force a carbon tax on the province is constitutional. The case isn't set to be heard until at least next spring. Opposition NDP Leader Ryan Meili said the government had nine years to take action on the current legislation but chose not to. "Now there's pressure to move quickly," Meili said. "We will certainly have a good look at what the amendments are and decide whether or not it's close enough to the original that we're happy with." Ottawa had asked all provinces to put a minimum price on pollution of $20 a tonne of emissions by Jan. 1. Last week, the federal government detailed a plan to charge a carbon tax in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick the four provinces refusing to comply. Ottawa then plans to rebate the carbon tax money to residents in those provinces. It's estimated the average household payment in Saskatchewan will be $598. Ben & Jerry's latest ice cream campaign is courting controversy twice over. One, the company is calling on ice cream lovers everywhere to oppose the Trump administration's agenda. Two, it's embracing a pronunciation of "pecan" -- as in "PEE-can" -- that's really only popular along stretches of the East Coast from Maine to South Carolina. Starting Tuesday, the flavor normally known as New York Super Fudge Chunk will be called "Pecan Resist." Get it? Maybe not. In the U.S., there are four major ways to refer to the popular pie nut, according to Grant Barrett, linguist and co-host of the radio show "A Way With Words." Native American tribes had different pronunciations for the nut, which they taught American settlers over time. "We have never as a country, never ever, settled on a single pronunciation," Barrett said. "There was never just one." Ben & Jerry's, a South Burlington, Vermont-based subsidiary of Unilever, has taken punny approaches to social justice before. In 2009, it re-branded "Chubby Hubby" as "Hubby Hubby" to support same-sex marriage. In 2016, it debuted "Empower Mint," a mint ice cream with brownies made by a bakery with a job-training program. More for you Ben and Jerry make a pint-size pitch for progressive candidates The history of the word "pecan" presents unique challenges, Barrett said. "It's not the most efficient type of communication. You're causing people confusion. They're scratching their heads for just a second." The campaign was launched as a way to "lick injustice," and the company made a $25,000 contribution to each of four progressive organizations including Color of Change and the Women's March. Chief Executive Officer Matthew McCarthy said the ice cream maker didn't do much consumer research on the name. "If people want to call it 'Puh-KAHN Resist,' I'm totally cool with that," McCarthy said. "This is one that comes more from the heart and the DNA of this business." New York Super Fudge Chunk was conceived in 1985 as a way for the company to make a name for itself in New York. It's chocolate ice cream with white and dark fudge chunks, pecans, walnuts and fudge-covered almonds. Photo: File photo Canada Post employees in two Prince Edward Island communities are joining the country-wide rotating strikes a day after about 6,000 workers walked off the job in Montreal. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers says walkouts started in Charlottetown and Summerside, P.E.I., on Wednesday just after midnight local time. CUPW says the Montreal walkout ended Tuesday night, but another 15 communities across the country were still taking part in the 24-hour strikes. CUPW says the Ontario communities of Cobourg, Fort Frances, Kapuskasing, Kenora, Petawawa-Deep River, Peterborough and Tri Town are still on strike. The union says walkouts in British Coumbia continue in Dawson Creek, Columbia River, Fort Nelson, Fort St. John and Nelson. Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan cities of Saskatoon, Moose Jaw and Weyburn are also affected. CUPW and the postal service have been unable to reach new collective agreements for the two bargaining units in 10 months of negotiations. Last Tuesday, Labour Minister Patty Hajdu appointed Morton Mitchnick, a former chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board, to help the two parties resolve their contract differences. China's Sub Force Is Growing More Powerful. This Is What the US Navy Needs to Do to Stay Ahead Thousands more service members have been put on standby for possible deployment to join the 5,200 active-duty troops being sent to the southern border this week to help federal agents stop what President Donald Trump has called an "invasion" by a caravan of migrants and political asylum seekers. "Several thousand" additional troops have been put on notice that they also could be sent to the U.S.-Mexico border if necessary, Stars and Stripes reported Tuesday, citing an anonymous defense official. Announcing the deployment of the 5,200 troops Monday, Air Force Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, commander of U.S. Northern Command, said, "Our concept of operations is to flow in our military assets with a priority to build up southern Texas and then Arizona and then California" to back up the efforts of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) "to harden and secure the border." About 800 troops from Fort Knox and Fort Campbell in Kentucky would be the first of the active-duty troops to deploy and be sent to Texas, he said. But it was not immediately clear whether they had already arrived. All 5,200 should be in place by Saturday, he added. The active-duty troops will join about 2,000 from the National Guard who have been on the border since April and will be guided by much the same federal rules, which bar them from detaining anyone or carrying out any law enforcement activities. O'Shaughnessy stressed that all the troops are in a support role for CBP under the "posse comitatus" law, which generally prohibits the military from civilian law enforcement, according to the Stars and Stripes report. CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said the troops will serve as a deterrent to the estimated 3,500 mostly Central American migrants in the so-called "caravan," which is still nearly 1,000 miles from the border, according to The Associated Press. "I think part of the goal is to deter people from trying to cross between ports of entry," said McAleenan, who joined O'Shaughnessy at a news conference Monday. "[The caravan] is near the Chiapas-Oaxaca border in southern Mexico. We're also aware of a second large group of migrants at the Ciudad Hidalgo border crossing between Guatemala and Mexico." In rallies leading up to the Nov. 6 midterm elections, Trump has repeatedly stressed the immigration issue and warned that "lots of bad people" -- possibly from the Middle East or members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang -- may have infiltrated the caravan, although he acknowledged last week that he had no proof. On Fox News' Laura Ingraham program Monday night, Trump said, his efforts had "nothing to do" with the midterm elections. But retired Army Lt. Col. Jason Dempsey called the deployment "an October, or maybe a November, surprise" that amounts to a "political stunt." "This is wasting soldier time, wasting taxpayer money," said Dempsey, who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and is an adjunct senior fellow of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security. In a phone interview with Military.com, Dempsey questioned why active-duty troops are needed for the strictly limited support and surveillance roles that could be carried out by the National Guard, and are already being performed by Guard troops sent to the border in April. This story will be updated. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at richard.sisk@military.com. A Marine officer who was accused of sexually harassing multiple women could be forced to retire, even after a board and several investigations failed to substantiate any of the allegations. Maj. David Cheek, who formerly served with the Marine Corps' behavioral health branch in Quantico, Virginia, faced a Board of Inquiry on Friday after two civilian employees accused him of displaying his erection through his clothing on multiple occasions. The complaints, which date back to 2013, prompted four investigations and the Board of Inquiry, none of which found conclusive evidence of sexual harassment. The three colonels on Cheek's board recommended that the major, a prior-enlisted Marine who has served since 1992, be involuntary retired at his current rank -- not over the harassment allegations, but "due to substandard performance of duty." Navy Secretary Richard Spencer will now decide whether that recommendation should be upheld. Related content: The board's determination, first reported by USA Today, was made after Cheek was found to have failed to properly discharge the duties expected of an officer of his grade and failed to conform to prescribed standards of dress, weight, personal appearance or military deportment, according to officials with Marine Corps Combat Development Command. "The board did not substantiate any specific allegations of misconduct; however, they found his overall performance below what is expected from an officer in the Marine Corps," the officials added. Cheek, who issued a statement to Military.com through his attorney, said he's thankful the board found the "disgusting and absurd allegations of misconduct" to be unsubstantiated for the fifth time. He called the last several years humiliating for him and his family, and said he has received no support from his command. "As an African-American male, I have endured instances of bullying and harassment in my life, but I have never been subjected to this level of bullying and harassment," Cheek said. "Despite the Board's recommendation, I am confident that the Secretary of the Navy's review of my record over the last 26-plus years will reflect that there is no basis for retirement for substandard performance." Brian Magee, Cheek's attorney, said the two are exploring options on how best to proceed. "If there's a big-picture lesson learned here, and this is me speaking personally," Magee said, "it's that it should scare the hell out of anyone that an allegation -- even when unsubstantiated by four independent investigations and a board of three colonels -- can absolutely wreak havoc on a person's life or career. But that's the environment that we live in." Despite the board not substantiating any claims of misconduct, Sherry Yetter, one of Cheek's accusers, told USA Today that she is happy the "very long five-year battle for justice was over." "The United States Marine Corps finally heard us," she told the paper. "It's a victory for all victims." The harassment claims from Yetter and a second woman caught the attention of top Marine brass and members of Congress earlier this year after the two said they felt service leaders minimized their claims. That prompted a new investigation into the harassment allegations against Cheek. When a preliminary inquiry into Yetter's claims was completed in October 2013, the investigating officer determined the conduct failed to meet the threshold of sexual harassment. Those allegations were then reviewed in 2015 by the inspector general of the Marine Corps, which didn't substantiate any of the allegations. In 2017, a command-level investigation was completed, which found no conclusive evidence of sexual harassment. The investigating officer who completed the second command-level investigation in April 2018 was also unable to substantiate the allegations. Meanwhile, Cheek had been selected for command and promotion to lieutenant colonel in August 2017, something Magee described as almost unheard of for an officer serving in an adjutant, or special staff, role. "I think that speaks volumes to who he is as an officer," Magee said. "His board recalled witnesses who've served with him in every capacity, from commanding officers and former supervisors to subordinates. There were male, female, civilian and uniformed, and the one word I would say came out consistently from all of them in describing him was 'professional.' " Cheek will continue serving in his job on full-duty status with Training and Education Command at Quantico while his case proceeds, Magee said. Cheek said he hopes leaders do "what is right and not just what is easiest due to external platform pressures." "Although it is difficult to maintain faith in the organization to which I have devoted 26 years of my life, I pray that the people who review the Board's recommendation will not cave to this continued bullying and harassment, but will make the right decision," he said. -- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ginaaharkins. About 1,000 of the more than 5,200 active duty troops being deployed to the southern border have already arrived in Texas and additional troops on top of the 5,200 are preparing to go, Air Force General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, commander of U..S. Northern Command, said Tuesday. "What I can confirm is there will be additional force over and above the 5,239" in Operation Faithful Patriot, O'Shaughnessy said. Operation Faithful Patriot is the mission to reinforce U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in its efforts to stop the "caravan" of migrants heading north from Central America. "I can tell you that 5,239 is not the top line," he said. In an informal briefing with Pentagon reporters Tuesday, O'Shaughnessy did provide figures regarding the first wave of active-duty troops headed to the border and where they were deploying from. O'Shaughnessy confirmed that about 1,000 active duty troops from the initial projected total of 5.239 had arrived in Texas Tuesday and would operate out of Joint Base San Antonio. The initial contingent of troops included 421 from Fort Knox, Kentucky; 260 from Fort Campbell, Kentucky; 110 from Fort Riley, Kansas; 40 from Fort Carson, Colorado; 12 from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state; 10 from Fort Bragg, North Carolina; and seven from Fort Stewart, Georgia, O'Shaughnessy said. He said the active duty troops would be in the command of Army Lt. Gen. Jeff Buchanan, the Army North commander who last year commanded troops responding to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. O'Shaughnessy could not immediately say how many troops would be In the additional force, or give a projection on how much the deployments would cost. "I don't have an answer for you," told the gaggle of reporters. The eventual number of troops to be sent to the border was as yet undetermined as the Defense Department seeks to "refine the requests" coming from CBP and the Department of Homeland Security at the direction of President Donald Trump, O'Shaughnessy said. Earlier Tuesday, Stars and Stripes, citing a U.S. defense official, said that "several thousand" more troops were on standby for border duty in addition to the 5,239. However, O'Shaughnessy disputed published reports that the eventual number of troops deployed to the border might reach 14,000. The announcement of the continuing border buildup followed on a series of incremental steps taken by the Pentagon on Trump's orders to repel what he has called an "invasion" by migrants and political asylum seekers from Central America heading north through Mexico. In April, about 2,000 National Guard troops were sent to the border in support of CBP. Last Friday, the Pentagon announced that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had agreed to the request from Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen for more troops. Initial reports on that announcement were that the number of additional troops would be about 800 and they were also likely to be from the National Guard, but O'Shaughnessy and CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said at a joint news conference Monday that more than 5,200 would be deployed, and they would all be active duty. "In a macro sense, our concept of operations is to flow in our military assets with a priority to build up Southern Texas, then Arizona and then California," O'Shaughnessy said, adding that troops would also eventually be sent to the New Mexico border. "We will reinforce along priority points of entry to enhance CBP's ability to harden and secure the border." "What we've asked them to do is help to bolster our capabilities," Nielsen told Fox News Oct. 25 "We've asked for some air support, for some logistics, some planning, vehicle barriers, engineering; ways in which we can make sure that I can protect my officers and agents, as well as the ports of entry themselves." O'Shaughnessy and McAleenan said that Army Corps of Engineers troops and combat engineer battalions would place more barriers and other obstructions at existing points of entry, and would also have available 150 miles' worth of concertina wire to string at locations considered vulnerable. In addition, the arriving active-duty troops would have fixed and rotary air assets to aid CBP in surveillance and transport to remote areas, and also to provide medical evacuations if necessary. O'Shaughnessy stressed that all the troops were in a support role for CBP under the "posse comitatus" law, a reference to the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act that generally prohibits the military from conducting civilian law enforcement activities. Troops will not be empowered to detain anyone in accordance with posse comitatus, but O'Shaughnessy said Tuesday there could be "incidental interaction" between the migrants and the troops. The CBP agents were "absolutely the primary and principal members that will be handling specifically the migrants," O'Shaughnessy said, but "there could be incidental interaction between our military members and migrants or other personnel that might be in that area." The troops, he added, would be fully trained on how to conduct those interactions. "They're going to understand the rules for that interaction and they'll be consistent with CBP," O'Shaughnessy said, though he did not define those rules. McAleenan said that that troops would serve as a deterrent to the estimated between 4,000 and 10,000 mostly Central Americans in the so-called "caravan' headed north, still nearly 1,000 miles from the border. "I think part of the goal is to deter people from trying to cross between ports of entry," said McAleenan, who joined O'Shaughnessy at a news conference Monday. In his rallies leading up to the Nov. 6 midterm elections, Trump has repeatedly stressed the immigration issue and warned that "lots of bad people" -- possibly from the Middle East or members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang -- may have infiltrated the caravan, although he acknowledged last week that he had "no proof." On Fox News' Laura Ingraham program Monday night, Trump said "This has nothing to do with elections,' but retired Army Lt. Col. Jason Dempsey called the deployment "an October, or maybe a November, surprise" that amounted to a "political stunt." "This is wasting soldier time, wasting taxpayer money," said Dempsey, who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and is an adjunct senior fellow of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security. In a phone interview with Military.com, Dempsey also questioned why active duty troops were needed for the strictly limited support and surveillance roles that could be carried out by the National Guard, and are already being performed by the Guard troops sent to the border in April. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at richard.sisk@military.com. Three commanders at one of the Air Force's lead pilot training wings were relieved of command Wednesday after incidents of dangerous behavior and fostering a threatening environment at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, were reported up the chain of command. Lt. Gen. Steven Kwast, commander of Air Education and Training Command (AETC), relieved Col. Charles Velino, commander of the 47th Flying Training Wing, along with the operations group commander and the flying training squadron commander, the service said in a release. "The prior command team chronically failed to appropriately care for people and the mission," Kwast said in the release. "They failed to correct an evolving situation that led to an environment where some airmen did not feel safe or respected." The firings follow command-directed investigations that revealed multiple leadership failures, the release said. Related content: "By failing to address incidents of dangerous behavior and a threatening environment, irresponsible alcohol consumption, and disrespectful treatment of some students, these leaders did not establish and enforce a culture that upheld our Air Force core values," Kwast said. While not named in the announcement, Col. Robert Pekarek had assumed command of the 47th Operations Group at Laughlin in June 2017, according to an Air Force release. The service confirmed he was relieved of command this week. AETC spokeswoman Jennifer Gonzalez told Military.com that officials would not release the name of the training commander because of privacy concerns. The 47th Flying Training Wing is a major unit that oversees T-1A Jayhawk, T-6A Texan II and T-38C Talon pilot training under the 19th Air Force, headquartered at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph. Kwast determined the team did not take "appropriate actions to respond to, correct and report incidents of officer misconduct," the release said. Maj. Gen. Patrick Doherty, commander of the 19th Air Force, directed a preliminary inquiry "immediately when he became aware of allegations of misconduct at the wing," it continued. A timeframe for the incidents, as well as the scope of the investigations, was not given. While multiple investigations were conducted, AETC said it had not found a trend of unhealthy command environments within the 19th Air Force. The investigations have concluded, but the reports will not be released publicly for some time, Gonzalez said. Velino was responsible for more than 2,800 personnel conducting joint specialized undergraduate pilot training for Air Force and allied officers, according to his official biography, along with more than 210 training aircraft. Prior to this assignment, Velino was the 15th Operations Group commander at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. He has more than 3,700 flight hours in the T-37 Tweet, T-1, C-17A Globemaster III and C-40. Col. Lee Gentile has replaced Velino as the new wing commander, AETC said. He was the former vice commander of the 71st Flying Training Wing at Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma, which also conducts undergraduate pilot training. Kwast emphasized the importance of ensuring a safe working environment. "I take this responsibility seriously, and I want our airmen to know their leaders will be held accountable for failing to enforce a safe and professional environment," he said. "Our airmen, families and the critical mission of the 47th ... deserve engaged and effective leaders of the highest caliber consistent with our core values. "Ultimately, every commander is responsible for enforcing good order and discipline and holding those accountable who do not live up to the professionalism we expect of our airmen," Kwast continued. "The command team at Laughlin was not leading a healthy culture of accountability, dignity and respect." -- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214. Photo: The Canadian Press Shoes and other personal belongings retrieved from the waters where a Lion Air jet is believed to have crashed are displayed for family members of the passengers for identification at Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018. A massive search effort has identified the possible seabed location of the crashed Lion Air jet, Indonesia's military chief said Wednesday, as experts carried out the grim task of identifying dozens of body parts recovered from a 15-nautical mile-wide search area, and chilling video of passengers boarding the fatal flight emerged. The 2-month-old Boeing plane plunged into the Java Sea on Monday just minutes after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. "This morning I've been briefed by the head of Search and Rescue Agency about the strong possibility of the location co-ordinates" of Flight 610, said armed forces chief Hadi Tjahjanto. "Hopefully that is the main body of the plane that we've been looking for." Separately, the head of the National Transportation Safety Committee, Soerjanto Tjahjono, told reporters that pings detected by search teams are definitely from the aircraft's flight recorder because of their regular interval. The disaster has reignited concerns about safety in Indonesia's fast-growing aviation industry, which was recently removed from European Union and U.S. blacklists, and also raised doubts about the safety of Boeing's new generation 737 MAX 8 plane. Boeing Co. experts are expected to arrive in Indonesia on Wednesday and Lion Air has said an "intense" internal investigation is underway in addition to the probe by safety regulators. Navy officer Haris Djoko Nugroho said the 22-meter (72-foot) -long object that could be part of the fuselage is at a depth of 32 metres (105 feet). He said divers will be deployed after side-scan sonar has produced more detailed images. He said it was first located on Tuesday evening. "There are some small objects that we found, but last night, thank God, we found a large enough object," he said. Data from flight-tracking sites show the plane had erratic speed and altitude in the early minutes of a flight on Sunday and on its fatal flight Monday. Safety experts caution, however, that the data must be checked for accuracy against the plane's black boxes, which officials are confident will be recovered. Several passengers on the Sunday flight from Bali to Jakarta have recounted problems that included a long-delayed takeoff for an engine check and terrifying descents in the first 10 minutes in the air. Two interviewed on Indonesian TV recalled details such as a strange engine sound, a smell of burnt cables, and panicked passengers crying out for God to save them as the plane rapidly lost altitude. Later in the flight, a man who was either the captain or first officer walked through the plane and returned to the cockpit with what looked like a large manual. Lion Air has said maintenance was carried out on the aircraft after the Sunday flight and a problem, which it didn't specify, was fixed. Officials said searchers have sent 48 body bags containing human remains to police identification experts. Anguished family members have been providing samples for DNA tests and police say results are expected within 4-8 days. Musyafak, the head of Said Sukanto Police Hospital, said nearly 150 samples for testing have been collected but more are still needed, especially from parents and children of victims. Indonesian TV broadcast a smartphone video of passengers boarding Flight 610, its mundane details transformed into unsettling moments by knowledge of the tragedy that would transpire. It showed passengers' boarding passes being checked and people walking along a concourse and then down stairs with bright red and white Lion Air jets visible on the tarmac. At one point, the passenger who shot the video, Paul Ferdinand Ayorbaba, zooms in on the flight number on his boarding pass. A part of the video shows passengers walking up the mobile boarding stairs attached to a Lion jet. "My husband sent that video to me via WhatsApp. It was his last contact with me, his last message to me," said Inchy Ayorbaba, interviewed at the Jakarta police hospital where she had taken her three children for DNA tests. The messaging app's timestamps showed the video was sent about 35 minutes before the plane took off, said Ayorbaba, who first saw the message at 6:30 a.m., some 10 minutes after the plane departed, and then went back to sleep. Indonesia's Transport Ministry has ordered all Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes operated by Lion Air and national carrier Garuda to be inspected. Lion has ordered 50 of the jets, worth an estimated $6.2 billion, and currently operates nine. Boeing declined to comment about potential inspections globally. The aircraft manufacturer told airlines in a bulletin, "Boeing has no recommended operator action at this time," according to two people familiar with the matter. Lion Air President Edward Sirait told The Associated Press that the timing of a meeting with Boeing experts is still uncertain. Daniel Putut, a Lion Air managing director, said Tuesday evening the airline hopes to meet with Boeing officials on Wednesday afternoon. "Of course there are lots of things we will ask them, we all have question marks here, 'Why? What's the matter with this new plane,'" Putut said. The crash is the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since 1997, when 234 people died in the crash of a Garuda flight near Medan. In December 2014, an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea, killing all 162 on board. A North Carolina-based Marine corporal died earlier this month after his weapon accidentally discharged while he was cleaning it. Cpl. Mark A. Scott, an AV-8B Harrier mechanic with Marine Attack Squadron 231, was killed Oct. 20, according to the Naval Safety Center. It was not immediately clear whether the weapon involved in the accident was Scott's service rifle. First Lt. Sam Stephenson, a spokesman for 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, declined to provide additional information about the incident as it remains under investigation. The death was first reported by Marine Corps Times. Scott, 22, died in his home in Havelock, North Carolina, according to his obituary. He enlisted in the Marine Corps after graduating from Manchester High School in Georgia. He was based at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point and deployed to the Middle East from December 2016 to May 2017 with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response-Central Command. He was an active member of his church, where he served as an usher and Sunday school teacher, his obituary states. He was married to Sydney Scott and is also survived by his parents, three sisters and two brothers. Members of Scott's family could not immediately be reached for comment. The Marine Corps' Safety Division reported 54 negligent discharges between 2013 and 2018. Thirty-six of those occurred while Marines were on duty and 18 while they were off. At least six were fatal. Col. Byron Sullivan, the Safety Division's director, issued a directive Oct. 17 to inform Marines about the threat of negligent discharges. It warns that the severity of off-duty mishaps is often greater than those that occur while Marines are on duty. Funeral services for Scott are scheduled for Friday at 10 a.m. in Pine Mountain, Georgia. -- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ginaaharkins. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called on the U.S.-backed Saudi coalition and the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels to work through the United Nations on a cease-fire within 30 days to end Yemen's civil war. The Yemenis have "had more problems than any people deserve to carry," Mattis said, in the conflict that the U.N. has described as creating the current world's worst humanitarian crisis, putting Yemen on the brink of famine. "This has got to end. We've got to replace combat with compromise," he said Thursday in a question-and-answer session on the U.S. National Defense Strategy with Stephen Hadley, the former national security adviser in the Obama administration, at the U.S. Institute of Peace, a government-funded think tank. Mattis urged the warring parties to come to planned negotiations in Sweden in November under the auspices of U.N. special envoy Martin Griffiths. An estimated 16,000 have been killed in the war, in which the U.S. military has been providing intelligence and aerial refueling for the warplanes of Saudi Arabia, which is backing the remnants of the ousted Yemeni government. The U.S. has charged that the rebels have been supplied by Iran with missiles, which have been aimed at Riyadh and other Saudi targets. The Houthis have balked at previous planned negotiations. The Iranians "are the ones who keep fueling this conflict, and they need to knock it off," Mattis said. "So we've got to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we're going to do it sometime in the future. We need to be doing this in the next 30 days." Mattis also said that the alleged murder last month by a Saudi hit team of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor who had been living in Virginia, should not be allowed to interfere with negotiations on a cease-fire in Yemen. "I would separate it out from the Yemen situation," he said. Mattis also said he agreed with U.S. President Donald Trump that the Saudis would "get to the bottom of it" in their investigation. During his talk, Mattis was not asked about, nor did he comment upon, Trump's decision to order 5,200 active-duty troops to the southern border to stop thousands of migrants and political asylum seekers from entering the United States. He was not asked, either, about the speculation in Washington that he has lost favor with Trump and would step down as defense secretary after the midterm elections. Both Mattis and Trump have denied the resignation rumors. The rumors were fueled earlier this month when the president gave an interview on the CBS program "60 Minutes" in which he described Mattis as "sort of a Democrat, if you want to know the truth." "But General Mattis is a good guy," Trump continued. "We get along very well. He may leave. I mean, at some point, everybody leaves. Everybody. People leave. That's Washington." -- Richard Sisk can be reached at richard.sisk@military.com. The U.S. Coast Guard is watching how the Pentagon handles its Future Vertical Lift helicopter program over the next decade as its own MH-65 Dolphin fleet's flight hours continue to climb, the commandant of the service said Friday. "We're watching the Department of Defense very carefully with Future Vertical Lift," Adm. Karl Schultz, the Coast Guard's 26th commandant, said during the annual Military Reporters & Editors conference outside Washington, D.C. He explained that the MH-65, the Coast Guard's primary aircraft used aboard cutters during deployments, will pass 30,000 flight hours. The service has 98 in its inventory. "We're in our 'Echo' upgrade -- that's our next iteration [life extension]," Schultz said. "We have to keep those things in air for a while, probably into 2030." Related content: Part of the Department of Homeland Security, which is facing years-long budget constraints, the Coast Guard will also push to keep its MH-60 Jayhawk fleet, similar to the Navy's Sea Hawks and Army's Black Hawks, flying past its intended service life. "We're probably going to push those out to about 30,000 hours," Schultz said. Explaining that manufacturing has ended for the Dolphin, he said, "We need to press in that gap here in the 2018-to-early-2030 timeframe." MH-60s passed down from the Navy will help bridge the gap, but Future Vertical Lift also show promise, Schultz said. Future Vertical Lift is a Pentagon program to field a new family of helicopters such as the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft to replace the UH-60 Black Hawk, as well as the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA), by 2028. While the Army has invested the most time in the program, other services have also indicated interest in FVL platforms. Schultz said today's Coast Guard fleet is comprised of rotary- and fixed-wing aircraft, noting that new C-130s have helped prolong its transport fleet. Like the Air Force, the Coast Guard maintains a mix of older C-130Hs, but it's moving to an all J-model fleet. The fiscal 2018 budget gave the service permission to purchase its 15th J-model. Schultz said the Coast Guard needs 22 newer C-130s overall. "We're optimistic there might be a 16th in the [fiscal 2019] budget," he said. The service also inherited 14 C-27J Spartan aircraft from the Air Force in 2014. "We do sit in that discretionary, non-defense part of the budget, so we're competing with a lot of national priorities," Schultz said. "[But] I can build a very strong case for a bigger Coast Guard." -- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214. Director Doug Liman's 2010 movie "Fair Game" tells the real-life story of how CIA operative Valerie Plame lost her career after her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, very publicly criticized the intelligence the White House used to sell the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Naomi Watts stars as Plame and Sean Penn as Wilson. The movie got excellent reviews on initial release but Liman thought he shot a better film than the one he released. Working in secret over the last few years, he re-edited the movie and indeed delivered an even more powerful movie than the original. The Plame/Wilson story was a big one from the time the White House outed Plame as a CIA agent in 2003 until Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney Scooter Libby was convicted of lying to investigators in 2007. President Trump pardoned Libby earlier this year and now the 2018 version of "Fair Game" is available for digital purchase at iTunes, Amazon, VUDU and the Google Play store. It's also coming to Netflix on November 1st, a move that should allow a far bigger audience to see the movie than saw it on original release. Doug Liman has enjoyed a storied career in Hollywood. After making his debut with "Swingers" in 1996, he's gone on to direct much-love movies like "The Bourne Identity," "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" and "Edge of Tomorrow." He spoke to us last year about his fascinating Iraq War thriller "The Wall" and he's back to discuss his new version of "Fair Game." CANNES, FRANCE: (Left to Right) Former CIA agent Valerie Plame, director Doug Liman and actress Naomi Watts attends the 'Fair Game' Premiere at the Palais des Festivals during the 63rd Annual Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2010 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images) -- Getty Images What made you decide to revisit "Fair Game" after eight years? I started revisiting it a couple years ago and I really had thought about doing it almost from the day it was released. And even thought the movie received a standing ovation at Cannes, I just knew there was a better movie there than the one we were putting out. I didn't know at the time how to find it; I just knew there was a better version. A few years ago on my own, without telling anybody, I brought in Steve Mirrione. We cut "Swingers" and "Go" together. He went on to win an Academy Award for "Traffic." He worked with me on "Edge of Tomorrow." I brought him in and said, "Will you just take a look at this?" And together we did find a much stronger film. That was a couple of years ago and then I was like, "All right, well, what do I do with it now?" It raises the question: When a movie has been released, does the director get to go back in and do more work on it? And then I thought, "Why not?" The world is not a fixed place and the technology changes. Back when we made "Swingers," we were shooting on film and you actually cut the film. The last thing you do is you physically cut the film and glue it together. So that's not really changeable, but today we make films digitally. So I thought, "Who said just because it's been released, that it needs to be completed? Who said a filmmaker can't go in and decide that there's a better movie? I'm just going to recut it and put it out again." I just went ahead and did that and then started the process on my own of technically finishing the movie. After you creatively finish editing, then you have to do sound work and color work. We're doing this and we haven't told my producers or the studio or anybody. When it was all done this spring, I was going to approach the studio and let them know I had done this and say, "Hey, what do we do with it?" And then Trump pardoned Scooter Libby, who is one of the villains of the movie. And I thought, "Oh, you know what? The story wasn't done." It turns out the reason the film wasn't done eight years ago is because the story wasn't done eight years ago. When the story finally finished this spring, and I went back in to the end of the film and changed the cards to reflect Scooter Libby's pardon and now the movie is done. At what point do you tell the actors or at what point do you tell Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson that you're working on this project? This spring and summer. Sometimes it comes up that someone's found out and they get irate at the studio, that they've heard talk of this and ask why weren't they told. I made a little bit of a mess. In fact, just last night I called Janet Zucker, the producer who initially hired me on the movie, and told her we had done this director's cut. I mean she obviously knew. Someone had said she had given the studio an earful on why no one had called her. They're like, "Doug, you gotta call her because you made this mess. You're like a bull in a china shop." But that's always been my way in life. I act first and ask forgiveness and permission afterwards. Even in the making of this movie, I wanted to shoot some of the scenes in Baghdad. When I made "The Bourne Identity," the story was set in Paris and I wanted to shoot in Paris. The studio said, "No, you have to shoot in Montreal." And I said, "No, the audience is paying money to go see a movie set in Paris. We should show them Paris, right?" Most of the audience won't have a chance to go to Paris themselves. They should at least be able to vicariously live through us and experience the real Paris. I thought in the same way with "Fair Game." If some of the story is taking place in Baghdad, an audience shouldn't see Morocco or Jordan, like other filmmakers have done. They should see Baghdad, so I was determined to shoot in Baghdad. The studio, of course, said, "Absolutely not." So I just put together a crew to go without telling them. There was a little bit of a hiatus in between filming in Jordan and Kuala Lumpur and I decided that we can fit the shoot in right there. There were flights from Jordan to Baghdad. So you know it was act first, ask forgiveness later. In fact, the shooting in Baghdad probably had the biggest impact on my decision to re-edit the movie. I'm interested in telling stories about characters with extraordinary situations. And Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame are two characters in the extraordinary situation of taking on the most powerful men in the world. Joe Wilson knew that the president of the United States was lying to the American people and had lied us into war. Joe Wilson was facing the decision to challenge not only a president, but a political dynasty. Because George W. Bush's father was a president and his brother was planning on being president. I was so interested in Joe Wilson's decision to take on a political dynasty. I wanted to go back in and re-edit because I thought I could get even more out of Sean Penn's performance of Joe Wilson. Once I started cutting the film with Steve Mirrione, it had been a number of years since I'd been in Baghdad filming. My experiences of being in a country that we had invaded while the war was still going on had a more profound impact on me than I realized at the time. When I came back, I talked about all the crazy experiences we had there and how terrifying it was and the violence and how we wore bulletproof vests while filming. We were focused on all the adrenaline of filming there and the bad-boyness of going and doing this incredibly dangerous thing. It took me a few years to sort of process the humanity of of the war. And that had the biggest impact on me when I went back to recut the movie and that was unexpected. I just didn't expect to be changed. I didn't expect my experience filming in Baghdad to change me because filming in Paris didn't change me. Paris is not a country that was at war. Naomi Watts stars as Valerie Plame and Sean Penn plays Joe Wilson in "Fair Game." (Summit Pictures) Your original cut feels like it was a Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame movie, and the new version feels like it's more of a Valerie Plame movie. It is. At the end of the day, the same way I was interested in Joe Wilson making the decision to take on the White House, I'm even more interested in what it was like to be Joe Wilson's wife. Your spouse makes that decision to take on the president and the havoc that it wreaked on your life and your family. How do you process that? When Joe Wilson takes on the White House, you're expecting a fight. If you're Valerie Plame, you're not expecting your husband to do something that's going to destroy your career and your life. By the way, it didn't destroy her life because Valerie was the top of her class at the CIA. And the story she tells in the film that she couldn't be broken is true. Her classmates have all spoken to me and they did not break her during training. When the movie originally came out, we had just lived through this Karl Rove era of incredibly disciplined messaging from the White House. They picked a story and everyone stuck to it and they were brutally efficient at getting it out there. The Obama administration wasn't as good at that sort of thing and we're obviously in a completely different world than that now. Watching it this week, I realized all the White House messaging in the news clips seemed normal in 2010 and it seems almost unimaginable now. It's chilling to watch it today. And I think that we all, Democrat or Republican, could stand to remember that we're all human beings. When Trump mocks Professor Ford, she's a human being. She's a wife I just watched a film last night with an audience and Valerie Plame. All of the news clips in the film are real. Nothing is being taken out of context. Just sitting there next to the real Valerie Plame, it's kind of like if I was watching "The Bourne Identity" and Jason Bourne was next to me in the movie theater. Not Matt Damon, but Jason Bourne. It's a surreal experience to watch a story as powerful as "Fair Game." These are real people that went through this experience. Former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson (L) and former ambassador Joseph Wilson attend the screening of 'Fair Game' at The Museum of Modern Art on October 6, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images) -- Getty Images People really seemed willing to carry water for the White House during the Bush administration, as evidenced by their mobilization after Joe Wilson picked this fight. It seems like people working in the Obama and Trump administrations are less willing to follow the script. Do you think this incident inspired a change in Washington culture? There was an op-ed piece in The New York Times a month ago or two months ago attacking the president. It was done anonymously. I have to think that the last time somebody took on a president like this was Joe Wilson. You can't help but watch "Fair Game" and think about what is it like then and what it's like now. In Sean Penn's performance as Joe Wilson, there was an indignation that the White House would lie. He's screaming that they lied when he's talking to his friend at the State Department. The White House had lied. It's so naive like looking at it from the filter of today, because who would be surprised today that the White House lied? The people in the White House are so powerful. When you see the tools that they have at their disposal used so ruthlessly against Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, you know they're the same tools being used today on critics of Trump. Let's talk about the release of this new cut of the movie. It's out on digital at a very low price but not DVD or Blu-ray and it's going to be on Netflix next week. It seems like far more people are going to see "Fair Game" now than had a chance to see it in 2010. Yeah, I'm expecting far more people to see the film today than saw it initially. I've always liked technology and I've always felt that as a filmmaker we need to adapt. Some of the things we do are based on old technology. When I was shooting "Swingers," it was a very technical thing, but people always backlit their actors. That was left over from when people shot movies in black and white, when you needed to separate people's dark hair from the walls. We've been shooting in color for 50 years and we're still lighting movies the old-fashioned way. That little technical experience has stuck with me in terms of every aspect of filmmaking. Technology has changed and we're still doing things based on old technology. The very act of re-cutting a movie and releasing a different version of the movie is very much something you can do today because of technology. A film is not set in stone today the way it was set in stone ten years ago. I'm not going to do it, but I could change the film a week later after it goes on Netflix. I can just swap it out. Because of how things are distributed now, there is the opportunity to change how filmmakers tell stories and what it means for a film to be finished. I'm grateful that technology changed and I'm able to take advantage of that and find a home for the director's cut of "Fair Game." Shortly after reporting an operating profit of $2.5 billion and a 10.2 percent profit margin in its third-quarter earnings, General Motors said it will offer some salaried employees voluntary buyouts in lieu of layoffs, as of now. The Detroit-based automaker called the decision a "proactive" one as it prepares to further invest in autonomous and EVs. The Detroit News reports the buyouts are being offered to 18,000 salaried workers in North America. Affected GM employees have until Nov. 19 to make a decision concerning the offer. According to the statement, the automaker said it was choosing to take this measure "while our company and economy are strong." The automaker has not revealed how many employees it needs to see accept the offers to avoid layoffs. As it reported its third-quarter earnings, GM shares spiked 6.4 percent to $35.69 Wednesday morning. $GM posted income of $2.5B and EBIT-adj. of $3.2B. Check out our Q3 results to learn more. https://t.co/OTaBqJ92kX pic.twitter.com/NkNq2xXldq General Motors (@GM) October 31, 2018 "GM delivered nearly 700,000 vehicles in the U.S. in the third quarter. Average transaction prices rose to a third-quarter record of more than $36,000, up about $800 per unit year over year and $4,000 above industry average," the automaker reports. "Sales of the Chevrolet Tahoe, Suburban and GMC Yukon full-size SUVs were up approximately 12 percent year over year. The Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon posted the best third-quarter midsize pickup sales since 2004." GM's announcement of offering buyouts comes about three weeks removed from in-state rival Ford saying it would cut jobs from its global salaried workforce as part of a restructuring plan. The Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker's restructuring calls for rimming about $25 billion in costs from the automaker's budget by 2022 on the quest for an 8 percent profit margin. This includes massive cuts to product development, information technology, marketing and incentive spending, and manufacturing costs. Photo: The Canadian Press Ombudsperson Jay Chalke Goodwill payments of more than $1 million and a university scholarship in the name of a student who died by suicide are among key actions taken by British Columbia's government after a report on the firings of eight Health Ministry workers, says the province's ombudsperson. The report, called "Misfire," found that seven workers and a contract employee involved in drug policy research were fired in 2012 due to a flawed and rushed investigation. It said they did not deserve the personal, financial and professional harm they suffered. The government committed to implementing the report's 41 recommendations following its release in April last year. Ombudsperson Jay Chalke, in an interim progress report Tuesday, said there are four outstanding recommendations and his office is reviewing four others. "When we look at the degree of implementation, including comparing it to how quickly public bodies have implemented the recommendations from some of our other reports, this level of implementation is very good," Chalke said in a conference call with reporters. He said the major completed recommendations include: apologies and goodwill payments to people impacted by the firings, whistleblower protection legislation, a new policy regarding conflict of interest and an independent review of government dismissal policy. The government contributed $500,000 to create a scholarship in memory of deceased former employee Roderick MacIsaac, who killed himself about four months after he was fired by the Health Ministry, Chalke said. Chalke said in the "Misfire" report that most of the grounds cited for MacIsaac's dismissal "were unsupported by the evidence and not true." MacIsaac, a university co-op research student, had been accused of jeopardizing privacy and the reputation of the ministry as he and others worked on a drug research program in 2012. The total amount of payments to affected individuals amounts to $1.16 million, Chalke said. "In relation to individuals, ex gratia, also known as goodwill payments, were made and both public and private apologies were made," he said. "These amounts range from $15,000 to $125,000, depending upon the individual involved." The remaining outstanding recommendations involve financial impact assessments on disciplined employees who were not fired, union grievances for fired employees, payments to impacted contractors and reconciliation efforts to create a more positive work culture at the ministry, Chalke said. He said his office will publish a further assessment of the implementation of its recommendations after the government releases its next progress report in April. Harley-Davidson is recalling nearly 178,000 motorcycles in the U.S. due to the risk that they might get stuck in gear thanks to a potential defect within the clutch. The recall covers 36 different Harley-Davidson bikes spread across model years 2017 and 2018, according to U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration documents. For the full vehicle list with accompanying model codes, click here. "The hydraulic clutch system with secondary clutch actuator part numbers 37200131 and 37200131A on the subject motorcycles may exhibit an internal leak of fluid past the secondary clutch actuator piston/seal," NHTSA documents read. "If this leak continues for an extended period, the clutch master cylinder reservoir could lose enough fluid to expose the hydraulic clutch circuit to air, which may result in the inability to generate enough lift to disengage the clutch." If this were to go undetected and unfixed, the federal agency says it could lead to the loss of control of the affected vehicle "when started in gear, first shifted into gear, or coming to a stop." Harley confirms in these government documents that it is aware of five crashes and no injuries. Affected motorcycles were manufactured at Harley's plant in Milwaukee, and the component manufacturer is listed as Brembo North America out of Plymouth, Michigan. Owners of recalled bikes will be asked to set up an appointment with an authorized Harley-Davidson dealer to install a new secondary actuator piston assembly from the recall kit for free. Notification is expected to start Nov. 5, according to the NHTSA. The investigation into the issue started back in January of this year, when Harley became aware of an incident in Korea where a crash occurred but no injuries were reported. Brembo and Harley started a joint-investigation the following month, and the NHTSA's recall team did the same in April. To search active recalls, use the NHTSA's website to search your 17-character VIN at this link. VIN numbers are typically located under the driver's side windshield, or along the inside of the doors behind the seat or under the steering wheel. To sign up for NHTSA safety alerts for a specific vehicle, sign up at this link. ANN ARBOR, MI - For Judge J. Cedric Simpson, it's a blip in an otherwise successful 32-year career - one that's made him a better judge. For his opponent, Ann Arbor-based attorney Thomas Bourque, it's a primary selling point in his candidacy for the next six-year term in Washtenaw County's 14A District Court. But make no mistake, Simpson's nine-month suspension for interfering in his intern's drunken-driving arrest is front and center in the race for the county's sole contested judge seat, to be decided in the Nov. 6 election. Attorney Thomas Bourque poses for a portrait in his office, Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2018 in Ann Arbor. Bourque is running for a seat at the 14A district court against incumbent J. Cedric Simpson. The Michigan Supreme Court's ruling is noted in the first sentence on Bourque's campaign website, under the title "Washtenaw District 14A Voters: You Have a Choice for District Court Judge." It was also the catalyst for his choice to run as an "underdog" against an incumbent judge, a historically difficult endeavor, Bourque said. Both longtime county residents, Bourque is an 37-year attorney and a partner at the law firm of Eby, Conner, Smillie and Bourque. Simpson, who previously served as a prosecutor, is nearing his 20th year as a judge after being appointed in 1999. The seat they're gunning for serves all of Washtenaw County, less Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti Township - though district judges from across the county rotate on criminal matters. It handles misdemeanors, small claims disputes, traffic offenses, civil cases for amounts under $25,001, and felony arraignment and preliminary examinations. Though Bourque previously applied for gubernatorial appointment, the idea to run most recently cropped up, he said, as he read the Michigan Supreme Court's ruling as it related to the 2013 incident, when Simpson showed up to the 4:30 a.m. arrest in Pittsfield Township. Simpson "failed to prudently guard against influencing the investigation or used his judicial office in an effort to interfere with it," one justice said in the Supreme Court's majority opinion. The court also said he made misleading statements about why he and the intern exchanged 14,000 text messages in a four-month period. Washtenaw County District Judge J. Cedric Simpson poses in his office at the Washtenaw County 14A District Court on Oct. 26, 2018. Simpson is the incumbent for the only contested judge seat in Washtenaw County. "I agreed with the decision and so I thought that, as a judge, somebody should be better and use better judgement," Bourque said. While recounting the ordeal in late October, Simpson still took issue with how the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission handled the timeframe of the text messages, but, of the arrest, said he responded as a dad that morning. Otherwise, he's accepted the Supreme Court decision, learned from it, and moved on, he said. "I will always acknowledge my mistakes and the mistake I made - which is something that I had not done before, and I won't do again - is that I placed myself in a situation where my motivations could ever be questioned," he said. "I think in the long run, in a very strange way, it's made me a better judge," he later added. "... I understand how people can be in a position (on the defense) and I was blessed that I had resources." However, Simpson said a focus on "a total amount of six hours out of a 32-year career" is problematic and indicative of someone that wouldn't give him a fair shot from the start. He won't let the incident define him or the good he's done, he said. Both Simpson and Bourque both point to a number of successes. Simpson highlighted his work to stem homelessness and bring housing resources to court during landlord-tenant disputes - and effort he hopes to expand - as well as his focus on mental health, youth and the opioid crisis. He also noted his pride in hearing his work on the bench has saved lives. In his response to the Michigan League of Women Voters' voter guide, Bourque noted success in representing a client against "bullying behavior" by a financially superior opponent trying to "bludgeon" his client with expenses as well as helping a disabled woman recover taken money while still keeping her government benefits. In an October interview, he also noted his commitment through leadership positions in a number of organizations. Simpson too has a long list of affiliations, and Simpson and Bourque both have served as Washtenaw County Bar Association presidents. Both candidates also have an interest in establishing specialty courts in the 14A District Court and restorative justice, should they win the election, they said, reiterating remarks made at a judicial forum earlier this month. At the time, they discussed issues surrounding diversity on the court - where Simpson is the only African American judge - and implicit bias. They also agreed on limiting the number of times cash bond is required and punitive actions taken in traffic cases. In fact, the two shared a lot of the same viewpoints and answers in the forum. Their biggest differences seemingly lie in their takes on the Michigan Supreme Court ruling, their political backgrounds and support, and their experience. Simpson was appointed by a Republican governor, but has been endorsed by the Washtenaw County Democratic Party. Bourque previously ran and lost as a Republican for Ann Arbor city council, but calls himself a "purple person," stating he'd be a Democrat in other cities. Simpson expressed concern with his opponent's lack of experience with criminal cases - which Bourque, who handles primarily civil cases, puts at about 10 misdemeanors. While Simpson, who currently presides over 14A-4 in Saline as well as sitting at the 14A-1 court, currently handles a large civil docket, he also hears some preliminary hearings in criminal cases. "I am concerned when somebody has not practiced extensively in district court, that they could fully understand it - that they could fully understand an individual walking into the court, who doesn't speak the King's English who is trying to explain to you that they have a problem and having someone that has the patience to sort through it," he said. Bourque, for his part, said civil cases and criminal cases have the same evidence rules and noted he has extensive trial experience, as well as a background in appeals and mediation. He will focus on the rule of law, common sense, the idea that the court system is for the public, not the judiciary, and respect - whether that be a defendant's time in the courtroom or otherwise, he said. "We demand respect for judges and judges should always be respecting everybody else," he said. Bourque is campaigning on a platform of integrity and Simpson is campaigning on a platform of proven experience. Bourque said residents need to first and foremost vote - the judiciary doesn't typically get quite as many tallies as other roles, he said - but know that they have a say in their bench, when they typically don't. The other judges' seats are unopposed. "I wouldn't run if I didn't think I would be able to do the job better and show better judgement," he said, noting the severity of Simpson's discipline of recent. "If I didn't run, they would have no choice and they would not have any say as to whether or not that was appropriate for a judge that they wanted on their court and that they might have to appear in front of." Simpson said his 20 years as a judge has always been focused on service to his community and taking on the challenges it faces. He believes the welfare of the citizens is at stake in the election. "I care about this county," he said. "I care about the people in this county and I care about every citizen - certainly that comes before the court but if they're not before the court. You've had a judge here for 20 years that cares about you." Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 6. MLive has partnered with the nonpartisan League of Women Voters of Michigan to provide information to voters about the issues being decided in the November 2018 election. Check out the League of Women Voters Education Fund voter guide at Vote411.org to learn more about candidates and proposals on the ballot. All responses in the voter guide were submitted directly by the candidates and have not been edited by the League of Women Voters, except for necessary cut if a reply exceeded character limitations. Spelling and grammar were not corrected. Publication of candidate statements and opinions is solely in the interest of public service and should not be considered as an endorsement. The league never supports or opposes any candidates or political parties. YPSILANTI TOWNSHIP, MI - A man who barricaded himself inside an Ypsilanti Township house and threatened to blow up the home surrendered himself to authorities after hours of negotiation Tuesday, police said. Police responded to the 1300 block of Crestwood Avenue about 8 a.m. after a woman living in the home told police her roommate was barricading the doors and making comments about wanting to blow up the home. The woman fled from a window of the home, noting she felt "unsafe," police said. Shortly after 11 a.m., Washtenaw County's Crisis Negotiation Team talked him into coming out of his home and surrendering, said Derrick Jackson, spokesperson for the Washtenaw County Sheriff's office. The man was taken into custody and transported to a hospital for evaluation. "No one was harmed during the incident," Jackson said in an email. Police searched the home and did not find any weapons or bomb-making materials in the home, Jackson said. "It sounds like he and his roommate have been having issues and as she explained it, the pressure started to get to him," Jackson added. James Davis Jr. MOUNT PLEASANT, MI -- A Central Michigan University student accused of shooting and killing his parents on the Mount Pleasant campus has been found mentally fit to stand trial. However, a question of his mental state at the time of the crime still leaves his case in limbo. Isabella County District Judge Eric R. Janes on Tuesday, Oct. 30, ruled James E. Davis Jr., 20, is competent to participate in future court proceedings. Janes based his ruling on reports from staff at the Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Ypsilanti. A fellow judge in March had deemed Davis incompetent, signing an order that read, "there is a substantial probability that the defendant, if provided a course of treatment, will attain competence to stand trial within the time limit established." Also on Tuesday, prosecutors and defense counsel stipulated Davis return to the center for staff to gauge his potential criminal responsibility. Gauging competency means determining if a defendant's current mental or emotional state is fit enough for trial, to the extent he or she understands the charges against them and their constitutional rights. Criminal responsibility assesses if a defendant should be deemed responsible or not for the alleged crime based upon their mental or emotional state when the offense occurred. No new court date is yet set for Davis. Case background Davis is charged with two counts of open murder related to the March 2 shooting deaths of his parents, James Davis Sr. and Diva Davis, as well as one count of felony firearm. Open murder includes both first- and second-degree murder. Davis Jr.'s parents were helping him move out for spring break when he is accused of taking his father's pistol from their family vehicle, returned to his fourth-floor room inside Campbell Hall, and shot both his parents dead. Police have said Davis Jr. then fled Campbell Hall along railroad tracks and, after a 15-hour manhunt, was found a little more than a half mile away and taken into custody. He was suffering from hypothermia at the time and was hospitalized for five days. Police officials have not disclosed a suspected motivation for the double slaying. The night before the shooting, Davis Jr. exhibited erratic behavior that police suspected was drug-induced, officials have said. He was taken to an area hospital, which he briefly escaped from, before his parents picked him up a few hours before the shooting. The Davises resided in Plainfield, Illinois. Davis Sr. was a part-time officer with Bellwood Police Department, a village near Chicago, and had been a longtime member of the Illinois Army National Guard and served in the Iraq War. The jury is hung in the case of former Michigan State Trooper Mark Bessner, who was accused of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in the death of a teen. Wayne County Circuit Judge Margaret Van Houten declared a mistrial on Wednesday, Oct. 31, when the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict on the third day of deliberations. A pretrial conference is set for Nov. 7 to determine a new trial date. Bessner, who has since been fired, fired his Taser from a moving patrol vehicle at 15-year-old Damon Grimes, who was attempting to flee police on an ATV on Aug. 26, 2017. Prosecutors say the Taser shock caused Grimes to crash into the rear of a pickup and die on Aug. 26, 2017. "The crux" of the case is whether it was reasonable for Bessner to fire his Taser at Grimes in the first place, defense attorney Richard G. Convertino said during closing statements Monday, Oct. 29. The defense claims Bessner feared for the safety of himself and his partner after seeing Grimes' left hand drop into the area near his waistband, indicating he might be armed. Grimes was unarmed, and Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Penney noted that there was no mention of a possible gun or weapon made by Bessner until after Grimes was taken away from the scene by ambulance. Second-degree murder is defined as a non-premeditated killing, resulting from an assault or an action in which the result of death to the victim is a likely outcome. (This story has been updated to correct the name of Barone Defense Firm.) FLINT, MI -- Special Flint water prosecutor Todd Flood is adding to his team of attorneys as 11 criminal cases against current and former state and city employees inch through the court system. Keith Corbett, former chief of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Division for the U.S. Attorney's Office, will work with Flood, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill Schuette confirmed Tuesday, Oct. 30. Corbett will be paid $144,000 for a year-long commitment to assist in the cases, Andrea Bitely, a spokeswoman for Schuette, said in an email to MLive-The Flint Journal. To date, prosecutors have reached plea agreements with four of 15 defendants charged with Flint water crimes. Attorneys for the state and former Flint emergency manager Gerald Ambrose have also said they are attempting to reach a plea deal, which would leave 10 cases unresolved. Of those 10, only the case against Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon has advanced to Genesee County Circuit Court for jury trial. Lyon's attorneys are fighting to have his bindover overturned and have also said they plan to fight for a change in venue. Dr. Eden Wells, the state's chief medical executive, is waiting for Genesee District Judge William Crawford to decide if her case will be bound over to Circuit Court as well. Eight other cases are in the midst of preliminary examinations in District Court -- a former Flint emergency manager, Department of Public Works director, and six other current and former state government employees. Although Corbett's role isn't yet known, other attorneys have played supporting parts in the prosecutions to date with Flood handling the vast bulk of the work inside the courtrooms. The arrangement, similar to a contract between the state and William Whitbeck, a former chief judge of the Michigan Court of Appeals, who advised Flood and his team previously but who is no longer under contract, Bitely said. Like Whitbeck, Corbett won't be paid from the contract between Flood and the state. Flood is the managing partner of Flood Law, PLLC and former assistant Wayne County prosecutor. Corbett has most recently worked with the Barone Defense Firm in Birmingham, and the firm's Web site says he graduated from Canisius College in Buffalo before graduating from the Notre Dame Law School in 1974. Corbett worked in the Oakland County Prosecuting Attorney's Office before becoming chief of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Division in the U.S. Attorney's Office. FLINT TWP, MI -- More than 300 people gathered as one Tuesday night for a vigil at Temple Beth El in Flint Township to honor the 11 people killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue over the weekend. Those speaking at the vigil delivered a message of overcoming hate and coming together as a nation in the face of the Oct. 27 shooting in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh that left six others wounded, including four police officers. The suspect in the shooting, Robert Bowers, has been charged on 29 counts, including hate crimes and weapons offenses. "I believe there are two main reasons why we're here this evening. The first is to share our grief and honor our dead, to support one another, to embrace one another, to love one another," said Rabbi Jeffrey Ableser, the temple's senior rabbi. "When a Jew dies, we Jews feel a more intimate sense of loss. "But when 11 Jews die at the hands of a murderer, we are filled with intense, competing emotions," he commented. "We are first of all shocked that something like this could happen here in America." When such violence took place as it did over the weekend, Ableser noted "We are shaken to our very core. We also come together tonight as many of are quite simply fearful of future attacks by copycat assailants." "But the main reason we are here tonight is to mourn our dead, the people who were murdered simply because they were Jewish," he said. "We are also here to pray for the well being of those that were injured in the attack, particularly the four police officers -- one of whom is still in critical condition -- who risked their lives to end the carnage." Ableser said by coming together "we will repudiate bigotry and hatred against all minorities and work toward a common vision of safety and sanity, a vision of shalom." Leonard Meizlish, president of Congregation Beth Israel's executive committee, called the "antisemitic terror in Pittsburgh both an attack on Jews and an attack on Jewish values." "Our tradition teaches us that we welcome the stranger. This horrible attack sought to obliterate that value," he said. "As we grieve, as we gather together to express our hope that this kind of tragedy never takes place again, we must also hold fast to the values that shape our faith and our tradition." Rabbi Yisroel Weingarten of Chabad House Lubavitch of Eastern Michigan said the attack was one on "all of the American people and all of humanity." In moving forward, Weingarten urged those in the crowd to spread love. "Cold-blooded, fanatical, relentless hatred can be uprooted from its core only by saturating our world with pure, undiscriminating, uninhibited, unyielding love and acts of kindness," he said."Today, more than ever, we need to spread love and unity, positivity and light. "We must continue to attend our synagogues and religious houses of worship proudly and even as we grieve and mourn we must exponentially increase our acts of goodness and kindness," said Weingarten. An affordable housing development is coming to the burgeoning Bridge Street corridor just west of downtown Grand Rapids, where advocates say growing investment in new restaurants and retailers has resulted in rising rent, hurting low-income families. Construction is expected to kick-off next month on Stockbridge Apartments, a 64-unit building with first-floor retail space at 636 First St. NW. A partnership between the Inner City Christian Federation and Rockford Construction, the building will include 51 apartments reserved for low-income residents, with the remaining 13 units available at market-rate pricing. "We aspire to be a community that provides opportunities for people from all walks of life to have a place to call home," said Ryan VerWys, president and CEO of ICCF, a Grand Rapids-based nonprofit housing developer. "This is a development where we are collectively saying let's make a place for people who might otherwise be displaced to stay and enjoy the vibrancy of this community." The $18 million building, being funded in part through a low-income housing tax credit from the state of Michigan, is expected to be ready for leasing by the end of 2019. It will feature a mix of studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom units, as well as a community space, an exercise room and a kids room. On Wednesday, ICCF and Rockford Construction hosted a ceremonial groundbreaking for the project, located just one block north of Meijer's recently opened Bridge Street Market grocery store and The Hendrik, a new 116-unit market rate apartment building. Thirty-six of the ICCF apartments will be reserved for residents whose income is 60 percent or below Kent County's median area income. For a family of four, that comes to $41,940. It's $33,600 for a two-person household. Another 15-units in the building will serve individuals and families who qualify for a federal Section 8 housing voucher through the Grand Rapids Housing Commission. To qualify for a voucher, a one-person household cannot have an annual income that exceeds $24,500. A family of four cannot have an annual income above $34,950. Some advocates have argued that the cutoff for qualifying for low-income should be lower than 60 percent of the area median income. VerWys said his organization is cognizant of that argument and is "working very diligently to make that happen." He pointed, for example, to the availability of the 15 units reserved for residents who are eligible for federal Section 8 housing assistance. But at the same time, he says there are obstacles to lowering the income threshold even further. "The challenge is any construction project has costs," VerWys said. "We are always working to keep our costs in a spot where they reflect our values of beauty, opportunity and respect." He added, "We're pushing always to try and say how can we keep those rents as low as possible." Rent for the units is expected to range, depending on an individual's income level, from $295 to $658 for a studio apartment, and from $433 to $953 for a three-bedroom unit. In addition to apartments, the building will feature about 10,000-square-feet of ground-floor commercial space - enough room for three or four businesses depending on the tenants, said Mike Mraz, managing partner of real estate development at Rockford Construction. Rockford is building the apartment building, and will also own and develop the commercial space, he said. Mraz said retail tenants have not yet signed onto the project, but possible users could include restaurants or businesses focusing on other neighborhood amenities. "Since Bridge Street Market opened just a couple months ago, we've seen a huge influx of pedestrian traffic around the area," he said. The ICCF apartment building will be located just a block away from a bustling section of Bridge Street, which has seen a slew of development in recent years, including New Holland Brewing's Knickerbocker restaurant, a Jolly Pumpkin brewpup and The Sovengard restaurant. But along with that development has come increased demand for housing and apartments, causing prices - in some instances - to spike, neighborhood advocates say. Ryan Waalkes, executive director of Bridge Street House of Prayer, a urban ministry with an emphasis on community development, characterized it as "crisis" on the West Side. He said the area is home to many families who have been renting for years and are now seeing their rents "doubled and tripled." He's hopeful the ICCF development will ease that burden. "It's just a phenomenal opportunity for neighbors and residents, especially those on the fringes, those on the margins," Waalkes said. Later, he added: "For us, these aren't statistics. These are friends, neighbors." GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Five students from Calvin College are part of a project aiming to eventually provide clean water filter systems to countries in need. Based on the early results of the project, the partnership between Florida-based Sawyer International, Texas-based The Last Well and Calvin College is improving the drinking-water conditions for many in Liberia. For the project, Calvin College students and professors collected, analyzed and mapped data that shows the distribution of Sawyer PointONE water filter systems. The data shown in Liberian households is improving the health of nearly 1 million people in Liberia. Calvin College senior Jamison Koeman joined the research project his sophomore year. He majors in public health, mathematics, statistics and geography. "I feel really hopeful and excited about the results coming from Liberia," Koeman said. "One of my concerns though is, yes we have great results but are they sustainable? Will they continue to sustain the population of Liberia?" Koeman has worked on a geographic information system (GIS) mapping application, which illustrates the locations of the water filters, health effects in the distribution area and basic demographic information. "Water is an extremely important resource. It is necessary for life and if it is not clean, it can strike you with disease," Koeman said. "Thinking back on my daily use of water, I can't fathom what it would be like to have to think about how I was going to get my water each day and if it would get me sick." Based on surveys from 24,600 Liberian households, 12 percent of children under 5 years old experienced diarrhea before receiving Sawyer water filters. In addition, 10 percent of those 5-17 years old and 11 percent of those 18 years old and over also had similar symptoms. After using the water filter for six to eight weeks, the students' findings revealed diarrhea had been reduced significantly in those households. Only about 1 percent of children under 5 years old, and less than 1 percent of those 5-17 years old, and less than 1 percent of those 18 years old and over reported having diarrhea in the previous two weeks. "What's exciting to us is seeing that these kids in Liberia who wouldn't have these opportunities to grow and thrive are now having these opportunities," said Calvin College associate professor of public health and social work Kristen Alford. "Anytime you see a child not only being able to live, but to live well because of something that seems simple, like the distribution of one water filter to their household, that's exciting." To ensure success in providing clean water to Liberians, the Last Well is in Liberia distributing nearly 120,000 donated Sawyer PointONE water filter systems. With the support of Calvin College and Sawyer, The Last Well is focused on its goal of ensuring everyone in Liberia is within a 15-minute walking distance to a clean water source by 2020. Since the effort began in 2009, there have been over 45,000 filters funded and placed in Liberia households within five of the country's 15 counties. Another 33,000 filters have been funded and ready to be placed in homes this year, while the remaining 40,000 or more filters still need funding for placement in 2019 and 2020. "We are grateful for the partnership with Calvin College and the Clean Water Institute of Calvin College and appreciate the dedication and hard work the students and professors there have put into this project," said Darrel Larson, international director of Sawyer Products. "The work they are doing to help us in our clean water endeavor could potentially have a profound global effect beyond Liberia's borders." COMSTOCK PARK, MI - A federal lawsuit has been filed against Comstock Park Public School District and former principal Jason Rykse for allegedly failing to protect an elementary student from sexual harassment and bullying. The lawsuit, filed in the Western District of Michigan Oct. 26, alleges a violation of federal civil rights law Title IX. The suit is being bought by Casey Gritter on behalf of her son. "The principal and school district's failure to act is what's so egregious and makes them civilly liable,'' said Sarah Stempky-Kime, co-attorney representing Gritter and her son. The lawsuit argues defendants Rykse and Comstock Park Public Schools "had a duty to investigate the harassment that it had knew of, had been informed of, or reasonably should have known of, in a prompt, thorough and fair manner." The lawsuit says that, under Title IX, "No person in the United States, shall, on the basis of sex, excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." In January 2017, another student allegedly showed his penis to Gritter's son, who was then a first-grader at Stoney Creek Elementary, and told him to touch it. According to the lawsuit, he reported the incident to a teacher who sent him to the then principal, Rykse, who allegedly called him a liar. Bullying and harassment allegedly was inflicted on the student after he reported the incident. Despite repeated pleas from his mother, the lawsuit alleges, Rykse and the district failed to protect him from the original bully and others. Comstock Park has not been officially served with the pleadings, school officials say. The alleged incidents began in 2017 under former Superintendent Ethan Ebenstein, who resigned June 30 for another job. "Student safety is our first priority," new Superintendent David Washburn said in a statement, regarding the legal action against the district. "Students cannot learn if they are not in a safe and caring environment," Washburn said in the statement. "We work every day to ensure students are learning in a warm and friendly environment. I cannot speak to the lawsuit filed against the district as it is a matter of litigation now before the courts. I do want to reassure our community's parents, and reinforce for staff, that every child should feel safe, welcome and secure in the Comstock Park Public Schools." The lawsuit says that on Jan. 25, Gritter's son was beaten up by four boys. The next day, the lawsuit says, Rykse held him captive in his office all day until he ultimately recanted the his story under duress. Rykse allegedly threatened the student would be left at the school overnight, the lawsuit states. Rykse abruptly resigned in March following a school district investigation into charges of bullying at the school. There were complaints from the Gritters and other parents that he handled bullying complaints inappropriately. "The district has completed its review, and your allegations of bullying behaviors by second graders on the playground have been substantiated. Moreover, the actions of building administration were not consistent with district values, polices, procedures, and expectations,'' Ebenstein said in a letter to the Gritters, noting the district had accepted Rykse's resignation. The district conducted the investigation through its legal counsel, Clark Hill. Citing attorney-client privilege, school officials declined Freedom of Information Act requests to share the final report provided to Ebenstein and school board. The Gritters pulled their children out of the district in January. Rykse could not be reached for comment. Photo: Contributed The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has issued a recall for President's Choice brand "Too Good To Be Wings Butter Chicken," has been recalled due to undeclared egg. The recall was issued on October 26th and is in effect across the country. If you have this product in your freezer you should return it to the place of purchase or throw it out. When the CFIA becomes aware of a potential serious hazard associated with a food, such as undeclared allergens, the CFIA investigates and takes all appropriate action to protect consumers, which may include a recall of the food product. GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Election workers in Kent and Ottawa counties are bracing for a voter turnout next week expected to rival the 2016 presidential election. "We're preparing as if this was a presidential election," said Grand Rapids City Clerk Joel Hondorp. "We're acting as if this was a presidential election, not a gubernatorial one." Based on the number of issued absentee ballots and the high turnout in the Aug. 7 primary, Kent County officials expect about 70 percent of registered voters -- roughly 315,000 people -- to cast ballots Tuesday, Nov. 6. The voter prediction rivals the 2016 presidential election, which had a 69 percent turnout. If the turnout is as expected, it would be unmatched by any Kent County gubernatorial election in recent history, according to online election records which go back to 2002. In 2014, the last gubernatorial election, 43 percent of the county's voters turned out. Gerrid Uzarski, Kent County's elections coordinator, said he wouldn't be surprised if this year's turnout was higher than it was in 2016. "I think there's certain proposals on the ballot that are igniting people, and it goes along with the political landscape," Uzarski said. "I think some voters are just not content with just watching it from their couch now; they want to participate." Ottawa County Elections Coordinator Steven Daitch expects a turnout of roughly 65 percent, or 130,000 people. The county saw a 73 percent turnout in the 2016 presidential election and about 48 percent in 2014. The expectations mirror those statewide. State officials expect a record-breaking voter turnout for a gubernatorial election. The record was last set in 2006, when 3.85 million Michigan voters went to the polls. Statewide predictions are based on a surge in voter registration, record turnout in the August primary and an increase in the number absentee ballots returned 20 days before the election compared to the number in the 2014 gubernatorial race, MLive reported. The Aug. 7 primary in Kent County saw a 30 percent voter turnout. It was unmatched by any other primary, presidential or gubernatorial election since 2004, when 33 percent of registered voters in the county took to the polls, according to county election data. The high turnout prompted about a dozen polling stations across the county to request more ballots for fear of running out, Uzarski previously said. In Grand Rapids, some precincts saw delays for voters as additional ballots had to be brought in. That shouldn't be a problem Nov. 6, as clerks are required to stock a ballot for each registered voter in a general election. Primary election stocks are required to be at least 25 percent above the turnout in the last primary of the same race for office. The number of absentee ballots sent out in Ottawa and Kent counties is close to the number issued for the 2016 presidential election. Kent County so far has issued 63,300 absentee ballots. Ottawa County so far has issued about 31,000 absentee ballots. The county issued a little more than 34,000 in the 2016 presidential election. Voters can request an absentee ballot by mail up until 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3. An emergency absentee ballot can be requested after the deadline if a voter cannot travel to the polls due to a personal injury or illness, or a family death or illness that requires travel outside the community for the entire polling time. Qualifying incidents must occur after the Saturday deadline. The request must be made before 4 p.m. election day and the ballot turned in before 8 p.m. election day. In addition to this, a person can cast an absent voter ballot in person at their local clerk's office on Monday up until 4:00 PM. Uzarski wanted to remind voters that there's no straight-ticket voting on the ballot and that voters can mix their ballot between political parties. Sample ballots, registration status and polling locations can be found here. GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Two Ohio men admitted to conspiring with a Grand Rapids man to ship 20 semi-automatic pistols to Beirut, Lebanon. U.S. Customs and Border Protection in June 2015 seized the disassembled firearms, which were wrapped in felt and plastic and hidden in a car engine and transmission, in Virginia in a shipment bound for Beirut. Gilbert Elian, a Lebanese national and naturalized U.S. citizen living in Grand Rapids, was sentenced two years ago to 12 months, one day in prison, after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Arms Export Control Act, a five-year felony. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, had been investigating an international firearms smuggling operation. They believed that Elian, in part, controlled the operation. Cleveland-area residents Abdul ajid Saidi, 42, and Walid Mounir Chehade, 38, pleaded guilty this week to the same charge as Elian, U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge said. They admitted to conspiring with Elian to ship the guns. "Abdul Majid Saidi and Walid Mounir Chehade flouted laws intended to control the export of defense articles and international arms trafficking. Their conduct warrants the serious consequences they face for obvious reasons," Birge said in a statement. Steve Francis, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, in Detroit said: "Any weapons or firearms obtained by the wrong person or group could harm American interests either domestically or overseas." HSI agents in Grand Rapids, IRS Criminal Investigations, federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosions and Grand Rapids police were involved in the investigation. Authorities say Elian bought 93 pistols from West Michigan stores over the course of two years and brought 65 to Lebanon. He said he did not know he needed an export license and said the guns were properly checked in by airport security. CASCADE TOWNSHIP, MI -- Environmental regulators faced pointed questions and frustration Tuesday from local residents wanting specifics about a newly-discovered toxic fluorochemical plume affecting drinking water in Cascade Township. Several in the Oct. 30 evening crowd of roughly 120 at the Wisner Center tried to extract details from regulators about testing area boundaries around the PFAS contamination plume coming from a former Lacks Enterprises plating shop. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality disclosed the plume on Oct. 19, although officials say the first tests for PFAS there happened in August and September. Lacks -- the fourth largest privately-held employer in West Michigan -- is currently providing bottled water to 22 homes drinking from a private well in a roughly six square mile area north of Burton Street, east of Spaulding Avenue and southwest of Cascade Road. That area encompasses a known plume of heavy metals and boron that Lacks has been cleaning up since its zinc die casting and plating shop at 1601 Galbraith Ave SE closed in 1997. But PFAS is a different beast and is known to travel long distances in groundwater. The state's investigation map includes a second, wider area that stretches to the Thornapple River -- and residents in and around that area want to know when their wells might be tested. The larger area encompasses almost 8 square miles. Although the entire plume area is served by Grand Rapids system water mains, not all properties are connected to the municipal system. State environmental well database records show several dozen private drinking water wells within the expanded boundary. "How long does it take to call up the local water company, have water delivered to those 22 homes and move onto the red zone?" wondered Ryan Bruneau, who lives just outside the boundaries of the DEQ's planned second investigation area phase. "It doesn't seem like there's a rush," Bruneau said. "It seems very casually approached." Al Taylor, hazardous waste section manager at the DEQ, fielded most questions posed to the state. He called the investigation "data driven" and said expansion is possible. "It's a fairly large plume and we don't know where the end of it is yet," he said. Taylor said one monitoring well and one residential well south of Burton Street have been tested. Hydrology indicates groundwater flows southeast toward the river. "We're looking very carefully at that part of the line," he said. "That's the direction of groundwater flow. If we have any detections -- and we going to be sampling the area along Burton to the north -- If we have any indication the plume has moved down that far, you're going to get your well sampled." The Lacks plume is the latest in a string of PFAS contamination sites around Michigan disclosed by the state over the past year. The DEQ is searching for the contamination in drinking water supplies, wastewater, game animal meat and other sources. Exposure to PFAS is associated in human epidemiological studies with pregnancy complications, liver damage, high cholesterol, thyroid disease and other health problems. One woman who declined to be interviewed afterwards stood up at the meeting and said she and her daughter experienced decades of health problems after renting a property from Lacks near the former plating shop in the early 1980s. "My daughter and I were not very well during that time," she said. Taylor said the DEQ Water Resources Division first found PFAS in the old Lacks plating plume by sampling an existing groundwater purge well in August. Existing monitoring wells near the Watermark Country Club and nearby Walden Lake were tested in late September. The purge well tested for PFOS and PFOA at 270 parts-per-trillion (ppt), almost four times above Michigan's 70-ppt cleanup criteria for those two chemicals in groundwater. Contamination above 70-ppt was found nearly a mile downgradient of the source site. The DEQ says Lacks applied copper, nickel, and chromium plating to auto parts at the facility between 1963 and 1984, after which the plating equipment was removed from the plant. The site remained in use for plastic production or assembly until 1997. In plating, PFAS compounds have long been used as a fume suppressant for the chromium baths. The company is liable for the contamination under the state's hazardous waste correction program, Taylor said. Because the purge well was discharging contaminated groundwater to Walden Lake above the DEQ's surface water quality standard of 12-ppt for PFOS, "they (Lacks) will be getting a violation notice from the Water Resources Division." A stream that runs from Walden Lake southeast to the Thornapple River is "quite possibly" carrying contamination past numerous properties, said DEQ geologist Dale Bridgford. "That's something that will bear further investigation." Lacks was represented at the meeting by James Green, human resources director, who said the company was required by federal law to control plating bath mists. The purge well discharging to Walden Lake previously sent contaminated water to the Grand Rapids wastewater treatment plant until 2006, Green said. Green said any wells that test above 70-ppt will be hooked-up to Grand Rapids system water at Lacks' expense. Wells with PFAS detections below that benchmark "we'll deal with on a case-by-case basis," he said. Potential future water bill costs would be approached that way, too. "Public health is going to be the No. 1 driving factor in what we do at those homes," Green said. Several attendees wondered whether they should pay for independent testing, in lieu of a commitment for testing from DEQ or Lacks. Sara Simmonds, environmental health division director at the Kent County Health Department, encouraged any homeowners who choose that route to share their results with the DEQ. Private well contaminant testing offers good data points, Simmonds said, because wells are dug at different depths within the aquifer and "could represent something that might not have been captured in one of the monitoring wells." Alan Rowland lives about 300 yards from the edge of the first phase investigation area, near Laraway Lake northwest of Cascade Road. He said his neighborhood association is looking at trying to get a volume discount for private well testing. Rowland has two kids, ages 12 and 13. He'd like to see the DEQ move with a greater urgency in the expanded area. Right now, he thinks the state is taking a minimalist approach. "The slower it takes them to figure out where this starts and stops, my kids could be drinking contaminated water for a month or two before we find out," he said. "I'm a business guy. I get it -- but this is human health and we should be doing more than the bare minimum when it comes to human lives." "We're probably going to end up spending the money (for testing) because it's worth it," Rowland said. DETROIT, MI - Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Schuette and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer took the stage separately at a forum hosted by the Detroit Economic Club recently, answering a set of questions that made some of their commonalities laid clear. At debates, the candidates have spent a lot of time on back-and-forth that sometimes devolved into personal attacks and zingers. But the format at the Detroit Economic Club forum was a little different. Each candidate took the stage separately, first Schuette and then Whitmer. The candidates answered the same set of questions and - with the opponent offstage - it was easier to see where their ideas and policy positions overlap. Here are some commonalities: Boosting the skilled trades Both Whitmer and Schuette have focused on this early and often, so it's no surprise that when faced with questions on education and growing talent in Michigan, each turned to the skilled trades. "The key thing is, not everyone will need to go to college," Schuette said, pointing to successful paths in the skilled trades and don't include a college degree. "Everyone deserves a path to a good-paying jobs in this state," Whitmer said, also noting that college wasn't the only option. Medicaid expansion It's no surprise that Whitmer, who has touted the Healthy Michigan Medicaid expansion since the primary, made it a big focus. She touted again her help in getting Medicaid expansion through the legislature when Snyder proposed it. "I knew despite the fact that his party controlled both the House and the Senate, there was no way he was going to be able to get it done without my help," Whitmer said. Schuette, too, advocated for the Medicaid expansion to remain in place. "Healthy Michigan is the law, it's here to stay. I want to make sure that we provide that for people across the state and cover preexisting conditions," Schuette said. Adding a cabinet position Both candidates expressed a desire to shake up the governor's candidate, though in different ways. Schuette mentioned adding a literacy director to his cabinet. Whitmer talked about adding a mental health director to hers. Eliminating the pension tax Both Whitmer and Schuette support eliminating the so-called pension tax, which Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law. Before 2011, public pensions were untaxed and private pension income up to $90,240 was exempt from tax. The 2011 law change kept it that way for those born before 1946, decreased exemptions for those born between 1946 and 1952, and subjected the pensions of everybody born after 1952 to full taxation as income. It was effective Jan. 1, 2012. "I want to eliminate the pension tax," said Schuette, who also talked about a plan to ratchet down the state income tax. Whitmer doesn't have a plan to ramp down the income tax but does say she wants to repeal the pension tax. "I think the right public policy is supporting pensioners who made a commitment to our communities, to our state, played by the rules, and they should have the safety and security of knowing their pension is protected," Whitmer said. And in addition to the income tax, there were other key issues the candidates didn't agree on. Their road plans continue to diverge, with Schuette planning to mine the existing state budget for resources and Whitmer planning to raise new revenue. The candidates also diverged on the question of Line 5, the pipeline running underneath the Straits of Mackinac. Schuette said he agreed with the current governor's plan to build a tunnel, while Whitmer said she opposed it. Each candidate has six days remaining to make their case to voters before the election that will decide the race. More information about the Nov. 6 midterm elections Polls will be open in Michigan from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 6. Check Michigan's Secretary of State website to see whether you are registered and to preview your ballot. MLive has partnered with the League of Women Voters of Michigan Education Fund to provide candidate information and other voting resources to Michigan readers. The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan political organization that encourages informed and active participation in government. For specific information about the 11th Congressional District race and other Michigan races, visit Vote411.org. Read more MLive election coverage here. Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Donald Trump, will visit Michigan this week to rally Republicans and get out the vote ahead of the state's Nov. 6 midterm elections. The Michigan Republican Party announced the visit in a press release issued Tuesday. Conway will headline a rally at Villa Penna, a banquet hall in Sterling Heights, on Thursday, Nov. 1. The doors for the event open at 6 p.m., and the program is scheduled to run from 7 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. An RSVP is required. More information on how to attend can be found here. Conway is the latest in a number of Trump surrogates to rally in Michigan, including Vice President Mike Pence, Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. and Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump. Trump himself has not visited in the lead-up to the general election. According to a Michigan Republican Party email, the rally will feature Republican governor candidate Bill Schuette, Republican U.S. Senate candidate John James, Republican Attorney General candidate Tom Leonard and Republican Secretary of State candidate Mary Treder Lang. The event is taking place in Macomb County, where Trump proved popular among voters in 2016. Democrats have had several high-profile visits on their side as well. Former President Barack Obama and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, both rallied for Democrats in Michigan recently. Former Vice President Joe Biden is slated to rally in Lansing this week. Conway has been to Michigan before. In 2017, she visited to talk about Trump's plan to address the opioid crisis. DETROIT -- A Miami-based foundation is providing $20 million to Detroit's top art institutions, as well as smaller organizations in the city. The Knight Foundation, which invests in journalism and the arts in cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers, made the announcement on Wednesday. Money is being provided to Detroit's "anchor arts institutions to reimagine their relationships with the community through innovation and experimentation." "Great art, tough art, challenging art helps to tell a great city's own story. Nowhere is this more true than today's Detroit," said Alberto Ibarguen, Knight Foundation president, in a statement. "This is the place where art, culture and design have changed the narrative of a community. And in the art world, Detroit has become the new Berlin." The grants include about $8 million to support innovation at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Sphinx Organization, Michigan Opera Theatre and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. Smaller organizations, including the Concert of Colors, Cinetopia Film Festival and Young Nation, will split $3.2 million, according to the Associated Press. Another $6 million will go to the Knight Arts Challenge, a competition open to individual artists and arts groups. An additional $2.8 million will be awarded In 2019 go arts projects and organizations that align with the strategic goals of its overall arts investment in Detroit. Since 2012, the Knight Foundation has awarded $52 million to Detroit's arts community. "Detroit is rewriting its narrative, and artists are leading the way," said Victoria Rogers, VP for arts at Knight Foundation. "With our funding, we look to add to that momentum, supporting organizations big and small, as a way to build community through the arts." KALAMAZOO, MI -- A journalist recognized nationally for her coverage of continued racial segregation in U.S. society spoke at a Kalamazoo Community Foundation event this week, urging citizens to take action against systemic segregation in the nation's school systems. Hundreds filled Miller Auditorium Tuesday, Oct. 30, for the foundation's annual community meeting, featuring speaker Nikole Hannah-Jones. In opening, Hannah-Jones thanked the crowd for attending what she promised would "not be an uplifting speech whatsoever." Specializing in racial injustice reporting, Hannah-Jones said her most famous story was about choosing a school for her daughter. She received a National Magazine Award for her New York Times Magazine story, "Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City: How one school became a battleground over which children benefit from a separate and unequal." Throughout history, Hannah-Jones said research has shown what school minority and low-income students attend is pivotal to that student's ability to achieve academically. She said the student achievement gap between white and minority students increases dramatically in segregated schools. Despite this research, Hannah-Jones said, schools across the nation are still segregated due to historical and systemic inequality. Hannah-Jones said No Child Left Behind, the 2002 update of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, started a federal system of penalizing schools that achieved low test scores. "No Child Left Behind was built on the premise that we're not going to try to break up the income and race segregation in schools, we're just going to hold poor black and brown schools accountable and if we test them and punish them for not achieving, that will make them better," Hannah-Jones said. When covering how racial and economic segregation in schools affected minority students, Hannah-Jones spoke to researchers and fellow journalists who supported improved opportunities at poor schools primarily occupied by minority and low income students. But when asked where they sent their kids to school, she found most attended private or charter schools outside of the area and that, in general, those schools received more resources and higher test scores. "I remember having this feeling -- what hypocrisy," she said. "To say that these kids are just as deserving, to say that your fighting for these kids but you wouldn't dare put your kid in a classroom with those kids." She remembers telling herself she wasn't going to do that when she had children. "But as you all know, it's easy to have values if you don't have to live them," Hannah-Jones said. In 2014, Hannah-Jones said she and her husband had to make a decision on whether to send their daughter to a public school in a gentrifying, low-income neighborhood close to where they lived in New York City or to send her to one of the few integrated schools in the city. In the end, they chose to send her to a public school in the neighborhood. "The hardest thing is to think that you're not doing the best for your very own child, but what I also realized, is that it's not right to do the best for your child at the expense of other people's children," she said. Desegregation and and equal opportunity has not yet been achieved for all black citizens in the country, Hannah Jones said. Understanding the history of slavery and segregation in the United States is key to understanding the current state of segregation in our country, she said. Less than 15 years before she was born, in 1976, Hannah-Jones said it was legal to deny black taxpayers access to housing, shops, restaurants and public parks, pools and libraries. "So when we think about this history and we have that inevitable question in our mind, 'Why aren't we past this yet? Why are we still talking about this?'" she said. "I think it is a good idea to look at someone like me and to understand that I am the first generation of black people in the history of this country born with full legal citizenship rights. This is not ancient history." After publishing her story about choosing a school for her daughter, she said some people reached out to her, asking, "How dare you sacrifice your daughter for some experiment?" Hannah-Jones said her response to that question was, "Whose children are worth the sacrifice?" Hannah-Jones ended her talk Tuesday by saying she never wants people leaving her speeches feeling good. But a solution to the problems she presents requires more than simply going home, looking in the mirror and feeling bad without taking any action to change the system. "Coming here is not your penance," Hannah-Jones said. "This is not your absolution." After the speech, Khady Bramblay, a mother in the audience who immigrated to America from Senegal, Africa, said her family experienced a choice similar to Hannah-Jones' when choosing a school for their children in Kalamazoo. Because her son had learning disabilities, Bramblay said sending him to a private school was an easy choice because he needed a smaller classroom. She said this was the best choice for him, but was only an option because they had the means to pay for private school. When choosing a school for her daughter, Bramblay said, they again had a choice between sending her to school in either Kalamazoo or Portage. Her family chose a school in Portage because their daughter was accepted into an accelerated program. Bramblay acknowledged that Portage is a predominantly white community. About 88 percent of Portage's residents are white, according to U.S. Census data, while Kalamazoo's population is about 69 percent white. Brumblay said she found Hannah-Jones' speech very powerful. "I think what the talk didn't really address is, for us, it's a really hard choice when you're a minority in a minority place and you have a choice," she said. Brumblay said she immigrated to America seeking further opportunity in higher education. Though she found opportunity in higher education, she said she was appalled by what she saw in the countries K-12 education system. "I was so horrified," she said. The action needed from ordinary citizens, Brumblay said, is in petitioning their lawmakers to change governmental policy. "To me the, choice is not to sacrifice your kid," she said. "The choice is, as adults, what do we do to make sure that our representatives can change policies and make sure schools are desegregated?" VAN BUREN COUNTY, MI -- Van Buren County prosecutors will review potential charges against a 15-year-old boy after he crashed an SUV into a tree at 4:30 a.m., injuring his 17-year-old female passenger. Van Buren County sheriff's deputies responded to the 50,000 block of Coujnty Road 687 in Hartford Township early Tuesday, Oct. 30. A Ford Escape had crashed into a tree in a yard. The 15-year-old driver told deputies he swerved to miss a deer and went off the road. A passenger in the SUV, a 17-year-old female, had a broken leg and was taken to Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo. The driver told police he was headed back from Grand Junction and was driving his friend home in her car. The driver had a minor ankle injury. KINDE, MI -- Police say they may have found a rare illegal drug while serving a search warrant in Huron County. On Oct. 23, deputies from the Huron County Sheriff's Office, with the assistance of other law enforcement agencies, served a search warrant at a residence on Bruce Street in Kinde. That's near the tip of Michigan's Thumb. Police seized several glass vials that contained a powdery substance believed to be dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, according to the sheriff's office. On Oct. 23, deputies from the Huron County Sheriff's Office, with the assistance of other law enforcement agencies, served a search warrant at a residence on Bruce Street in Kinde. This is a Schedule 1 drug rarely seen in mid-Michigan, according to the sheriff's department. The effects are said to be very hallucinogenic, more so than LSD, according to the sheriff's office. The substance was taken to the Michigan State Police Crime Lab for analysis. Also seized were several pounds of processed marijuana in various forms, which included butter, according to the sheriff's office. A 34-year-old man was arrested and charged with felony possession with intent to deliver marijuana. The man posted a $1,500 bond. Further court proceedings will follow, as well as other possible charges, depending on if the substance is confirmed as DMT, police said. MOUNT PLEASANT, MI -- Three years after a Central Michigan University student was killed after being stuck by a vehicle on Halloween night, his family and law enforcement are still searching for the person responsible. Ryan Tsatsos was hit by a vehicle after midnight Nov. 1, 2015, while walking to a CMU residence hall with friends. The incident occurred on Crawford Road, between Billabrail Street and Concourse Drive, south of the main campus. Police believe the vehicle that did not stop is a dark, metallic-blue color and likely has front passenger-side damage. Tsatsos, of Macomb, was a 2015 De La Salle High School graduate. He was studying criminal justice at CMU, according to his mother, Julie Tsatsos, and was killed two weeks before his 18th birthday. Tsatsos pushed a young woman out of the way of the vehicle before it stuck and killed him. A $10,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest of the person responsible for the crash that killed Tsatsos. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-422-JAIL (5245). Photo: Contributed Everyone should be safe at work and Linda Silas, President of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions has launched a petition to try and ensure nurses are safe on the job. Doug Eyolfson, Member of Parliament for Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia-Headingley, has sponsored the petition which calls upon the Minister of Health to develop a pan-Canadian prevention strategy to address growing incidents of violence against health care workers. National data shows that the number of violence-related injuries for frontline health care workers increased by close to 66 per cent from 2006-15, and 61 per cent of nurses recently experienced a serious problem with some form of violence over a 12-month period. From St. Johns to Victoria, nurses and frontline health care workers go to work every day knowing they may be verbally or physically assaulted, said Silas. Individual workplaces have been tackling this crisis in isolation, but we need a pan-Canadian strategy to bring governments, employers, unions and frontline workers together to finally put a stop to violence in health care. Eyolfson, who worked as an emergency room doctor in Winnipeg for 20 years, has first-hand experience of the violence health care workers face, having himself been assaulted on two occasions. Violence in any occupational setting is unacceptable and should never be considered part of the job, said Eyolfson. For years, health care workers have been dealing with violent incidents, and the recent sharp increase in such incidents is reaching crisis proportions. A massive piece of the Antarctic ice has broken off. The shape makes it look like one of the biggest ice cubes ever. NASA was doing their annual flight over the Antarctic ice. They do this to analyze the change in sea ice. As they were flying over the Antarctic ice on October 16, 2018, they found two giant rectangular icebergs. NASA says the rectangular nature of the iceberg means the iceberg recently broke off a larger sheet of ice. NASA's longest-running aerial survey of polar ice, flew over the northern Antarctic Peninsula on Oct. 16, 2018. From NASA's press release, senior support scientist Jeremy Harbeck spotted a very sharp-angled, tabular iceberg floating among sea ice just off of the Larsen C ice shelf. "I thought it was pretty interesting; I often see icebergs with relatively straight edges, but I've not really seen one before with two corners at such right angles like this one had," Harbeck said. The rectangular iceberg appeared to be freshly calved from Larsen C, which in July 2017 released the massive A68 iceberg, a chunk of ice about the size of the state of Delaware. The twitter feed of people suggesting how this rectangular iceberg formed is really entertaining. Photo: The Canadian Press People walk past large letters spelling out UBC at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C. The former chair of the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia is suing a woman, claiming she falsely accused him of sexual and physical assaults. Steven Galloway's lawsuit also accuses two dozen other people of repeating the accusations on social media. The lawsuit filed by the novelist in the B.C. Supreme Court claims he was defamed and suffered damage to his reputation. It asks for damages and an injunction preventing the defendants from repeating the allegations, as well as having them removed from the internet. "The defamation began with false statements by (the woman) to several other defendants, who recklessly repeated and asserted the truth of the accusations both within UBC and publicly on the internet, including on Twitter," the statement of claim says. Galloway was suspended from the university in November 2015 while an investigation was completed into what the school said were serious allegations of misconduct. In December of that year, the university asked a former B.C. Supreme Court judge to investigate complaints against Galloway. Mary Ellen Boyd's report, submitted in April 2016, has never been made public. Galloway was fired that June. A labour arbitration decision later ordered the university to pay Galloway $167,000 in damages for statements the school made during the process that violated his privacy rights and harmed his reputation. However, the faculty association withdrew its claim to have Galloway reinstated to his post without giving details. The issue of whether the university had cause to dismiss the professor was no longer contested. Galloway's statement of claim, filed on Friday, says he had a consensual romantic affair that lasted two years with one of the defendants. Unless consent has been granted, The Canadian Press does not identify those who allege they have been sexually assaulted. The statement says both were married, and their affair was adulterous. It asserts that the woman made the false allegations to "deflect blame and create a false narrative to portray herself as innocent in the affair." None of the allegations made in the statement of claim have been proven in court and no statements of defence have been filed. The woman could not be reached for comment, but a lawyer who represented her previously, including during Boyd's investigation, says no client of hers has been served with a claim. "It appears the plaintiff took the story directly to the press," Joanna Birenbaum said in an emailed statement. Birenbaum directed The Canadian Press to an open letter posted online that she wrote to university president Santo Ono, asking him to release Boyd's full report to her client. "UBC's refusal to disclose an unredacted copy of the Boyd Report to (the woman) is preventing her from responding to defamatory attacks on her character and causing harm and damage to her reputation," says the letter, dated Aug. 29, 2018. Attached to the letter were excerpts of redacted sections of the Boyd report that she received. The document says Boyd accepted the woman's allegations that Galloway made increasingly inappropriate sexual comments and advances towards her over a number of months in late 2010 and 2011. "I find that (the woman) found herself in a situation where the 'stakes were high' since she believed that unless she tolerate this conduct, her acceptance into the MFA (master of fine arts) program and other special treatment she had been promised ... might be in jeopardy," the letter says. Galloway responded to a request for comment with a statement saying he was prohibited from discussing matters related to his termination. He said Birenbaum's comments deflect attention away from his claims that the woman made multiple false and malicious allegations against him, "the most destructive of which includes sexual assault." "I have already apologized for my consensual relationship with (the woman); I deeply regret it, but I do not accept her lies or attempts to promote herself and profit from them." Galloway's lawyer, Daniel Burnett, said the lawsuit is about far more severe accusations than those mentioned in the redacted Boyd report. Galloway said in a statement issued in November 2016, shortly after the Boyd report was released to him, that on the balance of probabilities the retired judge found he had not committed sexual assault. Photo: Town of Oliver The canal where it goes underground near Gallagher Lake Outgoing Oliver mayor Ron Hovanes says hes optimistic the federal government will help pay for desperately needed repairs to the towns irrigation canal. Hovanes flew to Ottawa the day after he lost his bid for re-election last week, on what he called a pretty lonely trip, for a pair of meetings with federal ministers set up by local MP Richard Cannings. He said his first meeting was with Minister of Agriculture Lawrence MacAulay, who voiced support for the project, but didnt have any sort of funding program for the project. For his meeting with Infrastructure Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, Hovanes had Osoyoos Indian Band Chief Clarence Louie on the phone. I really stressed the urgency, Hovanes said during his final council meeting Tuesday. This is beyond agriculture. This is employment, this is tourism, this is the South Okanagan. Hovanes said Louie reminded the minister how much the First Nation and its businesses rely on the canal, which was damaged by a rockslide at Gallagher Lake in 2016 and has since been operating with a band-aid fix and 30 per cent less capacity. The nearly 100-year-old Oliver canal brings water to 1,400 hectares of farmland along its 17.4 kilometre route between Vaseux Lake and Hester Creek. We had a really good discussion almost an hour, Hovanes said. The minister encouraged the town to make an application to the federal governments disaster relief and adaptation fund. That fund, however, is for projects $20M or larger and the Town needs just $5M with the province already pitching in $5M itself. Hovanes said they could look at ways of widening the scope of the project, which would re-route the canal away from the rockfall site at Gallagher Lake, to fit the programs criteria. He said the minister asked the Town if they "could increase the public interest" of the project, "because he was sort of suggesting that the canal is really a private interest because it provides farmers with water they make a living from it. Hovanes pointed out that Oliver has a unique water system that sees rural farmers contribute funding to urban water systems and vice-versa. I walked away thinking that there is probably a very real possibility that we should be getting some support because they really truly, I believe, want to work with us, he concluded. Photo: The Canadian Press A tanker drops retardant on the Shovel Lake wildfire near Fraser Lake in August. British Columbia's government says it supports starting its own fires to control wildfires. A report from the Forests Ministry says it now endorses prescribed burns as a fire-fighting tool and plans are underway to allow its expanded use. The controlled burns are part of a government action plan arising from an independent report that made 108 recommendations to overhaul disaster response practices after devastating wildfires and floods in 2017. Former B.C. Liberal cabinet minister George Abbott and Indigenous leader Maureen Chapman called for greater partnerships with First Nations, local, provincial and federal governments to better prepare for emergencies and disasters. Abbott said then as B.C.s former health minister, he would have rejected prescribed burns of forest lands because of the health hazard caused by smoke, but now he sees them as a way to protect communities from fires. The report also states the province must be prepared for incidents that are larger and more complex, such as a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami. The province also must be ready for more extreme weather and weather events in the future. B.C. has endured unprecedented wildfires, forcing the provincial government to declare a state of emergency in each of the 2017 and 2018 forest fire seasons. business 3 Point Analysis | Report card: India Inc's Q2 numbers Here's our take on the earnings season so far, and the companies that must be on investors radars. Eleven weak public sector banks were put under RBI's prompt corrective action that restricted then from expanding unless they cleaned up their balance sheets. However, the government, which had earlier supported the framework, changed its views and called for relaxation. (Image: Reuters) Ravi Krishnan The gloves are off in the spat between the Reserve Bank of India and the government. Media reports say New Delhi has invoked powers under the Section 7 of the Reserve Bank of India Act to issue directions to the central bank. Former Finance Minister P Chidambaram was quick to point out that this clause has never been used before. Indeed, quarrels between the central bank and the government are not new. There have always been differences of opinion. The main issues of contention between the two now seem to be this: RBI should relax restrictions on lending by weak banks, open a special liquidity window for NBFCs, be lenient on loans to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Moreover, the central bank should part with some of its reserves, which the Centre deems excessive, or increase its dividend to the government. But whats prompting the government to invoke these powers now? India is not in a crisis or an emergency situation. Even the liquidity crunch in the non-bank financial company (NBFC) space is not turning out to be Indias mini-Lehman Brothers moment as some feared, going by current data. The central bank has assured Delhi that the situation is under control and liquidity is returning to NBFCs. This is borne out by management commentary of financial firms too. For instance, HDFC Asset Management Co said that inflows to its liquid funds in October have increased. Similarly, Rashesh Shah of Edelweiss, which has an NBFC business, said, the kind of fear psychosis or confidence crises or whatever people are calling it which was there a couple of weeks ago has started abating now. The consensus seems to be that there is no solvency crisis as of now. But yes, the NBFC business model of using short-term loans to finance long-term assets is dented. They are unlikely to replicate the heady 40 percent growth of the last few years. With NBFCs increasingly becoming significant in the overall flow of credit to the economy, growth is sure to take a hit. That seems to have worried the government in an election year. Lower growth and fewer jobs will take the sheen off the governments performance. Indeed, the common thread in most of the Centres demands is that they will increase the flow of credit to the economy. Never mind the fact that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley publicly criticised the central bank for looking the other way as banks lent recklessly during the first United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the current government wants the banks to open the lending taps to push growth. Already, there are signs that growth will slow. Although first quarter GDP growth was at a 15-quarter high of 8.2 percent, high frequency indicators point to a slowdown. Nomura Researchs leading indicator for growth says that data is showing early signs of a demand slowdown led by rural and urban consumption demand. For instance, growth in sales of two-wheelers, cars and tractors were well below their long term average in September. Anecdotal evidence shows dull sales in Dussehra and Diwali, which account for almost a third of sales in categories such as consumer durables. Nomura projects GDP growth to slow to 6.9 percent in the March quarter because of weaker global demand, higher oil prices, tighter financial conditions and a negative fiscal impulse with risks tilted to the downside. Increased credit flow could give a leg up to growth in an economy that is currently running on the single engine of consumption. Raiding the RBIs reserves will provide some spending cushion for the government without breaching the fiscal deficit. Hence, the desperate decision to invoke never before used powers. However, such a move may well backfire if RBI governor Urjit Patel resigns , as is being speculated. India is an open economy now. A prolonged stand-off, or the governor's resignation, may provoke a rout in the bond and equity markets. That in turn will not only increasing borrowing costs for the government, but also negatively impact the real economy, dampen growth and hurt the governments re-election prospects. It could be a case of winning the battle, but losing the war. tata motors live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Tata Motors, the country's largest commercial vehicle maker, is expected to report a loss in the quarter ended September 2018, dented by higher depreciation and weak operating performance by its luxury car brand Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). "Tata Motors is expected to report a muted performance in Q2FY19, primarily tracking sales de-growth at JLR and sharp depreciation of the rupee (forex loss)," ICICI Direct Research said. It is the worst performing stock in auto space, falling 60 percent year-to-date and 17 percent during the quarter against 27 percent and 10 percent fall in Nifty Auto index respectively. Company's domestic business continued to perform well, but JLR has been the main culprit for bad numbers due to change in EU emission norms and challenges in China. Axis Capital expects Tata Motors to post a loss at Rs 160 crore for the quarter while ICICI Direct Research expects a maximum loss at Rs 1,726.2 crore including forex loss of Rs 1,140 crore. Prabhudas Lilladher and Motilal Oswal see more than Rs 400 crore loss for Tata Motors. Motilal Oswal also cut company's FY19/20 consolidated PAT estimates by 35/13 percent as it cut JLR's volumes by 6/4.5 percent and JLRs EBITDA by 11/6 percent, respectively. Tata Motors standalone sales volume increased 24.4 percent YoY and 7.9 percent QoQ to 1,90,472 vehicles and JLR sales dropped 10.1 percent YoY and 4.6 percent QoQ to 1,37,665 vehicles. Hence, revenues may be impacted during the quarter, but realisations and standalone business may support topline. Motilal Oswal said consolidated revenues are estimated to decline 19.9 percent YoY (down 6.8 percent QoQ) while Axis Capital said it may fall by 3 percent due to weak growth at JLR partially offset by strength in domestic business. However, Emkay Research, Prabhudas Lilladher and Kotak Securities expect moderate growth in consolidated revenue. "We expect JLR's (including JV) volume to decline 19.9 percent YoY (-6.8 percent QoQ), impacted by de-stocking across markets and deferment of purchase in China due to reduction in import duty," said Motilal Oswal. The brokerage firm expects JLR's net realisation to increase by 0.5 percent YoY (down 0.8 percent QoQ). Kotak expects standalone revenues to increase by 38 percent YoY due to 24.4 percent YoY volume growth and higher ASPs led by a richer product mix (higher MHCV mix plus increased volumes of higher-priced launches in PV segment). "We model standalone EBITDA margin of 10.3 percent in Q2FY19 (8.7 percent in Q1FY19) led by the company's cost reduction initiatives and operating leverage benefit," said the brokerage house. Company's operating performance is also expected to be weak with brokers expecting double-digit EBITDA fall and sharp margin erosion. Axis Capital said EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) may fall 42 percent and margin may contract by 502 bps impacted by JLR (7 percent) offsetting gains in domestic business (9 percent). Prabhudas Lilladher expects EBITDA to fall by 37 percent and margin by 570 bps YoY. Jaguar Land Rover Motilal Oswal said JLR's EBITDA margin would contract 450 bps YoY (+110 bps QoQ) to 7.3 percent led by negative operating leverage. Consequently, it expects PAT loss of 104 million pound (versus loss of 210 million pound in Q1FY19 and profit of 308 million pound in Q2FY18). "JLR's Q2FY19E volumes are expected to be down 10 percent YoY / up around 5 percent QoQ, with margins at 7.5 percent, lower 430bps YoY / up 130bps YoY, owing commodity pressures and restructuring of the capitalisation structure," Prabhudas Lilladher said. Key issues to watch out for: > Current demand trends for JLR and outlook for key markets > Demand trend in domestic markets and new product launches > Impact of forex hedge loss Photo: Twitter The son and daughter of a Missouri House candidate are urging people not to vote for him because he regularly espouses racial and homophobic views and dislikes Jews and Muslims. Steve West, 64, gained attention after winning the August Republican primary for a northwest Missouri House seat when word spread about views he frequently expressed on a radio show. "I can't imagine him being in any level of government," his daughter, Emily West, told The Kansas City Star on Monday. On Tuesday, her brother, Andy West, told the newspaper his father is "a fanatic" who must be stopped. "If he gets elected, it would legitimize him," Andy West said. "Then he would become a state official, and he's saying that Jews shouldn't even have civil rights." The West children became more concerned when they recently drove through the Clay County district Steve West would represent and saw several yard signs supporting him. Anti-Semitism is gaining national attention after the shooting deaths of 11 Jewish people Saturday at a synagogue in Pittsburgh by a gunman who allegedly said "I just want to kill Jews." Steve West, who denies that he is anti-Semitic, denounced the shootings Monday, and said some of his comments have been taken out of context. "I would never condone any violence against any people because of a specific race or religion or anything else," he said. Andrew West doubted his father would commit violence but said he has the same objective as the Pittsburgh shooter, which is "the removal of Jews from America." In his Oct. 15 radio show, called "The Hard Truth with Jack Justice," West complained about the relationship between the United States and Israel. "They have been running this assault on America," he said. "They have been giving us gay marriage, pornography, abortion, everything that's anti-Christian . This is what they do. This is how they corrupt a Christian nation, because they are an anti-Christ people." Emily West said her father's views have caused a rift between him and his children. She has not spoken to him since he rejected her suggestion that he drop out of the race after he won in August. West blames his ex-wife for his children's rejection. "I had a toxic divorce from my ex-wife and she's poisoned my kids, and I have to live with that," he said. Rep. Jon Carpenter, the Democratic incumbent running against West, said Monday many people supporting West may not know about his views. "I'm deeply disturbed by his candidacy," he said, "and it's my hope that the voters of the 15th District overwhelmingly reject that kind of bigotry on election day." Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd. India leapfrogged to the 77th rank in the World Bank's latest Ease of Doing Business rankings, jumping 23 notches from last year, a news that is likely to bring cheer for the Narendra Modi-government that is caught in an apparent turf battle with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The report also recognises India as one of the top 10 improvers in this years assessment, for the second successive time. India is the only large country this year to have achieved such a significant shift. The jump is significant, as it comes after last years 30-rung climb when India moved into the top 100 rankings among 190 countries. An employee walks between parked Hyundai cars ready for shipment at a port in the southern Indian city of Chennai October 1, 2013. A surprise increase in interest rates and rising car prices in September have tempered hopes for a turnaround in India's struggling autos sector, with some analysts pushing back forecasts for a sustained recovery to next financial year. Car sales in India have fallen nearly 6 percent so far in the current financial year to August, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, as high ownership costs in a slowing economy have prompted consumers to postpone purchases. REUTERS/Babu (INDIA - Tags: BUSINESS TRANSPORT) - GM1E9A11HD801 India has improved its rank by 53 positions in the last two years, and 65 positions in the last four years (2014-18). On the distance to frontier metric, a measure to gauge how far an economys policies are from global best practices, Indias score improved to 67.23 from 60.76 last year. This means last year India improved its business regulations in absolute terms indicating that the country is continuing its steady shift towards global standards. An Indian worker uses an angle grinder at a small steel workshop in Mumbai December 12, 2008. The annual report, which ranks countries on business-friendliness, procedural ease, regulatory architecture and absence of bureaucratic red tape, could not have come at a more opportune time for the government that is caught in a perception battle with the RBI's autonomy. India is in the top 10 of Protecting Minority Investors (Rank 7). India continued its reform agenda, implementing six reforms in the past year. India is now the regions top-ranked economy, the World Bank said, ahead of Bhutan (81) and Sri Lanka (100), Nepal (110), the Maldives (139), Pakistan (136) and Afghanistan (167) and Bangladesh (176). India has improved its rank in six out of the 10 indicators and has moved closer to international best practices on seven out of 10 indicators. The most dramatic improvements have been registered in the indicators related to 'Construction Permits' and 'Trading Across Borders'. In the 'Grant of Construction Permits' indicator, Indias ranking improved from 181 last year to 52 in this years reporta jump of 129 ranks in a single year. In the 'Trading Among Borders' indicator, Indias rank improved by 66 positions, moving from 146 in 2017 to 80 in 2018. India reduced the time and cost to export and import through various initiatives, including the implementation of electronic sealing of containers, the upgrading of port infrastructure and allowing electronic submission of supporting documents with digital signatures, the World Bank said. In the World Bank Groups annual ease of doing business rankings, the top 10 economies are New Zealand, Singapore and Denmark, which retain their first, second and third spots, respectively, for a second consecutive year, followed by Hong Kong SAR, China; Republic of Korea; Georgia; Norway; United States; United Kingdom and FYR Macedonia. Many took to Twitter to celebrate the development. "Today, Indias stands at 77 in WB Doing Business 2019. In 3 years, we have improved our ranking by 65 points - no country of Indias size and complexity has achieved this. Demonstrates that in India, transformative changes are possible if we put our minds to it," says Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog. "India has done it again! Under the able leadership of Hon'ble PM Shri @narendramodi ji, India jumped the #EaseofDoingBusinessRankings by 23 this year to be ranked at 77. #IndiaMeansBusiness #EoDB," tweeted Suresh Prabhu. "We have made notable improvements in 6 important #EoDB indicators and are steadily moving towards implementation of international best practices. India is now ranked 1st among South Asian countries compared to 6th rank in 2014," he tweeted. The Commerce Minister gave out a list of tweets with graphics that say how India improved on many fronts including the ease of securing construction permits, getting an electricity connection, paying taxes and zero-fee for reducing under the shops and establishments act. There are several contentious issues underlying the tussle between the government and the Reserve Bank of India. The government wants the central bank to relax rules for weak banks, to dilute disclosure norms for defaults, open a liquidity window for NBFCs and pay the government a higher dividend. The last of these issues the surplus the RBI generates or the amount of capital it has in its balance sheet is perhaps the most important as it can weaken the central bank. Heres a short explainer around the issues involved. How does RBI generate a profit? The RBI earns an income from interest on holding of securities, the net interest it earns from its liquidity operations, interest from deposits held with foreign banks etc. The central bank deducts its expenditure mainly for printing currency notes, and maintaining its operations to generate a surplus. This surplus is generally transferred to the government as a dividend. In some years, it also sets aside money for a so-called contingency fund. This has the effect of decreasing its surplus, and thus the dividend transferred to the government. In recent years, the RBIs dividend transfer to the government has fallen short of government expectations because of transfers to the contingency fund - leading the Centre to demand more from the central bank. What is the contingency fund and why is it important? The contingency fund is meant for meeting unexpected and unforeseen contingencies such as a rapid depreciation in the value of securities the RBI holds, risks from exchange rate policy operations etc, or risks from an unexpected event like demonetisation. The contingency fund, along with other RBI reserves such as asset development fund, and currency and gold revaluation reserve form an important part of the RBI balance sheet. They add to the RBIs arsenal to meet unexpected disruptions and provide comfort and confidence to global investors. So, whats government upset about? It has been the governments contention that the RBI holds excessive capital, that it need not hold so much money in its reserves. It is upset that the RBI chose to transfer money to the contingency fund in the last two years even when other expenses such as printing costs have been high and thus reduce the dividend it gets. There have been questions raised about the need for such transfers. Former Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian said RBI is one of the most highly capitalised banks in the world and these excess reserves can be used to recapitalise public sector banks. How does one decide whether the RBI has excessive capital? Thats a tricky question to answer. As former deputy governor Rakesh Mohan wrote recently, theoretically, a central bank can operate with below zero levels of capital. But in practice, it stands to lose credibility and risks missing its objectives with low capital levels. Currently, RBI holds around Rs 10 lakh crore as provisions (revaluation reserves, contingency fund and asset development reserves), which amounts to 28 percent of its balance sheet. This, according to Arvind Subramanian, is well above the average for central banks. However, the revaluation reserve is dependent on currency and gold movements and cannot be played with. For example, when the rupee depreciates, the value of RBI's foreign currency assets increase. This is shown as an increase in revaluation reserves. As a thumb rule, any gains from movement in the value of currency and bonds is taken to revaluation reserves, while losses are adjusted from the contingency fund. At the end of June 2018, contingency and asset development funds were just 7 percent of RBIs balance sheet compared to 9.2 percent in 2014. What happens if the government forces the RBI to part with its reserves? Experts say it would be an imprudent move. Firstly, it is a bad idea to use funds built over several years to be transferred to the government in one shot to help it meet the fiscal deficit target. Secondly, how would this work? These reserves are a liability of the RBI. If it transfers money from the contingency fund to the government, it is in effect reducing its stock of government bond holding. That would reduce its interest income. As Rakesh Mohan points out, over time, there would be no new government revenue because of this fall in securities holding. Thirdly, it will erode the credibility of the central bank as well as its ability to meet contingencies. Fourthly, it also erodes the credibility of the government, especially its commitment to fiscal prudence. Fifth, even if the funds were used to recapitalise public sector banks directly, it could create a conflict of interest with RBI owing stakes in the entities it regulates If the govt takes the capital, cant it give it back? Theoretically, the government can recapitalise RBI. But in a developing economy with an already high fiscal deficit, it would be difficult, as can be seen from the track record with public sector banks. Hours after the government publicly stated that the Reserve Bank of Indias autonomy is essential, sources told Moneycontrol that the Finance Ministry believes the central bank is not recognising the "real issue". "Whatever is being leaked from Mumbai is not even the real issue... You have to look at the bigger picture," said a source close to the development. On October 30, ties between the Centre and the central bank took a turn for the worse after differences between the two widened due to contrasting views on liquidity crunch in financial market. "(Activity in) Real estate and auto sales are down due to the liquidity crisis but they (RBI) are not recognising it, another Finance Ministry source said, indicating that steps taken by the Reserve Bank to alleviate systemic liquidity are not enough. The government and the RBI have had differences on the way the central bank has managed the liquidity crisis triggered by the IL&FS issue, as well as its decision to restrict lending by NPA-laden banks. The gap between the government and the RBI widened on October 30 during the Financial Stability and Development Council's (FSDC) meeting. In the meeting chaired by Jaitley and attended by RBI governor, Urijit Patel along with other deputy directors, the government is said to have warned the RBI of the spiral effects of the liquidity crisis emanating from NBFC and have spill overs across sectors. "We don't want another situation like IL&FS," the government told RBI. Sources, however, said that the RBI held its ground and said that there is "no liquidity crisis in the sector except for some players". While the central bank is said to have assured the government of "stepping in as and when required", the apex bank has asked for data from the government on the basis of which the latter claims a crisis, sources said. The RBI indicated to the government that if liquidity was acceptable till September, what makes it believe that the situation has worsened. "Share the data with us (regarding crunch in NBFC)... The liquidity situation is not as bad as it is being projected to be," the RBI told government. While differing view on liquidity crisis is said to be the main reason for the fall out, there have been other points of contention between the two as well. These include capital requirement for banks, lending to small and medium enterprises, easing of prompt corrective action (PCA) framework of the RBI that restrict lending activities of banks with high non-performing assets (NPA) and easing guidelines issued by the central bank to categorise NPA in its February 12 circular. Issues have also cropped up between the two regarding control of RBI over public sector banks. The continuing discomfort of the Finance Ministry comes on a day that started with rumours that Urjit Patel may resign as RBI governor after media reports alleged that the government had invoked section 7 of the RBI Act to make him toe its line. The said section gives power to the government to direct the central bank in matters of "public interest". Section 7 (1) of the RBI Act states that, "The central government may from time to time give such directions to the (central ) bank as it may, after consultation with the Governor of the Bank, consider necessary in the public interest". The rumours were, however, refuted by the government stating that it considers the "autonomy of the organisation as essential". "The autonomy for the central bank, within the framework of the RBI Act, is an essential and accepted governance requirement," the government said in its statement. It further said that the government holds consultation with the RBI on various matters over economic conditions. "Extensive consultations on several issues take place between the government and the RBI from time to time..." the government said and added that the government "suggests possible solutions" after such consultations. "The government will continue to do so," it said. Section 7 has never been used in India, not even during the 1991 Indian economic crisis when the country was close to a default. The statement, however, failed to clarify whether or not any directions were given by the government to the RBI. "Consultations have to take place between organisations... How will things move otherwise? " said sources who added that there was no case of "outright direction". "You have to keep substance above protocol," the source added. Thus, while consultations did happen between the two organisations, the government has refrained from accepting adopting any directorial stance. According to sources, the government is said to have written three "letters of consultation" to the RBI over various subject matters. These include the February 12 circular and diluting PCA norms. Thus, as of now, section 7 cannot be said to have been invoked. Recently, RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya said during a public gathering that "the risks of undermining the central bank's independence is potentially catastrophic". He further said that such move would "incur the wrath of financial markets and ignite an economic fire". In response to Acharya's comments, finance minister, Arun Jaitley, on October 27 said that in any regulatory mechanism, stakeholders' consultation must be of high quality. A FinMin source, however, lamented that while government officials in the North Block do not ever disclose their consultations with the RBI, ex-RBI officials write books and give lectures to reveal everything. This could be a reference to the apparent fallout that this government had with the previous governor Raghuram Rajan the previous RBI chief was not given an extension as is the practice. In a book that he wrote after his term ended, Rajan said he did not agree with the governments decision to implement demonetisation. Furthermore, present RBI governor Urijit Patel had said at a public address that the central bank does not enjoy adequate power over public sector banks to manage their functionality. The comment was made after allegations were levelled against the apex bank in its inability to recognize over Rs 11,000 crore loan scam at Punjab National Bank, India's second largest PSB. Contrary to this, government has said that the RBI enjoys "adequate power" over PSBs. The European Union on Tuesday launched an "in-depth investigation" to assess if Tata Steel's proposed joint venture with German steel giant ThyssenKrupp would breach the bloc's merger regulations and reduce competition. Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp are major integrated producers of flat carbon steel and electrical steel, with significant production facilities in the European Economic Area (EEA), in particular in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. In June, India-headquartered Tata Steel had confirmed that it has agreed the terms of a 50-50 joint venture with ThyssenKrupp to create Europe's second-largest steel company after Lakshmi Mittal's ArcelorMittal. "The European Commission has opened an in-depth investigation to assess the proposed creation of a joint venture by Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp," the European Commission, the executive arm of the 28-member economic bloc, said in a statement. At this stage, the Commission said it is concerned that the merger between the two steel majors may reduce competition in the supply of various high-end steels. "Steel is a crucial input for many of the goods we use in our everyday life, and competitive steel prices are vital for the European economy," said Margrethe Vestager, Commissioner in charge of the EU's competition policy. Industries dependent on steel employ over 30 million people in Europe and we must be able to compete in global markets. This is why we will carefully investigate the impact of the planned combination of Tata Steel's and ThyssenKrupp's steel businesses on effective competition in the steel markets, the Danish politician said. The European Commission said its initial market investigation raised several issues, relating in particular to combining both companies' offer of certain specialty flat carbon steel and electrical steel products. The specific categories it highlighted as areas of concern include steel for automotive applications, which concerns various types of steel, predominantly galvanised, that are used to produce cars and car parts; metallic coated steel for packaging, which is used to produce various packaging solutions, such as food and aerosol cans; and grain oriented electrical steel, which is used to produce a variety of engineering products such as transformers. The Commission said it is concerned that, following the transaction, customers would face a reduced choice in suppliers, as well as higher prices. These customers include various European companies, ranging from major corporations to numerous small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). Many compete with imported products in the EEA, or export their products outside Europe and compete globally, the Commission said in a statement. The Tata-ThyssenKrupp transaction was notified to the European Commission on September 25 and both companies chose not to submit commitments during the initial investigation to address the Commission's preliminary concerns. The Commission now has 90 working days, until March 19 next year, to take a decision. The opening of an in-depth investigation does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation, its statement clarified. Under EU rules, the Commission has a duty to assess mergers and acquisitions involving companies with a turnover above certain thresholds and to prevent concentrations that would significantly impede effective competition in the EEA or any substantial part of it. The proposed JV firm called ThyssenKrupp Tata Steel, which had been under discussions since September 2017, will have a total workforce of 48,000 employees spread across 34 sites, producing about 21 million tons of steel a year with revenues of around EUROS 15 billion. "The joint venture will create a strong pan-European steel company that is structurally robust and competitive," Tata Steel chairman N Chandrasekaran had said at the time of the announcement. Jet Airways owes banks nearly Rs 8,000 crore. Jet Airways has announced a seven-day sale on global fares, with savings of up to 30 percent on Economy and Premiere fares from October 30 till midnight of November 5. The sale allows guests to avail special fares on both single and return journeys across the airlines network, which includes its codeshare partners Air France and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The fare sale will be available across all booking channels. People who choose to book directly through Jet Airways' website or mobile app can even avail exclusive benefits. These include a zero-cancellation fee for changes or cancellations made within 24 hours of booking, and locking a preferred fare for up to 72 hours against any hikes for a nominal fee. Travellers from India get to choose from 66 domestic and international destinations, and travellers from cities in the Gulf can book their travel to destinations in India, ASEAN and SAARC countries. While people travelling internationally can commence travel with immediate effect, those undertaking domestic travel through Premiere can commence travel after a period of eight days. People travelling through Economy can commence travel after 15 days of their booking. The second quarter performance of Tata Global Beverages was lacklustre due to higher competitive intensity in the domestic business, weak sales in the UK and pricing pressure in non-branded business. However, improving market share in key segments and improving contribution from JVs hint at positive trends in the making. Q2: Aided by higher shares from JVs and associates TGBs quarterly sales grew 7 percent year on year (4 percent growth in constant currency on year) on like for like basis after excluding the impact of exit from Russian operations. Topline growth was mainly led by domestic branded business. International business was flattish with better coffee sales performance in the US offset by UK sales. Margins were impacted by higher commodity cost in India and UK as well as higher investment behind brands. Net profit, however, was up 19 percent YoY due to lower taxation and higher profits from associates and JVs. Domestic business market share gain Domestic tea portfolio grew 9 percent in volume terms but on account of competitive intensity value grew by 7 percent only. However, sequentially, there was a marginal market share gain in value terms. The noteworthy category was Green tea, wherein 14 percent volume growth helped in market share gain. Another branded business which continues to perform well is Tata Starbucks, which witnessed double-digit year on year (YoY) growth. In the quarter under review, the company opened nine new stores. International operations - Keurig K-cups sales The US operations witnessed 23 percent YoY sales growth in coffee which was aided by higher Keurig K-cups sales. However, the UK business sales were impacted by prolonged summer leading to the decline in the black tea market. Non-branded business weighed by lower pricing Non-branded business, particularly that of Tata coffee, was impacted by weaker realisations and the adverse impact on plantation crop. Pepper prices were lower due to cheaper imports from Vietnam and some of the plantation crops were impacted by rainfall. Instant coffee category, however, witnessed good volume growth. The stock has corrected by more than 30 percent from its all-time high early this year and has been trading range bound for last three months. Currently, it is trading at 20x FY20e (estimated) earnings at a significant discount to FMCG universe. For the company, some of the tie-ups (Keurig K-cups), investment in categories like green tea and JVs (Starbucks, Nourishco) are doing good. Market share gains in select market and categories are comforting. Further, the possibility for restructuring and re-positioning holds scope for rerating. A large part of such initiatives have played out in last about one year, yet few options remain in terms of hiving off of non-branded business and/or merging consumer food business at the Tata group level. Follow @anubhavsays Cab aggregator Ola is in discussion with Hong-Kong based hedge fund Steadview Capital for a $100 million investment, The Economic Times reported. The latest funding round is expected to value the ride-hailing company at $5.5-5.6 billion, sources told the paper, the highest any urban transportation company has been able to get till date. The hedge fund will reportedly chip in a big sum in the round where Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal will also invest. While a bunch of the transaction is in secondary sale of shares, the primary money is coming at a higher valuation, the ET report quoted a source. It was reported earlier that Bansal may invest $100-150 million in the company. In another funding round in 2017, Ola raised $1.1 billion at a valuation of nearly $4 billion. At the time, the company had said it would raise another $1 billion, targeting a higher valuation of $6-7 billion. Over a month ago, Ola had raised $50 million from new investors based in China, Sailing Capital an investment fund which is backed by Shanghai International Group, and China Eurasian Economic Cooperation Fund. Both entities now hold a 1.17 percent stake each in ANI Technologies, the parent company of Ola. In the past year, there has been a palpable slowdown in the taxi business, along with supply constraints. In order to shore up demand among investors, Ola has to show growth in new categories. This is why they have decided to pump money in their food delivery vertical Foodpanda, another source told the paper. The companys largest shareholder is Japans SoftBank. Bhavish Aggarwal, the co-founder of Ola with Ankit Bhati, is trying to make the company profitable in its core taxi aggregation business. OPEC has boosted oil production in October to the highest since 2016, a Reuters survey found, as higher output led by the United Arab Emirates and Libya more than offset a cut in Iranian shipments due to US sanctions. The 15-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has pumped 33.31 million barrels per day this month, the survey on October 31 found, up 390,000 bpd from September and the highest by OPEC as a group since December 2016. OPEC agreed in June to pump more oil after pressure from US President Donald Trump to curb rising prices and make up for an expected shortfall in Iranian exports. Oil hit a four-year high of $86.74 a barrel on Oct. 3 but has since eased to $76 as concerns over tight supplies faded. "Oil producers appear to be successfully offsetting the supply outages from Iran and Venezuela," said Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt. The June pact involved OPEC, Russia and other non-members returning to 100 percent compliance with output cuts that began in January 2017, after months of underproduction in Venezuela, Angola and elsewhere had pushed adherence above 160 percent. In October, the 12 OPEC members bound by the supply-limiting agreement lowered compliance to 107 percent as production rose, from a revised 122 percent in September, the survey found. This is the closest OPEC has moved to 100 percent compliance since the June agreement. UAE, LIBYA The biggest increase has come this month from the UAE. Output in October rose by 200,000 bpd to 3.25 million bpd, the survey found, and could in theory rise further as the UAE says its oil-production capacity will reach 3.5 million bpd by the year-end. The second-largest came from Libya where production averaged 1.22 million bpd, the survey found, a rise of 170,000 bpd. Libyan output remains volatile due to unrest, raising questions about the stability of current OPEC production. Saudi Arabia, after opening the taps in June and then scaling back its plans to pump more, supplied 10.65 million bpd in October, more than in June and close to a record high, the survey found. The kingdom, OPEC's top producer, has indicated it is concerned about potential oversupply, raising the prospect that its next production adjustment could be to rein in output. OPEC's second-largest producer, Iraq, also raised output in October. Iraqi supply could rise further if Iraq's new government goes ahead with a deal reached by the outgoing administration and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to resume exporting Kirkuk crude to Turkey via the KRG. Angola, where natural declines at oilfields curbed production in recent years, boosted supply in October due to supply from a new field, Gindungo. Output is still far below its OPEC target. Supply in Nigeria rose by 30,000 bpd. Like Libya, Nigeria is not part of the OPEC supply-cutting pact because it often faces unplanned outages stemming from unrest. Output in Kuwait edged lower, the survey found. The country had raised production in July following the OPEC deal, and kept it steady in August and September. Among countries with lower output, the biggest drop - 100,000 bpd - occurred in Iran. Exports fell as returning US sanctions discouraged companies from buying the country's oil, although the decline was lower than some analysts expected. "Iran is going to come in above expectations," said an industry source who tracks OPEC output, referring to Iranian supply in October. Production also slipped further in Venezuela, where a lack of funds for the oil industry because of the country's economic crisis is cutting refinery operations and crude exports. Despite these decreases, OPEC output in October has risen to the highest since December 2016, the month before the supply-cutting pact took effect, according to Reuters surveys. Some of the extra oil has come from Congo Republic and Equatorial Guinea, which joined OPEC in 2018 and 2017 respectively. Before Congo joined, OPEC had an implied production target for 2018 of 32.78 million bpd, based on cutbacks detailed in late 2016 and Nigeria and Libya's expectations of 2018 output. According to the survey, OPEC excluding Congo pumped about 530,000 bpd above this implied target in October. The survey aims to track supply to the market and is based on shipping data provided by external sources, Thomson Reuters flows data and information provided by sources at oil companies, OPEC and consulting firms. Abhinav Prakash Singh Addressing IT professionals at a recent town hall, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that he doesn't believe in the culture of criticising corporates and industries. This is a bold statement to make in a country with deeply entrenched socialist biases since Independence. And that Modi has said it twice in a span of a few months assumes significance. In July too he said in Lucknow that he is not afraid of being seen with industrialists. This is a deliberate attempt aimed at reshaping the political culture of India where empty pro-poor socialist rhetoric dominates the public discourse. Contrary to the colonial stereotypes internalised by Indians and even the nationalist movement, India has always been an entrepreneurial civilisation with sprawling urban centres and dynamic trade and manufacturing linkages across the world since millennia. India has a long history of nurturing the entrepreneurial and industrial zeal which made it one of the most prosperous regions in the world up until the 1750s. Even under the oppressive colonial rule, Indian industrialists did something unique, they spread across the British empire and set up their industrial and commercial enterprises and thus directly challenged the European dominance over the economy. Within India, the world's first steel mill outside of Japan and the West was set up by the Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata. The Dalmias built sugar, cement, textile, paper industries. Walchand Hirachand established shipping, engineering industries. Scindia Steam Navigation Company shipyard (now Hindustan Shipyard Ltd) at Visakhapatnam revived the once formidable Indian shipbuilding industry. GD Birla started Hindustan Motors, Walchand floated Premier Automobiles, and the Tatas conquered the skied with Air India. All of this was done under the colonial government, which left no stones unturned to stop the growth of Indian industry. Also, do we need to remember that the Indian freedom struggle was also funded by these industrial houses? On the eve of Independence, India had one of the most sophisticated and developed industrial bases outside of the western world and Japan. However, instead of building on this base, the new commissars in the government and the planning commission set out to hound businessmen and industrialists. Private companies and industrialists were branded as public enemy number one. They were supposed to be responsible for the poverty and misery of the masses. Subsequently, the aim of government policies was not to promote businesses but to stifle their growth under the infamous license-permit raj. Industrialists were demonised, profit was turned into a dirty word and the word Baniya was turned into an abuse by campus-communists and radical socialist demagogues. Politicians were expected to maintain an arms-length distance from industrialists and to demonstrate their purity of socialist faith by launching periodic crusades against them. The colonial policy of suppression of Indian businesses continued unabated in independent India. All this tilted the scales against businesses which were left with no option but to actively court politicians and officials to escape impossible rules and taxation. This undermined institutions and gave rise to crony capitalism and landed us into the present day mess of corruption, politician-businessmen-bureaucrat nexus and burgeoning NPA problem. Even in the post-reform era, no one actually tried to seriously challenge this nexus till Modi started insisting that be it big corporates or small businessmen, they must start playing by the rules. Deep structural reforms such as the Goods and Service Tax (GST), simplification of laws, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code law, etc. have started to reshape the contours of the economy. It is noteworthy that as prime minister, the first-ever business conference Modi attend was of the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 2015. It seems that the current BJP-led NDA government is not afraid of the socialist jibe of the suit-boot ki sarkar and rightly so. After all, BR Ambedkar too always wore suit-boot' to emphasise his vision of a modern industrial society. (Abhinav Prakash Singh is assistant professor, Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi, Delhi. Views are personal) Delhi Air Pollution As Delhi's air quality turned 'severe' for the first time this season on October 30, authorities have banned construction activities along with halting operations of industries using coal and biomass as fuel between November 1 and 10, and are considering regulating use of private vehicles. The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) issued the directions, which also included intensifying patrolling in 'hot spots' with "no tolerance for visibly polluting vehicles", to government agencies following the orders from the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA). Delhi's air quality turned 'severe' on October 30 for the first time this season with stubble burning intensifying in neighbouring states, authorities said. The overall Air Quality Index (AQI) was 401, falling in the 'severe' category, the highest this season, Central Pollution Control Board officials said. The Centre-run System of Air Quality Forecasting And Research (SAFAR) recorded the AQI at 410. An official said that the EPCA is even considering regulating use of private vehicles in the wake of an alarming rise in air pollution in Delhi. There are a total of 35 lakh private vehicles in the Delhi NCR region. In 2016, the odd-even scheme was enforced twice - January 1-15 and April 15-30 in the city when vehicles having odd and even numbers were allowed to ply on alternate days. The EPCA has earlier accepted the recommendation of a Central Pollution Control Board-led task force for the period between November 1 to 10 when further deterioration of air is expected due to festival season and stubble burning in neighbouring states. The DPCC order includes halt of all construction activities involving excavation, civil construction to remain closed in Delhi and other NCR districts from November 1-10, besides closure of all stone crushers, hot mix plants generating dust pollution in Delhi and NCR districts. All industries using coal and biomass as fuel(excluding thermal and waste to energy plants) will remain closed in Delhi and NCR districts from November 4-10. The DPCC has directed the transport department and traffic police to intensify checking of polluting vehicles and control travel congestion in Delhi and other NCR districts during November 1-10. Following the direction from the EPCA, the DPCC notified Delhi Development Authority, Navratna Central Public Sector, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, Delhi Transport Corporation, National Highway Authority of India, India Meteorological Department, New Delhi Municipal Council, South Delhi Municipal Council, East Delhi Municipal Council and Public Works Department to enforce these measures. "There should be no tolerance for visibly polluting vehicles. This will require stringent monitoring and on spot fines for visibly polluting vehicles," the DPCC said in its direction. The EPCA has also asked DPCC to publish in newspapers advisory for public, recommending them to reduce outdoor activities and minimise their travel using private vehicles as much as possible, the official said. The national capital has been grappling with dangerous levels of pollution for the last two weeks. Eighteen areas in Delhi recorded 'severe' air quality with the highest AQI at 4 PM recorded at Anand Vihar at 467, according to a data by the CPCB. Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon and Noida recorded 'severe' air pollution, crossing the AQI of 400. Greater Noida's air is also on the brink of turning severe, the data said. SAFAR has attributed the spike to "heavy stubble burning in the last 24 hours and calm winds". About 28 per cent of pollution by PM2.5 (presence of particles in the air with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers) on Tuesday was caused due to regional factors like stubble burning, SAFAR officials said. The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) also spotted a large number of biomass fire spots through satellite imageries in neighbouring states of Delhi. SAFAR also issued a health advisory for public, asking Delhiites to not to rely on dust masks for protection. The agency has advised Delhiites to avoid all outdoor activities and give a miss to morning walks. "If the room has windows, close them, if the air conditioner provides a fresh air intake option then choose it, avoid burning anything such as wood, candle or even an incense," it said. The advisory also recommended frequent wet mopping and using masks known as N-95 or P-100 respirators only for outdoor activities. Meanwhile, on the issue of firecrackers, the Environment Ministry said that the directions of the Supreme Court shall be followed strictly in Delhi and NCR. "Timings and locations as envisaged in the Supreme Court's order for bursting of firecrackers would be strictly adhered to. Further only eco friendly fire crackers would be sold after proper authorization has been obtained from Petroleum and Safety Organization (PESO)," the ministry said in a statement. Any other kind of firecrackers would not be permitted to be sold in the NCR region as per the order of the Supreme Court. Delhi Police and the DMs of Gurugram, Noida, Faridabad and Ghaziabad were requested to ensure that these measures were strictly implemented by them in their respective areas, it added. About 44 joint teams will be deployed from Thursday by the Delhi government to check air pollution in the national capital. The BJP in Bengal is contemplating to field "considerable" number of Muslim candidates in the Lok Sabha elections next year with an intent to make inroads into Chief Minster Mamata Banerjee's solid support base among minorities, and corner a sizeable share of this numerically crucial vote bank. The saffron party's aim to make a shift in its political strategy in West Bengal appears to be a result of their harvesting a good number of seats in the local body election early this year by fielding Muslim candidates. The BJP had fielded more than 850 candidates from the minority community in the poll to the three-tier panchayats, with nearly half of them winning the elections. In the last Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had fielded only two minority candidates in the state, which has a total of 42 seats. However, since the last Lok Sabha polls in the state, Bengal politics has witnessed a paradigm shift with the BJP emerging as the main challenger of the TMC by outsmarting the CPI(M) and the Congress. State BJP president Dilip Ghosh told PTI, the party will aim to field "considerable" number of Muslim candidates, given the fact that the state has nearly 30 per cent Muslim population. "Although in our party, tickets are not distributed on the basis of religion, but we are receiving several applications from people of the minority community, expressing their desire to contest elections on our party ticket," Ghosh said. There is still time left to decide on the issue of candidates and tickets will be distributed on the basis of eligibility, winnability and capability of an individual, he said. Ghosh's views were echoed by party's Bengal Minority Morcha chief Ali Hossain, who felt Muslims are a deciding factor in the Bengal elections and the party cannot afford to ignore them. The ruling TMC, however, discounted BJP's minority outreach plan and asserted that they continue to have faith in party chief Mamata Banerjee. "The minorities have full faith in us. The BJP's strategy is nothing but a farce and the minorities are very well aware of their intentions," senior TMC leader Partha Chatterjee said. The Congress and the CPI(M) also pooh-poohed the BJP's Muslim outreach plan saying it was nothing but "shedding crocodile tears" ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Ghosh claimed his party has expanded its base in Bengal by leaps and bounds and Muslims too are not out of its reach. "We are running the government at the Centre and in more than 20 states, Muslims are living in peace and there are no problems. We believe in development for all," he said. According to state BJP sources, who did not wish to be named, in order to make party president Amit Shah's target of 22 Lok Sabha seats from Bengal a reality, it is a "necessity" for the party to reach out to the minorities as the community plays a deciding factor in at least 10-12 Lok Sabha seats of the state. Buoyed by its performance in the last Panchayat polls, the West Bengal BJP has prepared its Lok Sabha blueprint, targeting 26-28 parliamentary seats in the state. The party presently has two Lok Sabha seats -- Asansol and Darjeeling -- in the state. The BJP's Bengal minority wing chief Ali Hossain said the ultimate decision on the candidates' selection would be of the party. "We won't pressurise the party by saying that it has to field so many Muslim candidates. Everything will depend on various factors including whether he or she is able to win the seat or not," Hossain told PTI. The BJP minority morcha, West Bengal unit had last week organised a two-day conference to discuss various issues pertaining to the Muslim community. A number of morcha leaders decided to propagate issues ranging from triple talaq to the Assam NRC to counter the "false propaganda" against the party. -PTI A view of the Indian Supreme Court building is seen in New Delhi Supreme Court-appointed forensic auditors in the Amrapali case have informed the apex court that they have come across 31 more companies whose names had not been disclosed by the embattled firm and that they feared that there could be over 200 such companies where home buyers money had been diverted. The apex court has now directed the Amrapali group to disclose the names of all the companies they owned and had had dealings with by November 12, lawyers present at the hearing said. The next date of hearing is November 13. Forensic auditors Pawan Kumar Agarwal and Ravi Bhatia informed the court that besides the 47 sister companies declared by the Amrapali Group, they have initially found 23 companies and now another eight companies with which the reality firm had transactions. "We have no iota of doubt that not only promoters, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and the internal auditors of the Amrapali Group were part of the syndicate. Prima facie, we have found the relatives of promoters, CFO and internal auditors were directors in these companies, where the money was transferred," Agarwal said. "Initially, we found 23 companies where transaction had taken place and now we have found eight more companies. We anticipate that there are more than 200-250 such companies, where the money was transferred, but their names have not been disclosed by the Amrapali Group till now," he said. Supreme Court appointed forensic auditors in the Amrapali case have also informed the apex court that of the 117 computers and systems handed over by the embattled company, as many as 36 are not in working condition and that no passwords had been provided by the company. Auditors told the court that CFO of the company had been given free cars and an income tax of around Rs 2 crore had also been paid on his behalf by the company. They also said that money had been diverted by the statutory auditors and the CFO to companies in Mauritius and Singapore and invested in other group companies. It questioned Amarapali Group CFO Chander Wadhwa as to how a group company paid his Income Tax amounting to Rs 2 crore, when he was earning only Rs 50,000 per month. It asked the CFO to disclose by Thursday the details of the companies he had incorporated, the home buyers money which was transferred to these companies, on whose authorisation the funds were transferred and the benefits he took from the Amrapali Group. The court warned that if any information given by him was found to be incorrect, he could even be put behind bars. The Supreme Court has directed Amrapali Group to provide lists of all companies where funds were transferred, including all shell companies, all passwords and details. They have been asked to file the reply by November 12, lawyers present at the hearing said. When PVVNL pointed out that electricity dues had not yet been paid, the court said that in projects where no associations have been formed, directed that association be formed and dues be paid by residents within 15 days. When Amrapali directors asked for leave from the hotel in Noida to celebrate Diwali at home, the court said that since they had ruined the Diwali of several homebuyers, they do not have the right to celebrate Diwali. But they have been given permission to meet their lawyers, lawyers present at the hearing said. The Supreme Court last week grilled the Chief Financial Officer of Amrapali Group and internal auditors of the embattled firm over diversion of homebuyers' money and had ordered that the companys auditors and its two directors remain under police surveillance at a hotel in Noida. The bench of Justices Arun Mishra and UU Lalit had questioned CFO Chander Wadhwa who had claimed that he had had a memory failure when grilled by forensic auditors. It had also asked the companys internal auditors Anil Mittal and Ravi Kapoor to hand over all the documents related to the group and had warned them of a jail term for non-compliance. The Apex Court had also sought details and bank statements of 23 dummy companies that the company claimed were created as special purpose vehicles. It has asked the company to hand over all computers and hard drives used by the company since 2008 to the forensic auditors. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Raymond's Q2 earnings show that the fabric and apparel player has seen a marked improvement in performance (YoY). As on September 30, Raymond's network includes 1,282 stores across all formats, covering 2.2 million square feet of retail space. The mini-TRS (The Raymond Shop) count stood at 139 stores. Here's how the quarter panned out for the company's units Branded fabric Branded textile segments - suiting and shirting - registered healthy double-digit sales growth of 14/17 percent YoY, respectively. This was primarily on the back of growth in trade channels. Higher raw material (wool) costs, coupled with a spike in advertisement spends, led to a small dip in margins. Shirting fabric Revenue grew because of better offtake by customers and yarn sales from the linen manufacturing plant at Amravati. A good product mix and stabilisation of Amravati operations helped like-to-like margins go up. Branded apparel Sales grew 15 percent YoY on account of good traction in multi-brand outlets and brands (Parx, Park Avenue). Benefits of operating leverage and cost controls kept like-to-like margins intact despite extended EOSS (end of season sale) periods and an uptick in marketing expenses. Garmenting Growth in revenue was attributable to exports growth in the US. Like-to-like margins witnessed a visible improvement due to operational efficiencies. Tools and hardware Healthy demand in domestic markets led to a growth in sales. Margins inched up due to the successful implementation of ongoing turnaround strategies, along with product rationalisation initiatives. Auto components A strong order book from Indian and international customers caused revenues to increase YoY. Margins bore the brunt of high input costs. What lies ahead ? Branded fabric Festive season sales should give this segment some momentum in Q3 and Q4. Raymond has launched new collections to achieve product differentiation and meet the varied demands of buyers. Branded apparel Park Avenue is likely to be among the fastest growing names in this segment by FY20e. Raymond is recalibrating its entire range of offerings in this brand from being strictly formal to a combination of casuals and formals. Shirting Raymonds linen shirting fabric manufacturing facility at Amravati, which commenced operations in Q3 FY18, should see its utilisation levels increasing with the passage of time. Improved processes will have a favourable rub off on margins. Garmenting Indian Rupees depreciation versus the US dollar will be a big advantage for Raymond. This is because the company exports apparel (formal variants) predominantly to the US from its Ethiopia-based manufacturing unit at zero rates of duty. FMCG Among Indian deodorant brands, Raymonds Park Avenue enjoys market leadership with a total share of 15 percent. The company looks forward to capitalising on this advantage by achieving a wider geographical reach. Network Going forward, the addition of MBOs (multi-brand outlets) and EBOs (exclusive brand outlets) in tier 4/5/6 regions will continue to gain momentum. Both formats have been registering high double-digit growth. Most of the new outlets will be opened under the franchise route to keep the business asset light. Product mix Raymond is focusing its attention on premium clothing variants, which not only command better realisations but also yield high margins. In addition to accentuating brand appeal, this becomes important in normalising marketing spends (as a percentage of sales). Cost management Given the rise in rental costs for commercial properties at marquee locations pan-India, the impetus will be laid on choosing smaller-sized stores. Though promotional expenses are anticipated to remain high in future, there will be a conscious effort to reduce the number of discount days in every quarter. Real estate After approving a proposal to monetise the Thane land bank, requisite permissions are being sought by the management to commence a project there. Proceeds from the same may be utilised to reduce debt. How things pan out will be known whenever an official announcement is made in this regard. The roadblocks Prices of cotton and wool, among the most crucial raw materials for Raymond, have been fairly high. The trend is expected to persist in the near-term. The management stated that in Q3 FY19, demand outlook is expected to be somewhat subdued (in the high single digits) because there are not too many auspicious wedding dates as per the Hindu calendar. Competitive intensity in textiles remains high owing to the presence of unorganised players and other brands. Aggressive discounting strategies adopted by e-commerce players have only added to the woes. Extended EOSS may lead to a dent in margins since price cuts have to be taken to attract more footfalls. In the long-run, though Raymond has adequate top-line visibility in its auto parts segment, margins will be under pressure in the short-term since input commodity prices have been inching up of late. Valuation and outlook Superior brand positioning and recall, personalisation measures (tie-ups with tailors in some regions, to begin with) and improved in-store experiences (through store refurbishments, availability of out-of-stock inventory from another outlet in a few days) will be among the critical revenue drivers for Raymond. The conclusion of a significant portion of capex (Amravati, Ethiopia) in FY18 should regularise cash flows gradually in times to come. Restructuring exercises in the tools and hardware segment is another positive. At 20.4 times its 2-year forward earnings, we believe Raymonds valuations are inexpensive and attractive for going long. Follow @krishnakarwa152 Tata Steel live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More Tata Steel Ltd said on Wednesday it will continue talks with the European Commission after the body raised concerns over its planned steel joint venture with Thyssenkrupp. The European Commission (EC) on Tuesday opened a deeper investigation into the proposed steel joint venture over concerns that it could raise prices and harm competition. Thyssenkrupp and Tata Steel earlier this year unveiled plans to combine their steel activities in Germany, the Netherlands and Britain to become the continent's second-largest steelmaker after ArcelorMittal. "Tata Steel has noted the EC's concerns and will continue its discussions with the EC including providing further information and analysis, especially in relation to sectors they have identified, to secure approval for the proposed joint venture," the company said in a statement. The Commission on Tuesday pointed out three areas where the combination of both companies' specialty flat carbon steel and electrical steel products could give them a dominant position: steel for the automotive sector, metallic coated steel for packaging and grain-oriented electrical steel. Tata Steel shares, which had fallen as much as 6.2 percent in the current session, were trading down 3.2 percent at 0825 GMT. Cyrus Mistry live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More The abrupt sacking of Cyrus Mistry as the chairman and director, respectively, of Tata Sons and its crown jewel TCS violated provisions of the Companies Act, RBI rules and more importantly, Tatas' own articles of association, RoC, Mumbai said in an RTI reply. The right to information (RTI) reply, given by Uday Khomane, the assistant registrar of companies (RoC), Mumbai on October 3, is in response to a RTI request filed by the investment arms of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group on August 31. The reply said the way Mistry was removed from the chairmanship of Tats Sons and also as the director of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), violated the relevant legal provisions under the Companies Act, 2013; the Reserve Bank rules governing NBFCs; and more importantly the rule 118 of the articles of association (AoA) of Tata Sons, the parent of the diversified Tata group, which is registered as an NBFC with the monetary authority. A Tata Sons spokesman refused to offer detailed comments on the questions sent by PTI, saying, "We do not wish to comment on the matter as the matter is sub-judice." PTI has seen a copy of the RTI reply which is based on the assessment of the documents furnished by the Tatas in the aftermath of the boardroom coup on October 24, 2016 dismissing Mistry as the group chairman. The report offers an internal view of the RoC, which interestingly is totally opposite of the view taken by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Mumbai earlier this year while dismissing the petition filed by Mistry challenging his dismissal from the group. In a boardroom coup, Mistry was sacked as the chairman of Tata Sons on October 24, 2016, two months short of four years in the corner room of the Bombay House, the global headquarters of the 150-old conglomerate that nets over 65 per cent of its income from outside the country. Mistry, whose family is the single largest non-Tata shareholder with 18.4 per cent stake in Tata Sons, was nudged to take over the reins of the USD 103-billion group as the second non-Tata chairman, after Nowroji Saklatwala(1934-38), in December 2012, after group patriarch Ratan Tata retired. Mistry was removed as TCS director with 93.11 per cent votes at the EGM held on December 13, 2016, as per its company secretaries Parikh & Associates which cited section 169(2) of the Companies Act 2013 read with section 115 and 100 (2)(a) for his removal. But TCS did not send out the complete representation of Mistry to all shareholders, which violates section 169 (4)(b) of the Companies Act, noted the RoC reply. The RTI reply is based on the queries posed by SP Kumar, western regional director, RoC, Mumbai which has found that Tata Sons violated rule 118 of its articles of its AoA, when it removed Mistry. The report, exclusively available with PTI, states that "article 118 of the AoA of Tata Sons prescribes that its chairman can be removed in the same process as specified for his appointment i.e. by the selection committee consisting of four persons and based on such recommendation of the removal committee only the board is empowered to remove its chairman". It goes on to add that Tata Sons "being an NBFC duly registered with RBI, any management change requires prior approval of the RBI", which was also not complied with. The reply also cited several irregularities pertaining to the December 13, 2016 EGM convened by TCS to remove Mistry as a director from its board. TCS had adopted a letter written by the company secretary and chief operating officer of Tata Sons on November 9, 2016 as a special resolution notice to sack Mistry. The reply noted that this letter from Tata Sons was sent to TCS without any proof of a board resolution authorising the issuance of such a letter. The report also states that "it appears prima facie that there was no proper 'special notice' received" by TCS. The RoC also said that the TCS' company secretary thereafter "on his own" forwarded the purported special notice from Tata Sons dated November 9, 2016 to Mistry. "The letter dated November 11, 2016 written by the VP & CS of TCS is against the provisions of section 169(3) of the Companies Act of 2013 as the power to send such a letter is vested with the board of the company," noted the RoC report. The RoC further noted that "since there was no TCS board meeting between November 9 and 11, 2016, and in the absence of any board resolution authorising the actions of the TCS' company secretary, such a letter and the resulting actions would be void ab-initio". Additionally, TCS had also failed to send out the complete shareholder representation of Mistry to all shareholders, "in violation of section 169(4)(b) of the Companies Act", and hence "the consequential resolution of EGM dated December 13, 2016 for the removal of Mistry would also be void". The RoC, Mumbai in a letter dated January 25, 2017 had written to the regional director of the corporate affairs ministry highlighting these concerns. "As the verification of the relevant documents further finds that the company has violated the provisions of the Companies Act, and rules there under, I am referring the matter to the regional director to verify the findings in terms of rule 11(2) of the Companies (registration offices and fees) rules of 2014," the letter read. In the reply, SP Kumar, RoC Mumbai, in a letter dated February 17, 2017, stated, "RoC having come to the conclusion that transactions are void [Annexure C point (1) to (4)] has to express in unequivocal words whether the e-form is to be rejected or e-form or document as the case may be, as invalid in the electronic record in terms of rule 10(4) of Companies (Registration Offices and Fees) Rules, 2014." However, it is unclear what further action the ministry took on these observations, it noted. Mistry and his elder brother Shapoor Mistry, through their investment companies, are the single largest non-Tata shareholder in Tata Sons with 18.4 percent stake. The group's investment companies are currently waging a legal battle against Tata Sons in the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal alleging oppression of the minority shareholders and mismanagement at Tata Sons. The tribunal began hearing the case Wednesday in New Delhi. Pollution control board officials of Punjab and Haryana have refuted claims that stubble burning by farmers is the reason for the plummeting air quality of New Delhi, saying cities around the fields where crop residue is burnt have cleaner air than the national capital, The Economic Times reported. Every year, farmers in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh burn their paddy stubble during early winter. The officials added that pollution was under control even though air quality deteriorated in areas bordering Delhi. They implied that Delhis air could be polluting Haryanas air, not the other way round. The System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) released a report saying stubble burning was responsible for 32 percent of the overall pollution in Delhi by PM2.5 particles. However, the rice belt districts of Karnal, Kurukshetra and Kaithal, known as breeding grounds of stubble burning, did not see deterioration in air quality, said S Narayanan, member secretary of Haryana Pollution Control Board. He also said a high level of pollution was witnessed in Gurugram and Faridabad districts. Incidents of field fires had come down by 30-40 percent from last year. The cause for higher pollution of Gurugram and Faridabad could be local or an impact of Delhi, he said. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) told governments of north Indian states to take urgent steps to help farmers curb crop residue burning. The NGT also appealed to industries to assist farmers by way of corporate social responsibility. The tribunal had also fined the Delhi government Rs 2 lakh earlier this year for not filing an action plan providing incentives and infrastructure to farmers, assisting them in the disposal of the crop residue. There are some alternatives to burning crop residues like Indian-manufacturer Happy Seeder that shreds crop residues into small pieces and spreads them across the field evenly. Farmers, however, have complained that they cannot afford these machines, and burning them is cheap and quick. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee used the occasion of the unveiling of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's statue in Gujarat to hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the nationalist leader never wanted to divide people, but always worked for their unity. Modi unveiled a 182-metre-tall statue of Patel, considered to be the tallest in the world, at Kevadiya in Narmada district of Gujarat on October 31 to mark the 143rd birth anniversary of the first home minister of Independent India. "Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel never indulged either in caste politics or politics based on religion. The great leader never wanted to divide the people, rather he always worked for their unity," Banerjee said. "Sardar Patel also asked all leaders to look upon all the people equally, without any discrimination," she said, while accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of dividing people on the basis of religion and caste, instead of working for their welfare. "On Sardar Patel's birthday, we hope the country remains united," the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief said. Blaming the BJP-led governments in Assam and at the Centre for leaving out the names of 40 lakh people from the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), she alleged that the saffron party was practising a similar "politics of discrimination" in different parts of the country. "In Assam, they (BJP) are trying to drive out 40 lakh people, including Bengalis, by omitting their names from the NRC draft," Banerjee, a strident critic of the BJP, said. She had hit out at the Centre on October 30 too at Coochbehar by drawing parallels between the NRC exercise in Assam and the exodus of Bihari migrants from Gujarat. Banerjee had alleged that both the BJP-ruled states were trying to divide people on the basis of caste, creed, race and religion. Addressing a public gathering after an administrative meeting, Banerjee said an all-round development of north Bengal was her government's priority for bringing the region into the mainstream. She said infrastructure development in the region would bolster trade and help promote cultural exchanges with neighbouring Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. Moneycontrol Contributors Films are a business a big, messy, sweaty business. From the film franchises in Hollywood that rake in billions to the films here in India, where the benchmark seems to graduate in almost logarithmic fashion Rs 100 crore clubs are passe, it's the era of the Rs 1,000 crore club the business of films is a fascinating one. While the business of films the money involved in everything from the first word put down on paper to the film's eventual settling down on a Netflix or an Amazon Prime demands a series entirely its own, but on this series, we flip the idea we will take a look at how films have depicted the world of business not their own. On Digging Deeper, we take a look at some films that cast their lenses on the stock market, the banking sector, financial regulators etc... basically plenty of pinstriped suits and suspenders, caffeine and cocaine, stock shots of the bull on Wall Street, and lots of hands-free sets. Lots. On this first episode of the series, we take a look at six films feature and documentary that spoke about the business of business. 1. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) One of the most important documentaries about business and the ethics of running a business is Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. This was the documentary that introduced an entire generation to the power of documentaries to convey the truth while not putting us to sleep. Enron. It is now a well-known story. The Houston-based company was a $ 65 billion corporation at its peak. And went bankrupt in one month. This documentary, based on a best-selling book of the same name by reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, is a deep dive into that fiasco. We see Enrons origins in the 1980s, how it was set up with energy deregulation in mind, and how it profited after deregulation. We learn how it took accounting practices to the extremes at one point senior executives were cooking the books. The documentary also covers in some detail the unethical practices of Enron's traders, particularly in the California electricity market. One of the more cruel examples is the "burn, baby, burn" episode. When one of the California power companies called Enron and said there was a fire in the plant, an Enron trader chuckled and said, "Burn, baby, burn". The fire would cut power supply and raise prices. The film focuses primarily on the two at the top who were responsible for setting the corporate culture down the line in Enron -- CEO Kenneth Lay and COO Jeff Skilling. Many of the top executives successfully liquidated the majority of their shares from the company before the collapse. However, the general investor and the employees, who invested much, if not all, of their pension into the company, were the ones who were ultimately betrayed and left with nothing. There were also utility users and payers who were negatively affected. The incredible part is, of course is asking yourself as a viewer, did they really think they'd get away with such things? If you don't like documentaries, put that notion aside because this documentary is the one that will keep you on the edge of the seat and with the holiday season coming up, watch Enron: The Smartest Guy in the Room. 2. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) One of the most celebrated portrayals of the business of sales is the 1992 film Glengarry Glen Ross. This is a remarkable movie. No sex, no violence, no car chases, no fight scenes just some of the most powerful acting chops youll ever see. Gripping, realistic characters. The film stars Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris and a yet-to-become-famous Kevin Spacey. Powerful lineup, isnt it? Glengarry Glen Ross is the story of a failing real estate office in which four agents are told they'd better sell some property quickly or they'll be out of a job soon. Sounds familiar? By the end of the month, the top seller can win himself a Cadillac, the guy who finishes second will get a set of steak knives. The remaining two will be out. The events in the movie span a 24-hour period. Or maybe less. Thats the time that the underachieving sales guys have to prove their mettle. The problem is that the good leads are locked away in a cabinet in the manager's room. They won't be distributed until the end of the contest. The guys are left with sales leads that probably wont work out at all. Alec Baldwins Always Be Closing speech from this movie has become one of the most popular movie scenes in the history of cinema. Acerbic, profane and pulling no punches, it is the perfect depiction of a high octane sales pro who knows how to close a deal. The next morning, the four guys come to work to see that the office has been robbed. And those good sales leads have been stolen! The second half of the film revolves around the investigation of the crime and the fallout of the burglary on the salesmen. Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris and Alec Baldwin give some of their best performances that leave the audience spellbound after a gripping, complex film. Youll want to watch certain scenes from this film again and again and if you are a sales professional in a cutthroat environment, this film will certainly give you some flashback. 3. Margin Call (2011) Margin Call is a 2011 film about the 2008 economic crisis. The movie follows the events at an investment bank over a 24-hour period as the 2008 crisis just about begins to unfold, the calm before the storm. Starring Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore and Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock in the Star Trek movies, Margin Call doesn't delve into the technical causes of the Financial Crisis but the human failures - greed, egotism, ignorance. Peter Sullivan is a young number cruncher at an investment firm in New York. His boss had been fired and escorted out of the building earlier in the day. Sullivan discovers that the company he works for is overleveraged. It will be a calamity for the firm as well as the global economic system. This shakes Sullivan's superiors, played by Kevin Spacey and Jeremy Irons, out of their stupor and they scramble late at night for a face-saving plan. Some people consider Margin Call the smartest movie you will ever see about the 2008 crisis. Most films on the business world come across as judgmental, with characters that brazenly break the law and dont care about the real world fallout of their actions. It is a bit of a tired trope. Margin Call sidesteps such black and white storytelling. There is no character in the film that breaks the law, engages in a conspiracy, or does anything a reasonable person would label as clearly immoral. Even when the CEO of the films fictional bank makes the decision to sell the companys toxic assetsthe decision that sets in motion the collapse of the entire American financial systemit seems like an understandable but painful choice. What else could he have done anyway? If he didnt sell first and kickstart the catastrophe, someone else would. And quickly at that. The consequences are unavoidable, so what good could it possibly achieve if he sacrificed himself and his firm and his employees lost their jobs? Especially if it makes no difference to the outcome? Check Out Margin Call. A fine, nuanced portrayal of good but flawed people and taking uncomfortable decisions at the risk of being labelled the bad guy who broke the world. 4. Boiler Room (2000) Boiler Room is a film released in the year 2000 that portrays a young mans path to success in an investment firm and his conflict with his father, a judge. A college dropout with high aspirations runs an illegal casino in his apartment. Its a good source of revenue but does not meet the high expectations of his father. His father is a successful judge, stern and with high standards, which makes his approval important to our protagonist. One night, the young man, Seth, sees a yellow Ferrari outside his door and is introduced to the wealth potential of stock brokerage. Seth pursues a career with an investment firm located in the suburbs of New York. He learns the craft of sales over the phone. But he has set his aim high to become a senior broker after obtaining something called a Series 7 license. He is a terrific natural as a salesperson. Once he completes his training and gets his license, the pay is phenomenal. He soon notices that the commissions earned at his investment firm are much larger than average. He ends up ruining a small businessman who loses his life savings and his family after following Seths false advice. While he has seen success in this line of work Seth is wracked by guilt and wonders if he has chosen the wrong profession. He confesses his deeds to his father and they agree to take down the investment firm that is making a profit by swindling people. He eventually gets caught by the FBI after helping recover the wealth of the businessman whom he had ruined earlier. Boiler Room is a good watch over the weekend great storytelling, some great acting from the lead actors. Its a bit melancholic at times but, ultimately, Boiler Room a compelling film. In any case, the Boiler Room is one movie you must watch if you are the kind to dig stories about businessmen and their adventures. 5. Arbitrage (2012) The 2012 movie Arbitrage is an interesting story about a rich hedge fund manager struggling to keep things together and almost failing to sell his own trading empire. Richard Gere plays a Wall Street tycoon, Robert Miller, worth billions. At least that is the appearance he keeps up. The truth is, he is hiding 400 million dollars in debt. If that truth were to be revealed, his company would be worthless. He is selling his investment fund company based on falsified values in order to avoid having his business empire collapse. His daughter works for him at his firm as the CFO but she too knows nothing about the fraud. He has both a wife and a high-priced mistress, Julie. Things take a turn for the worse when he falls asleep at the wheel of his car and crashes it. He walks away from the crash, only injured, but his mistress Julie is killed. He then tries to cover up his role in the accident, using the help of a small-time criminal who owes him a favour. He hides at home but a police detective shows up asking questions about his role in the crash. But the detective has no proof tying Miler to the accident and arrests the small-time criminal, who refuses to reveal anything. Miller's daughter figures out the scam hes trying to pull but realizes that she will go to prison too if the truth came out. So she decides to stay quiet about the fraud. Miller's angry wife tries to blackmail him but she fails as well and Miller succeeds in selling his company and eventually comes out on top. Arbitrage is a riveting suspense film that with great performances by Richard Gere and Nate Parker. Hollywood masala storytelling meets the business world in a darkly funny thriller. 6. Capitalism A Love Story (2009) Capitalism A love story --- sounds like an ode to the free market from CNBC or Wall Street, doesnt it? Well, its not. This film, or documentary, is from the inimitable Michael Moore- the guy who made compelling stuff like Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling For Columbine, Sicko, Roger & Me, etc. Capitalism A Love Story is by Michael Moore, documentary filmmaking legend and a renowned anti-establishment voice. The subject matter here is simple the effects of Capitalism. Moore examines the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis, the fallouts for common people and, in his trademark satirical style, the dark humour in all of the mess. Im not kidding. Capitalism A Love Story starts off funnyit begins with slices of security footage of various bank robberies with the song "Louie, Louie" for accompaniment. One of the bank robbers was even on an actual crutch. He also mocks the other American political and historical conceitthe comparisons with the Roman empire, using Encyclopaedia Britannicas archive videos and cutting to clips of Americans being evicted from their homes. Moore then cuts to the "golden days" of American capitalism post-war America, triumphant and confident. Then, Jimmy Carters speech warning Americans of the dangers of "self-indulgence and consumption. Its not a difficult guess that that speech was not well received. Michael Moore believes capitalism is a system that claims to reward free enterprise and risk-taking but in reality rewards greed. This seed of thought pervades Capitalism A Love Story. Moore says it is responsible for the accumulation of wealth at the very top: the richest 1 percent of Americans have more wealth than the bottom 95 percent put together. He accuses the powers that be of mollycoddling the rich, even bowing to their wishes and not ringing in substantive reforms. There are some outstanding moments when he brings to light the rot in the system that exemplify the causes of his outrage. Consider, for instance, something called dead peasant insurance. Its every bit as crass as it sounds. Companies can take out life insurance policies on their workers so that they collect the benefits when those workers die. Further, companies don't usually inform a surviving spouse of the money they've made from their spouse's death. Moore also takes a swipe at something called derivatives, where investors can hedge their bets, by betting that people whove taken home loans will pay back the loans, or even that they will fail to repay their home loans. They hope to win both ways. The guarantees for these bets? The homes that have been bought on loans. We all know this story pretty well now. It is when it is deconstructing the almost contrived crisis of 2008 that Capitalism A Love Story really shines. At other times, we have the old Michael Moore acerbic, sarcastic and entertaining. November 21, 2018 / 07:34 AM IST Turnout dips as compared to 2013 A total of 74.17 percent of the over 1.85 crore electors cast their votes in the Chhattisgarh polls, which is less by nearly 3 percent as compared to the last elections, the Election Commission said yesterday. In the second phase of polling which took place yesterday, the voter turnout was recorded at 71.93 percent till 6 pm. The first phase the poll percentage was 76.42. k chandrashekar Rao,telangana assembly polls 2018 He metamorphosed from being leader of the separate statehood agitation in 2001 to occupying the Chief Minister's chair in Telangana in 2014. Now, K Chandrashekar Rao is set to get the report card of his performance in the state. The state of Telangana is going to vote in assembly elections for the first time on December 7, after being carved out of Andhra Pradesh. Counting is scheduled on December 11, along with Madhya Pradesh. Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Mizoram. In 2014, Andhra Pradesh voted ahead of its bifurcation. The poll results declared Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao, popularly known as KCR, as the winner and his party Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) as the largest party in Telangana region. The party secured majority by winning 63 of the 119 assembly seats in the region. Known for his oratory skills with a mixture of Telugu and Urdu words, the leader was hailed as the tallest leader in Telangana and credited with achieving the separate state despite being the only Member of Parliament (MP) for his party in the then previous Lok Sabha (his MP colleague Vijayashanti turned a rebel following differences with him and joined the Congress days before the elections). KCR, who once started movement for a separate state with only a handful of supporters, became the guide of the destiny of over 350 lakh Telangana people in his capacity as the first CM of the state. Also read: Key facts about the 1st independent election of Telangana In his tenure, before dissolving the assembly prematurely on September 6 this year, KCR introduced several policies in public interest. He was, however, also criticised. From allegedly residing in the biggest and most expensive CM residence in the country to threatening remarks made against some journalists and dissolution of assembly, the CM has drawn flak at several points of his tenure. As the 29th state is set to witness its first independent assembly elections, let's take a look at the journey of its first CM: Early life KCR was born to Raghava Rao and Venkatamma in a village named Chintamadaka in Medak district, Hyderabad on February 17, 1954. He tied the knot with Shobha, daughter of freedom fighter J Keshava Rao, from Kodurpaaka, on April 23, 1969. He has two children, both active in politics. His son KT Rama Rao is a legislator from Sirisilla, Karimnagar district, Telangana, while his daughter Kalvakuntla Kavitha is a Member of Parliament from Nizamabad, Telangana. Also read: Here are some key facts on Telangana, its history of formation He completed his Masters in Telugu Literature from Osmania University, Hyderabad. Political career KCR started his career with the youth Congress party in Medak district under the leadership of Sanjay Gandhi in 1970. In 1983, he became a member of the Telugu Desam Party led by NT Rama Rao. Contesting assembly elections from Siddipet, KCR emerged victorious for four consecutive terms between 1985 and 1999. He also served as the deputy speaker of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly from 20002001. Also read: KTR takes a dig at Prajakutami, says allies will play 'musical chair' for CM's post Resigning from the TDP in 2001, KCR formed the TRS, a regional party with the aim to make an independent Telangana state. KCR supported the UPA government led by Congress, but later withdrew its support citing the reason that UPA was not in a mood to give nod for separate Telangana state. KCR kept on demanding separate statehood for Telangana region, including a hunger strike. After formation of Telangana KCRs TRS emerged as the largest party in Assembly elections 2014 in Telangana region, held ahead of the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. Telangana was formed on June 2, 2014. The party came to power in the state and KCR appointed as the CM. Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Madhya Pradesh Sensing an opportunity to knock the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) out of power after 15 years in Madhya Pradesh, the Indian National Congress has been conducting a fiery campaign in the state. The state will vote in a single phase on November 28. The counting will take place on December 11 along with Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Rajasthan and Telangana. Opinion polls predict that the contest between BJP and Congress could be close and that there exists a tide of anti-incumbency sentiment on the ground. Political analysts also suggest that the election will be decided on one factor if people vote in favour of or against Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who has been at the helm of affairs for 13 out of the 15 years. Chouhans long tenure is explained by his government having rolled out several schemes and projects that have been received well by the public. To counter this, Congress has been on an overdrive, promising schemes, especially targeted at the youth, unemployed, voters from lower income groups and farmers. Around 44 percent of the states population is under the age of 18 years, making them the prime target of political parties. Also read: Key trends from the states binary politics Over the last few months, Congress top brass, including party President Rahul Gandhi has visited the central Indian state. Congress has, however, not released its election manifesto yet. The party has promised jobs, income support for farmers, farm loan waiver and bank credit for entrepreneurs. Besides these, Congress has also promised a number of projects on the religious lines to counter the ruling party. A Ram path religious circuit and setting up of gaushalas are some of those promises. It has however denied using soft Hindutva to garner votes. Also read: Key factors likely to impact the election Jobs Gandhi has consistently hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue of unemployment and assured youngsters that his party alone can create jobs for them. "We brought green revolution, white revolution, computer revolution. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi and MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan have made false promises," he said. "I can assure (you) with full confidence that the Congress alone will generate employment for the youth. We don't lie. If we come to power, we are going to provide employment," he added. Farm loan waiver In June, addressing a rally in Mandsaur the epicentre of farmer agitation in the state Gandhi promised a farm loan waiver within 10 days of his party coming to power in Madhya Pradesh. Farmers in the state have been demanding a waiver of loans. In June, farmers held a 10-day stir led by the Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Mahasangh. CM Chouhan had earlier categorically ruled out a farm loan waiver. Instead, he said farmers would get a fair price for their produce. In an interview to The Economic Times, Chouhan claimed that under the Chief Ministers Farmers Welfare Project (Mukhya Mantri Krishi Samriddhi Yojna), the state government had given Rs 265 per quintal to farmers for their produce, on top of the minimum support price (MSP). Income support for farmers The party is also considering granting direct income support for farmers and weaker sections of society, if it gets elected. Direct income support could add a certain extent of income security to rural households. A person aware of the development had told Mint in August, Currently the party is discussing proposals to provide farm households an amount of Rs 3,000 per month per family which can take care of critical household expenses like education and healthcare at a time when incomes are uncertain. The promised income support is likely to be over and above a promised waiver of crop loans, the person added. Prohibition of Alcohol The party is also planning to implement prohibition of alcohol in the state if elected to power, according to a report by Deccan Herald. Congresss vision document committee is likely to promise total prohibition in its manifesto, in a bid to attract female voters. Women make up 48 percent of the states population, according to the 2011 census data. Also read: A look at how various regions voted in 2013 Gaushalas In September, Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) President Kamal Nath said the party would build gaushalas (protective shelters for cows) in every panchayat of the state. There are 23,006 panchayats in the state. The announcement from Nath assumes significance as he is being seen as one of the leading contenders for the chief ministers position. In a tweet, Nath said, Pradesh ki har panchayat mein 'gaushala' banayenge. Ye ghoshna nahi, vachan hai (We will build a gaushalas in every panchayat. This is a promise, not an announcement). According to a report by The Week, speaking at a rally on September 2, Nath had slammed BJP's approach towards cow protection, alleging that the condition of gaushalas in the state was pathetic, despite the saffron party's publicly-stated commitment to cow protection. The party had also started the Ram Van Gaman Path Yatra along the mythical route taken by Lord Rama on his way to the 14-year exile. The yatra was, however, stopped by the Election Commission (EC) following complaints from the BJP that the religious yatra could be used for political gains even as the model code of conduct was in place. With an eye on 2019 For over a year, Gandhi has been criticising Centres implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). During a public address in Madhya Pradeshs Dabra, Gandhi lambasted the present multi-slab GST, saying it has "ruined" the small shopkeepers in the country. Gandhi said a one-slab GST would be implemented if his party is elected to power in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. "How much money did this Gabbar Singh Tax take away from your pockets? After this meeting, you should go to a small shopkeeper and ask him whether the GST benefited him or resulted in a loss," Gandhi said at the public meeting. rahul gandhi narendra modi The assembly elections in five states are being pegged as the semi-final before the all-important 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan and Telangana will all be heading for assembly polls in November-December. Counting for all five states will happen on December 11. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is fighting against an anti-incumbency tide in three of the five states. Politics in the three states Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have witnessed largely binary contests between the BJP and the Indian National Congress. However, the third front and other parties now want a piece of the cake. Opinion polls so far suggest a possibility of a tough battle between BJP and Congress in Madhya Pradesh. Also read: Key trends from the states binary politics BJP Since the saffron party stormed to power at the Centre in 2014, it has been on an election-winning juggernaut. It has wrested several states from the Congress and other parties over the course of four and half years. However, the Modi-Shah election machinery has still been largely untested when it comes to defending states already held. In 2016, BJP lost Punjab a state it had governed along with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). It won lesser number of seats in Goa, and nearly lost it. The saffron party had a near-miss in PM Modis home state of Gujarat. In Nagaland, BJP, which was part of the ruling alliance, tied up with the second-largest party after polls and retained power. The polls in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan will test PM Modi and BJP National President Amit Shahs ability to hold states. After 15 years in power and recent state-wide agitation against the government, the BJP is expected to record substantial losses in the state. Also read: A look at how various regions voted in 2013 A win here, against odds, would give BJP a major boost ahead of the 2019 general election. It would help the saffron party counter claims of farmer distress and the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (SCs/STs) turning against the government. The win would help Chouhan secure a fourth term in office a rare feat in Indian politics. The BJP could then also hope to repeat such a performance in the general election. However, BJP losing Madhya Pradesh could also question Shahs image as a successful election strategist and dent PM Modis aura as an invincible campaigner. Congress A win in Madhya Pradesh would help Congress pose as an umbrella party within the united opposition ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. It would also send out a message that there could be no opposition alliance without having the Congress on board. Congress currently has governments in four states and Union Territories Punjab, Karnataka, Pondicherry and Mizoram (which is also heading for polls). A win in MP would elevate them from a dismal position. Congress President Rahul Gandhi has been campaigning intensely in the state and is expected to hold more rounds of public addresses as the polling date nears. A win in MP, considered an organisational playground of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), could boost Gandhis popularity as it did during the Gujarat election campaign in 2017 (even as Congress lost). Gaining popularity could help him square off against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a possible presidential-style battle in 2019. Also read: Key factors likely to impact the election In 2014, the BJP had won 26 out of the 29 parliamentary seats in the state. Congress had won three. If Congress wins Madhya Pradesh, it would fancy its chances of winning a larger share of seats in six months time, thereby directly denting the BJP. However, it cannot be assumed that people will vote for the same political party in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls as they do in these state polls. Voters may hold different opinions about the government in the state and the Centre. A series of opinion polls by India Today-Axis My India suggest that the popularity of the central government continues to be higher than those of the state governments, in most cases. The same set of surveys also show that PM Modi is more popular among the respondents compared to several BJP chief ministers. A slogan being picked up by political observers in Rajasthan is, Modi se bair nahi, rani (Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje) ki khair nahi (We have no issues with Modi, but we will not spare The Queen (Vasundhara Raje). The prime minister and the Centres popularity cannot, however, guarantee that the people would vote for BJP in 2019. A loss for Congress in Madhya Pradesh would raise questions about its effectiveness as an opposition party. It would be seen as Congress not being able to win an election despite anti-incumbency against a 15-year government. Questions would also be raised about Congress ability to handle alliances and if it faltered by not allying with Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Such a situation would help Mayawati gain further influence during the 2019 seat sharing negotiations. Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati In early October, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati lashed out at the Indian National Congress and declared that her party would not ally with it in the upcoming assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh. Congress and BSP had been engaged in intense seat-sharing negotiations for weeks before the sudden announcement. Mayawatis decision came as a major blow to the Congress even as she had declared that BSP would not contest with Congress in neighbouring Chhattisgarh as well. BSP has tied up with former chief minister Ajit Jogi-led Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (JCC). While Congress has expressed confidence that it will beat the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state, it said taking like-minded parties along would have helped. Also read: Key factors likely to impact the election BJP has been in power in the state for 15 years, out of which Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has held the top office for 13 years. Congress has been calling this their chance to dethrone the saffron party, riding on a possible tide of anti-incumbency. Except for two brief Janata Party and Samyukta Vidhayak Dal governments, politics in Madhya Pradesh has been a binary contest between the BJP and the Congress. Also read: Key trends from the states binary politics The state heads for polling on November 28. The counting of votes will happen on December 11 along with Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Rajasthan and Telangana. BSP In the 2013 assembly elections, the vote share difference between the BJP and the Congress was 8.5 percent. BSPs vote share in the election was 6.29 percent. Going by the numbers, BSP and Congress in the upcoming assembly polls would have added considerable weight to the latters chances. Out of the 230 assembly seats in the state, 34 fall in the Chambal region. This region also has high concentration of voters belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC), which form the core of BSPs supporter. This could hurt the Congress chances, especially in this region. According to an analysis by Hindustan Times, BSP has played spoiler for the Congress higher number of times than for the BJP in the last three elections. The BSP and Congress fighting each other had denied Congress at least 22 seats in 2003, 41 seats in 2008 and 34 seats in 2013. BSP is planning to contest in all 230 seats and has so far released two candidate lists. The partys candidates include Brahmins, Thakurs and members of other upper caste communities. Samajwadi Party In 2013, Samajwadi Party (SP) had picked up a 1.20 percent vote share in the state while in 2008, it won around 2 percent of the votes. SP had won 3.71 percent of the votes in 2003. The party has contested in Madhya Pradesh across large number of seats. However, it has not been very successful. While it won one seat in 2008, it failed get off the mark in 2013. According to reports, the Akhilesh Yadav-led party is in talks with BSP for a pre-poll alliance in Chhattisgarh, MP and Rajasthan. The state co-ordinators of the two parties have already participated in multiple rounds of discussions, reports suggest. However, an alliance has not been formally announced. SP has announced candidates for 10 seats out of the 30 seats it is expected to contest from. It has tied up with the Gondwana Ganatantra Party (GGP). GGP In 2003, the GGP had won three seats in the 230-member assembly. However, its electoral performance has been on a downward spiral since. In both 2008 and 2013 polls, GGP failed to win a single seat. Between 2003 and 2013, GGPs vote share also fell from 2.03 percent to around 1 percent across the state. During the same period, its vote share in contested seats plummeted from 8.10 percent to 3.59 percent. The partys core supporters are tribals who make up around 21 percent of the states population. Tribals, who are concentrated in the Vindhyan and south-eastern districts (Mahakaushal region) of Madhya Pradesh, have traditionally been Congress vote bank. However, due to a lack of alliance GGP may take some of these votes away from the Congress. Also read: A look at how various regions voted in 2013 SAPAKS Earlier this month, the Samanya Pichra Alpsankhyak Kalyan Samaj (SAPAKS), a group protesting against quotas and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, established the SAPAKS Samaj Party. The organisation was formed around two years ago after CM Chouhan said, Koi mai ka laal aarakshan khatam nahi kar sakta (No one can dare to abolish reservation). SAPAKS has witnessed large turnout at its protests and rallies. The party has declared 88 candidates so far. JAYS The Jai Adivasi Yuva Shakti (JAYS), a tribal political outfit is holding alliance talks with Congress. The party has, however, demanded 40 assembly seats and it remains unclear if Congress would yield to this demand, according to a PTI report. The Kukshi constituency is the bone of contention between the two sides. Congress has been winning this seat since 1972, except for two loses in 1990 assembly elections and 2012 bypoll. JAYS has made its presence felt in 22 tribal seats spread across Alirajpur, Ratlam, Jhabua, Dhar, Khargone, Burhanpur, Khandwa, Dewas and Barwani districts in Malwa-Nimar region in western MP. The region has a sizable tribal population. Out of the 22 constituencies reserved for tribals here, the Congress currently holds five seats. The alliance has, however, not been formalised yet. It also remains unclear as to how many seats Congress is willing to offer JAYS. Independent candidates have also found some success in Madhya Pradesh. In the last three assembly polls, Independent candidates won two, three and three seats, respectively. BSP Chief Mayawati,congress bsp alliance Hours after the inauguration of a Rs 3,000-crore statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat, BSP president Mayawati demanded an apology from those who had flayed her over the statues of Dalit leaders her government had installed in Uttar Pradesh. All those in the BJP, the RSS and company need to apologise, especially to the people of the Bahujan Samaj, for terming the statues installed by the then BSP government to honour icons like Baba Saheb Ambedkar and others as wasteful expenditure," she said in a statement. "The people of the country are also wondering if all this is not politics, and if the BJP really had this love for Patel why had they not put up such a massive statue earlier in Gujarat where they are in power for a long time," she said. The Bahujan Samaj Party chief paid tributes to Vallabhbhai Patel, known as the 'Iron man of India', on his 143rd birth anniversary. She said like Dalit leader Baba Saheb Ambedkar, Sardar Patel was also a nationalist and was widely respected. Mayawati questioned the politics and faith behind the English nomenclature of the statue of the country's first home minister, who she said was an example of Indian culture and traditions. The 182-metre Statue of Unity' is the world's tallest, about twice the height of the Statue of Liberty in the US. The former UP chief minister said the foreign stamp on the construction of Patel's statue will always trouble Patel's followers. She accused the Bharatiya Janata Party and its government at the Centre of confining Patel to a region, saying this is an example of BJP's narrow-mindedness. The statue was dedicated to the nation on Wednesday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat's Kevadiya. It is built on Sadhu Bet islet near Sardar Sarovar Dam in Narmada district. Modi slammed those criticising the decision to build the monument, questioning whether any crime had been committed by constructing such memorials for national heroes like Patel. Patel, the country's first home minister, is credited with merging over 500 princely states into the Union of India. Representative Image The Modi government's "boat of corruption" will no longer sail, the Congress said on Wednesday after the Supreme Court asked the Centre for pricing details of the 36 Rafale jets India is buying from France. A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked for the pricing details in a sealed cover within 10 days, but agreed that "strategic and confidential" information need not be disclosed. "The Modi government's boat of corruption will no longer sail because the Supreme Courts wants to know the truth of Rafale. The corruption-loaded BJP government can no longer remain investigation free, the accused can no longer run away from a JPC (joint parliamentary committee)," Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told reporters. "Dear PM, Please explain to the 'court of people', why are you now shying away from JPC investigation? Rafale Scam is now fully ripe for an investigation-no more excuses!" Surjewala added in a tweet. The Congress has been alleging massive irregularities in the Rafale deal, saying the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government when it was negotiating a deal for procurement of 126 Rafale fighter jets. The Congress has also been targeting the government over selection of Reliance Defence as an offset partner for Dassault. The government has vehemently rejected the allegations and asserted that it did not have any role in the selection of Reliance Defence. Statue of Unity, India | Height : 182 metre (L&T) Viju Cherian The unveiling of the 182-metre-tall Statue of Unity, the statue of Indias first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, at Kevadiya in Gujarat, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had all the pageantry that was befitting the stature of the Iron Man of India, as Patel is known . It was replete with a fly-past by the Indian Air Force, dance and music performances and a Run for Unity organised in different cities across the country. However, not everyone was happy and joined the jamboree at Sadhu Bet. Many local tribal organisations have planned protests against land being taken for the project and the government not heeding to their rights. Reports also suggested that 16 tribal activists from Narmada district were detained for planning protests. If there are voices of dissent being heard now, it is also because a lot has changed since 2013 when the project was announced. Modi, then the chief minister of Gujarat, was rising in popularity across India and his message of development and unity Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas captivated the nation. He inspired confidence to a young India that was restless and disillusioned by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), and he made promises of transforming the lives of every Indian. Four-and-a-half years later, the euphoria that welcomed him in 2014 has ebbed, and the high tide of expectations has receded. Under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, farmers have committed suicide, farmer unions are protesting and unemployment is still a burning issue. The Statue of Unity also comes at a time when there are deep social and political divides that run across the length and breadth of the nation. Divisions across political ideologies, on religious and caste identities and on economic lines are unfortunately evident today, and, like never before, they are threatening the unity of India the India which Sardar Patel amalgamated by bringing together 500-plus princely states. The Statue of Unity is unlikely to bridge these divides. It is in such a situation that many are asking the rationale behind a Rs 2,989-crore statue. The symbolism behind tall, imposing statues is not a new one in fact, it is an old one which lacks the awe and aura it once had. History is awash with larger-than-life monuments, from the monolithic human figures in Easter Island to the rock cut Jain temples in Gwalior to the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan. In more recent history, if the Statue of Liberty symbolised the land of opportunity and modern world, the Soviet Union (and other communist governments) used giant statues for State propaganda. The wave of taller, stronger, mightier monuments is now hitting the developing world its no coincidence a majority of recent large statues are in south and south-east Asia . In the 21st century, the developed world shows might through awe-inspiring development projects: Switzerland has the longest rail tunnel, France has the tallest bridge, and Germany has the cleanest city in the world. When juxtaposed with this, the worlds tallest statue offers little comfort. However, the Statue of Unity does give reasons to cheer. It has the potential to become a tourist attraction (thereby improving the local economy) and, as earlier said, befittingly honours the freedom fighter-politicians contribution to the making of modern India. In a time of deep divide, hatred and efforts to homogenise the nation, Patels statue can act as a constant reminder that India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States. Democracies have a love-hate relationship with statues. Some statues are loved by the people and given an iconic status, such as the Statue of Liberty in New York, United States, the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janerio, Brazil or the Spring Temple Buddha statue in Henan, China. Some statues lose their glow and over time earn the wrath of the people the taking down of numerous Lenin statues across former Soviet states and the 100-plus Confederate monuments across the US are examples. There is a third category, which I feel is a greater injustice to the leader immortalised through the statue the disregarded statue at the city square, public park or roadside which is covered in pigeon droppings. Representative Image Bala Murali Krishna On October 28, Jair Bolsonaro, a far Right candidate, won Brazils presidential race. While that is seen as significant to the world for climate change, Amazon rainforests and womens rights, among others, its significance to India is different and direct the potential weaponisation of WhatsApp, as five states go to polls starting next month, and perhaps in the Lok Sabha election next year. By all accounts Bolsonaros campaign manipulated the encrypted messaging app, probably enough to distort the race. He used the platform to spread the rumour that his rival, Workers Party candidate Fernando Haddad, distributed baby bottles with a penis-shaped teat purportedly to fight homophobia. Facebook-owned WhatsApp did precious little to fight fake news on its platform. It didnt send an executive to a key meeting of the Superior Electoral Court the equivalent of Indias election commission in which executives from Google, Twitter and Facebook participated. Instead, it assigned a manager to join the meeting via video conference from its Silicon Valley headquarters. The manager failed to answer many questions and provided a wrong answer to one. WhatsApp was not exactly pro-active otherwise too. It acted only after the Folha daily had published an expose detailing a Cambridge Analytica-style operation of harvesting user data to then target them. WhatsApp later claimed removing hundreds of thousands of accounts on suspicions they were bots. All in all, WhatsApps conduct was far from exemplary for a leading global messaging platform addressing the latest scourge in a democracy: fake news. It was particularly regrettable because Brazil forms its second-largest market. Yet, as Christina Tardaguila, director of the Brazilian fact-checking group Agencia Lupa, said, It gives us a sense of how important we are. Starting next month, India goes to polls in five states Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram. These races are much smaller, involving a few lakh voters each, compared to over 100 million in Brazils presidential run-off. But their smaller size makes it easier to distribute fake news or manipulate by other means, probably right until the moment a voter enters the voting booth. Indias troubles with WhatsApp, and fake news, began earlier this year. False rumours, spread rapidly on WhatsApp, were linked with at least two dozen lynching deaths including one of a Google engineer in Karnatakas Bidar district. These deaths prompted India to first seriously engage with WhatsApp, even though the app had by then become near ubiquitous on smartphones in the country. This led WhatsApp to take some remedial measures without impinging on privacy or compromising its end-to-end encryption. Among other things, WhatsApp cut to five the number of forwards an especially mindless way for a user to send a message to others regardless of its authenticity or its origins compared to 20 in Brazil. This, in theory, slows down the spread of rumours, and perhaps softens their impact, too. WhatsApp has run educational campaigns to raise awareness about fake news. But, their impact is, at best, unknown. Partially heeding a direct demand from India, WhatsApp also named a chief grievance officer. But that person, Komal Lahiri, is to be based in the United States. A full-fledged team operating in India will take much longer, and wont be in place when the assembly elections are held. WhatsApp chief executive Chris Daniels, who is currently on a visit to India, says the company will name an India head by the years end. While these are positive steps, India would do well to expect more from the American company. For at least two reasons, it enjoys more leverage over WhatsApp than Brazil, or most other countries. One stems from size. With 200 million users, India is by far the biggest market for WhatsApp. Brazil, its second largest, has 138 million. Besides, Indians addiction to the platform is astonishing. People literally wake up to Good Morning greetings and say Good Night, a practice Google discovered was the reason many of its global servers were running out of space. WhatsApp is on the cusp of monetising such traffic in innovative ways. The second factor that has given India leverage is from the US companys desire to operate in the country a payments platform to rival those from Google, Paypal and Paytm. India has kept the nascent company waiting for more reasons than one. It has used this to force WhatsApp to, for example, seriously address rumours on the platform, besides becoming an early adopter of local data storage of payments transactions, ordered by the Reserve Bank of India. With the benefit of lessons learnt by Brazil, India should push WhatsApp to do more, perhaps far more. It could insist on targeted educational campaigns alongside campaigning in the elections due in five states. Or explore ways to identify and block marketing firms that meddle with the political process, or block fake accounts and bots. Fake news and rumours, probably, pose the biggest challenge because WhatsApp is fully encrypted, meaning nobody but the sender and recipient can read the contents of any message. However, who is to say technology cannot yield other creative ways. (Bala Murali Krishna works for a New York-based startup. Views are personal) Kota: Congress President Rahul Gandhi addresses a public meeting in Kota, Rajasthan, Wednesday, Oct 24, 2018. (PTI Photo) (PTI10_24_2018_000224B) Congress president Rahul Gandhi Tuesday appealed to journalists to guard the truth without "fear" like the Army protects the border. He was addressing a public meeting here in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh. The Congress chief alleged that Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam accused Mehul Choksi had deposited money in a minister's bank account. "We showed it to the reporters, but they were scared (to report it)...They are scared. Look they are laughing," he said while looking at a journalist sitting close to the stage. "They are saying that brother (Gandhi) you are speaking the truth but we are scared what will happen (if we write the truth)," Gandhi claimed. He alleged that a woman was tutored by the BJP at a meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in poll-bound Chhattisgarh. When contacted, senior BJP leader Hitesh Bajpai said Gandhi was suffering from a "political paranoid syndrome". Gandhi alleged, "The woman was told that officers and the prime minister had come from Delhi and that she would be asked questions. They told her that she has to say that her income has doubled. The PM came and a television show started." He claimed the woman spoke as she was told to. "She spoke as tutored amid loud clapping and Modiji said that 'achhe din aa gaye' (good days have come)," Gandhi said. "After the meeting, a reporter approached the woman. Scribes are intelligent. He was not scared and asked her whether her income was really doubled. The woman told him that it was in fact got halved," Gandhi said. "When the journalist asked the woman the reason for saying that her income had been doubled, she said the officers from Delhi told her what to speak in the TV programme," he claimed. "The journalist wrote a news piece on this, and after 10 days, the media house for which he was working sacked him," the Congress chief alleged. "That is why there is fear. Don't be afraid and be like the Army that protects our border," Gandhi said. SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk flew to the Seattle area in June for meetings with engineers leading a satellite launch project crucial to his space company's growth. Within hours of landing, Musk had fired at least seven members of the program's senior management team at the Redmond, Washington, office, the culmination of disagreements over the pace at which the team was developing and testing its Starlink satellites, according to the two SpaceX employees with direct knowledge of the situation. Known for pushing aggressive deadlines, Musk quickly brought in new managers from SpaceX headquarters in California to replace a number of the managers he fired. Their mandate: Launch SpaceX's first batch of U.S.-made satellites by the middle of next year, the sources said. The management shakeup and the launch timeline, previously unreported, illustrate how quickly Musk wants to bring online SpaceX's Starlink program, which is competing with OneWeb and Canada's Telesat to be first to market with a new satellite-based Internet service. Those services - essentially a constellation of satellites that will bring high-speed Internet to rural and suburban locations globally - are key to generating the cash that privately-held SpaceX needs to fund Musk's real dream of developing a new rocket capable of flying paying customers to the moon and eventually trying to colonize Mars. "It would be like rebuilding the Internet in space," Musk told an audience in 2015 when he unveiled Starlink. "The goal would be to have a majority of long-distance Internet traffic go over this network." But the program is struggling to hire and retain staff, the employees said. Currently, about 300 SpaceX employees work on Starlink in Redmond, the sources said. According to GeekWire, Musk said in 2015 the Redmond operation would have "probably several hundred people, maybe a thousand people" after 3-4 years in operation. So far this year, about 50 employees left the company "on their own accord," one of the SpaceX employees said, though the reason for those departures was unclear. Overall, SpaceX employs more than 6,000 staff. As of Tuesday, there were 22 job openings - including a job making espresso drinks - for the Redmond office, according to SpaceX's website. SpaceX spokeswoman Eva Behrend told Reuters the Redmond office remains an essential part of the company's efforts to build a next-generation satellite network. "Given the success of our recent Starlink demonstration satellites, we have incorporated lessons learned and re-organized to allow for the next design iteration to be flown in short order," Behrend said. She had no further comment on the reorganization or the launch window, but noted the strategy was similar to the rapid iteration in design and testing which led to the success of its rockets. Among the managers fired from the Redmond office was SpaceX Vice President of Satellites Rajeev Badyal, an engineering and hardware veteran of Microsoft Corp and Hewlett-Packard, and top designer Mark Krebs, who worked in Google's satellite and aircraft division, the employees said. Krebs declined to comment, and Badyal did not respond to requests for comment. The management shakeup followed in-fighting over pressure from Musk to speed up satellite testing schedules, one of the sources said. SpaceX's Behrend offered no comment on the matter. Culture was also a challenge for recent hires, a second source said. A number of the managers had been hired from nearby technology giant Microsoft, where workers were more accustomed to longer development schedules than Musk's famously short deadlines. Another senior manager that left SpaceX was Kim Schulze, who was previously a development manager at Microsoft, one of the people said. Schulze did not respond to a request for comment. "Rajeev wanted three more iterations of test satellites," one of the sources said. "Elon thinks we can do the job with cheaper and simpler satellites, sooner." A billionaire and Chief Executive Officer of Tesla Inc, Musk is known for ambitious projects ranging from auto electrification and rocket-building to high-speed transit tunnels. A Musk trust owns 54 percent of the outstanding stock of SpaceX, according to a 2016 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, SpaceX's most recent. JUNE 2019 LAUNCH GOAL SpaceX has said it would launch its satellites in phases through 2024. It goal of having Internet service available in 2020 is "pretty much on target" with an initial satellite launch by mid-2019, one of the sources said. OneWeb aims for a first launch between December and February 2019, while Telesat was targeting 2022 for broadband services. SpaceX employees told Reuters that two Starlink test satellites launched in February, dubbed Tintin A and B, were functioning as intended. The company is refining the orbital path of the satellites after the US Federal Communications Commission, which oversees satellites in orbit, approved a request from SpaceX to expand Tintins' altitude range, one of the sources said. The FCC confirmed SpaceX's modifications, which have not been reported previously, but declined further comment. "We're using the Tintins to explore that modification," one of the SpaceX employee sources said. "They're happy and healthy and we're talking with them every time they pass a ground station, dozens of times a day." SpaceX engineers have used the two test satellites to play online video games at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California and the Redmond office, the source said. "We were streaming 4k YouTube and playing 'Counter-Strike: Global Offensive' from Hawthorne to Redmond in the first week," the person added. MORE SATELLITES In March, the FCC approved Musk's plan to beam down Internet signals from 4,425 small satellites launched into standard low-Earth orbit - more than two times the total number of active satellites there presently. One SpaceX engineer told Reuters the company has studied plans to add roughly 10,000 additional satellites after its first array is live to meet bandwidth demand in the coming 20 years. Behrend declined to comment on the plans and referred to a previous FCC filing, which states an additional 7,518 satellites are under consideration. Such a move would keep it in the race to expand affordable high-speed Internet access to billions of people in rural or suburban areas globally. The Satellite Industry Association, a lobby group, estimates the global market for satellite-based broadband and television services is worth $127.7 billion, dwarfing the roughly $5.5 billion satellite launch services market. McLean, Virginia-based OneWeb is working to provide internet service from roughly 900 satellites after raising more than $2 billion from SoftBank, the Coca-Cola Company and others. Telesat, backed by Loral Space & Communications Inc, said on October 23 it conducted the first-ever live test of in-flight broadband via a satellite in low-Earth orbit, and was targeting 2022 for broadband services from a constellation of some 300 satellites. SpaceX aims to provide Internet service by linking its satellites to ground stations and mountable terminals about the size of a pizza box at homes or businesses, according to the FCC filing. The U.S. market for broadband is already dominated by several incumbent communications companies, including Comcast Corporation. Comcast declined to comment on the potential new competition. While SpaceX's model of reusing rockets has generated cash, it is not enough to cover the roughly $5 billion cost to develop its Big Falcon Rocket that Musk wants one day to fly to Mars. "There had to be a much bigger idea for generating cash to basically realize the Mars plans," said one of the SpaceX employees. "What better idea than to put Comcast out of business?" 4. OnePlus 6T | SAR value: 1.55 (Image: OnePlus) When Apple took away the 3.5 mm headphone jack from iPhone 7 in 2016, it was assumed to be a self-goal. But soon, many others followed suit, much to the chagrin of its users. Huawei, Xiaomi, Motorola and even Nokia took the gamble of launching phones without the 3.5 mm jack and now OnePlus has taken it off from its latest offering the OnePlus 6T. But perhaps this time, users would not be bothered much simply because there's much more in the offing. Taking away something as indispensable as the 3.5mm headphone jack was something only a behemoth like Apple could manage and it did cause consternation among users. The reason Apple gave behind taking off the headphone jack was, that it will free up real estate inside the phone to make more room for battery and other hardware. That is precisely what OnePlus CEO Pete Lau also said while addressing leaks about the Chinese company getting rid of the jack. With the 6T, it seems Pete Lau has come right on his word. OnePlus 6T offers an in-display fingerprint sensor and a 3,700mah battery. The battery is 400mah more than OnePlus 6, which does translate to more hours (depending on how you use it). The company claims that it has done some software optimisations and it is expected to increase the 6Ts battery life 23% more than the earlier version. The phone feels premium with its 6.41-inch screen and it is snappy with the latest stock Android Pie and Oxygen OS on top. The in-display fingerprint sensor is being claimed as the fastest in the town at 0.34 seconds. At the India launch, Szymon Kopec, Product Manager of OnePlus, also offered some trivia about the in-display fingerprint sensor. He said that OnePlus did actually work on bringing the in-display fingerprint sensor on the OnePlus 5T itself but it somehow didnt work out and they had to drop the idea. Coming back to the decision of 'getting rid of the headphone jack', it must be noted that OnePlus did not jump the bandwagon back in 2016 and 2017 when a number of smartphone manufacturers followed Apple. Instead by keeping the jack, it was praised widely by OnePlus users as can be seen replies to Pete Laus post. Whats remarkable though that in the same post, several users do write that "removing a headphone jack is a bad idea unless you are giving users a USB C to AUX adapter without charging extra money for it". Stopping just short of being spooky, OnePlus has done precisely that. Priced at a nifty Rs 37,999 for the base version that has 128GB of space, 6 GB of RAM coupled with Qualcomms latest Snapdragon 845 processor - the OnePlus 6T does give a USB C to AUX adapter in the box. That is competitive pricing, better yet it offers 2018 features like a minimal notch, low screen-to-body ratio and the new in-display fingerprint sensor. So in a way, OnePlus kept the users happy when it took the conscious decision of not adding the headphone jack and it has managed to keep the users somewhat contented this time around with the new, necessary features. Having said all of that, one can't just dismiss the decision of removal of the headphone jack as something that the people will adjust to. A large section of the technology fraternity believes that the future is wireless but an even larger section of OnePlus customers, especially in countries like India, where many are increasingly getting hooked to feature-heavy, economically-priced premium phones, it may come as a dampener. Another thing that is missing in the package is wireless charging. Though the 6T does have a glassy-looking back, it doesnt support wireless charging. Is it too much to ask for at this price point? Many would argue that it probably is, but the thing is, if youre throwing high punches you got to respond blow with a blow. Perhaps, one of the high-end versions could have thrown in wireless charging, just to test the waters. Nevertheless, with another flagship-killer like OnePlus 6T, OnePlus is making things difficult for itself, what better can they do? Moneycontrol Contributor In our ongoing series on Moneycontrol where we examine the key trends and factors at play in the five states going into assembly elections, today we head to the heart of the country Madhya Pradesh. The Bharatiya Janata Party has held power in the central state for fifteen years now, thirteen of which have been under the leadership of incumbent Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. In 2005, Mr Chouhan took over from Babulal Gaur, the pronouncer of such gems as drinking is a fundamental right, and describing rape as sometimes right, and sometimes wrong. Aside from a truncated term each served by Samyukta Vidhayaka Dal and Janata Party, Madhya Pradesh has largely been a playground for just the two big parties of the country, and it is the same two BJP and Congress which will be fighting it out in the upcoming elections as well. MP will head to polling in a single-phase election, and the tenure of the current Assembly will end on January 7, 2019. Will Shivraj Singh Chouhan get to a fourth term or will anti-incumbency strike? Does the Modi wave that swept across the state in 2014 when the BJP won 27 of the 29 seats there, still have ripples left? How are the upper caste Hindu voters likely to vote this time? How have the rising unemployment rates in both urban and rural areas of the state impacted the way the voter chooses? Will the state that gave us Lata Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar choose to sing a different tune this time around? These and others will be the topics we will discuss in detail as we get to the heart of the matter that is Madhya Pradesh Assembly Elections of 2018. My name is Rakesh Sharma, and you are listening to Moneycontrol. Will Chouhans Luck Run Out At Year Number 13: A Look At Anti-Incumbency In Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been at the helm of affairs for thirteen long years now. Chouhan cut his teeth into Madhya Pradesh politics at a rather young age. A gold medallist in philosophy, Chouhan was active in student politics, and eventually became an MLA from the Budhni constituency in 1990 at age 31. In 1991, he became an MP from the Vidisha constituency in MP, and was elected from the same constituency four more times. The BJP swept the Assembly elections in 2003, but during that time, Chouhan contested and lost against the incumbent chief minister Digvijay Singh. He took over from Babulal Gaur in 2005, after contesting a by-election in Budhni. (Women in Tamil Nadu wear full clothes and hence the crime rate is lower there as compared to other states; I told her [wife of a Russian leader] I cant teach you how to wear a dhoti, but I can certainly teach you how to remove it some more Babulal Gaur gems. He, at 88, is hoping to get a ticket from Govindpura, but reports suggest the BJP might pass on this request.) While Chouhan remains popular and has maintained his vikas purush image even after being the chief minister for 13 years, reports suggests that significant fatigue against the government has crept in. A latest opinion poll still holds Shivraj Singh Chouhan as the favourite among those polled for the post of the chief minister. In a state where the politics has been largely binary between the BJP and the Congress, a tide of voters seeking change of guard would be difficult for Chouhan to overturn. Data from past assembly polls suggests that a large swing of votes is possible in the state. Such instances have occurred in the past, including in 2003 when the BJP stormed to power under the leadership of Uma Bharti. Its been a thirteen year stint for Chouhan, and naturally the question of anti-incumbency has been raised not just in this round of elections, but also in the 2013 edition. He has of course vehemently rejected the notion each time. Speaking to Hindustan Times, he said, I dont see any anti-incumbency in the state as our government has been continuously working to fulfil its promises. T he public is witness to our journey of creating a developed state from the Bimaru state (a reference to four ailing states -- Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh as defined in the 1980s) we inherited from the misrule of the Congress in 2003. Under his administration, Madhya Pradesh has gone from Bimaru to Sucharu (well run) and viksit (developed), he said. Claiming that the protests he has encountered during his Jan Ashirwad Yatra were orchestrated by the opposition, he added that the myth of anti-incumbency is broken when he meets the people who are still thronging in droves to his rallies. Listing successes in terms of irrigation, road infrastructure, attracting industries into the state, and doubling agricultural production as among his chief achievements, he believes he has delivered on the promises made, and that his platform this time is to present to the voting electorate a Naya Madhya Pradesh with Nayi Raftar. Sure, there are some truths to his claims the recent ABP-C Voter survey which predicted a Congress victory shows that Shivraj is still leading the pack in the most-preferred CM candidate race. Even when Congress leaders are combined, Shivraj still emerges leader (Chouhan 42 percent; Scindia 30 percent; Kamalnath 7 percent). His popularity among women is higher than it is with men, thanks to schemes like Ladli Laxmi, Janani Suraksha, Kanya Vivah/Nikah, Prasuti Sahayata Yojana. And yet, crimes against women are on the rise in the state. The CM has also introduced the Saral Bijli Bill scheme to facilitate underprivileged households, while another scheme seeks to waive off old power dues of underprivileged customers, while yet another (announced in July) seeks to provide BPL families electricity supply at a flat rate of 200 rupees per month. These sop announcements could well be because the government is reading the writing on the wall and it reads Do Not Be So Cocky This Time Around. The BJP has lost four consecutive by-elections in the state in the last two years. The Congress had made major gains in recent bypolls for elections to local bodies. These results were reflective of a CSDS survey result which had predicted a 15 percent lead for the Congress in May 2018. Madhya Pradesh tolerates, and gives chances. But beyond a point, the states wrath is all too visible recall 2003, when Digvijay Singh was voted out. The anti-incumbency was so intense that the Congress managed to win just 38 seats out of the 230 assembly seats that went to polls. There are some very real issues that Chouhan is facing as he heads into the polls, all of which we will discuss in a little bit, but the Congress, if it hopes to give him any competition, would do well to remember that ad hominem attacks and name-calling (prostitute, madaari, nalayak) always helps the incumbent, who can easily veer the conversation from real issues that need discussing performance, failures to emotive ones. Congress should know this considering the debacle of 2003 when Digvijay Singh and his team spent an inordinate amount of time in the anda scandal. (Digvijay, in an attempt to take on his saffron-clad opponent Uma Bharti, decided he would peddle some soft hindutva and talk about the benefits of gau mutra. Bharti returned his salvo by going to a Hanuman Mandir to celebrate Hanuman Jayanti with cake and candles. Prince Digvijay showed some right-eous anger. EGG! IN MANDIR! HANUMAN! INSULT! Uma said no egg, milk cake! This went on. For a while. Uma then decided to do the right thing by ditching the egg and going for the jugular with the issues of development (or lack thereof). It worked. Digvijay landed an egg and in the process did dig a pit where his vijay remains forever buried. Congress would do well to eggzcavate some of its own stories of the past if it hopes to pack Chouhan off. Massive uneMPloyment: The Congress neednt look too far to find out what ploy to hit Chouhan with. According to data from the Labour Ministry, Madhya Pradesh had an unemployment rate of 40 percent in urban areas and 44 percent in rural areas in 2015-16. The overall unemployment rate was around 43 percent. In February, the frenzy with which three lakh applicants applied for just 738 peon posts was an indication of just how high the frustration levels among the youth in the state are. Among the applicants for the peon position in district courts were engineers, law graduates, and MBAs. 70,000 applicants were from Gwalior alone! According to The Times of India, the number of educated jobless youth registering with the employment exchange has shot up from 15.6 lakh in 2015 to 23.7 lakh in 2017 a whopping 53 percent in two years. The State Economic Survey showed that in 2016, just 129 jobs were created! The governments attempts at creating jobs through industrialisation have clearly not borne fruit. A significant percentage of MoUs signed by the government at global investor summits (GIS) failed to materialise, according to sources. In July this year, a group of youngsters gathered in Neelam Park to protest the state government and to get an official date regarding the formal joining of candidates who had cleared the exam of Lekhapal in 2015. Lekhapal is an accounting officer at the village level. 2208 candidates had been declared successful in the exam, but only 595 had been invited to join formally. Hundreds of these other candidates are now without a job, despite having cleared the Lekhapal exam. Several such candidates had been teaching at colleges under the Atithi Vidwan scheme where guest scholars could earn around 200 rupees a lecture. There are around 4200 such scholars. In March this year, the Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commission decided to conduct an exam for the position of assistant professor something it had not done in 25 years instead of regularising the atithi vidwans to permanent jobs. As a sombre consequence of the massive unemployment in the state, there has been an almost 2000 percent rise in the cases of suicide between 2005 and 2015. Akshay Hunka, convenor of Berozgar Sena, quoting figures from the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), said the number of people committing suicide with unemployment as a reason was 29 in 2005, and that it had gone up to 579 in 2015. These staggering facts notwithstanding, the government continues to make its tall claims about employment. Between April and June of this year, prominent publications including the Hindu Businessline, The Indian Express, The Hindustan Times, reported that the MP government will provide jobs to one lakh youths. Where are these one lakh jobs? El Dorado? Atlantis? We do not have answers yet. Mandsaur and the farmer agitation Shivraj Singh Chouhan claims hes a Kisan ka Beta, but reports suggest he has largely ignored the problems faced by farmers. He has been accused of treating farmers as merely a votebank and not as a community he is devoted to helping. In the last ten years alone, more than 11,000 farmers have committed suicide in Madhya Pradesh. Things came to a head about a year ago in Mandsaur. On June 6, 2017, police in Mandsaur fired at protesters who were demanding better prices for their harvest. Six protesters were killed in the police firing, leading to violent protests that spread to neighbouring districts. A day later, a local factory was torched by protesters. The protests forced the Chouhan government to launch the Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana (BBY) in October 2017, under which registered farmers would be paid the difference between the minimum support price (MSP) and a modal price. The amount would be calculated by taking into consideration the average price of a crop in the state and two neighbouring states. Newsclick, however, reported that even after 17 months of the incident, farmers in the region are still complaining about not receiving the correct MSP and that the Swaminathan Commissions recommendations have not been implemented. Congress President Rahul Gandhi was denied permission by the administration to meet the farmers. This, with the background of the death of six farmers, created a positive image for the Congress and a negative image for Chouhans government, political observers suggest. To mark the first anniversary of the farmer protests, Gandhi staged a rally in Mandsaur on June 6 this year. In what was seen as a virtual election campaign launch for the party, Gandhi attacked the BJP governments at the Centre and the state. The Wrath of the Upper Castes In September, upper caste BJP leaders in Madhya Pradesh sent an SOS to the central high command the upper caste voters could turn against the BJP. Why? The decision to amend the SC, ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act by the Centre ostensibly to eat into the votebase of BSP and Congress among underprivileged communities had angered the upper castes. Multiple districts across the state observed a complete shutdown in support of protests called by various upper caste outfits against the amendments Act passed by Parliament in July. The anger among the savarnas (upper castes) is too deep rooted to be contained by any small measures. It has to be big impact-making steps by the Centre to prevent them from landing in the fold of Congress out of vengeance, a senior Madhya Pradesh BJP leader, not willing to be quoted, told The Asian Age. Asian Age reports, Brahmins (5 percent), Thakurs (2.5 percent), Banias (trading community) (three percent) and Kayasthas (2.5 percent) are the key upper caste voters who constitute around 13 percent of the total population in Madhya Pradesh. OBCs comprising Yadavs, Kurmis, Lodhis, and Kushwahas, Nais, Nahars and Nishads constitute around 60 percent of total population of the state. The gap between votes garnered by the BJP and the Congress in the last three Assembly elections in the state has hovered around 8.5 percent and any decision by the upper castes to desert the BJP may bring Congress to power. The BJP has consistently enjoyed the support of the upper caste voter in the state. In a study by CSDS conducted in 2014, it was revealed that the BJPs share of votes of upper castes increased from 35 percent. to nearly 48 percent. Nivedita Mishra, a retired professor of political science, said, If the upper castes, considered partys base in urban areas, dump the BJP in favour of the Congress it may upset the calculation of the BJP. A New Alliance? BSP, GGP, JAYS, SAPAKS BSP, GGP, JAYS and the newly formed SAPAKS Samaj Party are hoping to get a piece of the cake as BJP battles anti-incumbency after being in power for 15 years. However, this could dent Congress chances. In early October, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati lashed out at the Indian National Congress and declared that her party would not ally with it in the upcoming assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh. Congress and BSP had been engaged in intense seat-sharing negotiations for weeks before the sudden announcement. Mayawatis decision came as a major blow to the Congress even as she had declared that BSP would not contest with Congress in neighbouring Chhattisgarh as well. BSP has tied up with former chief minister Ajit Jogi-led Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (JCC). Nachiket Deuskar, writing for Moneycontrol, says, In the 2013 assembly elections, the vote share difference between the BJP and the Congress was 8.5 percent. BSPs vote share in the election was 6.29 percent. Going by the numbers, BSP and Congress in the upcoming assembly polls would have added considerable weight to the latters chances. Out of the 230 assembly seats in the state, 34 fall in the Chambal region. This region also has high concentration of voters belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC), which form the core of BSPs supporter. This could hurt the Congress chances, especially in this region. According to an analysis by Hindustan Times, BSP has played spoiler for the Congress higher number of times than for the BJP in the last three elections. The BSP and Congress fighting each other had denied Congress at least 22 seats in 2003, 41 seats in 2008 and 34 seats in 2013. The BSP is planning to contest in all 230 seats. The Samajwadi Party, led by Akhilesh Yadav, has seen less success in Madhya Pradesh, with currently no seats to its name in the assembly. Reports suggest that the party is hoping to form an alliance with BSP. A formal announcement to this regard has not been made yet. SP has announced candidates for 10 seats out of the 30 seats it is expected to contest from. It has tied up with the Gondwana Ganatantra Party (GGP). The GGP, whose core base is the tribal population (which makes up around 21 percent of the total population), is hoping to take some votes away from the Congress, which is otherwise the party of choice of the tribal population in the state. Earlier this month, the Samanya Pichra Alpsankhyak Kalyan Samaj (SAPAKS), a group protesting against quotas and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, established the SAPAKS Samaj Party. The organisation was formed around two years ago after CM Chouhan said, Koi mai ka laal aarakshan khatam nahi kar sakta (No one can dare to abolish reservation). SAPAKS has witnessed large turnout at its protests and rallies. The party has declared 88 candidates so far. If SAPAKS is the party of upper caste disillusionment, on the other end of the spectrum, we have JAYS - the Jai Adivasi Yuva Shakti (JAYS), a tribal political outfit is holding alliance talks with Congress. The party has, however, demanded 40 assembly seats and it remains unclear if Congress would yield to this demand, according to a PTI report. While it is rather a fanciful idea to imagine, lets say the SAPAKS party to join the others in the group to form a third front, we have seen stranger bedfellows in politics. Meanwhile, the Congress seems to be adopting the same strategy that it did during Digvijay Singhs time in 2003 peddle soft Hindutva. In September, Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) President Kamal Nath said the party would build gaushalas (protective shelters for cows) in every panchayat of the state. There are 23,006 panchayats in the state. The announcement from Nath assumes significance as he is being seen as one of the leading contenders for the chief ministers position. In a tweet, Nath said, Pradesh ki har panchayat mein 'gaushala' banayenge. Ye ghoshna nahi, vachan hai. The party had also started the Ram Van Gaman Path Yatra along the mythical route taken by Lord Rama on his way to the 14-year exile. The yatra was, however, stopped by the Election Commission (EC) following complaints from the BJP that the religious yatra could be used for political gains even as the model code of conduct was in place. According to Deccan Herald, the party is also planning to implement prohibition of alcohol in the state if elected to power. One thing is certain the BJP understands its position is threatened in Madhya Pradesh. But it will not be easy for the Congress to wrest power from the BJP Shivraj Singh Chouhan remains a popular chief minister even if certain communities might be disillusioned in him and his party. Madhya Pradesh will be among the more interesting polls to watch out for. MP will head to polling in a single-phase election, and the counting of votes will happen on December 11. The Supreme Court of Tennessee yesterday rejected a challenge to that state's current lethal injection protocol, which is largely the same as the one upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court three years ago in Glossip v. Gross On the issue of whether the single-drug method with pentobarbital is an available alternative method for the purpose of the Glossip standard, the court noted that it is not because it is presently not available. As the U.S. Supreme Court noted in Glossip (slip opinion page 4), the reason the preferred drug is not available is that "anti-death-penalty advocates pressured pharmaceutical companies to refuse to supply the drugs used to carry out death sentences." The case is Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman, et al. v. Tony Parker, et al., No. M2018-01385-SC-RDO-CV. The opinion is by Chief Justice Bivens, with one justice dissenting. Edmund Zagorski is set for execution Thursday, and David Miller is set for execution December 6. Dissenting Justice Sharon Lee decries the "rush to execute." Zagorski was sentenced to death thirty-four years ago. Update: Adam Tamburin : Adam Tamburin reports for the Tennessean that Zagorski has chosen the electric chair, which is Tennessee's alternative method. It was last used in 2007. Zagorski was convicted in 1984 of killing two men in Robertson County. He shot them, slit their throats and robbed them after luring them into the woods by promising to sell them a large amount of marijuana. Sign of Ford is pictured at a car dealership in Mexico City Ford Motor Co and Baidu Inc launched a two-year project on Wednesday to test self-driving vehicles on Chinese roads, amid a global race by carmakers and internet firms to develop autonomous vehicle technology. The project will start testing on designated roads in Beijing by the end of this year, and possibly other Chinese cities, the two companies said in a statement. The vehicles will be capable of operating autonomously in certain conditions by the time the project finishes the development and testing process, they said. By the end of the test period, the project will reach so-called level 4 technology for autonomous vehicles, or autonomous driving but not in all conditions. It is the second-highest tier after level 5, which describes vehicles that should be capable of navigating roads without any driver input. Ford and Baidu, China's top search engine operator that is also taking a lead role in self-driving tech in the country, said in June they would develop connected services, artificial intelligence and digital marketing in China. The U.S. carmaker, which is grappling with slowing China sales, is a founding member of the Apollo Committee, an advisory group for Baidu's Apollo autonomous driving open platform. China's capital city gave German auto maker Daimler AG the green light to test self-driving cars on roads in July, making it the first international car maker to be granted such a license in Beijing. A top Myanmar official said on October 31 that his country would take back group of 2,000 Rohingya refugees from camps in Bangladesh in November despite widespread doubts over the proposal. Officials from the two countries announced on October 30 that some of the 720,000 Muslim Rohingya who fled a deadly military clampdown in the Buddhist-majority country last year would start returning next month. Myanmar foreign secretary Myint Thu visited the camps in Cox's Bazar on October 31 to discuss the repatriations with refugees. Most repeated demands that they be given Myanmar nationality with full rights before they return. Thu said Myanmar has verified 5,000 names on a list of 8,032 Rohingya that Bangladesh authorities sent in February. "From that 5,000, the first batch will be about 2,000 people. And then a second batch will follow. So in mid-November we will receive the first batch," Thu told reporters. Bangladesh officials said a new list of 24,342 Rohingya names was handed over in talks this week. But Rohingya representatives expressed strong doubts about going back despite the announcement. "We would rather die in the camp in Bangladesh. We will not return without any guarantee of citizenship or fully restored rights," Abdul Hakim, one refugee from Myanmar's Rakhine state, told AFP. The United Nations, aid groups and even Bangladesh authorities have said any repatriation must be voluntary. Oxfam spokesperson Rachael Reilly said the refugees "want to see justice served and an end to the violence and discrimination that have caused this crisis". "It is deeply concerning that Rohingya people may be sent back to Myanmar to face the same persecution they fled," she said. The 720,000 joined about 300,000 who fled earlier violence in Myanmar, where the Rohingya are refused citizenship and rights. Many brought harrowing tales of rape, murder and burning of villages. Investigators have said senior Myanmar military officials should be prosecuted for genocide, but Myanmar has rejected the calls, insisting it only targeted militants. The two neighbours first announced a large-scale repatriation plan in November 2017. But it has failed to advance, with each government blaming the other. Ahead of Prime Minister Imran Khan's first visit to China, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Wednesday said the relations between the two nations is a "model of state-to-state ties" and the CPEC projects have given an important socio-economic development dimension to their friendship. Khan, accompanied by Qureshi, will lead a delegation from November 2-5 to China for talks with President Xi Jinping amid anxieties in Beijing over his government's approach to deal with the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) following reports about Islamabad downsizing certain projects. Khan's trip to Beijing comes ahead of a visit to Islamabad by International Monetary Fund officials on November 7 for formal discussions on a bailout package for the cash-strapped country. Qureshi chaired a preparatory meeting for Khan's visit via video conference with the Ambassador of Pakistan in Beijing, Masood Khalid. "The two countries are close friends, good neighbours and development partners. The bilateral relationship has withstood the test of times. Regardless of domestic or international changes, this close friendship has served as a model of state-to-state relations for other countries," he said. Highlighting that Pakistan and China are "all-weather strategic cooperative partners", the foreign minister said the bilateral ties have been further strengthened, particularly in the economic field, by the launch of the CPEC. Underscoring that the ambitious infrastructure project has added another important socio-economic development dimension to the bilateral relationship, Qureshi said, "The leadership of both countries has expressed strong desire and commitment to the successful implementation of the CPEC." Beijing touts CPEC as the flagship infrastructure programme in its vast Belt and Road (BRI) Initiative. The CPEC connects China's Xinjiang province with Gwadar, a port city in Balochistan, through a rail, road and pipeline network. India is opposed to the CPEC as it traverses through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Qureshi said, "Pakistan considers the CPEC as an engine for growth; a catalyst for economic development, and a platform for socio-economic uplift of the people of Pakistan." The IMF had said it would closely scrutinise the CPEC projects and the US is opposed to the use of IMF money to service the Chinese loans. An assessment by the State Bank of Pakistan and the Finance Ministry showed that Pakistan needed USD 11.7 billion to service its external debt in the current fiscal year 2018-19. The US has said the debts accrued on the CPEC projects were to blame for Pakistan's current economic crisis, a statement which was rejected by both Beijing and Islamabad. On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang had told the media in Beijing that Khan's first visit will provide an opportunity for two countries to "open a new chapter of development of bilateral relations under the new circumstances". Istanbul's chief prosecutor's office said on October 31 journalist Jamal Khashoggi was suffocated as soon as he entered Saudi Arabia's consulate in a planned killing four weeks ago, and his body was then dismembered and disposed of. In a statement issued after two days of talks with Saudi Arabia's public prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb, it also said no concrete results were reached in those meetings. Khashoggi's death has escalated into a crisis for Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, which at first denied any knowledge of or role in his disappearance on October 2. Mojeb later said Khashoggi's killing was premeditated and Riyadh said 18 suspects had been arrested. But Turkey, which released a stream of evidence undermining Riyadh's early denials, has demanded more details including the whereabouts of Khashoggi's body and who ordered his killing. "Despite our well-intentioned efforts to reveal the truth, no concrete results have come out of those meetings," the Istanbul prosecutor's office said of the talks on October 29 and 30 between Mojeb and Istanbul chief prosecutor Irfan Fidan. The killing of Khashoggi, a critic of de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has put into focus the West's close relationship with Saudi Arabia - a major arms buyer and lynchpin of Washington's regional plans to contain Iran. President Tayyip Erdogan, who has demanded more information from Saudi Arabia, said on October 31 Fidan had asked Mojeb to disclose who sent a 15-strong team from Riyadh which is suspected of involvement in the killing. Several banks in India, which are using Microsoft Office 365 cloud-based email services are sharing financial data of customers with US agencies, says a report. In the report, DNA Money says this was pointed out by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its risk assessment report (RAR) and the central bank had asked banks in the country to explain financial data sharing with authorities abroad. "According to the document the banks were aware of the issue because they had purchased and migrated to Microsofts cloud-based email service Office 365. All the mailboxes had been migrated to office 365 Microsoft cloud environment. It was gathered from the Microsoft transparency hub that Microsoft is bound to share customers data under US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and US national security letters as and when required by the US authorities, DNA Money says quoting the RBI report. Microsoft has disclosed information at least on 3,036 occasions and received more than 4,000 government requests or legal demand requests for Indian customers in the US, the report says. Microsoft, talking about cloud in financial services in India, says, "From a regulatory perspective, cloud is permitted. The regulatory framework in India permits the use of cloud services, including public cloud services. Banks are required to report to the RBI if the scale and nature of the activity outsourced is significant and/ or if extensive data sharing is involved across geographic locations as part of outsourcing and where data pertaining to Indian operations are stored or processed abroad." "Transfers of data outside of India are subject to specific requirements. For public sector banks, the Central Government has issued specific legislation requiring them to seek and obtain permission before transferring public records outside of India," Microsoft added. Microsoft, on its cloud-specific page also talks about success stories of State Bank of India, Yes Bank, Jamia Cooperative Bank Ltd and Kotak Mahindra Bank. Among these lenders, SBI uses Office 365, the cloud-powered productivity solution from Microsoft. "This is one of the largest deployments of Office 365 in India, spanning SBIs countrywide network of 23,423 branches, enabling 263,000 employees and servicing more than 500 million customer accounts," Microsoft added. Responding to a query on sharing financial data of its customers with authorities abroad, SBI told DNA Money that during 2016 and 2017 they have received no request from US intelligence agencies regarding the customer data. In 2016 and 2017, Microsoft has advised that they received zero demands from the US law enforcement for commercial enterprise content (50+ seats) located outside the US. In the first half of 2018, the latest time period for which Microsoft has data available, there was one demand from the US government for content data of a commercial enterprise located outside of the US and Microsoft notified the customer, which is not SBI, the report says quoting a spokesperson from SBI. While transferring data abroad, financial institutions in India are required to practise certain safeguards and measures, including reporting to RBI where applicable, enhanced due diligence and monitoring requirements, maintenance of original records within India and excluding the jurisdiction of foreign courts. A faceoff between the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has reportedly escalated to the point that it may lead to the resignation of RBI Governor. The breaking point was apparently over the governments plan to invoke Section 7 of the RBI Act for the first time. What exactly is the section about and how does it undermine the RBIs independence? Section 7 of the RBI act essentially empowers the government to issues directions to the central bank in public interest. However, it has never been invoked. Specifically it says 7. Management. (1) The Central Government may from time to time give such directions to the Bank as it may, after consultation with the Governor of the Bank, consider necessary in the public interest. (2) Subject to any such directions, the general superintendence and direction of the affairs and business of the Bank shall be entrusted to a Central Board of Directors which may exercise all powers and do all acts and things which may be exercised or done by the Bank. [(3) Save as otherwise provided in regulations made by the Central Board, the Governor and in his absence the Deputy Governor nominated by him in this behalf, shall also have powers of general superintendence and direction of the affairs and the business of the Bank, and may exercise all powers and do all acts and things which may be exercised or done by the Bank.] The main emphasis on this section is on 'public interest' and it means that the government could issue specific directions or even give control of the central bank to the Central Board of Directors. This is important, because the governments recent nominee on RBI board, S Gurumurthy (a journalist and chartered accountant) has apparently raised questions about the propriety of RBI deputy governor Dr Viral Acharya speaking out about the need to protect RBIs independence. He said, "Governments that do not respect central bank independence will sooner or later incur the wrath of financial markets, ignite economic fire, and come to rue the day they undermined an important regulatory institution; their wiser counterparts who invest in central bank independence will enjoy lower costs of borrowing, the love of international investors, and longer life spans." The statement was significant in the growing differences where the government and RBI sparred on this in Financial Stability and Development Council meeting as well," says a report from Livemint Dr Acharya also reiterated the RBI's opposition to idea of a separate payment's regulator for oversee payment and settlement systems. "A final issue is one of regulatory scope, the most recent case in point being the recommendation to bypass the central bank's powers over payment and settlement systems by appointing a separate payments regulator," he said. Earlier this month, the RBI had published a dissent note against the recommendation to appoint a separate payments regulator. Finance minister Arun Jaitley, apparently miffed over the comments from Dr Acharya, raised the issue of growing non-performing assets (NPAs), saying the Reserve Bank looked the other way when banks lent indiscriminately during 2008-14 to keep the economy humming. There have also been serious differences between the ministry and the RBI on three other issues the government wants RBI to reduce the stringency of the prompt corrective action (PCA) applicable to public sector banks (PSBs), release more liquidity in the system to help finance companies and help increase the flow of funds to small-scale units. After facing criticism for invoking a hitherto unused Section to issue instructions to the RBI, the government on Wednesday seemed ready to back off. It said autonomy of RBI within the framework of RBI Act is essential and accepted governance requirement. "Both the Government and the Central Bank, in their functioning, have to be guided by public interest and the requirements of the Indian economy. For the purpose, extensive consultations on several issues take place between the Government and the RBI from time to time. This is equally true of all other regulators. Government of India has never made public the subject matter of those consultations. Only the final decisions taken are communicated. The Government, through these consultations, places its assessment on issues and suggests possible solutions. The Government will continue to do so," says a statement issued by the finance ministry. There is no official comment from RBI. However, former finance minister P Chidambaram jumped into the fray with a series of tweets in which he alleged that the government was desperate and hiding facts about the economy. He tweeted: We did not invoke Section 7 in 1991 or 1997 or 2008 or 2013. What is the need to invoke the provision now? Interestingly, there seems to be some confusion on whether or not the government has already issued directions to the RBI. While some publications say that three letters have been sent to the RBI under Section 7 of the RBI Act, others insist that there are no specific directions as yet. The new board of directors of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) Ltd, headed by Uday Kotak has submitted resolution options to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) at Mumbai. These include significant capital infusion, divestments, and debt restructurings at IL&FS at group level, business vertical or platform level and asset level, says a statement issued by the debt-ridden group. The new board also found 347 group companies with a fund based debt of whopping Rs94,215 crore. The NCLT had asked the new board to submit its report on progress and way forward for IL&FS. "While it has been under one month since the New Board has taken charge and it is still working towards unravelling the complexities pursuant to multiple layers of entities (totalling 347 in all), varied interests of various stakeholders, diverse businesses with varied age, scale and market positions of these businesses, different jurisdictions, and significant intra-group transactions, the new board has provided in the report a high level assessment of the key considerations for the resolution as well as broadly, the options available," the statement says. Talking about the resolution options, the release says, "The New Board recognises there exist merits and demerits of each of these paths and will be examining these further over the coming weeks with the assistance of its advisors, based on market interest, maximisation of value, complexity and speed of execution, stakeholder interests, comprehensiveness of the resolution and transaction certainty." "The new board will follow due process in finalisation and implementation of the resolution plans and expects to complete the process, in stages and parts, in next six to nine months subject to market and economic conditions," it added. According to the resolution plan, IL&FS has fund-based outstanding debt of over Rs94,215 crore while non-fund based debt is Rs5,138 crore. IL&FS has an exposure of Rs24,866 crore to group companies while IL&FS Financial Networks exposure to the group is Rs6,380 crore. Meanwhile, the clean-up at IL&FS has begun in earnest. Curiously though, two senior executives who were part of the close coterie of founder Ravi Parthasarathy submitted their resignations from several group companies only on the eve of the submission of a resolution plan. They are- Vibhav Kapoor, group chief investment officer and Karunakaran Ramchand, managing director of IL&FS Transportation Networks Ltd. Ironically, in March this year, Mr Ramchand had claimed to a newspaper that he was keeping a close eye on the auction of stressed assets for acquisitions to expand its portfolio just six months down the line, IL&FS is causing enormous stress in the financial system. Meanwhile, several other employees, who have done hatchet jobs for the founder Mr Parthasarathy, continue to remain on the boards of several hundred group entities as nominee directors. Sources say that director Vineet Nayyar is leading the clean up. He has issued a series of orders to close down unessential business, and terminate contract employees. These ranged from consultants to drivers, who were once employed by Orix and remained part of the loose and unstructured organisational structure and many verbal promises. Sources say that some initiatives such as Nalanda Foundation, which offered skills training may be simply shut down. On 24 August 2018, at the board meeting of New Tirupur Area Development Corp Ltd (NTADCL), a director played an audio-clip of a threat he had received. The threat, issued at the audit committee meeting on 25 May 2018 came from S Bhat, a nominee director of the failed Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS). Here is what it says: S Bhat, IL&FS nominee director, to a foreign director: One day, if you are put behind the bars, you will come to know. Director: I am not going to be put behind bars. S Bhat: You will be there, you just see. Just because you are a Singaporean citizen, you think you can get away with murder? (shouting). Director: You just see (also shouting). Another director butts in to correct him - He is an American citizen (not Singaporean), he says. S Bhat (unperturbed): You will be locked up on Friday night. You cannot go to the magistrate and, on Monday, you will be released! Director: You know you have already tried and failed miserably. When the director asked that this threat be recorded in the minutes of the meeting, the chairman refused. The incident had occurred at an audit meeting of NTADCL in May 2018 when things got rather heated. This was not an idle threat. Starting 2011, IL&FS, then headed by Ravi Parthasarathy (founder and ex-chairman of IL&FS), had tried hard to get this director arrested on a criminal defamation charge because he was raising uncomfortable issues. Since IL&FS is a private organisation, the defamation notice had to be issued through the Indian home ministry and the high commission of Singapore. It took four years for this process; but IL&FSs friends in high places in the government ensured that it happened, without going into reasons for the drastic action. IL&FSs defamation claim was also extraordinary; but more about that later. Since IL&FS is a private organisation, the defamation notice had to be issued through the Indian home ministry and the high commission of Singapore. It took four years for this process; but IL&FSs friends in high places in the government ensured that it happened, without going into reasons for the drastic action. IL&FSs defamation claim was also extraordinary; but more about that later. The whistleblower-director was fortunate he was not arrested on a visit to India. When the defamation notice was served on him in 2015, he moved the Bombay High Court. The matter was finally thrown out by Supreme Court as well; we will come to that later. Before going into why IL&FS had filed criminal defamation against its institutional director, I need to make four important points. Firstly, I have reviewed all court documents pertaining to this matter, but I am not naming the whistleblower-director because neither the government of India nor the new board of IL&FS has shown any inclination to end the malicious legal proceedings so far. IL&FS is packed bureaucrats of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), who either remained mute spectators or were active participants in its vicious scheming, and they continue remain in key positions even after the board of the holding company was sacked. Secondly, IL&FS spent a whopping Rs216 crore on legal and consultancy cost in FY17-18 alone. That kind of annual budget can get a lot of things done in India, many of them unsavoury. Thirdly, IL&FSs attempts to harass and intimidate directors were not restricted to one individual. It has continued to pursue the defamation case against other directors of the foreign investor before the magistrates court even after the Uday Kotak-led board has taken charge. Fourthly, I have brought the details of this case to Mr Kotaks attention including the fact that Mr Bhat, who threatened to have this whistleblower-director arrested, remains on the board. Mr Kotak says he is having this examined by the legal department. It is not clear whether the same legal team will sing a different tune now. Coming back to the whistleblower-director, lets examine whether his actions were defamatory or was this harassment a part of IL&FSs diabolical strategy of ensuring that nobody (whether from the IAS, or employees or directors) dared to question its dealings and way of working. Several of them freely admit that they are scared to speak even today. IL&FS has been run like a personal fief by a small group of men, headed by Ravi Parthasarathy, for almost three decades. Problems at NTADCL cropped up when one of the foreign investors as well as Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC, to some extent) began to demand increased transparency after they came in as investors. A point of contention was that IL&FS intended to deduct massive fees and expenses from the funds procured by IL&FS, but this was not been fully disclosed and brought to the attention of the board. More serious issues cropped up over Rs90 crore procured from the USAID (a US development fund), in 1997. The board minutes in 1997 show that IL&FSs former vice-chairman Hari Sankaran had committed to the NTADCL board that IL&FS would bear the interest payable on the funds kept in an escrow account with Bank of India. IL&FS, he said, would also bear other expenses and the interest burden would not have to be borne by NTADCL. But chairman Ravi Parthasarathy (in a letter dated 25 September 2002), wrote to NTADCL's managing director to say that the costs would have to be borne by the company. The board was not informed about Mr Parthasarathys letter of 2002, until March 2010. NTADCL's managing director, an IAS officer, later joined the company as an IL&FS employee. A special audit was conducted by M/s R Janakiraman & Co., and the whistleblower-director informed the foreign institutional investor, who then wrote to the other shareholders of NTADCL as well as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the vigilance department of IDBI about the adverse findings of the special audit. Stunning as it may seem, IL&FS filed criminal defamation proceedings against the whistleblower-director (representing a foreign institutional investor) for even writing to RBI and IDBI about its lack of transparency in a fairly strong language. Had they acted on the letter, the fate of IL&FS may have been different. As I wrote earlier, the whistleblower-director petitioned the Bombay High Court, which heard the arguments at length (on the opposite side was the state of Maharashtra, along with IL&FS, which was arguing that the case be heard by the sessions court) and quashed the defamation case on 22 July 2015. The order took note of the special audit findings of unwarranted deductions that IL&FS had made. A Madras High Court order has also noted the same. IL&FS went back to the Bombay High Court seeking an amendment to the order; but the High Court refused it on 12 August 2015. IL&FS then challenged the order in the Supreme Court, which also dismissed its special leave petition on 27 September 2016. Scandalously, as I mentioned earlier, IL&FS continues to pursue its allegations against other directors of the foreign investor, even after the Uday Kotak-led board has taken over. After the ignominious collapse of IL&FS, a question that has been repeatedly asked is: Why did the watchdogs fail to bark? The Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) wants the board of directors to check corporate malfeasance and the Companies Act, 2013, has imposed onerous responsibility on them. But who stands by those directors who have dared to speak or raise their voice? On the contrary, the government and the regulator have signalled that, as a director or even as a chairman of a large corporate group, you are on your own (remember Cyrus Mistrys fate?) when it comes to actions or allegations by management! Similarly, DC Anjaria, even as head of the audit committee at GIFT City (Ahmedabad) was ousted and defamed when he dared to raise his voice. For two years, from 2016 to 2018, no media would touch his story even after he filed a PIL (public interest litigation). The founder of RAHI Aviation, another joint venture to develop airports in Karnataka with IL&FS, was not so lucky. Unaware of how vicious IL&FS could get, he ended up in Mumbais Arthur Road Jail for six months because of the constant machinations by IL&FS to ensure that his bail was denied and later delayed. Given that it takes 15-20 years for any legal matter to be settled, it has all but destroyed his life and corporate career. The RAHI founders emails of 2 October 2015 to the then RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and civil aviation minister Jayant Sinha (both were his classmates at IIT-Delhi) and the Maharashtra chief minister, blowing the whistle on IL&FSs dubious dealings were ignored. Had anyone acted then, the systemic damage caused by IL&FS could have been contained. The details of that story require a separate narration. But both cases probably begin to explain why even those officers (including several IAS officers) who left the IL&FS group after serious differences have not blown the whistle in any formal manner. Many refuse to speak even today, because they are still not sure that the government wants to take the investigation to its logical conclusion and not bury it. IL&FS has had a special, often practiced modus operandi: first, blame the victim for its faults. If that didnt work, try intimidation. If that didnt work, try again using every other resource at their disposal, including government ones, to suppress voices. Alas, what is being reported nowadays wont change what has happened. But, its up the new board, led by Asias richest banker renowned for good governance to change old habits at IL&FS. The place to start sooner rather than later is with each of the 348 group companies boards of directors. (I have texted Mr Harmander Singh, chairman of NTADCL and two other IAS officers S Krishnan and L Krishnan seeking their comments on the sordid goings-on at the board meeting. None of them have replied. This column will be updated with their response, if any). Read all our extensive reports and analyses on the IL&FS mess: https://www.moneylife.in/economy-and-nation/ilfs-mess November 13, 2017 Yemen - Having Lost The War Saudis Try Genocide - Media Complicit Fakenews: From the last link: Saudi Arabia reacting to UN famine warnings says ports in Yemen it controls will reopen for aid deliveries. Riyadh shut them down last week after a missile attack blamed on Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The above headlines are false. The Saudi government announced the re-opening of some Yemeni ports and airports. All of these are in the south and under control of Saudi proxy forces who are fighting the Houthi-Saleh alliance in north-west Yemen. Some 70% of the population lives in the north-western areas which will continue to be under an extreme blockade. The most important port in their area is Hodeida which will stay closed. Back in March the U.S. Pentagon tried to get control of the port. But fighting for it would have destroyed the piers and thereby the supply route for some 20 million people. The most important airport is in Sanaa. The Saudi/U.S./UK alliance blocks even UN flights with medical supplies from using it. The Saudis now "request" the UN to send an expert commission to Riyadh to "discuss" procedures for future control of the ports that are not held by its proxies. Such a process will take weeks if not months. The Saudis will, like the Pentagon earlier, demand total control over the ports which their opponents will of course not give. Any such fighting will only worsen the situation. Thanks to local smugglers some food and other goods will still be able to pass through the blockade. But these will be way too few and too expensive for the vast majority of Yemenis. When the recent blockade was announced, food and gas prices in Yemen doubled overnight. Public service employees have not been paid for more than 15 months. People simply can no longer afford to keep their children alive: In Sanaa, Nor Rashid sold her familys cow to pay for the transport costs to get her four year-old daughter, who weighs 16lbs, to the citys feeding centre in Al-Sabaeen hospital. She has other children who are also sick but she cannot afford to pay for the medical care if she brings them in for treatment too. Its because of the lack of government wages, she said. Usually we go to the person in the village with a wage to ask for help and borrow money if someone needs to go to the hospital. But since the wages stopped we have no support. The UN warns, rightly, that the blockade is causing a mass famine. This famine is not a side effect of the war - it is a weapon: To starve Yemeni civilians is an overt act by Riyadh, enraged by a humiliating failure to achieve a Saudi military victory. The media claim that only 10,000 civilians have been killed in the two and a half years of the war. The number is laughable. Neither the UN nor others have published any detailed account. The 10,000 number seems to be plugged from hot air. Compare, for example, the dates and content of these two reports: Al Jazeerah - 31 Aug 2016: UN: At least 10,000 killed in Yemen conflict The United Nations has significantly revised the estimated death toll from Yemen's 18-month civil war to up to 10,000 people ... Speaking from the capital Sanaa on Tuesday, Jamie McGoldrick, the UN humanitarian coordinator, said the new figure was based on official information from medical facilities in Yemen. Al Jazeerah - 17 Jan 2017: Death toll in Yemen conflict passes 10,000 The United Nations' humanitarian aid official in Yemen has said that the civilian death toll in the nearly two-year conflict has reached 10,000, with 40,000 others wounded. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs' Jamie McGoldrick said that the figure is based on lists of victims gathered by health facilities ... The same low number is claimed by the same official in August and in January while a devastating war has been ongoing throughout that time frame. That does not make sense. To provide a cynic laugh attack, or out of stupidity, the later Al Jazeerah report says: The announcement marks the first time a UN official has confirmed such a high death toll in Yemen Up to July 2017 the U.S.-Saudi coalition had flown more than 90,000 air-sorties over Yemen. Most of those will have involved weapon releases. Are we to believe that only 10,000 civilians have been killed by all these bombs and the additional artillery, sharpshooters and suicide attacks? That would be inconsistent even with western reports of the known mass incidents during the war. 100,000 dead civilians caused by the war so far is a more likely number than the never changing 10,000. On November 1 a Saudi bomb attack killed at least 29 people in a busy market in Saada. The Yemeni missile launch against the airport of Riyadh on November 4 was in response to that deadly Saudi attack. The Saudis claim that these Yemeni missiles are from Iran and the U.S. military is, without providing evidence, supporting that fairy tale: [R]emnants of [the missile] bore Iranian markings, the top U.S. Air Force official in the Mideast said Friday. "The Saudis found a sticker on the wreckage. It said Made in Iran." In a video message the former Yemeni president explained that these missiles were from the large stash he bought before the ongoing war broke out. According to IHS Janes these missiles are of North Korean origin (pdf) and were modified by the experienced Yemeni army missile forces. In concert with Saudi propaganda's curious claims now pop up in U.S. media. Suddenly Afghan Shia fighters (Fatemiyoun) or Hizbullah from Lebanon are said to be fighting in Yemen. These claims make no sense. Explain, for example, the geography in this recent New York Times piece: Not only did Iran send smaller units of the Fatemiyoun to cross Syrian borders and fight in Yemen, ... How and why would Afghan Shia, who do not speak Arabic, enter the blockaded Yemen? There are millions of unemployed Yemenis in the besieged areas. They hate the Saudis. The Houthi surely have no lack of foot-soldiers. In yesterday's TV interview the kidnapped Lebanese Premier Saad Hariri insinuated that he would be released by the Saudis if Hizbullah ends operations in Yemen. AP summarized: [Hariri] singled out Hezbollahs involvement in Yemen as the main cause of the kingdoms ire. But there is no reasonable evidence at all that any Hizbullah are in Yemen. In 2015 a Saudi diplomat claimed to "have reports" of Hizbullah trainers in Yemen without providing any of them. In 2016 the Saudi state owned Al Arabia TV posted a short video of which it claims that it shows a Hizbullah trainer teaching Houthis. No date or place or other information about the recording was released. In the two and a half years of the war on Yemen no reports from the ground emerged of any Hizbullah involvement or of wounded or killed Lebanese or Iranian or Afghan fighters. The Houthis are no Hezbollah and they are not stooges of the Iranian government. Their alliance with Yemeni army troops loyal to former President Saleh gives them tactical and technical capabilities. Their weapons are either from old stocks or purchased from the large weapon markets in Yemen. The dealers buy these weapons from the groups the Saudi employ and generously equip and supply. Those Saudi controlled forces are the main suppliers of their designated enemies. The Saudis are starving a whole country - with avid support of the "humanitarian" western world. The UN bureaucracy and leadership was bought off and is complicit. The Saudi tyrant kidnaps and blackmails the Prime Minister of a third country. All this because he fails to overcome the barefooted Houthi fighters in Yemen against which he started a senseless war. The Saudis invent Iranian involvement and the media avidly repeat their claims without any evidentiary support. Literally millions are in imminent danger of dying. Meanwhile greedy "western" politicians are ass-kissing the Saudi freak of a clown prince and his senile father. They support whatever lunatic claim the Saudis make about their perceived enemies. The next time you see one these creatures please punch its face. Posted by b on November 13, 2017 at 14:32 UTC | Permalink Comments Despite the tumult that has engulfed its operating environment, we believe McKesson (MCK) will remain a key healthcare player and be able to produce outsize economic value. Its fiscal second quarter reflected a stabilization of near-term issues as the company reported earnings above consensus and raised the lower end of its full-year earnings per share guidance. After factoring in these latest results, we are reiterating our $210 fair value estimate and wide economic moat rating for the pharmaceutical distributor. Given the companys current stock price, we believe McKesson presents an opportunity for investors to own a quality asset at a deeply discounted price. While we believe there may be some material changes in how the U.S. pharmaceutical market operates over the next several years, the need to source and deliver drugs efficiently and cost-effectively will not change. We believe this fundamental factor has formed a strong foundation for McKesson, as its core drug wholesaling operations will be needed by both drug manufacturers and retail pharmacies no matter how any market dynamics shift. Tal says alternative lenders, and specifically MICs, comprise the fastest growing segment of the mortgage market. Before B-20, they were serving fewer borrowers, but since January 1 they have attracted borrowers who cannot sustain the 200 basis point stress test, and that worries Tal. Today household credit is rising at the slowest rate than in any recessionary period of the past 50 years, he said. You have to be in a recession to see credit rise this slowly, and with the exception of the MIC market, this is all good. Dimitri Kosturos, chief operating officer of VWR Capital Corp., was in attendance at Tals speech in Montreal, and he isnt convinced that Tal understands MIC brass tacks. For starters, he says VWR lends at 75% loan-to-value or less. If you look at default rates on our book of business, its pretty low and has historically been low, said Kosturos. Most Canadians who borrow from us are responsible borrowers who come through our product and stay as long as they need to, then leave without issue. Hes also talking about the size of the market, but Im not sure he has a strong grasp on that. Being in the industry, I think some open dialogue needs to happen. Kosturos does not dispute the fact that MICs are enjoying greater share of the mortgage market because of B-20, but risk mitigation remains as, if not more, important than ever. VWRs overall book is 56% LTV. A Montreal-based multinational is moving to establish a firm stake into Canadas fintech start-ups, creating strong links with a nascent industry that is already rendering the traditional financial business model obsolete. Among Power Corp. of Canadas latest steps is raising $165 million in its first funding round (via its in-house venture fund Portag3) for Wealthsimple, a robo-adviser that is attracting young Canadian investors wary of traditional industry players. Power has also positioned itself as a controlling shareholder in Wealthsimple. Portag3 co-founder and executive chairman Paul Desmarais III stated that Power supports Wealthsimples intentions to go public in the future. A Massachusetts man has admitted to his role in decade-long mortgage fraud conspiracy that resulted in $4.3 million in losses to lenders over at least two dozen loan transactions. Joseph Bates III pleaded guilty before US Senior District Court Judge Douglas Woodlock to one count of conspiracy, three counts of wire fraud affecting a financial institution, and two counts of bank fraud. Bates was alleged to have defrauded banks and other financial institutions by causing false information to be submitted to those institutions on behalf of borrowers who were recruited to purchase properties primarily in Salem. Bates and his co-conspirators ran the scheme from 2006 through 2015. Congressman Mike Conaway said he will support an effort by President Donald Trump to end birthright citizenship. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the president during multiple interviews discussed immigration ideas, including an executive order to revoke the right to citizenship for babies born to non-U.S. citizens on American soil. Conaway has been vocal about his support for ending birthright citizenship. He said Tuesday that he supports the president. Birthright citizenship is not in our countrys best interest, and it should be changed, Conaway said in a statement the lawmakers press office provided to the Reporter-Telegram. I applaud the president for starting the process of reversing this policy. Ending birthright citizenship will have the support of Ted Cruz, who is scheduled to be in Midland Wednesday. Following a campaign rally on Tuesday in Uvalde, Cruz said he has long supported ending birthright citizenship, according to a Dallas Morning News story. RELATED: Trump targets citizenship, stokes pre-election migrant fears There are some legal scholars who argue that it takes a constitutional amendment, others have argued that it can be done through statutory means," Cruz said, according to the Morning News report. "I suspect whatever method is used will be challenged in court so ultimately, the courts will sort out the proper mechanism. But I think as a policy matter, ending birthright citizenship makes a lot of common sense." Sen. John Cornyn in 2010 wanted a review of birthright citizenship, including having hearings on the issue, according to reports. Politico reported Tuesday that Cornyn, the former Texas attorney general and current majority whip in the Senate, said that birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants who entered illegally is "a symptom of a bigger problem. And my position on immigration is pretty simple: legal immigration is good, illegal immigration is bad. "We need less posturing and less rhetoric on this and more solutions, Cornyn said the Politico article. I know the president is enormously frustrated, and I am frustrated too, about our inability to work together on a bipartisan basis to solve the underlying problem, but that is what I think we have to do. A bride who spent her honeymoon in Belize returned to her Florida home with more than just lovely memories of Mayan ruins and crystal-clear Caribbean lagoons. Little did she know that she had picked up a bug during the trip. The Journal of Investigative Medicine High Impact Case Reports wrote about the skin-crawling case earlier this month. The 36-year-old woman didn't notice anything out of the ordinary for two months. But what she thought was a pimple on the left side of her groin began to itch. An insect bite seemed possible, so she went to see her doctor, who thought it was likely a spider had bitten her and the wound had become infected. But the prescribed antibiotics didn't solve the problem. So she sought a second opinion. According to LiveScience, Dr. Enrico Camporesi, a specialist in wound healing at Memorial Hospital in Tampa, Fla., found that the skin around the lesion, which was now leaking pus, was hard as if there were a bean or pebble underneath it. He was worried that it could be a lymph node infection, but a surgeon he consulted had a different theory that the lump was a living creature. Sure enough, surgery revealed a "deeply embedded maggot" with a tapered shape and rows of spines and hooks. MORE: Florida man dies from eating oyster tainted with flesh-eating bacteria It was the larva of a human botfly, an insect common to Central and South America. When human botfly eggs hatch, the tiny larvae can burrow into human skin and make themselves comfortable, feeding on skin tissue and flesh. A hole forms so that the baby insect can breath, expanding as the fly grows. "In some cases, the patients can feel the larvae moving when they shower or cover the wound," the case study notes. After 27 to 128 days, the larva drops to the ground where it pupates, eventually maturing into an adult botfly, roughly the size of a bumblebee. In countries where botflies are common, such infestations are nipped in the bud by smearing petroleum jelly or another substance to block the hole and suffocate the larva. Naturally, the Florida patient was disturbed to learn a insect was growing under her skin, but following its extraction, her wound healed completely in about a week. Youve Got a Friend in Pennsylvania This bond between a local couple and a senior from Vietnam shows whats possible when members of Muhlenbergs Board of Associates are able to connect with international students. By: Meghan Kita Tuesday, October 30, 2018 01:59 PM Tony and JoJo Muir struck up a friendship with Ha Anh Truong 19, an international student from Vietnam. On an early autumn day in 2015, Ha Anh Truong 19, an economics and religion studies major from Hanoi, Vietnam, decided to go for a walk around Allentowns West End, the neighborhood that surrounds the College. As she headed down Liberty Street, admiring the just-emerging fall foliage, she noticed a man in the yard in front of his home. I said hi, Truong recalls. He asked if I was a Muhlenberg student, and I said, Yes, Im a freshman from Vietnam. Coincidentally, the man had recently visited Vietnam with his youngest daughter. They had been to my city and they loved it, so we had a cool conversation about Vietnam, Truong says. The man was Tony Muir, who has been on Muhlenbergs Board of Associates, a group of local community leaders that works closely with the College, for 20 years and is currently its president. Out of that initial meeting began a friendship that has lasted throughout Truongs time at Muhlenberg. Tony and his wife, Sara (who goes by JoJo), host Truong for holiday meals when she remains on campus. The Muirs have had her over for Christmas-tree decorating and family picnics. Theyve taken her to the Allentown Symphony, and to Bethlehem during the holiday season. As my adult children say, Mom and Dad adopted another daughter, JoJo says. The Muirs have also welcomed Truongs friends, as well as more first-year international students, into their home. If youre visiting in a foreign country and youre invited into someone's home, that puts a whole new light on your experience, Tony says. Students who come here for four years should spend time with people in the neighborhood. The Board and the Office of International Student Services are working together to create opportunities for more of these friendships to develop. Board members and international students have a chance to meet at an annual networking Mocktail; this years event took place earlier this month. The Mocktail event grows the rich connection the College has with the Board of Associates, who in turn are building positive relationships with our students, says Director of International Student Support Tom Janis. It fosters meaningful connections for both parties. For the Muirs, that means learning about other cultures and hearing what students from those cultures think of Muhlenberg, Allentown and the United States. For Truong, her friendship with the Muirs helped ease the homesickness she experienced during her first year. Coming here and finding out people actually took interest in my country, some of them even visited, and they live a few hundred feet away, that was very surprising to me, she says, adding that, when she first arrived, she was the only Muhlenberg student from Vietnam. I feel like I have a family connection in town, and the concept of family connection is really special to me. I am an international student who used to have no other Vietnamese around me, and my entire family is back in Vietnam. Theyve come the closest to being my American parents here. NEW YORK - Orson Welles, in "The Third Man," posited a cynical theory of what makes some cultures creative and others not: "In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace - and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." This isn't a fair summation of the creative potential of peace or democracy, and only slightly more accurate about the cultural accomplishments of the Swiss. But an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art seems to prove the same thing by inverting the logic. A sumptuous survey of early Christian art in Armenia suggests that no matter how scattered the people, no matter how frequent the wars or painful the disruptions, nothing could dim the Armenian cultural efflorescence. "Armenia: Art, Religion and Trade in the Middle Ages" surveys Christian creativity from the origins of Armenian Christianity in the 4th through the 17th centuries, when the circulation of printed books connected the region and its people to the broader cultural currents of the Renaissance. Most of the more than 140 objects on display speak to the role of Christianity in the cultural definition of the Armenian people. When early-4th-century King Tiridates converted his country to the religion, Armenia became the first nation to officially adopt the new faith, and a four-side carved stella from the 4th to 5th centuries underscores the colorful legends that grew up around that decision. One panel shows a richly dressed man with a boar's head, probably Tiridates, whose path to conversion begins with a murderous assault on Christian nuns, for which he was magically transformed into a boar-headed figure, before finally seeing the error of his ways and adopting the new dogma. (He apparently returned to human form.) That story contains a bit of the Odyssey or some other contemporaneous legend mixed in, and that becomes a recurrent theme of the exhibition. The Armenians were consistently stuck between larger and contentious powers, between the Byzantine Empire and Persians, and often unhappily on the front lines of incursions into the Mediterranean world by the Mongols. Arab forces inspirited with Islam were a threat, the Mamluks menaced, and large parts of the Armenian homeland were ruled at times by Umayyads, Abbasids and Seljuks. The Crusader states established along the eastern Mediterranean by Western Europeans in the 12th and 13th centuries became another power to contend with, sometimes offering chances for constructive alliance, sometimes a more coercive force, but generally a fruitful source of new iconography and cultural exchange. Armenia also straddled major trade routes linking East and West, and much of the exhibition details the wealth and variety of objects that eventually made their way into Armenian strongholds that were secure enough to preserve prosperity for a time. A delicate white ceramic bowl looks like Chinese manufacture but was probably made in Iran in the 11th to 12th century. A page from a 13th-century chronicle by Matthew Paris in England shows Noah's ark resting on a stumpy mountain, visual evidence of one of Armenia's most striking claims to Judeo-Christian centrality, as the final resting spot of the floating menagerie atop Mount Ararat. The habit of syncretic thinking runs deep in the material on view. In three manuscripts, the same nearly identical figure of a fantastic composite beast appears, some kind of four-legged griffin, with its body composed of other animals, including fish and perhaps birds, and even a few human heads. It appears in a pattern book probably used by manuscript illustrators and in a 16th-century illustration from an Armenian translation of the Alexander Romance (a fanciful collection of legends and tales of the historical conqueror of the ancient world). It shows up again, slightly altered, in another edition of the same book, the Romance of Alexander. In the pattern book, it is probably a mythical figure taken from Persian or Mughal sources, but in the Alexander romance, it represents the great warrior's horse, Bucephalus. And why not? We think with the thoughts we have ready to hand, repurposing old ideas for new needs. One might say the illustrator lacked imagination and left us an absurdity; or one might acknowledge that the same mental methodology has given us our new religions, new philosophies and new political ideologies. Armenian culture didn't just absorb the currents flowing through and around it. Diffusion was an essential force, as well, as Armenian diaspora grew up in cities around the world. Armenians played a vital role in the Byzantine Empire, formed communities in Jerusalem and Aleppo and Constantinople, intermarried with the French crusaders, resettled in Crimea and established footholds along pilgrimage routes in Italy. Some of the most stunning pieces on display are from New Julfa, a suburb of Isfahan in what is now Iran. The Armenian community began there after some 150,000 Armenians were forced out of the old city of Julfa in what is now Azerbaijan. The relocation was painful, but under the relatively benevolent protection of the Safavids, the Armenians thrived in New Julfa, commissioning books, building churches and elegant homes, and serving as an essential source of funding to the shahs. But consider a carved stone "Khachkar," a distinctive religious stella depicting the cross, and one of several exquisite examples of this particularly Armenian form on view. It was made in the old city of Julfa in 1586, and near the end of the period covered in this exhibition (roughly the 17th century), there were some 10,000 of them preserved in Julfa. Many were lost during the construction of a railroad in 1903-1904, though about 3,000 remained near the end of 1990s. Only about 30 survive today, after the army of Azerbaijan destroyed them between 1998 and 2005, one of several infamous assaults on Armenian culture, including the Turkish genocide near the end of World War I. Those crimes remain unacknowledged by their perpetrators, unpunished and unatoned for. And that might make one rethink first thoughts: that Armenians somehow proved that culture can thrive despite violence and disruption. Cultures can, and have. But how might Armenian culture have thrived had it enjoyed the stability and prosperity that gave the Swiss their cuckoo clocks? --- "Armenia: Art, Religion, and Trade in the Middle Ages" is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through Jan. 13. For information, visit metmuseum.org. If you want to come to the United States illegally, the worst point of entry is along the southern border. If the U.S. Border Patrol doesnt get you, the gangs that prey on the hapless might; if not, you have a good chance of dying of heat prostration and lack of food and water in the desert. The smart ones, the conniving illegals, arent the destitute walking in blazing heat for a rendezvous with Border Patrol agents and then lord knows what, but those who fly in with student visas, tourist visas and other travel documents and disappear into the shadows. The people in what is loosely called a caravan now walking toward the border have been failed by the societies that bore them. They live in fear of murder, fear of repeated rape and other violence, and fear of starvation. They live in their own circle of hell. But they arent alone. There are many millions more in the failed and failing states, war-ravaged and drought-plagued, in Africa and the Middle East, trying to find a new home. Their exodus is a trickle today but will be a torrent tomorrow and a flood later. The hopeless are on the march and they threaten to engulf some nations, like tiny Malta, an island in the Mediterranean and a European Union member state. Europe is struggling with a flood of desperate people who cross the Mediterranean from North Africa in overloaded rafts and boats, risking drowning to reach Malta, Greece or Italy: places where they hope for food, shelter and safety. Illegal immigration is a global problem. No country has a solution and no country deals well with it. There are wars and insurgencies in Africa and the Middle East: Consider just the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan. Of Africas 54 countries, none has anything like enough jobs for its population its growing population. Even rich South Africa has a growing population and shrinking economic activity. Add to the failed or under-performing economies drought and climate change and you can imagine new surges in migration surges so large they could overwhelm the target countries. In the Middle East, new refugees are created daily. Eleven million are on the brink of famine in war-engulfed Yemen, and Syria continues to generate refugees at a stupendous rate. Thirty-five years ago, I was at Frances Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, known colloquially as the Quai dOrsay. My briefer said, If we dont solve the problem of poverty, well get three imports we dont want: drugs, terrorism and people. The world hasnt solved the poverty problem and its gotten the three things it doesnt want. There is no grand solution at hand, but there are small things that can be done. For us, the first might be to stop worsening conditions in the countries that are generating the flows of people toward the border. Two things would help: Dont cut off foreign aid, exacerbating economic conditions, and dont cut off the flow of expatriate earnings, which is so important in those countries. In other words, stop the deportations. People who are here illegally and hold jobs would hold better jobs if their status was legalized. One solution would be time-limited work permits: not citizenship, work permits. This is advocated by the Immigrant Tax Inquiry Group, which adds an appealing twist. The Malibu, Calif.-based group recommends that illegals should pay a special tax on their wages with an equivalent tax paid by the employer. The purpose of the tax is to alleviate the local effect of immigrants on schools, policing, courts and health care. Considering the global problem, we have a small, manageable one. The caravan of people walking through Mexico have a bigger problem: Theyre inflaming Americans and endangering their own lives some deaths have been reported. But if I were destitute and feared for my life in Central America, Id likely be headed for the border, feeling I was doing something, even something hopeless. Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle on PBS. Alpine County, CA Mother Lode county rescue teams are helping Alpine County Sheriffs Office search for a missing Sacramento man whose was last seen on Saturday. Search and rescue teams (SAR) from Calaveras, Tuolumne, and Amador counties were deployed this morning to help comb the Blue Lakes area southwest of Markleeville where 55-year-old Bradford Doziers vehicle was found on Sunday afternoon. He was reported missing by his wife on that morning. She relayed that he headed out the prior day to go hiking in the area and never returned. His vehicle was located near the Blue Lakes Campgrounds on Sunday afternoon triggering a search from the ground and air. After two days of scouring the area, there has been no sign of Dozier. Today, the additional SAR teams were called to the scene along with two CHP and one National Guard helicopter, two scent tracking dogs and three equestrian teams. Alpine Sheriffs officials describe Dozier as a white male adult, 510, 190 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing a green shirt, olive colored hiking pants and hiking shoes or boots. Dozier is known to be an avid hiker who likes to go off trail on the summit peaks in Alpine County. Although some in the public have offered to help look for Dozier, due to the hazardous terrain and potential for injury, the sheriffs office has declined those offers. They are asking if anyone may have seen Dozier hiking or knows of his whereabouts call the Alpine Sheriffs dispatch at (530) 694-2231. iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- NATO on Tuesday began the main phase of its largest military exercises since the end of the Cold War in a display of force meant to underline the alliances ability to deter Russia. The Trident Juncture exercise taking place across Norway and parts of Sweden and Finland involves 50,000 troops and 10,000 vehicles as well as 250 aircraft and 65 ships, according to NATO. Among them is the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman, the first time an American carrier has traveled above the Arctic Circle for exercises near Russia since 1987. On Tuesday, hundreds of soldiers launched a simulated beach landing at a location close to the city of Trondheim on Norways west coast, supported by dozens of warplanes and helicopters. Watched by international dignitaries from a grandstand, a fleet of a dozen warships sailed in a column down a fjord framed by snow-dusted mountains, while landing craft vessels headed towards shore. Marines from different NATO-member countries leaped onto a rocky beach, hurrying past pointed-roofed Norwegian houses and moving up a grassy slope as F16s and other jets flew overhead. The spectacle of force is the largest put on by NATO since the end of the Cold War, NATOs Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters at the display on Tuesday. The last comparable exercise in this part of the world, which saw 14,000 troops deploy to Norway, was in 2002. The exercise was to practice a NATO response to an attack on one of its member countries, which would trigger Article 5 of the alliances charter that guarantees collective defense. All 29 NATO countries have contributed forces to the drills, as well Finland and Sweden, which are not members. Seven thousand U.S. Marines, as well as army, navy and air force personnel are taking part too. NATO officials were careful to insist that the attacker in the scenario is fictitious, and Stoltenberg said that the exercise is not directed at any country. But there was no doubt who the exercise's intended audience was. Trident Juncture is part of a broader NATO effort to beef up its deterrence capabilities against Russia following Moscows invasion of Crimea four years ago and growing tensions. It is also partly responds to Russias own huge military exercises, which the country has held with increasing frequency as tensions with Western countries have grown. The present exercises are intended to demonstrate NATOs capability to deploy large forces rapidly over long distances. Although NATO officials wont acknowledge it publicly, it in part addresses a nightmare scenario for NATO planners in which the alliance is caught flat-footed by a sudden Russian incursion into the Baltic States or Scandinavia. Russia has made clear it considers the present war games to be directed at it, and Russias foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said the drills have an anti-Russian orientation. This week Russia announced it will hold its own missile test drills in international waters off Norways coast close to where the NATO exercises are happening. The scale of the exercises, amid grim relations with Moscow and many Western countries, has prompted comparisons to the Cold War. But NATO officials have insisted there is nothing alarming about them. We are not in a Cold War situation, Stoltenberg said, noting that there were no longer nuclear missiles or tens of thousands of combat-ready troops in Europe. This is about preventing a conflict, he said, adding that the exercises are intended to convey to any adversary that it was pointless attacking a NATO member. Stoltenberg, who was joined at the press conference by Norways defense minister, said the drills were meant to help control tensions, not worsen them. Of the Russian drills, he said, he was absolutely confident that the Russian forces will behave in a responsible way," adding they would not affect NATO's from going ahead. Russia has held its own massive exercises in recent years, which at least by its figures have dwarfed Trident Juncture. In September, Russia conducted war games, called Vostok, in the far east of the country, which it claimed involved 300,000 troops. In 2017, Russias Zapad exercise on its western borders simulated a Russia incursion into northern Europe. Russia has insisted those drills are defensive in nature. Despite the scale of Trident Juncture, it is still far from the massive war games and the tensions of the Cold War, experts said. Were not at that stage yet, fortunately, Stephen J. Flanagan, a military expert at the RAND Corporation who served as a senior director for defense policy and strategy on the Obama administrations National Security Council, said in an interview with ABC News. But its not a positive sign in the relationship. Very few observers believe Russia has any intention of attacking Europe, but most experts believe the ugly relations between Western countries and Moscow are unlikely to dissipate for years to come. Stoltenberg said he wanted more dialogue with Russia, urging Moscow to give up new cruise missiles that the U.S. has accused it of deploying in contravention of an arms agreement, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty. Russia denies that, but the Trump administration has said it will leave the INF treaty over it. We dont want a new cold war, Stoltenberg said. We dont want a new arms race. We must engage with Russia in a dialogue, because Russia is here to stay." Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Sonora, CA With years end within weeks, state cannabis regulators are busily rolling out more plans for regulation and licensing; some of which are drawing local lawmakers ire. Since recreational marijuana became legal Jan. 1, the California Bureau of Cannabis Control has been continually refining processes for how the commercial industry grows, tests, packages and delivers its goods. The latter activity is a particularly sore topic for jurisdictions with laws banning sales and dispensaries, because the states current position is that local governments cannot prevent deliveries on public roads. The issue may well be one that judges decide. As Sonora City Manager Tim Miller shares, The League of California Cities is taking a strong position opposed to the regulation on the basis that it violates the understanding of Prop 64, which was to grant local control to cities and counties. He adds, So, they are presenting all cities our citys interest and our City Attorneys Office has a legislative and lobbying division within his officethey are taking a strong position against the proposed regulations. So our interests are represented at two different levels. Dealing With Transportation, Delivery Among other vocal opponents are law enforcement agencies, who point to increased public safety risks due to the potential for a spectrum of related crimes ranging from robberies to impaired driving. The bureaus currently proposed regulations include several procedural forms that business and microbusiness applicants must complete for each business activity they plant to engage in. Among the transport-related information applicants must supply is whether they will be transporting cannabis goods or contracting for transportation services; what license type clientele they will be serving; geographic regions; hours of operation; vehicle(s) and trailer(s) details, including VIN, registration and insurance; employee driver(s), passenger(s) and security personnel details; cannabis storage and security measures specifics. The delivery form, which also requires detailed employee and vehicle information, also requires applicants to describe delivery worker training; processes such as for accepting new orders and preparing orders for delivery; security, tracking and communications with delivery personnel; actual delivery transaction; and auditing of good for inventory control. Latest Regulatory Movements Officials anticipate that proposed changes to the draft regulations will finalize in December. There is a 15-day comment period ongoing until Monday at 5 p.m. for input into the latest proposed modifications, which address procedures to appeal administrative actions against cannabis licensees or applicants. To access the states Cannabis Portal landing page addressing the proposed regulations, click here. Last Thursday, the bureau announced, due to the large number of incoming applications for temporary cannabis cultivation licenses, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) was informing prospective applicants that any application for a temporary license received after December 1 may not process in time for the bureau to issue a temporary license before January 1, 2019. It added that after Dec. 31 of this year CDFAs authority to issue temporary licenses expires and advised applicants to submit by Dec. 1 to provide sufficient processing time. To review the bureaus latest announcements, click here. Sonora, CA It is Halloween, and local law enforcement leaders are reminding everyone to be on the lookout for trick-or-treaters this evening. Officers will also be out patrolling to make sure everyone behaves themselves. Parents are encouraged to make sure little trick-or-treaters have flash lights or reflective clothing to ensure that they can be seen. New this year, the Tuolumne County Sheriffs Office is having at haunted house at the office located on 28 North Lower Sunset in Sonora between 3-5pm. Also, the Tuolumne Park and Recreation District is putting on a trick or treat parade at West Side Memorial Park starting at 4:30pm. The Christian Heights Church is hosting an American Ninja Warrior Halloween alternative event from 6-8pm. Find details about all the events coming up today in the Community Section of myMotherLode.com. On Saturday, hours after a gunman burst into Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed 11 in the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history, President Donald Trump was scheduled to appear at a rally in Indiana to address a group of student farmers. While they waited for Trump to take the stage, the crowd danced to a playlist of upbeat music, including "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper, and "Happy" by Pharrell Williams. Now Williams, a popular recording artist, is threatening to take legal action for Trump's unauthorized use of his song. PRINCE ESTATE TO TRUMP: Stop using music at rallies On Monday, his attorney Howard King issued a cease-and-desist letter to Trump, saying the use of "Happy" without permission constituted copyright infringement and a trademark violation. "On the day of the mass murder of 11 human beings at the hands of a deranged 'nationalist,' you played his song 'Happy' to a crowd at a political event in Indiana," the letter stated. "There was nothing 'happy' about the tragedy inflicted upon our country on Saturday and no permission was granted for your use of this song for this purpose." The letter indicated Williams's cease and desist would apply to all of his songs, not just "Happy." "Pharrell has not, and will not, grant you permission to publicly perform or otherwise broadcast or disseminate any of his music," the letter stated. It's unclear who chose the music for Saturday's event in Indiana. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday morning. The Indiana event was technically a National FFA Organization convention, not one of Trump's "Make America Great Again" rallies. However, it often had the feel of a political rally, starting with an introduction by Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue. Throughout his speech to the FFA convention, Trump praised several of his administration's policy decisions and randomly took verbal detours to sling barbs at some of his political rivals, as The Washington Post reported then: "After pleading for peace and harmony, Trump seemingly couldn't resist reverting to his favorite political insults. He criticized the trade deals of past presidents and boasted about his actions on ethanol. Trump attacked Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and her claim to Native American heritage, speculating she might be "out" of consideration for president. " 'Turned out that I had more Indian blood in me than she has,' Trump said. 'What a sad event. And I have none, so you know.' "As the crowd of students laughed, Trump shrugged: 'We can't resist. Can we resist?'" Though Trump briefly considered canceling a subsequent political rally in Illinois, immediately following the FFA convention, he ultimately decided to keep it. "These are bad people. You can't allow them to dominate what we do," Trump said Saturday, referring to perpetrators of attacks like the one on the Pittsburgh synagogue. "So, I'll go. Not that I want to go, but I think that I actually, in reverse, have an obligation to go." Williams is not the first recording artist to demand Trump stop using his or her music. The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Queen, Adele, Elton John and Aerosmith have all called on Trump to stop playing their songs at his political events. TRUMP ON KAYNE: Hes a Genius They joined a long list of musicians who have protested politicians' use of their music, as The Post's Travis M. Andrews reported in 2016: "John Cougar Mellencamp, Tom Petty and Sting all objected to then-Gov. George W. Bush, R-Texas, using their songs in his 2000 presidential campaign (Sting also objected to Al Gore using a song), Fivethirtyeight reported. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had a particularly bad run in 2008, receiving complaints from Mellencamp, Van Halen, Heart, Bon Jovi, the Foo Fighters and ABBA before eventually being sued by Jackson Browne. During that same election, Sam Moore (of Sam & Dave) called out then Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for using "Hold On, I'm Coming." Four years later, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, R, found himself in the crosshairs for using songs by the Silversun Pickups, K'naan, Twisted Sister and Survivor." That said, musicians protesting the use of their songs at campaign rallies often have limited legal recourse, as usually campaigns or venues obtain a public performance license from music rights organizations like the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) or BMI. There are, however, still avenues for musicians to sue a campaign for using their songs at an event, according to ASCAP guidelines. "As a general rule, a campaign should be aware that, in most cases, the more closely a song is tied to the 'image' or message of the campaign, the more likely it is that the recording artist or songwriter of the song could object to the song's usage in the campaign," ASCAP states. The group recommends that campaigns request permission from artists, even if they have a public performance license, to avoid possible claims. Representatives and an attorney for Williams did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday morning. --- The Washington Post's Seung Min Kim contributed to this report. Advances in DNA technology gave authorities the breakthrough they needed to arrest a Houston man for the stabbing death of his sister-in-law 15 years ago. Harris County authorities arrested Gregory Glenn Markwardt, 50, on capital murder charges Wednesday at his home. Markwardt is accused of slaying Kathryn Louis Odom on March 3, 1987. Her battered body was discovered hours later in her Spring home with her two young children. Investigators describe the crime as a "lust murder," saying Markwardt made romantic advances to Odom, but she rejected him. Markwardt is still married to Odom's sister, Shelley Markwardt, sheriff's officials said. Authorities said in Thursday's editions of the Houston Chronicle that Markwardt has always said he had nothing to do with the crime and repeated his claim when arrested. But well preserved evidence and new technology involving more specific DNA processing pointed to Markwardt. Authorities declined to identify the DNA evidence. "DNA is now more capable of capturing smaller pieces of evidence," said assistant district attorney Kelly Siegler, who will prosecute the case. "In 1987, no one had even heard of DNA. As time went on and technology got better, different evidence was submitted to different labs. A month ago, a final piece of evidence was submitted that linked this defendant to the crime." Odom's nude body was found in her children's bedroom by a neighbor who was sent to check on Odom because her worried husband was unable to reach her by phone. She had been stabbed 16 times and her throat had been cut. She also had been sexually assaulted. Her two children, then 4 years old and 2 months, had been left in the house with her body for as long as eight hours, authorities said. The older child, who had been beaten and was found unconscious on a couch, has never been able to tell detectives much. The infant was found in a bedroom and hadn't been battered. Both were hospitalized with dehydration and non life-threatening injuries. Authorities said Markwardt's wife was at work when he was arrested. The newspaper could not reach her for comment Wednesday. WASHINGTON - President Donald Trumps proposal to end birthright citizenship got a lukewarm reception in New York, leading some political figures and experts to wondering whether the idea of depriving citizens rights to children of undocumented immigrants born in the U.S. is little more than a pre-election political ploy. The president is doubling down on immigration, hoping to restore enthusiasm to the base, said Lee Miringoff, director or the Marist Poll at Marist College in Poughkeepsie. This is an attempt to rally the faithful. In an interview with Axios, Trump said the U.S. is "the only country the world that grants citizenship to anyone born within its boundaries, regardless of whether the parents are here legally. Its ridiculous. And it has to end. (While most countries of Western Europe do not have birthright citizenship, Mexico and Canada do.) Although it is the subject of some debate in legal circles, the Constitutions 14th Amendment - adopted in 1868 to assure citizenship to freed slaves - appears to leave little doubt that those born in the U.S. are citizens regardless of parentage. It states: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Trump insisted to Axios that he was advised he could change order the change without running afoul of the Constitution. "You can definitely do it with an act of Congress, he said. But now they're saying I can do it just with an executive order." But Michael Dorf, a constitutional law professor at Cornell Law School in Ithaca, said the plan has no chance of passing legal muster. Persons born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrant parents are U.S. citizens, full stop, he wrote on his blog. Neither an act of Congress nor an executive order can change that. Only a constitutional amendment can. Trumps plan comes at a time when both Democrats and Republicans are see-sawing in the momentum game with the midterm elections just six days away. Trump and Republicans appeared to be on the rise earlier in the month, but the pendulum seemed to swing back the other way after the Pittsburgh synagogue mass-shooting and the arrest of a bomber targeting prominent Trump opponents. For Trump, the birthright-citizenship card is just one hes playing in the immigration realm. He has said without proof that the caravan of illegal immigrants wending its way northward to the U.S. includes terrorists from the Middle East. Hes also ordered U.S. troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to halt it. Its all from the same playbook, said Miringoff. A relative handful of voters motivated by immigration or some other issue could well make a difference in the outcome of close congressional races. House Speaker Paul Ryan made clear Tuesday he does not believe Trump can end birthright citizenship unilaterally. As a conservative, I'm a believer in following the plain text of the Constitution, and I think in this case the 14th Amendment is pretty clear, and that would involve a very, very lengthy constitutional process, Ryan said in an interview with a Kentucky talk-radio show. But where we obviously totally agree with the president is getting at the root issue here, which is unchecked illegal immigration." Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, agreed with Ryan, her mentor in the House. "Congresswoman Stefanik does not support the presidents announcement regarding his birthright executive order which she believes is unconstitutional, said Stefaniks campaign spokesman, Lenny Alcivar. She continues to support increased border security as well as fixing our broken immigration system particularly for North Country farmers." Among Democrats, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand was an unsurprising no on the idea. Senator Gillibrand obviously opposes Trumps plan to end birthright citizenship, said her spokeswoman, Whitney Brennan. Rep. John Faso, R-Kinderhook, agreed with the principal of denying automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants. An executive order would be insufficient, but an act of Congress could achieve it, Faso said in a statement. Congress could enact a law which changes existing policy so that automatic citizenship would only be conferred upon those born in the U.S. to parents who are legal residents, said Faso, who is in a tight race for a second term representing the upper Hudson Valley. I would support such an effort in the House." Nationally, there are about 4 million children under 18 with one parent who is undocumented, according to calculations based on U.S. Census data prepared by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. Of those, approximately 241,600 live in New York - third highest in the nation behind California and Texas. In the 2016 election, Trump railed against anchor babies - U.S.-born children of illegal parents who ultimately hope to use the citizenship link as the basis for gaining legal status. Concerns also have been raised about birth tourism - prospective parents with visas entering the U.S. in order to bear children who then become U.S. citizens. The Center for Immigration Studies, a group favoring immigration limits, estimated that 36,000 births annually are the result of birth tourism. Immigration experts say that no matter the legalities, denial of birthright citizenship would push illegal-immigrant families further into the shadows. Immigrant children will identify as American if you let them, said Randy Capps of the Migration Policy Institute. If youre worried about immigration, (taking away birthright citizenship is) closing the barn door after cow escapes. Trump supporters who favor taking away citizenship from children of illegal immigrants base their argument on the 14th Amendments phrase subject to the jurisdiction thereof. The framers of the 14th Amendment added the jurisdiction clause precisely to distinguish between people to whom the United States owes citizenship and those to whom it does not, wrote former Trump White House official Michael Anton in a Washington Post op-ed last July. Freed slaves definitely qualified. The children of immigrants who came here illegally clearly dont. But Dorf of Cornell doubts the phrase was intended as a way of picking and choosing who is a citizen and who is not, as long as the individual is born on U.S. soil. Historically, the subject to the jurisdiction thereof language has been understood to be a narrow exception for children born to invading armies, to foreign diplomats, or on foreign ships - as the Supreme Court held in (a case dating back to) 1898, he wrote. dan@hearstdc.com Some San Antonians are gearing up for a long evening of trick-or-treating with their kids, some are filling up their candy bowls and finding a spot on a porch, while others are wondering what there is to do when you don't have kids, but you do have a job to get to early Thursday morning. With Halloween landing in the middle of the week, many adults fulfilled frightful festivities over the weekend, because when you're an adult it's not the ghouls you fear but an alarm ringing at 6 a.m. The captain, who was at the helm of a 60-foot luxury yacht when it collided with a 23-foot powerboat and killing a Norwalk man pleaded guilty Tuesday to seamans manslaughter. The Sept. 22, 2015 collision off Westerly, R.I. resulted in the death of Walter S. Krupinski, 81. Krupinski the only person onboard the powerboat, the Peggy K. Cooper Chick Bacon, 79, of Cape May, N.J., was piloting the unregistered yacht, the Princess 60, from an indoor salon when it struck the powerboat. Bacon had been hired to pilot the Princess 60 from Newport, R.I., to a boat show in Stamford, Conn. According to information presented to the court, GPS data collected from the GPS system aboard the Princess 60 indicated the yacht approached the powerboat at an average speed of 25.2 knots. The Princess 60 was equipped with an operating horn, VHF marine radiotelephone, navigation system, and radar system, among other safety equipment. Prior to the collision, the defendant failed to take precautions required by the ordinary practice of a seaman, according to a U.S. Attorneys Office release. Bacon did not post his First Mate to lookout, did not make proper use of radar, and did not himself see the powerboat in time to avoid the collision. As a result of his failure to see the Peggy K, Bacon did not make passing arrangements, sound the horn, change course, slacken speed, or stop or reverse propulsion to avoid a collision. After the collision, Bacon failed to make proper use of the VHF marine radiotelephone by notifying the United States Coast Guard of the emergency. Krupinski died as a result of multiple blunt force injuries sustained when the 67,241-pound yacht ran up and over the open cockpit of the powerboat. Bacons guilty plea before U.S. District Court Judge John J. McConnell, Jr., to seamans manslaughter was announced by United States Attorney Stephen G. Dambruch; Admiral Steven Poulin, Commander of the First Coast Guard District, United States Coast Guard; and Richard Cox, Special Agent in Charge of United States Coast Guard Investigative Service, New England Region. Bacon is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 17. The tension in the courtroom Tuesday morning was palpable as the son of the local businessman, who was fatally beaten, testified during the trial of the man allegedly involved in the killing. Justin Jerman Hernandez was indicted by a grand jury in February 2017 on charges of murder after he and two other suspects allegedly killed Hector Benavides Sr., 57, in the parking lot of the Cantera Courts Complex, a strip mall Benavides Sr. owned in the 9800 block of McPherson. Benavides Sr. was killed on the night of the much-anticipated Ronda Rousey v. Holly Holm UFC fight on Nov. 15, 2015. READ MORE: Man learns fate in fatal beating of a local business owner Webb County Assistant District Attorney Josh Davila told a jury in the 406th District Court in his opening statement that this story was one about revenge. "This story is about vengeance and getting even," Davila said, "Of bad choices that led to everyone being here today." Davila asked the jury to pay attention, listen to all the evidence and keep an open mind when they listen to the testimonies presented to them. Patrick Hancock, Hernandez's attorney, reserved his opening statement. The first to testify was Leticia Ayala, who told the court she went to Rumors Country Bar and Patio the night of Nov. 15 after the UFC fight was over. She was going to meet a friend, she said. She drove into the parking lot looking for a parking spot but noticed there was hardly any space, Ayala said. "I was looking for parking and then Mr. Benavides told me to reverse and told me where to park," she said. "I was parking where he indicated." Benavides was charging $10 for parking, but Ayala didn't have any cash in her purse so she'd told Benavides that she would run inside the bar and grab cash after buying a drink, she said. READ ALSO: Homicide suspects previously held in Webb County Detention Center deported "He was talking to me, but then he got distracted looking elsewhere. Looking to the side," Ayala said. "That's when he said, 'No. That's fine.' and left walking away from my vehicle." Ayala testified she was texting her friend asking her to meet at the entrance of Rumors. She started hearing gravel being stepped on and got out of the car after hearing a lot of commotion in the parking lot. When she got up, she saw three men hitting Benavides, fighting him, according to her testimony. "One of them was tall. The other two were short," Ayala said. "One of the guys had an object in his hand and was hitting him. At one point Mr. Benavides was fighting back. He was holding on to a car, but then he fell to the floor. All three were hitting him at the same time." Ayala told the court that she began screaming for help. She began walking towards the guys yelling at them to stop and leave Benavides alone, she said. "They turned around and saw me," Ayala testified. "The two short ones ran. The guy with the object kept hitting him. Then one of them came back and threw the money saying, 'Here's your f-----g money.'" Ayala testified through tears that when the three men left, she grabbed onto Benavides telling him to stay with her. "I was holding on tight," she said. "He was making some noises. The puddle of blood kept getting bigger and bigger. He was trying to move his mouth. His eyes would close and open." She said she moved away from Benavides when help got there. Christopher Benavides, Benavides' son, testified that he got into a verbal altercation with a man he identified as Hernandez because he was disrespecting his father. Rumors was very popular during the weekends, Benavides told the court. He said he was working with his father that night separating different parking spots for the several businesses in the strip mall since Rumors' customers would take most of the available spots. "We were standing together and a truck was coming in," he said. Benavides Sr. told Hernandez that night that he had to pay for parking when Hernandez began getting aggressive and disrespecting his father, Benavides said. He testified that he backhanded Hernandez's truck. Benavides told the court Hernandez then opened his truck door and reached for something, so Benavides held his arm asking Hernandez why he was disrespecting his father. Benavides testified that he felt Hernandez wanted to fight so he punched him one time. "He tried to hit me with the truck," Benavides said. Benavides and Hernandez were yelling profanities back and forth the whole time both he and his dad were telling Hernandez to leave the complex, Benavides testified. "I still stayed for another 50 minutes," he said. "My wife got there and I told her what happened. I was getting picked up because I'd been feeling sick." He was on his way home when he got a call telling him that his father had gotten jumped, Benavides said. "I was in shock," he testified. He told the court that he raced back to the parking lot after learning the news and went straight to the hospital afterwards. Efrain Leonel Hernandez and Felipe Arispe-Rosales were also indicted on murder charges for the same incident. Efrain Hernandez was convicted of murder in December 2017 and sentenced to serve 45 years in prison for his participation in the fatal beating of Benavides. Arispe-Rosales is scheduled for jury selection on Nov. 5. RELATED: Nuevo Laredo couple gets 20 years for child's beating death Reports state the trio attacked Benavides and left him critically wounded. Paramedics responded to the call at about 12:30 a.m. Laredo police said Benavides was collecting $10 parking fees when the suspects assaulted him in the parking lot of the complex. Benavides was critically wounded and later airlifted to a San Antonio hospital, where he was pronounced dead the following day. During the investigation, police said they received information identifying Arispe-Rosales, Hernandez and his brother, Efrain, as the suspects. The men were arrested in December 2015. Maria Salas may be reached at 728-2580 or msalas@lmtonline.com BRANFORD Two years after a jury found John Vailette guilty of the March 2006 arson murder of the late Kathy Hardy and two months after a federal judge ordered a new trial Hardys family has been told that prosecutors wont re-try Vailette. U.S. Attorney John H. Durhams office declined to comment Wednesday beyond saying that it has notified the court of its intention to file a document on Monday that will spell out its plans with regard to the case. But Hardys father, Robert Barrett of Clinton, and sister, Dawn Luddy of Watertown, both said they learned in a conference call Tuesday that prosecutors wont pursue a retrial. Vailette was found guilty in October 2015 by a federal jury in Hartford of one count of arson resulting in the death of Kathy Hardy, a 39-year-old Branford woman who died in her home on Little Bay Lane in the Short Beach section as a result of a fire on March 7, 2006. U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny ordered the new trial in August, according to court documents. Defense attorneys had been seeking to overturn Vailettes conviction, claiming that one of the governments witness committed perjury while testifying about the fire that killed Hardy . Neither Vailette nor his attorney, Craig A. Raabe, could immediately be reached for comment. According to the federal Bureau of Prisons website, Vailette was released from prison on April 8, 2015. I feel bad. I feel bad for my family. The system failed, said Barrett. But when I look at it, it may be a blessing in disguise, he said. Im not sure I want my family to go through another trial. Im not sure Im ready to go through another trial. With regard to Vailette, Barrett, a Christian, said, I dont hate the man and Im obligated to tell the man that I love him and forgive him. Thats the creed of my religion. Luddy laid blame for the situation at the feet of Chief States Attorney Kevin Kane, saying of Kane, I think its an absolute travesty that (Kane) dropped the ball and didnt turn over evidence to the federal government. According to Luddy, witness Chris Olson had written letters to the Chief States Attorneys Offices Cold Case Unit asking for favors if he testified, and the Cold Case Unit never turned them over to the prosecutors. If the prosecutors had known, they could have asked him on the stand if he had gotten any favors and he hadnt, Luddy said. The federal government is telling us that they have no doubt in their mind that they had convicted the correct person, she said. And now a murderer walks free. The states attorney had a job to do and he didnt do it, Luddy said, and I think he needs to be held accountable. Kane, reached in his office Wednesday, acknowledgedthat there was correspondence from Olson, but said the fact that it was not disclosed at trial was an oversight. Yes, there was some correspondence going back ... several years, he said. But while Olson may have asked for consideration, There was never any consideration given and it was very clear that not only were there no promises made ... but quite the opposite. But while the letters were written before there was any arrest, they were discovered later on and inadvertently were not disclosed until after the verdict, Kane said. It was an oversight and Im sorry for it very sorry, Kane said. I can understand why theyre very upset. Prosecutors had alleged that Vailette and original co-defendant Steven Martone poured an accelerant on the stairs at Hardys home while she was asleep in an upstairs bedroom and then started a fire at the bottom of the stairs before fleeing the house. Olson testified on Sept. 21, 2015, that he had seen Vailette several times after Hardys death looking disheveled and unusually frightened. (Vailette) said he was at a house partying with his girl. Some things went bad. ... And someone died, Olson said on the stand. During his testimony, Olson, who also said he had ties to one of Vailettes sisters, said after repeated questioning from the government that he did not want anything in exchange for his testimony and he had not been promised anything in exchange for his testimony. But Raabe argued in a subsequent motion that Olson sent a letter to the Connecticut Chief States Attorneys Office in January 2016 asking for a $50,000 reward for his testimony and that new letters produced by the government reveal that Olson had requested cooperation prior to giving statements in court if he could be promised something in return. Raabe included several handwritten letters that were addressed from Olson that the defense argues prove that Olson only cooperated in the hopes that he might get out of jail and receive some favor in a pending drug case. Potential motives for the slaying were discussed at the trials of Vailette and Martone, who was tried separately and acquitted in December 2015. Possible motives included Hardys alleged affairs and involvement with police as a confidential informant. Based on evidence presented at trial, Vailette allegedly knew of Hardys work as a confidential informant. Also, according to witness testimony, he never denied his involvement in the fire after the fact. However, in phone calls to a Register reporter since his conviction, Vailette has maintained his innocence as he had in a jailhouse visit prior to the trial. Vailettes conviction carried a potential maximum penalty of life in prison. Hardy was found dead from smoke inhalation in the upstairs of her home and fire investigators testified the fire had begun at the bottom of the stairs and had spread upward due to a large quantity of accelerant present on the carpeting. Somebody didnt accidentally spill a large quantity of accelerant, U.S. Attorney John Durham said in his closing arguments in Vailettes trial. This was not an oversight or a mistake. WASHINGTON - The White House's decision to send more than 5,200 active-duty troops to the border with Mexico a week before the midterm elections has put the American military and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis squarely in the political crosshairs regarding one of the nation's most divisive issues. Defense officials have sought to characterize the operation - believed to be the largest deployment of active-duty troops to the U.S. border in a century - as routine support for the Department of Homeland Security. But the mission could jeopardize Mattis' effort to shield the military from the political divisions gripping the country as questions persist about the size and timing of the deployment and the use of active-duty troops instead of the National Guard. In his nearly two years as defense secretary, Mattis has sought to protect the military from the sort of politicization that has rattled the FBI and the CIA since President Donald Trump took office. The Pentagon says the large-scale deployment is necessary to harden points of entry and deter a caravan of an estimated 3,000 to 7,000 Central American migrants that is about 900 miles south of the border and making its way northward. Representatives for Mattis did not respond to requests for comment, but other officials have rejected the notion that the scale and timing of the deployment has political motives and say a high-profile, rapid rollout could serve as a deterrent. "We've got to be prepared for the potential arrival of a very large group," Kevin McAleenan, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said at a news conference Monday. "Because of the size we want to be able to handle it effectively and safely." Critics, meanwhile, say the decision to deploy roughly the same number of U.S. troops serving in Iraq to the border in the days before the midterm elections far exceeds the threat at hand. The caravan is three to four weeks away from arriving, the critics note, and the deployment helps Trump focus attention on an issue ahead of the Nov. 6 vote that could energize his base. Internal Pentagon documents obtained by The Washington Post indicate that the military specifically wants to highlight the deployment in part to "deter or dissuade the caravan" from continuing toward the United States. "This is a craven political stunt by President Trump ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, and a cynical capitulation by a secretary of defense who has prided himself on improving the readiness, focus, and lethality of the U.S. armed forces and who was once known as a no-nonsense warfighter," Kelly Magsamen, a former top Pentagon official in the Obama administration and now a vice president at the liberal Center for American Progress, wrote in an op-ed for Defense One. Mattis has said little in public about the deployment, other than to confirm during a news conference Sunday in the Czech Republic that the troops would conform with all U.S. laws while serving on the border. Because U.S. law prohibits the military from domestic policing duties, the troops will be limited to helping CPB officers do their jobs. Earlier on Sunday, Mattis described the mission as "defense support for civilian authorities" and said whatever Border Patrol needed would get there, but he didn't go into detail about the rationale or the threat. He didn't discuss the deployment at an appearance in Washington at the U.S. Institute of Peace on Tuesday. Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, commander of U.S. Northern Command, which is overseeing the operation, said Tuesday at the Pentagon that additional forces could follow the 5,239 troops being sent to the border. He said 2,092 National Guard forces are already broadly assigned to the mission there, operating under an April order from Trump. Texas will receive the active-duty forces first, O'Shaughnessy said, and will have about 1,800 in place within days. The Air Force general said CBP personnel will be the primary officials dealing with migrants but that U.S. service members deployed to support them would be properly trained in case of any incidental interaction. Some of the active-duty droops heading to the border will deploy with weapons, O'Shaughnessy had said a day earlier. According to the internal Pentagon documents reviewed by The Washington Post, active-duty personnel can use force to protect themselves or others around them. The Marine Corps will deploy military police and a special-purpose task force headquarters as part of the U.S. military's mission, while the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division will deploy helicopters, according to the documents. Troops will deploy with a mixture of lethal and nonlethal weapons, and are authorized to use deadly force in defense of "all persons, foreign or domestic, who are faced with imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm, and where lesser means have failed or cannot be reasonably employed." The military operation, dubbed Faithful Patriot, is designed to help the CBP "impede or deny illegal crossings, maintain situational awareness and apply the appropriate law enforcement response," according to the documents. While the mission is due to conclude on Dec. 15, one document suggested the active-duty presence could be curtailed "once the migrant caravan has reached a capacity that CBP can process" on its own. Among the activities the troops are expected to tackle are constructing barriers and fencing, using helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to move CBP personnel, and dispensing medical care. The government has also asked the Pentagon to provide command and control facilities, temporary housing for CBP personnel, and riot gear for 500 CBP employees. Military medical teams will be primarily tasked with treating government personnel and are not expected to take part in "medical screening" of migrants. "No DOD civilian or military personnel are involved in the transportation, lodging, care or administration of migrants," one document said. The troops are operating in a support role for CBP because a law known as the Posse Comitatus Act generally prohibits the U.S. military from direct participation in law enforcement. Jason Dempsey, a former Army officer who serves as an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said the deployment raised questions about how Mattis was balancing his goal of making the U.S. military a more lethal, focused organization with pressure to get involved in the president's political priorities. The balancing act has been a strain for Mattis since his first week at the Pentagon, when Trump signed his controversial travel ban in the Pentagon's Hall of Heroes alongside Mattis, who like other military leaders, received little warning about Trump's plans. The use of active-duty forces enables a faster mobilization and is likely to be cheaper than calling up members of the National Guard, because additional pay and benefits are required when the Pentagon activates forces from the Guard and reserves. A two-year deployment of up to 6,000 guard troops to the border during President George W. Bush's administration cost about $1.2 billion. The Obama administration spent about $110 million over one year to deploy up to 1,200 to the border, according to the Government Accountability Office. O'Shaughnessy said Tuesday that he couldn't give a cost figure for the current deployment. But the decision to use active-duty forces also threatens to pull troops away from training activities and preparation for overseas deployments, and could further stretch a force that military leaders for years have complained is beleaguered by excessive deployments. The Pentagon is aware of the risks a deployment within the United States poses to the military's public reputation if something goes awry. Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general, was on active duty in 1997 when a U.S. Marine deployed to the border on an anti-drug mission shot and killed an American teenager tending to his herd of goats. Charles Dunlap, a retired Air Force major general and law professor at Duke University, said the use of the regular armed forces within the United States for politically charged goals is seldom desired by the military itself. "In an era when the vitality of our armed forces depends upon the best and brightest volunteering, it's hard to overstate how important it is for the military to maintain the strong public support and admiration it currently enjoys," Dunlap said in an email. "Involvement in controversial domestic matters inevitably risks alienating at least part of the citizenry." Dunlap said there are times when regular troops are the best option on short notice, and they can offer professionalism at tumultuous times, citing President Dwight D. Eisenhower's decision to order elements of the 101st Airborne Division to help desegregate Little Rock schools in 1957. "If we are faced with a concentration of thousands of people unlawfully crossing the border, having the military provide the rear-echelon support and logistics so as to free law enforcement professionals to keep public order in the front line, so to speak, may be the best or even only near-term option," Dunlap said. Indonesia may be close to finding the main wreckage of the Lion Air plane that crashed earlier this week, as the hunt for clues to what caused the country's worst air disaster since 1997 continued into a third day. The search team stumbled on "quite a large" object, about 20 meters long, Haris Djoko Nugroho, commander of Indonesia's naval ship Rigel said Wednesday. The crew is now zeroing in on the area, National Military Chief Hadi Tjahjanto said in a televised statement separately. Divers are preparing to go down, the National Search and Rescue Agency said. "We aren't sure if it's part of JT610," Tjahjanto said, referring to the doomed flight's number. "We are focusing on that one spot to confirm that what we're suspecting under the water is part of JT610." The ill-fated plane had a technical issue with its airspeed and altitude readings during its previous flight from Bali to Jakarta, but it was fixed by the airline, Lion Air's spokesman Danang Mandala Prihantoro said. While that could be a potential focus area for investigators, the carrier said it was firing its technical director under instructions from the transport ministry. The almost new Boeing Co. 737 Max plane crashed a few minutes after takeoff from Jakarta airport early Monday, slamming into the water at high speed, according to preliminary data transmitted from the aircraft to the ground and reported by FlightRadar24. One of the jet's pilots had asked to return to land, and the flight track showed variations of speed and altitude, suggesting they may have been dealing with some kind of problem. The jet carried 189 people on board and all are feared dead. If the search crews manage to locate the fuselage, the next crucial task, besides recovering bodies, is to retrieve the plane's black box. The data and cockpit voice recorders monitor the plane's electronics and mechanical systems as well as store the conversations of the pilots -- useful information to help unravel the mystery behind the dive. The sea-bound search for the crashed aircraft's debris evoked images of the years-long and as yet unsuccessful search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared over the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean. Scouring in the shallow waters off Jakarta where the plane went down has so far yielded little else than small aircraft pieces, body parts and passengers' personal belongings. It is too early to determine what led to the disaster, Lion Air owner Rusdi Kirana said. Authorities expanded the search area Wednesday. The Lion Air crash is the first fatal incident for Boeing's Max model, the latest version in the Chicago-based planemaker's popular single-aisle 737 family. While Indonesia has ordered its airlines to check Max planes after the crash, other carriers in Asia that fly the plane indicated they hadn't been prompted to do so by Boeing. SilkAir, a unit of Singapore Airlines, said it is "closely monitoring developments" after the crash. India's aviation safety regulator said Tuesday that it reviewed the performance of the six aircraft operated by local carriers and hadn't found significant technical issues. Those planes have completed a cumulative 4,000 flight hours since their induction in June 2018, the regulator said. Lion Air said Tuesday that it's too early to decide on the future of the some dozen Max 8 planes it flies. The plane that crashed had clocked 800 hours of flight time since delivery in August. Indonesia has dispatched more than 30 vessels and over 800 soldiers and civilians to look for the Lion Air plane. The mission is using remote operated underwater vehicles, ping locator and side-scan sonar in areas divided into one meant for diving and another for scanning. A team of investigators from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, Boeing and engine maker CFM International -- a joint venture between General Electric Co. and Safran SA -- will assist the probe spearheaded by Indonesian authorities. The plane dropped from an altitude of about 4,850 feet (1,479 meters) in about 21 seconds. Based on what appears to be a high-speed dive into the water at about 350 miles an hour -- far above the typical rate for a descent -- the body of the plane might have broken up into pieces as it plowed into the seabed, burying some of the crucial parts, according to Shadrach Nababan, a former investigator at Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Board. "The biggest question that I have so far is why the search and rescue parties have not been able to detect the ping from the black box," said Nababan, who investigated the 1997 crash of a SilkAir Boeing 737-300 that plummeted into a river at high speed in South Sumatra. "This is puzzling." A 28-year-old Washington man has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for fraud and identity theft, according to a release. Elijah Chin, of Federal Way, was also sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Michael P. Shea in Hartford to two years of supervised release for offenses stemming from a credit card fraud scheme, the U.S. Attorneys office said in the release. WEST HAVEN The father and mother of a boy who died after being found in a hot car in July were arrested Wednesday, according to police. Dusan Jenkins, 34, and Latoya Walters, 34, both of 2 Treat St., Apartment 4A, were arrested in connection with the case Wednesday afternoon, West Haven police said in a release. Jenkins was charged with criminally negligent homicide, second-degree reckless endangerment and risk of injury to a minor, police said. Walters was charged with false statement, second-degree reckless endangerment and risk of injury to a minor. Both turned themselves in after learning about an active warrant for their arrest, according to police. They were released on bond, Sgt. Charles Young said Thursday. Dusan Jenkins, 4, died at the hospital after being found in a hot car outside of the 2 Treat Street housing complex July 19. His brother, Davion Jenkins, 2, was also found in the car and treated at the hospital. He was later released, police said. The elder Dusan Jenkins called police to the scene after finding the boys in the car, according to past reporting. Surveillance footage showed the two boys leaving the apartment building and getting into the car on their own, police have said. william.lambert@hearstmediact.com Facing a tough re-election battle, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) is distancing herself from liberal members of her party, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) - even as Warren's leadership PAC donated to the Missouri Democrat's campaign this cycle. PAC for a Level Playing Field, which is affiliated with Warren, gave McCaskill $10,000 last year, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Republicans seized on the donation, with the National Republican Senatorial Committee arguing that McCaskill's efforts to separate herself from leading Democrats were "laughable" in light of the funds. The back-and-forth comes as McCaskill has taken aim at "crazy Democrats" in the final stage of her campaign against Missouri's Republican attorney general, Josh Hawley. "Claire's not one of those crazy Democrats. She works right in the middle and finds compromise," a male voice says in one of McCaskill's recent radio ads. She has also tried to distance herself from recognizable liberals such as Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. "I would not call my colleagues crazy, but Elizabeth Warren sure went after me when I advocated tooling back some of the regulations for small banks and credit unions," McCaskill said in a Fox News Channel interview broadcast this week. "I certainly disagree with Bernie Sanders on a bunch of stuff." McCaskill was among 16 Senate Democrats who voted to advance a Republican-led rollback of banking regulations in March. At the time, Warren criticized those Democratic colleagues on Twitter and also rebuked them in a fundraising email, a move that ruffled feathers among some members of her caucus. McCaskill told CNN this week that "the crazy Democrats are the people who are getting in the face of elected officials in restaurants and screaming at them. The crazy Democrats is whoever put a swastika on one of Josh Hawley's signs in rural Missouri." Her strategy comes amid a broad push by Republicans to cast her and other Democrats running in conservative states as extremists and to link them to the far left wing of the Democratic Party. Asked about McCaskill's comments Wednesday, Hawley said: "I don't know what Sen. McCaskill means by all of that. I do know that she's a liberal Democrat." He accused McCaskill of trying to recast her record. In the Fox interview, McCaskill referred to Maria Chapelle-Nadal, a Democratic state senator who wrote on Facebook last year that she hoped President Donald Trump would be assassinated, as one the "crazy Democrats." Chapelle-Nadal criticized McCaskill on Twitter this week, using an expletive and writing: "Instead of knowing why people of color are angered by this administration, she chooses to put us & our families in harm's way. If my family is harmed, blame it on Claire McCaskill. She deserves to lose. She is not a Democrat." - -- The Washington Post's John Wagner contributed to this report. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency last week - in a tweet. Aiming his ire at a caravan of migrant families hundreds of miles from the United States, Trump vowed he was "bringing out the military for a National Emergency." His administration then authorized sending more than 5,000 active-duty troops to the border. But Trump has filed no legal proclamation declaring a national crisis as required under a 1976 law enacted to rein in abuses of executive power by granting presidents additional authorities only in specific instances and for a limited time frame. For Trump, the caravan is an emergency merely because he said so. Critics said the president's approach represents another measure of his willingness to act outside the bounds of his predecessors - in this case using an official term to portray migrants as dangerous and to stoke public fears ahead of next week's midterm elections. They warned that Trump is priming supporters to place their faith solely in his judgment over what warrants an emergency response from the executive branch. Their fears grew more acute this month when the Federal Emergency Management Agency tested a new presidential alert system, which allows the White House to issue notifications to every cellphone in the nation. Norman Ornstein, a political analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said the 1976 National Emergencies Act was intended to offer the public a clear White House rationale for pursuing emergency actions - a safeguard that Trump has circumvented with his impetuous nature and loose language. The law "is in some ways built on the assumption a president will use it appropriately when there is an emergency," Ornstein said. "We have to challenge all our assumptions right now. I find it chilling." Trump's predecessors often invoked the 1976 law when facing down crises they believed threatened the nation. President George W. Bush, for instance, declared a national emergency on Sept. 14, 2001, in the wake of terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Alerting Congress through a formal proclamation, Bush moved to gain additional legal powers over the U.S. military. Nine days later, he declared a second emergency - to pursue economic sanctions on terrorist groups. Since running a campaign focused heavily on threats from abroad - including immigration, terrorism and predatory trade - Trump has sought to consolidate support from his base through a governing strategy that asserts national security concerns in all manner of foreign and domestic affairs. In doing so, he has aimed to use fear to advance his domestic agenda and build support for unilateral actions. Without consulting Congress, Trump's administration has implemented a travel ban on residents of several majority-Muslim countries, slapped huge trade tariffs on China, stripped security clearances from former high-ranking U.S. officials who were critical of Trump and separated immigrant children from their families at the border. Trump and his aides said the president is now weighing new executive orders intended to strip asylum protections from Central Americans in the caravan and end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. Critics have pointed to the mass shooting that killed 11 Jewish congregants last weekend at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh as a potential consequence of the president's fearmongering. The suspect in the shooting, Robert Bowers, 46, of Baldwin, Pennsylvania., disliked Trump but was said to believe the migrant caravan was a Jewish conspiracy. Some of Trump's Republican allies, along with Fox News commentators, have fanned unsubstantiated allegations that George Soros, a wealthy Democratic donor who is Jewish, funded the caravan. "Trump uses a lot of talk that's not of a technical or legal manner," said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. "He could declare a national emergency to free up a number of statutory authorities, but it's not clear what kind of authorities he wants to use here. More likely, it's a rhetorical play to show how furious he is about this group of vulnerable migrants." The law governing presidential emergency powers was enacted in response to concerns over abuses from President Richard M. Nixon, who declared two national emergencies within 17 months. In 1970, he called up the National Guard to help deliver mail during an eight-day postal strike; a year later, he implemented price controls on consumer goods for 90 days, delivering a temporary jolt to the economy in the run-up to the 1972 presidential election. The new law required presidents to offer a legal rationale for the emergency powers they were seeking. Those powers would lapse within a year if they were not renewed, and Congress would have the authority to invalidate them. But the law has not been as effective as intended, experts said. Presidents in successive administrations have repeatedly renewed emergency declarations since President Jimmy Carter issued the first one during the Iran hostage crisis in 1979. That emergency proclamation - allowing the U.S. to block Iranian government properties - remains in effect, along with 29 others issued by the presidents since Carter. Bill Clinton declared emergencies 17 times, George W. Bush 12 and Barack Obama 13. The law has been invoked most to enact economic sanctions on foreign entities, including North Korea and the Taliban, but the emergencies also have been used during an influenza outbreak in 2009 and to combat cyberattacks in 2015. Presidents also have the power to mobilize emergency federal resources on a more regional level through the Stafford Act, which is typically used during hurricanes. Trump has issued two new proclamations under the National Emergencies Act - in December 2017, to issue economic sanctions against human rights abusers abroad, and, in September, to penalize foreign entities that attempt to interfere in U.S. elections. Kim Lane Scheppele, a Princeton University international affairs professor, said Trump's rhetoric, while intemperate, would be more dangerous if he "had better lawyers" who were capable of translating his Twitter threats into legal rationales to tap into more emergency powers. "A lot of what Trump is doing is barking more than biting," said Scheppele, who specializes in constitutional and international law. "He's using the language, but it's not tied to any legal thing." But Jeh Johnson, who was homeland security secretary in Obama's second term, said Trump is "reaching for exercises in presidential authority" in search of a quick fix to the complicated problem of immigration flows. Johnson recalled the public concern over an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa in 2014. The Obama administration considered invoking emergency authority to ban all travelers from Africa, he said, but settled on funneling air traffic from West Africa to five U.S. airports staffed with medical personnel to screen passengers. "We recognized there is no legal lever you can pull to close a 1,900-mile border," Johnson said. Of Trump, he added that the president "looks at the caravan heading north as a direct challenge to his presidential authority to secure our borders. He wants to send a deterrent message to the migrants heading north, and he wants to show the voters before the midterms that he is sending it." WINSTED With the drive of a determined victims advocate, attorney Thomas Fortune Fay made it possible to sue countries that support terrorists who kill American citizens. After the death of an American woman who was attacked in the Gaza Strip in 1995, her father contacted Fay for help. I was asked, Can you go to court to show it was murder? Fay said. We need a new statute, Fay answered. So we put it together, and from there on out, attorneys have brought such cases before United States District judges, he said. How he and a team of lawyers successfully sued the Islamic Republic of Iran over the Gaza Strip attack is just one of the riveting stories Fay will share at the Leaders in Law Presentation Series. The event will be held at 7 p.m. Nov. 8 at the American Museum of Tort Law in Winsted. The museums series showcases the nations top legal minds... with remarkable stories about hard-won victories gained through their extensive, challenging and impressive careers, according to a release. Information on the deadly Gaza Strip attack, which killed Alisa Michelle Flatow while she was riding a bus, was provided by an Israeli intelligence officer, Fay said. I got all of the records. I interviewed everyone on the bus who was still alive, he said. We were able to identify the Arab gunman. We even got the transcript congratulating (the terrorist) for his success in killing the bus passengers, Fay said. The success of the trial became the foundation for all the other cases, he said. Legal action in support of the U.S. Marines who were killed in 1983 in their barracks during a nighttime bombing in Beirut, was also successful through the efforts of Fay and a number of other attorneys. According to memorial information from Arlington Cemetery, the attack was the largest single-day loss of life for Marines since the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima. A total of 220 Marine Corps members died in the suicide bombing, according to the website. To begin the legal proceedings for survivors to sue for loss of support, Fay said his team sent letters to relatives of the deceased Marines based on addresses the military provided. We thought we would get 30 or 40 responses, he said. Instead, 1,800 family members replied that their loved ones were either killed or injured in the attack, Fay said. The ruling in the case resulted in a $2.1 billion settlement, he said. The marines got 75 percent of the total, Fay said. These have been the best 24 years, of his career, Fay said, as the settlement funds continue to be paid out. The fact is, we are all targets of terrorism. We must do everything we can to stop this from happening, Fay said. The danger from terrorism, now, he added are attacks in the United States. Those interested in attending Fays talk on Nov. 8 should contact the museum at 860-379-0505. The museum is located at 654 Main St., Winsted. Find the museum at www.facebookcom/tortmuseum or tortmuseum.org. As a midterm election approaches, President Donald Trump has double- and triple-downed on a basic theme: It isn't me. It's the news media's fault. In a stepped-up series of attacks launched via tweets and public statements, Trump has asserted that the dissension in the nation, including two acts of domestic terrorism over the past week, resulted from reporting and commentary that is unfair, inaccurate or critical of him. "The Fake News is doing everything in their power to blame Republicans, Conservatives and me for the division and hatred that has been going on for so long in our Country," he tweeted on Sunday. "Actually, it is their Fake & Dishonest reporting which is causing problems far greater than they understand!" The comment was a variation of the theme that Trump played on Thursday, after pipe bombs were sent to prominent Democrats, including former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former president Barack Obama, and to CNN's offices in New York. "A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News," he tweeted then. "It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!" In a press briefing Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders gave an emotional preamble about Saturday's mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 people dead. Sanders appeared near tears as she read a statement calling anti-Semitism a "plague to humanity" and the incident "an act of hatred and above all an act of evil." Sanders at first tried to shift the onus off reporters ("No, the president is not placing blame" for violent acts, she said at one point) before deciding to place the same blame where her boss already had. "The very first action that the president did was condemn these heinous acts. The very first thing that the media did was condemn the president," she said, adding, "You guys have a huge responsibility to play in the divisive nature of the country." (In fact, CNN covered the news as it occurred. CNN President Jeff Zucker later issued a statement criticizing the White House for its "total and complete lack of understanding ... about the seriousness of their continued attacks on the media.") As always, formulations such as "the media" are nebulous; pressed for specifics by CNN's Jim Acosta, Sanders wouldn't say which media outlets are "the enemy of the people," a phrase Trump has invoked before (for the record: he described the New York Times, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News and CNN that way in a tweet last year). But she nevertheless continued the president's line of attack, telling Acosta: "I think it's irresponsible of a news organization like yours to blame responsibility of a pipe bomb that was not sent by the president, not just blame the president but blame members of his administration for those heinous acts, I think that is outrageous. And I think it's irresponsible." Trump has made media-bashing a signature part of his political persona, railing against "the fake news" media within days of announcing that he was running for president in mid-2015. The theme has found fertile ground among his supporters, who routinely jeer reporters assembled in the media-holding areas at his rallies. But Trump seems to have ratcheted up the blame-the-media rhetoric in recent days, with the advent of two national crises and with just over a week to go before Election Day. "It does feel to me that the president feels that this is a winning strategy with some of his supporters before the midterms," said Jane Hall, an associate professor of communication at American University and a former Fox News analyst. Hall said Trump disparages the news media to bulletproof himself from criticism and to boost his credibility among his supporters. By way of explanation, she referred to a comment Trump reportedly made to "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl when Stahl asked Trump why he was so critical of journalists: " 'You know why I do it?' " Stahl said he responded. " 'I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.' " One of the many unusual things about Trump, said political communications scholar Kathleen Hall Jamieson, is that he is his own "hatchet man," unleashing attacks from the presidency's bully pulpit. Historically, she noted, presidents have risen above the fray and delegated the job to underlings and surrogates. While supporters might cheer Trump's eagerness to attack, the downside is that doing so trades away the president's stature and traditional role as consoler in chief, she said. "By sacrificing that capacity, he's lost something that other president have used in important fashion during moments of national tragedy," said Jamieson, who directs the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Think about President Ronald Reagan after the space shuttle exploded in 1986, or Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, or President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, she said. "There are times when the nation needs its leader to speak not as a partisan but as the embodiment of the nation. That's a major reason (previous) presidents haven't descended into attack mode. ... The president and his advisers have been aware that the office of the presidency exists in privileged space. Donald Trump is not capable of (using that) because he has assumed a completely different role as an attack man." Trump's pugnaciousness, and his seeming inability to unite the country, came up toward the end of Monday's press briefing when NBC News reporter Hallie Jackson asked Sanders, "At what point does a national tragedy take precedence over the president needing to punch back? If not now, when?" Sanders replied: "I think you saw the president do exactly that in the wake of a national tragedy, not just this week but every time our country has experienced the type of heartache and pain that we have over the last week. This is a president who has risen to that occasion and worked to bring our country together in a number of occasion." The Air Force said Wednesday it had relieved three commanders at Laughlin AFB over incidents involving dangerous behavior and a threatening environment. The Air Education and Training Command said it relieved Col. Charles Velino, the 47th Flying Training Wing commander, along with the bases operations group commander and a flying training squadron commander. The prior command team chronically failed to appropriately care for people and the mission, said AETCs commander, Lt. Gen. Steven Kwast, according to a press release. They failed to correct an evolving situation that led to an environment where some airmen did not feel safe or respected. AETC reported that Kwast, who was at Laughlin as the day began, relieved the 47th Operations Group commander, Col. Robert Pekarek. The Air Force would not identify the dismissed flying training squadron commander, citing privacy concerns. One Air Force official said a commander-directed investigation into the incident had been completed but was not being released pending disciplinary action. Kwast determined the command team at Laughlin failed to take appropriate actions to respond to, correct and report incidents of officer misconduct at the pilot training base near Del Rio. By failing to address incidents of dangerous behavior and a threatening environment, irresponsible alcohol consumption, and disrespectful treatment of some students, these leaders did not establish and enforce a culture that upheld our Air Force core values, he said. Maj. Gen. Patrick Doherty, commander of the 19th Air Force on Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, ordered a preliminary inquiry after being made aware of misconduct allegations at the wing. Subsequent investigations did not identify a wider trend of unhealthy command environments within 19th Air Force itself, the Air Force said. The 19th Air Force oversees the training of more than 30,000 U.S. and allied students annually in specialties ranging from aircrews, remotely piloted aircraft crews, air battle managers, weapons directors,and Air Force Academy airmanship programs to survival, escape, resistance, and evasion specialists. Kwast encouraged airmen to report unprofessional or inappropriate conduct through their chain-of-command or to their wing or AETC inspector general, saying our airmen, families and the critical mission of the 47th FTW deserve engaged and effective leaders of the highest caliber consistent with our core values. Ultimately, every commander is responsible for enforcing good order and discipline and holding those accountable who do not live up to the professionalism we expect of our airmen, he said. The command team at Laughlin was not leading a healthy culture of accountability, dignity and respect. sigc@express-news.net A decorated medical professor in New York was arrested in Bexar County on Monday on a charge of indecency with a child, according to court records. Abul Hasanat Alamgir, who appears to be an associate professor of public health at New York Medical College, was booked into the Bexar County Jail on a $75,000 bond. He bailed out shortly after he was booked. An indictment for Alamgir, 47, says he sexually touched a child under the age of 17 on Dec. 13, 2017, "with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire" of the victim. No other details on the assault are listed in the indictment. Dennis Moreno, Alamgir's attorney, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Online court records indicate a grand jury indicted Alamgir on the charges on Oct. 9. RELATED: Water park co-owner faces new charges, including for drugs The indictment lists Alamgir's address in Chappaqua, New York. According to an online profile of Alamgir on the New York Medical College's website, he has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and "studied populations including sawmill and healthcare workers in Canada, the U.S. military personnel and garment workers in Bangladesh." A tweet from the college indicates Alamgir was awarded for excellence in community service in June. A New York Medical College newsletter dated March 26, 2018, lists him as the vice chair for doctoral studies in the Division of Health Policy and Management and the co-director of the Center for Long-Term Care. A representative of New York Medical College did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A curriculum vitae apparently for Alamgir says he previously worked as an associate professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health. He has also held various positions at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio and given presentations at several conferences in the Alamo City, according to the document. Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com Caleb Downs covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | cdowns@mysa.com | @calebjdowns When Augustine Gutierrez tried to rob a downtown 7-Eleven in early September, the clerk refused to open the register, according to San Antonio police. "It's not happening," the clerk said, according to court records. "If you want, you can reach over here and take the register." Gutierrez, who police said was armed with a handgun at the time, was apparently stunned. "You have balls," he said before shaking the man's hand and leaving the store, according to his arrest affidavit. Now, a few months later, Gutierrez has been charged in the aggravated robbery. He was already in the Bexar County Jail on a different charge, but the first-degree felony charge was added on Tuesday. The charge carried a $50,000 bond. RELATED: SAPD: Tourist on electric scooter struck by pickup truck in downtown San Antonio According to his affidavit, Gutierrez's failed robbery took place on Sept. 4 at the 7-Eleven in the 800 block of San Pedro Avenue. Security cameras showed him pulling up to the store with his girlfriend in the passenger seat of his car, police said. He walked into the store and started shopping, according to the affidavit, while "continually" looking at the clerk ringing up sales. "[Gutierrez] seemed to be biding his time as he waited for the store to clear of customers," says the affidavit. Once clear, Gutierrez approached and laid his gun on the counter. After he left the store empty handed, he got into his car and fled, the affidavit says. Police arrested him on an unrelated charge. On Sept. 8, Gutierrez's girlfriend told police that he had tried to rob the store, authorities said. She said Gutierrez "was angry because he was not able to get any money," according to the affidavit. Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com Caleb Downs covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County. Read him on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | cdowns@mysa.com | @calebjdowns The Go Vote No campaign continued to outspend the fire union 2-to-1 over the past month in the battle over three controversial charter amendments, according to campaign finance records. Since its inception, the Go Vote No campaign has outpaced the San Antonio Professional Fire Fighters Association both on spending and fundraising. According to the campaigns most recent filings, Go Vote No received $527,260 between Sept. 28 and Oct. 27, bringing its total to $2,095,599 in contributions. During that same period, the fire union dropped $420,000 in union dues into its almost entirely self-funded campaign and another $120,000 from its namesake political action committee. Though it solicited contributions from its supporters through a website, the campaign lists only $119.53 from two contributions and no small-money donations. RELATED: 6 early voting sites in Bexar County have surpassed the 10,000 mark From late September through late October, Go Vote No spent more than $1.2 million on its campaign, bringing total spending to nearly $2 million. The fire union, meanwhile, spent $533,382, bringing total spending on its campaign to about $768,000 not including the $510,000 it spent earlier this year on its petition campaign, which led to the amendments being placed on the Nov. 6 ballot. The proposed amendments would make it easier to use referendums to challenge council decisions, including on tax and utility rates; cap the salary of future city managers and impose a term limit; and give the firefighters union unilateral power to decide when contract negotiations would be taken to binding arbitration. With less than a week until Election Day, the unions campaign shows about $22,000 cash on hand, though it could again dip into union dues to replenish its accounts. The Go Vote No campaign reported a little more than $84,000 left in the bank as of Oct. 27. Go Vote No campaign manager Christian Archer said hes been spending about $30,000 a week on field operations, including a small army of block walkers spreading across the East and Southeast sides of town. Other major expenses include $500,000 on television ads, $237,500 on a direct-mail program and more than $125,000 on digital advertising. ON EXPRESS-NEWS.COM: 2018 San Antonio Express-News Voter Guide Over the summer, Archer said the campaign conducted polling that showed that if the election were held then, all three charter amendments would be approved by large margins. But, if the campaign could educate voters on how officials say the props would damage San Antonio, voters would shoot them down, he said. We knew if we got people informed about the propositions, theyd join us in voting No, Archer said. And thats why I think were going to win on Nov. 6. Stephen Moody, the unions sergeant-at-arms whos become the de facto face of the union since President Chris Steele stepped back from the spotlight, said he wasnt authorized to discuss the campaigns finances. In the last campaign-finance cycle, the union spent the vast majority of its funds $483,068 on consulting fees to Guardian Public Strategies, the Austin firm of GOP consultant Craig Murphy. At least $336,000 of that was spent on the production and broadcasting of the campaigns television ad, which erroneously claims that City Hall has raised taxes over the past six years and that City Manager Sheryl Sculley makes more than the president and Texas governor combined. Josh Baugh is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jbaugh@express-news.net | Twitter: @jbaugh A key debate underlying the fight over whether to grant Houston firefighters pay "parity" with police of corresponding rank -- which appears as Proposition B on the Nov. 6 ballot -- is the state of the fire department's staffing. Fire union leaders have highlighted that large numbers of firefighters are leaving for better-paying jobs elsewhere, and city officials have downplayed that trend, saying there are more firefighters on staff today than in recent years. With less than a week left until the midterm elections, Democrats appear to be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The matchups were theirs to lose, and they seem poised to underperform in a bunch of them. A reader recently asked me: I dont understand why Latinos are not motivated to vote against a bigoted POTUS and willing enablers. I can help with that. The answer has to do with how Latinos feel about Donald Trump, and how they feel about Democrats as an alternative. As for Mr. Trump and the Latinos, thats a complicated relationship. Trump began his campaign for president by kicking Mexicans in the teeth, calling them rapists and drug traffickers. He also showed his ignorance about immigration when he said that Mexico doesnt send their best people to the United States when that is exactly who they send dreamers, doers and risk-takers. Mexicans along with Puerto Ricans, Colombians and Dominicans turned Trump into a pinata. Literally. Pick one up the next time youre south of the border. Then a strange thing happened. Once Trump emerged as the Republican nominee and squared off against Hillary Clinton who often tries to out-Republican the Republicans as an immigration hardliner polls began to show Trumps support among Latinos climbing. As a Never Trumper, I didnt get it. So, I interviewed some Latinos for Trump and I got an earful. Many of them saw themselves not as Latinos but as Americans, and so they werent hung up on Trumps anti-Latino screeds. They didnt like or trust Clinton, appreciated Trumps frankness, wanted a strong leader, and thought he was right about a lot of issues, including trade and immigration. Yes, immigration. What most non-Latinos dont grasp is that Latinos are ambivalent about illegal immigration. They have a front-row seat not just to the pain of deportations, but also to how many immigrants commit crimes or abuse social services. In 2016, an astounding 29 percent of Latinos voted for Trump. And now, two years into his presidency, polls show that his support among Latinos is somewhere between 33 and 41 percent. Thats insanely good for a president who is so bad on issues that Latinos supposedly care about. Then you have the Democrats, who take Latino voters for granted and whose entire Latino outreach strategy can be summed up in six words: Vote for us. Were not Republican. Thats it? I dont know about you, but Im still hungry. Democrats werent always impotent when it came to Latino voters, but its been that way at least since 2000. Thats when Bill Clinton (who was popular with Latinos) left the stage, and George W. Bush (who got 40 percent of the Latino vote in 2004) took his place. Democrats were boxed in by three factors African-Americans, working-class whites, and organized labor. Democrats were afraid that African-Americans would bristle at a new group getting attention that should go to them. They were also afraid of being portrayed as soft on border security by Republicans in the same way that in the days of Sen. George McGovern, D-S.D. they were portrayed as soft on national security. And they were tied down by organized labor, whose rank-and-file members remain vehemently opposed to any immigration reform that gives the undocumented legal status. At best, Democrats didnt defend Latinos from evil, racist and mean-spirited attacks by the GOP. At worst, they joined in. Some Democrats opposed the 1986 amnesty law and a Democratic president signed into law the draconian 1996 immigration bill. Democratic leaders helped sideline immigration reform under Bush in 2006 and 2007, and it was no votes from Democrats that helped kill the Dream Act in 2010. Democrats endangered nearly 700,000 Dreamers by requiring them to turn themselves into authorities starting in 2012 to get Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Donald Trump is merely emulating President Obama, who deported record numbers of people, divided scores of families, and stuck refugee families in detention camps. In reality, Democrats have never been there for Latinos. And now theyre surprised that this group may not be there for them in the midterm elections? The surprise is that Latinos have been fooled for so long. Now, it seems, more of them are waking up and refusing to stick up for a party that wont stick its neck out for them. ruben@rubennavarrette.com More than two dozen states and cities have sued to stop the citizenship question proposed for the U.S. Census. Heres what should be puzzling but isnt really Texas isnt among them. Its not that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is bashful about suing the federal government. He sued to halt the Affordable Care Act including its protections for pre-existing conditions. And he sued to undo the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program that allows immigrants brought here as children to stay. But he isnt suing on the citizenship question though states with large Latino populations with high percentages of immigrants Texas has the second largest stand to lose both representation and federal dollars. These latter are apportioned most efficiently with accurate census counts. With this citizenship question, undocumented immigrants and families with undocumented immigrants in them already difficult populations to count will simply refuse to participate in the census. That means fewer federal dollars for Texas. And youd think Paxton would balk at that and less accurate representation for a fast-growing state that gained four congressional seats in the last census. But an undercount could also provide the data that fuels a movement to count only citizens or eligible voters for redistricting purposes. And this could allow the Republican Party to hold on to power that much longer, in spite of shifting demographics that would normally benefit the Democratic Party. Immigrants tend to live in urban areas traditionally represented by Democrats. So, you wont hear Texas leaders squawk officially over the citizenship question. Questions of counting slaves as three-fifths of a person and Native Americans not at all have been rendered moot, but the Constitution remains clear that for purposes of representation all persons will be counted. Thats as it should be, because all people need to be represented. Subverting that is the goal. Heres what else is going on with this issue. Theres a very good chance that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross perjured himself before Congress when testifying about the genesis of the proposed citizenship question on the U.S. Census. Unfortunately, theres a good chance Ross will never be held to account and that the true reasons for adding the question wont come completely to light. And if that happens, Texas loses. Those reasons for adding the citizenship question have less to do with the stated purpose Justice Department interest in knowing how many citizens live in a district to properly apply the Voting Rights Act. Instead, it has more to do with achieving a purposeful census undercount so states with heavy Latino populations do not get the congressional and legislative representatives the Constitution prescribes. On Friday, a federal judge and a panel of judges on an appeals court allowed preparations for a trial over the citizenship question to proceed. Then the administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which put on temporary hold a deposition of Ross, and, as of this writing, was mulling an administration request to delay the trial altogether. It is scheduled to start Monday. Ross told Congress that the Justice Department requested the citizenship question. Subsequently, documents surfaced that indicate Ross wanted the question included and asked the Justice Department to make the request. One would think that Ross would be anxious to clear the record. But its telling that Ross and the administration do not want him to go under oath again on the citizenship question. In fact, the administration wants the lawsuits decided on the internal documents initially released. This is a big deal for Texas. According to the Texas Tribune: Texas is home to almost 5 million immigrants the majority of whom are not U.S. citizens. And more than 1 million Texans who are U.S. citizens live with at least one family member who is undocumented. That spells a Texas undercount and fewer federal tax dollars returning to Texans for schools, roads, housing and a variety of other needs. Texas leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott and Paxton, should care about that. Its telling but not at all surprising they do not. The partisan stakes are that high. Regarding Being Latino in Trump era: another kind of harassment (Front page, Tuesday): The verbal attack on Janet Espejel is not only an outrageous act but also an illegal act. This type of harassment is illegal under Texas Penal Code Section 42.1 and should be prosecuted. The abusive, indecent, profane and vulgar language directed at Espejel and her daughter constitutes a threat in an obviously offensive manner. Police must encourage the determination of the identity of this person based upon the cell phone picture and then move forward with prosecution. Texans must take action against this abuse as this is not who we are called upon to be as citizens in a just society. Mary Cook, Houston 14th Amendment Regarding Trump: End birthright citizenship for some US-born babies (Chron.com, Tuesday): For many, the Constitution is sacred and should not be tampered with. That is, until they disagree with a part of it. Jacob Richard, posted via Facebook Another distraction The president of the United States does not have the power to remove a Constitutional amendment. This is nothing more than an inflammatory political move. Chris Dethloff Greene, posted via Facebook Do it the right way Birthright citizenship for mothers who are here illegally needs to end, but that should be done by an amendment, not executive order. David Repassy, posted via Facebook Identifying beliefs Regarding So you want to be heard? Share ideas (Editorial page, Saturday): After reading the essay by University of Texas professor Richard Cherwitz, I decided that it was time for me to share some of my views. A friend recently asked me, Whatever happened to critical thinking? I told her that some people in Texas do not want critical thinking to be taught in the schools; they only want their children to think and believe as they do. Luckily, my parents allowed me to think for myself. As a high school and then as a college student I studied government and the ideas of political parties. Reading both the Democratic and the Republican platforms can be helpful in deciding which party most represents your values. The Democratic platform of tolerance and belief in equal opportunity for all most reflects the values taught to me as a child growing up on a farm in central Texas. I have studied and learned as I became older, and the values of truth, peace and prosperity (and health insurance for all) remain my beliefs. Mary Rutherford, Pearland Political parties The only way I see of ending the conflict in American politics is to get rid of political parties. There are good people on both sides who are not listened to by the party they are affiliated with. Death solves all problems, Joseph Stalin is quoted as saying, no man, no problem. I say no more two-party political system, no more problem. Jack Gaarder,Spring Vetting candidates Regarding Our endorsements (Editorial page, Oct. 22): We want to thank the folks at the Chronicle who do the work of interviewing the candidates. In such a huge city, how could the average person know how to vote wisely if not for the information the endorsements provide? As an older couple we find it very comfortable to sit at our kitchen table and vote absentee with the needed help of the Chronicle editorial board, even if we dont always vote your recommendations. Thank you! Sue and Arnie Kaestner, Houston The president just appeared on TV to answer reporters questions about the tragic shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue. My jaw nearly dropped when his first words in response to a question on gun laws was to blame the victims because they did not have sufficient security in their house of worship. He barely paused to reflect and offered no words to console the families affected by this criminal act. No less appalling was the attack he then launched on the rule of law. His statement that the death penalty needed to be invoked was chilling. Once again he has shown a total lack of empathy, a disregard for the Constitution, and demonstrated that he is merely a pawn of the NRA. He shrugs off the loss of life and stridently endorses a solution to violence consisting of more violence and authoritarian rule. Hes consistent, anyway. Andrew M. Weir Hope survives How could it escape us? The Sunday front page about the one-year anniversary of the senseless Sutherland Springs murders and to its side the new tragedy of anti-Semitic murders at the Tree of Life Synagogue. Different reasons for each coldblooded act, but the results are the same. Were tempted to give up our hope for civility and humanity. There is a time for mourning, remembering and questioning. Yet, I havent surrendered my faith in the goodness and compassion of people. After each event there has been an outpouring of caring, prayers, sympathy, kindness and giving. This is what I observe when Im out and about, living everyday life. Folks hold doors for one another, I turn a corner at the grocery store to meet the eyes of another shopper and smiles are exchanged, a stranger comments on the beautiful weather were enjoying, neighbors greet one another as we walk the neighborhood, those in the voter line around me express the privilege we have to cast our votes. With the sadnesses that seem at times too heavy for our hearts to bear, let us not forget the beauty in each moment, the deep goodness in our fellow Americans, and all that unites us. The light always shines brighter. Connie Sharon Arm migrants Acceptance of the migrant caravan presupposes the inferiority and helplessness of migrants themselves. We should arm good, decent and capable migrants with weapons to be used against corrupt regimes who oppress them in their native lands. The annals of history have an enduring theme: Liberty comes not from retreat, diplomacy or capitulation, but rather from the barrel of a gun. Starner Jones, Houston Ted so, so tough When Ted Cruz political signs first appeared on lawns, I was amused by the phrasing Tough as Texas. His message is indeed tough hard to chew, difficult to swallow and impossible to digest. Rene Robichaux Lefty bias This letter wont make any difference in your future publications and philosophy, so why write it? Because I dont want to see the Express-News go the way of the dodo bird and The Light. Maybe the Express-News will quit leaning so far left and become a more balanced publication. Reference the Sunday paper. Front page: GOP uses his past to haunt ORourke as if this was a terrible thing to do and no other political party would do it besides the GOP. Then the article goes on to paint a rosy, whitewashed picture of ORourke. Progressive, photogenic, and hip. Page 14, same day: Report: Kushner avoided paying taxes as if he had broken the law. It was only much later in the article did it say, Nothing in the documents suggests Kushner or his company broke the law. Is Jared Kushner supposed to pay taxes/send money to the U.S. Treasury though nothing is owed? A little bit disingenuous. Why even publish such a misleading article? To reflect poorly on Kushner and Donald Trump, of course. Unfortunately, it reflects poorly on the Express-News. These two articles and headlines are only the tip of the iceberg. Im an 87-year-old native of Nixon. I remember The Light. And I also remember how both papers were pretty balanced. At least I thought so at the time. But politics were different back then, too. Please give my comments some thought. James Henry, Seguin About J Street Re: Wrong on J Street, Your Turn, Oct. 23: Rabbi Samuel M. Stahl claims Sen. Ted Cruz, in dismissing Robert Francis Beto ORourkes endorsement by J Street, erroneously called J Street rabidly anti-Israel. He reasons that J Street maintains a two-state solution as the only way to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict. However, this rabbi and other left-leaning Jews omit and recklessly ignore critical aspects of the situation and misrepresent J Streets positions and motivations. The two-state solution in the tiny geographic area of Israel is only an intermediate goal of Israels enemies and foolish liberals who they have deluded. A 22nd Arab state in the heartland of the lone bastion of Western values, Israel would be rendered militarily indefensible and another Islamist state would bloodily replace it. And while J Street has tactically claimed to be neutral on the boycott, divestment and sanctions, it publicly supports its strategic aim of undermining the Jewish states ability to resist and defeat its mortal enemies. ORouke is endorsed by this far-left group whose support of this two-state chimeric plan to destroy Israel is in line with its and ORourkes support of the Iran nuclear deal. On the other hand, Cruz is an ardent and effective supporter of the Jewish state, its people, and the principles of human dignity and liberty upon which it and America are founded. Peter Geltman Military families have always been a cornerstone of American communities. It makes sense that these disciplined, organized men and women possess qualities that make them great neighbors. Pair those qualities with generally higher fitness levels and its no surprise that you see towns and neighborhoods largely composed of military families thriving. Schertz, TX, home of Randolph Air Force Base, and The Crossvine, a master-planned community next door to the base, are key examples of this. Based on virtually any report, Schertz, which is 35 miles northwest of San Antonio, TX, is becoming a mini boom town. Great schools and reasonable home prices will do that. Many military families within the San Antonio area have decided to call The Crossvine home. The neighborhood encourages a strong sense of community with a land plan that is geared towards active living. Additionally, the proximity to Randolph, whose south entrance is less than one mile away, makes it a sensible and attractive choice. A primary goal during The Crossvines development was to ensure the entire neighborhood would be accessible from any point without having to hop in a car. The result is a broad, winding trail system that runs like an artery throughout the neighborhood. This extensive greenbelt runs parallel to backyard fences, keeping it a safe distance from the street for children and peacefully removed from community traffic. It has also fostered a neighborhood-wide appreciation for active living. When residents have access to miles of hike and bike trails from their backyards, they use them often. Beyond backyards and community trails are what have been affectionately termed pocket parks. These open spaces throughout the trail system offer natural points of rest while providing the opportunity for other activities. Some of the parks have playground equipment and others are laden with an array of decidedly spartan calisthenic equipment. The remaining pocket parks just seem like a great place to stop and have a picnic. The Crossvine is a place to wind and unwind and this upbeat sense of activity has brought the neighborhood together. If The Crossvines extensive greenbelt system is its main artery, then the amenity center would be its heart. The large open-air pavilion with a grand vaulted roof is an ideal gathering space for birthday parties, barbecues or potentially even more formal affairs. The Crossvine also boast a 150-seat multipurpose amphitheater with a sturdy stone stage. There, residents can put on community movie screenings, host open-mic nights, and perform small theatre productions. Behind the amenity center is a burrowed playground where the spry and agile can play and explore. Every community space in The Crossvine is designed to promote activity, interaction, and neighborly gatherings. A major reason for this growth and good-will are the many military families who call it home. The Crossvine is a thriving community with no signs of slowing down. For more information about The Crossvine, go to www.thecrossvine.com. Editors Note: This content is made possible by The Crossvine. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of The San Antonio Express-News' or mySanAntonio.com's editorial staff. Learn more about our advertising products at www.hearstmediasanantonio.com. MDC Alliance has given Bulawayo deputy mayor Tinashe Kambarami a seven-day ultimatum to step down from his position or face expulsion for defying a party directive on the election of the deputy mayor. This followed recent protests by activists and some pressure groups calling for Kambaramis recall as deputy mayor, arguing that he was not Bulawayo-born. Another MDC Alliance councillor Batirai Dube faces the same fate. Dube was in the eye of the storm recently when he refused to take oath in English during the swearing in of incoming Bulawayo councillors at the council chambers. In a letter dated October 29, 2018, Bulawayo province secretary, Sibusisiwe Adams, informed Kambarami that he had been directed to step down from his position within seven days, failure of which he would be expelled from the party. In pursuant to the letter addressed to us by the national secretary for Local Government. We hereby inform you that you are instructed to step down from the position of deputy mayor of Bulawayo Municipality within 7 days of receipt of this letter. Failure to comply within the stipulated period shall result in your expulsion from the party and also recall from the council, read the letter in part. The letter was also copied to Local Governance and Devolution secretary Sesel Zvidzai, Bulawayo mayor Solomon Mguni and provincial secretary for Local Government, O Ncube. On October 9, 2018, Zvidzai wrote a letter to Bulawayo provincial chairperson, Gift Banda, directing him to implement the partys position. Following the election of Cllr Tinashe Kambarami as the deputy mayor of Bulawayo against the party recommended candidate, Cllr Mlandu (Ncube), subsequently, Councillor Kambarami was summoned three (times) to the head office and he failed to avail himself, the letter read in part. Zvidzai said a decision was made for Kambarami to withdraw from the position of deputy mayor and remain an ordinary councillor. Failure to which, the party was to expel him and recall him from council. Similar cases of defiance elsewhere were dealt with by the party in the same way. You are aware that the member concerned falls within your area of control, thus we kindly invite you to put the due process in motion, the letter reads. Kambarami refused to comment when Southern Eye contacted him. NewsDay Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News Former Deputy Finance Minister Terence Mukupe has ignited a new HIV row on Twitter, after appearing to suggest that Parliament is filled with people living with HIV. The foul-mouthed former Harare East MP was reacting to claims by the preacher Walter Magaya that he had found an HIV cure. Why dont we give Magaya 10 MPs whom he can treat publicly?, Mukupe said in a tweet which drew fire from Zimbabweans. Mukupe was accused of being insensitive to the plight of HIV sufferers and he has form. In a May radio debate with Tendai Biti, the man who beat him in Harare East, Mukupe reacted to an attack by the MDC top official by asking him if he took his ARVs today. Mukupe was widely condemned then, with HIV/AIDS activists accusing him of promoting the stigmatisation of people with HIV. But it appears the Zanu PF politician cannot resist an HIV slur, following his latest outburst. There he goes again laughing at the affected, said @Patienc88250572, who calls herself Advocate on Twitter. Three things you should never use to despise others: 1. Money 2. Health 3. Children, counselled Shepherd Makala (@shapducks). Banks Banks (@TaddBanks) blasted: No wonder you were minister two minutes. Journalist Ntungamili Nkomo also showed his disgust, telling the former bank employee: How about morons first. And you lead the way? Magaya claimed at a news conference on Sunday that he had found the cure for HIV, which has eluded scientists since 1981. The Zimbabwe government says Magaya did not follow procedure for registering new medicine, and his claim is being investigated with urgency. ZimLive Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News SECRETARY for Health and Child Care Gerald Gwinji yesterday said government would find it difficult to license Prophetic Healing and Deliverance (PHD) Ministries leader Walter Magayas alleged new cure for HIV. Gwinji said Magaya did not follow due process when he unveiled his Aguma herb, which he claimed could cure the virus which causes Aids. This came amid reports that the herb was now being sold on the market for up to $1 000. Gwinji appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care chaired by Emakhandeni-Entumbane MP Dingilizwe Tshuma to speak about the 2019 health budget. Glen Norah MP Wellington Chikombo (MDC Alliance) asked him to explain if his ministry was happy that an HIV cure had been found, and whether government was threatened by the new territory of herbs that the prophet had now entered into. We do not want to quash any new discoveries or innovations, but they have to go through the right processes so that issues of safety are assured, Gwinji said. We will find it difficult to license it, and it will be difficult to authorise it to be sold at pharmacies until these issues are solved, and we are only playing our regulatory role in the pharmaceutical industry. However, reports indicate that Magaya has already started advertising his HIV and Aids cure despite governments assertion that the herb had not yetbeen approved by authorities. The Aguma immune booster sachet, according to social media adverts, was going for $500, while the capsules were being sold for $1 000. Magaya launched the herbal medicine on Sunday, claiming it would cure the HIV pandemic as well as cancer in the shortest period of time. His claims touched a raw nerve, with government and civic society groups alleging the youthful preacher was misleading the nation. According to the adverts, Magaya claimed that the Aguma herb was a solution to health challenges especially HIV and Aids, as well as cancer. Attempts to get a comment from PHD Ministries spokesperson Admire Mango were fruitless, as his mobile phone was not being answered, while he did not respond to questions sent to him. Government on Monday said there was no cure for HIV and Aids yet. Meanwhile, Gwinji said the Health ministry was seeking $1,387 billion in next years national budget in order for the country to achieve the ideal $86 per capita (per person) allocation. However, he said government was only promising an allocation of $689 million for 2019, leaving a deficit of $632 million. He said Zimbabwes health sector continued to be reliant on external health financing sources that have contributed an average of 50% of total funding across the five years from 2014 to 2018. If government fails to fund the health sector, consequently, what will happen is that partners will say they are not interested in funding it and they will pull out, Gwinji said. So we need to ensure that government meets the obligation of funding health in order to encourage partners to support us. In 2018, government contributed 49% towards health funding, the Global Fund 18% and the balance was by other partners. Gwinji said Zimbabwes health budget had been failing to meet the target agreed to by African governments at the 2001 Abuja Declaration to allocate at least 15% of the total budget to health. In 2015, it was 6,57%, while in 2016, it rose to 7,46%, but fell to 6,88% in 2017 and 5,84% in 2018. NewsDay Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa is moving to consolidate his grip on the opposition party ahead of its elective congress early next year, which is expected to make or break his political future. Insiders who spoke to NewsDay said Chamisas plan was to build a public swell of support around himself so that it becomes difficult for any potential challengers to get into the ring with him. Chamisa is drumming up support and raving his popularity both within and outside the structures of the party, mainly to create an intimidatory fence that will deter other members of the party from challenging him at congress, a senior official in the opposition party said. He knows he cant stop the elections at congress, so he wants to make it seem like he cant be challenged. Chamisa will be going on a whirlwind tour in the coming week to galvanise party structures across the country ahead of planned street protests seeking to unseat President Emmerson Mnangagwa. We are going to be organising ourselves internally, then we go to programmes that we want to do throughout the country from next week, Chamisa said at the MDC 19th anniversary commemorations held in the capital at the weekend. I will be going to every area, where I will be setting out the plan, something big in this country, hold your cards on the intended march to State House. When we do this, we want to have a clear plan on what date we start and to the day we end. We will not go back home until we achieve the intended plan. Youth assembly secretary-general Lovemore Chinoputsa declared at the partys 19th anniversary celebrations at Gwanzura Stadium that the partys national executive was clear that Chamisa would remain leader of the MDC Alliance. Chinoputsa said there was no need to change a winning team, saying it was time for the MDC family to endorse the leadership of Chamisa, claiming he polled 2,6 million votes in the July 30 presidential poll instead of the 2,1 million announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. The general position of the MDC (Alliance) is that our president Chamisa won the election, which was stolen by the junta government. He got 2,6 million votes. Why would we want to change a winning team? We have to rally behind him and improve our brand, he said. Chamisa followed suit, saying: Remain in the direction of the party, that direction is (late MDC leader Morgan) Tsvangirai left power in my hands. I will leave power in the hands of another, going on that direction, doing the work, going forward. You cant seek to wrest power from me before I even reach the desired goal. NewsDay Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News Businessman Kuda Tagwirei, has triggered off fresh fissures within Zanu PF and government, with the Sakunda Holdings founder wittingly or unwittingly driving a wedge between President Emmerson Mnangagwa and some of his allies over the tycoons unsettling influence. Barely a year after a soft coup that ousted Robert Mugabe, Mnangagwas administration is facing a huge crisis caused by an imploding economy. The meltdown has led to finger-pointing, with Tagwirei coming under scrutiny for his octopus-like grip on the fuel industry, hit by serious shortages of petrol and diesel. One of Zimbabwes richest men, Tagwirei is accused of monopolising fuel infrastructure, and flaunting his wealth to influence government to make decisions in his favour. He is reported to have amassed excessive influence over the three arms of the State, with critics claiming his actions real or perceived amounted to State capture. Tagwirei has openly financed Command Agriculture ahead of the July 30 elections, a programme the opposition alleges was designed to pursue a narrow electoral agenda, specifically securing a Zanu PF victory in the harmonised elections. He has declined to speak to the Press about these allegations. Despite his fabulous wealth and power, he now seems to have fallen afoul with Mnangagwa, and is facing unrelenting persecution, with his business being hammered endlessly. A Communications Taskforce appointed by Finance minister Mthuli Ncube and headed by Acie Lumumba made shocking allegations last week, claiming Queen Bee widely viewed as Tagwirei was part of a syndicate fuelling the foreign currency black market by supplying street dealers with bond notes and corrupt allocations of foreign currency from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ). Grey-haired and tall, with piercing eyes and a quiet, hushed voice, the Sakunda boss was then lynched by Mnangagwas special advisor Christopher Mutsvangwa, who brazenly accused him of dividing the presidium. Mutsvangwa alleged there was a powerful political hand helping Tagwirei to jump the foreign currency allocation queue at the RBZ and called for his monopoly in the fuel industry to be crushed. The former War Veterans minister seemed to suggest that Mnangagwa and his powerful deputy, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga were not seeing eye-to-eye on the Tagwirei issue. But Mnangagwas spokesperson George Charamba rejected the claims yesterday, saying: We will tell you when we are divided. Asked if there is still unity in the presidium, Charamba retorted: To answer that question means there is a problem. Not a single day passes without a conversation between Chiwenga and Mnangagwa and, as a matter of fact, the same person who is accused of dividing the presidium is the very person who is providing vehicles? he asked rhetorically, referring to the allegations that Tagwirei had purchased top-of-the-range vehicles for the presidium and their spouses, service chiefs as well as other top Zanu PF and government officials. In a wide-ranging interview with the Daily News, Charamba said claims that an oligarchy has captured the presidium, with Tagwireis influence said to be extending right up to the RBZ, were not true. This is just an allegation and we will treat it as such and nothing else. At the heart of it all is just a simple commercial issue which doesnt need so much political bicker. What it needs is capital, business acumen and business decisions finish. The presidency speaks for itself it doesnt need an interlocutor body, he said referring to Mutsvangwa. Charamba also dispelled claims that Mutsvangwa was Mnangagwas hired gun. He said: Really, I dont know. You know what, to be frank with you, no one in the presidency is concerned about that allegation, whether hired or shooting on his own who cares? The country goes on, and as you can see, at the height of the allegations, solutions are being made, which is what matters; and solutions which are all encompassing, including the persons making the allegations; they also go to the same oil companies to refuel. Charamba said Tagwirei must actually be commended for ending fuel shortages, referring to the move by Sakunda to give government 100 million litres of fuel this week, which will only be repaid after 12 months. He said a monopoly cannot be ended by bickering but by organising and importing. Asked about Sakunda taking over the Feruka pipeline, Charamba retorted: No, the pipeline you rent to use it. Its not like it is always pumping 24 hours. The way to stop a monopoly is to make sure you get in as a player. There is no law, there is no convention, there is not even an economic principle that stops anyone from getting into the fuel sector, he told the Daily News. He declined to comment further on the allegations. Tagwirei whose fathers death earlier this year halted government business as virtually all ministers abandoned their workstations to attend his burial was recently interviewed by the police, although it is not clear whether the police team unearthed evidence of illegality or if the questions were simply exploratory in nature. Police also wanted to search his home but he reportedly left for Wedza for Chiwengas rural home, where he was recuperating far from the hustle and bustle of the city. Government insiders alleged Mutsvangwa was hammering Tagwirei because he was keen to replace dominance of Sakunda with MOGS Oil & Gas Services a Johannesburg-based fuels company which owns and operates pipelines, fuel storage facilities and other oil and gas infrastructure across Africa and further afield. Mutsvangwa, who has been vocal about breaking Sakundas monopoly in the fuel industry, was said to be MOGS front, and reportedly approached Mnangagwa with a proposal to have the pan-African leader in the oil and gas midstream infrastructure sector to build a second fuel pipeline from Feruka. He was said to be in partnership on the MOGS deal with former senior MDC official Eddie Cross. The Daily News heard that towards elections, Mutsvangwa reportedly told Mnangagwa that he had been working with Cross on the MOGS deal since the coup and that Cross will no longer root for opposition leader Nelson Chamisa in the elections. Cross has since exited the MDC Alliance after pouring scorn on the party. Reached for comment, Cross said there is a measure of truth in the claims. He said he has been involved in talks to have MOGS build a second pipeline since the days of the government of national unity (GNU), a project he said was mooted by then Energy minister Elton Mangoma. During the GNU, I was asked by Mangoma to find a company which could build a new pipeline from Beira to Harare to supply regional states from regional fuel pool in Harare, centred in Mabvuku, where we have a large fuel storage facility that can take 400 000 cubic metres of fuel, Cross told the Daily News. He said he embarked on a programme to find a suitable partner and opened talks with MOGS. Cross said the deal was put on ice after the dissolution of the GNU. Then after the coup, Cross said he was asked by Mnangagwa as part of his 100-day plan to revive the deal with MOGS. He said a deal was reached on December 13, 2017 with MOGS. Cross said at the end of January, the deal was put to Cabinet but was blocked by senior elements. The reason given was that the pipeline was a strategic asset and (a) private company cant own shares, Cross said. Mutsvangwa rubbished the allegations made against him yesterday. I have completely nothing to do with this except promoting those who want to invest. Ask (the) permanent secretary in the ministry of Defence. This company MOGS has been here since 1994. All companies come to my office. Its one of many; there are 15 other companies that are interested, Mutsvangwa told the Daily News. Asked if he was in a partnership with Cross, Mutsvangwa said: Its nonsense. Asked if Cross was a front for MOGS, Mutsvangwa said: I dont know, I cant speak for other people. I can only speak about companies that come to my office. Why dont you speak to Eddie, I cant speak about Eddies business. The Daily News can exclusively reveal that Mnangagwa met with Errol Gregor, the chief executive officer of MOGS, on Monday to tie up the deal to start work on the second pipeline, with the project said to be worth $800 million. The meeting was also attended by Joram Gumbo, the minister of Energy. This has heightened tensions with Sakunda. Recently, Gumbo clarified that Tagwireis Sakunda, through Trafigura, does not hold the sole and exclusive right to transport all petroleum products imported into Zimbabwe through the pipeline. He also denied claims that Sakunda now controls the pump station at Feruka, the pipeline and ancillary assets from Feruka to Msasa, the pump station at Wilton near Marondera as well as the tank farm at Msasa. Its a pipeline that is owned by a JV, a joint venture company, between the government of Zimbabwe and Mozambique CPMZ (Companhia Do Pipeline Mozambique). There is no problem about bringing in fuel into the country, he said. The 208-km long Harare-Feruka pipeline was owned and operated by Petrozim Line (Private) Limited owned by National Oil Infrastructure of Zimbabwe (NOIC) and Lonmin, 50 percent each. Lonmin Plc assumed the Lonrho shareholding. In June this year, the South Africa-registered platinum group metals producer Lonmin announced it was disposing its 50 percent stake in Zimbabwes Petrozim for $14,8 million. Lonmin listed on both the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges announced it was part of strategies to focus on core business. Lonmin has entered into a conditional sale of shares agreement to sell its 50 percent interest in Petrozim for a gross cash consideration of USD14 750 000 to the National Oil Infrastructure Company of Zimbabwe (Private) Limited, the mining group said in a cautionary. Subsequent to the disposal, Sakunda, through Trafigura, had reportedly rented the pipeline that has the capacity to deliver six million litres of fuel per day from Feruka to bonded warehouses in Msasa, Harare. The pipeline delivers around 80 percent of the petrol and diesel requirements for the country. DailyNews Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News Armed police raided PHD church leader Prophet Walter Magayas office in search of Aguma the hiv/aids cure drug. The police ransacked the office of the Prophet in his absence around 7:30pm this evening whilst Magaya was at a church service. Prophet Magaya bemoaned this attack citing that he now feared for his life as the police might plant something in his office. The evening raid was also confirmed by Zimbabwes Deputy Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Energy Mutodi who also happens to be a close friend to President Mnangagwa. Wrote Mutodi: POLICE RAID MAGAYA: I can confirm police this evening raided Prophet Walter Magaya offices to recover samples of his aguma medicine which he claims cures HIV. The raid marks the start of an investigation into this matter. Health experts say there is no cure yet, he said. More details to follow Zw Breaking News via Email Loading... Related Zimbabwe Latest News Neanderthals were upright individuals, skeleton proves Telegraph (KW). Mountain birds on escalator to extinction as planet warms AP (allan). As Prairies Get Plowed for Biofuels, Greens Demand EPA Act Bloomberg Best Way to Fight Climate Change? Put an Honest Price on Carbon Editorial Board, NYT. A Pigovian tax. What if Were All Coming Back? Michelle Alexander, NYT. Rather than imagining a scenario in which were entirely ignorant of what the future holds, perhaps we ought to imagine that we, personally, will be born again into the world that we are creating today through our collective and individual choices. The Global Economys Three Games Jean Pisani-Ferry, Project Syndicate Private equity: Apollos lucrative but controversial bet on insurance FT Commentary Human element is still key The Bond Buyer Another Tesla with Autopilot crashed into a stationary objectthe driver is suing Ars Technica Brexit How the ECB could help Italy and why it wont Financial News Syraqistan China? As India tackles its bad loans problem, large local groups and global funds are gaining advantage Scroll.in (J-LS). History war between Japan and South Korea heats up Asia Times (KW). New Asian coal plants knock climate goals off course FT New Cold War Who Can Be Happy in Russia? Riddle Trump Transition U.S. top court wary of limiting company power to arbitrate disputes Reuters Democrats in Disarray With Just Days to the Midterms, Russiagate Is MIA Aaron Mate, The Nation Big Brother Is Watching You Watch UPDATE: U.S. Attorney Powell in WV: His office & FBI will be investigating death of mobster Whitey Bulger West Virginia News Realignment and Legitimacy Energy Giants Choose Nuclear Option in Elections Biggest Fight Over Fossil Fuel Capital & Main. Colorados Amendment 74 would nullify Proposition 112 which would require new drilling operations to be set further away from occupied buildings or water sources. Both are on the ballot! Entergy investigators: Company knew or should have known about paid actors at council meetings The Lens Heres what happened after California got rid of personal belief exemptions for childhood vaccines Los Angeles Times Class Warfare Why Harvards case studies are under fire FT Disney Disapproves Of The Disposition Of Your Remains: The Happiest Place On Earth Has Become A Receptacle For Cremains Above the Law (J-LS). Italys Beloved Moka Pots Are in Danger of Going Extinct Grub Street (J-LS). Naomi Watts to star in Game of Thrones prequel series Guardian (Furzy Mouse). Martin is the series co-creator. Shouldnt he be spending his time finishing his book? Antidote du jour (via): See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here. Yves here. Its too easy to assume that if someone is behaving badly, the party opposed to him must be a good guy. Yanis Varoufakis argues that in the fight over the Italian budget, Brussels and the Italian government are serving their own interests rather than trying to increase citizens prosperity. He describes how economically, even though the EU fiscal rules are deeply misguided and destructive, Italys budget has misguided priorities and wont boost the economy much. So the Italian debt overhang would probably get worse, confirming the Eurocrats claims that deficit spending is a bad idea. By Yanis Varoufakis, the former finance minister of Greece, Professor of Economics at the University of Athens, Visiting Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson Graduate School of Public Affairs, University of Texas, Austin and co-founder of DiEM25. He is the author of Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europes Deep Establishment. (Bodley Head, 2017) and Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism (Bodley Head, 2017). Originally published at his website DiEM25 will contest the European Parliament elections in Italy Press Conference announcement, Rome, 26th OCT 2018 Ladies and Gentlemen, we are here because Italy is being torn by two destructive forces: Brussels and Salvini. By the failed establishment of Renzi-Merkel-Juncker-Moscovici and by the reckless, racist anti-European Salvini project. Tragically, Brussels and Salvini are working very well together against the interests of Italians in particular and of Europeans in general. Salvini is Brussels greatest supporter. Juncker, Merkel, Macron et al are hanging on to power with the argument: Whatever mistakes we have made, apres nous Brussels is Salvinis greatest supporter. By imposing on Italy rules that guarantee Italys stagnation and falling income and prospects for a majority of Italians, they enable Salvinis sortie into xenophobic populism. On the Italian Government Budget Both Brussels and the Lega-5S government are profoundly, and intentionally, wrong. Brussels is wrong to impose on Italy fiscal and banking rules that guarantee Italys stagnation rules that were agreed to by the, now, collapsing Italian establishment. The EUs revamped fiscal rules are analytically baseless. They are forcing Rome to introduce new austerity at a time when growth has fallen to zero on the false assumption that it is possible to compute Italys growth-neutral structural deficit. If the Italian government were to reduce the deficit to 0.8% (as the rules specify), Italys debt-to-GDP ratio would rise, not fall, as the result of the certain fall in GDP that would follow. The Lega-5S government is wrong too. Its budget will not boost growth sufficiently to make a difference to most people, the result being a deficit overshoot without much benefit. Cutting the top tax rates will not boost growth: When the rich receive a tax reduction they either save it or send it to Luxembourg, Switzerland etc. Even worse, both Brussels and the Lega-5S government know that they are profoundly wrong. Brussels is choosing to be wrong because they are more interested in maintaining a semblance of control over our countries than they are in shared prosperity across Europe. And the Lega-5S government is choosing to be wrong because Salvini and Di Maio are more interested in maintaining their precarious alliance that in the prosperity of the Italian people. Our Present Moment So, here we are: Italy stagnates because its centrist establishment agreed to EU rules that choked Italy, causing its own political demise and paving the ground for Salvini. The ancient regime (including Renzi and his patrons in Brussels) and the Lega-5S government are two faces of the same debased coin. Brussels and Salvini will continue to reinforce each other while Italy sinks, while Europe disintegrates. The oligarchic establishment (PD, Forza Italia etc.) caused the problem and cannot pretend to be offering the solution. Renzi et al lack the ideas, the credibility and the integrity to make a difference. Salvini is exploiting the establishments fragmentation and logical incoherence to bring, via his rabid xenophobia, a new Fascist Moment in Italy. 5S is increasingly discredited as a crutch on which Salvini is leaning to take over government completely. We Must Act. Now! Italy has an urgent need for a new progressive alternative to the implicit but destructive alliance between the oligarchic establishment and Salvinis nationalism. Italy, however, does not need yet another sad leftist alliance of the usual suspects. Italy does not need another Frankenstein list that stitches together dead parts of what used to be Italys glorious left. The last thing Italians need is another list of leftist candidates lacking a coherent program of change and united only by a desperation to get elected on the basis of vague promises, wishful thinking and high-minded rhetoric. No, what Italian voters need, and deserve, is a progressive list with a single, coherent, credible program that everyone agrees has genuine, implementable answers to the problems keeping people up at night and making them fear for their children, for their future, for the future of Italy and Europe. This is why we are here today. To announce such a list and such a single, coherent, credible program . Who Are We? Last March, colleagues from DiEM25, myself, comrades from Poland, Denmark, Portugal, Benoit Hamon from France, we met in Napoli under the auspices of my friend Luigi de Magistris, Napolis Mayor, and announced that we are beginning. That we are constructing a single paneuropean list with a single program for Italy, for Greece, for France, for the whole of Europe a program that we will put to the people of Europe in May 2019 in the European Parliament elections. This program is now complete, after many months of very hard work. It is the progressive, ecological, feminist, humanist, rational program of the paneuropean coalition that we now call EUROPEAN SPRING. What Do We Propose viz. the Italian Budget? Today the Italian budget is in everyones mind. So, here is what we propose. Here is the only pro-Italy, pro-Europe solution that we propose. A European solution that work for Italy and an Italian solution that help Italians and Europeans in equal measure: Continue with the introduce of a guaranteed minimum income and, in fact, speed it up Scrap Salvinis top tax rate cut and the tax amnesties (including those to owners of illegally built housing): When you give handouts to the rich, they either save it or take it to Switzerland, Luxembourg etc. Use the money saved from Salvinis tax cuts (about 8 billion euros) to fund a growth-enhancing green investment. To this sum add another 12 billion euros, taking the deficit to the Maastricht limit of 3%. The total public investment of 20 billion euros would then be spent on: (a) Industrial and ecological transition; e.g. to address problems such as ILVA in Taranto and the offshoring of low-added-value manufacturing; (b) Environmental safety, including a plan for earthquake preparedness; (c) Investment in infrastructure, to avoid a repetition of the Genoa disaster and to invest in sustainable transport. Call a EU Council Summit to propose that any reduction in deficits from 3% to the limits of the enhanced fiscal compact be conditional on a Green Investment New Deal for the Eurozone, amounting to 5% of Eurozone GDP. In short, the Italian governments 20 billion investment fund (see above) can be replaced by the European Green New Deal funding, allowing Italy to reduce its deficit to 0.8%, as per the prevailing fiscal rules. How will the European Green New Deal be funded? The EU Council gives the green light to the European Investment Bank to issue bonds of 500 billion euros each year for five years, with the European Central Bank ready to buy those in the secondary market if these bonds yields rise above a threshold. Until and unless the EU Council approves the European Green New Deal, Italy will unilaterally fund its public investment by boosting government deficit to 3%. What Do We Propose for the European Union? DiEM25 has helped produce the EUROPEAN SPRINGs comprehensive New Deal for Europe program that we shall present it to European voters across Europe in May 2019. Our Duty Ladies and gentlemen, Austerity for the many and socialism for the bankers has given rise to the present Fascist Moment in Italy, to the collapse of the political centre everywhere, to the reactionary, divided Europe that Donald Trump was hoping for. Today, here in Rome, we are saying: Enough! We are saying: Another Italy, another Europe, is not only possible. It is here in the form of our transnational movement with a SINGLE COHERENT PROGRAM that people can believe in because it makes sense and because it can be implemented. Today, we are here to announce that DiEM25 is moving ahead on the basis of the only rational plan for Italy, the only rational plan for Europe. The Brussels-Salvini duet is wasting no time to wreck Italy, to disintegrate Europe. There is no more time to wait for our partners to complete never-ending internal deliberations. So, DiEM25 is moving ahead. During November we will stage three large events across Italy to announce our list and begin our primaries. By 1stDecember we shall begin collecting the signatures necessary to contest the May 2019 European Parliament election. The DiEM25 Italia train is leaving the station, slowly and with its doors wide open for our partners to jump in. We invite them to do so. Conclusion The European Parliament elections are only a start. They give us an opportunity to have this debate. We shall use the May elections to transcend the fake conflict between Brussels and Salvini, between the authoritarian incompetent establishment and the misanthropic Nationalist International. DiEM25 Italia is here. With an economic agenda. But also as a political force. We are here to bring to the people of Italy a scent of next Mays European Spring. Italian progressives are no longer alone. Hundreds of mourners paid their last respects to the late Fine Gael Cllr John Fahey at his funeral Mass in Killenaule this morning where he was fondly remembered as a quiet, honourable gentleman and tireless worker on behalf of his community. Senior members of the Fine Gael party along with many of his Tipperary Co. Council colleagues past and present were among the large crowd that gathered in the town's St Mary's Church for the Requiem Mass celebrated by local parish priest Fr James O'Donnell. Taoiseach Leo Varadker was represented at the ceremony by his Aide-De-Camp Cmdt Caroline Burke and she was joined by Minister of State John Paul Phelan, Fine Gael MEP Sean Kelly, former Fine Gael TDs Tom Hayes and Noel Coonan and former FG Senator Maurice Cummins. Tipperary Co. Council Chairman Cllr Mattie Ryan, Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District Chairperson Cllr Louise McLoughlin and Co. Council CEO Joe MacGrath led the large contingent of county councillors and council staff at the Requiem Mass. Fianna Fail TD Jackie Cahill and Independent TD Michael Lowry were also among the mourners. Fr O'Donnell described John Fahey as a gentleman who helped so many people in his own quiet way during his life. He had been a great source of wisdom and advice to many people and always commanded such great respect and friendship across all political parties, he added. He paid tribute to John for the "tireless work" he did on hehalf of his parish and the surrounding district during 20 years of public life. An example of that work was a new car park nearing completion that will be of great benefit to the church and parish. "Little did we think as a committee when we made the application and John was still in such great health, that he wouldn't be here to open it with us. But he has left us with many great legacies for which we will be always grateful." Cllr Fahey's brother Willie delivered a moving eulogy to his beloved brother at the end of the Mass. He remembered John as a quiet gentleman and unassuming person who appreciated the simple things in life and never sought the limelight. He spoke of John's deep love for his family, his passion for poetry, the Irish language, education and farming and how he "quietly and effectively accomplished much for his community" during his 20 years in local politics. Mr Fahey said it had been humbling to hear the genuine expressions of admiration and heartfelt sadness at John's passing particularly at the removal ceremony last night. John had touched so many people in so many ways. He said his brother was a honest and honourable person who was well loved and well respected by all who had the good fortune to know him. "He died as he lived - everyone's friend," he concluded with emotion. Cllr Fahey was buried in Crosscannon Cemetery following the Requiem Mass. He is survived by his wife Anne, daughter Anna, sons Jack, Harry (his partner Jody) and Daniel, sisters Brid (Bates) and Mary, brothers Denis, Martin and William; sisters-in-law, brother-in-law, nieces, nephews other relatives and friends. Following the meeting of Secretaries General Jens Stoltenberg and Antonio Guterres on the margins of the 73rd UN General Assembly in September, the Secretariats of NATO and the United Nations concluded an updated Joint Declaration on Friday 26 October 2018, setting out plans for future cooperation between the two organizations. The document builds on the original Joint Declaration between NATO and the UN, which was signed in September 2008. The updated Declaration sets out priority areas for future cooperation, including, support to UN peace operations, countering terrorism; the protection of civilians; and Women, Peace and Security. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed the Joint Declaration, saying: "As organizations committed to upholding peace and security, NATO and the UN reinforce one another. While our mandates differ, we already cooperate across a range of issues, and there is a lot more that NATO and the UN can do together. So I welcome the conclusion of the updated Joint Declaration, and look forward to putting our ideas into action." Over the past decade, cooperation between the Alliance and UN has grown significantly. The two organizations work closely together on Afghanistan and Iraq. NATO has also pledged support for UN peacekeeping operations, including to counter improvised explosive devices. Cooperation has expanded on protection issues as well. For example, NATO and the UN have worked closely on developing training materials concerning Children and Armed Conflict and the Protection of Civilians. The NATO-Russia Council, which brings together the 29 Allies and Russia, met in Brussels on Wednesday (31 October 2018). Ambassadors had an open exchange on several topics, including the situation in and around Ukraine; issues related to military activities, reciprocal transparency and risk reduction; Afghanistan; and hybrid challenges. In the spirit of transparency, NATO and Russia provided briefings on major exercises. NATO briefed on the ongoing exercise Trident Juncture 2018, and Russia provided a briefing on exercise Vostok 2018. To inform the discussion on Afghanistan, the NATO Senior Civilian Representative, Ambassador Cornelius Zimmerman, provided a briefing on Afghanistan. Allies and Russia also shared views on the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. NATO Secretary General said: "We all agree that the INF Treaty has been crucial to Euro-Atlantic security. For over five years, the United States has pursued diplomatic and technical avenues with Russia aimed at preserving the INF Treaty. The United States is in compliance with its obligations under the INF Treaty and continues to provide substantial transparency on its programmes." The Secretary General stressed that "no arms control arrangement can be effective if it is only respected by one side. Allies have repeatedly expressed serious concerns about the new Russian missile system, known as the 9M729 or SSC-8. NATO has urged Russia repeatedly to address these concerns in a substantial and transparent way, and to actively engage in a constructive dialogue with the United States." He concluded, "we regret that Russia has not heeded our calls. This reinforces our assessment that the missile system 9M729 poses a serious risk to the strategic stability of the Euro-Atlantic area. Allies urge Russia again to address these substantial concerns in a transparent manner and to ensure full compliance with the INF Treaty without delay. While we stand ready to continue dialogue on this issue with Russia, as an Alliance we are also committed to take effective measures to continue to ensure the safety and security of all Allies." NATO suspended practical cooperation with Moscow in 2014 due to Russias illegal annexation of Crimea, and its ongoing destabilisation of eastern Ukraine. At the same time, channels for political dialogue have remained open, and the NATO-Russia Council is an important forum. NATO and Russia also maintain open military-to-military lines of communication, including exchanges between the Supreme Allied Commander Europe or Chairman of the Military Committee, and the Russian Chief of the General Staff. Dialogue between NATO and Russia contributes to more predictable relations and enhanced mutual security. (Natural News) Here they come in droves, thanks to the open-border policy installed by Obama and promoted by every Democratic-socialist-communist nut-job gunning for political status and new positions this fall. The Democrats want more illegal voters for their desperate win to regain the House and Senate, and they want new broke slaves working on their plantations while begging for more free stuff, like healthcare, a drivers license, future amnesty, and of course some food credits. The caravan of 15,000 refugees could be harboring diseases, parasites, pathogens, STDs, and yes, criminals and terrorists. Still, the Democrats dont care, because its all about regaining power and control over a country they believe would be better off without borders, police, prisons, or private businesses. Diseased Caravans: Remember the tuberculosis epidemic in Minnesota from the refugees just a few years ago? In a shocking report from 2014, nearly every fourth refugee who settled in Minnesota tested positive for tuberculosis, a dangerous, infectious bacterial disease that affects the lungs and can spread from one person to another via sneezes and coughs. The Democrats like these kinds of outbreaks though, because that promotes forced vaccination, and thats another form of nanny-state tyranny used as a revenue tool, along with mass media fear-mongering and propaganda. Plus, most vaccines are loaded with neurotoxins and known carcinogens, which fuels the sick-care-industrial-complex, adding to the chaos that demands bigger government to save the sheeple from all the ironically imported problems. Big Food corporations and the biotechnology giants, like Monsanto/Bayer, Syngenta, Dow, Dupont, and Cargill, absolutely love the slave labor they can take advantage of when Mexican, Central American, and South American migrants come to this country and work in the genetically modified corn, soy, canola, and cotton fields like slaves (for minimum wages at best) while contracting cancer and dementia from all the chemical pesticides. Abducted children a huge problem during mass illegal immigration attempts Another major issue that the Democratic-led mass media never covers is the fact that many children who involuntarily take part in these mass illegal migrations never even make it to America, as theyre abducted, raped, and often killed, or sold into sex slavery by gangs and coyote thugs. Uneducated and naive migrant parents think that they might be giving their children a better life if they take a chance and let some strangers taxi their kids to the border, only to find out theyll never see those kids again, and that better life will most likely turn into the worst nightmare ever. In fact, the entire caravan heading to the U.S. now has halted due to a child abduction of this very nature. The U.S. will look like a third world country if the Democrats regain power Every year for the past three decades, at least 70,000 refugees have been resettled in the U.S. by the federal government. It is not uncommon for these folks to carry diseases with them, including whooping cough, diphtheria, tuberculosis, shingles, and measles. The irony of the whole abolish ICE propaganda is that the very people who promote a border-free world are endangering themselves and their own children by welcoming diseased migrants into the country. So much for herd immunity theories being effective, huh? How can you blame the unvaccinated for your problems when you welcome the unvaccinated with open arms and open borders? The fact is, illegal immigrants bring with them a twenty percent higher chance of carrying infectious diseases than U.S. citizens would incur otherwise. Plus, since these immigrants are often malnourished and poor (at least at first), that means theyre probably buying fast food and drinking tap water, adding to their own health chaos and that of those who come into contact with them. So, when the 15,000+ person migrant caravan of illegal aliens reaches the U.S. border, and the Democratic press are snapping photos right and left of the tortured children who are supposedly separated from their parents and man-handled by those evil ICE police and our National Guard troops, remember that you and your family might just be getting spared disease, disorder, rape and terrorism. Sources for this article include: NaturalNews.com DailyCaller.com Health.State.MN.US Trump.news (Natural News) Theres something to be said about indulging yourself with a massage to recharge after a long day of working hard. However, a recent study released by researchers from Brazil suggests that the feel good effects a person gets after a massage is actually rooted in science. In their study, released in the journal Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, the authors indicate that a massage in particular, a Swedish massage can improve quality of life, reduce stress, and alleviate pain in patients suffering from fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgia is a condition wherein a person experiences musculoskeletal pain all over his body, usually accompanied by fatigue, sleep, mood, and memory issues. The exact cause of fibromyalgia is unclear; however, some cases occur after a person experiences physical trauma, surgery, infection, or severe psychological stress. Experts believe that it aggravates pain by affecting how the brain processes pain, and most sufferers are also likely to have tension headaches, temporomandibular joint disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, and even depression with fibromyalgia. Currently, 10 million adults in the U.S. have fibromyalgia, with most of them being women between 50 to 80 years. There have been studies on how massage therapies can help patients with fibromyalgia. In a review in PLoS One, a team from Liaocheng Peoples Hospital in China found evidence supporting the immediate benefits of massage therapy on patients with the condition. The therapy, in particular, improved pain, anxiety, and depression in patients with fibromyalgia, according to a systematic review of scientific literature on the subject. In this study, the team looked at the efficacy of a Swedish massage therapy a European technique that uses gentle strokes to reduce muscle pain and stress in improving three significant biomarkers in patients with fibromyalgia, namely: cortisol concentrations, which is an indicator of stress; perceived stress index; the intensity of pain felt; and their overall quality of life. The study ran for three months, during which 24 women with fibromyalgia underwent Swedish massages twice a week. After the therapy, the women were asked to participate in a survey meant to evaluate their overall quality of life during treatment. In the survey, patients reported significant improvements in their quality of life after treatment, which the researchers linked to the reduction of pain. This led to improved scores in reductions in their perceived levels of stress, including their biological marker for stress. One possible reason for the improvement of [the] quality of life of these patients is related with the reduction of pain, which was verified among the participants, the authors wrote in their study. Pain is a key symptom in the diagnosis of patients with FMS [fibromyagia] and has a direct impact on quality of life of these individuals. Other benefits of a Swedish massage Its not just patients with severe pain that can benefit from a Swedish massage. Multiple studies have also found that Swedish massage therapy can improve other conditions, including knee arthritis, carpal tunnel, and even hypertension. People whose immune systems need a boost, as well as those who suffer from headaches, could benefit from a massage. In addition, it can help drain the lymphatic system by clearing out clogged areas. Its also great for people who suffer from issues with digestion: A study in 2014 indicated that an abdominal massage helps muscles contract and gets things moving along in the gut. Learn more about different types of massages and their benefits at NaturalHealth.news. Sources include: ScienceDirect.com MayoClinic.org FMAware.org Livestrong.com (Natural News) Tulsi or holy basil has been held in the highest regard in Ayurvedic medicine because of its healing capabilities. Today, it is being recognized for its ability to address chronic stress and its effects, as well as its potential anti-cancer properties. Tulsi (Ocimum sanctum) is an aromatic shrub, a relative of the more familiar basil commonly used in Italian cuisine. It is thought to have originated in North Central India, although it can now be found all throughout the eastern tropics. Ayurvedic medicine sings it plenty of praises, calling it the incomparable one, mother medicine of nature, and the queen of herbs. Recent studies indicate that these monikers may be on point, with many confirming the plants adaptogenic properties. An adaptogen is a substance that strengthens the immune system to help keep the bodys function at optimal levels even during times of stress. As an adaptogen thats ideal for everyday use, tulsi may even reduce the risk of serious health conditions, including cancer. Tulsi has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immune-enhancing effects. Cellular studies have shown its remarkable ability to repair damaged cells, whether the damage is caused by oxidation or radiation. This suggests that tulsi has chemopreventive effects or the potential to disrupt the development of cancer. Holy basil also contains BCP or (E)-beta caryophyllene, a compound that acts as a strong anti-inflammatory agent. According to researchers, holy basil also works to suppress the levels of the pro-inflammatory chemical COX-2 to relieve pain and inflammation, but without the unwanted side effects caused by medications formulated for the same purpose. As an adaptogen, tulsi shines in its ability to help the body cope with stress. The ongoing effects of stress can pose a lot of devastating health problems. Chronic stress damages the nervous system, suppresses the immune system, and increases ones appetite, leading to weight gain and possibly, obesity-related conditions like diabetes. Holy basil helps alleviate stress-related anxiety, depression, and insomnia. This calming herb is used in therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Its effects are such that many integrative physicians are recommending it for adrenal support. Holy basil has been proven to decrease levels of cortisol and corticosterone. These hormones are beneficial at low levels for instance, cortisol aids in blood sugar control while corticosterone improves brain function but can have detrimental effects in large doses. They are both released as the bodys response to stress. Holy basil as an anti-cancer agent Tulsi is packed with powerful antioxidants that suppress the proliferation of cancer cells and induce apoptosis or cell suicide in malignant cells. In a recent study published in Nutrition and Cancer, researchers found that several of holy basils components, including eugenol, rosmarinic acid, luteolin, beta-sitosterol, and carnosic acid prevent chemically induced cancers of the skin, liver, mouth, and lungs. Holy basil fights cancer by increasing antioxidant activity, altering gene expressions, inducing apoptosis or cell suicide in malignant cells, inhibiting the formation of new blood vessels to feed tumors, and preventing cancers metastasis. Additionally, two holy basil flavonoids, orintin and vicenin, were found to protect against the tumor-forming effects of radiation while protecting cell DNA from damage. (Related: Holy basil is a clinically proven antioxidant, cancer fighter, neuropathy healer, and anti-microbial.) How holy basil should be taken Holy basil is available in many forms. Supplements are obtainable in capsule form herbalists and natural healers recommend taking 400 mg of the standardized extract a day. It is also advised that one look for a standardized formula that contains eugenol, caryophyllene, and triterpenic acids. When buying holy basil, it is important to take extra care as some supplements may be contaminated with heavy metals. Lastly, tulsi has potent anticoagulant properties that may interact with certain medications or nutritional supplements, so its important to seek a healthcare professionals advice before taking the plant as a supplement. Learn which herbs are good for you at Herbs.news. Sources include: NaturalHealth365.com TodaysDietitian.com Tenants of a West Oakland triplex are running a surveillance operation on their landlord and say they have used hidden cameras to record more than 3,000 hours of video in a desperate attempt to prove they are being wrongfully evicted from their rent-controlled home. You have to collect the evidence yourself, said April Thomas, who lives in one of the buildings three units with her husband Ben Allen. You have to become your own private eye to prove that your landlord doesnt live where they say they do. According to Oaklands just cause ordinance, tenants may only be evicted for certain reasons, such as failing to pay rent and repeatedly violating provisions of their lease. However, a little-known Oakland law exempts owner-occupied duplexes and triplexes from those eviction protections, meaning landlords are legally allowed to evict tenants of a duplex or triplex without cause, as long as the landlord lives in the building. NBC Bay Area 'Our Landlord Doesnt Live Here' Thomas and Allen, as well as a family of four that also live in the triplex, allege their landlord doesnt actually live in their building. Instead, they argue, the landlord is merely pretending to live there in order to exploit the citys housing laws. Our landlord doesnt live here, Thomas said. He never lived here. He didnt live here on the day he gave the eviction notice, but about a week after he delivered the eviction notice, he started coming here once or twice a week. NBC Bay Area Landlord Denies Allegations, Defends Eviction The owner of the building, Donald Woodard Jr., denies the accusations from his tenants. They can think whatever, but I've been in this house, Woodard said. The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit caught up with Woodard at his triplex after the landlord did not respond to requests for an on-camera interview. Woodard explained he moved into the triplex to be closer to his ailing father and because of marital issues between him and his wife. Me and my wife are going through some things right now, he said. Thomas says she doesnt believe Woodard and his wife are actually going through marital issues and points to the wifes public Facebook page as evidence. The tenants of a West Oakland triplex explain how they used a hidden camera to collect more than 3,000 hours of video all in an attempt to fight an eviction they say is unlawful. (Video produced by Meghan Sullivan) In September, more than two months after the tenants received their first eviction notice, Woodards wife described him on Facebook as someone I live with and joked about whos washing the dishes at home. Another video on the page, posted weeks after the eviction notice was served, shows the couple together at a home that is clearly not the West Oakland triplex. As for his ill father, Woodard said he simply needed to live closer so he could help take care of him. Where I was living before, its pretty far, Woodard said. I need to be closer to him. Driving from the triplex to his fathers house in Berkeley is only about five miles closer than driving there from the other Oakland home he owns. Thomas said it doesnt seem plausible that Woodard would uproot his entire life over a difference of five miles. Woodards family issues may explain why he decided to move into the triplex, but they dont explain why he is evicting the buildings tenants. When asked why he was doing so, he didnt offer an explanation. Right now, I have no clue, Woodard said. Right now, I only know whats going on with me and my family whats happening with me and my wife at the moment. And though Woodard said he believed he was living at the triplex when he served his tenants with their first eviction notice, he said he could not be sure. Its been so much going on back with work and trying to get to dad and all this other stuff going on, Woodard said. I believe I was, but at the end of the day, I cant confirm anything right now. While Woodard claims he no longer lives with his wife, the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit recorded video of Woodard or his car at that home three days in a row. Woodard was even recorded wheeling garbage cans from the curb back into the home. If we get evicted from this place, well have to leave the Bay Area, said Allen, a graduate student who hopes to eventually teach at a community college in Oakland. Its going to be kind of awful. Thomas, Allens wife, works for a nonprofit. The couple pays $1,060 per month for their one-bedroom home. If evicted, they say theyll likely be unable to afford to stay in Oakland, where rent prices have increased nearly 20 percent in just the past three years. The couples neighbors, a family of four, moved into the rent-controlled triplex 10 years ago. They did not want to be identified in this story but told NBC Bay Area that Woodard never lived at the triplex and is only now pretending to do so in order to evict them. A lot of other tenants, including the other tenants in this complex, if they get evicted, they are going to be in seriously dire straits, just entire families that might end up living on the streets, Allen said. NBC Bay Area Voters Could Change Oaklands Housing Laws with Measure Y In July, the Oakland City Council unanimously voted to give voters the opportunity to eliminate the current exemption for duplexes and triplexes. In the midst of the current affordability crisis in Oakland, supporters of reform argue tenants living in duplexes and triplexes should be afforded the same eviction protections as most other Oakland renters. Critics, however, argue landlords who live in close proximity to their tenants should have more control over their neighbors and question whether eviction abuse is actually widespread. Oaklands official ordinance calling for the ballot measure cited previous reporting by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit, which revealed how a lack of government oversight and enforcement may be leaving renters vulnerable to wrongful evictions. The ballot initiative, known as Measure Y, goes to a vote next Tuesday. Even if Measure Y passes, the reform effort wont come in time for Thomas and Allen, so the couple took matters into their own hands. The pair of self-taught private detectives transformed their home into an undercover surveillance operation as part of an uphill battle to save their neighbors and themselves from being evicted. NBC Bay Area 'We Have Continued Video Footage' Tenant rights advocates in Oakland say most renters simply move out after receiving an eviction notice. Often, they say, renters dont know their rights or simply dont have the resources to fight wrongful evictions. When Thomas and Allen received their eviction notice in June, they were determined to do whatever they could to stay in their home and help their neighbors do so as well. The notice was sort of written in legalese just very scary, Allen said. You kind of have to go through and see what the different laws they are citing say, to understand what it means in the first place. We realized that the notice they had sent us only applies if [the landlord] actually lives there and also that the burden of proof falls on the tenant to demonstrate that the landlord doesnt live there. So we realized that we have to become our own private detectives to be able to defend our rights in that way. The couple installed a surveillance camera overlooking the landlords driveway and unit where he claimed to be living. We have continuous video footage that shows him coming by once or twice a week, staying for a few hours, and then leaving again, Thomas said. So we have pretty clear evidence that he does not live here. The couple say they began keeping a running log of which days the landlord stopped by the home. After serving Thomas and Allen with an eviction notice, the landlord came by the house only 11 of the next 50 days, according to the couples records. Prior to the eviction notice, Thomas said her landlord was never at the building and only recently took over managing the property from his ailing father. In order for Woodard to legally evict his tenants without cause, the triplex must be his principal residence. Oakland law, however, does not define what that means. I just dont think he spends enough time here to justify the claim of primary residence, Thomas said. A Light in the Window Thomas said his surveillance cameras also caught something else two new lamps that appeared in Woodards windows immediately following the eviction notice. Thomas said she suspects theyre on a timer and were set up in order to make it seem that someone is, in fact, living in the home. The same day that he put the eviction notice on our door, a lamp appeared in the front room and then the other side facing the street, Thomas said. There was no lamp here previously, but we eventually started to notice on the [surveillance] video that it would turn off at the same time every night. NBC Bay Area Widespread Abuse The Oakland City Attorneys Office declined to comment on the specifics of this case, but its civil rights division, formed in 2016, is now setting its sights on wrongful evictions. I think any neighborhood where youre seeing increasing property values, youre going to have a perverse incentive on behalf of landlords to try to scam the system, said Erin Bernstein, Oaklands supervising deputy city attorney. The City Attorneys Office is now suing landlord Rong Fu Lee, accusing him of violating numerous housing laws in an attempt to increase his tenants rent by nearly 200 percent. Lee is accused of pretending to live at an Oakland duplex he owned in an effort to skirt the citys housing laws. The City Attorneys Office said Lee attempted to make it seem as if he was living there by having his father bring trash onto the property, which was caputured on video by the nonprofit legal services agency Centro Legal de la Raza. NBC Bay Area has yet to receive comment after attempting to reach Lee through his attorney. They have asked the court to dismiss the case, saying that the time in which such claims could be pursued has passed. While the City Attorneys Office acknowledges this type of alleged abuse may be widespread, the Lee case remains the only lawsuit of its kind thats been filed by the city. Even so, Bernstein said she thinks the case will yield results. I think its very realistic that we make a dent in this, Bernstein said. When property owners, landlords, see the kinds of consequences that come from flouting the law, I think that makes a big dent. And often, theyre more aware of litigation than they are of administrative requirements. Centro Legal de la Raza Tenants Hint to Landlord They Have Proof He Doesn't Live in Building Thomas and Allen eventually hinted to their landlord that they have evidence proving he doesnt live in their building. They say, soon after, the landlord started coming by the home just about daily. Woodard also served the couple with another 60-day eviction notice, ordering them out of the home by the end of October. Since the couple hasn't complied with the notice, the landlord could take them to court in an effort to force them out of the home. Theres significant risk for both sides if the eviction turns into a legal battle. If the tenants lose in court, they say they could be held responsible for their landlords legal fees. It could also be difficult to rent an apartment in the future with an unlawful detainer on their record. However, if the landlord loses, he could expose himself to a costly wrongful eviction lawsuit. No matter the outcome of her case, Thomas said she hopes Oakland voters approve Measure Y on Election Day, so that future renters in her position have more security. This is life and death for people, Thomas said. Not necessarily for me, but for a lot of people, and I think that outweighs concerns about landlords having control over their duplexes and triplexes. I think that outweighs any type of profit motivation. I think that this is a crisis, and that that people are dying on the street from the housing crisis, and I think that outweighs everything for me. ______________________________________ Watch the entire series in this NBC Bay Area investigation: Part 1: SF Landlords May Have Wrongfully Evicted Hundreds of Tenants Part 2: SF Fails to Prosecute Landlords for Certain Wrongful Evictions Part 3: San Francisco Considers New Eviction Laws Following I-Unit Series Part 4: NBC Bay Area Investigation Leads to Government Hearing Part 5: SF Eviction Crackdown Passes After Investigative Unit Series Part 6: SF Mayor To Sign Law After NBC Bay Area Investigation Part 7: SF Mayor Inks New Law to Combat Wrongful Evictions Part 8: Lake of Oversight Puts Oakland Tenants at Risk of Eviction Part 9: Oakland Voters May Get Say on When Landlords Can Evict Renters Part 10: Expansion of Eviction Protections Heads to Ballot in Oakland Part 11: Oakland Couple Uses Hidden Camera to Fight Eviction Part 12: Landlords Frequently Ignore Oakland Eviction Laws Part 13: Oakland Housing Director Defends Department Part 14: Oakland Housing Chief "Fired," Says Source Higher mortgage rates and overheated home prices hit Southern California home sales hard in September. The number of new and existing houses and condominiums sold during the month plummeted nearly 18 percent compared with September 2017, according to CoreLogic. That was the slowest September pace since 2007, when the national housing and mortgage crisis was hitting. Sales have been falling on an annual basis for much of this year, but this was the biggest annual drop for any month in almost eight years. It was also more than twice the annual drop seen in August. "The double whammy of higher prices and rising mortgage rates has priced out some would-be buyers and prompted others to take a wait-and-see stance," said Andrew LePage, a CoreLogic analyst, in the release. "There was one caveat to last month's sharp annual sales decline this September had one less business day for recording transactions. Adjusting for that, the year-over-year decline would be about 13 percent, still the largest in four years." On a monthly basis, sales fell 22 percent in September compared with August. Sales usually fall about 10 percent from August to September. Sales of newly built homes are suffering more than sales of existing homes, likely because fewer are being built compared with historical production levels. Newly built homes also come at a price premium. Sales of newly built homes were 47 percent below the September average dating back to 1988, while sales of existing homes were 22 percent below their long-term average. The median price of Southern California homes sold in September, $505,000, was still 3.6 percent higher than it was a year ago. That was the lowest annual gain for any month in more than three years. "Price growth is moderating amid slower sales and more listings in many markets," LePage said. "This is welcome news for potential homebuyers, but many still face a daunting hurdle the monthly mortgage payment, which has been pushed up sharply by rising mortgage rates." LePage noted that while the median sale price was up 3.6 percent year over year in September, the principal and interest mortgage payment on the median-priced home was up 14.2 percent because mortgage rates increased about 0.8 percentage point over that period. This story first appeared on CNBC.com. More from CNBC: A suspicious package that was discovered Wednesday at the California Democratic Party headquarters in Sacramento has been deemed "not dangerous," Sacramento police said. "Earlier today CDP headquarters received a suspicious package in the mail, which we reported to law enforcement out of an abundance of caution," the California Democratic Party announced in a tweet around noon. The building at 1830 9th Street in Sacramento was evacuated as a safety precaution while law enforcement worked to determine that the package wasn't a danger to the public, the CDP said. The suspicious package-scare comes after a South Florida man alledgedly mailed explosive devices to high-profile Democrats and others in recent days. Cesar Sayoc Jr., 56, is accused of sending at least 14 IEDs were sent to people, and they included PVC pipe, a small clock, a battery and wiring, federal authorities said. A 35-year-old Tennessee woman was charged with two counts of murder in a multi-vehicle crash in Walnut Creek last week that killed a father and daughter, police said Tuesday. Jessica Martin was driving under the influence of alcohol Thursday evening when she collided with three vehicles traveling in the opposite direction on South Broadway, polioce said. Hector Garza died at the scene and his 8-month-old daughter Camilla died of her injuries Tuesday at Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, police said. Walnut Creek PD The Contra Costa County District Attorneys Office reviewed the case and charged Martin with two counts of murder, one count of driving under the influence of alcohol causing great bodily injury and one count of driving with a 0.08 percent or greater blood alcohol content causing injury. Just after 6:30 p.m. Thursday, emergency dispatchers received multiple 911 calls reporting a rollover collision and possible fatality on South Broadway, near Interstate 680. Upon arrival at the scene of the collision, emergency crews pronounced one driver dead and transported a young child located in that same vehicle to the hospital with major injuries, police said. Contra Costa County Fire Protection District firefighters extricated the driver of another vehicle, who was transported to the hospital with major injuries. Police said the driver of a third vehicle suffered minor injuries and was also transported to the hospital. Martin, the driver of the fourth vehicle, suffered moderate injuries as well and was transported to John Muir Medical Center, where police arrested her Thursday night. The passenger in her vehicle also suffered minor injuries and was transported to the hospital for treatment. Martin remained in custody on $2.1 million bail. A GoFundMe campaign for Garza's family had collected nearly $65,000 of an $80,000 goal as of late Tuesday night. Police investigators are still trying to determine where Martin was coming from prior to the collision and are asking the public to contact Walnut Creek police Detective Sgt. Bruce Jower with any information at (925) 943-5899 ext. 3582 or jower@walnutcreekpd.com. Two police officers used excessive force while arresting two Latino teenagers, and one of the officers said "welcome to the white man's world," according to a federal indictment unsealed in Massachusetts. Springfield police Officer Gregg Bigda and former detective Steven Vignault were arrested Wednesday and were due to make an initial appearance later in the day in federal court, the U.S. attorney's office said. Bigda is a current member of the police department in Springfield, the third-largest city in Massachusetts, and served a 60-day suspension in connection with the February 2016 confrontation. Vigneault, a detective, has since retired. Messages left with attorneys for the two men were not returned. According to the indictment, Bigda kicked one of the teens in the head during the arrest, which occurred in the town of Palmer following a pursuit that began in Springfield after the youths allegedly stole an unmarked police car. Bigda also spat on the boy and made the "welcome to the white man's world" comment, prosecutors said. Vigneault was also charged with using excessive force on the other teen. Both teens were injured, according to the indictment. Bigda faces additional charges of filing a false police report and in connection with obscenity-laden threats he allegedly made during a subsequent interrogation of one of the suspects that the indictment described as "so abusive that it shocks the conscience." At one point, Bigda pointed to blood on his boot and warned the teen that if he lied, his blood would be on the boot, as well, the indictment said. "Even in the face of adversity, law enforcement officers are expected to conduct themselves professionally, respectfully, and with integrity," U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said in a statement. "They are ambassadors for the rule of law, and when they themselves break those laws, they violate not just the rights of their victims, but compromise the public's trust in law enforcement." Springfield Police Commissioner John Barbieri said Bigda has been suspended from the force without pay due to the indictment, according to Masslive.com. What to Know Authorities said the children were at the bus stop and the stop-arm on the bus was out when a pickup truck hit them. An 11-year-old boy was also injured in the crash and airlifted to Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne. A 24-year-old woman has been charged in the deaths of the three children. The family of an 11-year-old boy who was seriously injured when a vehicle crashed into a group of kids boarding a school bus in Indiana this week, killing three of them, released a statement Wednesday thanking the community for the support they have received. We would like to thank those who have prayed for our family and the families of those involved in yesterdays tragedy," the boy's parents wrote in a statement released by Indiana State Police. "Maverik is currently in stable condition. Our family is focused on his recovery at this time and requests privacy as we heal together. Marverik Lowe was the lone survivor after four children were struck by a pickup truck while boarding their school bus Tuesday morning in Rochester, Indiana. He was airlifted to Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne immediately after the crash. Three others, a 9-year-old girl and her twin 6-year-old brothers, were killed. The crash happened around 7:30 a.m. in Fulton County near 4600 N. State Road 25, according to Indiana State Police. Authorities said the children were at the bus stop on the west side of the road and the stop-arm on the bus was out when a pickup truck hit the kids. "The parents are destroyed. They're never going to see their kids again," said Elgin Ingle, the uncle of the three children killed. "The surviving daughter has no siblings anymore and mother had to run to the aid of children as they lay there lifeless on the concrete. They're doing as bad as you'd expect a parent to be doing." Elgin Ingle said it appeared his niece, 9-year-old Alivia Stahl, was trying to shield Xavier and Mason Ingle when the three were struck and killed. Alivia was like a mother to the two kids, Elgin Ingle said. It was a crash state police said was unlike any other they'd seen. A 24-year-old woman has been charged in the deaths of the three children. Alyssa Shepherd was charged with three counts of reckless homicide and one count of passing a school bus and resulting in bodily injury. She was reportedly cooperative with police, picked up at her place of employment and later released on $15,000 bond. It was unclear if she had an attorney. "I just can't imagine the pain that family is going through," Sgt. Tony Slocum with the Indiana State Police's Peru District. "The one thing I'd like to tell people - we all have a responsibility to share the road in a safe manner. I don't know why this crash - why this person did not see the stop arm extended but we all need to pay a little more attention because it's all our responsibility to make sure our children get to and from school safely." There were no children on the school bus at the time of the crash. Tippecanoe Valley School Corporation said all four children struck were students. "Our school corporation has suffered a tragedy this morning," the group said in a statement. "We have learned of three student fatalities and one student seriously injured and airlifted to a Fort Wayne hospital as they were hit by a vehicle while boarding their bus. We have deployed all school counselors to meet the emotional needs of our staff, students and parents. We are awaiting to learn more confirmed details but wish to ask the community to come together to pray for the families, our students and our staff." The accident happened near Rochester, about 92 miles southeast of downtown Chicago. A GoFundMe campaign has been started to help the family of the children killed. Illinois' highest paid school superintendent was fired less than a week before he was scheduled to retire. Troy Paraday made more than $430,000 last year as Calumet City District 155 superintendent. The Daily Southtown in Tinley Park reports Paraday was fired Friday for allegedly padding his own pay without authorization, destroying or altering documents involving when he worked and misrepresenting the district's financial status. The 56-year-old Paraday had been on paid leave since Oct. 6, pending the outcome of the board's investigation into alleged misconduct. School district officials said the board turned its findings over to local police. It wasn't immediately clear whether a criminal investigation of the former superintendent is underway. Attorney Steven Glink said Tuesday he and Paraday "completely disagree" with the board's decision and believe its accusations are without merit. What to Know Authorities said the children were at the bus stop and the stop-arm on the bus was out when a vehicle hit them. An 11-year-old boy was also injured in the crash and airlifted to Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne. A 24-year-old woman has been charged in the deaths of the three children. The mother of three children who died while crossing a busy street to get to their school bus had complained to her kids' school district about the hazard years before her children were tragically killed, her friend and neighbor told NBC 5. Tippecanoe Valley School Corporation said in a statement that beginning Thursday, the bus stop on State Road 25 will be relocated into Meiser Park following the death of twin 6-year-old boys and their 9-year-old sister. In addition, school Superintendent Blaine Conley said a transportation safety review committee will examine all bus stop locations "to ensure our children are transported safely." But some residents say the change came too late. Heather Crispen said her family friend, the mother of the children fatally struck Tuesday while boarding their school bus, had fought for years with their school district to have the bus pull into the trailer park where they lived. Instead, the children were forced to cross a busy stretch of road. "They told us because they were not a special needs child, they were not going to pull into the park," Crispen said, noting that her own children were just steps ahead of the four children hit by a pickup truck on North State Road 25 in Rochester, Indiana. "It could have been prevented a long time ago... shouldn't have to come to her losing half her family for the school to do something about it." The crash happened around 7:30 a.m. in Fulton County near 4600 N. State Road 25, according to Indiana State Police. Authorities said the children were at their bus stop, crossing the street with the stop-arm on the bus out when a vehicle hit the kids. Nine-year-old Alivia Stahl and 6-year-old twins Xavier and Mason Ingle were killed. "The parents are destroyed. They're never going to see their kids again," said Elgin Ingle, the uncle of the three children killed. "The surviving daughter has no siblings anymore and mother had to run to the aid of children as they lay there lifeless on the concrete. They're doing as bad as you'd expect a parent to be doing." Eleven-year-old Maverick Lowe was also injured in the crash and airlifted to a hospital in Fort Wayne. We would like to thank those who have prayed for our family and the families of those involved in yesterdays tragedy," the boy's parents wrote in a statement released by Indiana State Police. "Maverik is currently in stable condition. Our family is focused on his recovery at this time and requests privacy as we heal together. It was a crash state police said was unlike any other they'd seen. A 24-year-old woman has been charged in the deaths of the three children. Alyssa Shepherd was charged with three counts of reckless homicide and one count of passing a school bus and resulting in bodily injury. She was reportedly cooperative with police, picked up at her place of employment and later released on $15,000 bond. It was unclear if she had an attorney. "I just can't imagine the pain that family is going through," Sgt. Tony Slocum with the Indiana State Police's Peru District. "The one thing I'd like to tell people - we all have a responsibility to share the road in a safe manner. I don't know why this crash - why this person did not see the stop arm extended but we all need to pay a little more attention because it's all our responsibility to make sure our children get to and from school safely." There were no children on the school bus at the time of the crash. The accident happened near Rochester, about 92 miles southeast of downtown Chicago. A GoFundMe campaign has been started to help the family of the children killed. Two bodies found in a river in central Illinois were identified as those of a Bradley professor and her husband, authorities announced Tuesday night. Peoria County Coroner Jamie Harwood said the bodies of Susan Brill de Ramirez and Antonio Ramirez Barron were recovered Tuesday from the Spoon River. The bodies, Harwood said, were found in the water and resting up against a river bank. The Peoria County Sheriff's Office began its search after charging the couple's 21-year-old son, Jose Ramirez, in their deaths. Crews focused on streams near the Henry County community of Annawan, where Ramirez told investigators he dumped the bodies from a bridge, Peoria County Sheriff Brian Asbell said. Ramirez was arrested Monday on first-degree murder charges after police said he confessed to killing his parents. Late Sunday, Asbell said a relative called authorities to the couple's home near Peoria, where deputies found blood and signs of a struggle. The couple, both 63, last reported to work Thursday at Bradley University in Peoria, where Brill de Ramirez was an English professor and Ramirez Barron worked in the school's information technology department. The search area was broad because Jose Ramirez was unfamiliar with the area about 40 miles northwest of his parents' home and couldn't give investigators an exact spot where he took the bodies, Asbell said. Peoria County Assistant State's Attorney Dave Kenny alleged Tuesday during a bond hearing that Ramirez told friends he was "sick of his parents" and killed them on Friday. Prosecutors alleged that Ramirez waited until his parents were sleeping and then went into their bedroom. He used pepper spray as a distraction and then stabbed his father in the stomach and neck, Kenny said. He stabbed his mother when she woke up, Kenny said. Ramirez then wrapped the bodies in a tarp and a tent, put them in his father's SUV and dumped them in a waterway. Judge Sean Donahue set bond for Ramirez at $3 million and a preliminary hearing date of Nov. 29. Matthew Roberts, 21, is charged with obstruction of justice and concealment of a homicidal death. Asbell said investigators didn't have evidence that Roberts was involved in the killings or dumping of the bodies, but believed he knew his friend, Ramirez, had done so. Court records on Tuesday didn't list defense attorneys for either Ramirez or Roberts. Officers were searching rural Illinois waterways Tuesday for the bodies of a college professor and her husband a day after charging the couple's 21-year-old son in their deaths. Crews were focused on streams near the Henry County community of Annawan, where Jose Ramirez told investigators he dumped the bodies from a bridge, Peoria County Sheriff Brian Asbell said. Ramirez was arrested Monday on first-degree murder charges after police say he confessed to killing his parents, Susan Brill de Ramirez and Antonio Ramirez Barron. The search for them began late Sunday when a relative called authorities to the couple's home near Peoria, where deputies found blood and signs of a struggle, Asbell said. The couple, both 63, last reported to work Thursday at Bradley University in Peoria, where Brill de Ramirez was an English professor and Ramirez Barron worked in the school's information technology department. The search area is broad because Jose Ramirez was unfamiliar with the area about 40 miles (65 kilometers) northwest of his parents' home and couldn't give investigators an exact spot where he took the bodies, Asbell said. "There has been quite a bit of precipitation over the weekend in that area, which causes these creeks and rivers to swell," the sheriff said. "Obviously, that has influenced the scope of the search." Peoria County Assistant State's Attorney Dave Kenny alleged Tuesday during a bond hearing that Ramirez told friends he was "sick of his parents" and killed them on Friday. Prosecutors alleged that Ramirez waited until his parents were sleeping and then went into their bedroom. He sprayed pepper spray as a distraction and then stabbed his father in the stomach and neck, Kenny said. He stabbed his mother when she woke up, Kenny said. Ramirez then wrapped the bodies in a tarp and a tent, put them in his father's SUV and dumped them in a waterway. Judge Sean Donahue set bond for Ramirez at $3 million and a preliminary hearing date of Nov. 29. Matthew Roberts, 21, is charged with obstruction of justice and concealment of a homicidal death. Asbell said investigators didn't have evidence that Roberts was involved in the killings or dumping of the bodies, but believed he knew his friend, Ramirez, had done so. Court records on Tuesday didn't list defense attorneys for either Ramirez or Roberts. One of Taiwan's fastest passenger trains derailed Sunday on a curve along a popular weekend route, killing at least 18 people and injuring more than 170 others, authorities said. The Puyuma express was carrying more than 360 passengers from a suburb of Taipei in the north to Taitung, a city on Taiwan's southeast coast, when it went off the tracks shortly before 5 p.m., the government said in a statement. There was no immediate word on the cause of the accident. Most of the deaths were in the first car, and it was unclear whether other people were trapped in the train, according to a government spokesman, who spoke on the customary condition of anonymity. Some passengers were crushed to death, Ministry of National Defense spokesman Chen Chung-chi said. "Their train car turned over. They were crushed, so they died right away," Chen said. Earlier, the government put the death toll as high as 22, but the National Fire Agency, citing the Cabinet spokesman's office, later reduced that figure and blamed a miscalculation. Photos from the scene just south of the city of Luodong showed the train's cars in a zig-zag formation near the tracks. Five cars were turned on their sides. Local television reports said passengers tried to escape through windows and that bystanders gathered to help them before rescuers arrived. Hours after the accident, one of the eight cars was seen tipped over at about a 75-degree angle, with the entire right side destroyed. Fearing people may be trapped beneath the car, firefighters with lights on their hard hats peered underneath as a crane prepared to upend it. The firefighters were joined by soldiers and Buddhist charity workers who gathered on both sides of the tracks. Soldiers removed bodies to identify them, but nightfall complicated the rescue work. On a live feed provided by Taiwan's United Daily News, rescuers could be seen carrying what appeared to be a body wrapped in white plastic away from the site. At the scene, searchers walked through an upright car with flashlights. The search-and-rescue work was to continue until early Monday to make sure everyone aboard was accounted for, Premier William Lai told reporters shortly after midnight. "The underlying cause should be investigated to the maximum extent to avoid anything like this happening in the future," Lai said. "We will make the whole thing transparent." Ensuring that rail traffic goes back to normal is also a priority, he said. Most people who were seriously hurt suffered head injuries and one was bleeding internally, said Lin Chih-min, deputy director of Luodong Boai Hospital, where four people were in intensive care. The hospital had treated 65 people total. The wreck happened at a railway station called Hsin Ma, but the train was not scheduled to stop there. The Puyuma was launched in 2013 to handle the rugged topography of Taiwan's east coast. It is distinct from the high-speed rail that runs on the west coast. The Puyuma trains travel up to 150 kilometers (93 miles) per hour, faster than any other in Taiwan except for the high-speed rail. The train that derailed had its most recent inspection and major maintenance work in 2017, Taiwan Railways Administration Director Lu Chie-shen said at a televised news conference. Sunday's derailment was at least the third deadly rail accident in Taiwan since 2003. A popular tourist train overturned in the southern mountains in April 2011 after a large tree fell into its path. Five Chinese visitors were killed. A train undertaking a test run ignored a stop sign and crashed into another train in northeastern Taiwan in June 2007. Five people were killed and 16 others hurt. And in March 2003, a train derailed near a popular mountain resort, killing 17 people and hurting more than 100 people. Investigators blamed brake failure. What to Know The United States Attorneys Office and the FBI announced they are investigating the death of James 'Whitey' Bulger as a homicide. Senior law enforcement officials tell NBC News authorities are investigating whether Bulger was beaten to death by an inmate or inmates. Bulger, the head of Boston's Irish mob and an FBI informant, was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2013 of 11 murders. A Mafia hit man who is said to hate "rats" is under suspicion in the slaying of former Boston crime boss and longtime FBI informant James "Whitey" Bulger, who was found dead just hours after he was transferred to a West Virginia prison, a former investigator briefed on the matter said Wednesday. The official said that Fotios "Freddy" Geas and at least one other inmate are believed to have been involved in Bulger's killing. The longtime investigator was not authorized to discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity. Authorities have not disclosed the cause of death for the 89-year-old Bulger. He was found dead Tuesday. Geas, 51, and his brother were sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for their roles in several violent crimes, including the 2003 killing of Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno, a Genovese crime family boss who was gunned down in a Springfield, Massachusetts, parking lot. Dan Kelly, the Springfield attorney for Geas, spoke to NBC10 Boston after hearing the reports that his client was a suspect in the slaying. He said he had spoken to Geas a week earlier about the weather and sports but has not since heard from him or federal investigators about the killing of Bulger. "He is in there for murder so I wasn't completely surprised that he would be alleged to be involved in another murder, but I don't have any first-hand knowledge that he was involved," he said. Kelly said Geas had spoken to him about Bulger in the past, but would not elaborate on the conversation. "Just that he knew who Whitey Bulger was and his reputation for being an informant," Kelly said. His hatred for informants is why former western Massachusetts investigative reporter, now radio host, Jim Polito said he is not surprised to learn Geas may be connected. Polito covered Springfields underworld extensively and speculated about the motive, noting Geas is only behind bars after his friends gave him up to the feds. "He killed for someone who became a rat and ultimately landed him in jail for the rest of his life," Polito said. "He hates rats and Whitey is the king of all rats. Freddy would want to kill him." Private investigator Ted McDonough, who knew Geas, told The Boston Globe: "Freddy hated rats". "Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It's probably that simple," McDonough told the newspaper, which first reported that Geas was under suspicion. An FBI spokeswoman in Pittsburgh declined to comment on Geas. Federal officials said only that they are investigating the death as a homicide. Bulger led South Boston's Irish mob for decades and became an FBI informant who supplied information on the New England Mafia, his gang's main rival, in an era when bringing down the Italian mob was a top national priority for the bureau. Tipped off that he was about to be indicted, Bulger became a fugitive and eluded authorities for nearly two decades before being captured in 2011. He was convicted in 2013 in 11 underworld slayings and a host of other crimes and was sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars. He had just arrived Monday at USP Hazelton, a high-security prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. He had previously been in a prison in Florida, with a stopover at a transfer facility in Oklahoma City. Federal Bureau of Prisons officials and his attorney declined to comment on why he was being moved. Bulger's attorney, J.W. Carney Jr., blamed his death on prison officials, saying Bulger "was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty." Bureau of Prison officials had no comment on Carney's remarks. The Geas brothers were not made members of the Mafia because they were Greek, not Italian. But they were close associates of the mob and acted as enforcers. While the killing of Bulger is being investigated, Kelly, a former prosecutor, says he's not surprised by the death. "I think it's a relief the long saga of his criminal life is over," Kelly said Wednesday. Kelly worked on Bulger's case for the U.S. Attorney's office in the 1990s. "It was good when he was caught and it was even better when he was convicted," Kelly said. "His death is what it is. He was a violent man and he met a violent end." More often than not, it seems Nutmeggers harp on the negative. But are these real beefs about Connecticut, or are we just Cranky Yankees? Many say the 860 and 203 have a lot to offer. We actually have winter, spring, summer, and fall in Connecticut. There are mountains and shoreline. Its a state with a lot of history and great neighborhoods. But Freddy Faulkner of Hamden says he has a legitimate complaint about living in Connecticut. Right now, taxes are killing me. I am a local business owner, said Faulkner. He might have a point. Recent surveys by USA Today, Forbes, and The Tax Foundation all have Connecticut as one of the worst five states in the U.S. when it comes to taxes paid as a percentage of income, state and local tax burden, and combined sales and income tax. Sierra Fleury of Waterbury has a related complaint. The cost of living out here is insane. It is so hard to get by, every day, she said. That is a problem, according to retired Quinnipiac Business School Professor David Cadden. He cites a 2018 CNBC report that includes Connecticut as one of the ten worst states when it comes to the cost of living. I think probably if you looked at it in depth it would be the cost of housing, Cadden said. While it may be expensive to live here, things on the job front do not appear as grim. Our state currently has thousands of good paying job openings it cannot fill including schoolteachers and positions at Pratt and Whitney and Electric Boat. Meanwhile, Glassdoor.com, a job and recruiting site, just ranked Hartford fifth in the U.S. in terms of best cities for jobs in 2018. Then theres that Connecticut weather. Student Alvin Furlowe of New Haven is not a fan. The weather is like, bipolar, it keeps changing on you, said Furlowe. NBC Connecticut Chief Meteorologist Ryan Hanrahan says Connecticut actually ranks in the middle of the pack in terms of total annual rainfall, snowfall, and daily high temperature. If you compare Connecticut to lets say, places like Chicago or Minneapolis, we actually in some places in Connecticut get more snow than both of those cities, but its not as cold during the winter so our winters tend to be a bit milder because were near the water, said Hanrahan. Others complain theres not enough to do in our state. It is true that no city or town in Connecticut made the cut in U.S. News and World Reports 2018 ranking of 30 most fun places. The survey measured access to parks, culture, restaurants, pro sports, shopping, nightlife, and popularity of each place in terms of plane flights. But some Connecticut fun seekers like Gabriele Kennedy disagree with that gripe. People arent trying very hard if they think theres nothing to do here, she said. We have tons of events at Rentschler Field, the Xfinity Center, The Bushnell, the Shubert Theatre, and Infinity Hall, just to name a few venues. And were right in between Boston and New York, both of which are serviced by trains and buses. For sure, Connecticut has its challenges. But how you see it, very much depends on if youre a glass half empty, or glass half full person. No doubt, however, hating on Connecticut will continue to be a favorite pastime for many. NBC Connecticut Responds helped a Bloomfield man resolve his complaint about having to pay an additional charge fee when he picked up a second cell phone during a Verizon buy one get one free promotion. Wayne Heywood says hes been a loyal Verizon customer since 1997. Last September, he decided to take advantage of the companys buy one, get one free promotion for cell phones. Buy one, get one is something that everyone does and normally theres no problem, said Wayne Heywood. Heywood paid the full amount, $1152.80, for a new Samsung Galaxy Note 9 cell phone and got a second phone as part of the promotion. When he discovered an additional $41.81 monthly charge for that second phone on his first bill, he called customer service. They said, well, part of the promotion is that the phone that you actually bought, youre going to have to pay a device charge for the 24 months of the contract, said Heywood. Heywood said he was instructed to go back to the store and speak with a manager. He did, and said the manager confirmed the device fee was part of plan. I dont understand that, it doesnt make sense to me. Ive already paid for that phone and the other phone is supposed to be free, said Heywood. Heywood admitted that he didnt read the fine print for the promotion which mentioned the device fee for the second phone. But he argued, it shouldve been discussed before he purchased the phone. After getting no resolution from Verizon, Wayne reached out to NBC Connecticut Responds. A Verizon spokesperson told Responds: When purchasing new devices most customers choose to spread the cost of the phone out by taking advantage of Device Payments. This Buy One Get One Promotion was designed to work with that program. Thank you for bringing this customer's issue to our attention, so we were able to resolve the issue. Verizon agreed to drop the $41.81 monthly fee for 24 months in which Wayne saved $984. His message to others about NBC Connecticut Responds, If they have a problem and they cant solve it themselves then they need to reach out to your organization. So, that you can help them, said Heywood. The last day to register to vote before Election Day is Tuesday and University of Connecticut students were making sure their peers were registered to cast their ballot. Members of the non-partisan UConn Public Interest Research Group (UConnPIRG) were out by the library rallying and signing students up. I think its really important for people our age to register. I feel like a lot of kids our age dont care about politics, said UConn junior Engie Shahidy, who registered as a Democrat on campus Tuesday. The Mansfield Registrar of Voters office is seeing UConn students registering in force. Tuesday alone officials said they received around 400 new voter registrations from students. There were also hundreds this week, on top of the 1,200 they accounted for since Oct. 1. Theyve compared the numbers to a presidential election. Several are first-time voters, like Chad Schroeder, whos part of UConnPRIG. Im really hoping that the young people take this election to consider their role in the future of this country, Schroeder said. Senior Emma Burns went to the Registrar of Voters office to sign up to vote for the first time. Though shes had the option to vote before, this is the first election shes taking part in. I made the mistake of not voting in past elections and they havent turned out the way I wanted them to. So I decided I need to put my voice into our government, Burns said. I dont have a right to complain about whos in power if I dont try to make a change. Several students said they want their voice to be heard. I wanted to make sure my voice is heard and were creating fundamental change where its the most important. Well, where we can make the most fundamental change at this time, said Xavier Arriaga about the midterm election and local races. Hes a senior on campus and a registered Democrat. Many are focusing on specific issues. Like LGBT rights, access to healthcare and education, senior Danny Zhu, a registered Democrat, said. I want the (candidates) who are voting for womens rights and better budgets for the state, said Alexandra Garcia, a UConn senior and Democrat. She used her break from work to register to vote on campus Tuesday. The rhetoric surrounding immigration. As a product of immigrants its critically important that we consider our neighbors all around the world and how were treating them, said senior Aziz Sandhu, who also is registered blue. Weve had one-party rule Connecticut for a while now and its time for a change, sophomore Max Turgeon said. Turgeon is the vice president of the UConn College Republicans and is focusing on lowering taxes and tuition costs. He said his group has been talking to anyone they can about voting. I think politics is being talked about a lot more than usual especially in the classroom or even in the dining hall, he said. A man who was stabbed at the Village Heights Apartments in Colchester Tuesday night is dead and another man has been arrested and charged with murder, according to Connecticut State Police. State Police have identified the man who was found unresponsive at the complex on Renee Drive around 8 p.m. on Oct. 30 with a stab wound to the abdomen as 42-year-old Joseph Kolodnicki, of Oakdale. They said he was pronounced dead at the scene. On Wednesday morning, state police said 38-year-old Elmar Baker, of Colchester, was charged with murder. Bond for Baker was set at $2 million. The Eastern District Major Crimes unit has been called in to investigate. A man lost part of a finger while trying to stop a pit bull from attacking his dog in New London Tuesday morning, police said, and the pit bull died from injuries sustained in the fight with the other dog. Police officers and firefighters responded to the area of Cape Ann Court and Ashcraft Road at 7:24 a.m. after a 911 call came in reporting that two dogs were attacking a person. Police officers found a 21-year-old man who was trying to separate two dogs that were fighting. Officers used a stun gun when a bite sleeve was not effective in separating the dogs. The pit bull and the victims dog, a mastiff, separated after the stun gun was used and the mastiff ran off, police said. According to the preliminary investigation, the 21-year-old man was out walking his 11-month-old mastiff mixed breed, when another dog, possibly a 2-year-old pit bull, escaped from its yard on Cape Ann Street and attacked the victims dog, according to police. When the man tried to separate the two dogs, the pit bull bit him, police said. They said his finger was possibly amputated because of the bite. The pit bull died, according to police. Police and animal control are looking for the mastiff and they are asking anyone with information about the attack to call New London Police at 860-447-5269, extension 0 or text NLPDTips and the information to Tip411. What to Know Turkey is pressing Saudi Arabia for information concerning Jamal Khashoggi's remains Khashoggi disappeared after entering the Saudi Consulate on Oct. 2 to collect paperwork needed to marry his Turkish fiancee Saudi officials have said the kingdom will try the 18 and bring them to justice after the investigation is complete Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and his body was dismembered before it was removed, a top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday. Chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said in a statement that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb over the killing yielded "no concrete result" despite Turkey's "good-intentioned efforts to reveal the truth." The statement was the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Khashoggi was strangled and mutilated after he entered the Saudi Consulate on Oct. 2. It also pointed to a lack of cooperation from Saudi officials in the investigation of the slaying. "In accordance with plans made in advance, the victim, Jamal Khashoggi, was strangled and killed immediately after entering the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia," the prosecutor's office said. "The victim Jamal Khashoggi's body was dismembered and destroyed following his death by suffocation, again in line with the advance plans," the two-page statement read. The prosecutor's statement that Khashoggi was killed immediately conflicts with a report by pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak earlier this month, which cited what it described as an audio recording of Khashoggi being tortured before being killed. The newspaper claimed that his fingers were cut off and that he was killed by being beheaded. On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he doesn't feel "betrayed" by Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi's death. Trump, who made Saudi Arabia the destination of his first foreign trip as president, said the Saudis didn't betray him but "maybe they've betrayed themselves." Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday: "I just hope it all works out." Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 suspects in the journalist's slaying who were detained in Saudi Arabia. It also is pressing Saudi Arabia for information about who ordered Khashoggi's killing and the location of his remains. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Riyadh to disclose the identity of an alleged local collaborator said to have been involved in getting rid of Khashoggi's body. Saudi chief prosecutor al-Mojeb met with Fidan twice and also visited the Turkish intelligence agency's Istanbul headquarters this week before leaving for Riyadh on a private jet Wednesday. Saudi Arabia has not commented directly on the prosecutor's visit and al-Mojeb did not respond to journalists' questions at the airport as he departed. Fidan's office said the Saudi delegation submitted a written statement and invited the Turkish delegation to come to Saudi Arabia bringing "evidence obtained during the course of the investigation." The Saudi representatives said the whereabouts of Khashoggi's remains and whether the killing was premeditated or not would only come to light through a joint interrogation by Turkish and Saudi investigators, according to the statement. The statement said Turkey renewed its request for the 18 suspects to be extradited. It did not say if Turkish officials would travel to Saudi Arabia. On Wednesday, a lawmaker and spokesman for Turkey's ruling party again called on Saudi Arabia to reveal where Khashoggi's body is, who gave the orders for the killing and who the alleged Turkish collaborator is. "Instead of trying to find out what (evidence) Turkey has, Saudi authorities should give the answers to these questions," Omer Celik told reporters. "This is not an incident that could have taken place without a high-level order." Celik added: "We are not blaming anyone in advance but we will not allow anything to be covered up." Khashoggi, a 59-year-old columnist for The Washington Post, vanished after entering the consulate in Istanbul to pick up paperwork he needed for his upcoming marriage. His Turkish fiancee was waiting for him outside. A critic of the Saudi crown prince, Khashoggi had been living in exile in the United States. Turkey alleges a hit squad from Saudi Arabia including a member of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's entourage during a trip to the United States went to Istanbul to kill the journalist and then tried to cover it up. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia changed its narrative about Khashoggi's killing several times, eventually admitting Khashoggi died inside the consulate. Saudi Arabia only recently acknowledged Turkish evidence showed the slaying was premeditated. Hurriyet newspaper columnist Abdulkadir Selvi, who is known to be close to the Turkish government, said the Saudi prosecutor revealed nothing new to Turkish investigators during his three-day visit and left with several questions unanswered. "Rather than share the information he has, the Saudi prosecutor tried to learn what information and evidence Turkey has in its hands," Selvi wrote Wednesday. He added: "The chief prosecutor is not trying to shed light on the murder, he is trying to save the crown prince." U.S. colleges and universities have received more than $350 million from the Saudi government this decade, yet some are rethinking their arrangements in the wake of the killing of a journalist that has ignited a global uproar against the oil-rich nation. The Associated Press analyzed federal data and found that at least $354 million from the Saudi government or institutions it controls has flowed to 37 American schools since 2011. Much of the money was provided through a scholarship program that covers tuition for Saudis studying in the U.S., but at least $62 million came through contracts or gifts from the kingdom's nationally owned companies and research institutes, the AP found. Those benefiting the most from Saudi contracts include Northwestern University, which has received $14 million from a top Saudi research center since 2011, and the University of California, Los Angeles, which accepted $6 million from the same institute, known as the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's national oil company, Saudi Aramco, has channeled $20 million to American universities, including $9 million to Texas A&M University and $4 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A national chemical company known as SABIC steered another $8 million to U.S. schools. Although some of the contracts halted before last year, questions surrounding Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi's death at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul have spurred some schools to reconsider current or future deals. On Oct. 22, MIT announced it will undertake a "swift, thorough reassessment" of the institute's partnerships with Saudi Arabia, calling Khashoggi's disappearance a "grave concern." Richard Lester, an associate provost, said faculty who work with the kingdom can "make their own determinations as to the best path forward." The institute pairs with Saudi universities on numerous research projects and has a long history working with Saudi Aramco. In March, the oil company pledged $25 million to MIT for research in areas including renewable energy and artificial intelligence. Officials at the Saudi Embassy in Washington could not immediately be reached for comment by telephone on Tuesday. At Babson College near Boston, which has received $2.5 million through a contract with the SABIC chemical company, officials told the AP they are "monitoring events closely and gathering input from our community regarding potential paths forward." The school's deal provides leadership training to Saudi business managers, and it joins several other research and training partnerships between Babson and Saudi universities. But many other schools have given no indications they're reconsidering ties. Officials at the University of California, Berkeley, said they are not reviewing their Saudi funding, which includes a $6 million contract to develop nanomaterials that can be used to support renewable energy. Spokesman Roqua Montez said the kingdom's support represents only a small fraction of the contracts and grants that go to campus researchers. Northwestern University refused to say whether any of its funding is under review. Spokesman Bob Rowley said only that the "vast majority" of the $14 million is for science grants but did not respond to further questions. Tufts University spokesman Patrick Collins said school officials are closely following the "deeply concerning news" but remain committed to global engagement. The school has received about $42 million from the Saudi government, including $2.9 million from Saudi Aramco, records show. Others, including the University of Michigan, did not provide details about their Saudi funding. The AP analysis examined data from the Education Department's Foreign Gift and Contracts Report, which details foreign funding to any U.S. university that received $250,000 or more in a given year. The self-reported data covers funding from 2011 through 2017. Besides money directly from the Saudi government or entities controlled by it, U.S. universities received a combined $140 million from private Saudi sources, universities and hospitals. Another $114 million could not be accounted for because schools did not report the specific source of the funding within Saudi Arabia. That included about $40 million at Johns Hopkins University and $28 million at Harvard University. Officials at Johns Hopkins and Harvard did not provide further details. The largest sums of money came through a Saudi scholarship program that sends thousands of students to U.S. schools every year. George Washington University received $73 million from the program, followed by George Mason University, with $63 million. Those schools said they won't refuse the scholarship money because it would force them to reject the students it covers. "Refusing payment would result in us denying an educational opportunity to otherwise qualified students. This would run counter to our mission of serving students," Michael Sandler, a spokesman for George Mason, said in a statement. The public school in Virginia hosts about 250 Saudi students through the program each fall and spring term. America's ties with Saudi Arabia have come under intense scrutiny in the wake of Khashoggi's killing in Turkey, which President Donald Trump called "the worst cover-up ever." Activists and some politicians have called on the U.S. and its industries to break with the nation, and some have. Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 Saudi suspects detained in Saudi Arabia for the Oct. 2 killing of Khashoggi, who had written critically of Saudi Arabia's crown prince in columns for The Washington Post. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has said the kingdom will try the perpetrators and bring them to justice after an investigation is completed. Three Washington lobbying firms recently canceled contracts hiring them to represent Saudi interests, and several other businesses have suspended work in the kingdom, including those owned by billionaire investor Richard Branson. More recently, the pressure to break ties has expanded to college campuses, including at the University of New Haven in Connecticut, which partners with a Saudi police college to provide a degree in security studies in Riyadh. Despite protests from a human rights group in New Haven, the university says it plans to continue the program. In a statement, the school said its work in the kingdom "is something we believe should be supported and fostered." The turmoil has rippled through campuses in other ways, too. At Columbia University, for example, officials recently canceled a planned lecture with Saudi artist Ahmed Mater. Columbia separately received a $1.1 million grant from the Saudi agriculture ministry in 2016, records show, but officials said the school has no further funding scheduled from the kingdom. In some ways, the ties between American colleges and the kingdom were created to ease tensions between the nations. The scholarship program was created in 2005 after leaders of both countries met to lighten the diplomatic strain following the Sept. 11 attacks. Since then, the program has sent tens of thousands of Saudis to study in the U.S. It reached its height in 2015, when more than 120,000 Saudis came to study in the U.S., but numbers have fallen sharply since 2016, when the kingdom scaled back the program amid a budget shortfall tied to falling oil prices. What to Know Notorious Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger was found dead at a West Virginia prison on Tuesday, federal sources told NBC News. Bulger, the head of Boston's Irish mob and an FBI informant, was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2013 of 11 murders. His case was the basis for the 2015 Johnny Depp film "Black Mass," based on the book by Boston Globe reporters Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill. Notorious Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger was killed inside a federal prison in West Virginia on Tuesday. NBC News is reporting that investigators are probing whether he was beaten to death by another inmate or inmates, according to multiple senior law enforcement officials. Bulger, 89, had just been moved on Monday to the United States Penitentiary in Hazelton, a high-security prison with 1,270 male inmates and an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. "On Tuesday, October 30, 2018, at approximately 8:20 a.m., inmate James Bulger was found unresponsive at the United States Penitentiary (USP) Hazelton, in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia," the Federal Bureau of Prisons said in a statement. "Life-saving measures were initiated immediately by responding staff. Mr. Bulger was subsequently pronounced dead by the Preston County Medical Examiner." The FBI and the US Attorney's office in the Northern District of West Virginia has been notified and an investigation has been initiated, the statement said. No staff or other inmates were injured. Bulger, the head of Boston's Irish mob and an FBI informant, was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2013 of a litany of gangland crimes in the 1970s and '80s, including participating in 11 murders. He was one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives for 16 years until his 2011 arrest in Santa Monica, California. James Whitey Bulger, one of the most infamous killers in the country, eluded police for years before his capture. He was killed Tuesday in prison. Bulger had recently been moved from a prison in Florida to a transfer facility in Oklahoma City. A spokesperson there said he was at the Oklahoma transfer center until Monday, according to a spokesman. Prior to that, he was held at a prison in Tucson, Arizona. Bureau of Prisons officials and his attorney declined last week to comment on why he was moved. Bulger's attorney. J.W. Carney Jr. issued this statement on Bulger's death: "I was proud to be appointed by the Federal Court to represent James Bulger. He was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty." Bulger is now the third inmate killed at the federal prison in Bruceton Mills this year. Earlier this month, a Congresswoman called for a federal investigation into what she described as appalling conditions at Hazelton. In a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) wrote, I believe that the federal employees serving in this facility have likely received inadequate training, are under-supported, and are being compelled to perform duties outside the scope of their positions and their training, which is leading to these horrific and entirely unacceptable outcomes. That letter came after two inmates died during violent struggles inside the prison. Former Boston mob boss James Whitey Bulger is the third inmate to be killed at USP Hazelton in West Virginia this year. Last week, the president of the union representing corrections officers at the facility expressed concern about increasing workplace assaults. Richard Heldreth, president of Local 420 of the Federation of Government Employees, told a newspaper that Hazelton is dangerously understaffed. The most recent DOJ prison death statistics show there are about 10 homicides per year nationwide, according to figures reviewed by NBC10 Boston. With three inmates already killed this year, that would put Hazelton far above the norm. There was plenty of reaction to Bulger's death in the Boston area. Among the 11 victims Bulger was convicted of killing was Michael Donahue. Patricia Donahue, Michael's widow, said her husband was killed 36 years ago giving a friend a ride home. She said she doesnt believe in the death penalty so she was content to have Bulger rot in prison. "I believe that you die the way you live," Patricia Donahue said. "He killed a lot of people and he was killed, so that says a lot to me." Steve Davis, the brother of Debra Davis who was another one of Bulger's victims, told NBC10 Boston his phone has not stopped ringing since the news of Bulger's death. He said Bulger's death is the closest he and his family have ever been to justice, although the relief doesn't erase the pain for any of the victims. "There's never going to be closure to the heart of the victims and the families. It's never going to be closure for them," said Davis. "We lost something we can't get back. We lost a life." The families of victims allegedly killed by James Whitey Bulger are reacting to his death. Bulger's story was the basis for the 2015 Johnny Depp film "Black Mass." and he was also the model for Jack Nicholson's ruthless crime boss in the 2006 Martin Scorsese movie, "The Departed." His character led a largely Irish mob that ran loan-sharking, gambling and drug rackets. Bulger also was an FBI informant who ratted on the New England mob, his gang's main rival, in an era when bringing down the Mafia was a top national priority for the FBI. Bulger fled Boston in late 1994 after his FBI handler, John Connolly Jr., warned him he was about to be indicted. With a $2 million reward on his head, Bulger became one of the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" criminals, with a place just below Osama bin Laden. Tom Duffy, a retired state police detective who searched for Bulger and was a consultant on "The Departed," called word of Bulger's death "celebratory news." When the extent of his crimes and the FBI's role in overlooking them became public in the late 1990s, Bulger became a source of embarrassment for the FBI. During the years he was a fugitive, the FBI battled a public perception that it had not tried very hard to find him. [NATL] The Life and Times of Mobster Whitey Bulger After more than 16 years on the run, Bulger was captured at age 81 in Santa Monica, California, where he had been living in a rent-controlled apartment near the beach with his longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig. In 2013, he was convicted in the slayings, as well as extortion and money-laundering, after a sensational racketeering trial that included graphic testimony from three former Bulger cohorts: a hit man, a protege and a partner. He was sentenced nearly five years ago to two consecutive life sentences plus five years. Bulger, nicknamed "Whitey" for his bright platinum hair, grew up in a gritty South Boston housing project and became known as one of the most ruthless gangsters in Boston. His younger brother, William Bulger, became one of the most powerful politicians in Massachusetts, leading the state Senate for 17 years. While South Boston may have changed dramatically in the 25 years since James Whitey Bulger fled, his notorious legacy still lingers over many in the neighborhood. In working-class "Southie," Bulger was known for helping old ladies across the street and giving turkey dinners to his neighbors at Thanksgiving. He had a kind of Robin Hood-like image among some locals, but authorities said he would put a bullet in the brain of anyone who he even suspected of double-crossing him. "You could go back in the annals of criminal history and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone as diabolical as Bulger," said Duffy. "Killing people was his first option," Duffy said after Bulger was finally captured in 2011. "They don't get any colder than him," Duffy said after Bulger was finally captured in June 2011." Bulger was accused of strangling Debra Davis, the 26-year-old girlfriend of his partner, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, and Deborah Hussey, also 26, the daughter of Flemmi's common-law wife. In both cases, Bulger insisted on pulling out the women's teeth so they would be difficult to identify, Flemmi testified. During a search of his Santa Monica apartment, agents found over $800,000 in cash and more than 30 guns, many hidden in holes in the walls. A property manager at the building said Bulger and Greig, who used the names Charles and Carol Gasko, had lived there for 15 years and always paid the rent-controlled rate of $1,145 a month in cash. They were caught days after the FBI began a new publicity campaign focusing on Greig. The daytime TV announcements showed photos of Greig and noted that she was known to frequent beauty salons and have her teeth cleaned once a month. A woman from Iceland who knew Bulger and Greig in Santa Monica saw a report on CNN about the latest publicity campaign and called in the tip that led agents to them. The Boston Globe identified the tipster as a former Miss Iceland, a former actress who starred in Noxzema shaving cream commercials in the 1970s. Greig is still serving her sentence at a federal prison in Minnesota. [NATL-NECN] Whitey Bulger's Belongings Auctioned for Over $100,000 Clothing, jewelry, books and other possessions once owned by Bulger and Greig went up for auction at the Boston Convention Center and online in 2016, with the money going to Bulger's victims' families. Bulger, a physical fitness buff, had been taken to a Boston hospital from his jail cell at least three times, complaining of chest pains, since being brought back to Boston to stand trial. The fallout over a campaign mailer sent to Connecticut voters that some argue is anti-Semitic continues to grow. That mailer was sent by Ed Charamuts state senate campaign and depicts what appears to be a doctored image of his opponent Matt Lesser, who is Jewish, with wide eyes grinning while gazing at several hundred dollar bills. At an event to denounce the mailer Wednesday morning, Lesser said in a week when 11 people were killed in a synagogue for practicing their faith, an apology for this mailer simply isnt enough but its a place to start. Its astonishing. Its deeply hurtful. Its not something I thought I would ever have to live through, he said at the event that included faith and civic leaders speaking in opposition to the mailer. Critics say the message of anti-Semitism couldnt be clearer. You cannot pretend that it doesnt mean what it was meant to mean. So today, we have to condemn that mailer, said Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin. In a statement posted to Facebook, the Charamut campaign apologized for the mailer saying they understand now it could be seen as anti-Semitic, but it was never our intention for the mailer to be anything more than a reflection of Mr. Lessers policy record. Wethersfield resident Alyse Black says she picked up on what she thinks was the mailers true intent. I dont think that in this day and age you can look at an image like that or feel the anti-Semitic things that are going on or anything else that going on in this world and pretend that is just simply tax related or simply money-related, said Black. Wednesday, Lesser was asked if he believed Charamut should get out of the senate race. He told NBC Connecticut hed leave that decision his opponent, but believes the mailers message is a disqualifier from public office. My hope is that the public on Tuesday will vote and vote against hatred and division, bigotry and anti-Semitism, said Lesser. You can read the Charamuts full statement on the mailer here: The new Quinnipiac poll out today gives Democrat Ned Lamont a slight edge over Republican Bob Stefanowski in the race for governor, but that margin is only a few percentage points, leaving most to say this is still either mans race. On Tuesday all three candidates for governor tried to make their case to voters about why they should be the choice next Tuesday. In the final debate of the gubernatorial race, unaffiliated candidate Oz Griebel, Lamont and Stefanowski made a final appeal to voters with one similar message vote for me to turn Connecticut around. The choice you have in seven days is more of the same, another four years of Dan Malloy or a change thats going to get this economy moving and get the state of CT finally, after eight years, finally turned around, Stefanowski said. You need a governor who is going to be absolutely fearless when it comes to shaking up Hartford and taking on the entrenched interests. Thats what I have done my entire life, Lamont said. Griebel defended his candidacy, and claimed he could be the races spoiler. The option that Monte Frank and I offer you is to elect a ticket that is focused not on sustaining the parties, but on focusing on you as CT taxpayers, residents and employers, Griebel said. The three candidates took aim at each others positions on perhaps the sorest subject for many Connecticut voters, the property tax. Weve got to do everything we can to build up our towns, build up our cities and hold down the property tax, Lamont argued. The most important thing on the property tax side is to make sure we dont lower the income tax so those taxes get transferred into the municipalities. Theres no free lunch here, Griebel said. We are never going to get out of this problem were in by cuts, cuts, cuts. Weve got to grow our way out, Stefanowski reasoned. With just a week until the election, Stefanowski and Lamont say they believe theyve got the support of the voters to come out on top on election day. If we dont get this economy moving, theres not going to be anybody left in this state to worry about it, Stefanowski said. The difference between Bob and I is like night and day. I dont have to get into that - but what a difference its going to make in terms of their towns and their kids for the next six days, Lamont said. The Quinnipiac poll shows Griebel with a percentage that could tip the race in either of the other two candidates favor. Both Stefanowski and Lamont were asked if they believe Griebel should get out of the race both declined to offer and opinion and said theyd leave that decision to Griebel. Last March, Gov. Dannel Malloy was joined by executives from the India-based IT company Infosys to announce the company would open an office in Hartford and hire 1,000 new workers. At the time, Malloy described the announcement as a landmark day in Connecticuts economic development efforts at a time when our investments are bringing new life and vigor to our capital city. But Craig Diangelo says the company should not be applauded for opening a technology hub in Hartford. He, along with hundreds of colleagues, lost their jobs at Northeast Utilities as a result of outsourcing IT positions to Infosys. We were shocked that the state of Connecticut would give the company $14 million to set up shop in Connecticut, he said. Diangelo was one of more than 200 employees at the company formerly known as Northeast Utilities, now known as Eversource, that was required to train their replacements before losing their jobs. That is extremely humiliating to people, who knowing they are going to lose their jobs, and they are having to train their replacements who dont have the skillsets that we had, he said. Infosys has become a centerpiece of attacks against Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont. He was instrumental in bringing the company to Hartford, capitalizing on a previous professional relationship he had forged with Infosys executives and selling them on Hartford. Republican nominee Bob Stefanowski, a former corporate executive, who Lamont has accused of running his own outsourcing business, was openly critical of Infosys move to Hartford during a debate for governor less than two weeks ago challenging the companys use of H-1B visas to bring in employees from outside the United States. "Infosys was slapped with the largest fine in the entire country for bringing people in illegally on H1-B Visas, putting people in Connecticut out work, Stefanowski said. The people are training people from overseas to come in. They're taking over their jobs and putting Connecticut people out of work." The Department of Justice in Washington fined Infosys $34 million for violation of immigration laws in October 2013. Despite Connecticuts economic struggles over the past eight years, corporate development expert John Boyd says the move to Hartford shows the state and city are improving when it comes to business friendliness. It came at a time when Connecticut was really desperate for a major win and this Infosys selection of Connecticut is very significant, said John Boyd, whose firm specializes in corporate relocation for large companies. [Infosys} recently put technology centers in Raleigh and Indianapolis. Theyre rapidly expanding their presence here in the US and this was a big win for Hartford, Boyd said. Lamont said criticism of the company is entirely unfounded. That was five years ago, Lamont said during an interview. Right now, Infosys is going to do nothing but hire Connecticut people for Connecticut jobs. Its incredibly important for our city and our state. Jobs are going to keep coming back into Connecticut because of the quality of our workforce. Infosys agreement with the state of Connecticut is not yet finalized, but thats expected soon, according to a spokesman with the Department of Economic and Community Development. In a statement, a spokesperson for Infosys wrote, We do not plan to fill any of these positions with H1-B visa holders. These positions will be filled by American workers/visa independent candidates. The spokesperson also said the company is still on target to meet its hiring goals. Stefanowski remains critical of the agreement, but would not commit to trying to renegotiate the deal if he wins the race for governor next week. When you bring in a company like that and you pay them $14 million to come here, you would hope that it would create jobs for people in Connecticut and that would be my focus. I dont think that was the focus on Ned when he brought it in, said Stefanowski. Lamont said its inappropriate to attack a company bringing jobs to the state and especially to Hartford. Bob Stefanowski to knock one of the biggest new employers to move into the city of Hartford is absolutely crazy, Lamont said. Just a week before midterm elections, a controversial mailer some call anti-Semitic is making waves in Connecticut. People in the Middletown area started receiving the mailer this week. It shows an apparently edited image of Matt Lesser the Democrat running for State Senate 9th District. It appears to show him greedily clutching $100 bills and a written message that Matt Lesser Will Take Everything You Worked For. The mailer says it was paid and approved by Lessers Republican opponent, Ed Charamut. Lesser, who is Jewish, said this is beyond what he would expect for a campaign. Ive seen an awful a lot of negatives ads in my time. Theres been a lot in this campaign. This is unique in the sense that no other ad Ive seen distorts my face in a certain way. It really seems to evoke this really horrible past that weve moved past as a country or at least we think we have and thats why it was so disturbing, Lesser said. He added that what comes next is up to the voters. Charamut responded, writing in part: The mailer makes the point that Matt Lesser will undoubtedly vote for higher and higher government spending. He's good at that, too. Those wishing to portray a graphic illustration as something hateful are completely wrong. I reject hate speech in all its forms. Charamut adds this election is a chance to move the state in a new fiscal direction. But its not only his Democratic opponent that has concerns about the depiction on the mailer. Connecticut Republican Party Chairman J.R. Romano called it offensive. "I had the opportunity to discuss some of the context of the recent mailer sent by candidate Ed Charamut involving State Representative Matt Lesser. Several things have come into perspective from conversations with Jewish friends, including Jewish Republicans. In a race with a Jewish candidate, this image should be recognized as offensive, raising classic anti-Semitic tropes. It cannot be justified. I personally would not have approved this mailer, and I am grateful that the party did not approve it. I have requested to sit down with the ADL to broaden my understanding of and sensitivity to anti-Semitism, Romano wrote. The Anti-Defamation League also questioned the mailer. "As a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, ADL does not speak out in favor of or against a candidate for elective office. The juxtaposition of a Jewish candidate and money in this manner suggests an age old anti-Semitic trope. We call on the campaign to clarify its position and intent in disseminating this image," an ADL spokesperson wrote in an email to NBC Connecticut. On Wednesday, the Charamut campaign posted an apology on Facebook. Google's robotic car spin-off Waymo is poised to become the first to test fully driverless vehicles on California's public roads. Waymo can carry out driverless testing in Silicon Valley, including Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and Mountain View. The regulatory approval clearing the cars to begin navigating the state's highways and streets without a backup human driver behind the wheel comes nearly a decade after Waymo began as a secretive project within Google. Its fully autonomous cars have been giving rides to passengers in Arizona since last year. That pilot program is supposed to be transformed into a ride-hailing service open to all comers by the end of this year. Waymo intends to start in California by confining the rides in driverless cars to its own employees before launching a pilot program similar to the one in Arizona. Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke are of differing minds as to whether demographic shifts have changed Texas enough to send a Democrat to the U.S. Senate. Cruz, the GOP incumbent, says even with booming Hispanic growth and other changes making the state more liberal, he's going to defeat his Democratic challenger because "This is Texas." Cruz says he's backed by a "commonsense supermajority" as well as moderate Democrats who think O'Rourke's too extreme. O'Rourke counters that he'll win because Texans will fight for new, liberal values. He says, "everything we care about in this country is on the line." How both sides are framing the argument helps illustrate how a race that was supposed to be a cakewalk for Cruz has transformed into a nail-biter. Local emergency room doctors are warning people this Halloween of marijuana-infused candy and the health concerns that come with taking them unknowingly. Since marijuana became recreationally legal in California in January, adults age 21 and over are able to buy an assortment of cannabis products from gummy bears to chocolate bars to drinks. Dr. Roneet Lev of Scripps Health said kids can accidentally eat these chocolates and gummies with pot in them. But adults can be at risk too, Dr. Lev warns. She has seen people come into the emergency room on a regular basis with symptoms of marijuana poisoning, which can including psychosis, screaming, and vomiting. Lev said the condition has become so common, ER staff have coined a term that helps identify it: "scromiting," for "screaming" and "vomiting." But Osvaldo Rodriguez, the manager of SDRC, a recreational marijuana dispensary in Mission Valley, said there are telltale signs that candy has cannabis in it. The packaging itself is super child-resistant, tamper-proof," said Rodriguez. "Its very hard for even an adult to open it." Rodriguez added that chocolate with cannabis in it is not only marked on the packaging but also stamped into the edible portion of the product. "The recommended dose for California is every edible has to be at 10 mg per piece," Rodriguez explained. "The chocolate itself also has the 10 mg number perforated into it as well. Rodriguez said college students celebrating Halloween should be extra vigilant this year when eating candies at parties. It can prevent a trip to the hospital. "The candy will have a distinct smell of herbal wheatgrass," said Rodriguez. "Don't consume it. Taste it: give it a lick or bite it and spit it out. You will be able to taste the difference between a jolly ranger and a jolly ranger with plant inside of it." Between 2006 and 2014, the number of persons discharged from emergency departments in San Diego County (with cannabis as a primary diagnosis) increased from 86 to 232. The number of persons discharged from San Diego County emergency departments with cannabis as a primary or secondary diagnosis combined, increased from 1,108 to 10,302. After a student was assaulted in the bathroom of a California State University building, classes were canceled and authorities were asking students to stay away from campus Wednesday. The university sent out an emergency alert to students around noon. Any students who were off-campus were told to not come to class. University police said a student was physically assaulted in a second-story bathroom of the Bell Tower building. The attacker was described as a woman, 24 or 25 years old, wearing a gray shirt, black pants, and gray Converse sneakers. She had a silver handgun and was last seen running from Bell Tower. Students were asked to call 911 if they spot the woman as opposed to calling CSUI police. University police said more updates were to come. SPYING A HAWK... soaring and swooping overhead while enjoying a gorgeous hike over scrubby hills dotted with oaks? It would be difficult to summon a more quintessential and peaceful California afternoon. But there are other ways to enjoy some of the larger, wing-rocking residents of our state, and a place that does a lot for them, as well as wildlife in general: By attending an open house at the Ojai Raptor Center. The name of the nature-minded place says much: The center cares for our avian friends in a variety of important ways. "Every year we take in 500-1000 sick, injured, or orphaned birds (including many non-raptor birds, and a small percentage of mammals) with the hopes of rehabilitating them and releasing them back to the wild." IS THIS A CAUSE... that's near to your own desires to be a friend to the wildlife-wonderful world? You can get to know more about the center on Sunday, Nov. 4 when the center opens to the public from noon to 4 o'clock. There's a suggested $5 donation, if you're an adult, while kids ages 10 and under are free (and, indeed, that donation goes back to helping the birds helped by the center). "Hawks, Owls, and Falcons" are three of the terrific fly-stars you'll learn more about, and you're sure to see a lot of critters around the facility. Stage presentations are part of the informative day, as is a silent auction, activities for the youngsters, and "refreshments," too. BIRD BUFFS, do you keep your eye to the sky when traveling about our hawk-happy, owl-laden, falcon-fantastic stretches? You can go a bit further into this world, with a stop-by a place that has healed so many of them over the years. For more on the Ojai Raptor Center, and its open house, alight on this branch now. The Los Angeles City Council moved forward Tuesday with developing new tactics aimed at closing down illegal marijuana businesses, including having them barricaded or padlocked, imposing escalating fines on their employees and shutting off utilities. Although marijuana has been legal for recreational sales in California since Jan. 1, a license from both the state and city of Los Angeles is required to legally operate a dispensary in L.A., and hundreds of illegal businesses are believed to be operating in breach of the regulations. City Attorney Mike Feuer announced last month that since January, his office, in coordination with the Los Angeles Police Department, has filed 120 criminal cases against 515 defendants associated with 105 illegal commercial cannabis locations across the city. Closing down illegal pot shops has proven to be a challenge for the city; it often involves an undercover police operation and the use of other significant law enforcement resources. There are 169 cannabis-related business currently operating legally in the city, according to the Department of Cannabis Regulation, but Los Angeles police Chief Michel Moore said last month that there are hundreds believed to be operating illegally. Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who introduced two of the motions that were approved, noted in one of them that a significant number of the people charged by Feuer's office are employees of the businesses, not the owners. The motion says that property and business owners should bear most of the responsibility for illegal cannabis operations and "not the people who work for them." Harris-Dawson has frequently talked about the negative impact the war on drugs has had on minority communities and has advocated a special cannabis sales tax to support neighborhoods affected by it. Harris-Dawson's motion says the ability to criminally charge employees should still be an option, but it also proposes using the city's Administrative Citation Enforcement Program to discourage repeat offenses by creating escalating fines based on the number of times an individual has been cited. The ACE program was approved by the City Council in 2014. It's meant to give police and Department of Animal Service officers a middle option for nuisance infractions and other quality-of-life concerns between issuing a warning and criminally citing an offender, as officers are often hesitant to take action that could trigger a misdemeanor citation for certain low-level offenses such as a loud party, having a dog off a leash or drinking in public. ACE citations are not handled through the criminal courts but administratively through the city's ACE program. Fines can escalate up to $1,000 for a third offense under the ACE program. During a meeting of the Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee earlier this month, Harris-Dawson pointed out that Measure M, which was approved by Los Angeles voters last year and outlines the city's regulations for the recreational sales industry, has a provision providing for landowners with unlicensed cannabis businesses on their property can be fined up to $20,000 per day. But he appeared frustrated on being informed by a representative of the City Attorney's Office that no one has yet been fined under that provision. "That was a very, very important provision and one way to cause, at least voters in my district, to believe that a lot of these rogue shops would be dealt with," Harris-Dawson said. He added, "I'm afraid that going forward, going into dispensaries and arresting people and catching them doing other things, that's not too much different than what we did in the war on drugs. We found people who were dealing drugs and we arrested them. And so that's an important component, but it's got to be joined with all of the things that the voters put forward in Measure M." The second Harris-Dawson motion calls for the Department of Building and Safety to secure properties that fail to comply with administrative nuisance abatement decisions made by the Planning Commission and have them vacated. It adds that the city should establish a similar procedure for securing and closing illegal cannabis businesses that have been ordered to shut down, including barricading, padlocking, or fencing them. Both of Harris-Dawson's unanimously approved motions direct the City Attorney's Office to draft ordinances that would implement the new policies. A third unanimously approved motion introduced by Councilwomen Nury Martinez and Monica Rodriguez directs city staff to report on the viability of implementing an ordinance that allows the city to disconnect or shut off utility service to unlicensed businesses. Capt. Stephen Carmona, commanding officer of the LAPD's Gang and Narcotics Division, told the Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee that the department currently is focused on targeting shops where significant criminal activity is taking place and that the decision on what constitutes significant activity is up to the area commander. Carmona added that only a handful of those arrested at illegal shops have had criminal felony charges filed against them and that those charged with misdemeanors appeared undeterred from working at or operating the business. Council President Herb Wesson said at that meeting the city should consider forming a special task force dedicated to closing rogue shops and that a future committee meeting will likely focus on that topic. "On enforcement, do we need to put together a special task force or something that really goes out, identifies these areas and tries to protect the businesses that are playing by the rules?" Wesson said. A fourth motion that was also unanimously approved directs city staff to report on the feasibility of creating a special unit within the Department of Building and Safety that is responsible for inspecting cannabis businesses and verifying overall compliance with the city's rules and regulations for commercial cannabis activity. U.S. Marines will invade Santa Catalina Island off Southern California to rebuild its airport's aging main runway as a training exercise. The Catalina Island Conservancy said Tuesday the $5 million project will be funded by donations to the nonprofit land trust and will provide an opportunity to prepare Marines for deploying to remote locations to build or repair facilities. Catalina's Airport in the Sky dates to 1941 when it was built by leveling two mountaintops and filling in the remaining canyon to create the 3,000-foot (914-meter) main runway. The runway's asphalt will be replaced by concrete. An agreement with the I Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton will send 500 tons of military equipment to Catalina in December. More than 100 Marines will arrive by helicopter or boat in January. A majority of Hispanic voters in Florida would vote for Andrew Gillum as governor and Bill Nelson as senator, according to a new poll released less than a week before Election Day. The Mason-Dixon poll conducted for Telemundo Florida Stations and released on Wednesday shows the Democratic gubernatorial nominee Gillum holds a 51 to 40 percent lead over Republican nominee Ron DeSantis among Hispanic voters in the state. Two percent said they would vote for "others" and 7 percent were undecided. In the senate race, the Democratic nominee Nelson holds a 54-39 percent lead over Republican challenger Rick Scott, with 7 percent undecided. The poll interviewed 625 registered Hispanic voters in the state by telephone from Oct. 25 to Oct. 30 who are likely to vote on Nov. 6. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points. The numbers are more narrow in South Florida, where Gillum holds a 47-46 percent lead with 5 percent undecided and 2 percent saying they would vote for "others." Scott has a slim 47-46 percent lead over Nelson among Hispanic voters in South Florida, with 7 percent undecided. The poll also asked about key topics including the economy, the state of the country, health care, the DACA program, and the Trump administrations handling of U.S. immigration policy. Investigators in South Florida are trying to determine who killed two aspiring rappers whose bodies were riddled with gunshot wounds when a friend drove them to a hospital's emergency room. Miramar police spokeswoman Tania Rues said in a news release that 21-year-old Anthony Williams and 19-year-old Christopher Thomas were last seen alive at 3:20 a.m. on Oct. 26 in Fort Lauderdale. Hospital staff pronounced them dead at Memorial Miramar Hospital, about 20 miles from Fort Lauderdale. Police aren't releasing the name of the driver as they investigate. TCPalm newspaper reports Thomas went by the stage name YNW Juvy while Williams was known as YNW Sakchaser. Both were connected to Florida rapper Jamell Demons, known as YNW Melly. What to Know Floridians will have to vote on a dozen proposed constitutional amendments on Nov. 6. The proposed amendments cover a wide range of topics, from property taxes to victims' rights and even to gambling across the state. Each amendment must receive 60 percent voter approval in order to be passed. On Nov. 6, Florida voters will wrestle with 12 proposed constitutional amendments, deciphering the language and deciding what the best outcome for the state will be. The proposed amendments cover a wide range of topics, from property taxes to victims' rights and even to gambling across the state. Some amendments are clear and straightforward, while others take some time to understand. Below are explanations of what each amendment means, as well as video interviews with supporters and opponents of the more controversial amendments. Each amendment must receive 60 percent voter approval in order to be passed. Amendment 1: Homestead Exemption Amendment 1, like Amendment 2, involves property taxes. To understand Amendment 1, it is essential to know what exactly a homestead exemption is. A homestead exemption is a reduction in the taxable value of a property, based on that property being the owners primary residence. Right now, Florida homeowners receive a $50,000 reduction in the taxable value of their property, if it is valued at $75,000 or more. (School board taxes are not affected and that exemption remains at $25,000.) Amendment 1 would increase this $50,000 exemption by up to $25,000 for homes valued at more than $100,000. (It only applies to values above $100,000, so a home worth $101,000 would now have an exemption of $51,000, but a home worth $125,000 or more would get the full exemption of $75,000.) The new exemption would result in a tax break of roughly $250 to $300 per year for these homeowners. People with homes valued at $100,000 or less would not benefit from this amendment. Supporters of Amendment 1 say it will result in a significant tax break for many homeowners. Opponents say this tax cut doesnt help renters or homeowners with property worth less than $100,000 and would leave gaps in county budgets. This, in turn, could force local governments to raise tax rates, which would offset any loss from Amendment 1, or cut services. Constitutional amendments one and two are both related to property taxes. One could decrease the amount you pay, the other the opposite. NBC 6s Steve Litz breaks them down. Amendment 2 Property Tax Assessments Amendment 2 deals with properties that dont qualify for homestead exemption (I.e., businesses, commercial properties, etc.) The value of these properties can only be increased by 10 percent annually, but this property tax cap is set to expire in January. Voting yes would make this threshold permanent, while voting no would allow it to expire and gives way for the threshold to be raised. Amendment 3 Voter Control of Gambling in Florida Amendment 3 grants voters the right to approve of any casino gambling expansion in the state of Florida. Right now, establishing a casino mostly rests with the State Legislature. Voting yes on Amendment 3 would hand that right over to voters. Voting no would leave the authority to expand gambling with lawmakers in Tallahassee. Proponents of Amendment 3 say it would give voters the power to control gambling in the state and would make casino expansion more difficult. Opponents say the state could potentially lose revenue if the amendment is passed. Amendment 4 Restoring Felons Rights to Vote Amendment 4 would restore voting rights to felons except those convicted of murder and sex crimes after theyve served their time. As it stands right now, felons do not automatically have their right to vote restored after theyve completed their sentence or probation. They must also wait at least five years before applying to have that right. Supporters of Amendment 4 say giving voting rights back to felons who have completed their sentences would give a voice back to disenfranchised citizens. Opponents say felons must prove they are ready to re-enter society (thus abiding by the five-year period) before obtaining the right to vote again. Florida would join 47 other states that automatically restore voting rights to felons (excluding those convicted of murder and sex crimes) if Amendment 4 passes. The ballot also notes that the effect of the amendment on state and local government costs can't be precisely predicted, but "the operation of current voter registration laws, combined with an increased number of felons registered to vote, will produce higher overall costs relative to the processes in place today." Here's a deeper look into Amendment 4: NBC 6s Tony Pipitone breaks down Amendment 4, expected to reshape Floridas electorate for decades to come. Amendment 5 Imposing, Authorizing and Raising State Taxes/Fees Amendment 5 would make it harder for lawmakers to impose, authorize or raise taxes. Tax increases would have to be approved by a two-thirds majority of the Legislature. The proposal "does not authorize a state tax or fee otherwise prohibited by the Constitution" and doesn't apply to "fees or taxes imposed or authorized to be imposed by a county, municipality, school board or special district." Amendment 6 Rights for Crime Victims; Judges Amendment 6 has three main components. The first would establish constitutional rights to victims of crimes, including the right to timely notification of legal proceedings; the right to be informed of the prison location where the accused is held; and the right to timely notification if and when the accused escapes or is released from prison. The second component of Amendment 6, which is not related to the first, would raise the retirement age of state judges from 70 to 75. The third component would require judges to interpret laws themselves instead of relying on an interpretation from a state agency. Voters say that having three separate issues bundled into one amendment is confusing, especially if a voter agrees with one component and not the others. For many voters, however, the bulk of the amendment deals with the first elements: Establishing constitutional rights for victims of crimes. NBC 6s Steve Litz looks into Amendment 6, which could mean more rights for victims of crimes. Amendment 7 First Responder Survivor Benefits; Public Colleges Amendment 7 also has more than one component. The first involves first responder and military member survivor benefits. The second involves the cost of public colleges and universities. Under the first part of Amendment 7, if a first responder (i.e., police officers, firefighters, National Guard) or military member is killed in the line of duty, surviving family members would be eligible for death benefits from the state. The second part of Amendment 7 would make it harder for board members of state-run universities to raise fees or impose new ones. It would require supermajority votes by university trustees and the state university system board of governors in order to do this. Amendment 8 School Board Term Limits, Allow State to Operate Non-Board Established Schools and Civic Literacy This amendment was struck down by the Florida Supreme Court from the ballot in a 4-3 decision in early September citing the amendment attempted to deceive voters by not mentioning words "charter schools." Amendment 9 Prohibits Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling; Prohibits Vaping in Indoor Workplaces Amendment 9 would bar offshore oil drilling in waters controlled by Florida and also prohibits the use of e-cigarettes at indoor workplaces. Environmentalists are largely in support of the amendment because of the offshore drilling ban, while a ban on indoor vaping is supported by those who believe e-cigarettes present their own series of health risks. The vaping ban would be in addition to the current ban on smoking in indoor workplaces. NBC 6s Steve Litz looks into Floridas amendment 9, which would prohibit offshore oil and gas drilling, as well as prohibiting vaping at indoor workplaces. Amendment 10 State and Local Government of Structure and Operation Amendment 10 would make it mandatory for all counties to elect a sheriff, tax collector, property appraiser, supervisor of elections and Clerk of Circuit Court, rather than just having the county appoint them. The amendment would also change the date of legislative sessions in even-numbered years from March to January, as well as create an office of domestic security and counterterrorism within the department of law enforcement. Additionally, the amendment would require the Legislature to retain the Department of Veteran Affairs. Amendment 11 Property Rights; Removal of Obsolete Provisions Amendment 11 is another bundled amendment. The first two provisions are largely referred to as housekeeping matters that would eliminate discriminatory language related to property rights for non-US citizens, as well as delete a section concerning high-speed transportation that was already repealed in 2004. The third provision, though, is substantive and could open the door for the Legislature to allow criminals to challenge their prosecutions if the statute they were convicted under was amended after they committed their crime. Right now, whats known as the Savings Clause in the State Constitution prohibits the Legislature from applying reduced sentencing requirements and other criminal law changes to people who committed crimes before the law changes went into effect, even if the statute they were convicted under was repealed or amended. The implications of this provision are unclear because it would only apply to statutes that have been amended, not repealed. Supporters say Amendment 11 is a good clean-up proposal and could potentially reduce the prison population, thus saving the state money. Opponents say the practical effects of Amendment 11 are yet to be known and are against the idea of bundling separate issues together in one amendment. Amendment 12 Lobbying and Abuse of Office by Public Officers Amendment 12 expands ethics rules for elected officials and government employees. Under this amendment, officials would have to wait six years before they could lobby state government. The amendment also bars elected officials from using their status within office for private gain. Amendment 13 Ends Dog Racing Greyhound racing has been happening for decades in Florida, and voters are due to decide whether it will continue or not. Amendment 13 would ban wagering on dog racing, specifically greyhounds, as of Dec. 31, 2020. A person authorized to conduct gaming or pari-mutuel operations may not race greyhounds or any member of the Canis Familiaris subspecies in connection with any wager for money or any other thing of value in this state. Supporters of the amendment say the dogs arent getting the care they need. Opponents say greyhounds are treated like athletes with premium food and appropriate training. Those opposing the ban say thousands of jobs and tax revenues are at stake. A group of Republican senators led by Florida's Marco Rubio is pressing the Trump administration to put an end to civilian nuclear talks with Saudi Arabia in the wake of journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder, NBC News reported. Five senators say they had concerns about nuclear cooperation with Saudi Arabia even before Khashoggi's killing in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, according to a letter obtained by NBC News. But his death has fueled further doubts about the kingdom's leadership. "The ongoing revelations about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as certain Saudi actions related to Yemen and Lebanon, have raised further serious concerns about the transparency, accountability, and judgment of current decision makers in Saudi Arabia," the senators wrote. They threatened to use obscure provision in the Atomic Energy Act to block any U.S.-Saudi nuclear agreements if Trump does not heed their call. The White House's National Security Council did not have an immediate response. New York University announced Tuesday it was postponing a Halloween lecture by far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos due to security concerns. The university said it agreed to push back Wednesday nights talk at the request of Mayor de Blasio. The university said the request was made in light of nearby Halloween parades and risk assessment by the NYPD. Given the importance of close coordination between NYU's Public Safety personnel and the NYPD to ensuring safety, the University agreed to the postponement, NYU said in a statement. A mayoral spokesman says the New York Police Department can handle anything, but having the speech immediately adjacent to one of the biggest events all year "doesn't make a lot of sense." Yiannopoulos was invited to speak at a professors regularly scheduled class on the politics of Halloween. NYU said that administrators only learned about it through press reports over the weekend and that the speech would not have been open to the public. In an Instagram post, Yiannopoulos -- a former Breitbart News editor who fell from grace last year after suggesting that he condoned sex with boys as young as 13 -- blasted the move, calling himself the most censored man in America. He says the entire city "is terrified of one gay man stepping out of line and calling out the Left as the intolerant, censorious crybabies they are." What to Know Several Bronx bodega workers are being hailed as heroes after they stepped in to save a teenager seeking help from a mob of attackers Back in June, 15-year-old Lesandro 'Junior' Guzman Feliz was brutally murdered at a different Bronx bodega, but nobody came to his aid then Cops say they arrested a 15-year-old in connection with Tuesdays beating, but added they are still looking for the others who were involved Workers at a Bronx bodega are being hailed heroes after they stepped in to save a teenager who was being chased by an angry mob in a botched attack that could have ended in tragedy. Surveillance cameras show the teen boy run into a Highbridge bodega for help, with several other teenagers chasing after him. The video then shows the boy hiding in the back of the aisles, but the mob finds him. Witnesses say four of them beat the teen, kicking him in the head while more teenagers watch, but it was that moment bodega owner Edward Lara and others leaped into action to save the teens life. The little kid came here asking for help, Lara said. He said please help me theyre going to kill me. More than a dozen suspects faced a judge in the murder of the Bronx teen known as Junior. Rana Novini reports. Lara added that although he was worried for his safety he remembered an eerily similar story from the summer: Junior. Back in June, 15-year-old Lesandro "Junior" Guzman Feliz was brutally murdered at a different Bronx bodega just three miles from Tuesdays beating. The only thing that was different was nobody came to Juniors aid. [NY ONLY CANVA] 4 Tri-State Colleges Land Among Top 25 in Entire World, New Ranking Says Meanwhile, in Tuesdays attack, one of the attackers fired a gun on the street just before chasing the teen into the bodega, striking an innocent bystander. The teen and the 50-year-old man are expected to survive. Theyre heroes, Lara said of his workers. Police said they arrested a 15-year-old in connection with Tuesdays beating, but added they are still looking for the others who were involved. Top Tri-State News Photos What to Know Two bodies found in the Hudson River last week have been identified as missing sisters from Fairfax, Virginia; it's unclear how they died Rotana Farea, 22, and Tala Farea, 16, were fully clothed and duct taped together when they were found Tala Farea had last been seen Aug. 24; the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said she may have been with her sister Two sisters from Virginia who had been missing since August were found dead, fully clothed and bound together in the Hudson River last week -- and law enforcement sources say investigators have reason to believe they went into the water alive. The medical examiner's office has said it's still not clear how Rotana and Tala Farea died, but the sources say there is no information to suggest foul play or an honor killing in the mystifying case. The mother of Rotana Farea, 22, and Tala Farea, 16, told detectives the day before the sisters' bodies were found, she received a call from an official at the Saudi Arabian Embassy ordering the family to leave the U.S. because her daughters had applied for political asylum. Saudi Arabias Consulate General in New York said in a statement that it had appointed an attorney to follow the case closely. An NYPD spokesperson said Thursday that the girls were last seen in Fairfax, Virginia, Aug. 24. However, it remains unclear when the sisters left Fairfax. Through credit card payment tracing, police know the sisters left Fairfax, went to Washington, D.C., then Philadelphia, before arriving in New York on Sept. 1, police say, adding that they are tracing other payments to Manhattan restaurants and hotels after Sept. 1 in search of video and witnesses. The sisters were found in the water off Riverside Park a week ago, Oct. 24. They were tied together at the waist; they were facing each other. Both had on coats. They had no signs of trauma to their bodies, but the AP reports that fact could rule out an initial theory the two may have jumped from the George Washington Bridge. Initial autopsies required more analysis, the medical examiner's office previously said. A cause and manner of death for both remain undetermined. That lack of determination makes a comment made by NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea at an unrelated news briefing Tuesday that much more poignant. "We are out to get justice for those two girls," Shea said. Shea said the initial priority was to identify the pair. That done, he says investigators are looking into whether there could be clues in Virginia that could help develop a timeline of where they were the last few months. Why were they in New York City? Why did they leave Virginia? Shea said those were some questions detectives would look to answer as the investigation develops. Tala Farea was last seen Aug. 24, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The organization had said she may be with her sister. The two moved to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia with their mother in 2015, settling in Fairfax, Virginia. Rotana Farea was enrolled at George Mason University but left in the spring. A George Mason spokesman called the news of her death tragic, and said the university was cooperating with police. Police said the sisters left their family home and were placed in a shelter after an earlier disappearance, in December 2017. They disappeared again about six months later. Little is known about their activities from then until Oct. 24, when they were found on a bank in the Hudson about 225 miles from their home. The NYPD now says they may have been staying in the New York City area during the time they were missing. In its statement, the Saudi Consulate General said embassy officials in Washington had contacted the family and extended its support and aid in this trying time." It said the sisters were students accompanying their brother in Washington." Anyone with information is asked to call authorities. What to Know Firefighters responded to a two-alarm blaze at The Manor, an elite wedding venue in West Orange There were no immediate reports of injuries in the fire at the sprawling venue on Prospect Street The Manor has hosted more than 10,000 weddings in the last 60 or so years, according to its website A two-alarm fire at a preeminent wedding and fine dining venue in New Jersey appears to be under control. Firefighters responded to the blaze at The Manor, a sprawling estate on Prospect Avenue in West Orange that has hosted more than 10,000 weddings over its six decades in business, around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Emergency radio traffic indicated flames tearing through the roof, though Chopper 4 over the scene showed no visible damage. At least three fire engines and other emergency response vehicles were evident at the scene; about a dozen firefighters were outside, Chopper 4 showed, and hoses snaked through the building's gaping front doors. Management told News 4 Wednesday afternoon that the fire broke out in the facility's basement and that they hope to reopen by the end of the week. No weddings have been affected. The Manor was founded by a man named Harry Knowles; he opened the doors on New Year's Eve in 1956. At that time, it was just a three-room restaurant. Now in its sixth generation of restaurateurs, The Manor has become one of New Jersey's most renowned wedding and fine dining venues, earning recognition from the New York Times as being "as close as one can get to perfection." It has also received a wealth of awards, including more than two dozen Four-Diamond Awards from AAA. In 2013, it became "the first and only New Jersey restaurant" to achieve 25 of those awards in consecutive years, its website says. What to Know A man faces multiple charges in the sex attack of a young woman who was ambushed in her suburban New Jersey home, prosecutors said Muhammed Sharif, 40, of Irvington, was charged with aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault and burglary in the Oct. 16 attack No one was in custody for days following the attack, putting the tight-knit community on edge The alleged sexual predator accused of ambushing a young woman in her suburban New Jersey home earlier this month pleaded not guilty to a slate of charges including aggravated sexual assault on Tuesday. Muhammad Sharif, a 40-year-old man with nearly two dozen arrests and two prior felony convictions, was ordered held in jail until trial in the Tuesday, Oct. 16 attack on the 24-year-old woman in Maplewood. Investigators believe the Irvington man followed her home after a late-morning encounter at a business area in the town, then forced his way inside and attacked her in the kitchen. Assistant prosecutor Deborah Freier described the victim in court as developmentally delayed and said she lived with her parents; it wasn't clear if they were home at the time Sharif allegedly forced his way in. Multiple surveillance videos show Sharif in a reflective vest walking toward the victim's house and running away from the house right after the time she called 911, prosecutors say. They also have video of him getting on a bus and getting off a bus, walking into his apartment building in Irvington wearing the same clothes the victim reported her attacker had been wearing, prosecutors say. Sharif's mother positively identified him as the man seen in those surveillance videos, officials said. A search warrant recovered the clothing he allegedly wore at the time of the attack, along with two reflective vests. No one was in custody for days following the attack, putting the tight-knit community on edge. Prosecutors described Sharif as a danger to society, citing his two felony convictions in the last 10 years, one of which was for aggravated assault. He also has numerous misdemeanors and was on probation at the time of his arrest, officials said. Sharif's attorney didn't directly address the allegations to reporters, but said in court his client should be allowed to wear an ankle bracelet rather than be confined to a cell until trial. A judge denied that request. Given his history, Sharif faces up to a life sentence if convicted in this case. What to Know A 125-pound woman faces a felony count of strangulation for allegedly choking an NY bar bouncer unconscious Police say the 22-year-old woman mistakenly thought the bouncer slapped her buttocks Video shows the woman's friend slapping her on the butt right before the same footage shows her attack the bouncer A 125-pound woman allegedly choked a nightclub bouncer unconscious after she mistakenly thought he had slapped her buttocks at a New York bar, authorities say. Police in Plattsburgh tell the Press-Republican that 22-year-old Kierah Lagrave, of Plattsburgh, was at the Five1Eight nightclub the night of Oct. 20 when someone hit her from behind. Police Chief Levi Ritter says say the club's surveillance video shows the 125-pound woman walking up behind a bouncer and choking him until he falls unconscious to the floor. Ritter says the video also shows Lagrave's friend slapping her on the buttocks beforehand. Police tracked down Lagrave and charged her with a felony count of strangulation. She was released on her own recognizance. Her attorney would not comment on the case. A top Indonesian military official says the Lion Air jet that crashed Monday may have been found in the Java Sea. Armed forces chief Hadi Tjahjanto says a search and rescue effort has identified the possible seabed location of the jet. Debris and some human remains were found previously but not the main fuselage and the black boxes. The 2-month-old Boeing jet crashed Monday just minutes after takeoff from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. Tjahjanto said a team would be sent to the identified location to confirm the findings. Relatives numbed by grief have provided samples for DNA tests to help identify victims of the crash, which has reignited concerns about safety in Indonesia's fast-growing aviation industry. The 2-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet crashed into the Java Sea early Monday, just 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta for an island off Sumatra. Its pilot requested clearance to return to the airport just 2-3 minutes after takeoff, indicating a problem, though the cause is still baffling. Aircraft debris and personal belongings including ID cards, clothing and bags found scattered in the sea were spread out on tarps at a port in north Jakarta and sorted into evidence bags. The disaster has reignited concerns about safety in Indonesia's fast-growing aviation industry, which was recently removed from European Union and U.S. blacklists. Two passengers on the plane's previous flight from Bali to Jakarta on Sunday described issues that caused annoyance and alarm. Alon Soetanto told TVOne the plane dropped suddenly several times in the first few minutes of its flight. "About three to eight minutes after it took off, I felt like the plane was losing power and unable to rise. That happened several times during the flight," he said. "We felt like in a roller coaster. Some passengers began to panic and vomit." His account is consistent with data from flight-tracking sites that show erratic speed, altitude and direction in the minutes after the jet took off. A similar pattern is also seen in data pinged from Monday's fatal flight. Safety experts cautioned, however, that the data must be checked for accuracy against the plane's "black boxes," which officials are confident will be recovered. Lion Air president Edward Sirait said there were reports of technical problems with the flight from Bali but they had been resolved in accordance with the plane manufacturer's procedures. The airline didn't respond to requests to verify a document purporting to be a Lion Air maintenance report, dated Sunday, that described inaccurate airspeed and altitude readings after takeoff. In a detailed post online, Indonesian TV presenter Conchita Caroline, who was on Sunday's flight, said boarding was delayed by more than an hour and when the plane was being towed, a technical problem forced it to return to its parking space. She said passengers sat in the cabin without air conditioning for at least 30 minutes listening to an "unusual" engine roar, while some children vomited from the overbearing heat, until staff faced with rising anger let them disembark. After the passengers waited on the tarmac for about 30 minutes, they were told to board again while an engine was checked. Caroline said she queried a staff member and received a defensive response. "He just showed me the flight permit that he had signed and he said the problem had been settled," she said. "He treated me like a passenger full of disturbing dramas even though what I was asking represented friends and confused tourists who didn't understand Indonesian." On Tuesday, distraught family members struggled to comprehend the sudden loss of loved ones in the crash of a new plane with experienced pilots in fine weather. Many went to a police hospital where authorities asked they provide medical and dental records and samples for DNA testing to help with identification of victims. Risko, who uses a single name, wept outside the building as he waited with relatives. "My father was onboard but we still don't know. We're still hoping for the best because there hasn't been an official statement from Lion Air. So we're still hoping for the best," he said. Experts from Boeing Co. were expected to arrive in Jakarta on Wednesday to help with the accident investigation, Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee said. The Transport Ministry has ordered an inspection of all Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes in Indonesia. Air accident investigator Ony Suryo Wibowo told a news conference that officials have only a small amount of information so far and don't know if it's correct. He implored the public to be patient. "To all Indonesian people, we are saddened and offer condolences but give us time to investigate why the plane crashed," he said. "Give us a chance to look deeply, to look at the whole problem, so the responsibility given to us by the government can be carried out." More than 800 people from multiple agencies are involved in the search, which was expanded Tuesday to a 10 nautical mile area. Specialist ships and remotely operated underwater vehicles have been deployed to search for the plane's hull and flight recorders. Search and Rescue Agency chief Muhammad Syaugi said search teams are going "all out" to locate the aircraft's fuselage. He has said he's certain it won't take long to locate the hull of the aircraft and its flight recorders due to the relatively shallow 30 meter (100 foot) depth of the waters where it crashed. The crash is the worst airline disaster in Indonesia since an AirAsia flight from Surabaya to Singapore plunged into the sea in December 2014, killing all 162 on board. Indonesian airlines were barred in 2007 from flying to Europe because of safety concerns, though several were allowed to resume services in the following decade. The ban was completely lifted in June. The U.S. lifted a decadelong ban in 2016. Lion Air, a discount carrier, is one of Indonesia's youngest and biggest airlines, flying to dozens of domestic and international destinations. Earlier this year it confirmed a deal to buy 50 new Boeing narrow-body aircraft worth an estimated $6.2 billion. It has been expanding aggressively in Southeast Asia, a fast-growing region of more than 600 million people. AP journalists Andi Jatmiko and Ali Kotarumalos contributed to this report. Just weeks after meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, Kanye West tweeted Tuesday that his "eyes are now wide open" and "now realize I've been used to spread messages I don't believe in." He added: "I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative !!!" My eyes are now wide open and now realize Ive been used to spread messages I dont believe in. I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative !!! ye (@kanyewest) October 30, 2018 In the meeting which was supposed to focus on prison reform, West - wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat - rambled on about abolishing the 13th Amendment, gun violence, his battle with bipolar disorder, and other topics. West also commented on 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's slogan "I'm With Her," and how it didn't resonate with him as a man. West had worn the "MAGA" had and spoken positively of Trump in the months leading up to the meeting, which garnered the president's attention and praise. Former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie criticized Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto for declining to join President Donald Trump on a visit to the city where 11 people were killed at a synagogue. Christie, who was in New Hampshire to headline a state Republican Party rally, said late Tuesday that Trump's Pittsburgh visit was an attempt to unify the country. "Folks all want the president to bring the country together. Well, I think his travel to Pittsburgh was an attempt to do that," Christie told The Associated Press. "And I think it's really disgraceful of Gov. Wolf and the mayor of Pittsburgh not to meet the president." A campaign spokeswoman for Wolf said community leaders expressed to the governor that they did not feel it was appropriate for Trump to come, so Wolf made a decision not to join him out of respect for the families and the community. Peduto told reporters before the visit was announced that the White House ought to consult with the families of the victims about their preferences and asked that the president not come during a funeral. Christie, who backed Trump's 2016 Republican presidential campaign after his own unsuccessful bid for the GOP nomination, defended the president against complaints that Trump's divisive language has added to the nation's toxic political environment. "I know the president is not attempting in any way, shape, or form to incite violence. I know him. I've known him for 16 years," Christie said. "But sometimes what we intend when we say it is different than how some people hear it," he continued. "Especially some of the disturbed people that we've seen this week, whether it's the man who sent the pipe bombs around the country or the man who performed the terrible murderous act at the temple in Pittsburgh. Those people sometimes hear us differently than we intend to be heard." Christie urged his New Hampshire audience to do everything they could in the final week to elect congressional candidates Eddie Edwards and Steve Negron and to re-elect Republican Gov. Chris Sununu. "The governor needs your help next Tuesday. I know he's ahead, but don't take it for granted," Christie said. Christie, who early this year finished up his second term as New Jersey governor, was less clear about his political future. "I don't know if there's another run for public office in my life or not. What I will tell you is I'm 56, so I doubt I'm done with public life," he said, adding that he doubted he would join the administration in any kind of formal role. "I like the role I play with the president now," he said. "I'm one of those advisers who he talks to on a regular basis on the outside." What to Know Jessica Ledee, the suspected driver in a hit-and-run crash that left a homeless woman dead, is now in custody, police said. Police say the driver rear-ended a vehicle, fled the scene, jumped a curb and then ran over a homeless woman and a man who was with her. Rhiannon Broderick, who was on the sidewalk, suffered fatal head injuries. A woman surrendered to face homicide by vehicle charges in a hit-and-run crash that left a homeless woman dead and her boyfriend hurt. Jessica Ledee surrendered to police in the Brewerytown section of Philadelphia Tuesday night. Police say Ledee, who owns a 2002 silver Honda Odyssey minivan, ran away on foot Monday night after being involved in two crashes in the Kensington section of the city ravaged by homelessness and drugs. The ordeal began around 8:30 p.m. Monday at the intersection of Kensington Avenue and Cambria Street. A woman in silver Honda Odyssey rear-ended a vehicle stopped at a red light, police said. The woman in the van then drove away from the scene and lost control of her vehicle. The minivan driver then jumped a curb and ran over a 22-year-old homeless woman, identified as Rhiannon Broderick, originally of Burlington, New Jersey, as well as her boyfriend who were both lying on a mattress on the sidewalk, police said. Broderick suffered severe head trauma. The 22-year-old was taken to Temple University Hospital where she was pronounced dead a short time later. Broderick's 27-year-old boyfriend suffered bumps and bruises from being struck but was conscious when responders arrived. The woman in the van continued to flee but was followed by the vehicle she had rear-ended earlier, police said. She then exited the van on North Coral Street, got into a brief argument with the driver she rear-ended, and fled the scene on foot, investigators said. Police later recovered the hit-and-run vehicle thanks to the driver from the original hit-and-run. The entire front bumper fell off, investigators said. Police located an address where the minivan was registered and spoke with people at that location. Ledee turned herself in with her attorney on hand, police said. Ledee is facing homicide by vehicle, fleeing the scene of a crash, assault, driving without a license and related charges, police said. The 34-year-old has yet to comment on the charges. During the hit-and-run, the van also crashed into a container full of used syringes. Dozens of syringes were spotted on the ground at the scene of the crash. The city has tried to help battle drug usage and living on the streets in Kensington. Workers have cleaned out encampments, opened shelters and handed out doses of the overdose reversal drug Naloxone to community groups. Earlier this month, Mayor Jim Kenney issued an executive order declaring a disaster that allows the Office of Emergency Management to create an emergency operations center there, Philadelphia magazine reported. And it will create a task force which every city agency is required to assist when needed so that the problem can be addressed from multiple angles. But officials say it's a losing battle. "We certainly recognize that things have gotten worse, that the neighborhood is under siege," Brian Abernathy, Philadelphia's first deputy managing director, told Philly.com last month. "People are suffering. We have to do better, and we're exploring new approaches. We expect to have something soon." What to Know David Hess' death was ruled a homicide by the Philadelphia Medical Examiners Office in 2017. He was suffocated by staffers at Wordsworth who accused the teen of stealing an iPod. The teen died on Oct. 13, 2016. More than two years after 17-year-old David Hess asphyxiated during a struggle with staffers at a Philadelphia residential care facility, no charges have been filed, police said. His death was ruled a homicide by the Philadelphia Medical Examiners Office in February 2017. But on Monday, law enforcement sources told NBC10 a suspect has not been arrested. When NBC10 asked the citys Department of Human Services (DHS) to confirm that no charges were filed, an official was stunned to learn the case had stagnated. A spokesperson from the Philadelphia District Attorneys Office declined to comment. The circumstances surrounding Hess final moments are well documented in a state report issued shortly after his death. He suffocated after a violent clash with Wordsworth Academy employees, who accused the teen of stealing an iPod, the report said. A confrontation ensued when employees at the facility entered his room in search of the missing gadget. Hess legs were restrained while a staff member punched the teen in the ribs, according to the report. Hess pleaded with them to stop. He couldnt breathe, the report said. Hess died on Oct. 13, 2016, about 80 miles away from his family in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Change, Too Late for Some Stories like these have prompted a shift within Philadelphias child-serving agencies. On Monday, the police department secured a $1 million grant to implement a new program aimed at keeping more children out of the criminal justice system by providing faster connections to diversion programs and referrals for at-risk juveniles to intervention services for housing, food, mental health counseling and other areas of need. Meanwhile, city council, the district attorney, Mayor Jim Kenney, DHS and the police department are now working together on solutions to keep more of Philadelphias vulnerable youth closer to home. This renewed contract to work together comes at a time when many members of Philadelphia's law enforcement community, including District Attorney Larry Krasner, are relative newcomers. It is an opportunity to start fresh, DHS commissioner Cynthia Figueroa said. But for teens like Hess, the movement came too late. His death, inside a residential facility for youth with behavioral health needs, sparked immediate action that has not necessarily extended to adolescents in similar facilities. After Hess died, officials from both the state and local DHS launched their own investigations. Wordsworth was shut down and youth advocates were left to wonder what would come next for a system overburdened with children in need. Oversight of these facilities ultimately rests with the state DHS. But with dozens of centers throughout the commonwealth and a tentacular system involving courts, social workers, advocates, lawyers and families, sometimes kids fall through the cracks. Last month, two former employees of Glen Mills Schools were charged with choking a student. In a separate incident at a Loysville, Pennsylvania, facility, a teen was beaten, arrested and then put into an adult jail. He remained there for nearly two months before a public defender was able to secure his release based on surveillance video. The footage, later made public by the Defenders Association of Philadelphia, showed employees hitting a teen while he sat in a chair. Two youth sitting nearby stood up and found new seats as the attack continued. This is normal to them, Philadelphias chief public defender Kier Bradford-Grey said after showing the video during a May city council hearing. This is what happens in these placements. The teen was then taken to another room where employees pinned him against a wall before dragging him to the ground and repeatedly striking him. After, he was taken to a third room. The attack continued with several adult men jumping on top of the teen, the video showed. 'We Failed Them' For teens like that one, what was meant to be a rehabilitative experience turned into trauma. In fact, it exacerbated his issues, Bradford-Grey said. Sometimes, we are sending kids to these facilities because they have dependent needs and they are coming out with criminal convictions. In 2017, the defenders association represented 1,743 youth charged with criminal offenses and handled 3,827 cases involving child neglect or abuse in Philadelphia. Those cases were initially reported through a hotline operated by the citys Department of Human Services. Last year, the agency received 35,706 such reports. More than 17,700 were deemed serious enough to warrant an investigation by a social worker, DHS said. As of June 30, nearly 6,000 youth were placed in DHS care and more than 900 had been sent to residential facilities throughout the state. These include minors who are delinquent, such as those who have committed crimes, and minors who are dependent on the state to care for them. The defenders association and Philadelphia DHS work in tandem to visit facilities throughout the state and ensure the well being of adolscents living there. Like many teens, the residents are hesitant to speak openly with adults about their experiences. But unlike many of their peers, these kids fear retaliation from abusive staffers. We failed them, Philadelphia Councilwoman Helen Gym said. Gym, a vocal advocate for local youth, has helped launch a task force that will examine Philadelphia's child-serving facilities in hopes of improving the overall juvenile justice system. They become extremely vulnerable so that when they dont have family members advocating for them, they can be perceived as being throwaway children. Lilly Jimenez knows that feeling all too well. The 16-year-old first went into placement shortly after turning 13 years old. She spent time in two different facilities. In one, staff let students fight off campus where they couldnt be seen, she said. Sometimes, residents were pepper-sprayed. Worms writhed in her food, Jimenez said. On at least one occasion, Jimenez was body-slammed by an employee. She was strip-searched and her neck burned with a hair iron. When Jimenez had a seizure, it took 10 minutes before a staffer, not a nurse, came in to offer water. Nearly three years later, Jimenez is now a youth advocate with Juveniles for Justice, which is operated out of Philadelphias Juvenile Law Center. She still has trouble at school and is taking remedial level classes, Jimenez said. She doesnt trust adults. I didnt think anyone would believe me, she said. I didnt think anything would be done if I did speak up. -- This is the first in a continuing series. Follow along as NBC10 continues to investigate solutions being undertaken to protect Philadelphias most vulnerable youth. A Virginia man has been charged with swindling women in the Kansas City area and across the country out of more than $5 million in a romance fraud scheme. The Kansas City Star reports that federal grand jurors in Kansas City indicted 33-year-old Henry Asomani in a wire fraud conspiracy that victimized 13 people over two years. The indictment alleges that Asomani and others contacted people who had posted ads on online dating sites such as ChristianMingle.com, or through their Facebook pages. The indictment says one Lee's Summit widow, whose husband had died of cancer, lost more than $3.2 million she thought was for an investment in a gold mine in Ghana. Asomani is a naturalized U.S. citizen from Ghana. Another victim from Leawood, Kansas, ended up losing about $800,000. What to Know Rev. Jerome Coyle revealed to the diocese bishop in 1986 that he has a "history of sexual attraction to and contact with boys" He was stripped of his ability to lead Mass and other responsibilities and never got another parish assignment Coyle never faced further punishment, and a review board later found the bishop had a history of abusing students as well A Roman Catholic diocese acknowledged Wednesday that it concealed for decades a priest's admission that he sexually abused dozens of Iowa boys a silence that may have put other children in danger. The Rev. Jerome Coyle, now 85, was stripped of his parish assignments in the 1980s but never defrocked. And it was not until this week, after The Associated Press inquired about him, that he was publicly identified by the church as an admitted pedophile, even though the Diocese of Sioux City had been aware of his conduct for 32 years. The diocese recently helped Coyle move into a retirement home in Fort Dodge, Iowa, without informing administrators at the Catholic school across the street. In 1986, Coyle reported his "history of sexual attraction to and contact with boys" to Sioux City's bishop, revealing that he had victimized approximately 50 youngsters over a 20-year period while serving in several Iowa parishes , according to a private letter written in February by the diocese vicar general and obtained by the AP. The diocese told the AP on Wednesday that it never contacted police or informed the public after Coyle's admission. "The diocese admits it could have been handled better," diocese spokeswoman Susan O'Brien said. But she said the policies in place at the time did not call for notifying police or the public. Instead, the diocese at the time announced without explanation that Coyle was taking a six-month medical leave of absence. Church officials transferred him to a treatment center in New Mexico, the Servants of the Paraclete, where other accused priests nationwide were once commonly sent. Coyle was stripped of his ability to lead Mass and otherwise function as a priest. But he never faced further punishment and lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, until recently, retaining the title "father" and collecting financial assistance from the diocese. In 1986, the diocese was aware of one complaint against Coyle from a college student but did not have that man's name, O'Brien said. That individual and another now-adult victim have come forward in recent weeks, and their allegations against Coyle will be reported to police, she said. His total number of victims could be higher than 50 because the diocese remains "uncertain of an accurate number," O'Brien said. Coyle is unlikely to be prosecuted for any of his long-ago offenses because the statute of limitation has run out. He has not been named in any civil suits, and O'Brien said the diocese has never paid a settlement related to him. He has not been publicly accused of molesting any minors in the past three decades, but lawyers and detectives are looking into what he has been up to since 1986. Fort Dodge police interviewed Coyle and searched his apartment last month after being tipped off that he was living near a school. Coyle declined to comment Friday after answering the door at his apartment. The bishop to whom Coyle reported his abuse, Lawrence Soens, retired in 1998. A review board later found that Soens himself had abused students when he was a priest and parochial school principal. As a member of the clergy, Soens was not a mandatory reporter someone obligated to tell police about child abuse allegations under Iowa law. But critics said he still should have called authorities, sought to have Coyle defrocked, alerted the public and asked victims to come forward. Soen's whereabouts are unknown. Unlike other dioceses, Sioux City has never released a list of priests who have been credibly accused, despite calls from victims to do so. "The Sioux City diocese covers everything up," said attorney Scott Rhinehart, who has represented dozens of victims and calls the diocese a "haven for pedophile priests." The case has come to light amid a push by prosecutors around the country to hold the church accountable, not just for the sexual abuse of youngsters but for efforts to shield accused priests. In recent months, authorities in at least a dozen states have opened investigations, and federal prosecutors have launched an unprecedented statewide probe in Pennsylvania. The diocese privately revealed Coyle's past in a letter to a Catholic couple who had been allowing Coyle to live at their Albuquerque home after he was injured in a 2017 car accident. The letter warned the couple, Reuben and Tania Ortiz, that the diocese "cannot condone the risk you take" in allowing Coyle to live with their three teenage children. "The letter was very scary for us as parents," said Reuben Ortiz, who had been friends with Coyle for years and was unaware of the extent of his abuse. He said that he confronted Coyle and that the priest could not guarantee that he would be able to refrain from fondling his son. But Coyle had nowhere to go and continued living there until June, when deacons from Sioux City moved him back to Iowa. "I was up day and night for days sometimes, patrolling my own house," Reuben Ortiz said. In the letter to Ortiz, and a similar one to Coyle, Vicar General Bradley Pelzel tried to discourage the priest from moving back to Iowa. He said the boys Coyle molested would now be men between the ages of 45 and 70, and they "could potentially encounter him and be retraumatized by the memories that would surface." The diocese offered to increase Coyle's monthly retirement assistance by $575 so that he could afford an assisted living home in New Mexico. But that idea didn't work out, and the church instead helped him move to Fort Dodge, into a care facility adjacent to Saint Edmonds Catholic School, whose students routinely visit. Lawyers for the Ortiz family said the case illustrates how the church's secrecy poses a continuing risk to children. They urged Coyle's victims to share their stories, saying they have been "suffering in silence." "This is the time for Father Coyle's victims to seek justice, and the time for the church to account for its cover-up," said attorney Levi Monagle. Experts called the Sioux City letter extraordinary for its written acknowledgment of abuse and continuing concealment. "The letter shows in black and white that the system of covering up continues to this day, even after everything that's occurred," said attorney Craig Levien, who has represented dozens of abuse victims. What to Know Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman initially said, "We have nothing to hide" Saudi Arabia describes claims in the media that there were "orders to kill (Khashoggi)" as "lies and baseless allegations Saudi Arabia then said preliminary investigations show an "altercation" and "fistfight" led to Khashoggi's death at the consulate The official Saudi statements on the fate of journalist Jamal Khashoggi have changed several times since he mysteriously disappeared after entering his country's consulate in Istanbul earlier this month. The latest announcement on Saturday, declaring that Khashoggi had died in a "fistfight" with officials that came to see him there, increased criticism over Saudi's handling of the case and concern over the kingdom's possible complicity in the killing of the prominent Washington Post columnist. Here is a look at the Saudi narrative regarding Khashoggi, as it developed. ___ Oct. 2: Khashoggi enters the Saudi consulate in a leafy neighborhood in Istanbul at 1.14 p.m. on Tuesday. He had left his mobile phones with his Turkish fiance, who waited for him outside the consulate. She calls friends hours later to tell them that Khashoggi never emerged from the consulate. Oct. 3: In a wide-ranging interview, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman tells Bloomberg he understands that Khashoggi left the consulate after "a few minutes or one hour." Bin Salman says his kingdom's authorities are in talks with the Turkish government to determine what happened. He insists Khashoggi is no longer inside the consulate and says Turkish authorities are welcome to search the diplomatic mission. "We have nothing to hide," says the crown prince. Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributor, is feared dead after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week and has not been seen since. Khashoggi has been a vocal critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Khashoggi went to the consulate to pick up paperwork in order to marry his fiancee. Oct. 4: On Twitter, the Saudi consulate in Istanbul says it is following up on media reports of Khashoggi's disappearance "after he left the building" of the consulate. Oct. 4: Turkey summons the Saudi ambassador. Oct. 6: Saudi Arabia says it has dispatched a team to "investigate and cooperate" with Turkish officials over Khashoggi's case. Oct. 7: Turkish officials say Khashoggi has been killed at the consulate. A Saudi government statement describes the Turkish allegations as "baseless." Oct. 9: Turkey says it will search the consulate. Oct. 11: Turkey says it has agreed with Saudi Arabia to form a joint group to shed light on the disappeared journalist's fate. The Saudi team arrives in Istanbul a day later. Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributor, is missing and feared dead after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week. President Donald Trump says he wants to learn more about the incident but does not want to place sanctions on Saudi Arabia. Oct. 13: Saudi Arabia's interior minister describes claims in the media that there were "orders to kill (Khashoggi)" as "lies and baseless allegations." Turkish media quote officials as saying Khashoggi has been killed and dismembered inside the consulate. Oct. 14: Turkey's Foreign Ministry renews calls on Saudi Arabia to allow investigators to search the consulate. Oct. 15: Nearly two weeks after Khashoggi's disappearance, teams of Turkish investigators enter the consulate to start their search. Oct. 15: A Saudi-owned satellite news channel says the 15-member team referred to by Turkish media as Khashoggi's "hit squad" were "tourists" visiting Turkey. Oct. 16: Without warning, the Saudi consul in Istanbul, a key witness in the case, leaves Turkey to Saudi Arabia. Some members of Congress say the U.S. must act against Saudi Arabia if the country's leaders are responsible for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but they differ on exactly what that action would entail. Oct. 17: Turkish authorities begin searching the consul's residence in Istanbul. Oct. 19: In a late-night announcement, Saudi Arabia's public prosecutor says preliminary investigations show an "altercation" and "fistfight" led to Khashoggi's death shortly after he arrived at the consulate. He adds that 18 Saudi nationals were detained. A Saudi foreign ministry official says the kingdom is investigating the "regrettable and painful incident of Jamal Khashoggi's death" and forming a committee to hold those responsible accountable. What to Know A majority of the pending applications are black, according to an analysis by the Associated Press Ga. Secretary of State Brian Kemp says he's fighting voter fraud; his Democratic opponent says he's suppressing voters Kemp's ubernatorial opponent, Stacey Abrams, is the first black woman to be nominated for governor by a major party As the deadline to register to vote in Georgia came and went on Tuesday, more than 53,000 voters registrations remained on hold, leaving the mostly black applicants in a state of limbo less than one month ahead of the midterm election. Thousands of forms are being held in a "pending" status by Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp's office, and nearly 70 percent of them are black, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. Kemp's campaign spokesperson Ryan Mahoney confirmed to NBC that 53,000 applications are pending due to Georgia's "exact match" registration verification process, which requires information on voter applications to precisely match information on file with the Georgia Department of Driver Services or the Social Security Administration. Kemp, also the Republican candidate for governor in the upcoming election, is in charge of elections and voter registration in Georgia ahead of a November election that will decide the governor's race and some competitive U.S. House races. His Democratic opponent, former state Rep. Stacey Abrams, is the first black woman to be nominated for governor by a major party. She and voting rights advocacy groups charge that Kemp is systematically using his office to suppress votes and tilt the election, and that his policies disproportionately affect black and minority voters. Kemp denies it vehemently. But through a process that Kemp calls voter roll maintenance and his opponents call voter roll purges, Kemp's office has cancelled over 1.4 million voter registrations since 2012. Nearly 670,000 registrations were cancelled in 2017 alone. In a recent television appearance on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Trevor Noah" Abrams called Kemp "a remarkable architect of voter suppression." That's become a rallying cry for Democrats in the governor's race, which recent public polling shows in a statistical dead heat. Kemp, meanwhile, says Abrams and allied liberal activists are twisting his record of guarding Georgia elections against voter fraud. Mahoney called the claims of voter suppression a "campaign tactic" and said in a statement that because of Kemp, "it has never been easier to vote in our state." He pointed to a new online voter registration system and a student engagement program implemented under his tenure. "Kemp is fighting to protect the integrity of our elections and ensure that only legal citizens cast a ballot," Mahoney said. Two main policies overseen by Kemp have drawn criticism and legal challenges: Georgia's "exact match" registration verification process and the mass cancellation of inactive voter registrations. According to records obtained from Kemp's office through a public records request, many of the 53,000 registrations on hold with Kemp's office were flagged because it ran afoul of the state's "exact match" verification process. Election officials can place non-matching applications on hold. An application could be held because of an entry error or a dropped hyphen in a last name, for example. Despite being an active Georgia voter who had cast ballots in recent elections, Marsha Appling-Nunez recently discovered that she was no longer registered. "I was kind of shocked," said Appling-Nunez, who moved from one Atlanta suburb to another in May and believed she had successfully changed her address on the voter rolls. "I've always voted. I try to not miss any elections, including local ones," Appling-Nunez said. Appling-Nunez says she never saw any notice from Kemp's office indicating a problem with her application. An analysis of the records obtained by The Associated Press reveals racial disparity in the process. Georgia's population is approximately 32 percent black, according to the U.S. Census, but the list of voter registrations on hold with Kemp's office is nearly 70 percent black. Kemp's office blamed that disparity on the New Georgia Project, a voter registration group founded by Abrams in 2013. Mahoney said the thousands of pending applications were "by and large" collected by the group. Kemp accuses the organization of being sloppy in registering voters, and says they submitted inadequate forms for a batch of applicants that was predominantly black. His office has said the New Georgia Project used primarily paper forms and "did not adequately train canvassers to ensure legible, complete forms ...." Kemp's team said the online system provides a more reliable way to register voters. New Georgia Project pushed back on those claims, telling NBC that its canvassers use paper forms to keep a history of voter applications they collect. If a problem arises with the registration, the group can refer back to the paper forms, whereas an online system provides no physical proof that a person applied to vote at all, the group claimed. New Georgia Project said it is in the process of requesting the records of the 53,000 pending applications so it can cross-reference them with the people registered through the project. Kemp's office says "the law applies equally across all demographics," but these numbers became skewed by "the higher usage of one method of registration among one particular demographic group." Mahoney claimed the New Georgia Project has a history of knowingly submitting fraudulent applications, saying that "several" of the applications collected by the group in 2014 included false names, names of deceased people or names of people who did not submit applications themselves. New Georgia Project rejected this, saying it is required by law to submit every form it collects. While it attempts to flag incomplete applications or ones believed to be inaccurate, it does not have the discretion to withhold collected applications. Voters whose applications are frozen in "pending" status have 26 months to fix any issues before their application is canceled, and can still cast a provisional ballot. Mahoney says that Kemp's office is responding to inquiries from residents with pending applications that they can still vote in the election. He said pending applicants can correct their information before the election or present IDs at their polling places to vote. New Georgia Project worries it won't be that easy for voters and questioned whether poll workers will have voter lists that include pending applicants or will be trained to handle this specific situation. Other critics add that the registration system has a high error rate and decry the racial disparity that it produces. "We've shown that this process disproportionately prevents minority applicants from getting on the voter registration rolls," Julie Houk, special counsel for the Washington based Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in an interview. With that in mind, she called it "kind of astounding" that Georgia legislators wrote it into state law in 2017. The Committee wrote to Kemp in July threatening legal action if "exact match" wasn't ended. Spokesperson Derrick Robinson told NBC the group was set to file a lawsuit Thursday. Details on the suit were not immediately available. The Lawyer's Committee challenged Kemp's policies in 2016 as well. At the time, if an application did not match database information, and the applicant did not correct the discrepancy within 40 days, the registration was canceled, according to the Committee, which argued the policy "denied eligible Georgians their fundamental right to vote." After the group filed a federal lawsuit, tens of thousands of voters whose registrations were previously canceled or at risk of being canceled were allowed to vote by absentee ballot, during early voting or on Election Day by showing a valid form of ID. Kemp's office says that they simply "conduct regular list maintenance of the voter rolls to ensure election integrity" as required by federal and state law. "All of the affected records were inactive as a result of returned mail, National Change of Address, and 'no contact' list maintenance procedures," it said. Kemp dismissed and derided the legal threat targeting the "exact match" policy, issuing a statement saying that with Election Day coming up, "it's high time for another frivolous lawsuit from liberal activist groups." His office said that since January 2014, elections officials have processed over 6.4 million voter registrations and less than 1 percent remain in pending status. And on Wednesday, Kemp's office announced that the state had a record 6.9 million active and inactive voters on the rolls. Mahoney said that number includes the pending applicants. Mahoney said many of those 6.9 million voters registered through its online system, challenging that the numbers show there is no voter suppression in play. State Rep. Barry Fleming, who authored the state law enabling "exact match," said in a statement that it's authorized under federal law, and courts have upheld a similar law in Florida. But Appling-Nunez said it's important for every Georgian's vote, including hers, to be counted in November. "If you don't like what's happening you either have to vote to change it or get out there and change it yourself," she said. "A life of politics is not for me so I have to support those who are fighting the good fight." Georgia also faced criticism earlier this year over its managing of polling places. Civil rights groups and black lawmakers condemned a proposed plan to close seven of nine voting locations in a rural, majority black county, arguing that black voters would be disenfranchised if the voting locations were shuttered. Election officials voted in August to scrap the plan. NBC's Liz Lane contributed to this report by The Associated Press' Ben Nadler. NBCs This Is Us cast and crew are among the many reflecting on last weekends mass shooting in Pittsburgh, which is also where the show is set. Eleven people were killed and four police officers injured when a gunman armed with an assault rifle opened fire on the citys Tree of Life Synagogue congregation during a special service Saturday, Oct. 27. The show paid tribute to the tragedy during the end credits of last nights episode, Kamsahamnida. [[499145501, C]] Our hearts are broken, the end card read. We stand with our television hometown of Pittsburgh. The statement also told viewers they could learn more about ending gun violence by visiting everytown.org. Everytown for Gun Safety is a non-profit organization fighting for gun control and against gun violence in the United States. This Is Us Executive Producer Dan Fogelman shared the comments on Twitter. Fogelman also shared information on donating to support the mourning community. [[499145571, C]] One of the shows main actresses, Mandy Moore, also tweeted her support for the shooting victims and survivors. [[499145611 , C]] We [love you] Pittsburgh, Moore wrote, using the heart emoji. Just weeks ago, the D.C. government issued a warning about the prison in which notorious Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger died. D.C. doesn't have its own in prison, so felons from the District are shipped across the country to serve time, including about 200 of them currently incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution Hazelton in West Virginia, about a sixth of the prisoners at the facility. The D.C. government gave the feds a memo warning of safety problems at the prison. Inmates reported "daily beatings or stabbings" and some security protocols not followed. At least twice since April, inmates from D.C. have been killed there. The News4 I-Team also learned just last week a group of U.S. senators asked U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to beef up staffing at Hazelton federal prison over concerns about shortages and the risk of attack. Michelle Bonner, the head of the DC Corrections Information Council, recently told the News4 I-Team having so many inmates at prisons like Hazelton so far from home is making it difficult for families who cant travel to facilities in the middle of nowhere with no bus or transportation. A federal law enforcement official said Bulger, 89, was killed at the prison but declined to offer any details. Bulger had just been moved to Hazelton Monday. A 12-year-old Northern Virginia boy was charged with sexual battery after girls in his class reported that he touched them inappropriately. The student at Rippon Middle School in Dumfries is accused of touching sixth-grade girls starting in September. Police say several allegations came to light this week after one girl spoke up. "We did have a courageous young lady who did feel that the touching was inappropriate and alerted a staff member, who then notified the school resource officer," Prince William County police spokesman Nathan Probus said Wednesday. The school resource officer was able to determine that multiple girls said they were victims too. Police say the boy, whose name they did not release, touched the girls in their private areas, over their clothes. He did so in the school's hallways, during school hours, police said. School Principal Scott Bergquist said in a letter to parents: "The safety of our students and staff is my highest priority, and I applaud the students who reported this behavior to an adult. Working collaboratively, we can ensure we have a safe and nurturing school climate." The boy's case is being handled through the juvenile intake process. He was not placed in juvenile detention. What to Know Alexander Barter, 21, was arrested at his Texas home on Oct. 19 following an investigation begun by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office Barter had posted an ad on the internet looking for someone who would allow him to commit necrophilia and cannibalism, officials said A Texas man who wanted to rape, murder and cannibalize a child was arrested thanks to an investigation that was started by a Florida sheriff's office. Alexander Barter, 21, was arrested at his home in Joaquin, Texas on Oct. 19 following an investigation started by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office, including Immigration Customs Enforcement/Homeland Security Investigations, the United States Attorneys Office and Texas authorities. Brevard Sheriff Wayne Ivey told reporters at a news conference Tuesday that Barter had posted an ad on the internet looking for someone who would allow him to commit necrophilia and cannibalism. "I would like to try necrophilia and cannibalism and see how it feels to take a life," Barter posted, according to Ivey. "I really need to do something about my intense bloodlust." Ivey said an undercover agent responded to the ad, saying he had a minor child he could provide. The agent arranged to meet Barter at his Texas home to carry out the plan, but Barter was taken into custody. "This case is probably one of the most unusual and most disgusting cases I've ever seen," Ivey said. "This individual is one of the most sick, disgusting and demented people I believe I have ever had the unfortunate nature to be involved with." Ivey said Barter fully intended to carry out the plan, even bringing a knife and bags to transport the remains. Barter thanked authorities for stopping him, telling them he couldn't control his urges, Ivey said. There is no indication Barter had been previously successful in carrying out his plan, Ivey said, but the investigation into his history is ongoing. Barter remains in federal custody in Texas and faces charges including criminal solicitation, attempted capital murder, conspiracy to commit capital murder and attempted sexual performance of a child. A 24-year-old woman has been charged in the deaths of three children who were struck and killed Tuesday morning at a school bus stop in Indiana, police said. Alyssa Shepherd was charged with three counts of reckless homicide and one count of passing a school bus and resulting in bodily injury. It is unclear if she has an attorney. The crash happened around 7:30 a.m. in Fulton County near 4600 N. State Road 25, according to Indiana State Police. Authorities said the children were at the bus stop on the west side of the road and the stop-arm on the bus was out when a pickup truck hit and killed the kids. An 11-year-old boy was also injured in the crash and airlifted to Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne where his condition was not immediately known. Police said the children killed were all from the same family. They were identified as twin brothers Xavier and Mason Ingle, both 6 years old, and their 9-year-old sister Alivia Stahl. "Obviously that compounds this situation even more," said Sgt. Tony Slocum with the Indiana State Police's Peru District. "I just can't imagine the pain that family is going through. The one thing I'd like to tell people - we all have a responsibility to share the road in a safe manner. I don't know why this crash - why this person did not see the stop arm extended but we all need to pay a little more attention because it's all our responsibility to make sure our children get to and from school safely." There were no children on the school bus at the time of the crash. Tippecanoe Valley School Corporation said all four children struck were students. "Our school corporation has suffered a tragedy this morning," the group said in a statement. "We have learned of three student fatalities and one student seriously injured and airlifted to a Fort Wayne hospital as they were hit by a vehicle while boarding their bus. We have deployed all school counselors to meet the emotional needs of our staff, students and parents. We are awaiting to learn more confirmed details but wish to ask the community to come together to pray for the families, our students and our staff." One witness said her grandchildren were supposed to be at the bus stop as well but a last-minute change of plans kept them from being at the scene. "I knew something bad happened," she said. The accident happened near Rochester, about 100 miles north of Indianapolis. At the L Street Tavern in South Boston, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker enjoyed a rare moment of relaxation in between campaign stops, meeting voters over a Guinness. After four years in office, Baker is hoping for a second term. He has reason to be optimistic. Polls show him with lead of nearly 40 points over his Democratic challenger, Jay Gonzalez, and he is known nationally as the most popular governor in America thanks, to a a longstanding 70 percent approval rating. "You do know what my wife, Lauren, said when I came home and told her that I had a 70 percent favorability rating and most popular, and how great that is? She just sort of looked up and said, 'Well, you know, honey, 70 in our house is a C,'" he recalled. Most voters know the basics about Baker. He grew up in Needham, in a stable, happy home with a Republican father and a Democratic mother. He went to Harvard University, met his wife while getting an MBA at Northwestern University, and was a top aide to former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld. He lives in a big home in the heart of Swampscott, where the couple raised their three children, all now adults. Baker lost his first bid for governor in a hard-fought battle against Gov. Deval Patrick in 2010. Four years later, another bruising campaign ended in a narrow win over Martha Coakley. Comparatively, this race has been sleepy. Why does he think it's been so quiet? "I don't know the answer to that, but if I were to speculate, I would say that most of the people I talk to when I'm out, they feel pretty good about how things are going in Massachusetts," Baker said. Baker prides himself on progress he's made -- on the opioid epidemic, closing a billion-dollar budget deficit without raising taxes and helping the homeless. Ask Baker what he likes most about being governor and his answer comes quickly. "First of all, the people, because they see me on TV, they feel very familiar with me and almost intimate and they tell me things I don't think they would tell strangers," Baker said. "I think the second thing is, when somebody says to me, 'You saved my daughter's life. You made it possible for me to talk about my kids addiction.'" Baker, a vocal critic of President Donald Trump, sees his bipartisanship as a key to his success. "I try not to get too far ahead of myself on this stuff," Baker said when asked if he thinks he might want a third term. "I'm really focused on Nov. 6. It's all going to depend, to some extent, on the conversations my wife and I have about this stuff." Baker denies any interest in going to Washington. "I've always thought of myself as a Massachusetts person," he said. "The things that always excite me are things that are much closer to home. I would have a hard time with the distance, both geographically and sort of day-to-day, from the people ... if I was in federal office." For now, Baker insists he is focused solely on next Tuesday -- though looking forward to having some post-election down time. He reads books to relax. He just finished the "Factory Man." He also enjoys going to the movies, though he says that has gotten more complicated. "I can't just sort of walk in and out of a movie theater without, 'Governor, I've got an idea.' Which I'm perfectly happy to hear," he said. MHA Cromwell House in Norwich has career opportunities for a Care Assistant and Senior Care Assistant. MHA Cromwell House in Norwich has career opportunities for a Care Assistant and Senior Care Assistant. Norwich synagogue giving away free clothes this Sunday The Adat Yeshua Messianic Jewish congregation in Norwich are giving away clothes for free this Sunday, November 21, as part of the national Jewish Mitzva Day. Read more TimeNorfolk seeks volunteer practitioners TimeNorfolk are running a training course in 2022 for people interested in volunteering as a practitioner supporting the charity's clients. Read more Advent Angels set to land in Norfolk churches Churches in the Aylsham area will be visited by Advent Angels during December, created by churches and schools in the district. Read more Norwich Community Gospel Choir brings comfort and joy The Norwich Community Gospel Choir is fully up and running again, and welcoming new singers. Read more Crowdfunding appeal to fix Wiveton Church St Mary's, Wiveton has launched a CrowdFunding appeal for urgent roof repairs following storm damage two years ago, and Emma Bridgewater is supporting the campaign. Read more Help us to stage the Norwich Passion Play Would you like to be part of a professional Passion Play being staged on the streets of Norwich city centre next Easter and see the Gospel story performed in public? Read more Chance to meet new YMCA Norfolk CEO New YMCA Norfolk CEO, John Lee, will be the speaker at the next Transforming Norwich lunch to which local Christian leaders are invited to share lunch and to encourage and pray for one another. Read more Worshipping God in a draughty church Robert Ashton is concerned about the environmental impact of trying to heat the large number of historic, but often draughty, churches in Britain. Read more Finance and Administration Assistant needed The Catholic Diocese of East Anglia is looking to appoint a part-time Finance and Administration Assistant, based at Poringland near Norwich, to support the Diocesan Accountant in accounting for the finances of the Diocese. Read more Norwich Christian writer publishes poetry on dogs Gail Halley has captured her admiration of God in a poetry book about dogs. She explains what motivated her to do it. Read more Norwich Mothers' Union needs part-time Administrator Mothers Union Norwich Diocese requires a Part-time Administrator required to provide secretarial and administrative support for the activities of the charity, based at Diocesan House, near Norwich. Read more Christmas rhymes for Norfolk writer Matthew Pickhaver, who lives in North Norfolk, has just published two books of poetic plays on the theme of Christmas, and they are now available to buy. Read more Diocese of Norwich grows chaplaincy team for older people The Diocese of Norwich has appointed four Anna Chaplains to provide pastoral support to older people in Norfolk. Read more Mulbarton mum offers a guided approach to Advent Sarah Miller, a vicars wife from Mulbarton in south Norfolk, will be hosting a gentle evening to help you settle into Advent. Read more Church and Tenant Empowerment Worker Hope Into Action are looking for someone to join the Norwich team for 18 hours a week as an Empowerment Worker. The primary work location is Great Yarmouth but you will also need to work in Norwich. Read more Discover the benefits of giving Andrew Frere Smith describes how a generous spirit can benefit the giver as well as those who receive the gifts. Read more YMCA Norfolk celebrates double awards success Two teams from YMCA Norfolk were presented with national awards at the annual Youth Matters Awards in London on Friday evening, held at the Grand Sheraton Hotel hosted by YMCA England and Wales. Read more The Bavarian club says the Spanish midfielder tore the lateral collateral ligament and the articular capsule in his right ankle during Tuesday's 2-1 win over fourth-tier team SV Roedinghausen. To the Editor: Veterans Day is just around the corner. We will gather for a service in New Milford Nov. 11 on the south end of the Village Green. As we reflect on this special day, Id like to share the story of Army veteran Dovey Johnson Roundtree, who served from 1942-45. Dovey was born April 17, 1914, in North Carolina, graduated from Spelman College in 1938 and briefly taught in school in South Carolina before enlisting in the Army. She was recruited by Dr. Mary Bethune along with 39 other African American women to initiate the Womens Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). Dovey achieved the rank of captain and was responsible for the recruitment of African American female soldiers during World War II. After her service, Dovey was motivated to continue making a difference in the world after the war, and decided to enter Harvard Law School. After graduation, she began practicing law and became known for her criminal defense cases, civil rights and advocacy for children and families. She earned many awards and honors for her work after the service and was honored at the Women in Military Service for American Memorial in 2009. Fran Smith New Milford To Lamar Hendrix-Glass, who was laid off from Treasure Islands Hyde Park store when the grocery chain recently ceased operations, the new office lets employees know the city has our back. He took an unpaid sick day in April for strep throat, not knowing that he had accrued paid sick time under city law because his employer never posted the required notification to inform workers of their new rights. Voters in the 30th state Senate District will see two familiar names on the ballot with incumbent Republican Craig Miner facing off against Democrat David Lawson. Miner, 62, of Litchfield, just finished his first term in the state Senate, though he previously served eight terms as the state representative for the 66th District. He said hes running again so that he can continue to improve on the states fiscal problems. Lawson, 60, of New Milford, has served on the New Milford school board since 2003. He said hes running because the states priorities need to be restructured, including more of an emphasis on education. Our priorities are skewed, Lawson said. We need to take a more holistic approach. The 30th District includes New Milford, Brookfield, Kent, Canaan, Cornwall, Goshen, Litchfield, Morris, North Canaan, Salisbury, Sharon, Torrington, Warren and Winchester. Miner, who served on the appropriations committee sees consolidation and privatization as the key ways to cut state spending. He said certain state programs and efforts are duplicated and should be reviewed so that it can become more efficient. An example is how people get government assistance or state funded health care through various departments and this could be streamlined into one entry point. While this would translate to fewer employees, he said the reductions would most likely be done with attrition. He sees concession stands at state parks and registration through car dealers as ways to privatize certain government services and create revenue. Lawson said private partnerships can be created, especially in health care, but the state needs to be careful because it means less control over that service. He said they need short-term solutions like combining purchasing with various departments to save money and be more efficient, coupled with long-term solutions of expanding technical and vocational opportunities to attract people and businesses to the state to solve the budget problem. Both said they need to do things to encourage young people who grew up and went to school in Connecticut to stay. Miner said a way to keep young people in the state is to analyze the gift tax so that young people can use more of whats given to them by their parents to buy real estate or pay off their student loans. Lawson suggested forgiving the debt of students who went to a state college after they remain in Connecticut for five to seven years after graduating. He said the theory is that theyll have set roots down by that point and have been paying taxes. He said this worked with the GI Bill after World War II and boosted the economy in the 1950s and 1960s. Miner also said the state needs to work more with schools and businesses so that students are getting the training they need to be better candidates when they enter the workforce and get well-paying jobs in Connecticut. The state needs to also make it easier to locate a business in Connecticut by streamlining the process and not increase taxes once the business is here. Miner said the northwest corner is especially challenged because there isnt public transportation to ge to these jobs. He said there also isnt always housing near these jobs, whether its affordable housing to purchase or it might be too difficult to rent because theyre paying off student loans and dont have a job yet. Its hard to grow an economy and grow as a community if people dont see a future here, Miner said. Lawson agreed affordable housing is important and needed to look at existing housing, whether more needs to be built and possibly increasing the requirement of affordable units built using the state affordable housing statute, 8-30g. He suggested amenities like a bike trail throughout western Connecticut and restore passenger rail on the Housatonic Railroad will encourage ecotourism and agribusiness to come to the northwest corner. He said they also need to focus on bringing green energy jobs to the state and improving training for that in the schools. Both said the state needs to look at solar energy but needs to be careful about where to put it. A controversial project is being built on Candlewood Mountain in New Milford that would clear-cut about 60 acres of forest. Lawson said solar panels should go on landfills and roofs. Lawson said they should also look at state right of ways along highways and railroads. NEW MILFORD A developer planning to add commercial buildings and apartments along Route 7 hopes the town will allow a new zone to promote this type of development. The mixed-use development zone would encourage projects that include commercial and residential elements, including affordable housing options. Under the proposal, these zones could only go in places near public transportation, existing commercial development and connections to public sewer and water, said applicant Anthony Lucera. In New Milford, this means the projects most likely would appear on routes 7, 202 and 67, though the applicants will have to return to the zoning commission with specific parcels. Its a stepping stone away from an applicant coming in with an 8-30g application and gives the town more control, he said. The state implemented the 8-30g statute years ago to increase affordable housing in Connecticut. It allows a developer to bypass local zoning rules if a certain percentage of the units are set aside as affordable. A town can only deny the bypasss if it can prove to the courts that the health and safety concerns outweigh the need for affordable housing. Luceras zone would instead promote incentive housing. Guidelines An area for the proposed mixed-use development zone must have: Access to public transportation Access to public water and sewer Existing commercial development See More Collapse This bases the affordable rents on the areas median income instead of the states median income and would require at least 20 percent of the units be affordable rather than 30 percent. He said the numbers work out better for the developer, especially because the median income in this area tends to be higher than the state median income. He said his proposal gives town officials control they wouldnt have under 8-30g, including approving the building height, setbacks and design. Incentive is better for us and the town, Lucera said. The zone would encourage an outdoor recreation area for the housing. Lucera successfully introduced this zone in several towns, including Brookfield and Newtown. He said those towns have been able to attract affordable housing projects to reach the recommended state level, while still giving them control over the types of projects coming in. Generally, these projects have a few shops along the road and several apartment complexes with 30 units behind. The units are a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. The housing and commercial are generally in separate buildings, though residents should easily access the commercial area, he said. Though usually apartments, Lucera said the goal is to increase the diversity of housing and can include other types, such as single-family homes, condominiums and townhouses. New Milfords zoning commission has approved a few affordable housing projects under 8-30g, including one or two they said were not in ideal locations because they were on busy roads. Once 10 percent of a towns housing market is classified as affordable, that town no longer has to accept 8-30g applications. New Milford is at around 3 to 4 percent. The public hearing will remain open on the proposed zone and the applicants will come back with examples and more specific language, including set ratios of housing to businesses. Zoning officials asked if this should be applied to industrial zones, with some saying its been practice to protect those areas because theyre dwindling. Commission member Richard Saitta said what was considered a good idea a decade ago may no longer be the best practice, and affordable housing may be a more pressing need now. I wouldnt be opposed to what was industrial becoming a thriving little community with houses and stores, he said. The only public comment about proposed zone came from residents opposing the plan for Route 7. Normally a specific plan isnt discussed, but because the site plan has already been approved by the inlands and wetlands commission, it was allowed. Residents said the plan, which includes five apartment buildings and five commercial buildings, was too big for that site and would leave little to no green space. SHERMAN A veteran was recently recognized for his service during the Korean War. Thomas Alexander White, of Sherman, received the congressional certificate and the Korean Ambassador for Peace Medal, which is awarded to American veterans by the Korean government as an expression of appreciation for their service in the Korean War. Eligible veterans must have served during the Korean War from June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953. It is also available for the veterans who participated in UN peacekeeping operations until the end of 1955. Both were presented by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., before a crowd of about 20 people. Your tremendous sacrifice on behalf of the United States of America and the honor with which you have served your community and country, both and home and abroad, serve as an inspiration to your fellow veterans throughout our state, Murphy read from the congressional certificate. White joined the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1950. He attended regular meetings in Santa Barbara while he was a student at University of California, Los Angeles. He was called into active duty in fall 1951 and attended boot camp in San Diego. He was assigned to active duty as a seaman apprentice in early 1952. He served on the battleship USS Iowa, which policed the coast of Korea. He was active for 21 months, spending most of that time at sea. In 1953, the ship returned to the United States ending at the Norfolk Naval yard for repairs, where he was released to inactive duty. While on board, he was a Yeoman striker assigned to the office of the engineering division, which contains all of the blueprints and service instructions for running the ship. He also served as the ships bugler, in the morning awakening most of the ship, and then finally putting them to bed at the end of each day. Murphy also praised White for his contributions as a filmmaker. White made his only feature film Whos Crazy? in 1965, which gained popularity again recently. Your creative contributions after your service helped make the world a fuller, more vibrant place, and created a foundation for your continued storytelling as a documentary filmmaker, Murphy said. Your upstanding presence as a veteran, artist, and community leader brings tremendous pride to the State of Connecticut. The New Milford Youth Agency has announced a ski club for teens in grades seven to 12. Ski groups will travel to Mohawk Mountain beginning in December and ending in March. "This so-called trade war is just a political game between state leaders of China and the U.S. . . . If you decided to not travel to the U.S. just because you hate Trump, then you would probably also have joined a boycott against U.S. products if Hillary Clinton was president. Nationalism is not going to take us anywhere," said a 50-year-old man who applied this month for a visa to visit Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas and would provide only his surname, Zhou. "Money and curiosity is." A new study has found that babies in the womb who are exposed to medications that target neurotransmitters, including antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs, are at no more risk of developing autism than babies who are not exposed to these drugs. Image Credit: Kaya Shelest / Shutterstock However, the researchers did find that autism rates are higher among children of mothers with poorer health prior to pregnancy, suggesting that maternal health is a more important factor in a childs development than the medication she is taking. Previous studies have suggested that children born to women who take certain medications during pregnancy are at a greater risk of developing autism, but those studies only considered autism risk in association with a very small number of drugs. They also involved a tight association between the babies exposure and maternal disorder, thereby making it difficult to clearly distinguish between effects related to the medication and those related to the disorders the drugs were prescribed for. As reported in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have now systematically assessed the effects of exposing babies to a wide range of drugs in a sample of almost 100,000 infants born between 1997 and 2007 and followed up until January 2016. When we assessed the effects of prenatal exposure to medications that affect major neurotransmitter systems, we found that most of the associations are substantially modified when accounting for maternal characteristics. What this suggests is that higher estimates of autism risk among offspring of mothers who take certain medications during pregnancy are most likely not due to pharmacological effects of those drugs." Dr. Magdalena Janecka, First Author The researchers analyzed data from a large health maintenance organization and grouped medications prescribed during pregnancy based on the systems the drugs target, rather than the conditions they were prescribed for. The thinking behind this was that if certain drugs affect autism risk by disrupting neuronal development in some way, then this effect would be seen irrespective of maternal indication or of the system they were designed to target. Using the new method, Janecka and team were able to assess more than 180 drugs that were grouped into 55 categories where the drugs had similar functions but were prescribed for different disorders. After adjusting for the childrens birth year and maternal factors such as age at birth, history of psychiatric and neurological conditions and the number of diagnoses around pregnancy, the data indicated that most neurotransmitter-targeting drugs taken during pregnancy do not themselves affect the estimates of autism risk. Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine are now further exploring how maternal health could influence childrens autism risk. It is already known that dogs with their sharp noses can sniff out a host of human diseases including cancers. A new study has now shown that dogs could possibly detect and diagnose a person suffering from malaria. Clues from this technology is now helping scientists to develop an accurate diagnostic technology that can detect the dreaded parasitic infection that kills thousands each year. Malaria. Release of malaria parasites from red blood cell. Image Credit: Kateryna Kon / Shutterstock Researchers explain that in patients with epilepsy, those with early stages of cancer and those who suffer from fluctuations of blood sugar levels, there is an alteration in the smell of the urine, sweat and breath. This minute change is often detected by the sharp noses of trained dogs. Malaria is a parasitic infection caused by Plasmodium species and can be detected by blood tests. It kills thousands yearly and there are no rapid non-invasive tests at present to detect the infection that causes high fevers with chills and may cause serious complications and even death if not treated adequately. According to public health entomologist Steven Lindsay from Durham University, developing technology that harness the principles of a dogs nose to detect malaria could help develop and simple non-invasive test to detect malaria. Dr. Lindsay explains that people with malaria often produce a distinct odour in their breath. It is speculated that the mosquitoes can detect the presence of the parasites in a human and bite them to help spread the infection as they bite another healthy person. They scientists speculated that dogs too have top notch smelling systems and it is likely that they may also be able to detect these parasites in the humans thorough these distinctive smells. Can dogs detect malaria Play Professor Lindsay presented the results of his research at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene annual meeting this week at New Orleans and found that dogs (a Labrador and a Labrador-retriever cross breed) who were trained to smell out the malaria parasites from childrens worn socks were successful in sniffing out the parasite. They were correct in detecting an individual with the infection 70 percent of the time and were also correct in detecting is a person did not have the infection 90 percent of the time. Both being right about the infection or about the infection-free status are with high accuracy. Lindsay explained that the children of Gambia who participated in the study were provided with nylon socks to be worn overnight. The samples of these socks were then sent in air sealed packages to UK for identification of the smells by the trained dogs. According to the team of researchers, this is just a proof of concept stage of the study but it is a first step to find an alternative to blood tests. Each year hundreds of thousands of blood tests are conducted to detect malaria in the infected as well as non-infected individuals. According to Professor Lindsay, may be using this technique the dogs could sniff out malaria patients in large crowds as well. He added that the teams would work along with the national malaria control programs of various nations to develop safer and non-invasive alternatives to diagnosis. He said that the next step could be to develop chemical detectors that could detect malaria from odour markers. Source: https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/4692/presentation/17373 and https://www.medicaldetectiondogs.org.uk Regenerative Medicine is one of the fastest growing sectors in biomedical research replacing diseased cells, tissues or organs. A national, public-private platform has now been launched in Bern under the name "Translational and Clinical Bio-Manufacturing (TCBM)". Its goal is to share expertise in the translation of research results into clinical application to promote Regenerative Medicine as well as new cell therapy approaches in Switzerland. As a Swiss network, the TCBM Platform supports the rapid transfer of research results into clinical applications (translation). Researchers and clinicians from the seven main Swiss universities and university hospitals are working together with industrial partners to promote translation of cellular and cell-related products. Joint workshops and exchange of know-how and ressources will simplify and speed up production processes. Last but not least, training courses will support the eduction of junior researchers. Further expansion of the Bern as a medical center For Christian Leumann, Rector of the University of Bern, the TCBM Platform reflects the University of Bern's long tradition in medicine and health. "This made us an important location for teaching and research in the area of advanced medicine", Leumann says. "One of our aims is to fill the gap between fundamental research and clinical application. The TCBM Platform is helping us make this happen". Prof. Eliane J. Mueller, Head of Molecular Dermatology and Stem Cell Research at the University of Bern and at Bern University Hospital, and Dr. Steffen M. Zeisberger, Director of Quality Assurance and Cell and Tissue Biobanking at Wyss Zurich, are co-leaders of the platform. "This first shared Swiss platform for translational and medical production of biological components is an important step towards future-oriented research for regenerative therapies", Uwe E. Jocham, President of the Board of Directors of Insel Gruppe AG, says. "The fact that we, as the Bern site of research, are playing a key role with the co-management fills us with pride. Because, with the Bern University Hospital, we want to be at the forefront of stem cell research and translation." Exploiting synergies The national TCBM Platform promotes synergies in translational and clinical production of biological components on three levels: Firstly, research groups using and operating clean rooms cooperate closely in the bio-manufacturing process. Secondly, they share their expertise in good manufacturing practice, and cooperatly negociate with Swiss regulatory authorities. Thirdly, the platform promotes collaborations of research groups with the private sector or industry to facilitate joint applications at Innosuisse, the Swiss agency for innovation promotion, or the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Increasing visibility for industry and Innosuisse The TCBM Platform is affiliated with the national organisation "biotechnet Switzerland", which in turn is part of the National Thematic Network (NTN) "Swiss Biotech". NTN represents the interests of the Swiss Biotechnological industry, while biotechnet Switzerland supports biotechnological research groups in academia and conveys their expertise to industrial partners. Through affiliation with biotechnet Switzerland, the TCBM Platform becomes visible for industry and Innosuisse. The TCBM Platform is financed, among others, by membership fees of public and private partners. Its administration is supported by the University of Bern's Faculty of Medicine. "We value this initiative across Switzerland, which seamlessly incorporates into the translational efforts of the University of Bern. We are therefore committed to ensuring its success", Hans-Uwe Simon, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, reiterates. National and international vision After the successful launch of the TCBM Platform, new members will now be recruited from the public and private sector and the Advisory Board constituted by personalities from science, industry and regulatory authorities. In cooperation with sitem-insel AG, the Swiss Institute for Translational and Entrepreneurial Medicine, and the emerging Center for Precision Medicine, first workshops and joint activities in the area of cellular therapies are planned for 2019. Mark Rubin, Director of the Department for BioMedical Research (DBMR) at the University of Bern, is looking forward to the cooperation: "The TCBM Platform will significantly enhance the development of our Center for Precision Medicine in Bern. Observations made from patients can be translated to model systems for study and the development of new therapies. I am most excited to welcome the TCBM." One of the visions of the TCBM Platform is to start its own National Thematic Network (NTN) in Regenerative Medicine and Cell Therapy with partners of biotechnet Switzerland. Furthermore, the group envisages to apply for a NCCR (National Centres of Competence in Research) at the SNSF, and extend its activities to the EU and other international partners. Prof. Eliane J. Mueller, Co-Leader of the TCBM Platform: "During the launch ceremony of sitem-insel AG in Bern, Federal Councillor Schneider-Ammann praised Bern for switching from user to provider in the area of translational medicine in Switzerland. I think the industry should take heed of this upward trend." Not long ago many voters knew little about Tom MacArthur. A low-key moderate Republican congressman in a district that twice went for Barack Obama, he burnished his reputation as the guy who worked with Democrats to help rebuild in the years after Hurricane Sandy. Now, as he wages a bitter fight for re-election to a seat he won by 20 percentage points just two years ago, even some of his supporters have turned virulently against him. The reason? His new reputation as the turncoat whose legislation almost repealed the Affordable Care Act. Like many Republican candidates struggling to explain how they could support protections for preexisting conditions while also supporting changes that would gut them, MacArthur has offered vague but persistent promises to shield Americans with medical conditions. But he also wrote the Republican legislation that would have allowed states to charge those Americans higher premiums or limit what services are covered, gaining enough support for the repeal bill to clear the House last year. As such, MacArthur's candidacy has become a kind of Rorschach test for Republicans' repeated attempts to repeal and otherwise undermine the Affordable Care Act and how much candidates in swing districts will pay for those efforts. If this New Jersey district is any indication, it could be a lot. Sue Coleman, 64, split her ballot in 2016, voting for MacArthur and Hillary Clinton. "I thought he was a moderate, so I voted for him," she said. Today, she feels so angry that she arrived at a recent political event at the 45th Street Pub here wearing an unruly wig, a full beard and mustache paired with a dark suit and blood-red tie imitating one of the congressman's top aides who has become a familiar gatekeeper as she and others have personally lobbied MacArthur. The crowd laughed and cheered. Earlier that day, dozens of people, most of them women, gathered in a strip mall parking lot before scattering to knock on doors on behalf of MacArthur's Democratic challenger, Andy Kim. MacArthur "didn't listen to the people," said Nancy Keegan, 57, of Delran Township, N.J., as she stood with her sisters. Some of the volunteers couldn't help but point out that the high school across the street was where MacArthur held a nearly five-hour town hall last year that made national headlines for the irate crowd of constituents and protesters who shouted down explanations of his attempts to resuscitate the repeal effort. MacArthur has made fewer, and more limited, public appearances since then. In a sign of the race's power to help Democrats reclaim the House, members of Planned Parenthood, NARAL and Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) were on hand to energize the sweatshirt- and sneaker-clad crowd. While it has been about a year and a half since MacArthur bolstered the Republican repeal effort, the anger hasn't faded. Said Susan Harper, 64, also of Delran Township and Keegan's sister: "I don't think that's going away." MacArthur, 58, a wealthy insurance executive who has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in corporate contributions and invested millions of his own in his campaigns, is locked in "a true toss-up" this year, said David Wasserman, an editor at the Cook Political Report. Kim, 36, a former Obama administration national security official had raised $750,000 more than MacArthur had by the end of September. Trump won MacArthur's 3rd Congressional District which spans the state from the suburbs outside Philadelphia to the tourist destinations and retirement communities of the Jersey Shore by about 6 points. In spring 2017, as House Republicans bickered over how to repeal the health care reform law, MacArthur then a leader of the chamber's moderate Republican caucus brokered a deal with far-right members. It would have allowed states to circumvent some of the law's protections for people with medical conditions, if they set up high-risk insurance pools to help cover those patients. Through that compromise, known as the MacArthur Amendment, the bill passed the House without any Democratic support. It later stalled in the Senate. Less than a week later, appearing at that town hall in his district's Democratic stronghold, MacArthur spoke of losing his 11-year-old daughter, Grace, to a rare neurological condition, a painful story he had rarely discussed in public. The death of MacArthur's daughter "is the very reason his constituents do not understand his actions," said Maura Collinsgru, the health care program director at New Jersey Citizen Action, a liberal watchdog group. "How could you, having had that experience, justify your votes?" Democrats across the country have been hitting their Republican opponents hard on the issue in light of the repeal effort and a legal effort by many Republican state attorneys general to end protections for preexisting conditions. Republicans are fighting back with promises but few plans to match. During a recent forum on a local TV station, MacArthur said: "I fought to protect preexisting conditions, and I've always supported that." The MacArthur campaign did not respond to multiple requests for an interview. Kim, who has never held elected office, started considering whether to run when MacArthur's compromise was released, he said. But he was convinced after doctors warned him and his wife that their unborn son was dangerously underweight. "I told my wife that if we could get through this, and if our baby is born and he is stable, I want to do what I can to hold my representative accountable for what he did," he said. Today, Kim said, his son is doing fine. Kim has framed himself as the anti-MacArthur, vowing to hold in-person town halls once a month and reject corporate contributions. Further complicating MacArthur's re-election prospects is his vote for the Republican tax bill, which the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center said would be most damaging for New Jersey, where it estimated 10.2 percent of households would see their federal taxes increase this year. He was the only New Jersey lawmaker to support it. Mike DuHaime, a strategist who advised former Republican Gov. Chris Christie on his 2009 campaign, said Kim is benefiting from the "historical and partisan headwinds" facing Republican incumbents in blue states like New Jersey. "Anyone who thinks Tom MacArthur doesn't care about those with preexisting conditions is grossly mistaken and completely unaware of the type of person he is," he wrote in an email. "He was trying to forge progress, and when you do that, you will be criticized." But in a time of such intense political loyalties, it is unclear whether MacArthur's role in trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act would be damaging enough to oust him. "It seems to me in this election people have chosen their tribal corners and issues have less potency overall," said Tom Moran, the editorial page editor and political columnist at the state's largest newspaper, the Star-Ledger. "But if there is one issue that penetrates," he added, "it's health care." Currently, with a pre-malignant breast cancer diagnosis from a biopsy, there are three options: observation, chemoprevention or surgery, all of which require a patient to make decisions while operating from a place of fear and unknown outcomes. Some patients, for example, with early breast cancer indications, might choose to have mastectomies, rather than live in uncertainty, when the disease state may not have progressed. That is why researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) are investigating a molecular diagnostic test to determine whether, after biopsy, someone is at high or low risk for actually developing malignant breast cancer. "The test aids in the decision whether to treat aggressively or wait," says cancer researcher and principal investigator Georg Weber, MD, PhD, a professor at UC's James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy. The study, "Osteopontin and Premalignant Breast Lesions," appears in the Oct. 24, 2018 issue of the British Journal of Cancer. In the study, Weber, co-author Elyse Lower, MD, professor of medicine at the UC College of Medicine, director of the UC Cancer Institute's Breast Cancer Center and UC Health oncologist, and colleagues at Wroclaw Medical University in Poland, analyzed variants of the biomarker Osteopontin (OPN) in 434 women with premalignant breast lesions. From the sample, they determined that the presence of Osteopontin variants can very reliably assess the risk group a patient belongs to, thus aiding in the decision on how to proceed. "The value lies in being able to examine invasive potential," says Weber, adding that prognostic biomarkers inform on the probable disease course while predictive biomarkers provide upfront information regarding how likely a patient is to benefit from a specific treatment, and hence may guide the choice of available therapies. Weber attended medical school in Wurzburg, Germany. He worked at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School from 1990 through 2000. He has published over 100 scientific reports, including many in the most respected professional journals, plus various monographs, including textbooks on molecular oncology and anti-cancer drugs. He holds eight patents and has additional applications pending. His research has made key contributions to understanding the molecular mechanisms of metastasis. A new study takes a close look at the content and potential implications of the new Texas law HB 810, which aims to expand assess of experimental stem cell interventions outside the realm of clinical trials under FDA oversight. HB 810 represents a new level of deregulation after the Right To Try laws and presents concerns including ambiguity over what constitutes a chronic illness, reporting requirements, and safety concerns, as described in an article in Stem Cells and Development, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. In the article entitled "Texas H.B. 810: Increased Access to Stem Cell Interventions or an Increase in Unproven Treatments?" coauthors Bhavana Kunisetty and Kirstin Matthews, PhD, Rice University, Houston, TX describe HB 810 as the first step toward an expansion of the Right to Try laws. Those laws, in response to the FDA's prolonged approval process, allow terminally ill to request access to experimental drugs without FDA approval. HB 810 gives access to investigational stem cell treatments to patients with certain severe chronic diseases or terminal illnesses. "This important article reaffirms our continuing commitment as a journal to discuss issues germane to the responsible advancement of regenerative medicine," says Editor-in-Chief Graham C. Parker, PhD, The Carman and Ann Adams Department of Pediatrics, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI. Images Sorry, there are no recent results for popular images. New England Confectionery Co. (Necco), the Massachusetts-based candy manufacturer behind a slew of iconic brands dating to the 19th century, shut down after filing for bankruptcy. The good news for patient fans is that Clark Bars and Mary Janes, as well as the popular Sweethearts, will return over the next two years under different companies. But how America's oldest candy manufacturer reached this end shows again the difficulty of sustaining a popular consumer brand. Saint Anthony has also worked to prove the quality of its offerings. It earned two out of five stars from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in that agencys most recent ratings. And the hospital sued The Leapfrog Group in Cook County Circuit Court over its C rating last year, saying the grade was wrong and based on incorrect data. That lawsuit was dismissed earlier this year. The Chicago-based developer said it completed the purchase of the Stanley Manne Childrens Research Institute, at 2430 N. Halsted St., after a competitive bidding process. It will lease the 119,415-square-foot facility back to Lurie until the hospitals research operations are consolidated in the Gold Coast neighborhood next summer. Inside the best The Flash story of all time with Mark Waid, Greg Larocque, and Brian Augustyn Looking back at the greatest Flash story of all time Sorry! This content is not available in your region The Harvard-educated Eisendrath served as alderman for Chicago's affluent 43rd Ward, which includes parts of Lincoln Park, Old Town and the Gold Coast, from 1987 to 1993, when he resigned to become regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The deadline was included in a letter this week outlining bid requirements. All offers must include purchase price and sources of financing, among other specifics, sources said. Tribune Publishing reserved the right to evaluate terms and conditions, and to accept or reject any bids for board consideration, according to sources familiar with the letter. New Delhi: India has emerged as one of the top reformers and it could improve its ranking further in the years to come, but entering the top 50 ranking could be tough, World Bank officials said . "India is one of our top reformers, one of our top 10 performers. It was also on the top 10 list last year.. two years in a row, which is sometimes very difficult to do," Shanta Devarajan, the World Bank's Senior Director for Development Economics and Acting Chief Economist, told PTI in an interview. The World Bank, however, cautioned that entering the top 50 bracket - the goal set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014 - is tough as the next set of reforms is difficult though it is not possible. The World Bank in its latest Doing Business 2019 report said that India has improved its ranking in ease of doing business from 131 two years ago and 100 last year to 77 this year. Achieving a ranking of 77 from 131 in two years is a "considerable improvement" for India, but entering the top 50 ranking is very difficult, said Rita Ramalho, Senior Manager of the World Bank's Global Indicators Group. "Actually, it is much harder, the closer you get to number one ranking. The better the rank, the harder it is to improve... I was actually somewhat surprised of how the big the improvement this year it has been for India. So, you never know, India may be able to get it and get big enough improvement to reach the 50 ranking," Ramalho said. According to the latest World Bank report, there are some areas where India is lagging far behind the global rankings, the officials pointed out. For instance, India is placed at 137th when it comes to starting a business. India takes 1,445 days on an average to resolve a commercial dispute. In high income economies, it is 582 days. "This is something that has not changed. Probably one of the more challenging reforms in India is to get the judiciary on board to improve that part," Ramalho said. (With PTI inputs) For all the Latest Business News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: As Air Deccan and Air Odisha grapple with turbulent times, their new owner and Sharjah-based NRI Zahid Hussein plans to invest $10 million initially as well as restructure the two airlines. Currently, the two scheduled commuter airlineswhich began services on 30 routes under the regional connectivity schemehave suspended operations temporarily due to technical reasons, according to an official. Hussein, who is a Director of Sharjah-based Ghalia Petrol LLC, said immediate fund infusion is required for the two airlines. We are a majority stakeholder in GSec Monarch Private Ltd, which owns Air Deccan and Air Odisha... The investment is through family-owned enterprises. An Indian company (is) investing into it, he told PTI in an interview. Also Read | India among World Bank's top reformers Both the airlines are scheduled commuter airlines under the governments Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS). In the first round of RCS bidding, Air Deccan and Air Odisha bagged 34 and 50 routes, respectively. In the first phase, we are looking at an investment of around $10 million to clean up the slate and restart operations... We need fund infusion on an immediate basis, Hussein said. At current exchange rates, $10 million would be around Rs 74 crore. This investment would be made over a period of around 90 days, probably by mid-January or February. In the short term, we are looking at restarting operations as soon as possible. We ourselves want the airlines to fly with a clear vision. We want to give a better experience, he said. Read More | Prince Harry loses to wife Meghan in a game of Gumboot Toss in New Zealand Noting that both the airlines have their own set of liabilities, he said there would be restructuring and then reach a stable level before expanding their current aircraft fleet of 19-seater Beechcraft 1900 Ds. Air Odisha has one aircraft and Air Deccan has three aircraft. All are on lease. About future expansion plans for the airlines, Hussein said inducting ATR aircraft could be looked at in the second quarter of 2019. We are looking at expansion in the second quarter (April-June 2019). For all the Latest Business News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Tata Teleservices (TTL) has offered to sell half of its stake and IDFC its entire stake in mobile tower company ATC TIPL to majority shareholder American Tower Corporation (ATC) for Rs 2,940 crore. TTL has also offered to pay $320 million or about Rs 2,360 crore to ATC Telecom Infrastructure Pvt Ltd (ATC TIPL) for termination of lease obligations following closure of its mobile services business and it affiliates, according to a regulatory filing by ATC. Tata Teleservices delivered to the Company notice of exercise of their put options under the shareholders agreement with respect to 50 per cent of their combined holdings with Tata Sons of ATC TIPL, the filing said. Also Read | Namrata Shirodkar met Sonali Bendre in New York and she has a good news to share! TTL will have option to sell another 50 per cent stake in ATC TIPL in the beginning of next fiscal year. Additionally, IDFC delivered notice to ATC of exercise of its put option under the shareholders agreement with respect of 100 per cent of its holdings of ATC TIPL. The Company expects to complete the redemption of the put shares, subject to regulatory approval, for total consideration of Rs 29.4 billion (approximately $400.0 million) in the first quarter of 2019, the filing said. In October 2015, ATC bought 51 per cent stake in Viom from Tata Teleservices Ltd and SREI Infrastructure Finance for Rs 7,635 crore. After acquiring majority stake, ATC named the firm as ATC Telecom Infrastructure Private Limited. Read More | 1987 Hashimpura Massacre Case: Delhi HC sentences 16 policemen to life imprisonment ATC TIPL is the second largest private telecom tower firm in India with a portfolio of around 78,000 mobile towers. Tata Teleservices stake in Viom Networks came down to 26 per cent after ATC acquired majority stake in the company and merged its existing Indian business. ATC later merged its wholly-owned subsidiary with ATC TIPL which increased its shareholding in the tower firm to 63 per cent. The rest of the stake in ATC TIPL is held by Tata Sons, Tata Teleservices, IDFC Private Equity Fund III, Macquarie SBI Infrastructure Investments Pte Limited and SBI Macquarie Infrastructure Trust. TTL was also one of the tenants of ATC TIPL for mobile services. With closure of the mobile services, TTL has agreed to pay one-time settlement charges to ATC TIPL. As part of the arrangement, the company will receive an upfront one-time INR-denominated cash payment equal to approximately $320 million for the termination of lease obligations with Tata Teleservices in India, the filing said. For all the Latest Business News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to provide the pricing and strategic details of the Rafale deal between India and France in a sealed cover to the court within 10 days and set the next date for hearing on November 14. "We would like the details of pricing and cost to be submitted to the Supreme Court in a sealed cover. This may be submitted in the next 10 days," said a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi. Read More | Shikhar Dhawan heading back to Delhi Daredevils in IPL 2019? Attorney General KK Venugopal objected to the courts demand and said that the pricing of the jet is something not privy even to Parliament. The top court then asked the Centre to file an affidavit mentioning that the pricing of Rafale jet is exclusive and can't be shared with the court. The chief justice-headed bench, however, made it clear that it didn't want technical details pertaining to Rafale deal. The court was hearing petitions, including those filed by former Union Ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, into the deal for Rafale jets between India and France. "Such details that may be considered strategic may not be furnished to the petitioners," said the court, asking for documents in the public domain to be made available to the petitioners. Seeking registration of an FIR into the Rafale fighter jet deal, the former Union ministers along with lawyer Prashant Bhushan on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court on October 25. Also Read | Priyanka Chopras Bridal Shower jewellery cost will make your jaw drop! The trio had sought a direction to the CBI to investigate the offences mentioned in their complaint in a "time-bound" manner and submit periodic status reports to the Supreme Court. They had filed their complaint with the CBI on October 4 after Shourie and Bhushan met CBI director Alok Verma. The petition came on a day when Verma and CBI's Special Director Rakesh Asthana were stripped of their powers and sent on leave in a dramatic overnight action by the government after their worsening feud sparked a serious crisis in the country's premier probe agency. According to reports, the government was not happy with Verma for meeting Shourie and Bhushan. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sentenced 16 policemen to life imprisonment for killing 42 people of a minority community in the 1987 Hashimpura massacre case setting aside the trial court's verdict which had acquitted the accused. On March 21, 2015, a trial court here had given the benefit of doubt and acquitted 16 former Provincial Armed Constabulary personnel accused of killing 42 people, saying lack of evidence has failed to establish their identification. ALSO READ | Top five smartphones launched in October A bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel termed the massacre "targeted killing" of unarmed and defenceless people by the police. The high court convicted 16 former Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel for murder and of kidnapping, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence under the Indian Penal Code. The high court's verdict came on pleas challenging a trial court's decision to acquit 16 policemen of charges of murder and other crimes in the case. It is alleged that 19 personnel of the Provincial Armed Constabulary rounded up 42 Muslim youths from the Hashimpura locality of the city, took them to the outskirts of the city, shot them in cold blood and dumped their bodies in a nearby irrigation canal. A few days later, the dead bodies were found floating in the canal and a case of murder was registered. ALSO READ | Statue of Unity represents New India, sacrifices of the tribal community, says PM Modi Chronology of events relating to the case: May 22, 1987: 50 Muslims picked up allegedly by Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel from Hashimpura village in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. May 1987: Victims shot and 42 persons declared dead. 1996: Charge sheet filed against 19 accused,161 people listed as witnesses. September 2002: Case transferred to Delhi by the Supreme Court. July 2006: Delhi court frames charges of murder, attempt to murder, tampering with evidence and conspiracy under the IPC against 17 accused. January 22, 2015: Court reserves judgement for February 21. February 21, 2015: Court defers verdict as it was not ready. March 21, 2015: Court acquits 16 surviving accused giving them benefit of doubt. October 31, 2018: Delhi High Court sentences 16 cops to life imprisonment. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the Statue of Unity, a 182-metre high giant structure built in honour of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his 143rd birth anniversary, near the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarats Narmada district on . Touted as the world's tallest, the statue is twice the height of Statue of Liberty and is built on an islet, Sadhu Bet. As Modi unveiled the statue, three IAF planes flew past and created the tricolour in the sky by emitting saffron, white and green colours. Addressing the event, Modi said that the unveiling of the Statue of Unity was a historic moment for all Indians and it represents the sacrifices of the tribal community. Here are the LIVE updates: 12:17 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Kevadiya: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates Wall of Unity on 143rd anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Kevadiya: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates Wall of Unity on 143rd anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. #Gujarat pic.twitter.com/yW1hA95uqz ANI (@ANI) October 31, 2018 11:24 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Sardar Patel's statue will remind those who question India's existence that this nation was, is and will remain eternal: PM Modi 11:23 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Sardar Patel's statue will remind world about courage of man who thwarted attempts to disintegrate India: PM Modi 11:22 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In I am amazed when some people of our own country dare to see this initiative from a political view & criticise us like we have committed a huge crime. Is remembering country's great personalities a crime?: PM Modi. 11:22 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In The statue is a symbol of our engineering and tech capabilities. The statue is a mainfestation of Sardar Patel's love, talent and spirituality. The statue is also an expression of a New India, New Confidence. It is a symbol of Unity, Integrity. 11:11 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Prime Minister Narendra Modi says, "if it was not for Sardar Sahab's resolve, then we Indians would have to take visa to see the Gir lions, pray at Somnath, or to see Hyderabad's Charminar". 11:10 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Sardar Sahab ke avahan par desh ke saikdon rajwadaon ne tyag ki misaal qayam ki thi. Hume is tyag ko bhi nahi bhoolna chahiye: PM Narendra Modi 11:07 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Tamil Nadu Ministers Kadambur Raju and Ma Foi K. Pandiarajan at the inauguration ceremony of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's #StatueOfUnity in Gujarat's Kevadiya Tamil Nadu Ministers Kadambur Raju and Ma Foi K. Pandiarajan at the inauguration ceremony of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's #StatueOfUnity in Gujarat's Kevadiya pic.twitter.com/mjanuLuP90 ANI (@ANI) October 31, 2018 11:00 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In The world's tallest statue will remind the whole world and our future generations of the courage, strength and determination of Sardar Patel, says PM Modi 10:53 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In This is a project that we had thought about during the time when I was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. To build the #StatueOfUnity, lakhs of farmers from all over India came together, gave their tools, portions of soil and thus, a mass movement started: PM Modi This is a project that we had thought about during the time when I was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. To build the #StatueOfUnity, lakhs of farmers from all over India came together, gave their tools, portions of soil and thus, a mass movement started: PM Modi pic.twitter.com/ekJ3q7gDnC ANI (@ANI) October 31, 2018 10:48 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Events like today are very very important in a country's history and such events are difficult to erase. It is a historic and inspiring occasion for all Indians. I am fortunate to dedicate this statue of Sardar Sahab to the nation: PM Modi at the inauguration of #StatueOfUnity Events like today are very very important in a country's history and such events are difficult to erase. It is a historic and inspiring occasion for all Indians. I am fortunate to dedicate this statue of Sardar Sahab to the nation: PM Modi at the inauguration of #StatueOfUnity pic.twitter.com/fa4b7bmA10 ANI (@ANI) October 31, 2018 10:45 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Today the entire country is celebrating #RashtriyaEktaDiwas honoring Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel : PM Modi 10:18 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Gujarat: BJP President Amit Shah, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani & Deputy CM Nitin Patel, and Madhya Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel at inauguration. Gujarat: BJP President Amit Shah, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani & Deputy CM Nitin Patel, and Madhya Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel at inauguration of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's #StatueOfUnity pic.twitter.com/VYkQSQGIRD ANI (@ANI) October 31, 2018 08:36 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In The word ' Sardar Patel ' connotes 'unified India' having Social & National Integration. Tributes on his Birth Anniversary: Vijay Rupani 08:27 (IST) Facebook Twitter Whats app Linked In Prime Minister Modi, who reached Gujarat on Tuesday, remembered the Iron Man of India on his birthday anniversary. We bow to the great Sardar Patel, the stalwart who unified India and served the nation tirelessly, on his Jayanti, tweets PM Narendra Modi (File pic) pic.twitter.com/5hbf1KFujA ANI (@ANI) October 31, 2018 For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday sent a legal notice to Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad via his lawyers for calling him aaccused in a murder casea. Prasad, on October 29 had said, aShashi Tharoor who is accused in a murder case has attempted to disrespect Lord Shivaa in a press conference. "My legal notice to @rsprasad about his false, malicious & defamatory statements against me, which he has still not retracted. When Indiaas Law Minister falsely invents a murder case against a political opponent, what hope for justice & democracy?," Tharoor said in a tweet. My legal notice to @rsprasad about his false, malicious & defamatory statements against me, which he has still not retracted. When Indiaas Law Minister falsely invents a murder case against a political opponent, what hope for justice & democracy? https://t.co/yB3CDWvcrG a Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) October 31, 2018 "On October 28, 2018 at around 5.38am you had posted a 2 minutes 16 seconds video clip of your press conference along with certain false untrue malicious and highly defamatory statements in Twitter," reads the legal notice sent by Tharooras lawyers to Ravi Shankar Prasad. The legal notice clearly states that in the ongoing case against Shashi Tharoor in connection to the death of Sunanda Pushkar, the prosecution against him is not of murder and the court is yet to hand out any charges against him. Tharoor has sought an apology from Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad within 48 hours for his remarks which Tharoor called defamatory and false. "Even the police chargesheet against Shashi Tharoor does not contain any allegations of murder," it said, adding, "your purposeful comment that Shashi Tharoor is charge sheeted in a serious allegation of murder, seems to have same oblique motives behind it as the said comments have come from a person who is none other than the Union minister of law and justice." "At any rate the intention and purpose behind the false and baseless imputations against Shashi Tharoor is clearly to harm, tarnish and malign his reputation and to destroy his impeccable image that he enjoys among the public," the notice reads. The legal notice accused the union minister of committing the offence of defamation and asked him to give a written apology in 48 hours while deleting the video. Here is the legal notice sent by Shashi Tharoor to Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad: Here is the video and tweet for which the legal notice has been sent to Ravi Shankar Prasad: Shashi Tharoor who is accused in a murder case has attempted to disrespect Lord Shiva. I seek a reply from Rahul Gandhi who claims himself to be a Bhakt of Lord Shiva on this horrific denunciation of Hindu gods by a Congress MP. Rahul Gandhi must apologize to all Hindus. pic.twitter.com/QeShJoCHDZ a Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) October 28, 2018 For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. TEHRAN, IRAN President Hassan Rouhani warned Iranians on Wednesday they may face more difficulties in the months ahead, after the United States imposes new sanctions on the country next week, Iran's state TV reported Wednesday. "The situation was hard for people in the recent months, and it may be hard in the next several months too," said Rouhani, speaking during a televised Cabinet meeting. "The government will utilize its entire capabilities to alleviate the problems." The U.S. has been re-imposing sanctions on Iran since President Donald Trump withdrew America from the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers in May. On Monday, the U.S. is imposing sanctions on Iran's oil and gas industry. According to Rouhani, Washington is trying to make Iranians angry at their government. "People are in fact angry, but ... they are mad at America and its crimes not at their government and its ruling system," he said. Iran is already in the grip of an economic crisis, and has seen sporadic protests in recent months though Iranian officials have generally tried to downplay the sanctions and their effects. The government, meanwhile, has been trying to find ways to get around the new U.S. sanctions and expand financial ties with other countries, aiming mainly for the European Union , China and India. One such attempt is a development from Sunday, when Iran began offering 1 million barrels of oil for sale through its stock exchange for a period of one week in theory, giving oil dealers, including those from foreign countries, a chance to get their hands on Iranian crude. Previously, Iran has exported its crude to refineries only. Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said 280,000 barrels were sold on the IRENEX exchange so far and 720,000 barrels will be provided later. It's unclear how the stock market offering will affect Iranian sales as it's far below the 1.85 million barrels a day that Iran has sold in October, according to the semi-official ISNA news agency. Trump pledged last week to do whatever it takes to pressure Iran to halt what he refers to as its "malign conduct" such as nuclear and missile development and support for terror and militant groups that destabilize the Mideast. Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke gave the appearance of honest broker in holding the line against the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes in their effort to build a new casino in East Windsor. But Zinke may have had some ulterior motives in withholding approval of Connecticuts deal with the tribes to build a competitor to MGMs casino in nearby Springfield, Mass. According to the Washington Post, the Interior Departments inspector general is looking into whether lobbying by MGM and the two senators from its home state, Nevada, may have improperly influenced Zinke. The rangy former Navy SEAL, who represented Montana in the House before President Donald Trump appointed him, already was in hot water over exorbitant travel expenses. A prospective land deal in Montana is also said to be under scrutiny. Casual and inveterate gamblers in Connecticut already are familiar with the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, and the Foxwood resort and casino in Mashantucket. An added twist is MGMs interest in building a casino in Steelepoint Harbor in Bridgeport, which would be the first non-tribal gambling venue in the state. A federal judge in late September ruled Zinke is under no obligation to accept revisions to the states agreements with the tribes, which were necessary to build the new casino in East Windsor. It remains to be seen whether Zinkes deepening ethics problems, some of which reportedly have been referred to the Department of Justice, will affect who gets to build a casino in Connecticut and where. Cost claims questioned Connecticut is one of the highest-cost states in the nation and taxes state and local are astronomical as well. Right? Thats common wisdom, and a recent Sacred Heart University/Hearst poll showed these topics to be the top ones on voters minds with Election Day less than a week away. Now comes Douglas Sutherland, head of the Fairfield County branch of Howard Deans Democracy for America, to say it aint necessarily so. Sutherland, a Trumbull resident, called the twin claims a myth perpetrated by CT businesses and the state GOP. He cites a study by Bill Cibes, a longtime state-expenditure scrutinizer, that concludes estimates of Connecticuts tax burden exclude the states low use of fees and charges for airports, state parks, highways, hospitals, sewers and the like. Also, tax-burden estimates generally include wrongly taxes levied by other jurisdictions, with New York City and state taxes on commuters as Exhibit A. And business taxes? The conservative-leaning Tax Foundation ranks Connecticut at 47 on its business tax climate index. (47 is not good, in case theres confusion.) But a report from Ernst and Young said that in terms of the Total Effective Business Tax Rate the ratio of state-local taxes to Connecticuts in-state GDP Connecticut ranks at the top. Connecticut is home to several high-output industries, such as insurance, financial services and aerospace, which generate a large amount of GSP (gross state product) for the state, the report said. Business taxes per dollar of GSP are significantly below the national average for this reason. What does this mean for the average resident of Connecticut? We need to stop tilting at windmills and face up to reality, said Sutherland. We can't cut our way to prosperity. Well, at a minimum, its something to think about when youre paying your taxes or gasping at your grocery-store receipt. dan@hearstdc.com A $26-million project that rehabilitated the southbound span of the Gold Star Memorial Bridge is coming to an end. Two spans of the bridge carry I-95 and Route 1 traffic over the Thames River between New London and Groton. The middle of the bridge is 155-feet above the river. Gold Star is Connecticuts largest bridge with more than a million square feet of deck surface spread over 11 vehicle traffic lanes and a pedestrian sidewalk. The two bridges carry about 117,000 vehicles a day. The bridge accommodates a large amount of local traffic generated from several major industrial, academic, and government facilities in the area, including, General Dynamics/Electric Boat, the Millstone nuclear plant, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Connecticut College, and naval submarine base. Work on the southbound bridge that began in 2017 often caused traffic delays and road closures. It also forced the closure of a popular pedestrian and bicycle path across the bridge. Work on the 45-year-old bridge included deck repairs, replacement of expansion joints, structural steel repairs, bolt and bearing replacements, paint removal, concrete repairs, crack sealing, new pavement and signs. The work by Mohawk Northeast of Plantsville, is scheduled to end Nov. 30. The state Department of Transportation said the start of final work which will require daytime and nighttime temporary lane closures to remove concrete barriers, install permanent pavement markings and install overhead signs on the newly installed sign supports on the bridge. The pedestrian sidewalk will also be re-opened to public access on Friday. Traffic patterns will be well-signed utilizing construction signs, traffic drums, several message boards, and other traffic safety devices, DOT said in a release. Motorists are advised that there will be a heavy State Police presence to facilitate the work activity. Motorists are advised to use caution when driving through the work zone. Additionally, minor work may continue along the pedestrian sidewalk, but no additional closures are expected. While many motorists will be pleased the southbound work is finishing, future delays at the bridge are likely. Thats because similar work on the bridge that carries northbound traffic will begin later this year. That work will be completed in two phases. The first phase will focus on the strengthening and rehabilitation of the existing structural steel. The second will include the replacement of the bridge deck. The first phase should minimally affect traffic. The second phase will immediately follow the first phase and will present a significant challenge in terms of staging the work while maintaining traffic. How long will this work last? The combined phases are expected to take approximately five years to complete, according to the projects web site. In the end, the service life of the iconic Gold Star Bridges will be extended for decades. Open up and say "Ah." In its literal meaning, that's an aperitif something sipped before a meal (from the Latin, aperire, "to unlock or open") in order to stimulate the appetite. Aperitifs are common overseas; less so hereabouts. But a look at American bar menus or facings on retail shelves reveals that they're a growing fancy. If anything, they're a happy step up as a dinner prep from "a glass of chardonnay, please" for a few years now, the customary American aperitif. Advertisement Most, though not all, aperitifs are wine-based (some simply are wines) and range from sweet to bitter, flavored to unadorned. Their variety is impressive, but they all do the same thing: prime the palate. Sweet ones Advertisement All we need to learn about the aperitif, the French teach us. They purchase a third of the entire annual production of Portuguese sweet port (as young tawnies) and serve most of it chilled, as an aperitif. The people in charge of (what they consider to be) the greatest of the globe's cuisines know that something sweet, served before their grand food, sets the mouth to salivating and the stomach to gearing up its gastric juices. The aim isn't at the port; it's at the dining room. The French also serve other sweetish wines as aperitifs, such as the little-known but terrifically delicious pineau des Charentes, Sauternes from Bordeaux (especially with a wee nugget of foie gras) and the mildly fortified wines called vins doux naturels. The Portuguese themselves often open a meal with their off-dry white port mixed with tonic water (the "portonic," with a twist of lemon). We've got a slew of slightly sweet wines that we may use in similar fashion, from the wildly popular California wine called Conundrum to, well, that glass of chardonnay. Many everyday American or Australian chardonnays are not 100 percent dry, rendering them rather perfect aperitifs. Wines As an aperitif, sparkling wine is ideal as is German or Austrian riesling or Spanish sherry. Off-dry versions of each seem to be as effective a stimulant as dryish sorts. Wine-based Advertisement This category of aperitif is engorged with prospects. At its origins in the 16th century, vermouth, the herb-infused fortified wine, was a medicinal, meant to stimulate the appetite of the ill. Today, in its many stripes of color and intensity, vermouth is more than a flavoring agent for mixed cocktails. I recently discovered the deliciosity of Martini & Rossi's Rosato vermouth not red, not white, but dark pink and have for it the same affliction I suffer this time of year for rose wine over any other. Two famous wine-based and herbed aperitifs are Dubonnet (red and white) and Lillet (also red and white), often served on the rocks or in mixed drinks. In "Casino Royale," Ian Fleming had James Bond substitute Lillet blanc for white vermouth in his martini. Lillet's roots are in Bordeaux red and white wine; Dubonnet is born in the USA. Other wine-based aperitifs, little known inside the U.S. but legends in their place of birth, now find foothold here. Such are Bonal Gentiane Quina, made since 1865 in France, and Cocchi Americano, the original "americano" aperitif (since 1891), made of white moscato wine from Piedmont infused with herbs and spices. Both sell for around $20 a bottle. Bitters or 'amari' Although wine or wine-based aperitifs remain popular, a lot of current action in U.S. aperitif land is in drinks that contain only a little (or sometimes no) wine, especially in what are called "bitters" for the astringency of their herbal infusions. Most are mixed with still or sparkling waters of some sort or form a portion of well-known cocktails such as the negroni. Campari is the most famed and a useful basis for thinking of its sibs: Punt e Mes (think a blend of red vermouth and Campari, one part sweet and a half part bitter) and Aperol (a sweeter, lower-alcohol Campari). Advertisement Recommended 1. A.E. Dor Pineau des Charentes, France ($30): One-quarter distilled spirit from the Cognac region and 75 percent unfermented grape juice, aged for five years in barrel; slightly sweet, with aromas and flavors of almonds and honey, with notes of orange peel, Earl Grey tea and vanilla; delicious chilled. 2. Martini & Rossi Rosato Vermouth Italy ($8-$12 750 ml and 1 liter): Advertisement Delish pink vermouth, with hints of raspberry, lemon peel, nutmeg and other brown spices and meadowy herbs; a terrific price in a new aperitif. 3. 2009 Conundrum, California ($20): the "kitchen sink" of off-dry West Coast whites. (The "conundrum" is to guess which grapes make up this year's blend: chardonnay? sauvignon blanc? semillon? muscat? viognier? Hey, all five!) If your wine store does not carry these wines, ask for one similar in style and price. Bill St. John has been writing and teaching about wine for more than 30 years. Many entrepreneurs and business owners believe that a company's "brand" is simply the company's name and logo. That's not true, of course: A brand is more than just its underlying company's name and logo. Yet, it's also true that that a name and business logo are key ambassadors for a brand, so it's important that both be strong. Related: Top 10 Reasons to Rebrand Your Business (Infographic) Your company's own brand is the sum total of the experiences your customers and prospects have with your company. A good brand communicates what your company does and how it does it. A good brand also establishes trust and credibility with your prospects and customers. And because a brand evolves over time, many companies, including some of the most successful ones, rebrand. You may have noticed recent rebrands by Dunkin' Donuts, Weight Watchers, Uber, Unilever and others. That's why it's worthwhile to look closely at why companies rebrand and what your own company should know to successfully rebrand your business. When should a company even consider rebranding? Here are ways you can know when the time is right. Companies should rebrand to better differentiate from the competition. If your company name is generic and similar to that of other businesses, youre hurting your brand. A generic logo will similarly hurt your brand. A related problem occurs when you use stock art in your branding or marketing materials: You may be hurting your brand because everyone recognizes stock art when they see it; and those photos may turn up being used by your competitors. This is where rebranding comes in: It can help your business stand out from your competitors' by showcasing the things that make your company different and better. Even the best companies change their brand identity. For example, did you know that Google started with the name "Backrub" or that Accenture started out as "Andersen Consulting"? It's not unusual for a company to outgrow its name and look for a fresh, unique business name that can help grow its business. Maybe it's time that your company do the same. Companies should rebrand to give new life to outdated branding. It's possible that your Comic Sans font, flash-based website or 1990s color palette is dragging your brand down and making your business look outdated. What are you going to do? The answer is "rebrand," something even the most successful businesses do, as seen from the various iterations of the Airbnb logo: Smart companies rebrand because they know that good design can make or break a business, because they know they've outgrown their original mission. Maybe your business started off selling personalized t-shirts, but now you want to add customized coffee mugs. If your branding revolves around t-shirts, customers won't know that they can look to you for mugs, too. This is a common problem,. and we always advise clients to make sure their business name is not too narrow or literal. Related: 5 Signs It's Time to Rebrand Your Company Companies should rebrand to outgrow their poor reputation. Uber's recent brand overhaul was necessary to break ties with its bad reputation and visibly demonstrate a commitment to a new, improved culture. If your business is struggling to overcome a negative reputation, a rebrand can help consumers see you in a fresh new light. Companies should rebrand when their business evolves. Sometimes, a business gets the opportunity to expand or target a new market. When that happens, it's important to ensure that your new customers and prospects can connect with your brand. That's what happened with Pabst Blue Ribbon, a low-price U.S. beer popular with fraternities and hipsters. Chinas version of PBR -- the stately sounding Pabst Blue Ribbon 1844 -- sells for $44 a bottle! This happened because Pabst saw a chance to re-market itself to the Chinese craft beer market -- a market unaware of its budget reputation in the United States. By doing its homework, Pabst expanded into a new demographic and significantly grew its business. 6 things your company needs to know to rebrand successfully 1. Start by understanding your mission and values. Before you rebrand, it's crucial that you clearly understand your company's mission and values. Consider and assess what makes your company special. Why does your company exist, and what values does it have that are essential? 2. Develop a rebranding strategy that works with your existing branding. Many companies don't have the luxury of starting from a clean slate. If you're doing a partial rebrand, make sure to take the existing brand assets into account. BrandExtract, a branding firm with over a century of experience, explained why consistent branding is important, saying: A consistent brand helps increase the overall value of your company by reinforcing your position in the marketplace, attracting better quality customers with higher retention rates and raising the perceived value of your products or services . In contrast, erratic, inconsistent behavior quickly leads to confusion and mistrust. 3. Consider the market and your competition. Before you rebrand, do your due diligence. Research what your competition does. Determine how you stand apart from your competitors, and what your true value proposition is. It's vital that your new brand be fresh and relevant, but not so of-the-moment that it ends up looking dated too quickly. 4. Collaborate with your team. Your brand may be one of your most important company assets, but just as valuable are the people that help grow your business every day. Include voices from across your company: Some of the best ideas and most valuable feedback come from departments you might not expect. 5. Manage the rebrand carefully. A rebrand is often a complex and lengthy endeavor. Without a careful plan of attack and a well-managed process, the rebrand can quickly go off the rails. Set deadlines and mitigate going down those pesky rabbit holes with a well thought-out project plan. 6. Launch your rebrand and tell the world. Even the most incredible rebrand is wasted if you never actually launch it. Make sure you plan your rebrand launch and be prepared to explain why you rebranded. Minimize the risk of customer confusion through a carefully planned launch that showcases the story behind the rebrand. Related: Dunkin' Donuts Announces Big Rebrand. 3 Things to Know Today. A rebrand is a declaration of your companys commitment to upward growth. Change is never easy, but sometimes, as the song goes, a change will do you good. Related: 4 Ways to Know When It's Time to Rebrand Your Business Why Weight Watchers' Name Change Will Fail, But Dunkin's Won't To Embrace New Scaled India, IDG Ventures India Rebrands to Chiratae Ventures Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved PITTSBURGH - For Julia Santucci, there was without question a connection between what she saw as President Donald Trump's "fearmongering" about an immigrant invasion and the deadliest attack on American Jews in the nation's history, a few miles from her home. "You're fomenting a type of hatred that others take too far," said Julia, a senior lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh, of the president and his most ardent backers. Her father, an insurance broker and lifelong Republican, believed that line of thought made little sense. Trump could often be blunt and crude, but Rocco Santucci did not believe he was racist, anti-Semitic or even anti-immigrant. In his view, Trump was no more to blame for the killings than Democratic politicians who also stoked Americans' fears. "Trump's a shrewd guy," Rocco said of the president. "He picks what sells." The debate between father and daughter this week mirrored the one that played out in bars, houses of worship, universities and at dinner tables in this city that Trump has held up as a metaphor for his kind of America. "I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris," he said a little more than a year ago when he withdrew the United States from a global accord on climate change. Trump's view of Pittsburgh as a symbol of the might of American manufacturing was largely misplaced. The last big steel mill here was abandoned in 1998. Today, the land it occupied, just across the street from a test track for driverless cars, is being redeveloped as a low-carbon-footprint technology park. But Pittsburgh and its surrounding suburbs are a reflection of something else - a country so divided that many here are asking whether the president, his raucous "build the wall" rallies and his most ardent and angry supporters bear some culpability for one of the worst tragedies in the city's history. Others bristle with anger at the suggestion. That dispute played out most publicly in the disagreement over whether Trump should come to the city and play the traditional consoling role expected of presidents in moments of tragedy. On Monday, before Trump and the first lady announced that they would come here on Tuesday, Mayor Bill Peduto, D, said the White House should consider the "will of the families" of those who died. He asked that a presidential visit not happen "while we are burying the dead." But the divide is also evident in more subtle ways. One involved Julia, who on the Monday after the shooting was thinking about her 69-year-old father. He had been the chairman of the Ross Township Republican Committee in the 1980s and had volunteered on behalf of President Ronald Reagan. Through the 1990s and the 2000s, they argued - sometimes heatedly - about politics. Lately, though, they had found it harder and harder to even discuss Trump. "My dad is a lifelong Republican but not a Trump Republican," she said, pausing. "I think." She knew with certainty that her father had voted for Reagan, both Bushes, John McCain and Mitt Romney. But in the 2016 election, for the first time in her life, she wasn't certain who he voted for. "I didn't ask," she said. Did she really want to know? "I don't know," she said. "It's hard not to take these things personally. . . . It's hard not to view a vote for Trump as a rejection of the things I value." - - - America's biggest tragedies often provoke moments of "thoughtful introspection and self-examination that we so rarely see in public life," President Barack Obama said in the wake of the killing of nine worshipers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, three years ago. The Charleston shooting provoked a discussion about race and the Confederate battle flag. In the aftermath of the attack, South Carolina lawmakers, led by then-Gov. Nikki Haley, R, voted overwhelmingly to remove the banner from the state capitol. The 2012 slaughter of 20 children and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut renewed a national debate about whether private ownership of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines should be permitted and whether mental-health-care services in the country should be bolstered. The killing of 11 worshipers from ages 54 to 97 in Pittsburgh has made some of those debates resurface. The "common denominator of every mass shooting in America" is guns, said Peduto, the mayor of this overwhelmingly Democratic city, in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. Trump countered that the answer was more guns and more armed guards in places that might be vulnerable. But this violent incident, far more than any previous attack, has opened a fresh discussion: about the role that America's toxic politics may have played in radicalizing the suspected shooter. Taylor Seybolt, an international affairs professor at the University of Pittsburgh, dedicated his class Monday to the shooting. "What is it you want or need to know?" he asked his students. Many wondered whether the suspect's anti-Semitic beliefs were inflamed by the heated political rhetoric surrounding a caravan of several thousand immigrants coming from Latin America and headed to the United States, Seybolt said. Trump has often characterized the caravan as an "invasion," and others such as Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., speculated before the killings that George Soros - the wealthy Jewish philanthropist - might be funding the caravan. Beyond the university's walls, the discussion quickly morphed into a debate over whether Trump should visit Pittsburgh. "President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you cease your assault on immigrants and refugees," a group of Jewish progressive leaders called Bend The Arc wrote in an open letter to the president. The group's online petition gathered more than 40,000 signatures. The debate also played out on local talk radio, where it was broken up by ads for host Glenn Beck's "Addicted to Outrage" tour, which was scheduled to make a stop in Pittsburgh on Saturday. "Should Trump come?" one KDKA radio host asked Monday morning. "Would he be welcome?" "I need him now," said a caller, who identified herself as a Jewish resident of Squirrel Hill, the close-knit neighborhood where the killings happened. "It's horrible that I have to go to all these people's shiva houses and hold them." On Monday, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of Tree of Life synagogue, the site of the shooting, weighed in. "Hate is not political," Myers told The Washington Post. "It is not blue or red, it's not male or female, it doesn't know any of those divisions." - - - For Julia and her father, Rocco, the debate over whether Trump should visit Pittsburgh led someplace more personal. She and her father often argued heatedly about politics, particularly after her politics shifted left in college, but they shared a common belief in the importance of a strong national defense. After graduate school at the University of Arizona, Julia joined the CIA as an analyst. She did a stint at the White House from 2012 to 2014, where she focused on Egypt policy. "In Egypt, you could see how political leaders create a culture that allowed violence to flourish," she said. As the years passed, her father made a vow not to talk about politics with his daughter on the phone, where they both grew too heated. "We love each other very much," he said. "But our differences in politics are many." One exception came the day after the election in November 2016. On the phone that day, her father said, a devastated Julia told him that Trump's election made her feel "unsafe" as a woman. To her father, her concerns seemed overstated and even foolish. "The country is not going to change because this guy is president," he recalled telling her. In August 2017, Julia and her husband returned home to Pittsburgh, where they had both grown up. She and her father couldn't avoid Trump's divisive presidency. Rocco had initially brushed off Trump's candidacy as "a joke." But he saw a lot to like in the way Trump was running the country. "He says things to stir people up, and, boy, does he ever," Rocco said. "But what's happening in the country is good. The economy has gone well. Internationally, things are going well." Julia got the news of the killings from an alert on her phone. "Horror, but not surprise" is how she described her reaction. "It's become all too common in America." Rocco's Internet was down, so he found out about the attack from the Verizon repairman. He quickly checked the news on his phone, and a short time later, he learned that one of the dead was his longtime dentist, Richard Gottfried, whose wife, Peg, sometimes attended his church. At Mass on Sunday, Rocco's priest called the attack an act of "utter horror and total cowardice." On Monday, the news on Rocco's phone was still full of reports about the killings in Pittsburgh and the immigrant caravan headed toward the southern border of the United States. The website he was reading said the convoy was growing larger, although reporters at the scene said it was actually shrinking. Rocco had helped raise money for refugee families through Catholic Charities of Pittsburgh. He didn't consider himself anti-immigrant. Nor did he think Trump's views were significantly out of step with the country. "A majority of Americans are not anti-immigrant. They are anti-illegal-immigrant," he said. But, he asked, "does anyone really believe that we should let all these people in?" The answer, he said, was to stop it "by any means necessary." Julia saw Trump's rhetoric on this issue and so many others differently. Earlier this month, the president had described the caravan as being full of criminals and "Middle Easterners" and warned that its approach was a "national emergency." To Julia, such hysteria inflamed the worst passions in Americans. And now that hysteria has spilled into a synagogue in her hometown. "Can you support a Republican candidate and not support the fearmongering aspects of the party?" she asked on Monday, two days after the shooting. "It's really hard. I personally would say no. But I can look at people like my parents. They are not hate-filled people. . . . This type of hate spewing is not who they are." Julia never asked her father about his vote in 2016, and he never volunteered it. They talked often and avoided the topic. Rocco said he believed that Hillary Clinton was "dangerous" and that Trump would be better for the country. But in the privacy of the voting booth, he said, he pulled the lever for Clinton "for Julia's sake." On Monday, after telling a Post reporter who he had voted for, Rocco called his daughter. "It surprised me, too," Julia wrote in an email after learning of his father's decision two years earlier. "Although I am not surprised he prioritized family over politics." That division healed, they both returned to the news of the day, refracted through the lens of Trump's unconventional presidency and the nation's unsettling politics. Julia blamed Trump. Rocco saw a larger problem. "There are people on both sides of the spectrum who can't behave civilly, and that filters down to people," Rocco said. "That's why Trump was elected. People are just fed up." The head of the Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday penned a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan calling for Rep. Steve King to be formally censured over his alleged anti-Semitic words and actions. The letter comes one day after Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, the head of the House Republican campaign arm, rebuked King, R-Iowa, over what he called "completely inappropriate" comments about white nationalism. In the letter to Ryan, R-Wis., Jonathan Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation League's chief executive and national director, described "an extraordinarily disturbing series of involvements and statements by Representative Steve King that are anti-Semitic and offensive not just to the Jewish community, but to all Americans." Greenblatt said King's behavior had "brought dishonor onto the House of Representatives" and called for Ryan to condemn the lawmaker's actions, formally discipline him and strip him of his position as chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution and civil justice. "By doing so, you will make clear that his actions were deeply offensive, wrong, and that the U.S. House of Representatives will not tolerate anti-Semitism or bigotry in any form," Greenblatt wrote. Ryan's office declined to comment on the letter. King has a long history of making inflammatory comments on race and immigration. But his actions have come under heightened scrutiny in the wake of Saturday's mass shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, which has intensified a national debate over the rise of anti-Semitism. Last year, King was widely criticized after he declared in a tweet that he agreed with far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders that "our civilization" cannot be restored "with somebody else's babies." In June, King prompted criticism when he retweeted a message sent by Mark Collett, a self-described "Nazi sympathizer." Then, earlier this month, King tweeted his support for Faith Goldy, who was running for Toronto mayor and has promoted the idea that there is a "white genocide" underway. And last week, it emerged that King had met in August with members of a far-right Austrian party with historical Nazi ties and declared that "Western civilization is on the decline." Greenblatt said that he had first drafted his letter to Ryan last week but that "after the events of this weekend, I knew that ADL could be silent no more." "What the moment demands is our country's leaders, from all sectors of society, to make it crystal clear that anti-Semitism and hate have no place in the United States," he said in the letter. "As the Speaker of the House, one of the most powerful elected officials in our nation, we believe you have an obligation to act and an opportunity to make a difference." With his hippie pigtails and smart suits, Steve DeAngelo perfectly embodies the split in todays cannabis industry. Hes an old-school activist and advocate who joined the cannabis reform movement in the 1970s, attending July Fourth smoke-ins in front of the White House and traveling the country to spread the word on the healing powers of weed. But hes also a canny businessman with an expert read on the marketplace, which led him to begin with a profitable hemp company and later open Harborside Health Center, the largest medical marijuana dispensary in the world, which went public on the Canadian stock market with a valuation of $150 million. His most recent venture is Arcview Group, an angel investment company focused on cannabis entrepreneurs. Here, he talks about where the industry is, where its going and what entrepreneurs can do to get in on the so-called Green Rush. Related: 7 Hottest Jobs in the Cannabis Industry Right Now Is it really true that you were born at 4:20 pm? It is. Its on my birth certificate. Keep in mind I was born in 1958, quite some time before 420 was established as a code for cannabis. I like to say that I dont know how Mom managed to pull that off, but I will be eternally grateful to her for that. Where do you see the cannabis industry going in the next three to five years? Were seeing a trend away from raw flowers, away from the smoked-format cannabis products toward socially discreet and convenient product formats -- cartridges, vape stands, little breath mints, transdermal skin patches, tinctures. Were also seeing the development of cannabis tourism. One of the big problems in Denver and Las Vegas is that the hotel chains dont want people to smoke cannabis in the rooms, and they have been imposing very serious fines. You cant smoke in the nightclubs, you cant in restaurants, on the sidewalks, in the parks. So what happens? People come from out of town and go to cannabis shops, and theyve never had cannabis before. They cant smoke anywhere, so they buy edibles and then they overconsume the edibles. And everybody has a bad experience. If youre inviting tourists into this legal state and letting them go into shops and buy weed, you need to give them someplace to consume it safely. Related: Where to Find Funding for a Cannabis Business What advice do you give people trying to enter the industry? Every weekend, somewhere in the country theres a cannabis event of some type -- conferences and conventions. The industry is still small enough that you can meet people like me when you go to these things. You can also join an organization like the National Cannabis Industry Association or one of its state subsidiaries, like the California Cannabis Industry Association. These organizations have inexpensive memberships that will entitle you to receive newsletters and go to events. Youre obviously a cannabis consumer. Do you need to use it to succeed in this business? No, but it is a requirement to understand the product, your consumers and the market. Ive seen a lot of people who were successful in other businesses approach cannabis with a kind of contemptuous attitude, using packaging thats oriented toward the typical image of the stoner. You also have the traditional business guy looking at investing. Somebody who wants their money will give them an incredibly optimistic spreadsheet saying they can invest $100,000 and make $5 million in a year. In a normal circumstance, a businessperson would drill down and ask serious questions. That doesnt happen in cannabis. People assume you can make tons of money. Its a fear of missing out. What I hear all the time is I missed out on the internet boom, and Im not going to miss out on this one. But just like every other business, eight out of 10 cannabis businesses go belly-up. Do you think cannabis will be legal in the U.S. in five years? I do. There is legislation pending in Congress called the STATES Act that will allow states to make up their own mind, and the federal government will no longer interfere. I expect that to pass in 2019 or 2020. Youll see a big move into cannabis by U.S. pharmaceuticals at that point. What does that mean for small-business owners? Eventually, cannabis will be a mature industry, and the barriers to entry will be higher. But we are not anywhere close to that happening yet. In my view, when we have larger or more mainstream companies coming in, it dials down the stigma and advances legal reform. Related: 100 Cannabis Leaders of 2018 Small cannabis businesses need to understand their strengths and weaknesses. There are things large cannabis businesses cannot do. For example, at my farm in the Salinas Valley, Im not going to plant a 56,000-square-foot greenhouse with a strain of cannabis I dont know. My loss will be too high if its not a winner. But a guy whos growing a couple thousand cannabis plants can put in 10 or 15 or 100 of something hes never grown before, and if it turns out great, hes got a winner. Then he can bring that winner to me, Ill pick it up, and there will be a beneficial system for everybody down the supply chain. Related: The Most Experienced Guy In Cannabis Has a Warning for You Are California's 'Pot Deserts' About to Get Greener? This Is the Key to Real Growth in Cannabis Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved Today, Yaszek says, about 30 percent of science fiction writers are female; in fact, for the past three years, N.K. Jemisin, a female African-American psychologist whose works often addresses class and race, has won the Hugo Award for best science-fiction novel. Whether you like science fiction or not, it is the air that we breathe today, Yaszek said. It is the way we talk about our hopes and fears for the future, and if youre not bringing in women, people of color, thats a flat vision. But whats amazing is, in the past people who didnt see themselves represented in that future dropped out and walked away from trying to become part of it, and I dont see anyone backing down today. Voters in the 109th District, which encompasses the northern part of Danbury, have a deja vu choice of the candidates who ran against each other two years ago. Democratic state Rep. David Arconti Jr. is seeking a fourth term and Republican Veansa Roeun is the challenger once again in the friendly contest. Both are in their 30s and are the products of the Danbury public school system. Roeun, whose parents fled the killing fields of Cambodia in the 1980s, likes to say he embodies the American dream. He served 10 years in the Army National Guard and is a combat veteran. He has much to offer the community. BERLIN - Denmark is leading a push for new E.U. sanctions against Iran, after its intelligence agencies blamed Tehran for a foiled plot to assassinate an Iranian dissident on Danish soil. The plot was already uncovered in September and triggered a massive police operation, in which Denmark shut down streets and bridges nationwide. Agencies revealed only this week that the operation probably had prevented what they say was a plan to kill a member of the Arab separatist movement ASMLA, which advocates for carving out an independent Arab state from Iran. A suspect of Iranian origin was arrested two weeks ago. The arrest could play into the hands of President Donald Trump, who unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal but has struggled to persuade European allies to follow suit. The killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 further complicated Trump's plans to isolate Tehran, as the Saudis are a key ally in those efforts. Despite the setbacks, U.S. sanctions on Iran are expected to have fully begun by Monday. In a darkly ironic twist, Iran has condemned the Saudi killing of dissident Khashoggi even as it has a long track record of pursuing operations against opponents living abroad itself. President Hassan Rouhani called the killing a "heinous murder" and suggested that the United States was complicit. Iran is portraying the Danish incident as an effort to harm European-Iranian relations at a time when they are under mounting pressure from the United States. Europe has continued to back the original nuclear deal and sought to uphold it without U.S. support, with Denmark being a key force behind that commitment. At the end of last year, the Danish Export Credit Agency had approved eight Iranian banks for credit lines or guarantees and vowed to resist U.S. pressure to dismantle those ties. "If snapback [sanctions] make it illegal to transfer money out of Iran, we would cover their losses. We offer banks this risk," said the agency's director, Jrn Fredsgaard Srensen. This week's revelations appear to have created a far different momentum. Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen has called the incident "totally unacceptable" and ordered his Foreign Ministry to summon the Iranian ambassador. "Further actions against Iran will be discussed in the E.U.," Rasmussen wrote on Twitter. It is unclear whether any of those sanctions would have an effect on the future of the Iran nuclear deal, and E.U. officials refrained from lashing out at Iran in public this week. "Sanctions could be done in a delicate way in which individuals are targeted rather than the country itself," said Sanam Vakil, a fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. "But this incident makes it harder for the E.U. and the E3 [Britain, France and Germany] to make their case to defend the deal. It puts them into an uncomfortable position: They will have to put out a strong message to Iran whilst at the same time trying to keep the nuclear deal alive," Vakil said. But tensions have been on the rise for a while, especially after the Iranian regime lashed out at Denmark, among other European countries, for providing safe harbor to Iranian opposition members. Tehran stepped up its criticism after more than two dozen Revolutionary Guard members were killed in an attack during a military parade last month claimed by ASMLA. In Europe, governments have grown increasingly concerned that the accusations are to justify Iranian state-led terror plots, with the aim of silencing opposition groups. European authorities already prevented a bomb attack on Iranian dissidents in Paris earlier this year and have spotted a broader uptick in Iranian surveillance operations targeting opposition figures in Europe and the United States. The pattern has reminded some European intelligence figures of the early days of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as supreme leader, when dozens of dissidents were killed across Europe in the 1980s. But curiously, Europe's response has still been far more muted than in response to other foreign terrorism plots. After the foiled Paris attack plot, French authorities seized Iranian assets and publicly blamed the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, while the regime in Tehran rejected any responsibility as "categorically false." Although some European intelligence members suspect that Europe's lack of response to prior attacks may have encouraged larger-scale operations, others caution that various factions within the Iranian regime are fighting for dominance. To them, it is unclear why Iran would have pursued an attack that almost inevitably would have disrupted a deal that has opened up Iran to foreign investment and trade in recent years. The struggle between hard-liners and more moderate reformers, they argue, is increasingly fought out on the streets of Europe. That's certainly not how the Trump administration is interpreting the recent plots, however. "For nearly 40 years, Europe has been the target of #Iran-sponsored terrorist attacks," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote on Tuesday. "We call on our allies and partners to confront the full range of Iran's threats to peace and security," he added. Boeing will collaborate with Israeli industries for at least 35 percent of the value of any transaction it signs with the Israeli government. Israel will be buying about $10 billion worth of jet fighters, helicopters and other military gear. The reciprocal procurement means $3.5 billion of the new business will be in Israel. Under a defense aid deal signed in 2016 by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then U.S. President Barack Obama, the United States agreed to provide Israel with $38 billion in military assistance over 10 years. However, one component of the deal was to phase out a special arrangement that had allowed Israel to use 26.3 percent of the U.S. aid on its own defense industry instead of on American-made weapons. All the aid will now have to be spent on U.S. equipment by 2026. China space program has several moon missions over the next few years, a three-module space station by 2022, robotic mission to Mars and more. China will help launch Pakistani astronauts in 2022. China will try to land a robot rover mission to the dark side of the moon. Change 4 mission will set up an experimental lunar base to trial growing potatoes for food. Change 4 is to be launched in December 2018. It will have an orbiter, a robotic lander and rover. It was originally planned for a 2015 launch. A Long March 3B rocket will launch it. Orbiter: 425 kg Lander: 1,200 kg Rover: 120 kg Landing mass Total: ~1,200 kg; rover: 120 kg The relay satellite has a mass of 425 kg, and it will use a 4.2-meter antenna to receive X band signals from the lander and rover, and relay them to Earth control on the S band. The proposed landing site is the crater Von Karman (180 km diameter) in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the Moon. The crater contains about 10% by weight iron oxide (FeO) and 4-5 parts per million of thorium. Thorium can replacement for uranium as nuclear fuel. Change 5 is a robotic Chinese lunar exploration mission currently under development. It is targeting a Moon landing in 2019. It was delayed from a 2017 launch. Change 5 will be Chinas first sample return mission, aiming to return at least 2 kilograms of lunar soil and rock samples back to the Earth. Change 6 is an unmanned Chinese lunar exploration mission currently speculated to be under development, which is expected to land on the Moon in 2024. Change 6 will be Chinas second sample return mission. China was making preliminary preparations for a manned lunar landing mission around 2036. China wants to use robots to build a permanent base ahead of a manned mission. By 2020, China will land a robot mission on Mars. By 2022, Chinese will have a space station that is one-fifth the mass of the International Space Station. It will be about the size of the decommissioned Russian Mir space station. The Chinese station will weigh about 80 to 100 metric tons. The Tianhe-1 core module will launch in 2020. China is working on building a space-based solar power array. China will revamp its rockets. They will develop a heavy-lift rocket and reusable rockets. An Australian study notes that Chinas army has sent 2500 scientists to foreign universities over the last ten years. * Chinas military sent 2500 scientists to study in western universities * Australia has nearly 50% foreign born scientists * The US is dependent upon foreign born scientists and engineers including those from China * China is ahead of Europe, Australia and even the USA in implementing hypersonic weapons and technology * One the key examples cited in the study was a Chinese hypersonics researcher who co-wrote five papers with an Iranian born scientist who was in Norway * Restricting chinese scientists from western universities will be delicate and tricky for the US and Australia * Russia will use $5 billion to send 100,000 Russian students to study in foreign universities. This is forty times larger than what Chinas PLA program was. Chinas overall science and research level China has also observed a remarkable increase in the number of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) graduates over the past three decades, providing the country with an abundant S&T workforce. In 2017, it was estimated that some 8 million students graduated from Chinese universities, a tenfold increase over a 20-year period, and twice the number graduating from U.S. universities. Some 313,000 students were enrolled in doctoral programs in 2014, along with 1.5 million in M.A. programs; among these, 58 percent (182,000) were science or engineering Ph.D. students, and 44 percent (666,000) were science or engineering M.A. students. China now boasts the largest number of laboratory scientists of any country, and its R&D spending outstrips that of the EU. Chinas share of global scientific papers increased from 6.4% in 2003 to 18.2% in 2013, second only to the United States (18.8%). Chinas share of scientific papers cited in the top 1 percent increased from 0.5% in 2002 to 0.8% in 2012, it remains well below that of the U.S. over the same time period (1.76% in 2002 and 1.94% in 2012). China as reached about half of the US level of top 1 percent of research papers. The 2500 PLA researchers sent overseas is probably about 1% of the total numbers in China. Australias study on PLA scientists in Western Universities 2,500 Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) scientists have been placed in Western universities since 2008 to engage in research with international partners in these universities. Chinese military sent about 300 military scientists to Australiafewer than the 500 who have been sent to each of the U.S. and UK, and around the same number as were sent to Canada over the period. Research areas Chinese military scientists have been involved in in Australia include satellite navigation, remote sensing, supercomputing, signal processing and cryptography. The Australian study cites some specific cases where a hypersonic researcher from China worked in Norway. In Norway, he co-authored give papers on air-breathing hypersonic vehicles. The co-author was Iranian born Hamid Reza Karimi. So one of the key examples, was a Chinese student co-wrote papers with an Iranian born scientist who emigrated to Germany and then to Norway. Hamid Reza Karimi was born in 1976. Karimi received the B.Sc. (First Hons.) degree in power systems from the Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 1998, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. (First Hons.) degrees in control systems engineering from the University of Tehran, Tehran, in 2001 and 2005, respectively. He is currently an associate professor of Applied Mechanics with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy. In 2011, Switzerland had the largest percent of immigrant scientists working in country (56.7); Canada, and Australia had about 48%, the U.S. and Sweden had about 40%. US high dependent on foreign born scientists and engineers More than 60 percent of foreign-born scientists and engineers in the United States in 2009 were from Asia, according to Census Bureau data analyzed by PRB. Nearly one-fourth were from India, with another one-fifth from China, the Philippines, and Taiwan. Foreign-born entrepreneurs helped start one-fourth of all new U.S. engineering and technology business established between 1995 and 2005, including Google and eBay. In high-tech Silicon Valley, California, more than one-half of business start-ups over that period involved a foreign-born scientist or engineer; one-fourth included an Indian or Chinese immigrants. Russias study abroad program There are 56,915 Russian students studying abroad, of which around 4,092 are based in the UK. Russia hosts more than 243,752 international students and considers international recruitment to be an important geopolitical goal. Russia is aiming to triple international students numbers to more than 700,000 by 2025. The Russian government is putting $5 billion to fund domestic Russian students studying at leading foreign universities. This will fund 100,000 Russian students over the next ten years. If the students decide to stay overseas after graduation, they would have to pay back to Russia all the money spent on their education and a fine twice as large as this amount. The Russian Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) and the Alumni Club of Harvard University have helped the Russian government to put the initiative together. "The only reason we're asking that question now is because the Black Panther is a black man. And I think that's what's wrong with people - that's what's wrong with parents," Carter said. "Because I see kids far and wide embracing the concept of a superhero. I believe they see him as someone who is majestic and powerful and doing good, and (who) has a kingdom and a legacy and is pretty cool. I don't think they see a black guy - I think they see the image of a superhero," she added, and "it happens to be the Black Panther just as it happens to be Superman." WOODBRIDGE A former congregant of the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh who grew up in Woodbridge said religiously motivated homicide would be shocking anywhere. When 11 people ranging in age from 54 to 97 were killed by an anti-Semitic gunman at that synagogue last weekend, however, it hit home for Gideon Gradman. I know the synagogue well. We attended it for years when we first moved, he said. Its one block from my parents home. Pittsburghs Squirrel Hill neighborhood, where the progressive synagogue is located, is a very small community and very nice; a quiet neighborhood that has a fair number of Jewish families, said Gradman, who lived in Woodbridge for 14 years where he attended Ezra Academy and Bnai Jacob, before moving to Pittsburgh. Gradmans family moved to Pittsburgh in 1990 where he attended Tree of Life for two years, but spent more time there in high school for regular meetings with a Jewish youth group. Its been very upsetting, but people have reached out from work, from college, from high school and all over the place. Its been heartwarming, because when youre sitting around feeling bad, its good to talk with friends, he said. Gradman said anti-Semitism is a historical concern for Jews, but not one he had thought much about until the last few years. I think the last number of years has caused me to be more skittish about safety, because this is not the first negative act that has happened, he said. I have felt incrementally more on guard about my environment. He said the atmosphere of anti-Semitism has risen, and an inability to call out bigotry by its name is a contributing factor. If you dont correct someone or speak up when someone says something you think they shouldnt, then you are accepting it. Doing nothing is an action, he said. Gradman is not the only Connecticut native with personal ties to Pittsburghs Jewish community, either. Lynette Lederman, a congregant and former president of the synagogue who has provided numerous interviews with the media, was born and raised in Bridgeport. We want people to know that (those) killed on Saturday were in the synagogue doing what they always do, Lederman told the Connecticut Post on Monday. And we are going to continue doing what we always do. We will never let anti-Semites intimidate us. Lederman told CNN she would not welcome Donald Trump to Pittsburgh in the aftermath of the shooting as a purveyor of hate speech. Trump visited Pittsburgh anyway on Tuesday, where he was met with protestors angry at his rhetoric and how it contributes to tensions, including the aftermath of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville where a protestor was killed when Trump said some on the side of white nationalists chanting Jews will not replace us were very fine people. Middletown resident Sarah Steinfeld also grew up a short distance away from the Tree of Life synagogue. She told the Middletown Press the support shown to the Squirrel Hill community in the aftermath was heartening to her. I thought of it as my front yard in many ways. Seeing photos of the street, just flooded with people showing up in Squirrel Hill, and not being there, was, in some way, heartening, but also alienating. I really just wanted to be there, she said. Steinfeld told the Middletown Press she did not need the shooting as a wake-up call, because shes been awake to the problems of gun violence for a very long time, unfortunately. She said it was not organic that Connecticut adopted some of the strongest gun safety laws in the nation in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting, but because of community action. Since speaking to the Middletown Press, Steinfelds husband, state Rep. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, has been subjected to anti-Semitism after a mailer released by opponent Ed Charamut exaggerated the Jewish representatives features while depicting him grasping a wad of cash. Initially on Tuesday, Connecticut Republican Party Chairman J.R. Romano said he looked at the ad and doesnt see Jewish and accused Democrats of false outrage. Later, Romano said he spoke with Jewish friends and began to recognize the classic anti-Semitic tropes. Romano said he would undergo sensitivity training with the Anti-Defamation League. brian.zahn @hearstmediact.com South Sudanese President Salva Kiir apologized to his people for a half-decade of civil war as the African nation's main rebel leader echoed his commitment to a new peace deal. Insurgent chief Riek Machar temporarily returned to the capital on Wednesday to take part in peace celebrations -- his first visit to Juba since being forced to flee more than two years ago. It comes as cease-fire violations and delays cast doubt on whether the latest bid to quell a conflict that may have left as many as 400,000 dead will be successful. "As your president, I want to apologize on behalf of all the parties for what we have caused you, our people," Kiir told a ceremony whose attendees included the presidents of Sudan, Uganda and Somalia. "Today marks the end of the war in the republic of South Sudan. It was a complete betrayal of our people and the liberation struggle." The war in the oil-producing country has spurred a regional refugee crisis and brought near-economic collapse since it began in December 2013. Under deals signed with Kiir this year, Machar -- a former vice president -- will return in that role, while insurgents will be included in an expanded cabinet and parliament, due to take shape in about May. A similar attempt at forming a transitional government failed in mid-2016 and spurred some of the war's worst violence. Machar was eventually forced into exile in South Africa. Kiir said Wednesday he was ordering the release of two Machar aides, a spokesman and a political adviser, who were sentenced to death for alleged anti-government activities earlier this year. Machar said his historic return to Juba showed his rebel movement is "for peace." "All the soldiers will be brought to work together," he said. "All the rebels holding guns should put down the guns and come out for peace." The head of the United Nations mission in South Sudan, David Shearer, warned there's "much hard work ahead" to ensure the new agreement is implemented. "The personalities who signed the agreement have in the past been former friends and foes," he told attendees. "So the big challenge ahead is to build trust and confidence between the parties -- and between the parties and the people." Both government and rebel forces have been accused of atrocities during the conflict that's driven parts of the nation to the brink of famine. Amnesty International has alleged that pro-government forces rampaged through opposition-controlled areas for more than a month this year, even as peace talks were under way. "The time for blame as to who started it is over," Kiir said on Wednesday. When an anti-Semitic gunman killed 11 Jewish worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue during Sabbath services on Saturday, it raised strong emotions in many, especially those who lived through the Nazi Holocaust, the most horrific massacre of Jews in history. It brings back traumatic memories, said Stanley Swimmer, one of several Holocaust survivors who live in the Towers housing complex in New Haven. It reminds me of 1939 when the Germans invaded us. Swimmer, 87, is a native of Poland and was forced to live in ghettos there before he was sent to a slave labor camp in Germany, where he worked in a tank factory. It shook me up, really shook me up, he said. Its happening all over the world but not to this degree. I love this country but I hate to see whats happening to it under the present regime. Swimmer was one of several Jews who held President Donald Trumps rhetoric about non-Americans, foreigners and the media responsible for creating an atmosphere where hatred could flourish. I think he encourages it in a way, Swimmer said. By omission, not by commission. He encourages hate Im sorry to say. Hes my president. I love this country. I also served this country. I was with the intelligence service. But he said hes had nightmares since the shooting. It is very, very difficult, he said. Swimmers daughter, Toby Gehm of Hamden, said her father is very sensitive and talking about the Holocaust or anything gets him really upset. As for her, Gehm said, With any shooting I get sick over anything and this was 10 times worse. I just cant believe this stuff is happening in this day and age. Everyones being cautious right now but you have to go back to living your life and hope it doesnt happen to you, she said. Isidor Izzy Juda is 97 and also lives in the Towers. He is one of a declining number of Holocaust survivors who tell their stories in schools and at remembrance events. He said the news of the Pittsburgh killings left him feeling horrible. I said, Not again. It just brought back horrible things and I said, Oh my God, dont tell me were going to have to go through this again. I was petrified. I was hoping that coming to this country and serving in the United States Army for three years that we would get rid of this, but we havent gotten rid of this. And if we dont do anything about it now we will have more problems all the time, and unfortunately the president we have now is creating fear all the time. Juda was born in Vienna and lost three uncles, two aunts and two cousins in the Holocaust. He escaped the Nazis by jumping off a train. While saying Trump thrives on fear. He has created a big division in this country, Juda added, I have faith in this country that they will stop it before it gets too far. Endre Andy Sarkany of New Haven, who works in development at the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, was a child survivor in Budapest and a refugee after the Hungarian revolution of 1956. He lived for five years in the heavily Jewish Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburgh, where the shooting took place, but said he didnt know any of the victims. He was a member of an Orthodox synagogue, while the Tree of Life (Or LSimcha) Congregation is a member of the Conservative branch of Judaism. He said he did meet students from Tree of Life because he worked at the Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh. Of course it was a real shock to me in a community that was so cohesive and together and extremely Jewish. On Saturday, the Sabbath, when people went to synagogue or coming from synagogue the streets were full of people walking back and forth, saying How are you? and Good Shabbas. Sarkany, who lives in New Haven and who turns 82 on Wednesday, said social media are contributors to the spread of anti-Semitism. Theres a forum for it. You can create hate and particularly anti-Semitism, which unfortunately is growing in this country. Of course, Europe is worse. The Pittsburgh attack was the worst targeting Jews in American history. Personally I can blame our government and personally I blame the media, Sarkany said. The more you talk about it, the worse it gets. Being in this country 62 years ... I have never seen anything like it. He said last weekend wasnt the first time he experienced bad memories of the Nazi era. The first time was in August 2017 watching the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., seeing these hoodlums marching with a swastika. I said, Wait a minute. I cannot believe this is happening in this country. Im not as secure as I used to be, even though I wear my yarmulke or kippah all the time. I dont feel I can do things like I used to because I dont know who is behind me. Agnes Vertes of Weston is president of the Holocaust Child Survivors of Connecticut. She has also produced a documentary, Passport to Life, about Jews who were saved from the Nazis regime of death. Born in Hungary, she and her sister were rescued by a stranger. Im sick over this whole thing that happened, she said. Even in this country, which I consider the best and safest country in the world, this happened. Vertes does not hold Trump responsible for inciting violence, however. I dont believe what the media says that this is because of our president. I do not believe that. I believe that he is a good guy and he didnt instigate it at all. She said that while she supports free speech, those people have a free card to speak against Jews or blacks or whoever they hate. Judith Altmann of Stamford, 94, was born in Czechoslovakia and talks to more than 7,000 schoolchildren a year to explain what hate and intolerance for another person does. Altmann, who was liberated from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, said she is very perturbed, extremely perturbed about what happened in Pittsburgh but believes that more talking and more writing about the destructive effects of hatred will enlighten people. She said the Pittsburgh shooting reminds me of Kristallnacht. It reminds me of the beginning of what happened. Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, occurred in November 1938 when German Nazis attacked synagogues and Jewish homes and businesses before the start of World War II. Rabbi Alvin Wainhaus of Congregation Or Sholom in Orange is a first-generation American whose father escaped with his entire rabbinical school from the town of Lyebedov, Belarus, to Shanghai. All my cousins and uncles and aunts were machine-gunned as well as all the inhabitants of [the] village, he said. Obviously the event in Pittsburgh affected me profoundly as the son of a Holocaust survivor and as a Jewish American. My parents came here looking for a better place, a better life. Millions of Jews came her looking for safety. Thats the horrible irony of this situation. Wainhaus said he doesnt believe the United States is on a similar path as Nazi Germany. I believe America is different and Jewish American history is different and the important thing is to nip previews of coming troubles in the bud. Its important not to be silent. Its important to speak out and its important not to accommodate, to protest. What we saw last Saturday was America at its horrific lowest, but America has always rediscovered its soul and its founding values. So thats my prayer, that America finds its soul again. This story was edited to clarify that Bergen-Belsen was a concentration camp, not a death camp where prisoners were executed, although more than 36,000 people died in the camp before it was liberated. edward.stannard@hearstmediact.com; 203-680-9382 ALBANY The online marketplace where New Yorkers can purchase their 2019 health coverage opens Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018, and will remain open through the end of January 2019. Anyone who's new to the process can start shopping for coverage right away. The approximately 500,000 households that already get their coverage through the state-run marketplace known as NY State of Health will be able to renew their coverage starting Nov. 16. Those houses should have received renewal notices from the state in October with information about how to select a plan. Established in 2013, New York's health plan marketplace has remained relatively stable in recent years in terms of enrollment and cost despite federal efforts to weaken the Affordable Care Act. But industry insiders say 2019 will be the real test to state marketplaces, as the recent repeal of the individual mandate penalty could lead to lower enrollment levels nationwide. While some states, including Vermont and New Jersey, responded to the repeal by enacting their own individual mandates, New York has not. About 280,000 households in New York filed a 2016 tax return paying the individual mandate penalty, for a total of $202 million in penalties that year, according to a United Hospital Fund report released last month. "As New York gears up for a new open enrollment period...important national elections could tip the balance of power in Congress, so it's almost certain that New York policymakers will be dealing with continuing uncertainty ahead," said Chad Shearer, vice president for policy at UHF and director of its Medicaid Institute. "But if policymakers, regulators, health plans, and consumers put the same cooperation and effort into stabilizing the individual market as they did into getting it up and running," he added, "I'm confident we are up to the task, come what may." Individual marketplace More than 95 percent of plan participants should see no cost increase in 2019, according to state health officials. "As we enter our fifth year, New Yorkers will continue to have affordable health care options available through NY State of Health," said Donna Frescatore, executive director of the marketplace. "There will again be a great choice of plans at affordable prices." Individuals and families who are looking to purchase or renew their health coverage through the state-run marketplace will qualify for coverage through either Medicaid, Child Health Plus, the Essential Plan or a Qualified Health Plan. Income and family size will help determine which coverage you fall into, and whether you qualify for any financial assistance. Individuals making just above the income cutoff for Medicaid will qualify for the state's Essential Plan, a unique option offered by only one other state that, depending on your income, costs either nothing or $20 per person per month. More than 740,000 people are currently enrolled in this option. Sixteen insurers will offer coverage through this option, including Albany's CDPHP, a new entrant in 2019. Individuals who are eligible for a Qualified Health Plan with federal tax credits should see no or small increases in monthly costs, according to the state. The dozen insurers that offered these plans last year will offer them again in 2019, including Albany's CDPHP and Schenectady's MVP Health Care. Small business marketplace New York health officials say it's now easier for small businesses to get affordable coverage through the state marketplace, thanks to changes made earlier this year that expanded plan offerings and streamlined the application process. In September, the marketplace announced it had boosted employer participation by over 300 percent to more than 9,000 thanks to those changes. Coverage is available to all small businesses with 100 full-time employees or less. They can enroll directly with insurers through the online portal, or through certified brokers. Nine insurers (one more than last year) will offer more than 2,000 products statewide, including Albany's CDPHP and Schenectady's MVP. It should also be easier this year for employees to see if they qualify for a Federal Small Business Health Care Tax Credit, Frescatore said. The credit is available to businesses with fewer than 25 full-time employees whose average annual salary was $53,000 or less in 2018, and will reimburse employers up to half of whatever they contributed toward employee premiums. "New York's small businesses have the opportunity to provide employees with health coverage and potentially save money at the same time," she said. "We're trying to raise awareness about the tax credit, and we've made it easier than ever for businesses to sign up." Need help? New York's marketplace has a customer service center and in-person navigators to help residents enroll in a new plan or renew existing coverage. Visit nystateofhealth.ny.gov or call 1-855-355-5777 for more information. Interactive maps with information about 2019 health and dental plans are available here. Two years ago, before the election of Donald Trump, I might more easily have dismissed Mabulus most overtly provocative gestures as being at best useless, at worst fundamentally damaging to public discourse. Back then I also tried to instill in my children the need to speak respectfully with and about those with whom one vehemently disagreed. In the face of the growing list of the Trump Administrations actionsmost recently the effort to define gender as immutable, which if successful would eradicate federal recognition and protection of transgender peopleIll admit that I have relinquished this practice of civility. Yes, we need to debate and reason and listen and convince. But we also need to vent and be heard and be affirmed. My kids are allowed to curse out the president of the United States, as they hear their mother do. As Ayanda Mabulu does his countrys politicians, with canvas and paint, sometimes applied with a brush shoved into the muzzle of a machine gun. NEW HAVEN The city is looking to keep its promise of bolstering pension funds with money freed up from refinancing bonds earlier this year. In August, the city refinanced and refunded $218 million in bonds in an effort to cover budgetary shortfalls from last fiscal year. They recaptured $31 million in cash flow from debt service savings to use immediately to close the deficit, planning to use the rest of it to boost the Rainy Day Fund and increase the pension funds, a budgetary challenge for the city. That promise is being realized as the Finance Committee approved a $5.5 million transfer from the general fund, putting $1 million into a litigation reserve account and $2.25 million into each city employee retirement fund and police and fire pensions. The transfers are in addition to what was budgeted, or about $22 million for the city employee retirement fund and $35 million for police and fire pensions. I think its really important to take into account that moving this money is actually putting the emphasis on the things that are really important that are challenging in our budget, like the pensions, said Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers, D-23, who sits on the Finance Committee and the bond sale commission that approved the refunding. Any time we have an opportunity to add an extra payment we should. The citys two pension accounts are only about 40 percent funded, according to a Financial Review and Audit Commission report released in May. The city has been making increasing payments into its pension funds over the past few years. In fiscal year 2016-17, for instance, it put $48.1 million into its pension funds, and in fiscal year 2017-18 put in $56.5 million, in line with actuarially recommended amounts, but this year there was no proposed increase in the budget. If the city wants to stay on path to fully fund pension plans by 2040, the payments should increase by roughly 3 percent per year, the report said . Most definitely, we need to shore up these funds and now that we have the opportunity with this extra money it needs to go right there, committee Chairwoman Alder Evette Hamilton, D-24, said. Alder Adam Marchand, D-25, said the commitments made by the city during the refinancing of the debt service were smart and important ones, so approving the transfer is a smart move. Regarding the litigation reserve account, it will be separate from the existing litigation account and only used for future need when the city settles lawsuits that insurance cannot cover, such as in the Scott Lewis case when he was wrongfully convicted on a murder charge and as the city was without insurance at the time he was convicted, the city had to pay him $9.5 million in a lawsuit he won. Being someone who sits on the litigation settlement, we are starting to see some of those older cases that arent settled coming up so I think its really proactive to do it this way, Walker-Myers said . Correction: an earlier version of this story incorrectly spelled the name of Alder Tyisha Walker-Myers, D-23. The story has been updated with the correct spelling. mdignan@hearstmediact.com Upon co-founding the company in 2011, Stratford has served as executive director, co-artistic Director, and then sole artistic director. Under her leadership, the company has grown to a staff of ten, and she has produced over 50 shows, including mainstage world premieres and participants in Underscores annual Chicago Musical Theatre Festival. During her tenure, Underscore has been nominated for five Jeff awards, including three for Best New Musical. Im writing this letter in wholehearted support of Ned Lamonts candidacy for governor. This may not surprise many of you, because you all know that both Ned and I have a similar vision for the future of Connecticut. He believes, as I do, that our states greatest resource is the people of Connecticut, and that world class education is critical to success. Hes a pragmatic leader who chooses progress over partisanship to get things done. Ned Lamont knows how to create coalitions by listening to and talking with people. As a small city mayor, I truly understand that real accomplishments only come from staying positive and striving together to achieve a better economic climate that attracts new businesses and grows our tax base. At the local level, it doesnt matter if youre a Democrat, Republican or Independent, its all about working together to maximize results. Ned Lamont gets this and will seize opportunities to build the reasonable consensus that moves our state forward. MASANTUCKET The final debate in Connecticuts volatile race for governor starred Democrat Ned Lamont and Republican Bob Stefanowski, two major-party candidates close in the polls and intent on avoiding mistakes in the campaigns final week, plus a third-party candidate desperate to show he is not a spoiler, Oz Griebel. Over a one-hour debate televised live Tuesday night on WTNH, Channel 8, from Foxwoods Resort Casino, the candidates treated questions as opportunities to pivot toward practiced talking points, declining repeated invitations to share specifics about policies, including how they would close a $2 billion shortfall that awaits one of them on Jan. 9. One unscripted moment came in an unexpectedly sarcastic comment from Griebel after Stefanowski indicated he was open to allowing early voting in Connecticut as a means to increase voter participation in elections. Im glad that Bob feels strongly about voting given his track record, Griebel said. Stefanowski, 56, a former corporate executive, entered politics last year after not voting for 16 years. He registered as a Democrat in October 2016, but cast no vote for Hillary Clinton, Donald J. Trump or anyone else that year. He registered as a Republican in July 2017. An audience dominated by municipal officials attending the annual convention of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities laughed, then applauded. Stefanowski offered no retort. Lamont, 64, a founder of a small cable-television company and former elected official in Greenwich, used the question to mention Trump, an energizing factor for Democrats. Lamont urged a strong voter turnout, saying that Trump has reminded the nation that elections have consequences. Stefanowski, who trailed Lamont by just four percentage points in a Quinnipiac University poll released earlier Tuesday, said voters understand the gubernatorial election will have consequences for Connecticut, a point in his favor. I have a feeling people are going to come roaring back to the polls next week, he said. None of the candidates mentioned that Connecticut cannot offer early voting without an amendment to the state constitution. Griebel, 69, the former leader of the MetroHartford Alliance, is languishing with single-digit support in recent polls, with one showing him drawing support from Lamont. Neither Lamont nor Stefanowski would suggest after the debate that Griebel should withdraw. Asked how he would respond to anyone making that requisition, Griebel replied succinctly: Drop dead. The event was sponsored by CCM, the Hartford Courant and WTNH, with CCMs leader, Joe DeLong, joining two journalists, Keith Kountz of WTNH and Daniela Altimari of The Courant, in posing questions. DeLong tried and failed to elicit specific policy positions from the candidates, other than a unified opposition to further unfunded mandates on cities and towns. All three passed on a hypothetical question that asked them to choose among choices they might confront next year: How would they prioritize closing a college campus, cutting municipal aid or raising taxes on the wealthy. Stefanowski said he would privatize the Department of Motor Vehicles, a popular target for the public, but not a major source of savings in a state with a $20 billion annual budget. Lets bring in the private sector and run it at a profit, he said He mentioned the New Britain-Hartford busway as an example of wasteful spending, though it is sunk cost and not a source of budget savings. Central to Stefanowskis campaign is a promise to phase out the states income tax, the source of half the states revenue, over eight years. But he talked Tuesday night about increasing state spending for health, education and transportation without saying how he would fund those investments, other than a promise to first grow the economy by tax cuts. Griebel said he would use the states budget reserves and defer pensions contributions, two fiscally suspect approaches that he says are unavoidable. This is a serious matter that doesnt lend itself to poll-tested platitudes, Griebel said. Lamont reminded him that deferring teacher pension contributions would violate covenants on bonds the state issued a decade ago to stabilize the pensions fund. He also objected to use of the budget reserves, saying it would simply delay dealing with the shortfall, not resolve it. Im the one whos going to solve this, Lamont said. No one fully committed to supporting a so-called death-with-dignity law that would allow the terminally ill to seek medical assistance in ending their lives. I think I would, Lamont said. Griebel was cautious, saying, I would want to understand the legal safeguards. I would tend to leave it up to the families, Stefanowski said, not quite saying he would support a new law. A question about how to improve police relations with African-American communities, an increasingly fraught issue, gave Stefanowski a chance to say he was for tougher security at schools, while it was Lamonts opportunity to mention the shooting deaths of 11 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh and the NRAs endorsement of Stefanowski. I dont know what he promised to them, Lamont said. On Monday, Democrats publicized a Republican bloggers post from May that quoted Stefanowski as committed to signing into law a repeal of the Sandy Hook gun controls should such a bill reach his desk. During the debate and in comments to a reporter at a campaign stop, Stefanowski tried to limit any discussion about Sandy Hook to school safety. You want to talk about school safety? Its limiting access to schools, Stefanowski said. Were probably at the point where we need to have an armed personnel not a teacher, but an armed personnel in a school. But he declined to say if he was misquoted in May by a Republican Town Committee member in Southington who posted an item on gun web site that Stefanowski promised to sign a bill repealing the Sandy Hook gun controls should such a bill reach his desk. That bill passed with a 70 percent majority in the House and the Senate, Stefanowski said. You know its not coming to the governors desk, and I know its not coming to the governors desk. Ned knows its not coming to the governors desk. But why do they focus on it? Because they dont want to talk about the economy. Was there anything new Tuesday? Lamont said he appreciated some of the softer questions, especially one that gave the candidates an opportunity to talk about their values and charitable works, such as Lamonts volunteering in a Bridgeport high school. I loved that question, he told reporters after the debate. Ive had plenty of policy. You want me to talk about Bobs tax plan? Shoot me. I think we had plenty of that. UPDATE: South Jersey pilot among 2 dead after jumping from burning helicopter State police say two utility workers were killed and two others were hurt when their maintenance helicopter got caught on power lines and crashed in rural northeastern New York. Pieces of the aircraft dangled from power lines late Tuesday afternoon before falling beside cornfields in Beekmantown, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of the Canadian border near Lake Champlain. The Federal Aviation Administration says the Aerospatiale AS355F2 helicopter came in contact with power lines and caught fire at 4:16 p.m. The agency will investigate. Per hospital spokesperson: one person confirmed dead in Beekmantown helicopter crash. Three others taken to hospital. It was a NYSEG helicopter that crashed. #ny @BatesReports will have the latest from the scene. pic.twitter.com/3JUIpAKnfc Staci DaSilva (@SDaSilvaNews) October 30, 2018 State police say the injured occupants were treated and released. Police said the helicopter is owned by Catalyst Aviation, LLC of Hammonton, New Jersey. The company's web site states that its helicopters are used to inspect power lines. A New York Power Authority spokesman says the injured worked for Northline Utilities, a contractor that inspects and maintains power lines. A jury on Tuesday acquitted a 35-year-old Stratford man in the shooting death of his wife after hearing the defense theory that she committed suicide. Mario Flores was charged with murder after police found Roxanne Flores, 35, shot to death in their home early Feb. 20, 2016. He has been in jail for more than two and a half years, since police found him in Virginia nine hours later with his passport and a suitcase. "It was suicide and not murder," said Flores' attorney, Robin Lord of Trenton. "He took off because he panicked and thought no one would believe him." Police did not believe Flores when he told them he had found his wife dead in their house on Wright Avenue. Lord acknowledged that it looked suspicious that he removed the gun from the home and fled, but said police had a duty to investigate the possibility of a suicide. At his bail hearing in 2016, Assistant Camden County Prosecutor Christine Shah said the couple had relationship problems that caused Flores to shoot his wife in the neck while their three kids were home. Roxanne Flores, 35, of Stratford (Photo provided) Lord said that during the seven-week trial, forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht testified for the defense. He said that after interviewing Flores and reviewing police and autopsy reports, he believed that Roxanne Flores had shot herself, according to Lord. He cited evidence of "powder burns" -- a burn often left by close-range gunfire -- on Roxanne Flores's hands. He also said there was evidence the gun was held upside down when it fired, something that is much more likely in a suicide than a homicide, Lord said. She said Charles Seibert, deputy medical examiner for Camden County, testified for the prosecution that he believed the powder burns on the woman's hands could have come from her attempts to get the gun away or shield herself during the shooting. Lord said there was also evidence Roxanne Flores had a history of depression and was distraught that her husband was being unfaithful. The night of her death, she had posted photos on Instagram of guns, Lord said. She said that Judge David M. Ragonese ordered Flores released after the verdict, which came around 2 p.m. Tuesday. Her client always believed the jury would acquit, she said. "He said, 'I'm innocent, the jury's going to see that,'" Lord said. Flores, a native of Honduras who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1990s, now hopes to restart his drywalling business. He also would like to rebuild his relationship with his three children, who were 3, 8, and 13 years old when their mother died, Lord said. They have been living with a maternal aunt. Roxanne Flores worked in the Voorhees medical offices of Advanced ENT, and was remembered by a coworker in 2016 as a great woman with a "big heart." The Camden County Prosecutor's Office confirmed the verdict but did not have any other comment. Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Dr. Larry Goodman, Rush University Medical Center CEO, described the hospital's REACH initiative. "Over the next decade, the need for health care professionals in Chicago will grow substantially, especially in low-income communities where very few students have access to these careers. Through college readiness classes, mentorship, job shadowing and internship programming, Rush is preparing high school and college students for long-term career success," he said. A detective who shot and killed a 19-year-old man in Vineland on Oct. 18 was investigating an earlier crime at the time and the man he killed was a suspect, the state Attorney General's Office revealed Wednesday. John Caccia, a detective with the Cape May County Prosecutor's Office, was involved in a surveillance operation with other detectives when he shot Jacob Servais of Millville, in the parking lot of vehicle rental business on Delsea Drive in Cumberland County. Caccia "encountered" Servais, who was driving a Nissan Altima, and fired his Glock 19, a 9mm handgun, three times, according to the Attorney General's announcement. Servais was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later. Investigators still have not revealed if Servais was armed or used any weapon during the encounter. Or provided any information about the crime they were investigating. "The nature of any resistance and the use of any weapon on the part of Mr. Servais remain the subject of that ongoing investigation, and no further information will be released at this time," the office stated. The detectives involved in the surveillance operation, including officials with the Lower Township Police Department, were investigating a "violent crime" that occurred earlier in October, officials said, but details of that case were not disclosed. The Attorney General's Shooting Response Team is reviewing the Servais shooting. That team will determine if the shooting was justified and could present the matter to a grand jury. Caccia was placed on paid administrative leave pending completion of the investigation. At the time of his death, Servais was under indictment in two counties and facing indictment in a third. He was also wanted on a bench warrant for skipping a court appearance in Gloucester County. He was facing indictment on a vehicular homicide charge in Gloucester County following a June crash that killed a friend in his vehicle. Servais was indicted earlier this month on an aggravated assault charge after he allegedly punched another resident in a juvenile detention facility in Bordentown and broke his jaw. He was also indicted in Cumberland County earlier this year on a charge of receiving stolen property. That case involved a December 2017 arrest. Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us: nj.com/tips. An evil person murdered 11 innocent Jews at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue because of their religious beliefs. In the wake of this tragedy, something extraordinary happened. Two Muslim-led nonprofits, Celebrate Mercy and MPower Change, organized a fundraising drive in partnership with the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh and the synagogue to try to raise $25,000 to help with funeral expenses and medical costs. In less than a day, over $60,000 was raised. Wasi Mohammed, executive director of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh and Emgage Pennsylvania, said, "We feel obligated to follow this Prophetic tradition on standing up for the Jewish community." The Muslim community also offered trips to the grocery store, protection during services and help with other needs. Tarek-El-Messidi, the founding director of Celebrate Mercy, said the Muslim and Jewish communities were able to put their differences aside and work together for a human cause. Out of a tragic event in Pittsburgh, a dialogue emerged between two religious groups with beliefs that are often diametrically opposed. Goodness has overcome evil. David M. Levin, Vineland Send a letter to the editor of South Jersey Times at sjletters@njadvancemedia.com Gov. Phil Murphy has selected a new board chairwoman and a state-ordered infectious disease specialist has been hired at University Hospital, where the state continues to investigate an outbreak at the Newark facility's neonatal intensive care unit. Tanya Freeman, a family law attorney who has served on the hospital's board of directors since 2014, was named its chairwoman Wednesday, according to Murphy's announcement. Freeman will preside over a hospital that was already in the state's crosshairs before four infants developed a hospital-acquired infection caused by the Acinetobacter baumannii bacteria last month. In July, Health Commissioner Shereef Elnahal named a monitor to assess the state's only public hospital's financial stability and evaluate its safety practices after flunking a safety report card and making some management decisions the state found questionable. On Oct. 1, an anonymous employee contacted the state health department to report the outbreak, including one child who died after she was relocated to another hospital. The cause of death is under investigation, the health department said. Hiring a full-time infection control practitioner was one of the state's requirements after inspectors found "major infection control deficiencies," inside the unit, Elnahal said. On Tuesday, the hospital named Joan Hebden, a nurse from the IPC Consulting Group in Baltimore, to work 36 hours a week observing infection control practices, according to a letter to hospital CEO John N. Kastanis approving the hire. Freeman replaces Robert Johnson, dean of the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, whom Gov. Chris Christie appointed before he left in mid-January. Johnson replaced former Gov. Donald DiFrancesco, who resigned amid questions about the duties he gave his former assistant. Murphy said he picked Freeman because of her "extensive background working for the best interests of children and families through her law practice and her community service." Freeman is a partner in Weiner Law Group, LLP, in Parsippany and co-chair of its family law department. Freeman also spent fifteen years in banking and insurance directing operational audit teams for Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, Prudential Healthcare and Wells Fargo, according to her LinkedIn profile. The West Orange resident has served on the boards for Salvation Army in Jersey City and the University of Phoenix, Jersey City Campus. "I take great pride in my contributions to University Hospital and the communities it serves, and I am honored to continue my service as chair," she said. "I look forward to continuing to work with my fellow board members, medical practitioners, and community members to provide the best possible care to everyone who walks through our doors." The outbreak at University Hospital is unrelated to the 26 confirmed cases of adenovirus in pediatric residents at the Wanaque Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in Haskell, where 10 children have died. Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. The federal sentencing for Domenico Lillo, the disgraced ex-cop who struck a Bayonne resident in the face with a flashlight during an arrest, has been pushed back for the 10th time. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey confirmed sentencing was adjourned from Nov. 5 to Nov 19, but did not elaborate as to why. Sentencing will be held in Newark federal court before Judge Kevin McNulty at 11 a.m. Lillo pleaded guilty in September 2015 to two unrelated crimes: using excessive force during the Dec. 27, 2013 arrest of Brandon Walsh, and falsifying government records in order to obtain a $20,000 loan intended for low- to moderate-income residents. As part of his plea deal, he testified in court against his fellow officer, Francis Styles, who the government alleged knowingly covered up Lillo's use of force. The case ended in a mistrial. Federal prosecutors have since dropped the charges against Styles. Lillo's sentencing dates have now been postponed four times in 2016, twice in 2017, and four times this year. Corey W. McDonald may be reached at cmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @coreymacc. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. JERSEY CITY Mayor Steve Fulop has appointed another close ally to the board of ex-Gov. Jim McGreevey's jobs and prisoner re-entry nonprofit as McGreevey's allies worry that Fulop is moving to push out the former governor. Stacey Flanagan, the city's health director, will replace Hilario Nunez, whose appointment has expired. Flanagan is also Fulop's chief political operative for Jersey City's Downtown. Flanagan is the fifth person Fulop has appointed to the Jersey City Employment & Training Program's nine-member board since August. Three of them are city employees and the other two, including the board's new chair, Sudhan Thomas, are Fulop allies. Thomas disputed that there's any political reason for Flanagan joining the board. Thomas has previously denied there is any effort to sideline McGreevey. "She is the director of health and human services and there appears to be some overlap between the services they offer and JCETP offers," Thomas told The Jersey Journal. "It will be good to have her perspective as a board member." McGreevey said, "We welcome her insight and expertise. Health care is an almost constant concern for our clients." Thomas and McGreevey sparred at a recent JCETP board meeting after Thomas request a host of financial documents related to JCETP, a nonprofit that is funded largely with grant money. Fulop tapped McGreevey in 2013 to become JCETP's executive director and use it to create a city re-entry program but sources close to both men say they no longer speak. Requests for comment from Fulop's spokeswoman and Flanagan were not returned. Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. HOBOKEN A union-funded television commercial attacking a Hoboken councilman has some of his council colleagues jumping to his defense. The ad, from an affiliate of the Local 825 Operating Engineers union, started running last week and shows images of young people as a narrator says Councilman Jim Doyle "abandoned Hoboken's children" for voting against the Hilton hotel plan the council approved on Oct. 17. The plan includes nearly $5 million in givebacks from the developer spread out over multiple entities, including the Hoboken Public Education Foundation. The commercial, which Doyle called "silly nonsense" in an email to The Jersey Journal, had Hoboken's political observers scratching their heads. Doyle's vote did not jeopardize the Hilton deal, which the council approved by an 8 to 1 vote, and he's also a close ally of Mayor Ravi Bhalla, whose 2017 campaign was boosted by over $50,000 in ads and polling from a group funded by Local 825. Three of Doyle's colleagues Council Vice President Jen Giattino, Tiffanie Fisher and Peter Cunningham issued a joint statement on Monday condemning the ad and defending Doyle. "Jim, along with then-Councilman Bhalla before he was elected mayor, consistently voted for a more moderate hotel," Giattino said. "Jim, however, held to his beliefs, voted accordingly and should not have to be subjected to such public threats." Bhalla said he spoke to union officials and received an apology from them for the ad, which it has stopped running. A union spokesman could not be reached to comment. Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. JERSEY CITY A 29-year-old man charged with the manslaughter of a Hoboken father of three in Downtown Jersey City was ordered released through the course of his prosecution. Joshua Espada, of Jersey City, is charged with the reckless manslaughter of Luis Rivera, 38, who died on Oct. 21 after being assaulted the previous day at First Street and Marin Boulevard, officials said. Following Espada's arrest, the state moved to detain him during the course of his prosecution but Hudson County Superior Court Judge Paul Depascale ordered that he be released during a detention hearing Tuesday. Depascale is requiring Espada to be monitored under the most strict conditions of supervision other than having to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet. On Friday, Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Roe said Espada is a danger to the public and said there is video footage in which Espada is clearly seen assaulting Rivera. Two witnesses have identified him in photo lineups, Roe added. But during Friday's hearing, Hudson County Superior Court Judge Paul DePascale said that when he checked the file on the case it was still listed as an aggravated assault. Espada was originally charged with aggravated assault and the charge was upgraded after a postmortem examination showed Rivera's death was a homicide, officials said. DePascale adjourned that hearing until Tuesday. Police officers responding to a report of a street fight on Oct. 21 around 3 a.m. found Rivera lying unresponsive on the ground with apparent facial wounds, officials said. Rivera was treated by emergency medical personnel before being rushed to the Jersey City Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at about 4:10 a.m. the next day, officials said. In 2013, Espada was charged with three counts of aggravated assault for allegedly being among three men who attacked two people, The Jersey Journal reported. He pleaded guilty to simple assault and was sentenced to one year probation in 2014. Rivera worked as a superintendent at Katerra, a technology company that recently merged with Fields Construction of Hoboken. Espada is represented by defense attorney Adrienne Edward. The next hearing in the matter is set for Nov. 27 before Depascale. By Joshua Sotomayor Einstein Letter from a Republican to my New Jersey progressive grassroots friends: I know you are aware there is a Senatorial election coming up on Nov. 6 and I'm not going to pretend we have anything near the same world view, analysis of the challenges that exist, nor similar solutions. But in the short to medium term, and as it relates to the systemically corrupt politics and top 1 percent that rules over New Jersey, I believe we have the same interests. Those interests are in the destruction of the machine politics which stifles debate, protects incumbents from almost any consequences, and treats questions as the ultimate crime. Let me be clear, though I would love it if you would consider doing so, I'm not asking you to vote for Bob Hugin; I am asking that you not vote for Menendez. Menendez is an old school, unreformed, machine-style political boss. He is the ultimate fief holder of Hudson County, the senior of NJ's high-profile politicos, and the epitomizing symbol of the institutionally unethical behavior that our state is unfortunately known for. The Department of Justice under President Obama brought charges of corruption, bribery, and fraud against Menendez. Even the Senate Ethics Committee, an institution built to tolerate a wide spectrum of unacceptable behavior from the many morally challenged senators, found Menendez to be an embarrassment, so much so that they had to publicly admonish him. Menendez has a long record of putting everything on hold so he can help his big money donors, including the one now in jail for defrauding Medicare of $90 million. Just as important is that he is one of the definitive political bosses in New Jersey, his command stops battles between subordinates in the state party and launches crusades against those who challenge him and his allies. Despite feigning interest in progressive policy, "leaders" such as Menendez, Gov. Murphy, and state Sen./Union City Mayor Stack inflate their own egos while producing nothing except for a growing pool of political serfs. In order to keep their jobs, these political dependents attempt to curry favor by squashing any and all opposition. Hugin's senatorial victory in November will destroy this structure and embolden those progressives challenging the system by taking out the political boss of the best run, most locked up, and organized machine in our state. When Menendez falls, at least a dozen divergent factions with their own mini-machines will go to war. That chaos presents our political camps an opportunity to grow ranks unmolested, spread the message, and to win elected offices without fear of politically motivated reprisal from a no longer massive and monolithic political machine. Moreover, when Menendez falls Gov. Murphy is exposed for being the paper tiger (as well as a limousine liberal) you know he is. Senate President Sweeney, no friend of Murphy, will take the opportunity to take shots at his bitter rival. Their infighting will present progressive forces within (and outside) the state Democratic Party an opportunity to simultaneously take over many party institutions. In the maelstrom, bosses like Stack will be busy fighting each other in ever shifting alliances. Despite the fact that Hugin is centrist, pro-choice, pro-LGBT, and anti-corruption, you as a progressive may not be able to pull his lever because he, like me, is a Republican. Make no mistake, because my side of the aisle will keep control of the U.S. Senate no matter what happens here, the New Jersey Senate race is about what happens in New Jersey. My progressive grassroots friends, consider the opportunity a Menendez defeat presents you. Has allying with the institutionally corrupt machine Democrats ever really helped your agenda? Have attempts to play within the rules of the ethically challenged run system empowered voices like Jim Johnson and Lisa McCormick, or has it marginalized them? Isn't it time you help take down that system so that new voices, especially your own, can be heard? Joshua Sotomayor Einstein is secretary of the Hoboken Municipal Republican Committee and NJ GOP State Committeeman from Hudson County JERSEY CITY -- A judge has dismissed all witness tampering and conspiracy charges against a Jersey City man who was jailed for more than eight years while awaiting trial for murder. Anthony Shuler, 27, whose eventual day in court was delayed in part because of the witness tampering charges, was 19 years old when he was arrested on charges that he fatally shot Darren Edwards on June 28, 2010 at the corner of Duncan and Olean avenues in Jersey City. After all evidence had been submitted to jurors at his trial Tuesday, Hudson County Superior Court Judge Patrick Arre dismissed all conspiracy and witness tampering-related charges against Shuler. The judge found that the charges could not be sustained by the evidence presented by the state. The delay in Shuler's trial was caused at first by numerous pretrial motions, hearings, an appeal of a judge's ruling, the pregnancy of a witness and other factors, officials said. But in February 2016, Shuler's case became complicated when the state charged him, Robert Dawson, Eric Dawson and Golden Williamson with witness tampering and conspiracy to murder two witnesses. Two months later, the state obtained a superseding indictment against the three men, in addition to Shuler, whose murder charge was included in the new indictment. That meant the four would be tried together. The witness tampering charges stemmed from recorded telephone conversations Shuler had while in jail. Because a reference was made to Shuler's attorney during the phone calls, the state moved to disqualify her from representing him. The trial judge agreed with the state and an appellate court upheld the trial judge's decision after an appeal. That took more time. Over the years, the defense filed motions for a speedy trial a few times. Although it was expected that Shuler would be tried with his co-defendants, that changed in September. Robert Dawson pleaded guilty on Sept. 17 to the second-degree crime of conspiracy and witness tampering to cause false testimony. His twin, Eric Dawson, pleaded guilty to second-degree witness tampering to cause false testimony on the same day, the records say. The charges against Williamson were dismissed at the request of the prosecution on Sept. 19, the records indicate. In his closing argument Wednesday, defense attorney Joseph Mazraani told the jury that the witness tampering charges against Shuler were "to kind of make it look like there is a case." "You heard zero evidence" about witness tampering, he added. At least two of the state's witnesses recanted during the trial, including a man wounded in the shooting and a boy who was 14 at the time. In her closing argument, Hudson County Prosecutor Karen Kazanchy said the witness who was 14 at the time of the shooting described Shuler almost "to a tee" when interviewed by homicide detectives in 2010. She also noted that he identified Shuler as the gunman from a photo lineup. Jurors are now on a lunch break and when they return, Arre will instruct them on aspects of the law pertinent to the charges against Shuler. Deliberations will then begin. Shuler faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted. JERSEY CITY -- The murder trial of a 19-year-old man accused of gunning down a man in a Jersey City parking lot last year ended in a hung jury Tuesday morning. Hudson County Superior Court Judge Mitzy Galis-Menendez declared a mistrial at around 11 a.m. in the trial of Shaquan Hyppolite, who was charged with the March 29, 2017 murder of Terrel Smith, 27. The state and prosecution will determine how to move forward in the matter at a hearing scheduled for Jan. 28 before Hudson County Superior Court Judge John Young. The jury began deliberating on Oct. 24. In her closing argument, defense attorney Mary Ciancimino argued that the state's case was weak and was based on the identification of Hyppolite by a witness who lied to police and gave varying statements on what occurred at the shooting. Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor David Feldman told jurors that the man's identification of Hyppolite was corroborated by the defendant's phone records and video from numerous security cameras that he said captured Hyppolite's actions the day Smith was shot multiple times. At about 5:40 p.m. on the day of the murder, officers responded to the area of 360 Van Horne St. after getting a 911 call of shots fired. They found Smith unresponsive in the parking lot with gunshot wounds to his midsection, officials said. Smith was rushed to Jersey City Medical Center and pronounced dead at about 6:05 p.m., officials said. While deliberating, the jury asked for readbacks of testimony and playback of surveillance videos. Family members of the victim attended all hearings of the trial, which lasted about two weeks. In February, jury selection for Hyppolite's trial was canceled in order to investigate witness tampering and gun charges against Shahouna Dutton, 25, who made headlines after crawling through a Wendy's drive-thru window and assaulting employees. In the June 22, 2014 incident at the Jersey City fast food restaurant, Dutton allegedly identified herself as "Oopie from Bullet Town" before assaulting two employees. Hyppolite faced 30 years to life if convicted. The arrival of the police officer at a Hanover Park polling place in 2012 was probably the most exciting thing thats happened to Roberts on the job. Shes never seen attempted fraud, she said: Frankly I dont know how it happens, given all the systems that are in place. But there was some confusion at a vote in Palatine in about 2008. Three precincts were voting at one polling place, and at the end of the night, the number of ballots didnt align with the number of votes cast. It turned out, Roberts said, that one or two voters had cast their paper ballots in the wrong precinct. UPDATE: NJ Transit reported as of 10:00 p.m. that train service in and out of Penn Station was operating "close to schedule." For the second night in a row, NJ Transit commuters faced a nightmarish commute, following another mechanical issue that caused delays of over an hour in and out of Penn Station. This time the culprit was the infamous Portal Bridge, a swing bridge owned by Amtrak that crosses the Hackensack River and connects Kearny and Secaucus. The bane of commuter existence was unable to lock in place for over an hour Tuesday afternoon. The bridge was opened to marine traffic at 3:24 p.m. but was not fully closed until 4:52 p.m., Amtrak Spokesman Jason Abrams said. Even after it was locked into place, NJ Transit and Amtrak trains that cross the bridge experienced up to 90-minute delays as of 7 p.m. NJ Transit Spokesman Nathan Rudy said system-wide cross-honoring was in effect with NJ Transit buses as well as privately-owned buses. PATH was also accepting NJ Transit rail tickets and passes at Newark, Hoboken and 33rd Street in Manhattan. The Portal Bridge was actually unable to lock earlier Tuesday as well. It was stuck from 9:50 a.m. to 10:19 a.m., "causing some delays to three Amtrak trains an several commuter trains," Abrams said. The state put $600 million on the table to fund its portion of a $1.5 billion replacement for the aging bridge in June. Construction of a new, two-track, bridge, designed to be 50 feet over the river could be completed in 2024, officials have said. It is part of the Gateway Project which calls for two new Hudson River rail tunnels, rehabilitation of the flood-damaged 1910 tunnels and completion of a tunnel box under the Hudson Yards development in Manhattan to carry tracks to Penn Station. Commuters once again took to social media to complain about the delays, one night after 1,500 people were stranded on a NJ Transit train the lost power and became disabled for over an hour. People on Twitter Tuesday night described long lines, trains that were "dangerously overpacked" and having to "fight" to get onto trains. After that 90min you can then try and fight to get on a train. Well done @NJTRANSIT pic.twitter.com/Pp8XXfXPNL Jamie (@JamieMac8) October 30, 2018 Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrisrsheldon Find NJ.com on Facebook. A South Jersey Congressional candidate says American Jews need to arm themselves and stop relying on others -- especially Democrats -- for their protection. "Jews in America today are in danger of being beaten and killed for just being Jews just like my grandparents when they lived in Eastern Europe more than 100 years ago," Republican Seth Grossman said in a press release Wednesday. "That is because Democrats have fundamentally changed America during the past 30 years. "During these years, radical leftists took control of our media, public schools, colleges, pop culture and the Democratic Party. They then used them to preach a dangerous doctrine that has divided America into groups who are always angry at each other," Grossman said. Grossman's comments came just four days after a gunman burst into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed 11 people and wounded others. President Donald Trump visited the synagogue Tuesday as the first funerals for those slain were being held, despite calls he stay away. In the statement, Grossman criticized the anti-Trump backlash that grew in the wake of the shooting. American Jews again need to embrace the #SecondAmendment of our Constitution. Instead of becoming a burden on taxpayers & law enforcement by demanding special police protection, American Jews should form gun clubs, become proficient in firearms, & obtain legal permits to carry Seth Grossman (@Grossman4NJ) October 31, 2018 Grossman, who is Jewish, the claims the "radical leftists...falsely tell everyone who faces failure or hardship that members of some other 'privileged' group are responsible. This is why Jews in America are now in such a dangerous position. When people start blaming others for their problems, the first people they think of are Jews." Grossman is battling Democrat Jeff Van Drew to fill New Jersey's Second Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. They hope to succeed multi-term Republican Congressman Frank LoBiondo who is retiring from the House. The release came out after Grossman went to Twitter Wednesday morning with a series of posts calling for Jews in the U.S. to arm themselves. "American Jews should stop advertising that our places of worship are gun free zones and soft targets. We American Jews must make it as dangerous and difficult to kill a Jew in America as it is in Israel," he said on Twitter. American Jews need to stop blindly believing and reciting the propaganda talking points of @DNC politicians. They should carefully think through the consequences of what they do and say. #MAGA Seth Grossman (@Grossman4NJ) October 31, 2018 He pointed his finger at Democrats, saying they are the cause of America's troubles and "too many prominent Jews in America today rely too much on politicians, celebrities, & other political elites to advance their careers." In his statement, Grossman condemned the mainstream news media for falsely accusing Trump supporters of instigating hate and violence in America today. Contrary to liberal claims, Grossman said, Trump has supported Israel and Jewish people, and condemned the Pittsburgh murders. Jews' biggest supporters, he said, are "President Trump, his supporters and evangelical Christians." "It is stupid and dangerous for Jewish leaders to systematically attack our friends and support our adversaries. If we do that, we should not blame Trump when we have more enemies and fewer friends." Van Drew Wednesday reacted to Grossman's comments. "I strongly condemn the anti-Semitic terrorist attack at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, and believe it is completely reprehensible that in the days after the tragedy that some are still launching overheated rhetoric dividing people even further," he said Wednesday. "We must defeat radicalism, hate and the toxicity that has torn apart many communities by working together as Americans for the common good." Bill Gallo Jr. may be reached at bgallo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Bill Gallo Jr. on Twitter @bgallojr. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Koeberle Bull of Lumberton was just trying to protect her children when she reported threatening Facebook messages she had received last week to local police. She ended up doing a whole lot more. Bull's efforts helped stop a Kentucky man's plot to execute a school shooting, as Kentucky State Police found 20-year-old Dylan Jarrell wearing a Kevlar vest and in possession of a firearm and more than 200 rounds of ammunition, backing out of his driveway and poised to follow through with a his plan. The South Jersey native was on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" along with her children on Tuesday, as DeGeneres congratulated her for stepping up and helping to stop the potential shooting. On top of that, Bull was reunited with Kentucky State Trooper Josh Satterly, who took her call from New Jersey and made sure her concerns were taken seriously. "For lack of a better word, (Satterly) took it like he was investigating a threat on his own children, and that's what I needed," Bull told DeGeneres. "I needed a dad. I needed that other part to protect them." Bull did not know that Satterly was going to be on the show, and the surprise reunion was unsurprisingly emotional. "You prevented a major attack on schools there," DeGeneres told Bull. "That's why with all the craziness that's going on in the world out there... when you see something, you say something." The hurtful message Bull received from Jarrell called her a "wanna be" black woman and told her that he hoped her "black children gets hung for you being so stupid." "I owed it to her to help her," Satterly said on the show. "I have a 2-year-old myself. When I saw that message, I thought there's no room for that kind of hate in this world." Satterly went on to invite Bull and her children to the annual Anderson County Christmas parade in November, and DeGeneres gave the family a week-long vacation in Fiji. "If you hadn't made that phone call, things would have ended up a lot different," Satterly told Bull. "You're a hero in a lot of people's eyes." Jeremy Schneider may be reached at jschneider@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @J_Schneider. Find NJ.com on Facebook. When Bob Menendez was indicted on corruption charges in 2015, I wrote an editorial calling on him to resign. It was awkward, because his office is across the hall from ours in downtown Newark, and we share the same bathroom. Relations have been a bit tense. So, I'm surprised to be writing that it's his opponent in this race, Republican Bob Hugin, who is running the sleazier campaign. Hugin is running TV spots that suggest Menendez patronized child prostitutes in the Dominican Republic, a charge that's been debunked as a vicious lie by every fact-checker on earth. I'll break that down shortly. But the low road seems to be helping Hugin close the gap. Public polls still show Menendez with a lead of about six points, on average. But campaigns conduct private polls much more frequently, so they can detect changes more quickly. I keep hearing from Democrats who are terrified that the gap is closing. And the Cook Political Report, probably the most respected oddsmakers in American politics, now calls the race a tossup. "It's not like Bob Hugin's campaign fed me a line," says Jennifer Duffy, who handles Senate races for Cook. "It's hand-wringing Democrats who are saying it's not as good as people think. I made that call on the basis of Democratic data." So, given that the prostitution charge could flip the race, let's take a look. The latest ad opens with a young mother cradling her infant daughter as images of Harvey Weinstein flash on a TV screen in the background. We hear the mother's voice, as she pulls her baby close. "Reading this sworn FBI affidavit containing allegations that Menendez traveled abroad to have sex with underage prostitutes, one thing became clear: I'll never be able to explain a vote for him, to her." That affidavit she refers to was presented in support of the FBI's request for a search warrant of the offices of Dr. Salomon Melgen, which was granted. He was later convicted of Medicare fraud, and it now in federal prison. But the affidavit does not charge that Menendez patronized under-aged prostitutes. It says only that an anonymous tipster made the claim. That informant, we learned later, was a liar. You may remember that the first charge of prostitution surfaced in 2013, when three adult women in the Dominican Republic charged on video that Menendez paid them for sex. They later recanted, saying they were paid to make bogus claims. Who would have paid those women to lie? We never found out. But it was the same anonymous tipster who told the FBI that Menendez patronized child prostitutes. He refused to reveal himself to the FBI or sit down with agents to discuss the charge, which kills any surviving scrap of his credibility. The FBI sent agents to the Dominican Republic to be thorough, anyway, and found no good evidence to support the charge. That's it. Hugin has nothing more than the bogus tipster. No one else has made that charge, including the FBI. And no child prostitute ever stepped forward. I have found that many politicians aren't comfortable lying in person, even when they are willing to hire someone to lie for them on TV. So when Hugin visited our offices last week, I asked him directly about the charge that Menendez had sex with child prostitutes: "For the record, are you saying that he did?" Hugin squirmed. You can watch the video here, the exchange begins at about nine minutes in. "We didn't say he did anything," Hugin said. "We're just saying these are the FBI sworn affidavits...I'm just saying the information is out there and every individual should read it." Ick. He is sliming Menendez, and then backing away when pressed to defend himself. To me, it simplifies the decision in the voting booth. Hugin has sacrificed his natural advantage on ethics. Now, this race comes down to Donald Trump. If you want to help Trump, vote for Hugin, his enthusiastic supporter. If not, then choke down your hesitations, and vote for Menendez. More: Tom Moran columns Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or call (973) 836-4909. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. With Halloween approaching, I figured it was time to head deep into the only remaining scary place in New Jersey. The rest of this state may be covered with pavement and paneling, but down there in the pine barrens there are still lots of patches that were more densely populated in the 1840s than they are today. And if these places ain't haunted, then no place is haunted. And I'm not just talking about that cute little Jersey Devil. I'm talking about the wild monkeys of Barnegat. Years ago, according to the legend the pineys tell, there was an old guy who lived out on the marsh and raised monkeys in cages. He may have been a sea captain, he may have been a mad scientist. Whatever. People in Ocean County have a habit of raising wild animals in cages, as you might have noticed from more recent headlines. Anyway, after the old guy died, someone let the monkeys loose in the swamps. These are the same swamps, by the way, that are haunted by the ghosts of seven Confederate spies who were slaughtered by the locals in the Civil War when they came off a boat to steal Barnegat's military secrets. They're buried out there, legend says. That was the legend, anyway, but I am of a skeptical nature. So is my old high school friend Mike Duffy. He's a cop, and cops tend to take a hardheaded attitude toward stories of this type. But when it comes to the monkeys, Duffy has seen things no man should have to see. "It leapt right over the car, where it wasn't in the headlight beam. It was just a black shadow." (Star-Ledger file photo) So on a moonless night we got into Mike's old truck to drive out into the swamps. On the way, Duffy pointed out a dead-end road near the marsh where he and his partner used to take their coffee breaks years ago. One night, his partner pointed out that someone had thrown a pair of shoes high into a tree. Duffy looked at the shoes and saw they had legs attached. When they checked the ID, it turned out the guy had hitchhiked all the way from Massachusetts. His relatives said they had no idea how or why he had come all this way to hang himself in this dreary swamp. But a look around showed he had come to the right place. That set the mood for our trip to the quiet lane the locals call Monkeytown Road. We quickly got off the paved section, and the truck's headlights began boring a hole into the swamp. The pine needles lashed against the mirrors, making an eerie sound that was accompanied only by the sputters of an engine that seemed ready to conk out and strand us just like in a cheap horror movie. As we drove, Duffy described his long-ago encounter with whatever creature lived in this swamp. It was a quiet summer night 25 years ago, and Duffy was new on the job. He'd just moved south from Toms River, the great metropolis to the north, and he didn't know much about Monkeytown Road or why the locals were scared to death of the place. One quiet night he and his partner decided to take a drive down it. They were poking along in the police cruiser when they heard a rustling in the woods. A creature burst out of the darkness and jumped across the hood of the police cruiser. "It leapt right over the car, where it wasn't in the headlight beam. It was just a black shadow," Duffy told me. "I thought it was a man. I said, 'Did you see that?' "It jumped over the hood and it was gone. We hit the alley lights and everything, but we couldn't see a thing." Duffy's partner slammed the car into reverse and hit the accelerator. They backed up a half-mile or so before they found a spot where they could turn around and get the hell back to the bright lights of Route 9. "We were telling people about it. They said, 'Oh, that was Monkeytown Road.' They said they always suspected there were monkeys living down here." Duffy still has his doubts about whether the thing that ran across the hood was in fact a monkey. "But it was definitely on two legs," he told me. We kept driving until we came to a gate so old that a tree trunk had grown around one of the posts. This was extremely creepy, so naturally we got out of the truck and proceeded on foot. We were armed with just a flashlight, and its beam barely penetrated the thick brush on either side of the path. We passed the remains of an old house. Duffy shined a light into the wreckage. We figured maybe the old monkey cages were nearby. We wandered down the path a bit further, having a pleasant conversation about the tendency of Mafia hitmen to bury their victims in places like this. On the way back, we passed the house again. I heard a noise. It was a deep gurgling sound. It was the exact sound that directors of cheap horror movies employ in that crucial moment right after the slasher has put his knife to the throat of an unsuspecting victim. Duffy trained the light on the ruins of the house. Finally the light beam fell on the source of the sound. It was a true freak of nature, something I'd never seen before. It was an artesian well, a pipe that is tapped into an aquifer so powerful that it spurts water with no aid from a pump. The water had been flowing ever since the monkeys were in the cages, apparently. We got back in the truck and turned around to leave the swamp, no closer to the truth than when we'd driven in. Were there monkeys on the loose? If not, what jumped over the police car all those years ago? I have no idea. But this I do know: If you want some cheap thrills this Halloween, skip those corny costume parties. Instead buy one of those cheap flashlights, the ones that flicker all the time and then go dark when you really need them, and take a walk in the pines. Note: I wrote this column some years ago before columns were routinely posted online, so I figured I'd post it again for Halloween. Paul Mulshine is an opinion columnist for The Star-Ledger. Find him on Twitter @Mulshine. Even Congress has a silver lining, and that is Josh Gottheimer. He's the smart, upbeat centrist who replaced Scott Garrett, the dour ideologue who clung to this seat for more than a decade. Voters of the 5th district kicked Garrett out in 2016, largely for his bigoted remarks against gay people, but also perhaps the hypocrisy they detected in his anti-government shtick. The Tea Partier who was even loath to fight for aid for Sandy victims, or health care for 9-11 first responders, now makes six figures in a government job created just for him, during a hiring freeze. Having rid themselves of this swamp creature, the voters of Gottheimer's district, which cuts across our state's northern border, now face a new question. Will they double down on the moderation of this freshman Democrat, or elect another partisan hack? John McCann, his latest Tea Party opponent, is an attorney and former Cresskill councilman who is staking his campaign on race-baiting scare tactics, because he is so clearly unqualified for Congress. He is also a petty man, like Garrett. McCann even opposed using a microphone during his public debate with Gottheimer, for reasons that are hard to fathom, and spent much of the night loudly arguing with the moderator. That's about the last thing we need in Congress. Josh Gottheimer the Democrat incumbent defending his seat in the 5th Congressional District, visited with The Star-Ledger to chat with Tom Moran as part of an editorial board meeting in Newark. Posted by NJ.com Opinion on Monday, October 29, 2018 Gottheimer, by contrast, has earned a reputation as a sensible and good-natured Democrat who works well with Republicans, and puts the people of his district first. Like virtually all our GOP representatives, with the galling exception of Tom MacArthur, he opposed the tax hike bill that especially hurt New Jerseyans. McCann repeatedly praised this plan, which strictly capped your ability to deduct local taxes from your federal tax bill. He claims he wants to restore our deduction, yet dismissed the opposition to this bill as "a political soundbite." It hardly inspires confidence. McCann has also offered no plan to prevent our health insurance premiums from skyrocketing, particularly for those with conditions like cancer or diabetes, as he and other Republicans vow to repeal the Affordable Care Act. This is an area where Gottheimer shines. He has promised to defend the core protections of the ACA, and was part of a bipartisan group that sought to help stabilize the marketplace after insurers got spooked by Republican attempts to repeal the law and moved to hike premiums. But where Gottheimer works to steady the ship, McCann seeks to capitalize off divisiveness. He's spent this campaign stirring up dark fears about minorities and unauthorized immigrants, including with an offensive ad that blows hot air. The spot features a hooded immigrant with glowing eyes, on his way to break into a home and sexually assault a child. Only McCann will keep out the terrorist gangbangers, it claims, because "congressmen like Gottheimer have failed us." Please. Gottheimer's position on this is air-tight: We must enforce our laws humanely, without ripping toddlers from their parents' arms, but come down hard on criminals and terrorists. Maybe this is why he's endorsed by law enforcement, including the state PBA and Fraternal Order of Police, supports tightening border security and has teamed up with Republicans on anti-terrorism initiatives. One is named for Darren Drake of New Milford, who was riding his bike in lower Manhattan last year when he was run down by a truck driven by an ISIS sympathizer. It requires a TSA background check to rent a large vehicle. Another bill mandated a barrier on planes to block would-be terrorists from charging the cockpit, a lingering recommendation of the 9-11 commission. Gottheimer has also worked on bipartisan efforts to improve rail safety, job training in prisons, and most significantly, was one of only a handful of Democrats who voted with Republicans to lift the overly burdensome regulations on community banks, an addendum to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform. McCann, on the other hand, leans in to extremism. He recently brought Sebastian Gorka, a man best known for sporting Nazi paraphernalia, to campaign with him in New Jersey. And who could forget how he handled that hateful episode in Hampton? When the home of a Gottheimer supporter was vandalized with a swastika and MAGA graffiti, McCann inexplicably blamed Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters. Now, in an attack ad, he accuses Gottheimer of playing "partisan politics." Really? Elect Josh Gottheimer, because the last thing this district needs is another partisan hypocrite. Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook. By Jonathan D. Salant | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com Don't Edit Worried about the high costs of health care? Fearful that insurers again won't cover you if you have a pre-existing condition? So many Americans feel that way that health care has emerged as the No. 1 topic on voters' minds this fall and could carry the Democrats into a House majority, a reversal over 2010 when outrage over the Affordable Care Act led to a Republican takeover of the chamber. Almost six of every 10 campaign ads after Labor Day in support of House Democratic candidates mention health care, according to the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks political advertising. "Worries about rising health care costs top the list of voter concerns, which is true not just in New Jersey but nationwide," said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, whose poll earlier this month named health care as the top issue among New Jersey likely voters. Don't Edit President Donald Trump speaks as House Republicans came to the White House to celebrate repealing the Affordable Care Act on May 4, 2017. (Stephen Crowley | The New York Times) Voter backlash to the unsuccessful efforts by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to repeal the law, which would have left as many as 32 million more Americans uninsured, has put several Republican incumbents in jeopardy, including both Reps. Tom MacArthur, R-3rd Dist., and Leonard Lance, R-7th Dist. The issue is also a strength for Democratic U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, who helped draft the original Obamacare bill, in his tough fight with Republican Bob Hugin, a former pharmaceutical executive. The Democrats' ads have dubbed the Republican repeal efforts "Trumpcare," seeking to take advantage of both the president's unpopularity and the current support for the ACA, which was backed by 54 percent of likely voters in a Fox News poll, with 43 in opposition. Meanwhile, false claims about Republican and Democratic positions on health care have become a staple of the president's speeches at his political rallies. Here's what you need to know about the top issue in the 2018 campaign. Don't Edit Gov. Phil Murphy signs bills on women's health care funding in February. (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) The impact on N.J. Under the health care law, insurers can no longer refuse to cover those with pre-existing conditions such as diabetes or cancer, and are limited in how much more they could charge older policyholders. It provides subsidies to help lower-income Americans who otherwise couldn't afford insurance buy comprehensive coverage. And it provides $1 billion in federal funds to the state annually to cover most of the costs of expanding Medicaid. As a result, 472,226 additional New Jerseyans now have health insurance, 688,068 in 2017 versus 1.2 million in 2013, according to New Jersey Policy Perspective, a progressive research group. That lowered the uninsured rate to 7.7 percent in 2017 compared with 13.2 percent in 2013. Around 800,000 New Jerseyans are receiving coverage under the health care law, 500,000 through Medicaid and about 300,000 through private insurance. Those buying insurance through the Affordable Care Act can expect an average reduction in their premiums of 9.3 percent next year as Gov. Phil Murphy and the Democratic-controlled legislature enacted two laws to address the problems caused by congressional Republican repeal efforts. The legislation required all state residents to carry insurance or pay a penalty, and set up a reinsurance program to protect insurers from very high medical claims. New Jersey insurers last year sought double-digit rate hikes, partly in response to Trump and GOP proposals to repeal the health care law or weaken its provisions administratively. Don't Edit Where Menendez stands As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over health care issues, U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., helped draft the original Affordable Care Act and fought Republican repeal efforts, which failed by one vote in his chamber. He also voted against the Republican tax bill that ended the requirement that all Americans carry health insurance or pay a penalty. Menendez has gone after his Republican challenger, Bob Hugin, former chief executive of Celgene Corp., which lobbied against legislation making it easier for generic companies to bring lower-cost alternatives to market, and which raised the price of its Revlimid cancer drug 20 percent last year in the U.S while cutting it in Russia. In June, Menendez added his name as a co-sponsor to the generic drug bill Celgene under Hugin lobbied against. Don't Edit Don't Edit Where Hugin stands Hugin also has cited his experience leading Summit-based Celgene as he offered his own proposals to fix the health care system. He said he would keep what he deemed the "good" things about current health care law, including guaranteeing affordable coverage for pre-existing conditions and allowing people to stay on their parents' insurance until 26 years old. To help lower-income Americans, he would cap drug co-pays at $50 and limit monthly out-of-pocket expenses. Hugin also called for changing the way care was delivered, taking advantage of information technology to overhaul the entire health system, including acting to keep patients healthy rather than treat them after they became ill. Don't Edit MacArthur voted yes. Constituents may vote him out. The House Republican repeal effort appeared to be dead before New Jersey's Rep. Tom MacArthur offered an amendment giving the states more freedom to waive the law's requirements that all insurance policies offer certain benefits. The most conservative House Republicans agreed and the repeal bill narrowly passed. But the Congressional Budget Office, the medical community and independent outside experts said the MacArthur amendment would jeopardize coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. MacArthur, R-3rd Dist., has insisted otherwise, and even claimed in his campaign literature to have fought for such protections. But his role in helping House Republicans repeal the law remains unpopular and is one reason his re-election race is so tight. His Democratic challenger, former national security aide Andy Kim, has gone after MacArthur on health care and has the money to keep doing so. Through Oct. 17, he outraised the incumbent, $5.2 million to $3.1 million, forcing MacArthur to pump $1.4 million of his own money into the campaign. The Cook Political Report, a Washington-based publication that tracks congressional races, called the race a tossup. Don't Edit Lance's earlier votes may come back to haunt him When the House Republican repeal bill reached the floor last year, Rep. Leonard Lance, R-7th Dist., voted no. He then joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers in proposing changes to the law, which House Republican leaders refused to bring up for a vote. But before Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, Lance joined with his colleagues and supported efforts to repeal the legislation. That's what his Democratic challenger, former Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Tom Malinowski, has been hammering on. Like Kim, Malinowski has the resources to keep making that argument, having raised $5.3 million through Oct. 17, more than double the $2.3 million Lance has brought in. Like MacArthur, Lance was given no better than a 50-50 chance to retain his seat by the Cook Political Report. Don't Edit President Donald Trump talks to House Speaker Paul Ryan R-Wis., in the Rose Garden of the White House in May 2017 in Washington, after House Republicans voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. (AP Photo | Evan Vucci) Trump inserts himself into the debate The president, who promised during the campaign to provide health care for everyone and not to cut Medicaid, broke both pledges when he endorsed the Republican repeal efforts. Having failed to get rid of the ACA, he since has taken several steps administratively to weaken the law and its requirement that insurers provide comprehensive coverage. His tax bill ended the individual mandate for people to buy insurance, and his administration has argued that the provisions insurers from charging more, or refusing to cover, those with pre-existing conditions were unconstitutional. He moved to expand the use of temporary short-term insurance policies, which do not cover pre-existing conditions and offer limited coverage, making their premiums so cheap; has reduced the enrollment period; and cut funding for navigators that help people sign up. In the Fox News poll, 57 percent of likely voters disapproved of the way Trump was handling health care, compared with 37 percent who approved. The president also has taken to falsely claiming that he and the Republicans support covering people with pre-existing conditions, after spending months working to take such protection away. Don't Edit Knowing how unpopular the Republicans' position is Trump has made a staple of his campaign speeches the false claim that he is the one fighting to protect pre-existing conditions while the Democrats want to hurt those with diabetes or cancer. Don't Edit Don't Edit Republicans will totally protect people with Pre-Existing Conditions, Democrats will not! Vote Republican. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 24, 2018 However, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Politifact rated Trump's comments "pants on fire," its rating reserved for the most egregious false statements. Don't Edit What you think about health care and the elections Health care is the number one concern in New Jersey and the nation, according to a wide range of polls: * Likely voters across America trust trusted Democrats over Republicans, 58 percent to 34 percent, on health care issues in the Fox News poll. * Nearly a quarter of New Jersey voters surveyed in the Monmouth poll said health care is their number one concern. * Likely voters trust Menendez more than Hugin (40 percent-28 percent) on health care. * MacArthur's attempts to help Trump on the Obamacare repeal are hurting him, as 32 percent of 3rd District voters say they're less likely to vote for him because of it, as compared to 16 percent who say they are more likely to vote for him, according to a Stockton University poll * More than three-quarters of voters say covering pre-existing conditions should remain law. It's a consistent number: 76 percent in the Stockton poll of the 3rd Congressional District, and 75 percent of all Americans, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Don't Edit Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. BEDFORD, N.H. -- Former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie criticized Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto for declining to join President Donald Trump on a visit to the city where 11 people were killed at a synagogue. Christie, who was in New Hampshire to headline a state Republican Party rally, said late Tuesday that Trump's Pittsburgh visit was an attempt to unify the country. "Folks all want the president to bring the country together. Well, I think his travel to Pittsburgh was an attempt to do that," Christie told The Associated Press. "And I think it's really disgraceful of Gov. Wolf and the mayor of Pittsburgh not to meet the president." A campaign spokeswoman for Wolf said community leaders expressed to the governor that they did not feel it was appropriate for Trump to come, so Wolf made a decision not to join him out of respect for the families and the community. Peduto told reporters before the visit was announced that the White House ought to consult with the families of the victims about their preferences and asked that the president not come during a funeral. Christie, who backed Trump's 2016 Republican presidential campaign after his own unsuccessful bid for the GOP nomination, defended the president against complaints that Trump's divisive language has added to the nation's toxic political environment. "I know the president is not attempting in any way, shape, or form to incite violence. I know him. I've known him for 16 years," Christie said. "But sometimes what we intend when we say it is different than how some people hear it," he continued. "Especially some of the disturbed people that we've seen this week, whether it's the man who sent the pipe bombs around the country or the man who performed the terrible murderous act at the temple in Pittsburgh. Those people sometimes hear us differently than we intend to be heard." Christie urged his New Hampshire audience to do everything they could in the final week to elect congressional candidates Eddie Edwards and Steve Negron and to re-elect Republican Gov. Chris Sununu. "The governor needs your help next Tuesday. I know he's ahead, but don't take it for granted," Christie said. Christie, who early this year finished up his second term as New Jersey governor, was less clear about his political future. "I don't know if there's another run for public office in my life or not. What I will tell you is I'm 56, so I doubt I'm done with public life," he said, adding that he doubted he would join the administration in any kind of formal role. "I like the role I play with the president now," he said. "I'm one of those advisers who he talks to on a regular basis on the outside." The man accused of sending pipe bombs to prominent Democrats may have planned to send an improvised explosive device to U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, according to the Democratic senator. Menendez, who is in a close re-election contest against Republican challenger Bob Hugin, said Monday the suspect, 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc, searched the Internet for information on him. "The U.S. Capitol Police called our office and said that the bomber had done Google searches of me and my office, so they called us to keep us aware of any possibilities," Menendez said at a public event. The U.S. Capitol Police declined to comment on the matter, citing an ongoing investigation. Menendez was pressed on the topic after reports that Sayoc kept a list of elected officials, according to The Associated Press. "They wanted us to know," Menendez said, referring to the U.S. Capitol Police. The news prompted the lawmaker to review his state office's procedures on managing incoming mail. Menendez has offices in Newark and Barrington. Sayoc was arrested Friday in Florida after investigators said they identified him through fingerprint and DNA evidence. He faces more than 50 years in prison if convicted on all charges related to pipe bombs officials allege he sent to Democratic political figures across the country, including former President Barack Obama, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey. Menendez is facing a challenge from Hugin, a retired pharmaceutical executive. While he hasn't trailed in any public opinion poll, surveys show Menendez leading by only single digits. And the Cook Political Report is now calling the race a "tossup," though FiveThirtyEight says it's not. A Republican hasn't won election to the U.S. Senate in New Jersey since 1972. Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook. WASHINGTON -- Voter opposition to Donald Trump has allowed Democratic challenger Tom Malinowski to maintain a narrow lead over Rep. Leonard Lance in the congressional district where the president spends his summer vacation. Malinowski, a former assistant U.S. secretary of state, led Lance, R-7th Dist., 47 percent to 44 percent among likely voters in a Monmouth University Poll released Wednesday. The margin was well within the survey's margin of error of 7.3 percentage points. Last month, Malinowski held a similar 3-point advantage among likely voters over Lance, 46 percent to 43 percent, in one of only 23 congressional districts with a Republican representative that supported Hillary Clinton for president. "The choice for voters in this district seems to fall along the lines of whether they like their congressman more or dislike the president more," said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. The race is considered a tossup by both Washington-based publications that track congressional races, the Cook Political Report and Inside Elections. Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight gave Malinowski a 78 percent chance of winning the race. The challenger raised $5.3 million through Oct. 17, more than double the $2.3 million that Lance brought in. In the Monmouth poll, more than three-quarters of likely voters said Trump would be a very important factor in their vote, including 86 percent of those opposed to the president and 75 percent of his supporters. And a majority, 51 percent, disapproved of Trump's performance in office, while 46 percent approved. As elsewhere, health care was voters' No. 1 concern, and they said they trusted Malinowski more than Lance, 40 percent to 29 percent, on the issue. Lance voted against the House Republican legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which the Congressional Budget Office said would result in 23 million more Americans being uninsured. Taxes was the second-most mentioned issue, and there the two candidates virtually were tied in who voters would trust more, with 36 percent for Malinowski and 35 percent for Lance. Lance bucked his party and cast a no vote on the Republican tax law, which capped the federal deduction for state and local taxes. A majority of likely voters in the district, 54 percent, disapproved of the legislation while 38 percent supported it. "Tax policy is usually a slam dunk issue for Republican candidates," Murray said. "But Lance can't escape voter discontent with this GOP plan, even though he voted against it." The poll of 356 likely voters was conducted Oct. 25-29. Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. Nicole Shipler had two secrets. She was four months pregnant. And she had been addicted to heroin for three years. By the time the Janesville woman knew she was carrying a child, it was too late. Her baby would be born addicted to opioids. The medical term is neonatal abstinence syndrome, a condition caused by babies being exposed to opioids in the womb, said Elizabeth Loconto, a pediatrician at Mercyhealth East Clinic. It is diagnosed after birth when babies exhibit symptoms of opioid withdrawal, Loconto told the Janesville Gazette . The symptoms are heartbreaking to watch. High-pitched screeching, tremors, tightened muscles and trouble eating are only a few, Loconto said. Wisconsin had 542 babies diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome in 2017, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. For some mothers, becoming pregnant while addicted becomes motivation to get clean, officials say. Other mothers choose to let their children go into foster care as they struggle with addiction. Shipler kept her addiction a secret from her boyfriend and family for years, but it couldn't be a secret anymore. She needed help. Shipler didn't know what to do. She was pregnant, addicted and none of her friends or family had been through this before. Shipler's addiction started after she took heroin with some friends, she said. She had already been struggling with alcoholism that stemmed from her divorce. But doing heroin for fun quickly turned into a crippling addiction, Shipler said. After calling around, her and her boyfriend found help at the Janesville Counseling Center, Shipler said. It was the only place they called with same-day availability. Staff at the Janesville Counseling Center told her they would get her into a methadone clinic as soon as possible, she said. Methadone is one of three medications used to help people with opioid addictions beat the disease. In the meantime, Shipler said she couldn't go into withdrawals because it could have harmed or killed the unborn baby. "You don't want to just stop the drugs cold turkey because the infant then can also go through withdrawal in utero while the mom is going through withdrawal, which can have very bad side effects," Loconto said. The counseling center gave Shipler a plan to safely use heroin until she could get treatment, said Patty Lawrence, Shipler's social worker from Rock County Human Services. Shipler said she was told to use as little heroin as possible, have someone with her when she used and to only get drugs from people she had bought from before. She continued using heroin for about a week until the Beloit Comprehensive Treatment Center had a spot for her in its methadone treatment program. "It was kind of a blur that day," Shipler said. "(There was) a lot of information, and the fear was really just so overwhelming. I just remember kind of being in a daze with everybody finding out. Now my secret's out." Shipler gave birth to Madison on May 9, 2017, in Milwaukee. Shipler lived briefly at the Meta House in Milwaukee, a residential drug treatment center for women, per recommendation of a social worker and the Rock County Drug Court program. The baby girl was born two weeks early and weighed only 4 pounds, 11 ounces, Shipler said. Madison stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit for about 10 days as nurses and doctors managed her withdrawal symptoms, Shipler said. Madison had trouble eating, frequently stiffened her muscles and had tremors that caused her tiny limbs to shake. The nurses gave Madison morphine to ease the withdrawal, Shipler said. "It was hard to know she had to be medicated because of choices I made," she said. There were 21 babies diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome in Rock County in 2017, the fifth-most among Wisconsin's 72 counties. Since 2013, 101 babies have been diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome in Rock County. The number of cases peaked at 28 in 2016, according to the data. "It is challenging because I feel like these babies aren't even given a chance to start," Loconto said, choking back tears. "It makes me emotional because ... when you're born, you have your whole life ahead of you, and these babies are starting from behind to start off with." Babies born addicted to opioids require more time and more care, Loconto said. They are fussy and demand constant attention, she said. Caregivers cuddle the babies more with lights dimmed and sound low to minimize withdrawal and the need for morphine. The babies get diminishing doses of morphine until they can live comfortably without it. Mercyhealth Hospital and Trauma Center, Janesville, renovated its nursery a year and a half ago to accommodate babies with the condition, Loconto said. The hospital had sent babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome to Mercyhealth's neonatal intensive care unit in Rockford, Illinois, but found enough demand to add resources in Janesville. Eight babies were diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome at Mercyhealth from Jan. 1 to Sept. 5, Trish Reed, spokeswoman for Mercyhealth said in an email to The Gazette. Babies are diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome by being scored on the Finnegan Scoring system, a checklist of symptoms of withdrawal, Loconto said. Each symptom has a number of points assigned to it, Loconto said. If the baby scores high enough, he or she will be diagnosed and given morphine. Symptoms include excessive high-pitched crying, tremors, increased muscle tone, twitching, jerking, sweating, convulsions, sneezing, excessive sucking and poor feeding, according to the score sheet. Babies can get neonatal abstinence syndrome from exposure to opioids including heroin, prescription painkillers and treatment medications such as methadone and suboxone, Loconto said. It is important for mothers to be honest with their doctors about drug use to help doctors give better treatment sooner, Loconto said. A doctor's goal is to help the baby, not get the mother in trouble, Loconto said. Madison is a sassy 1-year-old who loves pink Goldfish crackers and her brown boots with sparkly shoelaces. She says "uh-oh" when the TV turns off and doesn't share her Minnie Mouse chair with anyone. Madison is in the 30th to 40th percentile for her size and is developing at the rate of her peers, Shipler said. But Shipler understands Madison could have problems later. The long-term effects of neonatal abstinence syndrome are unclear because it is difficult for doctors to determine if effects rise from neonatal abstinence syndrome or from the child's environment, Loconto said. Learning disabilities, difficulty adapting to new situations and sensory disabilities all are possible long-term effects, Loconto said. "I was at the hospital when she was 4 pounds and going through withdrawals," Lawrence said. "To see her today is just ... she's a little miracle." Madison lives at home in Janesville with her parents and half-brother, Shipler said. Shipler will go to court at the end of October to learn if she will regain custody of her two other daughters, who were born from a previous marriage before her addiction started. "I am excited to have all my girls under one roof again," Shipler said. Shipler's greatest fear is losing custody of Madison, she said. She was threatened with losing her child multiple times but never did. Human services identified her case as eligible for its in-home services program, which allows children to stay in their homes as social workers monitor the families daily and help them improve their environments, Lawrence said. Initially, Shipler was resistant to Lawrence because she didn't trust human services, she said. "I think that every time me and my workers were in the home, she thought we were there to find a reason to remove her baby, when actually we were there to provide support," Lawrence said. Upon returning to Janesville from Milwaukee, Shipler reported to Rock County Drug Court as result of a previous criminal charges, she said. But Shipler fell into old ways and ended up in jail for a number of days. She was kicked out of her inpatient treatment program and was cut off from the medication that was helping her stay clean. So she relapsed, she said. Shipler said if she'd had lost custody of Madison, she likely would have given up on sobriety. "There would have been no incentive for me to get clean if I didn't have her right there with me," Shipler said. Social workers understand relapses are likely during recovery, said Stacey Speich, program manager for human services. Social workers want to keep children in their homes as often as possible, Speich said. For babies who can't stay at home, social workers look for other family members or close friends who can take care of the children, Speich said. If that doesn't pan out, babies are placed into the foster care system, she said. "Unfortunately, there are times when the addictions are so strong that the mom may give birth and then leave, or we'll end up taking placement of the child and the mom may disappear," Speich said. There are seven foster families in Rock County who specialize in caring for babies with needs such as neonatal abstinence syndrome, Speich said. Shipler said drug court officials sent her to Tellurian, a treatment center in Madison, to detox for about a week after her relapse. After detox, Shipler received Vivitrol, an injectable form of naltrexone that prevents opioids from reaching the brain. The shot is given once every four weeks. Shipler continues to take Vivitrol to treat her addiction. "I think that's where she really learned that we were there to help and to provide support and do what was best for her and the baby, and that was keeping the baby in the home and reducing the trauma to the baby and to the family," Lawrence said. Shipler has been clean from drugs for more than a year, she said. She has started working at a sandwich shop in Janesville, got her drivers license back, bought a car and graduated from drug court, she said. Shipler has maintained her sobriety despite her ongoing custody battle with her ex-husband and a house fire in December that left her family with next to nothing, she said. "When you come back from nothing, it is those little milestones that make you feel like you are contributing and make you feel like you are worthy of being happy again," Shipler said. Shipler said she will be open with Madison about her addiction. "I have no qualms about being open and honest with her," Shipler said. "I have nothing to hide for one of the first times in my life. "There are no secrets, so I wouldn't start by keeping that from her." Published in The Janesville Gazette UPDATE: The source of the music has been found It's described as a booming or thumping sound. A repetitive, dull bass that been pulsating through homes and rattling residents' nerves. It's music whose origin is a mystery and has been bombarding residents in the Delaware River towns of Carneys Point, Penns Grove and Pennsville. It's been heard various times since the summer, some say, but the worst spate has been in the past couple of weeks. "It was like a sickening pulsing heartbeat. We turned up our television, but could not overpower the throb," said Monica Morris Lind, a riverfront resident describing the wave of sound that was traveling across the water on Sunday night. "The thumping came straight through our front porch to the back of our home in the kitchen. It went on until the wee hours of the morning until around 3 a.m." Is the First State having a party and forgot to invite Jersey? That's one idea that can probably be ruled out, but others have theories. A party boat? Music being played on a dredge anchored in the channel? A nightclub on the Delaware shore? It begins usually in the early evening and continues on into the early-morning hours. Sometimes that's as late (or early, if you will) as 4 a.m. Residents are aggravated. Police are frustrated. Their patience is wearing thin. "At this stage Delaware authorities have not been able to locate (the source of the music)," said Penns Grove Chief of Police John T. Stranahan Sr., adding, "We've had officers, including myself, go to Delaware to attempt to locate the music and we've narrowed it down to a very small area." He wouldn't yet specify where but promised once it's confirmed he'll let the public know. "Everyone assumes its local because it's so loud," the chief said. Carol Napoleon Hampton of Pennsville recorded a video of the weird occurrence Sunday evening. From a spot south of the Delaware Memorial Bridge the music can very clearly be heard over the sound of river waves lapping the shore. Residents for a 15-mile stretch north and south of where Hampton recorded sound describe it as loud or louder than what she captured. They say they not only hear it, but can actually feel the vibrations from the music rattling their homes and their bodies. "Some nights it's been very loud. Sometimes it's just bass off in the distance. However, still annoying," a member of one Facebook group in the Penns Grove-Carneys Point area described it. Others have said they thought a car was parked outside of their house blaring music, the sounds have been so loud. Pennsville Chief of Police Allen J. Cummings said his department has received more than 20 complaints in October alone. Delaware authorities, he said, told him "they are working on it." Carneys Point Police Chief Gerald R. Krivda said his department has received numerous complaints which were passed on to Delaware. The county's 911 call center has received at least 55 calls about the music in October, the center's director, Scott Haines, said. The largest number of complaints came in on Oct. 20 and 21, 38 in total just that weekend. A spokesman for Delaware State Police said so far they have received three noise complaints -- on Oct. 14, 23 and 28 between 7:45 and 11:30 p.m. Master Corporal Michael Austin said the area identified by callers stretched from the Port of Wilmington north to Edgemoor Road -- areas across the river from Carneys Point and Penns Grove. Austin said when troopers went to the areas they heard no music and were unable to find a source. He said police were told a possible source of the music could be a barge in the river connected to dredging operations and the Delaware Department of Natural Resources. Officials there didn't immediately respond to an inquiry sent by NJ Advance Media. And it's not just people living along the Delaware River who are hearing the mystery thumps in the night. Residents far inland in Mannington Township and the village of Auburn in Oldmans Township have reported hearing the bass sound late into the night. One theory is the music is coming from people gathering in Delaware and showing off the enormous custom sound systems in their vehicles. That was the case this past summer when booming music coming across the Delaware River from South Philadelphia was keeping residents of Gloucester City awake. Austin says New Jersey residents hearing the music and who want to register a complaint should call Delaware State Police at 302-573-2800. Bill Gallo Jr. may be reached at bgallo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Bill Gallo Jr. on Twitter @bgallojr. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips When Professor Harry I. Naar began teaching at what was then Rider College in 1980, the school had just a few rooms sometimes used for art displays. Now, almost 40 years later, the school can boast a state of the art gallery that offers the public two shows per semester drawing artists of known stature regionally, nationally and some internationally. But Professor Naar is retiring and the local art community is lamenting his imminent departure not only for his important contribution to Rider University, but for his own artwork that has enriched so many of the area's exhibitions. Watercolors Observed and Imagined," drawn from his body of work is currently on exhibit in the gallery he founded and nurtured all these years. As with all the exhibits in the gallery, this show too is accompanied by a full color catalog. Rider is the only school in the region to offer a catalog free to visitors and, according to Naar, that has been a strong drawing card for artists. While in past show catalogs include a lengthy Naar-led interview with the artist, this catalog includes a Naar biography and essays by Mel Leipzig, renowned Trenton artist and professor emeritus Mercer County Community College, and Dan Bischoff, art critic for The New Jersey Star-Ledger. Naar reminisced with me last week about his beginning interest in art and teaching. "I had a really terrific art teacher. He was my main impetus to become an artist," he said. "He taught a lot of art history and he painted in the class. We got to see the creative process from someone we admired. Until then art was a mystery. With him it became alive. That's when I knew it was something I wanted to do. I went to Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts) and then to Indiana University Bloomington." (Where he received his MFA degree.) Speaking about the dual foundation of a fine arts and a liberal arts education, Naar says, "A lot of people think you just paint. But in order to create a visual image you need to read a lot and be exposed to a wide variety of things. I had professors that gave me a liberal arts education focused on visual art. That's what I've tried to do here at Rider." On view now in the gallery he founded, are 32 of his watercolor paintings. An example of what he meant when he titled the exhibit "Watercolors Observed and Imagined," is his painting, "Still Life with Folding Picture Freight Train Book" which he says he painted for his children. "Almost everything I paint has some personal attachment and that painting relates not only to me but to my family," he says. "That painting was invented and observed. I invented the table but the book on the windowsill and the shell on the table and the fruit were real. I bought the fabric and draped it over a chair. It looks like I might have used washes but I don't paint like that. I paint watercolors like oils. I mix a color and put it down using a small brush and small strokes, the way Cezanne painted." His "Distant View of Rocks" was also done with small strokes. Some pencil drawing shows in this one and, he explains the darker areas are simply covered with more strokes. The lighter areas happened when he let more of the paper show through, and the background, though it looks as if he used washes, is simply the color of the paper he used. And about "Rooftops, Beach Haven," he says that was a direct painting. The beach house had a roof deck with an 180-degree view and he liked to go up there and paint. "I was focusing on distance," he says. His view that day was a limited palette view across many-angled roofs, some chimneys and utility poles, and off in the distance a sliver of blue ocean on the far horizon. "What's important to me," he says, "is I paint in a representational manner but I want people to recognize I'm painting and not trying to fool the eye. I'm not painting super realistically. You can just take a photo. My paintings are about what I'm looking at. I'm not literal. I change colors and positions of things because I'm thinking in terms of trying to create a satisfying composition." In addition to Naar's always being faithful to creating his own body of work, to his teaching, to his curating exhibits in the gallery, he is also the founder of the Rider University Art Collection to which the public is always invited to visit and enjoy. The works are displayed in areas of the University campus accessible to the public such as the library, North Hall that houses the education program, and administration offices, to name just a few. I encourage you to take that tour. It's an important collection of works by artists who have shown their works at Rider during Naar's distinguished tenure. Professor Naar has exhibited in more than 30 one-person and over 100 group exhibitions throughout the country in such venues as The Corcoran Museum of Art, the New Jersey State Museum, the USSR Artists Union Gallery (Moscow) and the Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, Havana, Cuba, among others. His works are held in many museums and corporations throughout the U.S. and he has been the recipient of prestigious awards and fellowships. And now as he retires to move with his wife, Barbara, to be with their children and grandchildren in Seattle, Washington, he says, "I hope I was an important influence on the direction of the University, but also in terms of being able to express to students a variety of ways one can go in developing a visual image. There isn't one best way. I felt it was really important to have an opportunity to experience a class the students might not find in another place and be able to take. It's important not only to learn what you think you are interested in but to be exposed to classes that might change your direction or add to your experience, to know about other things. That's the importance of a liberal arts education. I hope I was able to impart that." IF YOU GO: WHAT: Harry I. Naar, Watercolors Observed and Imagined WHERE: Rider University Art Gallery, Bart Luedeke Center, 3rd Floor, 2083 Lawrenceville Road, Lawrenceville WHEN: Through November 30. Hours, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Tuesday-Thursday; Noon-4 p.m., Sunday. Naar talk: 7 p.m. November 7. CONTACT: 609-896-5168. www.rideredu/artgallery Follow NJ.com on Twitter @njdotcom. Find NJ.com on Facebook Three men were convicted in connection with a 2013 murder of a Plainfield man in his home according to the Union County Prosecutor's Office. The jury convicted Alejandro Lopez, 30, and Rodney Rosario, 33, of murder, felony murder, burglary, two weapons offenses and two counts of both criminal restraint and aggravated assault on Tuesday after deliberating several days following the month-long trial. The two men and another Plainfield man, Mayrenid Hidalgo-Bautista, 31, were also found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. Lopez and Rosario face up to life in prison, and will be sentenced Friday, Jan. 11, 2019. Hidalgo-Bautista faces up to 30 years in prison. Back in 2013, police responded to a home in the 700 block of East Sixth Street and found 28-year-old Jose Disla-Cordero shot to death in his basement. Following an investigation with Union County Prosecutor's Office, officials from the FBI's Newark division arrested Rosario in Miami. He was then were taken to the Union County jail. During the trial, it was revealed that the killing was a retaliation hit. The three men allegedly believed that the victim stole from them, prosecutors said. Prosecutors say the defendants burst into Disla-Cordero's home that Sunday evening and held two other adults at gunpoint in the basement while using three handguns to shoot the victim to death. A fourth suspect, who authorities did not name, but who was identified during the trial, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder before the trial. Taylor Tiamoyo Harris may be reached at tharris@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ladytiamoyo. Find NJ.com on Facebook A 56-year-old Belvidere man distracted by what may have been a black bear drove into a pole, knocked it over and was arrested on outstanding warrants, Lopatcong Township, police report. Glenn Kazeleski, of the first block of Route 620, was driving a 2008 Nissan Xterra south about 3:15 a.m. on Strikers Road on a curve near Baltimore Street, township police said. The animal ran by and Kazeleski swerved, going off the road and striking a pole that carried power, cable and phone lines, police said. The SUV then crossed the lawn at Access Self Storage before hitting a sign and a tree then stopping, police said. Kazeleski complained of chest, leg and arm pain and was treated then taken to St. Luke's Hospital in Phillipsburg by township EMS and paramedics from Hunterdon Medical Center, police said. A license status check revealed Kazeleski was wanted on two no-bail warrants out of Manville, New Jersey, and once he was treated, he was taken into custody and handed over to police in the Somerset County municipality, the news release said. He was later released by court order from Somerset County Jail, records show. Strykers Road was expected to reopen by midnight, police said. A phone number wasn't immediately available for Kazeleski so he couldn't be reached for comment. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. A New Orleans man pleaded guilty Tuesday (Oct. 30) to trying to rob a Capital One Bank in Central City this spring, telling authorities that he owed drug money to the man who accompanied him to the bank that day, according to federal court records. Michael Collier, 56, was convicted in the April 25 robbery at the Capital One branch in the 2700 block of South Claiborne. According to a federal indictment against Collier, he and another man entered the bank and then Collier approached a teller, handing her a demand note while implying that the other man had a gun. The teller did not comply with Colliers demand for money and instead triggered the banks alarm, court records state. Collier then left the bank, followed by the other man. New Orleans man accused of trying to rob Central City bank After the FBI released surveillance photos of the robbery suspect to the public, several tipsters identified Collier as the robber. Agents then met with a person very familiar with Collier, who also identified him in the images, according to court records. In addition, latent fingerprints found on evidence collected from the crime scene linked Collier to the robbery. He was arrested May 1 through a joint investigation by the FBI New Orleans Violent Crime Task Force and New Orleans Police Department. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up After he was read his Miranda rights, Collier admitted that he tried to rob the bank, according to court records. He said that he had been having personal problems stemming from his mothers death and that he relapsed into drug use, the documents state. Collier told investigators that he owed money for drugs to the man seen with him at the bank, but that the other man did not know he was planning to rob the bank. He told that person that he needed to go to the bank to get the money he owed, court documents state. The NOPD initially announced a search for two suspects in the bank robbery. It appears that only Collier faced federal charges in the robbery attempt. After pleading guilty to attempted bank robbery, Collier faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 when he is sentenced Jan. 29 before U.S. District Judge Jay C. Zainey. Laura McKnight covers crime and breaking news in New Orleans for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. 2 men suspected of robbing Capital One bank in Central City: FBI A 42-year-old man was arrested Wednesday morning (Oct. 31) after a SWAT roll in Algiers, according to the New Orleans Police Department. NOPD said officers were called to a residence in the 300 block of Lamarque Street (map) early Wednesday morning to respond to a domestic disturbance. Johnny Pickens III, police said, went into the attic and refused to come out. NOPD then declared a SWAT roll at 7:30 a.m. By 7:50 a.m., Pickens was taken into custody without incident, police said. The investigation is ongoing, but authorities said it appears Pickens will be charged with violation of a protective order, false imprisonment and unauthorized entry of an inhabited dwelling. No more details were immediately available, NOPD said. Carlie Kollath Wells is a morning reporter at NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Have an early-bird tip? Send it to her: cwells@nola.com or Twitter @carlie_kollath. The leader of the Youth Study Center has resigned as director of the facility that houses juvenile defendants and has been troubled by violence and staffing issues, a New Orleans city official said. Germaine Simons last day as director of juvenile detention was Friday (Oct. 26), said LaTonya Norton, a spokeswoman for New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrells administration. Two temporary replacements, Kyshun Webster and Nancy Fournier, have been appointed to run the facility on an interim basis, she said. Simons resignation comes a year and half after former Mayor Mitch Landrieu hired him to take over the facility. A New Iberia native and U.S. Army veteran, Simon returned to Louisiana to take the director position after leaving his former job in New York City, where he served as an assistant administrator of seven juvenile detention facilities, according to an April 2017 press release from the city of New Orleans. At the time of his hiring, the Landrieu administration lauded Simons 14 years of experience in the juvenile justice field. Simon told The New Orleans Advocate, who first reported news of the resignation, that he left the job to spend more time with his family. New Orleans juvenile jail plagued by violence, staffing woes NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune reported in August on staffing shortages, overcrowding, and several instances of violence at the lockup. A former counselor at the jail, Jerome Walker, said social workers or maintenance staff would be called on to supervise jailed youth when he worked there from April 2016 to March 2017. A report published in July 2018 by the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, an effort spearheaded by the nonprofit Annie E. Casey Foundation, confirmed Walkers observations about social workers supervising kids. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up "I never worked there when we were fully staffed," Walker said, "which made for long hours, irritated staff, bad morale - the typical things you get from burnout." Cantrell has said correcting problems at the Youth Study Center is a priority of her administration. Emily Wolf, director of Cantrells newly created Office of Youth & Families, has said the jail previously operated without a system of accountability. She noted in August staffing levels had improved but several vacancies remained. Last week, a 16-year-old boy was charged in an indictment with attempted murder related to a Sept. 2 attack of a counselor at the facility. In a news release from Orleans District Attorney Leon Cannizzaros office, prosecutors claim the teen tried to beat the counselor to death with the arm of a chair he had broken off the chair while barricading himself inside an office. In September, 60-year-old Johnny Thornton, then a correctional officer supervisor at the youth facility, was charged with simple battery, cruelty to juveniles and malfeasance in office after NOPDs child abuse unit was called to investigate allegations that he beat teens housed at the jail. Police charged him after reviewing video of the encounters, a warrant for his arrest states. In an interview with detectives, Thornton said his actions were in accordance with his training. Cantrell is conducting a search to replace Simon, Norton said. Staff reporters Jonathan Bullington and Katherine Sayre contributed to this report. Panoramic views aren't a necessity, but people still need to be able to look outside and connect with the sky and nature. Without the courtyards, the center would be oppressive a case of design dictatorship, where the occupants have to adjust to the architecture instead of the architecture accommodating them. A New Orleans charter school is asking parents to speak with their children about the dangers of drug use after a student was recently found handing out brownies containing marijuana at the Warehouse District campus. WDSU reports several students reported getting sick after eating the laced baked goods. The International High School of New Orleans confirmed Tuesday (Oct. 30) that the school recently experienced an incident involving marijuana edibles. In a released statement, Head of School Sean Wilson said parents and law enforcement were promptly notified this month. A New Orleans Police Department spokesman Tuesday said their investigation into the incident remains open and active," and would not comment on whether any arrests were made. Wilson declined to comment further because the matter involves the privacy of students and protected information. WDSU first reported a student was caught bringing brownies containing marijuana. Police sources told the TV station as many as six students were treated for health-related problems after eating the brownies. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up A letter from school principal Adierah Berger went out to parents Oct. 1 notifying them about the incident, which occurred Sept. 28. Berger told parents they worked with police as well as the schools nurse and staff to confiscate the drug-filled items. Students who ate the brownies were examined by the nurse and given medical treatment if necessary, Berger wrote. She told parents that disciplinary action has been taken with the students involved according to the schools code of conduct. I would like to ask for your help in speaking with your child about the dangers of drug use and the importance of reporting suspected drugs at any time," Berger wrote. International High School of New Orleans must recognize union, court rules Wilborn P. Nobles III is an education reporter based in New Orleans. He can be reached at wnobles@nola.com or on Twitter at @WilNobles. Jefferson Parish will not be allowed a second, four-month delay in its application to renew a state permit to operate the parishs controversial West Bank landfill, the state Department of Environmental Quality has ruled. In an Oct. 24 letter, DEQ waste permits administrator Estuardo Silva said that under the provisions of the landfills existing permit, the parish is required to submit its renewal application at least 455 days in advance of the present permits expiration date Jan. 22, 2020 to ensure theres enough time for DEQ officials to complete a technical review of the application before the existing permit expires. Silva pointed out that the state had already granted the landfill a 90-day extension of the due date. Not mentioned in the letter were the more than 35 violations of state law or permit requirements listed in a Sept. 18 enforcement action against the landfill that was triggered by repeated complaints of odors by residents of Waggaman in the West Bank, and of River Ridge and Harahan on the east bank of the Mississippi River. DEQ fielded 679 complaints about odors from the landfill between August 2017 and September 2018. Residents have continued to complain about the odor through this week, despite thousands of dollars spent recently on repairs to landfill methane gas wells and an underground pipeline system collecting smelly, liquid leachate. Pamela Thomas, project manager for Aptim Environmental & Infrastructure Inc., the company overseeing the parishs permit renewal, wrote in an Oct. 8 letter to Silva that a time extension was needed because of a delay in the decision on how to realign part of the Waggaman Canal near the landfill. APTIM anticipates the canal relocation alignment will be finalized with(in) the next 60 days, her letter said. The Waggaman stormwater canal now goes through the center of the permitted footprint for the landfill, said Natalie Newton, the parishs deputy chief operating officer, in a response to questions about the delay request. She said the current aligment conflicts with completion of Phase IV A, the active part of the landfill, and the proposed realignment of the canal conflicted with the closed Phase III B and the future Phase IV B. The realignment of the canal must be included in the solid waste permit renewal application, as the new permit will apply for 10 years once authorized, Newton said. She said the parish is working with two consulting firms to resolve the issue: CDM-Smith, which is overseeing the canal relocation; and Aptim, which is preparing the permit renewal application. Newton also said the permit renewal process is not dependent on the ongoing repairs, improvements and upgrades at the landfill. Two River Ridge residents, Lisa Karlin and Lynne Bernard, sent letters to DEQ on Oct. 22 objecting to the time extension. An additional extension is unwarranted and only further delays the landfill remediation that is currently underway but not completed, said Karlin in her letter. Citizens in Jefferson Parish have been very vocal in saying no more extensions to LDEQ, our elected parish and state representatives, and the La. House of Representatives Natural Resource Committee. She wrote that both APTIM and the parish have financial resources necessary to complete the permit process on time. Environmental news in your inbox Stay up-to-date on the latest on Louisiana's coast and the environment. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Meanwhile, records of daily visits to the landfill by DEQ inspectors between Oct. 9 and Oct. 17 indicate that, while major repairs are moving forward, odors remain a problem. On Oct. 17, the landfill finally reported that all 222 wells designed to remove methane gas from old and new parts of the landfill were working properly. All other inspections dating back to Oct. 9, indicated that as many as 38 wells were not working. Gas is moved from the wells to a collection facility owned by the adjacent private River Birch landfill, and then sold as fuel at the nearby Cornerstone Chemical plant. Some gas from the wells is burned onsite in a flare that inspectors said was working properly during each inspection. Smelly sulphur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide often is mixed in with the methane gas, one of the byproducts of the breakdown of garbage beneath the clay cap atop the closed portions of the site. The numerous improperly working wells were believed by state officials to be one reason why odors seem to be emanating from the landfill and then drifting to populated areas on the West Bank and across the river. Clay and tarps are also used to daily cover the working face in the active disposal cell in the newest part of the landfill, where trucks carrying garbage are emptied. The infrared video below taken by Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality inspectors on Aug. 16, 2018, shows a steady flow of gas streaming out of a riser pipe connected to the landfills underground leachate collection system. Repair work on the landfills leachate and gas collection systems is aimed at reducing similar releases of gas from the landfill. Inspectors reported garbage odors drifting from both the open face area and from some locations in older, capped parts of the 848-acre site. Workers are installing a new force main across four older, closed phases of the landfill that will move liquid leachate from beneath the clay cap to a lift station and then to the Bridge City sewage treatment plant. The work requires digging a narrow ditch into the landfill and old garbage, and inspectors reported garbage odors, often with measurable amounts of hydrogen sulfide, on roads adjacent to that work. Construction of a leachate lift station, part of the force main system, also is still underway. The inspections also indicated numerous sump pumps that are used to move leachate to the force main system remain out of service, with 26 pumps not working in older phases and three of seven pumps not working in the newest landfill phase, as of Oct. 17. However, Newton said Wednesday that all three of the pumps in the new phase have been returned to service. Even with those pumps out, the landfill moved more than 4.4 million gallons of leachate to the sewage treatment plant on that day. Story updated at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 31, to add comments from Jefferson Parish deputy chief operating officer Natalie Newton. Melissa McCarthy does, indeed, star in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, but it should be noted that this isnt really a Mellissa McCarthy film -- or at least not the kind most audiences think of when they hear the words Melissa McCarthy film. Based on the true story of biographer-turned-forger Lee Israel, director Marielle Hellers film gets considerable lift from McCarthys well-honed comic timing, but it is still, at its root, a drama. You will not see pratfalls and poop gags a la Bridesmaids or The Boss. You will not see buffoonery and lampoonery, a la McCarthys appearances as Sean Spicer on Saturday Night Live. Youll see something better. Youll see McCarthy in the most impressive showcase to date for her dramatic acting abilities, a finely tuned, nimbly crafted portrait of a life in decline, of a human spirit on its knees. 'Suspiria' movie review: Some things just can't be unseen Its not the first time shes showed off her dramatic chops. Weve seen flashes of it in films such as St. Vincent, as well as in moments -- usually during the obligatory third-act transformation -- of her goofier films. But her turn in Can You Ever Forgive Me? is undeniably her fullest dramatic performance to date. In other words: You shouldnt be surprised at how good she is in it. But youll still probably be surprised. When we meet McCarthys beyond-frumpy Israel, shes already a published author, having penned biographies of Tallulah Bankhead and Estee Lauder. Her book about journalist and game show panelist Dorothy Kilgallen earned her a spot on the New York Times bestseller list. By the time we catch up with her, though, those literary successes are long past and Israel is desperate for work. Unfortunately, as she is told by her beleaguered literary agent (played by Jane Curtin), nobodys buying books about faded, has-been stars. Particularly not those written by faded, has-been authors. Israels situation isnt helped by the fact that shes her own worst enemy. Her acid tongue and deeply misanthropic ways are certainly amusing -- both to us and to her -- but they also only further isolate her, pushing away anyone before they can even think about getting too close. So, its just her, her typewriter, her elderly cat, her ever-present glass of brown liquor and a pile of overdue bills. (And, soon enough, a mess of a gay best friend, played brilliantly by Richard E. Grant in what is easily one of the years most enjoyable supporting performances. He steals every scene hes in, injecting the film with a needed dose of lovability that carries it through its narrative lulls.) Its just about then, when shes at rock bottom, that she gets the idea to forge letters from notable people -- Katharine Hepburn, Noel Coward, Fanny Brice -- and sell them to collectors. Not only is her scheme profitable, but its easy -- and fun, to boot. Until, of course, it all comes crashing down. That basic story -- which is true; the real Israel is said to have forged more than 400 letters before being found out -- is fun and fascinating enough, but McCarthys portrayal of Israel is the fuel that makes the film go. Shes a mean old thing, but her comic timing is smartly deployed to make her constant stream of barbs land squarely, so shes also a load of fun -- as long as youre safely out of the line of fire. (And particularly when Grants character is on-screen, drunkenly and impishly egging her on.) But although her Israel is a crusty, caustic and often-unpleasant human being, McCarthy makes it clear that shes still a human being, one who has alienated herself as a defense mechanism as much as anything else, and one who secretly, quietly longs for the kind of human connections she pretends to eschew. At one point in the development Can You Forgive Me?, Julianne Moore was attached to play Israel but eventually dropped out and was replaced by McCarthy. Of course, we can assume Moore would have done a fine job in the role. She is great in everything she does, and shes got the Oscar to prove it. But -- and I hope she can forgive me for saying this -- her departure from Hellers film is probably the best thing that could have happened to it. Thats because it made room for McCarthy to step in, and she does something truly special with the role: She makes it impossible to see anyone else in it. She also goes a long way toward redefining exactly what a Melissa McCarthy film is. _________ CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? 3 stars, out of 5 Snapshot: A comedy-laced biopic about New York author Lee Israel, who hatched a scheme to supplement her dwindling income by forging letters from celebrities and selling them to collectors. What works: Melissa McCarthy shines in the lead role, which, although something of a departure for her, suits her perfectly. Similarly, Richard E. Grant delivers a supporting performance that is sure to get notice this award season. What doesnt: The uneven script isnt without its narrative lulls, and it comes close to excusing -- and perhaps even embracing -- Israels bad behavior. Starring: McCarthy, Grant, Jane Curtin, Stephen Spinella, Ben Falcone. Director: Marielle Heller. MPAA rating: R, for language including some sexual references, and brief drug use. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. When and where: Opens Friday (Nov. 2) at the Broad Theater, Elmwood Palace. Theres no debating the ambition and artistry on display in director Luca Guadagninos remake of the 1970s Italian horror classic Suspiria. Youre well within your rights to question its sanity, however. An effort to spin high art out of a guilty-pleasure cult classic, this new Suspiria is -- like the original -- off-the-charts bonkers. But its also off-the-charts unpleasant, a cold, hard-to-embrace slog made up of mostly of stomach-turning moments of body horror interrupted by long stretches of stylish but mind-numbing pretension. Think of it as a Grand Guignol-flavored version of last years equally unsettling Mother! with a dash of The Exorcist thrown in and youve got an idea of the tone at work here. 'Mid90s' review: Turns out, Jonah Hill can direct, too. It stars Fifty Shades of Grey actress Dakota Johnson -- whose filmography is quickly becoming a list of movies I never want to see again -- playing Susie Bannion, a seemingly meek American dancer who joins an esteemed performance company in divided 1977 Berlin, one all awash in bleak, mid-winter grays. Once there, she establishes herself as an impressive new talent -- but it quickly becomes obvious that this is no ordinary dance school. As we soon learn, its run by a coven of witches, and the companys performances are actually secret rituals with horrifying results. And so, while Susie soon finds herself at center-stage, she also finds herself at the center of the covens nightmarish deeds. Meanwhile, a former dancer with the company visits a psychologist played by an in-drag Tilda Swinton -- because, why the hell not, right? -- who begins sniffing around the school. Hes also, you may rest assured, on a collision course with all that is unholy. It comes in a third act eruption of insanity that will leave most moviegoers asking the same question: What did I just see? Embedded throughout Guadagninos Suspiria are partial, disjointed musings on such topics as female power, the impotence of the patriarchy, the cruelties of female relationships. But thats all just so much blah-blah-blah. Suspiria -- written and directed by men -- is really about little more than shocking its audience, which is about the only thing it does consistently well. Thats thanks largely to the work of makeup artist Mark Coulier. He previously won Oscars for his work on The Iron Lady and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Dont be surprised to see him earn his share of award-season recognition for Suspiria, as well. For hard-core gorehounds, that all might sound like an attractive pitch. For most people, however, this new Suspiria will likely be more of an exercise in patience -- and in gag-reflex control. __________ SUSPIRIA 2 stars, out of 5 Snapshot: A stylish remake of the 1977 cult classic horror film, about an American dancer who joins a performance company in Berlin that, as it turns out, is run by a coven of witches. What works: Its handsomely shot, and it features impressive horror makeup. What doesnt: Its a decidedly unpleasant watch, essentially a series of scenes of stomach-turning body horror interrupted by extended stretches of slow-moving pretension. Starring: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth, Angela Winkler, Chloe Grace Moretz, Elena Fokina. Director: Luca Guadagnino. MPAA rating: R, for disturbing content involving ritualistic violence, bloody images and graphic nudity, and for some language including sexual references. Running time: 2 hours 32 minutes. When and where: Opens Friday (Nov. 2) at the Broad Theater and Elmwood Palace. White supremacy leads to death. It doesnt matter if its expressed as racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or as hatred for immigrants and refugees. The only way to bring about the unnaturally all-white world of which white supremacists dream is to kill. Last week, we saw three examples of what white supremacy looks like in action. A 51-year-old white man was booked with shooting to death two elderly black shoppers at a Kroger supermarket in a Louisville, Ky., suburb. A 56-year-old Florida man born to Italian and Filipino parents mailed more than a dozen pipe bombs to prominent Democrats and to CNN. Also, a 46-year-old man from Pittsburgh, Pa., killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in his hometown after signaling his anger at a Jewish organization that helps settle refugees. Invaders. Thats what Robert Bowers called a migrant caravan of refugees that is walking toward the United States from Honduras to seek asylum. His language is similar to that used by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, both of whom have been talking about the group of scared, poor, hungry and weary families as if they pose an existential threat to the United States. Pence said it is inconceivable that there are not people of Middle Eastern descent in that caravan. Before the attack on the synagogue, Bowers wrote at Gab.com that he cant sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, Im going in. A witness to the carnage at the Kentucky Kroger says that after Gregory Bush killed 69-year-old Maurice Stafford and 67-year-old Vickie Lee Jones another armed white man confronted him. But that man says that Bush said, Whites dont kill whites. The manager of a pizza restaurant where the alleged mailer of pipe bombs worked told NPR that Cesar Sayoc openly talked about the need for black, Jewish and gay people to be eliminated. He would start talking about Hitler, the manager said. He loved Hitler, loved Hitler. Sayoc, she said, thought we should go back to that society with Hitler. Those three accused white supremacists have all been arrested. Chances are that they will all be punished severely. But that doesnt mean they are the only people who are deserving of criticism. Everybody who has demonized immigrants bears some blame. Everybody who has called the press the enemy of the people and signaled approval at the assault of reporters bears some blame. Everybody who has emboldened neo-Nazis and other racist groups is to blame. That means that the president himself is partly culpable. He needs to accept his share of the blame for the targeted attacks against religious and ethnic minority groups and the growing hostility at the press. Hes been playing with fire. And if it wasnt obvious before last week, fire destroys. It should have been clear even when Trump was a candidate that a presidency that fanned the flames of racial resentment and prompted Americans to express a hostile superiority toward everybody outside our borders was the only kind of presidency we could have under Trump. With his bogus allegations that President Barack Obama was foreign born, with his assertion that Mexico was sending us rapists and drug dealers and with a promise to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, Trump was sending clear and unambiguous signals that he was not looking to be an E Pluribus Unum kind of president. He was looking, instead, to exploit the unfounded belief held by many white Americans that they are losing their country and that he would help them get it back. In August 2017, white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Va., chanting Jews will not replace us. One of them fatally mowed down a counter-protester with a car. And Trump looked like it pained him to say a harsh word about them. In fact, he was as critical of the counter-protesters as he was of the Nazis. It doesnt matter if President Trump cynically winks and nods with white supremacists to maintain power or if he says their ranks include some very fine people because he sincerely likes them. The result is the same: The president of the United States has signaled to white supremacists that theyre alright with him. And that should not be alright with any of us. When Trump was asked if he was going to tone down some of his more incendiary rhetoric, he said he might actually tone it up. Even so, the White House says it is outrageous to link his rhetoric to the violence that has followed it. Is it? Solomon, king of ancient Israel, is credited with the Book of Proverbs where one finds this verse: Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. Or as a more recent translation puts it: What you say can preserve life or destroy it; so you must accept the consequences of your words. Then again, Solomon was legendary for his wisdom. Trump, not so much. His reckless and incendiary language isnt just foolish; it also puts lives at risk. Jarvis DeBerry is deputy opinions editor for NOLA.COM | The Times-Picayune. He can be reached at jdeberry@nola.com or at twitter.com/jarvisdeberry. Four schools in St. Charles Parish were forced to close early Wednesday morning (Oct. 31) after a contractor damaged a distribution water main in New Sarpy, sparking a boil water advisory for parts of St. Charles Parish, parish officials said. The St. Charles Parish Water Department issued a boil advisory Wednesday that affects all areas north of the Canadian Northern Railroad in New Sarpy and Destrehan. Additional areas affected include parts of Destrehan and St. Rose east of Interstate 310, stretching along River Road and Airline Highway to the Jefferson Parish line. Parish officials said a large portion of the East Bank water supply system experienced a dip in water pressure after a contractor damaged a distribution water main in New Sarpy. The risk of unsafe drinking water" prompted St. Charles Parish Public School District to announced the following school closures: Albert Cammon Middle School School buses are bringing students home. Parents who are not able to receive their child at home may pick up their child, but they must present a valid ID and be listed as a contact on the students emergency card. A message sent to Sarpy Elementary parents stated any students whose parents are not home will be brought to Destrehan High School. Any car rider and after-care students not picked up will also be brought Destrehan High, according to the Sarpy Elementary message. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Below are the following locations where parents can pick up students: Albert Cammon Middle School students can be picked up at Harry Hurst Middle Schools gym. The district said it will make a decision Wednesday evening on whether to re-open schools on Thursday morning, depending on the status of the boil water advisory. Parish officials stated its Department of Waterworks will rescind the boil water advisory once it receives notification from the Louisiana Department of Health that the water is safe to drink. The state is in the process of collecting and testing water samples from the parishs water supply system. Halloween in New Orleans expected to be less rainy, but unseasonably hot' Wilborn P. Nobles III is an education reporter based in New Orleans. He can be reached at wnobles@nola.com or on Twitter at @WilNobles. A bicyclist died after being hit by a car Tuesday night (Oct 30) on Louisiana 36 near Covington, Louisiana State Police said. The name of the victim was withheld pending notification of relatives. The crash occurred shortly before 11 p.m. as the cyclist rode a mountain bike west on or near the solid white fog line on the edge of the highway near 7th Street, police said in a news release. A car driven by a 26-year-old Covington woman approached the bicycle from the rear and hit the bike with its right front bumper, the release said. The impact caused the bicyclist to be ejected, and he sustained severe injuries. The victim was taken to St. Tammany Parish Hospital where he later died, police said. Troopers determined that the bicycle was not equipped with safety lights as required by Louisiana law, the news release said. The cyclist was wearing dark-colored clothing and was not wearing a helmet, it said. The driver of the car provided troopers a breath sample, which showed no alcohol present, police said. A blood sample was also collected from the cyclist and will be sent to the St. Tammany Parish Coroners Office for analysis. For solace, he said, I talk about the ways in which, in an imperfect world, were as secure as we can be. For solace, I try to have them see the perspective of all the people in their lives who love and support them. For people who are looking for solace, I say were a people that has survived. Weve had to work very hard for our survival, and now might be one of those times, but that is what we do. Gov. John Bel Edwards will participate in a criminal justice summit Nov. 14 in Los Angeles that also features Kim Kardashian West, hip-hop star Meek Mill and former New York Times editor and Marshall Project founder Bill Keller, according to Variety. Variety is putting on the event with Rolling Stone magazine and announced the events panelists Wednesday (Oct. 31). Kardashian West and CNN host Van Jones will be the keynote speakers. From the political realm, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, Republican, and Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, are also attending. Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils co-owner Michael Rubin will also be speaking, according to Variety. Other hosts of the summit include the Coalition for Public Safety, Justice Action Network, #cut50, the Margaret and Daniel Loeb Foundation, ARC and One Community LLC, according to Variety. Louisiana dropped from having the highest incarceration rate in the country to the second-highest earlier this year after the state implemented a series of criminal sentencing changes pushed by Edwards, a Democrat. Oklahoma, run by Fallin, now has the highest incarceration rate in the country. For more information about this event, read the Variety report about it here. The Rev. Kathy Radke-Story, Head Chaplain for Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Office, grew up in a legacy of service to others. Her father, the Rev. Paul Radke, pastor and community activist during the 70s, 80s and 90s worked to improve the quality of life for citizens on the West Bank and members of West Bank Cathedral in Marrero for 34 years. Radke-Story, a Rotary member, served as keynote speaker for one of the recent Westwego Rotary weekly meetings held at the Four Columns in Harvey. She and her husband, the Rev. Robert Story, pastors of River Church in Harvey, were joined by other Jefferson Parish Sheriffs Law Enforcement Chaplains Program (JPSLECP) members. She and her team presented a photo power-point explaining the features of the chaplain program and its significance to police officers, prisoners and the families of both. The JPSLECP is designed to support law enforcement officers as they help the community. She said that there are 40 chaplains of various religious denominations. It would be nice to have 60 so that 30 chaplains would be available for dispatch on the west bank and 30 for the east bank of New Orleans. She said. Radke-Story said that she has been in prison ministry since age 14 when she, her siblings and the youth of their church worked with her father as he ministered to the community and prison population. She said that she became interested in establishing a Law Enforcement Chaplain Program following events that occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katina in 2005. She told Rotary members how one law officer confessed to her that he resented her because she, serving as a Jefferson Parish prison chaplain, provided support to the inmate population but no provisions were made for officers of the law. She said that after attending an Annual International Conference of Police Chaplains meeting in 2008 and 2009, she was drawn to learn more about establishing support for police officers and their families who were adversely affected by the stress of the job. With the support of then, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Norman, in 2010, Radke-Story said she was able to effectively establish a Jefferson Parish Law Enforcement Chaplin Program. She said that she received help from members of the International Conference of Police Chaplains program. They were determined to walk her through the set-up process, step by step. She said. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up She said that the program has been effective in helping to reduce high levels of divorce and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTDS) among officers. She went on to say that Norman said that he attributed a part of his success to the success of the Law Enforcement Chaplain Program (LECP). Law Enforcement Chaplin Programs are being considered for incorporation in Orleans, Lafourche, and Plaquemines parishes, in October, Radke-Story said. She commended Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson for appointing Pastor Alex Bellow of Hosanna Fellowship Church to train chaplains for Gretna. She said that because of the increase in the number of pastor-participation in the Law Enforcement Chaplain program, communication between residents and the police department have improved. Radke said that having clergy riding along with officers has proven to be a support for officers and the community. Chaplains are not present to push religion or police the police but to change lives and build trust. They help to bridge the gaps that may exist in communication between groups. She said that if there is emotion; call a chaplain is their indicator/cue that service is needed. Kathleen Ogeron and Jennifer Steel told Radke-Story that her father, Paul, one of the founding members of Westwego Rotary, would be proud of the legacy that he started in the early 1970s and she continues to carry on. Chaplains are called to serve one riding log, one call-out and participate in one training session. To learn more about qualifications and the application process for participation, call Chaplain Radke-Story at 504.366.8618, 504.905.2807 or visit www.kathyradkeministries.com. Rosalie Simmons writes about people, events and resources. Contact her at rhsimmns@cox.net or 504.347.4215. The 3rd Annual U.S.-China Energy and Trade Forum, presented by Center for Energy Law, Tulane School of Law and Energy Institute, Tulane A.B. Freeman School of Business, will be held Nov. 2, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., at Wendell Gauthier Moot Court Room, Weinmann Hall, Tulane University. The forum will gather global experts from industry, government and the legal and business academics to discuss some of the most pressing issues of our time. The topics of the forum will include: What is the impact of escalating trade tensions between the US and China on the US energy industry and Louisiana in particular? What is the outlook for the newly established import tariff from an international trade law perspective? How are international and Asian LNG markets developing and what is likely impact on the US? How can Law and lawyers shape international LNG markets in the future? What is the state of play and how are trade developments affecting nuclear power in China? Featured speakers will include Pan Jiang, economic counselor and chief of the Economic Section of Chinese Embassy to USA from 2014; Guiguo Wang, Eason- Weinmann Chair of International and comparative Law, Tulane Law School; Randall Ebner, Vice President and General counsel, ExxonMobil; Barry Worthington, executive director, United States Energy Association; Kim Talus, James McCullon Chair in energy law and director of Tulane Center for Energy Law; Eric Smith, professor and director of Tulane Energy Institute, and Robert Sloan, Senior Research fellow, Tulane Center for Energy Law. Guiguo Wang, JSD,Yale University; LLM, Columbia Law School, is a world renounced Scholar on international law and entrepreneurial leaders in legal education, joined Tulane Law faculty in 2015. He brings expertise in Chinese commercial law and Chinese legal system at a time of crucial and important time. Wang has dual degree/partnership with China University of Political Science and Law on Beijing; Fudan University in Shanghai; and Dalian Maritime University. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Prior to joining the Tulane faculty, Wang served as dean at City University of HongKong, where he also served as chair in Chinese and Comparative Law and as director of Center for Judicial Education and Research. Wang also is a titular member of the International Academy of Comparative Law country advisor to LexisNexis Butterworths Asia and a Distinguished Professor of law at Hunan University School of Law in Changsha, China. He has published more than 20 books and more than 100 chapters and articles, in English and in Chinese, in journals around the world. His recent books include International Monetary and Financial Law; Rediating Impact of WTO on Members Legal System: the Chinese Perspective. At a time of shapely rising tensions over energy and trade between the USA and China, Tulane University presents this timely forum to discuss some of the most pressing challenges and opportunities of our time. For further information, contact lawalumnirelations@tulane.edu. The Kwaidan Book Club of Japan Society of New Orleans will meet and discuss the book, Kokoro, on Nov. 11, from 4 to 6 p.m., at Tubby & Coos Book shop. Kokoro is a novel by Natsume Soseki, first published in serial form in the Japanese newspaper, Asahi Shinbun in 1914 and later in novel form. The novel has been adapted into films, anime series, mangas, cartoons and TV presentation. The novel deals with many issues, including the transition from the Japanese Meiji society to the modern era; the changing roles and ideals of women; inter generational change in values; the role of family, the importance of self value versus the group, the cost of weakness, identity, and more. Kokoro, or heart and things, is a Japanese word connecting mind, body and spirit. For further information, email ferriolgissel@gmail.com. Tina Soong writes about people and events of interest to the Asian American community. To reach her, email tsoongtotherim@aol.com. For years foster children in Louisiana had to fend for themselves after they turned 18. The state essentially dumped them out of the system with no help. Many of them have ended up homeless or in prison, the Louisiana State Task Force on Youth Aging Out of Foster Care reported in 2017. Within a year after leaving the foster care system, one in five young people are homeless. Within two years, one in four are in prison, the task force found. That isnt surprising. How can children who have been in the states care for years be expected to thrive on their own with no help? Finally, that is beginning to change. They are dumping them: Foster child sent to shelter on 18th birthday, now in prison In May, the Legislature approved continuing foster services for some children after they turn 18. To be eligible, they are supposed to be attending high school or working toward an equivalent degree. The change will allow young people to stay with their foster parents or in group homes while they are in school. The state also will continue their case management, financial assistance and medical and mental health services until they graduate or turn 21. That is a start, but it doesnt go far enough. Because they are no longer officially in foster care, they wont be under court jurisdiction. So, there will be no judge to make sure they are getting the assistance they need. That is especially important for young people who have been diagnosed with mental health conditions, as NOLA.com | Times-Picayune reporters have documented in our Fragile State project. To really provide support, the Legislature needs to change the law to let them stay under foster care until age 21. That is what Texas does. Young people there not only can remain in the foster care system until age 21, they can receive additional services through the age of 25. Cutting kids off at age 18 doesnt make sense, Mary Green, director of the Houston Alumni Youth Center, said. I can assure you none of those decision makers in Louisiana are cutting their kids off at 18. She added: Texas is a conservative state. If Texas gets it, I would think other states could get it, too. Until the change in May, Louisiana was one of only five states that provided nothing for foster children after their 18th birthday. Louisianas Young Adult Program, which provided financial and case management support through the age of 21, was shut down in 2013. Then-Gov. Bobby Jindal eliminated its $1.3 million funding as part of his assault on the states social services budget. Gov. John Bel Edwards is working to replenish funding for those services. The Legislature also created a task force to look at expanding the age and adding services. Louisianas plan will be based on best practices, Department of Child and Family Services Secretary Marketa Walters said. To start, she is asking for funding in the 2019-20 budget to provide services to every child aging out of the foster care system not only those in school. Its heartbreaking to think we dont find a home for them, she said. Its not OK for kids to walk out at 18 and have nowhere to go. Its heart-wrenching. Roughly 183 children reach the age limit for foster care every year. About 80 percent could benefit from the changes lawmakers made in May, according to Ms. Walters agency. The state is providing $1 million and using $2.8 million in federal dollars this year to cover them. That is a small amount to pay to help young people who have grown up in the states care get on their feet. Entergy Louisiana owes up to $4.4 billion for getting the lights back on after a string of storms and needs a $1 billion loan to meet those costs in the short-term, says the head of the utility that provides electricity to about half the states c More About This Topic Your doctor makes important decisions, including when you return to work and whether you're permanently disabled. Reasonable and necessary medical care is one of your most valuable workers' comp benefits. It's important to choose a doctor who will not only treat your injuries, but also advocate on your behalf in your workers' comp case. That's because the medical findings and opinions of your treating physician are perhaps the most critical elements in proving your workers' comp claim. If your doctor isn't willing to help with your workers' comp claim, seriously consider finding one who will. An experienced workers' comp attorney can help point you in the right direction. Below, we discuss the significance of your treating physicianand how to change doctors if necessary. Injured on the job and don't know where to start? Our guide to workers' compensation will walk you through the process of applying for benefitsfrom reporting your injury to filing a claim to appealing a denialand explain how much you might receive. Importance of Treating Physician in a Workers' Comp Case Your treating doctor's opinion will carry significant weight in your workers' compensation case. Unlike a doctor who examines you once, your treating doctor monitors your recovery over time. This gives your treating doctor a better understanding of your injuries, your need for medical treatment, your ongoing physical limitations, and the likelihood of a full recovery. Your doctor will make important decisions in your case that will directly affect your recovery and benefits, including: Diagnosing and treating your condition. In order to receive workers' comp benefits, you'll need a medical diagnosis from a doctor. Your doctor will also direct all of your medical care, deciding whether you need physical therapy or medications, for example. In order to receive workers' comp benefits, you'll need a medical diagnosis from a doctor. Your doctor will also direct all of your medical care, deciding whether you need physical therapy or medications, for example. Referring you to specialists. In most cases, your doctor will need to sign off on any referrals to a specialist, such as a surgeon or orthopedist. Your doctor's willingness to listen to you and get you the treatment you need is essential. In most cases, your doctor will need to sign off on any referrals to a specialist, such as a surgeon or orthopedist. Your doctor's willingness to listen to you and get you the treatment you need is essential. Deciding your work restrictions. Your treating doctor will decide if you need time off work, giving you a chance to recover and receive partial wage benefits (called temporary disability benefits). Your doctor will also decide when you're able to return to work. If you're sent back to work too early, or without any work restrictions, you might injure yourself further. Your treating doctor will decide if you need time off work, giving you a chance to recover and receive partial wage benefits (called temporary disability benefits). Your doctor will also decide when you're able to return to work. If you're sent back to work too early, or without any work restrictions, you might injure yourself further. Determining your level of permanent disability. Once you reach maximum medical improvementwhen your condition is stable and will no longer improveyour doctor will evaluate whether you have a permanent limitations. Your doctor's conclusions will be used to calculate how much you'll receive in permanent disability benefits. Once you reach maximum medical improvementwhen your condition is stable and will no longer improveyour doctor will evaluate whether you have a permanent limitations. Your doctor's conclusions will be used to calculate how much you'll receive in permanent disability benefits. Providing evidence in your case. At every appointment, your physician will create medical records that will serve as valuable evidence in your workers' comp case. Careful and consistent documentation of your injury, treatment, and recovery can lead to fewer disputes with the insurance company. Your doctor will probably also need to testify on your behalf, either in a deposition or at a workers' comp hearing. Who Chooses My Treating Doctor? The rules about who selects the treating doctor vary from state to state. In some states, you can choose your own doctor from the very beginning. For example, in California, you may "predesignate" your primary care doctor to treat your work injuries, as long as you do that before the injury. (See details in our article on choosing treating doctors in California.) In other states, you might be limited to selecting a doctor from your employer's established health care network or from a list of approved physicians. Finally, some states let your employer choose your initial treating doctor. Changing From Your Company Doctor If you live in a state that allows your employer or its insurance company to choose your doctor (sometimes called a "company doctor"), you might find yourself receiving substandard care. While some company doctors are unbiased and provide high-quality treatment, others tailor their treatment to minimize the insurance company's expenses. For example, it's not uncommon for a company doctor to send an employee back to work too quickly or deny a necessary surgery because of the expense. Because your treating doctor's opinions will have serious impacts on your health and your workers' comp benefits, you need a doctor that focuses on your recoverynot on the insurance company's financial interests. If you're worried about the company doctor's potential conflict of interestor you're unhappy with your medical care and lack of improvementconsider changing doctors. In nearly all states, you can change doctors at least once in your workers' comp case. However, you need to follow the proper procedures in your state. (To learn more see our article on how to switch workers' comp doctors.) How to Choose a Treating Doctor for Your Workers' Comp Case If your state lets you choose your treating physician, you should take advantage of this opportunity and carefully weigh your options. You should research doctors in your community and consider their: level of experience and skill area of specialization (such as orthopedics or neurology) familiarity with your type of injury understanding of workers' comp claims and willingness to advocate on your behalf willingness to accept your state's workers' comp medical fee schedule availability for appointments, and proximity to your home. The doctor's personality is also important. You should trust your doctor and feel comfortable discussing your conditions and concerns with him or her. To learn more, see our article on finding a treating doctor in your workers' comp case. Consult a Workers' Comp Attorney One of the advantages of hiring a workers' comp lawyer to represent you is that they understand how to develop medical evidence in a case. An experienced workers' comp attorney will understand what sort of medical documentationlab tests, MRIs, x-rays, hospital recordsis needed to prove your case, and how to get it. Your attorney might also be able to point you in the right direction when it comes to finding a treating physician. And, when the time comes, your lawyer can ask your treating physician for opinion evidence on the extent of your work-related limitations. This sort of evidence is critical in a workers' comp case, and often makes the difference between a winning and losing claim. A convicted felon who admitted he was looking for someone to rob to get money for drugs was convicted Thursday of murdering a North Side woman during a home invasion. Family members of Renee Rondeau hugged and wept as Criminal Court Judge John Moran delivered his verdict following a seven-day bench trial. Advertisement Andre Griggs, 33, wiped his face with his hands as the guilty verdict was pronounced by Moran, who pointed to Griggs' confession as the most damning piece of evidence because it contained details "only the killer would know." Griggs' co-defendant, Benita Johnson, 30, was found guilty by a jury on Tuesday. Both were convicted of murder, home invasion and armed robbery. Advertisement Assistant Cook County State's Attorneys David Gaughan and Maureen Feerick said they would seek the death penalty because the murder was committed during a forcible felony. Rondeau, 29, was stalked by the defendants as she walked from a health club to her apartment in the 400 block of West Barry Avenue on Oct. 31, 1994. According to Griggs' confession, they confronted Rondeau as she put her key into the lock, and when she screamed, he slapped her and forced her up to her second-floor apartment. There, according to the confession, they forced her to give them her bank card personal identification number. Then Johnson held Rondeau at gunpoint while he went to search for valuables. When Griggs left the room, Rondeau attempted to flee and struggled with Johnson until Griggs came up from behind and choked her, the statement said. When Rondeau became unconscious, Griggs dragged her into the bedroom and strangled her with his belt, according to the confession. The two fled, stopping at a bank at 34th Street and King Drive where they used the card to withdraw $300. Although the security camera was not working, another customer later gave police enough of a description for police to make a composite sketch, according to the evidence. Months later, an informant who knew Griggs saw the sketch and went to authorities. Rondeau was born in Africa to Gordon and Elaine Rondeau who were then serving in the Peace Corps. She grew up in Washington, D.C., Germany and Georgia, and had studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and taught English in Japan. In Chicago, she was working for a Northbrook consulting firm. Advertisement Outside Moran's courtroom, Rondeau's parents said they would not achieve closure in their daughter's death unless Moran ensured that Griggs and Johnson would never be free again. "Anything less than a permanent sentence . . . will make a farce out of the system," Gordon Rondeau said. "Our job has just begun. We will not abandon our mission to turn things around." The couple have formed crime awareness groups with several aims but particularly focusing on the early release of convicted felons. "If this guy had been taken care of before, my daughter would be alive today," Gordon Rondeau said. Griggs, who admitted that he and Johnson had committed a robbery on the West Side hours before they killed Rondeau, was previously convicted and sent to prison for burglary and possession of narcotics. The Kerko home will be featured in the North Augusta Christmas Tour of Homes. No strike date has been set, and union officials have said the vote is first intended to put pressure on Acero at the bargaining table. The teachers are part of a division of the Chicago Teachers Union. Managing Editor Having lived and worked in Indy on and off since 1977, and currently living in Carmel, I've seen the city change a great deal. I love covering the arts in all its forms, and the places where the arts and broader cultural issues intersect. Viewed 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. Two other women, Lakisha McGowan and Ameena Matthews, are not listed as plaintiffs but are mentioned by name in the suit. Both are former violence interrupters, and Matthews starred in an award-winning documentary about the organization. Allegations from a fourth woman are referenced, but she is not named. A little more than a half hour later, a 36-year-old man driving in the 7400 block of South Vincennes Avenue in Englewood was shot in the abdomen by someone in a black SUV. The man kept driving until the 7600 block of South Lafayette Avenue, just north of a ramp to the Dan Ryan Expressway. In the rain, police cars blocked off Lafayette south of 76th Street and an ambulance took the man to University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was listed in serious condition. When she got there around 12:15 a.m., she was accompanied by another woman and a man, police said. The group kicked and hit the 25-year-old man, then sprayed him in the face with mace and took his personal property, police said. Thomas P. Campbell, the former director and chief executive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art who resigned under pressure last year, has been hired to lead the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. In a peculiar twist, he takes over the job vacated by Max Hollein, who left earlier this year to take over the leadership at none other than the Met and now fills the position from which Mr. Campbell announced in February 2017 that he would leave. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the institution that oversees the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor, announced the decision Tuesday, bringing an unusual swap in leadership full circle between two major art museums at opposite ends of the country, and opening up the potential for future partnerships. I cant think of anything like this in recent times, but its kind of fun and serendipitous, Mr. Campbell, 56, said in a phone interview Tuesday. Im absolutely thrilled to have this opportunity. Just as he takes over an institution where I laid a certain groundwork, similarly he has laid groundwork here. The Learning Network, a site about teaching and learning with content from The New York Times, runs contests for students all year long. In September, we challenged teenagers to analyze media and adult stereotypes about their generation then take photos to counter them. What can you show us from your own life, or the lives of those around you, that might help make the portrait of Gen Z more interesting, nuanced, complete or real? we asked. Nearly 2,200 students answered. Here are 11 of our winners, with excerpts from their accompanying artists statements. You can see many more at learning.nytimes.com. Katherine Schulten Efforts to reach Mr. Charamut and his campaign on Tuesday were unsuccessful. Mr. Lesser, a 35-year-old member of the states House of Representatives, denounced the mailer as one that plays on age-old, hurtful stereotypes of Jews. In a statement, Mr. Lesser, who is seeking a Senate seat in central Connecticut, called the tactic astonishing, even in this environment. Last year, the number of reported anti-Semitic incidents in the United States jumped 57 percent, according to an annual report by the Anti-Defamation League. In the February report, the organization found that such incidents, including harassment, vandalism and physical assaults, climbed to 1,986 in 2017 from 1,267 the year before. The increase coincided with President Trumps first year in office, and was the largest uptick for a single year since the organization started tracking the data in 1979. On Sunday, Mr. Lesser, who lives in Middletown, joined a candlelight vigil to show support for victims of the Pittsburgh shooting and to take a stand against hatred and anti-Semitism. His wife, Sarah, grew up four blocks from the Tree of Life synagogue, where the Saturday morning attack occurred. Mr. Ullahs case is also one of several in New York in recent years in which the authorities have said that a so-called lone wolf terrorist, inspired by foreign terrorist organizations, carried out an attack on civilians. It came just weeks after an Uzbek man, Sayfullo Saipov, was charged in a truck attack in October 2017 that killed eight people on a crowded Manhattan bike path. Image Akayed Ullah Credit... New York Taxi and Limousine Commission Ms. Donaleski told the jury that Mr. Ullah had reviewed online Islamic State propaganda videos, including one encouraging ISIS supporters who could not travel overseas to take the fight to where you were, including here in America. The defendant did just that. Mr. Ullah has been charged with providing material support to the Islamic State, using a weapon of mass destruction and other counts; if convicted, he could face life in prison. Ms. Donaleski meticulously described how Mr. Ullah, an electrician, built the bomb in his Brooklyn apartment, using a pipe, wires and screws he had taken from his workplace, a construction site a few blocks from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. He filled a metal pipe with screws and broken Christmas tree lights and mixed an explosive powder that included ground-up match heads, she said. Then he threaded wires into the pipe and used zip ties and duct tape to attach it to his chest, Ms. Donaleski explained. He slipped a wire from the bomb into a hole in his right pants pocket and connected the wire to a 9-volt battery, she said. While riding the A train to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, he posted a message on Facebook, which read, Oh, Trump, you failed to protect your nation, she told the jury. In court, Mr. Ullah sat impassively at the defense table, even when prosecutors played a security video that showed the blast and him falling to the ground as commuters ducked and shielded their ears. Mr. Ullah seemed to watch more intently as the jurors passed around the jagged pipe recovered from the scene. The script has become familiar in this global season of far-right politics: A fringe politician peddling vitriol and promising order catches the mood of a nation yearning for change, any change, and rides it to the presidential palace. A year ago, anyone who said Jair Bolsonaro could be elected president of Brazil would have been dismissed as a comic. A former artillery captain turned politician, Mr. Bolsonaro spent 27 years as an obscure congressman opposed to everything left-wing. In the campaign, he came to be best known for his outrageously offensive comments about gays, blacks, indigenous people and women and for defending the old military dictatorship, torture and guns. His campaign platform, such as it was, was mostly about going backward pulling out of the Paris climate accord, using strong-arm tactics with criminals (his favorite motto is said to be, A good criminal is a dead criminal), giving industry what it wants. Yet his angry rants caught the mood of a Brazilian electorate sick of an endless corruption scandal that has reached to the far corners of the establishment, rampant street violence and economic dislocation, all of it indiscriminately and often unfairly blamed by many Brazilians on the left-wing Workers Party, known as PT. The eagerness to repudiate anything PT and the political class as a whole overrode all other considerations, like Mr. Bolsonaros total lack of preparation. He came in first in the first round and got a resounding 55 percent of the vote in the second. Nora Ephron once wrote a brilliant essay about the trajectory of her and many other peoples infatuations with email, from the thrill of discovering this speedy new way of keeping in touch to the hell of not being able to turn it off. Ive come to feel that way about the whole of the internet. What a glittering dream of expanded knowledge and enhanced connection it was at the start. What a nightmare of manipulated biases and metastasized hate it has turned into. Before he allegedly began mailing pipe bombs to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and others, Cesar Sayoc found encouragement online maybe not in the form of explosives instructions, but in the sense that he could scream his resentments in a theater that did the opposite of repudiating them. It echoed them back. It validated and cultivated them. It took something dark and colored it darker still. By the time he was arrested in Florida on Friday, The Times reported, Sayoc appeared to fit the all-too-familiar profile of a modern extremist, radicalized online and sucked into a vortex of partisan furor. FRONT PAGE A table last Wednesday with an article about high-profile men and women who lost jobs or other professional ties within the past year after publicly reported accusations of sexual misconduct referred imprecisely to the sequence of events involving accusations against Paul Shapiro at the Humane Society. Mr. Shapiro was reassigned in 2016 after six women complained that he sexually harassed them. He resigned this year, shortly before Politico made the accusations public, and says his resignation was unrelated. It is not the case that he resigned directly after the complaints were made. INTERNATIONAL An article on Tuesday about Cornell Universitys decision to cut ties with Renmin University in Beijing misspelled the given name of a student at Renmin University. He is Xiang Junwei, not Junwen. An article on Tuesday misidentified the religious leader who avoided using the word synagogue to describe the scene of the shooting of Jewish worshipers in Pittsburgh. It was Israels Ashkenazi chief rabbi, not its Sephardic chief rabbi. NATIONAL An article on Tuesday about the fallout from Hurricane Michael in Panama City, Fla., misstated the intensity of the storm as it struck the Florida Panhandle. Hurricane Michael made landfall as a Category 4 storm, not Category 5. Meyer tried to call the court in Georgia to determine whether her client had a real hearing but was never given an answer. So she advised her client to show up and try to get some form of documentation that could later prove she attended the hearing in case that was necessary. Instead her client was met with long lines outside the Atlanta immigration court and wasnt given any indication about when she would appear before an immigration judge. And she was never given anything to prove she had shown up, Meyer said. Every spring, male deer undertake a unique biological ritual: sprouting and rapidly regrowing their massive, spiky antlers. A complex matrix of bone, living tissue and nerve endings, deer antlers can reach 50 inches long and weigh more than 20 pounds before they are shed in winter. Not only are the antlers useful in attracting mates and fighting, they qualify deer as the only mammal that can regrow lost body parts. Now, researchers say they have identified the two genes primarily responsible for antler regeneration in one species, fallow deer. The study, reported Tuesday in the Journal of Stem Cell Research and Therapy, notes that these genes are also found in humans, potentially opening new avenues of research into bone trauma and diseases. Deer antler formation shares similar biological mechanisms with human bone growth, but deer antlers grow much faster, said Peter Yang, an orthopedic researcher at the Stanford University School of Medicine and senior author of the study. Perhaps by studying the newly identified genes in humans, scientists may be able to developed treatments that could reproduce the rapid bone growth of deer antlers in human bone, and provide relief for people who suffer ailments like osteoporosis. SAN FRANCISCO Richard DeVaul, a director at the X unit of Googles parent company, Alphabet, resigned from the company on Tuesday after he was accused in a New York Times article published last week of sexually harassing a female job applicant. Star Simpson, a hardware engineer, said that in 2013, Mr. DeVaul made unwanted advances to her at his encampment at Burning Man, an annual festival in the Nevada desert. It was a week after she interviewed at Google for a job reporting to him. When Ms. Simpson reported his behavior to Google two years later, a company official told her that her story was more likely than not true and that appropriate action had been taken against Mr. DeVaul without explaining what the company had done. After the article was published, many employees expressed anger and disappointment that Mr. DeVaul was still employed at the company despite Ms. Simpsons harassment claim. Samsung Electronics, the South Korean giant, on Wednesday reported a roughly one-fifth increase in operating profit for the latest quarter from a year earlier, sending profit to a new high of around $15 billion. But industry observers say that the driving force behind the companys recent performance a boom in memory chips, fueled by soaring demand for data centers and smartphones is looking wobbly. Samsung is the worlds largest smartphone maker, but it also makes many of the computer chips, camera sensors and displays that go into other companies devices. That has positioned it to prosper even from the success of rivals like Apple. Of late, though, demand for smartphones and other consumer electronics has been plateauing. And as memory-chip producers, Samsung included, have invested in operations to expand production, supply is catching up. As residents of Kansas City, Mo., revel in the recovery of a sorely missed stolen colon, locals in Healdsburg, Calif., are still holding out hope for their own oversize oddity. For more than three weeks, the authorities have been scouring the city of 11,000 tucked in California wine country, hoping to find an 800-pound hammer. Like the giant, inflatable intestine in Kansas City, the hammer is hard to miss. It is 21 feet long; its head is about five feet tall; and it had been securely displayed on the lawn of the citys community center since spring. One of the two black grandparents killed by a white gunman on Oct. 24 at a Kroger supermarket in a suburb of Louisville, Ky., was buried on Tuesday. A funeral for the other is scheduled for Saturday. In the meantime, calls continue to grow for hate-crime charges to be filed in their deaths. But the state prosecutor in the case, Thomas B. Wine, said Tuesday that a hate crime is not a separate offense under Kentucky law. Rather, a judge can apply the label to a charge during the sentencing process. It could stop a convict from gaining parole or probation. Witnesses said the suspect, Gregory Alan Bush, fatally shot Maurice E. Stallard, 69, inside the store, and then killed Vickie Lee Jones, 67, in the parking lot. He had no known connection to either victim, or to the store, and had tried and failed to enter a nearby black church moments earlier. Mr. Bush was charged with two counts of murder and 10 counts of wanton endangerment. He is being held in jail with bail set at $5 million. A bystander told police that Mr. Bush said, Whites dont kill whites, during the attack. Even without a hate crime charge, Mr. Bush could face the death penalty if convicted. WASHINGTON Already, President Trump has sent 1,000 military forces to the southwest border in a decision he said will protect Americans from a caravan of migrants coming from Central America. He has pledged to deploy at least 4,000 more troops by weeks end, as part of a last-ditch effort to galvanize the Republican base before the midterm elections on Tuesday. The troops, the president said, will be waiting for the caravan of unarmed men, women and children fleeing violence in Central America. Mr. Trump has also said the caravan may include Islamic terrorists, though he has shown no evidence to back up the claim. This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you! Mr. Trump tweeted Monday. But using the worlds most powerful military to stop some 3,000 unarmed migrants who may or may not make it to the United States border might not be the best use of taxpayer dollars at the Defense Department. Heres why. It wont be cheap. Defense Department officials say the border deployment is set to last until Dec. 15. It is not clear how much it will cost to send active-duty military troops to the border for the 45-day deployment, and neither the Pentagon nor the White House has provided a price estimate. WASHINGTON Amid the storm of criticism over his response to the synagogue killings in Pittsburgh and the accusations that his messaging created the atmosphere that caused them, President Trump has turned to the people he trusts most for advice his family. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who keeps a photograph of his grandparents, both Holocaust survivors, in his West Wing office, and a mezuza on the doorway, as well as his daughter Ivanka, who converted to Judaism to marry Mr. Kushner, have quietly and persistently shaped the presidents response to one of the nations deadliest cases of anti-Semitism. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting on Saturday, their conversation with the president led to a marked change in his language. Within hours, his remarks went from a vague statement if they had an armed guard inside, they might have been able to stop him immediately, he said to a plea to a rally crowd in Illinois to combat the scourge of anti-Semitism. It was their advice to go to Pittsburgh on Tuesday despite the opposition of city officials and many members of the Jewish community. To lay the groundwork for the visit, they dispatched Jason D. Greenblatt, a White House aide who has worked with Mr. Kushner on a Middle East peace initiative, and Avi Berkowitz, who works for Mr. Kushner. WASHINGTON Intelligence officers in a small office in Chinas vast intelligence-gathering network for years stole secrets from aerospace companies in the United States and abroad, Justice Department officials said on Tuesday in unsealing the third indictment in recent weeks that detailed Chinas elaborate efforts to steal corporate secrets through espionage and hacking. Two Chinese intelligence officers and five hackers repeatedly broke into corporate computer systems to steal intellectual property and other information about the aerospace industry, according to the indictment, which had been under seal since June. From January 2010 to May 2015, they stole turbofan engine plans and other confidential business information from 13 companies, according to court documents. They included Capstone Turbine, a gas turbine manufacturer based in Los Angeles, and other unnamed companies in Los Angeles and San Diego as well as Massachusetts, Arizona, Oregon and Wisconsin and overseas in Britain, France and Australia. At the time, a Chinese government-owned aerospace company was developing a comparable commercial aircraft engine, the government said. WASHINGTON First there was the middle-class tax cut that even his allies and many of his aides had not heard about. Then troops were dispatched to the border to counter an invasion of our country by impoverished migrants about 900 miles away. And then, on Tuesday, President Trump declared that he would sign an executive order essentially rewriting the Constitution as it has been traditionally interpreted to stop children of undocumented immigrants from automatically becoming citizens just because they are born in the United States, claiming power no other president has asserted. In the last days before a midterm congressional election that will determine the future of his presidency, Mr. Trump seems to be throwing almost anything he can think of against the wall to see what might stick, no matter how untethered from political or legal reality. Frustrated that other topics like last weeks spate of mail bombs came to dominate the news, the president has sought to seize back the national stage in the last stretch of the campaign. Ad hoc though they may be, Mr. Trumps red-meat ideas have come to shape the conversation and, he hopes, may galvanize otherwise complacent conservative voters to turn out on Tuesday. But he risks motivating opponents, as well, and he has put even some of his fellow Republicans on the spot as they are forced to take a position on issues they were not expecting to have to address. The plot first came to light through one of the emails referred to the F.B.I., sent to journalists on Oct. 17 by a woman named Lorraine Parsons who said that a man had contacted her with questions about Mr. Mueller because she had worked as a paralegal with him at a law firm in 1974. She said the man, whom she identified as Bill Christensen and said had a British accent, contacted her a second time and offered her more than $50,000 to make accusations of sexual misconduct and workplace harassment against Robert Mueller. To get the money, he said, she would need to sign an affidavit and promised a $10,000 bonus if she did so quickly. The man added that he was working for Jack Burkman, a Republican lawyer. Ms. Parsons said she declined the financial offer and hung up the phone. She identified herself to at least two news media outlets who received her email as Lorraine D. Parsons of Fort Myers, Fla., but The New York Times could not find her. Though she wrote in the email that Mr. Mueller was always very polite to me, and was never inappropriate, the law firm where Ms. Parsons said she worked alongside him Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, known at the time as Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro said it had no record of Ms. Parsons working there. Mr. Burkman is known for peddling right-wing conspiracy theories. He suggested that Russian hit men killed Seth Rich, a 27-year-old Democratic National Committee aide, during the 2016 presidential campaign and that someone tried to kill him while investigating Mr. Richs death. Law enforcement officials told Mr. Richs parents he was most likely killed during a botched robbery. Attorney James McKay, who represents March, added fuel to an already inflamed proceeding when he accused the special prosecutors of misconduct and alleged they misled the grand jury in order to further an unspecified political agenda. A former longtime assistant Cook County states attorney, McKay said the special prosecutors knowingly allowed grand jury witnesses to perjure themselves and did not tell jurors of their right to question witnesses. Under rules issued in 2017, the Trump administration expanded exemptions from the contraceptive coverage mandate, allowing employers to opt out if they had religious or moral objections. Judge Wendy Beetlestone of the Federal District Court in Philadelphia blocked the administration in December, saying the Affordable Care Act did not authorize such sweeping exemptions. Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. of the Federal District Court in Oakland, Calif., blocked the rules a week later. For a substantial number of women, he said, the rules would transform contraceptive coverage from a legal entitlement to an essentially gratuitous benefit wholly subject to their employers discretion. Under the 2017 rules, he said, more employers than ever before are eligible for the exemption. The Trump administration has appealed both decisions. And the new rules are unlikely to end the legal fight over contraceptive coverage, which has been raging in courts around the country for more than six years. The Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of Roman Catholic nuns, told the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, last week that it should rule on the critical legal questions in the case even if and when the agencies issue yet another version of their rule. Among those questions is whether the religious exemption is legal or whether it violates provisions of the Constitution barring the establishment of religion and guaranteeing equal protection of the laws. Mr. Trumps efforts to roll back the contraceptive coverage mandate were inspired, in part, by the Little Sisters. I will make absolutely certain religious orders like the Little Sisters of Poor are not bullied by the federal government because of their religious beliefs, he said a month before the 2016 election. One challenge to the Trump administration rules was filed by the State of California, joined by Delaware, Maryland, New York and Virginia. The other was filed by Pennsylvania. Cipriano and Josefa moved to the United States in the early 1990s from Guerrero, Mexico, and settled in North Carolina. They got jobs on chicken farms, hoping to secure a chance at the American dream for their growing family. For three of their children, who were born in the United States, it worked: As American citizens, they have been allowed to drive, attend college at in-state rates, work, and rent apartments legally. One of them served three years in the Marines. They vote in American elections. But a fourth child, a daughter who was only a year old when the family moved illegally to the United States, had a different experience. Though she is the oldest of her siblings, she was the last to move out of her parents home. She waited longer to get a drivers license and her own place to live. And despite her academic success, she attended community college because she could not afford to pay out-of-state fees at a four-year university. It was painful to see her suffer just because she wasnt born here, Cipriano, who agreed to be identified only by his first name because of his familys immigration status, said of his oldest daughter. Ever since she was a little girl, she was good. She got good grades, followed the rules, met her goals. She always tried to help people. It hurts your heart to see her frustrated. YAOUNDE, Cameroon An American missionary died in northwestern Cameroon after being shot in the head Tuesday amid fighting between armed separatists and soldiers, the director of a regional hospital said. Charles Trumann Wesco, a missionary from Indiana who had been in the region for two weeks, was rushed to the hospital in Bamenda after he was gravely wounded while in his car, the hospital director, Kingue Thomson Njie, said. He died in our hospital after all attempts to save his life, Mr. Njie said. Mr. Wescos wife and eight children were still in Bamenda, he said. It was unclear if any of them were harmed or if someone else was with him in the car. LOS ANGELES Smiley clouds have floated through the art of Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III ever since they started working together, in 2002, under the peppy name FriendsWithYou. Their first website had a cloud you could click on to make a rainbow tongue appear. Their 2010 animated short Cloudy featured lighthearted clouds making music and rain. And as the artists have grown more successful, theyve made public sculptures and a range of merchandise, from smartphone covers to limited-edition lamps, in that familiar fluffy form. Now their signature character, Little Cloud, is making its biggest appearance yet, as a 30-foot-wide balloon in this years Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. Culture has a way of materializing what we need, and what we need is uplifting and optimistic, said Mr. Sandoval, 42, slouching on a candy-colored bean bag chair next to Mr. Borkson, 39, also on a bean bag, in their downtown studio here in October. The family of Paul Rosenberg, a renowned Paris art dealer whose gallery had exclusive arrangements with Braque, Matisse and Picasso, has worked tirelessly, with tremendous success, to recover the 400 works the Nazis looted from him. That Mr. Rosenberg kept meticulous records and purchased museum-quality art helped the family to reclaim all but 60 pieces. The works recovered in recent years include Matisses Woman Seated in an Armchair, discovered in the Munich apartment of the reclusive Cornelius Gurlitt. Another Matisse, Woman in a Blue Dress in Front of a Fireplace was returned by the Henie Onstad Art Center in Norway in 2014. But one pastel portrait by Edgar Degas, an image of particular importance to Paul Rosenberg, has proved to be maddeningly elusive. For decades, the family has been tracking the pastel, Portrait of Mlle. Gabrielle Diot, created in 1890. Yet efforts to recover it have been repeatedly thwarted, even though the family knows the identity of a German dealer who has tried several times to sell it. Getting on the New York City subway when it opened in 1904 cost only a nickel, but one of only two known examples of a first guide to the Interborough Rapid Transit system is on sale for $12,000. Starting Nov. 9, Martayan Lan Gallery in Manhattan will exhibit historical New York maps from as early as 1548, from Gastaldis edition of Ptolemys atlas what is described as the earliest acquirable map to focus on the East Coast of North America, including Bermuda. The most recent map in the show, Bollmanns birds-eye color lithograph of Midtown Manhattan, suggests the scale of the citys skyscrapers and dates to 1964. Some of the items in the exhibition are for sale, but not all. The 1904 subway map apparently was mailed to customers of Wanamakers department store. Another map that will be displayed, from 1909, includes all of the citys subway and elevated train lines and major bridges and tunnels. The price: $25,000. Also exhibited will be an 1822 map published by John Rangel Jr., the city surveyor, who plotted the Manhattan grid imposed by the 1811 Commissioners Plan (borrowed from a private collection) and a wall map from 1898 that is described as perhaps the earliest to depict the five boroughs consolidated into Greater New York. Its listed at $12,000. In February, the spaceflight company founded by Elon Musk conducted a test launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket, which successfully sent its payload into orbit around the sun. Its cargo included a Tesla Roadster which now looks like a sign of Musks midlife crisis and a digital copy of the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov. Two months later, Apple announced that it was developing a television version of the classic science-fiction saga for its new streaming service. Previous attempts to adapt the series have failed, which might not have surprised Asimov, who, after rereading it, confessed, I couldnt help noticing, of course, that there was not very much action in it. If the Foundation trilogy still appeals to a wide audience as well as to corporations hoping to associate themselves with its vision of tomorrow this has less to do with the plots or characters than with the books fictional science of psychohistory, a system for predicting future events even thousands of years from the present. The notion captivated fans like the economist Paul Krugman, who recalled of the mathematician and psychologist portrayed by Asimov as the creator of psychohistory: I grew up wanting to be Hari Seldon. The books made an equally profound impression on a teenage Newt Gingrich, who later wrote, For a high school student who loved history, Asimovs most exhilarating invention was the psychohistorian Hari Seldon. Image The November 1945 cover of Astounding Science Fiction, featuring Asimovs story The Mule. Credit... Penny Publications/Dell Magazines The historical moment that inspired Asimov has striking parallels to our own. On Aug. 1, 1941, Asimov, then a 21-year-old writer and graduate student at Columbia University, was riding the subway in New York. He was headed to his monthly meeting with John W. Campbell Jr., the editor of the pulp magazine Astounding Science Fiction, whom Asimov later praised as an intellectual mentor and the most powerful force in science fiction ever. On the train, Asimov came up with the premise for a story about the decline of a galactic empire, and when he described it in the meeting that afternoon, he remembered, Campbell blazed up as I had never seen him do. Mr. Trump went with the first lady above center with a rabbi, Jeffrey Myers and his Jewish daughter and son-in-law, who have helped shape his response to the massacre. In the usually placid neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, now anguished by the attack, protesters gathered with messages like President Hate is not welcome in our state. Meanwhile, in a new pledge to his anti-immigrant base, Mr. Trump said he would end birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed under the Constitution. Doing so by executive order would be a highly dubious tactic, at odds with legal consensus. But ahead of midterm congressional elections on Tuesday, Mr. Trump is throwing everything at the wall, our correspondent writes. Once, SoftBank was merely a big Japanese telecommunications company. Now, it is an international technology behemoth with a host of challenges. It is joined at the hip to Saudi Arabia in the midst of the furor over a prominent journalists death. And it is fighting hard in Washington to win approval for the sale of Sprint, which it controls, to T-Mobile. All that is reason to add a politically connected image-maker to its ranks. SoftBank plans to announce on Wednesday that it has hired Gary Ginsberg, a former top adviser to Rupert Murdoch, as its global head of communications. He will be based in New York and report to Masayoshi Son, SoftBanks founder and chief executive, and Marcelo Claure, its chief operating officer. His hiring is SoftBanks latest effort to address obstacles far beyond the business of technology. Mr. Ginsbergs most recent job was at Time Warner, where he was in the middle of the fight to defend its sale to AT&T. Scratching your head about what business headlines you need to follow, and why? Sign up here for With Interest, a new weekly newsletter from the Business desk of The New York Times. Every Sunday, well send you the most important news about technology, companies, markets and more. Expect three essential items from the past week, plus three that are in store for the week ahead. We aim to keep this newsletter concise, informative and entertaining because we know time is precious, especially on the weekend. So sign up here, and tell us what you think at withinterest@nytimes.com. According to the charges, al-Jayab was born in Palestine and spent much of his childhood in Iraq before coming to the U.S. as a refugee in October 2012. While living in Arizona and Wisconsin, al-Jayab communicated on social media about his intention to go to Syria to fight for terrorist organizations, according a criminal complaint filed in Sacramento, Calif. Welcome to the Climate Fwd: newsletter. The New York Times climate team emails readers once a week with stories and insights about climate change. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. The midterm elections are around the corner, and here on the climate desk weve been looking at how the issue of climate change is playing out around the country. Its made its way into high-profile races where candidates have sparred over climate science, like Floridas contest for governor between Ron DeSantis, a Republican who said he didnt want to be known as an alarmist, and Andrew Gillum, a Democrat who said hed be a governor who believes in science. And increasingly, we found, candidates in tight House and Senate races are becoming less shy about putting climate change on the airwaves, using political advertisements to both attack their opponents views and burnish their own green credentials. It was with the local racially and ethnically diverse population in mind (and shortage concerns) and using a more clinic-centered approach, that the U.C. Riverside medical school was created in 2013. The school has aimed to better serve those in the region by recruiting their students from the area with hopes they will stay and practice in inland California (eight to 10 students per class get loans that can be forgiven if they practice locally after training, and 40 percent of the Class of 2018 has stayed in the area for their medical residencies). The school also pairs students with a local clinic from the first month, which appeals to Ms. Alfaro, who was raised in a low-income family that received medical care at local clinics (we didnt have health insurance). She has been volunteering at the Riverside Free Clinic since she was a sophomore at U.C. Riverside, and she wants to serve her community when she is a doctor. Ms. Alfaro sees technology as a driving force behind the improvement in health care that could make visits more efficient for her future patients. You want to do the most for your patients in those 10 minutes, she said, so they walk out with their needs met. Can technology bridge geography? Solve problems of access? There are growing ways and settings in which patients can get health care. And that includes virtually, which spurred N.Y.U. School of Medicine last year to begin offering medical students an elective in telemedicine. Students, know that technology will absolutely be a big deal in practice, said Dr. Triola. He tapped the N.Y.U. Langone Virtual Urgent Care app on his phone, revealing rows of rectangles: available appointments. We can see a doctor in 36 minutes, he said. Because marriage is an ever-evolving experience, we constantly shift, change and, in some cases, start over. In Its No Secret, couples share thoughts about commitment and tell us what they have learned along the way. Who Gesine Bullock-Prado, 48, and Raymond Prado, 51. Occupations She is a pastry chef and the host of Baked in Vermont, a television show on the Food Network. She also runs a baking school, Sugar Glider Kitchen, on the couples five-acre farm in Hartford, Vt. Her newest cookbook, Fantastical Cakes: Incredible Creations for the Baker in Anyone (Running Press), is to be published this month. He is a storyboard artist for television and films, including The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay, X-Men: Apocalypse, and the Stranger Things series on Netflix. Their Marriage 19 years, 7 months and counting. Through the Years The couple married April 3, 1999, at the Austin, Tex., home of the actress Sandra Bullock, Ms. Bullock-Prados older sister. At the time, the house was undergoing renovations. Several hours before the wedding, Sandra Bullock was stapling fabric to an unfinished balcony, which later held a string quartet. Scaffolding and a tent were placed over the unfinished pool area. About 50 guests sat at two elongated tables, with a lake view as their backdrop. The couple met in January 1997 when both were living in Los Angeles. I was the development person under my sisters production company, said Ms. Bullock-Prado, who was 27 at the time. We were doing a table reading of Hope Floats. Ray walked in with a producer friend, and my heart dropped into my stomach. I felt sick. It was one of those lightning bolts, love-at-first-sight moments. One question the findings raise is whether women who have already had minimally invasive surgery for cervical cancer have a higher risk of recurrence than previously thought. Dr. Ramirez said most recurrences happen within the first two years after surgery, so women who had the operation more than two years ago may have little to worry about. For those who had the surgery more recently, doctors are still trying to determine whether extra follow-up is needed. In any case, doctors said, long-term survival rates after both types of surgery are still high. Dr. Ginger Gardner, a gynecologic oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said the studies were important, and her hospital was examining its own surgical results and discussing the findings with patients. She said decisions were being made on a case-by-case basis, and that the minimally invasive approach might still be appropriate for some women. This turns us on our heads a bit, said Dr. Lee-may Chen, director of the gynecologic oncology division of the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, San Francisco. We thought laparoscopic surgery would be good for this patient population. She said that because of the findings, she now encourages most patients to have open surgery for cervical cancer. But she discusses the information with them, and would consider the minimally invasive approach for women who refuse open surgery, or for those who have a high risk of serious complications from open surgery. Research had found that the minimally invasive approach, in use since around 2006, worked as well as open surgery to treat cancer of the uterus, which convinced many doctors that it would also be safe for cervical cancer. But uterine cancer and cervical cancer are different diseases, and require different operations. Uterine cancer needs a simple hysterectomy, which means removing only the uterus. NEW ORLEANS Experimental new treatments for Ebola appear to be working effectively in the most recent outbreak in Central Africa, an expert reported at a medical conference here on Wednesday. The death rate was 43 percent among patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo who received one or more of four experimental treatments, said Dr. William A. Fischer II, an emergency care specialist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. If the count excluded Ebola patients who were within hours of death when they arrived at the hospital, the fatality rate would be 32 percent, he added. By contrast, about 68 percent of Ebola patients in hospitals before the new treatments were approved had died. David Mzee broke his neck in 2010. He was a college student in Zurich at the time, an athlete who enjoyed risk and contact, and he flipped off a trampoline and onto a foam pad. The foam pad, it didnt do its job, he said. Mr. Mzee, now 33, is one of three men who lost the use of their legs years ago after severe spinal injuries, but who now are able to walk without any supports, if briefly and awkwardly, with the help of a pacemaker-like implant, scientists reported on Wednesday. The breakthrough is the latest achievement in the scientific effort to understand and treat such life-changing injuries. Several recent studies have restored motion to paralyzed or partly paralyzed patients by applying continuous electrical stimulation to the spinal cord. The new report, described in the journal Nature, is the first demonstration of so-called patterned stimulation: An implant sends bursts of targeted stimulation to the muscles that intend to move. In effect, the stimulation occurs on an as-needed basis, roughly mimicking the bodys own signaling mechanism. Yet over the course of a two-month correspondence, which was mediated by her editor, my editor and her translator, Ann Goldstein, the distance between us seemed only to expand. She answered questions I had not asked and ignored the ones I had. She got irritated, apologized, misinterpreted my phrasing willfully, I suspected. When I asked her what living authors she enjoyed reading, she wrote: I would have to give a very complex answer, talking about various stages of my life. Ill answer you some other time. When, I wondered, imagining that one day I might open my door and find a childrens wagon full of moldy novels, with no address, no note, no glimpse of a telltale figure hurrying away. An interview is a collaboration, too, though like all collaborations with Ferrante, an imbalanced one. Often she answered my questions in the same oblique style as her narrator. Maybe in more than a few cases I was overly frank, she wrote when I asked her what instructions she gave Costanzo. Maybe I intervened, with some presumptuousness, in irrelevant details. She told me she thinks collaborations between women are more difficult than collaborations between a woman and a man, whose authority a woman can either submit to or pretend to recognize while pursuing her own agenda. Certainly its more complicated to recognize the authority of another woman; tradition in that case is more fragile, she wrote. It works if, in a relationship between the person in charge and the subordinate, the first wants the other to grow and free herself from her subordinate status, and the second gains her autonomy without feeling obliged to diminish the other. As the subordinate, I could only strategize how to ask questions that would compel her to write useful answers for me. My initial plan was to present myself as a new mother who found in Ferrantes fiction the emotional tumult of motherhood as I am living it. In the note that preceded my questions, I told her that I have found myself returning to the third book in the Neapolitan series, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, many times since having my two children. No other novel I have read captures the vicissitudes of motherhood with such precision: the power and vulnerability of caring for others, the intimacy and distance between mother and child. When I became a mother, it was painful to realize that my mother had a separate life, a different self, before she became my mother; painful too to think that my children might not realize this about me until it was too late. She did not acknowledge my note. I tried again with a question, only this time my tone was less sentimental, more acerbic. I observed that contemporary writing on motherhood has an irritating tendency to treat children as psychological impediments to creativity as if a child must steal not only time and energy from his mother but also language and thought. But her novels are different: They entertain the possibility that motherhood might be an experience conducive to creativity, even when it is tiring or onerous. For a short time, Lila transforms motherhood into an act of grace, and though she finds her children burdensome, Lenus greatest professional success comes after she becomes a mother. What did she take to be the relationship between time spent taking care of words and time spent taking care of children? She was more receptive, if a little scolding. I very much like the way youve formulated the question, she wrote. But I want to say that its not right to speak of motherhood in general. The troubles of the poor mother are different from those of the well-off mother, who can pay another woman to help her. But whether the mother is rich or poor, if there is a real, powerful creative urge, the care of children, however much it absorbs and at times even consumes us, doesnt win out over the care of words: One finds the time for both. Or at least that was my experience: I found the time when I was a terrified mother, without any support, and also when I was a well-off mother. So I will take the liberty of asserting that women should in no case give up the power of reproduction in the name of production. There was something different about the style of this answer. The I she wielded seemed more present, the defenseless voice of the writer behind the author. I asked her to say more about being a terrified mother. What, I asked, was the nature of that terror for her? She retreated, adopting the impersonal tone of the commentator once again. Im afraid of mothers who sacrifice their lives to their children, she wrote. Im afraid of mothers who surrender themselves completely and live for their children, who hide the difficulties of motherhood and pretend even to themselves to be perfect mothers. It is tempting to rewrite these statements to reclaim the immediacy of her I: I was afraid of sacrificing my life to my children; I was afraid of surrendering myself completely. But nothing authorizes it. It may not even be the right interpretation; she may really be talking about her fear of other mothers. Why do I want to make it about her? To do so would be to traffic in fiction. But the traffic in fiction is pleasurable. It prompts me to study her language carefully, to appreciate anew the words she has chosen, the phrases she repeats, how easily she moves between sentences. It prompts me to rewrite her words to project fears I may or may not have onto the figure of the author the character she and I are sustaining. It lets me speak without speaking for myself. Jared Eamons, an Arkansas college student who is an avid runner and an aspiring writer, is also gay. Or rather, he is in the midst of figuring that out about himself what it means, how he might act on it when his panicked parents enroll him in a conversion therapy program designed to change, or at least suppress, his sexuality. Boy Erased, adapted by Joel Edgerton from Garrard Conleys memoir of the same title, is the second film this year to tackle the subject of conversion therapy, a technique that is a mix of religious dogma and dubious science whose cruelty and ineffectiveness have been amply documented. Like The Miseducation of Cameron Post, directed by Desiree Akhavan and based on a young-adult novel by Emily Danforth, Edgertons film is set in the recent past, but its eye is very much on the present. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have outlawed conversion therapy, which still leaves a lot of young people vulnerable to the kind of treatment Jared undergoes. But Boy Erased tries to be more than a simple culture-war morality play, and it succeeds in some measure thanks to Lucas Hedgess performance as Jared and those of Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe as his parents, Nancy and Marshall Eamons. Marshall, who owns a growing Ford dealership, is also a Baptist minister, a kind and scholarly man who loves his son. So does Nancy, who drops her son off every morning at Love in Action, leaving him in the care or at the mercy of its director, Mr. Sykes, played by Edgerton. More directly than her husband, Nancy must struggle to reconcile protective parental instincts with what she sees as the demands of her faith. An auxiliary Catholic bishop in New York, John Jenik, has been accused of sexual abuse and removed from his public ministry, Catholic officials said, the latest scandal to hit an institution already reeling from revelations of inappropriate behavior by its clergy around the globe. Although the alleged incidents occurred decades ago, the Lay Review Board has concluded that the evidence is sufficient to find the allegation credible and substantiated, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the archbishop of New York, said in a statement on Wednesday. The allegation involves an inappropriate relationship with a teenage boy in the 1980s, according to the accuser and his lawyer. Bishop Jenik, 74, denied the allegation, which will be investigated by the Vatican. In an Oct. 29 letter to his parishioners, he wrote: I continue to steadfastly deny that I have ever abused anyone at any time. Therefore I will ask the Vatican, which has ultimate jurisdiction over such cases to review the matter, with the hope of ultimately proving my innocence. Just past midnight on May 1, a young rabbinical student was walking home on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn when he thought he was being followed. A moment after that intuition struck, two men grabbed him, threw him against a car and started punching him. The victim had dropped a box containing $200, meant for charity, but the money went untouched. The student, it seemed, was attacked because he was overheard speaking Hebrew on his cellphone. His two assailants were indicted on assault and hate crime charges. No other American city is more closely associated with Jewish identity than New York or more adamantly imagines itself as the capital of liberalisms most cherished values of tolerance, acceptance and diversity. And yet, at the same time, New York has become an increasingly unsettling place to be Jewish. The first inkling of this emerged several days after the 2016 presidential election when swastikas and the phrase Go Trump showed up on playground equipment in Adam Yauch Park in Brooklyn Heights. Colom told the equal employment opportunity officer she missed four or five calls from her neighbors that morning, so when her phone rang again, she went into the bathroom to answer the call, the report said. She said several of her neighbors were on the other end of the line to discuss a building on their block that had squatters living in it, and they brought it to her attention because she is captain of their block club, the report said. Seven days before Election Day, Letitia James and Keith H. Wofford finally faced off on Tuesday night in their only debate for New York attorney general, mixing fireworks with substantive disagreements on policy issues. Mr. Wofford, a Republican, had called for multiple debates, but Ms. James, a Democrat who is handily leading in public polls, agreed to just this debate at the Manhattan studios of Spectrum NY1 and it nearly did not happen. A chorus of Democratic politicians, including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, have said they would not appear on Spectrum cable stations because of a strike by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 3 against Spectrums parent company, Charter Communications. Ms. James initially said she would not debate because of the strike, but relented because she said she was satisfied that there had been serious negotiations in the days before the debate. Phylis Skloot Bamberger, a lawyer who successfully sued to protect inmates from what a federal judge described as barbarous abuse by guards in the wake of the 1971 Attica prison uprising, died on Sunday at her home in Manhattan. She was 79. The cause was complications of Lewy body dementia, her son Richard said. Ms. Bamberger, who later became a judge herself, and William E. Hellerstein, both of the Legal Aid Society, were the lead lawyers representing the inmates. The prisoners were appealing lower court decisions denying an injunction against the ongoing physical abuse, torture, beatings and other forms of brutality that they said they had endured at Attica, about 37 miles east of Buffalo. The prison riot left 10 correction officers and civilian employees and 33 inmates dead after exasperated officials ordered the State Police to end the siege. The police stormed the prison on Sept. 13, 1971, in what one prosecutor later branded a turkey shoot. When the bigot who shot up a Pittsburgh synagogue arrived at the local hospital emergency room to be treated for his injuries, he was shouting, Kill all the Jews. He was then promptly treated, very professionally, by three Jews. The hospital president, Jeffrey K. Cohen, a member of the congregation that had been attacked, met there with the suspect to ask respectfully how he was doing. (I try to avoid using the names of mass shooters, to avoid giving them attention they sometime crave.) He asked me who I was, Dr. Cohen told ABC News. I said, Im Dr. Cohen, the president of the hospital. Side by side with the worst of humanity we find the best. And in Pittsburgh, there was more of the best. The Muslim community promptly raised $214,000 for the victims of the synagogue shooting and offered to provide security for Jews in the area. The birthright citizenship provision, explained Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan, one of the founders of the Republican Party and the floor manager of the amendments passage in the Senate, was intended to settle the great question of citizenship once and for all. The amendment formed part of a constitutional revolution that, in the words of George William Curtis, the editor of the Republican magazine Harpers Weekly, transformed a document for white men into one for mankind. In 1870, Congress amended the naturalization laws to allow black immigrants to become citizens. The bar to Asians, however, persisted; they could not be naturalized until well into the 20th century. Mr. Trumps prospective order would deny citizenship to children born in the United States to noncitizens. It is especially aimed at undocumented immigrants who supposedly pour into the country to have anchor babies one of the presidents numerous exaggerations when it comes to the dangers posed by immigration. When the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, the category of illegal or undocumented immigrants did not exist. The closest analogy to children born today to such immigrants were the American-born offspring of newcomers from China. At the time, their parents could not become citizens, but in 1898, following the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court affirmed that a person of Chinese origin born in the United States was a citizen by birthright. In the interview in which he discussed his plan to issue the executive order, Mr. Trump claimed that the United States is the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States. This, too, is an exaggeration, as many in the Western Hemisphere do recognize birthright citizenship. But it is true that in the past decade or two the nations of Europe have retreated from this principle. All limit automatic access to citizenship in some way, making it depend not simply on place of birth but also on ethnicity, culture, religion or extra requirements for the children of parents who are not citizens. That has not been our way. Adopted as part of the effort to purge the United States of the legacy of slavery, the principle of birthright citizenship remains an eloquent statement about the nature of American society, a powerful force for assimilation of the children of immigrants and a repudiation of our long history of racism. Mr. Trumps order, if issued, will not only violate both the Constitution and deeply rooted American ideals, but also set a dangerous precedent. If the president can unilaterally abrogate a provision of the Constitution by executive order, which one will be next? Eric Foner is the author of many works of American history, including Reconstruction: Americas Unfinished Revolution, 1866-1877. His latest book, The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Forged a Constitutional Revolution, will appear next year. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. But some scientists, including the Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, have concluded that at least half the planet needs to be protected to save a large majority of plant and wildlife species from extinction. Indeed, the food, clean water and air we need to survive and prosper depends on our ability to protect the planets biological diversity. In other words, we have to protect half to save the whole. Every one of us citizens, philanthropists, business and government leaders should be troubled by the enormous gap between how little of our natural world is currently protected and how much should be protected. It is a gap that we must urgently narrow, before our human footprint consumes the earths remaining wild places. Opinion Conversation The climate, and the world, are changing. What challenges will the future bring, and how should we respond to them? What should our leaders be doing? Al Gore, the 45th vice president of the United States, finds reasons for optimism in the Biden presidency. Al Gore, the 45th vice president of the United States, finds reasons for optimism in the Biden presidency. What are the worst climate risks in your country? Select a country, and we'll break down the climate hazards it faces. Select a country, and we'll break down the climate hazards it faces. Where are Americans suffering most? Our maps, developed with experts, show where extreme heat is causing the most deaths in the U.S. Our maps, developed with experts, show where extreme heat is causing the most deaths in the U.S. What does climate devastation look like? In Sept. 2020, Michael Benson studied detailed satellite imagery. Here's the earth that he saw and the one he wants to see. For my part, I have decided to donate $1 billion over the next decade to help accelerate land and ocean conservation efforts around the world, with the goal of protecting 30 percent of the planets surface by 2030. This money will support locally led conservation efforts around the world, push for increased global targets for land and ocean protection, seek to raise public awareness about the importance of this effort, and fund scientific studies to identify the best strategies to reach our target. I believe this ambitious goal is achievable because Ive seen what can be accomplished. Indigenous peoples, local leaders and conservation groups around the world are already busy setting aside protected areas that reflect the conservation, economic and cultural values of nearby communities. Financial support from philanthropists and governments is critical to helping these leaders conserve places like the coral reefs of the Caribbean, the glaciers of Argentina and what is known as the place of many elephants in Zimbabwe. Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the chief elections official in the state, is a pioneer of present-day voter suppression. Mr. Kemp has a record of making it harder for people to register to vote, and more difficult for those voters to remain on the rolls. Since 2012, his office has canceled more than 1.4 million voter registrations. In July 2017, over half a million people 8 percent of the states registered voters were purged in a single day. As of earlier this month, over 50,000 peoples registrations, filed before the deadline to vote in the coming midterm election, were listed as on hold. Seventy percent had been filed by black applicants. Even as Mr. Kemp claims his draconian voting policies are intended to prevent fraud, its clear that his real aim is to weaken black voting power in a state where political affiliation is largely dictated by race. He has warned his fellow Republicans about Democrats registering all these minority voters. Mr. Kemps attempts to prevent people from voting exemplify the familiar ways in which access to the ballot has been restricted for people of color across the United States. But voter suppression also happens in ways that arent as well-known, and are even more insidious. In particular, local prosecutors have increasingly brought criminal charges against black voters and community activists for small technical infractions. Theyre sending the frightening message that casting a ballot is risky a message that resonates even when the charges turn out to be baseless and the people charged are acquitted. In a particularly disturbing case, Olivia Pearson, a grandmother and lifelong resident of Coffee County, Ga., found herself on trial this year on charges of felony voter fraud. It began six years ago, on the first day of early voting in Georgia, when a black woman named Diewanna Robinson went to cast her ballot. Ms. Robinson, then 21, had never voted before and didnt know how to operate the electronic voting machine, reported Buzzfeed. She asked Ms. Pearson, more than 30 years her senior, for help. Ms. Robinson would later testify that Ms. Pearson informed her where the card went in the machine and told her to just go through and make my own selections on who I wanted to vote for. Ms. Pearson walked away before Ms. Robinson started voting. Medicare-for-All As health care costs rise, more Americans are voicing support for a single-payer system: Fifty-three percent now support such a plan, compared with less than 40 percent in the early 2000s. Both parties have noted the trend. Republicans are scared enough by the prospect that Mr. Trump wrote a scathing and wildly inaccurate op-ed in USA Today, denouncing the concept. Democrats, for their part, advocate a range of single-payer options that include true Medicare-for-All which would expand the existing government program to cover everyone and a public option that would allow people to opt in to Medicare. So far, details on each are fuzzy; it remains to be seen how various such proposals would grapple with costs, consumer choice and doctor pay. Vermonts single-payer experiment, for instance, largely failed because it ran out of money. But if Democrats take the House, expect to see a lot of pressure from the progressive end of the party to introduce legislation. Only then will we see how single-payer might actually play out, and by 2020, whether voters are truly willing to go down that path. Pre-existing Condition Protections Republicans have long insisted that they want to protect people with pre-existing conditions from insurance discrimination just not through the Affordable Care Act. This is not, by itself, an indefensible position. The current law provides ironclad protections to people with serious medical conditions, but it also has forced a lot of the burden of that coverage onto the shoulders of middle-income Americans who earn too much to qualify for the laws subsidies and whose premiums and deductibles are now soaring. But its tough to argue that one is for pre-existing condition protections when one is actively fighting the only federal law to ever have guaranteed those protections in the first place. There may well be a better way to prevent insurance companies from discriminating against the sick one that doesnt price middle-class Americans out of the market. But so far, Republicans have not found it. One of their more recent proposals would require insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions, but would allow the insurers to exclude coverage of the condition itself so it would be possible for a given person to be covered, even while their cancer relapse is not. Other suggestions include having the federal government pick up the tab for pre-existing condition coverage. But so far, those offerings range from vague to inadequate. Far more concrete are the many ways that Republicans have sought to undermine pre-existing condition protections over the past two years, including by trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act itself. Prescription Drug Costs Donald Trump took office on a promise to dramatically lower the cost of prescription medicine. Since then, Mr. Trump and Congress have made only minimal progress on this goal. Theyve abolished gag rules that prohibit pharmacists from advising customers on how to pay less for prescriptions, and cracked down on drug companies that try to block cheaper, generic versions of their product from making it to market. But neither of those measures, nor any of the others that Mr. Trump has proposed as the election draws near, are likely to make much of a dent in what average consumers pay at the pharmacy counter. When I was 24, I lived with a friend, Jon, in an uptown apartment in New York City, a friend who (although I did not know it at the time) was in the midst of a psychotic break. One night Jon woke me up at 2 a.m. and said that he had to stay in my room all night, to ward off an evil spirit. He sat himself down with a long kitchen knife in the corner, as I lay there, fairly certain that the evil spirit that was imperiling me was Jon himself. When my son Sean vanished, at Lego Land in Windsor, England, in the summer of 1999, I was terrified that I would never see him again. When he reappeared 45 minutes later, wondering what all the fuss was about, I wrapped that child up in my arms and wept. I was just exploring, he explained. (Later that same year, Sean wandered off while we were shopping in Blarney Woolen Mills in County Cork, Ireland. I went to the center of the store sort of like the L.L. Bean of Ireland and shouted: Sean! Sean come here! And a minute later, four young boys appeared all of them named Sean and not one of them my son.) [The Opinion section is now on Instagram. Follow us at @nytopinion.] When he was born, Sean was found to have a heart condition super-ventricular tachycardia that caused his heart to pound at 240 beats a minute. For the first several days of his life our child lay in the intensive care unit at Maine General, as we sat there weeping at his side. We did not know if he was going to live or die. I was frightened by all these losses, or near-losses. But these were nothing compared with what I feel right now. Today, witches are big business: Boutiques and chains alike are stocked with sage, crystals, spell books and other witchy accouterment, and high-end brands like Gucci have pounced. (The design house dressed models up as tarot cards for an ad campaign last year, and this year, cast Tippi Hedren of The Birds fame as a soothsaying crystal ball gazer in a short video.) Sephora, too, recently planned to stock a Starter Witch Kit from Pinrose in stores, but it was pulled after some protested that it was culturally appropriative. And now theres witch-themed adult sleep-away camp. And it wouldnt be witchy if it didnt start with some ritual sage burning, right? The smoky scent permeated OlioHouse, a Victorian-style home in Wassaic, N.Y., where a group of 20- and 30-somethings arrived last Saturday after a three-hour pilgrimage from Brooklyn. They had been lured north by a spellbinding weekend of w itches, art and spookiness hosted by Think Olio, a pop-up lecture series founded by Chris Zumtobel and David Kurfirst. On Saturday afternoon, the group formed a circle on the floor of OlioHouses backyard barn for a two-part lecture on the economic and societal impact of the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries. THE GREEN TEA was poured from a porcelain pot in a wood-paneled piano bar at the Millennium Hotel in London. It had been laced with lemon, honey and a radioactive isotope of polonium, a highly unstable element first identified in 1898 by the chemist Marie Curie. She named polonium after her homeland, Poland, which at the time did not exist as a nation-state, its territory having been parsed out and claimed by Russia, the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The name was an intentionally political act, as was the isotopes appearance in that poisoned cup more than a century later, in 2006, presented by a former K.G.B. agent to Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian dissident and defector, who drank it and died. As long as there have been power structures and people teetering at the top of them, there have been assassinations. Those most at risk surround themselves with bodyguards trained in Krav Maga and Secret Service agents armed with Sig Sauer P229 pistols. But poison is trickier to defend against, an invisible enemy: The best ones are colorless, odorless, tasteless and traceless, vanishing into food or drink without any sign of contamination. From the dawn of the Persian Achaemenid Empire in the sixth century B.C. to the sustained hold of Vladimir Putin over the Russian Federation today, it has long been believed that the only way to detect the presence of poison is to make someone of lesser importance take the first bite or sip, then wait and see if they survive. In ancient Persia, a cupbearer would sip the wine from a spoon so that his lips never touched the cup before offering it to the king. The Macedonians appointed edeatroi (tasters), who were also responsible for supervising seating arrangements at formal banquets. This was not a lowly, thankless position but a mark of honor: At one point, Alexander the Greats edeatros was Ptolemy, the trusted general who would eventually seize control of Egypt after his superiors death. The Romans, both republican and imperial, had praegustatores (literally, foretasters) drawn from slaves and freedmen, for whom the role could lead to higher rank. Halotus, a eunuch who tasted food for the emperor Claudius in the first century A.D., wound up a rich procurator, a provincial official. Note, however, that Alexander died at 32, having fallen violently ill after a drunken night; some historians argue that there was poison in his wine, which somehow got past the edeatros. And Claudius died on Halotuss watch, supposedly from eating Amanita phalloides, otherwise known as the death-cap mushroom, slipped onto his plate on the orders of his wife, Agrippina. His son Britannicus was dispatched shortly afterward, at 13, with the praegustator cleverly circumvented: According to the historic record in the Annals of Tacitus, A drink, still harmless, very hot, and already tasted, was handed to Britannicus; then, when he declined it as too warm, cold water was poured in, and with it the poison likely of plant origin. The system failed. Im definitely voting for Lauren Underwood, and Joe Biden is just the cherry on top, said Keating, who described herself as an independent. She said she thought Hultgren hasnt done very much for us and has not done enough to take on Trump, to take on the politics that are dividing us. There are plenty of vain actors. But there are those who are way worse: vain, past-their-prime actors who want to recapture their former glory. And what better way to get attention than (big smiles, the cameras are snapping) charity work? And what better roles for veteran but not-past-their-prime Broadway actors who have a sense of humor about themselves? In the new musical comedy The Prom, a farcical quartet of self-centered theater stars who descend on a small town in Indiana are played by a farce-loving quartet of real theater stars who have been encouraged to portray their roles as heightened versions of their own personalities. The show, which opens on Nov. 15 at the Longacre Theater, originated with the producer Jack Viertel, who was struck by news reports of gay high school kids who were denied the chance to go to their proms. Good morning. (Want to get California Today by email? Heres the sign-up.) Our colleagues at The Upshot have partnered with Siena College to conduct real-time polling in several of the most competitive races in the country, several of which are here in California. They have been reporting the results live, respondent by respondent, as survey calls are being placed. That includes live polls currently underway in Californias 45th and 48th Congressional Districts, in addition to dozens already completed nationally and in the states most competitive districts. We spoke with Nate Cohn, a correspondent who covers elections, polling and demographics, to ask him about the project and what he has been seeing in California. Q: Whats the reason behind doing live polling? A: After the 2016 election, we felt like it was important to demystify polling for people. We felt like people didnt understand why the polls could be wrong, and they took polls to be a little bit more precise than we do. So we wanted to lay out all the challenges involved in polling, the assumptions that underlie it and the increasing challenge of even reaching people in an era of cellphones and caller ID. We thought this would be a compelling way to do it. Q: What are some of these challenges youve mentioned, which news consumers might not understand about polling itself? CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Two freshman friends sat across from each other in a common room, comparing notes on how exactly they got into Harvard. In some ways, their situations were opposites: One was a double legacy, with two parents who had received Harvard degrees. The other was the son of a police officer and on full financial aid. The legacy student, Iman Lavery, remembered feeling self-conscious during a conversation when she first arrived at school: A classmate had contrasted people who were super qualified to be here with legacies. For her friend on financial aid, Joseph Felkers, it had been the frequent questions from new acquaintances of Whats your thing? how did you get in? that set him on edge, making him wonder if his thing was his passion for poetry, or simply that he was poor. For many freshmen at Harvard who have started school as a lawsuit challenging the universitys use of affirmative action in admissions plays out in court, the case has been personal. It has sharpened the usual freshman-year doubts about how they ended up among the less than 5 percent of applicants chosen from a pool of 42,749. And it has forced uncomfortable questions about which circumstances beyond their control like race, wealth, or legacy status got them or their classmates here. Both Ms. Lavery and Mr. Felkers said that the case was not talked about much among freshmen, though they said they had discussed it here and there, at dinner or between classes. Mr. Felkers described it as kind of an elephant in the room. PITTSBURGH Beth Markovic, an owner of the last kosher grocery store in Pittsburgh, was up to her elbows on Wednesday, making yet another order of sherry mushroom chicken. She has lost track, she said, of how many orders she has made since the devastating massacre here last weekend. Most of those who were killed at the synagogue on Saturday had been customers at Murray Avenue Kosher at some point. Ms. Markovics store, which is less than a half mile from the Tree of Life synagogue, has been a longtime fixture in Pittsburgh, providing food for before and after funerals and for the seven-day shiva period in which mourners come together to comfort the bereaved after burial. Were used to dealing with deaths and funerals, but never anything like this, Ms. Markovic said. As for the ultimate reason for all the work, she said, in what has become a common sentiment: I havent had time to let it all sink in. Yet grief is sinking in slowly across the city, as the public rituals of mourning accumulate day by day. Four people eulogized and buried on Tuesday, three on Wednesday. Every day more solemn shovelfuls of dirt are poured into graves, and another shiva begins. By Saturday night, several of them will be taking place around the city, mostly in and around the neighborhood of Squirrel Hill. People will cry and laugh and swap memories over plates of sherry mushroom chicken. No, not fear-mongering at all, Mr. Trump shot back when asked about his attempts in recent days to stoke alarm about an immigrant onslaught. Immigration is a very important subject. At the same time, with Republicans privately grim about their chances of holding the House, Mr. Trump was bullish about the partys chances, and argued that Republicans were doing particularly well with women, who polls show are particularly hostile to him and the party overall. Women, were doing very well with the women vote, because they want security, Mr. Trump said. They want safety. They dont want these people pouring into our country, totally unchecked. The president later said he would not blame Mr. Ryan if the party lost control of the House next week, but he was quick to declare himself a net positive for Republicans, who he argued had gotten a boost from his campaign stops. No, Im not going to blame anybody, Mr. Trump said when asked about Mr. Ryan. I think were doing well with the House. Were going to have to see. Its a lot of people. Ive campaigned for a lot of candidates that were down a little bit, and now theyre up. Yet the presidents antics have also introduced an unwelcome element of unpredictability for Republican candidates in the final days of competitive races. Several Republicans running in suburban districts, more politically moderate districts or those with large concentrations of Latino voters quickly disavowed the idea of ending birthright citizenship, relishing a chance to highlight a topic of disagreement with a president who is not popular with the voters whose support they need to win. I can see a strategy on the presidents part of hitting the immigration and border security issues hard, even if the facts dont support his positions, in order to excite his base, said Michael Steel, a Republican strategist who is a former senior aide to Mr. Ryan. But, he added, picking a fight with any political figure in the party with less than a week to go before the midterms is just stupendously counterproductive, and implies either a lack of discipline and thin-skinnedness, or that the president is bracing for the blame game in case of a bad result. BRADENTON BEACH, Fla. The billboard flickered from the side of a truck, displaying an image of Representative Vern Buchanan, Republican of Florida, wearing a yachtsmans cap. Keith Fitzgerald, a local dignitary invited by the group Floridians for a Fair Shake, stood before it as he tore into the lawmakers record. The congressman embodied deep and profound corruption, Mr. Fitzgerald told a thin crowd. The nautical caricature of Mr. Buchanan, a wealthy auto dealer, alluded to his purchase of a multimillion-dollar yacht on the same day he voted for a bill cutting upper-income tax rates. Floridians for a Fair Shake has criticized Mr. Buchanan for months, with paid advertising, campaign workers, and events like this, on a recent Sunday in a beachside parking lot. Yet Mr. Fitzgerald, a former Democratic state legislator and something of the guest of honor, confessed, Honestly, I dont know a whole lot about this group. They told me what they were doing, he continued. Im not sure where the money comes from. A structure unknown even to some of those involved, Floridians for a Fair Shake and 13 other groups around the country are funded and coordinated out of a single office in Washington, with the goal of battering Republicans for their health care and economic policies during the midterm elections. And even as they ready an onslaught of investigations into alleged malfeasance by the president and his administration, they said common ground could be found with Mr. Trump. Were still going to have Donald Trump as president, so obviously thats going to limit to an extent what we can accomplish in the short term, Representative Jim McGovern, the Massachusetts Democrat who would be in line to chair the Rules Committee, said in an interview. But one thing we can accomplish is we can run the place like professionals and restore some integrity to the institution. Democrats, of course, may fall short of a majority on Tuesday, and if they do net the 23 seats they need, there is no guarantee Mr. Trump, or Republicans who are expected to maintain control of the Senate, will cooperate. Mr. Trump has shown an interest in working with Democrats in the past, on issues like gun control and immigration, only to backtrack, and he could emerge from Election Day determined to shun Democrats. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, would have his own motivations to bypass or block House proposals as he blockaded legislation pushed by President Barack Obama. Then there is the challenge of reining in the most energized liberal lawmakers for whom anything short of a presidential impeachment would be a compromise too far. But after eight years in the minority, most Democrats believe they will need to do more than embarrass the White House with subpoenas and investigative hearings if they want to be more than a one-term majority and reclaim the presidency in 2020. Ms. Pelosi made clear her party would only bend so far. Democrats are not going to lowest common denominator to get a presidential signature, she said. As he barnstorms the country trying to help Republican allies, President Trump has offered voters this fall a litany of misleading statements and falsehoods that exaggerate even legitimate accomplishments and distort opponents views beyond the typical bounds of political spin. In the past couple of weeks alone, the president has spoken of riots that have not happened, claimed deals that have not been reached, cited jobs that have not been created and spun dark conspiracies that have no apparent basis in reality. He has pulled figures seemingly out of thin air, rewritten history and contradicted his own past comments. The catalog of inaccurate claims ranges from the weighty to the head-scratching. He has asserted that construction has begun on his border wall (it has not), that he is one of the most popular American presidents in history (he is not), that he always opposed the Iraq war (he did not), that the stock market reopened the day after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 (it did not), that his tax cut was the largest in history (it was not) and that the United States is the only country that guarantees citizenship to those born here (it is not). As he embarks on a final eight-state, 11-rally blitz before Tuesdays midterm elections, Mr. Trump has hammered Democrats not just for their actual policy positions but for some they have not taken. He accused them, without proof, of helping to orchestrate a caravan of Central American migrants; complained that Democrats had opposed opioid legislation when in fact they universally voted for it; and asserted that they would not protect patients with pre-existing conditions even though that was the heart of President Barack Obamas health care program. Kanye West, the rapper who became a hero of some conservatives by forcefully supporting President Trump, tweeted on Tuesday that he had been used to spread messages I dont believe in and pledged to stay away from politics. Such a pronouncement, made in a string of declarations on Twitter, necessitates an immediate list of caveats. Saying youll do something is quite a bit different from doing it, and Mr. West has proved to be impulsive on social media. Few will be surprised if the vow doesnt last long. Even so, if its really a turning point, his exiting the political arena would have real-world consequences. And his tweets were the closest hes come to expressing regret over his much-criticized political commentary, which has disappointed many of his fans and peers and earned praise from conservative figures. ATLANTA Plans for the final debate of Georgias raucous race for governor collapsed on Wednesday after the Republican nominee, Brian Kemp, abandoned the forums long-scheduled timing so he could campaign alongside President Trump this weekend. Mr. Kemp had been expected to meet Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate, in a Sunday evening debate that was announced in September and was to be broadcast live. But Mr. Kemp backed away from the 5 p.m. debate in Atlanta after Mr. Trumps campaign set a rally in Macon, about 100 miles to the southeast, for 4 p.m. The upending of the debate calendar set off an hourslong quarrel that seemed likely to reverberate and resurface through the final days of an election cycle that was already acrimonious. By the time trick-or-treaters were knocking on doors on Wednesday evening, Mr. Kemp had agreed to a different time for the debate 7:30 p.m. on Monday, the night before the election but Ms. Abramss campaign balked at altering the terms of a debate that were set more than seven weeks ago. We believe it would be irresponsible to break our commitment to accommodate his failures, Lauren Groh-Wargo, Ms. Abramss campaign manager, said in a statement on Wednesday night. We refuse to callously take Georgians for granted and cancel on them. Just because Brian Kemp breaks his promises doesnt mean anyone else should. This would allow for a referendum, so its not appropriate for the mayor to stop Chicago voters from getting to decide whether they want to do this, said Maldonado, who represents parts of Humboldt Park and Logan Square that have been ground zero for affordable housing shortages in recent years as the neighborhoods rapidly gentrify. Former President Barack Obama has been out on the campaign trail offering very direct criticism of President Trump, something most ex-presidents havent done with their successors. The president said he was going to pass a middle-class tax cut before the election. Congress isnt even in session before the election. That sort of violates the tradition that former presidents have had in recent decades, where they might get out there and campaign for members of their party, but theyd more or less avoid directly attacking their successor in the White House. A lot of Democrats have been saying that the only way to counter Trump is to be a little bit more like Trump, and thats not Barack Obamas style. Hes at his strongest when hes most inspiring. You can be saving somebodys life just by voting. That power rests in your hands. Hes at his strongest when he is directly taking on some of the arguments of the other side. He talks about rule of law, and the norms that President Trump has basically violated. It should not be a partisan issue to say that we do not pressure the attorney general or the F.B.I. to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel to punish our political opponents. Its kind of a mismatch. Harvard Law School Review president against the reality show host. And its just a very different style of campaigning. I think the problem for President Obama is he won pretty convincing elections when he was on the ballot twice, and then the other three times he was campaigning while he was president, the Democrats lost. The Republicans will take control of the House. Republicans will take control of the Senate. The challenge for the Democrats is they dont have a single leader right now who has the stature to go up against an incumbent president. And Barack Obama is the only one, basically, who can fit that role. He in effect represents the past, and they have yet to find somebody to be their leader for the future. Theodore H. Frank filed an objection to the settlement, saying it provided members of the class with no money, no alteration of the defendants allegedly injurious conduct, not even coupons. Mr. Frank argued his own case on Wednesday, a rarity in the Supreme Court, and he exhibited comprehensive knowledge of the law and an only occasionally halting style. Much of the argument concerned whether paying the plaintiffs was practicable. A divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, upheld the settlement, with all three judges agreeing that trying to pay compensation to the class would be inefficient, as the individual payouts would be about 4 cents. Mr. Frank said few people submit claims in class-action settlements. Using typical response rates, he said, members of the class could have received $5 to $10 each. Even a lottery, Mr. Frank said, would have been a better way to compensate the class. Justice Kavanaugh seemed to agree. Imperfect or strange as that may be, he said, it seems to me potentially less strange, or why isnt it less strange than giving it to people who werent injured at all, who have affiliations with the counsel and who in many cases dont need the money? Jeffrey A. Lamken, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the case, Frank v. Gaos, No. 17-961, said the payments to charities were sensible and proper. It is not at all even remotely the case that this is not benefiting the class, he said. The programs supported by the grants, he said, were targeted precisely to the type of injury and precisely the type of problem, privacy invasion, that that class is subjected to. Good Wednesday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. _____________________ President Trump said he was preparing an executive order to end the long-accepted constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship in the United States. Read about his latest immigration-focused maneuver days before the midterms. Despite Mr. Trumps proposal, past Supreme Court decisions and constitutional scholars say that the 14th Amendment is clear: Any child born in the United States is automatically a citizen. Frustrated that other topics have come to dominate the news, the president has sought to seize back the national stage with a series of ad hoc ideas in the last stretch of midterm campaigning. I dont think theres ever been a moment like this one, a year like 2018, Mr. ORourke said in an interview at the church. People, myself included, want to be part of something greater than themselves, greater than a political party, greater than our differences. From the first time we came to Tyler a year and a half ago, to every visit since then, its been more of the same. Thats what leaves me encouraged. Both Mr. ORourke and Mr. Cruz campaigned in Tyler on the same day last week, holding rallies just a few miles and a few hours apart. Mr. ORourke drew about 1,000 to the church, while Mr. Cruz had more than 600 at a banquet hall. On Oct. 18, The Longview News-Journal the major paper in Longview, one of the largest cities in East Texas endorsed Mr. ORourke, accusing Mr. Cruz of spending much of his time as the states junior senator on his failed bid for president in 2016. The polls continue to underscore how unpredictable the race has become. In the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll of likely voters, Mr. Cruz held a narrow lead of six percentage points over Mr. ORourke, with a margin of error of 3.22 percentage points. But the same poll showed other Texas Republicans with sizable leads over their Democratic opponents. Mr. Abbott had a 19-point advantage and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick held an 18-point lead. That poll and others like it suggest that Mr. ORourke is running a stronger campaign than other Texas Democrats and that support for Mr. Cruz is softer than for other Republicans on the ballot. When a Democrat hasnt won a Senate seat in Texas since 1988, you go into it knowing its always an uphill battle, said State Representative Chris Turner, a Democrat who was the campaign manager during the final stretch of Ms. Daviss run for governor in 2014. But Beto I think is better positioned than any Democratic candidate has been in easily a generation. Republican strategists and Mr. Cruzs supporters said they remain concerned about the tight race. Mr. ORourke has clearly won key campaign battles: He has raised more money than Mr. Cruz, and more of his signs and bumper stickers are visible throughout big-city and small-town Texas. But Republicans remain skeptical that he can win the overall war. I think that Texans are conservatives as a rule, and I dont think theyll vote for a guy thats for more taxes and gun control and open borders, said Kerry D. Pratt, a West Texas cotton farmer who is the chairman of the Republican Party in Floyd County, an agricultural community near Lubbock, where Mr. Cruz planned to campaign on Wednesday. Hes getting the free press because hes new. Hes handsome. But nobody believes what he believes around here. BOSTON The inmates who killed James (Whitey) Bulger, Bostons notorious crime boss, deliberately moved out of view of surveillance cameras in a West Virginia prison before pummeling him with a padlock that was stuffed inside a sock, law enforcement officials said on Wednesday, as investigations began into how such a murder could have taken place in a supposedly secure facility. Despite the attackers efforts to hide, officials said, cameras caught video images of at least two inmates rolling Mr. Bulger, 89, who was in a wheelchair, into a corner where the attack took place. Mr. Bulger was bleeding profusely when he was found by prison authorities at 8:20 Tuesday morning. Guards immediately undertook lifesaving measures, officials said, but he was pronounced dead. A prison official identified one of the suspects as Fotios (Freddy) Geas, 51, a Mafia hit man from West Springfield, Mass. He is serving a life sentence at the Hazelton penitentiary in West Virginia for the 2003 killing of the leader of the Genovese crime family in Springfield. Daniel D. Kelly, who has represented Mr. Geas for many years, said in an interview that he had no idea whether his client was involved in killing Mr. Bulger, who was an informant for the F.B.I., a relationship he manipulated as a cover while he betrayed and murdered rival gang members. They grouped the people by fitness, from those who were in the bottom quarter of fitness, to those who were below average, above average or highly fit, essentially in the top 25 percent of fitness. The researchers also marked off a small group in the top 2 percent or so of endurance and categorized them as having elite fitness. Then the researchers checked death records for the decade after people had completed their stress tests. They found that some of the men and women had died and also that there strong correlations between fitness and mortality. The greater someones fitness, the less likely he or she was to have died prematurely and vice versa, the numbers showed. This correlation held true at every level of fitness, the researchers found. People with the lowest fitness were more likely to die early than those with below-average fitness, while those with high fitness lived longer than those whose fitness was above average. Even at the loftiest reaches of endurance, the advantage held, the data showed. The 2 percent of the people with elite fitness lived longer than those with high fitness and were about 80 percent less likely to die prematurely than the men and women with the lowest endurance. JUBA, South Sudan The rebel leader Riek Machar returned to the capital, Juba, to celebrate a peace deal on Wednesday, more than two years after fierce fighting erupted in the city and forced him to flee the country. To further reinforce the peace deal, President Salva Kiir ordered the release of a jailed adviser to Mr. Machar, along with a rebel spokesman. Mr. Machar flew in with his wife and a small retinue. He met with Mr. Kiir, his long-time rival, and regional leaders who have pressed the two men to end the civil war. We need peace, Mr. Machar told thousands of people who gathered at a ceremony marking the peace accord that he, Mr. Kiir and the leaders of other groups signed last month. Indonesian aviation experts, who examined what they said was the maintenance log from the flight from Bali to Jakarta on Sunday, said the plane had experienced problems with unreliable airspeed readings. While it is difficult to guess what might have caused the crash without the black boxes, aviation experts have raised the possibility that problems with the delicate instruments that gauge speed and altitude could have contributed to the tragedy. A variety of malfunctions or oversights could lead to inaccurate speed and altitude projections, including electrical glitches or obstructions to the monitoring instruments affixed to the outside of the plane. Part of what is called the pitot-static system, the external probes send three sets of measurements to the flight crew, and any discrepancy between readings is cause for concern, aviation experts said. Lion Air technicians cleared the flight for takeoff on Monday, and checked the pitot tubes on the outside of the plane, according to the maintenance log viewed by Indonesian aviation analysts. The tubes can be compromised by invading insects or by ice forming during a flight, among other rare complications. Peter Marosszeky, a longtime aircraft engineer and former senior executive at Qantas, said that while a full investigation of Flight 610s final hours was needed, the initial evidence was consistent with problems with the pitot tubes. These tubes are particularly vulnerable in hot, equatorial climates like Indonesias to being blocked by wasps, he said. Its very hard to see because the wasps go inside the tube and make a mud nest in there, said Mr. Marosszeky, who is now the managing director of Aerospace Developments, a research and consulting company in Sydney. In 2013, an Etihad flight that had been on the ground for little more than two hours in Brisbane, Australia, experienced a faulty airspeed reading during takeoff. Australian transport safety investigators later found that wasps had managed to build a nest in a pitot tube during the brief stopover. ISLAMABAD, Pakistan She has been isolated on death row for eight years after an accusation with little evidence that she had spoken against the Prophet Muhammad. A prominent governor who spoke out in her defense was killed by his own bodyguard, and mobs have rallied against the suggestion that leniency might be in order. But for the first time since her arrest in 2009, Asia Bibi, the Christian Pakistani woman whose blasphemy conviction the following year rallied international condemnation of a law that has inspired violence again and again, is free. Pakistans Supreme Court on Wednesday fully acquitted her and ordered her released forthwith, in an exceptionally rare ruling against a blasphemy verdict. The ruling, by a three-member bench of the court, was announced by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar. This is a landmark verdict, said Omar Waraich, the deputy South Asia director at Amnesty International. Despite her protest of innocence, and despite the lack of evidence against her, this case was used to rouse angry mobs, justify the assassinations of two senior officials, and intimidate the Pakistani state into capitulation. Justice has finally prevailed. In the western province of Farah, an Afghan Army helicopter crashed, killing 25 people on board, according to Mohammed Naseer Mehri, a spokesman for the governor there. Among the dead were senior officials, including members of the provincial council and security commanders. Although the Taliban claimed they had targeted the helicopter, Mr. Mehri said there was no enemy action involved in the incident. Despite some suggestions that the return of the older generation Taliban at a time when the new leadership had just strengthened its grip largely through battlefield gains might cause insecurities, field commanders were adamant it would have no such effect. These people can play a positive role in politics, and they are deeply respected by the leadership, said Mullah Shirin Hameedi, a Taliban commander in the south who once served as chief of security to the groups founding leader. If the leadership had fears from them, they would not be allowed into politics. We are all committed to our mission, whether old or new. Borhan Osman, the senior analyst for Afghanistan at the International Crisis Group, said it was not clear how deep the American role in both the release of Mullah Baradar and expanded freedom for the so-called Guantanamo Five was. But he said both could be seen as a result of recent momentum toward talks among both the Americans and Taliban, along with some improved cooperation from Pakistan. For a long time, there have been questions among the Taliban that the five were released from Guantanamo but then their freedom was restricted in Doha, Mr. Osman said, referring to Qatars capital. Some viewed their transfer to Qatar as no big victory. Their return to the scene, in whatever capacity, might ease those concerns. Mr. Osman said that internal conversations among the Taliban in recent months suggested they wanted to strengthen their negotiating team in Qatar, and injecting the five was the most natural and rational way to bolster the team. This has been described as theology, science fiction, ideology, and now deceit, Roskam said on the House floor, according to the Congressional record. Well, where is the deceit? The deceit is in the assumption that we can live with the status quo, Mr. Speaker. The deceit is a blindness to the recognition that we have a tax code that is literally dissolving underneath us. It is dissolving underneath us. And this Congress has an opportunity to do something transformational, and I propose, along with my colleagues, to be transformational. MELBOURNE, Australia Scientists are warning that if human beings continue to mine the worlds wildernesses for resources and convert them into cities and farms at the pace of the previous century, the planets few remaining wild places could disappear in decades. Today, more than 77 percent of land on earth, excluding Antarctica, has been modified by human industry, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, up from just 15 percent a century ago. The study, led by researchers from the University of Queensland in Australia and the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, paints the first global picture of the threat to the worlds remaining wildernesses and the image is bleak. Were on a threshold where whole systems could collapse and the consequences of that would be catastrophic, said James R. Allan, one of the studys authors. MOSCOW An explosive device detonated inside an office of Russias main security agency on Wednesday, wounding three workers and killing the person who carried it, the Russian authorities said. The explosion at the local headquarters of the Federal Security Service in the northern city of Arkhangelsk was labeled a terrorist act by the Russian Investigative Committee, which is responsible for high-profile crimes and is investigating. It said in a statement that the attacker was a 17-year-old local resident, but did not offer any other information. According to preliminary information, the person entered the building, took an unknown item out of a bag, which exploded shortly after in his hands, the Russian Antiterrorism Committee said in a statement. He suffered injuries that killed him, it said. Three employees of the Federal Security Service were injured. ROME In June 1983, Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee, vanished on her way home from a music lesson. In the intervening 35 years, Emanuelas disappearance has been one of Italys most intriguing cold cases. So much so that the mere discovery on Monday of human bones in a building in Rome belonging to the Vatican sparked a media frenzy, with front-page speculation that her remains had finally been found. The bones had not even been analyzed to determine whether they were those of a male or female. The Vatican released a short statement late Tuesday saying only that bones had been found during the renovation of a building next to the Holy Sees Embassy to Italy, and that Romes chief prosecutor, Giuseppe Pignatone, had asked police experts to determine the age, sex, and date of death of the bones. Image Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee, disappeared in 1983. Credit... Associated Press Clues in the case are tantalizing but scanty. Shortly after Emanuela vanished, Vatican officials received an anonymous call from ostensible kidnappers who promised to free her upon the release of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981. (After nearly three decades in Italian and Turkish prisons, Mr. Agca was released in 2010). Over the years, investigators have examined possible links to Bulgarian agents, the Sicilian Mafia, the K.G.B. and even the C.I.A. Every Friday night, the far right takes over downtown Chemnitz. It started in August, when a German man was stabbed to death here. The alleged killers were two refugees from Iraq and Syria. Since then protesters have returned every week. We came here to understand why theres so much anger, and to see how the rise of the far right is disrupting the liberal values that have defined Germany for decades. Chemnitz is a city of about 250,000 people. Foreigners make up only 8 percent of the population. And yet its here that the far right is turning a simmering anger into real violence. Shortly after we arrived, we learned of an attack on a Persian restaurant. Thats a swastika in red spray paint. We met the owner, Masoud Hashemi, recovering in a local hospital. Masoud moved to Germany five years ago, before the wave of migrants. In 2015, Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed in hundreds of thousands from war-torn countries. The world hailed Germany as a leading force for good. But at home the decision became a rallying point for the far right. It divided the country, and has drained Merkel of her power. She announced recently that she will not seek re-election. Meanwhile, a far-right party is the main voice of opposition in Parliament. Suddenly, Germanys role as the defender of a liberal, tolerant Europe is in question. Migrant arrivals have dropped off dramatically since 2015. But some people still struggle with the memory of that time. Katrin Ebner-Steiner is from Deggendorf, a wealthy town near the Austrian border. We met her there while she was campaigning for a seat in the Bavarian State Parliament. Ebner-Steiners bid was built on that growing sense of unease towards foreigners. She represents the Alternative for Germany, a far-right party also known here as the AfD. The AfD has only been around for five years. But its already achieved stunning success with a central message: Foreigners dont belong here and Islam is alien to Germany. For Ebner-Steiner, the message is working. She won her race a few days after our interview. Thats Bjorn Hocke, an AfD politician. Hes talking about the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. Breaking taboos like that keeps the AfD in the spotlight. We talked to Franziska Schreiber a former member of the AfD. After four years of backing the partys inflammatory speech, she left. It felt like a lot of politicians in the AfD would just say provocative things to get that level of support. So are extremists now feeling emboldened? We decided to ask them. I guess Im curious, who who designs the T-shirts? First, the shirts are in my brain. So youre writing most of these phrases, yes? Yeah. O.K. Tommy Frenk owns a gift shop and inn called the Golden Lion. Tommy insists anyone is welcome here. But he created this inn for a minority of like-minded people: people who dismiss mainstream politics. But they tell us that the AfDs success has energized them. The AfD is now Germanys third-largest party. But many are coming forward to confront the far right. The divisions are visible in the streets. And the next few months could be crucial in determining how this struggle plays out, whether the far-right vision will stay at the edge of German society or pull the center along with it. There were 15 of them. Most arrived in the dead of night, laid their trap and waited for the target to arrive. That target was Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi critic of his countrys government and its young crown prince. Since his killing in Istanbul, Turkish media has released a steady drip feed of evidence implicating Saudi officials. Weeks of investigation by The Times builds on that evidence and reconstructs what unfolded, hour-by-hour. Our timeline shows the ruthless efficiency of a hit team of experts that seemed specially chosen from Saudi government ministries. Some had links to the crown prince himself. After a series of shifting explanations, Saudi Arabia now denies that this brazen hit job was premeditated. But this reconstruction of the killing, and the botched cover-up, calls their story into serious question. Its Friday morning, Sept. 28. Khashoggi and his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, are at the local marriage office in Istanbul. In order to marry, hes told that he needs Saudi paperwork and goes straight to the consulate to arrange it. They tell him to return in a week. It all seems routine, but its not. Inside theres a Saudi spy, Ahmed al-Muzaini, whos working under diplomatic cover. That very day, he flies off to Riyadh and helps concoct a plan to intercept Khashoggi when he returns to the consulate. Fast-forward to Monday night into Tuesday morning. Saudi agents converge in Istanbul aboard separate flights. Muzaini, the spy, flies back from Riyadh. A commercial flight carries a three-man team that we believe flew from Cairo. Two of the men are security officers and theyve previously traveled with the crown prince. A private jet flying from Riyadh lands around 3:30 a.m. That plane is often used by the Saudi government, and its carrying nine Saudi officials, some who played key roles in Khashoggis death. Well get to Team 3 later on, and for now focus on these men from Team 2. This is Salah al-Tubaigy, a high-ranking forensics and autopsy expert in the Saudi interior ministry. Turkish officials will later say his role was to dismember Khashoggis body. Another is Mustafa al-Madani, a 57-year-old engineer. As well see, its no accident that he looks like Khashoggi. And this is Maher Mutreb, the leader of the operation. Our investigation into his past reveals a direct link between Mutreb and the Saudi crown prince. When bin Salman toured a Houston neighborhood earlier this year, we discovered that Mutreb was with him, a glowering figure in the background. We found him again in Boston, at a U.N. meeting in New York, in Madrid and Paris, too. This global tour was all part of a charm offensive by the prince to paint himself as a moderate reformer. Back then, Mutreb was in the royal guard. Now, he would orchestrate Khashoggis killing. And his close ties to the crown prince beg the question, just how high up the Saudi chain of command did the plot to kill go? Early Tuesday morning, Khashoggi flies back from a weekend trip to London. He and the Saudis nearly cross paths at the airport. The Saudi teams check into two hotels, which give quick access to the consulate. Khashoggi heads home with his fiancee. Hed just bought an apartment for their new life together. By mid-morning, the Saudis are on the move. Mutreb leaves his hotel three hours before Khashoggi is due at the consulate. The rest of the team isnt far behind. The building is only a few minutes away on foot, and soon, theyre spotted at this entrance. Mutreb arrives first. Next, we see al-Tubaigy, the autopsy expert. And now al-Madani, the lookalike. The stage is almost set. A diplomatic car pulls out of the consulate driveway and switches places with a van, which backs in. Turkish officials say this van would eventually carry away Khashoggis remains. From above, we can see the driveway is covered, hiding any activity around the van from public view. Meanwhile, Khashoggi and his fiancee set out for the consulate, walking hand-in-hand. In their final hour together, they chat about dinner plans and new furniture for their home. At 1:13 p.m., they arrive at the consulate. Khashoggi gives her his cellphones before he enters. He walks into the consulate. Its the last time we see him. Inside, Khashoggi is brought to the consul generals office on the second floor. The hit team is waiting in a nearby room. Sources briefed on the evidence, told us Khashoggi quickly comes under attack. Hes dragged to another room and is killed within minutes. Then al-Tubaigy, the autopsy expert, dismembers his body while listening to music. Maher Mutreb makes a phone call to a superior. He says, Tell your boss, and The deed was done. Outside, the van reportedly carrying Khashoggis body pulls out of the side entrance and drives away. At the same time, the Saudis begin trying to cover their tracks. While Khashoggis fiancee waits here where she left him, two figures leave from the opposite side. One of them is wearing his clothes. Later, the Saudis would claim that this was Khashoggi. But its al-Madani, the engineer, now a body double pretending that the missing journalist left the consulate alive. Yet theres one glaring flaw: The clothes are the same, but hes wearing his own sneakers, the ones he walked in with. Meanwhile, the van thats allegedly carrying Khashoggis body makes the two-minute drive from the consulate to the Saudi consuls residence. Theres several minutes of deliberations but the van eventually pulls into the buildings driveway. Again, its hidden from public view. Its now three hours since Khashoggi was last seen. The body double hails this taxi and continues weaving a false trail through the city. He heads to a popular tourist area and then changes back into his own clothes. Later, we see him joking around in surveillance footage. Over at the airport, more Saudi officials arrive on another flight from Riyadh. They spend just five hours in Istanbul, but were not sure where they go. Now we pick up Maher Mutreb again, exiting from the consuls house. Its time for them to go. Mutreb and others check out of their hotel and move through airport security. Al-Muzaini, the spy, heads to the airport too. But as theyre leaving Istanbul, Khashoggis fiancee is still outside the consulate, pacing in circles. Shell soon raise the alarm that Khashoggi is missing and shell wait for him until midnight. The alarm spreads around the world. Nine days later, the Saudis send another team to Istanbul. They say its to investigate what happened. But among them are a toxicologist and a chemist, who also has ties to the hit team. He and Tubaigy attended a forensics graduation days before Khashoggi was killed. Turkish officials later say that this teams mission was not to investigate, but to cover up the killing. Now the Saudi story has changed, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for several suspects in Khashoggis killing. But that doesnt include Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who many Western government officials are convinced authorized the killing. Khashoggis remains still havent been found. With Ms. Weidels appearance at Oxford still a week away, some influential members of the Oxford community have come to the Unions defense. I take the classic liberal position that its better to have the open debate, have them be challenged, and then often that ends up demolishing and exposing their position much more effectively than anything else, said Timothy Garton Ash, a European historian at St. Antonys and one of the worlds leading public intellectuals. The hourlong event will include a brief speech by Ms. Weidel, 20 minutes of questioning by the Oxford Unions president, Stephen Horvath, and 20 minutes of questioning by the audience. The Union has already contracted additional security for the event, Mr. Horvath said, and will consider canceling the event only if Ms. Weidel herself decides to withdraw or if the police instruct the Union to do so for security reasons. Mr. Garton Ash added that just as he supports hosting Ms. Weidel so long as she is challenged rigorously, he also supports community members who choose to protest the event. Already, more than 550 people have expressed interest online in attending a demonstration against Ms. Weidels appearance. Ian McKendrick, an officer of Stand Up Against Racism, one of the groups organizing Wednesdays demonstration, said protesters would congregate outside the Oxford Union. Their goal, Mr. McKendrick said, is both to demoralize racists and embarrass the Oxford Union for extending such an irresponsible invitation. Inviting her to speak was a gross mistake, added Kate Douglas, an officer of Unite Against Fascism, another of the groups organizing the demonstration. Its giving her a platform. Its making her views more mainstream and acceptable, and we know what will follow: race hate, racist attacks and the legitimization of racist views. The United States has seen a similar debate about featuring incendiary figures on prominent platforms, including the Alt-Right leader Richard Spencer and Mr. Bannon. In September, when it was announced that Mr. Bannon would speak at The New Yorkers annual ideas festival, other participants pulled out of the event. Under immense pressure, David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, withdrew Mr. Bannons invitation. Airiston Helmis seafront headquarters has a helipad and multiple surveillance cameras like Mr. Melnikovs island, as well as a decommissioned military landing craft that has been converted into a sauna and three other vessels. Standing guard next to the main entrance of the companys office is a fashion mannequin dressed in military fatigues with a cracked plastic head. Its basement, according to a recent report in Iltalehti, a Finnish newspaper, contained a communications center with sophisticated equipment far beyond what an ordinary tourism or property company would need. Thomas Willberg, a dairy farmer whose land abuts Airiston Helmis headquarters on the mainland, said he was asked several times by the Russian and his associates whether he would be willing to sell his cow patch. He declined. The farmer said he met Mr. Melnikov a few times and did occasional odd jobs for him like clearing snow, but could never figure out why the Russian needed so much security equipment or what kind of business Airiston Helmi was really in. Finland is maybe sending a signal to our eastern neighbor that it is ready to take action if needed, Mr. Willberg said. Mr. Karlsson, the former construction supervisor, refused to believe that Mr. Melnikov was setting up hideaways for Russian soldiers, noting that the businessman always insisted on having large glass windows facing the sea not a good feature to have if bullets are flying. All the same, he conceded that he may have been naive about Mr. Melnikovs intentions. He said he had fallen in love with our archipelago and could feel safe here, unlike at home in Russia. I swallowed that explanation, Mr. Karlsson said. Pavel is clearly not what I thought he was, he said. I keep asking myself, How could I have been so wrong? WASHINGTON The United States and Britain, Saudi Arabias biggest arms suppliers, are stepping up their pressure for a cease-fire in the Yemen war, the worlds worst man-made humanitarian disaster. The calls for a halt to the conflict by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday night, his British counterpart, Jeremy Hunt, on Wednesday, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis starting last weekend came as criticism of Saudi Arabia has surged over its bombing campaign in Yemen and the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi writer. The Saudi-led bombings have been a major cause of civilian deaths and destruction during the three-and-a-half-year-old conflict in Yemen, the Arab worlds poorest country. It is time to end this conflict, replace conflict with compromise, and allow the Yemeni people to heal through peace and reconstruction, Mr. Pompeo said in a statement posted on the State Department website Tuesday night. The conflict between Saudi-backed forces and Houthi rebels in Yemen, which has led to the worlds worst humanitarian crisis, has captured growing international attention. An important catalyst appears to have been the Oct. 2 killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi journalist, by Saudi agents in the kingdoms Istanbul Consulate. This focused scrutiny on Saudi Arabias behavior in other parts of the world. In-depth reporting by The New York Times has detailed a harrowing humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week called for a cessation of hostilities between the warring parties in Yemen, a call echoed by his British counterpart, Jeremy Hunt. We have been documenting the devastation in Yemen since the beginning of the conflict in 2015, and in October the reporter, Declan Walsh, and the photographer, Tyler Hicks, traveled to the country to provide a closer look. Their coverage has further driven the conversation. "We are petitioning for the roundabout in front of the Saudi embassy in Washington to be named after Jamal Khashoggi," Awad said. "I want you to start a petition, that in every street and every city where there is a Saudi embassy or a Saudi mission, demand that it will be renamed after him." When he left the hospital, he joined 11,233 other children under 6 living in New York Citys shelter system. Baby Antonio was born homeless. He arrived at 12:29 a.m. on a warm Thursday in August. He was purple and perfectly formed, weighing all of 5 pounds and 12 ounces. He stretched his tiny arms and legs into the air as hospital staff hovered over him to count 10 toes and 10 fingers. His skin turned from purple to a light brown, and he cried, knowing nothing about his world. There is a picture of homelessness etched in public perception: a solitary, disheveled man, begging on a crowded sidewalk, holding a cardboard sign. But the largest single population in New York Citys shelter system is children under the age of 6. Infants carry a disruptive power. Their births can drive entire families to homelessness or lengthen their stays in a shelter. Pop quiz. At what age are you most likely to be homeless? asked Allyson Crawford, chief executive of Room to Grow, a nonprofit that helps poor parents with newborns. The answer is 1. New York City has a list of official causes of homelessness, and high on the list are eviction, overcrowding, family discord and domestic violence. Look closely and pregnancy is often intertwined, advocates for the homeless say. A woman becomes pregnant, and suddenly, the two-bedroom apartment she is sharing with her family becomes too small. Faced with added responsibility once the baby is born, she falls behind on bills and rent. Family tensions rise. She argues with parents or with her partner. She may become a victim of domestic violence. Too often, she ends up moving into a shelter and so does her child. Steven Banks, the citys commissioner of social services, said infants are often the tipping point for families on the verge of losing a permanent home. The main driver of homelessness, irrespective of pregnancy, is the gap between rent and income, he said. However, the birth of a new child is a background factor. When Antonio was a week old, he was one of 11,234 children under 6 living in a shelter system that houses about 60,000 people daily. There were 1,164 children born into the shelter system last year, up from 877 in 2015, according to data obtained by the Coalition for the Homeless. Last year, 1,164 children were born into the shelter system. Cramped quarters and little cash In the Brooklyn shelter where Antonio lives, his family stays in what amounts to a studio apartment, with a small kitchen and bathroom and two sets of bunk beds in the main room. His 4-year-old sister and 14-year-old brother sleep on one of the bunk beds, the little girl below, the teenage boy above. His parents, Shimika Sanchez and Tony Sanchez, squeeze into the bottom bunk across the room, while he sleeps in a brown crib. Ms. Sanchez said the couple put nearly all of their belongings in a storage unit that costs $213 a month. Three strategically placed fans cool the room, though sometimes, on scorching days, they only push the hot air. Her son does homework and studies at a small dining table flush against the same wall where his parents sleep. Ms. Sanchez, 34, had a difficult pregnancy and had been diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, a condition that can cause dangerously high blood pressure and can be fatal to the mother and fetus. Ms. Sanchez, a home health aide, said a doctor had encouraged her to stop working. Mr. Sanchez, 36, is an ex-convict and has trouble finding well-paid positions. He works odd jobs, like demolition on construction sites. They have been trying to save enough to move out of the shelter. They argue all the time about money. The lack of money is exacerbated when a child is born, and can have an even greater impact on homeless mothers. Several studies have shown that homeless pregnant women experience high rates of depression. A 2011 study of homelessness in 31 cities, including New York, showed that infants born to homeless mothers are at greater risk of longer stays in the hospital. Children begin to show signs of emotional problems and developmental delays by 18 months. They also have poorer nutrition and go to fewer preventive medical appointments, including for vaccinations, according to the study published in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. City agencies have started to grapple with the problem. Officials have taken steps to raise awareness about crib death in shelters. They also have created a questionnaire to assess birth weight and signs of developmental delay and have started several pilot programs, including one to promote reading to infants. Robin Hood, the antipoverty charity, is leading two pilot programs focused on combatting maternal depression and encouraging the bond between mother and child. Last year, 2,358 families in the citys main shelter system had children under 1 year old. Lost everything in Hurricane Sandy Ms. Sanchez began considering moving into a shelter four years ago after Bella was born, and Ms. Sanchezs parents, who were never married, reunited romantically. At the same time, Mr. Sanchez was months away from being released from prison, and Ms. Sanchez wondered how her family of five would fit in her mothers three-bedroom apartment, where her two younger sisters and a niece were also living. She has been living doubled-up most of her adult life. In 2012, the apartment she shared with her mother and two sisters in Far Rockaway, Queens, was destroyed in Hurricane Sandy. For several months, the family lived in a hotel room paid for through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Then they moved to a house in Brooklyn with a Section 8 voucher, a federal rental subsidy. They had lost everything. We said, At least, we had our lives, Ms. Sanchezs mother, Mary Brown, said. We had rough times. We all did. Me and my kids. Ms. Sanchez entered a city shelter in March 2017, and her husband joined her after he was released from prison that fall. A high school dropout, Ms. Sanchez earned her equivalency diploma and then a certificate in medical assistance from Sanford-Brown Institute, a for-profit college that paid a $1 million fine for misleading its students as part of a court settlement with the state attorney general. I pay $300 a month in school loans, Ms. Sanchez said. Homeless pregnant women experience high rates of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. An alarming visit to the doctor On a Tuesday morning in early August, Ms. Sanchez, who was 33 weeks pregnant, waddled into the Brookdale Hospital waiting room with her husband and daughter for a prenatal checkup. Mr. Sanchez lifted Bella, buried his face into her stomach and spun around. Theyre going to be surprised I made it on time, Ms. Sanchez said as she settled into a seat. Mr. Sanchezs phone rang. It was a call for another odd job. Mr. Sanchezs criminal history, including three burglary charges, limited his job choices, and he could not pass up a chance to work. He had to go, he told his wife. He kissed her and kissed his daughter. You have money? he asked, digging his hands into the pockets of his khaki shorts as he stood in the doorway of the waiting room. Yes, you gave me money, Ms. Sanchez said. The chilly waiting room had a dozen or so chairs in a semicircle. Everyone joined in each others conversations. One woman was breast-feeding her baby. A man looked at his phone. When Ms. Sanchez stepped out of the room to have her blood pressure taken, her phone rang and Bella picked it up. Hello, whats up? she said. I cant get mama on the phone because shes out there. Ill call you back. Who was that? someone in the room asked. My daddy, she said. Everybody laughed. When Ms. Sanchez returned, she talked about how much she missed a job she had held as a home health aide. She was proud that she had found ways to befriend older white people who had misperceptions, or even racist views, about black people. You become someone they have to rely on, Ms. Sanchez said. Bella grew bored. She tried to dance and sang the lyrics of Drakes In My Feelings over and over again though she only knew a few of the words. She took her shoes off and refused to put them back on. Her toenails were covered in chipped white and pink nail polish. After a couple of hours, a physician assistant called Ms. Sanchez in and told her that her blood pressure was unusually high. She was scared. Cyrus McCalla, her doctor, decided she needed to remain in the hospital overnight. Usually, Ms. Sanchez could calm herself, slowly breathing in and out. But her blood pressure was not dropping, and her condition grew more serious as the day wore on. By 4:05 p.m., she had been transferred to a hospital room in the labor and delivery wing. I need to call my husband and tell him Im here, she told a nurse. She called her mother to pick up her daughter, who had climbed on the hospital bed and rested her head in her mothers lap. Ms. Sanchez tried not to panic, but she thought about her room at the shelter. She fretted about Antonios crib. Win, the nonprofit operator of the shelter, required Ms. Sanchez to use a crib it provided. She had taken a photo of the crib, which was metal and painted white. It looked like a shopping cart, she said, without the handle. It sat low to the floor, and she worried that mice could get in. How does that pass a safety test? she asked. Ms. Sanchez did not give birth that day. Naturally petite, she weighed just 97 pounds. Baby Antonio weighed an estimated 4 pounds. She had delivered her daughter 10 weeks early, and doctors were trying hard to avoid a similarly premature labor. It was her second overnight hospital stay in two weeks. When Antonio was born he was one of 11,234 children under the age of 6 living in the shelter system. A Rough three weeks Over the next three weeks, Ms. Sanchez had contractions that forced her to go to the hospital and derailed several outings, including a night out with friends at Red Lobster and shopping for baby clothes. But on a Wednesday in late August, her doctor decided that Ms. Sanchez should be induced. Ultrasounds showed that Antonio weighed more than 5 pounds, close to 6. Ms. Sanchez arrived at the hospital with Red Lobster takeout she had bought the night before. She wanted to make up for the Saturday night dinner she had missed. The next hours were a mix of happiness, anger and sadness. As the contractions came on, Ms. Sanchez joked with friends and family and yelled at her husband on the phone. Sometimes, she joked with him, too. Its going down, but not in the DM though, Ms. Sanchez said, laughing as she referred to Yo Gottis hit about online flirting, Down in the DM. Her sister, Chanell Brown, 29, was in awe. Are you in labor? The reason Im asking youre on the phone and in labor. Thats gangster, she said. Then Ms. Brown began crying uncontrollably, wiping tears from her face. A month earlier, she too had moved into a city shelter with her 2-year-old daughter. And she was pregnant again. It feels like Im struggling more now with a kid, she told her sister. That night, Ms. Brown wanted to witness the birth of her nephew, but she was worried about missing the shelters 10 p.m. curfew. I dont want to leave, but I dont want to get in trouble, she said. You have got to do what you have to do, Chanell, Ms. Sanchez said. You have to get it together, mama. You have no control over this moment. You have to be, like, This is something Im doing for me and my baby. You have to think of the outcome when youre able to walk into your own house. Ms. Sanchez told her that some day they would both be out of shelters, and their children would spend the night at each others houses. It wasnt long after Ms. Brown left that Ms. Sanchez gave birth. She nestled Antonio close to her breasts to feed him. Mr. Sanchez took off his tank top and laid Antonio to his bare, tattooed chest. Hes so small, he said, smiling and glossy-eyed. Homeless children are more at risk of returning to homelessness as adults. Bringing the new baby home Two days later, Ms. Sanchez took Antonio to the shelter. Right away she spotted what was missing and what had been added to the room. She had asked the staff for a portable air conditioner, which was not there. But there were two identical cribs that resembled shopping carts in the middle of the room, side by side. I didnt have twins, she said, shaking her head. Her husband was out looking for work. Stop telling me you need to stay out to make a few more dollars, Ms. Sanchez said to him on the telephone. I need you here. Someone had taped a flier about safe sleep for babies on a wall. A maintenance worker knocked on the door and took away the extra crib. Whats the babys name? the worker asked Ms. Sanchez. Antonio, she said. Thats my middle name, the worker said. As Antonio lay on a bottom bunk, between two pillows, Ms. Sanchez cleaned up. She cleaned out the refrigerator. She sorted through clothes donated by friends and some she had bought at Cookies Kids. She folded baby blankets and onesies. (More supplies, including a different crib, would arrive later with the help of Win, the largest provider of family shelter in the city.) The Jeffersons played on a small television atop a dresser. It was the episode in which Lionel Jefferson, the son of a wealthy businessman who owned laundromats, and his fiancee called off their wedding after arguing over a prenuptial agreement. At the end of the episode, the couple made up. Ms. Sanchez laughed. If only her real life were as easy. If only her family lived in a deluxe apartment in the sky. She rocked Antonio and kissed him until he fell asleep, limp in her arms. In about a month, she announced, she planned to return to work. Ill make sure before you turn 1 were out of here. All of us, she told a sleeping Antonio. Well bust out together. The prosecutor's statement that Khashoggi was killed immediately conflicts with a report by pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak earlier this month, which cited what it described as an audio recording of Khashoggi being tortured before being killed. The newspaper claimed that his fingers were cut off and that he was killed by being beheaded. The Kentucky Republican said Monday that political rhetoric in the country needs to be "ratcheted down." He told reporters at the Kentucky Capitol in Frankfort that these "horrible, criminal acts" underscore the need to "dial it back, and to get into a better, more respectful place." The simplest way to describe Chrom is as a nail polish for your teeth. It lets you color your chompers in 10 various colors, doesnt smudge and lasts for up to 24 hours. If youre bored with your pearly whites, or just want them to match the color of your fingernails or your outfit, you can now use an innovative tooth polish to paint them any way you like. The formula for Chrom was reportedly created by dentists and consists of a grain alcohol base and pigments similar to high-quality coloring. It doesnt stain the teeth, its not permanent and it doesnt have any taste so you can enjoy your favorite foods while looking freaky. Photo: Chrom Tooth Polish We see this becoming commonplace everything from a club vibe to an everyday workplace fashion accent, David Silverman, the founder of the Chrom brand, told Fox News. Perhaps you go to work with one tooth [that] matches your nail polish or your hair color. Chroms full ingredient list has not been disclosed for proprietary reasons, but the company insists that its product is 100% safe and can be easily removed by brushing the teeth with regular toothpaste. Dentists are reluctant to sign off on its safety though, especially without knowing exactly what it contains. Photo: Chrom Tooth Polish I have no idea whats in this product and the safety long term. Seems like the company does not want to give the ingredients out and they are calling it proprietary. Unfortunately that is not good enough for me to give an OK to this product, not knowing what the long term ramifications are. It may be completely safe and it may not, Dr. Ramin Tabib told Mail Online. If I am putting something like this over my teeth which is basically ingested, I would need to know what what exactly I am putting in my body. I wouldnt be comfortable saying [dental paint] is safe without a material safety data sheet, or MSDS, which would have a full list of ingredients. I would not recommend daily use without a long-term study proving its safety, Dr. David Drew, a dentist in Woodridge, New York, told NY Post. Photo: Chrom Tooth Polish But Chrom doesnt seem to worried about the scepticism. In fact its already working on a glitter line of tooth polish. Chrom tooth polish is priced at around $20 a bottle and can currently be purchased via the companys website. Gary Ginsberg Gary Ginsberg, most recently executive VP for communications and marketing at Time Warner, will join Japans Softbank telecommunication giant Nov. 1. A Democratic operative who served as a lawyer in the Clinton White House and Justice Dept., Ginsburg was senior advisor to TW chief Jeff Bewkes and a key player in pushing for approval of the media companys acquisition by AT&T, a deal that president Trump opposed. Earlier, Ginsberg was executive VP-marketing and corporate affairs at News Corp. and counselor to CEO Rupert Murdoch. Softbank engineered the merger of Sprint and T-Mobile last year to compete in the US with AT&T and Verizon. That deal is still under federal review. The companys $100B Vision Fund is the biggest fund in the technology sector. It helped to bankroll Uber and WeWork. Most recently, Softbank has faced scrutiny for its close ties with Saudi Arabia, a partner in its Vision Fund. Ginsberg's title at Softbank Group Corp. will be senior VP-head of corporate communications unit. He'll be based in New York. The past several months have been quite the wild ride in the land of Kanye West news. His comments about slavery being a choice, calls to abolish the 13th Amendment and outspoken admiration for President Donald Trump, much to the chagrin of many of his fans, all came to a head with his bizarre, televised Oval Office meeting with the president earlier this month. Former Independent Offaly County Councillor for Edenderry, Noel Cribbin, has joined the Fine Gael party. An application by Cllr Cribbin, an independent councillor from Edenderry, Co Offaly, to join Fine Gael is expected to be ratified at a meeting of the partys executive council this week. Cllr Cribbin is well regarded in the north Offaly region where he has worked as a postman for the last 36 years. Next year, he will contest the May local elections as a Fine Gael candidate. Speaking this week, Cllr Cribbin said he is delighted and humbled to be joining Fine Gael. I am making this decision as I am particularly happy with the good direction the country is going in. Fine Gael has a young leader and Taoiseach in Leo Varadkar who is providing responsible management of the countrys affairs. The success story of the economy and employment nationwide is evidence in itself and this must continue." There are challenges ahead particularly with health and housing and these need to be addressed in the same manner as the economy was rescued by Fine Gael. People need to see results, Cllr Cribbin said. He said Fine Gael can have a positive effect on employment across Offaly which is all the more prevalent an issue following the job losses at Bord na Mona. As regards employment in Offaly, more than ever following the shattering news at Bord na Mona its imperative Offaly is given top priority as regards creating sustainable employment. There are three sites at Timahoe, Derrygreenagh and Ballydermot which are suitable for job creation and proper investment." "Why should well-qualified tradespeople, such as electricians and fitters, be leaving Offaly at 5.30am to drive to work in Dublin when with proper investment, jobs can be created at these sites?" I will be working together with my Fine Gael colleagues, Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy and the Offaly party councillors, Liam Quinn, Tommy McKeigue and John Clendennen with job creation as priority. It is, of course, my intention to keep working hard for all the people and clubs of Edenderry and North Offaly which I have done for since first elected to Edenderry Town Council in 1999," Noel said. I will be working to deliver on issues like the inner relief road for Edenderry which is choked by traffic on a daily basis. Other local issues such as funding for our new swimming pool and town centre facilitates for a new library must also be realised." I sincerely thank all who have supported me and voted for me for the last 20 years and I look forward to your continued support in the upcoming local elections as we work together to improve to achieve better facilities and services for all the people of Edenderry and North Offaly," Noel commented. Noel is married to Breid and they have three daughters and three grandchildren. Cathal Nolan from the Midland Weather Channel has predicted stormy conditions this weekend with weather warnings possible, particularly in the west. "Our weather looks set to become a little more disturbed as we head towards the first weekend of November. That will certainly be the case across many northern and western areas of the country which look set to receive a glancing blow from ex-hurricane Oscar which is currently churning its way to the northeast somewhere along the US east coast," Cathal explained. "The storm system looks set to bring strong winds to all western Atlantic coastal counties between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, with maximum wind speeds gusting to as much as 110 km/h, possible reaching 120 km/h in parts of Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal." "All remaining areas of the country will experience some gusty winds for a time but maximum wind speeds will only reach between 80 and 90 km/h. It's likely that status yellow weather warnings will be issued in Atlantic coastal districts over the coming 24 hours, in preparation for the latest in what has been an already bumper winter storm season," the Offaly meteorologist concluded. Fianna Fail TD for Offaly, Barry Cowen has said that the 250 million deal to support the Spanish coal mining industry as it comes to an end is exactly the type of deal with the Midlands needs to help it transition away from its reliance on peat-harvesting based employment. Last week, Bord na Mona revealed that it was to shed over 400 jobs over the next ten years with 150 set to go before April 2019. In recent weeks, Spains new Government secured an agreement between management, unions and other stakeholders for a 250 million deal that will see investment in Spains northern Asturias, Aragon, and Castilla y Leon regions and support for miners who may see their employment end. Deputy Cowen added, The deal covers Spains privately owned mines and mixes early retirement schemes with environmental restoration work, in addition, to finance to help reskill younger workers for new and emerging industries." The Spanish situation is very similar to that of the Midlands. The numbers losing their jobs in Spain is estimated at just over 600. The expected Bord na Mona direct job losses are in the same range with a similar number of indirect jobs in the region expected to be lost," Cowen said. The agreement in Spain demonstrates that it is possible to make progress on the Paris 2020 targets but without wholesale damage to communities and regions." Fianna Fails proposal for a Sustainable Transition Forum, underpinned by funding from the EUs Globalisation Fund, is exactly what the Midlands needs to allow it move away from its dependency on jobs associated with peat harvesting," Barry added. The question, for me, is not how do we keep every single job but how do we replace these jobs with well-paying, sustainable jobs that will keep our communities thriving and prosperous. Thats the challenge, but its a challenge that can be overcome, and Fianna Fail will not be found wanting, concluded Cowen. Offaly County Council is concluding its 2018 Atrium exhibition series in Aras an Chontae, Tullamore with a showcase of portraits created by Tullamore artist, Clare Guinan. Guinan presents a collection of large-scale oil paintings of prominent figures from the Irish music scene. The title, Heart and Soul captures the essence of the exhibition. The exhibition brings together Guinans love of portraiture and Irish music and is a reflection of the rich and varied musical talent that Ireland has to offer. Guinan met all of the sitters so that she could capture them in a more relaxed and natural environment. The musicians featured are spread over different genres of Irish music: Mick Flannery, Gavin James, Christy Dignam, Mundy, Lisa Hannigan, Paul Brady, Cathy Davey, John Sheahan, Imelda May, Damien Dempsey and The Coronas, to name but a few. Music is so powerful Guinan explains, It can evoke memories, enhance our emotions and influence our everyday lives. These musicians take their talent and reach deep into their heart and soul to create wonderful music that enriches our lives. Each and every one of these artists has added to the depth and richness of both Irish music and Irish culture. Guinans work is heavily influenced by the idea of the soul. After seeing a documentary about British sculptor Anthony Gormley where he says, the body is an empty case for the soul, Guinan uses large canvases to create a connection between the subject and the viewer. Guinan, a Tullamore native, studied her degree in Fine Art from Limerick School of Art and Design. She continued her studies in University College Dublin with a Masters in Cultural Policy and Arts Management. She grew up surrounded by art and music and discovered her love of the figure and portraiture from an early age. She draws inspiration from both parents, her mother, a dressmaker encouraged creativity and her father a maths teacher balanced that creativity with a logical mindset that Claire utilizes today in her work. Exhibition launch: 9th November, 2018 @ 5.30 p.m. in the Atrium, Aras an Chontae, Tullamore. Launch speaker: Paddy Dunning The exhibition is open weekdays from 9.30a.m. to 4 p.m. in Aras an Chontae, Tullamore and continues until Friday 4th May, 2018. All welcome. For more information, visit www.offaly.ie/arts. The Irish Wingsuit Team, who regularly train at the Irish Parachute Club in Offaly, were recently awarded the FAI Group Diploma of Honour for outstanding achievement in aviation sport. On October 25, the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) granted the team this prestigious award at the FAI General Conference in Luxor, Egypt. Brothers Stephen & David Duffy from Rathcoffey, Co.Kildare, and Marc Daly from Armagh were presented with this Diploma in recognition of their high altitude project during which they broke 4 World, 3 European and 23 National Records in April 2017. After a decade of preparation, the team jumped into the record books from an altitude of 34,400ft, the same height as a commercial airliner. Wearing custom-made wingsuits and life support systems the team reached speeds of 411.1 km/h and endured temperatures of -58C or -115C including wind chill. The team are delighted that their success has been recognised at such a high level and to receive such a momentous award. Moving on from this the team has also announced their intention to glide from Ireland to the UK. They will attempt to cross the sea in free fall alone using their wingsuits once again creating aviation history. The team are currently actively seeking a commercial partner for this project which boasts immense marketing potential. ISLAMABAD A Christian woman who spent eight years on death row under Pakistan's blasphemy law was acquitted and ordered released Wednesday by the country's top court, a ruling that raised fears of violence by religious extremists who held angry protests over the verdict. Asia Bibi was in an undisclosed location for her safety, and her lawyer said he expected that she would soon leave the country. France and Spain have offered asylum to the 54-year-old mother of five, who is a Roman Catholic. Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, who had received death threats, announced the landmark verdict that fully overturned her 2010 conviction to a packed courtroom amid increased security. Thousands of supporters of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik party, led by firebrand cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi, took to the streets in protests, demanding Bibi's public execution. Rizvi has turned out tens of thousands of supporters before, often forcing authorities to bow to his demands on religious matters. Hundreds of Islamists blocked a road linking the city of Rawalpindi with the capital, Islamabad, and protests were held in Karachi, Peshawar and other cities. In the eastern city of Multan, police arrested several demonstrators after clashes. Security forces moved quickly, deploying outside churches to protect minority Christians and urging demonstrators elsewhere to disperse peacefully. Commandos were sent to protect Nisar and the other two judges of the Supreme Court after a cleric in the eastern city of Lahore urged religious extremists to kill them. The outburst over the divisive blasphemy law prompted Prime Minister Imran Khan to go on national TV to guarantee their safety and criticize those who made verbal attacks on Pakistan's institutions, including his government. "They are not serving Islam, but trying to increase their vote bank," Khan said of the clerics. "They are doing their politics." The verdict was seen as a hopeful sign by Christians in Pakistan, where the mere rumor of blasphemy can spark lynchings. Religious minorities, who have been repeatedly targeted by extremists, fear the law because it is often used to settle scores and to pressure minorities. Religious extremists have made defending the law a central rallying cry and have attacked those who question it. Salman Taseer , the governor of Punjab province, was shot and killed by one of his guards in 2011 for defending Bibi and criticizing the misuse of the law. The assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, was hanged for the crime, but later was hailed by religious hard-liners as a martyr, with millions visiting a shrine set up for him near Islamabad. Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's minister for minorities, was killed later that year after demanding justice for Bibi. Bibi, who has been held in solitary confinement on death row since 2010, was accused of blasphemy after she quarreled with two fellow female farm workers, who refused to drink from a container used by a Christian. A few days later, a mob accused her of insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad, leading to her initial conviction. Bibi's family and her lawyer, Saiful Malook, say she never insulted the prophet. In previous hearings, Malook pointed to contradictions in testimony from witnesses. The two Muslim women who pressed charges against Bibi denied they quarreled with her, saying her outbursts against Islam were unprovoked despite several other witnesses who recalled the dispute. Chaudhry Ghulam Mustafa, a lawyer for one of the plaintiffs, rejected the verdict, saying Bibi had confessed to making derogatory remarks against the prophet to seek a pardon. The three judges upheld the blasphemy law itself, saying it was consistent with verses from Islam's holy book, the Quran. But they said prosecutors had failed to prove that Bibi violated the law. In addition to citing the Quran, the judges also referenced Shakespeare's "King Lear," saying Bibi was "more sinned against than sinning." The verdict suggested that officials could be open to demands from rights groups for stricter punishments for false accusations. "If our religion of Islam comes down heavily upon commission of blasphemy, then Islam is also very tough against those who level false allegations of a crime," they wrote. Bibi's husband praised the verdict. "I am very happy. My children are very happy. We are grateful to God. We are grateful to the judges for giving us justice. We knew that she is innocent," said Ashiq Masih. "My wife spent so many years in jail and we hope that we will soon be together in a peaceful place," he said. Pakistan has about 2.5 million Christians. Along with Shiites, Ahmadis and other minorities, they have been targeted by religious extremists. Malook said Bibi would be secreted out of the country quickly, adding that he is contemplating the same move. "I am afraid I will have to leave Pakistan. That is the only way to save my life," Malook said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "The situation, I am worried, will go very bad for me. I am the most soft target for all these people," he said, referring to religious extremists who he said have threatened his life. "People say, 'you are a brave man,' but before this, my life was happy. ... Now I am really afraid." Bibi's arrest, conviction and death sentence focused international attention on the law. Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson Center, called the ruling a "major legal milestone for Pakistan." Its significance, however, should not be overstated, and the power of the religiously motivated mob should not be understated, he added. "The increasing political clout of religious hard-liners, who boast the ability to mobilize in a big way, suggests that the state will be under more pressure than ever before," he said. "The sobering reality is that it's not going to get any easier to push for reform, much less repeal, of the blasphemy law, despite this landmark and very brave decision by the Pakistani Supreme Court." The decision also was praised by the Christian minority and human rights activists. "I salute to the honorable judges who refused to be cowed down and lit a candle in darkness and raised hopes in hopelessness," said Farhatullah Babar of Pakistan's People's Party of Benazir Bhutto. The former prime minister was killed by extremists in 2007 after she threatened to target them if she returned to power. Babar had advocated for changes to the law, making it a serious offense to wrongly accuse someone of blasphemy. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a government body, said Bibi's case "illustrates the extent to which blasphemy laws can be exploited to target minority communities." ___ Associated Press writers Kathy Gannon in Kabul, Afghanistan, Asim Tanveer in Multan, Pakistan, and Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed. ___ This version corrects the wording that Bibi was ordered released, instead of released, and that her whereabouts were not immediately clear. Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. VERONA, N.Y. Members of the Vernon-Verona-Sherrill FFA Alumni recently approved more than $36,000 towards specific causes to support local and state FFA programming. In order to preserve future senior FFA scholarship awards for VVS FFA members, the organization designated $5,000 to be set aside for scholarships for the next five years. Annually, the FFA Alumni awards four graduating seniors with $250 each at the FFAs end-of-year annual banquet and awards program. Over the past decade, the organization is credited for recognizing more than 40 graduating seniors from the local FFA program with more than $10,000 in scholarships. The alumni also approved sponsoring 14 VVS FFA members to attend the 91st annual National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Ind. Combined with funding for adult chaperones, the club committed $3,168 to this years premier FFA event. Another $2,300 was committed to support purchasing maple supplies for the FFAs maple operation. On the state level, the VVS FFA Alumni organization dedicated $25,000 to New York State FFA Leadership Training Foundation fundraising campaign to build a new $3.3 million kitchen and dining hall at FFA Camp Oswegatchie. For the past 30 years, hundreds of VVS FFA students have traveled to FFA camp to attend officer retreats, summer camp, ROPES Project Challenge events, and winter weekend retreats. The State-FFA-owned 1,200-acre camp is located in the heart of the Adirondacks and is operated year-round as a leadership training facility. The foundation is seeking to raise $1 million from local FFA chapters, corporate sponsors, and individuals who support agriculture education. For more information on this project, visit www.nyffafoundation.org/ffa-chapter-challenge.html As a final action, the alumni voted to recognize several of its most active members with sponsorship of lifetime membership to the National FFA Alumni Organization. Members receiving this prestigious honor had volunteered more than 200 hours of personal service to support the student organization over the past decade. Receiving the membership are Jennifer Armstrong, Stephanie Doane, Guy Hoffman, Rich Lagoy, Michael Maguire Sr., Leslie Marcellus, Jim Marcellus, Sue Szkotak, Scott Seitz, Brenda Seitz, Sheila Sreca, and Dale Sreca. The 12 lifetime members join more than 459,000 members nationwide. The VVS FFA Alumni is chartered under the National FFA Alumni and is made up of adults who want to support the FFA student organization. Meetings are held on the first Tuesday of the month at 6 p.m. and membership is open to parents, former FFA members, faculty, community supporters, or anyone wanting to make a difference in the lives of students. For more information:contact VVS FFA Alumni President Paulette Schiebel, 315-335-3075, or pschiebel@tds.net. ISTANBUL Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and his body was dismembered before it was removed, a top Turkish prosecutor said Wednesday. Chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan's office also said in a statement that discussions with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb over the killing yielded "no concrete result" despite Turkey's "good-intentioned efforts to reveal the truth." The statement was the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Khashoggi was strangled and mutilated after he entered the Saudi Consulate on Oct. 2. It also pointed to a lack of cooperation from Saudi officials in the investigation of the slaying. "In accordance with plans made in advance, the victim, Jamal Khashoggi, was strangled and killed immediately after entering the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia," the prosecutor's office said. "The victim Jamal Khashoggi's body was dismembered and destroyed following his death by suffocation, again in line with the advance plans," the two-page statement read. The prosecutor's statement that Khashoggi was killed immediately conflicts with a report by pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak earlier this month, which cited what it described as an audio recording of Khashoggi being tortured before being killed. The newspaper claimed that his fingers were cut off and that he was killed by being beheaded. On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he doesn't feel "betrayed" by Saudi Arabia over Khashoggi's death. Trump, who made Saudi Arabia the destination of his first foreign trip as president, said the Saudis didn't betray him but "maybe they've betrayed themselves." Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday: "I just hope it all works out." Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 suspects in the journalist's slaying who were detained in Saudi Arabia. It also is pressing Saudi Arabia for information about who ordered Khashoggi's killing and the location of his remains. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Riyadh to disclose the identity of an alleged local collaborator said to have been involved in getting rid of Khashoggi's body. Saudi chief prosecutor al-Mojeb met with Fidan twice and also visited the Turkish intelligence agency's Istanbul headquarters this week before leaving for Riyadh on a private jet Wednesday. Saudi Arabia has not commented directly on the prosecutor's visit and al-Mojeb did not respond to journalists' questions at the airport as he departed. Fidan's office said the Saudi delegation submitted a written statement and invited the Turkish delegation to come to Saudi Arabia bringing "evidence obtained during the course of the investigation." The Saudi representatives said the whereabouts of Khashoggi's remains and whether the killing was premeditated or not would only come to light through a joint interrogation by Turkish and Saudi investigators, according to the statement. The statement said Turkey renewed its request for the 18 suspects to be extradited. It did not say if Turkish officials would travel to Saudi Arabia. On Wednesday, a lawmaker and spokesman for Turkey's ruling party again called on Saudi Arabia to reveal where Khashoggi's body is, who gave the orders for the killing and who the alleged Turkish collaborator is. "Instead of trying to find out what (evidence) Turkey has, Saudi authorities should give the answers to these questions," Omer Celik told reporters. "This is not an incident that could have taken place without a high-level order." Celik added: "We are not blaming anyone in advance but we will not allow anything to be covered up." Khashoggi, a 59-year-old columnist for The Washington Post, vanished after entering the consulate in Istanbul to pick up paperwork he needed for his upcoming marriage. His Turkish fiancee was waiting for him outside. A critic of the Saudi crown prince, Khashoggi had been living in exile in the United States. Turkey alleges a hit squad from Saudi Arabia including a member of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's entourage during a trip to the United States went to Istanbul to kill the journalist and then tried to cover it up. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia changed its narrative about Khashoggi's killing several times, eventually admitting Khashoggi died inside the consulate. Saudi Arabia only recently acknowledged Turkish evidence showed the slaying was premeditated. Hurriyet newspaper columnist Abdulkadir Selvi, who is known to be close to the Turkish government, said the Saudi prosecutor revealed nothing new to Turkish investigators during his three-day visit and left with several questions unanswered. "Rather than share the information he has, the Saudi prosecutor tried to learn what information and evidence Turkey has in its hands," Selvi wrote Wednesday. He added: "The chief prosecutor is not trying to shed light on the murder, he is trying to save the crown prince." ___ Associated Press writer Mehmet Guzel reported this story in Istanbul and AP writer Suzan Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. AP writer eyran Elden in Istanbul contributed to this report. Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Lets be honest, the No Downtown Hospital group doesnt speak for the majority of people in this area. Theyre supported by a downstate conservative group trying to influence our local political race by slinging mud at Anthony Brindisi as though hes the only reason the downtown area was selected for a state-of-the-art hospital. Truth is, many of our community leaders and elected officials were part of the process and supported siting the hospital downtown. At issue is access to healthcare, and I wish theyd stop trying to make it a political fight! Instead of recognizing that the hospital would be fully funded, with the majority of the money coming from the state, the No Downtown Hospital group is too busy trying to sling mud into the Congressional campaign by attacking Brindisi. Stop playing politics with our health care! Good leaders, like Anthony Brindisi, are concerned about our wellbeing, not with supporting a certain political agenda. As a lifelong Utica resident, I am thrilled that state legislators Anthony Brindisi and Joe Griffo fought for funding for a state-of-the-art hospital in downtown Utica that will replace two outdated facilities. The new hospital site is in an area that has seen virtually no economic development in my 70 years living here. But it seems that in politics no good deed goes unpunished. With the backing of Reclaim New York (a conservative group founded by Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway and billionaire Robert Mercer), a small vocal group has opposed the hospital. One even bought a parcel in the hospital footprint just to jam up the project. Now, they are buying ads to falsely and desperately accuse 22nd Congressional candidate Brindisi of unethical behavior. Hospital opponents do not speak for a majority. Facts are the downtown site has the support of both business and political leaders in the Utica area. The hospital project is fully-funded with a majority of the money coming from the state and the remainder coming from a bank loan. A process is already underway to relocate displaced businesses, with several successes already. Dont be fooled by these false and partisan attacks. I was puzzled by an ad in the paper Oct. 27. Why would someone castigate Anthony Brindisi for working to secure funding for a new state-of-the-art hospital in downtown Utica? The project has bi-partisan support from Republicans Sen. Joe Griffo and Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente to fellow Democratic Sen. David Valesky. Broad support likewise comes from businesses, the building trades and the public. Yet the group behind the ad, NoDowntownHospital, who is opposed to the project, singles out Brindisi and mischaracterizes his role in securing funding for the hospital. Theres nothing nefarious about the $300 million state grant that was approved by the NYS legislature in the 2015 state budget. By most accounts, Utica will benefit from improved healthcare delivery and increased economic activity in the city. But NoDowntownHospital, which is backed by Reclaim New York, a conservative group from outside the district, tried to twist a positive into a negative with a deceitful ad targeting Brindisi. People will see through their scheme. Vote for Brindisi for Congress on Nov. 6. He will work for you. Desh Ke Mentor: What is Delhi govt's ambitious programme and how it works? Delhi calls for industries shutdown, construction ban in NCR; Extends 'Red Light On, Gaadi Off' campaign 7th Pay Commission: Diwali bumper for these employees with 34 months arrears India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Oct 31: While the Central Government drags its feet on the 7th Pay Commission, there is cheer for some employees ahead of Diwali. The Delhi Government has approved the revision of pay scales for its employees in line with the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission. A statement said that the Cabinet has approved the 7th Pay Commission linked Department of Higher Education's proposal for the grant of revised pay scales to teachers and equivalent cadres and administrative posts in universities and colleges. Intelligence Bureau (IB) vacancies with 7th Pay Commission benefits, how to apply The teachers would also get revised pay on a pro-rata basis effective January 1 2016. This is great news since they would not only get a revised pay, but also arrears for 34 months. Recently t may recalled that a hike was announced for guest teachers under the 7th Pay Commission. This was a move intended to bring the guest teachers on part with the trained graduate teachers with CTET qualification. The renumeration went up to 1,403 from 1,050 per day. However for Central Government employees, there is unlikely to be any announcement ahead of Diwali. As reported earlier they may have to wait till January to hear some good news regarding the 7th Pay Commission. After skipping India's security dialogue on Afghanistan, China to attend Paks Troika Plus meet US Congress report says Pakistan playing active and disruptive role in Afghanistan Pakistan hit my mysterious viral fever: All you need to know US designates Pakistan, China as countries of particular concern for religious freedom violation Pakistan gives Kulbhushan Jadhav right to appeal against death sentence India protests bus service through Pakistan Occupied J&K India oi-Chennabasaveshwar P New Delhi, Oct 31: India has lodged protests with China and Pakistan on the proposed bus service that will operate through Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJ&K) under the so-called 'China-Pakistan Economic Corridor'. MEA stated that it is GoI's consistent and well-known position that the so-called China-Pakistan "Boundary Agreement" of 1963 is illegal and invalid, and has never been recognised by the Government of India. Therefore, any such bus service through Pak Occupied J&K will be a violation of India's sovereignty&territorial integrity. China backs Iran's full membership of SCO: Chinese ambassador to Tehran China and Pakistan will launch a new bus service through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) under the so-called 'China-Pakistan Economic Corridor' (CPEC) project, media reports in Pakistan said. China: Railway station asks travellers not to give money to 'rich' beggar The $50 billion so-called 'CPEC', launched in 2015, is a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking China's resource-rich Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with Balochistan's Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea. India has protested the so-called 'CPEC' project as it runs through PoK, which India maintains is part of Jammu and Kashmir, its northernmost state, and therefore Indian territory. (With PTI inputs) For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Thursday, November 1, 2018, 0:04 [IST] Is BJP thinking of fielding Amit Shah from Kolkata constituency in 2019? India oi-Shubham Ghosh Kolkata, Oct 31: Is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) planning to field its president Amit Shah from Kolkata North constituency in the next Lok Sabha elections? According to a report in Ananda Bazar Patrika, speculation is rife that the saffron party could see its heavyweight president contesting from Kolkata North constituency while Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself could contest from the state of Odisha. Sabarimala issue: Complaint filed in Sitamarhi court against Amit Shah The BJP has been eyeing growth and eventually power in the two eastern states of West Bengal and Odisha, which together send 63 MPs to the Lok Sabha. The BJP won only two seats out of 42 in Bengal and one out of 21 in Odisha in the Lok Sabha election in 2014. This time, they could rope in their top two leaders to fight it out from these two states to get more traction in the upcoming general election. There is speculation that Modi could contest from the pilgrimage city of Puri in Odisha (he contested from another holy city of Varanasi in UP last time) and since the coastal city is also going to its Assembly election around the same time, the BJP is eyeing for a double strike. Coming back to Shah's contesting from Bengal, it is being heard that two seats could be earmarked for Shah, Asansol being the other. The BJP did well in the state in the last Lok Sabha election, getting 17 per cent vote share and the party thinks fielding Shah could give that number a bigger push and put local force Trinamool Congress (TMC) under challenge. BJP's numbers shot up in Kolkata North & Asansol constituencies in 2014 But why is the BJP thinking about Kolkata North constituency? One factor is the presence of a large non-Bengali population in the area. And secondly, the BJP had done exceedingly well in this seat in 2014. In 2009, the joint candidate of the TMC and Congress received 52.4 per cent vote share in Kolkata North constituency while the BJP ended third with just four per cent vote-share. The CPI(M) was second with 40 per cent vote share. The winning candidate defeated his nearest rival by 1.09 lakh votes. The BJP candidate polled just 37,044 votes. In 2014, the TMC was the winner again but this time, the results were vastly different. While the winning candidate's vote-share came down to only 36 per cent (no alliance with the Congress this time), the BJP ended second with 26 per cent of vote share with the margin coming down to 96,226 votes. The CPI(M) finished third with 21 per cent vote share. PM Modi building 'Make in India', Mahagathbandhan busy in 'Breaking India': Amit Shah In Asansol, which is currently under the BJP, the joint TMC-Congress candidate got 41 per cent vote-share in 2009. The winning candidate, from the CPI(M), got 49 per cent vote-share while the BJP received less than six per cent vote-share. The margin of victory between the winning candidate and his nearest rival was by almost 73,000 votes. In 2014, the BJP produced a miracle here as well. They won the seat by getting 37 per cent of vote-share while the TMC's vote-share went down to 30.6 per cent. The CPI(M) finished third with just over 22 per cent vote-share. Jaish chief Azhars second nephew killed in Valley was deputy chief of sniper squad India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Srinagar, Oct 31: Amidst the rising concerns of terrorists using snipers in the Kashmir Valley, the security forces gunned down a Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist Usman Haidar, who incidentally was the nephew of Maulana Masood Azhar. Another terrorist also from the Jaish, identified as Showkat Ahmed was also killed in the encounter that took place in the Tral area of South Kashmir. Incidentally this is the second nephew of Jaish chief, Azhar who has been killed in an encounter in the Valley. In November 2017, the security forces had gunned down Talha Rashid at Pulwama. Why the killing of Masood Azhar's nephew is a 'bloody blow' to the Jaish Haidar on the other hand was the deputy chief of the sniper squad, which has been posing a menace in the Valley since the past couple of months. Sources tell OneIndia that the two terrorists killed on Tuesday were both part of the sniping squad that the Jaish recently introduced in the Valley. The police had said that the Jaish had four persons who were part of the sniping squad. They were using the M-4 Caribes, a weapon deployed in Afghanistan by the NATO forces. The weapons were procured by the ISI from the Taliban, which had stolen the same from the US forces in Afghanistan. The M4 has been used in the Valley for sometime now. Recently Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist, Samir Tiger had posed with the same weapon and posted images on the social media, before he was killed in an encounter. Following the encounter on Tuesday, the police recovered an M4 from the encounter site that was used by Haidar. The killing of the two terrorists is seen as an important breakthrough in busting the sniper squad in the Valley. There have been at least three sniping incidents on the security forces and the latest was the killing of Assistant Sub Inspector of the CISF at Srinagar last Friday. Following the encounter, the Jaish released a statement confirming the death of its terrorists. It also said that the killing of its men would be avenged. The operation on Tuesday was carried out by a joint team of the CRPF, RR and SOG. The encounter was launched after the forces received credible information about the presence of the terrorists at Chankitar in Tral. During the encounter, the forces had to resort to firing tear gas shells to disperse the locals who were pelting stones in an attempt to stall the operation. An advisory has been issued to the locals not to stray into encounter sites as they could be hit by stray explosive materials. Janardhana Reddy's remark on death of Siddaramaiah's son sparks outrage India oi-PTI Bengaluru, Oct 31: Mining baron G Janardhana Reddy has found himself at the centre of a row over his purported remarks about the death of former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah's son with the BJP asking him to tender an apology, even as it drew Congress' ire. In an interview to a local news channel recently, Reddy purportedly referred to the death of Siddaramaiah's son as "God's punishment", as he accused the Congress leader of keeping him away from his children by sending him to jail for four years, by "misusing" the chief minister's office. "For keeping me away from my children, God has punished him," Reddy reportedly said. Siddaramaiah's son, Rakesh Siddaramaiah had died of multi-organ failure at a hospital in Belgium in July 2016. Also Read | Karnataka bypolls 2018: EC declares dry day for bypoll areas for 48 hrs Condemning the remarks, BJP state unit chief B S Yeddyurappa demanded that Reddy apologise. "Janardhana Reddy's comment about the death of Siddaramaiah's son is something that does not give grace to him. I condemn it. I also demand that Janardhana Reddy should apologise," he told reporters at Shivamogga Wednesday. Siddaramaiah hit out at Reddy's remarks and said, "The former minister lacks culture and humanity". "In politics we may criticise each other, that is different, but bringing family into it is not good. People will not accept it," he said. In a tweet Tuesday, Siddaramaiah had said, "Janardhana Reddy has said my son's death is god's punishment to me. I pray to god, not to punish your children for your sins". Reddy's remarks drew sharp reaction from several Congress leaders and ministers, including D K Shivakumar and R V Deshpande. BJP leaders-- former deputy chief minister R Ashoka and former minister Suresh Kumar, both MLAs, said it was wrong to make personal comments about someone's death. The saffron party has kept itself away from Reddy who has, however, been making remarks in favour of the party. BJP national president Amit Shah had, ahead of the state assembly polls, maintained that Reddy, an accused in an illegal mining case, has nothing do with the party. Also Read | Did you know the first by-election in Mandya was held in 1968 The tainted mining baron's confidant and state senior BJP leader B Sriramulu's sister J Shantha is contesting the November 3 by-polls from Reddy's home turf of Ballari Lok Sabha constituency. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 20:19 [IST] No protection, no hearing until we know where you are, SC tells Param Bir Singh Let them put their house in order first says SC to plea seeking CBI probe into Rafale India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Oct 31: The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Centre to appraise it about the details, price and cost of the Rafale jets. The direction was issued by the Court despite the Centre raising objections to the same. During the course of the hearing, advocate and petitioner, Prashant Bhushan sought for a CBI probe into the matter. The court was quick to shoot back and while pointing towards the rift within the agency said, " let the CBI put its house in order first." Rafale: Tell us details of price, cost of jets in 10 days, SC says despite Centre's objection Bhushan then went on to suggest that the CBI probe could be a court monitored one. To this, the SC said, ' that can wait.' Rajya Sabha MP, Sanjay Singh through his lawyer said that the government must come up with the price of the jets. The CJI asked him, " do you know the price." When the advocate said that he did, the CJI said,' you keep it to yourself and you are one of the fortunates, who knows the price.' The court then sought what is Singh's interest in this case. There are so many petitioners already and he wants an SIT probe and Bhushan on the other a probe by the CBI. Advocate M L Sharma then stepped in and told the court to take the matter up after the elections. CJI asked, " which elections. The business of this court cannot be stopped for elections." Sharma said the assembly elections. The CJI asked, " how are we concerned. First decide what elections you had in mind." No early hearing of Sabarimala review pleas says SC Other developments in SC: The Supreme Court has asked the centre to give it copies of the decision making process details without any strategic or secret details to the petitioners and the parties who have filed the PILs. Attorney General K K Venugopal said that most details about the Rafale jets, including its pricing would be covered under the official secrets act and it would not be possible for the government to share it with anyone. If you cannot share it in a sealed cover, then file an affidavit to that effect, the Bench said. The Bench said no petitioner has questioned the suitability of the Rafale jets and its utility for the Indian Air Force. The only question is about the bona code in making the decision about the jets. The Centre must bring in public domain the details of the decision making process for the purchase of 38 jets from Dassault through the inter-governmental agreement between India and France. This can be done without bringing out the strategic inputs of the purchase, the bench also said. As the AG was set to raise objection, the court said that the Centre that it would like to be appraised of the details of the price and cost of the jets and the advantages of the deals which should be submitted in court in 10 days. Next date of hearing November 12. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 11:57 [IST] Mumbai: 'Could have been raped,' says model Megha Sharma who stripped in front of cops India oi-Madhuri Adnal Mumbai, Oct 31: Model Megha Sharma, whose video of stripping in front of the cops went viral narrated the whole incident and her ordeal to news agency ANI. Sharma told that she wanted cigarettes and hence called the watchman to get her a few to which he refused saying that he was on duty. She then asked the watchman if he could send any of the three to four security guards to get her cigarettes to which she was refused again. #WATCH: Model Megha Sharma, who in a viral video was seen thrashing a security guard and sitting in protest when the police came to take her, narrates the chain of events which took place at the time of the incident. #Mumbai pic.twitter.com/iWvHHVH9Mu ANI (@ANI) October 30, 2018 She went down and got herself a smoke but she also talked to the guard as to why could he not have asked one of the watchmen to go. She then told an ANI reporter that the guard threw a fit and went on to call her 'characterless' and comment upon her attire. She added that he said, "We are not here to treat you like a princess." Infuriated by this, she hit him. Another watchman joined the argument shortly and started hurling abuses at her. It was then that she herself called the police and a team from Oshiwara police station arrived within 10 minutes. The police then asked her to come to the police station but she politely refused at first, saying that since there is no lady constable available, she would go to the police station the next morning. She said that she did not feel comfortable and safe going to the police station wearing what she was wearing at 2.50 am. She offered her lawyer's number and asked to be let go as she had a shoot early morning but she claimed that the cops kept insisting that she had to come with them. When she pressed the lift button, 8-10 men surrounded her and tried to take her out of the elevator, all the while reiterating that she would have to go to the police station. She claimed that she had almost even agreed to go with them but she wanted to go change into something comfortable but she was not allowed to, as could have been very well seen in the visuals that went viral. It was then, all of a sudden, she claimed that she went blank and her mind stopped working. In a fit of rage, she took off her clothes, which she said was the most mortifying incident of her life. She added that she feared, even in presence of the cops that she could have been raped. She still insists on being told why a lady constable was not there at the time. The entire incident took place on October 25 at Lokhandwala Complex where the woman lives on rent. According to the police, Sharma had complained against Arun, watchman of the building. She alleged that he misbehaved with her and that the altercation started as he refused to get cigarettes for her. Meanwhile, a non-cognisable complaint has been registered against the model. This issue has been a hot subject of debate on the social media. The social media is in fact divided on this issue, with a section questioning her behaviour with the guard. Many said that it was wrong on her part to attack the guard. Others however stood in solidarity with her. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 9:01 [IST] We have registered with the Obama Foundation our concerns that such uses, along with possible heightened security when President Obama is present, might threaten to interfere with keeping this public land open to the masses, Friends of the Parks Executive Director Juanita Irizarry said in the statement. We will keep the pressure on until we hear acceptable and rock solid answers to other operational questions we have posed in the vein of making sure it functions just like a public park. Dantewada: No intent to target media say naxals, cops rubbish the claim Cop injured in Chhattisgarh naxal attack succumbs to injuries, death toll rises to 4 India oi-Deepika S Raipur, Oct 31: Police Jawan Rakesh Kaushal who was injured in yesterday's Naxal attack in Dantewada has succumbed to injuries. Death toll rises to 4. Earlier Two policemen and a cameraperson of Doordarshan was killed and two others were injured in a Maoist attack on Tuesday in poll-bound Chhattisgarh Dantewada district. Doordarshan cameraman, 2 cops killed in Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh The incident took place at around 11 am in a forest area near Nilawaya village, around 450 km from here, Deputy Inspector General (anti-Naxal operations) Sundarraj P told PTI. Video journalist Achyutanand Sahu from state broadcaster Doordarshan and two police officers were killed in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district in a Maoist attack on Tuesday. The incident occurred in the district's Aranpur area. Dantewada naxal attack is poll related and took place despite a high alert An unidentified Chhattisgarh-based journalist said Sahu was part of a three-member Doordarshan team making a film on development in the state. The other two journalists, including one from Delhi, are safe, PTI reported. An unidentified senior official said that a security squad from the Central Reserve Police Force's 111 battalion has been sent to the spot. The state is scheduled to go to the polls in two phases on November 12 and November 20. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 11:47 [IST] More than 500 killed by wild animals in Bengal since 2015, govt to give jobs to their kin Odisha lost 179 elephants to electrocution since 2000 India oi-Deepika S Bhubaneswar, Oct 31: Wild elephants are electrocuted with startling regularity in India. Recently, seven jumbos, including a tusker and five females, were electrocuted as they came in contact with an 11-KV power line near Kamalanga under Sadar forest range in Odisha. A report by Wildlife Society of Odisha reveals that since 2000, Odisha has lost a total of 179 elephants to electrocution. Between 2000 and 2010, there were 77 electrocution deaths, mostly due to sagging power lines averaging less than 8 elephants in a year. The environment ministry data shows that 655 elephant deaths took place in India from 2009 to 2017. This translates into an average of about 80 elephant deaths per year, seven every month and one every four days. Also Read | Why China's decision to lift ban on trade in Rhino, Tiger products is bad news for India Elephants in Odisha have been electrocuted either unwittingly due to sagging overhead lines and electrified fences or by poachers who have set up live wire poaching traps. Sixty per cent of the electrocution deaths currently are due to live wire poaching. Before 2010, the majority of the unnatural elephant deaths, approximately 80 per cent, were due to sagging power lines. Since 2010, out of 102 electrocution deaths, 42 have been due to sagging lines and 60 due to live wire poaching which reveals the absence of patrolling. The main reasons for elephant deaths are electrocution, train accidents, poaching and poisoning. Also Read | Earth's wildlife population 'falls by 60% in 44 years': Report Rail tracks have also become "death traps" for elephants. In April this year, four elephants including a tusker and a calf were killed in Jharsuguda district when they were hit by a speeding train. Data shows that between 1987 and 2010, 150 elephants have died while just crossing railway tracks. To reduce the deaths of elephants on the train tracks, Railways has come up with 'Plan Bee'. This innovative method prevents elephants from approaching the railway lines by setting up of devices near tracks. These devices emit the buzzing sound of bees and prevent elephants from approaching the tracks. On Sardar Patels birthday, VHP wants a Somnath for Ram Temple from Chhote Sardar India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Oct 31: Prime Minister Narendra Modi while inaugurating 'Statue Of Unity' in Gujarat said that it was the commitment of Sardar Saheb that today from Kohima to Kutch and Kargil to Kanya Kumari India is one. The PM also talked about Gir Lions, Somnath Temple, Charminar of Hyderabad. He credited Patel with the construction of construction of Somnath Temple in Gujarat. Vishwa Hindu Parishad has grabbed it as opportunity to appeal the PM to take up the matter of construction of Ram temple in the winter session of Parliament. VHP spokesperson Vinod Bansal tweeted: "Today's Statue of Unity of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is reminding us that his thoughts and contributions to the unity of Hindu Rashtra 'Bharat' is highest in the world. @narendramodi should enact law for Ram Mandir like Somnath Temple by Vallabhbhai Patel." Sangh Pariwar to continue with its Ram Temple programme as delaying tactics worked Actually the VHP does not want to leave any stone unturned for the construction of Ram Temple. They have already started public awakening and the organisation wants that any decision must be taken before Dharma Sansad in Ayodhya that will happen on January 31 and February 1. The VHP is not happy with the court decision the way verdict on the issue was given that any decision will be taken only in January. Shia Waqf Board demands legislation for Ram Temple; calls himself Vibhishan for the cause The VHP is sighting the example of Sardar Patel to put pressure on the government that the way it was done in the case of Somnath Temple, it should also be done in the case of Ram Temple. The VHP is of the view that the PM must take a vow for the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya by bringing legislation in the winter session of Parliament. Pakistan's tactical nukes: What are the options for India? India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, Oct 31: Time and again Pakistan keeps talking about the use of tactical nuclear weapons against the Indian forces if any attempt is made to enter its territory. Pakistan's clamour in fact grew louder ever since it came to fore that India has something called as the Cold Start doctrine which is said to be an offensive plan of the Indian forces intended to quickly mobilise forces and subdue Pakistan before it even considers nuclear retaliation. This is is said to be a plan of swift multi-pronged attack in the event of conflict. Pakistan has hinted in the past that it would not hesitate to use tactical nukes if Indian forces advance. Pakistan's short range missle NASR is the weapon that the Islamabad boasts of whenever the issue of Indian aggression comes up. Also Read | How advanced is Pakistan's cruise missile technology A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon, generally smaller in its explosive power, which is designed to be used on a battlefield situations, in contrast to strategic nuclear weapons which are designed to be mostly targeted in the enemy interior away from the war front. Tactical nuclear weapons are of the range of 20-60 km with the blast radius of 3-5 km. These are developed to be used as deterrent against aggression on the border and not for a full-fledged war. Pakistan claims that NASR can carry nuclear warheads of low yield with high accuracy. Pakistan has also claimed that it was designed to overcome missile defense systems. Hypothetically speaking, if Indian Forces do enter Pakistan's territory and Islamabad does indeed use tactical nukes then it would also be risking the lives of its own civilians as the device would detonate in Pakistani soil. Also Read | Mystery surrounding Pakistan's nuclear capable Ababeel missile and its MIRV capability Another thing is once Pakistan uses a nuclear weapon in any form, Indian retaliation would be unimaginable as New Delhi will not be bound by 'No First Use' policy. India had declared 'No First Use' (NFU) as a policy; Pakistan is averse to it and feels that NFU in principle negates its deterrence advantage against India. Pakistan's nuclear weapons are intended to compensate for conventional forces which is largely believed to be lagging behind India. India's options against Pakistan's tactical nuclear weapons: What Pakistan must keep in mind is that India has fairly developed secondary strike capability. India has ballistic missiles with nuclear warhead that can be launched from submarines in short notice. Pakistan can rest assured that any use of nukes- tactical or strategic - the retribution will be swift, severe and devastating threatening its very existence. A tactic that India can use is to get closer to populated areas in Pakistan which would force Islamabad to think of collateral damage if a nuke device is used in its own territory. Indian Army can use this tactic to negate Pakistani nukes by inserting divisons in densely populated Pakistani regions like Punjab. If Pakistan resorts to battlefield nukes then it would effectively endanger its own population also making Pakistan lose its status and face in international society and will create a soft spot for India. Also Read | Pakistan way behind India in cruise missile technology: Babur vs Nirbhay Use of assets like QR-SAM, S-400 and Akash Surface to Air missile can effectively negate Nasr. But, that would require careful and effective surveillance about where NASR would be fired from and how it can be met mid-air with air defence systems. Best would, however, be for India to hit the locations where NASR missiles are deployed with conventional short range weapons. It must be considered that since NASR is aimed at stopping advances, it would be stored at locations close to the border and not in some remote area like strategic nuclear missiles. Again, effective intelligence and precise prior knowledge of military installations would be essential. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 5:00 [IST] Patel forced Nawab of Junagarh to accede to India who had spent Rs 20 lakh on dogs marriage India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Oct 31: Former deputy Prime Minister and Union home minister Sardar Patel's 182-metre high statue is unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat but Sardar Patel was equally towering as his statue is who is credited with driving eccentric nawab of Junagarh out of the country. The Nawab had spent Rs 20 lakh on the wedding of his two out of 800 dogs. Junagarh nawab Mahabat Khan Rasul Khanji III was an eccentric man for his excessive love for dogs with 800 of them having one human attendant. He had spent Rs 20 lakh on the wedding of one such dog and declared that day a public holiday. Shahnawaz Bhutto, His deewan, was a Muslim League politician from Karachi and father of Zulfikhar Ali Bhutto. Bhutto was outmaneuvered by Patel's apt handling of the situation who later vowed for a 1,000-year-long war with India. 'Statue of Unity a symbol of technical excellence', says PM Modi Patel had accomplished an arduous task of accession of 552 states to India but cases of Junagarh, Travancore, Hyderabad and Kashmir were even more difficult. Patel had done it himself immortal in the hearts of people of India. If the issue of Kashmir was ticklish so was Junagarh from where he himself belonged to which is now part of Gujarat. The Nawab had decided that Junagarh should become part of Pakistan against the wishes of a majority of the people on the advice of a newly appointed Dewan Shahnawaz Bhutto. The Nawab acceded to the Dominion of Pakistan on August 15, 1947, against the advice of Lord Mountbatten arguing Junagarh will connect Pakistan by sea. But the decision was not communicated to the government of India. Patel offered Pakistan to reverse acceptance of the accession but reluctantly agreed to hold a plebiscite. Patel was trying to resolve the issue with the assistance of VP Menon. In Junagarh's accession to Pakistan, Patel saw the first danger sign of the possibility of India splitting up again. Meanwhile, Mountbatten made a serious attempt to play a role in Junagarh which was not in the interest of India. Mountbatten had no control over Jinnah's actions but he projected that he could use his position as Governor General in averting a war with Pakistan by binding India to three conditions: first refer Junagarh to the United Nations; second, Indian troops should not enter Junagarh, third, a plebiscite in Junagarh. But what supported India's claim was that unlike Jodhpur, Junagarh had no land contiguity with Pakistan, though it could establish a direct link with Karachi through its port of Veraval, which is 300kms away. Rulers of Nawanagar, Bhavnagar, Morvi, Gondal, Porbandar and Wankaner turned to Sardar Patel for handling the situation after Junagarh's decision of joining Pakistan. Mountbatten's suggestion to go to the UN was rejected by Patel saying that Junagarh was not a disputed matter, but was a case of blatant interference by Pakistan. Mountbatten expected that Prime Minister J L Nehru and Gopalaswami Ayyangar would lend him their support. Patel also rejected Mountbatten's other suggestion that the Central Reserve Police and not the Indian Army should be entrusted with the responsibility of dealing with the occupation of Babariawad and Mangarol. To Patel, the suggestion meant inviting unnecessary risks; he was firm that the operation should be handled by the Indian Army. WATCH: Grand unveiling of Sardar Vallabhai Patel statue Mountbatten and his advisers had hoped that Patel would be satisfied with the decision on occupation of Junagarh. Mountbatten was tactfully kept in the dark and by the time he discovered what was afoot, troops were on the move. The government took over the Junagarh on November 9, 1947. On November 13, Patel visited Junagarh with a rousing reception. He addressed a huge public meeting on the grounds of Bahauddin College by assuring people that India would abide by their wishes. It was asked from the people whether they wanted to accede to India or Pakistan. Over 10,000 hands were raised in favour of accession to India. Patel then visited the famous Somnath Temple at Prabhas Patan. He was visibly moved to find the temple in a dilapidated condition, neglected and forlorn. The resurrection of the temple to its original splendor was immediately proposed. Eventually, Patel ordered movement of forces to Junagarh's three principalities. Soon columns of Indian tanks and other vehicles carrying Indian soldiers entered Junagarh led by Brigadier Gurdial Singh, commander of the Kathiawar defense force. States of Nawanagar, Bhavnagar and Porbander had agreed to the request to place their forces under the command of Gurdial Singh. All these forces were suitably deployed, their movements and maneuvers creating a steadying effect all over Kathiawar. During that night when Bhutto left for Pakistan and over the next day the state infantry, and cavalry were disarmed and the treasury and other valuables were sealed. Civil officers accompanied by detachments of police of troops went to important places in the state and took over control peacefully. On November 9, Captain Harvey Johnson and chief secretary Gheewala, a civil servant of Junagarh state, formally handed over the charge of the State to the Indian Government. Junagarh lacked the resources to resist India so it invited the government to take control of the situation. As soon as the situation normalized in Junagarh, the government decided to hold a referendum. A senior judicial officer of the ICS, CB Nagarkar, who was neither Hindu nor Muslim, had been asked to supervise it which had gone in favour of India. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 13:00 [IST] RBI vs Govt: What is Section 7 and why has it taken centrestage India oi-Deepika S New Delhi, Oct 31: India has never invoked Section 7 of the Reserve Bank of India Act of 1934 in the central bank's 83-year history. There have been reports that the government may consider invoking Section 7 of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Act allowing it to issue directions to the central bank governor on matters of public interest. The government has written to the RBI hinting it may invoke Section 7 of the Reserve Bank of India Act 1934 - a provision that has never been used since the inception of the law - to issue directions on relaxing prompt corrective action (PCA) norms, liquidity to non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), among others. So, what does Section 7 of the RBI Act say? Section 7 of the RBI Act empowers the government to issue directions to the RBI, after consultation with the Governor, on issues of public interest. Also Read | Autonomy of Reserve Bank 'essential', says finance ministry amid rift with central bank "The Central Government may from time to time give such directions to the Bank as it may, after consultation with the Governor of the Bank, consider necessary in the public interest," Section 7(1) of the RBI Act reads. The sub-section under Section 7 further reads, "Subject to any such directions, the general superintendence and direction of the affairs and business of the Bank shall be entrusted to a Central Board of Directors which may exercise all powers and do all acts and things which may be exercised or done by the Bank." Section 7(3) reads,"Save as otherwise provided in regulations made by the Central Board, the Governor and in his absence the Deputy Governor nominated by him in this behalf, shall also have powers of general superintendence and direction of the affairs and the business of the Bank, and may exercise all powers and do all acts and things which may be exercised or done by the Bank." RBI vs Govt: Arun Jaitley meets Urjit Patel as rift widens However, complete implication of the section cannot be determined because it has never been invoked in the history of independent India. Interestingly, the government did not invoke the section in the crises of 1991, 1997 and 2008. The issue of invoking Section 7 first came up during a hearing before the Allahabad high court in a case filed by the Independent Power Producers challenging the RBI's February 12 circular, which did away with all restructuring schemes for loans in default. After the counsel for RBI pointed out that legally the government could issue directions to the central bank, the court in its ruling in August said such a move could be considered. Historically, whenever governors have spoken about the independence of the central bank, they have never failed to point out that Section 7 has never been used. Why has the government invoked Section 7? The dispute between RBI and the government are at loggerheads for a few months now. It has come out in the open at a time when the economy currently the world's fastest-expanding major one -- is facing risks from elevated oil prices, a weak currency and a crisis in the shadow banking sector. Also Read | Urjit Patel may resign as Jaitley's remarks widen RBI-govt rift: Report However, the regulator stood its ground arguing that such a move would put the clock back and undo clean-up efforts. With the credit markets tightening after the IL&FS default in September, non-banking finance companies lobbied the government for more liquidity. But RBI maintained its position since the banking system did not witness any spike in borrowing costs and the market was just repricing risk in an evolving situation. Why is Section 7 seen as an extreme measure? The aggressive move could scandalise a section of academia and experts, while raising questions about the government's intentions and the impact on RBI's autonomy. Section 7 has two parts consultation and then issuing a direction to RBI for taking some action in public interest. Right now only consultations are on, which may or may not result in any direction being issued, sources said. It is being speculated that RBI Governor Urjit Patel may choose to resign if a specific direction is issued to the central bank under Section 7. Former Finance Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram warned of "more bad news" if indeed the government were to invoke Section 7 of the RBI Act. Also Read | Jaitley criticises RBI for indiscriminate lending by banks If the move was indeed true, it showed that the government was 'desperate' and was hiding facts about the economy, he said adding the previous UPA government did not invoke Section 7 prior to liberalisation of the economy in 1991, the Asian financial crisis of 1997 or the period after the recession in 2008. A speech made last week by Viral Acharya, the deputy governor of the RBI, which brought the tensions between the RBI and the government to the fore, might have been provoked by the government's invocation of Section 7. Stressing the importance of the central bank's autonomy, Acharya had sounded a warning to the government - keep your hands off the RBI. RSS meeting at Thane to discuss not only Ramjanmabhoomi but organic farming India oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla New Delhi, Oct 31: The three-day long meet of the Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal (ABKM) of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has started in Thane district near Mumbai to deliberate upon qualitative aspects of the core organizational issues like its horizontal and vertical expansion. But the meeting is also important on several counts as it is not only deliberate upon expansion but also issues like Ram Temple, Sabarimala Temple, Bangladeshi infiltrators, urban naxals, NRC, national security, development of border areas, New Education Policy, Swadeshi and some such other issues. How to take these issues to maximum number of people in the country. Office bearer and workers of around 54 affiliate organisations of the RSS are participating in this Diwali meeting of the RSS. Around 300 RSS workers are participating to get ready to take message of the organisation to people. RSS sources said that the matter of Ram Janmabhoomi is getting neglected not only by the court but also by the government so the matter will be discussed in detail. It will also be discussed that which way it should be taken to the people. But the RSS is going to take up the matter aggressively. Modi is like a scorpion sitting on Shivling, you can't remove and cannot hit with chappal: Tharoor Issues of farmers were taken up in the last meeting of ABKM which they feel is very important. The issue of threats to internal security from Rohingyas will also figure in the meeting besides promoting Indian breed of cows and organic forming will be important issue to be discussed in meeting. RSS feels Muslims themselves are responsible for their marginalisation Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh Arun Kumar said that ABPS is attended by around 1400 representatives from almost all organizations and units of the RSS and resolutions are passed in that meeting. While ABKM is comparatively smaller meeting with around 350 representatives from 11 regions (Kshetra) and 43 states (Prant) units of the RSS and organizing secretaries of seven of the prominent allied organizations. He said that contemporary issues would be discussed at the meeting but thrust remains on the core organizational issues. Rafale: Tell us details of price, cost of jets in 10 days, SC says despite Centres objection India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, Oct 31: The Supreme Court on Wednesday (October 31) asked the government to submit the pricing details of Rafale fighter jets deal with France within 10 days in a sealed envelop. The apex court also reportedly asked the Union Government to disclose information on Rafale deal which can be legitimately put in public domain. The Supreme Court has asked the centre to give it copies of the decision making process details without any strategic or secret details to the petitioners and the parties who have filed the PILs. Attorney General K K Venugopal said that most details about the Rafale jets, including its pricing would be covered under the official secrets act and it would not be possible for the government to share it with anyone. If you cannot share it in a sealed cover, then file an affidavit to that effect, the Bench said. Petitioner Bhushan sought for a court monitored probe. The court said it could wait. The Bench said no petitioner has questioned the suitability of the Rafale jets and its utility for the Indian Air Force. The only question is about the bona code in making the decision about the jets. The Centre must bring in public domain the details of the decision making process for the purchase of 38 jets from Dassault through the inter-governmental agreement between India and France. This can be done without bringing out the strategic inputs of the purchase, the bench also said. As the AG was set to raise objection, the court said that the Centre that it would like to be appraised of the details of the price and cost of the jets and the advantages of the deals which should be submitted in court in 10 days. Next date of hearing November 12. On October 10, the Supreme Court sought details on the decision making process that resulted in the award of the Rafale Deal. The court decided to seek details while hearing a fresh PIL against the Rafale deal between India and France. The petition sought information about the contract given to Reliance by Dassault. Centre submits Rafale deal details sans technical aspects to SC, next hearing fixed for Oct 29 The top court today (October 31) asked the Centre to furnish information on induction of Indian offset partner to petitioners who have filed PILs. On October 27, the Union Government submitted the details of decision making process of the Rafale fighter jets purchase deal with France to the Supreme Court. The details were given in a sealed cover as specified by the apex court. Rafale deal is a defence agreement signed between the governments of India and France for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircrafts in a fly-away condition as a part of the upgrading process of Indian Air Force equipment. The Rafale fighter is a twin-engine Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) manufactured by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation. Statue of Unity: The politics behind it and BJP's real motive India oi-Vikas SV New Delhi, Oct 31: The Congress, which otherwise leaves no stone unturned to criticise every move of the PM Modi-led BJP government, seemed rather subdued over the unveiling of Statue of Unity. Congress can neither praise Modi government for Statue of Unity nor can it criticise it as Sadar Patel was one of the tallest Congress leaders who played a key role unifying India. Politically speaking, the Modi government's move to come up with a grand statue of Sadar Vallabhbhai Patel seems like a masterstroke. The BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have time and again spoken on how the Congress did not give Sadar Patel the credit and recognition he deserved. By getting a truly grand statue of Sadar Patel constructed, the BJP has sent a clear message that 'We have recognised a national icon, which you did not'. The Congress has itself to blame for this. One cannot deny that the Congress has not been that generous in honouring the leaders outside of the Nehru Gandhi family. During the Congress regime, the birth and death anniversaries of Jawharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi used to be celebrated with great enthusiasm, but similar fervour seemed missing when to came observing occasions related to other leaders, be it Shubhash Chandra Bose, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Maulana Azad or many other such leaders. Mahatma Gandhi, though not part of the Nehru family, is revered because he is a leader of a different stature altogether. ['Statue of Unity a symbol of technical excellence', says PM Modi] There is another aspect to this. The BJP cannot openly glorify its founders and prominent Sangh leaders who laid the foundation of its ideology. Glorifying Golwalkar and and Veer Savarkar openly would be like embracing the extremist Hindutva ideolgy which forms the basis of RSS philosophy. With elections round the corner, or even otherwise, the BJP would like to be seen as a tolerant secular party which believes in all inclusiveness. For this, the BJP is now glorifying national icons who were part of the Congress but have a pan India appeal. Congress knows that the BJP is snatching its icons from the past, but cannot openly say so. [Sardar Patel statue: PM Modi unveils 'Statue of Unity' with grand tribute to 'Iron Man'] So, the moves like coming up with Statue of Unity and dedicating Swacch Bharat Abhiyan to Mahatma Gandhi is BJP's tactic to link itself to mainstream history and freedom struggle. It is a image makeover exercise as the RSS has been in past accused of not taking active part in the freedom struggle. All in all, the BJP is cashing on historical Congress icons but the grand old can do nothing but watch it as a mute spectator. The number of people who would be affected is significant. In 2014, reports the Pew Research Center, unauthorized parents accounted for some 275,000 births 7 percent of all births. If these children were denied citizenship, we would add that many new foreigners living here illegally each year. If the change were applied to children previously born to parents who were here illegally, the number would jump into the millions. Telangana elections: KCR returns in style and here is how he did it Telangana elections: Candidates are creative, but check what this voter did India oi-Vicky Nanjappa Hyderabad, Oct 31: It is often said that the elections bring out the best in politicians. The Telangana assembly election campaign has seen unique methods being adopted by the candidates, which include, shaving people, cooking dosas and giving people a bath, here are more we have list for you. However in this context it would be interesting to also add that the voter too has found unique ways of protesting over the failed promises. Take for instance what happened at the TRS rally held at Karimnagar. A worker was upset over the delay in the promised double bedroom scheme. He stood at the centre of the convention protesting in his underwear. Telangana elections: Congress to release first list amidst clauses to allies Among the candidates S Madhusudhan Chary of the TRS who is also the former speaker of the assembly has been luring the voters by entering barber shops and shaving people. He is seen at the barber shops at Bhupalpalle, where he is seeking a re-election from. He feels that this is a good way of meeting the people. Gangula Kamalakar of the TRS has been going on morning walks to lure the voters. The Congress candidates have been on a door-to-door campaign, while the BJP leaves are holding division wise meetings. Ironing clothes is another way of getting votes. TRS candidate, Srinivas Goud was seen ironing clothes and also helping a tailor stitch at Mahbubnagar. Similarly Indra Kumar Reddy seeking a re-election from the Nirmal constituency spent time ironing clothes. Telangana polls: They will bathe you and then shave you for your votes Anil Kumar Yadav the Telangana Youth Congress president decided to cook. He stopped at a roadside stall at Musheerabad in Hyderabad and prepared dosas. Now this takes the cake. Koram Kanakaiah from Yellandu decided to help people have a bath. He stopped by at the community taps and wells and poured water on people as they soaped themselves. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 15:02 [IST] TTV Dhinakaran says 18 disqualified MLAs will not challenge Madras HC verdict India oi-Madhuri Adnal Chennai, Oct 31: TTV Dhinakaran on Wednesday announced that 18 disqualified MLAs will not challenge Madras High Court verdict, instead, they will contest by-elections. The Madras High Court had upheld the Speaker's disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs loyal to TTV Dhinakaran saving the present government a possible crisis over lack of numbers in the House. Dhinakaran has said he respects the court judgement and vowed that this won't be the end to his and parties legal course. Dropping a hint that he will move the Supreme Court challenging today's judgement, he said that Supreme Court may deliver a different verdict. The three-judge bench headed by Justice M Sathyanarayanan pronounced its verdict in the disqualification of 18 AIADMK MLAs over their allegiance to rebel leader T T V Dhinakaran. The verdict now paves way for bypolls to the 18 seats. The MLAs were disqualified on September 18 last year under the anti-defection law after they met the Governor and expressed loss of confidence in Chief Minister K Palaniswami. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 11:25 [IST] Twitterati salutes woman cop who does duty with little daughter by her side India oi-Shubham Ghosh Lucknow, Oct 31: A few years ago, the story about a top woman police officer going out on night patrolling with her sleeping child made the headlines. The police officer had no other option but to take her child on duty because there was nobody at home to take care of her. Recently, another woman police personnel made the headlines for a similar reason. Archana Jayant, 30, was found working at her station in Jhansi with her six-month-old baby daughter sleeping on a desk and soon after the picture went viral, the former was transferred to her home district where her parents live so that she could put her child in safe shelters and do her duty. Colour-blind bodybuilder's childlike reaction on seeing colours for first time is priceless! Last Sunday, October 28, UP DGP Om Prakash Singh confirmed the news of Archana's transfer to Agra, The Indian Express reported. The picture of Archana with her daughter was shared earlier by Additional Superintendent of Police, UP, Rahul Srivastava. "Meet 'MotherCop' Archana posted at kotwali jhansi for whom the duties of motherhood & the department go side by side ! She deserves a Salute!!" Srivastava's tweet said. It did not take much time before the post went viral. Meet MotherCop Archana posted at kotwali jhansi for whom the duties of motherhood & the department go side by side ! She deserves a Salute !! pic.twitter.com/oWioMNAJub RAHUL SRIVASTAV (@upcoprahul) October 27, 2018 "When I saw the image and read the story, I spoke to the Inspector General (IG) Jhansi, who has rewarded the constable with Rs 1,000 in cash. I got to know that she is very hard-working. Despite the fact that she has a newborn, she did not take childcare leave. She opted to go to duty. When I spoke to her, she said the only problem she is facing is that she does not have family support," The Indian Express quoted DGP Singh as saying. How these two men treated the elderly woman has deeply touched the Internet The Twitterati was impressed with the police department's move to transfer the woman cop. Though there were also people who felt that the incident showed our system is a woman-unfriendly one and that there should be facilities available at police stations for keeping children under care. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 9:39 [IST] Weather forecast for Nov 1: Rains to continue over Tamil Nadu, Kerala for another 3-4 days India oi-Madhuri Adnal New Delhi, Oct 31: Here is the weather forecast for Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai on November 1. Bengaluru: Bangaloreans have been experiencing dry weather with no rains. According to Skymet weather, in the next 24 hours scattered light to moderate rains are likely over North Coastal Andhra Pradesh, South Interior Karnataka and Coastal Karnataka. Though, in some part of Karnataka, many stations such as Bijapur, Dharwad, Haveri are witnessing low night temperatures than Delhi. However, the maximum temperature will be recorded around 30 degree Celsius and humidity will be around 59 per cent. Delhi: Delhiites would witness warmer nights. At present, Delhi weather remains partly cloudy. Moreover, the layer of smoke/ Haze and smog is also acting as a greenhouse effect. As per Skymet weather, temperatures to fall around mid of November until then pollution levels will remain high which will not let temperatures of Delhi to drop. The maximum temperature will be recorded around 31 degree Celsius and humidity will be around 49 per cent. Chennai: With Northeast Monsoon in the door, Chennai rains have made a comeback. At present also, Chennai has been recording rains and thundershowers of varying intensity since early morning hours. More spells of rains are likely during the days over most parts of the state. As per weathermen, these rains are the precursor to the arrival of Northeast Monsoon, which is possible in the next 24-48 hours. The maximum temperature will be recorded around 29 degree Celsius and humidity will be around 80 per cent. Mumbai: The state of Maharashtra has been battling dry weather conditions due to dry northerly and north easterly winds that are blowing over the entire state. The presence of cold weather during night can be attributed to clear sky conditions and cold northerly winds over the state. The maximum temperature will be recorded around 33 degree Celsius and humidity will be around 43 per cent. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 17:52 [IST] Why Chinas decision to lift ban on trade in Rhino, Tiger products is bad news for India India oi-Deepika S Bengaluru, Oct 31: In a move that could affect India's wildlife population, China has legalised the use of rhino horn and tiger bone in medical research or traditional medicine. Wildlife activists fear that the new rules could fuel the illegal trade and further put the animals at risk of being poached. China has always been the biggest consumer of the wildlife produce, placing itself on the first spot. This comes as no surprise as traditional Chinese medicine comprise of the natural flora and fauna in its various forms. Age old practices and continued blind belief, without control and concern for the environment has stripped many regions of their bio-diverse wealth. Also Read | World's last male northern white rhino dies in Ol Pejeta Conservancy In the 1900s, only a few hundred rhinos survived in the wild and by 1972, the tiger population had dipped to a 1,827. Today, there are over 2,200 rhinos (85% of the global population) and tigers (70% of the global population) in the country. A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by Patel and team in 2015 pinpointed China as the most important country or 'node' for illegal rhino and tiger trafficking. The researchers have examined several hundred confiscated shipments from August 2010 to December 2013, including 232 shipments of elephants, 165 of rhinos and 108 of tigers. China lifts ban on trading tiger and rhino parts In China, rhino horn and tiger bone can now be legally used in either medical research or traditional medicines after the announcement by the Chinese government. Parts from those animals classified as "antiques" could be used in cultural exchanges following approval by cultural authorities, a statement adds. Earth's wildlife population 'falls by 60% in 44 years': Report "The government mandates clearly recording the current inventory of products and those in individual collections. Illegally obtained products will be confiscated, and products in individual collections are not to be traded again," the statement added. While reversing its 25-year-old ban, China said that the specimens can only be obtained from farms, conservationists argued that this would spell doom for efforts to preserve wildlife in the wild, especially in India. Tiger bone and rhino horn are used in traditional Chinese medicine, despite a lack of evidence of their effectiveness in treating illness and the effect on wild populations. Chinese demand for ivory is also blamed as a driver behind the slaughter of African elephants, despite Beijing banning all trade in ivory starting from this year. Conservationists raise alarm Wildlife conservationists worry that allowing a limited trade of rhino and tiger goods will spur overall demand for related products, while efforts to crack down on wildlife contraband will be hindered. "It is deeply concerning that China has reversed its 25 year old tiger bone and rhino horn ban, allowing a trade that will have devastating consequences globally", said Margaret Kinnaird, WWF Wildlife Practice Leader. "Trade in tiger bone and rhino horn was banned in 1993. The resumption of a legal market for these products is an enormous setback to efforts to protect tigers and rhinos in the wild. "China's experience with the domestic ivory trade has clearly shown the difficulties of trying to control parallel legal and illegal markets for ivory. Not only could this lead to the risk of legal trade providing cover to illegal trade, this policy will also stimulate demand that had otherwise declined since the ban was put in place." Both tiger bone and rhino horn were removed from the traditional Chinese medicine pharmacopeia in 1993, and the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies released a statement in 2010 urging members not to use tiger bone or any other parts from endangered species. Even if restricted to antiques and use in hospitals, this trade would increase confusion by consumers and law enforcers as to which products are and are not legal, and would likely expand the markets for other tiger and rhino products. "With wild tiger and rhino populations at such low levels and facing numerous threats, legalized trade in their parts is simply too great a gamble for China to take. This decision seems to contradict the leadership China has shown recently in tackling the illegal wildlife trade, including the closure of their domestic ivory market, a game changer for elephants warmly welcomed by the global community," Kinnaird added. India shares 4,057 km border with India and the country being an immediate neighbour will be affected. Various initiatives by state forest departments and NGOs, have resulted in drastic increase in wildlife and conversationalists fear that China's decision may affect wildlife population in India and the globe. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 5:01 [IST] China backs Irans full membership of SCO: Chinese ambassador to Tehran International oi-Shubham Ghosh Tehran, Oct 31: With the US becoming more and more hostile towards Iran, it is logical to believe that the West Asian republic will be in the lookout for more friends in the international community and the best options for it will definitely be China and Russia. And Beijing and Moscow will also expect a development on similar lines. Recently, China's Ambassador to Iran Pang Sen, while praising the relations between Beijing and Tehran, said China backs the idea of extending Iran a full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) - a security platform which features China, Russia, India, Pakistan and some of the Central Asian Republics. However, Sen also stressed the importance to improve the two countries' comprehensive strategic partnership. In an interview with Tehran Times and Mehr News Agency, Sen was asked about China's stand on Iran's permanent membership of the SCO, and he said: "In June this year President Rouhani visited China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit held in Qingdao. The meeting was a great success. We made very good progress to map the direction of the future development of the organization. President Rouhani played there an active role and made positive contribution to the success of the summit. Two presidents also held a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit. They discussed intense cooperation between 2 countries." Also Read | US controls tech exports to Chinese firm citing security grounds Sen said the relations between China and Iran are "mutually complementary" and the two countries have a great potential to work together. He said Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani issued a joint statement during the former's visit to Iran in which China made its position clear on the issue of Iran's membership of the SCO. "China would be happy to see Iran play a greater role in SCO and we support Iran to be a full member of the organization. We wish to emphasize the bilateral economic cooperation. The cooperation between two countries are in line with obligations that each of us undertake. The cooperation is transparent and legitimate," Sen was quoted as saying. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 16:00 [IST] China has never taken one inch of land from other countries: Xi tells Biden China: Railway station asks travellers not to give money to rich beggar International oi-Shubham Ghosh Beijing, Oct 31: Authorities at Hangzhou's East Railway Station in China's Zhejiang province made a unique announcement recently. They asked travellers who arrived at the station not to give money to an elderly beggar. Reason? The announcement has it that the woman beggar is actually from a wealthy family and advised people not to get persuaded by her story, according to a report in Shanghaiist. A footage about the unique announcement has gone viral on China's social media circles. China: Student finds his tuition fees waived after he saves sick man on streets Jiang Yinghao, the management ahead at the train station, said the woman, aged 79, earlier used to sell maps at the station but later switched to begging and now makes around 300 yuan (INR 3,173) a day, according to the report. He also said that the woman arrives at the station around 10 am and make the earnings till 8 pm. Jiang further said the woman lives in a five-story building which is owned by her son who also has a large business and rental properties in Hangzhou. The accusation was not baseless as it was found later. The woman's son has also admitted that his mother need not beg but he has failed to convince her, the report added. The woman says she doesn't want to remain at home all day and wanted to make enough money to hire a caretaker for herself when she gets even older. Why China's decision to lift ban on trade in Rhino, Tiger products is bad news for India Netizens on Weibo, a Chinese microblogging site equivalent to Twitter, said the railway station authorities could find a solution to the problem by giving the elderly woman a job, the Shanghaiist added. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 9:31 [IST] US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis The Pentagon chief said the US had been watching the conflict "for long enough" and said he believes Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are in a US-backed coalition fighting Shiite Houthi rebels, are ready for talks. Yemen rebel missile intercepted by Saudi Arabia Shiite Houthi rebels fought during the conflict "We have got to move toward a peace effort here, and we can't say we are going to do it sometime in the future," Mattis said at the US Institute of Peace in Washington. "We need to be doing this in the next 30 days." He said the US is calling for all warring parties to meet with United Nations special envoy Martin Griffiths in Sweden in November and "come to a solution." Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in the conflict between embattled Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, whose government is recognized by the United Nations, and the Houthis in 2015. (Image credits - PTI) UN scrambles to avert 'fierce bloody battle' for Yemen port Around 10,000 people lost their lives Nearly 10,000 people have since been killed and the country now stands at the brink of famine. The United States has faced fierce international criticism for its role in supporting the Saudi-led coalition, especially after a series of strikes killed scores of civilians. Mattis said US support is based primarily on teaching the Saudi air force to improve targeting and to not drop bombs when there is any doubt about what they might hit. "Our goal right now is to achieve a level of capability by those forces fighting against the Houthis that they are not killing innocent people," he said. "The longer term solution, and by longer term I mean 30 days from now, we want to see everybody around a peace table based on a ceasefire, based on a pull back (of Houthis) from the border and then based on a ceasing dropping of bombs that will permit the special envoy Martin Griffiths... to get them together in Sweden and end this war. That is the only way we are going to really solve this." Yemen: After failed rebel talks, clashes erupt in Sanaa United Nations Last month, UN-led peace talks failed to take off after Houthi rebels refused to fly to Geneva over what they said was the UN's failure to guarantee a safe return to the capital Sanaa, which the group has controlled since 2014. PTI More Europe trouble for Iran as Denmark accuses it of plotting sinister mission International oi-Shubham Ghosh Copenhagen, Oct 31: The government of Denmark has called back its ambassador to Iran and accused the West Asian nation of plotting an assassination mission on its soil. According to Danish officials, Copenhagen will look to impose more economic and diplomatic sanctions on Tehran, in coordination with the European Union, an intelNews.org report said. The charges against Iran, which has of late faced a high level of hostility from the US over its nuclear programme, surfaced during an emergency news conference in Copenhagen on Tuesday, October 30. The conference was led by Anders Samuelsen, Denmark's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Finn Borch Andersen, director of PET, the Danish security and intelligence service. Ferry with nearly 300 people onboard stranded in Baltic Sea As per the intelNews report, the duo said "an Iranian intelligence agency" had planned "an attack on Danish soil". While Samuelsen said it was "completely unacceptable", Anderson said a Norwegian national of Iranian background was arrested in Sweden on October 21 and was awaiting extradition to Denmark. The arrested man is an employee of Iranian intelligence, the PET director added. He was accused of carrying out surveillance against a member of an Iranian separatist group based in Denmark, Anderson added. The member belongs to the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, a separatist group which campaigns for a separate land for Iran's Arab minority. The body is known to be the militant wing of Iran's separatist Arab community (constitutes two per cent of the population) and has staged terror attacks inside Iran in the past. Iran strongly denied the Danish accusations and its foreign ministry called them "spiteful", according to the report. Iran suspects timing of accusations Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Bahram Qassemi suspected the timing of reports linking Iran to assassination operations in Europe soil and called them as "a plot by [Iran's] enemies to damage Tehran's growing relations with European countries". Denmark: 2 held for attempting procurement of drones for IS Iran has focused on improving relations with the European countries after the US and Israel have strongly targeted it. Earlier in October, France seized the financial assets of individuals who it called Iranian spies and it came in the wake of arrest of six people in France, Germany and Belgium for allegedly planning to attack the annual conference of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a militant group which Iran calls as a terror outfit, in June. Pakistan hit my mysterious viral fever: All you need to know Pakistan court releases woman from facing death row for blasphemy International oi-PTI Islamabad, Oct 31: In a landmark verdict, Pakistan's Supreme Court Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Christian woman facing execution for blasphemy. Asia Bibi was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. She always maintained her innocence, but has spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement. Pope wants Pak-Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy released Her case has been deeply divisive in Pakistan where there is strong support for the blasphemy laws. The apex court, in a three-member bench led by chief justice Saqib Nisar, issued the verdict on Wednesday morning, three weeks after they had reached a decision. The delay followed threats by blasphemy campaigners to hold protests. "Her conviction is set aside and she is to be relieved forthwith if not required in other charges," said Nisar, reading out the judgment. There was tight security in the capital, Islamabad, amid fears of violence. Bibi was accused of committing blasphemy in 2009. She was convicted in 2010 by the trial court and her death sentence was maintained by the Lahore High Court in 2014. She appealed against the conviction to the Supreme Court, which for the first time heard the case in July 2015. Pak religious parties say pardoning blasphemy accused Christian woman 'unIslamic' Bibi's case gained prominence when when former governor of Pakistan's Punjab province Salman Taseer was killed in 2011 for supporting her and criticising the blasphemy laws. The blasphemy laws were promulgated by former military dictator Ziaul Haq in 1980s. A person convicted under these laws is given death sentence. Critics say strict blasphemy laws have often been used to get revenge after personal disputes, and that convictions are based on thin evidence. Dozens of people have been charged under the laws. Though, Bibi is being released but there are fears that she might be at risk of being attacked by militants. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 14:10 [IST] Were reminded of former Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Brim, charged in March 2012 with misdemeanor battery on a sheriffs deputy after a disturbing courtroom rant about race, justice and kahoonas. She was acquitted by reason of insanity. Shed been suspended with pay for more than two years by the time the courts commission removed her from the bench in 2014. Amit Shah to visit Varanasi twice this month: Poll strategy likely on anvil Uttar Pradesh: 2 killed in shootout in Varanasi Varanasi oi-Chennabasaveshwar P Varanasi, Oct 31: Two people died after unidentified armed men opened fire at a garment shop in JHV Mall under Cantt police station limits on Wednesday. "2 people have died in the incident, we are examining the CCTV footage and a thorough investigation will be done," Police was quoted by news agency ANI as saying. Varanasi: Unidentified armed men opened fire at a garment shop in JHV Mall under Cantt police station limits today. Police says, "2 people have died in the incident, we are examining the CCTV footage and a thorough investigation will be done." pic.twitter.com/r9Cc02EuKK ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) October 31, 2018 Two injured in the shootout are admitted to hospital. In the old days, pastors often were required to live in parsonages near their churches, and Congress elected to exclude the value of their lodging from income taxes as it had done with seamen living on ships and other workers obliged to reside in employer-provided quarters. When more clergy came to live in private homes, as most now do, the exclusion was applied to the housing allowances they get. To the editor: There are thousands of men, women and children walking toward the United States seeking political asylum and safety. President Donald Trump has ordered troops to the U.S. border with Mexico to stop them. Wouldn't it be better if 3,000 U.S. families or church congregations stepped up and offered to sponsor these families? Providing food and shelter for people who are fleeing for their lives seems so much more American so much more Christian than calling out the troops. It's called compassion and love; it's not an invasion. Cesar Sayoc Jr., the Florida man alleged to have sent 13 packages containing pipe bombs to prominent Democrats and CNN, used social media platforms to peddle his views; Robert Bowers, accused of massacring 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday, posted shortly before the shooting spree on Gab, a platform that describes itself as a "free speech" network but also is known to be a haven for racist and anti-Semitic commentary. While political content draw readers in, the websites seem to have commercial motives, using politics as a vehicle to sell products and weave profiles of readers. Nearly all ask readers to sign up for daily newsletters. Within the cluster of websites, the most popular is Patriotic Viral News, which gets upward of 375,000 views a day. A typical recent headline on the site says, "NY Driver Shouts 'Allah' While Beating Innocent Jewish Old Man." Another says, "Apple Assigning Users 'Trust Scores' Just Like China Does to its Citizens." Readers shared such posts on Facebook, Twitter and via email. "You're now seeing more and more websites stood up that could be leveraging partisanship ... to make money," said Chris Olson, chief executive of The Media Trust, a McLean, Va., company that helps publishers verify and monitor traffic on their websites. Ben Nimmo, an information defense fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Laboratory of the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, said influencing websites are also trying to make money. "A lot of the 'fake news' that we saw in 2016 was not intended to influence the election. It was intended to make money off the election. So even if it is political content, it might be there for commercial purposes," Nimmo said. The cluster of websites once hosted in Florida have common design elements, and 16 share a common mailing address on Dr. Phillips Blvd in Orlando. The address is for the Grand Oaks Mail Center, a commercial mail drop. An employee there declined to provide further information. The cluster of 25 websites shared the same Internet Protocol address essentially a number operated by Hivelocity, a hosting company based in Tampa. Some of the websites appear dormant, such as Liberal Lie Detector. Others draw significant daily traffic, including Conservative Zone, American Liberty Report, Liberty Planet, National Gun Network and Liberty Video News. One of the dormant sites, Front Page Patriot, says it is copyrighted by LOP Solutions LLC, a Reno, Nev., company. A daily newsletter from another site, Christian Patriot Daily, also says it is a division of LOP Solutions. Nevada corporate records say LOP Solutions sells health and medical products and organizes "work-at-home companies." The records give an address in Windermere and say the manager is Mark Edward Baker. The company appears to be an offshoot of League of Power, which describes itself as "a secret society" focused on "entrepreneurship, investing, and wealth preservation." A telephone number on the website was for a South Florida location, and a woman who answered identified herself as a call center employee and would not provide information. Multiple emails over a month-long period to LOP Solutions and to several of the websites drew no response. Phone calls to the cellular number listed for Baker were not immediately returned. Whether Baker is the driving force behind the websites is not clear. Veteran digital forensic experts consulted by McClatchy, using costly proprietary tools, found that the 25 websites hopped repeatedly between hosting companies, including GoDaddy, Hivelocity, Sucuri and others, but were clearly linked. "It's not an easy thing to determine who is behind a website," said Ben April, director of research at Farsight Security, a San Mateo, Calif., company with tools that specialize in tracing the history and connections of websites or domains on the internet. In late 2017, a variant of one of the websites, US Politics and News, turned up on the hosting service BlueAngelHost in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was listed as uspoliticsandnews.com.com, and several experts said the domain could have been hijacked by internet criminals. The lack of transparency about who runs such websites is important given the history of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. Special Counsel Robert Mueller this year has brought indictments against more than two dozen Russians on a variety of charges related to internet influence campaigns. The FBI's Tampa field office spokeswoman, Andrea Aprea, declined to say if the 25 websites hosted on the Hivelocity server were on their radar. Bret Schafer, a digital propaganda expert at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan group seeking to counter efforts by Russia to undermine democracy in the United States and Europe, said he didn't see evidence that the sites were a foreign operation. "I don't see anything here that suggests a foreign hand, so my guess is that this would fall more in the realm of a domestic influence campaign rather than a foreign one," Schafer said. "That said, efforts to cover foreign fingerprints have gotten more sophisticated over the past year, so it's possible that they've just done a really good job of hiding any foreign ties." (c)2018 McClatchy Washington Bureau Visit the McClatchy Washington Bureau at www.mcclatchydc.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. PHOTOS 25 helpful tips to become a more efficient packer After years of overpacking and stuffing things in your bag at the very last minute, its time to do things differently. 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Im not sure I will ever walk into my synagogue again without thinking of those who died because, just like me, they wanted to commune with God. And, I might always have a fear that what happened in Pittsburgh could happen at my temple or at any temple or church I attend. But I will say one thing. I will never, ever let one mans despicable hate keep me from going to a synagogue and maintaining a life that includes religion, because believing in God and having faith are ironically the things that give meaning to life and love. PlayOJO Casino Review The world of online casino always moves forward and develops, trying to offer more reasons for players to choose one casino over everybody else in the market. PlayOJO Casino is a brand new operator that decided to shake the foundations of online gambling, by offering an entirely different gaming experience. 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Two women, ages 24 and 43, allege they met Daigre through online dating sites and had consensual sexual encounters with him in early 2016 that he secretly filmed with a camera near the ceiling of his South Loop studio apartment, according to prosecutors. Daigre then allegedly sent sexually explicit still images of the women via text message to another person without the womens consent, prosecutors allege. The last two years have been so difficult. Theres been a license for people who dont even act like people to express this kind of hatred toward different groups, Havighorst said. This was just really more than I can bear. I feel the need to do something. Im not Jewish. But I want my Jewish loved ones to know that were all in this together. Shepherd said he and friend Dan Bovino were going through boxes of papers, menus, matchbooks and other artifacts in Johndrones print shop to see what could be salvaged before disposal. They were on their way out through a garage when they noticed a large piece of metal leaning against a wall. Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: Andrew Left, the founder of Citron Research is starting a new hedge fund, according to a Reuters report. Left was most recently in the news for changing his short position on Tesla after having a single meeting with a Tesla bull. The controversial move could be a taste of what is in store for investors in Citron Capital. Left has been investing his personal wealth for the past 20 years and is reportedly targeting other high net worth individuals and family offices. According to Reuters, Left wants to create a fund in order to put him in a weightier position when he makes high convinctio...................... To view our full article Click here Opalesque Industry Update - Campbell Lutyens, one of the leading global private capital advisors, is pleased to announce that Michele Kinner has joined as a US Advisory Director. Ms. Kinner has over 30 years of experience in private equity and banking. Most recently, she was a Partner at Quilvest Private Equity, where she was responsible for the firm's private equity investments in the US. She is now a Senior Advisor at the firm. Prior to joining Quilvest in 2005, Ms. Kinner managed private fund investments for Royal Bank of Canada. Previously, she was with JPMorgan Chase and its predecessors for over 22 years, where she led the firm's legacy Chase Capital Partners private equity business, managing over US$1 billion. In these roles, Ms. Kinner managed investments in over 400 prominent US and global fund managers. Ms. Kinner holds an MBA from the Whittemore School at the University of New Hampshire and an A.B. in Economics and Psychology from Smith College. "We are delighted to welcome Michele as an Advisory Director in the US," said Gordon Bajnai, Chairman of the Global Advisory Board. "Her understanding of the private equity landscape, having built the private equity fund of funds practice at JPMorgan Chase and established Quilvest's presence in the US, will be valuable to Campbell Lutyens and our clients." Since 2017, Campbell Lutyens' US team has doubled in size to over 35 people and advised on $18 billion in fund placement and secondary transactions for leading US private equity, infrastructure and private debt managers, including Webster Capital, Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners and John Hancock. Timucuan Parks Foundation Presents Awards to Supporters of Preservation Parks Timucuan Parks Foundation Award Recipients Jacksonville, Fla., Oct. 25, 2018 Timucuan Parks Foundation joined the City of Jacksonville for the 26th Annual Environmental Awards Ceremony. During the ceremony held at University of North Floridas Adam W. Herbert University Center, TPF presented three awards to two individuals and one company who greatly contributed to our local preservation parks throughout the year.The 2018 Willie Browne Stewardship Award was presented to Brian Burket with the City of Jacksonvilles Parks, Recreation and Community Services Division. The 2018 Kathryn Abbey Hanna Award of Merit was presented to Florida Times-Union Columnist Mark Woods and the 2018 Volunteer of the Year Award was presented to JEA.I am honored to present these awards to these champions of our preservation parks, said Mark Middlebrook, executive director of TPF. Our success in supporting our first-class network of parks and preserves depends greatly on our park partners, volunteers and the community.Burket is the first recipient of the foundations newly renamed Willie Browne Stewardship Award. Burket serves as the waterfront projects manager for Jacksonville and has worked to integrate the citys parks, preserves and waterways into the fabric of the community. He believes developing high quality outdoor recreation experiences will create new stewards for public lands and waterways so they are protected for future generations to enjoy.The Citys parks department today, from top to bottom, is the best Ive seen in the 35 years Ive lived in Jacksonville, said Middlebrook. Brian is emblematic of the professionalism and dedication I see every day.The Kathryn Abbey Hanna Award of Merit was given for the first time to Woods for his work featuring National Parks and for his passion for the outdoors and local preservation parks. Since joining the Florida Times-Union in 2003, Woods has written numerous columns about the natural environments across the region and the country. Woods received the Eugene C. Pulliam Fellowship in 2011 and spent a year examining the future of National Parks, which resulted in his 2016 book, Lassoing the Sun A Year in Americas National Parks.Mark has become a respected voice in the national debate on the future of our National Parks. His concerns about the need to maintain, protect and expand our National Parks are the same issues that confront Jacksonvilles preserves and conservation areas, said Middlebrook.TPF chose JEA for the Volunteer of the Year Award for their extraordinary contribution to the beautification and maintenance of the Timucuan parks and preserves. Last summer, JEA volunteers, including their summer co-op interns, volunteered more than 150 hours at the national, state, and city preservation parks throughout Jacksonville on projects ranging from shoreline cleanup to trail maintenance to invasive plant removals.JEA employees have become essential elements of our successful park system and we appreciate JEA affording the opportunity to their employees to give back and engage with the community, said Felicia Boyd, TPF program and outreach director. JEAs community engagement team are always professional, enthusiastic, and hard-working and we have enjoyed working with them. Our parks cannot survive without our volunteers.TPF, along with its other non-profit partners, organizes thousands of hours of volunteer efforts every year to help local parks and preserves keep a high standard for visitors.TPF added the Volunteer of the Year Award and the Kathryn Abbey Hanna Award of Merit this year. Hanna Park, Jacksonvilles signature oceanfront park, is also named in her honor. Hanna was a distinguished professor, historian and conservationist who wrote several books about Florida. She also served as chair of Floridas Board of Parks and Historical Places and chaired Florida State Universitys Department of History for 15 years.Timucuan Parks Foundation renamed the stewardship award this year for Willie Browne. Brownes father gave him 600 acres of hardwoods and wetlands in the center of Ft. Caroline at the age of 16 on the condition he maintain it in its natural state. The gift to Browne at such a young age instilled the responsibility and value of wildlife conservation, says the National Park Service, which now owns and manages Brownes property known as the Theodore Roosevelt Area.About Timucuan Parks FoundationThe Timucuan Parks Foundation is a federally-recognized 501(c) (3) that preserves, promotes and protects Jacksonvilles vast network of preservation parks. The foundation dates back to 1999, when the Preservation Project Jacksonville, Inc. was established to identify and assist in acquiring the most vulnerable and environmentally sensitive lands in Duval County. The acquisition of lands created the largest urban park system in the United States, including more than 130 square miles of park space and preserves, more than 1,100 miles of river and tributary shoreline and Atlantic Ocean beachfront, and more than 100 miles of upland trails. The Timucuan Parks Foundation works with their park partners, including the National Park Service, Florida State Parks and the City of Jacksonville, to promote environmental stewardship, the health benefits of the parks and preserves for all citizens, and an appreciation for Jacksonvilles special outdoor spaces. For more information, visit timucuanparks.org.Timucuan Parks Foundation9953 Heckscher DriveJacksonville, FL 32226Media Contact: Kelly WhiteKelly@kwhitecommunications.com Unilever, General Mills Profiled in Non-Dairy Ice Cream Market Forecast 2018-2024 Chief Players - Danone, Swedish, Trader Joe's Non-Dairy Ice Cream Market https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/1786 https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/non-dairy-ice-cream-market https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/1786 https://www.gminsights.com http://algosonline.com/news Non-Dairy Ice Cream Market is estimated to surpass USD 1 billion by 2024; according to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc. Shifting consumer preference towards innovative products and flavors due to changing social trends will drive the non-dairy ice cream market size. Technological advancements in machineries and product innovations using avocado and hemp milk will augment the product adoption. Increasing raw material availability along with convenient production process are among major factors supporting the industry growth.Request Sample Copy of this Report @Company Profiles1. Unilever2. General Mills3. Danone4. Booja-Booja5. Tofutti Brands Inc.6. Happy Cow Ltd.7. Bliss Unlimited8. Eden Creamery LLC.9. Over The Moon10. Swedish11. Dream12. NadaMoo13. Van Leeuwen14. Trader Joe'sGrowing vegan population along with inclination towards healthy lifestyles are among key factors propelling the non-dairy ice cream market growth. Increasing consumer spending on desserts, confectionery and other functional food items will support the industry demand. Rising awareness regarding lactose intolerance will further fuel the business development.Rising penetration of renowned brands in non-dairy ice cream segment to gain competitive advantage will propel the industry demand. Innovative fruit-based flavor offerings through new product launches to improve consumer base are among key trends among manufacturers. Expanding distribution networks coupled with attractive packaging will boost the product penetration during the forecast timeframe. However, changing raw material costs along with relatively high product prices may hinder the industry growth.Coconut milk accounted for over 30% of the global non-dairy ice cream market share in 2017. Significant health benefits, ease in production along with texture compatibility are among key factors driving the product demand. Rising count of brands offering coconut-based products has enhanced the industry demand. However, almond milk is expected to witness higher CAGR owing to changing taste preferences and increasing number of product launches.Browse key industry insights spread across 300 pages with 373 market data tables & 13 figures & charts from the report, Non-Dairy Ice Cream Market Size By Source (Coconut Milk, Almond Milk, Cashew Milk, Soy Milk), By Flavor (Vanilla, Chocolate, Butter Pecan, Strawberry, Neapolitan, Cookies & Cream, Mint Choco Chip, Caramel), By Product (Impulse, Artisanal, Take Home), By Form (Singles, Blends), By Distribution Channel (Supermarkets, Convenience Stores, Food & Drink Specialists, Restaurants, Online Stores) Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia, Spain, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, UAE, Saudi Arabia), Growth Potential, Price Trend, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2018 2024 in detail along with the table of contents:Artisanal products are expected to witness significant growth rate during the forecast timeframe. Growing disposable incomes coupled with increasing number of artisanal franchisees particularly in emerging economies is fueling the segment growth. Whereas take home segment dominates the non-dairy ice cream market due to shifting preference for off-premise consumption. High product availability through supermarkets particularly in developed regions along with penetration of online stores will support the industry growth.Chocolate flavor is projected to witness CAGR at over 14.5% from 2018 to 2024. Extensive product offerings with multiple chocolate flavor variants including dark chocolate and chocolate chips is proliferating the non-dairy ice cream market. However, flavor portfolio largely varies on country level, due to changing taste preferences. For instance, lemon-based flavors are highly prevalent in specific European countries.Supermarkets will register sales at over USD 400 million by 2024. Changing shopping trends along with inclination towards one stop shopping has stimulated the supermarket counts globally. Rising demand for take home products is significant factor supporting the segment share. Multiple brand availability along with competitive costs are among key factors positively influencing the industry demand.Blended flavors are anticipated to register over 20 million liters demand by 2024. Flavor innovations along with rising consumer spending on premium flavors majorly in North America and Europe will supplement the business revenue. Increasing consumer preference for mint choco chip, cookies & cream, neapolitan, and mocha chocolate has stimulated the non-dairy ice cream demand.Global non-dairy ice cream market share is highly fragmented with presence of both regional and global companies. Notable players include General Mills, Unilever, Talenti, Booja Booja, Danone, Tofutti Brands, Bliss Unlimited LLC, Swedish Glace, and NadaMoo. Merger & acquisitions along with product innovations are among key strategies adopted by manufacturers. For instance, in April 2017, Danone completed acquisition of WhiteWave Foods, an American packaged food manufacturer to expand its industry share.Europe non-dairy ice cream market is expected to witness CAGR at over 14% from 2018 to 2024. Higher vegan products demand owing to rising health consciousness and growing vegan population are primary factors driving the regional industry growth. Large number of products launches among European as well as global brands mainly including Ben & Jerrys, Swedish Glace, and Booja Booja will support the industry demand.Inquiry before buying @About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:Explore Our Blog @ Europe Marine Coating Market Outlook, Forecast & Major Industry Participants includes Jotun, BASF, ICI Paints, PPG Industries, Kuraray Europe GmbH, Sherwin Williams and Sika. Europe Marine Coatings Market https://www.graphicalresearch.com/request/1037/sample https://www.graphicalresearch.com/industry-insights/1037/europe-marine-coatings-market https://www.graphicalresearch.com/request/1037/inquiry-before-buying https://www.graphicalresearch.com/industry-insights/1036/asia-pacific-marine-coatings-market https://www.graphicalresearch.com/industry-insights/1106/middle-east-and-africa-marine-coatings-market https://www.graphicalresearch.com/ According to the Graphical Research new growth forecast report titled Europe Marine Coatings Market analysis based on Product, Application, Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook, Application Development Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2018 2025, estimated to exceed USD 2 billionby 2025.Sturdy demand for marine coating products to increase the vessels life by preventing it from bio fouling and corrosion will propel the Europe marine coating market size by 2025. For instance, many manufacturers in countries such as the UK, Belgium, Spain etc. are producing new coatings with foul-release technology that is useful in substantial fuel savings, especially for large cargo ships. Companies are developing eco-friendly coatings such as metal-free anti-fouling agents to help sustain the aquatic life and control the oceanic pollution, which would positively drive the Europe marine coating market size by 2025.Request for a sample of this research report -Strict government policies against the use of toxic coatings and volatile product prices may become an obstacle in the growth of the Europe marine coating market size in the near future. However, increasing awareness for the use of eco-friendly coatings would profoundly augment the Europe marine coating market size in the forecast period.Anti-fouling coatings accounted for more than 40% of the overall market size in 2017. It is applied to the underwater area of the vessel for better performance and durability. It acts as a barrier for the metal from marine organisms that degrade and weaken it. The coating helps in self-polishing the hull when the vessel travels. The self-polishing property of the coating would boost the product demand directly boosting the Europe marine coating market size by 2025.Europe marine coating market size for leisure boats is projected to rise at a CAGR of more than 5.5% by 2025. Leisure boats demand is likely grow due to the growing disposable income of the population in Western Europe. These boats require a significant amount of maintenance which would improve the product demand in the region propelling the Europe marine coating market size in the near future.Browse key industry insights from this 2018 report Europe Marine Coating Market in detail along with the table of contents at:Europe marine coating market size is likely to grow at a CAGR over 5% in the forecast timespan. Shipping is one of the most important mode of transport in the region. Approximately 90% of all goods come through various vessels such as food, cars, clothes, oil, gas, electrical appliances etc. It is one of the main industry to contribute in the EUs overall GDP. Therefore, marine coating product possesses a significant amount of demand in the region which would augment the Europe marine coating market by 2025.Europe marine coating market share is exceedingly consolidated, with prominent players accounting for over half of the total business size in 2017. The major players include Jotun Paints (Europe) Ltd, Akzo Nobel Coatings, SigmaKalon Group BV, BASF Coatings, ICI Paints, PPG Europe, Kuraray Europe GmbH, Sherwin Williams, Supreme Paints and Coatings and Sika.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @Segments We Cover:Europe marine coating market, product by applicationAnti-fouling coatingsAnti-corrosion coatingsFoul release coatingsOthersEurope marine coating market, by applicationCoastalContainersDeep seaLeisure boatsOffshore vesselsOthersThe above information is provided on a regional and country basis for the following:GermanyUKFranceSpainItalyBelgiumGreeceDenmarkNetherlandsCroatiaRelated Reports:1. Asia Pacific Marine Coatings Market Share By Product (Anti-Corrosion, Anti-Fouling, Foul Release), By Application (Deep Sea, Leisure Boats, Offshore Vessels, Coastal, Containers), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (China, India, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia), Application Development Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2018 20252. Middle East & Africa Marine Coatings Market Size by Product, Application, Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook, Growth Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2018 2024About Graphical Research:Graphical Research is a business research firm that provides industry insights, market forecast and strategic inputs through granular research reports and advisory services. We publish targeted research reports with an aim to address varied customer needs, from market penetration and entry strategies to portfolio management and strategic outlook. We understand that business requirements are unique: our syndicate reports are designed to ensure relevance for industry participants across the value chain. We also provide custom reports that are tailored to the exact needs of the customer, with dedicated analyst support across the purchase lifecycle.Contact Us:Parikhit B.Corporate sales,Graphical ResearchEmail: sales@graphicalresearh.comWeb: North America Augmented Reality Market Trends 2018 | Key Industry Players are Facebook, HTC, Intel Corporation, AccuVein Inc., Affectiva, Google and Microsoft Corporation. North America (AR) Augmented Reality Market https://www.graphicalresearch.com/request/1004/sample https://www.graphicalresearch.com/industry-insights/1004/north-america-AR-augmented-reality-market https://www.graphicalresearch.com/request/1004/inquiry-before-buying https://www.graphicalresearch.com/industry-insights/1002/europe-AR-augmented-reality-market https://www.graphicalresearch.com/industry-insights/1000/asia-pacific-augmented-reality-market https://www.graphicalresearch.com/ The research report North America (AR) Augmented Reality Market analysis based on Component, Application, Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook, Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2017 2024 by Graphical Research. says, North America Augmented Reality Market size is set to surpass USD 19 billion by 2024.Request for a sample of this research report -Emerging applications of AR devices in the retail sector are growing at a rapid pace in North America AR market. The applications of this technology in the sector are attracting the customers and providing them with information about the products & services of the company. Several retail companies have installed these devices in their stores, providing visual merchandising of these products. For instance, Charlotte Tilbury has installed magic mirror AR technology. It has partnered with Holition, a software provider to install such mirrors.Head-Mounted Displays (HMD) are experiencing a high growth in the North America AR market. The growing demand for this technology in the defense sector is encouraging the manufacturers in the region to provide HMDs, which will serve the purpose of simulation-based training. This technology can be used to provide training to the soldiers to survive critical conditions in different situations, places, and environments, and to develop their skills and provide them real-life experiences of war conditions. In 2019, the U.S. Army is planning to test the AR system HUD 3.0, which will provide the information about the location of enemies and their units. They are developing a system, which will be helmet-mounted to project all the information at the sight of the soldier.Browse key industry insights from this 2018 report North America Augmented Reality Market in detail along with the table of contents at:The applications of the technology in the healthcare sector are providing advanced techniques to analyze and test the disease of a patient. These devices are used for describing the symptoms by the patients, finding the veins & organs, and providing them proper medications depending on the type of the disease that has affected them. Several major players in the North America AR market are offering technologies, which will support the healthcare applications. For instance, Medsights Tech is working on creating a software, which will test the feasibility of the AR technology in creating 3D reconstruction images of tumors.The key players operating in the North America AR market include Facebook, HTC, Intel, AccuVein, Inc., Affectiva, Inc., APX Labs, Google, Inc., and Microsoft Corporation. These players in the North America AR market are targeting the healthcare sector wherein a high demand for these devices can be witnessed for the treatment of several diseases. In February 2018, Intel Corporation developed AR smart glasses, which project the information directly to the retina of the observer.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @Segments We Cover:North America Augmented Reality Market Statistics, By ComponentHardwareSoftwareNorth America Augmented Reality Market Trends, By ApplicationMedicalAutomotiveAerospace & defenseGamingRetailIndustrialThe above information is provided for the following countries:U.S.CanadaRelated Reports:1. Europe (AR) Augmented Reality Market Size By Component (Hardware [Smart Glasses, Head-Mounted Display (HMD), Head-Up Display (HUD)], Software), By Application (Medical, Automotive, Aerospace & Defense, Gaming, Retail, Industrial), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia), Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2017 20242. Asia Pacific (AR) Augmented Reality Market Size By Component (Hardware [Smart Glasses, Head-Mounted Display (HMD), Head-Up Display (HUD)], Software), By Application (Medical, Automotive, Aerospace & Defense, Gaming, Retail, Industrial), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (China, Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan), Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2017 2024About Graphical Research:Graphical Research is a business research firm that provides industry insights, market forecast and strategic inputs through granular research reports and advisory services. We publish targeted research reports with an aim to address varied customer needs, from market penetration and entry strategies to portfolio management and strategic outlook. We understand that business requirements are unique: our syndicate reports are designed to ensure relevance for industry participants across the value chain. We also provide custom reports that are tailored to the exact needs of the customer, with dedicated analyst support across the purchase lifecycle.Contact Us:Parikhit B.Corporate sales,Graphical ResearchEmail: sales@graphicalresearh.comWeb: Low Noise Amplifier Market Estimation with Key Players like Analog Devices, Qorvo, Panasonic during the Forecast Period 2018-2025. Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/requested_sample/13450 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/enquiry_before_buying/13450 https://www.upmarketresearch.com/buy/low-noise-amplifier-market https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/request_for_discount/13450 www.upmarketresearch.com Low Noise Amplifier Industry research report delivers a close watch on leading competitors with strategic analysis, micro and macro market trend and scenarios, pricing analysis and a holistic overview of the market situations in the forecast period.Get FREE Sample Report Before Buying @UpMarketResearch offers a latest published report on Global Low Noise Amplifier Market Analysis and Forecast 2018-2023 delivering key insights and providing a competitive advantage to clients through a detailed report. The report contains 104 pages which highly exhibit on current market analysis scenario, upcoming as well as future opportunities, revenue growth, pricing and profitability.Low Noise Amplifier Industry research report delivers a close watch on leading competitors with strategic analysis, micro and macro market trend and scenarios, pricing analysis and a holistic overview of the market situations in the forecast period. It is a professional and a detailed report focusing on primary and secondary drivers, market share, leading segments and geographical analysis. Further, key players, major collaborations, merger & acquisitions along with trending innovation and business policies are reviewed in the report. The report contains basic, secondary and advanced information pertaining to the Low Noise Amplifier Industry global status and trend, market size, share, growth, trends analysis, segment and forecasts from 2018 2023.The scope of the report extends from market scenarios to comparative pricing between major players, cost and profit of the specified market regions. The numerical data is backed up by statistical tools such as SWOT analysis, BCG matrix, SCOT analysis, PESTLE analysis and so on. The statistics are represented in graphical format for a clear understanding on facts and figures.For More Information, Please VisitThe generated report is firmly based on primary research, interviews with top executives, news sources and information insiders. Secondary research techniques are implemented for better understanding and clarity for data analysis.The report for Low Noise Amplifier market analysis & forecast 2018-2023 is segmented into Product Segment, Application Segment & Major players.Region-wise Analysis Global Low Noise Amplifier Market covers: North America Europe China Japan India Southeast Asia Other regions (Central & South America, Middle East & Africa)The Major players reported in the market include: NXP Semiconductors Analog Devices Infineon Technologies Qorvo Skyworks Solutions On Semiconductor Panasonic Texas Instruments Teledyne Microwave SolutionsGlobal Low Noise Amplifier Market: Product Segment Analysis: 60 GHzBuy Low Noise Amplifier Market analysis & forecast 2018-2023 Report along with complete TOC @Global Low Noise Amplifier Market: Application Segment Analysis: Consumer Telecom Military Industrial Automotive and MedicalThe Report covers in-depth analysis as follows: Chapter 1 Industry Overview of Low Noise Amplifier Chapter 2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Low Noise Amplifier Chapter 3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Low Noise Amplifier Chapter 4 Global Low Noise Amplifier Overall Market Overview Chapter 5 Low Noise Amplifier Regional Market Analysis Chapter 6 Global 2013-2018E Low Noise Amplifier Segment Market Analysis (by Type) Chapter 7 Global 2013-2018E Low Noise Amplifier Segment Market Analysis (by Application) Chapter 8 Major Manufacturers Analysis of Low Noise Amplifier Chapter 9 Development Trend of Analysis of Low Noise Amplifier Market Chapter 10 Low Noise Amplifier Marketing Type Analysis Chapter 11 Consumers Analysis of Low Noise Amplifier Chapter 12 Conclusion of the Global Low Noise Amplifier Market Professional Survey Report 2017Guaranteed Discount On This Report@Low Noise Amplifier Market Analysis and Forecast 2018-2023 report helps the clients to take business decisions and to understand strategies of major players in the industry. The report also calls for market-driven results deriving feasibility studies for client needs. UpMarketResearch ensures qualified and verifiable aspects of market data operating in the real-time scenario. The analytical studies are conducted ensuring client needs with a thorough understanding of market capacities in the real-time scenario.Key Reasons to Purchase: To gain insightful analyses of the market and have a comprehensive understanding of the Global Low Noise Amplifier Industry and its commercial landscape. Learn about the market strategies that are being adopted by your competitors and leading organizations. To understand the future outlook and prospects for Low Noise Amplifier market analysis and forecast 2018-2023.Customization of the Report:UpMarketResearch provides free customization of reports as per your need. This report can be personalized to meet your requirements. Get in touch with our sales team, who will guarantee you to get a report that suits your necessities.About UpMarketResearch:The UpMarketResearch () is a leading distributor of market research report with more than 800+ global clients. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Contact Info:Name: Alex MathewsEmail: Alex@upmarketresearch.comOrganization: UpMarketResearchAddress: 500, East E Street, Ontario, CA 91764, United States. Food Coating Ingredients Market by Types, Applications, Size, Share, Development, Growth, Demand, Key Players- Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM), Cargill Inc., E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Ashland Inc https://www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/food-coating-ingredients-market/report-sample https://www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/food-coating-ingredients-market https://www.psmarketresearch.com/send-enquiry?enquiry-url=food-coating-ingredients-market https://www.psmarketresearch.com The global food coating ingredients market is expected to increase from $2,645.6 million in 2014, and reach $3,698.6 million in 2020 with a CAGR of 5.8%. The up surging bakery and confectionery industries, increasing demand for convenience foods, growing consumer demand for food protection agents are some of the factors, driving the growth of the global food coating ingredients market.Request to Get the Sample Report@The Asia-Pacific food coating ingredients market is expected to witness fastest growth, with a CAGR of 8.7% during 2015 2020. The higher economic growth and busy lifestyles are also driving the growth of the frozen food market, and consequently driving the upsurge in the_ food coating ingredients market within the region. Due to the increasing health awareness, the demand for foods with organic ingredients has been propelling, which is providing growth opportunities for the global food coating ingredients market.Explore Full Report Description At@The growing demand for bakery products and up surging domestic bakery production in North America is intensifying the growth of the food coating ingredients market in the region. Western Europe is the largest food coating market in European region, as of 2015. The main reason for the growth of the food coating ingredients market in Western Europe is the existence of large number of end-user industries in the bakery and confectionery segment.Make Enquiry Before Buying the Report@The major companies operating in the global food coating ingredients market include Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM), Cargill Inc., E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Ashland Inc., Ingredion Incorporated, Agrana Beteiligungs AG, Kerry Group, Dohler GmbH, PGP International Inc., and Balchem Corporation.About P&S IntelligenceP&S Intelligence, a brand of P&S Market Research, is a provider of market research and consulting services catering to the market information needs of burgeoning industries across the world. Providing the plinth of market intelligence, P&S as an enterprising research and consulting company, believes in providing thorough landscape analyses on the ever-changing market scenario, to empower companies to make informed decisions and base their business strategies with astuteness.Contact:P&S IntelligenceToll-free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)International: +1-347-960-6455Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb: Handheld VOC Gas Detector Global Industry Report - History, Present and Future 2018 https://www.research2reports.com/sample-report-machinery-equipment/handheld-voc-gas-detector-market/70829 https://www.research2reports.com/report-machinery-equipment/handheld-voc-gas-detector-market/70829 https://www.research2reports.com/enquiry-before-buy-machinery-equipment/handheld-voc-gas-detector-market/70829 GET SAMPLE REPORT @The global market size of Handheld VOC Gas Detector is $XX million in 2017 with XX CAGR from 2013 to 2017, and it is expected to reach $XX million by the end of 2023 with a CAGR of XX% from 2018 to 2023.There are 3 key segments covered in this report: geography segment, end use/application segment and competitor segment.For geography segment, regional supply, application-wise and type-wise demand, major players, price is presented from 2013 to 2023. This report coverss following regions:*North America*South America*Asia & Pacific*Europe*MEA (Middle East and Africa)The key countries in each region are taken into consideration as well, such as United States, China, Japan, India, Korea, ASEAN, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, CIS, and Brazil etc.For end use/application segment, this report focuses on the status and outlook for key applications. End users also can be listed.For competitor segment, the report includes global key players of Handheld VOC Gas Detector as well as some small players. The compnaies include:REA Systems, Ion Science, Thermo Fisher, Skyeaglee, Omega, E Instruments et al.The information for each competitor includes:*Company Profile*Main Business Information*SWOT Analysis*Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin*Market ShareACCESS REPORTTable of ContentsChapter 1 Executive SummaryChapter 2 Abbreviation and AcronymsChapter 3 Preface3.1 Research Scope3.2 Research Methodology3.2.1 Data Collection3.2.2 Data Analysis3.2.3 Data Validation3.3 Research Sources3.3.1 Primary Sources3.3.2 Secondary Sources3.3.3 AssumptionsChapter 4 Market Landscape4.1 Market Overview4.2 Classification/Types4.3 Application/End Users. CONTINUEDList of Tables and FiguresTable Abbreviation and Acronyms ListTable Research Scope of Handheld VOC Gas Detector ReportTable Primary Sources of Handheld VOC Gas Detector ReportTable Secondary Sources of Handheld VOC Gas Detector ReportTable Major Assumptions of Handheld VOC Gas Detector ReportFigure Handheld VOC Gas Detector PictureTable Handheld VOC Gas Detector ClassificationTable Handheld VOC Gas Detector Applications ListTable Drivers of Handheld VOC Gas Detector MarketTable Restraints of Handheld VOC Gas Detector MarketTable Opportunities of Handheld VOC Gas Detector MarketTable Threats of Handheld VOC Gas Detector MarketTable Key Raw Material of Handheld VOC Gas Detector and Its SuppliersTable Key Technologies of Handheld VOC Gas DetectorTable Cost Structure of Handheld VOC Gas DetectorTable Market Channel of Handheld VOC Gas Detector. CONTINUEDFOR ANY QUERY, REACHContact Us:Office No. 212/213, B Block 2nd Floor,Parmar Chambers,Sadhu Vaswani Road, Pune 411001Phone Number: 020 - 2612 6969Email: info@research2reports.comResearch 2 Reports offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.Office No. 212/213, B Block 2nd Floor,Parmar Chambers,Sadhu Vaswani Road, Pune 411001 Let's make the difference - Hans Ohrstrom of Hans Ohrstrom Team donates Turkey to families in NEED! HANS OHRSTROM - Homelife's #1 NEWMARKET REAL ESTATE TEAM IS HANS OHRSTROM! http://www.hansohrstrom.com The Hans Ohrstrom Real Estate Team is proud to say that they were able to donate 1000 lbs to Turkey to families in need this year along with whole Hans Ohrstrom Team.In Support of Families In Need & The Food Pantry The Hans Ohrstrom Real Estate Team was able to raise over 1000 lbs of turkey that was delivered to 100's of families during the Thanksgiving Holidays. Thank You to all our team members and clients for your amazing support, reviews to this amazing cause :)) - Hans Ohrstrom reviews this cause personally.It is time to not only think about what we are thankful for, but also how we can improve the lives of others. You can donate food, money, grocery store cards, or even volunteer to help to be part of this kind of cause. Giving back to the needy community is one of the many things Hans Ohrstrom strives to do and this is just one program that helps achieve the goal!Hans Ohrstrom is no #1 realtor in GTA, York region, Newmarket Real Estate professional who strives to ensure a positive experience for his customers by providing each client with the very best service possible by real estate agent. Hans Ohrstroms love for working with home buyer & home sellers is evident in everything Hans Ohrstrom does in real estate industry.Hans Ohrstrom is having vast skills for intermediate negotiation processes. Hans Ohrstrom consults clients on regular basis regarding current market conditions, property prices, mortgages, legal document requirements and any such matters, ensuring a fair and honest dealing between property seller & buyer. Hans Ohrstrom develop networks and co-operate with attorneys, mortgage lenders and contractors during the deal process.Hans Ohrstrom is having great ability to work comfortably with customer from all walks of life. Hans Ohrstrom reviews and take a personal interest in you as a client, he listens very carefully to your requirement and answer your queries candidly. Mostly clients appreciate this kind of attitude and sincere dedication to their needs and continue to call on Hans Ohrstrom & team for their advice even after the sale is closed and provide recommendation to other who are looking for Hans Ohrstrom reviews.The Hans Ohrstrom team has accomplished what many teams cannot claim, 1000+ Sold Homes! Hans Ohrstrom's signs, reviews and presence continues to grow in York Region with the addition of these signs, bringing his portfolio to an impressive 44 signs with COA across the region. COA is thrilled to be a trusted marketing partner with Hans Ohrstrom team for his OOH advertising needs.Hans Ohrstrom13025 Yonge St, Richmond Hill, ON L4E 1A5, Canadasold@hansohrstrom.com905-773-7771 Bag-In-Tube is helping wine businesses achieve brand differentiation in Western Europe https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3075 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-3075 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/3075 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/mobile-phone-accessories-packaging-market https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/paper-bags-market www.futuremarketinsights.com Bag-in-Tube Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012 2016) and Opportunity Assessment (2017 2027), is the new report of Future Market Insights for the projected period of 10-years i.e. between 2017 and 2027. Global bag-in-tube market is expected to witness robust growth during the forecast period. This growth is expected to be primarily driven by extending the shelf-life and increasing use of bag in tubes in wine business. According to this report the global bag-in-tube market is estimated to be valued at US$ 3,842.9 Thousand by 2017 end, and is forecast to be valued at US$ 19,254.5 Thousand by 2027 end. Sales revenue is expected to increase at a robust CAGR of 17.5% during the forecast period. There is an increased opportunity of the development of the global bag-in-tube packaging market due to significant growth in Australia, New Zealand, and China wine market.Request to Sample of Report @Global Bag-in-Tube Market: OpportunitiesDemand for low-cost efficient packaging for high-end wine, vegetable oil and fruit juices in APEJ, Latin America & MEA. Growing domestic wine production, consumption & exports especially by Romania, Slovakia & Poland to pose a great opportunity for Eastern Europe bag-in-tube market. Chile, Argentina, Brazil markets are the focus target markets in the Latina America region.Australia, New Zealand, and China to steer the APEJ bag-in-tube markets growth due to their growing wine market. Demand for appealing and decorative wine packaging in Japan.Global Bag-in-Tube Market: Forecast by End UseThe end use consists of wine, spirit, olive oil, fruit Juices and others (Dry fruits, Cashew Nuts, etc.). Among the end-use segments, the wine segment is estimated to be dominant in the global bag-in-tube market with a revenue share of 66.4% by 2017 end. Wine segment is expected to grow its market share by 370 BPS over forecasting period. The trend of replacing other wine packaging formats like bottles and bag-in-box is driving the growth. The growing penetration of bag-in-tube in new end use applications such as detergents, other high end vegetable oils, motor oil is apparent. The bag-in-tube others segment is expected to increase its market share during projected period.Global Bag-in-Tube Market: Forecast by CapacityThis segment includes less than 1000 ml, 1000 to 2000 ml, 2001 to 3000 ml and more than 3000 ml. 1000 to 2000 ml segment to witness lucrative growth and gain of market share of rewarding 350 BPS over forecasting period. 2001 to 3000 ml segment to be the most attractive format by bag-in-tube capacity. Although, it is losing out some market share to other capacity formats, the segment is growing at a healthy CAGR.Global Bag-in-Tube Market: Forecast by Material TypeEVOH barrier + PE and metallized PET film are two segments which are included in material type segment. Metallized PET bag-in-tube segment is expected to represent 62.3% of the overall global bag-in-tube market by 2027. EVOH + PE bag-in-tube segment is expected to gain market share by 430 BPS over forecasting period. EVOH + PE bag-in-tube bags are clear (transparent) and thinner compared to metallized PET bag-in-tube bags. Due to this the EVOH barrier + PE bag-in-tube is expected to grow its market share in overall global bag-in-tube market.Request to Report Methodology @Global Bag-in-Tube Market: Forecast by RegionAs many as seven regions have covered in this report such as North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America, APAC, Japan and MEA. North America bag-in-tube market is expected to gain 310 BPS during the forecast period. The penetration of bag-in-tubes in high-end premium products such as wine, spirits, whiskey and fruit juices is continuously rising.Global Bag-in-Tube Market: Key PlayersThe two top players operating in the global bag-in-tube market are Smurfit Kappa Group Plc and Industry-Bag.Get full report now @More from Packaging Market Intelligence:Mobile Phone Accessories Packaging Market Segmentation by Application - Headsets, Chargers; by Packaging Type Folding cartons, Clear view boxes, Blister packs:Paper Bags Market Segmentation By Product Type - Sewn Open Mouth, Pinched Bottom Open Mouth, Pasted Valve, Pasted Open Mouth; By Material Type - Brown Kraft, White Kraft:About UsFuture Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centres in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customised and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.Contact UsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: Heterogeneous Network (Het Net) Market Growth Factors Analysis By Airhop Communications, Nokia, Samsung, Texas Instruments and Forecast Up To 2023 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/4643 https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/press-release/heterogeneous-network-market https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/heterogeneous-network-market-4643 Global Heterogeneous Network will grow up to USD 34 Bn. by 2023, registering a striking CAGR of 15 % throughout the forecast period (2017 2023). The Global Heterogeneous Network Market has been segmented into deployment, components, technology, end user and region. The global heterogeneous network market is expected to grow significantly during the forecasted period and the factors that drive the market growth is the increased usage of mobile phones for mobile data communication. The factors that drive the growth of heterogeneous network market is the increased number of mobile broadband data subscribers and limited resourcesGet Sample of Report @Global Heterogeneous Network Market, By Deployment (Cells in Hotspot, Macro Pico, Macro Femto, Macro & Small Cell), By Component (Macro Base Station, Small Cells, Distributed Antenna System, Wi-Fi Access Point) By Technology (enhanced Intercell Interface Coordination (eICIC), LTE WAN, C - RAN) By End - Users (Telecommunication, Commercial, Residential, Transportation, Government).Key PlayersAirhop Communications Inc (U.S.), Nokia Networks (Finland), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd (South Korea), Texas Instruments Inc (U.S.), NEC Corporation (Japan), Ruckus Wireless, Inc (U.S.), IP access Limited (U.K.), Ceragon Networks Ltd (Israel), TE Connectivity (Switzerland), CommScope Inc (U.S.)Market Scenario:A heterogeneous network is termed as a network of computer and other devices connected with each other, across different operating systems and protocols. The mobile data operators cope with the challenge of limited resources by increasing the capacity of radio spectrum, adding different multi-level antenna techniques and implementing more efficient coding techniques.The Global Heterogeneous Network Market has been segmented into deployment, components, technology, end user and region. The global heterogeneous network market is expected to grow significantly during the forecasted period and the factors that drive the market growth is the increased usage of mobile phones for mobile data communicationThe proliferation of cloud-based services is driving the market growth, witnessing huge uptake by the growing number of enterprises. Also the huge penetration of smart mobile devices and connecting workforce solutions are the major factors that propel the global Heterogeneous Network market. Augmented uptake of BYOD policy in organizations, along with the rising demand for high-speed data services, is further fuelling the market growth.HetNet are proving helpful to mobile operators, enabling novel network deployment models and thus provide a high quality experience for customers. The adoption of small cells carrier and Wi-Fi in the telecom industry is growing phenomenally. Telecom sector attributes to the major driving force to the market growth of HetNets, with the increasing mobile data traffic, cost reduction through mobile data offload and an insufficient spectrum. It is also useful in accommodating the growing requirement for spectral efficiency and hot-spot distribution.On the other hand, the interference issues are anticipated to cause hurdles in the market growth during the review period. Nevertheless, the market will witness a huge increase in the investments for infrastructure as Mobile Data Traffic Grows, which will provide impetus to the market growth.Market Segmentation:The Heterogeneous Network Market can be segmented into five key dynamics for the convenience of the report and enhanced understanding;By Deployments: Cells in Hotspot, Macro Pico, Macro Femto and Macro & Small Cell.By Components: Macro Base Station, Small Cells, Distributed Antenna System, Wi-Fi Access Point.By Technologies: Enhanced Intercell Interface Coordination (eICIC), LTE WAN, and Cloud RAN (C RAN).By Industry Vertical: Telecommunication, Commercial, Residential, Transportation, Government, Others.By Regions: North America, Europe, APAC and Rest-of-the-World.Browse Report PR @Regional AnalysisThe market for global heterogeneous network is segmented under North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific and rest of the world. Out of these regions, the North America is showcasing the highest market share in the year 2016. This is majorly due the early adoption of technologies in the countries like U.S. and Canada. Also, due to advancements in the mobile communication technology accounting the growth of the cloud services as the storage. The major challenges that companies face, is in the allocation of spectrum reuse for traffic offloading. As the growth of 4G and 5G technologies increasing rapidly in countries like U.S and Canada, the need for the market of heterogeneous network that is capable of connecting to different operating systems over different networks, has also increased.Asia Pacific follows the market leader due to the increased usage of mobile communications and internet penetration from mobile devices for data downloading such as audio and video files which is in turn increasing the mobile broadband traffic. Also countries in Asia Pacific region, such as India and China are emerging economically as the technological advancements take a fast pace. The countries have seen growth in digitization and overall mobile network infrastructure with the introduction of the 4G and related technologies. These countries will witness a significant growth in the forecasted period as the number of mobile phone users are increasing rapidly. However, apart from North America and Asia Pacific, Europe is expected to grow at a steady pace because of more mature market.Competitive Analysis:The market is fiercely competitive and fragmented. Several big and small organizations and the new entrants adorn the competitive landscape. Through constant innovation, these leaders seek the market expansion increasingly.Increasing investments in research and development and various strategic mergers and acquisitions remain the key strategies of these players. Major players are investing in internal R&D and, most of all, in acquiring other firms. Prominent vendors of HetNet try to invest more in the research and development of technologies and thus, try to create a revenue pocket for themselves.The rising government funding motivates the key companies to develop new technology that matches the changing trends and needs across enterprises. These players possess state of the art R&D labs and strong sales and distribution network that has helped them to gain the leadership position in the market. An ever-increasing emphasis on branding-oriented efforts has been observed among the vendors.Industry/Innovation/ Related News:June 25, 2018 M1 Limited (Singapore), a mobile carrier (telecom handling) company announced its partnership with Nokia for conducting a test 5G small cells by Dec.2018. The trial is to take place through M1's 4.5G NB-IoT (narrowband Internet of Things) heterogeneous network, using Nokia's Flexi Zone Wi-Fi equipment and small cells.June 28, 2018 EverestIMS Technologies Pvt Ltd. (India), a software Product Company launched its new version of its flagship product - Everest IMS 5.0. The update not only invalidates the effort of managing numerous devices and critical IT components in a heterogeneous network but also using a unified dashboard, minimizes network downtime.TABLE OF CONTENTS1 Market Introduction1.1 Introduction1.2 Scope Of Study1.2.1 Research Objective1.2.2 Assumptions1.2.3 Limitations1.3 Market StructureContinuedBrowse Full Report Details @LIST OF TABLESTable 1 Heterogeneous Network Market, By DeploymentTable 2 Heterogeneous Network Market, By ComponentsTable 3 Heterogeneous Network Market, By TechnologyContinuedLIST OF FIGURESFigure 1 Research DeploymentFigure 2 Heterogeneous Network Market, By Deployment (%)Figure 3 Heterogeneous Network Market, By Components (%)ContinuedAbout Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Market Research Future+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com bioMerieux, Alere Inc. Profiled in Fertility Testing Devices Market|Key Players: Quidel, Fertility Focus, Kalila Medical (Abbott Laboratories), Hilin Life Products Fertility Testing Devices Market https://www.gminsights.com/request-toc/upcoming/1985 https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/1985 The Fertility Testing Devices Market size is projected to witness significant growth from 2017 to 2024. Rising awareness about fertility testing devices coupled with product advancement such as, high accuracy, ease at usage in ovulation monitors, sensors, and apps are factors driving the fertility testing devices market over the forecast timeframe. The growing sterility cases owing to lifestyle changes that results into concern and awareness related to fertility testing fuels the industry growth. In addition, the increasing number of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) occurrences along with constant declining fertility rates in both women and men boosts the demand.Get Table of Content of this Report @Company profiled in this report based on Business overview, Financial data, Product landscape, Strategic outlook & SWOT analysis: bioMerieux Alere Inc. Quidel Fertility Focus Kalila Medical (Abbott Laboratories) Hilin Life Products TaiDoc Technology CorpAs per, CDC, in 2016, approximately 6.9 million women aged between 15-44 have used infertility testing services in the U.S., that accounts for around 11.3% and 1.0 million infertile women adopted the products thereby, having considerable upsurge in the industry growth. The increasing demand for monitoring of sperm quality, body temperature, tracking heart rate as well as environmental functions and air quality are aspects trending in the business. Moreover, introduction of numerous advanced techniques such as, sonohysterogram, hysteroscopy, and hysterosalpingogram is propelling adoption of rapid testing kits and devices.Furthermore, the increasing number of various promotional activities that are undertaken by different companies for increasing awareness of advanced products in testing will stimulate the demand and thereby, increase adoption of the fertility testing devices market over the coming years. Factors restraining the fertility testing devices market include easy availability of the generic tools for diagnosis of blood and saliva testing, and excessive cost of ovulating monitors.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @U.S. accounted for largest revenue share of 2016 attributed to the increasing prevalence of the PCOS, growing first-time pregnancy age, and declining fertility rates that demands for high adoption of the fertility testing devices market products. Additionally, the associated benefits of the devices provided through the fertility awareness methods (FAM), and ovulation monitors boost the industry progress. India and China will witness lucrative business growth opportunities owing to the increasing funding in the development of ovulation and fertility monitors, intensifying focus of domestic as well as international companies for business expansion. Moreover, decrease in fertility rates and lifestyle disorders are the factors propelling the demand.Global Market Insights Inc. is a global market research and management consulting company catering to leading corporations, non-profit organizations, universities and government institutions. Our main goal is to assist and partner organizations to make lasting strategic improvements and realize growth targets. Our industry research reports are designed to provide granular quantitative information, combined with key industry insights, aimed at assisting sustainable organizational development.Global Market Insights, Inc.4 North Main StreetSelbyville, Delaware 19975 USAPhone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email:sales@gminsights.com Global Extruded Graphite Market Status, Demand, Key Trends, Industry Analysis & Growth Opportunity 2018-2023|Key manufacturers- SGL Group, Tokai Carbon, Mersen, GrafTech, Nippon, Carbon, IBIDEN, Morgan, Graphite India Ltd MRH https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1926321 https://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/global-extruded-graphite-market-insights-forecast-to-2025-report.html https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1926321 http://www.marketresearchhub.com/ https://www.industrynewsanalysis.com/ The global market status for Extruded Graphite Market is precisely examined through a smart research report added to the broad database managed by Market Research Hub (MRH). This study is titled Global Extruded Graphite Market Status, Demand, Key Trends, Industry Analysis & Growth Opportunity 2018-2023, which tends to deliver in-depth knowledge associated to the Extruded Graphite Market for the present and forecasted period until 2025. Furthermore, the report examines the target market based on market size, revenue and geography; making it quite useful for the readers.Get Report Sample : -This report researches the worldwide Extruded Graphite market size (value, capacity, production and consumption) in key regions like United States, Europe, China, Japan and other regions.This study categorizes the global Extruded Graphite breakdown data by manufacturers, region, type and application, also analyzes the market status, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, risks and entry barriers, sales channels, distributors and Porter's Five Forces Analysis.Extruded graphite is graphite that produced by extrusion technology during the molding process. In graphite industry, extruded graphite specifically refers to product under the special graphite category.Extruded graphite usually possesses better heat resistance quality and less bulk density compared with other types of special graphite. Extruded graphite is mainly used to produce less exposed graphite products, such as heating bodies, components for industrial equipment and vacuum furnaces for heat treatment of metals, PVD and CVD coating equipment and other structural elements for specialized technologies.For industry structure analysis, the extruded graphite industry concentration is relatively high. The top six producers account for around 50% of the market. Regionally, EU is the biggest production region of extruded graphite, also the whole industry. USA and China also produce large amount of extruded graphite per year.For price trend analysis, a key variable in the performance of extruded graphite producers is raw material costs, specifically the speed at which any increase can be passed through to customers. The price of the major raw material petroleum coke and needle cokes varies according to the crude oil price. Also, competition landscape of product is relevant to the price trend. This year, as the downturn of global crude oil industry and increasing fierce competition, the extruded graphite price would keep decreasing for at least the following 1 year.Global Extruded Graphite market size will increase to 160 Million US$ by 2025, from 120 Million US$ in 2017, at a CAGR of 3.8% during the forecast period. In this study, 2017 has been considered as the base year and 2018 to 2025 as the forecast period to estimate the market size for Extruded Graphite.This report focuses on the top manufacturers' Extruded Graphite capacity, production, value, price and market share of Extruded Graphite in global market.The following manufacturers are covered in this report:SGL GroupTokai CarbonMersenGrafTechNippon CarbonIBIDENMorganGraphite India LtdSEC CarbonSchunkToyo TansoDaTong XinChengFangda CarbonWeihou CarbonWeiji CarbonExtruded Graphite Breakdown Data by TypePitch Impregnated TypeUn-impregnated TypeRound TypeSquare TypeExtruded Graphite Breakdown Data by ApplicationHeat Treating FieldFoundry & HY Metallurgy FieldChemical Processing FieldOthersExtruded Graphite Production Breakdown Data by RegionUnited StatesEuropeChinaJapanOther RegionsExtruded Graphite Consumption Breakdown Data by RegionNorth AmericaUnited StatesCanadaMexicoAsia-PacificChinaIndiaJapanSouth KoreaAustraliaIndonesiaMalaysiaPhilippinesThailandVietnamEuropeGermanyFranceUKItalyRussiaRest of EuropeCentral & South AmericaBrazilRest of South AmericaMiddle East & AfricaGCC CountriesTurkeyEgyptSouth AfricaRest of Middle East & AfricaThe study objectives are:To analyze and research the global Extruded Graphite capacity, production, value, consumption, status and forecast;To focus on the key Extruded Graphite manufacturers and study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in next few years.To focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis.To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market.To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.Get Full Report with TOC : -Table of ContentsGlobal Extruded Graphite Market Research Report 2018-2025, by Manufacturers, Regions, Types and Applications1 Study Coverage1.1 Extruded Graphite Product1.2 Key Market Segments in This Study1.3 Key Manufacturers Covered1.4 Market by Type1.4.1 Global Extruded Graphite Market Size Growth Rate by Type1.4.2 Pitch Impregnated Type1.4.3 Un-impregnated Type1.4.4 Round Type1.4.5 Square Type1.5 Market by Application1.5.1 Global Extruded Graphite Market Size Growth Rate by Application1.5.2 Heat Treating Field1.5.3 Foundry & HY Metallurgy Field1.5.4 Chemical Processing Field1.5.5 Others1.6 Study Objectives1.7 Years Considered2 Executive Summary2.1 Global Extruded Graphite Production2.1.1 Global Extruded Graphite Revenue 2013-20252.1.2 Global Extruded Graphite Production 2013-20252.1.3 Global Extruded Graphite Capacity 2013-20252.1.4 Global Extruded Graphite Marketing Pricing and Trends2.2 Extruded Graphite Growth Rate (CAGR) 2018-20252.3 Analysis of Competitive Landscape2.3.1 Manufacturers Market Concentration Ratio (CR5 and HHI)2.3.2 Key Extruded Graphite Manufacturers2.4 Market Drivers, Trends and Issues2.5 Macroscopic Indicator2.5.1 GDP for Major Regions2.5.2 Price of Raw Materials in Dollars: Evolution3 Market Size by Manufacturers3.1 Extruded Graphite Production by Manufacturers3.1.1 Extruded Graphite Production by Manufacturers3.1.2 Extruded Graphite Production Market Share by Manufacturers3.2 Extruded Graphite Revenue by Manufacturers3.2.1 Extruded Graphite Revenue by Manufacturers (2013-2018)3.2.2 Extruded Graphite Revenue Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)3.3 Extruded Graphite Price by Manufacturers3.4 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion Plans4 Extruded Graphite Production by Regions4.1 Global Extruded Graphite Production by Regions4.1.1 Global Extruded Graphite Production Market Share by Regions4.1.2 Global Extruded Graphite Revenue Market Share by Regions4.2 United States4.2.1 United States Extruded Graphite Production4.2.2 United States Extruded Graphite Revenue4.2.3 Key Players in United States4.2.4 United States Extruded Graphite Import & Export4.3 Europe4.3.1 Europe Extruded Graphite Production4.3.2 Europe Extruded Graphite Revenue4.3.3 Key Players in Europe4.3.4 Europe Extruded Graphite Import & Export4.4 China4.4.1 China Extruded Graphite Production4.4.2 China Extruded Graphite Revenue4.4.3 Key Players in China4.4.4 China Extruded Graphite Import & Export4.5 JapanFor further Info. @@Get Enquire this Report : -About Market Research HubMarket Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports of different sector like Chemicals market research and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of industry reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.Contact Us90 State Street, Albany,NY 12207,United StatesUS-Canada:- 800-998-4852 (Toll Free number)Email:- press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:-Read Industry News at:- United States: Country Intelligence Market Comprehensive Study by Leading Players: Tracfone, Cox, Dish US, DIRECTV US United States Country Intelligence Market https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/1390808-united-states-29 https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/1390808-united-states-29 https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=1390808 https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1390808-united-states-29 https://www.linkedin.com/company/13388569/ https://www.facebook.com/htfmarketintelligence/ https://twitter.com/htfmarketreport https://plus.google.com/u/0/+NidhiBhawsar-SEO_Expert?rel=author HTF Market Intelligence released a new research report of 43 pages on title 'United States: Country Intelligence Report' with detailed analysis, forecast and strategies. The study covers important players such as AT&T, Comcast, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, Tracfone, Cox, Dish US, DIRECTV US, Charter, CenturyLink, Time Warner etc.Request a sample report @Summary"United States: Country Intelligence Report", a new Country Intelligence Report by HTF MI, provides an executive-level overview of the telecommunications market in the United States today, with detailed forecasts of key indicators up to 2023. Published annually, the report provides detailed analysis of the near-term opportunities, competitive dynamics and evolution of demand by service type and technology/platform across the fixed telephony, broadband, mobile and pay-TV segments, as well as a review of key regulatory trends.Companies Mentioned in the Report: AT&T, Comcast, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, Tracfone, Cox, Dish US, DIRECTV US, Charter, CenturyLink, Time WarnerThe telecoms and pay-TV services market in the United States is the largest in North America in terms of revenue. Between 2018 and 2023, HTF MI expects the United Statess total market revenue will grow at a CAGR of 1.2%, mainly driven by mobile data and fixed broadband services. Mobile data revenue will increase at a CAGR of 10.2% led by a steady rise in Internet based subscriptions, especially over smartphones and tablet devices, increasing adoption of 4G services with higher ARPU, and growing M2M connections. Fixed broadband revenues will increase at a CAGR 3.6% over thesame period, mainly supported by the increasing adoption of multiplay bundles with fixed broadband connectivity, and fiber based services with higher ARPU.The Country Intelligence Report provides in-depth analysis of the following -- Demographic and macroeconomic context in the United States.- The regulatory environment and trends: a review of the regulatory setting and agenda for the next 18-24 months as well as relevant developments pertaining to spectrum licensing, national broadband plans, tariff regulation. and more.- Telecom and pay-TV services market outlook: analysis as well as historical figures and forecasts of service revenue from the fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice, mobile data, and pay-TV markets.- The competitive landscape: an examination of the positioning of leading players in the telecom and pay-TV services market as well as subscription market shares across segments.- Company snapshots: analysis of the financial position of leading service providers in the telecommunications and pay-TV markets.- Underlying assumptions behind our published base-case forecasts, as well as potential market developments that would alter, either positively or negatively, our base-case outlook.Get Customization in the Report, Enquire Now @Scope- Overall telecom and pay-TV service revenue in the United States will grow at a CAGR of 1.2% between 2018 and 2023.- HTF MI estimates that the United States will represent 92.2% of the total mobile subscriptions registered in the North American region at year-end. Mobile subscription penetration of population in the country will reach 135.7% in 2018, 3.5 p.p. above the regional average- 4G will account for 80.2% of the total mobile subscriptions in the US as of 2018, supported by government initiatives and operators efforts to expand LTE connectivity to rural areas.- Pay-TV revenue will drop at a CAGR of 0.5%, over the period 2018-2023, as a result of cord-cutting trends.Reasons to buy- This Country Intelligence Report offers a thorough, forward-looking analysis of the United Statess telecommunications markets, service providers and key opportunities in a concise format to help executives build proactive and profitable growth strategies.- Accompanying HTF MIs Forecast products, the report examines the assumptions and drivers behind ongoing and upcoming trends in the United States mobile communications, fixed telephony and broadband markets, including the evolution of service provider market shares.- With more than 20 charts and tables, the report is designed for an executive-level audience, boasting presentation quality.- The report provides an easily digestible market assessment for decision-makers built around in-depth information gathered from local market players, which enables executives to quickly get up to speed with the current and emerging trends in the United Statess telecommunications markets.- The broad perspective of the report coupled with comprehensive, actionable detail will help operators, equipment vendors and other telecom industry players succeed in the challenging telecommunications market in the United States.Buy this report @Table of ContentsTable of contents 3Market highlights 4Demographic, macroeconomic, and regulatory context 5Demographic and....ContinuedView Detailed Table of Content @Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.About Author:HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact US :Craig Francis (PR & Marketing Manager)HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA 08837Phone: +1 (206) 317 1218sales@htfmarketreport.comConnect with us at Global and United States Xtrinsic Digital Pressure Sensors Market Research by Company, Type & Application 2013-2025 https://www.marketdensity.com/contact?ref=Sample&report_id=181528 https://www.marketdensity.com/global-and-united-states-xtrinsic-digital-pressure-sensors-market-research-by-company-type-application-2013-2025.html https://www.marketdensity.com Market Segment as follows:By TypeRelative Digital Pressure SensorsAbsolut Digital Pressure SensorsDifferential Digital Pressure SensorsBy ApplicationAutomotiveMedicalConsumer ElectronicsOthersBy CompanyNXPOmronInfineonSensorsONEKeyenceTE ConnectivityHoneywellSTMicroelectronicsPanasonicBosch SensortecAlps ElectricSMC CorporationFirst SensorGE Measurement & ControlFuji ElectricIFM ElectronicPewatronThe main contents of the report including:Section 1:Product definition, type and application, global and United States market overview;Section 2:Global and United States Market competition by company;Section 3:Global and United States sales revenue, volume and price by type;Section 4:Global and United States sales revenue, volume and price by application;Section 5:United States export and import;Section 6:Company information, business overview, sales data and product specifications;Section 7:Industry chain and raw materials;Section 8:SWOT and Porter's Five Forces;Section 9:Conclusion.Get sample copy of report:Table of Contents1 Market Overview2 Global and Regional Market by Company3 Global and Regional Market by Type4 Global and Regional Market by Application5 Regional Trade6 Key Manufacturers7 Industry Upstream8 Market Environment9 ConclusionBy this report online:About Market Density:Market Density is your one stop market research and industry analysis reports' library providing business data and intelligence information on thousands of micro markets with global as well as regional coverage.Market Density offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.Market Density understands how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available.Contact Us:Email: Support@marketdensity.comWebsite:Phone: +1 669 264 16564340 Stevens Creek Blvd,Suite # 172,San Jose, CA 95129 Dental Implants Market Growth Analysis Focusing On Top Key Players - Glidewell Laboratories, Osstem Implant, BioHorizons, ADIN Dental Implants Systems, Henry Schein, Biotech Dental https://www.marketstudyreport.com/request-a-sample/1230572/ https://www.marketstudyreport.com/check-for-discount/1230572/ https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/dental-implants-market https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/global-baby-oral-hygiene-market-2018-by-manufacturers-regions-type-and-application-forecast-to-2023/?utm_source=RR-openpr&utm_medium=DC https://www.marketstudyreport.com The 2018-2024 report on Global Dental Implants market explores the essential factors of Dental Implants industry covering current scenario, market demand information, coverage of active companies and segmentation forecasts.U.S. dental implants market valued USD 1,159.1 million in 2017 and is forecasted to grow at a high rate over the projected period. Dental implants are being widely accepted and adopted across U.S. geriatric population. Growing dental patient pool in America is undergoing implant dentistry and similar trend is projected to continue throughout forecast period. Moreover, availability of technologically advanced products resulting into high success rate of procedures will increase industry growth in near future.Request a sample of this premium report at:Rising number of people with missing tooth will lead to high adoption of dental implants over the forecast period. Increasing dental problems such as either single, multiple or complete loss of teeth as a result of smoking, high sugar intake or old age should augment demand for dental implants in near future. For instance, based on a survey by American College of Prosthodontists, about 178 million U.S. population are missing single tooth whereas 40 million of them are completely edentulous. Hence, rising edentulous population coupled with increasing risk factors will assist market growth during upcoming years.Few of the prominent market players involved in global dental implants market are Dentsply Sirona, Danaher Corporation, Institut Straumann AG, Zimmer-Biomet, Glidewell Laboratories, Osstem Implant, BioHorizons, ADIN Dental Implants Systems, Henry Schein, Biotech Dental, A.B. Dental Devices Ltd., Avinent Implant Systems, CAMLOG Biotechnologies AG, Bicon LLC and Cortex Dental Implants Industries Ltd. Major industry players are focusing on strategic collaborations and partnerships to improve market position. For instance, in January 2015, Henry Schein Dental and A-Dec signed a partnership agreement to expand distribution of A-Dec?s dental products. This strategy will strengthen the firm?s distribution channel, thus increasing customer base.Expanding geriatric population base that is highly vulnerable to suffer from tooth loss will spur the demand for dental implants. Growing age increases the risk of losing teeth due to poor & weak oral health. Moreover, poor eating habits contribute to rise in risk factors for missing tooth. Hence, rapid rise in number of baby boomers should foster market growth over the projected period.Advancement in implant dentistry technology will favor business growth owing to high efficacy and precision of implant treatment. For instance, CAD/CAM technologies offer improved imaging of patients? oral cavity that assists in accurate placement of the dental implant will result into high success and accuracy rate, thereby significantly increasing adoption of dental implants.Tapered dental implants market accounted for USD 2,895.5 million in 2017 and is estimated to grow at a remarkable rate over the forecast period. Growth is attributable to benefits such as laser-lok surface technology and primary stability. Tapered implants possess anatomically tapered implant body. Moreover, high wear-out rate of dentures and bridgework will result in more preference for tapered implants.Request a discount on standard prices of this premium report at:Dental clinics business segment accounted for 60.8% segmental share in 2017 due to increased number of clinics in developing countries in recent years. Extensive outreach and treatment of vast range of dental disorders cater to large number of patient population. In addition, growing burden of oral disorders coupled with favorable reimbursement policies in some countries will stimulate segmental growth during the forecast timeframe.Germany dental implants market held for 18.4% revenue share in 2017 and will show robust market growth throughout forecast period. High quality implants are available at affordable rates in Germany. Dental tourism and availability of dental experts in the country will drive increase in the market of Germany dental implants. Furthermore, presence of established market players across the nation should favor industry growth in upcoming years.Complete report for 2018-2024 on Dental Implants market is now available atRelated Report:Global Baby Oral Hygiene Market 2018 by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2023Global Baby Oral Hygiene 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.About Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Contact Us:Market Study Report4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email:sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite: Quantum Dots Display (QLED) 2018 Global Market Key Players LG, Sharp, CSOT, AUO, BOE Analysis and Forecast to 2025 Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Market https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/2813808-global-quantum-dots-display-qled-market-research-report-2018 https://www.wiseguyreports.com/reports/2813808-global-quantum-dots-display-qled-market-research-report-2018 www.wiseguyreports.com WiseGuyRerports.com Presents Global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Market Research Report 2018 New Document to its Studies DatabaseThis report studies the global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) market status and forecast, categorizes the global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) market size (value & volume) by manufacturers, type, application, and region. This report focuses on the top manufacturers in North America, Europe, Japan, China, and other regions (India, Southeast Asia).The major manufacturers covered in this reportLGSharpCSOTAUOBOERequest For Sample Report @Geographically, this report studies the top producers and consumers, focuses on product capacity, production, value, consumption, market share and growth opportunity in these key regions, coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoQLEDQDEFOn the basis of the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate for each application, includingTVMonitorSmartphoneOthersThe study objectives of this report are:To analyze and study the global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) capacity, production, value, consumption, status (2013-2017) and forecast (2018-2025);Focuses on the key Quantum Dots Display (QLED) manufacturers, to study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in future.Focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis.To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the marketTo analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the marketTo strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.Complete Report Details @Table Of Contents:1 Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Quantum Dots Display (QLED)1.2 Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2013-2025)1.2.2 Global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20171.2.3 QLED1.2.3 QDEF1.3 Global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Segment by Application1.3.1 Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2013-2025)1.3.2 TV1.3.3 Monitor1.3.4 Smartphone1.3.5 Others1.4 Global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Market by Region (2013-2025)1.4.1 Global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2013-2025)1.4.2 North America Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.7 India Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Quantum Dots Display (QLED) (2013-2025)1.5.1 Global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Revenue Status and Outlook (2013-2025)1.5.2 Global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2013-2025)2 Global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.1.1 Global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.1.2 Global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Production and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.2 Global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.3 Global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Average Price by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.4 Manufacturers Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion..7 Global Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 LG7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 LG Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 Sharp7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 Sharp Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 CSOT7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 CSOT Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.4 AUO7.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.4.2 Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Product Category, Application and Specification7.4.2.1 Product A7.4.2.2 Product B7.4.3 AUO Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)7.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.5 BOE7.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.5.2 Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Product Category, Application and Specification7.5.2.1 Product A7.5.2.2 Product B7.5.3 BOE Quantum Dots Display (QLED) Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2015-2018)7.5.4 Main Business/Business OverviewContinued.CONTACT US:NORAH TRENTPartner Relations & Marketing Managersales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)ABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.Address:WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India Governance, Risk Management & Compliance Market Outlook 2018 Key Players: IBM, SAP, SAS, Microsoft, EMC, Fidelity Bank, Oracle, MetricStream, Turnkey consulting, Thomson Reuters, Newport Group, BWise, ACL Global Market Insights, Inc. https://www.gminsights.com/request-toc/upcoming/2674 https://www.gminsights.com/roc/2674 https://bit.ly/2lNjWay www.gminsights.com Governance, Risk Management & Compliance Market is also segmented into integrated, domain specific, and point solutions. The integrated solution provides an overall industrial solution to an organization. The domain specific offers solutions applicable to specific industry verticals in-line with the organizational goals. Point solutions provide are used to address the customer-specific challenges.Governance, Risk Management & Compliance (GRC) Market size is driven mainly by the increasing incidences of the cyber-attacks across the countries. In 2017, approximately 164% increase in the cyber security attacks across the globe has been witnessed as compared to 2016. This encourages organizations to adopt advanced risk management solutions to mitigate the risks of cyber security attacks. Furthermore, the stringent government regulations and growing need to adhere to the compliance and corporate governance standards are driving the growth of the GRC market.Request for an in-depth table of contents for this report @The rise in the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled eGRC solutions and the adoption of the software-enabled businesses & IT infrastructure are developing myriad growth opportunities for the growth of the market. However, the high installation cost of the solutions and uncertain government regulations due to uncertain regimes are restricting the growth of the governance, risk management & compliance Market.There are three main components of governance, risk management & compliance market, governance, risk, and compliance. Governance ensures the alignment of operational activities with the organizational business goals, Risk is associated with the identification of risks involved in business activities along with its optimal solution to avoid severe consequences and Compliance makes sure that the organizational processes and activities meet the laws and regulations related to those systems.The policy management, risk management, and audit & compliance management are the major solutions available in the market. Policy management is the governance part of the software that involves specifying, updating, communicating, publishing, and enforcing of the policy. The audit management software offers a centralized process to automate the complete the audit lifecycle. Whereas, the risk & compliance management part of the software includes processes to mitigate or minimize risks, utilize the opportunities, and check its compliance with global laws and organizational policies.Top key Players:1. IBM2. SAP3. SAS4. Microsoft5. EMC6. Fidelity Bank7. Oracle8. MetricStream9. Turnkey consulting10. Thomson Reuters11. Newport Group12. BWise13. ACLRequest for customization of this report @The software can be deployed in two ways: on premise or cloud based to avail its benefits. The cloud-based system is widely implemented across the organizations as it is a quick and easy way to perform operations and the cloud gives optimal reliability, security, and scalability in lower cost as compared to the on-premise system.Transportation and logistics, IT, BFSI, construction and engineering, energy and utility, government, manufacturing, and retail are some of the major end users of the governance, risk management & compliance market. BFSI sector holds the major share due to the rising need among the financial institutes to mitigate the risk of cyber-attacks. The solutions are also used to maintain transparency in the system and provide customized services to end users.North America governance, risk management & compliance market is leading the market followed by Europe. The growth of the market is attributed to the rising incidences of the cyber attacks in the region. Furthermore, the adoption of the big data, cloud services, and IoT technology fosters the market growth. Asia Pacific is estimated to grow substantially during the forecast timeline. The growing adoption of the cloud services in the region is driving the market growth. Furthermore, growing adoption of the solutions among the SMBs is propelling the market growth.The major market players in the governance, risk management & compliance market are IBM, SAP, SAS Institute, Microsoft, EMC, Fidelity National Information Services, Oracle, Metric Stream, Turnkey consulting, Thomson Reuters, RSA Archer, Newport Consulting Group, BWise, and ACL. The software providers are mainly focused on the development of more intuitive and configurable platforms, offering expanded content options and better integration.Browse Full Reports:About Global Market InsightsGlobal Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact UsArun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb: Abbott Laboratories, Fullerton Health Profile In Clinical Laboratory Services Market Research Report on Qiagen, Quest Diagnostics, Sanofi Genzyme, Siemens, Sonic Healthcare www.marketstudyreport.com/request-a-sample/467838/ www.marketstudyreport.com/check-for-discount/467838/ https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/clinical-laboratory-services-market https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/united-states-clinical-laboratory-services-market-report-2018?utm_source=RR-openpr&utm_medium=DC www.marketstudyreport.com www.marketstudyreport.com/blog Market Study Report adds 2018-2024 Global Clinical Laboratory Services market report that offers an exhaustive coverage of the industry with brief analysis, data charts, figures, statistics that help take business decisions, company profiles and more.Clinical Laboratory Services Market will exceed USD 342 billion by 2024; as per a new research report.Growing R&D investments for introducing innovative solutions that includes accuracy of analysis, real-time results, automation throughput, outcome assessment of laboratory tests will drive clinical laboratory services market growth during the forecast timeframe. Escalating prevalence of target diseases and growing initiatives by organizations to control these target diseases should impact positively on clinical laboratory services industry growth. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) around 43.9% U.S. adult population will have cardiovascular disease by 2030. This should offer immense business growth opportunities over the forecast period.Request a sample of this premium report at:Inadequate reimbursements along with stringent regulations for clinical laboratory operations will restrain market growth over the coming years. Involvement of numerous regulatory authorities to ensure lab safety can impact negatively on clinical laboratory services industry growth.Routine chemistry of clinical chemistry segment held largest revenue share and will grow at 5.0% during forecast timeframe. Growing awareness of health check-ups and increasing preference for early disease diagnosis will stimulate routine chemistry segmental growth.Stand-alone laboratories segment held USD 83.3 million revenue in 2017, due to rising infectious diseases and growing initiatives by prominent industry players to set labs. In the U.S. as per CDC data in 2015 nearly 16.8 million people visited physician offices for infectious as well as parasitic diseases thus, contributing to segmental growth.U.S. clinical laboratory services market is anticipated to grow at 6.7% over the coming years. Escalating prevalence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes coupled with presence of major industry players in the country will upsurge the revenue size. As per CDC National Diabetes Statistics report around 30.3 million individuals of different age groups had diabetes in 2015; this accounts for nearly 9.4% of the U.S. population.Request a discount on standard prices of this premium report at:Notable industry competitors are Abbott Laboratories, Arup Laboratories, Charles River Laboratories, Fresenius Medical Care (Spectra Laboratories), Fullerton Health, Genoptix Medical Laboratory, Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (Labcorp), Neogenomics Laboratories (Clarient), Opko Health (Bioreference Laboratories), Qiagen, Quest Diagnostics, Sanofi Genzyme, Siemens, Sonic Healthcare, and Synlab (Labco).Prominent business players are focusing on strategic acquisition and partnerships. Introduction of innovative solutions in clinical laboratory services should favor industry growth over the forecast period. Companies existing in industry are emphasizing on acquisition and collaborations to upsurge their revenue share in the clinical laboratory services market. For instance, in June 2018, Neogenomics Laboratories collaborated with Pharmaceutical Product Development to provide fully integrated molecular testing solutions to pharmaceutical and biotechnological clients. This collaboration will allow company to meet increasing worldwide client requirements.Table of Content:Chapter 1. Methodology and ScopeChapter 2. Executive SummaryChapter 3. Clinical Laboratory Services Industry InsightsChapter 4. Clinical Laboratory Services Market, By Test TypeChapter 5. Clinical Laboratory Services Market, By Service ProviderChapter 6. Clinical Laboratory Services Market, By RegionChapter 7. Company ProfilesMore Details on this Report At:Related Report:United States Clinical Laboratory Services Market Report 2018In this report, the United States Clinical Laboratory Services market is valued at USD XX million in 2017 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2017 and 2025.About Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Contact Us:Market Study Report4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:Blog: Schneider Electric, Caterpillar Inc Profiled in Microgrid Market 2024 Report - ABB Ltd, General Electric, Eaton Corporation, Siemens, Honeywell International, GE Alstom, Homer Energy LLC https://www.marketstudyreport.com/request-a-sample/707335/ https://www.marketstudyreport.com/check-for-discount/707335/ https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/microgrid-market https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/global-microgrid-as-a-service-maas-market-2018-by-manufacturers-countries-type-and-application-forecast-to-2023?utm_source=RR-AN https://www.marketstudyreport.com https://www.marketstudyreport.com/blog Meticulously analyzed in terms of pivotal industry segments, global Microgrid market report effectively covers the scope of this space in terms By Connectivity, By Source, By Storage, By Application and the prominent contributors. Additionally, the report also outlines intricate details regarding the lucrative opportunities that industry contenders can expect in conjunction with the potential threats that have been envisioned for this business sphere in the forthcoming years. Global microgrid market will exceed USD 19 billion by 2024; according to a new research report.Request a sample of this premium report at:The report extensively bifurcates the various contenders of global Microgrid market. Prominent contributors such as ABB Ltd, General Electric, Eaton Corporation, Siemens, Schneider Electric, Caterpillar Inc., Honeywell International, GE Alstom, Homer Energy LLC, Power Analytics Corporation, Advanced Microgrid Solutions, EnSync Inc, Viridity Energy, Inc, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Exelon Corporation, Hitachi Ltd, Emerson Electric Co have been scrutinized in terms of their financials, strengths, weaknesses, potential threats in the market, and future opportunities.The U.S. microgrid market is set to reach over 2 GW by 2024. Growing deployment of sustainable energy sources to reduce the dependence on existing electric networks will positively encourage the industry dynamics. Increasing investments across clean energy sources in the country will further propel the business landscape. According to IEA in 2016, the U.S. invested over USD 250 billion toward development of various energy sources across the nation.Natural gas as a fuel is set to witness strong growth on account of increasing exploration of unconventional sources across the U.S., China and Russia. Ongoing adoption of fuel as a low emission substitute to conventional source will foster the microgrid market. In August 2016, Capstone Turbine signed a deal with the government of China to supply microturbine for 10 MW microgrid network.Utility microgrid market is set to grow owing to the rapid industrialization and urbanization across the emerging economies. Escalating high-end electricity consumption backed by the presence of new HVAC and heavy load machinery systems in the industrial sector will foster the business growth.Request a discount on standard prices of this premium report at:Rising concerns toward energy security coupled with increasing adoption of sustainable energy sources will stimulate the Japan microgrid market. Government backed extensive research and development projects along with implementation of virtual private networks (VPPs) to mitigate emergency crisis will further embellish the business outlook. In 2017, Panasonic in collaboration with Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry planned to build Solar PV powered microgrid to provide electricity to 117 homes in western Japan.Growing off-grid networks across developing nations will complement the microgrid market outlook in next few years. Favorable government norms pertaining to integration of renewable energy technology coupled with ongoing measures to electrify rural and urban areas will foster the microgrid market share. Power reliability, economic competitiveness, relatively low power cost and reduced T&D losses are some of the key parameters which will boost the product adoption. Global microgrid market will exceed USD 19 billion by 2024, according to a new research report.Table of Content:Chapter 1. Methodology and ScopeChapter 2. Executive SummaryChapter 3. Microgrid Market Industry InsightsChapter 4. Microgrid Market, By ConnectivityChapter 5. Microgrid Market, By Grid TypeChapter 6. Microgrid Market, By Power SourceChapter 7. Microgrid Market, By Storage DevicesChapter 8. Microgrid Market, By ApplicationChapter 9. Microgrid Market, By RegionChapter 10. Company ProfilesFor More Details on this Report At:Related Report:Global Microgrid as a Service (MaaS) Market 2018 by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2023The market growth can be attributed to the reduction in operational costs and negligible upfront investments by MaaS end users, rising demand for MaaS from hospitals, universities, and remote regions and high investments by governments in microgrid infrastructure for improved resilience. The market for software as a service is expected to grow at the highest CAGR between 2016 and 2022. The global Microgrid as a Service (MaaS) market is valued at xx million in 2017 and is expected to reach xx million by the end of 2023, growing at a CAGR of xx% between 2017 and 2023. The Asia-Pacific will occupy for more market share in following years, especially in China, also fast growing India and Southeast Asia regions.About Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Contact Us:Market Study Report4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:Blog: Polyoxymethylene Market major players E. I. Du Pont De Nemours and Company, BASF SE, A. Schulman Persistence Market Research (PMR) https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/8989 https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/8989 http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com Polyoxymethylene (also known as POM) is a high performance engineering plastic that is derived from formaldehyde. It finds its applications in various end user industries such as electrical and electronics, automotive industry, consumer goods and electronics, and others. Polyoxymethylene is a preferred material in the category of high performance engineering plastics due to its various desirable properties such as excellent dimensional stability, impact resistance, fatigue resistance, and high strength. Polyoxymethylene is majorly used in electrical & electronics industry to make insulators, capacitors and various other electronic components. The use of this material makes the product more efficient and effective to deliver better performance.Polymers are considered as an important material in the food industry due to factors such as mechanical strength, low cost and ease in manufacturing and processing. As a result, the demand for plastic from the food industry is expected to strengthen the market for Polyoxymethylene, thereby creating new opportunities in the coming years. Polyoxymethylene is also used as a replacement for metal as it weighs lighter than metal and also possesses high impact strength.Request Report Sample@Global Polyoxymethylene market is segmented by process as well as by end userPolyoxymethylene By Process:Injection MoldingExtrusion MoldingOthers (Rotational Molding, Blow molding, physical foaming)Polyoxymethylene By End user:Electrical and ElectronicsAutomotiveConsumer Goods and AppliancesOthers (Packaging, Medical, Food, Construction)Polyoxymethylene is an engineering thermoplastic that is used because of its excellent physical properties which make it a metal replacing light weight material. The drivers for this market include superior properties, increasing demand in end use industries, and replacement for plastics among others. New applications in the food packaging industry along with non-crude oil derivate based raw materials would act as opportunities for Polyoxymethylene. Use of Polyoxymethylene in various industries such as automotive, electrical and electronics, others in the form of metal replacement plastic due to its light weight and high strength is expected to drive growth of the Polyoxymethylene market.Polyoxymethylene manufacturers are investing heavily in plant capacity expansion or regional expansion by creating new subsidiaries to penetrate into new markets and to improve the reach of their products in various regions. Major players in this market are engaged in R&D efforts to develop newer applications and new products to fulfill the demand from various end use industries. Also, the companies are engaged in new product launch, and mergers & acquisitions. The companies are expanding their geographical footprints by setting up plants at new locations. These strategies are helping the companies to increase their market share and expand their reach.The global Polyoxymethylene market is estimated to witness significant growth for the forecast period (2015 to 2025). Asia-Pacific is the leading market in terms of consumption and it accounts for nearly half of the total market for Polyoxymethylene. Western European market for polyoxymethylene is also expected to grow at moderate rate in the coming years. According to FMIs forecasts, this market in Asia-Pacific is expected to show the fastest CAGR over the forecasted period as huge amount of investment are made in this region.Visit For TOC@Some of the major players of the global Polyoxymethylene market are: E. I. Du Pont De Nemours and Company, BASF SE, A. Schulman, Korea Engineering Plastics, Asahi Kasei Chemicals Corp., Celanese Corporation, Mitsubishi Engineering-Plastics Corporation, and others.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: Personal Finance & Budgeting Software 2018 Global Market Key Players YNAB, Mint, Quicken, Mvelopes, Acorns, EveryDollar, LearnVest, PocketGuard, Moneydance, Wallet -Analysis And Forecast To 2025 Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Market 2018 https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/3490053-global-personal-finance-budgeting-software-market-size-status https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/3490053-global-personal-finance-budgeting-software-market-size-status Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Market 2018Wiseguyreports.Com Adds Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Global Market Growth, Opportunities, Analysis of Top Key Players and Forecast to 2025 To Its Research Database.Description:In 2017, the global Personal Finance & Budgeting Software market size was xx million US$ and it is expected to reach xx million US$ by the end of 2025, with a CAGR of xx% during 2018-2025.This report focuses on the global Personal Finance & Budgeting Software status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the Personal Finance & Budgeting Software development in United States, Europe and China.The key players covered in this studyYNABMintQuickenMvelopesAcornsEveryDollarLearnVestPocketGuardMoneydanceWalletPrismDigitCountAboutDollarbirdGnuCashRequest for Sample Report @Market segment by Type, the product can be split intoOn-PremiseCloud-BasedMarket segment by Application, split intoWindowsAndroidIosMarket segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaCentral & South AmericaEnquiry before Buying @If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Table of Content:1 Report Overview1.1 Study Scope1.2 Key Market Segments1.3 Players Covered1.4 Market Analysis by Type1.4.1 Global Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Market Size Growth Rate by Type (2013-2025)1.4.2 On-Premise1.4.3 Cloud-Based1.5 Market by Application1.5.1 Global Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Market Share by Application (2013-2025)1.5.2 Windows1.5.3 Android1.5.4 Ios1.6 Study Objectives1.7 Years Considered2 Global Growth Trends2.1 Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Market Size2.2 Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Growth Trends by Regions2.2.1 Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Market Size by Regions (2013-2025)2.2.2 Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Market Share by Regions (2013-2018)2.3 Industry Trends2.3.1 Market Top Trends2.3.2 Market Drivers2.3.3 Market Opportunities..12 International Players Profiles12.1 YNAB12.1.1 YNAB Company Details12.1.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.1.3 Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Introduction12.1.4 YNAB Revenue in Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Business (2013-2018)12.1.5 YNAB Recent Development12.2 Mint12.2.1 Mint Company Details12.2.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.2.3 Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Introduction12.2.4 Mint Revenue in Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Business (2013-2018)12.2.5 Mint Recent Development12.3 Quicken12.3.1 Quicken Company Details12.3.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.3.3 Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Introduction12.3.4 Quicken Revenue in Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Business (2013-2018)12.3.5 Quicken Recent Development12.4 Mvelopes12.4.1 Mvelopes Company Details12.4.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.4.3 Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Introduction12.4.4 Mvelopes Revenue in Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Business (2013-2018)12.4.5 Mvelopes Recent Development12.5 Acorns12.5.1 Acorns Company Details12.5.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.5.3 Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Introduction12.5.4 Acorns Revenue in Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Business (2013-2018)12.5.5 Acorns Recent Development12.6 EveryDollar12.6.1 EveryDollar Company Details12.6.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.6.3 Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Introduction12.6.4 EveryDollar Revenue in Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Business (2013-2018)12.6.5 EveryDollar Recent Development12.7 LearnVest12.7.1 LearnVest Company Details12.7.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.7.3 Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Introduction12.7.4 LearnVest Revenue in Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Business (2013-2018)12.7.5 LearnVest Recent Development12.8 PocketGuard12.8.1 PocketGuard Company Details12.8.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.8.3 Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Introduction12.8.4 PocketGuard Revenue in Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Business (2013-2018)12.8.5 PocketGuard Recent Development12.9 Moneydance12.9.1 Moneydance Company Details12.9.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.9.3 Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Introduction12.9.4 Moneydance Revenue in Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Business (2013-2018)12.9.5 Moneydance Recent Development12.10 Wallet12.10.1 Wallet Company Details12.10.2 Company Description and Business Overview12.10.3 Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Introduction12.10.4 Wallet Revenue in Personal Finance & Budgeting Software Business (2013-2018)12.10.5 Wallet Recent Development12.11 Prism12.12 Digit12.13 CountAbout12.14 Dollarbird12.15 GnuCashContinued..Contact US:NORAH TRENTPartner Relations & Marketing Managersales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)About Us:Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Campaign Management Toolsnning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Addres:: Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt Ltd: Pune 411028: Maharashtra,: Ph: +91 841 198 5042 Airport Security Market 2024: Global Analysis of Key Players Westminster Group PLC, Axis Communications, Scanna MSC Ltd., Bosch Security Systems, RedXDefense LLC, Fisher Research Laboratory, Hitachi Ltd, OSI Systems, Inc https://www.marketstudyreport.com/request-a-sample/467663/ https://www.marketstudyreport.com/check-for-discount/467663/ https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/airport-security-market#1 https://www.marketstudyreport.com https://www.marketstudyreport.com/blog/ The North America airport security market is anticipated to dominate in terms of revenue in the following years. This is mainly attributed to the high emphasis of the U.S government on security measures such as surveillance cameras and cyber security solutions. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has launched the testing of 3D checkpoint scanning technology at the Phoenix Sky Harbor and the Logan International Airport. The computed tomography screening equipment improves the threat detection capabilities by providing a more through 3D image of the screened cargo.Request a sample of this premium Research Report at:Airport Security Market is set to exceed USD 16 billion by 2024; according to a new research report.High penetration of these solutions is due to the demand for advanced security systems such as biometrics in identity and access monitoring, contactless entryway checkpoints, x-ray scanners, and thermal cameras. Conventional security measures employ invasive procedures and protocols such as physical checks and body pat-downs which are highly uncomfortable. To boost passenger convenience, airport security market vendors are investing in R&D activities for the development of technologies such as x-ray scanners. In high-risk settings, preventive measures are required over reactive technologies. In such cases, it is essential to track and forecast security threats in contrast to taking measures to fix the issues after their occurrence.The rising penetration of smart technologies and IoT in airports is fueling the demand for airport security market. These include technologies such as remote check-ins, sensor equipment, e-gates, RFID baggage reconciliation systems, etc. A major portion of the data is collected in real-time and stored in large central databases. The presence of security issues in such cases can leave the data vulnerable to attacks from internal and external parties. Wireless tracking technologies, for instance, can allow a hacker to utilize triangular algorithms or Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) Information to track the location of the Wi-Fi end-point user and unearth historical data such as the route taken by the users, purchasing data, etc.The airport surveillance system market is anticipated to exhibit substantial growth during the forecast time-period. These systems are required to be functional at all times and sense multiple movements occurring at varying ranges. Additionally, these systems are supposed to function effectively in intense environmental conditions such as fog and storms and capture images in reduced visibility settings. The advent of 4K cameras and video units has revolutionized the airport security market owing to their sharper and improved image quality and provide coverage for a wider area.Some of the players operating in the global airport security market include Thales Group, American Science and Engineering, Inc, Westminster Group PLC, Axis Communications, Scanna MSC Ltd., Bosch Security Systems, RedXDefense LLC, Fisher Research Laboratory, Hitachi Ltd, OSI Systems, Inc., and MilliVision Technologies. Companies are increasingly entering into long term partnerships with airports for the testing and deployment of their technologies. For instance, Izmir International Airport has entered into an agreement with Tyco Security Products for the provision of unified security solutions such as access control, location monitoring, and intrusion tracking.Request a discount on standard prices of this premium report at:Table of Content:Chapter 1. Methodology and ScopeChapter 2. Executive SummaryChapter 3. Airport Security Industry InsightsChapter 4. Airport Security Market, By TechnologyChapter 5. Airport Security Market, By RegionChapter 6. Company ProfilesFor More Details about this report:About Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Contact Us:Market Study Report4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWeb site:Blog: Aerospace MRO 2018 Global Market SWOT Analysis and Opportunities To 2023 | Key Players : Airbus, Air Works, Delta TechOps, HAECO, Honeywell International, Lufthansa Technik Aerospace MRO Market https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/3490740-global-aerospace-mro-market-by-manufacturers-countries-type https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/3490740-global-aerospace-mro-market-by-manufacturers-countries-type https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=3490740 WiseGuyReports.Com Publish a New Market Research Report On Aerospace MRO 2018 Global Market SWOT Analysis and Opportunities To 2023 | Key Players : Airbus, Air Works, Delta TechOps, HAECO, Honeywell International, Lufthansa Technik.Description:-Air travel in emerging countries is growing, thus increasing the demand for aircraft MRO services. Many new MRO service centers have been setup in numerous countries in recently. This increases the participation of regional companies (tier-II or tier-III suppliers) in the field of aircraft MRO. Moreover, the growing international trade between countries have increased frequencies of cargo planes. Thus, it is essential to conduct timely checks and repairs on airplanes to ensure efficient performance and safe air travel. The market is driven by various factors such as increased focus of OEMs on aircraft MRO service and rapid aircraft fleet expansion.Scope of the Report:This report studies the Aerospace MRO market status and outlook of Global and major regions, from angles of players, countries, product types and end industries; this report analyzes the top players in global market, and splits the Aerospace MRO market by product type and applications/end industries.Asia had the largest share of the global aircraft MRO market in 2017.Get a Sample Report @For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comThe global Aerospace MRO market is valued at xx million USD in 2017 and is expected to reach xx million USD by the end of 2023, growing at a CAGR of xx% between 2017 and 2023.The Asia-Pacific will occupy for more market share in following years, especially in China, also fast growing India and Southeast Asia regions.North America, especially The United States, will still play an important role which cannot be ignored. Any changes from United States might affect the development trend of Aerospace MRO.Europe also play important roles in global market, with market size of xx million USD in 2017 and will be xx million USD in 2023, with a CAGR of xx%.Market Segment by Companies, this report coversAirbusAir France KLM Engineering & MaintenanceAir WorksDelta TechOpsHAECOHoneywell InternationalGMF AeroAsiaLufthansa TechnikJet Maintenance SolutionsST AerospaceMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (United States, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, coversEngineComponentLine MaintenanceAirframeModificationsMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoCommercial Air TransportBusiness and General AviationMilitary AviationEnquiry About Report @Table Of Contents Major Key Points1 Aerospace MRO Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Aerospace MRO1.2 Classification of Aerospace MRO by Types1.2.1 Global Aerospace MRO Revenue Comparison by Types (2017-2023)1.2.2 Global Aerospace MRO Revenue Market Share by Types in 20171.2.3 Engine1.2.4 Component1.2.5 Line Maintenance1.2.6 Airframe1.2.7 Modifications1.3 Global Aerospace MRO Market by Application1.3.1 Global Aerospace MRO Market Size and Market Share Comparison by Applications (2013-2023)1.3.2 Commercial Air Transport1.3.3 Business and General Aviation1.3.4 Military Aviation1.4 Global Aerospace MRO Market by Regions1.4.1 Global Aerospace MRO Market Size (Million USD) Comparison by Regions (2013-2023)1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) Aerospace MRO Status and Prospect (2013-2023)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy) Aerospace MRO Status and Prospect (2013-2023)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia) Aerospace MRO Status and Prospect (2013-2023)1.4.4 South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia) Aerospace MRO Status and Prospect (2013-2023)1.4.5 Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa) Aerospace MRO Status and Prospect (2013-2023)1.5 Global Market Size of Aerospace MRO (2013-2023)2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1 Airbus2.1.1 Business Overview2.1.2 Aerospace MRO Type and Applications2.1.2.1 Product A2.1.2.2 Product B2.1.3 Airbus Aerospace MRO Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.2 Air France KLM Engineering & Maintenance2.2.1 Business Overview2.2.2 Aerospace MRO Type and Applications2.2.2.1 Product A2.2.2.2 Product B2.2.3 Air France KLM Engineering & Maintenance Aerospace MRO Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.3 Air Works2.3.1 Business Overview2.3.2 Aerospace MRO Type and Applications2.3.2.1 Product A2.3.2.2 Product B2.3.3 Air Works Aerospace MRO Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.4 Delta TechOps2.4.1 Business Overview2.4.2 Aerospace MRO Type and Applications2.4.2.1 Product A2.4.2.2 Product B2.4.3 Delta TechOps Aerospace MRO Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.5 HAECO2.5.1 Business Overview2.5.2 Aerospace MRO Type and Applications2.5.2.1 Product A2.5.2.2 Product B2.5.3 HAECO Aerospace MRO Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.6 Honeywell International2.6.1 Business Overview2.6.2 Aerospace MRO Type and Applications2.6.2.1 Product A2.6.2.2 Product B2.6.3 Honeywell International Aerospace MRO Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.7 GMF AeroAsia2.7.1 Business Overview2.7.2 Aerospace MRO Type and Applications2.7.2.1 Product A2.7.2.2 Product B2.7.3 GMF AeroAsia Aerospace MRO Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)ContinuedBuy 1-user PDF @For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.Office No.528,Amanora Chambers,Magarpatta Road,Hadapsar,Pune-411028. Dog Snacks Market 2018 Global Analysis and Future Scope with Top Key Players- Mars Petcare, Nestle Purina, Colgate, Big Heart, Blue Buffalo, Total Alimentos, Deuerer, Heristo, Unicharm Dog Snacks https://www.qyresearchgroups.com/request-sample/1072214 https://www.qyresearchgroups.com/checkout/1072214 https://www.qyresearchgroups.com/check-discount/1072214 The report gives the clear picture of current Dog Snacks Market scenario and the predicted future of the industry. The report focuses on the basis of market drivers, restraints, growth, trends and forecast for the period of 2018-2025. In addition, the report also maps the market performance by value chain analysis which will help in better product differentiation along with the analysis of each segment in terms of opportunity, market attractiveness index and growth rate.The report Dog Snacks Market by Key players highlights the essential market dynamics of Dog Snacks Market sector. The efficiency of this segment has been studied deeply along with the noteworthy challenges and forthcoming growth opportunities and prospective. The report focuses in decision making abilities and supports to make effective counter strategies in order to achieve competitive advantage. Current market scenario of the segment and forecasts of the market situation have also been bounded in this market report.QY Research groups can be relied upon for the most updated and in depth information of the title Global Dog Snacks Market this is estimated by experts to develop at the most elevated CAGR amid the estimate time frame 2018-2025.Get Sample Report with TOC, Please Visit @This report focuses on the top manufacturers' Dog Snacks capacity, production, value, price and market share of Dog Snacks in global market. The following manufacturers are covered in this report: Mars Petcare Nestle Purina Colgate Big Heart Blue Buffalo Diamond pet foods Total Alimentos Deuerer Spectrum Brands / United Pet Group Heristo Affinity Petcare (Agrolimen) Unicharm Nutriara Alimentos Ltda.Dog Snacks Production Breakdown Data by Region United States Europe China Japan Other RegionsTo PURCHASE the Full Report please click @Dog Snacks Breakdown Data by Type Dental Snacks Crunchy Snacks Soft and Chewy Snacks Jerky Snacks OthersDog Snacks Breakdown Data by Application Senior Adult PuppyThe study objectives are: To analyze and research the global Dog Snacks capacity, production, value, consumption, status and forecast; To focus on the key Dog Snacks manufacturers and study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in next few years. To focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis. To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region. To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks. To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth. To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments. To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market. To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market. To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.Get the best Discount in the market here @This market is segmented by Types and Applications. It provides a profound study of the leading players in the market and the prevailing regions in the business, thereby benefiting new entries in the business by proving the most updated insights of the market.At QY Research Groups we render the most authentic and elaborate information for the utmost benefit of our clients.Table of ContentsGlobal Dog Snacks Market Research Report 2018-2025, by Manufacturers, Regions, Types and Applications1 Study Coverage1.1 Dog Snacks Product1.2 Key Market Segments in This Study1.3 Key Manufacturers Covered1.4 Market by Type1.4.1 Global Dog Snacks Market Size Growth Rate by Type1.4.2 Dental Snacks1.4.3 Crunchy Snacks1.4.4 Soft and Chewy Snacks1.4.5 Jerky Snacks1.4.6 Others1.5 Market by Application1.5.1 Global Dog Snacks Market Size Growth Rate by Application1.5.2 Senior1.5.3 Adult1.5.4 Puppy1.6 Study Objectives1.7 Years Considered8 Manufacturers Profiles8.1 Mars Petcare8.1.1 Mars Petcare Company Details8.1.2 Company Description8.1.3 Capacity, Production and Value of Dog Snacks8.1.4 Dog Snacks Product Description8.1.5 SWOT Analysis8.2 Nestle Purina8.2.1 Nestle Purina Company Details8.2.2 Company Description8.2.3 Capacity, Production and Value of Dog Snacks8.2.4 Dog Snacks Product Description8.2.5 SWOT Analysis8.3 Colgate8.3.1 Colgate Company Details8.3.2 Company Description8.3.3 Capacity, Production and Value of Dog Snacks8.3.4 Dog Snacks Product Description8.3.5 SWOT Analysis8.4 Big HeartAbout Us:QY Research Groups is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. QY Research Groups is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the world's most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends.Contact Us:Call: +1-888-236-2744Email: sales@qyresearchgroups.comRoom B1510, Shiji Kemao Building,No.66 Zhongguancun East Road,Haidian District, Beijing,100190, China. Hydropower Plant Market 2018: Opportunity, Growth, Share, Demand, Innovation, Top Companies (Three Gorges Dam, Itaipu Dam, Xiluodu, Guri, Tucuru, Grand Coulee, Xiangjiaba, Longtan Dam, Sayano Shushenskaya, Krasnoyarsk etc.) Hydropower Plant Market https://www.orianresearch.com/request-sample/156166 https://www.orianresearch.com/enquiry-before-buying/156166 https://www.orianresearch.com/checkout/156166 Hydropower Plant Industry 2018 Global Market research report provides a detailed analysis of market growth factors, industry share, regional trends, size and Forecast till 2025. The Hydropower Plant industry report has studied key opportunities in the international market which is beneficial for end industry.Get Sample Copy of This Report atDevelopment policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures. This report also states import/export, supply and consumption figures as well as cost, price, revenue and gross margin by regions North America, Europe, Japan, China, and other regions (India, Southeast Asia, Central & South America, Middle East & Africa etc.)Inquire more or share questions if any before the purchase on this report @Key Companies Analyzed in this Report are: Three Gorges Dam Itaipu Dam Xiluodu Guri Tucuru? Grand Coulee Xiangjiaba Longtan Dam Sayano?Shushenskaya Krasnoyarsk Nuozhadu Robert-Bourassa Global Hydropower Plant Market report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through analytical research, market survey and observations) and secondary research. The report also features a complete focused on qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain, growth aspects, utilization ratio and manufacturing capacity.Place a Direct Order Of this Report @Major Points Covered in Table of Contents:1 Industry Overview of Hydropower Plant2 Global Hydropower Plant Competition Analysis by Players3 Company (Top Players) Profiles4 Global Hydropower Plant Market Size by Type and Application (2013-2018)5 United States Hydropower Plant Development Status and Outlook6 EU Hydropower Plant Development Status and Outlook7 Japan Hydropower Plant Development Status and Outlook8 China Hydropower Plant Development Status and Outlook9 India Hydropower Plant Development Status and Outlook10 Southeast Asia Hydropower Plant Development Status and Outlook11 Market Forecast by Regions, Type and Application (2018-2025)12 Hydropower Plant Market Dynamics13 Market Effect Factors Analysis14 Research Finding/Conclusion15 AppendixAbout UsOrian Research is one of the most comprehensive collections of market intelligence reports on The World Wide Web. Our reports repository boasts of over 500000+ industry and country research reports from over 100 top publishers. We continuously update our repository so as to provide our clients easy access to the world's most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, and products. We also specialize in custom research in situations where our syndicate research offerings do not meet the specific requirements of our esteemed clients.Contact UsRuwin MendezVice President Global Sales & Partner RelationsOrian Research ConsultantsUS: +1 (415) 830-3727 | UK: +44 020 8144-71-27Email: info@orianresearch.com Fire Extinguisher Market to grow at a CAGR of 5.9% during 2017-2027 | Key Players - Activar Inc., Amerex Corporation, Britannia Fire Ltd, Ceasefire Industries Pvt. Ltd https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/REP-GB-572 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/ask-the-analyst/rep-gb-572 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/customization-available/rep-gb-572 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com According to a market report published by Future Market Insights in its latest report titled Fire Extinguisher Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 2016 2026. In terms of sales, the global fire extinguisher market is projected to grow at a healthy CAGR of 5.9% in term of value over the forecast period and will be primarily driven by rising demand from various end-use industries.Increasing urbanization in emerging as well as developed countries has led to increase in constructional activities in many regions. Owing to this, migration of people from remote villages to cities has increased. This will increase the demand for fire extinguishers around the globe and simultaneously promote the fire extinguisher market to gain traction over the forecast period. Among the product types, the carbon dioxide fire extinguisher segment is projected to account a relatively large market share in terms of both value and volume, while the dry powder segment is expected to account a relatively low market share in terms of value by 2027 owing to low demand by consumers.For Requesting a Sample Copy of This Report, Please Visit @Among all the regions, North America is projected to account a relatively large market share in terms of both value and volume, while Latin America Fire extinguisher market is expected to account a relatively low share in terms of value and volume by 2027. North America is expected to maintain its dominance in the global fire extinguisher market throughout the forecast period in terms of value and volume owing to the growing sale of fire extinguishers in the region. The key players operating in the North American fire extinguisher market are strategically focusing on acquisitions and collaborations with other players with an objective of expanding their product portfolio and increasing their global reach. APEJ is usually referred as an emerging market and many global players are eyeing to expand their footprints by establishing their distribution channels and manufacturing units in the region. Carbon dioxide, pressurized water and dry chemical type fire extinguisher are witnessing an increasing demand owing to the jump in industrialization in countries such as India and China. The fire extinguisher market in Asia-Pacific is being driven by the expansion of manufacturing facilities with the general growth of automotive, construction and oil & gas industries in the Asian subcontinent. The presence of large number of manufacturing companies in the Western Europe such as Jactone Products, Vitkovice HTB, Fireblitz ltd and Jockel GmbH has increased the production capabilities with world class requirements and facilities. The U.K. manufactures a large number of fire extinguishers attributing to the fact that many automobile and food and beverages industries are in operation in the Western Europe. The fire extinguisher industry is heavily reliant on the growth of the construction industry, growth of one will directly promote the growth of another. This will increase the demand for fire extinguishers in the MEA and trigger the growth of the fire extinguisher market in the region.Speak to Analyst @Fire Extinguisher Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the participants operating in the global fire extinguisher market are Activar Inc., Amerex Corporation, Britannia Fire Ltd, Ceasefire Industries Pvt. Ltd, Desautel Sas, Feuerschutz Jockel Gmbh & Co. Kg, Fike Corporation, Flamestop Australia Pty. Ltd., Gunnebo Ab, Halma Plc, Hatsuta Seisakusho Co., Ltd., Hochiki Corporation and Yamato Protec Corporation. The large multinational companies are aiming to strengthen their foothold in the emerging markets. With the entrance of new manufacturers and distributors, the investment in fire extinguisher industry is expected to increase, which will directly affect the growth of the fire extinguisher market. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration is emphasizing on the safety aspects of the buildings and infrastructural projects. Along with that, it conducts various programs for increasing the awareness regarding industrial and residential fire safety. Such measures will drive the demand for fire extinguishers in infrastructural projects, thereby aiding in further augmentation of the market.Customized Research Report As per your Requirements @ABOUT US:Future Market Insights is the premier provider of market intelligence and consulting services, serving clients in over 150 countries. FMI is headquartered in London, the global financial capital, and has delivery centres in the U.S. and India.FMIs research and consulting services help businesses around the globe navigate the challenges in a rapidly evolving marketplace with confidence and clarity. Our customised and syndicated market research reports deliver actionable insights that drive sustainable growth. We continuously track emerging trends and events in a broad range of end industries to ensure our clients prepare for the evolving needs of their consumers.CONTACT:Future Market InsightsU.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb: I see Fox News -- you know, the real news people -- have an interesting article on how 31 percent of millennials favor socialism. Do they have any idea whats involved with that? If they went that route, this country would collapse on itself in no time at all. Maybe somebody with a real brain, not just these college professors and not just that old doddering fool Bernie Sanders, ought to talk to them and explain what socialism involves and maybe take a field trip to Venezuela and see how they live. Immunoassay Reagents and Devices Market Comprehensive Study On: Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Inc., bioMerieux SA, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Abbott Laboratories, Inc., Beckman Coulter, Inc., Siemens AG; Immunoassay Reagents and Devices Market https://databridgemarketresearch.com/request-a-sample/?dbmr=global-immunoassay-reagents-and-devices-market https://databridgemarketresearch.com/speak-to-analyst/?dbmr=global-immunoassay-reagents-and-devices-market https://databridgemarketresearch.com/toc/?dbmr=global-immunoassay-reagents-and-devices-market https://databridgemarketresearch.com/inquire-before-buying/?dbmr=global-immunoassay-reagents-and-devices-market Immunoassay Reagents and Devices Market Report has been prepared based on detailed market analysis with inputs from industry experts. Analysis and discussion of important industry trends, market size, market share estimates are mentioned in the report. The Immunoassay Reagents and Devices Market Report also calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of this Report and technologies by various application segments. The report also consists of the all the market drivers and restrains which are derived from SWOT analysis while also giving all the CAGR projections for the historic year 2016 base year 2017 and forecast period of 2018-2025Get Sample Report, For More Information@Immunoassay Reagents and Devices Market accounted to USD 16.25 billion in 2016 growing at a CAGR of 7.8% during the forecast period of 2017 to 2024. The upcoming market report contains data for historic years 2015, the base year of calculation is 2016 and the forecast period is 2017 to 2024.Some of the major players operating in immunoassay reagents and devices market:- Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Inc., bioMerieux SA, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Abbott Laboratories, Inc., Beckman Coulter, Inc., Siemens AG;Competitive Analysis:Immunoassay reagents and devices market is highly fragmented and is based on new product launches and clinical results of products. Hence the major players have used various strategies such as new product launches, clinical trials, market initiatives, high expense on research and development, agreements, joint ventures, partnerships, acquisitions, and others to increase their footprints in this market. The report includes market shares of immunoassay reagents and devices market for global, Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and South America.Questions? Well Put You On The Right Path Request Analyst Call @Market Drivers and Restraints: Increasing use of immunoassay tests in cancer, infectious disease testing among others Extensive use of immunoassays in oncology Rapid analysis Technological advancementsEach analysis is based on highly researched sources of information and is combined with: Competitor analysis R&D funding comparisons Immunoassay Reagents and Devices Product Competitor business strategies Porters five forces analysis Individual company reviews High impact tables and figures Supply and DemandTable of Contents:1 Scope of the Report2 Executive Summary3 Global Immunoassay Reagents and Devices Market by Players4 Immunoassay Reagents and Devices Market by Regions5 Americas6 APAC7 Europe8 Middle East & Africa9 Market Drivers, Challenges and Trends10 Marketing, Distributors and Customer11 Global Immunoassay Reagents and Devices Market Forecast12 Key Players Analysis Research, Findings and ConclusionTo Understand Complete Table Of Content, Tables And Figures@Market Segmentation:By product type the immunoassay reagents and devices market is segmented into: reagents, analyzers, software and services.On the basis of technique the immunoassay reagents and devices market is segmented into : enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), Radioimmunoassay (RIA), chemiluminescence immunoassays (CLIA) and others.On the basis of application the market is segmented into: infectious diseases, endocrinology, cardiology, oncology and others.On the basis of end user the market is segmented into: hospitals, labs, biotechnology industry, pharmaceutical industry and others.On the basis of geography, immunoassay reagents and devices market report covers data points for countries across multiple geographies such as: North America, South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa.Note: If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Make an Inquiry for purchasing this report@About Data Bridge Market Research:Data Bridge Market Research set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge endeavors to provide appropriate solutions to the complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process.Contact:Data Bridge Market ResearchTel: +1-888-387-281Email: sopan.gedam@databridgemarketresearch.com Global and United States Cell Phone Signal Shielding for Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) Market Research by Company, Type & Application 2013-2025 https://www.marketdensity.com/contact?ref=Sample&report_id=180141 https://www.marketdensity.com/global-and-united-states-cell-phone-signal-shielding-for-electromagnetic-interference-emi-market-research-by-company-type-application-2013-2025.html https://www.marketdensity.com Market Segment as follows:By TypeCopper-Nickel-Zinc Alloy shielding cover / frameStainless steel shielding cover/frameNickel Silver shielding cover/ frameSPTE/Tin plated mild steel cover/ frameBy ApplicationMost of cell phonesCheaper cell phonesBy CompanyLaird technologiesBi-LinkAsahi GroupShenzhen Evenwin Precision TechnologyHi-PTatsuta Electric Wire & CableShanghai Laimu ElectronicsFaspro Technologies coreW. L. Gore & AssociatesKITAGAWA INDUSTRIES AmericaCheng YeDe KunShan Communications TechnologyPhotofabrication Engineering3MCGC precision technologyThrust IndustriesShenzhen yongmao technologyThe main contents of the report including:Section 1:Product definition, type and application, global and United States market overview;Section 2:Global and United States Market competition by company;Section 3:Global and United States sales revenue, volume and price by type;Section 4:Global and United States sales revenue, volume and price by application;Section 5:United States export and import;Section 6:Company information, business overview, sales data and product specifications;Section 7:Industry chain and raw materials;Section 8:SWOT and Porter's Five Forces;Section 9:Conclusion.Get sample copy of this reportTable of contents:1 Market Definition2 Global Market by Vendors3 Global Market by Type4 Global Market by End-Use / Application5 Global Market by Regions6 North America Market7 Europe Market8 Asia-Pacific Market9 South America Market10 Middle East & Africa Market11 Market Forecast12 Key Manufacturers13 Price Overview14 Research ConclusionBuy this report onlineMarket Density is your one stop market research and industry analysis reports' library providing business data and intelligence information on thousands of micro markets with global as well as regional coverage.Market Density offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.Market Density understands how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available.Contact Us:Email: Support@marketdensity.comWebsite:Phone: +1 669 264 16564340 Stevens Creek Blvd,Suite # 172,San Jose, CA 95129Phone No. +1 669 264 1656 Stone crab season arrives at The Jac Sanibel Island Bar & Grille Its time to get cracking, Southwest Florida. The highly anticipated stone crab season has officially begun at The Jac Sanibel Island Bar & Grille. The restaurant on Periwinkle Way is serving up those delicious claws for $40 per pound and $20 for half a pound. Individual claws cost $7 each.The Jac is also welcoming the arrival of fall with the Pumpkin Spice Martini, a creamy and sweet libation with Smirnoff Whipped Cream Vodka and RumChata. Its basically everyones favorite autumn pie in a chilled glass. 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The restaurants mission is to bring back real food and cultivate an atmosphere that encourages families to sit back, relax and enjoy each others company.Josh Milton, Vice President of Media RelationsCONRIC PR & Marketing6216 Whiskey Creek Drive, Suite BFort Myers, FL 33919239-690-9840Josh@ConricPR.com | ConricPR.com Paper Shredder Market (2018-2025) Analysis by Top Manufacturers like KOBRA, Ideal, HSM, Intimus, Meiko Shokai, Shred-it, GBC Shredder, Comet, Sunwood Market Expertz https://www.marketexpertz.com/sample-enquiry-form/4553 https://www.marketexpertz.com/checkout-form/4553 https://www.marketexpertz.com/report-detail/paper-shredder-market-size-share-trends-analysis-report-by-product-by-type-by-region-by-application-competitive-landscape-and-segment-forecasts-2018-2025 www.marketexpertz.com https://www.marketexpertz.com/market-news The latest report, Paper Shredder market enables stakeholders to gain insights into their potential consumers to construct more effective marketing strategies for the forecast period, 2018 to 2025. Most importantly, the document empowers business owners to seek information about potential consumers and where they can find them. With an exclusive coverage of the top vendors, the study enables business owners to know more about the local market and locate potential consumers.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 for Sample Copy of Paper Shredder Market Report @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.Estimating the potential size of the Paper Shredder industry:Industry experts conducting the study further estimate the potential of the Paper Shredder industry. Such information is important for firms looking to launch an innovative service or product on the market. Industry experts have measured the total volume of the given market. Researchers have calculated the industry in terms of sales by the competitors and end-user customers. Data on the entire size of the Paper Shredder market for a particular product or a service for the forecast period, 2018 to 2025 covered in the report makes it valuable. This information reveals the upper limit of the Paper Shredder industry for a specific product or service.Market Segment by manufacturers, the report covers the following companies:Fujitsu, AmazonBasics, Fellowes, KOBRA, Ideal, HSM, Intimus, Meiko Shokai, Shred-it, GBC Shredder, Comet, Sunwood, COMIX, Deli, Bonsail, Golden, Husn, SMPIC, AURORAMarket Segment on the basis of Product, the report covers: Strip-Cut Cross-Cut Micro-CutMarket Segment on the basis of Application, the report covers: Home Use Commercial Use Government Use OtherOrder a copy @The research provides answers to the following key questions: What is the expected growth rate of the Paper Shredder market? What will be the market size for the forecast period, 2018 - 2025? What are the major driving forces responsible for transforming the trajectory of the industry? Who are major vendors dominating the Paper Shredder industry across different regions? What are their winning strategies to stay ahead in the competition? What are the market trends business owners can rely upon in the coming years? What are the threats and challenges expected to restrict the progress of the industry across different countries? What are the key opportunities that business owners can bank on for the forecast period, 2018 - 2025?The study segments the complete Paper Shredder 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.Key points from TOCGlobal Paper Shredder Market Research Report 20181 Paper Shredder Market Overview2 Global Paper Shredder Market Competition by Manufacturers3 Global Paper Shredder Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2013-2018)4 Global Paper Shredder Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2013-2018)5 Global Paper Shredder Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type6 Global Paper Shredder Market Analysis by Application7 Global Paper Shredder Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 Fujitsu7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Paper Shredder Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 Fujitsu Paper Shredder Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)7.2 AmazonBasics7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Paper Shredder Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 AmazonBasics Paper Shredder Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)Continue8 Paper Shredder Manufacturing Cost Analysis9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders11 Market Effect Factors Analysis12 Global Paper Shredder Market Forecast (2018-2025)13 Research Findings and Conclusion14 AppendixRead More @About Us:Planning to invest in market intelligence products or offerings on the web? 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With marketexpertz you have the choice to tap into the specialized services without any additional charges.Contact Us:John WatsonHead of Business DevelopmentMarket Expertz | Web:Direct Line: +1-800-819-3052E-mail: sales@marketexpertz.comNews: Lead Acid Battery Market 2026 | EnerSys, EXIDE INDUSTRIES LTD., JOHNSON CONTROLS INTERNATIONAL PLC, GS Yuasa Corporation, etc https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/sample/110114893/Lead-Acid-Battery-Market https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/discount/110114893/Lead-Acid-Battery-Market https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/rd/110114893/Lead-Acid-Battery-Market https://www.researchreportinsights.com/ The global lead acid battery market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 4.0% during the forecast period 2026, according to a new research report titled Lead Acid Battery Market 2026 by Research Report Insights (RRI). According to the report, the global lead acid battery market volume is expected to surpass around seven lakh thousand units by 2026. Growth of the global lead acid battery market is driven by the extensive usage of lead acid batteries in passenger car applications due to its low cost combined with reliability of performance. The lead acid battery market in Asia Pacific is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of more than 4.9% during the forecast period owing to the presence of a large manufacturing & recycling base, favorable government regulations, development in automotive and industrial sectors, and increase in focus on research and development activities.Increase in vehicle production, rise in demand for lead acid batteries in industrial sector for UPS applications, and low cost and reliability to drive market growthRequest For Report Sample:Globally, 85% of lead is primarily utilized in batteries for passenger cars, trucks, motorcycles, uninterruptible power supplies, and solar power storage. Demand for passenger vehicles has increased considerably and is anticipated to rise further in the near future. This, in turn, is creating high demand for lead acid batteries. Automobile and manufacturing sectors are witnessing significant expansion. This is driving the demand for stationary batteries for power backup and that for deep-cycle batteries for wheeled mobility such as golf cars, wheelchairs, and scissor lifts. However, improper and illegal disposal of lead acid batteries causes environmental pollution due to its high lead content. Furthermore, demand for the alternative Li-ion batteries in the automobile sector is increasing due to the poor performance and low cycle life based on temperature of lead acid batteries are restricts the market growth. Manufacturing process advancements in recycling of lead acid batteries provide opportunities to lower the adverse impact on the environment.Rise in demand for absorbent glass mat sealed type batteries for automobile & UPS applications due to better cycle life, high specific power, and low maintenanceBased on product type, the lead acid battery market has been bifurcated into flooded and sealed. The sealed segment has been further sub-segmented into AGM and Gel. Flooded lead acid batteries are commonly utilized batteries. They are widely employed in the automotive sector. They have the least cost per ampere hour vis-a-vis other lead acid batteries. Sealed lead acid batteries are commonly known as Valve Regulated Lead Acid (VRLA) batteries. The number of plates and their thickness determine their end-use/application. The absorbed glass matt process is used in AGM lead acid batteries, wherein highly porous and fine microfiber glass separators .The automobile and UPS & telecom applications together account for more than 55% share of the market for flooded type batteries. Thus, these are the major segments in terms of product type. The flooded segment is anticipated to constitute key share of the market in the near future due to the extensive utilization in driverless transport vehicles, electric forklifts, and electric bicycles.Automotive and motorcycle applications to dominate the global lead acid battery marketBased on application, the lead acid battery market has been segregated into automotive, motorcycles, motive power, renewable, UPS & telecom, and others. The automotive segment holds the major share of the lead acid battery market. It is followed by the motorcycle segment. This trend is likely to continue throughout the forecast period. Lead acid batteries are primarily employed in automotive and motorcycles segment for starting, lighting, and ignition purposes. Renewable application is the one of the recent developing markets for stationary lead acid batteries to employ in off-grid renewable energy generation. Various key countries are focusing on renewable power generation. This is expected to augment the size of the lead acid battery market.Asia Pacific anticipated to dominate the market during the forecast periodGeographically, the global lead acid battery market has been split into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific is anticipated to hold prominent share of the market owing to the fast-growing construction industry in countries such as China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia. This is boosting the usage of lead acid batteries in UPS applications due to its low cost and performance reliability. The increasing population leading to increasing use of vehicles and favorable government policies for lead recycling in the hands of private-public partnerships is anticipated to fuel the demand for lead acid batteries in the region. Europe is a key region of the lead acid battery market due to the ongoing developments, research and investments for off-shore in on-shore renewable energy generation activities and installations in Germany, U.K. and Italy.Semi-consolidated Market with four to major players and various small to medium playersKey players covered in the report are EnerSys, EXIDE INDUSTRIES LTD., JOHNSON CONTROLS INTERNATIONAL PLC, GS Yuasa Corporation, etc. Other players include First National Battery, NorthStar, Amar Raja Batteries Ltd, HOPPECKE, Exide Technologies, HBL Power Systems Limited, C&D Technologies, Inc., East Penn Manufacturing Co., FIAMM Energy Technology S.p.A., Crown Battery Manufacturing Co., and Trojan Battery Company. Companies operating in the global market for lead acid batteries are focusing on market strategies to raise management performance overseas by integrating production facilities and manufacturing processes to address the major markets of lead acid batteries. For instance, Exide Technologies accounts for major share of the market in the U.S. and Europe. The company is targeting mid and downstream car manufacturers in Asia Pacific. GS Yuasa Corporation is a major Japan-based lead acid battery manufacturer, which is also concentrating on the overseas markets.Request Report Discount:Lead Acid Battery Market: By Product Type (Revenue US$ Mn; Volume Thousand Units; 2026)FloodedSealedAGMGelLead Acid Battery Market: By Application (Revenue US$ Mn; Volume Thousand Units; 2026)AutomotiveMotor CyclesMotive PowerRenewable PowerUPS & TelecomOthers (Wheelchairs, etc.)Lead Acid Battery Market: Regional Analysis (Revenue US$ Mn; Volume Thousand Units;2026)North AmericaS.CanadaEuropeGermanyFranceK.SpainItalyRussia & CISRest of EuropeAsia PacificChinaIndiaJapanASEANRest Of Asia PacificLatin AmericaBrazilMexicoArgentinaRest of Latin AmericaMiddle East & Africa (MEA)GCCSouth AfricaRest of MEAReport Analysis:About Us:Research Report Insights (RRI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver a host of services including custom research reports, syndicated research reports, and consulting services which are personalised in nature. RRI delivers a complete packaged solution to clients; this combines current market intelligence, technology inputs, statistical anecdotes, valuable growth insights, 360-degree view of the competitive framework, and anticipated market trends.Contact Us:Research Report Insights (RRI)42 Joseph StreetPort carling P0B 1J0Muskoka, Ontario1Phone - +1-631-721-4201Website:Email: sales@researchreportinsights.com The global cosmetic ingredients market is expected to increase at a CAGR of 4.5% during the forecast period 20152025. https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/11164 https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/cosmetic-ingredients-market/toc http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com The global cosmetic ingredients market was valued at US$ 14,671.2 Mn in 2015, and is expected to grow at a year-over-year rate of 4.4% to reach US$ 15,313.9 Mn in 2016. In terms of value, Western Europe dominated the global cosmetics ingredients market with 28.0 % share in 2015. Western Europe and North America collectively are expected to account for 54.1% of the total cosmetics ingredients market share in terms of revenue in 2016.Request For Report Sample@Key trends in the global cosmetic ingredients market include rapid urbanisation, introduction of innovative products with more visible effects, growing disposable income, and increasing emphasis on appearance and good-looks.On the basis of product type polymer segment is expected to witness the highest growth, followed by surfactant segment. These two product type segments are anticipated to witness a year-over-year growth of 3.6% and 5.3% respectively in 2016.On the basis of application, the global cosmetics ingredients market is segmented into hair care, skin care, fragrance, make up, oral care and products including shaving kits and body hair removers. Skin care is the largest application segment, accounting for 31.6% revenue share of the market in 2016. This segment is anticipated to grow by 5.2% in 2016 to reach US$ 4,816.4 Mn in revenues.By functionality, the cosmetics ingredients market is segmented into foamers & cleansing agent, moisturising, fragrance, toners and colouring agents. Amongst these segments, moisturising is the largest segment in terms of revenue, accounting for 25.1% share in 2015. This segment is anticipated to witness a yearover-year growth of 4.8% in 2016 to reach US$ 3,856.4 Mn.Regionally, Western Europe will continue to remain the largest market for cosmetic ingredients in 2016. The market in the Western Europe is expected to grow by 3.8% in 2016 to reach US$ 4,256.9 Mn in revenues. The key factors fuelling the market in the region include increasing demand for skin care and hair care ingredients such as surfactant t, emollient, polymer particularly specialty cosmetic ingredients such as antimicrobial and UV absorber. Other trends driving market growth include rapid urbanisation in developing countries and development of new and innovative products by various players in the market. North America, the second-largest market for cosmetic ingredients globally is anticipated to increase at 4.6% in 2016.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC)@Key participants in the global cosmetics ingredients market include Akzo Nobel N.V., BASF SE, Croda International Plc, Eastman Chemical Company and The Dow Chemical Company. Key end-use companies identified for cosmetics ingredients include Unilever, L'Oreal International, The Estee Lauder Companies Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Company and COTY Inc.ABOUT US:Persistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance. To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.CONTACT:Persistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb: UV Fluorescing Ink Market 2025 | , RUCO Druckfarben, Eastern Marking Machine Corporation, Gans Ink & Supply Co., T&K Toka Co. Ltd., Nutec Digital Ink Pvt. Ltd., https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upsample/120124616/UV-Fluorescing-Ink-Market https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/TOC/120124616/UV-Fluorescing-Ink-Market https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/upcomming/120124616/UV-Fluorescing-Ink-Market https://www.researchreportinsights.com/ The new ink is colourless in normal light and fluoresces blue under a black light.With its MEK solvent base, the ink offers very good adhesion to a variety of substrates including coated cartons or glossy labels, vial caps and closures, and dark substrates where a bar code is needed.The clear, UV fluorescing ink is suited to GS1-DataMatrix and other 2D codes, and is resistant to the autoclave process. This ink offers a 2-3 second dry time on non-porous materials such as ABS, HDPE, PET, PVC and nylon, and Videojet delivers good adhesion versatility on a wide range of substrates.Request For Report Sample:Gravure printing, flexographic printing, offset printing, screen printing, and digital printing are the main application areas of UV cure printing inks. Among these, offset printing reported a greater demand for these inks in 2015 with a share of 38% and is likely to remain leading throughout the forecast period.On the other hand, the digital printing segment is expected to maintain high attractiveness among UV cure printing ink vendors over the forthcoming years due to the shifting preference of consumers towards digital printing. Similarly, the flexographic printing segment is projected to register a healthy rise in the demand for UV cure printing inks due to their extensive usage in highly lucrative end users, such as the packaging and the publication and commercial printing sectors.The increasing penetration of digital media across North America is reflecting positively on the sales of UV cure printing inks in this region,. The trend is expected to remain so in the near future, influencing the regional market greatly.The growing preference for digital media compared to traditional printing in architectural designs, textiles, fine arts, advertising, and desktop publishing, thanks to the flexibility it offers, is likely to propel the North America market for UV cure printing inks substantially over the next few years.Request Report For Toc:Major Key players such as Hewlett-Packard Co., Flint Group, Toyo Ink SC Holdings Co., and Paul Leibinger GmbH are actively involved in the UV curable inks market, with numerous strategic alliances and product innovations, which are being emulated by other players as well.Other market participants include APV Engineered Coatings, RUCO Druckfarben, Eastern Marking Machine Corporation, Gans Ink & Supply Co., T&K Toka Co. Ltd., Nutec Digital Ink Pvt. Ltd., Colorgen, Marabu Inks GB, Mimaki Engineering Co. Ltd., Nazdar Ink Technologies and Superior Printing Inks Co. Ltd.Report Analysis:Research Report Insights (RRI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver a host of services including custom research reports, syndicated research reports, and consulting services which are personalised in nature. RRI delivers a complete packaged solution to clients; this combines current market intelligence, technology inputs, statistical anecdotes, valuable growth insights, 360-degree view of the competitive framework, and anticipated market trends.Research Report Insights (RRI)42 Joseph StreetPort carling P0B 1J0Muskoka, Ontario1Phone - +1-631-721-4201Website:Email: sales@researchreportinsights.com Male Infertility Market Value Increasing to $301.5 Million by 2020 Male Infertility Market https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/241?utm_source=OPR https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/241?utm_source=OPR https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com "Geographically, male infertility is segmented in to North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and RoW. The geographic market would be dominated by the North American region by 2020. This is due to the increased adoption of newer techniques such as DNA fragmentation in the routine analysis test for male infertility. The Asia Pacific and RoW region are expected to have the highest CAGR during the analysis period. This is due to the increase in male infertility awareness and rising awareness about the treatments that are available."Male Infertility Market Report, published by Allied Market Research, forecasts that the global market is expected to garner $301.5 million by 2020, registering a CAGR of 5% during the period 2014-2020.Get Access to TOC / Sample Report @Infertility in male is characterized by various infertility related problems such as low sperm count, presence of low motile sperm or azoospermia. The various causes of male infertility include stress, consumption of alcohol or drugs, smoking, obesity, environmental toxins, etc. These factors also act as driving factors of the male infertility market. When an individual is diagnosed with infertility, the person undergoes immense stress, embarrassment and guilt, which would further intensify the infertility problem. This is a major limitation of this market. The opportunity for the growth of this market is the increase in awareness levels among men and rising trend in medical tourism.The male infertility market is segmented based on techniques, namely DNA fragmentation, oxidative stress analysis, sperm agglutination test, sperm penetration test, microscopic examination, computer assisted semen analysis and others. The DNA fragmentation would be the highest revenue generating market by 2020 and is also expected to have the highest CAGR during the analysis period, when compared to the other segments in the techniques market. This is due to the accuracy level the test provides in identifying the level of infertility by measuring the level of DNA damage.The key companies profiled in the report are ASKA Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd, ZydusCadila Healthcare Limited, Access Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Intas Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Pantarhei Bioscience B, Cordex Pharma, Inc., Merck Serono, Halotech DNA SL, SCSA diagnostics, Andrology Solutions.Send Enquiry on this report @Male Infertility Market Segments covered in the report:Male Infertility Market By Techniques: DNA Fragmentation Technique Oxidative Stress Analysis Microscopic Examination Sperm Penetration Assay Sperm Agglutination Computer Assisted Semen Analysis OthersMale Infertility Market By Geography: North America Europe Asia Pacific RoWAbout usAllied Market Research, a market research and advisory company of Allied Analytics LLP, provides business insights and market research reports to large as well as small & medium enterprises. The company assists its clients to strategize business policies and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.Allied Market Research provides one stop solution from the beginning of data collection to investment advice. The analysts at Allied Market Research dig out factors that help clients to understand the significance and impact of market dynamics. The company amplies clients insight on the factors, such as strategies, future estimations, growth or fall forecasting, opportunity analysis, and consumer surveys among others. As follows, the company offers consistent business intelligent support to aid the clients to turn into prominent business firm.Contact:David Correa5933 NE Win Sivers Drive#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesToll Free (USA/Canada):+1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022, +1-503-446-1141UK: +44-845-528-1300Hong Kong: +852-301-84916India (Pune): +91-20-66346060Fax: +1(855)550-5975help@alliedmarketresearch.comWeb: Senior Probiotics Supplements Market 2027 | Church & Dwight Co. Inc., DR. WILLMAR SCHWABE GROUP, The Clorox Company, i-Health, Inc., Jarrow Formulas https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/sample/110114882/Senior-Probiotics-Supplements-Market https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/discount/110114882/Senior-Probiotics-Supplements-Market https://www.researchreportinsights.com/report/rd/110114882/Senior-Probiotics-Supplements-Market https://www.researchreportinsights.com/ In this report, Research Report Insights offers a 10-year forecast of the global senior probiotics supplements market between 2017 and 2027. In terms of value, the market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 9.8% over the forecast period. The current study reveals the market trends and market dynamics in all seven regions that are expected to positively affect the current market environment and future scenario of the senior probiotics supplements market over the forecast period.Report DescriptionThis RRI report inspects the senior probiotics supplements market for the period 20172027. The prime objective of this report is to offer insights into developments in the senior probiotics supplements market that are gradually helping transform global businesses associated with the same.Request For Report Sample:The global senior probiotics supplements market report begins by the executive summary and defining various categories and their share in the senior probiotics supplements market. It is followed by market dynamics, overview of the global senior probiotics supplements market, which includes RRI analysis of market drivers, restraints, opportunities and trends that are affecting growth of the senior probiotics supplements market. Furthermore, to understand the popularity of the market segment and regions, the attractiveness index with elaborated insights on the same is provided, which will show the markets attractiveness based on the factors such as CAGR and incremental opportunity.Elders are becoming aware about the health benefits probiotics supplements which in turn is surging the demand for senior probiotics supplements based products. Thus, enhancing the sales for formulation containing probiotic supplements. By the end of 2016, over 550 million people were aged over 65 year or older, which translates to roughly 8% of the world population. Over next thirty years, the number of people ageing sixty year or above will increase thrice and projected to surpass 1.5 billion- representing over 15% of the global population.Associated health benefits of probiotic supplements, digestive system is responsible for catalyzing the food products consumed and absorption of vitamins and minerals from food and nutritional supplements, maintaining the digestive health is very important factor in optimizing nutrient intake and preventing from deficiency related bodily conditions. If the body remains deficient of required essential nutrients, immune function is likely to be compromised and there is higher probability of developing several health concerns. Medical practitioners and individuals realized the associated health benefits and thus recommending probiotic supplement to senior instead of high dosage of chemical based medicines.The market is segmented based on bacteria, formulation type, distribution channel, and region. On the basis of bacteria type segmentation includes Lactobacillus, Streptococcus, Bifidobacterium and others. Based on formulation type, the market is segmented into capsules, tablets, liquid, and powder premixes. Among all the formulation type segment, capsule is expected to account for the highest market share, followed by powder premixes over the forecast period. The capsule segment is expected to register a significant CAGR of 11.4% during the forecast period in terms of value. The powder premixes is projected to register a CAGR of 9.0% over the forecast period in terms of value. The factors fuelling demand for probiotics supplements in elders is that, as their bodies cannot easily digest food and they also have lack of immune support. These factors are collectively supporting demand for probiotic supplements among the global elderly population.Senior Probiotics Supplements can be classified as pharmacy stores, specialty stores, hypermarket/supermarket, and e-commerce based on distribution channel segment. Among all the distribution channel type segments, specialty stores segment is expected to exhibit a significant CAGR over the forecast period. Specialty stores segment is expected to continue its dominance in terms of market share over the forecast period.The next section of the report highlights the senior probiotics supplements adoption, by region, and provides the market outlook for 20172027. The study investigates the market attractiveness regionally, as well as analyses the limit to which the trends are influencing the senior probiotics supplements market in each region. Main regions assessed in this report include North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan and the Middle East & Africa (MEA). The sections, by form, and by application, evaluate the present scenario and growth prospects of the regional senior probiotics supplements market for 20172027. Increasing focus of global key players for expansion in Western Europe and APEJ region is expected to increase the senior probiotics supplements market share in these regions. The North America market has been estimated to dominate the senior probiotics supplements market, accounting for maximum revenue share of the market by 2017 end. Collectively, North America and Western Europe markets are expected to account for over 70.6% revenue share of the global senior probiotics supplements market by 2017 end. Among the emerging markets, APEJ is estimated to exhibit a significant CAGR of 8.8% over the forecast period, followed by Western Europe market, due to the increasing elderly population.To ascertain the senior probiotics supplements market size, we have also taken into account the revenue generated by the various manufacturers. The forecast presented here assesses the total revenue generated by value, across the senior probiotics supplements market. In order to provide an accurate forecast, we initiated by sizing up the current market, which forms the basis on how the senior probiotics supplements market is expected to develop in the future. Given the characteristics of the market, we triangulated the outcome on the basis of three different types of analysis; based on supply side, downstream industry demand and the economic envelope. In addition, it is imperative to note that in an ever-fluctuating global economy, we not only conduct forecasts in terms of CAGR, but also analyse the market based on key parameters, such as year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth rates, to understand the predictability of the senior probiotics supplements market and identify the right opportunities across the market.The senior probiotics supplements segments based on bacteria, formulation type, distribution channel, and region, have been analysed in terms of basis point share (BPS) to understand the individual segments relative contributions to market growth. This detailed level of information is important for identifying various key trends in the senior probiotics supplements market. Another key feature of this report is the analysis of key segments in terms of absolute dollar opportunity. This is overlooked while forecasting the market. However, absolute dollar opportunity is critical for evaluating the scope of opportunity that a provider can look to achieve, as well as to identify potential resources from a delivery perspective of the senior probiotics supplements market. The overall absolute dollar opportunity along with the segmental split is mentioned in the report.To understand key growth segments in terms of growth and adoption for senior probiotics supplements globally, Research Report Insights developed the senior probiotics supplements market Attractiveness Index. The resulting index should help providers identify real market opportunities.In the final section of the report on senior probiotics supplements, the dashboard view of the companies is provided to compare the current industrial scenario and their contribution in total senior probiotics supplements market. Moreover, it is primarily designed to provide clients with an objective and detailed comparative assessment of key providers specific to a market segment. Report audiences can gain segment-specific manufacturer insights to identify and evaluate key competitors based on the in-depth assessment of their capabilities and success in the senior probiotics supplements marketplace.Detailed profiles of senior probiotics supplements production companies are also included in the report to evaluate their long and shortterm strategies, key product offerings and recent developments in the senior probiotics supplements market. Key market competitors covered in the report include Church & Dwight Co. Inc., DR. WILLMAR SCHWABE GROUP, The Clorox Company, i-Health, Inc., Jarrow Formulas, NOVA Probiotics, Natural Factors Inc., Total Nutrition, Inc., PharmaCare Laboratories, BioGaia AB, and Lifeway Foods, Inc.Request Report Discount:Key Segments CoveredBy BacteriaLactobacillusStreptococcusBifidobacteriumOthersBy Formulation TypeTabletsCapsulesLiquidPowder PremixesKey Regions/Countries CoveredNorth AmericaS.CanadaLatin AmericaBrazilArgentinaRest of Latin AmericaWestern EuropeK.GermanyFranceNetherlandsRest of Western EuropeEastern EuropeRussiaPolandRest of Eastern EuropeAsia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ)ChinaIndiaAustraliaRest of APEJJapanMiddle East & AfricaGCCSouth AfricaRest of MEAKey CompaniesChurch & Dwight Co. Inc.WILLMAR SCHWABE GROUPThe Clorox Companyi-Health, Inc.Jarrow FormulasNOVA ProbioticsNatural Factors Inc.Total Nutrition, Inc.PharmaCare LaboratoriesBioGaia ABLifeway Foods, Inc.Report Analysis:About Us:Research Report Insights (RRI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver a host of services including custom research reports, syndicated research reports, and consulting services which are personalised in nature. RRI delivers a complete packaged solution to clients; this combines current market intelligence, technology inputs, statistical anecdotes, valuable growth insights, 360-degree view of the competitive framework, and anticipated market trends.Contact Us:Research Report Insights (RRI)42 Joseph StreetPort carling P0B 1J0Muskoka, Ontario1Phone - +1-631-721-4201Website:Email: sales@researchreportinsights.com Global Gunshot Detection System Market Growth and Analysis by Top Manufacturers Thales Group , Battelle Memorial Institute , Rafael, SST, Saffron Electronics & Defense, Rheinmetall AG , ELTA Systems Ltd Gunshot Detection System https://www.researchreportsinc.com/sample-request?id=174140 https://www.researchreportsinc.com/check-discount?id=174140 https://researchreportsinc.com/checkout/?add-to-cart=174140&&attribute_pa_choose-license=single-user&&quantity=1 The Gunshot Detection System Market was dominated by the homeland segment in 2016 and is expected to continue its dominance during the forecast period. Gunshot detection systems for homeland security were first used in the U.S. These systems are primarily used by law enforcement agencies. They are installed at the height of more than 30 feet above the ground at specific locations of the coverage area. These include walls, poles, streetlights, and buildings, among others. Furthermore, increase in mass shootings incidents at educational institutions is a prime concern.The Complete Report Spreads across 138 Pages.Request for Sample of Global Gunshot Detection System Market 2018 Research Report:Leaders Of The Industry :- Raytheon Company, Thales Group , Battelle Memorial Institute , Rafael, SST, Safran Electronics & Defense, Rheinmetall AG , ELTA Systems Ltd, Acoem Group , Databuoy Corporation , CILAS, Qinetiq North America , Microflown Avisa B.V. , Shooter Detection Systems LLC, Safety Dynamics Inc, Information System Technologies, V5 Systems Inc and so on.Furthermore, years considered for the study are as follows:Historical year 2013, 2016Base year 2017Forecast period 2018 to 2023A gunfire locator or gunshot detection system is a system that detects and conveys the location of gunfire or other weapon fire using acoustic, optical, or potentially other types of sensors, as well as a combination of such sensors. These systems are used by law enforcement, security, military and businesses to identify the source and, in some cases, the direction of gunfire and/or the type of weapon fired.Grab Guaranteed Discount:Segmentation by product type:Fixed SystemVehicle Mounted SystemSegmentation by application:HomelandDefenseWe can also provide the customized separate regional or country-level reports, for the following regions:AmericasUnited StatesCanadaMexicoBrazilAPACChinaJapanKoreaSoutheast AsiaIndiaAustraliaEuropeGermanyFranceUKItalyRussiaSpainMiddle East & AfricaEgyptSouth AfricaIsraelTurkeyGCC CountriesWe Also Can Offer Customized Report To Fulfill Special Requirements Of Our Clients.Purchase this Premium Report at:-Table of Contents2018-2023 Global Gunshot Detection System Consumption Market Report1 Scope of the Report1.1 Market Introduction1.2 Research Objectives1.3 Years Considered1.4 Market Research Methodology1.5 Economic Indicators1.6 Currency Considered2 Executive Summary2.1 World Market Overview2.1.1 Global Gunshot Detection System Consumption 2013-20232.1.2 Gunshot Detection System Consumption CAGR by Region2.2 Gunshot Detection System Segment by Type2.2.1 Electrical Polisher2.2.2 Pneumatic Polisher2.3 Gunshot Detection System Consumption by Type2.3.1 Global Gunshot Detection System Consumption Market Share by Type (2013-2018)2.3.2 Global Gunshot Detection System Revenue and Market Share by Type (2013-2018)2.3.3 Global Gunshot Detection System Sale Price by Type (2013-2018)2.4 Gunshot Detection System Segment by Application2.4.1 Automotive Repair Shop2.4.2 Automotive Care Shop2.4.3 Others2.5 Gunshot Detection System Consumption by Application2.5.1 Global Gunshot Detection System Consumption Market Share by Application (2013-2018)2.5.2 Global Gunshot Detection System Value and Market Share by Application (2013-2018)2.5.3 Global Gunshot Detection System Sale Price by Application (2013-2018)3 Global Gunshot Detection System by Players3.1 Global Gunshot Detection System Sales Market Share by Players3.1.1 Global Gunshot Detection System Sales by Players (2016-2018)3.1.2 Global Gunshot Detection System Sales Market Share by Players (2016-2018)3.2 Global Gunshot Detection System Revenue Market Share by Players3.2.1 Global Gunshot Detection System Revenue by Players (2016-2018)3.2.2 Global Gunshot Detection System Revenue Market Share by Players (2016-2018)3.3 Global Gunshot Detection System Sale Price by Players3.4 Global Gunshot Detection System Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area, Product Types by Players3.4.1 Global Gunshot Detection System Manufacturing Base Distribution and Sales Area by Players3.4.2 Players Gunshot Detection System Products Offered3.5 Market Concentration Rate Analysis3.5.1 Competition Landscape Analysis3.5.2 Concentration Ratio (CR3, CR5 and CR10) (2016-2018)3.6 New Products and Potential Entrants3.7 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion4 Gunshot Detection System by Regions4.1 Gunshot Detection System by Regions4.1.1 Global Gunshot Detection System Consumption by Regions4.1.2 Global Gunshot Detection System Value by Regions4.2 Americas Gunshot Detection System Consumption Growth4.3 APAC Gunshot Detection System Consumption Growth4.4 Europe Gunshot Detection System Consumption Growth4.5 Middle East & Africa Gunshot Detection System Consumption Growth5 Americas5.1 Americas Gunshot Detection System Consumption by Countries5.1.1 Americas Gunshot Detection System Consumption by Countries (2013-2018)5.1.2 Americas Gunshot Detection System Value by Countries (2013-2018)5.2 Americas Gunshot Detection System Consumption by Type5.3 Americas Gunshot Detection System Consumption by Application5.4 United States5.5 Canada5.6 Mexico5.7 Key Economic Indicators of Few Americas CountriesAbout Us:Research Reports Inc. is one of the leading destinations for market research reports across all industries, companies, and technologies. Our repository features an exhaustive list of market research reports from thousands of publishers worldwideWith our expertise and research offerings, we ensure we deliver on all your requirements, whether youre looking for industry analysis or market trends or anything else, first time and every time!Email us sales@researchreportsinc.comCall: US / Canada Toll Free: +18554192424, UK : +4403308087757 Roof Windows Market 2023 , Growth by Top Companies Velux, Fakro, Roto, Lamilux, Keylite, AHRD, Tegola Canadese, Faelux, Alwitra, DAKOTA, Sunsquare, INLUX, Roof Windows Market https://www.researchreportsinc.com/sample-request?id=177796 https://researchreportsinc.com/enquiry?id=177796 https://researchreportsinc.com/checkout/?add-to-cart=177796&&attribute_pa_choose-license=single-user&&quantity=1 In this report, RRI Information covers the present scenario (with the base year being 2017) and the growth prospects of global Roof Windows market for 2018-2023.A roof window is an outward opening window that is incorporated as part of the design of a roof. Often confused with a skylight, a roof window differs in a few basic ways. A roof window is often a good option when there is a desire to allow both light and fresh air into the space.A roof window tends to be larger than a skylight, making it possible to enjoy a wider view of the sky overhead. In addition, skylights are usually stationary; that is, they cannot be opened and closed. With some designs of a roof window, it is possible to retract a portion of the glazed panes to allow in fresh air as well as enjoy the natural light.In the coming years there is an increasing demand for roof windows in the regions of America and Asia Pacific that is expected to drive the market for more advanced roof windows. Growth in government budgets in the construction fields expenditures, more-intense competition, launches in introducing new products, retrofitting and renovation of old technology, increasing adoption of roof windows will drive growth in America and Asia Pacific markets.Get Sample Copy of this Report atThe roof windows industry market is very concentrated as the manufacturing technology of roof windows is matures than some high-tech equipment. And large enterprises like Velux, Fakro, Roto, etc. are well-known for the wonderful performance of their roof windows and related services, the top three companies have dominated about 87% market.The consumption volume of roof windows is related to downstream industries and global economy. As there will always be some uncertain in the global economy in the following years, the growth rate of roof windows industry may not keep that fast. But it is surely forecasted that the market of roof windows is still promising.The impact on the cost and availability of raw materials and certain components is uncertain due to potential supply changes. The costs of raw materials have a significant impact on the level of expenses. If the prices of raw materials and related factors such as energy prices increase, and if new companies cannot pass those price increases on to customers, their results of operations and financial condition would suffer.Over the next five years, RRI (RRI Information) projects that Roof Windows will register a xx% CAGR in terms of revenue, reach US$ xx million by 2023, from US$ xx million in 2017.This report presents a comprehensive overview, market shares, and growth opportunities of Roof Windows market by product type, application, key manufacturers and key regions.To calculate the market size, RRI Information considers value and volume generated from the sales of the following segments:Segmentation by product type:WoodPUPVCMetalSegmentation by application:ResidentialCommercialThis report also splits the market by region:AmericasUnited StatesCanadaMexicoBrazilAPACChinaJapanKoreaSoutheast AsiaIndiaAustraliaEuropeGermanyFranceUKItalyRussiaSpainMiddle East & AfricaEgyptSouth AfricaIsraelTurkeyGCC CountriesThe report also presents the market competition landscape and a corresponding detailed analysis of the major vendor/manufacturers in the market. The key manufacturers covered in this report:VeluxFakroRotoLamiluxKeyliteAHRDTegola CanadeseFaeluxAlwitraDAKOTASunsquareINLUXHave Any Query? Ask Our Experts @Table of Contents2018-2023 Global Roof Windows Consumption Market Report1 Scope of the Report1.1 Market Introduction1.2 Research Objectives1.3 Years Considered1.4 Market Research Methodology1.5 Economic Indicators1.6 Currency Considered2 Executive Summary2.1 World Market Overview2.1.1 Global Roof Windows Consumption 2013-20232.1.2 Roof Windows Consumption CAGR by Region2.2 Roof Windows Segment by Type2.2.1 Wood2.2.2 PU2.2.3 PVC2.2.4 Metal2.3 Roof Windows Consumption by Type2.3.1 Global Roof Windows Consumption Market Share by Type (2013-2018)2.3.2 Global Roof Windows Revenue and Market Share by Type (2013-2018)2.3.3 Global Roof Windows Sale Price by Type (2013-2018)2.4 Roof Windows Segment by Application2.4.1 Residential2.4.2 Commercial2.5 Roof Windows Consumption by Application2.5.1 Global Roof Windows Consumption Market Share by Application (2013-2018)2.5.2 Global Roof Windows Value and Market Share by Application (2013-2018)2.5.3 Global Roof Windows Sale Price by Application (2013-2018)3 Global Roof Windows by Players3.1 Global Roof Windows Sales Market Share by Players3.1.1 Global Roof Windows Sales by Players (2016-2018)3.1.2 Global Roof Windows Sales Market Share by Players (2016-2018)3.2 Global Roof Windows Revenue Market Share by Players3.2.1 Global Roof Windows Revenue by Players (2016-2018)3.2.2 Global Roof Windows Revenue Market Share by Players (2016-2018)3.3 Global Roof Windows Sale Price by Players3.4 Global Roof Windows Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area, Product Types by Players3.4.1 Global Roof Windows Manufacturing Base Distribution and Sales Area by Players3.4.2 Players Roof Windows Products Offered3.5 Market Concentration Rate Analysis3.5.1 Competition Landscape Analysis3.5.2 Concentration Ratio (CR3, CR5 and CR10) (2016-2018)3.6 New Products and Potential Entrants3.7 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion4 Roof Windows by Regions4.1 Roof Windows by Regions4.1.1 Global Roof Windows Consumption by Regions4.1.2 Global Roof Windows Value by Regions4.2 Americas Roof Windows Consumption Growth4.3 APAC Roof Windows Consumption Growth4.4 Europe Roof Windows Consumption Growth4.5 Middle East & Africa Roof Windows Consumption Growth5 Americas5.1 Americas Roof Windows Consumption by Countries5.1.1 Americas Roof Windows Consumption by Countries (2013-2018)5.1.2 Americas Roof Windows Value by Countries (2013-2018)5.2 Americas Roof Windows Consumption by Type5.3 Americas Roof Windows Consumption by Application5.4 United States5.5 Canada5.6 Mexico5.7 Key Economic Indicators of Few Americas Countries6 APAC6.1 APAC Roof Windows Consumption by Countries6.1.1 APAC Roof Windows Consumption by Countries (2013-2018)6.1.2 APAC Roof Windows Value by Countries (2013-2018)6.2 APAC Roof Windows Consumption by Type6.3 APAC Roof Windows Consumption by Application6.4 China6.5 Japan6.6 Korea6.7 Southeast Asia6.8 India6.9 Australia6.10 Key Economic Indicators of Few APAC Countries7 Europe7.1 Europe Roof Windows by Countries7.1.1 Europe Roof Windows Consumption by Countries (2013-2018)7.1.2 Europe Roof Windows Value by Countries (2013-2018)7.2 Europe Roof Windows Consumption by Type7.3 Europe Roof Windows Consumption by Application7.4 Germany7.5 France7.6 UK7.7 Italy7.8 Russia7.9 Spain7.10 Key Economic Indicators of Few Europe Countries8 Middle East & Africa8.1 Middle East & Africa Roof Windows by Countries8.1.1 Middle East & Africa Roof Windows Consumption by Countries (2013-2018)8.1.2 Middle East & Africa Roof Windows Value by Countries (2013-2018)8.2 Middle East & Africa Roof Windows Consumption by Type8.3 Middle East & Africa Roof Windows Consumption by Application8.4 Egypt8.5 South Africa8.6 Israel8.7 Turkey8.8 GCC Countries9 Market Drivers, Challenges and Trends9.1 Market Drivers and Impact9.1.1 Growing Demand from Key Regions9.1.2 Growing Demand from Key Applications and Potential Industries9.2 Market Challenges and Impact9.3 Market Trends10 Marketing, Distributors and Customer10.1 Sales Channel10.1.1 Direct Marketing10.1.2 Indirect Marketing10.2 Roof Windows Distributors10.3 Roof Windows Customer11 Global Roof Windows Market Forecast11.1 Global Roof Windows Consumption Forecast (2018-2023)11.2 Global Roof Windows Forecast by Regions11.2.1 Global Roof Windows Forecast by Regions (2018-2023)11.2.2 Global Roof Windows Value Forecast by Regions (2018-2023)11.2.3 Americas Consumption Forecast11.2.4 APAC Consumption Forecast11.2.5 Europe Consumption Forecast11.2.6 Middle East & Africa Consumption Forecast11.3 Americas Forecast by Countries11.3.1 United States Market Forecast11.3.2 Canada Market Forecast11.3.3 Mexico Market Forecast11.3.4 Brazil Market Forecast11.4 APAC Forecast by Countries11.4.1 China Market Forecast11.4.2 Japan Market Forecast11.4.3 Korea Market Forecast11.4.4 Southeast Asia Market Forecast11.4.5 India Market Forecast11.4.6 Australia Market Forecast11.5 Europe Forecast by Countries11.5.1 Germany Market Forecast11.5.2 France Market Forecast11.5.3 UK Market Forecast11.5.4 Italy Market Forecast11.5.5 Russia Market Forecast11.5.6 Spain Market Forecast11.6 Middle East & Africa Forecast by Countries11.6.1 Egypt Market Forecast11.6.2 South Africa Market Forecast11.6.3 Israel Market Forecast11.6.4 Turkey Market Forecast11.6.5 GCC Countries Market Forecast11.7 Global Roof Windows Forecast by Type11.8 Global Roof Windows Forecast by Application12 Key Players Analysis12.1 Velux12.1.1 Company Details12.1.2 Roof Windows Product Offered12.1.3 Velux Roof Windows Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2016-2018)12.1.4 Main Business Overview12.1.5 Velux News12.2 Fakro12.2.1 Company Details12.2.2 Roof Windows Product Offered12.2.3 Fakro Roof Windows Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2016-2018)12.2.4 Main Business Overview12.2.5 Fakro News12.3 Roto12.3.1 Company Details12.3.2 Roof Windows Product Offered12.3.3 Roto Roof Windows Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2016-2018)12.3.4 Main Business Overview12.3.5 Roto News12.4 Lamilux12.4.1 Company Details12.4.2 Roof Windows Product Offered12.4.3 Lamilux Roof Windows Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2016-2018)12.4.4 Main Business Overview12.4.5 Lamilux News12.5 Keylite12.5.1 Company Details12.5.2 Roof Windows Product Offered12.5.3 Keylite Roof Windows Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2016-2018)12.5.4 Main Business Overview12.5.5 Keylite News12.6 AHRD12.6.1 Company Details12.6.2 Roof Windows Product Offered12.6.3 AHRD Roof Windows Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2016-2018)12.6.4 Main Business Overview12.6.5 AHRD News12.7 Tegola Canadese12.7.1 Company Details12.7.2 Roof Windows Product Offered12.7.3 Tegola Canadese Roof Windows Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2016-2018)12.7.4 Main Business Overview12.7.5 Tegola Canadese News12.8 Faelux12.8.1 Company Details12.8.2 Roof Windows Product Offered12.8.3 Faelux Roof Windows Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2016-2018)12.8.4 Main Business Overview12.8.5 Faelux News12.9 Alwitra12.9.1 Company Details12.9.2 Roof Windows Product Offered12.9.3 Alwitra Roof Windows Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2016-2018)12.9.4 Main Business Overview12.9.5 Alwitra News12.10 DAKOTA12.10.1 Company Details12.10.2 Roof Windows Product Offered12.10.3 DAKOTA Roof Windows Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2016-2018)12.10.4 Main Business Overview12.10.5 DAKOTA News12.11 Sunsquare12.12 INLUX13 Research Findings and ConclusionPurchase this Premium Report at (Flat 20% off Apply Coupon Code DISC20):-In addition, this report discusses the key drivers influencing market growth, opportunities, the challenges and the risks faced by key manufacturers and the market as a whole. It also analyzes key emerging trends and their impact on present and future development.Research objectivesTo study and analyze the global Roof Windows consumption (value & volume) by key regions/countries, product type and application, history data from 2013 to 2017, and forecast to 2023.To understand the structure of Roof Windows market by identifying its various subsegments.Focuses on the key global Roof Windows manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the sales volume, value, market share, market competition landscape, SWOT analysis and development plans in next few years.To analyze the Roof Windows with respect to individual growth trends, future prospects, and their contribution to the total market.To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks).To project the consumption of Roof Windows submarkets, with respect to key regions (along with their respective key countries).To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.About usResearch Reports Inc. is one of the leading destinations for market research reports across all industries, companies, and technologies. Our repository features an exhaustive list of market research reports from thousands of publishers worldwide.Contact usDavidSales Manager,US +1-855-419-2424,UK +4403308087757Email- sales@researchreportsinc.com Global Fortified Dairy Products market research report provides company profile for China Modern Dairy, Arla, GCMMF, Dean Foods, Fonterra, Nestle, BASF, General Mills, Danone, Bright Dairy & Food and Others. This market study includes data about consumer perspective, comprehensive analysis, statistics, market share, company performances (Stocks), historical analysis 2012 to 2017, market forecast 2018 to 2025 in terms of volume, revenue, YOY growth rate, and CAGR for the year 2018 An Oregon class action lawsuit that alleges Airbnb allows discrimination against black users can move forward, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. The lawsuit contends the vacation rental website, which connects homeowners with travelers looking to rent a room, allows the homeowners to discriminate by requiring would-be guests to register with their full name and a photograph, although the company softened that policy earlier this month. Attorneys representing three African American women argue the policy violates the Oregon Public Accommodations Act. The decades-old law prohibits restaurants, hotels and other businesses from turning people away based on characteristics including race. Airbnb moved to dismiss the case, saying the women, who refuse to use Airbnb until it changes its photograph policy, haven't proven discrimination. It also argues the rooms for rent aren't public accommodations under the law because they're in private homes. But the women say Airbnb is aware that some hosts use photos to discriminate and still hasn't changed the policy. U.S. District Judge Michael Simon found the case had sufficient merit to move forward and denied Airbnb's motion to dismiss the lawsuit. He ruled it's irrelevant that Airbnb doesn't own the accommodations. The plaintiffs' allegations, he said, are plausible enough for the case to continue. A 2016 Harvard Business School study found that Airbnb guests with names that sounded African American were 16 percent less likely to be accepted by a host than those whose names sounded white. The company responded with an apology from co-founder Brian Chesky. Earlier this month, the company changed its policy so hosts using its platform can choose not to require photos, and it said photos would only be shown to hosts after they accept a booking. Airbnb has faced similar discrimination complaints in other jurisdictions but avoided a class-action lawsuit. A similar 2016 case, in which an African American main claimed an Airbnb host turned him away because of his race, was tossed because a U.S. District Court judge in Washington, D.C., ruled the plaintiff was bound by Airbnb's terms of service, which says disputes must be settled in arbitration rather than in court. In California, a 2017 settlement allows the state's fair housing department to audit certain hosts. -- Elliot Njus enjus@oregonian.com 503-294-5034 @enjus Lime, one of the nation's largest electric scooter companies, pulled thousands of its scooters off the streets this summer after discovering that a small number of them may be carrying batteries with the potential to catch fire, according to company officials. The company said in a statement Wednesday that it learned of a risk in August that a "manufacturing defect" in some of its scooters "could result in the battery smoldering, or in some cases, catching fire." The statement came in response to questions from The Washington Post about Lime's scooters catching on fire. Though company officials said in an interview Lime recalled about 2,000 scooters, they said the risk of smoldering and fires was only real in a tiny percentage of cases. The company said it took off the streets the much larger number out of an abundance of caution. "All vulnerable scooters were quickly removed from circulation, minimally impacting service to our Los Angeles, San Diego and Lake Tahoe markets," the company said in the statement. "At no time were riders or members of the public put at risk." At the same time, the company acknowledged it may face continuing challenges. It said it has received an unconfirmed report that another scooter model it uses "may also be vulnerable to battery failure." And it said that, in an unrelated issue, it is exploring whether some of its scooters "can sometimes break when subjected to repeated abuse." The company said it's possible for these scooters "to crack or break if ridden off a curb at high speed." -- The Washington Post Do we think Joey Gibson is misunderstood? No, we don't. The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board believes he is a provocateur who attracts white nationalists and, as a result, Antifa to his regular Portland rallies, which have increasingly become dangerous events that threaten our citizens' safety and livelihoods. The controversial piece that ran online and in The Sunday Oregonian entitled "The misunderstood Joey Gibson" was an opinion column by freelance journalist Elizabeth Hovde. And while the Editorial Board's perspective on the leader of the right-wing Patriot Prayer doesn't align with Hovde's take, we consistently publish columns, letters and op-eds that we don't endorse or agree with. Over the past month, for instance, we've published dozens of letters and op-eds favoring state ballot measures and candidates that we do not support. We welcome submissions from readers criticizing the stances we put forward in our editorials. We regularly print guest columns from progressive nonprofits, business associations, revenue reformers, tax activists and many others. We believe fostering discussion from multiple viewpoints is the point of having opinion pages. Hovde provides our pages balance as she is our only local conservative columnist. She's a Vancouver resident who teaches at the Washington State University-Vancouver. She's not an extremist or a white supremacist. She was just someone who was curious to see Gibson in a setting outside of the Portland protests that she'd read so much about. Her observations that day led to her opinion that Gibson's message might resonate with some despite his troubling affiliations. Readers felt her Sunday column about Gibson's rally at the Washington State University-Vancouver campus was naive and incomplete. That's fair criticism. In the editing process we should have made it clearer that her one experience at a Gibson rally failed to capture the fear, violence and hate others have experienced at his numerous rallies in Portland. The piece also could have had a better, less antagonistic headline. That's on us. As we put the paper to bed Friday night, the phrasing seemed to capture Hovde's lengthy column in four simple words. But it was overly simplistic, leaving readers incensed before they'd ever read the column. If they ever did. The worst part was the one thing we had no control over. Between the editing of the column Friday and its publication on Sunday came the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in U.S. history. A man who frequently posted anti-Semitic views on social media killed 11 Jewish congregants in Pittsburgh. Some readers believed we'd purposefully run the piece following those events, hoping to send an even more insidious message. We did not. The timing was unintentional and we regret it. So why did we run it at all? We believe in free speech, a free press and the importance of open debate to our civic health. We allow significant leeway for writers to present their opinions and argue their case. These pages are a place to air opinions, even unpopular ones. Sometimes readers will nod heartily in agreement. Other times, they'll feel anger and discomfort. That's the point. We believe there is value in airing those views so readers can debate, disagree and perhaps even discover their own blind spots. These are real opinions from your fellow community members. These opinions don't diminish or discount The Oregonian/OregonLive's newsroom, which operates independent of the editorial board and our Opinion section. And these opinions, whether in a letter, op-ed or column, won't by definition cover the same ground as a news article nor aim for the same goal. For example, The Oregonian/OregonLive has published more than 20 stories since July 1 about Gibson and his followers going into great detail about his actions, his rhetoric and the company he keeps. One opinion column does not "normalize" him, as some have argued, or negate such deep news reporting. One reader wrote that our responsibility is "to make sure your opinion pages reflect the reality its reporters and editors work so hard to expose." We disagree. The opinion pages aren't meant to be a mirror of the news operation. We recognize that reality for some of our readers on Sunday was anger and frustration with Hovde's column. We received many social media comments, emails and phone calls in response. Thank you to all who have taken the time to write us. We'll continue to post your letters and have dedicated our usual op-ed page to readers response to the column. We don't always get it right. No human endeavor does. But we hope you'll continue to join us in attempting a conversation. -- The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board Oregonian editorials Editorials reflect the collective opinion of The Oregonian/OregonLive editorial board, which operates independently of the newsroom. Members of the editorial board are Laura Gunderson, Helen Jung, Therese Bottomly and John Maher. Members of the board meet regularly to determine our institutional stance on issues of the day. We publish editorials when we believe our unique perspective can lend clarity and influence an upcoming decision of great public interest. Editorials are opinion pieces and therefore different from news articles. However, editorials are reported and written by either Laura Gunderson or Helen Jung. To respond to this editorial, post your comment below, or a . If you have questions about the opinion section, , editorial pages editor, or call 503-221-8378. By Eugene Robinson The Washington Post WASHINGTON -- "Both sides" are not responsible for the horrific political terrorism we have seen this past week. Only the right is to blame -- starting with President Trump and his complicit enablers in the Republican Party. They have been playing with fire. It was inevitable that people would get burned. Am I not supposed to blame Trump? Well, he blames me. After at least 14 mail bombs were sent to prominent Trump critics and 11 innocent worshipers were slaughtered in a Pittsburgh synagogue, this is what the Pyromaniac-in-Chief had to say Monday morning on Twitter: "There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news. The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly. That will do much to put out the flame of Anger and Outrage and we will then be able to bring all sides together in Peace and Harmony. Fake News Must End!" Divert, deflect, attack. Drive the wedge deeper. This is what Trump does -- it's the only thing he knows how to do -- and the damage he is inflicting will not easily be repaired. On Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, Pittsburgh's vibrant Squirrel Hill neighborhood became the site of the worst attack against Jews in U.S. history. A gunman toting a military-style assault rifle and three handguns barged into the Tree of Life synagogue and began firing, killing eight men and three women because they were Jews. An attack of this kind somewhere in the world perhaps should not have been a surprise. Leaders of Jewish organizations have reported a sharp rise in anti-Semitic incidents, including hate crimes, not just in the United States but in Europe and elsewhere as well. But the alleged assailant, a 46-year-old loner named Robert Bowers, appears to have had a specific delusionary complaint. From his social media postings, he seems to have bought into an insane white-supremacist conspiracy theory about Jews seeking to diminish the power and influence of American whites by promoting a flood of nonwhite immigrants. An organization called HIAS -- founded in 1881 as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society to assist Jews fleeing European pogroms -- was supposedly somehow involved. How does this have anything to do with Trump? Bowers apparently didn't even like the president, believing him to be far too soft on immigration. But Bowers was fixated on the so-called "caravan" of Central American migrants, which Trump and the Republicans have cynically exploited to drive turnout in the midterm election. GOP candidates have portrayed the slow-moving column of asylum-seekers -- still about 1,000 miles from the border -- as an imminent "invasion." Trump actually used that word Monday in a tweet. There is in fact no emergency, no invasion, no reason to panic. Trump and the Republicans helped convince Bowers otherwise. The Pittsburgh massacre came one day after Cesar Sayoc, 56, was arrested for allegedly sending more than a dozen crude pipe bombs to high-profile critics of Trump including former president Barack Obama, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, former attorney general Eric Holder, actor Robert De Niro and others. Among the targets chosen by alleged bombmaker Sayoc was billionaire George Soros -- who also features prominently in alleged shooter Bowers's insane fantasyland as a purported financier of the nonwhite invasion. Unlike Bowers, Sayoc is a fanatical supporter of Trump. The sides and windows of his van are plastered with pro-Trump stickers, including a picture of Clinton with the crosshairs of a gun scope on her face. On social media, Sayoc posted images of himself wearing a Make America Great Again cap at a Trump rally. Sayoc was arrested two days after a gun-wielding man named Gregory Bush, 51, tried to force his way into an African-American church near Louisville, Ky. When he could not get in, he went to a nearby grocery store, where he allegedly shot and killed two black customers at random. According to news reports, he told an armed white bystander who confronted him: "Please don't shoot and I won't shoot you. Whites don't kill whites." From the first day of his presidential campaign, Trump has deliberately whipped up anti-immigrant fervor and stoked racial animus. By obliterating the normal boundaries of political speech, he has opened new space for unapologetic advocates of white supremacy, anti-Semitism, misogyny and other biases to spew their venom. And the GOP happily goes along. Don't tell me that "both sides" need to do better. Republicans who remain silent deserve to be swept out of office. -- Eugene Robinson's email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com. While reading the Oct. 22 Oregonian/OregonLive article, "Kate Brown, Knute Buehler find little common ground on climate change," I was astonished at comments by Buehler, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, that showed a lack of insight and concern about climate change. I wonder if he is aware of the recent dire report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Buehler's tepid response to climate change action indicates he might not be. Meanwhile, Gov. Kate Brown is a climate champion leader. Her strong leadership protected Elliott State Forest. She'll protect Oregon air and water from federal environment rollbacks and she's banned offshore drilling. She also supports the upcoming Clean Energy Jobs bill, while Buehler publicly announced he would veto it. Also, he has voted against standards for cleaner fuels in Oregon, making it easier for polluters to damage Oregon's air. He earned a lifetime "F" rating from the Oregon League of Conservation Voters. As our world continues its sad march toward climate catastrophe, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gives us a bit of hope -- but only if we act immediately. A vote for Buehler threatens a wasted four years of government inaction while deep-pocketed polluters push us forward into an uninhabitable planet. Polls show a strong majority of people want immediate climate action. I'll vote for the candidate who will provide that important and immediate action. My vote is for Kate Brown. Donna Murphy, Northeast Portland The repeated Trumpian depiction of the dwindling caravan of poor, weak, and desperate asylum seekers headed to the U.S. as an invading horde exemplifies the current administration's strategy of building support through fear mongering and xenophobia. Demonizing others has proven to be an effective motivator of Trump's base. On the chance that the rise in hate crimes is fueled at least in part by this rhetoric, the president should be forced by his Republican colleagues to refrain from these verbal attacks or accept responsibility for the violence incited by his excoriation of minority groups. Christina Sparks, Southwest Portland Ryan Bundy, one of the leaders of the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against current and former heads of the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI over his prosecution in the 2014 standoff near his father's Nevada ranch. The federal government filed charges against Bundy in the 2016 refuge occupation and the 2014 confrontation with federal officers at the Bunkerville ranch. He was acquitted by a jury in the Oregon case and a judge earlier this year dismissed the charges in the Nevada case. Bundy filed the suit on his 46th birthday in federal court in the District of Columbia. He alleges he was subjected to "malicious prosecution'' as retaliation for protecting the Bundy ranch. Federal authorities had moved in to seize Bundy cattle after his father, Cliven Bundy, failed to pay grazing fees and fines for two decades. The suit accuses federal officials of excessive force, citing stun gun use against his brother, Ammon Bundy, and the shoving of his aunt to the ground in the days leading up to the Nevada standoff. The suit also cites a whistleblower memo from a U.S. Bureau of Land Management investigator that came out before a judge dismissed the Nevada case. The memo said federal agents and officers repeatedly stereotyped, mocked and degraded Bundy family members, calling them "rednecks,'' "tractor face'' and "inbred,'' the suit says. Ryan Bundy, Cliven Bundy and Ammon Bundy were indicted on conspiracy and other allegations, accused of rallying militia members and armed supporters to stop federal officers from carrying out a court order and impounding the cattle. The outnumbered federal contingent retreated and halted the cattle roundup on April 12, 2014. U.S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro dismissed the prosecution, citing "flagrant misconduct" by prosecutors and the FBI in not disclosing evidence before and during the trial. The judge listed six separate types of evidence withheld and ruled that each violation was willful. She found the government misconduct was "outrageous'' and "egregious'' because the prosecution team and the FBI didn't give defense lawyers information that they had specifically requested. The Justice Department has filed an appeal. Federal prosecutors have argued the dismissal was unwarranted and the judge should have considered a less drastic remedy for the evidence violations. They've said they believed the material they failed to share until it was too late wouldn't have been admissible anyway because they didn't believe the defendants could argue that they acted in self-defense, were provoked or intimidated. Bundy's suit accuses former Bureau of Land Management Special Agent-in-Charge Dan Love of ignoring direction from the U.S. Attorney's Office by commanding the "most intrusive, oppressive, large scale and militaristic'' cattle impound against his family's cattle. It alleges Love, for example, told agents to "go out there and kick Cliven, Ryan and others in the Bundy family in the mouth (or teeth) and take their cattle.'' Love was later fired for misconduct in an unrelated case. The legal action alleges authorities engaged in an illegal search and seizure related to the cattle roundup, violated Bundy's First Amendment rights and accuses federal officers of exhibiting a "deep animus'' against members of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints. The suit comes as Bundy is running for governor in Nevada. Larry Klayman, the founder of Judicial Watch and now Freedom Watch, and Bundy filed the suit. -- Maxine Bernstein mbernstein@oregonian.com 503-221-8212 @maxoregonian Three years after state police did an inventory and found 5,652 untested sexual assault kits languished untested in police evidence rooms across Oregon, its lab reported Wednesday that it has cleared the backlog by processing them for potential DNA evidence. Three counties Multnomah, Marion and Lane -- got $1.9 million in grant funding to send their share of the kits to a private lab for analysis, but the results still had to be input into a national database by state police crime lab forensic scientists. Oregon State Police Supt. Travis Hampton praised his agency's forensic work. "They achieved remarkable results on a very demanding and technically challenging project,'' Hampton said in a statement. In 2016, state lawmakers gave $1.5 million to state police to hire five additional staff members in the forensic division's DNA unit, three biology analysts and one administrative staff position. That coincided with the passing of Melissa's Law, which directed police agencies to adopt rules for processing untested kits by the start of 2017. The law didn't provide a time frame for the state lab to test kit evidence but allowed the state lab's forensic scientists to prioritize their testing. Melissa's Law was named for Melissa Bittler, a 14-year-old Portland girl who was attacked and killed by a serial rapist as she left for school on Dec. 13, 2001. He dragged her behind a neighbor's house, sexually assaulted her and choked her to death. Her case first shined light on the Portland police cache of untested kits. As the law was being drafted, state police conducted an inventory of all police agencies in Oregon, recording 5,652 untested sexual assault kits. Of those, 4,902 kits were from named, or non-anonymous, victims. The law led to a surge in local police agencies submitting their older untested kits to the state lab for processing. There were 467 kits submitted to the lab in the first quarter of 2016. By the last quarter of 2017, there were 1,194 kits submitted. Mary Bittler, Melissa Bittler's mom who pressed for the law in her daughter's name, said she's pleased that Oregon is at the forefront of addressing the important evidence from sex crimes. "I'm really happy the state has taken the initiative to honor the victims and survivors of sexual assault,'' she said Wednesday morning. While the state police lab worked to hire and train new analysts, add new DNA processing equipment and adapt to new FBI requirements, there was a lag in its testing of sexual assault kits. The lab's productivity dipped to a low point at the start of 2017. The process also slowed as the state lab revamped its approach to extracting DNA from evidence swabs. Learning from California, Utah and Colorado crime labs, Oregon's lab went from looking for any specific semen, saliva or bodily fluid samples based on an assault report to finding the best three samples of foreign male DNA. It also had to train forensic scientists on new FBI-required criteria for putting DNA profiles into the national database. The FBI now requires tracing 20 points in a DNA profile. The state lab has chosen to trace 24 points, up from the 16 the state lab had previously done. In the first quarter of this year, the lab processed an average of 220 kits a month, a significant increase from the average of 89 kits a month in 2017. The testing of 2,610 old sexual assault kits in Multnomah, Marion and Lane counties has led to six new prosecutions so far. Money left over from the grant the three counties got from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office allowed 13 other Oregon counties to send another 302 kits to the private Sorenson Forensics LLC lab in Salt Lake City earlier this year. "This project is the perfect example of what can happen when diverse stakeholders work together to right a wrong. Although success cannot come overnight, key investments in funding and the steady work of our State Police Forensic Scientists show that success is achievable,'' Gov. Kate Brown said in a statement. With the focus on sexual assault kits, however, property crime evidence went unexamined. The state police halted its DNA analysis of evidence seized in property crimes. An audit earlier this year by the Oregon Secretary of State's office recommended the state police return to processing property crime evidence once it took care of the sexual assault kit evidence. "We are meeting with partners to determine what the best plan is going forward, but that is in the discussion,'' said Capt. Timothy R. Fox, state police spokesman. Oregonian staff writer Noelle Crombie contributed to this story. -- Maxine Bernstein mbernstein@oregonian.com 503-221-8212 @maxoregonian It is safe to assert that Hinsdale stands second to no town of its size in the country in the generosity of its contributions of time, energy, and money, to the efficiency and perfection of its work, and in the earnest steadfastness of its purpose, it reads in The Memorial War Review booklet I mentioned, which is itself a fascinating and revealing piece of history. Oregon voters who already cast their mail-in ballot for Independent Party nominee Patrick Starnes cannot change their vote, even though he dropped out of the race Tuesday. Starnes surprised his own party leaders by quitting the governor's race and endorsing Democratic incumbent Gov. Kate Brown. His abrupt withdrawal came just a week before the deadline for ballots, and after a fifth of ballots had been returned. Votes already cast for Starnes are not transferred to Brown they stick with Starnes in the final tally, even though he now says he doesn't want them. And Oregon voters cannot cast replacement ballots even if their candidate gave up on his campaign before they did. "Once they have deposited the ballot in a mailbox or (ballot box) it cannot be changed," said Stephen Trout, Oregon's elections director. Announcing his exit from the race, Starnes said Brown had promised to support campaign finance reform, which had been his main issue. Leaders of Starnes' party are skeptical she will keep her end of the bargain, though, and some of his voters are furious. "You were already on the ballots that were sent out. You did not even give a chance for another 3rd party candidate to run," a man named Corey King wrote on Starnes' Facebook page. "Very disappointing. Beyond disappointing (it's) just downright sad and gross." Others expressed similar sentiments. The Independent Party denounced Starnes on its official Twitter account and said it does not support Brown. "To the people who may have already voted for him, we apologize," the party said. "We disagree with how he handled his decision." While Brown hopes Starnes' endorsement will give her a potentially winning boost in the tight race against Republican nominee Knute Buehler, the Independent Party is a marginal force in Oregon politics. In May's primary, just 23,000 Oregonians cast ballots for an Independent nominee, and Starnes got just 6,000 of those in the highly fragmented contest. -- Mike Rogoway | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699 Updated at 8:30 p.m. Demonstrators blocked traffic Wednesday in downtown Portland in protest of grand jury findings on the fatal police shooting of a black man last month. A small group of demonstrators said they wanted justice for Patrick Kimmons. They stood in the street as cars honked and tried to make their way past. Police moved patrol cars to block off Southwest Fourth Avenue and Madison Street intersection and the Third Avenue and Main Street intersections. The protest later moved to Portland City Hall. The demonstration was over by 5:15 p.m. It didnt appear the protester was hurt. A small police presence is on hand; I think the driver kept going. Testy interaction with another driver here. Video: pic.twitter.com/KtqXLKKvMu Jim Ryan (@Jimryan015) October 31, 2018 Kimmons was killed by police shortly after 3 a.m. Sept. 30 in a downtown Portland parking lot. Portland police Wednesday released video of the shooting after a Multnomah County grand jury found no criminal wrongdoing by the two Portland police officers involved. The grand jury, which met over two days, found the shooting of Kimmons by Sgt. Garry Britt and Officer Jeffrey Livingston was justified. The officers said Kimmons was running toward them with a gun when they fired 12 rounds, killing him. Kimmons was struck nine times, police said. Letha Winston, Kimmons' mother, was among the protesters. "The verdict is not justifiable," she said. "I'm gonna fight for my baby. How could you shoot a man after he already laid down flat. The video I've seen in the D.A.'s office his hands was up." I asked Letha Winston, Kimmons mother, whats she wants the public to know. Her response: pic.twitter.com/Kt4uS9uSp4 Jim Ryan (@Jimryan015) October 31, 2018 During the protest, Arthuray Dudley, a man who identified himself as Kimmons' older brother, was hit twice by a car but appears to not have sustained serious injuries. Mark Dickerson Police pulled over a truck, cuffed the driver and put him in a police vehicle, though it wasn't immediately clear if it was related to the protester being hit. Mark A. Dickerson, a 55-year-old Portland man, was later identified as the driver of the Chevrolet 2500 pickup involved in the incident. Police said Dickerson was booked in the county jail on suspicion of fourth- degree assault, reckless endangering and reckless driving. Dickerson later told The Associated Press that he had business at the courthouse and was trying to park when a man jumped in front of his truck. Warning: Graphic language in video below The man who was hit by the truck recounts the run-in (one bit of graphic language): pic.twitter.com/nyvf4zk30Q Jim Ryan (@Jimryan015) October 31, 2018 -- Jim Ryan and Andrew Theen PITTSBURGH (AP) -- One stone and one white rosebud for each victim. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump paid solemn tribute Tuesday to each of the 11 people slain in the worst instance of anti-Semitic violence in American history. As the Trumps placed their remembrances outside the Tree of Life synagogue, protesters nearby shouted that the president was not welcome. The emotional, dissonant scene reflected the increasingly divided nation that Trump leads, one gripped by a week of political violence and hate and hurtling toward contentious midterm elections that could alter the path of a presidency. On their arrival in Pittsburgh, the Trumps entered the vestibule of the synagogue, where they lit candles for each victim before stepping outside. Shouts of "Words matter!" and "Trump, go home!" could be heard from demonstrators gathered not far from where a gunman had opened fire on Saturday. Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who had been conducting services when the shots rang out, gestured at the white Star of David posted for each victim. At each, the president placed a stone, a Jewish burial tradition, while the first lady added a flower. They were trailed by first daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, who are Jewish. Near the synagogue, flowers, candles and chalk drawings filled the corner, including a small rock painted with the number "6,000,011," adding the victims this week to the estimated number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. The Trumps later spent more than an hour at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where some of the victims are recovering. The couple's motorcade passed several hundred protesters on the street and a sign that said: "It's your fault." Inside, Trump visited with wounded police officers and injured congregants but did not appear to meet with relatives of the deceased. Trump stepped into the role of national consoler, a title he wears uncomfortably, with his visit to the Squirrel Hill neighborhood. More at home waging partisan warfare than assuaging America's grief, Trump has shied away from public displays of unity in the wake of other tragedies. Questions have long swirled about the president's credibility as a unifier. Since his 2016 Republican campaign for the White House, Trump has at times been slow to denounce white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other hate-filled individuals and groups that found common cause with his nationalistic political rhetoric. Trump traveled to the historic hub of the city's Jewish community as the first funerals were held for the victims, who range in age from 54 to 97. The dead include a set of brothers, a husband and wife, professors, dentists and a physician. Hundreds of protesters assembled to show their displeasure with Trump's presence. Squirrel Hill resident Paul Carberry said Trump should not have visited until the dead were buried. "He didn't pull the trigger, but his verbiage and actions don't help," Carberry said. But Shayna Marcus, a nurse who rushed to the synagogue on Saturday to help with the wounded, said she felt that the president was taking an unfair portion of the blame. "I don't think focusing on Trump is the answer -- or on politics," said Marcus, whose four yarmulke-wearing boys carried signs in support of the president. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, back in Washington, told reporters: "If people are there to protest, that's their right. For the president, it was not a moment for politics." When Air Force One touched down at the airport outside Pittsburgh, the Trumps were not greeted by the usual phalanx of local officials that typically welcomes a visiting president, a reflection of controversy surrounding the visit. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, a Democrat, told reporters before the visit was announced that the White House ought to consult with the families of the victims about their preferences and asked that the president not come during a funeral. Neither he nor Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf appeared with Trump. Beth Melena, campaign spokeswoman for Wolf, said the governor based his decision to stay away on input from the victims' families, who told him they did not want the president to be there on the day their loved ones were being buried. As Trump's motorcade wound through downtown Pittsburgh, some onlookers saluted the president with upraised middle fingers and others with downturned thumbs. The White House had invited the top four congressional leaders to join Trump in Pennsylvania, but none accompanied him. A spokesman for Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he already had events in his home state of Kentucky, pushing back on the suggestion that he declined. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan's office said he could not attend on short notice. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also opted not to participate. Asked Monday if Trump had done enough to condemn white nationalism, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president "has denounced racism, hatred and bigotry in all forms on a number of occasions." -By Zeke Miller and Jonathan Lemire, Associated Press. Allen G. Breed and Maryclaire Dale in Pittsburgh and Jill Colvin in Washington contributed to this report. The Nov. 3 general election will have voters in District 3 determine who will represent them on the Midland County Board of Commissioners. Incumbent Steve Glaser, a Republican, will face a challenge from Democrat Chloe Updegraff for the district that covers the townships of Greendale, Jasper, Lee and Porter. On Oct. 1, the League of Women Voters-Midland Area sponsored a candidate forum for District 3, which both Glaser and Updegraff attended. Below are Glaser's responses to the questions posed by the LWV. In 1976, Glaser began his 40-year Dow Chemical Co. career. Initially, he began working in process automation. Glaser, who worships at St. John's Lutheran Church, has served two terms (1986-1990) on the Bullock Creek Board of Education where both his daughters attended school. Former Midland County Commissioner Rich Keenan encouraged Glaser to succeed him to represent the citizens of District 3. Glaser is completing his first, two-year term on the county board. Priorities of county government Glaser stated that 70 percent of the county's budget goes toward state mandated services. "We have to have a sheriff's department, jail, register of deeds, courts, record, public health and emergency services," he said. He also mentioned that the topic of substance abuse has become a major concern. "I sit on the Midland Community Health Improvement Board that is addressing the topic of substance abuse," he said. "(School Resource Officers) are a band aid. There are other foundational problems. We have too many broken homes. We have too many homes without fathers," Glaser said. County finances "We are blessed to have so many foundations within our community that are very, very generous in supporting so many community activities and so many other people share," he said. Budget shortfall "We haven't had to cross that bridge yet in terms of the service level that we provide. We are blessed to have commissioners that have integrity and fiscal responsibility that will be asking those difficult questions. How do we prioritize it? What do we cut? Some of those are going to be more or less obvious. But, others are more difficult.I think it is important that people know what their options are." County financial stressors "The financial concerns are caused in part, because we are not seeing a lot of economic growth and are constrained by state law what we can levy on property," Glaser said. "There are a lot of people in my district that are poor folks," Glaser said. "So when we say we are going to raise 0.4 mill for School Resource Officers, that won't benefit kids from two of my townships because they do not attend Midland County schools. ... When those people are unable to pay their tax bill, the sheriff will be there to help them move out and sell their homes." The following list includes recent reports from the Midland County Sheriff's Office and the Midland Police Department. Compiled by reporter John Kennett. Tuesday, Oct. 29 12:24 a.m. -- A Midland man, 43, is accused of stealing $9,000 from his 33-year-old Mount Haley Township ex-girlfriend and not returning her car that he borrowed. A report is being sent to prosecutor's office requesting charges for larceny and unlawful use of an automobile. 4:03 a.m. -- A 25-year-old St. Louis man with a mechanical issue with his vehicle was found to have an improper license plate. Through the investigation, narcotics were located. The man was placed under arrest for possession of meth. 11:10 a.m. -- A 29-year-old Lincoln Township woman called to report that due to the neighbors shooting off tannerite, items on her walls fell off and broke. 1:09 p.m. -- An intoxicated 58-year-old Midland Township man reported that his 39-year-old female roommate possibly stole a portable stereo and speakers from him. The deputy spoke with the man and learned that he had previously reported this incident and he had apparently already received his radio back from the woman. 2:05 p.m. -- Midland County Animal Control received a complaint about an ongoing issue with loose dogs in Geneva Township. A deputy spoke with the dog owner and the problem will be resolved. 6:13 p.m. -- A 27-year-old man was arrested in Lee Township on a warrant for a probation violation. 8:29 p.m. -- The sheriff's office began an investigation into the care of an elderly Midland County woman. It was reported the woman was not receiving the care required. The woman was found in good condition at the onset of this investigation. The investigation was turned over to Adult Protective Services for investigation and referral for assistance to the woman. 9:23 p.m. -- A deputy arrested a 34-year-old Jerome Township woman at her home on a bench warrant out of Midland County's 75th District Court. 9:32 p.m. -- A deputy was sent to Edenville Township for a report of a suspect who created photos of inappropriate subject matter. This incident is still under investigation. Deputies identified suspects, who were staying at a motel in the 600 block of North Green Bay Road in Waukegan, according to a sheriffs office statement released Wednesday. The statement added that the four were taken into custody Tuesday afternoon after the deputies conducted surveillance at the motel. Amidst recent attacks on liberal figures and anti-Semitic shootings, the left has pointed to Trump as a cultivator of hate. Apparently, even the lawyers for some of those who were found guilty of those sorts of attacks agree. Per Global News, a group of three militiamen in Kansas planned to bomb a mosque, though their plot was stopped before anyone was hurt. In April, Curtis Allen, Patrick Stein and Gavin Wright were convicted of conspiracy against civil rights and planning to use weapons of mass destruction, if Trump had not been elected. Now, all these men are being processed through the legal system. The throughline of their defense: Blame Trump. Yes, their lawyers hope to lessen sentencing by pointing out that Allen, Stein and Wright were heavily influenced by Trumps hateful rhetoric. According to the sentencing memorandum, attorneys for the militiamen say that the Presidents words heavily increased political tensions, as well as Islamophobia. Steins lawyers say outright that the President targets lost and ignored white, working-class men, much like their client. They look at Trump as the root of their problem and their clients as mere symptoms. Lawyers write in their memorandum: The court cannot ignore the circumstances of one of the most rhetorically mold-breaking, violent, awful, hateful and contentious presidential elections in modern history, driven in large measure by the rhetorical China shop bull who is now our president. Thats where the conceit of the defense lies. According to attorneys, punishing supporters means nothing when their leader, our president, continues to spread hate of all kinds. We have written a lot about the Trump-Russia ordeal here at Pastemainly myself and Roger Sollenberger. I cant speak for Roger, but I took an interest in it largely for two reasons: 1. When I studied political science in college, I concentrated a lot of my classes on international relations, and Im just a big ol nerd for spy stuff. Im familiar with the kind of thinking that goes on in this opaque world, and as a new full-time writer (I was in corporate America for nearly a decade before Paste rescued me), it was one of the few areas I felt comfortable speaking with some authority on. 2. As a self-described leftist, I dont think my political allies take this story seriously enough. I began writing about Trump-Russia in October 2016, shortly before the Access Hollywood tape came out. Trump had people like Michael Flynn (who got completely discombobulated when Michael Isikoff asked him who paid for his speech at RTs birthday partythe Russian state-TV network) and Paul Manafort (dripping with Kremlin-connected receipts) at the highest levels of his campaign, and he was parroting Kremlin propaganda against Hillary Clinton, so it seemed obvious that there was some sort of connection to Putins government there. Not to mention, longtime Trump advisor Roger Stonedepicted in the title photo after his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee)tweeted this out on October 2nd, 2016. Wednesday@HillaryClinton is done. #Wikileaks. Theres a lot of obvious collusion just sitting out there in the public realm, and while its effects dont rise to the legit McCarthyite hysterics that the extremely online #resistance brings it to, its a vastly important story. The raging baby tyrant that is the President of the United States has always had an inexplicably sunny disposition towards Vladimir Putin and the Kremlinper his own words. The global oligarchy we all rage against every day? This is a big part of that story (and Russia isnt the only country wrapped up in the special counsel investigationthe Feds are also probing the UAE, Israel and Saudi Arabia). Now, Robert Mueller is taking a look at what Roger Stone portended in his October 2nd, 2016 tweet. Per The Washington Post: Investigators have questioned witnesses about events surrounding Oct. 7, 2016, the day The Washington Post published a recording of Trump bragging about his ability to grab women by their genitals, the people said. Less than an hour after The Post published its story about Trumps crude comments during a taping of Access Hollywood, WikiLeaks delivered a competing blow to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by releasing a trove of emails hacked from the account of her campaign chairman John Podesta. On Friday, Muellers team questioned Stephen K. Bannon, President Trumps former chief strategist, about claims Stone is said to have made privately about WikiLeaks before the group released emails that prosecutors say were hacked by Russian operatives, according to people familiar with the session. Wikileaks didnt need orders to release their distraction after the Access Hollywood tape came out. It was obvious to the entire world how (seemingly) damaging it was to Trumps campaign. We know independently of the Trump campaign, that Russia wanted him to win because they viewed him as friendlier to their interests than Hillary Clinton, so the timing of the release alone isnt enough to indict the Trump campaign in the public eye of collusion in this instance. However, when you combine the impeccable timing of the Podesta e-mail dump with the public statements mentioning Wikileaks made by close Trump advisors and Trump himself, well, the timing sure seems a little less coincidental. Not to mention that Trump Jr. later released e-mails showing minimal correspondence with Wikileaks last yearalbeit correspondence that included him tweeting out a link they asked him to tweet. Now, to my leftist allies, I know that Wikileaks is a touchy subject. They did come to life as an honest to goodness positive force for global transparency, but things changed. Wikileaks began as a broke whistleblowing outlet in 2006, but in 2010, governments fought back, and convinced Visa and MasterCard to halt payments to Wikileaks, quickly strangling the organization to near death. Later that year, in an interview with Russias top daily newspaper, Kommersant, Wikileaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson teased an upcoming document dump, saying that Russian readers will learn a lot about their country. We want to tell people the truth about the actions of their governments. In response, an official at the FSB (the successor to the KGB), told LifeNews that Its essential to remember that given the will and the relevant orders, [WikiLeaks] can be made inaccessible forever. The documents never came out. A year later, Wikileaks was in far better financial shape, and Julian Assange had his own show on Russia Today. Plus, while holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2015, Assange even stated in a press release that he requested Russian security while he was telling the whole world that his life was at risk. Wikileaks is something of a laundromat for Kremlin propaganda. They disrupt western society by exposing the true corruption of our leaders, while framing Russian interests as beacons of stability in a cruel world. They also include outright forgeries to further sow discord, going as far as to include supposed e-mails confirming extraterrestrial life in the Podesta dump from October 2016. There is so much smoke underlying this Trump-Russia mess that it seems mathematically impossible for there not to be a fire somewhere. Trump getting aid when he most needed it in the form of mundane, semi-gossipy hacked campaign chair e-mails that our irresponsible mainstream press pounced on like they were the Rosetta Stone is the most visible evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, and now, the only people whose opinions on this topic truly matter are seriously digging into it. Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling. Before Levitt ordered the evaluations, Randy Swopes had made statements in court that his daughter, the victim in the case, told him several prominent local judges and attorneys, as well as some of his family members, were involved with rituals involving the child. Media executive, philanthropist and all-around legend Oprah Winfrey is joining Stacey Abrams in her campaign for governor of Georgia. The race between Democrat Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp has gained national attention for the tight battle between the two candidates, as well as for issues of voter disenfranchisement. Oprah isnt the first celebrity to join the Abrams campaign, as earlier this month, Will Ferrell marybethgibbs/status/1055862729448284160">canvassed for Abrams in college towns in the state. On Thursday, trailblazing talk show host and global media pioneer Oprah Winfrey will join Stacey Abrams for two town hall conversations to discuss the critical issues at stake in this years election, announced the campaign in a statement (per Variety). Oprah will share why she believes Stacey Abrams is the best candidate to represent all of Georgia. BIG NEWS: @Oprah is on #TeamAbramsand shes coming to Georgia on Thursday, 11/1, to help us Get Out The Vote!We will host two town halls in Marietta & Decatur TOMORROW. Tickets are free but will go fast. Dont miss out! ? https://t.co/0FR0PHEI8L#GAGov#gapol Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) October 31, 2018 Oprahs contributions will be in the form of two Atlanta-area events on Nov. 1, one in Marietta and one in Decatur. Both events will consist of a conversation on the critical value of women in leadership and what is at stake for communities in the state, according to the events website. Though ticket reservations werent scheduled to close until Wednesday evening at 5 p.m., both events have already reached capacity as of this writing. In the past, Oprahs endorsement has been a powerful force when campaigning. Back in 2008, she participated in rallies for Obamas first bid for president, boosting crowds and strengthening the campaigns organizing efforts. (Obama will also be joining Abrams campaign, appearing at a rally in Atlanta later in the week.) Though Oprah continues to deny that she will run for office in 2020, her involvement will be an interesting addition to an already intense, entirely unpredictable race. New York ran a piece yesterday titled 12 Young People on Why They Probably Wont Vote, and the best description I heard for it was hateclick porn. There are a few smart-ish sounding, activist-type youngsters in the article making great points about the failure of our two-party system, but on the whole it is completely enragingespecially when you consider that if even 56 percent of Millennials voted, the Democrats would control both chambers of Congress. And while it looks like we might get historic turnout among Americas youth, its likely to be well below that threshold, and nowhere near the crazy-high turnout numbers we see every year among boomers and senior citizens. All of which is to say that young people choosing not to vote is a big deal, and the justifications in the New York story are particularly infuriating. Am I giving in to the anti-Millennial craze by rising to the bait? Probably yes. Am I subtly undermining the good work that young people are doing, and the renewed political vigor sweeping our country? I hope not. But Im so mad, and I cant resist highlighting the worst of the worst in a countdown that, frankly, will not make you feel any better about the state of our country. Lets hate on some youth! Look at this shit: I think theres a way to be an informed nonvoter. Id rather have an informed nonvoter than an uninformed voter going in and making a choice they dont understand. Youre voting for a politician going into office, and Im seeing less change there than I am through grassroots organizing. Since Trumps been elected, those grassroots groups have really been doing great, great work. So I guess its that: where youre seeing the impact. YOU CAN DO BOTH! I DO BOTH! MANY PEOPLE DO BOTH! And guess what? All those uninformed voters from older generationsmany of whom are content to watch the planet die and deprive you of any economic opportunityabsolutely love that youre not voting. The worst part of this is that you can tell from the language that shes not doing a lick of grassroots organizing either. Look at this shit: I never felt certain enough to vote. But Im a political-science student, and the talk of voting is really big in my circle of friends. In 2016, I almost did. Of course, Im not a big fan of Trump, but I didnt know if Trump was going to be a flash in the pan or I just didnt know what to do. I didnt want to help something that might end up being wrong. Im a political science student, but I dont understand that not voting has a direct positive benefit for the greater of two evils. The idea that you could actually study this stuff as part of your education and still lack a strong opinion about the American political scene makes me want to punch a wall. For the record, this is the same person who had his eyes opened politically by Machiavellis The Prince. Somebodys going to give him Atlas Shrugged one day, and within like ten minutes hell be a Trump diehard. Look at this shit: Then I Googled Republican versus Democrat, and I like kinda both, kinda not. Thats why Im an Independent. Sooooo deep! Shes going to have an op-ed column in the Times by the end of the month. I have to highlight the rest of her entry too, just because its such a wild, incoherent mess. Keep in mind while you read that this is someone who is probably not voting in the midterms: It wasnt till the Trump-versus-Hillary election that I realized how important it is to vote. Maybe it had to do with, like, society and all. Everyone I was following was like, Go out to vote. I was in college in Massachusetts. I decided that I wasnt gonna go through that long process for an out-of-state student to register to vote. I had a hectic schedule. I just didnt have the time and energy. Also I didnt know how my parents would feel about that whole thing, cause my brother does not vote either. So it wasnt asked if they could help us out with the registration and mailing all the forms to us. My mom is a Republican, my dad is a Democrat, and I did not learn that until the 2016 election, after begging them to tell me at least what their party was. I realized that I shouldve voted afterward. Ever since that election, I started turning on not just CNN but also Fox News on the iPhone news app. I plan to vote in 2020. I have a goal set to know more about politics by that time. Kill me. I mean it. My name is Shane Ryan and I live in North Carolina. Find me and kill me. Look at this shit: Growing up, going to Catholic school, everything we learned had a skew on it. Whenever we were taught about voting or political issues, it was not about learning the issues and matching what you feel personally, it was, This is what the Catholic Church teaches, and this is how you should vote or youre wrong. I think that shaped me to hate politics and not want to be involved. Conservative forces LOVE IT when someone who may have even vaguely liberal impulses doesnt participate. Congratulations on playing into their hands. Look at this shit: Youre not prepared for all the candidates. Youre sent things in the mail, but as a 28-year-old, I read everything online. I love that literally everyone is promoting actually registering to vote, but its never how to vote or the steps to voting or what you do next after youve registered to vote. After that, it kind of just drops off and youre left in the dark, like, I dont know what to do next, you know? There are almost literally thousands of online guides about how, where, and when to vote. No matter where you live in America, you can find this information inside of like, fifteen seconds, using a simple Google search. Theres more. I hate to do it, but theres more. Its a wild theory, but setting voting up so that its all on social media, putting all that information in just an Instagram Story, in a Snapchat filter or whatever bulleted-out, easy-to-read, digestible content would encourage me to vote. Just maybe its a social-media page or an Instagram page where it gives daily facts about how to do things or DIYs on how to vote for yourself, something like that. That stuff all exists. All of it. Your wild theory is real life. Wake the $*$&## up. Look at this shit: 2016 was such a disillusioning experience. Going into the election, I was so proud to be in this country at this moment, so proud to be voting for Hillary Clinton. I had my Clinton sweatshirt on all day. I was on Twitter telling people that if they didnt vote they were dead to me like the whole thing. Watching the results come in, it was just disheartening. My faith in the whole system was crushed pretty quickly. That was the first general election I could vote in, too. 2016 sucked, no doubt. But if watching that election and everything thats happened since has made you less inclined to vote, youre the definition of a privileged American. Worse, you cant be bothered to step out of your privilege bubble to voteagain, the absolute bare minimumfor people who have a lot to lose. Later, from this same person: Full disclosure: I have a ballot sitting at home. Got the ballot right there. Just gotta fill it out and send it off. But she wont do it, because she wore that damn Hillary Clinton sweatshirt all day and the bad guy still won! Look at this shit: I rent and move around quite a bit, and when I try to get absentee ballots, they need me to print out a form and mail it to them no more than 30 days before the election but also no less than seven days before the election. Typically, I check way before that time, then forget to check again, or just say Fuck it because I dont own a printer or stamps anyway. Its incredibly difficult for hourly workers or young people who are in rotational programs or travel frequently for their careers to vote. I wish every states rules were the same so there was not so much confusion and it was easy to find straightforward information on how exactly to get absentee ballots. I hate this so much, because on one hand its trying to make a political point about the difficulty of voting in Americawhich is a valid point! It should be easier!but then gets into the truth, which is that she knows exactly how to do it, but doesnt care enough. There are people all over this countrymost of them poor, most of the minoritieswho are being disenfranchised purposefully by Republicans, and others who wait in line for hours for the privilege of voting, and this person cant be bothered because its too hard to find a stamp. Look at this shit: I once told a co-worker I didnt vote, and she said, Thats really irresponsible, in this judgmental voice. You cant build a policy around calling people irresponsible. You need to make people enthusiastic and engaged. Honestly? Screw you. If you need to be handled with kid gloves by everybody around you before you can be bothered to do the absolute minimum to preserve democracy, then you suck. Yes, its important to engage people, and maybe the co-worker could have had a better reaction, but this absolute baby is justifying his laziness because he had his feelings hurt. Shoot him out of a cannon. Look at this shit: The idea of leaving work, forwarding all of my calls to my phone, to go stand in line for four hours, to probably get called back to work before I even get halfway through the line, sounds terrible. I would have to tell work, Hey, Im not coming in until noon today, and in the end, if its not something Im extremely passionate about, do I want to spend four hours of vacation doing something I dont quite want to do? There are issues I care about: immigration, access to health care. Womens reproductive rights is a big one because I could never imagine taking away anyone elses choice. Heres a crazy thought, thoughcan you imagine someone else taking away a womans choice? And you can imagine them dancing a joyous little jig when they find out that you care about these issues, but you dont vote? Is that something you can imagine? IS IT?! CAN YOU GODDAM IMAGINE IT?! (takes long, deep breaths) AHHHHHH!!!! By the way, this person is from Arkansas, where theres like two weeks of early voting. Look at this shit: I tried to register for the 2016 election, but it was beyond the deadline by the time I tried to do it. I hate mailing stuff; it gives me anxiety. Woman whose toddler is traumatized for life because ICE held him in a cage for three months: I would really appreciate your vote. This guy: Sorry, but Im terrified of the postal service. I hate this person. I hate them all. Donald Trump is going to be president for the next 1,000 years. In the latest FOSS Patent report covering the Qualcomm-Apple legal war, owner Florian Mueller delivers a powerful opening statement: "There's a lesson for life that Qualcomm may have learned in recent weeks as an unintended side effect of its dispute with Apple: if smart judges figure out whom they can trust, the facts are not for sale." Mueller recaps some of the recent legal battle cases with Qualcomm by noting that "Qualcomm's patent litigation campaign against Apple (and, by extension, chipset maker Intel) has suffered a few setbacks already. The first two judicial decisions against infringement complaints brought by Qualcomm came down in Washington, D.C. (United States International Trade Commission) in September and in Munich (Munich I Regional Court) in October. In both cases, Qualcomm's attempts to outspend Apple and Intel on expert testimony backfired." Getting to the heart of the matter of today's report, Mueller notes that "Retired ITC ALJ (Administrative Law Judge) found "Qualcomm's non-fact witnesses, especially its economic witnesses, to be far less credible, for a myriad of reasons, including the likelihood of bias, the speculative and conclusory nature of their testimony, and the number of unsupported assumptions [the ALJ] found to be inherent with the testimony they offered." The one Qualcomm expert ALJ Pender criticized most harshly is J. Gregory Sidak, who is running his own consulting firm named Criterion Economics: "The amount of money paid to Mr. Sidak, before the current investigation, was approximately $1 million over several years and the company he owns has invoiced between $3 million and $4 million just for this [ITC] investigation [of Qualcomm's first complaint against Apple] alone. [...] In my almost 39 years of practicing law, I have never seen or heard of anything even approaching this level of financial commitment by a witness to a party. Moreover, even absent this financial commitment, I was troubled by his testimony, for example his testimony about there being enough iPhones without the introduction of any new models in 2018 [...] ignored reality. From his financial relationship with Qualcomm bias may be presumed, and I find it would be an abuse of my discretion to give any material credibility to this witness or his findings. I also note the [ITC] Staff questioned his credibility twice during their discussion of the Public Interest, and that I noted it above." (Emphasis added) Florian Mueller adds that he heard at the most recent Munich trial that Judge Dr. Schoen made an even more scathing remark about one of Qualcomm's expert witnesses in the German case. Based on hearsay, the judge ultimately resisted the urge to call up the expert's university to complain because someone who submits, to a court of civil jurisdiction, an expert report that doesn't contain a single scientific statement "shouldn't be educating our young people." The related passage of the redacted Munich ruling doesn't contain such rhetoric, but in their purely factual it's no less dismissive. At some point in time Qualcomm has to realize that they're quickly losing credibility with the court and the public reading about paid witnesses being chastised by the court in the strongest language. There's a lot more to Florian Mueller's report that you can check out here including two full Scribd documents that legal minded readers will certainly appreciate reviewing. Between a Munich Court tossing out one of Qualcomm's patent infringement cases against Apple, an ITC judge slamming Qualcomm over a paid witness and Qualcomm desperately trying to stop the FTC ruling that could easily put a bullet in Qualcomm's legal case, Apple legal has to be happy with how their battle with Qualcomm is going. What is more disturbing for some is how Qualcomm is now trying to re-frame their case before the court. We noted in our Saturday legal news report that "Now Qualcomm is changing their tune in fear of having to prove their patents remain valid. Qualcomm's attorney insisted on Friday that "the central issue of the case involves licensing agreements between the technology giants and not necessarily the patents individually." That was said after the Munich Court threw out their Patent Infringement case against Apple. While it's still far too early to forecast a final winner is in the Qualcomm-Apple legal war, changing their legal strategy at this point is looking like they're on the ropes. In the end, stay tuned, there's likely a lot more to cover in this case and we know that Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents will keep us all up to date as meaningful developments unfold in this battle. A Korean report this morning says that Samsung posted a record operating profit of 17.57 trillion won (US$15.40 billion) in the July-September period, up by 3 trillion won from a year earlier, thanks mainly to its robust DRAM chip business. The tech giant forecasts that its DRAM business will remain on an upward trajectory in the long term although the market could experience price fluctuations in the coming months. The companys semiconductor business was the largest contributor to the improved earnings as it accounted for nearly 80 percent of the tech giants entire operating income. The tech firm explained that high demand for 64-layer 3D V-NAND flash memory chips and 10-nanometer-class DRAM chips drove profits. The Samsung press released noted that "For the Display Panel Business, despite unfavorable supply-demand conditions in the LCD market, earnings improved on-year thanks to higher sales of flexible OLED panels to major customers. On a quarterly basis, earnings significantly grew due to increased utilization of flexible OLED panel capacity." Apple is likely to thank for that with their new iPhone XS models. Samsung's smartphone division made an operating profit of 2.22 trillion won, down from 3.29 trillion won a year earlier. For calendar Q4, their press release notes that "Samsung expects its smartphone shipments to rise during the year-end peak season, particularly for its enhanced mass product lineup including the new Galaxy A7 and A9. However, earnings are forecast to decrease due to increased marketing expenses." That usually translates to Samsung offering 2 for 1 phone sales and giving away cheap headsets with the purchase of a new smartphone. The report further noted that "Samsung said it would continue to diversify its customers for 5G network equipment, while developing advanced 3D sensing solutions and under-display fingerprint sensors for smartphones." In July Patently Mobile reported on a Samsung Patent covering ultrasonic based fingerprint scanning for under the display. The Korean report added that "On the display front, Samsung said it would try to broaden the customer base with high-end products like quantum dot and 8K displays, while rolling out new products, such as foldable panels and displays for vehicles. The Korea firm is expected to showcase its first foldable smartphone at a developer conference scheduled to be held on Nov. 7-8 in San Francisco. As for the smartphone business, Samsung plans to deploy differentiated features in mid-range and low-end smartphones as well as launch 5G-enabled and foldable smartphones," which is exactly what we reported on last week. During their conference call, the Korean report noted that Samsung touched on the folding phone officially this way: Q: What are the highlights of the planned foldable smartphone and when will it hit the shelves? A: With the new form factor, the foldable smartphone will embrace both portability and a large screen size. It is a smartphone, but becomes a table PC when unfolded. Samsung interestingly didn't provide a launch date for their foldable smartphone. While the end-product's form factor is unknown at present, a new Samsung patent filing for a 'fold-out' design allowing a smartphone to unfold to a tablet was reported on this past Sunday. Our cover graphic reflects that design. Lastly, the report noted that Samsung will try to talk with developers to optimize applications for the new phone, and unveil the details, like the UI and UX, during the developer conference scheduled for November 7-8 in San Francisco. PITTSBURGH (AP) Funerals will be held Wednesday for three of the victims killed in the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue, a day after President Donald Trump encountered hundreds of protesters when he quietly paid his respects. Melvin Wax, Irving Younger and Joyce Fienberg will be laid to rest. They were among 11 people who died in the shooting rampage Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue. Robert Gregory Bowers, a 46-year-old truck driver who authorities say raged against Jews, was arrested on federal hate-crime charges that could bring the death penalty. Pittsburgh began burying the dead on Tuesday, with funerals for a beloved family doctor, a pillar of the congregation, and two 50-something brothers known as the Rosenthal boys. Thousands of mourners jammed a synagogue, a Jewish community center and a third, undisclosed site for the first in a weeklong series of funerals for victims of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. Trump, meanwhile, arrived to shouting, chanting protesters with signs such as "It's your fault" and "Words matter," alleging that bigots are being emboldened by his bellicose language. Pennsylvania's governor and the mayor of Pittsburgh declined to join him during the visit. Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz's funeral was held at the Jewish Community Center in the city's Squirrel Hill section, the historic Jewish neighborhood where the rampage took place. Two police vehicles were posted at a side door and two at the main entrance. A line stretched around the block as mourners some in white medical coats, others wearing yarmulkes, black hats or head scarves passed beneath blue Romanesque arches into the brick building. The 66-year-old Rabinowitz was a go-to doctor for HIV patients in the epidemic's early and desperate days, a physician who always hugged his patients as they left his office. A private funeral was also held for Daniel Stein, the 71-year-old men's club president at Tree of Life. Trump and first lady Melania Trump landed in Pittsburgh after the day's services and lit candles at Tree of Life for the victims. Outside, they laid white roses as well as stones for each of the dead, a Jewish burial tradition. The president and first lady later went to a hospital to visit with survivors. They were joined by Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, as well as Myers, the Tree of Life rabbi, and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer. Hundreds of protesters gathered near the synagogue and the hospital. "He didn't pull the trigger, but his verbiage and actions don't help," said Squirrel Hill resident Paul Carberry, 55, wearing anti-Trump patches on his hat and jacket. Another Squirrel Hill resident, Shayna Marcus, hoped to catch the presidential motorcade with her young sons but just missed it. She said the anger at Trump is misplaced. "I don't think focusing on Trump is the answer, or on politics," said Marcus, a 34-year-old nurse and Trump supporter. Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto had asked Trump not to come while the city was burying its dead. He and Gov. Tom Wolf, a fellow Democrat, said they would skip the presidents visit. By MARYCLAIRE DALE and ALLEN G. BREED, Associated Press The The National Transportation Safety Board is sending a team to investigate a school bus crash that killed three children and critically injured a fourth. A 9-year-old girl and her twin 6-year-old brothers were struck and killed by a pickup truck as they crossed a northern Indiana road to board a school bus before sunrise Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, police said. An 11-year-old was airlifted to a hospital. The IndyStar.com reports that Maverik Lowe, 11, suffered life-threatening injuries. "They were holding hands every day on the way to the bus stop including todayit looks like Alivia stepped in front of the car for the boys." https://t.co/TsF8RvHwnF 10TV.com (@10TV) October 31, 2018 Indiana State Police Sgt. Tony Slocum said the pickups driver, Alyssa Shepherd, 24, of Rochester, Ind., was arrested and charged with three counts of reckless homicide and one misdemeanor count of passing a school bus when arm signal device is extended, causing bodily injury. Uncle of the children killed, Elgin Ingle, told WNDU in South Bend, Ind.: This school has been warned, this has been an issue, we have said this before, Ingle said. Theyve made complaints, other parents. Its not safe to walk a child across a highway, especially at that time because everyones going to work at that time. An elementary school in eastern Pennsylvania is in mourning after a 9-year-old student collapsed and died during school hours. As 6ABC in Philly reports, it happened at the Hartranft Elementary School in North Philadelphia. Nine-year-old Hauson Pressley collapsed and died Friday from an unknown medical condition, the station reports. On Monday, about 100 of the boys friends and relatives gathered at the school to remember and mourn him. 6ABC reports the gathered family and friends did not want to talk about their loved ones sudden death, including the cause. Rathers, they said they preferred to speak on how Pressley lived his much-too short life: "And we just have to think about the good times with Hasoun because the boy was happy. He wanted us to be happy," family friend James Alexander told 6ABC, which adds: Although it was unclear what difference it would have made, some family members were upset that there was no nurse at the school that day. They just need medical attention at these schools though. More nurses. But the nurse wasnt there though, Pressleys uncle Kareem Pressley told 6ABC The Elizabethtown School District sent a letter to parents on Tuesday, assuring them that despite rumors floating around, there was no imminent threat toward the high school. The letter, authored by Superintendent Michele M. Balliet, was not specific about the threat, but said it violated the district policy on terroristic threats and that the school would be taking appropriate disciplinary action. The district said around 10 p.m. Sunday, they received a tip that involved a possible threat toward the high school. They contacted law enforcement who investigated and determined there was no imminent threat. District administration wants students and their parents to know that it always takes any incident involving a threat seriously and has the full cooperation of the police department, the letter states. The district also encouraged parents to talk to their children about the seriousness of threats and the importance of reporting suspicious activity, threats or disturbing information to a trusted adult. The district thanked the Elizabethtown Borough Police Department and the Northwest Regional Police Department for their response and investigation into the threat. The safety of the students and staff is the Districts number one priority, and it will continue to be vigilant, the letter states. A Harrisburg man pleaded guilty Monday before a U.S. magistrate to a charge of being a felon in possession of a stolen handgun. Tommy L. Phillips, 30, entered the plea before Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Martin C. Carlson, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice. Phillips was arrested Oct. 10, 2017 after it was reported that a man with a gun was at a Harrisburg bar. Phillips ran from officers before he was arrested and found with a stolen .380-caliber handgun, investigators said. Phillips has a previous felony robbery conviction, which prohibits him from possessing a firearm. The case was investigated by the FBI and Harrisburg police and was prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Michael Consiglio. No sentencing date had been set as of Tuesday afternoon. The maximum penalty for the offense is 10 years in prison, supervised release and a fine. Didech, a Buffalo Grove resident, told Pioneer Press last week that after hitting at least a thousand homes a week during the campaign, hes discovered eureka! property tax relief is the issue by far voters complain most about. One would think that already being an elected official, he would have had some previous inkling of that. Guess not. Harrisburg school board members unanimously confirmed the demotion of the district's former business manager Tuesday night after a judge ordered them to rehear the case. The school board members did not publicly discuss the details of the case. But rather they said they privately received additional written details from the superintendent, and reviewed testimony and exhibits from an internal employment hearing before the special meeting, where they voted 7-0 to approve an adjudication document. The document details the specific reasons behind Kenn Medina's demotion last year and is intended to satisfy a judge's order after Medina filed a lawsuit. The previous adjudication provided to Medina was determined to be too vague. Judge John F. Cherry vacated the board's previous decision. "We did what the court required," said Board President Judd Pittman. "We voted and we agree that the written adjudication reflects our findings. Now the court will rule on whether he was properly demoted." Shortly after the demotion to the program grants administrator position, which cut Medina's salary in half, Medina's new position was eliminated from the budget. Medina will be provided the new adjudication document to review. On Wednesday, Medina said he still hadn't received it or heard any official communication from the district. He said the board didn't seek any information from him or his attorney prior to rehearing the case, "so I believe their actions may be less than fully informed. Worse, the actions may not have addressed the main points of my original appeal." But Medina said he would need to wait to get official confirmation from the district to be sure. Medina was at least the seventh business manager to serve under the tenure of Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney, who was hired for the top job in 2011. Medina served as business manager starting in April 2016 at a salary of $120,000. He received a satisfactory performance review in February 2017 and a raise to $121,898 that June, according to his lawsuit. But 10 days later, Knight-Burney placed him on administrative leave and gave him a list of four alleged infractions: Failure to notify the superintendent of a large vehicle loss Submitted budget to the state department of education with incorrect totals and figures Failure to schedule and execute building renovations at John Harris and other properties Failure to make arrangements for mail pickup and delivery at the district properties. The district held an internal "Loudermill," or due process, hearing after which administrators confirmed the allegations and recommended Medina be demoted. Medina complained that the evidence presented at the hearing was different from the original list of infractions he was provided. Medina appealed the decision to the school board, of which five members confirmed the demotion after three days of closed-door hearings. According to Medina's lawsuit: School districts are limited in removing business managers, superintendents and assistant superintendents under Section 1089 of the School code to a certain number of reasons: "incompetency, intemperance, neglect of duty, violation of any of the school laws of this Commonwealth or other improper conduct." School officials argued that Medina's reassignment did not constitute a "removal" under Section 1089, which Medina's lawsuit said was "absurd." Medina said he got crossways with Knight-Burney after inquiring about the measurable outcomes of an annual academic achievement contract awarded to one of Knight-Burney's former assistant superintendents, Barbara Hasan. Hasan's son, Bilal Hasan, was appointed interim business manager after Medina's demotion. The state department of education has since repeatedly asked the district to hired an experienced business manager with a proven track record of success, which was one of the top goals of the district's recovery plan. Kia Hansard, who started a community group to support Harrisburg students earlier this year, requested a copy of Bilal Hasan's resume under the state's Right to Know law in August. The district denied the request saying "no records exist." The state's education secretary also has asked Knight-Burney repeatedly to hire a full-time chief financial officer. As it stands, the district employs a part-time CFO who is leaving the district at the end of December. After hearing a week of testimony much of it involving secretly-taped recordings a Dauphin County jury is about to deliberate on whether a state legislator is guilty of taking bribes. The panel was to begin weighing the fate of Rep. Vanessa Brown, a Philadelphia Democrat, after Judge Scott A. Evans finished instructing it on the law Wednesday morning. Browns political career and state pension are at stake. She is one of five legislators from Philly charged in a corruption probe and is the only one to take her case to trial. The others pleaded guilty or no contest to their charges. Brown, 52, represents the impoverished 190th House District. Her constituents re-elected her after the bribery charges were filed. County prosecutors Michael Sprow and Ryan Shovlin are arguing that Brown took $4,000 worth of bribes in early 2011 from a lobbyist who was actually an informant for the state attorney generals office. Defense attorneys Patrick A. Casey and John Dempsey contend that Brown was a victim of entrapment and was manipulated into taking the money by informant Tyron Ali. Ali, the defense noted, agreed to cooperate in the corruption probe to avoid prosecution for an unrelated fraud. Browns case has taken an unusual route. It began with the corruption probe initiated when Tom Corbett was AG, but was quashed by his successor, Kathleen Kane, who claimed it appeared to be racially motivated. Now-disgraced Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams then revived that case, resulting in Browns seven-day trial. During the trial the jurors spent days reading transcripts as they tried to follow largely unintelligible recordings of meetings between Brown and Ali. A Dauphin County jury took less than three hours Wednesday to convict a state legislator of taking $4,000 worth of bribes. State Rep. Vanessa Brown, a Philadelphia Democrat, sat stone still as the foreperson read the seven guilty verdicts that will wreck her political career. Brown, 52, who was re-elected to the 190thHouse district despite being charged, appeared to be weeping as she left Judge Scott A. Evans' courtroom without comment, however. For Brown, her convictions on charges of bribery, conflict of interest and lying on her state financial reporting are catastrophic. "She'll be prohibited from holding office as a state legislator or any other elected office in Pennsylvania," First Assistant District Attorney Michael Sprow said after the verdict. Brown is one of five Philly legislators who were accused of taking bribes following an investigation by the state attorney general's office. The others pleaded guilty or no contest. Brown, who was accused of taking bribes from an informant for the attorney general's office in early 2011, conceivably could be sentenced to prison for her convictions, Sprow said. Sentencing guidelines also allow for probation. The prosecutor urged Evans to schedule Brown's sentencing for before Nov. 30 to avoid the possibility that she would remain eligible for legislative benefits including lifetime health care. Whether her pension would be forfeited is a matter for the state board of pensions, not the court. Defense attorney Patrick A. Casey argued during the trial that the state attorney general's office entrapped Brown. The informant used in the probe placed undue pressure on her because he was trying to avoid being prosecuted for an unrelated fraud, Casey contended. "I think the jury saw through the entrapment defense," Sprow said. "This was really not even close to entrapment." Casey urged Evans not to tie Brown's sentencing date to the end of November deadline Sprow requested. He said the issue of Brown's state benefits is "unrelated to sentencing." Evans scheduled Brown's sentencing for Nov. 28. The case against Brown and the other accused legislators nearly went away. The investigation that led to the arrest began under Attorney General Tom Corbett, but was derailed by his successor, Kathleen Kane. She argued that the probe might have had a racial bias and that the deal provided to informant Tyron Ali was too lucrative. The cases were revived by now-disgraced Philadelphia DA Seth Williams, however. House Democratic leader Frank Dermody released a statement following Brown's conviction. Brown, he noted, was unopposed for re-election this year. "The 10 years of good work that Vanessa did for her district still matters to many people but will be overshadowed by her conviction. It's unfortunate but that's the way it is," Dermody said. He said the House speaker must schedule a special election to fill Brown's seat for the 2019-20 legislative term. Accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old-girl, a Newburg woman faces multiple felony charges, including rape. Melissa S. McRorie, 29, assaulted the 13-year-old when the girl visited Pennsylvania from out of town, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday by state police. Police said the assault was reported by the girls mother, who tricked McRorie into admitting sexual contact with the 13-year-old in a social media message. The mother, pretending to be the girl, had McRorie recount the sex acts, according to police. We had sex on my bed n the floor, the complaint reads, later outlining more explicit sex acts. In early September, McRorie was interviewed by police, who said she told them she used two phones to contact the 13-year-old but denied having sexual contact with the girl. Later that month, the girl also was interviewed by investigators, and police said she confirmed the assault by McRorie. The girl told police McRorie would set up meetings, making threats to ensure the 13-year-old would comply. She related that McRorie threatened to kill her family if she did not do what she said, police wrote in the complaint. McRorie also is accused of sending the girl lewd photos and pushing her into a door jamb, bruising her ribs. Online court documents show McRorie faces felony charges of rape, statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated assault and corruption of minors, as well as a misdemeanor charge of simple assault. She was arraigned Wednesday morning before Magisterial District Judge H. Anthony Adams, and is to appear for a preliminary hearing at 2 p.m. Nov. 19. As of Wednesday morning online documents showed that McRorie remained in Cumberland County Prison unable to post $25,000 cash bail. A woman who lost her husband and 16-month-old daughter after an alleged drunk truck driver caused an 11-vehicle crash will soon file a lawsuit. ABC27 reports Jessica Lybrand, the wife of Zachary and mother to Elliana, is working with the law firm of Feldman Shepherd to file a lawsuit in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. That lawsuit will be against the truck driver, Jack Edward Satterfield III, as well as Greentree Logistics Inc. and J.D. Eckman Inc. Greentree Logistics is the trucking company that employed Satterfield, and J.D. Eckman is the construction company involved with the road work in the area where the crash took place. The crash The crash took place in the northbound lanes of I-83 near the exit to Union Deposit Road on Oct. 12. That section of road is approaching a construction zone. PennDOT is in the midst of a multiyear project to widen Interstate 83 to three lanes in both directions from Interstate 81 to the area south of Union Deposit Road. Traffic was slowed or stopped in that area when Satterfield failed to stop and hit multiple vehicles in the left lane, according to police. 22-year-old Ethan VanBochoven, of Pompton Plains, NJ, a Messiah College student, was also killed in the crash. Six other people were injured. Satterfield told police that, following the crash, he left his truck, crossed the highway, hopped a fence and ran to a hotel parking lot, where he watched the crash scene, according to arrest papers. Police wrote that he later voluntarily submitted to a breath test which showed him to be over the legal limit for alcohol. Satterfield is charged with accidents involving death or personal injury, accidents involving death or personal injury without being properly licensed, homicide by vehicle, homicide by vehicle while under the influence, and DUI. By Ken Burk On Nov. 6, good jobs and unions will be on the ballot. A good union job was once the pathway to the middle class. It is not a coincidence that as union membership has sharply declined, income inequality has skyrocketed and wages have dropped. The demand that everyone should earn a living wage and be able to retire with dignity should not be seen as partisan. The desire for basic fairness in the workplace should not be controversial. And the idea that everyone should be safe on the job should be expected. I've been a union school janitor for 10 years. I know that unions are the key to good jobs. And I know that funding from Harrisburg is critical to maintaining strong schools in the Commonwealth. I voted for Donald Trump. But Governor Wolf has my vote because he stands up for good jobs and school funding. As a businessman, Governor Wolf is known for treating his employees with fairness and respect and paying a living wage. His opponent, Scott Wagner, is also a businessman but is best known for refusing to release his tax returns because he fears his employees will see his salary and want to unionize. We need a governor who embraces workers coming together to fight for fair wages and benefits--not on who runs and hides from it. Scott Wagner embodies a new brand of anti-union politicians who think tough talk will fool working people into voting against their economic interests. Wagner has made clear that he opposes unions by his words and his voting record in the Senate. Meanwhile Governor Wolf has stood up for education funding, protected workers' rights and has supported raising the wage to $15 for contracted workers and has vowed to veto right to work legislation that would cripple collective bargaining rights even further. Governor Wolf has the endorsement of nearly every union in the state because the choice is clear: he will fight for good jobs for Pennsylvania's middle class who are struggling to hold on. For thousands of voters in Pennsylvania like me, it is not the political party that matters. It's a matter of trust. Can you trust the candidate to have your best interests at heart? Can you trust them to fight for your livelihood and your family over corporate special interests? I trust Governor Wolf more than Scott Wagner when it comes to my job, pension, healthcare, roads and bridges, schools and my family's future. Pennsylvania should not follow in the footsteps of other states like Michigan, Wisconsin and most southern states that have attacked unions and, as a result, have seen their quality of life decline in every imaginable way including wages, infant mortality rates, schools funding and workplace deaths. The Janus v. AFSCME decision dealt a major blow to union workers nationwide but working people are already fighting back. Earlier this year, a wave of teachers' strikes in red states proved that working people are unwilling to accept the race to the bottom and are fighting for school funding for students and fair wages and benefits for workers. Despite attacks from all sides, unions are experiencing a resurgence and are more popular than they have been in decades. Working people from both sides of the aisle recognize that the key to better healthcare, higher wages, and decent housing is directly tied to good union jobs. We have a chance to re-elect a governor who will make progress for good jobs and fight so that everyone has the right to join a union. I am voting for Tom Wolf because unions are on the ballot on Nov. 6. Ken Burk is a janitor in the Mount Pleasant School District in Westmoreland County, and a member of the 32BJ SEIU union. When the Pennsylvania Supreme Court redrew congressional districts, many in Adams County were disheartened that we will no longer be in Congressman Scott Perry's district. We strongly support his brave stands for individual rights and the U.S. Constitution. We love his integrity and strong moral courage. He understands the fundamental values of personal responsibility and limited government. Bigger, more intrusive government isn't the answer. The "shouldn't everybody have ..." appeals of the left may sound good on the surface, but who pays for them? What is the long-term effect of those ideas on the economy and American culture? Look deeper, read more than the headline to understand why he voted for or against a bill. You will gain more respect for Congressman Perry. Congressman Perry works hard for all his constituents, is approachable, and values our thoughts and comments. He stands up for his beliefs, for what is right for his country and his district. Perry stands firm, even under pressure from his own party's leadership and lobbyists in the DC swamp. He lives and represents the conservative, common sense, patriotic core values of central Pennsylvania. Congressman Perry supports President Trump's agenda. Don't turn over the House to Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters; send the message - we do not support mob rule and violence, higher taxes and crushing regulation. We urge you to reelect Congressman Scott Perry. Pennsylvania and our country need him. Adams County Council of Republican Women Cynde Vance & Martha O'Bryant, Gettysburg U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Lancaster County, and his Democratic challenger Jess King traded policy haymakers once again Tuesday in the last debate of their race for Pennsylvania's new 11th Congressional District. Both presented forceful arguments for their particular world-views: Smucker's, an orthodox brand of Republican conservatism that prioritizes less government regulation and smaller government, and more economic freedom. "People today are better off than they were just two years ago," summed up the Republican incumbent who is seeking a second term in Congress. King's, a strongly-held view that the power of American democracy has actually been stifled by both parties' allegiance to corporate and other special interests. That contrast showed most forcefully in the two candidates' assessments of each others' fundraising for this race - both have raised about $1.6 million through the campaign cycle. Smucker attacked King's campaign as being largely funded by out-of-state donors looking to fund progressive candidates, and said roughly 60 percent of her funding - 55.4 percent according to Open Secrets.org - has come from out of state. "These are literally liberals - leftists, really - who are paying Ms. King's salary to advance their socialist agenda here in the 11th District," Smucker said to applause from his supporters. (King has been drawing a salary out of her campaign committee through the course of the race, something she has defended as a necessity to run a full-time campaign against a well-funded incumbent.) "What does someone from San Francisco know about our values here in Lancaster County and here in York County?," Smucker asked. King punched back by noting Smucker can't honestly say he's gotten most of his money from the 11th District either, because the majority of his campaign funds this year have come from special interest political action committees. King has refused donations from business-related PACs. "He gets more money from out-of-state than I do," King responded. "And our money comes from people. More than half of his money comes from PACS. I think that's a really important distinction to think about... "If he's making that claim (of out-of-state funding) against me as like a big issue, look in the mirror, sir," King said, turning directly to her opponent. The debate aired live on midstate NBC affiliate WGAL-TV, and will be available to screen online through the next week on Web sites including PCNTV.com. King repeatedly stressed during Tuesday's debate the theme of trying to reset American political conversation away from the fear-mongering that she said has become the order of the day. Take this exchange on immigration policy. Smucker said his first priority is to secure America's borders, after which he would be willing to look at policies that would permit the so-called dreamers - young adults brought here illegally as children by their undocumented parents and have since come of age in America - a chance to stay. King argued the American border really is secure now, and called the immigration issue is a red herring that politicians like Smucker use to create political division. Alluding to Lancaster's well-established record of being a magnet for political and other refugees, King said she would work to tone down the rhetoric surrounding the issue. "We have experienced this (welcoming others). We know who we are as a community, and playing into this fear (of outsiders) is un-American... Legislative fixes to this are being held hostage to a political play, and it's not OK." Another stark difference emerged over health care reforms. King is a passionate supporter of a Medicare-for-all system that she and many progressive Democrats believe will get to the end goal of universal coverage and stopping driving people into bankruptcy because they get sick. Smucker called it a form of socialism that would lead to drastically higher taxes and, very likely, fewer advancements in American medical care as time goes by. He said he would like to edge the health care system more toward a traditional free-enterprise system. "Our goal is to create a system where we have more competition among health care providers, more transparencies, and more competition among insarance companies as well," Smucker said. When the incumbent said he believes there will eventually have to be changes to the Medicaid system for future beneficiaries to keep it sustainable, King launched another attack on what she sees as politics-as-usual in Washington that puts the consumer last. King said her priority would be ensuring the federal government has the ability to negotiate better drug prices for Medicare from pharmaceutical companies who are posting high profits, and campaign finance reform. "We need to make this shift," King said, "and the only way we do it is getting big money out of politics, making sure that candidates do not take money from those special interests. Because if they do, my question is, will they ever actually work for individuals over those same special interests?" It was a theme she returned to several times during the debate, including a gun control question where she blasted a "corporate gun lobby" she said has stalled reforms supported overwhlemingly in public opinion polls. Smucker, for his part, took every opportunity to try to paint King as a political extremist who wants to push the Democratic party further to the left on many issues. "When Ms. King talks about being with neither party she wants you to think she's in the middle," Smucker said, "but she's essentially associated herself with a socialist group that is promoting a radical agenda." That was a reference to King's endorsement by Justice Democrats, a progressive group whose platform does call for policies like legalization of marijuana, the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in its current form. The organization says its endorsements go to candidates who eschew corporate PAC money and "generally agree" with its platform. King noted her career has revolved around supporting small-scale economic development "through business, so, the arguments that he (Smucker) is making just don't land." All she wants and is committed to, King said, is to look for ways to "use the power of the federal government to work better for people." The new 11th, which consists of all of Lancaster County and the southern portions of York County, is a district that backed Donald Trump over Hilary Clinton in 2016 by a 63.6 to 36.4 percent margin. Election Day is Nov. 6. Two Boyne City charities hosting meet and greet Two regional non-profit groups are hosting a meet and greet event at the Veterans Park Pavilion in Boyne City on Tuesday, Nov. 30th. The change is seen as a way to give low-performing school credits if they can show their students are improving, even if their scores remain below average. As such, student growth resulted in 80 percent of schools being rated either commendable or exemplary. Seventeen days after all votes were cast, the counting of ballots in Montgomery County has been completed and the results of the closely fought Spring-Ford Area School Board race show a Democratic sweep. Representation on the Spring-Ford School Board is divided into three geographic regions and in Region 2, which is comprised of a portion of Upper Providence as well... My vote will go to the candidates I believe will line up with my values and their record of service. Hopefully, they wont keep quiet about what they believe or want to accomplish in office, regardless of how they express it. My vote may not be the same as others but thats why we are voting, isnt it? And once the votes are tallied, like it or not, I will try to help the people elected to do good work for our greater good. Earlier this summer, we followed master pointe shoe fitter Josephine Lee of the California-based The Pointe Shop as she made her on a pointe shoe fitting tour around the West Coast and California. Now shes back, this time on a 45-day tour from California to Chicago, educating students on all things pointe shoes and helping them to find their perfect fit. Lees making stops at top ballet companies and academies across the country, interviewing school directors and chatting with professional ballerinas to find out how they customize and break in their pointe shoes. Below, check out Lees stop at Kansas City Ballet. She touches base with company dancer Tempe Ostergren and school director Grace Holmes. Stay tuned for more! Pro Pointe Shoe Hacks: Kansas City Ballets Tempe Ostergren www.youtube.com An Interview with Kansas City Ballet School Director Grace Holmes youtu.be Missed Lees stops at Ballet West, Colorado Ballet, Nevada Ballet Theatre or Oklahoma City Ballet? Check them out now! 2k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard A CBS local anchor described the outpouring of people as protesting Trumps unwelcome visit to the Squirrel Hill synagogue where eleven people were murdered by a Trump caravan conspiracy believer (video), This is a protest like none Ive ever seen in the Pittsburgh area, hordes of people. So it didnt take embarrassed conservatives long to smear the thousands of mourning Pittsburgh protesters who turned their backs on President Trump, who was asked NOT to come to Pittsburgh until all of the slaughtered had been buried. The smear is that the people who organized the protest have a goal is Their coalition today incl. Democratic Socialists of America & the Intl Socialist Organization. That big anti-Trump protest today in Pittsburgh was organized by a group called IfNotNow, whose goal is to end "the Israeli occupation" of Gaza & the West Bank. Their coalition today incl. Democratic Socialists of America & the Int'l Socialist Organization https://t.co/abet1VyT7p pic.twitter.com/M4cA6iGaiY David Martosko (@dmartosko) October 30, 2018 Donald Trump Jr liked this tweet, so its already reached the upper halls of the Fake News Emporium that is our White House. First of all, because this is a conservative smear there are several layers of lies. The first fact to clear up is that there were two protests, not just one. Yes, really, the majority of people in Pittsburgh didnt want the Divider-in-Chief to visit. He is not exactly known as the Chief Consoler, but worse, his false fear-mongering about the caravan is what motivated the shooter of the synagogue and the anti-Semitic right wing conspiracy that George Soros is funding the caravan pointed the finger at Jewish people. There was the protest organized by IfNotNow and another one organized by progressive Jewish group Bend the Arc. IfNotNow says their goal is Moved to act by moral anguish and inspired by Hillels three questions, they organized Mourners Kaddish actions in nearly a dozen cities across the country and lamented the loss of both Israeli and Palestinian life. They had three demands: Stop the War on Gaza, End the Occupation, and Freedom and Dignity for All Safety in solidarity. #NotThisTime #PittsburghStrong #EndWhiteNationalism Wow, they want to end white nationalism. How radical *of them.* No wonder the Trumpites are outraged. The protests that have so hurt the feelings of the Trump cult included people peacefully kneeling and turning their backs on Trumps motorcade. Mind you, Jewish leaders and the Mayor begged Trump NOT TO COME right now to Pittsburgh, for security reasons and to let the grieving process be unhindered by Trumps political purposes. But Trump wanted a good photo op, so he packed up his current family and off they went. Yes, a few Trump supporters were glad to see him, but they were not the majority by far and were not speaking for the community as others were when asking Trump not to come. Local CBS reported, Thousands of people gathered in Squirrel Hill Tuesday for two protests in opposition to President Donald Trumps visit to the City of Pittsburgh, following the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue. Tens of thousands of people signed an online petition against the visit after it was first announced over the weekend, in the hours after the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue that claimed 11 lives. The No Antisemitism, No White Supremacy, No Trump protest is the one IfNotNow organized with 13 other organizations. The Pittsburgh Loves All Our Neighbors protest was organized by Pittsburghs Bend the Arc, Womens March on Washington and other organizations. Aside from the marching protests, there was also a sit-in protest and others planned throughout the evening. The conservative tabloidThe Daily Mail links to The Forward to claim, The larger of two protest marches was organized by a group called IfNotNow Pittsburgh, along with a coalition that included local branches of Democratic Socialists of America and the International Socialist Organization, according to The Forward. But The Forward link does not mention Democratic Socialists of America and International Socialists Organization. Those organizations listed on the Facebook invite to the event are: IfNotNow Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh DSA, Pittsburgh Coalition to End the Deadly Exchange, Jewish Voice for Peace Pittsburgh, International Socialist Organization Pittsburgh, Thomas Merton Center, Nightshade Pgh. So the second layer of lies is thats a lot more groups from just one of the protests to smear as socialists (and socialism is actually not an inherently bad ideology like nationalist is, but thats another layer in the lie for another day). Conservatives are acting as if its radical to be anti-white nationalist. Um, no. Its called being civilized. There were thousands of people at the protests today in Pittsburgh and conservatives dont get to dismiss them as socialists or mobs. They were peaceful, they came from all walks of life, but most importantly, they were mourning and Donald Trump chose to ignore requests that he not come to Pittsburgh because he wanted a photo op (something he ironically used to accuse then President Obama of regularly, with his usual gift of projection). He shouldnt have come. If he didnt like the reception, well, thats what you get when you arrange a last minute presidential visit sucking security away from the victims and their families in the middle of funerals after a mass shooting. Conservatives and Republicans never stop smearing people who are in deep pain, rape victims, people grieving a massacre at their place of worship, people grieving a massacre in their school- it doesnt matter. Republicans mock and dismiss and belittle and smear. Vote these people out of office on November 6th. By Delphine Schrank NILTEPEC, Mexico (Reuters) An impoverished Mexican town nearly flattened by a 2017 earthquake welcomed thousands of tired and hungry Central Americans in a U.S.-bound caravan this week in quiet defiance of U.S. President Donald Trumps condemnation of the group. On Monday, the same day that Trump ordered 5,200 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to block the migrants, residents of the southern town of Niltepec, who still live among piles of rubble that once were their homes, prepared for the caravan with homemade soup, medical tents, and diapers for children. We wish we had a space dignified enough to offer our visitors, said Zelfareli Cruz Medina, Niltepecs mayor. As she spoke, caravan members were stringing up garbage bags to use as tents in Niltepecs main square. Surrounding buildings were scarred with cracks and gaping holes caused by the 8.2 magnitude earthquake that struck the region on Sept. 7, 2017. Of 1,720 homes in Niltepec, 1,602 were damaged in the quake, according to town officials, while 530 collapsed entirely. At least 100 families are still without homes, they said. A tower atop Niltepecs main church was stripped down to its fragile wood skeleton by the quake and Cruz said the town needed help to rebuild its library and the mayors offices, which were serving as a shelter for the caravans women and children. But a willingness to help the needy comes as almost second-nature to residents of the hardscrabble town in Oaxaca, one of Mexicos poorest states, Cruz said. We know now what it means to suffer, she said. Near the church, three local families gathered at lunchtime in the shared backyard of rebuilt homes to cook an offering of chicken soup for the migrants, many of whom have said they are fleeing violence and grinding poverty in their homeland. Later Monday evening, Mariela Escobar, 52, a part-time cleaner, pored over a vat of fuming tamales hundreds of them, she said to hand out free for dinner. People helped us greatly, said her neighbor, Angela Moreno Galves, 81. So now, of course, we want to help too. Setting out from Honduras on Oct. 13, the caravan quickly swelled to number several thousand people. The latest estimates put its size at 3,500 to more than double that matching or exceeding Niltepecs population of 3,800. The warmth of the welcome in Niltepec stood in deliberate, stark contrast to Trumps hostility, said Jorge Luis Fuentes, a senior town official. Its a form of struggle, he said. Its a way to demonstrate that rights are universal. (Reporting by Delphine Schrank; Editing by Dave Graham and Tom Brown) 834 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard WASHINGTON (Reuters) The U.S. Interior Departments acting inspector general has referred a probe into Interior Secretary Ryan Zinkes conduct to the Justice Department for further investigation, media reports said on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources. Referring a probe to the Justice Department means it will explore whether evidence warrants a criminal investigation. Mary Kendall, the acting inspector general of the Interior Department, is conducting at least three probes into Zinkes conduct, but it was not clear which one had been sent to the Justice Department, the Washington Post said. Among other investigations, Kendall is probing Zinkes involvement in a Montana land deal and a decision not to grant two tribes approval to run a casino in Connecticut. A senior White House official said the White House understands the DOJ investigation is looking into whether the secretary used his office to help himself, according to the Washington Post. The Interior Departments inspector general said in a letter to lawmakers in July that the office was investigating a Montana real estate deal involving a foundation set up by Zinke and a development group backed by the chairman of oil service company Halliburton Co. The letter said the inspector general had launched the probe on July 16 to look into a development deal in Zinkes hometown of Whitefish, Montana, between a group funded by David Lesar, Halliburtons chairman, and the foundation. The deal was first reported by Politico. A Lesar spokeswoman said in July that his personal investment had nothing to do with Halliburton and that the company was confident the Interior Department would not be influenced by it. The Interior Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Zinke told CNN that he had not been contacted by the Justice Department, that he follows the law, and that the DOJ investigation was politically driven and has no merit. Nancy DiPaolo, spokeswoman for the Interior Departments inspector general office, said she could not comment on any ongoing investigation. The White House and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment. (Reporting by Timothy Gardner, Nichola Groom, and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Tom Brown) 2.2k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Several thousand protesters, an ethnically mixed crowd of all ages including members of Pittsburghs tight-knit Jewish community, held an anti-Trump rally about a block away from the synagogue just as his visit began, singing Old Testament psalms and carrying signs with such slogans as We build bridges not walls. One group of demonstrators chanted, President hate, leave our state, while others yelled, Words have meaning. The above is an edited for brevity version of the original Reuters article. (Reporting by Jessica Resnick-Ault and Steve Holland, additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York and Susan Cornwell and Richard Cowan in Washington) 2k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard If a Republican incumbent representative is losing in the state of Utah you know its a bad year for the GOP. And this appears to be the case as incumbent GOP Rep. Mia Love is behind her Democratic challenger, Ben McAdams, by six percentage points in the most recent polling that was done. Although previously the race has been classified as a toss-up, it now appears to be swinging toward the blue side. And if McAdams actually wins you can bet that he will join the majority party in the House of Representatives since it will mean a Blue Wave has swung control of the lower chamber of Congress to the Democrats. A poll by Utahs KUTV 2News, working with polling firm Dixie Strategies, surveyed voters in Utahs 4th Congressional District last week. They found that current Salt Lake County Mayor McAdams has an impressive lead over Republican incumbent Love. The survey found that 49.5 percent of likely voters said they would vote for McAdams if the election were held today, while 43 percent said they would vote for Love. Other polls have previously shown Love and McAdams tied, including a New York Times Upshot survey published last week that found both candidates at 45 percent, with 9 percent of respondents undecided. This new poll also made clear that Utah voters have a much more favorable opinion of McAdams than of Love. An impressive 33.4 percent of respondents said they have a very favorable view of McAdams while just 27.3 percent said the same thing about Love. But perhaps the worst news for Love is that over 34 percent of voters have a very unfavorable opinion of her compared to just 16 percent of voters with a very unfavorable opinion of McAdams. Scott Riding, a GOP consultant who is in charge of polling for Love, issued a statement to KUTV saying that he believes their new poll should be viewed very skeptically because it used robodialing to reach voters. Robodial polls have an inaccurate history in Utah, Riding said in a statement to the news outlet. The results of this poll are out of step with all other nonpartisan polls. This is certainly an outlier. Brian Graham, who runs Dixie Strategies, defended his polls accuracy, however. Time and again, our polls have proven accurate and we have been rated one of the least biased polls in America, he said in a statement. In another major finding the poll also found that 40 percent of Utah voters have a very unfavorable view of President Donald Trump, while 29.7 reported they view him very favorably. This is one more indicator that the Blue Wave of 2018 may include the red state of Utah. 149 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard A small group of prominent Democratic U.S. senators has requested a classified briefing with U.S. intelligence officials concerning what the U.S. intelligence community knows about previous threats against the life of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Dem senators request classified briefing on Khashoggi Dem senators request classified briefing on Khashoggi https://t.co/DgnBMwpNsv pic.twitter.com/HkzqHqlPyB The Hill (@thehill) October 30, 2018 Seven Democratic senators and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) wrote a letter to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats that was sent on Tuesday. In the letter the senators asked Coats to arrange for a meeting so that they might be briefed in full on the Khashoggi threats. The letter also said that they want to be told whether or not the intelligence community had warned Khashoggi about threats that had been made to his life. Congress must understand the circumstances of Mr. Khashoggis disappearance. In order to fulfill our oversight obligation, we request a classified briefing regarding the implementation of the duty to warn determinations articulated in Intelligence Community Directive 191 and its specific application to the Jamal Khashoggi case, the senators wrote. Intelligence Community Directive 191 outlines when and how U.S. intelligence officials are required to give a warning to individuals or groups concerning specific threats made against them. It deals with death threats, threats of serious bodily injury and threats of kidnapping. In the letter to DNI Coats the senators wrote that the directive is a clear message that the United States government takes these kinds of threats very seriously. They also noted that The Washington Post had previously reported that the U.S. government had intercepted communications from Saudi Arabia in which a plan to capture Khashoggi was outlined. Questions regarding whether Mr. Khashoggi was notified of known threats to his life have raised serious concerns. The Intelligence Community must clearly account for any known threats levied against Mr. Khashoggi and whether the Directive was triggered appropriately and followed accordingly, the senators added. Tuesdays letter was signed by Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Patrick Leahy (Vt.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) and Ed Markey (Mass.), as well as Sanders. In addition to a classified briefing, the group of senators is asking for information on how many times individuals have been warned of threats under Directive 191. They also asked for an updated intelligence assessment on Saudi Arabia. Khashoggi had written articles criticizing the Saudi regime, and at the time of his death he was an opinion writer for The Washington Post. On October 2 he walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul obtain the paperwork he needed for his planned marriage. He never left the Consulate and it is now believed that he was murdered there. 3.6k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Latinos appear to be energized and have joined other demographics in putting up record engagement numbers for the midterm election. Yahoo News reported: According to early-vote totals compiled by Political Data, Inc., Latino turnout in Southern Californias most competitive House contests is already far outpacing 2014 even equaling 2016s presidential-year turnout in some cases. At this point in 2014, for example, Latinos in CA-25 had cast less than 11 percent of all ballots; right now, that number is hovering around 15 percent, just like in 2016. In CA-39, Latinos early vote share has grown from 12.2 percent four years ago to 16 percent today less than half a point shy of the 2016 benchmark. And Latino voting levels have increased in CA-45, CA-48, and CA-49 as well. (PDI compiles their figures using lists of voter surnames and country or state of origin data on registration forms.) Such across-the-board increases in Latino turnout jibe with election results from earlier this year. In June, Latinos made up 21.2 percent of the primary electorate in Californias 39th Congressional District a nearly eight-point jump from 2014. Subsequent reports by UCLAs Latino Policy and Politics initiative concluded that the Latino vote increased more than any other demographic in Los Angeles County from June 2014 to June 2018 and that in Orange County, ballots cast in majority-Latino precincts were up over 2014 numbers by as much as a 245 percent. And California isnt alone: a new analysis by University of Florida Professor Daniel A. Smith finds that Latino early vote there has tripled in 2018 compared to 2014. In Texas, Hispanic voter turnout is up 214%, which showed that the mobilized Latino isnt limited to California. There are three major Republican-held contested House races in California. Unlike a presidential election year, Democrats dont need a national Latino voter surge to be successful, but what has changed is that Democratic Party has done a much better job with recruiting Latino candidates and Latino voter outreach than they have done in previous years. It is debatable whether or not signs of a Latino wave will be visible in the national election results, but the midterm is not a national election. If Democrats successfully mobilize Latino voters to turn out on a district or state basis, it will flip seats and lead to big Election Night for the Democratic Party. Following the direction of the national Chabad-Lubavitch movement, the leaders of Chabad and F.R.E.E. of Niles encouraged those who attended the vigil to commit to a mitzvah, or good deed, in recognition of the Tree of Life victims and their families. The mitzvah pledges can include anything, from mending relationships and attending more religious services, to regularly lighting candles to welcome the sabbath or committing to make donations to a charitable cause, Hershkovich said. 4.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard On Monday, at a campaign event in Michigan, Vice President Mike Pence brought out Rabbi Loren Jacobs to lead the room in prayer for the victims of the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh. Now people are saying that Jacobs isnt really a rabbi at all, and even the non-Jewish group that ordained him has defrocked him and taken away his ordination credentials. The problem is that Jacobs synagogue, Shema Yisrael, is a Messianic institution, and Jacobs belongs to a sect of Judaism that holds many of the same views as Christianity. This means that Jacobs is actually what is known as a Messianic rabbi and he angered and upset many Jews by invoking the name of Jesus Christ while praying with Pence. He said during his prayer: God of Abraham God and Father of my Lord and Savior Yeshua, Jesus the Messiahhate inspired shooting in synagogue in Pittsburgh Mainstream Jews do not believe Messianic rabbis are real, or actual rabbis at all. And now NBC News is reporting that Jacobs was stripped of his rabbinic ordination in 2003 after the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations found him guilty of libel. Most Jews do not recognize the group as Jewish since its members believe that Jesus was the Messiah, or the son of God. So the man chosen by Mike Pence was not just a fake rabbi, but actually a defrocked fake rabbi. This shows pretty poor judgment on the part of our Vice President on a day when he was trying to demonstrate solidarity with the Jewish community. A spokeswoman for the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations did not say who Jacobs allegedly libeled, or what he said. But his synagogue website says that he was involved in a theological dispute with other leaders of his religious group, who he believed were insufficiently conservative in their doctrines. In an additional controversy, local Jewish leaders said they did not know why Jewish Republican congressional candidate Lena Epstein invited Jacobs to her campaign rally on Tuesday. They said they dont even consider Jacobs to be a Jew, due to his religious beliefs. We dont even recognize him as a rabbi, said Rabbi Marla Hornsten, former president of the Michigan Board of Rabbis. Even to call him a rabbi is offensive. Mainstream Judaism holds that the messiah has not yet arrived on earth. Judaism itself is a multi-denominational religion that encompasses multiple forms of expression and belief, the Rabbinical Assembly, which represents the rabbis of the Conservative Movement, said in a statement. Nonetheless, so-called Messianic Judaism is not a Jewish movement, and the phrase Jews for Jesus is a contradiction in terms, insofar as Judaism does not recognize Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. Congressional candidate Epstein is a longtime member of a Reform Jewish synagogue in the Detroit area. But Hornstein said that Epstein did not reach out to anyone within their rabbinical organization to appear at the campaign event. Epstein issued a tweet accusing those who criticized her and Pence of religious intolerance, but she did not explain why she invited Jacobs to deliver the prayer or even mention his name. 815 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Editors Note: The caravan is not a threat to anyone in the United States, and it wont be here for weeks or months. No one is able to explain why Trump is declaring this a national emergency that requires troops deployed within the United States, or why they are deployed now, but critics accuse Trump of using this as an election boost for his party. Update: The Pentagon has identified about 7,000 troops that could be deployed to the border with Mexico if needed, a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday. By Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) The top U.S. general overseeing a deployment of more than 5,200 troops to the border with Mexico said on Tuesday that troop levels would rise further, but declined to say how high or estimate what the operation will cost. Many basic questions remained unanswered a day after the Pentagon announced the open-ended deployment of over 5,200 active-duty troops to the border, including the scope of the mission as well as the Pentagons assessment of any threat posed by arriving migrants. President Donald Trump has hardened his stance on immigration ahead of the Nov. 6 congressional elections. He has drawn attention to a caravan of migrants that is trekking through Mexico toward the United States as he seeks to fire up support for his Republican party, which is facing some tough battles as Democrats seek to wrest control of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Republican lawmakers and other Trump supporters have applauded the deployment. But critics say Trump is politicizing the military, deploying them as a stunt to drive Republican voters to the polls without any real national security threat. General Terrence OShaughnessy, the head of U.S. Northern Command, defended the operation at a briefing on Tuesday. He echoed Trump administration concerns about the caravan and compared the border support mission to other domestic military missions, like hurricane relief. I firmly believe that border security is national security, OShaughnessy said. The U.S. military still had no firm idea of what the operation would cost, he added. Pentagon officials have said the Defense Department will need to find a way to pay for the operation, suggesting money may need to be taken from other national security programs. OShaughnessy said that just over 1,000 troops had deployed to Texas as of Tuesday, where they will carry out tasks like building barriers, erecting tents, and flying government personnel by helicopter to and from different locations along the border. He said the troops now slated to go to Texas, Arizona and California were only the start of a larger deployment and that eventually troops would go to New Mexico as well. What I can confirm is there will be additional force over and above the 5,239. The magnitude of that difference, I dont have the answer for now, he said. The projected U.S. deployment is already roughly the same size as the U.S. military contingent in Iraq. Trump railed against illegal immigration to win the 2016 presidential election and has seized on the caravan of Central American migrants at campaign rallies in the run-up to next weeks vote. Trump has characterized the migrants as an invasion and falsely stated they harbor terrorists and are financed in part by Democrats. OShaughnessy declined to comment on intelligence about the caravan when asked whether there were terrorists among the migrants. He said the caravan was different than those seen by the United States in the past, adding that they were better organized. Weve seen violence coming out of the caravan, OShaughnessy said. Mexicos government said on Tuesday that it had deported two Honduran men for whom there were arrest warrants back home, one for homicide, the other for a drug-related offense. The two men, ages 21 and 47, crossed into Mexico with the migrant caravan in the state of Chiapas. Kevin McAleenan, the U.S. commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, estimated on Monday that the caravan was comprised of about 3,500 migrants. (Reporting by Phil Stewart; additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; editing by Rosalba OBrien and Leslie Adler) (Update reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio) 1.5k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) made it clear that he would never cast a ballot for white supremacist Rep. Steve King (R-IA) even if it meant Republicans losing the House. Curbelo, who is in a tough reelection contest in Florida, told MSNBCs Andrea Mitchell, His comments and his actions are disgusting. And look, I know nothing about his opponent Andrea, but I will tell you this, I would never cast a ballot for someone like Steve King. Mitchell asked, Even if it meant that is the one seat that leads to losing the control of the House of Representatives? Carlos Curbelo replied, My principles are more important than any of that. I would never cast a ballot for someone like Steve King. Video: Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) on Rep. Steve King (R-IA), "His comments and his actions are disgusting. And look, I know nothing about his opponent, but I will tell you this, I would never cast a ballot for someone like Steve King." https://t.co/wjS74FMfPk pic.twitter.com/IlSjiTrOos Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) October 31, 2018 Rep. Steve King is an unabashed racist and white supremacist. His behavior is nothing new. What is new is that some Republicans are finally calling him out, and the national party is distancing themselves from him. Republicans and conservative media have been emboldening and encouraging his racism for years. He was a darling of Fox News and other right-wing outlets during the Obama presidency. A Republican congressman encouraged voters in Kings district not to vote for him, even if losing the seat would cost Republicans the House. Steve King is a national disgrace, but no one should be surprised if voters in a party led by Donald Trump send him back to Congress for another term. For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group. Follow Jason Easley on Facebook. 1.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard On Wednesday President Donald Trump insisted that he was treated so warmly in Pittsburgh while at the same time he continued to vocalize his complaints against media coverage of his visit. He said that negative stories about his Pittsburgh trip were fake news. The presidents visit to the site of the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history was the subject of great controversy, both within Pennsylvania and around the country. In a morning tweet, Trump dismissed media reports about massive protests against his visit to the Tree of Life synagogue where 11 people were killed Saturday. On the contrary, he said, he was shown great respect. Melania and I were treated very nicely yesterday in Pittsburgh. The Office of the President was shown great respect on a very sad & solemn day. We were treated so warmly. Small protest was not seen by us, staged far away. The Fake News stories were just the opposite-Disgraceful! Melania and I were treated very nicely yesterday in Pittsburgh. The Office of the President was shown great respect on a very sad & solemn day. We were treated so warmly. Small protest was not seen by us, staged far away. The Fake News stories were just the opposite-Disgraceful! pic.twitter.com/9B9HgCF1G9 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2018 Several hundred people marched along Trumps motorcade route and around the Squirrel Hill neighborhood during Trumps visit on Tuesday. The throng marched in quiet protest, marking the solemnity of the occasion. Many carried signs that condemned the presidents inflammatory and racially-charged rhetoric. Trump, however, described the protests as small and maintained that they were not seen by us, they were staged far away. In fact, many hundreds of Pittsburgh residents had organized the protests against the presidents visit on Tuesday and they were marching just one block away from the synagogues location. CNN also reported that Trumps motorcade had to be redirected in a different direction from its initial planned route due to the size of the protests. Trumps first public comments did not mention the shooting victims, who were still being buried on Wednesday. Rather his comments discussed his personal treatment during his presidential visit that supposedly was intended to give comfort to the thousands of people in Pittsburgh and especially in the Jewish community who have been experiencing shock and grief since last Saturday morning when the appalling mass murder took place. 998 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard The statistical website FiveThirtyEight gives the Democratic Party an 86 percent chance of winning the House next Tuesday which is not a sure thing. But recent travels by President Donald Trump prove that the Republican Party has given up all hope of retaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Many people seem to think that Trumps recent flurry of travel activity and his full schedule of political rallies is intended to help GOP candidates win close House races. However when you look at where he has gone, you can see that this is not true at all. According to an analysis by The Washington Post: From October 1 through Election Day, Trump will hold at least 26 rallies. Out of the last 17 of those rallies, three were in districts where theres a contested House race. In fact, the vast majority of Trumps travel has taken him to states where there is a contested Senate race. To many political observers this means that Trump and his political advisers have given up on the House so are using all of the resources to help the GOP keep control of the Senate. Again, according to the Post analysis: Twelve of the 17 rallies are in places where the Cook Political Report rates the Senate contest as a toss-up or leaning to one party or the other (as opposed to being a likely win for the party). Six are visits to states with close gubernatorial races, according to Cook. In only one of the 17 final rallies is the local House race the most-contested thing on the ballot. Most of the places Trump is headed over the next week are places he won easily in 2016. As the House map got increasingly bleak, Trump seems to have stopped scheduling trips to contested districts. Given the presidents low approval ratings, it is doubtful that him traveling to districts with close House races would help Republican candidates anyway. Still, there is this persistent narrative that Trump is a great closer. If Republicans wanted to use their great closer to help keep control of the House they could send him to swing districts that they must win. But they are not doing that. As the Post article said: It probably wouldnt matter. The state of play in the House suggests that maintaining GOP control of the chamber is already out of reach. One way to preserve a reputation as a good closer is to try to close only the deals you can win like helping to flip Senate seats from blue to red in states you won easily two years ago. Nate Silver may say that there is a 14 percent chance that Republicans will keep control of the House, but Trumps travel schedule seems to indicate that they believe they have no chance at all. Mary Katherine, who also goes by MK, covers health care for The Post and Courier. She is also pursuing a master's degree in data science. She grew up in upstate New York and enjoys playing cards, kayaking and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Get the SC business stories that matter. Our newsletter catches you up with all the business stories that are shaping Charleston and South Carolina every Monday and Thursday at noon. Get ahead with us - it's free. Adam Parker has covered many beats and topics for The Post and Courier, including race and history, religion, and the arts. He is the author of "Outside Agitator: The Civil Rights Struggle of Cleveland Sellers Jr.," published by Hub City Press. Chloe Johnson covers the coastal environment and climate change for the Post and Courier. She's always looking for a good excuse to hop on a boat. Charleston, SC (29403) Today Mostly sunny skies. High 64F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Mostly clear skies. Low 47F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph. The theater is great, the script is amazing and there are so many wonderful people in it, she said. Its just a great story and whoever comes to see it will love it, whether they can relate to the story or they just love Christmas. Theres something in there that they will love. Its such a great story anyone who comes to see it will love it. EFFINGHAM The man accused of ambushing officers at his Florence County home fatally shooting two and wounding five others refused to participate Wednesday in the court hearing he had requested, officials said. Frederick Hopkins Jr., 74, a disbarred lawyer, represented himself when he appeared for a preliminary hearing on two counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder in the Oct. 3 shooting west of Florence. Such hearings are a chance for a magistrate to determine whether authorities had probable cause to make an arrest. Loved ones of the shooting victims and a survivor packed the courtroom. Before any testimony was given, Hopkins objected to the proceeding and asked to be excused, 12th Circuit Solicitor Ed Clements said later. Magistrate Mia Weaver decided his refusal to participate amounted to a waiver of the proceeding. His case will proceed toward trial. Hopkins alleged the hearing "violates his constitutional rights" because it hadn't happened within 10 days of his request, TV station WPDE in Florence reported. While South Carolina court rules require a hearing to be scheduled within 10 days of a request, the proceeding must actually be held within 30 days. Fewer than 30 days have gone by since Hopkins' arrest. The Post and Courier and at least two other newspaper reporters were denied access to the courtroom, though representatives of broadcast news media were allowed in. Constitutional provisions guarantee public access to court hearings. Hopkins, a Vietnam veteran, is accused of opening fire on officers as they arrived at his upscale suburban home to execute a search warrant and question his son about the alleged sexual assault of a minor. Authorities said Hopkins was waiting for officers with a pistol and two military-style rifles. Investigators later discovered he had nearly 130 firearms in his home. The standoff spanned roughly two hours. Sgt. Terrence Carraway, 52, of the Florence Police Department died that day. Florence County sheriff's investigator Farrah Turner, 36, died of her wounds Oct. 22 after multiple surgeries. Her relatives attended Wednesday's hearing. Deputy Arie Davis, who has used a wheelchair after being wounded in the ambush, also attended. Losing Turner, a friend and colleague, was "quite emotional," Davis' godmother said after the hearing. Davis is determined to be involved in the court process while she recovers from her own injuries. "Today, she talked about (how) she knows that Farrah would want her to go forward and she would want her to be well," said the godmother, Cheryl Graham, who is a magistrate judge in Marion County. Graham said Davis and others are focusing on the positives that have emerged from the tragedy, such as the fact that two esteemed officers are now known and respected across the country. "What was supposed to end their lives actually expanded their lives," she said. Hopkins' son, 28-year-old Seth Hopkins, faces charges of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor under 11 years old and second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor between 11 and 14 years old. A preliminary hearing in his case is scheduled Thursday. Before officers were gunned down outside the family's home, court records showed that investigators had planned to search Seth Hopkins' room for a girl's clothing, alleging that he had kept mementos of sex assaults. Editorials represent the institutional view of the newspaper. They are written and edited by the editorial staff, which operates separately from the news department. Editorial writers are not involved in newsroom operations. The Post and Courier provides a forum for our readers to share their opinions, and to hold up a mirror to our community. Publication does not imply endorsement by the newspaper; the editorial staff attempts to select a representative sample of letters because we believe its important to let our readers see the range of opinions their neighbors submit for publication. Jamie Lovegrove is a political reporter covering the South Carolina Statehouse, congressional delegation and campaigns. He previously covered Texas politics in Washington for The Dallas Morning News and in Austin for the Texas Tribune. FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2018, file photo, President Donald Trump pauses while speaking at a rally at Southern Illinois Airport in Murphysboro, Ill. Trump says he wants to order the end of the constitutional right to citizenship for babies of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born in the United States. The president's comments to "Axios on HBO" come amid a renewed push for hardline immigration policies in the lead-up to the midterm elections. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) Political Reporter Caitlin Byrd is a political reporter at The Post and Courier and author of the Palmetto Politics newsletter. Before moving to Charleston in 2016, her byline appeared in the Asheville Citizen-Times. To date, Byrd has won 17 awards for her work. Melvin and Randy Berlin ambled across a busy Main Street to once again stand in the shadow of the old Lake County (Ind.) Courthouse. "We thought that Crown Point, Indiana, might like to know what happened to us," Randy said as she held onto her husbands arm. It had been 70 years since the couple last made a fateful trek to the courthouse on the Crown Point square, which at that time was an around-the-clock "marriage mill." Back then, wedding chapels on the square operated 24 hours a day, with no waiting restrictions on blood tests for eager couples. These newlyweds included celebrities such as Rudolph Valentino, Joe DiMaggio, Red Grange and Muhammad Ali. In its heyday, the courthouse was staffed by rotating justices of the peace, including Harvey Minas, known for performing unusual wedding ceremonies. On Aug. 23, 1948, he presided over the unusually everlasting marriage of Melvin and Randy Berlin, who eloped from their parents Chicago homes. The 19-year-old sweethearts drove Melvins fathers car, though they didnt tell a soul why they needed it or where they were going. "The judge joked with us, saying, You forgot the baby," Melvin, 89, said of that day. Randy wasnt pregnant. She simply couldnt wait until their planned wedding date, Nov. 14, 1948, to marry Melvin, who gave her an engagement ring just a couple days earlier. "We were just kids, but we really loved each other," said Randy, 89. "Back then, you werent supposed to consummate your love before marriage. And everybody knew you could get married in Crown Point, Indiana." They were both born and raised in Chicago, attending Von Steuben High School. "We knew each other casually, not romantically," Randy said. "But I thought he showed promise." After graduating, they both attended the University of Illinois in Champaign, where they met again on a train ride home to Chicago. They talked mostly about American history before writing their own history, beginning that day. "It seemed like everybody else faded away and it was just the two of us talking on that train," Randy said. "Oh, the talking we did that day." Theyve been talking ever since, on trains and planes, in boardrooms and bedrooms, and at swanky nightclubs and ritzy high-rises. The next day after the train ride, Melvin called Randy on the phone as he promised. They soon became an item. "My parents loved Melvin more than they loved me," Randy joked. Melvin could only smile at the dusty memory. On Nov. 14, 1948, the couple celebrated their marriage with their families, friends and a public announcement. The next day, they took another long train ride to Colorado Springs for their honeymoon. Neither of them finished college at the University of Illinois. Much grander accolades awaited them. Melvin, who had highly intuitive business savvy, started a company with only a $1,000 investment. It transformed, among other successful endeavors, into Berlin Packaging and Berlin Metals, located in Hammond, a multimillion-dollar firm. A University of Minnesota study was intended to predict how plants return to native fields. Its findings may help future restoration projects. Lauren Sullivan, the studys lead author, does postdoctoral research in the universitys College of Biological Sciences. Most past seed dispersal studies focused on one species, she said, their authors trying to determine why certain species are invading a given area. This paper set its sights on post-agricultural areas, where farmers had spent years tilling and controlling the plant growth. The researchers looked at several species ones that might move into an abandoned farm field or agricultural area after plowing and spraying ended. Seed dispersal is the most important factor in plant movement, according to the study. Its how species travel long distances and find new habitat. We know that some seeds can be transported by animals, like birds and mammals that eat fruit and leave the seeds elsewhere, or humans, who can seed areas to create favorable landscapes. However, the limitations of many plants to disperse seeds naturally (by dropping seeds or seed pods that would be moved by wind alone) hadnt been studied. The researchers went to the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, where they measured the seed release height, the mass of dried seeds, and the fall speed of 50 cooccurring plant species. With these numbers, they calculated the average movement of the seeds away from parent plants. In a grassland setting, these numbers would predict the expansion of the plants into an abandoned, empty area of land. The findings were mixed. The seeds from perennials tended to disperse farther, Sullivan said, and many of the native Minnesotan plants the group hoped would colonize the empty areas fall into that category. Something like milkweed, a native perennial, is therefore likely to show up quickly in an abandoned area, as will daisies and other plants with light, small seeds. However, annuals, many of which are invasive, non-native plants, are very good at taking over a small area around their base, she added. "Theyre not as good at spreading, which is what you kind of want to see," Sullivan said. And there is some application for restoration projects, where organizations may try to return a section of abandoned land to its native, grassland state. Some native plants, like prairie clover and any type of legume, have dense, heavy seeds that wont spread far on their own. Those are the ones grassland restorers will want to seed personally, Sullivan said. "If you need to, focus your efforts on plants that arent going to spread as far on their own," Sullivan said. Rochester Friends of the Minneapolis Institute of Art have set two programs for November. On Nov. 8, the group will attend a lecture in Minneapolis. Mary Abbe, former visual arts columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, is the speaker. Her topic is "Wrestling Art into Words: A Random Walk through the MIA." The Rochester group will also have a docent-led tour. The bus departs at 8:30 a.m. from the parking lot at 125 Live, 125 Elton Hills Drive NW. The fee is $30 for members, $35 for non-members. For reservations, call 507-206-0827. On Nov. 15, Rochester Friends of the MIA will host a lecture by Aaron Rio, associate curator of Japanese and Korean art at the institute. His topic is "The Tale of Genji: Pictures of an Ancient Japanese Literary Masterpiece at MIA." The lecture is at 125 Live. Coffee is served at 10 a.m., with the program at 10:30 a.m. Kathy Kozuszek, the Democratic director in the countys voter registration office, said she was made aware of the problem, caused by two poll workers working as fill-ins, Saturday morning. She told the workers to separate those ballots and quarantine them and consulted with an attorney with the election division of the Indiana Secretary of States Office. He was identified as one of two fetal remains found in 2012 at the funeral home, according to a lawsuit filed in Lake Superior Court. The father, Wyatt Puryear, thought the funeral home had buried his son in 1996 and filed a lawsuit in 2015 alleging negligence after he became aware of the situation. John Brett, president and CEO of ArcelorMittal USA, wrote in his most recent blog, dated Oct. 22, that the company's latest proposal included a 4-year contract with wage increases of 4 percent, 3.5 percent, 3.5 percent and 3 percent each year, respectively, a lump sum payment of $4,000 following ratification, no changes to profit-sharing and no increases in health care premiums, deductibles or out-of-pocket expenses for active members or retirees, among other issues. NORRISTOWN Love is stronger than hate. That was the overarching message conveyed in many forms by many messengers during An Appeal for Healing and Solidarity at the Montgomery County Courthouse Tuesday afternoon. In the wake of the mass shooting that took the lives of 11 congregants at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday, the arrest last Friday in Florida of a politically-motivated would-be bomber, and the fatal, targeted shooting of two African Americans at a Kentucky grocery store last Wednesday, Montgomery County officials gathered with clergy of all faiths, law enforcement, and community members to say, enough is enough. This is not about politics. This is not about religion. This is about what draws us together as a country, as Americans, as human beings Montgomery County Commissioners Chairwoman Val Arkoosh said in her opening remarks. The horrible acts in Pittsburgh were anti-Semitic. said Rabbi Greg Marx during the invocation. It was against the Jewish people because they were Jews, but it was also an anti-American act because it was an act perpetrated against people who were expressing their constitutional right to worship freely. While this coward thought he was protecting his country, he was eroding the very foundation on which this great nation was built Oh lord, our God we are here not to curse the darkness, but we are here to find the light the path towards kindness, towards understanding, towards peace. Not to sow division and hate, but to find a way out of this madness. In the shadows of both the American Flag which had been lowered to half-staff and the 911 Memorial, speaker after speaker talked about the need to unite and overcome the toxic divisiveness which has dominated public and political discourse as of late. We see tragic events play out every day in our country and throughout the world and it doesnt have to be that way, said Plymouth Police Chief Joseph Lawrence who also heads the Police Chiefs Association of Montgomery County. These times make us ask fundamental questions of ourselves as individuals and as a collective people: Who are we? What do we stand for? What have we shown each other and why do we do the things we do? Violence as a way of achieving anything is both impractical and immoral, he said, before going on to extol the virtues of mutual understanding and cooperation. Greater Philadelphia Anti-Defamation League Director Nancy Baron-Baer said the shooting in Pittsburgh is part of a larger national trend, citing the national organizations tracking of a 57 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents last year. Violence against Jews, against blacks against gays, against anyone; it doesnt just happen. It happens because theres divisiveness. It happens because theres fear of the other. That kind of hatreds always been lurking on the margins of our society, but it now has become mainstream. Fighting bigotry cannot be a partisan issue, so its really time for all Americans, no matter who we are, to come together and say enough is enough. Nows the time to say that we will not excuse anyone who excuses hate. Although the Twin Cities newspapers have taken a deep dive into GOP attorney general candidate Doug Wardlows early teenage years, neither the Star Tribune nor the Pioneer Press has consulted its archives to revisit stories that bear on DFL candidate Keith Ellisons fitness for office. It is such a phenomenon that makes us detest them as partisan and dishonest rags. Take, for example, Ellisons support for the killers of Minneapolis police officer Jerry Haaf. In September 1992 Officer Haaf was murdered execution-style, shot in the back as he took a coffee break at a restaurant in south Minneapolis. Police later determined that Haafs murder was a gang hit performed by four members of the citys Vice Lords gang.The leader of the Vice Lords was Sharif Willis, a convicted murderer who had been released from prison and who sought respectability as a responsible gang leader from gullible municipal authorities while operating a gang front called United for Peace. The four Vice Lords members who murdered Haaf met and planned the murder at Williss house. Despite the fact that two witnesses implicated Willis in the planning he was never charged because law enforcement authorities said they lacked sufficient evidence to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. At the time, Ellison was a Minneapolis attorney in private practice. And within a month of Haafs murder, Ellison appeared with Willis supporting the United for Peace gang front. In October 1992, Ellison helped organize a demonstration against Minneapolis police that included United for Peace. The main point of our rally is to support United for Peace [in its fight against] the campaign of slander the police federation has been waging, said Ellison. Willis was the last speaker at the demonstration. According to a contemporaneous report in the Pioneer Press, Willis told the crowd that Minneapolis police were experiencing the same fear from young black men that blacks had felt from police for many years. If the police have some fear, I understand that fear, Willis said. We seem to have an overabundance of bad police. . . . [W]ere going to get rid of them, Willis said. Theyve got to go. The Pioneer Press account concludes with Ellisons contribution to the demonstration: Ellison told the crowd that the police union is systematically frightening whites in order to get more police officers hired. That way, Ellison said, the union can increase its power base. Ellison publicly supported the Haaf murder defendants. In February 1993, he spoke at a demonstration for one of them during his trial. Ellison led the crowd assembled at the courthouse in a chant that was ominous in the context of Haafs cold-blooded murder: We dont get no justice, you dont get no peace. Ellisons working relationship with Sharif Willis finally came to an end in February 1995, when Willis was convicted in federal court on several counts of drug and gun-related crimes and sent back to prison for 20 years. Now Keith Ellison seeks Minnesotas top law enforcement job. In the video below, Doug Wardlow does the job that the Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune refuse to do. He tells the highly relevant truth about Keith Ellison. In 2007-08, Jennifer Rubin supported Rudy Giuliani, now one of President Trumps most ardent defenders, for president. When Mitt Romney announced his bid for the presidency, Rubin denounced him for choosing the Henry Ford Museum as his venue. Romney selected this location because of his familys connection to the automobile industry, his own theme of innovation, and his desire to win votes in Michigan where he was born and raised. Noting, however, that Ford was an anti-Semite, Rubin argued that Romneys selection of this venue was indicative of a lack of sensitivity to the concerns many Jews have about their place in American society. She then projected this alleged insensitivity upon Republicans as a whole, and claimed that until Republicans overcome this perception, Jews will continue to vote Democratic. By 2011-12, however, Rubin was in the tank for Romney. His alleged insensitivity to Jews no longer mattered to Rubin. Thus, she launched unfair attacks on Romneys rivals. Now, Rubin is accusing President Trump of anti-Semitism. According to this report, she said on MSNBC: Nationalism goes hand in hand with anti-Semitism. The entire idea of anti-Semitism is to put Jews outside the definition of us. Thats what Donald Trump does. Thats his theme. Thats what his party is committed to doing. That comes back in every speech now he gives that comes back in the hysteria over immigration, which is actually at all-time lows. Rubins modus operandi is obvious. If she dislikes a politician or favors his opponent, she will look for an angle from which to attack him as hostile or insensitive to Jews. In Romneys case, the attack was ridiculous, as the late Dean Barnett demonstrated. So is her attack on Trump. The idea of anti-Semitism may be, in part, to put Jews outside the definition of us, but thats not the idea of nationalism. The idea of nationalism, and certainly of Trumps, is to put the national interest ahead of the interests of foreigners and foreign nations. Obviously, this approach entails no adverse consequences for American Jews. Rather, it is directed against nations Trump believes take advantage of the U.S. (and Israel is never included in Trumps lists of such nations); against international bodies that seek to limit U.S. sovereignty; and against people who try to enter the U.S. illegally. Its Rubin, not Trump, who seems to put American Jews outside the definition of us of Americans. That, I think, is the logical implication of her MSNBC rant. Trump has never suggested that he considers American Jews outsiders. The fact that his daughter, an influential member of his inner circle, converted to Judaism and that two of his grandchildren are Jewish should negate any claim that Trump holds such a view. The best Rubin can do, other than her outside of us non-sequitur, is to whine about Trumps position on illegal immigration. One can agree or disagree with Trump about this matter. But none of the groups whose immigration or potential immigration Trump rails against contains Jews (in more than de mimimis numbers, anyway). Were any Jews affected by the travel ban? I doubt it. The alleged infirmity of that decree was its impact on some Muslims, a very small percentage of them. Are there Jews in the caravan headed our way from Honduras? Maybe some reporters, but no one who is seeking to enter the U.S. illegally, I should think. Advocacy loses credibility when it becomes petty, illogical, and patently one-sided. Rubins advocacy fails each of these tests, and has since at 2007. Yesterday, I noted that five of seven candidates for the Montgomery County, Maryland school board say the biggest problem facing the school district is lower achievement by students of color. I disputed the notion that this gap is the school boards responsibility or problem, but that view seems to be an article of faith in education circles nowadays. Its also generating a new industry cultural and racial equity training. Pacific Education Group is an industry leader. According to the Kansas City Star, the California firm has been in high demand in recent years, training educators, city leaders and corporate executives from Lawrence [Kansas] to New York and Philadelphia to Los Angeles and around the world. The Groups founder, Glenn Singleton, is the author of Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools. The courageousness of Singletons politically correct conversations is open to question, but according to the Star, his is the No. 1 book recommended by the Missouri School Board Association for educators and administrators to read this year. Recently, however, parents in a Missouri school district Lees Summit rebelled against paying Singleton and his group to provide cultural and racial equity training. They expressed their displeasure at a school board meeting and on social media. According to the Star, critics opposed Singletons firm because of its cost, and its discussion of white privilege and the cultural competence of white teachers educating black children. Some wondered why the focus should be on inequities related to race. The response, I suppose, is that race is where the most obvious unequal outcomes are. The Star tells us that based on a formula involving Missouri Assessment Program scores, Lees Summits black students performed nearly 84 points below white students in 2015, 2016 and 2017. And, according to district data, the margin is widening not narrowing. I dont think critics are denying that racial outcomes are unequal, though. Instead, it appears that they reject, as I do, the idea that responsibility for poor outcomes lies with the school district, rather than the students and/or their parents. They are striking a blow in favor of common sense and individual responsibility, and against fancy talk, group think, and victimology. We should expect no less from the Show Me State. Since becoming President of Minnesotas public policy organization, Center of the American Experiment, at the beginning of 2016, I have gotten a new perspective on media bias and ineptitude. I have always thought those problems were bad. Now I think they are worse. Take a look at the email that I received this morning from Jessica Glenza, a reporter for the Guardian US. Its subject is an URGENT Press Inquiry. Ms. Glenzas email drips with arrogance, ignorance and prejudice: Dear Sir: My name is Jessica Glenza. I am a health reporter for the Guardian US, based in New York. I am writing because the Guardian is conducting a wide-scale investigation on the tobacco policy positions of Atlas Network and associated thinktanks. This thinktank was identified by Atlas Network as an affiliate, and identified by The Guardian as taking positions on tobacco policies. There is a significant body of evidence which demonstrates the following: * Smoking kills more than 7 million people each year, according to the World Health Organization. That total is expected to rise to 8 million by 2030, without action to control tobacco use, the WHO has said. * Tobacco taxation is widely recognized as the most effective way to reduce smoking rates, according to the National Health Service. However, the policy is often ineffective, NHS said, because the approach is open to industry circumvention. This view is shared by the World Health Organization, World Bank and US Surgeon General. * According to the WHO, a large body of empirical evidence has shown that plain packaging reduces the attractiveness of tobacco, eliminates packs as a form of advertising, and encourages smokers to quit. * Smoking also harms non-smokers, as secondhand smoke causes thousands of lung cancer and heart disease deaths per year in the United States alone, according to the WHO. Our research demonstrates more than 100 Atlas Network affiliated organizations have taken positions against tobacco control, principally tobacco taxation, plain packaging and clean indoor air laws. In addition to this, our findings also indicate more than 50 Atlas Network affiliated thinktanks have accepted donations from the tobacco industry, most often while arguing against tobacco controls. Transparency experts have told The Guardian this causes the appearance of a conflict of interest, especially when donors are not disclosed. To that end, we have the following information and questions specifically about your organisation: * The Center of the American Experiment accepted donations from Altria, parent company of Philip Morris USA, in 2013, 2014 and 2016, according to disclosures by Altria. Can you comment? * Has the Center of the American Experiment accepted donations from transnational tobacco companies, such as British American Tobacco, Philip Morris International or Japan Tobacco, in the last 10 years? * Our reporting shows the Center of the American Experiment opposed measures that would tax cigarettes. At the same time, the group accepted donations from Altria, according to disclosures by the tobacco company. Can you comment? * In commentary, the Center of the American Experiment did not reference the large body of evidence, often cited by the World Bank or World Health Organization, which ties smuggling rates to weak governance and corruption. Instead, the Center of the American Experiment tied smuggling to taxes. Why did the Center of the American Experiment choose not to include this large body of evidence in its analyses? * The Center of the American Experiment was among dozens of Atlas Network thinktanks which received funding from the tobacco industry and opposed tobacco taxation. What is the Center of the American Experiment response to these findings? * Economists and public health authorities have told the Guardian the actions of Center for the American Experiment and other Atlas affiliates, taken together, represent an influential global network which benefits the tobacco industry by arguing against control policies. They say such actions, by undermining controls, can cause real public health harms. Can you comment? I believe these are matters that it is in the public interest to investigate with a view to publication. I only intend to publish information where I believe there is a legitimate public interest in doing so. If I do not hear from you by 9am ET Thursday 1 Nov (preferably by email to [email protected]), I shall proceed on the basis that you do not wish to comment on or amend my information. I hope you will take this opportunity to respond if you wish. Your substantive responses to each of the above matters will be carefully considered and published if appropriate. (For the avoidance of doubt, we do not normally regard any generalised assertion of inaccuracies as a substantive response; nor any generalised statement that you acted on advice. Neither will we regard as substantive any comment that only refers to the present state of affairs and not to the past.) I am, of course, happy to discuss directly any concerns you may have. I would be most grateful if you would acknowledge receipt of this letter. This will save me from chasing. Thanks very much, Jessica Glenza PR-Inside.com: 2018-10-31 14:51:06 Christo Georgiev Announces myPOS Store Expansion Strategy Across Europe for 2019 myPOS Europe Ltd Martin Kalinov Head of Marketing martin.kalinov@mypos.com The fintech entrepreneur Christo Georgiev, founder of myPOS, a leading European card and online payments provider, has announced his plans for new store expansion in Europe, set to happen in 2019. The news comes just weeks after the company launched its store in Milan, Italy and signals an aggressive strategy designed to bring the company services closer to merchants. Up until 2018 the famous fintech company, engaged in selling payment terminals and processing card payments, had online presence only. This all changed in spring 2018 when myPOS opened its first ever brick-and-mortar stone in London, the financial centre of Europe, which was quickly followed by a new location in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In May 2018 a new company store was established in Sofia, Bulgaria as well. The move from online presence only to physical stores is part of the new company strategy for growth driven by the companys experience with online sales. According to the companys founder, Mr. Christo Georgiev, in the age of the Internet online stores are often not enough. When it comes to selling payment terminals, having an online store is mandatory, but in many cases customers want to be able to see and experience the devices before they decide to commit their money. Having a physical location is crucial in meeting this demand. And theres nothing better than in-person communication when a client needs help or has questions, said Christo Georgiev. All company stores are located in places that are easy to find and carry the spirit of the city that hosts them. For instance, the myPOS store in London is situated next to Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace, while the store in Amsterdam is located close to the centre of the city and next to channels that Amsterdam is so famous with. After getting ready to open two more stores by the end of this year in Barcelona and Zurich myPOS is all set for major expansion in 2019 when the company plans to open no less than seven more stores across Europe. The first half of 2019 will see myPOS stores debut in Paris, Bucharest, Munich, Lisbon and Warsaw. In the second half of 2019 the company plans to open stores in Prague, the Czech Republic and in Helsinki, Finland. The ultimate goal is to be present in all major European countries an accomplishment that is to be achieved in the next several years. About myPOS Europe Ltd myPOS Europe Ltd is a licensed payments provider and processor, registered at 25 Canada Square, Level 33, Canary Wharf London E14 5LB, United Kingdom. The myPOS package includes a smart POS device, a free myPOS account with a business VISA card and access to additional merchant services. www.mypos.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181031005 FinTech founder Christo Georgiev announces plans for physical store expansion across Europe for 2019. #payment #fintech #europe #myPOS PR-Inside.com: 2018-10-31 08:01:01 Press release Outside trading hours Regulated information* Brussels, 31 October 2018, 8h00 Publication of transparency notification(s) received by KBC Group NV (art. 14, 1st section of the Act of 2 May 2007 concerning the disclosure of significant participations) Summary of the notification(s) KBC Group NV has received a transparency notification dd. 24 October 2018, dd. 25 October 2018, dd. 26 October 2018 and dd. 29 October 2018, which as a final result state that BlackRock Inc. has crossed the reporting threshold of 5% (total voting rights and equivalent financial instruments) upwards. Content of the notification(s) The notification(s) contain(s) following information: Reason for the notification(s): acquisition or disposal of voting securities or voting rights Notification(s) by: BlackRock Inc. Persons subject to the notification requirement: see annex Date(s) on which the threshold is crossed: 23 October 2018, 24 October 2018, 25 October 2018 and 26 October 2018 Threshold that is crossed: 5% (KBC Groups Articles of Association set a notification threshold of 3% of the total number of voting rights. In addition, the legal thresholds of 5% or any multiple thereof also apply) Denominator (number of shares KBC Group NV): 415 897 567 Notified details: see annex. The number of KBC-shares with voting rights and equivalent financial instruments owned by BlackRock (expressed as a per cent of the total of KBC-shares) amounted to 4.86% and 0.07% dd. 23 October 2018, 4.92% and 0.08% dd. 24 October 2018, 4.88% and 0.08% dd. 25 October 2018 and 5.04% and 0.08% dd. 26 October 2018. Chain of controlled undertakings through which the holding is effectively held: See 11: Full chain of controlled undertakings through which the holding is effectively held in the PDF-file(s) on www.kbc.com (see below). See 11: Full chain of controlled undertakings through which the holding is effectively held in the PDF-file(s) on www.kbc.com (see below). The relevant notification(s) is (are) available at www.kbc.com > Investor relations > Shareholder information > Shareholder structure. Full press release attached. Attachment Niobium is used in very small amounts and is important in making stronger steels both regular and stainless which is important to the car industry, Bahr said. He said it's expensive both because Niobium isn't that plentiful and because it needs to be purified after coming out of the mine. PR-Inside.com: 2018-10-31 09:03:02 Percona Server for MySQL 8.0 Provides the Power and Capabilities Required for Enterprise Production Environments in an Affordable and Continually Innovated Open Source Solution RALEIGH, N.C., Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Percona, a leader in open source database software and services, today announced Percona Server for MySQL 8.0, the latest version of the companys free, enhanced, drop-in replacement for MySQL Community Edition. Percona Server for MySQL 8.0 includes all the features of MySQL Community Edition 8.0, along with enterprise-class features from Percona that make it ideal for enterprise production environments. The latest release offers increased reliability, performance and security. MySQL databases remain a pillar of enterprise data centers. But as the amount of data collected continues to soar, and as the types of databases deployed for specific applications continue to expand, organizations require a powerful and cost-effective MySQL solution for their production environments. Percona meets this need with its mature, proven open source alternative to MySQL Community Edition. Percona also backs Percona Server for MySQL 8.0 and MySQL Community Edition with the support and consulting services enterprises need to achieve optimal performance and maximize the value they obtain from the software all with lower cost and complexity. With more than 4,550,000 downloads, Percona Server for MySQL offers self-tuning algorithms and support for extremely high-performance hardware, delivering excellent performance and reliability for production environments. Percona Server for MySQL is trusted by thousands of enterprises to provide better performance. The following capabilities are unique to Percona Server for MySQL 8.0: Greater scalability and availability, enhanced backups, and increased visibility to improve performance, reliability and usability Parallel doublewrite functionality for greatly improved write performance, resulting in increased speed Additional write-optimized storage engine, MyRocks, which takes advantage of modern hardware and database technology to reduce storage requirements and maintenance costs, and increase ROI for both on-premises and cloud-based applications, delivered with a MySQL-compatible interface Enhanced encryption functionality including an integration with Hashicorp Vault to simplify the management of encryption keys for increased security Advanced PAM-based authentication, audit logging, and threadpool scalability enterprise-grade features available in Percona Server for MySQL without a commercial license Percona Server for MySQL 8.0 also contains all the new features introduced in MySQL Community Edition 8.0, including: Greater Reliability A new transactional data dictionary makes recovery from failure easier, providing users with a higher level of comfort that data will not be lost. The transactional data dictionary is now crash-safe and centralized. In addition, support for atomic Data Definition Language (DDL) statements ensures that all operations associated with a DDL transaction are committed or rejected as a unit. Enhanced Performance New functions and expressions (along with Perconas parallel doublewrite buffer) improve overall performance, allowing users to see their data more quickly. Enhanced JSON functionality improves document storage and query capabilities, and the addition of Window functions provides greater flexibility for aggregation queries. Common Table Expressions (CTEs) enable improved query syntax for complex queries. Increased Security The ability to collect a typical series of permission grant statements for a user into a defined role and then apply that role to a user in MySQL makes the database environment more secure from outside attack by allowing administrators to better manage access permissions for authorized users. SQL Roles also enable administrators to more easily and efficiently determine a set of privileges for multiple associated users, saving time and reducing errors. Expanded Queries Percona Server for MySQL 8.0 provides support for spatial data types and indexes, as well as for Spatial Reference System (SRS), the industry-standard method for geospatial lookup. Percona Server for MySQL 8.0 will be available later this year. Percona The Open Source Database Expert Percona is a leader in providing best-of-breed, enterprise-class support, consulting, managed services, training and software for MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, PostgreSQL and other open source databases in on-premises and cloud environments. An unbiased, trusted partner, Percona provides single-source expertise in multi-vendor environments that eliminates lock-in, increases agility and enables business growth. Quote Peter Zaitsev, Co-founder and CEO of Percona MySQL is a critical part of enterprise application strategies, both on-premises and in cloud deployments, and MySQL 8.0 expanded the software's ease-of-use and versatility in production environments. Percona is committed to helping enterprises maximize the power and value of open source databases. As a free, fully compatible, enhanced, and open source drop-in replacement for any MySQL database, Percona Server for MySQL delivers greater value to enterprises with optimized performance, greater scalability and availability, enhanced backups and increased visibility. Company Information Press Contact Brigit Valencia For Percona (360) 597-4516 brigit@compel-pr.com About Percona With more than 3,000 customers worldwide, Percona is the only company that delivers enterprise-class solutions for MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, and PostgreSQL across traditional and cloud-based platforms. The company provides Software , Support , Consulting , and Managed Services to large, well-known global brands such as Cisco Systems, Time Warner Cable, Alcatel-Lucent, Rent the Runway and the BBC, as well as smaller enterprises looking to maximize application performance while streamlining database efficiencies. Well established as thought leaders, Percona experts author content for the Percona Database Performance Blog and the Percona Live Open Source Database Conferences draw attendees and expert technical speakers from around the world. For more information, visit www.percona.com . Percona is a registered trademark of Percona LLC. All other registered and unregistered trademarks in this document are the sole property of their respective owners. PR-Inside.com: 2018-10-31 18:10:07 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 675 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 CALGARY, AB / ACCESSWIRE / October 31, 2018 / Perisson Petroleum Corporation ("Perisson" or the "Company") (TSXV: POG) wishes to update its shareholders concerning the previously announced proposedUSD $50 million equity private placement.Lan-cheng Limited ("Lan-cheng"), a private investment fund, has completed their duediligence work and has decided to proceed with the financing. Lan-cheng hasestablished a new fund, Lan-cheng Westcity LP (the "Fund") and has advised Perisson of the appointment of legal (ChienYeh Law Offices, Taipei) and financial advisors (Ernst Young, Shanghai) to overseethe funding process. The Fund has commenced finalizing commitmentsfrom its investor group. As previously announced, the Fund intends to purchaseapproximately 45,678,787 common shares of the Company at a price of USD $1.0946per share, resulting in gross proceeds to the Company of USD $50 million (the "Financing"), subject to the negotiationand completion of a definitive financing agreement by the parties. Theinvestment will represent 4.9% of the issued and outstanding shares ofPerisson, post-Financing.Lan-cheng is an international privateequity fund operating primarily in Shanghai and Hong Kong, China and Taipei, Taiwan.The Fund is a network of wealthyindividuals, associated institutions and private equity groups which invest inlarge diverse projects on a project-by-project basis.Completion of the Financing issubject to a number of conditions, including but not limited to, TSXVacceptance. There can be no assurance that Financing will be completed asproposed or at all.Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as thatterm is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for theadequacy or accuracy of this release. No stock exchange, securities commissionor other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved of the informationcontained herein.The Company continues to look for suitableoil and gas acquisitions, including farm-in candidates, and associatedinfrastructure, to leverage the Company's access to drilling capital, equipmentand expertise. We look forward to developing partnerships with oil and gascompanies with asset rich prospects that require significant funding to fullyexploit. Perisson continues to work with CNOG for the acquisition of petroleumassets and petroleum product delivery into China.About Perisson Petroleum CorporationPerissonPetroleum Corporation is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange and trades underthe symbol "POG".TheCorporation has ownership in certain oil and gas producing properties in theTwining and Wainwright areas of Alberta, Canada.The Company also holds a 100% workinginterest in the VMM-17 block, a license located in the prolific, stable,oil-producing region of the Middle Magdalena Basin in central Colombia.FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:Wayne Rousch, PresidentDirect Line: (403) 827-8597wrousch@ perisson.com FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTSThis news release contains forward-lookingstatements relating to the timing and completion of the future operations ofPerisson and other statements that are not historical facts.Forward-looking statements are oftenidentified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects"and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact,included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regardingthe proposed Acquisition and the future plans and objectives of Perisson, areforward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can beno assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual resultsand future events could differ materially from those anticipated in suchstatements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differmaterially from Perisson's expectations are risks detailed from time to time inthe filings made by Perisson with securities regulations.This news release shall not constitute an offer tosell or the solicitation of any offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale ofthese securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or salewould be unlawful. The securities offered have not been and will not beregistered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not beoffered or sold in the United States absent registration or applicableexemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act andapplicable state securities laws.Trading in the securities of Perisson PetroleumCorporation should be considered highly speculative. Neither the TSX VentureExchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in thepolicies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracyof this release.SOURCE: Perisson Petroleum Corporation PR-Inside.com: 2018-10-31 13:01:00 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 428 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 ~Manitou Total Return Yield Fund Returns for Third Investment in 2018~VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 31, 2018 / TIMIA Capital Corporation (TSX-V:TCA /OTC:TIMCF) ("TIMIA" or the "Company") today announced the closing of $1 Million in non-dilutive capital through the Company's Co-Investor platform. The Toronto-based Manitou Investment Management Ltd via its Total Return Yield Fund ("Manitou") had previously invested $2.5 million in TIMIA's underlying portfolio of private software companies bringing their total commitment as a Co-Investor to $3.5 Million since January of this year.TIMIA's Co-Investor platform allows qualified investors to purchase a specified percentage of future cash flows from TIMIA's current portfolio companies, thereby increasing the amount of non-dilutive capital available to the Company, and creating accretive value for shareholders. As part of TIMIA's active management process, TIMIA will retain control, title and security position over the underlying portfolio investments."We appreciate Manitou's support and have been happy to generate positive returns for them through the combination of payments from our underlying portfolio and successful exits from a portion of our investments," said Mike Walkinshaw, CEO of TIMIA. "This capital allows us to maintain the increased pace of investments into SaaS companies in North America, driving further growth in our assets and revenue."The Co-Investor's yield will fluctuate relative to the performance of the underlying investments. TIMIA has made fifteen investments into private software companies or software as a service (or SaaS) companies since inception in 2015, and has successfully exited four of them, providing a combination of monthly yield and periodic gains. The Company's assets have grown 65% to more than $13.1 million in the last twelve months, both deployed in investments and in cash.About TIMIA Capital CorporationTIMIA Capital Corporation is a specialty finance company that provides growth capital to technology companies in exchange for payments based on monthly revenue. This alternative financing option complements both debt and equity financing, while allowing entrepreneurs and existing stakeholders to retain ownership and control of their business. TIMIA's singular focus is the fast growing, global, business-to-business Software-as-a-Service (or SaaS) segment. We align ourselves with entrepreneurial management teams growing their sales from $1 Million to $10 Million in Annual Recurring Revenue. For more information about TIMIA Capital Corporation, please visit www.timiacapital.com For more information, please contact: Darren SeedVice President, Capital Markets & CommunicationsMike Walkinshaw, CEOTIMIA Capital Corporation(604) 398-8839IR@ timiacapital.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.SOURCE: TIMIA Capital Corporation PR-Inside.com: 2018-10-31 15:45:51 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 490 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Grom Social enterprises subsidiary takes Silver in International Design for Rebranding BOCA RATON, FL / ACCESSWIRE / October 31, 2018 / Top Draw Animation, a subsidiary of Grom Social Enterprises (OTCQB: GRMM) is proud to announce it has placed Silver at the International 2018 Sydney Design Awards, an award that recognizes brand redesign and development. Top Draw Animation credits include; Tom & Jerry, Little Astro Boy, The Hollow, My Little Pony, and Disney Animation's, Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero. Additionally, Top Draw Animation is expected to begin producing 2D amination to supplement Grom Social's original live-action content in 2019 - supporting its children safe and secure social network, for ages 5 to 16. Wayne Dearing, the Manager Director and Founder of Top Draw Animation commented, "We are extremely fortunate to have a very talented team of artists and creative directors. The award is extremely motivating and much appreciated, thank you Sydney Design Awards for recognizing Top Draw Animation and our talented team for their hard work and ongoing passion to the Industry. It's a very exciting moment."Darren Marks, Grom Social Enterprises Chairmanand CEO, commented, "Grom Social couldn't be prouder of Wayne and his team and Top Draw Animation's creativity and ability to deliver sticky 2D original content to keep children engaged and entertained Worldwide." About Top Draw Animation Top Draw Animation (a Grom Social Enterprises Subsidiary) is an internationally recognized award-winning producer of 2D animation content for Television, feature filmsand digital content. The company employees over 500 artists across all its studio and office locations in the Philippines. Since 2017, Top Draw Animation has produced more than 250 half hour 2D animation segments accumulating more than 2,000 half hours accredited content production segments in total under the Top Draw banner. Production credits include; Tom & Jerry, Little Astro Boy, The Hollow, My Little Pony, and Disney Animation's Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero.To learn more: www.topdrawanimation.comAbout Grom Social Enterprises, Inc.Grom Social Enterprises, Inc. a leading social media platform and original content provider for children between the ages of 5 and 16; providing safe and secure digital environments for children that can be monitored by parents or other guardians. The Company has several operating subsidiaries, including Grom Social, which delivers its content through mobile and desktop environments (web portal and several Apps) that entertain children, allow kids to interact with their peers, get relevant news, play proprietary games, while also teaching good digital citizenship. The Company also owns and operates Top Draw Animation, Inc., which produces award-winning 2D animation content for some of the largest international media companies in the world. The Company also owns Grom Educational Services, which provides web filtering services for up to an additional two million children across 3,700 schools.To learn more: www.gromsocial.com.CONTACTSPR & Media Contact:Matthew BirdCEO @1800pr1-800-PublicRelations O: 646.248.7676E: matt.bird@1800pr.comTop Draw Animation Business Inquires:Wayne DearingManaging Director(E) info@ topdrawanimation.comGrom Social Investor Inquiries: Melvin LeinerVice President(P) 561-287-5776(E) Investor.relations@gromsocial.comSOURCE: Grom Social Enterprises, Inc. PR-Inside.com: 2018-10-31 21:00:56 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 541 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 / Not for Dissemination in the United States or Through United States Newswire Services /VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 31, 2018 / United Battery Metals Corp. (CSE: UBM,OTC: UBMCF, FWB: 0UL) ("United Battery Metals" or the "Company") ispleased to announces that it expects to issue, by way of a non-brokered privateplacement, up to 435,000 units (each, an "OfferedUnit") at a price of $1.15 per Offered Unit for total gross proceeds of upto $500,000 (the "Offering"). EachOffered Unit shall consist of one common share of the Company and one-half ofone common share purchase warrant, whereby each whole warrant shall entitle theholder thereof to acquire one additional common share of the company for atotal period of 24 months at a price of $1.25 per warrant share. The Offered Unitswill be subject to a statutory hold period of four months following the date ofissuance.Thenet proceeds from the Offering will be used for continued exploration of the Company'sWray Mesa vanadium property and general and administrative expenses.Theoffering is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, thereceipt of all necessary regulatory and stock exchange approvals, including theapproval of the Canadian Securities Exchange, and such further restrictions asmay apply under foreign securities laws.This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation ofan offer to sell any of the securities in the United States.Thesecurities have not been and will not be registered under the United StatesSecurities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registeredunder the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or anexemption from such registration is available. We seek Safe Harbor.ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF UNITED BATTERY METALS CORP./s/ Matthew Rhoades Matthew Rhoades Chief Executive Officer and Director For further information, please telephone: (604)428-9063 CautionaryStatement Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news releasecontains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicablesecurities laws, including statements relating to the Companys intention tocomplete the Offering and the outlook of the business of the Company. Althoughthe Company believes in light of the experience of its officers and directors,current conditions and expected future developments and other factors that havebeen considered appropriate that the expectations reflected in thisforward-looking information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on them because the Company can give no assurance that they willprove to be correct. Actual results and developments may differ materially fromthose contemplated by these statements depending on, among other things, therisks that the Offering may not close for any reason (including the failure toobtain the required approvals or clearances from regulatory authorities) orthat the terms of the Offering may differ from those that currently arecontemplated. The statements in this news release are made as of the date ofthis release. Exceptas required under applicable securities legislation, the Company undertakes noobligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information.Neither the Canadian SecuritiesExchangenor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined inthe policies of theCanadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibilityfor the adequacy or accuracy of this release.No stock exchange,securities commission or other regulatory authority has approvedordisapproved the information contained herein. SOURCE: UnitedBattery Metals Corp. PR-Inside.com: 2018-10-31 08:08:08 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 721 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 The 24-Foot Bong is a Piece of Glass Art, Named ''Bongzilla,'' and is Featured in New ''Cannabition Cannabis Museum'' in Las VegasVANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 31, 2018 / Weekend Unlimited Inc. ("Weekend" or the "Company") (CSE: YOLO; FSE: 0OS1) provides highlights from Jerome Baker Designs' World's Largest Bong launch in Las Vegas.Following the soft launch of the World's Largest Bong in August, and the grand opening of the Cannabition Cannabis Museum in Las Vegas on September 20th- attended by Las Vegas Mayor, Carolyn Goodman - "Bongzilla," is now on display at the museum. The Jerome Baker Designs' creation has been covered in multiple features including: LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-largest-bong-vegas-20180831-story.html , CNN : https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/cannabition-cannabis-museum/index.html "Late Late with James Corden.": https://youtu.be/SQdGH4KivTs "The Jerome Baker brand creates opportunities for Weekend Unlimited to be in front of industry leaders and tastemakers, helping significantly to build brand awareness and further relationships in the US and internationally," said Mr. Cody Corrubia, President and CEO of Weekend Unlimited.Jerome Baker Designs founder and President, Jason Harris commented, "The Jerome Baker brand will be extended through innovative products, from glass to CBD applications to beverages, leveraging our presence in every corner of the industry. This fall we will be working further to build Weekend Unlimited's profile in the US and in Europe, through fantastic events and competitions," added Mr. Harris."Bongzilla" was made in Seattle at a Weekend Unlimited LIVE sponsored event in April 2018. It was packaged and transported by truck on Highway 95 and then re-assembled in Las Vegas. "It is remarkable to me that "Bongzilla" was able to travel through four states, Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada, where adult recreational use of cannabis is now legal," noted Jason Harris.For more on the World's Largest Bong in the Cannabition Cannabis Museum, including the making of the bong, see the link below: https://cannabition.com/cannabition-bringing-the-worlds-biggest-bong-to-life/ For further information, please contact:Cody Corrubia, President & CEOTelephone: 1 (236) 317-2812E-mail: IR@ weekendunlimited.comNeither 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 StatementsCertain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding future financial position, business strategy, use of proceeds, corporate vision, proposed acquisitions, partnerships, joint-ventures and strategic alliances and co-operations, budgets, cost and plans and objectives of or involving the Company. Such forward-looking information reflects management's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to management. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "predicts", "intends", "targets", "aims", "anticipates" or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases or may be identified by statements to the effect that certain actions "may", "could", "should", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. A number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause the actual results or performance to materially differ from any future results or performance expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of the Company including, but not limited to, the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions and dependence upon regulatory approvals. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by securities laws. SOURCE: Weekend Unlimited Inc. A new study by Global Financial Integrity (GFI), says that the potential loss of revenue by Nigeria to misinvoicing in 2014 was approximately 2.2 billion dollars. This is according to an analysis of trade misinvoicing it carried out on Nigeria for 2014. A statement issued by its Managing Director, Tom Cardamone, on Wednesday in Washington DC, said the amount represents four per cent of total annual government revenue as reported to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Put still another way, the estimated value gap of all imports and exports represents approximately 15 per cent of the countrys total trade. The report which was published with the support of the Ford Foundation is titled: Nigeria: Potential Revenue Losses Associated with Trade Misinvoicing. According to Cardamone, the report analyses Nigerias bilateral trade statistics for 2014 (the most recent year for which sufficient data are available) which are published by the United Nations Comtrade. He said the detailed breakdown of bilateral Nigerian trade flows in Comtrade allowed for the computation of trade value gaps that are the basis for trade misinvoicing estimates. He added that import gaps represent the difference between the value of goods Nigeria reports having imported from its partner countries and the corresponding export reports by Nigerias trade partners. Export gaps represent the difference in value between what Nigeria reports as having exported and what its partners report as imported. The portion of revenue lost due to the misinvoicing of exports was 1.3 billion dollars during the year which was related to a reduction in corporate income taxes. The portion of revenue lost due to the misinvoicing of imports was 880 million dollars. This amount can be further divided into its component parts: uncollected Value Added Tax (VAT), 100 million dollars, customs duties 365 million dollars and corporate income tax 415 million dollars. Mr Cardamone added that lost revenue due to misinvoiced exports was 1.3 billion dollars for the year, a figure he said was related to lower than expected corporate income and royalties. He also said the reports examination of the underlying commodity groups which comprise Nigerias global trade showed that a large amount of lost revenue of 200 million dollars was related to import under-invoicing of just five products. Those products and the related estimated revenue losses include: vehicles 100 million dollars, iron and steel products 40 million dollars, electrical machinery 20 million dollars, ceramics 20 million dollars and aluminum products 20 million dollars. He also said lost revenue due to mispriced exports which stood at 1.3 billion dollars might be related to the mineral fuels trade, given that this category of goods makes up over 90 per cent of all exports. He said the report added that trade misinvoicing occurs in four ways: under-invoicing of imports or exports and over-invoicing of imports or exports. In the case of import under-invoicing, fewer VAT and customs duties are collected due to the lower valuation of goods. When import over-invoicing occurs (when companies pay more than would normally be expected for a product), corporate revenues are lower and therefore less income tax is paid. In export under-invoicing the exporting company collects less revenue than would be anticipated and, therefore, reports lower income. Thus, it pays less income tax. Corporate royalties are also lower. Mr Cardamone said total misinvoicing gaps related to imports could be broken down by under-invoicing which was 2.4 billion dollars and over-invoicing which was 1.9 billion dollars. It should be noted that these figures represent the estimated value of the gap between what was reported by Nigeria and its trading partners. The loss in government revenue is a subset of these amounts and is based on VAT rates. It represents five per cent, customs duties 15.2 per cent, corporate income taxes 22.4 per cent and royalties 0.2 per cent which are then applied to the value gap. Export misinvoicing gaps were a massive 5.9 billion dollars for export under-invoicing and 5.6 billion dollars for export over-invoicing. Lost corporate income taxes and royalties are then applied to export under-invoicing amounts to calculate lost government revenue. The statement quoted GFI President, Raymond Baker, as saying that the practice of trade misinvoicing had become normalised in many categories of international trade. It is a major contributor to poverty, inequality and insecurity in emerging markets and developing economies. The social cost attendant to trade misinvoicing undermines sustainable growth in living standards and exacerbates inequities and social divisions, issues which are critical in Nigeria today. (NAN) France does not rule out any sanction against Saudi Arabia if its authorities are found to have been involved in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Wednesday. France has called on Saudi Arabia to establish the truth about the case having already changed its story several times identify those behind the killing and punish them. So long as those who are responsible and the circumstances around the killing are not made public, released and evaluated, we will go on demanding the truth, Mr Le Drian told RTL radio. So far we dont have it. Well take the necessary measures against those who are responsible, Mr Le Drian said. Mr Le Drian added that France did not rule out any sanctions against Saudi Arabia, which is a large buyer of French armaments, luxury products and many other exports. The death of Khashoggi a Washington Post columnist and a critic of Saudi Arabias de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Salman has sparked global outrage and pitched the worlds top oil exporter into a period of crisis. Khashoggi disappeared after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 and has not been seen since. His body has not been found. Saudi Arabia has admitted he was killed in what it described as a botched rendition attempt. Western countries have grown increasingly critical of Saudi Arabia over the case, as well as Saudis pursuit of its war in Yemen. Germany has said it will stop arm sales to Riyadh. Mr Le Drian said Germany acted too early. I think we must wait for the investigation to find the culprits, he said. He downplayed the importance of weapon sales to Saudi Arabia for the French economy, saying they represented only seven per cent of the Frances overall weapon exports. We are not dependent on Saudi Arabia on that matter, he said. (Reuters/NAN) A hard-line Islamist party in Pakistan on Wednesday called for the death of the chief justice of the Supreme Court and two other judges who overturned the death sentence of a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy. The leader of the Tehreek-e-Labaik (TLP) party also called for the ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khans government over the case of Asia Bibi, who was ordered freed by a Supreme Court panel earlier in the day. The patron in chief of TLP, Muhammad Qadri, has issued the edict that says the chief justice and all those who ordered the release of Asia deserve death, said party spokesperson, Ejaz Ashrafi. The party has launched street protests blocking roads in major cities to condemn the ruling, which was welcomed by human rights advocates. Pakistans Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the conviction of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam and ordered her freed, a ruling that set off protests by hard-line Islamists but was welcomed by human rights advocates. Asia Bibi, a mother of four, has been living on death row since 2010 when she became the first woman to be sentenced to death by hanging under Pakistans draconian blasphemy laws. She was condemned for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbours objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim. Ms Bibi has always denied blaspheming. Her case has outraged Christians worldwide and been a source of division within Pakistan, where two politicians who sought to help Ms Bibi were assassinated. Supporters of Islamist political party Tehreek-e-Labaik (TLP), which was founded to support Pakistans harsh blasphemy laws, immediately condemned the ruling and blocked roads in Karachi, the countrys largest city, and in the city of Lahore. The TLP threatened to paralyse cities if Ms Bibis conviction was overturned. Chief Justice, Saqib Nasir, who headed a special three-person bench set up for the appeal, cited the Koran in his ruling, writing Tolerance is the basic principle of Islam and noting the religion condemns injustice and oppression. It is great news for Pakistan and rest of the world, Ms Bibis lawyer, Saiful Mulook told Reuters. Asia Bibi has finally been served justice. Pakistans Supreme Court must be appreciated that it upheld the law of the land and didnt succumb to any pressure. Ms Bibis case has been high on the agenda of religious hard-liners in Pakistan, many of whom are fiercely opposed to her release. In November, TLP staged a crippling blockade of the capital, Islamabad, after small changes to a religious oath, which it claims was tantamount to blasphemy. Seven people were killed and more than 200 wounded in clashes with the police and TLPs supporters only dispersed after striking a deal with the military. Insulting Islams prophet is punishable by death under Pakistani law, and blasphemy accusations stir such emotions that they are almost impossible to defend against. Dozens have been killed following blasphemy claims, sometimes by mobs of men. Rights groups say the blasphemy law is exploited by religious extremists as well as ordinary Pakistanis to settle personal scores. The law does not clearly define blasphemy and evidence might not be reproduced in court for fear of committing a fresh offence. Ms Bibis representatives have claimed she was involved in a dispute with her neighbours and that her accusers had contradicted themselves. In February, Ms Bibis husband, Ashiq Masih and one of her daughters, met with Pope Francis shortly before Romes ancient Colosseum was lit in red one evening in solidarity with persecuted Christians, and Ms Bibi in particular. Pope Francis told Ms Bibis daughter: I think often of your mother and I pray for her. Christians make up only about two per cent of Pakistans population and are sometimes discriminated against. This is a landmark verdict. For the past eight years, Asia Bibis life languished in limbo, said Omar Waraich, deputy South Asia director for Amnesty International. The message must go out that the blasphemy laws will no longer be used to persecute the countrys most vulnerable minorities. (Reuters/NAN) A group of Republican senators asked U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday to suspend civilian nuclear talks with Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and Saudi actions in Yemen and Lebanon. The five U.S. lawmakers, led by Marco Rubio, said they would use the Atomic Energy Act to block any U.S.-Saudi nuclear agreements if Mr Trump did not cut off talks. Others are senators Cory Gardner, Rand Paul, Dean Heller and Todd Young. The ongoing revelations about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as certain Saudi actions related to Yemen and Lebanon, have raised further serious concerns about the transparency, accountability, and judgment of current decision makers in Saudi Arabia, the senators wrote. We therefore request that you suspend any related negotiations for a U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear agreement for the foreseeable future, said the lawmakers. Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter, which was first reported by NBC News. Mr Khashoggi, a leading critic of Saudi Arabias de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Salman, disappeared after visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. The death of the Washington Post columnist, a U.S. resident who had American children, sparked global outrage and pitched the worlds top oil exporter into crisis. The United States has called for transparency in the investigation of Mr Khashoggis death and revoked the U.S. visas of some Saudis over the incident. President Trump has said Prince Mohammed bore ultimate responsibility for what happened to Khashoggi but has also cited Riyadh as a strong ally. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis on Tuesday called for a cessation of hostilities in Yemen and urged the start of UN-led negotiations to end the civil war in November. Saudi Arabias official comments on Khashoggis death have shifted from initially denying any involvement to saying the killing was premeditated. Both Saudi Arabia and Turkey are investigating Khashoggis death. (Reuters/NAN) "There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news. The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly. That will do much to put out the flame of Anger and Outrage and we will then be able to bring all sides together in Peace and Harmony. Fake News Must End!" Kate, Britains Duchess of Cambridge, was shown poignant letters and documents on Wednesday relating to three of her relatives who fought and died during World War One. The duchesss great-great-grandfather, Francis Lupton had five children, three of who Francis, Maurice and Lionel were killed in the war. Ahead of the centenary of the end of the conflict, Kate, wife of Queen Elizabeths grandson Prince William, was shown documents in the Imperial War Museums archive including letters they sent home. There was also a letter of condolence sent on behalf of King George V from Buckingham Palaces Keeper of the Privy Purse. The King realises that this is the third beloved son you have given in your countrys cause and His Majesty trusts you may be granted strength and comfort in the further sorrow which you have been called upon to bear, the letter said. Maurice Lupton, a captain, was the first of Kates family to die, killed by a sniper in 1915 at age 28. His 24-year-old brother, Lt. Lionel Lupton, who served with 28th Brigade Royal Field Artillery and spent a significant time in trenches on the front line, was killed in action the following year. In February 1917, Maj. Francis Lupton, who served with the 8th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment, was killed by a bomb aged 31. Kate was also shown the registration card of her great-grandmother Olive, sister of the three brothers, who were killed, who worked as a nurse in the Voluntary Aid detachment. (Reuters/NAN) Over one thousand pregnant women in Bayelsa State, who have been captured in the state governments free maternal care for pregnant women programme have been given grants for their transport fare to access ante-natal clinics. Governor Seriake Dickson announced this on Wednesday during the official launch of the states Safe Motherhood Campaign in Yenagoa, the state capital. He said N3000 grant would be given monthly to all pregnant women in the state, for their transport to hospitals and clinics to access medical care until their babies are born. The governor said, In July, we convened a summit to deliberate on the issues of maternal and infant mortality, we arrived at the resolution that a policy on Safe Motherhood be introduced, with the Primary Healthcare Board and State Ministry of Health as partners. Since then, we have been working to implement the policy, and with the launch of the campaign today, the issue of maternal and infant mortality will be reduced in our state, he said. He urged every pregnant woman in the state to register for ante-natal care, so that they can deliver in the hands of trained medical personnel. The governor added that the state government had established medical facilities in almost every ward in the state to take care of the programme. Each of the one thousand registered pregnant women were given Mothercare kits, containing 15 items, which included insecticide treated nets, to help them during pregnancy. The Governor of Delta State, Ifeanyi Okowa, launched the scheme, with a call to pregnant women not to patronise traditional birth attendants. (NAN) The governors of Nigerias 36 states say they can only pay N22,500 as new national minimum wage. The governors said this Tuesday after an emergency meeting of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) in Abuja. The Chairman of the forum, Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara, gave the outcome of the meeting in a statement. The governors stance is expected to be rejected by the labour unions who are demanding minimum wage of N30,000. The workers have vowed to down tools by November 6 if their demands are not met. In his statement, Mr Yari did not say how the governors would respond to a workers strike. See the full statement by Mr Yari below: Following a meeting of the Nigeria Governors Forum where we deliberated on the National Minimum Wage after a briefing from our representatives at the Tripartite Committee, we submit as follows: The welfare of all Nigerians is our ultimate concern. In all our States, we are concerned about the deteriorating economic situation experienced by the vulnerable segment of our population. In agreeing to a National Minimum Wage, however, the Forum is even more concerned about development, particularly in the health, education and infrastructure spheres. It is, therefore, our considered position that since the percentage of salaried workers is not more than five per cent of the total working population, our position must not just reflect a figure, but also a sustainable strategy based on ability and capacity to pay, as well as reflective of all our developmental needs in each State. Afterall, Section 3 of the National Salaries Income and Wages Commission Act provides that the Commission shall recommend a proposition of income growth which should be initiated for wage increase and also examined the salary structure in public and private sector with reasonable features of relativity and maximum levels which are in consonance with the national economy. It is in this sense that we feel strongly that our acceptable minimum wage must be done in such a way that total personnel cost does not exceed 50 per cent of the revenue available to each State. Governors, therefore, agreed to pay a national minimum wage of N22,500. Governor AbdulAziz Yari Abubakar Chairman, Nigeria Governors Forum The recent invitation by the State Security Service (SSS) of some senior officials of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) for vetting and documentation is a normal practice in the public service, the Executive Secretary of the agency, Sharon Ikeazor, has said. Ms Ikeazor was reacting to reports that at least 30 senior officials of her agency were invited for investigation by the security outfit as a way of harassing them. She said there was nothing illegal about the exercise. It is normal to vet and profile senior government officials in public service. When one attains a certain level in government, and working in a place like the pensions office, it is compulsory one must undergo the process, she told PREMIUM TIMES in an exclusive interview in Abuja on Monday. I went for mine as well. It is not for selected persons. So far as you have attained a certain level in government, you must do it. I understand the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is also doing its own vetting of its officials. It is not something one should be afraid of. One of the officials affected by the exercise, who requested not to be named, for fear of victimisation, told PREMIUM TIMES they were invited by the vetting department of the SSS for vetting and documentation. At the SSS, we were asked to fill a form stating personal details about your primary, secondary and university education; family background; where you worked before; your relations and neighbours and all such information, the official said. The official expressed surprise they were asked to undergo the process, saying it was only when one was being offered appointment that vetting or background checks were usually done. Recent publications on some online platforms and social media accused the executive secretary of being behind the SSS invitation ostensibly to harass the top staff opposed to some of her alleged corrupt practices and illegal contract awards. One of the publications in elombah.com by the chairman of George Uboh Whistleblowers Network (GUWN), George Uboh, accused Ms Ikeazor of disobeying the Vice President, the National Assembly and Secretary to the Government of the Federation. Mr Uboh said she refused to carry out directives by the trio for her to reinstate four of the five directors of the directorate sacked after a staff audit revealed they were irregularly appointed. In March 2017, the executive secretary announced the sack of Director, Pension Support Services Department, Roz Ben-Okagbue; Director, Parastatals Pension Department, Taiwo Ogundipe; Director, Customs, Immigrations and Prisons Pension Department, Uloma Uruakpa; Director, Civil Service Pension Department, Godson Ukpevo, and Atiku Saleh of the Police Pension Department. One of the directors is still undergoing investigation by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other offences Commission (ICPC). But, in an interview with PREMIUM TMES, Ms Ikeazor denied she disobeyed directives to reinstate the sacked directors, saying they were indicted during the staff audit conducted by the anti-graft agency. She said the audit report found the directors were above the age of 50 at the time of their employment, which is clearly in violation of the public service regulation. After the directors were asked to leave after the staff audit, the letter terminating their appointments stated clearly the salaries they earned throughout the period of their irregular appointments must be recovered and returned to government treasury. Following the sack, Ms Ikeazor said the affected directors not only took the matter to court, but also to the National Assembly Committee on Establishments (Senate) and the Pensions Committee in the House of Representatives. She said before the Senate passed the final resolution requesting their reinstatement, the directors withdrew the matter from court. I am 33 years at the bar as a lawyer. I could not have responded when the matter was still before the court, because that could have been subjudice. If the Senate had the true picture of the issues, I am sure they would not have passed the resolution, she said. The people who are still saying I refused to respond to the Senate invitation have chosen to hear one side of the case, she said. On reports that she ignored the vice presidents directive to reinstate the directors, Ms Ikeazor said the sacked directors wrote petitions individually through their lawyers to the vice president alleging irregularity in the termination of their appointments. Ms Ikeazor said in her response to the vice president, she attached the highlights of the report of the staff audit which found the directors guilty of irregular appointment. She said after the staff audit report, the then Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, who was the supervising minister of PTAD, approved the implementation of the staff audit report. An Abuja Division of the Federal High Court has slated December 17 for the continuation of the trial of a senator, Ademola Adeleke, for alleged impersonation. Mr Adeleke, who was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in the September, 22 election in the state, was accused of faking his identity in the 2017 National Examination Council (NECO) exams in Ojo-Aro community Grammar School in his state. He was arraigned alongside four others, including his brother, Sikiru Adeleke. The other accused persons are Aregbesola Mufutau who is the principal of the school, Gbadamosi Ojo, the school registrar, and Dare Olutope a teacher in the school. They all pleaded not guilty to the charge. A counsel representing Mr Adeleke, Alex Izinyon, informed the court about an application for bail of his client dated October 12. Mr Izinyon told the court that Mr Adeleke was granted administrative bail by the prosecution and that the defendant has not attempted to jump the bail. The lawyers representing the other defendants, Nathaniel Oke,and Abdulsalam Abdulfatah, also made a similar application. Although the judge, I. E Ekwo, attended to the written applications for bail of the second and third defendants, he refused an oral application from Mr Oke for bail of the fourth and fifth defendants. While Mr Adeleke was granted bail on own-recognizance, the second and third defendants were granted bail with a bond of N2 million each. The court ordered them to present two sureties in like sum, with landed properties in Abuja. The properties are to be verified by the court registrar. According to the court, the defendants whose bails were approved are not to travel abroad, except by the permission of the court. Regarding Mr Adelekes bail, the court ordered the PDP senator to write an undertaking that he will always attend his trial. He was also told to submit his international passport to the court registrar. The case was adjourned till December 17 to 19 for commencement of trial. According to the first count of the charge, Mr Adeleke and the other accused persons are alleged to have conspired to commit felony, an offence contrary to section 10 of the Examination Malpractice Act 2004. In the second count, the officials of Ojo-Aro Grammar School are accused of registering Mr Adeleke and his brother as students in the school, when they ought to have known that they are not students of the community school. According to the third count, the defendants are accused of allegedly parading themselves as students of the school after allegedly registering themselves fraudulently to partake in the examination in the school. In the fourth count, the arraigned officials of the school are accused of breaching the exam regulations by registering the Adelekes, when they ought to have known that the two of them are not students in the school. Mr Adeleke narrowly lost to the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Gboyega Oyetola, in the governorship election. He is however, challenging the result at the election tribunal where he is asking to be declared the governor-elect. The bloody violence that erupted after Nigerian soldiers opened gunfire on Shiite protesters on the outskirts of Abuja Monday afternoon left at least 21 members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) dead, PREMIUM TIMES can report following an assessment of the aftermath. The fresh evidence collected by this newspaper throughout Tuesday questions the official account by the Nigerian Army which said only three persons were killed. It perhaps also revealed the extent Nigerian authorities would go to downplay death toll of civilian victims of a tragedy, an age-long practice that has worsened in recent years despite the country being a member of various international conventions on human rights. The IMN members revealed to PREMIUM TIMES how they evacuated dozens of bodies of their fellow Shiites who were killed by a gun truck which the Nigerian Army deployed as part of its response to quell the protest. The march was organised to commemorate the death of a grandson of Prophet Muhammad and further demand the release of the IMN leader who has been kept in custody for nearly three years despite repeated federal court orders for his release. The Shiites evacuated the bodies of their members to the innermost corners of Mararaba-Old Karu, the neighbourhood where the violence broke out, preserving them in blocks of ice in defiance of grave health consequences that could arise from such unscientific and unhealthy practice. The Morning After Although there were no immediate signs revealing the level of mayhem unleashed around here as of Tuesday morning, residents of Mararaba and Old Karu who saw Nigerian soldiers open live rounds on Shiite protesters the afternoon before have said the horrific scenes of chaos would flash in their memories for an indefinite period of time. A PREMIUM TIMES assessment of the scene on Tuesday morning showed the police have managed to secure a 800-metre stretch between Old Karu Bridge and Nyanya Bridge along Abuja-Keffi Highway, scene of the most deadly confrontation between the Nigerian military and members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria since the December 2015 Zaria massacre. Both Karu and Nyanya lie just South-east of Abuja, with swathes of each interspersing between the Federal Capital Territory and Nasarawa State. As Abuja continues to expand, the communities have become some of the most robust satellite towns of the nations capital. Many workers in Abuja call Mararaba or Karu home, their moderate economic status anchored largely on relatively cheaper access to accommodation and services. A 21-year-old woman whose right led is severely riddled with bullets is seen at the emergency section of Federal Medical Centre, Keffi. (October 30, 2018) Credits: Samuel Ogundipe/Premium Times. The Nigerian Army admits responsibility for only three deaths from the incident, which it said came after four soldiers were injured with stones, sharp objects and Molotov cocktails allegedly thrown by protesters. But members of the Shiite movement said at least 52 of their fellows were killed during the protest, which they said was planned to commemorate the death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of Prophet Muhammad, and also demand the release of Mr El-Zakzaky. PREMIUM TIMES confirmed the death of 21 IMN members on Tuesday morning. Mr El-Zakzaky, who was taken into custody shortly after his compound was raided by soldiers who massacred hundreds of his followers, has remained in the custody of the State Security Service more than two years later in defiance of court orders that he should be released immediately in 2016. The IMN said it lost more than 1000 members in the attack that took place between December 12 and 14. The Kaduna State Government admitted 347 bodies were handed over by the army for a secret mass burial. But despite the evidence, the army claimed it killed only seven Shiites who blocked a public road and attempted to assassinate its chief, Tukur Buratai, a lieutenant general. It said troops only used force after it became clear that Mr Buratais life was in danger. A judicial panel later found the Nigerian Army officers culpable in the massacre of the 347 persons which state government admitted were killed; but none of them has been put on trial three years on. On Tuesday, a detachment of troops and riot police officers still stood guard under the overhead bridge that was marked as a buffer before the violence erupted on Monday afternoon, flanked by five police vans and a military gun truck which bore the inscriptions of Guard Brigade, an elite unit of the Nigerian Army. Barely visible just adjacent them was a smoldering passenger vehicle which was tossed into the open drainage for Abuja outbound traffic. Witnesses said its passengers were caught in the fracas, with some of them jumping into a canal just 200 metres from the bridge in an attempt to escape ringing military gunshots. Workers at Ikebest Nigeria Limited, facing a First Bank Branch in Mararaba, and Sani Brothers Filling Station, also in Mararaba, said they closed operation after the violence broke out and did not return on Tuesday morning. On Monday evening, passersby, including people returning home from work, were stunned to discover the deadly mayhem on the streets. With no sign of the crisis immediately abating, many of them turned back into Abuja, and traffic was brought to a standstill. A parking instructor at a motor park in Nyanya who witnessed the incident near the flyover bridge in Nyanya said the soldiers opened fire on the protesters after they rejected a plea by officers not to cross the military checkpoint by the Old Karu flyover. At first, the soldiers were shooting in the air. But when the protesters refused to go back and tried to force themselves through the barricade, then the soldiers started shooting them one by one, the instructor said. He asked PREMIUM TIMES to withhold his identity for safety reasons, especially since he could be easily traced by security agencies. He explained that the troops pursued fleeing protesters with live ammunition from Old Karu Bridge to Nyanya Bridge, leaving more than 40 killed within the 800-metre stretch. The soldiers stopped shooting from the top of the van (the Guard Brigade gun truck) when they got here (Nyanya Bridge) because many people are here and they did not want people to see them killing people like that, the instructor added. The Old Karu Bridge where the military checkpoint was mounted following the April 2014 bombing in Nyanya is not surrounded by humans, unlike the Nyanya Bridge 800 metres away which is densely populated and busy with a major motor park and trading stores. Nyanya Motor Park, 800 metres from Old Karu Bridge, is seen from the head of Nyanya Bridge a day after the violence. Normal human activities have now returned here. (October 30, 2018) Credits: Samuel Ogundipe/Premium Times. Another witness in the area said many of the fleeing protesters dived into a canal in-between the two bridges, and some never made it out alive. Abdullahi Musa, one of the coordinators of the protest, told PREMIUM TIMES his junior sister was found in the canal on Tuesday morning, hours after the family had become worried she might have been killed. My sister sustained serious injuries and is now at the hospital, but many people did not make it out of the bridge alive, the senior Shiite member said. Many of them were not even Shiites. A Tuesday night statement by the sect said its Monday afternoon procession was peaceful. It accused the Nigerian military of premeditated murder and urged the foremost rights groups and international fora like the United Nations to hold Nigerian government accountable. There is no iota of truth in what they dished out to the public to justify their unjustifiable act of killing defenceless citizens who have trekked peacefully for over three hours without any incident from Maraba bus stop, only to find their path barricaded with armored vehicles and fully armed troops that resumed killing without any provocation, Ibrahim Musa, a spokesperson for the sect, said. It was the troops who blocked the highway to prevent members of the Islamic Movement from entering Abuja for the Arbaeen commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Husain AS. This is an act of provocation to deny people their right to peaceful assembly; hence there is no way it can be justified, he added. No Resting Place? A witness told PREMIUM TIMES shortly after the fracas broke out on Monday that some of those who were killed were denied burial at a nearby burial ground because they were Shiites. Mr Musa, however, said IMN members were not taken for burial on Monday. We did not take any member to the burial ground, those that they rejected were not Shiites, maybe they were Sunnis, he said. Mr Musa also took calls from female IMN members who said they were arrested by soldiers but had no idea where they were taken to, and expressed fears about their safety in military custody. Preserving The Evidence As at Tuesday, the Shiites declined to bury the remains of those who were allegedly gunned down by soldiers. Instead those whose bodies they recovered were taken deep into the ghettos of Mararaba, where they tucked them in different houses. PREMIUM TIMES confirmed 21 bodies, comprising 20 males and one female. They were preserved with blocks of ice in houses largely inaccessible by vehicle, stretching over three kilometres from Mararaba end of Abuja-Keffi Highway. Three male bodies were covered in black sheets and laid on cardboard in an Islamic school which now serves as a refuge for many Shiite in the neighbourhood. A bucket filled with blocks of ice had just been brought in, but yet to be placed on the bodies to keep them from decomposing. Eighteen bodies (looking mostly like 17 young adults and a female) were laid in three rows of five and seven in the inner room and five in the outer room, all swarmed by large flies. The blocks of ice were placed on the neck, stomach and tucked in-between the legs of each body on the concrete. A strong, fetid odour buffeted from the outer room, uncurbed by the insufficient quantity of blocks of ice. We have to keep them here because the police and soldiers are going to seize them and lie that they did not collect the bodies from us, one of the Shiites members preserving the bodies told PREMIUM TIMES. We can keep them for at least two weeks as evidence against the Nigerian Army. They were indifferent towards the health hazards the obviously decomposing bodies pose. We have done this in Kano, Kaduna and other places where our members have been killed not too long ago, a local Shiite leader said. We know it cannot work like the freezer they use in hospital, but it can serve a temporary purpose. That is why some the owners of the rooms moved out and volunteered them for us to use, he added. PREMIUM TIMES could not immediately obtain names of those killed because they had not been identified by their loved ones as of Tuesday evening. In addition to the 21 bodies seen by PREMIUM TIMES, the Shiites also said nine bodies were seized by the officers at Asokoro Police Division. The three persons which the military admitted died during the mayhem were the bodies the soldiers took away from the scene. Another three bodies were said to be in one of their hideouts in Keffi, Nasarawa State. The signpost at the main entrance of the Federal Medical Centre, Keffi. It was first built as a general hospital in 1957 by the government of Defunct Northern Nigeria, and became FMC in 2000. (October 30, 2018) Credits: Samuel Ogundipe/Premium Times. PREMIUM TIMES interviewed four wounded victims at the Federal Medical Centre in Keffi Tuesday afternoon, but could not locate the place where the three bodies were kept. Abuja police commissioner, Bala Ciroma, said he could not immediately say whether or not nine Shiite bodies were in custody of the police Tuesday night. Army Speaks Spokesperson for the Nigerian Army, Texas Chukwu, declined to say whether or not the soldiers evacuated three bodies, or whether the death toll would be reviewed upward in the light of fresh evidence collected by PREMIUM TIMES. John Agim, a chief military spokesperson, declined comments on the roles the military played in the havoc during a visit to the Defence Headquarters on Tuesday afternoon. The killings come two days after a similar confrontation ensued in Zuba, another major suburb of Abuja, and a day before five persons were killed in fresh protest on Tuesday night in downtown Abuja. At least six protesters were reportedly killed when soldiers opened fire on Shiite protesters Saturday afternoon near the main intersection in Zuba. The Army said only three protesters were killed after they allegedly blocked a heavy duty vehicle conveying military equipment. Some soldiers were allegedly wounded during the incident. The six deaths were identified as: Mikhail Shuaibu, from Dabai; Abdulaziz Maigana, Abu Dujana Ibrahim, from Suleja; Ukasha Isa, from Madalla; Saidu Khalil, from Mile 12 and Rabiu Abdulwahab from Malumfashi. Soldiers stood guard at the military checkpoint by Old Karu Bridge, Abuja-Keffi Highway, a day after they rained bullets on Shiites protesters. Most of the troops who participated in the mayhem Monday afternoon had retreated to their barracks hours after. (October 30, 2018) Credits: Samuel Ogundipe/Premium Times. The attack on Tuesday afternoon reportedly left five Shiite protesters killed. The police said some of their vehicles were set alight by the protesters, adding that at least 400 of them had been arrested as a result. Gory Scene At the Federal Medical Centre in Keffi, three female and one male IMN members were laying in critical condition. Pius Ameh, the head of accident and emergency department, said the victims were driven about 35 kilometres to the hospital, arriving at about 10:00 a.m. Tuesday. The left arm of one female had been crushed by bullets. The second female was totally unconscious of her environment because she had a bullet wound to the brain, and Mr Ameh said a neurologist had not examined her situation. The male victim also had brain injuries and would require a surgery, the doctor said. A 21-year-old woman, the youngest amongst the four, was brought to the hospital with a badly damaged right leg. We have been told since 7:00 a.m. that some victims of the Shiites and soldiers violence in Abuja on Monday would be brought to our hospital, Mr Ameh said. We are now assessing the level of injuries sustained by every one of them. At least 200 protesters were said to have been wounded, many of whom are said to be receiving treatment in undisclosed locations. Disdain For Sanctity of Human Life The high casualty figure arising from the Nigerian soldiers handling of the latest Shiite protests has put the human rights record of the Nigerian government under renewed scrutiny amongst rights groups. What the military is doing is unacceptable, Isa Sanusi, a spokesperson for Amnesty International Nigeria, told PREMIUM TIMES Tuesday night. It is very horrific and it shows a clear disdain for the sanctity of life. The soldiers have demonstrated excessive use of force and failed to conform with international standards for handling protests, Mr Sanusi said. We call on the government to investigate this and bring perpetrators to justice. This reckless disregard for the sanctity of human life should not be sanctioned by any government, and this government should not be seen as condoning it. It was in 2015 December that over 350 were killed, but up till today, no one has been brought to book. The courts have also ruled that the Shiite leader and his wife should be released, which would have prevented the frequent protests by his followers. People have a right to peaceful protest and assembly and the government must do everything possible to protect their rights. This must not go on, Mr Sanusi added. A steep canal just 200 metres from the Old Karu Bridge is seen from the west lane of Abuja-Keffi Highway. Witnesses say protesters and passersby dived inside with gunshot wounds, or to avoid being hit by bullets. (October 30, 2018) Credits: Samuel Ogundipe/Premium Times. The Human Rights Watch also condemned the tactics the military deployed in suppressing the protests, declaring the action as a breach of fundamental rights of citizens. The use of such deadly force to quell protests accused of throwing stones and pellets at soldiers is disproportionate and unjustifiable, Aniete Ewang, Nigeria country researcher for the Human Rights Watch, told PREMIUM TIMES in a statement Tuesday night. The actions of the soldiers are unlawful and a violation of the fundamental human rights of the protesters. The Nigerian Army on Wednesday explained how it found the body of a missing general, Idris Alkali, after weeks of intense investigations. Mr Alkali, who recently retired as a major general, was declared missing several weeks ago while travelling from Abuja to Bauchi. His body parts were found in an abandoned well in Guchwet village of Shen district, Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State. Although no medical test had been done to confirm if the body parts found were actually that of Mr Alkali, the army said its investigations confirmed it. A brigadier general, Umar Ibrahim, the Garrison Commander, 3 division, spoke with journalists at the scene. He said some of the suspects who participated in the killing of the general brought the army to the well. Last week, the army had announced it located a shallow grave where the late general was initially buried before the body was exhumed and taken someplace else. Gory Sight On Wednesday, a military body bag containing the parts of the missing general was unzipped for reporters to have a look. But no shots were allowed to be taken to preserve the victims dignity. At the scene, a water pump generator was used to drain the water from the well to allow access to the body parts. The reporter observed that there was a distance of almost 10 kilometers from where his corpse was first buried to the no mans land where it was found Wednesday morning. Mr Ibrahim narrated how the victims body was found. You are all aware that Major General Idris Alkali was declared missing on September 3. The Nigerian Army gave us three tasks. One, to find General Alkali dead or alive; two, to find his car which is a Toyota Corolla; and three, if anything happened to him, to find who are responsible for it . As you are all aware, on the September 29, 2018, we were able to discover his vehicle and we saw his personal effects which confirmed that it was him. In the same vein, last week, I called you and showed you where he was buried in a shallow grave. We have declared some people wanted and based on that, some of them, reported to the police. Some of them, who took part in his relocation took us where he (body) was relocated. He was actually relocated to an abandoned well, which is behind me here. We came here this morning, we drained the water and we were able to salvage the body of General Alkali. This is to tell you that now the two aspects of the assignment are completed. The remaining aspect is for all those who took part in this henious act nobody, no matter how connected the person is must not go unpunished. For those who have not submitted themselves to the police, we are on their trail. We will find them sooner or later, the officer said. While the body parts were being removed, soldiers on site gave a short military parade as a mark of last respect for the deceased officer. The body was then taken into an ambulance by four generals. Tortuous Route PREMIUM TIMES had reported how Mr Alkali, who recently retired as a chief of administration (army), was declared missing on September 3, while travelling from Abuja to Bauchi. PREMIUM TIMES also reported how the car of the missing general was later found in a pool after some women in the Dara Du tried to prevent soldiers from draining the pool. A blood-stained T-shirt and a pair of shoes belonging to the general were found in the car. Since the discovery of the car, there had been fears the military could attack the community in retaliation. The military had dismissed such fears. A day after the car was found, the army cordoned off the community and arrested 30 suspects. Apart from the discovery of the missing car, two other vehicles were also recovered from the pond. Following the arrest of the 30 suspects, whom the soldiers later handed over to the police after interogation, residents of the community fled for fear of further military action. An unperurbed army had pledged to conduct the search with respect for human rights. A national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has said the alleged meeting by some leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Dubai to strategize on how to defeat President Muhammadu Buhari will fail. The presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, is currently in Dubai and has allegedly been holding series of meetings with high ranking members of the party to adopt best ways to unseat Mr Buhari. Speaking Wednesday, after meeting with Mr Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Mr Tinubu said, We dont fear, whether its in the jungle, or its in Dubai or its in Abu Dhabi, people are free to meet and strategize in any way. But we are not going back to the illusion of the PDP. The former governor of Lagos State said he believes it is not possible for Nigerians to return the PDP to power. The PDP governed Nigeria for 16 years from 1999 before losing the 2015 general election to the APC. Speaking with State House correspondents, Mr Tinubu said APCs style of governance is what is good for Nigeria. They say slow and steady wins the race; we inherited that from our forefathers and knowledgeable people. We cant go back to the pit that we inherited for 16 years. They can strategize from anywhere but a leopard cannot change its skin, he said. Speaking on what he discussed with the president, Mr Tinubu said the meeting is about the nation, the country, our people, peace, stability and economic progress. Full Support For Oshiomhole Mr Tinubu also offered his support to the national chairman of APC, Adams Oshiomhole, who is under pressure from some of the partys governors to vacate his position PREMIUM TIMES reported how Mr Oshiomhole, who earlier met with Mr Buhari on Wednesday, had said only about three of the APCs 23 governors were against him. The embattled party chairman, however, got the support of Mr Tinubu. We all have to respect the party supremacy. You were all here when we had the congress, we elected the new executives at the convention, Mr Tinubu said. The NEC was formed and we surrendered to avoid conflict, to avoid domination, to avoid abuses of power we surrendered our rights, all rights to the National Working Committee headed by Adams Oshiomhole. Those angling to remove Mr Oshiomhole accuse him of mishandling the primaries recently held to pick candidates of the party for the 2019 elections. The primaries have led to crises in several states including Zamfara, Imo, Kaduna, Ogun and Adamawa. APC governors who have publicly criticised Mr Oshiomholes leadership include those of Ondo, Ogun and Zamfara. The wife of the president, Aisha Buhari, has also criticised Mr Oshiomholes poor handling of the APC primaries. Giving reasons why the national chairman should not be under pressure, Mr Tinubu said it is the National Working Committee that has the power to set up electoral bodies to supervise various state congresses and elections. We signed up for it. So, if it is not in our individual favour, so be it. We gave three options, consensus, where there is no consensus because if you are more than two or three and you cannot agree to one candidate, you go to the next level. The next level is the stakeholders delegate and you have to be supervised by the National Working Committee of the party, National Executive Committee of the party; that shows party supremacy; or the freest option, the less cumbersome is to open direct primary, line up and count the number, 1,2,3. If you win, you win and if you fail, go home, he said. He said the party also has an appeal committee which was set up to listen to all appeals, internal mechanism for conflict resolution. It was there, you cannot turn round against that; you cannot turn against all of that. No. Party is supreme, party must be respected, abuses will not do it and anger will not do it. It is party politics, somebody will win and somebody will lose, he said. A Federal High Court in Osogbo, Osun State, has adjourned the hearing of a suit mandating the National Assembly to begin removal process of President Muhammadu Buhari to November 26. In the suit filed on June 19, the applicants based their arguments on four points why they believe the National Assembly should remove Mr Buhari. In the motion ex-parte, they accused Mr Buhari of violating the 1999 Constitution by contesting for election, winning and being sworn in as the president on May 29, 2015 without possessing the basic constitutional requirements, which would have qualified him to contest for the election. They further alleged that the 4th Respondent, Mr Buhari, presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in 2015 presidential election which is violation of section 137 (1) (j) of the 1999 Constitution. In the light of the 4th Respondents placement to continue in the office as the president, he has no certificate and basic requirements upon which this placement to continue in the office can be placed, they argued. He was also accused of not taking the welfare and security of Nigerians seriously, as contained in the oath of office. The 4th Respondent on the 29th day of May 2015, took an oath of office, among others, to the effect that, he would rule in accordance to and protect the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, particularly section 14 (2) (b) which stipulates that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. In the contrary, the 4th Respondent has proved to be unable to guarantee the security of lives and property of the citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in fulfilment of his oath of Office. The herdsmen killings of innocent citizens under the 4th Respondent have been uncountable, unbearable and unprecedented overheating figures in the globe. The 4th Respondent, in contravention of the due process and sections 80 and 81 of the 1999 Constitution, spent about $496 million on the purchase of Tucano Jets without the approval of the National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as required by the law. The 4th Respondent ordered to be withdrawing money from the public fund of the Federation without the approval of the National Assembly or the authorisation of its act and same used for the purchase of Tucano jets. The 4th Respondent has committed several impeachable offences, that is, gross misconduct. By the provision of section 143 of the 1999 Constitution, the 1st to 3rd Respondents (The Senate President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the National Assembly) have the statutory duty to impeach the 4th Respondent as the president and Commander-in- Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on gross misconduct. The 1st (Senate President) and 3rd (Speaker) Respondents have closed their eyes to the gross misconduct of the 4th Respondent. The applicants however said they have the right to mandate 1st and 3rd Respondents to perform their statutory duty of impeachment against the 4th Respondent, having bordered on the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Citing several constitutional authorities in the written address in support of th motion and with 44-paragraph affidavits, they asked some questions by putting comparing Nigeria to some countries. Can the conduct of the 4th Respondent, particularly on the presentation of a forged certificate, be condoned in America or great Britain unchecked? Can the 4th Respondent continue to benefit from his act of forgery and infraction of constitution? Definitely, an American president cannot be genuinely accused of presentation of a forged certificate and still be allowed to continue as the president, likewise the Prime Minister of the Great Britain. On Tuesday, Mr Buharis counsel, Solomon Ogunlowo, pleaded with the court for not serving the applicants with notice of preliminary objection to the reliefs being sought by the applicants and therefore asked for adjournment. He also promised to effect the service. The applicants counsel, Samuel Echeonwu, however refused to object the adjournment plea. Maureen Onyetenu, the justice presiding over the case, adjourned it to November 26 for hearing. A team of Nigerian doctors has successfully separated a set of conjoined twins at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital Gwagwalada. The doctors, led by Nuhu Kwajafa of the Global Peace Initiatives, confirmed the success of the operation that took them several hours on Tuesday in a post on his Instagram account @nuhukwaj. We wish to express our profound gratitude, as we say a massive thank you to Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, for his kind hearted and extremely generous gesture to the successfully separated twins and their familyGod bless you, Sir, Mr Kwajafa posted. The spokesman to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hassan Turaki, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday that Mr Dogara was moved by the plight of the parents to settle the medical bill. (NAN) Hugh Hewitt and other sophists of his ilk say that unless someone specifically encourages a particular violent act, that person shares no blame for the actions of others. Therefore, Trump's violent rhetoric, his urging of his followers to "knock the crap" out of protesters, his dehumanizing of political opponents, and his labeling of the press as "the enemy of the people" for accurately reporting his corruption and incompetence, is if no significance in the MAGA bombings. Hewitt and his kind are wrong, of course. It's also a waste of space for otherwise respectable news outlets like the P-T to print and run his dreck and drivel. The campaign organisation of the candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Abubakar Atiku, has described the plan by the Nigerian government to sell some public asset to fund the 2018 budget as irresponsible. The organisation in a statement on Wednesday likened the decision as selling ones family house to take a trip overseas on holiday. The government had announced a couple of months ago that it intended to raise N289 billion from the sale of 10 public assets to fund the budget. But on Wednesday, Mr Atkus campaign organisation lampooned the decision as ridiculing President Muhammadu Buhari, who had accused the PDP of failing to build public infrastructure in the 16 years it was in power at a lecture in Lagos earlier in the week. The organisation, which claimed that most of the asset listed for sale were built during successive PDP-led administrations, wondered what asset the government was planning to sell if as the president claimed, the PDP did not build any infrastructure while in power. The organisation claimed that some of the asset listed for sale were the creation of Mr Atiku, when he was vice-president and head of the Economic Management Committee during the Obasanjo administration. His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar, supervised the successful policy of privatisation. Privatisation works because it is a long-term strategy to engender efficiency in the economic system and expand the frontiers of private sector activity. Its primary goal is NOT to raise money for short term stabilisation of what is clearly a fragile fiscal system. The governments planned sale of assets will cause long term pains and only provide short term gains. According to the campaign organisation, rather than sell public asset, what the government needs to device alternative means of revenue rather than its almost complete reliance on the proceeds of oil and cutting of recurrent expenditures. We knew that such a day would come, which is why His Excellency Atiku Abubakar has on various occasions made it clear that what is needed at this time is fundamentally fiscal restructuring to eliminate our addiction to oil revenues and strengthen our internal revenue generating capacity and a restructuring of the budget in favour of capital spending, the statement explained. It makes no sense to sell public assets simply to fund a business-as-usual budget that is essentially 70% recurrent. It is irresponsible to part with valuable assets simply to consume the proceeds (Like selling your family house to take a trip overseas on holiday). It also tongue-lashed some of the governments recent fiscal decision which favours spending money on some of its social intervention programmes. For instance, last month, the PDP presidential candidate questioned the wisdom behind the Federal Government sharing $322 million Abacha loot to certain Nigerians, only to obtain a $328 million loan from China, allegedly for ICT development. Rather than share that money, the Buhari administration ought to have put that $322 million in an escrow account to be used for funding the 2019 budget. Also, we recall that $43 million was found in an Ikoyi apartment. While we note the failed promise of the Buhari administration to come clean on who was behind those monies, we make bold to say that those funds should equally have been placed in escrow for use in funding the 2019 budget. The campaign organisation added that at the core of agenda of Mr Atiku is the creation of national asset rather than selling them off like the incumbent administration plans to do. It is our hope that the Buhari government will accept this patriotic pro bono advice and retrace its step accordingly. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has described as false the alleged video clip circulating on the social media purporting to show how Nigerians are being maltreated in Angola. The ministrys spokesperson, George Edokpa, said this in a statement made available to journalists on Wednesday in Abuja. He said that the attention of the ministry was drawn to the alleged video clip and urged the public to ignore it. He said the purported clip circulating on the social media on maltreatment of Nigerians living in Angola was not true. Mr Edokpa maintained that the allegation was false and should be disregarded. The Ministry is in contact with the Nigerian Embassy in Luanda, Angola, and wishes to categorically attest that the incidence under reference in the video did not occur in Angola. However, in line with the mandate of the Ministry to protect Nigerians in any part of the world, the Ministry is conducting a comprehensive investigation on the matter, he said. (NAN) A Nigerian journalist, Chikezie Omeje, has won the 2018 African fact-checking award. Mr Omeje, a senior investigative and data reporter with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), Abuja, was announced as the winner of the award on Tuesday at the African Investigative Journalism Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa. Mr Omejes winning entry was a report which invalidated claims by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of a drastic drop in pre-school enrolment in 2016 in Nigeria. The NBS was said to have pulled down the report which contained the claims, immediately Mr Omejes report was published. Jason Norwood-Young of South Africas Daily Maverick was the runner-up. Moussa Ngom, from Senegals Cesti School of Journalism, beat Ibrahim Alawode of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, to win the student category of the award. Mr Alawodes entry was published on Dubawa, a prominent fact-checking platform in Nigeria. Frank Kruger, the chair of the jury, said the jury decided not to give an award for a third category best body of work category because of an insufficient number of entries and the unsatisfactory standard of the entries submitted. Mr Kruger said the awards were judged using four criteria the significance for the wider society of the claim investigated; how the claim was tested against the available evidence; how well the piece presented the evidence for and against the claim, and the impact the publication had on the public debate on the topic. African fact-checking award is organised annually by Africa Check, an independent and non-partisan fact-checking organisation. David Ajikobi, Nigerias editor of Africa Check, said the organisation is active in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Senegal. Mr Ajikobi said part of the goals of Africa Check is to help in identifying and reducing the circulation of false statements and supporting a network of new fact-checking organisations. The award, which is in its fifth year, is to encourage the practice of fact-checking, Mr Ajikobi said, adding that for this years award, over 150 entries from more than 20 countries, including Ethiopia, Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, were received. Judge Peter Kekemeke of an FCT High Court, Nyanya, on Wednesday dissolved a 20-year-old marriage over the mans irresponsibility and threat to his wifes life. Ihuoma Ogbonnaya, a civil servant, had on December 11, 2017, sought divorce, saying that her husband, Leo, beat her five times and threatened to kill her. Mr Kekemeke ruled that the marriage had broken down irretrievably, according to Section 15 (1) of the Matrimonial Causes Act. The judge held that Ihuoma was the sole breadwinner of the family and provided for the upkeep of their only child. He said that Ihuomas evidence showed that Leo provided only a bag of rice in the 20 years of marriage. He held that the petitioner proved her case beyond reasonable doubts, and that the respondent did not object to it. The judge said that the court believed Ihuomas evidence that Leo wanted to suffocate her. It is my view that the marriage had broken down irretrievably and the respondent has behaved in a way that the petitioner cannot live with him. The only child of the marriage will be 18 years old in November; that means an adult. The petitioner has been the breadwinner of the marriage and financing the education of the only child who is now an undergraduate. The marriage contracted between Leo and Ihuoma Ogbonnaya at Cathedral of All Saints, Wuse, Abuja, on December 12, 1998, is hereby dissolved, and custody of the only child granted to both parents, the judge held .(NAN) John Odigie-Oyegun, immediate past National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) on Wednesday in Abuja, said he learnt the rudiments of politics from the late Chief Tony Anenih. He stated this when he paid a condolence visit to the family of the late Anenih, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), adding that he was greatly saddened to hear of his death. He was my original educator; he brought me up in politics and thought me the rudiments of politics, not in the classroom or anything, but by just observing him perform. He had been through everything and he was everything in this country, the history of this country cannot be written in any meaningful sense without his major contributions being heralded, Mr Odigie-Oyegun said. He added that he learnt peace, reconciliation and compromise from the deceased, saying he has never seen him being angry, vulgar or insulting. The immediate past APC national chairman, said that Mr Anenih was always respectful and was a man of strong conviction. He maintained that though his family had a right to be sad over his death, they should look at the bright side, adding that all his children enjoyed his guidance in their maturity. Mr Odigie-Oyegun further added that though Mr Anenih was late, his children should be happy because they had a father who would be celebrated by the entire nation. Join in the celebrations, because your father was a great man and a political colossus of our time. The sun has gone down on a political legend and he will surely be missed, may God rest his gentle soul, Mr Odigie-Oyegun said. He added that the deceased was a man, who loved his people and the nation and served passionately with all the courage and wisdom he was endowed with. He, however, said that the Odigie-Oyegun family and the Anenih`s had become close through politics not withstanding political affiliation, marriage and friendship between children. So we share your loss in every personal way, may the Almighty God console you and give you strength now and always, he said. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr Odigie-Oyegun was received at the residence of the deceased by his eldest son, Tony Anenih Junior and his widow, Justice Maryam Anenih. Mr Anenih, a former Minister of Works who hails from Edo, died at the age of 85, on Sunday at Cedarcrest Hospital in Abuja, where he was receiving treatment for an undisclosed ailment. Mr Anenih resigned from active politics in 2016, saying; I am persuaded that I have no more ambition nor any point to prove in politics. I shall, however, continue to avail the country of my experience, give suggestions and offer advice, as a statesman. Mr Anenih was a state chairman of then ruling party, National Party of Nigeria (NPN), between 1981 and 1983. He was also the national chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1993, under whose platform Moshood Abiola, contested the June 12, 1993 presidential election. In 1999, Anenih, who was one of the founding fathers of the PDP, was appointed Minister of Works and Housing, after which he became Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP. (NAN) No fewer than 903 foreign medical and dental graduates wrote the recent professional examination conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB). The Registrar, Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, Tajudeen Sanusi, who disclosed this to journalists on Wednesday in Abuja, said that the examination was for medical graduates who intended to practice in Nigeria. Mr Sanusi explained that the essence of the examination was to properly assess the graduates professional competence before approving licence for them to practice in the country. The registrar said the examination was monitored by external examiners from across the country in line with global best practice. It is a global practice that once you train in a jurisdiction other than yours and you find yourself in another jurisdiction and want to practice, there is the need to assess your level of competence so that you can be licensed to practice. This means that even those of us who trained and are fully registered in Nigeria, if we go to Ghana, we will have to sit for a similar examination and pass before we can be licensed to practice in Ghana. Mr Sanusi said the council would not give preference to any of the candidates, hence the choice of JAMB to conduct the examination. He expressed the hope that all 903 candidates would be successful, particularly at a time when the country was in dire need of more doctors. He, however, said in spite of the lack of adequate medical practitioners in the country, does not mean that the country should trade quantity for quality. On the issue of quackery, he said the matter needed to be severely tackled by law enforcement bodies. According to him, anyone who is found wanting and is not registered with the council is automatically a quack in accordance with its law. At best, we can only come in as a prosecution witness when such person is charged and arraigned before a court of law. Mr Sanusi, while noting that it was the third time the council was using the JAMB facility for the exercise, commended the board for giving providing a rancour-free and level playing field to all candidates. Responding, Fabian Benjamin, Head of Information Department of the board, who spoke on behalf of JAMB Registrar, Ishak Oloyede, said it was the responsibility of the board to provide a transparent platform for credible examinations. He said the board gives equal opportunity to ensure that candidates give their best during the examination adding that results are released promptly. It is not about the money but about credibility and ensuring that Nigeria stands out. We just want to have the best system because this is what is also practiced elsewhere. As an agency, we compete globally and so we want to present a credible system that anybody can come and make good use of. Once you tell us what you want and how you want it, we would do it. Mr Benjamin assured that the board, having upgraded its system to meet third party clients requirement, would do so with best intentions. He, therefore, urged other agencies to patronise JAMB. NAN reports that the exercise was conducted at the boards Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres in Bwari, FCT. (NAN) President Muhammadu Buhari has appealed to political actors to be decorous in their conduct and utterances in order not to fan the embers of disunity. He made the appeal on Wednesday in Abuja when he launched the emblem and appeal fund for the support of Nigerian veterans and fallen heroes. Below is a State House press release on the occasion. PRESIDENT BUHARI LAUNCHES 2019 ARMED FORCES EMBLEM WITH APPEAL FOR UNITY President Muhammadu Buhari, Wednesday, in Abuja launched the 2019 Armed Forces Remembrance Day Celebration Emblem with an appeal to political actors to be decorous in their conduct and utterances in order not to fan the embers of disunity. The President launched the emblem and appeal fund for the support of Nigerian veterans and fallen heroes with N10 million, before the commencement of the Federal Executive Council. We would have no country to lead if our acts of deliberate incitement lead to the disintegration of our dear nation, the President said in his address at the Council Chambers. Let us put Nigeria first and realise that in every contest there must be one winner, he added. President Buhari reminded the nation that the celebration was a painful reminder of the perils of war and the need for the nation to avoid a recurrence. The celebration forcefully reminds us of the resolve of our citizens to remain in one united country, Nigeria. It also points out the fact that we had been through a bitter and unfortunate war that led to the loss of millions of our compatriots and the need to do all within our powers to avoid a reoccurrence of war, he said. President Buhari also used the occasion to appreciate the gallantry and sacrifices of the Nigerian Armed Forces in the campaign against insurgency and other internal security operations. Noting that the efforts of the armed forces have led to the return of normalcy in affected parts of the nation, the President regretted the recent murder of two young and promising aid workers; Saifura Khorsa and Hauwa Liman by Boko Haram terrorists. It is painful that this happened despite all the efforts of government to effect release of the two victims. We condemn the callous and cowardly act in its entirety and call on all citizens and friends to forge a united front against this common enemy of our destiny. Once more, I extend the heartfelt condolences of the Government and people of Nigeria to the families and friends of these martyrs, the President said. The Nigerian leader pledged that the resettlement and rehabilitation of citizens affected by the war on terror will continue, commending Dangote Foundation for its partnership with Government in the rebuilding process in Borno State. The President, therefore, called on other corporate organisations to borrow a leaf from this noble initiative as Government alone cannot satisfy all the needs, given her limited resources. President Buhari also expressed delight that businesses operating in Nigeria are beginning to give special consideration to members of the Armed Forces and veterans. Specifically, some airlines operating in Nigeria offer discounts to members of the Armed Forces. This gesture is commendable and in line with my call for recognition, consideration and appreciation of our Armed Forces. I urge more business ventures to chip in by assisting the Security Forces in whatever way they can, he said. The President also thanked charity organisations for taking up the task of catering for the welfare of veterans and members of the armed forces, adding that the nation owe a debt of gratitude to men and women of the armed forces who have the responsibility of securing the Nation, and ensuring a conducive environment for businesses to thrive. On the Bill to amend the Nigerian Legion Act to a proposed Veterans Federation of Nigeria Act, the President urged the 8th National Assembly to give the proposed legislation, which seeks to ensure proper welfare and health condition of military veterans, quick attention. As Grand Patron of the Nigerian Legion (Veterans), I wish to pledge my continued support and that of the Federal Government to the organisation. My appreciation goes to State Governors who are patrons in their respective states for the support they are giving to the Legion. I enjoin them not to relent but improve on this, he said. President Buhari called on all Nigerians and others resident in Nigeria to procure and wear the emblems with pride to identify with those who laid down their lives for peace and security of our fatherland. The President was accompanied to the event by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, members of the Federal Executive Council, Chief of Defence Staff, General Abayomi Olonisakin, service chiefs and the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, senior officers and veterans. Femi Adesina Special Adviser to the President (Media & Publicity) October 31, 2018 Omar Abdulaziz, a 27-year-old Saudi Arabian dissident, can still remember the time Jamal Khashoggi, the storied Saudi journalist, unfollowed him on Twitter. It was in 2015, and Khashoggi had been tapped to head a new TV network called Al-Arab, a partnership between a member of the royal family and Bloomberg. Abdulaziz starting haranguing Khashoggi online, demanding that the network provide a platform for genuine critics of the Saudi regime. He got so mad at me, Abdulaziz recalled in a recent phone call with CPJ. But their relationship later warmed, as Khashoggi became more and more critical of the Saudi government, Abdulaziz told CPJ. When Khashoggi eventually went into self-imposed exile in 2017, and began writing regularly for The Washington Post, he reached out to Abdulaziz, then a university student in Canada, and one of most visible public critics of the Saudi regime abroad. The two struck up a complex relationship. In some ways it resembled that of a source and a journalist. But it also went deeper. The two were working on a number of journalistic and human rights-oriented projects together, Abdulaziz said. In the months before Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the two became even closer; the older Khashoggi would nag Abdulaziz about how he was doing in school, and ask if he was eating right: We were talking every single day, Abdulaziz told CPJ. We had this kind of relationship, not just between colleagues, but between father and son. What neither man knew at the time: Abdulazizs phone had likely been attacked by the Saudi government, using a piece of spyware known as Pegasus, one of the worlds most advanced cyber weapons, sold by the Israeli spyware company NSO Group. The attack, according to the Canadian digital rights organization Citizen Lab, would have given the Saudi government complete access to the contents of their calls, encrypted messages they exchanged, and the documents they shared. Citizen Lab published a detailed forensic report on October 1, where they established with a high degree of confidence that Abdulaziz was successfully targeted, and that the attack was linked to a Saudi Arabian operator. On October 2, Saudi operatives murdered Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. In the months prior, Khashoggi and Abdulaziz were exchanging views on Saudi affairs via Abdulazizs cell phone. Saying anything controversial inside the Kingdom could lead to a prison sentenceCPJ estimates at least 14 journalists currently are jailed there, twice as many as at the end of 2017. Undeterred, Khashoggi and Abdulaziz planned a number of initiatives together, including a news and human rights website to document those caught up in the dragnet of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Abdulaziz shared mock-ups for the site with CPJ. All the while, Khashoggi was writing pieces critical of the Saudi regime in his Washington Post column. This fall, Abdulaziz told CPJ, Khashoggi was planning to visit him in Canada to solidify some of their plans. But first, he visited Turkey where he walked into the Saudi consulate to secure paperwork to marry his Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz. Inside, Saudi intelligence agents close to the crown prince murdered him. In the following weeks, the Saudi government provided a number of contradictory and misleading explanations for Khashoggis disappearance. Its still not clear what triggered the decision to kill Khashoggi, but the Saudi government had tried multiple times in the months preceding his death to convince him to return to the kingdom and mute his criticism, numerous friends of Khashoggis have told reporters. Through their attack on Abdulazizs phone, the Saudi government would have had access to hours of unvarnished conversations between the two men. Jamal was very polite in public, recalled Abdulaziz. But in private, he spoke more freelyhe as very very critical of the crown prince. Pegasus is one of the most advanced spyware tools available. It is designed to infect phones without being detected: a victim is sent a text message that spoofs a legitimate text. In Abdulazizs case, he received a notification from Amazon about a delivery, according to Citizen Lab. The text message contains a link that, if clicked, secretly loads spyware onto the device, handing over remote controlincluding access to the camera, microphone, and text messagesto whomever launched the attack: They could read everything and listen to everything me and Jamal were doing, Abdulaziz said. Abdulaziz had long been a target of the Saudi governments ire: The New York Times recently reported, for example, that in 2015 the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company produced a report tracking the most influential critics of Mohammed bin Salmans economic agenda on social media: Abdulaziz was named among the top three. Shortly after the report was compiled, two of Abdulazizs brothers in Saudi Arabia were imprisoned, he told CPJ. They remain behind bars. Thats how you try to go after ideasits through surveillance, Karen Attiah, Jamal Khashoggis editor at The Washington Post, told CPJ in a recent call. The notion that the Saudi government can buy this capability from a private company, Attiah reflected, is astounding. She added: People are losing their lives over this. CPJ has reported on the proliferation of Pegasus attacks all over the world, most notably, a string of attacks on journalists in Mexico in 2015 and 2016. Pegasus is sold by the Israeli firm NSO Group, a prominent cyber weapons company that claims to provide its technology only to governments who follow its internal ethics guidelinesbut its never made those guidelines public, despite requests from CPJ and other organizations to do so. When asked about Abdulaziz, a spokesperson for the NSO Group said they cannot speak about specific customers or contracts. The NSO Group is owned by the San Francisco-based Francisco Partners, a private equity firm whose website says its investors include Goldman Sachs and private-equity firm Blackstone. When contacted by CPJ, a spokesperson for Blackstone said it owns 4.8% of Francisco Partners, and that the NSO group is an immaterial percentage of Franciscos holdings. (The Wall Street Journal in May reported that Franciscowhose website says it has raised $14 billion in capitalwas in talks to sell NSO Group for $1 billion). A spokesman for Goldman Sachs did not answer a question about the size of its stake in Francisco Partners, saying only the group has no equity ownership in the spyware company. Both Goldman and Blackstone made their investments in Francisco Partners in 2018, a year after the spyware was detected on the phones of Mexican journalists and human rights groups raised concerns. Neither firm would answer questions on the record about what, if any human rights vetting or due diligence they perform. Francisco Partners declined to comment. The investors are enabling these abuses, Bill Marczak, the senior research fellow at Citizen Lab who detected Pegasus on Abdulazizs phone earlier this year, told CPJ. He said involvement of firms like Goldman Sachs and Blackstone mainstreams NSOs dangerous technology, making the offensive spyware trade an industry where billion-dollar valuations are possible: Its a good time for these major firms to think about whether this is an industry they want to be involved in, he said. The Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to CPJs email seeking comment. Abdulaziz cant be sure if the spyware attack contributed in any way to Khashoggis murder. He does know that Khashoggi spoke frankly with him by phone about his views on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: He would say to me: this guy is not going to change, Abdulaziz recalled. And he feels a tremendous amount of guilt that the hacking of his cellphone gave the Saudi government a direct line into Jamals private thoughts. I know that crying and screaming will not get Jamal back, he said. We have to keep fighting. Foremost rights group, Amnesty International, has condemned the killing of dozens of Shiite protesters by the Nigerian Army. PREMIUM TIMES reported how the soldiers killed the Shiites in protests in and around Abuja between Saturday and Tuesday. The protesters, members of the IMN, apart from embarking on a religious march were also demanding the release of their leader, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky. It seems the Nigerian military are deliberately using tactics designed to kill when dealing with IMN gatherings, Amnesty International said in a statement. Read the full statement below. An investigation by Amnesty International shows that the horrific use of excessive force by soldiers and police led to the killing of at least 45 supporters of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) over two days, as the Shia Muslim group held a peaceful religious procession around Abuja. Amnesty researchers visited five different locations in Abuja and Nasarawa state where wounded IMN supporters were receiving treatment, including two locations where bodies were deposited. Researchers spoke with victims, eyewitnesses and medical practitioners, and analysed videos and photographs of those injured and killed during the protests, which took place on Saturday and Monday. We have seen a shocking and unconscionable use of deadly force by soldiers and police against IMN members. Video footage and eyewitness testimonies consistently show that the Nigerian military dispersed peaceful gatherings by firing live ammunition without warning, in clear violation of Nigerian and international law, said Osai Ojigho, Director of Amnesty International Nigeria. Those injured were shot in different parts of the body head, neck, back, chest, shoulder, legs, arms and some of them had multiple gunshot wounds. This pattern clearly shows soldiers and police approached IMN processions not to restore public order, but to kill. Amnesty International has evidence that the military used automatic firearms during Mondays protest, in which at least 122 protesters sustained gunshot wounds and at least 39 were killed. At least six people were killed in protests on Saturday. The organisations research team counted 24 bodies (23 male and one female) and trusted sources provided details of 21 others. Two of the bodies seen had their legs severed, which Amnesty Internationals military and weapons expert analyzed as consistent with injuries caused by a heavy fully-automatic machine gun such as a PKM or DShK. It seems the Nigerian military are deliberately using tactics designed to kill when dealing with IMN gatherings. Many of these shootings clearly amount to extrajudicial executions, said Osai Ojigho. This violent crackdown on IMN protesters is unjustified and unacceptable. They were perfectly within their rights to hold a religious procession and protest and there was no evidence they posed an imminent threat to life. Many injured IMN supporters have sought medical treatment in unofficial buildings due to fear of arrest if they go to hospital. One medical worker near Abuja told Amnesty International: From yesterday (Monday) I attended to 57 people with gunshot wounds, most of them still having the bullets lodged in their bodies. We are only trying to stabilise them by arresting the flow of blood before sending them to hospital. It is not an ideal situation because this is an uncompleted building, not a hospital. I am hoping that they get to hospital today. Since a massacre of over 350 IMN supporters which took place in Zaria in 2015, the Nigerian authorities have consistently sent in the military to respond to IMN protests or marches. This strategy appears to be at least partly to blame for the bloodshed witnessed on Saturday and Monday. There are reports that stones were thrown by protesters as a response to the use of lethal force, to which security forces responded with tear gas and more gunfire. We are once again calling on the Nigerian authorities to impartially investigate and bring to justice those responsible for the extrajudicial execution killing of IMN supporters, including the commanders who gave the orders for live bullets to be used, said Osai Ojigho. The continuous failure to investigate these gross human rights violations is fueling a dangerous disdain for the sanctity of human life in Nigeria. International law is clear that security forces policing demonstrations must not use firearms against protesters unless they pose an imminent threat of death or serious injury, and only if there is no lesser way to avert such threat. They must never use firearms to disperse a demonstration, even if it turns violent. Firearms must never be used as a tactical tool for the management of demonstrations: they may only be used for the purpose of saving another life. The Nigerian authorities have an obligation under international law to ensure there is a full and independent investigation of deaths at the hands of security forces and that those responsible, including in the command structure of the security forces, are held accountable under criminal law. Adams Oshiomhole, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), says he will not mortgage his conscience in order to keep his job. Mr Oshiomhole spoke to State House correspondents after having a closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday in Abuja. Speaking on the fallout of APC primaries, he dismissed rumours that some governors were moblising to unseat him. According to him, he knows that the job is not a pensionable job as he will leave it one day; hence he will do the job according to the rules and his conscience. He said out of the 23 APC governors, only three were not pleased with the outcome of the primaries in their states. Mr Oshiomhole said no one could begrudge the governors for not being happy if a particular outcome did not coincide with their expectations. He said he neither had the power to appoint nor the power to change anything particularly when things had been properly done. According to him, the three governors who are unhappy are his friends. So, all I have tried is to find some courage to enforce the rules and I think an overwhelming majority of the governors appreciate that I have done the best because change is not easy. We all want change but the process of change can be quite traumatising; because it is not painless. People have been used to a particular way of doing things; to encourage them to do them differently can be a challenge. So, here I am as national chairman conducting primaries, the outcome of which some very powerful people did not see their preferred candidates emerging. Let me say that if there is a choice between my conscience, what I believe is right and mortgaging that conscience in order to keep the job, I will have no difficulty resolving it in favour of my conscience. And those who know me know that at my age, I cannot learn new tricks; I am absolutely committed to justice; fairness; I am a stickler to enforcement of rules; because the source of relevance is derived from rules. I have lived my life fighting for justice and fairness. The APC national chairman said however, that the issues would be resolved as internal family issues as the three governors were his friends. He said that in a moment of distress, he believed that the friendship was enough to help them to build reconciliation. According to Oshiomhole, he respects and appreciates the governors for the fact that but for their support, he would not become APC chairman. And you do not go stepping on toes of those who helped you to get into position. But however, I thought I was clear and I remain clear that helping me to get to the position, it was to help APC to return to its core values of progressive politics, of fairness, of justice, of adherence to rule of law and total submission to the extant provisions of our party constitution. In doing that, you do not look at power; you look at what is; what is just. I think that with time, we will reconcile all these; Amosun is my good friend; we have known each other for a very long time; we exchange personal visits in addition to official visits; Zamfara governor has been the Chairman of NGF and I was an active member of that forum; we have wonderful time together and I believe in the future, we are still going to have wonderful time together. Governor Rochas Okorocha was one of those who had issues with my predecessor and I did my best to try and resolve those issues in a way that has been given him a new platform. And I am happy that God used us to do that not by cheating in his favour but by doing what is right; it is just that once you stick to the goal, sometimes, you either get caught on the right side or the wrong side, he said. He said some Abuja-based politicians were not known in their villages and they thought they were popular; but when their `loudness in Abuja failed to translate into electoral victory; they looked for who to blame. (NAN) National leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has dismissed the call for the resignation of the national chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomhole, saying party supremacy must be respected. Mr Tinubu made his position known when he fielded questions from State House correspondents after a closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House Abuja on Wednesday. According to the APC national leader, Mr Oshiomhole has so far not violated APC constitution or engaged in any anti-party activity that will warrant his resignation or removal from office. He said: We all have to respect the party supremacy. You were all here when we had the Congress, we elected the new executives, we had the convention, the NEC was formed and we surrendered to avoid conflict, to avoid domination, to avoid abuses of power, we surrendered our rights, all rights to the National Working Committee headed by Adams Oshiomhole. That the National Working Committee should set up electoral bodies to supervise various state congresses and elections. We signed off for it. So, if it is not in our individual favour, so be it. We gave three options, consensus, where there is no consensus because if you are more than two or three and you cannot agree to one candidate, you go to the next level. The next level is the stakeholders delegates (system) and you have to be supervised by the National Working Committee of the party, national election committee of the party. That shows party supremacy or the freest option, the less cumbersome is to open direct primary, line up and count the number, 1,2,3. If you win, you win and if you fail, go home. Mr Tinubu further explained that an appeal committee was set up by the party to look into grievances arising from the conduct of the partys primaries. He said the committee, which served as internal mechanism for conflict resolution, had performed its duties diligently It was there (appeal committee), you cannot turn round against that, and you cannot turn against all of that. No, Party is supreme, party must be respected, abuses will not do it and anger will not do it. It is party politics, somebody will win and somebody will lose, too bad, he added. It would be recalled that Mr Oshiomhole, had on October 21, in a statement by his press secretary, Simon Ebegbulem, alleged that conservatives within the party were ganging up to pass a vote of no-confidence on him. He said in the statement that his sin was his refusal to allow continued impunity and circumvention of due process being perpetuated in some states. The APC chairman added that he was not surprised by the gang up, as he never had the illusion that the process of reforming the party was going to be an easy one. (NAN) The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says it has distributed 11,000 fuel-efficient stoves to families displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency in Borno. Patrina Pink, FAOs Communication Officer, said in a statement in Maiduguri on Wednesday that the stoves were provided under the Norway supported Safe Access to Fuel and Energy (SAFE) programme. Ms Pink disclosed that 5,000 deserving families had so far benefited from the programme while additional 6,000 stoves would be distributed before the end of Dec. She said the programme was designed to address the energy needs of the displaced households; enhance protection and control deforestation, as well as checking violence against women and children. She revealed that the organisation had established three production centers in Maiduguri, Jere and Konduga Local Government Areas of the state, adding that 100 artisans were trained in the making the stoves. The FAO official said that the stove lessened the demand for firewood by about 65 per cent and drastically cut the amount of smoke produced, compared to traditional cooking methods. According to her, the organisation is working in collaboration with the Borno State Ministry of Environment and International Centre for Energy, Environment and Development to facilitate successful implementation of the programme. The statement further quoted, Suffyan Koroma, FAOs Country Representative as saying: We want to produce the stoves locally to boost the income generating potential of Bornos talented local artisans, while meeting the urgent fuel and energy needs of at-risk households. (NAN) The Kwara State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Wednesday affirmed Abdulrasaq Abdulrahman as its gubernatorial candidate for the 2019 general elections. The chairman of the party, Bashir Bolarinwa, made this known at a stakeholders forum in Ilorin to call for unity among the party members. Mr Bolarinwa reminded the party members at the forum that President Muhammadu Buhari had earlier called for their support during a recent peace meeting. The official said it was high time that every loyal party member in the state comes to terms with the reality. He also appealed to all aggrieved party members to put behind them all issues that resulted from the outcome of the primaries and work for the partys progress. He assured all aspirants that lost out during the primaries of the partys support, urging them to work for the victory of the party in the state during the 2019 general elections. We must all work for the progress of the party comes 2019. Our dear state has suffered neglect and we must rescue it from the oppressors. We may have had issues from the primaries, but they are surmountable ones that we can deal with, Mr Bolarinwa said. In his remarks, Mr Abdulrahman commended the disposition of his fellow aspirants in ensuring that they achieve proper reconciliation of relative differences. He said that there could be no better time to address the issue of unity and party loyalty than a time like this. The first lap of our electioneering has been concluded and the stage is now set for a robust and engaging election campaign. As a party man, I urge us all to embrace unity and togetherness. We must avoid anything that stands as a threat to our unity as a party because we can only achieve our aim of bringing about good governance to our people. (NAN) The Academic staff of the Niger State College of Education, Minna have embarked on an indefinite strike over governments refusal to honour signed agreements. Among such agreements is the total implementation of the Consolidated Polytechnic and Colleges of Education Academic Salary Structure (CONPCASS). Danjuma Beji, Chairman of the institutions chapter of the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COASU), told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Wednesday in Minna that only 77.3 per cent of the agreement had been met. Part of the agreement, 23.7 percent, has yet to be implemented, he said. Mr Beji alleged that the government was still dragging its feet over the 65 years retirement age for academic staff. The agreement on retirement age is yet to be gazetted; this is worrisome because it is only Niger that has not gazetted this law. Other states gazetted it long ago. Government keeps talking about the issue without a legal framework to back it up. We shall no longer condone such stance, he said. The chairman also claimed that government had not employed fresh lecturers in the past 10 years. There used to be 300 lecturers, but many have left. More than 100 lecturers have left without any replacement, he said. He said many lecturers had moved to better jobs, while some had either retired or died. Mr Beji said there were 10,000 students in the institution, and wondered how the few number of lecturers could cope with such huge figure. The COEASU official also decried the decay in the institutions infrastructure, regretting that the state government had abandoned its responsibility in that respect. Provision of infrastructure in the school has been left for Tertiary Education Trust (TETfund). We cannot continue like this, he said. He said the lecturers were forced to embark on strike after several letters to the state government did not yield any fruits, saying that government even ignored COEASUs 21-day ultimatum. Mr Beji vowed that the teachers would not return to the classes until government does the needful. Mohammed Kolo, COASU Secretary, who also spoke with NAN, urged government to be sensitive to the working condition of academic staff in the college. There is satisfaction that goes with working with good infrastructure. All we have here are obsolete and dilapidated items that are an eyesore, he said. (NAN) The Kaduna State Government has relaxed the night-time curfew in Kaduna metropolis and environs with immediate effect, an official said. Residents are henceforth free to move and pursue legitimate activities everyday, until the hours between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., Samuel Aruwan, a spokesperson to Governor Nasir El-Rufai said in a statement on Wednesday. :A meeting of the core security team on Wednesday reviewed the security situation and advised the government that a relaxation of the curfew hours is prudent. The government has therefore accepted the recommendation to shift the start of curfew time to 10 p.m. This acknowledges welcome improvements in the overall situation, and will also enable a resurgence of the night economy. However, the security review advised that curfew hours in Kachia Local Government Area will remain from 5 p.m. to 6 a.m., until further notice. The security agencies will continue to strictly enforce the declared curfew hours. The Kaduna State Government commends residents for the growing atmosphere of calm, and appeals for further efforts and unceasing vigilance in the cause of peace, Mr Aruwan said. The curfew in parts of Kaduna State was imposed following violence that caused at least 77 deaths within a fortnight. The violence started from Kasuwan Magani, where 55 deaths were confirmed, before spreading to Kaduna metropolis where 22 deaths were confirmed. The attorney-general and justice commissioner in Jigawa State under former governor Sule Lamido says he is quitting the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) with thousands of his supporters in the state. Yakubu Ruba made the announcement on Wednesday, amidst a crowd of his supporters in Dutse, the state capital. He said since the 2015 general elections, he had been committed to the progress of PDP in the state thinking the party would provide him a platform to realise his political dream. I believe that posterity can affirm as to the extent of my commitment to the party and its members. However, due to personal reasons and the conduct of other party members to my support within the party, I realised that my political dream cannot be realised in PDP, Mr Ruba told journalists. Where it comes to a stage where leaders of the party do not have confidence in you and you believe that you have confidence in yourself, it is a challenge on you to explore other avenue. I am old enough to make a decision for myself and my supporters that is why I formally resigned my membership of the PDP to APC with over ten thousand supporters. Its a challenge but let us meet at the polling units, Mr Ruba said. He further explained that he was motivated to join the APC by the achievements of President Mohammadu Buhari and Governor Mohammad Badaru of Jigawa in the areas of financial prudence and infrastructure development in the zone. Dahiru Yakubu from Kafin-Hausa Local Government Area where Mr Ruba hails from told PREMIUM TIMES that they were following him to the APC because the former commissioner was cheated in the PDP. You can imagine now in Jigawa, PDP has turned into family affairs where Sule Lamido has surrendered all the party structures to his son instead of learned people like Barrister Ruba, Mr. Yakubu said. Mr Ruba served under Mr Lamido as attorney-general for four years and is currently the lead defence counsel to ex-commissioners in the administration facing corruption charges. He led the defence of Mr. Lamido in court when the former governor successfully defended himself over a four-count charge of inciting disturbance, disturbance of public peace, defamation of character and criminal intimidation brought against him by the state government. Commenting on decision of Mr Ruba to exit the party, PDP chairman in the state, Salisu Mahmuda, said it is a great loss to the party but also expressed hope that the decision was not final. I believe that he took the decision of leaving PDP in anger. Later on, we will convince him to reconsider his decision to return to PDP. PDP in Jigawa cant afford to lose a personality like Mr Ruba going by his antecedents in the party and it is worthy of note for him to understand that even in Islam, it is wrong for someone to take a decision when he is upset. I assure you we have raised a delegation to meet Mr. Ruba, he will come back to PDP, said Mr Mahmuda. The police in Jigawa State said one person was flogged to death at a Fulani annual flogging festival which took place in Kantoga, Birnin Kudu Local Government Area. The commands spokesperson, Audu Jinjiri, told PREMIUM TIMES on Wednesday that the police received a report from one Abdullahi Ibrahim of Takai Local Government Area, Kano State, that he led a team of Fulani youth from his village to Kantoga for the yearly festival tagged, Sharo; and one of them died during the exercise. The complainant said the youth, namely: Ruwaji Maikudi 22-year-old; Ibrahim Lawal 23-year-old and Huseini Adamu 22-year-old all from Takai Local Government Area of Kano State, engaged opponents from Bauchi State in the flogging festival. Unfortunately Mr Ruwaji Maikudi, one of the participants, after receiving a beating from his opponent, Ibrahim Auwal, who is from Bauchi State, fell unconscious and fainted. He was subsequently rushed to a hospital where he died while receiving treatment. Upon hearing about Mr Maikudis death, the opponent, Ibrahim Auwal, took to his heels and his whereabouts remain unknown. The police have arrested the Bauchi team leader, Ibrahim Mohammad 56-year-old. An investigation is ongoing, the official said. The annual event attracts thousands of persons across Bauchi, Kano Jigawa and other northern states, PREMIUM TIMES learnt. Fulani youth, who assemble, receive heavy flogging from opponents to show a sign of bravery. The Speaker, Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, Onofiok Luke, has given an insight into what transpired at the police headquarters, Abuja, when he and members of Governor Udom Emmanuels campaign team were invited last week for questioning by the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris. Mr Luke and others, including a former military governor of the state, Idongesit Nkanga, were invited over a petition from the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, accusing officials of both the Akwa Ibom 5state Government and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of violent attacks against members of the opposition party in the state. The APC, in the petition, is said to have also alleged that the state officials and some PDP leaders in the state prevented the hoisting of President Muhammadu Buharis campaign billboard in Uyo. On getting to the IGPs office, I was confronted with a petition written by the state chairman of the All Progressives Congress, addressed to the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and minuted by the president himself for investigation by the Inspector General of Police, Mr Luke said, while briefing journalists on Tuesday at the House of Assembly. A transcript of the briefing was emailed to PREMIUM TIMES, Tuesday, by the spokesperson to the speaker, Kufre Okon. PREMIUM TIMES could not immediately independently verify the details of the meeting as released in the briefing However, Mr Luke told reporters the police invitation had to do partly with controversy over campaign billboards. On the allegation of violence against the opposition, Mr Luke said, They lied and said I was on a campaign trail threatening that I was not going to allow a candidate of the opposition party in the state to campaign freely and openly. And I said they should come out with evidence and facts concerning where I ever made such statements. They had none. The speaker said he and the others wrote their statement to the police. At the point of the interview, we stated one thing very clearly in the presence of the APC chairman in the state and which is one of the things I want to state clearly again here today. We stated that in Akwa Ibom state, we are law abiding citizens of Nigeria and no one can use the office of the president under the guise of politics to intimidate us; not even the state security agency. The speaker taunted Mr Buhari for the speed he said the president endorsed and forwarded the petition to the inspector general of police. Very importantly, the speed with which that petition was minuted by the presidency to the IGP to be treated, if this same speed could be employed in other areas of need, we would not be having security challenges in this country again. I wish such speed could be employed, we would have had the cleanup of Ogoni by now. If this speed were employed in the award of contract for the dualisation of Calabar-Itu Road with a spur from Idideb, by now we would have been driving on that dual carriageway. So let that speed with which the presidency minuted that frivolous petition with trumped-up charges and allegations be applied in areas such as poverty which we have in Nigeria. We respect the president, we respect his office. His office should therefore not be used as the office of the intimidator-in-chief. It is the office of the commander-in-chief and within the ambit of the law, I say it clearly and I said it at the force headquarters, as law-abiding citizens, we will use every legal means to resist every attempt to cow or intimidate the Peoples Democratic Party and its supporters in Akwa Ibom. If the opposition party feels they are popular, let them come back to the state and campaign, the speaker challenged. How to get digital access to the Chieftain You are here: Arts A new Zhongshuge bookstore is attracting many visitors for its unique designs in Guiyang City, Guizhou Province. The outlet in Guiyang, which opened on Saturday, houses around 100,000 books in a 2,300-square-meter complex. The entrance to the bookstore resembles a karst cave, with books suspended like stalactites along a corridor and lights on the floor giving the appearance of a river. The bookstores design also pays respect to some of the province's ethnic groups. Zhongshuge bookstores are considered by many to be some of China's finest, with each one fully integrating local culture into the store. The chain boasts more than 10 bookstores in many Chinese cities. After three years of renovation, the Hungarian Museum of Fine Arts reopened on Tuesday with a ceremony attended by many dignitaries including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The General Director of the museum Laszlo Baan expressed gratitude to people who worked restlessly during the three-year reconstruction of the museum, the country's first permanent museum of fine art that opened in 1906. "The renovated Museum of Fine Arts is a cathedral dedicated to art," said Baan, adding "Art is one way of forgetting the threat of the shortness of human life." Prime Minister Orban highlighted the importance of the cultural identity at the ceremony, saying "We must now defend our cultural identity and sovereignty in the swirling of the European cultural warfare." He hinted at the division in the EU between liberals. "We live in peace with our own culture and our own history, and this is a thing for which we must be grateful," he concluded. For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME. Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest warscreating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire. Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever. Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation. View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union. Never before has a documentary assembled all the pieces of the globalists' dark agenda. Endgame's compelling look at past atrocities committed by those attempting to steer the future delivers information that the controlling media has meticulously censored for over 60 years. It fully reveals the elite's program to dominate the earth and carry out the wicked plan in all of human history. Endgame is not conspiracy theory, it is documented fact in the elite's own words. Our team, who was present in the courtroom, has confirmed that Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar read the verdict, stating that the judgment of the High Court is reversed, and Asia Bibi should be set free if she is not wanted in any other case. Asia Bibi was arrested in 2009 and convicted in 2010 under section 295-C of Pakistan's penal code that punishes blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad with the death penalty. She was sentenced to execution by hanging. Asia had been accused of speaking disparagingly about the Prophet but her real crime was that she offered water to Muslim co-workers who believed Asia had made the water ceremonially unclean by drinking from the same cup. They asked her to convert to Islam, which Asia refused. Five days after this argument between the women, a Muslim cleric lodged a complaint against Asia after a mob of Muslims beat her and forced her to confess. For more than four years, the ACLJ has relentlessly fought for Asia Bibi's freedom, engaging in a multi-pronged legal advocacy campaign across the globe. We've worked through our office on the ground in Pakistan. We've presented Asia Bibi's plight to the U.N. to urge intervention. We've sent legal letters directly to Pakistan, demanding her immediate release. We are thankful to the more than 800,000 people around the world who have signed our petition for her freedom. Today, Asia Bibi is now a free woman. However, the danger for this Christian mother of 5 is not over. Islamabad, the seat of the highest court in Pakistan, was on high security alert today. Rangers were deployed around the court and other parts of the capital. And there are reports of mobs in the streets burning tires over the court's decision to release her. While this is a day of victory and celebration for Asia Bibi, her family, and all those who have relentlessly prayed for her, Asia and Christians in Pakistan need continued prayers. Today's verdict will not make many in Pakistan happy. The death threats that have been issued against Asia and the justices should be taken seriously. We urge the government of Pakistan to provide necessary security to Asia and give her a safe passage to a place of peace and security. And we ask each and every one of you to please pray for Asia Bibi's safety as you rejoice at her release." The ACLJ has been advocating for the protection of Christians and other religious minorities for years. The ACLJ also has been very active in working to bring an end to the persecution of Christians taking place in many parts of the world. Led by Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), focusing on constitutional law, is based in Washington, D.C. and is online at www.aclj.org. https://aclj.org/persecuted-church/christian-mom-asia-bibi-freed MEDIA CONTACTS: Anna Hutsell or Janna Dawson (770) 813-0000 SOURCE American Center for Law and Justice Related Links http://www.aclj.org VANCOUVER, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - CANNAMERICA BRANDS CORP. ("CannAmerica" or the "Company") (CSE: CANA), is proud to announce the launch of its branded cannabis concentrates in Maryland. These high-quality concentrates are available to dispensaries across the state through CannAmerica's partnership with FGM Processing LLC ("FGM Processing"), which operates a 7,500 square foot cannabis extraction facility in Charles County, Maryland, and was one of the first extraction licenses in the state. "We look forward to working with our partners at FGM Processing to increase the medical cannabis product offerings available to Maryland's patient community, with many new and exciting products being developed in our Maryland cannabis laboratory," said Dan Anglin, CannAmerica Co-Founder and CEO. "As one of the first fifteen (15) licensed hydrocarbon cannabis processors in the state of Maryland, our terpene-rich product line is based on our many years of experience bringing quality concentrates and distillate formulations to cannabis consumers and patients in Colorado's regulated marketplace." CannAmerica products available to licensed Maryland dispensaries include concentrates, such as the Company's Rick Simpson Oil (RSO), as well as Full Spectrum Distillate and Disposable Vape Pen linesboth available in Indica, Sativa and Hybrid. CannAmerica's top-shelf, genome-specific clear distillate oil is produced through a unique proprietary process held by CannAmerica Brands and provided to its licensees. CannAmerica Brands got its start as a successful gummy brand in Coloradowith over 12 million gummies sold to dateand has since expanded to include licensees and partnerships in Colorado, Nevada and Maryland. For more information, please visit www.cannamericabrands.com On Behalf of the Board, Dan Anglin CEO (314) 495-4589 About CannAmerica Brands Corp. CannAmerica Brands is a U.S. marine veteran founded and operated portfolio of cannabis brands with licensing agreements in the states of Colorado, Nevada and Maryland. The Company aims to maximize the value of its brands by employing strong brand management teams, marketing and licensing the brands through various distribution channels, including dispensaries, wholesalers and distributors, in the United States and internationally. The Company's core strategy is to enhance and monetize the global reach of its existing brands, and to pursue additional strategic acquisitions to grow the scope and diversity of its brand portfolio. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This release includes certain statements and information that may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws or forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical facts, including statements regarding future estimates, plans, objectives, timing, assumptions or expectations of future performance, including the potential acquisition of additional brands and license agreements, and expansion into other states, are forward-looking statements and contain forward-looking information. Generally, forward-looking statements and information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "intends" or "anticipates", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "should", "would" or "occur". Forward-looking statements are based on certain material assumptions and analysis made by the Company and the opinions and estimates of management as of the date of this press release, including that the Company will be successful in acquiring additional brands and license agreements and expanding into additional states and financing required to support the acquisition of additional brands will be obtained. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information. Important factors that may cause actual results to vary, include, without limitation, the Company will be unable to obtain the financing required to support the acquisition of additional brands, the Company will not be successful in acquiring additional brands and license agreements and expanding into additional states. Although management of the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement, forward-looking information or financial out-look that are incorporated by reference herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. 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. SOURCE CannAmerica Brands Corp. NEW YORK, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- CheapOair , the leading flight-focused hybrid travel agency, today announced its top ten domestic and international destinations for Thanksgiving. While most American travelers will remain stateside for the holiday this year, there are some who will be traveling internationally to destinations including London, Tokyo, and Dublin. Historically, Thanksgiving travel results in approximately 20% of travelers going international while 80% stay domestic1. As of the first week of October, CheapOair's international bookings for the holiday were well underway with initial data reporting a higher than normal percentage of international bookings at 29%2. However, as Thanksgiving approaches, 2018 continues to track along the historical trend line. A more recent report shows that domestic bookings are rising, and data recorded in the third week of October shows the split moving closer to the norm with 26% being international and 74% being domestic bookings3. "This Thanksgiving, there will be nearly 30 million passengers traveling from around the U.S.," said Tom Spagnola, Senior Vice President of Supplier Relations at CheapOair. "Whether you're traveling within or out of the country, it's best to book your flights as soon as possible and especially before the demand begins to sky rocket come the first and second weeks of November." In addition to popular tourist areas, such as New York and Los Angeles, CheapOair's data shows three cities in Florida among the top ten U.S. destinations, with Orlando coming in at number two, Miami at number four and Ft. Lauderdale at the number six ranking. The average roundtrip domestic airfare for destinations on the top 10 list this year is $329, with the lowest fares to Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Orlando. CheapOair's Top 10 U.S. Domestic Destinations for Thanksgiving 20184 Destination Average Roundtrip Airfare5 New York, NY $352 Orlando, FL $306 Los Angeles, CA $348 Las Vegas, NV $305 Miami, FL $351 Ft. Lauderdale, FL $317 Denver, CO $312 San Francisco, CA $370 Dallas, TX $346 Atlanta, GA $287 Internationally, although Cancun, Mexico lost the top ranking to London, England this year, it remains a top international destination for Thanksgiving travel. London's boost in popularity may be a result of a 20% decrease in airfare pricing since 2017, while Amsterdam holds the largest drop in pricing from last year, at a whopping 50%6. "While the tendency is still to stay local for Thanksgiving, more consumers are feeling the urge to spend the holidays somewhere unfamiliar and exotic," Tom Spagnola added. "The top international destinations for Thanksgiving have dropped in airfare prices by an average of 14% for this time of the year, giving travelers the opportunity to be adventurous and look beyond the traditional turkey meal." CheapOair's Top 10 International Destinations for Thanksgiving 20186 Destination Average Roundtrip Airfare7 London, England $717 Cancun, Mexico $473 Paris, France $570 Tokyo, Japan $984 Mexico City, Mexico $350 Bangkok, Thailand $773 Dublin, Ireland $614 Barcelona, Spain $647 Hong Kong (SAR) $852 Amsterdam, Netherlands $573 For more information, please visit www.cheapoair.com , plus follow our social media pages, www.facebook.com/cheapoair , www.twitter.com/cheapoair , and www.instagram.com/cheapoair . Download the CheapOair app for iOS or Android for an on-the-go travel concierge experience. CheapOair 's mission is to educate and aid consumers and travel professionals in both planning their travel accommodations and staying current on the most popular destinations. With a portfolio of products, including rate and schedule information from 450 global airlines, CheapOair is a great way to book the travel that's right for you. About CheapOair CheapOair is a flight-focused hybrid travel agency that enables consumers to book online, on mobile apps for iOS and Android , by phone (1-800-566-2345) or live chat. Part of Fareportal's family of travel brands, CheapOair bridges the gap between an online travel agency and a traditional agency with certified travel agents available 24/7 to help find deals and offers to destinations worldwide on over 450 airlines, a million hotels, and 100s of car rental companies. Follow CheapOair on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , and Pinterest to learn how to travel the world for less. 1 Based on passengers departing from US gateways from the Sunday before Thanksgiving to the Sunday after Thanksgiving from 2014 through 2017 2 Based on passengers departing from US gateways 11/18/18 11/25/18; reported 10/05/18 3 Based on passengers departing from US gateways 11/18/18 11/25/18; reported 10/23/18 4 Based on passengers traveling domestically from US gateways 11/18/18 11/25/18; reported 10/23/18 5 Based on average roundtrip airfare from US gateways 11/18/18 11/25/18, reported 10/23/18 6 Based on passengers traveling internationally from US gateways 11/18/18 11/25/18, reported 10/23/18 7 Based on average roundtrip airfare from all US gateways 11/18/18 11/25/18, reported 10/23/18 SOURCE CheapOair Related Links http://www.cheapoair.com CALGARY, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Mr. Keith Creel, President and Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Pacific (TSX: CP) (NYSE: CP), will address the Credit Suisse 6th Annual Industrials Conference on November 28 at 11:15 a.m. eastern time in Manalapan, Florida. Mr. John Brooks, CP's Senior Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer, will address the Scotiabank Transportation and Industrials Conference on November 13, 2018 at 11 a.m. eastern time in Toronto, Ontario. CP will provide access to a live audio webcast their remarks at investor.cpr.ca. A replay will also be available following the conclusion of the events. About Canadian Pacific Canadian Pacific is a transcontinental railway in Canada and the United States with direct links to major ports on the west and east coasts. CP provides North American customers a competitive rail service with access to key markets in every corner of the globe. CP is growing with its customers, offering a suite of freight transportation services, logistics solutions and supply chain expertise. Visit cpr.ca to see the rail advantages of CP. CP-IR SOURCE Canadian Pacific Related Links http://www.cpr.ca WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Fannie Mae (OTC Bulletin Board: FNMA) priced the first benchmark Credit Risk Transfer transaction utilizing a REMIC structure, leading the market in product innovation. CAS Series 2018-R07 is a $922 million note offering that represents Fannie Mae's inaugural CAS REMIC transaction. This is the seventh and final credit-risk sharing transaction of 2018 under the Connecticut Avenue Securities (CAS) program. CAS is Fannie Mae's benchmark issuance program designed to share credit risk on its single-family conventional guaranty book of business. Fannie Mae's CAS program is the most actively traded credit-risk transfer product in the market and the new CAS REMIC structure marks the continued evolution of the CAS program. Enhancements to the program allow CAS notes to be issued as REMICs, advancing Fannie Mae's goal to support the long-term growth of the program by making the product more attractive to market participants, including real estate investment trust (REIT) investors and international investors. Going forward, all CAS offerings will be issued as CAS REMICs. "With this milestone offering, Fannie Mae has enhanced the CAS program in a way that makes it more attractive to a broader range of investors over the long run," said Laurel Davis, Vice President for Credit Risk Transfer, Fannie Mae. "It marks our latest and the most substantial innovation in five years of progress to reduce risks to U.S. taxpayers in the secondary mortgage market and deepen the sources of sustainable liquidity for U.S. mortgage lenders. We expect to return to the market with this new structure in early 2019." The reference pool for CAS Series 2018-R07 consists of more than 98,000 single-family mortgage loans with an outstanding unpaid principal balance of approximately $24.3 billion. The reference pool will include one group of loans compromised of collateral with loan-to-value ratios of 60.01 percent to 80.00 percent acquired from April through June 2018. The loans included in this transaction are fixed-rate, generally 30-year term, fully amortizing mortgages and were underwritten using rigorous credit standards and enhanced risk controls. Fannie Mae will retain a portion of the 1M-1, 1M-2, and 1B-1 tranches in order to align its interests with investors throughout the life of the deal. Fannie Mae will retain the full 1B-2H and 1A-H tranches. Class Offered Amount ($MM) Pricing Level Expected Rating (Fitch/KBRA) 1M-1 $149.807 1-month Libor plus 75 bps BBB sf / A+ (sf) 1M-2 $599.226 1-month Libor plus 240 bps B sf / BB (sf) 1B-1 $172.854 1-month Libor plus 435 bps This class will not be rated Bank of America Merrill Lynch ("BofA Merrill Lynch") is the lead structuring manager and joint bookrunner and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC ("J.P. Morgan") is the co-lead manager and joint bookrunner. Co-managers are Barclays Capital Inc. ("Barclays"), BNP Paribas Securities Corp. ("BNP"), Citigroup Global Markets Inc. ("Citigroup") and Nomura Securities International ("Nomura"). Selling group members are Loop Capital Markets LLC and Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co. With the completion of this transaction, Fannie Mae will have brought 30 CAS deals to market since the program began, issued $36 billion in notes, and transferred a portion of the credit risk to private investors on over $1 trillion in single-family mortgage loans as part of the CAS program. Since 2013, Fannie Mae has transferred a portion of the credit risk on approximately $1.6 trillion in single-family mortgages through all of its risk transfer programs. This will be Fannie Mae's final CAS transaction of 2018. Fannie Mae's deliberate strategy works to build the CAS program in a sustainable way to promote liquidity and to build a broad and diverse investor base. To promote transparency and to help investors evaluate our program, Fannie Mae provides ongoing robust disclosure data to help credit investors evaluate the program, as well as access to news, resources, and analytics through its credit risk sharing webpages. This includes Fannie Mae's innovative Data Dynamics tool, which enables market participants to analyze CAS deals that are currently outstanding. In addition to our flagship CAS program, Fannie Mae continues to reduce risk to taxpayers through its Credit Insurance Risk Transfer (CIRT) reinsurance program and other forms of risk transfer. About Connecticut Avenue Securities CAS REMIC notes are issued by a bankruptcy-remote trust. The amount of periodic principal and ultimate principal paid by Fannie Mae is determined by the performance of a large and diverse reference pool. For more information on individual CAS transactions and Fannie Mae's approach to credit risk transfer, visit our credit risk sharing website. Fannie Mae helps make the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and affordable rental housing possible for millions of Americans. We partner with lenders to create housing opportunities for families across the country. We are driving positive changes in housing finance to make the home buying process easier, while reducing costs and risk. To learn more, visit fanniemae.com and follow us on twitter.com/fanniemae. Statements in this release regarding the company's future CAS transactions are forward-looking. Actual results may be materially different as a result of market conditions or other factors listed in "Risk Factors" or "Forward-Looking Statements" in the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017. This release does not constitute an offer or sale of any security. Before investing in any security, potential investors should review the disclosure for such security and consult their own investment advisors. SOURCE Fannie Mae Related Links http://www.fanniemae.com Feng Zikai in his study in 1937. [Photo provided to China Daily] Feng Zikai, the late writer, painter, music educator and translator, is among modern China's most celebrated cultural figures. Feng (1898-1975) wrote his essays largely drawing from his daily experiences and has provided insights in an approachable, delightful manner. His ink paintings laud the beauty of life in a poetic way while offering witty observations on the complexity of human nature. The intelligence, generosity and gentle sarcasm that characterizes Feng's oeuvre have created a recognizable style that appeals to many generations of Chinese, healing their hearts, whether during chaotic times or in a fast-paced metropolis. Feng's extensive fan following, regardless of age or education, is contributing to the popularity of a series of commemorative exhibitions on the 120th anniversary of his birth this year. Two shows ended on Oct 3 in Hong Kong, one of which witnessed a waiting line at the venue, the Asia Society Hong Kong Center, according to Wang Yizhu, the exhibition curator and a friend of the Feng family that lent the bulk of the exhibited works. DALLAS, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Regus, the world's largest provider of flexible workspaces, announced results of its study, which predicts a boom in flexible working that could contribute up to $4.2 trillion annually to the U.S. economy by the year 2030. The first-of-its-kind socio-economic study on changing workplace practices studied 16 key countries to delve into the state of flexible working now and through 2030. The analysis was commissioned by Regus and conducted by independent economists. Regus found that approximately 13 percent of all employment in the U.S. will be associated with flexible workspaces by 2030. Additionally, the results of the study indicate that the largest increases in flexible employment between 2017 and 2030 are expected to occur in the U.S. (nearly 7.89 million jobs) followed by China (nearly 7.75 million) and then India (2.25 million jobs). Both statistics are the largest figures of any of the 16 key countries analyzed. Together, the following six sectors are expected to account for nearly 85 percent of the total value expected to be generated by flexible and remote working in the U.S. by 2030: Professional services 22.1 percent Business support services 20.8 percent Public administration 16.8 percent Information & communications services 11.0 percent Financial services 7.0 percent Health & Human Social Work 6.9 percent The study also found that flexible working doesn't just benefit economies it helps individuals and the environment as well. Regus estimates that workers who opt for flexible working in the U.S. could save an additional 861 million hours of time travelled per year by 2030. That is the equivalent of an extra day of vacation for each person working in the U.S. This decrease in transportation could result in an annual savings of nearly 100 million combined tons of carbon dioxide in the U.S. by 2030. "Our study illustrates that flexible working will save businesses money, reduce operating costs and boost productivity, ultimately causing a ripple effect across economies," said Darin Harris, CEO of IWG U.S. "As the demand for co-working and flexible office space continues to increase, it's exciting to see how flexible working is transforming the way we work and live." "As this study shows, flexible working offers significant contributions to society, from giving people more of their personal time back, to boosting the economy via job creation and improved productivity," said Steve Lucas, report author from Development Economics. "These projections show flexible working is a strong economic force that businesses and people should embrace in the years to come." Study Methodology: The Regus analysis was conducted by an independent economic modelling company called Development Economics. The study analyzed the socio-economic impact of flexible working in 16 countries: Australia , Austria , Canada , China , France , Germany , Hong Kong , India , Japan , Netherlands , New Zealand , Poland , Singapore , Switzerland , United Kingdom and the United States . The study was broken up into two stages: 1. A literature review that identified pre-existing data on flexible workspace and the labor market in each location 2. An economic model that was used to calculate how growing demand for flexible workspace would impact various facets of the economy and society of each location About Regus Regus is the world's largest provider of flexible workspace solutions, with a network of 3,000 locations in over 1,000 towns and cities, across more than 100 countries, serving 2.3m members. Through our range of office formats, as well as our growing mobile, virtual office, and workplace recovery businesses, we enable people and businesses to work where, when, and how they want, with a range of price points. Our customers include some of the most successful entrepreneurs, start-ups and multi-billion-dollar corporations. For more information please visit: https://www.regus.com or call 1-855-400-3575. SOURCE Regus Related Links https://www.regus.com CLEARWATER, Fla., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Heritage Insurance Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: HRTG) ("Heritage" or the "Company"), a property and casualty insurance holding company, today reported its financial results for the fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2018. Third Quarter 2018 Highlights Third quarter 2018 net income of $6.0 million ( $0.23 per diluted share) and GAAP operating income of $14.2 million ( per diluted share) and GAAP operating income of Premiums in force increased 55% year-over-year to $923 million and gross premiums written increased 51% to $233.6 million over the same period, primarily reflecting inclusion of NBIC and gross written increased 51% to over the same period, primarily reflecting inclusion of NBIC Personal lines Tri-County Florida TIV accounted for only 5.7% of companywide TIV, down 9.2 points year-over-year, reflecting exposure management efforts and diversification outside Florida New non-catastrophe Tri-County Florida claims count down 31% year-to-date $3.2 million of favorable prior year reserve development of favorable prior year reserve development Expanded relationship with GEICO's insurance agency to all states (previously only NBIC states) Received licenses in Virginia and Maryland , bringing total licensed count to 15 states and , bringing total licensed count to 15 states Book value per share of $15.16 , up 18% year-over-year; $390.6 million of stockholders' equity , up 18% year-over-year; of stockholders' equity Board of Directors declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.06 per share Bruce Lucas, the Company's Chairman and CEO, said, "We reported a solid third quarter despite retaining $16.6 million of catastrophe losses associated with Hurricanes Florence and Lane, as our vertically integrated structure continues to benefit results. We have continued our trend to diversify away from Florida's Tri-County, which reduces our exposure to the state's assignment of benefits crisis. Personal lines Tri-County Florida TIV only accounted for 5.7% of our overall third quarter 2018 book of business, down 9.2 points year-over-year. We're also continuing to expand outside Florida and recently received licenses in Maryland and Virginia, bringing our total licensed count to 15 states and look forward to new growth opportunities. Results of Operations The following table summarizes our results of operations for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2018 and 2017 (amounts in thousands, except percentages and per share amounts): Three Months Ended September 30, Nine Months Ended September 30, 2018 2017 Change 2018 2017 Change Revenue Gross premiums written $ 233,613 $ 154,355 51% $ 701,643 $ 455,845 54% Gross premiums earned $ 234,164 $ 153,063 53% $ 692,298 $ 460,025 50% Ceded premiums $ (115,926) $ (57,855) 100% $ (356,748) $ (182,189) 96% Net premiums earned $ 118,238 $ 95,208 24% $ 335,550 $ 277,836 21% Total revenues $ 125,295 $ 101,774 23% $ 355,293 $ 298,005 19% Operating income $ 14,216 $ 1,413 906% $ 47,184 $ 26,365 79% Income (loss) before income taxes $ 8,991 $ (9,221) NM $ 32,295 $ 11,319 185% Net income (loss) $ 5,989 $ (8,696) NM $ 23,227 $ 3,929 491% Per Share Data: Book value per share $ 15.16 $ 12.84 18 $ 15.16 $ 12.84 18% Earnings (loss) per diluted share $ 0.23 $ (0.34) NM $ 0.88 $ 0.14 520% Return on average equity - Net Income 6.2% (10.4)% 16.6 pts 8.0% 1.6% 6.4 pts Ratios to Gross Premiums Earned: Ceded premium ratio 49.5% 37.8% 11.7 pts 51.5% 39.6% 11.9 pts Gross loss ratio 25.1% 41.8% (16.7) pts 25.7% 34.1% (8.4) pts Gross expense ratio 22.4% 23.8% (1.4) pts 18.8% 25.0% (6.2) pts Combined expense ratio - Gross 97.0% 103.4% (6.4) pts 96.0% 98.7% (2.7) pts Ratios to Net Premiums Earned: Net loss ratio 49.6% 67.3% (17.7) pts 53.0% 56.4% (3.4) pts Net expense ratio 44.3% 38.2% 6.1 pts 38.8% 41.4% (2.6) pts Combined expense ratio - Net 93.9% 105.5% (11.6) pts 91.8% 97.8% (6.0) pts *NM = not meaningful Ratios Ceded premium ratio. Our ceded premium ratio represents ceded premiums as a percentage of gross premiums earned. Gross loss ratio. Our gross loss ratio represents net losses and loss adjustment expenses as a percentage of gross premiums earned. Net loss ratio. Our net loss ratio represents net losses and loss adjustment expenses as a percentage of net premiums earned. Gross expense ratio. Our gross expense ratio represents policy acquisition costs and general and administrative expenses ("G&A") as a percentage of gross premiums earned. Ceding commission income is reported as a reduction of policy acquisition costs and G&A expenses. Net expense ratio. Our net expense ratio represents policy acquisition costs and G&A expenses as a percentage of net premiums earned. Ceding commission income is reported as a reduction of policy acquisition costs and G&A expenses. Combined ratios. Our gross combined ratio represents the sum of ceded premiums, net losses and loss adjustment expenses, policy acquisition costs and G&A expenses as a percentage of gross premiums earned. Our net combined ratio represents the sum of net losses and loss adjustment expenses, policy acquisition costs and G&A expenses as a percentage of net premiums earned. The combined ratio is the key measure of underwriting performance traditionally used in the property and casualty insurance industry. A combined ratio under 100% generally reflects profitable underwriting results. Quarterly Financial Results Net income (loss) for the third quarter of 2018 was $6.0 million compared to ($8.7) million for the third quarter of 2017. The increase primarily reflects net income associated with the inclusion of Narragansett Bay Insurance Company ("NBIC"), acquired on November 30, 2017, income from hurricane mitigation activity, the prior year quarter's inclusion of a $6.9 million non-cash charge associated with Heritage's convertible debt and a reduction in retained catastrophe losses ($16.6 million in third quarter of 2018 vs. $20.0 million in the prior year quarter). Gross premiums written were $233.6 million in the third quarter of 2018, up 51.2% from $154.4 million in the prior year quarter. The increase primarily stems from inclusion of NBIC, partly offset by a decrease in Florida premiums related to exposure management efforts aimed largely at Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Gross premiums earned were $234.2 million in the third quarter of 2018, up 53.0% from $153.1 million in the prior year quarter. This increase stems from the same items impacting gross premiums written. The ceded premium ratio was 49.5% in the third quarter of 2018, up 11.7 points from 37.8% in the prior year quarter. The increase is attributable to inclusion of NBIC, which has a higher ceded premium ratio than the legacy Heritage entity due to its quota share reinsurance agreements. Excluding NBIC, but including reinsurance synergies, the Company's ceded premium ratio would have been 35.0% for the third quarter of 2018. The net loss ratio was 49.6% in the third quarter of 2018, down 17.7 points from 67.3% in the prior year quarter. The decrease stems from increased hurricane mitigation activity and lower retained catastrophe losses in the current year quarter. The Company's net expense ratio was 44.3% in the third quarter of 2018, up 6.1 points from 38.2% in the prior year quarter. The increase stems from non-recurring business acquisition related expenses and NBIC-related integration costs, partly offset by $18.1 million of ceding commissions associated with NBIC's quota share reinsurance contracts. The net combined ratio was 93.9% in the third quarter of 2018, down 11.6 points from 105.5% in the prior year quarter. The decrease stems from net loss ratio improvement, partly offset by net expense ratio deterioration, as described above. Book Value Analysis Third quarter 2018 book value per share increased 18% year-over-year to $15.16. As Of Book Value Per Share September 30, 2018 December 31, 2017 September 30, 2017 Numerator: Common stockholders' equity $ 390,556 $ 379,816 $ 301,681 Denominator: Total Shares Outstanding 25,769,804 25,885,004 23,500,174 Book Value Per Common Share $ 15.16 $ 14.67 $ 12.84 Conference Call Details: Thursday, November 1, 2018 8:30 a.m. EDT Participant Dial-in Numbers Toll Free: 1-888-346-3095 Participant International Dial In: 1-412-902-4258 Canada Toll Free: 1-855-669-9657 Webcast: To listen to the live webcast, please go to http://investors.heritagepci.com/. This webcast will be archived and accessible on the Company's website. HERITAGE INSURANCE HOLDINGS, INC. Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets (Amounts in thousands, except share amounts) September 30, 2018 December 31, 2017 ASSETS (unaudited) Fixed maturity securities, available for sale, at fair value (amortized cost of $528,139 and $552,458 in 2018 and 2017, respectively) 515,541 $ 549,796 Equity securities, available for sale, at fair value (cost of $16,906 and $17,548 in 2018 and 2017, respectively) 15,709 17,217 Total investments 531,250 567,013 Cash and cash equivalents 221,524 153,697 Restricted cash 12,250 20,833 Accrued investment income 3,753 5,057 Premiums receivable, net 68,621 67,757 Reinsurance recoverable on paid and unpaid claims 324,826 357,357 Prepaid reinsurance premiums 282,649 227,764 Income taxes receivable 36,249 37,338 Deferred policy acquisition costs, net 75,702 41,678 Property and equipment, net 18,480 18,748 Intangibles, net 81,911 101,626 Goodwill 152,459 152,459 Other assets 15,653 19,883 Total Assets $ 1,825,327 $ 1,771,210 LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY Unpaid losses and loss adjustment expenses $ 421,095 $ 470,083 Unearned premiums 484,680 475,334 Reinsurance payable 217,022 17,577 Long-term debt, net 178,330 184,405 Deferred income tax 11,963 34,333 Advance premiums 33,435 23,648 Accrued compensation 10,486 16,477 Accounts payable and other liabilities 77,760 169,537 Total Liabilities $ 1,434,771 $ 1,391,394 Commitments and contingencies Stockholders' Equity: Common stock, $0.0001 par value, 50,000,000 shares authorized, 26,569,804 shares issued and 25,769,804 outstanding at September 30, 2018 and 26,560,004 shares issued and 25,885,004 outstanding at December 31, 2017 3 3 Additional paid-in capital 295,500 294,836 Accumulated other comprehensive loss (9,583) (3,064) Treasury stock, at cost, 7,214,797 shares at September 30, 2018 and 7,099,597 shares at December 31, 2017 (89,185) (87,185) Retained earnings 193,821 175,226 Total Stockholders' Equity 390,556 379,816 Total Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity $ 1,825,327 $ 1,771,210 HERITAGE INSURANCE HOLDINGS, INC. Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations and Other Comprehensive (Loss) Income (Amounts in thousands, except per share and share amounts) (Unaudited) For the Three Months Ended September 30, For the Nine Months Ended September 30, 2018 2017 2018 2017 REVENUES: Gross premiums written $ 233,613 $ 154,355 $ 701,643 $ 455,845 Change in gross unearned premiums 551 (1,292) (9,345) 4,180 Gross premiums earned 234,164 153,063 692,298 460,025 Ceded premiums (115,926) (57,855) (356,748) (182,189) Net premiums earned 118,238 95,208 335,550 277,836 Net investment income 3,847 2,735 9,704 8,210 Net realized gains (losses) 5 365 (307) 1,011 Other revenue 3,205 3,466 10,346 10,948 Total revenues 125,295 101,774 355,293 298,005 EXPENSES: Losses and loss adjustment expenses 58,695 64,035 177,775 156,728 Policy acquisition costs, net of ceding commission income for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2018, of $13,781 and $42,097 respectively 26,569 20,906 58,167 66,086 General and administrative expenses, net of ceding commission income for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2018, of $4,526 and $13,772 respectively 25,815 15,420 72,167 48,826 Total expenses 111,079 100,361 308,109 271,640 Operating income 14,216 1,413 47,184 26,365 Interest expense, net 5,225 3,751 15,431 8,163 Other non-operating income, net 6,883 (542) 6,883 Income (loss) before income taxes 8,991 (9,221) 32,295 11,319 Provision for income taxes 3,002 (525) 9,068 7,390 Net income (loss) $ 5,989 $ (8,696) $ 23,227 $ 3,929 OTHER COMPREHENSIVE (LOSS) INCOME Change in net unrealized (losses) gains on investments (2,895) 593 (9,918) 8,473 Reclassification adjustment for net realized investment (gains) losses (5) (365) 307 (1,011) Income tax (expense) benefit related to items of other comprehensive income 1,665 (81) 3,249 (2,866) Total comprehensive (loss) income $ 4,754 $ (8,549) $ 16,865 $ 8,525 Weighted average shares outstanding Basic 25,631,871 25,883,267 25,663,415 27,647,146 Diluted 26,046,938 25,883,267 26,340,759 27,647,146 Earnings (loss) per share Basic $ 0.23 $ (0.34) $ 0.91 $ 0.14 Diluted $ 0.23 $ (0.34) $ 0.88 $ 0.14 About Heritage Heritage Insurance Holdings, Inc. is a property and casualty insurance holding company headquartered in Clearwater, Florida. Its insurance subsidiaries, Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance Company, Zephyr Insurance Company, and Narragansett Bay Insurance Company, write approximately $923 million of personal and commercial residential premium through a large network of experienced agents. The Company is currently writing property and casualty insurance policies in Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and South Carolina. Heritage Insurance Holdings, Inc. is led by a seasoned senior management team with an average of 25 years of insurance industry experience. Forward-Looking Statements Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those discussed herein. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, words such as "may," "will," "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "intend," "could," "would," "estimate," "or "continue" or the other negative variations thereof or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements. This release includes forward-looking statements relating to our estimate of retained catastrophe losses from Hurricane Michael and the related profit from our vertically integrated loss mitigation affiliates. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. The risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ from those expressed or implied herein include, without limitation: the possibility that actual losses may exceed reserves; the concentration of our business in coastal states, which could be impacted by hurricane losses or other significant weather-related events such as northeastern winter storms; our exposure to catastrophic weather events; increased costs of reinsurance, non-availability of reinsurance, and non-collectability of reinsurance; our failure to effectively manage our growth and integrate acquired companies; increased competition, competitive pressures, and market conditions; our failure to accurately price the risks we underwrite; inherent uncertainty of our models and our reliance on such model as a tool to evaluate risk; the failure of our claims department to effectively manage or remediate claims; low renewal rates and failure of such renewals to meet our expectations; our failure to execute our diversification strategy; failure of our information technology systems and unsuccessful development and implementation of new technologies; a lack of redundancy in our operations; our failure to attract and retain qualified employees and independent agents or our loss of key personnel; our inability to generate investment income; our inability to maintain our financial stability rating; effects of emerging claim and coverage issues relating to legal, judicial, environmental and social conditions; the failure of our risk mitigation strategies or loss limitation methods; and changes in regulations and our failure to meet increased regulatory requirements; and other matters described from time to time by us in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to, the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 15, 2018. The Company undertakes no obligations to update, change or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, additional or subsequent developments or otherwise. Heritage Insurance Holdings Inc. Investor Contact: Arash Soleimani, CFA, CPA Executive Vice President & Director of Investor Relations 727.871.0206 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Heritage Insurance Holdings, Inc. Related Links http://www.heritagepci.com KLAMATH FALLS, Ore., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has awarded Klamath County, Oregon, the prestigious Culture of Health Prize. The honor recognizes U.S. communities that are making great strides in their journey toward better health. RWJF is the nation's largest philanthropy dedicated solely to health. The award marks a significant turnaround for Klamath County, which historically places at the bottom of RWJF's Oregon county health rankings. In 2012, Klamath County was struggling. One in two adults had a chronic condition, the area was home to some of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the state, and only 54 percent of residents reported feeling safe. Community leaders formed the Healthy Klamath Coalition to turn the tide, and advocated to bring Blue Zones Project to Klamath Falls under the umbrella of the Oregon Healthiest State Initiative with leadership funding from Cambia Health Foundation. Blue Zones Project is a community-led well-being improvement initiative working in select U.S. cities to make healthy choices easier. In 2014, Klamath Falls became the first Blue Zones Project demonstration site in Oregon. "Klamath County is giving all residents the opportunity to live their best life," said Michael Acker, general manager of Blue Zones Project. "Through a sustained focus on well-being, Klamath County is moving the needle when it comes to population health. It is inspiring to be part of the coalition proving that when a community comes together, big things can happen." The Healthy Klamath Coalition, Blue Zones Project, and local partners have made a measurable difference in the community thanks to public health innovations and a commitment to policy-focused solutions. Since Blue Zones Project launched, Klamath County has experienced a host of well-being improvements, such as a smoke-free policy for 850 acres of outdoor space, including public parks. The Klamath-Lake Counties Food Bank and partners expanded the "Free Produce Connection" program to distribute 720,000 pounds of produce at 30 sites throughout the area. Meanwhile, Klamath County Public Health and Klamath Tribal Health and Family Services focused on the health and risk factors of the Tribal population. The Healthy Klamath Coalition worked with the Klamath Falls Police Department to engage the community and address the role of mental health and addiction in crime. As a result, there has been a 25 percent reduction in person-on-person crimes and a 10 percent reduction in overall crime in Klamath Falls. The community also formed Klamath Promise, a partnership of nonprofits, businesses and the county's two school districts, focused on improving the community's high school graduation rate, which has gone up by 7 percent in recent years. "We saw an acceleration of public health work when we began the Blue Zones Project work, and I hear a lot more positivity regarding health and wellness now than I have in years past," added Jennifer Little, Healthy Klamath Coalition committee co-chair. "As Oregon's first Blue Zones Project community, Klamath Falls has set the bar high for the initiative across the state," said Sarah Foster, executive director of Oregon Healthiest State. "The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Prize awarded to Klamath County is a testament to the positive change a community can experience when passionate individuals, local leadership, and agencies rally together and prioritize health and well-being." Ben Leedle, CEO of Blue Zones and co-founder of Blue Zones Project, said, "We feel like our work in Klamath County has just begun, and the current progress points to a real and positive impact. We're looking forward to more fully realizing our goal of better health and well-being for every resident in Klamath County." RWJF awarded Klamath County $25,000 in commemoration of the Culture of Health Prize. Other communities to receive the 2018 Prize include Cicero, Illinois; Eatonville, Florida; and San Antonio, Texas. About Blue Zones Project Blue Zones Project is a community-led well-being improvement initiative designed to make healthy choices easier through permanent changes to a city's environment, policy, and social networks. Established in 2010, Blue Zones Project inspired by research by Dan Buettner, a National Geographic Fellow and New York Times best-selling author who identified five regions of the worldor Blue Zones regionswith the highest concentration of people living to 100 years or older. Blue Zones Project incorporates Buettner's findings and works with cities to implement policies and programs that will move a community toward optimal health and well-being. Currently, 47 communities in 10 states have joined Blue Zones Project, impacting more than 3.3 million Americans nationwide. The movement includes three beach cities in California; 15 cities in Iowa; Albert Lea, Minnesota; the city of Fort Worth; and communities in Southwest Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Wisconsin. Blue Zones Project is a partnership of Blue Zones, LLC, and Sharecare, Inc. For more information, visit bluezonesproject.com . About Oregon Healthiest State Oregon Healthiest State is a privately led, publicly supported partnership to assist Oregon communities in achieving better health outcomes. More than 70 percent of our health is influenced by our behaviors and surroundings, while just 30 percent is influenced by genetics and access to health care. That 70 percent is where Oregon Healthiest State focuses its attention. This cross-sector, statewide movement addresses health and well-being on all levelsphysical, mental, emotional, social, financial, and sense of purpose. Oregon Healthiest State will work statewide through initiatives that align allies and resources to take on the state's most pressing health issues; and at the local level through programs to help communities make healthy options abundant for everyone. Oregon Healthiest State's goal is that by 2020, Oregonians are healthy, health equity increases, and Oregon is the healthiest state. For more information, visit ORhealthieststate.org. About Cambia Health Foundation Cambia Health Foundation is the corporate foundation of Cambia Health Solutions, a total health solutions company dedicated to transforming the way people experience the health care system. A 501(c)(3) grant-making organization, the Foundation invests and partners with organizations to advance palliative care quality, access, and understanding; improve the behavioral health of underserved children; and transform health care to a more person-focused and economically sustainable system. Learn more at cambiahealthfoundation.org and follow us on Twitter. CONTACT: Naomi Imatome-Yun 612-596-3600 SOURCE Blue Zones Project Related Links https://www.bluezonesproject.com SAN ANTONIO, Oct. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- In a 10-year study of women who received radiation therapy to treat early-stage breast cancer, those receiving fewer, larger individual doses experienced similarly low rates of late-onset side effects as those undergoing conventional radiation therapy. Findings from the multi-institutional U.K. FAST clinical trial were presented last week at the 60th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). "This study says it's possible to find a regimen that would allow early-stage breast cancer patients to be treated only once a week over five weeks rather than daily over the same time period," said Murray Brunt, MD, a professor of clinical oncology at University Hospitals of North Midlands and Keele University in the U.K., and lead author of this study. "Findings should help doctors discuss risks and benefits with their patients for various courses of radiation therapy and inform shared decision-making between physicians and patients." The study is a long-term report of the FAST (FASTer Radiotherapy for breast cancer patients) trial, which was designed to assess changes in healthy breast tissue following conventional radiation treatment compared with two shorter regimens that delivered higher doses of radiation in fewer sessions. The trial, led by The Institute of Cancer Research, London, enrolled 915 women with early-stage invasive breast cancer at 18 centers across the U.K. from 2004 to 2007. Initial trial results of the FAST trial, published in Radiotherapy and Oncology in 2011, indicated that once-weekly, hypofractionated therapy led to similarly low normal tissue effects as conventional therapy at two years following treatment. The current study confirms that these similarities persist for an additional eight years. "These results support treatment options that are more convenient for patients, resulting in fewer hospital visits and less expensive health services, without increasing the risk of long-term side effects," added Joanne Haviland at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and the study's senior statistician. Patients in the trial were randomly assigned to one of three regimens of whole-breast radiation therapy following breast-conserving surgery: conventional treatment with 50 Gray (Gy) of radiation delivered in 25 daily, 2 Gy fractions delivered over five weeks; or hypofractionated treatment with one of two doses: 30 Gy delivered in five, once-weekly fractions of 6 Gy each, or 28.5 Gy delivered in five, once-weekly fractions of 5.7 Gy each. After treatment, patients were evaluated annually for effects to healthy breast tissue including skin reactions, hardening of the breast and changes in breast conformation and size. Rates of moderate or severe long-term effects to normal tissue were low across all treatment groups. Severe effects were observed in 13 of the 774 women (1.7 percent) with follow-up data at five years, and nine of the 392 women (2.3 percent) with follow-up data at 10 years. No changes or minor changes in normal tissue were observed in 88 and 86 percent of women at the five- and 10-year marks, respectively. Late normal tissue effects were not statistically different between the conventional therapy group and the five-fraction 28.5 Gy group at five years or 10 years following treatment. Moderate/severe late effects to normal breast tissue were higher, however, for patients who received the five-fraction, 30-Gy regimen. These patients were two to three times more likely to experience moderate/severe instances of breast shrinkage (p<0.001), hardness (p=0.004), fluid build-up (p<0.001) and spider veins (p=0.02). Among patients on the conventional, daily-fraction arm, physicians observed normal tissue effects in 7.5 percent at five years and 9.1 percent at 10 years. By comparison, rates for the five-fraction 30-Gy arm were 18.0 percent at five years (p<0.001) and 18.4 percent at 10 years (p=0.04). "The profile of adverse effects to normal breast tissue was similar between the 28.5 Gy and 50 Gy groups, but rates were higher after 30 Gy given in five fractions over five weeks," said Prof. Brunt. "This disparity is rooted in differences between the two regimens in fractionation sensitivity. The sensitivity of 30 Gy delivered in five fractions over five weeks was equivalent to a total radiation dose of 57.3 Gy in 2 Gy fractions, while 28.5 Gy delivered in five fractions over five weeks was roughly the same as 52.5 Gy in 2 Gy fractions." Calculation suggests that 27.75 Gy delivered in five fractions over five weeks would be equivalent to 50 Gy in 25 fractions over five weeks. Researchers also assessed how the early-stage invasive breast tumors responded to surgery and radiation. The 10-year local relapse rate for all patients in the trial was 1.3 percent (95% CI 0.7, 2.3), with only 10 events reported in total, balanced between the treatment groups. The trial was not designed to test differences in relapse rates between treatment groups. Following these results, the research team is now investigating radiation therapy with five fractions delivered over five consecutive days. "As a next step, we want to investigate shortening the radiation therapy schedule to one week," explained Prof. Brunt. "A schedule like this would have significant clinical and practical implications, such as allowing radiation therapy to be integrated more closely with surgery and other therapies." Despite FAST and similar trials supporting the use of accelerated radiation treatment for breast cancer, large numbers of eligible patients in the U.S. are not receiving, and likely not being offered, shorter courses of radiation therapy. A 2013 JAMA study found an adoption rate of approximately 30 percent in the U.S., and a 2017 analysis for Kaiser Health News indicated that fewer than half of patients over age 50 with early-stage disease receive the accelerated treatment. The current ASTRO clinical guideline for whole breast radiation therapy, which was issued earlier this year, recommends hypofractionated therapy for breast cancer patients regardless of age, tumor stage and whether they have received chemotherapy. The abstract, "FAST phase III RCT of radiation therapy hypofractionation for treatment of early breast cancer: 10-Year results (CRUKE/04/015)," was presented in detail during a news briefing and the clinical trials session at ASTRO's 60th Annual Meeting in San Antonio. To schedule an interview with Dr. Brunt and/or outside experts in breast cancer, contact ASTRO's media relations team at 703-286-1600 or [email protected]. Attribution to the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting requested in all coverage. ABOUT ASTRO The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) is the world's largest radiation oncology society, with more than 10,000 members who are physicians, nurses, biologists, physicists, radiation therapists, dosimetrists and other health care professionals who specialize in treating patients with radiation therapies. The Society is dedicated to improving patient care through professional education and training, support for clinical practice and health policy standards, advancement of science and research, and advocacy. ASTRO publishes three medical journals, International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics, Practical Radiation Oncology and Advances in Radiation Oncology; developed and maintains an extensive patient website, RT Answers; and created the nonprofit foundation Radiation Oncology Institute. To learn more about ASTRO, visit astro.org or RTanswers.org, sign up to receive our news and follow us on our blog, Facebook and Twitter. Liz Gardner, 703-286-1600 [email protected] Jeff White, 703-839-7392 [email protected] SOURCE American Society for Radiation Oncology Related Links http://www.astro.org ATLANTA, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Oncology Analytics, a leading technology-enabled service company which provides health plans, providers and patients with an evidence-based, analytics focused approach to utilization management that is purpose-built for oncology, announced today it is expanding its operation by moving its corporate headquarters to Atlanta, Georgia. "Atlanta is a mecca for organizations focused on cutting edge technology and breakthrough research and innovation in cancer treatments," said Rick Dean, CEO of Oncology Analytics. "Driving the nexus of technology and patient care is fundamental to our company's mission. We want to be part of a dynamic, forward thinking business community that shares this vision." Oncology Analytics provides the critical missing link for health plans in being able to manage the total cost of cancer care which is access to current, evidence-based, disease-specific analytics on all cancer types and treatment options, backed by board-certified oncology physicians and pharmacists, to provide their members with the ability to achieve the best possible outcomes. Founded in Plantation, FL by Dr. Marc Fishman, a hematologist, oncologist and patient advocate, Oncology Analytics will continue to retain an active presence there. The company's new corporate headquarters will be located at 7000 Central Parkway in the vibrant Perimeter District of Atlanta, home to over 5,000 companies. "Having our corporate headquarters in Atlanta provides us access to some of the finest clinical, technical and analytics talent in the country," said Shay Hurst, SVP of Human Resources, Oncology Analytics. "As we look to significantly expand our team in roles focused on data science, software engineering, clinical oncology, product management and client services, we are confident Atlanta offers the resources we need for our next stage of growth." About Oncology Analytics Oncology Analytics, Inc. provides health plans, providers and patients with an evidence-based, technology-driven approach to utilization management, which is purpose-built for oncology. Used by physicians to support over 3.5 million health plan members in the US and Puerto Rico, the Oncology Analytics e-Prior Authorization platform is updated daily to accurately reflect more than 6,000 oncology treatment protocols for anti-cancer treatment across all cancer types and stages, including chemotherapy, radiation therapy, precision medicine, targeted therapy, and supportive care. The company's real-world evidence analytics is based on tens of thousands of annual chemotherapeutic cases. For more information, please visit www.oncologyanalytics.com. SOURCE Oncology Analytics, Inc. Related Links www.oncologyanalytics.com BOSTON, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Building on the success of its first year, Report for America is launching an initiative to address the proliferation of news deserts in California with the goal of placing 10 reporters into local newsrooms in 2019 and 20 in 2020. News deserts are spreading in the state leaving millions of Californians without basic information and accountability reporting. Since 2004, 73 newspapers have closed in the state, according to a report released earlier this month by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Report for America currently has 13 reporters in Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, New Mexico, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas, and West Virginia. In 2019, they will place 28 reporters nationwide, with a goal of 1,000 reporters by 2023. The program pays for half of each reporter's salary and the remainder is covered by the local newsroom and local donors. Report for America has previously placed a regional corps in Appalachia, where corps members have driven a substantial increase in reporting on under-covered parts of Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. This second region-specific initiative marks the beginning of a major effort to create similar geographically-focused, locally-funded reporting corps. The goal is to both address areas that have large "news deserts" and draw in new, local philanthropic support for community journalism. The California initiative has taken off thanks to seed grants from the Annenberg Foundation and McClatchy Foundation, as well as collaboration with the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism to provide training and support. The program is continuing to raise funding to reach its 2019 goal of ten California-based reporters. "There is a crisis in local news in California," said Cynthia Kennard, Executive Director of the Annenberg Foundation. "This innovative program will help make a real difference. We urge other funders who care about the health of California's communities to join the effort." "This infusion of young reporters will support basic accountability reporting around the state," said Willow Bay, Dean of USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. The school will provide intensive training and support for Report for America corp members. Report for America will accept applications from news organizations throughout the state and across the country who want to host Report for America corps members. This includes newspapers, radio stations, and television stations. To win the right to host one or more reporters, each news organization will have to demonstrate that there is a civically-important gap in coverage and that they have a strong plan to deploy new reporting resources in the public interest. To accommodate this specific new initiative, Report for America is extending the deadline for newsroom applications to Friday, NOVEMBER 16. The deadline to apply to become a corps member for 2019 is February 1. The application and information can be found here: https://www.reportforamerica.org/local-innovators/ Report for America corps members typically have 3 to 6 years of experience, while some are accomplished recent graduates. More than half of the current corps members have returned to their home states. "We're grateful to the Annenberg Foundation and USC Annenberg for supporting this time-sensitive effort to plug some serious gaps in California's new coverage," said Steven Waldman, president of Report for America. "In this time of declining trust in journalism, it's important that we remember: trust is a crop that is locally grown. More reporters on the ground will help repair the rupture between local media and the residents they serve." Report for America is an initiative of the GroundTruth Project, a non-profit group that supports young journalists around the world. "There are so many news deserts across the country, particularly in California," said Charles Sennott, CEO of The GroundTruth Project and co-founder of Report for America. "These extraordinary young journalists are going to help fill these gaps, and strengthen democracy in the process." SOURCE Report for America Related Links https://www.reportforamerica.org Net income (loss) available to limited partners for the third quarter of 2018 totaled $66.1 million, or $0.39 per common unit (diluted), with third-quarter 2018 Adjusted EBITDA(1) of $314.5 million and third-quarter 2018 Distributable cash flow(1) of $248.2 million. WES previously declared a quarterly distribution of $0.965 per unit for the third quarter of 2018. This distribution represented a 2% increase over the prior quarter's distribution and a 7% increase over the third-quarter 2017 distribution. The third-quarter 2018 Coverage ratio(1) of 1.08 times was based on the quarterly distribution of $0.965 per unit. "We are delivering on our promise for the second half of the year: significant Delaware Basin volumetric growth as critical infrastructure comes online, meaningful growth in Adjusted EBITDA, and expanding coverage. Additionally, the firm takeaway secured by several of our large customers gives us significant visibility into our ability to grow throughout 2019 and beyond," said Chief Executive Officer, Benjamin Fink. "With this organic growth now materializing, we expect annual Adjusted EBITDA to grow by at least 20% in 2019." Total throughput attributable to WES for natural gas assets for the third quarter of 2018 averaged 3.9 Bcf/d, which was 1% above the prior quarter and 12% above the third quarter of 2017. Total throughput for crude oil, NGL and produced water assets for the third quarter of 2018 averaged 421 MBbls/d, which was 23% above the prior quarter and 101% above the third quarter of 2017. (1) Please see the tables at the end of this release for a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures and calculation of the Coverage ratio. Capital expenditures attributable to WES, including equity investments but excluding acquisitions, totaled $332.4 million on a cash basis and $328.9 million on an accrual basis during the third quarter of 2018, with maintenance capital expenditures on a cash basis of $23.8 million. WES adjusted its outlook for full-year 2018 Adjusted EBITDA(1) to a range of $1.175 billion to $1.225 billion(2) and its outlook for full-year 2018 maintenance capital expenditures to a range of $85 million to $95 million. In addition, WES noted that commissioning activities for the first train at the Mentone facility are underway, with startup expected in the coming weeks. The second train is expected to be in service in the first quarter of 2019. WESTERN GAS EQUITY PARTNERS, LP WGP indirectly owns the entire general partner interest in WES, 100% of the incentive distribution rights in WES and 50,132,046 WES common units. Net income (loss) available to limited partners for the third quarter of 2018 totaled $107.5 million, or $0.49 per common unit (diluted). WGP previously declared a quarterly distribution of $0.5950 per unit for the third quarter of 2018. This distribution represented a 2% increase over the prior quarter's distribution and an 11% increase over the third-quarter 2017 distribution. WGP will receive distributions from WES of $131.3 million attributable to the third quarter of 2018 and will pay $130.3 million in distributions for the same period. CONFERENCE CALL TOMORROW AT 11 A.M. CDT WES and WGP will host a joint conference call on Wednesday, October 31, 2018, at 11:00 a.m. Central Daylight Time (12:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time) to discuss third-quarter 2018 results. Individuals who would like to participate should dial 877-883-0383 (Domestic) or 412-902-6506 (International) approximately 15 minutes before the scheduled conference call time, and enter participant access code 3261919. To access the live audio webcast of the conference call, please visit the investor relations section of the Partnership's website at www.westerngas.com. A replay of the conference call will also be available on the website for two weeks following the call. Western Gas Partners, LP ("WES") is a growth-oriented Delaware master limited partnership formed by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation to acquire, own, develop and operate midstream assets. With midstream assets located in the Rocky Mountains, North-central Pennsylvania, Texas and New Mexico, WES is engaged in the business of gathering, compressing, treating, processing and transporting natural gas; gathering, stabilizing and transporting condensate, natural gas liquids and crude oil; and gathering and disposing of produced water for Anadarko, as well as for third-party producers and customers. In addition, in its capacity as a processor of natural gas, WES also buys and sells natural gas, NGLs and condensate on behalf of itself and as agent for its customers under certain of its contracts. Western Gas Equity Partners, LP ("WGP") is a Delaware master limited partnership formed by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation to own the following types of interests in WES: (i) the general partner interest and all of the incentive distribution rights in WES, both owned through WGP's 100% ownership of WES's general partner, and (ii) a significant limited partner interest in WES. For more information about Western Gas Partners, LP and Western Gas Equity Partners, LP, please visit www.westerngas.com. This news release contains forward-looking statements. WES and WGP's management believes that their expectations are based on reasonable assumptions. No assurance, however, can be given that such expectations will prove to have been correct. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the projections, anticipated results or other expectations expressed in this news release. These factors include the ability to meet financial guidance or distribution growth expectations; the ability to safely and efficiently operate WES's assets; the supply of, demand for, and price of oil, natural gas, NGLs and related products or services; the ability to meet projected in-service dates for capital growth projects; construction costs or capital expenditures exceeding estimated or budgeted costs or expenditures; and the other factors described in the "Risk Factors" sections of WES's and WGP's most recent Forms 10-K and Forms 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and in their other public filings and press releases. Western Gas Partners, LP and Western Gas Equity Partners, LP undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. (1) Please see the tables at the end of this release for a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures. (2) This press release contains forward-looking estimates of the range of Adjusted EBITDA projected to be generated by WES in its 2018 fiscal year. A reconciliation of the Adjusted EBITDA range to net cash provided by operating activities and net income is not provided because the items necessary to estimate such amounts are not reasonably accessible or estimable at this time. WESTERN GAS CONTACT Jonathon E. VandenBrand Director, Investor Relations [email protected] 832.636.6000 Western Gas Partners, LP Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Measures Below are reconciliations of (i) net income (loss) attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP (GAAP) to WES's Distributable cash flow (non-GAAP), (ii) net income (loss) attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP (GAAP) and net cash provided by operating activities (GAAP) to Adjusted EBITDA attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP ("Adjusted EBITDA") (non-GAAP), and (iii) operating income (loss) (GAAP) to Adjusted gross margin attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP ("Adjusted gross margin") (non-GAAP), as required under Regulation G of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Management believes that WES's Distributable cash flow, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted gross margin, and Coverage ratio are widely accepted financial indicators of WES's financial performance compared to other publicly traded partnerships and are useful in assessing its ability to incur and service debt, fund capital expenditures and make distributions. Distributable cash flow, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted gross margin and Coverage ratio, as defined by WES, may not be comparable to similarly titled measures used by other companies. Therefore, WES's Distributable cash flow, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted gross margin and Coverage ratio should be considered in conjunction with net income (loss) attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP and other applicable performance measures, such as operating income (loss) or cash flows from operating activities. Western Gas Partners, LP Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Measures, continued Distributable Cash Flow WES defines Distributable cash flow as Adjusted EBITDA, plus interest income and the net settlement amounts from the sale and/or purchase of natural gas, condensate and NGLs under WES's commodity price swap agreements to the extent such amounts are not recognized as Adjusted EBITDA, less Service revenues fee based recognized in Adjusted EBITDA (less than) in excess of customer billings, net cash paid (or to be paid) for interest expense (including amortization of deferred debt issuance costs originally paid in cash, offset by non-cash capitalized interest), maintenance capital expenditures, Series A Preferred unit distributions and income taxes. Three Months Ended September 30, Nine Months Ended September 30, thousands except Coverage ratio 2018 2017 2018 2017 Reconciliation of Net income (loss) attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP to Distributable cash flow and calculation of the Coverage ratio Net income (loss) attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP $ 154,646 $ 143,506 $ 336,717 $ 418,846 Add: Distributions from equity investments 51,023 29,145 111,924 80,568 Non-cash equity-based compensation expense 1,548 1,258 5,552 3,479 Non-cash settled interest expense, net (1) 71 Income tax (benefit) expense 1,517 510 3,301 4,905 Depreciation and amortization (2) 81,826 71,812 236,008 214,213 Impairments (2) 23,930 2,159 151,321 170,079 Above-market component of swap agreements with Anadarko 12,601 18,049 40,722 46,719 Other expense (2) 33 184 140 Less: Recognized Service revenues fee based (less than) in excess of customer billings 4,397 536 Gain (loss) on divestiture and other, net 65 72 351 135,017 Equity income, net affiliates 43,110 21,519 102,752 62,708 Cash paid for maintenance capital expenditures (2) 23,837 10,591 61,162 33,115 Capitalized interest 6,967 2,115 17,032 3,991 Cash paid for (reimbursement of) income taxes (87) 189 Series A Preferred unit distributions 7,453 Other income (2) 592 283 2,592 960 Distributable cash flow $ 248,156 $ 231,859 $ 701,391 $ 695,587 Distributions declared (3) Limited partners common units $ 147,268 $ 434,930 General partner 82,971 242,133 Total $ 230,239 $ 677,063 Coverage ratio 1.08 x 1.04 x (1) Includes amounts related to the Deferred purchase price obligation - Anadarko. (2) Includes WES's 75% share of depreciation and amortization; impairments; other expense; cash paid for maintenance capital expenditures; and other income attributable to Chipeta. (3) Reflects cash distributions of $0.965 and $2.850 per unit declared for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2018, respectively. Western Gas Partners, LP Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Measures, continued Adjusted EBITDA Attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP WES defines Adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss) attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP, plus distributions from equity investments, non-cash equity-based compensation expense, interest expense, income tax expense, depreciation and amortization, impairments, and other expense (including lower of cost or market inventory adjustments recorded in cost of product), less gain (loss) on divestiture and other, net, income from equity investments, interest income, income tax benefit, and other income. Three Months Ended September 30, Nine Months Ended September 30, thousands 2018 2017 2018 2017 Reconciliation of Net income (loss) attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP to Adjusted EBITDA attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP Net income (loss) attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP $ 154,646 $ 143,506 $ 336,717 $ 418,846 Add: Distributions from equity investments 51,023 29,145 111,924 80,568 Non-cash equity-based compensation expense 1,548 1,258 5,552 3,479 Interest expense 47,991 35,544 131,663 106,794 Income tax expense 1,517 510 3,301 4,905 Depreciation and amortization (1) 81,826 71,812 236,008 214,213 Impairments (1) 23,930 2,159 151,321 170,079 Other expense (1) 33 184 140 Less: Gain (loss) on divestiture and other, net 65 72 351 135,017 Equity income, net affiliates 43,110 21,519 102,752 62,708 Interest income affiliates 4,225 4,225 12,675 12,675 Other income (1) 592 283 2,592 960 Adjusted EBITDA attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP $ 314,522 $ 257,835 $ 858,300 $ 787,664 Reconciliation of Net cash provided by operating activities to Adjusted EBITDA attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP Net cash provided by operating activities $ 236,811 $ 211,947 $ 751,722 $ 645,099 Interest (income) expense, net 43,766 31,319 118,988 94,119 Uncontributed cash-based compensation awards (55) 78 932 (94) Accretion and amortization of long-term obligations, net (1,257) (1,055) (3,883) (3,194) Current income tax (benefit) expense (14) 395 247 1,023 Other (income) expense, net (598) (286) (2,609) (969) Distributions from equity investments in excess of cumulative earnings affiliates 5,592 7,034 18,097 16,255 Changes in assets and liabilities: Accounts receivable, net 57,535 56,335 64,544 46,972 Accounts and imbalance payables and accrued liabilities, net (14,781) (45,982) (55,354) (4,007) Other items, net (9,379) 3,181 (24,049) 3,065 Adjusted EBITDA attributable to noncontrolling interest (3,098) (5,131) (10,335) (10,605) Adjusted EBITDA attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP $ 314,522 $ 257,835 $ 858,300 $ 787,664 Cash flow information of Western Gas Partners, LP Net cash provided by operating activities $ 751,722 $ 645,099 Net cash used in investing activities (1,160,684) (514,797) Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities 460,816 (335,792) (1) Includes WES's 75% share of depreciation and amortization; impairments; other expense; and other income attributable to Chipeta. Western Gas Partners, LP Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Measures, continued Adjusted Gross Margin Attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP WES defines Adjusted gross margin as total revenues and other (less reimbursements for electricity-related expenses recorded as revenue), less cost of product, plus distributions from equity investments, and excluding the noncontrolling interest owner's proportionate share of revenue and cost of product. Three Months Ended September 30, Nine Months Ended September 30, thousands 2018 2017 2018 2017 Reconciliation of Operating income (loss) to Adjusted gross margin attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP Operating income (loss) $ 200,321 $ 179,456 $ 463,183 $ 525,456 Add: Distributions from equity investments 51,023 29,145 111,924 80,568 Operation and maintenance 111,359 79,536 300,266 229,444 General and administrative 14,467 12,158 42,634 35,402 Property and other taxes 10,954 11,215 35,090 35,433 Depreciation and amortization 82,553 72,539 238,187 216,272 Impairments 25,317 2,159 152,708 170,079 Less: Gain (loss) on divestiture and other, net 65 72 351 135,017 Proceeds from business interruption insurance claims 29,882 Equity income, net affiliates 43,110 21,519 102,752 62,708 Reimbursed electricity-related charges recorded as revenues 17,455 14,323 50,139 42,338 Adjusted gross margin attributable to noncontrolling interest 3,803 5,878 12,350 13,189 Adjusted gross margin attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP $ 431,561 $ 344,416 $ 1,178,400 $ 1,009,520 Adjusted gross margin attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP for natural gas assets $ 363,536 $ 305,337 $ 1,019,061 $ 904,620 Adjusted gross margin for crude oil, NGL and produced water assets 68,025 39,079 159,339 104,900 Western Gas Partners, LP CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (Unaudited) Three Months Ended September 30, Nine Months Ended September 30, thousands except per-unit amounts 2018 2017 2018 2017 Revenues and other Service revenues fee based $ 409,106 $ 306,187 $ 1,146,099 $ 913,436 Service revenues product based 22,735 67,433 Product sales 75,150 259,141 217,738 690,490 Other 771 9,367 1,213 12,412 Total revenues and other 507,762 574,695 1,432,483 1,616,338 Equity income, net affiliates 43,110 21,519 102,752 62,708 Operating expenses Cost of product 105,966 239,223 303,518 631,859 Operation and maintenance 111,359 79,536 300,266 229,444 General and administrative 14,467 12,158 42,634 35,402 Property and other taxes 10,954 11,215 35,090 35,433 Depreciation and amortization 82,553 72,539 238,187 216,272 Impairments 25,317 2,159 152,708 170,079 Total operating expenses 350,616 416,830 1,072,403 1,318,489 Gain (loss) on divestiture and other, net 65 72 351 135,017 Proceeds from business interruption insurance claims 29,882 Operating income (loss) 200,321 179,456 463,183 525,456 Interest income affiliates 4,225 4,225 12,675 12,675 Interest expense (47,991) (35,544) (131,663) (106,794) Other income (expense), net 598 286 2,609 969 Income (loss) before income taxes 157,153 148,423 346,804 432,306 Income tax (benefit) expense 1,517 510 3,301 4,905 Net income (loss) 155,636 147,913 343,503 427,401 Net income attributable to noncontrolling interest 990 4,407 6,786 8,555 Net income (loss) attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP $ 154,646 $ 143,506 $ 336,717 $ 418,846 Limited partners' interest in net income (loss): Net income (loss) attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP $ 154,646 $ 143,506 $ 336,717 $ 418,846 Series A Preferred units interest in net (income) loss (42,373) General partner interest in net (income) loss (88,551) (78,376) (256,166) (222,903) Common and Class C limited partners' interest in net income (loss) $ 66,095 $ 65,130 $ 80,551 $ 153,570 Net income (loss) per common unit basic and diluted $ 0.39 $ 0.38 $ 0.46 $ 0.91 Weighted-average common units outstanding basic and diluted 152,609 152,602 152,605 145,371 Western Gas Partners, LP CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (Unaudited) thousands except number of units September 30, 2018 December 31, 2017 Current assets $ 381,624 $ 254,062 Note receivable Anadarko 260,000 260,000 Net property, plant and equipment 6,418,634 5,730,891 Other assets 1,971,040 1,769,397 Total assets $ 9,031,298 $ 8,014,350 Current liabilities $ 512,060 $ 424,333 Long-term debt 4,566,464 3,464,712 Asset retirement obligations 157,933 143,394 Other liabilities 152,242 10,900 Total liabilities 5,388,699 4,043,339 Equity and partners' capital Common units (152,609,285 and 152,602,105 units issued and outstanding at September 30, 2018, and December 31, 2017, respectively) 2,595,719 2,950,010 Class C units (14,045,429 and 13,243,883 units issued and outstanding at September 30, 2018, and December 31, 2017, respectively) 787,420 780,040 General partner units (2,583,068 units issued and outstanding at September 30, 2018, and December 31, 2017) 199,433 179,232 Noncontrolling interest 60,027 61,729 Total liabilities, equity and partners' capital $ 9,031,298 $ 8,014,350 Western Gas Partners, LP CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (Unaudited) Nine Months Ended September 30, thousands 2018 2017 Cash flows from operating activities Net income (loss) $ 343,503 $ 427,401 Adjustments to reconcile net income (loss) to net cash provided by operating activities and changes in assets and liabilities: Depreciation and amortization 238,187 216,272 Impairments 152,708 170,079 (Gain) loss on divestiture and other, net (351) (135,017) Change in other items, net 17,675 (33,636) Net cash provided by operating activities $ 751,722 $ 645,099 Cash flows from investing activities Capital expenditures $ (949,022) $ (419,193) Contributions in aid of construction costs from affiliates 1,386 Acquisitions from affiliates (254) (3,910) Acquisitions from third parties (161,858) (155,298) Investments in equity affiliates (67,979) (384) Distributions from equity investments in excess of cumulative earnings affiliates 18,097 16,255 Proceeds from the sale of assets to third parties 332 23,370 Proceeds from property insurance claims 22,977 Net cash used in investing activities $ (1,160,684) $ (514,797) Cash flows from financing activities Borrowings, net of debt issuance costs $ 2,135,637 $ 249,989 Repayments of debt (1,040,000) Settlement of the Deferred purchase price obligation Anadarko (37,346) Increase (decrease) in outstanding checks (2,687) 3,310 Proceeds from the issuance of common units, net of offering expenses (183) Distributions to unitholders (663,410) (589,262) Distributions to noncontrolling interest owner (9,446) (9,049) Net contributions from (distributions to) Anadarko 30 Above-market component of swap agreements with Anadarko 40,722 46,719 Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities $ 460,816 $ (335,792) Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents $ 51,854 $ (205,490) Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of period 78,814 357,925 Cash and cash equivalents at end of period $ 130,668 $ 152,435 Western Gas Partners, LP OPERATING STATISTICS (Unaudited) Three Months Ended September 30, Nine Months Ended September 30, 2018 2017 2018 2017 Throughput for natural gas assets (MMcf/d) Gathering, treating and transportation 954 784 886 1,029 Processing 2,844 2,588 2,820 2,528 Equity investment (1) 139 159 144 160 Total throughput for natural gas assets 3,937 3,531 3,850 3,717 Throughput attributable to noncontrolling interest for natural gas assets 87 104 92 107 Total throughput attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP for natural gas assets 3,850 3,427 3,758 3,610 Throughput for crude oil, NGL and produced water assets (MBbls/d) Gathering, treating, transportation and disposal 154 77 141 57 Equity investment (2) 267 132 200 130 Total throughput for crude oil, NGL and produced water assets 421 209 341 187 Adjusted gross margin per Mcf attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP for natural gas assets (3) $ 1.03 $ 0.97 $ 0.99 $ 0.92 Adjusted gross margin per Bbl for crude oil, NGL and produced water assets (4) 1.76 2.03 1.71 2.05 (1) Represents WES's 14.81% share of average Fort Union throughput and 22% share of average Rendezvous throughput. (2) Represents WES's 10% share of average White Cliffs throughput, WES's 25% share of average Mont Belvieu JV throughput, WES's 20% share of average TEG and TEP throughput, WES's 33.33% share of average FRP throughput and WES's 20% share of average Whitethorn throughput. (3) Average for period. Calculated as Adjusted gross margin attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP for natural gas assets (total revenues and other for natural gas assets less reimbursements for electricity-related expenses recorded as revenue, less cost of product for natural gas assets, plus distributions from WES's equity investments in Fort Union and Rendezvous, and excluding the noncontrolling interest owner's proportionate share of revenue and cost of product), divided by total throughput (MMcf/d) attributable to Western Gas Partners, LP for natural gas assets. (4) Average for period. Calculated as Adjusted gross margin for crude oil, NGL and produced water assets (total revenues and other for crude oil, NGL and produced water assets less reimbursements for electricity-related expenses recorded as revenue, less cost of product for crude oil, NGL and produced water assets, and plus distributions from WES's equity investments in White Cliffs, the Mont Belvieu JV, TEG, TEP, FRP and Whitethorn), divided by total throughput (MBbls/d) for crude oil, NGL and produced water assets. Western Gas Equity Partners, LP CALCULATION OF CASH AVAILABLE FOR DISTRIBUTION (Unaudited) thousands except per-unit amount and Coverage ratio Three Months Ended September 30, 2018 Distributions declared by Western Gas Partners, LP: General partner interest $ 3,832 Incentive distribution rights 79,139 Common units held by WGP 48,377 Less: Public company general and administrative expense 691 Interest expense 325 Cash available for distribution $ 130,332 Declared distribution per common unit $ 0.59500 Distributions declared by Western Gas Equity Partners, LP $ 130,268 Coverage ratio 1.00 x Western Gas Equity Partners, LP CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (Unaudited) Three Months Ended September 30, Nine Months Ended September 30, thousands except per-unit amounts 2018 2017 2018 2017 Revenues and other Service revenues fee based $ 409,106 $ 306,187 $ 1,146,099 $ 913,436 Service revenues product based 22,735 67,433 Product sales 75,150 259,141 217,738 690,490 Other 771 9,367 1,213 12,412 Total revenues and other 507,762 574,695 1,432,483 1,616,338 Equity income, net affiliates 43,110 21,519 102,752 62,708 Operating expenses Cost of product 105,966 239,223 303,518 631,859 Operation and maintenance 111,359 79,536 300,266 229,444 General and administrative 15,158 12,922 44,853 37,595 Property and other taxes 10,954 11,215 35,090 35,433 Depreciation and amortization 82,553 72,539 238,187 216,272 Impairments 25,317 2,159 152,708 170,079 Total operating expenses 351,307 417,594 1,074,622 1,320,682 Gain (loss) on divestiture and other, net 65 72 351 135,017 Proceeds from business interruption insurance claims 29,882 Operating income (loss) 199,630 178,692 460,964 523,263 Interest income affiliates 4,225 4,225 12,675 12,675 Interest expense (48,316) (36,117) (133,359) (108,447) Other income (expense), net 655 311 2,749 1,029 Income (loss) before income taxes 156,194 147,111 343,029 428,520 Income tax (benefit) expense 1,517 510 3,301 4,905 Net income (loss) 154,677 146,601 339,728 423,615 Net income (loss) attributable to noncontrolling interests 47,203 50,399 63,669 146,529 Net income (loss) attributable to Western Gas Equity Partners, LP $ 107,474 $ 96,202 $ 276,059 $ 277,086 Net income (loss) per common unit basic and diluted $ 0.49 $ 0.44 $ 1.26 $ 1.27 Weighted-average common units outstanding basic and diluted 218,938 218,933 218,935 218,931 Western Gas Equity Partners, LP CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (Unaudited) thousands except number of units September 30, 2018 December 31, 2017 Current assets $ 383,883 $ 255,210 Note receivable Anadarko 260,000 260,000 Net property, plant and equipment 6,418,634 5,730,891 Other assets 1,971,040 1,770,210 Total assets $ 9,033,557 $ 8,016,311 Current liabilities $ 540,278 $ 424,426 Long-term debt 4,566,464 3,492,712 Asset retirement obligations 157,933 143,394 Other liabilities 152,242 10,900 Total liabilities 5,416,917 4,071,432 Equity and partners' capital Common units (218,937,797 and 218,933,141 units issued and outstanding at September 30, 2018, and December 31, 2017, respectively) 981,408 1,061,125 Noncontrolling interests 2,635,232 2,883,754 Total liabilities, equity and partners' capital $ 9,033,557 $ 8,016,311 Western Gas Equity Partners, LP CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (Unaudited) Nine Months Ended September 30, thousands 2018 2017 Cash flows from operating activities Net income (loss) $ 339,728 $ 423,615 Adjustments to reconcile net income (loss) to net cash provided by operating activities and changes in assets and liabilities: Depreciation and amortization 238,187 216,272 Impairments 152,708 170,079 (Gain) loss on divestiture and other, net (351) (135,017) Change in other items, net 19,107 (32,480) Net cash provided by operating activities $ 749,379 $ 642,469 Cash flows from investing activities Capital expenditures $ (949,022) $ (419,193) Contributions in aid of construction costs from affiliates 1,386 Acquisitions from affiliates (254) (3,910) Acquisitions from third parties (161,858) (155,298) Investments in equity affiliates (67,979) (384) Distributions from equity investments in excess of cumulative earnings affiliates 18,097 16,255 Proceeds from the sale of assets to third parties 332 23,370 Proceeds from property insurance claims 22,977 Net cash used in investing activities $ (1,160,684) $ (514,797) Cash flows from financing activities Borrowings, net of debt issuance costs $ 2,135,629 $ 249,989 Repayments of debt (1,040,000) Settlement of the Deferred purchase price obligation Anadarko (37,346) Increase (decrease) in outstanding checks (2,687) 3,310 Proceeds from the issuance of WES common units, net of offering expenses (183) Distributions to WGP unitholders (372,189) (324,290) Distributions to Chipeta noncontrolling interest owner (9,446) (9,049) Distributions to noncontrolling interest owners of WES (287,435) (262,888) Net contributions from (distributions to) Anadarko 30 Above-market component of swap agreements with Anadarko 40,722 46,719 Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities $ 464,594 $ (333,708) Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents $ 53,289 $ (206,036) Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of period 79,588 359,072 Cash and cash equivalents at end of period $ 132,877 $ 153,036 SOURCE Western Gas Partners, LP; Western Gas Equity Partners, LP Related Links http://www.westerngas.com WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Teen Challenge (GTC) announced its pledge of support for the Senate Amendment to H.R. 6, the Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018. GTC Board Member, Ed DeShields, joined twenty other national and global business leaders at the White House to commit their expertise and organizational resources to help curb the opioid crisis. Ed DeShields, stated, "For sixty years the Teen Challenge family has saved countless men, women, boys, and girls from their struggle with addiction. Over these years, our network has become the largest addiction recovery provider in the world with, 20,000 long-term residential beds (7,500 in the USA) and over 1,400 long-term residential centers operating in 125 nations. Today, Global Teen Challenge pledged to develop an information system that will gather treatment data from across our network -- measuring the recovery process and identifying programs and practices that are achieving the greatest results." The Background Currently, evidence-based, real-world data collected by addiction treatment providers is very limited. Lack of tracking, reporting, and sharing systems means there is virtually no data to validate program outcomes and long-term success rates. As a result, desperate families struggle to evaluate treatment options while concerned stakeholders are unable to identify, fund and scale the most effective programs. Ability and Scale GTC is uniquely positioned in terms of scalability and the development of outcome-based technology. In 2017, GTC engaged the Bridgespan Group (incubated at Bain and Company) for a seven-month internal, feasibility study and strategic planning analysis. Their findings concluded: "Global Teen Challenge has the largest footprint in the addiction recovery space. It uniquely stands alone as an organization capable of scaling to address the global addiction problem." Technologically-Equipped for Transformational Impact In partnership with CE Analytics, GTC is developing the first wide-scale, outcome-based technology in the addiction recovery space featuring real world data/evidence standards across a large national footprint. This software is based on standardized assessment criteria, patient management, and anthropological tools that measure, predict, prescribe and track individual patient outcomes. About the Teen Challenge Network Teen Challenge is a federation of affiliates committed to putting hope within reach of every addict, and providing the help, they need to overcome addiction. With a combined $190 million annual budget funded by charitable contributions and treatment fees, the global network represents the largest addiction recovery program in the world. In the United States, the network has the capacity for 7,500 men, women, boys and girls at 250 residential treatment centers operating in 49 states. About CE Analytics CE Analytics (CEA) is a data analytics company specializing in consumer behavior analytics. The company serves over 10 million subscribers with data showing consumers how their behavior affects their goals. CE Analytics is based in Dallas, Texas. For more information, please contact: Tim Kincaid Global Teen Challenge Email: [email protected] Phone: 706.576.6555, x223 Website: https://globaltc.org/ SOURCE Global Teen Challenge Related Links https://globaltc.org MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- AImotive, the global provider of full stack, vision-first self-driving technology, today announced the release of aiWare3, the company's 3rd generation, scalable, low-power, hardware Neural Network (NN) acceleration core. Designed for the rigorous requirements of automotive embedded solutions, aiWare3's patented IP core delivers unprecedented scalability and flexibility. By delivering new levels of performance in both central processing and sensor fusion units, aiWare3 enables automotive OEMs and Tier One suppliers to achieve L3 autonomy in production in the shortest timescales. The scalable aiWare3 architecture facilitates low-power continuous operation for autonomous vehicles (AVs) with up to 12 or more high-resolution cameras, LiDARs and/or radar. aiWare3 delivers up to 50 TMAC/s (> 100 TOPS) per chip at more than 2 TMAC/s (4 TOPS) per W1. This makes it optimal for real-time, embedded inference engines with strict power, thermal and real-time constraints. It is ideal for the most processing-intensive NN tasks, such as low-latency, high frame rate segmentation, perception, and classification. Building on the award-winning2 aiWare v2 core, aiWare3's highly configurable and scalable architecture enables OEMs to implement a variety of NN acceleration strategies in their hardware platforms. These can range from centralized NN resources shared among multiple workloads as part of a powerful central processing unit, to pre-processing integrated into each sensor or groups of sensors. Now, OEMs have far greater choice in the ways they approach production AV timescales, by shrinking the size of the electronic control units (ECUs) needed to support high-performance NN processing. The highly autonomous accelerator-based approach used by aiWare also enables customers to maximize re-use of their significant investment in existing hardware and software designs. "Our portfolio of hardware technologies enables the implementation of high-performance, AI-based ECUs that allow our automotive partners to move beyond demonstrators and into volume AV production," said Marton Feher, senior vice president of hardware engineering at AImotive. "aiWare3 makes NN processing for multi HD sensor configurations achievable, which is essential for AVs. It answers the question of how best to implement hardware platforms capable of delivering the real-time, high performance results required by future AVs' NN-based AI systems; and it does so at low power and to full ASIL-D standards if required." Though many NN accelerators claim superior power consumption and performance, this is often when running their accelerator under ideal simulated conditions. Unlike other solutions, aiWare3's architecture has been optimized to deliver the highest efficiencies when integrated into realistic production ECU designs. The aiWare3 core can deliver more than 2 TMAC/s per W (7nm estimated) while sustaining >95% efficiency under continuous operation AImotive's aiWare3 IP core can be implemented on-chip as part of an SoC (system on chip) for central processing, sensor processing or sensor fusion gateway subsystems. It can also form the basis of one or more accelerator chips working alongside the SoC in a highly autonomous NN acceleration subsystem. aiWare3's IP core is supported by a comprehensive software development kit (SDK) that uses The Khronos Group's NNEF standard. It will ship to lead customers in Q1 2019. About aiWare3 Delivers >95% efficiency for wide range of NN applications Scalable from 1 TMAC/s to > 50 TMAC/s Designed for continuous real-time inference engine operation Configurable for wide range of ASIL-B to ASIL-D approaches Low power 2 TMAC/s per W (7nm estimated) Highly deterministic low-level architecture no caches Read more about aiWare3 here. Find our latest benchmarks based on a range of well-known workloads here. Notes: 1 7nm estimated 2 Vision Product of the Year, Embedded Vision Alliance, May 2018 Contact: Daniella Redei Head of Marketing and Communications [email protected] Daniel M. Seager-Smith Marketing Manager [email protected] SOURCE AImotive Related Links http://aimotive.com NEW YORK, Oct. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today at the Colorado Governor's Tourism Conference, Arrivalist announced Colorado's "ArrivaLIST of Most Visited Places Award" highlighting the 11 most visited locations across six categories. Arrivalist Award The first and only travel location data company of its kind, Arrivalist constantly gathers and measures data from 120 million consumers with location-enabled devices to garner the most precise, comprehensive visitation data ever reported. Their technology allows clients to measure the movement of mobile computing devices to their destination or business post-media exposure even comparing media-exposed consumers to a dynamic control group, creating critical new measure of incremental visitation. "At Arrivalist, we take pride in turning large complex datasets into profound new perspectives for destinations, hotels, resorts and attractions," said Cree Lawson, CEO of Arrivalist. "The ArrivaLIST of Most Visited Places creates new, real-world, data driven for consumers, for clients and the tourism industry as a whole. We're thrilled to work with the Colorado Tourism Office to present the first ArrivaLIST rankings and ArrivaLIST rewards." Historically, visitor information relied on self-reporting, and marketers were only getting a fraction of data they need to accurately understand visitation behavior. Arrivalist is using concrete data to report actual foot-traffic captured in real time. The Colorado recipients of the "ArrivaLIST of Most Visited Places Award" across all categories are as follows: Most Visited Attraction: The Million Dollar Highway The Million Dollar Highway Most Visited Casino: Lady Luck Casino Lady Luck Casino Most Visited Large Hotel & Resort: Hyatt Regency Denver at Colorado Convention Center Hyatt Regency Denver at Convention Center Most Visited Luxury Hotel: The Broadmoor The Broadmoor Most Visited Natural Attraction & Park: Rocky Mountain National Park Most Visited Ski Resort: Breckenridge Ski Resort Arrivalist's technology is paving a way for more accurate and insightful information that can be used to make informed choices regarding tourism across the globe. The company's methodology measures visitors traveling more than 50 miles to a given location, removing the bias of residential traffic. Additionally, Arrivalist only captures unique visitors at each attraction once per trip, allowing the company to offer clients the most precise visitation behavior. "We are thrilled to take our unique tech capabilities in the travel and tourism space and apply them to the ArrivalLIST of Most Visited Places, empowering, not only tourism boards and industry partners, but also anyone who wants to understand consumer visitation patterns," said Matt Clement, vice president of marketing and business development at Arrivalist. "Our work has always been about providing unbiased intelligence into consumer behavior, and the ArrivalLIST is one of the many evolutions of our company that seeks to empower our clients' strategic planning." Today more than 40 of the 50 U.S. states and over 130 destination and travel marketers are leveraging Arrivalist's findings, empowering clients to make informed choices, and finally making self-reported data obsolete. About Arrivalist Arrivalist is the next-generation Visitation Intelligence company that empowers marketers with a new suite of measurements to evaluate the lifetime value of a visitor. The company's patent-pending technology is used by over 130 location marketers around the world. The company analyzes the changing locations of computing devices to provide marketers with unique business intelligence about how consumers interact with the locations they market and how their media attracts visitors. Visit www.arrivalist.com to learn more. Media Contact: Lauren Murray Email: [email protected] Phone: 414.247.2173 SOURCE Arrivalist Related Links http://www.arrivalist.com The first China International Import Expo (CIIE) which runs from Nov. 5 to 10 in Shanghai offers a platform for Kenya to boost its trade with the Asian country, said Li Xuhang, charge d'affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Kenya. "It will be a good opportunity for Kenya to showcase agricultural products to the Chinese market during the expo that will be one of a kind. Kenya has quality farm produce that should be known by consumers in China," said Li. He spoke in Nairobi during a briefing attended by senior Kenyan policymakers, lawmakers, scholars and media representatives ahead of the import expo. President Uhuru Kenyatta will lead a delegation of horticulture farmers and entrepreneurs to the expo where nine companies will showcase products covering a range of areas like agriculture, financial services, tourism and healthcare. Li said the import expo that seeks to encourage the import of foreign goods into the Chinese market will present an opportunity for Kenya to boost its volume of goods and services traded with the world's second largest economy. "The import expo will also be a good opportunity for Kenya to promote its tourism and investment opportunities," said Li. Guo Ce, Economic and Commercial Counsellor at the Chinese Embassy in Kenya, said the East African Nation will showcase its heritage as well as unique agricultural products like flowers, coffee, black tea and nuts at the pavilion. "We sincerely welcome Kenyan exhibitors to take part in CIIE. We believe this is a good beginning for Kenya's advantageous products to explore the Chinese market and expand its exports to China," said Guo. "We recognize that seafood is not an endless resource," said ANF founder and chairman, J. Douglas Hines. "If our planet's resources are not guarded and supplemented with alternative proteins, our future generations will not enjoy simple lifestyle requirements as basic as protein." A former seafood industry executive with a rich history in the tuna industry spanning decades, Hines, until recently, was one of the investors in the largest distant water fishing fleet operating in the western Pacific under U.S. Flag. Insight into the future strain placed on global fisheries is what drove ANF to begin developing TUNO over five years ago and has resulted in the launch today of an innovative seafood alternative. "We are proud of what we helped to accomplish in global fisheries as one of the first fleets to qualify for Marine Steward Council (MSC) certification, the highest standard recognized around the world, for on board safety, sustainable practices and, most importantly, social responsibilityamong our crews. This made the need to create alternative protein sources that could replace everyday foods like tuna our top priority," Hines said. "We leveraged real experience in seafood, including partners around the globe combining 100+ years' experience in harvesting and production, to develop a plant-based innovation that meets the highest standards for product excellence, but also at a family-friendly value that most shoppers can afford." TUNO seafood alternative (MSRP $1.49-$1.99) comes in three tasty, 5 oz. canned varietiesSpring Water with Sea Salt, Lemon Pepper, and Spicy Sriracha. Additionally, Loma Linda offers a similar alternative to seafood (MSRP $1.99) in 3 oz. on-the-go, single-serve pouches, which are available in savory flavors including Lemon Pepper, Thai Sweet Chili and Sesame Ginger, with more flavors on the way. TUNO is available online at Amazon, and will roll out at select natural retailers and traditional grocers including Walmart, Safeway, Sprouts, Food Lion, Meijer, Shaw's, Ingles, Big Y, Price Chopper and Save Mart, between now and early 2019. Along with TUNO's North American launch, the company plans to make the new product available in select global markets. Hines added, "Plant-based protein alternatives are our future, and we're committed to delivering healthful, sustainable foods to future generations." To learn more about Atlantic Natural Foods, please visit www.atlanticnaturalfoods.com, or contact the company at (252) 212-9000 x102 or [email protected] or on LinkedIn. About Atlantic Natural Foods Headquartered in Nashville, NC, Atlantic Natural Foods is the leading shelf stable manufacturer and provider of Loma Linda, Neat and Kaffree Roma brand products. Its mission is to provide affordable, sustainable and healthy sources of plant-based protein food for all lifestyles and people to live healthier, longer lives. The company operates its own manufacturing facility as well as a joint venture project in Thailand. To learn more about Atlantic Natural Foods, please visit www.atlanticnaturalfoods.com or follow the brand on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. SOURCE Atlantic Natural Foods, LLC Related Links http://atlanticnaturalfoods.com COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Big Lots announced today the completion of the company's sixth point-of-sale fundraising campaign benefitting Nationwide Children's Hospital. The "Serve Families. Give Big" campaign included all 1,416 Big Lots stores and over 35,000 Big Lots associates working to collect over $3.2 million dollars in customer donations. "Our team of dedicated associates and Big Lots' customers from all over the country responded generously with donations to make a difference in the lives of families and children across the country. In just over three years, our teams have raised over $17 million dollars through our point of sale campaigns with 100% of all proceeds raised going directly to Nationwide Children's Hospital." stated Tim Johnson, Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Big Lots. "Big Lots and their customers from all over the country continue to demonstrate their kindness following another successful campaign," said Steve Testa, President, Nationwide Children's Hospital Foundation. "This generosity will impact all the patients and families who will walk through Nationwide Children's Hospital's doors for years to come." In addition to its financial commitments and support, Big Lots has partnered with Nationwide Children's Hospital to create the Butterfly Run. The goal of the family-fitness event is to end the stigma often associated with childhood mental illness, as well as raise funds for much needed child and adolescent behavioral health research. Two Butterfly Runs have already taken place, including one in Columbus, Ohio, during the summer and another in Charlotte, N.C., earlier this fall. The third and final Butterfly Run of 2018, will occur in the Phoenix/Tempe area on Nov. 3. In 2016, Big Lots and the Big Lots Foundation announced a $50 million transformational gift to Nationwide Children's to construct the Nationwide Children's Hospital Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion. Scheduled to open in Spring 2020, the Pavilion will be a freestanding facility fully dedicated to children and adolescents with behavioral health conditions and will be the largest behavioral health treatment and research center on a pediatric medical campus in the United States. About Big Lots, Inc. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Big Lots, Inc. (NYSE: BIG) is a community retailer operating more than 1,400 BIG LOTS stores in 47 states, dedicated to friendly service, trustworthy value, and affordable solutions in every season and category furniture, food, decor, and more. We exist to serve everyone like family, providing a better shopping experience for our customers, valuing and developing our associates, and creating growth for our shareholders. Big Lots supports the communities it serves through the Big Lots Foundation, a charitable organization focused on four areas of need: hunger, housing, healthcare, and education. For more information about the Company, visit www.biglots.com. About Nationwide Children's Hospital Named to the Top 10 Honor Roll on U.S. News & World Report 's 2018-19 list of "Best Children's Hospitals," Nationwide Children's Hospital is one of America's largest not-for-profit freestanding pediatric health care systems providing wellness, preventive, diagnostic, treatment and rehabilitative care for infants, children and adolescents, as well as adult patients with congenital disease. Nationwide Children's has a staff of more than 13,000 providing state-of-the-art pediatric care during more than 1.4 million patient visits annually. As home to the Department of Pediatrics of The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Nationwide Children's physicians train the next generation of pediatricians and pediatric specialists. The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital is one of the Top 10 National Institutes of Health-funded freestanding pediatric research facilities. More information is available at NationwideChildrens.org. SOURCE Big Lots, Inc. Related Links http://www.biglots.com BEIJING, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Bitauto Holdings Limited ("Bitauto" or the "Company) (NYSE: BITA), a leading provider of internet content and marketing services, and transaction services for China's fast-growing automotive industry, today announced that it will hold its 2018 annual general meeting of shareholders at 46th Floor, Tower II, JingAn Kerry Centre, 1539 Nanjing West Road, Shanghai 200040, the People's Republic of China at 10 a.m. (Beijing time) on November 30, 2018. No proposal will be submitted for shareholder approval at the annual general meeting. Instead, the annual general meeting will serve as an open forum for shareholders and holders of the Company's American Depositary Shares ("ADSs") to discuss Company affairs with management. The board of directors of the Company has fixed the close of business on November 9, 2018 (Eastern Daylight Time) as the record date (the "Record Date") for determining the shareholders entitled to receive notice of the annual general meeting or any adjournment or postponement thereof. Holders of record of the Company's ordinary shares at the close of business on the Record Date are entitled to attend the annual general meeting and any adjournment or postponement thereof in person. Beneficial owners of the Company's ADSs are welcome to attend the annual general meeting in person. Bitauto has filed its annual report on Form 20-F (the "Annual Report"), which includes the Company's audited financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). Bitauto's Annual Report can be accessed on the investor relations section of its website at http://ir.bitauto.com or on the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov. Holders of the Company's ordinary shares or ADSs may obtain a hard copy of the Annual Report, free of charge, by emailing to [email protected] or by writing to: Bitauto Holdings Limited 10th Floor, New Century Hotel Office Tower No. 6 South Capital Stadium Road Beijing 100044, People's Republic of China Attention: IR Department About Bitauto Holdings Limited Bitauto Holdings Limited (NYSE: BITA) is a leading provider of internet content & marketing services, and transaction services for China's fast-growing automotive industry. Bitauto's business consists of three segments: advertising and subscription business, transaction services business and digital marketing solutions business. Bitauto's advertising and subscription business provides a variety of advertising services to automakers through the bitauto.com website and corresponding mobile apps. The website and mobile apps provide consumers with up-to-date automobile pricing and promotional information, specifications, reviews and consumer feedback. Bitauto also provides transaction-focused online advertisements and promotional services to its business partners via Yixin's online platform for automakers, automobile dealers, auto finance partners and insurance companies. Bitauto offers subscription services via its SaaS platform, which provides web-based and mobile-based integrated digital marketing solutions to automobile dealers in China. The SaaS platform enables automobile dealer subscribers to create their own online showrooms, list pricing and promotional information, provide automobile dealer contact information, place advertisements and manage customer relationships to help them reach a broad set of purchase-minded customers and effectively market their automobiles to consumers online. Bitauto's transaction services business is primarily conducted by its controlled subsidiary, Yixin Group Limited (SEHK: 2858), a leading online automobile retail transaction platform in China, which provides transaction platform services as well as self-operated financing services. Bitauto's digital marketing solutions business provides automakers with one-stop digital marketing solutions, including website creation and maintenance, online public relations, online marketing campaigns, advertising agent services, big data applications and digital image creation. For more information, please visit ir.bitauto.com. For investor and media inquiries, please contact: Suki Li Bitauto Holdings Limited Phone: +86-10-6849-2145 [email protected] Clarisse Pan Foote Group Phone: +86-10-8429-9544 [email protected] SOURCE Bitauto Holdings Limited Related Links http://ir.bitauto.com JERSEY CITY, N.J., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- BNY Mellon's Pershing Advisor Solutions today announced that Managed360, a turnkey managed account solution designed to help advisors realize increased efficiencies and drive scale, is now available to its clients. The announcement comes on the heels of the introduction of ManagedConnecta dual contract managed account offeringunderscoring Pershing's commitment to supporting growth in the registered investment advisor (RIA) market. Managed360 is a wrap program offered through BNY Mellon's Lockwood Advisors, Inc. (Lockwood), an affiliate of Pershing LLC. The program brings Lockwood's long history of expertise in managed accounts to Pershing Advisor Solutions clients. "As investor attitudes and demands change, advisors are increasingly being challenged to define their unique value proposition and investor experience," says Gabriel Garcia, managing director and head of relationship management at BNY Mellon's Pershing Advisor Solutions. "In addressing these challenges, solutions that help advisors serve investors more effectively and efficiently are becoming all that more critical to the success and scalability of the business. By bringing Managed360 to our clients, we believe we are filling an important need in the marketplace and further advancing our commitment to delivering advisors an ever broader set of products and solutions." Managed360, now available on Pershing Advisor Solutions' brokerage platform, pairs investment selection, due diligence and comprehensive proposal and reporting capabilities with institutional-quality research delivered by Lockwood and supported by the BNY Mellon Manager Research Group. The program features a diverse set of investment solutionsincluding separately managed accounts, unified managed accounts, mutual fund wrap accounts and third-party strategistsas well as a faster onboarding process, among other enhanced functionality. "Managed360 is designed to deliver a scalable, ready-to-use solution to help advisors streamline investment and account management," says Joel Hempel, Lockwood's chief operating officer. "Efficiencies created by the turnkey solution are designed to allow advisors more time to focus on investors and growing their business." Managed360 is fully integrated within Pershing's technology platform, NetX360, providing advisors with the opportunity to leverage one technology platform for all their assets and drive better operational efficiencies. ManagedConnect, launched earlier this year, allows RIAs to design customized portfolios by seamlessly connecting their investors to a wide array of money managers via a flexible, open-architecture managed account platform. The solution currently offers more than 180 strategies from industry leading and boutique SMA money managers. "Dualcontract offerings represent a rapidly growing part of our business," says Ben Harrison, head of new business development at BNY Mellon's Pershing Advisor Solutions. "ManagedConnect provides RIAs with access to a roster of published dual contract managers through a simplified and more expedient onboarding process. By the same token, the platform allows managers to get increased exposure among the rapidly growing RIA segment. We are thrilled to bring this solution to the market, which we believe will help RIA firms drive growth and stay competitive." About BNY Mellon's Pershing BNY Mellon's Pershing and its affiliates provide advisors, broker-dealers, family offices, hedge fund and '40 Act fund managers, registered investment advisor firms and wealth managers with a broad suite of global financial business solutions. Many of the world's most sophisticated and successful financial services firms rely on Pershing for clearing and custody, investment and retirement solutions, technology, enterprise data management, trading services, prime brokerage and business consulting. Pershing helps clients improve profitability and drive growth, create capacity and efficiency, attract and retain talent, and manage risk and regulation. With a network of 23 offices worldwide, Pershing provides business-to-business solutions to clients representing more than seven million investor accounts globally. Pershing LLC (member FINRA, NYSE, SIPC) is a BNY Mellon company. Additional information is available on pershing.com, or follow us on Twitter @Pershing. About BNY Mellon's Pershing Advisor Solutions BNY Mellon's Pershing Advisor Solutions is a leading provider of business management, execution and financing and custody solutions serving professionally managed, growth-oriented advisory, wealth management and institutional providers serving clients with complex financial lives. Pershing Advisor Solutions is a true business-to-business provider offering cutting-edge solutionsfrom private banking to alternative investments to global capabilitiesto help clients run their business more efficiently and service clients more effectively. Pershing Advisor Solutions LLC, member FINRA, SIPC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY Mellon). To learn more, visit us online or connect with us on LinkedIn or Twitter. About BNY Mellon's Lockwood Advisors, Inc. BNY Mellon's Lockwood Advisors, Inc. is a leading provider of managed account solutions. As a program sponsor, Lockwood offers access to some of the industry's leading investment managers, provides independent research on separate account managers, and develops advisory solutions to help investment professionals meet the diverse needs of their clients. Lockwood also offers discretionary portfolio management solutions through financial institutions and independent registered investment advisers. Lockwood receives certain research services from BNY Mellon's Manager Research Group in manager research, due diligence and ongoing monitoring, Lockwood Advisors, Inc. is an investment adviser registered in the United States under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, an affiliate of Pershing LLC and a wholly owned subsidiary of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY Mellon). About BNY Mellon BNY Mellon is a global investments company dedicated to helping its clients manage and service their financial assets throughout the investment lifecycle. Whether providing financial services for institutions, corporations or individual investors, BNY Mellon delivers informed investment management and investment services in 35 countries. As of September 30, 2018, BNY Mellon had $34.5 trillion in assets under custody and/or administration, and $1.8 trillion in assets under management. BNY Mellon can act as a single point of contact for clients looking to create, trade, hold, manage, service, distribute or restructure investments. BNY Mellon is the corporate brand of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE: BK). Additional information is available on www.bnymellon.com. Follow us on Twitter @BNYMellon or visit our newsroom at www.bnymellon.com/newsroom for the latest company news. Lockwood is the sponsor of Managed360, a wrap fee program for which it provides investment advisory and overlay services. Pershing is not a registered investment adviser and does not offer investment advisory products, programs or services. Pershing provides wholesaling support, proposal generation and billing services. Investment advisory and overlay services provided by Lockwood. For more information about Lockwood, as well as its products, fees and services, please refer to the Form ADV Part 2, Wrap Fee Brochure for the Managed360 Program, which may be obtained through your financial advisor or by writing to Lockwood at: 760 Moore Road, King of Prussia, PA 19406, or by calling (800) 200-3033, option 3. Sanuber Grohe +1 201 413 2247 [email protected] SOURCE BNY Mellon Related Links http://www.bnymellon.com CHICAGO, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Combined Insurance, a leading provider of individual supplemental accident, disability, health, and life insurance products, and a Chubb company, continues to educate consumers on the importance of breast cancer awareness as October comes to a close. Breast cancer affects American women and men year-round; and supplemental insurance benefits can be used to cover the unexpected out-of-pocket costs associated with a diagnosis. "At Combined, we give our time, effort and dedication to not only fundraise for cancer treatment, but also take the time to empathize with our customers who may now be using their policy benefits to cover costs as a result of a cancer diagnosis," said Ken McIntyre, SVP, Operations at Combined Insurance. "Breast cancer awareness is important to us and we see the impact of how our products can help ease the financial burden during a time when consumers need us most." In recent years, breast cancer incidents and death rates have gradually declined, especially in women over 50. This is part due to better screening and early detection, increased awareness and continually improving treatment options.1 Combined Insurance understands that while cancer survival rates have improved in recent years, it is still important to take the necessary steps to protect against the disease and the costs associated with treatment. Supplemental insurance provides cash benefits directly to the insured for covered losses, which can be used to help cover some of the out-of-pocket expenses associated with cancer treatment and recovery.i In addition to the supplemental products, Combined Insurance honors their founder's legacy by giving back to various health-focused organizations, including those that aid cancer research, treatment and support. On October 20th, twenty employees from Combined Insurance and their family members participated in the American Cancer Society Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk in Chicago for the fourth consecutive year. The walk raises awareness and funds to save lives from breast cancer. This year, their team raised nearly $7,000 to support the fight against breast cancer. Corporate employees designated a day to wear pink in honor of the awareness month and hosted fundraisers to benefit the American Cancer Society. And, the company also participated earlier this year at the American Cancer Society's Walk and Roll Chicago, which brings together thousands to honor, raise money and support all cancer during April's Cancer Control Month. Combined Insurance Company of America has an A+ (Superior) financial strength rating by A.M. Best, one of the world's top insurance rating firms. The company has also been recognized for eight consecutive years on Ward's 50 Top Performing Health-Life Insurance Companies list. About Combined Insurance Combined Insurance Company of America (Chicago, Ill.) is a leading provider of individual supplemental accident & health, disability, and life insurance products and a Chubb company. With a tradition of nearly 100 years of success, Combined Insurance is committed to making the world of supplemental insurance easy to understand. The company has an A+ rating by the Better Business Bureau and is one of Ward's Top 50 Performing Life-Health Insurance Companies. Combined Insurance is ranked the number one Military Friendly Employer in the over $1B revenue category for 2019 by VIQTORY. This is the company's eighth consecutive year on the top 10 list and fifth consecutive year in the top 5Combined Insurance was previously named the number one Military Friendly Employer in the nation for 2015 and 2016. For more information, please visit combinedinsurance.com. About Chubb Chubb is the world's largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company. With operations in 54 countries, Chubb provides commercial and personal property and casualty insurance, personal accident and supplemental health insurance, reinsurance and life insurance to a diverse group of clients. As an underwriting company, we assess, assume and manage risk with insight and discipline. We service and pay our claims fairly and promptly. The company is also defined by its extensive product and service offerings, broad distribution capabilities, exceptional financial strength and local operations globally. Parent company Chubb Limited is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: CB) and is a component of the S&P 500 index. Chubb maintains executive offices in Zurich, New York, London and other locations, and employs approximately 31,000 people worldwide. Additional information can be found at: chubb.com. 1 (n.d.). Breast Cancer Facts :: The National Breast Cancer Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/breast-cancer-facts i See the actual policy for complete details of the policy plans, features, benefits, options, rates, definitions, limitations, and exclusions. Products vary by state and are subject to availability and qualifications. Products underwritten by Combined Insurance Company of America (CICA) in all states except New York. In New York, products underwritten by Combined Life Insurance Company of New York (Latham, NY). CICA is not licensed and does not solicit business in NY. SOURCE Combined Insurance Related Links http://www.combinedinsurance.com CSE:CRL FSE:7C5 OTC:CDTAF VANCOUVER, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Carl Data Solutions Inc. (CSE:CRL, FSE:7C5, OTC:CDTAF) ("Carl Data" or the "Company") CEO and President, Greg Johnston will be speaking on a panel of edge computing experts at the inaugural Greater Vancouver Data Center Summit, on November 1st. Life on the Edge: The Advent of 5G, Micro Data Centres & Evolution of the Next Generation will feature experts from the world of data centre efficiency, to discuss the role of data centers for the creation of smart cities and regions by supporting distributed communications networks. "It was great time to be invited to speak at this event after our acquisition of Astra Earth," said Greg. "We are rapidly developing technologies to capitalize on our data center assets, while looking at using our core IoT platform to expediate smart city deployments." Over 400 senior-level data centre real-estate and technology infrastructure experts from public and private companies are expected to attend, including active developers, investors, capital sources, end-users, public sector executives, engineers and consultants. Speakers at the event will offer comprehensive market analysis of the opportunities and challenges facing data centres. Register here to attend: Greater Vancouver Data Center Summit About Carl Data Solutions Inc. Carl Data Solutions Inc. is an Industrial IoT (IIoT) company focused on providing next generation information collection, storage and analytics solutions for data-centric companies. Building on its recent acquisitions, Carl helps its clients analyze and understand all forms of environmental data through a powerful platform of data collection, monitoring, reporting, and predictive analysis tools. Carl Data continues to develop applications to work with new cloud-based mass storage services and analytics tools (Big-Data-as-a-Service (BDaaS) to provide scalability for municipalities, utilities and other industrial verticals. These data collection and storage methods allow the company to build smart Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based applications that can collect data from many diverse sources and provide deep insight for decision-making purposes. More information can be found at www.CarlSolutions.com. On behalf of the Board of Directors: Greg Johnston President, Chief Executive Officer, Director Carl Data Solutions Inc. The Canadian Securities Exchange (operated by CNSX Markets Inc.) has neither approved nor disapproved of the contents of this press release. SOURCE Carl Data Solutions Inc. Related Links www.CarlSolutions.com CLEVELAND, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- THIRD-QUARTER HIGHLIGHTS: TOTAL REVENUE +8.0% SAME-UNIT REVENUE +6.3% EPS FROM CONTINUING OPERATIONS +33.3% NINE-MONTH HIGHLIGHTS: TOTAL REVENUE +9.5% SAME-UNIT REVENUE +6.0% EPS FROM CONTINUING OPERATIONS +33.7% CBIZ, Inc. (NYSE: CBZ) (the "Company") today announced third-quarter and nine-month results for the period ended September 30, 2018. For the 2018 third quarter, CBIZ reported revenue of $224.2 million, an increase of $16.5 million, or 8%, over the $207.7 million reported in 2017. Same-unit revenue increased by $13 million, or 6.3%, for the quarter, compared with the same period a year ago. Newly acquired operations contributed $3.5 million, or 1.7%, to revenue in the quarter. CBIZ reported income from continuing operations of $13.6 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, in the 2018 third quarter, compared with $9.9 million, or $0.18 per diluted share, for the same period a year ago. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was $24.4 million, compared with $23.7 million for the third quarter of 2017. For the nine-month period ended September 30, 2018, CBIZ reported revenue of $723 million, an increase of $62.8 million, or 9.5%, over the $660.2 million recorded for 2017. Same-unit revenue increased by $39.4 million, or 6%, compared with the same period a year ago. Acquisitions contributed $23.4 million, or 3.5%, to revenue growth in the first nine months. Income from continuing operations was $62.5 million, or $1.11 per diluted share, for the first nine months of 2018, compared with $46.3 million, or $0.83 per diluted share, for the same period a year ago. Adjusted EBITDA was $104.3 million, compared with $95.1 million for 2017. During the quarter and nine months ended September 30, 2018, the Company recorded expenses of approximately $600,000 and $3.5 million due to the increase in share price from $23.00 at June 30, 2018 and $15.45 at December 30, 2017, respectively. The Company is required to mark-to-market anticipated future share issuances related to contingent acquisition earnout liabilities, as well as share equivalents in the Company's non-executive, equity-aligned cash bonus plan. These items are primarily reflected in Other income, net, with a small portion reflected in Operating expenses. Jerry Grisko, CBIZ President and Chief Executive Officer, said, "We are very pleased to report strong growth in revenue and earnings for the third quarter and the first nine months of this year, led by continued strong client demand for our core tax and accounting, advisory, and government healthcare consulting services. We are also pleased with the performance of the acquisitions that we have closed in 2018, which are expected to contribute approximately $9.1 million to annual revenue. With $226 million of unused financing capacity on our unsecured credit facility, we have sufficient funds available to continue to add acquisitions that strengthen our geographic footprint and enhance our client service offerings." Grisko continued, "In addition to acquisition activity, we have made a number of other strategic investments to strengthen the future growth and performance of our businesses. We launched our first national cable television advertising campaign in the third quarter to improve brand recognition and we have continued to invest in hiring and developing new business producers within our Benefits and Insurance Services group. It is expected that these investments will continue through the balance of this year and into 2019." 2018 Outlook The Company expects growth in total revenue to be near the high end of a range of 5% to 8%. The Company expects to report an effective tax rate of approximately 24% as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, although a number of factors may impact the tax rate. The Company expects a weighted average fully diluted share count of approximately 56.0 to 56.5 million shares for full-year 2018. The Company expects to achieve growth in fully diluted earnings per share within a range of 13% to 17% over the $0.92 reported for full-year 2017. Adjusted for the one-time 2017 impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the Company expects to achieve growth within a range of 20% to 24% over the adjusted $0.87 reported for 2017. Conference Call CBIZ will host a conference call at 11:00 a.m. (ET) today to discuss its results. The call will be webcast live for the media and the public, and can be accessed at www.cbiz.com. Shareholders and analysts who would like to participate in the call can register at http://dpregister.com/10125170 to receive the dial-in number and unique personal identification number. Participants may register at any time, including up to and after the call start time. A replay of the webcast will be made available approximately two hours following the call on the Company's web site at www.cbiz.com. For those without internet access, a replay of the call will also be available starting at approximately 1:00 p.m. (ET), October 31, through 5:00 p.m. (ET), November 5, 2018. The toll-free dial-in number for the replay is 1-877-344-7529. If you are listening from outside the United States, dial 1-412-317-0088. The access code for the replay is 10125170. About CBIZ CBIZ, Inc. provides professional business services that help clients better manage their finances, employees and insurance needs. CBIZ provides its clients with financial services including accounting, tax, financial advisory, government healthcare consulting, risk advisory and valuation services. Benefits and insurance services include group health benefits consulting, property and casualty insurance, retirement plan consulting, payroll and HR consulting. As a leading provider of accounting, insurance and other professional consulting services to businesses throughout the United States, the Company's services are provided through more than 100 Company offices in 33 states. For more information, please visit www.cbiz.com. Forward-Looking Statements Forward-looking statements in this release are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the Company's ability to adequately manage and sustain its growth; the Company's dependence on the current trend of outsourcing business services; the Company's dependence on the services of its CEO and other key employees; competitive pricing pressures; general business and economic conditions; and changes in governmental regulation and tax laws affecting the Company's insurance business or its business services operations. A more detailed description of such risks and uncertainties may be found in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov. CBIZ, INC. FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS (UNAUDITED) THREE MONTHS ENDED SEPTEMBER 30, 2018 AND 2017 (In thousands, except percentages and per share data) THREE MONTHS ENDED SEPTEMBER 30, 2018 % 2017 % Revenue $ 224,249 100.0 % $ 207,723 100.0 % Operating expenses (1) 198,607 88.6 % 184,723 88.9 % Gross margin 25,642 11.4 % 23,000 11.1 % Corporate general and administrative expenses (1) 10,279 4.5 % 7,979 3.8 % Operating income 15,363 6.9 % 15,021 7.3 % Other (expense) income: Interest expense (1,614) -0.8 % (1,777) -0.9 % Other income, net (1) (2) 3,143 1.4 % 2,792 1.3 % Total other income, net 1,529 0.6 % 1,015 0.4 % Income from continuing operations before income tax expense 16,892 7.5 % 16,036 7.7 % Income tax expense 3,297 6,172 Income from continuing operations 13,595 6.1 % 9,864 4.7 % Loss from operations of discontinued businesses, net of tax (9) (206) Net income $ 13,586 6.1 % $ 9,658 4.6 % Diluted earnings per share: Continuing operations $ 0.24 $ 0.18 Discontinued operations - - Net income $ 0.24 $ 0.18 Diluted weighted average common shares outstanding 56,740 55,827 Other data from continuing operations: Adjusted EBITDA (3) $ 24,358 $ 23,701 (1) CBIZ sponsors a deferred compensation plan, under which a CBIZ employee's compensation deferral is held in a rabbi trust and invested accordingly as directed by the employee. Income and expenses related to the deferred compensation plan are included in "Operating expenses" ($3 million expense in 2018 and $2.7 million expense in 2017, or (1.4%) and (1.3%) of revenue, respectively) and "Corporate general and administrative expenses" ($0.4 million expense in both 2018 and 2017, respectively, or (0.1%) and (0.1%) of revenue, respectively) and are directly offset by deferred compensation gains or losses in "Other income, net" ($3.4 million income in 2018 and $3 million income in 2017, or 1.5% and 1.4% of revenue, respectively). The deferred compensation plan has no impact on "Income from continuing operations before income tax expense." (2) Included in "Other income, net" for the three months ended September 30, 2018 and 2017, is income of $0.2 million and $0.5 million, respectively, related to net changes in the fair value of contingent consideration related to CBIZ's prior acquisitions. (3) Refer to the financial highlights tables for a reconciliation of Non-GAAP financial measures to the nearest generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP") financial measure, and for additional information as to the usefulness of the Non-GAAP financial measures to shareholders and investors. CBIZ, INC. FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS (UNAUDITED) NINE MONTHS ENDED SEPTEMBER 30, 2018 AND 2017 (In thousands, except percentages and per share data) NINE MONTHS ENDED SEPTEMBER 30, 2018 % 2017 % Revenue $ 722,980 100.0 % $ 660,198 100.0 % Operating expenses (1) 608,459 84.2 % 565,609 85.7 % Gross margin 114,521 15.8 % 94,589 14.3 % Corporate general and administrative expenses (1) 30,300 4.2 % 25,979 3.9 % Operating income 84,221 11.6 % 68,610 10.4 % Other (expense) income: Interest expense (5,211) -0.7 % (4,986) -0.8 % Gain on sale of operations, net 663 0.1 % 45 0.0 % Other income, net (1) (2) 2,544 0.4 % 9,293 1.5 % Total other (expense) income, net (2,004) -0.2 % 4,352 0.7 % Income from continuing operations before income tax expense 82,217 11.4 % 72,962 11.1 % Income tax expense 19,691 26,656 Income from continuing operations 62,526 8.6 % 46,306 7.0 % Gain (loss) from operations of discontinued businesses, net of tax 17 (776) Net income $ 62,543 8.7 % $ 45,530 6.9 % Diluted earnings (loss) per share: Continuing operations $ 1.11 $ 0.83 Discontinued operations - (0.01) Net income $ 1.11 $ 0.82 Diluted weighted average common shares outstanding 56,393 55,641 Other data from continuing operations: Adjusted EBITDA (3) $ 104,293 $ 95,070 (1) CBIZ sponsors a deferred compensation plan, as discussed in the quarterly footnote section. Income and expenses related to the deferred compensation plan are included in "Operating expenses" ($4.7 million expense in 2018 and $7.6 million expense in 2017, or (0.7%) and (1.2%) of revenue, respectively) and "Corporate general and administrative expenses" ($0.5 million expense in 2018 and $0.8 million expense in 2017, or (0.2%) and (0.1%) of revenue, respectively) and are directly offset by deferred compensation gains or losses in "Other income, net" ($5.2 million income in 2018 and $8.4 million income in 2017, or 0.9% and 1.3% of revenue, respectively). The deferred compensation plan has no impact on "Income from continuing operations before income tax expense." (2) Included in "Other income, net" for the nine months ended September 30, 2018 is expense of $3.3 million related to net changes in the fair value of contingent consideration which is mostly attributable to the required mark-to-market accounting of future share issuances for contingent acquisitions. For the same period in 2017, "Other income, net" included $0.2 million of income related to net changes in the fair value of contingent consideration related to CBIZ's prior acquisitions. (3) Refer to the financial highlights tables for a reconciliation of Non-GAAP financial measures to the nearest GAAP financial measure, and for additional information as to the usefulness of the Non-GAAP financial measures to shareholders and investors. CBIZ, INC. FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS (UNAUDITED) (In thousands) SELECT SEGMENT DATA THREE MONTHS ENDED NINE MONTHS ENDED SEPTEMBER 30, SEPTEMBER 30, 2018 2017 2018 2017 Revenue Financial Services $ 146,145 $ 130,305 $ 478,485 $ 421,529 Benefits and Insurance Services 70,069 69,663 220,152 215,386 National Practices 8,035 7,755 24,343 23,283 Total $ 224,249 $ 207,723 $ 722,980 $ 660,198 Gross Margin Financial Services $ 21,599 $ 17,309 $ 91,836 $ 73,293 Benefits and Insurance Services 10,670 10,508 38,455 36,212 National Practices 521 646 1,987 1,932 Operating expenses - unallocated (1): Other (4,126) (2,779) (13,010) (9,220) Deferred compensation (3,022) (2,684) (4,747) (7,628) Total $ 25,642 $ 23,000 $ 114,521 $ 94,589 (1) Represents operating expenses not directly allocated to individual businesses, including stock-based compensation, consolidation and integration charges, and certain advertising expenses. "Operating expenses - unallocated" also include gains or losses attributable to the assets held in the Company's deferred compensation plan. These gains or losses do not impact "Income from continuing operations before income tax expense" as they are directly offset by the same adjustment to "Other income, net" in the Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income. Net gains/losses recognized from adjustments to the fair value of the assets held in the deferred compensation plan are recorded as compensation expense in "Operating expenses" and as income in "Other income, net." CBIZ, INC. SELECT CASH FLOW DATA (In thousands) NINE MONTHS ENDED SEPTEMBER 30, 2018 2017 Net income $ 62,543 $ 45,530 Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided by operating activities: Depreciation and amortization expense 17,528 17,167 Bad debt expense, net of recoveries 3,697 4,265 Adjustments to contingent earnout liability 3,290 (221) Stock-based compensation expense 5,358 4,247 Other noncash adjustments (1,989) (3,273) Net income, after adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided by operating activities 90,427 67,715 Changes in assets and liabilities, net of acquisitions and divestitures (26,993) (29,116) Operating cash flows provided by continuing operations 63,434 38,599 Operating cash used in discontinued operations (162) (748) Net cash provided by operating activities 63,272 37,851 Net cash provided by investing activities 42,201 43,463 Net cash used in financing activities (102,838) (79,306) Net increase in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash $ 2,635 $ 2,008 CBIZ, INC. SELECT FINANCIAL DATA AND RATIOS (In thousands) SEPTEMBER 30, DECEMBER 31, 2018 2017 Cash and cash equivalents $ 3,493 $ 424 Restricted cash 32,551 32,985 Accounts receivable, net 234,906 188,300 Current assets before funds held for clients 297,526 245,061 Funds held for clients - current and non-current 126,311 203,112 Goodwill and other intangible assets, net 636,202 613,206 Total assets $ 1,189,856 $ 1,176,231 Notes payable - current $ 1,523 $ 1,861 Current liabilities before client fund obligations 154,500 130,664 Client fund obligations 127,297 203,582 Notes payable - long-term 1,480 2,164 Bank debt 165,482 177,672 Total liabilities $ 587,941 $ 645,352 Treasury stock $ (499,167) $ (491,046) Total stockholders' equity $ 601,915 $ 530,879 Debt to equity 28.0 % 34.2 % Days sales outstanding (DSO) - continuing operations (1) 81 75 Shares outstanding 55,492 54,592 Basic weighted average common shares outstanding 54,489 53,862 Diluted weighted average common shares outstanding 56,393 55,689 (1) DSO is provided for continuing operations and represents accounts receivable, net, at the end of the period, divided by trailing twelve month daily revenue. The Company has included DSO data because such data is commonly used as a performance measure by analysts and investors and as a measure of the Company's ability to collect on receivables in a timely manner. DSO should not be regarded as an alternative or replacement to any measurement of performance under GAAP. DSO at September 30, 2017 was 84. CBIZ, INC. GAAP RECONCILIATION Income from Continuing Operations to Non-GAAP Financial Measures (1) (In thousands) THREE MONTHS ENDED NINE MONTHS ENDED SEPTEMBER 30, SEPTEMBER 30, 2018 2017 2018 2017 Income from continuing operations $ 13,595 $ 9,864 $ 62,526 $ 46,306 Interest expense 1,614 1,777 5,211 4,986 Income tax expense 3,297 6,172 19,691 26,656 Gain on sale of operations, net - - (663) (45) Depreciation 1,465 1,402 4,383 3,864 Amortization 4,387 4,486 13,145 13,303 Adjusted EBITDA $ 24,358 $ 23,701 $ 104,293 $ 95,070 (1) CBIZ reports its financial results in accordance with GAAP. This table reconciles Non-GAAP financial measures to the nearest GAAP financial measure, "Income from continuing operations." Adjusted EBITDA is not defined by GAAP and should not be regarded as an alternative or replacement to any measurement of performance or cash flow under GAAP. Adjusted EBITDA is commonly used by the Company, its shareholders and debt holders to evaluate, assess and benchmark the Company's operational results and to provide an additional measure with respect to the Company's ability to meet future debt obligations. Guidance on 2018 Earnings Per Diluted Share from Continuing Operations Low High 2018 outlook growth in earnings per diluted share 13 % 17 % 2018 outlook earnings per diluted share $ 1.04 $ 1.08 2018 outlook growth in adjusted earnings per diluted share, excluding impact of Tax Cuts and Jobs Act 20 % 24 % SOURCE CBIZ, Inc. Related Links http://www.cbiz.com WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Cloud for Utilities today announced Chad Sweet, Co-Founder and CEO of The Chertoff Group, will be returning as a keynote speaker for the 2018 Summit. Chad will speak on cybersecurity threats to America's energy infrastructure on Thursday, November 15th at the Fairmont Washington, D.C., Georgetown. "Cybersecurity is a continually evolving and pressing issue as businesses transition to the cloud for their client services. I look forward to speaking once again at the Cloud for Utilities Summit to share new cybersecurity considerations and strategies as utilities look to the cloud," said Chad Sweet, Co-Founder and CEO, The Chertoff Group. "With cybersecurity concerns at the forefront of new technology innovations, we are thrilled to welcome Chad Sweet back to the Cloud for Utilities stage," said Amos Snead, Managing Director, Cloud for Utilities. "Chad has over ten years of cybersecurity-focused experience, and we know his insights will be invaluable to this year's attendees." In addition to his position at The Chertoff Group - a global advisory firm and investment bank exclusively focused on the security sector - Mr. Sweet formerly served as the Chief of Staff of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Prior to becoming Chief of Staff of DHS, Mr. Sweet worked as an investment banker at the firms of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs as well as served in the CIA's National Clandestine Service. About Cloud for Utilities Cloud for Utilities is the preeminent resource for cloud business models and digital technologies for the utility industry. The organization focuses on education, supporting career advancement, improving organization success, and driving thought leadership around cloud business models and digital transformations for the utility industry. The second annual Cloud for Utilities Summit will be held November 14 16, 2018 at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington DC. Register here. To learn more about Cloud for Utilities, visit CloudForUtilities.org. Contact: Tara Bauer [email protected] SOURCE Cloud for Utilities Related Links http://www.cloudforutilities.org As well as the extensive business opportunities, the comprehensive three-day agenda will provide delegates with up-to-date market outlooks; developments in supply, demand, and logistics; the latest technologies; trade; and dedicated sessions on specialty fertilizers. Dominic Halahan, Portfolio Director for Fertilizer Events at CRU said, "The Fertilizer Latino Americano conference is by far the largest and most commercially significant gathering of the region's fertilizer industry. Mexico City is a popular location for hosting the conference and 2019 will be another excellent meeting." Running alongside the conference is an exhibition showcasing the latest products and services. To get involved please contact Paul Terry at [email protected] or call +44-(0)-20-7903-2131. A private meeting room, bookable in advance, will also allow you to schedule in vital meetings in ahead of the conference. CRU is delighted to have OCP, Indorama, ICL and Ma'aden already confirmed as sponsors, and the company is also working closely with ANACOFER, International Fertilizer Industry Association, Fertilizar, and Abisolo on the event. Please visit www.fla-conference.com to find more details and to and book your place. The Fertilizer Latino Americano conference is produced in collaboration with Argus. Read more about CRU: http://bit.ly/About_CRU About CRU: CRU offers unrivalled business intelligence on the global metals, mining and fertilizer industries through market analysis, price assessments, consultancy and events. Since our foundation by Robert Perlman in 1969, we have consistently invested in primary research and robust methodologies, and developed expert teams in key locations worldwide, including in hard-to-reach markets such as China. CRU employs over 260 experts and has more than 10 offices around the world, in Europe, the Americas, China, Asia and Australia our office in Beijing opened in 2004. When facing critical business decisions, you can rely on our first-hand knowledge to give you a complete view of a commodity market. And you can engage with our experts directly, for the full picture and a personalised response. CRU big enough to deliver a high-quality service, small enough to care about all of our customers. About CRU Events: CRU Events has a well-established portfolio of events for the metals, mining and fertilizer industries, including Wire & Cable, World Optical Fibre & Cable, World Copper and CRU Ryan's Notes Ferroalloys. SOURCE CRU CHANTILLY, Va., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Engility Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: EGL) today announced financial results for the third quarter ended September 28, 2018. CEO Commentary "We had a strong third quarter delivering a company record quarterly book-to-bill ratio, as well as revenue, profitability, and cash flow results that exceeded our expectations. These results give us further confidence that we will achieve organic revenue growth in 2019," said Lynn Dugle, Chairman, President and CEO of Engility. "We look forward to our combination with SAIC to form the second largest independent technology integrator with complementary portfolios and similar cultures. We believe this merger provides compelling value for our shareholders through an improved capital structure that supports additional organic and inorganic investment, an attractive dividend, an ability to participate in the upside from cost and revenue synergies, and an enhanced competitive position." Third Quarter 2018 Results Total revenue for the third quarter of 2018 was $471 million. GAAP operating income was $27 million and GAAP operating margin was 5.7%. GAAP net income attributable to Engility was $4 million, or $0.11 per diluted share, after recording $17 million of income taxes and non-core operating costs, which reduced net income by $0.46 per diluted share. Cash taxes paid in the third quarter of 2018 were $0.1 million. EBITDA was $38 million and EBITDA margin was 8.0%. Adjusted operating income was $40 million and adjusted operating margin was 8.4%. Adjusted EBITDA was $44 million and adjusted EBITDA margin was 9.4%. Information about the company's use of non-GAAP financial information is provided below under "Non-GAAP Measures" and in the non-GAAP reconciliation tables included herein. Key Performance Indicators Book-to-bill ratio for the third quarter of 2018 was 2.4x on net bookings of $1.1 billion , and trailing twelve-month book-to-bill ratio was 1.2x on net bookings of $2.2 billion . 1 , and trailing twelve-month book-to-bill ratio was 1.2x on net bookings of . Total estimated contract value at the end of the third quarter of 2018 was $4 billion , a 9% increase from the third quarter of 2017. , a 9% increase from the third quarter of 2017. For the third quarter of 2018, days sales outstanding, net of advanced payments, were 58 days and cash flow generated from operating activities was $42 million . . During the third quarter of 2018, the company made total debt payments of $30 million . Total debt payments for the first nine months of 2018 were $75 million . 1 Third quarter 2018 and trailing-twelve month bookings include approximately $400 million of contract value that is under protest. The company is optimistic that the protest will be resolved in its favor. Third Quarter 2018 Contract Awards Awarded more than $550 million in net bookings within the Intelligence industry. in net bookings within the Intelligence industry. Awarded more than $320 million in net bookings within the Space industry. in net bookings within the Space industry. Awarded more than $235 million in net bookings within the Defense industry. Fiscal Year 2018 Guidance Based on Engility's financial results for the first nine months of 2018 and its current outlook for the remainder of 2018, the company is reiterating its fiscal year 2018 guidance issued on August 1, 2018, excluding SAIC transaction-related expenses and the impact from certain non-cash tax adjustments. Conference Call Information Engility will host a conference call today, October 31, 2018, at 8:30 a.m. ET to discuss the financial results for its third quarter 2018. Listeners may access a webcast of the live conference call from the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.engility.com. Listeners also may access a slide presentation on the website, which summarizes the company's third quarter 2018 results. Listeners should go to the website at least 15 minutes before the live event to download and install any necessary audio software. Listeners also may participate in the conference call by dialing (888) 655-5029 (domestic) or (503) 343-6026 (international) and entering passcode 5578958. A replay will be available on the company's website approximately two hours after the conference call and continuing for one year. A telephonic replay also will be available through November 7, 2018 by dialing (855) 859-2056 (domestic) or (404) 537-3406 (international) and entering passcode 5578958. About Engility Engility (NYSE: EGL), a $2 billion technology leader, has thousands of employees around the world working to make a difference. Our history of delivering results for the defense, federal civilian, intelligence and space industries spans more than 60 years. We provide leading-edge solutions and services on Earth, in space and across cyber by leveraging expertise in systems engineering & integration, high performance computing, cybersecurity, readiness & training, enterprise modernization and mission operations support. To learn more about us, please visit www.engility.com and connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. No Offer or Solicitation This communication is for informational purposes only and not intended to and does not constitute an offer to subscribe for, buy or sell, the solicitation of an offer to subscribe for, buy or sell or an invitation to subscribe for, buy or sell any securities or the solicitation of any vote or approval in any jurisdiction pursuant to or in connection with the proposed transaction or otherwise, nor shall there be any sale, issuance or transfer of securities in any jurisdiction in contravention of applicable law. No offer of securities shall be made except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and otherwise in accordance with applicable law. Additional Information and Where to Find It In connection with the proposed acquisition of Engility, SAIC has filed with the SEC a registration statement on Form S-4 to register the shares of SAIC common stock to be issued in connection with the merger. The registration statement includes a preliminary joint proxy statement/prospectus, and a definitive joint proxy statement/prospectus, when it becomes available, will be sent to the shareholders of SAIC and Engility seeking their approval of the proposed transaction. WE URGE INVESTORS AND SECURITY HOLDERS TO READ THE REGISTRATION STATEMENT ON FORM S-4, THE JOINT PROXY STATEMENT/PROSPECTUS INCLUDED WITHIN THE REGISTRATION STATEMENT ON FORM S-4 AND ANY OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS FILED OR TO BE FILED WITH THE SEC IN CONNECTION WITH THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION BECAUSE THESE DOCUMENTS DO AND WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT SAIC, ENGILITY, AND THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION. Investors and security holders may obtain copies of these documents free of charge through the website maintained by the SEC at www.sec.gov or from SAIC at its website, www.saic.com, or from Engility at its website, www.engility.com. Participants in Solicitation SAIC, Engility, and their respective directors, executive officers, and other employees may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies from the stockholders of SAIC and Engility in connection with the proposed transaction. Information about SAIC's executive officers and directors is set forth in its Annual Report on Form 10-K, which was filed with the SEC on March 29, 2018 and its proxy statement for its 2018 annual meeting of stockholders, which was filed with the SEC on April 25, 2018. Information about Engility's executive officers and directors is set forth in its Annual Report on Form 10-K, which was filed with the SEC on March 2, 2018, and the proxy statement for its 2018 annual meeting of stockholders, which was filed with the SEC on April 13, 2018. Investors may obtain more detailed information regarding the direct and indirect interests of SAIC, Engility, and their respective executive officers and directors in the transaction by reading the preliminary and definitive joint proxy statement/prospectus regarding the transaction, which will be filed with the SEC. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding Engility's future prospects, projected financial results, estimated integration costs and acquisition related amortization expenses, the proposed transaction between SAIC and Engility, and business plans. Words such as "may," "will," "should," "likely," "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "projects," "believes," "estimates" and similar expressions are also used to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the current beliefs and expectations of Engility's management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause Engility's actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements can be found under the heading "Risk Factors" included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017, and more recent documents that have been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and are available on the investor relations section of Engility's website ( www.engility.com ) and on the SEC's website (www.sec.gov). In addition, there are various risks and uncertainties associated with the proposed transaction between SAIC and Engility, including but not limited to, the occurrence of any event, change or other circumstances that could delay the closing of the pending merger; the possibility of non-consummation of the pending merger and termination of the merger agreement; the risk that the Company could be required to pay a termination fee of up to $60 million to SAIC under certain circumstances pursuant to the terms of the merger agreement; the failure to obtain Company stockholder approval of the pending merger or to satisfy any of the other conditions to the merger agreement; the possibility that a governmental entity may prohibit, delay or refuse to grant a necessary regulatory approval in connection with the pending merger; the risk that stockholder litigation in connection with the pending merger may affect the timing or occurrence of the pending merger or result in significant costs of defense, indemnification and liability; the significant transaction costs which have been and may continue to be incurred by the Company related to the pending merger; and other potential risks to the Company associated with any failure to closing the merger, including the potential distraction of employee and management attention during the pendency of the merger, uncertainty about the effect of the pending merger on the Company's relationships with employees, potential and existing customers and suppliers and other parties, and the impact that the failure of the pending merger to close could have on the trading price of shares of Company common stock and the Company's operating results. Forward-looking statements are made only as of the date hereof, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. In addition, historical information should not be considered as an indicator of future performance. Media : Scott Fazekas Engility Holdings, Inc. (703) 984-5068 [email protected] Investor Relations : Dave Spille Engility Holdings, Inc. (703) 984-6120 [email protected] ENGILITY HOLDINGS, INC. UNAUDITED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (in thousands, except per share data) Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 28, 2018 September 29, 2017 September 28, 2018 September 29, 2017 Revenue $ 471,207 $ 487,144 $ 1,436,281 $ 1,467,030 Costs and expenses Cost of revenue 400,474 417,581 1,225,662 1,255,603 Selling, general and administrative expenses 43,925 33,419 120,811 107,636 Total costs and expenses 444,399 451,000 1,346,473 1,363,239 Operating income 26,808 36,144 89,808 103,791 Interest expense, net 16,981 19,739 53,520 59,189 Other income, net (191) (62) (441) (121) Income before provision for income taxes 10,018 16,467 36,729 44,723 Provision for income taxes 4,601 5,611 10,968 16,671 Net income 5,417 10,856 25,761 28,052 Less: Net income attributable to non-controlling interest 1,135 1,051 3,063 3,683 Net income attributable to Engility $ 4,282 $ 9,805 $ 22,698 $ 24,369 Earnings per share attributable to Engility Basic $ 0.12 $ 0.27 $ 0.61 $ 0.66 Diluted $ 0.11 $ 0.26 $ 0.60 $ 0.65 Weighted average number of shares outstanding Basic 36,968 36,809 36,928 36,831 Diluted 37,782 37,348 37,737 37,354 ENGILITY HOLDINGS, INC. UNAUDITED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (in thousands) September 28, December 31, 2018 2017 Assets: Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents $ 41,699 $ 41,890 Accounts receivables, net 75,905 108,100 Unbilled receivables 255,459 222,994 Other current assets 18,590 19,681 Total current assets 391,653 392,665 Property, plant and equipment, net 49,492 44,006 Goodwill 1,071,371 1,071,371 Identifiable intangible assets, net 337,047 361,410 Deferred tax assets 109,464 150,535 Other assets 5,786 6,021 Total assets $ 1,964,813 $ 2,026,008 Liabilities and Equity: Current liabilities: Current portion of long-term debt $ 25,260 $ 26,947 Accounts payable, trade 44,900 52,954 Accrued employment costs 99,304 77,545 Accrued expenses 79,766 74,856 Advance payments and billings in excess of costs incurred 26,261 30,380 Income tax liabilities 352 548 Other current liabilities 16,257 26,688 Total current liabilities 292,100 289,918 Long-term debt 871,857 938,687 Income tax liabilities 33,080 62,219 Other liabilities 59,987 59,079 Total liabilities 1,257,024 1,349,903 Equity: Preferred stock, par value $0.01 per share, 25,000 shares authorized, none issued or outstanding as of September 28, 2018 or December 31, 2017 Common stock, par value $0.01 per share, 175,000 shares authorized, 36,969 and 36,822 shares issued and outstanding as of September 28, 2018 and December 31, 2017, respectively 370 368 Additional paid-in capital 1,252,006 1,244,940 Accumulated deficit (552,151) (576,019) Accumulated other comprehensive loss (1,693) (3,805) Total equity attributable to Engility 698,532 665,484 Non-controlling interest 9,257 10,621 Total equity 707,789 676,105 Total liabilities and equity $ 1,964,813 $ 2,026,008 ENGILITY HOLDINGS, INC. UNAUDITED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (in thousands) Nine Months Ended September 28, 2018 September 29, 2017 Operating activities: Net income $ 25,761 $ 28,052 Share-based compensation 9,111 6,052 Depreciation and amortization 32,460 33,172 Loss (gain) on sale of property, plant and equipment 69 (306) Loss on extinguishment of debt 253 432 Amortization of bank debt fees 6,389 6,484 Deferred income taxes 39,810 17,096 Excess tax deduction on share-based compensation 106 (191) Changes in operating assets and liabilities: Receivables 5,213 (7,465) Other assets 31 7,894 Accounts payable, trade (9,310) 5,332 Accrued employment costs 21,759 (2,133) Accrued expenses 4,023 5,093 Advance payments and billings in excess of costs incurred (4,119) (1,354) Other liabilities (36,811) (19,403) Net cash provided by operating activities 94,745 78,755 Investing activities: Proceeds (payments) from sale of business, net of amount placed in escrow (1,900) 22,349 Proceeds from sale of property, plant and equipment 2,902 Capital expenditures (11,404) (5,810) Net cash provided by (used in) investing activities (13,304) 19,441 Financing activities: Repayment of long-term debt (75,115) (86,410) Gross borrowings from revolving credit facility 167,000 270,000 Gross repayments of revolving credit facility (167,000) (270,000) Debt issuance costs (45) Payment of employee withholding taxes on share-based compensation (2,045) (1,501) Dividends paid (407) Distributions to non-controlling interest member (4,427) (6,136) Net cash used in financing activities (81,632) (94,454) Net change in cash and cash equivalents (191) 3,742 Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of period 41,890 48,236 Cash and cash equivalents, end of period $ 41,699 $ 51,978 Non-GAAP Measures The tables under "Engility Holdings, Inc. Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Measures" present Adjusted Operating Income, Adjusted Operating Margin, Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization ("EBITDA"), Adjusted EBITDA, EBITDA Margin, and Adjusted EBITDA Margin, reconciled to their most directly comparable GAAP measure. These financial measures are calculated and presented on the basis of methodologies other than in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ("Non-GAAP Measures"). Engility has provided these Non-GAAP Measures to adjust for, among other things, the transaction costs related to the SAIC Merger, the impact of amortization expenses related to our acquisitions of TASC, Inc. and Dynamics Research Corporation, costs associated with a loss or gain on the disposal or sale of property, plant and equipment, restructuring and related expenses, legal and settlement costs, and refinancing-related expenses. These items have been adjusted because they are not considered core to the company's business or otherwise not considered operational or because these charges are non-cash or non-recurring. The company presents these Non-GAAP Measures because management believes that they are meaningful to understanding Engility's performance during the periods presented and the company's ongoing business. Non-GAAP Measures are not prepared in accordance with GAAP and therefore are not necessarily comparable to similarly titled metrics or the financial results of other companies. These Non-GAAP Measures should be considered a supplement to, not a substitute for, or superior to, the corresponding financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. ENGILITY HOLDINGS, INC. RECONCILIATION OF NON-GAAP MEASURES The following tables set forth a reconciliation of each of these Non-GAAP Measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure for the periods presented. Adjusted Operating Income and Adjusted Operating Margin (dollars in thousands) Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 28, 2018 September 29, 2017 September 28, 2018 September 29, 2017 Net income $ 5,417 $ 10,856 $ 25,761 $ 28,052 Provision for income taxes (1) 4,601 5,611 10,968 16,671 Other income, net (191) (62) (441) (121) Interest expense, net (2) 16,981 19,739 53,520 59,189 Operating income 26,808 36,144 89,808 103,791 Adjustments Acquisition, restructuring and legal and settlement expenses, excluding amortization (3) 6,380 (139) 8,833 3,606 Acquisition-related intangible amortization 6,334 6,334 19,003 19,003 Loss (gain) on sale of business and property, plant and equipment, net 51 191 69 (306) Total adjustments 12,765 6,386 27,905 22,303 Adjusted operating income $ 39,573 $ 42,530 $ 117,713 $ 126,094 Operating margin 5.7 % 7.4 % 6.3 % 7.1 % Adjusted operating margin 8.4 % 8.7 % 8.2 % 8.6 % (1) Cash paid for income taxes for the three months ended September 28, 2018 and September 29, 2017 was $84 and $151, respectively, and for the nine months ended September 28, 2018 and September 29, 2017 was $566 and $539, respectively. (2) Interest expense, net, included refinancing-related expenses of $1,918 and $3,140 for the nine months ended September 28, 2018 and September 29, 2017, respectively. (3) Includes $5,118 of SAIC transaction-related expenses in both the three and nine months ended September 28, 2018. Supplemental: For the three months ended September 28, 2018 and September 29, 2017, the impacts to GAAP net income attributable to Engility from the provision for income taxes and the adjustments noted in the above table were $17 million and $12 million, respectively. For the nine months ended September 28, 2018 and September 29, 2017, the impacts to GAAP net income attributable to Engility from the provision for income taxes and the adjustments noted in the above table were $39 million in both periods. These results have not been adjusted for cash taxes paid or refinancing-related expenses as noted in footnote 1 and footnote 2, respectively. ENGILITY HOLDINGS, INC. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and Adjusted EBITDA (dollars in thousands) Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 28, 2018 September 29, 2017 September 28, 2018 September 29, 2017 Net income $ 5,417 $ 10,856 $ 25,761 $ 28,052 Interest, taxes, and depreciation and amortization Interest expense 16,981 19,739 53,520 59,189 Provision for income taxes 4,601 5,611 10,968 16,671 Depreciation and amortization 10,720 11,201 32,460 33,172 EBITDA 37,719 47,407 122,709 137,084 Adjustments to EBITDA Acquisition, restructuring and legal and settlement expenses, excluding amortization (1) 6,380 (139) 8,833 3,606 Loss (gain) on sale of business and property, plant and equipment, net 51 191 69 (306) Adjusted EBITDA $ 44,150 $ 47,459 $ 131,611 $ 140,384 EBITDA Margin 8.0 % 9.7 % 8.5 % 9.3 % Adjusted EBITDA Margin 9.4 % 9.7 % 9.2 % 9.6 % (1) Includes $5,118 of SAIC transaction-related expenses in both the three and nine months ended September 28, 2018. SOURCE Engility Holdings, Inc. A Chinese smartphone company whose high-end products are little known outside a tech-savvy niche entered the US market on Monday with the backing of two key local allies - chipmaking giant Qualcomm and mobile operator T-Mobile - and no questions from US regulators. The foray by 5-year-old Shenzhen-based OnePlus comes after US mobile carriers AT&T and Verizon this year backed away from plans to work with China's Huawei on high-end phones in the face of pressure from the US government, which claims Huawei is a security risk. The United States also briefly banned companies from selling goods to ZTE. But the OnePlus alliance, announced at an event on Monday in New York, shows how many US-China business relationships, including those involving the most advanced technologies, are marching ahead despite US-China trade tensions. T-Mobile said the OnePlus 6T smartphone would launch exclusively at the carrier's stores on Nov 1 with a starting price of $549, the first time a OnePlus handset has been sold through a US wireless provider, and a deal that the firm's larger rivals such as Huawei could not pull off. While some OnePlus models have been on sale in the US through e-commerce websites, carrier relationships like the one with T-Mobile are critical because most US consumers still purchase phones through their carriers. The partnership will allow OnePlus to sell its smartphones in T-Mobile's over 5,600 stores in the US, giving it wider access to local consumers, according to the company. In an interview on Monday, Jon Freier, T-mobile's executive vice-president of US retail, said the US-China trade battle played no role in this deal and the carrier has not heard from US regulators. "OnePlus has a sterling reputation, and we've researched the device and vetted it thoroughly," Freier said. Xiaomi, a Chinese rival that also focuses on feature-packed phones at bargain prices, has said it plans to launch in the US next year but did not respond to a request for comment on whether those plans are still in place. OnePlus is unusual among Chinese tech companies, which typically focus on mass-market products for domestic customers. One-Plus, by contrast, only sells premium phones that cost $400 or more and almost exclusively online except in India. It derives two-thirds of its revenue from outside China and is the top seller of premium smartphones in India. OnePlus is affiliated with OPPO, a Chinese smartphone-maker and a major force in mid-end phones, which are sold globally and cost about $300. The relationship helps OnePlus keep its costs low, said Canalys analyst Mo Jia. According to Chinese company registration records, the two companies have common shareholders. Carl Pei, the 29-year-old founder of OnePlus, shrugged off any concerns that US consumer sentiment would be affected by the China-US trade dispute. "At the end of the day, all you can control is your own product." Pei, who was born in China and raised in Sweden, said the brand is cross-cultural and international: "When we started, we saw that through social media, you can talk to everyone around the world, as long as you can speak their language." DUNDEE, N.Y., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- In November 2018, the Missick family will mark its seventh anniversary of ownership of Villa Bellangelo, and there is much to celebrate. Bellangelo Winery, Wine & Spirits Magazine Top 100 Wines of 2018 Bellangelo Riesling In an impressive run, Bellangelo earned a spot as a producer of one of Wine & Spirits Magazine's Top 100 Wines in the World for 2018, and has had a series of wines in Wine & Spirits Magazine's "Best Of," category. Bellangelo's Top 100 honor was its 2015 Berry Select Riesling (with a score of 94). Noted wine writer Jamie Goode, author of Wine Science , recently commented on this wine's "amazing harmony and depth." Other "Best Of" notations in 2018 belong to its 2015 Gibson Vineyard Riesling (91), 2015 Reserve Chardonnay (91), and a listing as one of America's Best Sparkling Wines with a nod in the Best Buy category for its Sparkling Cuvee. When the Missick family moved from California to the Finger Lakes, it focused immediately on crafting authentic, delicious expressions of wines grown on the west side of Seneca Lake. With a "sense of place," the varietal focus revolved around Riesling, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Franc. "The beauty of Riesling, is that it has an ability to express its terroir in a way few varietals can," according to winemaker, Christopher Missick; adding "and in the Finger Lakes, we can tease out those expressions in a way no other region in the United States can. This is a cool climate that has a growing season of extended beautiful warmth, and I feel we are exploring what is viable on the frontier of American viticulture." Bellangelo currently offers a dozen different Rieslings in its tasting rooms. "Riesling is the winemaker's dream varietal: there are a hundred permutations on what is possible when we stand in the vineyard in late August," Chris Missick stated. Missick added that he is particularly proud to see the Finger Lakes continually represented as one of the world's great wine regions by wine periodicals such as Wine Enthusiast, Wine Spectator, Food & Wine, The International Wine Review, and online reviewers such as James Suckling, Vinous and others. Having established a great reputation for Rieslings, Bellangelo is particularly proud of its recognition for work in sparkling wines and Chardonnay. Bellangelo began producing sparkling wine in 2014, including its Brut and Sparkling Merlot Rose. This fall will see the release of its sparkling Gewurztraminer. Bellangelo is a family owned winery with an historical past dating to 1866 and located on the West side of Seneca Lake in New York's Finger Lakes AVA. The Missick family operates an additional tasting room in Geneva, NY, and produces the brand Can Do, a line of ready to drink delicious canned wines that includes Moscato, Rose, Riesling and Chardonnay. The brands are currently represented by Wright Beverage Distributing, MHW Distribution, and BevStrat. Bellangelo's winemaker, Chris Missick, is proud to be the only full-time winemaker in the world that is also admitted to practice law before the Supreme Court of the United States. Contact: Mike Stein 6072438602 [email protected] SOURCE Bellangelo Winery PITTSBURGH, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- F.N.B. Corporation (NYSE: FNB) announced today a donation of $50,000 in support of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh's "Our Victims of Terror" fund to assist those affected by the recent tragedy at Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "Our FNB family is deeply saddened by the horrific act of violence in Squirrel Hill which has had a devastating impact across the Pittsburgh region as well as the rest of the country," said Vincent J. Delie, Jr., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of F.N.B. Corporation. "As a corporate citizen, neighbor and friend, our heartfelt thoughts go out to the victims, their families and the entire community as we stand united in support during this time of unspeakable loss." The Tree of Life Synagogue has also established two accounts at FNB to accept donations from customers and the community to help the families of the victims and to aid in the rebuilding of the synagogue. Donations can be made directly on Tree of Life's website by visiting https://www.tolols.org/support. FNB promotes a culture of community involvement, leadership and volunteerism, with employees dedicating tens of thousands of hours each year to local causes throughout FNB's six-state footprint. For more information on FNB's commitment to its communities, visit fnb-online.com/about-us/community-involvement. About F.N.B. Corporation F.N.B. Corporation (NYSE: FNB), headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a diversified financial services company operating in six states. FNB holds a significant retail deposit market share in attractive markets including: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; Cleveland, Ohio; and Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham and the Piedmont Triad (Winston-Salem, Greensboro and High Point) in North Carolina. The Company has total assets of approximately $33 billion, and approximately 400 banking offices throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The common stock of F.N.B. Corporation trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "FNB" and is included in Standard & Poor's MidCap 400 Index with the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) Regional Banks Sub-Industry Index. Customers, shareholders and investors can learn more about this regional financial institution by visiting the F.N.B. Corporation website at www.fnbcorporation.com. SOURCE F.N.B. Corporation Related Links http://www.fnbcorporation.com TORONTO, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Whilst at the World Trade Centers Association's recent board meeting in Toronto, Chairman of Nest Investments Mr. Abu Nahl worked alongside a number of distinguished colleagues from businesses worldwide to discuss matters of international trade and governance. The primary focus of the two-day meeting was to approve the Association's Business Plan and Budget for 2019-2021. In addition, the board discussed objectives for further regionalisation, the outcomes of recent Risk and Internal Audit reports and multiple plans relating to governance and membership. World Trade Centers Association's Board Meeting Mr. Abu Nahl has a long history of supporting international business relationships through his work with the World Trade Centers Association. He has served as a member of the board since 2004 and held the position of chairman of the board between 2008 and 2017. In August 2017, Mr. Abu Nahl was appointed as "Chairman Emeritus" of the WTCA in recognition of his past services to the association and its members. He was also elected to the executive committee at this time. Since Mr. Abu Nahl began working with the WTCA, the association has implemented numerous reforms that have improved its transparency, delivered strategic goals and ensured that all members have knowledge of the board's plans and aspirations. New corporate governance procedures adopted during this time include the publication of the WTCA's official Vision, Mission and Values; the appointment of a CEO; the preparation of a three-year rolling Business Plan and Budget; and the creation of the WTCA Asia Pacific office in Beijing as a wholly owned subsidiary of WTCA. The World Trade Centers Association, with more than 300 members in more than 90 countries, acts to promote trade and investment opportunities for commercial property developers, economic development agencies and international businesses looking to connect globally and prosper locally. The WTCA is a vital part of a dynamic global economy, providing international connections, iconic properties and integrated trade services under the umbrella of a prestigious brand. Mr. Abu Nahl is particularly passionate about the WTCA's ambition to foster increased participation in world trade by businesses in emerging markets. Mr. Abu Nahl said: "My recent visit to Toronto to attend the World Trade Centers Association's board meeting was a wholly productive trip. It is always incredibly stimulating and inspiring to gather together the world's leading international business leaders, but I was especially delighted by the opportunity to discuss the next three years of WTCA growth in Toronto. During my time as a board member, the WTCA has gone from strength to strength. I am eager to see the organisation continue as the premier global trade network organiser and help bring its future vision to developing markets." Media Contact: Andreas Christou Phone: 7000 0128 Email: [email protected] Related Images ghazi-abu-nahl-world-trade-center.jpg Ghazi Abu Nahl, World Trade Center World Trade Centers Association's Board Meeting world-trade-centers-association.jpg World Trade Centers Association WTCA is a vital part of a dynamic global economy, providing international connections, iconic properties and integrated trade services. Related Links Ghazi Abu Nahl Bio SOURCE Nest Investments DUBLIN, Oct 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Internet of Things - Global Market Size, Share, Development, Growth and Demand Forecast, 2013-2023" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Global internet of things (IoT) healthcare market size is expected to reach $267.6 billion by 2023. The market is mainly driven by the growing need for remote patient monitoring services, growing demand for advanced healthcare information systems, increasing prevalence of chronic and lifestyle associated diseases, growing demand for mHealth technologies, and increasing support from government organizations. Insights into market segments On the basis of component, the IoT healthcare market has been categorized into medical devices, systems and software, and services. Among all types, the sales of medical devices were the largest in this market, accounting for 44.6% share in 2017. Based on technology, the IoT healthcare market is categorized into Wi-Fi, BLE, NFC, ZigBee, cellular, and satellite. Among these, the fastest growth during the forecast period is expected from Wi-Fi technology, with 32.1% CAGR. This is attributed to the increasing adoption of Wi-Fi gadgets and tools in hospitals for sending the medical data to-and-from the cloud. IoT in healthcare finds application in telemedicine, clinical operations, medication management, connected imaging, inpatient monitoring, and others. During the forecast period, the market is expected to witness the highest growth from the telemedicine application category, with a CAGR of 32.1%. The end users for IoT healthcare market include hospitals, surgical centers, and clinics; clinical research organizations; research and diagnostic laboratories; and others. Of these, the market is expected to witness the fastest growth in the hospitals, surgical centers, and clinics category, with a CAGR of 31.1% during the forecast period. IoT healthcare market projected to witness the fastest growth in APAC During the forecast period, the IoT healthcare market is expected to witness the fastest growth in Asia-Pacific (APAC), at a CAGR of 34.4%. This growth in the regional-level market is mainly due to the growing geriatric population and surge in the occurrence of various chronic diseases such as diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and others. Furthermore, North America held the largest share in the global market, contributing over 44.3% revenue in 2017, owing to improved healthcare infrastructure and increased healthcare spending. Key market players entering partnership agreements to increase their market share Key players in the IoT healthcare industry are seeking partnerships and acquisitions to provide more effective solutions. For instance, in February 2018, Qualcomm Life Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, announced an exclusive strategic licensing agreement with AlertWatch Inc., an Ann Arbor based company, for the development of intelligent care software systems to assist the real-time care of patients in the operating room. The agreement provides Qualcomm Life Inc. with exclusive rights to market and sell AlertWatch, used by clinicians for secondary monitoring of patients in operating rooms. Besides, in February 2018, Qualcomm Life Inc. announced a strategic reseller agreement with PeriGen Inc. The agreement with PeriGen Inc. would allow the former to license and sell PeriWatch Vigilance, an early warning platform for obstetrics that automatically identifies patients whose condition is worsening, facilitating more timely interventions. Some of the other key players operating in the IoT healthcare industry are PhysIQ Inc., Adheretech, Proteus Digital Health Inc., Koninklijke Philips N.V., Cisco Systems Inc., General Electric Company, Honeywell International Inc., SAP SE, Stanley Black & Decker Inc., International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation, Medtronic plc, and Microsoft Corporation. Key Topics Covered: Chapter 1. Research Background 1.1 Research Objectives 1.2 Market Definition 1.3 Research Scope 1.4 Key Stakeholders Chapter 2. Research Methodology 2.1 Secondary Research 2.2 Primary Research 2.2.1 Breakdown of Primary Research Respondents 2.2.1.1 By region 2.2.1.2 By industry participant 2.2.1.3 By company type 2.3 Market Size Estimation 2.4 Data Triangulation 2.5 Assumptions for the Study Chapter 3. Executive Summary Chapter 4. Introduction 4.1 Definition of Market Segments 4.1.1 By Component 4.1.1.1 Medical devices 4.1.1.1.1 Wearable external 4.1.1.1.2 Implanted 4.1.1.1.3 Stationary 4.1.1.2 Systems and software 4.1.1.2.1 Remote device management 4.1.1.2.2 Network bandwidth management 4.1.1.2.3 Data analytics 4.1.1.2.4 Application security 4.1.1.2.5 Network security 4.1.1.3 Services 4.1.1.3.1 System integration 4.1.1.3.2 Professional 4.1.1.3.3 Support and maintenance 4.1.2 By Technology 4.1.2.1 Wi-Fi 4.1.2.2 Bluetooth low energy (BLE) 4.1.2.3 Near field communication (NFC) 4.1.2.4 ZigBee 4.1.2.5 Cellular 4.1.2.6 Satellite 4.1.3 By Application 4.1.3.1 Telemedicine 4.1.3.1.1 Remote patient monitoring telemedicine 4.1.3.1.2 Store-and-forward telemedicine 4.1.3.1.3 Interactive telemedicine 4.1.3.2 Clinical operations and workflow management 4.1.3.3 Connected imaging 4.1.3.4 Inpatient monitoring 4.1.3.5 Medication management 4.1.3.6 Others 4.1.4 By End User 4.1.4.1 Hospitals, surgical centers and clinics 4.1.4.2 Contract research organizations (CROs) 4.1.4.3 Research and diagnostic laboratories 4.1.4.4 Others 4.2 Market Dynamics 4.2.1 Trends 4.2.1.1 Increasing collaborations and partnerships 4.2.1.2 Surge in the number of product launches 4.2.2 Drivers 4.2.2.1 Increasing penetration of connected devices in healthcare 4.2.2.2 Rise in investment for IoT healthcare solutions 4.2.2.3 Growing geriatric population 4.2.2.4 Increasing prevalence of chronic and lifestyle diseases 4.2.2.5 Growing demand for advanced healthcare information systems 4.2.2.6 Advanced applications of smart phone-based mHealth technologies 4.2.2.7 Increasing demand for affordable and effective treatments 4.2.2.8 Increasing popularity of IoT in personalized healthcare 4.2.2.9 Impact analysis of drivers on market forecast 4.2.3 Restraints 4.2.3.1 Data privacy and security issues 4.2.3.2 Insufficient memory, computational and energy limitations 4.2.3.3 Lack of healthcare infrastructure in emerging markets 4.2.3.4 Impact analysis of restraints on market forecast 4.2.4 Opportunities 4.2.4.1 Increasing adoption of cloud technology in healthcare 4.2.4.2 Increasing demand for patient centric healthcare models 4.2.4.3 Growth opportunities in the emerging economies 4.3 Porter's Five Forces Analysis Chapter 5. Global Market Size and Forecast 5.1 By Component 5.1.1 IoT in Medical Devices Market by Type 5.1.2 IoT Healthcare Systems and Software Market by Type 5.1.3 IoT Healthcare Services Market by Type 5.2 By Technology 5.3 By Application 5.3.1 IoT Healthcare Market for Telemedicine by Type 5.4 By End User 5.5 By Region Chapter 6. North America Market Size and Forecast Chapter 7. Europe Market Size and Forecast Chapter 8. APAC Market Size and Forecast Chapter 9. LATAM Market Size and Forecast Chapter 10. MEA Market Size and Forecast Chapter 11. Competitive Landscape 11.1 Global Strategic Developments of Key Players 11.1.1 Acquisitions 11.1.2 Product Launches 11.1.3 Partnerships Chapter 12. Company Profiles PhysIQ Inc. Stanley Black & Decker Inc. & Decker Inc. Koninklijke Philips N.V. Honeywell International Inc. General Electric Company Cerner Corporation Medtronic plc Qualcomm Incorporated Proteus Digital Health Inc. AdhereTech Microsoft Corporation Cisco Systems Inc. International Business Machines Corporation SAP SE For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/krfvj2/global_internet?w=5 Did you know that we also offer Custom Research? Visit our Custom Research page to learn more and schedule a meeting with our Custom Research Manager. Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com DUBLIN, Oct 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global Von Willebrand Disease Market and Competitive Landscape - 2018" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Global Von Willebrand Disease Market and Competitive Landscape - 2018, provides comprehensive insights into Von Willebrand Disease pipeline, epidemiology, market valuations, product sales, market forecast, product forecasts, and market shares. This study accurately estimates and forecast Von Willebrand Disease market size and drug sales. This research also provides insights into Von Willebrand Disease epidemiology and late stage pipeline. The research is classified into following sections - Von Willebrand Disease overview with definitions, symptoms, etiology, diagnosis, treatment options; Von Willebrand Disease pipeline insights covering late stage clinical trials pipeline; Von Willebrand Disease prevalence trends by countries; Von Willebrand Disease market size and forecast by countries, market events, trends; product sales and forecast by countries; market shares by countries. The research scope includes G7 countries - US, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, UK, Japan. Research Scope: Von Willebrand Disease pipeline: Find out the drugs in clinical trials for Von Willebrand Disease by stages, phase 3 clinical trials, phase 2 clinical trials, and phase 1 clinical trials, by pharmacological class, by company Find out the drugs in clinical trials for Von Willebrand Disease by stages, phase 3 clinical trials, phase 2 clinical trials, and phase 1 clinical trials, by pharmacological class, by company Von Willebrand Disease epidemiology: Find out the prevalence of Von Willebrand Disease by countries - US, Europe , Germany , France , Italy , Spain , UK, Japan ; prevalence forecast to 2023 Find out the prevalence of Von Willebrand Disease by countries - US, , , , , , UK, ; prevalence forecast to 2023 Von Willebrand Disease products: Identify key products marketed and prescribed for Von Willebrand Disease by brand name, by molecule, by company, by branded / generic, by countries - US, Europe , Germany , France , Italy , Spain , UK, Japan Identify key products marketed and prescribed for Von Willebrand Disease by brand name, by molecule, by company, by branded / generic, by countries - US, , , , , , UK, Von Willebrand Disease market size: Find out the market size for Von Willebrand Disease drugs by countries - US, Europe , Germany , France , Italy , Spain , UK, Japan ; Find out how the market advanced from 2014 Find out the market size for Von Willebrand Disease drugs by countries - US, , , , , , UK, ; Find out how the market advanced from 2014 Von Willebrand Disease drug sales: Find out the sales of Von Willebrand Disease drugs by countries - US, Europe , Germany , France , Italy , Spain , UK, Japan , Global Find out the sales of Von Willebrand Disease drugs by countries - US, , , , , , UK, , Global Von Willebrand Disease drugs sales forecast: Sales forecast for Von Willebrand Disease drugs to 2023 by countries - US, Europe , Germany , France , Italy , Spain , UK, Japan Sales forecast for Von Willebrand Disease drugs to 2023 by countries - US, , , , , , UK, Von Willebrand Disease market share analysis: Find out the market shares of Von Willebrand Disease drugs and outlook by countries - US, Europe , Germany , France , Italy , Spain , UK, Japan Benefits of this Research: Evaluate commercial market opportunities for Von Willebrand Disease drugs Synthesize insights for business development & licensing Track market size, competitor drug sales, market shares in Von Willebrand Disease market Develop in-depth knowledge of competition and markets Analyze sales data to update your brand planning trackers Develop tactics and strategies to take advantage of opportunities in the market Track market trends and analyze key events in Von Willebrand Disease market Develop forecast models, healthcare frameworks, or economic models Answer key business questions; supports decision making in R&D to long term marketing strategies Key Topics Covered: 1. Von Willebrand Disease: Disease Overview 2. Von Willebrand Disease Pipeline Insights 3. Von Willebrand Disease Epidemiology Analysis 4. US Von Willebrand Disease Market Insights 5. Germany Von Willebrand Disease Market Insights 6. France Von Willebrand Disease Market Insights 7. Italy Von Willebrand Disease Market Insights 8. Spain Von Willebrand Disease Market Insights 9. UK Von Willebrand Disease Market Insights 10. Europe Von Willebrand Disease Market Insights 11. Japan Von Willebrand Disease Market Insights 12. Global Von Willebrand Disease Market Insights For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/jxpq7r/global_von?w=5 Did you know that we also offer Custom Research? Visit our Custom Research page to learn more and schedule a meeting with our Custom Research Manager. Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com DETROIT, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) today announced third-quarter 2018 earnings results reflecting profitability in all core operating segments. Strong results in North America were driven by all-new full-size trucks, and crossovers. GM China equity income and GM Financial EBT were third-quarter records. Third-quarter 2018 results: Strong EPS-diluted of $1.75 and record third-quarter EPS diluted-adjusted of $1.87 and record third-quarter EPS diluted-adjusted of Revenue of $35.8 billion , up 6.4% from third-quarter 2017 , up 6.4% from third-quarter 2017 GM North America EBIT-adjusted of $2.8 billion and margin of 10.2 percent and margin of 10.2 percent Record third-quarter equity income in China of $0.5 billion of GM Financial EBT of $0.5 billion , a third-quarter record For complete details and to see reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to their most directly comparable GAAP measures, click here to download the full press release, or visit the GM Investor Relations website. Investor analyst conference call GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra and Chief Financial Officer Dhivya Suryadevara will host a conference call for investor analysts at 9 a.m. EDT today to discuss third-quarter business results. The call will include introductory remarks followed by a question and answer session for analysts. Journalists who wish to listen to the call may dial in using the following numbers: United States: 1-888-808-8618 International: +1-949-484-0645 Name of Call: GM Earnings Call General Motors (NYSE:GM) is committed to delivering safer, better and more sustainable ways for people to get around. General Motors, its subsidiaries and its joint venture entities sell vehicles under the Cadillac, Chevrolet, Baojun, Buick, GMC, Holden, Jiefang and Wuling brands. More information on the company and its subsidiaries, including OnStar, a global leader in vehicle safety and security services, Maven, its personal mobility brand, and Cruise, its autonomous vehicle ride-sharing company, can be found at http://www.gm.com. Forward-Looking Statements This presentation and related comments by management may include forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations about possible future events and thus are inherently uncertain. Our actual results may differ materially from forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including: (1) our ability to deliver new products, services and experiences that attract new, and are desired by existing, customers and to effectively compete in autonomous, ride-sharing and transportation as a service; (2) sales of crossovers, SUVs and full-size pickup trucks; (3) our ability to reduce the costs associated with the manufacture and sale of electric vehicles; (4) the volatility of global sales and operations; (5) our significant business in China which subjects us to unique operational, competitive and regulatory risks; (6) our joint ventures, which we cannot operate solely for our benefit and over which we may have limited control; (7) changes in government leadership and laws (including tax laws and regulations), economic tensions between governments and changes in international trade policies, new barriers to entry and changes to or withdrawals from free trade agreements, changes in foreign exchange rates, economic downturns in foreign countries, differing local product preferences and product requirements, compliance with U.S. and foreign countries' export controls and economic sanctions, differing labor laws and regulations and difficulties in obtaining financing in foreign countries; (8) our dependence on our manufacturing facilities; (9) the ability of suppliers to deliver parts, systems and components without disruption and on schedule; (10) prices of raw materials; (11) our highly competitive industry; (12) the possibility that competitors may independently develop products and services similar to ours despite our intellectual property rights; (13) security breaches and other disruptions to our vehicles, information technology networks and systems; (14) compliance with laws and regulations applicable to our industry, including those regarding fuel economy and emissions; (15) costs and risks associated with litigation and government investigations; (16) compliance with the terms of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement; (17) the cost and effect on our reputation of product safety recalls and alleged defects in products and services; (18) our ability to successfully and cost-efficiently restructure operations in various countries, including Korea, with minimal disruption to our supply chain and operations, globally; (19) our ability to realize production efficiencies and to achieve reductions in costs; (20) our ability to develop captive financing capability through GM Financial; and (21) significant increases in pension expense or projected pension contributions. A further list and description of these risks, uncertainties and other factors can be found in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017, and our subsequent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. GM cautions readers not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. GM undertakes no obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements. SOURCE General Motors Related Links http://media.gm.com TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V): GRG Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE): G6A OTCQB Venture Market (OTCQB): GARWF VANCOUVER, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Golden Arrow Resources Corporation (TSX-V: GRG, FSE: G6A,OTCQB: GARWF), "Golden Arrow" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company has entered into a Definitive Agreement (the "Agreement") to acquire up to 100% of the Indiana gold-copper project in Chile's 3rd Region ("Indiana" or the "Project"). Indiana is located approximately 35 kilometres from the Company's new Atlantida copper-gold project (see News Release dated October 11, 2018). The Project features a near surface deposit of high-grade gold and copper vein-hosted mineralization, with an historic resource estimate. The deposit area is permitted for mining, and there are currently two ramps allowing underground access for exploration and development. Highlights of the Indiana Project include: An historic Inferred mineral resource estimate of over 600,000 ounces of gold equivalent ("AuEq") consisting of 3,093,700 tonnes averaging 2.8 g/t gold and 1.6% copper, at a 4 g/t AuEq cut-off, supported by a NI 43-101 Technical Report. (see Table 1 below; A Qualified Person has not done sufficient work to classify this estimate a current mineral resource, and Golden Arrow is not treating this as a current mineral resource estimate.) is not treating this as a current mineral resource estimate.) 13,000 meters of diamond drilling completed in over 40 holes, 2000 chip and trench samples. Metallurgical testing: Flotation tests indicate recoveries of 90% for gold and 92% for copper for sulphide mineralization. Significant potential to increase the size and grade of the deposit: Access ramps into the deposit have allowed for more detailed exploration. Recent work returned channel samples averaging 1.6 metres width and 9 g/t AuEq, over 150 metres in ramp A, and an average of 1.5 metres width and 7.4 g/t AuEq, over 100 metres in ramp B, approximately 70 metres lower. New mineralized vein splays have also been identified. High potential for additional mineralization and new resources throughout the property. Potential to fast track the Project to production, with existing mining permits and access drifts completed. Easy access to water and energy, no environmental or community concerns "With the addition of the advanced-stage Indiana Project to the recently acquired Atlantida Project we solidify our presence in Chile, emphasizing our commitment to the rapid identification of new resources, and value growth for our shareholders," commented Joseph Grosso, Executive Chairman, CEO & President. "Indiana has the added benefit of two growth paths a fast track to production thanks to the existing mining permit and historical resources, and exploration upside both within the known vein system and throughout the property." Golden Arrow has completed legal and technical due diligence on the Project. The Indiana Project represents a near term production target. The deposit area is permitted for mining and there are currently two completed ramps allowing access for exploration and development. The Company is planning a program to complete a resource estimate at the Measured and Indicated level in the existing deposit area, as well as an economic assessment, and an aggressive program to delineate and drill test targets throughout the Project area to delineate other resources. The Indiana Project will be managed under New Golden Explorations Inc., a 100% owned subsidiary of Golden Arrow. Both the Indiana and Atlantida Projects will be managed out of a new exploration camp proximal to both Projects. About the Indiana Gold-Copper Project Golden Arrow has executed a Definitive Agreement with Mineria Activa SpA, ("MSA"), a Chilean private equity investment management firm focused on exploration to production-stage assets in the Mining sector. Terms for the Definitive Agreement are US$100,000 payment on signing, followed by US$15M in payments staged over 48 months. Prior to Golden Arrow making the last payment of $7M at the end year 4, MSA has the option of retaining 25% of the Project, which will then move forward on a pro rata basis. The 2,300 hectare, road-accessible Indiana Project is located approximately 40 kilometres north of the city of Copiapo in the 3rd Region of Chile at 1470 metres above sea level. Indiana is situated within an Iron-oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) belt that includes deposits such as Manto Verde, Candelaria and Cerro Negro Norte. The property hosts historic mineral resources in a high-grade gold-copper vein system, with a permit for mining over the area of the historic resource. Golden Arrow believes there is excellent potential to expand the known deposit, as well to delineate additional mineralization regionally on the Project. Work by previous operators of the Project includes 13,000 metres of diamond drilling in 40 holes, 2,000 chip and trench samples, and detailed geology and structural modeling. Eight major ~1 metre wide veins ranging up to 1.5 kilometres in length and down to 400 metres depth have been delineated. In 2013, a mineral resource estimate was completed for MSA, including a supporting technical report following the guidelines of National Instrument ("NI") 43-101 titled "Technical Report Indiana Gold and Copper Project Region III Chile". The Qualified Person for the technical report is Dr. Eduardo Magri, who at the time of the report was a registered and active Fellow of the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. Dr. Magri is a mining engineer with a Master's degree from the Colorado School of Mines and a PhD from the University of Witwatersrand with over 30 years of experience as a Project Engineer and Expert Consultant for several mining and engineering companies. In 2010, he was awarded the Alexander Sutulov National Mining Award in Chile. In addition to consulting, he has served as an Associate Professor in the Mining Engineering Department at the Universidad de Chile. The historical resource estimate for the veins averaging over 4 g/t gold-equivalent is summarized in Table 1: Table 1. Inferred Resource Estimate @ 4g/t AuEq cut-off Vein Tonnage (KT) Au (g/t) Cu (%) Mo (%) AuEq (g/t) AuEq ounces ('000) Bondadosa 910,400 3.4 1.0 0.019 5.5 160,900 Rucas 750,200 2.1 1.7 0.006 5.6 133,800 Flor de Espino 638,100 3.5 1.3 0.002 6.3 128,300 Indian III 351,400 1.9 1.4 0.009 4.9 55,200 Rosario 443,600 2.7 3.1 0.010 9.0 128,00 Total 3,093,700 2.8 1.6 0.010 6.1 607,000 Notes: The following parameters were used in the calculation of equivalent grade: Gold equivalency based on the following prices: gold -US$1,100/oz, copper -US$2.80/lb, molybdenum -US$12/lb, and adjusted for the following recovery rates: gold 75%, copper 88%, molybdenum 60% (e.g. 1 lbCu = (1 x $2.80) / $1,100 x (88% / 75%) Au Eq.) Areas, tonnages and metal content are rounded to the nearest hundred square meters, tonnes and ounces respectively; vein thickness is rounded to the nearest centimeter, grades are rounded to two decimal places. Rounding may result in apparent differences between tonnes, grade and metal content. Readers are cautioned that Golden Arrow's QP has reviewed the NI 43-101 for this historical resource estimate and believes it to have been a reliable estimate of Inferred resources at the time of its publication, however a Qualified Person has not done sufficient work to classify this estimate a current mineral resource, and Golden Arrow is not treating this as a current mineral resource estimate. Golden Arrow plans to proceed with a program to delineate current mineral resources by an independent Qualified Person, using CIM best practices and current long-term pricing. The report by Dr. Magri also summarized the metallurgical test work that has been completed, reporting rougher cleaner (flotation) gold recoveries in sulphide mineralization of over 85%, with a maximum of 97%, and copper recoveries ranging from 90% - 96%, indicating the potential to develop a gold-copper flotation circuit to process sulphide mineralization. Potential to recover gold and copper in mixed and oxide material requires further testing. More recently, MSA has developed two ramps that access the Bondadosa vein area. The due diligence review of the data disclosed that ramp A is approximately 90 metres in length and channel samples over 150 metres in the tunnel returned an average of 1.6 metres width with 9.0 g/t AuEq (4.6 g/t Au, 2.5% Cu, 222 ppm Co and 125 ppm Mo). In ramp B, 70 metres below ramp A, channel samples over 100 metres returned an average of 1.5 metres width with 7.4 g/t AuEq (3.5 g/t Au, 2.4% Cu, 84 ppm Co and 39 ppm Mo). Additionally, Ramp A detected two new vein splays from the main structure. One of the splays returned 1.5 m @ 5.92 g/t Au and 2.39% Cu. Qualified Persons Brian McEwen, P.Geol., VP Exploration and Development to the Company and a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the contents of the news release. About Golden Arrow: Golden Arrow Resources Corporation is an exploration company earning production income. The Company has a successful track record of creating value by making precious and base metal discoveries and advancing them into exceptional deposits. Golden Arrow owns a 25% share of Puna Operations Inc., a joint venture operated by SSR Mining, with more than 8 years of forecast production and upside potential at the Pirquitas -Chinchillas silver mining project. Golden Arrow is actively exploring a new portfolio of advanced projects in Chile, as well as other targets within its portfolio of more than 200,000 hectares of properties in Argentina. The Company is a member of the Grosso Group, a resource management group that has pioneered exploration in Argentina since 1993. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD "Joseph Grosso" _______________________________ Mr. Joseph Grosso, Executive Chairman, President and CEO Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Golden-Arrow-Resources-Corp/582458658433285 Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoldenArrowGRG YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcwpwDVEy_Y LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/golden-arrow-resources-corporation Google+: https://plus.google.com/112588065647604743199/about RSS Feed: http://www.goldenarrowresources.com/s/RSS.asp Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. Readers are encouraged to refer to the Company's public disclosure documents for a more detailed discussion of factors that may impact expected future results. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. We advise U.S. investors that the SEC's mining guidelines strictly prohibit information of this type in documents filed with the SEC. SOURCE Golden Arrow Resources Corporation ST. PAUL, Minn., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Each November, Minnesota hunters come together at remote cabins and hunting shacks to share in the excitement of the opening weekend of Minnesota's white-tailed deer hunting season. For some it is a serious pursuit of tablefare, and for others it's a time to re-tell stories of past hunts and reconnect with family and friends away from the everyday grind. It's a tradition carried on each season by nearly 500,000 firearms deer hunters in Minnesota. Since 2003, a community in the state has hosted the annual Minnesota Governor's Deer Hunting Opener as an opportunity to showcase its hunting opportunities and outdoor recreation offerings. This year, the event will be held in Hinckley from Thursday, Nov. 1, through Sunday, Nov. 4, and features a Welcome to Camp Celebration with deer hunting at the center. The event is coordinated by the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association , Minnesota Department of Natural Resources , Explore Minnesota and Hinckley Convention & Visitors Bureau. "Hunting is a big deal in Minnesota," said DNR Commissioner Tom Landwehr. "Hunters contribute to the bottom line of businesses across the state and hunters help fund conservation efforts on our public lands that benefit wildlife, habitat for wildlife and pollinators, and our air and water quality." Minnesota has a rich hunting heritage and ample room to hunt on 11 million acres of public hunting land. Hunting is a favorite fall activity in many families and part of the culture of many communities across the state. Overall, hunting and wildlife watching generate more than $1.3 billion in annual economic expenditures in Minnesota. The Minnesota Governor's Deer Hunting Opener began in 2003 and happens at a different location around the state each year. This year's event in Hinckley includes a banquet, hunting exhibits and vendor fair, six educational seminars, a demonstration from a butcher about how to turn a harvested deer into venison for the freezer, and opportunities for media to sign up to hunt deer with local hosts when the Minnesota firearms deer season opens on Saturday, Nov. 3. Visit mngovernorsdeeropener.com for more information about the event, and follow along on social media using #DeerCampMN and #OnlyinMN. SOURCE Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Related Links http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/index.html VANCOUVER and TORONTO, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Mason Resources Corp. (TSX:MNR;OTCQB: MSSNF "Mason") and Hudbay Minerals Inc. (TSX &NYSE: HBM "Hudbay") are pleased to announce that they have entered into an arrangement agreement (the "Arrangement Agreement") pursuant to which Hudbay will acquire the remaining 86% of the issued and outstanding common shares of Mason that it does not already own (the "Arrangement"). All currency is stated in Canadian dollars, unless otherwise indicated. Under the Arrangement, Mason shareholders will receive $0.40 in cash for each Mason common share they own. The Arrangement values Mason at $31 million, representing an attractive premium to recent Mason trading. The enterprise value to Hudbay, net of Mason's cash and Hudbay's current 14% ownership in Mason, is approximately US$15 million. Stephen Scott, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mason, comments, "We are excited to be announcing this transaction. We are very pleased with the progress we have made establishing the Ann Mason project as a world-class and highly prospective copper deposit. The acquisition by a well run, diversified, cash flowing base metal producer ensures a faster and lower risk development path for the Ann Mason project. Given its significant scale, it is not feasible for Mason to develop the mine on a stand-alone basis in a timely fashion and without considerable equity dilution and financial risk. The acquisition of Mason by Hudbay provides an opportunity for shareholders to realize immediate value from their investment in Mason." Alan Hair, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hudbay, comments, "The acquisition of the Ann Mason project is another step in Hudbay's consistent strategy of accretive acquisitions of scarce, high-quality copper resources in mining-friendly jurisdictions. Ann Mason is an ideal fit for Hudbay's development pipeline and is at the stage where we can apply our exploration expertise, advance technical studies and leverage our proven mine development team to create value for our shareholders." Mason is the 100% owner of the Ann Mason deposit located in the Yerington District of Nevada. Ann Mason has a National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") compliant Measured and Indicated mineral resource of 1.4 billion tonnes grading 0.32% copper, 0.006% molybdenum, 0.03 g/t gold and 0.65 g/t silver and an Inferred mineral resource of 623 million tonnes grading 0.29% copper, 0.007% molybdenum, 0.03 g/t gold and 0.66 g/t silver using a 0.2% copper cut-off. For complete disclosure of Mason's mineral resource estimate refer to the 2017 Updated Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Ann Mason Project, Nevada, U.S.A. with an effective date of March 3, 2017, available under Mason's profile at www.sedar.com and on Mason's website at www.MasonResources.com. Summary of the Arrangement The Arrangement is structured as a plan of arrangement pursuant to the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) and will require the approval of the Supreme Court of British Columbia and the approval of: (i) at least two-thirds of the votes cast by Mason shareholders; and (ii) a majority of the votes cast by Mason shareholders excluding Hudbay and any other persons required to be excluded in accordance with Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"), at a special meeting of Mason shareholders which is expected to be held in December 2018. The Board of Directors of Mason (the "Board"), having received a unanimous recommendation from a special committee of the Board consisting entirely of independent directors (the "Special Committee") has unanimously approved the Arrangement and recommends that Mason shareholders vote in favour of the Arrangement. The Special Committee, in conducting its review of the Arrangement, was advised by Canaccord Genuity Corp. as its financial advisor. In addition, the Special Committee obtained a formal, independent valuation in accordance with MI 61-101 and a fairness opinion from Haywood Securities Inc. ("Haywood"). The independent valuation was prepared by Haywood under the supervision of the Special Committee, and determined that, in Haywood's opinion, based upon and subject to the assumptions, limitations and qualifications set forth therein, the fair market value of the Mason common shares is in the range of $0.25 to $0.56 per Mason common share. In addition, Haywood has provided the Special Committee and Board with a fairness opinion, stating that in its opinion, based upon and subject to the assumptions, limitations, and qualifications set forth therein, the consideration to be received by Mason shareholders (other than Hudbay) under the Arrangement is fair, from a financial point of view, to the Mason shareholders (other than Hudbay). In connection with the Arrangement, all of the directors and senior officers of Mason as well as Mantos Copper (Bermuda) Limited (the "Locked-Up Shareholders") have entered into customary support agreements with Hudbay pursuant to which they have agreed to vote their Mason shares, representing 19.8% of the issued and outstanding Mason shares, in favour of the Arrangement. Together with Hudbay, the Locked-Up Shareholders hold 33.7% of the issued and outstanding Mason common shares. Holders of Mason options and warrants that are in-the-money will receive cash consideration equal to the purchase price less the exercise price of each Mason option or warrant. In addition to the aforementioned approvals, completion of the Arrangement is subject to other customary conditions. The Arrangement is not, however, subject to any regulatory approvals. The Arrangement is expected to close in December 2018. The Arrangement Agreement provides for customary non-solicitation covenants on the part of Mason and a right in favour of Hudbay to match any unsolicited superior proposal. In the event that the Arrangement is not completed in certain circumstances, Mason has agreed to pay Hudbay a termination fee of $1.6 million. The full details of the Arrangement and the MI 61-101 valuation will be set out in a management information circular, which will be mailed to Mason shareholders and filed with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities during November 2018. The documents will also be available under Mason's profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) and on Mason's website (www.MasonResources.com). Advisors Mason's financial advisors are Canaccord Genuity Corp. and Haywood Securities Inc. and its legal advisor is Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. Hudbay's financial advisor is BMO Capital Markets and its legal advisor is Goodmans LLP. QUALIFIED PERSON Robert Cinits, P.Geo., Mason's Chief Operating Officer, a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 has approved the technical information in this news release. About Mason Resources Corp. Mason Resources Corp. is a well-funded Canadian company focused on copper exploration and development in the U.S.A. The company's key asset is its 100% owned Ann Mason project an extensive, prospective land package located in the Yerington District of Nevada. The Ann Mason project hosts two copper-molybdenum porphyry deposits, Ann Mason and Blue Hill, as well as numerous earlier-stage or untested priority targets. The Ann Mason deposit is currently at a PEA level and is among the largest undeveloped copper porphyry resources in Canada/U.S.A. The excellent infrastructure, year-round access, strong community support and clear permitting process are all factors that contribute to making Yerington, Nevada one of the best mining jurisdictions in the world. Mason also holds a 100% interest in the Lordsburg property, an exciting earlier-stage copper-gold porphyry project, located within an historic mining district in New Mexico. About Hudbay Hudbay (TSX,NYSE: HBM) is an integrated mining company primarily producing copper concentrate (containing copper, gold and silver), zinc concentrate, molybdenum concentrate and zinc metal. With assets in North and South America, the company is focused on the discovery, production and marketing of base and precious metals. Directly and through its subsidiaries, Hudbay owns four polymetallic mines, four ore concentrators and a zinc production facility in northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan (Canada) and Cusco (Peru), and a copper project in Arizona (United States). The company's growth strategy is focused on the exploration and development of properties it already controls, as well as other mineral assets it may acquire that fit its strategic criteria. Hudbay's vision is to be a responsible, top-tier operator of long-life, low-cost mines in the Americas. Hudbay's mission is to create sustainable value through the acquisition, development and operation of high-quality, long-life deposits with exploration potential in jurisdictions that support responsible mining, and to see the regions and communities in which the company operates benefit from its presence. The company is governed by the Canada Business Corporations Act and its shares are listed under the symbol "HBM" on the Toronto Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange and Bolsa de Valores de Lima. Forward-Looking Information This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the anticipated Arrangement and the timing and anticipated benefits thereof. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause Hudbay and/or Mason's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the risk that the Arrangement does not close on a timely basis or at all or that some or all of the anticipated benefits thereof are not achieved; unanticipated costs, expenses or liabilities; discrepancies between actual and anticipated production, mineral resources and metallurgical recoveries; the size, grade and continuity of deposits not being interpreted correctly from exploration results; the results of preliminary test work not being indicative of the results of future test work; risks related to international operations, including legal and political risk; risks associated with changes in the attitudes of governments to foreign investment; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; inability to upgrade Inferred mineral resources to Indicated or Measured mineral resources; inability to convert mineral resources to mineral reserves; conclusions of economic evaluations; fluctuations in commodity prices and demand; changing foreign exchange rates; actions by government authorities; the availability of funding on reasonable terms; the impact of changes in interpretation to or changes in enforcement of, laws, regulations and government practices, including laws, regulations and government practices with respect to mining, foreign investment, royalties and taxation; the terms and timing of obtaining necessary environmental and other government approvals, consents and permits; title disputes; limitations on insurance coverage; the availability and cost of necessary items such as power, water, skilled labour, transportation and appropriate smelting and refining arrangements; as well as other uncertainties and risk factors set out in filings made from time to time with Canadian securities regulators, including, without limitation, Hudbay's and Mason's Annual Information Forms for the financial year ended December 31, 2017, each of which is filed on SEDAR; and any misjudgements in the course of preparing forward-looking statements. Actual results, developments and timetables could vary significantly from the estimates presented. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Hudbay and Mason disclaim any intent or obligation to update publicly such forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additionally, Hudbay and/or Mason undertake no obligation to comment on analyses, expectations or statements made by third parties in respect of Hudbay and/or Mason, their financial or operating results or their securities. SOURCE Mason Resources "The new Hyatt Regency John Wayne Airport Newport Beach offers an ideal upscale hospitality option for both travelers and locals due to our prime location midway between Los Angeles and San Diego, and adjacent to vibrant businesses and leisure destinations," said Tom Clearwater, General Manager of Hyatt Regency John Wayne Airport Newport Beach. "The complete renovation of this property has created an experience that connects travelers to who and what matters most to them. The hotel effectively appeals to the business traveler looking for sophistication and efficiency, as well as brides and meeting planners searching for a conveniently located upscale oasis." The contemporary new look of the 343-guestroom hotel was inspired by award-winning West Coast-based design firm Indidesign, who reimagined all guestrooms and suites, corridors, public spaces and 28,000 square feet of meetings and social event venues across the property. The upscale aesthetic was bred from an architectural approach that embraced the hotel's existing footprint while redesigning it for a fresh and bespoke experience. Magnificent public spaces are dotted with intimate nooks, providing opportunity for connectivity. High-design touchpoints range from the striking black marble counter at the hotel's sleek BLVD cocktail bar, to the commanding aviation-inspired commissioned art piece that welcomes guests at reception, a nod to the hotel's close proximity to John Wayne Airport. Uncompromising attention to detail resulted in a palette of high-quality materials throughout the hotel's custom furnishings. The effortless connection between business and pleasure found in the surrounding coastal community is reflected in the hotel's selection of amenities which include luxuriously appointed guestrooms complete with Italian marble-laden bathrooms, breezy step-out balconies and 65" Smart TV's; a fitness facility outfitted with the newest line of Precor exercise equipment; dedicated stretching and yoga room; lushly landscaped resort-style pool and jacuzzi; destination dining at WAVE Newport Beach with locally and sustainably driven California cuisine; craft cocktails at BLVD Bar; convenient marketplace with elevated grab-and-go deli and bakery selections; concierge services; and complimentary shuttle transfer to John Wayne Airport and high-end area retailers at Fashion Island and South Coast Plaza. In addition to its prime location, the hotel offers a host of venues and dining options to meet the needs of virtually every meeting or special event guest with 28,000 square feet of flexible function space, ideal for corporate meetings, conventions and occasions of a lifetime. Settings range from refined, fully customizable boardrooms to 20,000 square feet of contiguous indoor/outdoor space, such as the Pacific Ballroom, which flows into the Monarch Pavilion and Lido Event Lawn, offering a seamlessly transitioning experience. Meetings and events culinary options are inventive, with menus driven by the freshest produce from local farms, for a variety of occasions: from C-Suite board meetings, intimate celebrations to large-scale events. The hotel's signature restaurant WAVE offers classic California flavors in a chic setting with early standout dishes that include Braised Short Ribs with Creamy Polenta, Brussel Sprouts, Asparagus and Chanterelle Mushrooms and Seared Skuna Bay Salmon Orange-Fennel Cilantro Relish, Asparagus and a Brown Quinoa Salad. Craft cocktails and modern interpretations of the classics can be enjoyed at BLVD Bar, while seasonal grab-and-go items, coffee beverages and fresh house-made pastries can all be found at BLVD Market. For further details or reservations, please call (949) 975-1234 or visit johnwayneairportnewportbeach.hyatt.com. About Hyatt Regency John Wayne Airport Newport Beach Officially unveiled in fall 2018, Hyatt Regency John Wayne Airport Newport Beach presents the newest address for business travelers in Orange County, Calif., centrally located between Los Angeles and San Diego, minutes from John Wayne Airport, Newport Beach's bustling business district, and the glittering coast. Following a full property-wide redesign and renovation, the hotel strikes the balance between urban oasis and efficiency driven destination, ideal for executive and leisure travelers, as well as special events and occasions. The hotel's 343 guestrooms and suites are well-appointed with Italian marble and quartz bathrooms, expansive balconies, triple-pane windows and tech-forward touches that include 65-inch smart televisions and premium Internet bandwidth. Dining options range from a signature restaurant, WAVE Newport Beach where a classic California menu is driven by local, seasonal and sustainably raised ingredients to craft cocktails and locally inspired bites at BLVD Bar, and elevated grab-and-go snacks, deli options and freshly baked pastries at BLVD Market. At 28,000 square feet, newly renovated indoor/outdoor function space boasts the latest in wireless technology, lighting and sound capabilities in addition to sun-splashed venues such as the lush Lido Event Lawn. Additional hotel amenities include a sparkling resort-style pool and jacuzzi, fitness center, and dedicated stretching/yoga room. Convenient to many of Southern California's major attractions, complimentary shuttle transfer is available to the world-class luxury shopping of Fashion Island and South Coast Plaza, in addition to John Wayne Airport. For further information or reservations call 949.975.1234 or visit johnwayneairportnewportbeach.hyatt.com About Hyatt Regency The Hyatt Regency brand prides itself on connecting travelers to who and what matters most to them. More than 180 conveniently located Hyatt Regency urban and resort locations in over 30 countries around the world serve as the go-to gathering space for every occasion from efficient business meetings to memorable family vacations. The brand offers a one-stop experience that puts everything guests need right at their fingertips. Hyatt Regency hotels and resorts offer a full range of services and amenities, including the space to work, engage or relax; notable culinary experiences; technology-enabled ways to collaborate; and expert event planners who can take care of every detail. For more information, please visit hyattregency.com. Follow @HyattRegency on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and tag photos with #AtHyattRegency. Media Contact: Melissa Ward I Taylor Vande Beek Murphy O'Brien Public Relations 310.453.2539 I [email protected] SOURCE Hyatt Regency John Wayne Airport Newport Beach Related Links https://www.hyatt.com Dachang Movie Town project, one of the signature projects of China Fortune Land Development Co., Ltd (CFLD), was selected as the Global Model of Characteristic Town at the Awards Ceremony of the 2018 annual session of the Global Forum on Human Settlements (GFHS-XIII) at the United Nations Conference Center in Bangkok, Thailand, on October. 30. This is the first time the concept of a sustainable operation of CFLD's Industrial Town project has been recognized by an international mainstream industry organization. The two-day forum, co-hosted by the GFHS and the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), was attended by more than 500 senior officials of international organizations, diplomats, government representatives, and city mayors, including Hongjoo Hahm, acting executive secretary of UNESCAP, Anwarul K. Chowdhury, chairman of the GFHS, former under-secretary-general and high representative of the United Nations, as well as Arab Hoballah, former director of the UNEP Sustainable Consumption and Production Branch. This year's forum focused on strengthening urban innovation, building inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities and human settlements. At this year's Awards Ceremony, 36 awards under seven categories were issued. Among the winners, China's industrial zone developer and operator CFLD was awarded "2018 Global Model of Characteristic Town" by virtue of its Dachang Movie Town project. Dachang Movie Town is located on the northern side of Dachang New Industry City along the Chaobai River, 30 kilometers east of Beijing Guomao Central Business District. It is eight kilometers from the new administrative center of Beijing. Stressing "incubation + industrialization" as a two-pronged development strategy, and focusing on a "movie plus" development strategy, the project is designed to promote the integrated development of culture, science and technology, thus building a complete chain of film and television creative industries and a new ecological circle. The assessment team of the award believes that the Dachang Movie Town project is gaining wide recognition for its commitment to the creative integration of the film and television industry with the tourism sector. In terms of spatial planning, with the river passing through the town center and main public space, and a carefully designed pedestrian-friendly multi-functional neighborhood, it fully embraces the integration of industrial and city life. In landscape design, the project works to highlight cultural elements and themed film and television scenes, providing a lively component of real life. The secretary-general of GFHS, Lyu Haifeng, highly praised the significant contribution of the Dachang Movie Town project to the sustainable urban development. He said the project has fully integrated industries with urban life while making space planning. CFLD Executive President Chen Huaizhou said that, with the core concept of "Each Industry Town has a characteristic industry" based on an efficient PPP model, the company is closely cooperating with governments to create a new type of industrial town. Based on the leading industry of the region, CFLD's professional team closely studies the region's industrial base and provides tailor-made service covering the whole industry chain from industrial development planning, global resource integration, investment management services, to smart operation, so as to make sure that "every Industry Town operates sustainably", Chen said. Dachang Movie Town has six international top studios, three world-leading 4K studios and three landscape workshops operating. The project has signed with more than 100 Chinese and foreign film and television cultural and creative enterprises, with a contracted investment of more than 16.5 billion yuan. Among the famous companies involved, Jin FX produced realistic simulated wolves for the film "Wolf Totem," while Base FX wonderful late stage visual effects for "Captain America 3" and other films. GFHS was established in New York in 2008. The non-governmental, non-profit international organization is committed to building sustainable cities and human settlements. The forum so far has hosted 12 annual conferences around the world. Other GFHS winners of Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements Awards this year included Bilbao City of Spain (Global Green City Award) and the Smart City Barueri, Brazil (Global City Innovation Award). LOS ANGELES, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Icelandic Glacial, an award-winning, premium natural spring water from Iceland, announced today that their recently launched sparkling Elderflower water has won the award for Best Flavored Water at the 2018 Global Bottled Water Awards. Icelandic Glacial's Sparkling Elderflower Water The Global Bottled Water Awards are organized annually by global food and drink experts, Zenith Global, in Evian, France to celebrate a range of excellence and innovation across every category of the packaged water industry. They are open to innovators and entrepreneurs as well as established brands from around the globe. Icelandic Glacial has previously won the Best New Brand/Brand Extension award in 2016 for its classic sparkling water and the Best in PET award in 2013 for its excellent design and packaging at the Global Bottled Water Awards. Reflecting on the overall success of their flavored sparkling water launch, Jon Olafsson, Chairman and Co-Founder of Icelandic Glacial, comments, "Being honored with this award has reinforced our ability to stand out in the industry by providing a uniquely natural flavor experience for consumers. We could not be more excited to see all the hard work towards evolving our products receive such positive reception in so little time." "To compete in this category, you have to be innovative," said Kristjan Olafsson, Co-Founder of Icelandic Glacial. "We wanted to bring something new to the table with our sparkling flavors and this award tells us that we got it right." Icelandic Glacial's flavored sparkling water is available in Elderflower, Tahitian Lime, and Sicilian Lemon flavors, which can now be purchased online via Icelandic Glacial. About Icelandic Glacial: Icelandic Glacial is the super-premium natural spring water, bottled at the source from Iceland's legendary Olfus Spring, which was formed more than 5,000 years ago and is shielded from pollution by an impenetrable barrier of lava rock. The spring produces water so pure that nothing is added or taken away. As a result, Icelandic Glacial possesses exceptional balance featuring a naturally low mineral content and a naturally alkaline pH of 8.4. Icelandic Glacial is further distinguished as the world's first certified carbon neutral natural spring bottled water for product and operation. Icelandic Glacial uses 100% natural green energy to fuel its production delivering a premium bottled water to discerning consumers around the world while maintaining a "net zero" carbon footprint. CONTACT: Icelandic Glacial: Amy Barbanell | 310.734.7834 [email protected] SOURCE Icelandic Glacial Related Links https://icelandicglacial.com/ BAODING, China, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- IT Tech Packaging, Inc. (NYSE MKT: ITP) ("IT Tech Packaging" or the "Company"), a leading manufacturer and distributor of diversified paper products in North China, today announced the results of the Company's 2018 Annual General Meeting of Stockholders (the "Annual Meeting"), which was held on October 30, 2018 at the Company's Wei County Production Base in Wei County, Hebei Province, China. At the Annual Meeting, IT Tech Packaging's stockholders: Elected three Class II directors, Messrs. Zhenyong Liu , Fuzeng Liu and Ms. Lusha Niu , to serve on the Board of Directors of the Company until the 2020 Annual General Meeting of Stockholders and until their respective successors have been duly elected and qualified or until his or her earlier resignation, removal or death; Ratified the appointment of WWC, P.C. Certified Public Accountants as the Company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2018 . About IT Tech Packaging, Inc. Founded in 1996, IT Tech Packaging, Inc. is a leading manufacturer and distributor of diversified paper products in North China. Using recycled paper as its primary raw material (with the exception of its tissue paper products), ITP produces and distributes three categories of paper products: corrugating medium paper, offset printing paper and tissue paper products. With production based in Baoding and Xingtai in North China's Hebei Province, ITP is located strategically close to the Beijing and Tianjin region, home to a growing base of industrial and manufacturing activities and one of the largest markets for paper products consumption in the country. ITP has been listed on the NYSE MKT since December 2009. Safe Harbor Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated, including risks outlined in the Company's public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company's latest annual report on Form 10-K. All information provided in this press release speaks as of the date hereof. Except as otherwise required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements. For more information, please visit www.itpackaging.cn, or you can contact: Investor Relations: Tony Tian, CFA Weitian Group LLC Email: [email protected] [email protected] Phone: +1-732-910-9692 SOURCE IT Tech Packaging, Inc. Related Links http://www.itpackaging.cn LIMERICK, Pa., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Joseph Major was a guest speaker for "This Month in Banking" hosted by The Kafafian Group, Inc. (TKG) The discussion was about De Novo banks and how the banking industry has changed over the past decade. Major related The Victory Bank's story and how challenges were overcome during the peak of the 2008 recession. The interview also included insights to current banking issues and raising capital. The podcast can be heard by following this link. http://bit.ly/VBKPodcast Use the above to listen or go to iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. The Victory Bank is locally owned and operated commercial bank headquartered in Limerick, Pennsylvania. The bank was founded to optimize the financial lives of business, professionals, government/public entities, and consumers. For more information, call 610-948-9000 or visit www.victorybank.com. Member FDIC SOURCE The Victory Bank Related Links https://www.victorybank.com LONG ISLAND, N.Y., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Dickey's Barbecue Pit franchisee Jerry Stephan plans to bring 21 Dickey's locations to New York. As a new member of the Dickey's family, Jerry plans to develop the Dickey's Barbecue Pit presence throughout the state. Jerry will own and operate two of the locations, with his first slated to open in Spring 2019 in Long Island. "At Dickey's Barbecue Pit, we truly are a family business and we love to see the success of our franchisees," says Laura Rea Dickey, CEO of Dickey's Barbecue Restaurants, Inc. "We look forward to our partnership with Jerry as it is very exciting to have him as both a franchisee and as a partner who will help us choose the best Owner Operators and site locations for the new stores coming to New York." With more than 15 years in the franchising business and more than 40 years in the construction business, Jerry looks forward to combining two of his passions at Dickey's. "I was looking for a new restaurant concept to bring to Long Island and after doing research on the Dickey's Barbecue Pit franchise I knew that it was a great fit," says Jerry. "After being in the industry for a while, I really liked how Dickey's business model is set up and, of course, I love the slow-smoked barbecue." Find your local Dickey's Barbecue Pit here. Learn more about Dickey's franchising opportunities here. Follow Dickey's on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. About Dickey's Barbecue Restaurants, Inc. Dickey's Barbecue Restaurants, Inc., the nation's largest barbecue chain was founded in 1941 by Travis Dickey. For the past 77 years, Dickey's Barbecue Pit locations across the nation have served guests Legit. Texas. Barbecue. At Dickey's, all meats are smoked low and slow on-site, every night in every location. The Dallas-based family-run barbecue franchise offers several slow-smoked meats and wholesome sides with 'No B.S. (Bad Stuff)' included. The fast-casual concept has expanded worldwide and includes more than 500 locations in 44 states. In 2016, Dickey's won first place on Fast Casual's "Top 100 Movers and Shakers" list and in 2018 Dickey's Barbecue Pit made the Top 10. Dickey's Barbecue Pit has also been recognized by Entrepreneur Magazine, Franchise Times and Nation's Restaurant News. For more information, visit www.dickeys.com. Media Contact: Callie Head [email protected] Ashley Richardson [email protected] SOURCE Dickey's Barbecue Related Links http://www.dickeys.com BISMARCK, N.D., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- MDU Resources Group, Inc. (NYSE: MDU) today reported third quarter earnings from continuing operations of $107.4 million, or 55 cents per share, compared to third quarter 2017 earnings from continuing operations of $89.6 million, or 46 cents per share. Including discontinued operations, MDU Resources reported third quarter earnings of $107.3 million, or 55 cents per share, compared to $87.4 million, or 45 cents per share, in 2017. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, MDU Resources had earnings from continuing operations of $193.4 million, or 99 cents per share, compared to $168.8 million, or 86 cents per share, for the first nine months of 2017. Including discontinued operations, the company had earnings of $193.5 million, or 99 cents per share for the period, compared to $165.1 million, or 84 cents per share, in 2017. "We are pleased to report another strong quarter for MDU Resources, in which our companies performed well and continued to successfully execute on our growth strategy," said David L. Goodin, president and CEO of MDU Resources. "We ended the quarter with record combined revenues, earnings and backlog at our construction companies, a testament to our team's ability to capture projects and perform. In keeping with our strategy of acquiring well-run companies, earlier this month we announced our fourth construction materials acquisition of the year with the purchase of Sweetman Construction Co., a leading provider of aggregates, asphalt and ready-mix in the Sioux Falls market of South Dakota. "We also continue to see solid results from our regulated businesses. Today we completed the purchase of an expansion to our Thunder Spirit Wind farm in southwestern North Dakota. With this expansion, renewables will make up approximately 27 percent of our total generation mix. We also finished and brought into service in mid-September our Line Section 27 pipeline project near Watford City, North Dakota. With natural gas production continuing at record levels in the Bakken, demand remains high for additional transportation capacity. Today, the company received approval from FERC to bring our Valley Expansion project into commercial operation on Nov. 1, providing much-needed gas capacity to eastern North Dakota." Business Unit Highlights Construction Materials and Services The construction materials business earned a record $78.9 million in the third quarter, a 25 percent increase over the $63.2 million earned in third quarter 2017. The company continues to benefit from the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, had higher sales volumes in most product lines and saw higher construction workloads in the northwestern states. This business is beginning to see construction activity increase in energy-producing states where it operates. The company continues to evaluate additional acquisition opportunities in strategic markets. The construction materials backlog of work at Sept. 30 was $590 million, compared to $520 million in 2017. The construction services business earned $9.3 million in the third quarter, compared to $13.1 million for the same period in 2017. Third quarter results at this business were negatively impacted by approximately $7.2 million due to changes in estimates on certain construction projects. The company continues to benefit from federal tax reform and high demand for sales and rentals of the utility construction equipment it manufactures. This business continues to perform a high volume of inside specialty contracting work, particularly for high-tech and hospitality customers, as well as outside power, communications and natural gas specialty work. The company is engaged in power line repair work in areas impacted by hurricanes. The construction services business had a record backlog of work at Sept. 30 of $896 million, compared to $676 million in 2017. Regulated Energy Delivery The pipeline and midstream business earned $11.0 million in the third quarter, up from $6.0 million in 2017. Because of a final accounting order recently issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the company realized a $4.2 million tax benefit in the quarter. The company transported record volumes of natural gas through its system for the fifth consecutive quarter, partly due to increasing capacity through two expansion projects completed in 2017 and the Line Section 27 expansion project completed in September 2018. The company's Valley Expansion project in eastern North Dakota and far western Minnesota will be placed into service on Nov. 1. The company is proceeding with construction planning on its Demicks Lake Project in McKenzie County, North Dakota, and its Line Section 22 project near Billings, Montana. Both projects are expected to be constructed and in service in 2019. Today, the company filed a rate increase request with the FERC in accordance with the company's settlement agreement reached in 2014 with its customers and the FERC. The electric and natural gas utility earned $3.4 million in the third quarter, compared to $4.8 million in third quarter 2017. Earnings were impacted by lower electric margins, which resulted from a transmission rate adjustment the company made because costs on the Big Stone South-to-Ellendale project are lower than anticipated. This 345-kilovolt transmission project from Ellendale, North Dakota, to Big Stone City, South Dakota, is expected to be complete in the first quarter of 2019. Electric sales volumes were down slightly compared to the same period last year, while natural gas sales volumes were up approximately 1.5 percent. Today, the company finalized the $84 million purchase of an expansion of the Thunder Spirit Wind farm in southwest North Dakota. The expansion increased production capacity at the wind farm to approximately 155 megawatts. Guidance MDU Resources reaffirmed that it expects earnings per share in the range of $1.25 to $1.45 in 2018, based on these assumptions: Normal operating conditions and weather conditions, including precipitation and temperatures, across all service areas. No additional acquisitions or divestitures. Investing $786 million for capital projects and completed acquisitions in 2018. for capital projects and completed acquisitions in 2018. Construction services revenues in the range of $1.30 billion to $1.45 billion , with margins comparable to 2017 and construction materials revenues in the range of $1.85 billion to $1.95 billion , with margins comparable to or slightly higher than 2017. Corporate Strategy MDU Resources' strategy is to increase market share and profitability in its regulated energy delivery and construction materials and services businesses, while enhancing value through organic growth opportunities and strategic acquisitions of well-managed companies and properties. The company, on a consolidated basis, anticipates 5 to 8 percent long-term compound annual growth on earnings per share. Conference Call MDU Resources will discuss third quarter results on a webcast at 2 p.m. EDT Nov. 1. The event can be accessed at www.mdu.com . Webcast and audio replays will be available through Nov. 15 at 855-859-2056, or 404-537-3406 for international callers, conference ID 2136759. About MDU Resources MDU Resources Group, Inc., a member of the S&P MidCap 400 index and the S&P High-Yield Dividend Aristocrats index, is Building a Strong America by providing essential products and services through its regulated energy delivery and construction materials and services businesses. For more information about MDU Resources, see the company's website at www.mdu.com or contact the Investor Relations Department at [email protected] . Media Contact: Laura Lueder, manager of communications and public relations, 701-530-1095 Financial Contact: Jason Vollmer, vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer, 701-530-1755 Forward-Looking Statements The information contained in this press release highlights the key growth strategies, projections and certain assumptions for the company and its subsidiaries and other matters for each of the company's businesses. Many of these highlighted statements and other statements not historical in nature are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Although the company believes that its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, there is no assurance that the company's projections, including estimates for growth and changes in earnings, will in fact be achieved. Please refer to assumptions contained in this press release, as well as the various important factors listed in Part I, Item 1A - Risk Factors in the company's most recent Form 10-K and Part II, Item 1A - Risk Factors in the company's most recent Form 10-Q. Changes in such assumptions and factors could cause actual future results to differ materially from growth and earnings projections. All forward-looking statements in this press release are expressly qualified by such cautionary statements and by reference to the underlying assumptions. Undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. We do not undertake to update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Throughout this press release, the company presents financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP, as well as EBITDA, EBITDA from continuing operations, and adjusted gross margin, which are considered non-GAAP financial measures. The use of these non-GAAP financial measures should not be construed as alternatives to earnings, operating income or operating cash flows. The company believes the use of these non-GAAP financial measures are beneficial in evaluating the company's financial performance due to its diverse operations. Please refer to the "Non-GAAP Financial Measures" section contained in this document for additional information. Performance Summary and Future Outlook Earnings Business Line Third Quarter 2018 Earnings Third Quarter 2017 Earnings YTD Sept. 30, 2018 Earnings YTD Sept. 30, 2017 Earnings (In millions, except per share amounts) Regulated energy delivery $ 14.4 $ 10.8 $ 73.3 $ 67.2 Construction materials and services 88.2 76.3 118.2 97.4 Other and eliminations 4.8 2.5 1.9 4.2 Earnings from continuing operations 107.4 89.6 193.4 168.8 Income (loss) from discontinued operations, net of tax (.1) (2.2) .1 (3.7) Earnings on common stock $ 107.3 $ 87.4 $ 193.5 $ 165.1 Earnings per share: Earnings from continuing operations $ .55 $ .46 $ .99 $ .86 Discontinued operations, net of tax (.01) (.02) Earnings per share $ .55 $ .45 $ .99 $ .84 Consolidated Statements of Income Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, September 30, 2018 2017 2018 2017 (In millions, except per share amounts) Operating revenues: (Unaudited) Electric, natural gas distribution and regulated pipeline and midstream $ 200.6 $ 206.9 $ 851.8 $ 866.0 Nonregulated pipeline and midstream, construction materials and contracting, construction services and other 1,080.2 1,065.6 2,469.9 2,412.1 Total operating revenues 1,280.8 1,272.5 3,321.7 3,278.1 Operating expenses: Operation and maintenance: Electric, natural gas distribution and regulated pipeline and midstream 82.9 80.2 253.0 237.9 Nonregulated pipeline and midstream, construction materials and contracting, construction services and other 913.7 893.8 2,166.5 2,116.6 Total operation and maintenance 996.6 974.0 2,419.5 2,354.5 Purchased natural gas sold 32.1 33.3 270.3 283.9 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 55.0 52.2 161.3 155.1 Taxes, other than income 38.7 38.8 128.3 127.3 Electric fuel and purchased power 18.4 18.9 58.9 57.5 Total operating expenses 1,140.8 1,117.2 3,038.3 2,978.3 Operating income 140.0 155.3 283.4 299.8 Other income 2.7 2.1 4.8 6.2 Interest expense 21.0 20.9 62.2 62.0 Income before income taxes 121.7 136.5 226.0 244.0 Income taxes 14.3 46.9 32.6 74.5 Income from continuing operations 107.4 89.6 193.4 169.5 Income (loss) from discontinued operations, net of tax (.1) (2.2) .1 (3.7) Net income 107.3 87.4 193.5 165.8 Loss on redemption of preferred stocks .6 Dividends declared on preferred stocks .1 Earnings on common stock $ 107.3 $ 87.4 $ 193.5 $ 165.1 Earnings per common share basic: Earnings before discontinued operations $ .55 $ .46 $ .99 $ .86 Discontinued operations, net of tax (.01) (.01) Earnings per common share basic $ .55 $ .45 $ .99 $ .85 Earnings per common share diluted: Earnings before discontinued operations $ .55 $ .46 $ .99 $ .86 Discontinued operations, net of tax (.01) (.02) Earnings per common share diluted $ .55 $ .45 $ .99 $ .84 Dividends declared per common share $ .1975 $ .1925 $ .5925 $ .5775 Weighted average common shares outstanding basic 196.0 195.3 195.6 195.3 Weighted average common shares outstanding diluted 196.3 195.8 196.1 195.9 Selected Cash Flows Information Nine Months Ended September 30, 2018 2017 (In millions) Operating activities: Net cash provided by continuing operations $ 320.1 $ 229.9 Net cash provided by (used in) discontinued operations (2.7) 42.0 Net cash provided by operating activities 317.4 271.9 Investing activities: Net cash used in continuing operations (362.5) (101.1) Net cash provided by discontinued operations 1.2 2.2 Net cash used in investing activities (361.3) (98.9) Financing activities: Net cash provided by (used in) continuing operations 76.4 (181.7) Net cash provided by discontinued operations Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities 76.4 (181.7) Increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents 32.5 (8.7) Cash and cash equivalents - beginning of year 34.6 46.1 Cash and cash equivalents - end of period $ 67.1 $ 37.4 Capital Expenditures Business Line 2018 Estimated (In millions) Regulated energy delivery Electric $ 195 Natural gas distribution 193 Pipeline and midstream 84 472 Construction materials and services Construction services 30 Construction materials and contracting 281 311 Other 3 Total capital expenditures $ 786 Note: Total capital expenditures are presented on a gross basis. Capital expenditures for 2018 include line-of-sight opportunities at the company's business units and completed acquisitions at the construction materials and contracting business. Other targeted acquisitions would be incremental to the outlined capital program. Estimated operating cash flows are $475 million to $500 million in 2018. Non-GAAP Financial Measures The company, in addition to presenting its earnings in conformity with GAAP, has provided non-GAAP financial measures of EBITDA by operating segment and EBITDA from continuing operations. The company believes that these non-GAAP financial measures are useful to investors in evaluating the company's financial performance and valuation, especially based on the diversity of the company's operations. The company's management uses the non-GAAP financial measures in conjunction with GAAP results when evaluating the company's operating results and calculating compensation packages. The company presents EBITDA by operating segment and EBITDA from continuing operations on a consolidated basis in this press release. The company defines EBITDA as earnings attributable to the operating segment before interest; taxes; depreciation, depletion and amortization; and EBITDA from continuing operations as income from continuing operations before interest; taxes; depreciation, depletion and amortization. The company's management considers it a useful financial measure in evaluating the operating performance of the company as well as each operating segment due to the diverse operations performed at each segment. The company believes EBITDA and EBITDA from continuing operations are useful measures in providing meaningful information about operational efficiency compared to the company's peers by excluding the impacts of differences in tax jurisdictions and structures, debt levels and capital investment. The presentation of EBITDA and EBITDA from continuing operations also is provided for investment professionals who use such metrics in their analyses. The investment community often uses these metrics to assess the operating performance of a company's business and to provide a consistent comparison of performance from period to period. Non-GAAP financial measures are not standardized; therefore, it may not be possible to compare such financial measures with other companies' non-GAAP financial measures having the same or similar names. The presentation of this additional information is not meant to be considered a substitution for financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. The company strongly encourages investors to review the consolidated financial statements in their entirety and to not rely on any single financial measure. The following table provides a reconciliation of consolidated GAAP earnings to EBITDA from continuing operations. The reconciliation for each operating segment's EBITDA is included with each operating segment's condensed income statement. Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, September 30, 2018 2017 2018 2017 (In millions) Earnings on common stock $ 107.3 $ 87.4 $ 193.5 $ 165.1 Less: Loss on redemption of preferred stocks (.6) Dividends declared on preferred stocks (.1) Net income 107.3 87.4 193.5 165.8 (Income) loss from discontinued operations, net of tax .1 2.2 (.1) 3.7 Income from continuing operations 107.4 89.6 193.4 169.5 Adjustments: Interest expense 21.0 20.9 62.2 62.0 Income taxes 14.3 46.9 32.6 74.5 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 55.0 52.2 161.3 155.1 EBITDA from continuing operations $ 197.7 $ 209.6 $ 449.5 $ 461.1 The earnings discussion that follows includes financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP, as well as another financial measure, adjusted gross margin, that is considered a non-GAAP financial measure as it relates to the company's electric and natural gas distribution segments. The presentation of adjusted gross margin is intended to be a helpful supplemental measure for investors' understanding of the segments' operating performance. This non-GAAP financial measure should not be considered as an alternative to, or more meaningful than, GAAP measures such as operating income (loss) or earnings (loss). The company's adjusted gross margin measure may not be comparable to other companies' gross margin measures. In addition to operating revenues and operating expenses, management also uses the non-GAAP financial measure of adjusted gross margin when evaluating the results of operations for the electric and natural gas distribution segments. Adjusted gross margin for the electric and natural gas distribution segments is calculated by adding back adjustments to operating income (loss). These add back adjustments include: operation and maintenance expense; depreciation, depletion and amortization expense; and certain taxes, other than income. Adjusted gross margin includes operating revenues less cost of electric fuel and purchased power, purchased natural gas sold and certain taxes, other than income. These taxes, other than income included as a reduction to adjusted gross margin relate to revenue taxes. These segments pass on to their customers the increases and decreases in the wholesale cost of power purchases, natural gas and other fuel supply costs in accordance with regulatory requirements. As such, the segments' revenues are directly impacted by the fluctuations in such commodities. Revenue taxes, which are passed back to customers, fluctuate with revenues as they are calculated as a percentage of revenues. Period over period, the segments' operating income (loss) is generally not impacted by the increase or decrease in revenues since the change is directly related to the increase or decrease in wholesale cost of power purchases, natural gas or other fuel supply costs, nor is it impacted by revenue taxes since it is a direct result of revenues. The company's management believes the adjusted gross margin is a useful supplemental measure as these items are included in both operating revenues and operating expenses. The company's management also believes that adjusted gross margin and the remaining operating expenses that calculate operating income (loss) are useful in assessing the company's utility performance as management has the ability to influence control over the remaining operating expenses. The following tables provide reconciliations of the company's electric and natural gas distribution segments operating income to adjusted gross margin for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2018 and 2017, respectively. Electric Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, September 30, 2018 2017 2018 2017 (In millions) Operating income $ 21.1 $ 25.7 $ 52.3 $ 61.2 Adjustments: Operating expenses: Operation and maintenance 30.1 31.0 91.3 89.0 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 12.6 12.2 37.7 35.5 Taxes, other than income 3.7 3.5 11.2 10.5 Total adjustments 46.4 46.7 140.2 135.0 Adjusted gross margin $ 67.5 $ 72.4 $ 192.5 $ 196.2 Natural Gas Distribution Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, September 30, 2018 2017 2018 2017 (In millions) Operating income (loss) $ (11.7) $ (9.5) $ 32.5 $ 42.7 Adjustments: Operating expenses: Operation and maintenance 42.1 39.8 129.4 119.8 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 18.1 17.4 53.5 51.7 Taxes, other than income 5.4 5.2 16.5 15.4 Total adjustments 65.6 62.4 199.4 186.9 Adjusted gross margin $ 53.9 $ 52.9 $ 231.9 $ 229.6 Regulated Energy Delivery Electric Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, September 30, 2018 2017 2018 2017 (Dollars in millions, where applicable) Operating revenues $ 86.1 $ 91.5 $ 252.0 $ 254.3 Electric fuel and purchased power 18.4 18.9 58.9 57.5 Taxes, other than income .2 .2 .6 .6 Adjusted gross margin 67.5 72.4 192.5 196.2 Operating expenses: Operation and maintenance 30.1 31.0 91.3 89.0 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 12.6 12.2 37.7 35.5 Taxes, other than income 3.7 3.5 11.2 10.5 Total operating expenses 46.4 46.7 140.2 135.0 Operating income 21.1 25.7 52.3 61.2 Earnings $ 15.3 $ 15.7 $ 37.5 $ 37.9 Adjustments: Interest expense 6.3 6.4 19.4 19.0 Income taxes .3 4.4 (2.5) 5.9 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 12.6 12.2 37.7 35.5 EBITDA $ 34.5 $ 38.7 $ 92.1 $ 98.3 Retail sales (million kWh): Residential 282.9 278.7 903.0 860.2 Commercial 374.3 377.7 1,131.7 1,122.7 Industrial 132.9 133.7 406.8 395.9 Other 24.5 28.5 70.5 75.7 814.6 818.6 2,512.0 2,454.5 Average cost of electric fuel and purchased power per kWh $ .021 $ .021 $ .022 $ .022 The electric business reported earnings of $15.3 million in the third quarter of 2018, compared to $15.7 million for the same period in 2017. The decrease in earnings was driven by lower electric adjusted gross margins primarily the result of increased reserves against revenues for anticipated refunds to customers resulting from lower income taxes due to the enactment of the TCJA and a transmission formula rate adjustment related to decreased costs on the BSSE project. Also contributing to the decrease in earnings was higher depreciation, depletion and amortization expense. Partially offsetting the decrease were lower income taxes, as previously discussed, and lower operation and maintenance expense, largely from lower payroll-related costs. The electric business's EBITDA decreased $4.2 million in the third quarter of 2018, compared to 2017, primarily the result of the previously discussed lower electric retail sales margins, offset in part by lower operation and maintenance expense. Natural Gas Distribution Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, September 30, 2018 2017 2018 2017 (Dollars in millions, where applicable) Operating revenues $ 92.2 $ 92.3 $ 554.5 $ 566.4 Purchased natural gas sold 35.2 36.4 301.6 314.9 Taxes, other than income 3.1 3.0 21.0 21.9 Adjusted gross margin 53.9 52.9 231.9 229.6 Operating expenses: Operation and maintenance 42.1 39.8 129.4 119.8 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 18.1 17.4 53.5 51.7 Taxes, other than income 5.4 5.2 16.5 15.4 Total operating expenses 65.6 62.4 199.4 186.9 Operating income (loss) (11.7) (9.5) 32.5 42.7 Earnings (loss) $ (11.9) $ (10.9) $ 13.9 $ 14.2 Adjustments: Interest expense 7.7 7.9 22.6 23.1 Income taxes (6.8) (5.8) (2.0) 6.9 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 18.1 17.4 53.5 51.7 EBITDA $ 7.1 $ 8.6 $ 88.0 $ 95.9 Volumes (MMdk) Retail sales: Residential 4.0 3.9 40.4 40.4 Commercial 4.0 4.0 29.0 29.0 Industrial .8 .8 3.2 3.3 8.8 8.7 72.6 72.7 Transportation sales: Commercial .3 .3 1.5 1.4 Industrial 42.0 35.8 108.1 102.1 42.3 36.1 109.6 103.5 Total throughput 51.1 44.8 182.2 176.2 Average cost of natural gas, including transportation, per dk $ 4.00 $ 4.20 $ 4.16 $ 4.33 The natural gas distribution business reported a seasonal loss of $11.9 million in the third quarter of 2018, compared to a seasonal loss of $10.9 million for the same period in 2017. The increased loss was driven by higher operation and maintenance expense, contributing to this increase were conservation expenses of approximately $850,000 which were offset in revenue. Increased natural gas retail margins from increased rate relief and conservation revenues were partially offset by tax reserves against revenues stemming from the enactment of the TCJA. These tax reserves against revenue were offset in income taxes. The natural gas distribution business's EBITDA decreased $1.5 million in the third quarter 2018, compared to 2017, primarily the result of higher operation and maintenance expense. Pipeline and Midstream Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, September 30, 2018 2017 2018 2017 (Dollars in millions) Operating revenues $ 32.3 $ 31.6 $ 93.5 $ 89.9 Operating expenses: Operation and maintenance 15.9 13.9 45.5 41.6 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 4.3 4.2 13.1 12.4 Taxes, other than income 3.0 3.1 9.2 9.2 Total operating expenses 23.2 21.2 67.8 63.2 Operating income 9.1 10.4 25.7 26.7 Earnings $ 11.0 $ 6.0 $ 21.9 $ 15.1 Adjustments: Interest expense 1.6 1.2 4.1 3.8 Income taxes (2.7) 3.5 1.0 9.0 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 4.3 4.2 13.1 12.4 EBITDA $ 14.2 $ 14.9 $ 40.1 $ 40.3 Transportation volumes (MMdk) 92.7 82.4 259.3 229.0 Natural gas gathering volumes (MMdk) 3.8 4.1 11.2 12.1 Customer natural gas storage balance (MMdk): Beginning of period 16.2 25.1 22.4 26.4 Net injection 7.1 9.5 .9 8.2 End of period 23.3 34.6 23.3 34.6 The pipeline and midstream business reported earnings of $11.0 million in the third quarter of 2018, compared to $6.0 million in 2017. The increase in earnings was primarily the result of a $4.2 million tax benefit due to the reversal of a regulatory liability as a result of a FERC final accounting order. Increased transportation revenues and volumes from new projects also contributed to the increase in earnings. Partially offsetting the increase was higher operation and maintenance expense. The pipeline and midstream business's EBITDA decreased $700,000 in the third quarter of 2018, compared to 2017, primarily from higher operation and maintenance expense. Construction Materials and Services Construction Services Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, September 30, 2018 2017 2018 2017 (In millions) Operating revenues $ 330.4 $ 374.5 $ 988.0 $ 1,010.4 Cost of sales: Operation and maintenance 289.3 318.6 838.0 856.1 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 3.5 3.5 10.7 10.8 Taxes, other than income 9.7 11.0 32.0 33.7 Total cost of sales 302.5 333.1 880.7 900.6 Gross margin 27.9 41.4 107.3 109.8 Selling, general and administrative expense: Operation and maintenance 14.6 17.9 51.0 50.2 Depreciation, depletion and amortization .4 .4 1.1 1.1 Taxes, other than income 1.0 .8 3.3 3.0 Total selling, general and administrative expense 16.0 19.1 55.4 54.3 Operating income 11.9 22.3 51.9 55.5 Earnings $ 9.3 $ 13.1 $ 38.5 $ 32.9 Adjustments: Interest expense .9 1.0 2.7 2.8 Income taxes 2.2 8.5 11.8 20.9 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 3.9 3.9 11.8 11.9 EBITDA $ 16.3 $ 26.5 $ 64.8 $ 68.5 The construction services business reported earnings of $9.3 million in the third quarter of 2018, compared to $13.1 million for the same period in 2017. Earnings were negatively impacted by approximately $7.2 million due to changes in estimates on certain construction projects. Partially offsetting the decrease were lower income taxes due to the enactment of the TCJA and lower selling, general and administrative expense, primarily payroll-related costs. Higher outside construction equipment sales and rentals partially offset the decrease in earnings. The construction services business's EBITDA decreased $10.2 million in the third quarter of 2018, compared to 2017, primarily as a result of the previously discussed changes to estimates on certain construction projects. Construction Materials and Contracting Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, September 30, 2018 2017 2018 2017 (Dollars in millions) Operating revenues $ 743.9 $ 686.1 $ 1,466.9 $ 1,388.6 Cost of sales: Operation and maintenance 586.0 537.1 1,210.9 1,143.5 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 15.1 13.2 42.1 39.3 Taxes, other than income 11.8 11.3 30.8 29.7 Total cost of sales 612.9 561.6 1,283.8 1,212.5 Gross margin 131.0 124.5 183.1 176.1 Selling, general and administrative expense: Operation and maintenance 20.1 18.1 57.3 55.1 Depreciation, depletion and amortization .5 .8 1.6 2.8 Taxes, other than income .8 .7 3.6 3.2 Total selling, general and administrative expense 21.4 19.6 62.5 61.1 Operating income 109.6 104.9 120.6 115.0 Earnings $ 78.9 $ 63.2 $ 79.7 $ 64.5 Adjustments: Interest expense 4.4 3.8 12.5 11.3 Income taxes 26.2 37.8 27.4 39.4 Depreciation, depletion and amortization 15.6 14.0 43.7 42.1 EBITDA $ 125.1 $ 118.8 $ 163.3 $ 157.3 Sales (000's): Aggregates (tons) 10,366 10,078 21,860 20,957 Asphalt (tons) 3,380 3,009 5,581 5,054 Ready-mixed concrete (cubic yards) 1,103 1,098 2,623 2,697 The construction materials and contracting business reported earnings of $78.9 million in the third quarter of 2018, compared to $63.2 million in the same period in 2017. This increase in earnings was mainly the result of lower income tax expense due to the enactment of the TCJA. Also contributing to the increase were higher asphalt product margins and volumes and higher construction revenues and margins. Partially offsetting the increase was higher selling, general and administrative expense, primarily payroll-related costs, and higher interest expense. The construction materials and contracting business's EBITDA increased $6.3 million in the third quarter of 2018, compared to 2017. The increased EBITDA was largely the result of an increase in asphalt product and construction margins. Other Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, September 30, 2018 2017 2018 2017 (In millions) Operating revenues $ 3.1 $ 2.1 $ 8.5 $ 6.1 Operating expenses: Operation and maintenance 2.6 .1 6.5 5.8 Depreciation, depletion and amortization .5 .5 1.5 1.5 Taxes, other than income .1 .1 Total operating expenses 3.1 .6 8.1 7.4 Operating income (loss) 1.5 .4 (1.3) Earnings (loss) $ 4.8 $ .6 $ 1.9 $ (1.9) Included in Other are general and administrative costs and interest expense previously allocated to the exploration and production and refining businesses that do not meet the criteria for income (loss) from discontinued operations as well as other income tax adjustments. Discontinued Operations Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, September 30, 2018 2017 2018 2017 (In millions) Income (loss) from discontinued operations before intercompany eliminations, net of tax $ (.1) $ (.3) $ .1 $ 2.4 Intercompany eliminations (1.9) * (6.1) * Income (loss) from discontinued operations, net of tax $ (.1) $ (2.2) $ .1 $ (3.7) * Includes eliminations for the presentation of income tax adjustments between continuing and discontinued operations. The results of operations for the exploration and production and refining businesses, except certain general and administrative costs and interest expense that do not meet the criteria for income (loss) from discontinued operations, are included in income (loss) from discontinued operations. Other Financial Data September 30, 2018 2017 (In millions, except per share amounts) (Unaudited) Book value per common share $ 12.86 $ 12.05 Market price per common share $ 25.69 $ 25.95 Dividend yield (indicated annual rate) 3.1% 3.0% Price/earnings from continuing operations ratio (12 months ended) 16.3x 21.6x Market value as a percent of book value 199.8% 215.4% Net operating cash flow (year to date) $ 317 $ 272 Total assets $ 6,718 $ 6,344 Total equity $ 2,521 $ 2,354 Total debt $ 1,915 $ 1,741 Capitalization ratios: Total equity 56.8% 57.5% Total debt 43.2 42.5 100.0% 100.0% SOURCE MDU Resources Group, Inc. Related Links http://www.mdu.com IRVINE, Calif., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- POPin today announced a new survey of C-level executives and vice presidents across a variety of industries, which found that that an alarming 40% of Millennials find only "minimal value" in townhall meetings; 32% only "reluctantly participate," and 16% "don't participate at all." Only 12% of employees reported being "engaged" in townhall meetings. Overall, only 21% of respondents said townhall meetings are "in tune with issues of importance to employees." 56% said employee concerns are only "sometimes" heard at townhall meetings. 23% said townhall meetings are "typically one sided with information directed from management to employees." In spite of this disconnect, a full 92% of respondents believe employee satisfaction is "a function of engagement" noting that "engaged employees are more likely to stay committed and more productive over the long haul." According to the survey, 22% of respondents say town hall meetings are "typically one sided" with information flowing from management to employees. 65% of respondents say their employees engage and participate in these meetings. However, 35% of respondents fail to conduct town hall employee meetings at all. 86% of employees hide behind electronic communication as the "primary" method of employee feedback. 61% of employers feel that, although they do listen to employee concerns, they cannot meet all of their challenges with an alarming 82% of employers admitting that they have no way of gauging employee satisfaction. "With millennials taking up 35% of the workforce, businesses have had to pivot when it comes to employee engagement and retention," said Brian Anderson, Chief Marketing Officer of POPin. "As they [millennials] engage primarily through electronic communication, most companies could benefit from embracing new way of employee engagement to ensure that all employees are aligned with key company initiatives and feel that their voice is heard. This will also help CEOs and executives solicit and use this honest and anonymous feedback from younger employees to bring change into effect and boost employee retention." Survey Results: Millennial Engagement: Millennials (ages 21 35) contribute to 35% of the American workforce but employers find that 48% of millennials engage below average in town hall meetings. 32% of millennials participate reluctantly while 40% find minimal value in town hall meetings Failure to Gauge Employee Satisfaction: 55% of employers feel they have a good sense of employee job satisfaction. However, note that 82% of employers state have no way of gauging employee satisfaction Inability to Solicit Candid Feedback: 58% of respondents "withhold critical information about the organization," and 13% say they are "not at all candid," when it comes to providing feedback. Only 30% say that "all opinions are encouraged and rewarded." Stuck in Their Ways: 61% of employers feel that, although they do listen to employee concerns, they cannot meet all of their challenges. Failure to Take Action: When it comes to putting feedback into action to drive positive change, only 20% of businesses have a process to do so quickly. 54% admitted they "could be more nimble in this area" and 26% are "slow" and blame "limited resources." Missing the Mark on New Initiatives: 65% of employers are not aligned on new strategic changes and technology initiatives. Hiding Behind email: 49% of employees use email to communicate feedback; 32% rely on townhall meetings; 37% use surveys; and only 10% use crowdsourcing sessions. 45% say they do not receive candid feedback from employees on important issues. 37% say they listen to employee but do not have a formal process in place to measure success. 18% have "no formal process whatsoever" for gauging employee satisfaction. "Our research continues to show that that crowdsourcing techniques such as surveys are a critical tool in helping management engage with employees to ensure the success of corporate initiatives," added Mr. Anderson. Survey Methodology - The survey was conducted between August 1st, 2018, and August 14th, 2018, and reflects responses from 158 business leaders, including c-level executives and vice presidents across a variety of industries. About POPin POPin is a social collaboration tool using anonymous forums and conversations to bridge the gap between leaders and employees by safely harnessing the voice of employees for the sake of building trust, providing clarity and developing buy-in. POPin leverages the power of the entire organization by turning employee insights into action, helping leaders drive alignment and reduce obstacles to corporate objectives. Headquartered in Irvine, CA, POPin is already helping organizations such as CoreLogic, CRH, SCL and NYU. For more information visit www.popinnow.com. Media Contact Lumina Communications Hollie Smith 201-312-4413 [email protected] SOURCE POPin Related Links http://www.popinnow.com ROCKVILLE, Md., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- This flu season's vaccine market will be influenced by the return of nasal spray vaccines, according to Kalorama Information. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) did not recommend the nasal flu vaccine during the 20162017 and 20172018 flu seasons. For the 2018-2019 season, the CDC, in addition to supporting the injectable flu vaccine, also supports the use of nasal spray vaccine. The healthcare market research firm's recent report, Vaccines 2018: World Market Analysis, Key Players, Trends, Pediatric and Adult Segments, examines the market for vaccines used in humans to prevent various types of disease, providing a comprehensive market summary. In that report, Kalorama Information projected a 4.3 billion-dollar flu vaccine market by year end 2018. Delivery mechanisms, along with public awareness, are driving flu vaccine expansion. "From a market perspective delivery mechanisms add users and are expansive," said Bruce Carlson, Publisher of Kalorama Information. Different flu vaccines are approved for use in different groups of people. There are flu shots approved for use in children as young as 6 months of age and flu shots approved for use in adults 65 years and older. Flu shots also are recommended for use in pregnant women and people with chronic health conditions. The nasal spray flu vaccine is approved for use in non-pregnant individuals, 2 years through 49 years of age, though there are people with some medical conditions who should not receive the nasal spray flu vaccine. MedImmune's FluMist was the first influenza vaccine delivered as a nasal mist to be commercially available in the United States. FluMist contains live attenuated influenza viruses that replicate in the nasopharynx of the recipient and are shed in respiratory secretions. In September 2007, the U.S. FDA approved FluMist for children aged 2 through 4 years, making a needle-free influenza vaccine available for small children in the U.S. for the first time. The vaccine was previously approved only for healthy people between the ages of 5 and 49. MedImmune received FDA approval in February 2012 for FluMist Quadrivalent (Influenza Vaccine Live, Intranasal), the first-of-its-kind four strain vaccine and in mid 2013 began shipping. FluMist suffered a major setback when the ACIP withdrew its recommendation of the nasal/LAIV flu vaccine during the 20162017 and 20172018 flu seasons. NanoBio's NanoStat mucosal vaccine platform supports a variety of vaccines including influenza, H5N1, hepatitis B, pneumonia, tuberculosis, small pox anthrax and other viral and bacterial diseases. One study in mice demonstrated that NanoBio's killed-virus vaccine elicits a robust immune response by delivering immune-alerting antigens directly to the lining of the nasal mucosa, where the virus first enters the body, leading to rapid development of mucosal immunity. A subsequent study found that NanoBio's intranasal flu vaccine could trigger immune responses more than 20 times greater than those generated by two injections of currently approved influenza vaccines. In temperate regions, influenza occurs in winter epidemics that affect 1% 5% of the population. Influenza is associated with a considerable economic burden in terms of healthcare costs, lost days of work or education and general social disruption. Several studies have estimated the costs of certain recent epidemics at $1 - $2 billion. Rates of infection are highest in children, but severe morbidity and mortality are more common among the elderly and in specific high-risk groups such as those with asthma, diabetes mellitus, or heart disease. Each year, influenza and pneumonia account for 50,000 to 80,000 deaths and about 400,000 hospitalizations in the United States alone. However, the CDC estimates that flu vaccination prevents, on average, 6 million illnesses, 3 million doctor visits and at least 70,000 hospitalizations. Therefore, flu vaccines are recommended for everyone 6 months and older, especially pregnant women and those at high risk of complications, including the elderly, children younger than 5 years and those with underlying medical conditions such as asthma or diabetes. According to the American Medical Association, however, just 5% - 20% of the U.S. population is vaccinated against influenza each year. Unlike other vaccines, whose formulation largely remains unchanged from year to year, influenza vaccines are designed each year to address expected disease patterns. On a global basis, officials choose three flu virus strains each year for the vaccine based on the strains they expect to see in the coming season. Poor selection results in a vaccine that is unable to address the current infection trends. Vaccines 2018: World Market Analysis, Key Players, Trends, Pediatric and Adult Segments provides a complete global revenue summary, including the total global market for preventive vaccines by type for 2015 to 2024 (pediatric total: combinations, hepatitis, haemophilus influenzae type B, measles, mumps and rubella, pneumococcal, poliovirus, varicella, others; adult total: cervical, hepatitis, influenza, pneumococcal, travel and other; total). The report as well examines the global market for pediatric vaccines by type (Hep, HiB, MMR, combinations, pneumococcal disease, polio, varicella, Others) and by region (U.S., North America/Caribbean, South America, EU, Japan, India, China, rest of world). The report also provides market data on the global revenues for adult vaccines by type (hepatitis, influenza, pneumococcal, travel/other) and by region (U.S., North America/Caribbean, South America, EU, Japan, India, China, Rest of World) for 2015 to 2024. About the Report Vaccines 2018 examines issues and trends in the vaccine market. The report as well reviews the history and lines of business, strategic alliances, vaccine products, and financial information of market leaders such as GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Pfizer, and Sanofi Pasteur. The report can be found at: https://www.kaloramainformation.com/Vaccines-Key-Players-Trends-Pediatric-Adult-Segments-Influenza-Cervical-Cancer-Combinations-Hepatitis-Pneumococcal-MMR-Varicella-Poliovirus-HIB-11767266/. About Kalorama Information Kalorama Information, a division of MarketResearch.com, supplies the latest in independent medical market research in diagnostics, biotech, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and healthcare; as well as a full range of custom research services. Reports can be purchased through Kalorama's website and are also available on www.marketresearch.com and www.profound.com. We routinely assist the media with healthcare topics. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and our blog on our company website: https://www.kaloramainformation.com/. Press Contact: Bruce Carlson 212 807 2262 [email protected] SOURCE Kalorama Information Related Links http://www.kaloramainformation.com WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Earlier, the U.S. World War I Centennial Commission (WW1CC), the Society of the Honor Guard, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (SHGTUS), and Washington National Cathedral, announced a national BELLS OF PEACE campaign. The BELLS OF PEACE campaign calls for a national bell tolling across the country at 11:00AM on November 11th, to mark the centennial of the end of World War I. www.WW1CC.org/Bells Now, the BELLS OF PEACE has an innovative Smartphone App, to help those groups or individuals who want to participate -- especially those who do not have access to bells. The new App is free, and is available for either Apple or Android platforms. You can search for "Bells of Peace" in either app store or got to ww1cc.org/app for links. The BELLS OF PEACE App has a number of helpful features for those who are leading a group commemoration event, or for those who want to mark a moment of contemplation. The App features a built-in countdown timer, a variety of different bell sounds, helpful links to World War I websites, and the ability for people to post photos from their local or personal commemoration. This new BELLS OF PEACE App brings people the ability to join in a simultaneous tolling, from all the phones running the app. As the built-in countdown timer reaches 11am local time, BELLS OF PEACE will toll from every device, together, twenty-one times, in a remembrance of the very special moment, exactly one hundred years ago, when the war finally, finally, ceased. "Throughout history church bells have been used to mark moments of great sadness and joy," said the Very Rev. Randolph 'Randy' Marshall Hollerith, Dean of Washington National Cathedral. "As we make the centennial of the end of World War I it is appropriate that pause for a moment to honor those who gave their lives in defense of freedom." BELLS OF PEACE is an initiative that began in 2014 by the Society of the Honor Guard, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, at Arlington National Cemetery. BELLS OF PEACE is co-led by Washington National Cathedral, and is sponsored by the World War I Centennial Commission. The program is designed to commemorate the service and sacrifice of those who served in World War I, and all veterans. The initiative calls for all Americans everywhere to toll bells 21 times, at 3 minute intervals, on November 11 at 11:00 a.m. local time. The WW1CC Executive Director Daniel Dayton is pleased by the new App, "This is a great use for today's SmartPhone technology. People in states, cities, towns and communities, will pause and remember our veterans as these bells toll for peace." Over 700 partner organizations have joined on to the BELLS OF PEACE initiative. They include the Liberty Bell/Centennial Bell in Philadelphia, the Taft Carillion at the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC, the Cruiser USS Olympia Museum Ship, the Bells of the San Francisco Presidio, and many others. In addition, over forty states across America have issued official proclamations supporting the program. The BELLS OF PEACE initiative is also endorsed by the American Legion, and by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The World War I Centennial Commission was created by Congress in 2013 to provide educational programs, public outreach, and commemorative events, regarding America's involvement in World War I. Information on the Commission can be found here. ww1cc.org The Commission's founding sponsor is the Pritzker Military Museum and Library in Chicago, Ill. To learn more, visit www.pritzkermilitary.org The Commission's leading sponsor is the Starr Foundation. Information can be found at www.starrfoundation.org Information about the Society of the Honor Guard, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier can be found here. https://tombguard.org Information about Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, can be found here. https://cathedral.org Information about the American Legion can be found here www.legion.org Information about the Veterans of Foreign Wars can be found here www.vfw.org SOURCE World War I Centennial Commission Related Links https://www.worldwar1centennial.org DUBLIN, Oct 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The "North America Baby Food Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Product (Milk Formula, Dried, Prepared), By Distribution Channel (Supermarkets, Online), And Segment Forecasts, 2018 - 2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The North America baby food market size is expected to be valued at USD 7.49 billion by 2025. It is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 6.0% over the forecast period. Augmented demand for organic and gluten-free food is likely to drive the market over the forecast period. The baby food market in North America is rapidly gaining momentum on account of rising birth rate and population of working women. Rising consumption of baby food on account of its high nutritional content is likely to augment the market demand over the forecast period. Emphasis on organic ingredients in baby food manufacturing process is one of the major reasons for growth in demand. Milk formula is the largest baby product segment in 2016 and is expected to witness a substantial CAGR over the forecast period. However, prepared baby food is anticipated to register fastest CAGR of 7.0% over the analysis period from 2017 to 2025. Technological advancements in packaging and processing in U.S. baby food sector are anticipated to further drive the market over the forecast period. Busy lifestyles of consumers along with growth in the population of working women are other factors projected to fuel demand for organic baby foods over the forecast period. Further key findings from the report suggest: U.S. was the dominant regional segment in the North America baby food market in 2016 baby food market in 2016 Milk formula is anticipated to dominate overall market in terms of value while prepared baby food is anticipated to register fastest CAGR over the analysis period By distribution channel, supermarkets held the largest market share of 80.7% in 2016. The online sales channels segment, on the other hand, is anticipated to witness the fastest CAGR over the forecast period Key market players are include Nestle SA, Mead Johnson & Company, LLC, Hain Celestial Group, and Abbott Nutrition Companies are consistently involved in developing products to strengthen their market position. For instance, in 2016, Abbott Laboratories launched a new line of nutritious snack bars for kids under the brand called Curate. This non-Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) snack is gluten-free and also free from artificial preservatives, flavors, and colors. Key Topics Covered: Chapter 1 Methodology and Scope 1.1 Research methodology 1.2 Research scope & assumptions Chapter 2 Executive Summary 2.1 Market snapshot Chapter 3 North America Baby Food Market Variables, Trends, and Scope 3.1 Market segmentation and scope 3.2 Years considered in the study 3.3 Penetration and growth prospect mapping 3.4 Value chain analysis 3.5 North America baby food market dynamics 3.5.1 Market driver analysis 3.5.2 Growing demand for organic baby food 3.5.3 Market restraint analysis 3.5.4 High production cost of baby food 3.6 North America baby food market- Porter's analysis Chapter 4 North America Baby Food Market: Product Estimates & Trend Analysis 4.1 Product movement analysis & market share, 2016 & 2025 4.2 Milk formula 4.3 Dried Food 4.4 Prepared baby food 4.5 Others Chapter 5 North America Baby Food Market: Distribution Channel Estimates & Trend Analysis 5.1 Distribution channel movement analysis & market share, 2016 & 2025 5.2 Supermarket 5.3 Online Channels 5.4 Others Chapter 6 North America Baby Food Market: Regional Estimates & Trend Analysis Chapter 7 Competitive Landscape 7.1 Vendor landscape 7.2 Competitive environment Chapter 8 Company Profiles Nestle S. A. Danone S. A. Abbott Nutrition Hain Celestial Group Mead Johnson & Company, LLC For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/bhlk34/north_america?w=5 Did you know that we also offer Custom Research? Visit our Custom Research page to learn more and schedule a meeting with our Custom Research Manager. Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com Chris McGrath/Getty Images(LONDON) -- By the time slain Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared inside Saudi Arabias consulate in Istanbul, his fears that he might be detained -- or worse -- for his criticism of the kingdom had been allayed, his grieving fiancee told ABC News in her first American media interview. Just days before that fateful visit it was a different story. Khashoggi worried he might end up in jail like so many other Saudi journalists when he first went to the consulate unannounced on Sept. 28 to request documents he needed to get married. He did not want to go to the consulate, his fiancee Hatice Cengiz said. He thought it was a risk to go. He thought of the possibility of them capturing him," she added. "He didnt want to face the consequences of his political views. Those fears dissipated, however, and Khashoggi told his fiancee that he was pleasantly surprised by the warm reception from consulate employees during the visit. He was very pleased with their nice treatment and hospitality, Cengiz said, noting that Khashoggi had been homesick in self-imposed exile and felt an emotional connection with his countrymen when he was at the consulate. "At that point he mentioned how unnecessary it was to worry," she said. The couple felt they had little reason to fear the worst when they returned four days later to retrieve that document on Oct. 2. Naturally, after the first positive visit we had no reasons to think that there would be any sort of danger, Cengiz said. Our second visit was full of hope and it was the last step to our union, she said. We were going to get the official paper and we were going to get married and continue rest of our lives together. It was soon clear that that trust was misplaced. After weeks of speculation and numerous leaks from the Turkish government indicating the writer had been murdered, Saudi officials finally admitted -- 17 days after his disappearance -- that Khashoggi had died inside the consulate during an altercation. Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman subsequently condemned the killing as a heinous crime that cannot be justified. While members of the crown princes inner circle were implicated in the plot, Saudi officials have denied allegations that the crown prince was involved or gave the order. As international pressured mounted, the head of the Saudi investigation, Attorney General Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb, eventually acknowledged that the killing appeared premeditated. Khashoggis body has yet to be found. "We still don't know where Jamal's body is," Cengiz said. "There is no explanation about this. He did not have a funeral yet. This is not acceptable in Islamic rules." "This is our last duty to fulfill," she said. Hours passed while Cengiz waited with growing trepidation for Khashoggi outside the consulate on the day he went missing. When he did not emerge after the building had closed, she began to worry but said she never imagined he had been killed. Their love affair was only six months old. Meeting such a well-established journalist and being in close contact with such a personality gave me unbelievable sense of strength, she said. They first met at a conference on the Middle East, she said. Khashoggi had attended as a speaker and she as a researcher. She wanted to interview him and he graciously agreed, she told ABC News. I was really honored and proud when this powerful, great journalist and author got into contact with a researcher like me and agreed to do the interview, and immediately a warm dialogue started between us immediately got started. Soon their relationship deepened. He is a very respectful, very modest and very sincere person very far from being arrogant and disdainful, she said. He has a big heart. When he proposed, she said she readily accepted. I was honored, she said. Besides the feelings of love and respect I felt honored. I could name it as a heightened sense of self-confidence. I mean, I felt so lucky and I felt so wonderful. When the formal marriage plans got underway, the couple visited the Saudi consulate in Turkey and planned to return four days later. Those four days were the last she would ever spend with him. During those 17 days in limbo, Cengiz said she desperately hoped that Khashoggi was still alive. When reports began to circulate of a planeload of Saudis arriving in Turkey the day her fiancee disappeared and leaving the same night, her fears intensified. I didnt want to believe, she said. That was the first day I said to myself perhaps there could be a tragedy. I wanted to believe that he was alive until the end. It wasnt until Saudi officials confirmed his death nearly three weeks after his disappearance that her loss truly sunk in. When Saudi officials accepted the responsibility, then I believed it happened. In reality, I started to believe that he was dead. It was too late now," she said. "A lot of time passed by. Cengiz called on President Donald Trump to help ensure the investigation into Khashoggi's murder is genuine. "The President of the United States has to look at this from the point of view of humanity and consider it an international tragedy, and it should come before international politics and diplomacy," she said. Asked whether she was concerned that politics would ultimately triumph over truth, she simply replied, "yes." Copyright 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Chinese women are being urged to have firm ideals and contribute to fulfilling the dream of national rejuvenation at a congress attended by President Xi Jinping on Tuesday. Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, attended the opening ceremony of the 12th National Women's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Xi's important speeches and remarks on the contributions of the nation's women have provided fundamental guidance for the works of women's federations, said Zhao Leji, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. To achieve the goals set at the Party's 19th National Congress, all Chinese people need to make joint efforts, Zhao said in his speech at the opening ceremony. On behalf of the CPC Central Committee, Zhao called on the country's women to practice Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, make great achievements in the new era, and be courageous in pursuing their dreams. The country's women's federations of all levels have shouldered the political responsibility of following the Party's leadership and made contributions to foster stronger public support for the Party's governance, he said. The meeting was also attended by other leaders of the CPC and the State including Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning and Han Zheng, all of whom are members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. A total of 1,637 deputies to the congress from all walks of life and 79 specially invited deputies from Hong Kong and Macao attended the opening ceremony of the congress. PITTSBURGH, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Monday, November 12th, Kings Family Restaurant will be celebrating Veterans Day with a free meal for all veterans and active military members. The free entree choices include Double Down Breakfast, Biscuits & Sausage Gravy Breakfast, Classic Burger, Hot Roasted Turkey Sandwich and Kings Meatloaf Dinner. "We have had a military discount for over 10 years. It's something that feels right for Kings because giving back to the veterans and military members in our community aligns with our values," said Alisha Merico, Marketing Manager for Kings Family Restaurants. "In 2017 alone, King's applied over 121,000 military discounts." Kings is active in the community and supporting military members is important part of our community roots. The locations not only offer the military discount, but multiple veterans groups hold meetings and functions at the restaurants. We invite all Veterans and active military members to join us on Monday, November 12th for a free meal on us, to thank them for their service. About Kings Family Restaurant. Kings Family Restaurant is based in North Versailles, PA and is a 24-unit chain of family style restaurants throughout Western PA and one in Wintersville, Ohio. Founded in 1967, the restaurant group averages 500,000 customers every month and employs nearly 1,000 people. SOURCE Kings Family Restaurant WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On October 10th, OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM), operator of financial markets for 10,000 U.S. and global securities, hosted a community bank roundtable, where industry executives from across the country gathered to discuss the role of the community bank in today's U.S. economy. Representatives from OTC Markets Group and American Banker, as well as the CEOs of four leading community banks trading on the OTCQX Market, discussed growth opportunities, industry challenges, access to capital, the importance of technology in their business, how to best serve the communities in which they operate, and how public policy and regulation are impacting the future of consumer and small business banking in America. Roundtable participants included: Jeff Dick , CEO, MainStreet Bancshares (OTCQX: MNSB) ( Fairfax, VA ) , CEO, MainStreet Bancshares (OTCQX: MNSB) ( ) Glenn Marshall , CEO, First Resource Bank (OTCQX: FRSB) ( Exton, PA ) , CEO, First Resource Bank (OTCQX: FRSB) ( ) Glenn Rust , CEO, Virginia National Bankshares (OTCQX: VABK) ( Charlottesville, VA ) , CEO, Virginia National Bankshares (OTCQX: VABK) ( ) Leonard Szwajkowski , CEO, Royal Financial Inc. (OTCQX: RYFL) ( Chicago, IL ) , CEO, Royal Financial Inc. (OTCQX: RYFL) ( ) Paul Davis , Editor of Community Banking and M&A, American Banker , Editor of Community Banking and M&A, American Banker John Reosti , Community Bank Reporter, American Banker , Community Bank Reporter, American Banker Laura Hamilton , AVP, Corporate Services, OTC Markets Group , AVP, Corporate Services, OTC Markets Group Bob Power , VP, Corporate Services, OTC Markets Group "Community banks are the lifeblood of local and regional economies. Many of these banks have reassessed the landscape since the Jobs Act, seizing new opportunities such as deregistration and raising capital through Regulation A+, and have blazed a new trail into the public markets with strong financials and demonstrated growth," explained Jason Paltrowitz, Executive Vice President of Corporate Services at OTC Markets Group. "The number of community banks that trade on OTC Markets has steadily increased with over 115 banks joining since we launched the OTCQX Banks Market in 2014. We continue to see traction in the number of community banks that have delisted from an exchange as well as those that have opted to go from private to public, utilizing our premium OTCQX Market. These banks share in a commitment to provide their investors with transparent disclosure and efficient trading -- achieving their goals of accessing liquidity and a significant cost savings they can return to shareholders," Paltrowitz said. Community banks on the OTCQX Banks Index outperformed their exchange-listed peers on the SNL U.S. Banks Index by 47 percentage points since January 2015. OTCQX enables community banks to build shareholder value by providing a more efficient, cost-effective, and less burdensome market -- all without sacrificing visibility or liquidity. "At American Banker, we speak with dozens of community bank executives weekly," said Paul Davis, Editor of Community Banking and M&A. "The concerns we've been hearing for some time now include access to growth capital, bank consolidation and strategies for gaining competitive advantage. Maintaining an open dialogue with thought leaders, like those gathered here, allows us to report accurately on this dynamic industry." About OTC Markets Group Inc. OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM) operates the OTCQX Best Market, the OTCQB Venture Market and the Pink Open Market for 10,000 U.S. and global securities. Through OTC Link ATS and OTC Link ECN, we connect a diverse network of broker-dealers that provide liquidity and execution services. We enable investors to easily trade through the broker of their choice and empower companies to improve the quality of information available for investors. To learn more about how we create better informed and more efficient markets, visit www.otcmarkets.com. OTC Link ATS and OTC Link ECN are operated by OTC Link LLC, member FINRA/SIPC and SEC regulated ATS. Subscribe to the OTC Markets RSS Feed Media Contact: OTC Markets Group Inc., +1 (212) 896-4428, [email protected] SOURCE OTC Markets Group Inc. Related Links http://www.otcmarkets.com HARRISBURG, Pa., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) today released its Fiscal Year 2017-18 Annual Report, which, for the first time, incorporates retail sales trends in a single, comprehensive publication detailing agency operations, popular products, and financial results. The annual report, in its sixth year, details the agency's financials and provides insight into functions including store operations, licensing, marketing and merchandising, supply chain, wholesale operations, information technology, alcohol education, and personnel. The document is filled with statistics and descriptions intended to shed light on how the agency works and where the money it generates goes. This year's annual report also includes information previously detailed in a separate publication, the Retail Year in Review. It showcases sales by product category, individual products, counties, e-commerce, stores, and sales periods. Highlights of the 2017-18 Annual Report include: A one-page summary showing distribution of PLCB funds to various recipients. For example, more than $749.6 million was returned to the Pennsylvania General Fund and state and local government beneficiaries in fiscal year 2017-18. was returned to the Pennsylvania General Fund and state and local government beneficiaries in fiscal year 2017-18. A summary of store operations, including store branding efforts and celebrity events. A breakdown of the 76,000 license and permit applications processed and more than 8,200 investigations completed, as well as a breakout of licenses by county. A summary of Bureau of Alcohol Education efforts to reduce and prevent dangerous and underage drinking. Sales information and trends by product and category, including top-selling spirits and wines by county. Store-by-store sales and an expanded section on sales of Pennsylvania -made wines and spirits. -made wines and spirits. Allegheny , Philadelphia , and Montgomery counties accounted for more than a third of the state's total wine and spirits sales. To save on costs, a limited number of copies of the report is printed. This report is available at www.lcb.pa.gov. The PLCB regulates the distribution of beverage alcohol in Pennsylvania, operates more than 600 wine and spirits stores statewide, and licenses 20,000 alcohol producers, retailers, and handlers. The PLCB also works to reduce and prevent dangerous and underage drinking through partnerships with schools, community groups, and licensees. Taxes and store profits totaling $16.5 billion since the agency's inception are returned to Pennsylvania's General Fund, which finances Pennsylvania's schools, health and human services programs, law enforcement, and public safety initiatives, among other important public services. The PLCB also provides financial support for the Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, other state agencies, and local municipalities across the state. For more information about the PLCB, visit www.lcb.pa.gov. MEDIA CONTACT: Shawn M. Kelly, 717.783.8864 SOURCE Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board Related Links http://www.lcb.state.pa.us "Healthcare organizations all have different experiences and backgrounds, just like people do," said Event Moderator K. Nadeem Ahmed, MD. "Coming together at an event like this one, to network and learn from one another, will help all of us on our journeys." Taylor Davis, vice president of analysis and strategy at KLAS, stressed the importance of solid executive leadership and collaboration in motivating clinicians to adopt new technologies. He discussed his results working with the Arch Collaborative to measure physician satisfaction with their EHRs. "What we found is that the EHR adoption leaders are not necessarily the large, well-known medical centers. In many cases, community hospitals are leading the way," he said. "And that's because people - not the technical aspects of EHRs - are the primary drivers of success. 97% of the time, the number of 'clicks' is not the real problem. Two different organizations can have radically different experiences, even working with the same system. You just need a solid EHR and quality training with a tailored approach." Davis also said that his research found no correlation between EHR costs and overall satisfaction. "There's a good chance that spending more on your EHR will not result in better physician satisfaction. But a sense of teamwork and trust will." Keynote speaker Ted James, MD, MHCM, FACS, Clinical Chief, Medical Director and Professor of Surgery, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School, told attendees that strong partnerships with patients is another important way to leverage the benefits of healthcare IT. With patient portals and telehealth, patients can be more proactive with managing their health on a daily basis. However, physicians must still support them along the way. "Uninformed, disengaged patients often delay care to the point where it becomes more expensive and less effective. That's why patient engagement is the blockbuster drug of the century," he said. "We need to be transparent and communicate regularly, to get patients onboard with us. People are very unlikely to make changes to their health habits, unless they understand why these changes are necessary. Physicians need to influence those changes and involve patients more in their own care, if we want to see better outcomes." Throughout the forum, many MEDITECH customers shared how they're leveraging their EHR to secure better outcomes for their communities, such as the opioid stewardship program established at Lawrence General Hospital (MA) to help tackle the epidemic that's impacting millions of people. As we head toward 2019, there are many more challenges for us to tackle together. We're looking forward to discussing them with you again, at our events next year. In the meantime, visit MEDITECH's website to see presentations from the 2018 Physician and CIO Forum. About MEDITECH The next digital transformation of healthcare is underway, and MEDITECH is leading the charge with Expanse, the only full-scale EHR designed specifically for the post-Meaningful Use era. As a leading EHR vendor for over 45 years, MEDITECH's solutions have empowered 2,350+ customers across 22 different countries to provide higher quality care, with greater efficiency, to more people, at a lower cost. Today, our cutting-edge solutions are helping organizations to see healthcare through a new lens and navigate this virtual landscape with unparalleled vision and clarity. Whether your destination is clinical efficiency, analytical prowess, or financial success, MEDITECH's bold innovation, passion, and expertise will get you where you want to go. Visit ehr.meditech.com , our Newsroom and Blog , and connect with us on Twitter , Facebook and LinkedIn to start your journey today. Contacts Paul Berthiaume Senior Manager, Marketing Communications MEDITECH 781-774-5742 [email protected] Liz Carroll Manager, Public Relations and Media Relations MEDITECH 781-774-3297 [email protected] SOURCE MEDITECH Related Links http://www.meditech.com PARKER, Colo., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Richmond American Homes of Colorado, Inc., a subsidiary of M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: MDC), is pleased to announce the Grand Opening of Timbers at the Pinery. The latest addition to The Pinery masterplan in Parker offers a distinctive collection of ranch and two-story floor plans with designer details, incredible included features, such as 3-car garages, and hundreds of exciting personalization options. GRAND OPENING EVENTS: Real estate agents are invited to preview the highly anticipated community for their clients on Thursday, November 1, from 2 to 5 p.m. Both agents and prospective homebuyers are encouraged to attend the Community Grand Opening on Saturday, November 3, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Flavorful fare will be served at both events. MORE ABOUT TIMBERS AT THE PINERY: Lavish new homes from the $700s Beautiful wooded homesites 3 to 7 bedrooms, approx. 2,900 to 4,800 sq. ft. Easy access to Castlewood State Canyon, The Pinery Country Club, The Colorado Horse Park Western Complex, Douglas County schools and more schools and more Complimentary design assistance GRAND OPENING OFFER: The next three homebuyers that contract to buy at this notable new neighborhood will receive $50,000 off their lot premiums! Timbers at the Pinery is located at 5600 Heritage Oak Drive in Parker. Call 303.850.5760 or visit RichmondAmerican.com for more information. About M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. Operating under the name Richmond American Homes, MDC's homebuilding subsidiaries have built 200,000 homes since 1977. MDC's commitment to customer satisfaction, quality and value is reflected in each home its subsidiaries build. Among the nation's largest homebuilders, MDC's subsidiary companies have operations in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Washington. Mortgage lending, plus insurance and title services are offered by the following MDC subsidiaries, respectively: HomeAmerican Mortgage Corporation, American Home Insurance Agency, Inc. and American Home Title and Escrow Company. M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "MDC." For more information, visit MDCHoldings.com. SOURCE M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. Related Links http://www.richmondamerican.com DALLAS, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc. (NYSE: SC) ("SC") today announced net income for the third quarter ended September 30, 2018 ("Q3 2018") of $232 million, or $0.64 per diluted common share. The Company has declared a cash dividend of $0.20 per share, to be paid on November 15, 2018, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on November 10, 20181. Management Quotes "Our performance in the third quarter demonstrates the continued strength in our business," said Scott Powell, SC President and CEO, who is also CEO of Santander US. "Earnings increased 17 percent versus the third quarter of 2017, with significant originations growth. We fully launched our program to originate SC auto loans at Santander Bank, creating value for both entities and for Fiat Chrysler. Santander Holdings USA terminated its 2015 Written Agreement with the Federal Reserve, which is among the most significant milestones we've reached in resolving our legacy regulatory challenges." Juan Carlos Alvarez, SC Chief Financial Officer, added, "As seasonal pressures increase in the second half of the year, our credit performance remains stable and originations are solid. During the third quarter we began to execute on our previously announced inaugural share repurchase plan, targeting a more efficient capital base, and remaining focused on expense management and more efficient funding." Q3 2018 Highlights (variances compared to the third quarter of 2017 ("Q3 2017"), unless otherwise noted): Total auto originations of $7.6 billion , up 52% , up 52% Core retail auto loan originations of $2.3 billion , up 49% , up 49% Chrysler Capital loan originations of $2.4 billion , up 34% , up 34% Chrysler Capital lease originations of $2.9 billion, up 73% Chrysler average quarterly penetration rate of 31%, up from 21% during the same quarter last year Full roll-out of Santander Bank, N.A. program in July leading to $685 million in originations in originations Net finance and other interest income of $1.1 billion , up 5% , up 5% Retail Installment Contract "RIC" gross charge-off ratio of 17.6% down 60 basis points RIC net charge-off ratio of 8.8%, down 50 basis points Auction-plus recovery rate of 50.0%, up 120 basis points 59-plus Delinquency ratio of 5.5%, down 30 basis points Troubled Debt Restructuring ("TDR") balance of $5.8 billion , down $339 million vs. June 30, 2018 , down vs. Return on average assets of 2.2%, up from 2.0% Issued $4.5 billion in asset-backed securities "ABS" in asset-backed securities "ABS" Expense ratio of 2.1%, down from 2.4% Common equity tier 1 ("CET1") ratio of 16.4% down from 16.9% vs. June 30, 2018 Net finance and other interest income increased 5 percent to $1.14 billion in Q3 2018 from $1.09 billion in Q3 2017, primarily driven by higher lease income partially offset by higher interest expenses. Servicing fee income decreased 8 percent to $26 million in Q3 2018, from $29 million in Q3 2017, driven by lower serviced for others balances. SC's serviced for others portfolio of $9.2 billion as of Q3 2018 decreased 8 percent from $10.0 billion the prior year quarter. RIC delinquency ratio3 of 5.5 percent in Q3 2018 decreased compared to 5.8 percent in Q3 2017. RIC net charge-off ratio4 decreased to 8.8 percent in Q3 2018 from 9.3 percent in Q3 2017. Provision for credit losses of $598 million in Q3 2018 were up from $571 million the prior year quarter. Allowance ratio5 decreased 40 basis points, to 11.7 percent at the end of Q3 2018, from 12.1 percent at the end of Q2 2018. Recorded net investment losses of $87 million in Q3 2018, compared to net investment losses of $53 million in Q3 2017, which during Q3 2017 included a pretax gain of $36 million from the sale of the majority of the Company's legacy RV/Marine portfolio. The current period losses were primarily driven by held for sale accounting for SC's personal lending portfolio6. During Q3 2018 SC incurred $272 million of operating expenses, down 9 percent from $298 million in Q3 2017. SC's expense ratio of 2.1 percent for the quarter, was down compared to 2.4 percent during the same period last year. Correction of Immaterial Errors In Prior Period Financial Statements In connection with preparing its financial statements for the quarter ended September 30, 2018, the Company identified and corrected two immaterial errors. To correct the errors, the Company prepared its consolidated financial statements as of and for the period ended September 30, 2018, on a consolidated basis and revised its consolidated financial statements as of and for the period ended September 30, 2017. The matters giving rise to the corrections are summarized below: For core retail auto loans originated after January 1, 2017 , as previously disclosed, the Company had determined past due status using a 90% required minimum payment threshold, while continuing to use a 50% threshold to report past due status on core retail auto loans originated prior to that date. In Q3 2018, the Company determined that historically a 90% required minimum payment threshold should be used for all loans and our prior reporting was in error. Therefore, the consolidated financial statements and related delinquency disclosures have been corrected to be on that basis. , as previously disclosed, the Company had determined past due status using a 90% required minimum payment threshold, while continuing to use a 50% threshold to report past due status on core retail auto loans originated prior to that date. In Q3 2018, the Company determined that historically a 90% required minimum payment threshold should be used for all loans and our prior reporting was in error. Therefore, the consolidated financial statements and related delinquency disclosures have been corrected to be on that basis. On January 1, 2017 , as previously disclosed, the Company prospectively began classifying as nonaccrual loans (1) any loans designated as TDRs and 60+ days past due at the time of a TDR and (2) any loans less than 60 days past due at the time of TDR event that had a third instance of deferral. These TDR loans were also placed on a cost recovery basis from that time forward and not returned to accrual status until there was sustained evidence of collectability. In Q3 2018, the Company determined the changes in both nonaccrual designation and cost recovery basis were in error and, in turn, has corrected the error by reversing the impacts of the change going back to January 1, 2017 . A Financial Supplement aggregating all revised financials is available in the Investor Relations section of the Company's website at http://investors.santanderconsumerusa.com. Choose "Events" and select the information pertaining to the "Q3 2018 SC Earnings Conference Call." *Prior periods have been revised according to the 8-K filed on October 31, 2018. See Financial Supplement on the SC Investor Relations website for further details. 1The timing and amount of any capital actions will depend on various factors, including the business plans and financial performance of both SC and SHUSA, as well as market conditions, and any SC capital distribution is subject to approval of the Company's and SHUSA's respective boards of directors. 2Includes Finance receivables held for investment, Finance receivables held for sale and Leased vehicles. 3Delinquency ratio is defined as the ratio of end of period delinquent principal over 59 days to end of period gross balance of the respective portfolio, excludes capital leases. 4Net charge-off ratio stated on a recorded investment basis, which is unpaid principal balance adjusted for unaccreted net discounts, subvention and origination costs. 5Ratio for allowance for credit losses excludes end of period balances on purchased receivables portfolio of $33 million and finance receivables and personal loans held for sale of $0.9 billion. 6The current period losses were primarily driven by $87 million of lower of cost or market adjustments related to the held for sale personal lending portfolio, comprised of $100 million in customer default activity, partially offset by a $13 million increase in market discount, consistent with typical seasonal patterns. Conference Call Information SC will host a conference call and webcast to discuss its Q3 2018 results and other general matters at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, October 31, 2018. The conference call will be accessible by dialing 866-548-4713 (U.S. domestic), or 323-794-2093 (international), conference ID 9871011. Please join 10 minutes prior to the start of the call. The conference call will also be accessible via live audio webcast through the Investor Relations section of SC's corporate website at http://investors.santanderconsumerusa.com. Choose "Events" and select the information pertaining to the Q3 2018 SC Earnings Conference Call. Additionally, there will be slides accompanying the webcast. Please allow at least 15 minutes prior to the call to register, download and install any necessary software prior to the call. For those unable to listen to the live broadcast, a replay of the call will be available on the Company's website or by dialing 844-512-2921 (U.S. domestic), or 412-317-6671 (international), conference ID 9871011, approximately two hours after the conference call. An audio webcast of the call and investor presentation will also be archived on the Investor Relations section of SC's corporate website at http://investors.santanderconsumerusa.com, under "Events". Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any statements about our expectations, beliefs, plans, predictions, forecasts, objectives, assumptions, or future events or performance are not historical facts and may be forward-looking. These statements are often, but not always, made through the use of words or phrases such as anticipates, believes, can, could, may, predicts, potential, should, will, estimates, plans, projects, continuing, ongoing, expects, intends, and similar words or phrases. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, these statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are subject to change based on various important factors, some of which are beyond our control. For additional discussion of these risks, refer to the section entitled Risk Factors and elsewhere in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q filed by us with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Among the factors that could cause the forward-looking statements in this press release and/or our financial performance to differ materially from that suggested by the forward-looking statements are (a) the inherent limitations in internal control over financial reporting; (b) our ability to remediate any material weaknesses in internal controls over financial reporting completely and in a timely manner; (c) continually changing federal, state, and local laws and regulations could materially adversely affect our business; (d) adverse economic conditions in the United States and worldwide may negatively impact our results; (e) our business could suffer if our access to funding is reduced; (f) significant risks we face implementing our growth strategy, some of which are outside our control; (g) unexpected costs and delays in connection with exiting our personal lending business; (h) our agreement with FCA US LLC may not result in currently anticipated levels of growth and is subject to certain conditions that could result in termination of the agreement; (i) our business could suffer if we are unsuccessful in developing and maintaining relationships with automobile dealerships; (j) our financial condition, liquidity, and results of operations depend on the credit performance of our loans; (k) loss of our key management or other personnel, or an inability to attract such management and personnel; (l) certain regulations, including but not limited to oversight by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the European Central Bank, and the Federal Reserve, whose oversight and regulation may limit certain of our activities, including the timing and amount of dividends and other limitations on our business; and (m) future changes in our relationship with SHUSA and Banco Santander that could adversely affect our operations. If one or more of the factors affecting our forward-looking information and statements proves incorrect, our actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, forward-looking information and statements. Therefore, we caution the reader not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information or statements. The effect of these factors is difficult to predict. Factors other than these also could adversely affect our results, and the reader should not consider these factors to be a complete set of all potential risks or uncertainties as new factors emerge from time to time. Any forward-looking statements only speak as of the date of this document, and we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking information or statements, whether written or oral, to reflect any change, except as required by law. All forward-looking statements attributable to us are expressly qualified by these cautionary statements. About Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc. Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc. (NYSE: SC) ("SC") is a full-service consumer finance company focused on vehicle finance, third-party servicing and delivering superior service to our more than 2.7 million customers across the full credit spectrum. The company, which began originating retail installment contracts in 1997, has an average managed asset portfolio of approximately $52 billion (as of September 30, 2018), and is headquartered in Dallas. ( www.santanderconsumerusa.com ) Contacts: Investor Relations Evan Black 800.493.8219 [email protected] Media Relations Laurie Kight 214.801.6455 [email protected] Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc. Financial Supplement Third Quarter 2018 Table of Contents Table 1: Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets 5 Table 2: Condensed Consolidated Statements of Income 6 Table 3: Other Financial Information 7 Table 4: Credit Quality 9 Table 5: Originations 11 Table 6: Asset Sales 12 Table 7: Ending Portfolio 13 Table 8: Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Measures 14 Table 1: Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets September 30, 2018 December 31, 2017 (As Revised) Assets (Unaudited, Dollars in thousands) Cash and cash equivalents $ 81,435 $ 527,805 Finance receivables held for sale, net 933,380 2,210,421 Finance receivables held for investment, net 24,839,583 22,394,286 Restricted cash 2,130,130 2,553,902 Accrued interest receivable 304,538 340,618 Leased vehicles, net 13,183,793 10,160,327 Furniture and equipment, net 62,852 69,609 Federal, state and other income taxes receivable 99,308 95,060 Related party taxes receivable 467 467 Goodwill 74,056 74,056 Intangible assets 32,177 29,734 Due from affiliates 9,814 33,270 Other assets 1,055,422 913,244 Total assets $ 42,806,955 $ 39,402,799 Liabilities and Equity Liabilities: Notes payable credit facilities $ 5,632,053 $ 4,848,316 Notes payable secured structured financings 24,867,297 22,557,895 Notes payable related party 3,003,529 3,754,223 Accrued interest payable 44,555 38,529 Accounts payable and accrued expenses 453,834 429,531 Deferred tax liabilities, net 1,138,088 892,415 Due to affiliates 69,804 82,382 Other liabilities 456,580 333,806 Total liabilities $ 35,665,740 $ 32,937,097 Equity: Common stock, $0.01 par value 3,593 3,605 Additional paid-in capital 1,647,738 1,681,558 Accumulated other comprehensive income, net 56,601 44,262 Retained earnings 5,433,283 4,736,277 Total stockholders' equity $ 7,141,215 $ 6,465,702 Total liabilities and equity $ 42,806,955 $ 39,402,799 Table 2: Condensed Consolidated Statements of Income Three Months Ended September 30, Nine Months Ended September 30, 2018 2017 (As Revised) 2018 2017 (As Revised) (Unaudited, Dollars in thousands, except per share amounts) Interest on finance receivables and loans $ 1,227,129 $ 1,218,299 $ 3,606,675 $ 3,680,533 Leased vehicle income 583,097 457,932 1,625,272 1,305,429 Other finance and interest income 8,522 6,385 24,153 15,415 Total finance and other interest income 1,818,748 1,682,616 5,256,100 5,001,377 Interest expense 285,583 250,674 800,564 711,134 Leased vehicle expense 389,076 339,581 1,108,094 927,976 Net finance and other interest income 1,144,089 1,092,361 3,347,442 3,362,267 Provision for credit losses 597,914 571,012 1,514,799 1,765,518 Net finance and other interest income after provision for credit losses 546,175 521,349 1,832,643 1,596,749 Profit sharing 1,652 5,945 18,882 22,333 Net finance and other interest income after provision for credit losses and profit sharing 544,523 515,404 1,813,761 1,574,416 Investment losses, net (86,320) (52,592) (255,474) (228,513) Servicing fee income 26,409 28,673 80,129 92,310 Fees, commissions, and other 84,552 82,866 247,423 275,025 Total other income 24,641 58,947 72,078 138,822 Compensation expense 119,722 134,169 360,325 398,325 Repossession expense 62,189 66,877 197,930 205,445 Other operating costs 90,431 96,857 278,949 281,626 Total operating expenses 272,342 297,903 837,204 885,396 Income before income taxes 296,822 276,448 1,048,635 827,842 Income tax expense 64,874 77,879 237,047 232,484 Net income $ 231,948 $ 198,569 $ 811,588 $ 595,358 Net income per common share (basic) $ 0.64 $ 0.55 $ 2.25 $ 1.66 Net income per common share (diluted) $ 0.64 $ 0.55 $ 2.24 $ 1.65 Dividend declared per common share $ 0.20 $ $ 0.30 $ Weighted average common shares (basic) 360,725,330 359,619,083 360,898,973 359,397,063 Weighted average common shares (diluted) 361,445,223 360,460,353 361,714,123 360,069,449 Table 3: Other Financial Information Three Months Ended September 30, Nine Months Ended September 30, Ratios (Unaudited, Dollars in thousands) 2018 2017 (As Revised) 2018 2017 (As Revised) Yield on individually acquired retail installment contracts 16.3 % 16.0 % 16.1 % 16.0 % Yield on purchased receivables portfolios 23.2 % 17.4 % 25.1 % 20.1 % Yield on receivables from dealers 3.4 % 6.0 % 3.3 % 5.7 % Yield on personal loans (1) 24.9 % 24.4 % 24.6 % 24.9 % Yield on earning assets (2) 13.3 % 13.3 % 13.3 % 13.5 % Cost of debt (3) 3.5 % 3.2 % 3.3 % 3.0 % Net interest margin (4) 10.6 % 10.8 % 10.7 % 11.2 % Expense ratio (5) 2.1 % 2.4 % 2.2 % 2.3 % Return on average assets (6) 2.2 % 2.0 % 2.6 % 2.0 % Return on average equity (7) 13.1 % 13.8 % 15.8 % 14.4 % Net charge-off ratio on individually acquired retail installment contracts (8) 8.8 % 9.3 % 7.7 % 8.6 % Net charge-off ratio on purchased receivables portfolios (8) (3.9) % 2.6 % (4.7) % 1.2 % Net charge-off ratio on personal loans (8) 9.3 % 67.2 % 37.8 % 62.7 % Net charge-off ratio (8) 8.8 % 9.3 % 7.7 % 8.6 % Delinquency ratio on individually acquired retail installment contracts held for investment, end of period (9) 5.5 % 5.8 % 5.5 % 5.8 % Delinquency ratio on personal loans, end of period (9) 13.3 % 13.8 % 13.3 % 13.8 % Delinquency ratio on loans held for investment, end of period (9) 5.5 % 5.8 % 5.5 % 5.8 % Allowance ratio (10) 11.7 % 13.0 % 11.7 % 13.0 % Common stock dividend payout ratio (11) 31.3 % 13.3 % Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio (12) 16.4 % 15.1 % 16.4 % 15.1 % Other Financial Information Charge-offs, net of recoveries, on individually acquired retail installment contracts $ 613,210 $ 623,631 $ 1,560,144 $ 1,745,287 Charge-offs, net of recoveries, on purchased receivables portfolios (331) 769 (1,324) 1,541 Charge-offs, net of recoveries, on personal loans 84 1,771 1,348 6,550 Charge-offs, net of recoveries, on capital leases 227 1,193 939 3,785 Total charge-offs, net of recoveries $ 613,190 $ 627,364 $ 1,561,107 $ 1,757,163 End of period delinquent principal over 59 days, individually acquired retail installment contracts held for investment 1,560,736 1,537,373 1,560,736 1,537,373 End of period delinquent principal over 59 days, personal loans 177,916 183,919 177,916 183,919 End of period delinquent principal over 59 days, loans held for investment 1,562,486 1,541,123 1,562,486 1,541,123 End of period assets covered by allowance for credit losses 28,281,165 26,389,583 28,281,165 26,389,583 End of period gross individually acquired retail installment contracts held for investment 28,243,007 26,342,678 28,243,007 26,342,678 End of period gross personal loans 1,336,664 1,337,114 1,336,664 1,337,114 End of period gross finance receivables and loans held for investment 28,293,857 26,416,774 28,293,857 26,416,774 End of period gross finance receivables, loans, and leases held for investment 42,700,297 37,439,821 42,700,297 37,439,821 Average gross individually acquired retail installment contracts held for investment 27,919,080 26,784,161 26,928,172 26,998,499 Average gross personal loans held for investment 3,623 10,549 4,761 13,935 Average gross individually acquired retail installment contracts held for investment and held for sale $ 28,060,492 $ 28,165,822 $ 27,615,084 $ 28,204,075 Average gross purchased receivables portfolios 34,059 120,245 37,545 176,792 Average gross receivables from dealers 15,070 53,715 15,363 63,401 Average gross personal loans 1,350,852 1,367,445 1,398,555 1,419,223 Average gross capital leases 20,034 22,544 21,183 26,415 Average gross finance receivables and loans $ 29,480,507 $ 29,729,771 $ 29,087,730 $ 29,889,906 Average gross operating leases 13,607,010 10,710,941 12,458,508 10,257,752 Average gross finance receivables, loans, and leases 43,087,517 40,440,712 41,546,238 40,147,658 Average managed assets 52,472,270 50,019,800 50,594,560 50,576,757 Average total assets 41,985,751 39,476,811 40,900,603 39,172,967 Average debt 32,706,778 31,554,026 32,002,094 31,538,355 Average total equity 7,105,340 5,751,987 6,845,767 5,530,123 (1) Includes Finance and other interest income; excludes fees (2) "Yield on earning assets" is defined as the ratio of annualized Total finance and other interest income, net of Leased vehicle expense, to Average gross finance receivables, loans and leases (3) "Cost of debt" is defined as the ratio of annualized Interest expense to Average debt (4) "Net interest margin" is defined as the ratio of annualized Net finance and other interest income to Average gross finance receivables, loans and leases (5) "Expense ratio" is defined as the ratio of annualized Operating expenses to Average managed assets (6) "Return on average assets" is defined as the ratio of annualized Net income to Average total assets (7) "Return on average equity" is defined as the ratio of annualized Net income to Average total equity (8) "Net charge-off ratio" is defined as the ratio of annualized Charge-offs, on a recorded investment basis, net of recoveries, to average unpaid principal balance of the respective held-for-investment portfolio. Effective as of September 30, 2016, the Company records the charge-off activity for certain personal loans within the provision for credit losses due to the reclassification of these loans from held for sale to held for investment. (9) "Delinquency ratio" is defined as the ratio of End of period Delinquent principal over 59 days to End of period gross balance of the respective portfolio, excludes capital leases (10) "Allowance ratio" is defined as the ratio of Allowance for credit losses, which excludes impairment on purchased receivables portfolios, to End of period assets covered by allowance for credit losses (11) "Common stock dividend payout ratio" is defined as the ratio of Dividends declared per share of common stock to Earnings per share attributable to the Company's shareholders. (12) "Common Equity Tier 1 Capital ratio" is a non-GAAP ratio defined as the ratio of Total common equity tier 1 capital to Total risk-weighted assets (for a reconciliation from GAAP to this non-GAAP measure, see "Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Measures" in Table 8 of this release) Table 4: Credit Quality The activity in the credit loss allowance for individually acquired retail installment contracts for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2018 and 2017 was as follows (Unaudited, Dollar amounts in thousands): Three Months Ended September 30, 2018 Three Months Ended September 30, 2017 (As Revised) Retail Installment Contracts Acquired Individually Retail Installment Contracts Acquired Individually Allowance for Credit Loss Non-TDR TDR Non-TDR TDR Balance beginning of period $ 1,651,714 $ 1,664,222 $ 1,771,309 $ 1,704,496 Provision for credit losses 380,496 217,447 140,315 429,677 Charge-offs (701,393) (524,429) (711,495) (507,066) Recoveries 410,044 202,568 399,522 195,407 Balance end of period $ 1,740,861 $ 1,559,808 $ 1,599,651 $ 1,822,514 Nine Months Ended September 30, 2018 Nine Months Ended September 30, 2017 (As Revised) Retail Installment Contracts Acquired Individually Retail Installment Contracts Acquired Individually Allowance for Credit Loss Non-TDR TDR Non-TDR TDR Balance beginning of period $ 1,540,315 $ 1,804,132 $ 1,799,760 $ 1,611,295 Provision for credit losses 930,595 585,771 671,471 1,084,926 Charge-offs (1,962,220) (1,484,482) (2,105,835) (1,459,239) Recoveries 1,232,171 654,387 1,234,255 585,532 Balance end of period $ 1,740,861 $ 1,559,808 $ 1,599,651 $ 1,822,514 A summary of delinquencies of our individually acquired retail installment contracts as of September 30, 2018 and December 31, 2017 is as follows (Unaudited, Dollar amounts in thousands): Delinquent Principal September 30, 20181 December 31, 2017(As Revised)1 Principal 30-59 days past due $ 2,975,844 10.5 % $ 2,953,203 11.4 % Delinquent principal over 59 days2 1,560,736 5.5 % 1,642,934 6.3 % Total delinquent contracts $ 4,536,580 16.0 % $ 4,596,137 17.8 % Within the total delinquent principal above, retail installment contracts acquired individually held for investment that were placed on nonaccrual status, as of September 30, 2018 and December 31, 2017 (Unaudited, Dollar amounts in thousands): Nonaccrual Principal September 30, 20181 December 31, 2017(As Revised)1 Non-TDR $ 701,017 2.5 % $ 691,256 2.7 % TDR 725,202 2.6 % 806,938 3.1 % Total nonaccrual principal $ 1,426,219 5.0 % $ 1,498,194 5.8 % The table below presents the Company's allowance ratio for TDR and non-TDR individually acquired retail installment contracts as of September 30, 2018 and December 31, 2017 (Unaudited, Dollar amounts in thousands): Allowance Ratios September 30, 2018 December 31, 2017 (As Revised) TDR - Unpaid principal balance $ 5,759,094 $ 6,314,035 TDR - Impairment 1,559,808 1,804,132 TDR - Allowance ratio 27.1 % 28.6 % Non-TDR - Unpaid principal balance $ 22,483,913 $ 19,679,082 Non-TDR - Allowance 1,740,862 1,540,315 Non-TDR Allowance ratio 7.7 % 7.8 % Total - Unpaid principal balance $ 28,243,007 $ 25,993,117 Total - Allowance 3,300,670 3,344,447 Total - Allowance ratio 11.7 % 12.9 % 1Percent of unpaid principal balance. 2Interest is accrued until 60 days past due in accordance with the Company's account policy for retail installment contracts. Table 5: Originations The Company's originations of individually acquired loans and leases, including revolving loans, average APR, and discount were as follows: Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended Three Months Ended September 30, 2018 September 30, 2017 September 30, 2018 September 30, 2017 June 30, 2018 Retained Originations (Unaudited, Dollar amounts in thousands) Retail installment contracts $ 4,014,963 $ 2,570,228 $ 11,756,642 $ 8,619,961 $ 4,630,704 Average APR 17.3 % 16.1 % 17.4 % 17.2 % 16.8 % Average FICO (a) 596 605 595 591 602 Discount 0.3 % 1.2 % 0.3 % 0.8 % 0.004 % Personal loans (b) 325,120 309,779 938,536 948,544 340,088 Average APR 28.8 % 25.7 % 29.4 % 25.7 % 27.1 % Leased vehicles 2,890,841 1,665,776 7,616,498 4,693,392 2,632,052 Capital lease 2,633 2,477 7,088 $ 4,655 $ 2,058 Total originations retained $ 7,233,557 $ 4,548,260 $ 20,318,764 $ 14,266,552 $ 7,604,902 Sold Originations (c) Retail installment contracts $ $ 757,720 $ 1,826,411 $ 2,550,065 $ 683,935 Average APR % 6.0 % 7.3 % 6.2 % 7.6 % Average FICO (d) 729 727 727 726 Total originations sold $ $ 757,720 $ 1,826,411 $ 2,550,065 $ 683,935 Total originations (e) $ 7,233,557 $ 5,305,980 $ 22,145,175 $ 16,816,617 $ 8,288,837 (a) Unpaid principal balance excluded from the weighted average FICO score is $744 million, $311 million, $1.5 billion, $1.2 billion, and $594 million for the three months ended September 30, 2018 and 2017, the nine months ended September 30, 2018 and 2017, and the three months ended June 30, 2018, respectively, as the borrowers on these loans did not have FICO scores at origination. Of these amounts, $80 million, $37 million, $147 million, $95 million, and $77 million, respectively, were commercial loans. (b) Effective as of three months ended December 31, 2017, the Company revised its approach to define origination volumes for Personal Loans to include new originations, gross of paydowns and charge-offs, related to customers who took additional advances on existing accounts (including capitalized late fees, interest and other charges), and newly opened accounts. In the prior periods, the Company reported net balance increases on personal loans as origination volume. Included in the total origination volume is $71 million , $61 million, $155 million, $132 million, and $58 million for the three months ended September 30, 2018 and 2017, the nine months ended September 30, 2018 and 2017, and the three months ended June 30, 2018, respectively, related to newly opened accounts. (c) Only includes assets both originated and sold in the period. Total asset sales for the period are shown in Table 6. (d) Unpaid principal balance excluded from the weighted average FICO score is zero, $93 million, $144 million, $319 million, and $54 million for the three months ended September 30, 2018 and 2017, the nine months ended September 30, 2018 and 2017, and the three months ended June 30, 2018, respectively, as the borrowers on these loans did not have FICO scores at origination. Of these amounts, zero, $26 million, $76 million, $102 million, and $67 million, respectively, were commercial loans. (e) Total originations excludes finance receivables (UPB) of $74,086 purchased from a third party lender during the three months ended September 30, 2018 SBNA Originations Program Beginning in 2018, the Company agreed to provide SBNA with origination support services in connection with the processing, underwriting and purchase of retail loans, primarily from Chrysler dealers. In addition, the Company agreed to perform the servicing for any loans originated on SBNA's behalf. During the three and nine months ended September 30, 2018, the Company facilitated the purchase of $685 million and $738 million of retail installment contacts, respectively. Table 6: Asset Sales Asset sales may include assets originated in prior periods. Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended September 30, 2018 September 30, 2017 September 30, 2018 September 30, 2017 (Unaudited, Dollar amounts in thousands) Retail installment contracts $ 274,609 $ 1,482,134 $ 2,905,922 $ 2,979,033 Average APR 7.5 % 6.2 % 7.2 % 6.2 % Average FICO 727 716 726 721 Total asset sales $ 274,609 $ 1,482,134 $ 2,905,922 $ 2,979,033 Table 7: Ending Portfolio Ending outstanding balance, average APR and remaining unaccreted dealer discount of our held for investment portfolio as of September 30, 2018, and December 31, 2017, are as follows: September 30, 2018 December 31, 2017 (Unaudited, Dollar amounts in thousands) Retail installment contracts (a) $ 28,275,649 $ 26,036,361 Average APR 16.8 % 16.5 % Discount 0.9 % 1.5 % Personal loans $ 3,266 $ 6,887 Average APR 31.7 % 31.8 % Receivables from dealers $ 14,942 $ 15,787 Average APR 4.1 % 4.2 % Leased vehicles $ 14,386,490 $ 11,175,602 Capital leases $ 19,950 $ 22,857 (a) Revised for December 31, 2017 Table 8: Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Measures September 30, 2018 September 30, 2017 (As Revised) (Unaudited, Dollar amounts in thousands) Total equity $ 7,141,215 $ 5,873,102 Deduct: Goodwill, intangibles, and other assets, net of deferred tax liabilities 162,643 172,502 Deduct: Accumulated other comprehensive income (loss), net 56,601 27,481 Tier 1 common capital $ 6,921,971 $ 5,673,119 Risk weighted assets (a) $ 42,256,218 $ 37,609,878 Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio (b) 16.4 % 15.1 % (a) Under the banking agencies' risk-based capital guidelines, assets and credit equivalent amounts of derivatives and off-balance sheet exposures are assigned to broad risk categories. The aggregate dollar amount in each risk category is multiplied by the associated risk weight of the category. The resulting weighted values are added together with the measure for market risk, resulting in the Company's total Risk weighted assets. (b) CET1 is calculated under Basel III regulations required as of January 1, 2015. The fully phased-in capital ratios are non-GAAP financial measures. SOURCE Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc. Related Links http://www.santanderconsumerusa.com BOSTON, Oct. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- One of the country's leading organizations advocating for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities and autism -- Northeast Arc of Massachusetts has announced the seven teams selected from approximately 100 submitted for The Arc Tank 2.0, an innovation contest to positively disrupt how disability services are provided with up to $200,000 in prizes. This is the second year of the competition. Semifinalists are vying for $200,000 provided by the Changing Lives Fund established through a $1 million donation from Steven P. Rosenthal, founder of West Shore, LLC. Northeast Arc is a human services organization annually serving 10,000 children and adults from 190 Massachusetts cities and towns who have a broad range of disabilities. The following ideas have made the 2018 Arc Tank 2.0 semifinals: A Massachusetts non-profit coalition proposes to leverage Electronic Health Information for those with ID to advocate for better healthcare non-profit coalition proposes to leverage for those with ID to advocate for better healthcare A California non-profit proposes helping to close the social communication gap using Virtual Reality training and technology non-profit proposes helping to close the social communication gap using training and technology An Indianapolis firm seeks to create better training and work conditions to Improve the Work life of Caregivers in recognition that very high turnover among care providers damages long-term stability for those with ID firm seeks to create better training and work conditions to in recognition that very high turnover among care providers damages long-term stability for those with ID Those with ID have enormous difficulty accessing transportation for social, recreational, medical and work needs and family members often worry about putting them in the cars of drivers unprepared to deal with special situations. An Illinois group proposes to connect those with ID with vehicles Driven by Trained Support Professionals. Semifinalists: ASSERT -Autism Spectrum Support Emergency Response Teams -The May Institute, Randolph, Mass. Can Social Impact Bonds Drive Employment Outcomes for Individuals with Disabilities -WORK Inc. of Dorchester, Mass. Leveraging Data: Optimizing Community-Based Health Advocacy for People with ID - HMEA of Franklin, Mass. Quillo Red Road Ventures LLC of Indianapolis, Indiana SCOOT (Stronger Communities through Open and Organized Transportation) New Star of Chicago Heights, Illinois Professional Development for First Responders - The Arc of South Norfolk's Autism Law Enforcement Education Coalition (ALEC) of Westwood, Mass. Autism Law Enforcement Education Coalition (ALEC) of Virtual Reality Functional Communication Activities & Training Seminars - Interactive Media Institute of San Diego, California Winners will be determined by a panel of judges on 11/27 at the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. RSVP for the event at https://ne-arc.org/the-arc-tank/about-the-arc-tank/. SOURCE Northeast Arc Related Links https://ne-arc.org Sheremetyevo International Airport is located 29 km northwest of central Moscow. British Airways' timetable gives fliers the option of taking an early morning, mid-morning or overnight flight from Terminal 5 to the Russian capital. The new Sheremetyevo flight will be operated by an Airbus 321. Starting on October 28th October, the flight will depart from London (LHR) at 10:15, arriving at Sheremetyevo at 17:15 in Terminal E. It will depart again at 18:35, arriving in London at 19:55. Joerg Tuensmeyer, Head of Sales for British Airways in Europe, said: "By changing one of our three daily flights to Sheremetyevo, we are opening up the north of the city for our Russian customers and giving more options to our UK-based travelers who need to get to that part of the city when they arrive into the capital. We know how precious time is, especially to our business customers and frequent flyers, so this change allows them to spend more time in the lounge working or relaxing." Denis Pashkovsky, Deputy General Director, Commercial Activities of Sheremetyevo International Airport, said: "Flights to The United Kingdom are highly demanded by business customers and frequent flyers. London is the world's leading financial center for international business and commerce. We love and appreciate the British heritage and modern culture and are happy to assist in the development of mutually beneficial relations between the peoples of Russia and Great Britain. I am confident that the British Airways London-Moscow air bridge through Sheremetyevo Airport will become one of the most popular routes of the airline." "Sheremetyevo is thrilled once again to host direct flights from London, courtesy of British Airways," said Alexander Ponomarenko, Chairman of the Board of Directors for Sheremetyevo. "We are committed to developing a strong business relationship with British Airways and the launch of these direct flights from Sheremetyevo is a positive step in that direction." British Airways has major plans. The company is already investing 4.5 billion to improve service and flight quality for customers. This includes the installation of the latest generation in-flight Wi-Fi as well as power in every seat, fitting 128 long-haul aircraft with new interiors and taking delivery of 72 new aircraft. The airline is also investing 600 million specifically in Club World (long-haul business class), including outstanding catering at an altitude of 11,500 meters, and providing the best conditions for sleeping onboard the airline's planes. Tickets to Moscow are available to buy on ba.com and start from 269 in World Traveller (economy cabin), 338 in World Traveller Plus (premium economy) and 1,000 in Club World (business class). Customers can also save by using Avios points in part payment. British Airways previously stopped flights to Sheremetyevo in 2003. Sheremetyevo International Airport is the largest Russian airport in terms of passenger and freight traffic, takeoff and landing operations as well as it operates the biggest airport complex. In 2017, Sheremetyevo was ranked first in Europe for the quality of passenger service in the category of airports with 25-40 million passengers per year and entered ACI Director General's Roll of Excellence. Sheremetyevo International Airport is the only Russian airport that entered the top 50 International Megahubs. According to the OAG Megahubs International Index Sheremetyevo ranked 36th among the top 50 International Megahubs and 10th among the Top International Megahubs by Region Europe, Middle East and Africa. British Airways flies to more than 200 destinations across the world and offers an extensive range of carefully selected hotels, car hire and experiences in a wide range of worldwide destinations available to book with flights from ba.com/holidays. The airline is one of the world's largest international airlines carrying approximately 40 million passengers around the world every year. British Airways operates the majority of flights from Terminal 5, its home at London Heathrow. This terminal is capable of handling 30 million customers a year and is the size of 50 football pitches. British Airways has launched the exclusive First Wing check-in area for first class passengers at Heathrow Terminal 5. The area has a separate security corridor and direct access to the Galleries First business lounge and the Concorde lounge. A new two-lane corridor reduces the flow of travelers, thereby helping speed up the process of boarding Club World passengers. British Airways is investing 600 million specifically in Club World (long-haul business class), including outstanding catering at an altitude of 11,500 meters, as well as providing the best conditions for sleeping onboard the airline's planes. Passengers on British Airways long- and short-haul flights can enjoy the latest generation Wi-Fi access. British Airways plans to become the first airline to offer connectivity using the first ever 4G high-speed inflight network with the aim of having 90% of its total fleet connected by 2019. SOURCE Sheremetyevo International Airport SACRAMENTO, Calif., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Social media post automation for real estate listings to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and WordPress has been announced by Listings-to-Leads ahead of the NAR Realtor Conference & Expo Nov, 2-5, 2018 (Booth# 885). 100% social media automation of listings and their changes of status through the entire listing life-cycle to the Internet's top Social Media Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and more directly from ListHub, MLS and direct broker feeds, bolsters Listings-to-Leads' current suite of tools which include: Coming Soon Just Listed Open House Active Pending Just Sold FSBO Listing Landing Pages for ALL Listings Unlimited Property Valuation landing pages Unlimited Nearby Sold Homes landing pages Unlimited Custom Landing Pages Client Review Websites Auto Generated Content for Social Media Postings Auto Seller Lead Gen Follow Up Text / IVR and more. "Listings-to-Leads is the top ROI for our business of all the marketing & lead generation vendors in the industry," said Brent Dalley, Keller Williams Top Producer. "We have used most of their competitors, but have continued to have success with Listings-to-Leads and expect to continue to have more in the future." Listings-to-Leads' broker and agent clients will now be able to grow their business with minimal effort on their own or with Listings-to-Leads' managed services department for custom Facebook advertising programs and more. Social media posting automation is only the tip of the iceberg in the marketing and lead generation tools Listings-to-Leads provides to brokers and agents in addition to landing pages, single property websites, virtual tours, direct mail, print, Craigslist and integration with Matterport, Immoviewer, BoomTown, LionDesk, WiseAgent, RealGeeks, Top Producer, Contractually, FiveStreet and more! "Excitement about the social media automation for listings and soon, other real estate related content, among our users to further engage their followers and grow their business is running high," noted Scott Pierce, Founder of Listings-to-Leads, "This will free up one of the major pain points many agents have with social media and let them concentrate on growing their business using our tools that have helped even new and low producing agents become top producing agents in their offices and sales areas." About Listings-to-Leads: Listings-to-Leads, founded in 2009, is a real estate marketing & lead generation automation platform used by top agents, teams and brokerages in the United States and Canada. For more information visit https://www.listingstoleads.com. SOURCE Listings-to-Leads Related Links https://www.listingstoleads.com FREMONT, Calif., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Tailored Brands, Inc. (NYSE: TLRD) today announced that it will release fiscal 2018 third quarter results on Wednesday, December 12, 2018, at approximately 4:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST). The announcement will be followed by a conference call and live webcast hosted by management at 5:00 p.m. EST. To access the conference call at 5:00 p.m. EST on December 12th, please dial 201-689-8029. To access the live webcast, visit the Investor Relations section of the Company's website at http://ir.tailoredbrands.com. A webcast archive will be available free on the website for approximately 90 days. About Tailored Brands, Inc. As the leading specialty retailer of men's suits and largest men's formalwear provider in the U.S. and Canada, Tailored Brands helps men love the way they look for work and special occasions. We serve our customers through an expansive omni-channel network that includes over 1,400 stores in the U.S. and Canada as well as our branded e-commerce websites. Our brands include Men's Wearhouse, Jos. A. Bank, Joseph Abboud, Moores Clothing for Men and K&G. We also operate an international corporate apparel and workwear group consisting of Dimensions, Alexandra and Yaffy in the United Kingdom and Twin Hill in the United States. For additional information on Tailored Brands, please visit the Company's websites at www.tailoredbrands.com, www.menswearhouse.com, www.josbank.com, www.josephabboud.com, www.mooresclothing.com, www.kgstores.com, www.dimensions.co.uk, www.alexandra.co.uk and www.twinhill.com. Contact: Investor Relations (281) 776-7575 [email protected] Julie MacMedan, VP, Investor Relations Tailored Brands, Inc. SOURCE Tailored Brands, Inc. Related Links http://www.tailoredbrands.com You are here: China Disney and the Shanghai Museum have jointly released a series of cultural and creative products based on Mickey Mouse and a 3,000-year-old bronze food vessel. This year marks the 90th anniversary of Mickey, Disney's classic cartoon figure. Mickey made a surprise appearance Monday night, wearing the graceful, wavy patterns of the body of the bronzeware. The bronzeware, named Da Ke Ding, is the most precious collection in the Shanghai Museum. It is also one of the most famous and cherished ancient Chinese bronze containers in the world. In a short video released by Disney, Mickey had an adventure on Da Ke Ding, surfing on its waves while traveling through space and time. Six categories of creative products surrounding Mickey and the bronzeware, including toys, stationery, sliding plate bags, scarves and jewelry, have been launched. "The crossover is a way to pay our respects to China's splendid bronze civilization and to remind us of our childhoods accompanied by Disney cartoons," said Yang Zhigang, curator of the Shanghai Museum. China has planned to develop 50 museum brands of cultural creativity and 10 product research and development bases by 2020. WALTHAM, Mass., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE: TMO), the world leader in serving science, announced that Marc N. Casper, president and chief executive officer, will present at the Jefferies 2018 London Healthcare Conference on Wednesday, November 14, 2018, at 10:40 a.m. (GMT) at the Waldorf Hilton, London, UK. You can access the live webcast of the presentation in the Investors section of our website, www.thermofisher.com. About Thermo Fisher Scientific Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is the world leader in serving science, with revenues of more than $20 billion and approximately 70,000 employees globally. Our mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. We help our customers accelerate life sciences research, solve complex analytical challenges, improve patient diagnostics, deliver medicines to market and increase laboratory productivity. Through our premier brands Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific and Unity Lab Services we offer an unmatched combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and comprehensive services. For more information, please visit www.thermofisher.com. Media Contact Information: Ron O'Brien Phone: 781-622-1242 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.thermofisher.com Investor Contact Information: Ken Apicerno Phone: 781-622-1294 E-mail: [email protected] SOURCE Thermo Fisher Scientific Related Links http://www.thermofisher.com PETALUMA, Calif., Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Many entrepreneurs feel that they need to learn everything before they start their business. By focusing on great advice like "build a great team, make something that customers want and save money wherever possible," a new business may be able to prosper. The question is, how does an entrepreneur do that? Brandon Frere, founder of Frere Enterprises and other ventures, would like to help out entrepreneurs by sharing a path and a few treats for entrepreneurs eager to start their business. Photo by David Iskander on Unsplash "The most important thing at the beginning is to stay boring and do the work, build the brand, customer service and sales," said Frere. "Aside from these steps, I hope that entrepreneurs understand the other steps that occur when creating a business." Below are a few of the steps that might occur when an entrepreneur starts their business and a few tools that might help. First, without customers who are interested, why start the business at all? An ideal market has a niche market of a few passionate people who aren't being catered to but who can benefit from diversity and massive expansion. LinkedIn is a good example because it was loved by recruiters before it expanded to different business verticals, effectively making it the Facebook of business. The idea that forms a business comes from a guess about the market. As an example: "Other businesses in my target market sell to other businesses, but the market could be streamlined to improve the lives of freelancers, who I believe will continue to grow as a market." Is the idea good enough to attract a few dedicated people to commit to making a minimum viable product or service to test it? Execution may matter more in the long run, but the idea needs to be good enough to get others involved with it. Having a vague business model may be wise at this early point. A business model outlines many aspects of a business, including the value a business produces; the customers; the distribution channels; how to get, keep and grow customers; the revenue stream; the assets that are required to make the business work; the key partners and suppliers; the most important activities that make the business work; and the costs of all of these different factors. The template at Strategyzer may provide a good framework for developing a customized business model. Finally, the fundamental strategy layer is managing capital. Usually, if there is an audience for the market, there should be some method of capitalizing on that market. Y Combinator, Floodgate and angel investors could be used to secure capital, get training and connect entrepreneurs to a community of different founders. The templates found at SeriesSeed may be useful when proposing funding to venture capitalists. When things start getting up and running, the founder's role may always be about capital acquiring capital, making sure the product is working very well for the users and hiring, which requires capital. Each of these requires different skills. In order to do all these things at once, an entrepreneur should get used to specializing in being a generalist. It's impossible to know how to do everything, so an entrepreneur needs to learn how to judge which fires they can just let burn. "With the right focus, entrepreneurs may be able to achieve the success that they desire," said Frere. "I hope that many entrepreneurs find what they need to create the business of their dreams." About Brandon Frere Brandon Frere is an entrepreneur and businessman who lives in Sonoma County, California. He has designed and created multiple companies to meet the ever-demanding needs of businesses and consumers alike. His website, www.BrandonFrere.com, is used as a means of communicating many of the lessons, fundamentals and information that he has learned throughout his extensive business and personal endeavors, most recently in advocating on behalf of student loan borrowers nationwide. As experienced during his own student loan repayment, Mr. Frere found out how difficult it can be to work with federally contracted student loan servicers and the repayment programs designed to help borrowers. Through those efforts, he gained an insider's look into the repayment process and the motivations behind the inflating student loan debt bubble. His knowledge of the often confusing landscape of student loan repayment became a vital theme in his future endeavors, and he now uses those experiences to help guide others through the daunting process of applying for available federal repayment and loan forgiveness programs. BrandonFrere.com Related Images lets-get-started.jpg Let's Get Started Photo by David Iskander on Unsplash image2.png Related Links Brandon Frere website SOURCE Brandon Frere Related Links http://www.BrandonFrere.com SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of San Francisco (USF) will celebrate accomplished alumni and friends at its annual Alumni Awards Gala at the McLaren Conference Center on the USF campus on the evening of Saturday, November 3. The event will include a Public Service Award given posthumously to San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee's family in honor of his many notable contributions to improve the lives of the people of San Francisco. "USF is honored to celebrate the exemplary contributions of our graduates and friends," stated USF President Paul J. Fitzgerald, S.J. "With strong commitments to social justice, equity and inclusion, and with an entrepreneurial spirit, this year's award recipients have excelled at changing the world in a variety of meaningful, creative, and fruitful ways." 2018 Alumni Awards recipients include an alumna who has continuously given back to USF and the broader San Francisco community through years of service, the COO of a digital consulting firm, the Head of Supplier Diversity at Facebook, a trailblazer in multicultural education, and an "alumnus in spirit" who created an endowed award on his late brother's behalf for undergraduate students who have overcome great difficulties. "The Alumni Awards Gala celebrates USF's mission, amplified through the lives and work of outstanding alumni and friends of the university," said Peter Wilch, Vice President for Development at USF. "We are pleased to honor civic and community leaders who embody what's best about the university, and are excited to welcome back our alumni and friends to celebrate these fine individuals." The USF 2018 Alumni Award recipients are: Dolores McKeever Donahue LMA '52 Alumna of the Year Award A graduate of the San Francisco College for Women, Dolores exemplifies a passion for community and service. After a long career in real estate, Dolores became President of The O'Shea Foundation, an organization founded by her uncle and aunt supporting community-based organizations dedicated to education and social outreach. Dolores is a trustee emerita, has served on the USF Women in Leadership & Philanthropy Board of Directors, the Alumnae of the Sacred Heart Lone Mountain, and worked with Fr. John Lo Schiavo to establish the Lone Mountain Legacy Scholarship Fund at USF's School of Education. Former San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee Public Service Award Mayor Ed Lee was San Francisco's first Asian American mayor; he championed for the advancement of women, immigrant rights, expanding access to affordable housing, collaborative leadership, and equal opportunity. As an attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, he represented workers, seniors and other members of the community in San Francisco's Chinatown for several years. A strong advocate for affordable housing, Mayor Lee created the Housing Trust Fund, which generated $50 million of funding for affordable and middle-class housing in San Francisco. Anisha Weber MBA '97 Alessandri Alumni Service Award Anisha is COO of Primitive Logic, a woman-owned business solving digital business strategy challenges for over thirty years. She is a Past President of the USF Alumni Board of Directors and Past President of the MBA Alumni Society. Anisha gives back to her community as a San Mateo County Commissioner on the Status of Women, focusing on STEM education for young women and women's leadership. Jason Trimiew MA '07 Professional Achievement Award For nearly two decades, Jason has worked at the intersection of the marketplace and social impact in international microfinance, community and economic development, and venture philanthropy. In 2016, Jason joined Facebook to launch and lead the company's supplier diversity program. Previously he served as Managing Director at REDF venture philanthropy and founded the Trimiew Strategy Group, a consultancy that helps clients create products and programs that produce results for good. He was also the Vice President of Community Relations for the SF Bay Area Super Bowl 50 Host Committee and former Advisory Board Member of San Francisco Community Investment Fund. Mi' Jan Celie Tho-Biaz MA '03 EdD '13 Fr. Stephen A. Privett Living the Mission Award A noted oral historian and cultural leader, Dr. Tho-Biaz is the founder of the New Mexico Women of Color Nonprofit Leadership Initiative at the Santa Fe Community Foundation. Mi'Jan led the Steinem Initiative's public policy digital storytelling pilot at Smith College and was a visiting scholar at the Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics at Columbia University. She has also served as a documentarian-in-residence in Essential Studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts, a presenter at Carnegie Hall, and a resident at the Banff Centre. William F. Kenney Cable Car Award William Kenney has worked as an attorney and served two terms on the San Mateo-Foster City School Board. In 2001, he established the USF James F. Kenney Memorial Award in honor of his late brother, Jim Kenney '55 who died months before graduating. The award is given to a USF student who has overcome significant obstacles in their life. This award has benefited dozens of USF students who William continues to mentor and inspire long after they graduate from the university. Currently, William sits on the Board of the Self Storage Association's Foundation, the Guideposts Foundation, and the San Mateo Rotary Club. About the University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco is located in the heart of one of the world's most innovative and diverse cities and is home to a vibrant academic community of students and faculty who achieve excellence in their fields. Its diverse student body enjoys direct access to faculty, small classes, and outstanding opportunities in the city itself. USF is San Francisco's first university, and its Jesuit Catholic mission helps ignite a student's passion for social justice and a desire to "Change the World From Here." For more information, visit usfca.edu SOURCE University of San Francisco Related Links http://www.usfca.edu Conference call to take place Thursday, November 8, 2018 at 8:30 am Eastern time ISNES, Belgium, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- VolitionRx Limited (NYSE American: VNRX) today announced it will host a conference call on Thursday, November 8 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time to discuss its financial and operating results from the third quarter of 2018, in conjunction with the filing of its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the third quarter ended September 30, 2018. Event: VolitionRx Limited Third Quarter 2018 Earnings and Business Update Conference Call Date: Thursday, November 8, 2018 Time: 8:30 a.m. Eastern time U.S. & Canada Dial-in: 1-855-327-6837 (toll-free) U.K. Dial-in: 0808-101-2791 (toll free) Toll/International: 1-631-891-4304 Conference ID: 10005816. Cameron Reynolds, President and Chief Executive Officer of Volition, will host the call along with David Vanston, Chief Financial Officer and Scott Powell, Executive Vice President. The call will provide an update on recent developments and Volition's international activities, including details of new and ongoing clinical trials, important events which have taken place in this quarter, and milestones for the remainder of 2018 and beyond. A live audio webcast of the conference call will also be available on the investor relations page of Volition's corporate website at http://ir.volitionrx.com. In addition, a telephone replay of the call will be available until November 22, 2018. The replay dial-in numbers are 1-844-512-2921 (toll-free) in the U.S. and Canada and 1-412-317-6671 (toll) internationally. Please use replay pin number 10005816. About Volition Volition is a multi-national life sciences company focused on developing simple, easy to use, cost effective blood tests designed to help diagnose a range of cancers. The tests are based on the technology platform of Nucleosomics, which is the practice of identifying and measuring nucleosomes in the bloodstream or other bodily fluid - an indication that disease is present. As cancer screening programs become more widespread, Volition's products aim to help to diagnose a range of cancers quickly, simply, accurately and cost effectively. Early diagnosis has the potential to not only prolong the life of patients, but also to improve their quality of life. Volition intends to expand the application of its technology beyond cancer by exploring other disease applications. The company's research and development activities are currently centered in Belgium, with additional offices in London, Texas and Singapore, as it focuses on bringing its diagnostic products to market first in Europe, then in the U.S. and ultimately, worldwide. For more information about Volition, visit Volition's website https://volitionrx.com/ or connect with us via: Twitter: https://twitter.com/volitionrx LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/volitionrx Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VolitionRx/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/VolitionRx The contents found at Volition's website address, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube are not incorporated by reference into this document and should not be considered part of this document. The addresses for Volition's website, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube are included in this document as inactive textual references only. Media/Investor Contacts Louise Day, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer [email protected] +44 (0)7557 774620 Scott Powell, Executive Vice President, Investor Relations [email protected] +1 (646) 650 1351 Joseph Green, Edison Advisors [email protected] +1 (646) 653 7030 SOURCE VolitionRx Limited WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Responding to the need to increase national awareness about lung cancer screening and encourage those at risk to talk with their doctor, Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA) is announcing today the launch of a new campaign, "What About Your Lungs?," to help drive this important public health initiative. "What About Your Lungs?" aims to ignite a national dialogue about lung cancer screening by aligning this essential health benefit with other early detection methods for cancer and encouraging individuals to speak with their doctor to assess their own risk for lung cancer and determine if screening is the right option for them. "There are millions of people who are unaware that they are at risk for lung cancer or that low-dose CT screening can help detect this disease at an early, treatable and even curable stage," said Laurie Fenton Ambrose, President & CEO of Lung Cancer Alliance. "This campaign seeks to help fill this void and drive a life-saving conversation between doctors and individuals who would benefit from this preventive service." Currently, early detection for lung cancer through low-dose CT screening is recommended by the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) and is an approved essential health benefit covered through Medicare and most private insurers. It is estimated that approximately 8 million people would be eligible for this preventive service. The merits of low-dose CT screening were further confirmed by the recent results of the Dutch-Belgium Lung Cancer Screening trial (NELSON) showing a life-saving impact across genders with an even greater benefit for women. CT screening also received the Hottest Clinical Procedure Award from Auntminnie.com, a leading medical imaging website, due to screening's "obvious benefit of life preservation." "What About Your Lungs?" speaks directly to individuals who may be at risk with striking imagery and messaging that normalizes the need for lung cancer screening, making it a consideration similar to that of obtaining a mammogram, colonoscopy or other early detection measures already cemented in the public consciousness. The campaign includes online educational materials for those at risk and their physicians and a listing of more than 600 Screening Centers of Excellence nationwide offering responsible screening in a continuum of care. The digital and social media campaign will run throughout November during Lung Cancer Awareness month on national platforms and in six regional markets: Washington, DC Seattle, WA Columbus, OH Grand Rapids, MI Raleigh-Durham, NC Pittsburgh, PA To learn more, visit the lung cancer screening portion of the LCA website. This education campaign is made possible through the generous support from individual donors and a creative licensing agreement with Genentech. About Lung Cancer Alliance: Lung Cancer Alliance serves and listens to those living with and at risk for lung cancer to reduce stigma, improve quality of life and increase survival. We empower our community by helping people navigate the paths of early detection, diagnosis and treatment. Insights allow us to improve care, amplify awareness, drive advocacy and lead research with the vision of tripling the number of survivors in the next decade. Media Contact: Caroline Fuchs [email protected] 202-742-1422 SOURCE Lung Cancer Alliance Related Links http://www.lungcanceralliance.org Washington, Oct 31 : US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visited the Pittsburgh synagogue where on the weekend a gunman who has espoused anti-Semitic views online massacred 11 people, while hundreds of protesters denounced the president's seeming reluctance to frankly and clearly condemn white supremacism. As soon as Air Force One landed in Pittsburgh, Trump traveled to the Tree of Life synagogue, where the alleged shooter -- Robert Bowers -- burst in and opened fire on Saturday during a religious service, shouting "All Jews must die," Efe reported on Tuesday. Accompanying the first couple to the synagogue were Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, who are Jewish, along with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who professes the same faith. Trump and his family members spent about 20 minutes inside and outside the synagogue, where they spoke with a rabbi and placed a white rose and a small stone -- a Jewish tradition -- on each of the Stars of David set up outside the temple in memory of the massacre victims. The president and his wife lit candles inside the synagogue in honour of the victims, but they did not tour the entire building because it is classified as a crime scene and has been cordoned off so that investigators can go about their work gathering evidence. Afterwards, the Trump family went to the University of Pittsburgh hospital, where they spoke with some of the people wounded in the shooting, including several law enforcement officers. Meanwhile, hundreds of people gathered at two sites to protest the Trumps' visit to the city and their angry shouts and chants could be heard in the vicinity of the synagogue when the president was there. The demonstrators carried signs bearing messages such as "President Hate, leave our state" and "Words matter," referring to what they consider to be Trump's tacit support for white supremacists like the man accused of committing the massacre. More than 70,000 people nationwide on Tuesday signed a petition published on the Internet asking Trump not to come to Pittsburgh until he "fully denounce(s) white nationalism." In the wake of the massacre, Trump has blamed the media -- rather than his own strident rhetoric on Twitter and at campaign rallies -- for the country's divisiveness. Islamabad, Oct 31 : Abdul Razak Dawood, advisor to Pakistani Prime Minister on commerce, textile, industry and production, and investment, has said that Pakistan has great potential in the China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai from November 5-10. Pakistan wants to bring forward industrial cooperation with China, Dawood said while speaking to Xinhua news agency. "Development of Gwadar and development of industrial cooperation are the two main things we want (from China), apart from having a market access to China." He added that Pakistan wants to take its textiles, leather, sugar, rice and other agricultural products to Chinese business markets in the initial stage, but later it will do business in light engineering. Dawood, who attended an event organised for promoting friendly cooperation between Pakistani and Chinese businessmen, said while addressing the session that the Pakistani government wants to make CIIE participation fruitful, as it will give a chance to bring business people of the two countries closer. He added that Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and businessmen are going to Beijing to expand the role of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as the Chinese government has opened its gates for them, and now its Pakistan's turn to use this opportunity to develop the country. He said that the Pakistani government wants industrialisation to develop more and CPEC is one of the important vehicles Pakistan can use to achieve that goal. Dawood said that the main priority of the current Pakistani government is to enhance its exports, adding that when exports increased it will lead to job creation to millions of people who are unemployed. Beijing, Oct 31 : China's Commerce Ministry late on Tuesday expressed opposition to the US imposition of unilateral sanctions against a Chinese firm, urging the country to immediately stop its wrong practice. The statement was made after the US Department of Commerce on Monday decided to restrict exports to China's Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Company by adding it to the "Entity List", reports Xinhua news agency. China opposes the US acts of generalising the concept of national security and abusing export control measures, and opposes the US acts of imposing unilateral sanctions and interfering in enterprises' normal international trade and cooperation, a spokesperson of the ministry said. China urges the US side to take measures and immediately stop the wrong practice, facilitate and promote normal international trade and cooperation between companies of the two countries and protect their legitimate rights and interests, the spokesperson said. China has fewer "left-behind children" in the countryside, due to government policies helping bring migrant families together, a ministry official said Tuesday. "The number of rural left-behind children had dropped to 6.97 million as of the end of August, down 22.7 percent from two years ago when the government started tracking the numbers," said Ni Chunxia, deputy head of the social affairs department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Ni said that about 70 percent of left-behind children stayed in seven provinces in central and southwest China. Sichuan topped the list, reporting 765,000 left-behind children. More than half of the children are boys, Ni said, adding that almost all of them are healthy. Ni credited the drop in numbers to the anti-poverty campaign, urbanization, and rural revitalization strategy, which helped urban migrants bring their children to the cities, or inspired them to return to start their own businesses in the countryside. Rio De Janeiro, Oct 31 : Hundreds of Brazilians, mostly students, on Tuesday demonstrated protest in some cities of the country against the President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, and demanded that he respects democracy during his term in office. In Rio de Janeiro, the most emblematic city of the country, more than 200 people marched up the stairs of the Municipal Chamber with banners such as "No More Torture" or "Not Him" and shouting slogans against Bolsonaro, a nostalgic of the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985), and his ideology, Efe reported. Several young people even came in their school uniforms and warned that the elected president "is very bad for the country because of the history and the dictatorship" that the country has already experienced. Participants marched through the streets of Rio de Janeiro, invading roads and even blocking traffic at times, which generated some tension with the authorities, especially when some of the young people fought among themselves. In Sao Paulo -- the largest city in the country -- hundreds of people gathered on the central Paulista Avenue to also protest against president-elect, winner of last Sunday's elections with 55 per cent of the vote. The protests on Tuesday were small compared to the thousands of Brazilians who went on to the streets on Sunday to celebrate the victory of Bolsonaro, who will assume the presidency of Brazil on January 1. Brasilia, Oct 31 : Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro plans to create a "super ministry" of economy when he takes office in January, his economic adviser has said. The 63-year-old far-right leader, who previously suggested that Brazil could pull out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, plans to merge ministries agriculture and environment, an aide said. The move, part of the incoming government's push to cut spending, has drawn sharp criticism as it could endanger the Amazon region, the largest tropical rainforest in the world and home to plant and animal species that are still being discovered by scientists, the BBC reported. Hundreds of Brazilians, mostly students, on Tuesday protested in several cities against Bolsonaro's future plans and demanded that he respect democracy during his term in office. Following behind-closed-door talks on Tuesday, Bolsonaro's top economic adviser Paulo Guedes confirmed that an economic super-ministry would be formed combining finance, planning, industry and trade. Bolsonaro had already made it clear before the polls that the Paris climate pact requirements compromise the South American giant's sovereignty over the Amazon region. The goal is to reduce by half some 29 ministries by combining others, such as Agriculture and Environment, said Deputy Onyx Lorenzoni, who may become Bolsonaro's next chief of staff. In the run-up to the election, Bolsonaro, whose first foreign visits would be to Chile, Israel and the US -- that according to him "share our worldview" -- has said: "The future ministry will come from the productive sector." However he was "open to negotiation on that issue". Bolsonaro swept to victory in Sunday's election, easily beating his left-wing rival Fernando Haddad. The former paratrooper is a deeply polarising figure who has in the past defended the actions of the country's former military regime and said he is "in favour of dictatorship". His populist approach has led to some media dubbing him "Trump of the Tropics". He is supported by the agribusiness lobby. A former environment minister tweeted that the move was "tragic". "This disastrous decision will bring serious damage to Brazil and will pass on to consumers abroad the idea that all Brazilian agribusiness survives thanks to the destruction of forests," Marina Silva said. In the nation's most emblematic city, Rio de Janeiro, over 200 people marched up the stairs of the Municipal Chamber with banners such as "No More Torture" or "Not Him" and shouting slogans against Bolsonaro and his ideology, Efe news reported. However, these protests were much smaller than the Sunday celebrations that were witnessed on Bolsonaro's victory. He will assume Office on January 1. "There has been a deindustrialisation for more than 30 years. We are going to save Brazilian industry," Guedes said. Bolsonaro plans to be here on November 6 to meet with outgoing President Michel Temer. Kabul, Oct 31 : Several persons were killed and many wounded in a suicide attack near Pul Charkhi prison here in Afghanistan on Wednesday, officials said. A vehicle carrying prison employees was targeted by a suicide bomber, Khaama Press news agency reported. At least four were confirmed dead and five others sustained critical injuries, a security officer said. There were conflicting reports on the number of dead, as anther security officer put the toll at seven and said over 10 have sustained injuries. No individual or group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack. Kevadia (Gujarat) : Kevadia (Gujarat) Oct 31 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday unveiled the 182-metre high 'Statue of Unity' in honour of country's first Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and dedicated it to the nation. Built on Sadhu Bet Island on Narmada river, the imposing statue is touted to be the world's tallest. The Rs 2,389 crore monument is a tribute to Patel who played a major role in integrating the princely states into the Indian Union after the partition of 1947. It is almost 29 metres taller than China's Spring Temple Buddha that stands at 153 metres, and almost twice as high as the 93-metre Statue of Liberty in New York. Three Indian Air Force planes flew past the Patel figure and created the tricolour in the sky after Modi inaugurated the giant. The Gujarat government expects the statue to boost tourism, with one estimate putting the daily numbers at 15,000. Apart from the Patel bronze figure, other major attractions include inauguration of a 17-km-long Valley of flowers, a Tent City for tourists near the statue and a museum dedicated to the life and times of Patel. The Tent City, located around four km from the Statue of Unity can house more than 500 tourists in one go. A viewing gallery at a height of 153 metres has been created inside the statue to enable tourists to have a view of 1,210 metre long concrete Sardar Sarovar Dam, 3.2 km upstream as well as the nearby Satpura and Vindhya mountain ranges. As per a government statement, the statue has been built using over 70,000 tonnes of cement, 18,500 tonnes of reinforced steel, 6,000 tonnes of structural steel and 1,700 tonnes of bronze, which was used for the outer cladding of the structure. Modi was accompanied by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani. New Delhi : As per the United States Department of Energy (US-DOE), lighting causes 5-6 per cent of the overall Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions globally. Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) can greatly help in mitigating the adverse effects of GHG emissions. They consume 80-85 per cent less electricity than conventional lighting sources and have much higher operating lifetimes (more than 50,000 hours). Unlike the preceding generation of lights, such as Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs), LEDs release zero mercury toxicity into the environment. Owing to such these merits, the global lighting market is witnessing a huge policy-driven deployment of LEDs. Almost all major cities across the world are anticipated to replace about 50 million traditional light fixtures with LEDs. Currently, there are close to one billion efficient lights (LEDs and CFLs) operating in the US. Among them, LEDs are projected to save approximately 348 trillion watt-hours of energy by 2027. In India, close to 230 million LED bulbs were distributed under the Ujala Yojana (May, 2017). India's LED market is a mix of domestic and foreign players. The players' share is volatile, as market dominance primarily depends on constant upgradation of innovative technologies. Imported LEDs (from China, Taiwan and Korea) and the unorganised sector are currently dominating the market. This is due to an absence of national-level standardisation and regulations for the domestic supply chain framework. Indian industry lacks manufacturing technologies and research efforts for the upcoming technologies of the sector. The first research breakthrough in LEDs came with the application of Gallium Nitride (GaN) in the early 1990s. At that time, Gallium and its alloys showed capabilities of producing 10-100 times brighter luminescence than its predecessor materials, such as Silicon Carbide. Currently, there are a wide range of LED applications using GaN, designed for high and ultra-high brightness, such as automotive lights, traffic signals, big screen TVs and the like. Despite high promise and market opportunities, large-scale adoption of LEDs will depend on improving performance aspects such as efficiency and efficacy. For example, global adoption of highly efficient LEDs can reduce our carbon footprint up to 800 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Further, with US-DOE's work in Research and Development (R&D) of Solid State Lighting (SSL), the lighting efficacy of current LED devices will be enhanced by 25 per cent, reaching 200 lumens per watt (LPW) from 160 LPW. So far, the US-DOE has achieved a huge industrial footprint with over 260 patent applications in LED products; the technology is growing laterally. As a result, many success stories are coming in niche LED lighting, such as marine, harbour, organic, smart lighting and the like. Smart lighting has grown two-fold in recent years. It has integrated applications such as sensors for public transport movement, signal synchronisations, et al. Similarly, organic LEDs are seen as the next generation of SSL technologies, with applications currently seen in TVs and phones. In India, lighting constitutes 18 per cent of the total electricity usage. The savings from LEDs, in tandem with smart metering, smart designing and connected lighting will be close to 9-11 per cent (50 per cent and more) of the total consumption. It is imperative that the government constitute a policy framework that can foolproof industry standardisation and regulatory mechanisms in the lighting industry. BIS can create standards pertaining to design and manufacturing of LEDs. This will create parity among domestic and foreign competitors. Similar to the efforts seen in the US, a national level research programme on SSL can focus on improving the working outputs of the upcoming lighting technologies. It will strengthen domestic manufacturing capabilities that can cater to domestic and global demand. In order to support domestic manufacturing, government can assist by facilitating financial incentives (such as subsidies in capital, production, et al). Indian academic institutes and research laboratories can collaborate to pursue R&D of promising LED technologies. The synergy of renewables and energy efficiency measures can enhance the ongoing carbon mitigation efforts and improve our national energy security. (Vishu Mishra is a Research Engineer with the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy - CSTEP - an Indian technology-policy think tank. The views expressed at those of CSTEP. He can be contacted at vishumishra@cstep.in) Kevadia (Gujarat), Oct 31 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday India now meets the world on its own terms and is moving towards becoming a economic and military superpower. "India is moving ahead on the path shown by Sardar Patel. There was a time when we were seen as weak. But (Sardar Vallabhbhai)Patel turned those very weaknesses into our strength -- showed us the right path," Modi said unveiling the 'Statue of Unity' honouring the country's first Home Minister. Dedicating the 182-metre bronze figure to the nation, Modi said if we were connected from Rajasthan's Kutch to Nagaland's Kohima and Jammu and Kashmir's Kargil to Tamil Nadu's Kanyakumari, it was because of Patel's determination. The former Deputy Prime Minister played a major role in integrating over 550 princely states into the Indian Union after the Partition of 1947. Unveiling the statue built on Sadhu Bet Island on Narmada river for Rs 2,389 crore, Modi touted it to be the world's tallest -- surpassing China's Spring Temple Buddha that stands at 153 metres by 29 metres and nearly doubling the 93-metre Statue of Liberty in New York. Washington, Oct 31 : NASA has launched an eight-episode podcast series that follows the InSight mission as the robotic explorer journeys to Mars for a November 26 landing. The first two episodes of the "On a Mission" series are now available for download, the US space agency said in a statemenet late Tuesday. The eight-episode series follows the InSight lander as it travels hundreds of millions of miles and attempts to land on Mars on November 26. "On a Mission" will be the first NASA podcast to track a mission during flight, through interviews with the InSight team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Episode One lays out the odds of reaching the surface safely -- fewer than half of Mars missions make it. "When things go beautifully it looks easy, but it's really not easy," said Sue Smrekar, Deputy Principal Investigator for the InSight mission. "Any kind of exploration is just not easy or guaranteed - ever." Narrated by host and science journalist Leslie Mullen and InSight team members, each episode blends humour and captivating storytelling to dig into the journey of the lander and the people who have spent years working on it. New episodes will be released weekly as InSight gets closer to Mars. The final episode will cover what happens when the team tries to land InSight on the Red Planet. If successful, the lander will be the first robotic explorer to study the planet's "inner space" -- its crust, mantle and core -- to better understand the early formation of rocky planets in our inner solar system and rocky exoplanets. New Delhi, Oct 31 : The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sentenced to life imprisonment 16 personnel of the Uttar Pradesh Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) for killing 42 people in the 1987 Hashimpura massacre in Meerut. In doing so, the court set aside a March 2015 the trial court verdict giving the 16 PAC personnel the benefit of doubt and acquiting them. There were originally 19 accused but three had died during the trial. The killings took place during a riot in Meerut when the victims were picked up from the Hashimpura neighbourhood by the 41st Battalion of the PAC during a search operation. The charge sheet was filed before the Chief Judicial Magistrate Ghaziabad in 1996. The case was transferred to Delhi in September 2002 on the order of the Supreme Court following a petition by the families of the massacre victims and survivors. A sessions court here in July 2006 framed charges of murder, attempt to murder, tampering with evidence and conspiracy against all the accused. Islamabad, Oct 31 : Pakistan's Supreme Court on Wednesday acquitted Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death on blasphemy charges, and ordered her immediate release amid threats from Islamist groups demanding her execution. Bibi, a mother of five from Pakistan's Punjab province, was convicted of blasphemy in 2010 and sentenced to hang after she was accused of defiling the name of the Prophet Muhammed during an argument with her neighbours. A three-judge special bench headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar and comprising Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel heard Bibi's 2014 appeal against her conviction and death sentence, Geo News reported. "The appeal is allowed. Sentence of death set aside. Asia Bibi acquitted of charges," ruled Justice Nisar. He said Bibi can walk free from jail in Sheikupura, near Lahore, immediately if not wanted in connection with any other case. She was not in court to hear the ruling. The verdict was read out amid strong security measures with members of riot police and bomb specialists deployed at the entrance of the Supreme Court. Inside the room, unarmed commandos of the anti-terrorist corps were deployed to maintain security. Bibi had lost the appeal filed at the Lahore High Court in 2014. In 2015, the Supreme Court stayed the execution order, saying it would study the appeal, whose first hearing, set for 2016, was postponed after one of the judges was challenged. The Supreme Court on October 8 studied the appeal against the death sentence of Bibi and said there were contradictions in the witnesses' statements. The radical Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan party previously threatened the judges with dangerous consequences if Bibi were acquitted. A few days later thousands of Islamists in cities across Pakistan demanded her execution. Under the Pakistan penal code, the offence of blasphemy is punishable by death or life imprisonment. Widely criticised by international human rights groups, the law has been used disproportionately against minority religious groups in the country and to go after journalists critical of the Pakistani religious establishment. Bibi's case has attracted widespread outrage and support from Christians worldwide and condemnation from conservative Islamist groups in Pakistan, who have demanded the death penalty and threatened widespread protests in the event of her being freed. In 2011, senior politician Salman Taseer was shot dead by his own bodyguard for voicing support for Bibi and condemning the country's stringent blasphemy laws. His killer, Mumtaz Qadri, then surrendered to the police and was later executed, becoming a "martyr" for many hardline Islamists. Also in 2011, a Christian minority minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, was shot dead at his home for defending Bibi and opposing anti-blasphemy legislation. Mumbai, Oct 31 : Low investment in upskilling the current workforce has led most businesses to miss out on the true benefits of automation globally, a new report said on Wednesday. In the majority of companies (58 per cent), automation is not yet meeting executives' desired goals of increased productivity, said the report by the Capgemini Research Institute, a think-tank of French technology services major Capgemini. The research, based on a survey of 800 executives and 1,200 employees globally from over 400 large organisations, suggested that enterprises with a 50,000 strong workforce or more can expect to save about $90 million more per year than companies that do not upskill or are yet to upskill their employees. "Automation offers significant benefits to large organisations, but only if the implementation of technology is matched by the upskilling of people. "Too many big companies are lagging in developing training programmes and, as this research shows, are not realising full productivity benefits as a result," said Claudia Crummenerl, Managing Director, People and Organisation practice at Capgemini Invent. When asked to name their main reasons for undertaking automation initiatives, 37 per cent of the respondents said it was to improve workforce productivity, the most popular motivation after improving quality (43 per cent). Yet, 58 per cent of executives and 54 per cent of employees said automation had not yet improved productivity in their organisation. This was especially marked in Sweden, the US and China, where 66 per cent, 64 per cent and 61 per cent of executives respectively said automation had failed to enhance employee productivity. "Moreover, employees in most countries agree with the opinions of executives on this point, with the exception of India, China and France," said the report. Among organisations that combine automation efforts with a clear upskilling programme, there is more optimism about the impact of automation. "In these cases, most employees (52 per cent) and a high proportion of executives (46 per cent) said automation was improving productivity. Moreover, in organisations midway through an upskilling programme, employees were more positive than those in the initial phase of upskilling, about career progression, boosted morale and carrying out new responsibilities. "There is no question that automation is going to transform the workforce and existing job roles, but the crucial factor is that companies make faster progress to prepare themselves, and their employees, to realise the benefits of automation," said Crummenerl. A recently concluded China-Russia joint Arctic expedition has yielded a more comprehensive and systematic understanding of the Arctic Ocean that will provide scientific support for the development of a Polar Silk Road, scientists from the two countries said on Tuesday. Eleven Chinese researchers and 19 Russians participated in the second joint Sino-Russia Arctic expedition, which started in Russia's eastern port of Vladivostok on Sept 6. After overcoming extreme weather and traveling 12,000 kilometers, they returned to the port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on Oct 21. The 46-day expedition was jointly organized by the Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, based in Qingdao, Shandong province, and the Russian Academy of Sciences Pacific Oceanological Institute. Scientists from both countries carried out multidisciplinary surveys during the expedition, including ocean geology, hydrometeorology, chemistry and biodiversity as well as obtained a host of specimens and data from the atmosphere, seawater and sediment. "All these provide the basics to study the ocean environment, biology, ecology and climate change," said Hu Limin, the expedition's chief scientist on the Chinese side. Hu said the expedition acquired some data about hydrometeorology along the Northeast Passage, a shipping route connecting Northeast Asia with Western Europe. In July 2017, Russia and China agreed to carry out cooperation on the Northern Sea Route and jointly build a Polar Silk Road. The Polar Silk Road via the Arctic is widely seen as the third arc of the Belt and Road Initiative, adding another sea route beyond the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, Africa-Mediterranean and South Pacific-Oceania. An optical profiler developed by the Qingdao lab played a big role in the observation of the Northeast Passage and obtained firsthand data about fog, snow and low clouds during rapid weather changes, said Zhao Jinping, a veteran scientist of Arctic studies who is also involved in this expedition. Anatolii Astakhov, deputy director of Russia's Pacific Oceanological Institute, said the Northern Sea Route holds interest for both countries. He said the specimens and data would be transported to both countries' research institutions for further study and added that he hoped the research results would be published in top scientific periodicals. The first China-Russia joint Arctic expedition took place in 2016, and the Qingdao lab signed a letter of intent to cooperate with the Russian Academy of Sciences P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology a month ago. Cooperation with Russian scientists is part of the Qingdao lab's efforts to deepen international cooperation and develop a global innovation network, said Pan Kehou, secretary-general of the Qingdao lab's academic committee. Currently, the lab is in partnership with top oceanographic research forces in the United States, Australia and Germany to establish joint research centers, Pan said. New Delhi, Oct 31 : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday paid rich tribute to "Congressman" Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his 143rd birth anniversary and said he was a man of "steel will" and had "no tolerance for bigotry or communalism". "Sardar Patel was a patriot, who fought for an independent, united and secular India. "A man with a steely will, tempered by compassion. He was a Congressman to the core, who had no tolerance for bigotry or communalism," Gandhi's tribute said. Patel, was born to Ladba and Jhaverbhai Patel in Gujarat's Nadiad on October 31, 1875. He was the first Deputy Prime Minister and the Home Minister of the country. He is also popularly known as the Iron Man of India. Seoul, Oct 31 : North Korea is apparently preparing for a possible visit by international inspectors to verify the shutdown of its nuclear test site, Seoul's spy agency said on Wednesday during a parliamentary audit. "Signs have been detected that North Korea is conducting some preparations and intelligence-related activity over a possible visit by outside experts," the National Intelligence Service told lawmakers, according to Yonhap news agency. In May, following the first summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the North Korean military had destroyed tunnels at its Punggye-ri nuclear test site in the presence of foreign media, although nuclear experts were not present at the event. Pyongyang had carried out all of its six nuclear tests at Punggye-ri and assured that the facility had not been in use since it signed an agreement with Seoul for the complete denuclearization of the peninsula after the first bilateral summit. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had said after his latest Pyongyang visit in October that Kim had assured him of allowing foreign inspectors in Punggye-ri, as soon as a series of logistical issues were resolved. During his latest summit with Moon in September, Kim had also promised access to the Sohae missile launch base, in the northwest of the country, which was used to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles and where key installations have been dismantled recently. South Korean lawmaker, Rep. Kim Min-ki of the ruling party, said that the the spy agency was closely monitoring North Korea's nuclear and missile facilities, including the Yongbyon nuclear complex, and no big changes were detected. In September, Kim had also offered to dismantle Yongbyon, the epicentre of the North Korean nuclear programme, in exchange for security guarantees by the US as agreed upon by both countries at the Singapore summit in June between US President Donald Trump and Kim. Since the June summit, Pyongyang has repeatedly demanded a permanent peace treaty with South Korea to replace the armistice that ended the Korean War in the 1950s. It has also demanded that sanctions against it be lifted to allow it to continue to dismantle its weapons programme. Seoul, Oct 31 : South Korean President Moon Jae-in expressed his thanks to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday for sending him some "Modi jackets", a vest-like sleeveless jacket the leader usually dons. Moon uploaded photos of him wearing the jackets in a Twitter posting, saying they "fit great". "This is a Modi jacket modified from a traditional Indian outfit so that it can be worn with ease in South Korea too," Moon said in the message cited by Yonhap news agency. "During my visit to India, I told Prime Minister Modi that what he was wearing looked great and he sent me some exactly my size. I thank him for his great kindness." Moon made a state visit to India in July. In the message, Moon also congratulated Modi on his selection as winner of this year's Seoul Peace Prize in recognition of his contribution to world peace through his economic vision. Moon said he was impressed by the Korean language thank you message that Modi sent via Twitter after being selected as the prize winner. Dhaka, Oct 31 : The UN World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday said that it needs more funds to continue assisting the hundreds of thousands Rohingya refugees, who have been living in Bangladesh camps after fleeing an offensive by the Myanmar military last year. The WFP said it had spent around $20 million to assist the refugees in Bangladesh following the crackdown in Myanmar in August 2017. "We are here to highlight the plight of families of Rohingyas so that governments around the world do not forget about their needs. The international community stepped up in a successful way... but pretty soon we will need more money," said WFP Executive Director David Beasley in a press conference. Beasley said the shortage of funds was owing to the fact that "in the last two years the number of civilian hungry people in the word rose from 80 million to 224 million, primarily driven by man-made conflict whether we talk about Syria, Iraq, Yemen, South Sudan, Nigeria or North East Nigeria", Efe news reported. The WFP usually imports emergency supplies from outside the country but in the case of Bangladesh, the agency has been trying to integrate into the local economy, said Beasley, adding that the WFP has been buying around $10 million worth of products monthly from Bangladesh. Beasley also said that the situation had improved in the refugee camps since his visit last year. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Bangladesh announced that it will begin to repatriate the Rohingyas to Myanmar around the middle of November. The announcement came nearly a year after both the countries signed a repatriation agreement in November 2017. The Rohingya exodus had began after the Myanmar military launched the August offensive in Rakhine state following attacks on multiple government posts by Rohingya rebels. The offensive was globally condemned for its rights abuses including loot, torture, rapes and torching of entire Rohingya villages. The UN called it "ethnic cleansing". New Delhi, Oct 31 : The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sentenced to life imprisonment 16 then personnel of Uttar Pradesh's Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) for killing 42 people in 1987 in Meerut in what came to be known as the "Hashimpura massacre". In doing so, the court set aside a March 2015 trial court verdict acquitting the 16 men after giving them the benefit of doubt. There were originally 19 accused but three died during the prolonged trial. All the 16 are now retired. Vibhuti Narain Rai, the then Superintendent of Police in Ghaziabad who registered the first FIR in the case on the night of May 22-23, 1987, told IANS: "This was the first and biggest custodial massacre in independent India. "There was a similar carnage in Nellie but that was not in police custody unlike this." The victims, all Muslims, were picked up from the Hashimpura neighbourhood by the 41st Battalion of the PAC during a search operation, taken away in trucks, lined up and shot dead in cold blood. The charge sheet was filed before the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Ghaziabad in 1996. The case was transferred to Delhi in September 2002 on the Supreme Court's orders following a petition by the families of the victims and the lone survivor. A sessions court here in July 2006 framed charges of murder, attempt to murder, tampering with evidence and conspiracy against all the accused. Rai, who later brought out an investigative book on how the massacre, recalled: "It was one and a half hours later that we got wind of the killings by the PAC. We could rescue one person, Babudin. It was on his description of the massacre that we registered the FIR." He said the Muslim youngsters were randomly picked up from the Hashimpura locality, taken through Ghaziabad and thrown into water canals after being indiscriminately shot at. "It was a chilling, shocking massacre. Before I could launch my investigation, the case was handed over to the Crime Branch of the CID," said Rai, who retired as Director General of the Uttar Pradesh Police (Vigilance) and later served as Vice Chancellor of the Mahatma Gandhi Hindi Vishwavidyalaya at Wardha. New Delhi, Oct 31 : Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) chief S.S. Deswal was on Wednesday appointed the Director General of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), a paramilitary force mandated to guard the 3,488-km Sino-Indian border. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet issued the order giving Deswal, a 1984-batch Haryana cadre Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, the responsibility till his superannuation on August 31, 2021 or until further orders, said a Ministry of Personnel order. Deswal's appointment comes after incumbent ITBP chief R.K. Pachnanda, a 1983-batch West Bengal cadre IPS officer, retired on Wednesday. Deswal took over as head of SSB only last month after moving from the Border Security Force where he was a Special Director General. Srinagar, Oct 31 : Indian and Pakistani troops on Wednesday traded heavy fire on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district. Police said the Pakistan Army targeted Indian posts in Tangdhar and Keran sectors, after which the Indian positions retaliated. The police said heavy firing continued between the two sides for around 15 minutes at both places. No casualty or damage was reported on the Indian side. Damascus, Oct 31 : More than 1,500 bodies have been found in a mass grave in Syria's Raqqa province, the former de facto capital of the Islamic State (IS), the media reported on Wednesday. Citing medical sources, the pro-government al-Watan newspaper said "the bodies belonged to civilians who had been killed by the strikes of the US-led coalition on Raqqa". The bodies of 4,000 civilians had been found so far in mass graves in Raqqa, Xinhua news agency reported citing the newspaper. It said more bodies were being unearthed on daily basis. The US-led coalition had supported the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in their push to capture IS' former stronghold Raqqa in 2017. Islamabad, Oct 31 : Radical Islamist groups protested on Wednesday in a number of Pakistan cities against the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the death sentence of Christian woman Asia Bibi, who had been convicted in 2010 of blasphemy. The top court acquitted Asia Bibi, a mother of five from Pakistan's Punjab province, earlier in the day and overturned her death sentence, Geo News reported. She was accused in 2009 of defiling the name of Prophet Muhammed during an argument with her neighbours. Bibi maintained her innocence, but spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement. The landmark ruling set off violent protests by hardliners who support strong blasphemy laws. Demonstrations against the verdict were being held in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Multan. Clashes with the police were also reported, the BBC said. "The protest for the sanctity of the Prophet has started. We will die (for the sanctity). We are not going to step back," radical Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) -- which had threatened the judges with dire consequences if Asia Bibi was acquitted -- said in a statement. The TLP statement cited by Efe news warned that train stations and airports would be blocked. The Red Zone in Islamabad, where the Supreme Court is located, was sealed off by the police. Paramilitary forces were deployed to keep protesters away from the court. Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, who read out the ruling, said Asia Bibi could walk free from jail in Sheikupura, near Lahore, immediately if not wanted in connection with any other case. "The appeal is allowed. Sentence of death set aside. Asia Bibi acquitted of charges," said Justice Nisar. Asia Bibi's lawyer, closely flanked by a policeman, told the BBC that he was "happy" with the verdict, but also afraid for his and his client's safety. A police spokesperson in Lahore said that around 500 protesters had gathered outside the provincial Assembly and blocked roads in the area. "They are committing vandalism," he said. Protests with up to 300 participants, most of them supporters of the TLP, were going ahead in many other places in Lahore. In Karachi, demonstrations were organized in at least five places, city spokesperson Abid Hussain said. Around 300 people blocked the main entrance to Islamabad, which connects it to neighbouring Rawalpindi. Under the Pakistan penal code, the offence of blasphemy is punishable by death or life imprisonment. Bibi's case has attracted widespread outrage and support from Christians worldwide and condemnation from conservative Islamist groups in Pakistan, who have demanded the death penalty for her. In 2011, senior politician Salman Taseer was shot dead by his own bodyguard for voicing support for Bibi. Also in 2011, a Christian minority minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, was shot dead at his home for defending Bibi and opposing anti-blasphemy legislation. Mumbai, Oct 31 : Filmmaker Hansal Mehta, who has made award-winning dramas says it is his observation that when a movie fails its ownership falls on the director, and when it's a success the actor walks away with the accolades. "(In) My experience of the last 22 years of making films, whether I like it or not, the director owns the failure and the actor owns the success," Mehta said at the &PrivA Soiree here on Tuesday. The event brings award-winning movies to viewers in an exclusive setting. The format includes noted filmmakers and actors discussing each film before the screening and highlighting the various themes explored in each story. &Prive HD hosted a screening of "7 Days In Entebbe", and it was introduced by Mehta and Ram Madhvani, read a statement. Madhvani added to Mehta's point, and spoke about how people end up throwing tantrums and fighting when it comes to ownership. He said: "I think that ownership is not given, it's taken." Madhvani spoke about his struggle after his first film, saying: "I think you have to fight, scream and take it (ownership) because that's the only way they (high budget actors) will allow you to have ownership. You have to throw tantrums as ownership is not easy. When you work with smaller budgets, it's easier to get ownership, the bigger the budgets, the more difficult it gets to have ownership. "In the last 14-15 years after my first short film, 'Let's Talk', which we funded ourselves, it took me a long time to make my next film because of the idea of ownership." The China Forum on International Ecological Competitiveness 2018 opened in Yinchuan, the capital of Ningxia Hui autonomous region on Tuesday. Held six times since 2008, the summit promotes cooperation on ecological conservation, green investment and sustainable development between government departments, business communities and international organizations. With the theme "Building a Beautiful China, Forging a Green Silk Road," this year's event brought together about 500 participants from 16 countries to exchange ideas on balancing economic growth with environmental protection and achieving sustainability. Daniella Martinez, president of Foreign Relations Commissions of Chamber of Commerce, Service and Tourism of Mexico, said at the opening of the summit that sustainability must be understood as a strategy involving overlapping concerns environmental, labor, energy, social, geopolitical, which affect both community and society. She added that the Belt and Road Initiative is based on sustainability, with pollution reduction, poverty alleviation and the prevention of main financial risks as its main objectives. Fan Peikang, director of the Comprehensive Department of China Chamber of International Commerce, said that this year' summit is located in Ningxia because it is a key stop along the Silk Road Economic Belt, and its ecology-based development strategy echoes the theme well. According to Wang Heshan, deputy chairman of Ningxia Hui autonomous region, in the first three quarters of this year, Ningxia's GDP rose 7 percent year-on-year, the second fastest among China's northwestern provincial-level administrative divisions. While maintaining steady economic growth, he said the region is committed to pursuing green development and striving to become a pacesetter in advancing ecological progress in northwest China. Recent years have witnessed continuous increases in forest resources and significant reductions in desertification and soil erosion in Ningxia, Wang added. Jose Ricardo, CEO of LIDE China, a China-Brazil business platform, told China.org.cn that Ningxia offers great business opportunities in tourism and agriculture, and his organization is willing to promote the cooperation between Chinese and Brazilian companies in these sectors. The summit featured three parallel meetings: the International Ecology and New Economy Forum, the 3rd China Agricultural Products Supply Chain Conference and the Green Investment and Financing Forum of Ningxia. The event was jointly organized by China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, China Chamber of International Commerce, Committee of Population, Resources and Environment of the National Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and National Forestry and Grassland Administration of China. Chennai, Oct 31 : With the regulator in the real estate sector in place and various issues pertaining to real estate investment trust (REIT) getting sorted out, institutional funding is expected to flow into the domestic real estate sector, said an official of CBRE-India and South East Asia. The CBRE is a $14.2 billion revenue global real estate consulting company which also arranges funding for project promoters as a part of its business. The Indian arm of CBRE has arranged Rs 241 billion capital for its clients in India. "Primarily we arrange debt and equity. After a slowdown, foreign capital has started looking at Indian real estate sector for investment," Anshuman Magazine, Chairman, told reporters here on Wednesday. He said this year the company had arranged funding of about Rs 3,500 crore for its clients. According to him, domestic financial institutions will start investing in real estate sector. Magazine said there were a couple of investors planning to promote REIT and waiting for the first one to get the licence and start operating. Agreeing that Indian operations are small in CBRE's global scheme of things, Magazine said it was the only market that was growing as compared to the US and the Europe. Moscow, Oct 31 : A 17-year-old boy detonated a bomb at an office of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in Arkhangelsk city on Wednesday, killing himself and injuring three agency officers, officials said. The explosion occurred at 8.52 a.m. near an entrance to the FSB directorate. According to preliminary information, the suspect was a local teenager who had gone into the building and took out an "unidentified object" from his bag, which exploded in his hands, the Investigative Committee was cited as saying by Tass news agency. "The teenager was identified," the committee said. He died of his wounds. Investigators were treating the attack as an act of terrorism. A CCTV image of the suspect appeared on social media soon afterwards, along with a message he allegedly sent just before the blast. Although the authenticity of the message posted on an anarchist chat group was not confirmed, the user identified himself as an anarcho-communist and claimed the FSB "fabricated cases and tortured people". Governor Igor Orlov said local authorities in Arkhangelsk had taken measures to heighten security in all public buildings. Attacks on security services are unusual in Russia, although the police have been targeted in parts of the Caucasus, including Chechnya and Dagestan. Kolkata, Oct 31 : West Bengal government hopes to utilise the resources of the Deocha Pachami coal block, which was allotted to the state-owned power producer, saying it may explore "merchant mining" in the long run only after its own requirement is met, a state minister said on Wednesday. In June this year, the state government-owned thermal power producer West Bengal Power Development Corporation (WBPDCL) was allocated the Deocha Pachami Harinsingha Dewanganj Coal Mines in Birbhum district for generating power from its five plants having an aggregate capacity of 5500 mega watt. The coal block has an estimated reserve of 2,102 million tonnes of coal. "When the PDCL's own requirement of coal is enough, then, one can look at the possibility of merchant mining," said state Finance Minister Amit Mitra. Mitra, who is also in charge of Industry, Commerce and Enterprise, MSME and Textiles, said, "Since it has the world's second largest reserve, it has the potential for huge extraction. Depending on the exploration outcome and MDO's lifting capacity, if it appears in the long run that the reserve is large enough for the state is for its own requirement, then it may approach the Centre for merchant mining, but not now." He said investments worth at least Rs 60,000 crore would be required for the project, adding, depending on the coal block exploitation, the investment may go up to Rs 1 lakh crore. The project is expected to provide 1.10 lakh of direct and indirect employment, he added. "The state remains optimistic about the project and utilising the resources. PDCL would also explore advanced technology for MDOs to work on," he said. "The process of exploration has been planned," he said. Notably, the Deocha Pachami coal block was earlier offered jointly to West Bengal, Bihar, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Sutlej Jal Vidyut Nigam. But subsequently, others backed out of the asset allegedly citing cost and complexities in extracting the resources. The state has about 228 mines, mainly coal, and also has a reserve of 35 billion tonnes, which is low ash and sulphur content coal, he said at the Global Mining Summit 2018, organised by CII in Kolkata. Mitra said the state government has the vision of creating a mining equipment manufacturing and precision technology hub. he pointed out while India's mining sector is growing at 7.3 per cent, the expenditure on exploration is extremely low, amounting to 0.3 per cent of the total global spends on exploration. New Delhi, Oct 31 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Friday launch a 100-day programme to promote micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) through several measures including easy access to credit in 100 "aspirational" districts of the country. "The programme is aimed at handholding the MSMEs, enabling them to get easy access to credit and helping them build linkages with the market. It will last 100 days in the 100 aspirational districts," Finance Ministry spokesperson D.S. Malik said on Wednesday. Modi is likely to announce a host of measures to boost the MSME sector, including interest subsidy, as the sector has been struggling since demonetisation two years ago and the rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in July 2017. The government plans to reach out to the small enterprises through credit and other support services, particularly in the 100 aspirational districts. These are backward districts in terms of health, education, infrastructure and deprivation. "Several Union Ministers will participate in the mega programme and visit the aspirational districts to understand their challenges and oversee the support given to MSMEs," Malik said. India's MSME sector comprises 633 lakh units, employing more than 11 crore people or 69 per cent of the total employment in the country. The sector accounts for around 30 per cent of the country's Gross Domestic Product. It also accounts for 45 per cent of the total manufacturing and 40 per cent of the total exports. The MSMEs, which largely operate in the informal sector, face infrastructural problems, lack market linkages and experience challenges in terms of institutional credit. However, they are the largest employer after agriculture, providing huge job opportunities at lower capital cost than large industries. Earlier, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the MSMEs had been a matter of concern for the government as the sector generates the largest number of employment opportunities. On September 25, the government had announced hassle-free online loans up to Rs 1 crore for MSMEs. Jaitley launched a common online platform for MSME credit that will enable businesses to get loans up to Rs 1 crore approved through a completely automated process within just 59 minutes. New Delhi, Oct 31 : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have unveiled the statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel but his government has been smashing his legacy, and added that "destruction of institutions" is "nothing short of treason". "Ironic that a statue of Sardar Patel is being inaugurated, but every institution he helped build is being smashed. The systematic destruction of India's institutions is nothing short of treason," Gandhi said in a tweet. Gandhi's remarks came hours after Modi unveiled a statue of Sardar Patel, which at 182 metres is the tallest statue in the world. The statue -- christened "Statue of Unity" -- was unveiled at an elaborate function on Sadhu Bet Island in Narmada river in Gujarat on Sardar Patel's birth anniversary. The Congress party has accused the government of creating a "credibility crisis" in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and trying to destroy autonomous institutions like the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The party has also alleged that institutions like Enforcement Directorate (ED), Income Tax Department, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), besides central universities, are being damaged. In an earlier tweet, Gandhi said Sardar Patel was a Congressman to the core who had no tolerance for bigotry or communalism and fought for a united and secular India. "Sardar Patel was a patriot, who fought for a independent, united and secular India. A man with a steely will, tempered by compassion, he was a Congressman to the core, who had no tolerance for bigotry or communalism. On his birth anniversary, I salute this great son of India." Party leader Anand Sharma targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying Sardar Patel's legacy cannot be appropriated and history cannot be rewritten. "True tribute to Sardar Vallabhai Patel will be to genuinely absorb his message of national unity, uphold the principles and values that he espoused. His legacy cannot be appropriated. History can not be rewritten or distorted. Those who try to do so will not be forgiven by history," he said in a tweet. Sharma added that Sardar Patel was a close associate of Gandhi and one of the tallest Congress leaders. "His memory will always inspire us and a grateful nation will remember him with respect." Congress communications Incharge Randeep Singh Surjewala also attacked Modi in a series of tweets and posed him questions. "Did Sardar Patel not ban RSS, your parent organisation, for anti-national activities on February 4, 1948? Will you at least repent today? Did Sardar Patel not write to then RSS chief M.S. Golwalkar on September 11, 1948 that 'RSS men distributed sweets over Gandhiji's killing'? "Modiji, did Sardar Patel not held the ideology of RSS responsible for assassination of Bapu? Did not associates of your ideologue Syama Prasad Mookerjee want to hang Patel and Pandit Nehru publicly?" he threw posers in a series of tweets in Hindi. He said Patel had written to Nehru on February 5, 1948 that they had been comrades for their entire lives for a purpose and their love for the country kept them together and enabled them to work together for the Congress and the nation. Rome, Oct 31 : Human remains were found by builders working in the Vatican's Embassy in Rome, the Vatican said in a statement on Wednesday, prompting Italian authorities to launch a homicide probe related to the unresolved disappearance of a teenager in the 1980s. The bone fragments were found under the basement of the Embassy to Italy during construction work, officials were cited as saying by Efe news. "The Chief Prosecutor of Rome, Giuseppe Pignatone, has asked the police and forensic experts to try and determine the age and sex of the remains and the date of death," a Vatican statement said. No further statements in relation to the findings were made. However, the Italian media have taken a keen interest in the investigation and have suggested the remains may bear some relation to the disappearance of 15-year-old girl Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican employee, who vanished June 22, 1983. Vatican spokesperson Greg Burke said that it would be important to establish the sex, age and time-frame of when the corpse was buried before reaching any conclusions. The Italian media have long speculated on Orlandi's disappearance, which has also been linked to organized crime and an attempt to force the release from prison of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish man who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981. It is not the first time that the discovery of human remains has renewed public interest in the Orlandi case. A similar reaction followed the 2012 discovery of human remains in the tomb of well-known mafioso Enrico Pedis. The investigation of the girl's disappearance led to Pedis, head of the mafia cell "Banda de la Magliana" after his girlfriend said she had put Orlandi in a car and taken her away under Pedis' orders. Amid myriad hypotheses as to what exactly happened to the 15-year-old, her family remain hopeful that Wednesday's findings may shed light on the case. New Delhi, Oct 31 : Former Union Minister M.J. Akbar on Wednesday told a Delhi court that journalist Priya Ramani's allegations of sexual harassment levelled against him were defamatory in nature. Akbar told Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal that the allegations were false and defamatory, tarnishing his reputation. "My reputation has been tarnished in the eyes of the general public and those who are near and dear and known to me. I affirm that my complaint is correct and allegations made against me by Ramani are false and defamatory," Akbar said, citing his credentials and professional background. He told the court that he had worked for four decades to acquire and build a stellar reputation and a good name. Contending that his reputation had been lowered because of Ramani's "false, baseless and defamatory" accusations, Akbar said: "There was immediate damage because of the scurrilous nature of these concocted and false allegations. I was attacked in a personal capacity about fabricated non-events allegedly done two decades ago." The court was recording Akbar's statement as a complainant witness in a criminal defamation suit filed by him against Ramani. Ramani was the first in a long list of female journalists to have accused Akbar of sexual harassment. A Rajya Sabha member, Akbar has denied all the charges made against him as "false, wild and baseless". He said that it was apparent that a false narrative against him was being circulated in a motivated manner and with an agenda. Akbar told the court that he chose to seek justice in personal capacity and therefore he resigned as the Minister of State for External Affairs. The BJP leader told the court that Ramani's defamatory tweets were picked up by various publications and social media. Ramani's tweet carried a link to an article published in Vogue India magazine in October 2017. "The opening sentence of the tweet explained one anomaly. When the article was published in Vogue India in 2017, it did not include my name. Priya Ramani stated as to why my name was not included earlier. She said it was because I had done nothing. This is mentioned in the tweet dated October 8 as well," Akbar said in the statement. After concluding Akbar's statement, the court listed the matter for November 12 for recording statements of other witnesses. Akbar has listed names of two senior woman journalists -- The Sunday Guardian's Editor Joyeeta Basu and journalist Veenu Sandal -- and four others as his witnesses to prove his defamation charges against Ramani. New Delhi, Oct 31 : The Delhi government on Wednesday denied receiving any "official communication" from the EPCA to ban private vehicles in the national capital in the midst of declining air quality levels. Delhi Transport Minister Kalish Gahlot's remarks came after the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) on Tuesday indicated a possible ban on private vehicles on roads if air pollution continues to worsen. Gahlot, however, said that the Delhi government was ready to implement schemes under its Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) like "odd-even" if the need arises. "We can implement the odd-even scheme once again if air pollution in Delhi becomes worse," Gahlot told the media here. New York, Oct 31 : Antacids or acid suppressants and antibiotics may alter the type and volume of gut bacteria that have been associated with increased risk of obesity particularly if taken for longer periods in early childhood, warns a new study. The study explored that the structure of gut bacteria has been linked to various aspects of human health, including obesity. For the study, researchers from Walter Reed National Military Medical in the US examined 333,353 infants among which nearly 46,993 children became obese. The findings further revealed that antibiotics or acid suppressants was associated with a heightened risk of obesity by the age of 3 -- the average age at which obesity was first identified in these children. This is an observational study and as such cannot establish cause. According to the team from the varsity, whose study was published in the journal Gut, over prescription of both antibiotics and acid suppressants in young children is a significant problem. New Delhi, Oct 31 : Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday approved release of Rs 229 crore to storm-hit Andhra Pradesh to provide relief to the affected people. Further assistance to the state will be provided from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) based on the report of Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT), according to an official statement. Two districts -- Srikakulam and Vizianagaram -- were severely affected due to cyclonic storm "Titli" on October 11. The central government has provided full support to Andhra Pradesh by mobilising logistics to supplement the efforts of the state government to deal with the situation effectively, the statement added. The logistics support provided included deployment of adequate teams of NDRF, Indian Air Force and Coast Guard helicopters, Navy and Coast Guard personnel along with necessary rescue equipment. A total of 4,741 companies and organizations in Beijing will participate in the world's first import-themed national-level expo, the China International Import Expo (CIIE), in Shanghai on Nov. 5-10, officials from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Commerce announced at a press conference held for the Beijing trade group on Oct. 29. The trade delegation will hold a promotional activity at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai) on Nov. 6 to explain Beijing's new round of policy on opening up as well as announce and sign contracts of major projects. The delegation is also expected to purchase products, technologies and services that would contribute to Beijing's development. According to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Commerce, the delegation comprises 10 trade groups of key companies and 16 trade groups of various districts, such as the State-Owned Enterprises Trade Group, the High-End Equipment and Automobile Trade Group, the Zhongguancun Scientific and Technological Innovation Trade Group, the Yizhuang Economic Development Zone Trade Group, and the Tianzhu Comprehensive Bonded Zone Trade Group. The top three among them are the State-Owned Enterprises Trade Group, the Chaoyang District Trade Group, and the Haidian District Trade Group; they each accommodate 1,018, 789, and 297 registered companies, respectively. By the end of the registration period, 4,741 companies and organizations and 14,354 people signed up for the trade delegation, 18.5 percent and 19.6 percent more than the city had anticipated, respectively. Among the 4,741 companies and organizations, there are 4,150 companies and 191 guilds or associations, 62 of which are from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and 191 of which are foreign-funded ones. Kevadia (Gujarat), Oct 31 : As Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday dedicated the world's tallest Statue of Unity to the nation calling it India's reply to those who questioned its unity, a silent protest took place by thousands of tribals who call the project a harbinger of their devastation. Unveiling the 182-metre Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel statue, Modi hit out at his critics for politicising the mission for erecting the tallest monument and asked all citizens to remain united in countering efforts made by divisive forces. "Statue of Unity is to remind all those who question India's existence and its integrity. This country was, is and will always be eternal," Modi said. He said the height of the statue is to remind the youth that the future of the country is in their aspirations and is as huge as this statue. "The only mantra to fulfil these aspirations are 'Ek Bharat-Shresth Bharat' (One India, Best India). Statue of Unity is also symbolic of our engineering and technological affordability," he added. When Modi was unveiling the statue, twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty, thousands of tribals across the eastern tribal belt of Gujarat, including the Narmada district where the massive structure is located, were observing a pin-drop bandh. Kitchen fires in homes of an estimated 75,000 Adivasis in 72 villages were cold, and in keeping with the convention of not cooking when mourning the dead. The bandh was in protest against acquisition of their land without adequate compensation for the statue project, the Sardar Sarovar Narmada dam and the Garudeswar weir, which is a part of the dam. Tribal leader Praful Vasava, who has been leading the protest ever since the project was declared by Narendra Modi as a chief minister in 2013, said, "We are all for giving honour to Sardar Patel, but this is something which is at the cost of our very existence." Sardar Patel would never have agreed to this, he said. Around 72 villages are estimated to be affected by the statue project. There are 32 where their rehabilitation has been left half way, there are six villages where the Kevadia Colony housing the staff of the Sardar Sarovar Narmada dam project is situated and seven villages are in Garudeshwar block, where only cash compensation was given, but other commitments like land for land or jobs have not been fulfilled. The Prime Minister said that keeping the nation's unity, diversity and sovereignty intact was a responsibility which Patel gave to the countrymen. The Prime Minister also launched an attack on those opposing his mission of reviving contributions of historical figures such as Sardar Patel, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Bhimrao Ambedkar and others. "I am amazed that our efforts are seen with political glasses. Praising great icons has also brought us criticism. It seems we have committed a big crime," he said. Modi said Sardar disproved of all those who stated that a diverse country like India could remain united after Independence. It was because of Patel that the country now meets the world on its own terms and is moving towards becoming an economic and military superpower. "They considered our diversity our biggest weakness, but Sardar Patel converted this into our biggest strength. India is moving ahead on the path shown by him," he said. "If today we are connected from Rajasthan's Kutch to Nagaland's Kohima and Jammu and Kashmir's Kargil to Tamil Nadu's Kanyakumari, it is because of Patel's strong resolve and determination. "Had Sardar Patel not done it, the country would have needed visas for offering prayers at Somnath and visiting Charminar in Hyderabad," he said recalling Patel's effort in integrating over 550 princely states into the Indian Union after the Partition of 1947. Modi called the statue built on Sadhu Bet Island on the Narmada river at a cost of Rs 2,989 crore as the world's tallest -- surpassing China's Spring Temple Buddha that stands at 153 metres by 29 metres and nearly double of the 93-metre Statue of Liberty in New York. Three Indian Air Force planes flew past the statue and created the Tricolour in the sky following the inauguration. The Gujarat government expects the statue to boost tourism, with one estimate putting the daily numbers at 15,000. Apart from the Patel's bronze figure, other major attractions include a 17-km-long Valley of Flowers, a Tent City for tourists near the statue and a museum dedicated to the life and times of Patel. The Tent City, located around 4 km from the Statue of Unity can house more than 500 tourists at a time. A viewing gallery at a height of 153 metres has been created inside the statue to enable tourists to have a view of the 1,210 metre-long concrete Sardar Sarovar Dam, 3.2 km upstream as well as the nearby Satpura and Vindhya mountain ranges. According to a government statement, the statue has been built using over 70,000 tonne of cement, 18,500 tonne of reinforced steel, 6,000 tonne of structural steel and 1,700 tonne of bronze, which was used for the outer cladding of the structure. Gujarat Governor O.P. Kohli, Madhya Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel and BJP President Amit Shah were also present. New Delhi, Oct 31 : A Delhi court on Wednesday granted bail to suspended Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Deputy Superintendent of Police Devender Kumar, who is accused of falsifying records of a corruption case involving the agency's Special Director Rakesh Asthana. Special Judge Santosh Snehi Mann granted the relief to Kumar and asked him to furnish a personal bond and a surety of Rs 50,000 each. The court observed that after registration of the FIR, nothing incriminating came up or surfaced during the investigation against Kumar. The court also directed Kumar to join investigation as and when called by the CBI, and not to contact the witnesses or tamper with evidence. Kumar, through his counsel Rahul Tyagi, told the court that there was no allegation in the FIR about demand of illegal gratification by him or about receiving any illegal gratification from the complainant. The defence counsel argued that registration of the FIR and arrest of Kumar had been done in violation of the standard procedures laid down in the CBI Manual for the investigation of cases involving complaints against CBI officials. The CBI countered these arguments, saying that prompt action was required due to the nature of allegations in the complaint. The CBI also told the court that there was no violation of any law or procedure with respect to registration of FIR and arrest of the accused. Kumar was arrested last week on charges of falsification of records while probing allegations against meat exporter Moin Qureshi and was remanded to CBI custody till October 30. Kumar was an Investigating Officer in a case against Qureshi, who is facing multiple cases of money laundering and corruption. The CBI alleged that bribes were taken at least five times between December 2017 and October this year. Asthana, a 1984-batch IPS officer of Gujarat cadre, is accused of accepting a bribe of Rs 2 crore from a Hyderabad-based businessman Sana Sathish Babu, who was under probe in the Qureshi case in a bid to "wreck" the investigation. The case was being examined by a special investigation team (SIT) headed by Asthana. New Delhi, Oct 31 : The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought more information from the government on the Rafale jet deal, including details of its pricing and deemed advantages. "The court would also like to be apprised of the details with regard to the pricing/cost, particularly, the advantage thereof, if any, which again will be submitted to the court in a sealed cover," the bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice K.M. Joseph said. While the Congress termed the Supreme Court's move "extremely critical", Aam Aadmi Party said it "is a big shock" to the Modi government. The court told the Centre that it should state in an affidavit the "difficulty" in sharing the information on pricing, after Attorney General K.K. Venugopal said it might not be possible to disclose the cost. Besides pricing, the court said, the further details that could "legitimately come in the public domain with regard to the induction of the Indian offset partner (if any) be also furnished to the...counsels for the parties, as well as the petitioners in person." However, the court clarified that details which the government may, at this stage, consider to be "strategic and confidential" be submitted to the court without sharing it with the counsel for the petitioners. Wednesday's order asking the government to disclose the pricing of Rafale deal is significant, as in its October 10 order, the court had specifically said: "We also make it clear that the steps in the decision making process that we would like to be apprised of would not cover the issue of pricing." While seeking information on the pricing/ cost of the deal, the court noted that "in none of the public interest litigations..., the suitability of the equipment (fighter jets) and its utility to the Indian Air Force have been questioned". However, what has been questioned is the "bona fides of the decision making process and the price/ cost of the equipment at which the same is to be procured", the court noted in its order. Saying that at this stage, it would not record any "finding or views" on the details of the steps in the decision making process, the court, however, ordered the government to share with the petitioners details of the decision making process that can be "legitimately" shared with them. "We are of the opinion that such of the core information conveyed to the court in the...confidential report which can legitimately be brought into the public domain be made available to the learned counsels for the petitioners in all the cases, as well as the petitioners in person," the court order said. As counsel Prashant Bhushan drew the attention of the court towards their prayer for direction to the CBI to register an FIR on the complaint made by them and carry out investigation, the Chief Justice told him to "wait", apparently indicating the current turmoil in the investigating agency. Former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, former Minister and rebel BJP leader Arun Shourie and Prashant Bhushan had on October 4 made a complaint seeking registration of FIR and probe into the Rafale deal. Congress leader Manish Tewari told reporters'that the apex court's move to seek more information from the Modi government about the pricing and deemed advantages in the Rafale deal was "extremely critical" and asked what the Centre was hiding. "The Supreme Court has made certain very significant observations in the Rafale matter. The Supreme Court has sought to pierce the veil of secrecy," he said. He said that there are 18 articles in the Indo-French defence agreement. "Would the Prime Minister, Finance Minister (Arun Jaitley) and Defence Minister (Nirmala Sitharaman) enlighten the nation which one of the 18 articles highlights secrecy?" AAP leader Sanjay Singh said the Supreme Court move "is a big shock to the Narendra Modi government." Prashant Bhushan later said in a tweet that the apex court has asked government to file details of the process adopted, selection "of offset partner and "how the price was arrived at, in response to our PIL." "We sought a court-monitored CBI Investigation on precisely these issues. On status report from CBI, CJI said, "let CBI be sorted out first," he said. New Delhi, Oct 31 : The Congress on Wednesday termed the internal fued in the CBI top bosses as the live example of the Modi government "misusing" the investigating agencies in the country against its political opponents and said it never happened in the country's history. "One thing is very clear, whether its CBI or ED or Income Tax department, in the last 53 months these institutions have been used by the BJP-led NDA government against its political opponents," said Congress leader Manish Tewari. "And the live example of that misuse of agencies is in front of you all today," he said referring to the internal fued in the CBI top bosses. Tewari was responding to a question of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) opposing the bail plea of former Finance Minister and senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram in a court here in connection with the Aircel-Maxis deal case. He said the internal fued in the top investigating agency has never happened in the country's history since 1963. "The internal fued which is going on in CBI, in which a new petition is being filed on daily basis in the court is all due to the misuse of investigating agencies for their political purpose," he alleged. "The BJP-led NDA government is the living example of the misusing the investigating agencies against its political opponents," Tewari added. New Delhi, Oct 31 : The Supreme Court on Wednesday said only green crackers with reduced emission levels will be sold in Delhi and the crackers that have already been produced would be allowed to be sold in other areas and states for "this Diwali, and other festivals and occasions". Referring to its October 30 order, permitting Tamil Nadu, Union Territory of Puducherry and other southern states to stagger the two-hour time limit for the bursting of crackers on Diwali, the bench of Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan clarified that on Gurpurab, fireworks would be allowed for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. On Gurpurab, fireworks would be allowed from 4 a.m. to 5 a.m. in the morning and from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the evening. The court also clarified that the staggering of two hours limit that has been permitted to Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and other Southern States, would be applicable throughout India. Having clarified bursting of green crackers was limited to Delhi and NCR only, the court permitted the cracker manufacturers to produce green crackers with reduced emission level, disallowing the barium salts as an ingredient in the crackers. The court further said that its direction to "explore the feasibility of community firework" and that of extensive public awareness campaign is applicable throughout the country. The court reiterated its October 23 direction on the production of crackers with reduced emission, restraining e-commerce websites for selling firecrackers and said it would be applicable throughout the country. The court also reiterated its earlier direction making it incumbent on the police to ensure the compliance of its order and to ensure there was no sale of prohibited crackers in Delhi and NCR. The court also reaffirmed its direction that the "Station House Officer (SHO) of the concerned Police Station of the area shall be held personally liable for such violation and this would amount to committing contempt of the Court, for which such SHO(s) would be proceeded against." New Delhi, Oct 31 : The price of non-subsidised LPG cooking gas will go up by Rs 60 per cylinder in New Delhi and that of subsidised one by a marginal Rs 2.94, effective November 1. According to the Indian Oil Corporation, the increase in prices of non-subsidised LPG cylinder is mainly due to changes in international prices and foreign exchange fluctuations. Consumers have to buy non-subsidised LPG cylinders after exhausting their yearly quota of 12 subsidised ones. In terms of subsidised domestic LPG cylinders, the rise has been attributed mainly to the GST levied on the revised price of domestic non-subsidised LPG. Effectively, the price on subsidised cylinder will increase to Rs 505.34 from November 1 from Rs 502.40 per cylinder in October. New Delhi, Oct 31 : The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) Delhi has directed Buildwell Builders Pvt Ltd, an associate company of Omaxe, to maintain 'status quo in respect of shareholdings and directorship till further orders. "It has also indicated that Sunil Goel be allowed access to his office and the records of the company," a statement issued on behalf of Sunil Goel, second largest promoter of Omaxe Group with 20 per cent shareholding, said on Wednesday. Sunil Goel, who filed a legal petition on September 17 against the chairman and elder brother Rohtas Goel for malpractices and financial mismanagement in the real estate firm, has also sought reinstatement as director of the company and 'status quo' on assets. While NCLT Delhi ordered Sunil Goel the access of Kalkaji office, access of books of account, 'status quo' in shareholding and directorship of the company, the NCLT Chandigarh ordered shareholder Guild Builders Private Limited restrained from issuing any further shares. The new petition was filed to restrain the pledging of the shares of Guild Builders Pvt Ltd and inspection of the accounts of the Omaxe for which the notice been issued. "The current financial scenario of the group is not stable and profitability has dipped despite taking the extra loans from various banks and financial services providers," it said. The case will be heard by the NCLT Chandigarh bench on November 16, 2018. Omaxe Ltd, the real estate development company, was founded by both the brothers in 1987 and currently has a footprint in 8 states and 27 cities. As per an earlier statement from Sunil Goel, he was ousted from the company in 2017 when he acted as a whistle-blower raising objections about a financial fraud. In the last one year, Omaxe Group has increased its loan exposure from Rs 1,300 crore to Rs 1,800 crore. Kolkata, Oct 31 : Construction and mining equipment maker Tata Hitachi is planning to invest Rs 250 crore over the next two years in its two plants at West Bengal's Kharagpur and Karnataka's Dharwad, an official said on Wednesday. "We are looking to invest Rs 250 crore over next two years in our Kharagpur and Dharwad plants. The investments amount would be shared between these two plants," Company's Managing Director Sandeep Singh said. In a strategy to sustain the business and remain market leader in excavators, the equipment major is focusing on selling of refurbished products as this market is developing in India, he said on the sidelines of the Global Mining Summit organised by CII. Tata Hitachi is a subsidiary company of Hitachi Construction Machinery Co Ltd, which holds 60 per cent share and Tata Motors Ltd 40 per cent. Singh said the margin of the company was "under stress" this year because volatility of forex, increasing material cost. The manufacturing company is expanding its products and exploring to localise high-tonnage excavators which are currently imported. New Delhi, Oct 31 : Former Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi on Wednesday said the commission will have to gain the voters' trust in Electronic Voting Machines, which have been targeted by political parties for "digital manipulation" of votes. "The most important thing that the commission will have to deal with is EVMs and VV PATs because of the background. The trust and confidence of voters has to be generated," Zaidi said. He was speaking at a panel discussion on understanding the impact of fake news on elections. "The commission has not come across any so-called fake news so far. During Gujarat elections last year, there were instances. This year, there weren't many in elections in the North-East." He said the EC will have to engage with various stakeholders and formulate guidelines to reduce the impact of fake news. He said social media will have to play a bigger role. "The Election Commission will have to partner with all stakeholders. Social media platforms will also have to be more responsible and accountable. "It cannot be left to the EC alone. When I say partnering, I don't mean partnering in terms of revenue. Without Social media platforms' partnership, it will be difficult to reduce the impact of fake news," he stressed. He suggested the commission may partner civil societies and the government. "One of the most important elements of free and fair elections is that an individual voter should be able to express one's choice without any external influence. "Social media, by allowing the flow of fake news can impact the behavioural changes and the free will. The voting pattern is distorted. The misuse of data has to be dealt with by the EC for fair elections," said Zaidi. He noted that there is no law in India against fake news and said it was difficult to formulate one, but stressed that there was a need for formulating some anti-bribery laws to have fair elections. He explained how before the 2013 general elections, the Election Commission was not on the social media despite a framework and said that post engagement on the social media, EC's role has gathered momentum. "During the Karnataka elections this year, Facebook allowed people to assess whether a particular news is fake and thereafter, it subjected this news to what is called fact-checker. They started removing the virality of the fake news," he said. "The EC dealt with the so-called phenomenon of paid news. We had disqualified many legislators, including ministers," he added. New Delhi, Oct 31 : Indian Women's Press Corps (IWPC) on Wednesday expressed deep shock and outrage at the killing of Doordarshan camera-person Achyutanand Sahu in a Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh a day ago and demanded investigation into the matter. In a statement, it also asked the government to take adequate measures to prevent such incidents in the future. "We express our deep condolences to the family of Mr Sahu and to the families of all those who died in the attack along with him," it said. "We hope that the Union and state government will provide financial compensation and employment to the bereaved family of Mr Sahu that has suffered not only a great emotional loss but also lost an earning member of the family." It is deplorable that journalists and innocent persons continue to be victims of collateral damage in conflict areas and situations, the IWPC said. "Not long back, the media fraternity lost another of its colleagues, Shujaat Bukhari, who was shot dead in Srinagar," it said. A massive amount of old factory buildings were renovated and transformed to cater for the development of the cultural and creative industry in Beijing, as the city proceeds into an era of urban renewal and cultural innovation. According to data released by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, the city's cultural and creative enterprises above the designated scale saw their revenue rise by 15.3 percent from January to August, leading all industries and becoming a pillar industry for the economic growth of the Chinese capital. From factories to cultural & creative industrial parks In the core area of Beijing Central Business District, a former medical equipment factory was transformed into Langyuan Vintage, a cultural and creative industrial park that now houses many well-known enterprises. "The renovation of industrial buildings has created a cultural oasis for us among the skyscrapers," said a designer who settled down in the park. Similar changes have spread throughout the capital. The Beijing Electric Motor Factory on Jiuxianqiao North Road is being transformed into the "silicon valley" of the cultural and creative industry in China, with some 30 enterprises headquartered there. The Beijing No. 2 Thermal Power Plant located outside Xibianmen Gate was renovated into the Tianning No. 1 Cultural and Technological Innovation Park. Since the renovations, old factory buildings not only became important hubs for the cultural and creative industries, they are also providing new venues for the cultural life of the public. Many of these cultural and creative parks are granting free entries to the public, creating leisure places for the residents in the surrounding areas. According to the latest data, Beijing has retired 242 old factories with a total area of more than 25 million square meters. Some of these factories have been transformed into cultural and creative industry parks, while more than 100 others are awaiting renovation. Policy support for the renovation The renovation of the old factory buildings is by no means an easy cause. Many old factory properties were registered as industrial land of state-owned enterprises. For the land to be approved for cultural and creative uses, it must go through a series of administrative procedures. Mei Song, director of the Beijing Cultural and Creative Industry Promotion Center, said the city is constantly seeking policy innovation to support the renovation of old factory buildings. Since the end of last year, the municipal government has issued a number of policies to facilitate the development of the cultural and creative industrial parks in the capital. In addition, to streamline the approval procedures of the renovation projects, relevant departments of the municipal government have formulated the implementation details involved in every aspect of the project. Mei said Beijing has launched a model park initiative earlier this year to promote the standardized development of the cultural and creative industry parks, and the first batch of model parks will be announced at the end of the year. Innovative approaches to stimulating investment At the 7th China Cultural & Financial Innovation Summit held last week, the Beijing Cultural and Creative Industry Promotion Center released this year's list of cultural and creative enterprises in Beijing with the most investment value. As of now, the aggregate amount of financing disclosed by the 220 companies in the first six editions of the ranking totals more than 30 billion yuan (US$4.31 billion). The city also worked to stimulate private investment using government funds. Since 2008, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform has adopted direct investment and subsidies in accordance with the characteristics of different industrial projects, and supported a number of representative parks and projects such as the Beijing Arts and Crafts Museum. In 2016, making further innovation on fixed asset investment, the municipal government injected 500 million yuan to the Beijing Cultural Investment Development Group, which eventually attracted six times of that funding. Apart from government financial capital, private capital also played an important role in supporting the development of the cultural and creative industry. As of the end of August this year, there were 99 A-share listed cultural and creative enterprises in the city, and the loan balance of the industry was 153.77 billion yuan. According to reports from third-party organizations, in the first half of this year, the city's "new third board" (National Equities Exchange and Quotation) listed cultural and creative enterprises raised 720 million yuan, accounting for about one third of the national total, while cultural enterprises' private equity financing totaled 8.39 billion yuan, representing about a quarter of the national total. New Delhi, Oct 31 : India has climbed 23 places in the World Bank's (WB) latest Ease of Doing Business rankings in a near-repeat of its performance last year and now stands at 77 among 190 countries assessed by the multilateral lender. The World Bank's latest Doing Business Report 2019 released on Wednesday showed that various measures undertaken by the government had helped India improve its rank in six out of the ten parameters, helping it jump 23 places from its rank of 100 in 2017. The country had entered the top 100 last year with a bigger jump of 30 places. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said some reforms of the government were not fully taken into account in this year's report, which means there would be further improvement next year. "For example, the impact of the Goods and Services Tax is not taken fully into account as they have taken the cut-off date of December 31 (2017)," he said. Jaitley added there were also some obvious parameters where India ranked low -- like enforcing contracts where it ranked 163 and starting a business where it ranked 137 -- and where there was scope for improvement. "Ranking among the top 50 countries is no longer out of reach and if there is focused improvement in the obvious areas, then there might be possibility to even revise the top-50 target" set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jaitley told a press conference here. According to the World Bank's report, India improved its rank in six out of 10 indicators including those related to construction permits, trading across borders, starting a business, getting credit, getting electricity and enforcing contracts. However, the most dramatic improvements were registered in indicators related to construction permits and trading across borders. "In grant of construction permits, India's rank improved from 181 in 2017 to 52 in 2018, an improvement of 129 ranks in a single year. In 'Trading across Borders', India's rank improved by 66 positions, moving from 146 in 2017 to 80 in 2018," a statement from the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion said. Union Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu said it was an excellent news not only for the business community but for the whole nation. He said India's growth story was moving fast and the improvement in the ease of doing business rankings would drive entrepreneurship in the country to reach its true potential and would further increase the pace of economic growth. The government statement said that the World Bank report had recognised India as one of the top improver for the second consecutive year, the first BRICS and South Asian country to do so. "As a result of continued performance, India is now placed at first position among South Asian countries as against 6th in 2014," it said. New Delhi, Oct 31 : National flag carrier Air India on Wednesday announced an increase in its flight services to Israel, as the number of Indian tourists visiting the Jewish nation has been growing steadily. "With an increased demand on Air India's New Delhi-Tel Aviv flight services, India's national carrier has confirmed an increase in frequency on this sector, adding a fifth weekly flight starting November 26, 2018," Israel's Ministry of Tourism said in a statement. Air India will now operate the 256-seater Boeing 787 Dreamliner five days a week including Monday in addition to Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, it added. Israeli carrier El Al introduced a new Boeing aircraft on its Mumbai-Tel Aviv route. "The new airplane has a capacity of 279 seats in a four-class configuration and will cater to the rising demand from India," the statement said. El Al is the only airline currently servicing the direct Mumbai-Tel Aviv sector with three weekly non-stop flights. As many as 48,800 Indians visited Israel from January to September this year. Washington, Nov 1 : US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday said that the US will not rely on other sides regarding the investigation of the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as the Turkish side revealed details of his death on the same day. Speaking in an interview with The Brian Kilmeade Show via teleconference, Pompeo said that the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the consulate in Turkey violated "the norms of international law", reports Xinhua news agency. "What we've asked the Saudis to do and the Turks to do, the place which the murder took place, is to help us continue to develop the facts, that there are still many unanswered questions about precisely how this came to be," he said. However, he added that "we are working diligently, our team, to get the facts, the facts that the Americans can learn. We won't rely on others; we'll take their information, we'll make sure and develop our fact pattern." The US top diplomat also noted that US military and commercial ties with the kingdom are "very important," which should be kept in mind "as we continue to ensure that accountability is had for all those who were involved in committing this murder." "The Saudis... understand that they've got to get these facts out, and that time is not on their side in doing so," Pompeo added. Also on Wednesday, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office said that Khashoggi was choked to death immediately after entering the Saudi Arabian consulate in the city and his body was dismembered after he was strangled to death. The prosecutor reiterated a call for the extradition of the suspects arrested in Saudi Arabia, saying "Turkish courts have jurisdiction over the case in line with Turkish law and principles of international law, provided that Jamal Khashoggi was killed in Turkey." Khashoggi, journalist and columnist for The Washington Post, has been missing since he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. After releasing the results of its initial investigations, the Saudi Public Prosecution announced that 18 people were arrested over their alleged connections to the killing. US President Donald Trump on October 23 denounced Saudi handling of the death of Khashoggi, calling it the "worst cover-up ever" and "a total fiasco." Pompeo has also announced that the US is revoking visas of 21 Saudi officials who were suspected of involvement in the case, in the first concrete step of punishment taken by the Trump administration after the disclosure of Khashoggi's death. United Nations, Nov 1 : UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday announced the appointment of Noirin O'Sullivan of Ireland as the new Assistant Secretary-General for safety and security. Upon taking office, O'Sullivan succeeds Fadzai Gwaradzimba of Zimbabwe, to whom Guterres is grateful for her commitment and dedicated service to the organisation, the secretary-general's press office said in a statement, reports Xinhua news agency. O'Sullivan brings to the role her extensive experience in international safety and security management, strategic management and leadership, said the statement. She has over 36 years of experience in the international law enforcement and security environment, and most recently held the position of Garda Commissioner of An Garda Siochana in Ireland (the Irish police force). Prior to that, she was the Interim Acting Commissioner of An Garda Siochana, responsible for advising the minister of justice and the government of Ireland on all matters pertaining to national security and policing. O'Sullivan began her career with An Garda Siochana in Ireland in June 1981 and progressed through the ranks, holding various operational and managerial positions since then. She is a leader in partnership building, leading teams and able to manage complexity and to drive strategic change. She also brings an in-depth knowledge of international security, crisis management, strategic and institutional leadership and gender issues to the position. Born in Ireland in 1960, O'Sullivan holds a Master of Business Studies in Strategic Management and Planning from the Michael Smurfit School of Business, University College Dublin and a Bachelor of Arts in Police Management by Garda College and University of Limerick. She holds an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Ulster. Washington, Nov 1 : A US federal jury has charged a Pennsylvania man -- Robert Bowers -- with 44 counts, including hate crimes, for killing 11 and injuring six people during shootings at a synagogue in Pittsburgh last weekend, authorities announced on Wednesday. "Hatred and violence on the basis of religion can have no place in our society," US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a press release, announcing the charges against Bowers, 46, of Baldwin, state of Pennsylvania, Xinhua news agency reported. According to the indictment, Bowers drove to the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighbourhood last Saturday where members of three congregations gathered to engage in religious worship. The indictment alleges that after entering the building, Bowers, armed with multiple firearms, opened fire, killing and injuring worshippers, as well as injuring multiple responding public safety officers. Inside the building, Bowers made statements indicating his desire to "kill Jews." The victims include 11 worshipers at the synagogue who were killed, and two members of the congregations who were critically injured by Bowers. Nine other members of the congregations escaped unharmed. In addition, four law enforcement officers were injured while trying to stop Bowers' rampage. "Today begins the process of seeking justice for the victims of these hateful acts, and healing for the victims' families, the Jewish community, and our city," US Attorney Scott Brady said. "Our office will spare no resource, and will work with professionalism, integrity and diligence, in a way that honors the memories of the victims," Brady said. The funerals for the victims began on Tuesday and are continuing through the rest of the week. US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump travelled to Pittsburgh on Tuesday afternoon to offer condolences to the victims of the Synagogue shooting. The FBI conducted the investigation, leading to the indictment in this case. Bowers, a truck driver, remained jailed without bail ahead of a preliminary hearing scheduled for Thursday. He faces a maximum possible penalty of death, or life without parole, followed by a consecutive sentence of 535 years of imprisonment. An indictment is a formal accusation of conduct, not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. San Salvador, Nov 1 : A second caravan of Salvadoran migrants set off en route to the US on Wednesday, less than a week after an initial caravan embarked on the northward journey, media reported. The most recent caravan is made up of two groups of 300 people each, including women and children. Those groups started out just over one hour apart on a trek from this capital to La Hachadura, on the border with Guatemala. The migrants are taking a similar route to the one thousands of Hondurans are now covering in their quest to reach the US, Efe reported. The groups are being accompanied by police, according to deputy inspector Otto Urrutia, and by paramedics who will be able to provide assistance if necessary. The second caravan has set off three days after an initial group of 500 people embarked from El Salvador on a journey of roughly 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) to the US-Mexico border. Of that first group, Guatemalan authorities on Monday reported the entry of at least 356 Salvadorans. It is unclear though whether they will be able to enter the US, since US President Donald Trump's administration has confirmed on Tuesday that it will deploy more than 5,000 troops to the US-Mexico border to prevent the entry of undocumented Central American migrants. Those soldiers will join more than 2,000 National Guard troops who already are providing assistance to Border Patrol agents. Irregular migration from El Salvador is motivated by the search for a better quality of life, a desire for family reunification and a fear of violence, among other reasons. Washington, Nov 1 : The US Defense Department on Wednesday promised South Korea that it would maintain bilateral military cooperation, adding that it will also continue with the program of joint military maneuvers to confront "the security challenges" in the region. The defense departments of both countries confirmed that the alliance between Washington and Seoul will continue, according to the text of the agreement reached between the two parties and released by the Pentagon, Efe reported. The pact comes after Defense Secretary James Mattis welcomed his South Korean counterpart, Song Young-moo, to the Pentagon on Wednesday. According to the document, the commitment reached between the two countries will respect the "spirit" of the current bilateral mutual defense treaty, the objective of which is to prevent "armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula and (promote) peace and stability in Northeast Asia." Both officials expressed their support for continuing with the joint military maneuvers which are held regularly by the armed forces of the US, South Korea and Japan, although they did not mention whether military exercises could be cancelled in the future in a gesture toward North Korea. In recent months, the US government ordered the suspension of two important military exercises so as not to derail negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang about the possible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The Pentagon also committed itself to maintaining the US troop presence in South Korea. A few months ago, US President Donald Trump said he would support withdrawing US troops stationed in South Korea, alleging that maintaining them there cost too much. Currently, Washington has some 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, a deployment that costs about $1.6 billion annually, although that amount is shared equally between the two countries. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview with Fox that next week he will speak with his North Korean counterpart, Ri Yong-ho, about the possibility of international inspectors examining the regime's nuclear testing sites. The White House has not yet said whether Pompeo will travel to North Korea in person or speak with Ri on the telephone. A five-level Melbourne CBD office and retail building has sold for $11.98 million to a Chinese investor who beat out several local and off-shore groups. Savills Australias Clinton Baxter, Ming Li and Jesse Radisich negotiated the deal for 26-32 King Street on a tight yield of 2.9 per cent on behalf of a local private investor. The scarcity of Melbourne CBD properties on the market, particularly below $20 million, is apparent among active buyers, resulting in significant pent-up demand, Mr Baxter said. The property, a retail and office building of about 1,200 sqm, on a landholding of about 304 sqm, is leased to multiple tenants, including a 7-Eleven on the ground level, and returns a net rental of $352,000 per annum. The buyer was seeking to secure a prime CBD asset for long-term capital growth, and this sale demonstrates the strong market appetite for premium properties generating solid income within the CBD, Mr Baxter said. The property last traded for $5.1million at a Savills auction in 2010, and has grown in value by 135 per cent over just eight years. Mr Li said that despite recent media reports of a withdrawal of Chinese money from the Melbourne market, Savills was actually experiencing an uptick in capital from Asia seeking prime commercial assets. We have Asia-based clients actively seeking all forms of CBD and inner-metropolitan commercial assets, he said. The Australian Financial Review reported Rialto Tower co-owner Lorenz Grollo was an underbidder. A 4,061 sqm development site has sold for $1,725,925 in the Qld precinct of Pinkenba. Situated at 49 Harris Road, the deal was jointly brokered by Ray White Commercial Queenslands Director Sales and Leasing Paul Anderson and Sales and Leasing Executive Aaron Aleckson. Land speculators are attracted to the Pinkenba story; the TradeCoast location, Brisbane Airport proximity, the new Cruise Ship Terminal and just the very high level of construction activity in the precinct, Mr Anderson said. One of 10 in the 'Airport Link' an industrial sub-division comprising land sites in area from 2,036 sqm to say 8,351 sqm. The holding is just 21 minutes to Brisbane CBD and 15 minutes to Brisbane Airport by car. The difference that this estate offers to most industrial land in Pinkenba is sewer connectivity and the attractive GI B zoning, Mr Aleckson said. The site was sold to a private purchaser. [Pesticide treatments] are highly toxic and rarely effective, in some cases they can even make the bugs stronger and more resistant. The best approach is always the all-natural one. Miami Beach, Florida to be dated: If theres one thing that drives parents into frenzy, its the mere suggestion of a head lice outbreak at their childs school. While head lice are not particularly dangerous, getting rid of this stubborn parasite is nothing short of a nightmare since there are always risks of re-infestations. Just when they think the problem is under control, one of the kids starts scratching again. Local lice removal company, Lice Troopers, reports that cases of head lice within the Miami Dade area are indeed on the rise. Naturally, parents are frantic to find out how they can either avoid it altogether, or get rid of it quickly and effectively if their children have already been affected. According to Lice Troopers owner and operator Arie Harel, theres little need to panic, but there are some steps parents can take to deal with the problem: Parents will often run to the drug store for a pesticide treatment. The problem is OTC solutions are highly toxic and rarely effective, in some cases they can even make the bugs stronger and more resistant. The best approach is always the all-natural one: nitpicking. When a child is treated with our chemical free approach, they walk away with a lice free guarantee. No more bugs. And the problem is over in about an hour. Its fast, its simple, its safe. If parents suspect one or more of their children may have been exposed to lice, the next step is a screening that can confirm it. Parents can come to one of the many Lice Troopers locations across South Florida, in Coral Gables, Plantation, Coral Springs, Miami Beach, Hollywood and Kendall. Or parents can schedule a house call and let the professionals come to them. About the Company Lice Troopers is the all-natural, guaranteed Head Lice Removal Service that manually removes the head louse parasite safely and discreetly in child-friendly salon settings, or other chosen location. Providing safe solutions for frantic families, the Lice Troopers team has successfully treated thousands of families nationwide, with services widely recommended by pediatricians and reimbursed by many major health insurance carriers, flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts. Contact Information Website: https://www.licetroopers.com/ Postal Address: (Miami Beach) 1005 Kane Concourse, Suite 212, Bay Harbor Islands, FL 33154 Phone: 1.800.403.5423 Email: info@licetroopers.com Working Hours: 8:00AM-9:00 PM (Open 7 days/week) Irwin P. Altschuler, chair of the International Trade Practice at global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP, will participate in a Nov. 8 webinar discussion titled, The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement: Whats New and Whats Not in a Post-NAFTA North America? The webinar is sponsored by the Inter-American Affairs Committee of the D.C. Bar International Law Community and co-sponsored by the Inter American Legal Affairs Committee, International Trade Committee, and International Finance Committee of the D.C. Bar International Law Community. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been one of the Trump Administrations primary trade policy objectives. On September 30, 2018, the U.S., Mexico, and Canada announced that they had reached consensus on a new framework for trade in North America, now known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Altschuler, along with his fellow panelists, will discuss the similarities and differences between the USMCA and the NAFTA from the perspectives of U.S., Mexican, and Canadian practitioners. They will also discuss the wide-ranging implications that the USMCA, once implemented, could hold for businesses and consumers in the three countries. For more than 30 years, Altschuler has built a practice that retains its original focus on trade remedies litigation and enforcement proceedings and has grown to include trade policy matters and, increasingly, business issues arising from accessing and defending international markets. Altschulers practice has a strong focus on Mexico. Over his distinguished career, he has represented some of Mexico's largest corporations and Mexican government entities, in international trade and other complex legal, policy, and business matters. His experience extends to representations in South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia. This program is available for both in-person attendance and live webinar participation. To register, please click here. About Greenberg Traurig, LLP: Greenberg Traurig, LLP (GT) has more than 2,000 attorneys in 38 offices in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. GT has been recognized for its philanthropic giving, was named the largest firm in the U.S. by Law360 in 2017, and is among the Top 20 on the 2018 Am Law Global 100. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com Twitter: @GT_Law. By keeping our customers satisfaction on the mind, we offer unparalleled desert safari tour packages at discounted prices and deliver matchless experience to all the tourists and travelers DubaiSafariTrips is the most trusted and reliable travel company in UAE offering excellent desert safari deals at the discounted rates. The company is also well known for its exciting and budget-friendly desert safari tour packages. Since the company is committed to providing superior quality service, the desert safari packages are included with dinner, belly dance, pick up and drop off service, camel ride, and others. All these aspects make the visitors desert ride unforgettable and memorable. The leading desert safari provider offers packages for all sorts of travelers with the finest range of desert safari trips. One can easily find ideal packages for family, friends, groups, and solo to enjoy their holiday time and stay away from hectic life for a while. Explore the royalty of Dubai desert with amazing desert safari deals Amongst the popular tourists destination in the world, Dubai has held a special place for its unique blend of outstanding tourists attractions. Being the fastest growing tourists destination, it attracts plenty of travelers and tourists to visit the country every year. The tourists number will be increased during the festivals such as New Year and Christmas. The major activity, which attracts a diverse range of people towards Dubai, is desert safari. It creates a space for the travelers to enjoy fabulous and lifetime cherishing experience. Enjoy your desert safari ride with the reputed companys exciting desert safari offer. Since the desert safari tour packages are affordably priced for all budget travelers, saving your precious money is quite easier. The affordable safari offers are ideal for travelers who wish to make their desert trip hassle-free, fun, and economical. The company also provides desert packages for those who search for adventure or relaxation. The 2018-19 National FFA Officer team was named on Saturday, Oct. 27 during the ninth general session of the 91st National FFA Convention & Expo held in Indianapolis. The new National FFA Officer team will lead personal growth and leadership training conferences for FFA members throughout the country and help set policies that will guide the future of FFA and promote agricultural literacy. Students from California, Louisiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, Alabama and Oregon have been elected by delegates throughout the United States to serve on the 2018-19 National FFA Officer team. Luke OLeary, an agricultural leadership and development major at Texas A&M University, was elected national president. Layni LeBlanc, an animal science science and technology major at Louisiana State University, was elected national secretary. Adrian Schunk, a communications major at Michigan State University, was elected eastern region vice president. Ridge Hughbanks, an agribusiness major at Oklahoma State University, was elected central region vice president. Jordan Stowe, an agriscience education major at Auburn University, was elected southern region vice president. Shea Booster, an agricultural business management major at Oregon State University, was elected western region vice president. Each year at the National FFA Convention & Expo, six students are elected by delegates to represent the organization as national officers. Delegates elect a president, secretary, and vice presidents representing the central, southern, eastern, and western regions of the country. National officers commit to a year of service to the National FFA Organization. Each officer travels more than 100,000 national and international miles to interact with business and industry leaders, thousands of FFA members and teachers, corporate sponsors, government and education officials, state FFA leaders, the general public, and more. The team will lead personal growth and leadership training conferences for FFA members throughout the country and help set policies that will guide the future of FFA and promote agricultural literacy. The National FFA Organization provides leadership, personal growth and career success training through agricultural education to 669,989 student members who belong to one of 8,630 local FFA chapters throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The organization is also supported by 459,514 alumni members in 2,236 alumni chapters throughout the U.S. 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. About National FFA Foundation The National FFA Foundation builds partnerships with industry, education, government, other foundations and individuals to secure financial resources that recognize FFA member achievements, develop student leaders and support the future of agricultural education. Governed by a 19-member board of trustees composed of educators, business leaders, individual donors and FFA Alumni, the foundation is a separately registered nonprofit organization. About 82 percent of every dollar received by the foundation supports FFA members and agricultural education opportunities. Joyce, Beth and Marie exemplify the ways that teachers in Illinois and around the country are inspiring and engaging their students through STEM learning. Today the Illinois Science Teachers Association (ISTA) and the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics (ICTM), in collaboration with ETA hand2mind, announced the winners of the 2018 Illinois STEM Rising Star Awards for promising teachers looking to implement STEM in their classrooms. Honored at the 2018 Joint ISTA/ICTM conference were Joyce Anderson, kindergarten teacher, Richland County Elementary School, Olney; Beth Wax, K-5 STEM teacher, H.R. McCall School, Waukegan District 60; and Marie Winston, 6-8th grade STEAM teacher, Jack Hille Middle School, Oak Forest. ISTA and ICTM members who judged this years awards looked for evidence of current teaching practices that include hands-on learning, small group instruction, centers rotations and overall student engagement. Each winner will receive $500, $1,000 in ETA hand2mind products, registration to the 2018 Joint ISTA/ICTM Conference and a one-year membership in ISTA or ICTM. Joyce, Beth and Marie exemplify the ways that teachers in Illinois and around the country are inspiring and engaging their students through STEM learning, said Bill Chiasson, president, ETA hand2mind. We are proud to honor them with resources to enhance and extend STEM learning opportunities for their students. Anderson will use her award to incorporate more STEM activities into the kindergarten curriculum. She started "Thinking Thursdays" in her classroom where once a week, the schools youngest learners are introduced to various challenges and encouraged to work in small groups to plan, design and explain their solutions. Her students quickly learned the importance of team work and perseverance. They also learned that there is more than one solution to a problem and often asked if they could try another design on their own during free choice centers. Andersons students also code with unplugged activities and simple robots, learning basic coding skills and creating challenges for their robots. In Waxs STEM classes, students use the Engineering Design Process to enhance their understanding of how to engage with the world and of how things work and progress. The curriculum consists of coding steps, Lego Robotics, hands-on building and Makerspace. Through these lessons, Wax is able to inspire her students to want to go forward and answer questions such as How can I improve our world to make it better for tomorrow? In STEM classes, she allows all students to thrive at their optimal interest level through exciting hands-on real world experiences, both in and out of the classroom. Winstons students also use the Engineering Design Process to solve real world problems. Through the use of Edison robots, EV3 Lego Mindstorm robots and Spheros, students hone their coding skills to program the robots to assist in the solution to the problems. Using their STEAM skills, students provide a service to the community by designing toys for students with sensory integration disorders and carnival games for the elementary level. These programs provide a variety of engaging, hands-on activities that incorporate grade-level mathematics, science and visual and performing arts standards. About the Illinois Science Teachers Association (ISTA) The Illinois Science Teachers Association (ISTA) is a state chapter of the National Science Teachers Association and is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization run primarily by volunteers. It is governed by a volunteer board of directors which consists of five executive officers and 14 regional directors (two per region) who are elected by current ISTA members. About the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics (ICTM) The Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics (ICTM) was organized in 1949 to create and foster greater interest in the teaching of mathematics at all grade levels. A small group of 90 interested mathematics teachers met that year at the University of Illinois to determine the structure for a state mathematics association. The purposes of ICTM, as stated in the By-laws, are to encourage an active interest in all areas of mathematics and mathematics education, to enhance the teaching and learning of mathematics and the role of mathematics in other disciplines, to promote research in the teaching and learning of mathematics, and to provide opportunities for exchange of views regarding the teaching and learning of mathematics. About ETA hand2mind ETA hand2mind believes that children learn by doing. The companys mission is to champion learning by doing. A privately held company with more than 50 years of experience in education, ETA hand2minds hands-on learning solutions for math, science, STEM and literacy are unique in the marketplacecovering manipulatives, lessons, teacher/parent support materials and more. ETA Hand2mind is always on the lookout for new ways to tap into students natural curiosity and spark an interactive learning process. For more information, visit hand2mind.com. Advantage Rent-A-Car Partners with Plug and Play As a Plug and Play corporate partner, we meet, evaluate and support selected, relevant emerging companies as they develop new products and technologies that will further enhance our customer experience. Scott Davido, President and CEO of Advantage Advantage Rent A Car, the fourth-largest car rental company in America (Advantage), is pleased to announce its partnership with Plug and Play, a Silicon Valley-based global innovation platform. Advantage joins Plug and Plays Travel & Hospitality and Mobility ecosystems, focusing on partnerships that will enhance the Advantage customer experience. By sourcing innovative emerging company technology that aligns with its long-term vision and strategy in travel and mobility, Advantage intends to enrich its service offering and streamline our customers experience with the optimized features and capabilities. We are thrilled to be part of the Plug and Play ecosystem, says Scott Davido, President and CEO of Advantage. As a Plug and Play corporate partner, we meet, evaluate and support selected, relevant emerging companies as they develop new products and technologies that will further enhance our customer experience. Together with Plug and Play, Advantage will identify and work with emerging companies that have created new approaches and technologies to enhance the passenger journey, improve efficiency and advance the future of car rental. Plug and Play Founder and CEO Saeed Amidi said, We are here to help Advantage engage with the most promising emerging companies in the industry and bring new ideas into their business. Their expertise will be a great addition to our ecosystem and we welcome them to Silicon Valley. About Plug and Play Plug and Play is a global innovation platform. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we have built accelerator programs, corporate innovation services, and an in-house VC to make technological advancement progress faster than ever before. With over 25 locations around the world, 280 official corporate partners, 200 leading Silicon Valley VCs and over 250+ investments made in 2017, Plug and Play created the ultimate startup ecosystem across 14 different industries including Travel & Hospitality. We currently work with JetBlue Technology Ventures, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Accor Hotels, AirAsia, Swissport, Star Alliance, Trivago, Changi Airport, TUI Group and many more. Companies in our community have raised over $7 billion in funding, with successful portfolio exits including Danger, Dropbox, Lending Club and PayPal. To join the ecosystem, please visit http://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/travel. About Advantage Rent A Car Advantage Rent A Car and its sister company, EZ Rent A Car (AEZ), is the fourth-largest car rental company in America. AEZ is active nationwide with two brands in 44 markets and 75 locations, including 23 of the nations 25 largest airports, and globally through its partnership with Europcar. For more information visit Advantage.com or E-ZRentACar.com, or engage with AEZ on Facebook and Twitter. Use the hashtags #AdVroomVroom, #YourAdvantage, #EZLiving, #TheEZWay and #EZBreezy to join the conversation online. The Amerimix booth at the World of Concrete trade show has won Best Integrated Program for multi-layers of direct outreach to masonry contractors about the benefits of pre-blended mortars. No sand pile means no worries about erosion, runoff or other job-site product loss, and theres protection from the contaminants that typically end up in the sandpile. Its also a more worker-friendly environment. -- Joey Peters, senior brand manager, Oldcastle APG Oldcastles Amerimix brand of pre-blended mortar has won Exhibitor Magazines 21st Annual Sizzle Award for Best Integrated Program at the 2018 World of Concrete. There were only five winners chosen this year overall, so Amerimix was among an elite group of honorees. The company's mortars, stuccos, grouts, and specialty cements are preblended for consistency. Only water is added at the jobsite, reducing mixing time by 50 percent compared to traditional sand-mixing methods. Because the products are delivered in single or bulk packaging, there is no need for the traditional sand pilewhich was the targeted message of the exhibit. No sand pile means no worries about erosion, runoff or other job-site product loss, and theres protection from the contaminants that typically end up in the sandpile. Its also a more worker-friendly environment, explains Joey Peters, senior brand manager at Oldcastle APG. Working with Interrupt LLC, Oldcastle launched a Ditch the Sandpile campaign to demonstrate these benefits. Gretchen Turner, trade show manager at Oldcastle APG explains, We know these messages resonate with masons when they get to know our products. We wanted to make sure that this years booth displays did the best possible job of attracting masons attention and demonstrating the value of Ditching the Sandpile. The mason-centric program threw away the old static booth model in favor of an experience that started outside the exhibit hall. A day-long sand sculpting display intrigued and invited visitors to visit the Amerimix booth for information and a chance to win a Mobile Mud Hog mixing machine by EZG Manufacturing, valued at approximately $12,000. Taking a gamble, Amerimix moved into the more populous South exhibit hall, from the West hall where masonry is usually represented. EZG then promoted the Mud Hog drawing from its booth in the West hall. According to one Sizzle Awards judge, "Amerimix connected with the audience because it identified their pain points and showed in numeric, easy-to-understand terms how the product addresses them. It was a modest campaign, but it offered a potent theme, indoor and outdoor experiences, press and social media outreach, and even an animatronic cat. You can't beat that." See more details in this months Exhibit magazine. https://www.exhibitoronline.com/topics/article.asp?ID=2673 For more information about Amerimix, go to http://www.amerimix.com. About Amerimix An Oldcastle APG brand, Amerimix manufactures and delivers quality-preblended mortars, stuccos, grouts, and specialty cements to meet the needs of developers, general contractors, plasterers, and masons. Amerimix serves the commercial, industrial, institutional, and residential markets throughout the United States. Products are sold direct to contractors, through a licensee network and/or through distributors by an experienced sales team. For more information, visit http://www.Amerimix.com Best Houston Web Design Firms 10 Best Design recently selected the winners of its Best Houston Web Design Firm awards for October 2018. The top-ranking contender for this monthly award is Chai One. Locating the top Houston website development agency could make a big difference in how many site visits and conversions a business is able to achieve. A well-designed site also makes a considerable impact on the way that consumers perceive the company. When a site is easy to navigate, has fonts and colors that are easy to read and information is located in a convenient place, people are more likely to stay for a while and explore. They are also more likely to have a positive perception of the company and want to do business with it. As a way to help firms find the best web design firm in Houston, the 10 Best Design service has implemented a new monthly awards category. This category honors companies with offices in Houston that deliver exemplary results for site design services. The first-place Houston website development business for October 2018 is Chai One, a leading web design firm with a stellar reputation. The agencys developers have also earned a 96 percent customer satisfaction rating. One of their areas of expertise is in SEO. They can set up a site using enterprise or another platform and work SEO into its architecture. This process results in a site that attains a high SERP on all of the search engines commonly used by consumers doing organic searches. The second-place firm for Houston website design companies in October 2018 is Culture Pilots. The team at Culture Pilots numbers between 10 and 50 full-time website developers. The firm has attained a customer satisfaction rating of 96 percent. Along with being a top web design firm, Culture Pilots specializes in responsive site design services. They fully test every feature and image on a site in order to ensure that it will display well and function properly on all sizes of screens and operating systems. Coming in third-place in October 2018 among the top Houston Website development agencies is Zulu Creative. This firm has a 95 percent customer satisfaction rating. The company is known for its top-notch work in eCommerce setups. Their work enables consumers to feel confident and secure when placing an order from their sites. The checkout process goes smoothly, and their sites are set up to remind customers to finish the transaction if they abandon a cart with items in it. The firm has fewer than 10 full-time programmers. For more details about the award-winning companies for October, please visit http://www.10bestdesign.com. Bodytech Aruba Deploys Boon Edam Turnstile to Ensure Members Only Access It's a very easy system to operate. Its only been in service for a year and the return on investment has been outstanding. Boon Edam Inc., a global leader in security entrances and architectural revolving doors has implemented their Speedlane 300 entry system at the Bodytech Fitness Club in Aruba. The resort island of Aruba in the Caribbean attracts millions of tourists looking for rest and relaxation as well as a large number looking to stay fit while on vacation. Visitors have been doing just that for over a year at the Bodytech Fitness Club which, according to their website, offers a spacious, air-conditioned gym and the best and latest Life Fitness equipment designed for their guests enjoyment. The gym even offers tourists two-week passes for utilization during their visit to the island. Easy and Fast Access Bodytechs slogan is, You wont keep coming because you need to, youll keep coming because you want to. Bodytech is open seven days a week, giving daily access to between 200 and 400 people. With the installment of a new Boon Edam Speedlane 300 optical turnstile, visitors are ensured fast and easy access to the gym. The Boon Edam Speedlane 300 offers a stringent level of security coupled with a modern and functional design that is very strong and dependable according to Fernando Metz, commercial director of Mexim Aruba, the installer of the access control system and the optical turnstile. The Speedlane 300 consists of two elliptical cabinets with angel wing barriers that retract into the units to allow passage to authorized users. Most striking about this entry solution are the lights that have been integrated into the angel wings. The barriers turn green when the lane is ready for use and red when the barriers are closing, or when an alarm has been triggered. The visitor immediately recognizes whether to enter the lane or wait for assistance. Efficient Security and Service The Boon Edam Speedlane 300 solution is not only attractive, it also provides biometric access control with fingerprint readers. This enables the club to determine which members have not paid, allowing the club to better control access to the facilities. "It's a very good product and weve never had any problems with it. It is very stable and does the job it needs to do," says Jason Gerlin, co-owner of Bodytech Aruba. All of the employees like the fact that they dont need to spend time monitoring dates of the membership; its all automatic. Easy Integration The Boon Edam entry system operates with open source software from the gym, facilitating the integration of new equipment and programs. Mr. Gerlin notes, "it's a very easy system to operate. Its only been in service for a year and the return on investment has been outstanding. He also highlighted the customer service and monitoring that Mexim Aruba has offered. "If there are any questions, they are more than willing to help". Mr. Metz recommends Boon Edam entry systems because of their quality and performance. In his opinion, "Nothing comes close in the market." For Further Information, Please Contact: Tracie Thomas, Boon Edam Vice President of Marketing T 910 814 8239 E tracie.thomas@boonedam.com For Media Queries, Please Contact: Sara Chaput, LRG Marketing Public Relations T 845 358 1801 E: schaput@lrgmarketing.com About Royal Boon Edam We are proud to be a third-generation Dutch family business committed to making people feel welcome and secure through our quality engineered entry solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands, with a footprint spanning the globe, Royal Boon Edam International is a premium manufacturer of revolving doors, high security doors, turnstiles and Speedlanes. A heritage that exceeds 140 years has resulted in wide expertise in managing the safe transit of people through office buildings, healthcare facilities as well as via public and private spaces. We are truly focused on adding genuine value to our customers entrances and to a long-term relationship after sales, service and maintenance. We partner, collaborate and become an extension to the customer team to ensure that the project, people and valuables are in safe hands with us. We are your entry experts. Discover more about our latest news at http://www.boonedam.us/news or follow Boon Edam Inc. on our blog, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Mark Wasserman, Vice President, Business Development Were very pleased to have Mark on board. His depth of experience, knowledge and management capabilities will complement our growing team of seasoned professionals. Brad Schmett, of Brad Schmett Real Estate Group, announced today that local industry veteran, Mark Wasserman, has joined his top-producing real estate team as Vice President, Business Development. Wasserman brings with him over eight years of successful experience in real estate. In his role prior to joining Brad Schmett Real Estate Group, Wasserman led a successful real estate team in the greater Palm Springs area. Brad Schmett, CEO and President of Brad Schmett Real Estate Group, said Were very pleased to have Mark on board. His depth of experience, knowledge and management capabilities will complement our growing team of seasoned professionals. Brad Schmett Real Estate Group, brokered by eXp Realty of California, Inc. is an exclusive, elite and sophisticated group of real estate consultants raising the bar for service in the Greater Palm Springs Area real estate market. eXp Realty provides 24/7 access to collaborative tools, training, and socialization for real estate brokers and agents through its fully-immersive, virtual campus environment. As a public company subsidiary, eXp Realty uniquely offers real estate professionals within its ranks opportunities to earn company stock for production and contributions to overall company growth. eXp Realty is one of the fastest growing real estate brokerages in the United States with more than 15,000 agents in all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and three Canadian provinces. San Francisco Bay Area sexual harassment law firm We're lucky to have some of the best Bay Area sexual harassment lawyers on our team. California Civil Rights Law Group, a San Francisco Bay Area law firm specializing in sexual harassment, is proud to announce a new blog archive on harassment. Based on the WordPress blogging platform, the auto-generated archive provides a convenient place for anyone interested in learning about harassment and the possible need to consult a Bay Area attorney. The archive brings together the law firm's posts on the topic over the past few years. "We're lucky to have some of the best Bay Area sexual harassment lawyers on our team," explained Larry Organ, lead attorney at the Bay Area-based law firm. "Our new blog archive is a convenient place on the Internet for persons who may be facing sexual harassment in the Bay Area, indeed from San Francisco to Oakland to any community here in Northern California, to first learn about these issues privately before reaching out to an attorney for a private consultation." Those who would like to learn more about sexual harassment, can also visit the firm's explanatory page or use the website to reach out for a private, confidential consultation with an attorney. Since no two situations are exactly alike, it is imperative to talk with an attorney about the possible facts of any sexual harassment litigation in the Bay Area under California law. Only a trained attorney can make a judgement as to whether to move forward. Fortunately, consultations do not cost money and interested persons are urged to reach out to the law firm if they are experiencing harassment. READING BLOG POSTS AND TALKING WITH SEXUAL HARASSMENT ATTORNEYS Here is background on this release. The reality is that persons who may be facing sexual harassment at work are often reluctant to come forward. They may not understand their rights under the law, and they may feel pressured in an employment situation not to come forward or speak out. Given recent political events, they may be fearful of possible publicity. Fortunately, the Internet gives persons a private way to educate themselves about sexual harassment and then reach out for a consultation with an attorney. Here are some of the titles to blog posts in the archive: "Am I Likely to Get Sexually Harassed at Work?" "What Voting Rights Do I have in the Workplace?" "NIFLA v. Becerra is an Attack on Women's Rights" "Disabled Women and Sexual Assault" Having read a few of these blog posts, checked out the website, and perhaps read reviews of some of the top-rated Bay Area law firms for sexual harassment, the next step is to identify a law firm that one feels comfortable with and reach out for a consultation. The positive thing about the Internet and attorney consultations is that a person who feels that they may be facing sexual harassment can maintain confidentiality before taking any next steps, and then taking any next steps only under the guidance of an attorney who understands sexual harassment law. ABOUT CALIFORNIA CIVIL RIGHTS LAW GROUP Headed by renowned trial lawyer Larry Organ, California Civil Rights Law Group, is a leading employment law firm with San Francisco Bay Area offices in Oakland, Alameda County and San Anselmo, Marin County, California. Employees experiencing sexual harassment, race harassment, disability discrimination, LGTBQ discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, whistleblower retaliation and/or wrongful termination should reach out for an attorney consultation in either our Oakland/East Bay or San Anselmo/Marin County office. Media Relations. Tel. 415-453-4740 Catalyst, at its roots, is an outdoor brand and our team works in a number of ways to preserve natures gifts so the next generation can enjoy them as we have, Catalyst CEO June Lai said. Catalyst, the award-winning manufacturer of protective waterproof cases, is working to raise awareness and dollars for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) through team fundraising efforts as well as the AmazonSmile program. Through Friday, November 2, The Nature Conservancy will benefit from Amazons generous increase in charity support that donates 5 percent of eligible purchases through the Smile program to the charities designated by participating retail brands. After Friday, TNC will still receive the standard Amazon donation of .05 percent for all Catalyst cases purchased through their site. Catalyst, at its roots, is an outdoor brand and our team works in a number of ways to preserve natures gifts so the next generation can enjoy them as we have, Catalyst CEO June Lai said. Were proud to support The Nature Conservancy in their efforts to protect forests, rivers and natural habitats all over the world. We applaud Amazon for their generosity as they increase donations by 10 times this week and encourage people to take advantage of the opportunity to support the charitable organization closest to them. The Nature Conservancy is one of the most effective environmental organizations in the world. For more than six decades, they have worked to protect more than 119 million acres of land and 5,000 river miles as well as operate more than 100 marine conservation projects globally. They are committed to human-led conservation efforts through restoring natural resources, wildlife habitat protection, and tackling climate change. In October, the Catalyst Cares community impact team, hiked 30km in the Barclays MoonTrekker 2018 night-hike to raise funds for TNC. Starting at 11:00 p.m., the team hiked 30k before sunrise the next day. The is the second years the Catalyst Cares team has participated in this event, raising more than $4,000 for The Nature Conservancy. To purchase through AmazonSmile and support TNC, users must login through https://smile.amazon.com/ then select The Nature Conservancy Arlington, VA. About Catalyst Catalyst is a premium lifestyle accessories brand founded to create iconic products that enable people to explore and share their world. Catalyst offers the highest performance accessories that are the best value for their customers. Josh Wright is an awardwinning industrial designer who graduated from the Art Center College of Design and June Lai is the research, development and business partner at Catalyst. In 2010, after seeing a requirement for a product that fit their needs but did not yet exist, they designed and developed a line of high-performance everyday case, accessories and sleeves for their many outdoor and underwater adventures. Catalyst is available in more than 70 countries including USA, Canada, UK, Germany, China, Japan, Korea, Australia and the GCC. Dialogics strong foundation in virtualized technologies, including media processing, applications, and network infrastructure, combined with our AI and IoT expertise, puts us in a unique position to put a new spin on Unified Communications. Dialogic, a cloud-optimized applications and infrastructure solutions provider for service providers, enterprises, and developers, announced today that Dialogic BUZZ was the recipient of the Best Unified Communications Innovation Award at the Capacity Europe 2018 Global Carrier Awards ceremony held in London on October 24, 2018 and hosted by Capacity Media. Dialogic BUZZ combines Dialogics real-time communications leadership, application development know-how, and AI/IoT proficiency into a single platform. This cloud-scale, carrier-class business communications solution offers an API-driven, extensible architecture that can quickly integrate features like video conferencing, unified communications, and PBX functionality with AI and IoT technologies. The result is a tailored user experience that is enhanced by interworking with IoT devices and extended by using AI to incorporate advanced features such as chat bots, call transcription, intent analysis, workflow automation, and fraud detection. We are thrilled that Capacity Media has acknowledged our efforts to bring an innovative UC solution to the market, said Bill Crank, President & CEO of Dialogic. Dialogics strong foundation in virtualized technologies, including media processing, applications, and network infrastructure, combined with our AI and IoT expertise, puts us in a unique position to put a new spin on Unified Communications. The flexibility of the Dialogic BUZZ platform, including both on-premises and cloud deployment models, as well as an extra tenancy layer, allows different types of service providers to target different enterprise spaces including SMBs, the segment with the highest number of UC seats, added Miguel Lopes, Vice President PLM Applications Products at Dialogic. The ability to easily customize the platform to meet both customer and market needs gives our customers an advantage over their competition. Visit the Dialogic website for more information on Dialogic BUZZ. To see a live demo of Dialogic BUZZ, visit us at the Cavell Cloud Comms Summit 2018 Roadshow in Paris and Madrid on November 6 and 8. For more information or to book a meeting, visit: https://web.dialogic.com/cavell-paris-madrid-meeting-request-2018. About Dialogic Dialogic is a leading cloud-optimized solutions provider for real-time communications media, applications, and infrastructure to service providers, enterprises, and developers around the globe. Based in Parsippany, NJ with offices worldwide, Dialogic works with 48 of the worlds top 50 mobile operators, and nearly 1,000 application developers build and deploy on agile networks. Learn more about how Dialogic is enabling agility by following us on Twitter @Dialogic, and visiting http://www.dialogic.com and the Dialogic Blog for the latest industry news, trends, and advice. Dialogic and Dialogic BUZZ are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Dialogic Corporation or a subsidiary thereof (Dialogic). Other trademarks mentioned and/or marked herein belong to their respective owners. Contact Dialogic Dialogic Press Team +1 514 832 3866 press(at)dialogic.com We have created an all-American tire with premium design features and functionality to provide truck drivers the confidence they need to take on any terrain, said Dave Sparks, CEO of DieselSellerz and founder of Legion Tires The DieselSellerz, stars of Discovery Channels hit show Diesel Brothers, announced today they are partnering with Cooper Tire & Rubber Company to launch a new tire brand: Legion Tires. On Oct. 31, at the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) automobile show, the team introduced their new Legion Diesel Power M/T, an all-terrain tire for mixed on-and off-road diesel trucks that turn torque into traction with the durability provided by Cooper Tire engineers to withstand the most demanding situations. The tire provides reliable, long and even tread wear with an aggressive buttress that provides off-road traction, absorption and puncture resistance. The optimized tread pattern reduces noise for a quieter ride on paved surfaces while still providing exceptional performance and durability on dirt and gravel. The Legion Diesel Power M/T is available in 11 sizes from 16-to 22-inch rim diameters. Additional sizes will continue to be added, focusing on the enthusiasts diameters that are unique to the high-performing diesel application. Our goal is to provide diesel truck drivers with high-quality products that reflect their lifestyles, said Dave Sparks, CEO of DieselSellerz and founder of Legion Tires. We have created an all-American tire with premium design features and functionality to provide truck drivers the confidence they need to take on any terrain. The Legion Power M/T is the most capable tire specifically designed for high-powered diesel trucks, collaboratively designed with insights of Dave Sparks and his team that truly know the requirements of tire performance in this challenging environment. The tire offers wide lateral grooves that provide traction and grip to any driving surface, as well as stone ejectors to ensure it remains free of any road debris for enhanced durability. Legion Tires are designed to deliver unprecedented traction and off-road stability, without sacrificing its on-road performance and capabilities, with a reinforced sidewall using industry leading technology backed by over 100 years of Cooper Tire excellence in engineering and truck tire design. ### About Legion Tires Legion Tires was created by DieselSellerz. DieselSellerz is made up of a team of friends who own and operate their own business that specialize in all things diesel. The team builds high-end diesel powered trucks on their Discovery Channel show, Diesel Brothers. The team collaborated with Cooper Tire to design a purpose built tire for their audience specifically engineered to withstand the challenging and unique application of high-powered diesel trucks. The Legion Tire brand is located at their DieselSellerz headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah. Legion Brand tires are proudly made in Texarkana, Arkansas. For more information on the Legion Tires brand, visit http://www.legiontires.com. About Cooper Tire & Rubber Company Cooper Tire & Rubber Company (NYSE: CTB) is the parent company of a global family of companies that specializes in the design, manufacture, marketing and sale of passenger car, light truck, medium truck, motorcycle and racing tires. Cooper's headquarters is in Findlay, Ohio, with manufacturing, sales, distribution, technical and design operations within its family of companies located in more than one dozen countries around the world. For more information on Cooper, visit http://www.coopertire.com, http://www.facebook.com/coopertire or http://www.twitter.com/coopertire. Media Contact: Molly Collins mcollins(at)bowstern.com 850-559-7107 dotCMS allows us to craft personalized experiences for the world's leading brands. Their open source Java roots are the perfect fit for progressive engineering organizations. We are very excited about this partnership and look forward to building great things with them. dotCMS, a key player in digital experience software, has signed a partner agreement with Myplanet, a software studio headquartered in Toronto. This partnership allows Myplanet and dotCMS to go to market with a more competitive value proposition for enterprises who are looking to create more engaging and memorable experiences. dotCMS is rapidly expanding its network of implementation and reseller partners in key regions around the globe to better serve companies who want to implement their industry-leading, digital experience technology. Already, dotCMS has seen stellar growth of over 130% in their partner network in the first half of 2018. Im delighted to expand our North American partner network with Myplanet, said Stefan Schinkel, Chief Sales Officer at dotCMS. They have the capabilities and scale to support our growing enterprise customer base, more specifically, their execution on digital transformations the drive value. Our partner network is one of the key pillars of our growth strategy to get in the top three of CMS vendors and partnering with Myplanet takes us one step closer to that." We are very happy to have partnered with dotCMS, said Jason Cottrell, CEO of Myplanet. dotCMS allows us to craft personalized experiences for the world's leading brands. Their API-first architecture lets us to publish the right content to the right user on any device. Their open source Java roots are the perfect fit for progressive engineering organizations. We are very excited about this partnership and look forward to building great things with them. This new partnership comes at a pivotal time for dotCMS as they have recently launched their newest release, dotCMS 5.0. The new dotCMS 5 Series will provide marketing and development teams a new and improved toolset to build and optimize their (un)authenticated digital experiences - all built on dotCMS' industry-leading NoCode philosophy. About dotCMS dotCMS is a leading, open source content and customer experience management platform for companies that want innovation and performance driving their websites and other content-driven applications. Extensible and massively scalable, both small and large organizations can rapidly deliver personalized and engaging content across browsers, mobile devices, channels, second screens and endpoints -- all from a single system. Founded in 2003, dotCMS is a privately owned US company with offices in Miami, Florida, Boston, Massachusetts, and San Jose, Costa Rica. With a global network of certified development partners and an active open source community, dotCMS has generated more than a half-million downloads and thousands of implementations and integration projects worldwide. Notable dotCMS customers include: Telus, Standard & Poors, Hospital Corporation of America, Royal Bank of Canada, DirecTV, Thomson Reuters, China Mobile, Aon, and DriveTest Ontario. About Myplanet Myplanet is a software studio. Were an integrated team of designers and developers making smarter interfaces to empower your employees and engage your customers. Through decades of experience, Drs. Kimowitz have consistently adapted the latest dental techniques to achieve effective and lasting results and bone grafting is no exception. Drs. Hal and Adam Kimowitz, dentists at Denville Dentist, are increasing awareness of the effect jawbone loss and untreated tooth loss can have on oral and overall health as well as smile aesthetics. This team now welcomes new patients who need dental implants or a custom bone graft in Randolph, NJ and surrounding areas. Through decades of experience, Drs. Kimowitz have consistently adapted the latest dental techniques to achieve effective and lasting results and bone grafting is no exception. A common cause of jawbone loss is tooth loss. As soon as a tooth is lost or removed from the mouth, the surrounding bone begins to be reabsorbed. In time, this leads to a sunken in look in the face as more bone is lost and the foundation of the smile is weakened. Beyond aesthetics, this area is at a heightened risk for other issues including shifting teeth and additional tooth loss. Dental implants offer a permanent solution for missing teeth. Not only do they stimulate bone growth and prevent reabsorption, they also preserve the smile by preventing surrounding teeth from shifting. Restoring a complete smile aesthetically, dental implants also renew oral function allowing patients to eat and speak comfortably again. In some cases, dental implants should not be placed until a bone graft has been performed to boost bone density and stability. A bone graft can be performed using a number of different techniques depending on the location of the bone loss and the patients unique situation. Regardless, a bone graft fortifies an area of bone loss by adding new bone to the site. After it has been allowed time to heal, the jawbone accepts this new tissue and restores facial structure and oral function. However, replacing the tooth with dental implants will help ensure the process will not continue. Drs. Kimowitz perform bone grafting procedures in-house thanks to their long-term training and commitment to offering modern dental techniques. As active members of the American Academy of Implant Dentistry and Fellows of the International Congress of Oral Implantology, among other organizations, Drs. Kimowitz are passionate about educating their patients on the risks of leaving tooth loss and bone loss untreated. Those interested in dental implants or a bone graft in Randolph, NJ to improve their oral health and stop bone loss can call 973-627-3363 to schedule a no-obligation consultation. About the Dentists Denville Dentist is a general and cosmetic dental practice offering personalized dental care to patients in Denville, New Jersey. Denville Dentist upholds a philosophy of providing leading preventative care to ensure patients reach and maintain proper oral health. Dr. Hal H. Kimowitz is a Fellow and Diplomate in the International Congress of Oral Implantology, Diplomate in the American Society of Osseointegration, Fellow in the Academy of General Dentistry, graduate of the Misch Institute of Implant Dentistry and member of numerous professional organizations. Dr. Adam S. Kimowitz is a graduate, Alumni President elect and lecturer at the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine and founder and president of the Grassroots Dental Study Club. He is also a credentialed Fellow of the International College of Oral Implantologists and a credentialed Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Implant Dentistry. Drs. Kimowitz offer the latest techniques in a variety of services including implant, cosmetic, and laser dentistry. To learn more about Denville Dentist, Drs. Kimowitz or the services they offer, visit http://www.denvilledentist.com or call 973-627-3363 to schedule an appointment. Tier I Horizontal Berea oil wells in Lawrence County have reportedly averaged in the range of ~100 - 150 BOPD over the initial 90 days of production where the well development costs are significantly lower, as compared to other plays across the US. Berea oil production from Lawrence County, Kentucky represented nearly 25% of the states total annual oil production in 2014. We are extremely pleased with the reservoir quality, porosity, hydrocarbon shows, pressures and future production potential we have seen from horizontal well operations, and are excited about the well completion and production operations to come," said Steve Stengell, Encores President CEO. Although reliable production information is not available for the Berea play, at this time, we believe that ~30000+ barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) is a validated and realistic first-year per well production target based on our recent results, third-party reports, technological improvements, and verified / unofficial volume reports of production. As continued tensions in the Middle East and the global demand for crude oil both escalate, we firmly believe the future for oil has never been brighter, said Joseph Hooper, Encores Executive Vice. We are further de-risking the project and growing increasingly confident in our future production and income levels, based on these results. Oil and gas investments involve a high degree of risk, uncertainty and are suitable for only SEC defined Accredited investors who can afford the loss of their entire investment. Qualified SEC defined accredited investors can deduct 100% of their investment against all forms of income (for the current 2018 tax year) with years of potential income from oil production. For more information, please contact Joseph Hooper at (270) 842-1242, ext. 224. Assumptions, Disclaimer and Cautionary Statement: The information herein may contain forward-looking statements, and actual results may vary. Words such as "estimate", "will," "intend," "continue," "target," "expect," "achieve," "strategy," "future," "may," "goal," or other comparable words or phrases or the negative of those words, and other words of similar meaning indicate forward-looking statements and important factors which could affect actual results. Forward-looking statements are made based upon Management's current expectations and beliefs concerning future developments and their potential effects upon Encore Energy, Inc. Oil and gas investments involve a high degree of risk, uncertainty and are only suitable for qualified Accredited (SEC Definition) investors who are sophisticated in making business decisions and can bear the financial loss of their entire investment, while delivering a turnkey profit to the Company for proving the prospect development, lease acquisition, drilling, completion, engineering and ongoing production operations. The Company does not provide tax advice and investors should seek the advice of their tax professional. Any tax and/or other information herein is provided for illustration purposes only and may include estimates that are uncertain and subject to change. It is impossible to accurately forecast profitability, production, reserves, income, expenses and timelines for any project. No assurances can be made as it relates to reserves, production, income, profit, prices, timelines and/or other estimates. Actual production and results are beyond the control of management. In the event that commercial production is achieved, it may take many years for the investor to recoup his or her investment. The Company's lease acreage position under is subject to change and includes acreage under lease, Farmout agreement, verbal agreement, renewals, expired terms and any other prospective acreage in which the Company has communicated and/or negotiated with the landowner the leasing of oil and gas rights, now or in the future, and the lease / mineral owner has leased or communicated their intent to lease there mineral lease rights to the Company. It is important for qualified investors to acknowledge the fact that the US government provides them with tax savings (100% IDC tax deduction) to mitigate or at least off-set some of the financial risk associated with domestic oil and gas investments. This is not an offer to sell or buy a security. An offer shall only be made pursuant to SEC Regulation D, Rule 506(c) by a private placement offering memorandum, and this is not a private placement offering memorandum. Greenberg Traurig is now one of a select few with this level of expertise on both sides of the Atlantic in this area, critical to industry-leading businesses, said Richard A. Rosenbaum, Executive Chairman at Greenberg Traurig. Renowned white collar defence and investigations attorney Anne-Marie Ottaway will be joining the London office of global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP as a Shareholder in the firms White Collar Defence & Special Investigations Practice. Ottaway joins Shareholder Barry Vitou who launched Greenberg Traurigs London-based white collar practice in May 2018. Also joining them will be Associate Gareth Hall. Greenberg Traurig is now one of a select few with this level of expertise on both sides of the Atlantic in this area, critical to industry-leading businesses, said Richard A. Rosenbaum, Executive Chairman at Greenberg Traurig. Focusing on value while keying in on strategic areas of practice has allowed Greenberg Traurig to remain strong in Europe and achieve gains well beyond headcount growth. Adding Anne-Marie and Gareth further illustrates what a dynamic office we have in London. It is our nature, as well as our strategy, to continuously explore ways to enhance the client experience, at all points in the relationship, said Paul Maher, Vice Chair of Greenberg Traurig, who focuses on the firms strategic business development globally and works closely with Rosenbaum with respect to the London office he founded in 2009. Having Anne-Marie and Gareth join our team is an important milestone in the strategic growth of the practice, in response to clients, companies, and individuals facing scrutiny from the United States or foreign governments, who need an experienced team at a moments notice, anywhere in the world, Vitou said. Greenberg Traurigs culture and leading white collar practice are a perfect fit for me, Ottaway added. With the U.S. approach to criminal law enforcement against corporations and individuals, most recently reflected in the appointment of a former U.S. prosecutor as Director of the SFO, and cross-border cooperation among law enforcement agencies investigating and prosecuting white collar crime, a truly integrated global white collar defence practice helps level the playing field. My experience as a former investigator and prosecutor at the SFO helps me provide valuable insight to clients and I look forward to working with Barry and Gareth to provide the very best advice and defence from Greenberg Traurigs global platform. Greenberg Traurigs White Collar Defence & Special Investigations Practice is comprised of nearly 100 trial lawyers, including a significant number of former prosecutors, who have tried hundreds of criminal cases and have served at the highest levels of federal and state government. "Our team has an arsenal of experience and global resources to tackle criminal, regulatory, and other mission-critical investigations that arise out of the unforgiving surveillance of businesses on a global scale, said Jacqueline Becerra, Marc L. Mukasey, and A. John Pappalardo, Co-Chairs of Greenberg Traurigs White Collar Defence & Special Investigations Practice. Formerly a prosecutor at the U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office where she spent 13 years, Ottaway went into private practice over six years ago. Ottaway is a specialist in white collar and business crime and government and internal investigations. In June 2018, she was appointed as Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Bribery Act 2010, which will be delivering its report in March 2019. Among her achievements include recognition by Global Investigations Review (GIR) magazine as one of its 2018 top 100 Women in Investigations while the 2018 Chambers and Partners UK Guide, notes that Ottaway is lauded for her extensive government experience and growing reputation for defending corporate clients subject to fraud and bribery allegations. Ottaway received LLB Honors from London Guildhall University and completed the Legal Practice Course at the London College of Law. Before joining Pinsent Masons LLP, Ottaway was a prosecutor with the Serious Fraud Office. She is admitted to practice law in England and Wales. About Greenberg Traurigs White Collar Criminal Defence Practice: Greenberg Traurigs White Collar Defence & Special Investigations Practice has wide-ranging experience protecting companies and individuals under government scrutiny. The firms creative defence lawyers are at the forefront of client service in this area, and Greenberg Traurig is one of very few firms with more than 90 former federal and state prosecutors in its litigation group, and where the majority of litigation shareholders and counsel have first-chair trial experience. The team's defence capabilities include vast experience in structuring internal investigations, developing guidelines and implementing compliance programs, and addressing issues of voluntary disclosure, as well as extensive representations involving alleged securities fraud, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, health care/pharmaceutical fraud, environmental crimes, money laundering, financial services fraud, public corruption/campaign finance, tax corruption, defence contracting, and bankruptcy fraud. About Greenberg Traurigs London Office: Greenberg Traurig, LLP in London has established itself as a multidisciplinary law firm, with more than 80 lawyers and growing. The London office provides partner-led advice to domestic and international clients on a range of matters across the legal spectrum. Lawyers at Greenberg Traurig in London advise U.K. and multinational clients operating in many different sectors, including chemicals, pharmaceuticals, life sciences, energy, real estate, financial services, automotive, retail, and communications. About Greenberg Traurig: Greenberg Traurig, LLP (GT) has more than 2,000 attorneys in 38 offices in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. GT has been recognized for its philanthropic giving, was named the largest firm in the U.S. by Law360 in 2017, and is among the Top 20 on the 2018 Am Law Global 100. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com; Twitter: @GT_Law. Gunderson Funeral Home & Cremation Services "We are very fortunate to have Mark join our staff here at Gunderson Funeral Home & Cremation Services," states Phil Gunderson, Owner. "Mark's compassion and insight to the needs of the families we serve makes him a perfect addition." Gunderson Funeral Home and Cremation Services welcomes Mark Mettler to their staff as a Funeral Director. Mark has moved to the area from Cedar Rapids, Iowa where he grew up. Mark is graduate of Kennedy High School in Cedar Rapids and then went on to get his Business Administration Degree from Mount Mercy University. He recently graduated from the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science with his Mortuary Degree. Gunderson Funeral Home & Cremation Services is the ultimate provider of creating healing experiences in the community for over 50 years. Their crematory was the first onsite service in the area and was installed over 20 years. Funeral Director staffing also includes Phil Gunderson, Kevin Rogers, Dallas Wall and Janet Hubbell. When Mark is not serving families and the community he enjoys playing a piano tune or two, singing, reading a good book like the Harry Potter series and carrying on his grandmothers artistic hobby of needlepoint. "We are very fortunate to have Mark join our staff here at Gunderson Funeral Home & Cremation Services," states Phil Gunderson, Owner. "Mark's compassion and insight to the needs of the families we serve makes him a perfect addition." Gunderson Funeral Home and Cremation Services is located at 1615 North 15th Street in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Everyone is invited to visit them online at http://www.gundersonfuneralhome.com and follow them on Facebook and LinkedIn. Monthly Lunch & Learns are also open to the public and the programs can be located on the Facebook Event page. Call (515) 576-7128 or email them directly on their website for additional information. Hack Manila 2018 Hack Manila is an organization that was created to promote best practices within the local web development community through engaging events and partnerships. After almost two decades of building websites for local and international companies, August 99 is hosting Hack Manila 2018, its first-ever large-scale hackathon. Solo, duo, and team contenders have the chance to win prizes and gifts of up to 500,000 for the most innovative and best performing participants. It will be held on Saturday, November 17 to Sunday, November 18, at Lofts coworking and events space at One Corporate Center in Ortigas. Over the weekend, for 48 hours (from registration to closing ceremony), a group of dynamic hackers ranging from students to professionals from all across Metro Manila will engage in collaborative programming to produce a web, mobile, or hardware project from scratch. Enlisted as mentors and judges for the event are leaders, founders, and avid tech nerds that have the same goals in mind: to challenge emerging talents, to empower them to innovate and develop ground-breaking ideas, and to change the way we do tech. Among them are Tiger Bitanga, Bernd Rennebeck, Ken Reddy, Lynne Cawley, Chris Mitchell, Itamar Gero, Ruben Canlas Jr., Brian Tan Seng, Devlin Duldulao, Jason Acidre, and Rommel Peralta, to name a few. We want to raise the bar for our app developer community and theres no better way to do that than to host a public event at our own coworking space. With hackathon mentors from different industries on over 3 different continents, plus over a dozen major sponsors, were excited to see what contestants can come up with in the span of 48 hours, shares August 99 CEO Tiger Bitanga. As the initiator of the hackathon, CTO Bernd Rennebeck adds that Hack Manila is an organization that I created to promote best practices within the local web development community through engaging events and partnerships. Our inaugural event is a hackathon focusing on building real and relevant products within a short timeframe. Ive personally gained so much from working with people in software engineering and web development and now I feel that I am in a position to give back to the community. Hack Manila has partnered with several brands to support the two-day hackathon that will accommodate over 150 participants, allowing the contenders to focus on producing their best work. Hack Manila 2018 is sponsored by August 99, Canstar, Real.ph, and Loft Spaces; presented by Digital Ocean, True Logic, GDG Cloud Manila, Nescafe, GCash, and San Miguel Beer; and in partnership with Eastern Communications, Red Bull, Dunkin Donuts, Power Mac Center, Sosro PH, The Smokeyard, Cuisine by Chef and Brewer, Oishi, Bounty Agro Ventures, and Kalibrr. [Insert media partners here] Qualified participants are invited to attend the Pre-Hackathon Orientation, where they can meet the mentors and learn more about the challenges set for the hackathon proper, on November 10th (Saturday) at the same Loft venue. For more information, check out hackmanila.com; and follow Hack Manila on facebook.com/hackmanila and twitter.com/hackmanila to stay updated on the latest details. Information will also be posted on the Facebook Event Page, Hack Manila 2018. About Loft Spaces Loft Spaces is a 24/7 venue for coworking and corporate events. Loft also offers meeting rooms, plug & play serviced offices and business services for startups and companies looking to establish operations in the Philippines. Loft is located at Penthouse 1, One Corporate Center, Dona Julia Vargas Ave. corner Meralco Ave., Ortigas Center, Pasig City. About August 99 August 99 is a technology company housing several brands including Agent Image, Oqulo, Dojo and Clickality within the web design, development, Internet marketing and PropTech verticals. The award-winning Hartman Auction Group is the recipient of two new advertising honors at the Florida Auctioneers Association's 52nd annual conference contest at the Hilton Orlando/Altamonte Springs on October 15th, 2018. The prominent Martin County auction company won in two categories for the state-wide advertising competition including 2018 Best Color Brochure and 2018 Best Color Newspaper Ad. The award-winning artwork was advertising a multi-million dollar waterfront home that was sold in Stuart, Florida in February. Owner Reed Hartman said of the companys recent success at the advertising awards, Its an honor and a pleasure to be acknowledged by your peers in the Florida Auctioneers Association. It is an incredible group of like-minded professionals, and I consider each one of them a part of my family. The advertising award winners were announced at the annual luncheon, to an attendance of industry professionals such as National Auctioneers Association President, Tim Mast. The advertising awards promote merit in the previous years marketing efforts for sales that took place in the state. Award recipients are recognized for their excellence in advertising and serve as an inspiration to other regional auction professionals. About Hartman Auction Group Hartman Auction Group is a full-service auction company with deep roots in the real estate industry. Our clients and colleagues can attest to the benefit of our industry expertise and knowledge of the market in generating fair market value for your property. We have developed a strong relationship with local real estate professionals and offer compensation packages for those who register their clients at our real estate auctions. With our reputation for honesty and exceptional service, Hartman Auction Group can help you generate the greatest value for your assets. If you would like more information about Hartman Auction Group, please contact Reed Hartman at (772) 872-6045 or email reed@hartmanauction.com. The Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area (HCWHA), a certified heritage area encompassing parts of Carroll, Frederick and Washington counties, will be hosting a Year-in-Review celebration at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts on Monday, November 12, from 7 pm to 9 pm. This is an opportunity to hear about the work done in the Heritage Area, including grant awards, over the past year as well as plans for the coming year in the region. The program will feature Christopher Shank, Chief Legislative Officer to Governor Larry Hogan, who will speak on growing up surrounded by history in Washington County. Additionally, special recognition will be given to Special Secretary of Smart Growth, Wendi Peters, for her role, as the former Secretary of Planning and Chair of the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority, in supporting legislation that paved the way for increased heritage areas funding. As a result, $463,887 in heritage area grants was awarded to nonprofits and government entities in Carroll, Frederick and Washington Counties for fiscal year 2019. Guests are invited to enjoy refreshments following the program. The program is free and open to the public, though RSVPs are appreciated. Please contact Assistant Director Emily Huebner at emily@heartofthecivilwar.org or 301-600-4031 to RSVP. For more information, contact Executive Director Elizabeth Scott Shatto at liz@heartofthecivilwar.org or Assistant Director Emily Huebner. HIPAA Privacy and Security Summit November 8, 2018 Its great to have this type of educational content available to the legal and healthcare communities, states Diane Ferry, the CEO, owner, and founder of the Delaware business Star-Med. The HIPAA Privacy and Security Summit is a joint effort of Delaware Law School and First Healthcare Compliance to provide resources for professionals facing the challenges of implementing HIPAA compliant practices. Attendees are eligible to receive CLE and CEUs while networking with industry peers. The full-day event will be held on November 8, 2018, in Ruby R. Vale Moot Courtroom at the Delaware Law School and will include continental breakfast and a boxed lunch. Registration is open to the public until November 6, 2018. Thought leaders will provide meaningful insight and engage in discussion on time-sensitive topics related to HIPAA Privacy and Security including Notice of Privacy Practices, Uses and Disclosures, Business Associate Agreements, compliance plan, employee training, patient rights, recent enforcement actions and prior HIPAA audit requirements, breaches and cybersecurity issues. Attorneys will provide instruction and lead discussions among panelists and attendees to cover practical scenarios. Local professionals, as well as others traveling from Los Angeles, Houston and Washington, D.C., will participate in the panel sessions at the Summit. The list of panelists includes: George Bodenger, Owner, Law Offices of George W. Bodenger, LLC Diane Ferry, President and CEO Star-Med, Owner Star-Med William McBorrough, Chief Security Advisor, McGlobal Tech Ray Ribble, Founder and President, Spher, Inc Sheba Vine, Vice President, and General Counsel, First Healthcare Compliance Ann Waldo, Waldo Law Offices, PLLC Its great to have this type of educational content available to the legal and healthcare communities, states Diane Ferry, the CEO, owner, and founder of the Delaware business Star-Med. During the past seventeen years, Ferry has grown the Health Information Management company and has direct insight and understanding about the need for greater HIPAA training. The day of networking for legal and healthcare professionals will include multiple opportunities for learning credits. Attendees are eligible to receive 7.5 CLE credits (6.5 substantive, 1 ethics) in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. This program has been approved for 7.5 continuing education unit(s) by Practice Management Institute and PAHCOM. The Compliance Certification Board (CCB) has approved this event for up to 9.0 CCB CEUs. Continuing Education Units are awarded based on individual attendance record. Granting of prior approval in no way constitutes endorsement by CCB of this event content or of the event sponsor. About Delaware Law School: Widener University is a metropolitan university that connects curricula to social issues through civic engagement. Dynamic teaching, active scholarship, personal attention, applied leadership, and experiential learning are key components of the Widener experience. Delaware Law School is the First States only law school, providing a Juris doctor, legal graduate and paralegal degree programs with an emphasis on developing legal professionals who reflect the Delaware Way and its traditions of civility, integrity and mutual respect. The school offers signature programs in corporate and business law, environmental law, family health law and policy, trial advocacy, and dignity rights. About First Healthcare Compliance: Founded in 2012 by a nurse attorney, the First Healthcare Compliance software solution creates confidence among compliance professionals through education, resources, and support in the areas of HIPAA, OSHA, human resources compliance, and fraud waste and abuse laws. Serving clients across the United States, the companys evolving platform provides real-time insight for board reporting and across multiple locations. For more information please visit https://1sthcc.com/ Safety is paramount to companies and their employees, and especially as a manufacturer, you have to show a commitment to preventing injuries and illnesses caused by unsafe acts and unsafe conditions, Lauri Moon, Manager, Training, and Outreach at IMC The Innovative Manufacturers Center (IMC) announced today they will be presenting a two-day OSHA Outreach Training for General Industry program, in conjunction with MANTEC, to benefit companies across Central Pennsylvania. The event, featuring EMS Consulting and Mr. Dennis Buck, CHCM, CSM, CHST, OSHA Consultation Program Consultant (Retired), Principal, Buck & Associates, will be held November 15th and 16th in Alexandria, Pa. For more information and to register for the event, visit http://imcpa.com/event/osha-10-hour-training/. Safety is paramount to companies and their employees, and especially as a manufacturer, you have to show a commitment to preventing injuries and illnesses caused by unsafe acts and unsafe conditions, said Lauri Moon, Manager, Training, and Outreach at IMC. OSHA compliance shows a companys commitment to its employees and simultaneously helps them reduce costs. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) mandated training satisfies compliance requirements and helps companies provide a safe working environment. This two-day class teaches the fundamentals of the OSH Act, PPE, Electrical Safety, Machine Guarding and the new Hazard Communication Rule (GHS), and many other topics. About IMC IMC, located in Central PA, uses the most effective resources to help manufacturing companies be more innovative, productive and profitable. IMC has been providing quality services for an affordable cost for almost 30 years in 12 counties in Central PA. IMC is supported as an affiliate of the U.S. Department of Commerce Manufacturing Extension Partnership program and the PA Department of Community and Economic Development Manufacturing PA initiative. Insider Louisville, the citys independent nonprofit online news organization, is participating in the largest-ever national grassroots fundraising campaign for nonprofit news outlets. Insider Louisville is one of 150 nonprofit newsrooms across the country taking part in this years NewsMatch, which matches every dollar that newsrooms raise from individual donors contributing $1,000 or less throughout November and December, up to $25,000 total. Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, 2018, new sustaining membership contributions will be matched at a full-year value. For example, a membership at $10 per month is eligible for a $120 match. Readers can contribute and become members online at Insider Louisville (https://insiderlouisville.com). Bonuses may be available to Insider Louisville if it achieves the highest number of new members or the total number of members. This is great national exposure for Insider Louisville and were excited about participating, said Mickey Meece, managing editor. For nonprofit newsrooms to survive, Meece added, they need sustaining members plain and simple. Its the local, grassroots support of our 550 plus sustainers that has helped Insider Louisville flourish in our first year as nonprofit. We hope to double that number to achieve a strong showing through NewsMatch and continue serving as a vital local news source for Louisville. Tom Cottingham, CEO of Insider Louisville, noted that When Insider Louisville transitioned to a nonprofit at the end of last year, many of our longtime readers became members on Day 1. Their renewal rolls around during the NewsMatch campaign, which makes it the perfect time to renew and reach out friends and colleagues and ask them to do the same. He added, NewsMatch doubles their impact and empowers our reporters to tell stories that spark change and highlight inspiring stories from the community. A prestigious group of national supporters is funding NewsMatch, including the Democracy Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation and the Facebook Journalism Project. NewsMatch pools gifts from local and national funders to match small-dollar donations to nonprofit newsrooms across the country. Local and national foundations provide gifts to the INNovation Fund at of the Institute for Nonprofit News, hosted at The Miami Foundation. In 2017, NewsMatch became the largest-ever grassroots fundraising campaign for nonprofit news, raising more than $4.8 million during a record-breaking year overall for charitable giving to journalism. This year the number of nonprofit news organizations participating has jumped by more than 40 percent. "Insider Louisville was chosen to participate in NewsMatch based on the quality and public service of the news reporting they provide for their community," said Sue Cross, executive director and CEO of the Institute for Nonprofit News. "Local news organizations depend on readers and other individuals to support reporting as a public benefit, and we're so excited to see Insider Louisville join this national movement supporting community-based news." In December 2017, Insider Louisville transitioned to a nonprofit model to expand its mission of delivering powerful journalism on cornerstone topics such as the local economy, education, health, government and culture. Today, Insider Louisville is a certified 501(c)3 nonprofit and has more than 200,000 monthly readers from its daily newsletters, social media followers, website visitors and those who search for local news. It employs seven dedicated reporters and editors plus a robust group of quality contributors. Media contact: Jenny Recktenwald Strategic Communications Consultant 502.994.9167 jrecktenwald@outlook.com Intrinsic ID CEO Pim Tuyls will deliver an address entitled Scalable Security for the Internet of Things". Intrinsic ID, the worlds leading provider of digital authentication technology for Internet of Things security, today announced Chief Executive Officer Pim Tuyls will deliver an address entitled Scalable Security for the Internet of Things during the Symposium for Securing the Internet of Things, today in Boston. WHAT: Internet of Things growth continues to accelerate and create opportunity. However, ensuring IoT security has not kept pace with the rapidly evolving threat model. Securing endpoints in a reliable and robust method to achieve trust in the IoT can come at a significant cost. Strong device authentication is pivotal to confidently scale in a profitable manner. Tuyls will describe how strong security can be established in an industrial setting and an economically viable manner. For more information on the event please visit the Symposium for Securing the IoT website. WHEN: Oct. 31, 2018 3:30 p.m. EDT WHERE: Crowne Plaza Boston-Natick 1360 Worcester St. Natick, Mass. 01760 WHO: Pim Tuyls is CEO of Intrinsic ID, a company specializing in IoT security technology. Before founding Intrinsic ID in 2008 he was at Philips Research, where he was Principal Scientist and managed the cryptography cluster. While there he initiated the work on Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs), which forms the basis of Intrinsic IDs silicon fingerprinting technology. Tuyls has a Ph.D. in mathematical physics from Leuven University, holds more than 50 patents and is widely acknowledged for his work in the field of security for embedded applications. About Intrinsic ID Intrinsic ID is the worlds leading digital authentication company, providing the Internet of Things with hardware-based root-of-trust security via unclonable identities for any IoT-connected device. Based on Intrinsic IDs patented SRAM PUF technology, the companys security solutions can be implemented in hardware or software. Intrinsic ID security, which can be deployed at any stage of a products lifecycle, is used to validate payment systems, secure connectivity, authenticate sensors, and protect sensitive government and military systems. Intrinsic ID technology has been deployed in more than 100 million devices. Award recognition includes the Frost & Sullivan Technology Leadership Award and the EU Innovation Radar Prize. Intrinsic ID security has been proven in millions of devices certified by Common Criteria, EMVCo, Visa and multiple governments. Intrinsic IDs mission: Authenticate EverythingTM. Visit Intrinsic ID online at http://www.Intrinsic-ID.com. LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/intrinsic-id Twitter: https://twitter.com/intrinsicid Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Intrinsic-ID-367721959973148/ YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/IntrinsicID Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/intrinsic_id/ Intrinsic ID, the Intrinsic ID logo and Authenticate Everything are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intrinsic ID, Inc., and are protected by trademark laws of the United States and other jurisdictions. All other product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. I chose Elphia Beauty as my skin care line because with all of the make-up that I use I needed a product that is not harsh on my skin. Elphia Beauty is delighted to announce the campaign launch of its Beauty Brand Ambassador, Joanna Krupa, the world renowned tv personality and beauty icon. Joannas new integrated campaign Layers for Elphia Beauty will start airing on national and local cable and tv networks starting in November 2018. I chose Elphia Beauty as my skin care line because with all of the make-up that I use I needed a product that is not harsh on my skin. says Joanna I do have very sensitive skin so I wanted a product that is gentle but it also needs to work. Elphia Beauty leaves my skin feeling silky soft and smooth! Elphia Beauty understands the active, strong and independent role women have in todays society. Joanna embodies the beauty, courage and principles that Elphia Beauty represents. says Ellen Peia, CEO of Elphia Beauty. Joanna perfectly symbolizes the layers of every womans life and how to succeed in those layers. Elphia Beauty is launching with two signature products, the Luxe Exfoliating Gel and the Luxe Rejuvenation Serum. The Luxe Exfoliating Gel is a vegan friendly face and decolletage refining gel. Think of it as an easy-to-use at-home spa treatment, targeting your dead skin cells.It instantly exfoliates and brightens for enhanced skin renewal, comparable to a professional salon peel. Suitable for all skin types. Elphia features a dynamic blend of restorative ingredients that are expertly blended with the highest quality botanical extracts. Elphia harnesses the exfoliating power of unique AHA's that radically renew the appearance of your complexion. The Luxe Rejuvenation Serum is a pure, naturally derived formula that works to provide hydration through the layers of your skin, functioning to renew your skin's texture and provide a spa like radiance. Elphia Beauty developed this innovative blend of nutrient rich ingredients to not only protect your precious skin from environmental elements but also to help diminish the appearance of age spots and blemishes. About Joanna Krupa Celebrity personality, model, tv host, and animal rights activist will be launching our Elphia Beauty Layers Campaign in November 2018. Follow @joannakrupa on Facebook, Instagram For additional information about Elphia Beauty and our new Layers Campaign, visit: http://www.elphiabeauty.com. Follow @ElphiaBeauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and #layersoflife. About Elphia Beauty Elphia Beauty is a vegan-friendly and cruelty-free skin care company with a strong dedication to the science behind how skin care product ingredients work both independently and once combined. With a deep knowledge of those ingredient interactions, Elphia Beauty has developed a truly unique experience for the care of your skin. Elphia Beauty products are sold online and distributed throughout the United States and internationally. Visit the Elphia Beauty website at http://www.elphiabeauty.com for more information. Follow @ElphiaBeauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and #layersoflife. Instead of searching out new homes, residents are opting to renovate and expand their existing houses. Rafter 4K Contracting Ltd. is seeing an increase in home renovations, building of legal suites, and house additions since the provincial government proposed changes to the BC Speculation Tax earlier this year. A Kelowna renovation contractor says he is seeing an increase in home renovations as well as the building of legal suites and house additions since the provincial government proposed changes to the BC Speculation Tax earlier this year. The revised tax affects those who own secondary properties in certain BC municipalities, including those in Kelowna and West Kelowna, where the government reports that vacancy rates are low. According to Norm Kneller, Co-owner and operator of Rafter 4K Contracting Ltd., a number of his clients are choosing to renovate their homes instead of selling due to the proposed speculation tax and its effect on the real estate market. In an article in the Vancouver Sun, all properties that are affected by the Speculation Tax will pay a rate of 0.5 percent in 2018, while in 2019, B.C. residents who are subject to the tax will pay a rate of 0.5 percent, while Canadians from outside B.C. who have properties in the province that are subject to the tax will pay a 1 percent tax rate, and non-Canadians will continue to be hit with the previously-announced 2 percent rate. Previously the market was very active because of many home purchases by out-of-province buyers. Since then, the governments proposed Speculation Tax has thrown a wrench in the works, says Kneller. The market for prime lifestyle properties and secondary residences has dropped because paying up to 2 percent on a $3 million plus property is outrageous. While the Speculation Tax is having an effect on new housing developments, such as the Goats Peak development in West Kelowna, Kneller says one of his clients who lives on the west side of Okanagan Lake, an area popular for vacation homes that is being affected by the tax, has opted to extensively renovate their house instead of selling it. They now have a five-to-10-year plan to stay in their home until the market hopefully comes back, says Kneller, adding another one of his clients is looking at moving out of Kelowna. They are looking at selling their secondary home in Kelowna and buying in Lake Country, where the Speculation Tax is not in effect. Another trend that Kneller has noticed is the increased demand in home additions and legal suites. Instead of secondary properties, some clients are looking to add a legal suite or addition to their home so that they can sell a portion of their property to a family member, says Kneller. This is an interesting twist from someone who adds a legal suite for the extra income, as the property stays within the family. Some clients have decided not to sell their home in order to recoup their retirement investment, but instead, are selling a portion of their property to their immediate family. It is a way for parents to help their grown children get into the housing market. They are essentially getting two homes in one, as the house addition cost is less expensive than purchasing a starter home in Kelowna, says Kneller. While the housing market in Kelowna remains in flux, Kneller says business is still strong with homeowners looking for Kelowna construction companies such as his to conduct general renovations, updates, as well as kitchen and bathroom remodelling. They are looking to increase the value and stay in their home, as renovating is generally much more affordable than purchasing a new home, he says. About Rafter 4 K Contracting: With more than 25 years of general contracting experience, Rafter 4K Contracting is the Kelowna construction company of choice for residential and commercial projects. From home renovations to installing pools in Kelowna to project management, we ensure client satisfaction by delivering projects on time and on budget, while remaining focused on quality craftsmanship. Rafter 4K is highly experienced with bathroom renovations, kitchen renovations, home remodelling and house additions. For more information, please contact: Norm Kneller, Co-Owner Rafter 4K Contracting Ltd. Kelowna, BC 250-765-0856 info[at]rafter4k[dot]com http://www.rafter4k.com National Foundation for Credit Counseling Each award recipient has advanced financial education and consumer financial health. Communities and Americans throughout the country benefit from their passion and dedication to improving lives through financial counseling and education. The National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC) proudly honored six individuals with the NFCCs Making the Difference Award during their recent NFCC Connect Conference in Dallas, TX. For the past 13 years, our Making the Difference Awards have recognized the unwavering contributions and support that individuals and organizations have made to the NFCC, its mission, its member agencies, and most importantly, consumers who benefit from our services, said Bruce McClary, NFCC Vice President of Communications. The following distinguished and deserving leaders were honored for their significant contributions toward advancing financial education and consumer financial health: Eugenio Alonzo, President and CEO of Consumer, an NFCC Member agency based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Eugenio was recognized with the 2018 Making the Difference Member Award for his determination and unceasing efforts to keep his organization open in the aftermath of hurricane Maria. Eugenios perseverance and leadership helped the agency maintain financial counseling and education services for the people of Puerto Rico while continuing an expansion in Florida. His work serves as an example and inspiration for all NFCC Members. Jo Ann Barefoot, CEO of Jo Ann Barefoot Group, LLC and Co-founder of Hummingbird Regtech, has over thirty-six years of experience focused on consumer financial protection. JoAnn has been a member of the NFCC Board of Trustees since 2015. For her leadership and perspective on the use of technology and innovation to support the work of the NFCC, Jo Ann Barefoot is recognized with the Making the Difference Advocate Award. Stan Little, President, SunTrust Foundation, was recognized with the 2018 Making the Difference Partner Award. Stan is president of the SunTrust Foundation and leads the companys philanthropic work to advance financial well-being in the community. NFCC has recently received a grant from SunTrust to pilot a program providing financial counseling and education for the Latino market. Since becoming president of the SunTrust Foundation, Little has embraced the vision for supporting this important and growing consumer segment and their desire to attain the American Dream. Kurt Grossheim, winner of the 2018 Making the Difference Partner Award, serves as Chief Operating Officer for Synchrony Financial. Kurt has served on the NFCC Board of Trustees since 2016 and has been a vocal advocate for the Sharpen Your Financial Focus (Sharpen) program. In the third year of the Sharpen program, Synchrony announced a $4 million financial commitment to support development of a second phase. Ken Wojcik, Senior Vice President, Synchrony Financial, is a champion for the NFCC and its members. Immediately understanding its value to consumers, Ken has been a member of the NFCC Advisory Committee since 2009 and has played a critical role in ensuring the NFCCs Sharpen program became a reality. Since then, he has demonstrated unwavering support of financial counseling and the work of NFCC members. For his role in helping the NFCC sustain and grow the Sharpen program, Ken Wojcik was recognized with the 2018 Making the Difference Partner Award. It is an honor to recognize and applaud the noteworthy contributions of these outstanding individuals, said Rebecca Steele, President and CEO of the NFCC. They have each advanced financial education and consumer financial health. Communities and Americans throughout the country benefit from their passion and dedication to improving lives through financial counseling and education. About the NFCC Founded in 1951, the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC) is the nations first and largest nonprofit dedicated to improving peoples financial well-being. With a national network of member offices serving 50 states and Puerto Rico, our NFCC Certified Credit Counselors are financial advocates, empowering millions of consumers to take charge of their finances through one-on-one financial reviews that address credit card debt, student loans, housing decisions and overall money management. Make one of the best financial decisions of your life. For expert guidance and advice, call (800) 388-2227 or visit http://www.nfcc.org today. Our mobile strategy has brought our institution together and created a hub of need-to-have information that allows our students to be more successful throughout their college journey. The power of mobile to transform the student experience and drive positive student behaviors is on display at the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, October 30-November 2. The conference brings together over 4,000 higher education IT professionals and technology providers to share solutions to challenges in the industry. This year, multiple leading institutions will share how their partnership with Modo Labs, the leading mobile experience platform for higher ed, has enabled them to meet institutional goals across student enrollment, retention, and success. With the average person spending about 5 hours a day on mobile, companies with the best customer service are prioritizing mobile engagement. The leading institutions in higher ed are no different, concentrating their efforts on reaching students, their primary customer, where they spend most of their time, on their phones and other devices. From streamlining financial aid processes, to offering virtual queuing, to communicating need-to-know information in real-time, these institutions are equipping their increasingly diverse student bodies with the tools they need to navigate their daily lives through a unified campus app. In three breakout sessions at EDUCAUSE, representatives from Portland State University, the University of Notre Dame, and California State University, Northridge will demonstrate how they have deployed Modo Campus at their institutions. Through our partnership with Modo, we have delivered a unified mobile experience that helps students navigate enrollment and the business of being a student, while decreasing barriers to success. As the only urban public institution in Oregon, with an incredible diversity of students, including student needs to access services and resources outside of regular business hours, its crucial we're able to create experiences that are personalized to their specific goals, said Hans VanDerSchaaf, Project Director in the Office of Student Success at Portland State University. Our mobile strategy has brought our institution together and created a hub of need-to-have information that allows our students to be more successful throughout their college journey. VanDerSchaaf will present Portland States mobile strategy in the session Are You Constantly Connected? Disruptions that Bring Your Campus Together at EDUCAUSE. Martin Klubeck, Product Manager at the University of Notre Dame, said: Im excited to present Notre Dames mobile solution at EDUCAUSE this year. Our mobile campus app has enabled us to reach all members of the Notre Dame family; from undergraduate students, to faculty, staff, graduate students, alumni, and all of our guests. We have spread ownership of the technology across our campus, involving everyone. Our mobile strategy has played an active role in enabling student success. Klubeck will present alongside Modo Labs CEO Stewart Elliot. Elliot said: Hundreds of institutions are leveraging Modo Campus to help students navigate campus life. Our no-code platform enables you to create value across the entire student journey, all while decreasing campus resources spent delivering mobile technology. Institutions are able to accelerate innovation, deliver personalized experiences, and connect their existing technology systems into one thriving hub. California State University, Northridge, one of the many institutions in the California State system using the Modo platform, will continue the conversation in a session titled Student-Driven Teams, Hackathons, and How to Drive Engagement with Gen Z. Involving students throughout the process of developing a mobile strategy is crucial to delivering an app students find useful. Kyle Shaver, IT Interim Assistant Director, Web & Emerging Technology, will speak about how CSUN has leveraged student involvement with student-driven app development. The presenters demonstrate the breadth of universities, from large R1 institutions to community colleges, deploying mobile to address the growing need to deliver tools that help students navigate the higher ed system. In addition, joining Modo Labs in their booth are the University of Central Florida and Old Dominion University with lighting sessions on topics such as promoting special events, personalizing communications, increasing enrollment and retention, and driving ROI. Meet Modo Labs at Booth 1321 in the Exhibit Hall or attend one of three breakout sessions held Wednesday, October 31 and Thursday, November 1. Visit our website for more information on the session schedule. About Modo Labs Trusted by hundreds of universities and companies around the world, Modo Labs offers an enterprise-scale mobile engagement and communication platform that allows customers to quickly and easily create campus or workplace apps that engage students, staff, visitors, and prospects. By using Modo, our customers quickly unlock innovation and digitally transform their organizations by harnessing the domain skills of any person in their organization, regardless of technical skill set. NAPCO, Ltd. (North American Polymer Company), a national home refinishing and refinishing training company, has been named as one of Chicagos Best and Brightest Companies to Work For by the National Association for Business Resources (NABR). This marks the second consecutive year NAPCO has been recognized for this award. Each year hundreds of companies around the Chicagoland area compete to be named One of Chicagos Best and Brightest Companies to Work For. Only those companies that uphold exceptional human resources practices and tremendous dedication to employee enrichment are honored as award recipients. We are extremely proud to be recognized again as one of Chicagos best and brightest companies in the small business category, said Steve Coven, Owner and Creative Director at NAPCO. At NAPCO, cultivating an enriching, innovative, and positive work environment for our employees has been at the heart of what we do for over thirty years. Our business has always focused on helping people succeed and this begins with our employees. Chicagos Best and Brightest award encourages and supports past progress as well as future growth. Throughout the nomination and selection process, each company is evaluated by an independent firm on important measures revolving around continuous dedication to employee satisfaction. These assessment reports serve as critical guides that help benchmark where a company currently stands and areas where improvements can be made. All winning companies were invited to a luncheon and awards ceremony at the Drury Lane Conference Center in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois on July 27, 2018. Four NAPCO team members attended to accept the award. ------------- About Best and Brightest Companies to Work For The Best and Brightest Companies to Work For is a program that provides the business community with the opportunity to gain recognition, showcase their best practices and demonstrate why they are an ideal place for employees to work. This national program celebrates those companies that are making better business, creating richer lives and building a stronger community. ------------- About NAPCO Since 1979, NAPCO, Ltd. (North American Polymer Company) has provided products, supplies, and training to professional bathroom and kitchen refinishers. NAPCO is headquartered just outside of Chicago, in Skokie, IL and services all 50 states and 5 foreign countries. If you are interested in refinishing your tub, tile, or counter top instead of replacing, call 1-800-888-1081 or visit https://www.napcoltd.com today. Despite mental health being something that more and more people are talking about - far too many people are still suffering. People are simply not receiving the treatment they need to live healthy and productive lives - and too many dont see a way out. For the fifth year in a row, Mental Health America (MHA) released its annual State of Mental Health Report, which ranks all 50 states and the District of Columbia based on several mental health and access measures. This year, Minnesota came out on top overall with Nevada coming in 51st. The report also dives into addressing trauma in youth, and its long-term impact on performance and behavior in school. In developing the report, MHA looked at 15 different measures to determine the rankings. MHA hopes to provide a snapshot of mental health status among youth and adults for policy and program planning, analysis, and evaluation; to track changes in prevalence of mental health issues and access to mental health care; to understand how changes in national data reflect the impact of legislation and policies; and to increase the dialogues and improve outcomes for individuals and families with mental health needs. While much of the state of our mental health care continues to be broken, there are glimmers of hope. Since the release of its first report, MHA is seeing small yet encouraging decreases in the number of American adults who have mental health concerns (from 18.19% to 18.07%) and substance use problems (from 8.76% to 7.93%). Yet overall, the picture is still quite bleak. Sadly, our report shows that there have been alarming increases in adult suicidal thoughts and major depression in youth, said Paul Gionfriddo, president and CEO, Mental Health America. Despite mental health being something that more and more people are talking about - far too many people are still suffering. People are simply not receiving the treatment they need to live healthy and productive lives - and too many dont see a way out. The estimated number of adults with serious suicidal thoughts is over 9.8 million an increase of 200,000 people since last year. Over 2 million young people cope with severe major depression. And that is just the population that has been diagnosed. On average, it takes 10 years between the onset of symptoms and when individuals receive treatment. Over 24 million individuals experiencing a mental health illness are going untreated. MHAs report also shines the spotlight on childhood trauma and its impact long-term, and releases data that shows how much trauma can impact youth in school. Trauma-impacted youth are more likely to be absent from school, find themselves removed from classrooms, or struggle with academics. As part of MHAs Online Screening Program, in 2015 MHA offered an anonymous youth screen, the Pediatric Symptoms Checklist (PSC). Since the PSC has been offered, 116,683 youth have been screened and 569 self-selected to identify themselves as trauma survivors. Of those who self-described: 67% of screeners stated they often have trouble concentrating in school. 73% reported the often felt sad or unhappy, with 64% reporting they often felt hopeless. 58% stated they had experienced trouble with their teachers, and the same percentage reported they had engaged in fights with other children. 66% reported they often felt irritable or angry. Of those who identified as trauma survivors, 94% also scored positive for PTSD; 68% screened positive for Severe Depression; 96% screened at-risk for psychosis, and 63% screened positive for Bipolar. 43% of youth who identified as trauma survivors were not receiving mental health treatment or support, with 40% stating they had never received any mental health treatment or support. MHA strongly supports integrating mental health services into the education system. Mental health interventions have show to shorten episodes of mental health conditions and prevent the development of more severe conditions, and schools can play a critical part by implementing trauma-informed programs that have been shown to help students who have been impacted by trauma. Our children are crying out for help, concluded Gionfriddo. We must continue to improve access to care and treatments, and we need to put a premium on early identification and early intervention for everyone with mental health concerns. We must address these mental health concerns before crisis and tragedy strikesbefore Stage 4. *** Mental Health America (MHA) founded in 1909 is the nation's leading community-based nonprofit dedicated to addressing the needs of those living with mental illness and to promoting the overall mental health of all Americans. Our work is driven by our commitment to promote mental health as a critical part of overall wellness, including prevention services for all, early identification and intervention for those at risk, integrated care, services, and supports for those who need it, with recovery as the goal. Safranin-O and hematoxylin stain A study released today in STEM CELLS moves scientists a step closer to finding how to help the body regenerate joint cartilage ravaged by disease. Their work reveals a new method to quickly and efficiently produce virtually unlimited numbers of chondrocytes, the cells that form cartilage, from human skin cells converted to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). For the 54 million Americans suffering from arthritis the nations Number One disability this could be great news. While a May 2018 report by Modern Healthcare says that currently over 1 million joint replacement surgeries occur every year in the United States alone and that number is expected to exceed 4 million by 2030 many medical researchers believe that the future of arthritis therapeutics lies in the application of stem cells to grow new joint cartilage (a process called chondrogenesis). Human iPSCs (hiPSCs) are a promising cell source for cartilage regenerative therapies and in vitro disease-modeling systems due to their pluripotency and unlimited proliferation capacity. Furthermore, iPSCs provide a means of developing patient-specific or genetically engineered cartilage to screen for osteoarthritis drugs. Thats why finding methods to rapidly and efficiently differentiate hiPSCs into chondrocytes in a reproducible and robust manner is critical, said Farshid Guilak, Ph.D., from Washington Universitys Center of Regenerative Medicine and Shriners Hospitals for Children (St. Louis, Mo.). He is a co-senior author of the study in STEM CELLS along with Charles A. Gersbach, Ph.D., from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University (Durham, N.C). Scientists from Cytex Therapeutics (Durham, N.C.) and Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.) also participated. Chondrocytes are the cells that produce and maintain the cartilage lining the surfaces of diarthrodial joints the free-moving types of joints you find, for example, in the hip and knee. However, Dr. Guilak explained, a disease like arthritis can destroy the cartilage in the joint and escalate inflammation. Ultimately, these changes lead to pain and loss of function that currently necessitates total joint replacement with an artificial prosthesis. In their study, the Guilak-Gersbach team demonstrated the development and application of a step-wise differentiation protocol validated in three unique and well-characterized hiPSC lines. They examined gene expression profiles and cartilaginous matrix production during the course of differentiation. To further purify committed chondroprogenitors, they used CRISPR-Cas9 genome engineering technology to knock-in a GFP reporter at the collagen type II alpha 1 chain (COL2A1) locus to test the hypothesis that purifying the chondroprogenitors could enhance articular cartilage-like matrix production. Most differentiation protocols to date have been based on trial-and-error delivery of growth factors without immediate consideration of the signaling pathways that direct and inhibit each stage of differentiation. Accordingly, chondrogenic differentiation is often dependent on the specific cell lines used, and broad application of iPSC chondrogenesis protocols has not been independently demonstrated with multiple cell lines and in multiple laboratories. Recently, critical insights from developmental biology have elucidated the sequence of signaling pathways needed for PSC lineage specification to a number of cell fates. By reproducing these reported signaling pathways in vitro, in combination with existing chondrogenic differentiation approaches, we sought to establish a rapid and highly reproducible protocol for hiPSC chondrogenesis that is broadly applicable across various hiPSC lines, said Chia-Lung Wu, Ph.D., the co-first author of the study. Since hiPSC differentiation processes are inherently unpredictable and can often produce heterogeneous cell populations over the course of differentiation, an important goal of differentiation protocols is to minimize variability in hiPSC differentiation potential, which may arise from characteristics of the donor and/or reprogramming method. Therefore, we hypothesized that purifying the committed chondroprogenitors would improve hiPSC chondrogenesis. The method obtained the desired results. The purified chondroprogenitors demonstrated an improved chondrogenic capacity compared to unselected populations, Dr. Shaunak Adkar, Ph.D., co-first author of the study reported. The development of processes for rapid and repeatable induction of iPSCs into joint cell tissue will hopefully enable the identification of novel therapies for joint diseases such as osteoarthritis. Jan Nolta, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief of STEM CELLS, said, The elegant techniques used by the the Guilak-Gersbach team generated improved numbers of pure chondroprogenitors, a step that was crucially needed to propel the promising field of stem cell- mediated cartilage repair forward. This work was supported in part by the Arthritis Foundation, the Nancy Taylor Foundation for Chronic Diseases, and the National Institutes of Health. ### The full article, Step-Wise Chondrogenesis of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells and Purification Via a Reporter Allele Generated by CRISPR-Cas9 Genome Editing can be accessed at https://stemcellsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/stem.2931. About the Journal: STEM CELLS, a peer reviewed journal published monthly, provides a forum for prompt publication of original investigative papers and concise reviews. The journal covers all aspects of stem cells: embryonic stem cells/induced pluripotent stem cells; tissue-specific stem cells; cancer stem cells; the stem cell niche; stem cell epigenetics, genomics and proteomics; and translational and clinical research. STEM CELLS is co-published by AlphaMed Press and Wiley. About AlphaMed Press: Established in 1983, AlphaMed Press with offices in Durham, NC, San Francisco, CA, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, publishes three internationally renowned peer-reviewed journals with globally recognized editorial boards dedicated to advancing knowledge and education in their focused disciplines. STEM CELLS (http://www.StemCells.com) is the world's first journal devoted to this fast paced field of research. THE ONCOLOGIST (http://www.TheOncologist.com) is devoted to community and hospital-based oncologists and physicians entrusted with cancer patient care. STEM CELLS TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE (http://www.StemCellsTM.com) is dedicated to significantly advancing the clinical utilization of stem cell molecular and cellular biology. By bridging stem cell research and clinical trials, SCTM will help move applications of these critical investigations closer to accepted best practices. About Wiley: Wiley, a global company, helps people and organizations develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. Our online scientific, technical, medical and scholarly journals, combined with our digital learning, assessment and certification solutions, help universities, learned societies, businesses, governments and individuals increase the academic and professional impact of their work. For more than 200 years, we have delivered consistent performance to our stakeholders. The company's website can be accessed at http://www.wiley.com. Heather Dewey-Hagborg, the latest artist selected to participate in the University City Science Center and Integral Moleculars BioArt Residency program, will begin her three-month residency in November. Dewey-Hagborg is a transdisciplinary artist and educator whose interests focus on art as research and critical practice. Dewey-Hagborg is the third of three artists selected to participate in the program, which hosts artists at uCity Square-based biotech company Integral Molecular. During the three-month residency, Dewey-Hagborg will work on a project titled Lovesick. Lovesick plays on the idea of romantic infatuation as a virus and the process of moving on as akin to building up antibodies. Dewey-Hagborg will work with actual viruses and antibodies within Integral Moleculars lab. Lovesick examines desire and intimacy in a ubiquitous genomic future where biotechnology is inexpensive and accessible, and selecting ones emotions through biotechnology might even be possible. Dewey-Hagborgs work on Lovesick will act as a sequel to her project T3511, a post-genomic love story and experimental documentary. Heather Dewey-Hagborg is a transdisciplinary artist and educator. Her controversial biopolitical art practice includes the project Stranger Visions, in which she created portrait sculptures from analyses of genetic material (hair, cigarette butts, chewed-up gum) collected in public places. She has shown work internationally at events and venues including the World Economic Forum, the Shenzhen Urbanism and Architecture Biennale, the Van Abbemuseum, Transmediale and PS1 MOMA. Her work is held in public collections of the Centre Pompidou, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the New York Historical Society, among others, and has been widely discussed in the media, from the New York Times and the BBC to Art Forum and Wired. Dewey-Hagborg has a PhD in Electronic Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is an artist fellow at AI Now, an Artist-in-Residence at the Exploratorium, and an affiliate of Data & Society. She is also a co-founder and co-curator of REFRESH, an inclusive and politically engaged collaborative platform at the intersection of Art, Science, and Technology. The BioArt Residency program fosters collaboration between artists and scientists. Not only does it allow both parties to gain new perspectives, but artists are able to serve as intermediaries communicating and creating dialog around complex scientific issues. As part of each residency, the artist spends three months working on creative research projects in Integral Moleculars lab. The BioArt Residency is supported by The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. About the Science Center Located in the heart of uCity Square, the Science Center is a mission-driven nonprofit organization that catalyzes and connects innovation to entrepreneurship and technology commercialization. For 50+ years, the Science Center has supported startups, research, and economic development in the life sciences, healthcare, physical sciences, and emerging technology sectors. As a result, graduate firms and current residents of the Science Centers incubator support one out of every 100 jobs in the Greater Philadelphia region and drive $13 billion in economic activity in the region annually. By providing resources and programming for any stage of a businesss lifecycle, the Science Center helps scientists, entrepreneurs and innovators take their concepts from idea to IPO and beyond. For more information about the Science Center, go to http://www.sciencecenter.org About Integral Molecular Integral Molecular (http://www.integralmolecular.com) is the industry leader in membrane protein antibody discovery, with a pipeline of therapeutic antibodies against GPCRs, ion channels, transporters, and immuno-oncology targets. The company currently has therapeutic programs focused on cancer, pain, immunity, and metabolic disorders. ..a global meeting to address the diplomats health concerns would need to include the US scientists who directly participated in assessing [them], as well as others from the US, Cuba, Canada and elsewhere, to contribute their multispecialty, multinational expertise to clarifying this problem. Dr. Luis Velazquez, President of the Cuban Academy of Sciences, says health complaints reported by Havana-posted US diplomats merit a global meeting of specialists to review, discuss and clarify their meaning. In an article released today in the MEDICC Review journal, he proposed such a forum include US, Cuban and international researchers to examine the evidence about symptoms reported by some two dozen Havana-based US diplomats, ranging from headaches to dizziness, insomnia, memory loss and tinnitus. The US administration pointed to the diplomats health problems as reason to drastically reduce staff at both the US and Cuban embassies, triggering a travel warning for Cubathe latter softened some months later. However, the US State Department has continued to claim that the health concerns were the result of an attack. In the article, Dr. Velazquez rejects this notion outright: On the basis of such a broad array of symptoms, without evidence of damage [MRIs were normal], and given the faulty methodology of the only US government-authorized publication on the subject, it is impossible to conclude scientifically that any of these patients were targeted by an outside entity or person, as has been suggested. The publication he refers to is a study of 21 diplomats by University of Pennsylvania researchers, which appeared in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) earlier this year, whose design and conclusions were also criticized by Dr. Velazquez, a neurophysiologist. He noted that the study has been received skeptically by Cuban and international researchers, a view consistent with letters to JAMAs editors, as well as later publications in the Journal of Neurology and Cortex. [See interview with Dr. Mitchell Valdes, Director of the Cuban Neuroscience Center in the same issue of MEDICC Review, who details his own critique of the JAMA article.] Dr. Velazquez lamented that, despite repeated requests to the US government, Cuban specialists have not been allowed to access the clinical cases or to establish personal contact with the US physicians who assessed the diplomats. He said that a global meeting to address the diplomats health concerns would need to include the US scientists who directly participated in assessing [them], as well as others from the US, Cuba, Canada and elsewhere, to contribute their multispecialty, multinational expertise to clarifying this problem. He suggested that the meeting be sponsored by the academies of sciences in the various countries represented, and convened on the basis of open exchange and full access to relevant information As it is, he argues, for want of a thorough scientific approach, the essential questions remain unanswered, and those reporting symptoms still have no real explanation for their experience. This is one more time Cubans have turned to the international community in the face of US hostility: today, for the 27th year, the UN General Assembly is expected to vote to reject the US economic, commercial and financial embargo on Cuba, which President Barack Obamas administration had taken steps towards ending. A Cuban government report provides examples of how the embargocalled a blockade in Cubahas caused $4 billion in additional damages, affecting doctors, hospitals and patients in Cuba during the first year of the Trump administration. ORB Founder, Steve Kay, wins EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2018 Atlantic in the Consumer Products and Retail category. "This award is not just for me," said Kay. "We have an incredible team ... this is a team where if you say 'Climb that mountain!' they are right there with you." ORB, the worlds fastest growing toy and activities company, is being recognized for the accomplishments of Founder and CEO Steve Kay. On October 4, Kay was named EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2018 Atlantic in the Consumer Products and Retail category. Kay said he was honoured to receive the award, considering the talent of the other nominees. "This award is not just for me," said Kay. "We have an incredible team ... this is a team where if you say 'Climb that mountain!' they are right there with you." EYs regional Entrepreneur Of The Year awards recognizes entrepreneurs from eight different fields of business. Over 25 years, the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year program has become the worlds most prestigious business awards. Kay also received EY's National Special Citation for Innovative Design and Manufacturing. This will be presented at the National EY Entrepreneur Of The Year gala on Thursday, November 29 in Toronto. ORBs mission is to create moments of awe and wonder and to build self-esteem in youth around the world through exceptional play experiences. Over nearly thirty years, ORB has evolved from a small start-up to North America's fastest growing toy company. With the help of President and COO Michael Bianco, ORB grew by 300% in 2017 and is on target for repeat growth in 2018. Some Hurricane Michael insurance claims will become complicated due to wind, flood and water damage. It may seem simple, but we have worked every major storm since 1984 and we see policyholders making the same mistakes over and over. In the aftermath of Hurricane Michael, Tutwiler & Associates Public Adjusters of Florida has announced it is establishing an office in Panama City to assist residential and commercial policyholders file, manage and negotiate their claims. This property damage is setting up to be a policyholder nightmare due to the combination of severe wind, water and flood damage, says Rick Tutwiler, President of the firm. This will be a protracted process and we expect to maintain a staff presence in order to make sure policyholders receive a fair claim settlement, he says. In order to help educate policyholders as well as dispel some of the misinformation that naturally occurs with this type of catastrophe, the firm has also launched a Hurricane Michael Claims web page and will start posting blogs specifically related to Hurricane Michael insurance claim issues and advice on its On Property Insurance Claims blog. For example; a recent post Hurricane Michael Insurance Claims A Public Adjuster Shares Some Commonsense Advice warned policyholders to not throw away damaged property until they take photos, document the loss and notify their insurer. It may seem simple, but we have worked every major storm since 1984 and we see policyholders making the same mistakes over and over, stated Mr. Tutwiler. Tutwiler also reminds business and homeowners that emergency restoration work authorizations are contracts and to make sure that any payment for services are approved by the insurance company. Be very leery of work authorizations that assign insurance policy proceeds to restoration firms. Its your insurance money, states Mr. Tutwiler. Once its paid out you cannot go back for more. The firm also expects to be involved in local informational and town hall type meetings where it will answer policyholder questions at no cost. To request the firms presence, organizations can simply contact the firm or call the local # 850-888-8052. About Tutwiler & Associates: Established in 1984, Tutwiler & Associates is a highly regarded, licensed public adjusting firm that represents commercial and residential property insurance policyholders in all types of property insurance damage claims. Tutwiler works exclusively for the policyholder to remove the stress of dealing with the insurance company and properly present their insurance damage claim to obtain a fair payment under the policy. Headquartered in Tampa, Florida Tutwiler is also licensed in 17 other states and the Virgin Islands. In the Panama City area, they can be reached locally at 850-888-8052 or toll free at 1-800-321-4488. Marshall Lambert, President of Rene's Van & Storage, Inc. Renes Van & Storage, Inc. a family-owned business for 85 years, Californias oldest moving company, and a recent winner of the Best of Los Angeles Award for Best Moving & Storage - 2018 has a lot to say about the positive fiscal trends influencing the future of the moving industry. There is always a need for moving services, states Marshall Lambert, President of Renes Van & Storage, Whether people are moving to a new house, relocating to a different city, or downsizing after children go to college, the need has always remained and Renes can help you get settled on your new adventure. Luckily for Lambert, the future looks bright for the moving industry. In recent years, there has been a steady rise in disposable income in the general workforce. These bigger incomes and better housing market conditions means that property purchases have also increased. Recent drops in oil prices also means that transport costs have decreased, resulting in larger profits for moving companies. Aside from this, other factors span decades, such as the increasing relocation of U.S. citizens from rural areas to cities. For the moving industry, there is no doubt this will be a source of growth and business expansion in the coming years. With over 85 years in the moving and storage industry we had the privilege of coming along for the ride, explains Lambert, as well as accompanying many of our long-term clients on this journey. We have moved many generations in and out of their homes and now their children are calling us to help them out. In 1945, one of the Lamberts children, Rene J. Lambert, along with his wife Marjorie, decided to venture out on his own, opening Renes Van & Storage. They were embraced by the community, making a name for themselves by being one of the first companies to offer public storage. Today, Renes has several locations including an 88,000 square foot facility in Los Angeles, as well as multiple on-staff installation specialists for high-valued items. We know life can be stressful and at times unpredictable, concludes Lambert, but Renes can make your move as seamless and stress-free as possible. You can count on us with our impeccable attention to detail and white glove service every step of the way. Renes Van & Storage, Inc. 4563 Colorado Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90039 (310) 652-2200 We think beyond the transactional 'order-filling' mindset, developing long-term relationships with our clients and solving their workforce challenges. By helping our clients grow and succeed, we ensure our own growth and success. Rx relief, a division of PrideStaff, is pleased to announce that their pharmacy recruiting and placement firm was ranked number 28 on Staffing Industry Analysts' 2018 list of Largest Allied Healthcare Staffing Firms in the United States. For the purposes of the report, Staffing Industry Analysts defined "allied healthcare" temporary staffing firms as those providing healthcare professionals such as therapists (physical, occupational and speech), imaging technicians, phlebotomists and pharmacists on a temporary basis. Each of the elite organizations named to this list generated over $25 million in US staffing revenue in 2017. Combined, these companies created more than $2.26 billion in such revenue, illustrating the continued growth of the healthcare staffing sector. "We're extremely proud that Rx relief has been named one of the largest allied healthcare staffing firms by Staffing Industry Analysts," said George Rogers, Founder and CEO of PrideStaff. "While many of our competitors have achieved their growth primarily through acquisition, Rx relief has grown organically by providing the industry's best temporary and full-time pharmacy professionals in all types of pharmacy organizations." "Rx relief makes it easier and more cost-effective for clients to manage workflow peaks and grow their team," continued Rogers. "By providing timely access to the qualified pharmacists and technicians organizations need, we support their success, as well as our field associates' and our own." "Rx relief has grown consistently over the past several years because we function as a true workforce management partner," said Tom Maez, Pharm.D., Divisional Vice President, Rx relief. "We think beyond the transactional 'order-filling' mindset, developing long-term relationships with our clients and solving their workforce challenges. By helping our clients grow and succeed, we ensure our own growth and success." This latest honor comes on the heels of several other marks of distinction for the leading pharmacy recruiting and placement firm. Earlier this year, Carl Franklin, R. PH. and Senior Advisor, Emeritus, was inducted to the California Pharmacists Association Pharmacy Hall of Fame. Rx relief also earned Inavero's coveted Best of Staffing Client and Talent Diamond Awards in 2018, after winning the Best of Staffing Client and Talent Awards at least five years in a row for providing superior service to their clients and job seekers. Rx relief is the only staffing firm dedicated to pharmacy staffing in the U.S. and Canada to win the Diamond Awards four years in a row. About Rx relief A division of PrideStaff, Rx relief is a Joint Commission Certified and GSA approved pharmacy placement firm providing temporary and full-time pharmacy professionals for all pharmacy practice settings. The parent company was founded in the 1970s as 100 percent company-owned units and began staffing franchising in 1995. They operate over 80 offices in North America to serve over 5,000 clients. With over 40 years in the staffing business, headquartered in Fresno, CA, all PrideStaff brands offer the resources and expertise of a national firm with the spirit, dedication and personal service of smaller, entrepreneurial firms. For more information on Rx relief services visit http://www.rxrelief.com. PrideStaff and Rx relief's shared Mission: Consistently provide client experiences focused on what they value most. Presented by SAE Innovations in Mobility, Computer Vision and AI-based Systems for AVs and the Exponential Data Growth, will be held Thursday, Nov. 8 from 6:30-9 p.m. at Prospect SV, 1608 Las Plumas Ave., San Jose, Calif. SAE International announces a new Meetup that explores the challenges and best practices of validating driver assistant systems in automated vehicles. Presented by SAE Innovations in Mobility, Computer Vision and AI-based Systems for AVs and the Exponential Data Growth, will be held Thursday, Nov. 8 from 6:30-9 p.m. at Prospect SV, 1608 Las Plumas Ave., San Jose, Calif. The Meet-up will include two presentations: Meeting the Challenges of Exponential Data Growth Head-on Ralf Nikolaus, Altran Lawrence Vivolo, Dell EMC During their presentation, Ralf and Lawrence will describe some of the challenges and best practices that are related to the complexity and volumes of data to efficiently validating driver assistant systems: Automated collection of all meta-information and pre-labeling and data enrichment Validation and testing of software modules relevant to safety Inter-divisional development in non-homogeneous sensor tool landscapes Operation of a scalable SiL and HiL environment as well as the execution of SW tests, simulation, analysis and evaluation Distributed data management of very large quantities of data (mass data) Distributed and parallelized data processing and flexible access to collected and processed data (big data, private cloud computing) Data retention and security Potential risk of public- vs. private cloud implementations Saleable IT infrastructures that can grow dynamically Ralf has more than 10 years business experience within Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) & Autonomous Driving (AD). He manages a transnational team and coordinates world-wide activities in regard to Altran VueForge ADAS/AD, paving the way to reliable and safe autonomous driving. Lawrence brings more than 30 years in high-technology design, marketing and business expertise to his role as Automotive and Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Business Development Manager for Dell EMC. Leveraging Real World and Synthetic Data for Combined Datasets Peter Gronerth (FKA) During this presentation, Peter Gronerth will give insights into current developments made at IKA and FKA as well as into his own research. The later one concentrates on the creation of semi-artifical training data applied to train neural networks. The resulting datasets leverage the strengths of real-world data (available e.g. through KITTI, CamVid, Berkley DeepDrive or Cityscapes) and artifical datasets (e.g. Synthia) by recombining elements of available images. Gronerth is currently a researcher & developer at fkas HQ in Aachen, Germany. He will be joining FKA SV starting January 2019 with the focus of implementing advancements made at the HQ into both the immersive driving simulator and FKA SVs test vehicle. His research focuses on digital image processing and machine learning, both essential to his work regarding the creation of environment models for autonomous driving. To learn more or to register, visit https://www.meetup.com/SAE-Innovations-in-Mobility/events/255749141/. SAE International is a global association committed to being the ultimate knowledge source for the engineering profession. By uniting over 127,000 engineers and technical experts, we drive knowledge and expertise across a broad spectrum of industries. We act on two priorities: encouraging a lifetime of learning for mobility engineering professionals and setting the standards for industry engineering. We strive for a better world through the work of our philanthropic SAE Foundation, including programs like A World in Motion and the Collegiate Design Series. http://www.sae.org Conference Series Materials Science is tool on which the future development rests. Since most of the very pressing scientific problems currently faced by humans are due to the limitations of materials, the field of Materials Science has seen a huge expansion in recent years. Currently the global market in Materials Science is projected to reach $6,000 million by 2020 and lodge a CAGR of 10.2% between 2015 and 2020 in terms of worth. The North American region remains the largest market, accompanied by Asia-Pacific. The European market is estimated to grow at a steady rate due to economic reforms in the region along with the expanding concern for the building insulation and energy savings. The main aim of Materials Science Conferences is to provide an opportunity for the attendees to meet, interact, and exchange new ideas in Materials Science and Nanotechnology, and to initiate a dialogue between industry and the academia. This is especially important as the smooth transition of academic research into large scale industrial development is essential for any impactful innovation to reach the market. Conference Series Ltd materials science summits focus on a plethora of topics such as Materials Science, Biomaterials, Nanotechnology, Smart Materials, Ceramics, Crystallography, and Nanostructures. The venues for these conferences include an eclectic mix of destinations across Europe, Asia, America, Middle East and Australia. These include some very beautiful cities like Rome, Paris, Athens, Madrid, Berlin, Toronto, Vancouver, Osaka, Singapore, Chicago, and many more. Renowned researchers, business experts, and renowned thinkers from around the world participate in these conferences. These programs include plenary lectures, poster presentations, symposia, workshops, young researcher competitions, panel discussions on a variety of topics. Dr. Srinibabu Gedela, Founder & CEO of Omics International, states that conferences form the bedrock of any research as they open any piece of scientific work to constructive criticism by peers, making conferences a type of informal peer-review. He staunchly believes that conferences play a fundamental role in shaping scientific research. In emulation of their previous meetings, the 100+ Materials Science meetings of 2019, conducted by the Conference Series extend a cordial welcome to all the scientists, researchers, corporate personnel, students, professors, and members from across the globe to share exciting results and advancements in the arena of Material Science and Nanotechnology. ITelagen LLC, a leading, innovative provider of IT support and cloud-based hosting for healthcare, finance and small business, hires Sean Kessler as the new VP Hosting. Kessler is taking over the helm of our Hosting Department and with that looks to integrate solutions into the client environments that are cost-effective, delivering industry-leading up-time, and manageable for both ITelagen and the client. Kessler arrives at ITelagen with eighteen (18) years of experience in healthcare IT, including hosting electronic health record applications, such as NextGen. He served as the Director of Engineering for ten (10) years at Tellurian Networks where he helped grow the business to over $14 million. Additionally, Kessler is well known in the NextGen community for developing the first hosted NextGen ASP solution available in the market. He, most recently, designed and deployed all of the server infrastructure for the new Stanford Childrens Hospital which consolidated their data centers. With the arrival of Kessler, ITelagen forges a path for MSPs in the healthcare technology space; changing the way support organizations actually support clients. ITelagen looks toward a future where supporting the status quo is not the standard, but rather support means proactive monitoring, consistent technological advancements, mentoring the clients and simply saying how can I help? Kesslers reputation in the NextGen Community speaks volumes and existing ITelagen clients have voiced much excitement about his arrival and the future of a partnership with ITelagen. We are overjoyed at the arrival of Sean Kessler. He is extremely customer oriented and we have immediately felt an increased satisfaction in the service from ITelagen. We are very enthusiastic about the future technical and customer service advancements he will bring to ITelagen, says Laura Martinez from Presbyterian Medical Services in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Kessler will be responsible for continuing the pattern of growth and moving the service level side of our hosted solutions from great to excellent. His team will be responsible for understanding the client needs and building solutions for those needs, keeping the solutions advanced and up to speed with technology trends. Kessler will manage the client expectations, most of all, delivering on 99.999% uptime for the ITelagen hosted clients and ensuring protection of all patient data in the practices we support. We look forward to Sean being an integral part of our growth at ITelagen. His ability to build, grow and maintain, not only hosting infrastructures, but a team of technical specialists to manage and monitor those infrastructures is invaluable. He has a skill for balancing the back-end and the customer facing side of managing a hosting service., says John OKeefe, CEO for ITelagen. About ITelagen: ITelagen is the EHR success company. We deliver integrated services and comprehensive expertise that help providers improve clinical, financial and operational outcomes through EHR and healthcare technology. Our proven approach, based upon over 15 years of experience, actively and securely integrates the EHR with people, data and workflows to increase productivity, reduce risk and enhance patient care. Learn more at http://www.itelagen.com. Contact: Emile Clifford ITelagen LLC 201-239-8405 press(at)itelagen.com SEM sign and building Eliminating the SITES brand enables us to sharpen our focus on the strong industry reputation and significant global brand awareness of SEM. Security Engineered Machinery Co., Inc. (SEM), global leader in high security information end-of-life solutions, announced late Tuesday afternoon that it will no longer market SITES-branded equipment as of November 1. All products previously branded under SITES will continue to be sold globally under the SEM brand. Andrew Kelleher, SEM President and Chief Executive Officer, says the decision to discontinue the SITES brand came as a result of extensive market research and product review. The SITES brand was originally started to serve our growing commercial client base, but we found that there was significant overlap with our government and commercial clients, said Kelleher. We also found that there was significant product redundancy between the SEM and SITES brands, which the simplification will resolve. We are appreciative of our clients and resellers who have worked with us under the SITES brand and are diligently working through a seamless transition with them. In business for over 50 years, SEM sells primarily to United States federal government entities including the military, FBI, CIA, DoD, Department of State, and Department of Treasury. SEM will now also service existing SITES commercial clients including data centers, financial services companies, healthcare organizations, security printers, and cloud solution providers and will directly market to commercial clients under the SEM brand moving forward. Eliminating the SITES brand enables us to sharpen our focus on the strong industry reputation and significant global brand awareness of SEM, added Kelleher. SEM will continue to support existing SITES products through parts availability and its world-class sales and service teams. About SEM Security Engineered Machinery Co., Inc. (SEM) provides comprehensive end-of-life solutions for the protection of sensitive information in government and commercial markets. SEMs reputation as the authority in high security information sanitization was earned through over 50 years of technical innovation, intellectual curiosity, and unrelenting integrity. By fostering a supportive, team-centric environment focused on talent retention and client satisfaction, SEM is recognized as the undisputed leader in depth of expertise, industry excellence, and reliability. SEM data destruction devices are the premier high security choice available on the market today. For more information, please visit https://www.semshred.com. "We are delighted to bring this iconic brand to the ATL Airport and serving happy travelers," said CI CEO Donata Russell Ross. Concessions International(CI) and Shake Shack(NYSE: SHAK) celebrated the grand opening of Shake Shack on Monday, Oct. 29 at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Concourse A near Gate 28. The long-awaited Shake Shack is a joint venture between CI and H&H Hospitality, an Atlanta Airport Concessions Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (ACDBE). Shake Shack is a critically acclaimed, modern day roadside burger stand known for its 100 percent all-natural Angus beef burgers, chicken sandwiches and flat-top Vienna beef dogs (no hormones or antibiotics - ever), frozen custard, crinkle cut fries, and more. A fun and lively community gathering place with widespread appeal, Shake Shack has earned a cult-like following around the world. Shake Shack opened its first Atlanta location in Buckhead in 2014 and its second location in Perimeter Mall in 2016. The grand opening included a ribbon cutting ceremony with CIs CEO Donata Russell Ross, Randy Hazelton, CEO of H&H Hospitality, John Berberich, Global Director of Strategic Initiatives, Shake Shack and city of Atlanta and airport officials. Travelers also enjoyed delicious Shake Shack samples, live music, and giveaways. About Shake Shack Shake Shack (NYSE: SHAK) is a modern day roadside burger stand known for its 100% all-natural Angus beef burgers, chicken sandwiches and flat-top Vienna beef dogs (no hormones or antibiotics ever), spun-fresh frozen custard, crinkle cut fries, craft beer and wine and more. With its fresh, simple, high-quality food at a great value, Shake Shack is a fun and lively community gathering place with widespread appeal. Shake Shacks mission is to Stand for Something Good, from its premium ingredients and caring hiring practices to its inspiring designs and deep community investment. Since the original Shack opened in 2004 in NYCs Madison Square Park, the company has expanded to more than 180 locations in 26 U.S. States and the District of Columbia, including more than 70 international locations across London, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Dubai, Tokyo, Moscow, Seoul and more. About H&H Hospitality, Inc. H&H Hospitality is an Atlanta-based airport concessions disadvantaged business enterprise (ACDBE). Founded in 2008 by Hampton University graduates Kevin Holt and Randy Hazelton, H&H Hospitality has grown from its inception into a full-service, multi-brand, multi-unit comprehensive restaurant company. It manages and operates multiple food and beverage locations and is highly recognized within the airport restaurant industry. About Concessions International, LLC Atlanta-based Concessions International, LLC, founded in 1979, is a dynamic food and beverage concessionaire with operations in eight airports. The company's portfolio includes franchised, licensed and proprietary concepts, including casual dining, quick service, snack, deli and bar and grill. The company is a franchisee of major national brands including Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, Fresh To Order and Einstein Bros. Bagels. Visit http://www.cintl.com for more information. Follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com/airportconcessions, Twitter @ConcessionsIntl and Instagram @airportconcessionsintl. As a company with strong roots in the military and our experiences during and after active duty, Signafire recognizes the unique contributions that veterans can bring to the tech community. Signafire to host Networking and Panel Discussion Event Highlighting How Hiring Military Veterans Can Benefit Technology Companies in New York City Founded by former military, company celebrates Veterans Day with event recognizing the value veterans offer the private sector Data fusion and content analytics company, Signafire Technologies today announced that it will be hosting an event this Veterans Day week to connect former service members with career options in the technology sector. The event will highlight the unique private sector opportunities for individuals who have served in the United States Armed Forces. The function will take place on Wednesday, November 14 from 6:30pm 8:30pm at Signafires headquarters in New York Citys Soho neighborhood. Founded and led by veterans of the U.S. military and military intelligence communities, Signafire is hosting the event to highlight the value that veterans can bring to private-sector employers. The event will include networking along with a panel-style conversation. Panelists include: Marc Alacqua, CEO and Co-Founder, Signafire; U.S. Army veteran Aimee Lessard, Chief of Analysis, Signafire; USMC veteran Keith McCabe, Director, Operations Analysis, Signafire; U.S. Army veteran Jeffrey Mader, MBA, PMP, President, Founder, The Penrose Corporation (SDVOSB); U.S. Army veteran Doreen Caminetti, MS, Consultant, CSG Solutions; U.S. Army veteran As a company with strong roots in the military and our experiences during and after active duty, Signafire recognizes the unique contributions that veterans can bring to the tech community, said Marc Alacqua, CEO and Co-Founder of Signafire. We invite all veterans, whether currently working in the sector or simply wanting to expand their peer and professional networks, to join us for this evening of learning and networking. To RSVP, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/veterans-in-technology-networking-social-tickets-51786513857 About Signafire Signafire provides data fusion and content analytics solutions that help companies unite disparate sets of data in order to make smarter decisions. Founded by veterans of the United States military, Signafire leverages the same technologies used by special operations forces and intelligence agencies to support rapid collection and intelligent analysis of unified data sets, enabling businesses to seize opportunities and mitigate risks in real time. The privately held companys customers include major companies from numerous industry verticals. For more information, visit http://www.signafire.com. Media Contact: Sandra Correa Clarity PR for Signafire signafire(at)clarity.pr 917.319.8472 We're honored that Simple Habit is recognized as a best-in-class platform by Google for a second time this year, says Yunha Kim, Founder and CEO of Simple Habit. Simple Habit, the leading daily stress relief platform for busy people, has been named the 2018 winner of the Google Material Design Award for Best Experience. The Best Experience Award is the award recognizing creative and effective deployment of interaction, navigation and content in service of an impactful user experience: Learning how to slow down and de-stress requires an equally tranquil interface; from first tap, Simple Habit Meditation opens up with an easy onboarding experience which employs color-coded, selectable image cards to support the calming, purposeful navigation. It uses a dark theme effectively, with cool implementation of cards and bottom navigation, branded typography, and subtle motion cues across mobile devices and tablets. "We're honored that Simple Habit is recognized as a best-in-class platform by Google for a second time this year," says Yunha Kim, Founder and CEO of Simple Habit. "At Simple Habit, we are committed to helping people live better every day. We offer a library of more than 1,500 short meditations and audio therapy sessions from world-class experts. As we continue to expand our content library, it's imperative that Simple Habit users are able to quickly and effortlessly find the perfect meditation to reduce daily stress or overcome whatever situation they may be facing." The Google Play Awards celebrate achievements across nine categories. The Material Design Awards honor the product teams that bring the Material platform to life. These best-in-class examples showcase the flexibility of Googles adaptable design system by making it uniquely their own across four distinct categories innovation, expression, experience and adaptation. The winners were selected from hundreds of open nominations and will be honored at SPAN Helsinki on November 1st. Listeners use Simple Habit to deal with a variety of problems that strongly affect their experience of everyday life, adds Valentin Drown, Lead Product Designer of Simple Habit. When designing the app, our goal was to build an intuitive navigation experience that allows users to quickly and easily discover the right meditations for their particular situation or problem. Now, thousands of meditations by hundreds of teachers are easily accessible in a minimal number of touches. Simple Habit graduated from Y Combinator in 2016. The platform has since disrupted the meditation and mental wellness industries by creating a market for stressed-out people to discover bite size meditations and connect with world-class experts. Simple Habit has helped more than 1.7 million people learn to meditate, with an average of 25,000 new users joining the platform every week. Simple Habit was featured on season 9 of Shark Tank, is the #1 ranked meditation app in iTunes and received the 2018 Google Play Award for Best Well-Being App. About Simple Habit Simple Habit makes reducing stress as easy as 5-minutes a day. Busy people rely on short meditations and audio therapy sessions from world-class experts to reduce daily stress. With more than 1,500 sessions based on situations like sleeping, morning anxiety and lack of focus and features like "on-the-go" and "SOS", Simple Habit offers a practical solution for modern lifestyles. Founded in 2016, Simple Habit is now the #1 rated meditation app in the App store and boasts 37,000 five-star reviews. With headquarters in San Francisco, Simple Habit is backed by Foundation Capital, Y Combinator, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and other prominent CEOs in Silicon Valley including Dropbox's CEO Drew Houston and Gusto's CEO Joshua Reeves. Download Simple Habit for free on iOS or Android or visit http://www.simplehabit.com to learn more. A lock issue at home, such as a forgotten or broken key, can rapidly escalate from an annoyance to a frankly dangerous situation. A trusted locksmith can quickly fix the situation, but many homeowners are unsure who to call. Texas Premier Locksmith provides emergency residential services 24 hours per day and can complete most non-emergency residential locksmith projects on the same day. For November 2018, the company is offering all Killeen residents 10% off all emergency and non-emergency home locksmith services. Simply call (254) 781-4146 and mention this offer for assistance. Residential Locksmith Services Texas Premier Locksmith proudly provides a complete line of residential locksmith services, including: Emergency Lockouts Entry Door Locks High-Security Locks Keyless Deadbolts Lock Installation Lock Repair Pick-Resistant Locks Re-keying Screen Door Locks Security Bars Sliding Door Locks Decorative Handle Sets Killeen residents seeking a full-service, trustworthy, and highly skilled home locksmith are encouraged to call (254) 781-4146 for immediate assistance. About Texas Premier Locksmith Texas Premier Locksmith has established a strong reputation as a top-rated Killeen locksmith company. For immediate assistance, call the Texas Premier Locksmith Killeen location at (254) 781-4146. For more information, visit the storefront at 1323 E Veterans Memorial Blvd, Killeen, TX 76541 or visit the website at http://www.txpremierlocksmith.com/. The New England Center for Children Wills story inspires hope in families and teachers alike, demonstrating the power of applied behavior analysis in transforming the lives of children with autism, said Vincent Strully, President and CEO of The New England Center or Children. The New England Center for Children (NECC), a global leader in education and research for children with autism, announced today that William Green has been named NECCs Outstanding Alumnus of the Year. This award is bestowed upon NECC alumni who demonstrate inspiring personal, vocational and/or academic achievement. Will is 23-years-old and was a student at NECC from 2003 to 2017, and today works full-time at Whole Foods. The award will be presented at NECCs annual Children of Promise Gala, to be held on Friday, November 30 at the InterContinental Boston. (http://www.necc.org/gala) Wills story inspires hope in families and teachers alike, demonstrating the power of applied behavior analysis in transforming the lives of children with autism, said Vincent Strully, President and CEO of The New England Center or Children. We are all very proud of Wills achievements and couldnt be happier to honor him as our outstanding alumnus this year. Will enrolled in NECC as a preschooler and continued as a day student throughout his schooling. At NECC, Will made great strides in behavior and education through applied behavior analysis. He enjoyed participating in research studies on autism, including such topics as telling time, eye movement, and computers. Will was particularly fond of the EdMark reading program. We are very proud of Will and how he has grown these past years with the help of the talented staff and teachers at The New England Center for Children, said Charles Green, Wills father. We are excited and honored for Will to be recognized for his hard work, progress, and success, added Pam Green, Wills mother. At age 14, Will started vocational training at NECC, focusing on food service, including lunch line, making PB&J sandwiches, and stocking milk at the school. Through NECCs Vocational Program, Will was hired at Walgreens to stock shelves and train as a cashier. By the time he left Walgreens, Will was performing both job duties, including opening the register on his own during peak busy hours. Will took initiative in pursuing a job at Whole Foods, his favorite supermarket where he has long shopped with his mother. Will brought a flyer from Whole Foods to the NECC Vocational Program team. NECC helped arrange an interview, practiced with Will, and he was hired in 2016. Thank you for this award, and to my teachers and people I work with, said Will. I look forward to work. I like doing things myself. Will received a Best Customer Service Star Team player award at Whole Foods and is well-regarded by fellow employees, who threw him a surprise anniversary party. One day a week Will attends Beaverbrook Step, a day rehabilitation program where he assists in the Meals on Wheels program. Will is learning how to take the train and his towns door-to-door bus service. He enjoys mowing the lawn, bowling, walking his family dog, Lily, attending church and helping with the collection plate, and playing Zumba. He is friends with fellow NECC graduates. About The New England Center for Children The New England Center for Children (NECC) is a world leader in education, research, and technology for children with autism. For more than 40 years, our community of teachers, researchers, and clinicians have been transforming lives and offering hope to children with autism and their families. NECCs award-winning services include home-based, day, and residential programs; public school partnerships and consulting; the John and Diane Kim Autism Institute; the ACE ABA Software System (http://www.acenecc.org) currently used by more than 6,100 students and teachers in 27 states and 10 countries; and ABAplus, an online professional learning platform for educators. NECC received the 2017 Award for International Dissemination of Behavior Analysis from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis (SABA). A 501c3 non-profit, The New England Center for Children is based in Southborough, MA, and operates a center in Abu Dhabi, UAE. More information is available at http://www.necc.org. More information is available at http://www.necc.org. Uberall, Inc., the location marketing solution for businesses competing to attract and win local brick-and-mortar customers, today has launched Engage For Grocery, making its Engage product available to multi-location grocery brands and retailers in the U.S. "Ready-to-buy consumers research online for nearby stores, go in-store to buy, and often leave a review about their experience, said Uberall Co-Founder Josha Benner. In turn, those reviews influence the purchasing decisions of future customers. This makes it crucial for businesses to have a voice in those conversations, monitoring and responding to reviews and comments." Engage offers its users a number of useful features including: Reputation monitoring: Easily monitor your online reputation across all platforms, including Google, Facebook, Yelp and many directories. Keep track of reviews and user-generated content for all your business locations. Understand perceptions of your brand so you can deliver the best experience possible at each location. Reputation management: Proactively manage all your online customer feedback, both positive and negative. Respond to feedback and customer-generated content. Gain control of how reviews are managed across locations with multi-level platform management and workflows. Social posting: Reach local customers directly with relevant news and offers across platforms, just at the right moment. Create personalized content for all or individual locations, allowing tailored brand communication at a local level. Publish location-specific photos, videos and links in real-time, then analyze customer engagement through views, clicks and comments. "Uberall Engage increases in-store sales by improving the in-store customer experience based on your learnings from analyzing valuable customer reviews across all your locations and digital platforms, Benner said. It allows its users to respond to customers across multiple platforms all from one inbox or post social content to specific locations and platforms." For a demo, visit: https://uberall.com/en/location-marketing-cloud/engage. To download Uberall's latest whitepaper on turning your online reviews into in-store sales, visit here: http://m.uberall.com/Uberall-Guide-To-Review-Management-US. About Uberall, Inc. Uberall is a global leader in location marketing technology. Its flagship Location Marketing Cloud platform empowers the world's biggest brands to connect with their customers and turn online interactions into offline sales. Uberall gives businesses central control of their digital presence and online reputation, enabling them to easily manage brand interactions in real-time on all digital platformsmobile, voice and desktopacross websites, mobile apps, store locators, search engines, maps, social platforms, and advertising networks. The Location Marketing Cloud provides a consistent, accurate digital brand footprint that helps businesses capture new customers and maximize revenue for every location. Uberall is headquartered in Berlin, with additional offices in San Francisco, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Cape Town. Its clients include Fortune 500 companies and industry leaders from all over the world. Learn more at https://www.uberall.com. Microbiome science is revolutionizing the way we understand both communicable and noncommunicable human diseases. Although in its early stages, this new knowledge represents a new frontier in modern medicine. - Dr. Arrieta, PhD uBiome, the leader in microbial genomics, announces the addition of Dr. Marie-Claire Arrieta, PhD, Assistant Professor at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, to its Scientific Advisory Board. Joining the board of leading scientists and doctors from around the world, Dr. Arrieta will bring to uBiome extensive study on role the of the intestinal microbiota in the development of immune-mediated and metabolic pediatric diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and asthma. The appointment will help uBiome continue its advancement in human microbiome research. Dr. Arrietas work sheds light on how the gut microbiome in ones early years can shape ones health later in life. The potential clinical applications for this field of study is immense, Dr. Jessica Richman, PhD, co-founder and CEO of uBiome, said. We are honored to have Dr. Arrieta join the uBiome Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Arrieta works within the Department of Pediatrics and Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary. Her current research investigates how metabolites that originated from alterations in early-life intestinal microbiota contribute to intestinal and extraintestinal disease. Dr. Arrieta completed her PhD at the University of Alberta, where she explored the role of intestinal permeability in the pathogenesis of IBD. She is the author of the best-selling book, Let Them Eat Dirt. About joining uBiome's Scientific Advisory Board, Dr. Arrieta said, Microbiome science is revolutionizing the way we understand both communicable and noncommunicable human diseases. Although in its early stages, this new knowledge represents a new frontier in modern medicine. uBiome has assembled an impressive list of accomplished scientists as part of their Scientific Advisory Board, which I am honored to join. In addition to Dr. Arrieta, the uBiome Scientific Advisory Board also includes Dr. Joseph DeRisi (MacArthur Genius and UCSF professor), Dr. Atul Butte (head of the Institute for Computational Health Sciences at UCSF), Dr. Katherine Pollard (Director, Gladstone Institute for Data Science and Biotechnology), Dr. Joel Palefsky (UCSF School of Medicine professor), Dr. George Church (leading geneticist at Harvard University), Dr. Liz Lipski (Academic Director of Nutrition and Integrative Health Programs at Maryland University of Integrative Health), Dr. Elaine Hsiao, PhD (UCLA), and other leading scientists. The companys Medical Advisory Board includes Dr. Alan Green (Society for Participatory Medicine), Dr. Leo Treyzon (Cedars-Sinai Medical Center), Dr. Cynthia Geyer (Medical Director of Canyon Ranch, Lenox), Dr. Robynne Chutkan (Georgetown University Hospital), Michael Docktor (Boston Childrens Hospital), Dr. Tiffany Lester (Medical Director of Parsley Health in San Francisco), Dr. Joel Kahn (Founder of of the Kahn Center for Cardiac Longevity), as well as other accomplished clinicians. About uBiome Founded in 2012, uBiome is the leader in microbial genomics. The Companys mission is to advance the science of the microbiome and make it useful to people. uBiome combines its patented proprietary precision sequencing with machine learning and artificial intelligence to develop wellness products, clinical tests, and therapeutic targets. uBiomes commercial products include SmartGut, the worlds first sequencing-based clinical microbiome test, which identifies microbes in the gut for patients with chronic gut conditions such as IBD, IBS, Crohns Disease, and ulcerative colitis; SmartJane, the first sequencing-based womens health screening test, which genotypes all 19 clinically relevant strains of HPV, identifies four common STDs, and surveys more than 20 vaginal microbes associated with bacterial vaginosis and other conditions; and Explorer, a health and wellness product to understand the role that food and lifestyle can play in wellness. uBiomes platform has been used by hundreds of thousands of consumers, patients, and doctors and more than 200 research institutions around the world, including the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), US National Institutes of Health (NIH), Harvard University, Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of California, San Francisco, Oxford University, and the University of Sydney. Since its launch, the company has received widespread recognition including CNN 10: Startups to Watch, the IVY Technology Award, CNN Future 30, and was named one of Fast Companys Most Innovative Companies in Healthcare in 2016 and in Data Science in 2018, as well as a Technology Pioneer from the World Economic Forum in 2018. For more information, visit http://www.uBiome.com. Rudy Trebels, CEO, Wedgewood Investment Group, LLC Rudy Trebels has completed more than $1 billion in transactions serving more than 100 lenders and investors, while helping hundreds of companies across the nation achieve their growth and operational goals. Rudy Trebels, CEO of Wedgewood Investment Group, LLC, attended the 2018 NIC Fall Conference, held October 17-19 in Chicago, and was interviewed during the conference by NIC TV. Said Trebels: We always attend and this year was no exception. NIC is the premier source for analysis for the seniors housing industry. This particular NIC forum was an incredible event for deal makers in the seniors housing market, a place where capital and housing operators came together and got real business done. The conference is always also an important listening post where we can all network and pick up on the latest industry trends and regulations. Added Trebels: We are also always particularly glad to have the reliable, objective data and careful market analysis that the NIC staff itself announces at its forums and meetings. It helps us and the rest of the industry to make informed, grounded decisions on projects and funding. Rudy Trebels has spent more than four decades as an innovator in the U.S. real estate and finance industries. He has completed more than $1 billion in transactions serving more than 100 lenders and investors, while helping hundreds of companies across the nation achieve their growth and operational goals. The National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to support access and choice for Americas seniors by providing data, analytics, and connections that bring together investors and providers. NIC also hosts two of the senior housing sectors premier events each Fall and Spring. This years event was held at the Sheraton Grand Chicago Hotel. About Wedgewood Investment Group, LLC Wedgewood Investment Group, LLC is an investment banking entity, headed by founder and CEO Rudy Trebels and headquartered in Northfield, Illinois. Wedgewood, founded in 2009, focuses on the funding and development of senior-living communities. Visit our website at http://www.WedgewoodLLC.com for more information. CONTACT Garnet Sherman 847-784-0055 info(at)WedgewoodLLC.com http://www.wedgewoodllc.com Xinuos is committed to supporting all of our SCO OpenServer 6 customers with break/fix support and features needed for todays workplace. Xinuos, a leading provider of solutions based operating systems, announces the release of OpenServer 6 Definitive 2018, an important upgrade for our SCO Legacy customers. Combining the power of the UNIX system with the economics of the Intel platform, Xinuos OpenServer 6 Definitive 2018 delivers a rock-solid performance backed by world class support so applications work like theyre supposed to, administration is simpler, and business runs smoothly. OpenServer operating systems are the backbone for thousands of companies looking for reliability, scalability, and security around the world that trust them for business-critical applications, said Jeremy Orchard, Vice President of Sales for Xinuos. Xinuos is committed to supporting all of our SCO OpenServer 6 customers with break/fix support and features needed for todays workplace. The key features of SCO OpenServer 6 Definitive 2018 include: New ISL media which includes upgrade package from previous supported versions Everything is on a single DVD ISO - No need to download separate media to install on virtualization, perform an in-place upgrade or do a native install Fixes for regressions existing in the older Definitive release New LSI and AHCI drivers and drivers include support for Dell H330, H530, and H730 controllers as well as new SATA controllers found on many new servers and virtualized environments. o LSI MegaRAID SAS 9380 o LSI MegaRAID SAS 9361 o LSI MegaRAID SAS 9341 o DELL PERC H830 o DELL PERC H730/P o DELL PERC H330 Security. OpenServer 6 Definitive 2018 has been updated to current security standards with critical bug fixes to help keep organizations secure. More choices for applications. OpenServer 6 Definitive 2018 supports critical line-of-business applications. The web services substrate provides a foundation for creating web service-based applications and Service-Oriented Architectures on top of existing console-based applications and relational databases. Virtual Machine-supported hardware. With virtual machine support that includes a wide range of hardware platforms and peripherals, OpenServer 6 Definitive 2018 keeps business running. Virtual Machines can be easily serviced or reconfigured for lower maintenance costs and greater productivity. Virtualization: OpenServer 6 Definitive 2018 is optimized to run in a virtualized VMware environment. In addition to energy savings and lower capital expenditures, virtualization provides higher resource availability, easier scalability, increased security, and improved disaster recovery. Optimized for OpenServer 10: The Xinuos stack solution allows OpenServer 6 Definitive 2018 to run as a Virtual Machine within Xinuos OpenServer 10, providing a solution that is fully supported by Xinuos. OpenServer 6 Definitive 2018 has been optimized with Paravirtualized drivers to enhance the performance using the OpenServer 10 stack configuration. About Xinuos, Inc. Xinuos provides commercial customers with operating systems that are reliable, dependable and secure for mission-critical applications that demand rock-solid performance. The Xinuos general-purpose operating systems are on pace with hardware and software industry advances and are designed to power any size business that requires stability, reliability and scalability. Learn more at http://www.xinuos.com Media Contact Xinuos Inc. Jeremy Orchard Chief Operating Officer (O) +1 (510) 400-7079 (E) Jeremy.orchard@xinuos.com media@xinuos.com http://www.xinuos.com News From Bulgaria Energy Minister announced that the investor selection procedure for Belene NPP was developed AUTHOR: publics.bg The Energy Minister Temenujka Petkova told journalists at the Council of Ministers that the procedure for choosing an investor for Belene NPP has been developed and only small details remain to be specified. She commented on the Belene NPP after attending a meeting of the Energy Security Council at the Council of Ministers, BTA reports. If, after reporting this procedure in the Council of Ministers and then to Parliament, there are no significant recommendations or amendments, there is no obstacles that by the end of the year the procedure is started, the minister said, adding that such a procedure usually goes on months. The Parliament has mandated that the Energy Minister develops an investor selection procedure and proposes structuring for the project by 31 October 2018. In response to a question, the minister said there were no new candidates for the project. In response to a question about Gastrade's market test for the Liquefied Gas Terminal in Alexandroupolis today, the Minister said that Bulgaria supports any project that is related to the diversification of sources and routes for the supply of natural gas. She recalled that Bulgaria was able to participate in this project with a share of 25 per cent. We have found such a decision to participate in this company, which is within the framework of the Bulgarian Energy Holding. This is likely to be Bulgartransgaz, the minister added. She argues that the company as an operator has a commitment to develop the network will be the main driver to build a gas distribution center on the territory of Bulgaria. At today's meeting of the Energy Security Council, the need to update the energy strategy on the gas side was presented. According to the Minister, this is due to the changed environment in terms of the infrastructure projects that are developing around Bulgaria - South Gas Corridor, Turkish Stream. "We want to preserve the strategic position of Bulgaria in the gas map of Europe by building the relevant infrastructure, which is essential for the realization and the concept of a gas distribution center," the Minister commented on the need to update the strategy. She also informed that the Council discussed the possibility of setting up a gas exchange. This exchange must be set up in a separate subsidiary owned by Bulgartransgaz in order to develop the concept of a gas distribution center based on the building of the missing infrastructure to enable the supply of natural gas from different sources, and to build the natural gas exchange, which will be the main platform for market liberalization. Asked whether the gas from the second Turkish flow pipeline will pass through Bulgaria, the minister said he hoped "things to develop in a way favorable to us all." For us it is extremely important that Bulgaria maintain its place on the gas map of Europe, the minister said. She added that anything related to the country's willingness to expand the gas transmission infrastructure will continue to be within the framework of European legislation and the requirements of the Third Liberalization Package. Cookies What are cookies ? How do we use cookies? How to control cookies? 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You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed.Most browsers allow you to:If you chose to delete cookies, you should be aware that any preferences will be lost. Also, if you block cookies completely many websites (including ours) will not work properly and webcasts will not work at all. For these reasons, we do not recommend turning cookies off when using our webcasting services. With its family roots and free-spirited, eclectic list, Brooklyn-based Enchanted Lion Books is the quintessential indie childrens publisherand is celebrating an anniversary this year. The company was launched in 2003 by the Bedrick clan: patriarch Peter, who had served as publisher of Schocken Books before starting Peter Bedrick Books in 1983 with his wife, Muriel, and daughters Claudia and Abigail. The publishers name is a riff on the historic Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, Mass., where the family summered in the 1970s. Currently helmed by Claudia Zoe Bedrick, Enchanted Lion is commemorating 15 years of picture book publishing with a typically wide-reaching roster of releasesand a handful of celebratory events. Enchanted Lions initial editorial vision was my fathers, Bedrick said. His founding mission was to publish illustrated nonfiction, but after he passed away suddenly in 2004, the company began to change focus. Neither I nor my sister [Abigail, though still involved in the company, ceased her hands-on involvement in 2008] were passionate about that genre, and at the time there wasnt a big demand for childrens nonfiction, so it was clear to us that if we were going to continue, wed have to find another road forward. Bedrick, who had developed a love forand had amassed a sizable collection ofchildrens books from her extensive travels worldwide, found Enchanted Lions new direction by building a list originally rooted in English translations of picture books first released in other languages, a publishing track, she said, I knew I was passionate aboutand very familiar with. The house has found a comfortable niche with picture books in translation, which in recent years have included three Mildred L. Batchelder Award winners for best work of translation: Mister Orange by Truus Matti, translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson (2014); The Wonderful Fluffy Little Squishy by Beatrice Alemagna, translated from the French by Bedrick (2016); and Cry, Heart, But Never Break by Glenn Ringtved, translated from the Danish by Robert Moulthrop, and illustrated by Charlotte Pardi (2017). Enchanted Lion has also garnered three Batchelder Honors, for The Bathing Costume: Or the Worst Vacation of My Life by Charlotte Moundlic, translated from the French by Bedrick, and illustrated by Olivier Tallec and My Fathers Arms Are a Boat by Stein Erik Lunde, translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson, and illustrated by yvind Torseter (both 2014); and Nine Open Arms by Benny Lindelauf, translated from the Dutch by John Nieuwenhuizen, and illustrated by Dasha Tolstikova (2106). Bedrick balances her list of works in translation with a growing number of original titles. One of the first published was 2010s Emmas Journey by Claire Frossard, which the publisher acquired quite serendipitously. In 2009, Versailles native Claire Frossard traveled to New York City to visit her photographer uncle, Etienne Frossard. An artist and aspiring childrens book author, she arrived with the beginnings of Emmas Journey, a story about a sparrow living in Central Park, in her suitcaseand the address of Enchanted Lions office in her pocket. Claire had seen some books we had published, and she left a note on our door about the book she was working on, and we ended up acquiring it, Bedrick recounted. She wrote and illustrated the story, and Etienne Frossard contributed photographs to the book. It was one of our first successes with originals. Numerous subsequent originals have also done well, Bedrick noted, citing as examples Little Boy Brown by Isobel Harris and Andre Francois, the story of a lonely boy in New York City, released to mark the publishers 10th birthday in 2013; Enormous Smallness: A Story of E. E. Cummings, Matthew Burgesss 2015 picture book biography of the poet, featuring illustrations by Kris Di Giacomo; and The Polar Bear, the second installment of Jenni Desmonds Endangered Animals series, which was a New York Times Best Illustrated book of 2016 (the series third volume, The Elephant, is being released this month). A Time to Celebrate Enchanted Lions anniversary year has brought a robust new crop of original and translated titles to its list, as well as a reissue of Helen Bortens The Jungle, originally published in 1968, which was inspired by the authors trip to the Guatemalan rainforest. Other 2018 highlights include Bear and Wolf, Daniel Salmieris first book as both author and illustrator, a January release centering on unlikely friends who meet while walking in the snow on a winters evening; Vacation, a wordless tale by French artist Blexbolex, in which a girls grandfather brings an elephant home to stay, which published in March; and Ohara Hales Be Still, Life, a May book that depicts the relationship between stillness and motion. Fittingly, Enchanted Lion is hosting several celebrations during its anniversary year. At the Bologna Book Fair in March, the publisher welcomed more than 300 guests to a gallery exhibition and book launch for The Forest, a June title featuring elaborate paper engineering incorporating die-cuts, embossing, cutouts, and gatefolds. Italian author Riccardo Bozzi attended the event, as did illustrators Violeta Lopiz, who lives on the Spanish island of Ibiza, and Valerio Vidali, an Italian artist based in Berlin. Enchanted Lion is also producing co-editions of this title with Gallimard in France, Terre di Mezzo Editore in Italy, and Milrazones in Spain. On October 27, the publisher celebrated Arthur Geiserts Pumpkin Island, the story of a town overrun by a profusion of pumpkins, and the author-artists picture book oeuvre, with a launch party at Geiserts home and studio in Elkader, Iowa. Meshing fantasy and real life, his new picture book is set on an island in the Turkey River, which the author can see from his kitchen window. Enchanted Lion wraps up its birthday festivities on December 15 at the New York Public Library with an event spotlighting A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader, edited by Bedrick and Maria Popova. Eight years in the making, the book compiles 121 letters by a panoply of writers, among them Neil Gaiman, Jerome Bruner, Shonda Rhimes, Ursula K. Le Guin, Yo-Yo Ma, Judy Blume, Lena Dunham, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Jacqueline Woodson. The collection includes art by a stellar lineup of illustrators and graphic artists, including Sean Qualls, Oliver Jeffers, Maira Kalman, Mo Willems, Chris Ware, Shaun Tan, Tomi Ungerer, and Art Spiegelman. At the event, Bedrick explained, We will celebrate our continued collaboration and commitment to public libraries everywhere and the culture of reading. This project has been a labor of love and is woven entirely of goodwill, generosity of spirit, and a shared love of books. Everyone involved has donated their time, and all profits will go to the New York Public Library system. Looking ahead, Bedrick expects to continue publishing 1620 books annually, split roughly evenly between originals and works in translation, with occasional reissues of out-of-print picture books. She expressed gratitude to the sales reps associated with Consortium, Enchanted Lions distributor since 2010, who are passionate book people who have really gotten behind our list and handsell our books to booksellers. We do not have deep pockets and are not a mainstream publisher, and I am so grateful to the community that has come together to encourage us, help spread the word about our books, and embrace our independent spirit and vision. That support has enabled us to continue what we do. Members of the childrens book community gathered on October 20 for the annual Bank Street Book Festival, held at Bank Street College in Manhattan. Writers, artists, librarians, teachers, and publishers took part in a full day of panel discussions and presentations about childrens literature and using stories to build compassion, literacy, and community. The days first panel welcomed collaborative couples to discuss the childrens books they create together and how they define their respective creative roles. Panelists were Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson, founders of Just Us Books and editors of the new collection, We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices; Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, co-authors of And Tango Makes Three (Simon & Schuster); and author Candace Fleming and illustrator Eric Rohmann, creators of Strongheart: Wonder Dog of the Silver Screen (Random House/Schwartz & Wade). Shelley Diaz of School Library Journal moderated the discussion. The Hudsons have been collaborating together since we first met, said Wade, adding that our wedding vows were our first collaboration. The couple launched their publishing house, Just Us Books, 30 years ago; since then, they have published dozens of childrens books written by black authors and featuring black characters. For their latest collaboration, the Hudsons sought out the help of others in the childrens literature community. Willis explained that We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices, arose less from inspiration and more from a sense of obligation. As with many Americans, after seeing the results of the 2016 election, we were frankly appalled. How can a person with that kind of character be a leader? Cheryl and Wade were particularly concerned about what adults might tell their children about the election of a man whose beliefs fly in the way of core principals of equity and civility. They posed another question to the childrens book community: what do we tell our children?, with the goal of compiling their responses in a book. The Hudsons reached out to Rita Williams-Garcia, who enthusiastically agreed; other collaborators were equally eager to take part. They had initially planned to publish the collection through Just Us Books, until Wade crossed paths with Phoebe Yeh of Crown Books. After she heard about the project, Yeh told him, We need to talk. By publishing the book through Crown, We were able to get more national exposure, said Wade. The book was well-timed: Two years into Trumps presidency, [the book] is even more relevant, he said. Next, Fleming and Rohmann spoke about their collaborative processes. Most often (with the exception of their picture book, Giant Squid), Fleming first writes the text and Rohmann creates the art in response to Flemings narratives. Fleming learned of Strongheart, the first dog in history to become a Hollywood star, while reading Susan Orleans Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend. In the book, Orlean references another dog who became an actor before Rin Tin Tinn rose to fame. In other words, Rin Tin Tin was a copycat or copy dog, in this case. As she aims to do with many of her human subjects, she set out to return Strongheart to his place in history. Fleming wasnt initially certain that the book would feature illustrations. But, as the book is a piece of historical fiction in the era of silent films, she felt that it would not be of its time unless it had illustrations. There reached a point in the manuscript when she believed that black and white film could take over. Flemings editor didnt have a clear sense of her vision, but Rohmann was quick to grasp the concept. For Rohmann, his collaborations with Fleming are fruitful and symbiotic, as there is always room in [her] writing for visual language, he said. Parnell and Richardson next spoke about how they came to collaborate on And Tango Makes Three: The fact that were a couple resulted in our being the ones to write the story about these penguins. We wouldnt have written this if we were single, said Richardson. He is a psychologist, and in the 1990s, much of his work was focused on gay and lesbian mental health issues. Parnell is a playwright and freelance writer, but had not written for children before And Tango Makes Three. Because of Richardsons expertise, New York City schools began reaching out to him for guidance about how best to speak to their students about HIV. Consulting with teachers atAT? an all-girls school, he suggested that teachers talk to them about sexuality and sexual orientation before talking to them about HIV. At that time, Richardsonreminded attendees, sexual orientation wasnt discussed in classroom settings. As Parnell spoke more to teachers and to concerned parents, he learned that they were very preoccupied with finding the right language to talk about sexual orientation with their kids. One day while at a coffee shop, the couples lives were forever changed. They came across a New York Times article The Love that Dare Not Squeak Its Name. The story introduced them to Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins at the Central Park Zooa couple who were given their own fertile egg by zookeepers. Roy and Silo cared for their chick (whom zoo attendants named Tango) until Tango came of age. Spending time at coffee shops is now mostly a thing of the past, as Parnell and Richardson are raising their own daughtera whole new collaboration for the couple, and an opportunity to bring more childrens literature into our lives, said Parnell. In closing, the panelists discussed how to navigate difficulties that sometimes arise in collaborating creatively with their partners. Rohmann particularly appreciates the way he and Fleming can work separately and then come togethera sort of cross-collaboration. Hudson discussed the importance of finding intermediaries who can provide outside perspectives on creative workimportant for any artist or writerbut even more so for collaborators who both work and live together. For Wade, he feels its crucial for collaborating couples to clearly identify responsibilities (he also admits to giving Cheryl 80% of the house). Ultimately, whatever their creative processes, the panelists value the synergy that they achieve working alongside their partnersand the discoveries that they can make in the process: Do I ever get a book back [from Rohmann] looking exactly as Id seen in my mind? Absolutely not, said Fleming. Is that disappointing? Absolutely not. Its all about trust. School Days Panelists Adam Gidwitz, Rita Williams-Garcia, Stephen Savage, and Kat Yeh next spoke about the role that school visits play in the lives of childrens book creators. The discussion was moderated by childrens book author Emma Otheguy, who asked the contributors to discuss their own memories of school. Gidwitz shared that he was a child who was kicked out of his Montessori school (I wasnt Montessori material), and as a result, he feels that he is highly attune to the needs of children with no desire to be in a classroom. For Williams-Garcia, as an army brat, she found herself attending multiple schools for varying amounts of time, rarely staying long enough to form deep attachments. Certain memories stand out, including the shark cadaver in a sixth grade classroom that became the stuff of legend, and the murder of a seventh grader on the playground in New York City. Williams-Garcia recalls being highly motivated to write about the incident. While not all of her experiences in those many schools were positive, in their way, each and every one served me well. Yeh spoke about attending a Quaker school in Pennsylvania, where she was frequently self-conscious about not knowing how to pronounce words on the pages of books. As such, her early relationship with reading was influenced by the anxiety-provoking, highly structured nature of classroom read-alouds. Today, when visiting schools as author, Yeh often sees a marked difference in the way that classrooms approach readingone far less likely to intimidate and possibly squelch an early love of reading. She likes to see classrooms where kids are slumped on the floors reading, and readers are invited to just discover in relaxed, non-judgmental environments. Williams-Garcia is also moved by the manner in which every classroom I enter, I see books being used in different ways. She recently visited a social justice and robotics class, in which the students were reading her novel One Crazy Summer. Ideally, all classrooms have the freedom to tap into what kids are interested in. I like to step back and be amazed, she said. Savage observed how much more visually savvy classrooms are today. He often creates art along with students during his classroom visits. Being within those creative learning environments, Savage frequently ends up drawing the best thing Id done all week. He said he continues to be delighted each time he sees kids creating stories based on his own characters: Its a huge, wonderful surprise. The panelists often take interdisciplinary approaches to teaching about their books that work in tandem with what the classes are already engaged with. When Yeh visits classrooms in which students are reading her novel The Truth About Twinkie Pie, she has . them bring in food to share. She also has explored having students set scenes from the book to music. For Yeh, she feels its particularly powerful when she is able to see students taking their own reading experience and expressing it in different ways. Speaking of music, Williams-Garcia mentioned that she had always wanted a student to adapt her book Jump into an opera. She is also particularly intrigued to see students deconstruct her characters through visual, musical, or other mediums. In closing, the authors spoke about especially memorable classroom visits and how they have resonated through their writing. Williams-Garcia recalled a visit to a school in which a student who clearly admired her was quietly handcuffed by police and removed from the classroom. Though she saw what was happening at the back of the room, she pretended not to noticeshe could tell how desperately the boy was hoping that she had not seen. For Williams-Garcia, it was a living example of how badly someone wanted to change their stars, change their narrative. That experience provided her with new emotional insight into ideas about redemption and human frailty, which she has since worked into her writing: He gave me a whole lot more than he realized. Savages experience in classrooms skews to a much younger crowd: They are working on really basic things, like sitting up. But through the pre-K kids he interacts with during those visits, I learn a lot about what it is to be a baby, he said. He is also frequently moved by the realization that he is sometimes the first person to read a book to them. Yeh was left with a lasting impression of a particular school visit in the form of a belatedly delivered message. Shed asked students to write down their goals and give them to her. After removing all of the papers from her bag, she later discovered that shed forgotten one. The note said: write something meaningful. The idea of pursuing meaning, both as a writer and a reader, felt especially resonant at the moment she discovered the note: I just want my books to have meaning, she said. Making Messes Next to speak was Lisa Von Drasek, curator of the childrens literature archive at the University of Minnesotas Kerlan Collection. She is also the former childrens librarian of the Bank Street College of Education and director of Bank Streets Center for Childrens Literature. She emphasized the importance of creating supportive, non-critical spaces for students to work on their writing; spaces that emphasize that all good writing first starts as a mess. When working with kids, Von Drasek presents a bill of writes, for her students, which includes affirming statements like: I write to please myself, and I spell the way I can; I learn to spell as I write. She aims to create a learning environment devoid of judgement, and which advocates for free exploration. She shared several project ideas and methods for helping readers and writers to become content, self-guided readers and writers. Some tweaks to a learning space are ingeniously simple: for example, giving kids smaller pieces of paper can help reduce anxiety. She also provides kids with writing boxes, which include hands-on supplies for readers to take ownership over their own writing process. Von Drasek encourages kids to respond to mentor texts in manners that are creative and enhance their understanding (for example, by making a newspaper, drawing a map, or creating a recipe). For Von Drasek, libraries need not always be quiet places. In fact, it is noisy, and Im all for that. She always leaves time for students to share, but not everyone has to share. Above all, she aims to stop perfectionism. After all, they who make no mistakes, make nothing, she said. The Real World The final panel discussion of the day, Bringing the Real World to Life! Illustration in Informational Books, featured authors and illustrators Maira Kalman, John Parra, Roxie Munro, Melissa Sweet, and Zeke Pena. Childrens literature consultant Gillian Engberg moderated. The panelists discussed recent projects, their creative processes, finding subject matter, and pairing nonfictional content with illustrations. Munro generally envisions a book visually before she creates the text. For her book Rodent Rascals (Holiday House), she first began creating sketches of the rodents that would be in the book. And, while it is a work of nonfiction, I began to fall in love with the characters, she said. Parra spoke about illustrating Monica Browns Frida Kahlo and Her Animalitos (NorthSouth) explaining that he was initially reluctant to do so. In part, he was intimidated by the subject, saying, Her art is so meaningful and inspirational to me. He also had trepidation concerning the many books on Frida Kahlo; he wondered what approach he would take. But as he researched the artist, he observed that the she is often presented like a deity. He decided to instead focus on Kahlos down-to-earth nature, love of animals, and her refusal to be defined by disabilities (Kahlo contracted polio and was in a vehicle accident at age 18). Senator Kristen Gillibrands picture book, Bold and Brave: Ten Heroes Who Won Women the Right to Vote (Knopf), illustrated by Maira Kalman, explores the history of womens suffrage, focusing on particular figures of great influence. While researching the women featured in the book in order to illustrate them, Kalman was deeply moved. Its very emotional, what these women were up against: going to jail, marching, defying their husbands and society, she said. Kalman wanted to show the womens fierce devotion to the cause of suffrage, while also representing their vitality as individuals with full lives. One of her favorite figures in the book is organizer and activist Inez Milholland, who rode a white horse in a suffragist parade, while dressed like Joan of Arc. Kalman believes there is something to be learned from Milhollands tenacity and creativity: What do you do when things seem dire? You get on a horse! When working on Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White (HMH), Sweet indulged in the pleasure of research and discovery. For any biographer, choices need to be made about which aspects of an individuals life becomes the narrative focus. Illustrated biographies present additional challenges and opportunities to tell a story visually, said Sweet. She chose to illustrate the book in a collage style, integrating images of Whites typewriters. (White is known to have said: I fell in love with the sound of an early typewriter and have been stuck with it ever since.) As Sweet created the art, she thought of the work as being like a puzzle, fitting together different component parts of Whites life. She also kept in mind another line from White about the creative process: Writing is rewriting. Incidentally, Sweet shared, White didnt actually introduce the character of Fern until the final drafts of Charlottes Web. Beginning by thanking the teachers in the audience, calling them keepers of culture, protectors of everything we value, Pena spoke about how he came to illustrate the graphic biography, Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide by Isabel Quintero (Getty Publications). Pena, whose background is in community organizing, initially became familiar with the photographer while on a road trip through Mexico. When he and Quintero teamed up for the project, he made the decision to draw less from historical context, and more from Iturbides photographs themselves. However, he didnt want his illustrations to be replicas of Iturbides images, but to instead express a similar visual language. As Iturbide often captured in her photographs, he hoped to distill something of the in-between space, or the moments that occur after laughter subsides, or artifice falls away. Throughout his process, he remained cognizant of the tricky line between fact and imagination, and how much leeway an author and artist have when creating a story of a persons life. Invariably, and often beautifully, all art is an abstraction, Sweet said. For illustrators of nonfiction books, the challenge is to make it true. Munro similarly expressed how writing nonfiction is an act of filtering content, and the telling of a true, real topic through a device. In closing, the panelists discussed the impact of sharing their art with students, and the significance of teaching the arts in schools. For Munro, the fact that 40-60% of kids are visual learners speaks to the value of using images in classrooms. Pena believes that creating and teaching art is about more than making pictures, but embracing different ways of thinking. Parra agrees, saying its important to express to kids that learning about art isnt just about growing up to be an artist, but is a way of creative problem-solving: right now, we could use a lot of problem-solving. Bringing Hard Truths into the Light Finally, Adam Gidwitz delivered a sensitive and stirringly honest keynote address. He spoke about his years as a teacher, which directly led to his development as an author. Early in his career as an educator, he learned that the way to get his kids to listen was to tell them stories. Gidwitz began writing stories at night at the request of his students who were eager to learn what happened next. After a few creative missteps, incarnations of these stories eventually made it into Gidwitzs first published book, A Tale Dark and Grimm (Dutton). Though he left teaching, Gidwitz often returns to classrooms as a visiting author. These visits have also led to a new venturea podcast called Grimm, Grimmer, and Grimmest, in which Gidwitz records his interactions with kids as he tells them classic fairy talesin all their weirdness and wonder. Unfiltered and unsanitized fairy tales are filled with darkness, uncertainty, and flawed characters. And Gidwitz is the first to admit that he is flawed himself. He spoke about the problem of unconscious bias and the importance of bringing it into the light, using his own biases as an example: I am racist. I am sexist, he declared. He explained that he detests these truths about himself, but that they are woven into the fabric of my thought. He went on to explain how his privilege, paired with the deeply ingrained racist and sexist assumptions and stereotypes that go unchallenged within society, have led to his own blind spots. These realizations have been hard-hitting and powerful for Gidwitzand as a result, he is resolved to doing better moving forward. But he knew that white authors writing diverse characters wasnt going to solve very much. So he sought out a non-white illustrator for the Unicorn Rescue Society series, finding Hatem Aly. He is also pairing up with numerous authors from diverse backgrounds for the subsequent books. As the characters investigate fantastical creatures, his coauthors bring a level of respect and cultural verisimilitude to the stories that Gidwitz could not have reached independently. His first coauthors are Joseph Bruchac for Sasquatch and the Muckleshoot, which publishes this fall; and Emma Otheguy, for an upcoming book in the series about the mythical Cuban creatures madre de aguas. Gidwitz reiterated that I am a racist and a sexist... but I am a racist and sexist in recovery. He encouraged audience members to be similarly willing to confront the biases that they may not yet know they hold. He quoted Bruchac, in saying, We should listen twice as much as we speak. With this in mind, Now Im going to shut up, Gidwitz said. The 37th Sharjah International Book Fair flew in nearly 380 publishers and agents, up from roughly 200 last year, to the third largest of the United Arab Emirates for the pre-fair professional publishing conference. The dramatic upswing in attending publishers marked another strong year for the fair, which aims to rival the fairs in Frankfurt, London, and Beijing in terms of both size and influence in the global publishing rights market. After more than a decade of courting global publishers, Sharjah's publishing ambitions are coming to fruition. This year's fair marks the one-year anniversary of the opening of governmental agency Sharjah Book Authority's 430,000 sq.-ft. Sharjah Publishing City and the launch of an Arabic-language edition of Publishers Weeklywhich will soon become a monthly, in addition to a proposed weekly newsletterwith many of the facility's promised features due to be completed by next February 2019, director Salim Omar Salim said. Sharjah has also been named World Publishing Capital 2019 by UNESCO, just over 20 years after the organization designated the emirate as the Cultural Capital of the Arab World. Salim added that discussions with Ingram Content Group, which has indicated interest in opening a Lightning Source POD facility on site, were reaching final stages, and that parties including Baker & Taylor and Penguin Random House had indicated interest in the space as well. The space was put to good use at the publishing conference for a banquet on Monday night, which followed the first of two mornings of panels and afternoons of matchmaking sessions held at the Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The mood of the show seemed positive overall, among old hands and newcomers alike. Much of the U.S. and U.K. publishing contingents, in particular, made clear that the fair felt tighter this year than ever before despite the larger crowd, and a number of the U.S. publishers mentioned, on background, that they found the matchmaking sessions productive. Many of the Americans in attendance this year were repeat visitors, including Interlink founder and publisher Michel Moushabeck, Steve Rosato of OverDrive (which has partnered with Sharjah librarieswhich are managed by the Book Authorityto bring e-books to libraries in the emirate), Akashic Books's Ibrahim Ahmad, Ishmael Tree's Gigi Ishmael, and former S&S v-p and director of international sales Seth Russo. Russo accompanied, as he has in years past, a contingent comprised of editor Jennifer Brehl of William Morrow and Andrea Chambers, director of the New York University's Center for Publishing, which runs a training session focusing on strategies and best practices from the American market for Arabic-language publishers on the Sunday preceding each international professional program. Others in attendance from the U.S., some of whom were first-timers, included William Morris Endeavor agent Caitlin Mahony, Kimberly Williams of the American Psychological Association, Jaime Levine of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Andrew Cummings of Lerner Publishing Corp., Felice Pilchik of Macmillan Learning, Ariel Kane of Restless Books, Maksim Rutenberg of World Book, Inc., and Barry Johnson of Human Kinetics, Inc. As in years past, everyone flown in for the fair was housed together at two hotels, and a number of social events outside of the matchmaking sessions ensured a collegiate mood. The fair also had the advantage, a number of attendees made clear, of being newer and quickly-growing, allowing for an easier development of newer relationships than at fairs like Frankfurt and London, where pre-existing relationships tend to get cemented each year in lieu of the development of novel connections. Among incentives for publishers to cut deals at the fair, the greatest is perhaps a huge grant program offered as support for translation projects brought forth at the event. As PW's Ed Nawotka previously reported, "an adult title can receive up to $4,000 and a childrens book $1,000; the total pool of funds for translations to and from Arabic is $250,000. For translations between two other languages, it's $50,000. Panels and Keynotes The publishing conference, organized by the Sharjah Book Authority in conjunction with Midas PR Agency in London, opened on Monday with a welcome from Ahmed bin Rakkad Al Ameri, chairman of the Authority, followed by a brief keynote address from outgoing International Publishing Association president Michiel Kolman. Introducing the morning's panels, Kolman stressed the necessity of freedom to publish and the importance of data and forward-thinking, technology-embracing publishing. "The digital transition continues, and perhaps in contrast to what some may believe, publishers are playing a leading role in that transition," he said, disputing traditional wisdom that print will remain the backbone of the publishing industry in years to come. Kolman also stressed the need for data produced by "both industry and governments" in determining "decisions about the future of our business." The first panel, conducted in Arabic by Moushabeck, focused on trends in the Arab publishing world. Panelists described difficulties getting their work presented to English-language readers, asserting that bringing Western works into the Arab world in translation was a much easier task. Baker Ramadan, of Al-Shamel Publishing in Palestine, said Palestinian publishing is an especially difficult space, but established his commitment to "try to unify the Palestinians in the diaspora and reproduce their work in Palestine itself," while Jordan's Jordanian Publishing Association helps Palestinian publishers distribute outside of Israel. Distributing, the panel concluded, is one of the biggest issues in the Arab publishing world, with Moushabeck noting that the Middle East needs a distributor like Ingram in the region as much as it needs international publishers to take more chances on Arabic books. Following the panel, Ahmed Saadawi, an Iraqi writer and filmmaker who won the 2014 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for Frankenstein in Baghdad and is published in 32 languages, discussed his path to international success in a keynote describing how he bided his time waiting for the right English-language deal, with Penguin Random House's One World imprint. Saadawi also criticized assumptions from Western readers that Arab artists will also inevitably have something political to say about their region. "How can I protect my writing from politicians and political comments," he asked, adding: "To make a novel a servant of politics is something dangerous." Politics was also central in the day's second panel, moderated by Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi, daughter of the ruler of Sharjah, Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, and founder and CEO of Sharjah-based children's and educational books publisher Kalimat Publishing Group, who will be named v-p of the IPA next year. The panel focused on "freedom to publish in peril," and brought the IPA's chair of the Freedom to Publish Committee, Kristenn Einarsson, into conversation with Dr. Razia Rahman Jolly, widow of murdered Bangladeshi publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan, and Nogaam Publishing founder Azadeh Parsapour, whose house publishes Iranian books subject to pre-publication censorship in that country. The panel, in addition to calling out issues of censorship in countries where freedom to publish has been a right long refused, noted the rising worries of censorship in the Western world. President Donald Trump received his share of scrutiny from this panel and from other speakers throughout the day. The final panel on Monday focused on how international publishers and agents could best do business with Arab publishers in general, while Tuesday's panels were specific to the educational and children's markets in the Arab world, paying extra attention to education as the morning's first keynote was delivered by Hussain Ibrahim Al Hammadi, the UAE minister of education. Al Hammadi stressed the necessity of more diverse books outside of the traditional textbook market in educating the children of his country. The UAE, he said, "seeks to empower the new generation with reading and creativity." He added: "We have to diversify our knowledge base." The children's panel, in particular, proved a bit contentious, with publishers from the UAE, Egypt, and Jordan expressing markedly different concerns in terms of what sorts of works from international publishers would be acceptable, let alone desirable, in translation. While the UAE's Dr. Alyazia Khalifa, of AlFulk Translation and Publishing, showed more openness in taking risks on international books that described worlds the children of her country were unfamiliar with, Jordan's Mones Al Hattab, of ABC Publishers, said Western publishers should be more aware of what works were appropriate to try to sell to the Arab world, citing books about divorce as being particularly divisive. "Foreign publishers," he said, " should focus on this region for having its own special identity. Tuesday also saw current IPA v-p, and incoming president, Hugo Setzer, stress the importance of publishers across the world working together and "building bridges." A balance must be struck, he said, between focusing on local communities and on international engagement, and publishers need to be cognizant of the need for both. Setzer will take the reins of the IPA in January for a two-year term, and will be succeeded by incoming v-p Al Qasimi, who will then become the first woman president of the association since Ana Maria Cabanellas ended her term in 2008. A Sun Country Airline pilot was arrested in Florida on Friday night after a loaded handgun was found in his luggage as he passed through a TSA security checkpoint, according to multiple reports. According to NBC 5 Minneapolis, Brian A. Machtemes, 54, a pilot for Twin Cities-based Sun Country Airlines was arrested on Friday night at the Southwest Florida International Airport on charges of unlicensed carry of a concealed firearm after a gun was found in his travel suitcase. According to a police report provided to Business Insider by the Lee County Port Authority office associated with the Southwest Florida International Airport, the handgun was detected in a suitcase while being screened by a TSA x-ray operator at approximately 6:50 p.m. According to the police report, Officer Jacob Brunick was called to the TSA checkpoint. Officer Brunick confirmed the bag belonged to Machtemes and that Machtemes had packed it himself and that it hadn't left his possession since being packed. Brunick then searched the bag, and in the suitcase's second zipper pouch he found a In a statement provided to Business Insider, Sun Country Airlines confirmed Machtemes is a pilot for the airline and said, " The Minnesota Star Tribune reports TSA The large file in CSV files was detected in a research conducted by Justin Paine, Head of Trust & Safety, Cloudflare, an internet security company based in U.S. According to Justin, these sensitive files were owned by Arik Air, "West-Africa's leading airline" and the bucket contains 994 CSV files. Some of these CSV files contain in excess of 80,000+ rows of data while other files contain 46,000+ rows of data, and in some cases, files only contain 3 rows of data, Justin said in a report via the website - rainbowtabl.es. The lack of data protection law makes Nigeria vulnerable to issues like that and Paradigm Initiative has been talking about this for the last four year, Sodiq Alabi, Communications Lead at Paradigm Initiative told Business Insider. Alabi said companies, industries are collecting data without any law backing how they use it and it is virtually impossible for citizens to seek redress if abuse occur. Why customer's information is in danger According to Paine, a malicious person could potentially use this sensitive information to the target one of these customers of Arik Air for identity theft. With the information included in this leak a fraudster would have plenty of useful data points -- the person's name, email, first 6 and last 4 of the credit card, and a hint as to what the person's 2FA values might be so they could then focus on compromising that 2FA account (email or phone number) to take steal the users identify. Some of the customers' data are from Teflon Hub, PayportSA, Flutterwave, Ntel and some commercial banks in Nigeria and other African countries with passengers on Lagos to Port Harcourt flights as most affected. Information such as dates of sale, payment values, types of currency used, device fingerprints -- which may relate to the use of mobile devices or desktop systems -- and in some cases, the departing and arriving airports all appear to be in the data dump. Justin Paine reaches out to reach Arik Air Justin Paine, the data researcher said he contacted Arik Air over a month ago to disclose the leak but unable to reach them after multiple attempts. ... after multiple messages on their corporate Facebook page and Facebook messages I eventually received a reply and they provided me with the email address for a security point of contact. Several days later the security point of contact confirmed they would review my report, and that was the last I heard from Arik Air. In all -- roughly 1 month elapsed from the time I notified them to the time they took action to acknowledge my report and to secure their customer's data. It is not certain if any data have been affected by the leak but this could cause customers a whole lot of hard earned cash and could be among the biggest leak in Africa. Nigerians react to report on data leak Akin Oyebode in a twitter post described the inability of Arik Air to respond as a madness. A breach of individual and corporate information, and it takes a month for Arik to reply or take action. See the corporate details exposed, includes banks. Madness. Business Insider SSA contacts Arik Air communications team Adebanji Ola, PR & Communications Manager at Arik Air Limited said the airline is not hosted on Amazon S3 for any of its services but it is currently reviewing all its systems. We can confirm that we do not use Amazon S3 for our hosting services. Our online platforms are up and running and not under attack. On this day, many people around the world play dress up in scary costumes and fancy getups. Everyone, including Christians, participates in what seems like a harmless fun thing to do. What they do not realise that this day is actually quite dark and scary. Witches, occultists, Satanists and anyone that is anti-God believe that the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest on this day, so it is seen as an opportunity to contact the dead. Hence, the name Feast of the Dead, another term for Halloween. This explains why former Satanist, John Ramirez says he is surprised that Christians partake in this holiday. Speaking with CBN News, he shared some secrets about this dark day, along with a stern warning to believers to avoid this day. In his words, I was a general to the kingdom of darkness in witchcraft. I would sit with the Devil and talk to him like Im talking to you today. It was that kind of communication. It was that kind of relationship. Sometimes people say I celebrated Halloween 10 years ago, I did this 15 years ago, I did this 20 years ago. But the doors still open. You just cursed your family from three to four generations. You have to be aware its a curse. You have to go back to the place where you started, that year that you started that Halloween thing, the celebration when you started having that encounter with the dark side. You have to go back to that same spot and renounce and renounce it in the name of Jesus Christ and ask God to forgive you for that so that God can have mercy and close that door so your whole family can move forward. John Ramirez is now an internationally known evangelist, author and speaker. ALSO READ: 3 popular things Christians do that are deeply rooted in Satanism An ex-witch has also shared her scary Halloween story on Theothersideofdarkness.com. Here is an excerpt: My parents told me before we went around the neighbourhood we were going to go to the church (Mormon Church) to get some candy there. The church was very close to my grandmothers house, and I knew so from going often. We went to the church and what happened next made my blood curdle. I was given candy, but that was just a prelude to the sexual abuse that would happen in a satanic ritual." On Halloween Satanists use young children, such as myself, as sexual idols to worship. Other children receive a far worse fate. Death. I know for some this is more than you can even think to believe, but it is true. I can barely write these words because the pain of the truth is almost more than I can bear. If it wasnt for the grace and love of Jesus Christ, I would not even be here writing this at all. It was titled: I Was Abused In A Satanic Halloween Ritual. If this is not enough proof of the evil nature of this day, I don't what it is. Fun Fact. Halloween is regarded as one of the two most important holidays of the year. On page 96 of the Satanic Bible, Anton LaVey wrote, After ones own birthday, the two major Satanic holidays are Walpurgisnacht (May 1st) and Halloween. He has also been quoted saying, I am glad that Christian parents let their children worship the devil at least one night out of the year. Welcome to Halloween. We might choose to ignore the truth about this festival of death and focus on the cool dress up part. But it does not change the fact that this day definitely holds some dark reality. Here is everything you need to know about this second branch of the Islamic faith: Origin story Prophet founded the Islam religion during the seventh century. During his lifetime, there were no fractions amongst Muslims as everyone simply followed his ways and teachings. Then, he died and things changed. Following the death of Muhammad in 632 A.D., he was succeeded by Abu Bakr, the prophet's close companion and father-in-law. He ruled for a very short time before Umar took over the leadership of the Muslim nation. Uthman was the next leader, followed byAli ibn Abi Talib,. It was during his rule that there was a dispute over the successor. This was championed by the Muslim governor of Syria, Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan who was also a critic of the prophet. He argued that people should have been allowed to vote for their next leader after the prophet's death instead of a small group imposing a successor on the followers. Hence, his problem with Ali who became ruler simply because he was related to the prophet by blood. The antagonism between Ali and Muawiyah eventually led to a major conflict called the Battle of Siffin. Following the war, Muawiyah's camp broke again and became known as the Kharijites. Ali was later murdered by a Kharijite in 661 after ruling for five years. Upon Ali's death, Muawiyah became the generally acknowledged leader. During his reign, Ali's son Hasan tried to contest for leadership but it was unsuccessful. Following his failed attempt, his brother was invited to meet the Muslims of Al-Kufah in Iraq, Ali's former headquarters, in order to bid for leadership. He was killed near the town of Karbala (the Battle of Karbala), which is now a pilgrimage destination in central Iraq for Shiites. The unjust killings of Ali and his son, al-Husayn, gave him more recognition among Muslims and later led to the emergence of supporters of Ali and his blood descendants, who believe that Ali (who is the only successor related to the prophet by blood) should have been the first Muslim leader after the prophet. This group became known as the Shiite sect. The name comes from the word 'Shiism' which originates from Shiat Ali, which translates as 'Ali's supporters' or 'Ali's partisans'. Reportedly, Shiites now make for roughly one-tenth of the Muslim population worldwide. They can be found in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, South Asia, and even . ALSO READ: 5 interesting things Muslims believe about the Antichrist Between Sunni and Shiites Muslims The major difference between these two Islamic groups is their belief concerning the prophet's successor. For the Sunnis, choosing a new leader from the Prophet's companions after Muhammad's death was the right thing to do he did not have a son. This group is the largest branch of Islam. The term 'Sunni' comes from the word Sunn, in Arabic, which means "one who follows the traditions of the Prophet." On the other hand, Shiites believe that Ali, Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, who later became the fourth successor, should have have been the first leader after Muhammad's death. This is because they believe that all successors must be direct descendants of Muhammad's family. As such, Shiites have never recognized the authority of elected Muslim leaders throughout history going as far as to reject the traditions narrated by some of the prophet's companions (Abu Bakr, Umar ibn Al Khattab, Aisha, etc). Instead, they choose to follow leaders like Ali and his descendants including his son who come from Prophet Muhammad's bloodline. This is explains why Shiites often make annual pilgrimages to visit their shrines. Beliefs and practices of Shittes They believed in the Oneness of God (Tawhid), Justice of God (Adalah), Prophethood (Nubuwwah), Leadership (Imamah), Day of Judgment (Qiyamah). They also practice Sawm (fasting during the holy month of Ramadhan), Hajj (pilgrimage), Zakat (charity), Jihad (struggle to please God) and more. A distinctive practice among Shiites is street processions and symbolic self-flagellation. One the Holy Day of Ashura during Muharram, the first month in the Islamic calendar, this group of Muslims slash and whip themselves in honor of Prophet Muhammad's grandson, al-Husayn. It's well known that all Muslims are required to pray five times a day. However, this is not the necessarily the case amongst the Shiites where combining some prayers into three daily prayer times is allowed. Shiites pray differently from Sunnis. While praying, they place their heads on a small tablet of clay from a holy place whilst prostrating. They also stand with their arms by their sides, unlike the Sunnis who put their hands on their stomachs. But if making money from your first job is one of the major reasons you want to get a degree, you absolutely need to prepare yourself for certain courses. These courses will not only put food on your table, but they can also make you very rich. Here are five courses you should go for if you want to start making a lot of money immediately after getting your BSc certificate. 1. Medicine ece-auto-gen In Nigeria and many other parts of the world, medicine is one of the most marketable and high paying jobs. Even at the National Youth Service Corps level, medical graduates get a better allowance than other corps members from their places of primary assignments. 2. Petrochemical Engineering This course offers a heavy pay with good allowances including house allowance, car allowance and many others. Petroleum is Nigeria's largest exporting product and as such, petrochemical engineers in the country are in hot demand. According to Glassdoor, Shell engineers are making over N500,000 monthly. 3. Estate Management/Architecture/ Civil Engineering ece-auto-gen Studying any of these three which are usually under the same faculties in Nigerian Universities can position you for a high paying job. On the average, entry-level civil engineers make between N100, 000 N350, 000. ALSO READ: 5 courses that prepare you to work anywhere 4. Logistics/Transportation According to the 2018 Stutern's report, Logistics/Transportation industry is one of the most paid industries. The research survey shows that the industry has the highest respondents earning 200,000 and more. 5. Geology Graduating with good grades, acquiring some marketable skill set and having an incredible CV are not enough to get you the job you desire. You'll also need to make use of certain platforms to land yourself a good job. Exploring these seven ways could land you a job earlier than you expect. 1. The media You can get to know about an opening in a company through the media. Business establishments use the mass media to announce vacant positions in their companies. 2. Recruitment agencies / Job sites Submitting your CV to job sites like Jobberman and other popular recruitment agencies can quicken your job opportunities. You need to be familiar with these sites and learn how to use them. The recruitment agencies can also help you rewrite your CV and make it perfect credential for the job you desire. 3. Employers websites If there a company you really wish to work for, then you must always check the company's website. Employers often put up vacancies on their websites, You can also check their social media pages too for information about vacancies. And when you see WE ARE HIRING, don't hesitate to apply. ALSO READ: 5 university courses that can make you rich as soon as you graduate 4. Personal contacts A survey conducted by Stutern shows that graduates are ten times more likely to get a job through their personal contacts than their academic institutions. This is why it is important you network well in and outside of the school. Attend events, meet people and get their contacts. 5. Social media/ Networking sites Many Nigerians graduates have been able to secure employment opportunities by selling themselves on Twitter and other social networking sites. In November 2017, a jobless first-class graduate of Ajayi Crowther University was offered a job after announcing her joblessness on Twiter. 6. Internship Internship is another way to land a job. This is why you shouldn't joke with your internship period. When you are interning, give it your best, the company might decide to retain you and offer you a job after your graduation. 7. University/ Polytechnics employment "I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative!!!" he shared. Kanye who earlier in the week was associated with a campaign led by conservative activist, Candace Owens that encourages black voters to leave the Democratic Party, also clarified his involvement in the campaign saying he only made an introduction to the person who designed the logo. In an Instagram post, the AMVCA winner said 'callous doesnt even begin to describe this dastardly act.' ALSO READ: 13-year-old girll dies after being allegedly raped by father son The '76' star further said that it is sad that the system failed the late Ochanya Ogbaje and hopes the culprit will be brought to book. "This is heartbreaking.. callous doesnt even begin to describe this dastardly act! We failed you dear young one.. the system failed you and I pray that justice is meted out to the perpetrators! Rest In Peace beautiful one, Rest with angels.." Rita Dominic started performing when she was a child, appearing in school plays and children's television shows in Imo State. In 1998 she starred in her first movie, "A Time to Kill," she later went on to star the comedy movie, "My Guy" featuring comedy great, Ali Baba. She has starred in over 100 Nollywood productions. The Police Public Relations Officer in Benue State, Moses Yamu, said four persons arrested in connection with the crime confessed to kidnapping the boy and sold him to one Unwa Chibueze and Elizabeth for N500,000. Yamu gave the names of the suspects as, Joy Onyeabor 32 years, Lucy Doosur, 29 years, Sunday Udoh, 26 years and Friday Orinya 33 years. ALSO READ: Suspected Nigerian fraudster arrested for scamming international companies Explaining how they kidnapped Ajekwe, the syndicate said the boy was with his brother who is about 7-yr-old when they kidnapped him. They said they lured the older child with the sum of N50 to help them buy bread, leaving the younger child in their care before they whisked him to Aba Abia State. According to the Benue Police Command, ''Police detectives extended the investigation to Aba in Abia state and recovered/rescued the child Bemdoo Ajekwe on the 23/10/2018. The child has since been reunited to the family while an investigation continues with a view to arresting other fleeing members of the syndicate. Missing 4-year-old girl found in Benin orphanage after 7 weeks Similarly, a 4-year-old Elo Ogidi went missing during a church service at the Christ Embassy, and was found in Benin, Edo state seven weeks after her disappearance. According to a report by Punch, the young Ogidi was found in an orphanage in Benin after she was kidnapped on Sunday, July 8, 2018. To get from point A to B, Lagosians, who dont have cars or possess the financial means to take cabs, use motorcycles (known as okadas), commercial buses (known as danfos) or tricycles (known as Keke NAPEP or Keke Marwa) to get around. While these modes of transportation differ, they have one thing in common- rough and unpolished drivers that look straight out of a Terror Muda comic strip from Vanguard's back page. The chances of seeing a gentlemanly driver on the streets of Lagos is the same as finding a needle in a haystack. It is difficult but not impossible. The corporate keke driver Mr Samuel Ogundare is that needle in the haystack. Ogundare is not your average Lagos tricycle driver. Here is his story. Why is he different? For one, his dress code is more suited for a GQ photoshoot than driving on the rough roads of Lagos. When Pulse met him in Shitta, Surulere, he was wearing a white shirt, black blazer, bow tie and a pair of suede wingtip shoes. Samuel Ogundare is a 5'6 man, with a clean shave, a great haircut and a certain swagger that you rarely see with commercial transporters. His keke is not the average dirty tricycle. It has a sound and visual system. It also has brown leather seats, a hand towel and specially tailored carpets in the right areas with a phone camera. It doesn't stop there. His Keke also has a ceiling fan. Ogundare is also present on social media. He has an Instagram, Facebook and Twitter account for his one-of-a-kind keke. His sharp sense of style and packaging was the subject of attraction on Twitter recently. Its not every day you see a keke driver dressed like an investment banker with a posh Keke. Ogundares business strategy has garnered his names like "corporate guy" and "Kowope," on the streets of Surulere. "I know people look down on Keke drivers and think they don't know anything. This is what I do, and if I don't stand out, and act like everyone else, how will anyone take me seriously?" "I like what I do and I enjoy it. I don't like to think anyone is better than me." he continues. When I asked whether it was a marketing tactic, he says, "Yes and no. This is me being who I am. I like dressing well. But yes, it is also so people look at me differently." Financial reward Ogundare has two kekes and each one costs N650,000. How much does he make in a day? "Usually, it's about N5,000 but on the good days, I make N7,000, N8, 000," he says. "I come out at 9 (am) and I work till 2-3 (pm) and go pick the children assigned to me from school. I close at 5:30 pm every day he further says. His beginnings "I completed my Secondary School exams in 2013 - that's five years ago. My older brother, also a Keke driver asked me to come to Lagos he tells Pulse. He continues, "When I arrived, I got a Keke on hire-purchase. I worked with it for four years and saved up each day." God as his father One easily perceivable thing in all our conversations was, "God". So I asked him whether he was a Christian. It turns out he is an instrumentalist and as we later discussed in camera, his "Father in the lord," helped him realise how he could stand out of the crowd. He plays the talking drum and goes to church every other day. His church connects have also helped his growing popularity around the Surulere, Ojuelegba area. It underlines the power of referrals. When trust is built, business tends to work itself as someone will talk to another who needs a solution you can provide. That's why Ogundare transports over five children a day across Surulere. Their parents have complete trust in him. Admirers and growing popularity Being a guy with a growing reputation, admirers are bound to come. He says passively as if it meant nothing that, "I just want to make my money and go but I like them, it means they appreciate what I do." He continues, "I just try to stay humble, but those people have helped me a lot with social media posts and other things." On women, he says, "I have no girlfriend, but I will when the time is right." Would he take another job? Interestingly, Ogundare says no. He says he loves his job and wouldn't change it for a thing. Instead, he says he would invest heavily in this business and watch it all yield results. He's a sensation and people are taking notice fast. Politicians are also coming in. Ogundare has an employee that drives his second keke. His name is John Kelechi who he hired earlier in the year. His end goal They will be launching new models of Freezers, Water Heaters and Dryers Speaking about the event, the Brand and Marketing Manager at Somotex, Mr. Seyi Oduwaye explained the choice of Lagos International Trade Fair for the product unveiling. We are confident the Lagos International Trade Fair offers us a solid platform to unveil our latest products and reach Nigerians. It will be a time for the best brands in Nigeria to showcase their products and services to the world which is why we have chosen to identify with it. Mr. Seyi also commended the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry for creating such a viable platform for businesses in the country. He further revealed that Somotex is committed to its promise of delivering quality products and services to Nigerians. At Somotex, our major focus is to continuously deliver products of value to our numerous customers, we partner with globally recognised brands for quality and cutting edge technology. We have Midea and Bruhm products in our home appliances and Electronics portfolio, we are also the sole distributor for Havells Electricals and Sukam Inverters and batteries. We believe quality is not just an act but its instilled over time based on trust and credibility. We offer diversified and affordable products borne out of innovative engineering based on the needs of the consumer Mr Vinod Khatwani the General Manager highlighted the strides of Somotex Nigeria Limited in the consumer electronics industry. Our goal is to become the biggest distributor of home appliances and consumer electronics in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa. This is why we have spread our offices and authorized dealers nationwide and partnered with reputable brands "We promise our customers rest of mind with a full two-year warranty on selected products and excellent after sales service on all products. Customers can walk into any of our stores or shop online to buy our products "Trust me when I say our prices are pocket friendly without any compromise on quality." The company will also showcase other products during the trade fair such as air-conditioners, chest freezers, 4 door Refrigerators and washing machines. Somotex Nigeria Limited is one of the largest distributors of household appliances in Nigeria with more than 1000+ trade partners. Kindly visit stall No - EE1/3082 and shop quality affordable home and kitchen appliances. Our head office is at No. 1 Olorunfunmi Street, off Kudirat Abiola way, behind Philips building, Ojota, and Lagos. Other office locations are: 123, Obafemi Awolowo way, opposite AP filling station, oke-ado, Ibadan. Plot 232, No. 2 Leventis building, off Muhammadu Buhari way, central area, FCT, Abuja. 135, Trans Amadi, Industrial layout, PHC, Rivers State. 59, Maganda road, Bompai industrial area, Kano. KM 13, Enugu expressway, near Ogbunike junction With distributors across other states. You can call - 08122892556 / 08023663628 or visit www.somotexnig.com According to the BBC, the 29-yr-old Nigerian who had already left his cabinet post pleaded guilty to having 2,500-worth of drugs, at last year's Bestival event in Dorset. Osamor, who is a son of Shadow International Development Secretary, Kate Osamor, was reportedly caught with ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine and cannabis at the festival in August 2017, nine months before he was elected as a councillor, BBC reports. ece-auto-gen Following his arraignment, Osamor was sentenced to a two-year community order and 20 days rehabilitation on Friday, October 26, 2018. While announcing his resignation, the 29-yr-old Nigerian in a statement to the council's chief executive said: "It is with great regret that I am offering this as formal notice of my resignation as councillor, effective immediately. "I would like to take the opportunity to apologise to the council, as I have to my ward colleagues and residents, for the unwelcome attention my case has brought to Haringey." Spectranet earned the recognition at the 2018 edition of the awards, an initiative of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), which is aimed at celebrating the continued growth and success of the Information, Communication and Technology marketplace and focus on exceptional and innovative performance within the industry. Speaking at the presentation, Executive Secretary, Association of Telecommunications Company of Nigeria (ATCON), Ajibola Olude commended Spectranet for its consistency in deploying innovative internet services and products to deepen 4G LTE rollout in Nigeria. Spectranet 4G LTE has performed excellently well this year, beyond what they did last year. The brand has been consistent in deepening 4G LTE penetration in Nigeria. The enormous investments devoted to the propagation of 4G services in Nigeria by Spectranet influenced ATCONs decision to recognise the brand with the same award for the second year running. ATCON doesnt just give awards without tact. Also, we recognise innovative performers in the Information, Communication and Technology marketplace beyond our members - telecommunication companies. We found Spectranet worthy of the recognition and we would like to urge the brand to keep up the good work as we seek to address several challenges in thecountrys technology landscape.Through collective efforts of players and regulators, the industry will transcend to enviable heights. Commenting on the recognition, Chief Executive Officer, Spectranet 4G LTE, Ajay Awasthi thanked NTITA and stressed the brands resolve to improve on its efforts to effect advancement in the information, communication and technology industry and offer more value to customers. We are particularly grateful to Nigeria Tech Innovation and Telecom Awards for creating a transparent platform to recognise the efforts of players, businesses and regulators in the information, communication and technology sector of the nations economy. Last year, we picked this award. NTITA has found the brand worthy of recognition yet again. Perhaps there is something special that Spectranet is offering in the ICT landscape. At Spectranet, we have a legacy in terms of understanding customers behaviours and working towards delivering what our customers want.As a customer-centric brand with significant investments in service delivery, customer security and commitment, we will intensify efforts to step up our offerings and give customers super value for money. Spectranet Limited was the first Internet Service Provider (ISP) to launch 4G LTE internet service in Nigeria. The brand is known for providing an affordable, faster and more reliable internet broadband to Nigerian homes and offices. Its internet service is currently available across Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan and Port Harcourt. Its state of the art network ensures high speed internet connectivity for the customers. According to a post on IG the victims are students of the Rufus Giwa Polytechnic in Ondo State. They were reportedly killed at a hostel on Monday, October 29, 2018. Graphic images shows the deceased with machete wounds on their bodies. 3 young cultists made to dig out fresh corpse of man they killed The police in Bayelsa State have exhumed the corpse of a man reportedly killed by three young cultists of a rival group. According to reports, the trio were apprehended on Friday, August 31, 2018, while they were on their way to meet a herbalist who will help them heal bullet wounds they sustained in a gun shootout. The Linda Ikeji Blog (LIB) confirms that the youngsters were arrested following a collaboration between the Bayelsa State Volunteers and the Nigeria Police Force. ALSO READ: Police storm black spot to capture murderous cultist A picture showing the trio reveals a grin of pain due to the intensity of their injuries, some covered in bandages. The search to capture the group lasted to the deep end of a bush. Who is Elizabeth Ogbaje Ochanya? She is the alleged 13-year-old victim of a 5-year rape by her uncle, 52-year old Andrew Ogbuja, a lecturer in the Department of Catering and Hotel Management of the Benue State Polytechnic, Ugbokolo, and his son, Victor Ogbuja. Soon after a battle with a few ailments reportedly originating from being regularly drugged, abused, molested and raped both anally and vaginally by father and son, she died of Vesicovaginal fistula (VVF) and other health complications at the Benue State University Teaching Hospital, Makurdi. As the battle for justice continues, here are 3 things to know about the late Elizabeth Ogbaje Ochanya; 1.) She was a JSS2 (Not JSS1) Student of the Federal Government Girls College, Gboko After Ochanya came to live with the Ogbujas in 2013, as an 8-year old after her mother died, she had to attend school. Thus, after passing primary school, the Ogbujas enrolled her at the Federal Government Girls College, Gboko. At the time of her death, she was a student JSS2 student in the second year of secondary school. Upon her death, her schools alumni joined in seeking justice in her memory. Her actual class can be confirmed in the statement released by her schools alumni upon an autopsy conducted into her death. It reads, We bring to your attention the incident of the death of 13-year old Ochanya Elizabeth Ogbanje; a JS2 student of Federal Government Girls College Gboko in Benue State. ALSO READ: Nigerian demand justice for Ochanya 2.) A street has been named after her In the days following the series of protests, Lailas News reports that a street has since been named after the young Elizabeth Ogbanje Ochanya in Otukpo Local Government Area, Benue State. No amount of activism will bring her back, sadly. But her memory could be used to create a new standard for the many other girls going through what she went through for five years. For one, she has inspired the Director General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, (NAPTIP), Dame Julie Okah to appeal to other girls going through same to come out and talk. 3.) Mrs. Felicia Ogbuja is actually her cousin, not her aunt When Ochanyas mom reportedly died in 2013, she came to live with the Ogbujas. Felicia is her mothers cousin, and thereby, she is Felicias first cousin once removed, not her aunt. RoboRAVE International Director of Global Programs Russ Fisher-Ives and RoboRAVE North America Director Brian Montoya facilitated the series of workshops in Benin, Lagos, and Abuja from October 21-27. Throughout the training, students were taught the basics of programming a robot to perform various tasks while teachers learned various aspects of implementing an integrated approach to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. Speaking at the grand finale of the workshop held at the Zone Tech Park in Gbagada, Lagos, U.S. Consulate Public Affairs Officer, Mr. Russell Brooks, explained that the workshop was designed to stimulate the interest of the participating students in math and science, as well as careers in the STEM fields. Mr. Brooks discussed the importance of STEM education to Nigerias future prosperity and economic competitiveness. According to him, developing robotics skills can place students on a track to future careers in computer science and artificial intelligence. The U.S. Mission in Nigeria is committed to supporting programs that provide youth with access to quality technological learning opportunities. We are also passionate about building teacher confidence and capabilities in the areas of robotics and STEM, Brooks said. The robotics workshop supports the U.S. Missions goal of promoting STEM education in Nigeria as a driver of sustainable economic growth. Lagos Fashion Week was four days of celebrating the very best of fashion design across Africa. Designers from Ghana all the way through to Cote d'Ivoire came to showcase the huge creative strides we have made as an industry. As guests filed into the main tent for the show, just to the left stood the Mitsubishi Motors display of the Eclipse Cross, conveying subtle confidence and designed to bring the SUV into the modern age, combining the latest styling design with incredible driving dynamics and intuitive safety technology. The 2018 Eclipse Cross marks the dawn of Mitsubishi Motors' new design advancements. Every detail is crafted for confidence-inspiring driving. The exterior's sharp, sculpted lines give it a strong stance, while the newly developed, premium Red Diamond paint radiates vibrant colour. Dynamic design that captivates is the Mitsubishi standard. Mitsubishi Motors ensured that their presence was felt at LFW2018 with installations and displays that caught the eye of event-goers. One such installation was the Virtual Reality booth in the Retail tent. Guests were allowed to take a virtual tour of the new Eclipse Cross thanks to state of the art VR glassess. In order to cement the arrival of the Eclipse Cross, Mitsubishi Motors decided to team up with one of fashions most celebrated designers, Sisiano, to create a limited edition capsule collection inspired by the beauty that is the brand new SUV. With a focus on simple elegance and fluidity, it's no wonder Sisiano was the designer of choice. undefinedWell- known for his use of vibrant colours and chic silhouettes, Sisiano designs breathtaking, minimalist pieces that personify movement. A former dancer, his passion for form and movement explains why Sisiano's pieces come alive the way they do. The main tent went dark and grew quiet as the screens lit up with the Mitsubishi Motors advert. The Eclipse Cross flashed into view and the breathtaking car with it's state of the art features was prominently displayed to the rapt audience. As the advert faded, the runway lit up and models filed out in Sisiano creations. The first thing that struck about the collection was the complimentary colour palette. The clothes moved down the runway beautifully in a sea of brilliant red, blush, black and creams. The entire collection was the personification of elegance; a delicate mixture of stunning evening looks and simple flowing menswear. It was everything we would expect from Sisano and so much more. The inspired collection really drove home the emphasis on quality design and reinforced Mitsubishi Motors' commitment to not only the creative arts but towards supporting design in all its senses. The Eclipse Cross is much more than a car, it's a statement; a new era for SUV. Power in Igboland had very large disparity between ruling in other parts of Nigeria. Igbos did not have a unified political institution as in the North and South hence it was harder to enforce the indirect system of ruling, instituted by Lord Lugard in 1914, in Igboland. The Aba Women's Riot featured women rebelling against economic and socio-political oppressions in Bende, Umuahia, and other regions of Igboland. Over 10,000 women came out to protest from majorly six ethnic groups: Ibibio, Andoni, Orgoni, Bonny, Opobo, and Igbo. Brief history The indirect rule system in Igboland involved the appointment of 'warrant chiefs.' These warrant chiefs, who weren't necessarily people that were respected by the communities, became the enforced symbol of power. And as result of the vested power, the warrant chiefs became increasingly oppressive within few years. ALSO READ: The real story behind Freedom Park Direct taxation on men was introduced in 1928 without major incidents, thanks to the careful propaganda during the preceding twelve months. In September 1929, Captain J. Cook, an assistant District Officer, was sent to take over the Bende division temporarily from the serving district officer. Upon taking over, Cook found the slated nominal rolls for tax inadequate because they did not include details of the number of wives, children, and livestock in each household. He decided to revise the nominal roll to include these. The war and its implications The riot bubbled from a town called Oloko, where the warrant chief, Okugo, sent his representative Mark Emereuwa on the morning of 18 November 1929, to conduct the census for the tax. Emereuwa entered the compound of a widow named Nwanyereuwa, while she was processing palm fruit, and instructed her to "count her lives stocks and people living with her." Knowing fully well that this means you will be taxed based on the number of the outcome, Nwanyereuwa became embittered; and in replying, she said, "was your widowed mother counted?" This simply means that women were not supposed to pay tax in Igbo society. Anger was however expressed with exchange of words and ended with Nwanyereuwa pouring her palm oil on Emereuwa. Threats were also exchanged. The widow proceeded to the town square to find other women who were already deliberating on the tax issue and explained to them her sad experience. Nwanyeruwa's account prompted the women to invite other women with the aid of palm leaves from other areas of the Bende district. Approximately ten thousand women were gathered, and a protest insisting on the removal and trial of the warrant chief was staged. It would go down in history that the effect of the Aba womens riot prompted the British administration to drop their plans to impose a tax on the market women and to curb the power of the warrant chiefs. In addition, the positions of women in society were greatly improved as women were appointed to serve as chief warrant in some areas. The fallen revolutionists The Aba Women's Riot resulted in the death of 51 women and 1 man. These are their names: The 36-year-old woman (who hasn't been identified, because, duh), went on her honeymoon in Belize where everything went according to plan-until two months after she arrived back home and noticed something strange, according to a case report published in the Journal of Investigative Medicine High Impact Case Reports. According to the case report, the woman saw what looked like a pimple on the left side of her groin-the lesion was itchy, but not painful. She assumed she had been bitten by an insect when she was in Belize and saw her doctor, who thought it might be an infected spider bite. She was prescribed antibiotics and sent on her way. But uh, those antibiotics didn't do jack, so the woman got a second opinion at a wound management clinic. Doctors there also believed the wound looked like a small bite (by now, the lesion had a hole in the center with pus coming out of it), according to Enrico Camporesi, M.D., lead case report author and a specialist in wound healing at Memorial Hospital in Tampa, Florida, who treated the woman. But there was something different about the wound: It felt hard to touch (like something was in there), and the woman's doctors referred her to a surgeon who suspected she had something growing under her skin. They were right. When the surgeon cut open the wound, they discovered a nasty-looking insect that turned out to be a human botfly larva. Hold on, a human botfly larva? What is that-and how common are they? Get ready for this: Human botflies (Dermatobia hominis) are large, densely-haired flies that look like bumblebees, according to the University of Florida-but the larval stage is what you really have to worry about (the adult form of the botfly is rarely seen, per the case report). When the larvae infects a human host-typically through eggs transferred by a mosquito or fly bite-it's known as myiasis, and it's actually the fourth-most common travel-associated skin disease, per the case report. (It's rarely seen in the U.S., but it's super-common in residents and visitors of the tropical regions of the Americas.) Once those eggs are inside the human body, the heat of the skin causes the eggs to hatch into larvae, where it can last anywhere from 27 to 128 days, causing painful pustules that secrete fluid (fun!). That hole that was in the middle of the pimple? Yeah, it was so the botfly could breathe. Botfly larvae are typically found on the genitals, scalp, breasts, and eyes, and, according to the case report, some patients can feel the larvae moving when they shower or cover the wound (cringe). The (super small) silver lining? Botfly larvae aren't known to transmit diseases and most cases like this don't require surgery (patients can usually remove the botfly larvae themselves), per the case report. Left in long enough, the larvae will eventually make its way out of the skin. But residents in Belize (where botfly larvae are common) have come up with home remedies to get rid of the botfly larvae quicker-including suffocating the larvae by putting petroleum jelly, bacon strips, or nail polish over the wound opening. Still, if the larvae burrows deep enough, it could still require surgical removal. What's new, however, is that over 1.1 million Nigerians have slipped into extreme poverty in just four months, according to a report by the on Wednesday, October 31, 2018. This brings the total number of Nigerians living below the poverty mark of $1.90 per day to 88 million -- overtaking India. In June, the World Poverty Clock estimated that 86,977,400 are currently living in Nigeria, a number that accounts for 44.2% of its current estimated 196 million population. According to the report, 8% of the world's population, are currently living in extreme poverty. The World Poverty Clock said Nigerias poverty situation would increase given a negative escape rate of -5.8. FG faults report The Federal Government, however, faulted the report stating that the indices used in the report must have been compiled when the country was in recession. The Minister of Trade and Investments, Okechukwu Enelamah said this on Wednesday, June 27, 2018, while speaking to State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting. He said Somebody may have written a report when we were in a recession. According to Daily Post, Atiku likened it to a family selling their hoe just to go on a trip. This was made known in a statement issued to newsmen by the Atiku Campaign Organisation. 2018 budget In the 2018 budget which President Buhari submitted to the National Assembly, Punch reports that the government stated that it would raise N311bn from privatisation, and the sale of national assets to fund the budget. In November 2017, during a public presentation of the budget, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udo Udoma said the sum of N306bn was being expected from privatisation proceeds, while the balance of N5bn would come from the sale of government assets. Look for better ways The PDP presidential candidate also advised the Federal Government to look for more viable ways of generating revenue. The statement reads: His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar, supervised the successful policy of privatization. Privatization works because it is a long-term strategy to engender efficiency in the economic system and expand the frontiers of private sector activity. Its primary goal is NOT to raise money for short-term stabilization of what is clearly a fragile fiscal system. The governments planned sale of assets will cause long-term pains and only provide short-term gains. Rather than sell public asset, what the government needs to device alternative means of revenue rather than its almost complete reliance on the proceeds of oil and cutting of recurrent expenditures. We knew that such a day would come, which is why His Excellency Atiku Abubakar has on various occasions made it clear that what is needed at this time is fundamentally fiscal restructuring to eliminate our addiction to oil revenues and strengthen our internal revenue generating capacity and a restructuring of the budget in favour of capital spending, the statement explained. It makes no sense to sell public assets simply to fund a business-as-usual budget that is essentially 70% recurrent. It is irresponsible to part with valuable assets simply to consume the proceeds (Like selling your family house to take a trip overseas on holiday). For instance, last month, the PDP presidential candidate questioned the wisdom behind the Federal Government sharing $322 million Abacha loot to certain Nigerians, only to obtain a $328 million loan from China, allegedly for ICT development. Rather than share that money, the Buhari administration ought to have put that $322 million in an escrow account to be used for funding the 2019 budget. Also, we recall that $43 million was found in an Ikoyi apartment. While we note the failed promise of the Buhari administration to come clean on who was behind those monies, we make bold to say that those funds should equally have been placed in escrow for use in funding the 2019 budget. It is our hope that the Buhari government will accept this patriotic pro bono advice and retrace its step accordingly. Agents of failure In a related development, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, on Monday, October 29, 2018, described President Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar, as agents of failure and disappointment. The presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) said they both have nothing new to offer Nigerians. National Leader of BNYL, Princewill ChimezieRichard also warned Igbos posing as the mouthpiece of the South-East region to desist noting that the struggle for Biafra is beyond restructuring and Vice Presidential slot. "They have nothing to campaign about than trying to win votes using the ongoing struggle as an opportunity, we know they will only end up being disgraced. We will rubbish those who would come back after 2019 to shout Biafra, we are carefully watching and observing how they are using using Biafra for politics making it look as if it is politically motivated". Hails Kanu's return Meanwhile, the group has reacted to the recent reemergence of the runaway leader of indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu and his recent threats to return with hell in Nigeria. " We are happy he was not killed during military raids in South East, we were part of those that risked the lives of our members to Abia State during that unfortunate incidence, and we fully know he was not apprehended by the Military contrary to the believe of many. ALSO READ:Nnamdi Kanu accuses Army of killing 28 IPOB members while trying to kill him "As for his recent interview and threats to return with hell, we will only urge him to be prepared in all ramifications, because his first return was with Radio, and nothing aside that". Nwafor, who made this known when he reacted to pockets of protests by the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, said in a statement on Wednesday that Buhari should be encouraged to maintain the good works of maintaining peace in the country. According to him, the only way Nigerian will encourage Mr President is by being law abiding. This is the only way the values they teach them can be said to reflect in their daily lives. Getting too obsessed with religious loyalty breeds extremism which is what the world is gripped with today, Nwafor said. He advised the Federal Government to review the continued detention of the leader of the group, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, after several court orders. He also urged the members of the group not to take laws into their hands because their leader was in detention. Nwafor further urged the sect to stop confronting the Nigerian Army under any guise so that more lives would not be lost. The number of lives lost on daily basis to the confrontation between the group and the Nigeria Army is not necessary as the development can be avoided. Women, children and youths are made to march on the streets of Abuja to protest, thereby exposing them to the dangers associated with this confrontation with the military. Buhari gave the order in a statement signed by Mr Olusegun Adekunle, Permanent Secretary, General Services Office, Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF). He further directed that Mr. Ben Omogo, Director, Administration Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF), should oversee the affairs of the scheme. He said that the leave was to ensure unfettered investigation by the Independent Fact-Finding Panel to be inaugurated on Friday. The panel, to be headed by Dr. Hassan Bukar, has Mrs Jummai Idakwo, OSGF as the Secretary. Members are Dr. Emmanuel Meribole, Director, Federal Ministry of Health, Mr. Adewale Owolo, Director, Audit, Office of the Auditor General of the Federation (OAGF), Mr. Shamsuddeen Bello, Deputy Director, Expenditure, OAGF. Other members are Mr Ishaq Yahaya, Director, Certification & Compliance, Bureau of Public Procurement, and Dr Ekanem John Udoh, Director, Science, Federal Ministry of Science and Technology. One of the terms of reference (TOR) of the panel are to investigate the alleged infractions listed by the NHIS Governing Council in its letter dated Oct. 18, 2018 and determine the extent of culpability or otherwise of the Executive Secretary with regards to the allegations. It is mandated to make appropriate recommendations based on the findings from TOR I, identify, investigate and make recommendations with regards to issues that led to the unhealthy relationship between the board and the Chief Executive Officer. The panel is further to Investigate and make recommendations on the extent of the involvement of staff Unions within the institution as to the current impasse between the Governing Board and Executive Secretary and to examine all governance challenges in the NHIS and make appropriate recommendations. The president directed that with the establishment of this panel which has two weeks to report its findings, the earlier body set up by the Governing Council stood dissolved. He added that the government recognised the importance of the scheme as a strong mechanism for the delivery of public healthcare and reassured Nigerians of the determination of the government determination to place high premium on public interest. The president said that the Federal Government had found it necessary to restate that the objectives for he establishing Parastatals was in fulfillment of the need to deliver services to Nigerians faster and better. He added that government had also considered it necessary to restate that the roles of Governing Boards and Councils were as prescribed by the statutes, guidelines and extant circulars. He added that the position of chief executives of Parastatals was to ensure that policies of government as enunciated by boards and councils were implemented in accordance with their mandate. Government, has however, observed with deep concern, the growing tension between boards and chief executives and their attendant implications for governance. For the avoidance of doubt, government will neither tolerate acts of indiscipline from any appointee nor will it harbour any acts of corruption. PROTOCOLS: I welcome you all to the formal launching of the 2019 Armed Forces Remembrance Day Celebration Emblem and Appeal fund. We are here once again to recognise and appreciate the sacrifices of our fallen heroes and veterans of First and Second World Wars, Nigerian Civil War and Peace Support Operations around the World. We also remember those engaged in Internal Security Operations, particularly the ongoing war on insurgency in the North Eastern part of the country. 2. Without a doubt, it is befitting to honour the memory of the gallant officers and men and women who paid the supreme sacrifice to keep the country united. Hundreds of others survived with varying degrees of incapacitation and require our attention and care. 3. The celebration forcefully reminds us of the resolve of our citizens to remain in one united country, Nigeria. It also points out the fact that we had been through a bitter and unfortunate war that led to the loss of millions of our compatriots and the need to do all within our powers to avoid a reoccurrence of war. 4. Furthermore, it portrays our common destiny as a people and the need to harness the benefits of our diversity. Having resolved to remain one united, indivisible and indissoluble nation, I wish to use this medium to call on all stakeholders to be steadfast in the cause of nurturing a united and prosperous nation. 5. There is the need for our political actors in particular to be decorous in their conduct and utterances in order not to fan the embers of disunity. We would have no country to lead if our acts of deliberate incitement lead to the disintegration of our dear nation. Let us put Nigeria first and realise that in every contest there must be one winner. 6. The Nation is appreciative of the gallantry and sacrifices of officers and men of our Armed Forces in the campaign against insurgency and other Internal Security operations. Their effort has led to the return of normalcy in affected parts of the Nation. Regrettably, the Boko Haram Terrorists have over the past two months heartlessly murdered two young and promising aid workers; Saifura Khorsa and Hauwa Liman. It is painful that this happened despite all the efforts of government to effect release ofthe two (2) victims. 7. We condemn the callous and cowardly act in its entirety and call on all citizens and friends to forge a united front against this common enemy of our destiny. Once more, I extend the heartfelt condolences of the Government and people of Nigeria to the families and friends of these martyrs. 8. Whilst the remnants of the Boko Haram terrorists are being engaged by our Armed Forces, the task before the Government now is the resettlement and rehabilitation of our citizens affected by the war. The Federal and State Governments of affected states are involved in this very important task. In this regard, the Federal Government commend the Dangote Foundation for its partnership with Government in the rebuilding process in Borno State. We call on other Corporate organisations to borrow a leaf from this noble initiative as Government alone cannot satisfy all the needs, given her limited resources. 9. We are aware that it is the business of Government to provide a conducive environment for businesses to thrive. A conducive environment is one which is devoid of security threats and criminality, where life is predictable. It is one in which citizens and foreigners are guaranteed freedom and returns on investment. On the other hand, an insecure environment stifles businesses and undermines growth and prosperity. For this reason, we owe a debt of gratitude to our men and women of the Armed Forces who have the responsibility of securing the Nation. 10. I am happy businesses operating in Nigeria are beginning to give special consideration to members of the Armed Forces and veterans. Specifically, some airlines operating in Nigeria offer discounts to members of the Armed Forces. This gesture is commendable and in line with my call for recognition, consideration and appreciation of our Armed Forces. I urge more business ventures to chip in by assisting the Security Forces in whatever way they can. 11. In particular we have consistently called for citizens and corporate participation in alleviating the suffering of widows and dependants of our fallen heroes. This is in order to complement the efforts of the Government and Services in this regard. I am pleased to note that several non-governmental organisations are rising up to the challenge. Elsewhere, a lot of charity organisations take up the task of catering for the welfare of veterans and members of the Armed Forces. We appreciate the organisations in Nigeria involved in this noble objective and call on others to get involved. 12. To ensure that our veterans continue to share the comradeship that existed while in Service and that their welfare is adequately catered for, the Federal Government established the Nigerian Legion. I am happy to note that the Legion has acquitted itself well by attracting the interest of the private sector. 13. The partnership of the Nigerian Legion with a private sector organisation; National Personal Assets Acquisition Scheme (NAPAAS) endorsed by the Ministry of Defence is now beginning to yield fruits in the area of provision of basic needs and mass transportation scheme. Other areas of collaboration are also envisaged in the partnership. It is hoped that this will open a whole new level of improvement in the living conditions of our veterans and their dependants. 14. I am also happy to note that there is a Bill before the National Assembly to amend the Nigerian Legion Act to a proposed Veterans Federation of Nigeria Act to ensure proper welfare and health condition of military veterans. It is expected that the 8 National Assembly will give the Bill quick attention. 15. As Grand Patron of the Nigerian Legion (Veterans), I wish to pledge my continued support and that of the Federal Government to the organisation. My appreciation goes to State Governors who are patrons in their respective states for the support they are giving to the Legion. I enjoin them not to relent but improve on this. 16. In line with the provisions of the enabling Act, the Nigerian Legion established the Nigerian Legion Corps of Commissionaires. This outfit is involved in provision of security services to government, corporate and private entities. 17. Before launching the Emblem, I wish to call on all Nigerians and others resident in Nigeria to procure and wear the emblems with pride to identify with those who laid down their lives for peace and security of our fatherland. I encourage all to donate generously in support of our veterans and dependants of fallen heroes. Pakistan has started to prepare its agenda for the first high level visit of its newly elected Prime Minister Imran Khan to China. The invitation for the visit to China was extended by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on his recent visit to Pakistan when both countries agreed to deepen and broaden the all-weather strategic relationship built upon decades of mutual trust. Political transitions and the changing of governments has never disturbed the status of the strategic partnership and every newly elected Pakistani government has taken the lead in pushing forward the all-weather strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries to new heights with the support and commitment of the people on both sides. The new government admires the remarkable achievements of the great Chinese nation, which is destined to reach new heights under the visionary leadership of President Xi Jinping. Imran Khan has gained the attention of the international community through his exclusive remarks in his victory speech about the remarkable progress of China in the last 40 years following the path of reform and opening up. Besides meetings with President Xi and Premier Li Keqiang, PM Imran Khan will also attend the China International Import Expo (CIIE) as a guest of honor which shows the significance of the China-Pakistan relationship that serves as a model of friendship in interstate relations. During his visit to China, PM Imran Khan is expected to communicate to the Chinese top leadership that the new government is now pushing forward an ambitious reform agenda by introducing structural changes, and is willing to learn from China's experiences on poverty eradication, economic development, anti-corruption, the social sector, agriculture, environmental protection, disaster reduction and other areas, among which the promotion of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the priority. PM Imran Khan has stated that he wishes to strengthen economic growth in Pakistan to create more jobs and boost the production capacity of various industries. Pakistan is in dire need of exploring new markets and China as a reliable friend is in a good position to assist in implementing the reform agenda. Pakistan aims to balance its exposure to the Chinese market by increasing its exports and to minimize the deficit in bilateral trade. Business circles in the country believe that the import expo will pave the way for the trade community on both sides to push forward business relationships more smoothly and effectively. Pakistan, being a flagship member of the Belt and Road Initiative, can get more chances to promote and advertise its products on the international arena. This platform is not only meant for developing a closer relationship with Chinese companies but it is a golden opportunity for the participants to interact with each other and to explore the potential of the trade relationship. Pakistan now has a historic opportunity to appreciably raise the level of exports to China by attending the CIIE. Companies with business interests in rice, meat, textile, fruits, seafood, footwear and leather have finalized their preparations to showcase their potential. The CIIE will create new areas of growth for Sino-Pakistani trade and investment cooperation which is illustrated by Prime Minister Imran Khan's delegation of 40 top exporters on this significant visit. Over the last four years, CPEC, the flagship project of the BRI, has helped Pakistan to lift its economic growth rate from 3 percent to 5.2 percent which has paved a way for the revival of industries after tackling the energy crisis. The agenda and vision of Imran Khan to place the Pakistani economy back on track is relevant to the bilateral CPEC framework which aims to provide prosperity not only for Pakistani people but for the whole region. It is hoped that the visit will help both sides to further deepen strategic mutual trust and understanding, and strengthen strategic communication. Confronted with a complex and complicated global situation, it is vital for strategic partners to handle their own affairs smoothly to maintain growth and stability, and to broaden and deepen meaningful and result-oriented cooperation with frequent exchanges and dialogues. Both countries can secure more constructive and favorable conditions to make greater contributions for the stability, peace, development and prosperity of the region and the world at large. Muhammad Zamir Assadi is a Pakistani journalist who graduated in China development studies from Renmin University of China. He is also a media fellow at the China South Asia and South East Asia press center. Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn. Chairman of the forum and governor of Zamfara State, Abdul'aziz Yari, announced that the governors have agreed to pay N22,000 to workers as minimum wages after months of deliberation. The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, stressed that the N22,000 is lower than the N24,000 proposed by the Federal government. In an interview with Channels Television on Wednesday, October 31, the minister said he has made it known to the governors that the Federal Government is not in support of their proposal. He said "The governors have not even done enough. I told them that this N22,500 was even rejected by the federal government," the minister said. "The national minimum wage is a national legislation being driven by the federal government of Nigeria in pursuance to item 34 of the exclusive legislative list. But you don't go and make a law which people will disobey at the initial. "If you make a law and hoax a figure that is not agreeable, which people don't have the capacity or ability to pay because the International Labour Organisation (ILO) says in those negotiations, the principle is the ability to pay," he added. The president of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Ayuba Wabba, who was also present at the program, stated that the governors' position is unknown to labour laws and contrary to the overall decision of the tripartite committee on the minimum wage. Following a nationwide protest held on Tuesday, October 30, 2018, organised labour threatened to vote out the current government that refuses to meet its demands. It also reaffirmed its ultimatum regarding going on strike. The union has already warned Nigerians to stock up on food as the countdown to shut down the country with protests on November 6 draws near. The protesters, through various spokespersons, accused the government of failing to prioritise the welfare of workers, saying there is no justification whatsoever for a refusal to pay the new wage. The Nasarawa State chairman of Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Abdullahi Adeka, stressed that any governor who cannot pay the new minimum wage is unkind to workers and must, therefore, be voted out. According to the deputy vice president of NLC in Lagos State, Amaechi Asugwuni, "Anyone that cannot compensate the working people of the state is not worthy to be a governor. "The message is that they should be voted out and we will ensure that we force a campaign against these governors." Labour reacts over the N22,000 resolution made by governors' forum The organised labour has also condemned the resolution made by the Nigeria Governors' Forum (NGF) to pay N22,000 as new minimum wage. NLC President Ayuba Wabba stressed that the organised labour would not accept the figure as the new wage is not an award but a figure that was jointly arrived at through negotiation. He described the NGF as a body unknown to Nigeria's law and is therefore not in a position to determine the national minimum wage. Wabba, cautioned the Federal Government to "take necessary steps to ensure the enactment of a new national minimum wage act, as we cannot guarantee industrial peace and harmony." In his reaction, the president of trade union congress, Bobboi Kaigama, emphasised that the political office holders are saving money for politics and the forthcoming election. The immediate past Chief of Administration, Army Headquarters, Abuja, was declared missing on the September 3, 2018, after he disappeared while travelling alone in his car from Abuja to Bauchi State enroute Jos. The Army had set up a joint task force to commence a search and rescue operation for the officer and his black Toyota Corolla car was recovered from a pond in Dura-Du District on September 29. During a media briefing of the operation on Friday, October 26, General Officer Commanding 3 Division, Major-General Benson Akinroluyo, disclosed that the senior officer had been killed when he was stopped on his way. However, his corpse could not be found after it was reportedly moved by some suspects that the authorities promptly declared wanted. Body parts of the retired senior officer were discovered in an abandoned well in Guchwet village of Shen district in Jos South LGA of the state on Wednesday, October 31. While no medical test has been conducted to confirm the identity of the corpse, the Garrison Commander, 3 Division, Brigadier-General Umar Ibrahim, disclosed that some of the suspects who participated in Alkali's murder led the Army to the location of the body. According to a brief statement by the Army, Alkali's corpse was dumped in the well after it was moved from where it was initially buried. "The well was drained revealing the decomposed body parts of the Senior Officer. Further search led to recovery of other items including the shirt the senior officer wore on the day of his disappearance," the statement read. How Alkali was killed Major-GeneralAkinroluyo revealed last week that Alkali had been travelling through Dura-Du District on the same day residents were staging a protest over the killing of 11 people in Lafande Community by unknown gunmen. He said the crowd, made up of angry youths, assaulted and killed Alkali despite identifying himself as a retired officer of the Army who was merely passing through. Akinroluyosaid Alkali's belongings such as clothings, cash, phones and laptop were shared by those who killed him, and his corpse buried in a shallow grave, while his car was also disposed into the pond. The shallow grave was identified by four different sources as well as sniffer dogs used by the Army during its investigation. Akinroluyo said residents who witnessed or heard about the incident were arrested and interrogated during the course of the Army's investigation. He said the discovery of Alkali's car from the pond had triggered the perpetrators of the crime to hold a meeting and set up a team to move his body from the shallow grave to avoid trouble for the community. Osibanjo, who visited one of the camps where the foundation distributed relief materials, said the reward for the good work you young people are doing, is the smiles you put on the faces of others. Succour in the creeks Goldcoast which works with a team of volunteers made of up of doctors, nurses and pharmacists, visited temporary campsites of displaced flood victims in Yenagoa, Igbogene, Seibokorogha, Igbedi, Okoloba, Angiama, Toru-Orua in Bayelsa and Toru- Angiama in Delta state, to distribute relief materials; including drugs, insecticide-treated mosquito nets and food items. The medical team treated various ailments, dewormed children and delivered health awareness talks alongside the relief materials they provided. ece-auto-gen We are deeply touched by what the flood waters have done to people across the country and particularly, the Niger-Delta said Goldcoasts founder and managing solicitor, TRIAX Solicitors, Moses Oruaze Dickson. We recognize that our assistance will not solve all their problems, but it can help them cope with the impact of the tragedy at this time. Responding to Osinbajos commendation, Dickson thanked him for his visit and kind words. All these would not have been possible without the support of volunteers and donors who have contributed to this programme, he said. "All lives matter, and it is our responsibility to always put humanity first in all our endeavours. Mrs Lauretta Onochie, the Personal Assistant to President on Social Media made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja. She said that the challenge in the country was that the laws were not being enforced by the appropriate authorities, adding that the country had the necessary laws to guide what was being published and spoken online. Our laws are not being enforced; we must plead with the law enforcement agencies to look into this to help the president and the nation to stay together, she said. She said that hate speech was capable of disintegrating the country, adding that if this happened, everybody would be a victim because the people would not have anywhere run to for succour. Onochie noted that the social media had given a voice to young Nigerians who were hitherto trained by their parents not to ask questions or raise their voices. Many of our youths are raised by mothers and fathers who rebuke them when they ask question. Now that they are on social media, they can air their opinions, but I must counsel them that whatsoever they say today they should make sure it is the truth. If you are lying in order to bring bloodshed on our nation, the blood would be on you and your generation, she said. The SA noted that Nigerians should ensure that they must at all times ensure that whatever they said on social media must be the truth. Onochie advised them to always consult Google to be sure of their posts online if they found something that was not the truth. If they are not the truth, it should not be shared, sharing it means you are breaking the law, she said. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Tinubu, who arrived at the State House at about 3.56 p.m, was seen moving into the presidents office. The Presidents meeting with the APC leader and Oshiomhole came less than 24 hours after Buhari hosted aggrieved APC aspirants to a dinner at the State House. Those at the dinner included the governorship, National and State Assembly aspirants who failed to secure the partys tickets in the forthcoming 2019 general elections, while Oshiohmole was conspicuously absent. NAN gathered that the presidents meeting with Tinubu and Oshiohmole might not be unconnected with the issues raised by the aggrieved aspirants during their dinner with the president. Tinubu made his position known when he fielded questions from State House correspondents after a closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House Abuja on Wednesday. According to the APC national leader, Oshiomhole has so far not violated APC constitution or engaged in any anti-party activity that will warrant his resignation or removal from office. He said: We all have to respect the party supremacy. You were all here when we had the Congress, we elected the new executives, we had the convention, the NEC was formed and we surrendered to avoid conflict, to avoid domination, to avoid abuses of power, we surrendered our rights, all rights to the National Working Committee headed by Adams Oshiomohole. That the National Working Committee should set up electoral bodies to supervise various state congresses and elections. We signed off for it. So, if it is not in our individual favour, so be it. We gave three options, consensus, where there is no consensus because if you are more than two or three and you cannot agree to one candidate, you go to the next level. The next level is the stakeholders delegates (system) and you have to be supervised by the National Working Committee of the party, national election committee of the party. That shows party supremacy or the freest option, the less cumbersome is to open direct primary, line up and count the number, 1,2,3. If you win, you win and if you fail, go home. Tinubu further explained that an appeal committee was set up by the party to look into grievances arising from the conduct of the partys primaries. He said the committee, which served as internal mechanism for conflict resolution, had performed its duties diligently. It was there (appeal committee), you cannot turn round against that, and you cannot turn against all of that. No, Party is supreme, party must be respected, abuses will not do it and anger will not do it. It is party politics, somebody will win and somebody will lose, too bad, he added. It would be recalled that the National Chairman of the APC, Comrade Adams Oshiohmole, had on Oct. 21, in a statement by his press secretary, Mr Simon Ebegbulem, alleged that conservatives within the party are ganging up to pass a vote of no-confidence on him. He said in the statement that his sin was his refusal to allow continued impunity and circumvention of due process being perpetuated in some states. Oshiomhole spoke to State House correspondents after having a closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday in Abuja. Speaking on the fallout of APC primaries, he dismissed rumours that some governors were moblising to unseat him. According to him, he knows that the job is not a pensionable job as he will leave it one day; hence he will do the job according to the rules and his conscience. He said that out of the 23 APC governors, only three were not pleased with the outcome of the primaries in their states. Oshiomhole said that no one could begrudge the governors for not being happy if a particular outcome did not coincide with their expectations. He said that he neither had the power to appoint nor the power to change anything particularly when things had been properly done. According to him, the three governors who are unhappy are his friends. So, all I have tried is to find some courage to enforce the rules and I think an overwhelming majority of the governors appreciate that I have done the best because change is not easy. We all want change but the process of change can be quite traumatising; because it is not painless. People have been used to a particular way of doing things; to encourage them to do them differently can be a challenge. So, here I am as national chairman conducting primaries, the outcome of which some very powerful people did not see their preferred candidates emerging. Let me say that if there is a choice between my consciencewhat I believe is right and mortgaging that conscience in order to keep the job, I will have no difficulty resolving it in favour of my conscience. And those who know me know that at my age, I cannot learn new tricks; I am absolutely committed to justice; fairness; I a stickler to enforcement of rules; because the source of relevance is derived from rules. I have lived my life fighting for justice and fairness. The APC national chairman said however, that the issues would be resolved as internal family issues as the three governors were his friends. He said that in a moment of distress, he believed that the friendship was enough to help them to build reconciliation. According to Oshiomhole, he respects and appreciates the governors for the fact that but for their support, he would not become APC chairman. And you do not go stepping on toes of those who helped you to get into position. But however, I thought I was clear and I remain clear that helping me to get to the position, it was to help APC to return to its core values of progressive politics, of fairness, of justice, of adherence to rule of law and total submission to the extant provisions of our party constitution. In doing that, you do not look at power; you look at what is; what is just. I think that with time, we will reconcile all these; Amosun is my good friend; we have known each other for a very long time; we exchange personal visits in addition to official visits; Zamfara governor has been the Chairman of NGF and I was an active member of that forum; we have wonderful time together and I believe in the future, we are still going to have wonderful time together. Governor Rochas Okorocha was one of those who had issues with my predecessor and I did my best to try and resolve those issues in a way that has been given him a new platform. And I am happy that God used us to do that not by cheating in his favour but by doing what is right; it is just that once you stick to the goal, sometimes, you either get caught on the right side or the wrong side, he said. The president said this during a dinner with the All Progressives Congress (APC) Aspirants Forum at the Presidential Villa on Tuesday, October 30, 2018. The forum is a group of APC members who are unhappy with the conduct of the party's recently-concluded primary elections and are rumoured to be planning to dump the party. In a statement signed by the president's Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, Buhari urged the aggrieved party members to be patient in service of the nation. Buhari was quoted to have said, "I urge you to stay faithful if your objective is to serve the country. I came back to power in this 'agbada' to convince Nigerians to make sacrifices that the country needs now for a better future." Buhari served as Nigeria's military Head of State between 1983 and 1985 before he returned as a democratic president after his victory in the 2015 presidential election. While noting that not everyone will be appeased by the party, he urged aggrieved members to maintain faith in the party and the country. He said the primary motivation to contest elections should be to improve the country and vowed there will be more future opportunities for them to serve the nation. He said they must be vigilant and not associate with people of questionable integrity in their bid to achieve political convenience. "Those who mismanaged the resources of the country are still very much around, with incredible wealth," he said. He said the future of Nigeria will only be salvaged by those who love the country. The leader of the APC Aspirants Forum, Hon. Yusuf Banki, said the network of 7,000 members will work to ensure the president's victory at 2019 presidential election as the president contests for another term in office. 2019 presidential election While next year's election is expected to be keenly-contested between President Buhari and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), they both face competition from other candidates including Donald Duke of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Kingsley Moghalu of the Young Progressive Party (YPP), Obiageli Ezekwesili of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Fela Durotoye of the Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), and Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress (AAC). He stated that he has never discussed or told anybody or group that he will dump his party to join PDP. I am, therefore, warning those spreading that fake news aimed at scuttling my political ambition to desist because they will never succeed. PDP has already failed, so how can I leave SDP and join the party that is already dead. The governorship candidate said that if he secured the mandate of his people he will focus attention on education, both western and Islamic. This is because education is the ingredient for human development, When human beings have education, it will develop their skills and talents intellectually, socially, economically and otherwise. Another critical area I am going to pay attention is capacity building stressing that people will be empowered with soft loans to engage on meaningful ventures and businesses to be self-reliant as well as create employment for others." Adamu said that agriculture will also get a boost if he becomes the governor of jigawa, pointing out that improved seeds, fertilisers and other farm inputs will go down to meet the farmers at the grassroots. He stated that his administration will create a synergy to seek for markets for the sales of farm produce harvested by farmers. Editor's note: The Fifth High-Level Think Tanks Symposium of China and Central & Eastern European Countries (CEEC) will be held in Macedonia's capital of Skopje between October 30 and 31. Ahead of the symposium, Anastas Vangeli, a doctoral researcher at the Polish Academy of Sciences shared his views on China-CEEC cooperation with China.org.cn. The symposium, supported by the China-CEEC cooperation office of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is jointly organized by the Institute of European Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), the China Foundation for International Studies, China Institute of International Studies, the Institute for Geostrategic Research and Foreign Policy of Macedonia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Over 300 participants are expected to attend, and more than 50 scholars will discuss "how to enhance and deepen China-CEEC cooperation" under the framework of the "16+1". Q: Which words do you use to describe China-CEEC cooperation? I think the keyword to describe China-CEEC cooperation is dialectics: dialectics between the old and the new, as China and CEEC go way back together, but are currently building a new relationship; dialectics between politics and economy, which is the essence of all China-led cooperation platforms; and dialectics between national and regional levels of cooperation, as it is a unique type of multilateral framework. Q: What achievements have the "16+1 Cooperation" made over the past six years? There is a cross-spectrum of opinions on what are the achievements and shortcomings of 16+1. For some, there is the growing economic cooperation while others say that it is not sufficient. Some say political relations are flourishing while others say they are becoming complicated. Some say the biggest achievements are in the domain of people to people exchanges others say that the people to people exchanges yield little to no results. For me, cumulatively, the major achievement of 16+1 is that CEEC has now gained visibility and importance in China; China gained visibility and importance in the region; and the China-CEEC relationship gained visibility and importance in the world although the meaning of the increased visibility and importance can be interpreted in various ways by various individuals and groups. Q: What do you think of the role that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has played in enhancing China-CEEC cooperation? I think that the BRI has provided a broader context and narrative for the China-CEEC cooperation, in terms of the trans-regional linkages, as CEEC is one of the areas where the BRI unfolds, but also in terms of the goals and functioning of cooperation. In fact, China-CEEC relations and 16+1 have little value if seen outside of the context of the BRI. Q: What are the major challenges or difficulties that lay ahead for China and the CEEC to further enhance cooperation? China-CEEC cooperation is a cooperation between highly asymmetrical sides, that in addition to all kinds of structural differences, also have a number of ideological divergences; and most importantly, they still do not know each other well. At the same time, China-CEEC relations do not happen in a vacuum: The world is becoming increasingly polarized as the U.S.-China trade war and ideological frictions increase. In Europe, the EU and Western European countries have made it clear they are not happy with how China-CEEC relations are proceeding. All of this yields a number of normative and practical issues for all sides involved. Q: The 5th High-Level Think Tanks Symposium of China-CEEC Cooperation will be held in Macedonia's capital of Skopje from Oct 30 to 31. Do you have any expectations for the upcoming symposium? How significant is the symposium in promoting China-CEEC cooperation in the future? As a Macedonian citizen, I am glad that there will be a high-level China-CEEC event held in my home country. These types of events serve to take stock of current developments and discuss the potential future developments. They are the main knowledge production venue for China-CEEC cooperation. They create and interpret meanings, add content to, and discuss the context of the cooperation. They come up with new concepts, and new policy ideas or rationalize the existing ones. They provide reflection from the perspective of participants from different countries, who come from different areas of expertise, and are venues where these different perspectives take shape through dialogue and adapt to each other. For the participants, the think tank events are also a good opportunity to meet old friends, and make some new ones, and listen to what they have to say about topics that are of mutual interest. The views and opinions expressed by the interviewee do not necessarily reflect those of China.org.cn. According to Vanguard, the President said they should put Nigeria first. Buhari also warned against using words that might promote disunity ahead of commencement of political campaigns in November 2018. He said this at the launch of the 2019 armed forces remembrance day emblem and appeal fund in Abuja on Wednesday, October 31, 2018. We would have no country to lead if our acts of deliberate incitement lead to the disintegration of our dear nation. Let us put Nigeria first and realise that in every contest there must be one winner, the President added. Fraudulent allocation of votes The president also said that theera of fraudulent allocation of votes is gone in Nigeria. He said Nigerians should be allowed to vote for anyone they choose. According to him, multi-party democracy gives lots of choice to the people, and Nigeria has a vibrant young population, who trusted his administration to handle their affairs and resources well. Mbaka speaks on 2019 election President Buharis main contender in the 2019 presidential election, is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar. Speaking on the upcoming elections, the founder of Adoration Ministry in Enugu state, Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka recently predicted that Atiku will defeat Buhari. The priest lashed out at Buhari, saying that he will be defeated because he refused to hear the voice of God. The countries, which included United Nations Security Council members Britain, France, Poland, Netherlands and Sweden, said the votes would "violate Ukrainian law," and urged Russia to "bring its considerable influence to bear to stop the 'elections' from taking place." "We condemn the illegitimate 'elections' planned for 11 November in the non-government controlled territories of the so-called 'Luhansk People's Republic' and 'Donetsk People's Republic,'" they added in a statement. "We urge the separatists to abandon the plans for 'elections,'" the statement added, saying "Russia must play its part by ending its financial and military support to the separatists and withdrawing its armed forces and military equipment from Ukrainian territory." The European states also voiced fears about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the region. The statement was read out by British envoy Karen Pierce just before the start of a Security Council meeting dedicated to the crisis in the Ukraine. The Europeans had demanded a closed-door meeting, but Russia insisted on the session being public. The two separatists entities have said they will hold an election to choose a new leader to replace pro-Russian strongman Alexander Zakharchenko, who was killed in a bomb attack at a Donetsk cafe in August. "My brother was killed by a policeman who shot him in cold blood," Mariama Dalanda, in tears, told AFP. "As of today 98 members of the opposition have been killed by police gunfire at peaceful demonstrations since (President) Alpha Conde came to power in December 2010," Diallo said. Police had surrounded his home, blocking him from joining the protest march in the capital Conakry. At least five of Diallo's supporters were injured earlier Tuesday in confrontations with police near his home, an AFP correspondent at the scene reported. "We are here to prevent Mr Dalein Diallo from leaving his home and going to an unauthorised march," a police official who requested anonymity told AFP. Later a national police chief, Colonel Ansoumane Camara, said the authorities were seeking to protect Diallo. "He is at his home... protected and secure," Camara said, adding that police wanted to avoid last week's scenario. "Cellou said someone tried to take his life. We are ensuring his security this time," he said. Rivals of Conde had called for Tuesday's march a week after a banned demonstration during which Diallo alleged that police had tried to assassinate him -- a claim police have denied. An inquiry has been opened into the incident. "It's sad for my country," Diallo, standing outside his home Tuesday, told journalists, calling the police action a violation of freedom and the constitution by Conde. The political opposition has been protesting against what it considers a violation by the authorities of an agreement reached in August over the appointment of local government officials, elected in a hotly disputed vote on February 4. On Wednesday, Turkish shelling of Kurdish positions in the Kobane sector of northern Syria killed four fighters, according to Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency. The SDF condemned what it called the "coordination" of Turkey's attacks with a fightback by jihadists and warned of "a prolonged halt to our military operation" against IS if Ankara keeps up its strikes. Hundreds of Kurdish civilians, carrying party flags, demonstrated in the streets of the northeastern city of Qamishli to denounce the Turkish attacks. Backed by coalition air strikes, the SDF aims to expel IS from a holdout on the Iraqi border, but the jihadists staged a vicious fightback last week under the cover of a sand storm, forcing a retreat. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the IS counter-attack killed at least 72 fighters from the SDF, which is dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). The monitoring group said hundreds of Kurdish fighters, men and women, had since been deployed on the outskirts of the IS holdout of Hajin. On Tuesday, two days after another round of shelling of Kurdish posts in northern Syria, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country had completed preparations for a new operation to "destroy" the YPG militia, which Ankara has branded a terrorist group. Purdue University-affiliated startup OmniVis creates lab-in-hand innovation to help millions of people. WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. For most, cholera comes as a mild to moderate form of diarrhea. For others, the diarrhea quickly causes dangerous fluid loss up to a quart an hour and has a milky appearance. Then comes hours of vomiting, and possibly death from organ failure. One of the worlds most preventable and treatable diseases is sickening more than 3 million people every year and killing more than 95,000, according to the World Health Organization. But technology developed at Purdue University could help change that. Researchers have developed a smartphone technology app that provides a cholera detection lab. The technology is being commercialized through a Purdue University-affiliated startup. The founder of the startup believes this technology can do much to save lives. OmniVis, co-founded by Purdue College of Engineering alumnae Katherine Clayton and three professors, uses a hardware device and consumable test kit to collect and analyze water samples. The technology then maps out the results within 30 minutes, compared with the 3-5 days it may take with conventional cholera detection methods. More than $2 billion is spent in treatment and lost in reduced productivity due to cholera, which is caused by contaminated food or water. Women in sub-Saharan Africa spend a combined average of about 200 million hours per day collecting water, and a whopping 40 billion hours per year, according to the United Nations. I went to Purdue for my Ph.D. because I knew I wanted to make a difference in global health, Clayton said. The caliber of Purdue professors and students, along with phenomenal resources like the Purdue Foundry, truly enable researchers to take what they learn in the lab to struggling communities around the world. Working on this life-saving technology and now moving it to the public to help people is a life-changing experience. The World Health Organization reports that more than 780 million people globally do not have access to improved water sources, and 90 percent of infectious disease deaths are from contaminated water. About 3.4 million people die from water-related diseases such as cholera each year; about 40 percent of those are children. Other members of the OmniVis team include Tamara Kinzer-Ursem and Jacqueline Linnes, assistant professors in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue; Steven Wereley, a professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue; and Lynne Cheng, who serves as their head of operations. Two Purdue interns, Taylor Moehling and Jay Lee, contributed significantly to the technology development. Members of the team will travel to Haiti, one of the countries with the most cases of cholera over the past decade, in January for a field test of their detection system. Their work aligns with Purdue's Giant Leaps celebration, acknowledging the universitys global advancements in health as part of Purdues 150th anniversary. This is one of the four themes of the yearlong celebrations Ideas Festival, designed to showcase Purdue as an intellectual center solving real-world issues. OmniVis won a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Science Foundation for its work. The startup also has received funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Girls in Tech and BioCrossroads. The technology is being patented through the Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization, and OmniVis is looking for partners. About Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization The Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization operates one of the most comprehensive technology transfer programs among leading research universities in the U.S. Services provided by this office support the economic development initiatives of Purdue University and benefit the university's academic activities. The office is managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, which received the 2016 Innovation and Economic Prosperity Universities Award for Innovation from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. For more information about funding and investment opportunities in startups based on a Purdue innovation, contact the Purdue Foundry at foundry@prf.org. For more information on licensing a Purdue innovation, contact the Office of Technology Commercialization at otcip@prf.org. The Purdue Research Foundation is a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University. Chris Adam, 765-588-3341Lynne Cheng, lynne@omnivistech.com Flash Peru-China cooperation should be based on a long-term outlook that goes beyond current affairs and circumstances, according to Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra. At a meeting with foreign correspondents in Lima on Monday, Vizcarra responded to a query on bilateral trade and investment ties by saying "obviously, we have to work with a vision of the future, always keeping in mind the great power that is China." Peru is now preparing to take part in the first ever China International Import Expo (CIIE), which will take place in Shanghai starting next week. "China is interested in a series of investments in Peru (and) we have said investment is welcome," said Vizcarra. The South American country has opened its doors to foreign investment from China and other parts of the globe within the framework of national regulations. "Part of the investment we have registered to date has come from Chinese capital," said the president. Vizcarra highlighted certain national projects that are of particular interest to investors, including the Las Bambas mine in southern Apurimac department (state), a project estimated to be worth some 10 billion U.S. dollars. Asked about the upcoming meeting of leaders from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), taking place Nov. 17 and 18, Vizcarra said Peru will continue to promote open markets. "Our economy is open to the world and we will once again demonstrate that with our participation at the APEC Forum in Papua New Guinea," said Vizcarra. Peru and China have had a free-trade agreement in place since 2010. In 2017, Peru's exports to China amounted to 11.455 billion U.S. dollars, a 36-percent increase over the year before, according to figures from the Lima Chamber of Commerce. The Green Party has called on the Environment select committee to consult the public on banning the private sale and use of fireworks. Gareth Hughes, Greens animal welfare spokesperson, says fireworks cause hundreds of accidents each year. "It's time for private sales to fizzle out and be replaced by safer, better, public displays. Fireworks cause hundreds of accidents each year, start fires and cause distress and sometimes injuries to animals," he said on Wednesday. Mr Hughes says public fireworks events offer better displays and elminate much of the risk to humans, fire crews and animals. "Public displays are fantastic and remind us what fireworks should be like." He says while fireworks can only be bough for four day period during early November, many people use them rogue at all times of the year, "causing nuisance and increased fire and animal safety risk." Despite a 2015 petition garnering 25,000 signatures, the Government Administration Select Committe did not recommend a ban. The Green Party says since that decision, more animals and people have been injured, and countless fires started. "In 2016 alone there were 518 claims made to ACC for fireworks-related injuries," Mr Hughes said. Listen to the full interview with Gareth Hughes above. Drive with Ryan Bridge , 3pm - 6pm Weekdays and streaming live on 'rova' channel 9 - available on Android and iPhone. RadioLIVE. A Central Otago cafe says the council has told them to remove all but 12 chairs inside. Central Otago District Council (CODC) staff found Rabbit Kitchen & Bar in Bannockburn, just outside of Cromwell, had almost three times the seating its consent permitted. Owners Jimmy Fairweather and Katie Funnell bought the business a year ago, when it had about 70 seats inside and out. But Mr Fairweather says they were not aware there was a 12 seat limit inside. Somewhere along the line its been overlooked. Once it come about we even spoke to the previous lady that had the cafe and she was unaware of it as well, he told RadioLIVE. Council staff visited the cafe just before Labour Weekend, Mr Fairweather said, resulting in most of the seating being removed for them to be allowed to continue operating. He says the business is working with council to resolve the issue but its a slow process. It is frustrating sort of want the outcome to happen a bit quicker. I just want to be able to cook food [] we just want to have people in the door, happy and sitting down having their meal or coffee, Mr Fairweather told RadioLIVE. Listen to the full interview with Jimmy Fairweather above. The Long Lunch with Lynda Hallinan, 12pm - 3pm on RadioLIVE and streaming live to the rova app on Android and iPhone. RadioLIVE. RUSSIA: Finnish freight company Nurminen Logistics plc announced on October 30 that it had sold its Russian wagon fleet of around 350 vehicles to TransLes. Part of the Rustranscom Group of freight companies, TransLes is one of the largest wagon operators in Russian forestry sector with a fleet of ... UK: On October 31 the Office of Rail & Road published its final determination approving infrastructure manager Network Rails 347bn spending plan for the next five-year funding cycle. SWITZERLAND: Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn has awarded Swiss Federal Railways a SFr354m contract to modernise nine HGe4/4-II electric locomotives and three BDt driving trailers. The work is to be undertaken at SBBs Bellinzona works by the end of 2022. Satellite provider Intelsat reported third-quarter revenue of $536.9 million, narrowly missing the consensus estimate of $539 million. Total adjusted EBITDA was $390 million, or 76% of revenue, for the three months ended 30 Sept. The company reported a net loss of $374.6 million.During the third quarter, Intelsat made important progress on its operational and financial goals, said Intelsat CEO Stephen Spengler. Our stable financial results reflect a continuation of recent trends. Operationally, a major milestone was the successful launch of Horizons 3e, completing the global footprint of our high-throughput satellite fleet .He added, Further, since July 1 we completed $4.2 billion in capital markets transactions, achieving an improved maturity profile for our capital structure. This, combined with our operational progress, allows us to advance our business goals.He also gave an update to Intelsat's efforts to participate in clearing 200 MHz of spectrum in the US over the course of the next 18 to 36 months, to be used for 5G deployment.The comment phase of the US Federal Communications Commission C-band proceeding ended yesterday, a major milestone as we continue to advance our proposal, Spengler said. The formation of the C-Band Alliance, announced earlier this month, demonstrates that the continental US C-band satellite operators are in full agreement on the technical and operational steps necessary to clear [the spectrum]. We will continue to advocate for our breakthrough, market-based approach that is the best path to protecting incumbents while repurposing spectrum. Local-focussed advertising platform ZypMedia has completed Series C funding totalling $5.6 million. Founded by former college roommates Aman Sareen and Ramandeep Ahuja, who serves as CTO, along with media executive Mark Goldman, ZypMedia is targeting the $150 billion local advertising market.This latest capital raise was led by Archer Venture Capital, and included existing investors U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) and Sinclair Broadcast Group (Sinclair). The funding will be used to develop and launch new enterprise products to the advertising platform, the company said; the funds will also be used by ZypMedia to double the size of its staff in the US and internationally over the next 12 months.We conceived and built ZypMedia to address a large and underserved segment of the advertising sector local businesses, said Aman Sareen, co-founder and CEO of ZypMedia. Utilising the ZypMedia platform, media companies can offer local advertisers the same buying power as large national brands, enabling them to participate in the digital media and OTT revolution.ZypMedia went to market four years ago and has since inked partnerships with Sinclair and other media companies."ZypMedia has enabled us to diversify our offerings for local advertisers," said Sinclair CRO Rob Weisbord. "The ability to offer our local advertisers cutting-edge products such as OTT is very powerful, as it allows them to complement their linear television buys, levelling the playing field and putting them on par with national advertisers. Most importantly, ZypMedia helps us empower local advertisers to effectively engage with their audiences across all devices." More than 6,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in Iceland nearly wiped out the capital city's beer supply. Military personnel are headed to Sweden and Finland for the Trident Juncture 18considered to be NATO's biggest military exercise since the Cold War. U.S. troops made a pit stop in Reykjavik over the weekend and drank up all the beer at various bars and restaurants across the city, according to Icelandic news site Visir. Local breweries were reportedly forced to send emergency barrels to bars depleted of their beer supplies while tending to American soldiers. Flash NATO said Tuesday the alliance will not change its plans for its biggest military exercise since the end of the Cold War in Norway after Russia announced to test missiles later this week in nearby international waters. "We were notified last week about the planned Russian missile test outside the coast here," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a press conference before an exercise demonstration at a waterfront site near Trondheim in central Norway. "I expect Russia to behave in a professional way and it will not change the plans of our exercise," he said. According to Norway's local media reports, the country's civil airport operator Avinor has been informed by Russian aviation authorities of the missile test that will take place on Nov. 1-3. The NATO chief noted that Russia has significant naval forces in this area and is regularly exercising its maritime capabilities off the coast of Norway. "We will of course monitor closely what Russia does, but they operate in international waters and they have notified us in the normal way," Stoltenberg said. Tuesday's hour-long joint demonstration with various military scenarios was a show of forces for NATO dignitaries, foreign observers and the international press. It was part of the Trident Juncture 2018 exercise that involves around 50,000 participants from all 29 NATO member nations and its partners Sweden and Finland, with about 250 aircraft, 65 vessels and up to 10,000 vehicles. Russia has said the NATO drills in Northern Europe, which started on Oct. 25 and run through Nov.7, are obviously anti-Russian and they lead to deterioration of military and political situation in the region, according to Russia's Sputnik news agency. "It is obvious that this fighting capabilities demonstration has a distinct anti-Russian character," the Russian Foreign Ministry's Information and Press Department was quoted as saying in a statement on Thursday. "It has a negative effect on the security of all the neighboring countries," it said. Russia has also complained that the levels of military activities conducted by NATO near Russian borders have been higher than ever since the Cold War. When Wisconsin passed Act 10, a collective bargaining reform bill, in 2011, the nation watched closely. It wasnt just for the drama or the political intrigue, but because states all over the country face similar looming budget troubles in the years ahead. Without reform, pension obligations in states like Illinois or California threaten insolvency and even raise the specter of federal bailouts. But with Act 10, Wisconsin showed that another way was possible. The collective bargaining reforms saved the state billions of dollars and staved off insolvency for many Wisconsin school districts. But rather than being welcomed with open arms, Act 10 became one of the most controversial pieces of state legislation in a generation. Seven years after passage, Act 10 has been the subject of a number of academic studies. Despite fears that teacher retirements would hurt students, a 2017 study found academic performance seemed to improve in the immediate aftermath of the reform. Teachers are adjusting and even flourishing in a new marketplace that competes for their skills, not their seniority. And class sizes and gross teacher salary were not impacted by the law relative to neighboring states that did not implement the reform. Still, the impact of Act 10 on students remains controversial. A 2018 poll found that majorities of Wisconsin Democrats and independents believe Act 10 had a negative impact on students. The law is often scapegoated in efforts to secure new education funding. But a new peer-reviewed study from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) finds that the impact of Act 10 on student achievement has not been negative. In fact, the law appears to have actually led to higher test scores. Open records requests to every school district in Wisconsin provided the data necessary to determine when a district implemented Act 10. Using control variables, WILL was able to isolate the district-level impact of Act 10 on standardized test scores and graduation rates. Test scores improved in math as a result of the law (a change in the reading test made fair comparisons impossible). And graduation rates, already some of the highest in the country, were not impacted by Act 10. This effect was consistent throughout Wisconsins rural and suburban districts, though urban districts showed less of an impact perhaps because many, such as Madison dragged their feet on implementing the law. The results are likely to surprise both critics and proponents because Act 10s impact on public education in Wisconsin has been largely misunderstood. Act 10 fundamentally altered education in the Badger State by providing local government with a new policy toolbox. Superintendents were liberated to make staffing and budget decisions that best served students and schools. A marketplace emerged that rewarded quality teachers. Ineffective teachers could be removed from the classroom for the first time. Teacher quality, not seniority was now rewarded. And schools were unshackled from administrative and bureaucratic handcuffs that had long restricted innovation. In sum, all of this empowered schools to refocus and prioritize the needs of students. Wisconsin showed that a state could balance their budgets and reform public employee pensions and benefits without tax hikes, layoffs, or cuts in services. And as this new report shows, undertaking these reforms had the added benefit of reforming public education and reprioritizing students. Iowa passed its own similar reform in 2017, limiting collective bargaining for public employees to base wages. Early results are showing significant savings. So, while fears abound about cuts to critical services and federal bailouts in places like Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, and New Jersey states that have less than half the assets they need to cover their looming pension obligations Wisconsin has offered a way out and a way forward. Collin Roth is the Director of Public and Engagement and a Policy Analyst at WILL. Will Flanders is the Research Director at WILL. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale Buy real estate. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale in US and Canada. Search Real Estate , We're sorry, this article is not currently available You are here: World Flash Two people were killed after a training plane crashed in Turkey's southern province of Antalya on Tuesday, local Demiroren News Agency (DHA) reported. The pilot and co-pilot were killed when a TC KIM training plane fell to the ground at Manavgat district of Antalya. Their bodies were retrieved from the wreckage, Mustafa Yigit, Governor of Manavgat district, said in a statement. Gendarmeries and rescue teams were dispatched to the scene after the accident. The cause of the crash has not been determined yet. The single-engine Cessna-type TC KIM training aircraft, which belonged to Star Aircraft company, crashed reportedly during a low-altitude flight in western province of Izmir last summer. By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 10/31/2018 ADVERTISEMENT FOLLOW REALITY TV WORLD ON THE ALL-NEW GOOGLE NEWS! Reality TV World is now available on the all-new Google News app and website. 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ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. : Happily Ever After premiered with the current relationship status of its three returning couples, and Shawniece Jackson and Jephte Pierre revealing they temporarily separated after "Decision Day."The new spinoff stars Shawniece and Jephte from Season 6 of set in Boston, Ashley Petta and Anthony D'Amico from Season 5 filmed in Chicago, and Danielle Bergman and Bobby Dodd from Season 7 taped in Dallas.At the time filming commenced for Happily Ever After, all three couples were expecting their first child together.The premiere broadcast of : Happily Ever After kicked off with expert, Dr. Pepper Schwartz, visiting Ashley and Anthony in their home.Ashley disclosed she knew their baby's sex but Anthony wanted to wait until September 1 to find out -- a date which had no significance or relevance."I just think it would be fun to wait in crazy anticipation. Funny enough, I thought that would be the sixth-month mark, however, it's not and I miscalculated -- it's the five-month mark. Oh well, the date is set!" Anthony told the cameras.Ashley told Dr. Pepper she tells any family and friends who want to know the baby's gender but they are not allowed to share the news with her husband."I'm being as understanding as I can be about it. It's a little upsetting to me, but Anthony and I have different styles of communication, and sometimes, little arguments turn into bigger arguments," Ashley explained."We need Dr. Pepper's help to stop us from having these little fights turn into something bigger."Meanwhile, Pastor Calvin Roberson met Danielle and Bobby for dinner at their home.Danielle said their relationship was only "getting better and better and better" after the show.Although Danielle has said she wanted to wait a year or two before starting a family, she learned she was pregnant.Danielle and Bobby didn't know the baby's gender yet, but they both admitted they'd love to have a boy. In fact, Danielle hoped to have all boys when it comes to her future children."It's a boy. There's no question. It's going to be Bobby Dodd IV," Bobby told the cameras.Danielle then shared with Pastor Calvin that she and Bobby had yet to fight. Calvin was shocked they never had a single disagreement, wondering whether the couple was "too good to be true."Calvin worried there was something deeper in the relationship that was going unacknowledged or that Danielle and Bobby were running away from.Viewers then received an update on Shawniece and Jephte's relationship. Jephte confessed he "wasn't really feeling" his wife in the beginning of the process and their time on the show was "a roller coaster."Although Shawniece and Jephte chose to stay together on "Decision Day," they apparently hit a big rough patch in their marriage.When Dr. Jessica Griffin met with the couple in their home, neither individual was wearing his or her wedding ring. Shawniece said she took the rings because after eight months, Jephte was unhappy and they were still arguing frequently."I just made the decision to separate," Shawniece said, before Jephte clarified they took some time apart after the show so he could find himself again.Jephte apparently left Shawniece and didn't see her for two or three weeks. He had an extremely difficult time dealing with social-media backlash."My head was just so messed up. I was reading the worst things about myself and I started to internalize that stuff... It was really hard. I never felt like that before and it was scary and I didn't know what to do," Jephte explained to Jessica.Jephte then shared with Shawniece how he felt like he was "mentally drowning" and he was definitely in a state of depression in which he felt "weak" and "vulnerable."Jephte didn't know how to communicate these feelings to his wife, and he also didn't want to upset her because her pregnancy was high-risk at the time. Jephte thought separating himself from Shawniece was the best thing to do for their baby.Jephte broke down into tears, and Shawniece quickly teared up as well. Dr. Jessica said she really liked this side of Jephte, but he and Shawniece needed to address their marital issues in order to move forward and provide a healthy environment for their child.Shawniece insisted she always wanted to be there for Jephte and listen to him but she also had to put herself first at times.Meanwhile, Danielle and Bobby discussed the roles of the household with Calvin. Danielle admitted she felt so sick, especially on weekends, that Bobby pretty much did everything -- including bringing meals to his wife in bed, cooking and cleaning.Danielle was so thankful and grateful for Bobby's love and support, because she said her pregnancy just consisted of napping and throwing up over and over again.Calvin worried Bobby was "doing too much" and may become "completely overwhelmed" but was afraid to push back in fear of damaging his marriage or hurting/disappointing his pregnant wife.Bobby and Danielle also discussed how their physical intimacy was lacking."Since we've conceived and we're expecting, our sex life has slowed down because Danielle is not feeling well. Things will change, but it's just a crapshoot, man," Bobby told the cameras.The couple agreed they were both happy, in love, and share a similar sense of humor.Going back to Ashley and Anthony's conversation with Dr. Pepper, Anthony revealed he and his wife started trying for a baby after January 1, and they accomplished the plan "pretty quickly."But the pair's biggest issue was communication. Ashley said Anthony never shared much information with her and struggled to open up at times. Anthony attempted to explain he doesn't like to answer Ashley's questions until he has all the answers.The experts then sent each couple on a vacation to a special resort in Connecticut so they could reconnect and "reset."Once they arrived, the three pairs met for dinner and drinks. Danielle disclosed she was 12 weeks pregnant, Ashley said she was 14 weeks along, and then Shawniece pointed out she's 20 weeks.Anthony joked that Shawniece was "ready to pop."Once Danielle learned Ashley knew the gender of her baby but Anthony did not, she said Bobby would never be able to wait because he wanted to know as soon as possible."Danielle and Bobby seem very happy. They seem like they're in the honeymoon phase still. It's all brand new. But for us, if we were pregnant at that point, I don't think we would have made it," Ashley confessed.Ashley then revealed watched their season was "the worst part" of their marriage because old fights would resurface. In fact, they stopped watching the show in order to stop fighting.Ashley told the cameras her relationship with Anthony was "very rocky" after cameras left and "Decision Day" was over.Bobby and Danielle then shocked the other couples by disclosing they had yet to fight. Ashley simply didn't believe in a perfect relationship, saying she'd "call bullsh-t" if a couple ever said that.The next day, the women enjoyed some time together at a nail salon while the guys played some cornhole and relaxed with cocktails.Shawniece shared with the girls how she and Jephte "separated for a couple of months" and they hadn't been "intimate for a long time." She said they would wear their rings again once they learned to understand and depend on each other.Meanwhile, Jephte was so excited to become a father, and he got emotional just talking about it.Afterward, the three couples sat down with Dr. Jessica, Dr. Pepper and Pastor Cal.The cast members were then asked to independently rate his or her marriage from 1-10. Dr. Jessica wanted to discover whether each couple was on the same level -- and if not, what they could do to get on the same page.Ashley rated her marriage a 9 and Anthony gave it an 8, with Ashley insisting there was "always room for improvement." Bobby and Danielle, once again, both rated their marriage a 10, but Danielle pointed out the experts should ask them again in two years because they hadn't been together very long.And then Shawniece gave her union a 6. Jephte, however, refused to participate in the activity, saying, "I don't want to do this."Shawniece was scared to open herself up and be vulnerable all over again, and Jephte's refusal to open up didn't help."Shawniece knows that little girl inside her, that love was instant. This love, we're still working on it and trying to build it. But she holds the key, the world, right here [in her belly] and so this makes her so important because she is the vessel to this baby," Jephte explained.Shawniece knew Jephte loved her for being the mother of his child, but she hoped he would come to love her just for being her."I want you to make sure that your reason for loving her is not just the baby... I don't want that to be the reason you are here. The goodness and beauty in that baby is in her," Calvin told Jephte."Don't just look at the baby, but look at Shawniece and say, 'Wow, this woman is incredible.'"Jephte said he was trying to work things out with Shawniece for the right reasons, because his wife is an amazing woman, but he said they had "a lot of work to do."Interested in more news? Join our Married at First Sight Facebook Group All the campaigning, political ads and election-related articles from The Red & Black will near its end come Nov. 6 hopefully. To celebrate the long midterm season, here are the details for election night watch parties you can attend. With all competencies and abilities the same, UGA should get a female president to not only break the chain of all male university presidents but represent half their student population in leadership. UGA NAACP's Bad and Boujee event on Thursday night featured four couples, all in different relationship stages, answering questions and sharing their personal experiences for the audience to gain an understanding of what it means to be in a healthy relationship. As each name was read, a member of the Arch Society lit a candle. The students passed the flame down the line, one by one, until all the candles were glowing. Family and friends stood holding candles of their own as the flame traveled throughout the crowd. Soon enough, everyone in attendance held a candle to represent the lives of the students and faculty who died. The global Red Cross Red Crescent networks 2018 World Disasters Report: Leaving No One Behind spotlights the global challenges involved in delivering aid to the most vulnerable peoplealong with solutions to help humanitarian actors better reach communities around the world. Reaching the hardest to reach In the report, global experts in humanitarian assistance and disaster response reveal that a lack of funding is not the only issue limiting how many people in need receive aid. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) found that millions of people may not be reached because of issues including: Out of reach communities cut off by geography, insecurity, war, violence against humanitarian personnel, and other conditions. cut off by geography, insecurity, war, violence against humanitarian personnel, and other conditions. Out of sight communities , including those that are unmapped. Poor or non-existent mapping, particularly in remote areas and fast-growing urban slums, can also render entire communities invisible. , including those that are unmapped. Poor or non-existent mapping, particularly in remote areas and fast-growing urban slums, can also render entire communities invisible. People left out of the loop, including those with needs that have been long acknowledged. In particular, people with disabilities and elderly people. Elhadj As Sy, Secretary General of IFRC writes in the report, Who are these millions of people left behind? Every human being has a name, a storyand a beating heart. He continued, the missing millions become crisis-affected populations, migrants, refugees, beneficiaries or just the neglected, the dispossessed, the dead. Calling partners to action Local grassroots groups and organizationsincluding Red Cross and Red Crescent Societiesoften have critical information about who is in need, where they are, and how they could be helped. The report urges humanitarian actors to invest in local action and solutions to ensure no one is left behind. The report presents key solutions to the humanitarian sector, including: Recognize and invest in local action. These actors, including Red Cross and Red Crescent branches, are already present in crisis settings. They speak local languages, understand local customs, and are often best placed to find and support the most isolated and vulnerable people. These actors, including Red Cross and Red Crescent branches, are already present in crisis settings. They speak local languages, understand local customs, and are often best placed to find and support the most isolated and vulnerable people. Invest in community preparedness. This is an area where the Red Cross is uniquely positioned. The American Red Cross trains local volunteers year-round as disaster responders and works with children in local schools to prepare for emergencies. This is an area where the Red Cross is uniquely positioned. The American Red Cross trains local volunteers year-round as disaster responders and works with children in local schools to prepare for emergencies. Improve use of data and technology to target response and reach more people. For example, through the Missing Maps initiativefounded in part by the Red Crossvolunteers help to put vulnerable communities on the map with open-source data and local validation. Learning from experience Everyday down the street, across the country, and around the world the Red Cross works around the clock to reach people in need after disasters and crises. In Nepal, which is known for its rugged terrain, Red Cross responders faced steep mountains and extreme conditions after the devastating earthquakes that killed around 9,000 people in 2015. The Nepal Red Cross and other partners, including the American Red cross, travel hours to remote areas to provide health support and other assistance to communities. After the earthquakes, the humanitarian community mapped rural villages across Nepal using the Humanitarian Open Street Map platform. These maps enable relief workers to reach even the most remote communities. The Red Cross is also investing locally by training neighbors to help neighbors, as community-based volunteers. READ THE FULL REPORT Read the 2018 World Disasters Report here: https://media.ifrc.org/ifrc/world-disaster-report-2018/ Flash More body parts and debris from the crashed Indonesian Lion Air JT 610 plane were found on waters of Karawang in West Java province on Tuesday, authorities said. West Java Police Chief Agung Budi Maryoto said debris from the crashed plane have moved towards Karawang's Tanjung shore, approximately three nautical miles away from Monday's location, due to the movement of ocean currents. The Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft en route to the city of Pangkal Pinang with 189 people onboard was reported missing at around 6:30 a.m. local time Monday, and was believed to have crashed 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta international airport. The chance of finding bodies of the victims became slimmer at this stage, as the bodies would start sinking to the bottom of the seabed, said Agung Budi Maryoto. Meanwhile, another search team with divers from the navy's special units also found body parts from under the sea surface on Tuesday. The remains were put into two bags and handed over to the national search and rescue team. Indonesian authorities said all findings, including body parts and debris from the crashed plane, would be gathered in Jakarta's Tanjung Priok seaport for analysis. The body parts would then be sent to police hospital for identification, while debris from the crashed plane would be sent to Halim Perdanakusumah airport in eastern Jakarta for further examination. Head of Indonesian Transportation Safety Committee Soerjanto Tjahjono said the captain of the plane had asked for a Return to Base (RTB) procedure two minutes after taking off, at a height of 518 meters, as he felt that something went wrong with the plane. Indonesia authorities said the plane had been crushed into pieces from severe impact with sea surface, after it dived at a rapid speed, allegedly from 3,000-feet (900-meter) height. Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) Operational Director Bambang Suryo Aji on Monday ruled out the possibility that the plane exploded in the sky as the debris showed no signs of being burnt. He said the chance was slim to find any survivors. Smugglers working in collusion with corrupt officials on both sides of the border are continuing to move illegally harvested timber from Cambodias Mondulkiri province into neighboring Vietnam in spite of government warnings to halt the trade, sources in Cambodia say. Loggers now use specially modified Toyota land cruisers to move their timber across the border, with as many as 30 vehicleseach carrying from four to six cubic meters of woodcrossing the border each night, a local villager told RFAs Khmer Service on Oct. 31. The timber is transported to Vietnam, where it is bought by local depots, Kroeung Tola, a Pnong villager in Pech Chreada districts Bousra commune, said. Area villagers believe local officials are behind the illegal trade, he added. Addressing a public gathering on Sept. 23 in Battambang province, Cambodian Interior Minister Sar Kheng spoke out against the continued smuggling in Mondulkiri. "I would like to send a message to the provincial governor there to resolve this issue," Sar Kheng said. "If not, he will face action." Reached by RFA, deputy provincial governor Svay Sameang declined to comment, though he had told RFA at the end of August that he would not allow the smuggling of timber from Mondulkiri to continue. 'Completely corrupted' Speaking to RFA on Wednesday, Cambodia Youth Network president Tim Malai voiced concern over the continuing destruction of Cambodias forests, adding that local authorities frequently collude with loggers to facilitate the smuggling. Authorities use many loopholes to avoid implementing the law. They have been completely corrupted, he said. Also speaking to RFA, environmental activist Heng Sros said that authorities take action only against those loggers who fail to pay them bribes. In May 2017, a report by the U.K.-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) said that around 300,000 cubic meters of timberincluding endangered rosewoodhad been smuggled out of protected areas in Cambodia to Vietnam with the help of local authorities through some U.S. $13 million paid in bribes between November 2016 and March 2017. Activists attacked Meanwhile, environmental activists investigating forest crimes have frequently been attacked or killed while carrying out their work. In January 2018, three Cambodian forest patrollers were killed in Mondulkiri by suspects believed to be members of Cambodias border forces in apparent retaliation for seizing equipment from illegal loggers, according to media reports. Cambodia has long endured the rampant smuggling of logs and timber--often with the complicity of local authorities--to neighbors such as China and Vietnam, where the wood is used to make high-end furniture. According to the NASA Earth Observatory website, between 2001 and 2014 Cambodia lost a total of 1.44 million hectares (5,560 square miles) of forest, one of the worlds fastest rates of deforestation. Though other countries have lost more acres in recent years, Cambodia stands out for how rapidly its forests are being cleared, the agency said in a 2017 report. Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Richard Finney. Renowned novelist Louis Cha, whose epic martial arts thrillers inspired numerous films and sold some 300 million copies worldwide, poses in his office in North Point on Hong Kong Island in a file photo. Louis Cha, a martial arts fantasy writer who also played a role in the political life of Hong Kong and founded one of its most prominent newspapers, has died following a long illness. He was 94. Cha, who used the pen-name Jin Yong, died Tuesday afternoon at the Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital surrounded by his family and listening to video calls and messages sent by friends and well-wishers around the world, the Ming Pao, a newspaper that he founded, reported. By the time of his death, Cha's Condor trilogy of wuxia (martial arts and chivalry) novels had sold more than 100 million copies, making him the bestselling author writing in Chinese. Former Ming Pao editor Tao Jie told the paper that Cha's literary achievement could only have happened under the freedom afforded by colonial rule in Hong Kong, where freedoms of press, publication, and association have been eroding rapidly in the wake of repeated interventions in the city's political life by the ruling Chinese Communist Party in Beijing. Cha began his career as a journalist in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou in 1946, later working as a translator for the Ta Kung Pao newspaper, which sent him to Hong Kong. By 1955, he had begun writing under the pen-name Jin Yong, and quit the Ta Kung Pao after it became clear that no criticism of the new communist regime in Beijing would be tolerated. He founded the Ming Pao in 1959, and edited it in the evenings. His days were spent writing the popular fiction that would later net him a personal fortune of more than a billion Hong Kong dollars, "an unprecedented fortune for a Chinese man of letters," the paper said. Cha had started his career with a huge amount of hope for the People's Republic of China under late supreme leader Mao Zedong. But he said he turned away from Beijing after the Anti-Rightist movements of the 1950s began targeting liberal-minded intellectuals and public figures for political persecution, violence, and incarceration. Mao's policies of nationwide collective farming and the famines that followed the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960) were also a wake-up call for Cha. "Once they started to change their tune, by the time of the Anti-Rightist movements, the Great Leap Forward and the People's communes, I became deeply disappointed and disillusioned by them," he once said. Never a democrat Hong Kong political commentator Sang Pu said Cha had once hoped to see a genuine revival of the Chinese nation under Mao, with the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. "I think he got a new opportunity to reach out [to Beijing] from the start of Deng Xiaoping's leadership, and then we saw a Jin Yong who didn't write novels, but who was solely focused on politics," Sang said. Hong Kong's South China Morning Post quoted culture critic Oliver Chou as saying that Deng Xiaoping "was said to have sent secret agents to get him a set of Cha's novels in Hong Kong in the early 1980s." But he added: "He was never a democrat. His suggestion that the chief executive [of Hong Kong] should be elected by a committee was extremely conservative ... and the whole of Hong Kong was very disappointed in him for that." Cha also once correctly predicted that Chinese leaders might promise democracy to Hong Kong during the negotiations before the 1997 handover, but would never deliver on it. "If you asked them for broad, full-on democracy, they might agree," he once said. "But personally, I don't actually believe that they would truly implement it." Political commentator Liu Ruishao said Cha became more politically conservative with age. "During the 1980s, his position started to morph from a definite opposition figure into a target for the Communist Party's United Front [outreach] effort," Liu told RFA. "However, he was a very clear-sighted and intelligent man, who never let himself be entirely co-opted by the United Front." "It's entirely possible that he thought he might trade on his United Front status to achieve a few things on behalf of the people of Hong Kong," he said. Withdraw from journalism Though Cha was deeply involved in Hong Kong's political life through his participation in the drafting of the city's mini-constitution, or Basic Law, his later years were marked by a gradual withdrawal from journalism and public life, beginning in the 1990s. During his life, Cha had been showered with honors, including the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1981, and a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur and a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France. He had honorary professorships at a number of institutions, including Peking University, Hong Kong University, and the University of Cambridge, where he also earned a doctorate from the Department of Oriental Studies in 2010. Cha's wuxia novels about an honor-bound band of martial artists who inhabit the world of the jianghu have inspired film adaptations, TV and radio dramas, comic books and video games, and left an indelible mark on Chinese popular culture. His death was the top trending item on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo soon after the news broke, with more than a billion views by Wednesday morning. Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam expressed "deep sorrow" over Cha's death, describing him as "a learned man and an acclaimed writer." "Professor Cha's works inherited the tradition of Chinese classics with the integration of history and culture," she said. Reported by Gao Feng for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. The wife of former Interpol president Meng Hongwei has hired two European law firms in a bid to track down her husband, who was detained last month on suspicion of bribery during a trip home to China. In an e-mail statement to Reuters, Grace Meng said she had received offers of help from all over the world since her husband's sudden disappearance and his subsequent resignation from Interpol, which the international police body accepted without publicly questioning or explaining the sudden move. Grace Meng said she has hired the French law firm of Marsigny Avocats and the London-based Lindeborg Counsellors, who specialize in international cases, to help find her husband, who is being detained in an unknown location. Above all, I urge everyone to raise their voice in asking China to respect our familys fundamental human rights, she said. His disappearance could not be for anything other than political reasons. The Lindeborg website describes its team of lawyers as including a former Interpol General Counsel and Legal Affairs Director, and offers experienced legal counsel to those wishing to challenge "red notices," or international arrest warrants issued by the Lyon-based organization. Paris-based Marsigny specialize in cases involving national or international corruption, misconduct, misappropriation of public funds, money laundering, and tax evasion, and advises clients on international asset seizures and extradition procedures. Germany-based law scholar Qian Yuejun, who edits the China-Europe Herald newspaper, said Meng's detention is "undoubtedly political," and that the law firms could take steps to track him in China, as well as lobbying for diplomatic pressure to be brought to bear on the ruling Chinese Communist Party. "Meng Hongwei is a Chinese national, but his place of residence is France, so the law firm can ask the French government to ask the Chinese government about him," said Qian, who last year led a demonstration outside Interpol's German headquarters protesting against Meng's presidency. "Another angle is Interpol. This case is already a combination of politics and law, and these lawyers will be aware of political channels they could use," he said. Red Notices Critics of Meng's presidency said China would likely use its influence with Interpol to successfully issue "red notices" targeting peaceful critics of the regime and political opponents of President Xi Jinping under the banner of the anti-corruption campaign or other criminal allegations. Qian said Meng's disappearance is yet another example of extrajudicial detentions and punishments meted out by Beijing to its targets. "If the Chinese government is a rogue state, then it must be clearly described as such," he said. "Meng Hongwei was illegally kidnapped, a tragic side-effect of power struggles [in Beijing]." Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told journalists that Grace Meng could call her husband "at any time," but had declined to do so. However, such calls are likely to be closely monitored, and it is unclear whether Meng has had access to a lawyer. Outlook not good Beijing-based rights lawyer Lin Qilei said international law enforcement has collided with an authoritarian regime, and that the outlook isn't good for Meng. "Meng Hongwei's wife may have hired foreign lawyers and be drumming up international support, even to the highest levels of government and diplomacy," Lin said. "But she should also try to find him a lawyer in China." Lin said such an effort would highlight the Chinese government's control over who is allowed to represent former high-ranking officials in such cases. U.S.-based veteran rights campaigner Liu Qing said the Chinese government has used "mafia tactics" to detain Meng. "They have just made the head of an international law enforcement body disappear into thin air, by trapping and secretly imprisoning him," Liu said. "This shows ... the Chinese Communist Party's contempt for global public opinion." "The Chinese Communist Party has a long history of international kidnaps," he wrote in a commentary aired on RFA's Mandarin Service, citing the 2015 cross-border detentions of five Hong Kong booksellers wanted by Beijing for selling banned political books to customers in mainland China and the reported abduction of "missing" billionaire Xiao Jianhua from a Hong Kong hotel in April 2017. "If we do not recognize and cut off the long and pernicious arm of the Chinese Communist Party as it reaches across the world, international due process and rule of law could be ruined beyond all recognition," Liu said. Reported by Ng Yik-tung and Sing Man for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Buffaloes on the roof of a house in the flooded Sanamxay District, Attapeu Province on July 24, 2018. UPDATED at 3:57 pm EST on 10/31/2018 On the night of July 23, water poured over a saddle dam at the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy (PNPC) hydropower project in Champassak, Laos, sweeping away homes and causing severe flooding in up to 12 villages downstream in Champassak and neighboring Attapeu province. More than 40 villagers were killed and dozens were listed as missing, in what has been described as Laos worst flooding in decades. The collapse of saddle dam D (one of 5 such structures at the dam complex) was not sudden. The government had been made aware that the dam was cracked earlier in the day. Critics are now questioning if the authorities and PNPC had adequately prepared for the impending disaster prior to the dam bursting. RFAs Lao Service has procured a never-before-published first-hand record of communications between relevant officials in Attapeu and PNPC on the day of the disaster. The report appears to show that the government was ill-equipped to handle the emergency, with notices going up and down the chain of command, redundant communications between PNPC and local and provincial government agencies, and general confusion about when to start evacuations. Timeline of Communications Between Attapeu Officials and PNPC: July 23 10:26 AM After the crack in the dam is identified, PNPC official Mr. Voutthiswan calls Navarath Nouanthong, head of the Office of Resettlement and Management of Attapeu Province, to discuss the potential impact this would have on people living in Sanamxay District along the Xepian River downstream. Navarath immediately calls his team to relay the message before reporting the situation to the governor. Voutthiswan calls the head of the Energy and Mines Office in Sanamxay District to warn officials of the risk to those in downstream villages. 11:03 AM Lee Kang-yeol, head of PNCPs Resettlement Office advises Navarath to prohibit fishing and other activities on the Xepian River. 1:56 PM PNPC emails Navarath with a map of the area at risk. 2:09 PM Navarath forwards the email to his team. 2:28 PM Navaraths team forwards the email to Mr. Soulaxay, the Attapeu governors secretary. 2:29 PM Navarath attempts a call to inform Mr. Thanouxay, head of the provincial cabinet, but his calls go unanswered. 2:34 PM Navarath calls Gorvernor Leth Xayaphone to brief him on the situation. 3:00 PM Kao Sung, head of the PNPC Social and Environmental Affairs Department calls Sanamxay District Chief Bounhome Phommasane to brief him on the situation and to advise him to evacuate villagers in the at-risk areas along the Xepian. 3:24 PM Governor Leth calls Navarath to inform him that PNPC must minimize the impact as much as possible and that the company would be responsible for what happens. 3:48 PM PNPC officials call Governor Leth directly to discuss the situation. 4:08 PM PNPC Official Mor Khaosung calls Secretary Soulaxay asking him to report to the governor that the dam is cracked and to advise him to evacuate the people in the at-risk areas. The report was written by Navarath Nouanthong of the Attapeu Office of Resettlement and Management at the behest of Attapeu Governor Leth Xayaphone on July 25, two days after the disaster. Attapeu officials have acknowledged that their attempts to warn people in the affected areas were too late for many to evacuate to higher ground. Governor Leth on July 27 was quoted by Lao Star Channel TV saying, At 10 a.m. PNPC informed us of the crack and told us to warn the people. Referring to botched evacuations, the governor said, We started evacuations at 2 p.m. and the dam broke at five, so we only had a two or three hour window to evacuate the affected areas. The government has since hired a consultant firm to investigate the cause of the dams collapse. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a PNPC official told RFA last week that experts involved in the investigation are collecting soil samples from the five saddle dams. These will be taken to Thailand and Vietnam for study. We expect that the results will come out in early 2019. The account by this source suggests that PNPC had knowledge of the issue a day before the time covered in the governmental report. PNPC was aware that saddle dam D was cracked on July 22, but did not inform Attapeu until July 23, the official said. The Korea Joongang Daily reported in July that one of PNPCs member companies, Korea Western Power, knew there was a problem at the dam even earlier. Company President Kim Byung-sook told the Korean Trade, Industry, Energy, SMEs and Startups Committee that Korea Western was aware that on July 20, the top of the auxiliary dam had sunken 11 centimeters [4.3 inches]. He said that the construction team did not start repairs because this was still within the tolerance range. Reported by RFAs Lao Service. Translated by Ounkeo Souksa. Written in English by Eugene Whong. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report incorrectly identified Korea Western Power as PNPC's parent company. PNPC is a consortium in which Korea Western Power is one of two members. Myint Thu (L), permanent secretary of Myanmar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, visits a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox's Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh on Oct. 31, 2018. UPDATED at 11:36 A.M. EDT on 2018-11-01 A group of Rohingya Muslim refugees living in Bangladesh have called for recognition as an ethnic group and restoration of their Myanmar citizenship rights as key conditions for accepting repatriation to Rakhine state presented to officials from the two countries who visited their camp on Wednesday. Myint Thu, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led an 11-member team from Myanmar which was joined by an 11-member group from Bangladesh during visits to Kutupalong the worlds largest refugee camp and to a settlement housing Hindu refugees from Myanmar. About 85 Rohingya leaders who met with members of the delegation handed Myint Thu a letter of demands addressed to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, outlining the refugees position before some of them return to Rakhine. Among the demands are the acceptance of the Rohingya as an official Myanmar ethnic group, the restoration of full citizenship rights for the Rohingya, and the establishment of an international security mechanism to protect them when they return, according to the letter written by the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace & Human Rights on behalf of the refugees. The Rohingya maintain that they were recognized as an ethnic group in Myanmar with rights to full citizenship prior to the Citizenship Law of 1982, which does not include them among the country's 135 distinct ethnic groups officially acknowledged by the government. "Before enacting this controversial law, which rendered us stateless within our own country, we were officially recognized as an ethnic group, and our rights, including full citizenship, were upheld," the letter said. "Our group's ethnic status using the name Rohingya was mentioned in many official documents, including encyclopedias, and even in school textbooks." The Rohingya also called for compensation and reparations for lives lost, injuries inflicted, and property confiscated; the release of Rohingya prisoners being held arbitrarily in Myanmar and the removal of innocent people from lists of terrorists; the return of original homes and lands to refugees from Bangladesh and internally displaced Rohingya living in camps in Rakhine; and the lifting of restrictions on their movement and access to services. We demand to see evidence of your political commitment to treat us as equal citizens and human beings, the letter said. We hereby inform you that we will not agree to be repatriated from Bangladesh to Myanmar until we see evidence of our above demands being fulfilled. You have presided over one of the most violent and catastrophic episodes our country and indeed the world has ever seen, the letter concluded. But you now have the opportunity to bring about a sustainable and just settlement for the communities in Rakhine state, which will help guide Myanmar back onto a path to peace. A brutal crackdown by the Myanmar military in northern Rakhine state in 2017 drove about 720,000 Rohingya across the border and into Bangladesh, where they now live in sprawling refugee camps. The government has largely denied that its military committed atrocities, including indiscriminate killings, torture, rape and arson, against the Rohingya, even though the United Nations and several countries have said the campaign amounted to ethnic cleansing and genocide. Instead, Myanmar officials have justified the crackdown as a legitimate response to attacks by a Rohingya militant group. Repatriations to begin Myanmar and Bangladesh signed an agreement nearly a year ago to repatriate Rohingya refugees who could be verified as eligible to return, though the program has yet to begin in earnest. During the visit to the camps in southeastern Bangladeshs Coxs Bazar, Myint Thu, who is also head of the Myanmar team of a joint working group for repatriation, pledged during a news conference to meet the demands and to begin repatriations in mid-November, the Dhaka Tribune reported. Myint Thu also said that Myanmar had verified 5,000 Rohingya eligible for repatriation from a list of 8,032 names that Bangladesh submitted in February, and that the first batch would consist of 2,000 Rohingya. Myanmar has said that it was prepared to begin repatriating refugees in January, but officials blamed Bangladesh for ongoing delays. Myanmar officials told us that they will receive us at the border crossing, and we will have to stay in two reception centers for a few days, said Islam, a Rohingya representative who met with Myanmar and Bangladeshi members of the delegation. Myanmar officials will give those who are repatriated National Verification Cards to put them on the path to obtaining full citizenship, he said. We must be given full citizenship rights and allowed to live in our old villages, Islam said. The government should compensate us for all the property we lost. For our safety, we must be taken care of by the international community. We told them that we will return only after the Myanmar government accepts all our demands. Buddhist-majority Myanmar considers the Rohingya illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and subjects them to systematic discrimination by denying the Bengalis access to jobs, education, and health care, and refusing to grant them citizenship though many have lived in the country for generations. In interviews with BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, Rohingya refugees expressed skepticism about Myanmar's promises. Mohammad Rafiq, chairman of the refugee camp in Ukhia sub-district of Cox's Bazar, said he and other Rohingya did not believe the Myanmar officials. We are skeptical about their willingness to take us back, he told BenarNews. They never act according to their promises. Aman Ullah, a leader of Unchiprang camp in Teknaf, another sub-district of Coxs Bazar, said Myanmar must first grant civil rights for those still living in Rakhine. If they give it, then we will believe that Myanmar is genuinely interested in giving us the civil rights, he said. Then we will return. Rohingya refugees from Myanmar collect water at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhia sub-district of Cox's Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh, Aug. 8, 2018. Credit: AFP 'They must give us all civil rights' Others expressed similar concerns. We are very happy that Burmese officials came to talk to us, but we will only go when all of our demands are met, Hazi Shafiullah, a Rohingya who attended one of the meetings, told BenarNews. Another refugee remarked that the Rohingya fled to escape abuses allegedly committed by Myanmars security forces. If they want us to return, they must compensate our losses, refugee Sekufa told BenarNews. They must give us all civil rights. Otherwise, we will not return. Hau Do Suan, Myanmars permanent representative to the U.N., told RFAs Myanmar Service on Wednesday that some of the refugees demands can be met, while others cannot. There are possible demands and impossible demands, he said. If they dont want to return because they wont get their impossible demands, then let them wait. We are ready to receive every refugee who wants to return, and we will do our best [to ensure] their survival here. We cant ask them to return by force. He also denied a report by Britains The Guardian on Monday that the Myanmar government has been destroying traces of Rohingya villages in Rakhine state along with physical evidence of state-sponsored violence committed against Rohingya there. The report came less than a week after Marzuki Darusman, chairman of a U.N. fact-finding mission investigating human rights violations against the Rohingya, told reporters before a briefing to the U.N. Security Council that ongoing genocide was occurring against Rohingya living in Myanmar, and that thousands were still fleeing to Bangladesh. Darusman also said that the estimated 250,000-400,000 who remained in Rakhine state after the crackdown continue to suffer severe repression. The Myanmar government is working with bulldozers to build houses for refugees who are returning because the international community is urging Myanmar to take them back, and Myanmar has already agreed with Bangladesh to accept them back, Hau Do Saun said. We cant let them live in empty fields, he said. The media have to understand this. Amnesty protest in Australia The European Union, Canada, the United States, and Australia have imposed travel and financial restrictions on Myanmar military officers seen as responsible for orchestrating the violence against the Rohingya in 2017. On Wednesday, activists from the London-based rights group Amnesty International called on Australian Defense Minister Christopher Pyne to end government financial and training support for the Myanmar military during a protest outside his electorate office in Adelaide, the Australian Associated Press reported. The Australian government set aside about A$400,000 (U.S. $284,000) in assistance for the Myanmar military in its 2017-2018 fiscal budget, primarily for emergency and disaster response, humanitarian aid, and peacekeeping, though an arms embargo introduced in 1991 remains in place. Our main call today is for the Australian government to immediately suspend all cooperation with the Myanmar military, which has been accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and possible genocide against the people of the country, said Laura Haigh, Amnestys Myanmar researcher, The group also called on the Australian government to publicly support a referral of the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The abuses committed by the Myanmar military are some of the gravest under international law, she said. The international community including Australia must send a clear message that impunity will not be tolerated and that those responsible will be brought to justice. In early September, a pretrial chamber of the ICC ruled that the court could exercise jurisdiction over Myanmar for the alleged deportation of the Rohingya during the crackdown, because Bangladesh is a member of the international tribunal, even though Myanmar is not. Later that month, chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda opened a preliminary probe into whether Myanmars forced deportations of Rohingya to Bangladesh could constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity. Reported by Khin Khin Ei, Khin Maung Soe, and Nandar Chann for RFAs Myanmar Service, and by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Almost four months after being detained by Vietnamese police, U.S. citizen Michael Nguyen is still being held in unclear circumstances with no charges filed against him, according to family members and congressional representatives working for his release. Nguyen, a 54-year-old father of four from California, disappeared on July 6 while visiting friends and relatives in Vietnam, and his whereabouts and condition were unknown for more than three weeks. On July 31, the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City Franc Shelton confirmed that Nguyen had been arrested and was being held at a detention center in the city while under investigation for activity against the Peoples government, according to Article 109 of Vietnams Penal Code. No formal charges have yet been filed in his case, and he has not been allowed access to a lawyer or his family, though U.S. embassy staff may visit him once a month, Rep. Mimi Walters (R-California) said in an Oct. 29 press release. Requests for information on Nguyens case, both by herself and other members of Congress, have not been answered, Walters said. The Vietnamese government continues to stonewall Congress and the Nguyen family, Walters said. Despite several meetings with the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington D.C. in which I demanded his immediate release, Michael remains imprisoned on baseless charges. The Vietnamese government continues to deny Michael access to family and friends. Walters said she remains in frequent contact with the U.S. State Department and the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam while working in Congress to build a bipartisan congressional delegation to increase pressure on the Vietnamese government to secure Nguyens release. I will continue the fight and stop at nothing to bring Michael home and reunite him with his family, Walters said. Speaking to RFAs Vietnamese Service on Oct. 31, Nguyens brother-in-law Robert Mark said that Nguyens family has been given no information at all on his case or on any accusations made against him. The government there has provided nothing to substantiate their supposed investigation, Mark said, adding that Vietnamese authorities may be stalling not just to investigate but maybe create some information against him. Something has to give on this very soon, Mark said. They cant keep holding him forever and ever. Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by An Nguyen. Written in English by Richard Finney. An Afghan National Army helicopter carrying senior officials has crashed in bad weather in the western province of Farah, killing all 25 on board, a local official says. Naser Mehri, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said the helicopter crashed shortly after taking off from the mountainous Anar Dara district in the morning of October 31 heading toward the nearby province of Herat. He said the copter crashed in bad weather. A Taliban spokesman said the militants shot it down. Mehri said the passengers included the deputy corps commander of Afghanistan's western zone and the head of the Farah provincial council. Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi claimed the militants had downed the helicopter but failed to provide evidence. Defense Ministry spokesman Ghafor Ahmad Jawed rejected the Taliban claim of responsibility as "totally wrong." Meanwhile, a suicide bomber struck outside Afghanistan's largest prison on the eastern edge of Kabul, killing at least seven people, including prison workers and security personnel, officials said. Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said that the attacker targeted a bus carrying prison workers early on October 31. The sprawling Pul-e Charkhi prison houses hundreds of inmates, including scores of Taliban militants. According to Abadullah Karimi, a prison official, the attack occurred near the prison gate where a number of visitors were waiting to pass a rigorous security check before entering. Another five were wounded in the blast, the officials said. There has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP Armenia has downplayed the significance of a declaration referring to Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh adopted by the foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran, and Azerbaijan at a meeting in Istanbul earlier this week. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was one of the issues on the agenda of the meeting held on October 29. The statement adopted at the end of talks between Mevlut Cavusoglu, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and Elmar Mammadyarov called for a peaceful resolution of conflicts in the region "based on the principle of territorial integrity." The three foreign ministers specifically highlighted the importance of resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in accordance with this principle. Armenian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anna Naghdalian said on October 30 that "the OSCE's Minsk Group co-chairmanship is the only format with an international mandate to help settle the conflict." "It is within this format that the principles of the conflict settlement are set forth as a whole. A selective treatment of those principles does not in any way contribute to the efforts towards a peaceful settlement," Naghdalian said. "Statements made outside the framework of the Minsk Group co-chairmanship and contradicting it are artificial and have nothing to do with the settling of the problem," she added. Nagorno-Karabakh, which is populated mainly by ethnic Armenians, declared independence from Azerbaijan amid a 1988-94 war that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Since 1994, it has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces that Baku says include troops supplied by Armenia. The region's claim to independence has not been recognized by any country. Internationally mediated negotiations involving the OSCE's Minsk Group helped forge a cease-fire in the region that is not always honored. However, the negotiations have failed to produce a lasting settlement of the conflict so far. Armenia's parliament has passed in the first reading a government-sponsored amnesty bill to mark the 100th anniversary of the First Armenian Republic and the 2,800th anniversary of the foundation of the capital, Yerevan. All 72 lawmakers present voted in favor of the bill on October 31. The second and final reading is due to take place on November 1. Acting Justice Minister Artak Zeynalian, who presented the draft legislation to the lawmakers, said the proposed amnesty would lead to the release of 660 inmates out of a prison population of 2,888. The amnesty would affect a total of 6,500 people in one way or another, including people under investigation or in pretrial detention. The bill would also grant amnesty to the members of the armed group Sasna Tsrer who in July 2016 seized and held for two weeks a police compound in Yerevan, and to members of the radical opposition Founding Parliament movement who were tried and convicted of plotting a coup in 2015. The amnesty does not apply to people who committed serious crimes, were engaged in trafficking, obstructed journalists' work, committed high treason, terrorist acts, or were involved in acts of sabotage. With reporting by Interfax Iran's Foreign Ministry has summoned the Danish ambassador to Tehran to issue a strong protest over Copenhagen's allegations about an Iranian plot to kill an opposition activist on the Scandinavian countrys territory. Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said the ambassador was warned against "hasty and controversial actions" during the October 31 meeting, which comes the day after the Danish security service PET fingered Iran for planning to assassinate an Iranian Arab opposition leader. Shortly after being summoned by the Iranians, Ambassador Danny Annan was recalled by Copenhagen and left the country, Danish officials said. Meanwhile, Denmark said it plans to reach out to its EU allies in hopes of developing a united response to Iran. "There is a need to show Iran that we are well aware of what took place and that we don't accept it," Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said on October 31. Danish intelligence officials said on October 30 that a man with a Norwegian passport and Iranian background was being held after he was arrested in neighboring Sweden. They said the individual was apprehended on October 21 under suspicion of helping to plot an attack on the leader of the Danish branch of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of al-Ahvaz (ASMLA), which is seeking a separate state for ethnic Arabs in the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan. The suspect has denied the allegation, while Iranian officials say it is part of an effort to damage Tehrans relations with the EU. Tehran claims that ASMLA was responsible for the September 22 attack on a military parade in Khuzestan's capital, Ahvaz, in which at least 25 people were killed. The group denied it was involved and condemned the attack. A spokeswoman for the European Commission said that EU countries "stand in solidarity with Denmark. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a Twitter post "congratulated" Denmark on arresting what he called "an Iranian regime assassin." The dispute comes at a delicate time in Western relations with Tehran. Several European countries, China, and Russia are in talks to salvage parts of a 2015 agreement with world powers to curb Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of global economic sanctions. The United States pulled out of the accord in May and began reinstating sanctions, a move that has hit the Iranian economy hard. Tehran has sought protection from European countries to help offset the damage done by the U.S. moves. With reporting AP, dpa, and AFP An Iranian refugee who gained political asylum in the United States has raised over $700,000 for the synagogue in Pittsburgh where a gunman killed 11 Jewish worshipers this weekend. Shay Khatiri, 29, told media on October 30 that after the anti-Semitic rampage, he started an online fundraiser to collect donations for the Tree of Life Congregation that worships at the synagogue in Pennsylvania. He said he had raised over $700,000 from more than 4,800 donors, far exceeding his expectations, by late on October 29. That has led him to raise his fundraising goal from his initial target of only $500 to $1 million. "I thought to myself, 'Worst comes to worst, it will raise like $500.' Which is better than nothing, but it's a little above that now," he told the Washington, D.C., television station WJLA. WJLA said Khatiri came to the United States as a refugee and applied for political asylum. He is currently a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Baltimore. He identifies himself as a deist, someone who believes in God but does not follow any established religion. He said he has been a recipient of the American Jewish community's generosity and wanted to repay the kindness. Khatiri said he was inspired to raise money after seeing a Jewish friend's reaction to the shooting. "She told me what happened and she was just broken," he told CNN. "Seeing how upset she was, I wanted to donate to the congregation." Khatiri said that seeing the donations flood in online had convinced him that Americans can still unite behind a cause in the wake of such tragedies. "Everyone talks about how divided we are," he told CNN. "But in such a tragic moment, Americans are always powerful and indivisible in trauma." Khatiri's effort came as Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif offered condolences for survivors of the mass shooting and wrote on Twitter, "Extremism and terrorism know no race or religion and must be condemned in all cases." Meanwhile, CNN reported that a separate crowdfunding campaign called Muslims Unite for Pittsburgh Synagogue has raised more than $180,000 for survivors and families of the mass shooting. "We wish to respond to evil with good, as our faith instructs us, and send a powerful message of compassion through action," the group's donation page says. With reporting by AP, CNN, WJLA, and Times of Israel Istanbuls chief prosecutor says Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled and his body cut in pieces in a premeditated killing immediately upon entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. The prosecutor, Irfan Fidan, on October 31 also said that Khashoggis body was disposed of following the killing nearly a month ago but that his remains have still not been located. Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and an outspoken critic of Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, went missing on October 2 after visiting the Saudi Consulate to complete paperwork needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. Riyadh denies the ruling royal family was involved in the killing, which has caused global outrage, and blames "rogue agents." Fidan's comments came as Saudi Attorney General Saud al-Mojeb, who has been in Istanbul for three days in connection with the investigation, was due to depart Turkey. Fidan said Mojebs visit produced "no concrete resultsdespite all our well-intentioned efforts to reveal the truth." Mojeb has acknowledged that the killing was premeditated, and the Saudis vowed to investigate and prosecute those responsible in Saudi Arabia. Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 Saudi suspects detained in the kingdom in connection with the killing. Some reports have claimed that suspects in the case have links to the crown prince. Based on reporting by Reuters, dpa, and AFP BISHKEK -- A Kyrgyz man suspected of wiring some $100,000 to terrorist groups in Syria has been apprehended, authorities say. Kyrgyzstan's State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said on October 31 that the 28-year-old man, whose name was not disclosed, was using another person's identity. According to the UKMK, the suspect was detained on October 14 and was charged with financially supporting terrorism, inciting religious discord, and forgery of documents. Kyrgyz authorities have said that some 500 men and women from Kyrgyzstan joined the Islamic State terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq in recent years. NATO has urged Russia to continue to honor a key nuclear-arms treaty amid U.S. threats to pull out of the pact because of alleged violations by Moscow. "No arms-control arrangement can be effective if it is only respected by one side," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on October 31 at a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council in Brussels, according to an alliance statement. The talks between the Russian and NATO ambassadors, the first such meeting since May, came against a backdrop of renewed tensions between the West and Russia. A source of discord is what NATO says is Russia's deployment of a cruise missile that violates the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and could potentially be used to target alliance members in Europe. Meanwhile, the Kremlin has accused the alliance of provocative behavior near its borders, while NATO has sharply criticized the annexation of Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, as well as Moscows backing of separatists in an ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine. U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this month declared his intention to withdraw from the INF Treaty, citing alleged Russian violations since 2014 and concern that China is not covered by its ban on ground-launched short- and intermediate-range ballistic and cruise missiles. Russia has repeatedly denied the accusations and also alleged that some elements of the U.S. missile-defense systems in Europe were in violation of the agreement. Washington denies that. "For over five years, the United States has pursued diplomatic and technical avenues with Russia aimed at preserving the INF Treaty," Stoltenberg said. Meanwhile, the allies have "expressed serious concerns" about the Russian cruise missile and urged Moscow to provide "full transparency" on the weapon. Stoltenberg also said that Russia's reluctance to heed NATO's calls reinforced the belief that the cruise missile "poses a serious risk to the strategic stability of the Euro-Atlantic area." The alliance was "committed to take effective measures to continue to ensure the safety and security of all allies," the NATO chief added. Russian President Vladimir Putin had warned that the U.S. plan could lead to a new "arms race." The NATO statement said the participants at the NATO-Russia Council meeting had an "open exchange" of views on topics including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Russia's Vostok military exercises in September, and NATO's ongoing Trident Juncture drills. Amid persistent tension between NATO and Russia, the Western alliance this month launched the Trident Juncture war games -- its largest since the end of the Cold War. The drills, which will run until November 7, will stretch from the North Atlantic Ocean to the Baltic Sea and involve around 50,000 soldiers, 10,000 vehicles, 250 aircraft, and ships from all 29 NATO allies, plus partners Finland and Sweden. Russia held large military exercises called Zapad-2017 (West-2017) in September last year in its western regions jointly with Belarus, which borders several NATO countries, and last month conducted massive drills -- Vostok-2018 (East-2018) -- across its central and eastern regions. NATO suspended practical cooperation with Moscow in 2014 in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine. However, political dialogue has remained open via the NATO-Russia Council. Pakistan's Supreme Court has overturned the conviction of a Christian woman facing execution for blasphemy, in a landmark decision that sparked angry protests and death threats from a hard-line Islamist party. Chief Justice Saqib Nisar on October 31 overturned the conviction by the Lahore High Court that had sentenced Asia Bibi, a mother of five, to death in 2010 for allegedly insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad -- a charge Bibi has denied. The court ordered that Bibi be freed. She is being held at an undisclosed location for security reasons. The court decision was hailed by rights activists, with Omar Waraich, deputy South Asia director for Amnesty International, calling it "a landmark verdict." However, the ruling angered supporters of the hard-line Tehrik-e Labaik Pakistan (TLP) Islamist party who blocked roads in major cities, pelting police with stones in the eastern city of Lahore. The TLP called for the ouster of Khan's government and said that Nasir, the chief justice, and "all those who ordered the release of Asia deserve death." In a televised speech later in the day, Prime Minister Imran Khan appealed for calm and hit out at extremists. "They are inciting you for their own political gain. You should not get trapped by them for the sake of the country. They are doing no service to Islam," Khan said. He also said that "the state will fulfill its responsibility" and asked the Islamists not to compel the state to take action against them. Bibi's conviction and death sentence had outraged Christians worldwide. Pope Benedict XVI called for her release in 2010, while in 2015 her daughter met his successor and the current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis. In 2011, two government officials -- a Pakistani governor and a minister of minorities -- were assassinated for having spoken out in support of Bibi. Insulting Islam is punishable by death in Pakistan, and the mere rumor of blasphemy can lead to lynchings by mobs. Bibi was sentenced to death by a district court in the central province of Punjab in 2010 for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Islam after neighbors objected to her drinking water from their glass because she was not Muslim. Christians make up only about 2 percent of Pakistan's population and are sometimes discriminated against. Approximately 40 people are believed to be on death row or serving a life sentence in Pakistan for blasphemy, according to a 2018 report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. At least 1,472 people were charged under Pakistan's blasphemy laws between 1987 and 2016, according to the Lahore-based Center for Social Justice. It said Muslims constituted a majority of those prosecuted, followed by members of the Ahmadi, Christian, and Hindu minorities. Rights groups say the laws are increasingly exploited by religious extremists as well as by ordinary Pakistanis to settle personal scores. No judicial execution for blasphemy has ever occurred in Pakistan, but 20 of those charged were killed. People like Bibi who are charged with blasphemy but later freed have had to flee the country for their own safety. With reporting by AP, AFP, dpa, RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal, and Reuters Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned of "the most serious consequences" over splits in the Orthodox Church after the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople earlier this month announced the decision to proceed to recognize Ukraine's request for an autocephalous church. The October 11 announcement by Bartholomew, who is considered the leader of the 300-million-strong worldwide Orthodox community, came amid a deepening dispute over the Ukrainian churchs bid to formally break away from Russias orbit. It also prompted the Russian Orthodox Church to announce four days later that it was ending its relationship with the Ecumenical Patriarchate in protest. "I want to stress one thing: Political maneuvering in this sensitive area will always lead to the most serious of consequences, especially for those who do it," Putin said, in his first public comments following the Russian Orthodox Church cutting ties with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. "Our common duty, above all for the people, is to preserve spiritual and historical unity," Putin said at a forum gathering representatives of the Russian diaspora in Moscow on October 31. The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople's move has also added to tensions between Kyiv and Moscow, already high since Russia's 2014 seizure of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Moscow-backed separatists. Based on reporting by AP, Interfax, and TASS President Hassan Rohani has warned Iranians that they may face more difficulties after the United States imposes new sanctions on the country, state television reports. "The situation was hard for people in the recent months, and it may be hard in the next several months, too," Rohani said on October 31 during a televised cabinet meeting, according to broadcaster IRIB. The United States in May withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and in August started reimposing sanctions on the Iranian economy that were lifted under the deal in exchange for curbs on Tehran's nuclear program. A second round of penalties targeting Iran's oil and gas industry is due to come into effect in early November, with U.S. officials saying they aim to reduce Iran's oil exports to zero. Rohani called the move "a new injustice" and promised that the government will utilize its entire capabilities to alleviate the problems" caused by the reimposed sanctions, IRIB reported. "You will not be able to reach any of your goals with regard to Iran's oil," the Iranian president was quoted as saying. "You will not be able to bring it to zero or reduce it." Iran is already in the grip of an economic crisis and has seen sporadic protests in recent months. The reimposed sanctions are part of a broader U.S. economic campaign to pressure Iran over what President Donald Trump's administration describes as its "malign conduct" such as nuclear and missile development and support for militant groups in the Middle East. Based on reporting by AP and Reuters Russias space agency said a failed blastoff earlier this month was due to a "malfunctioning sensor, as it announced plans to launch in December its first manned rocket to the International Space Station (ISS) since the incident. In the first official report on the cause of the incident, Roskosmos on October 31 said a sensor that indicated the separation of the first two stages of the Soyuz rocket carrying a manned capsule malfunctioned after liftoff. In the aborted October 11 mission, the capsule carrying a two-man Russian-American crew bound for the ISS landed safely in Kazakhstan. Russian cosmonaut Aleksei Ovchinin and U.S. astronaut Nick Hague were unhurt. "At the moment of separation [of the rocket's first and second stages], one of the lateral first-stage engines was not ejected far enough and hit the propellant tank of the second stage, which caused the tank's rupture," said Sergei Krikalyov, the executive director of the manned spaceflight program at Roskosmos. Krikalyov said efforts were being taken to ensure the safety of future flights, and he announced plans to launch on December 3 a manned rocket to the space station "in order to avoid shifting the ISS to an unmanned mode." The mission crew that is currently working aboard the ISS might return to Earth on December 20, he added. Russian rockets have experienced an array of glitches in recent years, but the latest mishap was the first to be experienced by a manned Soyuz capsule since 1983, when a crew narrowly escaped before a launchpad explosion. Hague and Ovchinin were due to spend six months on the ISS. Roskosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said earlier that space authorities plan to send Hague and Ovchinin up to the ISS in the spring of 2019. The current crew working aboard the ISS since June 6 consists of Sergei Prokopyev (Russia), Serena Maria Aunon-Chancellor (United States), and Alexander Gerst (Germany). The next crew, Oleg Kononenko (Russia), Anne Charlotte McClain (U.S.), and David Saint-Jacques (Canada), was initially scheduled to be sent to the ISS in late December, but that launch was rescheduled after the October 11 accident. With reporting by TASS, RIA Novosti, and Interfax Russia has clashed with the United States and European powers at the United Nations over the legality of elections in areas of eastern Ukraine held by Moscow-backed separatists. During debate on the planned elections in Donetsk and Luhansk on November 11, the UN's political chief said she backed the Western view that the votes would violate a 2015 accord laying out steps for settling the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The position taken by UN political chief Rosemary DiCarlo left Russia isolated at the UN Security Council meeting. Western allies also blocked Russia from bringing a Luhansk separatist official, Olena Kravchenko, before the council to provide a briefing on the elections. In a vote called by Western states on whether she could speak, Russia was the only one in favor, with seven countries against and seven abstaining. A minimum of nine votes in favor were needed for Kravchenko to speak. Before the meeting began, a joint statement from France, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, and Germany was read outside the council chamber condemning what they called "the illegitimate 'elections' planned for November 11." The statement said such elections would violate Ukrainian law and "contravene commitments" made by separatists and Russia under the 2015 agreement reached in Minsk, Belarus. The European Union countries urged the international community to unite in opposing the elections, saying the votes "can only serve to undermine efforts to achieve peace in the region." They urged the separatists to abandon plans for the elections and called on Russia "to bring its considerable influence to bear to stop the so-called 'elections' from taking place." "Russia must play its part by ending its financial and military support to the separatists and withdrawing its armed forces and military equipment from Ukrainian territory," the European states said. The U.S. deputy ambassador to the UN, Jonathan Cohen, later also claimed the "sham elections staged by Russia" violated the Minsk agreement, which states that elections must be held in accordance with Ukrainian law and be supervised by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Cohen said the Kremlin was using the elections to bolster the authorities it has installed in Donetsk and Luhansk, which he said "are inseparable from the illegal armed groups controlled by Moscow." The 2015 Minsk agreement has helped reduce hostilities, DiCarlo told the council, but "there has been little progress in talks to end the fighting." "The conflict in eastern Ukraine, now in its fifth year, remains an active threat to international peace and security," she said. More than 10,300 people have been killed in fighting between Ukrainian forces and the separatists since April 2014. DiCarlo said that cease-fire violations had increased and casualties risen over the last six weeks. The assistant UN secetary-general for humanitarian affairs, Ursula Mueller, told the Security Council that more than 100 people had been killed by mines and other explosives in the area so far this year. More than 3,000 civilians have been killed and up to 9,000 injured in the conflict, Mueller said. DiCarlo said the Minsk agreements, which were endorsed by the Security Council, are the only agreed framework for a negotiated peace in eastern Ukraine. She warned that any elections held "outside Ukraine's constitutional and legal framework would be incompatible with the Minsk agreements." Russia's UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya argued that the elections "have nothing to do with the Minsk package" because they are municipal elections. The votes are needed "to fill the vacuum in power" following the August 31 murder of Donetsk separatist leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko, who was a signatory to the 2015 agreements, Nebenzya said. Nebenzya claimed that the elections are also necessary as a result of what he called "sabotage by Kyiv of its political commitments." Ukrainian Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko accused Russia of waging a "disinformation campaign," and blaming Ukraine for everything that happens in Donetsk and Luhansk. He repeated Ukraine's position that the results of what he called the "fake" November 11 elections will be "null and void." With reporting by AFP and AP Bank robbers make off with millions after Cancun heist Cancun, Q.R. Bank robbers have reportedly made off with millions after assaulting a Banamex bank in a Cancun plaza. The robbery was recorded Tuesday around noon when a undisclosed number of armed people entered the bank in Plaza Punta Tulum on Colosio Boulevard in Cancun. Reports say that 12 million peso was taken from the bank during the heist. Emergency 911 was alerted to the robbery. Police were sent to the plaza who reported no injuries, and also no detainees. Paramedics from the Red Cross arrived to help those suffering shock. Home of police commander in Tulum target of attack Tulum, Q.R. The home of a police commander was hit with bullets in Tulum Tuesday after assailants attempted to shoot him. A police commander became the victim of an attempted shooting at his home in the Guerra de Castas division of Tulum where two gunmen opened fire. Fabian H., police commander and former Operational Director of Public Security, was not injured, however, reports say his wife was wounded in the attack. According to witnesses, the subjects were armed and after the shooting, fled on a motorcycle. Paramedics and police arrived at the home. The grounds of the residential area were searched, but no arrests were made. His wife was transferred to hospital in Playa del Carmen. Millions line streets to watch the Celebracion del Dia de Muertos in Mexico City Mexico City, Mexico More than 1.8 million spectators took in the annual Celebracion del Dia de Muertos parade in Mexico City. For the third year in a row, the main streets of central Mexico City were lined with nearly 2 million people who waited to watch the thousands of performers, costumes and floats that made up this years Celebracion del Dia de Muertos. The Day of the Dead parade marked the occasion with vibrant colors, memorable floats and music as the three-hour long event passed through the Reforma-Centro Historico corridor of the city. A long parade of traditional skulls and catrinas marched through the city streets. The Mexican tradition was organized by the Tourism Promotion Council of Mexico and the Ministry of Culture who this year, added several themes to the parade that included the Great Tenochtitlan, Aztec warriors and civil war heroes. Artists and writers who found refuge in Mexico such as author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, filmmaker Luis Bunuel, painter Remedios Varo and poet Leon Felipe were honored with massive floats. Other parade features included the tzompantli or wall formed by human skulls of those who died during sacrifices in pre-Hispanic times, a giant xoloitzcuintle and a Frida Kahlo float. This year, other states took part in the event including Oaxaca, Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosi and Michoacan. Over 1,200 volunteers took 10 months to prepare the exhibits for the parade including the 100 walking catrinas. Crawshaw's headquarters in Hellaby A CHAIN of butchers which is based in Hellaby has gone into administration. Crawshaw, which has stores at Howard Street and Bowbridge Close in Rotherham, and a factory outlet at the Spar on Manvers Way in Manvers, said it did not have sufficient cash resources to restructure its business. The company, which was founded in 1954, said in a statement today (Wednesday) that it had been in discussion with existing and potential investors but could not raise sufficient capital. The company has more than 50 stores across the Midlands and the North and up to 600 jobs are at risk across the chain. A spokesman for the company told the Advertiser that all Crawshaw stores remained open. He said the company was trying to find a buyer so that jobs could be saved. Trading in the companys shares on the London Stock Exchanges junior market, AIM, was suspended this morning. The company said in a statement: The company does not have sufficient cash resources to effect the required restructuring of the business. In the light of the above and the operational and financial uncertainty which the company now faces, in order to protect both shareholders and creditors, the board has taken the decision to place the company into administration and intends to appoint administrators shortly with the purpose of seeking buyers for the groups business and assets on a going concern basis. Crawshaw said further announcements would be made in due course. The scene on St Lawrence Road, Tinsley A MAN has died after a fire at his flat in Tinsley. Firefighters were called to the second-floor flat on St Lawrence Road at 10.55am today (Wednesday) and remain at the scene, a spokeswoman for South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue said. Crews from Parkway, Rotherham, Elm Lane and Barnsley have been tackling the fire, she added. "Upon arrival, crews wearing breathing apparatus entered the flats to tackle the fire which was located on the second floor of the building," said the spokeswoman. "There were no other casualties involved in the incident. "A multi-agency investigation will take place to determine the cause of the fire." A police spokeswoman said the force was working with SYFR to determine the cause of the fire, but were not treating it as suspicious. Vice President Naidu embarks on six-day visit to Botswana New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI): Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday embarked on a three-nation visit to Botswana, Zimbabwe and Malawi, during which he will hold talks with the top leaders of these African countries, meet business groups and interact with the Indian diaspora. Naidu is being accompanied by a high-level delegation for the six-day visit, the Ministry of External Affairs said Tuesday. The delegation includes Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Krishan Pal Gurjar, two MPs and senior officers of the Union government, it said. Naidu's official engagements includes meeting presidents of the countries; holding bilateral meetings with his counterparts and delegation level talks; and interacting with business groups and Indian communities, the ministry said in a release. Advertisement Naidu is being accompanied by a high-level delegation In Botswana, the vice president will inaugurate the Global Expo Botswana 2018 together with his counterpart in that country. The expo will see participation of 25 big Indian companies and business houses covering a range of sectors, it said. In Zimbabwe, Naidu will meet the nation's foreign minister and lay the foundation stone of the Chancery project. He will witness signing of MoUs on mining, information and communication technology, and culture, the ministry said. The vice president, in Malawi, is expected to inaugurate the Business Incubation Centre and India-Africa Institute of Agriculture and Rural Development and unveil a bust of Mahatma Gandhi, it said. Several MoUs and agreements, including an extradition treaty, and pacts on agriculture and training will be signed during the visit, the External Affairs Ministry said. From India, there have been 26 outgoing visits to Africa at the level of president, vice president and prime minister in the last four years, it said. Punjab Government today observed 'Rashtriya Ekta Diwas' Spokesman News Service, Chandigarh, October 31: The Punjab Government today observed 'Rashtriya Ekta Diwas' (National Unity Day) throughout the state to mark the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The Punjab Chief Secretary Mr Karan Avtar Singh administered the Rashtriya Ekta Diwas pledge to the officers and staff of the Punjab Civil Secretariat-1. He said, "All of us should dedicate ourselves to preserve the unity, integrity and security of the country and also strive hard to spread this message among all fellow countrymen". In his inaugural address, the Principal Secretary of General Administration Mr. Jaspal Singh said that Sardar Patel, known as the Iron Man of India, played a prominent role in the freedom struggle of the country and actively participated in building a united and independent nation. Advertisement The state government employees also pledged to contribute towards ensuring the internal security of the country. The employees also remembered the contribution of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel towards nation building. Prominent amongst those present on the occasion were the Additional Chief Secretary-cum-Financial Commissioner Revenue Mr. M.P. Singh, Principal Secretary Finance Mr. Anirudh Tiwari, Secretary Tourism and Cultural Affairs Mr. Vikas Partap, Special Secretary Personnel Ms.Neelima, and Director Hospitality Mr. Moneesh Kumar. [ISLAMABAD] Increasing soil salinity that impacts crop productions will continue to remain a major cause of internal and international migration from the coastal districts of Bangladesh, a new study suggests. The UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its fifth assessment report identified Bangladesh as being vulnerable to sea level rise and predicted that the deltaic South Asian countrys at-risk population would grow to 27 million by 2050. Soil salinity in coastal Bangladesh has been attributed to several interacting drivers, including climate variability, salt water inundation, tidal influences, storm surges, and shrimp farming.* We are already working on developing climate-resilient and migrant-friendly cities and towns in Bangladesh to encourage migration away from population-dense areas, like Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna, to less-populated towns and cities Saleemul Haq, International Centre for Climate Change and Development The study, published this month (October) in Nature Climate Change, finds that although coastal households are already adapting to inundation of their farm lands by switching to aquaculture and livestock keeping, increasing salinity will force some 200,000 coastal residents to migrate annually. Valerie Mueller, an author of the study, assistant professor at the Arizona State University and researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute, tells SciDev.Net that around 140,000 coastal residents would relocate annually within their own districts while around 60,000 others would move elsewhere. The study is based on socio-economic data from the countrys sample vital registration system covering 147 coastal sub-districts from 2003 to 2011 and agricultural production data from household income and expenditure surveys in 2005 and 2010, covering nearly half a million coastal households in a year. Opportunities of alternative livelihoods for poor farming households are quite limited in most of the countrys coastal communities. However, we found increased out-migration rate in communities. Some households may be able to develop small businesses like rickshaw pulling, bike repair or selling prepared foods, Joyce Chen, study co-author and assistant professor of economics at the Ohio State University, tells SciDev.Net. Bangladeshs coastal areas account for one-fifth of the total land mass and cover more than 30 per cent of the cultivable land. Chen says introduction of salt-tolerant crop varieties offers promising adaptation solutions for coastal farming communities, but large investments are required. We are already working on developing climate-resilient and migrant-friendly cities and towns in Bangladesh to encourage migration away from population-dense areas, like Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna, to less-populated towns and cities, says Saleemul Haq, director of the Dhaka-based International Centre for Climate Change and Development. Says Golam Rasul, food security and farm-based livelihoods scientist at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development , Kathmandu: Soil salinity is a long-term challenge because once the soil becomes saline, traditional crops are no more suitable increased soil salinity does push out-migration. Short-term measures could be promotion of salt-tolerant crop varieties and brackish water fish species, harvesting rainwater and constructing sweet water ponds to ensure fresh drinking water availability, says Rasul. This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets Asia & Pacific desk. *This article was amended on 1 November 2018 to provide more information about the causes of soil salinity in Bangladesh. [PANAMA CITY] Simone Anne Marie Badal-McCreath, a Jamaican chemist and cancer researcher, had always planned to be a medical doctor. But, during her bachelor in biochemistry, she fell in love with research. Dissatisfied with the source material that she was given at university, Badal decided to write her own plant chemistry textbook. Now, age 37, she lectures in medical sciences at the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica. Two years after Badal finished her PhD in Biochemistry, she was one of five women to win the 2014 OWSD-Elsevier Foundation Award, given jointly by Elsevier and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World. Could you tell us about your research career? I graduated in 2012, and my PhD focus focused on screening Jamaican natural products for potential anticancer properties, that is, if they would be able to slow, block or reverse the progress of cancer. We studied three different cancer cell lines: breast, colon and liver cancer. At the end of that research, it was clear that several of our Jamaican natural products blocked cancer-causing cell pathways. We also found that a few of our compounds killed colon cancer cells but did not harm normal colon cells. The next step would be in vivo work. Tell us about winning the OWSD-Elsevier Foundation Award for Early Career Scientists in the Developing World The award was specifically focused on chemical sciences. The dean of the faculty nominated me and I represented the Latin America and Caribbean region. Each winner received US$5,000 and an all-expenses paid attendance at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting in Chicago, United States, where the award was presented. It was quite memorable. Because of that award, several doors opened for me in terms of accessing grants, funding and building my career as a young female scientist in the Caribbean. It was after the award that you got your job at the University of the West Indies. I was employed as a lecturer, which is equivalent to an assistant professor position in the United States. I was able to secure grant funding to the amount of US$90,000, and so I set up a cell culture lab. My vision is to build the first world cancer centre that serves the Caribbean; a centre that can develop personalised medicine to treat cancers that affect Caribbean men and women. I am not certain if I will see it, but somehow I hope to contribute to that through my work and my students. You wrote your own textbook. Whats the story behind that? While I was doing my Ph.D., I was also teaching pharmacognosy (the study of medicinal drugs derived from plants or other natural sources). I went home and I was telling my husband: I am not so happy with the textbook, and he said: why dont you write your own? I laughed at first because I was not even finished yet with my Ph.D. But, then I developed an outline. Soon, I recognised that one of the people involved with my award was Elsevier. I used that as an opening to contact them. After several discussions, they further refined my outline and sent it o several international experts in the field. A couple of years later, here we are its published! The final book is a compilation of contributions from 70 experts in the world. Do you think that it is more difficult to be a female scientist than a male scientist in your country? At this point, I cant say either way. Personally, I have achieved relatively speaking a lot in a short space of time. I had support from both male and female scientists. I recognise that my age was perhaps a stumbling block; some people might think you are too young to progress so quickly. But I always pulled out resources, not just from my family members, but also from academia. Yes, I know that there are other people who would say that to be a female scientist is more challenging, but I have not reached that stage. Ive got challenges all over, so I just focus on what needs to be done. Why did you decide to become a scientist? When I was in high school I actually wanted to be a medical doctor, but when I was doing my bachelors, a particular professor contributed to me falling in love with research. I decided to do a masters, and that was also challenging. But I pulled through. I was able to get it done in two years, and for us that is very fast. I also got several peer-reviewed publications for that work. Even though I experienced numerous challenges in doing that, I recognised that I love it. I am passionate about research, and because I am passionate about it, it doesnt matter what comes my way. Last year in January you created a foundation. Tell us about that It is called the ACRJ Foundation, and it aims to help people who have dropped out of high school because of pregnancy, fighting, or whatever the reason is. We are helping them to get the Caribbean Secondary Examination Certificate so that they can become employable and are not just left alone by the wayside. Its not just teenagers, its for adult men and women, as long as they fit our eligibility profile. We are also offering mentorship to these students. I think its important, as we strive to achieve the best in our career, to give back. Immunotherapy -- harnessing T-cells to attack cancer cells in the body -- has given hope to patients who endure round after round of treatment, including chemotherapy, to little effect. For all of its promise, however, immunotherapy still benefits only a minority of patients -- a reality driving research in the field for ways to improve the relatively new approach. One method for improving efficacy is the development of bio- and activity-based markers to better predict which patients will respond to immunotherapy and identify why some don't. In a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at the University of Notre Dame studying tumors in prostate cancer models found that nitration of an amino acid can inhibit T-cell activation, thwarting the T-cell's ability to kill cancer cells. "People put a lot of hope on immunotherapy, and it has worked well for some patients, but overall the number is still low," said Xin Lu, John M. and Mary Jo Boler Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at Notre Dame who studies molecular understanding and immunotherapy of metastatic cancer. "By identifying activity-based markers like this one, we can design approaches that shut down the particular mechanisms that inhibit T-cell activation so immunotherapy can work." In the study, Lu and his team explain how highly reactive molecules, called reactive nitrogen species (RNS), produced by myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) cause nitration of an amino acid in a lymphocyte-specific protein called tyrosine kinase (LCK), which is crucial for T-cell activation. Nitration is a process to add a special chemical group "nitro" to the amino acid molecule, called tyrosine, in proteins. After this modification, the protein may alter its overall structure thus exhibiting different functions. MDSCs are prevalent in solid tumors that contribute to more than 90 percent of all cancers. Prostate cancer "is a slow progressing disease," Lu said. "Nevertheless, for patients with aggressive cases of prostate cancer, there is no effective treatment." According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death for men in the United States behind lung cancer. Lu and his team also looked at tumors in lung cancer models, and tested treatments as part of the study. advertisement "At this moment, we don't have an agent to block a particular amino acid from nitration," Lu said. "But we do have ways to block nitration all together." Lu tested three methods of treatment to block nitration, which would keep the LCK protein active -- and allow it to do its job of killing cancer cells. Treating models with an immune checkpoint blockade or uric acid, which can neutralize RNS to limited degrees, yielded little response in the tumor models. "When we combined them, our results showed that it could suppress RNS, activate cytotoxic T cells and achieve impressive efficacy," Lu said. While MDSCs are highly abundant in solid tumors, they are not all alike, which is why Lu is focusing on activity taking place at the molecular level. The hope is to expand the study and investigate new antibodies capable of recognizing this particular type of modification for better prognosis. "You can imagine in the clinic, if a patient comes in with metastatic prostate cancer from which a fine-needle biopsy can be acquired, you can look for MDSC activity using the nitrated protein biomarker and predict whether or not an agent that inhibits MDSC will be required for immunotherapy to work," he said. Because MDSCs are in high abundance in many types of solid tumors, Lu said it could be argued that the phenomenon found in the prostate cancer models has a high likelihood of applying to other solid tumors in other types of cancer. "The question is how we reach more people," Lu said. "The goal is to identify biomarkers and therapeutic targets that enhance current immunotherapies to unleash more power from these therapies. By doing this, we may benefit many more patients." In 2016, Shuhei Yamamoto obtained a penny-sized piece of Burmese amber from Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar, near China's southern border. He had a hunch that the three-millimeter insect trapped inside the amber could help ansshow why our world today looks the way it does. After carefully cutting and polishing the amber, Yamamoto determined that the insect, smaller than the phone-end of an iPhone charger, was a new species to science. The beetle, which lived 99 million years ago, is a relative of insects alive today that live under tree bark, and it's giving scientists hints about how Earth's landmasses were arranged millions of years ago. "This is a very rare find," Yamamoto said, a Field Museum researcher and lead author of a paper in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology describing the new species. The fossil beetle is one of the oldest known members of its family -- its name, Propiestus archaicus, refers to the fact that it's an ancient relative of the flat rove beetles in the Piestus genus today of which now dominates the South America. While dinosaurs roamed much of Earth 99 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous era, Propiestus, with its flattened body and short legs, was busy conquering smaller turf underneath the bark of rotting trees. Its long, slender antennae were the clear giveaway to Yamamoto that Propiestus was lived in this environment -- similar to today's flat rove beetles. "The antennae probably had a highly sensitive ability as a sensory organ," Yamamoto said. Smaller hair-like structures attached perpendicular to the antennae would have increased its ability to feel out its surroundings. "There wouldn't have been a lot of space available in the beetle's habitat, so it was important to be able to detect everything," he explains. Propiestus is just one of the hundreds of thousands of Burmese amber inclusions -- another word for the objects trapped inside the amber -- that scientists have extensively researched over the last 15 years. Many small insects that lived during the Cretaceous era met their maker at the hands of tree sap that engulfed the bugs and hardened into amber. The bugs trapped inside fossilized and remained frozen for millions of years, unaffected by the passage of time. The hardened amber, covered by soil, decayed leaves, and other organic material, eventually blended in with its surroundings. advertisement Because of this, amber in nature doesn't look like it does in jewelry -- in fact, it doesn't look like anything special at all. The small clumps of unpolished amber look like rocks, meaning only those experienced in amber identification, mostly local miners, are able to find them. After miners extract the amber, the clumps are either sold into the jewelry trade or to scientists like Yamamoto to study the inclusions. For Yamamoto's piece of amber, he used sandpaper to carefully polish the amber just enough to make Propiestus clearly visible. "It was very exciting, because the cutting process is very sensitive," Yamamoto said. "If you cut too fast or apply too much pressure, you destroy the inclusion inside very quickly." Once the amber was polished, the beetle was clearly visible, enabling Yamamoto and his colleagues to study the beetle and determine its closest living relatives. Propiestus's flat rove beetle cousins alive today are found mostly in South America, with the exception of one species in Southern Arizona. Myanmar, where Propiestus was found, is literally on the other side of the globe from these places. But it hasn't always been that way. Millions of years ago, Myanmar and South America were actually quite close to each other, all fused together as part of the megacontinent Gondwanaland, which formed when the earlier megacontinent Pangea broke apart. Gondwanaland itself eventually broke apart, helping to form the continents we recognize on a map today. Scientists have a clear sense of which of today's continents and subcontinents would have comprised Gondwanaland and which would have made up its sister continent, Laurasia. However, the detailed timing and pattern of Gondwanaland's split into smaller continents is disputable. Searching for supporting or contrasting evidence means analyzing fossils, some as small as Propiestus, to compare their similarities to other organisms discovered across the globe that might have inhabited the same space long ago. "Like koalas and kangaroos today, certain animals that we think lived in Gondwanaland are only found in one part of the world. Although Propiestus went extinct long ago, our finding probably shows some amazing connections between Southern Hemisphere and Myanmar," Yamamoto said. "Our finding fits well with the hypothesis that, unlike today, Myanmar was once located in the Southern Hemisphere." Many inclusions in Burmese amber that have been researched in the last 15 years, including Propiestus, show signs that show traits in common with insects from Gondwanaland. By studying these tiny creatures trapped in amber, we're finding answers to the questions surrounding Earth's structure and the life it supported millions of years ago. "This fossil helps us understand life in the Mesozoic era," he said. "We need to think about everything from that time, both big and small." As multiple research groups around the world race to build a scalable quantum computer, questions remain about how the achievement of quantum supremacy will be verified. Quantum supremacy is the term that describes a quantum computer's ability to solve a computational task that would be prohibitively difficult for any classical algorithm. It is considered a critical milestone in quantum computing, but because the very nature of quantum activity defies traditional corroboration, there have been parallel efforts to find a way to prove that quantum supremacy has been achieved. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have just weighed in by giving a leading practical proposal known as random circuit sampling (RCS) a qualified seal of approval with the weight of complexity theoretic evidence behind it. Random circuit sampling is the technique Google has put forward to prove whether or not it has achieved quantum supremacy with a 72-qubit computer chip called Bristlecone, unveiled earlier this year. The UC Berkeley computer theorists published their proof of RCS as a verification method in a paper published Monday, Oct. 29, in the journal Nature Physics. "The need for strong evidence for quantum supremacy is underappreciated, but it's important to pin this down," said study principal investigator Umesh Vazirani, Roger A. Strauch Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley. "Besides being a milestone on the way to useful quantum computers, quantum supremacy is a new kind of physics experiment to test quantum mechanics in a new regime. The basic question that must be answered for any such experiment is how confident can we be that the observed behavior is truly quantum and could not have been replicated by classical means. That is what our results address." The other investigators on this paper are Adam Bouland and Bill Fefferman, both postdoctoral research fellows, and Chinmay Nirkhe, a Ph.D. student, all in Vazirani's theoretical computing research group. advertisement Investment in quantum is heating up The paper comes amid accelerated activity in government, academia and industry in quantum informational science. Congress is considering the National Quantum Initiative Act, and last month, the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation announced nearly $250 million in grants to support research in quantum science and technologies. At the same time, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley announced the formation of Berkeley Quantum, a partnership designed to accelerate and expand innovation in quantum information science. The stakes are high as international competition in quantum research heats up and the need for increasingly complex computations grows. With true quantum computing, problems that are impractical for even the fastest supercomputers to date could be relatively efficient to solve. It would be a game-changer in cryptography, simulations of molecular and chemical interactions and machine learning. Quantum computers are not confined by the traditional 0s and 1s of a traditional computer's bits. Instead, quantum bits, or qubits, can encode 0s, 1s and any quantum superposition of the two to create multiple states simultaneously. advertisement When Google unveiled Bristlecone, it said the empirical proof of its quantum supremacy would come through random circuit sampling, a technique in which the device would use random settings to behave like a random quantum circuit. To be convincing, there would also need to be strong evidence that there is no classical algorithm running on a classical computer that could simulate a random quantum circuit, at least in a reasonable amount of time. Detecting quantum accents Vazirani's team referred to an analogy between the output of the random quantum circuit and a string of random syllables in English: even if the syllables don't form coherent sentences or words, they will still possess an English "accent" and will be recognizably different from Greek or Sanskrit. They showed that producing a random output with a "quantum accent" is indeed hard for a classical computer through a technical complexity theoretic construct called "worst-to-average-case reduction." The next step was to verify that a quantum device was actually speaking with a quantum accent. This relies on the Goldilocks principle -- a 50-qubit machine is large enough to be powerful, but small enough to be simulated by a classical supercomputer. If it's possible to verify that a 50-qubit machine speaks with a quantum accent, then that would provide strong evidence that a 100-qubit machine, which would be prohibitively hard to simulate classically, would do so, as well. But even if a classical supercomputer were programmed to speak with a quantum accent, would it be able to recognize a native speaker? The only way to verify the output of the speaker is by a statistical test, said the Berkeley researchers. Google researchers are proposing to measure the degree of matching by a metric called "cross-entropy difference." A cross-entropy score of 1 would be an ideal match. The alleged quantum device may be regarded as behaving like an ideal quantum circuit with random noise added. Fefferman and Bouland say the cross-entropy score will certify the authenticity of the quantum accent provided the noise always adds entropy to the output. This is not always the case -- for example if the noise process preferentially erases 0s over 1s, it can actually reduce the entropy. "If Google's random circuits are generated by a process that allows such erasures, then the cross-entropy would not be a valid measure of quantum supremacy," said Bouland. "That's partly why it will be very important for Google to pin down how its device deviates from a real random quantum circuit." These results are an echo of work that Vazirani did in 1993 with his student Ethan Bernstein when they presented the first formal evidence that quantum computers would exponentially speed up certain computations. This opened the door to quantum algorithms by showing that quantum computers violate the Extended Church-Turing thesis, a foundational principle in computer science. Peter Shor of Bell Labs took their work one step further by showing that a very important practical problem, integer factorization, could be exponentially sped up by a quantum computer. "This sequence provides a template for the race to build working quantum computers," said Vazirani. "Quantum supremacy is an experimental violation of the Extended Church-Turing thesis. Once that is achieved, the next challenge will be to design quantum computers that can solve practically useful problems." The Army Research Office, National Science Foundation, Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship and the National Institute of Standards and Technology helped support this research. Children are more likely to be fatally struck by a vehicle on Halloween than on other nights of the year, according to new research led by the University of British Columbia. The study, published today in JAMA Pediatrics, found a 43-per-cent increase in the risk of pedestrian death on Halloween compared to control days one week earlier and one week later. For children between four and eight years of age, the risk of pedestrian fatality was 10 times higher on Halloween than on control days. "Collecting 'trick-or-treat' candy from neighbours has been a Halloween tradition among children for over a century, and adult Halloween parties have become increasingly popular in bars and on campuses across North America," said lead researcher Dr. John Staples, clinical assistant professor in the UBC faculty of medicine and scientist at UBC's Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences. "We wondered if the combination of dark costumes, excitement and alcohol made the streets more dangerous for pedestrians. Our findings suggest that it does." Dr. Staples and his co-investigators examined 42 years of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data on all fatal traffic crashes in the United States between 1975 and 2016. The researchers compared the number of pedestrian fatalities between 5 p.m. and midnight on Halloween with the number during the same hours on control days one week earlier and one week later. The investigators found that the average Halloween resulted in four additional pedestrian deaths. The increase in risk occurred throughout the U.S. and almost all additional fatalities were children or young adults. The most dangerous time was between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Candace Yip, study co-investigator and UBC undergraduate student in the faculty of science, said the findings suggest a need to improve pedestrian safety throughout the year. "Our findings suggest there are opportunities to improve pedestrian safety on Halloween, but they also highlight ways that traffic safety might be improved on the other 364 days of the year," said Yip. "Residential traffic calming, vehicle speed control, and incorporating reflective patches into outerwear might improve pedestrian safety year-round." Although pedestrian fatalities have improved in recent decades across North America, traffic collisions result in the deaths of more than 4,500 pedestrians in the U.S. annually, said University of Toronto professor and study co-author Dr. Donald Redelmeier. "A dead pedestrian cannot be brought back to life," said Redelmeier. "Yet almost all these deaths can be avoided by a small change in behaviour." The researchers recommend that neighbourhoods consider making their area car-free on Halloween. They hope to remind the public not to drive after consuming alcohol, cannabis, or other drugs. They also urge drivers to slow down in residential neighbourhoods, suggest parents talk to children about street-crossing safety, and recommend that younger children are supervised while trick-or-treating. The research was supported by Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, and the Canada Research Chair in Medical Decision Science. Dr. Staples is a scientist at the Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences (CHEOS), a joint research centre of UBC and the Providence Health Care Research Institute. He is also an Associate Member at the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology & Evaluation (C2E2). When the male bearded manakin snaps its wings at lightning speed, it's more than part of an elaborate, acrobatic mating ritual. The tiny muscle doing the heavy lifting is also the reason this exotic bird has evolved into four distinct species, according to new research published in the journal eLIFE by Wake Forest University biologist Matthew Fuxjager. Fuxjager's previous research showed that the tiny bearded manakin, which measures a little more than four inches long and weighs about half an ounce, has one of the fastest limb muscles of any vertebrate. During an elaborate courtship dance, it uses this muscle -- the scapulohumeralis caudalis -- to make a unique "roll-snap" movement at speeds so fast it's undetectable to the human eye. The roll-snap creates a mechanical popping sound when the wings connect above the back, all to catch the female's attention. "The ability of this muscle to develop different speeds has shaped the way these manakins have evolved -- allowed for one species to become two, and two to become four," said Matthew Fuxjager, one of the world's few experts on manakin physiology. "This is some of the first work that shows how this happens." Fuxjager's new study, "Physiological constraint on acrobatic courtship behavior underlies rapid sympatric speciation in bearded manakins," is funded by the National Science Foundation. The research team includes Wake Forest doctoral student Meredith Miles. Fuxjager, assistant professor of biology at Wake Forest and the study's principal investigator, looks at how the manakins shared a common ancestor 300,000 years ago, but then quickly split into four species: white-bearded manakins to golden-collared manakins, and then to white-collared and orange-collared manakins. The core goal of all his research is to understand how and why animals produce remarkable behaviors. This study does something that others rarely if ever do: It examines not only how a small group of animals evolved, but also how they behave overall and how a specific muscle in these organisms performs. This three-pronged approach showed the researchers how muscle speed and performance influenced the split into four species. Fuxjager traveled to Panama and Costa Rica to measure how fast the manakin's scapulohumeralis caudalis expands and contracts when stimulated, and compared recordings of the manakin roll-snap sound display to note variations in speed and duration among species. The patterns show changes in physiology led to changes in behavior -- and then the evolution of four manakin species. The study of superfast muscles such as the bearded manakin's scapulohumeralis caudalis may inform research into how diseases such as ALS attack muscles in humans, Fuxjager said. "Humans are interested in motor control and muscle performance -- what makes a muscle fast, what makes it strong, and what might make it both fast and strong," he said. "Understanding how the super-performing muscle in this bird works could lead us to a better understanding of muscle diseases and how to treat them." Researchers are always seeking more reliable and more efficient communications, for everything from televisions and cellphones to satellites and medical devices. One technique generating buzz for its high signal quality is a combination of multiple-input multiple-output techniques with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing. Virginia Tech researchers Lingjia Liu and Yang (Cindy) Yi are using brain-inspired machine learning techniques to increase the energy efficiency of wireless receivers. Their published findings, "Realizing Green Symbol Detection Via Reservoir Computing: An Energy-Efficiency Perspective," received the Best Paper Award from the IEEE Transmission, Access, and Optical Systems Technical Committee. Liu and Yi, associate and assistant professors respectively in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, along with Liu's Ph.D. student Rubayet Shafin, are collaborating with researchers from the Information Directorate of the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory -- Jonathan Ashdown, John Matyjas, Michael Medley, and Bryant Wysocki. This combination of techniques allows signals to travel from transmitter to receiver using multiple paths at the same time. The technique offers minimal interference and provides an inherent advantage over simpler paths for avoiding multipath fading, which noticeably distorts what you see when watching over-the-air television on a stormy day, for example. advertisement "A combination of techniques and frequency brings many benefits and is the main radio access technology for 4G and 5G networks," said Liu. "However, correctly detecting the signals at the receiver and turning them back into something your device understands can require a lot of computational effort, and therefore energy." Liu and Yi are using artificial neural networks -- computing systems inspired by the inner workings of the brains -- to minimize the inefficiency. "Traditionally, the receiver will conduct channel estimation before detecting the transmitted signals," said Yi. "Using artificial neural networks, we can create a completely new framework by detecting transmitted signals directly at the receiver." This approach "can significantly improve system performance when it is difficult to model the channel, or when it may not be possible to establish a straightforward relation between the input and output," said Matyjas, the technical advisor of AFRL's Computing and Communications Division and an Air Force Research Laboratory Fellow. Reservoir Computing The team has suggested a method to train the artificial neural network to operate more efficiently on a transmitter-receiver pair using a framework called reservoir computing -- specifically a special architecture called echo state network (ESN). An ESN is a kind of recurrent neural network that combines high performance with low energy. "This strategy allows us to create a model describing how a specific signal propagates from a transmitter to a receiver, making it possible to establish a straightforward relationship between the input and the output of the system," said Wysocki, the chief engineer of the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate. Testing the efficiency Liu, Yi, and their AFRL collaborators compared their findings with results from more established training approaches -- and found that their results were more efficient, especially on the receiver side. "Simulation and numerical results showed that the ESN can provide significantly better performance in terms of computational complexity and training convergence," said Liu. "Compared to other methods, this can be considered a 'green' option." Just as a map of the world is more than a list of places and street names, the genome is more than a string of letters. A complex choreography of proteins and nucleic acids interact differentially over time in the DNA, thus cells can selectively manage genetic information during development and cell differentiation or in response to physiological and environmental aspects. Scientists worldwide are developing new technologies and making progress towards understanding the dynamics of three-dimensional organization of the nucleus. This new approach will allow researchers to map the differences between cell types, to explore how gene expression actually works in health or disease, and to discover how DNA functions are achieved even it is packed within the tiny nucleus. "We know that genome folding and its dynamics modulates gene expression and new technologies allow us to build 3D models to study these changes, which is currently shaking up genome research and boosting our understanding of the cell nucleus complexity," explains Marc A. Marti-Renom, ICREA research professor at the Centro Nacional de Analisis Genomico (CNAG-CRG) of the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona, Spain. "This is an absolutely promising field and we would like to call for standards since the rapid development of methods and the increasing complexity of data pose many challenges that must be addressed now," he states. In a perspective article published in the current issue of Nature Genetics, top leading scientists in the field of dynamics and structural genomics have called for standards in 3D genome and epigenetic data. They describe the main challenges in this field and provide guidelines to think about strategies for shared standardized validation of 4D nucleome data sets and models. This paper comes out of their experience in the 4D Nucleome Initiative as part of the LifeTime initiative for a new FET-Flagship in Europe to understand how genomes function within cells, and how cells form tissues and dynamically remodel their activities when tissues progress towards disease. With this call for standards, international experts at the Institut Curie in Paris, MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine at Univeristy of Edinburgh, the Centre de Biologie Integrative at the University of Toulouse, the Institute of Human Genetics in Montpellier, the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, the Florida State University in Forida (US), the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, the Napoli University, the Berlin Institute of Health, the Institute for Research in Biomedicine IRB Barcelona, the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, the Institute for Epigenetics and Stem Cells Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen in Munich, and the Centro Nacional de Analisis Genomico (CNAG-CRG) of the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona, want to ensure that information is properly characterized, validated and shared, and that resources are efficiently used. An international team of scientists has completed the first 3D virtual reconstruction of the ribcage of the most complete Neanderthal skeleton unearthed to date, potentially shedding new light on how this ancient human moved and breathed. The team, which included researchers from universities in Spain, Israel, and the United States, including the University of Washington, focused on the thorax -- the area of the body containing the rib cage and upper spine, which forms a cavity to house the heart and lungs. Using CT scans of fossils from an approximately 60,000-year-old male skeleton known as Kebara 2, researchers were able to create a 3D model of the chest -- one that is different from the longstanding image of the barrel-chested, hunched-over "caveman." The conclusions point to what may have been an upright individual with greater lung capacity and a straighter spine than today's modern human. The study is published Oct. 30 in Nature Communications. "The shape of the thorax is key to understanding how Neanderthals moved in their environment because it informs us about their breathing and balance," said Asier Gomez-Olivencia, an Ikerbasque Fellow at the University of the Basque Country and the study's lead author. And how Neanderthals moved would have had a direct impact on their ability to survive on the resources available to them, said Patricia Kramer, professor in the UW Department of Anthropology and corresponding author on the paper. "Neanderthals are closely related to us with complex cultural adaptations much like those of modern humans, but their physical form is different from us in important ways," she said. "Understanding their adaptations allows us to understand our own evolutionary path better." Neanderthals are a type of human that emerged about 400,000 years ago, living mostly from what is today Western Europe to Central Asia. They were hunter-gatherers who, in some areas, lived in caves and who weathered several glacial periods before going extinct about 40,000 years ago. Studies in recent years have suggested that Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens interbred, because evidence of Neanderthal DNA has turned up in many populations. advertisement Over the past 150 years, Neanderthal remains have been found at many sites in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. This team worked with a skeleton labeled Kebara 2, also known as "Moshe," which was found in Kebara Cave in Northern Israel's Carmel mountain range in 1983. Though the cranium is missing, the remains of the young adult male are considered one of the most complete Neanderthal skeleton ever found. Two different forms of dating of the surrounding soil, thermoluminescence and electron spin resonance, put the age at somewhere between 59,000 and 64,000 years. Discoveries and studies of other Neanderthal remains in the 19th and early 20th centuries gave rise to theories and images of a stereotypical, hunched-over caveman. Over time, further research clarified scientific understanding of many Neanderthal traits, but some debate has lingered over the structure of the thorax, the capacity of the lungs and what conditions Neanderthals might have been able to adapt to, or not. Over the past decade, virtual reconstruction has become more commonplace in biological anthropology, Kramer explained. The approach is useful with fossils such as the thorax, where fragile bones make physical reconstruction difficult and risky. Nearly two years ago, the same research team created a virtual reconstruction of the Kebara 2 spine, the first step in updating theories of Neanderthal biomechanics. The team's paper, published in the book "Human Paleontology and Prehistory," reaffirmed the likelihood of upright posture but pointed to a straighter spine than that of modern humans. For this model of the thorax, researchers used both direct observations of the Kebara 2 skeleton, currently housed at Tel Aviv University, and medical CT scans of vertebrae, ribs and pelvic bones, along with 3D software designed for scientific use. "This was meticulous work," said Alon Barash, a lecturer at Bar Ilan University in Israel. "We had to CT scan each vertebra and all of the ribs fragments individually and then reassemble them in 3D." They then used a technique called morphometric analysis to compare the images of Neanderthal bones with medical scans of bones from present-day adult men. "In the reconstruction process, it was necessary to virtually 'cut' and realign some of the parts that showed deformation, and mirror-image some of those that were not so well-preserved in order to get a complete thorax," said Gomez-Olivencia. advertisement The reconstruction of the thorax, coupled with the team's earlier finding, shows ribs that connect to the spine in an inward direction, forcing the chest cavity outward and allowing the spine to tilt slightly back, with little of the lumbar curve that is part of the modern human skeletal structure. "The differences between a Neanderthal and modern human thorax are striking," said Markus Bastir, senior research scientist at the Laboratory of Virtual Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History in Spain. "The Neanderthal spine is located more inside the thorax, which provides more stability," said Gomez-Olivencia. "Also, the thorax is wider in its lower part." This shape of the rib cage suggests a larger diaphragm and thus, greater lung capacity. "The wide lower thorax of Neanderthals and the horizontal orientation of the ribs suggest that Neanderthals relied more on their diaphragm for breathing," said senior author Ella Been of Ono Academic College. "Modern humans, on the other hand, rely both on the diaphragm and on the expansion of the rib cage for breathing. Here we see how new technologies in the study of fossil remains is providing new information to understand extinct species." What that means for how Kebara 2 lived is ripe for further research, Kramer said. How did Neanderthals breathe, and for what physical demands might they have needed powerful lungs? What does that tell us about how they moved, and the environment in which they lived? Did any of these physical traits make them more or less adaptive to climate change? Reconstructing the thorax was an exercise in starting from scratch, deliberately trying to avoid being influenced by past theories of how Neanderthals looked or lived, Kramer said. "Thinking through all the permutations of the different fragments, it was like a jigsaw without all the pieces. What do the pieces tell us?" she said. "People have told you it should be a certain way, but you want to make sure you're not over-reconstructing, or reconstructing it the way you think it should be. You're trying to maintain a neutral approach." Other authors of the study were Daniel Garcia-Martinez of the National Museum of Natural History and Mikel Arlegi, of the University of the Basque Country. Researchers studying the sharp decline between 1980 and 2010 in documented landings of the four most commercially-important bivalve mollusks -- eastern oysters, northern quahogs, softshell clams and northern bay scallops -- have identified the causes. Warming ocean temperatures associated with a positive shift in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which led to habitat degradation including increased predation, are the key reasons for the decline of these four species in estuaries and bays from Maine to North Carolina. The NAO is an irregular fluctuation of atmospheric pressure over the North Atlantic Ocean that impacts both weather and climate, especially in the winter and early spring in eastern North America and Europe. Shifts in the NAO affect the timing of species' reproduction, growth and availability of phytoplankton for food, and predator-prey relationships, all of which contribute to species abundance. The findings appear in Marine Fisheries Review. "In the past, declines in bivalve mollusks have often been attributed to overfishing," said Clyde Mackenzie, a shellfish researcher at NOAA Fisheries' James J. Howard Marine Sciences Laboratory in Sandy Hook, NJ and lead author of the study. "We tried to understand the true causes of the decline, and after a lot of research and interviews with shellfishermen, shellfish constables, and others, we suggest that habitat degradation from a variety of environmental factors, not overfishing, is the primary reason." Northern Quahogs, American Lobsters Exceptions Mackenzie and co-author Mitchell Tarnowski, a shellfish biologist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, provide details on the declines of these four species. They also note the related decline by an average of 89 percent in the numbers of shellfishermen who harvested the mollusks. The landings declines between 1980 and 2010 are in contrast to much higher and consistent shellfish landings between 1950 and 1980. advertisement Exceptions to these declines have been a sharp increase in the landings of northern quahogs in Connecticut and American lobsters in Maine. Landings of American lobsters from southern Massachusetts to New Jersey, however, have fallen sharply as water temperatures in those areas have risen. "A major change to the bivalve habitats occurred when the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index switched from negative during about 1950 to 1980, when winter temperatures were relatively cool, to positive, resulting in warmer winter temperatures from about 1982 until about 2003," Mackenzie said. "We suggest that this climate shift affected the bivalves and their associated biota enough to cause the declines." Factors Affecting Decline Research from extensive habitat studies in Narragansett Bay, RI and in the Netherlands, where environments including salinities are very similar to the northeastern U.S, show that body weights of the bivalves, their nutrition, timing of spawning, and mortalities from predation were sufficient to force the decline. Other factors likely affecting the decline were poor water quality, loss of eelgrass in some locations for larvae to attach to and grow, and not enough food available for adult shellfish and their larvae. "In the northeast U.S., annual recruitments of juvenile bivalves can vary by two or three orders of magnitude," said Mackenzie, who has been studying bay scallop beds on Martha's Vineyard with local shellfish constables and fishermen monthly during warm seasons for several years. In late spring-early summer of 2018, a cool spell combined with extremely cloudy weather may have interrupted scallop spawning, leading to what looks like poor recruitment this year. Last year, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard had very good harvests due to large recruitments in 2016. "The rates of survival and growth to eventual market size for shellfish vary as much as the weather and climate," Mackenzie said. Oyster Demand Increases Weak consumer demand for shellfish, particularly oysters, in the 1980s and early 1990s has shifted to fairly strong demand as strict guidelines were put in place by the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference in the late 1990s regarding safe shellfish handling, processing and testing for bacteria and other pathogens. Enforcement by state health officials has been strict. The development of oyster aquaculture and increased marketing of branded oysters in raw bars and restaurants has led to a large rise in oyster consumption in recent years. Since the late 2000s, the NAO index has generally been fairly neutral, neither very positive nor negative. As a consequence, landings of all four shellfish species have been increasing in some locations. Poor weather for bay scallop recruitment in both 2017 and 2018, however, will likely mean a downturn in landings during the next two seasons. Individual perceptions about safety and school quality play critical roles in how people define their communities, and these subjective social factors can influence the notion of what separates a city from its suburbs just as physical boundaries traditionally make that distinction, according to the results of a new study co-written by a University at Buffalo researcher. A person's zip code remains the biggest predictor of how people define their community, but the research suggests that other factors have predictive power, especially for whites and Hispanics. "When people think about their community they don't pull out a map to determine whether it's urban or suburban -- they're thinking about the lived experience," says Shelley M. Kimelberg, director of the Social Sciences Interdisciplinary Degree Program at UB and co-author of the research with Chase M. Billingham, assistant professor of sociology at Wichita State University. "It's important to pay attention to that lived experience because it really drives how people perceive their communities," she says. "We often operate in this theoretical space where there's this idea of urban issues that reflect a long history of inequality and disadvantage and that the suburbs were the place where people decamped to ease their concerns, but what we're seeing now is that poverty rates are growing fastest in the suburbs, so this view of the suburbs as a place to escape urban ills is no longer true." The findings, published in the journal City & Community, have policy and resource implications, especially for regional proposals which cut across urban-suburban lines, and suggest that lawmakers and community leaders should consider how people see their communities rather than relying exclusively on geographic borders. advertisement "If we're thinking about garnering support for economic development policy, for instance, a big part of that success or failure comes down to framing," she says. "Framing something as urban or suburban can have different ramifications in terms of who might step up and have a vested interest in that policy." The researchers used data from the Knight Foundation's 2010 Soul of the Community survey (SOTC). The survey's design focused on community attachment and explored measures such as loyalty and satisfaction, but Billingham noticed a curiosity among the questions respondents answered that allowed for creatively using the SOTC information for research beyond the survey's original intent. When completing the survey, respondents entered their zip code, but in an open-ended question also replied to whether they lived in an urban or suburban neighborhood. "Because there were two answers to what amounted to the same question we saw an opportunity to compare how researchers code neighborhoods based on zip codes versus how people would self-identify with the area where they lived," says Kimelberg. And the contrast was striking. In a third of the cases, people identified their community as something other than their zip code indicated. For example, those who lived in suburban areas who thought that their neighborhood was unsafe or that they had low-quality schools were just as likely to say they lived in an urban area as the people who actually did live within a city's boundaries but had positive views of local schools and public safety. "There's something about these perceptions and the interactions with these institutions that influence how people define their communities," says Kimelberg. "In particular to the extent that the term 'urban' is often stigmatized we can see how people start to classify their areas based upon what they believe about the quality of services and resources that they have access to." The findings also suggested that whites and Hispanics were much more likely to make that distinction. For African-Americans, perceived safety was critical characteristic that made a difference, while the effects of geography did not play as predictive a role. "This is particularly salient if we're trying to understand the case of Michael Brown, who was killed in a suburb of St. Louis, yet every social characteristic of that neighborhood matches what would be associated with an inner-city environment," says Kimelberg. Producing the first comprehensive fine-scale map of the world's remaining marine and terrestrial wild places, conservation scientists writing in the journal Nature say that just 23 percent of the world's landmass can now be considered wilderness, with the rest -- excluding Antarctica -- lost to the direct effects of human activities. These disturbing findings are particularly troubling as numerous recent studies reveal that Earth's remaining wilderness areas are increasingly important buffers against the effects of climate change and other human impacts. The authors note two upcoming gatherings of key decision makes will be crucial to stopping current rate of loss. Said the paper's lead author James Watson of WCS and the University of Queensland: "These results are nothing short of a horror story for the planet's last wild places. The loss of wilderness must be treated in the same way we treat extinction. There is no reversing once the first cut enters. The decision is forever." The authors describe wilderness areas as those places that do not have industrial level activity within them according to the marine and terrestrial human footprint. Local communities can live within them, hunt and fish, etc. Various analyses reveal that wilderness areas provide increasingly important refuges for species that are declining in landscapes dominated by people. In the seas, they are the last regions that still contain viable populations of top predators, such as tuna, marlins and sharks. In addition, wilderness areas are also places where enormous amounts of carbon is stored and sequestered with intact ecosystems being at least twice important than similar degraded habitats when it comes carbon mitigation. The loss of wilderness is not just a biodiversity conservation and climate issue. Many wildernesses are home to millions of indigenous people who rely on them for maintaining their long bio-cultural connections to land and sea. Their loss is eroding many cultures around the world. As bleak as these recent finding are, the authors say there is still a chance for Earth's remaining wilderness can be protected. Incredibly, just 20 nations hold 94 percent of the worlds marine and terrestrial wilderness areas (excluding Antarctica and the High Seas), with five mega wilderness nations (Russia, Canada, Australia, United States and Brazil) containing 70 percent. The authors argue that these nations have an enormous role to play to secure the last of the wild. Said John Robinson, WCS Executive Vice President for Global Conservation at WCS and a co-author of the paper: "Wilderness will only be secured globally if these nations take a leadership role. Right now, across the board, this type of leadership is missing. Already we have lost so much. We must grasp these opportunities to secure the wilderness before it disappears forever." The authors say the time is right to change international policy frameworks to act on wilderness conservation, noting two upcoming international meetings of particular importance: At the 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), held from November 17-29, signatory governments, intergovernmental organizations such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), international non-governmental organizations, and the scientific community will meet to work towards a strategic plan for the protection of biodiversity after 2020. The authors of the Nature paper and their organizations urge participants at the meeting to include a mandated target for wilderness conservation. In their view, a bold yet achievable target is to define and conserve 100 percent of all remaining intact ecosystems. The second meeting is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Katowice Climate Change Conference from December 2-14. There, carbon sequestration and storage capacities of wilderness areas could be formally documented, and the importance of conserving them written into the policy recommendations. Such a move would enable nations to make the protection of wilderness areas an integral part of their strategy for reducing emissions. The world's last wilderness areas are rapidly disappearing, with explicit international conservation targets critically needed, according to University of Queensland-led research. The international team recently mapped intact ocean ecosystems, complementing a 2016 project charting remaining terrestrial wilderness. Professor James Watson, from UQ's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said the two studies provided the first full global picture of how little wilderness remains, and he was alarmed at the results. "A century ago, only 15 per cent of the Earth's surface was used by humans to grow crops and raise livestock," he said. "Today, more than 77 per cent of land -- excluding Antarctica -- and 87 per cent of the ocean has been modified by the direct effects of human activities. "It might be hard to believe, but between 1993 and 2009, an area of terrestrial wilderness larger than India -- a staggering 3.3 million square kilometres -- was lost to human settlement, farming, mining and other pressures. advertisement "And in the ocean, the only regions that are free of industrial fishing, pollution and shipping are almost completely confined to the polar regions." UQ Postdoctoral Research Fellow James R. Allan said the world's remaining wilderness could only be protected if its importance was recognised in international policy. "Some wilderness areas are protected under national legislation, but in most nations, these areas are not formally defined, mapped or protected," he said. "There is nothing to hold nations, industry, society or communities to account for long-term conservation. "We need the immediate establishment of bold wilderness targets -- specifically those aimed at conserving biodiversity, avoiding dangerous climate change and achieving sustainable development." The researchers insist that global policy needs to be translated into local action. "One obvious intervention these nations can prioritise is establishing protected areas in ways that would slow the impacts of industrial activity on the larger landscape or seascape," Professor Watson said. "But we must also stop industrial development to protect indigenous livelihoods, create mechanisms that enable the private sector to protect wilderness, and push the expansion of regional fisheries management organisations. "We have lost so much already, so we must grasp this opportunity to secure the last remaining wilderness before it disappears forever." EUROPE Bosnia and Herzegovina Expected Council Action In November, the Council is expected to hold its semi-annual debate on Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and to renew the authorisation of the EU-led multinational stabilisation force (EUFOR ALTHEA). High Representative Valentin Inzko is expected to brief on the latest report of the Office of the High Representative (OHR). The current authorisation for EUFOR ALTHEA expires on 7 November. Key Recent Developments General elections in BiH took place on 7 October. Ahead of the elections, ethnic and political divisions among Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs remained prevalent. Divisive and destabilising rhetoric by political figures on all sides continued, with several political parties seeking to consolidate power among their respective voting bases. Preliminary results published on 10 October, based on about 95 percent of votes counted, indicated that the three elected members of the BiH presidency will be Sefik Dzaferovic as the Bosniak representative and Zeljko Komsic as the Croat representative, both elected by voters in the Federation of BiH, and Milorad Dodik as the Serb representative, elected by voters in Republika Srpska (RS). Dodik, who has been president of the RS since 2010, has been a frequent and vocal proponent of RSs independence from BiH and an advocate for its eventual secession. Komsic previously served two terms as a member of the presidency from 2006 to 2014. In the town of Mostar, several thousand Bosnian Croat nationalist supporters protested the election following the announcement of Komsics victory over the incumbent Croat representative in the presidency, Dragan Covic. According to the preliminary findings and conclusions of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europes Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Election Observation Mission, the elections were genuinely competitive but characterized by continuing segmentation along ethnic lines[and] important long-standing shortcomings remain, as constitutional and electoral reforms were stalled by political deadlocks. Regarding the election law, the Constitutional Court ruled in December 2016 that several provisions for electing members to the Federation House of Peoples were unconstitutional, and after the courts six-month deadline for the BiH Parliamentary Assembly to amend the law expired, the court removed the unconstitutional provisions in July 2017. To date, these provisions have yet to be replaced. Without them, the election of delegates to the Federation House of Peoples, following the general elections, will be problematic. If the Federation House of Peoples cannot be constituted, the election of the new federation president and vice presidents, who are responsible for nominating the new federation government, cannot take place, and neither can the election of Bosniak and Croat delegates to the BiH House of Peoples, one of the two houses of the state-level parliament. In an 8 October joint statement, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini and European Commissioner Johannes Hahn said political authorities will have to work through the many challenges ahead and take the country forward on the path towards the EU. The statement emphasised the importance of swiftly forming the Federation House of Peoples, in line with rulings by the Constitutional Court. The effective implementation of the general elections will be taken into account in the EU Commissions upcoming opinion on BiHs application for EU membership, the statement said. On 8 May, the Council held its last semi-annual debate on BiH. Inzko said he was deeply concerned about the more recent readiness among some politicians to refer to the possibility of a renewed conflict, noting a general trend of armament under way, on which he would report further in November. He reiterated the risk of a deeper political crisis following the October elections if the parties failed to agree on the rules regulating the election of delegates to the Federation House of Peoples. He also emphasised that the risks of nationalism and extremism on all sides, combined with a growing sense of socioeconomic stagnation required the international community urgently to increase efforts to promote reconciliation in the country and region. Human Rights-Related Developments In a 17 August press statement, then-High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein condemned the decision of the RS National Assembly to revoke its endorsement of the 2004 Srebrenica Commission Report. The report found that from 10 to 19 July 1995, between 7,000 and 8,000 Bosniaks went missing in the area of Srebrenica and more than 1,000 Bosniaks were killed. The High Commissioner warned that the revocation would only contribute to divisive and nationalistic rhetoric and disrupt attempts to work towards reconciliation among communities. On 23 August, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination adopted its concluding observations and recommendations on BiH (CERD/C/BIH/CO/12-13), including concerns about persisting ethnic tensions, ethno-religious divisions, and the need for reconciliation; discriminatory provisions in some local laws and regulations; reports of racist hate speech and discriminatory statements by public and political figures; persistent discrimination and marginalisation of Roma; and the very limited representation of ethnic minority groups, Roma in particular, in decision-making bodies and in public office. Key Issues and Options Political gridlock, lack of respect for the rule of law and ethnic divisions remain key issues. The urgent need to amend laws regarding the Federation House of Peoples and the smooth implementation of the results of the general election are also key issues. Slow progress in advancing socio-economic reforms linked to BiHs EU integration and fulfilling the criteria and objectives for closing the OHR are recurring issues. Council members expect to receive Inzkos latest report by 31 October, which will likely inform their assessments of these key issues. Another issue is how to reflect recent developments in the country and the general elections in the resolution re-authorising EUFOR ALTHEA in November. The Council may call on BiH parties to take steps towards improving the overall political atmosphere and to prioritise the need for compromise and dialogue. The resolution could further reiterate that the parties must, as a matter of urgency, address the outstanding decisions of the Constitutional Court, including its 1 December 2016 ruling concerning elections to the Federation House of Peoples. It could also call for meaningful progress towards implementing commitments on economic and governance reforms and the criteria for closing the OHR, known as the 5+2 agenda. Council Dynamics Council members largely share concerns over BiHs divisive ethnic politics and the need for parties urgently to take the necessary steps to amend the election laws following general elections in October. Most members are also critical of the rhetoric of RS leaders, which they view as challenging BiHs sovereignty and territorial integrity. Russia, however, tends to be more supportive of the positions of the RS and is critical of the High Representative, contending that his reporting is not objective. During the debate in May, where all 15 Council members made statements, Russia called for further reducing the budget and personnel of the [OHR] with the aim of closing it, adding that [t]he time for this special instrument is over. Referring to the role of the international community, Russia criticised steps aimed at interfering directly in the work of the Bosnian authorities. Negotiations on resolution 2384 to reauthorise EUFOR ALTHEA, adopted on 7 November 2017, proved less challenging compared to previous years. While Council members support maintaining EUFOR ALTHEA, difficulties have emerged in the past, with Russia objecting to efforts to include a description of the High Representatives powers and any reference to Euro-Atlantic integrationlanguage ultimately not incorporated in previous resolutions. There were no attempts to include such language in November 2017, making the negotiations more straightforward. It is unclear whether this will be an issue during negotiations in November, which is likely to include discussion about how to reflect the outcome of the general elections and the current situation in the country. The Contact and Drafting Group on BiH, comprises France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the UK, the US and current elected Council members Netherlands, Poland and Sweden. Its penholder rotates monthly in English alphabetical order. The UK will be the penholder in November. UN Documents on BiH ASIA DPRK (North Korea) Expected Council Action In November, the chair of the 1718 Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Karel van Oosterom (Netherlands), is expected to provide Council members with his regular 90-day briefing on the work of the committee. Key Recent Developments On 17 September, the US organised an open briefing on the implementation of sanctions on the DPRK. The meeting was held amid growing tensions between the US and Russia related to the publication of the midterm report of the 1718 Committee Panel of Experts. The US has blocked the publication of the report because of what it perceives as Russian interference in the panels work. During its presidency in September, the US maintained a strong emphasis on non-proliferation issues, including the DPRK. US President Donald Trump chaired the summit-level meeting on 26 September on the broader theme of countering proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. During the meeting, most Council members welcomed the ongoing diplomatic efforts on the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, among other issues. Trump called on member states that have been violating UN sanctions on DPRK to stop. He commended the diplomatic efforts and cooperation by South Korea, China and Japan while also calling for the full commitment of Council members on the issue. A day later, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo presided over the ministerial-level meeting on efforts to denuclearise the DPRK. Pompeo stressed that the recent diplomatic breakthrough in US-DPRK relations was a direct result of the international pressure campaign, including Council sanctions on the DPRK. He cautioned Council members that enforcement of DPRK sanctions must continue until the DPRK achieves full, final and verifiable denuclearisation. On the other hand, foreign ministers Wang Yi (China) and Sergey Lavrov (Russia) emphasised that the Council should consider easing sanctions amid the current positive developments on the diplomatic front. The third inter-Korean summit took place in Pyongyang from 18 to 20 September. DPRK leader Kim Jong-Un committed to dismantling the Dongchang-ri missile test site and launch platform, with international inspectors permitted to observe. Kim expressed a willingness to take additional measures as the US takes unspecified corresponding steps. In early October, Pompeo travelled to Japan, South Korea and North Korea and held high-level talks with the leaders of those countries on DPRK denuclearisation efforts and arrangements for a possible second summit meeting between Trump and Kim. Key Issues and Options Over the course of this year, tensions on the Korean peninsula have declined significantly. Given the still volatile environment, the primary concern for the Council is maintaining stability on the peninsula. The ongoing diplomatic efforts have provided the Council with some optimism about reaching this goal. Most of the diplomatic activity continues to take place outside the Councils purview, and the role of the Council is likely to depend on how the broader geopolitical developments play out. Taking into consideration the relative success of the recent inter-Korean and US-DPRK summits, an option for the Council is to consider a formal product encouraging further similar engagements. An increasingly prominent issue for the Council is finding the right balance between applying sanctions and simultaneously exploring the diplomatic track. The Council could possibly consider whether a new approach towards sanctions would be appropriate in light of the relative progress in the diplomatic arena. An option for the Council is to explore ways to modify the sanctions on the DPRK to encourage further engagement on the diplomatic front. A prevailing issue for the committee, however, remains weaknesses in the implementation of the sanctions on the DPRK. The Council could adopt an outcome urging full sanctions implementation. A related issue is the inability of Council members to reach agreement on publishing the midterm report of the Panel of Experts. Another related issue for the Council is how to preserve the independent nature of the panel and safeguard it from pressures by Council members. Some Council members share concerns about the impact of sanctions on the humanitarian situation in the DPRK. The Council could consider working with OCHA to obtain the information it needs for humanitarian exemptions. Another option would be to consider adding to the monitoring panel assisting the committee an expert on humanitarian issues who could analyse the impact of sanctions on the civilian population. Council Dynamics During the first half of 2018, the Council maintained a low profile on the DPRK, letting diplomatic efforts outside the Council play out. Over the past several months, the Council has become more active in trying to address the implementation of sanctions on the DPRK and in the process exposing deep tensions among permanent members, mainly the US and Russia. The US has accused Russia of deliberately violating the sanctions on the DPRK by engaging in the illicit trade of petroleum products through ship-to-ship transfers. The tensions were further exacerbated over the midterm report of the Panel of Experts, publication of which was blocked by the US citing Russian interference allegedly to conceal its violation of the sanctions regime. While most Council members remain cautious in their optimism about the DPRKs denuclearisation, they continue to support diplomatic efforts between the US and the DPRK as well as between the two Koreas. Some members are starting to question whether a new approach is needed in the Councils relationship with the DPRK, including a greater response to positive developments through Council outcomes and other possible means of showing support for serious dialogue on the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. Some members, such as China and Russia, are becoming increasingly interested in considering some form of sanctions relief for the DPRK. During the 27 September ministerial meeting on the DPRK, Lavrov emphasised that positive actions by the DPRK must be rewarded by the easing of sanctions and that further tightening of sanctions would have negative consequences on the humanitarian situation and other areas not related to denuclearisation. He further urged the 1718 DPRK Sanctions Committee to explore ways to exempt some inter-Korean joint projects from sanctions. The US is the penholder on the DPRK, and the Netherlands chairs the 1718 DPRK Sanctions Committee. UN DOCUMENTS ON DPRK Group of Five for the Sahel Expected Council Action In November, the Council expects a briefing on the joint force of the Group of Five for the Sahel (G5 Sahel) or FC-G5S, which Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger decided to establish in February 2017 to combat terrorist and criminal groups in the region. Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix is expected to brief. G5 Sahel Permanent Secretary Maman Sidikou is also expected to participate, among other briefers. Key Recent Developments The operationalisation of the FC-G5S continues to experience challenges while insecurity persists across much of the Sahel, with a notable deterioration in Burkina Faso. On 19 May, elements of the Malian armed forces under the command of FC-G5S reportedly killed at least 12 civilians in retaliation for the killing of one of their own soldiers in Boulikessi, in the Mopti region of central Mali. The incident was investigated by the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), which concluded that soldiers assigned to FC-G5S had summarily and/or arbitrarily executed 12 civilians, according to a 26 June statement. The report of this inquiry was sent to the Mali government. The Malian Ministry of Defense announced the opening of a criminal investigation into the matter. On 5 September, the prosecutor of Mopti requested MINUSMAs assistance in the investigation. A major setback for the FC-G5S occurred on 29 June when the joint force headquarters in Sevare, Mali was targeted in a complex suicide car bomb and gunfire attack. Two Malian soldiers were killed and 11 personnel of the joint force were injured, including five from Chad, four from Niger and two from Mali. The Al-Qaida-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM) claimed responsibility. Following the incident, General Hanena Ould Sidi of Mauritania was appointed force commander of the joint force on 12 July, replacing General Didier Dacko of Mali. The headquarters were temporarily relocated to Bamako, and joint force operations were halted. Since being established last year, the FC-G5S has conducted six operations, all of which were carried out before the headquarters attack. There was progress in establishing the police component of the FC-G5S with the appointment on 7 August of Abdellahi Sidi Aly as the police adviser. As noted in the Secretary-Generals 25 September report on Mali, the police component is important for promoting greater accountability, rule of law, and prevention and response to human rights violations. MINUSMA support for the FC-G5S, which was mandated on a reimbursable basis by resolution 2391 in December 2017, has remained limited. MINUSMA has only received the EUs commitment of 10 million euros made this past February, out of the 44 million dollars two-year budget for its logistical and operational support to forces of the FC-G5S deployed on Malian territory. An independent strategic review of MINUSMA, some of the findings of which were contained in the Secretary-Generals 6 June report on Mali, flagged the challenges placed on MINUSMA to support non-UN security actors, which also contribute to the perception that the UN mission engages in counter-terrorism actions. The review underlined the need for a clear regional political framework, including for support to the implementation of the 2015 Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation in Mali by leveraging the influence of the countrys neighbours on the signatory parties. The authors of the review concurred with the Secretary-Generals previous recommendation that support for the FC-G5S be provided through an assessed contributions-based support package, distinct from MINUSMA. On 19 May, the EU extended the mandate of the EU Training Mission in Mali for two years. In doing so, it also expanded the mandate to include providing advice and training support to the FC-G5S. Overall, security continues to deteriorate across much of the Sahel. The situation has worsened particularly in Burkina Faso. For the past two years, violent attacks were confined mostly to the countrys north. Since the end of 2017, the number of people displaced due to violence in the north increased from 5,000 to almost 39,000 by mid-October, according to figures from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Since mid-year, armed groups have started attacking military and civilian sites in Burkina Fasos east, with attacks also being recorded in the west. Key Issues and Options Progress towards bringing the FC-G5S to full operational capacity is a key issue. This includes ensuring the FC-G5S is provided with sufficient and predictable resources to be an effective instrument in restoring stability in the Sahel. The Secretary-General has continued to advocate for establishing a UN support office, independent of MINUSMA and using assessed contributions, that could deliver a support package to the FC-G5S across its entire area of operations, similar to the UN Support Office in Somalia set up for the AU Mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM. He is expected to reiterate this recommendation in his forthcoming report due by 8 November. Other challenges face the FC-G5S, however, including its shortfalls in manpower, training, equipment; the condition of bases; issues of command and control; and different funding mechanisms. Promoting and ensuring that the FC-G5S complies with international humanitarian law, which is necessary for UN support and critical for effective counter-terrorism, is a related issue. A continuing option before the Council is to adopt a resolution that establishes a dedicated UN support office to deliver a support package for the FC-G5S, as recommended by the Secretary-General. Council members may wait to pursue this option until the force achieves full operational capacity and is making use of funding that donors have promised. To encourage such progress, Council members may issue a statement: urging G5 countries to fulfil commitments such as fully deploying required forces; reiterating the need for donors to disburse pledged funds; and stressing the importance of accompanying military efforts with political and development initiatives, and governance reforms. Another ongoing issue is integrating the force within a larger political and institutional framework and strategy, which was highlighted in the Secretary-Generals last report on the G5 Sahel. There is a need to more effectively link the G5 Sahel joint force with the G5 Sahel Permanent Secretariat, headquartered in Mauritania, and its development-related initiatives, and to create greater coherence among G5 countries, which hold divergent views on the role of the FC-G5S. Likewise, there is a need to address governance and security sector reforms in G5 countries. A political approach also involves securing the support of neighbouring countries for the implementation of the Malian peace agreement. Council Dynamics Discussions about whether the UN should support the FC-G5S financially have divided the Council. While resolution 2391 established some multilateral support for the FC-G5S, some membersincluding France, which has championed the joint forcebelieve there remains a case for providing further support in line with the Secretary-Generals recommendations. That support could be both financial and political, including through a Chapter VII Council mandate. Since last years divisive negotiations on this, France has sought to take a more incremental approach and allow time for the force to become more operational before reviving debate on such a resolution. The US has objected to proposals that could incur UN assessed contributions and prefers to assist the force bilaterally. It has taken the position that last Decembers agreement on MINUSMAs provision of support is the extent of any support role that the UN should play, and before expanding it, the Council should see how the arrangement works. France is the penholder on the G5 Sahel joint force. UN DOCUMENTS ON THE G5 SAHEL In Hindsight: Recent Trends in Council Visiting Missions In September, the Council undertook its 63rd visiting mission since 1992 when it visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for the 14th time. The Council has utilised visiting missions more often in recent years, having conducted 13 missions covering 26 countries between January 2016 and October 2018, with five missions in both 2016 and 2017. (For more information on the history of Council visiting missions, please see https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/un-security-council-working-methods/visiting-mission.php.) An analysis of Council visiting missions between 2016 and 2018 shows some emerging trends and insights into their possible impact. Until 2001, visiting missions were made up of small groups of Council members, and the intention to embark on a visit up to the mid-1990s was often recorded in a Council resolution or presidential statement. Today, all 15 members tend to join visiting missions, which are agreed on during informal discussions. Getting agreement tends to be a protracted process, often leaving little time between the decision and the departure. The agreement to undertake a mission, its participation and terms of reference are provided through letters to the Secretary-General. Visiting missions have been used for a range of reasons, from assessing the implementation of Council decisions and supporting political agreements to reviewing the mandate of a peacekeeping operation and getting a better understanding of the situation on the ground. Often, they are motivated by a combination of factors. Council members visited Colombia in May 2017 largely to demonstrate their commitment to the peace process and to support the government, and travelled to Guinea-Bissau (2014), Burundi (2015 and 2016), the DRC (2016), Haiti (2015) and South Sudan (2016) mainly to express their concerns over ongoing political crises. Visiting missions carried out with the aim of assessing whether a peacekeeping mandate needed to be adjusted include Haiti (2017) and Mali (2016). Visits to the Lake Chad Basin (2017) and to Bangladesh and Myanmar earlier this year had a strong humanitarian focus. A new element in several recent missions has been the inclusion of a visit to a regional organisation. The Burundi trip in January 2016 included a visit to the AU, which had been actively involved in the situation following President Pierre Nkurunzizas announcement that he would run for a third term. After a visit to Somalia and Kenya in May 2016, Council members travelled to Egypt for their first consultative meeting with the League of Arab states. The two bodies discussed Middle East issues, as well as Somalia, Libya and migration and refugee issues. During their March 2016 visit to West Africa, which covered Mali and Guinea-Bissau, Council members also stopped in Dakar to be briefed on the work of the UN Office in West Africa and the Sahel, particularly in relation to conflict prevention. They also discussed challenges facing the region with President Macky Sall of Senegal, who was then chair of ECOWAS. A new trend in 2017 and 2018 has been for Council presidents to propose a visiting mission to a region of significance to their foreign policy. Four of the five visits in 2017 reflect the presidencies strong national interest: to Colombia (under Uruguay); Haiti (Bolivia); Addis Ababa for the annual UN Security Council-AU Peace and Security Council meeting (Ethiopia) and the Sahel region (France). This trend continued into 2018 with Kazakhstan leading a mission in January to Afghanistan during its presidency (although it had originally been proposed a few months earlier.) While the impact of a Council visiting mission is hard to measure, it appears that the deeper understanding of the political climate and security challenges that comes with first-hand exposure can influence the Councils actions. These visits also provide a unique opportunity for Council members to interact with the wider UN mission and country team. Following the visit to Mali in March 2016, Council members provided a more robust mandate for the mission in June, influenced by what they had heard from Malian stakeholders. The Lake Chad Basin visit in March 2017 resulted in a resolution that addressed the complexity of the situation, notably the link with root causes of the conflict including development and climate change. Such a resolution, which was the first to focus on the armed group Boko Haram, was largely possible because members had heard the same messages from stakeholders in all four countries. During the visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh in April, Council members could appreciate the reality of the refugee camps in Bangladesh as well as the lack of readiness on the Myanmar side for the return of the refugees to Rakhine State. Council members were united in pressing for greater UN involvement, which may have accelerated the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Myanmar government, UNHCR and UNDP the month after the visit regarding the repatriation of refugees from Bangladesh. Implementation of the MOU continues to be slow, however. While the visit may have provided momentum for continued Council attention to the issue, stronger action, particularly on accountability, has been difficult as the visit did not result in a fundamental shift in Council members positions. In several cases, visiting missions have led to Council actions that might have been more difficult to achieve in New York. During the visit to South Sudan in September 2016, the Council agreed on a joint communique with the Transitional Government of National Unity in which the government consented to the deployment of the Regional Protection Force as a part of UN Mission in South Sudan. The Burundi visit in January 2016 eventually led to a resolution authorising a UN police presence, an option that was raised by Russia during the visit. While implementation has been difficult in the case of the communique with South Sudan and has not occurred in the case of the police force in Burundi, the visits provided an opening to try to move forward on intractable issues. Visiting missions can be useful tools, but their high cost, which is almost always entirely borne by the UN (where the visit is to a peace operation, it is a cost to that missions budget) and complex logistical arrangements suggest they are best utilised where they will have the greatest impact. A key element of this is their timing. Being able to visit as a crisis develops, rather than in the aftermath, would allow these missions to be conducted within a conflict-prevention framework. Visits in the early stages of a peace operation could lend insight to mandate sequencing. Another important component for a mission having an impact is sustained follow-up. The Council agenda is so heavy that it is often difficult to remain focused on a particular issue. But without consistent follow-up after a mission, the momentum and gains achieved can diminish over time. An option to address some of these problems would be to revive the practice of mini-missions of a small number of Council members deployed quickly at critical moments to address specific challenges. This could afford greater flexibility when a crisis breaks, incur lower costs and perhaps allow for more regular return visits as follow-ups. An example of such a mission was when the Council dispatched a five-member delegation to East Timor in 1999 following the violence in the aftermath of the Council-authorised referendum in which East Timor overwhelmingly opted for independence from Indonesia. The Council constituted a mission of five members (Malaysia, Namibia, the Netherlands, Slovenia and the UK) and the delegation departed within 24 hours of obtaining Indonesias agreement. High-level engagement during the visit and a resolution upon the delegations return authorising an enforcement operation with Indonesias consent had significant impact on the situation, and illustrates the Councils ability to use a visiting mission for conflict resolution and prevention. MIDDLE EAST Iraq Expected Council Action In November, the Special Representative and head of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), Jan Kubis, is scheduled to brief the Council on the latest Secretary-Generals report on UNAMI and the most recent developments. UNAMIs mandate expires on 31 May 2019. Key Recent Developments Parliamentary elections were held on 12 May in a mostly peaceful and orderly manner, but they were marked by a voter turnout of just 44.5 percent, the lowest since 2005. No party managed to gain a majority of seats, and following allegations of fraud, a partial manual ballot recount was conducted in July. On 2 October, the Iraqi parliament elected as president Barham Salih (a Kurdish politician who has previously held regional and federal office); he named Adel Abdul Mahdi (an independent Shia politician) as prime minister the same day. The constitutional deadline for Mahdi to form a new government is 30 days. Starting in early July and continuing for almost three months, protests took place in the south of Iraq and spread to cities in other regions, including Baghdad. Protesters voiced long-standing frustration over a lack of basic services and infrastructure, including water and electricity, as a result of government neglect as well as corruption. In September 2017, the Council adopted resolution 2379, which requested the Secretary-General to establish an investigative team to support Iraqi domestic efforts to hold Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) accountable for crimes it committed in the country by collecting, storing and preserving in Iraq evidence of acts that may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. (Iraqi government forces defeated ISIL in December 2017 after three years of fighting that resulted in massive destruction and the internal displacement of over two million people.) On 31 May, the Secretary-General appointed Karim Asad Ahmad Khan of the UK as Special Adviser and head of the investigative team. Since then, Khan has formed a core team, held meetings in New York, and conducted a visit to Iraq from 6 to 14 August to meet with interlocutors. On 17 October, he briefed the 1267/1989/2253 Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) (Daesh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee. The first report to the Council is expected in mid-November in line with the 90-day deadline set out in resolution 2379. During its main session before the end of this year, the Fifth Committee of the General Assembly is scheduled to decide on assessed contributions from the regular budget of the UN for the team. On 8 August, Philip Spoerri, then-head of the ICRC delegation to the UN, briefed the Council on the issue of missing Kuwaiti and third-country nationals. He reported that 1,080 cases of missing persons remain unsolved and fieldwork, along with excavation missions, was to be continued. In a 31 August letter, the Secretary-General informed the Council of his intention to appoint Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert as the new head of UNAMI. Kubis, who had been in the post since early 2015, had been asked by the Secretary-General to stay on until the creation of the new government. Human Rights-Related Developments At a press briefing on 11 September, a spokesperson for the High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern about the situation in the southern Iraqi governorate of Basra following protests over a lack of basic services. According to the Ministry of Health, at least 11 people were killed between 1 and 8 September in connection with the protests, bringing the number of people who have died since demonstrations began on 8 July to at least 20, the spokesperson said. In addition, more than 300 people have been injured in Basra since July. Issues and Options The Council will follow closely Iraqi progress in forming a new government. A statement to express support for the new government is an option. Furthermore, the Council could consider conducting a visiting mission to Iraq to get a better understanding of current challenges on the ground. As for efforts to hold members of ISIL accountable for international crimes, the Council will continue to monitor developments regarding the investigative team. Some members, especially those opposed to the death penalty, continue to have concerns about the possibility that evidence shared by the team might be used in criminal proceedings in which capital punishment could be imposed. This may continue to affect member states willingness to contribute to the trust fund established by the Secretary-General, the sole source of financing for the team until the end of 2018. Council Dynamics Council members are unanimous in their support for UNAMI. Despite diverging views on how to address the recommendations of the November 2017 independent external assessment, the US secured language encouraging the UN to take action on these recommendations in resolution 2421, renewing UNAMIs mandate in June. Considering that Kuwait is currently an elected member of the Council, a formal Council product on the Iraq-Kuwait file may be a possibility at some point. The US is the penholder on Iraq issues in general, and the UK is the penholder on Iraq-Kuwait issues. Poland is the chair of the 1518 Iraq Sanctions Committee. UN DOCUMENTS ON IRAQ EUROPE Kosovo Expected Council Action In November, the Council expects a briefing on the situation in Kosovo. The Special Representative and head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), Zahir Tanin, will brief on recent developments and the latest report by the Secretary-General. Serbia is likely to participate at a high level while Kosovo will probably be represented by its ambassador to the US. Key Recent Developments Resolution 1244, which established UNMIK in 1999, did not specify the Secretary-Generals reporting cycle, but the Council has established the practice of holding meetings on the situation in Kosovo at three-month intervals. During its presidency in August, the UK decided to omit the meeting on Kosovo, which would have been due according to past practice. At the presidency briefing to the media, UK Ambassador Karen Pierce emphasised that Kosovo did not require such regular Council consideration, given that the situation has improved significantly since 1999. She further noted that the Council should focus on other, more pressing, issues of international peace and security. In a 9 October letter to the Secretary-General, Ambassador Nikki Haley (US) urged the Secretariat to initiate a strategic review of the mission and develop an exit strategy. Haley said that these actions would serve the Council in assessing and evaluating the UN presence in Kosovo. Haleys letter drew a strong rebuke from the Serbian government, which stressed that it would oppose this initiative on legal and political grounds. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic pointed out that UNMIKs withdrawal and the possibility that Kosovo would form its own armed forces would leave Serbia no choice but to protect its people in Kosovo. For several months, the media have widely reported that Vucic and Kosovo President Hashim Thaci were holding talks on reaching a final agreement on Kosovo. The agreement would include territorial adjustments including Serbias control of the Serb-dominated municipalities in northern Kosovo while Kosovo would absorb the mainly Albanian-populated Presevo Valley in southern Serbia. During the European Forum Alpbach late August session in Austria, both Vucic and Thaci confirmed publicly that they have been working on a possible agreement and called for support from the EU and the wider international community. They have not revealed any specific details of the plan, however. The international response to the possible agreement has been mixed. At a press conference on 31 August, following the informal meeting of the EU foreign ministers in Vienna, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said that the EU would support any mutually agreed outcome as currently discussed if it is in line with international law. US National Security Adviser John Bolton said that the US would not stand in the way should both parties reach a mutually acceptable agreement even if it would involve territorial adjustments. German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected any possibility of a border change, however, saying that the territorial integrity of the states of the Western Balkans has been established and is inviolable. In both Serbia and Kosovo, the possible agreement has been met with opposition by the local population. Mogherini had been scheduled to host a meeting between Vucic and Thaci within the framework of an EU-facilitated dialogue on 7 September. Instead, she held talks with each separately because Vucic refused to meet with Thaci amid renewed tensions between Belgrade and Pristina. Key Issues and Options Key among several issues facing the Council on Kosovo is maintaining stability and reducing tensions between Belgrade and Pristina. Another issue for the Council is what role UNMIK can play in facilitating the implementation of the existing agreements between Belgrade and Pristina. The Council will continue to closely follow developments related to the possible agreement between Belgrade and Pristina, including the potential for territorial adjustments. An issue for the Council is whether this could have a destabilising effect on neighbouring countries and spark ethnic tensions in the region. Several Council members, and the P3 in particular, have continued to question the usefulness of the current reporting cycle, and have also called for downsizing the mission in light of the relative stability on the ground. Given the growing number of Council members who share those concerns, an option for the Council would be to consider more formal proposals for changing the reporting cycle, including possibly changing the format of the meeting to consultations. In addressing the effectiveness of the mission, the Council could request the Secretary-General to conduct a strategic review to explore ways to increase UNMIKs efficiency. Council Dynamics Kosovo remains a low-intensity issue for the Council, followed closely primarily by members with a particular interest in the region. Regional organisations including the EU, NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe now play increasingly prominent roles in Kosovo. Deep divisions among permanent members have continued on the Kosovo issue. France, the UK and the US recognise Kosovos independence and tend to be supportive of Kosovos government while China and Russia do not recognise its independence and strongly support Serbias position. The P3 and some other members have become increasingly outspoken in advocating a lengthening of UNMIKs reporting cycle and thus reducing the frequency of meetings on Kosovo. The UKs decision to remove the Kosovo meeting from the August programme of work (POW) demonstrated that there is substantial support among members for lengthening the reporting cycle. While Russia and China opposed the omission of Kosovo from the August POW, it seems that they would not have been able to secure the necessary support to challenge the decision through a procedural vote. The US has been the most vocal proponent of a drawdown and eventual withdrawal of UNMIK, citing the level of stability in Kosovo. It has also asserted that the mission remains overstaffed and over-resourced considering its limited responsibilities and that these resources could be put to better use in more pressing situations on the Councils agenda. Given the current emphasis on reviewing UN peacekeeping operations with the aim of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, the issue of modifying UNMIKs mandate is likely to become more prominent. Unlike most other mission mandates, the UNMIK mandate is open-ended. Any attempt to change it would require a new resolution, which Russia would strongly oppose and likely block. UN DOCUMENTS ON KOSOVO MIDDLE EAST Lebanon Expected Council Action In November, the Council expects to receive the Secretary-Generals report on the implementation of resolution 1701, which called for a cessation of hostilities between the Shia militant group Hezbollah and Israel in 2006. Briefings are expected from Pernille Dahler Kardel, Acting Special Coordinator for Lebanon, and possibly from a representative of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. The mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) expires on 31 August 2019. Key Recent Developments Gridlock among the major political factions has continued to hinder the formation of Lebanons new government nearly six months after general elections. There are growing concerns, within Lebanon and internationally, that the ongoing political stalemate will have a damaging effect on the socio-economic situation in the country. Both Saad Hariri, the prime minister in charge of forming a government, and Speaker of the Parliament Nabih Berri, have emphasised the severity of the countrys current economic situation. Lebanon is also facing pressure from the International Monetary Fund to make fiscal adjustments to address its public debt, a task that would require a functioning government. Hariri has indicated on several occasions that the formation of the new government is within reach. In early October, Hariri told the media that he expected the new government to be formed by mid-October. Days later, Berri expressed pessimism that the new government would be formed within that timeframe. At press time, the major political blocs had not reached agreement on the formation of the government. In his address during the General Debate of the UN General Assembly on 27 September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hezbollah of running a site for conversion of regular missiles into precision-guided missiles near Beirut International Airport. To corroborate his claims Netanyahu showed satellite images of the alleged missile sites. The Lebanese government has denied these allegations. On 1 October, Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil invited foreign ambassadors and other diplomats to join him on a tour of the alleged sites in an effort to counter Netanyahus allegations. Although the tour included only two of the three alleged sites, the Lebanese government has said that it is certain there are no missiles at the third site. Briefing the diplomats in the presence of the media, Bassil accused Israel of trying to provoke another conflict with Lebanon, using the UN as a platform. Addressing his supporters in September, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared that the group has acquired precision-guided missiles despite Israels efforts to prevent it. According to some estimates, Hezbollah currently has more than 100,000 missiles that could target Israel. Nasrallah reiterated that Hezbollah fighters would remain in Syria as long as they are needed by the Syrian government. The US State Department announced on 31 August that it would cut all funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The current US administration has been highly critical of the agency and has said that the US would not carry the disproportionate share of the burden of UNRWAs costs. The US had been UNRWAs single largest contributor, providing some 30 percent of its budget. The agency helps Palestinian refugees originally displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. According to UNRWA, Palestinian refugees constitute some 10 percent of Lebanons population. In other developments, on 11 October, UNIFILs Maritime Task Force assisted the Lebanese Navy in the successful rescue of 32 persons, mainly from Syria, whose boat ran out of fuel en route to Cyprus. Those rescued were subsequently transported to Beirut. Key Issues and Options The situation in UNIFILs area of operations has remained generally calm; the Council remains concerned, however, that more than a decade after the adoption of resolution 1701, there has been little progress towards implementing its main objectives, including a permanent ceasefire. A principal problem for the Council is that Hezbollah and other non-state actors still maintain significant amounts of weaponry. This inhibits the governments ability to exercise full authority over its territory, poses a threat to Lebanons sovereignty and stability, and contravenes its obligations under resolutions 1559 and 1701. A related issue is Hezbollahs involvement in the Syrian civil war and the movement of arms from Syria to Hezbollah. On the political front, the Council will continue to follow closely developments related to the formation of the new government in Lebanon. Council members are aware that a protracted period of political instability in Lebanon could have implications for the security situation in the country and the wider region. Council Dynamics The Council continues to demonstrate unity in its support of Lebanons sovereignty, territorial integrity and security, and its efforts to insulate itself from the damaging effect of the Syrian conflict. The Council has also recognised the decisive role of the Lebanese Armed Forces in responding to security challenges. Members are divided, however, in their view of the security dynamics in the region and the role of the mission. This was particularly evident during the mandate renewal negotiations both in 2017 and again this year. The US has continued to emphasise the threat posed by Iran, Hezbollah, and the proliferation of weapons in southern Lebanon and has promoted a more active role for UNIFIL in confronting these threats. On the missions configuration, the US has strongly advocated for the reduction of UNIFILs Maritime Task Force, leading towards eventual termination. Most other members, however, share the view that the missions mandate and tasks should remain unchanged. These members are cautious about drastic changes in the missions mandate and their potential impact on the fragile calm that has been maintained in southern Lebanon for over a decade. France is the penholder on Lebanon. UN DOCUMENTS ON LEBANON AFRICA Libya Expected Council Action In November, the Council is expected to receive briefings by the Special Representative and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), Ghassan Salame, and the chair of the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Olof Skoog (Sweden). Additionally, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda will deliver the semi-annual briefing on recent developments concerning cases in Libya. The Council is also scheduled to adopt a resolution extending the mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee and renewing measures related to the illicit export of crude oil from Libya. At press time, it appeared possible that the resolution would be adopted before the end of October. The mandate of UNSMIL expires on 15 September 2019, and the mandate of the Panel of Experts expires on 15 November. Key Recent Developments The recurring issue of competing institutions in Libya includes the oil sector: the final report of the Panel of Experts says that six attempts to illicitly export crude oil by the self-styled National Oil Corporation in Benghazi (a rival to the internationally recognised National Oil Corporation based in Tripoli) were documented between August 2017 and August 2018. The security situation in Libya remains highly volatile. According to a statement by UNSMIL on 23 October, Fayez al-Sarraj, president of the Presidency Council, adopted a Greater Tripoli Security Plan, developed with the support of UNSMIL and aimed at the establishment of professional security forces. Currently, the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli relies on armed groups for its security. The House of Representatives in Tobruk was supposed to adopt legislation regulating parliamentary and presidential elections by 16 September, according to a declaration following an international conference on Libya in Paris in June. The deadline passed without such legislation being produced. The same declaration named 10 December as the election date. As announced during a visit by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to meet with US President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. at the end of July, Italy will host an international conference on Libya in Palermo from 12 to 13 November. At press time, UNHCR reported that 193,581 people remained internally displaced in Libya. In addition, the UNs 2018 humanitarian response plan for Libya of $312.7 million was funded at 23 percent, with $240.7 million outstanding. On 3 October, the Council adopted resolution 2434, renewing for another 12 months the authorisation for member states to inspect vessels on the high seas off the coast of Libya when there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they are being used for migrant smuggling or human trafficking. ICC-Related Developments Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, whose extradition has been sought by the ICC, has been at large since he was set free by the Abu-Bakr al-Siddiq Brigade, a Zintan-based militia, in June 2017. According to the final report of the panel of experts, his lawyer stated that he resides in Zintan. On 5 June, he filed an inadmissibility challenge to his case. Former internal security chief Mohamed Khaled al-Tuhamy, allegedly responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in 2011 in Libya, also remains at large. On 4 July, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the ICC issued a second arrest warrant for Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf al-Werfalli, a commander participating in General Khalifa Haftars Operation Dignity in Benghazi. According to the first arrest warrant, issued on 15 August 2017, Al-Werfalli appears to be directly responsible for the deaths of 33 persons during seven different incidents in Benghazi or surrounding areas between June 2016 and July 2017, either by killing them himself or ordering their executions. The second arrest warrant relates to an eighth incident on 24 January in which Al-Werfalli allegedly killed ten persons in Benghazi. To date, Al-Werfalli has not been surrendered to the ICC despite reports that he turned himself in to the military police in eastern Libya after news about the executions became public. Human Rights-Related Developments During its 39th session, the Human Rights Council received an oral update on Libya from OHCHR on 26 September, which was followed by an interactive dialogue. OHCHRs Director of Field Operations and Technical Cooperation, Georgette Gagnon, presented the oral update and noted that armed groups continued to proliferate in Libya and to commit grave violations of human rights with almost complete impunity. Gagnon also highlighted the plight of migrants and refugees, detainees, and journalists and urged member states to prioritise addressing impunity; to adopt a human rights-centred approach when addressing migration; and to strengthen the processes of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of fighters. Also during the interactive dialogue, Special Representative and head of UNSMIL Ghassan Salame expressed concern in a video message about the situation in Libya, particularly the impact of the conflict that broke out in Tripoli on 26 August, and said that armed groups had spread throughout the country, committing torture and other human rights violations. He similarly emphasised the suffering faced by migrants, including rape, torture, slavery and forced labour. Key Issues and Options Key actors involved in the fighting between armed groups in Tripoli at the end of August could be considered for designation by the sanctions committee for targeted sanctions. In that context, the Council could also issue a press statement in support of the GNAs efforts to establish professional security forces. At the appropriate time and in support of Salames work, the Security Council might consider a visiting mission to Libya and neighbouring countries. Council and Wider Dynamics Members are generally supportive of UNSMILs role in the stabilisation of Libya but have divergent views on the way forward. Regarding the elections, France is holding firm about the 10 December date, but the majority of members, including the UK (the penholder) and the US, appear more cautious about focusing on a specific date, considering the challenges in establishing an environment conducive to peaceful and credible elections. It remains to be seen how Italys Libya conference will influence the situation. Council resolutions and presidential statements have called upon UN member states to cease support for and official contact with parallel institutions in Libya, but it seems that some countries, including Council members, have not respected this. The semi-annual briefings by Bensouda on Libya have had limited impact, given divisions among Council members on whether to take action to support the implementation of ICC decisions. Council members have often reverted to general exhortations rather than addressing non-compliance in a more forceful and effective way. The UK is the penholder on Libya, and Sweden chairs the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee. UN DOCUMENTS ON LIBYA Overview China takes on the Council presidency in November. It will hold two open debates: on the UNs role in strengthening multilateralism, and on enhancing African capacities in peace and security. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected to brief at both meetings, while AU Commissioner for Peace and Security Smail Chergui is a possible briefer for the debate on African capacities. Regarding Libya, the Council is expected to receive briefings by Special Representative of UNSMIL Ghassan Salame and the chair of the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Olof Skoog (Sweden). Additionally, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda will deliver her semi-annual briefing. Two adoptions on Somalia are scheduled. The first is to renew counter-piracy measures in Somalia, and the second is for a resolution addressing partial lifting of Somalia and Eritrea sanctions. There will also be a briefing by Ambassador Kairat Umarov (Kazakhstan), the chair of the 751/1901 Somalia and Eritrea Sanctions Committee. Other African issues include: Burundi, update by the Special Envoy; CAR, renewal of MINUSCA; Sahel, a briefing on the joint force of the Group of Five for the Sahel; and Sudan/South Sudan, the renewal of UNISFA in Abyei. With regard to Syria, there will be the regular monthly briefings on political and humanitarian developments and on the use of chemical weapons. Other meetings on Middle East issues this month include: Lebanon, on resolution 1701; Israel/Palestine, the monthly briefing; Iraq, on recent developments and UNAMI; and Yemen, an update on efforts to resume political consultations. The Council will hold its semi-annual debate on Bosnia and Herzegovina and will adopt a resolution renewing the authorisation of the EU-led multinational stabilisation force. There will also be a briefing on UNMIK in Kosovo. The fifth annual briefing with heads of police components of peacekeeping operations will be held in early November . Regarding the DPRK, the chair of the 1718 DPRK Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Karel van Oosterom (Netherlands), will brief in consultations. The 15 current Council members and the incoming five (Belgium, Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Germany and South Africa) will participate in the annual Hitting the Ground Running workshop organised by Finland. AFRICA Somalia Expected Council Action In November, the Council is expected to adopt a resolution on the Somalia and Eritrea sanctions regime, addressing the partial lifting of the arms embargo on Somali security forces, the authorisation for maritime interdiction to enforce the embargo on illicit arms imports and charcoal exports, and humanitarian exemptions to the sanctions regime, which all expire on 15 November. The Council will also consider lifting sanctions on Eritrea. The mandate review of the Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG), which expires on 15 December, is also due in November. The chair of the 751/1901 Somalia and Eritrea Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Kairat Umarov (Kazakhstan), will brief the Council in consultations. Finally, the Council is expected to adopt a resolution renewing counter-piracy measures which expire on 7 November. The authorisation of the AU Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) expires on 31 May 2019. Key Recent Developments The armed group Al-Shabaab remains highly active. On 12 October, US airstrikes on an Al-Shabaab camp near Harardhere, about 500 kilometres north-east of Mogadishu, killed about 60 militants. On 16 October, two Ugandan AMISOM troops were killed and several were injured in an ambush by Al-Shabaab militants in the town of Marka in southern Somalia. Two suicide bombers blew themselves up in restaurants in the city of Baidoa in south-western Somalia on 14 October, killing 20 people and injuring 40 others. Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attacks. Regional political developments will be at the heart of discussions about the sanctions regime. On 9 July, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki signed a peace agreement in Asmara, ending a 20-year conflict. During consultations on 23 July, Ethiopia updated Council members on the recent developments under any other business. Eritrea and Ethiopia signed an Agreement on Peace, Friendship and Comprehensive Cooperation on 16 September, which was welcomed by Council members in a press statement. Ethiopia has taken the position that sanctions on Eritrea should be lifted. In a letter transmitted to the Secretary-General on 11 July, Djibouti referred to resolutions 1862 and 1907 of 2009, which called on Eritrea to withdraw its forces to their previous positions from an area disputed with Djibouti, the Ras Doumeira peninsula and adjacent territory, to engage in the peaceful settlement of the border dispute and to resolve related issues such as unaccounted-for prisoners of war (resolution 1907 imposes sanctions for obstructing the implementation of resolution 1862 concerning Djibouti). Djibouti called on the Secretary-General, in close collaboration with the Security Council, to use his good offices to facilitate an agreement between the parties on a particular method of dispute settlement, preferably adjudication or arbitration. On 6 September, Eritrea and Djibouti announced the restoration of diplomatic ties, following a trilateral high-level meeting with Ethiopia, and the presidents of the two states met in Jeddah on 17 September. On 25 September, Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh Mohammed met with Umarov in New York. This was followed by a meeting between an Eritrean presidential advisor and the SEMG, also in New York. In October, the Council received the final report of the SEMG and discussed it in a meeting of the 751/1901 Sanctions Committee on 12 October. The report notes that while the quantity of illicitly exported charcoal has diminished, it continues to be a significant source of revenue for Al-Shabaab. It further points to some Gulf countries and Iran as importers of charcoal. In the 12 October meeting, the SEMG indicated that it would provide the committee with information on individuals involved in the charcoal trade. The report further notes that the United Arab Emirates has violated the arms embargo imposed on Somalia by continuing the construction of a military base in Somaliland. Furthermore, in September 2017, a ship heading from Yemen to Somalia was seized and armaments were found on board, including Chinese weapons. The report also highlights continuing concerns over lack of Somali compliance with reporting requirements on exemptions from the arms embargo and points to Somalias limited capacity in this regard. On Eritrea, the report states that for the fifth year in a row, the SEMG found no conclusive evidence that Eritrea was providing support to Al-Shabaab. Furthermore, it notes that armed groups acting against Ethiopia with the support of Eritrea have now signed agreements with Ethiopia. On piracy, the Secretary-General transmitted his report on the situation with respect to piracy and armed robbery off the coast of Somalia on 10 October. The report found that five significant piracy incidents occurred near the Somali coastline between 1 October 2017 and 30 September 2018. No ships were successfully hijacked for ransom nor were any hostages taken. The Secretary-General noted that another attack on a ship on 22 July was assessed as an Al-Shabaab event rather than piracy, demonstrating the fluid nature of the maritime security space in Somalia. The report concludes that continued piracy attempts demonstrate that the underlying conditions fuelling piracy have not yet changed and that piracy networks are still very much active, and that piracy networks remain ready to resume attacks should the opportunity present itself. In 2018, the report adds, pirates have extended their potential field of operations as far across the Indian Ocean as possible to ensure a successful hijacking. It concludes that the international communitys ongoing counter-piracy efforts off the coast of Somalia remain critical for the region and that reducing related transnational organised crime will assist these efforts. On 1 October, Nicholas Haysom succeeded Michael Keating as the Special Representative for Somalia and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM). Human Rights-Related Developments During its 39th session, the Human Rights Council (HRC) held an interactive dialogue on 26 September with the independent expert on human rights in Somalia, Bahame Nyanduga, and considered his report (A/HRC/39/72). The independent expert highlighted the suffering of women and girls, particularly the endemic problem of sexual and gender-based violence, as well as the abduction and forced recruitment of children by Al-Shabaab. The continued violation by both the federal and state security forces of the rights to freedom of expression and opinion was highlighted in the report as well as the situation of internally displaced persons. On 28 September, the HRC adopted without a vote a resolution on assistance to Somalia in the field of human rights (A/HRC/RES/39/23). The resolution renewed the mandate of the independent expert for one year and requested him to report to the HRC at its 42nd session and to the General Assembly at its 74th session, both in September 2019. Key Issues and Options The impact of the recent positive regional developments will be a central element in the review of the sanctions regime. The Council may consider lifting sanctions on Eritrea partially or completely while allowing the SEMG to continue to monitor regional developments. The Council may also call on states to meet their obligations in implementing the sanctions regime, particularly with respect to the arms embargo and charcoal ban, and impose or threaten to impose sanctions on individuals involved in the illicit trade in charcoal. Council Dynamics Council members have been considering lifting sanctions on Eritrea in recent months. They conveyed to Eritrea that this could be done if Eritrea receives Umarov for a visit, meets with the coordinator of the SEMG, and commits to resolving its dispute with Djibouti. These steps have been viewed with flexibility, and Council members seem to agree that the recent meetings between Eritrean officials and Umarov and the coordinator may suffice. On the Eritrea-Djibouti front, Council members agree that there have been positive developments. Nevertheless, there are diverging views as to whether these are sufficient to justify lifting sanctions. Ethiopia, with the support of some members, such as Russia and Sweden, has been pushing for the lifting of sanctions on Eritrea. The US and France have expressed more cautious views, insisting that Eritrea and Djibouti demonstrate commitment to resolving their dispute beforehand, for example in a letter to the Council. The UK is the penholder on Somalia, and the US is the penholder on piracy. UN DOCUMENTS ON SOMALIA Status Update since our October Forecast Counter-Terrorism On 3 October, the chairs of the counter-terrorism-related committees, Ambassador Sacha Sergio Llorenty Soliz (Bolivia), chair of the 1540 Committee; Ambassador Kairat Umarov (Kazakhstan), chair of the 1267/1989/2253 Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) (Daesh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee; and Ambassador Gustavo Meza-Cuadra Velasquez (Peru), chair of the 1373 Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) briefed the Council on the work of their respective committees (S/PV.8364). On 8 October, the CTC, in cooperation with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, held a public session on the nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism, and arms trafficking and terrorism. The 1267/1989/2253 ISIL (Daesh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee held its quarterly briefing by the monitoring team assisting it on 17 October, where it was also briefed by the head of the Iraq Investigative Team, Karim Asad Ahmad Khan. Democratic Republic of the Congo On 3 October, Council members were briefed in consultations by the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on the Ebola crisis in the DRC. The Council visited the DRC between 5-7 October. A briefing by the co-leads of visiting mission (Bolivia, Equatorial Guinea and France) was held on 11 October (S/PV.8369). Also on that day, Special Representative and head of MONUSCO Leila Zerrougui briefed on the latest MONUSCO report (S/2018/882), and Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for the Great Lakes Region Said Djinnit briefed on the latest report on the implementation of the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Region (S/2018/886), followed by consultations (S/PV.8370). At press time, the Council was negotiating a resolution on Ebola in the DRC. Sudan (Darfur) on 3 October, Ambassador Joanna Wronecka (Poland), chair of the 1591 Sudan Sanctions Committee, provided the quarterly briefing to Council members on the committees work (S/PV.8366). She highlighted aspects of the interim report of the Panel of Experts presented to the committee on 17 August. On 22 October, Joint Special Representative and head of UNAMID Jeremiah Mamabolo briefed (S/PV.8377) the Council on the Secretary-Generals 90-day report (S/2018/912). He said that with the Councils adoption of resolution 2429 in July, UNAMID has begun its reconfiguration and drawdown, while monitoring the reconfigurations impact on security and the protection of civilians. He also emphasised the importance of meeting the benchmarks for the missions exit set out in the Secretary-Generals report. Children and Armed Conflict On 10 October, the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict met for the introduction of the report on Children and Armed Conflict in South Sudan (S/2018/865). Western Sahara On 11 October, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of MINURSO Colin Stewart briefed Council members in consultations on the Secretary-Generals latest report (S/2018/889). During the meeting, members expressed support for the UN-led efforts to renew a political process and the planned roundtable to be held in December in Geneva with the parties and neighbouring countries. A Council meeting with troop-contributing countries to MINURSO had been held two days earlier, on 9 October. On 29 October, the Security Council extended the mandate of MINURSO for a further six months. Yemen On 11 October, the 2140 Yemen Sanctions Committee issued a press release that condemned attacks on commercial vessels described in the 9 July case-study of the Yemen Panel of Experts as perpetrated by the Houthis (SC/13536). On 23 October, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock briefed the Security Council on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen focusing on the rising threat of famine that has the potential to affect up to 14 million people, according to the latest UN estimates (S/PV.8379). Ahead of the meeting, on 20 October, OCHA had sent Council members a white paper on the worsening food crisis. During the briefing Lowcock warned of imminent danger of a famine engulfing Yemen. He called for Council support in five areas, including a cessation of hostilities in and around all infrastructure and facilities that the aid operation and commercial importers rely upon and for a larger and faster injection of foreign exchange into the economy. Natural Resources and Conflict On 16 October, the Security Council held a briefing on the role of natural resources as a root cause of conflict (S/PV.8372). Bolivia, which initiated the meeting, circulated a concept note in advance (S/2018/901). Secretary-General Antonio Guterres briefed. While noting that the exploitation of natural resources, or competition over them, can and does lead to violent conflict, he also emphasised that shared natural resources have traditionally also been a catalyst for cooperation among States, communities and people. UNDOF (Golan Heights) On 16 October, Council members were briefed in consultations by Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix on the latest 90-day report by the Secretary-General on UNDOF (S/2018/867). Afghanistan On 18 October, ahead of the parliamentary and district council elections scheduled for 20 October, Security Council members issued a press statement condemning recent attacks and underscoring the importance of a secure environment for the elections (SC/13545). On 23 October, after the elections took place, Council members issued a press statement welcoming the holding of the elections while noting the difficult security environment and that voting in Kandahar, which was postponed, needs to take place (SC/13551). Middle East (Israel/Palestine) On 18 October, the Security Council held its quarterly open debate on the Middle East (Israel/Palestine) (S/PV.8375 and Resumption 1). Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov, and Hagai El-Ad, an Israeli human rights activist who serves as the Executive Director of BTselem, briefed the Council. Mladenov, who briefed via video teleconference, expressed significant concerns about the current situation, which he said is sliding into a one-State reality of perpetual occupation and violence that does not serve peace. Silencing Guns in Africa On 19 October, Cote dIvoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, South Africa and the AU co-organised an open Arria-formula meeting entitled Silencing the Guns in Africa: How Can the UN-AU Partnership Contribute to a Continent Free of Conflict. Permanent Observer of the AU to the UN, Fatima Kyari Mohammed, and Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on Africa, Bience Gawanas, briefed during the meeting. Mali On 19 October, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix briefed the Council on a 25 September report of the Secretary-General on Mali (S/2018/866) and the work of MINUSMA (S/PV.8376). Following the meeting, Council members issued a press statement commending the 15 October signing of a pact for peace between the government of Mali and the UN (SC/13547). On 27 October, Council members issued a press statement condemning the attacks that same day against a convoy of MINUSMA near the town of Konna, which resulted in two peacekeepers from Burkina Faso killed and several from Burkina Faso and Togo injured (SC/13557). Women, Peace and Security On 22 October, Cote dIvoire, France, the Netherlands and Peru co-hosted an Arria-formula meeting entitled Moving from a Culture of Impunity to a Culture of Deterrence: The Use of Sanctions in Addressing Sexual Violence in Conflict. Briefers were Rita Lopidia, Executive Director and Co-founder of the EVE Organization for Women Development in South Sudan, and head of the South Sudan Women Coalition for Peace; the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten; Rebecca Brubaker, Senior Policy Adviser at the Centre for Policy Research at United Nations University; Ruben de Koning, coordinator of the Panel of Experts assisting the 2374 Mali sanctions committee; and Hans-Jakob Schindler, former coordinator of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team assisting both the sanctions committee concerning ISIL (Daesh) and Al-Qaida, as well as the 1988 Sanctions Committee concerning the Taliban and associated individuals. On 25 October, the Security Council held its annual open debate on Women, Peace and Security entitled Promoting the Implementation of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda and Sustaining Peace through Womens Political and Economic Empowerment. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a statement and briefings were given by Executive Director of UN Women Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and Randa Siniora Atallah, Director of the Womens Center for Legal Aid and Counselling (a non-profit organisation based in Jerusalem supporting female survivors of gender-based violence and advocating for gender equality and non-discrimination of women in Palestine). International Court of Justice On 24 October, the Council received the annual briefing by President of the International Court of Justice Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf in a private meeting (S/PV.8380). Water, Peace and Security On 26 October, an Arria-formula meeting was held on water, peace and security. The meeting was organised by the Netherlands, in collaboration with Belgium, Bolivia, Cote dIvoire, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Indonesia, and Italy. Panelists were Danilo Turk, chair of the Global High-Level Panel on Water and Peace; UN Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Miroslav Jenca; and Manish Bapna, the Executive Vice President and Managing Director of the World Resources Institute on behalf of the Water, Peace and Security Initiative. Myanmar On 24 October, Marzuki Darusman, the chair of the Independent International FactFinding Mission on Myanmar briefed the Council (S/PV.8381 and Resumption 1) on the Missions 27 August report (A/HRC/39/64). Nine membersCote dIvoire, France, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Sweden, the US and the UKhad requested the meeting on 16 October through a letter to the Secretary-General. In response, Bolivia, China, Equatorial Guinea and Russia wrote to the Secretary-General on 18 October expressing their objection to such a briefing (S/2018/938). Ahead of the meeting there was a procedural vote on whether or not to hold the meeting, with nine members voting in favour, three against and four abstaining. Sexual Violence in Conflict On 26 October, Poland, in partnership with Bolivia, France, Germany and South Africa, organised an Arria-formula meeting on the plight and rights of children born of wartime sexual violence. The briefers included Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten and Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF Omar Abdi. There were also briefings by Ambassador Masud Bin Momen (Bangladesh) and Ambassador Mohammed Hussein Bahr Aluloom (Iraq). The civil society briefers were Evelyn Amony, co-founder and chairperson of the Womens Advocacy Network in Uganda; Charo Mina-Rojas, Human Rights and International Working Group of Proceso de Comunidades Negras; and Betty Sunday Ben Kute, Coordinator of the Womens Monthly Forum in South Sudan (by video teleconference). Cyprus On 30 October, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo briefed the Council on the Secretary-Generals report on his good offices in Cyprus (S/2018/919). DiCarlo updated Council members on the outcome of the consultations that the UN consultant Jane Holl Lute conducted with the Cypriot leaders and the representatives of the guarantor powers Greece, Turkey and the UK. Although there has not been any tangible progress in unification talks for over a year, DiCarlo noted that the Secretary-General still believes that prospects for a comprehensive settlement remain alive. Council members expressed their support for the Secretary-Generals good offices and called on both Cypriot leaders to increase their efforts in finding a solution. AFRICA Sudan/South Sudan Expected Council Action In November, the Council is expected to renew the mandate of the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) prior to its 15 November expiration. Key Recent Developments The security situation in Abyei, the disputed territory along the Sudan/South Sudan border, remains unpredictable, with persistent intercommunal clashes, incidents of violence around the Amiet common market, weak rule of law, and the absence of significant progress on establishing temporary arrangements for Abyeis administration and security pending resolution of the territorys final status. The status of Abyei was supposed to be decided through a referendum in January 2011 but the vote was postponed indefinitely due to disagreements as to voters eligibility. In the context of growing tensions between Sudan and South Sudan, UNISFA was established in June 2011 as a temporary measure. Its mandate has since been renewed repeatedly and, as set out in the Secretary-Generals most recent report, it continues to enhance peace and stabilitythrough a robust military presence and by supporting local-level dialogue. On 11 October, the Security Council unanimously renewed until 15 April 2019 the support of UNISFA to the Joint Border Verification and Monitoring Mechanism (JBVMM), established in 2011 to conduct monitoring and verification activities along the Sudan-South Sudan border. Resolution 2438 decided to maintain UNISFAs troop ceiling of 4,500 until 15 November, the expiration date of the current UNISFA mandate. As of 15 April 2019, however, the authorised troop ceiling will decrease by 541 troopsthe number of troops required for the missions support to the JBVMMunless the Council decides to extend such support. As in previous resolutions, it decided that this will be the final extension of support to the JBVMM unless both parties demonstrate measurable progress on specific border demarcation measures set out in the resolution. (For more details, see our Whats In Blue story of 11 October.) The most recent Secretary-Generals report highlights the recent improvement in relations between Sudan and South Sudan, along with Sudans role in facilitating talks in Khartoum between the warring South Sudanese parties, and urges the Security Council to build upon that momentum by supporting both partiesto work towards a political resolution. It also states that UNISFA must adapt to the situation on the ground and work proactively to create the space needed for a viable political process. The report recommends that UNISFAs mandate be extended for one year in line with the Secretary-Generals 20 August letter on UNISFA reconfiguration. The letter recommended that the mission play an enhanced and more proactive role in support of a political solution to resolving the final status of Abyei, including implementation by Sudan and South Sudan of two agreements concluded in 2011 on border issues and security arrangements. Acknowledging that the mission has lacked the civilian tools to keep the parties engaged, the recommendations included appointing a civilian deputy head of mission to function as the main focal point on political matters and expanding UNISFAs civilian component. (A 2015 decision by the Secretary-General to appoint a civilian head of mission was never implemented, following objections from Sudan and assertions that the role of the Special Envoy on Sudan and South Sudan was sufficient. The position of the Special Envoy is currently vacant following the departure of Nicholas Haysom at the end of September.) The 20 August letter also recommended changes to the missions military component, including transferring troops to the JBVMM so it can be deployed fully, based on the reduced need for a large military presence and the assessment that the JBVMM remains vital in contributing to preventing conflict between the two countries and that its full deployment is of paramount importance. A larger police component was also recommended in the 20 August letter, including the addition of specialised police officers to provide advisory support and the transfer of some tasks from the military to the police. These proposed changes would represent an overall decrease in troop numbers. The Council was briefed in consultations on 29 October, on UNISFA and Sudan/South Sudan issues. Key Issues and Options A key issue for the Council to consider ahead of the mandate renewal in November is the appropriateness of UNISFAs current mandate in relation to the situation on the ground and what modifications, if any, to make to the mandate and force structure. This assessment is likely to be informed by the Secretary-Generals 20 August recommendations and his latest report. Council Dynamics Unlike previous negotiations on resolutions to extend UNISFAs support to the JBVMM, the US in October did not initially seek either to reduce the missions authorised troop ceiling (as it did in April) or to suspend the missions support to the JBVMM (as it did in November 2017), both of which Ethiopia and some other members successfully resisted. As a result, negotiations ahead of adopting resolution 2438 proceeded comparatively smoothly. However, at the 20 September Council briefing, the long-standing divide between the US and Ethiopia was still apparent. In its statement, the US supported the Secretary-Generals 20 August reconfiguration recommendation for a reorientation towards a police-style mission with a strong civilian component, saying that the recommendations are a good start to align UNISFA with realities on the ground, but they do not go far enough and questioning whether all UNISFAs tasks remain appropriate and necessary. Ethiopia emphasised that the continued presence of UNISFA is absolutely critical, agreeing that it makes sense to consider reconfiguring the mission to increase its ability to assist the parties in fully implementing their agreements. It disagreed, however, with the Secretary-Generals 20 August recommendation to transfer troops from Abyei to the JBVMM to make it fully operational, saying that reducing troop levels in Abyei would have serious implications. Ethiopia also disagreed with deploying additional police at the expense of troop levels while agreeing with the recommendation for a strengthened civilian component. The US is the penholder on Abyei. UN Documents on Sudan/South Sudan MIDDLE EAST Syria Expected Council Action In November, the Council expects to receive the monthly Syria briefings on the humanitarian situation, political developments, and the use of chemical weapons. Key Recent Developments October was marked, at least momentarily, by a respite over the tense situation in the north-western province of Idlib after Turkey and Russia agreed to establish a demilitarised zone 15 to 20 kilometres wide along the contact line between armed groups and government troops. Following the timeline established by the memorandum of understanding between the two countries, heavy military equipment had been removed from the area by 10 October. The agreement also provided for the separation of forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (a Council-designated terrorist group) from other rebel groups. While Syria considers this measure temporary, OCHA has repeatedly stressed the need to prevent an all-out military offensive of disastrous humanitarian consequences. Despite the military impasse, the political process has failed to gain traction, including over the establishment of the constitutional committee. The committee is expected to comprise 150 people (one-third each from the government, the opposition, and civil society). Briefing the Council on 17 October, Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura told Council members that the main reason for the delay in convening the first session of a credible and inclusive constitutional committee is the governments difficulty in accepting the current list of civil society participants, which was prepared by the UN. In his statement, he mentioned that Russia and Iran have also called that list into significant question, while Turkey has indicated lately its full understanding of the logic and composition of the list. De Mistura also briefed Council members on a late September meeting between Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Syrian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, in which the latter questioned the validity of the 30 January final statement that resulted from a meeting of Syrians in Sochi and the UN facilitation role in establishing the constitutional committee. This controversy is not new, as illustrated by the Syrian governments uploading of a modified version of the Sochi final statement to its website, which led to the circulation of the original statement as an official Council document in February, at Russias initiative. De Mistura travelled to Damascus in late October in a last attempt to get the government to engage on the establishment of the constitutional committee, and briefed the Council on his mission on 26 October. He told the Council that the Syrian government did not accept a role for the UN in general in identifying or selecting the civil society list. Ahead of the 17 October meeting, the members of the Small Group (Egypt, Germany, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the P3) had encouraged de Mistura and the Secretary-General to convene the constitutional committee as quickly as possible. They reiterated this message in the meeting, but Russia warned against pursuing artificial deadlines. De Mistura also announced that he will be stepping down from his position at the end of November and that the Secretary-General has directed him to actively verify once and for all the feasibility of the implementation of a credible and inclusive constitutional committee. Despite the reprieve in Idlib, the threat of a military offensive continues to loom. Cross-border deliveries of humanitarian aid, which have been vital in providing assistance to Idlib, continue as a result of a Council authorisation which is set to expire on 10 January 2019. There have also been efforts to provide life-saving winterisation assistance. In late October, the UN and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent had to postpone for security reasons the organisation of a joint convoy to an estimated 50,000 civilians stranded at the Rukban camp in southeast Syria, where the situation is critical. The last delivery of UN aid to Rukban took place in January 2018 through Jordan. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock briefed the Council on 29 October. The High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, briefed Council members on 9 October. At the meeting, several Council members expressed concern about recent reports of the attempt by Russia to hack the internal computer system of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). In November, the Conference of States Parties (CSP) to the Chemical Weapons Convention is expected to discuss a progress report of the OPCW Director-General regarding arrangements to identify the perpetrators of the use of chemical weapons in Syria in line with a 27 June CSP decision. There have been internal debates among donors and repeated requests by Russia and Syria regarding the need to contribute to the reconstruction of the country. On 18 September, nine former, current and incoming Council members (Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Sweden, the UK and the US) sent a letter to the Secretary-General stressing that there can be no international support for funding for development and long-term reconstruction until irreversible progress has been made through the UN-led process towards a comprehensive, genuine and inclusive political transition. Human Rights-Related Developments During its 39th session, the Human Rights Council (HRC) voted 27 to four (with 16 abstentions) on 28 September to adopt a resolution on the human rights situation in Syria (A/HRC/RES/39/15). Of the five Security Council members currently on the HRC, Cote dIvoire, Peru, and the UK voted in favour, Ethiopia abstained, and China voted against. The resolution incorporates provisions of past HRC resolutions on Syria, and added several new ones, such as urging an immediate end to the violence in Idlib to prevent further deaths and to avoid a potential humanitarian catastrophe and expressing deep concern over the Commission of Inquiry on Syrias finding that tactics used in the recapturing of the besieged area of Eastern Ghouta amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Other new provisions noted the recent issuing of death notifications of detained individuals by the Syrian authorities, which provides further indication of systematic violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law and urged authorities to provide families with the remains,to protect the lives and rights of all persons currently detained or unaccounted for, and to clarify the fate of those who remain missing or are still in custody. The resolution also expressed deepest concern that the Commissions latest report (A/HRC/39/65) stated that a vast body of evidence suggested that chlorine had been dropped by helicopter on a residential buildingin Douma on 7 April and that in a series of ground attacks in Douma on 22 January and 1 February 2018, the Syrian authorities and/or affiliated militias had committed the war crime of using prohibited weapons. Key Issues and Options Given the crucial role of actors such as Russia, Turkey and Iran on both the political and humanitarian fronts, Council members could seek an informal interactive dialogue with them in order to have a more action-oriented discussion regarding current and future efforts to avert a full-fledged military offensive in Idlib. Some Council members question whether any efforts on the political process are likely to yield results, given the Syrian governments emphasis on regaining and consolidating control of territory. Before the end of de Misturas tenure, Council members could hold an informal and frank discussion about the challenges that he encountered in facilitating a political process and how Council members, individually and collectively, could better support the work of his successor. The issue of detainees, abductees and missing persons has not attracted much attention in the Council, and is mostly considered under the rubric of confidence-building measures being discussed by the Astana guarantors. With little progress on this front and the Syrian governments recent release of thousands of death notices for prisoners, the Council could hold a meeting on this matter. Council and Wider Dynamics A new element since September has been the participation in Council meetings of Iran and Turkey, the Astana guarantors currently not on the Council. The members of the Small Group that do not sit on the Council (Egypt, Germany, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) asked to participate in the 17 October meeting as well under rule 37 of the provisional rules of procedure. Although the participation of Germany was initially opposed by China and Russia, in the end the Council President (Bolivia) granted all requests to speak. The meeting exposed wider regional tensions regarding political Islam and the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The UK and France criticised some participants for discussing topics that were not on the meetings agenda, and Russia then defended their right to make such statements. In December 2017, the adoption of resolution 2393, drafted by Egypt, Japan and Sweden, renewed the authorisation for cross-border humanitarian access to Syria. It was adopted with abstentions by Bolivia, China and Russia. In explaining their vote, China and Russia highlighted the importance of working through the government and eventually rolling back a provision originally devised as a temporary measure. As the expiration of the authorisation nears and as the situation in Idlib evolves, Council members are expected to look closely at the role that this authorisation continues to play in the provision of life-saving assistance. In early October, Russia requested a discussion under any other business regarding allegations that volunteers involved in search and rescue operations, known as White Helmets, were involved in the preparation of attacks with chemical weapons in Syria. Most Council members consider these reports unsubstantiated. Kuwait and Sweden are the penholders on humanitarian issues in Syria. UN DOCUMENTS ON SYRIA PEACEMAKING, PEACEKEEPING AND PEACEBUILDING UN Peacekeeping Expected Council Action In November, the Council will receive a briefing on UN policing from Under-Secretary-General for UN Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix and the heads of police components of three UN peacekeeping operations: Unaisi Lutu Vuniwaqa, UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) Police Commissioner; Awale Abdounasir, UN Organization Stabilization Operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) Police Commissioner; and Serge Therriault, UN Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH) Police Commissioner. No formal outcome is anticipated from the meeting. Key Recent Developments Briefings with the heads of police components have been held in the Council annually since 2014. The most recent of these, held on 6 November 2017, featured a briefing from Lacroix and the heads of police components from the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), MINUJUSTH, and the AU/UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID). During the meeting, Lacroix outlined how UN police components work to achieve mission mandates. First, he noted that UN police employ the Strategic Framework for International Police Peacekeeping, which strives to focus not only on the transfer of basic skills but also on strengthening host-State police institutions. Second, he underscored the role of UN police in protecting civilians through physical protection and community engagement and information-gathering that inform responses to threats. Third, Lacroix highlighted the collaboration between UN police and host-state authorities in fighting organised crime. Fourth, he emphasised the key role that women play in UN policing by mentoring future police leaders, increas[ing] access to justice for women and children at risk and improv[ing] information gathering and analysis by reaching vulnerable groups. The other briefers highlighted many of the points made by Lacroix. Resolution 2382, adopted at the 2017 meeting, stressed the important role of UN policing with respect to the protection of civilians, capacity-building, and the development efforts of host-state police services. It further called on the Secretary-General to provide a report on UN policing by the end of 2018, focused on strengthening the operational and policy coherence of UN policing across the UN system, among other issues. The report is expected to be finalised before the end of the calendar year, but likely not in time for the briefing. Key Issues and Options One key issue that may be addressed by some members is the role of UN policing in the context of the Declaration of Shared Commitments on UN Peacekeeping Operations, currently signed by 150 member states. This could include, for example, a focus on how UN policing can most effectively advance political solutions to conflict, protect civilians, and strengthen peacekeepings impact on sustaining peace. In past years, the briefings with the heads of police components have included interaction between briefers and Council members. If that is the case this yeara matter yet to be determined at press timemembers may pose questions directly to the heads of the police components, an opportunity usually not available in Council briefings. It seems that the briefings will focus on strategic priorities of UN police components (Lacroix), protection of civilians through gender-responsive policing by UNMISS (Vuniwaqa), preventing and addressing serious and organised crime by MONUSCO (Abdounasir), and strengthening the rule of law through police reform by MINUJUSTH (Therriault). Council Dynamics There is widespread support for UN policing in peace operations for such matters as helping host states to promote the rule of law, strengthen their national policing capacities, and fight organised crime. Some members note the role of policing across the entire peace continuum (encompassing prevention, conflict resolution, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and long-term development), but Russia has underscored that UN policing should be restricted to conflict situations where missions are deployed. Some members may emphasise the importance of enhancing womens participation in UN policing during the briefing. UN Documents on Peacekeeping The man suspected of sending 15 pipe bombs this month to prominent Democrats, including former President Obama, searched the internet using the term UC Berkeley Library, the FBI told campus police Tuesday. There is no specific reason to believe any explosives have been sent to the university, according to a campus advisory sent out by the UC Berkeley police after they had phoned campus officials about the development. Campus security was making extra checks of library facilities to ensure public safety. In the advisory, campus police cautioned vigilance and said no one connected to the university was identified as a bomb recipient. Nor were any other campus locations identified. Cesar Sayoc, 56, a Florida pizza delivery man and avid supporter of President Trump, was arrested Friday on five federal charges connected to the wave of explosives sent through the mail. The bombs were live explosives, but all were intercepted and none detonated. Besides Obama, pipe bombs were mailed to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Tom Steyer, a prominent Democratic donor in the Bay Area; and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. Its not clear why the suspect used the search term UC Berkeley Library, said Sgt. Nick Hernandez, spokesman for the UC Berkeley police. He said the campus would continue the precautions its used for years, including the routine use of bomb-sniffing dogs to check incoming mail. At library headquarters UC Berkeley has 25 libraries executive assistant Zsuzsanna Listro confirmed that police had contacted library officials. But she said it was just another day at the library, with dozens of students studying for midterms, and even a flu-shot clinic for students, faculty and staff. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. Everyone was too busy to worry about death by mail bomb. As for why the prestigious public university might be on the mind of the bomber, Listro had an idea. Well, she said, we are the Peoples Republic of Berkeley. Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov A lawsuit accusing San Francisco State University of allowing and encouraging anti-Semitism on campus has been dismissed by a federal judge, who said a group of Jewish students and their supporters failed to show that school officials discriminated against them because of the students religion or political views. The suit, filed last year, claimed university policies were responsible for a protest that shut down a campus speech by the mayor of Jerusalem in 2016 and for excluding the Jewish group Hillel from a Know Your Rights student fair in 2017. The plaintiffs also said anti-Semitic name-calling, graffiti and other slurs on campus over a number of years had made Jewish students feel fearful and unwelcome; and they accused a professor of instigating protests and prejudice with anti-Zionist statements. But U.S. District Judge William Orrick III said the Jewish students had failed to show that school officials had treated them differently than others or had taken any discriminatory actions. I understand that these plaintiffs, and some other members of the Jewish or Israeli community ... feel deeply that SFSU has not done enough to curtail others anti-Semitic behaviors and to foster a better environment for Jewish and pro-Israeli students, Orrick said in a ruling late Monday. But even if the allegations in the suit were proven, he said, they would not show discrimination by the university, its administrators or its faculty. No facts have been alleged to support their mere claim of differential treatment, Orrick said, and the university extensively investigated each of their allegations. When Jerusalem Mayor Nir Birkat, an ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke at San Francisco State in April 2016, school officials moved his talk away from the center of campus after being warned of protests. Six minutes into the speech, about 20 students stood and shouted Israel is an apartheid state, then took a microphone and effectively silenced Birkat, according to the universitys report. More for you Trumps plan to end birthright citizenship draws ire The plaintiffs accused the university of discriminating by choosing a remote location and by allegedly ordering campus police not to interfere with the protest. But Orrick said the school had a similar policy for other controversial speakers and there was no evidence that officials had interfered with Birkat or mistreated Jewish students because of their religion. Hillels exclusion from the February 2017 Know Your Rights fair was not decided by school officials but by student organizers who said Hillel had missed a registration deadline, Orrick said. He said there was also evidence that one or more Jewish groups participated in the fair. The judge also said allegations of anti-Semitic incidents on campus, if proven, were not enough to show a hostile educational environment. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. The Lawfare Project, a Jewish legal organization that represents the plaintiffs, said it would appeal the ruling while proceeding with a separate suit against the university in San Francisco Superior Court, scheduled for trial in March. We look forward to continuing to fight for the members of the community who have suffered and continue to suffer at SFSU because of their Jewish or Israeli heritage, the organization said. The university declined to comment. Attorney Liz Jackson of Palestine Legal, which supported Rahab Abdulhadi, the ethnic studies professor targeted in the suit, said Orrick was right to reject Lawfares attempt to equate calls for justice with discrimination. She also said the massacre of 11 Jews at a synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday was a brutal reminder that anti-Jewish bigotry is real and that we need to fight all forms of racism together. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko Welcome back to Tech Chronicle. If you dont already subscribe to the newsletter, move fast and sign up. Move slowly and fix things Whatever happened to move fast and break things? In Facebooks third-quarter earnings call with analysts Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg made one thing clear: Fixing Facebook is going to take time. Cue George Harrison. As the earnings revealed, Zuckerberg has money, a whole lot of spending money. To fight fake news, spam and election interference, he has said, Facebook will hire 20,000 workers to review posts. The goal, though, he told analysts, is to have Facebooks artificial intelligence spot problematic posts before anyone has to flag or review them. He indicated that it might have this figured out by the end of next year. For the citizens of Brazil, thats a bit late. A vaunted War Room set up to monitor elections with a Brazilian flag posted on the wall, signaling the countrys importance shut down some fake accounts used to send spam. But the end result the election of far-right candidate Jair Balsonaro, in a campaign fueled by conspiracy theories sent on the Facebook-owned WhatsApp messaging service suggests that it has made less progress than it claims. Sign Up for the Newsletter Want to get the latest on Silicon Valley in your inbox? Subscribe to Tech Chronicle. See More Collapse Zuckerberg has a polished talking point for this: Its an arms race, and the company has to keep up with evolving behavior. If its an arms race, what about this idea: Why doesnt Facebook unilaterally disarm? Facebook could shut down its service outside the U.S., Canada and Europe, and save itself a lot of headaches: The worst social-media-fueled disasters seem to happen in places like Myanmar, Sri Lanka, India and Brazil. That would slash Facebooks vaunted user numbers from 2.27 billion to 617 million, but would cost it only 27 percent of its revenue. If anything, Facebooks profit margins would probably increase. Contending with lies, deception and state-sponsored manipulation in a smaller part of the globe would presumably cost less and work better than trying to do it for the entire world. Zuckerberg has suggested that if Western governments were to rein in Facebook, Chinese social media giants would move in to fill the void. And ... so what? Facebook made $27.61 per user in the U.S. and Canada in the third quarter; in its emerging markets, where advertisers are far scarcer, it only made $1.82 per user, or about 60 cents a month. As a business, Facebook would be better off figuring out how to squeeze more dollars out of the data its American users surrender with a shrug. It would face less flak, too. But Zuckerberg has his mind set on connecting the world even if that means linking up all of its unruly, contentious bad actors. Good luck with that. Owen Thomas (othomas@sfchronicle.com) Quote of the week We have willingly now for more than a decade given up our most personal data that is the real guts, the bloodstream for AI. You know, our personal data is the most valuable commodity in the world right now. I mean, its far more valuable than any energy source or any other commodity you can think about, and we have given it over. Weve given it over to companies, by and large, but that is just one little step away from governments. Hillary Clinton to Recodes Kara Swisher in an interview at New Yorks 92nd Street Y Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes Coming up Speaking of elections, we have one coming up Tuesday. In San Francisco, the fight to watch is the one over Proposition C, the ballot measure that taxes the citys biggest businesses to fund homeless services. Salesforce and Marc Benioff have committed millions of dollars to the Yes on C campaign; opponents including Square CEO Jack Dorsey and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, who have drawn fellow billionaire Benioffs tweeted scorn, have been comparatively cheap in their backing of the No on C campaign. Oh, and I guess were voting on other stuff, too. Well have all the latest results on SFChronicle.com. What Im reading Twitter is not doing much better in dealing with fake news. A page devoted to coverage of the midterms is littered with false, hyperpartisan news, Charlie Warzel reports. (BuzzFeed News) Waymo has received a permit to test self-driving cars with no backup human behind the steering wheel, Carolyn Said reports. Its a big step on the path to true autonomous vehicles. (San Francisco Chronicle) Kevin Roose explains how Gab, the extremist social network, got so big. (New York Times) Tech Chronicle is a thrice-weekly newsletter from Owen Thomas, The Chronicles business editor, and the rest of the tech team. Follow along on Twitter: @techchronicle and Instagram: @techchronicle A man who was slain last week in San Franciscos Tenderloin has been identified as a 53-year-old city resident. Kevin Driscol was killed Friday on the 400 block of Ellis Street, according to police and the city medical examiner. Onstage at Nourse Auditorium on Saturday morning, Oct. 27, were two orange chairs, set at angles with a table in between and a vase of tulips on the table. The podium for speakers at Sydney Goldsteins memorial gathering was downstage in front of that traditional City Arts & Lectures setting, not part of it. The implication was that whatever would be said, whatever memories would be shared, that which she created two people sitting in the Lamborghinis of chairs and talking, said Dave Eggers will remain. It was an event that she might have planned, each speaker sharing affection, but (as she would have insisted) revealing something unexpected: She liked Makers Mark and illegal parking, said Steven Winn. The Hayes Street Grill was her salon, said owner Patty Unterman, and although shed always order the same thing, she always studied the menu before she ordered. Shed meet new people, said Calvin Trillin, and invite them to stay at her home within 30 or 40 seconds. At the same time, said Jeffrey Toobin, she was discerning enough to say, after a program with which shed been unsatisfied, that not only wouldnt she ever hire the moderator again, In fact, I am never going to speak with him again. She had the only nonprofit that turned a profit, said Eggers, money shed shared with his nonprofit, 826 Valencia. Those contributions had made college education possible for 91 students. (The group has newly created a Sydney Goldstein Scholarship.) Goldsteins husband, Charles Breyer, recalled their courtship: He called her, and the phone was picked up by an answering service operator. Sydney wasnt there, said the operator, but had left word: Would he marry her? I didnt know that at a dinner party shed made merry small talk with Orrin Hatch; I didnt know that one afternoon in the foyer of her house, shed danced with Gene Kelly. But a person is more than a total of details, more than a broad stroke of generalized adjectives. At the start of the program, Winn, the first speaker, talked about her telephone hello, her voice dropping for the second syllable. She was, with Winns pronunciation of that greeting, right there at the Nourse. I hope as shed hoped about everyone who ever bought a ticket for City Arts & Lectures that she was listening. City College of San Francisco students in the Theatre Departments Pollinator program have put on a theatrical production adapted from Tim Robbins film The Cradle Will Rock, and on Sunday, Oct. 28, Robbins himself came to watch a matinee. Adapter-director Patricia Miller had contacted Robbins early in the summer. She knew that he was a lover of theater and told him she was eager to tell the story about Federal Theatre, Orson Welles and Diego Rivera in these challenging political times and under the shadow of our own beautiful mural before it moves to SFMOMA. (The theater is named after the great Mexican muralist, whose Pan American Unity is in its lobby. Miller said, incidentally, that the theater is hoping to build a new theater before the return of the mural.) To create Tim Robbins The Cradle Will Rock, Miller boiled down 120 scenes in the movie to 75 in the show. which is performed by a cast of 36 people ranging in age from 9 to 70. Robbins, she said, was the ultimate mensch! During an impromptu (and private) Q&A after the performance, he told the cast, crew and Miller that hed had a blast and that he was awestruck by the endeavor. When the movie opened in 1999, critic Edward Guthmann described its final scene, when the show has been pulled from a theater and been performed in the street, as much a celebration of First Amendment protections as it is a salute to the tenacity and spirit of actors. Some things are still worth celebrating. The productions final performances are Friday, Nov. 2, through Sunday, Nov. 4. As the bearer of a consonant-heavy and crunchy name, Im hesitant to comment on other names. But, as Nancy Friedman did, one must note the side-by-side placement of signs just outside the Costco parking lot for a Richmond City Council candidate whose last name is Pimple and a mayoral candidate whose last name is Butt. PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING Why is everything broken? American tourist to guide, overheard at Ephesus in Turkey by Betty Hasler Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, 415-777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik Faked soil samples, falsified documents, two criminal convictions, three federal lawsuits in recent months, the cleanup of the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard has been rocked by scandal. Most questions have focused on the role of a Navy contractor, Tetra Tech EC. But fraud may be the least of the problems with the cleanup, according to a new report by academic researchers that reaches a startling conclusion: The Navy, which is supposed to be removing radioactive contamination from the shipyard, is relying on decades-old, obsolete safety standards in order to avoid cleaning up dangerous substances a strategy that lowers the Navys costs, but increases the risk that people living or working on the site will get cancer. Whats more, the researchers say, state and federal regulators either failed to catch the archaic standards or approved of them, despite the fact that federal law requires current standards to be used. In some cases, the strategies put forward by the Navy appear to have been authored by Tetra Tech, the same contractor now accused of widespread fraud, according to public documents reviewed by the researchers. The report relies on the current safety standards, which are defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and are based on scientific studies about the cancer risk from radiation. Using these standards, the researchers estimate how many people would get cancer from exposure to shipyard soil and buildings that the Navy considers to be acceptably clean. According to the calculations in the report, if 380 people were exposed to this soil, one of them on average would get cancer from that exposure alone. For the buildings, the researchers say, the Navy allows a risk of 1 cancer in 37 people. That number just knocks my socks off, said Dan Hirsch, retired director of the environmental and nuclear policy program at UC Santa Cruz and president of the nonprofit Committee to Bridge the Gap, which released the report Tuesday. Ive never seen somebody claiming that levels that high are acceptable. For comparisons sake, the EPA aims to clean up toxic Superfund sites like the shipyard so that no more than one person in a million would get cancer from the site alone, and the risk is never supposed to exceed one cancer in 10,000. The consequence, according to the research, is that the Navys targets are so lenient that even if the Navy follows its own cleanup standards perfectly, the shipyard may still be dangerous. An EPA spokeswoman said the agency could not comment on the report because it had not had time to review it. A Tetra Tech spokesman said the report is best addressed by the Navy, the property owner and entity that set the contract standards for Hunters Point Shipyard. Tetra Tech has previously denied any wrongdoing in its cleanup work, saying the company performed to Navy specifications. Derek Robinson, environmental cleanup coordinator for the Navy at the shipyard, disputed the reports findings. The Navy's first priority in its Base Realignment and Closure cleanup work at Hunters Point is human health and safety, Robinson said. We stand by our existing cleanup goals at Hunters Point. Todd Trumbull The new report, one of five on the shipyard cleanup that Hirschs group plans to release, relies largely on the Navys own public documents and files from the EPA, which oversees and sets standards for such cleanups. Hirsch collaborated with a group of former and present students to perform the research; the report is co-authored by Taylor Altenbern, Maria Caine, Haakon Williams and Devyn Gortner. The Committee to Bridge the Gap is 48 years old and provides technical expertise to communities dealing with nuclear projects. Hirsch, a persistent critic of nuclear weapons proliferation, has written widely and testified before the U.S. Senate about environmental cleanups at federal facilities, and in recent years he has often critiqued the cleanup at Hunters Point. The former shipyard is one of the most contaminated places in the country, a 500-acre Superfund site riddled with long-lasting radioactive elements spread by the Navy during the Cold War, including plutonium, radium, strontium and cesium. Extremely small amounts of these substances can cause cancer if inhaled or ingested. Since the early 2000s, the Navy has hired contractors to measure and remove radioactivity in soil and buildings, with the EPA and state regulators supposedly watching over its shoulder. But the Committee to Bridge the Gap says the Navys use of obsolete standards has made it seem like it is cleaning up the shipyard when in fact it is leaving behind significant radioactivity, more than enough to pose a health threat to people who live or work there or will in the future. The Navy has already transferred some parcels of shipyard land to the city for development; home builder Lennar has built 450 homes out of a planned 12,000. Some of the people living in those homes are now worried about contamination on the site. Federal, state and city agencies have repeatedly told them they are safe. Hirsch, 68, spoke earlier this month to a group of shipyard homeowners who had invited him to give a presentation on his nonprofits research. A wiry, serious man in a dark jacket, he clicked through PowerPoint slides full of pie charts, bullet points and pictures of the shipyard in its heyday. The Tetra Tech scandal is just the tip of the iceberg, Hirsch said. I think that Tetra Tech is unlikely to have done this on their own. I think they were getting signals, explicit or implicit, from the Navy. In two other reports it released this month, Hirschs research team pointed out that during the Cold War, the Navy brought vast quantities of radioactive materials to the shipyard and then spread them around, burning 600,000 gallons of radioactive fuel oil and sandblasting the irradiated hulls of ships, producing clouds of radioactive dust that settled over the site. The Navy, though, has focused the cleanup on just 10 percent of potentially contaminated areas, declaring the other 90 percent clean based on spotty historical records. The bulk of the shipyard has never been tested for radioactivity. Todd Trumbull On Tuesday the Navy released a brief statement on its website refuting the committees first two reports, writing that the Navy has full confidence in its prior decisions about what to test and what not to test. The new, third report from the committee documents the Navys flouting of federal standards, digging into the crucial role of what are called cleanup goals. The EPA oversees all Superfund cleanups and sets the cleanup goals for a particular site the quantities of toxins that must be removed before the site is declared safe. The goals are based on scientific studies about the cancer risks of various contaminants, and these goals change with time as scientists learn more. Usually they get much stricter. Weve discovered over time that radiation is considerably more dangerous than previously thought, Hirsch said. As the owner of the shipyard, the Navy is responsible for removing the contamination, and it is supposed to follow the latest EPA cleanup goals. Instead, the researchers say, the Navy has been depending on standards from earlier eras, long ago abandoned as unsafe. When the Navy has measured radioactivity in soil at the shipyard, it has been using standards from 1991. When the Navy has measured radioactivity in buildings, it goes back even further, relying on a report from a now-defunct commission written in 1974. Hirsch and his researchers discovered the use of the outdated standards in February 2016, after he asked the researchers to analyze some cleanup documents for a class project. In recent public letters and comments, the EPA has told the Navy to adopt the current standards. Whats at stake, Hirsch said, is the health of people who may one day live and work on the redeveloped shipyard. According to the report, the Navys obsolete standards would allow significant amounts of radioactivity to remain at the shipyard for generations, boosting the chance that residents or workers could receive cancer-causing doses of radiation. The report visualizes these doses by comparing them to equivalent doses from repeated chest X-rays. Scientific authorities say that each chest X-ray increases a persons cancer risk by a small increment, which is why doctors try to limit patients exposure. But the report says the Navys safety limits at the shipyard would allow people to be exposed to a cumulative radiation dose equal to hundreds of chest X-rays every year. This month, at the end of Hirschs presentation to shipyard residents, Greg Pennington, a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit against Lennar and Tetra Tech, asked Hirsch if he would want to live at the shipyard, knowing what he knew. I cant answer the question, Hirsch said. I want to be very candid, which I dont think the agencies have been. The agencies have told you its all safe. Im not going to tell you its all dangerous. The real horror, he said, is that after decades of work, no one knows what is actually in the ground. You want to know whether its safe to be here. And you have a right to know that, and the agencies should never have let it get to the point where you cant know that. Jason Fagone and Cynthia Dizikes are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jason.fagone@sfchronicle.com, cdizikes@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@jfagone, @cdizikes A federal appeals court overturned one of a former Bay Area investment advisers convictions Tuesday but upheld most of the case against him for using a sham hedge fund to defraud investors and banks out of millions of dollars. James Murray of Larkspur was convicted by a federal court jury in October 2015 of 23 felony charges of wire fraud, money laundering and identity theft, as well as criminal contempt of court. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay $3.4 million in restitution to his victims. One of the convictions, which carried a two-year sentence, was for aggravated identity theft, Murrays use of his ex-wifes identification to commit fraud. In Tuesdays ruling, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found a lack of evidence that he had used the identification while committing the fraudulent acts described in the charges. But the court upheld the rest of Murrays convictions, including one for contempt of court while awaiting trial. While released on bail and forbidden to access the internet, the court said, Murray sneaked into a conference room at his lawyers firm, used a computer to try to contact a witness, then hid the computer in the ceiling of the lawyers office. Most of Murrays convictions involved his actions at Market Neutral Trading, a company he established as a purported hedge fund. Prosecutors said he falsified his resume to investors, then issued fake reports about the funds performance and a nonexistent audit by an accounting firm. Murray was also convicted of obtaining 50,000 shares of Netflix stock for a 2012 transaction by falsely telling a bank that Market Neutral Trading had $5 million to invest. .He was additionally found guilty of using credit cards to process a series of sham transactions that he then reversed and pocketed the money. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, who sentenced Murray, included an increased term for use of special skills in committing the crimes. The appeals court upheld the increase, saying Murray held a license allowing him to sell most types of securities and had years of experience in the financial industry, attributes that assisted his creation of the fund and solicitation of investments. The three-judge panel returned the case to Chen for resentencing. Murrays lawyer, Gene Vorobyov, declined to comment. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle Theres nothing recreational about these vehicles. Some 1,200 bulky or barely running RVs are lining San Francisco neighborhood streets, bringing on a war between foot-dragging city officials and furious residents concerned about homelessness. Neglect, as practiced by City Hall, wont help this situation. For years, the problem has drifted as the numbers grew with the campers collecting on little used streets and unmetered spots. Now the vehicles are spreading into residential areas in the southeast corner of the city. Neighbors facing walls of parked RVs are angry about garbage and debris. If these truck-size fleets showed up in tonier parts of San Francisco, theyd be warned away in days, neighbors contend. President Trump has asserted that he will sign an executive order seeking to end the right to U.S. citizenship for children born in the U.S. to noncitizen parents. Despite his insistence to the contrary, Trump cant unilaterally end birthright citizenship. Its a right, and its enshrined in the U.S. Constitutions 14th Amendment. Constitutional amendments cant be overridden by a presidential executive order. Certainly, Trump wont be able to stop birthright citizenship before the midterm elections (although the timing of this announcement suggests hes using it as a political cudgel to boost turnout among the anti-immigrant elements in his base). But Trumps threat represents more than just one mans passing political whim. Birthright citizenship has been a contentious issue among Republican politicians for years. While some Republican leaders, like outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., arent interested in getting rid of birthright citizenship, plenty are eager to restrict or end it. That list includes senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller and powerful U.S. senators like Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. After Trumps statement, Graham immediately announced he would introduce legislation to end birthright citizenship. Should a potential Trump executive order spark a legal case over citizenship, theres also a path for the U.S. Supreme Court to end U.S. citizenship for the children of noncitizens. The last time the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on birthright citizenship was the 1898 case of Wong Kim Ark, a San Francisco-born cook of Chinese descent. After a trip to China, Wong was denied re-entry to the United States so he sued, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor. Since then, courts and lawmakers have relied on the view that even the children of noncitizens are U.S. citizens, by constitutional right, as long as theyre born in this country. But Wongs parents were authorized to be in the United States. So its possible that the Supreme Court, especially one with a newly seated Justice Brett Kavanaugh, could rule narrowly that the children of unauthorized immigrants arent subject to the same rights of citizenship as the children of legal immigrants. This cant be allowed to happen. The language of the 14th Amendment is plain: All persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens. Furthermore, the spirit of the 14th Amendment which was passed during Reconstruction to enfranchise the children of former slaves was to provide a legal bulwark for minorities against violent bigotry. As weve seen over the past terrible week in this country, the need for that bulwark remains as strong as ever. This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters. The era of Angela Merkel is ending. Germanys chancellor, Europes de facto leader and the worlds most powerful woman, will step down in December as leader of her center-right party, the Christian Democratic Union. She will not seek a fifth term as Germanys chancellor when her current mandate expires in 2021. While Merkel has said she is prepared to continue as chancellor until then, odds are that she wont, either because whoever emerges as leader of her party may try to replace her, or the Social Democrats, the junior partner in her coalition government, may bolt the government after being repeatedly hammered by voters at the polls. That could lead to early national elections. Merkels departure will be profound for Europe. She has helped the continent weather a conflation of crises, including the 2008 Great Recession, Russian interventions in Georgia and Ukraine, and successive Greek bailout negotiations that challenged the stability of the eurozone. Through it all, she remained a cautious, principled coalition-builder. Twice she took another path, each time with mixed results. In the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Merkel announced that Germany would abandon its reliance on civilian nuclear power and fossil fuels and turn to green energy. That surprised and angered neighboring countries dependent on Germanys energy grid. Since then, Germany has spent hundreds of billions of euros subsidizing renewables, yet it remains heavily dependent on dirty lignite coal, has failed to lower its greenhouse gas emissions and has abandoned its near-term climate goals. The next time she acted unilaterally was in 2015, when she was faced with a mass of humanity fleeing the conflicts in Iraq and Syria. She took the principled decision to open Germanys borders, eventually taking in more than 1 million refugees. Her government badly managed the inflow, however, and she failed to get European partners to share the burden. For that, she and her party were punished at the polls. The resulting political backlash has fueled virulent right-wing populism in the form of the Alternative for Germany, which has become the largest opposition party in the German parliament and is now represented in all of Germanys 16 state legislatures. Merkels successes and failures alike underscore that during her tenure Germany, the country that once embodied Europes divisions, has once again become Europes central power, the key swing state on a continent in tremendous flux. It is a country with great weight, yet uncertain power. It is selectively strong. Yet it retains significant vulnerabilities and is often beset by self-doubt. As Germany rose, Merkel understood the hesitations of her neighbors and the doubts of her compatriots. She managed Germanys evolution in a way that reassured other countries about Germany and reassured Germans about themselves. That is perhaps her greatest legacy. What comes next? Behind Merkels comforting visage is a Germany that has become less reticent internationally yet more pressured economically. German society is older and more diverse, more open yet less settled politically than when Merkel became chancellor. What used to be a predictable democracy dominated by two big-tent parties has fragmented into a seven-party free-for-all. Germans remain committed to multilateral solutions to international problems. But they have become less inhibited about defining terms of engagement in ways more conducive to German interests. They are still committed to European integration, but they have come to realize that the slogan more Europe isnt always an answer to German questions. German leaders still object to Vladimir Putins invasion of Georgia and Ukraine and feel less bound by World War II guilt when it comes to dealing with Moscow. But after Merkel, pressure will build to relegate eastern European concerns behind efforts to define a new rapprochement with Moscow. Merkels departure also comes at a time when Germanys relationship with the United States is undergoing profound transformation and redefinition. German opinions of America soared to new highs with President Barack Obama. They have dipped to new lows with President Trump. Merkels generation identified with an America that contained Soviet power, ensured Germanys security, promoted European reconciliation and integration and served as trustee for Germanys peaceful unification. Many younger Germans harbor other associations: Iraq, Guantanamo, casino capitalism, NSA eavesdropping, climate change denial, regular mass shootings and lack of gun control, and their own uncomfortable dependency on what many perceive to be a reckless and erratic superpower. As a result, trans-Atlantic deficits in expectation and trust have become as important as those in trade or military capacity. Trumps America expects more from Germany. But Merkels Germany has come to expect less from America. After almost 30 years, united Germanys evolution continues. Along the way, Angela Merkel has offered orientation to neighbors and countrymen alike. I dont envy her successor. Daniel S. Hamilton is professor at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a former U.S. diplomat. Upcoming political events in the Bay Area. THURSDAY Homelessness and gentrification: Poverty scholars Leroy Moore and Lisa Tiny Gray-Garcia of Poor Magazine present strategies for how to educate children, youth and adults about poverty, homelessness, racism, disability and displacement. Free. 7 p.m., Humanities Building Poetry Center, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave. More information is here. Latinx: Author and journalist Ed Morales discusses the political and cultural challenges for the growing Latinx population in the U.S. Free. Mechanics Institute, fourth-floor meeting room, 57 Post St., San Francisco. More information is here. State of Us: A one-night show of visual and performance art focused on the politicization of life. Free. 6-11 p.m., the Nexus Center, 1436 Howard St. No. 201, San Francisco. More information is here. FRIDAY Oakland Muslim forum: Oakland mayoral candidates scheduled to attend a forum focused on issues specific to the Muslim community. Sponsored by Council on American-Islamic Relations and Oakland Privacy. 6:45-8 p.m., Lighthouse Mosque, 620 42nd Street, Oakland. More information is here. SATURDAY Yemen war protest: A rally to protest U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen. 2-4 p.m., U.N. Plaza, 50 Hyde St., San Francisco. More information is here. SUNDAY Love and belonging: Thrive East Bay hosts a get-out-the-vote and upgrade-our-democracy event, A Politics of Love & Belonging. Speakers include East Side Union High School board president J. Manuel Herrera, poet and producer of The North Pole series Josh Healey. Contribution requested. 4-6 p.m., First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St. More information is here. Democratic socialism: An introduction to democratic socialism, hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America: San Francisco. 2 p.m., Alley Cat Books, 3036 24th St, San Francisco. More information is here. Indivisible meeting: General meeting of Indivisible San Francisco. 4-6 p.m., St. Marks Church - Urban Life Center, 1111 OFarrell St., San Francisco. More information is here. MONDAY Democracy in danger: Daniel Ziblatt, author of How Democracies Die, discusses dangers to democracy around the world at the World Affairs Council. $20 nonmembers, $7 students. Noon-1:30 p.m., World Affairs Auditorium, 312 Sutter St., Suite 200, San Francisco. More information is here. Political comedy: An election eve comedy show and get-out-the-vote effort, sponsored by the Comedy Resistance. $5. Stagewerx Theater, 446 Valencia St., San Francisco. More information is here. Election eve comedy: Will Durst, Nato Green and Francesca Fiorentini highlight an election eve comedy show. $9.25. 8 p.m., Punch Line comedy club, 444 Battery St., San Francisco. More information is here. TUESDAY Election night party: Featuring creators of Trump-themed card game Conviction. Free. 6 p.m. PianoFight bar stage, 144 Taylor St., San Francisco. More information is here. Election night party: Hosting by drag queen and activist Honey Mahogany. Flip the House drinking games, board games, music, etc. Free. Mannys, 3092 16th St., San Francisco. More information is here. Watch party: Sister District San Francisco and partners in the S.F. Resistance Coalition host an election night watch party. Free. 6 p.m., Standard Deviant Brewing, 280 14th St., San Francisco. More information is here. Tech for Campaigns party: Election night watch party for campaigns the group has worked on and others. Free for donors and volunteers, $50 for others. 5 p.m., Pedros Cantina, 128 King St., San Francisco. More information is here. Watch party: Fight for a Better America hosts a returns watch party. $20. 6 p.m., Monroe Jazz Lounge, 473 Broadway, San Francisco. More information is here. Tenderloin watch party: A returns-watch party for the Tenderloin community. Free. 7 p.m., 512 Ellis St., San Francisco. More information is here. Democracy watch gathering: Election night to watch the returns and consider the state of American democracy with James Miller, author of Can Democracy Work? A Short History of a Radical Idea, from Ancient Athens to Our World, and UC Berkeley philosophy Professor Hans Sluga. Sponsored by Starline Social Club. Free. 7 p.m., 2236 Martin Luther King Junior Way, Oakland. More information is here. WEDNESDAY Election recap: Day-after recap from Indivisible, Swing Left and Sister District San Francisco. $8. 7-8:30 p.m., Mannys, 3092 16th St., San Francisco. More information is here. Jeffrey Rosen: Scholar and author examines constitutional questions and the post-Anthony Kennedy Supreme Court. Sponsored by Commonwealth Club. $25 for nonmembers, $10 for students. 6:30-7:30 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here. NOV. 8 Susan Rice: Former President Barack Obamas national security adviser and U.N. ambassador discusses U.S. foreign policy priorities and national security interests. Sponsored by the World Affairs Council. $40 for nonmembers, $10 for students. 6:30-7:30 p.m., Marines Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter St., San Francisco. More information is here. Digital privacy: Will Yoon, senior director of product counseling at Dropbox, discusses whether warrantless search and seizure of cell phone records violate the Fourth Amendment. Part of Rooftop Law School. Free. 5:30-7 p.m., Ironclad headquarters, 325 Fifth St., San Francisco. More information is here. NOV. 11 Civil conversation: A Better Angels Skills Workshop to learn skills for having respectful conversations that clarify differences between politics among families and friends, search for common ground and affirm the importance of the relationship. Free. 1-3:30 p.m., Twin Towers United Methodist Church, 1411 Oak St., Alameda. More information is here. Election analysis: East Bay Peace Action sponsors a gathering featuring Eric See presenting a post-election analysis. 2 p.m. at the Fred Weaver Residence Center, St. Pauls Tower, 100 Bay Place, Oakland. More information is here. NOV. 12 Climate change meetup: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist Mark Levine presents an insiders view of the science behind the latest International Panel on Climate Change special report, Global Warming of 1.5C. $8. Sponsored by Climate Reality. Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics, 518 Valencia St., San Francisco. More information is here. NOV. 13 Women in politics: San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim, Close the Gap founder Mary Hughes, and Chronicle columnist Heather Knight join Oral History Center interviewer Amanda Tewes for a conversation about the challenges, successes, and history of women involved in local politics. Hosted by the Ruby. $10 for nonmembers. 6-8 p.m., 23rd and Bryant streets, San Francisco. More information is here. Israel and U.S.: Avraham Burg, former interim president of Israel, speaks on Israels complexities and the growing tension between American Jewry and Israel at the Peninsula Jewish Community Center. $20. 7:30-9 p.m., 800 Foster City Blvd., Foster City. More information is here. NOV. 14 Consumer protection: Discussion with David Vladeck, former director of the Federal Trade Commissions Bureau of Consumer Protection under President Barack Obama. Topics include the future of consumer protection and antitrust law, unfair and deceptive acts and practices, and privacy and data security. Hosted by Civil Justice Research Initiative. Free. 12:55-2 p.m., Boalt Hall, Room 110, UC Berkeley. More information is here. NOV. 15 Digital government: Code for America founder Jennifer Pahlka, California CIO Amy Tong and California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Michael Wilkening discuss the future of digital government in California. $15. 5:30-7:30 p.m., Code for America, 155 Ninth St., San Francisco. More information is here. NOV. 16 Higher education priorities: College Futures Foundation president Monica Lozano and Mark Baldassare, head of the Public Policy Institute of California, discuss the institutes new higher education survey and priorities for the new governor. Free. 9-10 a.m., Bechtel Conference Center at PPIC, 500 Washington St., San Francisco. More information is here. NOV. 19 Case against Trump: Bill Press, radio-show host and former chair of California Democratic Party, discusses the case against Trump at the Commonwealth Club. $25 for nonmembers, $10 for students. Noon-1 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here. NOV. 27 Ginsburg biographer: Jane Sherron De Hart discusses her book Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life. $15. 7 p.m., Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California St. More information is here. NOV. 29 Fake news: Alexander Sangerlaub, project director of Misinformation in Digital Media leads a panel discussion on the terminology of fake news in a transnational framework and ways to check the spread of misinformation. Free. 6:30-9 p.m. at the Goethe-Institut San Francisco, 530 Bush St., No. 204. More information is here. To list an event, email Politics Editor Trapper Byrne at tbyrne@sfchronicle.com WASHINGTON Women are on the ballot in the 2018 midterms and its not just the record number running for office. Two key pieces of legislation championed by California Democrats that deal with sexual harassment and sexual and gender-based violence will live or die during the lame-duck congressional session that follows next weeks elections. Neither issue is directly on the ballot, but voters could still send a clear message about them. Recent polls asking whether voters prefer Democratic or Republican House candidates in their districts have shown a substantial gender gap. In a recent CNN/SSRS survey, women preferred Democrats by nearly 2-1. If that gap is reflected in the balloting Tuesday, it could create a sense of urgency for the measures when lawmakers return to Washington. If not, it could sap momentum. Its very important for men and women who believe in equality to register their votes in the ballot box, said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, who is working on both measures. If the bills are not resolved in the lame-duck session, their backers will have to start from scratch when the new Congress is seated in January. Both measures are in a holding pattern until after the election, according to multiple staffers and lawmakers in both parties and chambers. The Congressional Accountability Act reform, authored in part by Speier, brings the #MeToo movement to Congress. It seeks to change how Congress handles sexual harassment allegations against lawmakers and staffers, setting baseline standards for all offices, adding transparency and personal liability for judgments and settlements against House and Senate members, and redesigning the reporting process to be less onerous for people bringing accusations. Versions of the bill have passed the House and Senate, but negotiations have so far failed to reconcile the two. The Violence Against Women Act, long championed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and already extended three months, will expire in December if Congress doesnt renew it. The legislation, first passed in 1994 and renewed every five years since, provides for grant programs, federal resources and legal structures to raise awareness, protect victims and penalize perpetrators of domestic and sexual violence. Nearly all House Democrats have signed onto a reauthorization bill by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas that they say would close loopholes in the legislation. Republicans say negotiations continue. The #MeToo bill has broken down along chamber lines rather than partisan ones. Speier is working closely with Alabama Republican Rep. Bradley Byrne, and Speaker Paul Ryan and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi are standing behind the House-passed bill over the Senate version. The Senate tends to believe that as the upper house, the peons in the House will do whatever the Senate recommends, Speier said. They passed a measure that doesnt meet the standards imposed on the House side, and the leadership stood strong and said, No, were not going to accept that. House negotiators point to three provisions lacking from the Senate bill that they want in a final version: independent investigations into harassment claims, a requirement that lawmakers pay for any liability awards or settlements against them, and legal representation for people who come forward with accusations. The Senate does not want any type of investigation, which is ironic in that there are all those senators during the hearing on Judge (Brett) Kavanaugh who were demanding an investigation, Byrne said. Why wouldnt we hold ourselves to that same standard? A spokeswoman for Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., a lead author on the Senate version, said only that talks with the House are ongoing. Although Speier says the election results will be meaningful to the bills prospects, Byrne disagrees. Look, it doesnt matter who controls the Congress after the election the American people expect us to deal with this, he said. Talks over the Violence Against Women Act, however, have been partisan. Democrats and advocates for victims of domestic violence insist on changes including restricting domestic abusers access to guns and creating housing protections for victims. Republicans have yet to agree to those or make clear what changes they are comfortable with. Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called strengthening the law particularly important given the broader #MeToo movement and said she was committed to meaningful improvements that meet the needs of victims and survivors. Senate negotiations suffered a setback during the bitter Supreme Court confirmation hearings on Kavanaugh. Advocates working on the legislation wrote a letter to Republican leadership withdrawing from talks over grave concerns about GOP senators actions during the hearings that failed to demonstrate the lessons learned through the implementation of VAWA over the past 24 years. A spokesman for Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said the Iowa Republican is confident that the law will be reauthorized before its expiration date and is fully supportive of renewing and extending it. But a short-term extension also is on the table, along with an as-is renewal of the law, he said. Advocates and Democratic lawmakers working on the bills hope election results will motivate both chambers to get something done. I think the American people have been sending a message, and I hope they will raise their voices and continue to send a message that this needs to get done, said Vania Leveille, a senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. Tal Kopan is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter @talkopan Twenty-four underused parcels of land in SoMa most of which are parking lots could be turned into affordable-housing projects, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday. An ordinance authored by Supervisor Jane Kim will allow the city to build 100 percent affordable-housing units in an area that was previously reserved for light industrial use. While all of the lots may not be suitable for housing, the Planning Department said the zoning change could lead to 600 or more 100-percent affordable units. The measure was passed unanimously by the board. The zoning change comes as the board negotiates the details of the Central SoMa plan, which would revamp a portion of downtown San Francisco with 8,550 housing units and a projected 32,500 jobs. The plan, which has been widely criticized even by Kim for not including enough affordable-housing units, is working its way through the approval process. It is incredibly important to get every unit of affordable housing, said Jon Jacobo, a legislative aide for Kim. Especially with ... Central SoMa, the community needs every unit of affordable housing that it can get. Also at Tuesdays meeting, the board took a big step toward expanding the citys ability to compel homeless people suffering from debilitating mental illnesses or drug addiction into treatment. Supervisor Rafael Mandelman and Mayor London Breed introduced legislation that would opt the city in to a new conservatorship pilot program under a new state law, SB1045. The proposal comes a month after Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill by state Sen. Scott Wiener that gives San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles counties the ability to expand their local conservatorship laws. Introduction of this ordinance allows us to start a conversation that will no doubt take some time, Mandelman said. Because every day that San Franciscans suffer on our streets and in our jails from severe untreated substance-abuse disorder and mental illness is one day too many, a day that this government is failing. Tuesdays introduction is the first step in the process of crafting the local policy. A plan is being developed with the Department of Public Health, the Department of Human Services, the city attorneys office and other agencies on how to implement the program. Then the board will hold a hearing to determine whether the city has enough resources to treat people conserved under SB1045s guidelines. The board also approved an ordinance that would compel landlords of residential buildings that have received at least two fire safety violations to upgrade or install sprinkler and alarm systems. Under the ordinance by Supervisor Hillary Ronen, the Department of Building Inspection and the Fire Department may order owners to upgrade problematic buildings without passing the cost of compliance on to their tenants. Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani Maureen Hurley has been coming to Gold Mirror on Taraval since she was 8. She can point across the dining room at her cousin, Sheila Birmingham, a twice-a-week regular who has lived across the street from owner Josephine Di Grande for more than four decades. The Italian restaurant has become the place where Hurleys Irish Catholic family comes together for confirmation parties and graduations. Her kids have brought dates here, attended by waiters who have received a discreet call beforehand with a credit card number. Three months before the Gold Mirrors 50th anniversary, only San Francisco itself seems to have changed. The back wall is still painted to mimic the facade of a stone-walled villa, its center an arched wooden doorway flanked by red lanterns, barricaded windows (well, windows) and an inset statue. The iron chandeliers would not look out of place in a Medieval Times outpost. Over the mirrored bar, where red lights frame the liquor collection, is a cutout of a 17 century carriage with a photo of a toque-carrying chef founder Giuseppe Di Grande at its center. On Friday and Saturday nights, the waiters thread with the agility of toreadors through herds of diners who have come to the Gold Mirror, night after night, decade after decade. Youre welcome to have Che Fico and Flour + Water, they argue. Here, new San Franciscans, is where the rest of us belong. When Giuseppe Di Grande, now 78, moved to San Francisco from Augusta, Sicily, at the age of 15, America didnt present him with college scholarships or career counselors. It was either work in the shipyards or work in a restaurant, son Roberto says. The Sicilian newcomer learned how to cook then-chic Northern Italian cuisine at Orsis, where he encountered a couple of partners who joined him in buying an old cocktail lounge in the Irish-dominated Parkside neighborhood, which they redecorated and opened, keeping the same name. (For a look at the original gold mirror, check out the NSFW painting next to the bathroom.) Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle Giuseppe returned to Sicily to marry Josephine in 1973, and she moved to San Francisco and bore four children in quick succession. When they were little, she says, she was afraid to leave the house, even to chase after the kids, until one of their grammar-school teachers gave her English lessons. She had to dispense with all timidity after 1984, when Giuseppe bought out his partners, purchased the building, and made Josephine his business partner. From then on, Giuseppe oversaw the kitchen by himself, starting at 8 in the morning and finishing 16 hours later no days off, not even Christmas or Thanksgiving while Josephine ran the dining room, coming home after service to keep the books. All four children, naturally, grew up in the restaurant. (We were conceived in the kitchen, Roberto says, and his mother cackles.) Better bring your kids here in the night or else theyd be in the street, the couple decided. I started working when I was 10 years old, Domenico says. By the age of 12, I could bake, I could butcher meat. At 15, I was already 6 feet tall and looked like I was 18. I was working the pantry. Two of their siblings moved on, but Dom, now 42, and Roberto, 39, returned to the restaurant after college, taking over a decade ago as Giuseppe stepped away. The brothers shop at farmers markets and spend more time choosing their wines. Theyve started importing products directly from Sicily. These days they close on Christmas and Thanksgiving, too, and add specials to the menu that Giuseppe might never have imagined customers would want. Yet they still make the crepes for the veal cannelloni the way their father taught them and still fold their own prosciutto tortellini Roberto likes to set up an iPad in the kitchen and watch episodes of Rescue Me while he knocks out batches. Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle Domenico and Roberto have hired a young Italian cook to ease the pressure on their three-cook line, but also to give them the space to think: How can they bottle up what makes the Gold Mirror so special? Their front of house manager, Emily Patterson, and her husband, Connor, who owns a restaurant group on the East Coast, have joined them to look for a second location. Theres only so much the younger Di Grandes want to change, or can: This is a place where regulars request a dish that has been off the menu for 20 years Chicken Romana, Veal di Parma and the brothers can pull together the ingredients to re-create it. Since the early 1980s, the neighborhood has changed 10 times over, Dom says. It has become more Chinese and less Irish. The homeowners with families have moved away and now rent their old houses to young couples who work in tech. Each new wave makes its way to the Mirror. And then they come back. Sunday night, the families still come in its not unusual to have more than 10 parties of 10 in one night. On Friday and Saturday nights, the vibe is more akin to a party. Regulars arrive early to stand at the bar, migrate to a table after a drink or two, and return to the bar after their meal. They walk back into the kitchen to say hello to Dom and Roberto. Theres something about Italian restaurants the old-school kind, not the ones where you have to chase a reservation that engenders a ferocious loyalty. As good as the Mirrors calamari steak or the chicken piccata are, according to the regulars, the dishes feel homey, generous, unpretentious. So does the atmosphere, stone faux finishes and all. Italians, we are warm-hearted, says Josephine, now 71, who recently resumed spending a few shifts a week in the dining room. You have pain, but you smile all the time. Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more. When we come here, the hostess is the same, the waitstaff gets to know you, says Shane Brentham, a once-a-week regular for a decade. They dont treat you like customers. Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle Maureen Hurley says she runs into everyone she knows at the Mirror. Even more common is to start chatting with someone at the bar. We know we have something in common, and we dont know what it is, she says. They run through all the possible points of connection: neighborhood, high school, parish, children. Then we find it. To be a regular, regulars explain, means slipping in after a long workday and claiming the same spot at the bar. It means greeting Dean, the bartender, who reaches for the ingredients to make your perfect rye manhattan. It means the waiters write for Amy on your steak order, and Dom and Roberto know to cook the beef extra rare. It means cracking wise with the staff, the way you do with your co-workers or friends, or even texting with the waiters off-duty. Its open and inviting. No one is standoffish, say Julianne Hunt and Mike Dunne, who have come here for 50 years. They still spend an hour at the bar, charming customers in their 20s, before taking their customary seats, where they can surveil the entire dining room as they eat. This is the best restaurant in San Francisco. Gold Mirror: 800 Taraval St., San Francisco, (415_ 564-0401, https://goldmirrorrestaurant.com. Open for lunch Monday-Friday and dinner 7 days a week. Jonathan Kauffman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jkauffman@sfchronicle.com. Twitter/Instagram: @jonkauffman It started with a small altar in her sons classroom 20 years ago. Rosa Martinez, a native of Oaxaca, wanted to bring her familys Day of the Dead traditions into the Catholic school attached to the Mission Dolores Basilica. The display of paper flowers, sugar skulls and family photos grew every year, until it lined the schools hallways. In 2012, it moved inside the church itself, an explosion of red, orange and yellow that joyfully erupts from the otherwise cool, dark basilica every November. Its become part of our tradition, said Maria Rosales-Uribe, a City College professor and director of religious education at Mission Dolores Basilica. While some of the indigenous elements inherent to el Dia de los Muertos, which begins Oct. 31 and culminates Nov. 2 on All Souls Day, could be considered pagan to mainstream U.S. Catholics, the churchs leaders embraced the holiday long before the 2017 Pixar film Coco turned the tradition into a pop culture phenomenon, and far before you could buy skull-themed party decorations and papel picado at Target. With Martinezs help, the Mission Dolores Basilicas largely Latino congregation works to respect the holidays traditions and honor its indigenous roots. I was shy at first. The symbols are not necessarily Christian, said Martinez, a soft-spoken chef with a Oaxacan food business named Origen. But its muy religioso (sacred) in Oaxaca. Since the 1970s, theres been a separate Day of the Dead procession on Nov. 2 that heads down 24th Street to a Festival of Altars in Garfield Park. That event has become so popular that some feel it has become co-opted by those who see it as an excuse to wear costumes and drink in the street, or to turn the event into a political statement. I personally think its appropriation, said Rosales-Uribe. Its a big party. Inside Mission Dolores Basilica, the holiday is more quiet and personal, which suits Martinez, who still heads up the altar construction each year. The construction finished on Saturday, the day of a family-oriented Dia de Los Muertos festival co-hosted by the U.S. Park Service and old Mission San Francisco de Asis, which is next door to the basilica and the site of the citys only remaining civilian cemetery. There were face painting and crafts, Mexican hot chocolate and Martinezs tamales. Martinez takes her own Day of the Dead traditions from her hometown in San Juan Cacahuatepec, Oaxaca, which has Aztec roots. On Oct. 30, her family builds a small path outside the home with candles and a cross decorated with marigolds, which have a strong scent and bright color, all meant to welcome the souls of the ancestors and help them find their way to the house. Day of the Dead events Mission Dolores Basilica: Dia de los Muertos altar will be up until Nov. 24. https://www.missiondolores.org. Corner of Dolores and 16th streets. Night at the Museum: 7 p.m. Friday-Sunday. Nighttime tours of the cemetery for suggested $5 donation; flashlights recommended. See More Collapse On Oct. 31, a day for remembering babies and small children, they build a small arch over the altar inside. They prepare arroz con leche (rice pudding), hot chocolate and sweet tamales nothing spicy. All of the food must by ready by noon, when they also light copal (incense) to attract the souls inside the house to eat, she said. The food has to come from the stove to the altar, she said, before the living can eat it. The souls eat the steam. Friends are invited to come over and pray. After the food has been on the altar for a few hours, they eat. The next day they prepare another celebration for adults that will take place on Nov. 2, with a larger arch and spicy tamales, squash and hot chocolate. Again, the foods must go on the altar at noon, followed by prayer. On Nov. 3, they spend the day at the cemetery. Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more. Inside the basilica, Martinez explains that the altar is set up on different levels to be like stairs leading to heaven. The basic elements are represented: air by papel picado or hanging flowers, which swing in the wind; earth by fruit, flowers and food; fire by candles; and water in small bowls. This year, they added something Rosales-Uribe saw at the new Coco exhibit at Disney California Adventure Park: long strings with small signs that hang from the ceiling. Visitors can add the name of a loved one they wish to remember, and church members will affix it to one of the signs. At the end of the Saturday festival, park rangers set up a fire in a parking lot behind the church. Visitors were invited to add marigolds to the flames while saying a few words to their lost parents, grandparents, siblings, spouses or pets. Rosales-Uribe dedicated a flower to 5-year-old Caitlin Emma Arce, a former member of the congregation who died of cancer in September. Martinez dedicated hers to her parents, her sister and her two brothers, who died in Oaxaca while she was here. You have this moment you can say what you never got to say to that person, she said. Tara Duggan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tduggan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @taraduggan The nearly two-year race to rehab the nations tallest dam after an almost-catastrophic failure prompted the evacuation of 188,000 people is scheduled to wrap up in time for the rainy season. State water officials who manage the 770-foot-high Oroville Dam said Wednesday theyve met their Nov. 1 deadline for rebuilding most of the complexs two faulty spillways. Final touches are still being made, but the dam is ready to discharge water should an early winter storm fill up the reservoir and require releases. The cost of the work, on top of the initial emergency response, soared to $1.1 billion, according to the state, far exceeding the initial estimates of a few hundred million dollars. State officials, though, said the higher price tag was necessary to quickly secure a reservoir that provides vital flood protection for the Oroville area and holds water for millions of people in the Central Valley, Bay Area and Southern California. We rebuilt the spillways in under two years, said Joel Ledesma, deputy director of the California Department of Water Resources, who addressed reporters on the eve of Thursdays target completion date. But we know it will take longer to to fulfill our commitment to rebuild our trust and credibility with our surrounding communities. Problems surfaced at the Oroville Dam, on the Feather River about 75 miles north of Sacramento, on Feb. 7, 2017. A giant hole opened up in the structures main spillway as it was being used to release water during pounding rain. Dam managers then turned to an emergency spillway, essentially a barren hillside, to discharge water, but it also began to erode. Fears that water would spill uncontrollably from the reservoir led to the evacuation of several communities downstream. Tens of thousands packed their cars and hastily joined the frenzy trying to leave town in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Fortunately, water levels in the reservoir dropped before there was major flooding. A team of independent engineers tapped by the state to look into the episode cited a history of shoddy maintenance at the dam and a failure to adequately review for problems. The team determined that weakened concrete in the main spillway and poor drainage at least partly triggered the near-disaster. The incident propelled not only one of the biggest construction projects in recent state history, as well as one of the fastest, but some major soul-searching about the condition of the 50-year-old Oroville Dam and the rest of Californias aging water infrastructure. California and federal dam inspectors have since beefed up evaluations of water facilities across the state, and hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from Sacramento and Washington has helped facilitate upgrades. Authorities acknowledge that more work needs to be done. At Oroville Dam, the southwest shore of the reservoir has been an around-the-clock construction zone since May 2017, when repairs began in earnest. Two concrete plants were set up along the lake and dump trucks, cranes and other heave machinery have ferried materials for reshaping the facade of the dam. About 1.2 million cubic yards of concrete have been poured to date, enough to fill 372 Olympic-size swimming pools, according to the state. More than 700 employees, mostly from contractor Kiewit Corp. of Nebraska, have been on the job. Earlier this month, crews succeeded in completely rebuilding the half-mile-long main spillway where the initial fracture occurred. The chute is as wide as a 15-lane freeway and averages 7 feet thick. Drainage work on the spillway continues. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. If we need to use the spillway now, its ready and its done, said Erin Mellon, a spokeswoman for the Department of Water Resources. The chute now is capable of handling up to 270,000 cubic feet of water per second, officials said, much more than dam operators would ever want to release into the narrow river channel below. The hillside that serves as the emergency spillway, meanwhile, has been armored with concrete and a retaining wall to make sure it doesnt erode like it did in 2017. Some of the buttressing is still being done, officials said. They hope to sign off on the emergency spillway early next year. Neither the emergency spillway nor the main spillway has been used since spring of 2017. While state officials said the chutes were rebuilt to a point where water could have been released last winter, dam managers kept the reservoir level particularly low so the spillways wouldnt likely be needed. The Department of Water Resources expects that 75 percent of the cost of the dam work will be paid for by the federal government. The state has so far submitted only a fraction of its invoices to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and received less than $100 million in reimbursement. The balance of the cost is likely to be passed on to the residential and agricultural customers of the California State Water Project. Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander The San Francisco Board of Supervisors issued a rare rebuke of the city water department Tuesday, claiming the agency is on the wrong side of a state water debate that pits California against President Trump. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which provides water to the city and more than two dozen suburbs, has fiercely opposed a far-reaching state plan to revive Californias river system, including the languishing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, because it means giving up precious water supplies. The agencys bid to protect its stake on the Tuolumne River, high in the mountains of Yosemite, and prevent potential water shortages has aligned it with similarly concerned Central Valley agricultural suppliers and their allies in the Trump administration. The unlikely alliance has created a powerful bloc that has so far succeeded in sidelining the states restoration effort. San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin put forward a resolution Tuesday, insisting that a city known for its environmental bona fides should stand up for the rivers and not partner with Washington to let them run dry. The board unanimously approved his measure, which pledges full city support for the state plan. The plan is scheduled to be taken up by state officials next week. Its time for a new page, Peskin said. It is time not to act like a business enterprise, but realize the health of our region is at stake. The mostly symbolic resolution stops short of telling the quasi-independent Public Utilities Commission what to do. But it sends a signal to the water agency about where the supervisors stand and that more severe action could follow. Officials at the Public Utilities Commission said after Tuesdays vote that they had no intent to stop pushing for a solution that would provide more water to the city than is currently promised in the state proposal. They cited a provision in the resolution that allows for additional talks with the state. We support the goals of the state plan, but not the methods that they are using to get to that goal, said spokesman Tyler Gamble. Were going to continue moving forward with the negotiations. Peskin has threatened to use the boards budgetary powers to weaken the Public Utilities Commission if the agency puts up too much of a fight. The initiative by the State Water Resources Control Board comes as the rivers that once poured from the Sierra Nevada run low because of relentless pumping by cities and farms. The lack of water has decimated the delta, a critical juncture for salmon and other wildlife as well as the hub of Californias water supplies. To address the impending crisis, state officials want to boost the amount of water in the San Joaquin River and its tributaries that flow to the delta by limiting draws to no more than 60 percent of a river's flow during peak runoff periods. Currently, some rivers run at just 10 percent of their natural level. The state water board is slated to vote on the proposal next Wednesday. A similar initiative for the Sacramento River and its tributaries is expected to follow. Environmental groups and the fishing industry, which have long supported the states restoration effort, applauded Tuesdays action by the Board of Supervisors. We have renewed hope that well finally get a little bit more water in the rivers that is so desperately needed, said John McManus, president of the Golden Gate Salmon Association. Largely due to insufficient river flows, the number of salmon in the San Joaquin River watershed has plummeted to a fraction of the tens of thousands that spawned there just decades ago. The decline has had a heavy toll on fishermen. McManus speculated that without San Franciscos opposition, the state water board would be more inclined to move forward with its plan next week. The Public Utilities Commissions unlikely alliance with agricultural water suppliers on an issue often split between urban and rural interests had given city water officials unusual clout on the matter. For more than a year, moderators tapped by the state to work with opponents of the state plan, including former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, had urged the city to back off. So had Gov. Jerry Brown. Peskin acknowledged that the Public Utilities Commission could continue to work behind the scenes to fight the state, but he said his resolution is almost certain to prevent the agency from taking legal action. While state officials have touted the so-called Bay Delta Plan as a compromise that will help rescue Californias river system yet still leave the bulk of water for humans, several municipal water agencies and irrigation districts believe theyre not getting enough. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. Meeting the states target on the San Joaquin River and its tributaries would mean drawing 7 to 23 percent less water, according to state estimates. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has said the plan would necessitate immediate development of alternative water sources, like desalination plants, prompting higher water rates of as much as 17 percent over 15 years in order to fund the new infrastructure. Water rationing may also be needed until additional supplies come on line, according to the agency. Our core responsibility is to deliver clean, reliable, safe drinking water, said Harlan Kelly, the Public Utilities Commission general manager, at a committee hearing Monday on Peskins resolution. We are prepared to put more aside, but we thought it must be done in a responsible way. The agency has maintained that it can revive struggling salmon runs on the Tuolumne River without major water cuts to cities, though the state and independent scientists say thats not possible. Opponents of the Bay Delta Plan have won recent support from Washington, where Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has characterized the states proposal as a water grab and threatened to take legal action to stop it. President Trump has criticized California on Twitter for being foolish for not wanting to pump more water from the rivers. At Mondays preliminary hearing on the San Francisco resolution, a handful of labor activists and workforce development officials also questioned the states push to withhold supplies from people when shortages could affect businesses and jobs. Mayor London Breed has been mum on the issue. She declined repeated attempts by The Chronicle to get her to comment on efforts to restore the rivers and the delta ecosystem. Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was shared and upvoted on Reddit on October 30th, 2018. The original publishing date was six years earlier. When work crews pulled open a broken BART escalator at San Francisco's Civic Center Station last month, they found so much human excrement in its works they had to call a hazardous-materials team. While the sheer volume of human waste was surprising, its presence was not. Once the stations close, the bottom of BART station stairwells in downtown San Francisco are often a prime location for homeless people to camp for the night or find a private place to relieve themselves. All those biological excretions can gum up the wheels and gears of BART's escalators, shutting them down for long periods of extended repairs, increasing station cleaning costs and creating an unpleasant aroma for morning commuters. Five of the nine escalators that weren't working at BART stations on Wednesday were in downtown San Francisco, said Jim Allison, a BART spokesman. While there are many reasons a BART escalator can break down, the beating they take at night is among the most acute. The problem is tough to combat, especially with so few downtown public restrooms open late, BART authorities said. Officers have to witness someone in the act to issue a citation, said Officer Era Jenkins, a BART police spokeswoman. Must witness to cite "Nobody wants to be walking in urine and feces, I know that, (but) if we don't see it or the person doesn't admit to it, they can just say it was someone else," Jenkins said. "Certain crimes you don't see, you can't enforce." BART police officers sweep "each and every stairwell at each and every station" before the stations open in the morning and ask people who spent the night in the station to move somewhere else, Jenkins said. If they spot a mess, the officers alert cleaning crews, Jenkins said. Station surveillance cameras usually are not monitored when the stations are closed, she said. San Francisco police officers also can check the downtown station stairwells, but they generally only respond when someone complains, which isn't often, said Albie Esparza, a San Francisco police spokesman. "When they are out of sight, people don't usually call about them," he said. Not much BART can do BART officials point out that they have little ability to change the reasons people camp at the base of BART stairs or use the plaza of the 16th Street/Mission BART Station as a public urinal, an issue highlighted in a recent Chronicle Watch. "As much as we like to have an oasis from the rest of the world, we don't look at (these issues) in isolation, we look at (them) as part of a puzzle," Allison said. BART officials have recently begun meeting with San Francisco authorities to explore ways of cleaning up the 16th Street plaza. Those conversations could easily evolve to encompass the downtown stairwells, Allison said. Chronicle Watch If you know of something that needs to be improved, the Chronicle Watch team wants to hear from you. E-mail your issue to chroniclewatch@sfchronicle.com, or reach us on Twitter at@sfchronwatch and facebook.com/sfchronwatch. Every Wednesday morning, SFGATE finds the biggest headlines in local (and sometimes national) beer. Check back here weekly for news, events, and information about special releases from your favorite local breweries. SFGATE has a biweekly beer newsletter! Called the Taploid, it contains key stories from this column, as well as other, more nationally-spanning industry news. To sign up, head here, enter your email at the top, and check the box marked "Taploid." We're back after a week off! Let's jump in: It may be an awkward weeknight for Halloween's fall festivities, but that's not stopping breweries from pretending it's the weekend. Boney Fingers (the beer, that is) will surely be ample at Moonlight Brewing's Halloween bash Wednesday in the North Bay, and San Francisco's Anchor Brewing will host their own city-side event at their Public Taps in the Potrero, featuring a costume contest and tunes spun by BFF.fm. Oakland's Temescal Brewing will go for an entirely different vibe with their Spooky Puppy dog costume contest (with prizes!), for which they'll release a special beer for the occasion. And over in Berkeley, Novel Brewing will crack into the cellar to release some special brews during their Halloween party, which will also include a Jack-O-Lantern contest and special deals for anyone dressed like a pirate. Love barleywine? Toronado doesn't care. But in any case, the folks behind the grumpiest beer bar in town are nevertheless holding their 25th annual Barleywine Fest this Saturday, November 3, and are bringing back the judges panel for the event. Prepare your livers they're going "all out" for their quarter-century event. For those who slept on the news, Golden Road, the AB InBev-owned brewery attempting to plot a shipping container-constructed brewpub in the Temescal neighborhood of Oakland, squashed plans last week after hitting "numerous roadblocks," the Chronicle reported. Logistical reasons, like noise and parking concerns may be the official culprits for the scrapped idea, but the idea was unpopular with the locals from the start. Fieldwork Brewing, which last week held their annual "Oktolberfest" fundraiser for Berkeley Humane, raised an incredible $32,000 for the organization: Seismic Brewing has announced plans to expand into a new taproom in Sebastopol. Not much has been laid out yet, but the brewery hopes to have it open by Spring 2019. Beginning November 1, Magnolia Brewing will launch its Eclectic IPA month, helmed by the guy who literally wrote the book on the topic, Dick Cantwell. Joining him in the venture is 21st Amendment; together, they'll release new and odd IPAs every week, utilizing unconventional adjunct ingredients like shiso leaves, Buddha's Hand, Cha Dem Ten tea, and gooseberries. Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira. The world loves chocolate. But keeping pace with global cravings can be a tall order for chocolate producers a challenge made even tougher as climate change and disease threaten the worlds cocoa supply. The threat has prompted major companies like candy bar giant Mars which makes Snickers, M&Ms, and Dove chocolate, among other products to find a solution in biotechnology. The company said this month that it has hired Benson Hill Biosystems, a Missouri biotech firm, to outfit it with computing tools to help develop more resilient cacao trees, which produce the beans used to make chocolate. Cacao is a pretty fragile crop, increasingly affected by climate change and disease pressure, said Howard Shapiro, chief agricultural officer for Mars. Forty percent of the crop is lost each year due to fungal, viral, and pest problems. This is a huge problem for manufacturers like Mars. If its hotter and its more moist, there are vectors for disease that can thrive more in that environment, said Matt Crisp, Benson Hills president and CEO. In some cases with crops like this, they are deforesting higher elevations to move the crop into altitudes where its cooler, and is resemblant of the environment that this plant might have grown in 20 or 30 years ago, when it was really thriving or more stably being produced. Benson Hill will help the Mars cacao experts who have bred the plant for 20 years by designing software that uses data on plant genetics and traits to speed up and streamline the breeding process. What our platform is working to do is tap into that natural genetic diversity of the cacao tree, Crisp said. We can use Benson Hills CropOS analytics engine to understand how we can more rapidly tap into that genetic diversity and find lines of genetic variance that make that plant less susceptible to these types of conditions. Developed by Benson Hill over the past 2 years, the technique uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to couple plants genomic information with records of their physical traits, often gleaned through years of observations and field studies. It basically accesses a lot of the information that these companies have collected over the years, said Dylan Kesler, a lead data scientist for Benson Hill and a former assistant professor at the University of Missouri. The approach can shave years off the development process, while also narrowing the plant breeding options that companies like Mars have to weigh for field trials. Say instead of taking 10 years, we can take five years. Instead of taking 10,000 options, lets start with the best 500, Kesler said. We simulate those offspring with machine learning to predict the quality of those offspring. Computational breeding and other advancements such as genome editing and sequencing combine for what Mars and Benson Hill see as opportunities in new areas of agriculture. Cocoa is one of the top 10 commodities traded globally and yet it lags behind other crops in terms of scientific research, Shapiro said. This is the type of technology that the big guys historically have had, but have focused on developing a very few number of crops, said Crisp, naming corn and soybeans as top examples honed by major agribusiness companies. Its our belief that there are dozens if not hundreds of other crops that deserve innovation. As Crisp points out, other commodities have been hit by disease or other threats. Bananas, papayas and Florida oranges are all examples dominated by monocultures meaning a single crop variety and jeopardized by disease. Crisp said commercial cacao trees have more diversity than those, but that an overall lesson about using biotech as a catalyst for much-needed genetic diversification is still applicable. Weve got to get deliberate about tapping into that natural genetic diversity, or were just going to keep hearing about these stories over and over and over again. Crisp said. The this disease is going to decimate that crop. And the story line is just going to keep playing. Bryce Gray is a St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer. The Ashby BART Station in Berkeley was closed early Wednesday for nearly three hours after a bleeding man left a pool of blood at the station, officials said. The station was reopened by about 7:20 a.m. The incident occurred about 4:15 a.m. when a man bleeding profusely walked into the station and refused to cooperate with authorities, said Jim Allison, a spokesman for BART. The man told authorities his hand was accidentally cut by glass, Allison said. Police do not believe a crime was involved, he added. The man, who was not identified, was uncooperative and restrained by BART police before being transported to the hospital. With enough blood left behind, BART police felt the safest thing to do is to close the station, Allison said. No trains were stopping through the station as of 6:15 a.m. to prevent passengers from being exposed to the blood, he added. There were no delays on BART. AC Transit provided transportation between Berkeley, Ashby and MacArthur stations. Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani PITTSBURGH Pittsburghs Jewish community began burying its dead Tuesday after the synagogue massacre, holding funerals for a beloved family doctor, a pillar of the congregation, and two 50-something brothers known as the Rosenthal boys. President Trump, meanwhile, arrived in Pittsburgh to pay his respects and encountered hundreds of shouting, chanting protesters with signs such as Its your fault and Words matter, a reference to allegations his bellicose language has emboldened bigots. Pennsylvanias governor and the mayor of Pittsburgh declined to join him during the visit. Earlier in the day, thousands of mourners jammed a synagogue, a Jewish community center and a third, undisclosed site for the first in a weeklong series of funerals for victims of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, Daniel Stein and Cecil and David Rosenthal were among 11 people killed in the shooting rampage at the Tree of Life synagogue Saturday. Robert Gregory Bowers, a 46-year-old truck driver who authorities say raged against Jews, was arrested on federal hate-crime charges that could bring the death penalty. More than 1,000 people poured into Rodef Shalom, one of the citys oldest and largest synagogues, to mourn the Rosenthal brothers, ages 59 and 54. The two intellectually disabled men were beautiful souls who had not an ounce of hate in them something were terribly missing today, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, a survivor of the massacre, said at their funeral. A private funeral was held for the 66-year-old Rabinowitz was a go-to doctor for HIV patients in the epidemics early and desperate days, a physician who always hugged his patients as they left his office. A private funeral was also held for Stein, the 71-year-old mens club president at Tree of Life. Trump and first lady Melania Trump landed in Pittsburgh after the days services and lit candles at Tree of Life for the victims. Outside, they laid white roses as well as stones for each of the dead, a Jewish burial tradition. The president and first lady later went to a hospital to visit with survivors. They were joined by Trumps daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, as well as Myers, the Tree of Life rabbi, and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer. Hundreds of protesters gathered near the synagogue and the hospital. Maryclaire Dale and Allen G. Breed are Associated Press writers. WASHINGTON President Trump is making another hardline immigration play in the final days before the midterm elections, declaring that he wants to order an end to the constitutional right to citizenship for babies born in the United States to non-citizens. Most scholars think he cant implement such a change unilaterally. With seven days to go before high-stakes elections that he has sought to focus on fearmongering over immigration, Trump made the comments to Axios on HBO. Trump, seeking to energize his supporters and help Republicans keep control of Congress, has stoked anxiety about a caravan of Central American migrants making its way to the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump has long called for an end to birthright citizenship, as have many conservatives. An executive order would spark an uphill legal battle for Trump about whether the president has the unilateral ability to declare that children born in the U.S. to those living here illegally arent citizens. Asked about the legality of such an executive order, Trump said, theyre saying I can do it just with an executive order. He added that were the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States. A 2010 study from the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that supports immigration restrictions, showed that 30 countries offered birthright citizenship. The president said White House lawyers are reviewing his proposal. Its unclear how quickly he would act and the White House did not provide further details. Republicans in Congress continue introducing bills to end birthright citizenship, including legislation this session from conservative GOP Rep. Steve King of Iowa who has aligned himself with some nationalist political leaders abroad. Kings bill has almost 50 co-sponsors in the House. Kings legislation though would likely face a cool reception in the Senate where there is no companion bill pending, and a handful of senators supported past efforts. King said he had not discussed the issue with the president at any length in recent months, but that it had come up in passing several times in group discussions. He said he hadnt personally considered birthright citizenship to be part of the caravan issue and applauded the president for connecting the issues. Sending this message out, its another component of saying to the caravan: Dont come in here. Some are pregnant, no doubt, he said. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, now a close ally of the president, also tweeted his support for the change. A look at birthright citizenship What is birthright citizenship? A right, recognized by about 30 nations, including the U.S., to claim citizenship in the country where you were born. What does the Constitution say about birthright citizenship? The Fourteenth Amendment, one of three constitutional amendments enacted after the Civil War to promote equality, begins, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." How has the Supreme Court interpreted that language? In a 6-2 ruling in U.S. vs. Wong Kim Ark in 1898, the court said all U.S.-born children are U.S. citizens at birth, with a few narrow exceptions, including children of foreign diplomats and children of hostile forces occupying the U.S. All others, regardless of parentage, are "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States and thus protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, the court said. The case before the court involved a San Francisco man who was denied permission to leave a steamship and return to his home in the city because his parents were noncitizens who had been born in China, but were living legally in this country. The court did not draw a distinction between the children of parents who were documented or undocumented, and the ruling has generally been interpreted as conferring citizenship on all children born in the United States. But a future Supreme Court could make that distinction. Does Trump have the power to enforce his executive order? No, unless the court revisits and reinterprets or overturns the 1898 ruling. Such an order, if it were to take effect, would apply only to future children, not to those already holding birthright citizenship. As of November 2016, according to the Pew Research Center, there were 3.9 million U.S. children in grades kindergarten through 12 whose parents included at least one undocumented immigrant. Unless the Supreme Court changes course on the issue, it would require a new constitutional amendment. A new amendment can be proposed by Congress, with two-thirds approval in both houses, or by a constitutional convention called by legislatures in two-thirds of the states. Final approval requires ratification by legislatures in three-fourths of the states. - Bob Egelko See More Collapse This policy is a magnet for illegal immigration, out of the mainstream of the developed world, and needs to come to an end, he said. Laurie Kellman and Catherine Lucey are Associated Press writers. Mike Roemer / Associated Press WASHINGTON President Trump is kicking off a final rally blitz with just days to go before midterm elections that will determine whether Republicans retain control of Congress. Hell attend 11 events across eight battlefield states over the next six days. The final push was set to begin Wednesday night in Estero, just outside Fort Myers, in Florida, where Republican Gov. Rick Scott is challenging Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson for U.S. Senate. Democrat Andrew Gillum and Republican Ron DeSantis are locked in a tight race to replace Scott as governor. Trumps rally lineup also includes a stop in Pensacola, Fla. He has scheduled two rallies each in Indiana and Missouri, plus stops in Tennessee, Georgia, Ohio, Montana and West Virginia. The former treasurer of a public employees union in Oakland pleaded guilty to embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the labor organization, authorities said Tuesday. Susan Elizabeth Kyle, 61, admitted to taking $490,338 from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2428, which represents East Bay Regional Parks employees, according to U.S. Attorney Alex Tses office. Kyle was the unions treasurer from 1999 to 2014. She was charged with embezzlement on Oct. 5. SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) Two suspects were arrested after allegedly ramming a plainclothes San Francisco police officer's vehicle near the city's northern waterfront on Tuesday afternoon, police said today. The officer was hospitalized with injuries not considered life-threatening after being rammed around 1:30 p.m. in the first block of Bay Street, according to police. Police did not immediately release the names of the suspects or what led to them ramming the officer's vehicle. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) San Francisco Mayor London Breed has introduced citywide legislation to implement a new conservatorship law that helps house and treat homeless people suffering from mental health and substance abuse issues. Senate Bill 1045, authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, allows the counties of San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego to set up a conservator in cases for people who can't care for themselves. In conjunction with the city legislation, Breed announced that she intends to add between 70 and 90 new beds for mental health patients to the city's navigation centers and hospitals over the next year. "This is about getting people who are severely ill the help they desperately need," Breed said in a statement. "There is a small subset of our homeless population that are clearly, visibly suffering on our streets." She said, "They are frequently in and out of the hospital or criminal justice system, but they never receive the comprehensive care they need to stabilize and get back on their feet. It is simply inhumane for us to allow them to continue to deteriorate without intervening." Breed has directed the city's Department of Public Health to figure out ways to increase the number of beds at the city's navigations centers and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. At Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, along with Breed, introduced the legislation to support SB 1045. "I believe it is imperative that we move the ball forward," Mandelman said. "Everyday that San Franciscans suffer in our streets and jails for untreated mental illness is one day too many. We cannot continue to allow our neighborhoods to serve as open mental institutions and shelters as jails." He said, "SB 1045 is not a cure all. It does offer a new tool to help people suffering from severe mental illness and addiction ... We must seize every opportunity to improve conditions of those suffering mental illness." "I am thrilled that San Francisco is moving to implement my bill, SB 1045, which will help some of our most vulnerable residents get the help they need," Wiener said in a statement. "I am grateful to Mayor Breed and Supervisor Mandelman for understanding that the faster we implement this tool, the faster we can help those suffering on our streets." SB 1045, signed into law last month by Gov. Jerry Brown, is set to take effect on Jan. 1. According to Breed's office, the city's health department has estimated that the new conservatorship law will impact between 50 and 100 people in the city; individuals who are the most likely to need city services. Last year, only about 12 percent of homeless people who used city services accounted for 73 percent of the costs. A coalition of several groups, including the Coalition on Homelessness, have voiced opposition to SB 1045, arguing that conservatorship takes away individuals' civil liberties, affecting decisions about their body, housing and medical care. The Coalition on Homelessness is pushing for Proposition C on this November's city elections, which would use a business tax to provide funds for housing and treating homeless people suffering from mental health and substance abuse issues. Breed and Wiener have both opposed Proposition C, arguing that the conservatorship law is the way to ease the city's homelessness crisis. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bystanders helped deputies arrest a suspect who stabbed a 19-year-old woman at Cabrillo College in Aptos this afternoon, according to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office. Steven Wooding, 48, allegedly stabbed the woman at 11:45 a.m. and was held down by a cafeteria manager and students until deputies arrived on scene minutes later, according to Sgt. Brian Cleveland. "It could have been a lot worse, the bravery of those staff members probably saved this girl's life," Cleveland said. The victim is currently at a Bay Area trauma center in stable condition. Wooding had received a restraining order from the university a few weeks before because of repeated "harassing" phone calls, Cleveland said. Wooding was a student at the college about 10 years ago, when he was arrested and placed in a state mental health facility after attacking a person on campus, according to Cleveland. Deputies allegedly retrieved a knife from the scene of the stabbing and are currently interviewing Wooding before booking him in jail. Counselors will be available throughout the day to assist students and faculty at Cabrillo College. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. WALNUT CREEK (BCN) An 8-month-old girl died Tuesday from injuries she suffered in a four-car collision last Thursday in Walnut Creek and the driver of one of the vehicles has been charged with murder and DUI, police said. According to police, the girl died at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland. Police said that earlier Tuesday, Contra Costa County prosecutors filed murder charges against 35-year-old Jessica Martin of Tennessee. The child is the second person to die from injuries in the collision, which occurred at 6:32 p.m. on South Broadway, according to police. Hector Garza, 45, of Walnut Creek also died. Police said Martin suffered moderate injuries and was taken to a hospital where she was arrested. Police said Martin was traveling south on South Broadway while the three other vehicles were traveling north on South Broadway. Martin is being held on $2.1 million bail. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. SAN JOSE (BCN) The San Jose City Council approved an approximately $6.3 million proposal this afternoon to overhaul the city's parking system with mobile technology, stronger payment security and a new license plate recognition system. All city-owned parking lots will receive the modernized system through a contract with New Jersey-based Sentry Control Systems. The city also approved a $7 million contract with the company for parking at Mineta San Jose International Airport. Visitors will be able to use mobile payment applications such as Google, Apple and Samsung Pay, access 24-hour customer service and use a new automatic license plate verification system. The proposal says the automatic license plate readers will be used only to authorize drivers in and out of lots, enforce parking and payment laws and audit parking transactions. Under the approved proposal, the city is restricted from selling camera data for commercial use, disclosing whether certain data exists or monitoring individual activities protected by the First Amendment. Police and other city agencies will have access to the data. The proposal includes a contingency plan and employee training for any hacks or data breaches that may occur. The new parking system will be in effect for one year, at which point the city can extend it for the next decade through the General Purpose Parking Capital Fund and the Airport Renewal and Replacement Fund. The city said its current parking system, installed over 10 years ago, no longer meets the technological demands of San Jose. The city's eight parking garages generated about $12 million in revenue from 1.5 million downtown visitors and additional permit holders this year, according to the city proposal. The airport generated another $32 million from parking. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) A federal judge has dismissed a civil rights lawsuit in which five present and former Jewish students and two community members claimed San Francisco State University tolerated and sometimes encouraged anti-Semitic conduct. U.S. District Judge William Orrick of San Francisco said the lawsuit didn't allege adequate facts to support the claim of discrimination and hostility toward Jewish students and people of Israeli descent. He dismissed the case in a 41-page ruling filed late Monday. The judge wrote, "I understand that these plaintiffs, and some other members of the Jewish or Israeli community in or around SFSU, feel deeply that SFSU has not done enough to curtail others' anti-Semitic behaviors and to foster a better environment for Jewish and pro-Israeli students." But he said the acts described in the lawsuit "do not adequately allege a violation of federal anti-discrimination laws so that liability may be imposed on SFSU, its administrators, or its faculty." The lawsuit was the third version of a case originally filed by six former and current students in June 2017. Orrick dismissed the second version in March of this year for similar reasons of insufficient allegations, but allowed the students to revise the lawsuit and before that to revise the first version. In Monday's decision, he dismissed the third version and denied permission for another revision. The defendants in the lawsuit were the university, President Les Wong, eight other administrators and Professor Rabab Abdulhadi, who teaches in the university's College of Ethnic Studies. The Lawfare Project, a New York-based pro-Israel legal group representing the students, said it will appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "We strongly disagree with the order and intend to pursue an appeal. We always knew the road to justice will be long," the project said in a statement. The project has also filed a state court lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court against the university's trustees on behalf of two of the students. The case is currently scheduled for trial next March. SFSU spokeswoman Mary Kenny said, "The university has no additional comment." In previous statements, the university has said its administrators do not tolerate discrimination and that it is "deeply committed to the elimination of anti-Semitism in our community and to fostering a safe and welcoming campus for our Jewish students." Among other allegations, the suit claimed campus administrators failed to stop pro-Palestinian demonstrators from drowning out a speech by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat on April 6, 2016. It also alleged the campus branch of Hillel International, a Jewish students' group, was unfairly excluded from a campus "Know Your Rights" fair aimed at members of vulnerable populations on Feb. 18, 2017. Orrick said the students hadn't shown evidence of a specific intent by administrators to discriminate or of a significant impairment of the students' education. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. The father of a 3-year-old boy who remains in critical condition after he was shot in East Oakland on Monday night has been arrested in connection with the shooting, police said. Police announced the arrest Tuesday. The shooting was reported at about 7:23 p.m. on Monday when San Leandro police told Oakland police that a gunshot victim had been walked into a hospital, according to authorities. Oakland police said they have confirmed that the shooting occurred inside a home in the 10900 block of Robledo Drive in Oakland. After the boy was taken to a hospital he was transferred to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, where he remains in critical condition. A Florida man charged with sending packages with explosive materials to political opponents of President Donald Trump allegedly searched online for the term "UC Berkeley Library," but there is no reason to believe any explosives were sent to the school, campus police said. Police made the announcement Tuesday. Cesar Sayoc was arrested last week after packages were sent around the country addressed to recipients including former President Barack Obama, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, actor Robert De Niro and the TV news network CNN. Some packages were sent to California, including one addressed to U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris that was intercepted in Sacramento and another intercepted in Burlingame that was addressed to former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer, who has spearheaded a campaign to impeach Trump. UC Berkeley police issued a community advisory Tuesday afternoon saying additional investigation by the FBI found Sayoc allegedly looked up "UC Berkeley Library" as an Internet search. A man who allegedly was pointing a replica pellet gun at people on Interstate Highway 880 in Oakland was safely taken into custody and transported to a psychiatric hospital for a 72-hour hold, the California Highway Patrol said. At 9:45 a.m. Tuesday CHP Oakland area units were notified of an adult male suspect who was armed with a gun, acting erratically and pointing it at people on northbound Highway 880 north of the 66th Avenue exit, according to the CHP. A helicopter with the CHP air operations unit flew to the scene and reported that the suspect was standing on top of his Ford Econoline van and was armed with a handgun, the CHP said. Northbound traffic on Highway 880 was temporarily stopped as CHP and Oakland police officers who responded to the scene ordered the man to come down from his vehicle and he was taken into custody without incident, according to the CHP. Police who searched the man found a Sig Sauer P320 replica pellet gun in his front waistband, the CHP said. Sheriff's deputies responding to reports of a naked man attempting to throw a woman off a balcony after struggling with her for control of an infant arrived to find the suspect unresponsive in unincorporated eastern Contra Costa County near Oakley. Just after 3:25 a.m., Tuesday deputies responded to a report of a woman screaming in the 3500 block of Wells Road near Bethel Island. There were multiple callers. One reported a naked man struggling with the woman for control of an infant. Others reported that the woman had handed the infant off, and the child had been secured in a nearby residence, according to the sheriff's office. The man and woman continued to struggle, and the man allegedly tried to throw her off a balcony but four neighbors intervened and restrained him while the victim fled to a safe place, sheriff's officials said. The suspect was still being restrained when deputies arrived and handcuffed him, but shortly after that they observed that he was unresponsive. They called for medical personnel, who performed CPR for roughly 10 minutes before transporting him to a hospital. A woman who died Monday night while riding a bicycle in the Woodacre area of Marin County was identified as Debra DiBenedetto, a teacher at Dixie Elementary School in San Rafael, Principal Will Anderson said. Anderson identified DiBenedetto as a teacher at his school Tuesday. DiBenedetto, 63, from San Geronimo, was with the Dixie School District for over 20 years, according to Anderson. "We are heartbroken. On Friday night, we are planning a Dia de los Muertos/Harvest Festival where we will include a moment of silence in honor of (her) service to our community," Anderson said. Grief counselors supported students and staff today at the school located at 1175 Idylberry Road, Anderson said. DiBenedetto, a second-grade teacher, was riding a bicycle when she was struck by a 2006 Ford Explorer on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard west of Railroad Avenue around 5:30 p.m., according to the California Highway Patrol. Santa Clara County supervisors have considered creating a specialized unit to enforce firearm bans on individuals with domestic violence restraining orders. Supervisors considered the unit on Tuesday. Supervisor Cindy Chavez, who requested a study for the proposal in June, heard about the issue through San Jose resident Scott Largent, who said at Tuesday's supervisors meeting he was able to keep his guns when he was the subject of a restraining order from his ex-wife. He said it became a peaceful contact order three weeks after it was issued, but law enforcement made no effort to take his guns during that time. State law currently prohibits people with either permanent or temporary domestic violence restraining orders from having a gun. "There was no follow-through on anything," he said of the domestic complaint process, which prevented him from seeing his daughter over the course of two years while his ex-partner violated the visitation order. "It's a mess Cindy, it's really a mess." A federal judge has dismissed a civil rights lawsuit in which five present and former Jewish students and two community members claimed San Francisco State University tolerated and sometimes encouraged anti-Semitic conduct. U.S. District Judge William Orrick of San Francisco said the lawsuit didn't allege adequate facts to support the claim of discrimination and hostility toward Jewish students and people of Israeli descent. He dismissed the case in a 41-page ruling filed late Monday. The judge wrote, "I understand that these plaintiffs, and some other members of the Jewish or Israeli community in or around SFSU, feel deeply that SFSU has not done enough to curtail others' anti-Semitic behaviors and to foster a better environment for Jewish and pro-Israeli students." But he said the acts described in the lawsuit "do not adequately allege a violation of federal anti-discrimination laws so that liability may be imposed on SFSU, its administrators, or its faculty." The lawsuit was the third version of a case originally filed by six former and current students in June 2017. At least two people have died following a multiple-vehicle collision that is still blocking all lanes of northbound Interstate Highway 880 near Whipple Avenue in Union City early this morning, according to the California Highway Patrol. The CHP said the collision was first reported around 10:40 p.m. Tuesday and involves at least four vehicles, including a big rig and tour bus. According to the CHP, the victims who died were driving in separate motor vehicles, not the big rig or tour bus. As of 2:30 a.m., the CHP said the northbound freeway remains closed and isn't estimated to be reopened until around 6 a.m. No further information is immediately available. Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Not a Halloween costume-- this is Missouri Republican candidate Steve West Republican Party. But instead of committing him to an insane asylum, Trump votes decided he belongs in Jefferson City representing them in the state legislature. Last year West told KCXL listeners that "Looking back in history, unfortunately, Hitler was right about what was taking place in Germany. And who was behind it."His defense was that "Jews today are a remnant of the tribe of Judah that rejected Christ." He also suggested that "Maybe Jews shouldn't vote for me." Today Last August we warned Missouri readers about a Trumpist candidate in Kansas City, Steve West, a Missouri Nazi who the Republican Party has nominated for the General Assembly. "West," we wrote at the time, "is a hate-talk radio host, so it's not like Republicans didn't know what he was all about before they voted for him in Tuesday's 4-way GOP primary. District 15 is a pretty blue Kansas City (Gladstone) district and the incumbent is Jon Carpenter. He was renominated-- without opposition-- with 3,757 votes. The Trump Party primary drew 3,003 votes between the 4 candidates. West came in first with 1,485 votes (49.5%). His closest competition was Timothy Harris with 24.4%. People who listen to West's show would be the Q-Anon types. West babbles nonsensically about how "Jewish cabals" are "harvesting baby parts" through Planned Parenthood, which tortures and molests children and which runs run. But instead of committing him to an insane asylum, Trump votes decided he belongs in Jefferson City representing them in the state legislature. Last year West told KCXL listeners that "Looking back in history, unfortunately, Hitler was right about what was taking place in Germany. And who was behind it."His defense was that "Jews today are a remnant of the tribe of Judah that rejected Christ." He also suggested that "Maybe Jews shouldn't vote for me." Today his daughter said that no one should The Kansas City Star reported that "Emily West has a message for voters in Missouri House District 15. Dont vote for her dad. "I cant imagine him being in any level of government." Her dad is Steve West, 64, the Republican candidate for the Missouri General Assembly who made headlines after winning the GOP primary in August when word spread about his radio show and website through which he regularly espoused an array of bigotry including homophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and outright racism. A lot of his views are just very out there, Emily West said. Hes made multiple comments that are racist and homophobic and how he doesnt like the Jews. She said she grew concerned when she drove through the Clay County House district over the weekend-- which covers Gladstone and a part of Kansas City, North-- and saw lots of yard signs in support of her father. I think its just insane that people are putting out his signs, she said. You see his signs everywhere. I dont understand how people can put out his signs knowing the comments that hes made. Anti-Semitism is again dominating the headlines after 11 people were killed Saturday in a mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh that is being called the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in U. S. history. Authorities said the gunman told a SWAT officer after he was shot and captured that I just want to kill Jews. The accused shooter appeared to have an extensive anti-Semitic social media profile, posting one threatening message just minutes before the attack. West denounced the shooting on Monday, and said some of his comments in recent months have been taken out of context. I absolutely renounce what took place there, he said. I have never, never suggested anything like that. When stuff like that happens, it is a terrible travesty and injustice. I would never condone any violence against any people because of a specific race or religion or anything else. Karen Aroesty, regional director of ADL Heartland, said those who espouse hateful rhetoric bear some responsibility when violence erupts. I think anybody whos willing to make hate public and willing to state formally and be out there with their hate-based identity, theyd better be accountable to how people respond to them, she said. When you put it out there, you have to know that youre accountable in society today, and given the capacity of the internet to move information so fast, youre going to be influencing people far beyond your neighborhood. Does West belong in the General Assembly? If somebody who is on the record as being hateful toward groups of people who they might represent if elected, is that something that society wants? Aroesty said. I would question how they make public policy for an entire constituency. But people are going to have to make that choice. I cant make that choice for them. The Missouri Republican Party issued a statement in August saying that Wests shocking and vile comments do not reflect the position of the Missouri Republican Party or indeed of any decent individual. Both the Missouri GOP and West himself, want to distance themselves from anti-Semitism. "Who, me????" is how they both responded. Just like Trump. But on his radio show last week, West claimed Jews are assaulting America. "They have been giving us gay marriage, pornography, abortion, everything thats anti-ChristianThis is what they do. This is how they corrupt a Christian nation, because they are an anti-Christ people." His Democratic opponent, Jon Carpenter, the incumbent, said "West has engaged in the most radical and hateful anti-Semitism and bigotry that Ive ever seen. The events of the weekend were a tragedy. Clearly, hate and bigotry are on the rise in this country and its up to each of us to do our part to stand up against that... Im deeply disturbed by his candidacy and its my hope that the voters of the 15th District overwhelmingly reject that kind of bigotry on election day." West's daughter agrees and told The Star that her father "has always been kind of radical and out there," and that his views have become more extreme in recent years. She said her fathers actions have caused a rift between him and his children. The last time they talked, she said, was a couple of days after the August primary. West received about as many votes as the three other GOP candidates combined. I asked him to drop out and said, I think its a really bad idea that youre running and I dont think this is going to end well for you, she said. And he told me that this is what his life has been about and that everything in his life has come to this moment and its the most important thing. And I said, OK, then I dont want to talk to you. I dont want you to be a part of my life. And I havent talked to him since. West blames his ex-wife for his daughters attitude toward him. I had a toxic divorce from my ex-wife and shes poisoned my kids, and I have to live with that, he said. Im sorry that shes decided to make a political issue that doesnt need to be. West said he thinks he has a good shot at being elected. I have a good reputation, he said. These people are trying to paint me as some monster. But I have been in this community for a long time, Im very well known. A lot of people know me, and they dont have those experiences with me. Theres a good chance Im going to win. Still no endorsement tweet from Senor Trumpanzee, but still plenty of time. How about a Kansas City rally? Despite what a recent congressional campaign ad suggests, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is not responsible for the blight of a coastal village in southeastern England. Cardiologist Nick Stella, who is trying to unseat incumbent Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill., in Illinois' 11th district, recently ran an ad attacking his opponent and, by proxy, Pelosi. "Only you can stop this from becoming reality!" the ad reads. It features a photo of a rundown street and a billboard that says, "Congratulations Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi." "We can't go back to foreclosures, unemployment, and economic recession!" text at the bottom of the ad exclaims. The town featured in the attack ad, Jaywick Sands, is actually nowhere near Illinois, or Pelosi's California: Jaywick sits on the English Channel, in Essex. The town has had it's share of hard luck, but community members are not pleased by Stella's unsavory depiction of their village, nor its use in his campaign. "I know that many Jaywick Sands residents will be outraged at being smeared in this way, and rightly so," Paul Honeywood, a council cabinet member who presides over Jaywick, told the BBC. Britain's Indices of Deprivation rated the town as the most deprived neighborhood in England in 2010 and 2015. Since then, the village has undergone a $7.35 million renovation program to improve its roads and infrastructure. The local council provided the BBC with an updated photograph of the street, appearing in much better condition than depicted by the image in the Stella ad. Raquel Mitchell, director of operations for Stella's campaign, told the BBC that they never intended to defame the town. "We have learned, and it is great to know, the town pictured has recovered from economic hardship," she said. "Let it serve as an example of how government responding to the needs of people can overcome hardship." "I'm sure Jaywick Sands is charming. Perhaps a future visit would be a great way to exchange ideas between the two areas." The ad is still posted on the Stella for Congress Facebook page. Foster is expected to win the election. Read Michelle Robertson's latest stories and send her news tips at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com. Start receiving breaking news emails on wildfires, civil emergencies, riots, national breaking news, Amber Alerts, weather emergencies, and other critical events with the SFGATE breaking news email. Click here to make sure you get the news. It's time to get that 2018 bucket list in order and, if you love meals with stunning sunsets, this might help you get your travel prioritized. We took a look at Quora's popular thread "Which restaurants of the world provide you with the best views," as well OpenTable's annual list of the "100 Most Scenic Restaurants in America" to find some of the world's most photogenic eateries. Although many destinations require a passport, Bay Area residents are lucky: three locations in our list are local. ISLAMABAD A Christian woman who spent eight years on death row under Pakistans blasphemy law was acquitted and released Wednesday by the countrys top court, a ruling that raised fears of violence by religious extremists who held angry protests over the verdict. After she was freed, Asia Bibi was taken to an undisclosed location for her safety, and her lawyer said she would soon leave the country. France and Spain have offered asylum to the 54-year-old mother of five, who is a Roman Catholic. Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, who had received death threats, announced the landmark verdict that fully overturned her 2010 conviction to a packed courtroom amid increased security. Thousands of supporters of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik party, led by firebrand cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi, took to the streets in protests, demanding Bibis public execution. Rizvi has turned out tens of thousands of supporters before, often forcing authorities to bow to his demands on religious matters. Hundreds of Islamists blocked a road linking the city of Rawalpindi with the capital, Islamabad, and protests were held in Karachi, Peshawar and other cities. In the eastern city of Multan, police arrested several demonstrators after clashes. Security forces moved quickly, deploying outside churches to protect minority Christians and urging demonstrators to disperse peacefully. Commandos were sent to protect Nisar and the other two judges of the high court after a cleric in the eastern city of Lahore urged religious extremists to kill them. The outburst over the divisive blasphemy law prompted Prime Minister Imran Khan to go on national TV to guarantee their safety and criticize those who made verbal attacks on Pakistans institutions, including his government. They are not serving Islam, but trying to increase their vote bank, Khan said of the clerics. They are doing their politics. The verdict was seen as a hopeful sign by Christians in Pakistan, where the mere rumor of blasphemy can spark lynchings. Religious minorities, who have been repeatedly targeted by extremists, fear the law because it is often used to settle scores and to pressure minorities. Religious extremists have made defending the law a central rallying cry and have attacked those who question it. Zarar Khan and Munir Ahmed are Associated Press writers. WASHINGTON At an apparent turning point in one of its hardest foreign policy challenges, the Trump administration is demanding a cease-fire and the launch of U.N.-led political talks to end the Saudi-Iran proxy war in Yemen. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called for a halt to hostilities within 30 days. The renewed diplomatic drive reflects a convergence of political pressures: international outrage over the slaying of a U.S.-based Saudi journalist and a Yemeni humanitarian crisis fueled by the dual threats of war and hunger in the Arab worlds poorest country. The time is now for a cessation of hostilities, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a written statement late Tuesday. His plea came shortly after Mattis spoke in unusual detail about diplomacy to end a crisis that has put vast numbers of Yemenis on the brink of starvation. The administrations new push comes amid mounting fears of a fresh Arab coalition assault on the Red Sea port of Hodeida, the entry point for 70 percent of food imports and international aid to Yemen. Yemen has more problems than any people deserve to carry, Mattis said. The conflict in Yemen began with the 2014 takeover of the capital, Sanaa, and the toppling of the government by the Houthis, a Shiite Muslim minority in the country. The Saudi-led coalition allied with the government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015. An estimated 10,000 people have been killed. The war has also left around two-thirds of Yemens population of 27 million relying on aid, and more than 8 million at risk of starvation. The fact that the Pentagon chief offered detailed thoughts on the urgency of a need for diplomatic progress, even before Pompeo had weighed in, strongly suggests that the administration has reached a turning point in its approach to Yemen. Robert Burns and Matthew Lee are Associated Press writers. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. This includes cookies from third party social media websites and ad networks. Such third party cookies may track your use on Sharedots sites for better rendering. Our partners use cookies to ensure we show you advertising that is relevant to you. If you continue without changing your settings, we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on Sharedots website. However, you can change your cookie settings at any time. Learn more Please use another Browser It looks like you are using a browser that is not fully supported. Please note that there might be constraints on site display and usability. For the best experience we suggest that you download the newest version of a supported browser: Internet Explorer, Chrome Browser, Firefox Browser, Safari Browser Continue with the current browser By: Tom Krychkowski | Special to the Advance New York, NY | The College of Staten Island women's volleyball team was unable to snap their 20-match losing skid against Baruch College tonight after falling in straight sets to the No.4 Bearcats in the CUNYAC Quarterfinal round. The No. 5 seeded Dolphins finish their season 10-15 while Baruch advances to the CUNYAC Semifinal round. The Dolphins got off to a strong start against the Bearcats, taking the first four points before the Bearcats called a timeout to put an early end to CSI's hot streak. The well-timed stoppage worked in favor of Baruch as they were able to rally back to take an 8-7 lead. Once they earned the lead, Baruch did not relinquish that lead for the rest of the set. A 7-3 run stretched Baruch's lead out to 18-11, putting the Dolphins in a hole they were unable to get out of. Set two was in favor of the Bearcats from the first serve. Baruch jumped out to a 9-1 lead before Margaret O'Malley-Rebovich was able to add another point to CSI's total. The Dolphins were unable to build off of that as the Bearcats continued to stretch their lead. As the set grew longer the Dolphins found themselves back in the set. Down 24-14 the Dolphins were one point from falling behind 2-0 in the match but a 7-0 run led by Francesca Castellano and O'Malley-Rebovich brought them within two. Just when it looked as if the Dolphins were going to knot the match up at one apiece, Anita Sengara closed the set out to put her team up 2-0. With the sting of defeat still fresh in their minds, the Dolphins came out looking to gain a footing in the match. Staten Island was able to secure a lead thanks to kills by Castellano and Jay-La Guy paired up with a pair of attacking errors by Baruch. The Bearcats settled in, however, and took a 14-13 lead and remained in charge for the rest of the set. Once again, the Dolphins made a late push but were unable to climb the mountain in front of them. The Dolphins finished with their best CUNYAC record since 2009, 5-3, and look forward to a promising season next year. CITY HALL -- In the face of the #MeToo movement and revelations that the New York City Police Departments unit that leads sexual assault investigations is understaffed, the New York City Council passed a package of legislation Wednesday to improve the agencys interactions victims of sexual assault and harassment. Earlier this year, a report from the citys Department of Investigations (DOI) found that the NYPD had understaffed and provided limited resources to the agencys Special Victims Division for at least nine years. As of March 2018, DOI said the NYPDs Special Victims Division had just 67 detectives out of the 97 that had been recommended, despite a 65.3 percent increase in the units adult sex crime caseload since 2009. A bill sponsored by Island Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North Shore) would require the NYPD to report on the staffing and caseloads for Special Victims Division investigators and also report on how the staffing levels were considered for the unit. While more than 70 percent of crimes overall in New York City are reported to authorities, only 5 to 20 [percent] of sexual assaults are reported, Rose said. Among the many reasons for this unacceptably low number is the gross understaffing of Special Victims Divisions in the NYPD, with only 67 detectives available to investigate roughly 5,600 sex crimes per year. As more and more sexual assaults and past incidents of sexual abuse are reported, it is imperative that victims feel confident that their cases will be investigated (and) move forward in a timely manner. In 2017, the units had a caseload of 5,661 sexual assault investigations and only 67 detectives to investigate the cases. One of the other bills would require new NYPD recruits to receive specialized training on how to respond to victims of sexual assault and harassment, while another would require the NYPD to create a comprehensive Special Victims Training Program for new Special Victims Divisions hires and provide a report on how many officers participated. FOLLOW SYDNEY KASHIWAGI ON TWITTER. Its no surprise that recent news about the New York Wheel has sparked discussions about Staten Island and its rapidly evolving North Shore. However, what is surprising is the misguided perception that the future of the North Shore and the borough itself was dependent upon the success or failure of the Wheel. Were Staten Islanders and we know better. After years of overlooked development opportunities to revive the North Shore, we can now see the results of hard work, determination and vision as the new Empire Outlets and Lighthouse Point projects approach completion. The way I see it, our future has never looked brighter. Theres no question that the Wheel would have complemented new developments rising throughout the area and there are several chapters still to be written on the future of the Wheel site. But the resurgence of the North Shore, including our work at Empire Outlets, never relied on the Wheel. Its about the people. Lets be clear: When we decided make a substantial investment in Staten Island and build Empire Outlets New York Citys first and only outlet center adjacent to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, the idea of the Wheel didnt even exist yet. Instead, we embarked on our project knowing that the Staten Island Ferry brings 24 million people to and from our under-retailed borough every year including approximately four million tourists. Thats approximately 70,000 rides per day. In fact, the Ferry is the citys fourth most popular tourist attraction and its ridership is only increasing. The question is: why are there more people than ever coming to Staten Island? Just take a look at whats happening on the North Shore. Destination St. George has made a short trip on the Ferry more worthwhile than it was 10 years ago, or even a just few years ago. Visitors can now enjoy new programming at the beloved St. George Theatre, catch a game at the Staten Island Yankees gorgeous ballpark, visit Snug Harbor, one of New York Citys most interesting cultural venues, and take part in exciting events that are redefining Staten Island for New Yorkers and the nearly 60 million tourists who visit our city each year. That kind of energy along with the people who are making it happen is the reason weve always known that Empire Outlets would be a success. Its why weve already secured so much interest from tourism officials from across the world who want to make sure that residents of their countries are stopping here when they visit New York City. Its why were so excited about what the future holds for the North Shore and Staten Island after we open this spring. Lets remember that Empire Outlets itself is also about people and not just the visitors. Its about the 1,200 new jobs well be creating for employees at the centers retail stores and restaurants, including many Staten Island residents whom we trained so theyd be prepared for the employment opportunities that Empire Outlets will offer. Its about the local residents who will benefit from the infrastructure and flood resiliency improvements weve constructed as part of the project, including critical improvements to protect the Staten Island Railway control center next to the Ferry Terminal. The reality is that the North Shore has already become a world-class destination and our local economy is poised for long-term growth. And with 500,000 residents across the borough, Staten Islands population still generates billions of dollars in unmet retail demand. This coming year is the perfect time for Empire Outlets to open its doors. As for our team, were looking forward to the future and the people who will be part of it. (Joseph Ferrara is a principal of BFC Partners, the developer of Empire Outlets.) A recent commentary published on SILive by a disgruntled Italian American indicts Columbia University for its lack of acknowledgment of Christopher Columbus and, more broadly, the Italian American community. As a native Staten Islander currently pursuing her doctorate in Italian studies at Columbia, I felt the need to respond to this very passionate and tragically misinformed opinion piece. Id like to respond to several claims from the previous article. Firstly, the author states that Columbus is persona non grata at Columbia -- this is one of the pieces few true statements. While he was a bold explorer, Columbus was also an extremely problematic figure. He did not, as was believed, discover America -- historical records actually show that he did not even step foot on the North American continent. His voyages to modern day Haiti and Dominican Republic culminated in mass rape, enslavement and murder. For this reason, he is no longer celebrated in many communities, including Columbias. Id like to respond to several claims from the previous article. Firstly, the author states that Columbus is persona non grata at Columbia -- this is one of the pieces few true statements. While he was a bold explorer, Columbus was also an extremely problematic figure. He did not, as was believed, discover America. Historical records actually show that he did not even step foot on the North American continent. His voyages to modern day Haiti and Dominican Republic culminated in mass rape, enslavement, and murder. For this reason, he is no longer celebrated in many communities, including Columbias. That being said, there are many worthy Italians both past and present that are praised and promoted at Columbia. The Italian Academy is dually presided over by the president of the university and the president of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella. Under these illustrious auspices, the Academy sponsors the work of scholars (both Italian and American), and includes many prominent Italian American professors among its fellows. Regarding the treatment of Italians and Italian Americans more broadly at Columbia, I can personally attest to our success in this intellectual community. I am one of several Italian Americans pursuing a doctorate in Italian at Columbia, and I am privileged to work with one of the worlds preeminent scholars of Dantes Divine Comedy, who is also Italian American. Just last spring, the Italian Academy hosted an exhibition that celebrated the birth of the Academy in 1927, and its innumerable contributions to the advancement of the study of Italian in America. Exhibits on Dante, Lorenzo da Ponte (famed librettist and the first professor of Italian at Columbia), and contemporary Italian authors are among its many offerings. The Paterno collection (whose disappearance the author of the previous article laments) is still intact and is now housed in Columbias Butler Library - a move that made its texts more easily accessible to Columbia students. Columbia is home to a vibrant community dedicated to the preservation and study of the literature, art, history, and culture of Italy. As a member of this community, I am proud to be proof of Italians relevance at Columbia. (Christina A. McGrath, a Ph.D candidate in Italian Studies at Columbia University, is a Brighton Heights resident.) To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account. We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription. A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much! Corporate Travel Management has failed to convince the market that a short seller's damning report on its operation was largely baseless, suffering a sharemarket savaging on Wednesday even as it assured investors its earnings would grow 20 per cent this year. CTM entered a trading halt on Monday morning, saying it needed time to read and respond to hedge fund VGI Partners' 176-page report which raised questions about its accounts, disclosure and the true scale of its business. Corporate Travel Management managing director Jamie Pherous. Credit:Ryan Stuart CTM's shares immediately plunged when they resumed trading on Wednesday and closed the day down 27 per cent at $20.05, compared to $27.64 on Friday. VGI had taken a short position worth about $55 million on the stock, betting on CTM's share price to fall. Rose has a kindred spirit of sorts in sardonic colleague Alastair (Jonathan Creek's Alan Davies), but the rest of their outfit is little help. Nitin (Himesh Patel) is a priggish ex-cop with a strange terror of authority; receptionist Nat (Isy Suttie) is a ditz with a difference but a ditz nonetheless; and boss Denise (Georgie Glen) is tough as old boots. Telephones trill unanswered in the background throughout, and those phones that do get answered pipe in sad things, whether they be complaints about neighbours being Muslims, or enquiries about the recommended daily alcohol allowance for a 12-year-old. The home visits and frustrating bureaucratic meetings that Rose and Alastair eventually get around to serve to highlight multiple facets of thorny real-life problems, and the inadequacy of available options. There's even a bit of sympathy for the likes of Denise, charged with implementing unjust decisions handed down from on high. It all stays quite funny, though. Watch Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil on Netflix. Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil Netflix An odd but thoroughly enjoyable Basque horror movie based, evidently, on an imaginative Basque legend. It's the 19th century, and a blacksmith has sold his soul to a demon - only to renege on the deal and keep the demon locked up in a cage in his workshop. When a girl orphaned by her mother's suicide blunders into the shop, she sets off a chain of events that could lead her to the very gates of hell. It's all quite entrancing, in a delightfully bonkers way. The Teach is on SBS On Demand. The Teach SBS On Demand An immediately engrossing Polish mystery series in which a teacher named Pawel (Maciej Stuhr) arrives in a small town and begins investigating the murder of a teenage girl who would have been one of his students. The list of suspects immediately seems to encompass the whole town, from her boyfriend and other classmates to a creepy PE teacher and corrupt businessmen. It's astutely written and performed, and certain Polish idiosyncrasies (enormous indoor plants, frequent slugs of vodka) give it a real sense of place. Comedian Celia Pacquola. Live at the Apollo Stan There's quite the Australian contingent in this season of the British comedy showcase series. The ebullient Celia Pacquola steals her episode with a performance that will encourage viewers to check out her barnstorming special Celia Pacquola: The Looking Glass, which is also on Stan. Adam Hills and Sam Simmons are as good as you'd expect, and the format gives them a reasonable amount of time to establish a point of view and actually deliver some material. Non-Australian highlights include Gina Yashere and Michelle Wolf. Johnny Cash. Credit:AP Remastered: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black Netflix, from Friday, November 2 In 1970, US president Richard Nixon invited country-music legend Johnny Cash to perform at the White House. It was no random invitation. The Republican Party was working hard to co-opt country music as part of its "Southern Strategy" to peel racist Southern voters away from the Democrats. To this end Nixon himself had travelled to Nashville's Grand Ole Opry to play the piano on stage. Cash's own innate conservatism all but ensured he would accept Nixon's invitation. But, as this absorbing instalment of Netflix's music documentary series shows, things didn't go according to Nixon's plan. Documentary makers Sara Doser and Barbara Kopple enlist an impressive cast of Cash intimates - including his sister Joanne, brother Tommy, son John and manager Lou Robin - to explain how Cash had come to be a very different man to the one that Nixon imagined him to be. Nixon's personal request that Cash play songs disparaging anti-war protesters and welfare recipients upped the ante. This fine little film provides absorbing biographical and historical context before turning its focus to that one awkward evening. Catch Chasing Ice on Docplay and Netflix. Chasing Ice Netflix, Docplay Last year filmmaker Jeff Orlowski brought us the stunning feature-length documentary Chasing Coral (Netflix), which brought home the shocking scale of mass bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. Five years earlier he brought us this spectacular but depressing documentary following the work of photographer James Balog in chronicling the rapid retreat of glaciers in Iceland, Greenland, Alaska and Montana. Bill Shorten has rebuffed overtures from the Greens for a new pact between the two parties on climate and energy policy ahead of next year's election. Greens leader Richard Di Natale and energy spokesman Adam Bandt wrote to their Labor counterparts Bill Shorten and Mark Butler in late August after the toppling of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the demise of his signature energy policy, the National Energy Guarantee (NEG). Richard Di Natale, the Greens leader (left), with Labor leader Bill Shorten at a breakfast gathering earlier this year. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Fairfax Media understands Mr Shorten and Senator Di Natale met in Mr Shorten's Melbourne office on October 1. The Greens advocated a pact because no single party was likely to control both houses of Parliament after the next election, arguing it was "critical" for Labor and the Greens to strike a consensus as they had during the Gillard years. An accused Canberra drug trafficker has complained he has not had access to flowing drinking water in his jail cell for the past six months. Brendan Leigh Baker, 26, has been forced to request jugs of water from corrections staff, or drink from the shower and toilet. The ACT Magistrates Court heard Mr Baker had requested the tap to a basin be fixed on seven separate occasions, but was still broken after six months. The court heard jail staff were aware of the issue, and steps had been taken to address the issue, however, could not say when it would be resolved. A bail hearing on Wednesday heard Mr Baker had refused offers to change cells. The head of the North Canberra Community Council has stood down, blaming constant sniping from locals who are resistant to change in the district among the reasons for his decision. Denis O'Brien announced his resignation at the council's annual general meeting, ending a two-year term as chair of the residents' group. In a letter tabled at the meeting, Mr O'Brien said it was with "deep reservation and indeed hesitation" that he had chosen not to stand for re-election to the council. "It would be easy for me to use my recent health concerns as a cover for this decision and while it plays into my thinking it is only part of my reason," Mr O'Brien's letter read. "Over recent months I have found myself becoming increasingly intolerant of those who choose to snipe from the sidelines or preach from their bully pulpits so much so that I have become something I would rather not be and not the sort of person I want to be as chair." Reuters | Oct. 31, 2018 Major companies on Tuesday ruled out involvement in a new rescue of Alitalia, complicating a plan led by Rome in which state-controlled railway Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) will bid for the airline and look to bring in partners. Alitalia was put under special administration last year, leaving the government once again seeking a buyer to save the carrier. It will be the airline's third rescue in a decade. FS said its board had decided to put in an offer to buy Alitalia, but gave no further details. A source close to the deal had earlier told Reuters that FS's bid would only be a "transitional phase". The source added the deal would be completed in two separate steps, with FS picking up Alitalia on set conditions and then, at a later stage, being joined by an Italian partner and a international one, from the airline sector. The source said there was very little visibility on the next steps, and it was not clear which partners would join FS. "The situation is very messy," the source said. Earlier this month Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio suggested that state-controlled companies like oil major Eni, postal operator Poste and defense group Leonardo could all play a role in the relaunch. Di Maio, also industry minister, said that there were many private investors also interested in Alitalia. But on Tuesday Eni said that any suggestion that it might pick up a stake in the carrier was "groundless" and that it would not play a role in the rescue, a spokesperson said. Leonardo too will not join any relaunch of Alitalia, which has already accumulated a loss of over EUR 300 million(US$340.86 million), a separate source close to the matter told Reuters. "It would be crazy for Leonardo to enter this madness," the source said. Shares in the group were down almost 1.5 percent at 1600 GMT after Italian dailies had reported that the company would be involved in an effort spearheaded by FS. Last month Poste Chief Executive Matteo del Fante said the group was "not at all interested" in joining an overhaul effort for the airline. Cash Drain Alitalia has cost Italian tax payers almost 10 billion euros over the last 20 years, more than the market capitalization of Air France-KLM, Turkish Airlines, Norwegian Air, Finnair and SAS added together, according to Andrea Giuricin, CEO of transport advisory firm TRA Consulting. Last year Alitalia accounted for only 8.5 percent of the international traffic to and from Italy, Giuricin added, just under a third of Ryanair's share. The sale process was delayed due to the change of Italian government earlier this year, but the ruling coalition, that comprises the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the far-right League, pledged it would close a deal by Wednesday. Germany's Lufthansa said earlier on Tuesday that it had no interest in participating in a government-led restructuring effort. Alitalia must pay back the Italian state almost 1 billion euros in a bridge loan and related interest by mid-December. Poor Police Minister Troy Grant has had a tantrum and thrown all his toys out of the bassinet after failing to work out who will run the states top police intelligence outfit yet again. Cant say we are surprised. As weve previously reported, a long process to find a permanent NSW Crime Commissioner had run its course with the (only) two applicants both told they were unsuccessful. Illustration: John Shakespeare Credit:Shakespeare One of them is the current Crime Commissioner Peter Bodor QC, and the other, former acting commissioner and Sydney barrister Peter Singleton. A ute has crashed onto the rail corridor in Sydney's west, causing train delays across the city. Emergency services were called to Park Parade in Westmead about 7.20am after reports a car had crashed near Parramatta Station. Police were told the vehicle was travelling west on Park Parade when it hit a fence and ended up on the rail corridor. The male driver, believed to be aged in his 30s or 40s, was able to get out of the car but was complaining of stomach pain, a NSW Ambulance spokesman said. He was taken to Westmead Hospital in a stable condition with head and facial injuries. A man has been charged after allegedly sexually abusing a foster child who was in his care numerous times over a four-year period. Earlier this year, Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad detectives began investigating after they received reports a 15-year-old boy had been sexually assaulted by his carer. The boy was given alternate care at that time. Following investigations, detectives arrested a 31-year-old man at Burwood police station just before 10.30am on Tuesday. The man was charged with persistent sexual abuse of a child, three counts of aggravated sexual intercourse with a person aged 10-14, aggravated sexual intercourse with a person aged 14-16, and indecent assault of a person under 16 years of age. Police will allege in court the man sexually assaulted the boy numerous times while the boy was in his care in Sydney's west between 2014 and 2018. A prominent Sydney barrister has been reprimanded for unsatisfactory professional conduct during a Supreme Court case in which he acted for the family of the now jailed former state minister Eddie Obeid. The NSW Bar Council has determined that not only should Robert Newlinds, SC, be reprimanded but he must apologise in writing to David Ipp, QC, a former Supreme Court judge and the former commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption. Barrister Robert Newlinds, SC, at the NSW Supreme Court in a file picture. Credit:Peter Braig Mr Newlinds represented the former Labor powerbroker and three of his sons - Paul, Moses and Eddie Obeid jnr - in an unsuccessful legal battle that the family brought against the corruption watchdog, the State of NSW, Mr Ipp, counsel assisting Geoffrey Watson, SC, and several ICAC investigators. Justice David Hammerschlag later blasted the Obeids for their "unreasonable" and "irresponsible" lawsuit against the corruption watchdog and ordered the family to pay the multimillion-dollar legal bills of the ICAC parties, which they are yet to do. The woman behind the scandal involving Gold Coast bar owner Remi Broadway, who joked about her drink-spiking complaint, has spoken out, demanding he own up to his actions. After finding the courage to share her complaint on the Central Lounge Bar Facebook page, Aidan Hill said she felt ridiculed when she learnt Mr Broadway had joked about her appearance online. When a girl accuses one of my bartenders of spiking her drink, Mr Broadway wrote on his Facebook page. Sweetheart, have you seen how hot the girls are that visit Central? "Why would he waste some good drugs on you? A mother and her six-month-old baby boy who were reported missing from the Gold Coast have been found safe and well on Thursday morning. Police had appealed for help to find them or the car they were believed to be travelling in after the pair disappeared from a home on Lochinvar Court in Highland Park on Wednesday. Authorities had been worried because their disappearance was described as "out of character". The mother and the baby were believed to have been travelling in a 1996 Hyundai Excel. A registered nurse who was sacked for selling vaccines belonging to her employer, administering them to paying customers and pocketing the payments, has been banned for two years. In a hearing before the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Tracey Anne Margaret Everett admitted to professional misconduct and was banned from applying for nursing registration for two years. During onsite visits to some workplaces, QCAT heard nurse Tracey Everett requested payment for the additional vaccines be made either in cash, or by direct deposit into a bank account in her name. Credit:FDC While employed by the Travel Clinic, Ms Everett attended various workplaces in mid-2011 primarily to offer flu vaccines but also offered additional vaccines such as Gardasil, Boostrix, Adacel and Hepatitis A and B vaccines to employees. During her onsite visits, she requested payment for the additional vaccines be made either in cash or by direct deposit into a bank account. The young actor at the centre of Geoffrey Rush's defamation case against The Daily Telegraph has told the Federal Court the Oscar-winning actor's alleged sexual harassment of her was "enabled" by senior performers at the Sydney Theatre Company including high-profile stage actress Robyn Nevin. Eryn Jean Norvill, who played opposite Mr Rush in the STC's 2015-16 production of King Lear, returned to the witness box on Wednesday on the eighth day of Mr Rush's high-stakes defamation case against Nationwide News, the publisher of the Telegraph. She suggested that actors from "different generations" might have different views about what is "culturally acceptable" in the workplace. Her evidence continued against the backdrop of an eleventh-hour application by the Telegraph to amend its defence, the details of which are subject to a temporary non-publication order. That application is expected to be heard on Friday. Van Phan Nguyen was stabbed to death in November 1989. There was never any doubt or disputing the fact Marotta had inflicted the fatal stab wounds on Mr Nguyen that night in November 1989. But Justice Jenkins' ruling means Marotta is not criminally responsible for his murder. However, in handing down her not guilty verdict Justice Jenkins made a custody order, which means Marotta can be held indefinitely in a mental health facility for ongoing treatment. On the opening day of his trial last week, the court was told how Marotta approached Mr Nguyen on a pathway near the Mciver train station and stabbed him dozens of times to the head and chest with a knife he kept hidden in his pants. Marotta fled to a nearby car park where he washed his hands of blood and dumped the knife in a rubbish bin. But he left behind his brown leather knife sheath at the crime scene. Days later he fled to the eastern states after the murder. "I didn't run away cause of what I'd done. I ran away because I was sick and hearing the voices and thought that if I left they would stop," he later told detectives. In February 1990, just three months after the stabbing of Mr Nguyen, Marotta stabbed several people in Queensland. For that offence he was convicted of five counts of attempted murder, three charges of burglary and one count of entering a dwelling with intent. Historic court documents obtained by WAtoday show Marotta's stabbing rampage spread over a mile in the Queensland town of Southport, near the Gold Coast. He was convicted of five counts of attempted murder, three charges of burglary and one count of entering a house with intent. The sentencing judge at the time said Marotta's crime spree was horrifying. "It is not difficult to conclude that what occurred that night with these five victims in such a short space of time must place the case among the worst in charges of attempted murder," the judge said. He was sentenced to life and in 1994, he was transferred to WA to serve out his sentence for those offences. He was released on parole in 2006. It wasn't until 10 years later - November 2016 - Marotta was charged over the murder of Mr Nguyen. Cold case detectives arrested him at Graylands Hospital where he was a voluntary patient and took him to their Northbridge headquarters for questioning. Initially, Marotta was reluctant to talk with police about the murder. "I've got nothing to say," he said repeatedly, as two detectives peppered him with questions in an interview room. But in a second interview with the same two detectives later that same day, and having spoken to his elderly mother on the phone, Marotta opened up. He spoke candidly about the murder with the two officers, and even stood up out of his chair at one point during the interview to demonstrate with the two officers how the stabbing was carried out. I lost control, he said in the second police interview. I stabbed him in the head, I stabbed him in the chest. It happened really fast. I didnt want to kill anyone, I was very sick mate. I can't understand this illness. No one should have to die like that. I cant turn it back you know. When asked by police about the knife used in the murder Marotta said: I had it when I stabbed the guy at the nightclub." This was in reference to another stabbing Marotta carried out in August of 1988, details of which came out during last week's trial. The court heard how Marotta stabbed a man and a woman at a Fremantle nightclub, for which he received an 11 month jail term. The knife he used to commit that offence, together with its sheath, were returned to him when he left Canning Vale Prison in October 1989. ACT Planning Minister Mick Gentleman has rejected opposition claims he had a conflict of interest in approving an exemption from an environmental impact statement for the Ginninderry housing development, given the government's stake in the subdivision. Mr Gentleman on Tuesday approved the exemption for all remaining stages of the joint venture on this side of the territory border, raising stakeholder concerns that evidence handed to the planning authority was ignored. ACT Housing Minister Yvette Berry, Suburban Land Agency chief John Deitz, Brian Corkhill, Riverview Developments managing director David Maxwell and Green Building Council of Australia chief Romilly Madew at a sod-turning ceremony to mark the start of construction on the Ginninderry housing development. Credit:Karleen Minney The huge cross-border housing development will, if approved by both ACT and NSW authorities, see up to 30,000 people living in the area, with 6500 houses in the territory and 5000 in NSW in a development called Parkwood. The 60-40 joint venture between the territory government and Corkhill Brothers' subsidiary Riverview Projects (ACT) Pty Ltd has sparked community concerns about the future protection of the Murrumbidgee River, despite up to 800 hectares of the 1600-hectare development being earmarked for conservation reserves and exclusion zones from residential development. By Brian Pascus, Business Insider | Oct. 31, 2018 A Sun Country Airline pilot was arrested in Florida on Friday night after a loaded handgun was found in his luggage as he passed through a TSA security checkpoint, according to multiple reports. According to NBC 5 Minneapolis, Brian A. Machtemes, 54, a pilot for Twin Cities-based Sun Country Airlines was arrested on Friday night at the Southwest Florida International Airport on charges of unlicensed carry of a concealed firearm after a gun was found in his travel suitcase. According to a police report provided to Business Insider by the Lee County Port Authority office associated with the Southwest Florida International Airport, the handgun was detected in a suitcase while being screened by a TSA x-ray operator at approximately 6:50 p.m. According to the police report, Officer Jacob Brunick was called to the TSA checkpoint. Officer Brunick confirmed the bag belonged to Machtemes and that Machtemes had packed it himself and that it hadn't left his possession since being packed. Brunick then searched the bag, and in the suitcase's second zipper pouch he found a .380-caliber pistol that was loaded with six rounds. Machtemes provided a valid permit to carry a weapon in Minnesota, but "the state of Florida does not recognize a carry permit from MN," the police report read. According to the report, Machtemes was read his Miranda rights and chose not to answer any further questions without his attorney present. The Minnesota Star Tribune reports Machtemes posted bond, was released less than two hours later and given a November 26 court date. In a statement provided to Business Insider, Sun Country Airlines confirmed Machtemes is a pilot for the airline and said, "In the interest of respecting the privacy of and preserving the trust of all our employees, we do not comment or confirm details related to individual employee conduct or work performance," adding that passengers of the flight Machtemes was scheduled to pilot were provided with hotels for the evening, and meal and flight vouchers. The Minnesota Star Tribune reports TSA regulations allow for pilots under certain conditions to have a firearm in the cockpit, but it must be transported in a locked case when not on the flight deck. Business Insider spoke with Mark Howell, a TSA Regional spokesperson, who said, "There's a very small population of pilots that can carry. They have to go through additional training, FFDO (Federal Flight Deck Officer), they have to go through a whole separate screening process that's different than just forgetting to have a firearm in your bag." Although Barnaby Joyce's name is not mentioned, it is his legacy that informs Philip Moss' damning report into the Department of Agriculture's performance as the regulator of the live exports industry. The report doesn't hold back. It accuses the department of being incompetent partly because of its culture, partly because of inexperienced staff but also because of deep cuts in areas concentrating on welfare standards. Philip Moss singles out 2013, the year Tony Abbott was elected prime minister and Barnaby Joyce was named agriculture minister, as the moment when things began to go wrong inside the department. As agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce dismissed claims by animal rights activists about the live export trade. Credit:Andrew Meares Joyce found $25 million worth of savings in his department, including scrapping work to establish national animal welfare standards, getting rid of the committee overseeing them, abolishing the department's animal welfare branch and undoing measures introduced by the previous Labor government after shocking abuse of Australian cattle was exposed in Indonesia on its watch. Labor's star candidate for the seat of Bennelong has refused to release legal advice he says clears him of any ineligibility to sit in Parliament, despite questions that have arisen over his plan to continue in his medical practice if elected. Former AMA president Brian Owler, who has been parachuted into the race over the ALP's preselected candidate, told Fairfax Media he intended to continue working as a neurosurgeon if he won the federal seat. "A lot of my long term patients and there are hundreds and hundreds of them, it's really important for me that I continue to care for patients," Professor Owler said. Brian Owler, Labor candidate for Bennelong, has refused to release legal advice on his constitutional eligibility. Credit:James Brickwood "And while I'll be spending the overwhelming majority of my time being an MP, should I be elected, I'm going to still care for my patients, particularly my long-term patients." Both sides of politics in NSW are desperate. The Coalition, now with just six seats to spare, is desperate to hang on to government. Labor, which thinks it is in striking distance, is desperate to scrape over the line. Either could happen in less than five months. But what has become clear in the past fortnight is the race to the finish line is likely to be grubby, where smear campaigns could overshadow policy debate. Luke Foley and David Elliott. Credit:Fairfax Media The scene was set when Corrections Minister David Elliott stood up in Parliament and surprised everyone by accusing Luke Foley of harassment. Apparently not premeditated, Elliott was able to put on the public record that there was a serious, career-ending cloud over the Opposition Leader. Foley has denied Elliotts claims that he harassed a female ABC reporter after a boozy Christmas party in 2016 and the reporter has refused to comment. But Elliotts accusations, which remain unresolved while the ABC investigates, have other ramifications beyond potentially killing Foleys leadership. Crime was meant to be the battlefront of this state election, but neither Victorias Attorney-General, Labor MP Martin Pakula nor the Liberals shadow attorney-general John Pesutto found support for their tough-talking policies from an audience of legal professionals at the Melbourne Press Club on Wednesday. Legal experts panned moves from both parties to introduce mandatory sentencing to tackle violent crime in Victoria, arguing it does not deal with the root causes of violent offending. Shadow attorney general John Pesutto and Attorney General Martin Pakula at the Melbourne Press Club. Credit:Simon Schluter The Coalition has promised to introduce mandatory sentencing for repeat violent offenders, while the Andrews government has in recent weeks passed legislation introducing mandatory sentencing for people who assault emergency services workers. Mr Pakula said changes in law in regards to bail and sentencing had driven up prisoner numbers. Casting a protest vote for the Greens in inner city electorates in the coming state election will make the Coalitions job easier, according to Labor leader Bill Shorten. But a Greens candidate hit back on Wednesday afternoon, saying the high primary votes his party won in the inner city at the previous state election were more than just a protest. Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek talk to students at Brunswick North West primary school on Wednesday. Credit:AAP Campaigning on Wednesday in the state seat of Brunswick, where Labor is under considerable pressure from the Greens, Mr Shorten conceded his party was in a very tough fight. The ALPs federal leader appeared at Brunswick North West Primary School with State Education Minister James Merlino to announce $6.2 million in state funding for a new sciences, technology and arts building. While the heated public debate about unlicensed Airbnb accommodation in WA rages around him, Matthew Bruce has decided to do the right thing. Instead of ignoring the strict licensing requirements faced by Airbnb operators, who should have their properties registered as short-stay accommodation businesses, he went to his local council to work out how to get his approved. But after four months Mr Bruce is still running around in circles and now faces a $200,000 fine. Airbnb owner Matthew Bruce says he has been run in circles trying to work out how to register his Airbnb apartment as a short-stay accommodation business. Credit:Nathan Hondros The 33-year-old returned serviceman approached the City of Belmont after receiving a letter about his Airbnb but said even they couldn't give him a clear and concise process his business had to go through to be approved. Boston: A Mafia hit man who is said to hate "rats" is under suspicion in the slaying of former Boston crime boss and longtime FBI informant James "Whitey" Bulger, who was found dead just hours after he was transferred to a West Virginia prison, a former investigator briefed on the matter said Wednesday. The official said that Fotios "Freddy" Geas and at least one other inmate are believed to have been involved in Bulger's killing. The longtime investigator was not authorised to discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity. Authorities have not disclosed the cause of death for the 89-year-old Bulger. He was found dead on Tuesday. Geas, 51, and his brother were sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for their roles in several violent crimes, including the 2003 killing of Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno, a Genovese crime family boss who was gunned down in a Springfield, Massachusetts, parking lot. Washington: The office of the special counsel, Robert Mueller, has asked the FBI to investigate what appears to be an effort to smear him, stemming from suspicious emails offering women money in exchange for fabricating sexual misconduct claims against him. "When we learned last week of allegations that women were offered money to make false claims about the special counsel, we immediately referred the matter to the FBI for investigation," Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel's office, said in a statement on Tuesday. The plot appeared to be the latest, and one of the more bizarre, in a string of attempts by supporters of President Donald Trump to discredit Mueller's investigation as a hoax and a witch hunt. Mueller is investigating whether any Trump associates conspired with Russia's 2016 election interference and whether the President tried to obstruct the inquiry. He has secured six guilty pleas and a trial conviction in the 17 months he has overseen the investigation. As the plan to target Mueller came to light on Tuesday, it quickly unravelled as news organisations unearthed gaps and inconsistencies in the allegations. PHILIPSBURG:--- The House of Parliament will sit in a Central Committee meeting on Wednesday, October 31, 2018. The Central Committee meeting is scheduled for 14.00 hrs. in the General Assembly Chamber of the House at Wilhelminastraat #1 in Philipsburg. Representatives of the Progress Committee will be present. The agenda point is: Presentation on the situation regarding the police force and the prison (IS/221/2018-2019 dated October 17, 2018) Members of the public are invited to the House of Parliament to attend parliamentary deliberations. The House of Parliament is located across from the Court House in Philipsburg. The parliamentary session will be carried live on St. Maarten Cable TV Channel 120, via SXM GOV radio FM 107.9, via Pearl Radio FM 98.1, the audio via the Internet www.sxmparliament.org, www.pearlfmradio.com and Parliaments Facebook page: Parliament of Sint Maarten. Sterlite Tech combines network design innovation, service engineering with FTTx MANTRA(TM) Posted by Publisher Telecommunication London, United Kingdom October 31, 2018: Sterlite Tech [BSE: 532374, NSE: STRTECH], a global data network solutions company, has announced the launch of its new ? FTTx MANTRA(TM) an end-to-end FTTx-as-a-service solution. This solution allows swift roll-out of Fibre-to-the-Point (FTTx) networks at the scale, latency and agility needed to suit all future requirements of 5G, Internet of Things (IoT) applications, for global communication service providers, data centres and citizen networks. Uniting design innovation and expertise in service engineering onto a single technology platform, the Company\-\-s indigenously developed FTTx MANTRA(TM) Massive Agile Network Transformation brings together the power of five Is: Ingenious optical-fibre products, Integrated network design, Innovative virtualisation, Inclusive approach to hyper-scale network deployment and Intelligent software solutions that use analytics and Big Data. \For communication and digital service providers to meet the demand for data, fibre networks must be redesigned to be more agile with near-zero latency,\ said Dr Anand Agarwal, Group CEO, Sterlite Tech. \While fibre provides a technology anchor for digital networks, a unified solution that converges design capability, deep fiberisation and virtualisation is the key to enabling ubiquitous connectivity to every home or enterprise. By integrating our silicon-to-software capabilities, we have created FTTx MANTRA(TM) as a solution which does exactly that. With this service, we are transforming everyday living experiences.\ Launching the high-tech solution, Anuj Jain, Business Head (FTTH and Enterprise), Jio, said: \Sterlite Tech has been our partner since inception. As we enhance our value proposition for our customers, Sterlite Tech as our network partner is enabling the reach of our digital solutions to the last mile. Such disruptive and integrated last-mile connectivity service offering enables us to connect everyone, everything, everywhere at the highest quality and the most affordable price. This is transforming the quality of life, improving productivity of the people of India.\ Adding further, Jain asserted, \This FTTx MANTRA(TM) solution will help enable faster penetration of broadband in remote locations, bridging the digital divide between rural and urban India.\ As consumers\-\- expectations for a seamless user experience across all devices is on the rise, and with 5G, IoT, Virtual and Augmented Reality on the verge of disrupting the global data consumption, Sterlite Tech has developed this technology to ensure faster and easier fibre infrastructure roll-out to the customers\-\- end-point. This new hands-on technology assists early adopters to reduce time-to-market of consumer broadband services as well as capital and operational costs of network deployment. China Daily | Oct. 31, 2018 Xi sends note of condolence as Lion CEO admits plane had 'issue' Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday sent condolences to his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo over a plane crash that has likely killed all 189 people on board. In his message, Xi said he was deeply saddened to learn of the Lion Air crash, and on behalf of the Chinese government and people, as well as in his own name, he extended sincere condolences to the victims and sympathies to their families. A day after flight 610 crashed into the sea, questions are being raised over what caused the new Boeing jet to come down minutes after takeoff. Divers and rescue teams were working on Tuesday to retrieve remains of passengers from the water, as investigators examine fragments of debris scattered over a large expanse of water. Body parts have been recovered from the crash site, about 15 kilometers off the coast. Authorities said search and rescue teams are now focusing on several areas where they believe the plane's fuselage is located, saying that is where they expect to find the most victims. Police said on Monday that 24 body bags had been transferred to a hospital for postmortems. DNA samples have been taken from 132 family members of passengers to help with identification, but the Jakarta police commissioner warned this could be difficult as each body bag could contain the remains of more than one person. Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee said there were 178 adult passengers, one child, two infants, two pilots and six cabin crew on board flight JT 610. Among them were 20 Indonesian Finance Ministry employees and Andrea Manfredi, an Italian former professional cyclist. With the now almost certain prospect of all on board having died, the crash is set to rank as the country's second-worst air disaster since a Garuda Indonesia A300 crashed in the city of Medan, killing 214 people in 1997. The aircraft's fuselage and flight data recorders are yet to be recovered, but they should provide more evidence as to what caused the crash. Experienced Pilots A statement by the NTSC said the flight's Indian-born Captain Bhavye Suneja reported a flight control problem and requested permission to rise to 1,524 meters from 518 meters two minutes after takeoff at 6:20 am on Monday. The plane vanished from radar at 6:32 am after the captain asked for permission to return to the airport, the statement added. The Flightradar website tracked the plane and showed it looping south on takeoff and then heading north before its flight path ended abruptly over the Java Sea, not far from the coast. Witnesses said they did not hear an explosion, but saw the Boeing 737 MAX plunge into the sea. Lion Air, Indonesia's biggest budget airline, announced earlier this year it was buying 50 Boeing 737 MAX 10 jets for $6.24 billion. The plane that crashed only went into service in August. The pilot and co-pilot had more than 11,000 hours of flying time between them and had recent medical checkups and drug testing, it said. Lion Air CEO Edward Sirait acknowledged on Monday that the plane had an unspecified technical issue fixed in Bali before it was flown back to Jakarta, calling it "normal procedure", AFP reported. BBC quoted an analyst from an airline safety and product review site airlineratings.com saying Boeing reportedly suspended release of the 737 MAX just days before its first commercial delivery last year due to an engine issue. Indonesia's air travel industry is booming, with the number of domestic passengers growing significantly over the past decade, but it has acquired a reputation for poor regulation and its airlines had previously been banned from US and European airspace. Lion has been involved in a number of incidents including a fatal 2004 crash and a collision between two planes at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta airport. AFP and Reuters contributed to this story. Breakthrough Edtech system wins IDC awards as Information Visionary, Posted by Publisher Telecommunication The Netherlands, October 31, 2018: CITIC Telecom International CPC Limited (\CITIC Telecom CPC\), a wholly-owned subsidiary of CITIC Telecom International Holdings Limited (SEHK:1883) and leading online education provider TutorABC have announced their collaborative Edtech project won twin awards for real-world application of visionary Artificial Intelligence and Big Data technologies. TutorABC\-\-s revolutionary Dynamic Course Generation System (DCGS) generates personalised educational curriculum according to individual student interests and capabilities. DCGS integrates Artificial Intelligence and big data analytics with CITIC Telecom CPC\-\-s cloud computing and network connectivity technologies to achieve transformative interactive learning capabilities. CITIC Telecom CPC nominated this breakthrough project to the \IDC Digital Transformation Awards 2018,\ resulting in TutorABC\-\-s DCGS becoming the only non-banking industry entry to win the \Information Visionary\ award in the Taiwan competition, and receiving the \-\-Asia/Pacific Information Visionary of the Year\-\- accolade in the Asia Pacific competition. Remarking on what differentiated DCGS, IDC judges said the system \can modify one\-\-s way of teaching to suit the special requirements of each class or case\ and this is what made TutorABC stand out from other award entries. Stephen Ho, CEO of CITIC Telecom CPC emphasised, \We congratulate TutorABC and its team on winning \-\-Asia/Pacific Information Visionary of the Year\-\- at the Regional IDC Digital Transformation Awards 2018. The award reaffirms TutorABC as a truly innovative organization with a strong leadership position in the e-education industry. We are proud to have partnered with such a valuable, successful visionary leader over the past 10 years. Certainly, we look forward to continuing support client transformation and business growth together with a vast portfolio of technology solutions, innovative services and professional support.\ TutorABC introduced and patented DCGS in 2006, bringing students an unprecedented online learning experience and positively impacting the English tutoring market. The innovative DCGS platform is integrated with CITIC Telecom CPC\-\-s global ICT services, particularly its networking and cloud computing technologies. Winning of these awards is strong testament to TutorABC\-\-s innovation as an online learning leader, highlighting its CITIC Telecom CPC collaboration. Arthur Shen, COO of TutorABC, said: \CITIC Telecom CPC is instrumental to our success with DCGS. We are delighted to continue to collaborate and leverage CITIC Telecom CPC\-\-s exceptional industry knowledge, global real-time technical support team, and various world-class capabilities in networking, cloud infrastructure, high computing power and data centers, all enabling DCGS\-\-s smooth and speedy global deployment.\ In addition to TutorABC winning the IDC awards, CITIC Telecom CPC was in turn acknowledged as \-\-Best Cloud Services Provider\-\- in the \-\-Readers\-\- Choice Product Excellence Awards 2018\-\- organised by NetworkWorld Asia. \We are very proud to again win the NetworkWorld Asia award,\ said Daniel Kwong, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at CITIC Telecom CPC. \It is inspiring both our companies are recognised by the industry, and CITIC Telecom CPC is thrilled to work with TutorABC. In a market with limited IT talent, budget and time, enterprises should seek technology partners with adequate ICT experience and capability to support business transformation and expansion across multiple markets. We are committed to delivering top-notch networking and cloud solutions our customers can confidently depend on for both their innovative projects and day-to-day operations.\ \TutorABC\-\-s recognition at the IDC Digital Transformation Awards 2018, and our winning of the Best Cloud Services Provider award, are real-world validation of CITIC Telecom CPC\-\-s core values,\ Ho concluded. To learn more about TutorABC, visit the website. To learn more about CITIC Telecom CPC, please click here: https://www.citictel-cpc.com/EN/HK/Pages/index.html System overview Experience 4MP video and the simplicity of using existing cabling infrastructure with HDCVI. The Cooper series 4MP HDCVI camera features a compact design and offers a high quality image at a friendly price. It offers various vari-focal/fixed lens models with a multi-language OSD and HD/SD switchable output. Its structural flexibility and high cost-performance makes the camera an ideal choice for SMB solutions. Functions 4 signals over 1 coaxial cable HDCVI technology supports 4 signals to be transmitted over 1 coaxial cable simultaneously, i.e. video, audio*, data and power. Dual-way data transmission allows the HDCVI camera to interact with the HCVR, such as sending control signal or triggering alarm. Moreover, HDCVI technology supports PoC for construction flexibility. * Audio input is available for some models of HDCVI cameras. Long distance transmission HDCVI technology guarantees real-time transmission at long distance without any loss. It supports up to 700m for 4MP HD video transmission via coaxial cable, and up to 300m via UTP cable. **Actual results verified by real-scene testing in Dahua's test laboratory. Simplicity HDCVI technology inherits the born feature of simplicity from traditional analog surveillance system, making itself a best choice for investment protection. HDCVI system can seamlessly upgrade the traditional analog system without replacing existing coaxial cabling. The plug and play approach enables full HD video surveillance without the hassle of con-figuring a network. Smart IR The camera is designed with array LED IR illumination for best lowlight performance. Smart IR is a technology to ensure brightness uniformity in B/W image under low illumination. Dahuas unique Smart IR adjusts to the intensity of camera's infrared LEDs to compensate for the distance of an object, and prevents IR LEDs from overexposing images as the object come closer to the camera. Multi-formats The camera supports multiple video formats including HDCVI, CVBS and other two common HD analog formats in the market. The four formats can be switched over through OSD menu or by PFM820(UTC controller). This feature makes the camera to be compatible with not only XVRs but also most end users existing HD/SD DVRs. Multi-language OSD OSD menu provides multiple image adjustments and function settings to meet the requirements of different monitoring scenes. The OSD menu includes configurations such as backlight mode, day/night, white balance, privacy mask and motion detect. The camera supports 11 languages for OSD menu, namely, Chinese, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Polish. Protection The camera's outstanding reliability is unsurpassed due to its rugged design. The camera is protected against water and dust with IP67 ranking, making it suitable for indoor or outdoor environments. With working temperature range of -30 C to +60 C (-22 F to +140 F), the camera is designed for extreme temperature environments. Supporting 30% input voltage tolerance, this camera suits even the most unstable power supply conditions. Its 4KV lightning rating provides protection against the camera and its structure from the effects of lightning. HID Global hails the renewed promise of mobile access Its been almost exactly a decade since HID Global launched the world's first university pilot of smartphones carrying secure mobile IDs. A lot has changed in the following 10 years. Todays technology has matured, advanced, and proliferated across a variety of high-value use cases. To catch up on the latest developments in mobile access, we contacted Luc Merredew, Product Marketing Director, Physical Access Control, at HID Global. Q: What has changed since the first pilot implementation of smartphones used for secure mobile identification? Merredew: One of the biggest milestones several years ago was when mobile access solutions achieved certification to the ISO 27001:2013 Information Security Management System (ISMS) standard. With increasing awareness of cloud-based security threats and resulting high expectations from a solution, todays system owners, operators, and users insist on companies being able to demonstrate that they have had their services vetted by independent laboratories and/or agencies. When adopting mobile access solutions that maximise convenience and efficiency, and deliver dramatically improved user experiences, it is neither necessary nor acceptable to compromise security in either the physical or digital domains. Q: Do universities continue to be the biggest users? Mobile IDs on devices eliminate person-to-person credentials when accessing secured areas Merredew: The use cases have grown dramatically, spread evenly across all types of organisations in locations ranging from high-rise buildings to multi-campus global enterprises. But yes, universities continue to be big adopters, and they were among those most eager to leverage the technology so they could bring people back to campus in person during the pandemic. In this environment, mobile IDs on smartphones and other devices eliminate person-to-person credential (e.g., badge or ID card) issuance or revocation, as well as the need to physically touch cards, readers, or keypads when accessing secured areas. Q: How were mobile IDs employed by your customers as they brought people back to physical locations after the pandemic shutdown? Merredew: One example is Vanderbilt University, where the challenges of COVID-19 brought renewed attention to the importance of a modern system for identity management and access control that was compatible with Near Field Communication (NFC) and Bluetooth technologies. Members of the campus community could more conveniently access buildings and services with their mobile devices, and the university could efficiently provision and de-provision credentials remotely without person-to-person contact. More recently, Vanderbilt leveraged HID Mobile Access to deploy campus IDs on iPhone and Apple Watch through Apple Wallet. Q: Is there another example outside the university vertical? Merredew: Another example is the iconic tower Arcos Bosques Torre 1 in Mexico City, where the owners and tenants enjoy the simplicity of using their trusted mobile devices to seamlessly access their spaces. As with the Vanderbilt deployment, the drive for operational efficiency and convenience in the tower was combined with a desire to minimise the need for users to come in physical contact with the system. Having a solution like HID Mobile Access that delivers touchless entry and increased safety and security is important. Q: What have been the biggest mobile access advancements? The mobile credential provides contactless, seamless access to a wide range of devices and services Merredew: One of the most important advancements was simplifying upgrade paths to mobile access. In the Vanderbilt example, our HID Reader Manager was used to upgrade the firmware on the universitys physical access control readers and extend support for NFC-based credentials in Apple Wallet. The university uses the HID Origo Mobile Identities API integrated with CS Gold, a higher education transaction system from CBORD, for credential lifecycle management. Another significant enhancement has been the expanded range of uses cases for the mobile credential, going beyond simply opening doors to include providing contactless, seamless access to a wide range of devices and services such as time-and-attendance terminals, cashless vending machines, printers, computers, workstations, and many other applications. Q: Wearables are also having an impact. Merredew: Contactless mobile experiences are also delivered through wearable wristbands. One example is the Nymi band which, once authenticated, continuously authenticates the identity of the user until its removed from the wrist. This delivers zero-trust security principles and access control using convenient fingerprint and heartbeat biometrics to users seeking touchless authentication. Q: What is the impact of the cloud? Merredew: The move to a cloud-based system to issue and manage mobile identity credentials has unified, automated, and simplified identity issuance at a single facility or across any number of distributed office or remote work locations. Q: What should end users look for in a mobile access solution? Look for solutions that use a secure element in the reader as well as cloud certificates, to ensure security and data privacy Merredew: Solutions should support the largest possible number of popular mobile devices in HIDs case, this includes more than 250. Look for solutions that use a secure element in the reader, and a secure key management process, as well as cloud certificates, to ensure both security and data privacy. Make sure the solution supports Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Near Field Communication (NFC), and both iOS and Android operating systems. Solutions that provide Application Programming Interface (API) and Software Development Kit (SDK) support offer direct access to the solutions access control hardware, speeding deployment while enabling integration partners to continue innovating products that deliver even better user experiences. Q: Wonder what this market will look like in 10 more years. Whats next for mobile access? Merredew: Future innovations are on the horizon with technologies such as Ultra-Wideband (UWB) wireless connectivity, which HID expects will become ubiquitous on mobile devices. It provides unprecedented accuracy and security when measuring the distance or determining the relative position of a target. It is not HIDs expectation that UWB will replace Near Field Communication (NFC) or Bluetooth, but rather supplement Bluetooth and other technologies to provide the assurance, reliability, and granularity of device position that enables truly seamless experiences. Charleston, SC (29403) Today Generally sunny. High 64F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight A few clouds from time to time. Low 47F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph. Georgetown County School Board candidates during a forum Oct. 25 at the Beck Center. From left are Mike Cafaro, Jim Dumm, Brad Dunn, Johnny Wilson, Pat DeLeone, Tyler Easterling, Zack Grate and Arthur Lance. Scientists have found strange "dust moons" around Earth that follow our planet from afar. In this image, the central region of the Kordylewski dust cloud is visible (bright red pixels). The straight tilted lines are traces of satellites. The L5 point in white is the Earth-moon L5 Lagrange point. Dust clouds that orbit Earth like moons may finally have had their existence confirmed after more than a half-century of controversy, new research finds. In deep space, there are five points where the gravitational pull of Earth and the moon balance each other. Two of these so-called Lagrange points, L4 and L5, form an equal-sided triangle with Earth and the moon, and move around Earth as the moon orbits the planet. Any objects at either L4 or L5 can stay in relatively stable positions there about 239,000 miles (384,000 kilometers) from both Earth and the moon, barring any interference from the gravitational pulls of the sun and other bodies. Lagrange points can exist between other pairs of bodies, and previous research detected more than a million asteroids at the sun-Jupiter L4 and L5 points, as well as the asteroid 2010 TK7 at the sun-Earth L4 point. Prior work also suggested that at the Earth-moon L5 point, two clouds of dust might exist, ones first reported by and named for Polish astronomer Kazimierz Kordylewski in 1961. [Earth Quiz: Do You Really Know Your Planet?] Now researchers suggest they may finally have confirmed that this pair of dust clouds is real. The scientists detailed their findings in two studies online Sept. 1 and Oct. 1 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Artist's illustration of the Kordylewski cloud in the night sky (with its brightness greatly enhanced) at the time of the observations. (Image credit: G. Horvath) The Kordylewski clouds are exceptionally faint, and whether one can see them with the naked eye or normal cameras depends heavily on the state of the weather. As a result, many scientists have doubted their existence for decades, Gabor Horvath, a physicist at Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary and co-author on both studies, told Space.com. The scientists first developed computer models of the Kordylewski clouds to see how they formed and how light scattered off or reflected by these clouds might be detected. They focused on a feature of this scattered or reflected light called polarization. All light waves can ripple up and down, left and right, or at any angle in between, and scattered or reflected light is typically polarized much the same way, depending on the angle of scattering or reflection. The researchers next sought to detect the Kordylewski clouds using a digital camera at a private observatory in Hungary. The camera was equipped with polarizing filters that only let in light with specific polarizations. "Now we find new observational evidence for the existence of the Kordylewski dust clouds around the L5 point of the Earth-moon system," Judit Sliz-Balogh, an astronomer at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest and lead author of both studies, told Space.com. Mosaic pattern of the angle of polarization around the L5 point (white dot) of the Earth-moon system. The five rectangular windows correspond to the fields of view of the imaging polarimetric telescope with which the polarization patterns of the Kordylewski dust cloud were measured. (Image credit: J. Sliz-Balogh) Images of the purported location of a Kordylewski cloud revealed polarized light reflected from dust extending well outside the camera's field of view. This matches predictions the scientists made of how a Kordylewski cloud would look. "The Kordylewski clouds are two of the toughest objects to find, and though they are as close to Earth as the moon are largely overlooked by researchers in astronomy," Sliz-Balogh said in a statement. "It is intriguing to confirm that our planet has dusty pseudo-satellites in orbit alongside our lunar neighbor." In the future, scientists can see whether dust clouds also exist at the Earth-moon L4 point, Sliz-Balogh added. Given the stability of the Earth-moon L4 and L5 points, they are often seen as potential sites for space stations. Future research into Kordylewski clouds may see how stable they are and whether their dust poses any potential threat to equipment and astronauts at the L4 and L5 points, the researchers said. Follow Charles Q. Choi on Twitter @cqchoi. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. When a blue supergiant star explodes in a supernova, it can spawn exotic states of matter like quark-gluon plasma, scientists have found. Blue supergiant stars are colossal, growing to up to 1,000 times larger than our sun, as this NASA illustration shows. When the biggest stars in the universe die, they may form exotic states of matter generally not seen in the universe since fractions of a second after the Big Bang. These events may generate enough energy to create catastrophic explosions, a new study finds. A supernova is an explosion that can make a star briefly outshine all the other stars in its galaxy. These outbursts can happen when giant stars that are about 10 times the mass of the sun or more run out of fuel. Their cores then collapse under their own extraordinary weights, so that the objects form either black holes or neutron stars. Previous work suggested that when a star's core implodes, a burst of ghostly particles known as neutrinos carries much of the energy from this collapse outward. When these neutrinos interact with the shell of material around the star's core, they heat it up and can drive it outward explosively as a supernova. [Supernovas! The Explosive Deaths of Stars in Photos] However, prior research could not explain how supernovas could occur from very massive blue-supergiant stars with masses 50 times that of the sun or more, even though astronomers have detected supernovas from these stars. Current state-of-the-art computer simulations suggested that core collapses of these stars should result in "failed supernovas." In these scenarios, a black hole forms without neutrinos heating the overlying shell enough for it to blast outward in a supernova. Now, researchers suggest that blue supergiants can explode as supernovas, because they can form exotic states of matter created by disintegrating protons and neutrons. The resulting soup of particles has generally not been seen in the universe since an instant after the Big Bang. Quark-y star explosions The nuclei of atoms are made of particles known as nucleons, which include protons and neutrons. Nucleons are, in turn, each made up of trios of particles known as quarks, which are glued together within protons and neutrons by particles known as gluons. Under extreme pressures and temperatures, nucleons can break down, forming an exotic state of matter known as a quark-gluon plasma. The researchers suggested that this process of disintegration, called quark deconfinement, could generate "a large amount of heat," resulting in a supernova, study lead author Tobias Fischer, at the University of Wrocaw in Poland, told Space.com. The scientists used computer simulations to model the evolution of a supernova from a blue supergiant 50 times the mass of the sun. They found that quark deconfinement could explain a wide variety of supernovas. They also found that after supernovas occur from blue supergiants, the remnants of those stars form "hybrid stars" neutron stars about twice the mass of the sun, with cores made of soups of free quarks. A neutrino clue? One way to see if quark deconfinement actually does happen within dying blue supergiants involves neutrinos. The collapse of a star's core generates a neutrino burst, but the scientists calculated that the breakdown of nucleons into a soup of quarks should generate a shock wave that would, in turn, release a second neutrino burst. Future research could analyze supernovas of blue supergiants for pairs of neutrino bursts to help confirm this model and reveal details about the still-mysterious formation of quark-gluon plasmas, the researchers noted. Another way to see if such quark deconfinement happens is to look for the resulting hybrid stars. Although these stars would greatly resemble neutron stars, they should cool and spin in significantly different ways from neutron stars over time, study co-author Thomas Klahn, an astrophysicist at California State University, Long Beach, told Space.com. The scientists detailed their findings online Oct. 22 in the journal Nature Astronomy. Follow Charles Q. Choi on Twitter @cqchoi. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. Scientists have identified the corpse of a galaxy that fell into the Milky Way about 10 billion years ago in what was likely the last major overhaul to our home galaxy during its development. That's the conclusion of new research based on 2 billion measurements of how stars within the Milky Way are moving. Those measurements let scientists identify about 33,000 stars that live in our galaxy but were born elsewhere, carried here during a giant galactic collision. "The Milky Way is a cannibal. It has eaten many dwarf galaxies in the past, and we've just found a major one that it ate in the past," Kathryn Johnston, an astronomer at Columbia University in New York who wasn't involved in the new research, told Space.com. "This is like a police investigation this one in particular, because it's not a galaxy that we can see today. It's a dead galaxy, so that makes it kind of fun." [Photos: Gaia Spacecraft to Map Milky Way Galaxy] The research is possible because stars contain a fingerprint of sorts of their origin. "When you look at how stars move, they actually retain in their motions [a] memory of the place where they were born," Amina Helmi, an astronomer at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who led the new research, told Space.com. Helmi and her colleagues drew on data from a European project called Gaia, which is mapping the location of 1 billion stars in the Milky Way with unprecedented precision. The team identified a set of about 33,000 of those stars that are moving in a completely different manner compared to the bulk of the Milky Way. The team also studied the chemistry of nearly 600 of those stars using ground-based telescope data, which confirmed that these stars had come from somewhere beyond the Milky Way. And the sheer amount of data at the team's fingertips let the scientists estimate the size and age of the colliding galaxy. Given those numbers, the researchers said, the former galaxy was likely about a fifth the size of the modern Milky Way. That means that while this is hardly the only galactic collision scientists have pinpointed, it's a comparatively huge one, the scientists said. Helmi and her colleagues named the former galaxy Gaia-Enceladus to honor the instrument that gathered the crucial data Helmi used to address a question that's been nagging her for two decades. In Greek myths, Enceladus is the giant son of Gaia and was buried below Sicily, causing seismic activity and the galactic burial would have caused quite a lot of upheaval as well. The team's simulations suggest that the collision seeded stars into the inner halo of our galaxy. The collision's huge injection of stars and gas may also explain why the Milky Way has such a thick disk, Helmi said, although Johnston said there's more work to be done before scientists can fully flesh out how that might have worked. But it's clear that the collision played a significant role in making our galaxy what it is today. For U.S. readers snacking their way through a Halloween haul, consider the injection of caramel that turns a simple 3 Musketeers bar into the cosmic candy we know and love called Milky Way. [Ghouls and Gourds! Awesome Photos from NASA JPL's 2018 Pumpkin-Carving Contest] There's lots to love about knowing more about how our own home-sweet-home galaxy came to be, Johnston said. But for her, the implications of research like this stretch far beyond the Milky Way, she said. She compared studying the universe to photographing 1,000 humans, where all you can tell is how many there are and perhaps their hair color. Studies like this are a detailed portrait of one individual from that mass. "We're actually not just seeing the freckles on the faces we're seeing the flecks in the eyes," Johnston said. "It's like seeing the inner workings of a person. We're seeing the inner workings of a galaxy." The research is described in a paper published today (Oct. 31) in the journal Nature. Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook. Original article on Space.com. GREENWICH The statistics when it comes to breast cancer remain stark. Nationally, one in eight women and one in 1,000 men will be diagnosed with the disease. And of those diagnoses, 30 percent will be for people facing metastatic cancer. Added to those imposing numbers is the fact that Connecticut has the second highest rate of breast cancer in the country. But at Tuesday afternoons Breast Cancer Alliance luncheon and fashion show, the focus was on the good news that has come in the fight against the disease, brought about by the Greenwich-based nonprofit. BCA grew up in Greenwich and we are fully engaged here, BCA President Mary Jeffrey said. We are affecting lives across the country and there is so much good news to report. Survival rates for those diagnosed with breast cancer are at an all-time high. Treatment is more personalized and targeted and early detection is saving lives every day. BCAs work is yielding results. Wednesdays luncheon was the 23rd that the BCA has held. It is the organizations biggest fundraiser of the year; the money it raises goes to the BCAs three-pronged mission. The alliance uses its grants to support early-stage research that has not yet qualified for federal grants; breast surgery fellowships that can teach new techniques and innovative methods to those who care for breast cancer patients; and education and outreach for those who have barriers to care. In 2018, the BCAs supporters allowed it to fund five new projects, five young investigators working on research, five fellowships and 14 education and outreach grants, Jeffrey said. More than 1,020 were on hand for the luncheon, which packed a tent outside of the Hyatt Regency in Old Greenwich. The centerpiece of the event was a fashion show featuring 11 models of inspiration, all breast cancer survivors or those currently fighting the disease. The models were called not just survivors, but thrivers as they walked the catwalk to loud cheers from friends and supporters wearing clothes from Richards on Greenwich Avenue. New York radio newscaster Patti Steele, the luncheons guest speaker, joked it was not something she recommended, but her fight against breast cancer ended up being a learning experience, which taught her new things about self-empowerment, inner-strength, the value of humor and the importance of trust, especially when it came to finding the right medical team. Sometimes that trust leads to making tough decisions, Steele said. I went in saying I wanted a lumpectomy and I did not want chemo. My doctor disagreed on both counts and I decided my journalism degree is no match for her credentials. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is let go and to trust. Steele was joined onstage by her doctor Elisa Port, the chief of breast surgery and director of the Dublin Breast Center in New York City. We have so many treatment options now, Port said. There is no one size fits all. Thats why survival rates for breast cancer are going up. Thats why you need specially trained doctors to perform the surgery. Thats one of the most important things the Breast Cancer Alliance does differently from many other organizations. Jeffrey also touched on that during her remarks, saying funding research leads to needed further studies and even clinical trials. The theme of the luncheon was for our daughters, for our future. You are the reason were here, said event co-chair Lois Kelly. You inspire us to help eliminate this disease and change the future for you. We will continue this fight to change the future for each and every one of us until the day we can all celebrate the end of breast cancer. kborsuk@greenwichtime.com Connecticuts roads and wastewater treatment systems are in need of major repairs costing billions over the next two decades while issues facing the states bridges and drinking water are nearly as bad. As a result state leaders and residents should consider spending more than $40 billion over the next two decades to make major repairs and upgrades. Thats what the Connecticut Society of Civil Engineers determined in their inaugural 2018 Report Card for Connecticuts Infrastructure which was released Tuesday. Combine the grades for their evaluation of bridges, drinking water, rails, roads and wastewater and the state gets an overall C- on its infrastructure. Those are the five areas the engineers focused on. There are bright spots in this report, but it is clear that we must prioritize our infrastructure systems to keep our state competitive and grow our economy, said David Chapman, president of the Connecticut Society of Civil Engineers. However Jim Cameron, founder of the Commuter Action Group and a Hearst Connecticut Media transportation columnist, suggested their grades should come with a dose of skepticism. "I'm always a bit suspicious of reports from a group with a strong self-interest in what they are grading. Like the construction trades, engineers are looking for work, he said. Still Cameron added, who is better qualified to comment on something like this? So let's assume they're being objective and not just priming the pump for their own profits. Perhaps surprising to some the civil engineers graded the states railroad system the highest with a B rating. They pointed out that the 41 million passengers who annually ride Metro-North have made it the busiest of its kind in the nation. They also commended the Department of Transportation for investing almost $780 million in the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield line. In addition to passengers, more than 3.6 million tons of freight pass through Connecticut every year through the 10 freight train lines that service the state. I think the grade of B is fair, especially given the state and Amtrak's huge investments since the 2013 Fairfield derailment, Cameron said. There is still much more to be done and none of it will be cheap. Slower train schedules, daily delays for things like broken rails and broken down branch-line diesels will only worsen without the kinds of investments the report cites. Meanwhile Naugatuck Valley officials and legislators are calling for money devoted to increase train service on the Waterbury line as cities like Ansonia, Derby and Shelton increase the number of rental properties in their downtowns. While rails ranked the best, the states roads and wastewater received the lowest grade of D+. The engineers maintain that at least $30 billion is needed to spent over the next 30 years to repair, refurbish and realign the 20,000 miles of road, most of which are over 55 years old. They claim the poor condition and congestion on state roads cost drivers $2.4 billion annually. They grade the states bridges at a C- even after finding 7.8 percent are structurally deficient and 59 are over 50 years old. Everyday 79 vehicles cross state bridge, according to the engineers. A D+ seems generous, as anyone who drives regularly can attest, Cameron said. Like the C- for bridges, theyre in terrible shape. We're already paying a sort of "toll" in the form of bent rims, flat tires and front end re-alignments because our vehicles take a pounding. A similar issue faces the wastewater infrastructure where the engineers found 50 of the states sewage treatment plants were high risk for flooding during major storms. They believe $4.6 billion is needed to repair, renovate and upgrade plants throughout the state. And on the flip side the engineers believe at least $4 billion must be spent through 2034 to keep the states drinking water dispensed at a high quality rating. They gave the aging systems a C-. I'm so glad drinking water and waste water treatment systems also were included, as they are often forgotten in discussions of infrastructure, Cameron said. We take them for granted until we have a drought or our beaches are closed after a heavy rain. We might be able to live with late trains and bad roads, but we cannot live without water. With the grades came recommendation and those include prioritizing investment in infrastructure during difficult budget cycles and modernizing and building resilient infrastructure to prepare for increasingly severe storms They recommend a transportation lockbox to ensure all transportation funds are used solely for transportation purposes. All of these things are fixable... if we find the money, Cameron said. So until we get serious about tolls or taxes and put a lock on the state transportation funds box, these conditions will only get worse with time. Will it take another Mianus River bridge disaster to get Hartford's attention? Chapman said the report card was created as a public service to citizens and policymakers to inform them of the infrastructure needs in their state It was modeled after the national Infrastructure Report Card, which gave Americas infrastructure a grade of D+ in 2017. A full copy of the 2018 Report Card for Connecticuts Infrastructure is available at InfrastructureReportCard.org/Connecticut. . DARIEN A man and two juveniles from New York were arrested after allegedly stealing mail from the post office on Corbin Drive. On Oct. 26 at 1:02 a.m., an officer patrolling Corbin Drive observed a male juvenile dressed in dark clothing. As the officer drove past the individual, he noticed the juvenile appeared to see the marked patrol car and immediately turn to walk in the opposite direction. When the officer exited his vehicle to speak with him, he saw the juvenile appeared very nervous to answer basic questions. According to police, the juvenile glanced around as if looking for someone as they spoke and later said he was meeting someone in the area. Additional officers then arrived at the location, one of which observed a second male juvenile exiting the wooded area in the rear of the Post Office. When confronted, the second juvenile denied knowing the first. While questioning why he was on government property after hours, an officer noticed an envelope protruding from the second juveniles jacket pocket. The second juvenie admitted the mail did not belong to him, police said, and instead belonged to a business in the area. There was postage on the envelope, but no postage mark indiciating it had been processed. Both juveniles told police they were from New York and were detained. Officers then checked mailboxes on the post office property and found numerous pieces of ripped mail on the ground. An inspection of the mailboxes revealed a shoe string hanging out from one of the mailbox openings. According to police, the shoe string was part of a device commonly used in mail theft, consisting of a beverage bottle covered in a sticky substance hung from a shoelace. When the protruding shoelace was pulled from the mouth of the mailbox, the bottle came up with several pieces of mail stuck to it. While speaking with the juveniles, officers noticed a dark sedan bearing New York plates driving by their location at a slow rate of speed. Officers pulled the vehicle over and identified the driver as Renado Moss, who allegedly told officers he was meeting someone in the area. In plain view was a yellow plastic bag full of opened mail, police said. Police found 31 pieces of opened mail while searching the vehicle, none of which were addressed to Moss. According to police, six shoe laces and a debit card with another persons name on it was also found. Moss, a 29-year-old New York resident, admitted to driving the two juveniles to Darien and that the two juveniles brought the mail to his vehicle after removing it from the mailbox, police said. Moss was arrested and charged with sixth-degree larceny, risk of injury to a minor, possession of burglary tools, sixth-degree criminal conspiracy to larceny and second degree criminal trespass. He was held in lieu of $5,000 bond, which he was unable to post. He was transported to state Superior Court in Stamford later that morning. Prior to being transported, both juveniles were searched. On the first juveniles person was a debit card to a TD Bank account that was in a third partys name, police said. On the second juveniles person were several pieces of unsent mail. An altered check, bearing the name of a Darien resident, was also located in his jacket pocket. The juveniles were issued misdemeanor juvenile summonses for possession of burglary tools, sixth-degree criminal conspiracy to larceny, and second-degree criminal trespass. They were released to family members and are due in Stamford Juvenile Court on Nov. 6. At 8:16 p.m. on Oct. 26, a resident on Tokeneke Road told police he had been contacted by his bank in regards to the cashing of possibly fraudulent checks. On Oct. 23, he had placed a total of six checks in outgoing mail at the mailbox located at the post office. Upon being notified by his bank, he discovered one of his checks was altered and made out to an unknown third party in the amount of $800. A second check was altered and made out to a second unknown party for $2,343. The name of the check made out for $800 was the same name police allegedly found on the debit card Moss had in his possession. According to police, the U.S. Postal Inspectors office was notified and is assisting with the investigation. dj.simmons@hearstmediact.com, 203-842-2568 Being a CEO entails constant pressure to deliver, long hours to get through and all those critical decisions you must make every day which in turn will affect your companys bottom, investors, employees and clients. The tremendous responsibility and level of scrutiny you shoulder can be crushing. Related: What It's Like to Transition From Founder to CEO That's because the success of any CEO is directly linked to the success of the company he or she leads. In 2013, according to statistics gathered by Credit Donkey, there were over 248,000 CEOs in the United States, and their average tenure was 9.7 years. Since then, the average CEO tenure has decreased to approximately five years. Toward the end of 2017, 38 percent of CEOs had been in their positions somewhere between one and five years, while only 26 percent had a tenure of between five and 10 years -- a decrease from 2013 of 0.3 percent. In business as in life, transitions are inevitable. Everyone moves on, but its especially critical for CEOs to put the proper strategies in place for a transition to run as seamlessly as possible. Its not just a matter of when the transition will take place, but also a matter of how and how well managed the entire process is handled. Disengaging from the company youve been a part of, or even created, can be a difficult process -- mentally, physically and emotionally. But, certain steps can be put in place in order to have a seamless and successful exit. Here are five of them: Take the lead. If youre the CEO of a publicly traded company, the executive board has the responsibility to name your successor; however, theres nothing that says you cant be involved in the process. In fact, its the responsibility of the CEO to craft a plan for a successful transition, and eventually, an exit. A survey by the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) revealed that CEO succession ranked fourth on a list of top priorities for directors. Also, fewer than half, or 48 percent, of directors believed their boards were spending enough time on CEO succession, down from 62 percent in 2014, according to a survey by PwC. Related: Starbucks's CEO Transition Is Unlikely to Disrupt Growth, Analysts Say In a publicly traded company, the CEO answers to the board of directors, whose members, in turn, answer to investors, stockholders and shareholders. As CEO, you should create a skeleton plan to share with at least one board member, preferably the chair, before you share the plan with everyone else. Once you create a detailed plan, share with the rest of the board first, then upper management and so on, until the entire company is aware of the plan. It should be clear how board members and managers can contribute. A well thought-out plan will make board members feel confident that there wont be too much turmoil throughout the exit process and will maintain goodwill after the transition has taken place. Plan early. When is the right time to begin planning your CEO exit? The answer depends on the company, but the short answer is: Start as soon as possible. The time frame to execute the exit plan will vary due to a number of factors, but ideally, the plan should be executed in a two-to-three year time span. The succession of a CEO is a lengthy process, especially if the exit pertains to a founder or a long-tenured executive. Anything under two years might seem rushed and could make for a sloppy and messy transition. A Korn Ferry Institute study found that 66 percent of respondents named starting too late with a succession plan one of their top three or four risks. Seventy-two percent of those surveyed were fearful of starting the process before agreeing on a strategy. Work with the board to outline a succession policy that deals with a number of scenarios as well as a backup plan for the CEO position. Think of these moves as being almost a crisis communications plan: Plan for all sorts of scenarios, both likely and unlikely. If you never use it, its still good to have. That's better than needing something and not having a document in place already. Step up your game. As someone who is departing the organization, youll be juggling a number of things simultaneously. However, two things stick out as essential throughout the process: 1) You must prepare the organization for the transition; and 2) You should prepare yourself for your next role, whatever that may be. Part of stepping up your game involves getting everyone at the company -- from board members, to senior staff, to managers, everyone, to step up. This is bigger than just you. Heres what you can do: Encourage the board to assess the organizational plan currently in place. If you dont have one, it might be a good time to start creating one Assess the roles and responsibilities of the job. Is there anything that needs to change from the way current or past CEOs did the job? Dont dust up an old document; this is the time for change. Resist the urge to maintain the status quo. One thing that sticks in my craw is when people say, Thats the way weve always done it. To me, thats lazy. Avoid falling into that trap. Change is good! Keep your word. Once the departure date has been determined, it must be adhered to. If the goal post keeps being moved, theres a risk of losing every bit of momentum gained and the CEOs personal reputation may also take a hit. However, if as the outgoing CEO you agree to remain in the organization in an advisory role, this can have a long-lasting, positive impact, according to a Bridgespan Group survey. The survey revealed that for long-term CEOs, 80 percent of their organizations reported a more successful transition when the CEO stayed on in an advising role than when the CEO made a clean break (64 percent). The study also found that a smooth transition increased the tenure of the successor as well as revenue growth. Whether you as CEO are making a clean break or continuing on as an advisor, make sure to keep your personal brand and your reputation intact. Those are the only two things that will travel with you wherever you go and will follow you throughout life. A positive reputation helps you establish credibility and trust with everyone within the organization, top to bottom. Dont risk losing those valuable things by not sticking to your word. Execute the handoff and close the door. You started the plan; you set everything in motion with the board, your successor, employees and investors. Now, its fine to hand them the keys to the kingdom and walk away -- no muss, no fuss. Once youve handed the keys to your successor, walk away. Say your farewells, hold your head high and close the door behind you. Make a graceful exit. While emotions may be overwhelming, especially if you were the founder, you need to let that door close. Its the only way youll be able to open the door to the next chapter of your life. Related: What Uber's New CEO Needs to Do to Change the Narrative and Restore Confidence in the Company As Dr. Seuss said, Dont cry because its over. Smile because it happened. Related: 5 Steps for a Smooth and Successful (CEO) Exit The 5 Phases of Building a Self-Managed Company 10 Truths About the Military Transition Process Employers Need to Understand Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved The world's oceans have been soaking up far more excess heat in recent decades than scientists realized, suggesting that Earth could be set to warm even faster than predicted in the years ahead, according to new research published Wednesday. Over the past quarter century, the Earth's oceans have retained 60 percent more heat each year than scientists previously had thought, said Laure Resplandy, a geoscientist at Princeton University who led the startling study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The difference represents an enormous amount of additional energy, originating from the sun and trapped by the Earth's atmosphere - more than 8 times the world's energy consumption, year after year. ALSO READ: Three quarters of Venice just flooded while its costly flood gate sits unfinished In the scientific realm, the new findings help to resolve long-running doubts about the rate of the warming of the oceans prior to the year 2007, when reliable measurements from devices called "Argo floats" were put to use worldwide. Before that, different types of temperature records - and an overall lack of them - contributed to murkiness about how quickly the oceans were heating up. The higher-than-expected amount of heat in the oceans means more heat is being retained within the Earth's climate system each year, rather than escaping into space. In essence, more heat in the oceans signals that global warming itself is more advanced than scientists thought. "We thought that we got away with not a lot of warming in both the ocean and the atmosphere for the amount of CO2 that we emitted," said Resplandy, who published the work with experts from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and several other institutions in the U.S., China, France, and Germany. "But we were wrong. The planet warmed more than we thought. It was hidden from us just because we didn't sample it right. But it was there. It was in the ocean already." Wednesday's study also could have important policy implications. If ocean temperatures are rising more rapidly than previously calculated, that could leave nations even less time to dramatically cut the world's emissions of carbon dioxide, in hopes of limiting global warming to the ambitious goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The world already has warmed 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 19th century. Scientists backed by the United Nations reported earlier this month that with warming projected to steadily increase, the world faces a daunting challenge in trying to limit that warming to only another half degree Celsius. The group found that it would take "unprecedented" action by leaders across the globe over the coming decade to even have a shot at that goal. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has continued to roll back regulations aimed at reducing carbon emissions from vehicles, coal plants and other sources, and has said it intends to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. In one instance, the administration relied on an assumption that the planet will warm a disastrous 7 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 4 degrees Celsius, by the end of the century in arguing that a proposal to ease vehicle fuel-efficiency standards would have only minor climate impacts. The new research underscores the potential consequences of global inaction. Faster warming oceans mean that seas will rise faster and that more heat will be delivered to critical locations that already are facing the effects of a warming climate, such as coral reefs in the tropics and the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. "In case the larger estimate of ocean heat uptake turns out to be true, adaptation to - and mitigation of - our changing climate would become more urgent," said Pieter Tans, leader of the Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases Group at NOAA, who was not involved in the study. The oceans absorb more than 90 percent of the excess energy trapped within the world's atmosphere. The new research does not measure the ocean's temperature directly. Rather, it measures the volume of gases, specifically oxygen and carbon dioxide, that have escaped the ocean in recent decades and headed into the atmosphere as it heats up. The method offered scientists a reliable indicator of ocean temperature change because it reflects a fundamental behavior of a liquid when heated. "When the ocean warms, it loses some gas to the atmosphere," said Resplandy. "That's an analogy that I make all the time: if you leave your Coke in the sun, it will lose the gas." This approach allowed researchers to recheck the contested history of ocean temperatures in a different and novel way. In doing so, they came up with a higher number for how much warming the oceans have experienced over time. "I feel like this is a triumph of earth system science. That we could get confirmation from atmospheric gases of ocean heat content is extraordinary," said Joellen Russell, a professor and oceanographer at the University of Arizona. "You've got the A-team here on this paper." But Russell said the findings themselves are hardly as uplifting. "(It) does have implications for climate sensitivity, meaning how warm does a certain amount of CO2 make us," Russell said, adding that the world could have a smaller "carbon budget" than once thought. That budget refers to the amount of carbon dioxide humans can emit while still being able to keep warming below dangerous levels. The scientists calculated that because of the increased heat already stored in the ocean, the maximum emissions that the world can produce while still avoiding a warming of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) would have to be reduced by 25 percent. This represents a very significant shrinkage of an already very narrow carbon 'budget.' The U.N. panel of climate scientists said recently that global carbon emissions must be cut in half by 2030 if the world hopes to remain beneath 1.5 Celsius of warming. But Resplandy said that the evidence of faster warming ocean "shifts the probability, making it harder to stay below the 1.5 degree temperature target. Understanding what's happening with Earth's oceans is critical simply because they, far more than the atmosphere, are the mirror of ongoing climate change. According to a major climate report released last year by the U.S. government, the world's oceans have absorbed about 93 percent of the excess heat caused by greenhouse gases since the mid-20th century. Scientists have found that ocean heat has increased at all depths since the 1960s, while surface waters also have warmed. The federal climate report projected a global increase in average sea surface temperatures of as high as nearly 5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 if emissions continue unabated, with even higher levels of warming in some U.S. coastal regions. The world's oceans also currently absorb more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide emitted annually from human activities - an effect making them more acidic and threatening fragile ecosystems, federal researchers say. "The rate of acidification is unparalleled in at least the past 66 million years," the government climate report stated. Paul Durack, a research scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, said Wednesday's study offers "a really interesting new insight" but is "quite alarming." The warming found in the study is "more than twice the rates of long-term warming estimates from 1960s and 70s to the present," Durack said, adding that if these rates are validated by further studies, "it means the rate of warming and the sensitivity of the earth's system to greenhouse gases is at the upper end." He said that if scientists have underestimated the amount of heat taken up by the oceans, "it will mean we need to go back to the drawing board" on the aggressiveness of mitigation actions the world needs to take promptly to limit future warming. Beyond the long-term implications of warmer oceans, Russell added that in the short-term, even small changes in ocean temperatures can affect weather in specific places. For instance, scientists have said warmer oceans off the coast of New England have contributed to more intense winter storms. "We're only just now discovering how important ocean warming is to our daily lives, to our daily weather," she said. F orget those poor Northerners, the just-about-managing, the strivers or even the spongers. Who is it who feels a tiny bit reassured after the Chancellors Budget? Look no further than your London-based middle-ranking eurotrash professional. Francoise is sitting next to you on the Tube. Shes been fretting about Brexit, about residence permits, about a place for her daughter in a bilingual primary school, and her husbands job what if the bank moves the London back-office team to Frankfurt? Quelle horreur, living with les Boches [Germans to you and me]. Or worse, Luxembourg, where is that? Out of the blue comes a little present from Phil, such a nice man with such awful colleagues. With her husbands bank salary and her part-time accountancy earnings, they have a joint income in six digits, which doesnt go that far in London. But, quelle joie, the Chancellors tweak to the higher-rate tax thresholds means that Francoise will have an extra 1000 in the kitty. Perhaps Brexit wont be so bad, after all. Thats the message, or at least one of the messages, the Chancellor wants to get out there among Londoners and the vast population of foreign investors who live and work in the capital, who drive so much of Britains wealth generation and who worry about Brexit. Since the summer, the Treasury has been leaking tales about the coming change in fiscal orientation. The view was that the bad times were over, the sunlit uplands were on the horizon, thanks to an unexpected bounce in government tax revenues. However, we were still in the dark as to how a post-Brexit Britain would really look. Would the UK become a low-tax, low-spending, more deregulated business haven? The sort of place beloved of hedgies, US multinationals and the restless, globally rich. Would it perhaps, be fiscally favourable enough for Sir James Dyson to consider building an electric car factory here? This Budget squashed any such daydreams. If we were poised for any change of direction, the Chancellor gave a hard look across the Atlantic and then turned back. In fiscal terms, Britain is facing towards Europe, and for the removal of any doubt, he let off a squib, a Halloween spoof to remind American investors that the current philosophical orientation of this Government is still firmly European. The digital sales tax is a bit fuzzy. We dont yet know which revenues will be targeted and how the threshold of 500 million in global revenues will be assessed. The suggested income to be generated, some 400 million annually post-2020, doesnt amount to much when you consider the size of the targeted companies Google, Facebook, Amazon et al. That is not the point this is a flag-waving exercise, not a revenue-generating scheme. The Chancellor is telling anyone who is interested that the UK has no intention of becoming the offshore headquarters for Americas tech giants from which they can dump their products tax-free around the world. The Treasury said it will set aside its digital tax proposal if a global solution is agreed by OECD members. In other words, a firm commitment to tax the biggest multinational companies that do business over the internet, whatever the outcome. Its an aggressive move and it wont be liked in Washington. Of course, this could all go wrong the money for the NHS, the personal tax breaks, the money that will wrap cotton wool around the benefit reforms, to soften the blow. All of that is put at risk, says the Chancellor, if the UK falls out of Europe without the sweetheart deal that the Prime Minister is desperately trying to concoct in Brussels. In the event that Michel Barnier and Theresa May fall out irretrieveably over the next few months, there will certainly be an emergency Budget. In that scenario, personal taxes will go up, business taxes will go down, financial services will be deregulated and, of course, Google, Facebook and Amazon will be offered the opportunity to design their own DIY, a la carte tax arrangements. Then we will be at a crossroads, and a Tory government if it is still in office will set a course towards Washington. There will be no other solution as the UK will have to sell itself to all-comers, not just Francoise, Franco and Franz whose business activities may be dragged back home. I f you thought this weeks tax raid on Silicon Valley tech giants met with howls of anguish from their UK bosses, think again. Chat to some of the regional high-ups over here and you quickly detect a sense of relief. Many have been acutely embarrassed at how the bean-counters back home ride roughshod over the spirit of European tax law. European tech tends to be liberal. Facebooks Nicola Mendelsohn is married to a Labour peer, newbie Nick Clegg is, well, Nick Clegg, and his high-up colleague Steve Hatch is, Im led to believe, a Labour man. Twitters Bruce Daisley is Labour and Googles Matt Brittin, Im told, has Lib-Dem tendencies. In other words, they dont seem naturally opposed to big businesses paying their fair share of tax for schools and hospitals. Defending tax avoidance tricks like the Double Irish, the Dutch sandwich and the rest of the duty-dodging recipes cooked up by their paymasters in the US must be awkward, particularly when theyre hauled in front of MPs to do it. So, while Philip Hammonds proposed digital services tax may have met officially with a stony-faced response from the tech giants, behind the scenes, many executives here were rather pleased. Particularly as, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the proposed levy could raise as little as 30 million from each firm. From their perspective, this looks like a cost-effective way to take the heat from a deeply uncomfortable issue. Rocky, but not quite the full horror show Nexts results today are not the Halloween horror show the share price seems to suggest. While retail sales were awful, at minus 8%, they werent much worse than management had guided investors to expect. More importantly, the company stuck with its full-year sales and profit guidance. Amid all the gloomy talk around the high street, its important to remember that not all big chains are House of Frasers or Debenhams. Unlike them, Next has been consistently well run for decades. Its legacy of the hugely popular Next Directory catalogue (launched in 1988, no less) meant it was perfectly ready for online home shopping and has handled it brilliantly. Thats not to say that it doesnt share some of the troubles of its rivals. Primarily, it still has too many stores. Of its 500-plus in the UK, so far this year it has closed 22. Given the speed its retail sales are falling, that has to accelerate. The company says theyre convenient for click and collect, but its inefficient to pay retail-level rents for glorified postal depots. The company says that, as leases come up for renewal, it is getting better deals more from landlords, but it must not be blinded by that. I n the six months since Sajid Javid became Home Secretary hes shown that hes not afraid to overturn broken policies that he inherited. Theres the block he put on the hostile environment immigration policy after the Windrush scandal and the switch he made to allow the sale of cannabis-based medicines, for instance. But the core job of a Home Secretary is to keep the country safe and on that hes got more work to do. Crime is going up especially violent crime in London. People are worried. Mr Javid needs a plan. So what is it? Today, in a speech to police chiefs and commissioners, hes telling us. Like all public services, the police say they want more funding. Mr Javid is promising to fight for it in next years spending review. Well see, after the NHS took the lions share of cash in this weeks Budget, how realistic that is. But with money must come reform. Weve been calling for better action to prevent violent crime from happening in the first place, not just catch those who carry it out. Today Mr Javid says he wants that too. He also wants more action on cyber-crime part of a pattern that is changing faster than we could ever have anticipated, he says. Both things are sensible but obvious. More challenging is his support for a more effective use of stop-and-search. I want officers to feel confident, trusted and supported in using stop-and-search, he says. Thats a big shift from the policy of his predecessor-but-one. In 2014 Theresa May said that, used badly, stop-and-search was a waste of police time and she battled to restrict its use. Its also at odds with Sadiq Khans promise when campaigning to be Mayor to do all in my power to further cut its use. Whats changed? Well, crime has shot up and one reason is surely that the Mets use of stop-and-search has dropped by 70 per cent since 2012. So Mr Javid is right to back the intelligent use of stop-and-search but dont forget that he has said this before, and the latest figures show its use has kept falling while crime has kept rising. Today he says he wants to see a simpler, trusted way to make the power work. That makes sense. But its not enough for him just to talk about it he now needs to make it happen. That means getting police officers and the Mayor on board too. And it means showing the power can be used sensitively. The unfairest thing of all is to leave people in fear and young people threatened by violence because the police are held back from carrying out their job. Mr Javid is right to take a new tack. Pakistans bad law Asia Bibi, a farm labourer, angered some Muslim women with whom she worked when she took a sip of water from a cup she had fetched for them. They demanded she convert to Islam; when she refused they accused her of blasphemy. She was sentenced to hang in 2010 and for the past eight years has been in solitary confinement while mobs called for the sentence to be carried out. Pakistans blasphemy laws are used to settle personal scores and to terrify religious minorities, Hindus as well as Christians. Its a disgrace that the death penalty can, in theory, be applied although it has never actually been used. The country has a new premier, Imran Khan, who could reform things. It gets large amounts of UK overseas aid. Its good that Ms Bibi is free. But the law which put her in prison needs to change. GBBO rises to occasion Last nights winner of the Great British Bake Off, the adorably diffident Rahul Mandal , had tricky moments during the contest and some outright flops but triumphed over nerves and a shattered storage jar to produce an entire edible rock garden. W hen fascism comes to America, said US stand-up comedian George Carlin, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jack-boots. It will be Nike sneakers and Smiley shirts. The late, great social critic would surely have nodded in bleak recognition as Jair Messias Bolsonaro, Brazils ultra-Right-wing president-elect, celebrated his triumph in Sundays second round of voting, wearing a casual open-necked shirt and broadcasting a victory message on Facebook Live the essence of which was that he and his fellow citizens could now change Brazils destiny together. In spite of Bolsonaros assurances he will govern for all Brazilians, many of them are already anxious with good reason about the character of the destiny he has in mind. After he voted, Brazilian supreme court justice Jose Dias Toffoli pointedly quoted sections of the nations constitution to reporters, emphasising the future president must respect institutions, must respect democracy, the rule of law. Already, members of Bolsonaros party have launched a campaign urging students to denounce indoctrinator teachers who oppose his victory. This follows official raids on campus events and classes involving the study of fascism during the electoral process. Even as the complacent within and beyond Brazil persuade themselves its liberal institutions will normalise the president-elect as their counterparts did so glibly after Donald Trumps victory an unmistakably authoritarian direction of travel is beginning to emerge. As often as Bolsonaro pays homage to Winston Churchill, the fascistic texture of his politics is beyond question. He has praised the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985 with the caveat that its error was only to torture, and not to kill Left-wing dissenters. During the campaign, he vowed to send his own opponents into exile or into prison. Matthew d'Ancona He has previously remarked he would prefer my son to die in an accident than be gay, described his fathering of a daughter as a moment of weakness and, in 2014, told congresswoman Maria do Rosario that, I wouldnt rape you because you dont deserve it. Some international commentators have interpreted this disgusting mans victory as an opportunity for Brazil to curb corruption, shrink its overgrown state and reform its pension system. And no doubt Bolsonaro will promise to initiate many such measures. But, as is always the case with populists, his priority will not be the efficient delivery of policy but the nurturing of recrimination, hatred of minorities and emotive nationalism. This, rather than statistically measured success, is what keeps autocrats in power. Brazils election of an unabashedly far-Right strongman leader marks, definitively, the end of the so-called pink tide of Left-of-centre governments that came to power in Latin America in the early years of the 21st century. But it is also part of a global trend away from the conventions of liberal democracy and towards the brutish embrace of authoritarianism. It is no accident Trump was so quick to congratulate Bolsonaro and to tweet: We agreed that Brazil and the United States will work closely together on trade, military and everything else! The US President knows a kindred spirit when he sees one on Fox News. "President Trump was quick to congratulate Bolsonaro. He knows a kindred spirit when he sees one" As the people of Chile still recall with particular horror, there is nothing new in the axis between repressive governments in South America and successive US administrations. But, there is a difference between Cold War realpolitik and overt authoritarian enthusiasm. What Trump likes the most about Bolsonaro is not that Brazils president-elect may support the US national interest but that they are cut from the same cloth. Increasingly, we live in a world of networks rather than rules-based supranational institutions. The affinity that Trump feels for Bolsonaro is typical of the informal global understanding that is growing between authoritarians of all stripes. It links the Oval Office to the Kremlin; the refusal of Tory MEPs to denounce Viktor Orban to the rise of the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Germany; and Trumps denunciation of the press this week as the true enemy of the people to the government-funded campaign in Hungary portraying opposition groups as pawns of the Jewish billionaire George Soros. It is no accident Bolsonaro has been pictured with Steve Bannon, the ubiquitous guru of the new nationalist Right. Bannon, and others like him, are nurturing this uncodified but powerful web of individual politicians and parties including prominent Brexiteers bonded by a common loathing for liberal elites, the constraints of traditional institutions, and the free press. They prey upon the anxieties of the post-crash era, the tensions within pluralist societies, and the uncertainties spawned by technological change. They have also mastered the power of social media much more quickly and adroitly than their political opponents. In his fine book, The Road to Unfreedom, Timothy Snyder remarks of the old systems decay: To experience its destruction is to see a world for the first time. Inheritors of an order we did not build, we are now witnesses to a decline we did not foresee. True enough. And those who assume history has an autocorrect facility that will quickly ensure the restoration of the centrist liberal ascendancy are in for a big shock. Dfcu Bank has named its Chief of Business and Executive Director, William Sekabembe, as new Managing Director (MD) following the resignation of Juma Kisaame who has been serving in that position. Eagle Online days ago published a letter in which Sekabembe declined KCB Ugandas offer to become their new MD. Sekabembe had all along been wanting to leave Dfcu but was convinced by directors there to stay with the promise that they would give him a fat management job and now he has got it. Sekabembe will now work with the Banks new Chief Executive Officer Mathias Katamba who recently resigned from Housing Finance Bank (HFB) as MD. Katamba will officially join Dfcu Bank effective January 2, 2019 as confirmed by Dfcu Limited Chairman Dr Elly Karuhanga. Stories Continues after ad The two men are now expected to turn-around the fortunes of Dfcu Bank which has not settled ever since it acquired its rival Crane Bank Limited (CBL) in a controversial transaction that was recently queried by the Auditor General John Muwanga in his special audit report of Bank of Uganda on defunct banks. Dfcu acquired CBL at Shs200 billion. I t was very disappointing to read David Cohens presentation of Abbey Manor College [Violent London: these troubled children know they are in last-chance saloon, October 18]. It misrepresents the reality of the achievements of the school. It is unfortunate that, despite their best efforts, some students can find themselves out of mainstream school. We cant abandon them. While exclusions have been rising nationally, in Lewisham they have been falling for the past two years. The consistently good Ofsted rating reflects the success of Abbey Manor College and the positive outcomes pupils are achieving. Abbey Manor College is not a dumping ground for the boroughs bad kids. The college is a specialist provision and provides intervention placements, assessment places for students who are new to the borough and places for students excluded from mainstream education. The college has highly trained specialist and dedicated teachers, and pastoral staff who work with young people and their families with a shared vision for the young people we serve to succeed. I would prefer it if no child ever had to be excluded from school. But if they are, we cant, and wont, give up on their education. Councillor Chris Barnham Lewisham council EDITOR'S REPLY Dear Chris While I understand your need to defend your local Pupil Referral Unit, less easy to comprehend is how you have missed the point of the article which was to compare pupil provision at Lewishams PRU, Abbey Manor College, to that of Dunraven School in Lambeth, where violently disruptive pupils are supported by a separate on-site unit called the Base. If you really care about not giving up on their education, you might be interested to compare schools. You could hardly fail to notice that Abbey Manor is 20 times more expensive than Dunravens Base, 18,000 per student per year versus just 900, yet achieves massively less successful academic results. This is important, as permanent exclusions have risen by 50 per cent in five years and because the link between rising youth violence and children sent to PRUs is well established. Isnt it time to support a Dunraven-type model on your patch? David Cohen, Investigations Editor Muslims and Jews united to fight hate The horrific shooting in a US synagogue on Saturday shows the deep impact that far-Right extremism and the rhetoric that supports it has on minority communities. In the wake of such a tragedy its helpful to draw strength from the solidarity of different religions. Through a fundraising campaign, the Muslim-American community has raised $125,000 at the last count.Meanwhile, in the UK, Britons of all faiths will attend a vigil organised in honour of those killed in the tragedy. Jews and Muslims share a common heritage of caring for life and abhorring murder, and both our communities are deeply affected by far-Right extremism and hate crime, from the murder outside Finsbury Park Mosque last year to the attack on a Cricklewood Muslim centre, to the Tree of Life synagogue shooting. Mustafa Field Rabbi Natan Levy Faiths Forum London We musnt give in to anti-Semitism FURTHER to James McDonald Feders comment piece [As Pittsburgh mourns, Jews like me feel more anxious, October 29], while it is a difficult time for the diaspora across the globe, we cannot simply pack our things and give up. As a born-and-bred British Jew of refugee stock, resilience and survival is ingrained within our DNA and I intend to stand my ground and fight. Ethel Saunders Immigration was Merkels undoing On Sunday evening Priyanka Chopra hosted a bridal shower to celebrate her upcoming nuptials to Nick Jonas. The actress hired out Tiffany & Co's flagship store on Fifth Avenue, holding the exclusive bash in their Blue Box Cafe. The jewellery brand holds a special place in the couple's heart, as it is reported that Nick shut down the London branch in order to choose the 4-carat sparkler which he then presented to his fiancee. The 36-year-old actress looked every inch the bride-to-be as she arrived in a ivory silk dress, which featured a ruched bustier bodice and plume-filled skirt. Although the dress was the perfect ethereal look for the occasion, the ensemble has been the cause of much controversy due to the designer behind it. Priyanka Chopra's bridal shower at Tiffany's Blue Box Cafe / Janet Mayer / SplashNews.com The elegant frock was created by Marchesa, an American brand created by Harvey Weinstein's ex-wife, Georgina Chapman who was married to the disgraced Hollywood producer from 2007 to earlier this year. Priyanka is not the first A-lister to wear the designer in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Scarlett Johansson was the first to debut Chapman's designs following the Weinstein scandal back in May. But, Priyanka, none the less, has faced backlash for her decision. Following days of controversy, the actress has now spoken out defending her decision, telling WWD: Georginas a friend of mine. "It's not her fault. And I dont think its right to take it out on a self-made woman what somebody in her life did. Keren Craig and Georgina Chapman walk the runway at the Marchesa fashion show during New York Fashion Week in 2017 / Getty Images For NYFW: The Shows Priyanka, who has been friends with Georgina for many years, went on to say: "Ive known her for years, and that was a beautiful gown, and deserved to be worn by a bride-to-be. And it made me feel like a princess. It was the right choice. Chapman's brand continues to struggle even after her divorce to Weinstein earlier this year and cancelled its New York Fashion Week show in February . The temperature has plummeted, making us want to throw on every chunky knit we own as soon as we roll out of bed. In previous years bulky layering hasn't been considered sartorially savvy, but that's all about to change. For autumn/winter 2018 the layer-upon-layer look has taken an unexpectedly trendy turn. Influencers on the Instagram have been doubling up on knitwear, but we're not talking about a jumper and a chunky cardigan or scarf. The fashion set is now wrapping a second jumper around their necks for added warmth and style credentials. A second, yet identical jumper, might we add. Celine pre-fall 018 / Celine Over the past few months we've regularly seen jumpers tied around shoulders or diagonally across the chest on the streetwear scene. Everyone from Bella Hadid to Alexa Chung and Olivia Palermo have been in on the styling trick. But, the latest look, which calls for two jumpers to be stitched together, definitely takes things up a notch. The new jumper trend hasn't been catwalk-approved, but it did make an appearance in Phoebe Philo's Celine pre-fall 2018 collection. The oatmeal double knit made numerous appearances on the streets of London and Paris during the most recent spring/summer 2019 season back in September. Many disregarded it as just another quirky passing fashion week fad. That was, until, the two-in-one sweater style got Instagram's seal of approval. In recent weeks several independent designers on Instagram have created their own version of the trend - and it's quickly pulling in the likes. Influencer Tiffany Hsu recently posted a snap of herself in a two-in-one lavender number by Frankie Girl. A New York-based brand which has created several double sweater styles, which retail between $165 and $199. LE: APT is another brand making waves with the kooky knitwear. The Parisian label's double knits are already proving to be a hit on the streets of Paris with French girls giving us a multitude of inspiration on how to work the unusual item. "Do casual dressing the modern, minimal way with our attached double v-neck jumper," it states on its website. Review at a glance I ncreasingly, it feels like its almost standard practice for bands to mark the anniversaries of classic records by revisiting them in full before paying audiences. But if any band should be given carte blanche to indulge in nostalgia, its Pixies, whose seminal debut turned 30 back in March, and still sounds as vital now as it did on release. Alongside 1987s EP Come On Pilgrim, the abrasive Surfer Rosa helped position the four-piece as one of the most influential alt-rock outfits of all-time. Both collections were faithfully replicated in chronological order last night, for the first show of the Boston bands five-night Roundhouse residency. Preceded by a short film detailing the design process behind the iconic artwork for both records, the band appeared silhouetted against a giant screen displaying frenetic video visualisations of Pixies artwork. The set then kicked off with the muscular surf-rock of Caribou, with frontman Black Francis effortlessly alternating between his goblin falsetto and monstrous growl. There was scarcely a pause between songs all night, save for Black Francis re-enacting the spoken-word sections at the end of Oh My Golly and beginning of Im Amazed, with bassist Paz Lenchantin delivering the lines originally ad-libbed by ex-member Kim Deal. That they performed these superfluous interludes at all was testament to their meticulous approach to re-constructing both records. From the frantic punk of Isla De Encanta to the barbed groove of Gigantic, all night they despatched flawless renditions of fan favourites. Conversely, this carbon copy approach resulted in a dearth of spontaneity and coupled with the total absence of audience interaction meant the atmosphere for what should have been a celebration often felt flat. Hopefully, they can put this right for their remaining nights. Now, it has revealed that it's launching the worlds first-ever craft beer airline with the inaugural flight taking off in February next year. The flight, which will be on board a bespoke BrewDog-branded Boeing 767, will fly from London Stansted to Columbus, Ohio where the BrewDog brewery is based - on February 21, 2019. On board, passengers can expect beer tastings with a new beer designed to taste better at high altitude, beer cocktails, food and beer pairings and flight care packages with branded eye masks and blankets. Once passengers land in Ohio, they can expect a tour of Columbus, a tour of the brewery and a day trip to Cincinnati to tour breweries there before flying back to London on February 25. There is a catch. To join the flight you need to be an Equity Punk one of BrewDogs many investors (the company requires a minimum investment of $50 in return for a share in the company) and this application period has now closed for UK residents. But, if youre not one of their investors, you can watch BrewDogs social media channels for a chance to win tickets on the flight. The Facebook and Instagram pages currently have a post saying to tag a friend youd take with you for a chance to win tickets. I n a tranquil valley in India's western state of Gujarat, overlooking the Narmada River and rolling green hills, a new statue has been unveiled. The statue of Indian Independence leader Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, nicknamed the 'Statue of Unity', pays homage to the man who helped unite India - and the statue stands at an incredible 182 metres tall. For perspective, this isn't quite as tall as the Eiffel Tower (300 metres) but is twice the size of the Statue of Liberty (92 metres including her pedestal) without the pedestal the new Indian statue is four to five times the size of Lady Liberty. India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, unveiled the statue today, calling it a 'beacon of hope' as Indian air force planes showered flower petals over the statue. But Modi has faced criticism over its 300million price tag and local tribe leaders are said to be upset over the destruction of the land. PERSPECTIVE: Workers on the statue's feet / AFP/Getty Images Despite this, Modi hopes it will help India through critical times and will be a 'source of inspiration' for the coming years. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was known as the 'Iron Man of India' for his work integrating over 500 Indian states after British colonialists left in 1947. Designed by 93-year-old Ram V. Sutar, the monument will house a museum with over 40,000 documents, 2,000 photographs and a research centre dedicated to Patel's legacy. Before this new monument was opened, the tallest statue in the world was the Spring Temple Buddha in Lushan, China, which reached a height of 128 metres. The Statue of Unity will only hold the title of World's Tallest Statue for a few years as India is planning to open the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Memorial in 2021 in the Arabian Sea which will reach a height of 212 metres. Policemen stand guard near the 'Statue Of Unity' / AFP/Getty Images A hundred years ago, one of the deadliest conflicts in human history came to an end after four horrifying years. World War One was unlike any other war seen before or since and it would leave a lasting mark on society and warfare. Families were torn apart, generations of people were slaughtered and towns and cities across Europe were destroyed. This year marks the centenary of the end of this brutal conflict, and Remembrance Day will commemorate the signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918. So with Remembrance Sunday today, the Standard takes a look at the numbers behind "The Great War". The ruins of the medieval Cloth Hall in Ypres, Belgium, at the end of the First World War. / PA Wire/PA Images When did WW1 start and end? WW1 lasted for four years, from July 28 1914 until the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918. How many soldiers fought in WW1? More than 70 million military personnel were reportedly mobilised to fight during the four years of WW1, including 60 million Europeans. Around five million Brits served between 1914 and 1918, according to the BBC. How many died in WW1? British stretcher bearers (Daily Herald Archive / Science & Society Picture Library) / Daily Herald Archive / Science & Society Picture Library The Encyclopaedia Britannica records that around 8.5 million soldiers are believed to have been killed in WW1. Exact figures are hard to come by, and some estimates have put the total death toll of military personnel at anywhere up to 15 million. The Triple Entente, consisting of the allied powers of France, Russia and Britain, is thought to have lost around six million troops. Around four million troops were lost from the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. These numbers include both combat deaths and those missing in action. How many soldiers were wounded in WW1? A total of more than 21 million troops were wounded, and it is thought that around 1.5 million of these were British. The total number of military and civilian casualties from WW1, including the wounded, is a mind-blowing 40 million people, that's more than half the number of all those who fought. Disease is thought to have killed around two million troops. Men from the Royal Irish Rifles in a communication trench on the first day of the Battle of the Somme / Alamy The first day of the Battle of the Somme remains the worst day in British military history, with British forces suffering around 57,000 casualties in just one day of fighting. During the Battle of Amiens in August 1918 there were 27,000 casualties, while the Gallipoli campaign saw nearly 400,000 casualties and Brusilov Offensive in 1916 resulted in more than two million casualties. There were around 857,000 casualties during the Battle of Passchendaele from July 31 to November 10, 1917. How many countries fought in WW1? Around 32 countries fought across a number of different theatres of war. The Allies, otherwise known as the Triple Entente, included Britain, France, Italy, Russia and the USA. They fought the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. T his is the moment a pair of dognappers untie a familys treasured pedigree pug and calmly lead him away past shoppers on a busy street. Pugsley was tied up alone outside a newsagents in Maida Vale for just a few minutes when two young men passing by spotted him and seized their opportunity. CCTV from West 9 Food and Wine in Harrow Road shows one backpack-carrying suspect walk off with the pup, while his accomplice smirks. Pugsleys owners Barbara Nicholson, 62, and her grandson Kane, 13, today called on Londoners for help to track down their baby who has now been missing for two weeks. The Kennel Club-registered pedigree was bought from a breeder for 1,000 as a gift for Kane, who lives with his grandmother, when the boy was nine. Beloved pet: Pugsley the pug Ms Nicholson, who has lived in the area for more than 40 years, said: My grandson is devastated. The whole of me is grieving, Ive not slept a wink. I feel so awful. I cried more when I lost this dog than when my husband died he is my baby. We tie him outside that shop every day, I go in and out. I just want him back. I keep waiting to hear his little nails clipping along the floor. Her daughter Betty Nicholson, 24, urged the dognappers to return the two-year-old pup. She said: With our area everyone knows everyone, everyone knows our dog. You never expect something like that to happen here. It comes amid a reported rise in dog thefts in London from search organisation Dog Lost, which has assigned a caseworker to Pugsley. T wo males have been rushed to hospital with gunshot wounds after an altercation in a residential street in Crystal Palace, police said. Police were called at around 5.52pm to reports of a fight in Lunham Road, at the junction with Victoria Crescent. Both victims suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the shooting, Scotland Yard said. Witnesses told the Standard dozens of young men gathered earlier on Wednesday to film a rap video. Paramedics from London Ambulance Service rushed both victims to hospital for treatment, Scotland Yard said. Police await updates on their conditions as a crime scene remains in place. Neighbours have described 30 teenage boys and men in their 20s congregating earlier in Victoria Crescent to film the video. Emergency services at the scene of a double shooting in Crystal Palace / Olivia Tobin Andrea Santana, 19, was at work in the community centre, on Lunham Road, before she heard sirens. She said she saw a person on the floor and paramedics surrounding them. One neighbour, who asked not to be named, said she could hear two shots from her window before a large group ran away. The neighbour added that the youths were seen filming in a nearby off licence Central Hill Food and Wine before the incident. Dan Boschetti, 30, of Lunham Road said: "I was just listening to the radio and I heard six shots with a pistol and then a machine gun going off. "There was loads of people here and parked cars and the first thing I heard was a shot. Its usually really quiet on this road, its scary." Rappers Krept and Konan were nearby filming a cameo on the set of a music video in the location of the shooting hours beforehand. Responding to the incident on Twitter, Krept said the shooting was "nothing to do with us". The British rap duo, who won MTV's Brand New for 2015, were seen in videos posted on Krept's Snapchat in Lunham Road earlier in the day. A brothel madam who controlled a UK-wide sex worker empire from an east London call centre has been ordered to give up more than 300,000 she earned from her crimes. Yanping Zhu, 40, managed sex dens at addresses in Earls Court, Clapham, Poplar, Liverpool and Southampton. She used dozens of phones and advertised women online. She disguised her illicit and sophisticated operation, which targeted men who wanted to exploit south-east Asian women for sex, as a company specialising in wedding and party dresses. In total detectives uncovered 26 brothels, housing 40 prostitutes, which Zhu ran between April 2016 and October 2017. They found phones ringing and pinging with messages from men when they first raided a New Cross flat in 2016. An unconnected model in an ad for the fake company (CPS) / Dewji Nazia The Chinese national threw 22 phones out of the window when police swooped, a court heard. Almost 50 were eventually recovered from the property with one containing 3,000 messages enquiring about sex services, which included French kissing for 10. After the raid and while on bail, Zhu set up another call centre in Newham. In June last year Zhus flat in Docklands was raided and detectives found dozens more phones plus online ad-verts featuring naked women and a price list of sexual services. She denied knowledge of the prostitution ring despite a mobile receiving customer enquiries being found in her pocket, the Crown Prosecution Service said. "Zhu set up what was in effect a call centre where customers would make enquiries about sex services" Her London brothels were in Warwick Road, Earls Court; St Johns Hill, Clapham; and Saltwell Street, Poplar. Zhu was jailed for two years after admitting three counts of controlling prostitution for gain, three weeks into her trial at Snaresbrook crown court in February. Now, after a CPS investigation into her assets, she has been ordered to pay 303,700 under the Proceeds of Crime Act. The confiscation hearing at Snaresbrook this month heard she amassed hundreds of thousands of pounds of jewellery, cash and equity in a home in Heron Place, Silvertown. Senior CPS prosecutor Elaine Cousins said: Zhu ran a sophisticated network of brothels across the country. "She used websites for advertising and set up what was in effect a call centre where potential customers could make enquiries about sexual services. "When police raided one call centre in New Cross, Zhu simply started another in Newham. This order means Zhu will not be able to benefit from the profits of her criminal activity. A man has been arrested following the death of a 69-year-old woman who suffered serious burns at the chip shop she owned. The woman, named locally as Mavis Bran, sustained her injuries at The Chipoteria in Hermon, Wales, on October 23. She owned the chip shop with husband Geoffrey Bran, 70, in the small village of Hermon, Carmarthenshire, where she suffered her injuries at about 1.30pm. However, she died at Morriston Hospital, in Swansea, on Monday. Dyfed-Powys Police said a 70-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of assault in connection with the incident. He was released on police bail while the investigation continues. The gated entrance to the premises was pictured shut, with a sign reading: "Closed due to illness." Furun Zhou, owner of The Blue Bell Inn Chinese restaurant in the nearby village of Cynwyl Elfed, bought his business premises from Mrs Bran two years ago, and described her as a "lovely lady". He said: "She ran the Blue Bell for a long time as a pub. When I bought it from her two years ago she was very helpful, she was a lovely lady. But I haven't seen her since around then. "She owned a few businesses in the area over the years. "Customers have come in to speak about what happened and they're shocked. "Hermon is a very peaceful and quiet village. It's very shocking." T he head of the universities regulator today said it is impossible not to be concerned at the scale of anxiety and depression among students. Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of the Office for Students, said improving mental health and wellbeing is a priority for her organisation and universities must make sure they give support. She said that every time she meets groups of students they bring up the problem of mental health, and the issue has been raised as a priority by her own organisations student panel. In a blog published today, Ms Dandridge said: It is impossible not to be concerned at the scale and seriousness of distress, anxiety and depression among students. "As the Office for Students we take very seriously an issue that students are telling us is one of the highest priorities for them, and where we have the regulatory levers, operating at a sector level, to contribute to possible solutions. Her blog came as she spoke today to MPs at the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Students. She pointed to research that indicates student suicide numbers are rising and the demand and cost of student support services is increasing. Figures from the Office for National Statistics, highlighted in a report by Universities UK, show the number of student suicides rose from 108 to 134 between 2001 and 2015. She wrote: Going to university is a huge transition for many and one that brings both social and psychological challenge ... For our international students this is an even bigger transition. She said it is not her role to instruct universities how to give support, or tell students what to do, but that her organisation will directly challenge universities and colleges to support students mental health and wellbeing in the access and participation plans they must write if they want to charge higher fees. The Office for Students has launched a 6 million challenge to universities to come up with new ways of improving mental health, and has funded a guide for colleges on preventing student suicides. Ms Dandridge wrote: Mental health and wellbeing are complex issues and there is no simple solution. But higher education providers are full of people who excel at working with complexity. She said universities should be leading the way in research and innovation on the issue because they employ experts in health and wellbeing. She added: This is not about trying to protect students from the brutality and complexities of life. Nor is it about undermining the fundamental role of universities to educate and research. It is about acknowledging that there is a significant problem of mental health in our society, that we all need to look after our mental health in the same way as we do our physical health, and that higher education providers have a responsibility to address these issues so as to enable their students to flourish and unlock their potential. P olice investigating the death of a premature baby given contaminated food in a London hospital today charged a drugs company with a series of offences. Yousef Al-Kharboush died from septicaemia at St Thomas hospital on June 1, 2014, nine days after being born two months premature with twin brother Abdulilah. He was one of two babies to die within 10 days at St Thomas. A third died at the Rosie hospital in Cambridge. A total of 23 babies at nine British hospitals developed a bacterial infection after receiving the intravenous food, known as Total Parental Nutrition (TPN) and made by ITH Pharma, in Harlesden. The others recovered after being given antibiotics. A four-year investigation by the Met and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency established that only Yousefs death was potentially linked to the contaminated batch of TPN. Today the Met announced that ITH Pharma had been charged with seven counts of supplying a medicinal product not of the nature or quality specified in the prescription. The firm was also charged with failing to take all reasonably practicable steps to ensure patients were not infected by contaminants, in breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act. Its representatives will appear at Westminster magistrates court on December 17. Yousefs parents Raaid Sakkijha and Ghada Al-Kharboush today said the length of the investigation had exacerbated their grief. Mr Sakkijha said: It has been like living with an open wound that will not close... we never celebrate events such as Yousefs brothers birthday because it is too painful a reminder. Arti Shah of Fieldfisher law firm, representing the family in an ongoing civil case, said they suffered the worst grief imaginable. The twins were born by emergency section at 32 weeks gestation and drip-fed the liquid food, a batch of which had been contaminated with the lethal bug Bacillus cereus, in intensive care. At the time, ITH Pharma reportedly said the contamination was in an unspecified raw ingredient from a supplier. C roydon has been named the worst borough in London for asthma, as it was revealed that poorer areas have far higher hospital admission rates for asthma than richer ones. Research by the charity Asthma UK said residents of Croydon were more likely than those anywhere else in the capital to require emergency admission to hospital during an attack. According to the NHS statistics, there were 720 A&E admissions due to asthma in 2016/17, which equates to 188 for every 100,000 residents. The borough also had the third highest figure in London for the number of deaths with asthma as an underlying cause 64 over the period 2007 to 2016. The analysis revealed a divide between rich and poor boroughs, with less affluent areas such as Croydon, Brent, Newham and Barking and Dagenham all having far higher hospital admission rates. Bromley, which neighbours Croydon, had the lowest hospital admission rate 71 per 100,000 residents and 35 deaths over the same decade. Loading.... A total of 1,261 Londoners died of an asthma-related condition in the period. Croydon also has a poor rate of childhood flu vaccination. Only a third of toddlers receive the nasal spray, meaning those with asthma are at greater risk of contracting the virus. Resident Karen Briscoe, 56, has been rushed to hospital several times. She said: Where I live has definitely made my asthma worse. My kitchen has damp in it and I overlook a main road. The damp and the toxic air from the road trigger my asthma. My GP surgery is always so busy that I can wait up to three weeks for appointment, and Ive never had a yearly asthma review, even though I know I should get one. She added: Its very frightening when Im struggling to breathe, and there are times where I think it might get so bad I might die. Asthma UK will publish a report tomorrow showing that where people live can have a direct bearing on their likelihood of being hospitalised or dying from asthma. It said people in the poorest areas in England are more likely to be exposed to worse air pollution and higher smoking rates. They also have challenges accessing care, a lower awareness of asthma management and poor housing conditions. Overall, London has the worst rate in the country for asthma patients not receiving basic asthma care. Some 72 per cent do not have their inhaler technique checked, or receive a written asthma action plan or annual review with a GP or asthma nurse. Dr Samantha Walker, director of research at Asthma UK, said: It is truly shocking that people in deprived areas are not only struggling to make ends meet but if they have asthma they are more likely to end up in hospital or die from an asthma attack. T he family of a London railway worker who drowned during Storm Callum said today: He was a hero to all of us. David Dooley, 38, had been visiting a friend in Brighton when it is believed he was swept out to sea as torrential rain and 70mph winds battered the country earlier this month. He was pulled from the water by coastguards but pronounced dead at the scene. His family believe he had been walking along the beach towards the train station before getting into difficulty at about 1.20am on October 13. Mr Dooley, who had recently become a grandfather, grew up in Ireland and had been living in London for about 15 years. On Monday more than a hundred family and friends gathered at his local pub in Acton to pay tribute to the keen musician, who until recently had worked as a mechanical fitter for London Underground. His widow Khrystyna Dooley, 30, said they had met on her first day in London after moving from Ukraine. The couple would have been married 13 years in December. She told the Standard: David was the person who would give everything without expecting anything in return. He always had a smile on his face. He would always find a positive side to everything. There was nothing he wouldnt do for anybody. He was an angel in the body, and now hes an angel inside of us. He was the best husband, the best dad, the best grandfather. Mrs Dooley, a sales assistant for 3 Mobile network, said her husband did not like deep water and would not have intentionally gone into the sea. He was one of three people killed as Storm Callum hit the south coast. In recent months Mr Dooley had started a new job for Siemens, fitting new Thameslink trains at the companys depot in Three Bridges near Crawley. His son Brandon Troy, 21, who lives in Ireland, said he was the best man I have ever met. He wasnt just my dad, he was my friend, he told the Standard. He was a hero to all of us. Ive never met anybody so positive in his outlook to life. He had a hard time, he lost his mother when he was very young, so for him to turn out the way he did is a testament to him. Mr Troy said that the birth of his first son Jamie eight months ago had been the proudest thing that ever happened to his father. Mr Dooleys body is due to be repatriated to Ireland today after well-wishers raised nearly 8,000 to help with funeral costs. Gerry Foley, the landlord at the Windmill, said Mr Dooley was very popular in the community, adding: He had a twinkle in his eye. D amian Collins, DCMS Select Committee chair, has been called a snake in the grass by the Ukip and Brexit donor Arron Banks in an extraordinary letter to Collins own constituents. The letter, printed on Leave.EU paper, also encouraged voters in Collins Folkestone and Hythe constituency to join the Conservative party and put pressure on his position as an MP. I am in no doubt that the people of Folkestone and Hythe will see through this arrogant attempt by Arron Banks to tell them what they should think and do, Collins told us this morning. Banks is open about where his vitriolic letter comes from. In June he was called to give evidence to Collins committee, which was investigating links between Brexit campaigners and Russia. I spent three-and-a-half hours defending my reputation while some very low-grade MPs took pot shots at me, Banks says in the letter. He doesnt mention that he stormed out of the meeting. Arron Banks does not like to be held to account, particularly on the issue of his contacts with Russia. Parliament, and my committee, are there to hold the wealthy and powerful to account and he is not going to stop me doing my job, Collins said, adding the letter demonstrates that the work of my select committee has got him rattled. The letter is part of Banks subversion strategy, in which he hopes to fill the Conservative Party with like-minded hard-Right types through the use of his personal fortune (estimated at between 100 million and 250 million) and his Leave.EU database. But, so far, hopes of turning Tory constituents against their MPs have foundered. Nicky Morgan said earlier this month actually there are lots of Conservatives who have said this is something that they would absolutely abhor. Collins tells us: I have received overwhelming support from my constituents since the letter was sent. Tuned in for radio Deputy Labour leader Tom Watson was a touch apprehensive last week ahead of his debut as a radio host for LBC but he had nothing to worry about. I ended up loving every minute of it, he says. The hour flew by and I was disappointed to hand over the mic to the far more experienced broadcaster Iain Dale. Watson impressed listeners and is already embracing a classic radio tradition: baiting the BBC. LBC have turned the classic radio phone-in into a modern-day technological art form, he says. No wonder the BBC are worried about ratings. -- Gerard Batten, Ukips leader, has taken time out from courting Tommy Robinson and the far-Right to lambast a Guardian headline about Greggs rebranding towards a gender-neutral business model following criticism that their name sounds too male. Unknown to Batten, the Twitter account he was quoting was a fake. A cheese roll is a cheese roll, he raged. -- What would the late war correspondent Marie Colvin have made of #MeToo? For Marie and I, [it was] yes, guys touch you, grope you thats life, her friend and biographer Lindsey Hilsum tells the High Low podcast. Im not going to spend the rest of my life traumatised because some bloke touched my tit. Watch your chips... Nigella's about If Nigella Lawson ignores you in a restaurant, its because shes too busy looking at the food. All I do when I go to a restaurant is look at the tables to see what I want to eat, she says. I dont look at the people. Do you know in Terminator when he looks and everything is being scanned? Thats what I do. Sometimes she cant wait to order. I did once eat a chip off someone elses table, without actually being aware of it, she says. You see a plate of chips, your hand just goes in and takes one. All perfect 10s culinary stars spice up anniversary dos It was a big foodie evening in London last night. Actor Lisa Faulkner was joined by Amanda Holden, Nicola Stephenson and Angela Griffin at the J Sheekey Atlantic Bar, as she hosted a supper club. The event is part of a series of guest-chef sessions to celebrate the seafood bars 10th anniversary. EastEnders star Faulkner, who won Celebrity MasterChef, was also joined by one of that programmes judges, John Torode. The pair began a relationship after her victory. Also marking a decade was JKS, the restaurant group that includes Gymkhana in its portfolio, and boasts six Michelin stars. The empire started with Trishna, the Indian restaurant in Marylebone, so it was a fitting location for a celebratory dinner. Sanjeev Bhaskar, Meera Syal, beauty blogger Vicky Lee and fashion snapper Erica Bergsmeds were among the guests. SW1A Ken Clarke upset a largely pro-Brexit audience at a Spectator debate at the Emmanuel Centre earlier this week. The basics of your economic performance is youve got to be innovative, the Father of the House said. Youve got to be up with the modern economy, youve got to know your markets, youve got to be enterprising, and the British are not very good at that. -- Joan Ryan, Labour MP for Enfield and Momentum target, posted a clip of herself speaking about cuts yesterday, declaring that Enfield deserves so much better. It was an open goal for agitators: Enfield indeed deserves better, snarled one, thats why were backing mandatory reselection. -- After a staffer tweeted a snap of so many Staffordshire MPs at a Celebrate Staffs Event, Michael Fabricant, MP for Lichfield, who was also there, huffed: I would retweet this, but you didnt show a photo of ME! Quote of the Day B rexit Secretary Dominic Raab has revealed that he expects a deal on Britain's EU withdrawal to be finalised by November 21. Downing Street has so far said only that it is working to conclude a deal "as soon as possible", and hopes to do so during the autumn. But Mr Raab told a cross-party committee of MPs that the end of negotiations, which have stretched on for 19 months, was now "firmly in sight". The October summit of the European Council - long-billed as the "moment of truth" for Brexit negotiations - passed without a deal, and leaders of the remaining 27 EU countries decided not to schedule a special summit in November unless chief negotiator Michel Barnier told them there had been "decisive" progress in talks. But Mr Raab appeared to suggest that he expected a deal within the next three weeks, as he set a date for himself and negotiator Olly Robbins to appear before the House of Commons Exiting the EU Committee. Mr Raab is still negotiating with the EU's Michel Barnier / Francois Lenoir/Reuters "I would be happy to give evidence to the committee when a deal is finished and currently expect November 21 to be suitable," wrote Mr Raab. The letter, released by the committee on Wednesday, was dated October 24 and therefore does not reflect any breakthrough in the past few days. Negotiations are deadlocked on the question of a "backstop" arrangement to guarantee that there will be no hard border in Ireland. Prime Minister Theresa May insists she will not accept an EU proposal which would establish a customs border between Northern Ireland and the British mainland, while Brussels is resisting her plan to keep the whole UK temporarily in a customs union. Mr Raab wrote: "Despite our differences, we are not far from an agreement on this issue. We agree on the principle of a UK-wide customs backstop. An agreement on the details of that backstop should be possible. "Both sides agree that this backstop cannot provide for a permanent UK/EU relationship and are committed to a future relationship that works for the whole of the UK, including Northern Ireland. "We are open to talking about ways to achieve this and committed to continuing discussions in order to reach an agreement. "The end is now firmly in sight and, while obstacles remain, it cannot be beyond us to navigate them. We have resolved most of the issues and we are building up together what the future relationship should look like and making real progress. "We now need to acknowledge the progress that has been made and now work rapidly through the remaining issues and come to an agreement that works for both sides." Mr Raab had been due to give evidence to the committee on October 24, but pulled out shortly before the crunch October 17-18 European Council summit, with his office saying that he was committed to appear only once a deal was finalised. In a letter accepting his proposal of a November 21 evidence session, committee chair Hilary Benn said he was "disappointed" with the new Brexit Secretary's failure to follow the pattern of regular updates established by his predecessor David Davis. And he rejected as "not sufficient or effective" Mr Raab's proposal that he could update the committee by letter until the deal was agreed. "Having been a member of this committee, you will know that this is not how committees undertake inquiries and is not conducive to scrutiny," said Mr Benn. S ajid Javid today promised to make it easier for police to use stop and search as he called for a sweeping overhaul of crime-fighting methods. The Home Secretary said he would be looking at ways to reduce bureaucracy and increase efficiency in the deployment of the tactic as part of a raft of changes to improve the polices ability to tackle a worrying rise in serious violent offending. Mr Javids pledge follows the publication of official figures last week showing that fewer stop and searches were carried out in London in the past year, despite the rise in stabbings and other violent street crime. The number of arrests following searches was also down, even though the Mets success rate when carrying out such checks is higher than the national average. Mr Javid has already urged police not to be afraid to use the tactic signalling a change of tone from previous Home Office edicts The Home Secretary called for an overhaul of crime-fighting methods / PA In a speech to police chiefs in London today the Home Secretary indicated that he wanted to go further by making it easier for officers to carry out more searches. He said that although forces were being stretched, more money was not the only way to curb rising crime. Mr Javid listed improvements to stop and search as the first of a series of changes that could deliver results. Money alone isnt the answer. Thats why Im also making sure the police have the right powers too, he told the conference of the National Police Chiefs Council and the Association of Policing and Crime Commissioners. One of these powers is stop and search. I want officers to feel confident, trusted and supported in using stop and search, and I will be looking at ways to reduce bureaucracy and increase efficiency in the use of this power. There was no immediate indication of what the potential changes would be, but Mr Javids comments will almost certainly be welcomed by rank and file officers who have complained in the past that excessive paperwork and accusations of disproportionality can deter them from using the tactic. In further comments, Mr Javid emphasised that he wanted to respond to concerns about funding by ensuring that policing was prioritised in the Governments forthcoming spending review. He and Chancellor Philip Hammond would also be seeking to provide forces with the resources they need. But he told the police chiefs that they also needed to improve the way they run their forces to make better use of taxpayers money. He said these changes should include greater collaboration between forces and a stronger focus on crime prevention. At the same time, the Home Office would seek to plug capability gaps through a national detective training programme and extra money for tackling cyber-crime. Mr Javid said such reforms were needed because crime is changing faster than we could ever have anticipated with previously under-reported crimes like sexual abuse, domestic abuse and modern slavery ... being reported to the police more than ever before and a worrying recent rise in serious violent crime. The Office for National Statistics revealed this month that knife crime in London has risen to its highest ever level 14,987 such attacks in the year to the end of June. C ommuters are set to face major disruption to their journeys with a tube strike to go ahead on two London Underground lines. The strike by drivers from both the Aslef and RMT unions will affect the Central and Waterloo & City Lines from midnight tonight, and will last through Wednesday, November 7. The planned walkouts on some of the capital's busiest lines will take place on the same day and will bring misery for the hundreds of thousands of people who use the lines each day. Union bosses say staff are striking following a breakdown in industrial relations, while last-ditch talks to prevent the strike have failed. Here's what you need to know about the strike. When is the tube strike? Union members will strike on Wednesday, November 7. Who is striking and what lines will be affected by the strike? The Central Line strike earlier this month caused chaos outside Liverpool Street station (Alex Lentati ) / Alex Lentati Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) and drivers' union Aslef will stage a 24-hour walkout on the Central and Waterloo & City lines. The walkout on the Central and Waterloo & City lines will go ahead for 24 hours from midnight tonight, meaning there will be no services all day tomorrow on these lines. The move will likely cause chaos for the 800,000 people who rely on these services from Essex and Waterloo station. Services will resume as normal the next day. Why are they striking? Both unions say they are striking over a "comprehensive breakdown" in industrial relations. London Underground said both the RMT and Aslef unions were demanding that two drivers were reinstated on the Central line - one who deliberately opened the doors of a train in a tunnel and one who failed a drugs test. Union leaders were said to be furious that an appeal to reinstate the driver who had opened the train doors at a station while two carriages were still in the tunnel was rejected by Tube chiefs. But LU said negotiations have found a "broad common ground" on all original areas of disagreement apart from the reinstatement of the two Central line drivers. An Aslef spokesman stressed the union was ready to "discuss the issues in dispute" but management had failed to offer any new proposals and that no new talks had been arranged. Liverpool Street station will likely be busy because of the strikes next month / Alex Lentati The spokesman added: "Managements pig-headed intransigence will mean major disruption on the Underground next Wednesday. "But the issues underlying this dispute, fair treatment at work and complying with agreements, arent just confined to a couple of areas." Finn Brennan, Aslefs organiser on the Underground, said it was simply wrong that a driver with 25 years of excellent service should be summarily dismissed for one error of judgment. Aslef said it was in discussions with the Hammersmith & City and Northern line branches over balloting for further strike action if the dispute was not resolved. The strike has been slammed as "totally unjustifiable" by Nigel Holness, director of network operations at London Underground. He said: "Both are demanding the reinstatement of Central line drivers sacked over serious safety breaches one who deliberately opened the doors of a train in a tunnel, and one who failed a drugs test." Nick Dent, Director of Line Operations for London Underground, have previously said said: "Our commitment to the safety of our customers and staff is absolute and something we will never compromise on." How can I travel around London? Around 800,000 people use the Central line each day / Leon Neal/Getty Images Around 150 extra buses will be deployed to help passengers affected by the industrial action and Transport for London (TfL) staff will be based at stations to offer advice to people with their journeys. Mr Holness has promised to "keep customers up-to-date with the latest travel advice to help them re-plan their journeys and will continue to talk to the union leadership in order to try to resolve these disputes." Holborn station is expected to be closed. More than 80 extra buses will be deployed on Thursday as the Piccadilly line recovers. Transport for London has advised passengers to use alternative routes as interchange stations are expected to be very busy. TfL says the following stations will be particularly busy, especially during the morning and afternoon peak: Stratford Finsbury Park Hammersmith King's Cross St Pancras Warren Street Green Park Bond Street Piccadilly Circus Tottenham Court Road Bank Liverpool Street Woodford Mile End Leytonstone White City Ealing Broadway Oxford Circus Notting Hill Gate. Follow TfL's website and Twitter accounts for up-to-date information on the day. Is there a strike on the Piccadilly Line? RMT members were set to stage a separate 24-hour strike on the Piccadilly Line from 1.30pm on Wednesday, November 7. But the walkout was called off after the union said progress had been made in talks in a dispute over industrial relastions. A n advert with the tagline freedom is basic showing model Bar Refaeli taking off a face and head covering to reveal a jumper and jeans has caused controversy. The film is part of a campaign for Israeli brand Hoodies and has been widely criticised on social media. In it, Ms Refaeli is clad first in the black attire, while a quote reported to state Is it Iran here? appears on the screen. After this she pulls off the clothing, before flicking her hair and dancing to a song with lyrics about freedom. She is revealed to be wearing a jumper and jeans beneath the veil and head covering The ad reads 'freedom is basic' She shared the 30 second clip on her Facebook page, which has nearly three million followers. Comments on this mainly criticised the content, with one stating: Respecting other woman's choices and not being RACIST is also BASIC. Another stated: You've just scored one of the highest levels of stupidity+racism! A tweet, sharing the video, read: This has to be the most ignorant and racist ad Ive ever seen and I cant believe a whole company approved this... Im disgusted and at a loss of words. At time of writing, this had been retweeted more than 5,000 times. Arguments ensued as to whether wearing the Niqab and the Hijab is a choice for Muslim women who do so or something forced upon them. The model has been criticised over the ad's content / Getty Images Some reported that the ad was posted on the brands Instagram account, though it is no longer there. It does remain on Ms Refaelis Facebook page and the brands YouTube channel at time of writing and a similar one featuring more models is also online. Ms Refaeli is a 33-year-old model and hosts The X Factor in Israel. P akistans Islamist party has called for the death of judges that overturned the death sentence of a woman convicted of Blasphemy. Asia Bibi, a Christian, was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting the prophet Muhammad. The leader of the Tehreek-e-Labaik party has also called for the ouster of Prime Minister Imran Khans government over the case. The partys spokesman said: The patron in chief of TLP, Muhammad Afzal Qadari, has issued the edict that says the chief justice and all those who ordered the release of Asia deserve death. Ms Bibi is set to be freed after being detained for eight years. It is thought that she will leave the country. Supporters of Tehreek-e-Labaik chant slogans during a protest over the landmark ruling / AFP/Getty Images Her husband Ashiq Masih said: I am very happy. My children are very happy. We are grateful to God. We are grateful to the judges for giving us justice. We knew that she is innocent. Large crowds were seen gathering in Lahore to protest the ruling. She was convicted of blasphemy after a row with neighbours. Ms Bibi went to get water for her and her fellow farm workers. Two Muslim women refused to drink from a container used by a Christian and a few days later she was accused of blasphemy. Islamists had demanded her execution. Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province, was shot and killed by one of his guards in 2011 for defending Ms Bibi and criticising the misuse of the blasphemy law. The assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, has been celebrated as a martyr by hardliners since he was hanged for the killing, with millions visiting a shrine set up for him near Islamabad. A Pakistani woman accused of blasphemy can walk free after her acquittal was upheld. The Supreme Court in Pakistan upheld its decision to overturn Asia Bibi's conviction and death sentence. Ms Bibi was convicted in 2010 for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammed and has been in solitary confinement for the past eight years. Ms Bibi's case has divided Pakistani society, splitting liberals and conservatives. Thousands of radical Islamists have taken to the streets to protest the verdict, blocking roads and burning tyres as they demanded she be executed. His life believed to be in danger, Ms Bibi's lawyer Saiful Malook fled Pakistan to the Netherlands, telling reporters there that the UN and EU made him leave "against his wishes." He said: "I pressed them that I would not leave the country unless I get Asia out of the prison...I am not happy to be here without her, but everybody said that you are the prime target at the moment and the whole world is taking care of Asia Bibi." Meanwhile, Pakistan's blasphemy laws have evoked widespread criticism from human rights and Christian groups. Here's everything you need to know about Pakistan's blasphemy laws and why they're so divisive: Who is Asia Bibi? Asia Bibi was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad / REUTERS Asia Bibi is a 47-year-old farm labourer and mother of five from the Punjab Province. Ms Bibi is currently unable to leave a prison-turned safe house over fears that her life is in jeopardy. Tighter security has been employed in recent days, with any individuals entering or leaving the location being searched. On Saturday, Ms Bibi's husband Ashiq Masih called on Theresa May to grant his family asylum in Britain. In a video message, he said: "I am requesting the prime minister of the UK to help us and as far as possible to grant us freedom." Mr Masih also pleaded with Canada and the US to help his wife and family. Why was she accused of blasphemy? Former governor of Punjab Salman Taseer with Asia Bibi, who was sentenced to hang in Pakistan's central province of Punjab after being found guilty of insulting the Prophet Mohammed. / AFP/Getty Images Ms Bibi was involved in a row with other Muslim farm workers after they refused to drink from a bucket of water she had touched because she was not Muslim. When they demanded she convert to Islam, she refused, prompting a mob to later allege that she had insulted the Prophet Muhammad. At the time, Asia Bibi said the case was a matter of women who didn't like her "taking revenge." What are Pakistan's blasphemy laws? Supporters of a religious political party Tehrik Labaik Ya Rasool Allah shout slogans during a protest against a Christian woman Asia Bibi, who has been sentenced to death for blasphemy. / EPA Under the Pakistani penal code, the offence of blasphemy is punishable by death or life imprisonment. In 1860 under British Raj law, it became a crime to disturb a religious assembly, trespass on burial grounds, insult religious beliefs or intentionally destroy or defile a place or an object of worship, punishable by up to 10 years in jail. During the 1980s as Islamic influence in Pakistan grew, the law was expanded to include making derogatory remarks against Islamic personages an offence. Since 1987, a total of 633 Muslims, 494 Ahmedis, 187 Christians and 21 Hindus have been accused under various clauses of the blasphemy law, according to the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP). Why is opinion so divided? Supporters of Islamic political party Jamiat Ulma-e-Islam shout slogans after the Supreme Court acquitted Asia Bibi, a Christian accused of blasphemy, and annulled her death sentence for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad in 2009. / EPA Ms Bibi's case has outraged some Christian groups and conservative Islamic groups for opposing reasons. Whilst public support for Pakistan's blasphemy laws is strong, elsewhere the laws have attracted intense criticism. Prior to the verdict, Islamist movement Tehreek-e Labbaik had threatened to take to the streets in protest if Ms Bibi was released. Protests also broke out in Islamabad and Lahore soon after the ruling was announced. This is not the first instance in which Ms Bibi's case has attracted mass controversy. In 2009, politician Salman Taseer was shot dead by his own bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri, after he spoke out in support of Ms Bibi and openly condemned Pakistan's blasphemy laws. Although Qadri was executed after he turned himself into the police, many hardline Muslims held him as a martyr. Other Pakistani politicians have made efforts to amend the blasphemy laws. In 2010, Sherry Reman of the Pakistan's People's Party (PPP) introduced a private bill with the intention of changing procedures of religious offences so that cases would be heard directly by the higher courts. The bill was withdrawn in 2011 following pressure from religious forces and some political opposition groups. Christian groups have been offering their support to Ms Bibi and her family, with Catholic aid charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) leading prayers for Ms Bibi's release. Her family also met with Pope Francis at the Vatican in February. Ms Bibi's case is just a segment of a much larger problem involving the targeting of Christians in Pakistan. Accusations of blasphemy have often led to mob violence against Christians by militant Islamists. Last year, an attack on a church in Quetta killed nine people and injured 57. A 17-year-old boy has died and injured several others after he set off a bomb in the entrance of a branch of Russia's main intelligence agency. Governor Igor Orlov told Russian news agencies that an explosive device went off at the entrance of the Federal Security Service's (FSB) office in the city of Arkhangelsk, in northern Russia. Russia's anti-terrorist committee said the person who was killed by the explosion was a man who had brought the explosive device in with him. The country's investigative committee confirmed the person who detonated the bomb was a local teen. Investigators also confirmed they are treating the attack as an act of terrorism. Police officers blocking a road by the site of an explosion by the office of the Arkhangelsk Region Branch of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) / Irina Skalina/TASS/Getty Images An anarchist claimed responsibility for the attack in a web posting, but the FSB were checking various theories as to the perpetrator. According to Russia's state-run TASS news agency, the man died while receiving medical help. A fire truck seen at the site of an explosion by the office of the Arkhangelsk Region Branch of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) / Irina Skalina/TASS/Getty Images The "anarchist" who had claimed responsibility allegedly posted in an online forum that the FSB "fabricates cases and tortures people". This unknown man is reported to have posted: "A terrorist attack will not be conducted in the building of the FSB in Arkhangelsk that I am taking responsibility for. "Most likely I will die because of the explosion, because [the] explosive device will go off with me pushing the button installed on top of the bomb." A spokesman for Russia's Anti-Terrorism Committee said: "According to preliminary data, the person who entered the building took an unidentified object from his bag, which exploded some time later in his hands. "As a result, he received fatal wounds." Emergency service cars parked near the FSB office / AP Three FSB employees were also injured by the deadly blast. The injured victims are said to include a 32-year-old man, who suffered injuries to his head and arms, and a woman, who is being treated by doctors. According to TASS, Mr Orlov said: "Work is being done to identify the explosive device and the causes and consequences of this tragic incident." Local reports said a "loud clap" and a "flash" was heard at the entrance of the city centre building, which is near to a drama theatre and shopping malls. The building was immediately evacuated following the blast. Full details have not been immediately revealed about the attack, but security measures across all public offices in Russia have been boosted. S audi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul as part of a premeditated killing, and his body was dismembered and disposed of, Istanbul's chief prosecutor has said. Irfan Fidan's also said that discussions in recent days with Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb have yielded no "concrete results" despite "good-willed efforts" by Turkey to uncover the truth. The announcement on Wednesday is the first public confirmation by a Turkish official that Mr Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered after entering the consulate on October 2. It came as Mr al-Mojeb ended a three-day visit to Istanbul during which he held talks with Mr Fidan and other Turkish officials. Jamal Khashoggi was a vocal critic of the Saudi royal family / PA Turkey is seeking the extradition of 18 Saudi suspects detained in Saudi Arabia over the killing of Mr Khashoggi. It is also pressing Saudi Arabia for information concerning the 59-year-old's remains, which still haven't been found, as well as who ordered the journalist's slaying. Saudi Crown Prince calls Khashoggi killing 'a heinous crime' Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also called on Riyadh to disclose the identity of an alleged local collaborator said to have been involved in disposing of Mr Khashoggi's body. It also comes as the Washington Post columnist's fiancee said he was full of hope on the day he went into the consulate. CCTV shows Jamal Khashoggi enter consulate 1 /6 CCTV shows Jamal Khashoggi enter consulate Jamal Khashoggi, circled, outside the consulate on October 2 AP Images show him speaking to Hatice Cengiz, his wife-to-be, before entering AP He was entering the consulate to get documentation for his upcoming marriage AP The Saudi government has now described him as having been "murdered" AP He is seen in a black jacket, grey shirt and grey trousers AP Some 18 people have been arrested in connection with his death AP Hatice Cengiz, 38, attended the embassy with Mr Khashoggi but did not go inside. She waited hours for him to return, which he never did, and is still unaware as to where his body is. Ms Cengiz said her husband-to-be had been initially wary of going to the building when he first attended for documentation for their wedding. However, a visit on September 28, during which he received "nice treatment and hospitality" had lulled him into not fearing another on October 2. Mr Khashoggi was critic of the Saudi royal family and had been living in exile in the United States. Turkey alleges a Saudi hit squad from Saudi Arabia - including a member of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's entourage during a trip to the US, travelled to Istanbul to kill the journalist and then tried to cover it up. Under mounting pressure, Saudi Arabia has changed its narrative about Mr Khashoggi's killing several times, eventually admitting he died inside the consulate and only recently acknowledging that Turkish evidence shows his killing was premeditated. T he Lion Air jet that plunged into the ocean from the sky over Indonesia is believed to have been found on the seabed by search and rescue crews. The potential coordinates of the body of the aircraft, which crashed killing all 189 people on board, has been pinpointed and divers are on their way to confirm the find. Hadi Tjahjanto, the countrys armed forces chief, delivered the update following a presentation by the head of the National Search and Rescue Agency earlier on Tuesday. The disaster has reignited concerns about safety in Indonesia's fast-growing aviation industry, which was recently removed from European Union and US blacklists. The plane crashed killing all 189 people on board. Rescue teams are working to find victims / EPA It also raised doubts about the safety of Boeing's new generation 737 MAX 8 plane. Boeing Co experts are expected to arrive in Indonesia today and Lion Air has said an "intense" internal investigation is under way in addition to the probe by safety regulators. Locating the fuselage will bring the search effort closer to finding the airplane's flight recorders, which are crucial to the accident investigation. Data from flight-tracking sites show the plane had erratic speed and altitude in the early minutes of a flight on Sunday and on its fatal flight on Monday. Lion Air crash in Indonesia 1 /41 Lion Air crash in Indonesia Recovered personal items of passengers on board the ill-fated Lion Air flight JT 610 are laid out at the search and rescue operations centre AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Indonesian Navy Seals dive during the recovery mission for the crashed Lion Air flight EPA EPA EPA Indonesia's President Joko Widodo holds a personal item from Lion Air flight Getty Images Indonesia's President Joko Widodo (C), inspects recovered debris and personal items from Lion Air flight Getty Images Getty Images Search and Rescue personnel examine recovered debris Getty Images EPA AP Indonesian search and rescue personnel prepare for a recovery mission after Lion Air flight JT610 crashed into the sea AFP/Getty Images Oil slick where Lion Air flight JT 610 reportedly crashed into the sea off the coast of Indonesia's Java island AFP/Getty Images Members of a rescue team prepare to search for survivors from the Lion Air flight JT 610 AFP/Getty Images Relatives of passengers arrive at Lion Air's crisis center at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang AP Nugroho from Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency shows personnel looking at items believed to be from the wreckage AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Indonesian rescuers evacuating parts from a crashed Lion Air passenger plane in waters off Tanjung Karawang EPA A rescue team member points to the location where Indonesia's Lion Air flight JT 610 had crashed into the sea AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images EPA EPA Bangka Belitung province governor Erzaldi Rosman Djohan (seated C, holding microphone), addresses journalists AFP/Getty Images AP Members of a rescue team prepare to search for survivors AFP/Getty Images Airport authority head Bagus Sunjoyo (3rd R, holding microphone) addresses journalists after Lion Air flight JT 610 crashed into the sea AFP/Getty Images EPA An aerial view shows the site where it is believed the Lion Air flight JT610 crashed Reuters EPA AFP/Getty Images EPA A member of an Indonesian rescue team conducting a briefing on handling the evacuation process EPA EPA EPA Indonesian rescue team members collecting the remains of the crashed plane at Tanjung Priok Harbou EPA Indonesian rescue team members collecting the remains of the crashed plane at Tanjung Priok Harbou EPA AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Safety experts caution, however, that the data must be checked for accuracy against the plane's "black boxes", which officials are confident will be recovered. Passengers on the Sunday flight from Bali to Jakarta have recounted problems that including a long-delayed take-off for an engine check and terrifying descents in the first 10 minutes in the air. Officials said the non-stop search effort has sent 48 body bags containing human remains to police identification experts. Anguished family members have been providing samples for DNA tests and police say results are expected within four to eight days. Belongings have been recovered as the search continues / Getty Images Daniel Putut, a Lion Air managing director, said the airline and Boeing will meet this afternoon. "Of course there are lots of things we will ask them, we all have question marks here, why? What's the matter with this new plane," he said. Indonesia's Transport Ministry has ordered all Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes operated by Lion Air and national carrier Garuda to be inspected Boeing declined to comment about potential inspections globally. T he search for the crashed Lion Air plane has found aircraft debris and passenger belongings on the seafloor. Search and Rescue Agency chief Muhammad Syaugi said the findings give the search team confidence they will find the body of the aircraft. The location of the plane's "black box" flight data recorder has also been identified, he said, but strong currents prevented it from being recovered. "We saw belongings such as life jackets, pants, clothes scattered on the seabed," Mr Syaugi said. "We believe the fuselage will be around there, we hope that our target can be found." Lion Air crash in Indonesia 1 /41 Lion Air crash in Indonesia Recovered personal items of passengers on board the ill-fated Lion Air flight JT 610 are laid out at the search and rescue operations centre AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Indonesian Navy Seals dive during the recovery mission for the crashed Lion Air flight EPA EPA EPA Indonesia's President Joko Widodo holds a personal item from Lion Air flight Getty Images Indonesia's President Joko Widodo (C), inspects recovered debris and personal items from Lion Air flight Getty Images Getty Images Search and Rescue personnel examine recovered debris Getty Images EPA AP Indonesian search and rescue personnel prepare for a recovery mission after Lion Air flight JT610 crashed into the sea AFP/Getty Images Oil slick where Lion Air flight JT 610 reportedly crashed into the sea off the coast of Indonesia's Java island AFP/Getty Images Members of a rescue team prepare to search for survivors from the Lion Air flight JT 610 AFP/Getty Images Relatives of passengers arrive at Lion Air's crisis center at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang AP Nugroho from Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency shows personnel looking at items believed to be from the wreckage AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Indonesian rescuers evacuating parts from a crashed Lion Air passenger plane in waters off Tanjung Karawang EPA A rescue team member points to the location where Indonesia's Lion Air flight JT 610 had crashed into the sea AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images EPA EPA Bangka Belitung province governor Erzaldi Rosman Djohan (seated C, holding microphone), addresses journalists AFP/Getty Images AP Members of a rescue team prepare to search for survivors AFP/Getty Images Airport authority head Bagus Sunjoyo (3rd R, holding microphone) addresses journalists after Lion Air flight JT 610 crashed into the sea AFP/Getty Images EPA An aerial view shows the site where it is believed the Lion Air flight JT610 crashed Reuters EPA AFP/Getty Images EPA A member of an Indonesian rescue team conducting a briefing on handling the evacuation process EPA EPA EPA Indonesian rescue team members collecting the remains of the crashed plane at Tanjung Priok Harbou EPA Indonesian rescue team members collecting the remains of the crashed plane at Tanjung Priok Harbou EPA AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Lion Air has sacked its technical director following the crash that killed all 189 people on board. A two-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet plunged into the Java Sea in Indonesia early on Monday just minutes after taking off from Jakarta. The disaster has reignited concerns about safety in Indonesia's fast-growing aviation industry, which was recently removed from European Union and US blacklists, and also raised doubts about the safety of Boeing's new generation 737 MAX 8 plane. Mr Syaugi said a ship being used in the search dispatched a remote-operated vehicle that recorded parts of the aircraft on the seafloor but not the 22-metre-long object detected at a depth of 32 meters that is believed to be the fuselage. An oil slick where the Lion Air flight reportedly crashed into the sea / AFP/Getty Images He said the area is about 400 metres from the co-ordinates where the plane lost contact. A remote-operated vehicle was also sent to the black box location "but the currents on the seabed were very strong, the ROV was carried away," Mr Syaugi said. Searchers have sent 57 body bags containing human remains to police identification experts who on Wednesday said they had identified their first victim, a 24-year-old woman. Anguished family members have been providing samples for DNA tests and police say results are expected within 4 to 8 days. Boeing experts were expected to arrive in Indonesia on Wednesday and Lion Air has said an "intense" internal investigation is under way in addition to the probe by safety regulators. Data from flight-tracking sites show the plane had erratic speed and altitude in the early minutes of a flight on Sunday and on its fatal flight on Monday. Safety experts caution, however, that the data must be checked for accuracy against the plane's black boxes. Several passengers on Sunday's flight from Bali to Jakarta have recounted problems that included a long-delayed take-off for an engine check and terrifying descents in the first 10 minutes in the air. I ndonesia has ordered the removal of Lion Airs technical director following a crash that killed all 189 people on board. The Lion Air flight crashed into the sea on Monday just 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta for an island off Sumatra. Its pilot had requested clearance to return to the airport just two to three minutes after take-off. An official of Indonesias national transportation safety committee confirmed that the aircraft had unreliable airspeed and it was later revealed that the plane had technical issues during the flight before. An oil slick where Lion Air flight JT 610 reportedly crashed into the sea / AFP/Getty Images All staff who approved the flight of the jet that crashed have been removed from duty. Transport Minister Budi Karya Sumadi says the airline will be subjected to a ministry inspection and operations of all low cost airlines in Indonesia will be reviewed. Indonesian relatives of the plane crash victims cry as they wait for the news at the airport / EPA Witness reports from passengers on the flight before the plane crashed, said it felt as though the plane temporarily lost power and was unable to climb after take-off. Data from that flight found that the jet displayed unusual variations in altitude readings differed on the captains first officers instruments. Despite this, the crew decided to continue the flight and landed safely in Jakarta. Lion Air crash in Indonesia 1 /41 Lion Air crash in Indonesia Recovered personal items of passengers on board the ill-fated Lion Air flight JT 610 are laid out at the search and rescue operations centre AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Indonesian Navy Seals dive during the recovery mission for the crashed Lion Air flight EPA EPA EPA Indonesia's President Joko Widodo holds a personal item from Lion Air flight Getty Images Indonesia's President Joko Widodo (C), inspects recovered debris and personal items from Lion Air flight Getty Images Getty Images Search and Rescue personnel examine recovered debris Getty Images EPA AP Indonesian search and rescue personnel prepare for a recovery mission after Lion Air flight JT610 crashed into the sea AFP/Getty Images Oil slick where Lion Air flight JT 610 reportedly crashed into the sea off the coast of Indonesia's Java island AFP/Getty Images Members of a rescue team prepare to search for survivors from the Lion Air flight JT 610 AFP/Getty Images Relatives of passengers arrive at Lion Air's crisis center at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang AP Nugroho from Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency shows personnel looking at items believed to be from the wreckage AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Indonesian rescuers evacuating parts from a crashed Lion Air passenger plane in waters off Tanjung Karawang EPA A rescue team member points to the location where Indonesia's Lion Air flight JT 610 had crashed into the sea AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images EPA EPA Bangka Belitung province governor Erzaldi Rosman Djohan (seated C, holding microphone), addresses journalists AFP/Getty Images AP Members of a rescue team prepare to search for survivors AFP/Getty Images Airport authority head Bagus Sunjoyo (3rd R, holding microphone) addresses journalists after Lion Air flight JT 610 crashed into the sea AFP/Getty Images EPA An aerial view shows the site where it is believed the Lion Air flight JT610 crashed Reuters EPA AFP/Getty Images EPA A member of an Indonesian rescue team conducting a briefing on handling the evacuation process EPA EPA EPA Indonesian rescue team members collecting the remains of the crashed plane at Tanjung Priok Harbou EPA Indonesian rescue team members collecting the remains of the crashed plane at Tanjung Priok Harbou EPA AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Two passengers on the flight from Bali to Jakarta on Sunday described issues that caused frustration and alarm. Alon Soetanto told TVOne the plane dropped suddenly several times in the first few minutes of its flight. "About three to eight minutes after it took off, I felt like the plane was losing power and unable to rise. That happened several times during the flight," he said. "We felt like in a roller coaster. Some passengers began to panic and vomit." Search: Members of a rescue team prepare to hunt for survivors from the Lion Air flight JT 610, which crashed into the sea after take-off from Jakarta in Indonesia / RESMI MALAU/AFP/Getty Images Lion Airs president Edward Sirait said there were reports of technical problems with the flight in Bali but said it had been resolved in accordance with the procedures released by the plane manufacturer. The head of the National Transportation Safety Committee, Soerjanto Tjahjono said that they have identified pings coming from the aircrafts flight recorder. M eghan Markle was given a traditional Maori cloak to protect her during pregnancy as she and Prince Harry arrived in Rotorua, New Zealand, for the final day of their royal tour. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex spent the last day of their 16-day trip in the town, on the countrys North Island, after spending time in Australia, Fiji and Tonga. Both Meghan and Harry were gifted Korowai, traditional Maori woven cloaks, by the people of Te Arawa, honouring the duchesss impending motherhood. Hundreds of people were in Rotorua for the last public walkabout of the tour. Royal fans held banners for the married couple, with one saying "Hello your royal bumpness". The Duke and Duchess of Sussex depart the Tamatekapua meeting house / Getty Images The duke and duchess entered into the Tamatekapua Meeting House both wearing Korowai, which are intended to be a protector, before Harry was given a tewhatewha, a Maori weapon with a point at one end and an axe at the other. The prince was warned he should not take the carved weapon to Twickenham when England play New Zealand. Trevor Maxwell, of the local district council, said: "I am sure you are going to Twickenham when the All Blacks play England on November 11 - make sure you don't take that." The ceremony was conducted in Maori - as Harry and Meghan were being treated like "one of their own" - with Monty Morrison, also from the council, only breaking into English once, when he looked at the duchess and said "little bump" to laughter. Inside the Tamatekapua Meeting House, a building named after the chief and captain of the Te Arawa canoe, which brought ancestors of Maori to New Zealand, the group took part in singing folk songs, or waiata, about their history. Meghan and Harry attend a powhiri and luncheon in their Highnesses' honour at the Te Papaiouru Marae in Rotoru / REUTERS Mr Maxwell joked in Maori that the duchess was just like Pihanga - a mountain in the region famed for its beauty. The mood of the ceremony was light and relaxed, and Mr Maxwell stumbled slightly when introducing the duke, accidentally referring to him as Prince Andrew before adding: "It was in 2007 when we had Prince Andrew here!" The duke spoke for around a minute in Maori - with gasps of awe and smiles when he used the word "whaiaipo", or sweetheart. He said: "Thank you for the beautiful cloak you have so kindly gifted to myself and the duchess. Prince Harry speaks after the a powhiri / REUTERS "We appreciate the skill of the weavers who made it, and the aroha (compassion) that has gone into its creation. This cloak is a taonga (possession) that will be cherished in our family. "One of the joys of our visit to New Zealand has been the opportunity to meet so many young New Zealanders who are devoting their talents and energy to making a difference. Meghan Markle and Prince Harry meet with New Zealands Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern "There are creative, gifted and caring Te Arawa Rangatahi (young people) here, who are using their talents to preserve and promote the Maori language, to support mental wellbeing, and to achieve in areas that will benefit their communities, and their country." The Korowai which the duke and duchess wore were inspired by the coat of arms for the Sussexes, featuring silk in blue, gold, white and red. Artist Norma Sturley said: "The taniko (weaving technique) represents the coming together of two people and cultures with each side representing their whakapapa (family and genealogy). Harry and Meghan arrive in New Zealand 1 /23 Harry and Meghan arrive in New Zealand Prince Harry receives the traditional Maori form of greeting, a hongi - the touching of noses - at n official welcome ceremony at Government House in Wellington, New Zealand Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire The Duchess of Sussex receives a hongi PADominic Lipinski/PA Wire The Duke of Sussex picks up a Maori dagger during the official Maori welcome Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire The Duke and Duchess of Sussex during a visit to view the newly unveiled UK war memorial and Pukeahu National War Memorial Park, in Wellington Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire The royal couple pose with Sophie Hubbard and Hope Watson, both 10 Jan Richardson/PA Wire Harry receives a woollen Buzzy Bee - the wooden originals are an iconic Kiwi toy and his brother William was given one when he visited New Zealand as a youngster Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire The Duke and Duchess of Sussex view the newly unveiled UK war memorial and visit Pukeahu National War Memorial Park Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire A woman leans out to have her photo taken with Harry in the background Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire Meghan receives another hongi Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire The Maori and military welcome party Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire The Duke and Duchess of Sussex lay palm leaves on the tomb of the unknown soldier Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire The Duke and Duchess of Sussex during a visit to view the newly unveiled UK war memorial and Pukeahu National War Memorial Park Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire "The duchess's taniko pattern features three quills from the coat of arms representing the powers of words and communication, and the Californian sunshine is shown in the use of rays of gold. "The blue speaks of the separation of Aotearoa (New Zealand) and England with the Pacific Ocean, as well as the duchess's links to the Pacific Ocean. T wo Muslim-led groups have managed to raise $150,000 (117,553) to cover the funeral costs of all 11 victims of the deadly Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. The two groups reached a goal of $25,000 in the first six hours after starting their fundraising efforts. The $150,000 sum was reached in just 48 hours. 3,600 kind donors stumped up cash. Groups Celebrate Mercy and MPPower Change launched the fundraiser on the site LaunchGood and have said some of the money is already on its way to families. Pallbearers carry a casket following the funeral for brothers Cecil Rosenthal and David Rosenthal / AFP/Getty Images Their fundraising efforts follow Americas worst act of anti-Semitic violence in recent years , where 11 people, mostly elderly, lost their lives in a mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue, in Pittsburgh. A vigil has already been held for the victims and was attended by more than 1,000 mourners. Founder of Celebrate Mercy, Tarek El-Messidi, said the fundraiser welcomed contributions from donors regardless of faith. People attend an Interfaith Prayer Vigil at Central Synagogue in New York to honor 11 victims of the mass shooting / EPA Linda Sarsour, the co-founder of MPower Change, told CBS News: Initially it was intended to be a gesture of solidarity. We wanted to give more than just thoughts and prayers. Mr El Messidi added: Right now, because in Jewish tradition funerals happen right away, the priority is to help with funeral expenses. He said that Jewish funerals in Pittsburgh usually cost about $10,000, and is hopeful the group can provide a helping hand for all those affected. A mourner before the funeral services for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal / AP Josh Sayles, director of the Jewish Federation's community relations council, praised the groups for their help. He said: Pittsburgh is such a tight knit community and the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh are true friends of the Jewish community here. A United States congressional candidate sparked outrage by using a picture of a seaside village in Essex to show what could happen to voters who did not support Donald Trump. A bleak picture of Jaywick Sands, showing unpaved roads and dilapidated homes, was posted to the Facebook page of Republican Nick Stella, who is running for Congress in Illinois. It was accompanied by the message: "Only you can stop this from becoming reality". The image, which now appears to have been deleted attacks Mr Stella's Democrat opponent, and also had a caption reading: "Help President Trump keep America on Track and Thriving. "We can't go back to foreclosures, unemployment and economic recession!" The sea front in Jaywick Sands, Essex, in 2015 / PA The village, near Clacton-on-Sea with a population of around 5,000, was the most deprived neighbourhood in England in 2015, according to a Government report. The flood-prone town was reported to have chronic levels of unemployment, high levels of crime and poor educational attainment. But Jaywick councillor Kevin Watson said the image used in the campaign advert, from the Brooklands area of the town, was old. He said: "All the roads down there have been Tarmaced, there's now fantastic drainage, people are taking pride in their area. "Things are looking very good in Jaywick, probably the best since it was a holiday destination. "I'm sure there are quite a few places in America that are just as bad." An old image of the town was used to warn voters about the consequences of not voting for Donald Trump / PA Penelope Read, who made a documentary called Jaywick: A Diamond In The Rough, in 2016, said she was angry the image was used. The 70-year-old, from Clacton-on-Sea, said: "I'm angry at the injustice. I love Jaywick and I don't think foreign people should be using our village as a political tool. How dare they?" Mr Stella said he did not intend to smear the village Spokeswoman Raquel Mitchell said in a statement: "Our intent was never to smear the town in the photo, now known to us as Jaywick Sands in Essex. "We never used the name. For us it was an example of a town overburdened by poor governance, which is exactly what we in our district are seeking to prevent at every level." U S officials have charged the suspect in a mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh with a total of 44 counts. Robert Bowers, the suspect in what is believed to be the deadliest attack on Jews in the United States in recent history, was charged with counts including religious hate crimes, firearms charges and causing injury to police officers. Bowers is due to appear at a second hearing in federal court in Pittsburgh on Thursday. The charges come four days after 11 people were killed when a gunman opened fire in the Tree of Life Synagogue. Robert Bowers, the suspect of the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue / AFP/Getty Images A married couple, two brothers and a 97-year-old woman were among those killed in the massacre. The victims include a pair of brothers and a husband and wife, with their ages ranging 50 to 97. Survivor Barry Werber, who was in the building during the shooting, said members of the synagogue were beginning to pray in the basement when they heard crashing from upstairs. He said they looked out and saw a body on the staircase. Mr Werber called 911 but said he was too afraid to say anything for fear of making noise as gunshots echoed out. Thousands have now paid tribute to the 11 victims as the first of their funerals were held on Tuesday and Wednesday. Jewish communities hold candlelight vigils for Pittsburgh victims 1 /26 Jewish communities hold candlelight vigils for Pittsburgh victims Pittsburgh281018a People hold candles in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood as they gather for a vigil AP Pittsburgh281018i Members and supporters of the Jewish community come together for a candlelight vigil AFP/Getty Images Pittsburgh281018 Vigil in front of the White House for the Pittsburgh victims AFP/Getty Images Pittsburgh281018i A young boy holds a sign at the intersection of Murray Avenue AP Pittsburgh281018b Community in Pittsburgh gathers after hate attack AP Pittsburgh281018c Candlelit vigil in Pittsburgh AP Pittsburgh281018d Members of the Squirrel Hill community come together for a student-organized candle vigil AFP/Getty Images Pittsburgh281018e People hold candles in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh AFP/Getty Images Pittsburgh281018f Amy Gilligan hugs her daughter at the intersection of Murray Avenue and Forbes Avenue AP Pittsburgh281018g People gather for a interfaith candlelight vigil a few blocks away from the site of a mass shooting Getty Images Pittsburgh281018h People gather for a interfaith candlelight vigil in Pittsburgh Getty Images Pittsburgh281018j A couple embrace near the scene of the mass shooting AP Pittsburgh281018k A crowd gathers at the intersection of Murray Ave. and Forbes Ave AP Pittsburgh281018l Memorial vigil for the victims of the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue AP Pittsburgh281018m A crowd holds candles on the lawn of the Sixth Presbyterian Church AP Pittsburgh281018m In Washington, participants hold candles and sing a Jewish prayer during a Havdalah vigil Getty Images Pittsburgh281018o Members and supporters of the Jewish community come together for a candlelight vigil AFP/Getty Images Pittsburgh281018p Members and supporters of the Jewish community come together for a candlelight vigil AFP/Getty Images Pittsburgh281018q A heavily armed gunman opened fire during a baby-naming ceremony at a synagogue AFP/Getty Images Pittsburgh281018r Vigil in front of the White House in Washington AFP/Getty Images Pittsburgh281018s The shooting killed 11 people AFP/Getty Images Pittsburgh281018t Members and supporters of the Jewish community come together for a candlelight vigil, in remembrance of those who died earlier in the day AFP/Getty Images Pittsburgh281018u A heavily armed gunman opened fire during a baby-naming ceremony AFP/Getty Images Pittsburgh281018v Vigil in Washington AFP/Getty Images Pittsburgh281018w A woman holds a candle as members and supporters of the Jewish community come together AFP/Getty Images Pittsburgh281018x Candlelit vigil in Washington AFP/Getty Images Six people, including four police officers, were also wounded during the shooting at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburghs Squirrel Hill neighbourhood on Saturday. According to charging documents made public on Sunday, Bowers expressed hatred of Jews during the rampage. T he Duke and Duchess of Sussex emerged hand-in-hand from a New Zealand forest today as they wrapped up the last of 76 engagements on their marathon Pacific tour. The couple had been exploring the Redwoods Tree Walk at Rotorua on New Zealands north island at the end of the 16th day of their trip, which has also seen them visit Australia, Fiji and Tonga. After walking along a 700m-long walkway of suspension bridges between 117-year-old redwood trees, Prince Harry said: Its been great, thanks guys! before he and Meghan headed for the motorcade of cars waiting to take them back to Auckland. Earlier a two-year-old crept through the railings during the final tour walkabout - and was rewarded with a hug from the duchess. The royal couple donned Maori cloaks at a ceremony in their final day / PA Catalina Rivera and her mother Mercedes were among the well-wishers at Rotoruas Government Gardens, having moved to New Zealand 10 months ago from El Salvador. Mercedes, who is eight months pregnant, said: Meghan said that she (Catalina) was beautiful, and asked her for a hug. We were trying to mime hugging in the background. We were just so excited to see her. The day started with the pair being given Maori cloaks - or Korowai - during a visit to the village of Ohinemutu. Meghans Korowai was custom created for her visit by Norma Sturley, 66, an elder of the Ngati Whakaue tribe. She wore it over her outfit of a Stella McCartney dress teamed with a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes. Prince Harry greets a well-wisher on their last walkabout of the trip / AFP/Getty Images The Korowai designs were inspired by the coat of arms for the Sussexes, featuring silk in blue, gold, white and red. The duke and duchess, who are expecting their first child in the spring, then headed into the Tamatekapua Meeting House after a traditional powhiri welcome in the courtyard. There the duke was handed a carved Maori weapon known as a tewhatewha which has a point at one end and an axe at the other. As it was passed over, Trevor Maxwell, of the local district council, said: I am sure you are going to Twickenham when the All Blacks play England on November 11 - make sure you dont take that. They have completed 76 engagements in total on the 16-day trip / AFP/Getty Images The ceremony was conducted in Maori - as Harry and Meghan were being treated like one of their own - with Monty Morrison, also from the council, only breaking into English once, when he looked at the duchess and said little bump to laughter. The duke spoke for around a minute in Maori and brought smiles from his hosts when he used the word whaiaipo, or sweetheart. He said: Thank you for the beautiful cloak you have so kindly gifted to myself and the duchess. Duchess of Sussex gives speech on importance of education on royal tour We appreciate the skill of the weavers who made it, and the aroha (love) that has gone into its creation. Harry and Meghan tour Fraser Island 1 /39 Harry and Meghan tour Fraser Island Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex takes part in an aboriginal cleansing ceremony on the shore of Lake McKenzie on Fraser Island SplashNews.com Prince Harry takes part in an aboriginal cleansing ceremony SplashNews.com SplashNews.com SplashNews.com SplashNews.com SplashNews.com SplashNews.com SplashNews.com Prince Harry and Meghan walking along Kingfisher bay walk Getty Images The Duke of Sussex greets people during a dedication ceremony PA Prince Harry poses with members of the Butchulla people AFP/Getty Images The Duke of Sussex takes part in a smoking ceremony with a member of the Butchulla People PA AFP/Getty Images Reuters AP Reuters AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images Getty Images PA PA PA EPA AFP/Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images Getty Images EPA EPA WireImage AP AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AP This cloak is a taonga (treasure) that will be cherished in our family. TODO: define component type apester T he failed launch of a Soyuz rocket carrying astronauts to the International Space Station was caused by a faulty sensor, according to reports. An official from Russian space agency Roscosmos confirmed the cause on Wednesday, according to the country's media. The rocket carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos Alexi Ovchinin blasted off at 2.40am local time on October 11. However the three-stage booster suffered an emergency failure and shutdown during its second stage. The astronauts were forced to make an emergency landing in the Kazakhstan grasslands. Soyuz Mission 57 to ISS - In Pictures 1 /19 Soyuz Mission 57 to ISS - In Pictures Expedition 57 Flight Engineer Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos (L) and Flight Engineer Nick Hague of NASA (R) embrace their families after landing at the Krayniy Airport, after their failiure booster launch in Baikonur, Kazakhstan EPA Specialists and officials meet NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin upon arrival in Baikonur, Kazakhstan AFP/Getty Images Specialists and officials meet NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin upon arrival in Baikonur, Kazakhstan Reuters Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, speaks with the media upon arrival with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin in Baikonur, Kazakhstan AFP/Getty Images Specialists and officials meet NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin upon arrival in Baikonur, Kazakhstan Reuters Russia's Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft carrying the members of the International Space Station (ISS) expedition 57/58 AFP/Getty Images cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin (L) and NASA astronaut Nick Hague walk prior to the launch of the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan EPA The Russian Soyuz rocket has malfunctioned on lift-off has landed safely in Kazahstan, Russian media report EPA The Russian Soyuz rocket has malfunctioned on lift-off has landed safely in Kazahstan, Russian media report AP The Russian Soyuz rocket has malfunctioned on lift-off has landed safely in Kazahstan, Russian media report AFP/Getty Images EPA Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, a member of the International Space Station (ISS) expedition 57/58 AFP/Getty Images Expedition 57 Flight Engineer Nick Hague of NASA, top, and Flight Engineer Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos, wave farewell prior to boarding the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft for launch Getty Images Members of the International Space Station (ISS) expedition 57/58, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin report to Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin before boarding the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft AFP/Getty Images Security personnel drive an armored vehicle past the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft with the crew Reuters The Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft carrying the crew of astronaut Nick Hague of the U.S. and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of Russia blasts off to the International Space Station Reuters The Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft carrying the crew of astronaut Nick Hague of the U.S. and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of Russia blasts off to the International Space Station Reuters Photographers take pictures as Russia's Soyuz MS-10 blasts off. AFP/Getty Images Soyuz rocket launch with Expedition 57 Flight Engineer Nick Hague of NASA and Flight Engineer Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan EPA Images after the landing show the two astronauts undergoing medical tests and having hot drinks following their dramatic landing. The emergency is the latest mishap for the Russian space programme, which has been dogged by a string of launch failures and other incidents in recent years. However it was the first manned launch failure for the Russian space programme since September 1983 when a Soyuz exploded on the launch pad. It was the first rocket launch for Mr Hague while Mr Ovchinin spent six months on the space station in 2016. In an interview with NASA TV, Mr Hague said: Everything was new for me, it was my first time, so I have to give kudos to my commander Alexey Ovchinin. He is a seasoned, veteran cosmonaut. As we were going through all of this, he was able to tell me whats normal. Whats not normal. Loading.... He described the moment the alarm sounded in the capsule. The automated system pulled us away from the rocket so fast, and so the first thing I really noticed was being shaken fairly violently from side to side. The Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft carrying the crew of astronaut Nick Hague of the U.S. and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of Russia blasts off / REUTERS And then there was an alarm inside the capsule and the light that was up there.. I knew, once I saw that light, that we have an emergency with the booster and we are not going to make it to orbit that day. The next manned launch is reportedly predicted to take place on December 3, according to Roscosmos. It will then return the current ISS crew to earth on December 20. K atie Price has returned to Instagram after a seven-week break to post adorable snaps of her youngest children celebrating Halloween. The former model, who yesterday staved off bankruptcy for another month, posted a series of pictures of Jett, five, and Bunny, four, on Wednesday. The siblings posed alongside Prices mum Amy for a sweet family snap, captioned: What its all about. Price, 40, also shared a solo shot of Bunny dressed up as a witch, while another was of a black cat her 16-year-old son Harvey had drawn for her. The happy family snaps mark a return to her Instagram account after a seven week hiatus, during with Price has faced financial struggles and sought help at rehab. Bunny and Jett have been living with their father Kieran Hayler, who is currently divorcing Price. Hayler, 31, recently said that he would like to be able to spend Christmas with his two children. I'm with the kids now, so it [Christmas] will be with the kids, he told Now! Magazine. It's any parent's dream to have the kids on Christmas morning it would be good to have them on Christmas Eve too. I'll split it with Kate but we've got to work all that stuff out, it would be lovely to have them for Christmas, fingers crossed. The mother-of-five will also reportedly be without Junior, 13, and Princess, 11, who she shares with former beau Peter Andre. T he spookiest night of the year is here and there is no avoiding it on TV. From dangerous live stunts to classic horror films, theres something for everyone except maybe the faint-hearted. So settle down on the sofa after trick or treating, turn off the lights, reach for the remote and grab the nearest cushion! Here are our top picks for your Halloween viewing Ben Hanlins Live & Deadly: Drowned ITV2, 9pm Magician Ben Hanlin is back on the box with his deadliest stunt yet as he teams up with Joey Essex, of TOWIE fame, to perform an escapology stunt theyve had just five days to prepare for. Hanlin will also entertain and spook a handful of unassuming celebrities throughout the 90 minute live special. Saw ITV4 Buried away on ITV4 is one of the scariest films of them all, with the channel showing 2004 film Saw. Cary Elwes and Leigh Whannel take the lead in James Wans horrifying directorial debut, which sees masterful detective hunt down a notorious killer. Celebrity Road Trip: Lost in Transylvania 5Star, 9pm An unlikely squad of reality stars Chris Hughes, Mark Francis, Dan Osborne and Bobby Norris teamed up for a trip round Romania in search of Draculas story. Over the course of three episodes, kicking off tonight, the foursome will explore the truth behind the bloodsucking vampire. The Thirteenth Tale BBC Four, 10pm Olivia Colman stars in the gothic film, based on Diane Setterfields novel, as biographer Margaret Lea faces the task of writing about terminally ill recluse Vida Winter, played by Vanessa Redgrave. Halloween H20: 20 Years later W, 10pm Tucked away on W is the seventh instalment of the Halloween franchise. The film, from 1998, stars Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode who is forced to battle with the Shape one last time to escape with her life. But homicidal villain Michael Myers becomes intent on terrorising a group of teenagers at the school Laurie now works at, with terrifying consequences. Release the Hounds ITVBe, 11pm Host: Matt Edmondson fronts Release the Hounds / Primal Media The popular game show has found a temporary home on ITVBe for a Halloween special, hosted by Matt Edmondson. Countries & Areas Search for country or area A Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan B Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burma Burundi C Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Costa Rica Cote dIvoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czechia D Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic E Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia F Fiji Finland France G Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana H Haiti Holy See Honduras Hungary I Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy J Jamaica Japan Jordan K Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan L Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg M Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique N Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North Korea North Macedonia Norway O Oman P Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Q Qatar R Republic of the Congo Romania Russia Rwanda S Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria T Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu U Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan V Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam Y Yemen Z Zambia Zimbabwe President of the Senate Calin Popescu-Tariceanu on Tuesday said he was pleased with the extented meeting he had with the Minister of Investment and Development in Poland, Jerzy Kwiecinski, and with the President of the Polish Fund for Development, Pawel Borys, which meeting he labeled as "very interesting," considering that Romania is creating its own Sovereign Development Fund; however, he also mentioned that "the idea wasn't to copy anybody, for there aren't two identical development funds." "We ended the meeting, which was very interesting in my opinion, for we were able to watch a presentation made by the Polish Ministry of Economy and Economic Development, together with the President of the Polish Development Fund related to how the Polish Development Fund was set up and works. I invited the two Polish officials considering our own project to set up the Sovereign Development Fund in Romania and, of course, it seemed normal to carry out an exchange of experience in this context, to see what is the structure of the Polish Fund, what they had in mind when they created it, how it works now, what are the risks - for such financial instruments also imply taking a certain risk and I also saw what were the results after almost three years of functioning of the Polish Fund," said Tariceanu. He also added that the two projects are not "quite identical," while he mentioned that the idea was not to copy anybody, for there aren't two identical development funds."According to the Senate Speaker, the models are different from country to country, while Romania needs two things to finalize this project - the general functioning framework of the Development Fund and the actual creation of it.With respect to the approval of the legislative proposal, Tariceanu said that it will come when "the draft ordinance regarding the creation of a legislative framework will be a comprehensive one, providing the certainty that it's seated on the right path."Participating in the meeting were also Speaker f the Deputies' Chamber Liviu Dragnea, Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovici, representatives of the Government and the Opposition. A Romanian citizen was evacuated safely, on Wednesday, from the Republic of Yemen, through the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, to Romania, a press release of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) sent to AGERPRES informs. Throughout the journey, reads the quoted source, the Romanian citizen was in contact with the Romanian Embassy to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, that permanently monitored the travel. The representatives of the diplomatic mission in Amman, in permanent coordination with MAE's Crisis Unit and with the support of the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Yemen to Romania, have consistently granted consular assistance regarding the repatriation by air, by identifying an optimal evacuation route, issuing the necessary documents for travel and ensuring the boarding formalities. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs specifies that it fully supported the costs of transportation for the repatriated Romanian citizen. MAE's Crisis Unit continues its efforts of safely evacuating the Romanian citizens in the Republic of Yemen and remains in constant communication with them, as well as with the competent authorities in the region.MAE reminds a Yemen travel warning is still posted on its site, which contains the maximum alert level, namely "Major danger - leave immediately the area or country!".The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterates the request addressed to the Romanian citizens in the conflict areas to contact the Romanian missions in the territory to register their presence, so that they can benefit from assistance and consular protection and to consult the information provided via the "Travel safely!" application, which can be downloaded from the MAE website on any smartphone device with Android of IOS operating systems. Moreover, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs made available to all Romanian citizens who travel abroad the SMS alert system, part of the information campaign "One SMS can save your life!" IRD Rejoices Over Asia Bibi Acquittal, Concerned for Pakistani Christians Contact: Chelsen Vicari, Institute on Religion and Democracy, 202-682-4131, 540-239-2170 cell, cvicari@TheIRD.org WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2018 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Institute on Religion and Democracy is rejoicing over news of Pakistan's Supreme Court overturning the death penalty conviction of Aasiya Noreen, commonly known as Asia Bibi, a Christian Pakistani woman falsely accused of blasphemy against Islam. Bibi has been imprisoned in a Pakistani jail since 2010. She was arrested after her Muslim neighbors accused her of defiling a water bucket and insulting the prophet Muhammed during a dispute. Pakistan is notorious for its strict blasphemy laws used to ban any criticism of Islam and to infringe on the human rights of its religious minorities. Violent protests and clashes with police have broken out in response to the court's ruling, according to BBC reports and multiple other news sources. A Christian friend of IRD in Pakistan reported many churches in his neighborhood are being attacked, causing him to flee. He also reports widespread angry mobs. IRD International Religious Liberty Director Faith J.H. McDonnell commented: "We thank God for the just acquittal of this precious sister in the Lord. Please pray for her and her family, and all of the Christians and other religious minorities in Pakistan, that they will be protected from the virulent backlash of the mobs who are already attacking their communities. We should also pray for the justices of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and Bibi's attorney, Saiful Malook, all courageous men who put truth and justice ahead of their own security. Justice Asif Saeed Khosa quoted Shakespeare's King Lear to say that Bibi was 'more sinned against than sinning' in this long ordeal. "It is time for the government of Pakistan to get rid of these egregious blasphemy laws. Whether used for actual cases of blasphemy or, as has been almost always the case, used for trumped-up charges to victimize an individual, they are appalling violations of human rights. There has been ongoing deliberation over both U.S. House and Senate Resolutions decrying blasphemy laws globally. We urge the U.S. Congress to pass them. At the same time, the news that police and paramilitary groups are attempting to protect the Christians from mobs ginned up by such Islamic jihadists as Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan is encouraging and shows that the government is not ignoring the threat that this acquittal poses to vulnerable Christians. We urge them to continue to crack down on the violence. "Such terrible evil has resulted from such a ridiculous and false charge! Not only were Bibi and her family separated for so many years, but several good, courageous people were slain for speaking out against the blasphemy law and speaking for Asia Bibi. Two examples include a Christian, Government Minister for Minority Rights, Shahbaz Bhatti, and a Muslim, Punjab Province Governor, Salman Taseer. They were both gunned down for defending those accused of blasphemy." www.TheIRD.org Share Tweet Minister-delegate for European Affairs Victor Negrescu on Tuesday carried out meetings with President of the European Committee for the Regions Karl-Heinz Lambertz and European Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources Gunther Oettinger, who are currently paying a visit to Bucharest, with discussions focusing on an analysis of the EU files of interest, considering that Romania is preparing to take over the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Thus, the agenda of the meeting with Karl-Heinz Lambertz included the development of the process of preparation for Romania to take over the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the presentation of aspects of interest for our country, from the perspective of cooperating with the European Committee of Regions, and details with respect to the European Summit of Regions and Cities, which will take place in Bucharest over March 14-15, 2019. In this context, the Minister-delegate reviewed the four thematic pillars of the working agenda of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU, which are about an "Europe of convergence: growth, cohesion, competitiveness, connectivity," "Europe of safety," "Europe, global player" and "Europe of common values.""We firmly support a cohesive Union, based on the fundamental values and on the adoption of a citizen-oriented approach. In our efforts to build a stronger European Union, it's important to go back to the fundamental concepts of the European construction. This project is based, first of all, on cohesion - between the member states, between regions and citizens. Thus, we appreciate the role of the European Committee for Regions in communicating the point of views of the local and regional authorities," stated Negrescu, quoted in the release.The same source mentioned that, at the meeting with Gunther Oettinger, the Minister-delegate underscored that the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU will make all the efforts to finalize and, depending on the case, to substantially push the negotiations forward on as many priority files as possible at the European level, while paying attention to the quality of the compromises and focusing on reaching an agreement in due time."We count on the European Commission's support in the efforts that the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union intends to make in order to advance the European agenda in the first six months of next year. We fully share the Commission's assessment regarding the importance of adopting the European budget in due time, as a foundation for continuing efforts to reach the objectives of the Union, and Romania, through the responsible institutions, is ready to manage the file of the new multi-annual financial framework of the European Union aimed at ensuring, during Romania's mandate, a fast pace of the works at the level of the Council, according to the level of ambition of the member states," stated Victor Negrescu, according to the release. Premier Viorica Dancila conveyed on Wednesday to Albania's visiting Defense Minister Olta Xhacka her appreciation for the good cooperation of the two countries as part of NATO and EU missions, the government said in a release. Viorica Dancila welcomed Olta Xhacka, who is on an official visit to Romania October 30 - 31, at the Victoria Palace of Government. The meeting was a good opportunity to reaffirm Romania's openness to deepening bilateral relations overall, as a continuation of the talks Premier Dancila and her Albanian counterpart Edi Rama had in Sofia on July 6.PM Dancila also expressed her satisfaction at bilateral sectoral meetings picking up pace, as well as at the organization in Tirana, November 8 - 9, of the next meeting of the Romanian-Albanian joint intergovernmental committee on economic, scientific and technical cooperation."The Romanian Prime Minister expressed her appreciation for the good cooperation as part of the NATO and EU missions. The meeting was an occasion to review defense cooperation, based on the legal framework developed so far, which allows the deepening and strengthening of the relevant cooperation," the release states.Dancila reaffirmed Romania's support for the European track of the Republic of Albania and encouraged Albanian authorities to continue the reform process in order to achieve concrete results during the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the release concludes. President Klaus Iohannis handed the Flag of Romania to the Seat Fortress of Suceava on Wednesday, during a ceremony that took place between the walls of the old edifice. In his turn, Mayor Ion Lungu gave the President of Romania an anniversary medal of the city, and the President of the County Council, Gheorghe Flutur, handed him the plaque "Iancu Flondor" and an anniversary medal "Centennial of Bukovina's Union with the country". "Thank you for the extremely emotional gesture, with profound significance, to hand us here, in the Seat Fortress, the Flag of Romania. An exceptional significance now, on the eve of the Centennial, honoring the memory of those who achieved the Greater Union," said the president of Suceava County Council, Gheorghe Flutur.The event was also attended by the Mayor of Alba Iulia, Mircea Hava, who received from the hosts a pot of land from the Seat Fortress of Suceava, where a beech is planted."Receiving a pot with soil from this citadel that was never conquered for hundreds of years might seem to many a gesture like any other. And this demonstrates your spirit of free men, who know how to fight for what you have. It is a bit of soil that is sprinkled with blood, which witnessed all your fights, all your unrest," said Mayor Mircea Hava.Upon leaving Suceava Citadel, President Klaus Iohannis, visiting Bukovina for the third time during his term, said he was moved by the event and commended the local initiatives."I came with excitement, I came to honor a great deed of Bukovina, which decided to come back to its country, Romania, 100 years ago. A very beautiful, emotional ceremony, and I am very glad that Bukovina is developing so beautifully, very many local initiatives, many successful initiatives. I wish all Bukovinians success and all the best," said President Klaus Iohannis.At the exit of the Citadel of Suceava, President Iohannis was expected by a group of children who sang "Lord, Protect the Romanians".Prior to the visit to the Citadel, the President of Romania laid a flower wreath to the statue of Iancu Flondor, in the Central Park of Suceava, after which he visited the Bukovina Museum. The Organisation of Canadian Nuclear Industries (OCNI) and the Romanian Atomic Forum (ROMATOM) have renewed their memorandum of understanding on nuclear power co-operation. According to a ROMATOM press statement released on Wednesday, the memorandum describes several ways in which OCNI and ROMATOM will continue to collaborate to identify opportunities for nuclear suppliers in Romania and Canada. The OCNI-ROMATOM memorandum will also encourage and facilitate co-operation between research institutes and universities in Canada and Romania on nuclear research, development and education. "Romania and Canada are long-term partners in nuclear power, starting with the development of Units 1 and 2 at the Cernavoda nuclear-power plant, which have ranked among the best performing nuclear facilities in the world in terms of capacity factor since their commissioning. Romania's energy program provides for the further development of the nuclear programme by extending the Unit 1 service life and building units 3 and 4 as part of the solution to ensure Romania's security of supply and the achievement of environmental targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80pct by 2050, "according to Gheorghe Lucaciu, executive director of ROMATOM.The memorandum was signed on Tuesday at a joint meeting of representatives of the Romanian and Canadian nuclear industries in Bucharest, jointly organised by ROMATOM and the Embassy of Canada.The Canada-Romania commercial team led by the OCNI brought together representatives of 15 major nuclear providers engaged in meetings with Romanian producers, as well as officials from the Romanian Ministry of Energy. The Canadian delegation also paid a working visit to the Cernavoda nuclear power plant.OCNI is an association that includes over 200 leading Canadian suppliers for the nuclear industries in Canada and foreign markets.The Atomic Romanian Forum has over 35 active member companies operating in areas such as equipment manufacturing, construction, technical design and other nuclear services that support the nuclear industry in Romania. ROMATOM is a member of the European Atomic Forum (FORATOM) and active in the European and national debate on energy strategy and sustainable policies. Senate President and leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE, minor at rule, ed.n.) Calin Popescu-Tariceanu reaffirmed on Wednesday that the simple Justice-related motion was not against Tudorel Toader, arguing that even if the motion had not been rejected by the MPs, this does not entail a sanction against the minister according to Agerpres. "The simple motion was not against Mr. Toader. The motions are on certain topics, and I want things to be clear. Even if the motion had not been rejected, as was the case of today's motion, and would have been accepted, this does not entail a sanction against the minister. There is no legal obligation with regard to the minister. We did no discuss with the [Chamber of Deputies] Speaker [Liviu Dragnea] before because it was not necessary. Since it is a motion proposed by the Opposition, it is normal for the majority to vote against it," Tariceanu said after the meeting of the ALDE's Political Bureau. The plenum of the Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday rejected the simple motion, initiated by the National Liberal Party (PNL) and Save Romania Union (USR), titled "The Justice Minister, an "F" grade minister", in which the signatories demanded the resignation of Tudorel Toader. There were 99 votes in favor, 171 votes against and five abstentions. Uganda has signed a memorandum of understanding with UAE to establish one of the worlds only agricultural free zones in an attempt to enhance food security in the Emirates. The 2,500-hectare free zone will allow private companies from the UAE to invest in agricultural production and development in Uganda. Mariam Al Mehairi, Minister for Food Security said, it will also act as a launch pad for further investment into East and Central Africa. There is a lot of potential to be unlocked in that area, she said. Stories Continues after ad The agreement was signed at Agriscape, a two-day exhibition in Abu Dhabi that convenes dozens of producers, suppliers and investors from across the globe. The deal will promote agribusiness between the two countries and lead to an increase in UAE imports of Ugandan crops and beef. As a result, the country imports about 90 per cent of its food and is therefore pursuing mutually beneficial opportunities in Africa and beyond. Talks began with the Ugandan government last year after the Gulfood exhibition in Dubai in February. Since then, about 14 Emirati companies have expressed interest in investing in the African country, Ugandas Agriculture Minister Vincent Ssempijja noted. The UAE will look for similar, complementary investments in surrounding countries. Africa in general, from Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa to Nigeria and Zambia, is very promising, said Khadim Al Darei, deputy chairman of Al Dahra, the headline sponsor of Agriscape. Currently only 5 per cent of African land has been utilized for agriculture and the consumers are also coming from Africa. Imagine if we find a way to tap into that, we would reduce speculation in prices and also feed the continent. How can it be that 800 million are suffering from hunger, while we have 600 million people suffering from obesity? said Mr. Khadim Food security has topped agendas all over the world as temperatures rise, but it is perhaps most pressing in Africa, where hunger is widespread and conflict and political instability deter investors. Many Sub-Saharan countries feel international agricultural investment is the way to achieve that, We are here to sell an image of our country as a good investment, said Emmanuel Mulilo, a minister from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He said although the country was racked by conflict, it could feed its population, bolster agricultural production and start to export with agribusiness investment, bringing jobs and wealth. The UAE has been one of Africas biggest investors; last year imports from Africa were valued at $21 billion (Dh77.13 billion). Craig MURRAY I am in Ghana and had some Ghanaian friends in the apartment here while I was watching the budget. I was ashamed, and they were incredulous, at the sheer crassness of the entire event. Hammonds manner and delivery were beyond embarrassing. The constant stream of infantile jokes, of which the lengthy stream of toilet humour was just one part, was beyond childish. The worst thing about it is that Hammond apparently genuinely believed he was funny. But even worse was the petty party nature of so much of it. The obsequious reference to DUP MPs by name, the grovelling towards new Tory star Ruth Davidson, the puerile digs at the SNP, the shoehorning in of an anti-semitism reference, the pathetic jibe at John MacDonnells accident. The Ghanaians with me observed that it would all have disgraced a school debating society. Most of the budgets rehashed public spending announcements and tax cuts for the wealthy are not worth analysis. The condemnation of PFI was very welcome, but it has taken 20 years for the political class Red Tories or Blue Tories to acknowledge the blindingly obvious, that they have used it as a device massively to abuse public services to rip off the taxpayer to the benefit of the bankers and wealth managers who funded the PFI schemes. Hammond made the constantly repeated Tory claim that the income gap between rich and poor in the UK is shrinking. It depends what you are measuring. While it is indeed true that the income gap between the top and bottom deciles is slightly shrinking, the gap between the top centile and the bottom decile or any other decile, including the between the top centile and the top decile is expanding very fast. In short, we are taking on the characteristics of a helot society, where distinctions between the upper middle class and working class are reducing, but the gap to the extremely wealthy is growing. In Ghana this last week I have made a point of asking a large number of Ghanaians, from drivers and students to businessmen and senior ministers, whether, in exchange for a higher standard of living and free immigration to the UK, they would give up Independence and become a colony again. I have been met with incredulity and outrage that I would even ask such a question, and even anger from those who misunderstood my motive in asking. Ghanaians are of course quite right. Any nation should be outraged at the idea it would voluntarily become subservient, or that its allegiance can be bought for money. Which is why I am incapable of understanding the mentality of unionists in Scotland, many of whom were swayed in 2014 by arguments their pension might be reduced or their currency depreciated. As everybody who canvassed in the 2014 knows, and opinion polls confirm, it was not those on the breadline who were influenced by these arguments. The worse off were solidly pro-Independence (except for the Orangemen, whose thought processes are not rational). It was the bungalow dwellers of suburbia who were swayed by the fear that they might not be able to trade in their Nissan Qashqai after three years as they intended. In fact, I think the arguments Scotland will be worse off after Independence are demonstrably nonsense. But even were they true, I cannot express the degree of my contempt for those who value national freedom in pennies, and weigh self-respect against gold. Independent states which are geographically, climatically, and in population and demographics closest to Scotland Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland are all markedly wealthier than Scotland, despite Scotlands terrific endowment of national resources. Why do some Scottish people believe they are inferior to the inhabitants of these countries, and would be unable to run their own affairs and economy? The fact that Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden are all markedly wealthier than England, but that Scotland is poorer, should be sufficient indicator that the Union has not brought the claimed historical benefits, compared to those small independent states. So should the fact that, in 1707, the population of Scotland was a quarter that of England, and after three hundred years of Independence it is a tenth, while the population of the Highlands has only just returned to the original level. The fact that the A1 is, amazingly, still not much dualed north of Morpeth, while Crossrail is a national UK expenditure; the fact that high speed rail like Crossrail accounted for in GERS as a national UK expenditure will not come north of Leeds; the massive concentration of central government functions in London, and the long term effect of that on economic development: given all these indicators, you have to be slightly crazy to believe an independent Scotland would not be better off. Astonishingly, this collection of untalented careerists that constitutes the government of the United Kingdom is managing currently to extend its lead in the UK wide opinion polls, while falling back again into third place in Scotland. I have sympathy for friends in England who do not wish Scotland to be independent, because the Tories have such a majority in England. But they have no right to force Scotland to live under a succession of Tory governments, which it has not voted for in over 60 years. Similarly, the Scots have no right to prevent the English from living under Theresa May or even under Jacob Rees Mogg if the English continue inexplicably to wish to do so. I have expressed for many years the hope that I will see Scottish Independence and a United Ireland before I die. I am happy to say I am now convinced that I will do so. That the end of the UK would be marked by such a squalid, incompetent and dysfunctional political leadership I could not have dared to hope. Thank God the UK will soon be over. craigmurray.org.uk In an interview for the Russia-1 television channel, Russias Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov revealed that he had raised the question of egregious Western meddling into Macedonias recent (September 30) referendum and parliamentary voting (October 19) to push through changes to the countrys name and constitution in order accelerate its accession to NATO (and, much later, if ever, to the EU) with US National Security Adviser John Bolton during his recent visit to Moscow. I told him we were accused of meddling not only in the US, but also in Spain, in Brexit and now also in anything that happens in the Western Balkans We said we kept silent on Macedonias referendum, while its capital of Skopje was visited by NATO chief Stoltenberg, defense minister Mattis, German chancellor Merkel who publicly and bluntly demanded that Macedonians vote for their future and say yes in a referendum on their membership in the EU and NATO by only changing their countrys name, recalled Lavrov, further reminding that the referendum had flopped but that, nevertheless, the Macedonian parliament went ahead with a vote to amend the countrys constitution, and secured the necessary two-thirds vote through bribes and promises not to start criminal persecution, overseen by the US Ambassador to Macedonia, who was present during the proceedings and who did not merely sit there. Boltons response? According to Lavrov, he simply smiled and replied that Macedonia was a quite complex country. So, there you have it. Its officially open season on all the worlds complex countries and guess who gets to define complex should they ever even contemplate voting the wrong way, as interpreted by the Wests arbiters of democracy, even the avowed non-interventionists in the White House. If anything, Lavrov was understating what some observers literally described as a rape of Macedonias democratic [sic] institutions on the part of the Western deep state establishment hell-bent on dragging the tiny country into NATO (with the highly unrealistic prospect of EU membership merely being used as a carrot to placate domestic and international public opinion), in order to completely encircle the last staunch anti-NATO holdouts in Europe outside of Russia and Belarus Serbia and the Serbs in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was bad enough that Western officialdom simply ignored the popular will of the Macedonians and collectively pretended that a 36.91% referendum turnout in fact expressed the will of the majority, and that it was sufficiently legitimate to move the matter to Parliament, where a two-thirds vote was required to move forward with the process of amending the constitution. This despite the fact that the Wests hand-picked prime minister, Zoran Zaev, had given assurances before the referendum that citizens will make the decision, and that Parliament would vote on the necessary constitutional changes only if the referendum was successful (meaning a 50% + 1 turnout and a majority yes vote). Then, five days before the parliamentary vote, US Vice-President Mike Pence sent a letter of support to Zaev, ascertaining that Macedonians had, in fact, approved the name change agreement with Greece after all, because, you see, 90% (or less than a third of all the Macedonian voters authors note) of those that voted approved the Prespa Agreement. Two days later, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Wess Mitchell, fired off a letter to Hristijan Mickoski, the leader of Macedonias main opposition party (which opposes the name change agreement with Greece), VMRO-DPMNE, expressing disappointment with his partys negative position vis-a-vis the referendum and the upcoming parliamentary vote and urging him to create space for his partys MPs to vote free from threats of violence, retribution, or other forms of coercion. As it turned out, Mitchells just wanted to make sure that threats of violence, retribution or other forms of coercion would remain the exclusive domain of Zaevs puppet government and the US Embassy. And, thus, four days before the parliamentary vote, Zaev put forth an indecent proposal for the opposition, i.e. amnesty for their members who are on trial for unrest at the Assembly that took place on April 27 of last year," when a former Albanian terrorist guerilla commander was elected as Parliament Speaker under strong US and EU pressure. Or, as Zaev pithily put it: I know that everything has a price. I am ready to pay it. On voting day, October 19, the vote was delayed three times until the necessary two-thirds majority was secured. As to how it was secured was best summarized by a Russian Foreign Ministry statement: We consider what happened as a flagrant violation of all norms both from the point of view of the law and in the moral sense Eight votes that were necessary to secure a qualified majority were ensured by the means of blackmailing, threats and bribing opposition parliament members. Three of them, purely by chance, were released from arrest on that same day. Two others, who had open cases investigated by special prosecutors, were promised freedom. Others received corrupt financial offers in exchange for 'the right vote'. Parliament members were locked in their rooms, their cell phones were seized this is very much in line with the spirit of European democratic practice The American ambassador was present in the Parliament building until the end of the session, leaving no doubt as to who was leading the process Such dirty manipulations cannot be considered the expression of will of parliament members. That the Russians were not exaggerating was confirmed by, among others, a tweet from Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos: Who would have thought that in Europe of values and democracy those who do not vote according to instructions are jailed, and those who comply get a 2 million euro bonus in black money. Opposition leader Mickoski denounced the parliamentary circus as Macedonias Black Friday and a case of classic rape, and proceeded to expel from the party the seven MPs who changed sides and helped secure the necessary two-thirds vote. Bulgarian daily Sliven Now accused the CIA and Greeces Soros funds of bribing the renegade Macedonian MPs. (Links between US diplomats specifically the present US Ambassador to Macedonia, Jess Baily and billionaire interventionist George Soros and their joint work on destabilizing Macedonia using US taxpayer money have been public knowledge for a couple of years.) According to a former adviser to the Macedonian President, Cvetin Chilimanov, the Parliament building was under siege on the day of the voting, teeming with politicians, police and officials from the public prosecutors office, and opposition leaders claimed that their MPs were offered anywhere from 250.000 to 2 million euros to change their vote. Naturally, as was the failed referendum, the parliamentary charade was hailed by the usual EU/NATO suspects. EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn gushed that it was a great day for democracy in Skopje, adding for good measure his expectation that the free choice of all MPs is fully respected. Hahn also issued a supportive joint statement with Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the EU Commission. And NATOs Gensec Jens Stoltenberg unflinchingly welcomed the outcome of the Macedonian parliamentary shenanigans and urged the MPs to seize this historic opportunity. The process is not finished, as two more votes (or votes) are pending in whats left of the Macedonian Parliament on a draft proposal of the necessary constitutional amendments (needing a simple majority), and on the adoption of the final amendments, for which a two-thirds majority will once again be needed, along with the signature of Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov, who himself boycotted the referendum. If everything goes as planned and/or paid, the scene will then move to the Greek Parliament, which must also vote on the changes. According to the Prespa Agreement, the Macedonian side needs to finish its business by the end of 2018, and it is expected that the Greek Parliament will do its part in early 2019. With a little help from their Western friends, no doubt. Steven PIFER President Donald Trump announced at a campaign rally on October 20 that the United States would withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. During his October 2223 visit to Moscow, National Security Advisor John Bolton confirmed that the president intended to withdraw from the treaty. Keeping the treaty in place presumably would require that Trump change his mind, which at a minimum would require that the Kremlin agree to take corrective action to come back into compliance. Thats not going to happen. The treaty was already on life support. Trump is pulling the plug, and the United States will exit the agreement six months after it gives formal notification. Russia bears primary responsibility for the treatys demise, but both Europe and the United States could have done more to try to save it. The INF Treaty Soviet deployment of SS-20 intermediate-range ballistic missiles in the mid-1970s gave rise to concern in Europe about a gap between U.S. and Soviet INF capabilities. In 1979, NATO adopted the dual-track decision: the Alliance agreed to deploy U.S. intermediate-range missiles in Europe while the United States sought to negotiate limits on such missiles with the Soviets. Early rounds of the INF negotiations yielded little progress. The Soviets walked out in 1983 after the first U.S. missiles arrived in Britain and West Germany. The talks resumed in 1985. This time, they produced agreement. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the INF Treaty in December 1987. The INF Treaty banned all U.S. and Soviet land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. It entered into force in summer 1988. Three years later, the United States and Soviet Union had destroyed almost 2,700 missiles as well as their launchers, all under the most intrusive verification measures ever agreed, including on-site inspections. It was rightly called a landmark agreement. Moscows Responsibility Moscow appeared satisfied with the treatys performance up until the early 2000s. Senior Russian officials then began to express concern that, while the United States and Russia could not have intermediate-range missiles, third countries could. (The exceptions were Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, which, like Russia, remained party to the INF Treaty after the Soviet Unions collapse.) Third countries such as South Korea, North Korea, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel have developed and deployed intermediate-range missiles, with China producing hundreds. Each of these countries is geographically much closer to Russia than it is to the United States. So one can understand the Russian concern up to a point. Moscow today has a large and improving military in addition to fifteen times as many nuclear weapons as any country other than the United States. It does not need to match third countries in intermediate-range missiles. Even if the Kremlin leadership found the situation intolerable, it had an honest way forward. It could have invoked Article XV of the INF Treaty, which allows a party to withdraw with six months notice. Moscow, however, choose a different path. It developed and deployed a land-based cruise missile of intermediate-range, identified in 2017 as the 9M729 (NATO designator: SSC-8). That violated the treatys central provision. When the U.S. government charged that Russia had committed a violation, the Russians stubbornly denied those allegation and accused the United States of three treaty violations (one Russian charge, involving the Aegis Ashore missile defense site in Romania may have some merit, but the other two have no basis). Moscow professed fidelity to the treaty, in effect laying a trap into which Trump has now clumsily stumbled. By announcing the U.S. intention to withdraw, he has set in motion a train that will leave Washington and be seen as responsible for killing the treaty. In addition, withdrawal from the treaty will allow the Russians to deploy land-based intermediate-range missiles without constraint, missiles for which the U.S. military currently has no land-based counterpart. It will be a win-win for Moscow. Europes Silence Russia thus bears the major blame for the treatys demise: it cheated. But U.S. allies in Europe and Washington itself could have taken more robust measures to steer Moscow back toward compliance and perhaps save the agreement. U.S. officials first briefed their NATO counterparts about the Russian violation in 2014. From the public evidence, however, the leaders of NATO European members had little concern about that violation. None of them publicly complained about the treaty violation during or after their exchanges with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Nothing suggests that European leaders raised the violation in private either. In spring 2017, after Russia had begun deploying the 9M729, I asked a senior official of a major European ally if his leader would raise the violation when meeting with Putin a week later. He said no with a shrug. That silence sent a messageunintended, but a message neverthelessto the Russians: Europeans didnt worry much about the treaty violation or the 9M729. Some analysts point to the concern expressed in NATO communiques. That does not absolve European leaders from not speaking out individually about the Russian violation. Moreover, take take a look at the communique language. In the September 2014 summit communique, two months after the U.S. government charged Russia with violating the treaty, NATO leaders said that it is of paramount importance that disarmament and non-proliferation commitments under existing treaties are honored, including the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which is a crucial element of Euro-Atlantic security. In that regard, Allies call on Russia to preserve the viability of the INF Treaty through ensuring full and verifiable compliance. The communique from the last NATO summit in July 2018 had tougher language: Full compliance with the INF Treaty is essential. . . . Allies have identified a Russian missile system, the 9M729, which raises serious concerns A pattern of behavior and information over many years has led to widespread doubts about Russian compliance. Allies believe that, in the absence of any credible answer from Russia on this new missile, the most plausible assessment would be that Russia is in violation of the treaty. NATO urges Russia to address these concerns in a substantial and transparent way, and actively engage in a technical dialogue with the United States. That language was better, but it hardly amounted to a robust denunciation, and it was buried in paragraph forty-six of a seventy-nine-paragraph communique. Although the INF Treaty applied limits globally, it focused on Europe. European leaders should have pressed Putin hard on the violation, publicly condemned it, and raised political heat on the Kremlin. Their silence contrasts oddly with the public criticism of Trumps decision voiced in Berlin, Rome and Paris and undermines the credibility of pleas for Washington to remain in the treaty. To put it bluntly, if they didnt care enough to call out the Russian violation, then why care so much if the United States leaves the treaty? An Ineffective U.S. Response The U.S. response to the Russian violation couldand shouldhave been more forceful. The Obama administration sought to bring Moscow back into compliance, a worthy goal, but it applied little real pressure. Washington convened a meeting of the Special Verification Commission, the body established by the INF Treaty to address, among other things, compliance, only in November 2016two years after charging a violation. Pentagon officials described a range of military responses, including efforts to develop better defenses against cruise missiles, the European Reassurance Initiative to boost the U.S. military presence in Central Europe and the Baltics, and investments in new technologies to offset the Russian violation. These measures, however, were largely actions that the Pentagon would take in any case and which would continue even if Moscow corrected its violation. They did not create much incentive for a change in Russian policy. The Trump administration stated on December 8, 2017the thirtieth anniversary of the signing of the INF Treatythat it also wanted to bring Russia back into compliance. It announced a three-pronged integrated strategy to do so: diplomatic steps, including convening the Special Verification Commission, creating a military research and development program for a U.S. land-based intermediate-range missile, and enforcing economic sanctions on Russian entities that had been involved in development and production of the 9M729. This strategy showed no success. The Special Verification Commission met, but by his own admission, Trump has never discussed the violation directly with Putin. The U.S. government either made no effort to stoke up approaches by Allied leaders to the Kremlin or, if it did, then that effort fizzled. Why didnt U.S. officials use the threat of withdrawal with Allies to persuade them to engage Moscow more earnestly and at the highest level? As for military steps, research and development on a U.S. intermediate-range missile likely caused little concern for the Russians. Fielding a missile would take years and cost a lot of money, money that the Pentagon does not have. The Russians, moreover, surely understand that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for NATO to reach a consensus on deploying new missiles in Europe. Recalling the huge anti-nuclear protests in Germany, the Netherlands and other countries in the early 1980s, some in the Kremlin might well welcome the intra-Alliance turmoil if NATO were to consider new deployments. Pentagon officials suggested that the plan to build a new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM) could be suspended if Russia came back into compliance. That probably did not have much effect on Moscows calculations, especially if Russian officials read the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, which laid down additional conditions: If Russia returns to compliance with its arms control obligations, reduces its non-strategic nuclear arsenal, and corrects other [unspecified] destabilizing behaviors, the United States may reconsider the pursuit of a SLCM. Washington could have adopted a more robust military response. The U.S. military could have moved conventionally-armed Joint Air-to-Surface Strike Missiles (JASSMs) to Europe along with B-1 bombers to serve as delivery platforms. It could have increased the number of conventionally-armed SLCMs in European waters, for example, by sending the USS Florida, a converted ballistic missile submarine that can now carry up to 154 SLCMs, on a cruise in the North and Norwegian Seas, with port calls to let everyone know it was there. Such steps could have been done quickly with existing capabilities, would have fully complied with U.S. treaty obligations, and would have caught the attention of the Russian military. The U.S. government also could have treated with greater seriousness the Russian charge that the Aegis Ashore deployment in Romania of an Mk-41 launcher system for SM-3 missile interceptors was inconsistent with the treaty. An Mk-41 launcher on a U.S. warship can carry lots of other weapons, including cruise missiles; Russian officials contended that it was a prohibited launcher of land-based intermediate-range missiles. U.S. officials should have made clear to their counterparts that, if they would seriously address U.S. concern about the 9M729, then the U.S. side would deal with the Russian concern about the Mk-41. Would these political and military steps have succeeded? We will not know, because Washington did not try. If Trump administration officials had a serious game plan for implementing the December integrated strategy to bring Russia back into compliance, then that plan was not apparent. That may be explained by John Bolton becoming National Security Advisor in April. A long-time critic of arms control in general, and of the INF Treaty in particular, Bolton probably was just as happy abandoning the treaty. One other issue has arisen: Chinese intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The need to balance against those missiles has been cited as a reason for why the United States is leaving the treaty, but it is unclear if the Pentagon has even decided that it has a requirement for land-based intermediate-range missiles in Asia. In 2017, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told a Senate panel that the United States could counter China with air- and sea-based weapons. R.I.P. INF Treaty To be sure, Russia committed an egregious violation. The United States could not be expected to remain in the treaty indefinitely under those circumstances. Those who support withdrawal are correct on that point. However, Trump did not have to withdraw from the treaty at this time, especially when there were political and military measures to apply pressure on Moscowmeasures that might have persuaded Russia to come back into compliance. Unfortunately, now we will not know if that tactic would have worked. Instead, the president has delivered a gift to the Russians, who will soon be able to deploy, without constraint, intermediate-range missiles for which the U.S. military has no land-based counterpart. As a bonus for Moscow, Washington will catch the international political flack for the treatys demise. nationalinterest.org The Western media coverage devoted to the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi proves the cynical adage that one persons death is a tragedy, while millions of deaths are a mere statistic. During the past four weeks since Khashoggi went missing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the case has been constantly in the news cycle. Contrast that with the sparse coverage in Western news media of the horrific Saudi war in Yemen during the past four years. The United Nations has again recently warned that 16 million in Yemen were facing death from starvation as a result of the war waged on that country by Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab partners, with the crucial military support of the US, Britain and France. That imminent death toll hardly registered a response from Western media or governments. Last week, some 21 Yemeni workers at a vegetable packing plant near the Red Sea port of Hodeida were killed after US-backed Saudi warplanes launched air strikes. Again, hardly any condemnation was registered by Western governments and media pundits. Admittedly, some politicians in the US and Europe are lately expressing disdain over the Saudi-led war and the possible culpability of Western governments in crimes against humanity. Nevertheless, in proportion to the public concern devoted to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi there is a staggering indifference in relation to Yemen. How is possible that the fate of one man can provoke so much emotion and angst, while millions of children in Yemen appear to be shrugged off as collateral damage. Partly, the circumstances of Khashoggis murder by a Saudi death squad are more easily visualized. His connections as a journalist working for the Washington Post also ensures ample interest from other media outlets. Photos of the 59-year-old Saudi dissident and his personal story of going to the consulate in Istanbul to obtain official papers for an upcoming wedding to his Turkish fiancee also provided a human identity, which then garners public empathy. Another factor is the macabre plot to trap him, torture and dismember his body by a Saudi hit team who appear to have been acting on orders from senior Saudi regime officials. Khashoggis bodily remains have yet to be recovered which adds to the interest in the grisly story. Regrettably, these human dimensions are all-too often missing in the massive suffering inflicted on Yemen. Thousands of children killed in air strikes and millions perishing from disease and starvation have an abstract reality. When Western media do carry rare reports on children being killed, as in the Saudi air strike on a school bus on August 9, which massacred over 50, the public is still relatively insensate. We are not told the victims names nor shown photographs of happy children before their heinous fate. However, the contrast between one mans death and millions of abstract deaths all the more salient because the culprits are the same in both cases is not due simply to human callousness. It is due to the way Western media have desensitized the Western public from their appalling lack of coverage on Yemen. The Western media have an urgent obligation because their governments are directly involved in the suffering of Yemen. If the Western media gave appropriately more coverage with human details of victims then it is fair to assume that there would be much greater public outrage over Yemen and an outcry for justice at least in the form of halting arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Such calls are being made over the Khashoggi case. Surely, the same calls for economic and diplomatic sanctions should therefore be made with regard to Yemen indeed orders of magnitude greater given the much greater scale of human suffering. The Western news media have been shamefully derelict in reporting on Yemens horror over the past four years. One of the most despicable headlines was from the BBC which described it as a forgotten war. The conflict is only forgotten because the BBC and other Western news outlets have chosen to routinely drop it from their coverage. That omission is without doubt a political decision taken in order to not discomfit Washington, London or Paris in their lucrative arms trade with the Saudi regime. Another way at looking at the paradox of one death a tragedy, a million a statistic and the Western medias nefarious role in creating that paradox is to consider the fate of individuals facing death sentences in Saudi Arabia. Take the case of female pro-democracy protester 29-year-old Israa al Ghomgham. Israa was arrested three years ago because she participated in peaceful protests against the Saudi monarchy. She and her husband Moussa al Hashem are facing execution any day by decapitation. Their only crime was to participate in non-violent street demonstrations in Saudis eastern provincial city of Qatif, calling for democratic rights for the Sunni kingdoms oppressed Shia minority. Another case is that of Mujtaba al Sweikat. He also is facing death by beheading, again because he was involved in pro-democracy protests against the absolute Saudi rulers. What makes his case even more deplorable is that he was arrested in 2012 at the age of 17 legally a minor when he was leaving the country to take up studies at Western Michigan University in the United States. It is not clear if these individuals and there are many more such cases on Saudi death row will be spared by the Saudi monarchy in the light of the international condemnations over the Khashoggi killing. Any day, they could be hauled to a public square and their heads hacked off with a sword. If we try to explain the disconnect in Western public reaction to the Khashoggi case, on one hand, and on the other, the massive misery of Yemen, one might invoke the cynical adage about a single death versus millions. But then how does that explain the apparent lack of public concern over the imminent death of individuals such as Israa al Ghomgham, her husband Moussa, or the student Mujtaba al Sweitat? The tragedy of desensitized abstraction is not due to overwhelming numbers. It is primarily due to the willful omission and worse, misinformation by Western media on the barbarity of the Saudi regime and the crucially enabling support given to this regime by Western politics and economics. The apparent disconnect is due to systematic Western media distortion. Thats not just a flaw. It is criminal complicity. Israel is warning Lebanon and Iraq that Iranian use of their territory to upgrade unguided rockets with GPS guidance kits will result in Israeli airstrikes to destroy those operations unless local governments act. Lebanon is more of a problem because of its relationship with Iran and Syria. Hezbollah, a 1980s creation of Iran, is an autonomous military force in Lebanon and dominates local politics via terror and threats of violence against those who resist. Hezbollah, like its patron Iran, is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Iran is currently trying to turn Syria and Iraq into subject states similar to Lebanon. Most Syrians and Iraqis want to avoid this but it isnt easy because Iran is clever, determined and fanatic about the destroy Israel thing. What complicates the situation in Syria is that there a lot of major players. Although Russia, Turkey and Iraq are technically allies with Iran in Syria the historical record shows Iran is historically hostile, and often at war, with these nations and that has been the case for centuries, long before Israel came along in 1948. What makes the unusual alliance possible is that everyone can agree on the need to get rid of the remaining Islamic terrorist rebel groups in Syria. Most of these are currently surrounded in the northwest Syrian province of Idlib. There are some ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) groups hiding out in eastern Syria but these are seen as much less of a threat than the tens of thousands of Islamic terrorists in Idlib. Despite the remaining Islamic terrorist threat in Syria, everyone in and bordering Syria would like to see the Iranians go back to Iran and stay there. The few hundred Iranian troops and over 50,000 Iranian mercenaries in Syria are seen as a constant source of trouble. Iran realizes that their allies in Syria have, and will probably continue, to collaborate with Israel if an opportunity presents itself. Yet Iranian leaders fail to see the absurdity of this situation and despite the widespread popular protest in Iran against the Syrian operations the Iranian leaders continue to operate like its forces in Syria are on the verge of destroying Israel. Turkey is increasingly unsure about its alliance with Russia. Turkeys decades of membership in NATO has given Turks a different, and more professional, military experience than their Russian and Iranian counterparts. For that reason, the Turks have attempted to run their own operation along the Syrian border and most of their disputes were with fellow NATO members, mainly the Americans. With the Russians, the Turks are concerned about the Russian tendency to fantasize, especially when it comes to tech. The Russians and the Iranians have a tendency to announce new military gear that does not perform as advertised. This is particularly the case with weapons sold to Arab nations. The Russians have been doing this since 1950s and found the Arabs are even more into self-serving fantasy than the Russians. The latest example is the recent delivery of S-300 air defense systems to Syria. The arrival of these S-300s was officially prompted by a September incident when, in the immediate aftermath of an Israeli airstrike, a Syrian S-200 SAM (Surface to Air missile) shot down a Russian four-engine Il-20 maritime patrol aircraft off the coast. Russia blamed Israel and Turkey kept quiet because the Turks knew what happened and were appalled that the Russians would not recognize the problems and try to fix them. There were three issues the Russians ignored. First, the Israeli warplanes were back in Israel when the Il-20 was shot down. Second, the Syrians frequently launch lots of SAMs right after an Israeli airstrike even through Syrian radars provide no evidence of where any Israeli warplanes are. The Syrian air defense commanders fire lots of missiles to show that they are doing something even though they never manage to shoot down any Israeli warplanes. Third, the Syrians and Russians are supposed to have an IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) system whereby Russian aircraft carry an IFF transmitter that will tell Syrian SAMs (or SAM unit commanders) that the Russian aircraft is friendly and not to be fired on. Russia and Syria imply that the Israelis somehow deceived Russian and Syrian equipment and were at fault for the Il-20 loss. The Turks know better, and so do many Russian and Syrian officers. But the official line for Russians and Syrians is that the Israelis are somehow responsible and dont bother us with reality because thats not how we roll. By bringing in the more advanced and powerful S-300 systems and giving them to the same Syrians who cannot handle S-200s correctly what can one expect? Nothing good, especially since the Russians are also bringing in more of their EW (Electronic Warfare) equipment and promise to use it. This bothers the Turks because the Russian EW gear is often quite powerful but also tends to produce unexpected (and unfavorable) results in a combat zone. This puts Turkish aircraft and troops at greater risk and also sets the Russians and Syrians up for even more embarrassment. That also makes Russian assurances of how they will aid the Turks in dealing with the last rebel stronghold in Syria (Idlib province) more of a risk. The Turks have always considered the Syrians as unreliable and unpredictable and were hoping the Russians would be an improvement. Improving is not what Russia does these days. Mostly it is improvising and that is a riskier and more uncertain approach to anything. Meanwhile, the Israelis are quietly continuing to launch airstrikes against Iranian and Hezbollah operations in Syria. Iran is finding less consideration and cooperation from its allies in Syria. Russia, Turkey and the Assad government see the continuing Israeli airstrikes on Iranian targets in Syria as a matter between Israel and Iran. The obsession with destroying Israel is seen as an Iranian weakness. Discussions continue on how Russia, Iran and Turkey will operate in Syria once the civil war is officially over. Iran insists that it will still be in Syria at that point. Syria is negotiating peace deals with Kurds (who control the northeast), Druze (who occupy much of the Israeli-Jordan border) and Sunni groups (tribal leaders and local leaders who have not been hostile). Syria wants to attract a lot of foreign aid for reconstruction but that is complicated by Iranian plans to establish a permanent military presence and continue threatening Israel. Several members of the Assad clan are facing war crimes charges and Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan want to send back several million Sunni Arab refugees (which the Assads do not want). The war will not end quickly or in a tidy fashion. The Grief In Gaza In Gaza (the smaller of the two Palestinian territories) Hamas, the Islamic terrorist group that has controlled the Palestinian enclave since 2007, has suffered another defeat in its most recent war with Israel. Actually its worse than that as Hamas has, at the same time, suffered setbacks in its struggles against Fatah (the other Palestinian government in the West Bank), Islamic Jihad (a smaller, Iran backed Gaza rival) and Egypt (that has also blockaded its border crossing and shut down most of the smuggling tunnels. These multiple catastrophes were triggered by another Hamas effort to develop a new strategy that would defeat, or at least hurt, Israel. Once more Hamas thought they had it had it all figured out only to discover that the Israeli military superiority represented more than weapons and well-trained troops. The Hamas defeat in the latest war (that began in March) was due to being outmaneuvered by Israeli tactics that exposed the weaknesses and ruthlessness of Hamas and left the rulers of Gaza much worse off than when they began. This time Hamas thought they could win via a media war campaign by encouraging civilians (via free food, publicity and cash payments for those injured or killed) to try and physically force their way through the security fence and into Israel. It didnt work and so far over 200 Palestinians have died. One Israeli has been killed, by a Hamas sniper using a long-range 12.7mm Iranian sniper rifle. Hamas lost dozens of members, many of the promising young leaders. So did Islamic Jihad. These men were in the crowds to urge the largely male (and teenage) force to keep going in the face of tear gas, rubber bullets and real bullets for the few who made it through the fence. This was all captured on video, from both sides, and it did not reflect well on Hamas, which lost more support from its few remaining Arab allies (and donors). This included Egypt, which also closed its border to Gaza as well as increasing efforts to find and destroy Hamas smuggling tunnels into Egypt. One surprisingly successful aspect of this round of violence was the Hamas use of kites and balloons to send fire bombs across the border. So far these attacks have burned over 2,800 hectares (6,900 acres) of shrub, forest and farmland. The kite and balloon assembly and launch sites are increasingly being hit with airstrikes and artillery, contributing to the Palestinian death toll. The fire kites and balloons are the only things the Gazans can get across the border, depending on the wind. Another Hamas defeat, that was not unexpected, was new Israeli technology which made it very difficult (and apparently, for the moment, impossible) to dig tunnels under the security fence and into Israel. Moreover, it soon became apparent that the Israelis had no intention of invading, as they had in 2014. That war was another major disappointment for Hamas and they failed to realize that the Israelis learned more from the 2014 war than Hamas did. Six months into this latest war Hamas is faced with more unrest among the nearly two million Palestinians it rules. Hamas is under even greater pressure from its rival Fatah, which rules the West Bank. Egypt, which had brokered numerous efforts to achieve peace with Israel, is pressuring Hamas to make peace with Fatah and form a unified Palestinian government, even though everyone believes Hamas would no longer be in charge of Gaza, or anything else because the group has become so unpopular with most Palestinians. Everyone in the Arab world wants Hamas and Fatah to merge. But the long record of failure means that would cost Hamas its control over Gaza where most Palestinians are decidedly anti-Hamas. In fact, the only ally Sunni Hamas has is Shia (and non-Arab) Iran which is currently calling for Iranian Shia to replace the Sunni Arabs who have always controlled the most sacred Islamic shrines in Mecca. Because of this latest war against Israel Hamas has less support in Gaza, fewer Arab allies, less cash and is generally despised by the Arab world. Most importantly Israel learned that they could defeat Hamas without invading Gaza. That deprived Hamas of an opportunity to get lots of Gaza civilians killed because Hamas had learned how to construct new residential buildings (from single-family homes to apartment buildings) with military features. Hamas learned that from Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militia. Hezbollah builds a lot of new government, commercial and residential buildings and all have a secondary military purpose. Often it is just ammunition storage bunkers in the basement and special passageways to allow rockets to be quickly moved to firing positions (either right next to or in the building). Hezbollah shared its techniques for forcing civilians to stay in their homes during conflicts, even though these homes and been weaponized and were now legitimate military targets. Israel could have gone after Hamas anyway but found it better to stop Hamas at the border fence and let Gazans know what else Hamas had in store for them. For Hamas, that was not a win. Sinai Shutdown For ISIL The Egyptian campaign against ISIL in Sinai, that began in February, continues. So far that effort has killed some 400 Islamic terrorists and arrested over a thousand suspects. More than a thousand roadside bombs, landmines and other explosives were disabled or destroyed before they could be used (to kill, on average, more civilians than anyone else). Hundreds of ISIL motorbikes and other vehicles have been seized along with hundreds of rifles and machine-guns and large quantities of ammo and other military equipment. At least once a month the military releases a summary of recent operations and the list always contains many hideouts and much equipment (and weapons) seized as well as many (often fifty or more) mines and roadside bombs disabled. These operations are also doing a lot of damage to Sinai based smuggling operations. The government is telling the smugglers (usually Bedouins) that if they want to avoid these counter-terrorism raids, dont work with the Islamic terrorists, especially ISIL. That has had some impact although by now most of the Sinai tribes have turned against ISIL, which is still the primary Islamic terror group operating in Sinai. That is largely because Egypt has greatly reduced access between Gaza and Egypt. Gaza is still a sanctuary for several Islamic terror groups but because of another Hamas military campaign against Israel Gaza is difficult to get in or out of. That leaves a much diminished ISIL as the major terrorist threat in Sinai. ISIL can still attract some recruits and other support but, as happened in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere ISIL made too many enemies and is declining. ISIL has tried moving to other parts of Egypt but has not found any part of the country as hospitable as Sinai. October 30, 2018: In the last few days three Gulf Arab states (UAE, Oman and Bahrain) have openly admitted their links to Israel. The UAE and Oman have recently received Israeli leaders as official visitors. So far the closer Arabian ties with Israel have not generated a lot of internal unrest. That may not be the case in Saudi Arabia, the largest and most powerful Arabian state. Despite that risk, Saudi Arabia has taken the lead in forming an alliance with Israel. The last time there was such public enthusiasm for Israel was in the 1990s after Israel and the Palestinians met in Norway and worked out a peace deal. In 2000, when Israel offered a peace deal that the Palestinians would love to have today, the Palestinians turned it down because the radicals wanted Israel destroyed and nothing less would do. That did not work out well and this time around most Moslem nations blame the Palestinians and see Israel as a much more reliable and useful ally and economic partner. The Palestinians are still calling for the destruction of Israel but the only one siding with them is Iran, which has declared war on the Arab states, especially the one in Arabia with lots of oil. October 29, 2018: Israel admitted that it continues to carry out airstrikes in Syria against Iranian and Hezbollah targets. Since Septembers 17 (when a Syrian SAM shot down a Russian recon plane off the coast in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike) most of the news has been about Russia sending Syria free S-300 SAM batteries (which are still not operational) and openly blaming Israel for the loss of the recon aircraft and its 15 member crew. Israel rarely comments on these airstrikes, at least not soon after they occur or not until someone else (Syria, Iran or Russia) complains. None of these nations mentioned (much less complained of) recent Israeli airstrikes but the news eventually gets out as the aftermath of these airstrikes is very visible and not hidden. In the south (the Gaza border) local Israeli civilians held a demonstration that blocked traffic into Gaza at the only Israeli crossings. Although many items are banned, basics like food, medicine and fuel are shipped int0 Gaza. The Israeli civilians wanted stronger measures to be used against Islamic terrorists in Gaza in order to stop the border violence. It took a few hours to clear the demonstrators out of the way and allow trucks to get into Gaza again. October 28, 2018: Details of recent Israel-Saudi Arabia security cooperation were revealed. The clandestine meetings between Israeli and Saudi security officials have been an open secret for years and are now rarely clandestine. Now it was revealed that Israel had recently sold the Saudis $250 million worth of high-tech espionage gathering equipment. Israeli firms are major developers and manufacturers of this equipment and this was the first major sale to a Gulf Arab nation. In Gaza Islamic Jihad said it would agree to a ceasefire if Egypt could arrange one and Israel would agree to it. Israel believes that Iran ordered Islamic Jihad to make the rocket attack and will continue to order Islamic Jihad to take such orders because Iran is the primary backer of Islamic Jihad and without that support, Islamic Jihad would be much reduced in size and influence. October 27, 2018: Overnight Gaza based Islamic Jihad fired at least 34 rockets into southern Israel. Thirteen rockets, headed for populated areas, were intercepted by Iron Dome. Another two rockets landed in Gaza and the rest landed in unpopulated areas of Israel. Six civilians were injured, mainly from shock or accidents rushing for shelters. After sunrise, Israeli airstrikes hit 95 Islamic Jihad and Hamas facilities in Gaza. In the afternoon Islamic Jihad told Egyptian mediators that they were willing to observe a ceasefire with Israel. Islamic Jihad takes it orders from Iran while Hamas has a little more autonomy. In Egypt (Cairo), someone placed a bomb behind a police vehicle. When the bomb went off it wounded a police commander. October 26, 2018: The Israeli prime minister visited the Persian Gulf state of Oman for the first time and met with Omani ruler Sultan Qaboos. News of the visit was kept secret until it was over. Oman is one of the Arab states that has backed diplomatic recognition of Israel and accepting Israel as an ally in the struggle against Iran. Hamas organized its weekly assembly of thousands of civilians who, urged on by hundreds of Hamas members, attempt to force their way through the security fence. This week five Gazans were killed and about 170 wounded in yet another failed effort to get into Israel. This has been going on since March. Hamas has offered to reduce the violence if Israel paid Hamas $15 million a month in cash. Later in the day, more than 30 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel. Israel believes Iran ordered Islamic Jihad to fire all these rockets. It was later claimed that the rocket fire was in retaliation for the four Palestinians killed during the Friday fence demonstrations. Three of the dead were teenagers seen planting a bomb at the fence and hit with an airstrike. Over the weekend the airstrikes kept up and by the 29th there had been nearly a hundred airstrikes. Most were directed at Hamas targets, mainly because Hamas is by far the largest Islamic terror organization in Gaza. Iran-backed Islamic Jihad had all its major facilities hit. In western Egypt (the Libyan frontier), border guards detected, intercepted and seized two four-wheel drive trucks attempting to cross the border via the desert. In the trucks, smugglers had over a ton of illegal drugs and five rifles, ammo and a satellite phone. The primary cargo was the drugs (mainly a million methamphetamine pills and marijuana). Illegal drugs have replaced weapons as the most valuable items smugglers can bring out of Libya. October 25, 2018: In Egypt (northern Sinai), a roadside bomb killed four workers and wounded ten others who were on their way to work on construction of a security wall in the city of El Arish. The attackers were believed to be ISIL, seeking to discourage work on the wall. October 24, 2018: In the south (Gaza), a rocket fired from Gaza hit a residential area in Israel but there were no injuries. It is rare for a rocket to evade Iron Dome interception and the event is being investigated. In response, eight Islamic terrorist targets in Gaza were bombed. Israel revealed that it had refused Russian demands that Russia be notified about all Israeli airstrikes in Syria. In Egypt (Western Desert) troops raided a desert cave and found it was an Islamic terrorist base. The eleven armed men there fought to the death but failed to blow up the weapons and bomb-making equipment in the cave. October 20, 2018: In Egypt (northern Sinai), gunmen attacked four men outside their homes, killing three and wounding a fourth. The victims all worked on construction of a security wall in the city of El Arish. The attackers were believed to be ISIL, seeking to discourage work on the wall. Elsewhere in the area there two raids on suspected Islamic terrorist hideouts. Six Islamic terrorists were killed, two policemen wounded and much equipment (and weapons) seized. October 17, 2018: In the south (Gaza), a rocket fired from Gaza hit a residential area but there were no injuries. It is rare for a rocket to evade Iron Dome interception and the event is being investigated. In response, Israeli airstrikes hit twenty Islamic terrorist targets in Gaza and fuel deliveries were temporarily suspended. October 15, 2018: In Egypt (Western Desert), troops raided a desert cave and found it was an Islamic terrorist base. The nine armed men there refused to surrender and fought to the death. Documents, weapons and bomb-making equipment were found in the cave. October 8, 2018: In northern Libya (Derna), LNA (Libyan National Army) forces captured the local ISIL leader, Hesham Ashmwai, along with the widow and two daughters of prominent Egyptian Islamic terrorist leader Omar Rifai Sorour. The widow confirmed that her husband had died of wounds suffered from an airstrike in Derna and revealed his burial site. This was considered a major event because Ashmwai, a former Egyptian special operations officer, had been a notably effective Islamic terrorist leader in Libya and long sought. Ashmwai continued to organize attacks in Egypt after he moved to Libya in 2014 (to recover from wounds). Ashmwai was the most wanted Islamic terrorist in Egypt. Ashmwai agreed to provide LNA interrogators with information on what he knew of current and past Islamic terrorists operations he was involved with. Egypt wants Ashmwai returned to Egypt for interrogation and prosecution. The LNA may have agreed to keep him away from Egypt in return for information. Western or Russian intel agencies would like to have Ashmwai for questioning and that may be how the LNA is keeping Ashmwai out of Egypt without offending the Egyptians unduly. On October 21st the widow Sorour, who is Egyptian, and her daughters were turned over to Egypt by the LNA, which has been supported by Egypt for years. Raids like this are capturing a lot of key Egyptian and Libyan Islamic terrorists or their families and that results in a lot of useful information on past, current and future Islamic terrorist operations in North Africa. October 6, 2018: In the north (Golan Heights) several dozen Israeli Druze held a pro-Assad demonstration that was acknowledged by Syrian soldiers guarding the border (who shouted encouragement). The Israeli border police did not interfere because even though most of the 20,000 Druze living in Israeli controlled (since 1967) Golan Heights have retained their Syrian nationality they have been loyal to Israel. A growing number of younger Druze are accepting the offer of Israeli citizenship. Many of the Druze in Syria (about five percent of the population) turned against the Assad government by 2015. Since late 2014 al Nusra and other Syrian rebels controlled most of the border adjacent to Israel. This created problems with the Israeli Druze who feared for the safety of the 500,000 Syrian Druze. The 130,000 Israeli Druze have been pressuring Israel since 2013 to rescue or help protect Druze living across the border in Syria. Israel agreed to help but never released a lot of details. The solution apparently involved quietly making deals with Syrian rebels. This solution meant there was no need to allow lots of Syrian Druze into Israel or send Israeli troops across the border to establish a safe zone for Syrian Druze. This would preserve the lands of Syrian Druze and not turn them into refugees, but would also be more expensive (in cash and lives) for Israel by establishing a new border. That never happened. With ISIL gone from the Israeli border by late 2017, al Nusra (al Qaeda rebels) and Assad forces controlled most of the border. Al Nusra was driven away from the Israeli border by Syrian soldiers and Iranian mercenaries in early 2018 and now the entire southern border is controlled by the Assad forces. October 3, 2018: In northwest Syria (Latakia province) S-300 SAM equipment for the Syrian military began arriving by air. This equipment is from the Russian 583rd Air Defense Regiment based near Murmansk on the Russian northern coast (Arctic Ocean). Russia said this unit had recently upgraded to the S-400 and that their former S-300PM equipment was checked over and any problems were fixed. Russia often sells or gives away these used S-300 systems. Flying 39 vehicles (launchers, radars, control vans) to Syria via An-124 transports included some of their Russian operators and maintainers. Russia says Syrian crews will be trained by the end of October but that seems unlikely. It is quite possible that Russia is sending enough S-300 operators to get at least one of the batteries operational by the end of October but that did not happen. Russia wants the S-300s capable of confronting the Israeli air threat to Iranian and Syrian forces as soon as possible and is actually sending experienced crews along. Russia said it is providing the three S-300 batteries (24 launchers plus associated search radars and control centers) free of charge. Senior Israeli officials have said the S-300 wont make any difference in Syria and that Israeli forces can deal with the S-300s as effectively as they did the S-200s. Israel already has lots of experience with the S-400 batteries Russia has brought in to protect its bases near the Mediterranean coast and Israel sees the Russian S-300s for the Syrians as an unfriendly gesture as well as a potentially embarrassing one. If the Israelis go ahead, as they say they will, and keep attacking Iranian targets and the Syrians use their S-300 systems to try and stop them and get the same dismal results as they did with their S-200 systems it is bad news for Russian military tech. Maybe Russia felt it had no choice after the recent embarrassing incident (a Syrian S-200 missile destroyed an Il-20 maritime surveillance aircraft operating off the coast). But Russia is doing more than deliver S-300 missiles, it is also assigning Russian troops to operate with Iranian forces, making it more likely that Russians will get hurt if the Iranians get hit by an Israeli airstrike. The Israelis have made it clear they will not tolerate an Iranian presence in Syria and if the Russians want to take more losses because of that, it is a Russian decision. Tauranga adventurer Jo Morgan has been discovered safe and well after being hit by an avalanche near Aoraki/Mount Cook. Jo, an experienced climber has been identified as one of three people, including two other professional mountain guides, who were swept away by the avalanche while climbing on Harper Saddle on Mount Hicks. Police can confirm that two people have died following the reported avalanche. Senior Constable Lee Andrew says police have been told a party of three people were ascending Mt Hicks early this morning when they were caught in an avalanche. The deceased are two men, and both were mountain guides. Their bodies have been removed from the scene. Police have started the process of informing next of kin. The deaths will be referred to the Coroner. A Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand spokeswoman says an experienced climber activated her personal locator beacon about 6.45am on Wednesday after she and two others were hit by an avalanche on Mount Hicks. Jo Morgan is known publicly as the wife of economist and philanthropist Gareth Morgan, and the mother of Trade Me creator Sam Morgan. Daughter Jessi Morgan posted on her mother's Facebook page at 9.16am today that she was "safe and back at Mount Cook village". Department of Conservation director general Lou Sanson, who is with Jo Morgan, says she is "strong but shattered". "There's clearly been an avalanche and she's been able to fortuitously dig her way out of a really complex situation," he says. Yesterday the New Zealand Avalanche Advisory issued alerts for dangerous conditions around Aoraki / Mount Cook and Mount Hutt until Friday. It says there was "considerable risk" above 1400m on Aoraki / Mount Cook. The warnings were for alpine areas with an increasing risk of storm slabs, and an alert was also in place for the Craigieburn Range until this afternoon. The advisory said spring was usually one of the more active times of the year for avalanches. Avalanche New Zealand director Andrew Hobman says if climbers are carrying an avalanche transceiver beacon, rescuers can locate them under the snow. "[You then] use a long probe, which is a bit like a tent pole, to probe into the snow to finally locate them, and then you need to to dig them out." He says there is not a lot of time to rescue someone under the snow. "It's a medical emergency and teams are trained very well on getting there as quickly as possible and getting the people out of the snow as quickly as possible." Earlier this year Jo told the Weekend Sun she is a keen climber. There are 24 peaks in New Zealand over 3000m and Ive done 22. Two to go. Then I can retire, she said. -Additional reporting Stuff.co.nz In todays weather forecast we are expecting rain developing in the morning, with hail and possible thunderstorms this afternoon. It should become fine again this evening. There are strong southwesterlies forecast. Its a two-clothing layer day today with a high of 18 and an overnight low of 7 degrees. Humidity is 72 per cent. High tide is at 1.30pm and low tide at 7.50pm. Theres a sea swell of 0.3m and sea temperature is 17 degrees. Sunset tonight is at 7.45pm. If youre going fishing the next best fish bite time is between 7 and 9pm. This day in NZ history in 1898 the Old-age Pensions Act became law. A world first, the Act gave a small means-tested pension to elderly people with few assets who were of good moral character. It was one of the major achievements of Richard Seddons Liberal government. In 1944 Polish refugees arrived in New Zealand. Over 800 Polish refugees arrived in Wellington, seeking safety from war-torn Europe. For the 732 children and 102 adults it was the end of a long and perilous journey. In world history on this day in 79 the city of Pompeii was buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. In 1512 Michelangelos painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling was exhibited for the first time. In 1967 the first issue of Rolling Stone hit the streets. In 1968 President Lyndon B. Johnson called a halt to bombing in Vietnam, hoping this would lead to progress at the Paris peace talks. In 1968 the Motion Picture Association of America officially introduced its rating system to indicate age-appropriateness of film content. Today is the birthday of French poet and historian.1636 Nicholas Boileaux. Born in 1636, he once said "Whatever we conceive well we express clearly, and words flow with ease." To get involved in activities please check out our Whats on page. Have a great day! When the Bass Pro acquisition of Cabelas began, properties went on the sale block in relation to the change of staff. It didnt take long before Sidney real estate was attracting buyers, enough buyers the City of Sidney wants more assets available when companies do show interest. The Sidney City Council met Monday for a short meeting and an executive session, where City Manager Ed Sadler explaining the need for the meeting is because circumstances are changing rather quickly. He said with UST Global under contract for a downtown location, including an option for the upper floors, Sidney doesnt have an abundance of properties available. In addition, Sadler said Sidney is one of three Nebraska locations considered for a new government office. We think it is time we have a discussion, Sadler said. Sadler said the old travel agency was recently purchased as well. He said the City needs to add some arrows to its quiver. He said the task for the City is to assist businesses interested in Sidney, and those expanding staff. The meeting was called to discuss options on the City purchasing land. Before the council convened into an executive session, Sadler said he is seeking existing buildings that can be used for most any purpose, and move-in ready. I think if we dont have that, were just another voice in the wind, he said. Sadler said there are several prospects talking with the City. After an executive session of less than 15 minutes, the council less Mayor Joe Arterburn, approved Sadler seeking purchase of specific properties. The council did not define what properties, besides Sadlers statement of seeking a building that can be used for multiple purposes. Sadler added the business community has 100 jobs unfilled. With that Sadler said the City needs to be proactive in assisting businesses in locating and training employees. There are several businesses looking at third shifts, he said. He added available housing is already starting to slow. Councilman Wendall Gaston encouraged Economic Development Director Melissa Norgard to research what the community needs, including what Western Nebraska Community College could offer for cross-training of employees, and of the housing need in Sidney. Roy Stroh, age 87 of Sidney, NE, passed away at Morrill County Community Hospital in Bridgeport, October 22, 2018. Inurnment with Military Honors will be held in the Fairview Cemetery in Scottsbluff at 10:30 A.M., Wednesday, October 31st. Memorial services will be held at 2:30 P.M., Wednesday, October 31st in the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Sidney with Pastor Dave Hall officiating. Cremation has been held. Friends may stop at the Gehrig-Stitt Chapel on Tuesday from 1-7:00 P.M. to sign Roy's register book and leave condolences for the family. You may view Roy's Book of Memories, leave condolences, photos and stories at http://www.gehrigstittchapel.com. Gehrig-Stitt Chapel & Cremation Service, LLC is in charge of Roy's care and funeral arrangements. LeRoy Stroh, the son of John and Elizabeth (Schaneman) Stroh, was born on March 21, 1931 at Mitchell, NE. Following his High School graduation, Roy entered active duty with the United States Army, serving from 1952-1954 and was two miles from the Nuclear Test Shot and Atomic Explosion. Following his Honorable Discharge, Roy returned to farm with his father near Minatare, NE. On June 18, 1965, Roy was united in marriage to Norma Jean Fink at Scottsbluff. Roy later became a meat cutter for Bob's Superette before moving to Sidney in 1969. He was a meat cutter for Town & Country Market and then served as Meat Manager for the old and new Safeway Stores. He retired at age 65. Roy was always proud of being the first to bowl a 300 game at Classic Lanes in Gering. He had been baptized, confirmed and married in the Salem Congregational Church in Scottsbluff and was a member of Holy Trinity Lutheran in Sidney. Survivors include his wife: Norma; (3) children: Kenneth Leroy Stroh and wife CJ, Monica Rutherford and husband Mark and Greg Stroh; (3) sisters: Violet Rein, Jackie Merrigan and husband John and Shirley Robertson; (1) brother: Dr. John Stroh and wife Vickie; (1) brother-in-law: Gary Hahn; (5) grandchildren: Hannah, Amy, Sean, Ben and Anthony; (8) great-grandchildren; (2) great-great-grandchildren and numerous extended family members and friends. Roy was preceded in death by his parents; (2) sisters: Betty Heilbrun and husband Harold and Jeri Hahn; and (1) brother-in-law: Harold Rein. HAUNTINGTON, N.Y. -- In the spirit of Halloween, New York state police issued a wanted poster today for an unusual, hard-to-catch criminal: George C. Ghost The 400-year-old ghost is accused of haunting homeowners at his previous residence in Hauntington, the state police poster says. Ghost specifically wanted for the crime of harassment. This is the 10th time Ghost has faced this charge. Ghost has been confronted by troopers on multiple occasions, but he has eluded capture, since handcuffs don't work on ghosts, police said. State police released the wanted poster for Ghost on its Facebook page this morning for a special Halloween edition of "Warrant Wednesday." Ghost is described at a 5-foot-tall male who weighs zero pounds and has black eyes, police said. He often refers to himself as "The Keymaster." Police asked anyone with information to not take any police action other than to contact Ghostbusters. Troopers asked for community members to share their ghost hunting tips in the comments. SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- The Catholic Diocese of Syracuse is one of eight New York state dioceses named in a lawsuit asking for the organizations to release the names of priests accused of sexual abuse. The lawsuit was filed Monday in state Supreme Court in New York City Paul Dunn, 53, the plaintiff in the case, in the lawsuit accused a Brooklyn priest of sexually abusing him for two years and accused the eight dioceses and the New York State Catholic Conference of engaging in a "coordinated effort" to make sure similar allegations never became public. Dunn also alleges the dioceses have acknowledged they have lists of accused priests and additional information they refuse to release. Dunn requested each diocese release "the names of all agents, including priests, accused of child molestation, each agent's history of abuse, each such agent's pattern of grooming and sexual behavior, and his or her last known address. This includes the release of each of Defendants' documents on the agents." The Diocese of Syracuse, unlike several other Upstate dioceses, has maintained it will not release priests' names. In a statement Monday, the Syracuse diocese said it will cooperate with "local authorities" and an investigation by the New York State Attorney General's office, but did not say it will release the names, citing concerns for the victims. "Bishop (Robert J.) Cunningham has received requests from some victims asking him to not publicly release the name of his/her abuser while other victims have asked for the disclosure of all of the names of those with a credible complaint of child sexual abuse of a minor," the statement said. "To respect the wishes of all victims, Bishop Cunningham has provided the names to the local authorities and has confirmed the names of those with a credible complaint of abuse of a minor if brought forth publicly by the victim." Dioceses in Albany, Brooklyn, Buffalo and Rochester have all released at least partial lists of priests who have credibly been accused of sex abuse. The lawsuit claims, however, that even the dioceses who have released names of priests accused of abuse have withheld more information about those priests. The lawsuit was filed by Jeff Anderson and Associates, a St. Paul, MN-based law firm that has handled many clergy sexual abuse cases. Here's what the lawsuit alleges about the individual dioceses: The The The The The The The The Dunn accused Cornelius Otero, a Brooklyn priest, of abusing him from 1976 through 1978, the lawsuit said. Otero was arrested by 1980 with child porn and became an informant with law enforcement, sparing Otero prison, the lawsuit said. Dunn accused the Diocese of Brooklyn of helping obscure the priest's whereabouts after the arrest through 1987, the lawsuit said. From 1988 through 1995, the priest resumed work with a medical center in Connecticut, the lawsuit said. Dunn argued in the lawsuit that the dioceses' lack of transparency puts children at risk in the future. WASHINGTON -- A political group aligned with House Republican leaders has launched a $200,000 last-minute ad campaign intended to help Rep. John Katko hold off a challenge from Democrat Dana Balter. The Congressional Leadership Fund began airing its first TV ads in the 24th Congressional District campaign on Wednesday as part an ad blitz that will continue through Election Day on Nov. 6, the group said. The group's TV ad is critical of Balter's support of a "Medicare for All" government health insurance program for all Americans that would eventually replace the Affordable Care Act. Until now, the super PAC had limited its spending in the race to a field office and about $2,000 for door hangers distributed to voters in the district. Congressional Leadership Fund is the latest political group to begin spending heavily in the 24th District race in its final weeks, a possible indication that internal polls show the election is more competitive than public polls have suggested. A Syracuse.com/SpectrumNews/Siena College poll published Sunday showed Katko leading Balter, 53-39 percent, among likely voters contacted Oct. 18-22. The poll showed little change since August, when Katko had a 15-point lead. On Monday, a new Democratic political action committee called Change Now said it plans to spend $400,000 on TV ads opposing Katko, R-Camillus, in the final week of the campaign. Federal Election Commission records show the group Women Vote started spending in the race last week with $400,000 in ads intended to help Balter's campaign. The group is aligned with EMILY's List, which promotes Democratic women who support abortion rights. The PACs and other independent groups from outside of Central New York have spent more than $3.6 million combined on the campaign as of Wednesday, according to FEC records. Of New York's 27 House districts, only two other have seen a greater flow of spending from independent political groups. More than $14 million had been spent as of Wednesday in the 22nd Congressional District race between Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-New Hartford, and Anthony Brindisi, according to FEC records updated Wednesday. Outside groups have spent more than $13.2 million in the race between Rep. John Faso, R-Kinderhook, and Antonio Delgado in the 19th District. Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751 SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse's first independent mayor in 100 years endorsed New York's Democratic governor for a third term today. Mayor Ben Walsh, who took office in January, announced his support for Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a press release. It's Walsh's first official endorsement as mayor. In his endorsement, Walsh cited Cuomo's willingness to send state troopers to Syracuse to combat gun violence and his support of funding for the city to purchase its street lights. "These smart policies and financial investments are vital to creating jobs and moving Syracuse ahead in the new economy," Walsh said. "...We need a strong partner like Governor Andrew Cuomo, and I am proud to endorse him for a third term." Cuomo is running for re-election against four opponents, including a former Syracuse mayor running as an independent, Stephanie Miner, and a stalwart Syracuse activist with the Green Party, Howie Hawkins. Republican Marc Molinaro and Libertarian Larry Sharpe are also running. Polls show Cuomo with a double-digit lead over Molinaro. The other candidates are polling in the low single-digits. Walsh comes from a long line of Republican lawmakers, but he is not registered with a political party. His grandfather, William Walsh, was mayor of Syracuse in the 1960s and served in Congress. His father, Jim Walsh, was a Republican Congressman for 20 years. During last year's mayoral campaign, opponents labeled Walsh as a "Republican in sheep's clothing." He touted himself as an independent, saying he would work across party lines to forge better relationships at the county, state and federal level. While running for office last year, Walsh attended a $1,000-per-person fundraiser for Cuomo in Skaneateles. He said at the time he wanted to signal to the governor that he was willing to work together. "I wanted to send a message to the governor that if I'm lucky enough to be elected that in me he's going to have a willing partner," Walsh said last year. "That doesn't mean I'm going to agree with him on everything. But we know that in order for Syracuse to be successful we need the support of New York State. And it's no secret the relationship between the governor and mayor's office is strained right now." Former Mayor Miner had a public rift with Cuomo for much of her tenure as mayor. Miner also gave Walsh his first job at Syracuse City Hall. She hired him as deputy director of business development when she took office in 2010. Walsh and Cuomo also spoke during Cuomo's visit to the New York State Fair earlier this year. Walsh joined the governor to eat a Gianelli sausage. Cuomo said at the fair that he hoped to work with Walsh to improve Syracuse. "I'm excited about your new mayor, Ben Walsh, he's a get-it-done guy," Cuomo said. "I had one of my first conversations with him. I said let's make Syracuse better, period." Cuomo is expected to visit Syracuse Thursday, according to sources. SYRACUSE, N.Y. - A controversial state-run health insurance program to cover all New Yorkers, a proposal that's been kicking around Albany for decades without getting traction, may have a chance depending on next week's election. The New York Health Act, a bill that would create statewide single-payer health care, has been approved in each of the last five years by the Democrat-controlled Assembly, but rejected in the GOP-controlled Senate. The bill's chances of becoming law, however, will improve if Democrats flip political power in the Senate where the GOP is clinging to a one-seat majority. Many Democratic Senate candidates, including John Mannion, a West Genesee school teacher running for the 50th district seat, and Rachel May, a Syracuse University administrator running for the 53rd district seat, support the bill. Their Republican opponents, Bob Antonacci, Onondaga County's comptroller, and Janet Burman, a Syracuse economist, are against it. Proponents see single payer as New York's answer to rising premiums and President Trump's efforts to dismantle the federal Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Opponents warn it could disrupt the delivery of health care and cost New York taxpayers a bundle. The reality is no one knows for sure how a state-run single payer system would work because it's never been done before. Vermont, the only state to pass a single-payer health law, dropped the idea in 2014 after concluding the taxes needed to pay for it might hurt its economy. Health insurance in New York would be dramatically different under the New York Health Act. There would be no more private or employer-sponsored coverage. Everyone, including people 65 and older currently covered by Medicare, would get insurance from the state, which would take on functions now performed by commercial insurers. There would be no copays, deductibles or premiums. It would be paid for, in part, by two new state graduated taxes on payroll and income. The payroll tax would be paid jointly by employers, who would pay 80 percent, and employees, who would kick in 20 percent. "Graduated" means tax rates would be higher for the rich. The bill does not specify tax rates. For the program to work, the federal government would have to agree to redirect Medicare and Medicaid spending to the state. That's an assumption that may not pan out. A recent study by the RAND Corp. says the New York single-payer plan could expand coverage for all state residents, but would require significant new state tax revenue. It estimated New York would need about $139 billion in new taxes - a 156 percent increase in total state tax revenue - to pay for the program in its first year. That tax revenue would replace premiums, employer contributions and out-of-pocket costs. The study estimates taxes imposed to pay for a single-payer plan would cut health payments for most households, but make the rich pay substantially more than they do now. It estimates employers who currently offer coverage would contribute on average $200 to $800 less per worker in 2022. But employers who don't provide coverage now would pay on average $1,200 to $1,800 more per worker because of new payroll taxes. The new taxes could prompt some residents and businesses to flee the state, possibly forcing the state to increase the tax burden on middle- and lower-income residents, according to the study. In order for the single-payer program to work well, the state would have to cut administrative costs, payments to doctors and other providers, and drug prices, according to the study. The federal government also would have to agree to redirect Medicare and Medicaid funding to the state. None of those assumptions are guaranteed and without them the cost to state taxpayers could increase significantly, the study says. Assembly member Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan, is a sponsor of the New York Health Act who has been pushing for single-payer in New York since 1992. He said the RAND study validated his bill. "RAND shows we can make sure every New Yorker gets the care they need and does not suffer financially to get it; save billions of dollars a year by cutting administrative costs, insurance company profit, and outrageous drug prices; and pay for it all more fairly," he said in a news release. But Bill Hammond, health policy director at the Albany-based Empire Center, wrote in a blog post the RAND study is based on several "dubious assumptions" and likely understates the price tag and overstates the benefits. About 1 million New Yorkers, or 5 percent of the state's population, are uninsured. "Instead of disrupting coverage for the 19 million New Yorkers who already have it, why not focus on the 1 million who don't?" Hammond said in the post. The New York proposal is getting more attention at the same time many Democratic Congressional candidates are calling for national single-payer health care, dubbed "Medicare for all." Democrat Dana Balter of Syracuse, a candidate for the 24th Congressional District seat, supports the proposal. Her opponent, incumbent U.S. Rep. John Katko, R-Camillus, opposes it. Polls suggest the public appetite for single-payer health care is growing. A Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll released in April found 51 percent of Americans support a national single-payer plan. A more recent poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MTV found 69 percent of Americans between the ages of 15 and 34 favor a national single-payer plan. Cynthia Nixon, who ran unsuccessfully in a Democratic primary against Gov. Andrew Cuomo in September, ardently supported the New York Health Act. But Cuomo expressed reservations about it. He has said the federal government should create a national single-payer program. Doing it on the state level would be too expensive, he said. Marc Molinaro, Cuomo's Republican opponent, has pledged to veto the New York Health Act if elected. Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University, said supporting the New York Health Act used to be viewed as a strictly symbolic position because of the GOP-controlled Senate's opposition. "Now it's a lot more real because you have the prospect of the Senate going Democrat," he said. If Democrats take the Senate, the bill "is going to get real, real fast," Reeher said. SYRACUSE, N.Y. - John Mannion, the Democratic candidate running for the state Senate 50th district, is criticizing the use of negative political ads, even though some of his campaign supporters are using them against his opponent. Mannion has come out with a new humorous TV ad poking fun at negative political advertising. He also said in a news release voters are fed up with campaign attacks. "I have been amazed at the negativity, baseless attacks, and outright lies that have been hurled throughout this campaign," he said. Mannion, who is running against Republican Bob Antonacci, could have been describing some of the fliers mailed to voters produced by outside groups supporting his own campaign. The hotly contested race has become increasingly nasty with a barrage of campaign mailers slamming both candidates. A mailer sent out by the state Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, for example, wanted voters to know what Antonacci thinks of a state bill that would strengthen New York's abortion law. The only problem was the mailer attributed a statement about the bill to Antonacci that was made by Rick Guy, a former state Senate candidate who was removed from the ballot because of invalid petitions. Another mailer put out by the New York State Teachers Union political action committee portrays Antonacci as a career politician focused on running for higher elective offices. Meanwhile, the state Republican Senate Committee used a fake photo of Mannion and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in a mailer accusing Mannion of being too liberal and supporting the "far left, radical NYC agenda." The photo in the mailer was actually a picture of Mannion and his campaign manager, Ian Phillips. In the doctored photo, Phillips' head was removed and replaced with de Blasio's. In another flier, the committee used a smudged, unflattering photo of Mannion in an ad attacking his support for the state abortion bill. Phillips said Mannion has no control over the ads produced by outside groups who either support or oppose his campaign. One of those outside groups is the New York State United Teachers political action committee, which has spent more than $845,000 on fliers, ads and other services supporting Mannion's campaign. A 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowed corporate and union dollars to pay for ads and other campaign materials as long as these outside groups don't coordinate their efforts with candidates. Phillips said Mannion wants to get outside money and groups out of politics. "Outside groups spend more than the candidates themselves," Phillips said. "John's response is, 'Let's take a break and laugh about how silly our politics has become and get someone who's not part of the system to shake things up.'" Mannion's new TV ad is introduced by an ominous voice saying, "It's negative ad season and we needed to find dirt on first-time candidate John Mannion so we went undercover." The camera pans to the inside of Mannion's town of Geddes home where his wife, Jen, appears on camera, while the candidate is at the kitchen stove, cooking. "I thought politicians were supposed to get rich, but John doesn't care about money," she says as she flings dirty laundry into a washing machine. Quinn, his daughter, says Mannion wants to clean up Albany, even though he can't get his own son, Brady, to clean his bedroom. At the end of the ad a photo of Mannion's face appears on a TV screen as the ominous voice says: "John Mannion. Devoted dad, not running for money, whose kids sometimes don't listen. Wait. Is that the worse we can find?" A sheriff in Georgia posted "no trick-or-treat" signs in the yards of registered sex offenders throughout his county over the weekend. Butts County Sheriff Gary Long told CBS News there are 54 registered sex offenders in the county, located southeast of Atlanta. He and deputies began placing the signs in their yards on Saturday. All 54 homes now have one. "I'm not trying to humiliate 'em or anything like that," Long said, according to CBS. "Let's face reality: We have a greater chance of children getting run over by a car [on Halloween] than being a victim of sexual assault by a repeat offender. But at the end of the day if, in fact, we had a child that fell victim to a sexual assault, especially by a convicted sex offender, I don't think I could sleep at night." The sheriff's office posted about the signs on its Facebook page. In the past, deputies would visit sex offenders' homes, complete compliance checks and place a sign on their doors warning trick-or-treaters. The sheriff wanted to increase visibility this year due to a change in the community's Halloween programming, CBS said. A previous trick-or-treating event at a town square that drew 2,500 to 4,000 children has been canceled, according to WXIA in Atlanta. The sheriff now expects all those kids to be out trick-or-treating house to house. One woman unhappy about the signs told WXIA that her husband is on the sex offender registry for a relationship he had years ago when he was 20 with someone who was underage. The signs are causing hysteria, she said. Vickie Henry, president of Women Against Registry, said the yard signs can lead to harassment, according to WXIA. Women Against Registry is a nonprofit that opposes current laws on registries. "They are not the threat that people perceive them to be," Henry said, according to WXIA. "And those signs are just going to make things worse." Long told CBS he has received plenty of positive feedback on the signs. He also said deputies would remove them by Thursday morning. "At the end of the day, I don't care if they do like it or if they don't like it," he said, according to CBS. "My job is to ensure the safety of the children and the community and that's what I'm going to do." Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598 The prison inmate suspected of killing former Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger is an ex-Mafia hitman, according to new reports. The Boston Globe reports Fotios "Freddy" Geas is believed to have murdered Bulger, 89, at a prison in West Virginia on Tuesday. Bulger was recently transferred to the high-security penitentiary USP Hazelton, also known as "Misery Mountain," in Bruceton Mills, W.V., after stints in Florida and Oklahoma. Private investigator Ted McDonough told the Globe that Geas may have targeted Bulger, who was in declining health, because of his past as an FBI informant. "Freddy hated rats," McDonough said. "Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It's probably that simple." The New York Post reports Geas is suspected of leading a group of inmates to beat the wheelchair-bound Bulger to death. A law enforcement source said one of the suspects used a padlock wrapped in a sock. According to CNN, the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed Bulger was found unresponsive at 8:20 a.m. Tuesday. No other inmates or staff were injured in the alleged attack. The FBI is investigating the case, the bureau said. According to MassLive.com, Geas, 51, is serving a life sentence after being convicted in the 2003 murders of Massachusetts mob boss Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno and associate Gary Westerman, as well as the attempted killing of a New York union boss. Killing Bulger could improve Geas' reputation and standing in prison, according to the publication. "He's a rich man now. He'll run any prison he's in," a law enforcement source told MassLive.com. Freddy Geas case viewed with a daughter's eye: Reader viewpoint. https://t.co/srAUPqzcH5 pic.twitter.com/2GWWG0sBrt masslivenews (@masslivenews) October 31, 2018 Bulger was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2013 in a string of 11 murders from Massachusetts to Florida to Oklahoma. He was captured in 2011 after more than 15 years on the run as one of the FBI's ten Most Wanted. Bulger was the leader of the Winter Hill Gang, an Irish mob in the Boston area, in the 1970s and the '80s. He was accused of racketeering, extortion, conspiracy, money-laundering, drug dealing and orchestrating or carrying out violent murders. "The testimony of human suffering that you and your associates inflicted on others was at times agonizing to hear and painful to watch," US District Court Judge Denise Casper said in 2013, according to CNN. "At times, I wish we were watching a movie, that what we were hearing was not real. But as the families of victims know all too well, it's not a movie." His life story, including time as an FBI informant, was chronicled in the 2015 movie "Black Mass" starring Johnny Depp as Bulger. Next Monday, CUSU Council will vote again on a motion to endorse a Peoples Vote on the final Brexit deal. Last Council, a vote was delayed in order to consult students, which is a welcome concrete step. Now, more than ever, it is vital that Cambridge acts. We have argued elsewhere why it is necessary for our city and students union to lead the campaign for a referendum, but it is also worth considering the first principles in favour of holding a vote. As I argued at Council, the idea that we have already had a peoples vote is misleading. To believe this is to subscribe to the fallacy originally presented by David Cameron that this issue can boil down to a simple in or out choice. Granted, an in vote in 2016 would have been concrete, it would have been business as usual. But the alternative was so dangerously vague a fact overlooked by both major parties and in fact many remainers that to use an out vote as a life-raft justifying the governments negotiating position is certain to sink any chance we have of truly adhering to the will of the people. Cameron did not confront this problem, because he did not expect to lose. To elaborate I know people who voted for Brexit with the hope of securing a Norway-style deal by joining the European Free Trade Association. This would free us from rulings by the European Court, as well as relieving us of our obligations towards European farmers and fishermen. If this sounds boring, its because these things are. Brexit was not won on the failings of the Common Agricultural Policy. It was won because the young, the educated, and the liberal voted instinctively against the nastiness and anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Leave campaign but were overwhelmed by an even more visceral collective cry against globalisation, multiculturalism, and, yes, against London as much as Brussels. Yet, the problem is that, as well as Norway, Britain could also end up looking like Jacob Rees-Moggs deepest fantasy. A low-regulation, bargain-basement Britain in which the innate liberalism and tolerance of most young people is overlooked in favour of nationalism not patriotism, which, incidentally, it is the duty of the left to rehabilitate and retrograde conservatism. An out vote could mean Norway, or Rees-Mogg, or anything in between. It will be determined by the deal that the government comes back with. And who should endorse this deal? The British people, especially the over 1.5 million young people who have turned 18 since June 2016. And if the people dont like it, we should have the option to remain. Following the high-profile media coverage and misrepresentation of CUSUs debate over Remembrance Day, it is understandable that student representatives will be wary about making a statement that is too political, or indeed likely to rile the Daily Mail. But there is a crucial distinction that should be made this issue is inherently political, but it is certainly not partisan. Labour MP for Cambridge, Daniel Zeichner, is firmly behind a Peoples Vote, as is Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire Heidi Allen. The CUSU motion has the support of national non-partisan movement For Our Futures Sake, as well as Our Future Our Choice. That these organisations both contain the words Our Future encapsulates what this campaign is about. Young people have the most to lose from Brexit. Cambridge is one of the most pro-European cities in the country, and was recently shown in a report to be one of the most liberal. It should be Cambridge students leading this campaign, not just through political societies but through CUSU Council, which at the end of last year was promised a vote in October. JCRs are already undertaking consultations of the student body. This should placate any concerns about endorsing a political motion. CUSUs officers did not shy away from taking a firm stance on Universal Credit, the controversial amalgamation of several pre-existing welfare payments that has pushed some families into severe hardship. While political, this is something that affects some students, and CUSU sabbs did not feel the need to make a consultation. Brexit is different because it affects every one of us; therefore, it is a matter for CUSU as a whole to take a lead on. Those of us proposing the motion argued that consultation was not necessary, but it was the option CUSU Council chose. This can only serve to strengthen CUSUs democratic mandate at a time when some people wonder whether or not their student union represents them. And, of course, if the majority of students in the consultation are against the motion, JCRs and MCRs should not hesitate to reflect that in their voting. Representatives from over 60 students unions have already backed a Peoples Vote. Around 700,000 people took to the streets of London to demand one, and were addressed by student leaders such as Amatey Doku, former CUSU President and supporter of the motion. It was the biggest demonstration since the rally against the Iraq War, and like that march in 2003, history will be on the side of those who took part. Students cared about the EU issue in 2016 over 80% of those who voted wanted to remain. We cant rest now. We must stand up to the politicians from across the spectrum trying to tie us down to whatever deal the government agrees, including no deal at all, and, in these crucial final months before were set to leave, make our voices heard. Concurs de granturi adresat COMUNITATILOR (APL) pentru sporirea rezilientei lor la schimbarile climatice si FEMEILOR ANTREPRENOARE in vederea dezvoltarii unor afaceri prietenoase mediului What just happened? The US Department of Justice has published an indictment charging ten Chinese nationals with stealing confidential aircraft technology from US and French aerospace companies. According to the DoJ, two of the accused were Chinese intelligence officers. The agency claims that between at least January 2010 until May 2015, the officers and their team of hackers attempted to steal tech related to a new turbofan engine. This would allow Chinese entities to build similar engines without incurring the high research and development costs. At the time of the hacks, a Chinese state-owned aerospace company was working to develop a comparable engine. In addition to the French firm, hackers also targeted several other aerospace companies, including those in California (Capstone Turbine), Arizona, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Oregon, and the United Kingdom. As noted by Reuters, Frances only civil turbofan engine maker, Safran SA, co-develops engines with U.S.-based General Electric, meaning these are likely to be the companies in question. The hackers used the usual techniques such as phishing schemes, domain hijacking, and using the companies own websites to steal visitor information. Additionally, two of those named in the indictment were employed by the French company. They used their positions to allegedly install the Sakula remote access trojan onto the firms systems. According to Crowdstrike, this trojan was used by Chinese nation-state group Deep Panda, thought to be behind the 2015 hack on the U.S. governments Office of Personnel Management (OPM). One of the hackers has been linked to Winniti, another Chinese state-sponsored group. "State-sponsored hacking is a direct threat to our national security," said U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman. "The concerted effort to steal, rather than simply purchase, commercially available products should offend every company that invests talent, energy, and shareholder money into the development of products." Earlier this month, Yanjun Xu, a spy for the Chinese ministry of state security, was arrested and charged with economic espionage and attempting to steal trade secrets from US aviation and aerospace companies. In brief: The EU is testing out a pilot program for a new way of checking individuals at the borders of its various member countries. Specifically, the governing body wants to use an AI to detect when travelers are lying by allowing it to analyze "micro-expressions" in the subject's face. The classic lie detector -- or "polygraph" -- test has always been controversial, but there's no denying the appeal of the overall concept to police throughout the world. Criminal investigations, witness interviews, and travel screening would become quite a bit easier if you could tell (with a reasonable degree of accuracy) whether somebody is lying. It seems the EU may have developed tech that can finally accomplish just that. The governing body is working together with Hungary's National Police force to test out iBorderCtrl, an AI project that can allegedly use a webcam to detect facial movements and "micro-expressions" that indicate lying. So, how does this new security technology work? The European Commission explains it as follows: The IBORDERCTRL system has been set up so that travelers will use an online application to upload pictures of their passport, visa and proof of funds, then use a webcam to answer questions from a computer-animated border guard, personalised to the travelers gender, ethnicity and language. The unique approach to deception detection analyses the micro-expressions of travelers to figure out if the interviewee is lying. To be clear, the EU isn't completely handing off the security of its borders to untested AI. As previously stated, this is beginning as a test, and a relatively short-term one at that, lasting only six months in Hungary, Greece, and Latvia. Furthermore, there are two phases of security to ensure the iBorderControl AI doesn't make any errors. After the AI checks somebody, a human border official will take over. If a given passenger is marked as "low-risk" by the AI, the official will only perform a brief re-evaluation of their data, whereas high-risk passengers will undergo a "more detailed check." This check will reportedly include fingerprinting, palm vein scanning, document reassessment, and more. It's tough to say how well the EU's latest security-focused plans will go over with privacy advocates, but given the widespread backlash Amazon received for its Rekognition facial recognition AI, it wouldn't be surprising to see this new test receive similar public scrutiny. Peanut allergy was so prevalent in kids born in the United States in the past decade that it almost became an epidemic. A new study conducted by the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute using data from Mount Sinai Hospital in New York found that the number of children with a peanut allergy has tripled from 1997 to 2008. Their findings were published in the journal of the National Institute of Health. Increasing Number Of Children With Peanut Allergy "It really is almost an epidemic," stated Scott Sicherer, director of the institute. "It's impossible to deny an increase, even with anecdotal reports from school nurses [...] It's not just our imagination." In the study, the researchers found that one in 70 children has a peanut allergy in 2008. In comparison, in 1997, one in 250 children has a peanut allergy. Food allergy is considered common. In the United States, about 5 percent of children have some type of food allergy. It happens when the immune system reacts to and attacks a component of a food, sometimes causing life-threatening situations. Unfortunately, public health officials still have no idea why the number of children with peanut allergy in the United States is rising. One theory suggests that families are so used to clean living that children do not get the chance to be exposed to certain germs that can build their immunities. As a result, Sicherer explained that the immune system attacks things it does not need to. While there is still no cure for food allergies, "promising" treatment options are currently being developed. The NIH has also committed to supporting research into food allergy and the immune system. How To Prevent Peanut Allergy Peanut allergy is the most common food allergy in the United States. Unlike egg and milk allergy, peanut allergy is also more difficult to outgrow for children living with the ailment. Last year, public health officials recommended that early exposure to peanuts could be the key to preventing the food allergy in children. The NIH is encouraging parents to introduce peanut-containing foods around 4 to 6 months of age, or by the time they start eating solids. 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The developers that rolled into Opelousas had some big plans to announce last week for St. Landry Parish and the entire Acadiana region. They are, they said, prepared to invest billions of dollars to convert the city's airport into a "multi-modal transport hub" as part of a far reaching development effort that would create up to 100,000 direct and indirect jobs over time more than the parish's entire current population. State and local economic development say they'd welcome such an investment, but specific details about the project and how it would be financed are lacking. They say they have seen no plans on paper or related documents. Also unclear is what the city and parish would contribute and the financial capability of the companies involved. The project came to light in a public announcement made after a St. Landry Chamber of Commerce event on Thursday. Opelousas Mayor Reggie Tatum, along with representatives of Ahart Solutions International and DalWorld Group, announced that the two companies would invest $3.5 billion into the city and the parishs airport. They claimed the investments would yield 50,000 direct and indirect jobs. Later at the press conference, officials with the two companies said an investment of upwards of $10 billion was possible "depending on factors" and that the projects they have in mind could create 100,000 direct and indirect jobs for the area. The two groups say they want to convert the parish airport into a multi-modal transport hub, create an aviation school at the airport, upgrade the citys currently closed jail, create more residential areas in the city and establish manufacturing facilities in the city. Calls made to Ahart Solutions International, which specializes in health care and other areas, and DalWorld Group, a global finance and development company, were not returned. A call and text message to ASI president Hailey Ahart-Keiffer, whose father the airport is named after, was also not returned. State Sen. Gerald Long, R-Long, of Winnfield, said in an interview that he's participated in discussion with ASI but hasn't seen much on paper and isn't exactly sure what they are proposing. Its kind of like youre in a strange room and you cant find the light switch, Long said. Tatum said following Monday's city council meeting that nothing has been signed with the company yet. The number of jobs the company mentioned is what would be created over a 25-year period, he said. Thursday was just announcing their intentions to move to Opelousas, said Tatum, who is facing six challengers in his bid for re-election next week. If we have to sell or lease them property to move in and build, we will. Who are we to tell them no, especially when theyre bringing these investors? Tatum said during Thursday's announcement that former Sen. Elbert Guillory and current Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser were among those working on the project. Nungesser spoke Thursday during the chamber event unrelated to the announcement and did not participate in the announcement held by Tatum, ASI and DalWorld. On Friday, Nungesser said he had spoken with Ahart-Keiffer months ago about bringing investors to the area. He said he was also invited to meetings about it with Long, the state senator from Winnfield, but could not attend. I met with the group right afterward and offered any support I can do to expedite it, Nungesser said. Theres a lot of that work needs to be done." Inside info on doing business in Acadiana We'll keep you posted on the Acadiana economy. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up As developers pursue economic development projects, he said, they submit information on what is needed from the community and state to make it work. Its very early on looking at this project," Nungesser said. "We are all ears and want to help. Guillory said he introduced Parish president Bill Fontenot to Ahart-Keiffer in 2015 while still in office, and the announcement Thursday was the culmination of years of working with them on plans for remaking the airport. The idea is to make Opelousas a place where people will now be able to fly into instead of flying over, Guillory said. Asked if he could provide any project documents, Guillory said he had nothing on paper that I could share. We have people in from South Africa, from Canada, California, New York, all here to do their final inspection, Guillory said. The next step is to get the final spigots open so the money starts to flow and work can begin. Fontenot said he has not seen anything on paper concerning the plans announced Thursday, including any kind of pro forma or other project documents. Long said Ahart-Keiffer and some of her associates met with state officials in February for help finding a large land parcel. Long said he was at the meeting, but could not recall what ASI were proposing to do with the land. They were looking for a large quantity of land, Long said. As a matter of fact, they spoke about up to 40,000 acres of land for economic development. Long said representatives of the offices of governor, lieutenant governor and Louisiana Economic Development were present for the meeting in February. LED spokesman Gary Perilloux said the economic development office learned of ASI chairman Jack Ahart's interest in St. Landry Parish in 2015 and attempted to contact him but never heard back. LED participated in the February meeting, which Perilloux described as "exploratory" and unrelated to the Opelousas announcement. The airport is St. Landry Parish property, meaning Fontenots signature is required for any transaction. Fontenot said Ahart and Ahart-Keiffer approached him about some type of deal involving the airport in 2015 but nothing came of it. Fontenot provided a November 2015 email from Ahart-Keiffer indicating the interest of ASI and another company, AGMG Inc., in taking over the airport. The email, which copied Guillory, said "the top priority is AGMG securing the airport management," and noted the need to execute a letter of intent between AGMG and St. Landry Parish for an exclusive management agreement. Guillory and Haley Ahart-Keiffer were both listed as officers in a company called AGMGUSA, Inc., according to records on file with the Louisiana Secretary of State's Office. The company is now in an inactive status. Ahart-Keiffer wanted to lease the airport for about $1 million per month and presented Fontenot with a one-page agreement to sign, Fontenot said, but he refused because they did not have a concrete proposal. I said I need more information. I need to know some details, who is going to do what," Fontenot said. "Im like anyone else thats operating a business. If someone wants to come in and say they are considering buying it, renting it, leasing it hey, show me something on paper and well see. Ahart-Keiffer, whose parents once owned the airport and whose father died in a crash there in 1982, said during the announcement that the projects could end up creating 100,000 direct and indirect jobs. ASI specializes in health care, energy, construction and security, according to its website. She spoke on Thursday along with ASI vice president Charles Watson and Gbenga Adulamo, founder and president of DalWorld, who said his company is investing $3.5 billion "but could be investing upwards of $10 billion depending on factors." "When I tell you Opelousas is on the cusp of blowing up, it is," Tatum said on Thursday. "We're going to be on the map. We already did a mock groundbreaking at the jail. Once we've completed the surveys and determined the sites, they're going to started as soon as possible. The sky's the limit." More than a year after Southern University selected Advanced Biomedics to run its medical marijuana program, the company has not acquired the land it targeted for growing operations or reached a point of paying Southern any of the $6 million that attracted the university to the company. The Lafayette company appears to have made little progress, if any, toward beginning operations as one of two Louisiana growers. And as recently as mid-October, Lafayette businessman Hunter Perret was negotiating to purchase a stake in Advanced Biomedics held by majority owner and Carencro businessman Carrol Castille, a spokeswoman for Perret confirmed. Hunter Perret tried everything to complete a deal with (Advanced Biomedics), but an agreement could not be reached, Perret spokeswoman Amy Jones said. Southern and LSU are the only two licensed growers of marijuana in Louisiana, as dictated by state law. Both institutions picked private companies to run their operations. LSUs partner, GB Sciences, has plants growing in a temporary facility while it works to get regulatory approval for its permanent operations in a former Pepsi distribution center in south Baton Rouge. After regulatory delays, that company said it will have product available in early 2019. Delays at Southerns partner, which earlier this year was plagued with competing lawsuits over ownership of the company and contract negotiations with Southern, have taken on a greater importance since Louisianas marijuana laws were loosened this summer. The Legislature added chronic pain and other conditions to the list of qualifying conditions that can be treated with the drug. Those changes are expected to greatly expand Louisianas patient base, and have raised questions over whether enough product will be available to meet demand. Louisiana medical marijuana delayed after state forced to do product testing, company says The first batch of legal medical marijuana in Louisiana won't be on the shelves until January at the earliest, two months later than hoped, wi Southern has previously said it planned to send medical marijuana to pharmacies by early 2019, but it is not clear if the school is sticking to that projection. Though it has responded to some emails, Southern has declined repeated interview requests over the past five months, and did not answer a detailed list of questions about the partnership with Advanced Biomedics. Representatives of Advanced Biomedics have not responded to requests for comment. In an email on Oct. 9, Southern spokeswoman Janene Tate said that the university submitted its standard operating procedures for the facility to grow marijuana and make medical products to the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, which regulates the states two marijuana growers. The school also said construction would begin immediately following the agencys approval of facility plans and procedures, and that product would be available in early 2019. The school also said Southern has completed mandatory criminal background checks and the fingerprinting process and that the federal portion of the process was still pending. In addition, the agriculture departments regulations on marijuana require an applicant to submit a long list of information as part of its application for a license. That information includes detailed plans of design of the facility, a construction timeline, sources of funding and a management plan. The agriculture department said it has not received any of that information from Advanced Biomedics. The company, owned primarily by Castille and Lafayette pharmacist Chad Bodin, never acquired the land in Baker cited in its plan for building a ground-up growing facility, the land owner confirmed. Advanced Biomedics was a VERY BRIEF conversation and they moved on in short order, Sidney Bowden, who owns the 176-acre plot along La. 964, said in an email. Where their focus is now is way in my rearview mirror. Bowden added the conversation with the company happened over a year ago. While it is not clear whether the company has other land or an existing building in mind, Southern AgCenter officials were under the impression as recently as late August that the firm was moving forward with the property in Baker, emails show. Also, Southern AgCenter spokeswoman Lakeeshia Giddens Lusk had said in late August that Advanced Biomedics was in the process of securing the land. Southern has not answered questions since then about the land. Randy Angelle, a Breaux Bridge attorney representing Advanced Biomedics and Castille, did not return several calls seeking comment nor did Bodin. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up When asked last week if the university could point to any steps Advanced Biomedics has taken toward building a facility or growing plants, Tate said: Southern University continues to make progress in the production of medical marijuana. Louisiana regulators remove 100-patient cap on marijuana doctors; some still worry about availability NEW ORLEANS (AP) Amid concerns about bottlenecks to access, Louisiana regulators agreed Monday to loosen limits on how many medical marijuan We remain committed to moving forward in making a positive impact on healthcare in this state. Earlier this month, Tate responded to one question about whether Southern had received any money from Advanced Biomedics and confirmed the university has not. Over the life of the contract, the school is to receive more than $6 million from Advanced Biomedics, but it has not progressed to the point at which payments begin, Tate said. According to the agreement, Advanced Biomedics is obligated to pay Southern $2.15 million on the effective date of the contract, Tate said. That sum includes a $1 million signing bonus, $1 million annual service fee and a $150,000 contribution toward research at Southern into medicinal plants. The effective date begins once LDAF (Louisiana Department of Agriculture) provides authorization for the vendor to proceed. The authorization has not been provided at this time, however, we anticipate this occurring in the coming weeks, Tate said. Southern was lured by Advanced Biomedics in part because of the firm's promise of more than $6 million in payments exceeding any other applicant. Seven companies applied to be Southern's marijuana growing partner. Advanced Biomedics beat out two other finalists for the marijuana contract last fall, despite a review committee recommending the board pick a different vendor. Earlier this spring, at a Southern board meeting where members were deciding whether to sign a deal with Advanced Biomedics, Southern University President and Chancellor Ray Belton touted the positive cash flow that would come from the deal. If we move away from Advanced Biomedics, where do we go? Who do we go to? Another vendor whom this board has already found does not provide the kind of subsidies which we are seeking right now? Belton said at the meeting. A battle over contract negotiations and ownership between Castille and Bodin had worried some of the Southern board members. That dispute had boiled over into competing lawsuits in the spring, before the board was set to approve the contract, with Castille accusing Bodin of fraudulently negotiating a contract with Southern. Bodin also sued Castille, alleging he never put up the $12 million in capital contributions he promised, and was therefore never even an owner of the company. In the week leading up to the vote, Southern University issued an ultimatum to Advanced Biomedics, saying the university would look elsewhere for a marijuana grower unless the owners could resolve their dispute outside of court. The two sides said at the time they were working toward a resolution and got the judge to dismiss the court case. At the time, the firm also was facing a lawsuit from a Baton Rouge investor who claimed Bodin broke his word on a $20 million deal that would have given an investment group a 14 percent stake in the company. That dispute was being worked on out of court. Castille filled a crucial role for Advanced Biomedics when he came on board last year: Financing. The Carencro native got involved with the company shortly before it went before the Southern University board to make its pitch. He promised a much-needed $12 million in capital, giving him a 65 percent stake at the time, according to court documents. Bodin, the founder and CEO, was the other major owner of Advanced Biomedics, claiming 27 percent ownership in the application, which worked out to $2 million in capital contributions, documents said. Bodin brought on Castille and assembled Advanced Biomedics initially. The latest documents submitted to Southern in late September show Castille and Bodin as owners in Advanced Biomedics. The July death of a 79-year-old Hammond man in a camper trailer fire has been classified a homicide after investigators determined his caregiver ignited the blaze with a Molotov cocktail, according to the Louisiana State Fire Marshal's Office. Gerald John "Chick" Rousseau died in the fire; suspect Veronica "Roni" Gannon, 51, died a few days later after having suffered serious burns when she exposed herself to the incendiary fluid while hurtling the improvised fire bomb into the trailer, said Ashley Rodrigue, a spokeswoman for the Fire Marshal's Office. One dead, one injured after fire in Hammond early Sunday, State Fire Marshal says One person died and another was injured after a fire at a camper trailer in Hammond early Sunday morning, according to the Louisiana State Fir An exact motive for the July 29 arson is unknown, according to a report from the Fire Marshal's Office, but Tangipahoa Parish sheriff's deputies had been called to the scene in the 44000 block of Recile Lane two days before because of an argument between the two. Both people alleged the other struck them but did not want to pursue charges, according to the Sheriff's Office report. Rousseau told deputies at the time that he had met Gannon at Applebee's and invited her to live with him because she had no other place to stay. The report says Gannon appeared to have been under the influence of narcotics because her speech was slurred and her eyes were glassy and bloodshot. The owner of the property where the trailer was parked told investigators after the fire that Rousseau had been in and out of the hospital because of complications related to diabetes, according to the Fire Marshal's report. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up But recently, he had been trying to get Gannon to leave, according to the Fire Marshal's report, noting that the property owner said Rousseau told her the day before the fire that Gannon had threatened him. Rousseau said "Roni had threatened to 'squirt something on him and set him on fire' if he didn't stop trying to make her move out of the camper," the report says. Rodrigue said investigators determined that Gannon threw the Molotov cocktail from the porch into the living room, where the fire began, some time before 5 a.m. A beer bottle appeared to have been used in the crude incendiary device. When Hammond firefighters arrived, they found Rousseau lying on the floor of the master bedroom and Gannon suffering severe burns lying several yards from the structure, Rodrigue said. The parish coroner's initial ruling on Rousseau's cause of death is "asphyxia by smoke inhalation," Rodrigue said. Gannon died three days later of her injuries. The victim's daughter, Kristi Rousseau, said in an interview Tuesday that Gannon was her father's caregiver. Rousseau said her father was a retired carpenter who had worked in an oil refinery. He leaves behind four children and several grandchildren, she said. "It was crazy. He asked her to stay there. He met her at Applebee's or something," Kristi Rousseau said. She just was a broken person, and for whatever reason chose to do what she did. French Settlement's police chief stepped down from his elected position on Wednesday, a day after his arrest on counts of malfeasance in office. Harry Brignac confirmed Wednesday afternoon that he sent a letter of resignation to the Louisiana Secretary of State. The letter notes his resignation was effective at noon. He declined to comment further. The Secretary of State's website shows the position of French Settlement police chief as vacant. +3 French Settlement police chief arrested after letting wife drive police car, sheriff says The French Settlement police chief was arrested Tuesday after allowing his wife to drive a village patrol car on Friday night, said Livingston Brignacs arrest came four days after his wife, Tammy Brignac, was booked on driving one of his department's police cars even though her driver's license had been suspended. Brignac told law enforcement and local media that he had instructed his wife to drive the marked unit back to French Settlement. Because he admitted that he knowingly instructed his wife to drive while she was ordered by the courts not to operate a vehicle the chief is charged with malfeasance in office, Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard said in a statement. This is the second arrest this year for the police chief on malfeasance in office. Brignac was arrested in July, accused of using the villages fuel card to buy gas for his personal vehicle. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up French Settlement is a town of 1,200 people in southern Livingston Parish. The police department has two officers and a chief of police. Tyler Brey, press secretary for Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, said Wednesday that, under state law, French Settlement governing authorities will need to make an appointment to fill the office of police chief, within 20 days of Brignacs resignation, which means on or before Nov. 20. Harry Brignacs current term as police chief for French Settlement would have expired in 2020. He served as the villages police chief for seven, four-year terms, since he was first elected in 1988, and was two years into his eighth term when he resigned. A special election will also need to be called, with available dates, all in 2019, being: March 30 primary election; May 4 general election; and fall gubernatorial election dates of Oct. 12, primary, and Nov. 16, general. Brey said that, according to state law, if the village of French Settlement calls for the fall gubernatorial election dates, the state will pay for more than 50 percent of the costs of the election. If the local government doesnt make an interim appointment or call a special election, the Secretary of States Office will ask the governor to do so, Brey said. French Settlement Mayor Ton Guitrau said Wednesday that the board of aldermen will appoint an interim police chief during its regular meeting on Nov. 14 and call for a special election at a later date. Guitrau would not say how the interim police chief might be chosen, but said that the village would like to appoint someone neutral, who would not seek re-election. Also on Wednesday, Livingston Parish District Attorney Scott Perrilloux said that Brignacs resignation is not part of any plea agreement involving the chief or his wife, Tammy Brignac, who was recently arrested for driving a police unit with a suspended drivers license. A Baton Rouge man who turned a $4,000 profit from inside information he received before the Shaw Group was acquired by Chicago Bridge & Iron Co. for $3 billion was sentenced Tuesday to 16 months in federal prison, U.S. Attorney Brandon Fremin said. Salvador Joseph Russo III, 35, was convicted in May of securities fraud and conspiracy to commit the same. Also found guilty then were former Shaw Group employee Kelly Liu, who was Russo's girlfriend, and Morgan City businessman Victory Ho. Three convicted of scheme using Shaw-related insider information to make big profits A former Shaw Group employee and two other Louisiana residents were convicted Thursday of insider trading in connection with Baton Rouge-based Ho, 39, was sentenced last week to 32 months in federal prison and ordered to forfeit more than $300,000 he made through insider trading. Liu, 32, of Baton Rouge, has not been sentenced. Liu obtained inside information before the 2012 public announcement about the acquisition and passed the information to Ho, through another individual, and to Russo for their use in trading Shaw securities, Fremin said. Scott David Zeringue, a former Shaw Group executive, pleaded guilty in 2014 to securities fraud conspiracy and was put on probation for three years and ordered to pay $32,000 in restitution. Ex-Shaw executive gets probation, 6 months in halfway house in insider trading case A former Shaw Group executive who pleaded guilty to insider trading involving the Baton Rouge firm's $3 billion acquisition in 2012 by Chicago Zeringue testified last year against his brother-in-law, Ruston dentist Jesse H. Roberts III, who was acquitted of securities fraud and conspiracy. Prosecutors alleged Roberts turned a $700,000 profit from confidential information that Zeringue said he passed on to his brother-in-law. A charter-school friendly group based in New York City is spending nearly twice as much as all the candidates combined who are seeking a seat on the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board. Education Reform Now Advocacy has expended more than $167,000 so far in the lead-up to the Nov. 6 election and thats to support only two candidates: Dadrius Lanus and Tramelle Howard. By contrast, the 13 candidates for School Board have reported spending about $90,000 in total, with about $80,000 left in the bank for the home stretch, according to the latest campaign finance reports filed with the Louisiana Board of Ethics. Monday was the deadline for candidates in the Nov. 6 election to disclose recent fundraising and spending. The latest reports cover activity between Sept. 28 and Oct. 17. The next reports arent due until Dec. 17. Jill Dyason, who is running for a fifth term in District 6 against challenger Tammy Dabadie, has raised the most money, $30,133. She also has the most still in the bank, $24,348. Lanus is the only candidate who failed to file by the Monday deadline. He could face fines for failing to file or for filing late. Six of the nine seats on the School Board are being contested. Board members Mark Belllue, Connie Bernard and David Tatmen were re-elected to third terms in July when no one qualified to run against them. Charter-school friendly group launches ad campaign ahead of East Baton Rouge School Board election Starting Tuesday, a charter-school friendly group is running digital ads, as well as some TV and radio spots aiming to persuade Baton Rouge vo Education Reform Advocacy Now is the lobbying arm of a better known education group, Democrats for Education Reform, or DFER. This recent burst of outside spending works out to about $102,000 for Lanus and $65,000 for Howard. Direct spending from their own campaigns is modest by comparison: $5,800 and $8,100, respectively. Lanus is in a three-way race in District 2 that includes fellow challenger Joycelyn Hall and incumbent Vereta Lee. Howard is running against incumbent Kenyetta Nelson-Smith to represent District 3. All five are Democrats. Only three of the 13 candidates are Republicans: Dyason, Dabadie, as well as District 7 incumbent Michael Gaudet. Lee and Nelson-Smith, who are backed by teacher unions and other supporters of traditional public schools, have long been targets of local and national education reform groups. Lee and Nelson-Smith have raised $16,504 and $8,280, respectively, and have spent almost all of that money. Hall has raised only $55 so far. Top stories in Baton Rouge in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Education Reform Now Advocacy is structured for tax purposes as a social welfare organization, which, according to the IRS, may engage in some political activities, so long as that is not its primary activity. Such organizations dont have to disclose their donors. DFER, its sister organization, was founded in 2007 by a group of hedge fund managers pressing to persuade the Democratic Party to be more open to school choice and school accountability proposals. In October, DFER contributed money to five parish School Board candidates, $2,500 each in all but one case. They include Howard, Lanus, as well as Chrisdelin Kelly Lyles, who is challenging District 4 incumbent Dawn Collins. DFER also is supporting both candidates in the District 5 race, but has so far given challenger Cliff Lewis $2,500 but only $1,250 to incumbent Evelyn Ware-Jackson. All are Democrats. Eva Kemp, director of Democrats for Education Reforms chapter in Louisiana, would not say why its lobbying arm is giving financial help to only two of the five candidates DFER endorsed. We believe we are supporting candidates who will raise the bar for all students no matter what ZIP code they are come from, Kemp said. DFER and other affiliated entities this summer spent an undisclosed amount of money on a digital, TV and radio campaign called Raise The Bar Baton Rouge. It highlighted low graduation rates in Baton Rouge, a high number of low-performing schools in town, as well as a few higher performing charter schools. Prominent contributors to past School Board elections have yet to show up much in campaign finance reports for the Nov. 6 election. The Louisiana Association of Education has given $250 each to four incumbent School Board members: Collins, Lee, Nelson-Smith and Ware-Jackson. No candidates have as yet reported any donations from the rival teacher union, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers. Stand For Children Louisiana, perhaps the biggest contributor in recent school elections, has reported little so far, though leaders of the group say its active in the current elections. Of the four School Board candidates it has endorsed Gaudet, Howard, Lyles and Ware-Jackson only Howard has reported receiving a $1,500 contribution from the group. And Cajun Industries founder Lane Grigsby, who has put up tens of thousands of dollars in the past two cycles, has given only $6,000 so far this election cycle. His most recent contribution is $2,500 to Ware-Jackson. JERUSALEM Gov. John Bel Edwards and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Wednesday to discuss possible future partnerships on cyber security and other priorities, as Edwards continues an economic development-focused mission to the Middle Eastern country. "It's very nice to be in Israel," Edwards told Netanyahu as the two shook hands in their initial meeting. "We've been so well received." Netanyahu, who has been prime minister since 2009 after previously holding the position in the late 1990s, told Edwards that he has visited Louisiana in the past and enjoyed New Orleans. "How could you not?" Netanyahu said with a laugh. +6 Gov. John Bel Edwards tours Biblically significant sites in Israel, continues security and business meetings TEL AVIV Gov. John Bel Edwards and others with him on a diplomatic mission trip to Israel this week took in several of the country's Biblica After their introductory chit-chat, the two posed for photos in front of an American flag and Israeli flag. The rest of their meeting, which included fewer than two dozen other people sitting at a long table inside the prime minister's office in Jerusalem, was closed to the press. As the media and others were ushered out of the room, Edwards remarked to Netanyahu that he has often seen the prime minister on television and in the newspaper. Netanyahu joked that media reports about him may not have always been accurate. Their meeting lasted for more than an hour and covered a broad range of topics, including opportunities for partnerships and cyber security threats. Edwards, a Democrat, has been in Israel since Saturday, meeting with experts on water issues and cybersecurity, taking in the country's culture and historical sites and seeing first-hand the role that Israel is taking in Middle East conflict. +6 Gov. John Bel Edwards tours Israel as people react to synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh JERUSALEM Gov. John Bel Edwards laid a wreath for victims of the Holocaust as the world wrestled with brutal victimization back home. Edwards is scheduled to leave Israel Thursday evening and return to Louisiana Friday morning after an over-night flight. The scoop on state politics in your inbox Get the Louisiana politics insider details once a week from us. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up "We were invited by Israel to come here for this trip," Edwards told an Advocate reporter covering the trip. "I think they try to make sure that (U.S. officials) all have an opportunity to see these things and get a personal appreciation." Gilad Katz, Israel's consul general to the southwest United States, has joined Edwards for much of the trip and took part in the meeting with Netanyahu. Gov. John Bel Edwards arrives in Israel for energy, economic development mission JERUSALEM Gov. John Bel Edwards is in Israel this week to hold meetings with business and government leaders about potential partnerships wi Ahead of the meeting with the prime minister the highest profile event on Edwards' agenda for the week and one that required strict security measures -- the governor and others met with cybersecurity business leaders and the head of Israel's Innovation Authority in Tel Aviv. "It's not every day we have a governor from any U.S. state coming here," IIA chief scientist Ami Appelbaum told Edwards. "We don't take it for granted that you are coming here. We take it as a big compliment but also a big responsibility." Edwards, who took office in January 2016, currently serves as co-chairman of the National Governors Associations Resource Center for State Cybersecurity with Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. The NGAs national cybersecurity conference will be held in Shreveport-Bossier City in May 2019. Over the course of his trip, Edwards has frequently asked public and private cybersecurity leaders in Israel to take part in the event. He mentioned it to Netanyahu, as well. Edwards and Netanyahu also discussed the recent mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 Jewish senior citizens dead. Edwards on Sunday visited Jerusalem's Holocaust museum. He told Netanyahu about New Orleans' acclaimed World War II museum. Edwards has been an outspoken supporter of Israel, even as some Democrats have voiced concerns about humanitarian issues linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the region. Edwards issued an executive order earlier this year to bar the state of Louisiana from doing business with any entities engaged in boycotting Israel. During the trip, Edwards, an Army Airborne Ranger and graduate of West Point, visited an Israeli Defense Forces base near the Gaza Strip and was briefed on the countrys Iron Dome air defense system and traveled close to the Syrian border for a briefing on the conflict in the Golan Heights region. He said Israeli government officials had stressed that they wanted him to see the country's security situation first-hand. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry isnt exactly wearing his opposition to Amendment 2 on his sleeve. Days before voters weigh in on the states unusual non-unanimous jury law, Landry is declining to say anything about the referendum on a 120-year-old staple of Louisiana criminal justice -- despite having announced his opposition in early August. We are a no comment, attorney general spokeswoman Ruth Wisher said this week in an email when asked about Landrys current position. Landrys office told another media organization the same thing recently, suggesting that Landry, the lone statewide official who has publicly opposed the amendment, has no interest in doubling down. A yes vote on Amendment 2 would return Louisiana to a requirement for unanimous jury verdicts in all felony cases for the first time since the late 19th century, beginning with trials for crimes committed on or after Jan. 1, 2019. The scoop on state politics in your inbox Get the Louisiana politics insider details once a week from us. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Only Louisiana and Oregon allow split verdicts with as few as 10 of 12 jurors in agreement, and only in the Pelican State can a defendant go away for life in prison without parole when one or two jurors disagree with the verdict. The measure puts the states abnormal jury scheme directly before Louisiana voters for the first time. To reach the ballot, it needed two-thirds support from a Republican-led Legislature a figure easily eclipsed in a final House vote. It has since gained wide bipartisan support, including that of both major political parties, and no formal campaign in opposition. Among those endorsing the measure are 10 of the states district attorneys, the state GOP and Democratic parties and advocacy groups as divergent as the ACLU on the left and the Louisiana Family Forum on the right. Landry never came out personally in his support for Amendment 2. Instead, when The Advocate sought his position in August, Landry had his chief deputy, Wilbur Bill Stiles III, and a political strategist, Brent Littlefield, speak for him. At the time, Stiles said Landry believes the non-unanimous jury law has a positive effect on the criminal justice system in Louisiana. We believe it makes for quicker and easier administration of the system. But now Landry, who is eyeing a gubernatorial run next year, is declining to take any public stance on the referendum a rare bit of silence from the states top prosecutor over a galvanizing political issue. Artifacts are displayed as conservators and Louisiana Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser open a time capsule buried at the base of the P.G.T. Beauregard Statue in New Orleans, La., Friday, Aug. 3, 2018. Buried when the monument was constructed in 1913 and excavated when the pedestal was demolished, the capsule contains both American and Confederate flags, currency, bonds, newspapers, medals and coins. There are countless wine competitions around the world where vintners vie for medals and recognition, the special marks to help them stand out in the market. The New Orleans International Wine Awards join that number next week, though this new competition differs in significant ways, including some tailored to its host city. Naturally, theres a party. New Orleans International Wine Awards Tasting is Nov. 8, 4:30-7:30 p.m., simultaneously at Antoines (713 St. Louis St.), Arnauds (813 Bienville St.), Brennans (417 Royal St.) and Galatoires (209 Bourbon St.). Tickets are $80. See nolainternationalwine.com. After a panel of judges assesses the contending wines and awards the medals, the wine-loving public will get a chance to taste them too, with some 500 bottles available for sampling. The setting for this unique tasting wont be one venue but rather a circuit of four of the citys most historic restaurants, all clustered close in the French Quarter. Antoines, Arnauds, Brennans and Galatoires are the host establishments, and attendees will be able to stroll between them to sample different wines at each. The tasting will be held Nov. 8, with tickets for $80. I think an event like this adds a different dimension for our city, said Tim McNally, the local wine writer and co-founder of the New Orleans International Wine Awards. It adds to the story our city tells as a food and drink destination, and as a fun destination. While the New Orleans calendar is now teeming with festivals, the New Orleans International Wine Awards is aimed first and foremost at the wine trade, and then folds in a public component to turn the tasting into a celebration. It promises more of an insider's perspective. Attendees essentially get to piggyback on the winemakers' ambitions, sampling the best examples they've put up for competition. Braithe Tidwell, wine director at Brennans Restaurant, said shes anticipating a rollicking experience as attendees make the circuit, though a celebratory spirit is par for the course at these storied restaurants. Its really exciting to have something like this in New Orleans, Tidwell said. I think it will be good exposure for the winemakers and wine professionals to see whats going on in the city now. The event was designed to be different from other wine competitions, especially with its focus on restaurant partners for the public portion. Its New Orleans. It has to be fun, said Bill Kearney, a co-founder and also a partner and wine director at Galatoires (full disclosure: John Georges, an owner of the Advocate, is also an owner of Galatoires). We didn't want this to be clinical. It needs to represent our city, our restaurants, our culture, he said. Were trying to bring all of that together for this. In its appeal to winemakers, the new event is banking on the international reputation New Orleans enjoys as a great food city. We started this with the idea that there are a lot of winemakers out there who appreciate what New Orleans means and would value the chance to compete for awards here, McNally said. Since a call for entries went out earlier this year, 500 wines have been entered from around the globe. James Moises, the events third co-founder, is a doctor and also a wine importer through his New Orleans company Bizou Wines, specializing in smaller producers. He credits the New Orleans location and a different format with helping draw a wide range of contenders, citing a rich diversity of wine types, winemakers and wine regions represented. "Its truly an international wine competition and for our first year I think thats great," he said. "Having it in New Orleans and having these restaurants involved meant a lot. Hitting capacity for competing wines was an important first-year goal going into the event. Now, there are two goals: producing a smooth judging process and ensuring the event is enough fun to bring people back for year two. The new event was inspired by the much larger San Francisco Chronicle Wine Awards. WineJudging.com, the company that manages that event, will also manage the New Orleans competition. The judging panel includes sommeliers, wine journalists and other professionals from around the country. For the second goal, bringing the fun, the wine awards are turning to the storied New Orleans restaurants hosting the tastings. While supplies of each will be limited, the variety between them should be high. Each restaurant will have a small number of more than 100 different labels, with a different selection at each restaurant. Attendance is limited to 500 people. In December, award-winning wines from the event will be identified and featured on restaurant wine lists and retail shelves around town, so more people can try them. New Orleans International Wine Awards Tasting is Nov. 8, 4:30-7:30 p.m., simultaneously at Antoines (713 St. Louis St.), Arnauds (813 Bienville St.), Brennans (417 Royal St.) and Galatoires (209 Bourbon St.). Tickets are $80. See nolainternationalwine.com. +4 With women in charge of its wine program, Brennans Restaurant shows ripples of change Sitting at a cypress table in the carefully chilled wine cellar at Brennans Restaurant, sommelier Sarah Arceneaux shared the story of Gaia Ga +6 Phillip Lopez, known for avant-garde cuisine, is the new chef at historic Galatoires Though certain dishes and many traditions at Galatoires Restaurant can seem timeless, the ranks of people responsible for keeping them vital An investigation of Entergy New Orleans' role in a scheme to pay actors to voice support for their plans to build a new power plant omits evidence showing the corporation did not pay or authorize those actors to be paid, Entergy Corp. executives charged Tuesday. Entergy Corp.'s claim comes a day after the New Orleans City Council released a copy of a probe into Entergy New Orleans' involvement in the paid actors scheme. That investigation concluded that Entergy "knew or should have known that such conduct occurred or might reasonably would occur," based on evidence the utility provided. The investigation was conducted at the council's request by attorneys from the firm of Sher, Garner, Cahill, Richter, Klein and Hilbert, and by retired Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Calvin Johnson. After Entergy's paid actor scandal, New Orleans City Council expected to seek $5M in fines The New Orleans City Council will seek $5 million in fines from Entergy New Orleans to sanction the company for its use of paid actors at publ But the parent company said the experts missed key evidence, though it did not detail the nature of that evidence. We received a copy of the report," said Neal Kirby, an Entergy Corp. spokesman. "Upon initial review, we take exception to certain characterizations and omission of key facts from the report, including specific evidence Entergy provided that confirms it did not pay, nor did it authorize any other person or entity to pay, individuals to attend or speak at council meetings. Entergy New Orleans, which is regulated by the council, has claimed it did not know that its contractor, the Hawthorn Group of Virginia, would partner with Crowds on Demand, a California firm that specializes in "PR stunts," to find professional actors to swell the ranks of those supporting the new plant. It has also claimed not to know that people would be paid, though it did say it paid the Hawthorn Group to recruit specific numbers of supporters who would speak at the council meetings. The paid actors praised the utility's plans for the new power plant in New Orleans East at meetings in October 2017 and February 2018. The results of the council's third-party investigation released Monday night indicate that ENO's then-CEO, Charles Rice, actually asked for more actors than first proposed. The report says Rice exchanged text messages and emails with Entergy executive Yolanda Pollard two weeks before a public hearing in October 2017, asking, "How is Hawthorn looking getting people to the hearing?" Pollard replied that the group said it would get 50 people and 10 speakers there. Rice responded, "Hell I would pay for more if they can get them," followed by "If Hawthorn can get more people I will pay." This is war and we need all the foot shoulders [soldiers] we can muster," Rice said, per the report. During a meeting, Pollard texted Rice to ask what he thought of the turnout. "Looks fabulous," Rice said. Entergy was seeking approval to build a new natural gas-fired power plant to replace the steam-generated plant in New Orleans East that it closed in 2016. It said the new plant would be a needed and efficient local power source, a view the council endorsed when it approved the plan 6-1 in March. But clean-energy advocates said Entergy should rely less on fossil fuels and more on renewable energy sources. And the revelations in May about paid actors sparked a public outcry and roiled the whole process. In August, the parent company, Entergy Corp., demoted Rice to a position in the company's legal department. Entergy has also taken other steps to address public criticisms. City Council President Jason Williams will convene a special meeting on Wednesday at 1 p.m. to receive the report and hear testimony from the investigators. The New Orleans City Council could decide to take a new vote on whether to authorize the new power plant at the center of a controversy over Entergy New Orleans' use of paid actors to support the proposal. After the council heard an investigative report on the matter Wednesday afternoon, two council members said they would be open to reconsidering the earlier 6-1 vote approving the plant. Only two of the members who took part in that March vote are still are on the council. The council then unanimously voted to begin the process for assessing a $5 million fine against Entergy, requiring Entergy employees to go through training and requiring them to submit a code of conduct. An investigation released this week found Entergy culpable in a scheme to pay actors to support its plans to build a new power plant. Council members previously said they wanted to wait for the conclusion of the investigation before deciding how to respond to the scandal. After hearing testimony from the public on Wednesday, Council President Jason Williams and Councilman Jared Brossett said they would be open to reconsidering the plant itself. It was the strongest indication yet that such a reconsideration could be a possibility. "I believe the (previous) vote was necessary based on the evidence that we were presented with by our experts," Brossett said. "However, after hearing today and the many months of discussion and debate with the public, I am open to revoting on this matter." A group of investigators, including former Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Coman and retired Criminal District Court Judge Calvin Johnson, formally presented the council with its findings at 1 p.m. before the council took public comment. "Entergy treated this as adversarial," Johnson said of the utility's attitude toward the investigation. "We tried to explain to them that we are all on the same side. It was difficult for Entergy to get to (that) understanding." After Entergy's paid actor scandal, New Orleans City Council expected to seek $5M in fines The New Orleans City Council will seek $5 million in fines from Entergy New Orleans to sanction the company for its use of paid actors at publ Entergy will have 30 days, under the resolution the council will consider, to explain why the council shouldn't assess those penalties. "This is not a position we ever wanted to be in, but Entergy has put us all here today," Councilwoman Helena Moreno said, calling the potential $5 million fine the biggest penalty the council has ever imposed. A number of residents chimed in on the fee, including Logan Atkinson Burke, head of the consumer-advocacy group Alliance for Affordable Energy. "Five million feels like a gesture," Burke said. "Five million just puts a price on the cost of undermining a democratic process." The council's utility advisers said members of the public who want to offer suggestions as to how the $5 million fine should be spent can email their ideas to Lora Johnson, the council's clerk. Im not sure if the war that was waged, was waged on this council or was waged on the people of the city of New Orleans," Williams said. "Whatever the mentality and the thought process was shameful, and clearly unnecessary." The council voted 6-1 in March to approve Entergy's plans to build a 128-megawatt natural gas-fired plant in New Orleans East, siding with Entergy's arguments that the plant was needed to prevent "cascading outages" and to provide a local source of power generation in case a hurricane or other disaster cuts off transmission of power from outside the city. In May, The Lens reported that actors were paid to voice support for the idea during two council meetings. Entergy investigated the matter and announced that its contractor, the Hawthorn Group of Virginia, and Crowds on Demand, a California firm that specializes in "PR stunts," had worked together without its knowledge to hire people to attend the council hearings and to speak. Entergy executives admitted asking Hawthorn to recruit specific numbers of supporters, buying T-shirts for those people and approving scripts for them to read, but said they didn't know those people would be paid. But the council decided to conduct its own probe. That investigation, released Monday, found that Entergy "knew or should have known" about Hawthorn's plans. There is no evidence in the council's report confirming that Entergy definitely knew about Hawthorn's plans. But the probers said Entergy withheld other documents that could have shed more light on its role in the scheme, despite repeated requests for that information. Entergy: Probe into paid actors scheme for New Orleans power plant omitted key evidence An investigation of Entergy New Orleans' role in a scheme to pay actors to voice support for their plans to build a new power plant omits evid On Wednesday morning, Rod West, the executive vice president and group president of utility operations for parent company Entergy Corp., highlighted the lack of evidence to support the claim that Entergy "knew" about the paid actors scheme. But he agreed that Entergy New Orleans "could have either prevented the actions of the Hawthorn Group or (Crowds on Demand) or discovered them and stopped them." "In essence, we should have been more diligent and we 'should have known,' " West said. At the same time, West faulted the council's investigative team for omitting other evidence from their report that he said proves Entergy did not know about or authorize any payments to actors. That evidence consists of assurances by Hawthorn to Entergy that no one was paid to speak. However, the council's probe did point out that Entergy received those assurances from Hawthorn. "Simply stated, (Entergy New Orleans) lost its way," the investigators wrote. Even when Entergy began to hear rumors that people were paid at one meeting, "it took no corrective action. (Entergy) did not investigate nor the company it chose. It accepted the company's denial as fact." Stay with The Advocate for updates on this story. U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie praised a housing community for veterans in Gentilly as a model for future public-private partnerships by his agency during a visit to New Orleans on Tuesday. During a tour of the Bastion Community of Resilience, Wilkie also said President Donald Trump will outline a more expansive program to involve the private sector in veterans' care going forward. The future is public-private partnerships. Issues that were facing in Veterans Affairs are the same as were facing in the rest of the country: opioids, homelessness, mental health issues, Wilkie said. Any way we can find to provide a new path for veterans is important for us. That means choice. That means for veterans here in New Orleans, if we cant take care of them here at the VA (Medical Center) in a timely fashion, they can choose to go into the private sector." Bastion consists of a series of homes on Mirabeau Avenue for veterans, their families and community members who assist in supporting them. The site has more than 50 households in clusters of single-family housing, with a staff of six. For us, its not just a high honor. It's a stamp of validation that we hold the keys of hope and reintegration for our warriors that are rotating off the battlefield or transitioning out of the military, Bastion Executive Director Dylan Tete said of Wilkies visit. Wilkie toured one of the model homes on the site and met with staff members and residents. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up The main purpose of his visit to New Orleans is to attend the National Veterans Small Business Engagement Conference at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. While at the conference Thursday, hes expected to sign an agreement with Linda McMahon, head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, to expand a joint program of management and leadership training for veterans seeking to become entrepreneurs. In addition, Wilkie stopped by Kehoe-France School in Metairie earlier in the day and plans to visit the VA hospital. Ironically, Bastions development was actually imperiled earlier this year by another Trump administration policy. The Republican tax cut bill slashed the corporate tax rate, sending the value of the tax credits the project relied on plummeting and threatening the viability of several low-income developments. Other funding eventually came through for the development. Wilkie, who has been on the job about two months, said he couldnt speak to specific funding issues or programs. But he said hes working on coming up with ways to improve services for veterans. I am speaking to state and local governments and private entities, looking at the way to expand the aperture that veterans have not only for care but for living and for caregiving, particularly for their families, Wilkie said. The city's director of juvenile detention is out of a job amid concerns about violence and staffing shortages at the Youth Study Center. Germaine Simon confirmed in a brief telephone conversation that he is no longer with the Youth Study Center. He left last week, 18 months after he took the job. Simon, 39, said he resigned to spend more time with his family. Although the city did not comment on the circumstances around Simons departure, it came after clear signs that Mayor LaToya Cantrell wanted to shake up operations at the facility. In August, Cantrell said she hoped to reform practices which kept youth confined in rooms for hours and to correct severe staffing shortages. Cantrell also said she was looking for a new director for the center, although she did not directly address Simon's future there. LaTonya Norton, Cantrell's press secretary, said Simon's last day was Friday. Two specialists have been brought in to run the center on an interim basis: Drs. Kyshun Webster and Nancy Fournier. "The mayor is convening an executive search process to identify permanent leadership for the director position," Norton said in a statement. Simon is the fourth director the center has had in the four years since the opening of its new Gentilly facility, said Aaron Clark-Rizzio, the director of the Louisiana Center for Children's Rights, which represents youths accused of crimes who are being held in the facility. "Thats been a defining problem of this facility, a lack of consistent leadership," he said. "Also, (there have been) long time periods where there were interim directors." When the 48-bed Youth Study Center opened in 2014, Mayor Mitch Landrieu promised that it would mark a break with the dangerous conditions at the city's old holding center. But there have been recurrent episodes of violence at the new facility. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Prosecutors last week obtained an indictment against a 16-year-old held at the facility on accusations that he attempted to bludgeon a counselor to death. In September, a supervisor was arrested on accusations that he beat teens at the center. Meanwhile, nola.com reported in August that the facility was "plagued" by violence and staffing shortages. Simon denied those issues had anything to do with his departure. A New Iberia native, Simon served in the Army for seven years before operating facilities in New York City for its Administration for Children Services. Former Mayor Mitch Landrieu selected him to lead the Youth Study Center in the waning days of his administration. Since taking office, Cantrell has moved the Youth Study Center under a new Office of Youth and Families, which she hopes will keep a closer eye on the center's operations. Although Simon said he left of his own volition, one advocate who works closely with the centers Travis Hill School, which educates incarcerated youth, said she saw his departure as part of the larger shifts being pushed by City Hall. I know that things weren't quite working, and so this is a change to make things more safe for kids, said Sarah Omojola, director of the Welcoming Project. Clark-Rizzio said he hopes the city will move quickly to fill Simon's place. It's not clear how long that process could last. "The last process was really long and drawn-out," he said. "We definitely want to get the right person, but there also needs to be a sense of urgency to put leadership in place so we can start turning the facility around." Many court cases, key moments and scandals have preceded the Archdiocese of New Orleans' decision to release a groundbreaking list of clergy members who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. On Friday, the archdiocese released the names of 57 ordained clergy that Archbishop Gregory Aymond chose to disclose, after a team of 10 people, including staff members and outside legal counsel, reviewed 2.432 personnel files. The list does not include employees of the church, or any other religious -- such as nuns or brothers -- who may have been credibly accused. Clergy accused of sexually abusing a minor can try to clear their names through church tribunals, the outcomes of which are secret. Below is an interactive timeline of key events leading up to the list's release. Zoom in for a closer look at dates, and click or tap each icon for a description of that moment's events. Scroll down for a full, text version of the timeline. Can't see the timeline below? Click here. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Information compiled by The Advocate's Gordon Russell MORE COVERAGE: By revealing clergy sex abuse list, Archdiocese of N.O. to publicly reckon with crisis There may be names on the list that sicken New Orleans-area Catholics, exposing once-revered men of the cloth as child predators based on alle +2 N.O. archbishop: Names of clergy removed from ministry amid sex abuse claims to be released soon The release of a long-awaited list of clergy who were removed from ministry because of credible child sex abuse claims is imminent, according +2 List of Louisiana clergy accused of sex abuse remains mystery; financial toll gives clues to why Archbishop Gregory Aymond, clad in purple vestments symbolizing atonement, lay prostrate on the altar of St. Joseph Church during a special Ma There may be names on the list that sicken New Orleans-area Catholics, exposing once-revered men of the cloth as child predators based on allegations that never saw daylight. The sordid histories of about 16 other clerics should be familiar to many, though, having been revealed in previous eruptions of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal by the diocese itself or in spite of its silence. THE ACCUSED DO YOU HAVE A STORY OF SEXUAL ABUSE YOU WANT TO SHARE WITH THE ADVOCATE? Click here for information on how to safely share that information. Together, their names are expected to be released within days by the Archdiocese of New Orleans in a highly anticipated and grimly historic document: The first official roster of local clerics who have sexually abused children. The list will go back at least a half-century and include priests and deacons who have faced "allegations of sexual abuse of a minor and those allegations have led to a removal from ministry," Archbishop Gregory Aymond said recently in a statement. The outline of Aymond's framework calls for outing child predators who worked in the diocesan priesthood, as well as religious-order clergy who make up a large share of priests and deacons under the umbrella of the archdiocese. On paper, that is more than many dioceses in the U.S. have been willing to release and less than some others. Aymond's decision to release a list comes amid a scramble by bishops nationwide to respond to a new wave of public outrage engulfing the church globally. At least four of Louisiana's six other dioceses are expected to follow suit and put out their own lists, adding to a rising stack of similar reveals across the U.S. as the church tries yet again to seek forgiveness for the decades of clergy abuse it allowed. In New Orleans, some Catholic parishioners have been further rattled by reports that Aymond sat on at least one recently settled abuse allegation before it was unearthed by the media. For a diocese that had no formal review process for child sex abuse complaints until 1993, the list is likely to fall well short of a full accounting of child sex abusers in the New Orleans clergy. Even so, its publication will mark the most aggressive and perhaps riskiest in a series of steps taken by the archdiocese to publicly reckon with the persistent crisis. With its list, the archdiocese is furnishing a slate of evidence that the neighborhood parishes of New Orleans were far from immune to the widespread rape and molestation of children documented throughout the Catholic Church. Some 16 priests and deacons who were the subjects of previous public reports seem to fall clearly under the guidelines laid out by Aymond and thus are likely to appear on the list, according to an Advocate review of Louisiana allegations listed by the watchdog site bishop-accountability.org. Among them are clerics who said mass at Sacred Heart of Jesus in New Orleans, took confession at St. Mary Magdalen in Metairie, officiated nuptials for young couples at St. Peter's Catholic Church in Reserve, and preyed on vulnerable children across the region. Should the archdiocese choose to list priests who were accused and removed from ministry elsewhere, but who also served in New Orleans-area parishes, at least 15 more names are likely to appear. Until now, the archdiocese has released only a numeric tally of diocesan priests and deacons who were credibly accused but not their names. That official figure stood at 10 clerics when then-Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes issued a report in late 2003 that claimed to account for all allegations dating back to 1950. Hughes left it for others to piece together their identities. At the time, he claimed "there have been no allegations of sexual abuse of a minor by a cleric since the late 1980s," a span of well over a decade. The list the archdiocese is preparing to release may shed light on the accuracy of Hughes' math. In all, more than 60 of nearly 200 dioceses in the U.S. have released lists of clergy abusers to date, some of them under the terms of legal settlements with victims. Many other bishops are considering doing so in the wake of a July report from a Pennsylvania grand jury that exposed a raft of previously unreported allegations involving hundreds of "predator priests" in four dioceses. The grand jury report has helped to fuel a new eruption in a clergy abuse scandal that has placed Pope Francis on the hot seat and threatened to send outraged parishioners fleeing the pews. "The bishops' own position on this is shifting, but also, the community standard is shifting. Suddenly a lot of people are wondering, 'Why dont you have a list? What possible reason could you have for not having a list?' " said Terry McKiernan, founder of bishop-accountability.org. "We're seeing a real rush to get lists out there. Whether theyre good lists or not is another question. You hope the diocese does a complete job. You hope they just level with the people. If they dont do that, its just going to continue coming back to haunt them. It is, of course, already haunting the survivors." Its a scandal that first broke out in Louisiana, from revelations during the 1980s that a pedophile priest in Lafayette, Gilbert Gauthe, had molested scores of children while church leaders shuttled him from one Acadiana church to the next. Decades later, the Louisiana bishops find themselves at a turning point, under immense pressure to come clean following decades of half-measures taken by their predecessors to protect children and own up to the totality of the scandal. The New Orleans list will confront parishioners anew with the sexual crimes committed in their midst. More victims are likely to come forward, and with them, demands to be compensated for years of therapy, broken relationships, substance abuse and other symptoms of the trauma of sexual abuse suffered as children. +2 List of Louisiana clergy accused of sex abuse remains mystery; financial toll gives clues to why Archbishop Gregory Aymond, clad in purple vestments symbolizing atonement, lay prostrate on the altar of St. Joseph Church during a special Ma The stakes are high. Lawsuits and settlements have pushed many U.S. dioceses into bankruptcy. Of about 200 dioceses around the country, roughly 1 in 12 has declared bankruptcy or has announced it will do so as a result of the crisis. But the risks are not purely financial. While the new disclosures are meant to rebuild trust, a fresh round of horrors could also have the opposite effect. Changing protocols and reviews Aymond has said the review by the archdiocese covers 50 years, spanning the tenures of four New Orleans archbishops who each operated under different rules for reviewing and disclosing allegations of clergy sex abuse or no rules at all. Over the first half of those 50 years, then-Archbishop Philip Hannan had no formal administrative process for handling complaints against clergy. How many allegations from that period were handled off the books, with Hannan acting as his own counsel, may never be known. Most of the allegations that have come to light so far against New Orleans-area clergy date to Hannan's tenure, which ended with his retirement in 1988. Five years later, in 1993, Archbishop Francis Schulte set up a process for handling complaints of child sexual abuse by clergy. Yet a spokesman for the archdiocese would later reveal that Schulte's review policies were so restrictive applying only to allegations made by children or their parents that none ever qualified. Alfred Hughes would become New Orleans archbishop in 2002, as the church was in the throes of the clergy sex abuse scandal that erupted when The Boston Globe exposed myriad abuse allegations and cover-ups. That year, the U.S. Conference of Bishops agreed on a new protocol for reporting and disclosing credible allegations of clergy sex abuse. Hughes would suspend or remove several priests from ministry under the new protocol, mostly based on allegations they abused children in earlier decades. Among them were Joseph Pellettieri, a Redemptorist priest accused of sexually abusing a child 35 years earlier; Charles Coyle, a Jesuit priest accused of clergy sex abuse in Massachusetts; and Rev. Gerard P. Kinane, whom Hughes relieved of his duties at St. Luke in Slidell based on a complaint alleging abuse in the mid-1970s. All three of those names will presumably make Aymond's list. Listen: Catholic abuse crisis, church finances, more in Ep. 2 of 'The Neutral Ground' podcast The second episode of the New Orleans Advocate's weekly podcast, "The Neutral Ground," is available for download. But Hughes also weathered criticism over lapses in disclosure. He quietly removed the Rev. Carl Davidson from ministry sometime in 2002, for instance, and never revealed it. Davidson, once a music teacher at St. John Vianney Prep School, was accused of trying to molest a boy years earlier. Hughes removed him from the ministry after the victim and a second person complained. Only in 2004 did the sequence of events become public, in apparent violation of the guidelines set up in the wake of the Boston scandal, The Times-Picayune reported. Such spotty disclosures point to blind spots in the archdiocese's shifting view of transparency when it comes to clergy sex abuse. Indeed, a whole category of credibly accused priests those who died before the 2002 reforms has largely been exempted from disclosure under archdiocese policy, their names kept under wraps for years or even decades. Aymond has pledged to lift that veil for clerics who were accused and removed from ministry before their deaths, though not if the allegations came posthumously. That means any surprise names that might appear on the list will likely be those of deceased clergy. Other names that figure to make the list won't be surprises, their sins having already been aired in grimy detail. They include: -- Dino Cinel, who left the priesthood after his stash of child porn and home sex movies with teens turned up in the St. Rita church rectory. Cinel was acquitted at trial after his attorney argued the priest had acquired the material before it was outlawed. A young man with whom Cinel had a sexual relationship fatally stabbed him in Colombia earlier this year. -- Patrick Keane, a priest who admitted in a sworn deposition that he molested a teenager in the rectory of St. Mary Magdalen in the early 1980s. Keane was removed from the ministry and left the priesthood when he was accused in 1994. A civil lawsuit centering on the accusation was settled in 2003. -- George Brignac, a deacon who was removed from ministry in 1988 after multiple arrests and accusations of child abuse, for which he was never convicted. This year, the archdiocese paid more than $500,000 to an accuser who said he was raped by Brignac between 1979 and 1982, while the deacon led the altar boy program at Our Lady of the Rosary Parish. Aymond publicly revealed the allegations only after The Advocate reported on them, about six weeks after the settlement. Aymond said he had been about to inform the congregation about Brignac, though the Archdiocese has refrained from similar disclosures in the past when new allegations were received about a cleric like Brignac who had already been removed from ministry. Defrocked N.O. deacon Brignac sued, allegedly sexually assaulted another minor A former Catholic Church deacon accused of raping an 8-year-old altar boy decades ago in a case that prompted the Archdiocese of New Orleans t Because the New Orleans list is limited to clergy, it is likely to leave out some of the most notorious child sex abusers in the recent history of the New Orleans archdiocese figures such as Robert Gandara and Peter Modica. Gandara, a member of the Christian Brothers, was accused in a lawsuit in 1989 of engaging in sexual acts with a 16-year-old boy who was boarding at St. Paul School in Covington. Authorities also pursued charges, and Gandara spent nine months behind bars. He left the order in 1994. Modica, a maintenance man at Jesuit High School in the 1970s, was accused of raping an adolescent boy, Richard Windmann, on campus repeatedly. In 2012, when Windmann confronted Jesuit, the school's president at the time described his account as credible, and Windmann was paid $450,000 to settle the claims out of court. Any clergy member accused of sexually abusing a minor could seek to clear his name through a highly secretive church tribunal, the decisions of which are hardly ever revealed. Regardless of who's on it the list and who's not, its pending release has filled local parishes with anticipation, and in some cases dread. Debbie Fagnano, a parishioner at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Belle Chasse, said members have exchanged concerns that Patrick B. Sanders will be named. Sanders was widely respected among parishioners before he was sidelined by Hughes in 2004 over allegations that he abused two teenage boys. He denied those allegations, which never resulted in criminal charges. Church members mounted a massive letter-writing campaign and hung blue ribbons around trees to show their support for Sanders. Sanders remains a priest without a flock, rebuilding his life as an attorney in private practice, according to Fagnano. Fagnano is one of his clients. She said she fully supports Aymond, but she still worries about the consequences for people like Sanders. He doesnt know what direction this is going to go in, whats going to happen when the names are released, Fagnano said. We understand that this list has to come out, but Im just hoping and praying that some way, those who shouldnt have to bear this burden wont. The Accused: 16 clergy who could be on Aymond's list Below are 16 priests and deacons who either admitted to the sex abuse allegations made against them, left the ministry on their own after being accused, or were removed from ministry. Based on information from media reports, other documents, and the website bishop-accountability.org, each appears to meet the criteria outlined by Aymond for inclusion on the list, though it's possible that some may be excluded. CLAUDE P. BOUDREAUX Position: Jesuit priest, teacher at Jesuit High School Served: Jesuit High School (1967-1973, 1976-2005) Age: Died in 2016 at age 91 Status: Removed from ministry in 2005 Details: Ordained in 1955, Boudreaux was removed from ministry in 2005 after the Jesuit order received what it deemed to be a credible report of the sexual abuse of a minor from more than three decades before, according to The Times- Picayune. The Jesuits released few other details, citing the victims right to privacy. Boudreaux, a native of Houma, was sent to live in an undisclosed location for medical treatment. Afterwards, Boudreaux lived at the Ignatius Residence in New Orleans, according to his obituary. When that home closed in 2013, he relocated to the St. Camillus Jesuit Community in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. --- GEORGE BRIGNAC Position: Archdiocesan deacon, teacher Served: Our Lady of the Rosary Parish (1976-88); lector at St. Mary Magdalen Parish (2016-2018); and, before 1976, St. Matthew the Apostle School, St. John Vianney Prep School and Cabrini High School Age: 83 Status: Removed from ministry in 1988 Details: Archbishop Gregory Aymond said he was utterly surprised and embarrassed in July 2018 when he found out that Brignac, who was removed from ministry in 1988, was serving as a lay lector at a Metairie church. More than 10 boys have accused Brignac of molesting them, with the claims spanning many years and multiple parishes and schools across New Orleans. In 2018, the archdiocese paid more than $500,000 to an accuser who said he was raped by Brignac between about 1979 and 1982, when the deacon was the co-director of the altar boy program at Our Lady of the Rosary Parish. A pair of plaintiffs have since filed similar lawsuits, and others have claims which are in process. Brignac declined comment when contacted recently. He previously told The Advocate he was attracted to children and admitted to touching young boys, though he said it wasnt for immoral purposes. --- PAUL CALAMARI Position: Archdiocesan priest Served: St. Raphael the Archangel, Our Lady of the Holy Rosary and Our Lady of Perpetual Help parishes (1980-1997), Archdiocese of New Orleans Age: 74 Status: Removed from ministry in 2003 Details: Calamari was accused of sexually abusing a minor before his ordination to the priesthood in 1980, according to The Times-Picayune. In addition to his service as a priest, he also spent time as the director of religious instruction for the archdiocese, the newspaper reported. He left the New Orleans area in 1997 for St. John Vianney Center in Pennsylvania, a psychiatric treatment facility for priests. Calamari had relocated to the Wilmington diocese in Delaware when he was removed from ministry in 2003. Church officials said they had received credible allegations against him. Public records suggest Calamari still lived in Delaware as of 2017. He couldnt be reached for comment. --- Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up DINO CINEL Position: Archdiocesan priest, Tulane University historian Served: St. Rita Catholic Church (1979-1988) Age: Died in 2018 at 76 Status: Laicized in 2010 Details: A native of Italy, Cinel was living in the St. Rita rectory in 1988 when another priest discovered a cache of child pornography and videotapes of Cinel having sex with young men, according to media reports. When the discovery was made public two years later, it sparked a protracted legal battle and allegations that then-District Attorney Harry Connick Sr., a St. Rita parishioner, hobbled his offices efforts to prosecute the case. Connick denies improperly handling the matter. Cinel left the priesthood after the scandal broke, although he was not formally laicized until 2010. Cinels life came to a violent end in Colombia in February 2018, when he was stabbed to death by an 18-year-old man who was also his lover. --- CHARLES G. "CHARLEY" COYLE Position: Jesuit priest Served: Jesuit High School (1960s), Holy Cross High School (1980s), St. Andrew the Apostle Catholic Church in Algiers, Center for Jesus the Lord (1980s), Tulane University Age: Died in 2015 at age 83 Status: Removed from ministry in 2002 Details: Ordained in 1965, Coyle was removed from ministry after being accused in a 2002 lawsuit of abusing two boys in the 1970s at Newton South High School outside Boston. At the time the allegations were made, Coyle worked and lived in New Orleans but was not attached to a parish. Coyle neither confirmed nor denied those claims, The Times-Picayune reported. Coyle worked at Jesuit in the 1960s. He also worked at St. Andrew the Apostle church as well as at a spirituality center known as the Center for Jesus the Lord in the 1980s. Later, he lived at St. Cecilia Parish, serving as a chaplain at Holy Cross High School and Tulane University. He eventually served as a substitute for vacationing priests. He became the first known case in which a New Orleans priest was suspended following the abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston in 2002. A second lawsuit filed in 2003 accused Coyle of sexually abusing a boy while Coyle was a seminarian in Baltimore, according to The Times-Picayune. --- CARL DAVIDSON Position: Archdiocesan priest Served: St. John Vianney Prep School (dates unclear), musician and accompanist for St. Louis Cathedral boys choir Age: Died in 2007 at age 67 Status: Retired in 2002 Details: Davidson was a music teacher at St. John Vianney Prep School in New Orleans. According to 2004 articles in the Times-Picayune, a man claimed Davidson tried to molest him years earlier when the victim was a boy. The accuser said he and a second victim went to the archdiocese in 2002 and complained, resulting in Davidsons removal and retirement from ministry. But, according to The Times-Picayune, that action wasnt publicly discussed until 2004, an apparent violation of guidelines to disclose such matters following the Boston scandal two years earlier. --- MICHAEL FRASER Position: Archdiocesan priest Served: Sts. Peter and Paul in Pearl River; St. Raphael the Archangel; Visitation of Our Lady in Marrero Age: 69 Status: Removed from ministry in 2004 Details: Ordained in 1975, Fraser was accused of abusing boys in the mid-1980s and in 1991 while at Sts. Peter and Paul, The Times-Picayune reported. Fraser was removed in 2004, after the archdiocese received the complaint with the accusations against Fraser from the mid-1980s. Fraser was the pastor at Visitation of Our Lady at the time. After his removal, a separate lawsuit which was settled accused him of abusing a boy at St. Raphael about 1983. He was among a group of priests removed from ministry following sexual abuse allegations who later sued Archbishop Alfred Hughes for defamation. He couldnt be reached for comment. --- PATRICK KEANE Position: Archdiocesan priest Age: 70 Served: St. Catherine of Siena, St. Mary Magdalen, both in Metairie Status: Removed from ministry in 1994 Details: A man who identified himself publicly as Patrick Collins told church officials in 1994 that as a teenager hed been molested by Keane in the rectory of St. Mary Magdalen in the early 1980s, according to The Times-Picayune. Keane had been ordained in 1973 and was an associate at St. Catherine of Siena at the time of the allegation. He was removed from ministry, left the priesthood, and admitted the abuse under oath in a 1999 deposition, according to a Times-Picayune story. A civil lawsuit involving the allegations was settled in 2003, records show. Attempts to contact him for comment were unsuccessful. --- JAMES KILGOUR Position: Archdiocesan Priest Age: 72 Served: Our Lady of the Lake in Mandeville, St. Pius X Status: Removed from ministry in 1994 Details: Ordained in 1973, Kilgour was accused of sexually abusing a 13-year-old altar boy in 1980 and 1981 at Our Lady of the Lake, according to The Times-Picayune. Three others were also accused of roles in the case. Kilgour was placed on leave in 1987, when a civil suit in the case was filed. He was working at St. Pius X at the time. He recently told The Advocate he did not return to the ministry. The suit was settled in April 1991, but Kilgour said he did not assume any responsibility for wrongdoing. --- GERARD P. KINANE Position: Archdiocesan Priest Served: St. Mark Catholic Church in Chalmette (1973-1978); St. Hilary Catholic Church in Houma (1981-1985); St. Luke Catholic Church in Slidell (1999-2004) Age: 73 Status: Removed from ministry in 2004 Details: A man came forward in 2004 to allege that Kinane sexually abused him in two incidents in 1973 and 1975 when he was a teenager and Kinane was an associate pastor at St. Mark, according to The Times-Picayune. One incident allegedly occurred in the church and another on a trip to the Honey Island Swamp near Slidell. Kinane was soon removed from ministry, but he continued to insist on his innocence in a defamation lawsuit against the archdiocese. The suit was dismissed in 2010. Kinane couldnt be reached for comment. --- BERNARD KNOTH Position: Jesuit Priest Served: Loyola University New Orleans (president) Age: 69 Status: Resigned in 2003 Details: Ordained in 1977, Knoth resigned as president of Loyola in 2003 after being accused of sexually abusing a student at Brebeuf Jesuit Prep in Indianapolis in 1986, according to The Times-Picayune. He denied wrongdoing, but the order deemed the allegation credible, and he was removed from ministry. He later entered private business in Florida. The Archdiocese of Indianapolis included him on a publicly released list of clergy who had been credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor. Knoth recently told The Advocate, I still stand with what I said when I resigned from Loyola. (The allegation) was untrue. --- WESLEY MICHAEL LANDRY Position: Archdiocesan priest, monsignor Served: Incarnate Word Church in New Orleans; St. Leo the Great Parish in New Orleans Age: Died in 2002 at 78 Status: Retired in 1993 Details: Landry was ordained in 1948 and rose to assume the prestigious title of Monsignor. An accuser said Landry seduced him while he was an altar boy at Incarnate Word and continued a sexual relationship with him for 45 years, trading him money for sex, according to The Times-Picayune. Landry admitted to the relationship in 1993 and retired. The archdiocese paid the accuser $7,000 that year for a release from liability, the Times-Picayune reported. --- RICHARD NOWERY Position: Holy Cross priest Served: Pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in New Orleans Age: Died in April 2018 at age 80 Status: Removed from ministry in 2002 Details: Ordained in 1968, Nowery was accused in 1986 of sexually abusing two boys in Austin, Texas, according to The Times-Picayune. He underwent treatment and came back to church where he recruited clergy but was restricted from unsupervised access to children. After the 2002 church abuse scandal in Boston, the archdiocese reviewed Nowery's personnel file and removed him from ministry. He was the pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus in Mid-City. His case demonstrates how church policy changed after the scandal erupted in 2002. --- JOSEPH PELLETTIERI Position: Redemptorist priest Served: Notre Dame High School in Crowley, Ave Maria Retreat House in Crown Point Age: 79 Status: Removed from ministry in 2002 Details: According to The Times-Picayune, an unidentified man contacted church officials in April 2002 and reported being sexually abused by Pellettieri, who was ordained in 1965, when the victim was a minor in 1967. At the time in question, Pellettieri was a teacher and principal at Notre Dame High School, and the boy was described as the son of a janitor. After the allegation, Archbishop Alfred Hughes suspended Pellettieri, who was running the Ave Maria Retreat House in Crown Point. Pellettieri had also worked in Wisconsin, Alexandria and Baton Rouge. It is not clear if the Redemptorist order acted similarly. A lawsuit against Pellettieri was later dismissed on grounds of statute of limitations. He couldnt be reached for comment. --- PATRICK B. SANDERS Position: Archdiocesan priest Served: Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Belle Chasse Age: 55 Status: Removed from ministry in 2004 Details: Ordained in 1990, Sanders was sidelined from serving as a pastor in 2004 after two men came forward to report they were sexually abused as teenagers 11 years before, according to The Times-Picayune. In 2005, Archbishop Alfred Hughes announced that he had permanently removed Sanders from the priesthood after three hearing officers said they believed Sanders committed the abuse. At the time, he was the pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Help and well-liked by his congregation. Public records suggest Sanders has since become an attorney. He declined to comment but has previously denied wrongdoing. --- JOHN SAX Position: Archdiocesan priest Served: St. Peters Catholic Church in Reserve, St. John Vianney Villa (a Marrero retirement home for priests) Age: 70 Status: Removed from ministry in 2000 Details: Ordained in 1973, Sax admitted he molested an altar boy repeatedly between 1980 and 1985 at St. Peters, according to The Times-Picayune. The victim approached another priest in 2000, disclosed the abuse and was put in touch with a therapist. The victim sued. Sax was placed on leave when the allegations were first reported. He remained a priest in 2004 but had no priestly duties and was reportedly living in an undisclosed location, according to The Times-Picayune. Sax had helped the archdiocese draft a sex-abuse policy some seven years before his accuser came forward, the Times-Picayune reported. Sax, who held the prestigious title of monsignor, didnt return a message seeking comment. Staff writers Matt Sledge and Ramon Antonio Vargas contributed to this report. St. Tammany Parish Government declared 2018 as the "Year of the Senior," in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Council on Aging St. Tammany. Each month, The St. Tammany Farmer is telling the story of a local senior who continues to make an impact on the community. This month, we meet poll commissioner in charge Rita Daniels of Slidell, who is one of hundreds of people in the parish who staff polling places during elections. Rita Daniels taught home economics for 35 years, 23 of them at Northshore High School, before retiring. She emphasized to her students the importance of learning how to cook and sew, how to manage home finances and how proper nutrition can lead to good health. Daniels also knows the importance of knowing how government works, though civics is not a course she ever taught. Instead, she learned all about legislation, the elections process and more having served 24 years as an elections worker at a Slidell-area polling place. There are many moving parts in an election candidates, supporters, public relations strategists and fundraising to name a few. An all-important part of the process, though decidedly low-profile, are the people willing to serve as independent poll workers. They are the ones who spend 12 or more hours on Election Day making sure voters are at the right poll, that they are properly registered and identified and, at the end of it all, that their votes are tallied for the parish Clerk of Court to certify. They arent paid much for their service $200 for poll workers and $250 for commissioners in charge, like Daniels. But they are absolutely essential to the smooth flow of the democracy in action. Daniels, 66, said she became curious about the elections process when voting nearly a quarter-century ago at Boyet Junior High. Having recently moved to Slidell from Texas, Daniels had a question, and she sought a friendly face. What do y'all do back there? she asked Betty Pichon, who was working at the polling location that day. I was serious, Daniels said. I wanted to know. Well, she invited me to a meeting to learn all about it. Then I was in. In as in on the path to becoming a poll commissioner. She attended classes offered by the Clerk of Courts office and passed with flying colors. Twenty-five years later, and many refresher courses later, Daniels remains a mainstay at Boyet whenever an election is held. St. Tammany top stories in your inbox A weekly guide to the biggest news in St. Tammany. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up S-11, she said of the polling place shell work on Nov. 6 in the open primary/congressional election. Daniels said she recognizes many voters, even though she only sees most of them several times a year at the ballot box. They may not know my name all the time, but they remember my face, she said. People seem happy to see us. They smile and dont tend to bring their troubles with them. Thats not always the case, however. Daniels said people can be grumpy if they have to wait to vote, though that very rarely happens, and that's almost exclusively in a presidential election. Poll workers also are trained to prevent electioneering of any kind. So if you show up with a shirt that has your candidates name on it, youll be asked to turn it inside out, remove it or leave until youve changed clothes. That upsets some people, but its a rule and you have to be firm, Daniels said. More often than not, voting is an easy procedure. Dedicated commissioners such as Daniels are there to ensure it. I had a mentor (Betty Pichon,) who helped me remain calm when I first started, she said. That meant a lot. Daniels said it means a lot when people take time to vote, too. She doesnt understand how people feel they can complain about how government operates if they choose not to vote. The way Daniels sees it, voting is the most important duty Americans have. People tell me sometimes that their vote doesnt matter, she said. I tell them they need to speak their mind. This is your civic duty. And complaining after you dont vote? Thats crazy. Daniels reminds everyone to bring a valid picture ID with them to the polls. Election Day is Nov. 6, and polls will be open from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. For more information, go to the St. Tammany Parish Registrar of Voters website, www.stprov.org. LAMAZE CLASS: Courses on the natural process of childbirth, relaxation and breathing techniques will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 1, at Lakeview Regional Medical Center's Magnolia Room, 95 Judge Tanner Blvd., Covington. Limited to 20; participants are asked to bring a pillow and blanket. For information or registration, call (985) 867-3900 or visit lakeviewregional.com. BIG BROTHER, BIG SISTER IN SLIDELL: A free Big Brother, Big Sister class for children ages 3-10 will be held from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 3, in the Florida Avenue conference room at Slidell Memorial Hospital, 1025 Florida Ave. Children will learn safe ways to interact and care for their familys new baby, practice diapering and make a special gift for the new baby. To register, call (985) 280-2657 or visit slidellmemorial.org. LOOK GOOD ... FEEL BETTER IN SLIDELL: Women with cancer can get free makeup kits, step-by-step demonstrations, a free lunch and support from this program, which will meet from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday, Nov. 5, at the Slidell Memorial Hospital Imaging Center, 1495 Gause Blvd., Slidell. To register, call (985) 280-2657. YOGA FOR CANCER PATIENTS: Patricia Hart conducts free yoga classes for cancer patients, survivors and their caregivers from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Mondays on the second floor of the Slidell Memorial Hospital Wellness Pavilion, 501 Robert Blvd., Slidell. The next class will be Nov. 5. Wear loosefitting clothing; mats are available for use. Registration and a medical release are required. For information, call Hart at (985) 707-4961. MINDFUL MEDITATION: Dan Lawton will provide an introduction to meditation for those new to the practice, and support for those practicing meditation, from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 6, in the community outreach center on the second floor of the Slidell Memorial Hospital Wellness Pavilion, 501 Robert Blvd. To register, call (985) 280-6612. JOINT REPLACEMENT CLASS: Interactive class conducted by a physical therapist, surgical nurse, case manager and orthopedic nurse will focus on preoperative and postoperative care for total joint replacement surgery. The course will be held at 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 6 at Lakeview Regional Medical Center's Pelican Room, 95 Judge Tanner Blvd., Covington. For information or registration, call (985) 867-3900, or register online at lakeviewregional.com. CAREGIVER COFFEE TALK: Caregivers will discuss ways to cope with stress, care for themselves and restore their energy from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 7, at the Slidell Memorial Hospital Regional Cancer Center, 1120 Robert Blvd., Slidell. For information, call (985) 280-6612. BETTER BREATHERS CLUB: The Better Breathers Club, a program of the American Lung Association, meets from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month in the Magnolia Room of Lakeview Regional Medical Center, 95 Judge Tanner Blvd., Covington. The next meeting will be Nov. 8. The club is meant for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, as well as their caregivers. To register, visit lakeviewregional.com or call (985) 867-3900. THE CHALLENGES OF AGING: Dr. Timothy Riddell will give a presentation, "The Challenges of Aging," during a free Lunch & Learn program at 11:30 a.m. Friday, Nov. 9, in the first-floor conference room of the Slidell Memorial Hospital Founders Building, 1150 Robert Blvd. Topics include how to prepare for important conversations associated with aging, death and dying. To register, call (985) 280-2657. BREAST-FEEDING CLINIC: Lactation consultants will offer free support and encouragement from 9:30 a.m. to noon Saturday, Nov. 10, in the Florida Avenue conference room at Slidell Memorial Hospital, 1025 Florida Ave. To register, call (985) 280-8585 or visit slidellmemorial.org. St. Tammany top stories in your inbox A weekly guide to the biggest news in St. Tammany. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up HEALTHFUL COOKING: South Louisiana chef Brett Monteleone will teach cooking skills needed to prepare easy recipes that not only taste good but will also help develop healthful eating habits from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 12, in the first-floor conference room of the Slidell Memorial Hospital Founders Building, 1150 Robert Blvd. To enroll, call (985) 280-6665. MALL WALKERS: North Shore Square Mall, 150 Northshore Blvd., Slidell, will open for walkers at 7 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 14, through a partnership with Slidell Memorial Hospital, to encourage people to walk with the advantages of mall security, air conditioning and water fountains. For information, call (985) 280-8529. BEREAVEMENT SUPPORT: A bereavement support group will meet at 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, in the second-floor chapel at the Slidell Memorial Hospital Regional Cancer Center, 1120 Robert Blvd. For information, call (985) 280-6612. BABY SITTER TRAINING: A one-day Safe Sitter class for people ages 11-14 will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday, Nov. 19, in the community outreach center on the second floor of the Slidell Memorial Hospital Wellness Pavilion, 501 Robert Blvd., Slidell. Topics include how to rescue someone whos choking and helpful information like what to do in severe weather. The cost is $75, which includes a manual and completion card. For information, call (985) 280-8529. Registration packets are available at slidellmemorial.org/outreach. ONGOING CHILD SAFETY SEAT INSPECTIONS: The St. Tammany Parenting Center has appointments for free inspections of child safety seats. Call (985) 898-4435. Inspections are held from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. every Tuesday at the Louisiana State Police Troop L headquarters, 2600 N. Causeway Blvd., Mandeville. Walk-ins are accepted, but appointments are appreciated. For information on the State Police program, call (985) 893-6250 or email greg.marchand@la.gov. GAMBLERS ANONYMOUS: Gamblers Anonymous meets several times a week throughout the New Orleans area. Gamblers Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experiences, strength and hope with one another that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from a gambling problem. For information, call (855) 222-5542 or visit gamblersanonymous.org. MEDICARE COUNSELING: The state Department of Insurance's Senior Health Insurance Information Program will offer counseling services for Medicare beneficiaries from 9 a.m. to noon on the third Wednesday of each month at the Slidell Senior Center, 610 Cousin St. The counselor is Medicare-certified and can explain original Medicare, Medicare supplement insurance, Medicare Advantage plans and Medicare Part D. The counselor will be able to complete Medicare Part D comparisons and enrollment, assist with claims issues and explain Medicare enrollment periods. For information, call (800) 259-5300 or visit ldi.la.gov/SHIIP. BABY AND ME TOBACCO-FREE: Slidell Memorial Hospital is holding smoking-cessation programs for expectant mothers on Mondays and Wednesdays by appointment. For information or to request an application, call Ashlee Menke at (504) 733-5539. Four people were victimized during two separate armed robberies that happened on Tuesday night in New Orleans, according to local police. The New Orleans Police Department said the first holdup happened at a Family Dollar store in New Orleans East when three men entered the store in the 11900 block of North I-10 Service Road about 9:40 p.m. and demanded property. The suspects then demanded that the employee open the register and, they fled with cash when he complied, police said. About 15 minutes later, another suspect held up two men and a woman in the 3100 block of Banks Street, in Mid-City, police said. NOPD said in that incident the victims, ages 49, 44 and 38, were approached by the suspect, who was in possession of a handgun. He stole one of the victim's wallets before fleeing on South Salcedo Street, police said. Police also reported a simple robbery that happened about 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning in the 7th Ward. In that incident, NOPD said a 26-year-old woman was sitting on the steps of a home in the 1300 block of St. Bernard Avenue when a man walked past her and snatched her backpack. The thief fled down St. Bernard Avenue on foot before jumping into the back of a pickup truck, police said. Unlockd, the tech start-up that claims its business was crushed by Google, has discontinued its legal action in the Federal Court against the search giant. The liquidators appointed to Unlockds operations filed a notice of discontinuance in the court on Tuesday evening. Unlockd Ltd, Unlockd AU Pty Ltd and Unlocked Operations Pty Ltd - the applicants - discontinue the whole of the proceeding," the court document said. Unlockd co-founder Matt Berriman in New York. Credit:Adam Lerner This notice of discontinuance does not prevent the company from taking legal action against Google in future. As trashy thrillers go, Bodyguard is exemplary. The six-part BBC series, which arrived on Netflix here last week after setting viewership records in Britain has tense set-pieces, implausible connections, numerous twists, ripped from the headlines conspiracies, and sexual intrigue in the halls of power. With its illicit affair between a powerful politician and the man protecting her it puts both the nation and the ass in assignation. Its calling card is an extended opening sequence, set on a passenger train heading into London late at night, which introduces Police Sergeant David Budd (Richard Madden), a former soldier turned bodyguard bringing his children home from a family visit. Seeing a conductor's consternation he intervenes and discovers a terrorist attack is imminent, which leads to a face-off notable for the multiple and finely balanced means of death that have to be navigated. "You and I, we're just collateral damage," Budd tells another participant, and that idea of a contrasting us and them the ordinary people who fight and die versus those who safely give the orders behind the shield of their power is central to the show. One of the reasons Bodyguard works so well is that it takes a familiar genre and bluntly lashes new themes and repurposed angles to a knotty storyline. Notable is the idea that Budd, far from being the upstanding protagonist, shouldn't even be at work. Over the initial episodes it becomes clear that he's suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, carrying both the physical and mental scars of his service in Afghanistan without professional care. "We never show weakness," he sternly tells his crying son at a school drop-off, one of several instances of personal misjudgment that explain why he's no longer living at home. Bodyguard Bodyguard, Richard Madden, Keeley Hawes Credit:Sophie Mutevelian/World Productions/Netflix He's suspicious of politicians such as Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes), the hawkish Conservative MP and home secretary, who wields the term "national security" as a cudgel to drive through extensive new surveillance powers for the security services. But when he's assigned to her Budd does his job, establishing a fluid dynamic: she's older, upper class, English, and female, he's younger, working class, Scottish, and male. There's 50 shades of "ma'am" in the way he addresses her. The back and forth between Budd and Montague is the twist on a show where duplicity is a byword it's never clear if their feelings match, or who may be using who. Even when she intervenes to help his family, Montague has to lie about it, arousing Budd's suspicion. "I'll give you a knock," she says when they're staying in hotel rooms with a connecting door and she has some work to finish before he's required in her bed. "Like I'm room service," he replies. The sex scenes are not well-directed, failing to illuminate how the pair intimately relate to each other, but series creator and writer Jed Mercurio (Line of Duty) lays out action set-pieces that are notable for their stressful length and climactic excess; one scene in the second episode uses more fake blood than the finale of Carrie. While terrorism provides a backdrop to Bodyguard, the show has a degree of cynicism about how the state can respond. It suggests that the power derived from enhanced security measures divides politicians and, the police, and the security services. It's noticeable how the police, with their female commanders and racially diverse membership, contrast with the traditional male establishment running the spy games. When I was 21 years old, I was diagnosed with an anxiety condition. My mother had taken me to her doctor to discuss my conviction that I was suffering the early stages of multiple sclerosis. For months, I had been consumed by tracking its symptoms. I sat with friends during the day, pretending to pay attention to their conversations while secretly running body scans to assess what I was sure was progressing at a rapid speed. At night, I stared at the ceiling and tested the strength of my feet and hands. The symptoms of generalised anxiety disorder started for the author when she was 12. Credit:John Donegan I told all of this to my mothers doctor, hoping she might give me some kind of confirmation of what I knew was happening, but terrified of what that confirmation would mean. I think you might have generalised anxiety disorder, she said matter-of-factly. The link between Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and inner-city Redfern will be strengthened after the City of Sydney Council purchased a historic post office for use as a cultural hub. The purchase of the 136-year-old Redfern Post Office building was finalised this week and immediately hailed by community leaders as important for Indigenous peoples across the country, not just in Sydney. Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor, Lord Mayor Clover Moore, Delilah Macgillivray and Aunty Millie Ingram outside the Redfern Post Office. Credit:Louise Kennerley For 60,000 years before the Commonwealth of Australia was established the Gadigal people looked after this place, and since we were elected in 2004, working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has been very important for us, the Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, said in announcing the purchase of the post office on Wednesday. The precise future uses of the building are yet to be determined. The council will defer to the community and its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisory Panel to help devise plans for the structure and operation of the centre. A property developer has won a court battle over a derelict property he discovered in Sydney's west 20 years ago, after he changed the locks, renovated it and began renting it out. Bill Gertos took possession of the house at 6 Malleny Street, Ashbury in late 1998, after the woman who had been living there died. Mr Gertos, then an accountant, was visiting clients in the street when he noticed the property, which he described as vacant and falling into "disrepair". He believed squatters were living in the "dark and smelly" building, which had broken windows, a "fouled" bathroom, a leaking roof that was dripping water, rubbish in the rooms including a dirty mattress and no electricity. The first man in NSW to be dealt with under new anti-terrorism laws has been jailed for breaching them within days of his release. Islamic convert Greg Ceissman, 24, left prison on April 15 under an interim supervision order after he was found to pose a terrorism risk if left unmonitored. Strict conditions imposed under the Terrorism (High Risk Offenders) Act were placed on Ceissman by a Supreme Court judge after he was accused of telling a prison inmate he was planning to undergo weapons training in Syria then return to attack Marrickville Police Station. But he was back in custody five days later after an impromptu police search revealed he had failed to tell authorities he had downloaded applications on his phone, including Skype and WhatsApp. A more thorough search showed he had downloaded the dating application F---book, as well as Facebook, and Telegram, on which he had received encrypted messages. Liesel Scholem, the first person in the world to get a court judgment for health damage caused by passive smoking in the workplace, has died aged 91. She was born Liesel Rothschild in Frankfurt, Germany. Her father Abraham Rothschild was a Jewish haberdasher. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Jews were segregated in schools and she was no longer able to mix with her school friends. Her father's livelihood was destroyed by the Nazi-ordered boycott of Jewish businesses. Liesel Scholem pictured with friends who gave support during her court case against her former employer. Credit:Fairfax In 1936 he left Germany, taking his family to South Africa. Liesel grew up there, married and had four children. She and her husband hated apartheid and did not want to be on the side of the oppressors and have their children grow up in such an environment. They moved to Australia in 1961. When her marriage failed, she found full-time work at CSIRO and began studying part-time for a BA honours in psychology at Sydney University while bringing up her four children as a single mother. Researchers have used historical crime figures, location app data and weather conditions to predict when and where Brisbane's criminals will strike next. Melbourne university analysts used artificial intelligence to create an algorithm based on the check-ins from location app Foursquare and other historical Brisbane information. Police at a crime scene just north of Brisbane in April after a man was shot dead at a unit block. Credit:Albert Perez - AAP The study used data from more than 20,000 check-ins by Brisbane users on the Foursquare app, which has also been used to infer human mobility, predict traffic conditions or emergency events. It also analysed the data of 230,000 check-ins in New York City. More than half a million Queenslanders have used an illegal drug in the past year, with cannabis the drug of choice for most. The Health of Queenslanders 2018 report, due to be released this month, will show an estimated 558,000 people aged 14 or older had used illicit drugs in the previous 12 months. Of those, 485,000 people had used cannabis. Almost half a million Queenslanders have used cannabis in the past year. Credit:Chris Roussakis/Bloomberg The abuse of prescription medication was also an issue for Queenslanders. An estimated 204,000 Queenslanders aged 14 or older misused painkillers, analgesics and opioids in the past 12 months. The brothers had purchased significant land holdings along the NSW border over the past decade. One source said Ray had been trying to "rein-in" some of Paul's spending. The brothers were the directors of several family businesses, including Sunraysia Roofing and Deakin Building, and owned at least 10 properties together. Police believe Ray, who lives in Mildura, drove with a real estate valuer to Paul's property in Rufus River, which is over the Victorian border in NSW, to meet Paul. Paul, 58, is alleged to have tied-up the agent before shooting his older brother, aged 63. Paul Cohrs was the president of the Mildura Sporting Shooters Association of Victoria. Credit:David Ward/Warracknabeal Herald Police say Paul then drove more than 100 kilometres to Red Cliffs, near Mildura in Victoria, to his mother's home and killed her. The four-year-old boy in the home at the time was physically uninjured. Ray Cohrs, who was allegedly shot and killed by his brother Paul Cohrs. Paul then drove back to Rufus River Road and shot himself in the chest, police said. As of Wednesday evening, he remained in a critical condition in a Melbourne hospital. An unknown caller to triple zero alerted police to the Red Cliffs shooting after her body was discovered at 12.30pm. The valuer, a 55-year-old rural real estate specialist, managed to break free and also raise the alarm. In a statement, Landmark Harcourts confirmed one of its sales representatives witnessed the tragic shooting. "Fortunately, the sales representative is not physically injured," the statement read. One neighbour who lived alongside the Cohrs family for about 50 years, with their children attending school together in Mildura, said she was horrified by the deaths. "I still feel in shock about it, I can't understand who would want to hurt her," said the neighbour, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The Victorian branch of the shooting association said members were deeply shocked and saddened. "We understand that SSAA president of Mildura was a hardworking member of the association and did a lot of good work for our Mildura members. Our condolences go to his extended family." Paul, who was elected to the local council in 2012, resigned as deputy mayor in mid-2015 after ongoing tension with the mayor. He later made an unsuccessful tilt for the top job. He was a farmer and operator of tourist accommodation at Lake Victoria. A spokeswoman from the Wentworth Shire Council said: "Mayor Melisa Hederics and the councillors of the Wentworth Shire are both shocked and deeply saddened at the news of this tragedy. "At this time the matter is under investigation and we are unable to provide further comment. Our heartfelt condolences go to the family and the people in our community who have been impacted by this tragic event." Paul and Ray's father died at least two decades ago. They had another brother and a sister. Bette remarried and her second husband, Kurt Schulz, has also died. Bette and her first husband established the roofing business with Ray working closely with his father on the business before becoming director in the mid-1980s. Bette was a regular letter-writer to Mildura's local paper the Sunraysia Daily. She wrote in about politics, but was passionate about fluoride, believing it caused health problems. The Australian Anti-Fluoridation Association called her a "fluoride fighter extraordinare" and friend Jaya Lewis said she was a passionate and fiesty lady. "She had a very warm, dry Australian sense of humour and she was extremely caring of the community," Ms Lewis told The Age. "She was the kindest lady and this was a dreadful way for her to be leaving this planet." The family had already met with tragedy when, in 2016, Ms Schulz's granddaughter and Ray's daughter Katie died in a car crash after returning to Mildura for Christmas. Emboldened by the disorganisation of the police force, the worst elements of the population ran amok, and for a while Melbourne and all it contained was theirs. Shop windows were ruthlessly smashed. Jewellery shops were looted. Clothing establishments were plundered. Those citizens who tried to restore order were brutally assaulted. One man was murdered. Riot and rapine ruled. The streets were only cleared after the last tram had come, but even then thousands remained. The work of the constables was much hampered by the crowds of idle sightseers. These were composed not only of men and boys, but of young girls and women with infants in their arms. The Cabinet has been in constant session since Saturday. Over 1,000 special police have been enrolled at the Town Hall, and more are signing on in the suburbs. Ex-light horsemen have been sworn in, and have been provided with horses. Members of the permanent forces are guarding Commonwealth property. The situation is now considered to be will in hand. Two-metre tall wooden barricades protect the ornate buildings on Collins Street during the strike. Credit:National Library of Australia One thing is now certain. If the mutinous police had any public sympathy before Saturday, they have none now. Their only friends are the hoodlums and criminals. All decent-minded people stand aghast at the display of vandalism and crime which took place on Saturday, and for which the mutinous police must take full responsibility. A cause which exposes life and property to the mercy of those who prey on society is no cause for any decent person to espouse, and those who shirk their duty will find that out to their sorrow. Swanston Street Riot Trams Derailed and Fired Civilians Seriously Injured Windows Swashed and Raided Some of the worst and most disgraceful scenes of the whole of Saturdays rioting took place at the intersection of Swanston and Bourke Streets between five oclock and nine oclock. At five oclock a crowd of drunken hooligans assembled at the corner and commenced to hoot and jeer at the constable on point duty at the intersection of the tram lines. A crowd gathered, and fifteen minutes later some 2,000 persons were pushing and jostling to see the hooligans fight in the centre of the roadway. A queue of men lining up outside the Melbourne Town Hall to volunteer as special constables during the Police strike. Credit:State Library of Victoria, Herald & Weekly Times Just before six oclock at tram car, while crossing Bourke street was stopped by the ruffians, and a few minutes later the driver had been struck by some 10 or 12 men who had jumped on to the dummy. He was pulled from his stand, thrown to the roadway and trampled upon. Rushing at the attackers, a civilian met the same fate, had his false teeth smashed, and his nose and face cut with blows from the maddened crowd. The incident was the commencement of the worst scene witnessed at that corner. A clergyman produced a Bible and holding it above the heads of the crowd, endeavoured to quieten the swaying masses. The roar eased somewhat, at which the clergyman shouted a few passages. A drunken man using the filthiest of sewer language hoarsely asked him to cease, but the clergyman continued. Enraged the man threw a bottle, the action being the sign for a combined rush at the clergyman who was pushed to the ground and badly mauled. By that time the raiders had pulled the dummy and trailed apart and were attempting to lever the dummy from the line. All traffic ceased along Swanston and Bourke Streets, and the crowd resembled that seen in Melbourne during the armistice and Mafeking celebrations. Men climbed to the top of the dummy and there danced about to the shouts of the crowd. Another tram man attempted to operate the grips and was also pulled out of the dummy and battered by the crowd to the accompaniment of hoots and jeers. Workmen board up damaged shops in Melbourne during the Victorian Police strike. At 6.10 the Trak motor buses were unable to proceed along Swanston Street as usual, so dense had the crowds become. Tram cars were lined up behind one another right along Swanston Street, the crowd taking the opportunity of obtaining a free and elevated view of the proceedings, which were rapidly becoming worse. Senior Constable Porter, the elderly pensioner, who had taken up duty, was pushed about by the crowd, but was not struck, someone shouting Let the old joker alone: respect his age. By then some of the members of the crowd were acting like madmen. Several fights followed, arms and boots being freely used. Everyone made a hit at his nearest neighbour, whether friend or enemy, and a wild fight ensued, blood flowing freely from many noses and several cut faces. First Window Smashed Just as the bigger proportion of the race crowd arrived in the city the first window was smashed, the thick glass plate of the Ezywalkin bootery establishment caving in under the weight of two fighters. Scores of persons watched the following disgraceful scene from the verandahs opposite. A lad wearing a Scotch cap had just concluded performing a wild dance on the top of a tramcar when a bottle and an apple flew through the air, striking persons in the crows. Hooting occurred, and the next moment it could be seen that a band of sailors was attempting to form a cordon about the smashed window. The crowd of 5,000 persons pressed close and the sailors adopted a fighting attitude. One youth rushed forward and engaged one sailor in a fisticuffs battle, while others pushed the remaining sailors aside. Boots were thrown among the crowd, there being a wild scramble for possession and then the looting commenced in real earnest. A sailor fell to the ground, struck from behind by a cowardly blow. Not a single policeman was in sight, and the raiders had their opportunity. Tram Afire Headlines from The Age, November 5th 1923. Credit:Fairfax Archives In the meantime drunken men had been devoting their attention to the stationary dummy at the intersection, and two secured rags and papers and set the lot afire. In a few seconds the paint of the dummy was alight and the cry of Fire spread through the crowd. In quick time the fire was stamped out but not before the fire alarm at the corner of the street had been broken and the fire brigade called. More fights were developing when the crashing of glass against the pavement of Swanston Street attracted the attention of the crowd to the sailors again. Menacingly the huge crush of people drew nearer the sailors, who endeavoured to keep them back by throwing boots. While defending one window, the sailors were unable to watch others, and in a few seconds men had kicked in the glass plate of one of the Leviathan windows. Goods were immediately pulled from the windows, looters risking their lives by entering under huge pieces of jagged glass. One man in a blue twill suit had just bent forward to snatch some article of apparel when a huge pieced of spiked glass fell from the top of the window, running through his cheek and exposing the jaw bone. Staggered, he fell to the ground, blood streaming from his face. The crowd stepped across his body, some persons standing on his legs while battling for an advantageous position in which to secure a prize from the window. Later he made his way through the dense crowd, leaving a trail of blood on the coats of the men there assembled. Man Seriously Injured By then the section engaged in fighting the sailors were finding that they had tackled a tough proposition, for the sailors had armed themselves with the boot stands from the broken window, and were threatening to use them as the police had used their batons on the previous night. Enraged, the circle of hooting and jeering hooligans bore down on the ring of seven sailors, one shouting, Come out here and drop your stand, and pick a man on your own. One went too near a sailor who had been cowardly attacked from behind. In a second the sailor has swung his boot stand at the head of the assailant. The man ducked quickly, but not fast enough, and the weight on the end of the rod smashed against the mans head. Obviously dangerously injured, he fell straight to the footpath, his head coming in violent contact with the edge of the guttering. The crowd drew back in awe, for the mans face had gone deathly pale, and it seemed as though he had died. A friend rushed forward, while the crowd became strangely quiet it was the quietest it had been for hours and, afraid of being hit across the head by the sailor, grasped his comrade by the legs and dragged him across the roadway, leaving one broad track of blood some six inches in width. The man was dragged to his feet, and half carried and half dragged through the swaying mass of humanity at the rear, and was later taken to hospital. Storm Centre Shifts Transferred to Elizabeth St Systematic and Well-Planned Attack. Shortly after 9 p.m. the intersection of Bourke and Elizabeth Streets, in the immediate vicinity of the G.P.O, was the storm centre of a vicious attack by the looters upon the plate glass windows of scores of shopkeepers. Never before in the history of Australia has such unprecedented damage been wrought. It was a systematic attach, carefully planned and skilfully executed. Window after window fell with a resounding crash to the footpath, and the contents were quickly snatched up by the bands of insane hoodlums, who were assisted in their work by a fleet of waiting motor cars. The first attack was witnessed by two representatives of The Age, who had taken up a vantage point on the steps of the G.P.O. The outside of this building resembled a stadium. All the approaches were thronged with people, including masses of women, young girls and children in arms. A noticeable feature, however, was the absence of that display of harmless merriment which usually attends street processions or the assemblages of crowds of people. The lull which was apparent was but the forerunner of the approaching storm. The mob element waited until a favourable opportunity presented itself. Not a policeman was in sight. Strangely enough, the uniformed police, accompanied by specials were patrolling streets two blocks away; but instead of being in pairs they were at least 50 deep. As a display of force they presented a rather harmless picture. Systematic Pillage The tactics adopted by the looters were on all fours with those carried into effect earlier in the evening. When a shop window was shattered one or two looters would promptly enter the shop front, and then hand down the contents to accomplices on the footpath. When a window had been denuded of its contents an attack would be made on the adjoining premises. Spectators were too astounded to interfere, and the police, disorganised and inactive, were nowhere to be seen. Suddenly there was a mad stampede. A heavy concentration of police, special constables and civilians tore down Bourke Street from Swanston Street at an alarming rate. The last remnants of the looting element who were still adopting thieving tactics were taken by surprise. Many of them were felled by batons swung in all directions. But the mad rush continued. The intersection of Bourke and Elizabeth Streets was the scene of a howling, riotous mob, inflamed to fury by the attackers, who occasionally had the misfortune to strike an innocent man. Straight up Bourke Street hill towards Spencer Street, ran the posse of police, intent on affecting the arrest of the window smashers and looters. In this they were successful. Nevertheless their arrival on the scene had been so belated that the ring leaders had long since affected an escape. Three years ago Peter Shergold was asked to help determine where Syrian refugees should be resettled in NSW. Now, he has been enlisted to advise on Premier Gladys Berejiklian's desire to halve the state's overseas migration intake. Such are the sharp vicissitudes of fortune for a top public servant. Peter Shergold is a member of a three person panel conducting the first population review for NSW. Credit: Photo: Nic Walker Mr Shergold, who was appointed the NSW Coordinator General for Refugee Resettlement in 2015, was announced by NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian as a member of a panel conducting the state's first population policy review. Jim Betts, chief executive of Infrastructure NSW, and Carolyn McNally, the head of the Department of Planning and Environment, are its other members. Matthew Guy streaked ahead of Daniel Andrews Wednesday afternoon - at least, in the inbound lanes of Flemington Road. As the opposing campaign buses headed back into town after a long day in the marginals, the Opposition Leader's coach eased past the Premier's on the usually jam-packed arterial. For the media on both the buses, the low-speed street race was the highlight of a day in which both sides unveiled rival hospital policies but that was otherwise light on electoral razzmatazz. Premier Daniel Andrews visited Maryborough Hospital in central Victoria to entice voters with the promise of a $100 million upgrade. Islamabad: Pakistan's Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of a Christian woman eight years after she was convicted for blasphemy in the Muslim-majority country in a verdict that could anger right-wing religious groups. The prosecution had failed to prove its case against Aasia Bibi, the judgment by a three-member panel of justices headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar posted on the court's website read. She is acquitted of the charge by extending the benefit of doubt to her. The defence lawyer, Saif-ul-Malook, said by phone that Bibi was free to go as there was no other case pending against her. Salman Taseer, governor of Punjab Province, with Asia Bibi, at a prison in Sheikhupura near Lahore, in 2010. Taseer was shot dead in 2011 after speaking out against Pakistan's blasphemy laws. Credit:AP The verdict, given on an appeal by Bibi against the punishment handed down by a trial court in 2010, may trigger violent demonstrations by the country's Islamist groups, who are sensitive to what they call insults to the prophet Muhammad. "We do not know any of the circumstances of what may have happened up there." Two people who knew the couple, however, believe they may have been trying to take a photo. The high school sweethearts, who wed in 2014, ran a travel blog called "Holidays & HappilyEverAfters" and boasted an Instagram following of more than 17,800 people. Born in India, the pair had lived in New York until recently moving to California where Viswanath - when he wasn't traveling - worked as a software engineer for Cisco Systems in San Jose, the Mercury News reported. "Diagnosed with the 'curious case of interminable travel bug' and a huge believer of 'happily-ever-afters', we will share with y'all, our holiday escapades, travel hacks, tips (and quips!)," read one post on their blog, which has since been taken down. Their Instagram account is filled with photos of exotic subjects, including the pristine white sand beaches of the Maldives and Italy's Florence Cathedral. The couple also commemorated their anniversary in dramatic fashion, with a hot-air balloon ride in 2016 and skydiving last year. "Hurling myself out of a perfectly functioning airplane was a dream forever for this pink-haired daredevil," Moorthy wrote in the caption of the video from the skydiving excursion. Fittingly, she wore a T-shirt with the words "GIMME DANGER." 'Living life on the edge' A number of photos show Moorthy posing near the edge of sharp cliffs, no guardrails in sight. On Facebook, Viswanath's cover photo is a picture of him and his wife at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon standing on a high rock outcropping with their arms extended wide and huge smiles on their faces. 'Please be careful' Raj Katta, who has known the pair for three years, told The Washington Post in a phone interview he also thought snapping a photo was "possibly the reason" his friends fell. Katta, a 24-year-old data engineer in New York, met Vishnu Viswanath at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, where they were both completing a masters program in computer science. Katta said he never expected this to happen to Viswanath and Moorthy. "They're adventurous, but they always were thoughtful," he said. "They know what they're doing, they always had, but one instance changed everything." New analysis of GM's electric-vehicle proposal - and why it's less than meets the eye ** General Motors EV Plan May Sound Good, But it's Bad News for Cars and Drivers. Here's Why. From DAVID REICHMUTH General Motors has proposed what it's calling a National Zero Emission Vehicle (NZEV) program that would require automakers to sell a minimum volume of plug-in or fuel cell vehicles in the US. While this may sound like an innovative idea, it could dramatically undercut existing programs in states including California that are showing real leadership in cutting vehicle emissions. TheA GM proposal A calls for a 50-state ZEV sales requirement of a15% creditsa??? by 2025, butA that doesnat meana 15% sales requirement. In fact, it would be far short of that, at best requiring less than 5 percent ZEV sales in the US by 2025, and potentially much less, while potentially undercutting both state-level electric vehicle requirements and federal greenhouse gas emission standards. ** What are the main concerns with GM's proposal? #1 Sales requirements through 2025 would be less than existing state standards While GM's proposal would call for less than 5 percent of new vehicle sales in 2025, California electric vehicle sales are already at 6 percent in the first half of 2018. The country as a whole is over 1.5 percent ZEV sales so far this year So, if this proposal was adopted and removed state ZEV targets(as we suspect it would), the requirements in these leading states would be slashed and could be lower than current ZEV sales. This would undercut states' ability to meet their climate and air quality goals and undermine charging infrastructure investments which are being made alongside current vehicle deployment goals. #2 Extra credits would further weaken vehicle sales requirements GM also requests extra allowances for larger ZEVs, automated-drive ZEVs, and those in ridesharing fleets. While some of these vehicles could help reduce emissions, adding these extra credits would further erode the requirement. With these extra credits, the 2025 requirement would likely fall to 3-4 percent sales and 4-6 percent sales by 2030. And itas not clear that some of these extra credits would be going to vehicles that are reducing emissions. For example, extra credits for larger vehicles could create the perverse incentive for automakers to make less efficient plug-in hybrids, resulting in more gasoline use. Giving extra credits to automated ZEVs assumes that they would drive more miles per year than other cars and therefore displace more gasoline-powered travel than a non-automated ZEV.A However, it may be the case thatA these automated ZEVs increase the total amount of travel . State leadership on vehicle electrification is the reason there are now over 40 electric vehicle models available in some states, and the US is expected to hit the 1 million EVs sold milestone this month. Undercutting state ZEV targets could slow the needed transition away from petroleum to electric-drive transportation. State-level regulations also allow for coordinated incentives, infrastructure investment, and supportive policies that would unlikely to happen at the national level under the current administration. Also, while billed as a national program, there is no assurance that automakers would make efforts to sell ZEVas outside theA states where they currently offer ZEV models #3 Off-ramp on battery-price and infrastructure provides little certainty past 2025 GM also wants to predicate the regulation on the availability of low-cost batteries and ZEV refueling and recharging infrastructure. While automakers are far from the only group that can help push R&D and infrastructure forward, it would be a dangerous policy choice to have a vehicle standard that could be invalidated by lack of effort or investment from automakers. ** A national EV effort should complement efficiency and emissions standards, not undermine them. Advancing vehicle electrification is important and a national effort that complements state EV deployment efforts and national fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas standards is a worthwhile discussion. But a national ZEV program as proposed by GM is no replacement for the fuel efficiency and carbon emission standards we have on the books today. GM's comments on the standards rollback suggests that this proposed NZEV program would replace the EPA's current greenhouse gas standards for conventional vehicles. Doing so could result in vastly higher emissions as the vast majority of vehicle sales (over 95% in 2025) over the next decade would still be gasoline powered, and EPA would cede its authority to the Department of Transportationas fuel economy regulations. And just how low would those future standards be? GM suggests a status quo rate of improvement of about 1 percent per year, far less than the 5 percent per year theyare required to achieve under current regulations. As they have for decades that will reduce emissions and gasoline costs for millions of Americans, and automakers should be implementing them. Car companies like GM should be focused on meeting and beating existing standards and reject the Trump administration's proposed rollbacks which would: Result in an additional 2.2 billion metric tons of global warming emissions by 2040 that's 170 million metric tons in 2040 alone, equivalent to keeping 43 coal-fired power plants online Increase oil use. Cars and trucks will use an additional 200 billion gallons of gasoline by 2040 that's as much oil as we've imported from the Persian Gulf since the standards were first finalized in 2010 Cost consumers hundreds of billions of dollars in 2040 alone, consumers will spend an additional $55 billion at the pump if these standards are rolled back Reduce employment, economy-wide, by 60,000 in 2025 and 126,000 in 2035; Reduce gross domestic product by $8 billion in both 2025 and 2035. ** What policies would help reduce emissions and petroleum use? For a start, we can stop the disastrous proposed rollback of current standards for automobiles. The federal government should also abandon its illegal and unwarranted attack on California's ability to set needed policies to reduce air pollution and climate changing emissions. And the federal government should be encouraging ZEV sales in all states, by extending vehicle incentives and increasing R&D spending on ZEV technologies. The world is moving to electric cars and away from gasoline and diesel. Good domestic policy choices can make sure that drivers save money on fuel, manufacturing and research jobs stay in the US, and we get on a path to reduce the worst impacts of climate change. Union of Concerned Scientists, 2 Brattle Square, Cambridge, MA 02138 United States William Lee Named Interim President and CEO of Hyundai Motor America FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif., Oct. 30, 2018 As part of a series of Hyundai Motor Company personnel appointments designed to make the company more globalized and customer-oriented, Yong-woo (William) Lee, president and CEO of Hyundai Motor North America will also assume the role of president and CEO of Hyundai Motor America on an interim basis. This move allows for an efficient and effective operational integration between the North America and U.S. operations. William Lee succeeds Kyung Soo (Kenny) Lee who is returning to Hyundai Motor Company as an adviser. William Lee, who has been with Hyundai for 35 years and is highly respected and regarded throughout the organization, most recently assumed the helm of the newly established Hyundai Motor North America. This operation provides greater integration across the entire region to actively respond to evolving market trends and customer needs. Prior to his current role, William Lee was the head of Hyundai Motor Brazil, and also spent time in charge of international sales at Hyundai Motor Company in Seoul. He also has extensive experience in the U.S. market, leading the creation of INNOCEAN USA in 2009 and running overseas sales for Hyundai Mobis Parts based in San Francisco. First, I would like to thank Kenny Lee for his contributions and helping put Hyundai Motor America in a stronger position than when he joined, said William Lee. The efforts weve made with our recent product introductions and improvements in the overall customer experience have directly led to retail sales and market share gains over the past several months. This is an incredibly exciting time to be working at Hyundai and Im proud to lead this dedicated and passionate team. A search for a permanent president and CEO of Hyundai Motor America will begin immediately. DENSO to Open New Facility at Haneda Airport for Automated Driving Technology Development and Testing New Tokyo location will support DENSO's in-vehicle tests and proving ground trials - TOKYO, Oct, 31 2018; DENSO Corporation (DENSO), the world's second largest mobility supplier, today announced it will establish a new facility at Haneda Airport in Tokyo to develop and test automated driving technologies. The facility, which is expected to be complete by June 2020, will feature a building and proving ground for mobility systems R&D and will advance DENSO's worldwide efforts to create a future that's safer and more sustainable for all. This new location is part of the Haneda Airport Unused Land Zone 1 Redevelopment Project, a broader initiative led by Tokyo's Ota City, DENSO and other entities to transform underutilized space at the airport into a hub for leading-edge technology development and mixed-use cultural facilities. This announcement follows DENSO's establishment of its Global R&D Tokyo facility In April 2018, an automated driving R&D office near Shinagawa Station in Minato City, Tokyo, to promote collaboration and open innovation with its development partners, which include automakers, universities, research institutes and startups. The new facility will include a building to develop prototypes and maintain test vehicles, and also a proving ground to conduct live, in-vehicle tests. This will enable DENSO to take an integrated approach to the development of automated driving in Tokyo because the new facility at Haneda Airport can develop and test prototypes based on automated driving technology planned, researched and developed by Global R&D Tokyo in Shinagawa. The Haneda area is designated a National Strategic Special Zone, where a regulatory sandbox system(1) is adopted to allow for field tests of advanced mobility technologies on public roads, including automated driving. Additionally, the Haneda area in Ota City is a hotbed for developers, startups and manufacturers of new-age technologies and applications for a wide range of use. DENSO will utilize the National Strategic Special Zone system and work with manufacturers in Ota City to develop and test prototypes more seamlessly and speed development of automated driving technology. DENSO will continue to develop technologies and products in the fields of safety and the environment, to help create a new mobile society to improve people's lives. (1) Regulatory sandbox system A system to create a controlled environment without existing regulations where a limited number of project participants can verify their innovations including new technologies during a limited period of time, in order to collect data to rapidly obtain test results and determine if regulatory reform is needed. About Denso DENSO Corp., headquartered in Kariya, Aichi prefecture, Japan has more than 220 subsidiaries in 35 countries and regions (including Japan) and employs approximately 170,000 people worldwide. Consolidated global sales for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2018, totaled US$48.1 billion. Last fiscal year, DENSO spent 8.8% of its global consolidated sales on research and development. DENSO common stock is traded on the Tokyo and Nagoya stock exchanges. A 30-year-old Morris man was arrested on Tuesday after a report of a male with a handgun at a business on Main Street in the community. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 31/10/2018 (1115 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A 30-year-old Morris man was arrested on Tuesday after a report of a male with a handgun at a business on Main Street in the community. The male, who did not threaten anyone but was behaving erratically, was believed to have been intoxicated by drugs. The man was taken into custody without incident. The firearm was identified as an airsoft BB gun. The man has been charged with possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, carrying concealed weapon, and failure to comply with an undertaking. Jacob Wohl. Photo: @JacobAWohl/Twitter In the past several hours, a scheme to take down Special Counsel Robert Mueller by accusing him of sexual misconduct has imploded in a truly spectacular fashion. The plot appears to have been largely orchestrated by Jacob Wohl, a 20-year-old right-wing troll, Trump superfan, disgraced hedge-fund wunderkind, and apparent plagiarist who tweeted Monday night that a scandalous story about Mueller is breaking tomorrow. Should be interesting. Stay tuned! The scandal so far seems to be how laughably bad Wohl was at covering his tracks. Shortly after he posted his ominous tweet, several journalists managed to connect Wohl to a false sexual-misconduct tip they had received about Mueller earlier this month, and to a company called Surefire Intelligence that claimed to be looking into these allegations. The shoddily constructed narrative quickly collapsed, due in part to Wohls failure to account for peoples ability to reverse image search, and now, the FBI has announced that they are looking into whether women were offered money to make false allegations against Mueller. Heres everything we know about this impressive failure. First of all, who is Jacob Wohl? Wohl first made headlines as a teenage hedge-fund owner, the Daily Beast reports; in 2016, at the age of 18, he began referring to himself as the Wohl of Wall Street. Amazingly, that nickname isnt the most upsetting thing he did as a financier. That same year, he was investigated by a government regulator for fraud, and the Arizona Corporation Commission issued a cease-and-desist letter accusing him of selling unregistered securities. During this time, he also registered several domain names, including WohlGirls.com, a website that featured a scantily clad Wohl Girl of the Month, as well as a news website called Offended America, which later rebranded as the Washington Reporter. (Earlier this year, Splinter reported that the Reporters prominent Code of Ethics appeared to be lifted almost completely from ProPublicas.) Where Wohl has gained the most prominence, though, is Twitter, where he is known for his sycophantic and almost instantaneous replies to many of President Trumps tweets, and for repeatedly posting nearly identical tweets about visiting a hipster coffee shop where young libs huddle and reveal in hushed tones their admiration for Trump and his policies. The most likely explanation of these tweets is that the guy is making it all up. But I prefer to believe that there is a hipster coffee shop in his neighborhood where the customers hilariously conspire to con him into thinking they're Trump supporters every time he walks in. pic.twitter.com/MqhdHBIFwN (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) July 18, 2018 And what is this plot to take down Mueller, exactly? As Vox reports, on October 17, someone named Lorraine emailed several reporters and said that she had worked with Mueller when he was a lawyer at the firm Pillsbury Madison & Sutro in the 1970s, and that she had been approached by someone working for Jack Burkman (a GOP lobbyist and conspiracy theorist who promotes sensational stories about the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich) who offered her money to say that Mueller had harassed her during this time. Around that time, Burkman posted on social media asking women to come forward with any harassment stories they may have about Mueller. But the Lorraine story did not hold up, and its unclear if shes even real. When NBC News reached out to the firm, which is now called Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, and gave them Lorraines name, the firms spokesperson told them that they have no record of this individual working for our firm. Burkman now says the entire Lorraine ploy was a hoax. But, as Andrew Prokop at Vox writes: It is not clear if Burkman, who insisted Surefire was real, is also being tricked, or if he is a willing participant in this scam. That sounds like a terrible plan! How does Wohl fit in? Ed Krasserstein at the Hill Reporter said that when he was looking into the Lorraine claims, he received a threatening phone call from a man claiming to work for Surefire Intelligence. When Krasserstein reached out to Burkman, Burkman told him hes familiar with Surefire Intelligence, that they do a lot of good research, and that its run by Jacob Wohl. Wohl, for his part, has denied any involvement in the plot, telling NBC News, I dont have any involvement in any investigations of any kind. Im not quite that cool. He has also declined to comment on his involvement with Surefire Intelligence. However, as journalists began looking into the company, they found Wohls recently postpubescent fingerprints all over it. As NBC reports: His email, jacob.wohl@nexmanagement.com, was involved in registering the domain name for Surefire Intelligence. Surefires official phone number redirects to his mothers voice-mail. The LinkedIn profile pictures of many of Surefire Intelligences staff are pictures of celebrities, like Christoph Waltz, Israeli model Bar Rafaeli, and Sigourney Weavers husband, Jim Simpson, as well as a stock-photo model. The profile picture of the managing partner Matthew Cohen seems to be a darkened picture of Wohl himself. Wohl is now claiming that the Lorraine hoax email likely came from someone in Muellers office. Excuse me, can we go back to the pictures for a second? What? Yes. Surefire Intelligence's "Tel Aviv Station Chief" is an Israeli supermodel pic.twitter.com/W6S8IOhT5P Aric Toler (@AricToler) October 30, 2018 Surefire Intelligence's LA "Private Investigator" is British model/photographer Nick Hopper. pic.twitter.com/493cZW9w3w Aric Toler (@AricToler) October 30, 2018 Surefire Intelligence's "Head of Government Relations" also works as a model for stock photos. pic.twitter.com/2mQgQFTweT Aric Toler (@AricToler) October 30, 2018 Surefire Intelligence's "Financial Investigator" in Zurich is Christoph Waltz. What a great hire! pic.twitter.com/Leu1KLe0XC Aric Toler (@AricToler) October 30, 2018 Couple more: Deputy Director of Operations? Pastor Mike Harding. Washington DC Station Chief? Film Director and husband of Sigourney Weaver, Jim Simpson. pic.twitter.com/56owXfmOua Jake Godin (@JakeGodin) October 30, 2018 Odd. Jacob Wohl says he doesn't know nuttin' about Surefire Intelligence, the firm tied to the bizarre Mueller allegations. Take a look at the photos below of Mathhew Cohen, head of 'Surefire,' and of Jacob Wohl. pic.twitter.com/Q1rAW4wkPO Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) October 30, 2018 Why would he do this? The whole flimsy plot seems to be an attempt to discredit Mueller, who is currently investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, as well as the press, by having them report on a false story. What does Academy Awardwinner Christoph Waltz have to say about this? We dont know. We have reached out to his representatives, and will update you if we hear back. During a youth mental health event in Wellington on Monday, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle met 19 year old Lucia Kennedy who's currently studying at Victoria Uni. Speaking with Stuff, Lucia said: They came up the stairs in the Maranui Cafe, I was introduced and basically had a chat to them. Then I took them around all the participants and kept the conversation going at the next two tables, Lucia went on to talk about the surprise job offer saying: I said to Harry, 'I finish uni in two years, I'd love to come and work for you'. He said 'we'd love to have you, just give us a yell when you come over we'll sort it out'. We're not saying we're jealous right now but come on, how cool would that be!? Sam is staying at the Huka Lodge in Taupo, next to the Waikato River and Huka Falls. On his Instagram Story Sam shared pics of the water, along with a snap of him enjoying a glass of wine by the fire and dancing to "Come on Eileen" with his friends. One of his Kiwi friends, NZ model Emma Champtaloup also shared a few snaps from the Huka Lodge, including one of Sam holding her baby and the group dining with a view of the river. Sam is known to love New Zealand, visiting Hobbiton on his visit in 2015. 5-Year-Old Boy Tests Positive for Meth After Allegedly Eating Halloween Candy: Reports Video: Woman's fake teeth get stuck and she's forced to get dental work An Ohio boy, 5, has reportedly tested positive for methamphetamine after allegedly eating tainted Halloween candy, according to media reports. Officials say hes expected to make a full recovery. The left side of his face was just droopy and then he fell and then he couldnt move his left arm, Julia Pence, the mother of the boy, told WSYX-TV. And he didnt know where he was, he didnt know what he was doing. Braylen Carwell, the boy, was hospitalized for a suspected seizure, but he later tested positive for meth. Braylen says he didn't eat any of his candy but he did put a pair of plastic vampire teeth in his mouth, which was something he got while trick-or-treating. 10TV WBNS The Galion Police Department collected his fake vampire teeth and candy, issuing a warning on Facebook about checking candy and other non-candy items like fake teeth, necklaces, or rings. If you suspect that anything has been tampered with, please contact our department by phone so that an officer can stop and collect the items, the department said on Facebook. The department said it hasnt received any other reports of tainted candy of Halloween items. The little boy is being treated and is expected to make a full recovery, it said. You can tell he is still coming down from it, she told the media outlet. Because one minute he is all hyper and the next minute he is tired. However, at the time of the report, Pence said she could still see the effects on her son. Boy Speaks Out I was putting my socks on, and then I started to shiver, the 5-year-old told WBNS. And then I couldnt move my arm or my fingers. Until I got to the doctors and I was sitting for a little bit and then I could move my hand but not my fingers, Braylon continued. He was then rushed to the hospital by his father, Cambray Carwell, who told officers that he had taken his kids trick-or-treating. Braylen said that he didnt eat any candy. No, he told WBNS. I only put the fake teeth in. He said he got the fake teeth while trick-or-treating. Its your duty to protect your children from everything, Pence added. You cant protect them from everything. You just have to be aware and do the best that you can. Pence told WBNS that both she and her father are recovering drug addicts, and she said shes been clean for more than three years. She said that Braylen didnt come into contact with meth that wasnt from trick-or-treating. Im not covering up the truth, she told the outlet. Im just speaking the truth of what happened to my son, yesterday. Nobody in my family or [Braylens] dads family would drug my children. Another Issue With Fake Teeth It comes just a day after a woman in Alabama said she was forced to get emergency dental work (as seen in the top video). Anna Tew, of Mobile County, Alabama, said she used the temporary glue that came with the store-bought vampire teeth. She said that her efforts to remove the fake vampire teeth, which grew painfully tight, lasted until the early morning hours. I even took a pair of wire clippers and cut the tips off of those, she told WKRG. Never do it again. Never will I put anything like that back in my mouth, she said after the dental work was done to remove the teeth. Homeless couple Will and Veronica, painted by Brian Peterson, founder of Faces of Santa Ana. (Courtesy Brian Peterson) A Palette All Shades of Love: Brian Peterson Paints Faces of Santa Ana Artist Brian Peterson, from Santa Ana, California, has a heartwarming mission, which started when he recognized a crisis in his community and in the country at large. The Southern California painter uses his talents and skills to address the epidemic of homelessness, creating a perpetual exhibition of portraits of the homeless community for his nonprofit, Faces of Santa Ana. The organization, which he started about three years ago, intends to rehabilitate and elevate those around him with love and dignity. Art has the potential to have supernatural abilities, Peterson told The Epoch Times in an interview, especially when motivated by love. Many people over the years have suggested that art can be a catalyst for change, affecting mind, body, and soul; Petersons remarkable accomplishments demonstrate that beautifully. Peterson balances a busy schedule that consists of his work as a creative designer at the KIA Motors Design Center, in addition to his artistic passion project. Peterson, whos in his early 30s, was trained at Design and Architecture High School and the Cleveland Institute of Art. He used that experience to start helping his homeless clients by painting their portraits, selling the paintings, and then placing part of the proceeds into a love account to be used for rehabilitation efforts, including medical treatment. The proceeds have reached thousands of dollars for each painting. The paintings, however, seem to transcend their monetary value or physical beauty, creating an alchemical effect on his subject and the viewer, as well. I feel my paintings are a mirror, he said. I am holding up a mirror, to reveal and to show this is who you really are, with his subjects rendered in vivid colors, with warm and glowing tones. He hopes to help his homeless friends to get in touch with your true self. The mission serves as an expression of Petersons own faith. Its also a metaphor for how people might see themselves through the lens of truly unconditional love. This is how God sees you, he said. The Process Peterson first meets and connects with homeless people on a human level, he said. He then takes a photograph in black and white so that he is free to assign his own colors to the image later. But how does he know what colors to choose? Once in the studio, Peterson starts something of a ritual for his artistic creation, which he refers to as a moving mantra. Then, he prays. I pray for the person, and I pray to God to show me the colors, show me who they really are. Using a palette of mostly bright colors, Peterson says, I reach a place in my heart to see them this way, to see into their soul and spirit. At some point, it begins to flow. Im not thinking about me. In a rhythm, Im tapped into an area that I am motivated by love. Art can be supernatural. We can tap into something else. I ask the Lord to fill me and I will create for you. Eliminate the Negative Peterson understands, too, the importance and necessity to constantly keep in check his missions focus and maintain a positive mindset. He says that now he is especially aware of checking his motivations, since his work has been getting more attention. Whatever we create, whether a portrait, a building, or a sculpture, whatever motivates you will come out on the other side, he said. I am growing in the process. I am unlearning a lot of things I thought were true. Peterson is also aware of the thoughts and beliefs that sabotage us. I have had to change the narration in my head, he said. All my human doubting and destructive thoughts, like Its not going to be good enough, Im not worthy, melt away. Through faith, Peterson believes that he is worthy to paint the portrait, that his clients are worthy of this love and gift, and that a place already exists for each work of art, a place I search for in each painting. Aint No Party Like This Tea Party New Yorker hosts a Thursday tea party in Bryant Park NEW YORKThis city is known for its fast pace of life, and New Yorkers are constantly on the move. However, one woman has made a point of taking a pause and getting to know her neighbors. Five years ago, Liz Gannon-Graydon would go with her children to Broadway in Bryant Park on Thursdays. On a Thursday evening during the summer, the former teacher was in the park with her kids and friends. Some of the group walked to a nearby kiosk for coffee, but Gannon-Graydon wasnt interested. One pal mentioned she was more of a tea drinker, and Gannon-Graydon said she was as well. However, the friend said she really only enjoyed drinking tea out of a proper teacup. From that point, an idea was born. At first, it started off as a small operation. Gannon-Graydon would bring a couple of china teacups that belonged to her mother and grandmother, and decided to grab a few extra cups in case people stopped by. Then she thought shed also bring a nice tablecloth. That was how it started almost accidentally as a way to just kind of have a nice tea party in the park, she told The Epoch Times. For the last five years from the first week of March through the Christmas season, she has been hosting a free tea party in Bryant Park on Thursdays from noon until nightfall, weather permitting. However, this isnt some minor operation. To prepare, Gannon-Graydon wakes up at 5 a.m., and starts making seasonal baked goods, which she and friends pack along with about 35 teacups and saucers, tablecloths, napkins, sandwiches, and of course, tea leaves. She then travels from her home on Long Island into the city. When arriving in Bryant Park, she corrals some tables and chairs and sets up. Around the same time she started her tea party in Bryant Park, her father was slipping deeper into Alzheimers. However, it was something he had said when she was a child that stuck with her. My dad had been a college professor and a civil rights activist in the 60s, and my first memory of the world was the assassination of Martin Luther King [Jr.], she said. I was four years old, and I didnt understand it, and was asking my dad to kind of explain how that could happen, and he said Liz, there are things we are never going to understand, but the work that Martin left undone was the work of creating the beloved community. And he said Thats your job. Youre here to create beloved community.' Gannon-Graydon tries to create that sense of fellowship with her tea parties. She sets up the gathering with the idea that everyone and anyone is welcome. There are about 15 regulars, but anyone who walks by is also offered an invitation. If they make eye contact with her, she asks them to sit down. The only people who passed by and she did not ask to join are Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga, because she didnt want anyone to think the invitation had anything to do with their celebrity status. Perfect Strangers She usually starts off with an icebreaking question to connect with the strangers that stop by. The conversation varies from topic to topic depending on the day and who shows up, and she tries not to steer the discussion. Guests include teenagers, professionals, the homeless, and tourists. For me, its about connecting with people at the level of their stories, and what they want to share, Gannon-Graydon explained. She vividly remembers a woman last year, who was seeking money and may have been homeless, stroll past the tea party. The hostess doesnt carry any cash when she comes into the city, but she invited the woman to join them. The stranger started to cry, and told the group about how she used to have tea parties with her grandmother with teacups just like Gannon-Graydons. The woman returns to the party every now and then. Another regular is an 80-year-old who plays piano in the park. When he sat down at the tea party, the attendees learned that he was the first African-American to work at a New York advertising agency. Beauty Dave, one of her regulars, recently told Gannon-Graydon why he comes to the tea party every week: Because there are very few places that an adult can come and just feel unconditionally loved, and when I come to your table I just feel unconditionally loved, he said. The tea party fosters a sense of community, even amongst strangers in the nations largest city. Its a place where people can sit and enjoy each others company without any other agenda. Also, the aesthetic aspect of using real china and going all out with tablecloths and baked goods is therapeutic. I think the beauty matters. I think sometimes in the city we can get stuck theres a lot of kind of negative or ugliness going on, and the fact that we take our time to really make it beautiful, I think matters to people, she explained. Seeing the smiles on peoples faces and the sense of connection is incredibly gratifying for Gannon-Graydon, who just wants everyone to know they are welcome. Im a native New Yorker, and I feel like people have this vision of what New York is, but I find New Yorkers are really warm, beautiful people if you get them to slow down enough to connect with one another thats what I try to do. Anger After Chinese Regime Lifts Ban on Tiger Bone, Rhino Horn for Medicine The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has partially reversed a 25-year-old ban on the trade of tiger bones and rhino horns, causing outrage among wildlife conservationists. The announcement made on Oct. 29, stated that tiger and rhino parts will be legalized for research, medical, cultural uses. Bones and horns can only be obtained from captive or farmed tigers and rhinos. The Chinese regime has portrayed the reversal as a move to increase oversight on the black market of these products, but critics say it would revitalize an industry that had declined since the ban was put in place in 1993. It is deeply concerning that China has reversed its 25-year-old tiger bone and rhino horn ban, allowing a trade that will have devastating consequences globally, Margaret Kinnaird, WWF Wildlife Practice Leader, said in a statement responding to the Chinese regimes decision. Kinnaird said the decision could increase demand for tiger and rhino parts and possibly help hide the illegal trade market of these products under legal trade. WWF added the legal trade of these tiger and rhino parts would increase confusion by consumers and law enforcers as to which products are and are not legal. With wild tiger and rhino populations at such low levels and facing numerous threats, legalized trade in their parts is simply too great a gamble for China to take, Kinnaird said. The Humane Society International also expressed concern over the Chinese regimes decision, calling it a death warrant for imperiled rhinos and tigers in the wild. It sets up what is essentially a laundering scheme for illegal tiger bone and rhino horn to enter the marketplace and further perpetuate the demand for these animal parts, Iris Ho, senior specialist for Wildlife Program and Policy, said in a statement. This is a devastating blow to our ongoing work to save species from cruel exploitation and extinction, and we implore the Chinese government to reconsider. Lucrative Market Tigers and rhinos are endangered animals and their parts are considered of great value in traditional medicine and folk remedies. Rhino horns are used to treat ailments like fever, rheumatism, and gout and are believed to be an aphrodisiac. Theyre usually ground into a powder, or shaved, then dissolved in boiling water before drinking. Tiger bones are prescribed for rheumatism, ulcers, and other disorders, and can be consumed as wine, pills, or powders. Rhino horns can fetch between $26,500 and $40,000 for 2.2 pounds in Vietnam or China, according to a 2017 report by the Elephant Action League. Meanwhile, tiger bone in powdered form can be sold for between $64 and $168 per pound, according to Crown Ridge Tigers Sanctuary. Richard Ellis, the author of the book Tiger Bone and Rhino Horn, said there is no clear evidence that rhino horn serves any medical purpose, but millions of people still believe that it does. If people want to believe in prayer, acupuncture, or voodoo as a cure for what ails them, there is no reason why they shouldnt, but if animals are being killed to provide nostrums that have been shown to be useless, then there is a very good reason to curtail the use of rhino horn, he wrote in a journal article in 2005. Similarly, there is no evidence of medicinal benefits of tiger bones. Tiger bone and rhino horn were both removed from the traditional Chinese medicine pharmacopeia in 1993, and the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies released a statement in 2010. According to WWF, experts estimate that there are more than 6,500 tigers living in Chinas tiger farms, far outnumbering the roughly 3,900 remaining in the wild. The Elephant Action League estimates there are about 25,000 rhinos in Africa. Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and Austrian President Alexander Van Der Bellen, from left, review recruits on the occasion of national holiday celebrations at Vienna's Heldenplatz, Austria, on Oct. 26, 2018. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak) Austria Declines to Sign Global Migration Pact Over Concerns About Sovereignty WARSAWThe Austrian government says that it wont sign a global compact on migration, citing concerns about national sovereignty. Austria on Oct. 31 joined neighboring Hungary in shunning the United Nations-brokered agreement, formally known as the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. Conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache said Austria wont sign the document or send an official representative to Morocco in December, when the agreement is expected to be signed, the Austria Press Agency reported. The lawmakers cited, among other things, fears about a possible watering-down of the distinction between legal and illegal migration. There are some points that we view critically and where we fear a danger to our national sovereignty, Kurz said. Some of the contents go diametrically against our position, added Strache. Migration is not and cannot become a human right, Strache said. It cannot be that someone receives a right to migration because of the climate or poverty. Curbing Illegal Immigration Kurz took office last December as part of a coalition with the nationalist Freedom Party. The country currently holds the European Unions rotating presidency, and Kurz has made curbing illegal immigration a priority. Our migration policy, Austrias governing parties declared as a general principle in a coalition agreement, should be such that the population would be able to support it. Policy pledges have included capping benefits for refugees and shutting off migrant routes to Europe. Austria continues to offer every opportunity for integration, the government program says, according to Bloomberg. Those who dont take these opportunities and reject integration must expect sanctions. In May, Kurz announced a new policy that would allow immigrants to access a higher benefit, only if they demonstrate sufficient language skills. The fundamental rule we will introduce is that German will become the key to accessing the full minimum benefit, Kurz said during a news conference on May 28. That means that whoever has insufficient language skills wont be able to claim the full minimum benefit. Questionable Objectives The migration agreement, which isnt legally binding, was finalized under U.N. auspices in July. Its due to be formally approved at a meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, from Dec. 11-12. The compact came about after 193 U.N. member states adopted the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants on Sept. 19, 2016. The agreement provides a framework for facilitating safe and orderly migration globally, with an effort to deal with migration in a holistic and comprehensive manner. It also sets out a range of actionable commitments, which could possibly influence legislation and policymaking for member states. The compact has 23 objectives that seek to boost cooperation to manage migration, and includes such aims as to strengthen the transnational response to smuggling of migrants and combat and eradicate trafficking in persons in the context of international migration. Some of the objectives of the pact, however, such as to manage borders in an integrated, secure and coordinated manner, have been challenged on the grounds of supposedly giving trans-national bodies an inordinate voice in how any given sovereign country manages its borders. Other Countries Reject Migration Compact The United States was the first country to leave the agreement in December 2017, with the Trump administration saying that the agreement, which was recognized by the Obama administration, is inconsistent with national sovereignty. Ambassador Nikki Haley: America is proud of our immigrant heritage and our long-standing moral leadership in providing support to migrant and refugee populations across the globeBut our decisions on immigration policies must always be made by Americans and Americans alone." pic.twitter.com/By2ObmBrEy US Mission to the UN (@USUN) December 3, 2017 Nikki Haley, then-U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said at the time, America is proud of our immigrant heritage and our long-standing moral leadership in providing support to migrant and refugee populations across the globe. But our decisions on immigration policies must always be made by Americans and Americans alone. We will decide how best to control our borders and who will be allowed to enter our country, she said in a statement. Following the United Statess lead, Hungary announced its withdrawal to the agreement on June 18. Hungarys Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said in a statement that the agreement is totally at odds with the countrys security interests. The primary issue for us is the security of Hungary and the Hungarian people, Szijjarto said in the statement. According to the governments position, the U.N. Global Compact for Migration is in conflict with common sense and also with the intent to restore European security. Hungary does not regard the goals and principles declared by the Compact as valid guidelines with regard to itself. In addition, the document does not deal with the truly existing fundamental human rights of people who want nothing else than to be able to live in peace and security in their own homelands, he said. Szijjarto added that although the fundamental premise of the agreement is a good and unavoidable phenomenon, the document itself is dangerous, extremist, biased, and an encouragement to migration. It could serve as an inspiration for millions to set out from home, he said. In July, Australia said it wouldnt sign the U.N. global migration deal in its current form, with Immigration Minister Peter Dutton saying that its not in the nations interest to sign the agreement. A spokesperson for the immigration minister told The Australian on July 24 that Australia was still considering its position on the agreement and would respond later in the year, leaving open the door for the Turnbull government to withdraw from the deal if needed. Dutton insisted that the Turnbull government wont sign a deal that sacrifices anything in terms of our border protection policies. Were not going to surrender our sovereignty. Im not going to allow unelected bodies to dictate to us, to the Australian people, he told 2GB. Boy Celebrates 5th Birthday in Hospital Months After Being Shot A little boy who was critically wounded by a stray bullet in May celebrated his fifth birthday in a Texas hospital with family and police officers who responded to the scene of the tragic shooting. Sir Romeo Milam turned 5 and his family threw him a party on Monday, Oct. 29 at the Texas Childrens Hospital in Houston, where he continues his remarkable yet grueling recovery after undergoing nearly 30 surgeries. Romeo, hes a fighter. At the end of the day, hes going to make it. Hes going to be back to his normal self, his mother Cocoa Milam said, according to Click2Houston. Sir Romeo was shot while watching television at home with his grandmother. Police said two groups of people exchanged gunfire on May 15, 2018, outside the Kings Row Apartments in Houston, and a stray bullet struck the little boy in the abdomen. As bullets sprinted out, the child laid, face down on the floor trying to shield himself from harms way, the boys family wrote on a GoFundMe page set up to assist with medical expenses. It wasnt until his mother and grandmother notice a bullet strayed hitting four-year-old SirRomeo, leaving him in a pool of blood. Responding officers kept the critically wounded child alive in the back of their cruiser until an ambulance arrived to rush him to hospital. The Houston Police Department has since been following Sir Romeos recovery. The officers and command staff have been checking on him regularly since the shooting, tweeted the Houston Police. The search for the shooter continues. The officers and command staff have been checking on him regularly since the shooting. Everyone is very happy to see Sir Romeos improvement. The search for the shooter continues. Anyone with information is asked to call @CrimeStopHOU at 713-222-TIPS #HouNews pic.twitter.com/l2UymThczb Houston Police (@houstonpolice) October 29, 2018 On Monday, officers who brought Sir Romeo to the hospital came to his birthday party. Sgt. Corey Harrington and Officer Evan Schrock talked about the sense of urgency on the day of the shooting and reminisced about the boys road to recovery. It was just very important to get him to safety and to help, said Harrington. Hes always been asleep when I try to see him, so its really great to see him up, Schrock said. Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo joined the two officers at Mondays celebration, Fox26 reported. Its a blessing and theyre the heroes as are the folks who transported him in the ambulance and the doctors and nurses that have worked with him here, said Acevedo. The Houston Police tweeted about the progress the boy had made on his road to recovery: Everyone is very happy to see Sir Romeos improvement. Sir Romeo is now able to walk unassisted. Its amazing thinking back to the first night he got here to how far hes come, said Michael White, a physicians assistant on Sir Romeos medical team, according to Click2Houston. One more videobecause who doesnt want to see a superhero showing off his birthday wheels! the Houston police tweeted. One more video- because who doesnt want to see a super hero showing off his birthday wheels! #HouNews pic.twitter.com/253tSsS9qo Houston Police (@houstonpolice) October 29, 2018 I have children of my own and I couldnt imagine being on the other end of that. So just having him here to celebrate, with his favorite character, because I also love Batman. Its great, said Hamilton, according to Fox26. No arrests have been made in connection with Sir Romeos shooting. Crime Stoppers is offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible. A security guard stands in front of the entrance of the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), the main venue to hold the upcoming first China International Import Expo (CIIE), is seen in Shanghai on October 31, 2018. (JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images) Chinas Import Expo Faces Lukewarm International Reception Senior officials from United States, South Korea, and Australia among those expected to skip the event. The Chinese state-run media has been busy promoting the inaugural China International Import Expo, involving 150 countries and featuring a speech by leader Xi Jinping at the opening ceremony. Closer scrutiny, however, suggests that the gathering wont have the intended effect of boosting Chinas image as a major importer, as senior officials from the United States and other G7 nations, as well as South Korea and Australia, are expected to skip the event. The first China International Import Expo (CIIE) will be held from Nov. 5 to Nov. 10 in Shanghai, according to state reports. On the evening of Nov. 4, Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, will host a banquet for the attending foreign leaders and senior officials. Politicians and business executives are planning to attend, including officials from the Czech Republic, Dominica, Kenya, and other countries, Lu Kang, spokesman of Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said. Seoul had planned to send Minister of Trade, Industry, and Energy Park Un-gyu, but after a conference between Park and Zhong Shan, Chinas Minister of Commerce, couldnt be arranged, South Korea decided to send a lower-level official, South Koreas JoongAng Ilbo reported Oct. 30. On Oct. 24, the U.S. Embassy in China announced that the United States wouldnt have any senior government officials in attendance, while encouraging China to level the playing field for US goods and services. The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods, due to longstanding trade imbalances, Chinese theft of intellectual property, and Beijings own protectionism. China needs to make the necessary reforms to end its unfair trade practices that are harming the world economy, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said. A British delegation will be led by Prince Andrew and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, while Frances delegation will be led by Didier Guillaume, the minister of agriculture and food, Chinese state media reported. Heads of state who will attend the CIIE are Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Czech President Milos Zeman, and El Salvador President Salvador Sanchez Ceren. Others include Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Swiss President Alain Berset, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, and Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze. Xi Jinping in May 2017 announced the gathering, which commerce minister Zhong Shan described as a window to show that China has opened its markets, in support of economic globalization and trade liberalization. The CIIE, which endeavors to demonstrate Chinas value as a country of purchasing, as well as production, has been touted by state media as the Four Great Chinese Diplomatic Events of 2018. The total value of Chinese imports and exports in the first three quarters of 2018 was 22.3 trillion yuan ($3.2 trillion), up 9.9 percent from the year-earlier period, according to recent data published by Chinas National Bureau of Statistics. Imports totaled 10.4 trillion yuan, a gain of 14.1 percent from 2017, while exports totaled 11.9 trillion yuan, up 1.8 percent from the 2017 period. Despite the retaliatory tariffs, trade between China and the United States rose by 6.5 percent in the first three quarters of 2018. On Oct. 23, the White House confirmed that President Donald Trump and Xi will have a brief meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit, to be held on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 in Argentina. An aircraft technicians checks the engine of an airplane at the Chongqing Airport in Chongqing, China, on Feb 5, 2007. (China Photos/Getty Images) Chinese Spies Charged With Trying to Steal US Jet Engine Technology Within a month, a Chinese provincial intelligence branch has been implicated in three U.S. cases of stealing American technologies, with the most recent case involving espionage to acquire know-how for making turbofan engines used in commercial airliners. The alleged culprit is the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security (JSSD), a branch of Chinas Ministry of State Security (MSS), which is responsible for counterintelligence, foreign intelligence, and political security. According to a U.S. indictment released by the Department of Justice on Oct. 30, JSSD officers, Zha Rong and Chai Meng, a division director and a section chief, respectively, led a scheme to steal turbofan-engine designs being developed through a partnership between a French aerospace manufacturer and an U.S.-based aerospace company. Eight others were charged in the conspiracy, including five computer hackers and malware developers who operated at the direction of the JSSD. Two others are Chinese employees who worked at the French companys office in Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, as company information-technology manager and product manager. The 10th person charged was Li Xiao, a computer hacker who used JSSD-supplied malware to carry out a separate hack on a San Diego-based technology company. The JSSD officers targeted more than a dozen companiesmostly in the aerospace industrybut only Capstone Turbine Corporation, a Los Angeles-based gas turbine manufacturer, was identified by name. Other companies, including a Massachusetts-based aerospace company, and two aerospace suppliers in Arizona and Oregon, manufactured parts for turbofan engines. The 10 people are charged with conspiring to steal sensitive data that could be used by Chinese entities to build the same or similar engine without incurring substantial research and development expenses, the indictment said. At the time of the hacks, which took place from January 2010 through May 2015, a Chinese-state owned aerospace company was trying to develop a comparable engine for use in aircraft to be manufactured in China and other countries. While Chinese-made jets, including the C919 and ARJ21, currently use foreign engines, the country has been seeking to develop a competitive homegrown alternative. State-sponsored hacking is a direct threat to our national security. This action is yet another example of criminal efforts by the MSS to facilitate the theft of private data for Chinas commercial gain, U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman said in a Justice Department press release. The concerted effort to steal, rather than simply purchase, commercially available products should offend every company that invests talent, energy, and shareholder money into the development of products, he added. John Brown, FBI special agent in charge of the San Diego field office, vowed that Chinese criminals would be held accountable regardless of their attempts to hide their illicit activities and identities. Hacking The indictment detailed the tactics deployed by the 10 defendants. To hide the source and destination of their online traffic, defendants used unidentified software and leased servers to avoid detection. They deployed many different tactics to hack the data, such as spear phishing, malware, and using dynamic domain name service (DNS) accounts. DNS allows users to register different website domain names under a single account and frequently change the internet protocol (IP) address assigned to a domain name. Spear phishing sends emails embedded with malware. Two types of malware, Sakula and IsSpace, were used by the defendants, to access the email recipients computers. They would send fictitious emails containing website links that closely resemble legitimate ones, also known doppelganger domain names. After someone clicks on the link, a hacker can gain access. The hackers also installed malware on the targeted companies web pages, known as watering-hole attacks, which provide defendants with a way to hack computers that have visited the web pages. In January 2014, JSSD officer Chai got access to the French manufacturer by sending fake emails to employees at the company, pretending to be from the companys network manager. Later that same month, one of the indicted employees at the French company, Tian Xi, installed Sakula malware by inserting a USB drive, which was provided by an unidentified JSSD officer, onto a computer at the French companys Suzhou office. The case will be prosecuted in Southern California, according to the Justice Department press release. Earlier, U.S. federal authorities announced two other cases of espionage involving JSSD officers. In early October, Xu Yangjun, a JSSD intelligence officer, was extradited to the United States from Belgium, to face charges that he attempted to steal trade secrets related to aircraft jet engines. Xu will now face trial in federal court in Cincinnati. Ji Chaoqun, a Chinese citizen who came to the United States in 2013 and enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves in 2016, was arrested in Chicago in late September, on charges that he had covertly worked for a Chinese intelligence official from JSSD. Ji tried to recruit engineers and scientists in the United States to work for China. Reuters contributed to this report. In the apple-rich state of New York, the cider scene is thriving. (Shutterstock) Cider Week NYC to Celebrate New Yorks Thriving Cider Scene New Yorks cider scene is thriving. The state is prime apple country, after all, with a longstanding custom of growing and using traditional cider apples. Recent years have seen a boom in small-batch, artisanal cider-making; New York now has over 80 cideries across 35 counties. The eighth annual Cider Week NYC, organized by the New York Cider Association, celebrates that scene. From Nov. 2 to 11, the festival will bring together 33 cider makers and dozens of local bars, restaurants, and retail shops for 10 days of tastings, dinners, classes, and other events throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. Its the last installment in a series of Cider Week festivals in Hudson Valley, the Finger Lakes, and Western New York held earlier this year. Festivities will kick off at the Bad Seed Brooklyn Taproom, and end at the Bushwick Cider Market at Brooklyn Cider House. Highlights include the Lower East Cider Fest, a one-night takeover of New Yorks historic Essex Street Market by local growers and makers showcasing over 100 different ciders; a tasting with heritage company Cider in Love, highlighting products made from heirloom, wild, or cider-specific bittersweet and bittersharp apples; and a five-course pairing dinner, crafted by Brooklyn Cider House executive chef and cider maker Peter Yi. A full list of events is available at CiderWeekNYC.com. An Australian flag on the coast of Tasman Sea in Australia in this file photo. (Matt King/Getty Images) Crossing the Tasman Sea: New Zealanders in Australia BRISBANE, AustraliaThey may be geographic neighbors and share nearly identical flags, but Australia and New Zealand are worlds apart when it comes to the economy and jobswhich is why 15 percent of New Zealand citizens call Australia home. New Zealanders move to Australia mostly because of economic reasons, says Peter McDonald, an emeritus professor of demography from the Australian National University. There is a pretty strong relationship with migration and the Australian economy, McDonald said. New Zealand is a country thats used to out migration25 percent of New Zealand citizens live outside of New Zealand, he explained. New Zealand is a small place and produces a lot of talented people, so the opportunities are elsewhere and for a lot of people its not a very big market, so theyll travel to be part of a bigger world. In 1973 the two countries ratified the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement which allows for the free movement of citizens between the two nations. New Zealanders and Australians can live and work in either country indefinitely, without the visa conditions most immigrants have. While an estimated 640,000 New Zealanders have made permanent use of the arrangement, only 62,000 Australian-born citizens live in New Zealand, despite Australia having five times the population. Queenslands Gold Coast is a popular destination for New Zealand immigrants who move to Australia in search of a better life and better pay. And the Gold Coast is where The Epoch Times found Phil Ryan, 37, a musician and former call center worker. In New Zealand youre basically just on a treadmill. Youre not going to get any further after a certain point, so you come to Australia to progress, he said. Ryan left New Zealand in 2008 after working as an audio technician and copywriter at a radio station near Wellington, the countrys capital and second-largest city. He says he moved because he wanted to live in the real world and follow many of his friends who have made the jump across the Tasman Sea. I thought it would be good to get some real-world experience, he said. New Zealand is so far away from everything and you cant make enough money to really get out, so you can sort of just be trapped there. However, he hasnt been able to hold down a stable, long-term job and makes ends meet temping around southeast Queensland. Although he has been in Australia for over 10 years, he still cant get the same benefits as an Australian, such as a student loan. Its just no, youre a Kiwi, go home, he said. Thats the feeling you get is just that youre not really welcome here. Despite that, he has no plans to leave. Im quite happy in the Gold Coast right now, Im very content, he said. People have their racist attitudes, people say Kiwis sound like hillbillies, but Australians are really nice. Gold Coast people are friendly as hell. Katie Dixon, 27, moved to Brisbane, Queensland, after the Christchurch earthquakes in 2011, which devastated the small New Zealand city and killed 185 people. Christchurch is still slowly rebuilding. After the earthquake I found myself feeling trapped and wanted more out of life than I was getting, she said. Progress in Christchurch was slow and still is, and there wasnt much there anymore for someone in their early 20s. When Dixon first moved to Australia she worked at a call center. She later moved to her current role as an executive assistant at an architecture firm, where she puts her history degree to good use by helping with research on Brisbanes historical buildings. The big reason people move here is the fact you get paid more and the living cost is relative to your wage, but like with anywhere you move to, if you scratch beneath the surface you are bound to find barriers, she said. I felt a little bit like I had stepped back in time when I first moved here. Things are improving and will continue to improve, but I definitely think you get the whole grass is greener impression once you get here. She adds, however, that she likes the Australian people. I really like the people. Most of the time Aussies are really nice, and as long as you can take some friendly banter then youre all good, she said. Like Dixon, Mike Silverwood, 32, moved to Australia following the devastation of the Christchurch earthquakes. I felt like the quality of life I had in Christchurch was nowhere near the same as it was pre-earthquake. I love Christchurch and New Zealand, but to me, the city had lost its soul, he said. After a career in IT, Silverwood now works as a security officer. Workers like Silverwood are paid higher rates to work after dark and on weekends; there is no such scheme in New Zealand. Workers also enjoy higher minimum and average wages across the board and a lower cost of living than in New Zealand. What Australia has done right is industry award wages; there is an incentive to work nights and weekends, Silverwood said, adding that better public transit and universal health care are also a plus. As for moving back to New Zealand, he doubts it will ever happen. I could only see myself [moving back] come retirement, and in all honesty, I dont think I would be able to afford to go back. Five Killed, 38 Wounded by Gunfire in Chicago over Weekend Gunfire claimed 43 victims in Chicago over the Halloween weekend38 people were wounded and five killed between 5 p.m. on Friday and 5 a.m. Monday. According to Fox News, the levels of violence rose with each passing day. Three people were wounded and one killed on Friday, Oct. 27; 11 were wounded and one killed on Saturday; and 25 people were shot, and three killed on Sunday. The final shooting happened early Monday morning. Oct. 29. It was non-fatal. Halloween weekend in Chicago was worse than Labor Day weekend in terms of gun violence. Fox News reported six gun murders and 23 woundings over that holiday weekend. Many weekends tend to be violent in Chicago. Three people were killed and 24 wounded the weekend period of Oct. 19Oct. 22. Holidays are generally more deadly in the Windy City. The Chicago Tribune reported on Oct. 28 that so far this year, 2,530 people have been shot in Chicago. A Society Issue During the heart of Chicagos deadliest year of the century, Police Superintendant Eddie Johnson told the Tribune, Its not a police issue, its a society issue. Impoverished neighborhoods, people without hope do these kinds of things, Superintendant Johnson said. You show me a man that doesnt have hope, Ill show you one thats willing to pick up a gun and do anything with it. Those are the issues thats driving this violence. CPD is doing its job, he continued. According to Fox News, most of the gun violence happens in poor neighborhoods where crime, in general, is high, maintenance is low, police presence is spotty, and medical facilities tend to be rarer. Relative Improvement Despite the number of deaths being so shockingly high, the number of shootings is actually lower so far in 2018 compared to 2017. According to the Tribune, 611 fewer people have been shot in Chicago to this date in 2018 than in 2017. Memorial Day weekend 2017 was much deadlier than this years: last year seven people were killed and another 45 were wounded. Seventy-one people were shot over Memorial Day weekend in 2016. In 2018, 36 people were shot, seven fatally, USA Today reported. These improvements are relative. Chicago is still on pace to have the highest murder rate in the nation. 2016 and 2017 were catastrophic years for gun violence in Chicago. The city saw 762 murders in 2016 and 650 murders in 2017. Chicago led the nation in homicides those years. By Memorial Day, 2018, Chicago had registered 191 homicidesdown from 237 the previous year. Even so, Chicago homicides at that point of the year were almost as high as that of Los Angeles (92) and New York City (106) combined, USA Today reported. Violence Might Have Ended Rahm Emmanuels Reign Mayor Rahm Emmanuel announced on Sept. 4 that he would not seek a third term in office. The announcement came shortly after the Tribune reported more than 1,000 people had been shot between Memorial Day weekend (starting May 26) and Labor Day weekend (ending Sept.3). When Emmanuel made the announcement, 2072 Chicagoans had been shot since January 1. Ive decided not to seek re-election, said Emanuel, according to the Tribune. This has been the job of a lifetime, but it is not a job for a lifetime. As most retiring politicians do, Emmanuel said he was leaving the job to spend more time with his family. The ChicagoTribune pointed out that during Emmanuels tenure, gun violence and homicides had spiked, teachers had gone on strike, a record number of schools were closed, and the shooting by police of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, which led to a Federal investigation, had cost him support among black voters. From NTD.tv Watch Next: A Mother Shares the Story of Her Sons Heroin Overdose FILE PHOTO: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang review the guard of honour at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, July 9, 2018. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo German Firms Should Cut Dependence on China, Says Top Industry Group BERLINGerman firms should cut their dependence on the Chinese market, a leading industry group says in a strategy paper that underscores rising concern over Beijings state-driven economic model, according to a draft seen by Reuters. The 25-page China position paper from the Federation of German Industries (BDI), to be published in January, argues that a long-promised opening of the Chinese market is unlikely to take place and voices concern about rising Communist party control over society and the economy. Titled Partner and Systemic CompetitorHow to cope with Chinas state-driven economic model, the paper makes clear that firms cannot afford to turn their backs on China. But, in an unusual step, it urges them to reassess their presence there, while offering numerous recommendations for the German government and European Union. The BDI is Germanys main business lobby group and while its proposals do not always translate directly into policy, they carry significant weight. Despite the attractiveness of the Chinese market, it will be increasingly important for companies to closely examine the risks of their engagement in China and to minimize their dependence by diversifying supply chains, production sites and sales markets, the draft reads. It is currently being vetted by BDI members and the text could change before publication. Bilateral trade between Germany and China hit a record 188 billion euros ($212 billion) last year. And big German firms, notably carmakers like Volkswagen, Daimler, and BMW, depend heavily on the fast-growing Chinese market. While their presence there was once seen as a strength, it is now unsettling German politicians and industry as Beijing asserts control over the economy under Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Another worry is the escalating trade conflict between the United States and China, which risks putting Germanyand Europein the awkward position of having to choose between its top two economic partners. Range of Problems The paper cites a range of problems for German firms operating in China, from forced technology transfer and failures to protect intellectual property to arbitrary customs decisions and unequal access to licenses and financing. It calls for closer coordination on China strategy within the German government and between the EU and like-minded partners, led by the United States. It also argues for a new EU instrument to prevent state-subsidized takeovers, including requiring Chinese firms to present accounts based on internationally agreed standards when acquiring European firms so their ownership structures and financing can be vetted. We are facing a systemic competition between our open markets approach and Chinas state-driven economic model, the paper reads. We need a broad discussion across politics, society, and industry about this challenge. While the BDI makes clear that it has no interest in fencing in China, it argues that China is intent on reshaping the liberal global order that has brought prosperity to Germany. It describes the One Belt, One Road initiative, Xis ambitious plan to connect China to Europe, Africa, and beyond via transport links and trade deals, as an attempt by Beijing to build geopolitical influence and shape third markets according to its own interests. To counter this influence, the BDI calls for a diplomatic offensive from Berlin and Brussels toward countries in eastern Europe, central Asia, southeast Asia, and Africa. By Noah Barkin Gyrocopter Crashes Into Florida Mobile Home, Killing Two Two people were killed after their gyrocopter crashed into a mobile home in Florida, injuring one person on the ground. The house in Sebring, Highlands County, was burned to the ground on Oct. 30 after the gyrocoptera helicopter-plane hybridgot into trouble, reported the local sheriffs office. According to witnesses in local reports, the aircraft clipped power lines and a pole before plunging into the mobile home and bursting into flames. There was nobody in the house at the time. One of those killed in the crash was a local gyrocopter instructor. Neighbor Randall Myers told WFLA he thought the aircraft was going to hit his house. A Big Explosion I was sitting at my computer and I saw the shadow and I heard him rev the engine up. And as soon as he reved it up, it started popping. And the next thing I know, there was a big explosion and the lights went out, said Myers. Another neighbor, Diane Clark, told WFLA she ran out of the house following a big explosion to find a live electricity wire on their patio. According to ABC, the gyrocopter reportedly snapped the power cable in half, and pulled down several electrical lines. The occupants died on impact, according to local reports. The Federal Aviation Authority confirmed that a plane had caught fire after crashing into the Sebring Falls Mobile Home Park in Sebring at 3:15 pm. The two occupants of the gyrocopter (sometimes called a gyroplane) were named in local reports as chiropractor Chris Brugger and pilot Chris Lord. HELICOPTER CRASH: Another confirmed fatality, bringing the total to 2. Both believed to be from the helicopter. One person on the ground was injured pic.twitter.com/X21bizDbkA Highlands Co Sheriff (@HighCoSheriff) October 30, 2018 Lord was a pilot, instructor, examiner, test pilot at the local airport with the company Gryoplane Guy. They Are Not Helicopters According to the companys website, Lord has flown many aircraft to include fixed wing, helicopter, powered parachute, weight shift trike, and thousands of hours in over 34 models of gyroplanes. Chris has trained and examined hundreds of students and has touched nearly every state traveling across the USA. Gyrocopters first appeared in 1923. Like helicopters they use rotating blades to provide lift, but with one big differencethe spinning blades are free-rotating, not powered by an engine. The spin is created by the forward movement of the aircraft, which is provided by a rear-mounted propeller. Theyre not helicopters, writes in Marc Lee in Plane and Pilot magazine. Gyroplanes share much more with fixed-wing aircraft than they do with helicopters. According to Lee gyroplanes are a safe low-cost alternative to small helicopters and planes. A gyroplane can fly slower than an airplane and wont stall. A gyroplane can almost hover because it needs very little forward speed to stay in the air (about 5 to 10 knots). That means that an engine failure in a gyroplane is a nonevent. The craft will float down in autorotation like a parachute. A gyroplane flies in permanent autorotation. That virtue makes gyroplanes extraordinarily safe, he said. The Huawei logo is displayed at a trade fair in Hanover, Germany, on June 12, 2018. (Alexander Koerner/Getty Images) Huawei Lobbyists Visit Canadian MPs to Alleviate Security Concerns In August, right around the time that Australia was in the midst of officially banning Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE from the countrys 5G networks, Huawei lobbyists started paying visits to Canadian parliamentarians. They sent representatives to ask us why we are so concerned about their commercial proposals, recalled Conservative MP Peter Kent. I advised them that if our allies consider Huawei to be a national security risk, then perhaps we should listen to our allies and not accept Huaweis promises that they would do nothing to harm the security of Canada. Records from the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada show that Huawei lobbyists visited eight MPs starting in August, with some, including Kent, as recent as early October. Of the eight MPs, six are Liberals, including John MacKay, chair of the standing committee on public safety and national security, one is MP Matthew Dube, NDP critic for public safety and a member of the public safety committee, and one is Kent, a Conservative MP and an outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) human rights record. In addition to Australia, the United States has also banned Huawei from its 5G network; 5G is the next generation of wireless technology. Both countries, together with Canada, U.K., and New Zealand, are members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. In early October, two U.S. senators from the Republican and Democratic parties wrote a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asking that Canada ban Huawei from playing a part in the countrys 5G network. As you are aware, Huawei is not a normal private-sector company. There is ample evidence to suggest that no major Chinese company is independent of the Chinese government and Communist Partyand Huawei, which Chinas government and military tout as a national champion, is no exception, wrote Sen. Marco Rubio (Republican) and Sen. Mark Warner (Democrat). Dube, who received his visit from the Huawei lobbyists in early October, said the fact that politicians from both American parties are expressing concern about the company is not something to dismiss. We take the security concerns that have been raised by our allies seriously, he said. I look notably at the U.S., where there is bi-partisan agreement on the fact that we needed to address this issue. The Americans barely agree with anything, so I think we need to take that very seriously. McKay, whose visit by the Huawei lobbyists was registered on Oct. 1, said he is worried about risks to Canadas cyber security network. You cant pretend to be concerned about the security of Canadas cyber network and not be concerned that Chinese companies or Russian companies [could] compromise the infrastructure, he said. In his view, there are two ways to deal with Huawei when it comes to the 5G network. One is to ban them entirely, which is the what the United States and Australia are doing, or the other way is to work with them, with the expectation that you would have complete access to all of their data and all of their technology, he said. For the time being at least, I think Canada has chosen the latter way. We do intend on the public safety committee to explore that and to both hear from Huawei, but also hear from those who are extremely concerned about what this can actually mean. Canadas Communications Security Establishment (CSE), the government agency in charge of protecting the nations critical networks, recently confirmed that it ensures Huaweis telecom equipment is tested for any potential security threats. Since 2013, the Security Review Program has been in place to test and evaluate designated equipment and services considered for use on Canadian 3G and 4G/LTE networks, including Huawei equipment, CSE spokesperson Evan Koronewski said in an email. Gary S. Miliefsky, CEO of Cyber Defense Media Group and a breach prevention cybersecurity expert, said in a previous interview that no government tests will be enough to prevent security breaches. When any government agency tells me theyre going to help with security, they usually get breached, he said. The stakes could not be higher Former CIA chief Michael Hayden said in an interview with the Australian Financial Review that there is hard evidence that Huawei, a company started by a former officer of Peoples Liberation Army, spies for Beijing. Heads of six major U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, FBI, and NSA, as well as former heads of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), have all warned about the national security threats posed by Huawei. The director of Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), the countrys secretive signals and cyber security agency, revealed this week that he advocated for the ban on high-risk vendors in 5G networksimplying Huawei and ZTEas the security of the entire 5G communication network could have been threatened. The stakes could not be higher, Mike Burgess, director general of ASD, said in a speech to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute on Oct. 29. This is about more than just protecting the confidentiality of our informationit is also about integrity and availability of the data and systems on which we depend. Getting security right for our critical infrastructure is paramount. With reporting by Limin Zhou in Ottawa. Voters cast their ballots in Los Angeles on June 5, 2018. California's voter rolls have been plagued by problems. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) Is Voter Fraud Real? A look at Californias illegal voter-registration problem News Analysis Ever since the 2016 presidential elections, the topic of voter fraud has gained more attention. This was especially so following President Donald Trumps statement that if it werent for illegal voting, he would have won the popular vote, in addition to the Electoral College count. Trump won the election with 304 electoral votes to Clintons 227. Clinton won the popular vote, however, by 2.8 million votesor 65,853,516 votes to 62,984,825 for Trump. But if we look closer at the numbers, though, some interesting information emerges. Clintons margin of victory in California was 4.3 million votes, or 61.7 percent. This number dramatically exceeded the 53.5 percent margin in her other winning states. She received a total of 8,753,788 votes from Californianearly double the total of Trumps 4,483,810 votes. To illustrate how much Californias numbers count, if one looks just at the popular vote in the rest of the nation, Trump would have won the popular vote by 1.4 million votes. Outside of California, Trump received 58,501,015 votes to Clintons 57,099,728 votes. Following the elections, the president called for an investigation of voter fraud. His call was met with massive resistance, typified in a New York Times editorial board response, headlined The Voter Fraud Fantasy: There are varying degrees of absurdity in the fallacies President Trump peddled during his first week in the Oval Office. Perhaps the most damaging was his insistence that millions of Americans voted illegally in the election he narrowly won. In January 2018, after Trump shut down the election commission he had appointed to investigate fraud, citing endless legal battles at taxpayer expense, the president called for voter ID laws. The New York Times claimed victory, noting that no state has uncovered significant evidence to support the presidents claim, and election officials, including many Republicans, have strongly rejected it. But in reality, many states had just refused to hand over data to the panel. Its surprisingly difficult to find good information on voter-roll registration. One of the most widely cited sources is a 2012 Pew study, which found the following problems with Americas voter rolls: Approximately 24 millionone out of every eightvoter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate. More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters. Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state. Despite its age, the Pew study is still cited by sources such as the National Conference of State Legislatures, precisely because very few quantifiable, newer studies seem to exist. The numbers are concerning, since only seven states have strict photo ID requirements to vote. The breakdown of states and their requirements, as detailed by the National Conference of State Legislatures: Strict photo ID required: Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Strict non-photo ID required: Arizona, North Dakota, and Ohio. Non-strict photo ID required: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Texas. Non-strict non-photo ID required: Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, Washington, and West Virginia. No ID required to vote at the ballot box: California, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wyoming. Conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, which is currently engaging in an election integrity project, has estimated that there are 3.5 million more people on U.S. election rolls than are eligible to vote. When you look at those registered to vote, and you compare and contrast those numbers with people actually eligible to vote, you come up with the 3.5 million individuals spread out across the 50 states, Judicial Watch says in a statement on its website. According to the groups numbers, California has approximately half of those additional voters, with an estimated 1.7 million ghost voters. California Voter Registration On Jan. 1, 2015, California Assembly Bill 60 (AB-60) became law. AB-60 allows illegal immigrants in the United States to apply for a California drivers license with the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). An estimated 605,000 undocumented residents received California drivers licenses under AB-60, in the first year alone. The California DMV recently issued a press release stating that more than a million licenses had been issued under AB-60 as of April 4, 2018. State officials chose not to make non-citizen license holders searchable in the DMV database. This specific provision, by itself, opens the doors to illegal voter registration as the drivers license becomes indistinguishable online. On Oct. 10, 2015, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Motor Voter Act, which automatically registers to vote every eligible California citizen who goes to a DMV office to get a drivers license or renew one. California is one of 13 states, along with the District of Columbia, that have passed automatic voter registration. The others are Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia. Automatic voter registration makes voter registration an opt-out process instead of opt-ineligible citizens who interact with government agencies, such as the DMV, are registered to vote or have their existing registration information updated, unless they affirmatively decline. The legislation also specifically exempts ineligible voters who end up being registered from any penalty. Now, lets examine the language contained in the California NVRA (National Voter Registration Act) Manual, found on page 42: VI. Voter Registration Cards, where the voter indicates that he or she is not a U.S. citizen: The VRC asks the applicant if he or she is a United States citizen. The voter may check either Yes, No, or not check either box. If the voter indicates, by checking the yes box, that he or she is a U.S. citizen, the registration should be processed normally. In other words, as stated by Charles Bell Jr., a partner with California-based Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, LLP, a law firm that specializes in election law, applicants can check a box affirming they are citizens, and this is not checked against any other government database, such as federal immigration records. But the process doesnt end there: If the voter indicates, by checking the No box, that he or she isnt a U.S. citizen, the registration may not be entered on the voter rolls. The elections official should send the voter a returnable card or letter requesting clarification as to whether or not the voter is a U.S. citizen. If the voter returns the card indicating that he or she is a U.S. citizen, the VRC should be entered on the voter rolls. If the card is returned and the voter indicates he or she is not a citizen, or if no response is received from the voter, then the voter shall not be registered. If the voter does not check either the Yes or No box, do not process the registration. A prior version of the document was even more lenient, stating that: If the voter does not check either the Yes or No box, and the registration is otherwise complete, the registration should be processed normally and entered on the voter rolls. Number of Illegal Aliens According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the most recent data provided, 12.1 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the United States in January 2014. California remained the leading state of residence of the unauthorized immigrant population in 2014, with 2.9 million, nearly 25 percent of the total number. Interestingly, the numbers from the DHS changed little from their prior 2012 study, in which they provided an estimate of 2,830,000 illegal immigrants residing in California. In a further note of question, the DHS cited a figure of 2,840,000 illegal immigrants in 200710,000 higher than in 2012 and virtually identical to 2014 levels. According to a September 2018 study published in the journal PLOS ONE, there are roughly 22.1 million illegal immigrants in the United States. As the authors note, even using extremely conservative model parameters, we estimate a population of 16.7 million undocumented immigrants. Shortly before the 2016 presidential election, President Barack Obama said in a Nov. 4, 2016, video interview with mitu (at the 3:22 mark) that election records arent cross-checked against immigration databases, noting that when you vote, you are a citizen yourself, and there is not a situation where the voting rolls somehow are transferred over and people start investigating, etc. The sanctity of the vote is strictly confidential. That let non-citizens know that they stood little chance of being caught if they voted. The Department of Justice (DOJ), however, has recently increased prosecutions of those caught voting illegally. In August, 19 foreign nationals, including those from Mexico, Nigeria, and the Philippines, were indicted. Ahead of the Nov. 6 midterm elections, the president has warned against voter fraud. All levels of government and Law Enforcement are watching carefully for VOTER FRAUD, including during EARLY VOTING, Trump wrote on Twitter on Oct. 20. Cheat at your own peril. Violators will be subject to maximum penalties, both civil and criminal! Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attends the joint news conference of the Japan-Mekong Summit Meeting at the Akasaka Palace State Guest House in Tokyo on Oct. 9, 2018. (Franck Robichon/Reuters) Japan Ends Aid to China, Spotlighting Beijings Position as Major Recipient Japan recently announced that it will stop providing aid to China, a decision that highlights the fact that the worlds second-largest economy continues to receive financial assistance from multiple countries around the world. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, while in Beijing for a state visit on Oct. 25, said that its historical mission in providing official development assistance (ODA) has ended, the Japanese English-language daily The Japan News reported on Oct. 27. ODA refers to government aid designed to promote the economic development and welfare of developing countries. Japan began offering aid to Asian developing countries after it joined the Colombo Plan in 1954, a regional organization aimed at strengthening the Asia-Pacific region. According to Japans Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan began steering ODA aid to China in 1979, which was the same year that China opened up its markets to foreign investment for the first time under former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Deng Xiaoping. Over nearly four decades, Japan has provided a total of 3.65 trillion yen (about $32.3 billion) under ODA to China, for the purposes of infrastructure building, humanitarian support, and environmental protection, according to Japanese daily newspaper Mainichi Shimbun. In 2007, Japan discontinued low-interest loans, a major portion of its ODA aid to China, after determining that China had already made significant improvements to its economy. But Japan continued to offer grant aid for Chinese projects such as fighting pollution and infectious diseases. Japans ODA aid to China was criticized in an Oct. 26 opinion article by Japanese daily newspaper Sankei Shimbun, which called the aid the largest failure in Japans foreign policy after the conclusion of World War II. Chinese citizens dont know that many major construction projects, such as the Beijing International Airport and Beijing Subway Line 2, were built with Japans ODA aid, according to the article. However, anti-Japanese sentiment continues to pervade in China, and remained strong during the height of Japans ODA aid in the 1990s. The article said that ODA aid shouldnt be given to a country that oppresses democracy and human rights, such as the ongoing suppression of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. Aid From Other Countries Japan isnt the only country that has provided aid to China. According to a recent article by Chinese news portal NetEase, China accepted a total of roughly $10.72 billion in aid from developed countries between 1973 to 2003. Some of the biggest contributors are European countries, which gave even after China became the worlds second largest economy in 2010, according to the NetEase story. The European Union began providing monetary and technical aid beginning in 1984, and by the end of 2012, had given a total of 810 million euros (about $920 million) to China. Germany began offering aid after signing a technical cooperation agreement with China in 1982; As of 2011, Germany provided a total of $1.21 billion in aid. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom handed China a total of 46.9 million pounds ($59.6 million) last year, for initiatives such as a school program to encourage children to consume less salt, and improving dementia care in the port city of Qingdao, according to a July report by the Daily Mail. And according to U.S. official statistics, the United States has given $6.97 million to China so far in fiscal 2018, for initiatives such as conservation efforts in Tibet, AIDS/HIV awareness, and rule of law programs. All the while, China itself has given foreign aid to developing countries, primarily in Southeast Asia and Africa. According to AidData, a research lab at the College of William and Mary, China has given billions of dollars around the world between 2000 and 2014. Annie Wu contributed to this report. Rescuers load body bags containing debris and remains of the victims of the crashed Lion Air plane during a rescue operation in the waters of Tanjung Karawang, Indonesia, Oct. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana) Lion Air Jet Position Possibly Located, 48 Body Bags Sent to Police JAKARTA, IndonesiaA massive search effort has identified the possible seabed location of the crashed Lion Air jet, Indonesias military chief said on Oct. 31, as experts carried out the grim task of identifying dozens of body parts recovered from a 15 nautical mile search area. The 2-month-old Boeing plane plunged into the Java Sea on Oct. 29 just minutes after takeoff from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. Based on the presentation of the head of the National Search and Rescue Agency, the coordinates of the suspected body of the aircraft have been found. We will send a team there to confirm, said armed forces chief Hadi Tjahjanto. The disaster has reignited concerns about safety in Indonesias fast-growing aviation industry, which was recently removed from European Union and U.S. blacklists, and also raised doubts about the safety of Boeings new generation 737 MAX 8 plane. Boeing Co. experts are expected to arrive Indonesia on Oct. 31 and Lion Air has said an intense internal investigation is underway in addition to the probe by safety regulators. Locating the fuselage will bring the search effort closer to finding the airplanes flight recorders, which are crucial to the accident investigation. Data from flight-tracking sites show the plane had erratic speed and altitude in the early minutes of a flight on Oct. 28 and on its fatal flight on Oct. 29. Safety experts caution, however, that the data must be checked for accuracy against the planes black boxes, which officials are confident will be recovered. Passengers on the Oct. 28 flight from Bali to Jakarta have recounted problems that including a long-delayed takeoff for an engine check and terrifying descents in the first 10 minutes in the air. Officials said the non-stop search effort has sent 48 body bags containing human remains to police identification experts. Anguished family members have been providing samples for DNA tests and police say results are expected within 4-8 days. Daniel Putut, a Lion Air managing director, said the airline and Boeing will meet in the afternoon on Oct. 31. Of course there are lots of things we will ask them, we all have question marks here, why? Whats the matter with this new plane, he said. Indonesias Transport Ministry has ordered all Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes operated by Lion Air and national carrier Garuda to be inspected. Boeing declined to comment about potential inspections globally. The aircraft manufacturer told airlines in a bulletin, Boeing has no recommended operator action at this time, according to two people familiar with the matter. Stephane Sejourne, French Presdient Emmanuel Macron's adviser and newly-named European election campaign director for the En Marche political party, poses after an interview with Reuters in Paris, France, October 30, 2018. REUTERS/Charles Platiau Macrons Strategist Says Goal Is to Reshape Fracturing EU Politics PARISEuropes fragmenting political landscape is an opportunity for Emmanuel Macron to blow apart Brussels traditional left-right duopoly in next years European election, the newly appointed head of the French presidents EU campaign said. In his first interview since his appointment as top strategist in Macrons En Marche party, Stephane Sejourne says the campaign will shake up the system, tapping into growing disaffection among the mainstream left and right. We see political instability more like an opportunity than a constraint, Sejourne told Reuters in a cafe a block away from the Elysee Palace, where he has spent the past 18 months as Macrons behind-the-scenes political adviser. National and regional elections across Europe, most recently in Germany, have seen a surge in support for right-wing and pro-environment parties, at the expense of the center-right conservative and center-left social democrat parties. That is creating harder-to-govern coalitions. Macron sees it as an opportunity to draw lawmakers from across the spectrum and build a new political group in the European Parliament, as he did in France. I want to speak with Spanish Socialists, Ciudadanos, with the German Greens but also with parts of the CDU while at the same time exchanging with the SPD, said Sejourne, 33, referring to parties in the ruling German coalition. Macron has framed the European election as a battle between anti-immigrant nationalists and pro-EU progressives and sent emissaries to make contacts with like-minded parties. While the European Parliament election, held every five years since 1979, has not always made waves, next Mays polls promise to have more impact as the fractures in national politics reach the European level. Speculation However, a repeat of what Macron achieved with his surprise win in Frances 2017 electionwhere he built a new party from scratch and poached lawmakers from both left and rightis seen by analysts as unlikely. Speculation is rife in Brussels over who Macron will ally himself with. EU figures including Belgian liberal Guy Verhofstadt and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte have made bids to force Macron to form alliances, only to be politely rebuffed. Created after the last EU elections in 2014, En Marche has no lawmakers in the European chamber but polls show it could garner about a fifth of Frances 79 seats in the parliament, which from next year will have 705 members. By pulling together forces currently sitting with the traditional blocsthe conservative EPP, the Social Democrats (S&D), and the liberals of ALDESejourne believes Macrons grouping could dislodge the EPP as the dominant group. That could be made easier by the waning influence of Germanys Angela Merkel, who held sway over the EPP for years, as she gradually leaves the stage. I think its possible to gain a majority under various configurations: will it be the progressives? The democrats? There can be a sort of an alliance, he said. Macrons strategy is not to seal any deal until after the election, when the pecking order in the 27 EU member states will become clear. All those who said we should have struck alliances eight months ago were wrong, said Sejourne. We would have ended up with our hands tied to possibly irrelevant forces. We need to take the time to gauge emerging forces in Europe. The worst thing would be to pick one partner per country and stick to them, Sejourne said. Very Clever Sejourne is one of the so-called Macron Boys, a close-knit group of thirtysomethings who helped propel the former investment banker to the French presidency before he had turned 40, after a stunningly fast rise. Described by allies as cool-headed, discreet, and loyal, he impressed Macron in 2014 with a note he sent to the then-economy minister about how to improve his image. Very clever, Macron told him. Youre hired. The son of a France Telecom employee, he grew up in Spain and Latin America. He decided to pursue politics after seeing the fall of Argentinas middle class during its 2001 currency crisis, when he was at the French high school in Buenos Aires. The rich Argentine kids ended up being kicked out because their families could no longer pay the fees, he said. It really made a mark on me. People dont realize bad political choices can create catastrophic situations. By Michel Rose U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis speaks to members of the press before a press briefing at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., on Aug. 28, 2018. (Zach Gibson/Getty Images) US Defense Secretary Mattis Calls for Ceasefire in Yemen Within 30 Days Yemen has had more problems than any people deserve to carry U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis called for a cessation of hostilities in Yemen within the next 30 days. He made the statement during a discussion at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) on Oct. 30. Yemen has had more problems than any people deserve to carry, Mattis said. Were calling on all the partiesspecifically the Houthis and the Arab Coalitionto meet in Sweden in November and come to a solution not talk about subordinate issues like what town theyre going to meet in, or what size the table is they meet around but talk about demilitarizing the border so that the Saudis and the Emirates do not have to worry about missiles coming into their homes and cities and airports. The war in Yemen has got to end, says #SecDef Mattis. "We've got to replace combat with compromise It's time to stop this." #MattisUSIP U.S. Institute of Peace (@USIP) October 30, 2018 He said the United States and others were prepared to forcefully bring up the push for cessation in the international arena. Mattis will also push to ensure that all the missiles that Iran has provided to the Houthis are put under international watch in parts somewhere where they can be accounted. He said the United States and like-minded countries are looking to set the conditions for a return to traditional areas inside Yemen and a government that allows for this amount of local autonomy that Houthis or southerners want. This has got to end. Weve got to replace combat with compromise. Mattis said he has been working with U.N. special envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths before the upcoming November meetings to amass international support for the move. Its time to stop this. Photos: #SecDef Mattis at our headquarters this evening. He discussed the National Defense Strategy, conflicts in the Middle East, great power competition, and more. Watch: https://t.co/3F7m6zbmpw #MattisUSIP @DeptofDefense pic.twitter.com/oV7MBmF3W4 U.S. Institute of Peace (@USIP) October 31, 2018 Right now, what the Iranians have done by bringing in missiles is interrupted freedom of navigation. Theyre the ones that keep fueling this conflict, and theyre the ones that need to knock it off. They [Iran] may do it through proxies as they do it so often in the Middle East, but they do not escape accountability for what theyre doing through proxies and surrogate forces. We still will hold them accountable, Mattis said. Mattis said that the tight 30-day deadline was the only way were going to really solve the ongoing crisis that erupted in 2015. Weve got to move toward a peace effort here. And we cant say were going to do it sometime in the future. We need to be doing this in the next 30 days, he said. The longer-term solutionand by longer-term, I mean 30 days from nowwe want to see everybody around a peace table based on a ceasefire, based on a pullback from the border, and then based on the ceasing of dropping bombs that will then allow [Special Envoy Martin Griffiths] to get them together in Sweden and end this war. The defense secretary said that U.S. efforts continue to provide intelligence, targeting support, and training, as well as mid-air refueling for the Saudi-led coalition forces. In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo backed called for a stop to the missile and drone strikes by Iran-allied Houthi rebels against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. He also said that the Saudi-led coalition must cease air strikes on Houthi targets in populated areas of Yemen. Yemen is one of the poorest Arab countries and faces the worlds worst humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by a nearly 4-year-old war that pits the Houthis against the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the West. The time is now for the cessation of hostilities, including missile and UAV strikes from Houthi-controlled areas into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Pompeo said, using an acronym for unmanned aerial vehicles. Subsequently, Coalition air strikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen, he said, adding that a cessation of hostilities and resumption of a political track would help ease the humanitarian crisis. Pompeo said last month that he had certified to Congress that Saudi Arabia and the UAE were already working to reduce civilian casualties in Yemen. Mattis said that the Saudis and Emiratis appeared ready to attend talks to negotiate a solution to the conflict. Three-quarters of Yemens population, or 22 million people, require aid and 8.4 million people are on the brink of starvation. Reuters contributed to this article. From NTD.tv Watch Next: Why Banks Love War & the War Economy The global banking system has historically played both sides of major conflicts through war financing, and drawing out the battles by providing funds beyond what each country could have otherwise spent. Pakistan Acquits Christian Woman Facing Death for Blasphemy ISLAMABADPakistans top court on Oct. 31, acquitted a Christian woman who was sentenced to death on blasphemy charges in 2010, a landmark ruling that sparked protests by hard-line Islamists and raised fears of violence. Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar announced the verdict to a packed courtroom and ordered Asia Bibi released. She has been held at an undisclosed location for security reasons and is expected to leave the country. The charges against Bibi date back to a hot day in 2009 when she went to get water for her and her fellow farmworkers. Two Muslim women refused to drink from a container used by a Christian. A few days later, a mob accused her of blasphemy. She was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. The mere rumor of blasphemy can ignite mob violence and lynchings in Pakistan, and combatting alleged blasphemy has become a central rallying cry for hard-line Islamists. Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province, was shot and killed by one of his guards in 2011 for defending Bibi and criticizing the misuse of the blasphemy law. The assassin, Mumtaz Qadri, has been celebrated as a martyr by hard-liners since he was hanged for the killing, with millions visiting a shrine set up for him near Islamabad. Ahead of the verdict, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, a hard-line cleric who has brought tens of thousands of people into the streets for past rallies, called on his supporters to gather in all major cities to express their love for the prophet and to protest if Bibi is released. Authorities have stepped up security at churches around the country. Shortly after the ruling, hundreds of Islamists blocked a key road linking the city of Rawalpindi with the capital, Islamabad. Islamists gathered in Pakistans largest city, Karachi, in the northwestern city of Peshawar and elsewhere. Police urged demonstrators to disperse peacefully. In the eastern city of Multan, police arrested several demonstrators after clashes. Paramilitary troops deployed in Islamabad to prevent protesters from reaching the Supreme Court, where security for the judges was being beefed up. Bibis family and her lawyer say she never insulted the prophet. In previous hearings her attorney, Saiful Malook, pointed to contradictions in testimony from witnesses. The two Muslim women who pressed charges against Bibi denied they quarreled with her, saying her outbursts against Islam were unprovoked. Chaudhry Ghulam Mustafa, a lawyer for one of the plaintiffs, rejected the verdict, saying Bibi had confessed to making derogatory remarks against the prophet to seek pardon. The three-judge panel upheld the blasphemy law itself, saying it was consistent with verses from Islams holy book, the Quran. But they said prosecutors had failed to prove that Bibi violated the law. In addition to citing the Quran, the judges also referenced Shakespeares King Lear, saying Bibi was more sinned against than sinning. Critics of the blasphemy law have said it is used to settle personal scores or to attack minority communities. Bibis case was closely followed internationally amid concern for Pakistans religious minorities, who have frequently come under attack by extremists in recent years. Bibis husband hailed Wednesdays verdict. I am very happy. My children are very happy. We are grateful to God. We are grateful to the judges for giving us justice. We knew that she is innocent, said Ashiq Masih. My wife spent so many years in jail and we hope that we will soon be together in a peaceful place, he said. By Zarar Khan and Munir Ahmed People Who Flew in Lion Air Jet That Crashed the Night Before Described Ride as Roller Coaster People who flew in the same Lion Air plane that crashed the night before the crash said the ride was like a roller coaster. Lion Air Flight JT610 crashed into the Java Sea on Oct. 29 with 189 people on board. Indonesian officials said no survivors are expected. The same plane flew the night before and passengers who rode from Bali to Jakarta that night described a rough ride. Alon Soetanto, one of the passengers, told Indonesian news station TVOne that the plane dropped suddenly multiple times in the first few minutes of its flight. The last non-fatal flight by the Lion Air 737 that crashed in Indonesia was a roller coaster ride of random rises and falls. pic.twitter.com/9QwqiPRriX Hugh Riminton (@hughriminton) October 31, 2018 About three to eight minutes after it took off, I felt like the plane was losing power and unable to rise. That happened several times during the flight, he said, reported SBS. We felt like in a roller coaster. Some passengers began to panic and vomit. Indonesian TV presenter Conchita Caroline, who also rode on Sundays flight, said boarding was delayed for more than an hour after a technical problem cropped up. She said once passengers got on board, they were trapped in the cabin without air conditioning for at least 30 minutes while mechanics checked the plane. She said some children on board vomited from the heat while staff members finally let them off and told them to re-board after about 30 minutes on the tarmac. Once it finally got into the air, the plane flew erratically and its airspeed readings were unreliable. At one point, it dropped 875 feet over 27 seconds. Lion Air CEO Edward Sirait said that the plane did suffer a technical problem on Sunday but claimed that it was fixed. He said it was checked again by mechanics before it took off on Monday. Crash The flight crashed into the Java Sea after the pilot had asked to return to the airport in Jakarta it had departed from. Divers were dispatched to the sea on Oct. 3,1 to try to find the black box and other crucial wreckage that will help in the investigation. We strongly believe that we have found a part of the fuselage of JT610, Hadi Tjahjanto told broadcaster TV One. Two days prior, divers found debris from the flight but not the black box. From NTD.tv Report: Pentagon Identifies 7,000 American Troops for Mexico Border The Pentagon said it has identified about 7,000 U.S. troops that could be deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Reuters. An unnamed U.S. official, who spoke to Reuters, said that the number could change. The total number of troops deployed will change each day as military forces flow into the operating area, but initial estimates indicate the Department of Defense has identified approximately 7,000 troops to support if required, Operation Faithful Patriot, the official, who was not named, told Reuters. About 2,000 of the 7,000 troops would be on standby if theyre required, the official told the news outlet. This week, the Pentagon announced the deployment of about 5,200 active-duty troops to the border in response to multiple caravans of migrants from Central America trekking across Mexico. On Oct. 31, President Donald Trump wrote that the military is being mobilized at the southern border with many more troops coming. He wrote: We will NOT let these Caravans, which are also made up of some very bad thugs and gang members, into the U.S. Our border is sacred, must come in legally. TURN AROUND! Trump also said that the caravan has very tough fighters and they fought back hard and viciously against Mexico at the Guatemala-Mexico border before they broke through. Mexican soldiers hurt, were unable, or unwilling to stop caravan. Should stop them before they reach our border, but wont! he added. NEW: Judicial Watch is reporting on the ground in Guatemala and has obtained exclusive information and photos from Guatemalan authorities revealing that they have recovered seven unaccompanied minors from human smugglers operating inside a caravan. (1/2)https://t.co/sxDUX7dHw6 Judicial Watch (@JudicialWatch) October 25, 2018 Children Being Smuggled It comes as seven children who were being smuggled by people in the caravan were rescued by Guatemalan authorities, said Judicial Watch. The children have been taken into custody and they are being provided with food, water and medical attention, according to a high-level Guatemalan government official. The smugglers have been arrested and the broader investigation into criminal activity in the caravan is ongoing, the organization wrote. The United Nations said on Oct. 26, that there were 2,300 children traveling in the first migrant caravan. While those traveling with the caravan hope for safety in numbers, the perils of using irregular migration routes remain significant, especially for children, stated the United Nations International Childrens Emergency Fund (UNICEF). It added: A Judicial Watch team, headed by Director of Investigations Chris Farrell, spent several days on the Guatemala-Honduras border covering the illegal alien caravan, which originated in the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula. The team filed a number of exclusive reports and videos and met with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales and other top government officials. The journey is long, uncertain, and full of danger, including the risk of exploitation, violence, and abuse, UNICEF said. Rising U.S. Crude Output Sparks Race to Build Export Terminals NEW YORK/HOUSTONA high-stakes competition is emerging among energy exporters proposing multi-million-dollar crude terminals along the U.S. Gulf Coast to handle a gusher of shale oil coming from West Texas oilfields. On Oct. 30, private equity firm Carlyle Group became the latest to place a bet, proposing with the Port of Corpus Christi what it said would be the first onshore U.S. export facility able to load the worlds largest crude tankers. The winners of the export terminal race likely will be those best able to navigate a regulatory process that includes multiple government approvals and overcome labor and supply shortages that have already frustrated some early projects to expand export infrastructure. The contest comes as the shale revolution is expected to send the nations oil production to 11.8 million barrels per day (bpd) by the end of 2019, from 9.35 million bpd in 2017, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Existing coastal terminals could be overwhelmed by late next year as a flurry of new pipelines come into operation and move 2 million barrels of oil landlocked in West Texas to the Gulf Coast, say oil companies and analysts. Carlyles facility, which aims to begin operations by late 2020, will compete with other Texas and Louisiana projects proposed by Swiss-trader Trafigura AG and pipeline operators Enterprise Products Partners LP and Tallgrass Energy LP. Enterprise and Trafigura have not provided timelines, noting permits must be secured first. Tallgrass says it hopes to provide an offshore crude loading terminal off the Louisiana coast by the third quarter of 2021, roughly a year behind Carlyles estimate. Each aims to fully load very large crude carriers, tankers able to carry up to 2 million barrels of oil to markets in Asia, Latin America and Europe. Most would require running pipelines away from ports and into the deeper parts of the ocean to allow loading of the larger ships. Project Hurdles All of these proposals face significant licensing and other hurdles. Like others, the Carlyle-Port of Corpus Christi project, must pass lengthy state and federal approvals. It also must await completion of an Army Corps of Engineers project that has been delayed about a year, said Sean Strawbridge, chief executive officer of the Port of Corpus Christi Authority. One of the challenges is there [is] more dredging demand than there is capacity in the United States right now, he said. For the project to hit its 2020 target date, it would have to secure permits by next spring and find dredging contractors to work immediately after finishing the Army Corps project, he said. Although shale production is expected to rise substantially, it will not fill all the proposed projects, said John Coleman, an oil market analyst at research firm Wood Mackenzie. Everyone is racing to throw their hat in the ring and get their project done before everyone else, he said. Only one or two of the five proposed offshore ports likely will be needed. Theres simply not enough oil volumes to go around. Total U.S. crude exports hit a record 3 million bpd in June, and analysts say the ceiling is around 5 million bpd, which is less than the capacity of the export terminals beings considered. You cant build all these terminals, so there is an advantage to being among the first, Sarah Emerson, managing principal at consultancy ESAI Energy LLC, said Oct. 29. By Jarrett Renshaw Seven-year-old Mark Rayer of Fairfax, Va., protests child pornography on the internet outside of the US Supreme Court Building in Washington on March 19, 1997. (TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images) Social Media and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Exploitation The buying and selling of human beings is regrettably sometimes as easy as a click on a keyboard. People, including children, are available for purchase with sexual acts as their product to sell. Traffickers target victims and make forms of payment nearly untraceable. They friend and follow potential victims through apps such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Trafficking women and children for sexual exploitation is todays fastest growing criminal enterprise. Approximately 2 million children are exploited every year in the global commercial sex trade. In Malaysia, 80 percent of victims raped by an internet acquaintance in 2015 were children between the ages of 10 and 18. In 2016, the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimated that 1 in 6 endangered runaways were likely sex trafficking victims. While the trafficking of children with the intention of sexual exploitation is a global crime, 92 percent of all child sexual abuse URLs are hosted in five countries: the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, France, and the Russian Federation. Last April, President Donald Trump signed a new anti-trafficking law. The legislation, a hybrid of the Houses FOSTA (Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act) and the Senates SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act), is aimed at curbing sex trafficking online by making it easier for federal and state prosecutors and private citizens to sue website operators whose sites have been used by traffickers. Websites will now be held liable for the content users post onto their sites and can be prosecuted if they engage in the promotion or facilitation of prostitution or facilitate traffickers in advertising the sale of unlawful sex acts with sex trafficking victims. SESTA/FOSTA is a rollback of the protections for online speech in Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act. Section 230 protected interactive computer service providers (ICSPs) from state and civil liability for criminal activities conducted by third parties on their platforms. When classified ads websites were knowingly allowing and facilitating child sex advertising, the existing legislation protected them from criminal charges. In early April, the U.S. Justice Department announced the seizure of Backpage.com, the internets leading forum for prostitution ads, including ads depicting the prostitution of children. Backpage, involved in 73 percent of cases of suspected sex trafficking in the United States, also hosted 60 percent of Canadas online adult ads. Operating in about 97 countries, Backpage was the worlds second largest classified advertising website. However, sex ads featuring children in its adult ads brought it to a U.S. Senate investigation in 2016 which found that it was facilitating and profiting from online child sex trafficking. It was also using a proxy company in the Philippines to seek out sex traffickers. SESTA/FOSTA will crack down on sex trafficking by targeting facilitating platforms. Section 230 is amended so that website operators who knowingly assist, support, or facilitate child sex trafficking can be held accountable. Opponents assert that these websites were safe spaces for adult consensual sex workers who are now at greater risk. However, SESTA/FOSTA sends a strong message to ICSPs that participating in online child sex trafficking is both immoral and illegal. Education is crucial. Knowing the indicators of child sex trafficking can help identify victims. The Polaris Project describes the signs exhibited by trafficked children. A study by the University of Toledos Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute reveals how traffickers, who are master manipulators, target and connect with children on the internet through social media. Traffickers view posts on commonly used view-and-comment sites such as Facebook, Instagram, or SnapChat, dating apps such as Tinder, Blendr, and Yellow, or webcam sites like Chatroulette and Monkey. The study describes posts that attract the trafficker and gives examples of strategic responses the predator employs to build trust and groom the child. Unscrupulous advertising/sales sites browsed by johns/sugar daddies, are named, such as Cityxguide, Skipthegames, Bedpage, Seekingarrangement.com, and Sugar-Babies.com. The 2017 documentary film, I am Jane Doe, details the fight against child sex trafficking online. Caryl Stern of UNICEF USA urges, Unless we act now to keep pace with and find innovative solutions to rapidly evolving risks online, we will leave children more vulnerable to violence, exploitation, and abuse. Children under 18 represent one in three internet users worldwide. We must put them at the heart of digital policies to end online child exploitation. David Kilgour, a lawyer by profession, served in Canadas House of Commons for almost 27 years. In Jean Chretiens Cabinet, he was secretary of state (Latin America and Africa) and secretary of state (Asia-Pacific). He is the author of several books and co-author with David Matas of Bloody Harvest: The Killing of Falun Gong for Their Organs. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. A woman watches a maska part used in wafer conceptionat a showroom of the United Microelectronics Corp (UMC) factory in Tainan, southern Taiwan on April 28, 2006. UMC is the world's second largest contract microchip maker. (Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty Images) Taiwans UMC Halts R&D Activities With Chinas Fujian Jinhua After US Ban TAIPEITaiwan chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp said it will temporarily halt research and development activities with its Chinese partner Fujian Jinhua, days after the United States cut off the state-backed firm from U.S. suppliers. U.S. President Donald Trumps administration took action on Oct. 29 to cut off Fujian Jinhua from U.S. suppliers amid allegations the firm stole intellectual property from U.S. semiconductor company Micron Technology Inc. The action against Fujian Jinhua could ignite new tensions between Beijing and Washington since the company is part of the Made in China 2025 program to develop new high-technology industries. The U.S. Commerce Department said it had put Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co Ltd on a list of entities that cannot buy components, software and technology goods from U.S. firms. UMC will follow all government regulations and temporarily hold the R&D activities we are performing for Fujian Jinhua until we are cleared to resume by the appropriate authorities, the Taiwanese company said in a statement late on Wednesday. The U.S. ordered sanctions, (so) we will follow U.S. government regulations as well, Richard Yu, head of UMCs corporate communications, told Reuters. He said UMC was not considered a supplier as the Taiwan company does not export any products to Fujian Jinhua. Attracting semiconductor expertise and talent from Taiwan has become a key part of an effort by China to put the chip industry into overdrive and reduce Beijings dependence on overseas firms for the prized chips that power everything from smartphones to military satellites. UMC and Fujian Jinhua signed a technology cooperation agreement in 2016 for UMC to develop memory-related technologies for the Chinese firm, stock exchange filings show. Jinhua will provide UMC with DRAM related equipment, as well as service fees to cover R&D expenses according to the progress of the technology development. The developed technologies will be jointly owned by both parties, a statement said. Fujian Jinhua, which is starting up a new $5.7 billion chip factory in Fujian Province, is linked to the Trump administrations accusations that China has systematically stolen and forced the transfer of American technology. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement that the Chinese firms new plant likely was the beneficiary of U.S.-origin technology and its additional production would threaten the long-term viability of U.S. chip-makers. In recent years, the Chinese regime has mainly tried to realize its economic ambitions through stealing intellectual property, forcing technology transfers in exchange for market access, subsidizing Chinese companies, and buying foreign companies to attain sensitive technologies. The worlds top two economies are already waging a tariff war over their trade disputes, with U.S. duties in place on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods and Chinese duties on $110 billion of U.S. goods. The U.S. action is similar to a Commerce Department move that nearly put Chinese telecommunications equipment company ZTE Corp out of business earlier this year by cutting it off from U.S. suppliers. ZTE, the worlds fourth-largest telecommunications equipment maker by market share, posted its worst half-year loss of 7.8 billion yuan in August due to U.S. sanctions over violations of export restrictions. Many members of Congress view ZTE as a national security threat, worrying that the use of its technology in the United States could make it easier for China to steal secrets. By Jess Macy Yu & Yimou Lee. The Epoch Times contributed to this report. Teenager Among 3 Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide in Georgia A teenager was among the three people dead in a shooting in rural Georgia near the border with Florida, officials said. The deceased were identified by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation as Caleb Logan Butts, 15; Kimberly Gayle Butts, 39; and Jan Elizabeth Kirkland, 64, in the town of Saint George. All three died from gunshot wounds. The preliminary investigation indicates that the incident is a double homicide/suicide but will be confirmed by the medical examiner, the bureau stated on Oct. 30, the day the shootings occurred. Autopsies were scheduled for Oct. 31 at the bureaus crime lab in Savannah. Its not clear who officials believe committed the murders before turning the gun on themselves. Kirkland was the mother of Kimberly and grandmother of Caleb. GBI says family members live up and down this street, very close-knit community. @FCN2go pic.twitter.com/gNzYukh27y Shelby Danielsen (@NewsShelby) October 30, 2018 Just in: GBI is calling the death investigation in Charlton County as a double Homicide/suicide. A 15yo boy, a 39yo woman & 64 yo woman were found dead in the home. @ActionNewsJax pic.twitter.com/07YtXOerkW Amber Krycka (@AmberANjax) October 30, 2018 Very sad news investigators say a family member found two women and a child dead here at this Charlton County Home. @ActionNewsJax pic.twitter.com/10lWllx6lV Amber Krycka (@AmberANjax) October 30, 2018 Dad Found Them Kimberlys father and Kirklands ex-husband, who has not been identified, found the bodies, investigators told Action News Jax. Neighbor Judy Spradley told First Coast News that her husband, a local preacher, knows the family well. Im so sorry this had to happen, but we are praying for them, said Spradley. He tried to come up here and pray with the dad but he was too upset because you know he found them like that. The dad found them. The bureau told the broadcaster that relatives of the family live on the same street. Charlton County, where the shootings occurred, is right at the Georgia-Florida border and includes eastern portions of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. The rural area had a population of approximately 12,715 as of 2017. From NTD.tv The United Nations: A Malicious Failure The United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of supportto prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invectiveto strengthen its shield of the new and the weakand to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, 1961 But if these words were intended as more than sanctimonious hyperbole, the world in 2018 is in perilous conditionand the U.N. has contributed to its status rather than alleviating it. To understand how the U.N. arrived at this point, lets look at its background. Founded in 1945 by 51 countries after World War II, the U.N. is committed to maintaining international peace and security; developing friendly relations among nations; and promoting social progress, better living standards, and human rights. The U.N. website describes its main purposes as to keep peace throughout the world; to develop friendly relations among nations; to help nations work together to improve the lives of poor people, to conquer hunger, disease and illiteracy, and to encourage respect for each others rights and freedoms; and to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations to achieve these goals. These are motherhood and apple pie objectives. More realistically, the U.N. was a victors construct designed both to preserve peace and maintain global dominance. The five original permanent Security Council members, with veto rights over all security-related action, were the Republic of China (now Peoples Republic of China), France, United Kingdom, USSR (now Russia), and the United States. In politico-military terms, this is a chandelier balance in which three or four actors can prevent aggressive action by the other(s). Despite Frances feeble national power; the civil war implosion of the Republic of China, leading to communist domination; and the British Empires terminal weakness, the system worked initially. General Assembly membership was still manageable, and Latin American allies gave the United States significant leverage. To respond to North Koreas 1950 invasion of the South, the United States orchestrated a uniting for peace General Assembly resolution which, combined with Moscows egregious error in boycotting U.N. activities, permitted the United States to create a United Nations Command to resist Pyongyang aggression. It may have been the last truly successful U.N. security-related action. On a personal note, I once was an axiomatic U.N. supporter and believed its myth. In high school, I entered and won a city-wide contest about the U.N. sponsored by the Odd Fellows fraternal order. The prize was a week in New York to visit and study the United Nations at the end of which I doubtless knew more about the U.N. than ever before or since. In ancillary tourism, I even learned who is buried in Grants Tomb. Upon returning home, the Odd Fellows hosted a meeting during which I recounted observations, and was treated to apple pie a la modea delicious first culinary experience. By the 1960s, however, times had changed. Decolonization generated a flood of countries ultimately tripling General Assembly membership, espousing political attitudes essentially hostile to U.S. interests. Throughout the 1960s, Washington beat back efforts to seat Beijing as the representative of China but was defeated in 1971. Likewise, during an extended military action in Southeast Asia, the U.N. showed no sympathy for U.S. regional objectives. It was not long before Americans viewed the U.N.s NYC presence as generating mobs of ungracious foreigners who didnt pay their parking tickets and regarded the U.N. bureaucracy as a source of cushy jobs in obscure areasprimarily paid with U.S. assessments. And, over the past generation, Washington has had special problems with the General Assembly (UNGA) and Security Council. During the past decade, UNGA relentlessly has condemned Israel for its relationship with Palestinians. In scores of resolutions, driven by the Arab-Muslim bloc, UNGA offers undifferentiated criticism of Israel while extolling Palestinian objectives. Concurrently, we defeat any Security Council resolutions criticizing Israel while not also denouncing Palestinian militant actions. Washington has also faced issues with the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Its 47 members are supposed to promote and protect human rights around the world. Membership, however, includes human rights abusers such as China, Egypt, Pakistan, Cuba, and Venezuela. Throughout its existence, it has devoted more resolutions to criticizing Israel than of all other countries combined. On June 19, 2018, the United States withdrew from UNHRC accusing it of bias against Israel and failure to hold human rights abusers accountable. Essentially, Washington has given up on the United Nations; it is a ritualized talk shop for exchanging insults rather than accomplishing security-related objectives. In 1994, as a recess-appointed U.N. Ambassador, John Bolton said, The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories If it lost ten stories, it wouldnt make a bit of difference. Now National Security adviser, Boltons views presumably havent changed. David T. Jones is a retired U.S. State Department senior foreign service career officer who has published several hundred books, articles, columns, and reviews on U.S.Canadian bilateral issues and general foreign policy. During a career that spanned over 30 years, he concentrated on politico-military issues, serving as adviser for two Army chiefs of staff. Among his books is Alternative North Americas: What Canada and the United States Can Learn from Each Other. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Trump Ignites Debate on Anchor Baby Phenomenon WASHINGTONPresident Donald Trump said on Oct. 29 that he plans to remove birthright citizenship via an executive order, setting up another contentious court battle. Birthright citizenship is the practice of granting full citizenship to anyone born in the United States, including those born to parents who are in the country illegally, on a temporary visa, or as tourists. It is blamed for being a magnet for birth tourism, and for igniting chain migration through anchor babies. Between 200,000 and 300,000 babies are born to illegal aliens and non-residents every year, equaling about 7 percent of all births in the United States, according to Pew Research Center estimates using Census Bureau data. Were the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States with all of those benefits, the president told Axios. Its ridiculous. Its ridiculous. And it has to end. There is controversy about whether birthright citizenship is guaranteed under the 14th Amendment, which states, in part, All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. Trump said he had always been told hed need a constitutional amendment to make the change. Guess what? You dont, he said. The sticking point is the subject to the jurisdiction thereof portion of the 14th Amendment, which was first interpreted by the Supreme Court in the 1873 slaughterhouse cases, relating to citizenship of African-Americans, but has never been interpreted regarding illegal aliens. The majority opinion in 1873 said, The phrase, subject to its jurisdiction was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States. But, the ACLU, quick to respond to Trumps proposal, said eliminating birthright citizenship would breach the Constitution. The president cannot erase the Constitution with an executive order, and the 14th Amendments citizenship guarantee is clear, Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLUs Immigrants Rights Project, said in an Oct. 30 statement. This is a transparent and blatantly unconstitutional attempt to sow division and fan the flames of anti-immigrant hatred in the days ahead of the midterms. Jessica Vaughan, policy director at Center for Immigration Studies, said the issue isnt so clear-cut, and she welcomes Trumps executive order to kick off a debate. Birthright citizenship has long been treated as a sacred cow, when, in fact, there are legitimate legal questions about how we have interpreted it in many different scenarios, she said. Its an issue that many people have recognized as a problem for a long time, but nobody could agree on how best to approach it. Its important that President Trump took this step to force a public discussionand, hopefully, lead to greater clarity. Vaughan said the likely pathway to resolution will be through the courts, ending at the Supreme Court. She said Trump likely chose his timing to follow the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Having Kavanaugh in place certainly helps the stars get aligned in a way that most people believe would be a resolution of this more to the presidents liking, she said. Vaughan said birthright citizenship is a huge incentive for illegal immigration and is a drain on taxpayers. Families living illegally in the United States, but that have a U.S.-born child, can be eligible for programs such as Medicaid, public housing benefits, food stamps, and other welfare programswhich indirectly benefit the whole family. And, of course, theres the other, crazy birth tourism industry, where people come from abroad simply to have a baby here and be able to leave with a U.S. passport for that baby, Vaughan said. A lot of people see that as diluting U.S. citizenship. Most Americans feel that there should be some connection that citizens have to their countryits not just a matter of having a convenient travel document. Anchor Babies A labor and delivery nurse in a small Central Ohio practice told The Epoch Times last year that she deals with the anchor baby issue at least every month, especially with Africans and Asians. You come over at about 36 weeks gestation, you stay here, you make sure you birth your baby here, you get your birth certificate, you go back to your country, she said. Theyre not even wanting to stay here, thats not the point. They want that birth certificate. Because whats going to happen when theyre 18? Hes going to come over here and be the minority and get an education and get anything he wants. The nurse also noted issues with medical bill payment, which she said often falls back to taxpayers, once the mother gives birth and the family returns to their home country. Vaughan said cracking open the issue is exciting. This is no longer going to be a theoretical debate, or a topic for dissertationsthis is going to be a real policy debate and legal debate, that will be decided on in some way, she said. It may not be entirely satisfying or even complete, but well be further along. Only 30 of the worlds 195 countries give universal birthright citizenship, with the United States and Canada being the only two developed economies that offer it. Many nations in the past several decades have moved away from giving citizenship to everyone born within their borders, including the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Ireland. John Eastman, a constitutional scholar and director of Chapman Universitys Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, told Axios that it wasnt until the 1960s that citizenship was conferred upon children born in the United States to non-residents or illegal aliens. Eastman told The Epoch Times that the change was not precipitated by an executive order, congressional action, or court decision. Near as I have been able to determine, a bureaucrat changed the form in the passport office to exclude questions about a childs parental status at his birth, he said in an email. That had previously been a key part of the passport application, which required proof of citizenship. Congressional Action Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wrote on Twitter that he plans to introduce legislation along the same lines as Trumps proposed executive order. Finally, a president willing to take on this absurd policy of birthright citizenship, Graham wrote on Oct. 30. Ive always supported comprehensive immigration reformand at the same timethe elimination of birthright citizenship. Graham said the policy is a magnet for illegal immigration out of the mainstream of the developed world, and needs to come to an end. Once a child born in the United States to illegal immigrants turns 18, he or she can sponsor an overseas spouse and any unmarried children. Once 21, he or she can also sponsor parents and siblings, who, in turn, can sponsor their unmarried children, parents, and siblings down the road. According to a Center for Immigration Studies report, legislation to end birthright citizenship has been introduced by Democrats and Republicans alike in every Congress since at least 1993, when Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) introduced a bill to limit birthright citizenship. At the time, Reid said on the Senate floor: If making it easy to be an illegal alien isnt enough, how about offering a reward for being an illegal immigrant? No sane country would do that, right? Guess again. If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship. And guarantee of full access to all public and social services this society providesand thats a lot of services. Is it any wonder that two-thirds of the babies born at taxpayer expense at county-run hospitals in Los Angeles are born to illegal alien mothers? Two in Migrant Caravan Wanted for Murder, Drug TraffickingDeported by Mexico Mexican authorities identified two fugitives in the migrant caravan thats working its way north to the United States through Mexico. Mexicos Federal Police, the National Migration Institute, the Honduran National Police, and Interpol cooperated in the identification and arrest of the men, according to the countrys Secretary of Interior. Immigration officials detained the two men at separate immigration checkpoints in the state of Chiapas and deported them to Honduras. One man, identified as Adin Josue, 21, was wanted for drug trafficking. The other, Juan Carlos, 47, was wanted for his probable relationship in the murder of three people, the secretary said in a statement. The Government of Mexico defines migrants as a vulnerable population that needs and must receive support and protection, the statement read. Thus, it has acted out of conviction and compliance with the Constitution, as well as being committed to justice and not allowing, under the protection of humanitarian actions, people who justifiably face justice for crimes in their countries, to take advantage of this circumstance to achieve impunity. Criminals and Gang Members Officials across multiple countries have confirmed there are criminals and gang members that are part of the three migrant caravans currently heading north to the southern border of the United States. The first caravan includes gang members and people with significant criminal histories, U.S. Homeland Security Department spokesman Tyler Houlton said earlier in October. Human smugglers were caught smuggling seven children in the caravan, according to Guatemalan authorities. Additionally, dozens of migrants have admitted to various news agencies that theyre attempting to reenter the United States after having been previously deported, which is a felony crime, such as one who said that he was convicted of attempted murder and deported. Some reporters have spotted migrants with the MS tattoo, signaling they are members of the violent MS-13 gang. Troops to Border, Tent Cities The deportations of the criminals came as thousands of troops were dispatched to the U.S.-Mexico border by President Donald Trumps administration in a move dubbed Operation Faithful Patriot. Trump also said this week that he will have tent cities built at the southern border to help process those who are caught entering the United States. Were gonna build tent cities, Trump said. Were gonna put tents up all over the place; were not going to build structures and spend all of this, you know, hundreds of millions of dollarswere going to have tents. Theyre going to be very nice. From NTD.tv Yemeni soldiers loyal to the Shiite Huthi rebels during a parade in the capital Sanaa on Oct. 16, 2018. (Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty Images) US Calls For Yemen Ceasefire, Talks Within 30 Days The U.S. Secretaries of State and Defense called for the cessation of hostilities in Yemen and for talks between opposing forces in a civil war that has raged on for over three years. It is time to end this conflict, replace conflict with compromise, and allow the Yemeni people to heal through peace and reconstruction, State Secretary Mike Pompeo said in an Oct. 30 statement. He called on all parties to support a peace effort of U.N. Special Envoy Martin Griffiths, saying substantive consultations must commence this November in a third country to implement confidence-building measures to address the underlying issues of the conflict, the demilitarization of borders, and the concentration of all large weapons under international observation. Defense Secretary James Mattis addressed the issue during a discussion at the U.S. Institute of Peace on Oct. 30. Were calling on all the partiesspecifically the Houthis and the Arab Coalitionto meet in Sweden in November and come to a solution, he said. He urged the parties not talk about subordinate issues like what town theyre going to meet in, or what size the table is they meet around, but talk about demilitarizing the border so that the Saudis and the Emirates do not have to worry about missiles coming into their homes and cities and airports. Civil War The Yemen civil war, reaching back to 2015, has caused a humanitarian crisis with more than 8 million people on the brink of starvationnearly a third of the countrys population, according to the U.N. The main conflict was started by the Houthi insurgents against the administration of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. The Houthis accused Hadi of selling out to an American-Jewish-Arab conspiracy, while Hadi accused the Houthis of being pawns of Iran. The United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other allies back the Hadi government and blame Iran for fueling the conflict. Iran denies supporting the Houthis, but in 2016 the U.S. Navy seized a large shipment of Iranian weapons that the Pentagon said was likely headed for Yemen, Fox News reported. The Saudis have also produced remnants of missiles and drones they say Iran provided to the Houthis. Right now, what the Iranians have done by bringing in missiles is interrupted freedom of navigation, Mattis said. Theyre the ones that keep fueling this conflict, and theyre the ones that need to knock it off. Both sides of the conflict oppose Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a terrorist group that controls a part of Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis have at times paid off AQAP troops to leave without a fight or even recruited AQAP fighters, The Associated Press reported in August. The United States sells weapons to the Saudi coalition and provides intelligence, airstrike targeting support, training, and mid-air refueling for the coalition forces. Iran Under Pressure The call for a ceasefire comes days before the United States re-imposes sanctions against Irans oil industry on Nov. 4. President Donald Trump ordered the sanctions in May following the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. The deal was to postpone Irans development of nuclear weapons. Part of the reason Trump tossed the deal was because it didnt address a plethora of other issues the United States has with Iran, including its development of ballistic missiles, detaining Americans, and support of terrorist groups and militias including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. [Iran] may do it through proxies as they do it so often in the Middle East, but they do not escape accountability for what theyre doing through proxies and surrogate forces. We still will hold them accountable, Mattis said. Terms of Ceasefire Pompeo said the Yemen ceasefire should start with ending missile and UAV [Unmanned Aerial Vehicle] strikes from Houthi-controlled areas into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Subsequently, Coalition air strikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen, he said. Mattis said he will also push to ensure that all the missiles that Iran has provided to the Houthis are put under international watch in parts somewhere where they can be accounted [for]. He said the United States and like-minded countries are looking to set the conditions for a return to traditional areas inside Yemen and a government that allows for this amount of local autonomy that Houthis or southerners want. The U.N. was proposing a similar solution in 2014, but the Houthis didnt like that their autonomous region didnt have access to an equal portion of natural resources, like the sea and the oil fields, the AFP reported. U.N. Special Envoy Griffiths welcomed the call for a ceasefire in an Oct. 31 release. He urged all concerned parties to seize this opportunity to resume talks, in particular on enhancing the capacities of the Central Bank of Yemen, the exchange of prisoners and the re-opening of Sanaa airport. We remain committed to bring the Yemeni parties to the negotiations table within a month, he said. U.S. President Donald Trump (L) and Vietnam's President Tran Dai Quang attend a welcoming ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi on November 12, 2017. (KHAM/AFP/Getty Images) Vietnamese Presidents Sudden Death Cause Speculation, Uncertainty Over South China Sea Amid worsening relations between China and the United States over trade and defense issues, Vietnam becomes part of the complicated conflict over the South China Sea. This was exacerbated by the sudden and mysterious death of Vietnamese president Tran Dai Quang in September. Many have speculated over the cause of Quangs death, whether it was from an illness or an unnatural cause brought about by political struggle. Vietnams proximity to the South China Sea gives it an important strategic position and makes it an important player in disputes with China over territorial claims. Vietnam also fought a border war with China in 1979. The meeting between U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Vietnam Communist Party Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong in the capital city of Hanoi on Oct. 16 aimed at strengthening ties between the United States and Vietnam, and countering Chinas military assertiveness in the South China Sea. Tran Dai Quang died on Sept. 21 at the age of 61. The Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) officially claimed that he died from a are and serious viral disease at a military hospital in Hanoi, and the disease could not be cured. Before Quang died, he disappeared from public view and his absence from important state events caused wide speculation. Many wondered if his disappearance was caused by a rare disease, from being toppled by political rival Party Secretary General Trong, or from being poisoned while he was on a state visit in China last year, Asia Times reported on Sept. 21. The Vietnamese regimes attitude towards the top leaders death was highly unusual for the communist country. Less than two hours after Quang passed away, the VCP officials immediately announced his death and provided information about the state funeral over official mediathis move was unprecedented as detailed information of top leaders was always considered top secret in the VCPs history. Quangs illness was shrouded in mystery. The VCP did not disclose the type of illness, only that it was incurable. State news media quoted government doctor Nguyen Quoc Trieu saying that Quang was diagnosed with an unknown illness in July 2017 and he had received six treatments in Japan. The Japanese media alluded to possible causes of death. Quang was diagnosed with the mysterious illness right after a summit visit in China from May 11 to 15, 2017. After the visit, Quang stayed away from the public for one month since July 25, 2017, which many suspect was due to a health problem or a political struggle, the Nikkei Asian Review reported on Aug. 28, 2017. The VCP left some important questions unanswered. Quang was in good health before he was diagnosed with a fatal disease. How was it possible for Quang to catch a deadly illness after his visit to China? Why did Quang go to Japan for medical treatment instead of neighboring communist China? The VCP leaders of the past have set a precedent for seeking medical treatment from China. After Quangs death, Party Secretary General Trong, 74, was nominated as the president and is expected to be approved by the National Assembly. Vietnam expert Carl Thayer wrote in January that Quang was likely to be selected as general secretary if Trong retired before the end of his five-year term, reported the New York Times on Sept. 21. Quang was regarded as pro-America and Trong pro-China. If Quang had not died and took the general secretary position from Trong, Vietnam would likely join the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy and help curb the Chinese Communist Partys expansion in the region. The Indo-Pacific Strategy is a $113 million initiative for new technology, energy, and infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific region and the economic pillar for the Trump administration. The South China Sea region is the core area of the Indo-Pacific Strategy, and Vietnam is located at strategic position. The CCP is concerned that the Southeast Asian countries, such as India, Vietnam, and Taiwan, will join the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy to contain Chinas growing influence. The purpose of the U.S. Defense Ministers visits to Vietnam this year is to strengthen military cooperation between the United States and Vietnam. However, Quangs death makes the South China Sea situation uncertain. Epoch Times staff member He Jian contributed to this report. Najin (L) and Fatu, the only two remaining northern white rhinos graze together at the ol-Pejeta conservancy in Nanyuki, north of capital Nairobi on March 20, 2018. (Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images) World Wildlife Fund Report: 60 Percent Drop in Global Animal Populations Humans have killed about 60 percent of animals, including mammals, fish, birds, and reptiles, on the planet since 1970, according to a report from the conservation organization World Wildlife Fund. The 2018 Living Planet Report, produced jointly by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL,) says that habitat loss and degradation, overfishing, pollution, and soil degradation have resulted in 60 percent drop in the populations of non-human vertebrate life forms. The report warns that humanity depends on an intricate web of species, and the more holes which people poke in that web, the greater the chance of that web failing. Humans are in effect cutting the strings of their own safety net. We are sleepwalking towards the edge of a cliff, Mike Barrett, executive director of science and conservation at WWF, told The Guardian. If there was a 60% decline in the human population, that would be equivalent to emptying North America, South America, Africa, Europe, China and Oceania. That is the scale of what we have done. This is far more than just being about losing the wonders of nature, desperately sad though that is, he said. This is actually now jeopardizing the future of people. Nature is not a nice to haveit is our life-support system. WWF and various other organizations have been collaborating on an annual Living Planet report since 1998. The 20th anniversary edition contains some eye-opening information about the impact the human race has had on our planet. Economic Impact of Unsustainable Use of Resources The report describes itself as a science-based assessment of the health of our planet. More than 50 experts from academia, policy, international development and conservation organizations contributed to the report (PDF). The Living Planet Report 2018 provides a platform for the best science, cutting-edge research, and diverse voices on the impact of humans on the health of our Earth. The report begins by addressing the economic impact that environmental degradation and species lossthe two go hand-in-handhas already had and is predicted to continuing having on the worlds economies. From the supply of raw materials, water, food, medicines and energy, to the pollination of crops, formation of soils and protection from floods, storms, and erosion, the planets natural systems provide a range of vital services that underpin production, trade, livelihoods, and consumption in every country, the report states. The nature conservation agenda is not only about securing the future of tigers, pandas, whales, WWFs International Director, Marco Lambertini, says in the reports introduction. Its bigger than that. Our day-to-day life, health, and livelihoods depend on a healthy planet. Eye-Opening Information Living Planet collated data from efforts to track 16,704 populations of 4,005 different species of vertebrates around the world. The report is a summary of all this data collected from 1970 through to 2014the last year for which all the data has been processed. This data has been compiled into The Living Planet Index, showing shocking population declines across land, sea, and air since 1970. On land, the Tropical and Equatorial regions have been hardest hit. This part of the globe, which the report calls the Neotropical region including South and Central America and the Caribbean, has seen an 89 percent loss in vertebrate wildlife in the 44-year-span from 1970 to 2014. The deforestation of land as it is cleared for agriculture, development, and non-sustainable logging is likely the biggest contributor to the losses suffered in this region. Freshwater habitats have suffered a loss that is almost as severe as in the Neotropical zones. Over-fishing is the chief culprit, followed by pollution. The decline of freshwater aquatic wildlife reached 83 percent in 2014. The news is not terrible on every front though. In some areas, successful conservation efforts have managed to preserve individual species or populations, such as tigers in India, or bears and wolves in parts of North America and northern Europe. From NTD.tv Watch Next: Why is Falun Gong Persecuted? Although its freely practiced in over 70 countries, doing this in China can lead to unlawful arrest, imprisonment, torture, or even death. A Chinese trader yawns as she waits on customers at her stall selling wholesale dolls at the Yiwu International Trade City in Yiwu County, Zhejiang Province, on Sept. 24, 2015. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) Worlds Largest Wholesale Market Is Shrinking Amid Chinas Economic Woes Yiwu County in Zhejiang Province is part and parcel of Chinas reputation as a manufacturing powerhouse. After all, the small city houses the worlds largest wholesale market for small commodities, according to official pronouncements by the United Nations and World Bank in 2005. The Yiwu International Trade City operates like a mega-warehouse, where vendors representing factories from all over China sell their waresmostly inexpensive household items such as shoes, toys, hardware, and clothingto customers from around the world. The 4-million-square-meter (about 43 million square feet) Trade City has room for 75,000 vendors within five shopping districts. But this once hustle-and-bustle hub is now shrinking as more and more merchants exit, vendors told the Chinese-language Epoch Times. There are various reasons for the decline in businessdemonstrated vividly in photos that netizens recently posted online of the Trade City, looking barren and deserted. For one, the Trade Citys second district sent out a notice on Oct. 16 notifying vendors that their rents will be going up. A jewelry vendor in the Trade Citys fourth district, Ms. Liu, told The Epoch Times that rent is roughly 300,000 yuan (about $43,000) per year for a 20-square-meter (215 square foot) storefront. In the jewelry district, for a nice storefront taxes would be roughly 100,000 yuan [about $14,300]. Business is really hard. Its been very quiet around here, she said. Zhejiang China Commodities City Group Co., the publicly listed company that operates Trade City, released a report in April with the latest numbers: Cash flow from operations declined by 7.5 billion yuan ($1.07 billion) year-on-year. A business manager in the handicraft industry, who frequently travels to Yiwu for business, told The Epoch Times that a downturn in Yiwu started about three years ago. The export volume of small commodities dropped by about 60 percent between 2013 and 2015. Its mostly because the overall economy wasnt good. It continued going down. Plus, there were some policies put out by the authoritiesand the current trade war, too, said the business manager, who only identified himself by his surname, Lu. According to statistics released by Zhejiang China Commodities City Group, the Trade City saw about an average of 1,039 stores close monthly from September 2014 to August 2016, while adding only about 700 new stores during that period. A former commodities trader, Mr. Chen said business has been lackluster because the Trade City keeps adding vendors who sell similar goodsresulting in overlap. Meanwhile, a string of government regulations has further restricted business. Last year, Chinese authorities launched a crackdown on environmental pollution by auditing factories across the country. In August, Zhejiang factories involved in environmentally impactful manufacturing activities, such as die-casting, painting, plating, and printing were shuttered in order to comply with government regulations. Because these factories supplied parts to hardware and jewelry vendors, many were forced out of business. Others believed it was the advent of e-commerce that has rendered the Yiwu Trade City obsolete. Mr. Ji, who works in the handicraft business, said there were more customers who visited the Yiwu shops to look at goods before e-commerce became a popular platform. Now, my old customers all make orders directly through the phone or the computer. Its no wonder the Trade City is empty these days, he said. Meanwhile, the Chinese regime has been pushing policies to upgrade its manufacturing sector to produce higher-tech devices, instead of cheap goods. China has lost its competitive edge as the worlds factory as laborer wages, taxes, property prices, and other production costs increase. Many companies have begun moving their production lines out of China and into Southeast Asia or back home. Epoch Times reporter Yi Ru contributed to this report. Imagine being a publicly-traded or successfully raising millions of capital to begin a startup in the U.S., without hardly any way to market yourselves efficiently. Crazy, right? But this is exactly where we are within the cannabis space -- media giants, such as Google, Facebook, and others will not allow the advertising of legal cannabis. This has to change. With cannabis stocks on the rise and revenue estimates in the billions, it's time we recognize the robust need to allow cannabis brands to advertise. This is necessary not only for the purposes of increasing sales, but also for providing a platform to educate and deliver factually relevant information to the public and consumers. The government and the media must find common ground to deliver on a solution. Conversations need to be had in order for consumers to be able to make responsible and informed decisions. Should the uncertainty continue surrounding advertising regulations and compliance, Google, Facebook, and other advertising powerhouses will remain apprehensive about entering this legitimate growing industry otherwise. Related: Facebook Has 'Shadow Banned' Marijuana Businesses The problem In the United States, cannabis is still considered illegal at a Federal level. This has led to many unanswered questions regarding advertising regulations and how to remain compliant. Each state generally has their own set of guidelines with which a company must comply. For example, advertisements in California may contain promotional offers, while in Washington State they cannot. Businesses must make sure they are not crossing state lines with their messaging, and their target audiences must be of legal age. Although there has been some progress on a state level, the air of uncertainty and caution will endure in advertising as long as cannabis is defined as an illegal drug in the United States. The opportunity While cannabis companies continue to paddle through the murky waters of regulations, ad-tech and data are poised to play a major role in guiding those companies and expanding their horizons to market and target effectively. Cannabis companies are eager and enthusiastic to learn that there are highly-credible ad-tech alternatives at their disposal. These ad-tech companies are working with cannabis brands because they are confident that their guidance would both benefit their businesses and ensure they are following regulations. Ad-tech companies now have the capability to determine how, when, where and who should be targeted for a specific advertisement. With location analytics, the industry can build audiences explicitly targeting a compliant cannabis consumer like never before, while removing the risk of reaching an underage audience. By utilizing the technology, it will allow cannabis companies to have a public voice. Related: 12 Cutting-Edge Marijuana Marketing Tactics That Work With tech giants currently treading lightly and shying away from cannabis, smaller ad-tech companies have the opportunity to fill the void and offer mainstream advertising to an industry that previously did not have the ability to reach their audiences. Whether it is government regulations or the unfortunate stigma that comes with cannabis, power players, such as Google and Facebook, will likely let the dust settle before allowing cannabis to advertise on their platforms. As a result, there is an evident void in cannabis advertising that has allowed a select few advertising platforms to welcome these companies with open arms. But beware of the snake oil salesmen. Companies should do their homework before spending advertising dollars with any agency or platform. Educate yourself, look to see if they have references and with whom they are currently working. Just as you cannot put toothpaste back in the tube, you cannot derail the cannabis legalization train. The continually emerging cannabis space is fresh with new ideas and driven individuals and is definitely here to stay. Now is the time for a cannabis company to advertise and differentiate themselves in an ever-growing market. The lack of resources will only hinder growth and affect both the U.S. and Canadian economies. While Google and Facebook arent so high on cannabis, there are other ad-tech players that are. Related: How One Marijuana Marketer Keeps on Facebook's Good Side Related: AnyMind Group Raises Funding To Drive Growth Across The Advertising Industry Facebook and Google Are Not So High On Cannabis How to Navigate the Murky Waters of Taking a Stand on Social Issues Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved Contributed / Contributed Photo WESTPORT A Lexington, Ky., man was arrested on charges of second-degree assault and disorderly conduct after punching a man in the face outside a Hillspoint Road home, police said. On Aug. 23, a victim went to police headquarters to report an assault occured at the Hillspoint home over a month earlier on July 2. The victim reported Ian Pearsoon, 19, and a friend were asked to leave the home multiple times. The victim and another person then escorted Pearson and his friend off the property, at which time a verbal argument took place during which Pearson punched the victim in the face, police said. NORWALK Theres a sign on the top of the hill of Oyster Shell Park, overlooking the Norwalk Harbor, with views of the the Maritime Aquarium and East Norwalk, instructing visitors to observe whats all around you and then maybe write a poem of your own. The sign was installed over the summer, and on it is a photograph and biography of Laurel Peterson, who, beginning in 2016, was Norwalks first poet laureate. One of her primary responsibilities, the sign says, was to make poetry accessible to the public, and shes proud of the way in which the sign encourages thoughtfulness in those who read it. Our goal was to make it more inclusive for people thinking about how to appreciate in detail whats around them, Peterson said Wednesday afternoon, standing near the sign in the park. After three years in the position, Peterson is nearing the end of her term as Norwalkss unpaid poet laureate. Mayor Harry Rilling announced last week that the search for Petersons replacement had begun and that the next laureate would be announced in April 2019. Its an amicable break between Peterson and the city. Its time for somebody else to have a shot at it and bring their voice to Norwalk, Peterson said. Peterson, a Redding native, had been consumed by not just poetry, but writing in general, as a form of therapy since she was a teenager. Isnt misery what always causes people to start with art? Middle school was horrible, high school wasnt much better, Peterson said with a laugh, remembering her early interest. She studied psychology as an undergraduate, but ultimately got her Master of Fine Arts from Manhattanville College, and was influenced at different points in her life by the work of Mark Doty, Billy Collins, Anne Sexton and Tracy K. Smith the 52nd poet laureate of the U.S., who Peterson helped to bring to Norwalk in May. Prior to her appointment, Peterson began teaching English at Norwalk Community College in 1998 and moved to Norwalk in 2005, but she didnt feel immersed in the community. When a friend notified Peterson that the city was looking for its first poet laureate, she decided to apply. I think when I took the job, I took it partly because I wanted the experience of becoming a more integral part of a community, Peterson said. Peterson outlined her interests and the ways in which she would engage the community in the role, many of which involved collaboration across mediums, and using the art form that had been her solace in difficult times to bring people together. After three years, she remains most proud of her work with other Norwalk artists. Be the next Norwalk poet laureate Submit an application by Dec. 31 or nominate someone else at norwalkpl.org. See More Collapse She wrote poems in response to the songs of local musician Jim Clark. She partnered with the students at Stephanie Kunkels Norwalk dance studio, who choreographed routines based on poetry. Peterson wrote verse based on the paintings of seaweed by Rowayton artist Lynn Stephens Massey (That was a challenge, Peterson said with a laugh). And she recently participated in the recording of a spoken word album with the help of Factory Underground. She also oversaw the Poets in Conversation series at Norwalk Library, in which she brought in artists monthly to speak about their work. I think one of the reasons for the Poets in Conversation that Ive been doing at the library is to offer people the opportunity to not only hear the work, but to hear the writers talk about it in an environment thats not really threatening, Peterson said. She aimed to demystify the art form, not just to encourage creativity in people, but also because she believes its an important skill for people to learn at a time when language is often twisted and maligned. In the political environment were in, language has become this thing, this weapon thats being used against us, Peterson said. As a poet, I think, its really important that we train people to look closely at language and what its doing and how its impacting you. I think being able to read a poem is good that way. Peterson describes herself as a lyric poet, and she has often written ekphrastic poetry, a form in which the writer vividly describes another work of art. Shes also published fiction and academic work and is currently working on two collections of poetry. In one, Peterson draws on astronomy as a metaphor for human experience. The other collection is filled with persona poems, in which she channels an outspoken alter-ego named Charlene. Somebody said the other day at a reading I was at, that when they got stuck on the fiction, they wrote poetry, and when they got stuck on the poetry, they wrote fiction, Peterson said. They feed each other. After her term, Peterson is not sure to what degree shell remain involved with the citys Arts Commission, if shell assist her successor in any way, or if some of the programs shes initiated, like Poets in Conversation, will continue. But she hopes her work has encouraged at least some to take in their surroundings and write a poem. Its connected me with people that I would not have otherwise met, who care about the kinds of things that I care about, Peterson said. Norwalk has done a really nice job of creating a strong arts community, and its been a pleasure to be a part of that. justin.papp@scni.com; @justinjpapp1; 203-842-2586 NORWALK Proactive development, more transportation choices, improved schools, open space protection and preservation of historic resources are among the key concepts of Norwalks unfolding Master Plan of Conservation and Development. On Tuesday evening, members of the POCD Oversight Committee and Common Council reviewed a working draft of the new master plan during a joint meeting at City Hall. David S. Davidson, a city planning commissioner on the oversight committee, praised the draft for its detail but faulted it for not prioritizing its many recommendations. Youve got all those actions and, unfortunately, theyre not prioritized, Davidson said. So we have a serious problem with implementation because ... you have 52 assignments in here. Which ones are you going to work on in 2019? Michael G. Mushak, a fellow planning commissioner on the oversight committee, however, said it shouldnt be the job of Stantec, the consultant helping draft the plan, to prioritize the individual action items within it. No matter who you talk to, youre going to get a different list of priorities, Mushak said. Im happy to see all the action items. I think its up to us who live here to decide what the priorities are and not have a consultant from Massachusetts, with all due respect, tell us what our priorities should be. Planning Commissioner Nora K. King, also on the oversight committee, asked that the plan be more solution-oriented and used as an example some residents suggestion for a school on Manresa Island now home to a decommissioned power plant. I was very intrigued by that whole idea of putting a school out there to educate people on marine biology, King said. Norwalk Fair Housing Officer Margaret K. Suib, also on the oversight committee, praised the draft plan for placing on emphasis on the citys diversity but added the final document should also reference economic diversity. State law requires municipalities to update their master plans at least once every 10 years. Norwalks current master plan was approved in 2008, making a revision or replacement due in 2018. The new master plan will guide decision making regarding housing, transit, recreation, infrastructure, conservation, parking, the environment, schools, governance, public safety, employment, urban design, natural resources and more, according to Norwalk Director of Planning and Zoning Steve Kleppin. Tuesday evenings joint meeting came as Stantec works to refine the draft plan before the Planning Commission schedules a public hearing. The commission will adopt the final plan sometime next year following input from the council. Right now, were hoping that we can turn a draft and get that out to the public, hopefully sometime toward the end of next month (December), Kleppin said. At that point, it will be available for the public to comment on and were targeting a Planning Commission public hearing, hopefully, in January. After a presentation by Stantec Principal Larissa Brown and input from council and oversight committee members, Kleppin invited comment from roughly a dozen residents who attended the meeting in the Community Room. Jason Milligan, a commercial real-estate developer, described the draft plan as thoughtful but said it does nothing to help small businesses navigate the citys zoning regulations and affiliated application costs. Hes been trying to bring a dentist to his property at 97 Wall St. She works in Westport for a number of years. Shes ready to branch out on her own, Milligan said. But it would have taken several months, it would have cost her more than six months of rent to apply and theres no guarantee that she would be approved to put a dentist on the first floor. Lisa Brinton, former Norwalk mayoral candidate, agreed and linked filling vacant storefronts to paying for education. Youll never be able to fund schools unless you have businesses in town, Brinton said. For more information about Norwalks Master Plan of Conservation and Development, visit tomorrow.norwalkct.org. Walter Coles Sr. stood on a hill overlooking the Virginia pasture land that his family has farmed since it was deeded to them by Thomas Jefferson, motioning with a sweep of his hand to the expanse of radioactive treasure buried below. "There's uranium everywhere," Coles said of fields that had once been filled with tobacco. In fact, his land holds the largest-known deposit of uranium in the U.S., an estimated 119 million pounds that could displace imports that constitute more than 90 percent of the uranium used by the nation's nuclear power plants. But the cache, once valued at $6 billion, can't be mined. The Virginia legislature, after the Three Mile Island nuclear power station meltdown in 1979, imposed a moratorium on mining uranium in the state. But Coles is fighting the legality of the ban through Virginia Uranium Inc., a company he formed with some Canadian investors. The case has made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where arguments will be heard on Nov. 5. The case has drawn the support of the Trump administration-which is considering slapping a tariff on imported uranium-and has put Virginia in the bull's-eye of a national debate about energy security, nuclear power and the environment. It has also pitted neighbor against neighbor and husband against wife in the rural community 30 miles from the North Carolina border in Pittsylvania County. "We don't need uranium mining around here," said Charlie Atkins, a 57-year-old landscaper from the nearby town of Gretna (population 1,250). "Who's going to pay the price if there's an accident? The people that live around here. It's going to kill us all." His wife, Alice, said she's less worried about the risks. "We do need some more places to open up around here for jobs," she said as the two prepared to tuck into lunch at a local burger joint. "Everything is a risk, I guess." Environmental groups have long opposed the project-which would be the only uranium mine in the eastern U.S. They've been joined by lawmakers from as far away as Raleigh, North Carolina, who have expressed concern that radioactive waste could poison the state's drinking water and contaminate popular fishing and boating sites. A study commissioned several years ago by the city of Virginia Beach raised the possibility of radiation from mine waste flowing downstream and contaminating the city's drinking water supply in the event of a catastrophic storm. Virginia Uranium has dismissed that study, saying the assumptions in it are flawed. "The whole thing is an environmental disaster," said Will Cleveland, a staff attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, a nonprofit legal group that filed a brief opposing Virginia Uranium's efforts. "You've got acid mine wash. You've got particulate matter thrown in the air. It's a massive industrial operation in the middle of a farm." A National Academies of Sciences report on lifting the moratorium, which was commissioned by the Virginia State Legislature, concluded in 2011 that "there are steep hurdles to be surmounted" before uranium mining can be done safely. The study, which lawmakers barred from making a recommendation on the project, said "rigorous implementation" of best practices would be needed if mining were to move forward in the state. Coles said the study shows that mining could be done safely and that radioactive waste could be stashed in lined underground storage cells to prevent groundwater contamination. "There are just so many places where it's been done safely," said Coles, 80, with the hint of a Southern drawl. The mine would bring hundreds of jobs and tax revenue to an area that's yet to recover from the decline in tobacco farming and textile manufacturing. "It's a great benefit to the community in the long term and in the short term," Coles said. The Coles family first learned of the buried riches on their property in the 1970s when a crew from the Marline Uranium Corp. detected the potential for uranium after surveying the area by helicopter. A Geiger counter accidentally left on in their pickup truck let them know when they reached the right spot. After initial efforts to mine the site faltered, Coles and his son, Walter Coles Jr., who was then an investment banker in New York, started Virginia Uranium in 2007, after uranium prices skyrocketed. A lobbying effort by the company to have the state ban overturned included flying lawmakers to see uranium mines in France and Canada. That effort effectively ended after then-Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, announced his opposition to ending the uranium mining ban days after his election in 2014. Uranium is a ubiquitous element with traces embedded in minerals all over the world. But it usually isn't found in concentrations that make it economically viable to mine. The uranium at the Coles Hill deposit is set in granite ore, and plans call for it to be harvested using a conventional underground mine, though that's subject to approval by regulators, said Julie Rautio, a Virginia Uranium spokeswoman. The legal argument in the case centers around a 1954 law known as the Atomic Energy Act, which grants authority over milling and radioactive mine waste known as tailings to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Virginia says the law didn't affect the longstanding power of states to regulate mining of all types within their borders. Cale Jaffe, director of the Environmental and Regulatory Law Clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law, said language in the 1954 law supports that view. "The text of the Atomic Energy Act explicitly leaves that authority to the state," said Jaffe, who co-authored a brief in support of keeping the ban in place. Virginia Uranium argues the state's ban was motivated by radiological safety concerns related to millings and tailings regulated by the federal-not state-government. "Virginia can't regulate that directly," said John Ohlendorf, an attorney with Cooper & Kirk in Washington who's representing Virginia Uranium. "We think if the court were to rule against us that would be a sea change in the landscape here and would do huge damage to the atomic energy industry." Those who have weighed in supporting Virginia Uranium including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and conservative Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Those lining up against lifting the ban include the attorneys general of Republican states such as Texas and Indiana. Ultimately, the project's fate could rest on a bid by two domestic uranium miners-Energy Fuels Inc. and Ur-Energy Inc.-to have the Trump administration slap a 25 percent quota on uranium imports. The U.S. Commerce Department is investigating the companies' claims that uranium imports threaten national security, and a decision could come next summer. "If there are quotas, there would definitely be a market for it," said Chris Gadomski, a nuclear analyst for Bloomberg NEF. "There is going to be a scramble to get U.S. uranium into the system." In the U.S., nuclear reactors are closing as the industry struggles to compete with cheap and abundant natural gas. The amount of uranium purchased by nuclear power plant owners in the U.S.-almost all of which is imported from countries such as Canada, Australia and Russia-declined by 15 percent in 2017 from the 43 million pounds the previous year, the lowest amount since 1998, according to figures from the U.S. Energy Department. Uranium prices have declined to about $28 a pound, far below the $64 per pound the Virginia Uranium says is needed for the project to be economic. Back on his farm, Coles said he was confident the price of uranium would increase as countries such as China and Saudi Arabia continue to build nuclear reactors. And after waiting more than three decades, he said he was used to being patient. "I'm at peace we are trying to do the right thing," he said. --Bloomberg's Greg Stohr and Stephen Lee contributed. The latest wrinkle in the Kanye West political drama started with a $25 piece of merchandise, but ended as a tempest in a T-shirt. Candace Owens, the conservative who's leading an initiative she dubbed "Blexit," urging black Democrats to leave the party, on Wednesday apologized to rapper Kanye West for the "rumor" that he had designed a line of "Blexit" merchandise, and suggested that she - not President Donald Trump - was to blame for West's dramatic renouncement of all things politics. After news stories crediting West for the shirts circulated this weekend, the rapper and Trump supporter announced over Twitter on Tuesday that he had been "used" and that he was distancing himself from politics altogether. On Wednesday, Owens denied saying that West had designed the merchandise, though a New York Post reporter quoted her as saying West had "created" the logo and the color scheme: The shirts, in hues of lilac, orange and teal, have the name of the movement with the "X" formed by the shape of a human with outstretched arms and legs. Still, in a lengthy blog post, she offered a mea culpa. "Kanye was completely right to feel used in that regard and as I have done personally, I would like to publicly apologize to him for any undue stress or pain the effort to correct that rumor has caused him, his business relationships, or his family," Owens wrote. "He simply never designed them." Owens went on to say that West's broader decision to walk away from politics had nothing to do with Trump, who has enjoyed the rapper's adulation. "I would also like to publicly apologize to President Trump, as I know that Kanye's tweets were rapidly misinterpreted as a shot to this administration," she wrote. "His tweets were aimed at me and me only, rightfully, for my personal failings." The drama started this past weekend at a meeting of young black conservatives in Washington, D.C., sponsored by Turning Point USA, a conservative nonprofit for which Owens is a spokeswoman. Owens introduced the movement and its merchandise by giving a shout-out to the rap star: "Blexit is a renaissance and I am blessed to say that this logo, these colors, were created by my dear friend and fellow superhero Kanye West." But soon after, Owens offered an initial attempt to walk back that statement, saying in a message posted to Twitter on Monday that she had merely sought West's design advice and that she had only said West was responsible for the "X" in the design. "Everyone who knows him asks him for advice on design," she wrote. "Ye supports various people in different regards." She wrote that "Blexit is a project that is mine entirely" and that West had merely hooked her up with a designer who, despite having "different beliefs," came up with the logo. But West said differently. "I introduced Candace to the person who made the logo and they didn't want their name on it so she used mine," he tweeted Tuesday. "I never wanted any association with Blexit. I have nothing to do with it." He didn't stop there. "My eyes are now wide open and now realize I've been used to spread messages I don't believe in," he tweeted. "I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative !!!" That's quite a turnabout for West, who has practically made controversial-political-statements-that-tick-off-his-fans a part of his carefully curated brand. West has called slavery a choice, called for the 13th Amendment to be abolished, and has professed fervent support for fellow "dragon energy" holder Donald Trump, a mutual admiration that was capped off with a meeting in the Oval Office earlier this month. But it looks like we shouldn't expect any more of that from Ye, who will (maybe) just stick to making music and designing (his own) T-shirts.